Dark of the moon - Dr. Gideon Fell 22 (15 page)

"I have here—as Maynard promised, remember?—the diary kept for the year 1867 by one India Keate, then eighteen years old, who for a part of April was a guest at Maynard Hall. She was very much there on the night of April 16th, when somebody so mysteriously struck down the victim.

"I glanced through these pages on my way downstairs from the study. India Keate noted several significant points, though she did not realize she was noting them and never thought of the matter; well-brought-up young ladies were not encouraged to interest themselves in brutal murder. Most significant, it seems to me, are the names and activities of those staying at the Hall on April 16th-17th.

"The head of the
family was our own Maynard's gr
eat-grandfather Henry. Great-grandfather Henry, our host
told me this afternoon, was born
in 1810. He had three sons and three daughters. Two of the sons had been killed in the late conflict; the third—our Maynard's grandfather, incidentally—was a mere boy of fourteen. The two elder daughters had married and left home. The youngest daughter, Ariadne, was that friend of India Keate who entertained India at the time.

"Present at the Hall on the night of April 16th, in addition to Miss Keate herself, were Great-grandfather Henry, his wife, his son, his daughter, and his younger brother Luke, the stern and moody ex-commander of C.S.S.
Palmetto.
Finally there was Jack Maynard, a cousin from Mobile, Alabama. Jack Maynard seems to have been something of a ne'er-do-well. He followed the sea in less formal fashion than the commodore, and had been a blockade-runner during the war. But similar pursuits had not endeared him to his cousin Luke; there was bad blood between the two, as India Keate's gentlest references seem to indicate. Jack Maynard twitted the commodore about a real
or supposed weakness in the lat
ter's right eye, saying he wondered that a gallant Confederate captain had been able to see the enemy, still less engage the enemy; and once, after Luke had refused to lend Jack money, there was a quarrel that came very near a fight."

Dr. Fell, puffing out his cheeks, made a hollow noise like wind along a tunnel.

"Now mark what follows; use your wits on it!

"On the afternoon of the 16th they had an early meal, all of them, at half-past five. At about high-tide—say between six-thirty and seven o'clock—Luke Maynard went for his customary walk along the beach. Nobody worried when he did not return; his solitary habits were known and accepted.

"Nobody worried, that is, until a laborer found his body next morning. The line of his footprints showed that he had gone as far as Fort Johnson and returned, walking rather high up the beach. At some point below the terrace of crushed oyster-shell he had veered towards the water, as men on an idle walk will do, apparently without reaching what at that hour would have been the edge of the surf. Commodore Maynard lay on the beach with the right side of his head crushed: not as though by repeated blows, but as though by one massive blow from a blunt weapon."

"Yes!" Alan agreed, when Dr. Fell hesitated like a man whistling for attention. "All that was in the newspaper account!"

"Then hear what India Keate says. Before Commodore Luke left for the walk the previous evening, Jack Maynard, on the plea of exercise, had taken a small rowboat and left the then-existing jetty with the intention (he said) of rowing around James Island. At the crucial times, we observe, Luke Maynard was near the water and Jack Maynard was on the water in a boat. Note that well: in
a boat."

Alan, in a rush of whirling thoughts, almost drove the car off the road before he recovered. "Dr. Fell, it won't do!" "What won't do?"

"Your theory won't do. Luke Maynard was walking west, it's true. He had his right side towards the harbor: agreed. But if you're suggesting that ne'er-do-well Jack, with a small boat in very shallow water, approached on Luke's blind side and struck before his victim apprehended danger, it's out of the question. I told you this morning that the body lay above the highest reach of the tide; no boat could have come so close. It's more than out of the question; it's fantastic!"

"Did I say how the murderer approached?" demanded Dr. Fell. "I asked only that you use your wits and remember the facts."

"But it leaves us worse off than before; there's
no
way!"

"When water is near, keep your eye on water. But perhaps," grunted Dr. Fell, closing the exercise-book and slipping it back into his pocket, "perhaps I shall not have brought the matter up. What have we to do with these old shades? Out upon them! Our problems lie at Maynard Hall in 1965. Think of the people you have just seen there, of the Hall or associated with it!"

"I'm trying to think."

"There are several—this I do suggest—who might be called enigmatic. But by far the most enigmatic is Henry Maynard himself. Henry Maynard, to whom all roads lead! Have you any notion about
him?"

"I was wondering . . ."

"Yes?"

"Dr. Fell, two of my lectures at King's College dealt with the Victorian novel. I maintain, in spite of Camilla's derision, that the Victorians wrote novels better than anybody before or since. One of their stock figures was the heir to an estate who isn't really the heir; if some curious personality turns up in the story after long absence from home, you can bet your shirt he's an impostor. Our own Henry Maynard seems almost too good to be true. What if Henry Maynard isn't the real Henry Maynard at all? Or is that, as Camilla would say, too wild even for me?"

"As a matter of fact," Dr. Fell sounded guilty, "it was the first thought which occurred to me. And the notion is not wild; it is merely mistaken. I had a word aside with Captain Ashcroft at the hotel. Henry Maynard really is Henry Maynard and nobody else; kindly accept that or we shall be nowhere! But it does lead directly to another thought, if you follow me. And, speaking of the hotel," pursued Dr. Fell, waving a hand ahead as they emerged into fast traffic on Folly Road, "surely that is the bridge and the approach to Charleston? Do we return by way of Calhoun Street and our hotel?"

"No. In getting to the restaurant, we'll swing all the way downtown and come up again. The tricky thing is to remember the one
-
way streets; where you may turn and where you mayn't. In about twenty minutes, now . . ."

Twilight was thickening above old roofs and pastel-colored house fronts as Alan, having parked his car a little distance away, led Dr. Fell into Church Street.

There is always a hush at this hour. On the west side of Church Street, which stretches seven blocks from St. Philip's to the Battery, thin pillars of brownish sandstone supported a wrought-iron balcony across the face of the Dock Street Theatre. No lights showed there tonight; apart from fragile street-lamps, the whole thoroughfare seemed dark.

Alan pointed.

"The first Dock Street T
heatre, Dr. Fell, was opened in
1736. It burned down; so did a succeeding one. On that site, in 1809, they built the once-celebrated Planter's Hotel, a place of luxury where so many bets, love-affairs, and duels originated in the old South. Thirty years ago its shell was restored into still another playhouse, with a Georgian auditorium and as many relics as possible, including those pillars and the balcony above them, from the Planter's Hotel. That pink-fronted building to the left of it is Davy's." "Davy who?"

"That's the surname: Parsifal Davy, a restaurant-keeper of the early nineteenth century. If the head-waiter I'm acquainted with is on duty tonight . . ."

The head-waiter was. With some ceremony they were ushered from the foyer into a spacious restaurant, gratefully air-conditioned, with walls panelled in native black cypress and ante-bellum decor not overdone. Electric table-lamps, fashioned to resemble oil-lamps in gray silk shades with gilt fringes, shed soft light on napery and silver. At a table against the right-hand wall, where a window looked into the courtyard of the Dock Street Theatre, Alan ordered food and drink any host could depend on.

She-crab soup, a Charleston specialty, was followed by succulent lobster a la Davy and strawberry shortcake for dessert. The wine, a medium Anjou, padded mind and heart. Over the coffee, with a mist of tobacco smoke arising. Dr. Fell jerked his thumb towards the window beside them.

"Those premises adjoining," he said. "They've had a romantic history, then?"

"Romantic and sensational too. In 1838, when the place was a hotel, Junius Brutus Booth, the actor, got roaring drunk as usual and tried to murder his manager by beating the man's head in with an iron firedog. He—" Alan stopped abruptly.

"I see. You don't suggest," asked Dr. Fell, "that beating somebody's head in is a common practice hereabouts? At the same time, when we remember Maynard Hall . . ."

"When we remember Maynard Hall," Alan insisted, "we mainly remember that accursed jumpy atmosphere.

Dr. Mark Sheldon, whom
I
met on his way to deliver a message he decided against delivering after all, said everybody there needed a tranquillizer. I wish Camilla had come with us; I wish
she
were out of the atmosphere. You and I are out of it, at least."

But they were not out of it At that moment none other than Mark Sheldon himself, minus black bag but with a distressed forehead, hurried into the restaurant and wormed among tables towards them.

"Evening, Mr. Grantham. You, sir, can't be anybody but Dr. Fell." He introduced himself. "When you've finished dinner, Dr. Fell, could you get back out to the Hall as soon as possible?"

Dread struck Alan like a dart in a board. "Don't tell us some other damn thing has happened!"

"No, no, they're all right! Only . . ."

"Will you have something to eat? Or join us for coffee?"

"Thanks, but I can't. I'm due home, and I've got to hurry. At the moment I'm just a sort of errand-boy. The message is from Madge—Miss Maynard, you know."

"Yes?"

"I don't know them at all well, either Madge or her father. So I don't know what's happening, and there's no reason why they should tell me. But—'Get Dr. Fell!' Madge said. 'Get Dr. Fell!' said Camilla Bruce. 'He and Alan Grantham are at Davy's Restaurant; the name's written on this card.'

" 'Telephone him!' I said. 'Davy's may look like an Old South Museum, but they're up to date; they've got plug-in phones so you don't even have to leave the table.' But you know these women! Once they get an idea in their heads, nothing will do but that you must drop everything and do it in person."

"Sir," Dr. Fell intoned majestically, "I am at their service, of course. Still—what troubles the ladies
now?"

"It seems they're being badgered by the police."

"By the police?"

Despite his evident haste Dr. Sheldon drew out a chair and sat down. From his pocket he took out one of those small, flat, tilt-the-box puzzles; tiny quicksilver pellets must be rolled into holes, a feat which the steadiest hands rind difficult. Mark Sheldon inclined the box this way, inclined it that way, then put the box on the table and ran a hand through his wiry dark-red hair.

"By a fellow named Captain Ashcroft," he continued, "who's not a bad sort but a persistent dog when he digs his heels in. He got there not long after you left. It seems somebody stole a tomahawk, though how he learned it was stolen I can't say; nobody at the Hall told him. But he takes it seriously; he—"

"Sir," thundered Dr. Fell, "what do they want of
me
?"

" 'Get Dr. Fell!' said Camilla. 'He's the only one who has influence over Jehoshaphat Ashcroft.' His name's not really Jehoshaphat; it's Jesus or Jerusalem or something biblical, and they're putting all kinds of variations on it."

"Influence over Captain Ashcroft, sir? This is entirely ridiculous!"

"Well, they think you have. Camilla Bruce does, anyway. 'Dr. Fell,' she said, 'can restrain him if he claims we've got a murderer in our midst. Which is absurd, or is it? And get Alan too,' she said. She particularly requested your presence, Mr. Grantham."

"Camilla," demanded Alan, "requested
my
presence? Are you quite serious and quite sober?"

"I'm sober, worse luck." Mark Sheldon picked up the puzzle, tilted it helplessly, and put it down again.

"The situation out there," he went on, "would have had
me
rattled if I hadn't been so concerned with other things. They're all avoiding each other as if each thought everybody else had some contagious disease, except that Valerie
will
follow Bob Crandall wherever he goes and whatever he does. The paterfamilias is a man apart, as he always is. He's sitting alone on that terrace, or he was when I left just before dark, and even old Ashcroft didn't have the crust to go near him. 'He sat there lonely as a cloud, that floats—' I've got the quotation wrong, haven't I?"