Murder of a Lady (12 page)

He threw himself back with staring eyes and open mouth. His thoughts seemed to coil round his head like smoke.

“In addition,” he added, “there was Dundas. Dundas the mole, digging, digging under the surface, piling fact upon fact. What had Dundas discovered? What was he going to tell?”

“I don't think,” Dr. Hailey said, “that Dundas had discovered anything. He admitted himself that he had reached a blank wall.”

“Dundas, my dear Dr. Hailey, was one of those remarkable men who delighted…delighted to throw dust in the eyes of their rivals. Can it be doubted that he saw a rival in an amateur of your outstanding reputation? No doubt exists in my mind that he called you in only when he already felt sure of success. To employ McDonald as his go-between was entirely in keeping with character.”

“It may be so. But I understood him to say that any suspicions he entertained were fixed on Eoghan Gregor, not on McDonald. As I told you, Eoghan has undoubtedly suffered heavy financial losses.”

Barley shook his head. He filled his pipe quickly and lit it with an astounding deftness.

“Delightful fellow, Dundas,” he exclaimed, “and most honest in all his dealings. But secretive, jealous,
difficile
.”
He spread out his hands. “My cards, as you see, are on the table. His were under it.” Once more the moustache-comb did service.

“‘The proof of the pudding is in the eating?' Very well. I shall follow my theory and you, my dear Dr. Hailey, shall be judge of the result. Let us recall Mrs. Eoghan.”

Chapter XVIII

Secret Meetings

Dr. Hailey found it impossible not to admire Inspector Barley. The man possessed an extraordinary quickness of mind and an excellent imagination which never appeared to escape from the control of his reason. His dramatic instinct, on the other hand, and the thickness of his social skin, enabled him to launch his formidable questions in a way that served his purpose admirably. Either those whom he was examining became resentful or they lost their composure; he knew how to profit by both happenings. His comb, and his method of polishing his pipe on his nose, supplied the element of vulgarity which is necessary to the success of every charlatan.

It was disturbing, nevertheless, to see Oonagh placed at the mercy of such a man. When her cross-examination began the doctor was already sorry for her. Before it had continued many minutes he had become her partisan, for the key-note of the examination was the insult already levelled at her: “What an actress!” Barley continued to discount in advance the sincerity of expression which was the girl's defence.

“I wish you to understand, madam,” he gushed, “that the intimate and delicate character of the questions which I am about to put to you is conditioned by no vulgar curiosity. I beg of you, dismiss that unworthy suspicion wholly from your mind. The occasion is so serious, so fraught with momentous consequences, that there is enough justification, in my humble opinion, for any question however embarrassing its nature.”

He paused; the sound of his words buzzed about their ears like a May-time swarm. Then, when he judged that the effect he wished had been obtained, he asked quietly:

“What were your relations, madam, with Dr. McDonald?”

Oonagh's lips quivered. A flush of lively resentment mounted to her cheeks. She glanced at Dr. Hailey in the manner of a woman attacked by a bully, who looks to a decent man for help. Then her eyes darkened, and she braced herself to fight.

“What do you mean?” she asked in tones which attacked him.

Barley was much too wide awake to give battle on that ground. He rose to his feet and drew himself up.

“Believe me, madam,” he cried, “I am ready, willing, to discount every slander that has been uttered against you. But how can I do that if you refuse me the information I ask for? You know as well as I do that your friendship” (he emphasized the word) “for Dr. McDonald has given rise, in this house and outside of it, to talk, to speculation, perhaps to calumny.”

“Dr. McDonald has been very kind to my little boy.”

Oonagh measured her words; her face had recovered its calmness of expression. Dr. Hailey realized with a pang that that calmness must soon be disturbed once more. How beautiful the girl looked in her adversity! Barley sat down with the suddenness which characterized all his actions.

“There are only four people who can have killed your aunt,” he stated. “Duchlan, the piper Angus, Dr. McDonald and your husband—for that terrible blow was certainly not struck by a woman. Duchlan is a weak old man: I exclude him. There remain Angus, the doctor, and your husband. But we're not dealing only with the murder of your aunt. There's the murder of Dundas to be considered. The only man who can possibly have murdered Dundas,
the only person
who had access to him at all, at the moment of his death is McDonald. In my humble submission, McDonald had access also to your aunt on the night when she was murdered. And the two murders appear to be the work of the same hand.”

He broke off and pointed at the girl.

“Why should McDonald have murdered your aunt?” he cried in loud tones.

“I don't know any reason why he should have murdered her.”

“Think again, madam.”

Oonagh remained silent with her lips tightly pressed together. But her cheeks were losing their colour.

“Miss Gregor was aware of an equivocal relationship existing between yourself and the doctor!”

The challenge was spoken in the tones of a man who offers a suggestion. But its effect was that of an accusation against which there is no defence. The girl wilted visibly.

“Am I right?”

“My aunt misunderstood everything.”

The detective's practical mind pounced like a cat.

“Have the goodness to describe the circumstances which your aunt misunderstood,” he demanded.

She hesitated a long time before she replied. Then she said:

“I was unhappy in this house. Dr. McDonald was the only friend to whom I could turn for advice. I saw a good deal of him.”

“Here?”

“Here and elsewhere.”

“Ah!” Barley leaned forward. “You mean that you had private, secret meetings with him?”

“We met privately.”

“In the grounds?”

“On the shore. Dr. McDonald has a boat of his own.”

Dr. Hailey saw a gleam of triumph in the detective's eyes.

“Miss Gregor surprised one of these meetings, eh?”

“She saw us talking to each other on one occasion.”

“I put it to you that she threatened to tell your husband what she had seen?”

There was no reply. Suddenly Oonagh raised her head.

“I've told you,” she declared in candid tones, “that my aunt misunderstood everything. She was ready to find evil in all I did, because she wanted to have control of my child and I would not give her control. Dr. McDonald has never been other than my good friend. If I had to meet him secretly that was only because it was impossible to meet him openly without arousing my aunt's suspicions, or rather giving her the means of making trouble between my husband and me.”

“Why should you want to meet Dr. McDonald?”

“He was my only friend.”

“What, when you've got your husband!”

“Eoghan was not here.”

“He was in Ayrshire. One can write to Ayrshire.”

“He would not have understood. Eoghan has always had great faith in his aunt. She brought him up.”

Barley's face assumed a grave expression. He smoothed his dull, dyed hair with a careful hand.

“May I ask upon what subject you consulted Dr. McDonald?” he demanded in sarcastic tones.

“I thought of leaving my husband. He tried to persuade me not to do that.”

“Most excellent advice, undoubtedly. Most excellent advice.
Les femmes n'ont d'existence que par l'amour
.”
Barley filled his mouth with the quotation, the equivocal character of which seemed to give him great satisfaction. He paused for a moment and then said: “You thought of leaving your husband because you didn't hit it off with his relations? You'll forgive me, madam, if I say that, in my humble opinion, that is no reason at all for a step of so reprehensible a character?”

“I decided not to leave him.”

Oonagh was losing her nerve and no longer seemed capable of offering effective resistance to the detective's bombardment. She plucked at the neck of her dress, creasing the thin fabric in several places. Barley was quick to follow up his success.

“Your explanation is not one which commends itself to reason or to experience,” he declared. “Those who seek advice, seek it openly. But I'm prepared to believe that your final decision was to remain with your husband. It is, if I may say so, the final decision of most women in similar circumstances. You know, doubtless, that a doctor who is involved in a divorce suit with the wife of one of his patients is invariably expelled from the medical profession.”

He paused to allow this grim truth to sink in.

“When Miss Gregor surprised your
tête-à-tête
with the doctor, she became possessed of the means of ruining him as well as you. Dr. McDonald, at that moment, knew that his existence as a professional man was hanging in the balance. I venture to think that when, on the night of the murder, he heard the sound of your husband's motor-boat approaching across the loch, he realized that the balance had been determined against him.” Again the minatory finger was extended. “Why, may I ask, did your husband return at that hour and in that fashion?”

Oonagh shook her head.

“I think,” she said, “that you had better ask him that question yourself.”

“No, madam. I must ask that question of you. Of you, who, as I have been informed, had already served an ultimatum upon your husband.”

“I don't understand.”

“You had threatened to leave him unless your terms were agreed to.”

“I had told him that I wanted a home of my own.”

Barley's body stiffened.

“The Emperor Napoleon used to say that attack is the best form of defence,” he exclaimed in tones which suggested that he was speaking of an old friend. “I suggest that you were pressing this demand for a home of your own in order to offset the charge which Miss Gregor had made against you?”

“No.”

“You've just admitted that you did demand a home of your own.”

“Every mother wants that, surely?”

“No doubt. But you had formerly consented to live here. Your demand for a home of your own was made only when there was danger, great danger, that you might forfeit your right to any home at all, to your husband, to your child.”

A sweep of Barley's arm, like a spearman's thrust, speeded this accusation. Oonagh's face grew pale.

“I've always wanted a home of my own,” she exclaimed. “Always, since the day I married Eoghan.”

“I suggest, on the contrary, that you were quite happy here until you became intimate with McDonald.” He thrust out his head towards her. “Do you deny that you offered yourself to McDonald and were refused by him?”

Oonagh jumped up. Her eyes were wild with pain and resentment.

“How dare you?” she cried in tones which betrayed the anguish he had inflicted on her.

Barley bared his teeth.

“You ran away to McDonald in the middle of the night, remember,” he said. “Duchlan told me that. And then you allowed yourself to be brought back again. It was after that humiliation, was it not, that your demand for a home of your own became insistent?”

Chapter XIX

Accusation

Dr. Hailey had made a few notes during Barley's cross-examination of Oonagh and felt a strong inclination, when the examination ended, to raise some objection to the theory upon which the detective was working. But a glance at the triumphant face of his companion made him decide to postpone the realization of this wish. Barley was transported already to regions of self-congratulation where no whisper of doubt or criticism could penetrate. His eyes were half-closed; his mouth was held slightly open; and his head was poised on one side. He remained in this condition of ecstasy for some minutes and then woke up and combed his moustache.

“We're getting close to the truth, my dear doctor,” he said. “I feel it.” He frowned and shook his head. “It's most distasteful to me, believe me, to have to question these charming people in this way. But
que voulez vous? Que voulez vous?
Now I must deal with Eoghan Gregor. What a tragedy that it should be necessary to question a young man in his exalted station about the fair name of his wife!”

He rang the bell and flung himself down in an arm-chair, apparently limp with regret.

“I've studied your methods, doctor,” he stated. “Most admirable; but scarcely applicable perhaps to the present case. My method as you see is different. You proceed from character to event; I follow a lead, using all my powers of imagination as I go. It seems to me that, in cases where the issue is complicated, you're bound to win; but where there are definite physical obstacles, such as these locked rooms, I have the better of you. ‘A nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse'. Opportunity counts for more than character when one person has the chance to kill and the other has not.”

He remained in his limp attitude. After he had enunciated his philosophy, he sighed deeply several times. But when Eoghan entered the room, he became immediately as alert as ever.

“Come in, come in,” he cried. “Let me see, you're Major Gregor, aren't you?”

“Captain.”

Eoghan's indolent good looks had not deserted him. He glanced at Barley and, for a moment, betrayed a flicker of amusement. Then the air of melancholy which he wore with excellent ease removed him from that profane contact.

“I've just been telling Dr. Hailey with what reluctance I'm pursuing this present quest.” Barley apologized. “But, ‘needs does as needs must'. Let me say that if you resent any of the questions which it is my duty to address to you, you will be within your rights in refusing to answer them.”

This with many bows and flourishes.

Dr. Hailey duly noted the difference between the method used in dealing with Eoghan and that used with Oonagh, and felt bound to agree that the characters of husband and wife were Barley's complete justification. Eoghan would be less on his guard if he supposed he was dealing with a fool; Oonagh's weakness was her nervousness.

“Very well,” Eoghan said.

“The question I am most concerned to ask you is this: Why did you return so suddenly from Ayrshire?”

“Because I wanted to borrow some money from my father.”

“What? You had to come back by motor-boat to do that?”

“I always travel to Ayrshire by motor-boat at this time of year. It's much the quickest way.”

“Might you not have written?”

“No.”

“You had no other reason for your sudden visit?”

“No.”

“Believe me, I don't wish to push my quest beyond reasonable bounds,” Barley declared, “but I am compelled to ask for more enlightenment that you seem disposed to accord to me.
Suaviter in modo
,
fortiter in re.
I have reason to think,” he paused suddenly and dramatically, “that you were not entirely easy in your mind about your domestic and family affairs.”

Eoghan shook his head. “You're mistaken.”

“About your wife's relations with your aunt, and arising out of that, about her relations with yourself.”

“Nonsense.”

The first note of irritation sounded in Eoghan's voice. Dr. Hailey saw the detective react like a dog making a point.

“Your wife,” he said, “has told me that she was scarcely able to endure the interferences of your aunt.”

“Indeed.”

“Further, that she sought counsel with Dr. McDonald of Ardmore whether or not she should leave you, supposing that you refused to take her away from here.”

“Don't be idiotic,” Eoghan exclaimed in tones which declared his growing uneasiness.

“My dear sir, if you suppose I'm trifling, or bluffing, you're making a grave mistake. A mistake, I'm afraid, which you will soon have occasion to correct. Your wife has declared unequivocally that she did think of leaving you. Place that fact in the forefront of your mind. The reason she has given is that you had failed to provide her with a home of her own. Very well, it is now necessary for me to ask you when your wife made her first complaint about this failure on your part.”

Barley spoke slowly, giving each word due weight. He kept his eyes fixed on Eoghan's face.

“What has this got to do with my aunt's death?” the young man demanded.

“A great deal, believe me.”

“What?”

“No, I refuse to be bounced. You must answer my question, or bear the consequences of refusing to answer it.” Barley leaned back in his chair. He repeated: “When did your wife first complain about your failure to provide her with a house?”

Eoghan moved uneasily in his chair. He glanced at Dr. Hailey and then let his gaze stray about the room. The doctor had the impression that he was calculating, coolly, the probable effects of different answers. At last, he appeared to reach a decision.

“My wife mentioned quite recently,” he stated, “that she thought the time had come for us to set up our own home.”

“What does ‘quite recently' mean?”

“A fortnight ago.”

A gleam of triumph shone in Barley's eyes.

“Do you know that your wife ran away from this house one night?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Who told you?”

“She told me herself.”

Eoghan imparted the information in surly tones. But these had no effect on the detective.

“Did your aunt inform you also?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“By letter?”

“How else could she inform me?”

Barley nodded. “You told your wife that your aunt had informed you?” he demanded.

“No, sir.”

“At any rate, your wife knew that you knew?”

“That doesn't follow, does it?”

Eoghan was recovering his self-possession. It was evident that he had no idea of the object of Barley's questions. Like his wife he had committed the mistake of underestimating his opponent's capacity; like her he was surely destined to pay for his error. Dr. Hailey reflected that the manner of a fool, when it covers the thought of a wise man, is an advantage of incalculable worth.

“I think it does follow,” Barley said. “I formed the opinion, after seeing your wife, that she knew how bitterly your aunt disliked her. She was well aware that your aunt would not fail to report to you anything disadvantageous to herself.”

“What are you driving at? What does it matter whether or not my wife knew that my aunt had reported the incident?”

“If she knew, her confession to you was made only because she was compelled to make it.”

“Well?”

Barley leaned forward.

“Your wife desired to patch up her quarrel with you. She was in a weak position. She adopted the usual method of women in such circumstances. She attacked you because you had not provided her with a home of her own. At the same time she confessed openly what could not, in any case, be hidden. But there was one piece of information, the one essential piece of information, which she did not give.”

Silence fell in the room. Eoghan tried to look indifferent but his face betrayed him. He made a small gesture with his right hand.

“I'm afraid,” he declared, “that your speculations about my wife's ideas and motives possess very little interest for me.”

“On the contrary.”

“What do you mean?”

“The essential piece of information which your wife withheld from you was that, when she ran away from this house, it was with the intention of offering herself to Dr. McDonald. McDonald refused her.”

Eoghan's cheeks had grown pale. His hands, which rested on the arms of the wooden chair where he was seated, began to twitch.

“Leave my wife out of the discussion,” he ordered, in hoarse tones which betrayed the violence of his feelings.

“Impossible. I am very much afraid that it will soon be my duty to accuse your wife of aiding and abetting the murder of your aunt.”

“What!” Eoghan jumped up from his chair.

“Of aiding and abetting Dr. McDonald of Ardmore.”

A single stride brought the young man to the detective. He seized Barley by the shoulders and fixed his eyes on his face.

“I swear to you that you're wholly mistaken,” he cried. “Oonagh had nothing whatever to do with my aunt's death. Do you hear?”

“Have the goodness to unhand me, sir.”

“Not until you swear that you'll drop that grotesque accusation.”

Barley took a step back, leaving the young man standing alone.

“Sit down,” he ordered in tones which revealed a side of his character hitherto undisclosed. His eyes flashed with anger. But Eoghan did not obey.

“I wish you to know,” he said, “that it was I who killed my aunt. I'm prepared to give you an account of the murder.”