Murder of a Lady (20 page)

Chapter XXX

The Gleam of a Knife

Oonagh rose.

“May I go upstairs to the nursery for a minute?” she asked Barley in tones which revealed an excellent courage.

“Certainly.”

She hurried out of the room. Barley signed to the policeman to accompany him and followed her. They heard him talking to the man in the hall. Dr. Hailey approached Eoghan:

“I'm certain,” he declared, “that a frightful mistake has been made. We must fight this case to the last.”

The young man did not answer him. But his eyes were full of bitter reproach. Duchlan, who still held his son's arm, muttered something about resignation to the will of Providence. Duchlan's face wore a look of melancholy, but the doctor saw that his eyes were bright. All he cared about was his own blood. Barley returned to the room. He wore his black-and-white dust-coat and looked a garish, incongruous figure. He walked to McDonald and handed him a large sheet of blue paper.

“It is my painful duty,” he said in hurried, formal tones, “to arrest you on the charge of having wilfully murdered Miss Mary Gregor and Inspector Dundas. I warn you that anything which you say from now onwards will be used in evidence against you.”

He turned away and immediately left the room again. They heard him go out to the front door and speak to someone in the waiting car, the engine of which had been kept running. Was he about to arrest Oonagh? Eoghan jumped up and would have opened the door had not Dr. Hailey reached it before him.

“For your wife's sake, Gregor.”

“I wish to go to my wife.”

“Don't put a further strain on her courage at this moment.”

The young man stretched out his hands like a blind man, groping.

“You don't understand.”

The glare was still in his eyes. Dr. Hailey stood his ground, urging in conciliatory tones that Oonagh should be left free to stay away or return as she chose.

“My dear doctor, she asked me to follow her. Our child's upstairs, remember.”

He opened the door as he spoke. He was about to leave the room when a young woman in a police uniform appeared in the doorway. She was gasping and her cheeks were bloodless.

“Oh, quick,” she cried, “Inspector Barley has been murdered.”

She caught at the jamb of the door and leaned against it. Dr. Hailey supported her.

“Where is he?”

“Outside, on the grass.”

Her voice failed. He brought her to a chair beside Duchlan. McDonald had already left the room with Eoghan. He followed them and found them bending over Barley, who lay stretched out on the bank above the burn. The headlights of the car shone on the man's face. It was streaked with blood; but the blood flowed no longer. McDonald knelt and put his ear to the chest.

“Well?”

“I can hear nothing. There's no pulse.”

Dr. Hailey lit his electric lamp and turned the beam on to the detective's head. An exclamation broke from his lips. Barley had been killed as Dundas had been killed.

“He's dead, McDonald.”

“Yes.”

“Since you were with us in the study his death disproves his theory.”

The wardress who had called them, joined them. She had recovered enough to give an account of what she had seen.

“I accompanied Sergeant Jackson from Campbeltown,” she explained, “because of the female prisoner. Sergeant Jackson told me to stay in the saloon till I was wanted. He left the engine running and the side-lights on. After a few minutes he came back and told me Inspector Barley had ordered him to watch the female prisoner, who had gone upstairs to say good-bye to her child. After the sergeant went away, Inspector Barley came out. I knew him because I had seen a photograph of him in that queer coat. He walked along here and stood looking up at the house. I thought he was going to try to open that window—” (She pointed to the french-window of the writing-room) “because he seemed to put his hands on it. Just as he did that he cried out and turned round. I saw his face in the moonlight. Then he seemed to stumble. He sank down. I turned up the headlights of the car as soon as I could find the switch, but by that time the man that stabbed him had escaped.”

“Why do you say ‘the man that stabbed him?'” Dr. Hailey demanded in hoarse tones.

“Because I saw the gleam of a knife just before he fell.”

Chapter XXXI

The Invisible Slayer

Dr. Hailey turned to Eoghan.

“Might I ask you to send Sergeant Jackson here?” he asked. “I fancy he's standing guard over your wife.”

The young man walked away to the house. The doctor put his hand on McDonald's arm.

“What is it?”

“Who knows?”

The words were spoken in tones that carried a burden of fear.

“Dundas was killed in exactly the same way.”

“Yes.”

The wardress asked if she might return to the car. Dr. Hailey accompanied her, giving her his arm.

“You saw nothing beyond the flash of the knife?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“But it was dark, was it not? Sidelights are feeble.”

She agreed: “Still, I saw Inspector Barley clearly enough. I'm sure I should have seen anybody else.”

“If there was a knife there must have been a man to use it. Did you hear anything?”

“The engine was running, sir.”

They reached the car. The doctor switched off the headlights, leaving the sidelights burning. McDonald's figure stood out clearly enough and even Barley's body was visible.

“You see,” the girl remarked, “it isn't so dark…”

“There are heavy shadows close to the window.”

“Yes. I thought the man had come out through the window.”

Dr. Hailey walked back to McDonald and then examined the french-window. It was open.

“He must have come this way?”

McDonald did not reply. They saw Sergeant Jackson approaching. Dr. Hailey went to meet him and told him what had happened. He illuminated Barley's face that the policeman might see the nature of the injury.

“Dr. McDonald,” he stated, “was with me in the smoking-room. I take it you can answer for Mrs. Gregor. This is exactly the same type of blow as that which killed Inspector Dundas.” An exclamation broke from his lips. “Look. The herring scale.”

He bent down and pointed to a shining scale which adhered to the scalp over the seat of injury.

“Oh, dear!”

“You know, of course, that herring scales were found on Miss Gregor's and Inspector Dundas's bodies?”

“Yes, sir.”

“These three people have died by the same hand, Sergeant.”

The policeman glanced about him uneasily.

“I went upstairs with Mrs. Gregor as directed by Inspector Barley,” he stated in the manner of the police court. “She entered the nursery and I heard her and the nurse crying. Not wishing to intrude further than was necessary on their trouble I came downstairs to the first landing. Nobody passed me on the stairs going up or going down.”

“Where was Angus, the piper?”

“The old man that opened the door?”

“Yes.”

“I think he was in the hall. Leastways, he was there when I went upstairs.”

They returned to the house and went to the little writing-room at the window of which Barley had been struck.

“It's possible that the murderer was waiting here,” Dr. Hailey said. “If that is so he must have escaped back into the house. We know exactly where everybody in the house was at the moment of the Inspector's death—with the single exception of the piper.”

“Ah.”

“No, I confess I feel no confidence in that theory.” He passed his hand across his brow. “Let me see, the front door was open and the wardress was in the car. She must have had a good view of the hall all the time. Ask her to come here, will you?”

Sergeant Jackson went away. The doctor walked back into the hall where McDonald was awaiting him. A moment later the wardress entered the house. He asked her if she had seen anybody in the hall at the time of the murder.

“Only the butler.”

“You saw the butler?”

“Yes, sir. He was standing where you are standing now. When I saw Inspector Barley fall I called to him, but he didn't hear me. As you know I ran into the house.”

“Where was the butler then?”

She pointed to the foot of the stairs.

“He was standing over there. I didn't notice much.”

“You are quite sure,” the doctor asked in deliberate tones, “that you saw him standing here a moment after Inspector Barley fell?”

“Quite sure. And a moment before he fell too.”

“What I am really asking you is whether or not it is possible that the butler could have reached the french-window from the inside of the house, and got back to the hall again in the few minutes during which you were watching Inspector Barley.”

The girl shook her head.

“Oh, no.”

“It doesn't take long to go from here to that writing-room.”

“I'm sure he couldn't have gone anywhere in the time.”

Dr. Hailey turned to McDonald.

“Where is Gregor?”

“He's gone upstairs to his wife.”

“And Duchlan?”

“He went upstairs a few minutes ago. Angus was with him.”

They entered the study with Sergeant Jackson. The doctor closed the door.

“I fancy,” he said, “that we can exclude Angus. It is incredible that he had any part either in the murder of Miss Gregor or in that of Inspector Dundas. This third murder is more mysterious, if that is possible, than its predecessors. I confess that I haven't the slightest idea how it was committed.”

He gave the policeman a careful and detailed account of Barley's work adding:

“His own death, as you see, disproves his case. But it leaves us under the necessity of explaining how this murderer entered and left a locked room, how he entered and left a room the door and windows of which were under constant observation, finally how he killed in the open, in the presence of a witness, without betraying himself further than by a gleam of his weapon. We must explain, too, why that weapon, on each occasion, carried herring scales into the wounds inflicted by it.”

Sergeant Jackson had nothing to say except that he must report immediately to headquarters, so that another detective officer might be sent. When he had gone, Dr. Hailey helped himself liberally to snuff, an indulgence which appeared greatly to soothe him.

“Three murders,” he said at last, “and not a shred of evidence, not a breath of suspicion against anybody. This case, my dear McDonald, must be unique in the history of crime.”

“Yes.”

“I've experienced nothing like it. Think of it: that girl actually saw the weapon that killed Barley; you reached Dundas within thirty seconds of his death; Miss Gregor was shut off from the world by locks and bolts!” His eyes narrowed: “Barley was reasoning soundly enough when he said that you ought to have seen Miss Gregor's murderer drop from the window, eh?”

“Yes. But we didn't see him.”

Dr. Hailey shook his head. “The wardress ought to have seen Barley's murderer, and she didn't,” he said. “You ought to have seen Dundas's murderer. You didn't.” He glanced about him. “This assassin kills but remains invisible.”

“And moves about,” McDonald added, “without leaving any trace of his movements. Presumably he descended on the flower-bed out there. But only my footmarks are found on the bed.” He remained silent for a few minutes. Then he asked:

“Do you wonder, in face of all this, that stories such as that about the fishlike swimmers who come out of the deepest parts of the loch get widely believed?”

“No.” The doctor started. “That's a clue that we've neglected,” he declared. “I had meant to follow it up but Barley's theory made that impossible.”

McDonald sighed. He had aged in these last, terrible moments and his features were haggard. He pressed his hand to his brow.

“What an immense difference there is,” he remarked inconsequently, “between thinking about a thing and actually experiencing it. No wonder novelists write about what they know.” He seemed to shake himself out of a lethargy. “Poor Barley,” he exclaimed. “How upset he would be if he was still alive!”

“Yes.”

“He was very able, I thought.”

“Yes.”

Again McDonald sighed. “It's queer that the detectives should have been chosen as victims. After all, too, Dundas had failed. He wasn't killed because anybody had cause to fear him.”

Dr. Hailey nodded.

“I was just thinking that. Barley tried to make out that Dundas was bluffing when he said that he had failed.”

“He was not. You saw him yourself. The man was at his wit's end. He told me again and again that this case was likely to ruin him with his superiors. The papers were saying nasty things at the time.”

“That was my impression.”

“It was everybody's impression. Even the servants here knew that no progress had been made. The fishermen, as I told you, jumped at once to the conclusion that no murderer would ever be found. They drove poor Dundas to distraction with their superstitious ideas. He wouldn't listen to them and yet he had nothing to advance against them. In this atmosphere of credulity, Dundas represented reason at bay. Why anybody should have wanted to kill him I cannot imagine.”

The room was silent and the whole house seemed to have become partner in its silence. Dr. McDonald, who was standing at the fireplace, with his elbow on the mantelpiece, looked uneasy.

“Things which happen in houses frighten me more than things which happen in the open,” he said. “I can say honestly that I wasn't afraid in the motor-boat.”

“You're afraid now?”

The Highlander turned sharply to the window and then faced his companion again.

“Yes.”

He smiled as he spoke. Dr. Hailey nodded.

“So am I.”