The Siamese Twin Mystery (19 page)

It was hardy going. Although he had dressed himself in jodhpurs and soft riding boots, the underbrush was so thick and treacherous underfoot that the leather was soon scratched in hundreds of places and tiny tears appeared in the tough material above his knees. The dry brush cut like knives. He gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the sharp assaults on his thighs. He began to cough.

It seemed to him that he slipped and slid and scratched his hands and face and stepped into mold-filled pits for a century. Each sliding step downward brought him into thicker, fouler atmosphere. He kept repeating to himself that he must be very careful, for there was no telling what vagary of the jagged side of the cliff which he was skirting under the trees might shear the cliff off beneath his feet and topple him into the abyss below. Once he stopped and leaned against a tree to catch his breath. Through a rift in the leaves he could see over the next valley—remote and tantalizing as a dream. Only occasionally could he descry details; the smoke was dirty wool in the valley now, or at least between the valley and his vantage point; and even the strong hot winds which swirled about the mountain could not dissipate its stubborn layers.

He became conscious all at once of a dull, earth-shaking boom.

It was difficult to determine its direction or distance. There it was again! At a different point. … He wiped the sweat off his face, puzzling a little dazedly over the phenomenon. Then he had it. Blasting! They were dynamiting sections of the woods in a desperate effort to check the conflagration.

He went on.

He staggered downward, it seemed to him, endlessly—a blundering figure condemned like Ahasuerus to wander alone in his especial hell of smoke, heat, and cinders. The heat was raw, searing, unendurable; he gasped and choked under the fierce intensity of it. How long, O Lord? he thought with a tortured smile; and plunged on.

And then he saw it.

He thought at first that it was an optical illusion, that his streaming eyes were peering through a fourth dimension into a grotesque unearthly pit in some fantastic etheric plane. Then he knew that he had reached the fire.

It was crackling and blazing steadily below him, a monstrous orange thing constantly changing shape like a phantasmagorical creature out of a madman’s dream. It crept insidiously upward, feeding upon the lorn waterless drooping woods, sending out advance guards—feelers of flame which licked quickly at the undergrowth and then raised themselves like pseudopods with uncanny intelligence along dry boles and lower branches to ignite them in a flash, leaving glowing lines of fire, red neon tubes, behind. And then came the main column of the fire itself to consume with irresistible ferocity what was left.

He staggered back, shielding his face. For the first time the full horror of their predicament struck him. The remorseless advance of the flames. … It was Nature in her most rapacious mood, awful and nauseating. He felt the impulse to turn and run blindly—anywhere—away from the conflagration; he had to dig his nails into his palms to control himself. Then the heat blasted into his face again and with a gasp he scrambled back, slipping on the crumbling leaf mold.

He made for the south, laterally along the line of fire, toward the spot where the side of the declivity must lie. There was desperation in his heart now, a cold, leaden lump striving to burst from the internal pressure of fear. There must be a way. … Then he stopped, clutching at a slender trunk of birch to keep himself from falling. He had reached the cut.

For a long time he stood there, blinking with smarting eyes over the smoke-filled valley. He might have been standing on the lip of an active volcano staring into the crater.

The trees grew to the margin of the jagged stone. And a little below, where the precipice cropped out in an arc so that he could see it, those trees were burning as furiously as the others.

By this road, at least, there was no escape.

He never knew how long it took him to climb the Arrow and return to the summit. The ascent was worse than the descent had been; it was back-breaking, heart-bursting, lung-shattering work. His legs in their protecting boots felt petrified, and his hands were raw messes of bleeding skin. He crept upward with a blank brain, breathing in hoarse short gasps, eyes half closed, refusing to think of the horror below. It took him, he knew later, hours.

Then at last he could breathe more easily and could see the last dense clump of trees at the summit. He struggled to the edge of the woods and collapsed against a cold bole with dumb gratitude. His bloodshot eyes lifted to the skies. The sun was low. It was not so hot as it had been. Water, a blessed bath, iodine for his wounds. … He closed his eyes and strove to muster sufficient strength to negotiate the last few yards to the house.

He opened them reluctantly. Someone was crashing through the underbrush not far to his right. One of the party returning. … And then he crouched and very swiftly slipped into the thicker protection of the trees behind, all his fatigue and soreness of heart vanishing in a tingling alertness.

The gross head of the fat man, Smith, was protruding from the fringe of woods a little to the west, cautiously surveying the summit. He was disheveled, gray, and even from the distance as scratched and torn as Ellery. But it was not the fact that the mysterious and elderly gorilla was returning, wounded and tired, from the hunt, that caused Ellery to conceal his presence.

It was rather the fact that beside him, her delicate face as drawn and scratched as her companion’s, was Mrs. Carreau.

The odd pair searched the open terrain about the house for a moment with provocative furtiveness. Then, apparently assured that they were the first to return, they stepped out of the woods boldly and tramped over to a flat-topped boulder, upon which Mrs. Carreau sank with an audible sigh. She clasped her chin in one small fist and gazed inscrutably up at her colossal companion. The big bulging man leaned against the nearest tree, his little eyes roving.

The woman began to speak. Ellery, straining, could see her lips move; but he was too far away to hear what she said, and he silently cursed the fate which had brought him near the pair but not near enough to overhear their conversation. The man was restive, shifting ponderously from foot to foot, collapsed against the tree and, it seemed to Ellery, squirming under the lash of the woman’s tongue.

She spoke rapidly for some time, and not once did he open his mouth to respond. Then suddenly she rose, the picture of scornful dignity, and extended her right hand.

For a moment Ellery thought that Smith meant to strike her. He bounced away from the tree, his massive jaws twitching and his jowls vibrating as he rumbled something at her. His paw was half raised. The woman did not stir, nor did her hand fall. All the while he spoke it was extended, motionless.

And finally his rage collapsed like a pricked balloon and he fumbled in the breast pocket of his limp jacket. He produced a wallet with shaking fingers, took something out of it—Ellery could not see what—and slammed it into her small, white, red-streaked palm. Without another glance at her he lurched off toward the house.

Mrs. Carreau stood still for a long time, not looking at her clenched hand, pale and stiff as a statue. Then her left hand came up and met the right, and her fingers uncurled, and with a deliberate motion she began tearing what Smith had so unwillingly thrust upon her. She tore it into tiny pieces, savagely, and finally hurled the fragments violently away from her, toward the woods. Then she turned and stumbled after Smith, and Ellery could see her shoulders shake. She went blindly on, her face hidden in her hands. …

After a while Ellery sighed, straightened, and strode over to the spot the man and woman had just deserted. He looked around quickly. Both had disappeared in the house and the clearing was empty of life. So he stooped and proceeded to pick up every fragment he could find. They were of paper, as he had guessed, and one glance at a single scrap told him part of what he wished to know. He spent ten minutes crawling about, and when he had finished he went into the woods, sat down on the ground, took an older letter from his pocket, and using the outspread sheet as a table began to piece the fragments together.

For some time he sat with narrowed eyes scrutinizing the result of his labor. It was a check on a Washington bank, dated the day on which the Queens had encountered the fat man in the Buick on the narrow Arrow road. It was made out to
Cash
and in a spidery feminine hand was signed
Marie Carreau.

The check had been drawn to the amount of ten thousand dollars.

E
LLERY, OUTSTRETCHED ON HIS
bed perfectly naked, luxuriating in the cool sheets, a smoldering cigaret in his hand, stared up at the white ceiling in the deepening gloom of evening. He had bathed and treated his numberless cuts and scratches with iodine from the lavatory medicine chest, and physically he felt refreshed. But through his brain flashed stubbornly recurring pictures. One was of a deck of playing cards. Another was of a finger smudge. And dominating the two, despite all his efforts to dislodge its lurid details, was the flickering vision of the hellfire raging below.

As he lay there at ease, thinking and smoking, he heard from time to time the weary steps in the corridor outside of the returning members of the household. The tonal quality of the sounds told their story with laconic eloquence. There was no sound of human voices. The steps were heavy, dragging, hopeless. Doors snicked laboriously shut. At the far end of the hall … that would be Miss Forrest, no longer the ebullient creature embarking on a gay adventure. Soon after steps across the corridor—Mrs. Xavier. Then the slow shuffling of four rhythmic feet—the twins; no shouting now. Finally Dr. Holmes and Mark Xavier, and lagging behind them yet continuing after the others had ceased, two pairs of plodding feet … Mrs. Wheary and Bones bound for their rooms on the attic floor.

There was a long interval of complete silence then and Ellery wondered, through the maze of his thoughts, where his father was. Still hoping against hope, no doubt; still searching for a way out which did not exist. A new thought struck him and he forgot everything as he pursued it with fierce concentration.

He was roused by a slow dragging step outside the door. He covered himself hastily with the sheet. The door opened and the Inspector appeared on the threshold, a ghost with dead eyes.

The old man said not a word. He shuffled into the lavatory and Ellery heard him bathing his face and hands. Then he shuffled out and sat down in the armchair and stared at the wall with the same haggard eyes. There was a long angry red scratch on his left cheek, and his wrinkled hands were pricked with wounds.

“Nothing, dad?”

“Nothing.”

Ellery could barely hear his voice; it was cracked with fatigue.

And then the old man muttered: “You?”

“Lord, no. … It was horrible, wasn’t it?”

“It was—that.”

“Hear the booming on your side?”

“Yes. Blasting. Puny scum!”

“Now, now, dad,” said Ellery gently. “They’re doing their best.”

“How about the others?”

“I heard them all returning.”

“Nobody said anything?”

“The sound of their footsteps spoke for them. … Dad.”

The Inspector raised his head a trifle. “Hey?” he mumbled lifelessly.

“I saw something damned significant.”

Hope flared into the old man’s eyes; he jerked around. “The fire—?” he cried.

“No,” said Ellery quietly, and the gray head drooped again. “I’m afraid we’ll have to put ourselves into—other hands for that. If we’re lucky …” He shrugged. “One becomes resigned to what appears to be the inevitable. Even when the inevitable is the end of all things. I suppose you realize that our chances—”

“Slim.”

“Yes. We may as well keep our heads. There’s nothing we can do, really. The other thing—”

“The murder? Pah!”

“Why not?” Ellery sat up, hugging his knees. “It’s the only decent—well, the only sane thing, at any rate. Normal occupation keeps men—and women—out of the insane asylums.” The Inspector grunted feebly. “Yes, dad. Don’t let it put you under. The fire’s taken something out of us, addled us a bit. I’ve never believed in, always scoffed at what I thought was bilgewater—that ‘Carry on!’ spirit of the romanticized Englishman. But there’s something in it. … There are two things I must tell you. One is what I saw when I was coming back to the house.”

A sparkle of interest crept into the old man’s eye. “Saw?”

“Mrs. Carreau and Smith—”

“Those two!” The Inspector started from the chair, eyes snapping.

“That’s better,” chuckled Ellery. “Now you’re yourself again. They had a secret confab when they thought they were unobserved. Mrs. Carreau demanded something from Smith. Smith was defiant, the big ape, and then something she said took all the bluster out of him. He gave her what she demanded like a lamb. She tore it into bits and threw it away. It was a check for ten thousand dollars made out to cash and signed by Marie Carreau. I’ve the pieces in my pocket.”

“Good lord!” The Inspector jumped up and began to pace the floor.

“It’s fairly clear, I think,” mused Ellery. “Explains a lot of things. Why Smith was so anxious to leave the mountain the other night, why he was so reluctant to face Mrs. Carreau when he had to come back, why they met in secret this afternoon. Blackmail!”

“Sure. Sure.”

“Smith came up here, having trailed Mrs. Carreau, and managed to see her alone, or possibly with the Forrest girl present. He soaked her for ten thousand dollars. No wonder he was anxious to get away! But when the murder occurred and we popped into the scene, and no one could leave, events took a different turn. Don’t you see?”

“Blackmail,” muttered the Inspector. “It might be the kids. …”

“What else? So long as the fact that she was the mother of Siamese twins remained unknown, she was glad to pay any amount of hush money to keep Smith’s mouth shut. But with a murder, an investigation, the certainty that when the road was open and the official police came upon the scene the story would come out—well, there was no longer any reason to pay Mr. Frank J. Smith for silence. Consequently she has just mustered up enough courage to demand the return of the check. Smith sees the light, returns it … and there you are.”