Dark of the moon - Dr. Gideon Fell 22 (13 page)

It was as lofty as the library, though a good deal narrower between this door and a big double-leaf French window, flanked by a sash window on either side, in the opposite wall at the back. Both French window and sash windows were masked in rich red curtains patterned with gold.

Against walls of polished white wood more Maynard ancestors looked down from portraits. But first of all, on those walls, you saw the weapons.

The firearms, set out in tiers, ranged from an early flintlock musket down through heavy eighteenth- and nineteenth-century rifles to a Winchester repeater
circa
1898, with pistols of corresponding dates. All were well-cared-for but dark with age. Along the right-haad wall, stretched a rack of swords. Beside the French window, incongruously, a blackboard stood on its easel.

"Yes, the curtains are drawn," observed Dr. Fell, as though someone had commented on this. "May I ask who drew them?"

"There's nothing funny in that!" replied Madge.
"I
drew them. Or, rather, I told Sylvia to do it. There are three maids: Sylvia, Judith, and Winnie Mae. The afternoon sun fades the carpet and the drapes, that's all. But if you asked
me
who'd been behaving very oddly, I'd have to say my own father. Why did he want to know how tall you are, Yancey? And how tall you are, Rip?"

Rip Hillboro pointed.

"There," he said, "is the famous Kentucky rifle, called a Kentucky rifle because it was made by German gunsmiths in Pennsylvania. All right, Stonewall, all right! I know it was
used
in Kentucky and Tennessee, and played hell at the Battle of New Orleans!

"And over there, on the wall above the swords, we have bayonets arranged in an incomplete circle. The circle's incomplete at the top because that's where the tomahawk hung. And somebody's lifted that tomahawk as clean as a whistle. Who stole it?"

"Don't look at
me,"
said Yancey Beale. "Maybe you did."

"Or could it have been Pa Maynard himself? He wasn't at all happy, Stonewall, before he left for Richmond. Three days in the Confederate capital restored him as miraculously as though he'd drunk the Water of What's-its-name or seen Jeff Davis restored to the presidency. But we haven't done him any good today. I feed you a baseball, and you slap it back straight in his face. Hadn't we both better look a leedle oudt?"

"Oh, don't be
absolutely
silly!" cried Madge. "What could he have against you two, of all people? Even if he had something against anybody, which he hasn't . .

"I wasn't being quite serious, Madge. You're a literal-minded little devil, you know."

"Even if he had," Madge pursued, "can you imagine him using a
tomahawk?
He might work out something very subtle and mathematical, but he'd rather be dead than crude. Forget Daddy! And yet the tomahawk is gone; somebody took it It
is
horribly worrying, isn't it? What do you think, Dr. Fell?"

"Yes, that's an idea." Rip fingered his large jaw. "What did Bob call you? Gargantua, wasn't it? Speak up, Gargantua; give us the long view! We know you're the old maestro."

"Sir," replied Dr. Fell, "I am the old duffer. Forgive an apparent inanity which all too often is real inanity. However, since you both ask my opinion, I can do no better than quote a series of incidents already quoted to Mr. Maynard himself, adding two more of which I was unaware half an hour ago.

"Last Friday night the scarecrow is stolen; early in the morning somebody is seen at that window there. Nothing to excite remark happens for almost a week; then it all happens at once. Last night, or rather at half-past one this morning, Miss Maynard from her bedroom window sees an unidentified man trudging from west to east along the beach. Today, at some time before lunch, an invaluable major-domo named George thinks he sees somebody 'skulking' in Mr. Maynard's study. (You didn't know that? I have been so informed, and I believe it.) Presumably also today, as though to point an old story of men slaughtered without a trace in soft mud or sand, the tomahawk disappears. Confound it! When to all this we add emotional pressures building up like steam in
a
boiler with the safety-valve closed . . ."

"You think there's menace around?" demanded Rip.

"I fear so."

"O.K., Gargantua! Who's being menaced?"

"Now that," argued Dr. Fell, "is precisely the point on which I can't make up my mind. It might be one person, it might be another. However! You, Mr. Hillboro, discovered that the tomahawk was gone. When did you discover it?"

"This morning after breakfast, when I went through here on my way out to get some air."

"Did you mention it to anybody else, up to the time you told us?"

"No, I did not. Hell's bells, Gargantua! When did Madge mention the man on the beach, carrying a sack over his shoulder? I never even heard that one until Camilla repeated it to you not five minutes ago! Now, I'm a lawyer; I think I can weigh and assess evidence. But what
is
evidence? What's important and what's not important? A lot's been happening, as you say."

"And yet when it began happening last Friday night, I understand, you were inclined to dismiss the matter and treat Miss Brace's story lightly?"

"Wrong, Gargantua! Dead wrong! If you ask Ca
milla herself, she'll tell you I
was the one who persuaded Pa Maynard to phone the cops. He didn't want to, but I got around him.
Maybe
she'd had too much bourbon or too many sleeping-pills; then, again, maybe she hadn't. Always play it safe and be on the safe side: that's my motto! I was the one who did take it seriously. How's about that, Camilla?"

"Yes, it's quite true," agreed Camilla. "I told the story twice at lunch, Dr. Fell!"

"Actually," Rip reported in a loud voice, "the one who made light of it and laughed ha-ha was old Stonewall Jackson there, after he'd started the whole business by telling ghost stories. And yet up to that time he'd been muttering under his breath that there was something damn funny going on in this place. True or false, everybody?"

"Couldn't we go back to the library?" interposed

Madge, who was looking rather white. "This room's only
a
kind of museum, with no place to sit down.
Couldn't
we go back to the library?"

Yancey Beale came to life. "Yes, honey, you do just that. Here!"

To Alan's astonishment Yancey took Madge by the shoulders. Gently, but insistently and powerfully, he impelled her through the doorway while himself remaining there with the others. He closed the door and stood wtih his back to it.

"She's our hostess!" he said in a fierce whisper. "You can't just tell the hostess to get lost, or go and make us a pitcher of iced tea, when there's something you want to confide in the visiting crime-specialist."

Yancey himself was under a great strain. His eye wandered round the white room of black weapons and black portraits, and came to rest at a point between Alan and Dr. Fell.

"If Hillboro's looking for a son-of-a-bitch," he said seriously and earnestly, "I expect it's me. Sometimes I think I'm
a
worse son-of-a-bitch than that ol' bastard Sherman himself. Yes, I started it! I started it all!"

"By telling the ghost stories, sir?"

"Before that! Long before that!"

"Oh, ah?"

"It all started, you might say, on the Sunday night just before the house-party. It was May 2nd; Mr. Maynard read the date out of a pocket diary. He and Madge and I were out in front near the gates. It was a funny kind of night, with Madge gettin' the jim-jams from no cause I could be sure of. I asked Mr. Maynard what was the thing that follows and leaves no trace. He wouldn't answer; he never does answer, though I looked it up later. But it hadn't shed any sweetness and light.

"An
d if that weren't enough, as Hill
boro will tell you, on Friday night I must open my big mouth and tell 'em "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas.' Yes, I led off with the ghost stories! And
of
course
I laughed ha-ha, though not very loudly, when things started to happen later on. It's Madge: you think I want that little gal any more upset than she has to be? She's no walloping Amazon; she's delicate; she can't take it. I hoped I could jolly her out of being scared, even if it wasn't much of a success. Didn't you see her face just a minute ago, when we were all goin' on about tomahawks?"

"Then in justice to Miss Maynard," rumbled Dr. Fell, "may I suggest you open the door so that we may join her?"

Yancey opened the door. Rather self-consciously Dr. Fell lumbered into the library, followed first by Camilla, then by Alan, then by Yancey himself, with Rip and Bob Crandall.

Madge in the brown-and-beige dress had seated herself again on the yellow upholstered sofa. Yancey and Rip marched to the sofa, where they stood like grenadiers. Dr. Fell took up a position with his back to the fireplace, and addressed Alan.

"Any ideas, my dear fellow?"

"No ideas as yet. Whatever you've got yourself into this time, it must have a very odd solution."

"Sir," returned Dr. Fell, wheezing and puffing past the ribbon on his eyeglasses, "it is not merely the solution. This is a very odd problem, even considered as a problem."

"You mean," cried Camilla, "the thing that follows and leaves no trace?"

"Not necessarily. I refer to an aspect which does not seem to have occurred to you. Archons of Athens! May I crave your corporate indulgence while this old scatter-brain attempts to concentrate for a moment or two?"

And he leaned on his crutch-headed stick, blinking at the carpet. Bob Crandall moved uncertainly. Camilla drifted to the grand piano and sat down behind it. Alan followed her by instinct, very conscious of her nearness.

The silence stretched out. There was no music on the rack of the piano, but Camilla needed none. While still nobody spoke, softly she began to play. The keys rippled and rang in the big room. And suddenly Dr. Fell raised his head.

"Mendelssohn!" he roared.

Everybody jumped. Camilla's hands fell from the keyboard.

"It's not Mendelssohn,
Dr. Fell! It was a bad try at a
Chopin prelude; I don't play very well, I'm afraid. And I didn't know you were musical?"

"Musical, hey?" repeated Dr. Fell, regarding her in half-witted fashion. "O Lord! O Bacchus! I have but one recollection of what even remotely might be described as music. Once upon a time I had a passion for standing with boon companions at the piano and bellowing out The Road to Mandalay' or similar catches beyond the patience of the most indulgent neighbors. No, really, it won't do!"

"What won't do?" demanded Rip Hillboro. "Look, Gargantua, what
is
all this?"

With his stick Dr. Fell pointed to the front windows.

"There is a car coming up the drive," he announced. "I rather think, though I am not sure, it is Mrs. Huret returning."

"Yes!" agreed Madge, rising partway from the sofa to look. "It's Valerie, all right! She ran out of here as though she couldn't bear it any longer, but nothing really discourages her. Here she is, Mr. Crandall! Here's your girl friend back again!"

"My girl friend, is it?
My
girl friend, for Jesus Christ's sake?"

"At least, sir, you conceal your transports," observed Dr. Fell. "Come, this won't do either! Let us gird ourselves to receive the lady with what suavity we may."

But they did not receive her; for the moment, at least, they did not even see her. Since the door to the hall stood wide open, they heard the outer screen door open and close. They heard Valerie Huret's voice say a word or two to somebody, presumably George. Her heels rapped along the hall and up the stairs at the rear.

"Now I wonder," Camilla said, "I wonder just why she came back?"

"Oh, Camilla," exclaimed Madge, "does it matter why she came back? She's always welcome, of course, no matter what man she
's currently making passes at. I
was hoping Dr. Fell had some enlightenment for us. Have you, Dr. Fell?"

"Miss Maynard, that depends. I was wondering . . ." Madge had become extraordinarily animated, perhaps feverishly animated.

"You were wondering about the blackboard, weren't you? Why there's a blackboard in that museum? And about the tomahawk?"

"Madge honey," said Yancey Beale, "can't you forget that damn tomahawk?"

"It's a real eighteenth-century one. I never associated them with anybody except Indians. But did you know, Camilla, that during the French and Indian War British troops in this country wore tomahawks just as they wore bayonets? It's a little hatchet, really; it was used to chop a way through underbrush. But I never knew that," Madge said rapidly, "until the week just before the house-party.

"They—they asked Daddy to give a speech on antique weapons to a small group of high-school seniors. Six of them, with their history teacher, came here on a Friday afternoon: that would have been April 30th. Daddy put up a blackboard in that room there . . ."