Murder of a Lady (17 page)

Chapter XXV

A Process of Elimination

“I think you must tell me,” Dr. Hailey said in gentler tones, “exactly what happened between your husband and yourself.”

Oonagh had recovered her self-possession but her busy fingers still plucked at the thyme.

“Eoghan told me about his loss,” she said.

“Did he come straight to your bedroom?”

She gazed in front of her, at the brown sails of a pair of herring-boats which were lying becalmed far out in the loch.

“No.”

“He went to Miss Gregor's room before he came to you?”

“Yes.”

“He told you that he had been to her room?”

“Yes.”

Her voice was scarcely audible. Dr. Hailey watched her for a moment and then asked:

“He told you that her bedroom door was locked?”

“Yes.”

“And that, though he had knocked at the door, she had refused to open it?”

“He said she hadn't opened it.”

“Nor answered him?”

“He said she hadn't answered him.”

“Was she a light sleeper?”

“Very light.”

“So he thought she hadn't answered him because she was angry with you?”

The girl drew a sharp breath.

“Yes.”

“He was angry with you?”

“He was upset.”

“Did you tell him that you had decided to apologize to your aunt?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Well?”

“He was too upset to…to believe me. He…said I had ruined him…” She turned suddenly. “I had told Dr. McDonald about Eoghan's losses and he offered to lend me money. Eoghan was upset about that too…”

She broke off and covered her face with her hands.

“You mean that such an offer from such a quarter aroused your husband's suspicions?”

“My aunt had written to him.”

“Telling him that you were in love with McDonald?”

“Hinting at it.”

The doctor's eyes narrowed.

“The fact that he found Miss Gregor's door shut against him and the fact that you had received an offer of money from McDonald, taken together, convinced him that he had been correctly informed?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“He accused you of being in love with McDonald?”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

She raised her head; he saw that she was trembling.

“He was so dreadfully distressed.”

“He didn't try to excuse himself for his gambling, then?”

“Oh, no.”

Dr. Hailey hesitated.

“I kept my promise to you,” he said, “about those bruises on your throat. I've mentioned them to nobody. But I think that, now, you must tell me how…”

“Please, no.”

Oonagh's eyes quailed. She raised her hands suddenly, as if warding off an assailant.

“You promised complete frankness, remember.”

“I can't tell you.”

“That means that your husband inflicted…”

She covered her face with her hands.

“You mustn't ask me.”

He frowned slightly but did not pursue the subject.

“Tell me,” he asked, “didn't you think that it was strange that Miss Gregor had refused to answer your husband?”

“I thought it very strange.”

“Almost incredible?”

“Yes. Aunt Mary loved Eoghan.”

“Do you still think it strange?”

Oonagh started.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you still think it strange that your aunt refused to speak to your husband?”

She shook her head.

“No, not now.”

“Why?”

“I think she was dead.”

The words were spoken with evident distress. The doctor's face became anxious.

“If she was dead,” he said, “then either Dr. McDonald or your husband had killed her?”

“Oh, no.”

“Is it or is it not true that, when you heard of her death, you feared that your husband had killed her?”

She hung her head and did not reply.

“It is true?”

Suddenly she faced him.

“I can't answer directly,” she said, “because my feelings weren't direct. It's as you said at Darroch Mor. If you ask me do I think Eoghan capable of murder, I say ‘no'. But if you tell me murder has been committed, I become afraid. Suppose that in some terrible, unguarded moment…”

“Your husband has confessed that he murdered his aunt.”

“What!”

Oonagh's eyes dilated. She put out her hands, as if to ward off some great danger. Her body began to sway as the colour ran out of her cheeks. Dr. Hailey put his arm round her shoulders.

“Let me say at once that I don't believe him,” he assured her.

She tried to pull herself together and managed to regain her balance.

“Why don't you believe him?”

“Because, though it's just possible he may have got into Miss Gregor's bedroom, it's certain that he did not get out of it. The door was locked on the inside.”

She gazed at him with vacant, fearful eyes.

“Somebody got out of the bedroom?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. It was obvious that, whatever her heart might suggest, her reason had pronounced judgement.

“I know,” she declared in positive tones, “that Dr. McDonald did not go into my aunt's room. That idea is wrong, whatever evidence there may seem to be in favour of it.” She shook her head: “And somebody did go in.”

“There were other men in the house in addition to your husband remember, namely Duchlan and Angus, the piper.”

“Duchlan didn't kill Aunt Mary.” She put her hand on the doctor's wrist. “It's certain, isn't it, that Aunt Mary and Mr. Dundas were murdered by the same person?”

“Nearly certain.”

“How can Duchlan have killed Mr. Dundas?”

Dr. Hailey shook his head. “I don't know.” He added after a moment, “Your husband confessed to that murder also. But, again, there's evidence enough that he did not commit it.”

“What evidence?”

“The fact that he was not in the room when I left it. He says he was hidden in the bed; he was not.”

“Dr. McDonald was in the room with Mr. Dundas when you left it, wasn't he?”

“He returned to the room.”

She pressed her hand to her brow.

“I know that Dr. McDonald didn't kill my aunt. So he didn't kill Mr. Dundas either.”

Dr. Hailey readjusted his eyeglass. His kindly face looked troubled.

“Duchlan must have found out that Dr. McDonald left the smoke-room by the window,” he stated.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because it's obvious that he thinks McDonald killed his sister—with your help.”

He watched Oonagh closely as he spoke. To his surprise she accepted his suggestion.

“He saw Dr. McDonald's footprints on the earth under the window next morning. He covered them up.”

“He told you that?”

“Yes.”

“What conclusion did he draw from the footprints?”

“He knew that they were Dr. McDonald's, because of the difference in the two feet. One of them…”

“Yes. I know that. That's not what I mean. How did he think that McDonald had left the house?”

She hesitated. Then her expression grew resolute.

“He thought that Dr. McDonald had jumped from my aunt's window,” she said in low tones.

“That means that he thought you were guilty of a share in her death?”

“Yes.”

“He told you that?”

“Yes.”

“And suggested that you had better anticipate the fate in store for you?”

“Yes.”

“Please tell me what he said.”

“He said he knew that Dr. McDonald had killed Aunt Mary to prevent her fulfilling her threat to tell Eoghan. Then he said that he had covered up the doctor's footprints to save Eoghan and Hamish from the shame of my complicity in the murder. ‘There is only one thing left for you to do,' he said, ‘namely, to make an end of a life that is already forfeit. That will at least spare your husband and son the horror of your death on the gallows.' He added: ‘High tide is at 2 a.m.!'”

Her tones had not faltered. She seemed to be recounting events far removed from her present state.

“And you,” Dr. Hailey said, “feared, if you didn't believe, that the real murderer was your husband?”

“I did fear that.”

“I was right in thinking that your death would divert suspicion from him?”

Oonagh inclined her head.

“It would have done, wouldn't it?”

The doctor shook his head. “Perhaps. But it would also have fastened suspicion on Dr. McDonald.”

She started.

“Oh, no. Duchlan had covered up these footprints. He would never have told what he had discovered, for Eoghan's sake.”

“Forgive me; Inspector Barley discovered the footprints for himself. Your death would have hanged McDonald.”

She frowned and bit her lip.

“I don't think,” she said deliberately, “that Dr. McDonald could have been suspected at all if Inspector Dundas had not been murdered. Inspector Dundas did not suspect Dr. McDonald.”

Dr. Hailey nodded; the point was a good one.

“I thought it all out carefully before I decided,” she went on. “I'm a physical coward and I was terribly afraid. I had fearful visions of what it would be like down among the seaweed at the burn's mouth. There's a lot of ugly green weed there which I've always hated to look at. Rank, slimy-looking stuff. But I thought that, if I kept struggling, I might drift out into the loch before the end because the force of the burn carries its water out a good way from the shore. The one sure thing seemed to be that my death would put an end to all the bother for everybody. And I knew that Eoghan was terribly disappointed in me…I thought he had ceased to care for me. If I lived Hamish would see my distress and be forced to take sides between his father and me. What was there to live for?”

She shook her head sadly as she spoke.

“I talk as if all that lay in the past,” she added. “But it's here now, with me. If Eoghan accuses himself, perhaps that's only because he's a brave man and belongs to a class in which, as a matter of course, the man sacrifices himself for the woman and child. With his upbringing he must think of me as a wayward and discontented child unfit to be either wife or mother. If I live, our troubles will begin all over again. He'll never understand me or forgive me and I'll never be able to make him the kind of wife he wants and needs.”

“That, if I may say so, is the wrong way of looking at your trouble. I feel sure, too, that you're wholly mistaken. The truth is that whereas you tried to give up your life for your husband and child, your husband is trying at this moment to give his life for you. In other words your husband shares his father's dread that you may be guilty. That, as I said before, is presumptive evidence, that neither you nor McDonald nor your husband nor your father-in-law is guilty. By a process of exclusion, therefore, we come to Angus.”

They heard steps on the carriage-way behind them. Dr. Hailey turned his head and saw Duchlan approaching.

Chapter XXVI

Once Bitten

Duchlan had aged in these last days; he walked feebly, finding his steps. But his features retained their habitual expression. He came to Dr. Hailey, who rose at his approach.

“I have been looking for you,” he stated in breathless tones, “because Inspector Barley tells me that he has received a confession from my son.”

His head shook as he spoke. He kept his eyes fixed on the doctor, ignoring his daughter-in-law utterly.

“Your son made a confession,” Dr. Hailey said.

“It's nonsense. Eoghan never killed his aunt.”

The old man's voice rose in a shrill crescendo. Fear and anger were mingled in his expression.

“I can prove his innocence,” he cried. “Do you hear, I can prove it.”

He continued to avoid directing even a glance at Oonagh. But that abstention did not lessen the menace with which his words evidently threatened her. Dr. Hailey readjusted his eyeglass.

“I don't think,” he said, “that Inspector Barley is the least likely to treat your son's confession seriously.”

“Eh? What do you say?”

The doctor repeated his statement. He was surprised to observe that it failed to reassure the anxious father.

“Don't talk nonsense,” Duchlan cried. “If a man confesses to murder, a man in my son's responsible position at that, his confession is bound to be taken seriously.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because the presumption must be that he has spoken advisedly.” The old man's eyes flashed. “The truth is that he is shielding others whose guilt can be proved and who are wholly unworthy of the sacrifice he is making on their behalf.” He turned his back on Oonagh. “I should like to talk to you alone.”

Dr. Hailey shook his head.

“Much better to talk here openly. Your daughter-in-law, unless I am wrong, has just been telling me all that you propose to tell me.”

“What's that?”

“About your discovery of Dr. McDonald's footprints on the earth under your sister's bedroom window.”

Duchlan started. But he kept his back resolutely turned on Oonagh.

“I did find his footmarks: the one smooth, the other studded with nails. Nobody could misinterpret that sign. So you see the fellow jumped from my poor sister's window after he had committed his horrible crime. It was I, myself, who covered the footmarks lest my daughter-in-law's association with the murder should be discovered.” He drew a deep breath, nodding his head all the while. “What a mistake I made. What a mistake I made. But she is the mother of my grandson, who will be Duchlan one day. Can you blame an old man because he has tried to deliver his son and his son's son from ineffaceable shame and dishonour? But God is just; murder will out. This Quixotic chivalry of my son has, perforce, unsealed my resolve to keep silence. Am I to stand by and see an innocent man, my son, led out to death while I possess knowledge that will save him? Those who have shed the blood of the innocent must bear the punishment of that dreadful crime.”

His voice shook. A faint tinge of colour had mounted to his cheeks. But that common hue of living men brought with it no suggestion of human kindness. A cold, unmerciful gleam filled the black eyes. Dr. Hailey stepped back that he might see Oonagh. She remained seated; her fingers continued to pluck at the thyme. “Is your belief that Dr. McDonald murdered your sister,” he asked in calm tones, “founded exclusively on your discovery of these footprints?”

“It is not indeed.”

Duchlan sneered. He raised his hand and seemed to clutch at the air in front of him.

“Is it possible that my daughter-in-law's candour has not extended to her relations with McDonald?”

“On the contrary, sir.”

“Why ask, then, if the footprints are the only evidence of guilt?”

“You have assumed that the relations between your daughter-in-law and Dr. McDonald are improper relations.”

The old man started.

“I have drawn the conclusion which the evidence of my senses compels me to draw.”

“What, because a mother whose child is showing alarming symptoms sends for the doctor…”

“No. Emphatically no. Because a wife who has flouted her husband's nearest relatives is found to be meeting a man, clandestinely, after the fall of darkness.”

“You had already, before such meetings took place, made accusations which must have driven any woman to secrecy.”

“We had our reasons, believe me.”

“What reasons?”

Dr. Hailey's voice had grown as hard as Duchlan's. He allowed his eyeglass to fall and faced the old man.

“The doctor was summoned on the most frivolous pretexts. My dear sister was not permitted to be present during these visits…”

“I see. On that evidence, you were ready to believe that your son's wife was untrue to him?”

“Both Mary and I were jealous of Eoghan's honour.”

“Because Miss Gregor was excluded from the consultations with Dr. McDonald, she, and you too, became suspicious that these consultations were not, in fact, what they appeared to be?”

“McDonald was sent for on every conceivable occasion…”

“By a mother whose child was taking convulsions.”

Dr. Hailey spoke these last words slowly and with emphasis. When no reply was forthcoming he asked:

“Is it not obvious that both you and your sister were inclined to suspicion in the case of your daughter-in-law?”

“I don't understand you.”

“I mean that, in her case, you were ready to suspect, perhaps even determined to suspect.”

“Nonsense.”

“On your own showing, you found the natural anxiety of a young mother a cause of uneasiness?”

“No.”

“My dear sir, when your daughter-in-law kept sending for the doctor, both you and Miss Gregor accused her of unworthy motives.”

The old man frowned, but this time offered no comment. The doctor proceeded:

“And, meanwhile, on your own showing, you were forcing her to receive your charity. You were using every means to hurt her pride and humiliate her wifehood. Men do not desire such punishments for women. I can only conclude therefore that you have acted throughout at the dictation of your sister.”

“My sister, as I told Inspector Barley, possessed means of her own. I have nothing but this estate.” He indicated the woods and the loch. “My sister was under no obligation whatever to give my son or his wife a penny. Eoghan married without consulting our wishes.”

“Why should he consult your wishes?”

“Why should my sister give him her money?”

Dr. Hailey shook his head.

“An outsider,” he said, “sees most of the game. It's obvious to me that your sister, having got your son's wife at her mercy, adopted every method she could think of to make her life intolerable. My personal view is that that was a policy undertaken with a definite object, namely, to separate husband and wife. The policy failed. Your daughter-in-law remained here, enduring everything. It began to seem probable that she would have a home of her own. A change of policy was necessary; an immediate change of policy. Your sister managed, I don't know how, to persuade you that the visits of Dr. McDonald were more than ordinary medical visits.”

‘‘I saw for myself that they were more than ordinary medical visits. Their duration…”

“My dear sir, nobody thinks anything of a prolonged doctor's visit when the case is a serious one.”

Duchlan's face was pale with anger.

“I tell you,” he exclaimed, “I did think something…”

“Exactly.”

Dr. Hailey looked him straight in the face. He added:

“I assume, therefore, that this wholly commonplace behaviour of McDonald was distorted in your eyes by some earlier experience. Once bitten, twice shy.”

The words were spoken in a low tone. But their effect could not have been greater had they been shouted. Duchlan swayed on his feet.

“No, no,” he ejaculated hoarsely.

“Some earlier experience in which a young wife…”

There was no reply. The muscles of the old man's face were unloosed. His jaw fell. After a moment he moved away a few paces and leaned against a tree.

“You are speaking about the death of my wife?” he gasped.

“Yes.”

“She…” A fit of coughing shook Duchlan's body. He turned and grasped one of the branches of the tree against which he was leaning. Dr. Hailey came to his side.

“I am aware of the circumstances of your wife's death,” he said. “And of the events which preceded it, the wounding of your sister.”

“Mary was guiltless.”

“No doubt. But her accusations…”

Duchlan made a peremptory gesture.

“Her accusations were just,” he declared in tones that vibrated with pain.

“At least you chose so to regard them. It comes to the same thing. What is certain is that Miss Gregor employed against your wife the methods she employed recently against your daughter-in-law, namely, a perpetual and persistent interference, a merciless criticism, and a diligent misrepresentation. These methods expressed, I believe, her jealous hatred of a rival whose presence in the castle threatened her position. She drove your wife to violence; you, doubtless, completed the work of destruction by exhibiting the callous spirit which made it possible for you the other day to suggest suicide to your daughter-in-law.”

Dr. Hailey's voice thrilled with an anger which was not cooled by the spectacle of the old man's distress.