Dark of the moon - Dr. Gideon Fell 22 Read online

  Dark of the moon - Dr. Gideon Fell 22

  Book Jacket

  Series: Dr. Gideon Fell [22]

  Tags: Mystery

  SUMMARY:

  When Dr Gideon Fell, that most eminent of eccentric sleuths, finds himself at a party whose guests are in a state of deep agitation, all the faculties of his detective genius are called into play. Why is the host of the party - Henry Maynard, a Southern aristocrat - so cryptic about the strange goings-on in the stately mansion? And how is the theft of the scarecrow linked to a diabolical and ingenious murder? Fell's cunning, proceeds to uncover the dastardly motives to the deeds that have been taking place in the dark of the moon.

  John Dickson Carr

  DARK OF THE MOON

  Carroll &

  Graf Publishers, New York

  Inc.

  Copyright © 1967 John Dickson Carr

  Published by arrangement with Clarice M. Carr

  All rights reserved

  First Carroll & Graf edition 1987 Second edition 1995

  Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc. 260 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10001

  ISBN 0-7867-0222-2

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1

  Dark clouds scudded across a moon which had not quite reached its full. The warmth of the Carolina night lay on James Island at the entrance to Charleston harbor. Jessamine and magnolia added their scents of early May. And emotion stirred here too.

  Maynard Hall, on the northern shore of the island, faced due east. Its side was towards beach and water. If you had been standing in the broad sanded drive which led to the front door, you would have seen the four tall columns of the portico white and ghostly against the Hall's central face, with north and south wings in time-mellowed red brick raising two floors of moon-silvered windows at either side. Just above these, a mansard roof for a smaller top floor showed lights at its two middle windows.

  On your left, as you stood in the sanded drive, would have been gardens extending to a boundary wall parallel with the drive, and to Fort Johnson Road beyond the boundary. On your right, northwards past smooth lawn, an earthen terrace carpeted with white, finely crushed oyster-shell stretched between the side of the Hall's north wing and a short row of poplar trees, overlooking the slope of beach and the surf of the incoming tide.

  Rather more than a mile away, diagonally across moonlit water, the lights of Charleston glimmered above the long dark line of the Battery. But emotion in these grounds stirred elsewhere.

  At one particular place, for instance . . .

  Just inside the entrance-gates of the Hall, some fifty yards from the front door, six magnolia trees towered up, three on either side of the drive at its beginning. In shadow under the magnolias, momentarily all but lost to the world, a man and a girl stood locked together in frantic embrace.

  Unless you had been very close you would not have heard their voices, which whispered. The man's voice, a youthful baritone, contrasted with the light, breathless speech of the girl. The thick air was alive with passion, with a kind of desperate frustration; and also, less romantically, with mosquitoes.

  Nobody troubled about mosquitoes. The girl whispered: "Darling, this oughtn't to be. But don't stop!"

  The man whispered: "I know it oughtn't to be, but I can't stop; I never can." Suddenly his voice rose. "Oh, God, Madge! If your father should come down here now . . . !"

  "Sh-h!"

  "All right." The voice became a whisper again. "But if your father—!"

  "Daddy? He won't come down here!" "Why not?"

  "He won't, silly, unless you shout as you did a second ago."

  "I asked you—!"

  "Because he never does, that's why!" The girl called Madge gestured towards the two faintly lighted windows at the top of Maynard Hall. "He's always up there at his eternal calculations. Or sitting on the terrace," she gestured to the right, "with more books and papers. But—!"

  "But what?"

  "Well! If you care for me as much as you say you do . . ."

  "If I care? If I care!"

  "Darling, why must we go on being so awfully furtive? Why can't it be as we want it to be? Why don't you just speak to Daddy?"

  "Because I can't speak to him! And you know why I can't, don't you?"

  "Well..."

  "You know why, don't you?" "Maybe, but I don't care."

  "I care." Once more her companion was galvanized, though he did not raise his voice. "Madge, listen! Didn't you hear a car in the lane just now?"

  "There wasn't anything to hear, you foolish boy. Come back to me!"

  ‘I’d better go, I think. I can slip out through the side gate towards Fort Johnson Road." "Now?"

  "Madge, what chance have we got tonight? It's not late, you know. In addition to your father, people can turn up all over the place."

  "And we know who'll turn up tomorrow, darling." The soft, cajoling voice seemed to wind round him, making his nerves jump like a hooked fish. "But you won't be jealous of him, will you?"

  "I'll try not to be. There's only one person I'm jealous of."

  "Oh? Who's that?"

  "It doesn't matter. And I must go now, Madge. Good night." -

  "Oh, don't leave me this way! Don't!"

  "I've got no choice, my sweet It's a hell of a thing, but I've got no choice. Good night, Madge."

  Head down, nerves twitching, he strode away through shadow towards the gardens on the left. Madge Maynard, twenty-seven years old, made the baffled gesture of one who would cry, "Everybody puts me off!" A few moments more Madge herself remained in shadow. Then, her own twitching nerves now composed, she stepped out into the moonlight.

  Under middle height, sturdy but shapely, she wore a sleeveless white dress which clung to her figure. Moonlight drained color from the glossy fair hair, from a complexion which in daytime would be white and gold, and made her luminous brown eyes appear black. The face she turned up to the moon, so healthily pretty that it was almost beautiful, seemed intense, trustful, and very guileless. But she was not happy.

  "Oh!" blurted Madge, spinning round.

  Whether or not she had heard a car in the lane which curved down from the main road to the gates, she could now hear someone approaching on foot. There was a sharp slap as the newcomer whacked at a mosquito on his left forearm. Between iron-grilled gates wide open, through the shadow of the magnolias and out into moonlight, sauntered a tallish, lean, loose-limbed young man perhaps two or three years older than Madge. He wore gray slacks and a white sports-shirt with a silk handkerchief knotted round his neck inside the collar. So far as could be judged in this light, he looked extremely intelligent, if also lazy and easy-going: his features clear-cut and aristocratic, his hair dark and thick.

  Madge and the newcomer stared at each other. A thin whine of insects droned round them. From the direction of the beach they could hear the soft, shaky ripple of the tide washing in. Then Madge spoke.

  "Why, Yancey! Yancey Beale! What on earth are you doing here?"

  Yancey Beale swept her a great bow.

  "Evening, honey. At your service, as usual."

  "You sneaked up, did you?"

  "Who sneaked up, little 'un? Drove to the gate like a proper-minded suitor, that's all. Who was here with you a minute ago?"

  The girl lifted shining eyes. "There was nobody here, Yancey."

  "There wasn't? Could have sworn I heard somebody galumph away. Still! If you say there was nobody, honey, that's my pleasure and my belief."

  "You're nice, Yancey!" Struggling against laughter, Madge made a mouth at him. "But you're a sweet-talking. Southerner just the same!"

  "You reckon you're no Southern g
irl, Madge May-nard?"

  "I've never considered myself one."

  "Now don't you start talkin' foolishness, honey! You were born in France, maybe, and brought up in New York and Connecticut. But your daddy's a Maynard of South Carolina . . ."

  "The last of the doomed Maynards, were you going to say?"

  "Honey, that's still foolish talk. No, nothing so fancy as doomed-anybody! Your daddy's a Maynard, I said; your mother was a Wilkinson from Georgia. If that makes you any kind of a damn yankee, then my name's Tecumseh Sherman."

  "Still as eloquent as ever, Yancey. How's the law-practice?"

  "Few clients, little profit, no prestige at all. Like to be twenty years 'fore I get a partnership, if then. Who'd pay any mind to the likes of me, anyway?"

  "I might, if you spoke to me nicely. But you still haven't told me what you're doing here."

  Mr. Beale smote at another mosquito.

  "Well!" he said. "Tomorrow, bright and early, I'm to be here for the first week of my vacation. Old Playford wants to get away in June, which is the time I usually take, so that gives Br'er Rabbit two weeks in May. Meanwhile, thought I'd just run over from Charleston and ask how're things on this side. Mark Sheldon's been wondering too; so has Valerie Huret. How are things, by the way?"

  "Just as usual."

  "Oh?"

  Madge tried to hold herself in and failed.

  "Uncle Dick died in March," she said explosively. "We've been installed here for less than a month. But it's just the same, just exactly the same, as it always was in Goliath, Connecticut. Lonely and dreary, Yancey; you'll never guess how lonely and dreary! I'm not old enough to be a hermit like Daddy."

  "Easy about hermits, sweetness; your daddy's a very wise man. Leastways, he is to the people who appreciate mathematics and science; though damn me if I could ever understand the stuff, even! You just pick yourself a devoted husband—me, for dealer's choice—and don't fret your head T)out anything else. Old Yance'll be here from tomorrow, as I say. And your Yankee friend'll be here too, they tell me."

  "You mean Rip Hillboro?"

  "I guess so. Another ornery lawyer: wouldn't you know?"

  "You don't like Rip, do you?"

  "Easy, sweetness! Only met the fellow once, when he came down with y'all in April. He is goin' to be here tomorrow, isn't he?"

  "Yes, we expect Rip," Madge answered casually. "And Camilla Bruce, who's a real friend, and later in the week an old crony of Daddy's from Goliath. Both Camilla Bruce and Mr. Crandall are what you would call Yankees too. You met them both when they visited us in April, and you seemed to like them well enough. But poor Rip—!"

  "Now don't get me wrong, honey!" begged the other. 'Tour much-admired Rip Hillboro's all right, I guess. He's the only Yankee I ever really thought of as a darnn-yankee. But who am I to pass judgments? All I said was: don't you fret vour head about anything, anything at all!"

  But Madge was fretting none the less. For some reason the jessamine-scented air seemed to press down with thicker heat, even with a breath of the sinister. Then something rumbled in the sky, distant sound-waves rising and falling. Madge suddenly threw her arm across her eyes and shrank back into shadow. The young man strode after her.

  "Did you hear that, Yancey? Like ghost-guns at Fort Sumter out there! What was it?"

  "Only a little thunder, honey. We often get it in these parts, even when the sky's clear. Pay no mind to that, honeychile! All the same—"

  It was as though the disquiet had been communicated to Yancey too.

  "Now listen, sugar!" he continued with a kind of heavy gentleness. "I said don't fret and I meant it, you hear? All the same, something mighty damn funny's goin' on hereabouts. I know that, even if I can't tell you what it is. Just remember I'm always on tap if you need me. And you may need help, Madge. You see ..."

  Again thunder rumbled; Yancey broke off. Fifty yards away, inside the four white columns of the portico at Maynard Hall, there was a small stir to draw their eyes. Though the great front door stood open, its screen door had been closed. An indistinct figure in a gray suit opened the screen door, closed it behind him, crossed the porch, and descended steps to the broad sanded drive between the lawns.

  Madge did not speak; she only breathed.

  The indistinct figure, approaching along the walk, took shape as a spare, wiry, vigorous man in his late fifties, carefully dressed without ostentation or dandyism. He had been smoking a cigarette, which he flipped away across the lawn. His hair shone clear silver-white. Under that silver hair he had the same thin face and high-bridged nose which could be seen in the family portraits. You sensed other qualities too. Whether affable or moody (he could be both, as Madge well knew), Henry Maynard was clearly a man of intellect and of strong feelings held in check by discipline or a sense of fitness.

  Though he could not have seen the other two, who remained in shadow, he seemed to know they were there.

  "Madge!" he called a little uncertainly. And then in a louder voice, "Madge!"

  "Yes, Daddy?"

  "Forgive me, my dear. I don't want to interfere, but—"

  Madge stepped out into the moonlight. Her young companion followed. Henry Maynard stopped as though he had run into a wall.

  "Evening, sir," said Yancey Beale.

  "Is that you, Yancey? It really is you?"

  "It's me, sir, your obedient servant aforesaid. Is that so very surprising?"

  "Not surprising, no." Henry Maynard stared at him. "Don't you know you're always welcome here, Yancey? Don't you know that, my boy?"

  "Glad I'm not in the way, sir. I'm right sorry to have disturbed you, though."

  "You didn't disturb me. You puzzled me badly."

  "Sir?"

  "I was up in my study. The air-conditioner was off, and the window was open with a screen in it, or I couldn't have heard you at all. You said something to Madge; you spoke very loudly. I don't recall the exact words . . ."

  "Yes, sir?"

  "They were to the effect that it might be disastrous if I discovered you here." Henry Maynard drew in his breath. "Yancey, I've known your father for forty years. Don't you know you're always welcome in my house? Good God, boy! That I of all people should be angry if . . ."

  "But I didn't—!"

  "Didn't what?"

  Madge seemed about to speak; Yancey shushed her. "Must have been wool-gathering," he replied. "Just can't remember sayin' it, that's all." Yancey slid his arm across Madge's shoulders. "Little lady's a bit upset tonight, sir; must've upset me too."

  "Madge has fancies. I'm well aware of it."

  "Please!" Madge burst out. Henry Maynard paid no attention.

  "The past is too much with us, as it always is in Charleston or anywhere nearby. A touch and then the deluge; old superstitions sweep us away. Yes, Madge has fancies..."

  "Like her ghost-guns at Fort Sumter?"

  "Not that; she knows it's only thunder; much more. What happened to the first Maynard in 1698, when something or somebody followed him through the swamp at the other side of the island? What happened to his descendant of 1867, when Commodore Luke Maynard, formerly Confederate States navy, had his skull crushed down there on the beach, with no weapon to be found, and wet sand for ten yards in every direction unmarked by any footprint except his own? What evidence was faked or omitted from that account, to invoke the seeming supernatural and stun minds too credulous? Nonsense; worse than nonsense! So if Madge has been thinking about the thing that follows and leaves no trace . . ."

  "Please!" the girl cried again. She shook Yancey's hand off her shoulder. "You're always shutting me up, Daddy. You tell me to run away and play like a good girl; that's what they all tell me. But I will say this if I never say anything else! I'm not thinking about the thing that follows and leaves no trace. You are."

  "I am, Madge?"

  "Don't deny it; I know you too well! You've been thinking and thinking and thinking."

  Henry Maynard drew himself up.

  "In a sense, my dear,
you are quite right. Must I repeat it? These old superstitions have no force or value for a logical brain. I would give anything, anything in ray poor power, if I could write Q.E.D. and destroy them forever."

  For several seconds nobody spoke, while a light breeze from the harbor ruffled treetops in the park. Then their host addressed Yancey Beale.

  "I had hoped," he said almost plaintively, "things would be so different at the Hall. And they will be; I promise they will be! Life has been very dull for Madge; I know that, and I propose to remedy it. As we grow older, my boy, we find seclusion holds fewer and fewer charms. Once upon a time I was acquainted with many persons in Charleston. If I have lost touch with most of them, younger people like Mrs. Huret and Dr. Sheldon should provide welcome company. We must invite them to dinner more often. And already I have taken steps towards ending seclusion with a small house-party."

  From his inside breast pocket he took out a small leather-bound diary, and from his side pocket a pencil flashlight, directing the beam on the diary as he opened it. There was nothing written there; the master of Maynard Hall sought a date.

  "Sunday, May 2nd," he read' aloud. "That's today, 1965, and it's almost gone now. The first guests arrive by air tomorrow. Apart from yourself, Yancey, they are people we knew at a town called Goliath, not far from Hartford in Connecticut."

  "I know, sir; Madge was telling me!"

  "Permit me to tell you." Henry Maynard lifted one shoulder. "Young Ripton Hillboro, whom I believe you met, has got leave of absence from his law-firm in Hartford. The other guest arriving tomorrow is a charming girl named Bruce, Camilla Bruce, whom you also met. I might add that at Goliath there are two institutions of learning, Colt University and Lydia Stone College for women."

  "Apropos what, Mr. Maynard?" demanded Yancey. "It's no problem rememberin' Camilla, no problem at all. She seemed quite a gal, in her quiet way; anybody could see she had possibilities. But why bring up Colt and Lydia Stone? Is she connected with the women's college?"