The Crooked Hinge Page 10

  Dr. Fell’s forehead was wrinkled. “Still, I was wondering . . . h’mf . . . you knew John Farnleigh pretty well in the old days? I understand,” here he beamed, “that there was a kind of boy-and-girl romance between you?”

  She made a wry face.

  “You remind me that I’m past my youth. I’m thirty-five. Or thereabouts; you mustn’t ask me to be too precise. No, there never was even a boy-and-girl romance between us, really. Not that I should have minded, but it didn’t interest him. He—he kissed me once or twice, in the orchard and in the wood. But he used to say that I didn’t have enough of the Old Adam—or do I mean Old Eve?—in me. Not enough of the devil, anyhow.”

  “But you never married?”

  “Oh, that’s unfair!” cried Madeline, flushing and then laughing. “You talk as though I were sitting with my dim spectacled eyes over a piece of knitting in the chimney-corner______”

  “Miss Dane,” said Dr. Fell, with thunderous solemnity, “I don’t. I mean that I can see suitors standing in droves at your door, stretching away like the Great Wall of China; I can see Nubian slaves bowed down by the weight of great chocolate-boxes; I can—ahem. Let us omit that.”

  It was a long time since Page had seen a genuine blush; he believed, nowadays, that such mainsprings were dried up and with the dodo; but, all the same, he did not mind seeing Madeline blush. For what she said was:

  “If you’re thinking that I cherished a romantic passion for John Farnleigh all these years, I’m afraid you’re hopelessly wrong.” There was a twinkle in her eye. “I was always a little frightened of him, and I’m not even sure I liked him—then.”

  “Then?”

  “Yes. I liked him later, but only liked.”

  “Miss Dane,” said Dr. Fell, growling out of his several chins and moving his head curiously, “some inner Little Bird seems to tell me that you’re trying to convey something to me. You still haven’t answered my question. Do you think Farnleigh was an impostor?”

  She made a slight gesture.

  “Dr. Fell, I am not trying to be mysterious. Really and truly I’m not; and I think I can tell you something. But, before I do, will you—or somebody—tell me just what did happen at the Close last night? I mean, before the last horrible business happened? I mean, what those two said and did while each was claiming to be the real one?”

  “We might as well have the story again, Mr. Page,” said Elliot.

  Page told it, with as many shadings and impressions as he could remember. Madeline nodded her head several times in the course of it; she was breathing rapidly.

  “Tell me, Brian: what struck you most about the whole interview?”

  “The absolute assurance of both claimants,” said Page. “Farnleigh faltered once or twice, but over what seemed unimportant points; when any real test was mentioned, he was eager. I only saw him smile and look relieved once. That was when Gore was accusing him of attempted murder with a seaman’s mallet aboard the Titanic.”

  “Just one other thing, please,” Madeline requested, breathing still more rapidly. “Did either of them say anything about the dummy?”

  There was a pause. Dr. Fell, Inspector Elliot, and Brian Page looked at each other blankly.

  “The dummy?” repeated Elliot, clearing his throat. “What dummy?”

  “Or about bringing it to life? Or anything about the ‘Book’?” Then a mask seemed to close over her face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned that, only I should have thought it would be the first thing to be brought up. Please forget it.”

  An expression of refreshed pleasure animated Dr. Fell’s large face.

  “My dear Miss Dane,” he rumbled, “you demand a miracle. You demand a miracle greater than any that could have happened in that garden. Consider what you demand. You refer to a certain dummy, to the possibility of its being brought to life, and to something you call the ‘Book,’ all presumably in connection with this mystery. You acknowledge that it is the first thing you would have thought should be brought up. And then you ask us to forget it. Do you think that ordinary human beings of feverish curiosity could______”

  Madeline looked stubborn.

  “But you ought not to have asked me about it,” she protested. “Not that I know anything, really. You ought to have asked them.”

  “ ‘The Book,’ ” mused Dr. Fell. “You don’t mean, I suppose, the Red Book of Appin?”

  “Yes, I believe I later heard it called that. I read about it somewhere. It’s not a book, really; it’s a manuscript, or so John once told me.”

  “Wait a bit,” interposed Page. “Murray asked that question, and both of them wrote down answers for it. Gore later told me that it was a catch question, and there was no such thing as ‘the Red Book of Appin.’ If there is such a thing, it makes Gore out the impostor, doesn’t it?”

  Dr. Fell seemed about to speak, with some excitement and vehemence; but he drew a long breath through his nose and restrained himself.

  “I wish I knew,” said Elliot. “I never thought there could be so much doubt and confusion caused by only two persons. Now you’re certain it’s one of them, again you’re just as certain it’s the other. And—as Dr. Fell says—we can’t get much further until we establish that. I hope, Miss Dane, you’re not trying to evade the question. You still haven’t answered: do you think the late Farnleigh was an impostor?”

  Madeline threw her head back against the back of the chair. It was the greatest sign of animation, the only sign of spasmodic action, Page had ever seen her give. She opened and shut her right hand.

  “I can’t tell you,” she said helplessly. “I can’t. Not until I’ve seen Molly, anyhow.”

  “But what has Lady Farnleigh got to do with us?”

  “Only that he—told me things. Things he didn’t even confide to her. Oh, please don’t look shocked!” (As a matter of fact, Elliot did not; but he looked interested.) “Or believe a lot of gossip you may have heard. But I’ve got to tell Molly first. You see, she believed in him. Of course, Molly was only seven years old when he left home. All she hazily remembers is a boy who took her to a gipsy camp, where they taught her to ride a pony and throw stones better than any man. Besides, any dispute over the Farnleigh name or estates wouldn’t trouble her at all. Dr. Bishop wasn’t a country G.P.; he died worth nearly half a million, and Molly inherited it all in her own right. Also, sometimes I’ve thought she never really liked being mistress of that house; she doesn’t seem to care for responsibilities of that sort. She didn’t marry him because of his position or income, and she wouldn’t really have cared—and won’t now—whether his name is Farnleigh or Gore or whatever you like. So why should he have told her?”

  Elliot looked rather dazed, as he had reason to do.

  “Just a moment, Miss Dane. What are you trying to tell us: that he was or was not an impostor?”

  “But I don’t know! I don’t know which he was!”

  “The startling lack of information with which we are provided,” said Dr. Fell sadly, “proceeds from all sources and o’erflows its basin. Well, let’s leave that for the moment. But on one point I insist on having my curiosity satisfied. What’s all this about a dummy?”

  Madeline hesitated.

  “I don’t know whether they’ve still got it,” she answered, staring at the window in a fascinated way. “John’s father kept it locked up in an attic room, along with the—books he didn’t like. The old-time Farnleighs were an unpleasant lot, as you may know, and Sir Dudley was always afraid John had taken after them. Though there certainly didn’t seem to have been anything wrong or unpleasant about this figure.

  “I—I only saw it once. John stole the key from his father, and took me up all those stairs to see it, with a candle in a dark-lantern. He said the door hadn’t been opened for generations. When it was new, they say the figure was as absolutely lifelike and beautiful as a real woman, sitting on a kind of padded box in Restoration costume. But when I saw it, it was only old and black and withered-lookin
g, and it frightened me horribly. I suppose it hadn’t been touched for well over a hundred years. But I don’t know what the story was that made people afraid of it.”

  There was something about her tone which made Page vaguely uneasy, because he could not place the inflection: he had never heard Madeline speak quite like that before. And he had never, certainly, heard of this “figure” or “dummy,” whatever it was.

  “It may have been very ingenious,” Madeline explained, “yet I can’t understand why there should have been anything bad about it. Did you ever hear of Kempelen’s and Maelzel’s mechanical chess-player, or Maskelyne’s ‘Zoe’ or ‘Psycho,’ the whist-playing figure?”

  Elliot shook his head, though he looked interested; and Dr. Fell was so interested that the eyeglasses tumbled off his nose.

  “You don’t mean—?” he said. “Archons of Athens, this is better than anything I had hoped for! They were among the best of a series of nearly life-size automatons which puzzled Europe for two hundred years. Didn’t you ever read of the harpsichord, exhibited before Louis XIV, which played by itself? Or the dummy invented by Kempelen, shown by Maelzel, which was owned by Napoleon and later lost in the museum fire at Philadelphia? For all practical purposes, Maelzel’s automaton was alive. It played chess with you; and usually won. There have been several explanations of how it worked—Poe wrote one—but to my own simple mind it still isn’t satisfactorily explained. You can see ‘Psycho’ in the London Museum today. You don’t mean there’s one at Farnleigh Close?”

  “Yes. That’s why I should have thought this Mr. Murray would have asked about it,” said Madeline. “As I say, I don’t know the story. This automaton was exhibited in England during the rein of Charles II, and bought by a Farnleigh then. I don’t know whether it played cards or chess, but it moved and spoke. When I saw it, as I say, it was old and black and withered-looking.”

  “But this—harrumph—this business of bringing it alive?”

  “Oh, that was only the nonsense John used to talk when he was a silly child. I wasn’t trying to talk seriously about that, don’t you see? I was only trying to go back and test what could be remembered of him in the old days. The room where they used to keep the figure was full of books with—well, with downright evil in them,” again she flushed, “and that was what attracted John. The secret of how to make the figure work had been forgotten; I daresay that was what he meant.”

  On Page’s desk the telephone-bell rang. He had been so engrossed in watching Madeline, the slight turns of her head, the intentness of her dark-blue eyes, that he groped after the ’phone before finding it. But at the sound of Burrows’s voice on the wire he became very much alert.

  “For God’s sake,” said Burrows, “come up to the Close straightaway, and bring the inspector and Dr. Fell.”

  “Steady!” said Page, feeling a certain unpleasant warmth creep round his chest. “What’s up?”

  “For one thing, we’ve found the Thumbograph______”

  “What! Where?”

  They were all looking at him now.

  “One of the maids: Betty: do you know her—?” Burrows hesitated.

  “Yes; go on.”

  “Betty disappeared, and nobody knew what had become of her. They looked all over the place for her: that is, they looked in the only places she was likely to be found. No Betty. Everything was a bit disorganized, because for some reason Knowles wasn’t here either. Finally Molly’s maid found her in the Green Room, where it wasn’t Betty’s business to go. Betty was lying on the floor with the Thumbograph in her hand. But that isn’t all. Her face was such a queer color, and she was breathing so queerly, that we sent for the doctor. Old King is worried. Betty’s still unconscious, and she won’t be in any condition to tell us anything for a long time. She’s not physically hurt, but King says there’s not much doubt about what caused it.”

  “Well?”

  Again Burrows hesitated.

  “Fright,” he said.

  Chapter Ten

  IN THE LIBRARY AT Farnleigh Close, Patrick Gore sat back in the embrasure of the windows and smoked a black cigar. Ranged near him were Burrows, Welkyn, and a sleepy-looking Kennet Murray. Inspector Elliot, Dr. Fell, and Brian Page sat by the table.

  At the Close they had found a frightened and disorganized household, the more frightened because of a completely pointless upset in the middle of an ordinary afternoon, and the more disorganized because of the absence of the butler.

  Facts? What did you mean, facts? The group of domestics whom Elliot questioned did not know what he meant. It was only this maid, Betty Harbottle; a nice girl; ordinary. She had not been seen since midday dinner. When it came time for her to wash the windows of two of the upstairs bedrooms with Agnes, another maid, Agnes had gone to look for her. She was not found until four o’clock. At this time Teresa—Lady Farnleigh’s maid—had gone into the Green Room, the late Sir John’s study, and found her lying on the floor by a window overlooking the garden. She was lying on her side, with the paper-covered book in her hand. Dr. King had been summoned from Mallingford; and neither the expression of his face nor Betty’s did anything to reassure the household. Dr. King was with the patient still.

  This thing was wrong. Terrors should not be domestic terrors. It was like being told that in your own home you may completely disappear for four hours. It was like being told that in your own home you may open a familiar door, and enter not your own room, but a room you have never seen before, where something is waiting. From the housekeeper, the cook, and the other maids he learned little except domestic details; about Betty he learned little except that she liked apples and wrote letters to Gary Cooper.

  Knowles’s arrival soothed the staff; and Madeline’s arrival, Page hoped, would have a good effect on Molly Farnleigh. Madeline had accompanied her to her sitting-room while the men glared at one another in the library. Page had wondered what would happen at a meeting between Madeline and Patrick Gore; yet there was little on which even the imagination could fasten. They were not introduced. Madeline moved past, softly, with her arm round Molly; she and the claimant looked at each other; and Page thought that an amused look of recognition opened Gore’s eyes; but neither spoke.

  And it was Gore who put the case to the inspector when the others were gathered in the library, just before Dr. Fell flung a hand-grenade of remarkable explosive power.

  “It’s no good, inspector,” said Gore, re-lighting a black cigar which would not remain lit. “You asked the same kind of questions this morning, and this time I assure you it’s no good. This time it is, where were you when the girl was—well, whatever happened to her—and the Thumbograph was put in her hand? I have replied quite simply that I am damned if I know. So have all the others. We were here. You ordered us to be here. But you may be sure we were not courting each other’s society, and we have not the remotest idea when the girl collapsed.”

  “Look here, you know,” said Dr. Fell abruptly, “a part of this had better be settled.”

  “I only hope you can settle it, my friend,” answered Gore, who seemed to have taken a sincere liking to him. “But, inspector, you have already had our statements with the servants. We have been over that again and______”

  Inspector Elliot was cheerful.

  “That’s right, sir,” he said. “And, if it’s necessary, we shall have to go over them again. And again.”

  “Really—” interposed Welkyn.

  The claimant sat on him again. “But, if you’re so interested in the wanderings of that Thumbograph, why not pay some slight attention to what is in the Thumbograph?” He glanced at the tattered gray book, which now lay on the table between Elliot and Dr. Fell. “Why in the name of sense and sanity don’t you settle the matter now? Why don’t you decide, between a dead man and myself, which is the real heir?”

  “Oh, I can tell you that,” said Dr. Fell affably.

  There was an abrupt silence, broken only by the scrape of the claimant’s foot on the stone floor. Kenn
et Murray took away the hand with which he had been shading his eyes. The expression of cynicism remained on his ageing face; but his eyes were bright and hard and indulgent, and he used one finger to stroke his beard, as though he were listening to a recitation.

  “Yes, doctor?” he prompted, in that tone used exclusively among schoolmasters.

  “Furthermore,” continued Dr. Fell, tapping the book on the table, “it’s no good getting down to business with this Thumbograph. It’s a fake. No, no, I don’t mean that you haven’t got the evidence. I merely say that THIS Thumbograph, the one that was stolen, is a fake. Mr. Gore pointed out last night, they tell me, that you had several Thumbographs in the old days.” He beamed on Murray. “My boy, you retain your melodramatic soul of old, for which I am glad. You believed that there might be some attempt to pinch the Thumbograph. So you came to the house last night equipped with two of them______”

  “Is that true?” demanded Gore.

  Murray seemed at once pleased and annoyed; but he nodded, as though he were following the matter carefully.

  “—and,” continued Dr. Fell, “the one you showed to these people in the library was bogus. That was why you were so long in getting down to business. Hey? After you have shoved everybody out of the library, you had to get the real Thumbograph (a clumsy kind of book, apt to tear) out of your pocket, and put the valueless one in. But they had said they were going to keep a close watch on you. And, with a wall of windows stretching across the room, you were afraid somebody might see you and cry trickery if you were seen fooling about with the evidence. So you had to make sure there was nobody watching______”

  “I was finally obliged,” said Murray gravely, “to get into that cupboard and do it.” His nod indicated an old book-closet built into the wall on the same side as the windows. “It is somewhat late in life to feel as though I were cheating at an examination.”

  Inspector Elliot did not say anything. After glancing sharply from one to the other of them, he began to write in his notebook.