The Crooked Hinge Read online

  “H’mf, yes. You were delayed,” said Dr. Fell. “Mr. Page here, passing the windows only a few minutes before the murder, on his way out to the back of the garden, saw that you were just ‘opening’ the Thumbograph. So you hardly had time to get down to real work______”

  “Three or four minutes,” corrected Murray.

  “Very well. You hardly had time to get down to real work before there were alarums of bloodshed.” Dr. Fell looked pained. “My dear young Murray, you are not simple-minded. Such an alarm might be a trick, especially a trick you would suspect. You would never on earth have gone thundering out, leaving the Thumbograph open and inviting on that table. I couldn’t believe that when I heard it. No, no, no. Back went the real one into your pocket, and out came the dummy one for a honeyed lure. Hey?”

  “Confound you,” said Murray without heat.

  “You therefore decided to lie doggo and exultantly apply your detective faculties when the dummy was stolen. You have probably been sitting up all night writing out a statement about the prints, with the real Thumbograph in front of you, together with your affidavit that the real heir______”

  “The real heir is who?” asked Patrick Gore coolly.

  “Is you, of course,” growled Dr. Fell.

  Then he looked at Murray.

  “Hang it all,” he added plaintively, “you must have known that! He was your pupil. You must have known it. I knew it as soon as I heard him open his mouth______”

  The claimant, who had got to his feet, now sat down rather awkwardly. The claimant’s face expressed an almost simian pleasure; his bright gray eye and even his bald-spot seemed to twinkle.

  “Dr. Fell, I thank you,” Gore said, with his hand on his heart. “But I must point out that you have asked me not a single question.”

  “Look here, you fellows,” said Dr. Fell. “You had the opportunity to listen to him all last evening. Look at him now. Listen to him. Does he remind you of anybody? I don’t mean in appearance; I mean in turn of phrase, in shaping of ideas, in way of expressing himself. Well, of whom does he remind you? Hey?”

  And at last the troublesome sense of familiarity fitted into place in Page’s mind, while the doctor blinked round at them.

  “Of Murray,” replied Page, in the midst of a silence. “Of Murray. Got it in one. Misted by time, of course; pulled round a bit by character; but there and unmistakable. Of Murray, who had him in sole charge during the formative years of his life, and was the only one with influence over him. Study his bearing. Listen to the smooth turn of those sentences, rolling like the Odyssey. It’s only superficial, I cheerfully acknowledge; they are no more alike in their natures than I am like Elliot or Hadley. But the echo lingers on. I tell you, the only important question Murray asked last night was what books the real John Farnleigh had enjoyed as a boy, and what books he hated. Look at this fellow!”—he pointed to Gore. “Didn’t I hear how his dead eye glowed when he talked about The Count of Monte Cristo and The Cloister and the Hearth? And of what books he hated and still hates? No impostor would have dared to talk like that before the person to whom he’d poured out his soul years ago. In a case like this, facts are piffle. Anybody can learn facts. You want the inner boy. I say, Murray: honestly, you’d better come off it and give us the truth. It’s all very well to be the Great Detective and play ’possum, but this has gone far enough.”

  A red bar showed across Murray’s forehead. He looked snappish and a trifle shamefaced. But his far-away mind caught at something out of this.

  “Facts are not piffle,” Murray said.

  “I tell you,” roared Dr. Fell, “that facts are—” He caught himself up. “Harrumph, well. No. Perhaps not. Altogether. But am I correct?”

  “He did not recognize the Red Book of Appin. He wrote down that there was no such thing.”

  “Which he knew only as a manuscript. Oh, I am not his champion. I’m only trying to establish something. And I repeat: am I correct?

  “Confound you, Fell, you do spoil a fellow’s pleasure,” complained Murray, in a slightly different tone. He glanced across at Gore. “Yes, he’s the real Johnny Farnleigh. Hullo, Johnny.”

  “Hullo,” said Gore. And, for the first time since Page had met him, his face did not look hard.

  The quiet in that room was of a dwindling and shrinking sort, as though values were being restored and a blurred image had come into focus. Both Gore and Murray looked at the floor, but they looked vaguely, uncomfortably amused. It was Welkyn’s rich voice which now arose with authority.

  “You are prepared to prove all this, sir?” he asked briskly.

  “There goes my holiday,” said Murray. He reached into his stuffed inside pocket, and became austere again. “Yes. Here you are. Original Thumbograph, and print—with signature of John Newnham Farnleigh as a boy, and date. In case there should be any doubt this is the original one I brought with me, I had photographs of it taken and deposited with the Commissioner of Police at Hamilton. Two letters from John Farnleigh, written to me in 1911: compare signatures with the signature on the thumb-print. Present thumb-print, taken last night, and my analysis of their points of agreement______”

  “Good. Good, very good,” said Welkyn.

  Page looked at Burrows, and he noticed that Burrows’s face was white. Nor had Page realized that the breaking of the long tension would have such an effect on their nerves.

  But he realized it when he looked round, and saw that Molly Farnleigh was in the room.

  She had come in unobserved, with Madeline Dane just behind her; she must have heard all of it. They all got up, with an awkward scraping of chairs.

  “They say you’re honest,” she said to Murray. “Is this true?”

  Murray bowed. “Madam, I am sorry.”

  “He was a cheat?”

  “He was a cheat who could have deceived nobody who had really known him.”

  “And now,” interposed Welkyn suavely, “perhaps it would be as well if Mr. Burrows and I were to have a talk—without prejudice, of course______”

  “One moment,” said Burrows with equal suavity. “This is still most irregular; and I may point out that I have seen nothing yet in the nature of proof. May I be allowed to examine those documents? Thank you. Next, Lady Farnleigh, I should like to speak with you alone.”

  Molly had a glazed, strained, puzzled look in her eyes.

  “Yes, that would be best,” she agreed. “Madeline has been telling me things.”

  Madeline put a hand soothingly on her arm, but she threw it off with a shake of her sturdy body. Madeline’s self-effacing blonde beauty was in contrast to the anger which blazed round Molly and seemed to darken everything away from her. Then, between Madeline and Burrows, Molly went out of the room. They heard Burrows’s shoes squeak.

  “God!” said Patrick Gore. “And now what have we got?”

  “If you’ll take it easy and listen to me, sir,” Elliot suggested grimly, “I’ll tell you.” His tone made both Gore and Welkyn look at him. “We’ve got an impostor who was somehow killed by that pool. Why or by whom we don’t know. We’ve got someone who stole a valueless Thumbograph,”—he held up the little book—“and later returned it. Presumably because the person knew it was valueless. We’ve got a housemaid, Betty, whom nobody had seen since noon; but who was found at four o’clock in the afternoon, half dead of fright, in the room above this library. Who or what frightened her we don’t know, or how the Thumbograph got into her hand. By the way, where is Dr. King now?”

  “Still with the unfortunate Betty, I believe,” said Gore. “But what then?”

  “Finally, we have some new evidence,” Elliot told him. He paused. “As you say, you have all been patiently repeating the stories you told last night. Now, Mr. Gore. In the account you gave of your movements at the time of the murder, were you telling the truth? Think before you answer. There is someone who contradicts your story.”

  Page had been waiting for it, wondering how long it would be before Elliot would brin
g it up.

  “Contradicts my story? Who contradicts it?” asked Gore sharply, and took the dead cigar out of his mouth.

  “Never mind that, if you please. Where were you when you heard the victim fall into the pool?”

  The other contemplated him with amusement. “I suppose you’ve got a witness. I was watching this ancient,” he indicated Murray, “through the window. It suddenly occurs to me that I have now no reason for keeping back the information any longer. Who saw me?”

  “You realize, sir, that if what you say is true this provides you with an alibi?”

  “Unfortunately as regards clearing me from suspicion, yes.”

  “Unfortunately?” Elliot froze up.

  “A bad joke, inspector. I beg your pardon.”

  “May I ask why you didn’t tell me this at first?”

  “You may. And in doing so you might ask what I saw through the window.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  Elliot was always careful to conceal his intelligence. A shade of exasperation passed over Gore’s face. “In words of one syllable, inspector, ever since I came into this house last night I suspected the presence of dirty work. This gentleman walked in.” He looked at Murray, and did not seem to know how to treat him. “He knew me. I knew he knew me. But he never spoke out.”

  “Well?”

  “What happened? I came round the side of the house—as you have so shrewdly discovered—possibly a minute or so before the murder.” He broke off. “By the way, have you determined that it was murder?”

  “Just one moment, please. Go on.”

  “I looked in here, and I saw Murray sitting with his back to me like a stuffed dummy, not even moving. Immediately afterwards I heard all the sounds we have so often heard, beginning with the choking noise and ending with the thrashings in water. I moved away from the window, over towards the left, and looked out to see what was happening in the garden. But I did not go nearer. At this time Burrows ran out from the house towards the pool. So I withdrew again, back towards the library windows. The alarm seemed to have gone up inside the house. And this time what did I see? I saw this distinguished, venerable gentleman,” again his curt nod indicated Murray, “carefully juggling two Thumbo graphs, guiltily putting one in his pocket and hastily putting the other on the table. . . .”

  Murray had been listening with critical interest.

  “So, so?” he observed, with an almost Teutonic inflection. “You thought I was working against you?” He seemed pleased.

  “Naturally. Working against me! As usual, you understate the case,” returned Gore. His face darkened. “So I did not care to tell where I had been. I reserved the knowledge of what I had seen for a shot in the locker in case dirty work had been attempted.”

  “Have you anything more to add to that?”

  “No, inspector, I think not. The rest of what I said was true. But may I ask who saw me?”

  “Knowles was standing at the window of the Green Room,” said Elliot, and the other began to whistle through his teeth. Then Elliot’s gaze moved from Gore to Murray to Welkyn. “Has any of you ever seen this before?”

  From his pocket he took a smaller section of newspaper, in which the stained clasp-knife had been carefully wrapped. He opened it and exhibited the knife.

  The expressions of Gore and Welkyn showed a general blankness. But Murray sucked in his bearded cheeks; he blinked at the exhibit and hitched his chair closer.

  “Where did you find this?” Murray asked briskly.

  “Near the scene of the crime. Do you recognize it?”

  “H’m. You have tested it for fingerprints? No. Ah, a pity,” said Murray, growing brisker and brisker. “Will you allow me to touch it if I handle it with the greatest circumspection? Correct me if I am wrong. But didn’t you, young Johnny”—he glanced at Gore—“use to have a knife exactly like this? Didn’t I present it to you, in fact? Didn’t you carry it for years?”

  “I certainly did. I always carry a pocket-knife,” admitted Gore, reaching into his pocket and producing an old knife only slightly smaller and lighter than the one before them. “But______”

  “For once,” interposed Welkyn, slapping his hand on the table, “for once and all I must insist on exercising the rights with which you, sir, have seen fit to endow me. Such questions are absurd and improper; and as your legal adviser I must tell you to disregard them. Such knives are as common as blackberries. I once had one myself.”

  “But what is wrong with the question?” asked Gore, puzzled. “I owned a knife like that. It went with the rest of my clothes and effects in the Titanic. But it seems absurd to suppose that the one here could be______”

  Before anybody could stop him, Murray had whipped a handkerchief out of his pocket, moistened it at his lips (a handkerchief in the mouth is one of the things which always set Page’s teeth on edge), and wiped clean a small section of the blade about halfway down. Into the cleared steel had been roughly cut letters forming the word

  Madeline.

  “It is yours, Johnny,” said Murray comfortably. “You put this name there one day when I took you through the stone-cutting works at Ilford.”

  “Madeline,” repeated Gore.

  Opening a pane of the window behind him, he threw out his cigar into the sodden trees. But Page saw his face reflected momentarily in the gloomy glass: it was a curious, set, indecipherable face, unlike the one of mockery with which Gore usually pointed out the difference between his moods and the world’s. He turned back.

  “But what about the knife? Are you suggesting that that poor, tortured, would-be-honest crook kept it about him all these years, and finally cut his throat with it by the pool? You seem to have determined that this is a case of murder; and yet—and yet______”

  He beat the flat of his hand slowly on his knee.

  “I’ll tell you what it is, gentlemen,” said Elliot, “it’s an absolutely impossible crime.”

  He detailed to them Knowles’s story. The interest exhibited by both Gore and Murray was in contrast to the evident disgust and bewilderment of Welkyn. When Elliot described the finding of the knife there was an uneasy movement through the group.

  “Alone, and yet murdered,” said Gore reflectively. He looked at Murray. “Magister, this is a matter after your own heart. I don’t seem to know you. Perhaps we have grown too far apart; but in the old days you would have hopped round the inspector, full of strange theories and bearded like the pard______”

  “I am no longer a fool, Johnny.”

  “Still, let us hear a theory. Any theory. So far, you are the only one who has been reticent about the whole affair.”

  “I second that motion,” observed Dr. Fell.

  Murray settled himself more comfortably, and began to wag his finger.

  “The exercise of pure logic,” he began, “is often comparable to working out immense sums in arithmetic and finding at the end that we have somewhere forgotten to carry one or multiply by two. Every one of a thousand figures and factors may be correct except that one; but the difference in the answer to the sum may be disconcerting. Therefore I do not put this forward as pure logic. I make a suggestion.—You know, inspector, that the coroner’s inquest is almost certainly going to call this suicide?”

  “Can’t say that, sir. Not necessarily,” declared Elliot. “A Thumbograph was stolen and then returned; a girl was nearly frightened to death______”

  “You know as well as I do,” said Murray, opening his eyes, “what verdict a coroner’s jury will return. It is remotely possible that the victim might have killed himself and flung the knife away; it is impossible that he should have been murdered. But I assume that it is murder.”

  “Heh,” said Dr. Fell, rubbing his hands. “Heh-heh-heh. And the suggestion?”

  “Assuming that it is murder,” said Murray, “I suggest that the victim was not, in fact, killed with the knife you have there. I suggest that the marks on his throat are more like the marks of fangs or claws.”

/>   Chapter Eleven

  “CLAWS?” REPEATED ELLIOT.

  “The term was fanciful,” said Murray, now so didactic that Page longed to administer a swift kick. “I do not necessarily mean literal claws. Shall I argue out my suggestion for you?”

  Elliot smiled. “Go right ahead. I don’t mind. And you may be surprised how much there is to argue.”

  “Put it like this,” said Murray in a startlingly ordinary tone. “Assuming that it was murder, and assuming that this knife was used to do it, one question bothers me badly. It is this. Why didn’t the murderer drop the knife into the pool afterwards?”

  The inspector still looked at him inquiringly.

  “Consider the circumstances. The person who killed this man had an almost perfect—er______”

  “Set-up?” suggested Gore, as the other groped.

  “It is a rotten word, Johnny; but it will do. Well. The murderer had an almost perfect set-up for suicide. Suppose he had cut this man’s throat and dropped the knife into the pool? Not one person would afterwards have doubted that it was suicide. This man, an impostor, was about to be unmasked: here would have seemed his way out. Even as things are you have difficulty in believing it was not suicide. With the knife in the pool it would have been a clear case. It would even take care of the matter of fingerprints: the water would have washed away any fingerprints which the dead man might have been assumed to have left on the knife.

  “Now, gentlemen, you can’t tell me that the murderer did not want this to be thought suicide. You can’t tell me any murderer ever wants that. If it can be managed, a fraudulent suicide is the best possible way out. Why wasn’t that knife dropped in the pool? The knife incriminates nobody—except the dead man, another indication of suicide and probably the reason why the murderer chose it. Yet instead the murderer takes it away and (if I follow you) thrusts it deep down into a hedge ten feet away from the the pool.”

  “Proving?” said Elliot.

  “No, no. Proving nothing.” Murray lifted his finger. “But suggesting a great deal. Now consider this behavior in relation to the crime. Do you believe old Knowles’s story?”