The Hollow Man Read online

  Hadley whistled.

  '- but it's a queer business, unless Mangan was stretching things. I know Boyd Mangan quite well; he lived on the other side for a couple of years. He's a damned good fellow who's knocked about the world a lot and has a too - Celtic imagination.' He paused, remembering Mangan's dark, slovenly, rather dissipated good looks; his slow - moving ways despite his excitable temperament; his quick generosity and homely grin. 'Anyhow, he's here in London working for the Evening Banner now. I ran into him this morning in the Haymarket. He dragged me into a bar and poured out the whole story. Then,' said Rampole, laying it on with a trowel, 'when he learned I knew the great Dr Fell -'

  'Rats,' said Hadley, looking at him in that sharp, watchful way of his. 'Get down to cases.'

  'Heh - heh - heh' said Dr Fell, highly delighted. 'Shut up, will you, Hadley? This sounds interesting, my boy. Well?'

  'Well, it seems that he's a great admirer of a lecturer or writer named Grimaud. Also he had fallen hard for Grimaud's daughter, and that makes him a still greater admirer of the old man. The old man and some of his friends have a habit of visiting a pub near the British Museum, and a few nights ago something happened which seems to have shaken up Mangan more than the antics of a casual lunatic would warrant. While the old man was talking about corpses getting up out of their graves, or some such cheerful subject, in walked a tall queer - looking bird who began babbling some nonsense about himself and his brother really being able to leave their graves and float in the air like straw.' (Here Hadley made a disgusted noise and relaxed his attention, but Dr Fell continued to look curiously at Rampole.) 'Actually, it seems to have been some sort of threat against this Professor Grimaud. At the end this stranger made a threat that his brother would call on Grimaud before long. The odd part was that, though Grimaud didn't turn a hair, Mangan swears he was actually scared green.'

  Hadley grunted. 'That's Bloomsbury for you. But what of it? Somebody with a scary old - womanish mind -'

  'That's the point,' growled Dr Fell, scowling. 'He isn't. I know Grimaud quite well. I say, Hadley, you don't know how queer it is unless you know Grimaud. H'mf. Ha. Go (on, son. How did it end?'

  'Grimaud didn't say anything. In fact he turned it into a joke and an anticlimax that punctured the lunacy pretty well. Just after this stranger had gone, a street musician came up against the door of the pub and struck up "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze". The whole crowd of them burst out laughing, and sanity was restored. Grimaud smiled and said, "Well, gentlemen, our revived corpse will have to be even nimbler than that if he expects to float down from my study window."

  'They dismissed it at that. But Mangan was curious to find out who this visitor, this "Pierre Fley", was. Fley had given Grimaud a card with the name of a theatre on it. So the next day Mangan followed it up in the guise of getting a newspaper story. The theatre turned out to be a rather broken - down and disreputable music - hall in the East End, staging nightly variety. Mangan didn't want to run into Fley. He got into talk with the stage - door keeper, who introduced him to an acrobat in the turn before Fley. This acrobat calls himself - Lord knows why - "Pagliacci the Great", although he's actually an Irishman and a shrewd one. He told Mangan what he knew.

  'Fley is known at the theatre as "Loony". They know nothing about him; he speaks to nobody and ducks out after every show. But - this is the point - he is good. The acrobat said he didn't understand why some West End manager hadn't tumbled to it long before, unless Fley was simply unambitious. It's a sort of super - conjuring, with a speciality in vanishing - tricks...'

  Hadley grunted again, derisively.

  'No,' insisted Rampole, 'so far as I can gather it isn't just the old, old stuff. Mangan says he works without an assistant, and that all his props together can go into a box the size of a coffin. If you know anything about magicians, you'll know what a whale of an incredible thing that is. In fact, the man seems hipped on the subject of coffins. Pagliacci the Great once asked him why, and got a jump he didn't expect. Fley turned round with a broad grin and said: "Three of us were once buried alive. Only one escaped!" Pagliacci said: "And how did you escape?" To which Fley answered, calmly, "I didn't, you see. I was one of the two who did not escape."'

  Hadley was tugging at the lobe of his ear. He was serious now.

  'Look here,' he said, rather uneasily, 'this may be a little more important than I'd thought. The fellow's crazy, right enough. If he's got any imaginary grudge - You say he's an alien? I might give the Home Office a call and have him looked up. Then, if he tries to make trouble for your friend -'

  'Has he tried to make trouble?' asked Dr Fell.

  Rampole shifted. 'Some sort of letter has come for Professor Grimaud in every post since Wednesday. He has torn 'em up without saying anything, but somebody told his daughter about the affair at the pub, and she has begun to worry. Finally, to cap the whole business, yesterday Grimaud himself began to act queerly.'

  'How?' asked Dr Fell. He took away the hand with which he had been shading his eyes. His little eyes blinked at Rampole in startling sharpness.

  'He phoned Mangan yesterday, and said: "I want you to be at the house on Saturday evening. Somebody threatens to pay me a visit." Naturally, Mangan advised warning the police, which Grimaud wouldn't hear of. Then Mangan said: "But hang it, sir, this fellow's stark mad and he may be dangerous. Aren't you going to take any precautions to defend yourself?" To which the professor answered: "Oh yes, by all means. I am going to buy a painting."'

  'A what?' demanded Hadley, sitting up.

  'A painting to hang on the wall. No, I'm not joking. It seems he did buy it: it was a landscape of some sort, weird business showing trees and gravestones, and a devil of a huge landscape that it took two workmen to carry it up - stairs. I say "devil of a landscape" advisedly; I haven't seen it. It was painted by an artist named Burnaby, who's a member of the club and an amateur criminologist ... Anyhow, that's Grimaud's idea of defending himself.'

  To Hadley, who was again eyeing him suspiciously, he repeated his words with some violence. They both turned to look at Dr Fell. The doctor sat wheezing over his double chins, his big mop of hair rumpled and his hands folded on his cane. He nodded, stared at the fire. When he spoke, the room seemed to grow less comfortable.

  'Have you got the address of the place, my boy?' he asked, in a colourless voice ... 'Good. Better warm up your car, Hadley.'

  'Yes, but look here -'

  'When an alleged lunatic threatens a sane man,' said Dr Fell, nodding again, 'then you may or may not be disturbed. But when a sane man begins to act exactly like the lunatic, then I know I'm jolly well disturbed. It may be nothing at all. But I don't like it.' Wheezing, he hoisted himself up. 'Come on, Hadley. We'll go and have a look at the place, even if we only cruise past.'

  A sharp wind bit through the narrow streets of the Adelphi; the snow had stopped. It lay white and unreal on the terrace, and in the Embankment gardens below. In the Strand, bright and deserted during the theatre hour, it was churned to dirty ruts. A clock said five minutes past ten as they turned up into Aldwych. Hadley sat quiet at the wheel, his collar turned up. At Dr Fell's roar for more speed, Hadley looked first at Rampole and then at the doctor piled into the rear seat.

  'This is a lot of nonsense, you know,' he snapped. 'And it's none of our business. Besides, if there has been a visitor, he's probably gone by now.'

  'I know,' said Dr Fell. 'That's what I'm afraid of.'

  The car shot into Southampton Row. Hadley kept hooting the horn as though to express his own feelings - but they gathered speed. The street was a bleak canyon, opening into the bleaker canyon of Russell Square. On the west side ran few foot - tracks and even fewer wheel - marks. If you know the telephone box at the north end, just after you pass Keppel Street, you will have seen the house opposite even if you have not noticed it. Rampole saw a plain, broad, three - storied front, the ground floor of stone blocks painted dun, and red brick above. Six steps led up to a big front door wi
th a brass - edged letter - slot and brass knob. Except for two windows glowing behind drawn blinds on the ground floor over the areaway, the whole place was dark. It seemed the most prosaic house in a prosaic neighbourhood. But it did not remain so.

  A blind was torn aside. One of the lighted windows went up with a bang just as they idled past. A figure climbed on the sill, outlined against the crackling blind, hesitated and leaped. The leap carried him far over beyond the spiked area rails. He struck the pavement on one leg, slipped in the snow, and pitched out across the kerb nearly under the wheels of the car.

  Hadley jammed on his brakes. He was out of the car as it skidded against the kerb, and had the man by the arm before the latter had got to his feet. But Rampole had caught a glimpse of the man's face in the headlights.

  'Mangan!' he said. 'What the devil -!'

  Mangan was without a hat or overcoat. His eyes glittered in the light like the glassy bits of snow streaking his arms and hands.

  'Who's that?' he demanded, hoarsely. 'No, no, I'm all right! Let go, damn it!' He yanked loose from Hadley and began to wipe his hands on his coat. 'Who - Ted! Listen. Get somebody. Come along yourself. Hurry! He locked us in - there was a shot upstairs; we just heard it. He'd locked us in, you see ...'

  Looking behind him, Rampole could see a woman's figure silhouetted against the window. Hadley cut through these incoherent words.

  'Steady on. Who locked you in?'

  'He did. Fley. He's still in there. We heard the shot, and the door's too thick to break. Well, are you coming on?'

  He was - already running for the front steps, with Hadley and Rampole after him. Neither of the latter had expected the front door to be unlocked, but it swung open when Mangan wrenched the knob. The high hallway inside was dark except for a lamp burning on a table far at the rear. Something seemed to be standing back there, looking at them, with a face more grotesque than any they might have imagined on Pierre Fley; and then Rampole saw it was only a suit of Japanese armour decked out in its devil mask. Mangan hurried to a door at the right, and turned the key that was in the lock. The door was opened from the inside by the girl whose silhouette they had seen at the window, but Mangan held her back with his arm extended. From upstairs they could hear a heavy banging noise.

  'It's all right, Boyd!' cried Rampole, feeling his heart rise in his throat. 'This is Superintendent Hadley - I told you about him. Where is it? What is it?'

  Mangan pointed at the staircase. 'Carry on. I'll take care of Rosette. He's still upstairs. He can't get out. For God's sake be careful!'

  He was reaching after a clumsy weapon on the wall as they went up thick - carpeted stairs. The floor above was dark and seemed deserted. But a light shone down from a niche in the staircase to the next floor, and the banging had changed to a series of thuds.

  'Dr Grimaud!' a voice was crying. 'Dr Grimaud! Answer me, will you?':

  Rampole had no time to analyse what seemed the exotic, thick atmosphere of this place. He hurried after Hadley up the second staircase, under an open archway at its top, and into a broad hallway which ran the breadth of the house instead of the length. It was panelled to the ceiling in oak, with three curtained windows in the long side of this oblong opposite the staircase, and its thick black carpet deadened every footstep. There were two doors - facing each other from the narrow ends of the oblong. The door far down at their left was open; the door at their right, only about ten feet from the staircase, remained closed despite the man who was beating on it with his fists.

  This man whirled round at their approach. Although there was no illumination in the hallway itself, a yellow light streamed through the arch from the niche on the staircase - from the stomach of a great brass Buddha in the niche - and they could see everything clearly. Full in the glow stood a breathless little man who was gesturing uncertainly. He had a big goblin - like shock of hair on his big head, and peered behind big spectacles.

  'Boyd?' he cried. ' Drayman? I say, is that you? Who's there?'

  'Police,' said Hadley, and strode past him as he jumped back.

  'You can't get in there,' said the little man, cracking the joints of his fingers. 'But we've got to get in. The door's locked on the inside. Somebody's in there with Grimaud. A gun went off - He won't answer. Where's Madame Dumont? Get Madame Dumont! That fellow's still in there, I tell you!'

  Hadley turned round snappishly.

  'Stop dancing and see if you can find a pair of pliers. The key's in the lock; we'll turn it from the outside. I want a pair of pliers. Have you got 'em?'

  'I - I really don't know where -'

  Hadley looked at Rampole. 'Hop down to the tool - box in my car. It's under the back seat. Get the smallest pliers you can find, and you might bring along a couple of heavy spanners. If this fellow is armed - '

  Rampole turned round to see Dr Fell emerge through the arch, wheezing heavily. The doctor did not speak, but his face was not so ruddy as before. Going downstairs three at a time, Rampole blundered for what seemed hours before he found the pliers. As he returned he could hear Mangan's voice behind the closed door in the downstairs room, and the hysterical tones of a girl.

  Hadley, still impassive, eased the pliers gently into the keyhole. His powerful hands clamped, and began to turn inwards the left.

  'There's something moving in there -' said the little man.

  'Got it,' said Hadley. 'Stand back!'

  He drew on a pair of gloves, braced himself, and threw the door inward. It flapped back against the wall with a crash that shook tinglings from the chandelier inside. Nothing came out, although something was trying to come out. Except for that, the bright room was empty. Something on which Rampole saw a good deal of blood, was painfully trying to drag itself on hands and knees across the black carpet. It choked, rolled over on its side, and lay still.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE FALSE FACE

  'STAY in the door, two of you,' Hadley said, curtly. 'And if anybody's got weak nerves, don't look.'

  Dr Fell lumbered in after him, and Rampole remained in the doorway with his arm extended across it. Professor Grimaud was heavy, but Hadley did not dare wrench. In that effort to crawl to the door there had been a haemorrhage which was not altogether internal, although Grimaud kept his teeth clenched against the blood. Hadley raised him up against one knee. His face had a bluish tinge under the mask of blackish - grey stubble; his eyes were closed and sunken; and he was still trying to press a sodden handkerchief to the bullet hole in his chest. They heard his breath sink thinly. Despite a draught, there was still a sharp mist of powder - smoke.

  'Dead?' muttered Dr Fell.

  'Dying,' said Hadley. 'See the colour? He got it through the lung.' He whirled round towards the little man in the doorway. ' Phone for an ambulance. Quick! There's not a chance, but he may be able to say something before -'

  'Yes,' said Dr Fell, with a kind of fierce sombreness; 'that's the thing we're most interested in, isn't it?'

  'If it's the only thing we can do,' Hadley answered, coolly, 'yes. Get me some sofa pillows from over there. Make him as comfortable as we can.' When Grimaud's head lolled on one pillow, Hadley bent close. 'Dr Grimaud! Dr Grimaud! Can you hear me?'

  The waxy eyelids fluttered. Grimaud's eyes, only half open, moved in a queer, helpless, puzzled way, like a small child's in a face that you would have described as 'knowing' or 'civilized'. He could not seem to understand what had happened. His glasses hung down on a cord from the dressing - gown; he made a weak twitching of his fingers as though he would try to raise them. His barrel chest still rose and fell slightly.

  'I am from the police, Dr Grimaud. Who did this? Don't try to answer if you can't. Nod your head. Was it the man Pierre Fley?'

  A faint look of comprehension was succeeded by an even more puzzled expression. Then distinctly Grimaud shook his head.

  'Who was it, then?'

  Grimaud was eager; too eager, for it defeated him. He spoke for the first and last time. His lips stuttered in those words w
hose interpretation, and even the exact wording itself, was so puzzling afterwards. Then he fainted.

  The window in the left - hand wall was a few inches up, and a chill draught blew through. Rampole shivered. What had been a brilliant man lay inert on a couple of pillows, spilled and torn like a sack; with something rattling like clockwork inside it to show that it lived, but no more. There was too much blood in the bright, quiet room.

  'My God!' Rampole said, uncontrollably, 'isn't there anything we can do?'

  Hadley was bitter. 'Nothing, except get to work. "Still in the house?" Fine lot of dummies! - oh, myself included.' He pointed to the partly open window. 'Of course the fellow was out of there before we were even inside the house. He certainly isn't here now.'

  Rampole looked round. The sharp tang of powder - smoke was blowing away, from his vision as well as from the room. He saw the place for the first time in focus.

  It was a room some fifteen feet square, with walls panelled in oak and thick black carpet on the floor. In the left - hand wall (as you stood at the door) was the window with its brown velvet draperies blowing. On either side of the window stretched high bookshelves with marble busts along the top. Just out from the window, so as to get the light from the left, stood a great flat - topped desk heavy in claw - footed carving. A padded chair was pushed back from it; at the extreme left was a lamp of mosaic glass, and a bronze ashtray over which a dead cigar had smouldered to long ash. The blotter, on which a closed calfskin book had been put down, was clean except for a tray of pens and a pile of note - slips held down by a curious little figure - a buffalo carved in yellow jade.