The Crooked Hinge Read online

  “It’s about the late Sir John Farnleigh, sir,” said Knowles. “He committed suicide. I saw him do it.”

  The long silence was broken only by the diminishing noise of the rain. Page heard the rustle of his own sleeve as he looked round to see whether they had hidden the stained clasp-knife; he did not want Madeline to see it. It was now concealed under the newspapers on the table. Inspector Elliot, seeming even more hard-boned, was staring steadily at the butler. From Dr. Fell’s direction there issued a faint ghost of a noise, like half-humming or half-whistling behind closed teeth; he has a habit of whistling thus at times, to the tune of ‘Auprès de ma Blonde,’ though he looked half asleep.

  “You—saw—him—do it?”

  “Yes, sir. I could have told you this morning; only you didn’t question me; and, frankly, I’m not sure I should have told you even then. It’s like this. I was standing at the window of the Green Room last night, the room just over the library, looking out into the garden, when it all happened. I saw everything.”

  (This, Page remembered, was true. When he had gone with Burrows to look at the body first, he had seen Knowles standing at the window of the room above the library.)

  “Anybody will tell you about my eyesight,” Knowles said warmly. Even his shoes squeaked with vehemence. “I’m seventy-four years old, and I can read a motor-car number plate at sixty yards. You just go out in the garden there, and you take a box or a sign or something with small letters—” He corrected himself, and sat back.

  “You saw Sir John Farnleigh cut his own throat?”

  “Yes, sir. As good as.”

  “ ‘As good as?’ What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean this, sir. I didn’t actually see him draw the—you know—because his back was towards me. But I saw him put his hands up. And there wasn’t a living soul near him. Remember, I was looking straight down on him and into the garden. I could see into that circular open space all round the pool; and there’s a good five-foot border of sand between the pool and the nearest hedge all round. Nobody could have come near him without my seeing. And he was all alone in that open space, I’ll tell you to my dying day.”

  Still the sleepy and tuneless whistling wheezed from Dr. Fell’s direction.

  “ ‘Tous les oiseaux du monde,’ ” muttered the doctor, “ ‘viennent y faire leurs nids—’ ” Then he spoke out. “Why should Sir John Farnleigh kill himself?”

  Knowles braced himself.

  “Because he wasn’t Sir John Farnleigh, sir. The other gentleman is. I knew it as soon as I clapped eyes on him last night.”

  Inspector Elliot remained impassive.

  “What reason have you for saying that?”

  “It’s hard to tell you so you’ll understand, sir,” Knowles complained. (For the first time in his life he showed a lack of tact.) “Now, I’m seventy-four. I wasn’t any chicken, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, when young Mr. Johnny went away from home in nineteen-twelve. You see, to old people like myself the younger ones never change. They always seem just the same, whether they’re fifteen or thirty or forty-five. Lord bless you, do you think I wouldn’t have recognized the real Mr. Johnny whenever I met him? Mind!” said Knowles, again forgetting himself and raising his finger. “I don’t say that when the late gentleman came here and pretended to be the new Sir John—I don’t say I twigged it. No. Not at all. I thought, Well, he’s different; he’s been to America, and you never know them after that; it’s only natural, and I’m getting old. So I never really suspected him of not being the right master, though I’m bound to admit that now and again he did say things that______”

  “But______”

  “Now, you’ll say,” continued Knowles, in real and blinding earnest, “I wasn’t at the Close in the old days. That’s true. I’ve been here only ten years, since Miss Molly asked the late Sir Dudley to offer me the honor. But, when I served Colonel Mardale, young Mr. Johnny used to spend a lot of time in the big orchard between the colonel’s and the major’s______”

  “The major’s?”

  “Major Dane, sir, Miss Madeline’s father; he was the colonel’s great friend. Well, young Mr. Johnny liked that orchard, with the wood behind it. That orchard is close to the Hanging Chart, you know—leads into it. He pretended he was a wizard, and a mediaeval knight, and I don’t know what; but some things I didn’t like at all. Anyway, I knew last night, even before he started asking me about rabbits and the like, that this new gentleman was the real Mr. Johnny. He knew I knew it. That’s why he had me called in. But what could I say?”

  Page remembered that interview only too well. But he remembered other things too, and wondered if Elliot had learned them. He glanced across at Madeline.

  Inspector Elliot opened his notebook.

  “So he killed himself. Eh?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you see the weapon he used?”

  “No, not properly, I’m afraid.”

  “I want you to tell me just exactly what you did see. For instance, you say you were in the ‘Green Room’ when it happened. When and why did you go there?”

  Knowles got his wits together.

  “Well, sir, it might have been two or three minutes before it happened______”

  “Twenty-seven or twenty-eight minutes past nine. Which?” asked Inspector Elliot, with a hard passion for accuracy.

  “I can’t say, sir. I didn’t take any account of the time. One of them. I was in the hall near the dining-room, in case I should be wanted, though there was nobody in the dining-room except Mr. Welkyn. Then Mr. Nathaniel Burrows came out of the drawing-room, and asked me where he could find an electric torch. I said I thought there was one in the Green Room upstairs, which the late—gentleman used as a kind of study, and I said I would go and fetch it for him. I have since learned,” Knowles was now giving evidence, as his diction showed, “that Mr. Burrows found one in the drawer of the table in the hall; but I had not known there was one there.”

  “Go on.”

  “I went upstairs and I went into the Green Room______”

  “Did you turn on the light?”

  “Not then,” said Knowles, a little flustered. “Not just at that moment. There is no wall-switch in the room. You must turn on the light from the ceiling-fixture. The table where I thought I had seen the electric torch is between the windows. I went towards that table, and when I went past I glanced out of the window.”

  “Which window?”

  “The right-hand one, facing out on the garden.”

  “Was the window open?”

  “Yes, sir. Now, here’s how it was. You must have noticed. There are trees all along the back of the library; but they’ve been pruned down so that they don’t cut off the view from the windows of the floor above. The ceilings at the Close are eighteen feet high, most of them—except the new wing, which is a little low doll’s house of a place—and that gives you a good height of tree without having them stretch up past the windows of the Green Room. That’s why it’s called the Green Room, because you look out over tree-tops. So you see I was high over the garden, looking down into it.”

  Here Knowles got up from his chair and craned himself forward. He had seldom executed this movement before, and it evidently gave him a twinge, but his grimness was such that he held the position while he talked.

  “Here I was, you see. Then there were the green leaves, lit up from underneath by the library windows.” He moved his hand. “Then there was the garden, with every hedge and path distinct, and the pool in the center. The light wasn’t bad, sir. I’ve seen them play tennis in worse. Then there was Sir John—or the gentleman who called himself that—standing by it with his hands in his pockets.”

  At this point Knowles had to leave off play-acting and sit down.

  “That’s all,” he said, with a slightly quicker breath.

  “That’s all?” repeated Inspector Elliot.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Elliot, pulled up at this unexpected conclusion, stared
at him.

  “But what happened, man? That’s what I’m trying to get you to tell me!”

  “Just that. I thought I heard a movement down in the trees under me, and I glanced down. When I looked up again______”

  “Are you going to tell me,” said Elliot very calmly and carefully, “that YOU didn’t see what happened either?”

  “No, sir. I saw him fall forward in the pool.”

  “Yes; but what else?”

  “Well, sir, there certainly wasn’t time for someone—you know what I mean, sir—to cut his throat three times and then run away. There couldn’t ’a’ been. He was alone every bit of the time, before and after. So he must have killed himself.”

  “What did he use to kill himself?”

  “A kind of knife, I think.”

  “You think. Did you see the knife?”

  “Not properly, no.”

  “Did you see it in his hand?”

  “Not properly. It was too far away to see that plain. Sir,” replied Knowles, remembering that he had a position in the world and drawing himself up with dignity, “I am trying to give you a true, so-help-me-God story of what I saw______”

  “Well, what did he do with the knife afterwards? Did he drop it? What happened to it?”

  “I didn’t notice, sir. I honestly didn’t. I was paying attention to him; and something seemed to be happening to the front of him.”

  “Could he have thrown the knife from him?”

  “He might. I don’t know.”

  “Would you have seen it if he had thrown it?”

  Knowles considered long. “That would depend on the size of the knife. And there are bats in that garden. And sometimes, sir, you can’t see a tennis-ball until it’s—” He was a very old man. His face grew clouded, and for a moment they were afraid he was going to cry. But he spoke again with dignity. “I am sorry, sir. If you don’t believe me, have I your permission to go?”

  “Oh, hang it all, it isn’t that—!” said Elliot, stung to youthful naturalness, and his ears grew slightly red. Madeline Dane, who had said not a word the whole time, was watching him with a faint smile.

  “Just one other point, for the time being,” Elliot went on stiffly. “If you had a good view of the whole garden, did you see anybody else in the garden at the time of the—attack?”

  “At the time it happened, sir? No. Immediately afterwards, though, I turned on the lights in the Green Room, and by that time there were a number of persons in the garden. But beforehand, at the time of the—excuse me, sir; yes, there was!” Again Knowles raised his finger and frowned. “There was somebody there when it happened. I saw him! You remember, I said I heard a noise down in the trees round the library windows?”

  “Yes; well?”

  “I looked down. That was what took away my attention. There was a gentleman down there, looking into the library windows. I could see plainly; because the branches of the trees, of course, don’t quite reach to the windows, and everything was all lighted up between, like a little alley between the trees and the windows. He was standing there looking into the library.”

  “Who was?”

  “The new gentleman, sir. The real Mr. Johnny that I used to know. The one who now calls himself Mr. Patrick Gore.”

  There was a silence.

  Elliot very carefully put down his pencil, and glanced across at Dr. Fell. The doctor had not moved; he would have seemed asleep if one little eye had not gleamed half-open.

  “Have I got this clear?” Elliot demanded. “At the same time as the attack, or suicide, or murder, or whatever-we-call-it, Mr. Patrick Gore was standing down there in your sight by the library windows?”

  “Yes, sir. Over to the left he stood, towards the south. That’s how I could see his face.”

  “Now, you’ll swear to that?”

  “Yes, sir, of course,” said Knowles, opening his eyes.

  “This was at the time of the various scuffling sounds, the splash, the fall, and so on?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Elliot nodded in a colorless way and leafed back through his notebook. “I should like to read you a part of Mr. Gore’s testimony dealing with that same time. Listen. ‘I was out on the front lawn first, smoking. Then I wandered round the side of the house to this garden. I did not hear any sounds except a splash, and I heard that very faintly. I think I heard this when I had just started round the side of the house.’ He goes on to say that he kept to the side paths along the south boundary.—Now, you tell us that, when the splash occurred, he was standing down underneath you looking into the library. His statement contradicts it.”

  “I can’t help what he says, sir,” answered Knowles helplessly. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. That’s what he was doing.”

  “But what did he do after you saw Sir John go into the pool?”

  “I can’t say that. I was looking towards the pool then.”

  Elliot hesitated, muttering to himself, and then glanced at Dr. Fell. “Any questions you’d like to ask, doctor?”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Fell.

  He bestirred himself, beaming on Madeline, who smiled back. Then he assumed an argumentative air as he beamed on Knowles.

  “There are several troublesome queries following your theory, my boy. Among them, if Patrick Gore is the real heir, the question of who stole the Thumbograph, and why. But let’s stick first to the vexed business of suicide v. murder.” He reflected. “Sir John Farnleigh—the dead man, I mean—he was right-handed, was he?”

  “Right-handed? Yes, sir.”

  “It was your impression that he had this knife in his right hand when he killed himself?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  “H’mf, yes. Now I want you to tell me what he did with his hands after this curious seizure by the pool. Never mind the knife! We’ll admit you didn’t properly see the knife. Just tell me what he did with his hands.”

  “Well, sir, he put them up to his throat—like this,” said Knowles, illustrating. “Then he moved a little, and then he lifted them up over his head and threw them out, like this.” Knowles made a large gesture, spreading his arms wide. “That was just before he went forward into the pool and began to writhe there.”

  “He didn’t cross his arms? He simply lifted them and threw them out one to each side? Is that it?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  Dr. Fell took his crutch-handled stick from the table and hoisted himself to his feet. Lumbering over to the table, he took up the newspaper packet, unfolded it, and showed Knowles the bloodstained clasp-knife inside.

  “The point is this,” he argued. “Farnleigh has the knife in his right hand, supposing this to be suicide. He makes no gestures except to fling both arms wide. Even if he were helping support the knife with his left hand, his right would have the grip on it. The knife flies from his right hand as the arm is thrown wide. Excellent well. But will someone explain how in blazes that knife completely altered its flight in the air, passed high over the pool, and dropped into the hedge some ten feet to the left? And all this, mind you, after he has just inflicted not one, but three fatal wounds on himself? It won’t do, you know.”

  Apparently oblivious to the fact that he was holding the newspaper with its grisly exhibit almost against Madeline’s cheek, Dr. Fell frowned at it. Then he looked at the butler.

  “On the other hand, how can we doubt this chap’s eyesight? He says Farnleigh was alone by the pool; and there is some confirmation. Nathaniel Burrows is inclined to agree that he was alone. Lady Farnleigh, who ran out on the balcony immediately after the splash, saw nobody by the pool or within reach of it. We shall have to take our choice. On the one hand we have a somewhat preposterous suicide; but on the other hand, unfortunately, we have a more than somewhat impossible murder. Will someone kindly oblige me with an idea?”

  Chapter Nine

  AS VIGOROUSLY AND EVEN violently as he had spoken, Dr. Fell had been talking to himself. He had not expected an answer, nor did he get one. For a time
he remained blinking at the book-shelves. He appeared to wake up when Knowles ventured a frightened cough.

  “I beg your pardon, sir; is that the—?” He nodded towards the knife.

  “We think so. It was found in a hedge to the left of the pool. How do you think it squares with suicide?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “Did you ever see this knife before?”

  “Not to my knowledge, sir.”

  “Or you, Miss Dane?”

  Though Madeline seemed startled and a little shocked, she shook her head quietly. Then she leaned forward. Page noted again how the breadth of her face, the slight breadth and bluntness of her nose, did not in the least detract from her beauty, but seemed to add to it. His mind was always searching for comparisons or images when he saw her; and he found in her something mediaeval, something in length of eye or fulness of lip, some inner spring of quietness, which suggested the rose-garden or the turret window. The sentimentality of the comparison must be excused, for he felt it and believed it.

  “I’m afraid, you know,” Madeline said almost pleadingly, “that I’ve no right to be here at all, and that I’m talking about things which do not concern me. And yet—well, I suppose I must.” She smiled at Knowles. “I wonder if you will wait for me in my car?”

  Knowles bowed and was gone—vague and troubled; and still the gray rain fell.

  “Yes,” said Dr. Fell, sitting down again and folding his hands over the top of his stick. “You were the one I wanted to ask the questions, Miss Dane. What do you think of Knowles’s views? About the real heir, I mean?”

  “Only that it’s much more difficult than you think.”

  “Do you believe what he says?”

  “Oh, he’s absolutely and completely sincere; you must have seen that. But he’s an old man. And, among the children, he was always most fanatically devoted first to Molly (her father, you know, saved Knowles’s mother’s life once), and next to young John Farnleigh. I remember he once made a conical wizard’s hat for John, out of cardboard painted blue, with silver-paper stars and whatnots. When this affair came up, he simply couldn’t tell Molly; he couldn’t. So he came to me. They all do—come to me, that is. And I try to do them what good I can.”