Hag's Nook

Chapter 11

"It isn't every day, you know," the doctor explained, apologetically, "that a man gets the opportunity to write the story of his own murder."

He looked round the circle, leaning heavily on one cane, his big left shoulder hunched high. The broad ribbon on his eyeglasses hung almost perpendicular to the floor. A wheezing pause….

"1 don't need to tell you that Timothy Starberth was a strange man. But I wonder if any of you appreciate just how strange? You knew his bitterness, his rather satanic humours, his exquisite appreciation of this sort of jest; in many respects — you'll agree-he was a throwback to old Anthony himself. But you possibly didn't think he would conceive of a thing like this.

"Like what?" asked the chief constable, in a curious voice. Dr. Fell raised his cane to point.

"Somebody murdered him," he answered. "Somebody killed him and left him in the Hag's Nook. In the Hag's Nook — remember that! The murderer thought he was dead. But he lived a good many hours after that. And there you have the point of the joke.

"He could have denounced the man who killed him, of course. But that would have been too easy, don't you see? Timothy didn't want him to get off so lightly. So he wrote out the whole story of his own murder. He arranged that it should be sealed up and put — where? In the safest place of all. Behind key-locks, and letter-locks, and (best of all) in a place where nobody would suspect it-in the vault of the Governor's Room.

"For two whole years, you see — until Martin's opening of that vault on his birthday — everybody should still think he died by accident. Everybody, that is, but the murderer. He would take pains to get the knowledge conveyed to the murderer that this document was there! There was the joke. For two years the murderer would be safe, and suffering the tortures of the damned. Every year every month, every day would narrow down the time when, inexorably, that story should come to light. Nothing could prevent it. It was like a death-sentence — slowly coming on. The murderer couldn't get at it. The only way he could have reached that damning paper would have been to blow the vault down with a charge of nitro-glycerin which would have taken the roof off the whole prison-not a very practical way out. It may sound feasible for a skilful cracksman, and in the city of Chicago; but it isn't very practical for an ordinary human being in an English village. Even in the doubtful event that you know something about cracking safes, you can't go playing about with burglar's tools and importing high explosives into Chatterham without exciting considerable comment. In simple terms, the murderer was powerless. So can you conceive of the exquisite agony he has undergone, as Timothy meant him to?"

Sir Benjamin, jarred thoroughly, shook his fist in the air.

"Man," he said, "you — you're-this is the insanest-! You've no evidence he was murdered! You―"

"Oh, yes I have," said Dr. Fell.

Sir Benjamin stared at him. Dorothy Starberth had risen, her hand making a gesture….

"But, look here," the chief constable said, doggedly, "if this crazy surmise is true — I say if it's true — why, then, two years… The murderer would just have run away, wouldn't he, and be beyond pursuit?"

"Thereby," said Dr. Fell, "admitting his guilt beyond all doubt, once the paper was found..Confession! That's what it would be. And wherever he went in the world, wherever he hid himself, he would always have that hellish thing hanging over him; and sooner or later they'd find him out. No, no. His only safe way, the only thing he could possibly do, was to stay here and try to lay hands on that accusation. If the very worst came, he could always deny it and try to fight it. In the meantime, there was always the dogged hope that he could destroy it before they knew." The doctor paused, and added in a lower voice:

"We know now that he has succeeded."

There were heavy footfalls on the polished floor. The noise fell so eerily into the dusky room they all looked up….

"Dr. Fell is quite right, Sir Benjamin," said the voice of the rector. "The late Mr. Starberth spoke to me before he died. He told me about the person who murdered him."

Saunders paused by the table. His large pink face was a blank. He spread out his hands and added, very slowly and simply

"God help me, gentlemen. I thought he was mad."

The silver chimes of the clock ran fluidly in the hall… "Ah," said Dr. Fell, nodding. "I rather thought he'd told you. You were supposed to pass the information on to the murderer. Did you?

"He asked me to speak to his family, but to nobody else.

I did that much, as I'd promised," said Saunders, pressing a hand over his eyes.

From the shadow of the great chair, in which she had sat down again, Dorothy said:

"That was the other thing I was afraid of. Yes, he told us.,'

"And you never mentioned it?" cried the chief constable, with abrupt shrillness. "You knew a man was murdered, and none of you-?"

There was no heartiness or smooth bumptiousness about Saunders now. He seemed to be trying to apply the rules of English sports, suddenly, to a dark and terrible thing; and he could not find their application. His hand groped.

"They tell you things," he said, with an effort, "and you don't know — you can't judge. You- “ Well, I tell you, I simply thought he was out of his head. It was incredible, more than incredible. It was something nobody would ever do, don't you see?" His baffled blue eyes moved round the group, and he tried to catch at something in the air. "It just isn't so!" he went on desperately. "Up until last night I couldn't believe it. And then suddenly I thought — what if it were true, after all? And maybe there was a murderer. And so I arranged to watch, with Dr. Fell and Mr. Rampole here, and now I know… I know. But I don't know what to do about it."

"Well, the rest of us do," snapped the chief constable. "You mean he told you the name of the person who killed him?"

"No. He only said — it was a member of his family."

Rampole's heart was beating heavily. He found himself wiping the palms of his hands on the knees of his trousers, as though he were trying to dislodge something from them. He knew now what had been on the rector's mind last night; and he remembered that puzzling, quick question, "Where is Herbert?" which Saunders had asked when Dorothy Starberth had phoned to say Martin had left the house. Saunders had explained it, rather lamely, by saying Herbert was a good man to have around in a pinch. But he explained it much better now….

And there was Dorothy, with her burnt-out eyes, and her small, wry, vacant smile, as one who says, "Oh, well!" And Dr. Fell poking at the floor with his stick. And Saunders looking into the sun as though he were trying to do a penance by staring it out of the sky. And Payne humped, drawn into his little grey shell. And Sir Benjamin looking wry-necked at them all, like a horse round the corner of its stall.

"Well," said the chief constable, in a matter-of-fact voice, "I suppose we shall have to send out the drag-net for Herbert, after all…."

Dr. Fell glanced up mildly.

"Isn't there something you've forgotten?" he enquired. "Forgotten?"

"For instance," the doctor said, thoughtfully, "you were questioning Payne a moment ago. Why not ask him what he knows about it? Somebody had to take Timothy's statement over to the vault in the Governor's Room, you know. Does he know what was in it?"

"Ah," said Sir Benjamin, jerked out of his thoughts. "Ah yes. Of course." He adjusted his pince-nez. "Well, Mr. Payne?"

Payne's fingers flicked to his chin. He coughed.

"It may be so. Personally-I think you're talking nonsense. If Starberth had done any such thing, I think he ought to have told me about it. I was the logical one to tell. Not you, Mr. Saunders. Not you. -It is perfectly true, however, that he gave me a sealed envelope, inscribed with his son's name, to take to the vault."

"That's what you meant, is it, when you said you had been there before?" asked Dr. Fell.

"It is. The whole proceeding was most irregular. But — the lawyer made gestures of discomfort, as though his cuffs were sliding down over his hands and impeding them — "but he was a dying man, and he said this envelope was vitally concerned with the ceremony the heir had to go through. Not knowing what was in the other document, I naturally could not judge. His death was sudden; there might have been things which he had left undone, and which must be done under the terms of my trust. So I accepted. I was the only one who could undertake the mission, of course; I had the keys."

"But he said no word about murder to you?"

"No. He only asked me to scribble a note testifying that he was in his right mind. He seemed so to me. The note he put into the envelope along with his manuscript, which I did not look at."

Dr. Fell brushed up the corners of his moustache, keeping on nodding in that monotonous toy-figure way.

"So this is the first time you have ever heard the suspicion mentioned?"

"It is."

"And when did you put the document in the steel box?"

"That night; the night of his death."

"Yes, yes," put in the chief constable, impatiently, "I can see all that. But we're off the subject. Hang it, look here! We've got a motive, right enough, as to why Herbert should have killed Martin. But why should Herbert have killed his uncle, at the start of the whole business? It's getting worse confused… And if he killed Martin, why did he run away? When he'd had to keep his nerve for two years, and kept it successfully, why did he cut along just when he was safe? And what's more-look here! — where was he going on his bicycle, down a back lane and with a bag packed, several hours before the murder? It doesn't look right, somehow…,"

He drew a deep breath, scowling.

"In any case, I shall have to get busy. Dr. Markley wants to hold the inquest tomorrow, and we'll let them decide… In the meantime, 1 had better have the number and description of that bicycle for a general alarm, Miss Starberth. I'm sorry. But it's necessary."

Sir Benjamin was clearly so bewildered that he wanted to break up the conference as soon as possible. You could see a whisky-and-soda in his eye even more clearly than any suspicions. They made their farewells rather awkwardly, with a tendency to bow to the wrong people. Rampole lagged behind at the door as Dorothy Starberth touched his sleeve.

If the questioning had strained her nerves, she did not show it. She was only thoughtful, like a sombre child. She said in a low voice:

"That paper I showed you the verses — we know now, don't we?"

"Yes. Directions of some kind. The heir was supposed to figure them out…:.

"But what for?" she asked, rather fiercely. "What for?"

One statement, made rather carelessly by the lawyer, had been at the back of Rampole's mind for some time. Something he had been groping for; it showed itself now, and asked a question.

"There were four keys―" he began, and glanced at her. "Yes."

"To the door of the Governor's Room. That's reasonable. To the vault, and to the box inside it; those three are natural enough. But — why a key to the iron door going out on the balcony? What would anybody need that one for? Unless those directions, rightly interpreted, would lead the person out on the balcony..:."

Back again crept the formless surmises in which Sir Benjamin had been indulging. Every indication pointed to that balcony. He was thinking of the ivy, and the stone balustrade, and the two depressions in the stone which Dr. Fell had discovered. A deathtrap….

Startled, he discovered that he had spoken aloud. He was aware of it by the quick look she turned on him, and he cursed himself for letting the words slip out. What he had said was:

"Herbert, they all say, was an inventor." "You believe that he-?"

"No! I don't know what I meant!"

She turned a pale face in the dimness of the hall. "Whoever did this killed father too. You all think so. And, listen! There was a reason. I know there was a reason now. And it's ghastly-and awful-and all that, but, O my God! I hope it's true!… Don't. stare at me like that. I'm not mad. Really."

Her low voice was growing a trifle thick, and she spoke as one who begins to see shapes in a mist. The dark blue eyes were eerie now.

"Listen. That paper-it gives directions for something. What? If father was killed, murdered by somebody — no curse, but deliberately murdered — what then?"

"I don't know."

"But I think I do. If father was murdered, he wasn't murdered for following out directions in those verses. But maybe somebody else had fathomed the verses. Maybe there's something hidden — something those verses have a clue to-and the murderer killed father because father had surprised him at work…!"

Rampole stared at her tense face, and her hand groping before her as though she touched a secret, lightly. He said':

"You're — you're not talking about anything so wild as buried treasure?"

She nodded. "I don't care about that… What I mean is, if that is true, don't you see, there isn't any curse — there isn't any madness-I'm not tainted, nor any of us. That's what 1 care about." In an even lower voice: "You've only got to wonder whether there's any horrible seed in your blood, and brood about it, to go through the worst hell”

He touched her hand. There was a pent-up silence, a sense of fears pattering in a dark room, and windows that needed to be opened to daylight.

"— that's why I say I hope to God it's true. My father is dead, and so is my brother, and that can't be helped now. But at least it was something clean; it was something you could understand, like an auto wreck. Do you see?"

"Yes. And we've got to find the secret of that cryptogram, if there is a secret. Will you let me have a copy?"

"Come back and copy it now, before the rest of them get away. I mustn't see you for a while…."

"But you can't — I mean, you've got to! We've got to see each other, if only for a few minutes-!"

She looked up slowly. "We can't. People would talk." Then, as he nodded blankly, she put out the palms of her hands as though she would put them against his breast, and went on in a strained voice: "Oh, do you think I don't want to as much as you? I do. More! But we can't. They'd talk. They'd say all sorts of horrible things, and that I was an unnatural sister, and maybe I am." She shivered.

"They always said I was a strange one, and I'm beginning to think it's true. I shouldn't be talking like this, with my 'brother just dead, but I'm human — I — Never mind! Please go and copy out that paper. I'll get it for you."

They said no more as they went down to the little office, where Rampole scribbled down the verses on the back of an envelope. When they returned to the hall everybody had disappeared except a shocked and open-eyed Budge, who passed them with an air of not having seen them at all.

"You see?" she enquired, lifting her eyebrows.

"I know. I'll go, and I won't try to see you until you give the word. But — do you mind if I show this thing to Dr. Fell? He'll keep it a secret. And you know from today how good he is at this sort of thing."

"Yes, show it to Dr. Fell. Do! I hadn't thought of that. But not to anybody else — please. And now you must hurry along… "

When she opened the great door for him, it seemed surprising to find the placid sunlight on the lawns as though this were only an English Sunday and no dead man lay upstairs. We are not touched so deeply by tragedy as we think. As he went down the drive to join his companions, he glanced back once over his shoulder. She was standing in the doorway, motionless, the breeze stirring her hair. He could hear doves in the tall elms, and sparrows bickering among the vines. Up on its white cupola, the gilt weather-vane had turned fiery against the noonday.