Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 49, No. 6. Whole No. 283, June 1967

Battle of Wits by Miriam Sharman

On November 15, 1965 we inaugurated a special short-story contest for members of CWA (Crime Writers Association of England). The contest closed on May 16, 1966.

Last month we gave you the winner of the First Prize — Christianna Brand’s “Twist for Twist.” This month we offer you two of the five Second Prize winners — Miriam Sharman’s “Battle of Wits” and Colin Watson’s “Return to Base.”

Miriam Sharman’s “Battle of Wits” has only one scene and two characters (a very important character is offstage). There is no action in the sense of chase — all the “movement” is in or directly outside a single room, as if it were a one-act play; and yet the story is packed with suspense, full of tantalizing and unexpected developments. You will feel as if you were sitting in the front row of a theater, just below the stage, on the edge of your seat, on ’tec tenterhooks, caught in a deadly and diabolical duel of wits...

As the dusk of a summer evening took its reluctant departure, the Headmaster drew the curtains across the French doors and switched on the lamp, angling the shaft of light onto his desk. The room, now framed in deep shadows, suited his mood of quiet contemplation — which was almost immediately shattered by the unexpected, unremitting ringing of the doorbell.

The visitor was a tall lean man in his late forties, wearing a loose lightweight coat. He was hatless, an informality that brought a frown to the Headmaster’s brow.

“You are Richard Lumsden?” the stranger asked.

At least, the Headmaster thought, the voice was that of an educated man. He nodded. “You wish to see me?”

The beam of light from the study signaled the way. The visitor entered, followed by the Headmaster, silently disapproving. They seated themselves at the desk, facing each other.

“You’re a parent of one of the boys here?” Lumsden asked politely. His eyes flickered with annoyance at the other’s silence. The man’s pale, narrow face was expressionless, his body taut. His air of remoteness was disturbing. “School business had better be left until my successor moves in,” the Headmaster said. “My authority here is at an end.”

“My name is Dean.”

“Dean.” Lumsden echoed the name, suddenly wary.

“Gregory Dean.”

“Ah, the actor!” Lumsden smiled. There was no answering smile, only the cold steady stare. Lumsden glanced toward the fireplace, then immediately regretted his instinctive reaction.

Dean was across the room in a moment, studying the framed photographs on the wall, one of which finally held his attention. He eased it off the wall with his gloved hands, brought it back to the desk, and thrust it at the Headmaster.

“The school Dramatic Society,” Lumsden murmured.

Dean jabbed at the face of a fourteen-year-old boy.

“A most distressing business,” the Headmaster said quietly. His relief at placing his visitor in context was lessened by the man’s odd behavior. Lumsden felt impelled to elaborate. “Among younger children, of course, it is not uncommon, this petty pilfering. They grow out of it. But with a boy of fourteen—” He shook his head regretfully. “And he had been warned several times.”

Dean maintained his unnerving silence. Lumsden felt the stirrings of anger. “If you have nothing to say, Mr. Dean, I must ask you to leave. I still have some odds and ends to clear up.”

In his determination to sound natural he explained rather too carefully. “I’m taking a leisurely tour abroad. No doubt to you the prospect of travel is not especially attractive. But I am looking forward to it. Yes, indeed, I have a carefully planned itinerary—

“I’m sure you have,” Dean interrupted curtly. “Everything according to plan. And at what stage did you plan to get rid of my boy?”

The Headmaster was taken aback by this frontal attack. “What are you talking about? Your boy is an incorrigible thief. It was unfair to the others to keep him here.” He added with a note of reproof, “I wrote and told you of my decision.”

“Your letter was forwarded to me in Belgrade. They put in my understudy. I flew back immediately.”

Lumsden was relieved at the more rational turn of the conversation. “Well,” he said mildly, “That was scarcely my responsibility.”

“Your responsibility was of a very different order. Why did you not ask me to come and take the boy away quietly, without making any fuss?” Dean’s voice trembled. “Why did you expel him before the whole school?”

Dean’s eyes, glittering now with hostility, forced the Headmaster to choose his next words carefully. “The boy had been given previous chances — indeed, some of the masters had intervened in his behalf on several occasions. And all to no avail.”

Lumsden felt his confidence returning. “His final act of defiance had to be dealt with firmly — for the boy’s own sake. I have run this school in my own way. If you disapproved of my methods you had a simple remedy — to remove the boy.”

“I wish to God I had.” The bitter passion in the words startled Lumsden. Dean continued more quietly, “But my mistakes as a parent do not exonerate you.”

“Come, come,” Lumsden said in a conciliatory tone. “But I stand by my judgment. I am in no need of exoneration.”

“In that last interview you had with my son,” Dean said harshly, “you had him at your mercy.”

The Headmaster shrugged. “A somewhat theatrical conception.”

Dean’s face hardened. “How many boys have you expelled from this school?”

“Not many,” Lumsden replied. “Only three in twelve years.”

“And how many publicly?”

“What do you mean — publicly?” the Headmaster countered. “To the assembled school? With the boy himself present? One.”

“And because I am a public figure it got into the newspapers.” Dean’s face was bleak. “You abused your power.”

The highly unsatisfactory interview had gone far enough for Lumsden. He spoke briskly, authoritatively. “If you are going to be offensive—” He stood up. “You must go — now. I have a few things to attend to before I leave for the airport.”

“You’re not going to the airport.” The gun in the gloved hand pointed unwaveringly at Lumsden’s head. “Sit down.”

Slowly, incredulously, the Headmaster lowered himself into his seat.

“What did you say to my son in that final interview?”

In spite of the gun Lumsden’s indignation spilled over. “Why don’t you ask him?”

There was a short pause. The Headmaster sensed the tremor that passed through the other man’s body. At the highest point of expectancy, with the timing of a good actor, Dean said, “I can’t ask him. He’s dead.”

Lumsden stared, shocked, at the gaunt white face. Dean’s bald statement seemed to have effected some kind of release. His words now flowed. “I have a small flat in London. I called there with my luggage just before coming here. And there was my son — hanging from the ceiling — dead.”

There was, then, reason to fear the gun, Lumsden thought. “Dreadful,” he murmured. “Poor boy, he must have felt his disgrace keenly.”

“You broke his spirit — do you hear me? — you broke his spirit!” Dean’s misery was almost palpable. “Useless at games — scholastic work not high — too sensitive, too interested in the Dramatic Society. You could have helped him, but but you preferred to crucify him!”

The Headmaster suddenly perceived the flaw. “Why haven’t the police been in touch with me?” he demanded.

“Because I haven’t told them,” Dean replied simply. “First things first. Why did you choose that particular moment and that particular manner of humiliating my son?”

Lumsden hesitated. “You think a gun will produce the answers you want to hear?”

“A trick question. The gun is for killing. You are going to kill yourself with it.”

Fear was at last threading its way into the Headmaster’s consciousness. “You can’t force me to kill myself.”

“Obviously I shall have to do the actual shooting — but the verdict will be suicide.”

“If you murder me, you will be caught.”

Dean shook his head. “Mistakes come from taking too many precautions. I have concentrated on only the basic ones. Nobody saw me arrive and nobody will see me leave. It is very quiet round here. I came in a very ordinary car and parked it among several other ordinary cars, about half a mile away.”

“But you will be an obvious suspect because you have motive.”

“You admit that!” Dean’s reply was like an explosion.

Lumsden frowned at his slip. “The motive is irrational,” he explained, “but it would make you their first suspect.”

“Suspicion is one thing, proof another. I’ve been over all that in my mind.” He sounded a warning note. “You have no monopoly on reason or logic.”

“Believe me,” the Headmaster spoke feelingly. “I do not underestimate you for one moment, but I must draw your attention to the weaknesses of your position. If you think that all you have to do is shoot me and put the gun in my hand—” He broke off. The beginnings of an idea stirred in his mind. “Why sit here and discuss it?”

Dean’s reply came almost eagerly. “Because I respect your mind, with its trained thinking capacity. You have only to convince me that I cannot succeed — and you will be safe.”

“I don’t possess a gun,” Lumsden pointed out quickly.

“It’s an old service revolver, untraceable. You came across it in your final clearing up.”

“And how do you propose to establish that?” the Headmaster queried.

“No need to try. That’s the sort t of perfectionism that leads to mistakes.” The faint smile actually held a touch of amusement. “You and I won’t be present to hear it, but I’ll wager somebody will remember having glimpsed the gun — the power of suggestion is very strong.”

“The inference of suicide may come readily to the police,” Lumsden said, “but it will be challenged by all who know me. Using a gun would simply not occur to me — it’s out of character.”

“If you had a choice, perhaps. But there was the weapon to hand — quick, clean, a man’s way.” Dean paused and his next words came harshly. “Not like hanging. A quick death for you.” His voice rose. “Not like my son’s — my desperate, distracted son.”

That anguish was suspect, Lumsden thought, as if Dean had remembered a line from a play. The conversation must be restored to a rational basis.

“I am the last person in the world to take my own life,” the Headmaster said quietly, “especially today, my last day as head of this school. You are a man of imagination. Can’t you hear what my colleagues and friends will say? ‘He had planned a long tour abroad to which he was looking forward with great enthusiasm. He had the respect of his pupils and his staff. It is inconceivable that, at the close of a distinguished career, he would kill himself.’”

Lumsden had warmed up to this picture of himself. Dean’s smile of disdain failed to halt him. “‘He was enjoying the knowledge of a job well done, of a successful career. He had been dedicated to his work, seeing it not as a job but as a fulfillment. He left the school with its prestige higher than at any time in its history.’”

Dean’s expression was thoughtful, but the gun did not waver. He took his time before replying. “Take those same points and turn them upside down.”

“Ah.” Lumsden leaned forward as if enjoying the cut and thrust of the duel. Dean’s response was to tighten his finger on the trigger and aim the gun more carefully. The Headmaster withdrew to his former distance across the table.

“The boys and the staff left here before noon today,” Dean said. “That’s common practice on the last day of a term. Yet you arranged to spend the rest of your last day alone.”

“I had a great deal of clearing up to do,” Lumsden said sharply.

Dean shook his head. “Surrendering yourself to memories, deeply moved by the good wishes and gifts of your colleagues and your pupils — a somewhat sentimental indulgence for a man like you. And so, as dusk approached, a sense of desolation swept over you. Years of loneliness lay ahead. You are a widower, without family, with few intimate friends. It was a mistake to have devoted yourself so exclusively to your work, to have had so few outside interests.”

Dean’s voice throbbed a little as he went on, “As these last minutes, amid the surroundings you loved so much, closed in, the realization swept over you that the future was without savor, that life had lost its meaning — and the gun was temptingly at hand.”

Lumsden broke the spell. “It’s weak. How can anyone guess what goes on in the mind of a suicide? Your boy, for instance—” His provocation was deliberate. “You are very quick to assume that it was his expulsion—”

Dean stood up suddenly, but the gun remained steady. “He left a note,” he said softly. “Like all reliable suicides, he left a note, expressing his sorrow for having let me down. He mentioned your big scene with him and how you had made him feel there was no place for him — anywhere. I destroyed the note because I wanted to play down his expulsion.” He paused. “You, too, are going to leave a note.”

“You intend to forge my handwriting?” the Headmaster asked warily.

“You must know I wouldn’t be as stupid as that. You will write the note yourself.”

“You cannot force me to do that,” Lumsden said firmly. “Even at the point of a gun.”

It was as if his prayer had been answered. Now that he felt on the verge of victory he experienced an inner thrill of exhilaration.

Dean walked cautiously round the desk, taking up his position alongside the Headmaster. He gave his orders in a commanding voice. “Pull that pad towards you. Pick up that pen.”

If the scheme now in his mind failed, Lumsden warned himself, he was a dead man. He made no move to touch the pen or the pad. Dean seemed not surprised. He placed the pad in front of the Headmaster and with his gloved hand picked up the pen which he then used to punctuate his words.

“Even in your despair, your language must be somewhat literary.” Dean pondered for a few moments. “‘I thought to welcome the quiet years ahead. I thought to savor a sense of fulfillment. Instead, I find the prospect bleak and empty. I prefer to cut it short.’” Dean paused. “That’s not bad.”

Lumsden shook his head. “Not my style — much too emotional.”

“You are not yourself. There must be an indication of deep disturbance.”

“They won’t... believe it,” Lumsden said, with a deliberate hesitation.

“The police can only go on the evidence, and all the evidence will point to suicide. Why should they look for any other explanation?”

The Headmaster slumped dejectedly into his chair. Dean looked down on him with grim satisfaction. He thrust the pen forward. “Write as I dictate. Write!”

Lumsden let his words come out angrily. “Why should I? If I write this note you will kill me.”

Dean looked at his watch. “There’s not much time left. The scene has gone on too long.” He pressed the gun to Lumsden’s right temple. At the touch of the cold metal on his flesh the Headmaster shuddered.

“It’s a psychological impossibility,” Dean pursued relentlessly, “to reject even a few minutes more of life. You will write because you feel the touch of death, because — who knows? — the time it takes you to write that note might be vital to you. Something could happen to save you — a ring at the door...”

He paused with theatrical timing and it was as if both men were suspended, expecting just such a thing to happen. But there was utter silence.

With apparent hopelessness, as Dean’s finger curled round the trigger, the Headmaster slowly accepted the pen which was thrust into his right hand. Dean sighed as Lumsden wrote the dictated farewell.

“That’s good,” Dean murmured, “that unsteady handwriting indicates a man in a highly emotional state.”

The Headmaster, keyed up to the crucial moment, put down the pen.

“There,” said Dean pleasantly. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?” He tore off the sheet bearing the farewell message and laid it alongside the pad.

Now, thought Lumsden. With quick, controlled movement he picked up the pen with his left hand and rewrote the farewell note on the fresh top sheet.

Dean, perplexed, tense, stood watching. His eyes flickered warily. “So,” he said. “Something I didn’t think of — you’re left-handed.” But he sounded doubtful.

With his right hand Lumsden tore off the top sheet and placed the two suicide notes side by side in front of him. Dean looked carefully first at one, then the other.

“That’s the one,” he pointed. “The left-handed one.”

It had started to work, the Headmaster thought, his scheme had started to work. “How can you tell?” he asked, keeping all triumph out of his voice. “Both notes are legible.”

“You’re bluffing,” Dean said quickly. “You’re right-handed. If you’d been left-handed, I’d have noticed.”

“There was nothing for you to notice. I haven’t used either hand since I planned this piece of mystification.”

Dean peered into the shadowy corners of the study.

“You’ll get no help from this room,” Lumsden said. “All my personal papers are already in storage. Only the clothes I need for my trip and some of my books are here. Even the labels on those suitcases in the corner were typed by my secretary. There is not a single specimen of my handwriting in this room.”

He had difficulty in controlling his exultation at taking over the initiative.

“This trick hasn’t saved you.” Dean sounded confident. “When I’ve killed you, I’ll have time to search the room. I’ll find something to—”

The Headmaster interrupted. “You want to check these drawers?” He indicated the desk.

“You’d like me to give you a chance to grab this gun.”

“I’ve no use for weapons of violence,” Lumsden said severely. “I’m fighting you with my intellect, and my intellect has pointed out the serious flaw in your juvenile plan of vengeance.”

There was just a hint of desperation in Dean’s voice. “The main thing is, I’ve got the note. When you’re dead I’ll use the one I think best.” His gloved finger curled round the trigger.

Lumsden braced himself. “Are you quite sure?” he asked grimly, “that you’re in the right position for the kill?” He did not dare make any sudden movement. “If you don’t know for certain,” he went on with deliberation, “whether I’m right- or left-handed, how can you know which side to shoot from?”

There was no reply from Dean. Then, after an eternity, the Headmaster knew the gun had been lowered. He waited a few seconds before cautiously turning his head, raising his eyes to glimpse Dean’s face. It looked so different from the face of the man who had sat opposite him that he almost exclaimed aloud. The face had become a mask of total weariness.

Lumsden watched, fascinated, as Dean, the gun now dangling from his hand, walked slowly round the desk, sat down, and leaned forward slightly as if needing support; his body was crumpling visibly.

The Headmaster seasoned his relief with warnings of caution. His superior intellectual power had triumphed, but Dean’s hand still hovered near the gun on the desk in front of him.

“Tomorrow,” Lumsden murmured, “you will be grateful to me — grateful that you did not commit the ultimate crime.”

He had the impression that Dean did not even hear these sympathetic words, that in some odd sort of way Dean was beyond communication.

Lumsden raised his voice as if to penetrate the barrier. “I am not a vindictive man, so I shall make no charge. I don’t want my traveling plans disrupted by police inquiries.”

He glanced at his watch. He had less than twenty minutes in which to get rid of his unwelcome visitor — and the sooner the better, before he inadvertently revealed whether he was right-handed or left-handed.

Dean’s deep sigh seemed to come from another world.

“Please—” His voice was little more than a croak as he indicated the carafe of water. “A drink?”

Lumsden just prevented himself from reaching for the glass. “Help yourself,” he said shortly.

The water revived Dean a little, but his eyes were puzzled as he peered round the room. Lumsden could even feel a twinge of pity for the man.

“You must go now, Mr. Dean. I promise you will near no more of this.” He eased himself effortlessly into his thinking habits. “Try to see your son’s death in the whole. There’s no saying what further sorrow he might have caused you. The seeds of delinquency were in him.”

Wrapped up in his own vindication, Lumsden’s voice was persuasive. “I knew all about him, you see — his unwholesome devotion to one of the masters and to Bowen, the Head Boy. We have to be on the alert for things of that sort in a boys’ school. I let him know what I suspected, and naturally I could not tolerate a new Headmaster inheriting a situation in the least doubtful. So I made an example—” He stopped suddenly. He had let himself be carried away. Had he said too much?

It was Dean who eventually broke the silence. “Forgive me,” he said apologetically. “I haven’t really taken in all that. It made no sense to me, but I hesitated to interrupt you.”

Lumsden swallowed his astonishment as the other man again looked round the shadowy room.

“Before I try to explain, would you make a telephone call for me?” Dean asked.

Lumsden stiffened. “That is asking rather a lot,” he replied sharply.

“It is important.” The visitor was almost pleading. “May I make it myself?”

The Headmaster nodded. The other man drew the telephone toward him, his lower arm resting on the gun. He seemed not to notice this — indeed, he seemed not to notice anything, to be troubled, diffident, drained of all emotion.

“St. Andrew’s Hospital?” His voice was weary. “Dr. Boyce, please... George Denham.” He kept his eyes lowered.

“St. Andrews, the private mental hospital?” Lumsden asked the question, already anticipating the answer.

His visitor nodded. He spoke into the receiver. “Dr. Boyce. Yes, it is. Please send quickly.” He raised his eyes to Lumsden. “What is this place?”

“Michelson’s School, Parkway.”

The visitor repeated the name and address into the phone, then hung up. “I’m a patient there,” he said. “Have been for nearly two years.”

“Schizophrenia?” Lumsden queried cautiously.

The other shrugged. “That’s the label. How long will it take a car to get here from St. Andrew’s?”

“Ten to fifteen minutes.”

Lumsden tried to tidy up his disordered thoughts. “I’ll have a word with the doctor when he calls for you,” he said sympathetically.

“They send a male nurse with the driver — the doctor doesn’t come himself.”

Lumsden raised an eyebrow. “It’s happened to you before? — this sort of thing, I mean.”

“Three times — no, four.” He sounded indifferent. “I can’t remember.” As he leaned back wearily in his chair he noticed the gun on the desk. “I... I brought this — did I?” he stammered.

“You threatened me with it.” Much as the Headmaster would have liked to take possession of the gun, he felt he must not yet make any obvious movement with either hand.

“Nonviolent,” the visitor murmured, “up till now. This is the first time...” His voice trailed off in despair.

“Don’t give up hope,” Lumsden said. “Medical science is making remarkable strides these days. What did you do for a living, Mr.—?”

“Denham — George Denham.” He stirred restlessly, looked at his watch, strained his ears for the sound of a car. “Why are you so interested in me?”

“You came here impersonating the father of one of my boys and you were determined to kill me for some imaginary grievance. Don’t you remember something of that?”

“No, nothing.” His voice sounded hopeless. He gripped his head between his hands. “Let me try. I can remember having tea in the dining room — bread and butter and fruitcake. Then I was one of the first in the lounge, so I got a comfortable chair.” He slowed down with the intensified effort at concentration. “I picked up a newspaper — the Chronicle, I think it was. I started to read it.” With a sigh he gave up. “Nothing after that — nothing.”

Lumsden longed to believe him and thus restore young Dean to life. “When you found yourself sitting here,” he asked, “at what moment did you cease to be the obsessed parent and become the wandering hospital patient?”

“It isn’t like that — not like a photographic shutter, one minute open, the next moment closed. There’s a sort of no man’s land.”

“Where could you get a gun?”

“I don’t know.” The visitor took a wallet from his inside pocket, extracted some banknotes. “I could have bought it, I suppose — I should have more money than this.”

Lumsden, nearly convinced that George Denham was genuine, asked the key question. “How did you know young Dean had been expelled?”

“Expelled? Poor kid—”

Lumsden mustered all his quiet authority. “How did you know to come here? That’s the crux of it. You’re faking, you must be!”

The visitor blinked. He seemed more confused than intimidated. “I... I—” He began to go through his coat pockets, bringing out a freshly laundered handkerchief and a newspaper clipping.

It took a tremendous effort of will on the Headmaster’s part not to reach for the handkerchief. The visitor pushed it across the desk.

“Initials, G.D. George Denham.”

“Or Gregory Dean,” Lumsden said abruptly.

The visitor shrugged as if everything was now beyond him. He looked at his watch. “They should be here,” he muttered.

“You must have some means of identification on you,” Lumsden insisted.

“I expect so.” The visitor gave this a moment’s thought as he was about to stuff the newspaper clipping back into his pocket. Something in it caught his eye. He held the paper out to Lumsden who, still on his guard, took it with both hands.

Lumsden’s suspicions flooded back. “There’s nothing here about the boy’s suicide,” he said sharply.

“Suicide?” The visitor’s shocked expression was almost immediately replaced by pity. “You mustn’t blame yourself,” he said compassionately.

“How could you have invented the suicide and the note?” Lumsden desperately wanted the reassurance that young Dean was still alive, that there would be no inquest to upset his future plans.

The visitor licked his dry lips. His face twitched. “I... I did that? I caused you such pain?” He sighed. “I identify very, very intensively with the personalities I assume. Something starts me off — this time, possibly, the same initials...” Suddenly he stood up. “There it is — the car.” His movements were hurried now.

Lumsden decided on a final challenge. “I’ll come with you to the hospital and have a word with the doctor.”

“Yes, yes, do that... if you wish.”

The Headmaster hesitated. If he went to the hospital now, he would have to reorganize all his travel arrangements, a difficult thing to do at this time of year. The man had surely established his identity.

“You’re not coming?” The visitor was already in the hall. “You’ll get in touch with the hospital?”

“Yes. When I return from abroad.” Through the open study door the Headmaster watched him leave. He thought he heard the faint sound of a car. What was it the visitor had said about the power of suggestion?

Suddenly Lumsden realized he was trembling and soaked in perspiration. He found some brandy in a cupboard. It restored him to near normality. Something glinting on the carpet near the desk caught his eye. He picked it up. It was a few seconds before he recognized it — a stick of grease paint.

He found the telephone number in the directory. “St. Andrew’s? Dr. Boyce. It’s urgent.”

The reply came crisply. “Are you sure you have the right number? No doctor of that name here.”

“A patient, then,” Lumsden almost shouted, “named George Denham.” He kept the receiver to his ear. His glance fell on the ridiculous suicide notes. The newspaper clipping still lay on the desk.

The gun? Where was the gun?

“No patient of that name,” the crisp voice announced.

Lumsden slammed down the receiver. At the same moment his eyes were drawn to the curtains across the French doors. One gloved hand was parting them, the other was holding the gun.

It was clear to Lumsden that Dean, from that vantage point, had watched him pour a drink, pick up the grease paint, use the directory, make a phone call — all with his right hand!

And now Dean was moving purposefully round the desk into the right position — for the kill.