Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 56, No. 2. Whole No. 321, August 1970

In a Country Churchyard by Robert L. Fish[9]

Robert L. Fish has many strings to his criminous bow. Readers of EQMM are apt to think of him almost exclusively as the creator of Schlock Homes, as a penning, panning, punning parodist, with a chuckle and sometimes a guffaw in every other paragraph. But Mr. Fish has his serious side — one might even say, his gloomy side. Here is the brightly glimmering Fish in late-Victorian England, but offering us a totally different kind of “period piece” — about murder and conscience, evil and dread…

“The Curfew tolls the knell of parting day” and “The paths of glory lead but to” — you know whither…

It was on the return trip from the churchyard cemetery that Martin Blackburn felt the first indication of nervousness. As husband of the deceased he rode in the carriage immediately behind the now-empty hearse, and as he sat rigidly on the edge of the seat and stared out of the streaked window at the bleak Northumberland sky, a tremor swept through his body.

He was a tall, gaunt man in his early forties. The taut skin that stretched over the sharp-boned face gave him a skeletal appearance, and the long, thin fingers of his large hands enhanced this imagery. His forehead was high and slightly bulging, and his small ears lay flat against his head, completing the picture of a drawn skull. Only his eyes, sharp and piercing, gave a touch of animation to his face. The black of his costume was quite usual for him, and the occasion had required no change in his normal Sunday attire beyond a funeral band sewn about the sleeve of his greatcoat. All the neighbours and the few families working on his farm had always stood in awe of his aloof figure, for by nature he was neither friendly nor communicative. Now, alone in the dim, heaving carriage he braced himself against the hard seat and re-lived the past month…

It had actually been surprisingly easy. Loretta’s illness had been quite natural in its inception; in fact, it was not until she had been forced to remain in bed for a second week that the possibility of actively arranging her death had even occurred to him. Of course, the idea of her dying and the idea of his subsequently inheriting the large farm and her larger personal income had, on occasion, presented itself to him; for his unattractive and shrewish wife had never relinquished her control over the dowry she had brought to their barren marriage.

But the thought of murder to accomplish these desired ends had only suggested itself since the second week. Then all the details had sprung to mind with such remarkable clarity that he could almost convince himself he was simply an instrument, an agent, directed by forces beyond himself, for Loretta’s deserved removal from this vale of life.

He had never been affectionate, either during courting days or after marriage, and he did not make the mistake of changing his ways once his plans were completed. The doctor, for one thing, was far from a fool; nor was Mrs. Crimmins, their housekeeper. He continued to visit his wife’s room with the same regularity — as well as the same air of distaste — and to ask the same questions of her, the housekeeper, and the doctor.

His routine for handling the farm was rigorously maintained, and by every carefully calculated action he appeared to be the same man, irritated as he would naturally be by the inconvenience of illness in the house, but expecting that sooner or later his wife would get up from the sickbed and resume responsibilities.

But behind this facade of normality the details of the murder were being carefully decided upon. Loretta Blackburn had never been too strong; her heart, while not sufficiently weak to cause either herself or her doctor any immediate anxiety, had still required constant medication. Her illness had begun as a simple catarrh and had been aggravated by the damp weather and the poor location of the fireplaces their farmhouse afforded. Her doctor had warned Blackburn of the danger of lung fever and the attendant possibility of a further weakening of her heart; but Blackburn had no intention of depending upon a kindly Fate to resolve his problem.

A small kettle lit by an alcohol-spirit lamp stood by the patient’s bed-side, and each evening Loretta propped herself up complainingly upon the pillows of the great four-poster and inhaled the fumes of a benzoine preparation to clear her head. The murder plan reduced itself to the utmost simplicity: to add to the benzoine solution a small quantity of sulphuric acid and the tiniest of cyanide pellets, and to allow the fumes of this potent concoction to kill his wife.

The mechanics of administration were given particular consideration, for Martin Blackburn had no wish inadvertently to join his wife in death. The odor would, he was sure, be disguised by the sharp aroma of the benzoine itself in a strengthened solution, and a thorough airing of the room would strengthen the appearance of innocent surroundings.

And it had all worked perfectly. He began by taking over the housekeeper’s daily task of preparing the benzoine solution. It was done subtly, grudgingly, on the basis that Mrs. Crimmins was using the task as an excuse for shirking her other duties, and the housekeeper was pleased to be relieved of any duty, since the illness of Mrs. Blackburn had thrown the entire burden of the household upon her.

On the evening of the fourth day after Blackburn had assumed the extra sick-room responsibility, he deemed the time ripe, for the crisis had passed and his wife was showing signs of improvement, and the regular visit of the doctor fell on the following day. To the usual preparation he added the acid, and at the last moment slipped in the tiny pellet. Holding his breath tightly, he pressed the cone to his wife’s thin and unattractive face. The response to the gas was almost immediate; still holding his breath, he swiftly flung the contents of the flask into the darkness beyond the open window, leaning out into the brisk breeze that swept past.

When his aching lungs could no longer stand the pain of their confinement, he cautiously allowed a breath of night air to filter into his lungs, and then stood inhaling for several minutes. He then softly closed the window, added a scuttle of coals to the fire to remove the unusual chill, returned to the bed-side, and rapidly prepared a harmless solution.

His fear of detection was slight; the odor was almost indistinguishable, and throughout he had heard the constant rattling of dishes as Mrs. Crimmins finished her work in the kitchen below. Steadying himself against, one of the bed-posts, he called to the housekeeper, his voice tinged with an edge of panic that was far from pretence.

And that had been all. The hastily-summoned doctor may have been a bit puzzled by the suddenness of death, but if so, his wonder did not extend to any suspicious questions. The death-certificate had been duly signed, with heart-seizure given as the immediate cause. Blackburn had been careful to avoid the error of being too obviously overcome with grief; the relationship between his wife and himself had never been anything but poorly-disguised enmity, and that fact was known to everyone in the village. Sad, sober in his mourning, he had made the necessary arrangements for burial in the country churchyard and carried them through.

His crowning stroke was to hide both the bottle of acid and the box of cyanide pellets beneath the cerements in those moments he had requested to be alone with his wife before the coffin-lid was screwed down…

Yes, it had been so easy! He felt the tremor return and gripped his knee with his free hand, fighting down a momentary panic that he knew was truly unfounded. There could be no questions; there had been no slips. A laugh of successful attainment welled within him, replacing the panic; a wide grin, part relief and part hysteria, twisted his lips. And at that moment the wrinkled face of one of the walking mourners bobbed up beside the carriage window, peering curiously in at him.

The horrible smile froze on his lips. Idiot! he cried to himself, recoiling into the deeper shadows of the rocking vehicle. Fool, fool! Control yourself! To be observed laughing at a time like this!

A lurch of the carriage and the hobbling figure had disappeared into the gloom behind. The dark moor swayed past as he slowly regained control, but he was certain there must already be whispering groups in the rutted road behind, marking and discussing his idiotic grin…

In the days that followed, Martin Blackburn watched anxiously for any sign that his suspicious demeanor on the day of the funeral had become public knowledge, but to all appearances it had passed unnoticed. At least, those with whom he came into contact never seemed to reveal by word or deed that they had heard of the incident, or, having heard of it, had put any suspicious interpretation upon it. He gave himself over to the running of the farm, his inner turmoil assuaged.

The question of getting in touch with the solicitors who handled his wife’s estate was one to which he gave careful thought. There was a certain correct timing necessary, for he felt that to be either too precipitous or too hesitant might be equally damaging. He had finally decided that an inspection of his wife’s papers would be of aid in properly assessing the matter, when he received his second shock.

He had gone to her bedroom for the papers he knew his wife had kept in an old wooden trunk-case bound with leather straps. After closing the door of the room, he pulled the trunk from the closet and kneeling beside it, threw back the lid. Atop the pile of papers lay some old daguerreotypes of his wife and members of her family, shiny, stiff relics now turned purplish-brown with age.

He was removing these to rummage underneath when he heard the door open and felt, rather than saw, the cold eye of the housekeeper upon him. The dread panic he had suppressed rose within him again. Too early, you fool! he thought, almost snarling in his self-disgust. You appear too anxious!

He turned his head, afraid to meet the suspicion in her eyes, and spoke dully. “Yes, Mrs. Crimmins? You wanted something?”

Even the slight hesitation in her reply was accusative.

“The roses,” she finally said, and he could hear the sarcasm behind the innocent words, “the ones outside her window — this window. They’re all brown and burned, like. I thought you might want to—” She stopped.

The roses! Of course — the acid he had thrown out the window! He fought down the gush of fear, his anger at himself suddenly shifted to this implacable nemesis above him, watching him coldly, silently taunting him. His voice lost control.

“Get out! At once, do you hear? Leave the house! Go to the village; anything, anywhere, but get out!” And then he added with quiet hatred: “You will never disturb me when I am in this room!”

He slumped there with head bent, like a gyved body awaiting the executioner’s axe, and heard the door close and a few moments later, the creak of the outside gate. For one wonderful moment he felt a sudden peace at the silence, at being alone, at the feeling of motionlessness that possessed him.

But his flare of temper had been foolhardy, and he knew it. He had come to consider himself two people: the careful, clever, watchful man who had carried out the audacious plan of murder with no oversights; and a blind, raving fool seemingly intent upon destroying everything with the ill-advised and reckless actions of a maniac. Now, still kneeling in the quiet room beside the empty four-poster, he clenched and unclenched his trembling fingers and in a steady, maddening monotone cursed all his enemies, but particularly the most dangerous of all, that second Martin Blackburn inside him.

To lose his control with Mrs. Crimmins, of all people! With her steel-trap mouth, her rigid bewhiskered lips, her icy eyes! He could hear her now, bending over the cluster of attentive heads in the village, whispering her suspicions, telling of the discord between Loretta and himself, the evidence of his guilty conscience, remarking on the suddenness of her death when she obviously had been recovering…

He could hear it all, see the lifted eyebrows, the slowly nodding heads. With a sudden resurgence of fury he slammed the lid shut on the battered chest and arising, kicked it violently against the wall. He stumbled down the stairs and sought to calm his nerves with huge gulps of brandy.

His third shock came the following day, although it was postponed until the evening. He was sitting, staring somberly into a glowing fire, when Mrs. Crimmins came in and announced with obvious satisfaction that the constable had come to see him. Behind her as she spoke, there appeared the gross figure of the village’s only police-officer, but before Blackburn could leap from his chair, the constable came forward eyeing him steadily.

“Me wife was after sayin’,” mumbled the constable with an implied non sequitur that held Blackburn bound to his chair with terror, “that a game of draughts might be what ’e gentleman was needin’.” He shook his head lugubriously. “Not that I ’ave any ’opes of winnin’ — at draughts, that is — but…” He allowed the words to trail off in silence.

Blackburn choked down the hysterical laugh that was inadvertently rising in his throat; it had been just such a nervous laugh that had been the first link in his chain of adversity. So it was to be cat-and-mouse, eh? The full import of the danger seemed to wipe away all fear and substitute a new watchfulness.

And with it a new decision: to-night he would take charge, and not his stupid, reckless alter ego. His mind seemed clear and sharp for the first time since the funeral, his fear and panic for the first time under confident control.

To an impartial observer, the game of draughts might have served as a pleasant example of an ordinary evening’s entertainment in that solid, dependable Victorian year, with the portly housekeeper stepping from the kitchen on occasion to see that the ale-mugs were well-filled and the tin of biscuits ready at hand. Although it was late spring and a full moon glanced in at the narrow recessed windows, the fire was kept burning brightly and, together with several tapers, provided the light by which the two men played.

To a less impartial observer, the scene would have blended the dramatic with the grotesque. In the flickering shadows cast by the flames, the two men presented a sharp contrast: Blackburn, thin and tense, making contemptuously swift moves and then falling back in his chair to search the face of his opponent for some key to his thoughts; the constable, bulky and stolid, his heavy fingers curled in hesitation over this chequer or that, puffing on his stubby pipe with the rhythm of breathing, his eyes fixed steadily on the board before him.

Blackburn, in a sudden, crystal clarity of perception, almost smiled. His enemies also made mistakes. The patent hollowness of the constable’s excuse to visit the farm; the regularity of Mrs. Crimmins’ inspection from the doorway — all a bit too obvious. They were trying to wear him down, wait him out, force his nerve to fail. The careful plotter within him studied the scene impassionately, answering each move of his opponent rapidly, paying small attention to that game; but watching, watching, in the larger game.

When at last Blackburn had been defeated and the pieces laid back in their box, he felt a surge of relief, a feeling that he had withstood the preliminary assault on his nerves, and was prepared for the next attack. But the constable, muttering something about an early rising, swallowed the remainder of his ale and left soon after. Blackburn returned to his chair in suspicious doubt. Was it possible their plan was a different one? Quite obviously it was. His fears began swiftly to gather once again.

It was quite apparent that any hopes of safety that he might have cherished regarding his idiotic laugh on returning from the funeral were pure self-deception. Of course the grin had been noted; how could it have been otherwise? It was equally evident that Mrs. Crimmins had spread her tale in all directions. The visit of the constable had not been very subtle, but in truth what need did they have for subtlety?

There was, of course, one saving grace: there could be no evidence, no proof. The suspicions which his stupid actions had aroused might have convinced the police that he had murdered his wife, but if he kept his wits — and if that damned idiotic beast within him made no future slips — they could never prove anything against him. There were no traces of cyanide gas, certainly not after this length of time. And an autopsy would not—

An autopsy! Suddenly he sat upright. The bottle of acid, the box of pellets! A paralysing cold hand gripped his stomach. You fool! he cried to himself. You utter, complete, unmitigated fool! The dozens of places you might have hidden them, the hundreds of ways you might have destroyed them! To leave them where their mute testimony was bound to be fatal! All other thoughts were swept from his mind. He had to get the bottle and box from the coffin!

He arose from his chair, shaking, and called out to Mrs. Crimmins. She hurried in from the kitchen, drying her hands, eyeing him slyly. He forced himself to disregard the cynicism he saw in her eyes and to keep his voice down.

“Mrs. Crimmins,” he said steadying himself against the fireplace, “there is no need for you to remain any longer to-night. You may leave things as they are. I… I have some accounts to go over and I… I would rather not be disturbed.”

He seemed to hear his own voice as from a far distance. There was something dream-like in the housekeeper’s getting her wrap-around and kerchief something unreal in watching her move to the door. The sound of her footfalls hurrying down the path seemed to come to him through a misty curtain, like distant, imagined echoes. He placed his shaking hands over his eyes, forcing his tired brain to plan.

Several brandies seemed partially to dissipate the fog in his head, and then he set to work. Wrapping a scarf about his neck, he went quickly to the stables, saddled a horse, and led the animal to the shed where the tools were kept.

Somewhere from within his hot, pounding head a cold voice seemed to direct his movements; he acted on this inner compulsion. His own emotions flickered in and out of focus, now filling him with dread, and alternately disappearing into a warm, soft lassitude.

He found himself riding furiously along the hard road to the cemetery, one hand gripping the reins, the other holding a shovel tightly across the pommel. The damp night air seemed to clear his brain, and he saw again the terrible position he was in. Terror came with awareness as he spurred his horse even more fiercely over the rolling moor.

The churchyard cemetery appeared above a rise in the road, the ancient fence and drooping trees momentarily silhouetted against the white disk of the full moon. Blackburn threw himself from the saddle, dropping the reins to the ground, hurrying through the scattered monuments to the relatively fresh mound covering his wife’s grave. Without a pause he began to dig, his heart pounding, his breath harsh in the night silence.

A sudden sound brought him to a startled standstill and he stopped, panting, to search the gloom. It was only his horse, untethered, moving away in the darkness. For an instant he contemplated going after it, but the urgency of his mission forced him to abandon the idea. With a choked curse he threw himself back into his labors, tearing at the stubborn earth, flinging the dirt from the grave with frenzied, jerking motions. The bright moon threw wavering shadows over the scene, and the rising wind whispered through the overhanging branches bent in solemn contemplation of the weird view below.

Suddenly metal grated on wood. With a savage grunt of satisfaction he redoubled his efforts, scraping the clinging clods from the coffin-lid with the edge of the shovel. The moon peered over the rim of the black pit, throwing into relief the struggling, disheveled figure, the partially uncovered coffin.

Blackburn slipped the edge of the shovel under one corner of the lid, pressing the shovel down with a strength born of desperation; with a sharp tearing sound the screws ripped free and a board came away. Bits of dried earth fell into the opening, covering the half-exposed sunken face within.

With frantic haste Blackburn dropped to his knees, slipping his fingers beneath the cerements, searching for the containers. One came to hand readily; he slid it into his pocket and continued his search.

Where could the other have gotten to? He reached further, feeling the weight of the lifeless body pressing against his fingers, the rough wood of the coffin scraping the skin. And then he had it! And at the same moment he became aware of the commotion above him.

There was a flickering of a bull’s-eye lantern thrust over the edge of the grave. He heard his name being called.

“Hold on! Mr. Blackburn! None of that, now!”

No sound could make itself issue from his paralysed throat. He made one move towards the far wall of the shallow pit, stumbling over the coffin, spurning the huge arm extended in his direction. His eyes bulged in terror, searching for escape. There was none. With his mouth open in a vain attempt to scream his rage, his frustration, he tore the cover from the box in his hand and dropped a pellet down his throat…

The old crone had few opportunities to bask in public attention, and she didn’t mean to let this one pass by. Her hand gripped the polished rail of the witnessbox of the coroner’s inquest like a vulture’s talon.

“ ‘So bin to ’is elf, ’e was,” she said. “I seed ’im through the carriage winder arter the funeral. Ah, it were darkish an’ me eyes mayn’t be what they was, but I seed ’im clear enough. Her dyin’ ’it im ’arder not he let on. It allus does,” she added, picturing with dark satisfaction the future reaction of her own undemonstrative husband at her demise.

“There he was,” Mrs. Crimmins told the solemn court-room. “Poor man! Going over her old tintypes, one by one. And me, like the fool I be, disturbing the poor man in his sorrow. Oh, he felt it deep, never you mind!”

“I knowed it was still botherin’ the poor man,” the constable said with a sad shake of his head. “ ’im losin’ a game o’ draughts to the likes o’ me! Then when Mrs. Crimmins corned over t’house sayin’ she was sure ’e meant to ’arm ’isself, well, I ’ad to get young Griggs an’ the others, didn’t I? And o’ course we wasted time lookin’ about ’is ’ouse and the bams afore we even thought of ’e cemetery.” He shook his head in the ensuing silence.

“Anyway,” he resumed, “if ’e ’adn’t done it with one o’ them pills, ’ed of jumped off a bridge, or ’ung isself. When they’re grievin’ deep like that, there ain’t never no stoppin’ them.”