Escapade

Chapter Thirty-seven

“Ladies,” said inspector Marsh, “and gentlemen. I do thank you all for being present.”

Smiling delicately, he looked around the drawing room.

Once again, everyone had plates of food on the tables in front of them, and pots of tea and coffee. Lord Bob and Lady Purleigh and Cecily sat together on one of the sofas. Mr. Dempsey sat beside the wheelchair of Madame Sosostris. Mrs. Allardyce and Miss Turner were together, and so were Sir David and Mrs. Corneille and Dr. Auerbach. Sergeant Meadows was looming against one wall, and Doyle stood a few feet away, looming even larger. I was sitting about a yard from where Marsh was standing. The Great Man sat by himself across the room. He had faintly nodded to me when I entered, and I knew that everything was set up.

Lord Purleigh,” said Marsh, “has graciously permitted me this opportunity to speak with you all, to discuss the recent curious events at Maplewhite. How very bizarre these have been, have they not? A gun suddenly fired across a sunny lawn. An elderly man abruptly dead in his own locked bedroom. It is a reeling world indeed, my lord, and I believe will never stand upright. Richard the Third, of course.”

He smiled and glanced around the room. “Now. All of you know of the late Earl’s death. But what do you know, really, of his life? Did you know that, on the testimony of his own son, the man was mad? Mad, yes, and no longer paralyzed.”

There was a small, well-mannered flutter of response. Heads turned, eyebrows arched. Cecily Fitzwilliam leaned toward her mother. Lady Purleigh pressed her lips together and she took her daughter’s hand. Mrs. Corneille frowned and glanced over at Lady Purleigh.

“At night,” said Marsh, “when the houseguests were asleep, the late Earl prowled through a network of secret passageways that connect the room and chambers of Maplewhite. Dressed as his own ancestor, Lord Reginald, he stalked into the rooms of certain female guests and attempted to assault them.”

More turning heads. More arched eyebrows. Lord Bob and Lady Purleigh sat still and stared forward, like a pair of officials witnessing an execution.

“He did this two months ago,” said Marsh, “and he did this again on Friday night, when he entered the room of Miss Turner.” Heads swiveled toward Miss Turner.

“Earlier on that same evening,” said Marsh, “Lord and Lady Purleigh had spoken with the late Earl in his room.” Heads swiveled toward Lord Bob and his wife. “No one else was present, but I believe it likely that in view of the Earl’s attempted assault of two months earlier, Lord Purleigh warned his father not to make another attempt that night.”

Marsh shrugged. “But as we all now know, the Earl did make an attempt.”

He lifted a glass of water from a nearby table, sipped at it, set it back down. “According to his own statement, voluntarily given to Mr. Beaumont, Lord Purleigh spoke with his father on the following morning. He informed the Earl that he planned to place him in a madhouse. Several hours later, when a party of the guests, and Lord Purleigh, were gathered out on the lawn, someone fired a rifle toward the group.”

Marsh smiled. “Is it not patently obvious, ladies and gentlemen, who fired that rifle? And is it not patently obvious at whom the rifle was being fired? It was aimed at Lord Purleigh, of course. And it was fired by his father.”

“ Rubbish! ” said Lord Bob. “See here, Marsh-”

Marsh smiled. “All the weapons in the collection were the Earl’s. The Earl knew how to use them. He knew, too, that his son intended to remove him, ignominiously, from his own home. And he took the one course that, to his damaged brain, seemed appropriate. He attempted to murder his own son. He made his way down to the Great Hall, loaded the Winchester rifle-”

“What perfect rubbish!” Lord Bob was half out of his seat. Lady Purleigh reached for him and he turned to her, his face red. She murmured something and he sat back, shaking his head. “But it’s rubbish, Alice. Codswollop!”

“And he proceeded outside,” continued Marsh, “and concealed himself in the woods by the formal garden. And when he saw his son return to Maplewhite on his motor bicycle, the Earl fired at him. Fortunately for Lord Purleigh, the Earl missed.”

Lord Purleigh’s brows were raised. “The old swine would never miss a shot like that!”

Marsh paid no attention. “Lord Purleigh understood, of course, what his father had done. He knew who had fired that rifle. And he now knew that his father was even more unbalanced than he had believed. Perhaps-and here I speculate-perhaps he realized how nakedly this unbalance might be revealed in any enquiry, any attempt to institutionalize the Earl. And perhaps, too, he was angered by the attempt on his life. Whatever the truth, later that day, while everyone was in the drawing room, Lord Purleigh removed a Smith and Wesson revolver from the Great Hall, used the secret passageway to enter his father’s room, and he killed him.”

“What?” said Lord Bob. He looked more confused than angry.

“Only Lord Purleigh was absent from the drawing room at the time of the murder,” said Marsh. “Only Lord Purleigh had an opportunity to kill the Earl. And only Lord Purleigh had a motive. His father’s death would remove not only an embarrassment, but also an actual threat to his own life. And it would, of course, bring him his father’s entire inheritance.”

“This is sheer nonsense.” It was the Great Man, up on his feet, his head raised high. “I will listen to no more of this.”

Across the room, Sergeant Meadows leaned away from the wall. Marsh glanced at him, shook his head slightly. Meadows leaned back and Marsh turned to the Great Man. “Do you have some other explanation, Mr. Houdini?”

“I have the explanation.”

Marsh smiled. “Then I shall gladly, if temporarily, surrender the floor.” He sat down and looked up at the Great Man with the same theatrical interest he’d shown in the Earl’s bedroom.

The Great Man put his hands behind his back and he glanced slowly around the room. “We have been presented here at Maplewhite,” he finally announced, “with a series of totally baffling events.”

Then the Great Man said, and pretty much word for word, the same things he’d said when he was explaining how he figured out the secret passageway. That the baffling events had baffled even him. That he’d finally realized they were a lot like mediocre magic tricks. “Now,” he said, “in order to understand the mechanics of a successful magic trick, we must begin with no preconceptions whatever.”

Marsh rolled his eyes. Delicately.

The Great Man looked around the room again, as though to make sure that everyone was still following. “Yesterday afternoon, while Miss Turner was horseback riding, she saw what she believed to be a pair of ghosts under a willow tree, near the old mill. Why did she believe them to be ghosts? Her preconceptions. She had been told that a pair of ghosts often had been seen under that tree, a woman and a young boy. And, when she saw two individuals standing there, her preconceptions led her to believe that these were they. She is an intelligent and resourceful woman, but she is not a trained observer. And, perhaps most important, she was not wearing her spectacles at the time. Without them, she is extremely nearsighted. Is that not true, Miss Turner?”

Heads swiveled. “Yes,” she said. Her voice was strong and clear. Beside her, Mrs. Allardyce frowned.

Inspector Marsh yawned, pretending to hide it behind his hand.

The Great Man nodded. He turned back to the audience. “But these were not ghosts that Miss Turner saw. What she saw were the two people who were conspiring to murder Lord Purleigh.

A rustling sound rippled through the audience.

“And, of course,” said the Great Man, “they saw her. So far as they knew, she had recognized them. And for these two to be recognized together would have meant disaster for them both.

He glanced around again. “They acted swiftly. Together they returned to Maplewhite, using a tunnel that runs from the mill to a concealed pantry beside the kitchen. From there, one of them ran to the Great Hall and snatched the Winchester rifle. Perhaps this individual loaded the weapon at that time. Perhaps the two of them had planned ahead, for emergencies, and the weapon was already loaded. No matter. It would have been a matter of seconds only to ready the rifle. Taking the weapon, this individual ran back into the hidden pantry and used the other tunnel, the freight tunnel, to emerge outside the formal garden. From nearby, a clear shot was available at Miss Turner, when she appeared.”

The Great Man frowned. “This individual was fortunate. Had Miss Turner known how, she could have returned to the house by a more direct route. But she was unaware of this. And then her horse, bolting, led her past the path she had originally followed. And then she struck her head on the limb of a tree and she was ejected from the animal. She remained unconscious for a time. All of this assisted the would-be assassin. When Miss Turner finally did appear, under the tree by the walkway, the assassin was more than ready. He fired. One shot, and one shot only. Why should he fire another? He saw Miss Turner fall from her horse, and he assumed he had hit her. ”

“Fascinating,” said Inspector Marsh. He smiled, “But just who was this so-called assassin? And who was his conspirator?”

“A more interesting question,” said the Great Man, “at the moment, is what were they doing out by the old mill? Why meet there? And to this, I am pleased to say, I have discovered the answer.”

He narrowed his eyes again. “I believe that it was there, at the old mill, that these two, over a period of time, planned their conspiracy. It is there that they practiced the technique by which they very nearly succeeded in deceiving us all.”

“Oh really?” said Marsh.

The Great Man ignored him. “I examined the old mill with my associate, Mr. Beaumont. On the floor inside it we found the remains of a fire. Not a fire of weeds and brush, such as might have been built by some passing tramp”-he glanced at me, underlining the point-“but a fire that had been constructed of pieces of lumber. And why lumber?”

He cocked his head. “Suppose you take a piece of lumber and you saw it neatly in half. Suppose you create a small hollow in one of these halves, and that, within the hollow, you place a live cartridge. You have, previously, removed the slug from the cartridge and crimped shut the opening. Suppose you then carefully glue the halves of lumber back together. Now suppose you place this piece of lumber into a tire. W^hat will happen? At some point, when the heat of the fire at last reaches the cartridge, it will explode. As a consequence of its explosion, some ash may be expelled from the fire itself. Much like the ash that Mr. Beaumont and I found on the floor of the old mill. And much like the ash that was found on the floor of the Earl’s bedroom. It is obvious to me that our two conspirators experimented with lumber and cartridge there at the mill, until they discovered exactly the proper combination of both to suit their nefarious purposes.

He turned to Doyle. “It was not our entrance into the room, Sir Arthur, that blew ashes from the fireplace. It was the eruption of a cartridge, hidden within a piece of firewood.

Doyle was frowning. “But no one found a spent cartridge in the fireplace.”

“Ah,” said the Great Man. “But no one ever looked for it. We did not, because the fire was still burning when we arrived. Superintendent Honniwell and his men did not, because the Superintendent was more interested in currying favor with Lord Purleigh. Afterward, of course, the cartridge was removed.”

“By whom, exactly?” asked Marsh.

At the moment, Doyle was more interested in how than whom. He said, “You’re telling us that when Carson heard the shot fired, the Earl was already-”

“Dead, yes!” said the Great Man. “Several minutes before that shot, perhaps as much as half an hour, using the hidden stairway, the murderer had entered the room with the revolver. A single shot was fired, muffled by a cushion, perhaps, and the Earl was dead.”

“But according to Superintendent Honniwell,” said Doyle, “there were powder burns near the wound. Would these have been present if the pistol had been fired through a cushion?”

“Mr. Beaumont assures me that this is possible, so long as the muzzle of the weapon is brought close to the point of impact of the bullet. It is possible, too, that the autopsy will detect threads of fabric in the wound, thus substantiating my statement.”

“And the murderer,” said Doyle, “then wiped his fingerprints from the weapon, and placed on it the fingerprints of the Earl.”

“The murderer did so,” said the Great Man. “Correct. And then, after carefully putting the piece of lumber in the fire, probably off to the side, so as to postpone the explosion, the murderer left. And came down to the drawing room, to join us all in tea.”

“And who is this murderer of yours?” asked Marsh. “Who are these conspirators?”

“Who?” said the Great Man. “Is that not patently obvious, Inspector Marsh? They must be two people who knew that if they were seen together, and intimate, their plan would be foiled. One of them, at least, must know Maplewhite, must know its hidden tunnels and passageways. And one of them must be of a stature small enough, slight enough, to be mistaken at a distance, by a woman suffering from nearsightedness, for a young boy. There are no young boys at Maplewhite, ghostly or otherwise.” He turned to face the audience. “Therefore, the two conspirators must be Lady Purleigh and Dr. Auerbach.”

The audience made a ragged hissing sound, like a large beast drawing breath. Lady Purleigh looked puzzled. Dr. Auerbach looked alarmed. Lord Bob looked poleaxed, and he stared at the Great Man with his mouth open. Inspector Marsh stood up from his chair. “This is preposterous,” he said. “Dr. Auerbach was seen in Purleigh. He walked back from there to Maplewhite. He couldn’t possibly have got here by the time that shot was fired.”

I took a look at Sergeant Meadows. He was still leaning against the wall.

The Great Man smiled. “Had you investigated thoroughly, Inspector, you would have learned that a bicycle was stolen in Purleigh yesterday. Mr. Beaumont learned this from the local constable, Dubbins. Riding a bicycle, using pathways through the woods, pathways detailed for him by Lady Purleigh, Dr. Auerbach easily reached the old mill before one o’clock. The bicycle is no doubt resting at the bottom of the millpond. And had you investigated further, you would have telephoned the University of Leeds, as I did today, and learned that Dr. Auerbach was not in Devon, but in Edinburgh. Where I telephoned and spoke with him.” He pointed his finger. “ That man is not Dr. Auerbach.’

The little bald-headed man sprang from his chair and darted for the drawing room doors, running in front of Miss Turner and Mrs. Allardyce. Miss Turner put out her leg. He snagged his foot on it, swung his arms forward as though he were reaching for a trapeze, and went sailing over the coffee table. By the time he landed, I was on top of him with the Colt. I yanked him to his feet. He squirmed like a polliwog until I stuck the pistol in his ear.

Other people were up, too-Sir David, Mrs. Allardyce. Mrs. Corneille was rising.

But the Great Man wasn’t finished. He turned back to Marsh. “And the reason, Inspector Marsh, that you did not investigate thoroughly, as you should have done, is that you are a most thoroughly incompetent Inspector Marsh.” He turned to the audience and smiled. “Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to introduce a man who is almost as inept a policeman as he is a magician.” He held out his arm. “I give you Chin Soo!”

This was the signal. The drawing room doors burst open and what seemed like a hundred cops tumbled in, some in uniform, some not. One of them was Superintendent Honniwell. One of them was an angry-looking man who turned out later to be the real Inspector Marsh. Over against the wall, “Sergeant Meadows” reached into his coat pocket, but Doyle was ready and he grabbed the man’s hand with his own left and he popped him a very good right on the point of his chin and the man went crashing to the floor.