White Priory Murders

CHAPTER SEVEN Design for Hanging

Inspector Potter called violently on omnipotence, and almost upset a very heavy table as he surged to his feet. Even Masters was startled. They were all standing in the little circle of light thrown by the fire and the two yellow-shaded lamps. Electric bulbs burned in a sort of crown high up against the groined roof; but the big library was still dusky, almost as though the books themselves threw shadows.

Bennett looked towards the line of diamond-paned windows in the embrasure at one end, a wall of glass against which stood a single tall tapestry-armchair with its back to the room. A head rose over the chair, and a figure leisurely detached itself. It stood squat and black against windows and gray sky; they heard glass clink and smelt the smoke of a cigar. Footsteps, not quite steady ones, rasped along the stone floor. There was something leering, something goblin-like in that round little shape, ducking and mowing with the cigar; even more so when it grew close enough for them to see the short wiry black hair, the stiff smile on a stiff face, and the staring little bloodshot eyes.

Bennett realized not only that it was Carl Rainger, swathed in a flowered silk dressing-gown much too big for him; but that Carl Rainger was very drunk.

Rainger said, in a steady voice which seemed to come from deep down in his throat: "I must ask you to excuse me. In fact, I must tell you to excuse me, in view of the help I am prepared to give. I was listening, gentlemen. I was frankly listening. When you came in, you surprised me there in the chair with Betsy," he patted the neck of a bottle protruding from the pocket of the dressing-gown, "Betsy the second, while I communed with nature. `Straight mine eye had caught new pleasures, While the landscape round it measures.' Beautiful country. Ha ha ha."

His tubby figure stumped into the circle of light. There was a rather inhuman quality about the stiff masklike smile and the mirth that came from behind shut teeth. He nodded and winked both eyes and made a gesture of theatrical politeness with the cigar. But the reddish little eyes, despite their staring fixedness, were very sharp.

"My name is Rainger; I think it is fairly well known. Give me that chair, Mr. Masters. The one you're standing in front of, if you don't mind. Thank you. Ah! Now! Good morning, gentlemen."

"Good morning, sir," Masters answered imperturbably, after a pause. Behind his back he jerked his arm sharply at the staring Potter. "You wish to make a statement? Eh?"

Rainger considered. He was wriggling his bristly scalp backwards and forwards, as children do, while he stared at the fire.

"Yes, I suppose I do. Yes, in a way. I can explain this impossible situation that's been bothering you. Ho ho ho."

Masters studied. him. "Naturally, sir, we're always glad to listen to suggestions. Quite. But one thing I'll suggest, if you don't mind. You're certain you're in a condition to suggest anything important?"

"Condition?"

"Well, not taken a drop over the line, as I might say? Eh?"

Rainger turned round slowly, pulling the gaudy dressing-gown about him. His face assumed an expression as though he were slyly peering round the corner of a wall; then it lit up with an almost terrifying smile.

"God love your innocence, inspector," he said, rather tenderly. "Taken a drop over the line?"' He burst into choking laughter until his eyes were blurred. "Well, well, let's compose ourselves. Of course I've taken a drop over the line. Very neatly put. As a matter of fact, I'm drunker than hell, inspector, and we both know it. What of it? In better days, before I was persuaded to become respectable and give it up, you would never have found me in any other condition. But I lived and moved and had my being, and my brain — this," he knocked his knuckles against it, "was much the better for it. I only gave it up because I was even too clear-seeing, and they called it morbid. Hoho!

"Shall I prove it, inspector?" he demanded, pointing the cigar suddenly. "Shall I tell you what you're thinking? You're thinking, `Maybe this is a confession. Maybe I'd better jolly this repulsive little baboon along and get him to admit something he oughtn't' Uh? That's your innocence again. I am much more talkative than usual, yes. But I didn't kill her. Queerly enough, I have an alibi "

He cackled. Masters only nodded stolidly. "Why, sir, if you put it like that, it's quite possible I might have been thinking some such thing."

"And as for you-" He suddenly pointed at Bennett. "You're thinking, `There's that son of a bitch again.' Aren't you, now; aren't you?" For a second the weird stare was as terrifying as his grin; then it grew muddled, bewildered, and somehow defeated. "Why do you think that?" he asked curiously. "Why does everybody think it? All my life I've been trying to find out. I'm Carl Rainger. I started on a railroad construction gang. Want to see my hands, even now? I can command as high a salary as any star I ever worked with, because when I get through with that picture, whoever's in it is a star. That's me. That's what I can do. Then why. " He fumbled at his forehead and said in a flat voice, "Why, to hell with 'em. That's all I've got to say." He seemed surprised. "They're lousy rats, every one of them. I'll trust to this. Yes. And now — where are you, inspector? Ah!.. I'll proceed to show you what you've overlooked, and offer you proof."

"Well, sir?"

"Proof," said Rainger, his face lighting up again, "that a Mr. John Bohun killed Marcia Tait."

"Good God!" said Dr. Wynne, and stopped as Masters turned to glare.

"Thank you very much, doctor," observed the chief inspector in a quick, colorless voice. "You've been most helpful. We needn't detain you any longer… Er, hullo? Thompson? Still here, eh? I thought I told you; well, my mistake. You'd better wait outside, now."

"I know the man's drunk," snapped the little doctor, "but does he realize who he's talking about? John Bohun, hah? His host. Well, well, well. Yes, I'm going. John's having breakfast. I think I shall just inform him he's needed here."

Masters — big and urbane, but with a vein beating at his temple-edged the doctor away as though he were smoothing off crumbs, and spoke in a low voice. Remembering what had happened upstairs, Bennett quickly suggested a visit to Louise Carewe; and, as he sketched out what had happened, it caught Masters' ear more easily than the doctor's. Masters said, "Oh, ah?" and to Bennett, "Stay here!" as he sent out Thompson and edged out Dr. Wynne. When the strident voice was fading down the hall Masters returned to Rainger, who had got a bottle of gin out of his pocket and was tilting it to his lips while a sardonic eye rolled round at the chief inspector.

"You want to accuse Mr. John Bohun," said Masters, with another silencing gesture at Potter, "of murder. I dare say you realize that's rather a serious matter to speak of, even when you can back it up?"

"Certainly I can back it up, my friend. Hoho. Yes. You've had statements," replied the director, suddenly becoming cool and sharp-faced, "from both Bohun and an actor named Willard. Now don't put on that pawn-broker-refusing-a-loan look, my friend; I heard you discussing it, and I know what they said. They gave their version of what happened last night. Now I'll give you mine. Don't you realize why there was only one set of tracks in the snow, going in?"

"Be careful, sir. Remember, they were fresh tracks."

"Of course they were fresh tracks." He controlled his hard breathing. "First! Bohun was in London last night, to see His Lordship. To see the great Lord Canifest. Did he tell you that?"

"Oh, ah?" inquired Masters, his dull eye turning sideways towards Bennett. Bennett remembered that Masters had spoken to H. M., and must know a good deal of the story. "Mr. Bohun said he had a business appointment; that was all. You mean the newspaper-owner? Just so."

"Now you had better know why Bohun saw him, if you don't know," said Rainger, looking at him queerly, "already. Canifest intended to put up the money for the play Marcia was to appear in. And last night Canifest refused. Bohun and Marcia were afraid he was going to refuse. That was why Bohun got nervous and rushed over to see him last night."

"Well" prompted Masters, after a pause. "Why should this — ah — Lord Canifest refuse?"

"Because somebody had been telling him things. Lord Canifest was contemplating matrimony. He had already laid his hand and heart," said Rainger, with an appropriate gesture, "before our lovely nymph. His Lordship, you may know, is a very upright man, and much too discreet to risk anything but marriage. And then somebody told his Lordship something. Bohun was afraid there would be bad news from Canifest last night, and so was Marcia."

Masters cleared his throat. "Just so. I dare say you mean, now, he was told something against Miss Tait's character, eh?"

"What? Oh, God love us, inspector," said Rainger, with a sort of wild helplessness, "your thrice-blessed innocence! No! Don't you suppose Canifest hadn't heard all the rumors of that kind? Her family was good enough for that conduct to have seemed just prankish. Haha, no. What somebody told him, I fear, was that Marcia might have been too virtuous."

"Too virtuous?"

"That she had a husband already," said Rainger, and cackled.

"A husband already!" the chief inspector snapped, after a pause. "Who-?"

Rainger indulged himself in an elaborate Frenchified shrug. He shut one eye, a tubby little Mephistopheles in a bright-flowered robe, and the other staring little bloodshot eye showed through the smoke of his cigar. He smiled.

"How should I know? That part, I grant is theory; but it's mine, and it's a good theory. Now who might that husband be? I wonder. Eh?"

Before Masters could voice a suggestion he went on softly:

"Let's go on. Do you understand now what my good friend Jervis Willard told you about Marcia being upset, distraught, desperately waiting last night? — waiting for Bohun to return.’

‘Yes, I think even you understand. If Canifest refused to back this play, it would never be put on at all."

"Now, now," urged Masters, with goading tolerance, "Miss Tait was a very popular actress, I should fancy. Surely any number of producers — “

"That's where you're wrong," the other said, nodding several times. "Not after what she had said of them separately and individually in the newspapers, and also to their faces." The mechanical smile broadened with rather horrible effect. "And what she didn't say, I quoted her as saying. Get it?"

"And this was the news," Masters said slowly, "you say Mr. Bohun was bringing back to her last night?"

"Naturally. She was a very temperamental wench, I can tell you. What must Bohun have thought when he had to come back and explain it was all off? They might get another angel, but. Marcia wasn't too popular. She certainly wasn't popular in this house. It amused me last night, when Miss Katharine Bohun attempted to give her a shove that would send her down a flight of stone stairs..:'

"What the devil's this?"

Bennett felt his heart pounding, and an empty sensation in his chest. He took a step forward, so that Rainger caught his eye.

"What's the matter?" asked Rainger harshly. "Friend of yours? Never mind. That's what she did. Come on, flatfoot: let me get back to the subject. Willard didn't tell you about that little episode, did he? You can forget it. I want to tell you the first step in the case that'll hang John Bohun.. He told you (didn't he?) that he arrived back from London about three A.M. Well, he lied. He got back here at one-thirty, when it was still snowing hard."

"Did he, now?" inquired Masters in a curious tone. "Well. Get this down, Potter. How do you know? Did you see him?"

"No."

Masters said heavily: "Then you'll excuse me. I've listened, and I've listened for something more than vague accusations, and I'm admitting to you I've got a little tired of it. Now I'll ask you to stop this sort of talk and go up to bed where you belong."

Rainger's arm jerked.

"Oh, you'll listen to me, damn you." His voice wavered a moment; it became close to a screech. "Can't you let me explain? Can't you give me fair play? Give me a minute, two minutes, only two minutes! Oh, for God's sake let me say what I've got to say! " His desperation to have a man hanged broke his gloss and stolidity, but briefly; for he got himself in hand, and there was only cool contempt in the unshaven face. "Now I'll explain it. At midnight last night, after we'd left Marcia in the pavilion (what Willard told you about that is true), Mr. Bohun and I — Mr. Maurice Bohun, my host — came to the library. To this room. We talked of books and other matters you wouldn't understand. We were here for something like two hours. Naturally neither of us could see John Bohun come in: the driveway is clear at the other end of the house. And we didn't hear him, for the same reason. But we heard the dog."

"Dog?"

"A big police dog, what you call an Alsatian. They don't turn it loose at night, because it flies at anything. They keep it chained to a sort of runway wire, so that it can run twenty or thirty feet from the kennel, but no farther. It barks at anybody, known or unknown — Mr. Maurice Bohun told me. Are you listening to me now? We were sitting here last night, when we heard it commence barking and keep on barking.

"I asked him, I said, `Have we got burglars, or has somebody gone out?' He said, `Neither. That will be John coming home. It's half-past one.' We talked about the detective stories (he likes detective stories), and the dog that doesn't bark because it recognizes somebody, thus presenting a clue. That's hogwash. Real dogs bark at everybody, till you get close enough to speak."

Rainger coughed. His forehead was damp from his intense concentration when his head must be spinning; he brushed an arm across his face, and his. speech weirdly degenerated.

"That was at ha' past one. Old Bohun held out his watch and says, `See, it's ha' past one.' He's always fidgety, and he got even more fidgety and nervous about the noise while he was showing me books. Late as it is, he rang for that butler and told him to phone down to the stable and have 'em lock the dog up. He said it would drive him crazy. "

Inspector Potter struck in, heavily and eagerly: "That part of it's true anyhow, sir. This butler said he used the telephone at one-thirty to tell them at the stable they must lock the dog up-"

Masters waved his hand. "And is that, Mr. Rainger," he said, "all you've got to accuse a man of murder?"

"No. I am going to tell you what John Bohun did.”

"He arrived here at one-thirty, and left his car in the driveway.. He was wearing evening-clothes and light patentleather evening shoes-"

"How do you know that?"

"I use my brain, you see," nodded Rainger, bending forward. "I got that from the maid who went into his room this morning to light the fire. She saw the clothes scattered. She also told me (eh?) that his bed was still made and had not been slept in last night."

After a pause Masters said, "Take that down, Potter."

"He walked straight down to the pavilion, as he and Marcia had arranged. (The fool lied to you when he said he didn't know Marcia was there, and yet he admitted she had told him she was going there. He knew Marcia never changed her mind; you'll see why he lied.) Well, the dog barked for longer than usual. Why? Because of the time it took him to walk down. If he'd only gone into the house, the dog would have shut up."

Inspector Potter uttered an exclamation.

"You're suggesting-?" said Masters quickly.

"Oh, he was her lover," said Rainger. "I know that." He leaned over suddenly and spat into the fire.

"Now see. He had bad news for her. Marcia didn't take any bad news well; and not the smash-up of everything she wanted to do. But you don't know Bohun's character if you think he told her straight out. He's too weak. He put it off, and first told her everything was all right. There was love-making; the fool thought he could get Marcia into the right state of mind with that. Kuaa! Afterwards he admitted things. And she told him for the first time how she really felt towards him."

Rainger's voice rose. "He smashed her head in about an hour and a half after he'd got to the pavilion. Then the fool found that the snow had stopped long ago. His footprints going out there had been effaced. There wasn't a mark on the snow now, and if he left that place he would leave his own footprints to hang him. Well? What did he do? What did even a nervous fool do?"

Rainger must have seen that he had caught his audience. For a moment Bennett thought the man had grown cold sober; that he had forced himself sober by very violence of will; and, but for the twitching of the fingers and uncertain movements of the head, Bennett would have believed it.

"Use your brains," said Rainger, with that queer diabolical grin. "What was the only thing that would save him?"

Masters studied him. "If I had been in his place (oh, ah! supposing this to be true!), there was an easy way."

"Think so? What would you have done?"

"Rummy games we're playing! Eh? Well, then, I should have left that pavilion, messing up my own trail thoroughly by shuffling and kicking and scraping over the tracks so that nobody'd know whose they were. I'd have carried that messed-up trail up over the lawn to the high-road, or anywhere you like. The house, even. Time? Oh, ah; I'll admit it would have taken some time, and in the dark, but there'd be all the time until daylight."

Rainger blew out a blast of sour smoke. "Any fool," he said, "would have remembered the dog." Masters stopped.

"The dog, my flatfoot-friend, that barked like hell and for such a long time-while Bohun was only hurrying down to the pavilion before — that the old man had it locked up. Think that over, will you? Mr. John remembered that dog; it almost gave him away before. What did he think it would be during the fifteen or twenty minutes it would take him to mess up all his tracks? How was he to know it was locked up? What happens in a house when a dog keeps on steadily barking at four o'clock in the morning. They'd wake up. They'd look out. And there was Bohun in the middle of the lawn, caught."

Bennett went over and sat down on the divan. His wits were whirling, but he knew the man was right. Bennett said:

"But what could he do? He couldn't take up the time to mess the trail, and he couldn't hurry out and leave his tracks to betray him… You've got him in the pavilion with no tracks outside; but he says he was talking to the butler in his riding-clothes at close on seven o'clock this morning; and I'll swear on the Bible that, when I got to the pavilion this morning, there was only one line of tracks going in."

"Just so. Steady, sir," said Masters. "He did wake the butler up in this house at a quarter to seven. The butler says so."

Rainger savored a triumph. He looked from one to the other.

"Sure, sure, sure. That was his alibi. He remembered the riding-engagement; but didn't it smell very funny to you, eh, that he should have said he got up early in the morning, put on his riding-clothes, and went to wake the butler up before he was certain they would ride that morning?. He tried to be clever. He thought he was clever. Riding boots are useful. They're bigger, a good deal bigger all the way around, than little patent leather dancing-shoes."

Masters whistled. He made a big gesture as Rainger said:

"He waited till it was nearly daylight, and he could see not to bang into anything. I like to think of him sweating beside that dead woman. Then he walked out of your pavilion, and he walked backwards. When he'd changed his clothes and made his alibi, all he had to do was walk back again in his own footprints to `discover' the body. He couldn't have done it if he'd had on the same sized shoes. If he tried to step in the tracks-even in a very thin plaster of snow — he'd only have blurred the prints. If the snow had been deep instead of a little crust, he would have sloughed the tracks up. But he stamped a fresh print with bigger shoes all over the others, and concealed the first outline. The sole-and-heel prints would be messed inside the track, but they always are from the way you walk in snow. No wonder the tracks were fresh. No wonder that stable-hand saw him-from a distance — just going in at the door. He'd literally `covered' his tracks. He'd got himself the swellest alibi a man ever had. But when you got there, young man," said Rainger, choking with the last effort of keeping his words steady, "didn't he seem a little rattled?"

Rainger looked round for a moment more, holding their eyes.

Then he got shakily to his feet. With the effort over, he seemed to shrink like a dough figure; and it was as though a wheel went round behind his eyes. Dizzy and breathing hard, he got the bottle out of his pocket.

"I've told you how it happened,".he said. "Now hang him."

He was fumblingly trying to get the bottle to his lips when he collapsed. He would have fallen if Masters had not caught him.