The Hollow Man Part 3

IT was Dr Fell who answered. He was standing with his back to the fire - place, a vast black - caped figure under the fencing - foils and shield of arms. He seemed to fit there, like a baron out of feudalism, with the book - shelves and white busts towering on either side of him. But he did not look like a very terrible Front de Boeuf. His eye - gla.s.ses were coming askew on his nose as he bit off the end of a cigar, turned, and expectorated it neatly into the fire - place.

'Ma'am,' he said, turning back with a long challenging sound in his nose, like a battle cry,' we shall not detain you very long. And it is only fair to say that I don't in the least doubt your story, any more than I doubt Mills's. Before getting down to business, I will prove that I believe you ... Ma'am, do you remember what time to - night it stopped snowing?'

She was looking at him with hard, bright, defensive eyes. She had evidently heard of Dr Fell.

'Does it matter? I think it was about half - past nine. Yes! I remember, because when I came up to collect Charles's coffee - tray I looked out of the window and I noticed that it had stopped. Does it matter?'

'Oh, very much, ma'am. Otherwise we have only half an impossible situation ... And you are quite right. H'mf. Remember, Hadley? Half - past nine is about the time it stopped. Right, Hadley?'

'Yes,' admitted the superintendent. He also looked at Dr Fell suspiciously. He had learned to distrust that blank stare over the several chins. 'Granting that it was half - past nine, what then?'

'Not only had it stopped snowing fully forty minutes before the visitor made his escape from this room,' pursued the doctor, with a meditative air, 'but it had stopped fifteen minutes before the visitor even arrived at this house. That's true, ma'am? Eh? He rang the door - bell at a quarter to ten? Good ... Now, Hadley, do you remember when we arrived at this house? Did you notice that, before you and Rampole and young Mangan went charging in, there wasn't a single footprint on the flight of steps leading up to the front door, or even the pavement leading up to the steps? You see, I did. I remained behind to make sure.'

Hadley straightened up with a kind of m.u.f.fled roar. 'By G.o.d! that's right! The whole pavement was clean. It - ' He stopped and swung slowly round to Mme Dumont. 'So this, you say, is your evidence of why you believe madame's story? Fell, have you gone mad too? We hear a story of how a man rang the door - bell and walked through a locked door fifteen minutes after the snow had stopped, and yet - '

Dr Fell opened his eyes. Then a series of chuckles ran up the ridges of his waistcoat.

'I say, son, why are you so flabbergasted? Apparently he sailed out of here without leaving a footprint. Why should it upset you to learn that he also sailed in?'

'I don't know,' the other admitted stubbornly.' But, hang it, it does! In my experience with locked - room murders, getting in and getting out are two very different things. It would throw my universe off balance if I found an impossible situation that worked sensibly both ways. Never mind! You say -'

'Please listen. I say,' Mme Dumont interposed, pale but with the bunched muscles standing out at the corners of her jaws, 'that I am telling the absolute truth, so help me G.o.d!'

'And I believe you,' said Dr Fell. 'You mustn't let Hadley's stern Scotch common sense overawe you. He will believe it, too, before I'm through with him. But my point is this. I have shown you, haven't I, that I have strong faith in you - if I can credit what you have said? Very well. I only want to warn you not to upset that faith. I should not dream of doubting what you have already told me. But I fancy I shall very strongly doubt what you are going to tell me in a moment.'

Hadley half closed one eye. 'I was afraid of that. I always dread the time when you begin to trot out your d.a.m.ned paradoxes. Seriously, now -'

'Please go on,' the woman said stolidly.

'Humph. Yarrumph. Thanks. Now, ma'am, how long have you been Grimaud's housekeeper? No, I'll change that. How long have you been with him?'

'For over twenty - five years,' she answered. 'I was more than his housekeeper - once.'

She had been looking at her interlocked fingers, which she moved in and out; but now she lifted her head. Her eyes had a fierce, steady glaze, as though she wondered how much she dared tell. It was the expression of one peering round a corner at an enemy, ready for instant flight.

'I tell you that,' she went on quietly, 'in the hope that you will give me your word to keep silent. You will find it in your alien records at Bow Street, and you may make unnecessary trouble that has nothing to do with this matter. It is not for myself, you understand. Rosette Grimaud is my daughter. She was born here, and there had to be a record. But she does not know it - n.o.body knows it. Please, please, can I trust you to keep silent?'

The glaze over her eyes was changing to a different one. She had not raised her voice, but there was a terrible urgency in it.

'Why, ma'am,' said Dr Fell, a wrinkle in his forehead, 'I can't see that it's any of our business. Can you? We shall certainly say nothing about it.'

'You mean that?'

'Ma'am,' the doctor said gently, 'I don't know the young lady, but I'll bet you a tanner you're worrying yourself unnecessarily, and that you've both been worrying yourselves unnecessarily for years. She probably knows already. Children do. And she's trying to keep it from you. And the whole world goes skew - whiff because we like to pretend that people under twenty will never have any emotions, and people over forty never had. Humph. Let's forget it. Shall we?' He beamed. 'What I wanted to ask you. Where did you first meet Grimaud? Before you came to England?'

She breathed hard. She answered, but vacantly, as though she were thinking of something else.

'Yes, in Paris.'

'You are a Parisienne?'

'Er - what -? No, no, not by birth! I am of the provinces. But I worked there when I met him. I was a costumier.'

Hadley looked up from jotting in his note - book. 'Costumier?' he repeated. 'Do you mean a dressmaker, or what?'

'No, no, I mean. what I say. I was one of the women who made costumes for the opera and the ballet. We worked in the Opera itself. You can find record of that! And, if it will save you time, I will tell you that I was never married and my maiden name was Ernestine Dumont.'

'And Grimaud?' Dr Fell asked sharply. 'Where was he from?'

'From the south of France, I think. But he studied at Paris. His family are all dead, so that will not help you. He inherited their money.'

There was an air of tension which these casual questions did not seem to warrant. Dr Fell's next three questions were so extraordinary that Hadley stared up from his notebook, and Ernestine Dumont, who had recovered herself, shifted uneasily, with a wary brilliance in her eyes.

'What is your religious faith, ma'am?'

'I am a Unitarian. Why?'

'H'm, yes. Did Grimaud ever visit the United States, or has he any friends there?'

'Never. And he has no friends that I know of there.'

'Do the words "seven towers" mean anything to you" ma'am?'

'No!' cried Ernestine Dumont, and went oily white.

Dr Fell, who had finished lighting his cigar, blinked at her out of the smoke. He lumbered out from the hearth and round the sofa, so that she shrank back. But he only indicated the big painting with his cane, tracing out the line of the white mountains in the background of the picture.

'I won't ask you whether you know what this represents,' he continued, 'but I will ask you whether Grimaud told you why he bought it. What sort of charm was it supposed to contain, anyhow? What power did it have to ward off the bullet or the evil eye? What sort of weight could its influ - ' He stopped, as though recalling something rather startling. Then he reached out, wheezing, to lift the picture off the floor with one hand and turn it curiously from side to side. 'Oh, my hat!' said Dr Fell, with explosive absent - mindedness. ' O Lord! O Bacchus! Wow!'

'What is it?' demanded Hadley, jumping forward. 'Do you see anything?'

'No, I don't see anything,' said Dr. Fell argumentatively. 'That's just the point. Well, madame?'

'I think,' said the woman in a shaky voice, 'that you are the strangest man I ever met. No. I do not know what that thing is. Charles would not tell me. He only grunted and laughed in his throat. Why don't you ask the artist? Burnaby painted it. He should know. But you people will never do anything sensible. It looks like a picture of a country that does not exist.'

Dr Fell nodded sombrely. 'I am afraid you are right, ma'am. I don't think it does exist. And if three people were buried there it might be difficult to find them - mightn't it?'

'Will you stop talking this gibberish?' shouted Hadley; and then Hadley was taken aback by the fact that this gibberish had struck Ernestine Dumont like a blow. She got to her feet to conceal the effect of those meaningless words.

'I am going,' she said. 'You cannot stop me. You are all crazy. You sit here raving while - while you let Pierre Fley escape. Why don't you go after him? Why don't you do something?'

'Because you see, ma'am - Grimaud himself said that Pierre Fley did not do this thing.' While she was still staring at him, he let the painting fall back with a thump against the sofa. The scene out of a country which did not exist, and yet where three gravestones stood among crooked trees, brought Rampole's mind to an edge of terror. He was still looking at the painting when they heard footsteps on the stairs.

It was a heartening thing to see the prosaic, earnest, hatchet face of Sergeant Betts, whom Rampole remembered from the Tower of London case. Behind came two cheerful plain - clothes men carrying the photographic and fingerprint apparatus. A uniformed policeman stood behind Mills, Boyd Mangan, and the girl who had been in the drawing - room. She pushed through this group into the room.

'Boyd told me you wanted me,' she said, in a quiet but very unsteady voice, ' but I insisted on going over with the ambulance, you see. You'd better get over there as quick as you can, Aunt Ernestine. They say he's - going.'

She tried to be efficient and peremptory, even in the way she drew off her gloves; but she could not manage it. She had those decided manners which come in the early twenties from lack of experience and lack of opposition. Rampole was rather startled to see that her hair was a heavy blonde colour, bobbed and drawn behind the ears. Her face was squarish, with somewhat high cheek - bones; not beautiful, but disturbing and vivid in the way that makes you think of old times even when you do not know what times. Her rather broad mouth was painted dark red, but in contrast to this, and to the firm shape of the whole face, the long hazel eyes were of an uneasy gentleness. She looked round quickly, and shrank back towards Mangan with her fur coat drawn tightly round. She was not far from sheer hysteria.

'Will you please hurry and tell me what you want?' she cried.' Don't you realize he's dying? Aunt Ernestine -'

'If these gentlemen are through with me,' the woman said stolidly, 'I will go. I meant to go, as you know.'

She was docile all of a sudden. But it was a heavy docility, with a half - challenge in it - as though there were limits. Something bristled between these two women, something like the uneasiness in Rosette Grimaud's eyes. They looked at each other quickly, without a direct glance; they seemed to burlesque each other's movements, to become abruptly conscious of it, and stop. Hadley prolonged the silence, as though he were confronting two suspects with each other at Scotland Yard. Then: 'Mr Mangan,' he said briskly, 'will you take Miss Grimaud down to Mr Mills's room at the end of the hall? Thank you. We shall be with you in a moment. Mr Mills, just a second! Wait ... Betts!'

'Sir?'

'I want you to do some dangerous work. Did Mangan tell you to bring ropes and a flashlight? ... Good. I want you to go up on the roof of this place and search every inch of it for a footprint or a mark of any kind, especially over this room. Then go down to the yard behind this place, and both adjoining yards, and see if you can find any marks there. Mr Mills will show you how to get to the roof... Preston! Is Preston here?'

A sharp - nosed young man bustled in from the hall - the Sergeant Preston whose business it was to poke for secret places and who had discovered the evidence behind the panel in the Death - Watch case.

'Go over this room for any secret entrance whatever, understand? Tear the place to bits if you like. See if anybody could get up the chimney ... You fellows carry on with the prints and pictures. Mark out every blood - stain in chalk before you photograph. But don't disturb that burnt paper in the fire - place ... Constable! Where the h.e.l.l's that constable?'

'Here, sir.'

"Did Bow Street phone through the address of a man named Fley - Pierre Fley? ... Right. Go to wherever he lives and pick him up. Bring him here. If he's not there, wait. Have they sent a man to the theatre where he works? ... All right. That's all. Hop to it, everybody.'

He strode out into the hall, muttering to himself. Dr Fell, lumbering after him, was for the first time imbued with a ghoulish eagerness. He poked at the superintendent's arm with his shovel - hat.

'Look here, Hadley,' he urged, 'you go down and attend to the questioning, hey? I think I can be of much more service if I stay behind and a.s.sist those duffers with their photographs...'

'No, I'm hanged if you spoil any more plates!' said the other with heat. 'Those film packs cost money, and besides, we need the evidence. Now I want to talk to you privately and plainly. What's all this wild mumbo - jumbo about seven towers and people buried in countries that never existed? I've seen you in these fits of mystification before, but never quite so bad. Let's compare notes. What did you - yes, yes? What is it?'

He turned irascibly as Stuart Mills plucked at his arm.

'Er - before I conduct the sergeant up to the roof,' said Mills, imperturbably, 'I think I had better tell you that in case you wish to see Mr Drayman, he is here in the house.'

'Drayman? Oh, yes! When did he get back?'

Mills frowned. 'So far as I am able to deduce, he did not get back. I should say he had never left. A short time ago I had occasion to look into his room -'

'Why?' inquired Dr Fell with sudden interest.

The secretary blinked impa.s.sively. 'I was curious, sir. I discovered him asleep there, and it will be difficult to rouse him; I believe he has taken a sleeping - draught. Mr Drayman is fond of taking them. I do not mean that he is an inebriate or a drug - user, but quite literally that he is very fond of taking sleeping - draughts.'

'Rummiest household I ever heard of,' declared Hadley, after a pause, to n.o.body in particular. 'Anything else?'

'Yes, sir. There is a friend of Dr Grimaud's downstairs. He has just arrived, and he would like to see you. I do not think it is anything of immediate importance, but he is a member of the circle at the Warwick Tavern. His name is Pettis - Mr Anthony Pettis.'

'Pettis, eh?' repeated Dr Fell, rubbing his chin. 'I wonder if that's the Pettis who collects the ghost stories and writes those excellent prefaces? H'm, yes, I dare say. Now, how would he fit into this?'

'I'm asking you how anything fits into it,' insisted Hadley. 'Look here. I can't see this fellow now unless he's got something important to tell. Get his address, will you, and say I'll call on him in the morning? Thanks.' He turned to Dr Fell. 'Now carry on about the seven towers and the country that never existed.'

The doctor waited until Mills had led Sergeant Betts down the big hall to the door at the opposite end. A subdued mutter of voices from Grimaud's room was the only noise. The bright yellow light still streamed from the great arch of the staircase, illuminating the whole hall. Dr Fell took a few lumbering steps round the hall, looking up and down and then across at the three brown - draped windows. He pulled back the drapes and made certain that these three windows were all firmly locked on the inside. Then he beckoned Hadley and Rampole towards the staircase.

'Scrum,' he said, 'a little comparing of notes, I admit, will be advisable before we tackle the next witnesses. But not for a second about the seven towers. I'll lead up to those gradually, like Childe Roland. Hadley, a few disjointed words - the only real evidence we have, because it comes from the victim - may be the most important clue of all. I mean those few mutterings from Grimaud just before he fainted. I hope to heaven we all heard 'em. Remember, you asked him whether Fley had shot him. He shook his head. Then you asked him who had done it. What did he say? - I want to ask each of you in turn what you thought you heard.'

He looked at Rampole. The American's wits were muddled. He had a strong recollection of certain words, but the whole was confused by a too - vivid picture of a blood-soaked chest and a. writhing neck. He hesitated. 'The first thing he said,' Rampole answered, 'sounded to me like _hover_ -'

'Nonsense,' interrupted Hadley. 'I jotted it all down right away. The first thing he said was Bath or "the bath", though I'm hanged if I see - '

'Steady now. Your own gibberish,' said Dr Fell, 'is a little worse than mine. Go on, Ted.'

'Well, I wouldn't swear to any of it. But then I did hear the words not suicide, and he couldn't use rope. Next there was some reference to a roof and to snow and to a fox. The last thing I heard sounded like too much light. Again, I wouldn't swear it was all in consecutive order.'

Hadley was indulgent. 'You've got it all twisted, even, if you have got one or two of the points.' He seemed uneasy, nevertheless. 'All the same, I'm bound to admit that my notes don't make much better sense. After the word bath, he said salt and wine. You're right about the rope, although I heard nothing about suicide. Roof and snow are correct; "too much light" came afterwards; then "got gun". Finally, he did say something about a fox and the last thing - I barely heard it because of that blood - was something like Don't blame poor - And that's all.'

'O Lord!' groaned Dr Fell. He stared from one to the other. ' This is terrible. Gents, I was going to be very triumphant over you. I was going to explain what he said. But I am beaten by the staggering size of your respective ears. I never heard all that out of the gabble, although I dare say you're within some distance of the truth. Wow!'

'Well; what's your version?' demanded Hadley.

The doctor stumped up and down, rumbling, 'I heard only the first few words. They make tolerably good sense if I'm right - if I'm right. But the rest is a nightmare. I have visions of foxes running across roofs in the snow or -'

'Lycanthropy?' suggested Rampole. 'Did anybody mention werewolves?'

'No, and n.o.body's going to!' roared Hadley. He struck his note - book. 'To put everything in order, Rampole. I'll write down what you thought you heard for comparison ... So. We now have: Your list. Hover. Not suicide. He couldn't use rope. Roof. Snow. Fox. Too much light.'

'My list. Bath. Salt. Wine. He couldn't use rope. Roof. Snow. Too much light. Got gun. Don't blame poor - 'There we are. And, as usual, with your own brand of cussedness, Fell, you're most confident about the most senseless part. I might rig up an explanation that could fit together all the latter part, but how the devil does a dying man give us a clue by talking about bath and salt and wine?'

Dr Fell stared at his cigar, which had gone out.

'H'mf, yes. We'd better clear up a little of that. There are puzzles enough as it is. Let's go gently along the road ... First, my lad, what happened in that room after Grimaud was shot?'

'How the h.e.l.l should I know? That's what I'm asking you. If there's no secret entrance - '

'No, no, I don't mean how the vanishing - trick was worked. You're obsessed with that business, Hadley; so obsessed that you don't stop to ask yourself what else happened. First, let's get clear the obvious things for which we can find an explanation, and go on from there. Humph. Now, then, what clearly did happen in that room after the man was shot? First, all the marks centred round the fireplace-'

'You mean the fellow climbed up the chimney?'

'I am absolutely certain he didn't,' said Dr Fell testily, 'That flue is so narrow that you can barely get your fist through. Control yourself and think. First, a heavy sofa was pushed away from in front of the fire - place; there was a good deal of blood on the top, as though Grimaud had slipped or leaned against it. The hearth - rug was pulled or kicked away; there was blood on that; and a fireside chair was shoved away. Finally, I found spots of blood on the hearth and even in the fire - place. They led us to a huge ma.s.s of burnt papers that had nearly smothered the fire.

'Now consider the behaviour of the faithful Madame Dumont. As soon as she came into that room, she was very terribly concerned about that fire - place. She kept looking at it all the time, and nearly grew hysterical when she saw I was doing so too. She even, you recall, made the foolish blunder of asking us to light a fire - even though she must have known that the police wouldn't go fooling about with coals and kindling to make witnesses comfortable on the very scene of a crime. No, no, my boy. Somebody had tried to burn letters or doc.u.ments there. She wanted to be certain they had been destroyed.'

Hadley said heavily: 'So she knew about it then? And yet you said you believed her story?'

'Yes. I did and do believe her story - about the visitor and the crime. What I don't believe is the information she gave us about herself and Grimaud ... Now think again what happened! The intruder shot Grimaud. Yet Grimaud, although he is still conscious, does not shout for help, try to stop the killer, make a row of any kind, or even open the door when Mills is pounding there. But he does do something. He does do something, with such a violent exertion that he tears wide open the wound in his lung: as you heard the doctor say.

'And I'll tell you what he did do. He knew he was a goner and that the police would be in. He had in his possession a ma.s.s of things that must be destroyed. It was more vital to destroy them than to catch the man who shot him or even save his own life. He lurched back and forth from that fireplace, burning this evidence. Hence the sofa knocked away, the hearth - rug, the stains of blood - You understand now?'

There was a silence in the bright, bleak hall.

'And the Dumont woman?' Hadley asked heavily.

'She knew it, of course. It was their joint secret. And she happens to love him.'

'If this is true, it must have been something pretty d.a.m.ned important that he destroyed,' said Hadley, staring. 'How the devil do you know all this? What secret could they have had, anyway? And what makes you think they had any dangerous secret at all?'

Dr Fell pressed his hands to his temples and ruffled his big mop of hair. He spoke argumentatively.