The Poltergeist and the Red Notebook
There was no regular dinner that night at The Grange. When they hurried up to the house, well after seven o'clock, they received the news that Mr. Theseus Langdon, the dead man's solicitor, had arrived shortly before, accompanied by Miss Elizabeth Depping, who had taken the afternoon plane from Paris. The former was closeted in the library with Dr. Fell and Inspector Murch; the latter was indisposed, and kept to her room — probably, Patricia said with candor, less from her father's death than from her usual airsickness. But this indisposition was highly romanticized by Colonel Standish's good lady, who sailed about in a tempest of activity and set the house into an uproar. She presided at Betty Depping's bedside much as she might have presided at a ladies' club meeting; Patricia joined her, and there would seem to have been a row of some sort. Anyhow, only cold refreshments were set out on a sideboard in the dining-room, and disconsolate guests wandered about eating surreptitious sandwiches.
Of the celebrated Maw Standish, Hugh caught only a brief glimpse. She stalked downstairs to bid him welcome — a handsome woman, five-feet-ten in her lowest-heeled shoes, with a mass of ash-blonde hair carried like a war banner, and a rather hard but determinedly pleasant face. She told him firmly that he would like The Grange. She stabbed a finger at several of the portraits in the main hall, and reeled off the names of their artists. She tapped the elaborately carved frame of a mirror in the great alcove where the staircase stood, and impressively said, "Grinling Gibbons!" Donovan said, "Ah!" Next she enumerated the distinguished people who had visited the house, including Cromwell, Judge Jeffreys, and Queen Anne. Cromwell, it seemed, had left behind a pair of boots, and Jeffreys had smashed a piece out of the panelling; but Queen Anne seemed to have retired in good order. She fixed him with a stern, faintly smiling look, as though she wondered if he were worthy of this heritage; then she said that the patient required her attention, and marched up the staircase.
The Grange, he discovered, was a pleasant house: cool and sleepy, with its big rooms built on three sides of a rectangle. It had been modernized. The electric lights, set in wall brackets or depending from very high ceilings, had a rather naked look; but the only touch of antiquity — and a spurious one at that — was in the stone-flagged floor of the main hall, its great fireplace of white sandstone, and red-painted walls full of non-family portraits in gilt frames. Behind the main hall was a funereal dining-room, outside whose bay windows grew the largest ilex tree he had ever seen; and here J. R. Burke sat drinking beer in stolid thoughtfulness.
Wandering off into the west wing, Hugh found a drawing-room which some ancestor had decorated in opulent and almost pleasant bad taste. The walls were a panorama of Venetian scenes, with everybody leaning out of gondolas at perilous angles; gold-leaf mirrors; cabinets overlaid in china ornaments; and a chandelier like a glass castle. From across a hallway he could hear a mutter of voices behind the door to the library. A tribunal seemed to be going on there. As he watched, the door opened, and a butler came out; he could see momentarily a long room full of cigar smoke, and Dr. Fell making notes at a table.
The drawing-room windows were open on a stone-flagged terrace, where a cigarette was winking in the gloom. Hugh went outside. The terrace looked down over shelving gardens towards the rear, colorless under the white-and-purple dusk; and a few mullioned windows were alight in the pile of the west wing. Against the stone balustrade Morley Standish leaned and stared at the windows. He peered round as he heard a footstep.
"Who—? Oh, hullo," he said, and resumed his scrutiny.
Hugh lit a cigarette and said: "What's been going on? Your sister and I were down at Morgan's. Have they found-?"
"That's what I'd like to know," said Morley. "Seems to me they're devilish secretive. I don't seem to count for anything. Mother says I oughtn't to see Betty… Miss Depping, you know; she's here. I don't know what they're doing. They're had every servant on the carpet over there in the library. God knows what's going on."
He flung away his cigarette, hunched himself up, and brooded over the balustrade. "Beautiful night, too," he added irrelevantly. " 'Where were you on the night of the murder?'" "I?"
"They've been asking us all that — just as a matter of form. Beginning with the servants to make it look better. Where would we be? Where is there to go after dark? We were all tucked up in our beds. I wish I could explain those confounded shoes."
"Did you ask about them?"
"I asked Kennings: that footman I was telling you about. He doesn't know. He remembers putting the shoes in the junk closet right enough, some time ago. Anybody could have taken 'em out. There's no mistake. They're not there now… Hullo!"
Hugh followed the direction of his glance. Another light had appeared in the west wing. "Now I wonder" said Morley, rubbing his forehead with a heavy hand, "who's in the oak room at this time?"
"The oak room?"
"Where our poltergeist hangs out," Morley told him grimly. After a pause, during which he stared at the light, he said: "Am I getting idiotic notions? Or do you think we ought to go up and see?"
They looked at each other. Hugh, was conscious of a tensity in the other's bearing; almost an explosiveness which the stolid Morley had been concealing. Hugh nodded. Almost in a rush they left the terrace. They were climbing the main staircase before Morley spoke again.
"See that fellow?" he asked, pointing to a bad portrait on the landing. It was that of a fleshy-faced man in a laced coat and full-bottomed periwig, with plump hands which seemed to be making an uncertain gesture, and an evasive eye. "He was one of the Aldermen of Bristol, supposed to have been concerned in the Western Rebellion of 1685. He didn't actually do anything — didn't have the nerve, I suppose — but he was rumored to have favored Monmouth. When Chief Justice Jeffreys came down for the assize to punish the rebels, he had all his goods forfeited. Jeffreys was staying here, with a Squire Redlands who owned The Grange then. That man, Alderman Wyde, came here to plead with Jeffreys against the sentence. Jeffreys foamed, and preached him a long sermon. So Wyde cut his throat in the oak room. Hence…"
They were moving along a passage that led off the main hall upstairs: a narrow passage, badly lighted, and Morley was peering about him as though he expected to find somebody following. The whole house might have been deserted. Morley stopped before a door at the end. He waited a moment, straightened his shoulders, and knocked.
There was no answer. An eerie feeling crawled through Donovan, because they could see the light shining out under the door. Morley knocked again. "All right!" he said, and pushed the door open.
It was a spacious room, but gloomy, because it was panelled to the ceiling. The only illumination was a lamp with a frosted-glass shade, which stood on a table by the bed: a canopied bed, unmade and uncurtained. In the wall facing them was a wooden mantelpiece, with leaded windows in embrasures on either side. There was another door in the right-hand wall. And the room was empty.
Morley’s footsteps rattled on the boarded floor. He called, "Hallo!" and moved across to the other door, which was shut but unlocked. He pulled it open and glanced into the darkness beyond.
"That," he said, "is the junk closet.. It-"
He whirled round. Hugh also had backed away. There had been a sharp creak near the fireplace, and a flicker of light. A section of the panelling between the fireplace and the window embrasure was being pushed open: a hinged section, nearly as high as a door. The Bishop of Mappleham, with a candle in his hand, appeared in the aperture.
Hugh had the presence of mind not to laugh.
"Look here, sir," he protested, "I wish you wouldn't do that. Mysterious villains have a monopoly on entrances like that. When you appear—"
His father's face looked tired and heavy over the candle flame. He turned to Morley.
"Why," he said, "was I not told of this — this passage?"
Morley only returned his gaze blankly for a moment. "That? I thought you knew about it, sir. It isn't a secret passage, you know. If you look closely, you can see the hinges. And the hole where you put your finger to open it. It leads—"
"I know where it leads," said the bishop. "Downstairs, to a concealed door opening on the gardens. I have explored it. Neither end is latched. Do you realize that any outsider could enter this house unseen at any time he chose?"
Morley’s dark, almost expressionless eyes seemed to recognize what the other was thinking. He nodded, slightly. But he said:
"For that matter, an outsider could walk in the front entrance if he chose. We never lock doors."
The bishop set down his candle on the mantel-shelf, and fell to brushing dust from his coat. Again his face was heavy and clouded, as though from anger or loss of sleep. "However," he said, It has been recently used. The dust is disturbed. And over there is the closet from which your shoes were taken…"
Heavily, with a forward stoop of his shoulders, he moved over towards the bed. Hugh saw that he was looking at a splattered red stain on the wall and on the floor. For a moment a vision of throat-cuttings, and periwigged gentlemen out of the seventeenth century, invaded the shrivelled old room; then, with a drop of anticlimax, Hugh remembered about the ink. This was where the poltergeist had been active. The whole thing was at once baffling, ludicrous, and terrible.
"Since our authorities," he went on with bitter heaviness, "Dr. Fell with his great knowledge of criminals, and that brilliant detective Inspector Murch, have not seen fit to take me into their confidence this afternoon — well, I have conducted my investigation along my own lines… Tell me: This room is not generally used, is it?"
"Never," said Morley. "It's damp, and there's no steam heat. Er — why do you ask, sir?"
"Then how did Mr. Primley happen to occupy it on the night of — on the night someone was assumed to be exercising a primitive sense of humor?"
Morley stared at him. "Well, you ought to know, sir! You were with us when it was arranged. It was because he asked…"
The bishop made an irritated gesture. "I am putting these questions to you," he said, "for my son's benefit. I wish him to understand exactly how the proper sort of examination is conducted."
"Oh!" said Morley. A slightly humorous look appeared in his eyes. "I see. Well, you and my father and Mr. Primley and I began talking about the story of the man who'd killed himself here, and 'the influence' or whatever you call it. So when Mr. Primley had to spend the night here, he asked to be put in this room
"Ah. Yes. Yes, quite so. That," nodded the bishop, drawing back his chin, "is what I want to establish. Listen, Hugh. But Mr. Primley had not originally intended to spend the night, had he?"
"No, sir. He missed the last bus back home, and he-"
"Consequently, I must point out to you, Hugh: consequently, no outsider could even have known of the vicar's intention to stay the night, even in the doubtful event an outsider knew he was here. It was a sudden decision, made late in the evening. Much less could any outsider have known Mr. Primley intended to occupy this room… Therefore this affair could not conceivably have been a joke put up on Mr. Primley by an outsider."
"What ho! ’ said Hugh, after a pause. "You mean somebody sneaked up that passage to get into the junk closet and steal those shoes; but he didn't expect to find this room occupied…"
"Precisely. I am afraid you run ahead of my logic," the bishop rebuked him in a somewhat annoyed voice: "a practice against which I must caution you. But that is what I do mean. He did not expect to find the room occupied; and, either coming in or going out — probably the latter — he woke Mr. Primley. He raised a very brief ghost scare to cover himself?' The bishop's furry brows drew together, and he put his hand into his pocket. "What is more, I can tell you exactly the person who would be apt to do that, and I can prove that he was here."
From his pocket he drew a small notebook of red leather, smudged over with dirt. There were gilt initials stamped upon it.
This interesting little clue was dropped in an angle of the stairs that go down inside that passage. Do me the favor of looking at it. It is unfortunate that it was lost; it bears the initials H.M. Do I need to expatiate at length on the traits of character belonging to young Mr. Henry Morgan, or to point out his suspicious eagerness to lead Inspector Murch by the nose in this case? It was he, I believe, who called Murch's attention to that footprint by the Guest House, and kindly offered to take a plaster impression of the evidence."
"ROT!" said Hugh violently. He swallowed hard. "I mean-excuse me, sir, but that's fantastic. It won't work. It's-"
Morley cleared his throat.
“You have to admit, sir," he urged persuasively, "that it takes some believing. I don't mean the evidence! — but about Hank. He would be quite capable of playing a joke of that sort on Mr. Primley or anybody else who slept here, but the rest of it can't be right."
The bishop spread out his hands. "Young man," he said; "I urge nothing upon you. I simply inform you. Did Henry Morgan know Mr. Primley was here at all that night?"
"N-no. But he could have seen him come in, possibly."
"Yet he could not under any circumstances have known Mr. Primley was staying the night?" "I suppose not."
"Or, above all, the room he would occupy? Ah. Thank you." He placed the notebook carefully back in his pocket, patted his waistcoat, and assumed a benign air. "I think that I shall presently wait upon our good authorities in the library. Shall we go downstairs now? Morley, if you will blow out that candle…? No, leave it there. We shall probably need it presently'
They were walking along the hall again before Morley spoke.
"I tell you, sir," he said, "your assumption is — well, ridiculous; not to put too fine a point on it. I told you Hank didn't like the old boy; all right; everybody will admit that, including Hank himself. But that's no reason for…" He hesitated, as though he could not use the word, and went on stubbornly: "And as for sneaking upstairs to get my shoes—! No, no; That won't work. That's pure theory."
"My boy, be careful. I wish it distinctly understood that I accuse nobody. I have not yet, even in my own thoughts, gone so far as any accusation or implication of — ah — homicide. But if this estimable gentleman, Fell, chooses to exert the letter of his authority in excluding me from his puerile councils, then he cannot be chagrined if I take steps to circumvent him."
Hugh had never before seen his father's hobby take such a violent and spiteful hold. More than this, he suddenly became aware that the bishop was growing old, and unsteady. Nobody in the past, whatever the satirical remarks about him, had ever doubted his fairness or his intelligence. Now Hugh seemed to see only a large grizzle-headed shell, with flabby jowls, and a bitter mouth. He had lived too long, too aggressively, and now there was a faint childishness creeping into him. In only a year… Hugh realized, only then, what must have been the effect on him of being betrayed — as though the very Providence he extolled were conspiring to make a fool of him — into the ludicrous antics over which everybody had got so much amusement. It wasn't humorous. The maddest joke of all was just that; he took it seriously. There must be a moral somewhere…”
Nor did Hugh believe that Morgan was guilty, if only because he felt vaguely that people like Morgan do not commit murders; especially as they are always writing about them in books, and treat murderers as fascinating monstrosities apart from human life, like unicorns or griffins. He doubted whether his father believed it. But he had an alarming idea that the bishop was willing to accuse anybody, regardless of belief, if he could find any sort of case.
Meanwhile, his thoughts were complicated by the mess of the whole affair, and how soon he could see Patricia, and why the mess had to occur at just this time anyway. As he followed his father through the drawing-room, a door slammed violently. It was the library door. Stumping through the drawing-room came J.R. Burke, a sardonic expression on his face, and a reminiscent gleam of battle over his half-glasses. He peered at the newcomers, and grinned. Then he took the pipe out of his mouth to point over his shoulder.
"Evenin'," he said to the bishop. They told me to fetch you. And also you, young fella. I've given my evidence, and they can put it in their pipes and smoke it. Hum, hum." He cocked his head on one side in pleased reflection. "Go on in. The more the merrier. There's hell poppin' in there."
The bishop drew himself up. "I fancied," he replied, "that sooner or later my presence might be requested. I also fancy I shall somewhat astonish them — What is going on in there, Mr. Burke?"
"It's about Depping's lawyer," explained J.R., chuckling. "It turns out that, in addition to being Depping's lawyer, he's also Spinelli's. And trimming both sides as neat as you please… Join up. You and your son are both wanted."