A Highly Probable Story
The story, it is to be feared, has already been told too many times. It has been featured in the public prints, made the subject for leading articles, controversies in women's magazines, homilies, sermons, and the tearful "humanists" of the family pages. Betty Depping — whose name was not Betty Depping, and was no relation to the man she murdered — told the story herself a week before she poisoned herself at Horfield Gaol in Bristol. And that is why Dr. Fell insists to this day that the case was not one of his successes.
"That was the key fact of the whole business," he will say. "The girl wasn't his daughter. She had been his mistress for two years during the time he lived in America. And this was the explanation I had only begun to guess at the end. From the evidence on hand, it was easy to fix on tar as the killer; that was fairly obvious from the beginning. But her motive puzzled me.
"Now we have the answer, which would appear to lie in Depping's character as well as her own. You see, she was the one woman who had ever succeeded in holding Depping's fancy. When he grew tired of making cutthroat money in the States, and decided to chuck it up and create another character for himself in England (I do not, at this juncture, make any comparisons), he took her along with him. She, by the way, was the 'high-class dame with the Park-Avenue manner’ of whom Spinelli spoke to us.
"I think we can read between the lines of her confession. She maintains that his original intention was to present her as his wife when he assumed his new character, but that chance prevented it. She says that Depping, in his desire for terrific respectability, overdid it. When he was just completing arrangements to buy a share in the publishing firm, without having said anything of his domestic arrangements, quite by accident J. R. Burke encountered him and the girl unexpectedly in a London hotel. (You may remember that she told us a rather similar story, while pretending she really was his daughter?) Depping, playing his part clumsily, and flustered at being discovered with a young and pretty girl without a wedding ring, imagined that it might hurt his chances for social respectability; and at a somewhat crucial time. So he blurted out that she was his daughter, and was afterwards obliged to stick to his story. Hence, if scandal were to be averted, the girl must live abroad.
If she lived in the same house, he might forget himself and become too lover-like where others — such as servants — could observe it. The scandal attendant on a supposed father’ making love to his daughter would make the other affair seem innocuous by comparison.
This, as I say, is her version. You may accept it if you like, but I should have thought Depping to have been too careful and far-seeing a plotter to have been forced, by an unexpected encounter, into such an awkward strategem. I think he maneuvered the girl into this position so as to be quit of her — except on such occasions as he could forget his role of country gentleman and pay her amorous visits at not-too-frequent intervals. Hence the flat in Paris, the supposed lady companion' (who did not exist), and the whole fiction manufactured about her past life. Depping, you see, really believed that he could will himself into his new character. He saw no necessity for putting her out of his life. His arrangement, he thought, was ideal. He had a genuine love of scholarship and his new pursuits; and, if he placed her in this position, no mistress could make awkward demands on his time. He could see her when he-wished; at other times, she would be kept a convenient distance away. A good deal of Depping's character is in that proceeding.
"But, as was inevitable, he grew tired of his new life. A good deal, I suspect, because his circle had made it pretty uncomfortable for him. They didn't like him, or 'admit him' or give him the sense of power to which he had been used. They made it clear that he was being put up with only because of his value to business. Hence his outbursts and his fits of drinking.
"At length he determined to chuck it up and go away; to start a new life among new people. He should keep a certain 'respectability,' and take the girl along either as wife or mistress. And at that juncture, two complications appeared, grew, and wrecked everything. Spinelli appeared, and the girl had fallen in love — genuinely, she declared — with Morley Standish.
"I recommend that-you read her confession. It is a curious document: a combination of sincerity, cynicism, school-girl naivete, matured wisdom, lies, and astonishing flights of cheap rhetoric. Make what you can of it. 'Patsy Mulholland' she signs herself. During all her association with Depping she seems at once to have hated considerably, loved a little, despised a litde, and admired a good deal. She had a sort of instinctive gentility and poise; small education, but the wit to conceal that; and a good taste that Depping would never have.
Inevitably, he had to bring her to England at intervals. At The Grange they liked her, and Morley Standish fell in love with her. She fell in love with him, she says. I remember one passage in her evidence. 'He was comfortable,' she said. The sort I wanted. One hates (sic!) one hates existence with a combination ice box and tiger.' When I think of that girl, cool to the last, sitting before the magistrates and talking in this fashion…
"Whatever the truth of the matter, it was a dazzling opportunity. She must play it coolly, lb Depping she must laugh at his infatuation, and Depping will even assist and encourage it; because, he thinks, it will bring about his revenge on the people who have slighted him.
"Depping, you see, was already perfecting his plans for departure with her, and she was agreeing to them. 'Encourage him!' says Depping. 'Get engaged to him; flaunt it in their faces.' It inspired him with a triumphant delight. Then, when the news of the engagement was published, he himself would announce the real state of affairs, bow ironically, and sail away with the bride. If you can readily conceive any better way to make a laughingstock of people you hate, I should be interested to hear it.
"In fact, it was a bit too perfect. Betty (let's call her that) had no intention of permitting it. The issue was clear-cut. She was going to become Mrs. Morley Standish. The only way she could become Mrs. Morley Standish, and put the past entirely behind her, was to kill Depping.
"It was not merely a case of cold resolve, though that was the beginning of it. The girl seems to have indulged in a sort of self-hypnosis; of convincing herself that she had been bitterly and unfairly treated; of working up the state of her wrongs in her own mind until she genuinely believed in them. In her confession, a hysterical outburst against Depping precedes a statement wherein she prides herself on the workmanlike way she set about to plan his murder.
"For Spinelli had already appeared. And Spinelli was a serious threat to both of them. That Spinelli, when he accidently came across Depping in England, knew Depping's former mistress was still with him in the pose of his daughter, I am inclined to doubt. But Depping decided he must be put out of the way. To begin with, he might spoil Depping's last joke’— engaging his supposed daughter to Morley Standish— before Depping was ready to reveal it. But most of all because he would now be a blackmailing leech on Depping wherever he went, and in whatever character he chose to assume. In brief, he was not so much a menace as a nuisance. And Depping had a curt way of dealing with nuisances.
"Betty Depping encouraged his design while she was formulating one of her own. Spinelli could be a very deadly danger to her. She corresponded with Depping about means for putting Spinelli out of the way: monstrously indiscreet letters. Depping wisely destroyed all she sent him, but a packet of his letters was found in her flat in Paris. One, dated two nights before the murder, informs her that he had procured 'the necessities,' and 'arranged a meeting with S. in a suitably lonely spot for Friday night.'
The details I dare say she did not know. The interesting thing is that by this time she had worked herself into a bitter, wild, virtuous, crusading rage against Depping, mixed with a certain music-hall theatricality. 'I felt,' she says — and almost seems to mean it—'that I would be ridding the world of a monster.' Did anybody ever really talk like that? Oh, yes. Talk. But her actions show the intrinsic falsity of the emotion. I don't wish to do the woman an injustice; and I thoroughly agree that the world was well rid of Depping. I am only pointing out that she slightly overdid her emotion when she painted that little card of the eight swords. ”
This is what Dr. Fell will say before you ask him to explain his means of determining the guilty person.
Hugh Donovan, in the ensuing months, heard the details many times. It has always been a favorite topic of conversation at The Grange, where he has been a frequent visitor, due to asking Patricia Standish to marry him, and being accepted, and also learning firmly to utter a certain vigorous phrase to his prospective mother-in-law. Maw Standish maintains (between listening to the wireless, and assuring the colonel that his mind, for the head of a great publishing house, is in a deplorable state and needs improving), Maw maintains she knew of Betty Depping's perfidy all the time; and also that the trip around the world is doing Morley good. These endings are eminently commonplace and probable, you will perceive, and serve fittingly to conclude a probable story. But, as regards explanations, Hugh remembers best a conversation in J. R. Burke's office, one wet and murky October afternoon in the same year, when several of the characters were sitting round a fire, and Dr. Fell talked, j Dr. Fell was smoking J. R.'s cigars, which were kept rather for effect than for use, and leaning back amicably in a leather chair. Outside the rain was 1 pattering in Paternoster Row, and the dingy tangle of window fronts that straggle under the shadow of Paul's dome. The fire was bright, the cigars good; and i J. R., having locked the door of the book-lined room against his secretary, had produced whisky. Henry Morgan was there, having just brought up to London the completed manuscript of his new book, Aconite in the Admiralty. Hugh was there also, but not the bishop. And Dr. Fell had been talking in the fashion indicated, when J. R. interrupted him.
"Get on to the point," he grunted. Tell us why you thought the girl was guilty. We don't want these characterizations. Not in a detective story, anyhow. The public will only glance at this chapter, to make sure it hasn't been cheated by having evidence withheld. If you've got any reasons, let's hear 'em. Otherwise—" '
"Exactly," agreed Morgan. "After all, this is only a detective story. It only concerns the little emotions that go into the act of murdering somebody"
"Shut up." said J. R. austerely.
Dr. Fell blinked at his cigar. "But that's quite right, nevertheless. It wouldn't be true to life. It wouldn't be true to life, for instance, if a modern novelist devoted to motives for murder the same profound and detailed analysis he devotes to little Bertie's early life among the dandelions, or the sinister Freudian motives behind his desire to kiss the housemaid. Humph. When an inhibition bites a man, it's a fine novel. When a man up and bites an inhibition, it's only a detective story."
The Russians-" said J. R.
'I knew it," said Dr. Fell querulously. "I was afraid of that. I decline to discuss the Russians. After long and thoughtful reflection, I have come to the conclusion that the only adequate answer to one who begins rhapsodizing about the Russians is a swift uppercut to the jaw. Besides, I find it absolutely impossible to become passionately interested in the agonies and misfortunes of any character whose name ends in 'ski’ or Vitch.' This may be insularity. It may also be a disturbing sense that, from what I read, these people are not human beings at all. Ah, God," said Dr. Fell musingly, "if only somebody would make a bad pun! If only Popoff would say to Whiskervitch, "Who was that lady I seen you with last night?" Try to imagine a conversation, in the after life, between Mark Twain or Anatole France and any of the leading Russians, and you will have some vague glimmering of what I mean."
J. R. snorted. "You don't know what you're talking about. And, besides, get back to the subject. This is the last chapter, and we want to get it over with."
Dr. Fell mused a while.
"The extraordinary feature about the Depping murder" he rumbled, after refreshing himself with whisky, "is that the thing explained itself, if you only bothered to inquire what the facts meant.
"I had a strong inkling of who the murderer was long before I had met her. The first fact that established itself beyond any question was that the murderer was definitely NOT one of the little community at or around The Grange. And the murderer was not only an outsider, but an outsider who had known Depping in his past (and, at that time) unknown life."
"Why?"
"Let us begin with the attempted murder of Spinelli by Depping, at the point in our previous deductions where we had decided that it was Depping who left the house in disguise and came back to it through the front door. The problem was this: Was Depping working with a confederate whom he had planted in that room as an alibi? Or was he working alone, and X somebody who had come unexpectedly to that room with the intent to kill — only helping him in his deception when X saw the opportunity of an alibi for him (or herself?) In either case, were there any indications as to X's identity?
"Very well. Now, all the weight of evidence lay against Depping's having a confederate, to begin with, why did he NEED a confederate at all? It's a very poor alibi, you know, merely to put somebody in a room; somebody who can't show himself, or act for you, or prove you are there. If Depping had genuinely wanted an alibi for his presence in that room, he would have had a confederate do something that could have testified to his presence… running the type- j writer, for example. Or even moving about or making conspicuous sounds of any sort. But it didn't happen. And what's the good of an alibi that doesn't alibi, but merely puts you into the power of your confederate? Why share a secret that you don't have to share at all?
"Which brings us to the second and most powerful objection. Depping was acting a part before that community. The last thing in the world he would think of doing would be to reveal himself: to tell what he was—"
"Hold on!" interrupted J. R. "I made that objection myself.- He couldn't tell anybody what he'd been, or that he intended to go out and murder Spinelli; he didn't know or trust anybody well enough for that. But somebody" — he sighted over his eyeglasses at Morgan—"invented a long yarn about an 'innocent victim,' who had been persuaded by Depping to stay there on the grounds that he was playing a practical joke on somebody, and afterwards the accomplice couldn't reveal the plot without incriminating himself."
Dr. Fell followed the direction of his glance at Morgan, and chuckled.
"Consider it," he said. "Can any of you conceive of a person from whom an excuse of that sort would come with less plausibility than from Depping? Could any of your community, Morgan, imagine Depping in the role of light and graceful practical joker? If he had come to you with a proposition of that sort, would you have believed him or assisted him?… I doubt it. But the real objection lies in the eight of swords. If you believe in an innocent confederate, what becomes of that symbol and trade-mark of the murderer? How did it come there? Why did an innocent confederate bring it there to begin with?”
"We will consider that card next. For the moment, we establish in theory that Depping had no confederate (a) because he didn't need one, and (b) because he would not have dared to reveal himself: which thesis I can prove in another way. As actual evidence of this, we have your evidence, J. R… "
"Hated to give it," said the other. Thought it might give you ideas." He snorted.
"When you called on Depping, he was startled to hear a knock even when he couldn't see you. That's not the behavior of a man expecting an accomplice. Furthermore, he first took the key out of his pocket to unlock the door, and later you saw him through the glass putting it back in his pocket when he'd locked the door after you.
"In brief, he was going out alone, and he was going to lock the door and take the key when he went to kill Spinelli."
Dr. Fell tapped his finger on the chair arm.
"In deciding where to look for Depping's murderer — the person who had come into that house unseen, and was waiting for him when he returned— there were several suggestions. One of them is so obvious that it's comic."
"Well?"
"The murderer," said Dr. Fell, "ate Depping's dinner. ”
There was a silence. Then the doctor shook his head.
"Reflect, if you please, on the monstrous, the solemn, the glaring give-away of that fact. Look at it from all angles, if you would try to convince me that j the murderer was somebody from that community. Study the fantastic picture of Colonel Standish, of Mrs. Standish, of Morley Standish, of Morgan, of yourself… of anybody you like to name, going up to kill Depping, finding him not at home, and then whiting away the time by sitting down and eating a hearty meal off the tray of the man you shortly expect to kill! Of, if you prefer, imagine any one of those people paying an ordinary social visit, unexpectedly, and eating the dinner they happen to find conveniently on a tray! It's not only absurd; it's unthinkable.
"That's why I remarked mat the case explained itself. There is only one explanation that can account for it. When I was meditating over this astonishing behavior of X, I said, 'Why did he eat Depping's dinner?' Morley Standish triumphandy replied, 'Because he was hungry.' But it didn't seem to occur to anybody that X was hungry because X had come from some distance away, and in a hurry. It did not seem plain that people who eat normal dinners in the neighborhood of The Grange are not apt to behave in this fashion.
The corollary to this not-very complifcated deduction is that X not only came from some distance away, but was so thoroughly intimate with Depping that he (or she) could sit down and eat a dinner like that without ever thinking twice about it. It's the sort of thing you might do with a dose relative, but few other people. You have only to ask yourself, 'How many people were close enough to Depping to fit into this picture?' And on top of that you will inquire about the key. How many people would have a key which fitted Depping's balcony door? Depping locked it when he went out, and X had to get in."
"Yes, but X might have come in the front door—" Morgan was beginning, when he saw the flaw and stopped. "I see. It would be the same whichever door was used. X could'nt ring and be let in by the valet."
"Certainly not for the purpose in mind," said Dr. Fell; "that is, murdering Depping. Now, to the combination of these two things, a person with keys to the house yet living a great distance away, is added another significant circumstance… After his attempted murder of Spinelli, Depping returned. It was then he discovered that somewhere on the way he had lost his key to the balcony door. He went up, looked through the window, and saw X in possession. Would he have revealed himself so readily to some member of the neighborhood; gone into conversation; agreed to the scheme for walking in the front door; unless the person inside had been… who? And the answer that occurred to me in my innocence was: a daughter, who, being a daughter, he thought would not betray him. The fact that she was his mistress I didn't know, but the rule still works.
"Now we come to that mysterious eight of swords. The curious part there was that not only was there nobody there who knew what it meant, but that nobody had ever heard of Depping's interest in the occult. He never mentioned it, he never played with fortune-telling packs, though his bookshelves were stuffed with works on the subject… I filed away the idea, still wondering, when — as soon as Spinelli appeared on the scene— he recognized it. It was definitely a part of Depping's dark past. The murderer, then, was somebody who had known Depping in America; or, at least, known something of Depping that nobody else did.
"With my growing suspicion of the daughter in my mind, I tried to couple it with this fact. It was corroboration, even though it had never entered my head to suspect the daughter of being anything else than she pretended until Spinelli and Langdon were on the scene.
"I noticed how all references to the daughter were scrupulously kept out of their talk. What Langdon did was to hint at a 'mysterious woman' with whom Depping was going to run away: Why did he do that?
Then Spinelli made a slip and revealed that he knew the amount of Depping's estate. Whatever you deduce from this, you will admit that these two — between them — knew something about Depping's past life out of which they both believed they could make capital.
"Spinelli I could understand, because I believed he knew who the killer was. But what could both of them have known, which would be of profit? What had Langdon found out? And the first faint suggestion began to come to me, though I didn't believe it. This daughter, who didn't live with her father, although— vide Morley Standish — he was 'always worrying about her, and what she was doing’; this card of the taroc that Depping only used in America, and whose painting in water color suggested a woman; this queer attitude of the lawyer…
"For, you see, if Betty Depping were not really his daughter, it would be an excellent thing for Langdon. I mean blackmail. 'Split half the estate with me, or you get none.' And it would fit in exactly…"
Dr. Fell waved his hand.
"What happened was simply this. We know it from the girl's confession. She came over from Paris that Friday night with the intention of killing Depping. She didn't know where Depping would be, except that he would be out on Spinelli's trail, and she wanted him to do that piece of work for them both before she shot him. She was prepared with a pistol — the same one she later used on Spinelli and Langdon.
"She came up on the balcony and let herself in through the door. Depping had already gone. But she saw… you understand?"
Morgan nodded, abstractedly. "His disguise preparations, his own clothes left behind, and all the traces of that masquerade."
"Exactly. She knew he was out after Spinelli in disguise. As yet the brilliant idea had not occurred to her. She could not have known Depping had lost his key. But it did occur — she says with some pride— when she heard Depping fumble at the door, and say he was locked out. You know what happened. She short-circuited the lights with her rubber glove, and the comedy was played.
"Meantime, Spinelli had followed Depping back from the river. He saw everything, and heard everything at the window. The woman got Depping back into his ordinary clothes, her stage set; and then she did not have to use her own pistol at all. She picked up Depping's own gun from the desk — not wearing her gloves, of course — sat on the arm of his chair, and shot him. Afterwards she wiped off the gun, blew out the candles, and left… to meet Spinelli on the lawn below.
"He was careful. He took away the handbag in which she carried the other pistol; got it but of her grasp first, and removed the bullets, before he talked business. He had her cornered. She couldn't give him all he demanded; she protested that Depping hadn't been as rich as Spinelli thought. But let her get away from the place, she swore, and she would arrange something, and agreed to meet him on that spot the following night to discuss terms.
"Eheu! Naturally she never went back to Paris at all. She caught the last bus to Bristol, where she had a hotel room under another name. She then took a morning train to London; put through a trunk call to Paris, to the maid at her flat (who had been well coached from the beginning) and found that the telegram informing her of her father's death had arrived. So, allowing a reasonable time, she called on Langdon in Gray's Inn Square, and asked him to accompany her down to The Grange… But Langdon, you see, knew she was not really Depping's daughter. On the way down, he informed her of it. Depping had been indiscreet, and told him the whole story.
"He wanted half, to which she agreed. Meanwhile, Langdon was wondering how he could connect up this murder with the phone call he had had from Spinelli, saying that he (Spinelli) was on the point of being arrested for murder and asking for advice. Langdon jumped to the conclusion — which was true — that Spinelli knew the facts of his own case: viz., that the girl was not Depping's daughter. Langdon hinted as much to her.
"And she invented a brilliant scheme for disposing of them both. She said that Spinelli did know, and was asking for his share of hush money. She told him that she was to meet Spinelli at the Guest House that night: Would he, Langdon, be along, and use moral terrors, or legal terrors, or both, in an attempt to intimidate Spinelli?
"It nearly fell through; because, you see, we confronted Spinelli with Langdon, and they had the opportunity to confer in private. You can understand now Langdon's horror and nervousness when I announced that Spinelli was ready to talk. He thought I meant talk of what he knew about the girl. But the girl's scheme worked because Langdon's suspicions were aroused at Spinelli's talk, and he wondered whether 'Betty Depping' mightn't have deeper reasons for wishing silence all around than that matter of her identity.
"We shall never know what passed between Spinelli and Langdon at their interview. Langdon realized that Spinelli knew something more; but he kept his own counsel, and determined to be present that night — unseen and unheard — at the rendezvous between Spinelli and the girl."
Dr. Fell threw his cigar into the fire. He leaned back and listened to the rain.
They were both marked," he said. "You know what happened."
"Moral observations," remarked J. R., after a silence, "are now in order. Somebody will have to talk for a page or two on the futility and sadness of it, and how she would have been safe if only she hadn't left one-little-damning clue behind…"
"It won't go, Fm afraid," said Dr. Fell. He chuckled. The one-little-damning clue was a large and many-caloried dinner, steaming before your noses. You might as well say that the Guiness advertisements plastered over the hoardings are a clue to the theory that somebody is trying to sell stout."
J. R. scowled. "All the same," he said, "Fm glad that the only detective plot in which I ever took part was not full of improbabilities and wild situations, like-well, like Morgan's Murder on the Woolsack or Aconite at the Admiralty. There are no fiendish under-clerks shooting poisoned darts through keyholes at the First Sea-Lord, or luxurious secret dens of the. Master Criminal at Limehouse. What I mean by probability…"
Hugh looked round in some surprise to see that Morgan was gurgling with rage.
"And you think," Morgan inquired, "that this is a probable story?"
"Isn't it?" asked Hugh. "It's exactly like one of those stories by William Block Tournedos. As Mr. Burke says…"
Morgan sank back.
"Oh, well!" he said. "Never mind. Let's have a drink."