The Punch and Judy Show
The moon was low behind the headlands, and, although the sky had turned blacker yet, in another hour or more it would be dawn. Through that hush the police-car turned up into a familiar lane. On either side were high hedges, with the dim white of apple-blossom beyond; the wet scent of dew and sea mingled with it, and the soil of Devon slept. We were returning up the headland on which stood Charters's villa and Antrim's house. From some distance away a church clock whispered the quarter-hour to four.
The police-car contained the constable who drove it, and Evelyn, and myself — and Mr. Johnson Stone. Stone had insisted on coming back with us. Half the reason why he had put into Murchison's head the idea of sending us back, he pointed out, was that he wished to return and see old soand-so's face when the old so-and-so learned the truth. I had put through a brief trunk-call to the old so-and-so, giving a brief flutter of the facts. He had remained cryptic.
On that ride not one of us, I think, was tired. Stone sat in front with the constable, and Evelyn and I in the back. We were fretted and disturbed, but not tired. Possibly to divert our minds, possibly because it was the natural thing, we did what people usually do on night rides: we sang. Stone proved to be an enthusiastic amateur tenor, with a strong preference for sentimental Scottish songs. The things he did to Annie Laurie, upturning his face to the moon, exposing nearly all his teeth on the top-notes, would have wrung tears from a Highlander. The constable also proved to be musical. He never turned round or lifted his eyes from the road as though it would be a dereliction of duty to do so; but he stolidly joined a tuneless bass to everything Stone started.
We fell silent when we reached the top of the lane. Charters's house was illuminated. So, some distance over to the left, was Antrim's. And, as we turned into the driveway, a figure moved out and gestured us to stop. It was Charters. He was as stiff-backed as ever, but he looked even more fretful and worried and tired, as of a man who wishes to get this nonsense over with and go to bed. He laid a large knuckled hand on the door of the car.
"Glad you're back," he said briefly. "Don't go to my place. Drive on over to Antrim's. They're all there."
"All?"
"All," said Charters. "Dr. and Mrs. Antrim. Even Bowers. They've also brought Serpos back from Moreton Abbot — the blasted young pup. They're holding high inquisition; or, rather, Merrivale is. He's taken over Antrim's consulting-room, as coolly as though he owned it."
"How long have they been there?" I asked quickly. That telephone-call from `L.' had come through, we had ascertained, at just one-thirty.
"How long? Why? — some time, anyhow; ever since about midnight, when Mrs. Antrim got back from Moreton Abbot. She's a pretty strong-headed girl, but for once I thought we should have a case of hysterics on our hands." Charters paused. Peering in the darkness, he had caught sight of Stone, and he instantly assumed his stiff official manner. "Mr. Stone? I hardly thought "
"All the same, colonel," Stone told him without abashment, "I think you'll be glad to see me. Even if I did get thrown out on the seat of the pants"
"Sorry," said Charters perfunctorily. "We seem to have made a number of mistakes to-night. But I do not think it will be long before they are rectified. Shall we move on?"
He stood on the running-board of the car while we moved on. Antrim's house was a neat little box with a red-tiled hall, in which another of the ubiquitous police-officers stood stolidly: this time a sergeant whom Charters addressed as Davis. There was nobody else in sight, although you sensed movement in the house. Stone wished to be taken immediately to H.M.; but foreseeing the explosive possibilities of this, I whispered discreet words to Charters. Stone was shut up squawking in a front room, where, as the door opened, I saw the startled face of Bowers. Then Charters led us to the rear of the hall.
Antrim's consulting-room was a small, neat, shiny room, with a couple of framed diplomas on the wall, a bookcase, and (at the rear, overlooking the sea) two French windows screened outside by laurels. The only untidy object in it was the object that sat at the desk under a green-shaded lamp. This was H.M. He sat piled out of a tolerably large chair, and he still obstinately wore his hat with the brim turned down. His feet were on the desk, displaying the inevitable white socks, and entangled with the telephone in so natural a fashion that it was as though he were back in his lair in Whitehall. The glasses were pulled down on his broad nose, and with a sour expression he was examining a skull — evidently a medical exhibit-which he turned over in his fingers.
He spoke hopefully.
"Mrs. Charters is getting you two some grub," volunteered H.M., like an urchin from the back of a classroom. "I expect you need it. Burn me, you've been leaving things behind in a way that's scandalous. All anybody's got to do to follow your trail across England is just to walk behind and pick up the pieces, like a paper-chase. First you leave a car, and a coat, and a burglar's kit. Then you leave a sackful of money and a book of sermons. Then-"
"Is that the best you can think of to throw in our teeth?" I said coldly. "One thing ought to be settled right here and now. When you sent me out on two frantic wild-goose chases to-night, first to Hogenauer's and then to Keppel's, did you have any idea of what I was likely to find? `You've got to pose as Robert T. Butler.' `That's our second line of defence.' Was that all eyewash? And if so, why?"
"Well… now," said H.M. He put the skull down in his lap. He spread out his stubby fingers and examined them disconsolately. "I've still got to ask you to trust the old man a little farther. I can't tell you — yet. But if it'll ease your soul any, I can tell you that at the moment I sent you out in that Butler — burglar role I was perfectly serious. Oh, yes, as serious as I ever been in my life."
"Then" said Evelyn.
"Now, now. I want the whole story, with every furbelow and trimmin'," Interposed H.M. inexorably. "Telephones are no good. Hop to it, you two. Talk."
Sitting back at our ease, Evelyn and I contrived to spin the story between us. There was no comment. Throughout it H.M.'s face remained as impassive as that of the skull he was turning over in his fingers. Though he had heard the gist of it in my call from Bristol, some of the details were so new that Charters several times tried to interrupt; but H.M. remained staring fishily, and sometimes he twiddled his thumbs. Only at mention of the telephone-message from 'L.' did he show any sign of animation.
"Uh-huh, he growled softly. "Now that's interestin'. That's very interestin'. Especially as-" He reached out one foot and prodded the phone on Antrim's desk. "I say, Charters: if this feller rang up, where did he ring up from? You and I have been sittin' here all night, and nobody used this phone. Is there another one in the house?"
Charters's curt gesture dimissed this as of little importance.
"Yes. Two, I think. There's one out in the hall, under the stairs. And I believe there's an extension up in Antrim's bedroom, in case someone rings him up in the night-'
"I know. Who'd be a country G.P.?"
"— but the whole point of the business," persisted Charters, "is, just how reliable is this man Stone? Who is he? Credentials — I don't doubt it. But, according to Blake here, our young friend Serpos had credentials too, and devilish good ones, as the Reverend Somebody of Something in Somerset. Stone spins this yam about L’ s death. "
H.M. seemed bothered by an invisible fly. "Yarn," he said. "Well, it'll be easy enough to cable Pittsburgh and find out. If he's not connected with the police department, and if L. really didn't die there, then Stone tried a long shot on an awful risky story. But I say, son: why don't you believe Stone's story?"
"I don't know," Charters admitted slowly. "But — damn it all, man! Don't you see for yourself? It's thin. It's pasteboardy. It hasn't got any body. It sounds wrong."
"Uh-huh. But that's because you're romantic, Charters."
"My God," said Charters.
"Yes, but you are, though," said H.M. argumentatively. He got out his black pipe and pointed it. "With all the hard shell you ought to have acquired, that's just what you are. The legend dazzles you. It obscures sense. Now, suppose we'd heard a different story. Suppose L. had been found dyin' in a garret in Vienna, with the windows open on the sunset and the Hapsburg arms in the Cathedral roof — shut up, curse you! I'm tellin' this — you'd be inclined to believe it just because it'd probably be ruddy nonsense. L. was a business man, and a good one. He had to be. But because he was found dyin' in a good substantial no-nonsense city like Pittsburgh or Manchester or Birmingham, if it brings it any closer to you; because he choked off in a good comfortable hotel room, from goin' without his overshoes in spring weather, instead of consumption or a knife-thrust from behind a curtain; because there were no Strauss waltzes or dyin' murmurs in delirium: then it strikes you as all very fishy. Oh, I admit it's disappointin'. I'm disappointed. Stone was disappointed. But that's no reason why we should think it's all a pack of lies."
Charters regarded him coolly.
"Sorry. Very well, then. I'll give you solid reasons. First, if L. doesn't exist, Hogenauer's offer to betray him turns into complete nonsense."
"So," said H.M.
"Next," Charters went on brusquely, after a curious pause while H.M. sucked noisily at his empty pipe, "don't forget Stone's account of the mysterious daughter, L.'s daughter. The lost daughter L. wants to find; and whom Stone does find in the wife of Larry Antrim planted conveniently on our doorstep. Betty Antrim is L.'s daughter! — rot! You've been talking about my melodramatic mind. What about yours? At between my Strauss waltzes and your lost daughters, I'd back a good tune any day in the week…. Who's to know she's L.'s daughter?"
"Well, she might, for one," suggested H.M. He sputtered behind his pipe. "Now, now, son, don't get your back up. I admit it's touché on that point. But, if she is his daughter, we got a valuable witness to Stone's credibility right under this roof."
Evelyn spoke thoughtfully. "What, by the way, do you think of Stone's theory of the murder?"
H.M. opened one eye.
"Stone's theory of the murder, hey? Ho ho ho. So he's got one too? You didn't include that, Ken. What is it?"
"Stone isn't satisfied with the idea that the strychnine and bromide bottles were switched; that fake labels were pasted over each, that Mrs. Antrim gave Hogenauer a dose of strychnine by mistake; and that afterwards the real murderer put the bottles back in their right places. He thinks it was a long-distance job, which the murderer wanted you to believe was managed from this house by someone who had access to the shelves. Stone's argument is that the murderer couldn't have known in advance what Antrim would prescribe…"
"Sound enough," said H.M. He seemed curiously intent. "Well?"
"He maintains that Mrs. Antrim gave Hogenauer an honest dose of bromide. The murderer, learning about this comes here and burgles the house. He fills up the big bromide container with real bromide he's bought at the chemist's; and then' he pinches a heavy dose of strychnine out of the poison-bottle. He put some sort of gummy substance on the real labels, and shoves the strychnine-bottle a little out of line. Later we are intended to assume (as Mrs. Antrim did assume) that the switching of bottles, and switching them back again, was done by somebody with free and easy access to the shelves. But actually it was done by an outsider from far away. Actually Hogenauer, by this theory, took home a harmless bottle of bromide. The change was effected next day, when the murderer called at Hogenauer's house… But Stone's theory is based on the idea that Keppel did the dirty. And we know that, whoever else it might have been, it wasn't Keppel."
H.M.'s disconcerting stare remained fixed. "I see," he growled softly.
"You see what? Did you think of it?"
"Oh, yes. Yes," he replied almost tenderly, "I did think of it; it was the very first thing I thought of. Uh-huh. It can't be overlooked. It jumps to the eye. It — anyhow, it may interest you to know that there's corroboration of that."
"Corroboration?"
"Yes. We'd better join the ends of this thing, grumbled H.M., fitting his fingers together. "There are two sides to it, you know. We haven't been idle either in gatherin' evidence. While you two have been out enjoyin' yourselves, and having a rare old time, I've done a lot of soft-shoe work. Remember, we've had the whole crew of witnesses here for several hours. Dr. and Mrs. A. have been thoroughly hauled over the coals. So has Bowers. So has Serpos’
"What do you think of Serpos, by the way?"
"Ho ho ho," said H.M. After that sudden rather ghostlike burst of mirth, he peered at me sourly. "We'll come to Serpos. In good time. Stop interruptin' me, curse you! I want to tell you what happened here last night.. I mean the night Hogenauer came to get his bromide… by the testimony of Dr. and Mrs. A.
"Here's what happened. It's confirmed by the maid-servant, wench by the name o' Jenny Dawson: local gal, and so far as I can see, pretty trustworthy. Hogenauer arrived here about nine-thirty, driven by Bowers in Hogenauer's hired car. He was admitted by the maid. Now, Antrim's evening consultin'-room hours are seven to nine. It was past closing-time, but Hogenauer thought the doctor would see him. The doctor did. Antrim stuck his head out of this room, and told Hogenauer to come in.
"Next we have Antrim's testimony," pursued H.M., a long sniff rumbling in his nose. "He says Hogenauer asked to be given a 'going-over,' to see whether he was in shape to stand a mental or physical strain-evidently in preparation for the little clairvoyant experiment that was to take place the next night. Burn me, we oughta have realized this feller Hogenauer is thorough about even his lunacies! Antrim says he hadn't an idea what sort of `physical or mental strain' Hogenauer meant. He says the feller was organically sound, but that his nerves were shot to blazes. He thought Hogenauer had better have a mild nerve sedative: in fact, he says, Hogenauer himself suggested bromide. Hogenauer could 'a' got it at any chemist's, of course, without botherin' a doctor; but this happened to be convenient.
"Well, just at that moment Mrs. Dr. Antrim opened the door of this room. She wouldn't have barged in, naturally; but it was long after hours and she thought there wasn't anybody in here except her husband. Whereupon Antrim said, `While you're here, light o' my life,' or words to that effect, `you might put up a quarter of an ounce of sodium bromide.' Now, the average dose of bromide is 5 to 30 grains. There's 60 grains to a dram, and 8 drams to an ounce. A teaspoon, roughly speakin' holds something less than a dram. So that, puttin' up this quantity of a quarter of an ounce with instructions to take half a teaspoonful at a time, Antrim had given Hogenauer enough bromide for four stiff doses.
"`In any case,' Antrim said, `you might put up a quarter of an ounce of sodium bromide.' This is confirmed by Antrim himself, by Mrs. Antrim, and by the maid-who happened to be passing in the hall when the door was open.
"Happened to be passing," I said. "That's, fortunate."
H. M. peered at me over his spectacles. "Son, I'm afraid you got a nasty suspicious mind," he said querulously. "Sure she was out in the hall. But it seems that our friend Bowers, who'd been given permission to wait in the hall, was trying to click with the maid. And she wasn't havin' any. So she hung about near this door so she could knock on it and make an excuse to go in in case the enemy made a sudden flank-attack. Hey?
"Meantime, Mrs. Antrim's got her commission. She goes into the dispensary," H.M. pointed towards the half-open door across the room, "and takes down the big bromide-container: or what she thinks is the bromide container: we won't argue yet. She puts a quarter of an ounce of sodium-bromide into a half-ounce bottle. She brings it out, and hands it to Hogenauer, and he puts it in his pocket. Then Mrs. Antrim goes out — end of her testimony. For about fifteen minutes longer Hogenauer and Antrim sit talking — Antrim's testimony. Then Hogenauer says cheero, walks out of the door accompanied by the doctor, gets into his car, and is driven away. Antrim takes a stroll out on the headland to look at the sea for ten or fifteen minutes, and then returns home. Time, ten-thirty."
There was a pause. With infinite labour H.M. propelled himself up from his chair, and lumbered over to the half-open door of the surgery or dispensary. We followed him. The inner room was long but very narrow, a sort of cubicle. At the end, on the narrow side of the oblong, there was a French window giving on the rear lawn. There was an ordinary sash-window in the right-hand wall. On the two other
walls were shelves ranked with bottles, chiefly of the 10fluid-ounce size used by chemists, with wooden cupboards under the shelves. Another green-shaded lamp hung over a bench set with a tap and sink, a pair of scales, and a neat series of glass funnels.
H.M. reached up and plucked down a corked bottle on whose plain white label was printed in ink, SOD. BROM. Dose 5-30 gr.
"Ordinarily, d'ye see this kind of mix-up couldn't have happened," he went on. "Look at the other bottles. Most of 'em come from the ordinary chemical supply houses. They've got the labels worked into the glass itself, so there can't be any mistake, and they've got glass stoppers. And now take a look at this."
From the extreme end of a shelf he took down another bottle, the same size and also corked. It had a red label, on which were typed the words, STRYCHNINE FORMAS, Poison, C 21 H 22 O 2 N 2 HCOOH. Dose 1/c4 gr. Except for their labels, the two bottles looked exactly alike. The bromide bottle was half full, the strychnine bottle almost empty. Under their light their contents shone like snow.
"'For purity'," said H.M. "Look at the little jokers. Now, then. Before Hogenauer came, did somebody sneak in here with fake labels, and switch the bottles? It'd 'a' been quite easy, you know." He pointed a big flipper at the French window. "I'm authorized to say that that window's never locked, not up until the time Antrim goes to bed. And after Hogenauer had gone. why, nothin' simpler than to creep in again and change 'em back. Remember, for ten or fifteen minutes Antrim was taking a stroll along the headland. The place was open."
"But why change them back?" I asked. "It seems unnecessary fastidiousness."
"It does," agreed H.M. "Now take the alternative theory. Did somebody, in the middle of the night, creep in here when everybody was abed? Had Mrs. Antrim honest-to-God given a real bromide to Hogenauer earlier, and did the murderer come in here and arrange the trappings as Stone suggested? Take a look at that."
He nodded owlishly towards the sash-window in the right-hand wall. I was nearest it, and I did not need a magnifying-glass to see what had happened. The catch of the window had been broken, evidently by a long knife inserted from outside. On the inner sill there were some long, curious scratches.
Evelyn, who had been growing more and more bewildered, pushed the hair out of her eyes and stared at H.M.'s curious expression.
"What about it?" she asked. "It seems straightforward enough. Stone was right after all. The murderer climbed in here after they'd gone to bed-"
"And yet, d'ye know," said H.M., "I'm inclined to doubt whether that lock was busted from outside."
He waddled into the room at his near-sighted stride, pulling the glasses up and down his nose. This time he consented to take off his hat, which restored the old H.M. Returning to his chair, he sat down and looked at the skull facing him on the desk-blotter; he was very nearly as bald as the skull itself; and they were a queer pair to be looking at each other in the hygienic, unloved light of a doctor's office.
"All I'm sure of," he added blankly, "is that the murderer's under this roof right now.
"Y'know, my fatheads, every time I play this game of chase-the-murderer I find I'm in a new path or two. I learn something. You've called this case a sort of puppet show affair; and, by a stroke of intelligence that ain't usual with any of you, you're right in more senses than one. It's also like a Punch and Judy show in that everything is the wrong way around. In an ordinary murder-investigation, first of all we stumble over the corpse on the floor, with six suspects gibberin' around it. Then we line up the suspects, and we question 'em thoroughly. If you, Ken, were chroniclin' the case, you'd devote the first half-dozen chapters to an exhaustive questioning giving intimate details about the suspects, a suggestive leer or two they might make, and their replies to the query as to where they were on the night of June fifteenth. Afterwards you could go skylarkin'. Afterwards you could go off to the house in the marches, the fight in the dentist's office, the rescue of the wench (if any), and let the evidence rest until it had to be pulled out of the hat at the end.
"That's normal. But, burn me, in this business we got it all turned round backwards. The skylarkin,' the Harlequinad-ein-Suburbia, had to come first. You acted your summer pantomime before anybody (including myself) quite knew what was goin' on. And when we did learn what was goin' on it still didn't make sense about the murder. Consequently, at long last, we start to question the suspects.
"We couldn't have questioned 'em before this, because we didn't have the vital evidence. It wouldn't have been any good to fire the where-were-you-between-the-hours-of question at 'em: we still don't know just when and how that poison was handed over to Hogenauer. It all whittles down to that one point. And we've got to attack 'em with the new evidence that's been discovered. That new evidence consists of two wildly unrelated questions: (1) Is L. alive, or isn't be? (2) How does the presence or absence of L. concern the question of the counterfeit money? Uh-huh. At first glance it seems like tryin' to find the relation of a cactus-plant to a bucket of herring: but when we relate them two facts together we're goin' to have the truth. So the people will be brought in here, one by one-and we've got to find the truth before dawn."
"And I suppose you've got some notion as to what the truth is?" Charters asked irritably.
"Me? Sure I have, son."
"Nonsense. This mystification "
"You want to bet, hey?" said H.M., leering. "Davis!"
It was the blast which scattered his lady typists like autumn leaves, and it brought in Sergeant Davis convinced that trouble was brewing.
"In they'll come, one by one," pursued H.M., rather drowsily, "and — yes, I think we'll begin with Mrs. Antrim. Go and fetch her, sergeant. Place your bets, ladies and gents. Who's guilty? I tell you, my fatheads, somebody's goin' to have to do some tall-buskined actin' within the next half-hour."