Escapade (42 page)

“Well,” he said, “for starters, Dr. Auerbach was telling the truth. He was in the graveyard, making rubbings of the tombstones. The vicar spoke with him, and he tells me that the doctor left on foot, for Maplewhite, sometime before one. But not much before one, and certainly after twelve-thirty. He’s a bit cloudy as to time. A bit cloudy in general, really. But I measured the distance between the church and Maplewhite. Six miles. Dr. Auerbach could not have returned here before one o'clock, and probably not much before two.”

I nodded.

“Sir David Merridale was also telling the truth,” he said. “As he said, he took a room at the Cock and Bull yesterday. He neglected to mention, however, that this was not the first time he'd done so. He’s stayed there several times over the past few months.”

“Must’ve slipped his mind.”

“
Let us not burden our remembrance with a heaviness that’s gone
. The Tempest.”

“Right.”

“He also neglected to mention that he didn’t remain in his room. The room is on the first floor, at the back of the building. I went round to take a look and I discovered, in the ground beneath the room’s window, a clear set of footprints. The earth was still quite damp. Up until yesterday, you know, we've experienced heavy rains.”

“I noticed.”

He smiled. “The footprints were quite distinctive. A small notch was visible in the print of the left foot, where a piece of the leather had been somehow cut away. And, clearly, the prints had been made by someone leaving the room by means of the window, and then returning to it in the same manner.

“Someone else could’ve left the footprints.”

“According to the landlord, no one but Sir David has used the room in a week.”

I nodded.

“By a curious coincidence,” he said, “the residence of Mrs. Constance Coburn, where Cecily Fitzwilliam was visiting, is only two houses away. The footprints led there, to a bedroom on the first floor, at the rear of the house. From the prints, it is obvious that Sir David climbed into this window as well. I spoke with Mrs. Coburn, and she was good enough to tell me that Cecily was feeling unwell during her visit, and lay down for an hour in the back bedroom. For a rest.”

I nodded.

“Mrs. Coburn is nearly deaf,” he said, “but I was able, finally, to obtain from her a record of Miss Fitzwilliam’s earlier visits to her house. These correspond, exactly, to the times at which Sir David was staying at the Cock and Bull. And, in every case, she lay down for an hour, sometimes longer, in the back bedroom.” He smiled. “It appears that Miss Fitzwilliam is rather a faster young thing than she appears.”

“Incredible,” I said.

“But you do see what this means. If Sir David and Miss Fitzwilliam were occupied with each other, neither one of them could have fired that rifle yesterday.”

“Yeah. So who did?”

He smiled. “But surely, Beaumont, you’ve determined who that was?”

“I’ve got an idea or two. But who do
you
think it was?”

Another smile. “You shall learn that in”—he took out his watch—“twenty minutes. Now. Did anything of note transpire during my absence?”

“Yeah.” I told him about Lord Bob and his father.

“Lovely. So things begin to fall into place at last. And you say Houdini was there at the time?”

“Yeah.”

“Has he in fact solved the mystery?”

“He thinks so.”

“Lovely. I look forward to meeting with him.” He glanced at his watch again. “I must go hunt up Sergeant Meadows.” A final smile. “I’ll see you in the drawing room, then.”

“Right.”

After he left, I washed up, checked the Colt, slipped it back into my pocket.

DOWNSTAIRS, SIR ARTHUR Conan Doyle was waiting for me outside the drawing room, tall and bulky in another tweed suit. “A moment, Beaumont?”

“Sure.”

He led me down the hall a short distance. Frowning, he said, “I’ve been attempting to talk to this Marsh fellow, but he refuses to listen to me. This is ridiculous. I possess information that is absolutely critical to his case.”

“What information?”

“Madame Sosostris was good enough to hold a small seance this afternoon, with only myself present, and Mr. Dempsey, of course.”

“You talked to Running Bear.”

“Yes. It is as I thought, Beaumont. Lord Reginald effected the Earl’s death.”

“The ghost.”

“Yes. He drove the Earl insane, you see. Drove him to madness and finally to suicide.”

“Uh-huh. And how did the pistol get into the Earl’s room?”

“Evidently Lord Reginald dematerialized it from the Great Hall, then caused it to reappear in the Earl’s chambers. As you know, perhaps better than anyone, dematerialization is a reality.”

“Uh-huh.”

He frowned impatiently. “I know you pretend to be something of a skeptic, Beaumont. But, look, man, do you happen to know the guiding principle of my detective work? It is this—that when you have eliminated from consideration all the impossibilities, then whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. And that is patently the case here. I ask only that Inspector Marsh listen to me.”

“I’ll tell you what, Sir Arthur. You hold on to your idea for a while. Let’s see what happens in the drawing room. If you don’t get an explanation that you’re happy with, then I promise I'll get Marsh to listen to yours.”

“Well ... I expect that’s better than nothing.”

“But,” I said, “I’d like one small favor in return.”

“And what might that be?”

I told him.

“LADIES,” SAID INSPECTOR Marsh, “and gentlemen. I do thank you all for being present.”

Smiling delicately, he looked around the drawing room.

Once again, everyone had plates of food on the tables in front of them, and pots of tea and coffee. Lord Bob and Lady Purleigh and Cecily sat together on one of the sofas. Mr. Dempsey sat beside the wheelchair of Madame Sosostris. Mrs. Allardyce and Miss Turner were together, and so were Sir David and Mrs. Corneille and Dr. Auerbach. Sergeant Meadows was looming against one wall, and Doyle stood a few feet away, looming even larger. I was sitting about a yard from where Marsh was standing. The Great Man sat by himself across the room. He had faintly nodded to me when I entered, and I knew that everything was set up.

Lord Purleigh,” said Marsh, “has graciously permitted me this opportunity to speak with you all, to discuss the recent curious events at Maplewhite. How very bizarre these have been, have they not? A gun suddenly fired across a sunny lawn. An elderly man abruptly dead in his own locked bedroom.
It is a reeling world indeed, my lord, and I believe will never stand upright
. Richard the Third, of course.”

He smiled and glanced around the room. “Now. All of you know of the late Earl’s death. But what do you know, really, of his life? Did you know that, on the testimony of his own son, the man was mad? Mad, yes, and
no longer paralyzed
.”

There was a small, well-mannered flutter of response. Heads turned, eyebrows arched. Cecily Fitzwilliam leaned toward her mother. Lady Purleigh pressed her lips together and she took her daughter’s hand. Mrs. Corneille frowned and glanced over at Lady Purleigh.

“At night,” said Marsh, “when the houseguests were asleep, the late Earl prowled through a network of secret passageways that connect the room and chambers of Maplewhite. Dressed as his own ancestor, Lord Reginald, he stalked into the rooms of certain female guests and attempted to assault them.”

More turning heads. More arched eyebrows. Lord Bob and Lady Purleigh sat still and stared forward, like a pair of officials witnessing an execution.

“He did this two months ago,” said Marsh, “and he did this again on Friday night, when he entered the room of Miss Turner.” Heads swiveled toward Miss Turner.

“Earlier on that same evening,” said Marsh, “Lord and Lady Purleigh had spoken with the late Earl in his room.” Heads swiveled toward Lord Bob and his wife. “No one else was present, but I believe it likely that in view of the Earl’s attempted assault of two months earlier, Lord Purleigh warned his father not to make another attempt that night.”

Marsh shrugged. “But as we all now know, the Earl did make an attempt.”

He lifted a glass of water from a nearby table, sipped at it, set it back down. “According to his own statement, voluntarily given to Mr. Beaumont, Lord Purleigh spoke with his father on the following morning. He informed the Earl that he planned to place him in a madhouse. Several hours later, when a party of the guests, and Lord Purleigh, were gathered out on the lawn, someone fired a rifle toward the group.”

Marsh smiled. “Is it not patently obvious, ladies and gentlemen, who fired that rifle? And is it not patently obvious at whom the rifle was being fired? It was aimed at Lord Purleigh, of course. And it was fired by his father.”

“
Rubbish!
” said Lord Bob. “See here, Marsh—”

Marsh smiled. “All the weapons in the collection were the Earl’s. The Earl knew how to use them. He knew, too, that his son intended to remove him, ignominiously, from his own home. And he took the one course that, to his damaged brain, seemed appropriate. He attempted to murder his own son. He made his way down to the Great Hall, loaded the Winchester rifle—”

“What perfect rubbish!” Lord Bob was half out of his seat. Lady Purleigh reached for him and he turned to her, his face red. She murmured something and he sat back, shaking his head. “But it’s
rubbish
, Alice.
Codswollop
!”

“And he proceeded outside,” continued Marsh, “and concealed himself in the woods by the formal garden. And when he saw his son return to Maplewhite on his motor bicycle, the Earl fired at him. Fortunately for Lord Purleigh, the Earl missed.”

Lord Purleigh’s brows were raised. “The old swine would
never
miss a shot like that!”

Marsh paid no attention. “Lord Purleigh understood, of course, what his father had done. He knew who had fired that rifle. And he now knew that his father was even more unbalanced than he had believed. Perhaps—and here I speculate—perhaps he realized how nakedly this unbalance might be revealed in any enquiry, any attempt to institutionalize the Earl. And perhaps, too, he was angered by the attempt on his life. Whatever the truth, later that day, while everyone was in the drawing room, Lord Purleigh removed a Smith and Wesson revolver from the Great Hall, used the secret passageway to enter his father’s room, and he killed him.”

“What?” said Lord Bob. He looked more confused than angry. 

“Only Lord Purleigh was absent from the drawing room at the time of the murder,” said Marsh. “Only Lord Purleigh had an opportunity to kill the Earl. And only Lord Purleigh had a motive. His father’s death would remove not only an embarrassment, but also an actual threat to his own life. And it would, of course, bring him his father’s entire inheritance.”

“This is sheer nonsense.” It was the Great Man, up on his feet, his head raised high. “I will listen to no more of this.”

Across the room, Sergeant Meadows leaned away from the wall. Marsh glanced at him, shook his head slightly. Meadows leaned back and Marsh turned to the Great Man. “Do you have some other explanation, Mr. Houdini?”

“I have
the
explanation.”

Marsh smiled. “Then I shall gladly, if temporarily, surrender the floor.” He sat down and looked up at the Great Man with the same theatrical interest he’d shown in the Earl’s bedroom.

The Great Man put his hands behind his back and he glanced slowly around the room. “We have been presented here at Maplewhite,” he finally announced, “with a series of totally baffling events.”

Then the Great Man said, and pretty much word for word, the same things he’d said when he was explaining how he figured out the secret passageway. That the baffling events had baffled even
him
. That he’d finally realized they were a lot like mediocre magic tricks. “Now,” he said, “in order to understand the mechanics of a successful magic trick, we must begin with no preconceptions whatever.”

Marsh rolled his eyes. Delicately.

The Great Man looked around the room again, as though to make sure that everyone was still following. “Yesterday afternoon, while Miss Turner was horseback riding, she saw what she believed to be a pair of ghosts under a willow tree, near the old mill. Why did she believe them to be ghosts? Her preconceptions. She had been told that a pair of ghosts often had been seen under that tree, a woman and a young boy. And, when she saw two individuals standing there, her preconceptions led her to believe that these were they. She is an intelligent and resourceful woman, but she is not a trained observer. And, perhaps most important, she was not wearing her spectacles at the time. Without them, she is extremely nearsighted. Is that not true, Miss Turner?”

Heads swiveled. “Yes,” she said. Her voice was strong and clear. Beside her, Mrs. Allardyce frowned.

Inspector Marsh yawned, pretending to hide it behind his hand.

The Great Man nodded. He turned back to the audience. “But these were not ghosts that Miss Turner saw. What she saw were the two people who were conspiring to murder Lord Purleigh.

A rustling sound rippled through the audience.

“And, of course,” said the Great Man, “they saw her. So far as they knew, she had recognized them. And for these two to be recognized together would have meant disaster for them both.

He glanced around again. “They acted swiftly. Together they returned to Maplewhite, using a tunnel that runs from the mill to a concealed pantry beside the kitchen. From there, one of them ran to the Great Hall and snatched the Winchester rifle. Perhaps this individual loaded the weapon at that time. Perhaps the two of them had planned ahead, for emergencies, and the weapon was already loaded. No matter. It would have been a matter of seconds only to ready the rifle. Taking the weapon, this individual ran back into the hidden pantry and used the other tunnel, the freight tunnel, to emerge outside the formal garden. From nearby, a clear shot was available at Miss Turner, when she appeared.”

The Great Man frowned. “This individual was fortunate. Had Miss Turner known how, she could have returned to the house by a more direct route. But she was unaware of this. And then her horse, bolting, led her past the path she had originally followed. And then she struck her head on the limb of a tree and she was ejected from the animal. She remained unconscious for a time. All of this assisted the would-be assassin. When Miss Turner finally did appear, under the tree by the walkway, the assassin was more than ready. He fired. One shot, and one shot only. Why should he fire another?
He saw Miss Turner fall from her horse, and he assumed he had hit her
. ”