The Purr of the Cat!
Blood on the pallid cheek of Sir Pharamond, and his downfall, as had
been prophesied in the olden time! I saw no one else, heard no one
else, only gaped at the ruined portrait and was conscious of the
clock’s melodious voice. An epoch seemed to pass before my senses
ceased to dance, and I found myself one of the faltering semicircle
which closed about the shattered portrait.
But beyond the area of brightness I made out indistinctly the most
amazing thing of all. The sisters Delambre sat by the fireplace
precisely as they had been since we entered the Hall. The short,
stodgy one seemed quite absorbed in the flickering embers; the taller
of the two had merely turned her head in our direction. Even the
Constable seemed bereft of reflexes. This lack of surprise, this
apathy, this uncanny silence impressed me just then as a thing more
incredible than the disaster close at hand.
I still stared at the strange pair, while conscious that Aire had
slipped before us, standing over the wreck of the portrait. He turned
and faced us, and the small voice of the man seemed charged with a
booming importance.
I heard him vaguely. “I told Salt,” came in somewhere, and then,
“Crofts put me up to it, really.”
“You’re crazy, crazy,” claimed Crofts.
“I tell you it never would have happened if you hadn’t been so
fractious this morning. I said this sort of thing might conceivably
take place. Well, it has, that’s all.”
Eve Bartholomew ventured. “You mean that you—you—”
“Very simply indeed.” Aire hunched his shoulders appreciatively. “A
matter of two spools and a bit of string connected with the mechanism
of the chimes. A scurvy conjurer’s trick; that’s all. I apologize.”
“But the blood!” I cried in a sudden access of emotion. “Spools and
strings don’t produce blood. I saw it oozing from the cheek!”
Aire smiled, shook his head slightly. “No, they don’t. But then, you
didn’t see blood oozing from the cheek.”
Half a dozen hot affirmatives contradicted him.
“I tell you no. You’re all acquainted with the prophecy of the bloody
cheek, and you were all hypnotized.”
“Don’t try to tell me,” bullied Crofts, brushing the little man aside
and bending to the wreckage.
Aire smiled dryly. “That’s not blood, you see; it’s painted blood.”
“Wh-at!” cried Crofts, holding up a portion of the canvas. “You daubed
this stuff on my painting?”
“Not I; Maryvale. And that’s not your painting, by the way.”
Crofts could only mutter.
“Don’t be disturbed, my friend. This portrait is a rush order, as they
say in America, a copy done for me this afternoon by Maryvale. You’ll
find the original under his mattress, poor chap.”
“Well, of all—” Crofts relapsed into dumb glowering.
Aire made a slight movement of disdain. “Why be so upset? It was only
a trick—a cheap trick, I admit—and I take the full responsibility,
ladies and gentlemen. I almost wish it hadn’t occurred, but dogmatic
people sometimes get on my nerves. And now let’s forget about it and
get back to the table; we were really learning something there. Paula,
I hope this hasn’t too awfully disconcerted you? You can go on with
it?”
She forced a smile. “Yes, certainly. Do come on, people; it’s getting
awfully late.”
We returned to our places not much more comforted than when we had
sprung from them a few minutes before. It was all very well to speak
of parlour tricks, but there was no ease in sitting around the table
in that darkened room with those images of lethargy dwelling by the
fire, and no cheer in waiting through the lonesome night, wondering
from what direction some new terror might leap upon us. But there we
were.
“. . . bearings of Sean’s death,” Paula Lebetwood was saying. She went
on in a strange voice: “He was struck and fell dying where I found him
by the tower. Then the weapon, as we now know, was hurled down there,
too. But we have to admit that as far as we can tell none of us could
have been at the tower at that time. Nobody except Wheeler met Sean—or
will admit he did—after our quarrel in the Hall. So, stated in those
terms, there is an irreconcilable contradiction in Sean’s death. Only
there is no contradiction save in words; for we know, well enough,
that somebody _must_ have struck him, and therefore somebody must have
been there.
“In Mr. Heatheringham’s death there were differences, though in some
respects it was much the same. In the first place, he must have seen
something hostile or there would have been no revolver shot. The trail
of blood across the floor, too, showed what had been the murderer’s
line of retreat. But the most unusual thing, surely, is one that
Doctor Aire can explain better than I. Will you, Doctor?”
Aire looked at her inquiringly. “I suppose you mean the
rigidity—cadaveric spasm, as we call it? What do you want me to—?”
“It shows something about the way he was killed, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does. The topic is of great interest to one of my profession;
we come across it so seldom, save on the battlefield. We know
something about it, though, enough to be sure that there are certain
definite predisposing factors.”
She nodded. “Yes, I meant that. Please go on.”
“_Sudden_ death is one, and death due to violent disturbance of
nervous system. Then the last contraction of the muscles during life
persists with more rigidity even than in the usual _rigor_.”
“I’m sure you people see what I mean by harping on these gruesome
things,” said the girl. “Thank you, Doctor. This abnormal state of
things taken with the shot through the broken window proves that Mr.
Heatheringham was killed right where we found him. I mean he couldn’t
have been bludgeoned outside—say where I found Sean lying—and have
crawled back into the Hall and raised himself to the window to fire at
whoever might have been there. So far, we have no idea who was with
him; yet I think it must have been one of the servants or one of
us—more likely one of us.”
No one chose to say anything in the brief silence she left. Presently,
in a fresher tone, she resumed.
“That’s how the problem stood yesterday: just death, simple and
inexplicable—violent death without a real motive—violent death without
an agent, apparently. Even the discovery of the stone has been no help
in finding the agent; anybody could have grabbed a stone from the
rockery.”
Crofts muttered, “Why go over all that again? We’ve known it from the
start.”
“I apologize. I only mentioned those things to go on to say that it’s
useless to think about them any longer. We could continue for weeks
and months mulling over motive and method—mulling over time and place
and all the rest of it that makes an endless circle. Last night,
though, I thought of a new way.”
“New?” the words sprang from Belvoir’s lips.
She paused and looked about the table. “I—I’m a little nervous about
telling you my idea. The thing was, I suddenly thought of Mr.
Bannerlee’s diary.”
“That’s a fine one!” I put in ironically. “You thought of it when
nobody but Crofts and Heatheringham had ever heard of it—unless
Heatheringham told Salt!”
“As it happens, I’ve known about it all along. A few minutes before
luncheon the day of Sean’s death, you and Crofts came upstairs to the
first-storey landing together. I had changed after playing tennis and
was just going downstairs. Although the two of you suddenly lowered
your voices when you saw me, I had already heard you, Mr. Bannerlee,
say that you had been up till nearly morning and had done more than
five thousand words. Crofts said he hoped you had got it straight, and
that left no doubt what you had been writing. But I was much too
polite, then, to let you know I guessed what you were doing. . . . And
before I go on, people, let me say that as far as I can tell, no
record has ever been written with fewer mistakes.”
“Thank you,” I acknowledged.
“Humanly and”—here she slipped in a smile—“archæologically speaking,
that is. You can’t expect one person to write a story that would
satisfy every question that flits through another person’s mind. I’m
not sure that I like his style, either,” she remarked, rather
abstractedly, “though you couldn’t judge it very well in that
fragmentary state—except, I think, he fancies his power of description
and likes to make a passage effective now and then. But while I read,
I began to feel the diary was just suited to the purpose I had in
mind.”
“Which was—?” said Lord Ludlow, who gave the impression of
long-suffering patience.
“I wanted to find the killer without bothering how he killed. I
expected the diary would help me to look on all you people divested of
my own prejudices. Through the diary I could judge you more fairly,
and more strictly than I could in my own mind. Meeting you there would
be like meeting new persons, all of you except Crofts and Alberta
being new to Mr. Bannerlee. The diary is really full of side-lights on
people and little bits of character. Maybe, though, I was expecting
too much from Mr. Bannerlee. How could he come to know us in a day, or
a week? He couldn’t. He saw us only from the outside and the diary
reveals only the outside of us. Without being disrespectful either to
you or to Mr. Bannerlee, I must say I was reminded of clowns in a
circus. Most of us seemed to be doing the same thing over and over
again. Ted Belvoir and Lord Ludlow were eternally carrying on a silly
debate; Eve was making a fresh prophecy every day, and not one of them
came true; Crofts seemed to be growing grouchier every time he was
mentioned; Gilbert Maryvale spent most of his afternoons leaving
cryptic remarks about, so to speak; Lib’s mission in life was talking
gibberish to Mr. Bannerlee. Everyone seemed to be posing as an idiot,
quite an innocent idiot. Well, it turned out that my most important
discovery in the diary wasn’t a character after all, but a fact.”
“A fact you didn’t know before?” asked Belvoir.
The American girl smiled faintly. “First of all, though, if Mr.
Bannerlee doesn’t mind, I want to tell you the big secret he’s been
keeping from us. Do you mind, Mr. Bannerlee?”
I bowed the responsibility on to her shoulders with a smile. “I think
you should tell us beforehand how you found out—what you did. I’d like
to know myself.”
“I was going to. People, you remember the other day, Mr. Bannerlee
went on the hilltops again, and he was so taken with the view of
distant mountains that he drew sighting lines on his map to show which
ones were visible. The sighting lines, of course, were drawn from the
same spot, and that spot was on Whimble. After orienting his map, he
squinted across it, looking toward the Malvern Hills and the Black
Mountain and elsewhere to establish lines of vision. He could even see
to Plinlimon; that’s about thirty miles away. You did see Plinlimon
that day, didn’t you?”
“Certainly.”
“Well, that was how I knew you hadn’t been on Whimble, whose highest
point has an elevation of about 1950 feet. The highest point on
Plinlimon is less than 2500. Thirty miles apart and only five hundred
feet difference. Now, if Mr. Bannerlee stood anywhere on Whimble and
he looked toward Plinlimon, Great Rhos, just across the Vale, would be
between him and the mountain. Great Rhos is a flattish sort of hill,
and its elevation is 2166. Think that over.”
“How idiotically, infernally stupid of me!” I cried.
“But I don’t see—” said Eve Bartholomew blankly.
Others about the table uttered exclamations that showed their
understanding or betrayed their confusion.
The American girl turned to Mrs. Bartholomew. “You see, dear, if you
were nineteen feet high and wanted to see something ten yards away
that was five feet higher than you, you couldn’t do it if there was a
wall a foot higher than you less than a yard away.”
To give her credit, Mrs. Bartholomew grasped the point instantly. But
she still was dubious. “Then how did Mr. Bannerlee see the mountain?”
“He must have been somewhere else.”
“But you said he _said_ he was on Whimble.”
I laughed. “No, I didn’t say so, Mrs. Bartholomew. I was satisfied to
let people think so, though.”
“Why was that?” interjected Lord Ludlow sharply.
The American girl turned to him. “He wanted to reserve a little share
of glory for himself. Why should he have told us his special secret,
or even write it down in the House, before he knew what kind of people
we were? I think Mr. Bannerlee was very sensible.”
I smiled, recalling a somewhat different reaction to my
“antiquarianism” that afternoon.
“But what does it all mean?” Mrs. Bartholomew came in plaintively.
“That’s what I wondered this morning,” answered the American girl.
“Mr. Bannerlee, I suppose by this time you know the reason why I took
that campstool; in fact, you had written the reason yourself
somewhere. ‘What a difference a few feet make in the prospect!’ You
are a bit taller than I am, and there was just that barest risk that
you could see further from Whimble than I could. But when I reached
the tippy-top of the hill and set my campstool there and stood on it,
I knew I had as good a chance as you of peeping over Great Rhos. But I
couldn’t. So I knew you must have been somewhere else when you saw
Plinlimon, and I could only suppose that the reason you’d hidden your
whereabouts was your discovery of the oratory, after three hundred
years.”
“The oratory!” Doctor Aire reached out a hand to me. “My
congratulations, Bannerlee!”
“And mine!” said Belvoir.
“After three hundred years!”
“The oratory!” cried Lib. “Bannerlee, you’ve been false to me.
Couldn’t you trust lil’ Lib?”
“So that was it,” muttered Crofts. “You needn’t have been so close
about it.”
“Really a downy bird,” giggled Alberta.
I faced the American girl. “This is almost—gratuitous, you know. These
unfortunate people are waiting for you to cast some light upon their
darkness, not to herald any trifling discovery of mine.”
“Yes, I _had_ better be getting on toward solving the mystery, if
we’re ever to be done to-night. The queer thing is that guessing about
Mr. Bannerlee’s discovery is what put me on some sort of a track. In
fact, if Mr. Bannerlee’s matches hadn’t given out that afternoon he
saw the rainbow, I never, never would have seen the path—that sounds
like a figure of speech almost, and a paradox, but I mean just that.”
“Matches!”
“Yes, Mr. Bannerlee, by the time you had reached the House you might
have been excused for thinking Fate was playing with you. And, by the
way, people, a little while ago Mr. Bannerlee explained to me how he
had brought his quarto of Sylvan Armitage to Radnorshire with him
after all. Naturally, when he left it in the oratory by chance, he did
not care to tell us about it, on account of his precious secret. So he
had just recovered his copy and was bringing it down the Vale with him
that afternoon.”
“Aren’t you going to get out of the sixteenth century?” inquired
Ludlow. “It seems to me that you are leading this discussion along the
lines of a wranglers’ tea-party.”
“Do forgive me for wasting so much time. The Book of Sylvan Armitage
interests me so much; indeed, it helped me tremendously. Mr. Bannerlee
caught me reading it the other night; did he tell you?”
“Nothing criminal in that,” said Belvoir.
“N-no, but it was slightly—unconventional. The passage where Armitage
happened upon the oratory was an admirable parallel to Mr. Bannerlee’s
account in his diary, as I learned later. Yes, I came to be very glad
indeed that I had stolen down at midnight to get the Book. . . . Now,
people, I can’t go any further without telling you another secret
about Mr. Bannerlee. He won’t forgive me for this, I’m afraid. But
he’s not only a gentleman and a scholar”—I suppressed my indignation
at this outrageous statement—“not only a discoverer of things so old
that they are new—he is also an altruist!”
I bowed my head giddily under this monstrous charge, and heard her go
on to say: “He is defending one of us, one, I think, whom he had never
seen before!”
If dismay were a sign of guilt, there was not an innocent one among
them. Their alarm testified, I think, to the fact that they had hoped,
and hope begot belief, that the crime would be traced at last to
someone outside the Vale. They had all been innocent to each other
before; now to suppose the murderer sat among them was a shock as
great as murder itself.
“Someone in this room?” whispered Crofts in a voice far different from
his bullying voice.
“Someone at this table?” asked Eve Bartholomew.
“Someone at this table.”
Belvoir made a show of pulling himself together. “See here, Bannerlee,
is this true?”
“That’s not a fair question, is it?” said the American girl. “Mr.
Bannerlee cannot know how much I know about—”
I said, “Frankly, Miss Lebetwood, you are not being as direct as you
promised to be. I am at a loss as to the ‘altruism’ you refer to. Tell
us plainly what you mean, and perhaps I can be of some assistance. You
are mistaken if you believe that I would shield anyone for a moment
who had deliberate murder at his door.”
“That’s fair. Well, my trump-card is that I know who burned the
evidence that incriminated one of us; no matter how I know. You burnt
it, Mr. Bannerlee, you yourself.”
Their haggard white faces were turned on me. I felt my cheeks flush.
“I think you are alarming our fellow-guests without good reason. Why,
granting, as you believe, I _did_ drop the paper in the fire, and
supposing there were the least connection between the writer and the
crime—which seems improbable—the mere fact that the Book at this
moment belongs to Crofts’ library doesn’t indicate that one of you
discovered the parchment during some visit here and filled an idle
hour doing its contents into an obsolete style of English. None of
you, as far as I know, are Celtic experts.”
“Emphatically!” declared Lord Ludlow, fixing a reproachful gaze on the
American girl. “Miss, you are confusing a wild shot in the dark with
the reasoning process. This piece of translator’s work, probably done
by someone outside this Valley and quite unknown to us, can have no
connection with any atrocity committed here. You are far afield, and I
do not think you will help us much unless, as I said, you lift us from
the plane of a wranglers’ tea-party.”
“You may be right,” she confessed. “I shan’t try to convince you. But
it was a tempting lead. And surely it’s not true to say there’s no
connection between the parchment story and events which have occurred
this week.” Elbows on table, she rested her head on her hands,
speaking very thoughtfully. “For instance, in the old story Hughes
related after lunch that day he called this place the castle on the
mill-site. An old, old map in the library gives Aidenn Vale as ‘Cwm
Melin,’ which means ‘Mill Valley,’ I’ve learned, and that is what the
Vale was called in the manuscript; do you remember? The parchment
explains, too, what was meant by the ‘spanning and roofing of the
waters,’ one of Mr. Maryvale’s mystifying utterances. It referred
simply to the fact that when Sir Pharamond built his second castle
here, he roofed in the Water; I suppose the present stream beyond the
towers is a deflected one and the channel where Sir Brooke was found
is the original course. That may seem far-fetched, but the proof is
that Doctor Aire took from Sir Brooke’s forehead a splinter of the
petrified wood of the mill-wheel itself. When Sir Brooke was carried
down the subterranean stream, his body must have collided with the
edge of the mill-wheel, and passed on. Mr. Bannerlee, in his
expedition to the cellar, must have actually seen the casing of the
wheel, all overgrown with hideous fungi. So there _are_ connections,
of a sort.”
“Quite interesting in the abstract,” said Ludlow tartly. “We are
looking for something, however, which has a tangible link with a crime
of violence. May I suggest that if you have nothing more to offer us,
this meeting adjourns?”
She had not lifted her head; her fists ground into her forehead. “I
shall try to satisfy you, sir, again with Mr. Bannerlee’s assistance.
I think you will recall that there was a sentence in the parchment to
the effect that Sir Pharamond disposed of his enemies ‘with no more
trouble than snuffing a night-light.’ Now, within five minutes after
reaching the House, Mr. Bannerlee discovered a curious thing. Looking
through the armoury window, he saw _you_, Ludlow. _And what were you
doing there? You were snuffing a candle that stood in the old bracket
on the wall!_”
Ludlow’s chair was flung back. He was on his feet, putty-faced,
staring at her in utter consternation.
“Are you accusing me?”
Before she could answer, our attention swung to the other end of the
Hall. From somewhere in that semi-darkness came a muffled rasping
sound, as of some huge beast that purred.
Crofts was on his feet now, with eyes that strained to overcome the
gloom. He called, “What’s that?”
Aire strode half-way to the fireplace, turning his head this way and
that. “There _is_ something moving in the wall this time. Only where?”
“No!” I shouted, above the increasing hubbub. “IT’S THE PURR OF THE
CAT! The purr of the cat means death! Clear the Hall!”
But I was too late. A glaring light leaped from nowhere, light so
intense it pierced the brain. The walls and roof blazed with white
fire. The persons in the Hall were like figures of clay, presented and
fixed for all eternity in one or another cast of horror. Some had
cowered back beneath the gallery, some had their hands before their
faces, some were forever fleeing, foot lifted, toward the door.
The Constable and one of the sisters had retreated from the
chimney-piece, while the other woman stooped low before the fireplace.
A thing with the size and form of a man had been lying there at their
feet, unseen. In this white instant I saw the woman grasp this figure,
raising it above her head.
The collapse of the mantelshelf—a black projectile flying toward me
and veering away—a stunning crash—a long greedy laughter rising from
below, clutching us, tearing us, subsiding in a sudden burst of
silence.
Darkness succeeded light. The strong arm of the Delambre woman still
held the man upright: a headless body.