The Six Queer Things, page 12
“But if you don’t bring psychology into it, how can you explain why her attempt to escape from the eyes of the law should take that interesting and peculiar form?”
“Well, it’s not a point on which I wish to argue,” replied Morgan sharply. “All this theoretical stuff is all very well for science, but it doesn’t get one far in a court of law.”
“I agree. In fact I have never found that anything gets one very far in a court of law—speaking as one who has had some experience of being an expert witness.”
Morgan felt he was being deliberately sidetracked.
“What I can’t understand—if you’ll excuse me, Doctor—is how you, a scientist, should go on associating with a man whom you knew to be a rogue and a swindler. For example, I understand you were attending his séances as an investigator. How could you do that, knowing that he was a swindler?”
“All the more, knowing that he was a swindler,” replied Dr Wood with a laugh. “You don’t suppose we psychiatrists divide spiritualistic phenomena into ‘swindling’ and ‘genuine’? They are all genuine—that is to say, they are all produced by human beings, they are all psychological phenomena. You may equally say they are all swindling, inasmuch as the causes attributed to the phenomena, external disembodied personalities, are not real causes. The fact that the conscious mind of some of the mediums is free from the desire to deceive, and all their phenomena are produced entirely by their subconscious personality, whereas in other cases the medium is consciously aware of fraud, is not a fact of great significance scientifically. Naturally it is of some importance in the light it throws upon the integration of personality, and therefore the swindlers are scientifically the more interesting.
“In the case of Crispin you had a conscious intention of fraud, certainly, but you also had a curious personality—strongly ambitious, eonist, and otherwise peculiar, with definitely unusual psychological powers of hyperaesthesia and dissociation. I have a notebook in which I have a fairly full record of the case. I’m sorry, now Crispin’s dead, that I neglected lately to follow up his more recent developments. I am a busy man, you see. But, even so, I have some very interesting psychological data which I am using in a monograph I am writing now. Would you like to see the notebook on which it is based?”
“No, thank you,” said Morgan, somewhat abruptly. “I don’t understand this scientific jargon. I like to call a fact a fact.”
“And I prefer to give it a name which indicates more precisely its class among existing phenomena,” replied Wood pleasantly. “The age-old difference between the scientist and the empiricist!”
“No doubt, no doubt. I can’t object to being called an empiricist, as I’m not sure I know what it means. The point is that Crispin has been poisoned. Who poisoned her? Where did the poison come from? And how long before Crispin’s death was it administered? In the glass of water?”
“Hydrocyanic acid acts fairly quickly, if it acts at all,” replied Wood thoughtfully. “How long a time elapsed between the drink and Crispin’s collapse? Not that I want to muscle in on your police surgeon’s territory!”
The inspector, who was just then filling his pipe, stopped short and gazed at Wood curiously. A silence followed, and in the silence Wood became aware of Morgan’s cold scrutiny. His face was expressionless.
“How did you guess that Crispin was killed by hydrocyanic acid, Doctor Wood?” Morgan asked quietly.
Wood, who had a glass in his hand, raised it to his lips. Some moments passed before he replied coolly, “Surely you told me so?”
“I did not.”
Wood smiled.
“You must have done, Inspector. I’m a psychologist, not a thought-reader.”
“I did not tell you, Doctor. I am quite certain about that!”
“Well, that’s curious. I certainly had a distinct impression that you had said so. I suppose I guessed it from the symptoms you described.”
“But I told you nothing about the symptoms,” persisted Morgan, “except that Crispin went into convulsions. Does that happen to be a symptom of hydrocyanic acid poisoning?”
Wood shrugged his shoulders.
“I couldn’t say. That’s more your police expert’s province. I’ve been a specialist in psychology so long that I’m afraid I’ve lost what little general knowledge I had, including my knowledge of forensic medicine.”
Morgan grinned sardonically.
“Well, I can tell you then, Doctor, that convulsions are not a symptom of hydrocyanic acid, which on the contrary produces coma and a general collapse. The symptoms are as opposite as they could be.”
There was a definite look of uneasiness in Dr Wood’s eyes.
“What a silly mistake of mine. Please don’t give me away. Every doctor has these areas of ignorance.”
“I’m still interested in knowing what put this idea of hydrocyanic acid into your head?”
“Sheer ignorance, Inspector! I’m not afraid to confess it.”
“Crispin died of strychnine poisoning.”
Wood gave a curious smile.
“Just as well in the circumstances! Otherwise it might have seemed a bit fishy, eh, my guessing the poison without being told? It’s lucky I guessed wrong. I know what you detectives are when once you’re on the trail!”
“Not by firsthand experience, I hope,” said Morgan coldly.
“No,” laughed Wood genially. “Only from experience as an expert witness trying to save some poor half-wit from your clutches. Well, I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. Is there anything else I can tell you?”
“Oh yes. Quite a lot yet. Can you tell us what you know about Marjorie Easton? I understand you were treating her.”
“Yes, that is so. Marjorie Easton was a girl who was unlucky enough to fall under Crispin’s influence. As a result of submitting voluntarily to hypnotism and automatic writing, her personality was split. Her new subconscious self was completely under Crispin’s domination. At the time I saw her she was on the verge of a complete mental breakdown due to her inner conflict. It was a difficult problem medically. To have taken her away from the Crispins would have produced a mental collapse at once. The conflict would have produced a complete disintegration of the personality owing to the strength of the subconscious self.
“On the other hand, it would have been fatal to let her go on indulging in the various automatisms and dissociations that are part of spiritualistic technique. As a doctor, I ordered her to remain at Belmont Avenue, but to keep out of Crispin’s influence, as far as possible, by not participating in any psychic activities.
“As you know, we doctors can’t do much in these cases. We have to rely on the natural tendency to integration of the higher nervous centres in a normal person. Miss Easton was, in fact, recovering rapidly under this treatment, and I believe she might have been able to leave Belmont Avenue in about a month with her conflict solved. The subconscious personality was gradually being brought to the consciousness and integrated. Frankly, in view of Crispin’s attitude, this disappearance of hers sounds ominous.”
“What do you suggest is the cause of it?”
“Well, it is possible that Crispin, finding her influence over the girl was waning, may have had her taken somewhere. I can’t understand why Crispin would go so far. But then I never saw the motive for Crispin’s domination of the girl. It isn’t as if she were a rich client he could fleece. It seemed quite altruistic, if you can use the word in this connection.”
“If your theory’s correct, now that Crispin’s dead she ought to turn up again.”
“Yes, certainly. Unless Bella Crispin—or whatever her real name is—is keeping her hidden. The alternative is that Marjorie recovered her normal faculties suddenly. In disgust at the situation in which she found herself, she might have decided to leave Belmont Avenue. It’s a natural reaction—an impulse to hide herself away from the world. Such sudden recoveries are known. They generally take place after a stupor which may last only a few hours.”
“But she left so hurriedly that she didn’t change from her night things into day clothes.”
“Then that’s bad. Very bad. I’m afraid the other theory’s more likely. It certainly is a tangle, whichever theory you adopt.”
There was a pause.
“Have you ever heard of a fellow called George Robinson?” asked the inspector.
“George Robinson,” repeated Wood slowly. “Oh yes, he’s a young fellow who helps me occasionally. As a matter of fact, he acted as an observer for me at some of the séances I couldn’t attend at Crispin’s.”
“I see. Queer chap to use as an observer, isn’t he?”
“Why?”
“Well, I mean he’s not very highly educated.”
“Not in the public-school sense, perhaps. But he has a good grip of general principles and plenty of common sense, and that’s all we want.”
“I understand. Now can you tell me if you know a fellow named Ted Wainwright?”
“Ted Wainwright. It seems vaguely familiar. And yet I can’t place it. Why do you want to know?”
“I’m asking you if you know anyone of that name,” said Inspector Morgan stubbornly.
“Well, I can’t say I do, definitely, at the moment. But I run into so many people in the course of my work. I may remember later.”
“I see. You may remember when I’ve gone,” replied Morgan, with a significant look. “I’m sorry you can’t remember now. You might be able to help him. But there it is. Since you can’t, we shall have to go straight ahead and issue a warrant for Wainwright’s arrest for the murder of Michael Crispin—or Brenda Hartington, to give her her real name.”
“Good heavens! You can’t do that,” exclaimed Wood, his whole expression changing. “What evidence have you?”
“The fact that he was in the room with Crispin under an assumed name; that in addition he had a motive for murdering Crispin; and finally that he handed her a glass of water which proves to have been full of strychnine.”
“But this is incredible. I can’t believe that Wainwright would do that. It’s utterly impossible!”
“Ah, you do know him then,” exclaimed the inspector triumphantly. “I think, sir, it would have been better if you had been frank with me from the beginning.”
“As a matter of fact, I agree with you. I should have been franker. I see that now. I did not realise you knew so much.”
“Well, let’s have the whole story now,” said Morgan. “The whole story, please—no reservations, however well meaning!”
“Briefly the story is this: I found out that Marjorie, before she came under Crispin’s influence, had been friendly with this young fellow, Ted Wainwright. They were, in fact, engaged. But then they broke it off, largely as a result of Crispin’s influence.”
“Engaged, were they? Well, it beats me how a normal girl could have broken off an engagement with a normal young man simply as a result of getting mixed up with this reptile of a woman with her conjuring tricks!”
“Then if it beats you, I can only say, Inspector, that you have a limited knowledge of the intricacies of the human mind. As for ‘normal’ people, there are no such persons to my knowledge. If I were to find one, he or she would be so unique that he would be more abnormal than the abnormal, if you’ll excuse a rather Irish way of putting it.”
“Then who are the abnormal? And what are the people we call normal?”
“Only people who happen to conform to the standards of society, by means of suppressing successfully the antisocial or odd parts of their nature. These repressed parts still exist and tend to form another personality for which—in certain circumstances and by certain means—hypnotism is the most obvious method; great emotional stress is another cause—can be awakened to life. Then we call them abnormal. We may shut them up.”
“Well, it seems to me that Miss Easton should have been taken out of this hypnotic influence . . .”
“After it had been built up? I can see you have had no experience of a psychic fixation. I have. No, that wasn’t the key to her healing. You can’t drag people about according to your will. They have wills too. Those wills must assent, if the mind is to be healed. No, it was a more difficult matter than just moving her physically. It was quite literally a matter of battling for Marjorie Easton’s soul. I called Wainwright in—perhaps unwisely, as I now see—to help me. I got him to attend these séances in disguise, so that he could understand what Marjorie Easton was up against and be able to help her without a countermove from Crispin. Frankly Wainwright’s first reaction was the very reverse of helpful to Miss Easton. It alternated between a sullen resentfulness, which could only drive Marjorie away from him and had in fact brought about their separation, and a desire to inflict personal violence on Crispin, which would only have put Marjorie still further under Crispin’s influence.”
“A desire to commit personal violence,” repeated Morgan thoughtfully. “That’s interesting.”
“You must not misunderstand me,” replied Wood sharply. “I mean Wainwright had a natural human desire to sock Crispin on the jaw; that was all. The sort of open violence any man might want to inflict on another who had stolen his girl. It is absurd to suggest, as you are suggesting, that it could have gone any farther. As for poison—don’t you see how totally impossible that would be for a man of Wainwright’s mentality? He had, in any case, got over that violent mood—I had argued him out of it—by the time he attended Crispin’s séances. He had begun to see that he must fight Crispin with other weapons. He realised victory was a matter of psychological, not physical, force.”
“Granted all that. There are still certain facts you have forgotten. Granted Wainwright saw the necessity of fighting Crispin with other weapons. Suppose, even, that he was beginning to be victorious with those weapons—with your help. You yourself said Miss Easton was growing better. But then suppose that Crispin, on the defensive, started a new campaign. Suppose that, seeing she was losing on the psychological plane, suppose she resorted to physical violence and forcibly abducted Miss Easton. With a knowledge of this, wouldn’t your model young man decide to fight violence with the same weapon? Miss Easton had disappeared before Crispin’s murder. Surely that disappearance was the motive for her murder?”
“But that’s preposterous!” replied Wood hotly. “It is simply theorising without facts, in order to back up your prejudice against Wainwright.”
“Preposterous or not, it is what the case suggests to me, and no one has ever accused me of undue imagination. You say Wainwright’s instinct would have been to sock Crispin on the jaw—as one man would another. Suppose he had found Crispin was not a man, but the strange, eccentric thing she was? Mightn’t his reaction have been to destroy her—like a reptile—with poison. He couldn’t use physical violence on a woman, however degraded. His instinct would prevent that. But it wouldn’t prevent him destroying her in that open way like a pest—in order to save the girl he loved.”
“The theory is much too farfetched. As it happened, I never told Wainwright that Crispin was a woman. So how could he know? It would need someone unusually observant to guess it.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?” demanded the inspector sharply.
“Why should I? It’s not my business to provide motives for police detectives.”
“I should have thought it would have been natural to tell him—except for one reason. It might be that, as a psychologist, you knew what Wainwright’s reaction would be. You feared that if he found out, it would lead him to do this very thing he did do. And I firmly believe Wainwright did find out.”
“Nonsense. I am amazed at the way you are speculating in this case, with a few bare facts to go on. It’s a tissue of fancy.”
“On the contrary, it’s a tissue of fact.”
“In any case, before you commit yourself hopelessly to the tissue of fact, you might at least explain what Crispin’s motive was in dominating this penniless girl? You won’t suggest, I hope, that her intentions were charitable? She must have thought she could make some use of the girl, to spend so much time, trouble and money on her. What was it?”
“The obvious explanation is that she was making Marjorie Easton into a medium—one of her tools.”
“I think that was only a means to an end. What did she want such a tool for so urgently?”
“It is sufficient explanation for me. However, I admit there are one or two things in the case that are still not clear. Perhaps you can help me.”
Morgan opened the small case he had brought with him. Inside were the Six Queer Things.
“These were all found inside a drawer in the Crispins’ house. It beats me what they can have been used for. Yet the circumstances make it almost certain that they have some significant bearing on the case. Can you make anything of them?”
Dr Wood examined the miscellaneous articles carefully. Then he turned to the inspector. “You have certainly discovered something very remarkable and unique,” he said solemnly. “Congratulations.”
“What is it?” asked the inspector eagerly.
“A mare’s nest,” replied Dr Wood. “I have never seen such a fine specimen in all my scientific career.”
Blushing slightly with annoyance, the inspector put back the objects in the case. He managed to muster a feeble grin.
“All the same, I think there’s something in them!”
CHAPTER VIII: “Something Damned Queer Has Been Happening”
Inspector Morgan went back to his chief and had a long conversation with him.
“Superficially the case is as clear as daylight,” he reported. “Wainwright poisoned Crispin. We know Crispin died of strychnine poisoning; we know strychnine poisoning was in the glass which Wainwright handed to Crispin; and we know no one else went near the glass, or had any other opportunity to put poison in it. We know also that Wainwright had a definite motive for getting rid of Crispin.”
The chief nodded.
“Well, what’s the trouble? It’s clear enough.”
“There are still a good few facts left that worry me.”
