The Fourth Door, page 11
‘Rematch? Ah! Yes, a rematch. All right, let’s go.’
Henry’s thoughts were obviously elsewhere. He lit a cigarette with a shaky hand. He helped me to clear away the glasses and empty the ashtrays, then we got into our coats.
The clock had just struck eleven when we stepped out of the house. An intense chill took us in its grip. The bright, round moon eclipsed the stars, casting a mantle of white radiance across the landscape. The thick layer of snow cushioned our footsteps.
Henry gazed around, then slowly lifted his head. He grabbed me by the arm and said in a toneless voice, ‘James. The moon is red.’
I looked at him closely. His eyes were fixed on the sky.
I shook him gently. ‘Henry? What’s the matter?’
‘Blood-red.’
‘What are you talking about? It looks white to me.’
‘If you say so. But it frightens me.’
‘Frightens you?’
‘Yes.’ He spoke now with more firmness in his voice. ‘It’s a full moon. That can have a strange effect on people. On murderers, for instance. I wonder if I was a little hasty when I said the killer wouldn’t strike again.’
Our eyes met. The same thought had crossed our minds: Arthur had not answered the telephone.
The crunch of our footsteps in the snow was the only sound that disturbed the silence. I recalled the winters of our happy childhood, when we stepped out into fresh snow with joy in our hearts and studs on our shoes. Those carefree days were long past; once again, evil lurked.
We had almost reached the house when a shadow moved to the left of us. Victor!
‘Mr Darnley,’ I called out, ‘what’s the matter? What are you doing out in your pyjamas?’
He had put on an overcoat over his night clothes. There was a dreadful expression on his face, and he spoke in a quivery voice. ‘The killer,’ he said, indicating the White house. ‘He’s struck again. Arthur telephoned me a few minutes ago… he’s been shot. I think he’s very badly wounded. I’ve telephoned a doctor and the police…’
We dashed the rest of the way over to Arthur’s home. When we reached the gate, I turned to my companions. ‘We must be careful. The killer might still be in the house. Look – there are no footprints.’
The steps up to the front door were covered in pristine white snow. In fact, we had not seen a single footprint since leaving my place. We were the first ones to walk here since the snow had ceased.
Looking stricken, Henry approached the door and pressed the bell button. Without waiting for an answer, he took a key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock. We entered the hall and Henry turned on the light; our eyes were immediately drawn to the dark stains on the floor.
‘Father?’ Henry called out.
Silence.
‘Stay here, Mr Darnley,’ I instructed. ‘You never know, the killer might try to get out this way.’
‘Right, right,’ Victor stammered, looking sick with fear.
Henry made straight for his father’s room. I had noticed a sliver of light coming from the drawing room, so I headed that way.
The door was ajar. A small lamp by the window was lit. I turned on the light switch beside the door. By the glow of the chandelier, I examined the room in silence: blood on the floor, on the carpet… I examined the telephone; the receiver had been replaced, and was also covered in blood.
Henry burst into the room. ‘There’s blood all over the bed… The gun is on the floor… but I can’t find Father anywhere! I’ve looked in all the rooms and…’ His voice faded. He pointed towards the armchair, his eyes wide. There was somebody sitting there.
With a lump in my throat, I approached the chair. It was Arthur, slumped sideways in his pyjamas. His left ear was little more than bloody pulp, but his lips… his lips were moving.
‘Henry! He’s alive!’
‘Father, we’re here. Please, whatever you do, don’t move. We’re going to help you, the doctor is on his way.’
It was three in the morning.
Drew sat in a chair by the telephone, looking dejected, smoking one cigarette after another. He ran a hand through his hair, took a deep breath and said, ‘Let’s go through it again from the beginning. There’s not much else we can do for now. Mr Darnley, at around quarter to eleven your neighbour telephoned you. Can you repeat what he said?’
‘I believe it was something like “The killer… oh, my head… there was a noise… I woke up… there was a shadow… a gunshot… It hurts, Victor, come quickly. I’m dying. Quickly…”’
‘At that very moment,’ said Henry in a choked voice, ‘I was trying to call my father. Obviously the line was busy. Then I called again, and there was no answer. Oh God, please let him pull through…’
‘The scene is easy enough to reconstruct,’ said Drew. ‘The killer surprises Mr White in his bedroom and shoots him in the head. The bullet catches his ear. We haven’t yet compared Mr White’s fingerprints to those on the rifle, but I am almost certain the killer placed the weapon in his hands to make it look like suicide. Let’s not forget that he used the victim’s own weapon to fire the shot.’
‘Ever since what happened to Bob Farr,’ interrupted Henry, ‘Father has kept a loaded rifle by his bedside. The killer must have known that.’
‘Who else knew it?’ Drew asked sharply.
‘I’d rather not say,’ Henry averred. ‘I wouldn’t want you to think I was accusing anybody…’
‘I knew about it,’ declared Victor Darnley.
‘Me too,’ I admitted. ‘But we weren’t the only ones. There’s my parents, my sister, John, the Latimers, and several others.’
‘In any case, that leaves us with a limited list of suspects,’ said Drew. ‘So, after committing his crime, the murderer flees the scene…’
‘But, Inspector,’ I said, ‘that’s impossible. There were no footprints…’
Faced with a dark look from Drew, I fell silent.
‘But Mr White is not dead,’ he continued. ‘In spite of his terrible injury, he manages to reach the drawing room and to telephone you, Mr Darnley. This is at a quarter to eleven. Finally, he collapses in the armchair. Yes, it must have happened that way. The trail of blood helps us to retrace his steps.’ Drew paused. ‘That is all clear. But there remains one unexplained detail: where did the killer go? We’ve searched the whole house twice: nothing. We know that it stopped snowing at nine o’clock and that Mr White’s injury occurred after that time – the doctor was quite clear on the point. However, there are no footprints in the snow anywhere around the house – except for yours near the front door, of course.’
‘The back door was ajar,’ Henry pointed out. ‘It leads into the garden.’
‘So what?’ said Drew. ‘You know as well as I do, there wasn’t a single footprint out there either. But my men aren’t finished yet; they went to fetch some powerful torches, so perhaps…’
At that moment a policeman entered the room. ‘Nothing, Inspector. Nothing at all. I can’t understand it. Apart from the footprints left by these gentlemen and by us, there’s nothing there. Only smooth white snow. Nothing on the ground, nothing on the window sills or the roof… I think we’d better call off the search.’
‘No,’ barked Drew. ‘That’s out of the question. I want you to search the whole house again from top to bottom. The killer must be hiding somewhere.’
The policeman nodded, then left. The inspector’s thin lips curled into an evil grin. ‘Believe me, when I get my hands on this fellow, he’ll be lucky if he makes it to the gallows. Because I will catch him, you can be sure of that. I’ve never failed, and I don’t plan to start now.’
‘I don’t think I’d be so confident in your shoes,’ said Victor. ‘Everything points towards a supernatural explanation. The American killed in a sealed room, and now the criminal manages to escape without leaving a single print in the snow, as though he can simply float above the ground.
‘Spirits do exist, you know. People tend to look at me pityingly when I say that, and I’ve no doubt they laugh at me behind my back. Except for Arthur and the Latimers, that is…’
‘The same Latimers who left last night,’ I observed.
‘And without a word of farewell,’ lamented Victor. ‘That’s very strange. We were close, you know. They always treated me as a friend…’
Drew’s eyebrows rose in astonishment. ‘The Latimers are gone? What do you mean, gone? Where have they gone?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Victor wearily.
‘Why did they leave?’
‘Since the American died, Alice Latimer hasn’t been the same. She suffered a number of nervous breakdowns; I think she was afraid. So they decided to move out. Their departure was planned for today. Yesterday, that is,’ he added, looking at the clock. ‘But they actually left the evening before, without a word to any of us.’
‘How strange,’ said Drew, narrowing his eyes. ‘So strange, in fact, that I’m going to alert my colleagues. But, in my opinion, they won’t have got far. I’m tempted to say that one of them was in this very room only a few hours ago…’
Drew reached for the telephone, but before he grasped it, it started to ring of its own accord. He took a moment to collect himself, then answered.
‘Drew here.’
As the seconds ticked past, his expression grew more grave. After hanging up, he lit a cigarette and took a few anxious puffs, blowing them out through his nostrils. He rubbed his forehead, then informed us, ‘Mr White is dead. If we’d been here half an hour earlier, we might have saved him. He would have had life-changing aftereffects, but we’d have saved him.’
Henry left the room, his head in his hands. Victor followed.
There was a silence. Drew stubbed out his cigarette.
‘This is terrible,’ he said to me, obviously troubled. ‘To think I accused your friend of plotting against his father, and now his father is dead. I was foolish to look for similarities between his personality and Houdini’s. All the character studies and psychology did was lead me to a false conclusion. I admit, young man, I’m not very proud of myself at the moment.’
This was quite an admission, and clearly hadn’t come easily. I felt rather sorry for him.
‘The doctor,’ he continued, ‘confirmed the shot couldn’t have been fired before nine forty-five or after ten-thirty. The bullet was lodged in the skull, just behind the left ear – which it tore off en route. If we’d got here earlier, he might have had a chance. But all this damned snow slowed everything down. Still,’ his sorrowful expression was slowly replaced by that familiar thin, sardonic smile, ‘the killer is still out there – but not for long.’
He picked up the telephone and dialled a number, before wishing me a good night. Taking this as a dismissal, I left the room. But just as I was pulling the door shut behind me, I heard his voice.
‘Put out an alert. “Wanted by police: Alice and Patrick Latimer.”’
6
WHODUNIT?
Victor must have alerted my parents – they were waiting for me when I got home. I had expected them to bombard me with questions, but they were too distraught. I retreated to bed, seeking refuge under the covers, but there was no peace or quiet to be had. Instead, the full extent of the absurdity and horror of these recent events unravelled in my mind. First, the murder of Bob Farr, and now Arthur White. They had nothing in common; there was no connection between the two men – except for Henry. The same Henry who was going to be a very wealthy young man now that his father was dead. But he could not have killed either of the men; he was in America when Bob Farr was killed, and his father had been shot at around ten o’clock, when his alibi was supplied by John and myself. It was quite impossible.
John had left us at ten-fifteen… could it have been him? No, impossible. Not John. Besides, he had no motive. Unless – perhaps his long-standing jealousy of Henry? Henry was the obvious suspect in both cases – I couldn’t help but wonder if the whole mess was a convoluted scheme to send him to the gallows.
Let’s consider everyone who lacked an alibi for both crimes. First, John. Then… Elizabeth? I saw no reason to exclude her from my list of suspects. And what of Patrick? Patrick, who had vanished without trace? The Latimers’ hasty departure under cover of darkness was curious, to say the least. Besides, Drew had made his suspicions plain by issuing that ‘wanted’ notice at half-past three in the morning. But the criminal might have operated with an accomplice. This meant that neither Henry, Alice, nor Victor ought to be ruled out. Alas, this possibility shed no light on exactly how the murders were committed; our devilish killer still seemed to possess the ability to walk through walls or fly through the air. The whole thing was absurd, utterly absurd.
Where had it all started? With Mrs Darnley’s singular suicide? With the sound of the phantom footsteps? With Mrs White’s message from beyond the grave?
There was another point which remained a mystery: nobody had heard the shot that killed Arthur. Victor was in a deep sleep at the time – that much was understandable – but John, Henry and I ought to have heard something. We were tipsy, of course – but not as tipsy as all that!
All these questions jostled for my attention; they tangled and untangled themselves in my poor head. Any attempt to gather my thoughts was in vain; the only explanations I could come up with were completely irrational.
Then, sleep finally washed over me in an insidious wave.
A funeral procession is moving slowly towards the churchyard, accompanied by the mournful monotony of the resounding bell. Four men dressed in black and pale of face bear the coffin on their shoulders. Behind them trail the mourners. I recognise Henry, Victor, John, Elizabeth, Patrick, Alice, and myself. The sky overhead is choked with crows, swirling above that sad parade. Suddenly, and for no apparent reason, the birds begin to panic; the beating of their wings grows agitated, their crowing becomes shrill and their movements frantic.
A dark creature begins to descend from the clouds. Bird of prey? Phantom? It is a woman dressed in shapeless rags, her eyes aglow with hatred. She hovers for a moment before advancing on our mournful procession, arm upraised, accusatory index finger pointing to one person among us…
The next day, Father woke me just before noon to let me know my friend had arrived. I had a quick wash – which helped to remove the scent of alcohol, at least, and the remaining vestiges of my nightmare. But the reality it left behind was hardly much better. Then I went down to the drawing room.
Henry was sitting in an armchair. He got up and came over to meet me; we exchanged a silent handshake. His dark clothing made him look pale, but there was a sad serenity in his eyes. He was no longer the little boy who had mourned his mother’s death for weeks on end; now he was a man who faced his misfortune with grace and dignity.
I was all he had left now. His lifelong friend, who was more like a brother to him. We had known each other all our lives; we had gone to school together, played games together, eaten together, got up to all kinds of mischief together. Now I was all the family he had left – I could read as much in his face.
Father cleared his throat, no doubt to conceal his emotion, then declared, ‘Henry is going to spend a few days with us, James. He’ll be staying in Elizabeth’s old room. We just need to move those boxes of clothes she doesn’t wear any more. I’ve told her time and again to come and collect them.’
I nodded.
Father continued, ‘Care for some brandy, gentlemen? No answer? I’ll take that as a “yes”, shall I?’
He went over to the cabinet. ‘Heavens above! The bottle’s empty. Then it had better be scotch – wait a moment, that’s all gone too.’
Henry looked at me with a slight smile. He opened his mouth to say something, but I made a gesture for him to keep quiet.
Father went on, ‘My darling wife has taken to hiding liquor bottles occasionally, she says she does it for my health. But if she’s started pouring the stuff away – well, that’s quite intolerable. A flagrant abuse of power. I’m going to give her a piece of my mind.’
He left the room in as dignified a manner as he could manage.
‘Don’t move,’ I whispered to Henry. Then I dashed up to my room to fetch a bottle of whisky I always kept in reserve.
‘James!’ Henry exclaimed. ‘Surely you’re not going to—?’
‘I am,’ I said, heading for the drinks cabinet. I refilled the two bottles we had emptied last night, and just had time to sit down beside Henry, tucking the empty bottle behind my back.
At that moment, Father returned to the room with Mother in tow. She looked utterly bewildered. He flung open the doors to the cabinet and glared at her.
‘Who has emptied the cognac and whisky away?’
Perplexed, Mother looked at the bottles, then glared at her husband.
‘Edward,’ she announced, ‘I think you had better get to an optician.’
I watched Henry from the corner of my eye; he was struggling not to laugh. My mission was accomplished.
‘An optician?’ replied Father, horrified. ‘I, a Stevens, consult an optician? Nobody in this family has ever needed or worn spectacles. Even my grandfather, who lived to be ninety-eight. Why on earth should I see an optician? Nothing wrong with my eyes, is there?’
Without a word, Mother took the two bottles from the cabinet and brandished them under his nose. Father grabbed them and examined them incredulously.
Mother turned on her heel and spoke over her shoulder. ‘Lunch is ready when you are.’ As she left the room she glanced once more at her husband, who was lost in contemplation of the two bottles.
Throughout the meal, during which Father struggled to keep the conversation going, Henry was quiet. By the time we were having coffee, though, he was his loquacious self again – thanks to Father, who happened to mention an uncle of his who had known Houdini.
