Hunt in the Dark Page 5

  Within a few seconds, I had reached the top of the stairs. I paused there, listening. Then, slowly, I pushed my way up and crouched low on the roof at the foot of a chimney stack.

  At first it was difficult to make out my bearings. The moon had slipped behind a cloud and I had only the dim starlight to guide me. Gradually, I took in the details of the roof garden. It was hardly a cheerful place. A fence of stout six-foot iron railings surrounded it on every side, and the surface of the roof was slightly sticky with tar.

  Keeping in the shadow of the railings, I made my way in the direction of the footsteps, which sounded louder now, and heavier. Slowly, I straightened, and, as I did so, the moon broke out from behind the cloud. It must have struck directly on me, for I heard a confused scuffling, and, for a second, I caught a glimpse of a figure scrambling away between the broad chimney stacks.

  “Who’s there?” I shouted. “Who is it?”

  My cry echoed hollowly across the tiles. There was no answering sound. Once more I saw the figure, this time, silhouetted against the sky. I could tell it was a woman. A fragment of skirt blew out in the night breeze. It was obvious that she had seen me, for she started and something fell from her hand. Then she slipped into the shadows.

  Mrs. Salt had taken good care that her daughter should not escape across the roof. The iron railings were pointed and bent inward. It was the devil of a job scrambling over. I managed it finally and dropped down onto the other part of the roof, but I knew that my chances of catching the night prowler were small.

  Mechanically, however, I started forward. The roof sloped steeply and dangerously to the street below. I clutched onto a chimney stack for support and, as I did so, my foot struck against something soft—the something which this unknown woman had dropped.

  For one moment I stopped dead, expecting to find there I know not what. But soon I shook off all nightmarish notions and bent to pick up the thing at my feet. At first I thought it was some sort of feminine garment. Then, as I lifted it more closely to my eyes, I saw what it was. In my hands I held a large, cretonne laundry bag.

  This seemed the final touch of fantasy in this incredible evening. Mysteries toppled over one another here at No. 12 Potter Street, and yet there was in them all an element of wild, almost humorous craziness. A canary is stabbed with a paper knife. A cat is strangled with a red silk ribbon. And now a woman creeps about the roof and leaves behind her —a laundry bag.

  I took the thing back with me to my room and sat gazing at it. The name, “E. Bellman,” had been worked on it in green cotton. This hardly surprised me, since so many mad, disconnected things were happening in this respectable boarding house. So many strange people were doing so many strange things. Something was afoot, I know. Something complicated and dreadful—yet something which would be perfectly logical if only one could find the key, if one could fit together all these crazy scraps of puzzle and arrange them into one complete, unified picture.

  Before going to sleep I decided to telephone Cobb and tell him unofficially, at least, all that had happened since my last call.

  His clear, matter-of-fact voice reassured me somewhat, and I found it a relief to be laughed at and called an old woman.

  Yet, despite his flippancy, I could tell that he did not take the matter altogether lightly.

  VI

  THAT DREADFUL REVELATION

  In the bright sunlight of the next morning, the uncanny incidents that had taken place at No. 12 seemed rather remote and trivial. After all, I was responsible for Doctor Hammond’s patients, and sick people are of more importance in the scheme of things than problems involving dead cats, goldfish, laundry bags, and frightened landladies. I was working hard all day, and it was not until dinner time that I put in an appearance at No. 12. All the boarders were at their tables when I reached the dining room. It was quite a relief to see that the mysterious Mr. and Mrs. Brown were a stolid, middle-aged couple whom one could not possibly associate with anything disagreeable or sinister. As to the others, they were all doing what would be expected of them. Mr. Jay was gesticulating over his soup plate and describing some unpleasant anatomical experiment to Miss Davenport, whose violet eyes were alight with scientific interest. Miss Clymer, pink and frilly, was shuffling her salad and half cricking her neck in the hope of gleaning some tidbit of scandal from all quarters of the room at once. Mr. Washer was playing an adagio movement with his fingers as he waited for his next course.

  But most of all, I was interested in the Furnivalls who sat at the table next to mine and who gave me a frigid “Good evening,” as I took my seat. I tried not to stare at the crippled Miss Sophie, but, having once looked, it was difficult to keep my eyes away. For a woman no longer young, she was one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. Her fragile feminine charm was in marked contrast to the heavy, rather masculine handsomeness of her sister. It was hard to believe that these two strangely dissimilar women were related. It was hard, too, to believe that the pale, Dresden china Miss Sophie was an incurable cripple.

  The meal was plain but well cooked. By the time I had reached my dessert, people were beginning to drift out of the room. The waiter had just vanished into the kitchen when a rather extraordinary incident happened—one which reminded me that the unusual could invariably be counted upon at No. 12.

  Miss Davenport left Mr. Jay at the table and strolled across to the Furnivalls. She laid a newspaper at Miss Constance’s side.

  “I brought you the Grovestown Times just to let you know you aren’t missing anything.” She shot me an impudent glance and added, as if to shock the two spinsters. “I hope you’ve got your underwear straightened out, doctor. Or did Chopin come in to help you?”

  She grinned, produced a cigarette, and wandered away.

  After she had left, I saw Miss Constance Furnivall pick up the paper and glance through it as she sipped her coffee. My seat

  was directly facing hers so I could not help seeing everything that happened. For a while she rustled the pages absently, then suddenly her eyes hardened in a fixed stare. The strong line of her jaw slackened.

  “Sophie.” she gasped, pointing to one of the columns. “Sophie, did—did she do it on purpose?”

  A hand went to her throat and she half rose from her chair. Her head moved from side to side in a little helpless gesture that seemed quite out of keeping with her neat, efficient appearance.

  “Sophie!”

  I jumped from my chair and reached her side just in time to catch her as she collapsed.

  Miss Sophie seemed at a complete loss. She stood gazing blankly as her sister.

  “It’s only a faint,” I reassured her. “Let’s get her up to her room.”

  With the help of the waiter, I supported Miss Constance upstairs. Miss Sophie walked behind, dragging her crippled leg and clutching tightly to the newspaper.

  The two spinsters occupied a small room containing divans which were converted into beds at night-time. Having explained that I was a doctor, I did what I could for Miss Constance through it was obvious to me that nothing was seriously the matter. At length her eyes flickered open and played unseeingly on my face.

  “Feel better?” I asked.

  “Yes, yes. I’m so sorry. Where’s that newspaper?”

  Miss Sophie fussed forward with a glass of water. As she bent over her sister, I took the opportunity of glancing at the Grovestown Times which had been laid on a chair at my side. Here, I thought, must lie the clue to Miss Constance’s unexpected collapse. The paper was turned to a middle page. One column caught my eye particularly. It was headed: “TWENTY YEARS AGO TODAY.” Beneath it there was a photograph of a striking looking woman who, despite her old-fashioned clothes and style of couture, was unmistakably the woman I knew as Miss Constance Furnivall.

  Swiftly I picked up the paper and read:

  Twenty Years ago today, the notorious Mrs. Constance Farrar was sentenced to fifteen years penal servitude for the killing of her husband. I
t will be remembered by those who—

  But I did not get any further. Miss Sophie had snatched the paper and was glaring at me angrily. In the hard illumination from the ceiling light, she did not seem as pretty as she had at dinner time. The Dresden china features were coarser, the white skin rougher. “It’s no use, Sophie.” Constance Furnivall had risen from the couch and was staring dully in front of her. “It’s no use. He’s seen.”

  Not only had I seen it, but I remembered the case clearly as indeed any one must have done who lived any length of time in the neighborhood of Grovestown. The Farrer murder case had been one of the most sensational crimes in the annals of the country.

  It had never entered my head to wonder what had happened to that glamorous, tragic woman who had shot her husband in a fit of passion on discovering his infidelity. There was something infinitely pathetic in finding her here in a boarding house, poor, masquerading as a spinster, and obviously living in dread lest someone should piece together the truth and reawaken for her the horrors of the past.

  Both sisters were staring at me—Miss Sophie with a shrewd, bitter expression in her eyes, Miss Constance, dark, smoldering, and defiant.

  “There’s no need to tell me, Miss Furnivall,” I murmured as kindly as I could. “The past is none of my business. I’m sure no one else will recognize that photograph. With me it was merely chance—the association of your fainting and the newspaper.”

  Miss Constance’s powerful hands lay in her lap. “It’s no use,” she whispered bitterly. “You can’t live things down. They all find out in time—just like that Davenport woman did tonight.”

  “Constance!” Sophie was bending fiercely over her sister. “You mustn’t talk that way. You mustn’t. You know I can’t bear it.”

  Constance gazed at me. “Poor Sophie. It’s just as bad for her.”

  “Stop it.” Sophie’s voice had risen to a hysterical scream. “If you’re going to say those things, I—I won’t stay.”

  The Dresden china face was livid with anger. She shot me a glance almost of hatred and limped out, slamming the door behind her.

  Constance followed her with grave eyes. “She can’t bear talking about the trial,” she said simply. “You see, that was how her leg was injured. She was crushed when the mob crowded around me coming out of the courthouse after the sentence.”

  So many strange things had happened at No. 12 that the presence of a convicted killer in the house no longer seemed unusual. Besides, there was a certain courage and defiance about Miss Constance which I rather admired. I waited in silence, for her to continue.

  “I’ve been out of prison for five years now,” she said at length, “and no one would give me a job. That is, no one until—Mrs. Salt.”

  “Yes,” I said quietly, “I know about Mrs. Salt.”

  Constance Furnivall started. “That child? You know about — er — Agnes? It was ghastly, but I had to take work. The money was good, and I needed money terribly.”

  “You acted as a kind of nurse, I gather?”

  “Yes. I put an advertisement in the paper saying I would do anything. There was only one reply. It was from Mrs. Salt. I had to live with Agnes for nearly six months. Sometimes I thought I couldn’t stand it any longer.”

  “What was this Mrs. Salt like?” I asked curiously.

  The dark eyes widened slightly. “I never saw the stepmother. I was sent here with instructions that an apartment was already prepared. The next day a trained nurse brought Agnes. And then, at the end, when Mrs. Salt took the child away to Arizona, I was sent my salary and two hundred dollars extra and told to go.”

  The elusive Mrs. Salt was beginning to intrigue me. I felt more and more strongly that either she or her unfortunate stepdaughter was somehow involved in the strange happenings at No. 12. “But Agnes—” I began only to break off at the sound of a knock at the door.

  Miss Furnivall called a rather shaky “Come in,” and Jo stood on the threshold, tall and spectral, pushing the shaggy mane of hair from his low forehead.

  “Doctor Westlake,” he said in his thick, almost unintelligible voice. “There’s a woman on the phone wants to talk to you. I heard your bell ringing as I went by,” he added by way of explanation, “so I got my duplicate key and answered it.”

  With a few parting admonitions to Constance Furnivall, I hurried along the corridor to my room. The thought passed through my mind that Jo had no business breaking into my apartment and answering my telephone calls. Had it, I wondered, been mere officiousness on his part? Or was he, like every one else the house, finding an excuse to be alone in those extraordinary rooms?

  A woman’s voice spoke to me over the phone. Her mother was dangerously sick. She was, she said, one of Doctor Hammond’s regular patients. Would I please come quickly? She gave an address.

  There was something curiously familiar about the voice. I had the vague impression that I had heard it somewhere before— quite recently. But I was too hurried to give the matter much thought.

  I picked up my emergency case and went downstairs. As I passed through the hall, I saw Mrs. Bellman for the first time that evening. She was standing by the desk, talking to a plump nondescript woman whom, I recognized as Mrs. Brown.

  The landlady glanced at me as I crossed to the door. “Going out, Doctor Westlake?” she said. “You’ll need your coat. It’s a raw evening.”

  “Haven’t time,” I said. “Someone’s ill.”

  Her voice followed me out into the street. Vaguely I heard something about a fire—the open fireplace—and that “things would be more cheery.”

  It was raining hard. By the time I reached the address, I was soaking wet. I rang the bell and explained my business to a maid who informed me none too politely that no one of the name I mentioned lived there and that no one was sick. I tried several other houses with the same result. Like Mrs. Bellman, it seemed, I had been the victim of a practical joke. At first it infuriated me, then I began to feel a sensation of alarm. Someone had wanted to get me away from No. 12. Why?

  I arrived home, soaked to the skin. In the hall I found Miss Clymer, crooning over the canary. She eyed me sharply, but I did not stop. I hurried upstairs and along the dark passage to my room, strangely uneasy.

  The apartment was in darkness. As I entered, I noticed that the windows were wide open, but the strange, fetid atmosphere still lingered in the room. It was, if anything, more marked.

  I fumbled for the switch. As I did so, I could hear the purring of the electric fan. There was something about the sound I did not like. It seemed slower, more jerky—somehow sinister. Besides, I had not remembered turning it on before I left.

  At length, my fingers found the switch, and the whole room was flooded with vivid illumination.

  If I live to be as old as I sometimes feel, I shall never forget the horror of that moment, that sudden dazzling moment of light— that dreadful revelation.

  The huge electric fan was turning slowly round and round. It was only then that I realized its true power. Hanging from it, with her hair moving slightly in the breeze—gyrating and oscillating with the halting turn of the blades—was the body of a woman. Her toes were pointing downward barely an inch from the floor. On her face was a look of incredulous horror, as though death had caught her just as she had witnessed another (and even more terrible) of those humorless jests which had become so frequent at No. 12 Potter Street.

  As I stared, I noticed something else—something which lent an even more macabre quality to this ghastly spectacle. The face and hands were black—nor was it merely the blue-blackness of asphyxiation. They were covered in grime—soot. Even the white hair was darkened.

  It was the body of Mrs. Bellman, but the face and hands were those of a Negress.

  For a moment I was so stupefied that I did not even switch off the fan. I gazed blankly at that slight body as it revolved round and round in its grotesque pirouette. Then I noticed that with each revolution, it was movin
g upward, getting nearer and nearer to the shaft. The cord by which it was tied was being slowly twisted as in a fantastic Maypole dance.

  I dashed across the room and snapped off the switch. Then I jumped onto a chair and hacked through the cord with one of my surgical knives. The body fell to the floor in a small, tumbled mound.

  I bent to examine it. The skin of the face was almost entirely covered with grime, but I could tell immediately that death was due to strangulation. The cord around the wizened neck was tight—so tight that it was almost obscured by folds of flesh. Instantly, my mind flashed back to the ginger cat, the cat with its murderous bow of red ribbon. My fingers pushed through the ruffled hair. On the back of Mrs. Bellman’s head was a large swelling.

  As I gazed at that pitiful little figure, crumpled on the floor, I thought of the dreadful irony of those words Mrs. Bellman had spoken to me at our first meeting.

  “I’ve always been a working woman. Doctor Westlake. And I hope to go on working as long as my two legs carry me.”

  VII

  DOWN THE CHIMNEY

  I called Cobb at once, but even before I had finished speaking to him, I felt convinced that I could piece together the stages by which Mrs. Bellman had met her death.

  The fireplace told the story. In it were some logs and blackened kindling. I remembered the few words she had called after me through the front door about building a fire—that it would make things more cheery. Knowing I would be cold and wet on my return, she had pathetically tried to make the apartment look more cozy. Her murderer must have crept in while she was bending over the grate, while she was setting a match to the first fire in the new hearth of which she had been so proud. A blow from behind, and she would have fallen forward with her head in the fireplace. Hence the grime and soot on her face.