Present the evening of 27 December at Thornhaven Castle
- Lady Thornhaven (mistress of the house)
- Isabel Fairbury (her grand-daughter, an orphan)
- Horatio Pillaugh (Miss Fairbury's fiancé, stock broker)
- Dr Bertram Wister (family doctor)
As with many of the great cases of Arthur Taliban, Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Hereford, it all began in a pub. To be more specific, in the Saloon Bar of The Green Dragon in Stoke Pidgeon-on-Wye. That Professor Taliban lived in the flat on the top storey of this establishment is perhaps reason enough for its selection as an informal clubhouse, as he was rather sedentary. Let it just be noted that a group of regulars, including myself, Kent McWithers, transplanted Scotsman from Pittsburgh and erstwhile detective-story author and professional tailor, gathered here for convivial conversation and often, perhaps, a bit too much in the way of spirits, on those dark winter nights, before the fall of an even greater night, in that glorious time just before Hitler's War. Arthur Taliban, or Magister as we were wont to call him, had already established his reputation as a solver of strange criminal cases that baffled the police of our agricultural county on the storied and once tumultuous Welsh border near Offa's Dyke. That his brother Sir Thomas was Chief Constable of the area, and his cousin William Thelford the Superintendent of County CID, may explain this unorthodox activity, but does not detract from Magister's brilliance as a detective nor suggest that he used 'influence' when it came to dealing with such events or even getting himself involved in the first place.
On that miserable wet December night, with its howling winds and cracking trees, we all gathered in the 'snug', each with his favorite tipple, and blessed ourselves for our good fortune not be be abroad in such foul weather. A nice fire was blazing, and Magister sat in his assigned armchair by the inglenook. Indeed, it was the only piece of furniture in the place adequate to carry his great bulk. Nothing so trivial as a storm would keep the regulars of The Green Dragon away -- it would have taken a typhoon to keep us diehard drinkers from our favourite place after the daily grind of our diverse occupations was over for another day. There was only one additional person, a stranger to these parts, who was staying in one of the guest rooms at the inn. His name, as he told us, was Frederic Follen, and he was an antiques dealer from Shrewsbury on one of his habitual mid-winter hunting expeditions. The rest of us -- Taliban, Superintendent Thelford, Amos Louth, the village schoolmaster, Bertie Wister, a local doctor, and myself (and of course our host, landlord Jerry Ink, who poked his nose in frequently to resupply our glasses, if you will forgive my ineloquent phrase) -- were glad to welcome a new face to our gathering, as Mr Follen showed great talent as an anecdotal speaker and displayed an erudition about his trade that was interesting to us, ever curious as to the details of how others make their living. Isn't it always the case that we find other people's professions, however dull in reality, so much more fascinating than our own?
But you do not want to read of such trivia as was discussed earlier in the evening -- well, it was not trivial to us (nothing but sports, apart from horse racing, was an irrelevant subject for discussion), but would certainly bore the reader. It was when Mr Louth happened to refer to the famous carved pews of St Dismas Church down the road, that Mr Follen remarked, "Strange that you should mention that. I am in somewhat of a quandary over a recent acquisition, and I should be glad of your opinion." At which point he excused himself to go upstairs and bring down his 'acquisition.'
And what a strange object he revealed to us! It was an oak carving of a goblinesque gargoyle of a late medieval type. As an expert in medieval art, Magister was thrilled. "It is definitely part of a misericord," he said, stroking the object with loving hands. "Obviously not from our church, but of a period with it. May I ask where you obtained it?"
"That I cannot reveal to you. I have scouts ('snouts' as you call 'em I think, Superintendent) in my employ and keep my eye out, as one must to succeed in business, but I never expose my sources. It was bought by me under circumstances of utmost confidentiality. I cannot say more, but that it was fairly gotten. In fact, it will be some time before I can recover what I spent. You can see, however, that it is a genuine piece, say late 15th-Century. Ugly devil, isn't he? One can almost feel him squirm when you hold him."
Having relighted his reeking pipe with many sucking and gurgling noises, Magister grumbled in his usual rude way. "Pah! In these days of punitive taxation -- outright robbery I call it -- many of our neglected stately homes have been forced to divest themselves of such venerable heirlooms. I shan't probe any deeper to discover its provenance, although I can come up with an inspired guess as to where it came from. We will say no more of the lady."
"I mentioned no lady," said Follen. "But you are near enough in your deduction. Sadly to say, others' misfortune is often the making of my own good fortune. If you examine it closely, though, there is something of a mystery. And I gather that sort of thing is in your line of interest. See, here, where it is chipped. Is that a blood stain?" Thelford quickly reached out and took the carving in his hands. After careful examination he said: "As a policeman I can only say this has definitely been stained at some time. There is no way to tell whether that is blood or not, and in any case it must be many years old."
"You are wrong, there, Bill," Taliban said. "I noticed the stain first off, and I should say it is certainly blood, and but recently dried. And if I am not mistaken, that little white chip embedded there is part of a tooth. Wouldn't you agree, Wister? Mr Follen, I believe it would behoove you to be a little more forthcoming now."
Follen snorted. "That cannot be. I have sworn not to mention where I got my goblin chappie. But I can tell you this, that the carving has been ensconced these past two hundred or so years as a wall decoration until this very afternoon when the butler and I removed it -- with great difficulty I might add. If it was used as a bludgeon, that was well before our time. What's more, there is a legend behind... -- What's that noise!"
The rain storm of the night before had been blown away by fierce winds and it was now a sunny day, New Year's Eve, although rather crisp in temperature. But beyond its call of duty the wind was now blowing fiercer than ever, knocking down tree branches and ripping off roof shingles. Superintendent Thelford was therefore delayed in reaching Thornhaven Castle until late afternoon because upkeep of the local roads was low on the list of county priorities. He would rather have stayed at home, but his uncle Thomas, as Chief Constable, had called him in on this case. The local policeman, Detective Sergeant Simball, had felt the investigation beyond his purview, as it involved a higher level of society than which he was used to deal with (and in fact had spent most of his long years on the Force handling poaching offenses and pub brawls). Thornhaven Castle is in the sparsely populated agricultural area around Clodock and Longtown, near the Black Mountains of Wales, some 15 miles southwest of the cathedral city of Hereford. It is hardly on the beaten track for aficionados of stately homes and fancy gardens. What is important, however, is that the Thornhaven line was 'important family' in the area, even though the estate had fallen into hard times through the social policies of the Labour Party. It was now run by the dowager Mathilde Fairbury (Lady Thornhaven), as well as the dithering old biddy could manage, along with her grand-daughter Isabel. I have to admit that I had always considered the latter after the few times I'd met her to be quite a ginch, especially after admiring her long legs in tennis outfit.
As narrator, I can tell this tale as I see fit, even if I didn't witness all the events. What Thelford saw and heard then has to be taken as absolute truth, because he told me so himself in The Green Dragon. A man named George Carstone, who was the gamekeeper of the estate, was the only male servant of the depleted household who had any position of importance, also serving as butler and houseman -- and I must admit, an admirer of the fair Isabel. He it was who called in the discovery of a dead man in the wine cellar later on that same night we discussed goblins.
This wine cellar is located under the Card Room in the castle, where in earlier times whist was played at great stakes. Lady Thornhaven, who had become a teetotaller after her husband's death, had sealed off that chamber with all of its vintage ports, etc. -- stuff that would sell at Christie's for great prices these days. How, then, had the body of this mysterious intruder been discovered? Isabel had a fiancé, whose name was Horatio Pillaugh, and as an honest narrator I have to admit I was jealous of him too. In fact he got my gorge up. How a fine name like McWithers could be compared with Pillaugh is ridiculous: Mrs Isabel McWithers vs Mrs. Isabel Pillaugh -- there's an observation that cannot be denigrated. What do you think? ... But enough of this, let me get on with the story.
The reason the cellar had been opened (by Carstone, who kept it locked at all times) was that this Pillaugh buffoon had come for a visit after Christmas. After incessant hints about 'inspecting the vintages' he had prevailed -- and Lady Thornhaven was not such an old trout as would deny a gentleman his proper tope. Too, he had a considerable income, and had just become engaged (sort of) to Isabel, a fact that had an influence on the impoverished dowager. What Carstone found is a matter of record: the body of an unknown person, his head bashed in, next to two empty bottles of Napoleon brandy. The victim had been dead some three days, as was verified by the medical examiner, which would have put his death the Monday after Christmas, the day after Boxing day, at the latest. There was absolutely no clue as to his identity, or how he got into the wine cellar in the first place. His body hadn't been moved there from somewhere else; that was evident from the blood splashes all over the walls and floor and stacked bottles.
A strange thing about this room is that it has bolts on both sides of the door. The outer one was bolted that day, with a padlock on it, but was unlocked by the gamekeeper when Pillaugh came and rousted out Carstone for a bottle of brandy for Isabel and himself. Then the door would still not open and had to be forced. One could question why there was an inner bolt in the first place. The explanation is rather simple, as we later discovered, in that Lady Thornhaven's husband was a secret alcoholic who would spend time down in the cellar, sampling its contents, not wanting his privacy invaded while indulging this hidden vice. He died of cirrhosis of the liver, but while always drinking his fill publicly he was never seen drunk in public.
The Superintendent remarked that "This is a locked room murder of a sort, the dead man bolted himself into the room after he was killed. This should interest Taliban."
"... and so it was sheared right through. The metal of the bolt was old and brittle and broke with one blow of Carstone's shoulder against the door," Superintendent Thelford was explaining to Professor Taliban. We -- Thelford, Taliban, Louth, and myself -- were of course in the snug at The Green Dragon, late in the evening after the investigation at Thornhaven Castle had been suspended for the night. It may strike the reader as rather unprofessional for a policeman to be discussing a case in progress with unofficial parties, but Thelford never stood on ceremony, and was, when you get down to it, rather a provincial man. "I suppose it could have been fiddled using string or the like -- there is a small peep-hole in the door."
"I fail to see why anybody'd want to create a sealed-room situation," Louth remarked. "What does it accomplish?"
"Delay in the discovery of the body, perhaps. Playing for time in case someone tried to enter the wine cellar before the murderer could clear out of the neighborhood. And the longer the delay, the colder the trail and the fewer the clues," Thelford said. "In any case, one couldn't have predicted Carstone's impatience. He is an impulsive sort of chap, you know."
Taliban asked, "Whose was the body?"
"We don't know yet. Nobody could identify him by sight, and his wallet and other papers had apparently been taken away, and no other clues were found in the wine cellar. What we do know now is that that misery thingummy was the murder weapon. It came to my mind immediately after yesterday night's business and I sent Simball to fetch it from Mr Follen. That piece of tooth matched a broken incisor in the victim's mouth."
"Yes," I said, "Mr Follen was rather upset this afternoon. The tree having fallen on the garage here that night and dented his Bentley, then his prize acquisition taken from him. He was ready to go back to Shrewsbury then and there, but you have now warned him not to leave the area! Is he a suspect?"
"According to Miss Fairbury, her grandmother had sold that thing to Follen for some two thousand pounds. But he didn't pick it up until two days ago. He had to obtain the cash. I don't see how he could be connected to the murder, however, as he apparently only come here yesterday morning, which was, to be precise, December the 30th, that is, so far as we know. Miss Fairbury told me he had made an appointment to visit Lady Thornhaven the day after Boxing Day, but he never turned up."
"When was the murder?" Louth asked.
"A bit of luck, there," Thelford said. "The victim's wrist watch had been broken in the struggle, and it was one of those fancy Swiss devices that shows the date as well as the time. December 27, 10:37 PM precisely."
Louth: "If this were a detective story, I'd be very suspicious of that!"
"Indeed. But even in detective stories things like that happen all the time. What is more difficult to explain is what transpired that night. So far there has been no evidence of an intruder, which limits our suspects, but that has yet to be determined, and in this case I certainly shouldn't rule it out in spite of questions about how this could have been accomplished. I have written down a summary from what I've been told by people I questioned. I can't draw for Dickens, so the floor plan is by WPC Pollard."
He opened his notebook and withdrew a handwritten sheet of paper, which he gave to Professor Taliban. After he had read it the remaining two of us had a perusal. Here it is:
Present the evening of 27 December at Thornhaven Castle
Notes: Between approximately 10 o'clock and 11 o'clock the persons in the house were in the following locations: Lady Thornhaven and Dr Wister in the drawing Room, conversing; Miss Fairbury and Mr Pillaugh in the music room above the dining room, playing the piano (?); Mr Maybrough in the library, researching for his book on occultism in the Marches; Miss Arbuthnot in her sickbed in the room over the library; Carstone in various places when called, otherwise with the other servants.
Castle had been shut up for the night, as Follen, who had been expected, never appeared. Gatehouse door was not locked, but makes loud creaking noise when opened, servants' parlour is right above it. Door to terrace locked up for the winter. Castle surrounded by shallow moat with muddy silted bottom -- no signs such as muddy footprints of anybody entering by this route, besides, exterior windows barred. Wine cellar located in the basement of northwest tower, under the card room (unoccupied at this time); there is a spiral stair, in a hallway leading out of the library, the only access to this part of the basement. The wooden statue was attached to a wall in the Great Hall; it was still in place that afternoon, in expectation of visit from Follen. But note that only way to convey it to the wine cellar is through both drawing room and library. Must therefore have been taken down before these rooms were occupied. It was back in place later, according to Carstone, who helped Follen remove it a day or so later. This implies premeditated activity of some sort, premeditation of what (!!!)
Questions: Who was murder victim? How did he obtain entrance to house? Who, besides Carstone, had key to the padlock of wine cellar?
"Ah, the proverbial invalid," was Louth's only comment. "She had access to the stairs, supposing one could manoeuvre a wheel chair down it."
"No wheel chair, you nit! She is a frail thing who hardly leaves her room and weighs but six stone, if that."
"All right," said Professor Taliban, after firing up his pipe. "whoof-ka-ka ... Humph! It would seem to me that our ugly little impish friend is key to this matter. Quite a value attaches itself to this creature, and I shouldn't be surprised if our unknown victim had some interest in this object. Theft, perhaps? Who can say at this point? His entry to the castle does not seem problematic to me, as he could have come in at any time earlier in the day, and remaining hidden in that great pile should have been no problem. Our friend Mr Follen deserves some scrupulous questioning, and let us hope he is more forthcoming this time. But that can wait until tomorrow, Bill."
"Excuse me, sir," said our landlord Jerry Ink, pushing in at the door. "There is a telephone call for you, Superintendent."
After a fairly brief absence, Thelford returned, his face flushed with anger. "That was Simball from the station. Your bloody little goblin has vanished from the evidence room! What is more, our friend Follen is not in his room, nor is he on the premises."
We were all engaged the next day doing our various work: Taliban lectured, Wister doctored, Louth taught, Ink landlorded, Thelford investigated, and I slept until late afternoon. The investigation carried on apace. In spite of the presentation of police stupidity in detective fiction, the professionals are expert in dealing with matters no armchair sleuth can handle, especially Taliban, who seldom left the comfort of The Green Dragon for anything but university business. By evening, over our pints of best bitter and sausage and mash (Ink's kitchen produces the best in England, and I can say that having lived in Britain for eight years), we were elated to discover, after Jerry had taken us back into the snug out of the way of the Tom Cobleys and all who were now back in force in the public bar after the storm, that Thelford had left a message by sealed envelope. The murder victim had been identified by his fingerprints as one Cedric Fallon, who had been imprisoned twice for fraud upon old ladies. His incarcerations had been ridiculously short, but who can really complain when communists and others run rampant in these days, committing all sorts of atrocities, and get off with even less gaol time? Nevertheless, his fingerprints were on record, and one has to allow that the police earned their wages for determining this that quickly. In these post-war days, such a search would have taken as long as the modern post. (It turns out that these fingerprints were already in the local police station, as Cedric Fallon had been under suspicion for some skulduggery in the county, but one has to give some credit to the acumen of Detective Sergeant Simball in ascertaining this fact.)
Obviously, the tracking down of Frederic Follen, brother, cousin or whatever (despite the slight variation in spelling) to the deceased was now the major concern of the official police, so we quickly lost interest in the matter. Except for Taliban, who kept cursing when his pipe went out, and muttered "Wild Goose." Dr Wister, now back in grace as not a suspicious character any longer, just harrumphed when he saw his friend's struggle to breathe and to shift his weight in the great armchair.
Suddenly the professor ejaculated [please excuse this word -- this didn't mean what it now does at that time -- ed.], "How long does she have to live?"
Non-plussed, the doctor replied that the old lady had many more years to live, as she was healthy as a plow-horse. "There is a very sick person in that household, but professionally I cannot reveal anything as to that. There are sicknesses of the body, but also of the mind. But I have said even more than I should prefer to have done."
"You have told me all I needed to know, Bertie, and I thank you for it. You have always been a sensible and refreshingly revealing person."
"I have told you nothing, Arthur. You think that because you sit here like a spider in the center of her web you know everybody of importance in this county and all of their business. You really know nothing in spite of your great knowledge. Good night, sir!"
"Oh, dear," Taliban said as the good doctor huffed out of the room, "Kent, I wasn't being offensive, you know, as he will in time. I am no soothsayer, nor one who can summon spirits from the vasty deep. Cannot one be a sedentary duffer such as I and yet remain aware of what goes on in the world about me? I am fat and lazy and immobile for the most part, but I keep my ears, eyes, and nose active at all times, and whatever you can say about me I have a good brain and an insatiable memory for even the most trivial details."
"And for jumping to conclusions," I said irritably, "without explanation." Swallowing the last of my gin and tonic, I concluded, "I've had eight of these tonight, and I'm tired of your balderdash, and it is time I went to bed. So good-night to you also, sir." He ignored my exit, as I did my excuse (I had a bottle of gin in my room). My brain was in a whirl and I couldn't conceive of sleeping yet. My last thoughts before I passed out were that I must see Isabel tomorrow.
When Taliban proposed that morning (although I did not feel in any fit condition to get up) that we go to Thornhaven castle, I was eager enough and I apoligised for my rudeness of the night before (pshaw!). That this would be a problem did not even occur to me. Taliban knew everybody in the county in spite of his reclusiveness, was highly respected for his erudition about everything from medieval architecture to cattle husbandry. He knew Lady Thornhaven from inspection of her family library and regarded the old cow with some respect. And I really wanted to see Isabel again. So we went (it is very difficult to get around in that part of the county without a car, so we paid Jerry Ink's son to drive us -- he was 14 years old, too young to have a driving licence, but things like that hardly matter in this area). The police presence was gone when we arrived. Good. These post-war days they'd have kept their stupid keep-out tapes round the place for weeks.
What can I say about Thornhaven Castle? It was a grand pile that had seen better days, especially in the time of Queen Victoria, when it had been embellished by Sir Charles Barry before his Houses of Parliament fame. The creaking front gate into the courtyard had not been painted in a generation or so, and several of the roofs showed signs of decrepitude with missing tiles and probably leaks into the rooms under. With only a few inhabitants, who cared? It saddened me when Lady Thornhaven herself met us at the door of the Great Hall in the courtyard, not of course at the gatehouse which was open to any passersby -- where were her servants?
I must admit that I was rather startled to see this lady for the first time (I had only met Isabel in local town inns, music halls, and the like, and her grand-daughter's descriptions of the lady were rather biased, I have to say). One would have expected an imperious but dithery Queen Mary type of person (our late king's wife who had the habit of lifting stuff from places she was guested -- 'thank you for this marvellous gift' she'd say), but she more resembled one of those Easter Island figures, very tall with a prognathous jaw and eyes like gimlets.
"Arthur," she said, "how nice to see you. There has been all this dreadful business about that dreary little man found in our cellar, but I am sure you did not come here on that account. I am grateful to have proper visitors. And who is this person?" (One can imagine how I felt about that! The scale of her impressiveness fell several inches in my mind.)
"This is just a courtesy visit, Mathilde," Taliban said mellifluously. "I have heard about your recent troubles and just dropped by to see if I can help you in any way. As you know I have some reputation as a 'gunslinger' if you will excuse my Americanism."
"Oh, I need a cowboy, you nice man. Please come in and watch your step over that broken stair. Your friend Mr Wither is welcome too, although I am afraid we cannot offer you much hospitality, as those dreadful police officers restrict our routines for no reason I can see. After all, we didn't know this person who invaded our privacy."
"Well, Mathilde," Taliban said, once we had settled down in the drawing room, "I did not really come here on a social visit. I should like to ask you, if you don't mind, about the figurine you had sold to Mr Fallon. You might consider this an impertinance, yet we have known each other for years, and I am sure you want this matter cleared up."
"No, I don't mind in the least, Arthur. This has been an intolerable affair and I know you have been able to resolve such things. If it is of any interest, I have to say I always hated that heathen Golum we had in the Hall for as long as I can remember, when I was a 'wee lassie' as the Caledonians would put it. That person from Shrewsbury -- hardly a gentleman, I must say -- had read about this in a book by my dear friend Hiram, and wished to purchase it from me. I readily agreed, as I wanted it gone. And I am not ashamed to admit to you that we need the money."
"Oh, indeed," Taliban said. "It is very difficult to maintain standards now with a limited income. The agriculture of the great estates alone is the lifeblood of England. That the best lands round our cities are being engulfed by suburban housing is a shame, and that our farmers are being impoverished for the sake of the urban unemployed is a scandal. I regret to say that this is an observation I am all too obsessive about making."
She sniffed. "We have never farmed this land."
I really wanted to crawl into a hole at this point, but it was not necessary as I might as well have been a piece of furniture.
"What I suspect," he said, "is that this intruder was trying to steal this 'Golum' as you call it and was foiled in the act."
"Too true. I thought the same, and made a point of it to those vulgar police persons. You must be wondering about this Golum. Well, I have a family document to hand which you should read." She then revealed this parchment piece from her reticule. Here it is reproduced:
"Very interesting indeed," observed the professor. "It seems to me that we need to have a talk with your occultist friend."
"Why are you Miss Fairbury?" I asked Isabel. We were on the terrace overlooking the moat, the door to which had been unbarred for the first time since early November. We were enjoying a warm spell in the weather and I was taking advantage of the opportunity to get to know my 'ginch' better.
"That is the family name of the Thornhavens," she said. "In fact, Gran had been married before she met Grandfather. My father and Aunt Bella and another aunt who died long ago were adopted into the family and she changed my surname when I became heiress. Sometimes, I still consider myself an Arbuthnot, although I never knew my father, who died on the Western Front."
"Then you are a Scot like myself!"
"I shan't ever consider myself Scotch. I have never been north of Peebles and have no intention of seeing the Highlands, ever."
"Please pardon me, Isabel -- please let me call you that! I make no claims to be another Rob Roy. It is just that such matters are in the blood when one grows up in Pittsburgh in a family of steelworkers with no history beyond some obscure ancestor who came over in a boat in 1822."
"Oh, you are forgiven, Kent. I often get fed up with all this 'Lady La' and 'Miss Fairbury'. It hardly matters, does it? What I always wanted to do was become a cabaret singer on the banks of the Seine, but I never could sing a note on key."
"I wanted to be an Apache warrior. Geronimo. We'd do well in Paris together. I suppose that is pure fantasy."
"I fear so. What life and family imposes on us is enough to put childhood fancies to bed. And then there has been that awful business about the Golum. It is so upsetting. I just wish I could run away from it all to the Left Bank. I am afraid in my case that this shall never happen."
... Let me stop this here. This is a mystery story, and you don't want to hear my driveling. All I can happily add is that Horatio Pillaugh had been called back to London on business after Taliban and I had had a brief talk with him.
"Witchcraft and the occult have ever been connected with this house," said Mr Maybrough. "You are familiar with my scholarly works, Professor, but I have written a book in a more popular vein, The Herefordshire Witches. Perhaps you have seen it? No? Well, you can read about Golum in chapter six, including, I might add, that interesting document by the lawyer. What is lesser known is that the First Duke, in the early days of King James the First, was the inquisitorial magistrate responsible for the rooting out of witchcraft in this county. Nothing as notorious as the trials in Lancashire occurred here, but there were at least three executions under Lord Thornhaven for necromancy, which was regarded as treason in those days. Hanged, bless us, not burned. Amongst the books still to be found in his wonderful library are works such as Reginald Scot's The Discouerie of Witchcraft, King James's Daemonologie, and Le Loyer's Livres des Spectres. There is of course an edition of the infamous Malleus Maleficarum."
"You do not credit Golum with any malevolent powers, do you?" Taliban asked. "This would seem to be a crime of a more sordid nature. Occam's Razor Principle would exclude the supernatural and emphasise the simple."
"There are certainly no grounds for applying a supernatural will to this icon, although to my mind there is a definite aura of evil associated with it, and there are those deaths in connection. I have no reason to doubt the gist of the statement of Mr Hornsby."
"Rather conveniently summed up to make a point. Isn't that the way of all lawyers? The circumstances of those events are vaguely enough described. But in any case, that is not our concern here. What I should like to ask you is whether you, in your capacity as an expert in these matters, noticed anything unusual about the atmosphere in this house during that period, or at all during your stay here?"
"Frankly, no. I consider myself a man of science, no matter how you regard my interests. If anybody in this house could be thought superstitious, it is poor Bella -- but she is a hopeless invalid and can have had nothing to do with this business. I did have objections to the sale of the icon to that Follen person, and told Lady Thornhaven so in no uncertain terms. I put in my own counter-offer but could in no wise match Follen's two thousand pounds. Has he been found? My understanding is that he has absconded, with or without the oaken imp."
"I fear not," Taliban said, not expanding further on the subject as he stood up to leave. We were aware of information we must keep in confidence, and it seemed best to depart lest we be tempted to make knowing comments. We had discussed this earlier -- rather, he had told me to keep my mouth shut, unless tea or other drink were offered, to which I was to reply yes or no.
This was later that day. Earlier, so far as detection was concerned, I had seen nothing active on the Professor's part. In fact, he had not even bothered to view the scene of the crime ("I am hardly of a build to take lightly to a corkscrew stair"). I, however, had a look, in order to give him a full description -- and a dark and gloomy place that was, although there was nothing about it that has not already been hinted at. A vaulted octagonal chamber, with an old but solid oaken door with heavy iron bracket handles rather than knobs, filled with specially made wine bins and decorated by blood stains that could barely be made out in the darkness. The inner bolt, which had been a source of mystery, was a minor contrivance, an add-on held in by deep screws, but the outer one was solid enough and seemed to date back hundreds of years, although it had been modified to hold a modern 'pick-proof' padlock.
As for Frederic Follen, he had not returned to Shrewsbury, nor been seen at any railway or bus station. What was even more mysterious was that there was no sign of the carving. It would have been impossible for anybody not on the investigating team to have entered the evidence room and absconded with it, certainly not Frederic Follen. Perhaps there was something, after all, to this presumed ability of Golum to creep about at will. That was not something I wished to dwell upon!
Taliban would only comment, "This is a canard, and there is no mystery about the sealed room. The problem is that there is no apparent reason for it. I have never been one to take a logical deduction as to what must be the truth and make it absolute when there are no grounds to ascribe a motive or reason for it. We need to talk to everybody involved in this case."
Although he told us of his activities on the night of the murder, there was little enlightening in what Maybrough had to say apart from the eerie occult revelations. He had gone into the library after dinner and become engrossed in his studies, did not even remember when he finally retired for the night. It did strike me that Maybrough had some proprietary interest in the figurine, had had unimpeded access to the cellar stairs, and to search hard for a motive in the mind of a collector is hardly necessary, as all collectors are by nature somewhat insane. I mentioned this to Taliban, but he just tut-tutted, and led us into the servants' parlour.
Rather than fill in space about this futile interrogation, I should remark that this was a pointless business as they really had nothing to say except that no-one could have 'broken in' that night without their knowledge. What is of more interest is Taliban's conversation with Carstone. I write a mean shorthand. That was my function here -- do not consider me a Van Dine who sits as a fly on the wall.
Let me first dispose of Mr Pillaugh. As I have said, I had an unreasonable dislike for this man. But much as I'd have been delighted to see him come to deserved grief, I am not that mean-spirited as to wish it upon him undeserved. He was one of those jolly chaps, a 'what-ho, my man', and while trim and in good shape showed incipient signs of too rich an indulgence at the trough. That would tell on him later in life (I thought, snidely). After a brief interview between him, Professor Taliban and myself in the drawing room, it seemed to me that he had to be eliminated from the list of suspects. The Golum figurine might just as well have been made of green cheese as far as he was concerned. He was so wrapped up in his business affairs that unless he was a secret embezzler being blackmailed I saw no reason why he should have been involved in this odd murder case -- and besides, he had been with Isabel Fairbury in the Music Room during the crucial time (she verified this, and I am not one to doubt her word).
As you can see, I have already violated some rules of detective-story relation, where everybody is to be considered a suspect, and if not guilty of the murder hiding some ulterior secret. I told this to Taliban, and he reluctantly agreed, with a quick comment about 'not jumping to conclusions even if they are basically sound', an obvious reference to my remark of the night before. A case of sour grapes? The Professor did not lack his little vanities.
Carstone, however, was a different kettle of fish. (Why do we amateur authors mix our metaphors so glibly, especially when we don't understand what they mean? I cannot really tell you.) First of all, he let loose with a stunning revelation.
After a few words were exchanged, in no belligerent manner as that phrase implies, the Professor remarked that he was very well-spoken for someone 'in his station'. Carstone laughed and said: "You don't remember me, do you? I attended your lectures at university back in 1930."
"Oh, of course! You have caught me by surprise. I know you now. You were a very promising student. What happened? You never finished the course."
"My parents died in a boating accident in Cornwall, and the money just ran dry. Expensive business, an education, even for a scholarship boy. And besides, I had been coming of the opinion that a little learning was preferable to a lot, if one is to make one's way in the world."
"I can scarcely agree with that. I should have thought you could do better in life than to become a gamekeeper."
"I enjoy the outdoor life, and in this place I can call my time my own. The duties are not onerous, except at dinner time and in the evenings, a bit of chauffeuring on occasion, not much else to do apart from the usual repairs to leaking faucets and cutting back the vines growing over the windows. In fact, I am sure you will be pleased to know that I have been working on a book of natural history, the Secret Life of Badgers."
Taliban dropped his pipe. "I am delighted, my dear boy! Have you been to Longtown Spinney and observed the sett?"
"But of course! Where else d'you think I find my subject? Although I must say there are two good setts in the very grounds of this estate. You are not here to ask me about badgers, are you?"
Taliban paused to relight his pipe. "whoof-ka-ka ... Humph! No, of course not." (I was secretly delighted to observe the Professor in this situation.) "What I want to know is why on earth did you fake that locked-room puzzle?"
Dead silence. "It was not very cleverly done, you know," he continued. "It took some quick thinking and some muscle power, but could never have deceived anybody in the long run." At this point, I dropped my pencil. Both Taliban and I were showing signs of clumsiness that were not our usual custom.
Carstone glowered at us for a moment, then he laughed that hearty laugh of his again. "A fair cop, mate! It was all I could think of at the time. If the crime was impossible to commit, nobody could be proven guilty in any court. How did I do it, you might ask, politely?"
The Professor was quick to answer: "The only way it could have been accomplished -- no strings or hidden holes, in spite of the Judas window in the door, or the police would have found traces in spite of what you may think of them -- was to bolt the door from inside the room, pull the door heavily by its iron handle to fracture the bolt, then depart, barring the door outside. That room was not bolted shut on the inside at all when you next entered. You merely pretended that the door would not open after you had undone the outer padlock, then put your shoulder to it. That means, of course, that you were already aware that there was a dead body in the room, and must have been for some time for you to have devised and implemented that trick. You used Pillough as a dupe to witness your charade when he requested a look at the vintages in the wine cellar. It could have been then or thereafter, but had to be done at some point soon or nothing would have been accomplished. Bodily decay would eventually have brought the body to attention, but it had to be you to make the discovery in order to pull off the trick. What I still wish to establish is why you did it in the first place."
At which point, there was a sound of running feet and a loud crying from Maggie Sams, the housemaid, from the corridor outside the parlour. "Thur's another lich, Lard save us. 'E's in the drawrin' r'm!"
"This is just too much to brook," Superintendent Thelford said. "We have been searching high and low for this chap Fallon, and now he turns up dead here in the castle. His head has been bashed in just like the other one. And it's another locked-room!"
"Not locked," Taliban said. "Well, yes it was: The housemaid says she had to use a key, though she had to fetch it from the butler's pantry, but there is nothing impossible about this. There is no way to show whether it was locked from inside or outside."
"You know what I blurry well mean, Arthur. The room was locked after the murder. Only Carstone had the other key and he was with you. And besides, who ever locks up a drawing room? --
"I have arrested him, since you informed me of that wine cellar trick. I kick myself in the arse for not catching on to that. And yet none of this makes any sense. Carstone has closed up like the proverbial oyster and won't say a word."
Taliban stuck an index finger to the tip of his nose -- this was no time for pipes. "Nor will he, I predict. You are certain that Follen was killed less than two hours ago? If so, the butler couldn't have done it."
"There is a maniac loose in this house and I mean to find them!"
"He or she, please, Bill. But I quite agree with you. This is no act of Golum, but of a very human presence."
"Golum has no fingers," I joked. "He could not have locked the door."
This sally was greeted with the frowns it deserved.
Here, I refer you back to WPC Pollard's floor plan shown earlier. This section of the house, for some unknown reason, had been locked up; the outer door from the library into the postern passage had a special security lock (that made sense as there were some valuable books inside). Both entrance doors in the drawing room, one to the library, the other to the main staircase hallway had also been locked, both with keys that were still present in the keyholes on the inside of the room. The lavatory door into the back hallway had been bolted by a recent user. There was a fire going in the library, which had been set for the convenience of Mr Maybrough, but he had no access to the area (and he was supposedly at that time still asleep in the guest room on the other side of the house). Maggie Sams had entered from the staircase door, having come through the Great Hall, but first cleaning up in the dining room. As Thelford had said, who ever locks up a drawing room? This seemed to be another case of some intentional act to confuse or delay; we still did not know why Carstone had done that silly business in the wine cellar. How Frederic Follen had got into the house, or what he was doing there, we had no idea. Entry should not have been a problem once the castle gates had been opened in the morning, but whether Follen had come that morning or whether he had been hiding in the place since his departure from The Green Dragon, we could not determine. As a suspect to the murder of his own brother (as it turned out to be), he no longer counted unless there were two murderers!
The police did all their usual procedures in searching the house, photographing the scene, and removing the body, but there was no real progress in finding a solution to the crime. Everybody in the house either had an alibi or they had not. Golum had struck again. This sent chills up my spine, for I must admit that I had inklings of supernatural or demonic events. There was not a clue. The sealed-room problems were not an important issue, as the HOW could be explained now by any simple if improbable legerdemain. It was the WHY that was baffling.
That evening in the pub, Louth suggested, and I don't really think he was pulling our legs -- he actually thought this way -- that the first victim had actually been Frederic Follen, and that his brother, Cedric Fallon, was the second. "Fallon or Follen, we seem to have a superfluity of felons." Cedric had been running a confidence trick posing as his relative and the happenings were a lot more complicated than they should seem. Thelford just sneered at that, but I felt that it was actually a pretty good idea. Taliban just fiddled with his pipe. How he knew what would happen, I cannot say. I had never seen him so downcast.
I have to mention here that a second tragedy had occurred on that day. I have been reluctant to mention it so far because it affected Isabel to distraction. Aunt Bella died.
This part of the story is quite hard for me to write, as it had so much effect on several lives after the case was long over. You have heard her described as a wasted invalid, but you have not met her. Dr Wister's comments on that evening he and I lost our tempers with Taliban come to mind. I had no doubt that it was she that he was referring to when he hinted at sicknesses of the mind as well as the body. She was obviously under a consumption, but also as they say non compos mentis.
There is a disease, he told us before we entered her large bedroom that is "little understood but now distinguished from what was generically called in earlier times 'wasting sickness' or consumption (not the tuberculosis we are all familiar with)." He wrote it down for me as something called 'Reticuloendothelial Leukaemia' [sp? I couldn't make it out, this Greek gobbledegook, although I learned all about it later], or "pernicious anemia as it is often wrongly called." That is what Bella Arbuthnot was suffering from. "There is absolutely no cure for it as yet, although the progress of the disease goes in fits and starts, with periods of apparent full recovery." Whether it affects the mind, he could not say, but commented that such a sure death sentence would not leave the sufferer unmoved or unaffected in some way not necessarily predictable. Wister is the most honest and transparently naive man I have ever known, although he rarely spoke to any import regarding most subjects relating to his patients. His idea of circumspection when he inadvertenly revealed something was to huff and puff.
We had to talk to her, of course, considering the two deaths, although she had been spared so far because of her precarious health and obvious incapacity to have played a part in them. Her mind seemed sharp enough, although I considered much of what she said blithering nonsense. Little did I know. Here is what she said in the presence of Taliban and Thelford (and me):
She died five minutes later.
"Carstone must be released," Taliban said to Thelford. "You know who has to be arrested."
"I should never have become a copper," he replied with a sigh. "This whole nonsense about the sealed-rooms put me off the track. Carstone was just trying to protect the family by throwing in obfuscations. As he said, if the crime were impossible, there would be a reasonable doubt in the minds of any jury, though I must say that is rather daft a notion."
"Why?" I said, "what is he to Hecuba or Hecuba to him? Arthur is just protecting an old student. As a copper, surely you can find Carstone an accessory to something. So many things are illegal today that I'm surprised you can't find a charge you can hold against him."
"There'd be no point in wasting taxpayers' money on this sort of case," said Thelford. "The man 'ud be an absolute charmer to any jury, and a good defense counsel 'ud put a prosecution to shame. He may be a rat -- I should tend to agree with you -- but there is no case to argue successfully for a conviction."
I was indignant. "How did he manage that second locked-room trick? He wasn't out of the room while we were there."
Taliban: "whoof-ka-ka ... Humph! He didn't. The door was never locked. It was Maggie who claimed it was. It was rather silly of her to put the key into the inside of the door for how could she have unlocked the door from the outside if it had been there in the keyhole on the other side? She was devoted to old Bella. Carstone had told her that Bella would be arrested for the murder of Cedric Fallon for stealing the Golum, which Cedric didn't do by the way -- he had just sneaked into the castle to see what he could find and discovered the wine cellar. Easy enough to steal the padlock key from the butler's pantry. You really should have searched harder, Bill, for another key -- there are far too many keys in this place to my liking, who always lock up my own doors even to step outside for a moment! Cedric went in and proceeded to get regally drunk on Napoleon brandy."
"There was no other key, and none was found in that room."
"Carstone removed it when he pulled the broken bolt trick. It was still in the padlock. It is now probably somewhere at the bottom of the moat, or simpler than that, his own key is, and he just used the one that was already there."
Louth could not forbear from commenting. "I am missing the point here. Imprimis, how could he have known that anybody was in the wine cellar at all? Secundus, how could he have known that the other Fallon/Follen was to be murdered in the drawing room so as to arrange that charade with the housemaid? Tertius, who did the actual murders, and why?"
"Amos, you are not going to like what I have to say," said the Professor as he deliberately went through the motions of refilling his pipe. "An arrest is to be made shortly. I doubt very much that it will end up with an execution, but that has to be kept in mind. To take in your points I will present the following.
"One. Carstone had earlier checked out the wine cellar because of Pillaugh's visit to make sure the vintages had not been spoiled. They hadn't, as a matter of fact, because earlier this evening Mathilde gave me an excellent bottle of Pauvre Richard '08. But he never really found that out as he was rather startled to find a dead body on the floor. And you know what he did then.
"Two. Follen was not murdered in the drawing room, but in the card room, and quite a bit earlier. His body was kept warm by being placed in front of a fireplace so as to mislead the medical examiners as to the time of his death. Sams knew this, as she it was who lit the fire on Carstone's instructions, ostensibly for Maybrough's sake, on the same grounds as I explained earlier about the involvement of Miss Bella as a suspect (and I have little doubt that Carstairs and little Maggie have a closer relationship than we know of). Miss Sams had found the body before McWithers and I talked to Carstone, and we know how quick and devious a thinker he is.
"Three. Well, here is where I have to draw the line, as the case is still sub judice. Why did he so cleverly improvise these conundrums to confuse us when he himself was guilty of nothing in the commission of the murders? There is a poem by the Irishman Yeats, about one's duty under the stress of battle and death, Why does one defend those one does not love and fight those one does not hate? Duty it is, and a rare quality these days."
"Damn it, Arthur, I am going to hold that man as an accessory after the fact." Thelford was furious. "I have never seen a clearer case of that. To blazes with your defense lawyers and public prosecution departments."
"Well, I do have to admit a certain lenient attitude to an old student."
Superintendent Thelford arrested Lady Thornhaven the next morning on the charge of having feloniously killed Frederic and Cedric Fallon. She was not haughty about it, in fact she expressed some relief.
After she had been given the official warning, she made a statement, which was recorded in proper fashion by a police stenographer (I am convinced that her actual statement has been tidied up, but most of the words are probably her own):
"Please do not blame poor George for what he did to help me afterwards. He found Golum in the cellar, where I had left it, and put it back on the wall. I am very well aware that he feels a class difference between us and has no love for us so-called gentlefolk, but he is a true gentleman in spirit, far more than these lordly Thornhavens into whose family I married as a young and naive girl.
"I really do not know what happened that day when his brother came and took the goblin away. He paid me, which is all I care about. You say that I killed him a week later. I did not, and why should he have come back here? I have no other misericords to sell. Perhaps he did not know that. I do not wish to speak ill of the dead, but I suspect my daughter was able to rouse herself for the occasion and could have used my husband's old cricket bat for the purpose. Good for her, it was the high point of her poor life. Why did she do it? I don't know. But that man was a slug..."
* Author's note: If one consults the floor plan, one can see that the lavatory has doors both into the drawing room and the back hallway. This is not something you would normally think of, although I must admit some surprise that Thelford made nothing of it. Taliban later told me that this was one of the first things he noticed.
Dr Wister added, "It could well be accounted for by nervous strain. She might genuinely have 'forgotten' what happened on that second occasion."
"I am not happy with you, Bertie," Thelford said. "You lied about being with her in the drawing room at that time. Yes, you were, but not for all of it, and your nonsense about keeping anything to do with your patients a secret is an obstruction of justice, no matter what the judges say. We have got her on the Cedric Fallon murder case, if not the other. Don't forget that she confessed. My own feeling is that she is going to plead diminished responsibility. I, for one, find nothing objectionable in that.*"
"Nor I," Taliban said.
* Author's note: Lady Thornhaven was eventually convicted for both murders, but to the fury of the Judge (who was a Jeffreys type if there is one in these times), the verdict on appeal was reduced to a charge of aggravated manslaughter, whatever that means. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison, in effect a life sentence at her age.
"Damn right," I said. "Thank you, doctor."
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Postscript
Many detective story readers like a surprise ending. I am happy to supply one. My mother's maiden name was Marybelle Arbuthnot, and she was the sister of Aunt Bella and Isabel's father (making Isabel my first cousin). Since she died at an early age, as did Isabel's parents, that left Isabel and me the last heirs to the Thornhaven estate. I married Isabel in the Bahamas, where they are not too fussy about consanguinity, and we lived very happily for a couple of years until her illness returned and took her away (we do have a son named Alziel, however -- which had been the First Duke's Christian name). When Lady Thornhaven died in prison in 1944, I inherited the estate, and am now lord of the manor. Imagine, now, Kent McWithers from Pittsburgh as the owner of a historic castle on the Welsh border! (Although I didn't inherit a title, and I only demand to be called 'Sir' by my employees.) Taliban tut-tutted about it for several years, but has recently become reconciled with me since I bought The Green Dragon after Jerry Ink's retirement to the Costa del Sol. Thelford retired from the Force and moved to Llandudno, Dr Wister died last year of heart failure, but Taliban, Louth, and I continue the tradition of the 'snug' at The Green Dragon and have even allowed some Tom Cobleys to join. This John Dickson Carr chap, when he can get away from Bristol, fits in with our group pretty well. You might have heard of him, since he has quite a reputation as a mystery writer. He is a countryman of mine, by the way, and we attended the same college in Pennsylvania. George Carstone was tried and convicted as an accessory after the fact, but since the main case ended up as a non-capital crime he only went to gaol for 5 years; he married Maggie Sams when he got out and has since acquired some fame as a natural historian. We are now actually quite good friends.
Golum the Goblin is back in his place in the Great Hall, where he truly belongs after so many years as guardian of the house. I purchased it from the executors of Frederic Follen's estate. A final loose end to clear up is that Golum had never gone missing from the evidence room at the police station at all. He had been mislaid and was later discovered in D.S. Simball's bottom desk drawer under a pile of dirty socks and sweets wrappers, and two empty bottles of whiskey!
--K.M. 14 February 1946
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Notes for the Curious
1. There is of course no University of Hereford (at least not then in the late 1930s). Professor Taliban actually headed the academic side of the Cathedral Choir School, which was regarded as a College, providing secondary education for students as old as 20 and also was a school of theology. In that sense it was a Preparatory School for Oxford and Cambridge. Taliban himself had his degree from King's College, Cambridge, but had resigned his Fellowship there to return to his home town.
2. A misericord is defined as 'a bracket attached to the underside of a hinged seat in a church stall against which a standing person may lean' (American Heritage Dictionary). These were very common in cathedrals and monasteries in the Middle Ages, and were often carved in the whimsical manner of those times in the form of gargoyles to represent the base function they served.
3. Thornhaven Castle has been described on another web site: Imaginary Castles. Obviously, the narrator had changed names and locations somewhat for the background of the story, and to avoid offense to anybody who might have taken exception to being used as a character in a 'sordid' mystery tale. In fact, all of the names have been changed, including Taliban's. The author originally wanted to call him Caliban, but his publishers felt that it would imply monstrousness so they replaced the first letter of his name (not knowing the implications of that name in our current times).
4. Witchcraft in the 17th Century is a fascinating subject that is well-presented in the works of Rev. Montague Summers, for example in his introduction to Scot's Discouerie of Witchcraft (Dover Books reprint 1972). Summers was a Jesuit priest who specialized in this area and is still widely read, although his views were frowned upon by the Vatican as being 'sensational'. They remain the best source for a basic scholarly approach to occult matters not corrupted by Crowley and others. Whether one buys into this stuff at all -- witches, ghosts, vampires, etc. -- is a personal attitude in the mind of the reader. As with all things regarding human opinions, it is a matter of belief, not rationality, because anything one believes in becomes a truth in a sense. The Spanish Inquisition, and regrettably these days the Nazi SS, are regarded as a joke, but one cannot deny that they really believed in what they were doing. So also the prosecutors of witches, when the death of a cow from anthrax had to be blamed on some malevolent action, not a disease that had not yet been codified by the medical profession.
5. Leukemia was not as well-defined as a disease in those times as it is now, and of course there were no effective treatments involving chemotherapy and bone-marrow transplants. However, spontaneous remissions do happen, whether or not as a response to treatment. No doubt many cases of 'consumption' in past times were examples of this disease, rather than tuburculosis or hepatitis, so one shouldn't sneer at Dr Wister.
--Editor
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Copyright © 2005 by Wyatt James