Arrow Pointing Nowhere (23 page)

Blake Fenway and Caroline sat together, hand in hand, on the little sofa to the right of the fire; Craddock stood dejected at the other end of the hearth, his elbow on the mantel, his head bent, his eyes on the flames. Gamadge had effaced himself in the bay window, where he leant with his arms on the glassy top of the old Steinway. Nordhall faced them all from his position just within the door from the reception room.

“I just want to say it again before Mr. Fenway,” said Craddock. “What I said before, Lieutenant; it's all my fault.”

Fenway raised his head to look at him. “Yours, my boy?”

“Yes, sir. I bought him a toy pistol and showed him how to pull the trigger. You understand? If it hadn't been for me he
wouldn't have known how to kill the woman. He would only have taken the gun away from her. He was imitating what she had done, but if I hadn't explained the thing to him he wouldn't have known how. He wouldn't have hit her at all if he hadn't jammed the thing up against her forehead.”

Caroline said in a low voice: “Must we hear it all over again?” and Craddock straightened to look at her sternly.

“I'm thinking of him,” he said. “His future's more important to me than other people's feelings just now, Miss Fenway.”

Blake Fenway said: “Craddock.”

“I know, sir. I'm behaving badly; but it may make all the difference to Alden if the police understand that he never was violent in his life before, and most probably never will be again. It isn't in him. Why, if you or I had done what he did somebody'd want to give us a medal; but because he's got the brain of a child he'll suffer for acting like a man.”

Nordhall's eyes showed appreciation of this point. He said: “Something in what you say, but the trouble is—and let me tell you Thurley himself agrees with me—Alden Fenway's proved he can commit an act of violence, and whether it's just or unjust to reason that way, I think it's pretty well proven that he'll be better from now on in a place where they understand his kind of case. I'm all for institutional care in these cases myself. I think the patient's better off, and I think the relatives are. I'm afraid Mrs. Fenway may put up a fight for it, she's wrapped up in him, but I thought I'd just suggest that I don't think she'll win out. Of course if the family backs her—”

Caroline said: “There's only my father.”

Blake Fenway put his hand up to his eyes. He said: “I see Craddock's point of view.”

“Father—” Caroline turned to face him.

“Yes, my dear?”

“Aunt Belle didn't say anything about the picture of Fenbrook, did she?”

He dropped his hand from his face to look at her in astonishment.

“The picture of Fenbrook?”

“Mrs. Grove doesn't seem to have done that, does she?”

“Done what?”

“Torn it out.”

“Mrs. Grove? Why should she tear it out?”

“There doesn't seem to be any reason why; and Cousin Mott and I thought Alden did.”

Nordhall said with what seemed only mild interest, “What picture was that, Miss Fenway?”

“A picture of our old house; it was torn out of a book that was sent to us here from Fenbrook a week ago Thursday, and that's when all the trouble seems to have started. Aunt Belle says that Mrs. Grove began to blackmail her then, doesn't she?”

“Yes.”

Fenway said: “We don't know when the picture was torn out, Caroline.”

“No, but you found that it was gone on Friday evening, and Cousin Mott and I were sure Alden did it. We thought he was changing—turning mischievous and destructive. Father, we were so afraid of Alden—I mean I was—that I thought he killed Cousin Mott last night.”

Craddock shouted out: “What do you mean?” But Nordhall's eye quelled him. He said: “You don't think so now, Miss Fenway, do you?”

“No, but—”

Craddock spoke again, but quietly and with repressed feeling: “The idea's ridiculous. We all know why he killed Mrs. Grove, though of course he didn't know he was killing her, he doesn't know the meaning of the word. He's not vicious. I
think it's a crime to accuse
him
of a deliberate crime without evidence.”

Nordhall shook his head. “Miss Fenway's just saying she wants her cousin out of the house because he got on her nerves and she says he got on Mr. Mott Fenway's nerves. She's not exactly accusing him of anything. No evidence, Miss Fenway?”

“No.”

“Well, I'll tell you what we think of doing now. We're going to take the young fellow to a hospital for observation, Thurley will make arrangements; take him tonight. He'll have all the comforts you want to provide him with, and there won't be any question so far as I know of anything like a trial or anything like that. But I wouldn't count on his being let loose again; I don't think that's on the cards. No question of jail. Craddock here can go along with him tonight, and when Mrs. Fenway gets better she can be with him as much as she wants to. If you'll cooperate—explain to her—”

Craddock said: “I'll go along. You won't have any trouble with him, you know.”

“We want to make things easy for you,” continued Nordhall. “You've had a tough time of it, all because this Grove woman went out of her mind. I suppose she was one of the quiet, repressed characters that fly off the handle in the end?”

Fenway groaned. “You don't know how incredible the thing seems to us, Lieutenant; she wasn't a paid companion from an agency, you know; she was one of my sister-in-law's oldest friends.”

“Yes. About this girl, now; this niece.”

“Her husband's niece, Nordhall, and a really charming young girl. She ought to be here very soon now; she's on her way down, as I told you.”

Craddock said between his teeth: “I don't believe in any trap at Fenbrook. Even that woman wasn't capable of such a thing.”

“I'll have to stay and talk to her, of course.” Nordhall's eye rested on him thoughtfully.

“She'll be in no state—she was fond of the woman!”

“Craddock,” said Blake Fenway, “I can take care of Hilda Grove.”

“And so can I,” said Caroline. At the expression on Craddock's face she went on quietly: “And I will. She'll be here with us now. I don't know whether there's a trap at Fenbrook or whether there isn't, but she's been alone there long enough. It makes me sick to think of it—to think that that woman could even have imagined such a thing against her. She's thoroughly nice, Lieutenant Nordhall, and I wish you didn't have to say a word to her tonight.”

“She's been up there for some time?”

“She hasn't seen Mrs. Grove for more than five weeks.”

“Then she wouldn't have noticed anything funny about her. Wouldn't be much help to us.” Lieutenant Nordhall's considerateness was phenomenal. “I may not even talk to her.”

At that moment the doorbell rang, and shortly afterwards a policeman came in to say that a Sergeant Bantz, describing himself as assistant to Mr. Henry Gamadge, wanted to speak to Mr. Gamadge.

“Sergeant of what?” inquired Nordhall.

“Of Marines. If I might take him into the library?” Gamadge rose. “Probably he has some business message.”

Blake Fenway said of course, Nordhall made no objection, and Gamadge went out of the room. The doorbell rang again, and this time the officer announced Miss Grove.

Arline Prady, having seen her into the house, gracefully retired without waiting for an invitation to stay. The occupants of the back drawing room surged into the hall, and Hilda, in tears, flung herself upon Mr. William Craddock. It was in the arms of her oldest friend that she responded to Blake Fenway's gentle words of sympathy; then Caroline took charge of her and persuaded her upstairs; she was to have her old room on the top floor, but Caroline was to be in Mott Fenway's room that night, and Craddock—he explained a dozen times as he followed them—would be a few yards away.

Gamadge did not emerge from the library with Harold until Hilda had left the first floor; he had no wish to be recognized with surprise as Mr. Hendrix. He ushered Harold out into the night, and turned to find Lieutenant Nordhall at his elbow. The lieutenant still wore his expression of cool detachment and calm authority, but something had been added to it—an enquiring and a slightly puzzled look; a look, in fact, which Gamadge was used to seeing on the faces of policemen.

“You're
that
Gamadge,” he said.

“Am I?”

“Mr. Fenway was just telling me. Would you oblige me by stepping back to the library?”

“I was waiting to ask you to do that.”

“And I was waiting to see that you didn't go off with your assistant.” The lieutenant went ahead of Gamadge down the now deserted hall. He waited for Gamadge to pass him into the library, closed the door, and then looked out of the other one. When he had shut it too, he turned to see Gamadge looking at him with a mirthless half-smile.

“What's funny?” he asked, raising a pale eyebrow.

“Nothing's funny. I was again comparing the methods of the amateur and the pro.”

“If you're an amateur I'm another. How about sitting down and having a little talk just to review the case before
we close it up. We're all being so nice and frank, Miss Fenway and all, I thought it wouldn't hurt if you should take it into your head to be nice and frank with me.”

“It won't hurt me, Lieutenant.”

“Fine.”

They sat down opposite each other in front of the now dying embers of the fire. They offered each other cigarette cases, politely shook their heads, and lighted up independently.

“What I mean to suggest is,” said Nordhall, “that you haven't the reputation of being the kind of man that walks in on tragedies by accident.”

Gamadge was leaning back in his deep chair, knees crossed, his cigarette sending up a quivering spiral of blue that mushroomed into gray; he seemed inattentive to Nordhall's words; his eyes were partly shut, his look withdrawn. He murmured something.

“Last night,” continued Nordhall, “I didn't know who you were; I didn't know that yesterday was the first time you'd ever been inside the house or met the family. I didn't know you came here because some relation of yours wrote and asked Mr. Fenway to ask you to come. I heard all this because I asked Mr. Fenway about you just now, and I asked him about you because I finally realized that he didn't know how you came to be on the spot two hours ago.”

“I brought some books.”

“The day after a death in the house you brought some books; only it wasn't a death in the house, it was a violent death out of a window, and you'd met the family the day before for the first time. When I found you here today I thought you must have been brought up with Miss Fenway, or something.”

“Didn't she explain that I'd been calling on her?” Gamadge turned half-shut eyes on the other, and faintly smiled at him.

“Yes, she did her best for you; but she couldn't explain how you came to be wandering round in the upper hall alone, and how you managed to overhear those bits of conversation before the door was slammed in your face and locked. If it hadn't been, you'd have prevented the fatality.”

“Or been shot myself.” Gamadge sat up and looked at Nordhall through open eyes. “I could make up some story; I could say I'd gone back to say something or find something; but I haven't the least desire to make up a story. I want to talk to you as frankly as you please, but I must admit that I should have liked to find something first.”

“Find what?”

“That picture you heard about; the one that was torn out of Mr. Fenway's book of views.”

“The one Miss Fenway says Alden tore out? I don't believe he did it.”

“Neither do I.”

“Nobody with the brain of a child would take any interest in a place he never saw and wouldn't remember hearing about. And if he was only looking through the book as if it was a picture book, it's too much of a coincidence for him to spoil that particular page by accident.”

“Much too much.”

“Miss Fenway seems bound to get him into an asylum.” Nordhall looked at Gamadge sharply. “In that case what becomes of his property?”

“I don't know how it would be administered, but Caroline Fenway would have no rights in her cousin Alden's money, during his life or after his death. It would go to his mother if he died.”

“Nothing in that, then. And he's safe with that mother of his; she'd starve to death for him.”

“I really think she would.”

“That being the case, why do you want to find the picture? And what's it got to do with you getting yourself
into this house yesterday and today? What made you expect trouble, that's the thing I'd like to know.”

“I was tipped off.”