Sleeping Murder (7 page)

Gwenda said: “We wanted to get in touch—” and stopped.

“With someone you can hardly remember?” Dr. Kennedy looked puzzled.

Gwenda said quickly: “I thought—if I could get in touch with her—she'd tell me—about my father.”

“Yes—yes—I see. Sorry I can't be of much use. Memory not what it was. And it's a long time ago.”

“At least,” said Giles, “you know what kind of a Sanatorium it was? Tubercular?”

Dr. Kennedy's face again looked suddenly wooden: “Yes—yes, I rather believe it was.”

“Then we ought to be able to trace that
quite
easily,” said Giles. “Thank you very much, sir, for all you've told us.”

He got up and Gwenda followed suit.

“Thank you very much,” she said. “And do come and see us at Hillside.”

They went out of the room and Gwenda, glancing back over her shoulder, had a final view of Dr. Kennedy standing by the mantelpiece, pulling his grizzled moustache and looking troubled.

“He knows something he won't tell us,” said Gwenda, as they got into the car. “There's
something
—oh, Giles! I wish—I wish now that we'd never started….”

They looked at each other, and in each mind, unacknowledged to the other, the same fear sprang.

“Miss Marple was right,” said Gwenda. “We should have left the past alone.”

“We needn't go any further,” said Giles uncertainly. “I think perhaps, Gwenda darling, we'd better not.”

Gwenda shook her head.

“No, Giles, we can't stop now. We should always be wondering and imagining. No, we've got to go on … Dr. Kennedy wouldn't tell us because he wanted to be kind—but that sort of business is no good. We'll have to go on and find out what really happened. Even if—even if—it was my father who …” But she couldn't go on.

T
hey were in the garden on the following morning when Mrs. Cocker came out and said: “Excuse me, sir. There's a Doctor Kennedy on the telephone.”

Leaving Gwenda in consultation with old Foster, Giles went into the house and picked up the telephone receiver.

“Giles Reed here.”

“This is Dr. Kennedy. I've been thinking over our conversation yesterday, Mr. Reed. There are certain facts which I think perhaps you and your wife ought to know. Will you be at home if I come over this afternoon?”

“Certainly we shall. What time?”

“Three o'clock?”

“Suits us.”

In the garden old Foster said to Gwenda, “Is that Dr. Kennedy as used to live over at West Cliff?”

“I expect so. Did you know him?”

“E was allus reckoned to be the best doctor here—not but what Dr. Lazenby wasn't more popular. Always had a word and a laugh to jolly you along, Dr. Lazenby did. Dr. Kennedy was always short and a bit dry, like—but he knew his job.”

“When did he give up his practice?”

“Long time ago now. Must be fifteen years or so. His health broke down, so they say.”

Giles came out of the window and answered Gwenda's unspoken question.

“He's coming over this afternoon.”

“Oh.” She turned once more to Foster. “Did you know Dr. Kennedy's sister at all?”

“Sister? Not as I remember. She was only a bit of a lass. Went away to school, and then abroad, though I heard she come back here for a bit after she married. But I believe she run off with some chap—always wild she was, they said. Don't know as I ever laid eyes on her myself. I was in a job over to Plymouth for a while, you know.”

Gwenda said to Giles as they walked to the end of the terrace, “Why is he coming?”

“We'll know at three o'clock.”

Dr. Kennedy arrived punctually. Looking round the drawing room he said: “Seems odd to be here again.”

Then he came to the point without preamble.

“I take it that you two are quite determined to track down the Sanatorium where Kelvin Halliday died and learn all the details you can about his illness and death?”

“Definitely,” said Gwenda.

“Well, you can manage that quite easily, of course. So I've come to the conclusion that it will be less shock to you to hear the facts
from me. I'm sorry to have to tell you, for it won't do you or anybody else a bit of good, and it will probably cause
you,
Gwennie, a good deal of pain. But there it is. Your father wasn't suffering from tuberculosis and the Sanatorium in question was a mental home.”

“A mental home? Was he out of his mind, then?”

Gwenda's face had gone very white.

“He was never certified. And in my opinion he was not insane in the general meaning of the term. He had had a very severe nervous breakdown and suffered from certain delusional obsessions. He went into the nursing home of his own will and volition and could, of course, have left it at any time he wanted to. His condition did not improve, however, and he died there.”

“Delusional obsessions?” Giles repeated the words questioningly. “What kind of delusions?”

Dr. Kennedy said drily, “He was under the impression that he had strangled his wife.”

Gwenda gave a stifled cry. Giles stretched out a hand quickly and took her cold hand in his.

Giles said, “And—and had he?”

“Eh?” Dr. Kennedy stared at him. “No, of course he hadn't. No question of such a thing.”

“But—but how do you know?” Gwenda's voice came uncertainly.

“My dear child! There was never any question of such a thing. Helen left him for another man. He'd been in a very unbalanced condition for some time; nervous dreams, sick fancies. The final shock sent him over the edge. I'm not a psychiatrist myself. They have their explanations for such matters. If a man would rather his wife was dead than unfaithful, he can manage to make himself believe that she is dead—even that he has killed her.”

Warily, Giles and Gwenda exchanged a warning glance.

Giles said quietly, “So you are quite sure that there was no question of his having actually done what he said he had done?”

“Oh, quite sure. I had two letters from Helen. The first one from France about a week after she went away and one about six months later. Oh no, the whole thing was a delusion pure and simple.”

Gwenda drew a deep breath.

“Please,” she said. “Will you tell me all about it?”

“I'll tell you everything I can, my dear. To begin with, Kelvin had been in a rather peculiar neurotic state for some time. He came to me about it. Said he had had various disquieting dreams. These dreams, he said, were always the same, and they ended in the same way—with his throttling Helen. I tried to get at the root of the trouble—there must, I think, have been some conflict in early childhood. His father and mother, apparently, were not a happy couple … Well, I won't go into all that. That's only interesting to a medical man. I actually suggested that Kelvin should consult a psychiatrist, there are several first-class chaps—but he wouldn't hear of it—thought that kind of thing was all nonsense.

“I had an idea that he and Helen weren't getting along too well, but he never spoke about that, and I didn't like to ask questions. The whole thing came to a head when he walked into my house one evening—it was a Friday, I remember, I'd just come back from the hospital and found him waiting for me in the consulting room; he'd been there about a quarter of an hour. As soon as I came in, he looked up and said, ‘
I've killed Helen.
'

“For a moment I didn't know what to think. He was so cool and matter-of-fact. I said, ‘You mean—you've had another dream?' He
said, ‘It isn't a dream this time. It's true. She's lying there strangled. I strangled her.'

“Then he said—quite coolly and reasonably: ‘You'd better come back with me to the house. Then you can ring up the police from there.' I didn't know what to think. I got out the car again, and we drove along here. The house was quiet and dark. We went up to the bedroom—”

Gwenda broke in, “
The bedroom?
” Her voice held pure astonishment.

Dr. Kennedy looked faintly surprised.

“Yes, yes, that's where it all happened. Well, of course when we got up there—there was nothing at all! No dead woman lying across the bed. Nothing disturbed—the coverlets not even rumpled. The whole thing had been an hallucination.”

“But what did my father say?”

“Oh, he persisted in his story, of course. He really believed it, you see. I persuaded him to let me give him a sedative and I put him to bed in the dressing room. Then I had a good look round. I found a note that Helen had left crumpled up in the wastepaper basket in the drawing room. It was quite clear. She had written something like this: ‘This is Good-bye. I'm sorry—but our marriage has been a mistake from the beginning. I'm going away with the only man I've ever loved. Forgive me if you can. Helen.'

“Evidently Kelvin had come in, read her note, gone upstairs, had a kind of emotional brainstorm and had then come over to me persuaded that he had killed Helen.

“Then I questioned the housemaid. It was her evening out and she had come in late. I took her into Helen's room and she went
through Helen's clothes, etc. It was all quite clear. Helen had packed a suitcase and a bag and had taken them away with her. I searched the house, but there was no trace of anything unusual—certainly no sign of a strangled woman.

“I had a very difficult time with Kelvin in the morning, but he realized at last that it was a delusion—or at least he said he did, and he consented to go into a nursing home for treatment.

“A week later I got, as I say, a letter from Helen. It was posted from Biarritz, but she said she was going on to Spain. I was to tell Kelvin that she did not want a divorce. He had better forget her as soon as possible.

“I showed the letter to Kelvin. He said very little. He was going ahead with his plans. He wired out to his first wife's people in New Zealand asking them to take the child. He settled up his affairs and he then entered a very good private mental home and consented to have appropriate treatment. That treatment, however, did nothing to help him. He died there two years later. I can give you the address of the place. It's in Norfolk. The present Superintendent was a young doctor there at the time, and will probably be able to give you full details of your father's case.”

Gwenda said: “And you got another letter from your sister—after that again?”

“Oh yes. About six months later. She wrote from Florence—gave an address poste restante as ‘Miss Kennedy.' She said she realized that perhaps it was unfair to Kelvin not to have a divorce—though she herself did not want one. If he wanted a divorce and I would let her know, she would see that he had the necessary evidence. I took the letter to Kelvin. He said at once that he did not
want a divorce. I wrote to her and told her so. Since then I have never heard anymore. I don't know where she is living, or indeed if she is alive or dead. That is why I was attracted by your advertisement and hoped that I should get news of her.”

He added gently: “I'm very sorry about this, Gwennie. But you had to know. I only wish you could have left well alone….”

I

W
hen Giles came back from seeing Dr. Kennedy off, he found Gwenda sitting where he had left her. There was a bright red patch on each of her cheeks, and her eyes looked feverish. When she spoke her voice was harsh and brittle.

“What's the old catchphrase? Death or madness either way? That's what this is—death or madness.”

“Gwenda—darling.” Giles went to her—put his arm round her. Her body felt hard and stiff.

“Why didn't we leave it all alone? Why didn't we? It was my own father who strangled her. And it was my own father's voice I heard saying those words. No wonder it all came back—no wonder I was so frightened. My own father.”

“Wait, Gwenda—wait. We don't really know—”

“Of course we know! He told Dr. Kennedy he had strangled his wife, didn't he?”

“But Kennedy is quite positive he didn't—”

“Because he didn't find a body. But there
was
a body—and I
saw
it.”

“You saw it in the hall—not the bedroom.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Well, it's queer, isn't it? Why should Halliday say he strangled his wife in the bedroom if he actually strangled her in the hall?”

“Oh, I don't know. That's just a minor detail.”

“I'm not so sure. Pull your socks up, darling. There are some very funny points about the whole setup. We'll take it, if you like, that your father
did
strangle Helen. In the hall. What happened next?”

“He went off to Dr. Kennedy.”

“And told him he had strangled his wife in the bedroom, brought him back with him and there was no body in the hall—
or
in the bedroom. Dash it all, there can't be a murder
without
a body. What had he done with the body?”

“Perhaps there was one and Dr. Kennedy helped him and hushed it all up—only of course he couldn't tell
us
that.”

Giles shook his head.

“No, Gwenda—I don't see Kennedy acting that way. He's a hardheaded, shrewd, unemotional Scotsman. You're suggesting that he'd be willing to put himself in jeopardy as an accessory after the fact. I don't believe he would. He'd do his best for Halliday by giving evidence as to his mental state—that, yes. But why should he stick his neck out to hush the whole thing up? Kelvin Halliday wasn't any relation to him, nor a close friend. It was his own sister who had been killed and he was clearly fond of her—even if he did show
slight Victorian disapproval of her gay ways. It's not, even, as though
you
were his sister's child. No, Kennedy wouldn't connive at concealing murder. If he did, there's only one possible way he could have set about it, and that would be deliberately to give a death certificate that she had died of heart failure or something. I suppose he
might
have got away with that—but we know definitely that he
didn't
do that. Because there's no record of her death in the Parish registers, and if he
had
done it, he would have told us that his sister had died. So go on from there and explain, if you can, what happened to the body.”

“Perhaps my father buried it somewhere—in the garden?”

“And
then
went to Kennedy and told him he'd murdered his wife? Why? Why not rely on the story that she'd ‘left him'?”

Gwenda pushed back her hair from her forehead. She was less stiff and rigid now, and the patches of sharp colour were fading.

“I don't know,” she admitted. “It does seem a bit screwy now you've put it that way. Do you think Dr. Kennedy was telling us the truth?”

“Oh yes—I'm pretty sure of it. From his point of view it's a perfectly reasonable story. Dreams, hallucinations—finally a major hallucination. He's got no doubt that it was a hallucination because, as we've just said, you can't have a murder without a body. That's where we're in a different position from him. We know that there was a body.”

He paused and went on: “From his point of view, everything fits in. Missing clothes and suitcase, the farewell note. And later, two letters from his sister.

Gwenda stirred.

“Those letters. How do we explain those?”

“We don't—but we've got to. If we assume that Kennedy was telling us the truth (and as I say, I'm pretty sure that he was), we've got to explain those letters.”

“I suppose they really were in his sister's handwriting? He recognized it?”

“You know, Gwenda, I don't believe that point would arise. It's not like a signature on a doubtful cheque. If those letters were written in a reasonably close imitation of his sister's writing, it wouldn't occur to him to doubt them. He's already got the preconceived idea that she's gone away with someone. The letters just confirmed that belief. If he had never heard from her at all—why, then he
might
have got suspicious. All the same, there are certain curious points about those letters that wouldn't strike him, perhaps, but do strike me. They're strangely anonymous. No address except a poste restante. No indication of who the man in the case was. A clearly stated determination to make a clean break with all old ties. What I mean is, they're exactly the kind of letters a
murderer
would devise if he wanted to allay any suspicions on the part of his victim's family. It's the old Crippen touch again. To get the letters posted from abroad would be easy.”

“You think my father—”

“
No
—that's just it—I
don't.
Take a man who's deliberately decided to get rid of his wife. He spreads rumours about her possible unfaithfulness. He stages her departure—note left behind, clothes packed and taken. Letters will be received from her at carefully spaced intervals from somewhere abroad. Actually he has murdered her quietly and put her, say, under the cellar floor. That's one pattern of murder—and it's often been done. But what that type of murderer
doesn't
do is to rush to his brother-in-law and say he's murdered his
wife and hadn't they better go to the police? On the other hand, if your father was the emotional type of killer, and was terribly in love with his wife and strangled her in a fit of frenzied jealousy—Othello fashion—(and that fits in with the words you heard) he certainly doesn't pack clothes and arrange for letters to come, before he rushes off to broadcast his crime to a man who isn't the type likely to hush it up. It's all wrong, Gwenda. The whole pattern is wrong.”

“Then what are you trying to get at, Giles?”

“I don't know … It's just that throughout it all, there seems to be an unknown factor—call him X. Someone who hasn't appeared as yet. But one gets glimpses of his technique.”

“X?” said Gwenda wonderingly. Then her eyes darkened. “You're making that up, Giles. To comfort me.”

“I swear I'm not. Don't you see yourself that you can't make a satisfactory outline to fit all the facts? We know that Helen Halliday was strangled because you saw—”

He stopped.

“Good Lord! I've been a fool. I see it now. It covers everything. You're right. And Kennedy's right, too. Listen, Gwenda. Helen's preparing to go away with a lover—who that is we don't know.”

“X?”

Giles brushed her interpolation aside impatiently.

“She's written her note to her husband—but at that moment he comes in, reads what she's writing and goes haywire. He crumples up the note, slings it into the wastebasket, and goes for her. She's terrified, rushes out into the hall—he catches up with her, throttles her—she goes limp and he drops her. And then, standing a little way from her, he quotes those words from
The Duchess of Malfi
just as the child upstairs has reached the banisters and is peering down.”

“And after that?”

“The point is,
that she isn't dead.
He may have thought she was dead—but she's merely semisuffocated. Perhaps her lover comes round—after the frantic husband has started for the doctor's house on the other side of the town, or perhaps she regains consciousness by herself. Anyway, as soon as she has come to, she beats it. Beats it quickly. And that explains everything. Kelvin's belief that he has killed her. The disappearance of the clothes; packed and taken away earlier in the day. And the subsequent letters
which are perfectly genuine.
There you are—that explains everything.”

Gwenda said slowly, “It doesn't explain why Kelvin said he had strangled her in the bedroom.”

“He was so het up, he couldn't quite remember where it had all happened.”

Gwenda said: “I'd like to believe you. I want to believe … But I go on feeling sure—quite sure—that when I looked down she was dead—quite dead.”

“But how could you possibly tell? A child of barely three.”

She looked at him queerly.

“I think one can tell—better than if one was older. It's like dogs—they know death and throw back their heads and howl. I think children—know death….”

“That's nonsense—that's fantastic.”

The ring of the frontdoor bell interrupted him. He said, “Who's that, I wonder?”

Gwenda looked dismayed.

“I quite forgot. It's Miss Marple. I asked her to tea today. Don't let's go saying anything about all this to her.”

II

Gwenda was afraid that tea might prove a difficult meal—but Miss Marple fortunately seemed not to notice that her hostess talked a little too fast and too feverishly, and that her gaiety was somewhat forced. Miss Marple herself was gently garrulous—she was enjoying her stay in Dillmouth so much and—wasn't it exciting?—some friends of friends of hers had written to friends of theirs in Dillmouth, and as a result she had received some very pleasant invitations from the local residents.

“One feels so much less of an outsider, if you know what I mean, my dear, if one gets to know some of the people who have been established here for years. For instance, I am going to tea with Mrs. Fane—she is the widow of the senior partner in the best firm of solicitors here. Quite an old-fashioned family firm. Her son is carrying it on now.”

The gentle gossiping voice went on. Her landlady was so kind—and made her so comfortable—“and really delicious cooking. She was for some years with my old friend Mrs. Bantry—although she does not come from this part of the world herself—her aunt lived here for many years and she and her husband used to come here for holidays—so she knows a great deal of the local gossip. Do you find your gardener satisfactory, by the way? I hear that he is considered locally as rather a
scrimshanker
—more talk than work.”

“Talk and tea is his speciality,” said Giles. “He has about five cups of tea a day. But he works splendidly when we are looking.”

“Come out and see the garden,” said Gwenda.

They showed her the house and the garden, and Miss Marple
made the proper comments. If Gwenda had feared her shrewd observation of something amiss, then Gwenda was wrong. For Miss Marple showed no cognizance of anything unusual.

Yet, strangely enough, it was Gwenda who acted in an unpredictable manner. She interrupted Miss Marple in the midst of a little anecdote about a child and a seashell to say breathlessly to Giles:

“I don't care—I'm going to tell her….”

Miss Marple turned her head attentively. Giles started to speak, then stopped. Finally he said, “Well, it's your funeral, Gwenda.”

And so Gwenda poured it all out. Their call on Dr. Kennedy and his subsequent call on them and what he had told them.

“That was what you meant in London, wasn't it?” Gwenda asked breathlessly. “You thought, then, that—that my father might be involved?”

Miss Marple said gently, “It occurred to me as a possibility—yes. ‘Helen' might very well be a young stepmother—and in a case of—er—strangling, it is so often a husband who is involved.”

Miss Marple spoke as one who observes natural phenomena without surprise or emotion.

“I do see why you urged us to leave it alone,” said Gwenda. “Oh, and I wish now we had. But one can't go back.”

“No,” said Miss Marple, “one can't go back.”

“And now you'd better listen to Giles. He's been making objections and suggestions.”

“All I say is,” said Giles, “that it doesn't fit.”

And lucidly, clearly, he went over the points as he had previously outlined them to Gwenda.

Then he particularized his final theory.

“If you'll only convince Gwenda that that's the only way it could have been.”

Miss Marple's eyes went from him to Gwenda and back again.

“It is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis,” she said. “But there is always, as you yourself pointed out, Mr. Reed, the possibility of X.”

“X!” said Gwenda.

“The unknown factor,” said Miss Marple. “Someone, shall we say, who hasn't appeared yet—but whose presence, behind the obvious facts, can be deduced.”

“We're going to the Sanatorium in Norfolk where my father died,” said Gwenda. “Perhaps we'll find out something there.”