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A Close Call · The Dalehouse Murder

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Chapter fifteen of The Dale House Murder by Francis Everton. This liberyvox recording is
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in the public domain. Read by yoganand The Dale House Murder, Chapter fifteen
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A close call. And now I come to the one part of my story
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that it gives me real pleasure to write, and that is the full admission
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of my precipitate and headlong falling in love with Janet, and how in a
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single day my liking for a broadened out and deepened into adoration. She had
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arrived at Dale House on Thursday morning, and by midday on Friday, I
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knew that if I failed to hold and keep her, I should have missed
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the one important sign post on the highway of my life. True, I
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had already passed by this lane end and that, and carelessly, forgetting to
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examine the signs, I may have wandered down one here and there for an
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aimless mile or so, until puzzled and disappointed, I retraced my steps.
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Another cross roads and branch roads doubtless lay ahead, some of them broad and
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safe and running in my direction. But this great road ahead of me,
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here to the right, how clear, it ran straight to the hilltops,
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and the rising sun. What a rote a treat with a friend at your
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side, What a clean, straight clime to make with Janet? What was
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it that Margaret had said that a pretty face, a shapely figure, and
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love were one and the same to men? A lie? What a damnable
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lie? Was that really? Then an accepted valuation? I thought of some
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of the married couples I knew. Could they ever have been in love?
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Could this bright clear light so soon die down to a gutting, smoky flame?
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Or had they missed their way and turned down some by road before their
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proper time? And that other reason for marriage written down so inappropriately in the
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prayer book service an attribute of married love perhaps, but surely nothing to do
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with spiritual love and the plighting of troths in the church before God. What
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had such animal stuff to do with this hallowed, uplifting ecstasy that filled my
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soul when Janet's white gray eyes met mine? A sentimental fool? Do you
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call me for writing thus? Then? If already married you my friend,
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have married a friend or a mistress. Perhaps fortune has smiled on you,
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and the mistress you have married is also your friend. But friend or mistress
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or both you know nothing whatever of love, love at first sight. Then,
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yes, of course it was. But doesn't all true love come quick
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and sharp like that? Perhaps to friends whose friendship has stood stolid and unromantic
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through the years, there comes this sudden uplift, and the gray old tree
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has bloomed at last. Or perhaps the warm sun of a single day has
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rushed the groat through bud to flower. However it may have been whether I
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had somehow skipped a stage, or whether the peculiarly harrowing circumstances in which we
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had met had quickened my perceptions. I knew with an exhilarating certainty that I
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was in love with Janet. Time stoods tell. When he looked at Janet,
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the sunny garden became a drab, uninteresting desert. When Janet was away,
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cut the rose from the tree, and what an ungainly plant is left,
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raised the great cathedral to the ground, and what a mean little town
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of twisted, narrow streets. Yes, I was in love with Janet.
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She was my rose and my shining tower. Five o'clock came floating down as
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he sat there, dreaming. She must have been gone for far more than
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five minutes. She had mentioned for nearly half an hour, I would go
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and try to find her. Oh was she coming to me now? Would
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she look at me? Could I hold her eyes and mine again? My
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pulses quickened at the thought. But it was only Margaret who came hurrying toward
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me across the lawn. Missus Kenley wants you, she said, Oh,
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mister jeff Cock, please do come at once. We have found out something,
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something absolutely thrilling. It's the end. Where how do you mean?
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I asked her. I can't tell you now, but Missus Kenley wants you
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up in the box room. I found the paper this afternoon. She told
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me to come and find you. She said that you were to help her
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and would come. So Janet had taken her into our partnership. I don't
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know what line of argument it took, or why I arrived at such a
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conclusion, but I remembered having an instinctive feeling that the curtain had been wrung
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up for the final scene. What I wondered would be the setting and who
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the villain of the piece, Ralph, Kenneth, Ethel or the Tundish.
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I visualized my table and the numbers I had set down against each Margaret at
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any rate, seemed to have been correctly assist or Janet would never have given
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away the fact that she and Alport were working together. No single thought of
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suspicion disturbed my dull and stupid brain. As we made her way back to
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the house, she told me that I was to join her on the upper
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landing in a minute. If I met any of the others, I was
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to pretend that I was going to my room. She was breathing quickly,
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and looking at her sideways, I could see how wildly excited and hot she
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was. She mopped her face as we walked along, and I could feel
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my own excitement welling up in sympathy with hers. There was no one about
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when we reached the house, and he succeeded in joining her on the upper
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landing a minute later, without having attracted attention to my movements. I was
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aglow with the thought that I was to help and work with my Janet.
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Margaret was waiting for me at the foot of the little stairway that leads to
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the disused attics. She was smiling and held her fingers to her lips,
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enjoining silence. Yet again, I was impressed with her utter lack of feeling
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and her unconquerable desire to attract. Even at such a time. She was
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looking arch enjoying the situation. No, we must be very quiet. You
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mustn't speak a word at first. You won't be able to understand what has
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happened, But missus Kenley will explain it when she comes. Remember that it's
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her instruction which you are obeying. We went up the creaking, disused stairs
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to the narrow attic passage under the roof, and I followed her as quietly
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as I could. The passage runs the length of the house and rises sheer
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to the tie, said the apex. It is lighted by an odd glass
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dial or two mortar droppings covered the floor, and the hat unventilated atmosphere was
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heavy with the dry, musty smell of accumulated dust. The attics themselves opened
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out of the passage to left and right, but the doors were shut,
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and we passed them all. I was falling close behind her, and she
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turned ahead and giggled at me as we made a way along. Francis,
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you'll be simply thrilled, she whispered. She had never called me Francis before,
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and she lingered on the word somehow drawing it out and carry sing it
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as she spoke. Francis, she said, and it made me feel uncomfortable.
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There's a low door at the end of the passage, and she stopped
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in front of it, her hand on the knob. This is the box
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room, she whispered. It's pitch dark, and said, and you'll have
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to let me guide you. Missus Kenley will join us in a minute.
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You mustn't say a word, though, for if you do, you'll spoil
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the whole of the scheme she has made. She was aquiver with excitement,
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and I could feel a trembling like a leaf as she put her hand in
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mine. When we got inside the stuffy, darkened room, What fresh mystery
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was lurking here? I wondered, God had I only known in time?
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She closed and shut the door behind us. You left the stoop, she
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whispered again, for rufe slopes down in places. But you must follow me,
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for missus Kinley's, for clever, Missus Kenley's sake. I could feel
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a hot breath on my face. So close to me she stood, not
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understanding what was afoot, but full of a vague uneasiness, I followed her
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where she led. What else, I asked, was there that I could
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have done? She still held me by the hand, and we moved slowly
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across the room. First we went straight forward a little way, and then
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we seemed to turn. But the blackness was so dense, and I so
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busy with conjecture, that soon I had lost my bearings. She told me
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when to stoop, and finally we drew up against what felt like a wooden
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partition. There she turned me round and told me to wait. I heard
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her go back across the room again, and to my amazement, she was
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laughing gently to herself, a low contralto throaty laugh, a laugh that so
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long as I live, I shall never forget, A laugh that somehow filled
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me with dismay and foreboding as it came gurgling to my ears across the darkened
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air. Suddenly she switched on an electric torch, and I could see her
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tim outline. Some fifteen paces or so away from where I stood. What
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I had thought was a wooden partition was a chest of draws, and I
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found myself west in a corner between it and a pile of trunks and the
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sloping roof. As my eyes became accustomed to the light. I could make
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out a broken down old bedstead on the floor between us. The bottom ent
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was missing, and it sloped from head to foot, the top and canting
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forward at an angle to the floor. A dirty dust sheet covered it,
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and an upturned box at the side of it. Away from where I stood,
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I saw a large glass speaker. Margaret was playing a light on it.
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It was three parts full of liquid. Now, answers, remember that
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you're not astir, and soon you'll understand how clever Missus Kenley trapped the wicked
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doctor. She began to laugh again, cruel and low, and then she
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continued in a sing song sort of drone. You can see the beak of
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Francis, Yes, of course I can, Francis. Do you know what's
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in it? Can you guess? No? Of course I can't. But
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where is missus Kenley? And what's it all about? I felt a growing
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anger every time she spoke my name, she fondled it. I can't explain
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it, but it seemed almost that she knew how I longed to hear Janet
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call me so, and that she was cheering at me for it. It
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angered me and hurt vitriol Francis, beautiful, burning, biting vitriol. I
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wonder if you know exactly how it blinds and croach in God's name, I
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cried, thoroughly disturbed at last, what is it? All the swoolery about?
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Sh not so loud, and remember that you're not to move any nearer.
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See what a nice lot of it there is? If I threw it
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all over anyone, wouldn't it blind them quickly? I emptied it out of
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the bottle into the glass so that I could throw it quickly, all at
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once. Wasn't that thoughtful of me? Francis? And Francis, if you
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call out a more a single step, I will Francis over your Janet.
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Francis, just look at her? Isn't she a picture? You and your
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woman? Detective, You blundering fool. She stooped and jerked the dust sheet
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from the iron bed. Don't stir, she laughed, or I'll spill it
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right away over a bloody face. Her laughter held her again as she stood
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holding the beaker over Janet. It was so big that she could barely spin
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it, and her hand shook as she herself was shaken by a demoniac mirth.
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I stood helplessly looking at her from a dark corner, in an agony
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of apprehension and janet. She was unconscious and lay gagged and trapped and down
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to the bed. Her arms had been pulled back cruelly, her wrist tight
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behind her to the iron top. Her legs had been bound to the sides.
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A strapped from one of the trunks passed over her waist and under the
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bed. And even in the dim light of the torch, I could see
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from where I stood, how cruelly tight it has been pulled. Rags which
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had been stuffed into her mouth were held in position by a piece of cord
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wound round her head and cutting across her mouth, pulling down a lowered jaw.
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Do you know what she said, Francis when I chloroformed her? Would
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you like to know? She said, Francis, where's Francis? And here
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you are to see her? Isn't it shameless ef her to let you look
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at her? Lying there like that? You? She devil, I cried,
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tortured beyond discretion. Ah, you would, would you fool? See
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what you've made me? Do? I've spilt some of it and missed her
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by a hair? Talk like that or move again. And then she laughed
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and blasphemed and turns, while I stood horrified, peering out of my dark
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corner over the chest of drawers, perspiration gathering in beads on my forehead and
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streaming down my face. How short was the time since I had sat in
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the garden, breathing God's free air, at the foot of God's great church,
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the pleasant garden noises striking my listless ears as I dreamed and pondered of
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my love. And now I stood trapped and tortured in this dark little chamber
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of hell, free yet afraid to mow, while the dear one I loved
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lay helpless before me on the brink of blindness and death. On the sloping
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roof. Just over my head, I could hear the sparrows chirping in the
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sun, while the dark, stagnant, arttique air was filled with the gears
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and obscenities of Satan, heaven and Hell, with a layer of tiles between
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them. She tortured me, My God, how she tortured me. She
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tilted the beaker till the liquid quivered on the lip. I don't know what
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I could have done. I thought of pushing over the chest of drawers and
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making a dash for it round the end of the bed. But nothing could
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prevent her if she really intended to carry out a fiendish threat. I tried
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remonstrance in persuasion, but my efforts were met with nothing but laughter and jeers.
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That's better, Francis Darling. Now you begin to understand how clever stupid
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Margaret is. Why not try to enjoy the fun with me. Just think
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how it will burn her death and decay all at once. With her face
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turned up like that. Little pools of it will gather in the corners of
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her eyes when the lit's burn away. How weird and funny they'll look.
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And Francis think of the rags in her mouth. But the really priceless part
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of it all is, Francis Darling, that you haven't yet seen the point
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of the joke. My one hope was for delay, and I thought that
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if only I could keep her in conversation, we might perhaps be missed and
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discovered by the others. Little Alport was to have arrived at four, and
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he would be sure to inquire for Janet. Yes, of course, it's
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only a joke, Margaret. Now do stop joking and tell me what it
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is all about, you, poor silly fool, she jeered, They'll think
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it was you. That's a joke. I've arranged it all beautifully. What
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a joy it will be when I see you being handcuffed and taken away.
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Now it's time we stopped this pleasant chatter. Janet wouldn't like you being alone
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in the dark with me like this, you know. So here goes one
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to be ready, two to be st I could bear no more. Whether
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I did the right thing or not, I've never been able to decide.
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But I had a heavy bunch of keys in my pocket, and before she
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could pour, I hurled them as hard as I could at her face.
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And I missed my aim. May God forgive me, and how like me
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it was, But I missed her by an inch. She gave a little
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chuckle, tipped the vitriol a full coat of it or more there must have
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been over Janet's face and breast, and was out of the room almost before
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I had time to stir. I gave one agonized cry and dashed round the
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end of the chest of the drawers, only to collide full tilt with one
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of the beams in the roof. It caught me straight across forehead, and
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I fell like a log with a crash to the floor. How long I
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lay there I don't know. Perhaps were only a matter of seconds. But
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when I did come round, I was taste and confused. Neither door nor
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bed could I find. I crawled, taste and helpless about the floor,
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colliding first with the sloping tiles and then with a pile of boxes, almost
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as though it were some other person in distress. I could hear myself whimpering
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and muttering a mixture of imprecation and prayer. How damnably dark it was,
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Christ if I could but see. After what seemed like an eternity of futile
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searching, I found the door at last, and it was locked. I
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banged on it weakly and tried to shout, but my head was singing so
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that I could hardly stand or raise my voice above a whisper. Then I
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crawled to the broken bed on which my poor torture darling lay with hands that
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shook. I found the sheet and mopped a poor disfigured face and body.
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She was covered with a kind of filthy sline. Death. Then tea kay
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death and t kay. I believed that I must have fainted, and the
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room seemed to fill with the crowd of angry men. The tundish angry and
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fears were shaking me to and fro. You jeff Cock, you you infann
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a lying judas he cried and hurled me from him right across the floor.
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I fell against the wall and lay there weakly, repeating again and again it
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was Margaret, Wittriol, she smare, and through Wittriol it was Margaret.
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At last he attracted the attention, and Ralph came and stood beside me.
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He stooped to hear what it was that I said. Then Kenneth and Margaret
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stood above me too. She did it. She chloroformed her and then threw
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Wittreol over her. I gasped, half setting up on the floor. Oh
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you liar, you wicked liar. How can you say such a wicked thing?
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Why you were caught in here with the door locked? Even to me?
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She sounded quite convincing. Then she bent down over me suddenly, and
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putting her hand into the side pocket of my coat, she pulled out a
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key. Why, here's the key of the door in his pocket. Now,
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what have you to say for yourself? She cried. Ralph stooped and
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picked something up from the floor. And this I think is your knife,
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mister jeff Cock, he said, very coldly. Margaret shrugged her shoulders and
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turned away toward the doctor, who was kneeling by the bed, numb with
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grief. I sat dropped against the wall, my head a throb my soul,
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sick with the horror of water I had felt and heard. Through the
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broken door. The light from the passage showed up the dusty floor with its
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scattered papers and boxes, and its derelict household lumber. Our movements had filled
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the air with dust, which the pallid passage light turned to a ghostly beam
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and threw it like some distorted figure in a dream. The doctor loomed gigantic
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as he knelt by Janet's side. This then was to be the final scene
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to the drama of this devil's week, with myself the villain, blood journed
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and broken, a murderer and a judas spurned by my friends and accepted by
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all as the hell fiend who had defiled duty and truth in the person of
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my darling. This was the hilltop to which my broad straight rod of love
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and life had led me in this dismal atic Was I to part from the
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woman I loved? With my love barely born and wholly unconfessed? The doctor
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looked up at last, and without hope, I waited for the verdict.
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They were death and decay in the dust laden air. What's all this nonsense
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about vitriol? He cried, with amazement on his face. His words came
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cool and clear, like a breeze from the northern snose. Margaret answered him.
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Mister jeff Cox said that I throw vitriol. Of course, that's absurd,
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And so I thought that it must have been vitriol, and that he
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had thrown it himself. The door was locked, and we have just found
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the key in his pocket. Oh, it's all too dreadful. Well,
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we shall hear what missus Kenley has to say about it in a minute,
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when she comes ron comes round. Why she can't recover? Can she?
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After all that she must be burnt to death. There was a catch in
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her voice, and from where I sat, I could see her clasping and
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unclasping hands nervously behind her back. The doctor got up from his knees.
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He said not a word, but stood towering above her. Looking sternly down.
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It isn't vitriol, he said at length, in a slow, measured
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voice. As far as I can tell, it was medicinal paraffin or something
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of the kind, and has done on no harm whatever. I dropped forward
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on my knees, gazing at the doctor a judas he had called me.
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But I could have blessed him where he stood like some diver who has typed
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two deep and filters bursting lungs with painful breath. My relief was almost more
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than I could bear. There was a little time of silence, and then,
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like some echo from the lost came Margaret's gentle laugh. Lo At first,
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it grew in volume to an uncontrolled and piercing shriek that went reverberating through
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the empty attics, through the roof, and into the sunlit air. I
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tell you it was vitriol, she cried between her shouts of laughter. Then
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quite suddenly she seized her while the doctor and the the others stood looking at
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her aghast or else the harlot Hilda Summerson stricked me after all, she burst
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out again, and before the doctor and the two boys could recover from their
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surprise, she darted through the door and went racing down the narrow passage,
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her arms waving wildly as she shouted and shrieked, Hilda, you, halot,
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you halot, I'm coming for you now. She ran like one demented
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and in a madness. Ohlook the stair top when she reached it, but
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the stairs would not be ignored. We saw a disappear. There was a
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loud shriek, and then a crash, a moan, and then silence.
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The Tundish, with Kenneth and Ralph close behind, hurried after her. I
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dragged myself to where Janet lay. The Tundish had released a bone and had
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covered her once more with the sheet. She turned and opened her dear gray
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eyes to find me kneeling by her side. My hour of torture was over.
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But as they knelt that other great doubt that only lovers unconfessed can now
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came surging round me. The end of chapter fifteen