Sleeping Murder by Agatha Christie
“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
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.”
Ten
A CASE HISTORY
I
Saltmarsh House was set pleasantly about six miles inland from the coast. It had a good train service to London from the five-miles-distant town of South Benham.
Giles and Gwenda were shown into a large airy sitting room with cretonne covers patterned with flowers. A very charming-looking old lady with white hair came into the room holding a glass of milk. She nodded to them and sat down near the fireplace. Her eyes rested thoughtfully on Gwenda and presently she leaned forward towards her and spoke in what was almost a whisper.
“Is it your poor child, my dear?”
Gwenda looked slightly taken aback. She said doubtfully: “No—no. It isn’t.”
“Ah, I wondered.” The old lady nodded her head and sipped her milk. Then she said conversationally, “Half past ten—that’s the time. It’s always at half past ten. Most remarkable.” She lowered her voice and leaned forward again.
“Behind the fireplace,” she breathed. “But don’t say I told you.”
At this moment, a white uniformed maid came into the room and requested Giles and Gwenda to follow her.
They were shown into Dr. Penrose’s study, and Dr. Penrose rose to greet them.
Dr. Penrose, Gwenda could not help thinking, looked a little mad himself. He looked, for instance, much madder than the nice old lady in the drawing room—but perhaps psychiatrists always looked a little mad.
“I had your letter, and Dr. Kennedy’s,” said Dr. Penrose. “And I’ve been looking up your father’s case history, Mrs. Reed. I remembered his case quite well, of course, but I wanted to refresh my memory so that I should be in a position to tell you everything you wanted to know. I understand that you have only recently become aware of the facts?”
Gwenda explained that she had been brought up in New Zealand by her mother’s relations and that all she had known about her father was that he had died in a nursing home in England.
Dr. Penrose nodded. “Quite so. Your father’s case, Mrs. Reed, presented certain rather peculiar features.”
“Such as?” Giles asked.
“Well, the obsession—or delusion—was very strong. Major Halliday, though clearly in a very nervous state, was most emphatic and categorical in his assertion that he had strangled his second wife in a fit of jealous rage. A great many of the usual signs in these cases were absent, and I don’t mind telling you frankly, Mrs. Reed, that had it not been for Dr. Kennedy’s assurance that Mrs. Halliday was actually alive, I should have been prepared, at that time, to take your father’s assertion at its face value.”
“You formed the impression that he had actually killed her?” Giles asked.
“I said ‘at that time.’ Later, I had cause to revise my opinion, as Major Halliday’s character and mental makeup became more familiar to me. Your father, Mrs. Reed, was most definitely not a paranoiac type. He had no delusions of persecution, no impulses of violence. He was a gentle, kindly, and well-controlled individual. He was neither what the world calls mad, nor was he dangerous to others. But he did have this obstinate fixation about Mrs. Halliday’s death and to account for its origin I am quite convinced we have to go back a long way—to some childish experience. But I admit that all methods of analysis failed to give us the right clue. Breaking down a patient’s resistance to analysis is sometimes a very long business. It may take several years. In your father’s case, the time was insufficient.”
He paused, and then, looking up sharply, said: “You know, I presume, that Major Halliday committed suicide.”
“Oh no!” cried Gwenda.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Reed. I thought you knew that. You are entitled, perhaps, to attach some blame to us on that account. I admit that proper vigilance would have prevented it. But frankly I saw no sign of Major Halliday’s being a suicidal type. He showed no tendency to melancholia—no brooding or despondency. He complained of sleeplessness and my colleague allowed him a certain amount of sleeping tablets. Whilst pretending to take them, he actually kept them until he had accumulated a sufficient amount and—”
He spread out his hands.
“Was he so dreadfully unhappy?”
“No. I do not think so. It was more, I should judge, a guilt complex, a desire for a penalty to be exacted. He had insisted at first, you know, on calling in the police, and though persuaded out of that, and assured that he had actually committed no crime at all, he obstinately refused to be wholly convinced. Yet it was proved to him over and over again, and he had to admit, that he had no recollection of committing the actual act.” Dr. Penrose ruffled over the papers in front of him. “His account of the evening in question never varied. He came into the house, he said, and it was dark. The servants were out. He went into the dining room, as he usually did, poured himself out a drink and drank it, then went through the connecting door into the drawing room. After that he remembered nothing—nothing at all, until he was standing in his bedroom looking down at his wife who was dead—strangled. He knew he had done it—”
Giles interrupted. “Excuse me, Dr. Penrose, but why did he know he had done it?”
“There was no doubt in his mind. For some months past he had found himself entertaining wild and melodramatic suspicions. He told me, for instance, that he had been convinced his wife was administering drugs to him. He had, of course, lived in India, and the practice of wives driving their husbands insane by datura poisoning often comes up there in the native courts. He had suffered fairly often from hallucinations, with confusion of time and place. He denied strenuously that he suspected his wife of infidelity, but nevertheless I think that that was the motivating power. It seems that what actually occurred was that he went into the drawing room, read the note his wife left saying she was leaving him, and that his way of eluding this fact was to prefer to ‘kill’ her. Hence the hallucination.”
“You mean he cared for her very much?” asked Gwenda.
“Obviously, Mrs. Reed.”
“And he never—recognized—that it was a hallucination?”
“He had to acknowledge that it must be—but his inner belief remain
Gwenda interrupted. She was uninterested in childish fixations.
“But you’re quite sure, you say, that he—that he didn’t do it?”
“Oh, if that is what is worrying you, Mrs. Reed, you can put it right out of your head. Kelvin Halliday, however jealous he may have been of his wife, was emphatically not a killer.”
Dr. Penrose coughed and picked up a small shabby black book.
“If you would like this, Mrs. Reed, you are the proper person to have it. It contains various jottings set down by your father during the time he was here. When we turned over his effects to his executor (actually a firm of solicitors), Dr. McGuire, who was then Superintendent, retained this as part of the case history. Your father’s case, you know, appears in Dr. McGuire’s book—only under initials, of course. Mr. K.H. If you would like this diary—”
Gwenda stretched out her hand eagerly.
“Thank you,” she said. “I should like it very much.”
II
In the train on the way back to London, Gwenda took out the shabby little black book and began to read.
She opened it at random.
Kelvin Halliday had written:
I suppose these doctor wallahs know their business … It all sounds such poppycock. Was I in love with my mother? Did I hate my father? I don’t believe a word of it … I can’t help feeling this is a simple police case—criminal court—not a crazy loonybin matter. And yet—some of these people here—so natural, so reasonable—just like everyone else—except when you suddenly come across the kink. Very well, then, it seems that I, too, have a kink….
I’ve written to James … urged him to communicate with Helen … Let her come and see me in the flesh if she’s alive … He says he doesn’t know where she is … that’s because he knows that she’s dead and that I killed her … he’s a good fellow, but I’m not deceived … Helen is dead….