'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 Goodbye. 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 any more. 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...'
Chapter 9 – Unknown Factor?
When 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 set-up. 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 hard-headed, 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 waste-basket, 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 semi-suffocated. 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 heat 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 front-door 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.'
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.'
