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Dr. Kennedy arrived punctually. Looking round the drawing room he said: “Seems odd to b
e 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….”
Nine
UNKNOWN FACTOR?
I
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 b
ack—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.”
