The Crooked Hinge

Author:John Dickson Carr [Carr, John Dickson]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781601870209
Publisher: Rue Morgue Press
Published: 2008-03-15T02:48:37+00:00

But he saw more; more which no one could have foreseen. He saw the automaton clear the open door, and land in the passage below. One of its wheels snapped off as it struck, but its momentum was too great. Lurching once, it hurtled against the door directly, opposite across the passage; and the door came, open.

Page stumbled down the stairs. He did not need to hear the cry from the room across that passage. He remembered who was in that room, and why Betty Harbottle was there, and what had just gone in to visit her now. In the cessation of noise after the automaton had been stopped, small sounds crept out. After a time he heard distinctly the squeak of the hinges as Dr. King opened the bedroom door, and the physician had a face like white paper. He said

"You devil up there, what have you done?"

III Friday, July 31st THE RISE OF A WITCH

Car, au fond, c'est cela le Satanism, se disait-il; la question agitee depuis que lee monde existe, des visions exterieures, est subsidiare, quand on y songe; le Demon n'a pas besoin de s'exhiber sous des

traits humains ou bestiaux afin d'attester sa presence;il sutfit, pour qu'il s'affirme, qu'il elise domicile en des Ames qu'il exulcere et incite a d'inexplicables crimes.

J K. HUYSMANS, La-Bas

Chapter 14

THE CORONER'S INQUEST On Sir John Farnleigh was held the following; day, and produced a sensation, that blew off every journalistic roof in Great Britain.

Inspector Elliot, like most policemen, is not fond of inquests. This is for practical reasons. Brian Page is not, fond of them for artistic reasons because you never learn anything you did not know before, because there is seldom anything of a sensational nature, and because the verdict, whatever it is, brings you no nearer to a solution than before.

But this inquest - held on the morning of Friday, July 31st - he admitted did not go according to pattern. A suicide verdict, of course, was a foregone conclusion. Yet it was spectacular enough to produce a first-class row before the first witness had said ten words, and it ended in a way that left Inspector Elliot dazed.

Page, drinking very black coffee at breakfast, offered up profane thanks that they had not another inquest on their hands from the business of the previous afternoon. Betty Harbottle was not dead. But she had gone through a narrow graze of it after seeing the hag for the second time, and she was still in no condition to speak. Afterwards Elliot's endless questioning ran in a dismal circle. "Did you push it?" "I swear I didn't; I don't know who did; we were tramping on an uneven floor and maybe nobody did.

Elliot summed it up when he and Dr. Fell talked late over pipes and beer. Page, after taking Madeline home, forcing her to have something to eat, quieting threatened hysterics, and trying to think of a thousand things at once, heard the conclusion of the inspector's views.

"We're licked," he said briefly.

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