Deadly Hall by John Dickson Carr

Author:John Dickson Carr [Carr, John Dickson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

12

MANY HOURS LATER, on that dismal Sunday of rain gusts spattering and dying away, Jeff found himself again enmeshed in a net that seemed never to open for escape.

When neither Lieutenant Minnoch nor anybody else had been able to answer the question Uncle Gil flung out on the stairs, the lieutenant had gone into a whispered conference with Sergeant Bull and with a plain-clothes officer summoned from one of the police cars outside.

Beckoning to Jeff, Gilbert Bethune had led his nephew first into the library, then on through into the study. He waved Jeff to one of the padded chairs and sat down in another, where he clipped and lighted the cigar he had hitherto failed to smoke.

“And now, with your permission …”

“Uncle Gil,” Jeff had insisted, “it’s no use asking me in what way Serena’s death resembles the death of the late Thad Peters. Except that both died of a fall, there’s not one point of similarity between them. It happened in different places and under different circumstances. Finally—”

“After reflection, however, more than one similarity may present itself. But I am not now concerned with theories; my concern is only with information.”

“What sort of information?”

“I rely,” said the District Attorney, “on your phenomenal memory. For past events you have been blessed with what some might describe as total recall.”

“Yes?”

“You journeyed downriver, I understand, with Serena, with Dave, with Penny Lynn, with Mrs. Kate Keith, and with a harmless if inquisitive journalistic character named Saylor. Be good enough to tell me everything you saw or heard between Monday morning and Saturday night.”

“Everything?”

“Everything, at least, relating to any of those five persons. Perhaps relating to others as well; that will emerge in due course. If you are not too tired …”

Jeff did his best, even at that drugged hour of the morning. He touched only lightly on any private interview between Penny and himself, without mentioning the embarrassments of either. Otherwise he described and quoted at such length that he feared he might be talking too much. But Gilbert Bethune, far from seeming bored, more than once uttered an exclamation of satisfaction.

“You see, Uncle Gil, so very little actually occurred … !”

“And yet more may have occurred than on the surface seems evident. The preoccupation of Captain Joshua Galway merits close scrutiny. So does—but no matter. Go on!”

Jeff complied. It was a very long story; Uncle Gil had smoked a fair number of cigars, Jeff more than half a pack of cigarettes, and the hands of the clock crawled towards four A.M. before the narrator sat back.

“The shock of Serena’s death,” he summed up, “followed almost immediately after another shock that, in its different way, was almost as bad. I mean Ira Rutledge’s news: if both remaining Hobarts should die before October 31st, their estate’s supposed to be shared between myself and a New England parson who’s already got more money than he needs. Damn it all … !”

“May I remind you,” Uncle Gil spoke from a cloud of cigar-smoke, “that

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