Mr Splitfoot (Dr Basil Willing) Read online

  Helen McCloy and The Murder Room

  ››› This title is part of The Murder Room, our series dedicated to making available out-of-print or hard-to-find titles by classic crime writers.

  Crime fiction has always held up a mirror to society. The Victorians were fascinated by sensational murder and the emerging science of detection; now we are obsessed with the forensic detail of violent death. And no other genre has so captivated and enthralled readers.

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  The Murder Room

  Where Criminal Minds Meet

  themurderroom.com

  Mr Splitfoot

  Helen McCloy

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  The Murder Room Introduction

  Title page

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Outro

  By Helen McCloy

  Dedication

  About the author

  Copyright page

  ‘Do as I do, Mr Splitfoot!’

  Katie Fox

  Chapter One

  SHE WAS CAREFUL to avoid the one stair that creaked. As far as she knew, the house was empty, but . . .

  You never could tell. They had said They were going skiing all afternoon, but They might come back at any moment.

  They did as They pleased. They did things you would have been punished for doing, but there was no one to punish Them. They thought you didn’t know what They did. But you did. Always.

  They often said They felt just as if They were fifteen at fifty. Didn’t They realize that you often felt just as if you were fifty at fifteen? At twenty-one you would be as free as They, but twenty-one was a long way to go, six whole years. Meanwhile . . .

  On the second floor, she paused to listen. The house was still silent. Beyond the open window, the world was windless and leafless—just stony, skeletal trees, forking and branching in dark lung patterns against a dazzle of sunlit snow. The icy stillness seemed dead as the cold beyond galactic space where even molecular motion must cease and there is no such thing as time. . . .

  It was sort of scary. More scary than dark of night for, in this brilliant light, you could believe that somewhere someone you couldn’t see was watching you. Someone who approved what you were going to do. Someone . . . or Something . . .

  She opened the second door on her right. The room was empty, as she had known it would be. She slipped inside, noiseless in stocking feet, and closed the door softly behind her. She stood with her back against the door, looking around the room. A slow smile curved her lips. This feeling of secrecy was exhilarating. I know something you don’t know. Power.

  White walls. A white ceiling with dark, exposed beams. Tall, printed curtains—violets and green leaves on a white ground. The counterpane was white, the quilt, violet satin with the pearly lustre of real silk. There were little ash trays and pin trays of French porcelain, violet figures on a white ground. Trust Folly to think of the smallest detail. Even the carpet was another shade of the same violet, . . . plummy velvet, accented by a hearth rug of white fur, and the old tiles around the grate were faded mauve and oyster-white. There were bits of copper and purplish lusterware on the chimney shelf, and the highboy was rosewood.

  Again she smiled. There were all kinds of things you could do in a room like this. You could smash the lusterware. You could throw ink on the white fur. If you had a sharp knife, you could slash the curtains and score the tiles and rip up the carpet. If you lit a fire, you could burn those old books in the bookcase. What a stench the leather bindings would make. . . .

  But these were things that would make Them angry, and you didn’t want to make Them angry. You wanted to make Them afraid.

  If They were really afraid, They wouldn’t think of punishing you, because it would never occur to Them that you were responsible. They wouldn’t think you bold enough, or cunning enough, to frighten Them.

  You would have to be exquisitely subtle. One thing at a time. A little hint here, a little coincidence there. Things that couldn’t quite be explained according to any of Their rules. After a while the cumulative effect would get under Their skins. Gently, quietly, almost imperceptibly, you could undermine Their deepest faith—Their faith in Themselves. Then you would have Them at your mercy.

  What would be the best beginning?

  Her favorite case was the Portuguese villa at Coimbra in 1919. Unfortunately she had no idea how to duplicate the things that had happened there. That was what made the case so fascinating. Assume the thing was a hoax: you still had a mystery. How were those effects contrived?

  So she would have to fall back on something else. The Norman castle at Calvados in 1875? Even then she would have to stick to the simpler incidents. No one had ever been able to explain some of the others. . . .

  A snapping sound cracked the silence. There was a floor board in the upper hall that creaked when you stepped on it. Could They be back already? She stood still, breathless, waiting. No other sound came.

  She counted to sixty seconds slowly. One-and, two-and, three-and . . . Still no further sound. She must have been mistaken. Or the temperature outside was changing and the old house was resettling itself for the night on its arthritic foundations. . . .

  She crossed to the highboy, opened the top drawer. A jewel case, a handkerchief box, a glove box. She shut that drawer and opened the next. Ah! That was better. Stockings.

  They had been washed and dried and rolled in pairs and the sheerest put away in a violet satin bag scented with lavender. She took out twelve pairs. Six were dust-gray beige, three were sheer black, and three an odd smoky shade of blue. The latest thing. She walked over to the bed. Swiftly she arranged them in the pattern of a large figure eight, then stood back to contemplate the effect.

  Did it seem uncanny to her only because she knew about the other things that had happened at Calvados at the same time? They didn’t know about those things. To Them, this would be just a silly trick . . .

  Unless she could make Them believe the house was empty when it happened? But how could she make Them believe that?

  “Caught you!”

  Lucinda jumped as if a firecracker had exploded. In the looking-glass above the highboy, she could see the half-open door. Vanya was standing in the doorway. It would be Vanya, of course. None of Them would ever sneak up on her like that.

  “I heard you!” she cried. “I heard the floor board in the hall creak!”

  He was grinning. “No, you didn’t, because I didn’t come along the hall. I came up the stairs.”

  “Then what did I hear?”

  “Old beams groaning. It’s getting colder outsi
de.” He was looking at the figure eight on the bed. “What the hell? Oh, I get it. The Norman castle. But you oughtn’t to start with that, Worm.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call me ‘Worm’!”

  “Why not? You look like a worm. One of the white ones you find under damp stones.”

  “Thanks a lot! You’d better remember that worms turn.”

  “I don’t think you ever will.”

  “Perhaps I’m turning now.”

  “Oh?” His gaze went back to the stockings. “But not against me. Against her. Folly. This is her room, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You should start with something more punchy and use the figure eight later, when tension has built up to a point where even the silliest things are terrifying.”

  “I suppose you’re going to tell on me now and spoil everything!” She was always on the defensive in his presence, for he made her aware of all her shortcomings. She was painfully thin and flat-chested for her age and sex. Strangers mistook her for twelve rather than fifteen. Her colorless face was spattered too generously with freckles. Her eyes were a dull gray; her hair what Folly called “hair-colored hair,” straight and lank. She was conscious of all this when she looked at Vanya, because he was the handsomest boy she had ever seen.

  It wasn’t his height or his bold profile and shock of black hair. It was his eyes, the dark, deep-set eyes that reflected every mood so instantly. How quickly the warm glow of affection could turn into the hard flash of anger or the bright spark of mischief. When he was angry, his eyes got round under drawn brows and he looked like a caged eagle. At the moment his mood was high mischief, and the sparks were dancing.

  “I wouldn’t think of spoiling this. I’m going to help.”

  “Oh, Vanya!” For a moment she almost loved him.

  “It takes two to do this sort of thing. You wouldn’t have a chance alone, but the two of us together . . . Before the week is out, we’ll have them calling the police.”

  “Or the Society for Psychical Research.”

  He looked at her with new respect. “That’s even better. You do have ideas. I wonder if we could get Them that scared?”

  “I don’t see why not.” His praise made her bolder.

  ‘They’re always frightened by anything They can’t explain. That’s why They invented Science—to make the universe safe for Them by hiding or ignoring anything that can’t be explained according to Their rules.”

  “Sweeping the dirt under the rug? You’re right, of course. If we can make Them consider, just once, only for a moment that reality is incoherent and unintelligible, They’ll flip . . . Put those stockings back.”

  “Then what?”

  “We must think this out carefully.” Vanya sat down on the fur rug, cross-legged, his brow ridged in deepest thought. Lucinda perched on the edge of the bed and waited. Beyond the window, the western sky was banded with primrose light that made shadows on the snow look blue.

  At last the oracle spoke. “Could you manage the traditional smell of violets?”

  “Sure. Folly has some stuff called April Violets.”

  “Then . . . I’m tempted to try the trick that was used in the Reverend Dr. Eliakim Phelps’ parsonage in Connecticut in 1850.”

  “The tableau? At Stratford?” She was as familiar with the literature as he. They had studied it together all last summer.

  “I always liked that one.” He began to intone dreamily: “Eleven bizarre dummies, constructed out of the family’s clothing, arranged in attitudes of prayer with open Bibles before them.”

  “All females except for one ugly, male dwarf . . . What was it Dr. Webster said?”

  “It wouldn’t have been possible for half a dozen women working several hours to have completed their design, yet these things happened in a short time with the whole household on watch.”

  “And they were so lifelike a small child thought his mother was kneeling with the rest . . . Vanya, you and I couldn’t manage anything like that.”

  “I know. Besides, there’s more shock value in sound effects. Our first attack must be a real assault on the nervous system.”

  “How do we go about that?”

  ‘The poltergeist bit. Knocking, rapping. What time is dinner tonight?”

  “Eight o’clock.”

  “How long does it take?”

  “About an hour.”

  “They don’t sit around the table drinking brandy after dinner or any of that nonsense, do They?”

  “No, if They want brandy after dinner, They have it in the living room with coffee.”

  “Good. Then we’ll time this for half-past nine. That gives us a margin of thirty minutes if They should talk a lot or dawdle over their food.”

  “Time what?”

  “The raps in the living room. They’ll make the usual remarks about water pipes and heating systems and beams contracting as it gets colder after sunset. And then you’ll say . . .” Vanya’s voice became falsetto. “Isn’t there a tradition that this house is supposed to be haunted?”

  “I can’t say that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m not supposed to know. I overheard Folly telling the gardener not to mention it to me last summer.”

  “She’s a goop if she thinks she can keep a thing like that from you. Does she suppose you don’t know why that room at the head of the stairs is never used?”

  “I told you she was a goop.”

  “All right. You don’t have to say anything about the house being haunted. They’ll remember.”

  “They may not. My father doesn’t believe in that sort of thing.”

  “But your mother does.”

  “Stepmother, and she does not!”

  “She does so! I’ve overheard her and your father talking and—”

  “How could you overhear them? Where were you listening?”

  “None of your business.”

  Lucinda considered him thoughtfully. “Am I supposed to say anything else? After the knockings begin?”

  “Oh, yes.” Again Vanya’s voice climbed to a falsetto. “I’ve just noticed something funny. Those knocks are all coming in groups of three . . . Then They’ll tell you it’s just your imagination, and They’ll laugh to show how skeptical They are, but the laughter will be a bit thin and then . . . Do you know what you’ll do then?”

  “No. What?”

  “You’ll do just what Katie Fox did.”

  “Ooooh!” For a moment Lucinda’s eyes were as brilliant as Vanya’s and she was almost pretty.

  He smiled. “So you remember?”

  “Oh, yes! Who could ever forget? I’ll cry out, very loud: ‘DO AS I DO, MR. SPLITFOOT!’ And I’ll clap my hands three times and there’ll be three knocks in response and then They’ll stop talking about beams and pipes, because beams and pipes can’t count to five . . . But, oh, Vanya, how can we manage to do such a thing?”

  “Easy as pie. I’ll be making the knocks.”

  “They’ll search the house. They’ll find you.”

  “They may search the house, but they won’t find me.”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s my secret and I’m not going to tell you.”

  Chapter Two

  THIS SNOW HAD never been told that large flakes are the sign of a brief flurry. These flakes were large, but they had been falling for three hours and they were still at it. It was not so bad in the Hudson River valley, but when the car left Saugerties and began to climb into the mountains at Palenville, the road became almost impassable.

  In the valley the snow had fallen like powder on a dry surface. Here, in the mountains, it was falling on a crust of older snow that had melted to water yesterday and turned to ice tonight. Even snow tires had no traction. This was like driving on greased glass.

  Basil Willing became aware that both his hands were clamped to the steering wheel. Deliberately he loosened his fingers and flexed them, but tension was still in his heart. There was nothing he could do a
bout that.

  The headlights showed only the tops of pine trees below him on his left, but he knew that the darkness beyond hid a drop of five hundred feet or more only a few inches from the edge of the steep, twisting road. He also knew that the car might skid at any moment.

  “Bad?” The voice of Gisela, his wife, was a cool sweetness.

  “Very bad. I’m going to get off this road the first chance I have.”

  They were descending now and there was a curve. The car gave a giddy lurch and spun a foot or so clockwise, but did not leave the road. Rotating headlights came to rest on a rocky height above them on their right. In summer there would be a waterfall there. Now the crags were bearded with great icicles. The engine died and the car stood directly across the road, blocking the way like a barricade.

  “At least there’s no traffic,” said Gisela.

  “No one but us would be fool enough to be out here on a night like this. I sometimes wonder if skiing is worth it.”

  Gisela laughed. “Perhaps we should just abandon the car and put on our skis now. Much safer.”

  Basil started the engine gingerly and gently coaxed the car to turn its nose in the right direction. Now they were climbing again. Was there no end to these mountains? They couldn’t leave the road on the left for there was the drop below them, and they couldn’t leave the road on the right for there was the rocky height above them. There were no stars, no moon. All they could see was a mad tarantella of windy snowflakes in the restricted glare of their own lights.

  “Like a white curtain,” said Gisela.

  “But a curtain made up of moving particles,” added Basil. “The way most people imagine the dance of the electrons inside the atom.”

  “And it’s not really that way?”

  “Of course not. There are astronomical spaces between electrons and then there’s the fascinating question of whether they really exist at all.”

  He was talking at random to keep her mind off the road.

  “But they do, don’t they?”