Footprints on the Ceiling Page 9

  “You suspect that’s what the murderer wants us to do?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. The murderer kills her, fakes the appearance of suicide, and then puts the body in the wrong place. The position of the body not only explodes the false suicide, but at the same time indicates that the murderer was someone who knew no better than to fake a suicide in the wrong place. The obvious explanation, and, being simpler, the one the police would prefer. The agoraphobia is then neither means nor motive, but alibi. That the general idea?”

  “Yes. It explains the appearance of suicide.”

  Merlini frowned at him. “Doctor, I hope you didn’t kill her. Because if you did I can see it’s going to be difficult.”

  Gail said coolly, “As a matter of fact, I didn’t, but I shouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be difficult just the same.”

  “You suspect someone?”

  The Doctor hesitated. “Perhaps. But it’s only that. I couldn’t suggest a name at this point.”

  “But you might—later?”

  “I might.” Gail didn’t seem too positive. He scowled at the floor; then, studying Merlini’s face, asked, “Do you believe there are any justifiable instances of murder?”

  Merlini shook his head. “That’s a leading question. I beg to be excused on the grounds that I might incriminate myself. I take it you do?”

  “Your reason for not answering—”the Doctor smiled—“is as good as any.”

  “You shouldn’t have mentioned it. Let’s get back to Miss Skelton, shall we? Had you any hope of effecting a cure?”

  “No. Frankly, I did not. No harm in trying though. You see, she was beginning to develop phobophobia, a fear of the fear itself. I was trying to prevent that, but phobias in the acute form of Linda’s are far out on the frontiers of abnormal psychology. There’s such a lot we don’t know yet. About all we can do is to try to drag the initial causative experience up out of the subconscious depths and put it where the patient can see and understand it. Linda’s acute condition dates from the opening night of her first Broadway appearance as an actress. She collapsed completely. Her most powerful emotional urge has been the desire to be a great actress. Instead of being an exhibitionist, she’s an agoraphobe, and her complete frustration merely makes matters worse. The acting scare was not the original one; only that which unleashed the phobia. Somewhere far back in her childhood—she may have been only two or three years old—some emotional fright occurred that burned itself deep into her brain.”

  “But how can you get at something that has happened so far back and is so completely forgotten?”

  The Doctor smiled broadly. “That, in a way, is right up your alley. The answer is: detective work and black magic. Detective work of a high order, too, if I do say so. You have to probe about through the human mind in a jungle of deviously intertangled and snarled complexities. You have to follow an old trail, using clues—a fifteen-year-old dream, for example—that may prove to be only a symbol for another clue. The labyrinth of false trails and blind alleys makes child’s play out of criminal detection. A study may last several years and provide an index of fifteen or twenty thousand recall items that have to be properly classified, co-ordinated, analyzed, and jigsawed together.”

  “And the black magic?”

  “Insanity used to be explained on the demoniac-possession theory. It’s a good theory, too, except that the demon is imaginary rather than real. Strangely enough, the technique that has been evolved for exorcising that demon is made up of some things most people think of as magical. It is necessary somehow to induce the subconscious or marginal mind to express itself freely and the methods of doing that—”

  Merlini grunted. “Uh-huh. Methods which concern inverted drinking glasses hanging in mid-air. I see now. A dim light just behind the head, half-raised eyes, attention focused on the glass—in short, crystal gazing! Ross, Inspector Gavigan isn’t going to like this at all.”

  “Neither do I,” I said doubtfully. “Do you have a turban, Doctor, and a robe with the zodiacal signs on it?”

  “You see, Merlini?” He spread his hands helplessly. “No, Harte, sorry, nor any stuffed alligators. The phony sciences have been almost too thoroughly debunked. With all that smoke you don’t realize there is a little fire. You can look into a crystal and see visions, visions you’d swear were really there. I can prove that to you. Actually, of course the vision is not in the crystal, but in your head. It’s a self-induced, visual hallucination. The crystal gazer who thinks the vision is an external reality is only a magician playing tricks on himself.”

  “I still don’t see where the psychoanalysis comes in,” I complained.

  “Hallucinations are of subconscious origin. And that makes crystal gazing a method of tapping the subconscious memory, a method of getting at the long-past things the conscious mind has forgotten, but which the subconscious mind still holds.”

  Merlini, somewhat fearfully I thought, asked, “And the other methods, Doctor?”

  “Your Inspector won’t like those either. The complete list is: automatic writing, automatic speech, shell hearing—like crystal gazing, except that the hallucination is auditory rather than visual—twilight sleep, hypnosis, trances, and catalepsy. Since Linda Skelton paid me for services rendered, I fully expect that the Inspector will jug me for obtaining money through fraudulent mediumistic practices.”

  Merlini almost shouted at him. “Did you say hypnosis?”

  “Yes, but you don’t need to jump to the conclusion that Linda was hypnotized into going out of bounds. That’s out. She had a phobic resistance to any unconscious form of trance state. My clinical notes will prove that. We tried it. And she tried hard to co-operate, but with no success. There might be several reasons for that. She was operated on at one time as a child; it may be a persisting fear of anesthesia or it might be her peculiarly assertive personality or even the phobia’s own self-protective blockage.”

  “But what did you use?”

  “Crystal gazing and automatic writing were the most successful.”

  Merlini frowned. “What effect has Madame Rappourt had on Linda?”

  “Bad. That woman should be—” The Doctor stopped, shrugged his shoulders, and went on. “Linda wouldn’t believe the hallucinations were not real. She persisted in assigning spiritualistic causes. Pleased because she thought she had mediumistic powers. Rappourt and I have been at loggerheads, naturally.”

  “And yet you let Linda take part in these séances?”

  “Let her?” Gail grinned. “You didn’t know Linda. I’ve just mentioned her assertive personality. That was my innate politeness. Linda did what she damned well pleased, and if her doctor didn’t like it he could go climb a tree. Handling her was a problem, and mostly she didn’t handle. I continued with her case only because the phobia is rare and offered study possibilities.”

  “What effect did the séances have?”

  “They were definitely harmful. She had been hyper-excited and her interest had been so absorbed that my treatments had for the moment practically ceased. That happened once before. Last year she had a Hindu mystic on the place. He spouted reincarnation, Yogi breath control, mystic world cycles, and all the rest of it. His engagement terminated when the silverware in the house began to dematerialize.”

  “Silverware.” Merlini sat up in his chair. “I knew I’d forgotten something. Ross, show him those coins of yours.”

  I took the little box out and rolled the six gold guineas across the table. I saw the Doctor’s eyes grow round, and he looked at me as if he were seeing me for the first time.

  “Where did you get those?”

  “You might spin that story now, Ross,” Merlini said. “I’ve waited long enough.”

  I settled back and gave it to them, from the phone booth to the crack on the head. I’ve never had a more attentive audience. Merlini lay back with his eyes closed, but I knew that his ears were wide open. Doctor Gail examined the coins,
one at a time, his calm professional confidence fading as he listened, to be replaced by a frankly bewildered air.

  When I had finished, Merlini sat up, and, without commenting on my yarn, produced the slates he had taken from the safe. Our previous examination, after seeing the Doctor’s light, had been hasty. He looked at them again, now, and passed them across one at a time to Gail.

  “You’ve seen those guineas and heard Harte’s story,” he said. “I want you to look at these and tell me something.”

  The Doctor raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He looked at the slates. I moved around where I could see. On the first, the one bearing the map, I now noticed something I had missed before, an X-mark on the water just within the projecting arm of the island and about equally distant from either shore.

  The complete message on the second slate read: Bow at 108 beam 112-four-feet silt two tar, superstructure projects slightly astern position lies 20 points off north by northeast. Pole. The handwriting had an odd, uneven, hesitant quality about it, and in several places some of the words overlapped each other. It looked very much as if it had been written by a disembodied spirit, or—by someone writing in the dark.

  But the third message was the honey. Doctor Gail read it slowly aloud: “September 13, 1780, £380,000 transferred from H. M. S. Mercury and 14 cartloads specie from paymaster’s office in Cherry Street. This added to the large sum shipped at Dover made total in my care £960,000. Capt. Charles M. Pole.”

  What hit me between the eyes was that date!

  Dr. Gail’s voice attempted calmness, but it missed fire. “Where did you get these?” he asked Merlini.

  “Found them kicking about down there.” Merlini nodded in the direction of the other house. I hadn’t known that articles locked in a safe could be described as kicking about but I let it pass.

  “And you want to know?” Gail inquired slowly.

  Merlini pulled himself up out of his chair and stood before the fireplace. “I want to know what it’s all about.”

  Chapter Ten:

  EIGHT MILLION DOLLARS

  IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF man the professions of medicine and of magic once merged in that common ancestor, the witch doctor. Both physician and magician have inherited from him a common trait, the poker face. Merlini’s is, of course, unexcelled; but Dr. Gail’s was a close second. Although his voice now seemed to express genuine surprise, his face neither agreed nor contradicted. “That’s a tall order, isn’t it? Why ask me?”

  Merlini turned, picked a book off the mantelpiece, and dropped it on the table. The inscription on the backbone said: Treasure Hunters Holiday by Gordon Williams.

  “I saw your mail,” Merlini explained. “Two letters, there by my chair, both addressed to Gordon Williams in care of his publishers and readdressed to you. You are Gordon Williams. In your off hours you’re an authority on lost treasures. And just now that’s what I’m beginning to suspect we need.”

  Gail got up, retrieved the letters, and stuffed them in his pocket. “You’ve uncovered the skeleton in the Gail closet,” he said guiltily. “I’ve written two books and a number of magazine articles on the subject. I use the pen name to dodge the crank treasure hunters. Every time a book or article is published, they show up by the dozen loaded down with old maps, mostly worth about a few cents as old paper.”

  “You and Floyd have a good bit in common then?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose so. Only he doesn’t know it. His interest is genuine enough, but his motive is largely avaricious. He’s such an enthusiast, he’d have me talked into a treasure hunt before I knew it. Something I can’t afford. Anyone can do the research, but treasure hunting is a rich man’s hobby. International cup racing is cheaper; even if you lose, you still have the yacht. I’ve spent a few holidays nosing about in some of the better-authenticated spots, but I try to control myself. Floyd, on the other hand, has been stony lately because he dropped a lot into something called Caribbean Salvage Corporation. They were after the 50,000,000 or so in the 14 Spanish galleons that went down in 1715 off the Florida Keys.”

  “Well what is it this time?” Merlini insisted. “Did Captain Skelton salt away some doubloons no one has uncovered yet? I saw no mention of that in the accounts I read of the Skelton-Boutell story?”

  “No. You wouldn’t. Between ourselves and off the record I think there’s some possibility of that, but if anyone else has deduced it they’re keeping it quiet, like myself. That’s another reason I picked Skelton Island as a week-end residence. But this—” he indicated the guineas and the slates—“is something else again.” He picked up one of the coins and regarded it thoughtfully.

  Merlini asked, “Those guineas the real McCoy?”

  “Oh, yes. They’re real enough, but—” Gail bent again to examine the slate bearing the map. “You two might take a look at the map on the end papers of my book there.”

  I drew it toward me and opened it out under the light. Merlini leaned above me. We saw a world map that carried, if one could believe the incredible legend below, an astonishing number of cross marks. The legend read: Lost Treasures of the World Estimated at $1,000,000 or More. Most of the X’s that marked the spots carried beside them figures, any one of which made the eyes pop.

  “Of those treasures,” the Doctor said, “I think my ten favorites would include the great treasure fleet sunk in Vigo Bay with its estimated 100,000,000 to 800,000,000 of bullion; the 300,000,000 in the harbor of Cadiz; the 16 galleons with their 100,000,000 on the Silver Shoals; Bobadilla’s galleon with something variously estimated at between 2,000,000 and a round billion in gold and plate, and its ‘Golden Pig,’ the 3370-pound, world’s largest nugget; the several great pirate caches on Cocos; Alexander’s lost 65,000,000 to 300,000,000 in Bahawalpur in India; and the six fabulously incalculable Incan treasures: those in the sacrificial lakes of Titicaca and Guatavita; Valverde’s treasure; Atahualpa’s lost ransom with its 10-ton gold chain and the round dozen, life-size, golden statues from Cuzco’s Temple of the Sun; the hidden treasure of the holy city of Packakamak in Peru’s Valley of Lurin; the lost mine of Tisingal whose secret is still guarded by—”

  “Could you tune in another station, Ross?” Merlini interrupted. “That’s the longest list of ten best I ever heard.”

  “Sorry,” Gail grinned. “Ten was an understatement. And I can’t very well omit the 45 tons of silver Sir Francis Drake jettisoned off the Plate Isles because his Golden Hind had more than it could carry, or the mysteriously unaccounted-for Money Pits of Oak Island, or the six lost temples in the jungles of Kandeshi with their 10-foot idol loaded with diamonds and pearls, or the submerged pirate capital of Port Royal with its incredibly vast—”

  “Hallucinations,” I said quickly, looking at Merlini, my forefinger describing a rotary motion about my right ear.

  “He’s loco too.”

  “Damned optimist anyway,” Merlini said.

  Gail nodded cynically. “Sure, I know. The figures sound like an astronomer’s interstellar distances. Cut them in half, or even quarter them, to discount possible exaggeration—I don’t care. It’s still a tidy sum. Just the same I can show you a report of the U. S. Bureau of Mines which estimates that a total of $42,000,000,000 worth of gold was produced by the world between 1492 and 1933, and further states that about one half has dropped completely out of sight, most of it in shipwrecks. And remember that that $21,000,000,000 does not include any silver or precious stones and nothing before 1492. Figure it out for yourself.”

  “I know, Ross,” Merlini guessed. “He’s a pick-and-shovel salesman in disguise.” He turned to Gail. “According to this pipe dream of a map, the coasts of Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, and the Carribean Islands are literally sprinkled with gold and jewels. In many instances you actually give longitude and latitude. If the loot is located that exactly, why is it such an expensive job to get and why hasn’t more of it been salvaged?”

  “I’m always answering that question. Wondered how soon you’d ask it. A
nswer is that the easy-to-get treasures have been gotten. You seldom hear about them because governments have a habit of annexing such large cuts that the successful finder keeps mum. The hard ones are left. Little things like sharks, deep and treacherous waters, poisoned coral, hurricanes, landslides, and hostile tribes guard the rest. Many of them never will be reached.”

  “But there aren’t any hostile tribes or poisoned coral in the immediate vicinity of New, York City. What about these two fat little crosses you’ve plopped down here in the East River?”

  “How do you suppose Hell Gate got its name?” Gail replied. “Treacherous waters. The tides between the Sound and the Ocean rip through such a narrow bottleneck that they are uncertain, swift, and dangerous. Which brings us finally to the point. I’ve been waiting for you to spot those crosses. The treasure hunter, you see, doesn’t have to traipse off to tropic seas. He has two nice sunken treasure ships right in his back yard, just a hop, skip, and jump from Radio City—and less from Skelton Island. You can look out over the water that covers them both from my kitchen window here.”

  “How many millions this time?”

  “Oh, just a few—The British frigate Lexington went down out there in the late eighteenth century carrying 4000 kegs of fine silver plate, half a ton of gold, and half a million Mexican dollars looted from Vera Cruz. The better-known Hussar contains specie estimated, according to different accounts, at anywhere from $1,000,000 to $8,000,000, with most authorities plumping for a figure of $4,800,000. And that’s the ship someone hereabouts would seem to be interested in. Her commanding officer was one Captain Charles M. Pole.”

  “How do you get that 8,000,000 figure?” Merlini asked. “£960,000 times five doesn’t do it?”

  “There was more gold in a guinea in those days. You can get about $8.50 apiece from a dealer, and at retail he’ll charge about $12.”

  I groaned inwardly. The contents of that blasted suitcase were increasing in value by the minute.