Free Murder of a Lady by Anthony Wynne Page A

Gregor did all the housekeeping and management. Duchlan’s wife was treated, from beginning to end, like a visitor. Goodness knows how she endured it.”
    â€œWas there much talk about the arrangement?”
    â€œAny amount, of course. But nobody could interfere. People older than myself have told me that they saw the poor girl wilting before their eyes. I believe one woman, the wife of an old laird, did actually dare to suggest that it was high time a change was made. She was told to mind her own business. By all accounts Mrs. Gregor was splendidly loyal to her husband and wouldn’t listen to a syllable of criticism or even of sympathy. But I haven’t a doubt, all the same, that the strain undermined her constitution.”
    Dr. Hailey passed his hand over his brow.
    â€œWhat did she die of?” he asked.
    â€œDiphtheria, I believe. She died very suddenly.”
    Dr. Hailey spent the afternoon in a hammock, turning over the details of the mystery in his mind. He did not disguise from himself that he was disappointed at not having been allowed to attempt a solution; on the other hand such ideas as he had evolved offered no substantial basis of deduction. He discussed the subject again with his host after dinner but obtained no enlightenment.
    â€œI’ve no doubt,” John MacCallien said, “that Dundas has exhausted all such probabilities as secret doors and chambers. He was prepared, I feel sure, to tear the castle to pieces to find one clue. My friend the postman had it from Angus, Duchlan’s piper, that he found nothing. There are no secret chambers, no passages, no trap-doors.”
    â€œAnd no other means by which the murderer can have entered the bedroom or escaped out of it?”
    John MacCallien raised his head.
    â€œWe know that he did enter the bedroom and did escape out of it.”
    â€œExactly. And miracles don’t happen.”
    The doctor took a pinch of snuff. “This is the fourth time that I’ve encountered a case in which a murder was committed in what seemed like a closed room or a closed space. I imagine that the truth, in this instance, will not be more difficult to discover than in these others—”
    A smile flickered on his lips.
    â€œMost of the great murder mysteries of the past half-century,” he added, “have turned either on an alibi or on an apparently closed space. For practical purposes these conditions are identical, because you have to show, in face of obvious evidence to the contrary, that your murderer was at a given spot at a given moment. That, believe me, is a harder task than proving that a particular individual administered poison or that an apparent accident was, in fact, due to foul play.”
    He broke off because they heard a car driving up to the door. A moment later Dr. McDonald came limping into the room.
    â€œYou’ve got your terms, Hailey,” he said as he shook the doctor’s hand. “Dundas owns himself beaten.” He shook hands with John MacCallien, and then turned back to Dr. Hailey. “Can you possibly come to Duchlan to-night?”

Chapter X
    â€œDuchlan Will Be Honoured”
    Inspector Dundas received the two doctors in his bedroom, a large room situated near that formerly occupied by Miss Gregor and directly overlooking the burn. He was seated on his bed, when they entered, writing notes, and wore only a shirt and trousers. But he did not seem to be feeling the heat.
    â€œIt’s good of you, Dr. Hailey,” he said in grateful tones, “because I wasn’t as polite as I might have been at our first meeting. Pride cometh before a fall, eh?”
    â€œOn the contrary, I thought your attitude entirely unexceptionable.”
    The doctor sat down near the open window and mopped his brow. Dundas, he perceived, had lost his air of assurance. Even his sprightliness of manner had deserted him. The change was rather shocking, as indicating a fundamental lack of