The Madman's Room

Recovering in a flash, he tore the cover from his bed, bestrode the window sill, grabbed the wisteria and landed on the ground outside. He leapt up and rushed to the screaming figure battling with its flaming clothes. Instinctively he gave it an uppercut, flung the cover around it, threw it to the ground and rolled it over and over. A few seconds later, the flames were extinguished and he bent over to look at the blistered face. By the flickering light from the brazier crackling a few feet away, he could identify the figure without any possibility of error: Brian.

* * *

At half past eight in the morning, Archibald Hurst and Dr. Twist knocked on the door of the Blount residence. The inspector looked grim. He’d been up late going over every detail of the case with his friend and had barely gone to sleep when the innkeeper woke him to say Miss Blount needed to see him urgently. Accompanied by Twist, he’d followed the ambulance taking the injured man to Cheltenham. Hector Redfern had joined them at the hospital but it wasn’t until seven that they’d been able to talk to the doctor in charge.

Bessie hastened to open the door.

‘Well?’ she asked in an imploring murmur.

‘He’s still alive,’ replied Hurst tersely, ‘but he’s in bad shape. Third degree burns. They’re not sure he’ll survive.’

She led the visitors into the kitchen, where Patrick was sitting with a steaming cup of coffee. They didn’t refuse when she offered them refreshments.

Hurst repeated to Patrick what he’d told his fiancée.

‘… but the doctor wouldn’t allow us to interview him for the time being.’ He turned to Bessie. ‘Isn’t your mother here?’

‘She’s gone to work.’

‘And your grandfather?’

The young woman pointed to the ceiling.

‘He’s just gone back to bed.’

‘Well then,’ said the inspector with a smile that was anything but amiable, ‘we’ll be able to put our cards on the table. Mr. Nolan, can you repeat to us what you saw earlier this morning?’

Patrick did so without omitting the slightest detail.

‘If Brian comes out of this alive,’ observed Hurst, ‘he’ll be deeply indebted to you. In your view, how did the fire start? Did you see anyone go in or out of the workshop? Other than Brian, of course.’

‘No, but that can’t be ruled out. It was very dark and it would have been very easy for someone to throw a lighted match through the window on the north side, near the woods, without me seeing them. If I remember correctly, two of the panes of glass were broken, weren’t they, Bessie?’ His fiancée nodded. ‘Besides, I’d only been at the window a short time.’

‘Very well. Therefore there are two possibilities. Either the fire started accidentally, or there was a criminal hand behind it. Are we agreed?’

Patrick and Bessie both nodded.

‘And in either case,’ continued the policemen in a different tone of voice, ‘that must mean that Brian was sleeping there. Are we still in agreement?’

Bessie sat stony-faced.

‘Mr. Nolan, I assume you had no idea he was there?’

‘Correct.’

‘And I imagine, Miss Blount, that neither your mother nor your grandfather were aware either?’

A heavy air of suspicion hung in the kitchen, before Dr. Twist broke the silence.

‘Miss Blount, I think you’d better explain yourself.’

The young woman gritted her teeth as her eyes welled with tears, then burst out sobbing. When she confessed that she’d been hiding Brian since Monday, Dr. Twist remarked that there was more anxiety and sadness written on her face than on the faces of those present at Sarah Thorne’s funeral.

‘He knocked at my bedroom window at midnight… He told me Sarah had just died and everyone regarded him as having been responsible. He couldn’t face them and he asked me to help him. I… I was really touched. I’d never seen him like that, like a little boy lost and abandoned. I told him nobody had set foot in the workshop for donkey’s years and I gave him blankets and food.’

‘Every day?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what did he tell you after that?’

‘We never really had time to talk. I didn’t want to arouse suspicion. But he always said the same thing, that he didn’t want to see anyone but me for the moment… and he was very grateful to me for helping him. I think he felt responsible for his sister-in-law’s death, too.’

‘Did you tell him the police were looking for him?’

Bessie hung her head.

‘Yes, I kept him informed.’

Hurst cleared his throat loudly and continued.

‘Miss Blount, do you know that this could cost you dearly?’

‘I know,’ she said resolutely, ‘and I don’t care. But I hope you at least realise that Brian has nothing to reproach himself for and he wasn’t the one passing himself off as his brother yesterday after the funeral.’

‘And why is that, Miss Blount? Can you prove he was in the workshop at that time? You were at the manor, if I remember rightly, when Mr. Nolan met the impostor?’

‘It wasn’t him… I’m certain. If I were you, I’d be questioning certain individuals as to their whereabouts at four o’clock this morning.’