Sleeping Murder - Agatha Christie [28]
“Behind the fireplace,” she breathed. “But don’t say I told you.”
At this moment, a white uniformed maid came into the room and requested Giles and Gwenda to follow her.
They were shown into Dr. Penrose’s study, and Dr. Penrose rose to greet them.
Dr. Penrose, Gwenda could not help thinking, looked a little mad himself. He looked, for instance, much madder than the nice old lady in the drawing room—but perhaps psychiatrists always looked a little mad.
“I had your letter, and Dr. Kennedy’s,” said Dr. Penrose. “And I’ve been looking up your father’s case history, Mrs. Reed. I remembered his case quite well, of course, but I wanted to refresh my memory so that I should be in a position to tell you everything you wanted to know. I understand that you have only recently become aware of the facts?”
Gwenda explained that she had been brought up in New Zealand by her mother’s relations and that all she had known about her father was that he had died in a nursing home in England.
Dr. Penrose nodded. “Quite so. Your father’s case, Mrs. Reed, presented certain rather peculiar features.”
“Such as?” Giles asked.
“Well, the obsession—or delusion—was very strong. Major Halliday, though clearly in a very nervous state, was most emphatic and categorical in his assertion that he had strangled his second wife in a fit of jealous rage. A great many of the usual signs in these cases were absent, and I don’t mind telling you frankly, Mrs. Reed, that had it not been for Dr. Kennedy’s assurance that Mrs. Halliday was actually alive, I should have been prepared, at that time, to take your father’s assertion at its face value.”
“You formed the impression that he had actually killed her?” Giles asked.
“I said ‘at that time.’ Later, I had cause to revise my opinion, as Major Halliday’s character and mental makeup became more familiar to me. Your father, Mrs. Reed, was most definitely not a paranoiac type. He had no delusions of persecution, no impulses of violence. He was a gentle, kindly, and well-controlled individual. He was neither what the world calls mad, nor was he dangerous to others. But he did have this obstinate fixation about Mrs. Halliday’s death and to account for its origin I am quite convinced we have to go back a long way—to some childish experience. But I admit that all methods of analysis failed to give us the right clue. Breaking down a patient’s resistance to analysis is sometimes a very long business. It may take several years. In your father’s case, the time was insufficient.”
He paused, and then, looking up sharply, said: “You know, I presume, that Major Halliday committed suicide.”
“Oh no!” cried Gwenda.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Reed. I thought you knew that. You are entitled, perhaps, to attach some blame to us on that account. I admit that proper vigilance would have prevented it. But frankly I saw no sign of Major Halliday’s being a suicidal type. He showed no tendency to melancholia—no brooding or despondency. He complained of sleeplessness and my colleague allowed him a certain amount of sleeping tablets. Whilst pretending to take them, he actually kept them until he had accumulated a sufficient amount and—”
He spread out his hands.
“Was he so dreadfully unhappy?”
“No. I do not think so. It was more, I should judge, a guilt complex, a desire for a penalty to be exacted. He had insisted at first, you know, on calling in the police, and though persuaded out of that, and assured that he had actually committed no crime at all, he obstinately refused to be wholly convinced. Yet it was proved to him over and over again, and he had to admit, that he had no recollection of committing the actual act.” Dr. Penrose ruffled over the papers in front of him. “His account of the evening in question never varied. He came into the house, he said, and it was dark. The servants were out. He went into the dining room, as he usually did, poured himself out a drink and drank it, then went