The Man in the Moonlight

by Helen McCloy

Genres: Mystery; Traditional Mysteries

Synopsis

In the second case featuring psychiatrist-sleuth Basil Willing, he is called to a university campus to help investigate the death of a scientist. It looks like suicide, but with local scandal aplenty, more murders in the mix and a dose of Nazi espionage, all may not be as it appears.

Release date: October 14, 2014

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 256

Sample

THE DAY Dr. Konradi was murdered dawned clear and windy—a fragrant spring day with a cool breeze.

Patrick Foyle sat on the campus of Yorkville University, looking at a sheaf of printed bulletins the Dean had given him. Assistant Professor Julian Salt—primitive cultures of Mexico. .
. . Professor Albert Feng Lo—concepts of abnormality. . . . Professor Raymond Prickett—conditioned response and remote association . . .

Foyle’s pipe was drawing evenly. The lawn at his feet sloped down to the East River where the water reflected the innocent blue of the sky. It was hard to realize that this was as much a
part of New York as Police Headquarters and General Sessions. Here, if anywhere, his boy would hear no talk of crooks or graft or murder. . . . Then Foyle noticed the piece of paper.

A bit of rubbish would not have drawn his attention in a public park. But here, where not a single peanut shell or paper bag disturbed the neatness of gravel path and privet hedge, a stray bit
of paper could not escape notice. It floated before the wind like a kite, twisting, rising and falling, until it came to rest on the grass. He rose, but the wind snatched the paper away. Clenching
his pipe stem between his teeth he charged after it and this time the wind let it lie. He returned to his bench and smoothed the paper on his knee. It was a carbon copy of a typewritten note. It
began abruptly without date, address or salutation and ended in the middle of a sentence:

I take pleasure in informing you that you have been chosen as murderer for Group No. 1. Please follow these instructions with as great exactness as possible.

You will enter Southerland Hall from the east entrance just as the library clock is striking the hour of eight (8:00) in the evening of May 4 (Saturday). You must
be out of the building by eight forty-five (8:45). This, however, will give you ample time for the murder.

You must be as quiet as possible and be careful not to show a light as you might attract the attention of the night watchman. If you are not out of the building by eight forty-five
(8:45) you will find yourself in a very peculiar and unpleasant situation.

Once inside Southerland Hall, you will proceed directly to the laboratory, where . . .

“You’ve found it!”

Foyle looked up. A man was standing on the path—a man without hat or overcoat. His face was the saddest Foyle had ever seen.

“I’ve lost some papers.” He spoke with a faintly foreign intonation. “I saw you run after that paper in the wind. I thought—perhaps—”

“What sort of papers have you lost?”

“Notes on chemical experiments. I doubt if you’d understand them. They’re in German and technical.”

“Well, I don’t understand this.” Foyle grinned as he held out the paper he had found. “Do you?”

The man crossed the grass to the bench with a quick, resolute step. His age seemed between 35 and 40. Yet the hand that took the paper trembled slightly and Foyle noticed a few white hairs vivid
against the dark head in the sunlight. His grave, aquiline profile would have graced a coin.

“Just a gag,” said Foyle. “But it gave me a turn. College boys sure do have queer ideas of what’s funny.”

The man lifted unsmiling eyes. “How do you know it is just a—gag?”

“What else could it be? If anything like that were meant seriously, it would be in code. Besides—a real killer never uses the word murder. Political murderers call it
direct action or liquidation. Husbands and wives call it avenging honor or defending the sanctity of the home. Even gangsters don’t murder you—they rub you
out or bump you off. Whether a murderer is speaking French or German or Choctaw, he steers clear of plain words like kill or murder.”

“You seem familiar with murder and murderers.”

“I’m a police officer.” Foyle displayed his gold badge. “Assistant Chief Inspector commanding the Detective Division. I came here to see the Dean about sending my eldest
boy to Yorkville. I never had a chance to go to college myself, but I want him to go. My name’s Foyle—Patrick Foyle.”

“And mine is Franz Konradi.”

The name meant nothing to Foyle.

“As a police officer you believe this letter could not have been written by one of your American gangsters?”

Foyle looked at him suspiciously, but there was no hint of humor in those somber eyes. “I don’t know just where you come from, but I guess you haven’t been over here very long.
Gangsters don’t say please. And they don’t threaten people with ‘very peculiar and unpleasant situations.’ Neither do they make carbon copies of their
correspondence.”

Konradi stood twisting the letter in long fingers.

“What’s it got to do with you?” asked Foyle.

“I believe my laboratory is the only one in Southerland Hall—I know I am the only chemist with rooms in that building. And this is Saturday, May 4.”

“Then it looks like somebody’s ribbing you.”

“Ribbing?”

“Playing a joke on you.”

“But my colleagues aren’t given to joking, and I doubt if any student would enter my laboratory uninvited. I’m a research professor in biological chemistry. Everyone knows
I’m engaged in experiments that can’t be interrupted.”

Foyle permitted himself another grin. “I don’t know about Europe, but over here our students go for gags in a big way. And nobody’s safe—not even research professors in
biological chemistry. Maybe this is part of a fancy initiation into some fraternity.”

“I only hope you’re right.” Konradi dismissed the subject with a fatalistic shrug. “I suppose I’ve reached that unenviable state of mind where every molehill seems
a mountain and every pin dropping sounds like an explosion—” The sonorous note of a bell cut him short. He started violently. “Only the library clock. You see—” He
held out a hand that was still shaking. “I’ve lost my nerve. Courage is a curious thing, isn’t it? Sometimes I think it is only the active form of fear. There’s no chemical
difference between fear and rage. The only difference is in conduct—” He drew fingertips across his forehead as if brushing aside a veil. “I think I have been working too hard. I
must take a rest—a long rest—soon.” His eyes were on the river and he seemed to have forgotten Foyle.

“If I were you, I’d give this Southerland Hall a wide berth at eight o’clock.”

Konradi’s eyes came back to Foyle. “I shall. But one thing puzzles me. How do they expect to get in? The laboratory doors are always locked when I’m not there and the windows
are made of unbreakable glass.”

“Has anyone a key besides you?”

“The Dean and the janitor. And my secretary.”

“Well, I don’t suppose the Dean or the janitor are in this. What about your secretary?”

“Gisela?” Konradi frowned like a man pricked with sudden, unwelcome doubt. “It’s impossible. She would never—” He left the sentence unfinished.

Foyle studied him curiously. “If this has you really worried, why don’t you see the Dean? Isn’t he in charge of discipline?”

“I don’t believe I’ll trouble Dr. Lysaght about it.” Konradi handed the letter back to Foyle. “One must not be what you call, in English, a spoil-sport.”

He smiled for the first time and even his smile was sad. Then he said something so startling that Foyle was at a loss for a reply.

“If anything should happen this evening, I want you to remember one thing: I am just finishing important research and nothing would induce me to commit suicide while it is still pending.
Please understand that, Herr Inspector, and remember it. No matter what happens—no matter what seems to happen—I shall not commit suicide.” He bowed with a hint of alien formality
and turned away.

Speechless, Foyle watched the tall figure with its resolute stride decrease among the lengthening shadows. The sun was setting behind the trees. Suddenly, the wind seemed chill and unfriendly.
In spite of his overcoat, the Inspector shivered as he rose and walked toward the library. . . . Konradi had left so much unsaid. It was only natural he did not confide in a chance acquaintance.
But why wouldn’t he confide in the Dean?

Foyle met no one on the campus. The gravel path led him into a big, cobblestoned quadrangle bounded by the campus and three buildings. On his left stood the great, gray library parallel with the
East River. Opposite him, to the south, was a chapel. To the west, facing the library, stood a three-storied brick building, windows regimented as those of a jail. The only sounds that disturbed
the academic peace were the cooing of pigeons and the splashing of a fountain in the center of the quadrangle.

The Inspector compared his watch with the library clock and saw that the clock was one minute faster. Carefully he set his watch at 5:29 to coincide exactly with the clock. He had no plan of
action yet. He still believed the letter was a sophomoric hoax. But it sounded like a rather morbid hoax and he had a vague feeling that something ought to be done about it. He started to walk
across the quadrangle to a path that led southwest, between the chapel and the brick building. As he drew near the building, he noticed an inscription engraved on the stone above the main entrance:
1924. SOUTHERLAND HALL. ERECTED BY MALCOLM SOUTHERLAND, AB. Of the Class of 1915 and Trustee of Yorkville
University.

Foyle studied the east entrance of Southerland Hall with interest. There was plenty of space around the building planted with trees and shrubs. To the Inspector trees and shrubs meant only one
thing—cover. He saw at once that the “murderer for Group No. 1” would have all the cover he needed to approach Southerland Hall unobserved.

The Inspector frowned. And just then the academic peace was shattered by a pistol shot.

THE SOUND came from Southerland Hall. Foyle ran up three steps and tried the door. It yielded and he found himself in a long corridor. The air had the
moist, unnatural freshness that means air-conditioning. A cry reached him through the first door on the left. He pushed it open.

He had a fleeting impression of a lecture hall, people and machinery, including a phonograph and a moving-picture camera. But his attention centered on a small man holding a large revolver.
There was an acrid smell unfamiliar to the Inspector—he knew only that it wasn’t cordite. With his left arm covering his heart, he seized the cartridge cylinder in his right hand so
that it could not rotate again. He thrust his thumb between hammer and breech so the hammer could not reach the next cartridge.

“Don’t move!” Wresting the revolver from the other man, Foyle backed away until the whole room came within his vision. He saw a frayed, shapeless woman in an old-fashioned hat
who seemed like a faded photograph of herself taken in 1928. He saw a sullen young man in a shaggy plaid jacket and disreputable, gray flannel trousers. He saw a table covered with a black mat
fastened to the legs with tapes. On the mat, under hot floodlights, lay a wailing, naked baby about four months old. But none of these people appeared to be wounded and no one else was in the
room.

Foyle turned back to the man who had held the revolver. A long, white face, pointed teeth and steel-rimmed spectacles made him look like a scholarly shark. He was rubbing his right wrist with
his left hand.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded. “Who are you anyway?”

“Just what I was going to ask you! I’m Assistant Chief Inspector Foyle of the New York Police Department. I was passing this building and I heard a shot.”

“I suppose a shot means only one thing to a policeman!” Thin lips split into a toothy grin. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Inspector. I’m Professor of
Experimental Psychology here—Raymond Prickett is my name. The baby on the table is my son and I’m using him in a series of experiments on fear in infants. There are two ways of exciting
fear in an infant. One is to drop it—on something soft, of course—and the other is make a loud noise close to its ear. I prefer the loud noise because I want to get the Moro reflex as
well as the gross reaction and I find a revolver shot the best noise for the purpose.”

“Got a permit for this gun?”

“Naturally.”

“What if you hit somebody with a stray bullet?”

“I’m using blanks.” Prickett’s gaze dwelt on Foyle with sudden interest. “I’d like to test your hearing some time, Inspector. Most people who hear a shot
unexpectedly, mistake it for a backfire. But you didn’t.”

“I’d be a swell cop if I couldn’t tell a revolver shot from a backfire!” Foyle was growing uncomfortable under that probing, impersonal gaze.

“That’s interesting. I could use some of my students as controls and—”

“No, thanks. It doesn’t seem to be doing the kid much good.”

The baby’s cries had subsided to a catching of the breath but its cheeks were wet with tears.

“That’s what I say!” came a plaintive cry from the faded woman. “But I’m only his mother—”

Prickett interrupted hastily. “Inspector Foyle—my wife. And this is Mr. Halsey, one of my students who helps me in my experimental work.”

The young man in the plaid jacket nodded curtly. His mouth was small and close; his eyes hard, bright and impenetrable. Probably working his way through college by helping Prickett, thought
Foyle. That would explain the trousers and the rather tense, self-contained manner.

Mrs. Prickett could not be side-tracked so easily. “Inspector, do you think these experiments are bad for Baby? They won’t let me comfort him when he cries because they say that
encourages self-pity.”

“If a man can’t experiment with his own child—” began Prickett.

“Because he is your own child you shouldn’t want to experiment with him!” wailed Mrs. Prickett.

“I thought emotional shocks gave kids complexes and things,” ventured Foyle.

“My dear Inspector, please spare me the vulgar superstitions of the Freudian mythology!”

Halsey intervened in a taut, vibrant voice. “I’ll have to go, Dr. Prickett. I’ve an appointment at six.”

Prickett glanced at his watch. “Time for one more reaction! You’ll find it interesting, Inspector, if you stay.”

“Oh, must you?” moaned Mrs. Prickett. “Baby hasn’t got over that last shot yet!”

“That’s just why I want to see the effect of another shot on him now,” explained Prickett with angelic patience. “I want to see if repetition of the fear stimulus will
strengthen or weaken the startle-pattern.”

“Ian!” Mrs. Prickett turned to Halsey. “Don’t you honestly think all this is bad for Baby?”

Halsey looked at her without sympathy. “No.”

“Well, you don’t have to be so blunt about it, do you?” suggested Foyle.

Halsey was focusing the moving-picture camera directly above the baby at a distance of six feet. “I believe in speaking the absolute truth in all circumstances,” he announced
solemnly. “What we call ‘courtesy’ is simply a conventional form of lying and I won’t sacrifice my intellectual honesty to mere convention.”

“You’d have to if you were on the Police Force.” Foyle’s tone was deceptively mild. “What’s the movie camera for? And why the black mat?”

“The Moro reflex—as we call the startle-pattern in infants under four months—is too quick for the human eye,” answered Prickett, reloading his revolver. “To study
it we take a moving-picture record at the unusual speed of 64 pictures to the second and then project the film in slow-motion. The subject is set against a black background so every detail of his
white body will show.”

He bent toward the table as he attached the revolver to an electrical apparatus. The “subject’s” face puckered and it bawled lustily.

“An interesting example of conditioning,” Prickett informed Foyle. “After I’ve experimented with babies for a while they begin to scream the minute they catch sight of my
face.”

“Sort of inconvenient around the house when they’re your own babies,” ruminated Foyle.

“Not at all.” Prickett answered serenely. “When the experiment is over it will be a simple matter to recondition the child by getting him to associate my face with something
pleasant like food or affection. Now, Marian,” Prickett turned to his wife, “do try to overcome your personal bias. When you hear the baby cry don’t think of him—think of
the unborn generations that will benefit by whatever slight stress we may be causing his nervous system today. The sooner we understand the origin and development of fear habits the sooner
we’ll be able to conquer fear by emotional education. Ready, Ian?”

“All set.”

Marian Prickett closed her eyes and put her fingers in her ears. Prickett, with notebook open and fountain pen poised, sat at a desk near the door into the hall. The door was open—Foyle
realized that he had left it open when he rushed into the room. Before he could call anyone’s attention to the fact, Prickett pressed a switch button and the blank shot exploded. The baby
jerked its arms and legs and began to yell once more. The moving-picture camera hummed in Halsey’s hands.

“Cry perceptibly louder and more persistent after fourth shot,” muttered Prickett, scribbling furiously. “Of course we can’t tell until we project the film but I
did have an impression the eyes blinked. Possibly a delayed Moro with a superficial resemblance to the Strauss startle-pattern—”

Then Marian spoiled everything. Running to the table she snatched the baby into her arms without a thought of the unborn generations’ emotional education.

“There! There! Did the horrid old pistol frighten mother’s precious honey-baby? But he mustn’t cry—”

Prickett and Halsey looked at each other with inexpressible disgust.

“Perhaps you’d better go, Ian. It’s too late to do anything more this afternoon.” Prickett detached the revolver from the electrical apparatus and dropped it on the desk.
“Get those films developed as soon as possible.”

“O.K.” Halsey was packing the roll of film in a flat tin. “We got the Moro anyway. So long, Inspector!”

He left the room, shutting the door softly. Prickett eyed his wife with sardonic resignation as she covered the baby’s face with kisses. “It’s only perverted sexuality on your
part, Marian. If it were not, you wouldn’t want to kiss him on the mouth.”

“Animal mothers lick their young and nobody calls that perverted sexuality!”

“My dear Marian, you know nothing about animal psychology.”

“You don’t have to know anything about animal psychology to know that animals aren’t perverted!”

“Indeed!” A faint pink stained Prickett’s high cheek bones. “We’re boring the Inspector.” Prickett turned to Foyle. “I’m sorry the experiment was such a
flop. If you’d like to see another—”

“No, thanks.”

A tap fell on the door. “Come in!” called Prickett.

A girl appeared on the threshold. Foyle had a glimpse of dark beauty, subtle and strange. A cluster of white violets nestled on the shoulder of her black tweed jacket and she seemed to bring a
breath of grace and elegance into the bare room.

“Where can I find Dr. Konradi?” She spoke in a soft contralto. “Mr. Southerland is asking for him.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” answered Prickett. “I haven’t seen Konradi all day.”

“He must have gone home.” She seemed to be thinking aloud. “He isn’t in his office or his laboratory and yet—it isn’t like him to leave so early.”

“I met Dr. Konradi on the campus a while ago,” volunteered Foyle. “I think he was on his way home.”

“Oh, thank you. I can probably reach him there by telephone. Mr. Southerland is anxious to see him.”

As soon as the door had shut, Marian Prickett found voice. “It’s sheer impudence for that girl to call herself Konradi’s secretary! Anybody can see what she really is. And no
secretary’s salary ever paid for those clothes.”

“Perhaps she has means of her own,” suggested Prickett.

“Nonsense!” Marian thrust the baby’s arms into a small, pink sweater. “Everyone knows you can’t take money out of Austria—especially a refugee.”

“Who is she?” asked Foyle.

“Gisela von Hohenems—a daughter of Count Alois von Hohenems.” Prickett was searching among the papers on his desk. “But she has sense enough not to call herself Countess
now she’s at work in this country. Did you notice where I put that revolver?”

“On the desk.”

“That’s what I thought. But it isn’t there.” Prickett glanced. . .