The Day of Days: An Extravaganza

by Louis Joseph Vance

  XX

  NOVEMBER

  "E's gone," the butler announced.

  Kneeling beside the inert body of Brian Shaynon, where it had lodgedon a broad, low landing three steps from the foot of the staircase, heturned up to P. Sybarite fishy, unemotional eyes in a pasty fat face.

  The little man said nothing.

  Resting a hand on the newel-post, he looked down unmoved upon themortal wreck of him who had been his life's bane. Brian Shaynon lay indeath without majesty; a crumpled and dishevelled ruin of flesh andclothing, its very insentience suggesting to the morbid fancy of thelittle Irishman something foul and obscene. Brian Shaynon living hadbeen to him a sight less intolerable....

  "Dead," the butler affirmed, releasing the pulseless leaden wrist, andrising. "I presume I'd best call 'is doctor, 'adn't I, sir?"

  P. Sybarite nodded indifferently. Profound thought enwrapped him likea mantle.

  The butler lingered, the seals of professional reticence broken bythis strange and awful accident. But there was no real emotion in histemper--only curiosity, self-interest, the impulse of loquacity.

  "Stroke," he observed thoughtfully, fingering his pendulous jowls andstaring; "that's w'at it was--a stroke, like. He'd 'ad a bit of shockbefore you come in, sir."

  "Yes?" murmured P. Sybarite absently.

  "Yes, sir; a bit of a shock, owin' to 'is 'avin' quarrelled with Mr.Bayard, sir."

  "Oh!" P. Sybarite roused. "Quarrelled with his son, you say?"

  "Yes, sir; somethin' dreadful they was goin' on. 'E couldn't 'ave gotover it when you come. Mr. Bayard 'adn't been gone, not more thanfive minutes, sir."

  P. Sybarite interrogated with his eyes alone.

  "It was a bit odd, come to think of it--the 'ole affair, sir. Must'ave been over an hour ago, Mr. Shaynon 'ere, 'e come 'ome alone fromthe dance--I see you must've been there yourself, sir, if I m'y mikeso bold as to tike notice of your costume. Very fawncy it is, too,sir--becomes your style 'andsome, it does, sir."

  "Never mind me. What happened when Mr. Shaynon came home?"

  "W'y, 'e 'adn't more than got inside the 'ouse, sir, w'en a lidycalled on 'im--a lidy as I 'ad never set eyes on before, sime as inyour caise, sir; although I wouldn't 'ave you think I mean she was ofyour clawss, sir. 'Ardly. Properly speakin', she wasn't a lidy atall--but a woman. I mean to s'y, a bit flash."

  "I understand you. Go on."

  "Well, sir, I didn't 'ave a chance to over'ear w'at 'er business were,but it seemed to work on Mr. Brian there somethin' 'orrid. They wascloseted in the library upstairs not more than twenty minutes, andthen she went, and 'e rung for me and to bring 'im brandy and notdelay about it. 'E nearly emptied the decanter, too, before Mr. Bayardgot 'ere. And the minute they come together, it was 'ammer-and-tongs.'Ot _and_ 'eavy they 'ad it for upwards of an _hour_, be'ind closeddoors, sime as like with the lidy. But w'en Mr. Bayard, 'e come to go,sir, the old gent follows 'im to the landin'--just where 'e was whenhe spoke to you, sir, before 'e 'ad the stroke--and 'e says to 'im,says 'e: 'Remember, I cawst you off. Don't come to me for nothin'after this. Don't ever you darken my doorstep ag'in,' 'e says. And Mr.Bayard, sir, 'e ups and laughs fiendish in 'is own father's fice.'You've got another guess comin',' he mocks 'im open': 'you're in thisbusiness as deep as me,' 'e says, 'and if you cross me, I'lldouble-cross you, s'elp me Gawd, and in the newspapers, too.' And withthat, out 'e went in a rige."

  "So that was the way of it!" P. Sybarite commented dully.

  So Mrs. Inche had sought the father to revenge herself upon the son;and with this outcome--Bayard unharmed, his father dead!...

  "That was hexactly 'ow it 'appened, sir," affirmed the butler, rubbinghis fat old hands.

  "You 're wasting time. Go telephone the doctor," said P. Sybaritesuddenly.

  "Right you are, sir. But there's no real 'urry. He's dead as GuyFawkes, and no doctor livin'--"

  "Nevertheless, telephone--if you don't want to get into trouble."

  "Quite right, sir. I'll do so at once."

  Turning, the man waddled off, disappearing toward the back of thehouse.

  Alone, with neither hesitation nor a single backward glance at thebody of his ancient enemy, the little man swung about, walked quietlyto the front door, and as quietly let himself out.

  He was of no mind to be called as a witness at a possible inquest; andbusiness of far greater import urged him, the real business of hislife, this: to discover the whereabouts of Marian Blessington with theleast avoidable delay.

  His first cast having failed, he must now try to draw the son; and, ifpossible, before the latter learned of his father's death.

  Not until about to re-enter the car did he remember he had neglectedto secure Bayard's address from the butler. But he wouldn't turn back;it could be ascertained elsewhere; Peter Kenny would either know it orknow where to get it.

  To Peter's rooms he must of necessity return first of all; for itwould not much longer prove possible to go up and down and to and froupon Manhattan Island in a black silk dress-coat and flaming scarletsmall-clothes; to change was imperative.

  "The Monastery," he directed, settling back into his seat.

  It was now clear daylight: a morning of bright promise breaking over aTown much livelier than it had been half an hour or so ago, with morecitizens abroad, some striding briskly to the day's work, sometrudging wearily from the night's.

  Over all brooded still that effect of illusion: this might have been,almost, a foreign city into whose streets he was adventuring for thefirst time, so changed and strange seemed everything in his eyes.

  P. Sybarite himself felt old and worn and tired, and with a thoughtfulfinger rubbed an over-night growth of stubble upon his chin....

  "Wait," he told the driver, on alighting at the Monastery; "I'mkeeping you."

  Money passed between them--more than enough to render his wishesinviolable.

  A dull-eyed hallboy recognised and let him in, sullenly passing him onto the elevator; but as that last was on the point of taking flight toPeter Kenny's door, it hesitated; and the operator, with his hand onthe half-closed gate, shot it open again instead of shut.

  A Western Union messenger-boy, not over forty years tired, was beingadmitted at the street door. The colloquy there was distinctlyaudible:

  "Mr. Bayard Shaynon?"

  "'Leventh floor. Hurry up--don't keep the elevator waitin'."

  "Ah--ferget it!"

  Whistling softly, the man with the yellow envelope ambled nonchalantlyinto the cage; fixed the operator with a truculent stare, and demandedthe eleventh floor.

  Now Peter Kenny's rooms were on the twelfth....

  The telegram with its sprawling endorsement in ink, "_Mr. BayardShaynon, Monastery Apartments_," was for several moments within twofeet of P. Sybarite's nose.

  It was, indeed, anything but easy to keep from pouncing upon thatwretched messenger, ravishing him of the envelope (which he was nowemploying artfully to split a whistle into two equal portions--andfavour to none), and making off with it before the gate of theelevator could close.

  Impossible to conjecture what intimate connection it might not havewith the disappearance of Marian Blessington, what a flood of light itmight not loose upon that dark intrigue!

  Indeed, the speculations this circumstance set awhirl in P. Sybarite'sweary head were so many and absorbing that he forgot altogether to besurprised or gratified by the favour of _Kismet_ which had causedtheir paths to cross at precisely that instant, as if solely that hemight be informed of Bayard Shaynon's abode....

  "What door?" demanded Western Union as he left the cage at theeleventh floor.

  "Right across the hall."

  The gate clanged, the cage mounted to the next floor, and P. Sybaritegot out, requiring no direction: for Peter Kenny's door wasimmediately above Bayard Shaynon's.

  As he touched the bell-button for the benefit of the elevator man--butfor his own, failed to press it home--the grumble of the door-bellbelow could be heard faintly through muffling fir
e-brick walls.

  The grumble persisted long after the elevator had dropped back to theeleventh floor.

  And presently the voice of Western Union was lifted in sourexpostulation:

  "Sa-ay, whatcha s'pose 's th' matta wid dis guy? I' been ringin'haffanour!"

  "That's funny," commented the elevator boy: "he came in only about tenminutes ago."

  "Yuh wuddn' think he cud pass away 's quick 's all that--wuddja?"

  "Ah, I dunno. Mebbe he had a bun on when he come in. Gen'ly has. Ididn' notice."

  "Well, th' way he must be poundin' his ear now--notta hear disracket--yud think he was trainin' for a Rip van Winkle Marathon."

  Pause--made audible by the pertinacious bell, grinding away like adentist's drill in a vacant tooth....

  "Waitin' here all day won't get me nothin'. Here, what's th' matta widyou signin' for't?"

  "G'wan. Sign it yourself 'nd stick unda the door, whydoncha?"

  Second pause--the bell boring on, but more faintheartedly, as ifdoubting whether it ever would reach that nerve.

  Finally Western Union gave it up.

  "A'right. Guess I will."

  Clang of the gate: whine of the descending car: silence....

  Softly P. Sybarite tiptoed down the stairs.

  Disappointment, however, lay in ambush for him at his nefarious goal:evidently Western Union had been punctilious about his duty; not evenso much as the tip of a corner of yellow envelope peeped from underthe door.

  Reckless in exasperation, P. Sybarite first wasted time educing aseries of short, sharp barks from the bell--a peculiarly irritatingnoise, calculated (one would think) to rouse the dead--then tried thedoor and, finding it fast, in the end knelt and bent an ear to thekeyhole, listening....

  Not a sound: silence of the grave; the house deathly still. He couldhear his own heart drumming; but, from Shaynon's flat, nothing....

  Or--was that the creak of a board beneath a stealthy footstep?

  If so, it wasn't repeated....

  Again, could it be possible his ears did actually detect a sound ofhuman respiration through the keyhole? Was Bayard Shaynon just theother side of that inch-wide pressed-steel barrier, the fire-proofdoor, cowering in throes of some paralysing fright, afraid to answerthe summons?...

  If so, why? What did he fear? The police, perhaps? And if so--why?What crime had become his so to unman him that he dared not open andput his fate to the test?...

  Quickly there took shape in the imagination of the little Irishman ahideous vision of mortal Fear, wild-eyed, white-lipped, and alla-tremble, skulking in panic only a little beyond his reach: a fancythat so worked upon his nerves that he himself seemed infected withits shuddering dread, and thought to feel the fine hairs a-crawl onhis neck and scalp and his flesh a-creep.

  When at length he rose and drew away it was with all stealth, asthough he too moved in the shadow of awful terror bred of a namelesscrime....

  Once more at Peter Kenny's door, his diffident fingers evoked from thebell but a single chirp--a sound that would by no means have gainedhim admission had Peter not been sitting up in bed, reading to whileaway the ache of his wound.

  But it was ordered so; Peter was quick to answer the door; and P.Sybarite, pulling himself together (now that he had audience criticalof his demeanour) walked in with a very tolerable swagger--with acareless, good-humoured nod for his host and a quick look round theroom to make certain they were alone.

  "Doctor been?"

  "Oh--an hour ago."

  "And--?"

  "Says I'm all right if blood-poisoning doesn't set in."

  Shutting the door, Peter grinned not altogether happily. "That's oneof the most fetching features of the new code of medical ethics, youknow--complete confidence inspired in patient by utter frankness ondoctor's part--and all that!...

  "'An insignificant puncture,'" he mimicked: "'you'll be right as rainin a week--unless the wound decides to gangrene--it's apt to, all onits own, 'spite of anything we can do--in which case we'll have toamputate your body to prevent infection spreading to your head.'...

  "Well?" he wound up almost gaily. "What luck?"

  "The worst. Where are my rags? I've got to change and run. Also--whileyou're up"--Peter had just dropped into a chair--"you might be goodenough to mix me a Scotch and soda."

  Whereupon, while changing his clothes, and between breaths and gulpsof whiskey-and-water, P. Sybarite delivered himself of an abbreviatedsummary of what had happened at the ball and after.

  "But why," he wound up peevishly--"_why_ didn't you tell me BayardShaynon lived in the flat below you?"

  "Didn't occur to me; and if you ask me, I don't see why it shouldinterest you now."

  "Because," said P. Sybarite quietly, "I'm going down there and breakin as soon as I'm dressed fit to go to jail."

  "In the sacred name of Insanity--!"

  "If he's out, I'll steal that telegram and find out whether it has anybearing on the case. If it hasn't, I'll sift every inch of the roomfor a suspicion of a leading clue."

  "But if he's in--?"

  "I'll take my chances," said P. Sybarite with grim brevity.

  "Unarmed?"

  "Not if I know the nature of the brute." He stood up, fully dressedbut for his shoes. "Now--my gun, please."

  "Top drawer of the buffet there. How are you going? Fire escape?"

  "Where is it?" P. Sybarite asked as he possessed himself of hisweapon.

  "Half a minute." Peter Kenny held out his hand. "Let's have a look atthat gun--will you?"

  "What for?"

  "One of those newfangled automatic pistols--isn't it? I 've never seenone before."

  "But--Great Scott!--you've had this here--"

  "I know, but I didn't pay much attention--thinking of other things--"

  "But you're delaying me--"

  "Mean to," said Peter Kenny purposefully; and without giving P.Sybarite the least hint of his intention, suddenly imprisoned hiswrist, grabbed the weapon by the barrel, and took it to himself--withthe greater ease since the other neither understood nor attemptedresistance.

  "What in blazes--?" he enquired, puzzled, watching Peter turn theweapon over curiously in his hands. "I should think--"

  "There!" Peter interrupted placidly, withdrawing the magazine clipfrom its slot in the butt and returning the now harmless mechanism."Now run along. Fire-escape's outside the far window in the bedroom,yonder."

  "What the deuce! What's the matter with you? Hand over that clip. Whatgood is this gun without it?"

  "For your present purpose, it's better than if loaded," Peter assertedcomplacently. "For purposes of intimidation--which is all you want ofit--grand! And it can't go off by accident and make you anunintentional murderer."

  P. Sybarite's jaw dropped and his eyes opened; but after an instant,he nodded in entire agreement.

  "That's a head you have on your shoulders, boy!" said he. "As formine, I've a notion that it has never really jelled."

  He turned toward the bedroom, but paused.

  "Only--why not say what you want? Why these roundabout ways to yourpurpose? Have you, by any chance, been educated for the bar?"

  "That's the explanation," laughed Peter. "I'm to be admitted topractise next year. Meanwhile, circumlocution's my specialty."

  "It is!" said P. Sybarite with conviction. "Well ... back in fiveminutes...."

  Of all his weird adventures, this latest pleased him least. It's onething to take chances under cover of night when your heart is light,your pockets heavy, and wine is buzzing wantonly within your head: butanother thing altogether to burglarise your enemy's apartments via thefire-escape, in broad daylight, and cold-sober. For by now the lightwas clear and strong, in the open.

  Yet to his relief he found no more than limpid twilight in the crampedand shadowed well down which zigzagged the fire-escape; while theopposite wall of the adjoining building ran blind from earth to roof;giving comfortable assurance that none could spy upon him save fromthe Monastery windows.

>   "One thing more"--Peter Kenny came to the window to advise, as P.Sybarite scrambled out upon the gridiron platform--"Shaynon's flatisn't arranged like mine. He's better off than I am, you know--canafford more elbow-room. I'm not sure, but I _think_ you'll breakin--if at all--by the dining-room window.... So long. Good luck!"

  Clasping hands, they exchanged an anxious smile before P. Sybaritebegan his cautious descent.

  Not that he found it difficult; the Monastery fire-escape was a seriesof steep flights of iron steps, instead of the primitive verticalladder of round iron rungs in more general use. There was even aguard-rail at the outside of each flight. Consequently, P. Sybaritegained the eleventh floor platform very readily.

  But there he held up a long instant, dashed to discover his task madefacile rather than obstructed.

  The window was wide open, to force whose latch he had thoughtfullyprovided himself with a fruit knife from Peter Kenny's buffet. Withinwas gloom and stillness absolute--the one rendered the more opaque byheavy velvet hangings, shutting out the light; the other with aquality individual and, as P. Sybarite took it, somehowintimidating--too complete in its promise.

  And so for a darkly dubious moment the little man hung back. To hisquick Celtic instinct there seemed to inhere, in that open, dark, andsilent window, something as sinister and repellent as the inscrutable,soundless menace of a revolver presented to one's head.

  Momentarily, indeed, he experienced anew something of that odd terror,unreasoning and inexcusable, that had assailed him some time since,outside the hall-door to this abode of enigmatic and uncanny quiet....

  But at length, shaking his head impatiently--as if to rid it of itspestering swarm of fancies--he stepped noiselessly, in his unshodfeet, down through the window, cautiously parted the draperies, andadvanced into darkness so thick that there might as well have beennight outside instead of glowing daybreak.

  Then, with eyes becoming accustomed to the change, he made out shapesand masses that first confirmed Peter's surmise as to the nature ofthe room, and next gave him his bearings.

  Over across from the window stood a door, its oblong dimly luminouswith light softly shining down the walls of a private hall, from apoint some distance to the left of the opening.

  Rounding a dining-table, P. Sybarite stole softly on, and paused,listening, just within the threshold.

  From some uncertain quarter--presumably the lighted room--he couldhear a sound, very slight: so slight that it seemed guarded, but nonethe less unmistakable: the hiss of carbonated water squirting from asyphon into a glass.

  Ceasing, a short wait followed and then a faint "_Aah!_" ofsatisfaction, with the thump of a glass set down upon some hardsurface.

  And at once, before P. Sybarite could by any means reconcile thesenoises with the summons at the front door that had been ignored withinthe quarter-hour, soft footfalls became audible in the private hall,shuffling toward the dining-room.

  Instinctively the little man drew back (regretful now that he hadyielded to Peter's prejudice against loaded pistols) retreatingsideways along the wall until he had put the bulk of a massive buffetbetween him and the door; and, in the small space between that articleof furniture and the corner of the room, waited with every nerve tautand muscle tense, in full anticipation of incontinent detection.

  In line with these apprehensions, the footsteps came no further thanthe dining-room door; then died out for what seemed full twominutes--a pause as illegible to his understanding as their manifeststealth.

  Why need Shaynon take such elaborate precautions against noises in hisown lodgings?

  Suddenly, and more confidently, the footfalls turned into thedining-room; and without glance right or left a man strode directly tothe open window. There for an instant he delayed with an eye to thecrack between the curtains; then, reassured, thrust one aside andstepped into the embrasure, there to linger with his head out of thewindow, intently reconnoitering, long enough to enable P. Sybarite tomake an amazing discovery: the man was not Bayard Shaynon.

  In silhouette against the light, his slight and supple form wasunmistakable to one who had seen it before, even though his face wasdisfigured by a scant black visor across his eyes and the bridge ofhis nose.

  He was Red November.

  He was Red November.]

  What P. Sybarite would have done had he been armed is problematical.What he did was remain moveless, even as he was breathless andpowerless, but for his naked hands, either for offence or defence. Forthat November was armed was as unquestionable as his mastery of thelong-barrelled revolver of blue steel (favoured by gunmen of theunderworld) which he held at poise all the while he carefully surveyedhis line of retreat.

  At length, releasing the curtain, the gang leader hopped lightly outupon the grating, and disappeared.

  In another breath P. Sybarite himself was at the window. A singleglance through the curtains showed the grating untenanted; and boldlypoking his head forth, he looked down to see the figure of the gunman,foreshortened unrecognisably, moving down the iron tangle alreadyseveral flights below, singularly resembling a spider in someextraordinary web.

  Incontinently, the little man ran back through the dining-room anddown the private hall, abandoning every effort to avoid a noise.

  No need now for caution, if his premonition wasn't worthless--if thevengeful spirit of Mrs. Inche had not stopped short of embroiling sonwith father, but had gone on to the end ominously shadowed forth bythe appearance of the gunman in those rooms....

  What he saw from the threshold of the lighted room was Bayard Shaynonstill in death upon the floor, one temple shattered by a shot fired atclose range from a revolver that lay with butt close to his righthand--carefully disposed with evident intent to indicate a case ofsuicide rather than of murder.