Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison

by Arthur Morrison

  Harvey Crook took the wrappings from his precious roll and spread out the ancient picture tenderly on the polished table. Looking up suddenly as he did so, he was not a little surprised to note that his host’s eyes, instead of being directed eagerly on the spread silk, were turned toward the door of the room, rather with the expression of a man who intently listens than that of one who looks.

  “There it is, Mr. Clifton,” Crook said; “and this is the certificate I had with it.”

  The other’s eyes came quickly back to the table. “Ah, precisely,” he said. “Precisely. A very wonderful and interesting specimen, to be sure. And the certificate also — Chinese, I see. I am really infinitely obliged to you, Mr. Crook — quite infinitely obliged to you.”

  This connoisseur’s manner puzzled Harvey Crook. Where was the passionate enthusiasm, the delighted wonder, that Mr. Clifton’s letter had led him to expect as a matter of course? The words were the polite words of one who is expected to admire something that fails to interest him; though certainly they were delivered with much emphasis and a tone of great warmth.

  “I got it in China,” Crook explained, “at Soochow. It was an exchange for some manuscript that I knew I couldn’t sell anywhere else. A Japanese expert thought a vast deal of it. You know, of course, that in Japan the work of the ancient Chinese painters is more highly prized than in China itself.”

  “Indeed? Oh yes, of course — yes, certainly, so it is. Very extraordinary, isn’t it? You know I can’t tell you how immensely obliged I am to you for showing me this, Mr. Crook, really!”

  “You mentioned some copies you had, which you wished to compare. Perhaps—”

  “Ah — of course, so I did. I had almost forgotten. We’ll just — what was that?”

  He stood stock still, his face pallid, his palm raised, his eyes directed toward the door, listening intently. There was a faint stir somewhere in the house — below.

  “It must be the cat,” he said, with an obvious effort. “Yes, the cat must have come in. Will you excuse me for one moment? I feel sure it was the cat.”

  He took the lamp and went out. Truly this rusty, grizzled man was a great oddity, a person of curious moods. All the enthusiasm of yesterday seemed to have vanished, and even his memory of his own letter seemed defective. Crook wondered how best he might bring the conversation to the matter of the Tokay. As yet nothing had been said about dinner — a thing which might give opportunities.

  The grey man was gone for some little time, and returned at last with a more composed countenance.

  “It was the cat,” he said, “as I supposed. You were saying — something — oh yes, something about my copies. Well now, I think we shall find them somewhere in the drawing-room — or what would be the drawing-room, if I kept such a place. Will you come? Perhaps you will bring the — the specimen with you.”

  He took up the lamp once more, and Crook followed him with the old kakemono. The drawing-room was large, and far fuller of everything — furniture, pictures, china, bronzes — than the dining-room. The grey man turned to a large cabinet, and pulled open its doors.

  “Unlocked, fortunately,” he said. “As a matter of fact I was having a little hunt for my keys when you arrived, and I am particularly anxious to find them soon, for other reasons. Here are the — well, the specimens, you know.”

  The cabinet drawers were full of rolled pictures, Chinese and Japanese, and the grey man wandered among them, unrolling first one and then another, but never coming upon anything that might be considered a copy of Mokkei.

  “I am afraid my things are in sad confusion,” he said. “Though, of course, this is nothing to the confusion I should suffer from if I kept more servants. I find it a great advantage to keep the establishment so low that they have barely time to do the necessary work of the household, without interfering with my beloved litter. But the windows are a sad affliction to my excellent housekeeper! You noticed the windows? Of course you did — everybody does. By the by, speaking of my housekeeper, if you will pardon me once more, I should much like to see how the worthy soul is getting on. She has these little attacks sometimes, but she usually recovers before long. Do you mind? Perhaps you can amuse yourself with the — specimens till I return.”

  He was gone a little longer this time. The carpets were soft, but Crook’s ears were sharp, and he fancied that his host had gone no farther than to a door a few yards away.

  As Crook sat and waited in the dimly-lit room, a large black cat came purring in at the door, stared at him full-eyed for some few moments, and then retreated behind a pile of portfolios. Just then there was a sound from some neighbouring room — slight, but noticeable in that still house. It might have been the sound of a breaking stick.

  Almost immediately the smiling grey man came back.

  “I really must beg a thousand pardons,” he said. “But you understand my awkward situation, don’t you? The poor old soul is a little better, but still far from well. You didn’t hear any unusual noise, did you?”

  Crook was beginning to answer when a shadow crossed the door-opening at the grey man’s side, and he turned with a gasp of terror.

  “What — what’s that?” he exclaimed, almost in a whisper. “The cat — it is the cat!”

  And, indeed, it was the cat, which, encouraged to emerge from its retreat by his more familiar presence, had approached him from behind. The grey man seized one of the precious rolls of painted silk and struck savagely at the creature, which dodged and turned and sprang off into the dark corridor. The grey man turned to Crook again.

  “I am growing sadly nervous of late,” he said, “and a very little thing affect me. You must forgive my little eccentricities. I was speaking of my housekeeper — the good soul insisted that something must be done to offer you refreshment. I have to ask your pardon for so many things to-night that I am sure you will overlook any shortcomings in this respect. There is a cold fowl in the larder, and if you will return to the dining-room I think I will do myself the pleasure of acting host and waiter together.”

  It seemed that this odd person had already ceased to be interested in the painting which Crook had brought, so now nothing remained but to approach the matter of the Tokay, just as dinner might give the opportunity. So Crook made the feeblest possible protest that common politeness would permit, and followed his host back into the dining-room.

  There he sat in the brilliant light of the many candles while the grey man carried the lamp to and fro between dining-room and kitchen, and so set before him the materials of a very decent cold dinner.

  “As to wine now,” asked the grey man presently, “what are your preferences? I think I can give you almost anything you may fancy, including some exceptionally rare vintages. I do not collect wines with the same assiduity which I devote to other things, but I have had some pieces of luck now and again.”

  Here was an opportunity. “Yes,” assented Crook, “I heard of one such piece of luck when I was told of your liking for oriental art. They told me that you bought a kakemono at Lawson’s the other day, and at the same sale were lucky enough to secure one magnum of very old Imperial Tokay.”

  “Ah, yes — the Tokay!” The grey man’s eyes lighted up as from the sudden suggestion of a valuable idea. “The Tokay! How lucky you should remind me. We will open it, Mr. Crook. Come, I will bring it at once!”

  Here was another curious thing. This connoisseur of Eastern art, yesterday learned and enthusiastic on the subject of ancient Chinese paintings and to-day almost ignorant of them, careful even to avoid their very names, was now betraying a curious ignorance as a connoisseur of wines. For who would think of drinking old Imperial Tokay with his food, instead of after? But Brook had his object to gain, and was not disposed to be critical.

  Presently his new acquaintance returned with the magnum — not carrying it tenderly at a proper slope, as one who understood wines, but grasping it upright by the neck.

  “Here it is,” he said, putting it down on the table with a
jar that would have torn the nerves of a true judge of old wines; “and since it pleases you, I am sorry I did not get more, for it was quite cheap.”

  He took a corkscrew from the sideboard, and essayed to open the bottle. But now Crook was surprised to perceive that his hands, steady enough for less exact work, were trembling so that he stabbed seal and corkscrew together half-a-dozen times without hitting the centre.

  “Let me try,” suggested Crook, jumping at the opportunity. “My hands are particularly steady, and an old wine like this needs especially careful handling.”

  His host yielded bottle and corkscrew gladly, and crook saw that the seal was old and dirty and quite unbroken. He screwed and pulled the tender old cork with the greatest care, and just managed to fetch it away entire, though crumbling.

  “Such an old cork needs a very steady hand,” Crook said. “Have you some spare decanters?”

  Decanters were found, and here, in far different circumstances, Crook began to repeat his performance of two nights ago in Norie’s studio. He turned his back towards where the grey man was sitting, lifted the magnum to the light, and poured slowly.

  The decanters were fairly large, and two sufficed to hold the contents of the magnum. Steadily, slowly, Crook filled the first, and saw no sign of the great jewel that was leading his quest. Slowly and steadily he filled the second, watching and watching, and no Green Eye came to the neck. The matter was settled. The Green Eye of Goona was not in Mr. Clifton’s magnum.

  Crook put the second decanter on the table, and turned to make the best of his dinner. He found a large hock glass by his plate, and no other.

  “This is indeed a generous glass for Tokay,” he said, and half filled it.

  Indeed the wine was far too sweet for a dinner wine, but Crook made the best of it. Surely no man would be so ungracious as to grumble at this lavish use of so noble and rare a liquor in his honour, and Crook, his turn served and his work done, applied himself to the meal. His freakish host was agreeable and sedulous, though through it and with it all Crook felt the discomfort of some off prepossession, some inexplicable constraint. Truly this was an odd fellow, and for all his politeness, in some strange way not altogether an agreeable fellow.

  “Bless me!” he exclaimed presently, “I thought I had remembered everything, but I observe I have forgotten the cheese. Odd I should have forgotten the cheese! I have a Stilton of which I really think you will approve.” He rose and turned about, and then added suddenly, “No, no, I am wrong — here it is on the console table. Come, I hope you will like the Stilton. Meantime, as I do not take cheese, is it asking too much to beg you to excuse me once more? I am really anxious about that good soul, my housekeeper. Pray do not spare the wine.”

  Again Crook was left alone, and he turned to the cheese, which was, in fact, excellent. The house was still — curiously still. But as he sat he presently heard again that same slight cracking noise, as of a stick or some wooden thing broken and splintered, away in some far room, behind thick doors and curtains. And in a few minutes more the sound was repeated.

  Harvey Crook sat in solitude, sipping his wine and listening for the return of his host. But the silence of that strange house was unbroken. Once he fancied he heard a slight creak from the outer gate — possible caused by the wind.

  Presently the black cat came in, cautiously, tentatively, waiting for a moment to gaze hard at him from the door, and so judge of what reception to expect. Crook took a fragment from his plate to tempt the animal, and it came, cautiously still, stood a yard away, and mewed. Crook dropped the fragment, and the cat ate it and came closer.

  Still he sat solitary, and there was no sound from end to end of the house. Some of the candles began to gutter down, and he rose and blew these out. The cat followed him.

  It began to grow late. What should he do? Politeness dictated that he should wait for his host, but everything earthly has its limit. He stood and looked at a picture on the wall, and the cat rubbed against his legs, purring.

  The picture hung on the wall opposite the door, which stood ajar. Crook fancied some cold waft of wind from without, walked to the door, opened it, and peered into the dark beyond. The cat came after him again, purring.

  The house beyond the dining-room was black and silent, but a cool fresh wind came along the corridor as though an outer door were open. Should he do anything to remind his host of his presence? If the housekeeper were worse, perhaps he might be of use, to call a doctor, or the like. He ventured a loud cough.

  The sound went through the house with startling clearness, and through the tense quiet a dozen tiny echoes came whispering back. But that was all.

  He stepped into the corridor, and pronounced aloud the name of the master of the house; and again there was no answer but the whispering echoes.

  He returned to the dining-room and took a candle from the mantelpiece. Right or wrong, he would see what this thing meant.

  Candle in hand, he strode along the corridor, the cat trotting at his heels. As he came into the hall, his light met a gust of air which nearly blew it out. The front door was open!

  He pushed it to, stood by the stair-foot and called aloud, “Mr. Clifton! Mr. Clifton!” And again the house gave back no living voice.

  Behind the main staircase a smaller staircase descended, half hidden by a curtain which seemed to have lately been partly torn from its rings. The torn curtain thus having taken his eye, Crook stepped toward it and descended the stairs.

  It was a short flight, for the basement floor was low-ceiled. At the bottom he could see the kitchen door, half shut, and jammed against some indistinct object — a bundle of clothes, perhaps — on the floor.

  Crook held the light aloft and pushed the door wide open, and there lay the bundle of clothes — a woman; a stout, neatly-dressed woman with her head beaten out of human recognition!

  What was this — the housekeeper? The housekeeper of whose welfare her master had been so solicitous? The cat looked up from between Crook’s legs and mewed plaintively.

  He turned and dashed up the stairs, for it came on him overwhelmingly that this was not the bottom of the mystery. He pushed open one door and another, and found all dark and silent. Then a third, and light streamed out — lamplight and firelight: the library.

  Books — the books were everywhere, from floor to ceiling and over the floor. But to Harvey Crook’s eyes the room seemed even less full of books than of blood — dripping, sticking, smeared, and ghastly. And in the midst of it all, lolling horribly in a chair, from which only the table’s edge kept him from sliding, was a man, a handsome, white-haired old man, dabbled and terrible, with his head back, and a fearful gash across his throat.

  A small safe, let into the wall, was standing open, and the little iron drawers from within it were tumbled on the floor. Across the room stood a writing-table, of which all the drawers but two had been forced open; and, as he saw this, Crook remembered the cracking noises he had heard, and remembered how the grey man had complained of the loss of his keys. While here, he knew now, lay Mr. Basil Clifton, dead in his blood, while he, Crook, had been sitting at table with his murderer!

  Harvey Crook ran out at the front door, and beat at the knockers of the villas opposite. What followed he never afterwards remembered with much distinctness. Women fainted, men were white in the face, and after a time there was a returning servant girl, hysterical and screaming. Then the police came, and he was told that for the present he must consider himself in custody; and that cleared his faculties. Harvey Crook’s arrest was not a long one, and after certain explanations and an hour or two’s detention he was allowed to return to his hotel, though he had more than a suspicion that he was still under observation. But at the inquest the whole matter was made plain, partly by the testimony of the housemaid, partly by other evidence. The vanished murderer was one James Pritchard, a friend of Mr. Clifton’s in early youth. In middle life affairs had gone ill with him, he had made efforts to repair them in which the practice of f
orgery was involved, and penal servitude was his punishment. Mr. Clifton had strongly upheld his innocence, and, now that he was released, had begun to employ him temporarily to catalogue his library, while some more permanent employment might be looked for; and this was the end of it all. The ungrateful wretch had murdered his benefactor and the housekeeper, the only other person in the place, for the sake of whatever he might find in the safe.

  It was not so very much, after all — sixty or seventy pounds in notes and gold, so far as could be ascertained. It became plain that the crime must have been committed just before Harvey Crook’s arrival, and that it was only on turning over his victim’s paper that the murderer learned that Crook was expected, and became acquainted with the reason of his call. Before he cold find the keys with which the safe might be opened Crook arrived, and in order to gain time to gather his plunder unmolested, Pritchard had adopted the expedient of himself posing as Mr. Clifton. Harvey Crook was young, strong, and alert, or possibly the wretch might have made a further attempt on him. As it was he contrived to escape from his guest’s company from time to time, break open the drawers of the writing-table till he had found the safe keys, and at last decamp with what plunder he could secure. It turned out, afterward, that the keys which would have enabled him to open the writing-table without trouble were in a pocket of a waistcoat of Mr. Clifton’s hanging under a heap of other clothes in a press in his dressing-room.

  So much Harvey Crook learned, with the rest of the world, at the inquest. But he had not learned all, nor even all that concerned himself and his search.

  THE STEWARD’S MAGNUM — AND ANOTHER