Danger Calling

by Patricia Wentworth

  Restow stood still, looking into the fire-shot dusk of the sitting-room. Even with the lighted room behind him, he must surely be able to distinguish Lindsay’s seated figure. Lindsay looked back at him between half closed lids. He remembered a picture of the Minotaur—a lowering beast-headed hulk leaning on the battlements of his rude Cretan tower. Restow, standing there, reminded him of this picture. Was Restow a modern Minotaur, taking toll of men, as the Cretan monster had taken his toll and tribute three thousand years before Christ? The thought ran like a blood-red thread through the long silent moments during which there was neither movement nor sound in the dark or in the lighted room. Then a log toppled and fell outwards upon the hearth. A flame sprang up from it, filling the room with a red light as clear, though not as bright, as day. Restow crossed the floor with two of his great strides and set a hand on Lindsay’s shoulder. Had he come to see if his work had been done? Had he seen the Karaits? Had he—

  Lindsay forced himself to the lax stillness of sleep. The hand on his shoulder rested lightly there, and went to his wrist and clasped it with a gentle pressure, the fingers feeling for the pulse. Lindsay experienced the strangest sensations. This contact, instead of alarming, reassured him. He was aware of concern—anxiety—and a great rush of friendliness coming from Restow. Was this the Vulture? Was it possible for any man so to act a part as to produce impressions so completely at variance with his real nature? He could not answer these questions. The groping fingers found and pressed the pulse in his wrist. It was time to awake. Lindsay flung out an arm and sat up with a choking cry of,

  “What’s up?”

  “By Jing!” said Algerius Restow in a loud surprised voice. “By Jing!” he repeated and stepped back. Then without another word he strode across to the door and switched on the overhead light. He was revealed in crimson silk pyjamas and an emerald and blue shot dressing-gown. Lindsay blinked, yawned, and said sleepily,

  “Is anything the matter? Do you want me?”

  “By Jing!” said Restow again. “Do I want you? Aha! Do I want you, my Fothering? You ask me that!”

  “Well—yes, sir—do you?” He had got out of his chair now and stood beside it.

  “You do not sleep in your bed?” said Restow.

  “Well, I must have fallen asleep in here.”

  “By Jing, yes! But why? I ask you that like a damfool idiot, because if I ask you, you will not tell me the truth. People who shove their noses in, asking damfool questions, get told lies, my Fothering—yes, by Jing—but sometimes the lies are damfool too. Have you thought of that?”

  “I don’t think I know what you mean, sir.”

  “My poor Fothering—are you then a half-wit? I have not thought so, though sometimes you would like it if I thought so—but no—I have had another thought— Aré! Yes!”

  His brows drew together. His little pig eyes looked shrewdly out from under them.

  Lindsay assumed a muddled stare and struggled not too successfully with a yawn. He had been wanting to yawn all night.

  With a gesture of impatience that was purely Latin, Restow swung round.

  “Come into your bedroom, my Fothering, and I will tell you why you sleep in a chair and make me think I may want my secretary and he will not come again whether I want him or not.”

  He went through the connecting door and Lindsay after him. The bed stood stripped, a pair of shoes lay widely separated upon the floor, and, stretched side by side on a sheet of newspaper between the windows, lay the corpses of two karaits.

  Restow waved a magnificent arm.

  “In the morning Gloria will want to know why you have killed her snakes,” he observed.

  “Er—I’m sorry—”

  “Nicht!” said Restow emphatically. “What a liar you are, my poor Fothering, and what a fool you think me to imagine that I believe you are sorry that you have killed the snakes instead of the snakes killing you! Now I will tell you why I am here. I have seen Robert talking to you in the hall when you come in, very quietly. Robert has a red face, he blushes like nowadays the young girls do not blush any more. It is a pity. A blush is a very beautiful thing—hein? and sometimes it is also a very useful thing. I find Robert’s blush not beautiful—no, but very useful. I send for him. He blushes again. I ask him what he has said to you. He blushes like ten virgins—all foolish. I go on asking. He tells me at last that he has seen Ibrahim, whom he calls Abraham out of the Bible, coming out of your room. Well, I go to bed. I do not think of it—much. I sleep. Gloria sleeps. Then I wake—I cannot sleep again. I stay awake, and something says to me, ‘Go and see what is happening in your Fothering’s room.’ So I come. The door is not locked. I enter. I listen. I do not hear you breathe. Then the fire shoots, and I see the bed empty—stripped. I put on the light, and I see two of Gloria’s snakes, quite dead, laid out very neat and tidy upon newspaper. Then I wonder whether you have killed them quick enough—karait is very quick, very slippy and nippy. I begin to be afraid and when I stand in the door and see you quite still-quite silent—quite as if you too were dead—then I am afraid. Yes, by Jing, I am afraid!” He paused, looked hard at Lindsay, and said in the same soft voice, “You do not believe me?”

  The odd thing was that Lindsay did believe him. Against reason, against experience, he believed that Restow, standing in that doorway and looking in on a fire-lit room, had been very much afraid. He had felt Restow’s fear. It had come throbbing towards him through the silence. He had felt Restow’s fear, and he had felt Restow’s relief; but at what lay behind them he could only guess.

  Restow stooped and bundled the snakes into a rough parcel with the newspaper, then carried the parcel into the sitting-room and dropped it on the still blazing fire, holding it there with the poker until the room was full of an acrid smell and the floating black ash came quivering down upon the red embers beneath.

  Then he spoke over his shoulder.

  “Who are you, my friend?” he said.

  CHAPTER XXXVII

  “WHO ARE YOU, MY friend?”

  Restow asked the question with no more than a casual turn of the head, yet Lindsay was aware of something shrewd in the sudden glance. He had no time to consider, and no need, for Restow straightened himself, laughing.

  “For how long do you think I took you for Fothering? Fothering!” He shook with his soft laughter. “Bah, my friend! When you went to steal Fothering’s name, that was very poor trash indeed—such poor trash that I say to myself, ‘Why—a thousand times why?’ Yes, I ask myself why—and now I ask you.”

  Lindsay contrived a puzzled expression.

  Restow laughed again.

  “My dear friend,” he said, “if someone shows you a line of French and tries to persuade you that it is Latin, he will lose his time—hein? That is because you learned Latin and French in your public school. My school, it was the streets of all the big cities in Europe, and I learned there to know men—therefore you cannot deceive me. You have Fothering’s face, but you have not Fothering’s mind. Just for five minutes, when you first arrive, you are Fothering; but after that—no—by Jing, no—you are not Fothering any more, and I ask myself who are you, and why are you here? And I think you are from Drayton, or you are from the police, but I am not sure. If you are from Drayton, then it is very serious. It may be that he no longer needs me. I have been useful—a screen, a camouflage, a shelter—but it may be that I am no longer necessary. I am perhaps an old glove. And the old gloves of Drayton—something happens to them very quick—by Jing, yes—dam quick! Yes, I begin to think that I am an old glove.”

  “And then?” said Lindsay in his natural voice.

  Restow laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “Then I see behind Fothering’s face someone whom I like very much. Funny that—hein? I see behind Fothering’s face a friend. I know very well that you are not from Drayton. I feel you are a friend—I talk to you—I tell you of Gloria. Aré!
Do you think I would tell what is in my heart to someone whom I do not trust? No, by Jing! What I learnt in my school, that I know!” He paused and dropped his hand. “You have lied to me, and you have come into my house with a false name—and I trust you so much that now, at this moment, I am putting my life into your hands, and more than my life—but you do not trust me.”

  Lindsay felt oddly touched. Restow had spoken with a simplicity which he found touching. He said quietly and deliberately,

  “You’re wrong. I propose that we should both put our cards on the table.”

  Restow caught him by the arms and swung him to and fro, laughing like a great boy.

  “Aha! Aha! By Jing, yes! And what are your cards, my Fothering? No, you are not Fothering—by Jing, no! And what do I call you—hein?”

  “I think you had better go on calling me Fothering.”

  Restow nodded, tossing his head back and jerking it forward.

  “Yes, yes—Fothering. By Jing, what a likeness!”

  Lindsay felt himself flushing. Even now he resented the fact that he was like Froth—Froth.

  “Aha! You do not like that—you do not love Fothering! Is he your brother?”

  “No—only a cousin. And I am not really so very like him when my hair is not red and my eyebrows are their proper shape.”

  “He has them plucked! Aré! Like a young lady!” Restow laughed again. “Now come—come—cornel Show me these cards of yours—spill out this what Shakespeare calls ‘perilous stuff’—hein? Get it off the chest—he says bosom—but it is all the same meaning as when Gloria says ‘spill it.’”

  Lindsay spilled it. He did not mention Garratt or Mr Benbow Collingwood Horatio Smith; he did not in fact mention any names but those already known to Restow.

  The big man listened intently, frowning here, laughing there, gesticulating angrily, his expression changing from one moment to another. He stood by the hearth, a towering figure in crimson emerald and blue. Like something out of the Arabian Nights, was Lindsay’s thought—a djinn who might at any moment expand and carry off the house and all its occupants on smoky sable wings.

  Lindsay leaned on the mantelshelf, one foot raised to the bright brass kerb, his eyes on Restow’s changing face. When he had finished, there was an unexpected silence.

  Into it Restow shot a question:

  “And the girl who faints when she sees you at the Luxe—what about her?”

  “She thought that I was dead.”

  “And you let her think that? You sacrifice the woman you love like that?”

  “She had broken off our engagement.” Lindsay found himself stammering a little. “She—I—”

  “And you let her think she had driven you to your death? By Jing, you are hard and cold, you English! Yes, by Jing! You put that burden on those delicate lady shoulders, and when it is lifted suddenly she faints and tells Drayton what he is wanting to know. I think till then you have deceived him enough to make him not sure—and he wants to be sure. Then when your Marian Rayne— Aha, yes, I have in formed myself about her name—when she faints—pft!—Drayton knows that you are not Fothering, and he sets the first snake on you. If you are bitten, it will be Gloria’s fault, because she loves snakes and everyone will say that if she have one snake in an hotel, she probably have a dozen and they walk about at night, or hop like fleas from room to room and from floor to floor, and what a shame it is these artists—with their temperament, and their snakes who bite people in a large, fine hotel like the Luxe. No one at all will think of Drayton—who is not even in Paris. Why should he?”

  “Was he in Paris?”

  Restow threw a sombre look upon him.

  “Yes—by Jing he was, but I cannot prove it. I cannot prove anything except the one thing that I will die to hide. Can you prove anything?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Not yet? Not ever! He is too cunning. He has defended himself with too many secrets. Once—twice—perhaps half a dozen times someone whom he has tormented too much has had the thought of giving proof against him to the police—and they have died very suddenly. Did you hear ever the name of Ferdinand Schreck? Aha, you did? He was the last, and he was shot with a policeman on this side of him and on that, and a policeman in front and another behind, and no one knows who fired the shot.” He paused, swung half round, bent forward, facing Lindsay. “Perhaps he listens now. Perhaps he aims now at me. Perhaps he shoots now before I can tell you what I know.”

  Lindsay looked involuntarily over his shoulder. Then he followed his glance, stood for an instant in the doorway between the two rooms, and came back to the hearth again.

  “Well, he is not in there,” he said with a laugh.

  Restow nodded.

  “No—not this time. Well, I will tell you—but it is not much—and you will have guessed some of it. He blackmails me, this devil—this Vulture who feeds on carrion.”

  “Drayton is the Vulture?” The words jumped to Lindsay’s lips.

  Restow flung up his hands.

  “If I could prove that! But no one can prove it. He is a devil. Let me go on—perhaps there is not very much time. Eight years ago Lewindorf dies, and this Drayton comes to me with papers to say he is the best librarian in the world, and I take him. I know now that he has stolen these papers, and that he comes to me because he has need of a place to hide and stay quiet whilst Europe is raked out for him. Well, I take him. He stays quiet—oh, very quiet indeed. I think he does a little quiet blackmail, but no big coup—no—every place is too hot for him. He leads the simple life. How touching! Then one day I find something out—a quite little thing, and I take notice. The more notice I take, the more I do not like my good Drayton. I send for him. I tell him so. I say, ‘You are dismissed.’ And he says—Ach, was!” The blood ran thick and dark to the roots of Restow’s hair. He turned away. His voice choked.

  Lindsay waited. He was not prepared for the fury with which Restow flung round again.

  “He blackmails me—me! He has found something—something that breaks my heart—something! Oh, my friend, it is Gloria that he threatens to torture, to drag before the public—to—to— Aré! Why do I tell you this? Can you understand that there may be a thing in her life? Ach ja! Think that she is left without parents, or friends, or home! Think of this! This Vulture battens on what he has found. He blackmails me. If it were me that he threatened, I would let him go to blazes—I do not care. But it is my Gloria, and I suffer anything rather than let him spit his poison in her face. I tell you, my friend, I have been in a pit of torment. This man makes my home his place of refuge—he hatches his plots here—he does his vile business here—and because of Gloria I cannot take him by the throat and choke him. He taunts me with that. On the next day after he dies he says all this that he knows will be in the hands of others who will deal with it more hardly than he has dealt. My hands are tied. By Jing, you think I am a fool! And I say, yes, I am a damfool—for Gloria—and a coward—for Gloria—and weak like a woman—for Gloria. And you are the first to whom I can speak and get it off my chest—yes, by Jing!”

  “What hold has he over Madame Gloria? Do you mind telling me?”

  “I will tell you anything,” said Restow. “It is a letter that he has—a letter that she has written when she was a young girl, very proud, very friendless. It is a letter to break the heart. If she ever knows that I have seen it—I who love her—it will be something that she cannot forget.”

  “She does not know?” Lindsay spoke in amazement.

  “No, she does not know. For that price I give this Drayton a den to hide in. If he were to tell her, I would care no longer—I would drive him out—and this he knows. For the rest—for this letter—I offer him to the half of what I have. But it is not for sale like that—he will not take money for it—it is to keep him a refuge—he will not part with it. What can I do?”

  Lindsay was silent.

&nbs
p; “What is there to do?” repeated Restow. “I ask myself that. Sometimes I think, like Hamlet, that it is better to take a whole sea of troubles into my arms and make an end of it. Hein? He said that, didn’t he?”

  Lindsay grinned.

  “Something like it,” he said.

  “What did he say?”

  “‘Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

  The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

  Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

  And by opposing end them.’”

  “By Jing—yes! He says that well, Hamlet! I find him very sympathetic—but not cheerful—no. Let us come back to your Marian Rayne. I have seen her. She is a young girl, well brought up, good, beautiful. What else is she?”

  “I think—Drayton’s stepdaughter. She broke off our engagement because she thought that she was his daughter.”

  “And the other girl, Elise—no, Elsie Mannings to whom Fothering used to write love-letters—or perhaps not love-letters—I do not know?”

  “She is Marian’s sister, and Drayton’s stepdaughter too. I do not know why he has pretended to be their father—a matter of bolstering up another identity, I imagine—but there it is. I believe Marian and Elsie are the daughters of a young American artist called Lee Abinger. Drayton married their mother when they were too young to remember anything about it. He was Manning then.”

  “By Jing he did!” He paused and laid a hand on Lindsay’s arm. “And do you think that they are safe, these two girls, who know that Drayton was once Manning? Do you think that they are safe?”

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  AT TEN NEXT MORNING Lindsay was called to the telephone. An apologetic lady enquired if she were speaking to Mr Restow’s secretary.

  “Oh—I am the secretary—the—er—honorary secretary of this branch of the S.P.C.A. and I want to know whether you think it would be possible to interest Mr Restow to the extent of obtaining a permanent subscription.”