Mr. Chitterwick had almost regained control of himself. His agitation was beginning at last to give way to a modest pride in the tempered steel of his will, coupled with gratitude to the late Mr. Longfellow. “A whooping billow swept the crew like icicles from her deck . . .” In utter bravado slackening the tempo as stanza rolled smoothly after stanza, Mr. Chitterwick swung to the end of the poem, his eyes riveted to the symbolic wreath in front of him, his lips moving devoutly as if in inaudible prayer.
“A death like this, on the reef of Norman’s Woe!” concluded Mr. Chitterwick raptly. And then, because he had so successfully and so long resisted temptation, he felt himself entitled to the reward of one flickering glimpse of his right front.
Mr. Longfellow had won again. The red-haired man was listening politely to his companion’s words. His face was innocent of all malignity. Mr. Chitterwick was not only forgiven but, apparently, forgotten.
That miscreant celebrated his relief by prolonging his flickering glimpse into something not at all unlike his recent steady stare. But really when a man has been registering malignity at you for something like ten solid minutes, the least one can do for one’s self-respect is something he doesn’t like. Not that Mr. Chitterwick put it that way to himself, or any other way; it was simply that his interest in the couple had been rather stimulated than crushed by the resentment of the old lady’s companion.
Guardedly Mr. Chitterwick studied him, ready to look innocently away in a flash should the red-haired man’s head turn ever so slightly in his direction. Obviously his first assumption had been right: the man must be some relation to the old lady. And quite a close one too; for the latter’s most striking feature, her nose, aquiline to the verge of beakiness, was reproduced no less strikingly in her companion. It was evidently a family feature, decided Mr. Chitterwick; and he set them down tentatively as aunt and nephew. It was a pity, but she must be an aunt after all.
She was behaving too in a more aunt-like manner now. Not only was she doing all the talking, but she was doing it angrily, almost furiously. The young man too, instead of listening with the correct deference of a nephew towards an aunt from whom he has expectations, was answering her just as irately. Evidently the makings of a very pretty little quarrel were brewing up.
But why were they meeting in the Piccadilly Palace? That was the really curious thing. Neither of them was of the type or class that does so. Not in order to quarrel in public, surely. Mr. Chitterwick found this one of the most interesting problems they presented, and it left him at a complete loss.
“Dear me,” he thought, “this is getting quite serious. I do believe he’s being positively rude to her. The poor old lady’s quite white with rage. What can it be about? And yet they manage to talk only in undertones. Dear me, dear me.”
He started slightly. The red-haired man had moved his head. But it was not in Mr. Chitterwick’s direction. He was calling his aunt’s attention, more amicably, to something on the other side of the room. She had to turn completely away from the little table in front of them, on which was the coffee tray that the man had ordered on his first entrance, in order to see whatever it might be. As she did so Mr. Chitterwick noticed that her companion’s hand hovered for a moment over her cup, but the incident was only vaguely recorded in his mind. Then the two turned back again, and Mr. Chitterwick received the red-haired man’s glare full in the eyes. If it had been malignant before, there is no word to express what it was now. Evidently the red-haired man was quite overwhelmingly angry with Mr. Chitterwick.
Startled, Mr. Chitterwick looked away with guilty haste, and became aware of a waitress approaching him. “Excuse me, sir,” said the waitress, “you’re wanted on the telephone.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you,” said Mr. Chitterwick gratefully, and made a relieved escape. It was not until he was outside the lounge that it occurred to him to be surprised that anyone should know that he was in the Piccadilly Palace at all. Certainly his aunt did not, and there was, practically speaking, no one else. With some trepidation he began his quest for the telephone.
The telephone room at the Piccadilly Palace is not easy for a stranger to come upon. It is tucked away at the end of a short passage, on a floor that is neither ground nor first, but some hybrid between the two, bearing a strange name. It took Mr. Chitterwick some minutes to discover it, and then the young woman behind the counter did not seem to know anything about a call for him. She advised him to try the bureau.
The bureau had no telephone call awaiting Mr. Chitterwick. The young woman there suggested that it might be a message, and advised him to try the message department. He tried the message department, without result. He also tried the hall porter, and several other equally unhelpful functionaries. Just as he was turning back to the lounge in despair he became aware of the waitress in question about to cross his path.
“Get your call?” asked the waitress pleasantly, evidently recognizing him.
“They can’t even trace it,” Mr. Chitterwick told her.
“Aren’t you Number 473?” asked the waitress without emotion.
Mr. Chitterwick assured her that he was not Number 473.
“Well, there now,” said the waitress. “I made sure you were. As like him as two peas, you are.”
Mr. Chitterwick accepted this apology in place of a better one and turned toward the cloakroom.
“Excuse me, have you paid for what you had?” inquired the waitress tartly.
Mr. Chitterwick blushed warmly and asked what he owed.
“I couldn’t tell you, I’m sure,” said the waitress. “You must ask your waitress.”
Wrapped in confusion, Mr. Chitterwick slunk back to his table. His own waitress, needless to say, was nowhere in sight.
Mr. Chitterwick was so overcome for the moment that he scarcely noticed that the red-haired man had gone during his absence—which, glancing at the clock, he was surprised to see had lasted not much short of a quarter of an hour. The place had thinned out considerably by now, and there was actually nobody at all at any of the two or three tables which separated Mr. Chitterwick from the old lady, who still remained. When the fact of the red-haired man’s absence finally sunk into his mind, he ventured to look at her more closely.
She was leaning back in her chair, her head against the pillar behind it, apparently asleep. Her mouth was slightly open, and she looked as if at any moment she might be expected to snore.
Mr. Chitterwick was both distressed and disappointed. The sight of another person asleep in a public place is always vaguely disquieting, but this lady should have been the last person one would expect to be guilty of such a social misdemeanour. And she was snoring! No doubt of it. Across the twenty-five feet that separated them Mr. Chitterwick could hear her snores coming now in raucous waves. It was all most disturbing.
What was really worrying Mr. Chitterwick was the thought of the shame and distress which the old lady herself would feel if she realized what she was doing. It would be most awkward. Already the few heads left in the immediate neighbourhood were beginning to turn her way. Titterings and sniggers reached Mr. Chitterwick’s ears, and he wriggled uncomfortably. It was quite absurd, of course, but in some way he felt responsible for the old lady. Somebody certainly ought to wake her up and stop her from making any further exhibition of herself. But who? It seemed there was nobody but Mr. Chitterwick himself.
He spent a few minutes trying to nerve himself to action and doing his utmost to find a reasonable excuse. Of course there was no waitress in sight to help him out. Finally he decided to tap the old lady lightly on the shoulder and offer her her bag, saying that it had dropped on to the floor. That would be a hint of reproof, and not too strong. Disliking his self-imposed task extremely he rose to perform it.
It seemed to Mr. Chitterwick as he did so that the old lady’s snores had quietened a little. As he made his reluctant way toward her, he was sure of it. By the ti
me he reached her side she was not snoring at all. But from her attitude it was plain that she was profoundly sunk in sleep. She was lolling in her chair—simply lolling; there was no other word for it.
Conscious of a score of eyes upon him, Mr. Chitterwick nervously tapped her shoulder. Nothing happened. He tapped again. No response. And then Mr. Chitterwick, writhing under the amused glances he could feel on him from all directions, lost his nerve. He laid rude hands on the old lady and shook her.
The result was unexpected. Her head sagged over on to her shoulder at an unnatural angle, her hands fell from her lap to her sides, she seemed to sink in on herself in the chair. Forgetting all about the eyes on him, Mr. Chitterwick, thoroughly alarmed now, bent over her and gently lifted her head.
One glance at her not quite closed eyes was enough for him; that, and the strong smell of almonds which arose from her. The old lady was dead—had died under his very eyes.
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1 As set forth in The Poisoned Chocolates Case.
II
DIRECT EVIDENCE
Afterward Mr. Chitterwick was always inclined to congratulate himself modestly on the course he pursued immediately following upon his tragic discovery. Instead of rushing off in a panic to give the alarm to all within hearing, he simply seated himself with outward calmness beside the body (though his heart was thumping like a steam engine and he felt decidedly sick), and beat with a spoon on the one empty coffee cup that still stood on the table in front of the old lady. The only coherent thoughts in his mind were that there must be no fuss and that the body must not be touched till the police had seen it.
The unprecedented noise Mr. Chitterwick was making brought a waitress at once, haughty and outraged. Mr. Chitterwick, however, had no time to consider her feelings. “Will you ask the manager to come to me for a moment, please?” he said, before she could voice her displeasure.
“If you’d asked me for your bill,” said the waitress, taken aback, “I’m sure I——”
“It’s nothing to do with my bill,” interrupted Mr. Chitterwick quite brusquely. “Go and get the manager, please.”
The waitress withdrew. In her place arrived the head waiter.
“I’m afraid,” he began suavely, “that the manager can hardly——”
“The manager must come here,” broke in Mr. Chitterwick with agitation. “This minute!”
The head waiter was unperturbed. “If you would be good enough to let me deal with your complaint, sir, I can assure you——”
“Go and get the manager,” squeaked Mr. Chitterwick.
The head waiter withdrew. After a very long time there came an exquisite young man, who looked disapprovingly upon Mr. Chitterwick.
“Are you the manager?” Mr. Chitterwick fumed, with the anger of sheer nerves.
“The manager is engaged,” said the exquisite young man coldly. “If you will kindly state your business——”
“State my business? Good heavens, this is a matter of life and death.”
“If the lady has been taken ill . . .” said the young man with indifference. “There is a doctor resident in the hotel,” he added by way of an afterthought.
Mr. Chitterwick rose and faced him. “Then get the doctor as well as the manager,” he said very quickly. “This lady is dead.”
The young man went quickly.
This time the manager did come.
He was an intelligent man and grasped the situation at once. Mr. Chitterwick briefly explained to him and the doctor that he had seen the old lady apparently snoring, gone over to wake her up, and discovered that she was dead. The manager nodded, waved his hand to somebody in the distance, and as if by magic a barricade of screens sprang up round the spot. Under their cover the doctor made a hasty examination, but without touching the body more than was absolutely necessary.
“Yes, she’s dead,” he confirmed. “And I’d almost swear she’s taken prussic acid, or something very like it. Yes—look! Isn’t that a phial in her hand?”
In one of the dead woman’s hands the top of a small bottle was visible. The doctor bent over the coffee cup on the table and sniffed at it.
“Prussic acid, right enough,” he pronounced. “She took it in her coffee.”
“Suicide?” asked the manager laconically.
“Looks like it,” agreed the doctor.
Mr. Chitterwick put in a word. “But you’ll send for the police, of course?”
The manager, a small, stout Frenchman, who spoke English almost without an accent, informed him that he had given orders for this to be done before he left his office.
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Chitterwick. “Still, I think, if you don’t mind——”
“Yes?” said the manager.
“Chief Inspector Moresby, of Scotland Yard. I know him slightly. I think I’ll give him a ring.”
“Oh, the divisional police will do,” said the doctor. “Scotland Yard won’t want to be bothered with a suicide.”
“No, of course,” Mr. Chitterwick agreed. “But then, you see, is it suicide?” And he went.
Fortunately Chief Inspector Moresby was in his room when Mr. Chitterwick got through to Scotland Yard.
“Mr. Chitterwick?” he said, in his jovial voice. “Yes, of course I remember you. Friend of Mr. Sheringham’s, aren’t you?”
“I’m speaking from the Piccadilly Palace Hotel,” twittered Mr. Chitterwick. “A terrible thing has happened here. Terrible! Actually before my very eyes.” Somewhat incoherently Mr. Chitterwick repeated his account of the unknown lady’s death and added the doctor’s conclusion. “So I thought that perhaps if you’d care to come along, Chief Inspector . . . Quite informally, even, if it was outside your routine . . .”
Chief Inspector Moresby hedged. “Oh, I think you’ll find the divisional inspector will be able to do everything necessary, Mr. Chitterwick, sir.”
“Yes, but I thought . . . that is to say, I don’t wish to make a personal matter of it, of course, but I am in a terribly responsible position and what I really meant . . .” When Mr. Chitterwick was agitated, he had a habit of leaving his sentences unfinished, but his meaning was usually clear enough.
“Very upsetting for you, of course, sir,” agreed the chief inspector, with genial sympathy. “But you mustn’t exaggerate the responsibility, you know. Bless you, sir, people are killing ’emselves off by dozens every day. These things happen more often than you think. ’Course, it isn’t often that someone actually sees ’em do it, as I gather you did, but——”
“No, I didn’t! I didn’t!” squeaked Mr. Chitterwick. “That’s just the point. I saw her—must have seen her die, poor woman, but not . . . You see, I’m not at all sure that she really did . . . Dear me, this is a terrible responsibility, Chief Inspector.”
Chief Inspector Moresby became suddenly very official. From the change in his voice one would have said that a different person had taken his place at the other end of the wire. “One moment, sir. Let me get this clear. Do you wish me to understand that you have certain evidence which you wish to put before me personally? To consult me privately as to its importance, so to speak?”
“Oh, thank you, Chief Inspector, yes,” said Mr. Chitterwick with much gratitude. “But not exactly evidence. Just something I saw. At least, I’m not quite sure whether I really . . . Still, I suppose, yes, you might call it . . . That is, if I really did see what I . . .”
“I’ll be round in fifteen minutes, sir.” Moresby put a brisk end to Mr. Chitterwick’s agitated babble.
“Please meet me in the main entrance. No need to inform anyone I’m coming.” He rang off.
It is difficult to say at what precise moment since the old lady’s death there had presented itself in Mr. Chitterwick’s consciousness the vague picture of that hand hovering over her coffee cup. At first, not questioning that she had taken poison o
f her own accord, it had conveyed nothing to him. Then as the first shock of the death wore away, it was allied with the red-haired man’s general air of malignancy as an unimportant part of a sinister whole. Finally it stood out alone in all its horrid suggestiveness. All that can be said definitely is that the possibility of vital importance had occurred to Mr. Chitterwick at any rate some minutes before the arrival of the manager and the doctor, and it was this realization which had made him so anxious that the body should not be disturbed before the police had seen it. The same anxiety now drove him back to the lounge instead of waiting for Moresby in the vestibule. His fears were groundless. The body still lay as he had left it.
Only the doctor was with it now, awaiting the police. Such a minor matter as the suicide of a lounge patron could not be allowed to keep the great M. Jacquinot from more important affairs. He would not even return when the police arrived. The police, if they wished to see him, would do so in his own office. M. Jacquinot was not only a great man, but he knew it.
Only two further facts had emerged during Mr. Chitterwick’s absence: it had been definitely ascertained that the dead woman was not staying in the hotel, and that she was not a regular client of the lounge. The man whose business it was to remember every face that passed through the swing doors of the latter had never seen her before that afternoon.
Mr. Chitterwick hovered a few minutes in disjointed conversation with the doctor. Then he glanced at his watch. Moresby was not due for nearly ten minutes, but Mr. Chitterwick wanted to be out of the way when the divisional police arrived; otherwise, he suspected, he might be detained and have some difficulty in getting away. He made a vague excuse to the doctor and escaped.
The Piccadilly Murder Page 2