Death-Watch

by John Dickson Carr

  He broke off to cough, and then his eyes widened. “Wait a bit! Boscombe! That Maurer. You’ve got it safe?”

  Boscombe tapped the brass box on the table. “Quite. Safe and sound in here. Er—have you had the pleasure of meeting our inquisitor, Carver? I confess I should rather like to meet him myself. We have been having a most interesting talk.”

  Again Carver woke up. “But, man, that’s Dr. Fell! Dr. Gideon Fell! How do you do, sir? Eleanor recognized him from a picture in a newspaper. Don’t you remember discussing his book on the history of the supernatural in English fiction? You disagreed with some of the points …” Again Carver’s ideas wandered, and he had to pull them together with an effort. “Show him the Maurer, Boscombe. He’ll be interested.”

  Boscombe was too reserved to start perceptibly, now that the little grey shell had been drawn over him. But he blinked his eyes.

  “This—this is unfortunate,” he said, with a jerk in his throat. “I must beg your pardon, sir. I had no idea … May I offer you something to drink? A brandy?”

  “Heh,” said Dr. Fell. “Heh-heh-heh. Let me introduce Professor Melson, who has the thankless task of editing Gilbert Burnet. A brandy? Why, I don’t mind if I do. Only don’t put nux vomica in it, please.”

  “Nux vomica?”

  “Isn’t that what it was?” Dr. Fell inquired, affably. “I saw you putting it into Stanley’s drink, you know. I rather wondered whether even a depraved taste for cocktails could go quite so far.”

  “I am afraid you see everything,” said Boscombe, coolly. “Yes. I fancied it would be best if Stanley, hum, withdrew for a while. A brandy, Dr. Melson?”

  The other shook his head. What made the whole thing so ugly was the contrast between these two, the mild-mannered clockmaker and the mild-mannered little student, and their attitude towards death.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Some other time.” He tried to force a smile. “I’m afraid my ancestral habits aren’t strong enough. I could never get used to drinking at a wake.”

  “It bothers you, then? And yet why should it?” asked Boscombe, lifting his upper lip slightly. “Consider my own case, for example. Dr. Fell assures me that I am in a very bad position. And yet—”

  Carver interrupted, in a heavy voice that was suddenly close to fright: “Do you seriously mean that somebody in this house is under suspicion of killing that—that poor devil?”

  “He wasn’t a poor devil,” said Dr. Fell. “He wasn’t a tramp, and he wasn’t a burglar. Have you looked at his hands? He came in quietly, and in shoes that would make no noise, but not to steal. He was intended to come in. That’s why the front door was unlocked and unchained for him.”

  “I tell you it’s impossible,” declared Carver. “The front door? No. I have a distinct recollection of locking and chaining that door myself, before I went to bed …”

  Dr. Fell nodded. “Yes. Now let’s get down to questioning. Do you usually lock up for the night?”

  “No. Mrs. Gorson does. But Thursday is her night off, you see. Usually she locks up at eleven-thirty, but—er—not on Thursdays. Obviously. She goes to visit some friends, I believe in a suburb,” explained Carver, hesitantly, as though he were describing some remote mysterious haunt. “And when she returns, rather late, she comes in through the area door below. Yes. I locked the door, as I distinctly remember, because Mrs. Steffins said she was tired and wished to turn in early, and would I lock up?”

  “And you locked the door … when?”

  “At ten o’clock. I remember, because I called out, Is everybody in?’ But I recalled seeing Miss Handreth’s light, and Mr. Boscombe coming upstairs earlier; Eleanor I knew was in, and Mr. Paull is away.”

  Dr. Fell scowled. “But you say the place is usually locked up at eleven-thirty. What if somebody gets home later than that? Aren’t there any latch-keys?”

  “Latch-keys? No. Mrs. Steffins says they are always getting lost, and dishonest people pick them up. Besides”—he tapped his forehead lightly, and the mild eyes showed a gleam of amusement—“she has the impression that all sorts of vice ensue when people are given a latch-key. ‘The devil’s tool,’ she calls it. This affords Miss Handreth much amusement. Miss Handreth is moving out at the end of the quarter … What was it? Oh yes. If people are late, they press Mrs. Gorson’s bell. We have a line of bells beside the door. And Mrs. Gorson gets up and opens the door. It is very simple.”

  “Very,” said Dr. Fell. “You didn’t know, then, that Mr. Stanley was in the house tonight when you locked up?”

  Carver frowned, and then blinked across at Boscombe.

  “Ha! That’s queer! I’d forgotten all about poor Stanley. He must have got here late … Yes! Don’t you remember, Boscombe? I came up and tapped at your door and asked for something to read in bed. You were sitting over there reading and smoking. And there was nobody else here. As a matter of fact, you showed me a sleeping-powder and said you were going to take it and go straight to bed. Ha!” exclaimed Carver, with a noisy breath of relief. He pointed a big finger at Dr. Fell. “There’s your explanation, my dear sir. Of course. Stanley got here late, rang Boscombe’s bell—why, it’s as plain as dammit!—Boscombe went down to let him in; forgot to relock the door; and this burglar sneaked in … Eh? Eh?”

  Dr. Fell seemed about to make a comment that would blast the roof; but he controlled his puffing, looked at Boscombe, and said, sourly:

  “Well?”

  “It is quite true, Doctor,” agreed Boscombe, with composure. “I am sorry it slipped my mind, ha-ha.” The timid malice f lashed a little. “An unpardonable oversight, but true. I was not expecting Stanley. When he arrived, I, unfortunately, left the front door ajar …”

  He paused as, clear in the night stillness, the humming of a car in the street roared up and stopped in a squeal of brakes. There were voices, and a trampling of feet up the front stairs. For a brief time—which seemed a very long one in that quiet, chilly room— Dr. Fell blinked at Boscombe and Carver. He said nothing. He only set down on the table a glass of brandy he had not tasted, nodded slowly, and stumped out of the room.

  There was a row of sorts going on in the lower hall. Melson, following Dr. Fell downstairs, saw that it was brilliantly lighted. A sombre-clad group stood out against the white panelling; and, amid the photographer’s tripods and the green satchels of the fingerprint men, his bowler on the back of his head, trying unsuccessfully to nibble one end of his clipped grey moustache like an annoyed brigadier, was Chief Inspector David Hadley.

  Melson had met Hadley, and liked him. Dr. Fell always said that he would rather argue with Hadley than almost anybody else, because each on various points supplied the common sense that the other lacked. They differed violently on everything each of them liked, and agreed only on what they disliked, which is the basis of friendship. Hadley had the manner and bearing of a brigadier, but with quieter (almost repressed) speech. He tried, sometimes painfully, to do his duty, and he was doing it now.

  At his elbow was a woman talking vehemently in a low, rapid voice. That morning Melson had not had a good look at the strong-minded Mrs. Steffins, and again his mental pictures had gone awry. She was a contrast: a small woman hard and thick about the body, bulky as though with muscle. Yet (under artificial light, at least) her small face was of a delicate Dresden-china prettiness. The violet eyes and the fine white teeth—she flashed them a good deal—were those of a young girl. It was only in her moments of anger or excitement that you noticed the skin roughening under powder, the faint thin wrinkle wandering down each cheek, the darkened flesh that grew pouched. She had stopped to dress herself completely; and she was, it seemed to Melson, well dressed, as she had not been that morning. Her hair was rather more brown. She could be—he felt—a terror. But she would not resort to terrorism until charm had first failed.

  “… Yes, certainly, madam. Yes, I quite understand,” Hadley was saying, making a faint gesture as though he were troubled by a fly. He peered up the stairs rather angrily. �
�Where’s the old blighter got to, anyway? Betts! See if you can find him … Ah!”

  Dr. Fell rumbled a greeting from the stairs, saluting with one cane. Mrs. Steffins broke off in the middle of a mechanical smile, the smile with which she was moving her head from side to side and setting off the somewhat loud voice. “And I have something,” she insisted, “of the utmost importance—” Hadley raised his hat absently, replaced it on his head, and strode forward. Behind him doddered the glum little figure of Dr. Watson, the police surgeon. Hadley scowled at Dr. Fell.

  “Very well, my excellent windbag,” he said, with a grim settling of his jaw. “Oh, good evening, Professor! I don’t know what he’s got you in for, Melson, but I rather fancy I’m on a hell of a wild-goose chase. Look here, what makes you think that the knifing of a burglar in Lincoln’s Inn Fields is tied up with Jane the Ripper?”

  “Jane the Ripper?”

  “Newspaper talk,” Hadley said, irritably. “Anyway, it’s easier than saying the-unknown-woman-who-slit-the-shopwalker’s-stomach-at-Gamridge’s. Well?”

  “Only,” answered Dr. Fell, wheezing, “that I’m more worried than I think I ever have been before. And I need a few facts. Did you bring along the man who’s on the case—what’s his name?—Inspector Ames?”

  “No. I couldn’t find him. He’s out on it somewhere. But I’ve got his latest report. I haven’t read it yet; but it’s here in my briefcase. All right! Where’s the body?”

  Dr. Fell drew a deep breath and led the way up the stairs. He went slowly, one stick knocking against the banisters. At the top Carver and Boscombe were standing in the doorway; but Hadley gave them only a glance. Drawing on a pair of gloves, he propped his briefcase up against the wall and lifted the cover across the body.

  Something portentous, something fierce and hushed in Dr. Fell’s manner, made Melson’s flesh crawl uneasily during the instant of silence while Hadley bent over …

  Hadley muttered something, sharply, from deep in his throat.

  He knocked one side of the door open to give him more light. “Watson!” he said. “Watson!”

  When he straightened up again, not a muscle in Hadley’s face moved; but it was quiet with rage and hatred.

  “No,” he said, “I didn’t bring Ames.” He jabbed a finger stiffly down at the figure under the couch-cover and added, “That’s Ames.”

  5

  Two on a Roof

  IN THE PAST-SERVICE FILES at the C. I. D. there is now a card which reads:

  Ames, George Finley, Detective-Inspector sr. rank. Born Bermondsey E., March 10th, 1879. Constable, K Division, 1900. Promoted Sergeant, K Division, 1906. Transferred D division, plainclothes, 1914. Promoted, Hope-Hastings case, signal mention by Mr. Justice Gale, Detective-Inspector central bureau at reorganization in 1919. Ht. 5ft. 9in. Wt. list. No distinguishing marks or features. L. ‘Restvale,’ Valley Road, Hampstead. Married. Two children. Abilities: Expert at disguise, trailing, extracting information. Special mention for ability at disguise. Patient, discreet, well-educated by own efforts.

  At the bottom of the card is written in red ink, “Killed on duty, September 4th, 1932.”

  That is the most complete information we are ever likely to have about Detective-Inspector George Finley Ames. In the whole clock-hand case, the least conspicuous figure was the victim. His name might have been Smith or Jones or Robinson; he might never have been a human, breathing entity who liked his glass of bitter and was proud of his home; he might or might not have had those who hated him as George Ames; he was killed for another reason.

  Although his term of service had been as long as Hadley’s, Hadley did not know him well. He said that even after all these years Ames was still hopefully ambitious, and liked to talk of the vacation he would take in Switzerland when he got his next promotion. But he was not of the stuff which gets far ahead; the Yard liked him, Hadley said, but he was not highly intelligent and he was rather too trustful. Put it at a sort of intuitive animal cleverness; he was a bulldog whose tenacity on a tough Limehouse beat had first gained him promotion in the days when Limehouse really was tough—despite his stature being the smallest possible for entrance into the Metropolitan police. But he was trustful, and he died.

  All these things, of course, Hadley did not say when he looked down at Ames dead. He did not comment or even curse. He only told Dr. Watson, who was gabbling under his breath, to go on with the silent work that had to be done; he picked up his briefcase, and walked slowly towards the stairs.

  “Usual routine,” he said to his followers. “You’ll probably recognize who it is, but don’t gossip. I’ll come up there again when you get him out of the way. Meantime—” he beckoned to Dr. Fell and Melson.

  In the lower hall Mrs. Steffins was craning her neck from side to side to peer up the stairs. With one outstretched arm she held back Eleanor, who looked sullen; she was smiling mechanically and charmingly over her shoulder at Eleanor, for its effect on the audience. But when she saw Hadley’s face, wrinkles struck through the china prettiness. She cried out a foolish, wild remark.

  “Is it,” she said, “very bad?”

  “Very bad,” he told her, brusquely. His expression said that he did not want to be bothered with fools at that particular time. “I must ask you for some assistance. This may be an all-night job. I intend to take over the room upstairs presently. For the moment I want a room— anywhere—where my friends and I can talk.”

  “Well, of course!” she agreed in some eagerness. But there was calculation behind her eyes and she seemed to be wondering how to turn this to her advantage. “And we’re so honoured to have the Dr. Fell in our house, although things are so perfectly horrible and— and all. Aren’t they? Eleanor my dear, I wonder … There’s our sitting-room, but then Johannus is so untidy and it’s so cluttered up with his wheels and works and things. There’d be Miss Handreth’s front room, her office, you know; she’s a solicitor and that would suit you, surely, if she didn’t mind; which of course she wouldn’t …” In the middle of her breathless speech, before they knew what she intended, she had scuttled across and was knocking at the second of the line of doors on the left-hand side.

  “Miss Handreth!” she called, ingratiatingly, applying vigorous knuckles and then applying a delicate ear. “Lucia dear!”

  The door opened instantly, with such suddenness, in fact, that Mrs. Steffins came close to losing her balance. The room behind was dark. In the doorway stood a woman who could be no older (if anything, rather younger) than Eleanor. Her dark hair was down over her shoulders and she shook it back as she looked at them coolly.

  “Er—oh!” said Mrs. Steffins. “Excuse me. I wondered if you were awake, Lucia …”

  “You knew perfectly well I was,” said the other. She spoke in a clear voice, as though everyone were hostile, and as though she were in an uncomfortable position which she defied them to make her feel as uncomfortable. The brown eyes glittered behind long lashes partly lowered. She looked at Hadley, drawing closer her blue dressing-gown. “I presume you will have a doctor here. You had better send him in, please. There’s a man here who may be rather badly hurt.”

  “Lucia!” said Mrs. Steffins in one tone, and then, with an entirely different expression she looked over her shoulder at Eleanor—a kind of beckoning triumph, with one eyebrow raised.

  Lucia Handreth also looked at Eleanor. “I’m sorry,” she told her quietly. “I’d have concealed it, only he’s hurt. And they’d be bound to find out, anyway. It’s Donald.”

  “Oh, dear me!” said Mrs. Steffins. “And are you entertaining Donald now, my dear?”

  Her triumphant ha-ha’s were almost a burlesque, gurgling queerly as she wagged her head and patted her hands together. Eleanor was staring, very pale, and Lucia breathing hard. With an effort she added:

  “He seems to have had a bad fall—hurt round the head or something—and I can’t quite bring him round. I heard him moaning in the back yard and dragging himself along. I dragged him in. Naturally,
I didn’t want to arouse … Oh, can’t anybody do anything?”

  “This is important, Hadley,” Dr. Fell muttered. “Get Watson. At once. The other can wait. Will you take us in, Miss Handreth?”

  He gestured fiercely to Hadley, who nodded and hurried for the stairs. Snapping on the light, Lucia Handreth led them through a little sitting-room to a bedroom behind. The shade had been removed from the bright electric lamp beside the bed, and made a naked glare. Sprawled out on the yellow silk counterpane, a figure lay face downwards, twitching a little. A towel, wet and streaked red, had slipped round the corner of his head and half displaced a brownish bandage fixed with sticking-plaster; there were more towels, a bottle of iodine, and a bowl of water tinged with blood on a chair by the bed.

  Eleanor Carver ran to him. He muttered something in a hoarse voice as she tried to lift him up, and suddenly began to fight.

  “Steady,” said Dr. Fell, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Watson will be here in two ticks. He’ll have him round—”

  “He kept on bleeding so at the nose,” Lucia Handreth appealed to him, in a breathless voice. “I didn’t know what to do. I—”

  The figure on the bed ceased struggling. Only a faint creaking of springs disturbed the silence in that harsh-lit room; a scratching of clothes, as of someone crawling, against the yellow silk, or they might have thought life had gone. The clothes were grimy and ripped down from one shoulder; and red abrasions showed up bluish points along one wrist. Then even the creaking stopped, so that they could hear a clock tick. Eleanor Carver screamed, and Mrs. Steffins walked over and struck her across the mouth.