‘What’s the trouble now?’
It was eleven o’clock, and from the library one could hear the sound of carriages and cabs passing along South Audley Street. In the home there was complete silence.
Reggie shook his head.
‘It’s not a trouble of mine this time, not directly. But it’s the most awful thing that’s ever happened. That’s why I’ve come to see you.’
Harding smiled. His friends always came to him in time of trouble. There was something in the man’s vigorous personality that invited sympathy; his vast reputation for acumen and knowledge of human life rendered him an invaluable adviser in moments of difficulty or danger.
He went back to his chair and lit a cigarette, waiting for his friend to speak.
The first words that came from Reggie’s lips were:
‘Clifford Oakleigh is dead.’
‘Dead!’ cried Harding, aghast at the news that his best friend at Eton and Oxford, and indeed in the world, had died. Horrified, he pressed for particulars.
‘When did he die? How do you know?’
‘I have just come from his house.’
‘From Harley Street?’
‘He doesn’t use that as a house.’
‘I know. He lives at Claridge’s.’ The K.C. corrected himself.
Reggie shook his head.
‘He has lately taken, or rather built, a little house in King Street, Mayfair; just near here. Didn’t he tell you?’
‘Never a word.’
‘Well, he only moved in a week ago.’
‘But what were you doing there? I thought that you and he were not quite…’
‘No,’ said Reggie, grimly. ‘But he has been very good to me one way and another. He has lent me a lot of money; I wouldn’t have gone to him again, but…the fact is I’m his valet.’
The barrister gazed at him in surprise.
‘I was his valet,’ repeated Reggie. ‘He engaged me as a valet.’
‘You were his valet?’
Harding stared at the prematurely fat young man with three pendulous chins and an unbecomingly large waist. It seemed incredible to him that Sir Clifford Oakleigh, one of the most famous physicians of his day, one of the most brilliant men of all time, had selected that mountain of adiposity as his valet. Further, it struck him as extraordinary that a man like Reggie Pardell, a scion of one of the oldest families in England, should be willing to perform these duties.
Reggie explained.
‘You see it was like this, George…Harding. I was absolutely stony. Of course, I’d got clothes, and the run of my teeth, and so on. But I was broke to the world. Poor Clifford met me one day at Arthur’s and he guessed how things were. He made me a sporting offer. He said: “Look here, old chap, you have failed at most things. The only thing you do understand is clothes. Come and be my valet. I will give you £500 a year.” At first, I thought he was joking. But he wasn’t, and he installed me in this little box of his in King Street. Only part of the house is furnished; his sitting-room and bedroom and my bedroom. He never has his meals there. The charwoman comes in every day and sees to the place; all I had to do was to look after his clothes. It really was the most extraordinary arrangement that I’ve ever come across. It was philanthropy on poor old Clifford’s part, because my time was entirely my own.’
The other reflected.
‘It’s strange he never told me about this.’
‘Dear old Clifford wouldn’t,’ rejoined Reggie.
‘You see, he knew that I shouldn’t like it to be known that I was doing a bit of valeting. Well, after all, what’s the disgrace? My elder brother, Horace, is chaperoning the “Venus” at the Nasallheimers’ Gallery in Bond Street. It is his duty to show financiers and peers and people of that sort the beauties of Titian. Of course, if he ever succeeds in selling it, he will lose his job as vestal virgin to the “Venus”. And my cousin, Dartmouth, keeps body and soul and motor together by selling Stereoscopic Co. et Fils Cuvée Anonyme to unwilling aristocrats. Still, Clifford knew that I shouldn’t like people to hear that I was his valet.’
The lawyer’s knowledge of Reggie’s character told him that interruption would be useless. He must tell his story in his own way. He merely showed his impatience by taking out his watch and clicking it.
‘I know,’ said Reggie, accepting the hint.
‘Well, tonight I dined with three pals at White’s. We were going on to the Covent Garden Ball. But, somehow, an extra man turned up and someone suggested Bridge. You know I’ve not got a very good reputation for solvency, and I could see they’d be just as well pleased if I didn’t cut in, so at ten o’clock I left them. I thought at first of going on to the ball alone. But that struck me as being a dull scheme, and so I walked back to King Street.’
‘Yes, yes?’
‘I let myself in with the latchkey and went into the sitting-room, which is at the back of the house on the ground floor, the second room from the front. The front room is not furnished. And there I saw Clifford lying on the floor—dead.’
The barrister was silent at the horror.
‘Dead,’ he whispered at last. ‘My oldest friend, my best friend! What could have happened?’
‘That’s the mystery,’ answered Reggie. ‘That’s the extraordinary thing. What does a man, a man in robust health and strength die of…like that?’
‘Heart disease?’
Reggie shook his head.
‘No, not in this case. I know, in fact, that only three days ago Clifford went to his Life Insurance Office and increased his insurance enormously. Besides,’ and he shrugged his shoulders, ‘you know perfectly well that he was sound in wind and limb. You have shot with him. You know how deuced strong he was. Not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his body. No, no, it wasn’t heart disease.’
‘Then you suspect…’
Reggie leant over:
‘I suspect nothing. I’m afraid they may suspect me…the police may suspect…me.’
Harding threw himself back in his chair and drew a long breath.
‘Have you told the police?’
‘No, I came straight here. I thought it would be better to come straight here. But the police must be called in. You see how much worse it makes it for me if I don’t call them in at once.’
Harding rose from his chair and stood by the mantelpiece.
‘I can’t believe it!’ he said, ‘I can’t believe it! Isn’t it possible that you’re mistaken?’ he said, snatching at a hopeless gleam of hope.
Reggie shook his huge, flabby head.
‘No, no chance of that. I know death when I see it. I was in the Boer War, you remember. Besides, his chin had dropped; his eyes were staring. Poor chap, he was very good to me.’
Quickly Harding spoke:
‘I will go with you to the house. We must go at once. This is a terrible affair. No, we won’t take a cab. We must walk.’
The two passed out into South Audley Street.
They walked rapidly in the direction of King Street.
There was a quick fire of questions and answers.
‘Where did he dine?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What time did he leave the house?’
‘At seven-thirty.’
‘Was he dressed?’
‘Yes.’
‘What time did you leave?’
‘At seven-fifty.’
‘Did he know that you were going to the Covent Garden Ball?’
‘Yes.’
‘He seems to have given you a pretty free hand?’
‘Certainly. I was practically my own master.’
‘And no one else was in the house when you went out?’
‘No one.’
‘That seems extraordinary! What about burglars?’
‘Well, you see, I don’t think that anybody would know the house is occupied. The dining-room is shut up. There is nothing to burgle. There are only a few valuable vases and bronzes that wouldn’t appeal to burglars.’
‘So he wo
uld let himself in with his key, would he?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many keys are there?’
‘Only his and mine.’
By this time they had reached the door of a small house in King Street. The house had been newly built. The bricks were red, the paint was white, and the door was green with dull red copper fittings.
Reggie opened the door, and they passed into a narrow hall and thence to the sitting-room.
Scarcely had Reggie turned the handle when he started back.
‘My God!’ he whispered, ‘someone has been here. The light has been turned out!’
CHAPTER III
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE CORPSE
WITH hesitating fingers he turned on the electric light, and then fell back nearly into the arms of Harding.
‘My God!’ he said. ‘It’s gone! There’s nothing on the floor!’
With wild, staring eyes he looked at Harding.
Harding returned his glance curiously. The conviction gradually growing in his mind was that Reggie had gone mad.
‘But I saw it, I saw it,’ said the other, detecting the suspicion. ‘I saw it, and I touched it. It was almost cold. It was lying there by the sofa—between the sofa and the fire. The head was on the ground. It seemed as though he might have fallen off the sofa. No, George, no. This is no hallucination. The body was there, as I told you, and it is not there now. Someone has taken it away!’
‘Thank Heaven,’ gasped Harding, ‘he may not be dead!’
‘Oh, yes,’ replied Reggie, firmly, ‘he is dead. Only the body has been taken away. That makes the mystery worse, more terrible.’
‘Come with me,’ said the lawyer, ‘this may be a matter of life and death for you. We must leave no stone unturned. I must search the house in your presence.’
And they searched it thoroughly. The kitchen door proved to be securely fastened: the windows had all been carefully closed. There was not a nook or cranny in which anyone could hide. No means of egress could be discovered.
At length, they returned to the sitting-room. Harding, who had had considerable experience of criminal work at the bar before taking ‘silk,’ felt himself completely nonplussed…provided Reggie was of sound mind. If the body on the floor was an hallucination, then the mystery ceased to exist. If his story—and he had told it lucidly and with no more excitement than the circumstances warranted—was accurate, that he had actually touched the dead man, then the mystery was so appalling as to be almost incredible. Either Clifford would return that night and, as a consequence, Reggie’s mental condition would be inquired into by people competent for such an undertaking or…or there were more things in heaven and earth…
Vainly he cast his mind this way and that, seeking a clue. Automatically he stroked the bronzes on the mantelpiece. Suddenly he took up a pair of spectacles which were lying there, open.
‘That’s curious,’ he commented. ‘I didn’t know Clifford had anything the matter with his eyes. He is one of the best shots I’ve ever seen.’
He was standing with his back to Reggie, who inquired:
‘What do you mean by that? He has the most wonderful eyesight. What makes you think he hasn’t?’
‘Why,’ exclaimed Harding, turning round, ‘these spectacles. A man does not wear spectacles if he has perfect sight.’
‘But Clifford never wore spectacles. These are not his spectacles.’
‘Are they yours or the charwoman’s?’
‘Certainly not.’
‘Who can have left them here?’
‘My dear Harding,’ Reggie answered, ‘since I have been here, not a soul has entered the house. I tell you he never receives anybody here. I don’t know what he keeps the place for except for the excuse for giving me my £500.’
‘Nonsense,’ replied Harding, ‘you could have taken £500 a year all right without his putting himself out to run such an expensive hobby as a house in King Street, even a little house like this.’
‘I tell you what it is, Harding, the whole thing beats me. I have never been able to understand why a man should have his consulting-rooms in Harley Street and sleep here. Of course, no man could live in Harley Street. It is like living in a dissecting-room. But with his reputation he could have brought his patients to…Bayswater or Tulse Hill.’
Carefully the barrister examined the spectacles. He placed them on his nose. Then he whistled.
‘These are a woman’s spectacles,’ he said. ‘I am almost sure of that. They are too small for a man’s face. And the extraordinary thing about them is that they are plain glass, practically plain window-glass. Now what has he got these here for? How did a pair of woman’s spectacles of plain glass come into the possession of an eminent medical man?’
‘I don’t know, Harding. I’ve never seen them before. I suppose he brought them here.’
‘But why, in Heaven’s name?’ queried Harding.
‘A woman does not give away a common pair of steel spectacles as a gage d’amour. You noticed they were open when I found them, as though they had just been taken off the owner’s nose.’
‘Well, what do you make of it?’
The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.
‘Make of it? I don’t make anything of it, at all.’
He affected an air of joviality.
‘But I tell you what it is, Reggie. When Clifford comes home we will have you put away in an asylum for the term of your natural life. A man who comes to one’s house late at night with cock-and-bull stories of corpses on carpets is not needed; there is no market for him. Now I’m going home.’
Reggie, as he let him out, asked: ‘Do you really think that he’s not dead?’
‘The only conclusion to which I have come is that either he is dead or you are mad…if that is a conclusion.’
‘Am I to tell the police?’
‘No. Certainly not. Good-night.’ He turned abruptly up the street.
Reggie remained at the door, looking after the tall figure that strode briskly along the pavement.
CHAPTER IV
THE ALLEGED ADA
‘OH, we’re not proud at all, are we? Not puffed up with pride, not likely.’
Attracted by the unattractive voice, Reggie looked to his right.
A female servant at No. 35, a much larger house, was seeking to engage him in conversation. This was not the first, the second, nor the third time that she had sought to gain the friendship and—who knows—perhaps, the hand of the ‘gentleman ‘valet in the mysterious house.
‘No, we’re not puffed up with pride,’ answered Reggie, ‘but we don’t converse with menials.’
‘Not when we’ve got our white waistcoat on, eh?’ the girl replied. ‘My word, you are a toff! You’re a deal toffier than your gov’nor. You’re too good for your guv, that’s what you are.’
‘Look here, Ada, we don’t need to go into that.’
The maid was not even pretty. She had a face of the colour and texture of pink blotting-paper. It was of the tint often to be seen on a hard-working hand, unbecoming on the hand, unpleasant on the face. He had no use for her.
‘Not so much of your Ada! My name ain’t Ada,’ she said, tilting up her nose.
‘I thought all scullery-maids were called Ada,’ answered Reggie.
‘That shows what little you know about scullery-maids, mister, and you don’t know anything at all about me. I’m not a scullery-maid. I’m an under-housemaid. £16 a year and beer money. That’s what I am. Scullery-maid, indeed!’
‘I beg your pardon,’ replied Reggie, who had no desire to prolong the conversation. He was on the point of shutting the door, but the girl was agog for a chat. ‘Next door’ was the great topic of conversation in the servants’ hall. ‘Next door’ was a mystery, and the valet of ‘Next door’ was the most glorious valet there had ever been. Apparently he had a position which for lack of labour was the ideal that all gentlemen’s valets strove to find. If his remuneration were in proportion to the comfort of his place, h
e would make a most desirable husband. That was the universal opinion in the servants’ hall of No. 35.
‘Don’t go in, mister,’ she pleaded.
‘Why not, miss?’ he answered.
‘Don’t call me miss: it’s so stiff like. Call me Nellie.’
‘I decline to call anyone Nellie. It’s a most repulsive name. I regret that your name is Nellie, but,’ he added judicially, ‘I am afraid you deserve it.’
‘Oh, don’t start chipping me, and don’t you go in, neither. Your guv. will be pleased to meet you when he comes back. It will be a great help for him to find you standing there.’
‘What do you mean?’ he inquired in surprise.
‘Well, if he don’t sober-up before he gets home, it will be a difficult job to get him indoors. He was that drunk! And I know something about drunkenness myself, Mr Man. I once had to give notice to one of my guvs for intemperitude. And he never was what you might call rolling drunk: he merely got cursing and fault-finding drunk. But I gave him some of my lip, I can tell you. A nice example to set the other servants!’
‘Who are you talking about?’ persisted Reggie.
‘Who should I be talking about but your guv.’
‘Well, then…Nellie, you’re not talking sense. Sir Clifford is a teetotaller.’
The words had slipped from him in his surprise.
‘Oh, he is a Sir Clifford, is he? Well, that’s something to know. Sir Clifford what, pray?’
But he would go no further.
‘Well, it’s something to know he is Sir Clifford. I don’t suppose there’s so many Sir Cliffords kicking about that I shan’t be able to find out what his full name is. Lor’, he was that drunk I thought he would never get into the cab. I thought I should have died of laughing. Oh, he’s a bad hat, your Sir Clifford is…to go about with a creature like that: a drab I call her.’
‘Look here,’ interjected Reggie, sternly, ‘what are you talking about?’
‘Oh, you want to know, do you? I’ve interested you at last, have I?’
She placed a value on her information.
‘Give me a kiss, mister, and I’ll tell you.’
She coquettishly put up her rough red face and he paid the price. He did not like paying it, and she did not regard his payment as liberal.
The Mayfair Mystery Page 2