The Case of the Four Friends

by J. C. Masterman

  All was quiet, except Brendel’s mind, and it was with a sort of irritation that he realized that he could not control his thoughts. The scene at the end of the ball had been much as he had expected; but the atmosphere of dissipation, almost of squalor, was even more offensive than he had imagined. Not for the first time he wondered how a great entertainment could leave such a trail of litter – how the ballroom and the adjacent lounges, which had seemed fine and magnificent, could now appear only sordid and dishevelled. Was this the end of all gaiety and all material pleasure? Had the palace of Tiberius looked like this in the light of early morning when the revels were over? And what of the hall at Brussels that June night in 1815? Was it like this when the soldiers one by one had slipped away and when the rest at long last had said their adieux? Was there any scene more depressing than that of the finish of a great artificial entertainment? Yes, indeed, there was! His thoughts strayed to a scene of the First War, with sagging barbed wire and mud and – but with an effort he firmly shut that picture from his mind. Then he was back again at a loan exhibition of pictures, in the organization of which he had assisted only a couple of years earlier. Yes, perhaps that was a parellel case! He saw all the pictures arriving, he watched the smooth ease with which they were unpacked, the anxious discussions as to their hanging, the expert skill and loving care with which they were handled and hung. They might have been precious china or the rarest and frailest glass – and how magnificent and how beautiful all the walls appeared as the exhibition took shape! And then the day after the exhibition had closed! A very different scene! It was as though a hurricane had passed over the rooms-packers and crates and debris and dirt and valuable pictures almost flung from hand to hand. It did not seem possible that some of them would not be damaged in those apparently clumsy and careless hands – and yet these same hands were incredibly, almost unbelievably, expert at their job. What a scene! Yes – a hurricane, or at the least an autumnal gale.

  O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,

  Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead

  Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

  Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,

  Pestilence-stricken multitudes!

  Yes, that was the picture, chaos and colour, decay coupled with disorder, movement without pattern. And pestilence – what did a town look like when it had been stricken with pestilence? Alas, he could guess too well, for the grim picture of the concentration camp forced itself into his mind. They say that there is something to be gained from every experience; but could there be any gain from that? If one can smile, and smile sardonically, in the dark and in the mind rather than with the lips, then no doubt Brendel smiled then. For yes, one thing he had learned – to make himself inconspicuous, to disappear so far as could be from the view, or at least from the attention of other men. How else could he have saved his life? Well, that was helpful now, for no one would notice him that night.

  A faint sound caught his ear – or was it fancy? Somewhere, he thought, in some distant part of the hotel, a clock was striking four, but he could not be sure. Silently he gave himself a little shake, for if he allowed too much play to his thoughts and fancies he might insensibly fall asleep and dream instead of watching. It was just then that his eyes or his ears, and he could not be sure which, made him aware of a new movement or sound or both. Was a door moving some twenty yards down the corridor? He thought it was, and then again he thought it was not. But yes, he was right, the door was very slowly opening, and in the dim light Brendel could just be certain that a figure had stepped out of the room and was stealing cautiously along the passage. Now, indeed, Brendel was sure; quite silently he rose from the shadow of the chair and followed.

  ***

  Piers Gradon stood in his room on the ground floor. Swiftly yet methodically he was removing his fancy dress, but it was not his intention to go to bed when that operation had been completed. He had a very different plan in his mind. He was not a man who was accustomed to analyse his own feelings and still less the motives for his actions. Had he possessed imagination and insight, he might well have compared himself to a bull in the bullring, determined in impotent rage to attack his persecutors, yet unable to inflict any injury upon them. Piers Gradon thought of none of these things – he only knew that throughout the evening his hatred and jealousy of Toby Barrick had steadily grown. He had watched him dancing with Dahlia Constant, and not once, but many times, he had had to restrain himself from doing physical violence to his rival. It was not for him to know that Toby was consciously trying to give the impression that he and Dahlia were, if not engaged, on the point of being so, and that Dahlia was not enjoying Toby’s rather too ostentatious attentions. To Piers it appeared that they were lovers, whilst he was discarded and rejected. All his worst qualities were brought into relief – his pride, his unbridled egotism, and his violent temper. He clenched his fist in a mad desire to relieve himself by physical action, yet even he could realize that, in the crowded ballroom of the Magnifico, he was powerless to have his revenge. He drank steadily and he drank much, and as the evening wore on his purpose hardened and he determined to put into effect the plan which had crossed his mind when, in the Moroccan Bar, he had first learned that Dahlia Constant was staying in the hotel, and when he had leapt to the conclusion that he had been tricked into coming to the Magnifico in order that he might witness his rival’s triumph and feel his own humiliation. He was bound up in himself, and he did not believe for a moment that Dahlia’s presence had not been kept from him intentionally. His plan was simple, crude, and violent, like himself. He would wait for the end of the ball when everyone was making for their rooms – that would be his moment, that his opportunity, and then he would quite simply beat Barrick up. He would smash the man who had so much humiliated him, so that Toby could not show himself again in public for a month. In anticipation, he felt himself crashing his fist into that smiling and hateful face. Before dinner he had made a careful study of the exact location of Toby’s room and the approaches to it, and he knew exactly how he would make his way there. It was not murder that he contemplated, but it was an almost murderous assault. What should happen afterwards he did not consider, nor did he greatly care, for he was too much intoxicated by anger as well as drink to count the consequences.

  Of course he could have marched to Toby’s room, demanded admittance, and attacked his enemy where he stood, but such was not his intention. Indeed, it simply did not occur to him to walk up to his rival’s room. His life was an unending adventure, and the melodramatic act was second nature to him, for the world of the films was in a sense his spiritual home. His reputation as the wildest of wild Irishmen and the most adventurous of adventurers was well deserved. Besides, though he could not have explained it, he retained some warped theory of sportsmanship, which made it impossible for him to knock and walk in through Toby’s door. That, to his mind, would have been to shoot the sitting bird, whereas it seemed imperative to him that he should take risks himself if he was to gain any real satisfaction from his act of revenge.

  His technique, therefore, was the technique of the film hero or the film villain. He had made up his mind to climb the outside of the hotel and make his way through Toby’s window, and he relished the danger of the enterprise almost as much as he enjoyed the thought of the damage which he would inflict on Toby when he had reached his room. When, therefore, he had taken off his eighteenth-century dress he pulled on a pair of dark grey flannel trousers and a dark-coloured zephyr. He had a pair of thin tennis shoes, and he made a gesture of annoyance as he realized that their colour might be conspicuous in the semi-darkness. There was no obvious way of disguising them, but seeing some cigarette-ash in his ashtray he squeezed some toothpaste over it, made a dirty mixture and smeared this over the shoes, so that they were soon dirty enough to satisfy him. He fixed a black domino over the upper part of his face so that he should not be recognized, and finally slipped into his trouser pocket a s
mall but ugly-looking cosh. He had no intention of using it, for he needed no weapon but his own hands; but it seemed to fit in with his humour to take it with him. Then cautiously he opened his window, crept along the back of the hotel very close to the wall, and reached the spot where he was almost below Toby’s room on the fourth floor. Then he began to climb.

  The early part of the climb was no climb at all, for he had only to clamber up the outside of an iron fire-escape which was fixed to the wall. The difficulty came only when he reached the fourth storey on which Toby’s room was. That room, as its occupant had remarked, was almost the only bedroom in the hotel without its own bathroom, and it was, in fact, part of the old house which had not yet been renovated and modernized. Its own safety arrangements in case of fire consisted of an exit on to the roof, whence the user of it could make his way along the parapet to any one of a number of external fire-escapes. The window of the room had a large and substantial sill, and it was this that Piers intended to reach. In a word, his plan was to mount the fire-escape until he was on a level with Toby’s bedroom and then swing himself across to the sill. With his hand he must find the drain-pipe which was attached to the outer wall, with his foot he must – with exact judgement – find the edge of the window-sill. The windows in that part of the hotel were placed symmetrically, and so Piers could, on his own ground floor, measure the distance of his leap or swing. In daylight, even to an athlete or a gymnast, it would have been a hazardous and perilous undertaking; at night, and after an evening’s drinking, it would have appeared to any sane or rational man an act of madness. If he miscalculated his spring or if he missed his hold on the pipe, there was a sheer drop of perhaps sixty feet below him. It was characteristic of Piers that he did not even contemplate the possibility of failure – he knew the distance, and with superb self-confidence he assumed without question that he could reach the window and that he would not lose his balance or his grip when he reached it.

  Swiftly, then, yet quite silently, he climbed the fire-escape, and paused only when he had reached the level of Toby’s window. Then he waited for a minute or two, for he knew that he must be exactly at the right level and that all his faculties and his muscles must be at their point of maximum efficiency. Then he jumped. Perhaps the darkness had tricked him, perhaps he had misjudged by an inch or two; be that as it may, his foot landed only on the edge of the window-sill and for a sickening moment it seemed as though he must be pushed backward and fall headlong to the ground below. But his hand, fortunately, had gripped the drainpipe, and the pipe held. Another moment and he had hauled himself in to safety.

  Yes, as he had expected, the window was half open and the room in darkness. Cautiously he pushed up the lower half of the window and slid into the room, moving like some great wild animal, whose size was no handicap to its speed and agility. He crept across the room till he reached the door, found the switch, and flooded the room with light. Now was his moment, and he would enjoy it to the full! But the room was empty!

  He stood for a moment dazed by this unexpected discovery, but only for a moment. Almost before he had satisfied himself that he was indeed alone in Toby’s bedroom a sudden clamour arose. Electric bells seemed to be ringing in all parts of the hotel, the silence of the night seemed suddenly to be broken by a harsh and discordant pandemonium of sound. What it could all mean Piers did not stay to think or guess. He knew only that the bedroom was no longer the place for him, and instinctively he made for his own room. Any other man would have opened the door and walked into the corridor of the hotel, but not so Piers. He crawled out again on to the window-sill, measured the distance with his eye and then jumped back to the fire-escape. As he clambered down the noise seemed to grow in intensity and lights were being turned on all over the hotel. As he touched ground he breathed a sigh of relief, and turned to sidle along the wall to his own window. Not till he turned did he see the massive shape of a man which loomed up in front of him, or the outline of the revolver, but he did hear at the same time the curt command to put up his hands.

  ***

  Evelyn Bannister sat down in his room and lit another cigarette. He had a decision to make, and he never made a decision without weighing the arguments on either side. The choice before him presented itself to his mind with brutal clarity. Should he, or should he not, murder his nephew in order to prevent any danger of unwelcome disclosures about his own affairs? Earlier in the evening he had tended to swing towards the opinion that he had exaggerated the danger which threatened him as a result of Cordingly’s suicide. After all, Piers was an idle and careless man, and it was more than unlikely that he would take any serious trouble over his duties as executor. He would spend the minimum of time over the business, and would push all the work and the responsibility into the hands of a solicitor. Unless Cordingly had actually put anything into writing or mentioned Bannister’s name, it was improbable that any great harm would be done. Later in the evening he had changed his mind. Well after midnight, when he had chanced to have a few words with Piers, he had turned the conversation again to the suicide, and his apparently casual question had produced a reply which had alarmed him. ‘I know I’m bloody lazy,’ Piers had said, ‘but I swear I’m going to get to the bottom of this damned blackmailing business. Poor old Jack Cordingly – his being done in like that has got right under my skin. I don’t care how long it takes me. I’m going to find out that blackmailer and I’ll break every bone in his body.’

  Bannister flinched and changed the conversation, but he had heard quite enough. It’s not often, he thought grimly to himself, that a man has the opportunity of signing his own death warrant. So now as he sat in his room he felt that the balance was slowly sinking on the side of murder. No scruple of any kind entered into his calculations. He did not care a straw for Piers, he knew that his usefulness to him was finished and that he was now only an encumbrance – and that he might soon be an active menace. Every consideration of self-interest urged him to get rid of his nephew if he safely could. But, and it was a big ‘but’, could he safely do so? Murder, however you looked at it, was a terrible and immense risk. And so, as he smoked and thought, his problem narrowed itself down to a simple calculation of risks. Was the risk of leaving Piers alive greater or less than that of murdering him? Or let him pose the question another way. Was there any risk, any real risk, at all in the plan which he had made for eliminating Piers that night? Once again he carefully pondered over the plan which he had made. Was it proof against discovery, or was it not? He could see every step which he should take with complete clarity, but he must go over them again to make sure that there was no flaw.

  Ever since his wartime experiences in Portugal he had carried with him some small pills, each of which was a deadly dose of poison. He was not a pharmacologist and could not have described the poison which they contained, but he knew with certainty that they were lethal. His plan, then, had all the virtue of simplicity. He would walk down the corridor and pay a visit to his nephew at the moment when the last reveller had gone to his room. If he met someone on the way, well and good – he would not attempt to disguise his presence, but would possibly say what he was doing. ‘I thought my nephew had drunk a bit too much, and I’m just looking in to see that he’s in bed all right.’ Of course he could not then administer the poison, but he would simply wait for some other day and other opportunity. If he met no one (and that was in the highest degree probable) he would enter the room as gently as possible. If Piers had not yet come in – and he was apt to be the last to leave a party – he would, if the ‘hangover potion’ was in its jug by the bedside, simply put a couple of the pills into the jug, without touching it, and make his way back. If Piers was in, he must act according to circumstances. If he was already asleep, the jug would still presumably be half full and the poison could dissolve in the remaining draught. If, however, Piers was in and awake, Bannister was still perfectly safe. He would have a word with him, just as he would have had with the hypothetical guest in the passage, ask if he
was all right, and postpone his action till another day. He knew so well his nephew’s careless habits that he felt perfectly sure that, whether he was in or out, the door would be left open, or at least unlocked. He was not so sure that the jug of ‘hangover mixture’ would be in its place, for Piers might have forgotten to order it, but it would probably be there. He would, consequently, only use his pills if everything, from his point of view, was in order and if he could do so without risk. If he saw a risk he would simply not take it, and would await a more favourable opportunity. But stop – there was one risk. It did not matter if he met a stranger on his way to Piers’s room, for that would only mean that the murder would be called off, but what if he met someone as he left the room and after he had put the poison in the jug? That would be fatal! But was it so great a risk as it appeared? His nephew’s room was on the ground floor, and a very short way from it was a door into part of the lounge. Once in there Bannister was safe, for he could proceed by another route back to his own floor, and he was doubly safe because he had foreseen just this danger. At the end of the ball he had slipped a silver cigarette-case into the bottom of an arm-chair. ‘What were you doing in the lounge at four o’clock in the morning, Mr Bannister?’ ‘I missed my cigarette case when I got to my room, and went down to see if I’d dropped it in the lounge where I was sitting towards the end of the evening.’ What could be simpler or more convincing! Yes, the risk was small, almost negligible. Fifteen yards or thereabouts separated Piers’s room from the door into the lounge. He would pause at the bedroom door and see that all was clear – then in a matter of seconds he could cross that danger zone and be in perfect safety. A small, a very small, danger, but ought he to risk it? Once more carefully and methodically Bannister went through his plan, weighed every chance and considered every contingency. Then his decision was taken.