Deadly Hall

by John Dickson Carr

  Uttering a cry, Serena ran to the front door, found a little row of electric switches beside the door, and clicked one down. A crown of large electric candles, their massive iron frame swung on chains from the central beam of the ceiling, sprang into soft yellow glow.

  Even as the lights went on, that recumbent figure stirred. Dave Hobart, completely unhurt and not even shaken up, bounced to his feet like an india-rubber cat.

  “How was that?” he demanded. “Did it deliberately, of course. Trick fall I learned at the gym; every slapstick comedian knows and uses it, they tell me. You used to be a pretty classy gymnast yourself, Serena, before the doctor made you give it up. I’ve been wondering how Thad Peters, with his famous sense of balance, could have let any such spill become a fatality. Thad Peters—” He broke off. “Here, what is it? What’s the matter?”

  “What’s the matter?” echoed Serena, staring at him. “You idiot! You beast! You absolutely hopeless something or other! You have the nerve to play a trick of that kind, and still ask what’s the matter?”

  “Nothing like a demonstration, is there? Had to see if anything would shake your composure. If I made it too realistic, I’m sorry; no harm was intended. Besides …”

  For all Dave’s attempted swagger, he did not make it convincing or even try hard to make it convincing.

  “Don’t take too seriously what I’m going to say now. I know I imagined it or dreamed it.” He appealed to Jeff. “While I was on those stairs, old son, did you hear anybody?”

  “Hear anybody?”

  “Hear anybody present besides ourselves?”

  “No; who would there be to hear? I heard you utter your put-on challenge to the spooks. I heard Serena tell you to look out or you might slip. That’s all.”

  “Yes, that was all; and yet it’s very peculiar.” Dave made a mesmeric pass. “As Serena called her warning, and I turned for my trick fall, I could have sworn a little voice beside my ear also whispered, ‘Take care.’ I imagined it; I dreamed it; that’s established! But I could have sworn I heard that voice, and for a second or two it scared me a little as I fell.”

  *Lys, French for ‘lily,’ today we usually find spelled lis. But either version is correct.

  8

  LITTLE FURTHER WAS said about what might or might not be on the stairs. Serena and Jeff asked no questions; Dave volunteered neither information nor theory.

  The Tapestry Room, a front bedroom at the southwest angle of the Hall, Jeff did remember having seen before. It seemed reasonably comfortable if also austere, the tapestries gray-green scenes of beruffed gentlemen at bowls or of beruffed ladies and gentlemen against formal backgrounds. Its bathroom, in which Jeff washed for dinner, would have been modern in the early years of the century.

  When he went downstairs afterwards, Cato directed him to the one telephone in the house, at the back of the main hall. Information gave him the number of the Lynns’ country place at no great distance from here. But the line was busy. So he phoned his uncle’s apartment and reported his whereabouts to Melchior, that most efficient, fussy of servitors. He had just hung up the receiver when Cato announced dinner.

  At dinner, by candlelight in the great, heavily raftered refectory, Serena was constrained and silent, while Dave talked twenty to the dozen without saying much.

  “If you’re looking towards the sideboard, Jeff,” he remarked, “the silver tray and pitcher—that particular pitcher, anyway—are no longer in evidence. Even if they were there to be inspected, we couldn’t tell much now.”

  The three of them shared a bottle of authentic Sauterne. Though French wines seldom travel well, this one proved excellent, fully as good as the meal.

  “Yes,” commented Dave, “Washington Jones is still our cook. His repertoire may lack variety; it has never lacked skill. The man’s Southern fried chicken, as you can now testify, couldn’t be bettered at Antoine’s or La Louisiane.”

  Afterwards they smoked a cigarette over coffee and Armagnac brandy, then wandered into the drawing-room. Thence, irresolute, they were drifting out into the hall when the telephone rang. Before it could be answered by a servant or anyone else, Serena flew at the instrument and snatched it up.

  “It’s for me!” she called out, cradling the phone against her breast. Though her voice remained noncommittal, her constraint seemed to increase and faint color tinged her cheeks.

  To obscure the fact that they were both listening or half listening, Dave and Jeff began to examine the display of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century weapons against oak-panelled walls. Serena said little more before putting down the phone and hurrying to join them.

  “Will either of you two,” she inquired, “be going out tonight?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” replied Dave. “I’m not, at least. What about you, Jeff?”

  “That goes for me too. Unless Penny …”

  “I ask,” said Serena, “because I am going out. You won’t mind if I take the Stutz, Dave?”

  “No, of course not.” Dave gestured towards the telephone. “Who was it, old gal?”

  “Oh, nobody in particular; it doesn’t matter. And don’t ask where I’m going, either; only to town, that’s all! But don’t be surprised if I’m a little late.”

  Waiting only long enough to find her handbag, Serena left them in haste. A few minutes later they heard the hum of a car rounding the east side of the house and fading away down the drive. Dave turned to his companion.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “I don’t know what you’re thinking, Dave.”

  “Then you ought to know, old son. Most definitely you ought to know. That gal—!”

  “Excuse me just one moment.”

  Jeff himself marched to the phone, again asking for the Lynns’ number. The deferential female voice which spoke to him, evidently a maid’s, reported that Miss Penny wasn’t there because she had gone out. Dave wandered to the telephone table.

  “No luck, eh? Well, never mind. Since I know I’m not the brightest possible company tonight, Jeff, I wonder if you’d like to look at the commodore’s logbook, the old ledger I’ve talked about at least once and probably more often? Care to see it?”

  “Yes, by all means. Where’s it kept?”

  “Where my grandfather kept it, and my father after him. In the safe of the room they both used as a study.”

  “You know the combination of the safe?”

  “Naturally, though nobody’s needed to know the combination for years. It’s never locked. If you will just follow me, Jeff, we can …”

  His voice trailed away. The hum of a car, approaching up the drive at no great speed, grew louder as it neared the house.

  “Well, how do you like that?” Dave exclaimed. “If my unpredictable sister has changed her mind and is returning …”

  He strode to the front door and threw it open.

  “It’s not Serena,” he declared, peering out, “because the car’s not even a roadster. It’s a sedan; it looks like a Hudson, and that probably means … Yes, Jeff, you’d better come here. It is Penny!”

  The night, despite its promise of being fine, had turned cloudy. A great gust of wind swept up the lawn as the car swung and stopped broadside to the terrace. Leaving the front door wide open, Dave and Jeff crossed the terrace and descended to meet Penny, who was leaning out of the left-hand front window with a face of something like alarm.

  “Where’s Serena, please?” she began. “I must speak to Serena!”

  “You can’t, I’m afraid. Up to your own arrival, Penny, everybody except Serena has been missing everybody else.” Dave seemed to catch a little of Penny’s mood. “She got a phone message from some caller unnamed and ran out of here not ten minutes ago. Is it important?”

  “I don’t know, but I think it may be very important. Did she say where she was going?”

  “Just somewhere in town. You know Serena; she wouldn’t be likely to say. Have you any idea where she went?”

  “I d
on’t know that either, but I may be able to guess. Nobody except myself uses this car much, so I was able to get it. It’s even possible I can find her, if,” and Penny looked out appealingly, “if Jeff will come with me?”

  “I am at your service, as always,” said the miscreant in question. “Shall I climb in the front?”

  “No, Dave,” Penny suggested, as Jeff went round the car and Dave made a move to follow. “This is only a wild guess, probably all wrong. And, under the circumstances, I don’t think you’d better go with us. But, also under the circumstances, I also think you understand.”

  “Oh, I understand! Serena’s affairs must remain her affairs, at least to another member of the family.”

  “I didn’t mean—!”

  “I know you didn’t, Penny. If any of her friends are disturbed about what the hell she may be up to, they’ve got a right to be disturbed and I applaud ’em. In you get, Jeff. Do you want your—no, you don’t wear a hat; nobody of our generation has worn a hat since we were in college. Good luck in your quest, both of you! I’ll go and commune with the log.”

  Another gust of wind swirled up the lawn as Jeff got into the front seat and slammed the door.

  “Like me to drive, Penny?”

  “No, thanks; I’m more capable than I look.”

  They were rolling smoothly towards the main road when Penny spoke again. If flustered, she remained intent and somewhat remote.

  “You know,” she said, “this notion of mine may be even more ridiculous than I think it is! Can you bear it if we only get laughed at for what we’re doing?”

  “Easily, though I might prefer to learn what we’re doing. Or is it your turn to be mysterious?”

  “I’m not being mysterious, truly I’m not! Dave thinks there’s a man in Serena’s life; I’m almost sure there is, from certain remarks she’s let fall. What did he mean, by the way, about communing with a log? Did he mean sitting on a log, or what?”

  “He meant a logbook, the log kept by the old commodore. Dave says it contains some clue to the hidden treasure.”

  “I wonder,” began Penny, starting to turn towards him and then turning back to the wheel, “whether poor Harald Hobart really lost as much money as my father says he did? That wouldn’t worry Dave, though it might worry Serena. And it’s not the point I’m trying to make. Dave’s afraid Serena, who’s always been so careful about keeping suitable company, may have picked up with somebody most unsuitable.”

  “We’re looking for Serena, then. Well, where do we look for her?”

  “Bourbon Street. It’s a speakeasy.”

  “You in a speakeasy? Serena in a speakeasy?”

  “Yes; why not?” Penny spoke rapidly. “There are speakeasies and speakeasies, you know. Some of them are dreadful, of course. The better ones, mostly restaurants where they serve good food as well as drinks, have become quite respectable. The place we’re going is a kind of night club, also reasonably respectable. It’s … it’s …”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s called Cinderella’s Slipper, and is known as a coffeehouse. As for drinks, you get only absinthe served in coffee cups. If the management doesn’t know you, you actually get coffee at an exorbitant price. Is it true, Jeff, that absinthe has been forbidden even in France?”

  “Technically it’s against the law, but they’ve got a legal substitute: some vicious green stuff called Pernod, with as deadly a wallop as real absinthe. I don’t care much for it.”

  “I don’t like absinthe myself, though I can drink some and make a show of finishing the rest. But Marcel knows me; it was Serena and Dave who took me there, so my escort oughtn’t to be questioned.” Penny shivered. “You do see, don’t you? However enlightened I think I am, I couldn’t have gone to the place alone.”

  “The real question. Penny, is what we do when we get there. Suppose we find Serena, sitting over absinthe with a highly unsuitable character: some plugugly or even gangster? Do I stalk up to him and say, ‘You are an unsuitable character, sir; get the hell out of here’?”

  “Of all things, no! Good gracious, no! There’s nothing we can do, even if we wanted to. Besides, the man in question won’t be anything like that. I’m sure, from references made by Serena herself, he’s somebody we all know. When I say ‘all,’ of course, I don’t include you; you’ve been away too long. —What’s the matter, Jeff? Have you got some reservation in mind?”

  “Only that this seems a little like spying. Isn’t the girl entitled to her own love life?”

  “Yes, of course! But the man’s being socially presentable, after all, is no guarantee she’s not mixed up in a situation that could be unpleasant or even dangerous. Oh, I hope there’s no such situation; I do hope so! Serena’s so—so reserved, so terribly fastidious … !”

  “Whereas you,” Jeff asked with heavy sarcasm, “are neither reserved nor fastidious, I suppose?”

  “I’m not a bit reserved! And, though it’s a terrible thing to admit, in my heart I’m not even fastidious! That’s what I should have told Serena straight out, when she told me—”

  “When she told you what? Last night, before we were interrupted by the cop Dave calls Old Nemesis …”

  “It was too bad, wasn’t it?” Penny said with soft intentness. “And I behaved like an idiot again, as usual.” Briefly she raised her eyes. “We must go back to last night, Jeff, and take up where we left off. But not now, please? Not now?”

  “Whatever you say, Penny.”

  “No more reservations?”

  “None at all. If it’s your wish, my dear, I will cheerfully walk up to the devil and pull his whiskers.”

  They fell silent, each occupied with individual thoughts. After a fairly long drive, to Jeff all too short with Penny beside him, they were swallowed up by twinkling lights. Taking what she said would be a short cut, Penny drove in from northwest. It was past ten o’clock when he saw a familiar view.

  Under high, pale lamps and flashing sky signs, Canal Street swept its great breadth south towards the river amid lessened traffic. You could not be five minutes in central New Orleans without catching the easy-going atmosphere or responding to the tolerant mood.

  Since Penny would not take a car into the narrow lanes of the Vieux Carré, she left the Hudson in University Place on what some still called the American side. Afoot they crossed Canal Street to the French side. Passing Burgundy Street, passing Dauphine Street, they turned left into the thoroughfare they sought.

  Bourbon Street and its denizens, after dark, wore that faintly shuffling, slightly furtive air which perhaps both may have worn since the street existed. On the left-hand banquette, with Penny’s right shoulder touching his left forearm, he felt immensely protective as they strode along.

  “What are you thinking now, Jeff?”

  “My principal thought, as requested, I will file away for future reference. One secondary thought …”

  “What’s the secondary thought?”

  “Prohibition!” exploded Jeff. Unspoken curses wrote a fine legible hand across his brain. “Prohibition, here, seems as unreal, as unnatural, as it would seem in Paris or Vienna.”

  “I don’t doubt it’s unnatural; it’s certainly unreal. So much good liquor still comes in by boat that there’s never been any shortage. Fishermen from the bayous meet inbound vessels and cover great loads of bottles with shrimp or oysters until they can dispose of the load in town. That’s what my friends tell me; I’m not au fait with everything. Cinderella’s Slipper …”

  “Is the place far from here?”

  “A fair little distance. But nothing at all, really. It’s between Dumaine Street and St. Philip Street, not quite as far as Laffite’s Blacksmith Shop. Jeff, why will they dream up such absurd tales? Either about the Old Absinthe House over there, or about the house that’s supposed to have been a blacksmith’s? There are enough peculiar places without having to invent legends about them.”

  Jeff made no further comment. A flighty wind whistled and piped across roo
ftops. As they passed the intersection of St. Peter Street, it occurred to him that he must be close to 701b Royal Street, whose typewritten address lay safely tucked away in his inside breast pocket, and which he meant to investigate next day.

  At a point just beyond three short blocks farther on, still on the same side of the road, Penny drew him towards the wall. Between two rather ramshackle houses, faced respectively with gray and with yellow stucco, a brick-floored open passage led to the front door of a third house, lightless, looming indistinguishably through uncertain gloom.

  As they groped along the passage, Jeff thought he could hear faint music. Penny pressed a bell to the right of the front door. When the door opened, you might have thought the interior also dark if you had not seen chinks of light through heavy curtains which hung like a barrier within three steps of the door.

  The man who admitted them first closed the front door. After holding back the side of one curtain, a rich crimson, so that the glow fell on Penny and then on Jeff, he beckoned them inwards. He was a swarthy, thick-set young man in full evening kit of white tie and tails. Though Penny addressed him as Marcel, he looked more Italian than Creole.

  “Good evening, Marcel. This gentleman is a friend of mine, Mr. Caldwell.”

  “Evening, Miss Lynn. Evening, sir. Good table for two near the band?”

  “If you don’t mind, Marcel, we’d like to glance through both rooms first. Is Miss Hobart here, by the way?”

  “Miss Serena Hobart, ma’am? No, Miss Lynn. Haven’t seen nothing of her; not tonight. You’re a member, Miss Lynn; any friend of yours is welcome.”

  They had emerged into a hall or lobby, very broad but not at all deep, heavily carpeted and ornately decorated in crimson, white, and gold. At the vestiaire, behind the counter across a recess in the left-hand wall, presided a young lady who, far from sporting the traditionally scanty attire of hat-check girls in night clubs, wore a full skirted if low cut imitation-mediaeval gown to represent one of the beauties at the ball from which Cinderella fled.