by Sapper
“That’s the bloke. He’s in Blake’s firm. I expect it’s concerning him that they are always pow-wowing in a corner.”
Then he lowered his voice confidentially.
“I don’t know what you think, Peter, but it doesn’t strike me that Beryl is quite herself this year. Not these last few days at any rate. Seems a bit pensive and worried.”
“The course of true love, I suppose,” I answered.
“Good Lord! old boy,” he said, “if you mean Tony, there was never much chance of that going smooth. They haven’t a bob between them.”
He drifted away, and, as I say, it struck me as a possible solution, Milton Blake, perhaps, feeling it his duty as a business man to tell the girl that young Tony was never likely to become a Rothschild. Then someone roped me in for a rubber of bridge, and I dismissed the matter from my mind. And it was during that rubber that the first act of the tragedy occurred.
It was obvious something had taken place before we had finished. The room where we were playing was next to the bar, and during the last two hands we could hardly hear ourselves think. The whole hotel seemed to have gathered there, and everybody was talking at once.
“No more bridge for me,” I said. “It’s like Bedlam. What on earth is the excitement, Geoffrey?”
He was sitting inside the door of the bar as I went in.
“A most unpleasant scene,” he answered, “has just taken place in the ballroom between our Mr Pedro Gonsalvez and Blake. I can’t quite tell you what the beginning of it was, because I don’t know, but it terminated in Blake knocking him down in the middle of the floor. Then Pedro Gonsalvez – who has more guts than I gave him credit for – went for him like a wild cat. The band stopped, and some fool woman began to scream, and I tell you, Peter, we had hell’s own job to separate them. Finally we got ’em apart, but it interfered somewhat with the harmony of the evening.”
“Something to do with Beryl Carpenter, presumably,” I said.
“It was,” remarked Jim Weatherby, who had joined us. “But, dash it all, Peter, Blake has only got himself to blame. You know what I think of Pedro Gonsalvez, but in this case it’s only common fairness to say that it wasn’t his fault. I mean if Beryl chooses to dance with him, it’s nobody’s affair but her own.”
“What happened exactly?” I asked.
“Pedro and she had just finished a dance,” he said. “Beryl left the room, and Pedro was crossing the floor to get back to his table, when Blake walked up to him and stopped him. What he said to him, I don’t know, but Pedro turned a bright olive green with rage.
“‘Go to hell, Mr Blake,’ he said in a thick sort of voice.
“‘So don’t dare to do it again, you blasted Dago,’ was Blake’s next remark.
“It was obvious, of course, then that Blake had been ticking him off for dancing with Beryl.
“‘I shall do exactly what I like, you damned Englishman,’ answered Pedro, at which Blake knocked him down. Then they went at it hammer and tongs. Oscar,” he called to the barman, “give me a whisky and soda. I admit,” he went on, “that to be called a damned Englishman by Pedro Gonsalvez is a bit over the odds, but for all that the bald fact remains that Blake started it. And my own personal opinion is that Master Milton had had just one over the eight.”
“That’s possible,” said Johnny Laidlaw, who had caught the last remark, “but the real trouble was that he and Beryl had had words. I couldn’t help hearing – I was sitting at the next table to her before her dance with Pedro. Blake asked her for it, and she refused. Said she was booked for it to the Dago. Blake said something I couldn’t catch, and then Beryl quite distinctly and clearly remarked, ‘I would sooner dance with Mr de Silvo than you.’ By Jove! our Milton’s face was a study as he walked away. He was wild with rage: looked as if he could have murdered her.”
“Well,” said Geoffrey, getting up, “it was an unpleasant scene, but it is over. And in view of the fact that there is a race tomorrow, I’m for bed.”
“I’m with you,” I said, and we strolled together towards the lift.
“Young Weatherby is right,” remarked Geoffrey, “Blake had no right whatever to do what he did.”
“It’s going to make it a little unpleasant in the hotel,” I said, “unless one of them goes.”
“Well, old boy,” answered Geoffrey, “as far as I am concerned I don’t mind which of them departs. I like that fellow Blake less and less every day.”
It was about three o’clock that I awakened suddenly with the sound of a woman’s scream ringing in my ears. For a moment I thought it was a dream: then footsteps in the corridor outside, and agitated voices told me it was reality. I scrambled into a dressing-gown and opened the door.
The first person I saw was Geoffrey. He was talking to little Mrs Purefroy, who from her agitated condition I guessed was the giver of the scream.
“I happened to turn on the light, Mr Sinclair,” she said, “and I saw it. Oh! go and look: go and look for yourself.”
She was shuddering violently, and with a reassuring word Geoffrey left her and went into her room.
“My God!” he muttered. “It must have been a bit of a shock.”
There was a table near the bed, and in the centre of it was a big red pool. It had spread nearly to the edge, and even as we looked at it a big drop splashed into it from the ceiling.
“Quick, Peter,” he cried. “Up to the room above. Somebody has had a haemorrhage. That’s blood.”
We raced upstairs to find that the occupants of that floor had also been aroused by the scream. All the doors were open save one, and Geoffrey darted for it. The room was in darkness, and at first when he switched on the light we could see no one. The bed had been slept in, but the occupant was no longer there. And then we saw him. He was lying on the floor, with his knees doubled up, and his face so distorted that it was hard to recognise him as Milton Blake. And driven up to the hilt in his heart was a fine pointed dagger. No haemorrhage this: just plain murder.
“Keep all the women out of the room,” said Geoffrey quietly. “Rouse the manager: get the police and a doctor. And don’t go trampling all over the place, you fellows: stay still, if you want to stay at all.”
The quiet authority in his voice had an instantaneous effect. Gone was the pleasant, genial, skiing Geoffrey: in his place was a man absorbed and intent on the thing that was his job in life – the detection of crime.
“Is he really a detective?” whispered someone in my ear.
“Probably the most brilliant in England,” I answered. “Keep quiet.”
I had seen him at work once or twice before, and his procedure was invariably the same. He stood motionless in the centre of the room, his eyes slowly travelling round it so that he seemed to soak in every detail. In fact he once told me that after two minutes’ study he could so visualise the position of everything in the room that he would know at once if even the smallest ornament was moved later.
After a while he knelt down by the dead man and carefully examined the knife without touching it. Then with a little shrug of the shoulders he got up.
“On the face of it, the thing seems fairly obvious,” he remarked. “The poor devil has been murdered, and the murderer is the owner of this dagger.”
“It’s not quite as easy as that, Sinclair,” said Jim Weatherby, “I happen to know that dagger belonged to Blake himself. I’ve often seen it lying on the table. He used it as a paper cutter.”
But Geoffrey seemed hardly to have heard. He was staring at the switches by the head of the bed with a curiously intent expression. There was the ordinary light switch, a contrivance for summoning either the valet or the femme de chambre, and an electrical gadget by which the door of the room could be bolted or unbolted from the bed. It was a two-way switch and it was this that seemed to be absorbing him.
“Just close the door,” he said curtly.
Someone did so, and he moved the switch backwards and forwards thereby bolting and unbolting the door.
“Very peculiar,” he remarked. “Very peculiar indeed. Get the importance of it, Peter?”
“I can’t say I do,” I answered. “They’ve got them in every room.”
“That is why I should have thought you would have studied their working,” he said.
“Good Lord! Sinclair,” said Weatherby gravely, “surely it’s obvious what has happened. I know one oughtn’t to prejudge a case, but this seems clear. I mean after that row this evening, the whole thing is plain.”
“You mean that de Silvo did it,” said Geoffrey. “I confess that on the face of it that seemed the most likely conclusion.”
“Seemed,” echoed Weatherby. “Doesn’t it seem so now?”
“There are one or two little points of detail which are of interest,” answered the other. “However, the fingerprint test will settle it conclusively.”
He walked to the balcony and stood looking out. The room was on the third floor, and the balcony was a small one, affording but little more room than would enable one to stand on it. There were similar ones on each side about six feet away, and he stood there for so long staring at them that even I began to get bored, whilst the others were frankly derisive.
“Confound it all, it’s obvious, as I said,” cried Weatherby. “The swab came up here: they had another quarrel. Then in a blind rage he snatched up that dagger and stabbed Blake.”
“Strange that in a wooden hotel like this, where you can hear every sound, no one heard the quarrel.”
Geoffrey had come back into the room, and was once again staring at the switch.
“My God! What is this I hear? Mr Blake dead!”
A sudden silence settled on the group: de Silvo himself was standing in the doorway, still dressed in evening clothes.
“Murdered,” said someone curtly.
“Murdered! But who by? Who would want to murder him?”
He glanced round the room, and suddenly he realised.
“Holy Mother! Gentlemen. You do not suspect me?”
“We suspect no one, Mr de Silvo,” said Geoffrey quietly. “At the same time, in view of what took place in the ballroom last night, you will understand the position. I see you have not been to bed.”
“No.” He hesitated a moment: then finished lamely. “I have been sitting up.”
“Sitting up, Mr de Silvo,” said Weatherby incredulously. “Till four o’clock. Where? In your bedroom?”
“That is my affair,” said de Silvo, and turning on his heel he left them.
“What did I say,” cried Weatherby. “The fellow must be mad to expect us to believe such a yarn.”
“I quite agree,” said Geoffrey with a short laugh. “And since whatever else he may be he is not mad it makes the thing even more perplexing.”
He turned to the manager who had just appeared and was wringing his hands in a corner.
“Who have got the rooms on each side of this one?” he demanded.
“Miss Carpenter on that side, Monsieur, and Mrs Denton on the other.”
“Thank you. I shall be in my room if I’m wanted.”
He beckoned to me and I followed him downstairs. Little groups of people were standing about discussing the thing, and as we passed them de Silvo’s name was on everybody’s lips.
“No, no, no, Peter,” he said as he closed the door. “It screams to high heaven that it wasn’t de Silvo. Though unless he can establish a thundering good alibi they’ll arrest him for a certainty.”
“What makes you so sure that he is innocent?” I asked, but I got no answer. He was pacing up and down the room, with his hands behind his back and I doubt if he even heard my question. And after a while I left him, and went to my own room.
Further sleep was impossible, and having dressed, I went downstairs to find that practically everybody else had done the same thing. And since as far as Oscar, the barman, was concerned business was business, murder or no murder, bacon and eggs were the order of the day.
“Hullo! Peter,” said Jim Weatherby as he saw me, “come and join us. Your pal may be the hell of a detective but he’s gone off the deep end a bit this time. Who could it be but de Silvo?”
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“I think the police are on to him. They are upstairs.”
“Mr de Silvo, sir!” Oscar was staring at Jim in amazement from the other side of the table. “You mean it was Mr de Silvo who did it? Oh! no, sir: that is impossible.”
“Impossible! Why impossible?” Jim was staring at him blankly.
“Come on, Oscar,” I said as he hesitated. “It will have to come out sooner or later. Why do you say it is impossible?
“Because, sir – only I would prefer that it should not be known to the manager – Mr de Silvo has been playing cards with me all the night.”
“Well, I’m damned,” muttered Jim. “That’s a fair knock out.”
“Deep end not quite so deep as you thought, Jim,” I chaffed.
“But does he often do that, Oscar?” said someone.
“Almost every night, sir. He loves to gamble, and I think he knows that you gentlemen do not care to play with him. And so I take his money, because he cannot play cards – how do you say it – for nuts.”
And once again Jim muttered, “Well I’m damned,” which I think expressed everyone’s feelings. It had seemed such an absolute certainty, and in a second the bottom had been knocked out of the whole thing. It explained his being in evening clothes and his hesitation when asked where he had been. And it conclusively proved his innocence just as it conclusively proved someone else’s guilt.
Who? Who had murdered Milton Blake? And now that Geoffrey’s opinion had been so triumphantly vindicated over de Silvo, everyone was eagerly demanding that he should be produced. As the expert it was felt that it was hardly decent of him to be absent at such a moment, so I volunteered to go and try and get him.
I found him dressing, and he listened to Oscar’s bombshell almost with impatience.
“I’m glad for de Silvo’s sake,” he said. “Otherwise all that fool chatter would certainly have ended in his arrest. What is far more important, Peter, is that there are no fingerprints on that dagger. With the permission of the police I went up and examined it with powder and a powerful glass. The murderer therefore was wearing gloves. Why?”
“To prevent fingerprints,” I said brightly.
“A very pithy answer,” he remarked. “For all that I wonder if you’re right. Let’s go downstairs. I could do with a cup of tea.”
His appearance was hailed with volleys of questions, but he shook his head gravely.
“You heard nothing, I gather, Mrs Denton,” he said, halting in front of her.
“Absolutely nothing,” she answered. “I was very tired, and was asleep by eleven.”
“And you bolted your door?”
“Yes. I always do.”
“And you, Miss Carpenter?”
Beryl Carpenter shook her head.
“Not a sound. I was waxing my skis till about midnight and then I went to bed.”
“And you also bolted your door?”
She nodded, and Jim Weatherby turned to me.
“What’s he driving at now, Peter?” he muttered. “What does it matter if they bolted their doors or not?”
“Ask me another, Jim,” I said. “He’s beyond me at times.”
And certainly for the next two hours he was in his most unapproachable mood. After drinking his tea, he retired to his room again, and when I went up at eight o’clock ostensibly to find if he wanted breakfast, but in reality to see if he’d got on any further, he bit me good and hearty.
“Sorry, Peter,” he apologised, “but I feel I’m being a fool. And a damned fool at that. There’s a link missing somewhere, and yet there oughtn’t to be. Or am I all wrong?”
“But if you’ve got to that point,” I cried, “you must suspect somebody. Who is it? Now that de Silvo is out of it, as far as I can see it might be anybody.”
“
I hope to heaven you’re right, Peter,” was his amazing answer. “But I can’t let it go at this: I must know the truth. Let’s go up to Blake’s room again: I’ve missed something – I must have.”
The gendarme on guard made no demur about us entering. The dead man, covered with a sheet, was lying on the bed; nothing else in the room had been moved. But Geoffrey went straight to the balcony, where for a long time he stood motionless.
Suddenly he leaned forward, a curiously intent look on his face. Then he whipped out his magnifying glass. He was examining the balcony side rail, and I saw him scratch the wood with his fingernail. And after what seemed an intolerable time he straightened himself up.
“So that’s it, is it?” he said gravely. “Stupid of me not to have thought of it before. But you can take it from me, Peter, I wish I hadn’t thought of it now. Still there must be some good reason.”
He opened the door, and to my utter amazement instead of going downstairs he walked the other way towards Beryl Carpenter’s room. He knocked, and receiving no answer walked straight in. Again he went straight to the balcony, and scratched the side rail nearest Blake’s room.
“The pluck of it,” he remarked quietly. “The astounding pluck.”
“What on earth are you doing in my room?”
Beryl was standing in the doorway regarding us with the utmost astonishment.
“Come in, Miss Carpenter,” said Geoffrey gently, “and please regard me as your friend, as well as Peter. Now – why did you do it?”
“Good God!” I almost shouted, “you’re mad.” But I looked at Beryl and the words died on my lips, for every vestige of colour had left her face and she was staring at Geoffrey as if hypnotised.
“Let me tell you just what happened,” went on Geoffrey, still in the same gentle voice. “For some reason or other you decided to go into Blake’s room. You guessed his door would be bolted: possibly you tried it and found it was. Then you thought of the balcony. It was possible you might have jumped from one to the other, but if you failed you would be killed by the fall and even if you succeeded the noise would have awakened Blake. Suddenly you thought of your skis. You laid them side by side between the two balconies, having put on gloves because it was cold. Then you walked across the gap on the skis, and got into his room. Then something happened, and you stabbed him. Then you unbolted the door, returned to your own room, and replaced the skis. Am I right?”