Weekend at Thrackley

by Alan Melville

  There are quite a few things in life which one does without having very much idea why one is doing them. Jim Henderson did one of them now. He crossed to the fireplace and stared at the dummy logs. They were covered with a fall of soot. And yet the actual fire probably hadn’t been lit since the beginning of summer. Funny… A bird, perhaps, nesting in the chimney cans. And then he noticed the three-quarters of an inch or so of fine wire which was showing just where the tiles met the chimney-piece. He looked at the wire for a minute, and then he bent down on his knees, cocked his head to an extremely uncomfortable angle, and peered up into the blackness of the chimney. And just stopped himself from giving a whistle of surprise.

  For—much as he admired Edwin Carson’s capabilities as a host—he felt that to suspend a microphone in the chimney of his guest’s bedroom was really going a bit too far.

  IX

  Jim Henderson opened the door of his bedroom and stepped out into the darkness of the passage. He felt that the finding of a microphone in one’s bedroom chimney was not the sort of thing to be kept to oneself; for all he knew there might be a similar instrument tucked in every bedroom of Thrackley. And if Freddie Usher started singing some of his not-so-drawing-room ballads then whoever was listening-in would get a series of very nasty surprises. So Jim crossed the landing and stopped outside the door of Freddie’s room. He listened for a minute, and heard what suggested that Mr. Usher had only reached the trousers-pressing stage. He turned the door-handle and walked in.

  “Hullo,” said Freddie Usher.

  Jim did not answer. Instead, he put his finger to his lips in the way which he had seen all suspicious characters do when they wished complete silence and attention. On the stage or the screen this simple little action had been always a total success; here in Freddie Usher’s bedroom it was a complete fiasco. Mr. Usher stopped his screwing of the trousers-press, stared at Jim for quite a while, and then said: “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?”

  Still Mr. Usher’s visitor did not speak. Instead, he waggled his forefinger at Freddie in a highly irritating manner and walked to the bedroom fireplace and kneeled down in front of the fireplace. Loopy, thought Mr. Usher, completely loopy; and as right as rain when they set out from London not ten hours before. The country air, he supposed, affecting the poor old Henderson brain. What other explanation could there be when a fellow walks into a fellow’s bed-room at a quarter to one in the morning and behaves in this pathetic way, placing forefingers on lips and prostrating himself before fireplaces? And now the symptoms seemed, if anything, to be getting a shade worse; for the visitor had removed the electric fire from its usual position in the fireplace, and laid it carefully on the carpet, had shoved his face right into the fire-place and was now staring up the chimney and allowing a fair amount of soot to fall on various parts of his head and neck. Oh, yes; completely loopy, no question about it… he had withdrawn his face from the chimney-piece now and was fumbling among the contents of Mr. Usher’s dressing-table. Much better, thought Mr. Usher, to humour the poor fellow: hadn’t he read somewhere that people in this condition were less liable to become violent if left severely alone? Very well, then. But when Jim found what he was looking for, and dissembled the four parts of Freddie’s safety razor, and returned to the fireplace with the razor-blade gripped firmly in his fingers, Mr. Usher began to edge towards the door and to wish that he was wearing a little more than a dress shirt and a pair of black silk socks.

  Jim disappeared head first up the chimney again, and stayed there for quite a while working away with the hand that held the razor-blade. A very complicated and awkward way of committing suicide, thought Mr. Usher; for if you must cut your throat, why choose the foot of a chimney as a place to do so? But after a while Jim extracted himself from the fireplace (with his neck a great deal sootier but otherwise quite unharmed) and held up a round black metal object in his hand. And actually spoke. He said: “What d’you think of that, Freddie?”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a very good example of the species microphone. I’ve just removed one from my chimney and I thought I’d come to see if your bedroom had been fitted with all the modern comforts.”

  “D’you mean to say that everything I said would be heard by someone listening through that blessed little thing in the chimney?”

  “Yes. But you needn’t worry. You can go ahead and talk your tonsils out now. I’m afraid I’ve spoiled your razor-blade—you’ll get a lovely stream-lined effect with that nick I’ve made in it. Who were you expecting to be talking to, anyway?”

  “James!…”

  “Oh, all right.”

  “But—where the devil do the wires from these damned pick-up things lead to? Who’s doing the listening-in? Edwin Carson?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “But why?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest. Except that it must be rather jolly to lean back in your study and listen to half of your guests telling the other half exactly what they think of you.”

  “And what a hell of a weekend it’s going to be.”

  “And what a perfectly lousy dinner they had to eat.”

  “And—Jim!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “You don’t think there’s any chance of a second microphone hanging around anywhere? I mean to say, before I go on to give my personal opinion of Edwin Carson’s face…”

  “I shouldn’t think so. Whoever did the microphone-furnishing in this house wouldn’t expect to have to cope with my brains and powers of observation, Freddie.”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “What beats me is—why on earth Carson (if it is Carson) wants to hear all that goes on in the bedrooms of his house.”

  “A nasty suspicious mentality.”

  “You remember what you told me about his mania for getting hold of jewels—legally or otherwise?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you have a look at the brilliancy of the dinner-table tonight? Apart from my conversation, I mean? Lady Stone’s necklace, that Brampton girl’s pearls… you couldn’t see Raoul for platinum and emeralds… and you’ve got your old family diamonds here with you, haven’t you? You don’t think that comrade Carson—”

  “I think,” said Freddie Usher, “that you’ve been reading too many detective novels, Jim. Not good for you at your age. Go away to bed and leave me in peace.”

  “Righto.”

  “Good night, then.”

  “I suppose those damned diamonds are locked up?”

  “Good night.”

  “And don’t forget your nice invigorating walk with Lady Stone before the grape-fruit to-morrow morning.”

  “Get out!”

  “Oh, very well, then.”

  And Jim Henderson closed the door softly and set out on his return journey across the corridor to his own bedroom. He felt his way along the wall until it deserted him suddenly and he was left flapping his arms in mid-air. He took a few steps forward and his fingers touched the heavy mahogany newel post at the head of the staircase. He leaned up against it, tightened the cord of his dressing-gown, and took a mental bearing of his position. Six paces to the right, and then left turn… and then about four more paces… and he would be at his bedroom door. He set out on the first of the six paces when something made him stop and peer over the balustrade down to the landing below.

  A small circle of light was playing along the panelling of the landing. He watched it, intrigued. The circle seemed undecided about its movements. It ran along the wall, passed two bed-room doors and wavered at a third. Then it returned to the first of the doors. And flitted lightly over its four panels. And finally stopped moving and showed up in its round of white light the keyhole and handle of Catherine Lady Stone’s bedroom door. The circle grew smaller until Jim could see the pin-point where the ray of light began. One of those tiny electric torches which can
be focused to as large or as small a ray as you wish.

  And then a hand appeared in the circle.

  For a long time it seemed to be absolutely still. Then Jim realized that it was slowly moving… a fraction of an inch at a time… until at last the key which had been so silently inserted into the door’s keyhole completed its turning, and gave a little snick of satisfaction. Silence again for a minute… then an almost inaudible crunch as the jamb of the door parted company with the coat of paint on the casing where it had been resting. Lady Stone’s door opened an inch, two inches… six… and the circle of light vanished suddenly. From the landing above, Jim knew that someone had gone into Lady Stone’s room…

  He thought it over for a minute. Should he give the alarm or go back to his bed and persuade himself that he had dreamed the whole thing? Rather awkward if he roused the house-party to catch a burglar, and found that Lady Stone had been expecting the visitor with the electric torch. But Catherine Lady Stone (or so it seemed to Jim from the short time he had known the lady) was not that kind of girl. Far from it. A woman, this Catherine, who would wash and undress and clean her teeth and read a couple of chapters of some good, uplifting book, and turn off the light, and curl soundly off to sleep. Nothing more. No harm, then, in doing a little investigation into Lady Stone’s visitor by himself? None at all. Right… He tiptoed slowly down the flight of stairs, thanking heaven that this was happening in a house whose floors and staircases were covered in a luxurious growth of carpets. A cold, bare linoleum would have been sheer hell in a situation like the present.

  He reached the last step of the stairs and paused for a moment before setting out on the landing. He felt his way along, steering himself past the little oak table which stood to the left of Lady Stone’s bedroom door. His fingers touched the panels of the door, and he bent down and listened. Not a sound. He tried the door with the tips of his fingers, and it gave slightly. He listened again… to the quiet movement of the trees outside the bedroom window… to another series of noises which he put down as a mixture of Lady Stone’s breathing and Lady Stone’s dinner rumbling around Lady Stone’s stomach… to the slight but unmistakable sounds of a drawer handle being touched and a drawer pulled slowly out. No doubt about it: there was someone uninvited in Lady Stone’s room. And Jim Henderson put his fingers round the handle of the door, pushed it silently open, and was on the point of following Lady Stone’s first visitor into the room when a hand was placed lightly on his arm.

  In other circumstances Jim would have said, in all probability, “Hoi!” Or “Who the devil’s that?” Or something of the sort. Instead of which he kept his mouth shut and did not move. It was not a nice situation. He thought in a haphazard fashion of his small but comfortable bedroom at 34, Ardgowan Mansions, of Mrs. Bertram waving good-bye from the lavatory window and telling him to take care of himself, of Freddie Usher’s description of Edwin Carson, of the revolver which Freddie had suggested he should include in his packing. He thought of all this, and still the hand rested on the same place on his arm. He stepped back from the bedroom doorway, and the hand gripped the sleeve of his dressing-gown and pulled him further away from the door. There seemed no option to going where the owner of the hand wished him to go: he allowed himself to be pulled by the sleeve along the landing and up the flight of stairs to the floor on which his own bedroom was situated. And then the hand released its hold on his sleeve. And “Thank heavens I saw you in time,” said Mary Carson.

  “You!… Miss Carson!…”

  “Please don’t make a noise. I don’t want anyone to know I’m out of bed… or you either.”

  “Yes… but—”

  “Captain Henderson—will you please go back to your room and stay there till morning?”

  “But listen, there’s someone just gone into Lady Stone’s bedroom. It may be a burglar… or anything—”

  “I know. That’s all right.”

  “You know? Well, it’s not all right. I’m dashed if I—”

  “I can’t explain everything here. Please go to your room. I promise that everything’s all right. Please…”

  “Oh, very well, if you say so. But…”

  “Can I see you in the morning and talk to you about all this?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you so much. And thank you again for keeping quiet about seeing me in Adderly. My father would have been fearfully angry if he’d known that I was down in the village.”

  “But why on earth shouldn’t you go down to the village?”

  “No questions, please… good night.”

  In the darkness Jim realized that Mary Carson was no longer beside him. He said “Good night” softly, and received no answer. He peered into the darkness and saw that she had brought him to within a foot of his own bedroom door. And now… what? Go and tell Freddie Usher what he had seen? Stay out for another quarter of an hour in this charming landing and see if Catherine Lady Stone’s visitor reappeared? He remembered that he had promised Mary Carson to return to bed and stay there. He shrugged his shoulders, pushed his bedroom door open, switched on the light, and closed the door behind him.

  And the tall thin man called Burroughs who had been watching this little performance smiled to himself and signalled to Edwin Carson that all was again quiet on the second floor of the house called Thrackley. And Edwin Carson said: “Good. Very good.”

  X

  Edwin Carson, having seen each of his guests deposited safely at their bed-room doors, having taken an affectionate but perhaps over-lengthy farewell to Raoul the dancer, having gone his usual rounds of the house and seen that the front door was bolted and barred, that the sherry was under lock and key, that any respectably sized lumps of coal had been taken from the fire in the lounge and laid on the tiles to be reinserted in the morning, having made sure that the burglar-alarms on each window were in their usual efficient working order—Edwin Carson, after all this, went to his study and pressed the moulding of the panelling in the little recess, and prepared to spend an entertaining night in the cellars below Thrackley. He settled himself at his desk, lit a cigar, took a sip of the double whisky which he had brought down from his study, drew open a drawer of the desk, and lifted from that drawer a pair of light silverized headphones. And Edwin Carson placed the headphones over his bald, shiny head, and adjusted the screws at each side until the earpieces fitted snugly but not too tightly on his own large ears. Then he rolled back a section of the desk, revealing a panel of switches, each with a round disc of ebonite at its side, and with each disc lettered in a neat black lettering: “A”, “B”, “C”, up to “K”… and “1st Landing”… “2nd Landing”… “3rd Landing”… and “Kitchen”… “Lounge”… “Dining-Room”… “Garage”.

  He leaned back in his seat, so that he could just reach the double row of switches with the tip of his forefinger. He pressed the switch labelled “D” and it slid back into its socket with a click…

  “… back to your room,” Marilyn Brampton was saying. “I’m dead tired, and I want to get some sleep.”

  “Funny, isn’t it?” said the voice of Henry Brampton. “If anyone in town suggested your going to bed at this hour you’d be tickled to death at the idea.”

  “All depends who did the suggesting. Give me another of those foul cigarettes, Henry.”

  The sound of a cigarette-case snapping open and then shutting. The scratching of a match. H’m… Mr. Brampton evidently preferred to throw his spent matches into the fireplace rather than use the ashtrays provided for the purpose: funny how loud these little things seemed to be when they happened within a foot or so of the microphone…

  “Well… what’s the verdict, Marilyn?” said Henry Brampton.

  “Pretty foul, don’t you think? What an odd collection of freaks he’s got hold of… that Stone female makes me want to cry out loud. She cheated at bridge to-night—twice, did you notice?”

  “I didn�
�t see her.”

  “No. I didn’t think you would.”

  “And how often did you cheat?”

  “Thrice. I think the Henderson man saw both of us… you could play with twenty cards in your hand and that Usher object would see nothing wrong…”

  “What d’you think of Carson?”

  “Pretty foul.”

  (Edwin Carson shook the ash from his cigar and thought to himself that for a novelist Miss Brampton possessed a remarkably limited range of descriptions.)

  “No… not exactly up to standard for the front row of Mr. Cochran’s Young Gentlemen, is he? And did you notice the butler man? Just about as ugly as Carson.”

  “Wonder what he’ll make us do to-morrow?”

  “Oh, the usual… nice long walks, and a spot of shooting, and perhaps a really energetic game of tennis…”

  “My God! The food’s decent, though.”

  “And Raoul may help to liven things up… wonder how she’s got off from her show?”

  “The management’s regrets that owing to the sudden indisposition… I suppose.”

  “Rather a nice girl.”

  “I noticed you’d noticed that.”

  “Well… what d’you think of her yourself?”

  “Pretty foul, I should say.”

  And Edwin Carson stretched out his hand to the switch marked “D” and pulled it back to its original position. Going to be quite interesting, this. It was the first time that he had had an opportunity of really testing his microphones. Yes, quite interesting. Rather like those two-act sketches one used to see in concert-parties: the kind of thing where everyone said the correct and polite thing in the first act and then in the second just exactly what they thought of each other. He took the cigar from his mouth, and leaned forward to touch the next switch. “F”… young Henderson’s room.