Weekend at Thrackley

by Alan Melville

  “Sorry. Get you a pair from the kitchen, if you like.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I wish to blazes there was some women servants in this ruddy house. Wouldn’t need to keep cutting my toe-nails if there was someone to darn my socks.”

  “That’s so. What about that key?”

  “Over there, on the dressing-table. Bring it back, mind—boss said I wasn’t to give those keys to nobody. Go on, take the whole damned bunch.”

  Burroughs, the chauffeur, took the whole damned bunch. He said “Good night” politely enough to Jacobson and received no reply, for the butler had passed from his manicuring operations to the inspection of a coming corn on the big toe of his left foot. So Burroughs slammed the door behind him, and in the same movement as the slamming of the door he inserted what he devoutly prayed to be the right key in the lock of Jacobson’s door, and turned it quietly to the right. Inside the room the butler pulled the sheets up over his body and resumed his reading of April Shower’s chance in the 3.15 at Bogside to-morrow. The boss might be out with what Jacobson referred to as a bird, that damned idiot Burroughs might choose to spend the night looking for watches in garages, the rest of Edwin Carson’s guests might ring for bath salts or hot water bottles or whiskies-and-sodas until they were puce in the face… Jacobson was comfortably installed in his bed and had no intention of leaving that bed. Even if he had had any intentions of the kind, he could scarcely have carried them out. For in the passage outside, Burroughs, the chauffeur, was slowly extracting what had proved to be the correct key from the keyhole. “That’s you settled for the night, you ugly old sinner,” said Burroughs, and dropped the bunch of Thrackley’s keys into his trouser pocket. A very promising start, he thought.

  He ran downstairs and let himself out of the house by the French windows which led from the lounge. Better go to the garage, he thought, in case comrade Jacobson became suspicious. He opened the garage doors with a great deal more noise than was necessary, switched on the light and looked round the shelves at the back of the building. That and that… and possibly that might be useful. He left the garage doors open (“in case,” he thought, “friend Jacobson is wronging the dear boss with these aspersions of his”) and went again into the house. After which Burroughs, the chauffeur, spent a very busy hour and a half in the study of his employer. He removed his jacket, and worked for a while in the dark. And then he removed his waistcoat, and—after closing the shutters in the one window of the room—he switched on the light. He had only a vague idea of what he was looking for, and an even vaguer one of where he was going to find it. But of one thing he was certain: the only access to the cellars of Thrackley was through this room. Very well, then. At a quarter to one o’clock the panelling of Edwin Carson’s study had been completely ruined by much chiselling and boring, and a sweating and very dirty Burroughs knocked on Jim Henderson’s door.

  Jim had not undressed that night. Instead, he had lain on his bed with a couple of magazines, a stiff and long whisky-and-soda, and a hundred cigarettes grouped around him. His intentions were to stay awake at all costs until twelve o’clock, the altered time of the meeting in the hall. But his choice of the magazine had not been altogether a good one, and after reading Lady Gordon Cliffe-Munro’s dissertation on “Chintzes in the Modern Home” and Lucille’s account of what was happening to the waistline in Paris, Jim went to sleep. Just, of course, for ten minutes or so… because he would have to be awake to go and rouse that ass, Freddie. Just the sort of idiot who would spend to-night of all nights in dreaming long and sweet dreams.

  He was wakened by a very violent shaking at his shoulder. As usual, he prepared to be polite to Mrs. Bertram and not to appear annoyed if it was kippers again. Then he remembered that he was at Thrackley and that it would be the greasy Jacobson doing the curtain-unveiling act. And then he realized again that it was dark. “What the devil—?” he said.

  “Shut up. D’you know the time?”

  “Hempson! Good Lord, of course… the expedition to the underworld.”

  “And you snoring like a trooper and likely to go on doing so till doomsday.”

  “Not at all. I was just getting up. Everything ready?”

  “Readier than ever you imagined. I’ve been down to the cellars already.”

  “How on earth?…”

  “Genius, my boy, sheer genius. No wonder they saw I was meant for higher things than point-duty in Tottenham Court Road. Come and help me wake up Usher.”

  Waking up Usher took even longer than they had anticipated. When the feat was finally accomplished, Jim and Ronnie Hempson sat on the edge of Freddie’s bed and held a council of war.

  “Well?” said Jim. “If you’ve been down to the cellars, what did you find?”

  “Nothing. A perfectly ordinary cellar—except that the main part of it has been fitted with a big roll-top desk and a couple of chairs and a snappy little receptacle for holding a decanter and six glasses.”

  “This expedition,” said Freddie, “is beginning to appeal to me.”

  “That’s all very well,” said Jim, “but you can’t very well arrest a man for having a desk and a drink in his cellar.”

  “That’s all you can see,” said Burroughs. “There’s a damned sight more that you can’t see. Come on down, if you’re ready. It’s quite safe. The servants are securely locked in their bedrooms. Jacobson lent me the keys for the very purpose.”

  “Nice kind fellow, Jacobson,” said Freddie.

  “Come on, then.”

  They left the bedroom and went downstairs to Edwin Carson’s study. Hempson switched on the light.

  “Good God!” said Jim.

  “Yes… I’m afraid I’ve made a bit of a mess. Having done so, I’m also afraid that I’ll have to clear out to-night. So we’ll have to find out quite a lot about Mr. Edwin Carson before I leave. I want to be able to pay a return visit with a few large police-constables accompanying me.”

  “Yes… I’ve a feeling that Carson might notice that someone had been at his panelling.”

  “Ever been in this room before?”

  “Yes. For an hour or so just after I arrived. Carson wanted to have a chat with me about my father.”

  “And did you notice anything about the room?”

  “Can’t say I did.”

  “This is the only room in the house where the panelling’s new. All the other rooms are panelled in old oak. This one is in some ordinary soft wood, stained the same colour as the rest. But not quite the same colour. That’s what made me think that here was the entrance to the cellars.”

  “And is it?”

  “It certainly is. This room used to be panelled in the same oak as the rest of the house. Carson had it repanelled in this modern stuff… and he left a couple of feet along this wall between the old panelling and the new. He did the same in the kitchen, but this room was the easier of the two to tackle. And in the two couple of feet which were left he installed a lift.”

  Hempson put his hand through the hole he had made by removing one of the panels, and half of the wall slid sideways in front of the other half.

  “There’s some way of pressing something or other in the panelling which must release a catch inside and open up the way to the lift. But I hadn’t time to find it, so I just hacked a way in with a chisel.”

  “Carson will be pleased.”

  “Won’t he? Come on, let’s go down.”

  “Do you know how to work the thing?”

  “Ordinary lift controls. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the doors to open when I did get down. Had to chisel my way out as well as in. Carson’ll be tickled to death at that as well.”

  “Second floor, boy, please,” said Freddie. “The banqueting-hall.”

  “Certainly, sir… banqueting-hall, sir… there you are, sir.”

  Hempson had left the lights on in the cellars, and the three stepped out on to
the stone floor. The place was bare with the exception of the big desk, the chairs and the little closet, all at the far end of the cellars. Jim walked across the room until he came to the desk.

  “Got those keys, Hempson?” he asked.

  “Yes. I don’t expect they’ll fit that, though. These are really just the house keys.”

  “I expect you’re right. No harm in trying, though.”

  Six of the keys on the bunch were small enough to fit into the keyhole of the desk. Two went in too far, two not far enough, one turned a quarter of a circuit, one nearly half. “Hell!” said Jim.

  “No need to swear about it,” said Hempson. “Trust in little Ronald and his tame chisel. Safes, panels and desks opened in strictest confidence for a ridiculously small fee.”

  “Get on with it, then,” said Jim.

  “Certainly. Though I don’t really think we’ll find anything of importance in here. After all, what we want to find to-night is evidence that Edwin Carson’s been pinching jewels on a large scale for the last few years. He’d hardly keep the old tiaras in here.”

  “I know. But I’d rather like to know what all these wires that lead up the side of the desk are connected to. My ’satiable curiosity again.”

  “Good heavens! I never noticed them. Where the blazes is that chisel?”

  “And while you’re getting on with the good work,” said Jim, “Freddie and I will prowl around.”

  “I know where I’m prowling to,” said Freddie. “I hope to heaven this little cocktail cabinet isn’t locked. I’m hopeless with a chisel.”

  “Come on and see,” said Jim, and crossed to the wall where the cabinet stood. Then he stopped and peered at the wall above it.

  “What’s the matter?” said Freddie. “Aren’t you thirsty?”

  “Listen to this, Hempson,” said Jim.

  “What is it?”

  Jim tapped the wall with the knuckles of his hand—tapped it about a foot above the cabinet, and then a couple of feet higher.

  “That’s odd,” said Hempson.

  “Not odd at all. This isn’t a solid stone wall at all. Sections of it are imitation stone—painted steel, by the sound of it. Now, what d’you think is behind those sections? Carry on with the chiselling operations, Hempson my child. We’re getting hot.”

  “I’m getting dry,” said Freddie. “This wall-tapping and chiselling’s too much for me. Have a drink, Jim?”

  “No, thanks. Help yourself, though. Don’t mind me.”

  “I wasn’t going to.”

  And Freddie opened the cabinet, revealing a decanter of the excellent brandy which he had sampled after various meals at Thrackley. And six glasses of cut crystal. And a very efficient-looking .32 revolver.

  “Thanks,” said Jim. “I’ll take charge of that. You’re too young, Freddie. Now carry on and enjoy your drink.”

  The chisel which had done so much good work already braced itself for a final effort. Hempson slid it into the narrow opening he had made near the lock of the desk, and worked it backwards and forwards… and the lock gave after a short struggle, and the top of the big desk rolled back with a snap as it revealed the scattered contents inside.

  “Well!” said Hempson. “You were right about the wiring. No jewels in here. No secret papers. No compromising letters or last wills and testaments. But any amount of switches. All sizes and all shapes.”

  “Try one,” said Jim.

  Hempson put his fingers to one of the switches at the back of the desk. As he pulled it back, a section of the wall at the other end of the cellar slid upwards, revealing a square of plate glass through which the brilliant electric light shone on to a background of blue velvet.

  “Good God!” said Jim. “We’ve found it!”

  “You might at least have waited until I finished this drink,” said Freddie.

  “Damn your drink! Come and have a look at these.”

  Rubies. Twelve of them, all enormous, their facets catching the light in an amazing beauty. In the middle, a perfect specimen, slightly larger than the others.

  “Poor old Lady Stone!…” said Hempson.

  “What d’you mean?”

  “That’s the centre stone in that hideous necklace thing she wore. And now she’s back in London with a dud in its place.”

  “I think,” said Freddie, “I’ll try some more of those switches. I’d very much like to know if I’ve still got those damned diamonds of mine.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Freddie went ahead. With each movement of his hand a fresh square of light shone out into the room. In five minutes the drab grey of the cellar’s walls had been changed into a frame for an amazing glittering collection. Diamonds in one section… pearls in another… emeralds on pure white velvet in a third.

  “That’s enough,” said Hempson. “Quite enough. Some of those trinkets are recognizable enough to get Mr. Edwin Carson removed from Thrackley to another part of the country for a good many years. Now I’m clearing out.”

  “What about us?”

  “Get back to your rooms and behave as though nothing had happened. Carson need never suspect you… it’s me he’ll be after. That’s why I’m doing a bunk. And I promise you faithfully that I’ll be calling again to-morrow.”

  “What if Carson tries to get away himself?”

  “I don’t think he will. If he does, try and get in touch with me in Adderly… or with Scotland Yard direct. In any case, we’ll have someone ready to trail the old boy if he does attempt a getaway.”

  “This is getting too much like one of those gangster films for my liking,” said Freddie. “And there are still two more of these jolly little switches to be tried. What about it?”

  “Why not?”

  “Why, as you so aptly put it, not?”

  He pulled one of the switches towards him.

  “I don’t see anything,” said Freddie.

  “You wouldn’t,” said Jim. “It’s behind you.”

  “Good Lord! What the blazes?…”

  “The entrance to the room where Carson makes his imitation jewels, I suppose… yes, a very nice little plant. All the latest ideas in mechanism. Now try the other one, Freddie.”

  The last of the switches was pulled back in its socket. At the far end of the room, to the right of the entrance from the lift, three bolts shot back simultaneously.

  “Lord!… I never noticed that. Wonder where this Sesame leads to?”

  They crossed to the other end of the cellar and swung open the door which the bolts had released. It swung easily, though it was fully four inches thick.

  “Can’t see anything,” said Jim. “Fetch your electric torch, Hempson.”

  “Here you are.”

  Jim switched on the torch and played the circle of light through the doorway and into the room. He stopped it for a moment as it passed over something on the floor, and then he felt at the side of the door for an electric light switch.

  And when he found it and flooded the little room with light, they saw that the something on the floor was Catherine Lady Stone.

  XVI

  Edwin Carson swung the nose of his car through the open doors of the garage, and switched off engine and lights. He was still in a very unpleasant mood. Mr. Carson had been accustomed all his life to get what he wanted. There had been only three occasions when he had not got what he wanted; and to-night had been one of the three. He groped in the darkness for an electric torch, and switched it on when he found it. The beam fell on the legs of Raoul as she felt her way out of the car, and the very shapeliness of those legs seemed to aggravate his annoyance. What insufferable fools women were. Here (referring to himself) was a man with unlimited wealth, a splendid house, a certain amount of fame, ready to give himself and all these to a slip of a girl whose life at present consisted of performing nearly naked dances thrice nightly in
a not too brilliant revue. And what did the slip of a girl do? She slapped his face. Damned hard, too, thought Edwin Carson as he rubbed his hand over his cheek… damned hard for a slip of a girl like that. He locked the doors of the garage with his own keys and led the way to the house.

  He found the lock of the front door with a certain amount of difficulty, and stood aside to allow Raoul to enter. The hall was in darkness. Evidently the servants had gone to bed as he had ordered. Then he spoke for the first time in an hour.

  “Drink, Raoul?” he asked.

  “No, thank you. I’ll go right up to my room, if you please.”

  “Just as you wish. I’ll see you up.”

  “That is all right, Señor Carson. I know the way now.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and crossed to the sideboard to pour out a drink.

  “Good night, then, Raoul,” he said.

  “Good night, señor.” She paused at the foot of the stairs. “And I am sorry that you have had a wasted evening, señor.”

  “So am I. Let’s forget, shall we, my dear?”

  “I have done so.”

  “Good night.”

  “Good night, señor.”

  He watched her go until she vanished round the bend in the stairs. And then he drank his whisky at a gulp. It made him feel a trifle less disgruntled with the world. He crossed the floor of the hall, switched off the light, and entered his study. And what he saw made all the soothing effects of his drink collapse like a playing-cards castle.

  The three tall panels which had been so very expensive to install were slid aside, leaving the black opening which he had so often used to reach his cellar. All round the opening the panelling had been hacked and destroyed. Two of the panels had been removed altogether from their framing and lay on the carpet of the study. He stared at it for a minute, and then crossed to the opening in the wall and listened carefully. And then he removed his thick glasses and mopped his sweating face with his handkerchief. His fingers were shaking as he put on his glasses again.