Puzzle of the Silver Persian

by Stuart Palmer

  He mounted to the boat deck as rapidly as he could and found the meddlesome school teacher kneeling beside the prone figure of a young man, who still kept his tense, desperate fingers clenched around the rail. Miss Withers was tearing at his throat, and as Cannon uncomprehendingly approached, the noose of silk came away.

  Sergeant John Secker let go the rail and began to breathe again, shudderingly. Finally he could speak.

  “A bit close, that,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you sing out?” demanded Cannon.

  “Why? Why didn’t I sing out? With a blasted, bloody, be-damned snare around my throat? It was all I could do to keep from being thrown overboard, that’s why.”

  “Oh,” said the chief inspector.

  “And now,” Hildegarde Withers told him very sweetly, “now perhaps we know why Rosemary Fraser didn’t scream.”

  There was something of a pause, after which Cannon picked up the purple scarf and handed it back to its owner.

  “Much obliged to you, madam,” he announced stiffly.

  Sergeant John Secker smiled rather feebly. “I’m more than obliged,” he said. “Thanks awfully.” He dusted himself off very carefully. “Cheerio.”

  They moved away and left her there. “But—” began Hildegarde Withers. She followed quickly after them. “Can’t I be of any further assistance? I’ve had a certain amount of experience at this sort of thing back in the States…”

  Chief Inspector Cannon was in a very bad mood. He felt that he had placed himself in an exceedingly unfortunate position. After all, if the young fool hadn’t known any better than to tie the scarf in an ordinary slip-knot…

  “This isn’t the States,” he said shortly. Then, to temper his gruffness: “You see, this completes our case. The rest is purely official.”

  “Oh,” said Hildegarde Withers.

  She watched them go forward, to where Captain Everett was issuing from his cabin, and heard the officer somewhat indignantly inquiring as to when he could put his passengers ashore.

  “Sooner the better,” she heard Chief Inspector Cannon say. And then she hurried aft and went down the ladder to the lower deck. She rushed rapidly toward her own cabin, but as she turned into the short passageway she saw that it was blocked by the well-starched back of Mrs. Snoaks, the stewardess. She was in hot argument with the Honorable Emily.

  “I’ll do it and keep me mouth shut,” the woman was saying. “But two quid isn’t enough, what with all the police hanging about. If your ladyship will make it four…”

  “Done!” came the voice of the Honorable Emily. There was the snap of a handbag, and then the stewardess brushed past Miss Withers with four unmistakable pound treasury notes disappearing into her capacious bosom.

  The Honorable Emily, still in the doorway, smiled at Miss Withers calmly. “The lower classes are becoming worse and worse every day,” she observed. “Rank socialism, that’s what it is.”

  She closed the door behind her, and the school teacher stared at it for a moment. Her brow was contorted with a frown. Was there an Ethiop concealed in the kindling? Certainly the Honorable Emily was the last person on board to be involved in anything which the police on board must not know—or was she? Was anybody, for that matter? By which you may rightly gather that Miss Hildegarde Withers was not inclined to agree with the inspector that the case had been completed.

  While she repacked her clothing she attempted without success to imagine what had been the meaning of the interview which she had unwittingly overheard. Suddenly Hildegarde Withers kicked aside her suitcase and stood upright. “The simplest way to find out would be to ask!” she determined.

  She moved toward the door, but at that moment there came a resounding knock. She opened it, and in came the Honorable Emily, monocle and all.

  “I heard you talking with the detectives outside,” said that tweedy lady. “I don’t suppose they enlightened you as to the possibilities of our getting ashore sometime today?”

  “As a matter of fact they did.” Miss Withers sought for an opening. “We’re to go ashore as soon as they can put the vessel in the dock. But, by the way, I would give anything in the world to know just—”

  “We must have a good chat about it,” the Honorable Emily broke in. “Come and have tea with me this afternoon at the Alexandria. Good hotel, that. I can’t wait to drop into a good soaking hot bath instead of these lukewarm salt-water atrocities that they’ve given us aboard.” She stopped short. “My word! The vessel is moving—I must finish my packing and get Tobermory and the bird ready to go ashore.” She was gone.

  There was the painful clatter of an upped anchor forward, and then the dingy waterfront of East London began to slide by again. Miss Withers, temporarily thwarted, resumed her packing. By the time she had finished, the little American Diplomat had miraculously eased herself through the bottle-neck of George V dock and was securely moored in her slip.

  Miss Withers suddenly realized that she had forgotten to change her American money into pounds and shillings and rushed down to the purser’s office. “Just enough for taxi fare,” she implored.

  Leslie Reverson, Candida Noring, and Andy Todd were ahead of her. Reverson was folding a small sheaf of treasury notes into his wallet. He left off bewailing the current exchange to answer a question of Todd’s.

  “Always go to the Alexandria,” he announced. “Not too dear, and practically a skip and a jump to everything in London.”

  Andy Todd wanted to know if the Alexandria was near Buckingham Palace and the museums. “’Pon my word, I don’t know,” said Reverson. “I’ve never been to any of them. But it’s a step from the Strand.”

  A steward broke in on the conclave to announce that everyone was wanted in the social hall to pass the immigration quiz. Miss Withers waited patiently for half an hour, and then swore faithfully before two weary young men in uniform that she was visiting England only for pleasure, that she was not a Communist, and that she had no intentions of seeking employment within the Realm. Her passport was stamped, and then, as she rose to go, a man in the uniform of a police constable halted her. He produced his notebook.

  “You’ll be wanted at the inquest upon the death of Peter Noel,” he announced. “Your address in London, please.”

  “Address? But I haven’t an address.”

  “You’ll have to have an address,” said the constable. “Everyone must have an address.”

  “Oh—Hotel Alexandria,” said the school teacher impulsively. She watched him write down her full name—“Hildegarde Martha Withers”—and the name of the hotel. There were other names upon his list, but she was not adept enough at reading upside down to decipher the handwriting.

  Then she was suffered to leave the social hall, which had such unpleasant associations for her. As she watched her baggage being hurtled down the corridor by white-clad stewards, she saw Candida Noring coming toward her. The girl’s face was wan.

  “Something has happened!” said Hildegarde Withers to herself. She had known that they would not leave this ship without another untoward event. Then she caught the distraught girl by the arm.

  “Whatever is the matter, child?”

  “Matter?” Candida was shaking. “Everything is the matter. I’m so frightened!”

  “Frightened of what, pray?”

  “If you want to know, I’m frightened of everything and everybody. I’m frightened of you and all the rest!” Miss Withers shook her head and then pressed the icy palm.

  “It’s been hard on you, but it’s all over now.”

  Candida caught her breath. “But it isn’t over! I don’t care what the police say. Rosemary was murdered—and the murderer isn’t through yet. And—and there’s somebody in my stateroom.”

  “What?” Miss Withers almost laughed. “Why, child, of course. The stewards are putting the baggage out on deck. We go through the Customs in a moment.”

  “My baggage was out on deck two hours ago and the police took Rosemary’s away,” said Candida i
nsistently. “Just now I came to my door and found it ajar. I stopped, and inside I heard a soft rustling and then a little crash. And I ran…”

  “We’ll soon settle that,” declared the school teacher. She led the way fearlessly to the stateroom door and thrust it open. No one had had a chance to leave while they stood outside—but the little cabin was empty.

  Miss Withers looked under the berth and into the high wardrobe. She found nothing more significant than an empty packet that once had held brown-paper cigarettes and two clothes hangers.

  “You see?” she announced. “It’s all your imagination.”

  At that moment an unhuman, whiskered face projected itself from the top of the wardrobe, and Miss Withers leaped back almost into Candida’s arms.

  “Mowr!” said Tobermory. His back was arched, and every silvery hair stood out on end. “Mowr!” he repeated, and then spat fearfully at the two startled women.

  Miss Withers caught him by the scruff of the neck and lifted him gently down. Out in the hall she saw the buxom figure of the stewardess and delivered him into her care.

  The school teacher turned to Candida Noring. “Come on, let’s face the Customs together,” she invited. “Have you decided about a hotel yet?”

  Candida hesitated. “We—Rosemary and I—had reservations for two rooms at the Alexandria. But now that she’s—she’s gone—”

  “Nonsense. Come along. Perhaps we can share a taxi, I’m going there myself.” They hurried aft to find that a gangway had been let down and that most of the ship’s passengers were already on the dock. Ahead of them Dr. Waite hurried, a smile of anticipation lighting his face. In his hand was a small kitbag. On the dock Andy Todd was taking a snapshot of the vessel he had just left.

  “Good-bye, American Diplomat!” said Miss Withers with heartfelt relief. Candida Noring did not bid the staunch little vessel any good-byes, but she ran down the gangplank as if all the devils of hell were after her.

  Chapter V

  The Letter Edged in Black

  AMAZED AND CONSIDERABLY RUFFLED, Miss Hildegarde Withers emerged from the Customs shed. Her modest baggage, which was now being wheeled after her in a creaking barrow, had been torn to pieces and scrutinized as if she had been suspected of being nobody less than Mamie the Queen of the Dope Smugglers. Long as the ordeal had taken, she was among the first of the passengers to have the blue chalk X marked on her bags.

  She had hoped to share a taxi with Candida Noring, but this wet bleak doorway was no place for waiting, so she gave up the idea and hailed the nearest Jehu. She had her first glimpses of London Town through the murky windows of a vehicle which looked as if it might have carried Gladstone or Disraeli. They meandered through the East End, usually hemmed in by a slow dray or lorry. Miss Withers afterwards had confused recollections of countless bicyclists, midget automobiles, and of dray horses with sleek fat sides and many whiskers around their hooves.

  After some hours the taxi swooped down upon Trafalgar Square, which Miss Withers haply recognized by the towering shaft in the center. She gave the English credit for a grim sort of humor in placing atop such a giddy pinnacle the statue of the famous admiral who, if history is to be believed, could not stand at his own masthead without intense weakness of stomach.

  The taxi continued for half a block, and drew up before a vast stone mausoleum which was the Hotel Alexandria.

  A dignified personage wearing handle-bar mustaches and three row of medals across his chest approached to greet her, carrying an umbrella, although it had ceased to rain. Lesser persons seized her baggage, and she was ushered into a foyer almost as large as Madison Square Garden. The place was filled with marble pillars, deep-piled rugs of a bright carmine hue, many shining-topped tables and red-plush lounging chairs. Miss Withers was able to make out, after a time, that four or five human beings were lurking in the vastness, dropping cigarette ash upon the tops of the shiny tables or sipping from tiny glittering glasses.

  On her right was an open doorway displaying a desk and the familiar pigeonholes of mail cubicles. Miss Withers entered, in a properly hushed manner, and heard the clear voice of Candida Noring, who had evidently drawn a more modern taxi than her own.

  “But I did have a reservation!”

  The two clerks conferred and then brightened. “Oh, yes! Two adjoining rooms with bawth for Miss Fraser and Miss Noring. Guinea and a half per day without breakfast.”

  Candida wrote her name on the card presented to her. Another was placed before Miss Withers. “And this is Miss Fraser, I presume?”

  There was one of those silences, during which a white-faced Candida whirled to notice who stood beside her. Miss Withers nodded to her casually and wrote her own name in flowing script. “I am not,” she told the clerk. “Something a little less expensive,” she added. The clerk understood. There was a very nice room on the same floor with the two young ladies for eighteen shillings.

  “Then Miss Fraser will be along a bit later?” he inquired politely. Candida turned away.

  Miss Withers, who had a distinct feeling of chill along her spine, shook her head. “I’m afraid not,” she informed the clerk.

  Both women were entrusted to the guidance of a page boy who looked as if he had been manufactured to fit one of the more compact British automobiles, and were led across the foyer and down an interminable hall. They passed a pair of scrolled elevator doors marked “Lift Out of Order,” but finally found an open door and were wheezed upward by fits and starts to the fifth floor. Candida was deposited in a surprisingly cheerful room in which a coal grate was merrily blazing. “I’ll see you later?” Candida asked hopefully as if afraid of being left alone.

  Miss Withers smiled and nodded, and was led onward to a door almost at the end of the hall. Her room was a little smaller than Candida’s, and its window looked out on a brick wall instead of on the street. A mammoth mahogany wardrobe loomed beside the high brass bed, and the mirror of a dressing table mercifully shut off most of the window and its view of red brick. Here also was an open fireplace, but in it was only a lonesome festoon of red crêpe paper.

  While Miss Withers was depositing a silver sixpence in the hand of the page boy, a porter appeared with a cartful of baggage. Then she was left alone. Hastily she began to unpack, pulling off her well-worn blue serge suit with the intention of slipping into something a bit gayer. She was interrupted by a faint knock on the door. Before she could answer, two maids marched in bearing scuttles and pails. Entirely ignoring her startled dishabille, they proceeded noisily and quickly to fill the room with smoke and coal dust. Then they departed.

  Miss Withers found that the massive door between her room and the corridor had a keyhole but no key. She looked for a telephone, found none, and then discovered a bell push at the head of the high bed.

  As soon as the uniformed man arrived, she ordered him to procure for her a key, at once.

  He looked at her unhappily. Then he shook his head. “There’s no need to lock your door in this hotel, mum. We never gives keys to the guests, because the maids don’t like to find the doors locked. Makes trouble for them about their work, mum.” He departed.

  “The maids don’t like it!” repeated Hildegarde Withers blankly. After the chamber of horrors aboard ship, this sudden plunge into Gilbert and Sullivan was a little too much for her. She sank down into an enfolding and comfortable armchair beside the rousing fire and laughed until she cried. “All that’s left to come is a warming pan,” she told herself feebly.

  She got up again and attacked the remainder of her baggage. There was one small black bag too many. Since it bore the initials “C-N” it must be Candida’s.

  Miss Withers put on her coat and hat, resolving to drop the bag at the girl’s room on her way out to take her first independent view of the city. She knocked on the door of Candida Noring’s room—Number 505—and received no answer. Knocking again, she pushed the door open and entered.

  Candida was sitting at the dressing table, her head buried in her
arms. “Heavens, child!” cried the school teacher. “Is anything wrong?”

  The girl looked up and motioned toward a pile of mail which lay around her. “They just sent it up,” she said falteringly.

  Miss Withers understood. “Of course. Cablegrams from Rosemary’s people, no doubt. You must be frightfully upset.”

  But Candida Noring shook her head. “Oh, it isn’t that!” she said haltingly. She extended a black-bordered envelope, torn across one side. Miss Withers saw that it bore simply the name, “Miss C. Noring” written in round, vague letters, and that no stamp was affixed.

  “This,” explained Candida, “was in the box with the rest. The man said he didn’t know how it came, but he thought it was by messenger. Read it—and then tell me I’m going mad.”

  Miss Withers took the single sheet of notepaper from the envelope and gasped.

  She was staring at a message which, after the fashion customary among our grandmothers for funeral announcements, had been bordered with black—black which in this case covered all of the sheet except for a space in the center in which had been pasted an irregular-shaped scrap of cream-colored paper—paper with a faint blue line running through it.

  Across that cream-colored scrap, in handwriting not too familiar to the keen eyes of Miss Withers, ran as follows: “I hate you, and I shall go on hating you after I am dead and after you are dead…” That was all.

  The school teacher sniffed and handed the thing back. “A very bad joke,” she said. She tried to keep her voice from being doubtful.

  Candida Noring was uncomforted. “You see,” she explained, “that’s Rosemary’s writing…” Her voice died away into a whisper.

  “Who do you think sent it?” Miss Withers inquired casually.

  Candida shook her head. “I don’t know! I don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”

  Miss Withers did not, particularly in ghosts that stooped to use notepaper and cheap theatricalism in their messages. “More likely,” she decided, “this is another offering on the part of the practical joker in our midst. Why don’t you confront Mr. Andy Todd with that letter?”