To Wake the Dead (Dr. Gideon Fell series Book 9)

by John Dickson Carr

  “Well?”

  “The hall-porter,” replied Hardwick, half shutting his eyes, “wears a long blue tunic, frock-coat effect: double-breasted, silver buttons, opening high at the neck: wing collar and black bow tie: red stripe on cuff and collar. The four under-porters wear a double-breasted coat with wing collar and black four-in-hand tie; red insignia. The liftmen wear a short single-breasted coat high at the neck; silver buttons, shoulder epaulets. The lounge attendants have a uniform like blue evening clothes, with silver but tons and red insignia. But as for the last two being upstairs——”

  “I had no idea there were so many of ’em,” growled Dan. “It’s no good. If I try to keep on thinking, I’ll only put ideas into my own head and probably lead you wrong. I remember the coat and the buttons; that’s all I can swear to. You could see the buttons under the pile of towels. He was holding up the towels in front of his face.”

  Hadley frowned at his note-book.

  “But can you tell us, for instance, whether it was a long or a short coat? Or an open or a closed collar?”

  “I couldn’t see his collar. I’ve got a fairly strong impression that it was a short coat; but I wouldn’t swear to that either.”

  Hardwick interrupted with abrupt explosiveness.

  “This is a worse business than you think. There’s something you’d better know, superintendent, though it won’t help you much. Some years ago we had a night under-porter who turned out to be a thief—and as neat and ingenious a thief as I’ve come across. His method of robbing the guests was very nearly foolproof. He would have his two floors to attend, as usual. In the middle of the night he would go upstairs to answer a bell, or to ‘look round’ as they often do. Up there he had hidden a pair of pyjamas and slippers, and sometimes a dressing-gown as well. The pyjamas would go on over his uniform. He had, naturally, a master-key to the rooms in his circuit. So he would simply slip in and steal what he liked. If the occupant of the room woke up, or was disturbed in any way, he had a magnificent excuse which never failed, ‘Sorry; wrong room; I’ve barged in.’ In any case he would be taken for a guest. If he were seen coming out of a room, or walking in the halls, he would excite absolutely no suspicion; he was a guest going to the lavatory, or wherever you like. When the robbery was discovered a guest would naturally be suspected. Well, he did that for some time, until one victim refused to accept the ‘wrong room’ excuse, and grabbed him.”1

  Hardwick paused.

  “Don’t,” he added, with dour amusement, “run away with the idea, please, that you’re in a wayside den of thieves. But I thought I had better mention it. It’s what made me put up those signs in every room, ‘Please bolt your door.’”

  Francine took up the challenge—if it was a challenge. “It seems to me that there is a moral there,” she said without inflection. “If an employee can dress up as a guest, a guest can also dress up as an employee.”

  There was a heavy silence, while the room seemed very warm.

  “I beg your pardon, Miss Forbes,” said Hardwick, not too quickly. “I honestly did not mean that at all. I—um—merely mentioned it. In any case, I can check up on the movements of all those people last night.”

  “You might do that immediately,” Hadley suggested, and got up with decision. “In the meantime, we’ll have a look at the body. Just one more question. You were speaking about ‘master-keys.’ Are the locks on the doors the same in every room?”

  “Hardly. The locks are something of a fine art in gradation. As a rule, each maid has assigned to her a certain number of rooms to do: usually twelve, though it may be less. She carries only one key, which opens any door in her group. And each group of rooms has a different lock. Lock-patterns may be repeated in different parts of the hotel, of course, but there are nearly twenty different combinations. The under-porters carry a master-key which will open any lock on their two floors; and so on up in gradations, until I have a key which will open any door in the building. But that general rule does not apply to our top floor, the new addition. We’re trying out an experiment, probably not successful, of having Yale locks on all the doors, and no two locks the same. It will be a hundred times more trouble, and cause a lot of confusion; but it’s absolutely impossible for any unauthorised person to open even so much as a linen-closet.”

  “Thank you. We’ll go round to 707, then. You had better come along, Mr. Kent.” Hadley turned to Francine and Dan. “Will you wait here for us, or would you rather go back to your own rooms?”

  For answer Francine went to the chair he had previously drawn out for her, and sat down in it with the air of one who folds her arms. Dan—rather deprecatingly—said that they would stay.

  It was very warm in the corridors outside, crossed in zebra-fashion with cold where someone had left open a window or raised a skylight in this hive. The raising of windows gave brief glimpses deep into the life of the hotel, and brought together the noises that make up the hollow hum which is its background. Ghostly voices talked in the air-well. You heard a plate rattle, and the buzzing of a vacuum-cleaner. Indistinct figures crossed the line of vision at windows; Kent felt certain that there would be roast chicken for lunch. All this was built up layer upon layer below them, leading to the sedate modernness of Wing A. The three of them, with Sergeant Betts following, looked down that wide corridor, with its bright mural decorations and each of its lights enclosed in a chrysalis of frosted glass.

  “Well?” prompted Hadley.

  “I have found the essential clue,” said Dr. Fell earnestly. “Hadley, I’ll let you into the secret. It’s the wrong sort of bogey-man.”

  “All right,” said the other with some bitterness. “I was wondering when it would commence. Fire away, then.”

  “No, I’m quite serious. For a murderer deliberately to dress up as a hotel-attendant is wrong; and therefore—I say, therefore—it means something.”

  “I suppose you wouldn’t consider the startling theory that the murderer was dressed like a hotel-attendant because he really is a hotel-attendant?”

  “Perhaps. But that’s what I want to emphasise,” urged the doctor, plucking at Hadley’s sleeve. “In that case the business becomes much worse. We have here a menace which is undoubtedly peering round corners and dogging this party. Now, a menace may or may not be frightening; but it’s usually appropriate. Unless it is appropriate there’s no point to it. For the first murder we have as a setting an isolated house by a churchyard in Sussex: a setting appropriate to nearly every kind of lurking menace except a hotel-attendant in full canonicals stalking through the passage with a salver. Considering what has happened here in the hotel, I don’t think we can dismiss that business at Northfield as a coincidence or the mere hallucination of a drunken man.

  “You see, these two murders were committed either by a real hotel-attendant, or by a member of Reaper’s party dressed up to look like one. But if it is the first, why should the murderer deliberately put on his workaday uniform to wander through a Sussex country house in the middle of the night? And, if it is the second, why should a member of Reaper’s party put on the infernal costume at all?”

  Hadley was troubled.

  “Here, stop a bit!” he protested. “Aren’t you jumping to conclusions all over the place? It seems to me you’re being hag-ridden by the idea of a double-murderer in fancy dress. Suppose what Bellowes saw at Northfield was a hallucination: suppose the attendant carrying the towels, here, was an innocent member of the staff who somehow escaped being noticed as he came upstairs—” He stopped, because he could not convince himself of this. But about the principle of the thing he was dogged. “I mean, there’s not a shred of actual evidence to show that either Mr. or Mrs. Kent was killed by someone dressed up like that. It seems probable, but where’s the evidence?”

  “Well,” said Dr. Fell mildly, “our friend Hardwick should be able to check up on the movements of his staff last night at midnight. Eh?”

  “I should think so.”

  “H’mf, yes. And s
uppose they can all account for their whereabouts? That would mean, I think (let’s face it) that it was somebody in masquerade? Ergo, what becomes of your innocent figure who is first a hallucination and then an accident?” The doctor was lighting his pipe, and his vast puffs sent the smoke skew-wiff round his face. “I say, Hadley, why are you so opposed to the idea?”

  “I’m not opposed to the idea. Only, it seems ruddy nonsense to me. Why should anyone dress up like that? Unless, of course——”

  Dr. Fell grunted. “Oh, yes. We can always say (soothingly) that the murderer is a lunatic with a complex for doing his work in that particular kind of fancy costume. I can’t quite believe that, because to my simple mind the dress of a hotel-porter is hardly one I should associate with an avenging angel or any form of secret violence. But look at your cursed evidence! The crimes appear to be completely without motive; they are wantonly brutal; and there seems to be no reason why the murderer should insist on strangling his victims with his hands wrapped up in a towel, which I submit would be a clumsy and uncertain process. Finally, there’s that.”

  They had come round the turn in the corridor, where Sergeant Preston was on guard. Dr. Fell indicated the “quiet-is-requested” sign still hanging from the knob of the closed door, with its announcement in red ink of the presence of a dead woman inside. Then he reached out with his stick and touched the brown suède shoes a little to the left of the door.

  “Shoes that don’t match,” he said gruffly. “Mind, I must caution you against too many deductions. But kindly note—shoes that don’t match.”

  Hadley turned to Sergeant Preston. “Anything new?”

  “Two sets of finger-prints, sir. They’re developing the pictures now; the manager lent us their regular dark-room here. The doctor’s waiting for you.”

  “Good. Go downstairs and get that hall-porter; also the chambermaid who was on duty here last night. Bring them up here, but keep them outside until I call.”

  Then Hadley opened the door. The cream-coloured blinds were now drawn up on the windows, so that Kent had a good view of the room he had first seen in dimness. For a second or two he was not sure whether he could force himself to go in. He knew what was lying on the floor; he knew now that it was Jenny; and he felt a certain nausea choking him. For several hours he had been telling himself that it was not as though he had lost someone very close to him, either in Jenny or even in Rod. He bore their name in law; but other friends, and particularly Francine, were much closer to his feelings than this amiable young couple who had dodged about on the fringes of his life. But it was the meaningless nature of the crimes which took his nerves; suddenly it disgusted him with his own crime-fiction.

  Then Hadley touched his elbow and he went in. Two broad windows opening on the air-well, their grey velvet curtains drawn fully back, showed the white tiling outside like the wall of a cold-storage vault; and snow patched the window-ledges. It was a room about twenty feet square, with a ceiling somewhat low in proportion. Its tint was uniformly grey and blue, with light outlines in the panelling, and sleek maplewood furniture after the prevailing fashion. It showed little sign of disturbance. Towards his left were the twin beds, their blue silk counterpanes undisturbed. In the wall on the left was the other door leading to the corridor; and, farther on, a dressing-table. The bureau—as he had good reason to know from his first visit—stood between the windows. In the wall on the right he now noticed a door open on a bathroom, and a large wardrobe. Completing the circuit of the room, the pile of bath-towels still lay on the little table to the right of the door.

  Evidently Jenny had been unpacking her trunk when the murderer entered. The wardrobe door stood ajar, and he could see just one frock hanging up inside from the many still hanging in the trunk; there were also several pairs of shoes in the wardrobe. But he saw one great difference from this morning. The trunk stood in its former position, facing the door and some eight feet out from the right-hand window, its leaves well open. Yet the body, which formerly had lain on its right side with the head just inside the trunk, now sprawled face upwards some three or four feet closer to the door. He was relieved to see that the towel had now been draped over her face. Then Kent caught sight of his own face reflected in the mirror over the bureau, and dodged back instinctively.

  “I see,” he said, clearing his throat, “you’ve moved her.”

  A middle-aged man in glasses, who had been sitting across the room with a medical bag on the floor beside him, got up quickly.

  “Moved her?” repeated Hadley. “She certainly hasn’t been and wouldn’t have been moved. That’s how she was found—that right, Betts?”

  “Yes, sir,” agreed the sergeant. “Aside from the constable, I was the first person here; and that’s how I found her.”

  “Well, it isn’t how I found her,” said Kent. He described the position. “I’ve got good reason to know that. Somebody must have pulled her out this distance after I had gone.”

  Hadley put his brief-case on the bed. “We want that hall-porter. Where the devil’s that hall-por— Ah, I’ve sent for him. Look round, Mr. Kent; take your time. Does anything else look different?”

  “No, not so far as I can see. I didn’t get a good look at the room; the blinds were down; but everything seems about the same. I didn’t notice that wardrobe, though it’s unlikely that it wasn’t here a couple of hours ago. But there’s another point besides the position of the body: that missing bracelet which the woman who vacated the room last was supposed to have left behind in the bureau. If that’s the bureau you mean,”—he pointed—”I’ll swear again there was no bracelet in it at eight o’clock this morning. Yet according to the manager, it was found by the hall-porter after I had gone. I’d like to know how long it was between the time I left the room and the time he opened the door.”

  “Well attend to that,” said Hadley. “In the meantime—well, doctor?”

  Hadley knelt beside the body, twitched the towel off Jenny’s face, and grunted noncommittally; Kent was glad that his back hid the sight. The police-surgeon approached with interest.

  “So she’s been moved,” the latter commented, with a quick look at Kent and a beam of satisfaction. “I’m not surprised. That would account for it. If I’m right, this is a new way of committing murder.”

  “New way of committing murder? She was strangled, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes, yes, strangled, asphyxiated, what you like; but with a difference. She was probably stunned first, though there are eight blows on her face and head, and I can’t tell which of them might have done the stunning. I should say, roughly, that she died about midnight—allow a margin one way or the other.” The doctor peered over his spectacles, and then knelt beside Hadley. “But look here! Look at the front and back of the neck.”

  “Creases. As though,” muttered Hadley, “there’d been a cord or wire tied round. But——”

  “But there’s no cord or wire, and the creases don’t extend round as far as the sides of the neck,” the other pointed out. “It explains everything, including the towel, though I should have imagined the fellow would have used a thick bath-towel rather than this. Now take a look at that wardrobe trunk. It’s a big trunk—plenty of space at one side where the dresses hung—and she’s a small woman. You also notice that the dresses inside look a bit rumpled and tossed about. It’s a job for you, of course: but I should say her neck was put between the sharp jaws of the trunk as it stood upright, with the towel round her neck so that the edges wouldn’t cut….”

  Hadley got to his feet, snapping his fingers.

  “Oh, yes. Nasty business, of course,” agreed the other. “As I say: the towel muffled her neck, and her body was in the part of the trunk where the dresses are hanging. Then the murderer slowly pressed together the edges of the trunk until she was very effectually strangled. Afterwards she was allowed to drop, and the blows were administered for good measure. Neat idea, though. There’s death in everything nowadays, isn’t there?”

  1It is un
wise, I know, to thrust out an editorial head from behind the scenes; but, in case it should be thought that I am plagiarising from fiction, I should like to say that this really happened. For obvious reasons I cannot give the name of the hotel, but it is a large one in Bloomsbury.—J. D. C.

  6

  Fifteen Bath-towels

  THERE WAS A SILENCE, after which Hadley dropped the towel back on the face and drew a deep breath. The big trunk, very suggestive despite the pink frock that hung uppermost in the space to the left, drew all their eyes.

  “This is one murderer,” said Hadley, closing his hands deliberately, “that I’m going to see hanged if it’s the last thing I ever do. Look here, doctor: you examined the other one—her husband—didn’t you? He wasn’t killed with any such hocus-pocus as that, was he?”

  “No, that seemed to be a straight case of strangling with the hands wrapped in a towel. Pretty powerful hands, too; or else—” He put his finger to his temple and made a circling motion with it. “Dementia praecox, superintendent. The whole case smells of it; or has so far. The trouble is that this looks like too reasoned and deliberate a plan of campaign. However, that’s your job. Unless you want me for anything more, I’ll be pushing off. They’ll bring the body along whenever you say.”

  “Thanks, doctor. Nothing else,” said Hadley. For a time he moved slowly in a circle, studying the body and the trunk, and making careful notes. “Betts!”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “That ‘quiet’ sign on the door: could you find out where it came from?”

  “It came from here,” said the sergeant. “There’s one of them supplied to every room; it’s put in the bureau drawer, in case the guest wants it. New-fangled notion, apparently. And as for the writing in red ink on it—here you are, sir.”

  He walked across the room to a small writing-desk, placed cater-cornered in the far right-hand corner near one window. The dark-blue carpet was so thick that no footfall sounded here when either Hadley or the sergeant moved. Kent also suspected that these new walls were sound-proof. Drawing away the chair before the desk, Betts indicated the blotter. In addition to the hotel pen and inkwell, with stationery in the rack above, there was a small agate-coloured fountain-pen.