Death Invites You

by Paul Halter

  ‘Is Henrietta aware of her condition? What I mean is, does she hold it against her sister, does she feel she was responsible?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. In fact, I’m pretty sure. On the other hand, Valerie herself does have guilty feelings. And that’s the worst part about it: I’m afraid she’ll never forget that summer afternoon, even though Harold got rid of the swing.’

  After a pause, Hurst resumed:

  ‘Unfortunately, madam, we have to ask you some questions about your deceased husband. It could be very important in helping us get to the truth.’

  Diane looked down and gave a deep sigh:

  ‘What to say about Harold? Even now, I have the feeling I never properly understood him, he was so strange. He went from periods of silence to long speeches, from outbursts of anger to explosions of joy and moments of tenderness. He was ten different people at once. I felt as though I had multiple husbands. I have to admit there were times when life was absolute hell, but I still loved him. Despite his irregular working hours—he often worked two or three days in a row without a wink of sleep—he was amazingly healthy. He almost never had a day’s sickness, never had an operation and never saw a doctor or even a dentist throughout our entire marriage... He used to boast about it and we even had a bet: “The day I have to have my teeth fixed will be the day I stop writing mysteries and write love stories.” Luckily for him the bet was about his teeth, for less than a week later he passed the whole night in a cemetery in pouring rain and caught a cold—just about the only one he ever had.

  ‘He cared a lot about little things—like his pride in his health—but paid no attention to rumours about him. He had a very peculiar and personal notion of honour, which made his father furious. And, as you know, Theodore did not appreciate at all that he was a mystery writer. There were frequent arguments on that subject!’

  Hurst started to put his hand in his pocket for a cigar but changed his mind and stroked his moustache nervously.

  ‘We need to talk about the hour following the meal yesterday evening.’

  ‘I went directly into the living-room. It must have been about half past seven. I heard someone go out—almost certainly Roger—and a short while later Valerie came to tell me she’d ordered a taxi to the theatre. She was beside herself. Her fiancé—.’

  ‘We’re aware of all that.’

  ‘At about a quarter past eight, Gladys dropped by to borrow a magazine. About half an hour later, Kesley came to ask me whether there was anything further I needed, as he did every night.’

  ‘And during that whole time, you didn’t hear anything suspicious?’

  Diane hesitated:

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t say...nothing that struck me in any case. At five to nine, Simon rang the front doorbell. I remember the time because I automatically looked at the clock in the hall.’

  ‘Did you hear a noise as you walked past the study?’

  ‘Yes, a sort of cracking noise. Not very loud, but I’m sure it came from inside the study.’

  ‘From inside the study,’ repeated Dr. Twist, thoughtfully. ‘It didn’t come from the door itself, then?’

  ‘No, I’m almost certain it didn’t.’

  ‘One more question,’ said Hurst, looking down. ‘And I promise you it’s the last. I’m sorry to have to ask you this, madam, but where were you between the hours of four o’clock and seven o’clock on Friday afternoon?’

  Diane Vickers sat for a long moment without replying, a distant look in her eyes.

  ‘I went for a walk in Oxford Street. A friend of mine, Sally Robinson, had arranged to meet me at half past five—in fact it was her son who arranged the appointment over the phone earlier that afternoon—but she didn’t turn up. I waited until six for her and strolled around for a bit after that before coming back by taxi.’

  Hurst took note of her friend’s name and the two men took their leave. They found Valerie in her room. She seemed even more upset than her mother by the tragic event. The interrogation—if it can be called that, because Hurst displayed an unusual degree of courtesy—was very brief and concerned itself only with her movements between Friday afternoon and Saturday evening. It transpired that she, too, was strolling around Oxford Street at the time of her father’s death, but hadn’t met anyone she knew. Simon had called her at five to seven on Saturday evening and she had left just before eight but hadn’t gone to the theatre after all. She’d been so angry that she couldn’t remember where she’d been before meeting a few friends in a Soho night-club at about half past nine.

  ‘So she hasn’t an alibi,’ said Hurst to Twist as he knocked on Henrietta’s door. She took a while to answer.

  ‘Come in, detective gentlemen,’ she said, looking radiant.

  Dressed in a multicoloured smock, she had tied a red scarf around her neck. Her hair was wrapped in a headband of the same colour, revealing a prominent forehead which accentuated the strange expression in her brilliant, slightly protruding eyes. Her room was divided into two parts. In fact it consisted of two rooms where someone had knocked through the dividing wall in order to install a sliding curtain. The part to the right, as seen from the doorway, served as a bedroom. Henrietta drew back the curtain to reveal her workshop. Several paintings caught the eye immediately, mixing the abstract—so abstract that one was left to wonder whether several paint pots hadn’t accidentally fallen on the canvas—with figurative works representing a smiling old man with bony cheeks on a hazy background with shaded tones.

  Pointing at one particular canvas, Henrietta declared:

  ‘That one’s my masterpiece.’

  Hurst looked pop-eyed at the orange rectangles on a yellow background.

  ‘Do you realise, gentlemen,’ she said with a deep sigh, ‘that my father never understood the significance of the rectangles, the imbecile. He told me it was the worst thing I’d ever done.’

  Dr. Twist pretended to admire the so-called masterpiece. Noting Hurst’s slack-jawed amazement, he declared with compunction:

  ‘It’s unfortunate that your father didn’t grasp the significance of the rectangles, which is so obvious. Don’t you agree, Hurst?’

  The inspector looked desperately around and stammered:

  ‘Ah! Yes, the rectangles...Yes, it’s clear. It’s grandiose, absolutely grandiose. Even prodigious. I’m astounded, sincerely astounded. I can’t find enough words....’

  Twist cut his friend off with an imperious cough.

  ‘Look at this sketch,’ said Henrietta. ‘It might interest you.’

  Hurst approached the easel:

  ‘But it’s the crime scene!’

  ‘But of course,’ said Henrietta, ‘although it’s not yet finished. But I’m sure it’ll be a masterpiece as well, which might even surpass the orange rectangles. Grandpapa would have loved it. He would have loved the scene: the table prepared and his son...’ A disquieting look appeared in her eyes. ‘...his son slumped over his food, surrounded by candles, just as he had done during his own first attack. The son who had caused him to die a slow death by his stupidity and his despotism. Yes, the hand of God put an end to his eccentricities.’ She turned swiftly to point to the paintings of the old man. ‘Look how happy he is. How he’s smiling.’

  Just for a moment Hurst imagined he could see the old man inside the frame winking in agreement.

  Dr. Twist regarded Henrietta with a mixture of sadness and compassion, then asked:

  ‘I understand that your father had the reputation of being an eccentric and a non-conformist, but why do you speak of despotism and stupidity?’

  Henrietta’s eyes blazed and she almost spat in Twist’s face:

  ‘You have to be stupid to say these paintings are worth nothing, don’t you?’

  ‘Maybe so, depending on your point of view, but nastiness?’

  ‘Na-sti-ness,’ she repeated syllable by syllable in her curiously deep voice. ‘Even overlooking what he did to Grandpapa, I’ll give you another example, just as typical. Uncle Roger had
invited us to one of his performances, not in some third-rate music-hall as is often the case, but in a club well-known at the time. He had high hopes that a contract there would bring him out of obscurity. And, indeed, the mind-reading act he put on with a charming Indian girl flown in from Calcutta had impressed a lot of the critics.

  ‘One Saturday night we were at the packed show with quite a few celebrities present. Valerie and I were seated with our parents at a table quite close to the stage. Father had drunk quite a lot and was telling off-colour stories in a loud voice. Mama tried to make him behave but with no success. We were horribly embarrassed. Nevertheless, he did agree to be quiet when Uncle Roger appeared with his lovely assistant. He could scarcely have done otherwise because no one else in the room was saying a word. It was very impressive. You could have heard a pin drop. All eyes were on Uncle Roger who put his assistant into a hypnotic trance while she was standing up. She was then blindfolded. My uncle went amongst the audience holding up objects which she identified with stunning precision. Everyone was spellbound until...

  ‘Father went up on stage and raised his arms for attention. Then he told the whole audience that the performance was based on a system of coded language.

  ‘Uncle Roger left the room to a storm of derision. As he passed my father on stage we were afraid he was going to use the dagger in his belt to strike down the author of the unforgiveable betrayal.’

  10

  The Mystery of the Yellow Room

  Henrietta paused and looked eloquently at Dr. Twist:

  ‘Now do you understand why I didn’t cry at the news of his death? Or, rather, his murder. Because it was murder, wasn’t it?’

  ‘We have every reason to believe so, miss,’ replied Hurst.

  She went over to the window to contemplate the scenery. Her room was directly over the study and therefore had the same orientation: the window opened onto the west side of the property. Behind a row of chestnut trees, the lawn extended down to another row of trees, themselves protected by a tall hedge behind which could be seen the railings of the cemetery. The pleasant September day contrasted with the atmosphere of tragedy which hung over the house.

  Watching the girl leaning out of the window, the inspector and the criminologist both thought they heard her murmur:

  ‘Thank you, Grandpapa.’

  Then she turned and asked with a strange but radiant smile:

  ‘But perhaps you have more questions, gentlemen? For example, what were my movements yesterday evening? After dinner, I came directly here to continue with my painting, until Kesley told me the news. So I haven’t got an alibi.’

  ‘And what were you doing between four o’clock and seven on Friday?’ asked Hurst in the same courteous manner.

  ‘I was sitting on a bench in Russell Square, studying the change of colours in the light.’

  ‘Come in!’ said a voice from behind the door, just as Hurst was about to knock.

  The policeman and his friend looked at each other in surprise and went into Roger Sharpe’s room. A flutter of wings made them jump and a white dove flew across the room to land on its perch. They were immediately struck by the peculiar nature of the room. Heavy velvet curtains fringed with gold hung in the right hand part, where a large Egyptian sarcophagus stood in a vertical position. On a small stage sat two exotically decorated cabin trunks and a three-piece folding screen. Two large mirrors to the left provided full-length reflections of the visitors. A protruding bookshelf partially hid the bed in the far corner. Two huge posters dominated the wall behind. One was of Harry Houdini flexing his muscles to get out of his chains and the other, also of Houdini, showed him immersed in the celebrated Chinese Water Torture Cell. Between the two windows sat a full-size robot chess player on a pedestal.

  ‘I’m running out of air. Hurry up!’

  The voice was coming from the sarcophagus. Hurst approached it, opened the lid, and stepped back quickly to avoid a second dove who flew to join its friend on the perch. Noting that the ancient coffin appeared to be empty, he looked in bewilderment at Dr. Twist.

  ‘Good grief!’ he muttered, turning toward the centre of the room, only to hear the voice coming from behind him:

  ‘Hurry up, I’ve run out of air.’

  There was a moment of anxious silence and then the floor of the sarcophagus opened to reveal a majestic Roger Sharpe, wearing a silk top hat and a black frock coat.

  ‘Forgive me my little joke,’ he said, getting up and producing a cigar in one hand and a lit match in the other.

  He took a long drag on his Havana and asked:

  ‘So, gentlemen, how’s the investigation going?’

  Hurst, detecting a note of sarcasm in the conjurer’s voice, glanced questioningly at Twist. Receiving a reassuring nod, he smiled broadly:

  ‘We’re nearly there, Mr. Sharpe. It’s only a matter of hours, and that’s largely thanks to you for revealing to us yesterday afternoon that Harold Vickers had a brother. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s not count our chickens before they’re hatched. You understand, obviously, that my lips are sealed until we’re absolutely certain.’

  ‘So you’ve solved the puzzle of the dinner and the killer’s disappearance?’ asked Sharpe, a steely look in his eye.

  ‘No, that part’s still not entirely clear. But we’ll come back to that later.’ He looked at Dr. Twist again, then went on the attack:

  ‘We’ve just seen your niece, Henrietta, who talked rather disparagingly of her father. She described, among other things, a certain evening when your brother-in-law played you a rather dirty trick.’

  The look in Roger Sharpe’s eye hardened for a moment, then he threw his head back and laughed loudly.

  ‘Ah, yes! I see. It was a practical joke. Hard to swallow at the time, I’ll admit. I was on the point of packing my bags and leaving, never to return. But Harold was drunk that night. He offered his profuse apologies the next day, begging my forgiveness. Besides, he compensated me handsomely for the... prank. Very handsomely, so I wasn’t out of pocket. After that little incident I did a tour in America on the recommendation of a number of influential people and enjoyed considerable success. Not only that, on my return Harold and I concluded a pact, or rather a partnership to develop his intrigues. I provided him with certain tricks of my trade, and he... made the most of them. There again, I was very handsomely compensated. I don’t know if you’ve read The Parade of the Dead, for example?’

  Hurst nodded admiringly:

  ‘Why, yes. The solution is fabulous. So simple nobody would think of it.’

  ‘The simplest tricks are always the best; any magician will tell you that.’

  Roger Sharpe stretched his arm out to make a large silk scarf appear, went over to the doves’ perch, wrapped them gently in the scarf and rolled it into a ball. With a broad smile he snapped the scarf in the air: the two doves had disappeared!

  ‘Do you see what I mean?’ he said, with a note of irony in his voice.

  ‘P-Perfectly,’ lied the inspector, who couldn’t believe his eyes.

  Roger Sharpe cleared his throat as if to excuse his showmanship.

  ‘The hatred—for that’s what it is—of my niece towards her father isn’t justified. You have to put it down to her deranged soul which has amplified certain scenes, certain quarrels which are quite common between parent and child. Obviously—how many times did I tell him?—he could have expressed interest in her paintings. But that was who he was: he always spoke his mind. I think that’s what Henrietta could never forgive. In fact, I’m certain of it.’

  ‘She also insinuated, in no uncertain terms, that he was responsible for the death of her grandfather.’

  Roger raised his arms in the air.

  ‘You see, she’s exaggerating there as well. It was old Theodore who kept chiding his son about writing detective stories, which he found macabre and morbid. But he was behind the times, poor fellow. If he’d read other authors in the genre, he’d have realised that Harold, by comp
arison, was out of date and practically a choirboy. He couldn’t endure the relentless daily criticism without saying anything. It’s true their quarrels sometimes went too far. But if old Theodore couldn’t take it, he’d only himself to blame.’

  ‘Again, according to Henrietta,’ continued Hurst, ‘he threatened his son just before he died: if fate didn’t take care of him, he’d come back from the grave to punish him for humiliating the family... or something to that effect. Is that true?’

  Roger smiled and removed his silk top hat. The two doves escaped from under it and flew frantically across the room to their perch once again. He passed a hand through his blond hair.

  ‘Apparently so. My sister told me about it.’ He looked incredulously at Hurst. ‘Surely you’re not going to tell me you believe in ghosts, Inspector? Someone coming back from the grave—.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ retorted Hurst. ‘The Yard doesn’t take any notice of that kind of piffle. But you have to admit that your brother-in-law’s death has every outward appearance of supernatural intervention. Which brings us to just how the murderer pulled it off. Have you given the matter any thought?’

  ‘Yes, for most of the night, actually. And with no success. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced it has to be a very simple trick. The killer’s escape happened so quickly as to exclude anything requiring a sophisticated technique or long preparation and complicated manoeuvres. So it must have been something absurdly simple, which is what makes it all so frustrating. What intrigues me as well is that half-full bowl of water. Why water? Why place it under the window? I’ve racked my brains and I still don’t see why, even though I know pretty well every prestidigitation trick there is. By the way, did you ever find Harold’s notebook?’