‘I don’t remember,’ Monica answered. ‘I don’t even remember looking in there. I expect she was, though. She drank coffee all day.’
‘Yes,’ said H.M. ‘You mentioned that before. That’s the whole sad, sweet story: she drank coffee all day.’
H.M. turned round. His face had a queer look which was a good deal more sinister than Masters’s darkest scowl.
‘Look here,’ he said to Monica. ‘Just start in again, slowly, and tell me everything that happened to you since the time you ditched this feller at the War Office to-day. You be like the old detective stories: don’t leave anything out, no matter how unimportant it seems. For the love of Esau, think!’
‘But there’s nothing I haven’t told you,’ Monica protested. ‘Except, of course –’
‘Except what?’
‘Except that I met Jimmy, the page-boy, on the way down here.’ She explained this, and to her astonishment H.M. listened with grim attention. ‘That’s all,’ she concluded, ‘though I shouldn’t put any great reliance on what he says. He also told me Miss Fleur was carrying a beer-bottle when he met her on the Eighteen-eighty-two set just before …’
Monica stopped, somewhat frightened. Her three listeners whirled round to her.
‘A beer-bottle,’ muttered Chief Inspector Masters. ‘Gawdlummy-charley!’
‘Yes, but what about it?’
‘The acid that was poured at you,’ said Bill, ‘was poured out of a beer-bottle. I found it upstairs at the doctor’s house and took it along to the War Office in my brief-case to-day.’
There was no time to comment on this. From outside there was the noise of a rush on the Old Building, as though it were being attacked. Thomas Hackett, a hooded electric torch in his hand, burst in on them. Behind him stumbled Howard Fisk, adjusting his pince-nez.
‘It’s all right,’ the producer said. ‘We don’t need the police. I’m not a praying man, but, by George! I could fire away a couple of prayers now. Tilly’s up.’
H.M. stared at him, and seemed to be swallowing a prayer himself.
‘Up? Easy, son. You mean it’s all up with her?’
‘I mean she’s sitting up,’ shouted Mr Hackett. He was so excited that the torch slid out of his hand and smashed on the floor. ‘The doctor gave her two injections of some stuff called pilocarpine, and she sat up and clouted him one. She’s up there drinking brandy and swearing a blue streak. The doctor nearly fainted. He says she must have a constitution like a goat; he says he’d back her to swallow six tin cans and a pint of liquid concrete without turning a hair. She’s not going to die: do you understand that?’
Mr Hackett cleared his throat. He got out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. With a kind of shudder, as though he were so relieved that it almost choked him, he sat down on the couch. Howard Fisk was looking rather white.
‘It is a relief,’ the director conceded in his soft voice. ‘It is a great relief. After that ingenious game of tease-the-listener you played on us, Sir Henry, it is something to know that none of us has murder on his conscience. At the same time, I have a complaint to make. What have you done to poor old Frances?’
‘Frances?’ said H.M.
The director took two steps forward.
‘Yes, Frances. If I were you I should take some care. Gagern is back from town, and he is looking for you. I shouldn’t be surprised if you were challenged to a duel with the Schlager. What did you say to her, in that private interview you had? She went away crying. I know, because I saw her. I didn’t even know she could cry. For five years I’ve been trying to make her do it in films, and I can’t. What did you say to her?’
H.M.’s eyes were shading his forehead under the remarkable bowler hat.
‘I told her a few home truths,’ he said rather dully. ‘Sit down, son.’
‘Home truths? You mean …?’
The director’s mouth worked. He looked at Mr Hackett. He did not seem to know what to do with his large-knuckled hands.
‘I said: “Sit down, son.”’
Yet, Monica thought, there were some grounds for Mr Fisk’s uneasiness. Kurt von Gagern, who arrived just then, was in no frame of mind to be trusted. He breathed noisily through his nose, which stood out reddish and as though detached from his face. Under the brim of his rakish soft hat, which shaded eyes watery from cold, the look he directed at H.M. could not be called respectful.
‘Where,’ he said, ‘is my wife? What have you done with my wife?’
‘She’s all right,’ H.M. assured him. ‘She’s maybe a little upset over bein’ asked some inconvenient questions about a beer-bottle and three anonymous letters; but I got no doubt she’ll get over it.’
‘A beer-bottle and three anonymous letters? What exactly do you mean?’
‘If you’ll all make yourselves comfortable,’ said H.M., ‘I’ll tell you. We’d better have this out here and now.’
An abrupt silence, with something of an unpleasantly eerie quality in it, set them all looking at each other. H.M. went into Tilly’s room and returned with two chairs. He made Monica sit down in one of these, facing the others, as though she were a school pupil on exhibition. He himself sat down in the chair beside the desk.
Removing his bowler hat, he put it down carefully. He picked up the red leather box, and drew it over so that everybody could see it. Then, with the greatest deliberation, he drew a black pipe and an oilskin tobacco-pouch from the pocket of his baggy coat. Still deliberately, he unscrewed the pipe and blew down the stem. His puffed cheeks and cross-eyed concentration, under the light which Monica had shaped with a newspaper, gave him rather the appearance of an elderly Humpty Dumpty. He fitted the pipe together, filled it with a tobacco which tasted like the steel-wool that is used to clean kitchen sinks, and lighted it. The smoke curled up round his head, into the cone of the lamp.
‘Masters,’ he continued, settling himself back at ease, ‘you made a thunderin’ good suggestion a while ago.’ He reached out and tapped the lid of the leather box. ‘These cigarettes. Count ’em.’
‘Eh?’
‘Turn ’em out and count ’em. Let us hear you count ’em.’
Masters, frowning, opened the box and rolled the pile of cigarettes across the desk. He pushed them to one side in neat, swift batches, like a bank-clerk.
‘Four, eight, twelve, sixteen. Twenty, twenty-four, twenty-eight, thirty-two. Thirty-six, forty, forty-four, forty …’ Masters stopped. His face grew more ruddy. He went back and began to count again; then he blinked at H.M.
‘No, son,’ said H.M., who appeared to be deriving intense satisfaction from his pipe. ‘You didn’t make any mistake. Now we can go ahead with a clear conscience, and know smackin’ well we’re right. The would-be murderer had an awful nasty break from the cussedness of things in general.’ He made a gesture towards Bill Cartwright. ‘You count ’em, son.’
‘See here –’ began Thomas Hackett, running a finger round inside his collar.
Bill himself had for some minutes been conscious of trouble ahead. But instead he wanted to laugh. The spectacle of Gagern, Fisk, and Hackett, sitting side by side on the couch and facing Monica was not one that could be seen with a grave face. Yet his brain felt heavy and dull. He had counted the cigarettes twice before he realized what the total was.
‘There’s something wrong,’ he said, in a voice which blattered out with startling loudness. ‘There are only forty-nine cigarettes here.’
Thomas Hackett jumped up, and sat down again.
‘That’s right, son,’ agreed H.M., waving a sticky cloud of smoke away from in front of his face. His ghoulish relish deepened. ‘Now Joe –’
‘I do not know whom you are calling “Joe”,’ said Gagern, his voice rather shrill.
‘We’ll consider it unsaid, then. To-day,’ continued H.M., ‘you asked me six questions, which had to be answered before we could see daylight in this business. Uh-huh. If you’ll just ask the same questions again, I’ll try to answer ’em.’
Gage
rn hesitated.
‘I do not remember the order of the questions; but what they were I remember with a painful clarity. Very well. The first question is, who stole the film, and why?’
H.M. took the pipe out of his mouth.
‘There never was any film stolen, son,’ he said.
If a small bomb had exploded under the sofa, there could not have been any more uproar.
‘See here,’ said Mr Hackett, again running his finger round inside his collar, and appealing to Masters. ‘I don’t want to seem critical, Mr Masters, but is your friend raving mad? Do you deny the film is gone?’
‘I don’t deny it’s gone,’ said H.M. ‘All I said was: it wasn’t stolen.’
‘Are you accusing me of stealing my own film?’
‘What’s the next question, son?’
‘The next question,’ returned Gagern, after looking rather vacantly at the floor, ‘is: who put the acid in the water-bottle on that set, and why?’
‘Ah!’ said H.M., with glee. ‘Now we’re comin’ to it. Answer: the same person who poured the acid down the speaking-tube, fired the revolver-shot, and prepared the poisoned cigarette. He put that acid in the water-bottle to underline the fact, to set it yellin’ before high heaven, that apparently there was a maniac loose and determined on sabotage. So he took ruddy good care to knock the water-bottle over.’
Hitherto Howard Fisk had not said anything. Nor did he say anything now. He sat stolid as a grandmother at a family reunion, his big hands folded in his lap; but the incredulous smile which went over his face answered for him.
Mr Hackett was not so stolid.
‘Are you going to take that lying down, Howard?’ he demanded.
‘Next question, son,’ said H.M.
‘The next question,’ replied Gagern, ‘is one that most of us would rather have answered than anything else. What is the reason for the intense personal animosity which the – er – author of all this has shown towards Miss Stanton?’
H.M. drew a deep breath. ‘And the answer, son, is short and sweet. There never was the slightest animosity towards her.’
‘The man’s mad,’ said Mr Hackett, rather wildly. ‘He’s clean off his chump. I didn’t think so before, but I know it now – You’ll be telling us next that Miss Stanton was never attacked at all.’
H.M. nodded.
‘You’re quite right, son,’ he agreed with profound seriousness. ‘She never was.’
‘Somebody,’ said the producer through his teeth, ‘tries to burn out her eyes with vitriol, fires a bullet straight at her, and slips a cigarette loaded with belladonna into a box on her desk. And yet you say she wasn’t attacked?’
‘Well,’ said H.M., examining the side of his pipe, and taking a reflective puff at it, ‘it depends on your definition of “attack”, and also the direction of the attack. First of all the would-be murderer was misled; and later he misled you all to a fare-ye-well. However, that’s gettin’ ahead of myself. Next question?’
‘But all the next questions,’ said Gagern, ‘take care of that. Who twice attacked Miss Stanton, and why? Are all these things connected, and if so, how?’
‘Ah!’ said H.M.
He took a last puff at his pipe. He put it down carefully in the ash-tray, and got to his feet. He lumbered over to the couch. The expression of his eye was not pleasant.
‘They’re all connected, son, in a way,’ he replied.
‘In what way? And why?’
H.M. came closer. His own expression was almost maniacally pleased. Before anybody could move he had shot out his hand, laid hold of the necktie of Joe Collins, alias Kurt von Gagern, wrapped the necktie round his hand, and yanked the slight form half-way to its feet.
He said:
‘Because, Joe, you’re the little joker who’s responsible for all this. You’re the feller who poured the acid, fired the revolver-shot, and have now just failed to kill with a poisoned cigarette the woman you married in Hollywood two years ago.’
Then his voice roared out:
‘And lemme tell you somethin’ else, Joe. If you share the general belief that the old man is gettin’ senile and dodderin’ and ready for the House of Lords: if you think I didn’t know the whole ruddy scheme was directed against Tilly Parsons to start with: then you better soak your head in cold water before you come round to me again with a song-and-dance about wantin’ to join up in the service again. We may not be able to prove attempted murder on you, but you’ll do time for bigamy just as soon as Tilly Parsons sets eyes on your handsome mug – and that’s what you wanted to avoid all along, ain’t it?’
Gagern did not reply. He could not, for the necktie was half strangling him. But his face was green, and a kind of bubbling squeal came from between his lips. When H.M. released him, he dropped with a boneless thud to the floor; and the tears in his eyes were more real than those caused by a ducking in the lake.
XIV
The Unprofessional Conduct of Sir Henry Merrivale
1
‘ME?’ said Tilly Parsons. ‘You couldn’t kill me with a battle-axe. I’m raring to go. Got a Chester, somebody?’
Thus spoke Tilly two days later, on a fine mellow afternoon when these affairs ended – as they had begun – in the office of Mr Thomas Hackett of Albion Films.
Mr Hackett, a noble host, had provided cocktails to celebrate both the completion of Spies at Sea and the end of Joe Collins’s meteoric career as a would-be murderer. It is true that Tilly still looked a trifle white round the gills, but she wore a dress whose colours could have been discerned by a blind man at a distance of thirty yards, and she was polishing off Old Fashioneds at a rate which made Mr Hackett’s own eyes stand out of his head.
Indeed, it gave signs of becoming, if somebody were not careful, a party. It was indecorous of Monica Stanton and Bill Cartwright to adjourn to the next office every ten minutes for the purpose of what Tilly called necking, though excusable. Mr Howard Fisk was there, with his arm round a young actress whom he was grooming in several senses. Miss Frances Fleur – whose distress at the whole affair had lasted exactly twenty-four hours – drank (to the regret of everybody) orange juice.
But in the midst of them, perhaps prouder than he had ever been since the day he got James Answell acquitted on a murder charge at the Old Bailey, sat Sir Henry Merrivale. You would never, of course, have guessed this. He kept up a steady and malignant glare which made Mr Fisk’s young actress jump out of her skin whenever he turned towards her. Yet he was happy: for he was going to have a screen-test as Richard the Third; and he had been provided with real armour and a helmet to play it in.
‘Come on,’ said Tilly. ‘You know why you’re here, Ancient Mariner. And you don’t fool me with your glittering eye, either. Let’s hear about it. Tell us how you tumbled to him when none of the rest of us did. Since it’s all my fault, in a way, I want to hear about it.’
‘Are you sure you want to hear about it?’ asked Howard Fisk quietly.
For a moment Tilly’s face pinched up. Whether it was sentimentality, or alcohol, or real emotion, perhaps Tilly herself could not have said. But, after a spasm had gone over her face, she got out a handkerchief, wiped her eyes, and defiantly finished her cocktail.
‘You bet I want to hear about it,’ she retorted. ‘After all, if Frances can take it, I can. The little son of a so-and-so stung her worse than he stung me.’ She regarded Miss Fleur with real and frank curiosity. ‘How did he get round you, dearie?’
Miss Fleur, sipping orange-juice, returned the curiosity with interest.
‘That makes us rivals, doesn’t it?’ Miss Fleur asked, with slight surprise. ‘Fancy that.’ She laughed.
Tilly stiffened.
‘And what,’ she inquired, ‘is so funny about that?’
‘Nothing, dear.’
‘You mean I’m a hag?’ asked Tilly, with candour. ‘Sure I am. I never thought the fellow married me for my boz-yew. But there’s life in the old dame yet, dearie, and don’t you forget it. Af
ter all, I’m not the betrayed woman in this business. You are.’
Miss Fleur put down her glass. ‘Are you insinuating that I am a betrayed woman?’
‘Oh, well, what’s a little betrayal among friends?’ said Tilly, broad-minded to the last. ‘Judas, if that’s the worst that ever happens to me, I’ll think I’ve got off lucky. As far as I’m concerned, the atrocities can start any time they want to. Which reminds me’ – she turned to Monica and Bill – ‘that the way you two are carrying on is a public scandal. What would your Aunt Flossie say, if she could see you now? Foo! Shame on you! (Set ’em up again, Tommy, and don’t spare the rye.)’
‘Good old Aunt Flossie!’ said Bill, taking Monica carefully into his lap and kissing her.
‘Terrible,’ said Tilly, absent-mindedly clucking her tongue. ‘Shocking. What was I saying? The old Ancient Mariner. Come on, honey. Tell us about it. What do you say?’
For some time H.M., sunk in a tense and brooding meditation, had chewed on a cigar and said no word. His faint muttering voice reached them from afar.
‘“ Now is the winter of our discontent”,’ whispered H.M., with a sudden semaphore gesture which upset Howard Fisk’s glass, “ made glorious summer by this sun of York. Now –”’
‘Sure, honey. It’s swell: you’ll lay ’em in the aisles. But what about paying some attention to us for a change?’
The ensuing scene was chaotic. Imprimis, H.M. did not like being addressed as the Ancient Mariner; and, secondly, he said he had artistic temperament and must not be interrupted while rehearsing his lines. He howled about ingratitude to such an extent that it took some minutes to soothe him down. When he did continue, it was a sort of weary patience.
‘Now looky here,’ he said. ‘The easiest way to straighten out this tangle is to let you straighten it out for yourselves, by rememberin’ what happened. Then you’ll see it with very little pushing from me.’
He smoked for a time in silence. Then he peered over his spectacles, first at Monica and then at Thomas Hackett.
‘I want you,’ he continued, ‘to sort of cast your minds back to the afternoon of August 23rd, and to this office – where it all started. You,’ he pointed to Monica, ‘and you,’ his finger moved to Hackett, ‘are sittin’ here talking before young Cartwright comes in. Got that?’
And So To Murder Page 18