Fire, Burn!

by John Dickson Carr

  A grease-soaked wick flared up; again, with a loud pop, Mr. Henley kindled the broad green-shaded lamp on his desk, as opposed to the red-shaded one on the table. His big head, with the reddish side-whiskers, was thrust out with great earnestness.

  “Sir,” he continued, addressing Colonel Rowan, “she didn’t!”

  “Oh? Didn’t what?” Colonel Rowan spoke mildly, removing the cigar from his mouth.

  “The lady,” insisted Mr. Henley, “hadn’t got a pistol. I was there, sir. I saw. As for the Superintendent being negligent—why, sir, it was the first thing he thought on.”

  “Ah?”

  “He thought (begging your pardon, Colonel) the lady might have fired a shot. I knew she hadn’t; I watched her. She no more had a weapon than me and the Superintendent had. But he asked her to show and turn out her muff, case she might have fired through it. And she hadn’t.”

  Mr. Henley’s honesty, since he really believed every word he was saying, carried conviction.

  And all the time, in imagination, Cheviot had been seeing Flora: Flora’s jealousies or rages lasted only for a moment, though why could she have been jealous of Margaret Renfrew? All day she would have been waiting for him at her house in Cavendish Square; and he had not called there. He would only have to mutter that it was his fault, and she would pour out frantic cries that it was all her fault, and run into his arms. …

  Here Cheviot checked his thoughts, with a clammy shock over his body.

  How did he know Flora lived in Cavendish Square, if she did? How did he know how she always behaved after a quarrel or misunderstanding?

  But he must wrench back his mind. Mr. Henley was still doggedly speaking.

  “—so you see, sir, I didn’t read the Superintendent’s report. Or hear about it till a while ago. All the same, this surgeon says the bullet was fired in a dead straight line. Well! Anybody can tell you Lady Drayton was standing behind the poor woman a good two or three feet to the right of her. So she’d have had to fire a shot diagonal-like, now wouldn’t she?”

  Mr. Richard Mayne lifted his shoulders.

  “Then you are all against me, it seems,” he said.

  “No, sir, Mr. Mayne, we’re not!” Again the chief clerk, with heat, appealed to Colonel Rowan. “One word more, Colonel?”

  Colonel Rowan smiled and gestured assent with his cigar.

  “I think,” said Mr. Henley, “Mr. Mayne’s right about a shot from inside them double-doors behind us. Noise!” he scoffed, with puffed cheeks. “You’re not put off by snapping locks or even light shots. Me and the Superintendent (eh, sir?) were too preoccupied by what Lady Cork had just said. That’s what puts you off. If you ask me, somebody could have let off a blunderbuss behind us and we shouldn’t have heard. There!”

  “‘For this relief,’” murmured Richard Mayne, “‘much thanks.’”

  “Mayne!” Colonel Rowan called softly.

  “Eh?”

  “You and I,” smiled the Colonel, “have been joint Commissioners without any disagreement so far. Let’s hope there will never be one. Still! You are engaged to be married, I believe, to a very charming young lady?”

  “Indeed and I am!” declared the other, adjusting his cuffs with pride.

  “But a lady who, quite rightly, has strong moral and religious views?”

  “We all know, Rowan, your own loose views concerning—”

  “Tut!” said the Colonel, waving away cigar-smoke. “Now confess it, Mayne! Confess it! In your heart haven’t you been suspicious from the first of Cheviot and Lady Drayton merely because Lady Drayton is (how shall I put this delicately?) his belle amie?”

  Mr. Mayne was too honest a man to deny this completely. He took a turn back and forth from the table, flapping his coat-tails behind him.

  “You may be right,” he said. Then he struck the table. “But come now! To business! We have heard what the Superintendent does not say. What does he say? Mr. Cheviot, who killed Margaret Renfrew?”

  Cheviot moistened his lips.

  A wind was getting up and prowling round the house, tugging at the window-frames. In this red, weapon-hung room, lighted by a green lamp, there was a hush more tense than seemed to befit mere investigators.

  “In my opinion, sir, she was killed by her lover.”

  “Ah!” Mr. Mayne touched the report. “This mysterious lover at whom you hint so much? What is his name?”

  “I can’t yet tell you his name,” Cheviot answered with honesty. “Even Freddie Debbitt, who knows every bit of gossip in London, couldn’t tell me that. But I can describe him.”

  “Then pray do so.”

  “He is a man,” said Cheviot, weighing facts, “of good birth and presence, though not wealthy and chronically hard up. He is physically attractive to women, though rather older than Miss Renfrew. He is a heavy gambler. He—” Cheviot paused. “Tell me, gentlemen. Has either of you ever met Margaret Renfrew?”

  Colonel Rowan nodded, his blue eyes regarding a corner of the mantelpiece. Mr. Mayne inclined his head without enthusiasm.

  “Very well,” said Cheviot. “‘Fire burn and cauldron bubble!’”

  “I beg your pardon?” murmured the barrister.

  Cheviot threw out his hands.

  “Here is a beautiful woman,” he said, “of thirty-one years. Outwardly she is cold and imperious, though of the fierce inward temper she displayed. She rages against her position as a poor-relation, but attempts not to show it.”

  “Yes?” prompted Colonel Rowan, slowly blowing out cigar-smoke.

  “When a woman like that falls in love, she is apt to explode like a cannon. According to Lady Cork, she does fall in love. Fiercely she denies, of course, that this man even exists. She is so passionately in love with him (or in lust, if you prefer the term), that she lies for him, steals jewels for him so that he may gamble at Vulcan’s. …”

  “Did Lady Cork,” smoothly asked Mr. Mayne, “give evidence that Miss Renfrew stole the jewellery?”

  “Not quite to me, as you know. But to Freddie Debbitt—”

  “Hearsay evidence, my dear sir.”

  Cheviot looked at him.

  He was not deceived by the barrister’s courteous expression, his round face and interested dark eyes. Mr. Mayne was more than an honest man; he was clever, subtle-minded, if more through instinct than through reason. Firmly he had got into his head the notion that Flora Drayton was guilty of something, of anything. The whole powder-barrel would blow up if Cheviot’s hand slipped, or Mr. Mayne learned of the facts about Flora which his Superintendent had concealed.

  So Mr. Mayne waited, his arms folded. And, metaphorically, Cheviot hit him again.

  “Hearsay evidence?” he demanded. “Good God, what else can I use? I remind you, sir, that we are not yet in court.”

  “There is no need for heat, Mr. Cheviot. What do you propose to do?”

  “Tonight I visit Vulcan’s gaming-house,” said Cheviot, “at number twelve Bennet Street, off St. James’s Street. If necessary, I shall play high at the tables—”

  “With whose money?” suddenly demanded Mr. Robert Peel, towering up. “Not with the Government’s, I warrant you! Not with the Government’s!”

  Cheviot bowed, touching his pockets.

  “No, sir. With my own. That, I regret to say, is why I was late in arriving here today. I was obliged to visit my bankers in Lombard Street.”

  “Your own money?” breathed Mr. Peel, much impressed. “Egad, man, but you’re a razor at your work!” He mused. “I’ve heard much of this Vulcan’s, I’m bound to say. It is one of the few houses in St. James’s where ladies are admitted.”

  Mr. Mayne raised his eyebrows.

  “Ladies?” he repeated. “Oh! I see. You mean prostitutes.”

  Mr. Peel loomed up with the cold arrogance he assumed in the House of Commons.

  “No, young man, I do not mean prostitutes. I refer to ladies, and ladies of quality. They are protected by male servants, and never molested. The worst rake
in town, when he sits down to cards or roulette, has no eye for anything save his winnings. At least,” Mr. Peel added hastily, catching Colonel Rowan’s eye, “so I have been told.” He turned to Cheviot. “But what’s your scheme, man?”

  Colonel Rowan was as deeply fascinated as the Home Secretary.

  “Yes! What’s the plan?”

  “Well—”

  “Not a raid, I hope? That’s difficult. There’s always an iron door at the top of the stairs.”

  “No, not a raid. I mean to go in alone—”

  “Damned dangerous,” said the Colonel, shaking his head. “If they’ve learned you’re a police-officer—”

  “I must risk that. Besides, with your permission, I shall in some sense be protected.”

  “But what’ll you do?”

  It was Cheviot’s turn to pace the smoky, dusky room.

  “This morning, at the coffee-room of a hotel,” he went on, peering out of the window, “Freddie Debbitt drew me a sketch of Vulcan’s house, including his private office.”

  “Well?”

  “By Lady Cork’s testimony, a very valuable piece of jewellery was pledged, that’s to say pawned, at Vulcan’s office. This is easily distinguishable: a diamond-and-ruby brooch shaped like a square-rigger ship. Since it was pawned and not sold, it will still be there. It’s unlikely the brooch was pledged by Miss Renfrew; her hatred of gaming was well known, and she would never have been so indiscreet. No! It was done by the man. Let me lay my hands on that brooch, and we can force Vulcan to disclose his name.”

  “And this,” Mr. Mayne asked rather sarcastically, “will prove he killed Miss Renfrew?”

  Cheviot turned from the window, went to the table, and looked down into the barrister’s eyes.

  “Legally, no,” he admitted. “But if you are resolved to have proof of a man’s guilt before we even know who is guilty, then all investigation stops forthwith. I have only a strong belief, based on more experience than I care to tell.”

  “In short, a guess at hazard?”

  “A belief, I say! That this man will be trapped when we know his name.”

  “You—you may be right. But, whatever your private beliefs, are you sure of your conclusions?”

  “No! No! No!” Cheviot’s face was rather pale. “Is any man, except a star-led maniac like the late General Bonaparte, ever sure? Are you? Is Colonel Rowan or Mr. Peel? I can swear only that it’s the likeliest thing. This matter is too perplexed. For all I am sure of, the murderer may even be a woman.”

  “A woman?” echoed Mr. Peel.

  This was the point at which there was a sharp rapping on the door to the passage.

  It was opened by the short, but very broad and burly, sergeant with the collar-numeral 13, whose red face and expression Cheviot had liked very much. The Sergeant addressed Colonel Rowan, but his stiff salute was directed toward Cheviot alone.

  “A lady to see the Superintendent, sir.”

  “A lady?” Colonel Rowan, distressed, considered the tobacco-spattered disorder of the office. “That’s impossible, Sergeant Bulmer! We have no place to receive her!”

  Sergeant Bulmer remained stolid.

  “Name of Miss Louise Tremayne, sir. Says she has important information about a Miss Renfrew. But won’t speak to anybody except the Superintendent, and speak to him alone.”

  Colonel Rowan extinguished his cigar on the edge of the table, amid a shower of sparks, and threw the cigar into the china spittoon underneath.

  “Mr. Peel,” he said to the Home Secretary, “you have matters of great moment on your mind. We—we cannot entertain this young lady in my living-quarters upstairs. But Mr. Mayne and I can withdraw there, while Mr. Cheviot sees her here. Doubtless, sir, you would wish to leave us?”

  Carefully, like a Roman emperor, Mr. Peel placed his tall beaverskin hat on his head.

  “Doubtless, Colonel Rowan, I should wish to withdraw,” he intoned. “But I am hanged if I will. This accursed drawing-room game, of who-killed-who-and-how, has made me forget my duties to the nation. I account you responsible; but I accompany you.”

  In three seconds the Colonel had led them away. In the dim passage still lurked Sergeant Bulmer and the long figure and Punch-like nose of Inspector Seagrave. Holding the door slightly ajar, Cheviot whispered to them.

  “Inspector! Sergeant! Are your duties free enough so that you can assist me tonight, say between ten-thirty and one o’clock, for a small mission among the blacklegs?”

  It was not merely that the men agreed; eager assent radiated from them.

  “Good. Can you also free six constables from their duties too? Good!”

  “Any special sort of men, sir?” whispered Inspector Seagrave.

  “Yes. I want climbers. Men who can go up over a roof or among chimney-pots as quickly and quietly as house-breakers.”

  “Got ’em, sir,” whispered Inspector, after casting up his eyes as though counting. “Just the men you want. Between ourselves, I shouldn’t like to say they haven’t been house-breakers, at one time or another.”

  “Better still. A word in your ear later. Now admit the lady.”

  With his arms Cheviot fanned ineffectually at the air, to dispel tobacco-smoke. He raised one window; but, since there was no window-stick to prop it up, he had to lower it again. Then Louise came in.

  Her age he had already put at about nineteen or twenty. In her blue turban, with the white cloak with the blue-bordered short cape outlining the puffed sleeves of her dress as well as its wide skirt about three inches from the floor, the hazel-eyed girl was so charming that she might have turned Cheviot’s head if he had been a dozen years younger.

  As it was, since he preferred more mature women with skill at conversation as well as other skills, he at first treated her with an avuncular air which she instantly sensed and resented. He sensed it in turn and became very gallant, which vastly pleased her.

  “It is the greatest of pleasures to see you, Miss Tremayne,” he said, slapping with his immense handkerchief at a purplish-padded armchair, and only raising more dust. “Will you have the kindness to be seated?”

  “Oh, thank you!”

  “Er—the room, I fear …”

  Louise did not in the least mind the dirt or disorder; indeed, it appeared, this was only what she expected to find. But she kept her eyelashes lowered from him, and cast frightened glances at the window.

  “Pray do forgive my boldness, Mr. Cheviot. But it was most imperative to see you. I was even obliged to deceive Papa. Mr. Cheviot, why is one’s papa always in such a fearful wax about something?”

  Cheviot restrained the impulse to say it was because they ate and drank too much at that age, and had it all their own way in the home.

  “I have never discovered, Miss Tremayne. But they always are, aren’t they?”

  “Indeed mine is. As we were driving through Westminster, dear Papa went on awfully about a tailor—”

  “About a what?”

  “A tailor in Westminster. Dear Papa says the tailor will fire a house, or begin a riot or something, about Reform. We were—well! We were following Captain Hogben’s carriage, because Captain Hogben wished us to see him horsewhip you. It didn’t happen quite like that, did it?”

  Here Louise turned her head, lifted her clear hazel gaze, and looked him straight and unashamedly in the eyes.

  “I think it was wonderful,” she said.

  Cheviot, feeling as though he had been struck by an amorous bullet, swallowed hard. He was not yet used to the way of women in this age. But he liked it very much.

  “Er—thank you.”

  Louise instantly blushed and looked away. But, now that she felt more confidence, she was going on in her usual rush of speech.

  “Dear Papa was furious. But, in his way, I own he was just. ‘G.d. the fellow,’ he said; wicked words, you understand, about you; ‘I’ve seen wrestling all me life, but I never saw a wrestler like that, and g.d. me,’ he said, ‘if I can tell how the b.h. that fellow
did it.’ You see, Papa was cross because he wishes me to marry Captain Hogben—”

  “And will you marry him, dear Miss Tremayne?”

  “Not if I know it!” cried Louise, flinging up her small chin in defiance. “But I was saying. Dear Papa was so vexed he must stop at his club, and leave me sitting outside. I ran away in the carriage, and told Job to drive me here.”

  “You had something to tell me, I believe?”

  “Yes, yes, yes! Oh, dear. I must tell you two dreadful things. I desired to tell you last night, but at one time Flora Drayton was there—” She stopped.

  “Yes,” said Cheviot, looking at the floor.

  What he felt now, flowing from the slender girl in the blue turban and white cape, were fear and uncertainty. Worst of all, which he could not understand, the fear and uncertainty were about him.

  “What I wished to tell you,” she continued, trembling but speaking in a clear voice, “was about—about the man.”

  “Man? What man?”

  “Peg Renfrew’s man,” answered Louise. “They say she positively adored him. She adored him so much that sometimes she hated him. Can you understand that?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, I vow I can’t. But they say,” Louise went on with shattering frankness, “Peg stole money for this man, stole jewels so that he could gamble. But she was in a terribly difficult position: a poor-relation, dependent on Lady Cork. If Lady Cork ever discovered it, she thought, she’d be turned from the house. So, a few days ago, she changed.”

  Cheviot nodded without looking up.

  Louise’s slender ankles, in their French-silk stockings, trembled too. Her shoes, of blue Moroccan leather, were muddy from walking across the yard.

  “Peg was hard, hard, awfully hard! She told him, they say, that she’d never steal another penny or another jewel. If he used force, she said, she’d tell of him to Lady Cork and everyone else. And this man (oh, dear, I’m only repeating gossip!) has a most abominable temper.”

  Louise was rising in spite of herself.

  “And he said, if she ever spoke a word to anyone, he’d kill her. He’d shoot her. And that’s what happened. Isn’t it?”