Fire, Burn!

by John Dickson Carr

  Cheviot paused.

  All of a sudden, as he spoke, his gaze seemed to fix on the cigar-smoke rising from the desk at the far side.

  “No, no, never!” he breathed, as though fighting his own senses. “A very slight touch; the air must be preserved, in touches, for use all night!”

  “And what end, may I ask?”

  “Follow this!”

  Cheviot gave a whirl to the silvered pivot of the wheel, which flashed into a red-and-black-blur. Next he tossed in the ball.

  It bounced down; jumped, and, as always, went whirling and spinning round the outer ebony rim. Presently, while the clicking grew more soft and only Vulcan seemed to breathe, it slowed down.

  “And to what end, I repeat?” demanded Vulcan.

  “Look at it!”

  “I see nothing!”

  “As the ball slows down, it is certain at one revolution or other to roll somewhere near the zero or the double-zero, set side by side. A touch of the croupier’s foot, heel or toe, can control three of the hidden springs at once. It does not matter where the ball is; the wheel is quartered. A touch tilts up three sides of the wheel: slightly, invisibly. If this wheel could tilt up …”

  Cheviot leaned forward, his fingers darting out.

  “By the Lord, it does tilt up!”

  Cheviot’s fingers could only flick lightly at the sides, far less effectively than a simultaneous mechanism. The tilting of the wheel, swaying as it rotated towards a stop, could not even be detected. But the ball slid down and dropped with a click into double-zero.

  Vulcan’s shaven jowls bore not even any side-whiskers. A bright drop of sweat appeared on each cheek-bone.

  “I tried it only once,” said Cheviot. “How many weeks or months has your croupier practised it?”

  “I—”

  “It’s finished,” said Cheviot, looking up straight into his eyes across the table. “Don’t you think your own number’s up, Vulcan?”

  15

  The Rites of Venus

  HOW HE WISHED he could dent the hard expressionless look, the placidity, of Vulcan’s face! But he couldn’t.

  “Don’t you think your own number’s up?” he repeated. “If you compel me to expose this—”

  “Dear sir, you will never leave this room to expose it.”

  “No? I can leave this room,” Cheviot said, “at any time I please.”

  “Lies? Lies again?”

  Cheviot moved back to one window, and partly twitched open an orange-plush curtain.

  “I told you truthfully,” he said, “there were no constables at your back door. But outside these windows, on the roof-slope, are six constables and two officers. I have only to raise a window and spring my rattle, or even smash a pane. They will be over the sill and inside before you can even touch the door.” He drew the curtain wider. “Vulcan, do you challenge me?”

  “Drop the curtain! Close it!”

  Cheviot complied. The two stood watching each other with deadly wariness from opposite sides of the table. But Vulcan remained agreeable.

  “Mr. Cheviot, what are your terms?”

  “You’ve heard them. The diamond-and-ruby brooch, and your account-book with a certain man’s name written opposite its description. In return, we let you alone.”

  “We-el!” murmured Vulcan in his soft bass. “After all, I am a law-abiding man. And already you have the key.”

  “Key?”

  “On the key-ring you were deft enough to steal, the shorter key will open any drawer of my desk. The left-hand tier of drawers contains my collection of jewellery; thrown in higgledy-piggledy, I regret. The two top right-hand drawers contain my account-books. Voilà tout.”

  Vulcan’s cigar was acridly burning the edge of the desk. He went back to take it up in one hand, his unfinished brandy-glass in the other hand. As though to show his entire detachment, he strolled along the side of the table.

  Towards the door? Yes; but he did not even glance at the door. Passing the big Chinese-lacquer cabinet, he moved round towards Cheviot’s side of the table.

  Cheviot slipped away to the right, round the other end of the table, and up to the desk.

  One eye peered over his shoulder, keeping watch on Vulcan. Vulcan had stopped about the middle of the table, putting down glass and cigar on what was now the far side, and apparently studying the roulette-wheel.

  Compelled to look away, Cheviot slipped the smaller key into the lock of the top drawer in the right-hand tier. The key turned easily. He pulled open the drawer.

  Vulcan had not lied about this, at least. Inside lay four account-books. They were big ledgers, bound in thick stippled cardboard, the topmost bearing a pasted white-paper label with the inked figures, 1823–1834.

  The ledgers were so big that he must work each ledger sideways out of the drawer before he could find the one he wanted. He must—

  Don’t let him get behind you! Don’t let him …

  With the sole of his shoe Cheviot pushed back the armchair, to have free play on either side. Unseen, shielded by his body, he slipped out his watch of bright polished silver like a mirror, and propped it up tilted at the back of the drawer.

  He could see reflected, over his shoulder, any attack which came close.

  Then he eased out the first ledger, and put it on the desk with his eyes on the polished surface of the watch. The second ledger, disconcertingly, was dated 1822–1823. He wormed it out and pitched it on the desk.

  Underneath lay the account-book for 1828–1829.

  Got it!

  Cheviot could not see Vulcan dart along the left-hand side of the table behind him. He could not see Vulcan snatch up, by its silver head, the very heavy black cane twisted like a corkscrew.

  But he saw a black shape loom up in the watch-mirror. He saw the flash of the diamond-ring as Vulcan’s arm whipped back. Just before the cane lashed over, in a blow to smash his skull, Cheviot leaped sideways and to the right.

  It would have missed his head, missed even his shoulder and arm, if—

  The watch, jerked out of the drawer by its chain, lodged under the top edge of the drawer. There was only a breathing-space before the chain yanked loose the cigar-cutter from Cheviot’s other pocket.

  The blow, meant for the back of his head, caught him glancingly on the side of it over the thick hair, missing arm and shoulder as Cheviot dodged.

  But it was bad enough. He felt that flying weight crack the side of his head. The wave of pain went out in eerie tuning-fork noises to dim his eyesight.

  He heard Vulcan grunt as the cane whacked and tore green leather, sending a spasm of agony through Vulcan’s wrist. It was all the time Cheviot needed. Though his head felt swollen and throbbed with pain, his arms and legs were steady.

  Catching up the light and curved-handled cane—of no earthly use to anybody except as a blind—he ran round the table and stopped beyond the roulette-wheel. There he steadied his swimming eyesight, sweeping from the table an empty glass and a dead cigar.

  Vulcan had turned round, showing his teeth. The heavy cane was in his hand as he moved, cat-footed, again with the width of the table between them.

  Both spoke only in murderous whispers.

  “If you touch that curtain—” This was Vulcan’s whisper.

  “I won’t. Unless you touch the door.”

  “This is between ourselves?”

  “Yes!”

  Instantly Vulcan lunged and lashed out, across the width of the table, at Cheviot’s head.

  Cheviot didn’t attempt to parry with the light cane; it would only have smashed to flinders. Instead he jumped to one side. The crooked stick, missing widely, struck with a crack against the far side of the table. It gashed and scarred mahogany. It made the orange lamps jump and quiver, the china statues rattle.

  But Vulcan, never off balance, was instantly back on his feet. Cheviot could only face him with silent derision. He dared not try for a judo-hold, against such strength and quickness, unless—

 
; Unless he could madden Vulcan into lunging off balance.

  Vulcan watched, moving right and left. Cheviot approached and stood against the edge of the table, daring him.

  Crack!

  Vulcan lashed and missed again, so widely that Cheviot’s derision grew broader.

  Slowly Vulcan drew back from the table. Slowly he moved towards the left, behind one of the china figures. He had only one eye, Cheviot’s look seemed to imply; his measuring of distance would be poor.

  Vulcan knew that, and it infuriated him still more. He drew farther back, as though about to turn away. Cheviot, on the contrary, pressed against the edge of the table and leaned partly across it.

  Vulcan whirled back, ran in, and struck. Too late he saw where the blow must fall; but he could not stop his arm. The crooked weight smashed full down on the half-smiling Venus, with her black hair over her shoulders. The china figure burst to pieces, all but disappeared, as the cane hit the table.

  Still nobody spoke. Vulcan stood motionless, his good eye wide with horror. His pale face grew paler. In a paralysis he whispered the only words of human feeling Cheviot ever heard him use.

  “Kate,” he said. “My poor Kate.”

  Whereupon fury caught him. The blood surged up in his cheeks, leaving only his skull white. He raced along the table to the middle, Cheviot following him. Seeing that hated face, Vulcan lunged far and struck—completely off balance.

  Cheviot had already thrown away his useless cane. As Vulcan’s right arm shot across the table, the fingers of his left hand gripped the wrist as he had gripped Captain Hogben’s. He jerked that Leviathan bulk across the table and past the roulette-wheel.

  For a second Vulcan’s neck rested on the other edge of the table, as in the collar of a guillotine. The edge of Cheviot’s right hand, like a hatchet, chopped down across the back of the neck. Then he yanked Vulcan fully over, setting a-spin the pivot of the roulette-wheel.

  Vulcan landed sideways, quivering, and rolled over on his back. His eyes were glazed; the eyelids fluttered and closed. He did not seem to breathe.

  The roulette-wheel, at first wildly spinning, steadily slowed down and came to a stop.

  And Cheviot, sweating with fear at what he might have done, stared down at Vulcan.

  A blow like that, in the proper place, could kill and not stun, as he intended. But had he intended merely to stun? Had he struck in the place to stun and not kill?

  That whole battle, except for four whispered words and the crack or thud of Vulcan’s stick, had gone in dead silence.

  Silent now, horribly silent, Cheviot searched for his watch to see whether breath would cloud the glass. His watch was gone. He bent down and felt for a pulse. He thought he felt one beating, but he could not be sure. Tearing open Vulcan’s shirt, ripping down the thin silk undervest beneath, his fingers sought the heart.

  And the heart was beating, thinly but steadily. Vulcan was only knocked out.

  Cheviot lurched to his feet. The act of bending over threw a dazzle of pain through the left side of his head. He steadied himself against the table. After a moment or two he hurried round to the desk. He took out the account book for 1828–1829, and put it on the desk. He retrieved his watch, chain, and cigar-cutter. He took the shorter key out of the lock, replacing the key-ring in his pocket.

  Then, listening for any noise below, he hurried across to the windows. There was much trouble in opening the windows; they were stuck fast. He wrenched one of them up, cracking a pane in the glass. His hands hammered and bumped at the other until that went up too.

  To gulp the cold night-air was heartening, soothing. Drawing together the curtains behind him so that no noise could be heard inside, Cheviot took out the rattle from under his coat. Its noise tore and splintered out against the night sky.

  He walked back, stepping over a Vulcan now breathing stertorously beside the crooked stick, and went to the far end of the table nearest to the door and the Chinese-lacquer cabinet. Now that the shock of the fight had passed, he was again strung to alertness and anticipation.

  Through the drawn curtains, like demons in a pantomime, leaped Inspector Seagrave on one side and Sergeant Bulmer on the other, their truncheons drawn. They moved aside. Six constables, wearing duty-armbands and with truncheons drawn, flowed over the sills and spread out in a line.

  “Orders, sir?” demanded Inspector Seagrave.

  “First, clap a pair of darbies on that sleeping beauty. He’ll wake up at any moment.”

  Sergeant Bulmer whipped the handcuffs from under his coat, and clicked them shut on Vulcan’s thick wrists. But his eyes bulged out as he did so.

  “Gord!” blurted Sergeant Bulmer.

  “Quiet!” said Cheviot.

  “But what did you do to the cove, sir?” insisted Bulmer. “We couldn’t see or hear a thing, ’cept what sounded like a fight. You’ve got a nasty lump on the side of your head, too. Couldn’t have been easy, downing old Vulcan.”

  The always-worried Inspector Seagrave silenced him with a glare and remained wooden.

  “Orders, sir?” he repeated.

  “The same as our original plan. I was to come into the house and find the device, packed cards or a rigged wheel, Vulcan employed to fleece his guests. If I found it, I was to use it as a weapon to get his account-book and the diamond-and-ruby brooch.”

  “And—and you’ve done that, sir?”

  “Yes, by luck. Look for yourself! His account-book for 1828–1829 is over on the desk there. The left-hand tier of drawers, four of them, is packed with his collection of jewellery. Here!”

  Cheviot took the key-ring from his pocket and put it on the edge of the table.

  “The shorter key,” he said, “opens any drawer. The only reason why I called you in here is that we must make great haste. Four of you will each take one of the drawers and go through it. Get the brooch alone; that will do as evidence; but get it quickly before we’re discovered.”

  “And after that, sir?” insisted Inspector Seagrave, who wanted to have every detail right in his head.

  “After that, we release Vulcan and go down over the roofs. We don’t touch Vulcan or his house. I made a promise, and I’ll keep it.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir,” spoke up a hoarse and dogged voice from one of the constables, “but ain’t there to be any fight?”

  Cheviot, who had moved back almost to the armchair where he had been sitting, wheeled round.

  “Fight? Can nine of us meet thirty blacklegs, probably half a dozen more in the footmen down there, and most of ’em armed?”

  A stir went through the line along the opposite wall.

  “Thirty? Maybe thirty-six?” cried Sergeant Bulmer. “Sir, that’s twice the lot of legs that Captain Whimper and the Black Dwarf used to stuff the house and make sure they cut Billy Hench’s throat!”

  “Well, Vulcan packed the house against me. He knew I was coming. Somebody warned him beforehand. But never mind that! Hurry! Don’t you see, with the evidence we have, we’ve won the game? We’ve completely—”

  He stopped.

  There was a woodeny, rattly kind of flap and crash. Cheviot, staring at Bulmer across the room, saw its effect reflected in his men’s eyes before he turned.

  The double-doors of the big Chinese-lacquer cabinet had been hurled open as though by the hands of a maniac, which was very nearly true.

  Inside the cabinet, crouching, stood Kate de Bourke.

  Her glossy black hair was torn down over her shoulders, torn by her own fingernails, just as they had ripped down the bodice of her green gown. The lips were drawn back over her teeth. Her eyes seemed swollen lumps of fury.

  “She’s been there all the time,” flashed Cheviot’s thought. “I never actually saw her leave the room. Vulcan keeps a witness for everything. She’s heard every word, and seen her image smashed, without daring to help. She—”

  Then Kate screamed.

  The screams went piercing up, and must have been audible to everyone in the big ga
ming-room downstairs. Kate’s wide skirts billowed out of the cabinet. She was nearly blind from being so long in the dark. But even dim eyes saw the gleam of the keys lying at the edge of the table just in front of her.

  Kate seized the keys, tottered round, and ran to collide with the mahogany door not three paces away, just as the paralysis lifted from every man.

  “Bulmer! Grab her!”

  Cheviot raced for the door as Bulmer and Seagrave did. They were too late.

  In fact, they overshot the mark. Cheviot never knew by what miracle Kate found the lock, instantly unlocked the door, and flung it open.

  As he and Bulmer crowded together in the doorway, he threw out his arm and held Bulmer back. After all, he could hardly collar the woman like a felon. She had done nothing.

  But Kate, flying out on the narrow balcony, momentarily stopped to look back. He had a glimpse of her face over her shoulder, past the tangled hair. He saw the mouth drawn up at one corner, and the terror in her eyes.

  She must many times have peeped out of that cabinet. What she saw, blurred, was the face of the man who had thrown her unbeatable Vulcan across a table and knocked him senseless with a blow across the neck.

  In a space only while you might have counted two, Cheviot was conscious of men jumping to their feet in the big yellow-hung room below, of faces upturned, of three great chandeliers, dazzling with candles, about on a level with his eyes.

  “Stop!” he said. He tried to speak gently, but his voice seemed to thunder out. “We mean you no harm. We won’t hurt you. But stop, or you’ll hurt yourself!”

  What Kate heard was the frightening voice of the man who—

  She screamed again. She ran blindly to the right. Once more she tried to look over her left shoulder. Her eyes saw only the blaze of yellow candlelight from the chandeliers. And her wits dissolved along with her sight.

  She turned and ran straight for the wooden handrail in front of her.

  The crack of tearing and splintering wood, as her body struck gilded and flimsy scrollwork rotted through, was not as loud as the crack of Vulcan’s cane on the table. But it seemed to go on longer.