Fire, Burn!

by John Dickson Carr

  “Have no fear, madam.”

  “Hey?”

  “Young Mr. Macaulay, who writes such admirable articles in the Edinburgh Review, hates Mr. Croker worse than cold boiled veal. In due time he will dust Croker’s jacket so thoroughly that future generations may remember it.”

  “Ay, so Rogers prophesies.” Lady Cork brooded, her hands folded on her crutch-headed stick. “But what does it matter? I’ve given ‘at homes’ for all the cursed literary lions in recent years, from Washington Irving to young Ben Disraeli, when he made the town stare with that novel Vivian Grey. But the wit’s gone. The light’s gone. All’s gone.”

  “Not the wit, I protest!” exclaimed Flora. “Is Mr. Disraeli, for instance, in town at the moment?”

  “Lawks, now!” sneered Lady Cork, rearing up her thick neck. “Who don’t know he’s tourin’ the Continent, and says he’ll stand for Parliament when he comes back?”

  “He will make his mark, madam.” Cheviot spoke gravely. “He will make his mark, I promise you that.”

  “Ben Disraeli? And what are you grinnin’ at?”

  “I was only thinking of Vivian Grey. One of the imaginary characters is called Lord Beaconsfield. Mr. Disraeli, in his youth, never dreams that one day he himself will be called—”

  “Well, lad? Don’t stop as though you’d bitten your tongue through! Called what?”

  “To another sphere, I was about to say.”

  A large sofa was drawn up straight towards the fire, sideways to Lady Cork’s armchair. Flora sat on the sofa nearer her guest, and Cheviot beside her.

  But a change had deepened wickedly in Lady Cork when he said those words. She leaned over her stick, her jowls flattening, and said abruptly:

  “I heerd something else at Croker’s, too.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. A footman came up and whispered it in John Wilson’s ear, about half-past twelve. I heerd,” said Lady Cork with much deliberation, “that Superintendent George Cheviot’s son, with only eight Peelers, bobbed up like a flash o’ magic at Vulcan’s. The devil knows how they got in. But they beat the blacklegs, and rolled every one of ’em down the front stairs, in seven minutes by somebody’s watch.”

  Cheviot sighed.

  “That is not quite an accurate account, madam.”

  “Then what did happen?” the old woman asked truculently. “Eh, lad? What did happen?”

  Cheviot looked back at her steadily.

  “The story,” he answered, “must wait for some other time. It will suffice to say this: that the swell yokels—”

  “The—the what, please?” asked a bewildered Flora.

  “I beg your pardon. A swell yokel is a gay or dashing fellow. I referred to the gentlemen, the honest punters. They were enraged by a rigged or false roulette-wheel. They turned on the blacklegs, at least eighty per cent of them, and fought on our side. As a result, we so far outnumbered the blacklegs that it was hardly a fight at all. They were overcome in five minutes, not seven.”

  Brushing this aside, he still kept his gaze fixed on Lady Cork.

  “But I don’t imagine, madam, you came here at past three in the morning to seek details of a broil at Vulcan’s. Could it be some interest in a brooch belonging to you?”

  Lady Cork’s eyes wavered and fell. All her feigned ferocity dropped away.

  “I’ll not deny it,” she muttered. “’Twas a wedding-gift, ye comprehend. The first ever I had. Four other pieces of jewellery may have gone to Vulcan. He may keep ’em, for all I care; they don’t signify. But the brooch—!”

  Cheviot rose to his feet. He went to the chair near the door. On top of the two account-books lay the bag formed by his tied-up handkerchief.

  Returning to Lady Cork, he put the bag into her lap. He untied the knot and opened it. Under the flicker of gaslight, under the glow of the cherry-and-grey-coloured lamp, burned a shifting litter of precious stones.

  “Permit me,” he said gently, “to show you all five.”

  Lady Cork looked down. She did not exclaim or even speak for some time. She pressed her withered hands against her lips, palms upwards, and rocked her stout body in the chair.

  Presently she seized only one of them, a little ship of diamonds and rubies, pressing her mouth to it, and then her cheek, and crooning a sing-song which was of sixty years gone by.

  Flora turned her head away. After a moment Lady Cork cleared her throat and peered up.

  “Nowadays, lad,” she said, “they don’t make many men like you.”

  “But I did little or nothing!” He told her this sincerely; he believed it. “If you would praise anyone, praise Seagrave, Bulmer, my six constables. By God, madam, they were magnificent. In my report, already sent to the Commissioners, I have given them the highest possible commendation.”

  “While you, I dessay,” Lady Cork sneered, “stood by and did nothing?”

  “I—”

  “Enough!” said Lady Cork, in a voice of really impressive dignity. She sat up. “Mr. Cheviot. I cannot say or express how much I am beholden to you. But I’ll write to Bobby Peel. Ecod, I’ll write to the Duke!”

  “And yet I had rather you didn’t.”

  “Eh?”

  “If you wish to show any gratitude, madam, you have only to tell the truth.”

  The dark shadow was back again.

  The brooch fell from her hands into the other jewellery. A thin singing of gaslight, a clenching of Flora’s hands, reminded them they were still in the presence of a dead woman shot through the back.

  “Last night,” continued Cheviot, “you told me a certain story. You said that four of your best treasures, including the brooch, you hid in the seed-containers of the bird-cages in your own bedroom on Tuesday night.”

  “But I did! So I did! You said as much yourself!”

  “True; I don’t gainsay it. However, what of Thursday night?”

  Lady Cork opened her mouth, shut it again, and looked away.

  “On Thursday night, madam, you told me you set a snare for the thief.” Cheviot reached down, and picked out the only ring amid the pieces of jewellery. “You said that you put a ring, which you called ‘worthless,’ into one of the seed-containers of the canary-cages in the passage? Yes?”

  Again Lady Cork began to speak, and hesitated.

  “You then stated,” Cheviot went on, “that you succumbed to temptation and swallowed laudanum. You drank the laudanum, and did not see the thief after all.”

  “I—”

  “Forgive me, but I found that flatly impossible to believe. You were all in agitation, all aghast. You must learn the identity of the thief, even if you only suspected it. This ring you hid, for instance.”

  Cheviot held it up. Its single large diamond flashed back malevolently.

  “In Vulcan’s account-book it is pledged (pawned, not sold) for a hundred guineas. Hardly worthless, as you stated? You must set good bait for your thief. Is it reasonable to think you would drink laudanum before you could possibly see the thief? No.” He paused. “You saw the thief, did you not? And recognized her as Margaret Renfrew?”

  “Yes,” said Lady Cork, after a pause.

  “Would you so testify in the witness-box, madam?”

  “I could and I would!” retorted Lady Cork, lifting her head.

  Then she mused for a time, her old eyes wise and shrewd.

  “I saw her,” Lady Cork added suddenly. “In bare feet, and a thin night-shift, carrying a light. Ecod! Peg was never a prude; I always guessed that, though I well knew,” the eyes twinkled, “her choice was not you. But—egad! Until I saw her there in the night, with her mouth open and her cheeks afire, groping for the ring, I never felt in me bones how much of that gel was the world, the flesh, and the devil.”

  “‘Fire burn,’” muttered Cheviot, “‘and cauldron bubble!’”

  “Eh, lad? What d’ye say?”

  “Forgive me.” Cheviot was contrite. “Only a quotation I have several times applied to her. The fire burned t
oo high. The cauldron bubbled over. Whereupon she stayed herself; she became again her quiet, shut-in self, with a conscience.”

  “Oh?” said Lady Cork in a very curious tone.

  He dropped the diamond-ring back among the other jewels in Lady Cork’s lap.

  “There is but one more question, madam; then I have done. It concerns a letter you wrote on the night of the murder. It even concerns Lady Drayton here.”

  “It concerns me?” Flora cried.

  Cheviot smiled. Above the fireplace, between the gas-jets, hung a full-length portrait of Flora herself, painted three or four years ago by an ageing Sir Thomas Lawrence, who seldom accepted commissions now that he was President of the Royal Academy.

  All the time Cheviot could not help glancing from the pictured Flora to the real one, who in more than the pictured sense was more alive. With his gloved hand, openly, he tilted up her chin as she sat on the sofa. Even through the glove he could feel the softness of her chin and cheek.

  “You?” he repeated. “My dear, when Mr. Richard Mayne was driving at me with questions this afternoon, I was in fear lest he remember a certain letter. I should have had no answer for him.”

  Standing straight on the hearth-rug, he turned back to Lady Cork.

  “Last night, the night of the murder, you wrote a letter to Colonel Charles Rowan at Scotland Yard?”

  “Ay; and what of that?”

  “You sealed it conspicuously, and in yellow wax? Yes. Why, if I may ask, did you despatch it to Colonel Rowan and not to both Commissioners of Police?”

  “Lad, lad, Charles Rowan comes often to my house. He was even acquainted with poor Peg.”

  “I see. Flora!” He looked down. “If you recall, you were waiting outside the police-office in your closed carriage. A footman rode up with the letter. You stopped him, and asked to see the letter.”

  “Oh, dear!” Flora sat up straight. “So I did! I had forgotten.”

  “So, fortunately, had Mr. Mayne. Why did you ask to see the letter?”

  “As you say, it had a conspicuous seal in yellow wax. I saw it by the light of the carriage lanterns.” Flora paused, her face growing crimson. “All the world knew,” she added defiantly, “I should be with you. And all knew where you were going that night. I thought the letter might be for me.”

  “You took it then. Did you break the seal?”

  “Good heavens, no. It was addressed to Colonel Rowan. Besides, the seal was already broken.”

  Cheviot stared at her.

  “Good!” he exclaimed. “Better still. And now, Lady Cork, if you please! To whom did you give this letter when you had written it?”

  “Why, to Peg Renfrew, of course! I was upstairs in me boudoir, and—”

  “To whom did she give it?”

  “To the footman downstairs. Who else?”

  “The seal,” he muttered, staring at the fire, “was broken when it came into Colonel Rowan’s hands. Then the likeliest person to have broken it was Margaret Renfrew herself.” He slapped his hands together. “Yes! She interpreted (pray forgive me, madam) your customary oblique approach about stolen birdseed. She knew the police would be there. Lady Cork! Did you remark her manner afterwards?”

  “Ay.” The old woman nodded grimly. “I remarked it.”

  “Hard, defiant, ashamed? Yet ashamed mainly because … stop! Under all that hard surface, couldn’t you discern a clamor of conscience? If I had pressed her sharply with questions at that time, might she not have confessed?”

  “She might,” agreed Lady Cork, with a snap. “I’ll say more: I thought she would. Else I might ha’—bah, no matter! Who can say what goes on in the heart of a lonely woman? She might, or she might not. But …”

  “Yes. The murderer stopped her mouth.”

  Still contemplating the fire, its heat fanning his eyelids and its crackle dim in his ears, Cheviot saw the pattern take form.

  “He shot her. He shot her in cold blood. And all because he must not be exposed. And all for a handful of jewellery. And all for a wad of flimseys—I beg your pardon: I mean banknotes—”

  “Jack!” Flora interrupted. “Where on earth did you learn all these dreadful terms? ‘Extra-flash-men.’ ‘Swell yokels.’ ‘Flimseys.’ And a dozen more. Where did you learn them?”

  Cheviot stood very still. “I—I am not sure.”

  “I ask,” Flora persisted uncertainly, “because some of them are in that book. The book I was reading when you arrived.”

  “Book?” he repeated, jerking his head towards the round table.

  To the astonishment of both women, he moved over and snatched up the leather-covered book. He opened it and glanced down the title-page.

  “This,” he said, “was published five years ago. I may well have read it, and partly forgotten or never finished it. But it hardly seems your sort of reading, Flora. The Fatal Effects of Gambling exemplified in the Murder of Wm. Weare, and the Trial and Fate of John Thurtell, the Murderer, and His Accomplices, with—”

  Flora intervened hastily.

  “No, not that part! The second part of the book. Look lower down!”

  “The Gambler’s Scourge,” he read aloud, “a complete exposé of the Whole System of Gambling in the Metropolis; with …”

  There was more print, but he did not read the rest of the title-page. Quickly he turned to the back of the book, nipping over the pages. Again Flora protested.

  “No; you’ve passed the gambling part. That’s the appendix. It’s about a horrible man named Probert, who was concerned in the murder of Weare, and what he testified after he was reprieved.” She broke off. “Jack! What’s the matter?”

  For Cheviot, paler of face than she had ever seen him, was holding the open book under the lamp in hands that trembled.

  He had reason to behave as he did. On the four hundred and eightieth page, there had jumped up at him a dozen lines in type which seemed even more heavily leaded than it was. He read the lines slowly. He read the next page, and the following three, without enlightenment. Then, at the top of the next page, six lines stung out like an adder.

  “Come!” growled Lady Cork, peering past the side of her poke-bonnet and looking disquieted. “What sort of behaviour’s that, now? What d’ye call it?”

  “I call it finality,” said Cheviot.

  “Finality?”

  “Yes.” He closed the book. “I did not really need this. Yet it is confirmation. It tells me where to find what I want.” He smiled a little. “You spoke of the murderer, madam?”

  “I didn’t, but—”

  “I have him,” Cheviot said without expression. “I have him,” and he closed the fingers of his right hand, “here.”

  “Ecod,” bellowed Lady Cork, hammering her stick on the floor and all but spilling the jewels from her lap, “but who is this murderer? And how was the dem thing done?”

  “I am sorry, madam. I must keep my own counsel as yet.”

  “You won’t tell me?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Well! Here’s more fine manners! In that event, I’ll take my jewels (thanking you very much) and be off.”

  Upset, angry without quite seeming to know why, she began fumblingly to tie together the edges of the handkerchief when Cheviot intervened. Putting down the book on the table, he bent down and finished tying the knot. Then he took the jewels away from her as gently as he could.

  “Much though it distresses me, Lady Cork, I cannot allow you to keep the jewels just yet. They must be used in evidence.”

  A stricken look crossed Lady Cork’s face.

  “Not keep ’em? Not even the brooch? Not even the wedding-gift?”

  “Madam, I am sorry! They will be returned to you, of course. I will write you a receipt now, if you like.”

  “Receipt!” cried Lady Cork, as though this were the greatest outrage of all. “Receipt!”

  She pushed herself to her feet on the crutch-headed stick, jerking the fur pelisse round her shoulders.

  “Good ni
ght to ye, ma’am,” she said to Flora. And: “Come with me, girl!” to the olive-skinned Solange, who had been sitting unobtrusively in a corner, ankles crossed, all eyes. Solange hastened across to open the double-doors. Lady Cork marched towards them like a man-o’-war.

  “The coachman’ll be cold, and so am I,” she snorted. At the open doors she half turned, glaring at Cheviot.

  “Hey-dey! I’d not ha’ thought to see you so pale. And your hands tremble! You’ll find yourself nobly fit, I dessay, when tomorrow you meet—”

  Glancing at Flora, she bit at her under-lip and stopped. Into her face, instead of anger, came a certain shame.

  Cheviot, staring back at her, wondered how she seemed to know everything. Freddie Debbitt, probably; you could not shut Freddie’s mouth. But tomorrow, after shooting against the man for a wager, he was engaged to fight a duel with Captain Hugo Hogben. And he had completely forgotten it.

  Lady Cork, upreared in the open doors with her hand on her stick and a glimmer of gaslight behind her, bit her lip and changed again.

  “Mr. Cheviot! I—I ask your pardon, sir, for the vapours of a cross-grained, bad-tempered old woman. I have a fondness for you; you know it. I am much your debtor; that you know too.” Tears glimmered in her eyes. “Good luck, lad. God speed your aim.

  The doors closed behind her. They heard a murmur of voices, then the closing, locking, and bolting of the heavy front door.

  Flora, who had risen when Lady Cork did, now sat down on the far end of the sofa, near Cheviot as he stood and looked at the door.

  “Jack, what did she mean? About—speeding your aim?”

  “Nothing! At nine o’clock tomorrow morning I have a practice-match at Joe Manton’s gallery. That’s all.”

  “Oh.”

  Still he looked at the closed doors. He had never practiced with their accursed pistols. He was not even sure of the weight, the balance, the throw of the bullet. He might never see Flora again.

  A burning log exploded in the fireplace, showering out sparks. Cheviot turned round. He bent down and gathered Flora quickly, violently, into his arms.

  17

  Six Shots at a Wafer

  THE PISTOL-SHOTS, EXPLODING in that long brick room against a thick iron-back wall, set up a din as loud as cannonading in a battle.