The Plague Court Murders

by John Dickson Carr

  “I’d almost forgotten the business when I accidentally ran into a fellow I used to know at school; quite a good friend of mine. I hadn’t seen him in a long time. We went to lunch, and he immediately began babbling about spiritualism. Latimer, his name: Ted Latimer.

  “Even at school Ted had been inclined in that direction, though there was nothing much dreamy about him: he was as neat a center-forward as I ever saw. But when he was fifteen he got hold of one of the wrong kind of Conan Doyle books, and used to try to put himself into trances. My hobby was parlor magic, like yours, so maybe that’s how. … Excuse me. When I met him last week, he pounced on me.

  “He went on telling me about an amazing medium a friend of his had discovered, and Darworth was the friend. Now, I didn’t tell him I was in the force. I felt pretty rotten about it afterwards; it was a dirty trick, in a way; but I wanted to see Darworth in action. So I argued with him, and asked whether I could meet this paragon. He said Darworth didn’t meet people, ordinarily—didn’t like them to know his interests—all that. But Darworth was going to be at a little dinner, next night, given by a friend of Ted’s aunt, named Featherton. He thought he might be able to get me invited. So a week ago tonight I went …”

  McDonnell’s cigarette glowed and darkened. He seemed oddly hesitant. Masters said:

  “Get on with it. You mean for a demonstration?”

  “Oh, no. Nothing of the kind. The medium wasn’t there. Which reminds me, sir. In my opinion, that idiot ‘Joseph’ is only Darworth’s—what do they call it?–front. The little devil gets on my nerves, but I don’t believe he knows what goes on. I think his trances are drug-trances, induced by Darworth; that maybe the moron believes he is a medium. He’s a sort of dummy to take any blame, while Darworth produces his own phenomena. …”

  Masters nodded heavily. “Ah! That’s good, my lad. If that’s true, it’s something tangible to fasten our man with. I don’t believe it, except maybe about the drugs, but if so. … Good! Go on.”

  “Just a moment, Sergeant,” I put in. “A few minutes ago, out there, anybody would have gathered from what you said that you were convinced there really was something in all this. Something supernatural. At least, the inspector assumed as much.”

  McDonnell’s cigarette stopped in the gloom. It moved up, pulsed and darkened strongly, and then the sergeant said:

  “That’s what I wanted to explain sir. I didn’t say it was supernatural. But I do say that something or somebody is after Darworth. That’s as definite as I’d care to make it. And also as vague.

  “Let me tell you.

  “This Major Featherton—I suppose you know he’s here tonight—has a flat in Piccadilly. Certainly there’s nothing ghostly about it; he prides himself on his modernism, but all the time he keeps telling anecdotes about how different, and how much better, it was in King Edward’s time. There were six of us present: Darworth, Ted Latimer, Ted’s sister Marion, a glucose old party named Lady Benning, the major, and myself. I got the impression—”

  “See here, Bert,” interrupted Masters, who seemed outraged; “what kind of reports do you make out, I’d like to know? That’s not facts. We don’t want your blasted impressions; don’t stand there and take up our time in the cold with gibbering away—!”

  “Oh, yes, we do,” Halliday said suddenly. (I could hear him breathing.) “That’s exactly what we do want. Please go on gibbering, Mr. McDonnell.”

  After a silence McDonnell bowed slightly in the gloom. I do not know why it struck me as fantastic, as fantastic as that conference with our flashlights turned on the floor. But McDonnell seemed on his guard.

  “Yes, sir. I got the impression that Darworth was more than a little interested in Miss Latimer, and that everybody else, including Miss Latimer herself, was completely unconscious of it. He never did anything you could call outspoken; it was his air—and there’s something about him that can convey an impression better than anyone I ever knew. But the others were too rapt to notice.” Here Masters coughed, coughed with a long “Urrrr!” but the young man paid no attention. “They were all polite to me, but they conveyed definitely that I was out of the charmed circle, and Lady Benning kept looking at Ted in a funny way that was worse than merely unpleasant. Then Ted kept blurting things out, sometimes: that’s how I put together a lot of hints, piecemeal, that there might be a party here tonight. They shut him up, and afterwards we all went into the drawing-room feeling pretty uncomfortable. Darworth …”

  But the memory of a silhouette on a red-lit window kept coming at me, so that I could see it all around in the dark; I could not keep it away, and I said:

  “Is Darworth a tall man? What does he look like?”

  “Like—like a swank psychiatrist,” McDonnell replied. “Looks and talks like one. … God, how I disliked that man!—Excuse me, sir.” He checked himself. “You see, he’s a positive quantity. Either you fall under his spell, or he puts your back up so much that you want to land one on his jaw. Maybe it’s his possessive air towards all the women, the way he touches their hands or leans towards them; and they tell me he’s had plenty. … Yes, sir, he’s tall. He’s got a little brown silky beard, and a sort of aloof smile, and he’s pudgy. …”

  “I know,” said Halliday.

  “But I was telling you. … We went into the other room, and tried to talk, particularly about some God-awful new school paintings that Lady Benning had persuaded the major to buy. You could see he detested ’em, and was embarrassed; but I gather he’s as completely under Lady Benning’s thumb as she is under Darworth’s. Well, presently they couldn’t keep away from spiritualism, despite my presence, and the upshot of all the talk was that they persuaded Darworth to try automatic writing.

  “Now, there’s one fake you can’t prove a fake; I suppose Darworth wouldn’t have touched it otherwise. First he gave them a lecture to make their minds receptive, and I am willing to admit that if I hadn’t kept myself well in hand I should have been almost afraid to have the lights out. No, sir, I’m not joking!” His head turned towards Masters. “It was all so quiet, so reasonable and persuasive, so deftly tied up in real and sham science. …

  “The only light in the room was the fire. We made a circle, and Darworth sat some distance away, at a little round table, with pencil and paper. Miss Latimer played the piano for a while, and then joined the circle. I don’t wonder the others were shaken. Darworth had got them into that state; he seemed to take pleasure in it, and the last thing thing I noticed before the lights went out was his complacent little smirk.

  “I had a seat so that I was facing in his direction. What with only the firelight, our shadows cut him off. All I could see was the top of his head, resting easily against the back of a tall thin chair, and the firelight rising on the wall just behind him. Above him—I could see it well—was a big painting of a nude sprawled out in ghastly sharp angles, and painted green. That was all, wavering by the firelight.

  “We were nervous in the circle. The old lady was moaning, and muttering about somebody named James. Presently it seemed to get colder in the room. I had a wild impulse to get up and shout, for I have attended a good many séances, but never one that made me feel like this. Then I saw Darworth’s head shaking over the top of the chair.

  “His pencil began to scratch, and still his head kept shaking. Everything was very quiet; only that horrible motion of his head, and the sound of the pencil now traveling in circles on the paper.

  “It was twenty minutes—thirty—I don’t know how long afterwards that Ted got up and put the lights on. It had got unbearable, and somebody had cried out. We looked over at Darworth; and when my eyes had got accustomed to the light I jumped towards him. …

  “The little table had been knocked over. Darworth sat back stiffly against the chair, with a paper in his hand; and his face was green.

  “I tell you, sir, that charlatan’s face was exactly the soupy color of the damned picture hung over his head. He had himself in hand in a second; but he was shakin
g. Both Featherton and I had come up to him, to see if we could give any assistance. When he saw us over him he crumpled up the paper in his hand. He got up, walked over stiffly, and threw the paper in the fire. You had to admire him for the way he controlled his voice. He said, ‘Absolutely nothing, I regret to say. Only some nonsense on the Louis Playge matter. We shall have to try it again some other time.’

  “He was lying. There were distinct words on that paper; I saw them, and I think Featherton did too. It was only a glance, and I couldn’t catch the first part; but the last line read—”

  “Well?” Halliday demanded harshly.

  “The last line read, ‘Only seven more days are allowed.’ ”

  After a pause, McDonnell dropped his glowing cigarette on the floor and ground it under his heel. Sharp through the house behind us, rising in a kind of sob, we heard a woman’s voice crying, “Dean-Dean-!”

  CHAPTER V

  Every flashlight snapped on; Masters was alert, and seized his subordinate’s arm.

  “That’s Miss Latimer. They’re all here—”

  “I know,” said McDonnell quickly; “Ted told me all about it. I watched them tonight.”

  “And she mustn’t find you here. Stay in this room, and keep out of sight till I call you. No, wait! Mr. Halliday!”

  Halliday was already stumbling out the door in the dark, but he turned round. I heard McDonnell give a faint start and a snap of his fingers as the name was pronounced. “We promised to be back in five minutes, damn it,” snarled Halliday. “And here we are still. She must be nearly dead with fright. Give me a light, somebody. …”

  “Hold on a bit,” urged Masters, as I handed Halliday my own electric torch; “hold on, sir, and listen. You’d better go into the front room and stay with her; for a while, anyhow. Reassure her. But tell them I want that kid Joseph sent out to us, right here, immediately. If necessary, tell them I’m a police officer. This has got too serious for fooling.”

  Halliday nodded and bolted down the passage.

  “I’m a practical man,” Masters said to me, heavily, “but I trust my instinct. And instinct said there was something wrong. I’m glad I heard this, Bert. … You understand, don’t you? That wasn’t any ghostwriting. One of those people in that room worked it on Darworth just as he was going to work it on them.”

  “Yes, I’d thought of that too,” agreed McDonnell soberly. “And yet there’s one great big thundering hole in it. Can you in any realm of sanity imagine Darworth being frightened by faked ghost-writing? It’s incredible, sir. And, whatever else might have been a fake, that scare of his wasn’t, I’ll swear.”

  Masters grunted. He took a few steps up and down, bumped into something, and cursed. “Some light,” he growled; “we want some light—I’m bound to tell you I don’t like this. And this talking in the dark—”

  “Just a moment,” said McDonnell. He was gone a few seconds, his light flickering up the passage, and returned with a cardboard box containing three or four big candles. “Darworth was sitting in one of these rooms,” he went on, “ ‘resting’ before he went out there. He called out to Ted and Major Featherton when they were coming back from lighting his fire—naturally he wouldn’t light a fire—and they took him out there. …” He handed me a flashlight. “This is evidently Darworth’s, sir. It was in the candle-box. You’d better take it.”

  It was still gloomy when the candles were lighted, but at least we could see each other’s faces, and the load of darkness was less terrifying. We heard the rats then. McDonnell found a long, battered table, rather like a carpenter’s work-bench, and set the candles up on it. The only seat he could find was a decrepit packing-case, which he shoved towards Masters. We stood on a gritty brick floor, blinking at each other in a dreary furnace of a kitchen whose walls had once been whitewashed. McDonnell was fully revealed as a lean gawky young man going slightly bald. He had a long nose, and a habit of pinching out his underlip between thumb and forefinger. His intensely serious expression was lightened by a somewhat satirical droop of the lids over the greenish eyes. It was a face of whiplash intelligence.

  I still did not like the atmosphere, and twice I looked over my shoulder. It was this damnable waiting …

  Masters appeared ruffled, but he proceeded methodically. He picked up the packing-case, shook it, and crushed with his foot a spider that scuttled out. Then he sat down at the work-bench with his notebook.

  “Now, then, Bert. We’ll assemble, and we’ll consider. Eh? We’ll take the business of this faked ghost-writing.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “Well!” said Masters, and rapped a pencil on the table as though he expected to conjure up something. “And what do we have? We have a group of four neurotic people.” He seemed to relish the word, like a slight surprise. “Four neurotic people, Bert; or let’s except the old major, and say three. We have young Latimer, Miss Latimer, and old Lady Benning. Queer cases, Bert. Now, the trick could have been worked in a number of ways. The paper with the writing could have been prepared beforehand, and shuffled into Darworth’s papers when they were handed him before the lights went out. Who gave him the papers?”

  “As a matter of fact, it was old Featherton,” McDonnell answered with great gravity. “He just ripped ’em out of a tablet and handed ’em over. Besides, sir (excuse me) Darworth would have known all about an ancient dodge like that. He’d have jolly well known he didn’t write it.”

  “It was dark,” pursued Masters. “No difficulty for one of those people to have left the circle, with a prepared paper; tipped over the little table—you said it was tipped over—shoved the writing on top, and come back.”

  “Ye-es,” said McDonnell, pinching his under-lip and shifting; “yes, possible, sir. But the same objection holds. If Darworth is a fake, he’d know this is a fake; and why in God’s name, I repeat, should it scare the living wits out of him?”

  “Can you,” I put in, “can you remember anything else that was on that paper besides ‘Only seven more days are allowed’?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to think for a week,” McDonnell answered, a sort of spasm going over his face. “I could swear I did, and yet—no. I only saw it in a flash, and it was because the last line was rather larger than the rest, in a big sprawly sort of writing, that I caught it. All I can hazard is this: that there was a name written on the paper, because I seem to remember the capital letters. Also, somewhere, the word buried. But I couldn’t swear to it. I should question Major Featherton, if I were you.”

  “A name,” I repeated, “and the word buried.” There were rather horrible ideas in my mind, because I was wondering what one of those four, or three, neurotic devotees would do if he suddenly discovered Darworth to be an impostor and a charlatan. …

  “And Darworth,” I also said, without mentioning that shapeless notion, “Darworth, considerably knocked endways, said it was something to do with the Louis Playge matter. By which we assume he blurted out something that was in his mind. Is anything or anybody buried hereabouts, by the Way?”

  Masters’ big jowls shook with quiet mirth. He glanced at me out of a bland eye. “Only Louis Playge himself, sir.”

  I think I was rightly exasperated, and explained in somewhat heated terms that everybody seemed to know all about what had gone on here; everybody made leering hints, but nobody had given any information.

  “Why, there’s a chapter about it,” Masters said, “in a book at the British Museum. H’m. Didn’t Mr. Halliday give you some books, or a parcel, or the like?” He saw my hand go to my pocket, where was the brown-paper package I had forgotten. “H’m. Just so. You’ll have time enough to read it tonight, sir, I dare say. You’ll’ve guessed that ‘Plague Court’ is only a corruption of the name ‘Playge’; it was the popular name for it, and it stuck, after all the lad’s antics. Eh, he was a spanker, he was!” said Masters with some admiration, and no whit impressed. “But let’s get to facts, Bert. What happened here tonight?”

  McDonnel
l spoke rapidly and concisely while I drew out the brown-paper parcel and weighed it in my hand. Following out the information he had gained from Ted Latimer, McDonnell had posted himself in the yard—the gate was open—on what he guiltily thought might be the most erratic of wild goose chases. At ten-thirty the six of them: Darworth, Joseph, Lady Benning, Ted Latimer, his sister, and the major, had come in. After being some time in the house (McDonnell had not been able to get a look inside), Ted and Major Featherton opened the back door and set about preparations for making the stone house habitable.

  “That bell?” suggested Masters. “The one hung in the passage?”

  “Right! Sorry, sir— Yes, I was a good deal puzzled when I saw them working on it. Ted attached a wire to the bell, under Darworth’s directions, then unreeled it across the yard, and climbed on a box and shoved one end through the window. Darworth went back to one of the rooms along here, to rest or something; and the others fussed about in the stone house, lighting fires and candles, and moving furniture or something—I couldn’t see inside—and swearing generally. I gathered that the bell is for an alarm, in case Darworth thinks he needs help.” McDonnell smiled sourly. “Presently they came in again, and Darworth told them he was ready. He didn’t seem’ nervous at all. Whatever he’s afraid of, it’s not that. The rest you know.”

  Masters considered a moment. Then he got up. “Come along. Our Halliday seems to be having a bit of trouble, I’ll get that medium away from ’em. Yes. And ask a few discreet questions; eh, Bert? You come with me, but I’ll keep you back out of sight. …” He glanced at me.

  I said: “If you don’t mind, Masters, I’ll stay right here for a few minutes and see what’s inside this parcel. Give me a call if you need me.” I got out my knife and cut the string, while Masters watched curiously.