by Sapper
“I think it is the grossest piece of impertinence I have ever heard of in my life,” she said icily. “What is there to prevent me ringing up the police and giving you in charge for house-breaking?”
“Absolutely nothing,” said Drummond brightly. “There is the telephone in the corner.”
She bit her lip, and turned appealingly to Madame Saumur, who was staring thoughtfully at Drummond.
“Look here, young man,” said Penton aggressively, “are you going to clear out of your own free will, or am I going to pitch you out on your ear?”
“Not on my ear, Harold, I beg of you,” cried Drummond anxiously. “I shall probably have to consult an aurist anyhow tomorrow. The draught through that key-hole of yours is positively wicked.”
“You mean that you’ve been listening?” said Hardcastle softly.
“Yes, dear Tom. My ear has been glued to the orifice for quite a time. I heard you all being ticked off by Irma – I beg your pardon, Madame, Natalie – you naughty things.”
The three men began to crowd in on him, and Drummond’s smile grew more pronounced.
“Apropos of ringing up the police, Comtessa,” he remarked, “I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t one knocking about outside. There was when I got out of my taxi thirty or forty yards away. A charming young fellow: a credit to the Force. And the instant I saw him I felt impelled to give him my celebrated impersonation of a gentleman who has taken one over the eight. ‘Ole friend of my youth,’ I hiccupped at him, ‘my name is Drummond, Captain Hugh Drummond. And I live at Queen Anne’s Mansions. What, then, you ask me, am I doing up here? I will tell you. I am visiting a lady – a very beautiful lady – the Comtessa Bartelozzi. But, my dear old officer, like so many beautiful ladies, she has a jealous husband. If therefore my dead body is found lying about the streets you will know where to start inquiries.’ Then I kissed him on both cheeks and we parted.”
“I don’t know what the devil to do with you,” snarled Hardcastle.
“There would seem to be two alternatives,” said Drummond affably. “Either get my young friend from outside, or else offer me a drink and we will chat on this and that. Of course, there is a third – we might have a rough house. But if we do, this furniture is going to look a bit tired tomorrow.”
He strolled over to the fireplace and lit a cigarette.
“Do you know, Irma darling,” he murmured, “I don’t think that I like your new friends – always excepting this most delightful lady, of course – as much as I did Carl. You, if I may say so, are still your adorable self, but I don’t know that I want any of them to tuck me up at night.”
“So we meet again, Drummond, do we?” she said.
“My dear,” he cried, “I protest. As a conversational effort after all these years, that remark is not worthy of you.”
“How long have you been listening outside that door?”
“From the acute agony in my ear I should put it at a day or two,” he answered. “But maybe it was worth it. Anyway, here we all are – a merry united party, brimming over with girlish secrets. Tell me – just to satisfy my vulgar curiosity – why did you murder young Marton?”
Once again dead silence settled on the room.
“He seemed to me,” continued Drummond calmly, “a poor sort of specimen, but comparatively harmless withal.”
“Are you mad?” said Hardcastle at length. “What possible reason could we have for killing him?”
“That’s just what I’m asking you, Tom. It seems such a drastic method of dealing with the poor bloke.”
“I presume you’re trying to be funny, Captain Drummond,” answered Hardcastle. “Or else your conversation with the policeman outside is indicative of your true condition. Why, if you suffered from this absurd delusion, did you say nothing about it at the inquest?”
“Middle stump gone west,” said Drummond. “But I was forgetting that you know but little of our national game. I will tell you. I said nothing about it because, though I knew it, I was, and am, quite unable to prove it.”
“Then how dare you make such a monstrous accusation?” shouted Slingsby. “Are you aware, you young cub, that we can sue you for libel?”
“Of course,” agreed Drummond pleasantly. “Why not start proceedings tomorrow? My old friend Peanut of Peanut, Walnut and Chestnut has always acted for me in similar cases in the past. And in the meantime, may I help myself to a drink? In the past, Madame” – he turned to the woman in the chair, who was still watching him steadily – “I was a little chary of drinking at any of your parties, but I feel that, since you were not expecting me, this whisky will prove quite safe.”
He splashed some soda into his glass and returned to the fireplace. It was a dangerous game that he was playing, and no one was more alive to it than Drummond himself. As a matter of fact he had heard very little outside the door; he had only got there a few seconds before he had heard the question as to where he lived. But he fully realised that whatever he might have heard would prove useless if they rang up the police. It was only his word against all of theirs, and they would simply deny his statements. Further, he had put himself outside the law by breaking into the house in the first place. In fact, they held every card except one: and, if they had only known it, they held that too. But because they did not know it, they dared not ring up the police station, for fear of what he might say, not with regard to the past, but with regard to the future. And the humour of the situation was that on that point they need not have feared at all.
“I don’t think you’re being at all matey,” he remarked after a while. “I seem to be doing all the talking.”
“As far as I can make out, Drummond,” said Madame Saumur quietly, “your assertion is that young Marton was murdered by these three gentlemen.”
“Exactly, Madame. You have put it in a nutshell.”
“And, in view of the evidence, what makes you think so?”
“The conviction that he was not murdered by Morris.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Really. Your logic appears to me a little thin. Why because, for some obscure reason of your own, you consider Morris innocent, should you consider them guilty?”
“The reason is hardly obscure, but very simple. They were the only people who could have done it.”
“My recollection of the evidence hardly bears that out. Who first found the body?”
And for the fraction of a second Drummond stiffened: all too clearly he saw the line she was going to take up. But his voice was perfectly calm as he answered – “My friends and I.”
“Indeed,” she murmured. “Then it seems to me that you also could have done it.”
“Except for the trifling difficulty that the first thing that took us upstairs was the sight of the blood on the ceiling.”
“So you say. I regret that I am unable to believe you. I have only your word for it.”
“What possible reason could we have for murdering him?”
“What possible reason had they?”
Drummond began to laugh, though his brain was working at full pressure. A super bluff, of course; but a clever one. It was a bold attempt to force his hand one way or the other.
“Come, come, my dear lady,” he answered, “you can’t expect to catch an old stager like myself quite as easily as that. Marton when I saw him was in a state of pitiable agitation, far too pronounced to be accounted for by such comparative trifles as over-drinking and late hours. He was frightened out of his wits about something, and since I’d never seen the fellow before, it couldn’t have been anything to do with me. A few hours later he is found battered to death at Glensham House. The connection seems obvious, doesn’t it?”
“Once again we have only your word for all this,” she said.
“And a pretty line in words it is, too,” he remarked. �
�Irma, my pet, you have meant much to me in my young life, and I can assure you that any faint lingering doubts I possessed as to what happened that night at Glensham House were dispelled the moment I saw you at Paddington. And one other thing I propose to say,” he continued grimly, swinging round on the three men. “Of all the damnable methods of killing the poor devil, yours won in a canter. I admit that it was quick to take advantage of Morris having blundered into the house, and act as you did on the spur of the moment. But it shows a cold-blooded ferocity that I have never heard equalled before. And I tell you here and now I’m going to get level with you over it.”
The masks were off their faces now: in another moment the three of them would have been at him, and he crouched a little, waiting for the attack. And then Madame Saumur’s quiet laugh broke the tension.
“The same old Drummond,” she cried, “but this time with quite a hive of bees in his bonnet. Listen, mon ami, and we will see just where we stand. Evidently nothing that we can say will get this absurd delusion out of your head. And really, my dear Hugh, as far as we are concerned, it can remain there. I think I have shown you fairly clearly that, with your strange obsession to vindicate Morris, you and your friends have laid yourselves open – in the eyes of the police – to grave suspicion yourselves. In fact, were I in the police, I should regard your monstrous allegation as being due to a desire to cover your own crime by accusing someone else.”
“Why not ring up the police now?” he said quietly.
“For a very good and simple reason,” she answered. “My friends and I are engaged at the moment in a very important business deal. The last thing we desire is the publicity which would inevitably attend the investigation of your ridiculous charge. We really have not got the time for such folly. And it is for that reason, and that reason only, that we have tolerated your monstrous impertinence in breaking in here tonight.”
“Splendid,” laughed Drummond. “I congratulate you. And supposing I went to Scotland Yard, and told them one or two things. Emphasised, for instance, the strange fact that the weapon with which it was done has never been found: mentioned the footmarks on the carpet at Merridale Hall, and a few other points of that sort.”
“You pain me, Drummond,” she said: “positively pain me. In the past, my friend, you always had a rooted objection to the police, and this time it has recoiled on you. Their first remark to you would be to ask why these things were not mentioned at the inquest. You can’t disregard them, you know, and then call them in. No, mon ami: somehow or other I don’t quite see you going to Scotland Yard. You would get it – what is your English phrase? – most dreadfully in the neck if you did.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” he agreed. “You were always quick on the uptake, weren’t you, dear one? And so, that being that, I will reluctantly bid you au revoir, as I don’t think we shall get very much further at the moment.”
He crossed the room and picked up his hat.
“Doubtless we shall meet anon,” he remarked from the door. “And please don’t forget to tell your cook about the tea-leaves, Comtessa.”
He let himself into the street, which was deserted, and began to stroll towards Piccadilly. And as he rounded the first corner, he almost ran into a man in evening clothes who was coming the other way.
“A thousand apologies, sir,” remarked the stranger, taking off a soft black hat. “Could you tell me if I am anywhere near South Audley Street?”
He spoke with a strong foreign accent, and Drummond, glancing at his face by the light of a street lamp, put him down as an Italian.
“You are actually in South Audley Street,” he answered. “I have just been walking along it.”
“Thank you,” said the other. “Sorry to have troubled you, but I am a stranger to London.”
“Not at all,” remarked Drummond politely. “Good night.”
He walked on, and in a moment the incident had passed from his mind. Other somewhat disquieting thoughts occupied it, which, put in a nutshell, boiled down to the conviction that he had made a damned fool of himself. Useless to argue that he would do the same thing again: useless to say that the impulse to enter the room on hearing Irma’s question had been so overwhelming that he could never have resisted it: the fact remained that he had acted like an ass.
Had he stopped outside the door, he might, and probably would, have heard something of value; as it was, he had learned nothing at all. And not only that, he had successfully put them on their guard. He had confirmation, which he did not require, that in spite of their indignant denials they had murdered Marton: no business, however important, would have prevented them ringing up the police had they been innocent. But with regard to the all-important point as to why they had done so, he was as much in the dark as ever.
Another thing, too, would be an inevitable result of his foolishness: he would not be received with a brass band and a red carpet at the studio. Having called the owner a murderer, he could scarcely expect to be greeted by him like a long-lost brother. Moreover, the same thing applied to Peter Darrell. It would be useless for him to turn up in the morning in answer to the advertisement. And the devil of it was that he felt instinctively that in the studio lay the solution to the whole problem.
One ‘t’ had certainly been crossed as a result of the interview: the men were an ugly bunch of customers. His bluff concerning the policeman had worked all right this time, but he was under no delusions with regard to the future. Up to date they had not been sure as to what he knew: now that uncertainty was over. And he realised that if an opportunity arose they would have no scruples whatever in putting him out of the way if they could.
However, that aspect of the matter troubled him not at all: he had always preferred to have the gloves off. What did annoy him was that, as a result of his impetuosity in entering the room when he did, he was fighting in the dark. And as he let himself into his flat he was cursing himself wholeheartedly.
A light was shining under the sitting-room door: Darrell and Jerningham were inside waiting for him.
“Chaps,” he remarked, “you here perceive the most triple-distilled damned fool in London.”
They listened in silence while he told them what had happened, and then Ted Jerningham spoke.
“It’s certainly not your brightest effort, old boy,” he remarked. “In fact, it seems to me you’ve completely queered our pitch. We don’t know where to begin.”
“We begin in the studio, Ted, if only we can get inside the bally place.”
“Look here,” said Darrell, “Algy answers to that advertisement just as well as I do. And they don’t know him.”
“Irma does,” said Drummond.
“We’ll have to chance her not being there. I saw him this evening, as it happens, beetling round at Ciro’s. It’s a late night there: let’s ring up and see if we can get hold of him.”
“Right you are, Peter: it’s worth trying. Tell him to come round here.”
They caught him just as he was leaving, and a quarter of an hour later he arrived.
“I have met,” he remarked on entering, “the only woman in the world. Her charm is as of an exotic orchid, her eyes are as mountain violets. And, straight from her arms, I come to you three horrible thugs. Give me rare wine, or I swoon at the contrast.”
“Sit down, wart-face,” said Drummond, “and cease talking such unmitigated bilge. You’re going on the films tomorrow.”
“I’m going on the what?” cried the other, a cigarette halfway to his lips.
“Listen, Algy,” said Drummond, “the game is afoot. Who do you think we’ve butted into once more?”
Algy Longworth stared at him in amazement.
“Not Irma,” he burst out at length. “Don’t tell me that, old lad.”
“Just her, and no one else,” answered Drummond. “How much are you round the chest, Algy?”
“Put your nose into that,” cried Darrell, throwing the copy of Film Echoes at him. “It’s the paragraph marked with a blue pencil.”
“But what the deuce has this got to do with Irma?” he demanded after he had read it.
“Get outside some beer, Algy, and listen,” said Drummond. “We’ve been having a bit of fun lately.”
“I saw you were getting mixed up in something or other down in Devonshire,” said the other. “In fact, I very nearly came down to see what was up. Tell me all about it.”
Briefly Drummond ran over the events of the past few days, and when he had finished, Algy Longworth nodded thoughtfully.
“I get you,” he said. “Rightly or wrongly, you believe that the key of the mystery lies in Blackwater studio, and you want me to see if I can spot anything.”
“That’s the notion, old lad. It’s a forlorn hope, and if by chance Irma is there and sees you, you’ll probably get bunged into the river. But that won’t do you any harm: it’s an awfully jolly sort of river.”
“Oh! yeah – Cuthbert,” grunted the other. “But, joking apart, old boy, it is, as you say, a mighty forlorn hope. I mean if there is any dirty work going on down there, it’s not going to be where anyone walking in casual like is going to see it. The blokes will probably take one look at my face, burst into floods of tears, and that will end the interview.”
“Can’t help it, Algy: we’ve got to try it. It’s the only hope. Why, dash it all, old boy, you might even get taken on, in which case you’d have the run of the studio.”
“And get thrown daily into the Blackwater,” said Longworth gloomily. “Damn it! I don’t want to act in a film, Hugh. I am sick with love: every moment of my life is occupied.”
“You haven’t started to quote Ella Wheeler Wilcox at her, have you?” demanded Drummond suspiciously.
“Only one or two chosen fragments,” said the other.