The Demoniacs

by John Dickson Carr

  “For justice’s sake!”

  “Stop,” interrupted the other, swinging round toward Jeffrey and Peg. “Miss Ralston! Mr. Wynne I There is a drawing-room below us, I think? To the left of the foyer as one enters? Go to that drawing-room, both of you. I will wait upon you very shortly.

  “Go, I say!” he repeated, as Jeffrey made a movement of protest. “We are all become mightily concerned with justice and honesty on a sudden. Let us hope, Mr. Wynne, you will profit by this example.”

  “And you too, sir,” said Jeffrey.

  He seized Peg’s arm. In silence, under a pressure of unasked questions, he hauled her out into the corridor and down the staircase to a marble foyer bright with candles.

  The drawing-room, beyond an arch supported by double Ionic columns in the architectural style of William Kent, also had a marble floor and a roof as lofty as the foyer’s. More wax-lights in a chandelier shone on a harp and a harpsichord under double lines of portraits on the walls. If the new Chinese furniture clashed with the room’s older decoration, this seemed to afford Jeffrey some satisfaction. He eyed it before pacing up and down.

  “My uncle will get well,” Peg said at him. “He will recover; you heard Dr. Hunter say so, did you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what is the matter? What are you thinking of?”

  “Peg, I don’t dare tell you.”

  “Dear God, why? Because the news is so bad?”

  “No; because for once the news may be good.”

  “I don’t understand!”

  “For the moment, in case I should be wrong, that may be better. But all are now mightily concerned with justice and honesty, as you heard. Also, Mr. Fielding’s godlike composure shows a sign of faltering. He has not at all liked the things he has heard or guessed here this night.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  “Listen!”

  In a house whose walls were too much like a sounding-board, it was not easy to catch distinct speech. Though they could hear loud voices from upstairs, with Justice Fielding’s tones dominating, echoes rolled back and confused the words.

  A silence followed. Presently, while Jeffrey tapped his fingers on the closed case of the harpsichord, footsteps began to descend the stairs to the foyer. There were two sets of footfalls: one ponderous, the other lighter but keeping time with the first

  Justice Fielding, his face brightly lighted and his hat pulled farther down, appeared under the arch of the drawing-room. Though he moved the switch in front of him, he was guided by Brogden leaning unobtrusively against his left shoulder as though Brogden were not there at all.

  “They await you, Your Worship,” the clerk whispered.

  “Am I unaware of this? Can I not hear them breathing?— Leave off!”

  “As Your Worship pleases.”

  Brogden stepped back. The magistrate, after lowering his head for a moment, lifted it in no little pride.

  “Jeffrey,” he said, “are you and this girl both in hopes of escaping just punishment for what you have done?”

  “Sir,” answered Jeffrey, crushing down the temptation to retort in a very different manner, “sir, we are in hopes of it.”

  “Good. Will you then be frank with me and confess your errors? Will you do this without further evasion or attempt to justify yourself?”

  “Sir, I will try.”

  “For honesty’s sake, as Hughes might say?”

  “No. For Peg’s sake.”

  “Well, that is something. It is not much, but it is something. When you left my house this morning, and went this afternoon to London Bridge, it was with deliberate intent to rob the woman Rebecca Bracegirdle, who chose to be known as Grace Delight?”

  Here Justice Fielding held up his hand.

  “Yes,” he added, forestalling objection, “I know now a legal will was drawn to the favour of Thomas Wynne’s heir or heirs. I know this because Mr. Gervaise Finch of Hookson’s, who somewhat imprudently advanced you funds in anticipation of probate, called upon me this night to put questions. But I did not learn it until past seven o’clock, when I had despatched Brogden to you with an ultimatum. Nor does it alter the ethic of the matter. Did you yourself know of this will before you found it?”

  “No.”

  “Though you knew of, or at least suspected, the existence of a fortune in jewels?”

  “Yes; I suspected it.”

  “Yes; so did I.”

  And Justice Fielding pointed with the switch.

  “Many persons, Jeffrey, have heard the tale of Mad Tom Wynne and his legendary mistress. Some few persons, not least of all the magistrate-in-chief whose business it is to learn such things, are acquainted with the fact that Grace Delight was that woman. This morning, when I questioned the girl Ralston here—who told me, as I informed you, more than she believed she was telling me and more than she believed she knew—it became clear your intent was still to rob.”

  “And so,” Peg cried, “the trap was set for him? Because of what I said?”

  “It was indeed.” Justice Fielding swung back towards Jeffrey. “I gave you opportunity to tell me of the jewels; you did not do so. I gave you warning; you did not heed it. I even sent you on a futile errand to Chelsea, so that you might have time to reconsider. Still you remained heedless. Have you thought on the appearance of this?”

  “Appearance?”

  “Yes. You, who prated so glibly of snaring two rogues in Hamnet Tawnish and Lavinia Cresswell, were prepared to act as they themselves might have acted. Do you dare complain I have not treated you fairly? Can you wonder I was inclined to be suspicious of any testimony you might produce?”

  “I—”

  “Well, can you wonder?”

  “No.” Jeffrey spoke after a pause. “No, I don’t wonder. Anger makes us fly to intemperance. But I am puzzled.”

  “As to what?”

  “There is reason not to trust me. None the less, to judge by your tone as you judge by mine, it is as though you were making an appeal, or offering me something, or professing once more to believe in my honesty.”

  “‘Professing’ to believe in it?” the other exclaimed. “Despite myself, I do believe in it.”

  “Why?”

  “You might have sworn you knew all the time of that will’s existence, and none could have proved you a liar. Now tell me this: could you have killed the old woman to take her jewels from her?”

  “I don’t know; I don’t think so.”

  “Unless you had discovered by the will that these jewels were already yours to take, could you have carried through your plan of taking them at all?”

  “I—”

  “No,” Justice Fielding said sharply; “no, you could not even have done that. Yet some person did kill her. This is a matter of murder, as you and I have both known from the beginning.”

  “Sir, this morning you declared it was a natural death.”

  “Did I so? Come!” snapped the magistrate. He was leaning forward, his face wrinkled in its intensity. “I am a blind man in only one sense. Pay no heed to what I say when I attempt to draw you out Grace Delight was murdered. Do you know who killed her?”

  “Yes.” Jeffrey moistened his lips. “Yes, I think I do.”

  “Could you prove how she was killed?”

  “If need be, perhaps I could.”

  “Ah I It seemed evident you could. Then you shall find me her murderer, Jeffrey; I give you twenty-four hours to do so.”

  Silence.

  Nobody spoke inside that marble sounding-board. Justice Fielding stood under the archway, pointing with his switch. Jeffrey, studying him, had drawn back beside the harpsichord.

  “I see,” Jeffrey said at length. “You set one more task for me to prove my honesty, and then we are quits. Is that it?”

  “In effect, that is it.”

  “What of your threats that Peg may be returned to Newgate?”

  “The girl shall not be returned to Newgate in any case. Here is my word upon it.
”

  “Sir, what if you can’t prevent the law from taking her? I had hoped to drive Lavinia Cresswell into a corner. But I have failed in this. Mrs. Cresswell is still unbroken, still dangerous. What if she should demand Peg’s return to prison, which has been the great danger?”

  “She will not demand this. Matters have altered since Hughes spoke to me.”

  “Altered? How?”

  “Mrs. Cresswell is no longer with us. Mrs. Cresswell has packed her boxes and taken flight.”

  Now it was Jeffrey who uttered an exclamation.

  “That is what Hughes had to tell you, was it?”

  “Yes.”

  “She did not merely go out for the evening, as Hughes and the other servants swore to you at first? Something drove or persuaded her into leaving the field for good? Hughes, one of her hired jailers, either did not understand or did not care at the time she fled? But afterwards, finding the law at dangerous questions and hearing Sir Mortimer will recover, he hastens to confess all and swear no evil was of his doing? Is this a fair summary?”

  “It is an over-excited summary. But I daresay it is fair.”

  “Justice Fielding, when you connived with Sir Mortimer Ralston to put Peg in prison, did Sir Mortimer tell you Mrs. Cresswell held a threat above his head or the exact nature of that threat? I doubt he did; I think Sir Mortimer duped you as he has duped others, and only now are you commencing to guess how much. Justice Fielding, have you yourself used the best judgment in this affair?”

  “It may be … Well! It may be I was ill informed. What of that? It is hardly to our purpose.”

  “But it is to our purpose,” Peg burst out “Foh, you villain!”

  “Young woman—”

  Peg, hitherto in such awe of him, had heard words which stung her to tears of fury. She stamped her foot.

  “Villain, I say! You would lay all blame upon Jeffrey, then? You would pretend to be an all-knowing bogle-man, would you? Whereas in fact you have floundered beyond your depth, and can’t get back, and won’t admit it; but you will appear a great fool, rot me, unless my Jeffrey shall come to your aid!”

  “Your Worship,” cried the scandalized Brogden, hurrying forward, “This is intolerable!”

  “Brogden,” retorted Justice Fielding, turning his head, “hold your tongue. There may be much in what the girl tells us.”

  He turned back towards Peg.

  “I am not omniscient, young woman, though it were wise for a magistrate to seem so if he would hold his authority. I am a human soul like yourself, prone at times to behaviour I can’t justify.”

  “Yes,” Jeffrey said. “We are all demoniacs.”

  “Yet I have pardoned much, Miss Ralston, which another man would have punished severely. And I will abide neither pertness in woman nor insubordination in man. Jeffrey, you shall find me this murderer. Don’t think to trick or outwit me; you can’t do it. Above all, ask no questions as to what may go in my mind.”

  Brogden subsided. Peg, in a little dance of tears and rage, was quietened by Jeffrey’s hand on her shoulder.

  “Such pronouncements, sir, have a noble sound. They are not practical. How can I be sure of the murderer if I may ask you no questions at all?”

  “Are these questions to be long?”

  “No; they are very short.”

  “Then you may put them.”

  “Sir, Mrs. Cresswell was driven or persuaded into flight. When did she leave?”

  “Some hours ago, Hughes says.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “Hughes does not know, or swears he does not She must be found.”

  “What impelled her to go?”

  “Come, how shall I say? Still, if the woman Cresswell, like Hughes, saw that her game was ended and her course run …”

  “Under favour, sir: that is true, but only part of the truth. She has shifted her interests, not yielded. Did she receive a note or a message from outside the house? Did she speak at any length to someone inside the house?”

  “No. She received no note or message, Hughes says; I think him too frightened for lies. To each of the physicians, they tell me, she spoke only briefly when each arrived. And there is no other person to whom she could have spoken.”

  Jeffrey struck his fist on the top of the harpsichord.

  “Sir, are you sure there is no other person?” he asked. “Someone was in her dressing-room this night, and spoke with her for at least a little while. Who was it?”

  “That, young man, is the problem for you and not for me. Are there many more of these questions?”

  “No; there is only one.” Jeffrey’s glance wandered round the drawing-room. “This morning, Justice Fielding, you reminded me I had wished to remain alone with Grace Delight’s dead body in the rooms above the print-seller’s shop. Who told you I had expressed this wish?”

  “Nobody. It was an anonymous letter.”

  Jeffrey stared at him.

  “I repeat, young man,” said the magistrate, “it was an anonymous note writ in capitals. Brogden shall show you the letter. But does this tell you so much?”

  “Sir, it does. It makes me sure of the murderer.”

  “Then find him,” said Justice Fielding. He drew himself up. “I don’t threaten you; I ask you to prove yourself an honest man. Find him, though there should be a last and bitter fight. And I give you twenty-four hours.”

  XV

  The Demoniacs Begin to Assemble

  “I GIVE YOU TWENTY-FOUR hours.”

  Twenty-four hours; that was what John Fielding had said.

  Well, Jeffrey reflected as the sedan-chair bearers brought him swinging along Great Eastcheap to the meeting of Grace-church Street with the top of Fish Street Hill, it must now be well over twenty hours.

  A deathly quiet lay within the liberties of the City on Sunday night. He had heard no clocks, but he had heard a watchman go bawling the hour of ten in Cannon Street a little distance back.

  The same ghostly moon stood above river and London Bridge as when he had pelted here on Friday night in search of a runaway Peg. It was chillier now, though; as it should be, considering what he had in mind.

  ‘Gently!’ he thought.

  He climbed out of the sedan-chair, steadying himself for balance when he pushed open its flap. He paid the chairmen, with their eager eyes and their over-developed calves. He waited until they had gone. Then he ran down the slope of Fish Street Hill, looking for a sign in the shadows on the right.

  The thump of his footsteps roused a dog’s barking. Jeffrey ran more quietly; the noise died. He was almost opposite the Monument when somebody made a hissing sound for attention, and he stopped.

  “Deering?”

  “Ay, lad?” a voice called back, from beyond the stone posts which marked the footway. “Not a smell of ’em so far. But—”

  “Wait there,” Jeffrey said. “There is something else first Wait there.”

  “Ay, lad.”

  And he ran on.

  Just ahead loomed the entrance-arch with the two watch-towers of London Bridge. Already audible was the thump-thump churning of paddle-wheels for the water-works underneath. Jeffrey approached the guard-room of the tower on the left, and knocked at its door.

  “Captain Courtland?” he said enquiringly, to the guardsman in grenadier cap who opened the door. “Captain Michael Courtland? Is he here?”

  “Not tonight, sir.”

  Across the whitewashed room two more rankers of the 1st Foot Guards, caps put aside, sat at a table playing at spoil-five. They sprang to attention when another door opened. Captain Tobias Beresford, glass in hand, gulped down the contents and then lifted eyebrows in astonishment.

  “Hey?” Tubby demanded. “You again, Jeff? Mike Courtland has leave to be at some rout or other; he’s there and I ain’t, curse him. I’m on duty for both of us; these people in the Guards have too much freedom. What d’ye want of Mike?”

  “I don’t want him in especial. You will do as well. There are no sentrie
s on duty, I observe.”

  “No need for ’em now, my boy. This is our last night here, thank God; tomorrow they commence demolishing all the houses. If anybody wants to creep back home for a damnation few hours—why, good luck!”

  Bulky in his uniform, rolling amiable pouched eyes, Tubby broke off to study his visitor.

  “What’s this, Jeff? There’s a devilish official look to you.”

  “There is. Here,” and Jeffrey took a folded paper from his inside coat pocket, “here is a magistrate’s writ signed by John Fielding. It gives me all authority on the bridge tonight. Do you understand?”

  “Well, I can read.” Tubby handed back the paper. “But what’s afoot? D’ye complain if I don’t post sentries?”

  “On the contrary, that is what I desire. See that there are none. And remain within-doors, your men and you too. Whatever you may see or hear on the bridge, don’t stir out or interfere.”

  “Hey?”

  “One last order, Tubby. On Friday night you found a key to the street-door of the premises above the Magic Pen. You locked that door and took the key. If you still have it, give it to me.

  “Damme, Jeff, is there such need of the key? Why d’ye return there? And how’d you get those powder-burns on your phiz?”

  Jeffrey ignored most of this.

  “No, I have no strict need of the key,” he said truthfully. “But I had better take it. Do you still keep it?”

  “Ay; ’twas left with Mike Courtland.”

  “Then fetch it. You have seen Justice Fielding’s writ.”

  Tubby, darting back to the inner chamber of the guard-room, deposited his empty glass there and returned with a large half-rusted key.

  “Writ or no, Jeff, I like this no better than I did. And you’re not honest either, sink me. Ghosts! There’s no ghosts on London Bridge. I’ve talked to a dozen people since Friday, and they swear there’s none.”

  “Ghosts? Who spoke of ghosts?”

  “You did.”

  “I was not the only one. Good-night, Tubby.”