The Devil in Velvet

by John Dickson Carr

  It is regrettable to state that desire gripped Fenton like a strangler. The intense sense of her physical nearness made his head swim. “This will never do,” thought the Cambridge don. The high-backed chair was near him. With as much dignity as he could, which was not great, he backed towards it and sat down. He had not allowed for his shorter stature, and the seat of the chair bumped him unexpectedly.

  All this time Meg watched him furtively, through half-closed eyes, and uttered the ghost of a laugh which might have been a giggle if it had passed her closed lips.

  “You a reformed rake?” she murmured. “Oh, fie!”

  Women have a peculiar sense of humour.

  Then her laugh vanished, through the flush remained on her face.

  “I told you before,” she said. “I was so extravagant vexed at you, for putting me to lie in a chamber opposite your wife, and thereby causing a great noise of scandal should we be discovered, that I swear I could have killed you! But I have forgot that. I have forgot all. Why should we care what she thinks?”

  “Why indeed?” he asked in a hoarse voice.

  Fenton’s nerves were jumping like a hooked fish, his arms a-tremble. He got to his feet, and Meg stretched out her arms. But he never touched her … that is, at this time. Meg, her eyes seeming half-glazed, nevertheless flung a quick look over her shoulder.

  “The door,” she whispered. “Oh, fool, you have forgot to shut the door! —Hark! Did you lend ear to that?”

  “Some noise! … What matter? … I …”

  “You’ve never heard the scratch of a tinderbox, then?” she inquired. Her tone was whispered fury, and she stamped her foot on the floor. “My sweetest cousin, your lady wife, will be across the passage before you may count ten on your fingers. Pray sit down; do!”

  Afterwards Professor Fenton had a confused notion that he had uttered words, some late Restoration oaths he was not even aware he knew. For a moment he had imagined Sir Nick took possession of him, because his memory blurred.

  But he sat down, and Sir Nick vanished.

  He tried to concentrate on purely academic matters. When Meg drew her lips back, her teeth were even and as white as a hound’s, although only the most fastidious ever troubled with the teeth save for an occasional scrub with a soapy twig. Doubtless it was the harsh, gnawed food. All the same, Meg’s body was white and clean in an age when … stop! This only led his thoughts round in the old circle.

  Snap went a door latch across the passage, and another. There was the moving gleam of a candle, and a rustle of taffeta, as someone else entered the room.

  “Sweetest Lydia!” crooned Meg, with eyes of childlike innocence, and her bed gown wound round her.

  “Then this will be the woman,” reflected Fenton, not daring to look over his shoulder, “whom I have—er—idealistically cherished for nine years.”

  Bracing himself, he did look round.

  Lydia, Lady Fenton, was fully dressed as though for a court ball. Her “sky-and-pink” taffeta gown was sleeveless, the low-corsage­ pushed outwards in heart shape and edged with Venice-point lace, the waist slender, and ankle-length skirt only a little flared. Lydia’s soft, light-brown hair was arranged round her head in a sort of very thick cap, down over the ears as well and wide at the sides with a few trailing curls: a fashion set by Louise de Kéroualle.

  Her figure was comely, too. She was not as tall as Meg; even so, Fenton knew there would be high heels concealed by the blue-and-pink gown. Lydia Fenton would have been extraordinarily pretty if it had not been for one thing.

  Her arms, shoulders, and breast were smeared with coarse white powder. Rough-and-ready cosmetics turned her face into a white-and-red mask, as though enamelled. Against a corpse-white face, the smears of red stood out against her cheekbones, and the mouth was heavy scarlet. She wore two “patches,” microscopic bits of black paper cut into the shape of hearts or diamonds or Cupids, one pasted beside the left eyelid and one at the corner of the mouth.

  The effect was almost horrible. Enamel for a worn-out old woman of seventy had been raddled on the face of a twenty-one-year-old girl. It was as though an old waxwork had stepped down from its stand.

  “Sweetest cousin!” intoned Meg, pronouncing the word cozen.

  With a somewhat unsteady gait, Lydia moved towards the mantelpiece on her left. There, first tilting the candle, she set it upright on the mantelshelf. It must be remembered that Fenton could still not see her face well. But she had fine blue eyes, strained with tears, inside the mask.

  Then Fenton did a strange thing. With one hand he picked up the high, heavy back of the chair, and brought its legs down on the floor with a crash.

  “Our Gracious Liege, Charles the Second,” he intoned as though in a trance. “By the Grace of God King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith. And,”—the trance lifted—“he sleeps now at Whitehall Palace.”

  “Or elsewhere,” tittered Meg, lifting one shoulder in astonishment. “What matter?”

  Lydia ignored Meg altogether.

  “Sir,” she addressed Fenton in a low, sweet voice, “you will confess I have endured much. But that you and this creature, within three yards of my door …”

  Meg had backed against the dressing table. Her mouth was a pink O of shocked innocence and surprise.

  “Oh, filthy! Hideous!” Meg shivered. “Fair cousin! Sure you would not think that Nick and I—”

  Still Lydia did not look at her. Perhaps this was what made Meg pause in mid-flight, or perhaps it was the behaviour of Professor Fenton. Bowing low to Lydia, he lifted her hand and kissed it.

  “My lady,” he said very gently, “I am not unaware of my weakness or cruelty towards you. May I ask your pardon on my knee, thus?” Then he rose up again. “I am not the boorish oaf, with indifferent learning and no wit, you must suppose me. May I have leave to alter my conduct?”

  In Lydia’s blue eyes there was an expression which, for a moment, stabbed his heart with pity like a physical pain.

  “You beg my pardon?” she whispered. “I beg yours, with all my heart.”

  Then a touch of horror went past her eyes.

  “You swear all this?” she begged. “You’d not put a trick upon me?”

  “I swear it by what knightly honour is left to me.”

  “Then rid yourself of her,” said Lydia, clasping his hand in both of hers. “Do not suffer her to stay here: not a night, not an hour! Sweet heart, I beseech you! She will destroy you; I know it! She will …”

  Without hesitation Meg snatched up a hand mirror from the table and flung it at Lydia. The glass, missing both Lydia and Fenton, sailed across the room through the open door and crashed in the passage outside.

  “Really,” thought Professor Fenton of Cambridge, “these people seem to have no inhibitions whatever.” Yet, despite himself, he found his own neck veins swelling with the blood of wrath.

  “Bitch!” screamed Meg.

  “Punk!” retorted Lydia, meaning harlot.

  “Whey-face!”

  “Fireship!”

  “Fireship, eh?” repeated Meg, in a cool fury of perspiration at this deadliest insult of all. Whirling round, paying no attention to the set of her bedgown, she indicated on the dressing table the litter of used handkerchiefs, jars, and unguent bottles with whose aid she had removed her cosmetics.

  “And is it I who have the French sickness, then,” she inquired, whirling round again, “that I dare not show my face save under thick enamel? Foh! Or is it the seeming innocent, the virtuous wife—daughter of a mad Independent, granddaughter of a hanged and damned regicide—who is truly a danger to men because she hath …”

  Once more Meg paused.

  Fenton could feel the furious congestion of his face, the blindness that was blackening his eyesight as well as his mind or soul. With both hands he whirled the heavy chair overhead as
though it were made of plywood, to smash it down on Meg York’s head.

  Meg, for the first time really terrified, screamed and backed away and fell on her hands and knees, with her long hair sweeping forwards to hide her face. Her clawed fingers sent up puffs of dust from the bright carpet.

  What saved her life was partly that Sir Nick lusted for her too much, and hesitated to kill; and partly that Professor Fenton, as though fighting to shut down a coffin lid with some rolling horror inside, felt the struggle cease and the lid click shut.

  Fenton’s arms and legs were shaking as he lowered the chair to the floor. Nausea crept up inside him. Catching sight of his own white face in the glass, with the curved black eyebrows and narrow line of moustache, he did not recognize himself and looked round wildly for someone else. Then he grew steadier.

  “I hope I did not frighten you, madam?” he said hoarsely—to Lydia, not Meg.

  “A little,” answered Lydia. “But not as much as you do think.” She lifted her eyes. “You will turn her away?”

  From behind Fenton there was a faint, mocking titter.

  Meg, still on all fours between the edge of the table and the edge of the bed, looked at him past the line of her long black hair. Her eyes were narrow and she laughed with her lips closed. He knew that, except for one black moment, this queenly slut had been enjoying it all.

  Fenton strode towards the door. He felt, with justice, that he had experienced quite enough for one night.

  “It shall be as you desire,” he said to Lydia, and pressed his hand on one bare shoulder. “But … not tonight. This night, dear wife, I lie alone. I must think how things are like to go. And above all,” he snapped, as he turned round in the doorway, “a sweet good night to both of you!”

  Though he slammed the door behind him, he forgot that a wooden latch was unlikely to hold. The door banged, and then stood an inch open; pale vertical light slanted out into the dark passage. Fenton, shuffling a little way towards his own bedroom, resting his head against the wall panel and tried for a time to think.

  Had any man, he wondered, ever faced so formidable a problem?

  Twice that night Sir Nick had almost—almost, if not quite—gained control. And not alone by anger. Silkily, casually, the devil had mentioned anger. Now the devil (who must in the future not be underestimated) had not mentioned physical desire, which somehow seemed vaguely connected with anger and could be just as powerful. But physical desire was granted by implication, it became automatic, if you stipulated strong health and the age of twenty-six.

  He was beginning to understand a little of Sir Nick’s character. Sir Nick lusted for Meg York, and would never turn her out or suffer her harm. But Sir Nick also loved his wife, and would never turn her out or suffer her harm either. Could a man at the mental age of fifty-eight control this? But fifty-eight was not really old; did he want to control it? Dimly Fenton realized (with horror) that in his heart he shared Sir Nick’s feelings too.

  And he had promised to get rid of Meg next day.

  But this was not his real problem. No, not by a jugful! His real problem, set down in the neat script of Giles Collins’s manuscript, was this:

  Unless he could prevent it, Lydia would die of poison in exactly one month. She was the victim. And the person he had long suspected of being the murderess, from certain details in the manuscript, was Meg York.

  Fenton, in creaky leather slippers, stumbled towards his bedroom door.

  CHAPTER III

  LYDIA IN BROWN; AND POISON

  WHEN HE AWOKE NEXT MORNING, he had this time no feeling that he had been dreaming. He knew very well where he was.

  A dull light of morning shone behind the bleached-linen bed curtains, which were again closely drawn and heightened the faintly unpleasant smell in the room. But seldom had Fenton felt so happy or elated or refreshed. Tightening his muscles under the snarled-up bedgown, he drew the air deeply into his lungs.

  Why, it was amazing that a man should feel so refreshed at fi … no, twenty-six. Better still! His troubles of last night seemed no heavier than the feather you scarcely feel. Kick Meg out of the house, and save Lydia’s life! It was as simple as that.

  Even if Meg were not guilty, it would be good riddance.

  “The world, the flesh, and the devil,” he mused aloud; “I have challenged all three.” Professor Fenton smiled. “But I also have, ‘Si la jeunesse savait, si la vieillesse pouvait,’ which is a good combination to defeat them.”

  Instantly, as though at a signal, the curtains towards the left were both thrown wide open.

  In the aperture stood a lean, smallish man dressed in sober dark clothes, but of fine quality and with silk stockings to his breeches, as befitted his position. The man stood with head bent a little forwards, hands clasped together in front of him. It needed only a flash of the engraver to tell his identity.

  He was Giles Collins, Sir Nick’s servant-cum-clerk. His fiery red hair stuck up straight over a long lean face like a Puritan’s, but he had a bawdy-looking eye and mouth. His native impudence led him to talk back to his master as far as he dared. But, as Fenton knew from sources other than Giles’s own writing, he was the most faithful servant alive.

  “A good morning to you, sir and master,” he said obsequiously.

  Rolling over on his side, Fenton braced himself for the phrase and accent he must use.

  “Halloa, ye cursed rogue,” he growled out in what he correctly imagined to be the morning voice of Sir Nick. “Are you about your business so soon?”

  “Ay; that I am. And yours too. And you, I observe,” said Giles, “were again boozy last night. Come! Will you not don a proper night habit, even when I set it out for you?”

  “’Tis a cursed nuisance.”

  “True, in some ways true!” agreed Giles wisely, but with a low-minded smile twisting round his mouth. “Ah, these ladies! When Madam York does this,”—his description was more full and pungent than need be recorded—“or when Madam York does that …”

  “Hold your tongue, damn you!”

  Redheaded Giles shrank together like a deflated bladder-on-a-stick, and looked hurt.

  “Nay, now,” growled Fenton, “I meant no harm.”

  “And I mean but to serve you well, sir!” Giles said obsequiously­.

  “As for the slut called Magdalen York, she’ll leave this house as soon as we can fetch a glass coach. Where she goes is her own pleasure. I’ve done with her; d’ye hear me?”

  Fenton stopped there because Giles, with his long Puritan face on one side, was regarding him with a look neither of obsequiousness nor of agreement nor of impudence.

  “And now what ails you, Giles?”

  “Mistrust me not,” said Giles. “It is only that I have heard you use those same words so often ere this.”

  Fenton sat up straight in bed. Softly Giles moved to the table at the head of the bed, where the black peruke—freshly combed and curled to glossiness—still stood on its wig block. Beside it now was a heavy silver tray, with almost as heavy a silver cup containing steaming hot chocolate.

  Deftly Giles lifted the silver tray and slid it across Fenton’s lap. Just as deftly and quickly he opened all the bed curtains, looping each back on its post near the foot of the bed. Fenton, sipping the chocolate, glanced unobtrusively round the room.

  A grey, overcast sky, with a rattle of wind, showed beyond the two windows at the rear. From where he sat he could see only the tops of tossing trees. The window hangings, of heavy dull-white brocade picked out in dull red, were all looped back. On the floor was a carpet of such brilliant and entwined Oriental colours that Fenton shut his eyes. The furniture loomed in hard, uncompromising oak, bringing lack of joy to the anatomy. The low ceiling and the brown-panelled walls seemed to shut him in and press him down.

  He grimaced over his chocolate. It was harsh, gritty, and much too sweet;
but a young palate can gulp down anything. Giles watched him closely.

  “Sir, you must make haste!” the servant-clerk moaned, and wrung his hands. “The hour is late already—”

  “How late?”

  “Past eight of the clock. And Lord George will be here soon.”

  “D’ye call that late?” asked Fenton, simulating a yawn and a half-boozy eye. “Be quick, carrot-pate: What’s the day and the month? If it comes to that, ecod, what’s the year?”

  Giles gave him a look. But Giles, with restrained impudence, informed him that it was Tuesday, the tenth of May, in the year of Our Lord one thousand six hundred and seventy-five.

  “Then last night,” reflected Fenton, “was a part of this morning. Past midnight, of course!” The devil always kept his bargains to the letter, if not to the spirit. And Lord George, naturally, must be George Harwell, second son of the Earl of Bristol; he was Sir Nick’s closest friend and boon companion.

  “Your clothes, good sir!” said Giles, who was flying from one chair to another on which various vestments were set out. “Sober, yet with just a touch of colour to show your gentility? Black-velvet coat and breeches, black stockings, and your Clemens Hornn sword?”

  Moodily Giles paused beside a tall chair over which hung a narrow leather sword belt with a silver buckle.

  “There is like to be bloody work this day,” he added. “I think you venture too far.”

  “‘Bloody work?’” exclaimed Fenton. “‘Venture too far?’”

  There had been nothing about this in the manuscript; perhaps it had never happened, or had been suppressed for delicacy’s sake.

  “Will you approve the clothes, master?”

  Fenton surveyed them. From many pictures he knew exactly how they looked when they were worn. But he had not the slightest idea how to put them on. He gave the only possible command, which was also the proper command for his day.

  “Dress me!” he said; and felt like a fool.