Tragedy at Ravensthorpe (A Clinton Driffield Mystery)

by J. J. Connington

  Foxy nodded assent and pulled out a notebook.

  “Here it is, then,” he declared. “I’ll make three copies—one for each of us—and we can burn ’em once we’ve memorized ’em later on. Now, first of all, we can’t start our game too early. That’d be a mistake. Let ’em all get well mixed up in dancing and so forth, before we begin operations.”

  Cecil and Una assented to this at once.

  “Midnight’s the limit at the other end,” Foxy pointed out. “Can’t afford to wait for the unmasking, for then the keeper would know us and remember we’d been in the museum when the thing happened.”

  His fellow-conspirators made no objection.

  “In between those limits, I think this would be about right,” Foxy proposed. “First of all, we set our three watches to the same time. Better do it now, for fear of forgetting.”

  When this had been done, he continued:

  “At 11.40 Una goes to the main switch. You’ll have to show her where it is, Cecil, either to-night or to-morrow morning. At 11.40, also, Cecil and I wander independently into the museum. I remember quite well where the medallions are kept.”

  “Wait a moment,” interrupted Cecil. “Just remember that the three real medallions and your three electrotypes are lying side by side in the glass case. The real medallions are in the top row; your electros are the bottom row.”

  Foxy made a note of this and then went on:

  “Your business, Cecil, will be to mark down the keeper. Get so near him that you can jump on him for certain the very instant the lights go out. Make sure you can get his hands or his wrists at the first grab. You mustn’t fumble it or you’ll shipwreck the whole caboodle.”

  “I’ll manage it all right,” Cecil assured him.

  “In the meantime I’ll be stooping over the medallion case, looking at the stuff, with something in my hand to break the glass. I’ll have a thick glove, so as not to get cut with the edges when I put my hand in.”

  “That’s sound,” said Cecil, “I hadn’t thought of the splinters.”

  “Blood would give us away at once,” Foxy pointed out. “Now comes the real business. At a quarter to twelve precisely Una pulls out the switch. As soon as the light goes, Cecil jumps on the keeper while I smash the glass of the case and grab the top row of the medallions. After that, we both cut for the door and mingle with the mob. And remember, not a word said during the whole affair. Our voices would give us away to the keeper.”

  He scribbled two extra copies of his time-table and handed one of these to each of the other conspirators.

  “Now, for my sake, don’t botch this business,” he added. “I’ve played a joke or two in my time, but this is the best I’ve ever done, and I don’t want it spoiled by inattention to details. It’ll be worth all the trouble to see Maurice’s face when he finds what’s happened.”

  Chapter Three

  THE THEFT AT THE MASKED BALL

  “I’M thankful I took my wings off,” said Ariel, leaning back in her chair with a soft sigh of satisfaction. “You’ve no notion how much you long to sit down when you know you daren’t do it for fear of crushing the frames of these things. It’s not tiredness; it’s simply tantalization.”

  She turned her eyes inquisitively on the bearded figure of her partner.

  “I wonder who you’re supposed to be?” she mused. “You ought to have a ticket, with a costume like that. I can’t guess who you imagine you are—or who you really are, for that matter.”

  Her companion showed no desire to enlighten her on the last point.

  “‘My quaint Ariel, hark in thine ear,’” he quoted, but she failed to recognize the tones of his voice.

  “Oh, now I see! We did The Tempest one year at school. So you’re Prospero, are you? Well, don’t let’s begin by any misunderstandings. If you think you’re entitled to act your part by ordering me about, you’re far mistaken. My trade union positively refuses to permit any overtime.”

  “I’ve left my book and staff in the cloak-room,” Prospero confessed, laughingly, “otherwise, malignant spirit . . .”

  “‘That’s my noble master!’” quoted Ariel, ironically. “Prospero was a cross old thing. I suppose you couldn’t even throw in a bit of conjuring to keep up appearances? It’s almost expected of you.”

  Prospero looked cautiously round the winter-garden in which they were sitting.

  “Not much field here for my illimitable powers,” he grumbled disparagingly, “unless you’d like me to turn Falstaff over there into a white rabbit. And that would startle his partner somewhat, I’m afraid, so we’d better not risk it.”

  He pondered for a moment.

  “I hate to disappoint you, Ariel. What about a turn at divination? Would it amuse you if I told your fortune, revealed the secrets of your soul, and what not? This is how I do it; it’s called Botanomancy, if you desire to pursue your studies on a more convenient occasion.”

  He stretched up his hand and plucked a leaf from the tropical plant above his head. Ariel watched him mischievously from behind her mask.

  “Well, Prospero, get along with it, will you? The next dance will be starting sooner than immediately.”

  Prospero pretended to study the leaf minutely before continuing.

  “I see a girl who likes to play at having her own way . . . and isn’t too scrupulous in her methods of getting it. She is very happy . . . happier, perhaps, than she has ever been before. . . . I see two Thresholds, one of which she has just crossed, the other which she will cross after this next dance, I think. Yes, that is correct. There’s some influence in the background. . . .”

  He broke off and regarded Ariel blandly.

  “So much for the signs. Now for the interpretation. You are obviously in the very early twenties; so I infer that the Threshold you are about to cross lies between your twentieth and twenty-first birthday. Putting that along with the character which the leaf revealed . . . Why, Ariel, you must be Miss Joan Chacewater, and you’ve just got engaged!”

  “You seem to know me all right, Prospero,” Joan admitted. “But how about the engagement? It’s too dim in here for you to have seen my ring; and besides, I’ve had my hand in the folds of my dress ever since I sat down.”

  “Except for one moment when you settled the band round your hair,” Prospero pointed out. “The ring you’re wearing is more than a shade too large for your finger—obviously it’s so new that you haven’t had time to get it altered to fit, yet.”

  “You seem to notice things,” Joan admitted. “I wonder who you are.”

  Prospero brushed her inquiry aside.

  “A little parlour conjuring to finish up the part in due form?” he suggested. “It’s almost time for our dance. Look!”

  He held out an empty hand for Joan’s inspection, then made a slight snatch in the air as if seizing something in flight. When he extended his hand again, a small diamond star glittered in the palm.

  “Take it, Joan,” said Sir Clinton in his natural voice. “I meant to send it to you to-morrow; but at the last moment I thought I might as well bring it with me and have the pleasure of giving it to you myself. It’s your birthday present. I’m an old enough friend to give you diamonds on a special occasion like this.”

  “You took me in completely,” Joan admitted, after she had thanked him. “I couldn’t make out who you were; and I thought you were the limit in insolence when you began talking about my private affairs.”

  “It’s Michael Clifton, of course?” Sir Clinton asked.

  “Why ‘of course’? One would think he’d been my last chance, by the way you put it. This living on a magic island has ruined your manners, my good Prospero.”

  “Well, he won’t let you down, Joan. You—shall I say, even you, to be tactful—couldn’t have done better in the raffle.”

  Before Joan could reply, a girl in Egyptian costume came past their chairs. Joan stopped her with a gesture.

  “Pin this pretty thing in the front of my band, please, Cleopatr
a. Be sure you get it in the right place.”

  She held out the diamond star. Cleopatra took it without comment and fastened it in position hastily.

  “Sit down,” Joan invited, “your next partner will find you here when he comes. Tell us about Cæsar and Antony and all the rest of your disreputable past. Make it exciting.”

  Cleopatra shook her head.

  “Sorry I can’t stop just now. Neither Julius nor Antony put in an appearance to-night, so I’m spending my arts on a mere centurion. He’s a stickler for punctuality—being a Roman soldier.”

  She glanced at her wrist-watch.

  “I must fly at once. O reservoir! as we say in Egypt, you know.”

  With a nod of farewell, she hastened along the alley and out of the winter-garden.

  “She seems a trifle nervous about something,” Sir Clinton commented, indifferently.

  Joan smoothed down her filmy tunic.

  “Isn’t it time we moved?” she asked. “I see Falstaff’s gone away, so you can’t turn him into a white rabbit now; and there doesn’t seem to be anything else you could enchant just at present. The orchestra will be starting in a moment, anyhow.”

  She rose as she spoke. Sir Clinton followed her example, and they made their way out of the winter-garden.

  “What costume is Michael Clifton wearing to-night?” asked Sir Clinton as the orchestra played the opening bars of the dance. “I ought to congratulate him; and it’s easier to pick him up at a distance if I know how he’s dressed.”

  “Look for something in eighteenth-century clothes and a large wig, then,” Joan directed. “He says he’s Macheath out of the Beggar’s Opera. I suppose he’s quite as like that as anything else. You’ll perhaps recognize him best by a large artificial mole at the left corner of his mouth. I observed it particularly myself.”

  She noticed that her partner seemed more on the alert than the occasion required.

  “What are you worried about?” she demanded. “You seem to be listening for something; and you can’t hear anything, you know, even if you tried, because of the orchestra.”

  Sir Clinton shook off his air of preoccupation.

  “The fact is, Joan, I’ve been worried all evening. I’m really afraid of something happening to-night. I don’t much like this mask business with all that stuff in the collections. I’ve a feeling in my bones that there might be trouble.”

  Joan laughed at his gloomy premonitions.

  “You won’t be kept on the rack much longer, that’s one good thing. There’s just this dance, then the march-past for judging the costumes, and then it will be midnight when everybody must unmask. So you’ll have to make the best of your fears in the next half-hour. After that there’ll be no excuse for them.”

  “Meanwhile, on with the dance, eh?” said Sir Clinton. “I see it’s no use trying to give you a nightmare. You’re too poor a subject to repay the labour and trouble. Besides, this music’s terribly straining on the vocal cords if one tries to compete with it.”

  As he spoke, however, the orchestra reached a diminuendo in the score and sank to comparative quietness. Joan looked here and there about the room as they danced and at last detected the figure for which she was searching.

  “That’s Michael over there,” she pointed out, “the one dancing with the girl dressed as . . .”

  Across the sound of the music there cut the sharp report of a small-calibre pistol fired in some adjacent room. On the heels of it came the crash and tinkle of falling glass, and, almost simultaneously, a cry for help in a man’s voice.

  Sir Clinton let Joan’s hand go and turned to the door; but before he could take a step, the lights above them vanished and the room was plunged in darkness. Joan felt a hand come out and grip her arm.

  “That you, Joan?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’ve taken out the main switch,” Sir Clinton said hurriedly. “Get hold of some man at once and show him where it is. We want the lights as quick as possible. I can trust you not to lose your head. Take a man with you for fear of trouble. We don’t know what’s happening.”

  “Very well,” Joan assured him.

  “Hurry! “Sir Clinton urged.

  His hand dropped from her arm as he moved invisibly away towards the door. In the darkness around her she could hear movements and startled exclamations. The orchestra, after mechanically playing a couple of bars, had fallen to silence. Someone blundered into her and passed on before she could put out her hand.

  “Well, at least I know where the door is,” she assured herself; and she began to move towards it.

  Meanwhile the cries for help continued to come from the museum. Then, abruptly, they were hushed; and she shuddered as she thought of what that cessation might mean. She moved forward and came to what seemed an unobstructed space on the floor, over which she was able to advance freely.

  Her whole senses were concentrated on reaching the exit; but her mind appeared to work independently of her own volition and to conjure up possibilities behind this series of events. Sir Clinton had evidently expected some criminal attempt that night; and he had assumed that the museum would be the objective. But suppose he were wrong. Perhaps the affair in the museum was only a blind to draw towards it all the men outside the ball-room. Then, when they were disposed of, there might come an incursion here. Most of the women had taken advantage of their fancy dress to deck themselves out with jewellery, and a few armed men could easily reap a small fortune in a minute or two. Despite the soundness of her nerves, she began to feel anxious, and to conjure up still more appalling pictures.

  Suddenly her eyes were dazzled by a flash of light as a man beside her struck a match. Almost at the same moment she felt a hand on her shoulder and she was pulled backwards so brusquely that she almost lost her balance and slipped.

  “Put out that match, you fool!” said Michael’s voice. “Do you want to have these girls’ dresses in a blaze?”

  The flare of the match had revealed a circle of startled faces. The room was filled with excited voices and a sound of confused movements. Over at the orchestra a music-stand fell with a clash of metal. Then, close beside her in the darkness, Joan heard a girl’s voice repeating monotonously in tones of acute fear: “What does it mean? Oh, what does it mean?”

  “Much good that does anyone,” Joan muttered, contemptuously. Then, aloud, she called: “Michael!”

  Before he could reply, there came a sharp exclamation in a man’s voice:

  “Stand back, there! My partner’s fainted.”

  The possibilities involved in a panic suddenly became all too clear in Joan’s mind. If half a dozen people lost their heads, the girl might be badly hurt.

  Michael’s voice was lifted again, in a tone that would have carried through a storm at sea:

  “Everybody stand fast! You’ll be trampling the girl underfoot if you don’t take care. Stand still, confound you! Pull the blinds up and throw back the curtains. It’s a moonlight night.”

  There was a rustling as those nearest the windows set about the execution of his orders. Light suddenly appeared, revealing the strained faces and uneasy attitudes of the company. Joan turned to Michael.

  “Come with me and put in the switch, Michael. Sir Clinton’s gone to the museum. We must get the lights on quick.”

  Michael, with a word to his partner, followed his fiancée towards the door. A thought seemed to strike him just as he was leaving the room:

  “Wait here, everybody, till we get the lights on again. You’ll just run risks by moving about in the dark outside. It’s nothing. Probably only a fuse blown.”

  “Now then, Joan, where’s that switch?” he added as they passed out of the door.

  It was pitch-dark in the rest of the house; but Joan knew her way and was able to grope along the corridors without much difficulty. As they came near the switch-box, the lights flashed up again. One of the servants appeared round a corner.

  “Someone had pulled out the switch, sir,” he explained
. “It took me some time to make my way to it and put it in again.”

  “Stout fellow!” said Michael, approvingly.

  At that moment, a voice shouted above the confused noises of the house:

  “Come on, you fellows! He’s got away. Lend hand to chase him.”

  And a sound of running steps filled the hall, as the male guests poured out in answer to the summons.

  “You don’t need me any longer, Joan?” Michael questioned. “Right! Then I’m off to lend a hand.”

  He ran to join the rest.

  Left alone, Joan retraced her steps to the ballroom; but instead of re-entering it, she passed on in the direction of the museum, whither a number of the guests were making their way also.

  “I hope nobody’s got badly hurt,” she thought to herself as she hurried along. “I do wish I’d taken the hint and not asked to have that collection thrown open to-night.”

  Much to her relief, she found Sir Clinton sitting on a chair beside the museum door. In the doorway stood the keeper, looking none the worse and busying himself with fending off the more inquisitive among the guests who wished to enter the room. Joan noticed that the museum itself was in darkness though the lights were burning in the rest of the house.

  “You’re not hurt, are you, Sir Clinton?” she asked as she came up to him.

  “Nothing to speak of. The fellow kicked me on the ankle as he came out. I’m temporarily lamed, that’s all. Nothing to worry about, I think.”

  He rubbed his ankle as he spoke.

  “Are you all right, Mold?” Joan inquired.

  The keeper reassured her.

  “No harm done, Miss Joan. They didn’t hurt me. But I’m sorry, miss, I didn’t manage to get hold of them. They were on me before I could do anything, me being so taken aback by the lights going out.”

  “What’s happened?” Joan questioned Sir Clinton. “Has anything been stolen?”

  “We don’t know yet what’s gone,” he replied, answering her last question first. “The bulb of the lamp’s smashed in there”—he nodded towards the museum—“and until they bring a fresh one, we can’t find out what damage has been done. As to what happened, it seems rather confused at present; but I expect we shall get it cleared up eventually. There seems to have been a gang at work; and I’m afraid some things may be missing when we begin to look over the collection.”