He Dies and Makes no Sign: A Golden Age Mystery

by Molly Thynne

  “Let it stand,” advised Constantine firmly. “We can get here in ten minutes in a car, and, after all, you must eat somewhere.”

  She turned again to Marlowe.

  “Will you come back and pick me up here then?” she said, adding, with a directness that seemed characteristics of her, “I’d like to talk to Doctor Constantine, if he can spare the time.”

  Marlowe picked himself out of his chair and stood staring at her. There was suspicion as well as a gleam of humour in his eye.

  “Can I trust you both?” he demanded, then challenged Constantine directly. “Whose side are you on, sir?”

  Constantine’s glance rested for a moment on the girl at his side.

  “I can answer that now,” he said “You go about your business with a quiet mind and leave us to us to ours. If you see your father, tell him that I congratulate him on his wisdom.”

  With a grin that took ten years off his age Marlowe removed himself. A moment later they heard the front door slam behind him.

  Constantine turned to the girl.

  “I think I know what you’re going to say,” he told her. “My advice to you is, don’t say it.”

  Her colour deepened, but she was not to be diverted from her object.

  “But I must,” she said. “I need someone to talk to so badly. Grandfather’s been no good; he’s hopelessly prejudiced against the whole thing for reasons that sometimes seem utterly futile and at others terrifically important. At bottom I know he’s right, and then I wonder whether this isn’t the one case to which his objections don’t apply. But you’re outside it all, and you’ve known Alex and his people for years. You can help me. Please!”

  “Of course—if you need any help from outside,” said Constantine slowly. “But I think you will do well to trust to your own instinct in the matter. I won’t insult you by asking whether you care for Marlowe.”

  It was impossible to doubt the sincerity of her reply.

  “I care for him enough to send him away and never see him again rather than injure him,” she said.

  “Then will you believe me when I tell you that that would be not only the stupidest, but the cruellest thing you could possibly do to him? Not every woman could make Marlowe happy. You could, and I think you know it. Isn’t that so?”

  She hesitated, then, with a little hopeless gesture, capitulated.

  “I suppose I do. But perhaps every woman feels like that about a man she cares for. It’s so easy to persuade oneself one’s right. Sometimes I tell myself that Alex’s position is so assured that marriage, even with me, cannot hurt it. If he was just nobody, just beginning to work out a career for himself, it would be different. I might really drag him back. But Alex isn’t ambitious. The sort of things he wants I can give him. But it’s so difficult to see things straight when he takes it all for granted. He won’t try to see the other side, and meanwhile I do nothing but flounder,” she finished with a rueful laugh.

  “Why not adopt his point of view and have done with it?” suggested Constantine, watching her curiously.

  “Because, all the time I know there is another side to it and I try to see it!” she exclaimed, with a flash of impatience. “I don’t want to be a duchess, you know!”

  Constantine nodded.

  “I can believe it,” he said comfortably. “I should hate to be a duke myself. But you can’t have it both ways,” he finished with a whimsical smile.

  She laughed in spite of herself.

  “I know. But if only he was on the stage, or a pianist, or something sensible, don’t you see how much easier it would be? The Duke’s been a dear, and Alex wraps up things in neat little sugar pills before he gives them to me, but do you suppose I don’t know what the Duchess feels about it? He had to admit that she wouldn’t see me, and, honestly, I don’t blame her. And I’ve said from the beginning, I won’t come between him and his mother.”

  “Is that the only snag?” asked Constantine.

  She looked at him uncertainly.

  “I—I think so. That is, if you’re not against it too. You see, I know so little about his world. It’s difficult for me to judge.”

  “His world is like any other, my dear,” Constantine assured her, “though it may strike you as a little vulgar till you’re used to it. You see, it’s very busy aping its conception of your world at the moment and it doesn’t know much about it. But you’ll soon get used to that. As regards the Duchess, when she surrenders she will surrender completely. You’ve probably got a pretty shrewd idea of the kind of person she imagines you to be! The mere fact that you don’t in the least resemble the bugbear she has created will go far towards helping the good work. I can assure you that you won’t come between her and Marlowe for long. Does that satisfy you?”

  She nodded.

  “If you really mean it. After all, you’re persuading me to do the one thing I want, you know!”

  Constantine rose.

  “Then that’s settled and we can both go our ways. Don’t think any more about it, you’ve enough to worry you already. You need Alex at a time like this, so make the most of him. I’ll get on to the Yard and tell you this evening what steps they are taking, unless, of course, something turns up before then.”

  Before he left her she scribbled a number on a piece of paper that would find her should he want to ring her up. She was in the act of giving it to him when the jangle of the telephone sent her flying to the instrument, and Constantine, watching her, saw the hope flicker and die in her eyes as she answered the call.

  “Yes. It’s Betty speaking. No, we’ve heard nothing. Not a sign. Did the Hahns tell you? You what? Where was he going? You left him there? At the door? Didn’t he say why? No, I can’t imagine. Did he seem all right? Yes, I’ll tell them. Oh, I’m all right, only worried to death. I know. Thank you.”

  She turned to Constantine, amazement in her eyes.

  “I can’t understand it!” she exclaimed. “That was Sidney Howells, an old friend of Grandfather’s. He’s a violinist, and he was playing with them that night at the Hahns’. He says that Grandfather had an appointment with someone after he left the Hahns and that he went with him as far as the door and left him there. He’s only just heard that he didn’t come home or he’d have let me know before.”

  “Who was he going to see?” demanded Constantine.

  “Mr. Howells doesn’t know. Grandfather simply spoke of an appointment, and Mr. Howells parted from him at the door.”

  “Where was it?”

  She stared at him in utter bewilderment.

  “The Trastevere Restaurant,” she said. “It’s the last place he would be likely to go to, and I can’t imagine what could have taken him there.”

  CHAPTER III

  ON leaving Betty Anthony, Constantine went straight to New Scotland Yard. There he met with his first setback. Detective-Inspector Arkwright, who had every reason to be grateful to him for his help in at least two cases in the past, and on whom he had intended to exercise his powers of persuasion, had gone to Paris on an extradition case and was not expected back until the next day.

  Constantine interviewed the officer who had taken over his work during his absence, and put the case before him, but, in spite of the copious notes and hearty reassurances his story evoked, he made up his mind to get in touch with Arkwright as soon as he returned to London.

  When he rejoined Betty and Marlowe that evening at dinner he could at least assure them that all hospitals were being notified, and that if Mr. Anthony had met with an accident they would undoubtedly get news of him before morning.

  “I suppose you’ve had no luck at this end?” he said, glancing round the crowded restaurant.

  Marlowe shrugged his shoulders hopelessly.

  “The same old blind alley,” he said. “Betty rang me up this afternoon and told me what this chap Howells had said. I came round here at once and interviewed everybody I could get hold of. There’s no doubt he was speaking the truth. When I described Mr. Anthony, the man
on the door recognized him at once, said he had noticed him, as he was carrying a violin-case. When he first saw him he was standing on the pavement outside the door talking to another man. That would be Howells, I suppose. Some people came out who wanted a taxi, and he lost sight of him. He does not know whether he came into the lounge then, but he certainly saw him leave later. There’s one odd thing. He’s practically certain that he was not carrying the violin-case when he came out, and I’ve ascertained that he did not leave it in the cloak-room. He passed the porter on the way out, and that’s the last anyone seems to know about him.”

  “Did anyone else see him while he was here?”

  “A waiter and one of the cloak-room attendants remember an old man sitting on one of the couches in the lounge apparently waiting for someone, but they are vague about his appearance. The cloak-room attendant has an idea that he saw him talking to one of the pages, but, if he did, the boy must have gone off duty, as I haven’t been able to find him. The night staff is only just coming on duty now, and I haven’t been able to get hold of Civita himself yet, though I don’t suppose he’s likely to be of much help. He doesn’t show himself in the lounge much as a rule.”

  “When did the porter see Mr. Anthony leave?” asked Constantine.

  “He’s a bit vague, says it was before ten when he saw him outside, which tallies with what Howells told Betty on the telephone. He thinks the second time he saw him was about half an hour later, but it might have been more. The cloak-room attendant says that the old man he saw was in the lounge for at least half an hour, so that the various accounts we have got seem to fit in with each other pretty well. Anyway, there seems no doubt that he did come here.”

  “It looks like it,” agreed Constantine.

  An uncomfortable silence fell on the little party. There seemed nothing to say, and yet none of them cared to be left for long with his own thoughts.

  “I wish Civita would turn up,” said Betty suddenly. “He can’t know anything, but there’s something so amazingly capable about him.”

  Constantine turned to her with a smile.

  “Fergusson, of the Banner, christened him ‘Il Duce’ when the place first opened, and, if the clientele here had had even a bowing acquaintance with Italian politics, the name would have stuck. He’s a very distinct personality.”

  “It’s extraordinary the way in which he managed my mother,” said Marlowe. “If Father hadn’t kept his head we should have lost half the garden. As it was, the foundations of the lounge had been dug before we discovered that she’d given him permission to shift the wall at this end. As things have turned out, it’s been rather a convenience.”

  “Especially during the last fortnight,” suggested Constantine gently.

  Marlowe laughed.

  “It’s been a godsend,” he admitted. “Betty slips in at the front, and I stroll across the garden from the house and there we are. Saves complications!”

  Constantine nodded absently.

  “How many keys are there to that door into the garden?” he asked abruptly.

  Marlowe looked doubtful.

  “So far as I know, only the one Civita gave my mother on the opening day, but, if there is another, we could hardly take exception to his keeping one himself, provided he saw to it that it wasn’t used indiscriminately. You’re not suggesting . . .”

  He pulled himself up sharply. Constantine knew what was in his mind: the letter Betty’s grandfather had written to him asking for an appointment, and of which the girl knew nothing. Constantine had not alluded to it on his visit to Scotland Yard, but he had every intention of putting his friend Arkwright in full possession of the facts as soon as he could get hold of him. In the absence of any other motivem there seemed a faint possibility that Mr. Anthony might have called at the restaurant in the hope of seeing Marlowe, though why he should go there rather than to Steynes House was a mystery.

  “You didn’t use the door yourself last night, I suppose?” he asked.

  “No,” answered Marlowe, in a tone that showed that he fully realized the trend of Constantine’s thoughts. “My mother had a bridge-party, and I was on duty all the evening.”

  “Where is the key kept?”

  “In a box on the writing-table in the library. Anyone who knew about it could borrow it, I suppose. As a matter of fact, my father may have used it himself. He was at some public dinner or other last night and got back too late for the first rubber. He’s fond of strolling over here and watching the dancing. He may have come over last night.”

  “Would he know Mr. Anthony if he saw him?”

  Betty answered him.

  “I’m sure they’ve never met,” she said decisively “My grandfather disapproved of our engagement and wouldn’t have anything to do with it, in spite of the fact that he’s always liked Alex. So far as I know, he’d never been inside this place in his life.”

  “Forgive me, Miss Anthony, but were you speaking of your grandfather?”

  Betty looked up with a start, to meet the eyes of the man who stood over her, his whole attitude a lesson in friendly subservience. One of the secrets of Angelo Civita’s success lay in his ability to gauge the exact degree of familiarity he might safely indulge in with his various patrons, and Betty had already noted with some amusement the very subtle but unmistakable alteration in his attitude towards her since her elevation to the rank of a potential duchess. In events of social importance Civita was invariably a day ahead even of the Press, not because the man was in any sense a snob, but because such knowledge formed an essential part of his professional equipment.

  She answered him eagerly.

  “You’ve heard that he was seen here, M. Civita?”

  He bowed.

  “I know he came here,” he answered in his precise but fluent English, “but I did not see him myself. I wish now that I had.”

  “Have you any idea why he came here?” asked Marlowe.

  “He came to see me,” answered Civita with a little deprecatory gesture.

  If he had dropped a bombshell on the table he could hardly have produced a more effective sensation. Before the obvious question had time to leap to Betty’s lips he hastened to explain himself.

  “When you first came here, Miss Anthony,” he said, “I did not know you were the grandchild of an old friend. I knew your grandfather years ago in Paris and I can remember you as a little girl. When I ran into Julius Anthony in the street only a few days ago and learned that he had a grand-daughter on the stage I was astonished, I can tell you. I guessed then that the Miss Anthony on whose patronage I had congratulated myself so often was the little girl I used to see playing in Julius Anthony’s flat in Paris.”

  He paused, his keen, observant eyes on Betty’s expectant face. Constantine, watching him with the interest that this man never failed to evoke in him, reflected for the hundredth time that the Roman Church had lost an imposing prelate when little Angelo Civita left his village on the Campagna to take up his job as piccolo in a café at Nice.

  He knew something of the man’s history, for Civita, under the spell of Constantine’s almost perfect Italian, had told him frankly of his earlier struggles. The village priest had destined him for the Church, and, if his mother had had her way, he would, in Constantine’s opinion, have been well on the path to advancement by now. His face now, broad, bland, clean-shaven and inscrutable, the thin, straight lips with their tucked-in corners, relaxed in a smile so sympathetic and, at the same time, so deferential as to be void of all offence, belonged to the cassock rather than to the faultlessly cut evening clothes that were almost his livery.

  He had taken up his tale again.

  “Your name was not mentioned, Miss Anthony,” he continued, the smile deepening, “by either of us. In my business one learns discretion, and I remembered your grandfather as being on the puritanical side in the years when I knew him. We are all that is most respectable here, but I was careful, and so our talk was all of business.”

  He hesitated for
a second, then:

  “I asked him to call upon me when he had time. In view of what I understand has happened, I could wish he had not chosen last night when I was most busy. I was obliged to send him a message, making an appointment for to-morrow. They tell me that he left soon after he received it, and I can get no clue as to where he was going. I am sorry.”

  His distress was no doubt genuine, but Constantine had the impression that he had skated adroitly over a treacherous gap in the early part of his speech. From the way in which his eyes had shifted for a moment to Marlowe’s, he had an idea that, unhampered by the presence of Betty, he might prove more communicative.

  “He came here definitely to see you?” demanded Marlowe.

  “But certainly. We had named no special date in our conversation, and he chanced finding me disengaged. There is, however, one thing I have discovered. Someone, a man, was with him when he arrived here, and someone joined him outside the restaurant when he left. It may have been the same person; I do not know.”

  “Who saw them?” asked Constantine sharply.

  “The man on the door saw the first one, though, like most of his kind, he seems incapable of an intelligent description. Somers, the cloak-room attendant, saw someone that, from his description, I take to be Mr. Anthony, leave the lounge and go through the swing doors. Now there is a window to the cloak-room, and the attendant glanced through it a minute later and saw a man come up and speak to an old gentleman, who seemed to be coming from the restaurant. He declares that the two men went away together.”

  “Was my grandfather carrying his violin-case?” asked Betty.

  “According to the doorman he was carrying it when he first saw him, but neither he nor the two cloak-room attendants can remember to have seen it again. He certainly did not leave it here. It is curious, but I can get no information that is more exact. I am afraid you are anxious, Miss Anthony. It is only natural, but you are sure to hear news of him soon. I myself have known such cases of loss of memory. They are not uncommon, especially among the old, and, if this man was with him, it should be easy to trace him.”