He Dies and Makes no Sign: A Golden Age Mystery

by Molly Thynne

  Constantine looked surprised.

  “What made him interest himself in the man?” he asked.

  “It wasn’t like him, it’s true. He never took much interest in what was going on here, but, in this instance, I suppose he felt responsible. It was he who spotted what was going on. Actually saw the boy handing over the money to Binns. The whole thing was characteristic of old Anthony. Instead of reporting it at once he went straight to Binns and told him what he’d seen and what he was going to do. Then he went to the management.”

  “How did Binns take it?” asked Constantine, his eyes on the departing stretcher.

  “Oh, the usual thing. Swore he’d get even with Mr. Anthony, and then went to him with tears in his eyes and asked him to speak for him.”

  Constantine waited until the ambulance had gone, and then passed on what he had learned to Arkwright.

  “I don’t suppose there’s anything in it,” he said. “This man, Binns, may have had a grudge against Anthony at one time, but he’s every reason to be grateful to him now.”

  “He may have been present when the old man died,” suggested Arkwright, “and, remembering his own threats in the past, have got into a panic and tried to hide the body. It sounds pretty futile, but people have done queerer things than that in an emergency. No harm is having a look at it from that point of view. If you’re going now I’ll get a man to call you a cab.”

  “I can pick one up for myself. There’s bound to be a rank near by,” said Constantine with suspicious mildness.

  “If there is I’ll see you into it,” insisted Arkwright. “I owe that much, at least, to Manners.”

  As soon as he got home Constantine made a ruthless assault on Steynes House. It was some time before he could get an answer, and there was another delay while Marlowe was being fetched. He told him what had happened and asked him to break the news to Betty.

  As he hung up the receiver he was conscious of the hovering figure of Manners bearing a glass that steamed, and realized that it contained the one thing he needed.

  It was some time before sleep came to him. Lying in the darkness he visualized the scene he had just left. He could see again the table bearing the curiously humped form under the baize cloth, and, on a chair next it, the contents of the dead man’s pockets. Aided by the retentive memory of a chess player he went through them, with the result that his mind leaped suddenly into wakefulness just as it was beginning to drift comfortably towards slumber.

  Arkwright was barely out of bed next morning before he was summoned to the telephone. Constantine was at the other end.

  “Can you give me a list of the contents of Anthony’s pockets?” he said. “Unless my memory’s woefully at fault, that key is not the only thing that’s missing.”

  “Give me time to get my notebook,” was Arkwright’s answer.

  He fetched it and reeled off the list.

  “As I thought,” was Constantine’s comment. “According to Miss Anthony her grandfather was a confirmed snuff-taker. She’ll be able to tell us whether his snuff-box is missing, but I should be very much surprised if he went out without it.”

  Arkwright chuckled as he rang off. Anybody but Constantine would have asked whether there was a snuff-box among the dead man’s effects and left it at that, but the old man’s sense of drama had, as usual, been too strong for him. He had been unable to resist taking a circuitous route to his little climax, and Arkwright knew how thoroughly he had enjoyed doing it.

  CHAPTER V

  CONSTANTINE’S first visitor the following morning was Marlowe. He had seen Betty and broken the news to her of her grandfather’s death.

  “She’s taking it wonderfully,” was his report. “I think in a way she was prepared for it, though she’s quite at sea as to what has happened. She’s terribly cut up, of course, but it was the suspense that was telling on her. Going by your account, I was able to say that, judging by appearances, he had died quite peacefully. That old Mrs. Berry’s a treasure. I’ve left Betty with her.”

  “Did you get my note this morning?”

  “It came just as I was leaving. Betty wasn’t fit for much, poor little soul, but I managed to get the information you wanted. She’s quite definite about the snuff-box. Her grandfather never moved without it, she says, and must have had it on him. She described it, and it sounds so unusual that it ought to be easy to trace. He bought it from a Russian in Paris years ago, and it’s made of silver inlaid with strips of steel.”

  Constantine nodded.

  “I know the type. Tula work, I believe it’s called. You don’t often see it in England. Had he ever spoken to her about this man Binns?”

  “Not a word. But I gather he seldom discussed affairs at the Parthenon. He hated it, and, I suppose preferred to forget it when he was at home. Betty scoffs at the idea of his having any enemies, says he would argue hotly about music and even refuse to speak to people for days who didn’t see eye to eye with him, but she’s certain he never did anyone an injury in his life, and I’m ready to swear that he had no interests outside his profession.”

  “It looks as if Arkwright’s theory is correct,” said Constantine thoughtfully, “and that he died by accident or from natural causes in the presence of someone who lost his head and hid the body. The theft of the snuff-box may have had something to do with it. Those things look more valuable than they are. On the other hand, his gold watch was not taken, and gold’s fetching a good price just now.”

  Marlowe rose.

  “I must get back,” he said. “If the police need Betty for identification purposes I’d like to be there. By the way, she had an idea that her grandfather’s violin-case might be at the Hahns’. She rang them up yesterday and they say that he took it with him as usual when he left. Do you think he did leave it, after all, at the Trastevere and someone pinched it?”

  “I don’t think anything at the moment,” confessed Constantine. “The whole thing seems so lacking in motive as to be insane. There’s only one thing I do feel sure of, and you can pass it on to Betty. Whatever may have been the cause of her grandfather’s death, it was quick and merciful.”

  His next visitor was Arkwright, to whom he had offered lunch if he could find time to take it.

  “If anything, the fog’s getting a bit thicker,” was his cheerful report. “That chap Howells turned up at the Yard this morning. He’d heard the news from one of the people at the Parthenon and had something he thought might be of interest to us. As a matter of fact, it merely confirms Civita’s statement. He says that, while he was talking to Anthony outside the Trastevere, a page to whom Anthony had spoken when he first arrived came up to him and gave him an envelope. It contained a card, which Anthony read. It slipped from his hand on to the pavement and Howells picked it up and returned it to him, but, beyond the fact that it had a message in pencil scribbled on it, he cannot describe it. We found a plain card with a message answering to the description Civita gave us in Anthony’s note-case, a pencil note asking him to call for the money next day. I showed this to Howells, but he could only say that it looked very like the one he had picked up. It undoubtedly is the one; Civita has identified it. Howells made one curious point. He says Anthony was going away from the Trastevere when he left him.”

  “Away? That’s interesting. Was he carrying his violin-case?”

  “Yes. Howells is emphatic on that point. It looks as if he’d left it somewhere and then returned to the Trastevere, though why he should go back there is a mystery. There was nothing on Civita’s card to warrant his doing so.”

  “Perhaps he decided to make another attempt to see Civita.”

  “He may have,” agreed Arkwright doubtfully, “but he doesn’t seem to have been in urgent need of the money, and there was no reason why he shouldn’t have waited till next day for it. Another thing, the man he was seen talking to later outside the restaurant wasn’t Howells, if his account is to be believed. He declares that he went straight home after leaving Anthony, but, as he lives alo
ne in a flat with no servant, we can’t check his statement. We’ve looked up his charwoman. He was still in bed when she arrived next morning, and she is certain there was no one else in the flat, so Anthony did not spend the intervening hours there.”

  “What about yesterday?” asked Constantine. “Wherever Anthony may have been on the nights of Tuesday and Wednesday, he was undoubtedly killed on Thursday.”

  Arkwright nodded.

  “Howells says he was at home, giving music lessons, last night. I’ve a list of the pupils and it will be easy enough to verify his statement, but I don’t suppose he’d have risked making it if it wasn’t true. He got rid of his last pupil at ten-thirty and went to bed. Yesterday afternoon he lunched with a friend, going on with him to a concert at the Queen’s Hall. This alibi’s not so complete as it sounds, as Howells admits frankly that their seats were not together, though they met in the interval at about four o’clock. Says he cannot remember the number of his seat and has lost the counterfoil, but he can tell us approximately where he was sitting. He could have done the job at the Parthenon and got back in time to leave with his friend at five-thirty.”

  “Has he ever been employed at the Parthenon? Whoever concealed the body must have known his way about the place pretty well.”

  “Says he has only been there once to see Anthony. As a musician, I fancy he’s a cut above that sort of thing. So far as the stage door is concerned, he could have used Anthony’s key. By the way, there was a receipted bill in Anthony’s pocket which may give us a lead. The date’s illegible, but the shop, curiously enough, is only about three minutes’ walk from the Trastevere. He may have gone there that night.”

  “After nine o’ clock?”

  “It’s possible. The bill’s for the resoling of some shoes, and these small cobblers stay open till all hours. I’m going up there now. Like to come along?”

  “I should. As a matter of fact, I’d meant to go up to the Trastevere and have a chat with Civita. He knows what’s happened, I suppose?”

  “I told him this morning. He’s genuinely cut up about it; seems to have had a real regard for the old man.”

  “He knew him in Paris years ago. There’s just a chance that he may remember something that may shed a light on those mysterious journeys of Anthony’s. Apart from which I should like to get his angle on the whole affair. Civita’s one of the most astute people in London, and his opinion’s always worth having.”

  The shop was in a narrow cul-de-sac hardly a stone’s throw from the Trastevere, and, as Arkwright had predicted, was the kind of little one-man concern that opens and closes with a fine disregard for Country Council regulations. The owner, a wizened, dusty-looking individual, put down the shoe he was resoling and came forward to serve them.

  “This your receipt?” asked Arkwright, handing him the scrap of paper.

  The cobbler peered at it through his old-fashioned, steel-rimmed glasses.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Mr. Anthony’s not ill, is he?”

  “What makes you think that?” countered Arkwright.

  “Well, it seemed queer him not comin’. Said he’d be in first thing Wednesday mornin’.”

  “When did he say that? Tuesday night?”

  The little man peered more closely at Arkwright, a suspicious gleam in his dim eyes.

  “I ain’t ’ere to answer questions,” he snapped. “I got me work to do. If you’ve come from Mr. Anthony, say so, but I’ll want more authority than that bit o’paper. You might ’ave pinched it off ’im for all I know.”

  If Arkwright was taken aback he did not show it. He thrust his warrant card under the man’s nose.

  “When did you last see Mr. Anthony?” he demanded.

  The cobbler’s feeble attempt at truculence collapsed with surprising suddenness.

  “Tuesday night, when he come in and paid that there bill,” he answered obediently, watching Arkwright with eyes that were both anxious and guarded.

  “Sure he hasn’t been here since then?”

  “Certain sure. Fact is, when you give me that there bill I thought as ’e’d sent you. Then when you started askin’ them questions I begun to think there might be something’ fishy. I didn’t want to make no error.”

  “Why should he send anyone? He’d paid your bill, hadn’t he?”

  Without answering, the cobbler turned and went through a door at the back of the shop. He returned carrying a canvas-covered violin-case and placed it carefully on the counter in front of the two men.

  “I know the store he sets by that there violin,” he said, “and I thought maybe you might be after it. Said ’e’d fetch it ’imself, ’e did, on the Wednesday mornin’. When ’e didn’t come I thought ’e must be ill.”

  “How did he come to leave it here?”

  “Said ’e’d got an appointment and didn’t want to be ’ampered with it like. I’ve known Mr. Anthony a long time. Very good friend ’e’s been to me. Used to give my son ’Erb lessons on the fiddle. Took a lot of interest in the lad.”

  The flow of information dried up suddenly. Constantine saw the anxious lines on the man’s forehead deepen and the guarded look come back into his eyes.

  “Can you remember what time Mr. Anthony came in?” asked Arkwright.

  The man answered readily enough.

  “Just before I closed down, it was. When I’ve got a lot on ’and I goes on till ten o’clock. Never work later if I can ’elp it. I wasn’t at it more than ten minutes after ’e left. Then the church clock struck. I always goes by that.”

  “Any idea where he was going?”

  The man shook his head.

  “Not me. Didn’t even notice which way ’e went when ’e left. There ain’t been nothin’ ’appened to ’im, ’as there?”

  “He died suddenly yesterday, and we’re anxious to trace his movements during the last few days. That’s the best you can do for us, I suppose?”

  The little cobbler’s anxiety had given place to genuine consternation.

  “Mr. Anthony dead,” he muttered. “I’m sorry, that I am. ’E was a good friend to me.”

  Arkwright picked up the violin-case.

  “I’ll see that his daughter gets this,” he said. “If there’s anything further you can tell us, let me know at the yard.”

  Outside in the street he glanced up at the lettering over the shop.

  “G. Plaskett, hand-sewn bootmaker, seems to have something on his mind,” he remarked thoughtfully.

  Constantine nodded.

  “He was on the defensive from the moment he saw your card,” he said, “but I don’t believe his anxiety had anything to do with Anthony or the violin. He was ready enough to talk about him. We’re beginning to get his movements straightened out at last. He must have gone straight to Plaskett’s after parting from Howells.”

  “Then back to the Trastevere. Why?”

  “Civita may have some theory about that. If I get anything out of him I’ll let you know.”

  Ten minutes later Constantine was sitting in Civita’s office sampling a sherry that seldom found its way into the restaurant.

  “It is all right, yes?”

  Constantine yielded himself with a sigh of sheer satisfaction to the comfort of the luxurious leather-covered armchair.

  “Perfect, like everything else in this room. Where do you get these chairs?”

  Civita shrugged his massive shoulders.

  “I look round till I find what I want. I can give you the address if you like, Doctor Constantine, but this suite was made specially for an American, whose money went suddenly, pouf, like the flame of a candle, in the slump. Another man would say, ‘Furnish me an office. I will pay so much,’ and then wonder that he is uncomfortable. But me, I have a theory. It is the little things in life that matter, and so I give as much thought to them as to the big business. And I am comfortable!”

  Constantine’s eyes twinkled. Civita was big in brain as well as in body, but the Latin in him would out. Give him a lead and
he would boast like an overgrown schoolboy.

  “Fifty-guinea suites are not little things, at least to people like me, but then I don’t think in hotels and restaurants.”

  He paused for a moment, then dropped into Italian, the language he generally used with Civita.

  “Tell me,” he said, “why did Mr. Anthony come back here on Tuesday night?”

  Civita swung round in his swivel-chair, his intelligent face alight with interest.

  “Did he come back? From what my man said I thought he had been here all the time until he was seen to leave.”

  “He went away after he had received your note. But he came back again. Why?”

  Civita started at him in amazement.

  “He went away and came back? And I have been asking myself why he came in at all! But this is more extraordinary. If he had come to see me he would have asked for me and I should have heard of it. My people are well disciplined, they do not neglect messages like that. But why should he want to see me after he had read my note?”

  “You can think of nothing that would bring him back?”

  “Nothing. And more, I can think of nothing that would bring him here at all, after my message. You knew Mr. Anthony?”

  “No. I only met his grand-daughter for the first time on Wednesday.”

  “Well, I have known him well in the past, and I tell you that, even if he had become a rich man in the interval, I should have been astonished to find him in a place like this. You would say that everybody in London knows Civita, non e vero?”

  He tapped his chest with an emphatic finger, and Constantine, with an inward smile, said gravely:

  “Everybody who matters.”

  “Ma che! Julius Anthony mattered more, in a finer sense, than half the pesce cane who come to my restaurant, but, I tell you, until the day I met him in the street here in London, if you had asked him, ‘Who is the proprietor of the Trastevere Restaurant?’ or even, ‘Where is the Trastevere?’ he would not have been able to answer you. That he should come here, except to speak to me, is extraordinary!”

  Constantine nodded.

  “It’s a curious business,” he said. “There’s nothing in his past that seems in any way significant, I suppose? Nothing associated with his life in Paris?”