The Sleeping Sphinx dgf-17

by John Dickson Carr

  "What do you expect to see in the vault?"

  Dr. Fell did not answer this.

  "Hear now," he said, "my story."

  The crooked little alley leading up to the tomb, with its raised graves on either side, was paved with tiny pebbles. Dr. Fell's canes rattled among the pebbles as he sat down on the big flat stone of one of the raised graves. It was just inside the shadow thrown by the cypress on the right-hand side of the vault.

  "I am the sport of fates and devilry," observed Dr. Fell, removing his shovel hat and putting it beside him. "At Christmas (yes, last Christmas) I was the guest of Professor Westbury at Chippenham. Two days after Christmas it occurred to me to go over and pay a call on Mrs. Andrew Devereux."

  "On . . . ?"

  "Yes. On Mammy Two, who had been dead for several years. That," said Dr. Fell bitterly, "is how we kept in touch with our friends during wartime. Unless they had been blitzed or otherwise hurt by some Satan's toy, we imagined them still as healthy as ever.

  "With my customary careful presence of mind, I even neglected to send a telegram or any message. I merely hired a car and was driven the few miles to Caswall. In front of the house, among other motorcars, I saw a hearse."

  Dr. Fell paused, putting up his hands to his eyes.

  "My dear Holden, I didn't know what to do. My arrival on a social call seemed a little out of place. I was telling the driver of the car to turn round, when someone ran over the bridge and motioned to me. It was—"

  "Celia?"

  "Yes."

  Again for a moment Dr. Fell pondered in silence.

  "Now that girl was in a badly disturbed state of mind. One moment! I don't mean what you are thinking. I merely mean that she was not herself; and it worried me badly.

  "She asked me if I would please come inside for a few minutes, on a matter of very vital importance. She further said we must on no account be seen. And we were not seen. She led me in through the back way. She led me through a maze of those short little staircases that connect the galleries, up to an old playroom, or nursery, or something of the sort, on the top floor."

  A light wind, sweeping up from the south, set rippling the grass in the churchyard and made a dry scratching sound among cypresses. There was a brief rain of shadows until the wind died. What alarmed Holden most was the evident disquiet of Dr. Fell, who kept glancing round at the door of the new vault as though he half-expected to see something come out

  The devil of it was, perhaps something would. "That playroom, yes," Holden muttered. "Celia mentioned it last night Anyway, did she tell you anything about... ?" "The circumstances of her sisters death?" "Yes!"

  "She told me very little," grunted Dr. Fell. "And we can see now why she didn't On Christmas Day she had gone to Dr. Shepton and poured out her whole story. And Shepton, a trusted old friend, dismissed her very kindly and gently as a psychopathic case." Dr. Fell added, very quietly: "Curse him.’

  All Holden's nerves throbbed in agreement with this.

  "Dr. Fell, have you seen Shepton?"

  "Yes."

  "Do yon think he's crooked? Or a fool?" Dr. Fell shook his head.

  "The man," he answered, "is neither crooked nor a fool. He is merely very obstinate and very closemouthed; so infernally closemouthed, in fact that. . ."

  "Yes? Go on!"

  "That," said Dr. Fell, with subdued violence, "he has nearly wrecked half a dozen lives."

  "But you were saying? About Celia?"

  "She told me," replied Dr. Fell, lowering his head, "that her sister's funeral was that afternoon. She begged me, implored me, pleaded with me to help her with something, —er—hardly needed to tell the young lady," said Dr. Fell with a guilty air, "that if it would help her in any way she could have the shirt off my back.

  "She pointed out that we should not be doing anything against the law. That we should not be hurting anybody, or interfering with anything. She even added, with a kind of naivete which troubled me much as it touched me, that it wouldn't even be dark and we needn't be afraid. In short..." "Please let me tell him, Dr. Fell," interposed Celia's voice. Again the wind came rustling and seething across the churchyard. Celia had not come up the path from the church. She had taken a shorter cut, from the north side. They saw her stumbling among gravestones, catching at them to steady herself, among flying shadows.

  Celia reached Dr. Fell's side. She looked at Holden, looked at the vault, and faltered. "Dr. Fell," Celia said, "couldn't we call it off?" For a long time Dr. Fell stared at the ground. "Why should you want to call it off, my dear?" "I was frightfully nervous." Again Celia looked at Holden, and smiled uncertainly. "I—I may have been dreaming."

  "My dear," began Dr. Fell, and started to fire up again. "We could have forgotten all about it, yes, if only you hadn't written that letter to the police. In it you stressed evidence, direct evidence, which would be found if you and I opened the vault tonight."

  (Exactly, Holden thought, what Celia had told Dr. Shepton last night in that playground. But there had been no mention of a vault.)

  Celia, drawing a deep breath, went up to him. Her eyes searched his face, intently and questioningly.

  "I couldn't tell you, Don," she said. "I couldn't! That’s what's been worrying me all day; that's why I couldn't see you. But I want you to listen now. And don't laugh at me. Call me mad, if you like. Only: please don't laugh at me." "Of course I won't laugh at you." "Two days after Christmas, when Margot was—put in that place," she swung her head round, the soft brown hair flying, to look at the vault, and turned back again, "Dr. Fell and I attended to certain things.

  "After the funeral was over, and everybody had left the churchyard, we came here just about dusk. I had the key of the vault it was supposed to be Thorley's key, but I knew where he kept it Call me a beast if you like, but don't laugh at me.

  "Dr. Fell and I unlocked the vault. After we'd—we'd attended to something inside, we shut it up again and locked it Then Dr. Fell was to do what I'd asked him. He was to seal up the lock, with modeling clay pressed through the keyhole until it was filled. He was to stamp that clay with some private seal or mark of his own, so he'd know it Then ..."

  "Go on, Celia."

  "Then," answered Celia, "he was to go away, with both the key and the seal, and not speak about it until I wrote to him. And that’ s what he did."

  Abruptly Celia turned away, stamping her foot on the ground.

  "I can't think now what made me do it," she said. "I must have been distracted. Anyway, that's what we did." "But why did you do it?"

  "Because of what happened in the Long Gallery," said Celia, "on the night after Margot died." Still she would not look at him.

  But, as though needing someone near her, she sat down beside Dr. Fell. Surprisingly, Celia did not seem at all frightened. She looked merely resolute, her chin up and a fixity of conviction in her eyes. She was just inside the shadow of the right-hand cypress: sideways to the vault, in the little crooked path of pebbles, and perhaps twenty feet from its door.

  "It started as a dream," Celia said. "I knew that, as you always do, and I admit it

  "It was Christmas Eve, remember, though not exactly the sort of Christmas we had planned. Margot was dead, and she had committed suicide, and before our generation that was thought to be a fearful sin. And I was in bed, asleep, on Christmas Eve.

  "I dreamed I was in the Long Gallery, standing on the lowest step down from the Blue Drawing Room, looking straight along the gallery from the north end. It was all dark, except for bright starlight. Then I realized, in my dream, that there was not a stick or shred of furniture in the gallery. On my right ran the bare wall where the portraits ought to have been. On my left was the wall with the three oriel windows, and the stars outside.

  "I wondered, with that sense of being m both the present and the past at once, whether the gallery had been cleared for the old Christmas dances and games. And then, far away from me, by the third oriel window, I saw half of a white face.

  ' "It wa
s the side half, with the eye wide open. I saw a curve of hair out to the cheekbone, and a high uniform collar, and part of a red coat. And I thought: Why, that's the portrait of Lieutenant General Devereux, who died at Waterloo! "And then . ...”

  "Something gave me a shock and a start, with a gasp in it, and a sensation of cold all over. Then I realized I was awake. Dazed and frightened, but awake.

  "I was in the Long Gallery. I was standing on that lowest step, in blackness and starlight, after all. It was bitterly cold, because I had nothing on but my nightgown. I could feel the rough carpet of the step under my feet, and my heart beating to suffocation. I reached out and touched the side of the arch around the stairs. It was real.

  "Then I looked down the gallery again.

  "And the real house, all quiet and shadowy, it was looking at me. Something seemed to close up my throat, like fingers, when I saw that. I looked again, and it wasn't alone. There were others standing near it. They were the faces and figures that should have been in the portraits, but with one difference.

  "The first horror was that they were all hatefully angry. I could feel that anger flowing toward me: dumb, dull, passive, yet still an anger. It filled the gallery with hatred. That was when, very slowly, they began moving toward me. The next horror was that, as they approached, I could see how each one of them had died.

  "Those who died peaceful deaths had their eyes closed, like great dumb images. Those who died violent deaths had their eyes wide open, with a ring of white round the iris. I saw Madame Rambouillet with her wired ringlets, all bloated from dropsy; and Justin Devereux, in a starched ruff, with the dagger wound in his side.

  "They were real. They had bodies. They could touch you. Past one window they came, and then another window, throwing shadows. But still I couldn't move. It was when the wave of them seemed to get higher and higher, and I could catch the gleam of a silver shoe buckle, I knew that their anger was not directed toward me at all. It was directed toward someone, a woman, crouching and cowering behind me, trying to shield herself.

  "And all the time these dead things were speaking together, or whispering. First dry and rustling, then hatefully muffled like voices through cloth; but louder and louder, over and over, dinning and repeating, the same whispery three words. General Devereux, with the two bullet holes in his face, reached out and took my wrist to push me aside.

  "And all the time those voices, paying no attention to me, went on with their refrain:

  " 'Cast her out! Cast her out! Cast her out! "

  CHAPTER XII

  Celia's voice rose up wildly on those last words, and then trailed away. She sat there, just inside shadow, so that Holden could not read her expression. Her laughter, clear and ringing, rose up in the grass-scented churchyard.

  "Stop that!" Holden said sharply.

  "Stop what?"

  "Stop laughingl"

  "I'm s-sorry. But aren't you glad, Don, I didn't tell you this story last night?"

  "What—happened after that? In the gallery?"

  "I don't know. Obey found me lying there at daybreak on Christmas morning. She swore I'd die of pneumonia, and raved, and tried to pack me into bed with three or four hot-water bottles. But it didn't trouble me. I'm not sensitive to cold, as poor Margot was."

  (At her side Dr. Fell made a short, slight movement)

  “Celia." Holden cleared his throat

  "Yes, Don?"

  "You know, of course, that you dreamed all this?"

  "Did I?" asked Celia. She edged sideways into the moonlight. The extraordinary glitter of her eyes, the set of her mouth, contrasted with the soft face. "They were real. They had bodies. I saw them."

  "Do you remember last night, Celia? Dr. Shepton? I'd hate to agree with one single word Shepton said . . ."

  "I don't blame you for agreeing, Don." Celia turned her face away. "If s only natural. I'm ma—"

  "No. It was a quite ordinary nightmare. I've had some myself that were as bad or worse." (Lord, he prayed, let me handle this properly I) "But it was inspired, as Shepton suggested, by that thrice-damnable Murder game in masks."

  "Don! Pleasel"

  "You're intelligent, Celia. Use your wits on this. The very faces in your nightmare suggest masks. Now think of the voices, 'muffled like voices through cloth.' My darling, listen! Thaf s exactly how voices sound when they speak inside masks, as you heard them all through the questioning of the Murder game."

  "Don, I ..."

  "Let me appeal to Dr. Fell. What do you say, Dr. Fell?" "I say," replied Dr. Fell, in a slow and ponderous voice, "that we had better settle this." "Settle it?"

  "By opening the vault now," said Dr. Fell. One of his canes fell to the ground with a clatter as he hoisted himself up on the other.

  "But what in Satan's name do you expect to . . . ?"

  "I was supposed," Dr. Fell swept this aside, "to wait for Inspector Crawford. He phoned that he was on his way, which was the message conveyed to me by Miss Obey. But (hurrum) he is very late. I think we shall proceed without him."

  A new voice interposed:

  "Just a minute, sir." They all jumped, and it seemed to Holden that Dr. Fell muttered something under his breath.

  Up the pebbled path came tramping, rather out of breath, a hardy middle-aged man in old tweeds and a soft hat. The only feature of him now distinguishable was a remarkable moustache, which by daylight might have been anything from sandy to red. But he did not like this churchyard. He did not like it at all.

  The newcomer gave Dr. Fell something between a touch of the hat and a formal salute.

  "Had a puncture on my bike," he said. "Delayed. Sorry." Then he drew himself up. "What I want to know, sir, is this. Am I here officially, or unofficially?"

  "At the moment," said Dr. Fell, "unofficially."

  "Ah!" A breath of relief was expelled under the formidable ios moustache. "Mind, not that we're doing anything exactly illegal. But I thought I'd better wear plain clothes."

  Dr. Fell introduced his companions to Inspector Crawford of the Wiltshire County Constabulary.

  "Have you," asked Dr. Fell, "got the necessaries?"

  "Torch, knife, and magnifying glass," returned Inspector Crawford, slapping two pockets briskly. "All present and correct, sir." But definitely he did not like his surroundings. They saw his eyes move.

  "In that case," said Dr. Fell, "will you please examine what I have here?"

  Fumbling inside his cloak, fiercely concentrating to remember the right pockets, Dr. Fell produced first an electric torch and then a small wash-leather bag tied at the mouth with a cord. He handed the bag to Inspector Crawford.

  By the light of Dr. Fell's torch, a small dazzle under cypress shadow and the loom of the vault behind them, Crawford opened the bag and turned out in his palm a heavy gold ring whose seal Holden could not see; it was turned the other way.

  "Well Inspector?" demanded Dr. Fell.

  "Well, sir, if s a ring." The other peered at it more closely. "Bit of an odd seal. More intricate, like, than I ever saw. And this thing on the lower part, like a woman asleep ..."

  "Intricatel" roared Dr. Fell. "Saints and devils!" They all shied back.

  "Easy, sir!" muttered Inspector Crawford. His moustache, in the light, was fiery red.

  "I beg your pardon," also muttered Dr. Fell, guiltily hunching his chins down into his cloak. "But I would, at Christmas, be visiting a noted collector. I would, with graceful presence of mind, drop that infernal ring into my pocket and forget it completely. I would have it in my pocket when— never mind!"

  Again he pointed with the light from the torch.

  "The ring, Inspector, was cut for Prince Metternich of Austria. You may take my word for it, or Professor Westbury's, that there isn't another like it in existence."

  "Ah!" said Inspector Crawford.

  "It was designed, during the days of Metternich's Black Cabinet, so that the impression of the seal couldn't be copied or forged or replaced once it had been stamped on a soft surfa
ce. For reasons I needn't go into now, you may take replacement as out of the question."

  Dr. Fell now sent the beam of the torch wheeling round to the vault between the cypresses.

  "On December twenty-seventh. Inspector, I locked that door. I filled the lock with plasticine, the sort you buy at Woolworth's. I sealed it with the ring. This afternoon I convinced myself that the seal hadn't been touched or tampered with since. Will you go and convince yourself too?"

  Inspector Crawford squared his shoulders.

  "I'm a fingerprint man," he said. "This is my meat"

  And, a little uncertainly, they all moved toward the tomb.

  They could now see that the little pillars on each side of the door, instead of being stone like the rest of the vault, were of mottled marble. Against the heavy inner door, painted gray, the gray seal of the lock would have gone unnoticed by any visitor to the cemetery. While Dr. Fell held the light, Inspector Crawford stooped down, put the ring beside the seal with his left hand, and with his right hand held a magnifying glass over both.

  Holden darted a glance at Celia.

  Celia, her head slightly lowered, was breathing in short and quick gasps. Instinctively she reached out and found his arm; but she hardly seemed conscious she was doing so.

  Silence.

  For ten mortal minutes Inspector Crawford hunched there while he compared those seals, moving only to ease cramped muscles and never moving his head. A small pattern of night noises crept out: the scuttling of an animal in the grass. Once Celia broke the silence.

  "Can't you . . . ?"

  "Easy, miss! Mustn't rush this!"

  Momentarily Dr. Fell's light swept around as the Inspector spoke. That expression in Celia's eyes, Holden thought: where had he seen it? It reminded him of something. Where had he seen it before? The light swung back again.

  "Right you are, sir," declared Crawford, straightening up and abruptly moving back from the door as though he loathed it. "Thaf s the original seal. Take my oath!"