Death by Gaslight

by Michael Kurland

  “He was murdered?” Barnett asked. “I don’t remember hearing of it. When did it happen?”

  “His body was found early in the morning of Tuesday, the fifteenth of February.”

  “By you?”

  “No, sir. By the Earl of Arundale.”

  “In his bedroom?”

  “No, sir. In the dining room.”

  “I see.” Barnett leaned back in his chair, which creaked alarmingly. He shifted forward again. “What makes you think that your master’s death is related to the others?”

  “His throat was cut. And there was no way for anyone to have got in or out. An impossible crime, Mr. Barnett. The only one who could have committed it was me.”

  Barnett nodded. “I take it you didn’t kill Lord John,” he said.

  “No, sir,” Quimby said. “He wasn’t a particularly easy man to work for, but I had no reason to wish to do myself out of a position. Besides, I can’t stand the sight of blood.”

  “I see,” Barnett said. “If, then, for some reason you had wanted to do his lordship in, you would have used poison.”

  Quimby shook his head. “I couldn’t do that to good food,” he said. “No, sir; if I ever decide to do anybody in, I fancy I shall use a very large, very blunt instrument.”

  Barnett pulled out his notebook. “May I ask a few questions regarding your late employer and your two friends Lizzard and Margery?” he said.

  “I will assist you,” Quimby said, “because I live in fear that Inspector Lestrade will decide to add a third manservant to the two he already has in quod.”

  “That is one of my questions,” Barnett said. “Why hasn’t he? That is, why haven’t I read anything about the death of Lord John Darby?”

  Quimby poured himself a glass of sherry from the decanter and then seated himself gingerly on one of the hardback chairs beside the upholstered armchair Barnett had settled into. “That I cannot tell you, Mr. Barnett,” he said. “Lord Arundale is a powerful enough man to have the news of the murder quenched, and he has done so. But what his motivation is, I do not know.”

  “Do the police know of the murder?”

  “I am not sure. I would think not. There is a private inquiry agent working with the police—a Mr. Holmes—who does know about it. He has questioned me extensively. He also thinks Lizzard and Margery are innocent; he told me so.”

  “What did he ask you about?”

  “Everything you can think of. He asked me how long I had been employed by his lordship, whether his lordship had any enemies that I knew of, what sort of books his lordship liked to read.”

  “Books?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s what he asked.”

  “And what did you reply? What sort of books did Lord John like to read?”

  “I can’t recall ever seeing his lordship with a book in his hands, unless it was Bradshaw.”

  “He restricted his reading to the railway timetables, eh?”

  “His lordship did take a newspaper, sir. The Daily Gazette.”

  “I see. Can you remark on anything else of note, either in Mr. Holmes’s questions or in your responses?”

  “It’s hard for me to tell, sir. Being interrogated is a novel experience for me.”

  “Well then, did Mr. Holmes seem particularly pleased or distressed at any of your responses?”

  “No, sir. He did compliment me on my powers of observation at one point.”

  “When was that?”

  “He asked me if anything was missing from the house or from his lordship’s person. I replied in the negative, with the possible exception of a thin gold chain that his lordship wore on occasion around his neck. I said I couldn’t be sure it was taken, as his lordship didn’t always wear it.”

  “Did you check where it was kept when Lord John wasn’t wearing it?”

  “Mr. Holmes asked me that, also. I told him that I couldn’t say, because I have no idea where his lordship kept it. His other personal jewelry was kept in a box on the dressing table, but I never saw the chain in there. It was when I mentioned that to him that Mr. Holmes complimented me.”

  “Was the chain found among his lordship’s effects?”

  “I don’t believe so. I was present at a preliminary inventory, conducted by the family solicitor, and it was not found at that time.”

  “Did Lord John have anything suspended from this chain?”

  “Yes, but I cannot tell you what. He always kept it beneath his shirt, next to his skin.”

  “I see,” Barnett said. “An interesting idiosyncrasy, although probably bearing no relationship to the crime. The object cannot have been very large, and if it had been of great value, I’m sure its existence would have been known of by some other member of the family.”

  “That is probably so,” Quimby agreed.

  “What I find most interesting is the secrecy,” Barnett said. “I can see why the murderer wouldn’t wish to advertise, but why the Earl of Arundale would want to suppress knowledge of a murder I don’t know. But I will do my best to find out. I suppose there is no chance that this earl did your boss in?”

  “Did him in? No, sir. The homicide assuredly occurred before the arrival of the earl.”

  “Pity,” said Barnett, with the heartlessness of a true newspaperman. “Now, about Lizzard and Margery. How well do you know them?”

  “Fairly well,” Quimby said. “As well as one can get to know somebody in a short time. We are all in the same boat, so to speak, and it gave us a strong community of interest. We were possessed of a great desire to discover who committed the murders, and how they were accomplished, even before we discovered that we ourselves might be blamed for them.”

  “Did you come to any conclusions?” Barnett asked.

  “No, sir, unfortunately not. Of course, it is not a field that we are particularly competent in. That is why I was so pleased to discover that Mr. Holmes is taking an interest in the problem. He is highly thought of.”

  “In your own mind there is no chance that either of your friends might actually have had a hand in the, ah, crimes?”

  “No chance, sir. Neither of them had a motive. On the contrary, they both lost good positions upon the deaths of their employers.”

  “Scotland Yard contends that they were paid off by some third person to either commit the deeds themselves or allow someone else access to the bedrooms.”

  “I cannot believe that, Mr. Barnett. Neither of them is the sort of man who would murder his employer. Also, neither of them was in a position where a desire for immediate financial gain would outweigh the need for security of employment.”

  “I understood that Margery was an inveterate racecourse-goer.”

  “Yes, sir. He has what I believe is called a ‘system,’ sir. Has put away quite a little nest egg with it.”

  “You mean he wins?”

  “Not invariably, but certainly more than he loses.”

  “And what about Lizzard? Word is that he has a lady friend in Wembley.”

  “Mr. Lizzard is seeing a lady who lives in Wembley, sir. That’s true enough.”

  “Was his butler’s salary sufficient for his, ah, needs in this regard?”

  Quimby pondered this for a moment. “Actually, sir,” he said, “the size of Mr. Lizzard’s salary is not relevant in this case, the lady in question being the sole owner and proprietress of a public house. She has asked Mr. Lizzard to come into the business as her partner, feeling, as she says, that the presence of a man about the establishment is desirable.”

  “It sounds like a subtle proposal of marriage,” Barnett commented.

  “I have no doubt that matrimony is in the lady’s mind,” Quimby said, “but the offer is a straightforward business offer. I would assume that she’s waiting for Mr. Lizzard to do the proposing.”

  “An enviable position for the gentleman to be in,” Barnett said, “if he is fond of the lady. And it would certainly seem from that as though Lizzard was not in any desperate need of funds.”

  “I
would say that was so,” Quimby said.

  “Thank you for your assistance in this,” Barnett said. “Is there anything else that has come to your attention during these past weeks that I have neglected to ask about that you think might have any bearing, however slight, on the question of the murders of your employers?”

  “Well, sir,” Quimby said, “as I declared before, the field of criminal investigation is out of my provenance; I really can’t say what would be of interest to the trained investigator.” He paused. “There is one thing, however, which I find interesting.”

  “And that is?”

  “Well, sir, it’s possibly only indirectly related to the murders themselves, but it is curious just the same. There has been another gentleman here asking questions. And despite the lack of publicity given to the subject, he seemed to know the details of the killing of my master, Lord John Darby.”

  “That is curious,” Barnett agreed.

  “Not only that, sir, but there’s something even more curious about it.”

  “Yes?” Barnett urged.

  “Well, sir, he called himself Mr. Plantagenet, but he was the spitting image of Lord John. Could have been his brother.”

  TWELVE

  INTERLUDE: NOT TO BE

  The fever called “Living”

  Is conquered at last.

  EDGAR ALLAN POE

  The night had been long and physically exhausting; but his sport was the game of life, the game of truth, the devil’s game, the only game worth the playing. And this night the game had been piquant and especially fine. Desmond Chauvelin had been loath to leave the squalid building wherein lay concealed his very private club.

  Two girls this time, the older a hardened street-wise moll, coarse and foul-mouthed. But the younger—no more than sixteen, slender, with pale, unblemished skin and a fair, frightened face. A delicate flower to find among the street weeds with whom they usually practiced their arts. Where did the Master Incarnate find such a girl? Better, he realized, not to wonder. And, in truth, Chauvelin was really not interested in the girl’s antecedents. It was her slender, unmarked body, her youth, her innocence, and her capacity for terror that he found so supernaturally exciting. There is a special quality in tortured innocence—a pain-heightened wide-eyed terror; fear mingled with disbelief, and the constant hope of surcease—that is highly valued by the connoisseur.

  The rose-trimmed ebony brougham coursed through the deserted streets of the West End of London, its steel-shod wheels pounding an allegro along the pavement. Chauvelin stretched his plump body across the wide cushioned seat and idly watched the gaslights pass in orderly procession outside the coach window, which was rolled up against the predawn chill. For all that life was tedious and dull, he mused, there were brief moments that blazed out with a hellish fire.

  He sometimes thought that at a certain point in the intricate, prolonged ceremonies of this game of games, the slaves became truly aware. He could see it in their eyes; he could watch the comprehension grow with the careful repetition of pain, the measured torment, until it surpassed the fear, and transcended the weak flesh. So it had been with this girl; knowledge had grown under the screams. The knowledge that was greater than wisdom: that all was hopeless and that there was no escape; that life had no more meaning than death, and that pain—physical pain—endless pain—sensual overwhelming pain—was the closest one could come to reality. They all said they were grateful, of course; he made them say it. It was one of the rules. Humble appreciation for the pain that gave them meaning and assured them that they were still alive.

  The brougham turned off Old London Road onto Bentham Way, and the coachman slowed up as they approached the gate to Infant Court, the small, private circle on which fronted three residences: that of a duke, another of an exiled queen, and his own.

  Chauvelin was roused sufficiently from his reverie by the brougham’s slowing and stopping before the gate to watch as two guards—in the comic-opera uniforms of the deposed queen’s household troops—opened the gate and waved the coach through. He chuckled as they closed the gate behind him. Guarded like royalty, he was. Buttoning his waistcoat and the top button of his jacket, he allowed the coachman to swing down and open the brougham’s door for him and then stepped gingerly out and waddled across to his own front door. The coachman, wise in the ways of his master, clambered back up to the driver’s seat and swung the brougham away without pausing for further instructions. Chauvelin expected his servants to behave like automata, without prompting, without recognition, without gratitude. When he stretched his hand out for his evening snifter of brandy, it had best be there. How it arrived there was not his concern.

  The butler was neither required nor expected to man the front door after midnight; Chauvelin trusted no man’s discretion save his own. He let himself in with his own two keys, lit a taper with a wooden safety match, and thumped his way up the broad staircase to his bedroom.

  His bedroom was a rectangular room, much longer than it was wide. The ancestral four-post canopied bed crouched at the far end, away from the windows. Across from the door were three matched chiffoniers and a specially built triple-size wardrobe closet. Desmond Chauvelin did not believe in being far from his extensive collection of costumes and accouterments. Whatever one does, one must be correctly garbed for the occasion; and one might be called upon to do the strangest things on the shortest notice.

  To the left of the door, by the large casement windows, stood his dressing table; and it was to this that he repaired, casting his garments to the right and left as he entered the bedroom. He paused only to light the gas mantle on the wall and the two beeswax candles in simple porcelain holders on the dressing table. The plum velvet jacket he hung on a drawer handle, the gold brocade waistcoat he draped over the back of a chair, the cravat he suspended from a brass hook on the gas fixture. The night’s exertions had left Chauvelin happy. When he was depressed he was excessively neat.

  He investigated his face in the large looking glass on the dressing table. He had heard it said that the health of the body and the soundness of the spirit could be determined by examining the eyes. Opening his eyelids wide, he stared through the glass at himself. The pupils seemed to have an unnatural luster, he thought, suggestive more of putrefaction than of health. He shook his head as if to clear it of the unnatural thought. It must be an effect of the candlelight, or the lateness of the hour. He examined his cheeks. They seemed red and puffy to him, and he could make out the tiny blue threads of broken veins beneath the skin. He pushed away from the mirror. I lead an unhealthy life, he thought. The idea seemed to amuse him.

  What was that? A motion in the mirror? Something behind him, some great black object, flickered across his field of view in the shadowy light of the gas lamp.

  There was someone in the room with him. He had not heard the door open or close, but nonetheless—

  Chauvelin did not believe in ghosts, but it was with an almost supernatural dread that he leaped to his feet and turned to face the unknown intruder. He clutched at the hardbacked chair he had been sitting in and raised it chest-high, thrusting the chair legs aggressively out in front of him, examining the room through the cane bottom.

  At first he thought he had been mistaken, so hard was the man to see, but after a few seconds the man’s actions made him visible. It was not one of his servants, Chauvelin realized, but a tall, hulking man he had never seen before, dressed in what seemed to be evening clothes covered by a full black cape that swirled in a full circle around him, his face shrouded beneath a wide-brimmed hat of a strange design. The man appeared to be going through the pockets of Chauvelin’s discarded jacket. It was incredible! Right here in Chauvelin’s own bedroom, with Chauvelin fifteen feet away waving a heavy chair at him!

  “Who are you?” Chauvelin demanded, noting with some pride the calmness of his voice. “How did you get in here? And what in the name of all that’s holy do you think you are doing?”

  The man cast the jacket aside with a grunt
of annoyance, and began deftly going through the pockets of the waistcoat. The presence of Desmond Chauvelin, who was advancing slowly toward him with the wooden chair held waist-high, did not seem to deter him in the slightest.

  It was certainly a lunatic, Chauvelin decided, escaped from some local asylum. Any burglar would have run at his presence, and anyone with designs on his person would not pause to rifle his jacket pockets. Chauvelin debated calling for assistance. It seemed a good plan, except for the fact that almost certainly nobody would hear him. If he could get past the man to his bed, he could use the bellpull. There was nobody presently in the butler’s pantry to hear the ting of the bell, but in four and a half hours, when the butler came downstairs to start his day he would see the little telltale flag on the call board and come to investigate.

  The man dropped the waistcoat and for the first time turned to Chauvelin. “Where is it?” he asked, in the measured, reasonable tone of one who sees nothing unusual about his question. It might have been “What is the time?” or “Unreasonably chilly, isn’t it?” from an acquaintance at the track. But it wasn’t. It was a cloaked stranger, in his bedroom at four o’clock in the morning.

  “Where is it?” the man repeated.

  “What?” Chauvelin asked. “Look, my man.” He took two steps forward and prodded at the apparition with his chair. “I don’t know how you got in here, or what it is you think you’re doing, but I am not amused. Come to think of it, how did you get in here, anyway?”

  The man knocked the chair aside as a thing of no consequence and grabbed Chauvelin by the shirtfront with his left hand. “The bauble,” he said, forcing Chauvelin to his knees. “Where do you keep it?”

  Chauvelin’s bowels knotted with fear. He felt a great desire to be calm, to be reasonable, to keep the conversation with his uninvited guest on a friendly level. “Bauble?” he asked. “What’s mine is yours, I assure you. You have but to ask. What bauble? I don’t go in for baubles. I have an extensive collection of cravats—”

  “The bauble,” the man repeated. “The device, the signet, the devil’s sign.”