At half-past eleven that night Inspector Grant was smoking a final pipe in the parlour of his little house in the Brixton Road. He was uneasy, for he had never seen Graham Buckland, in all the years of their common experience, thrown so markedly out of his stride. The inspector looked at the clock upon his mantelshelf. “He won’t come now,” he said at one moment. “He’d have sent me a message if he wasn’t coming,” at the next, and as the hands pointed to a quarter to twelve, a stick was stretched out from the steps at the front door and tapped upon the bow-window. Grant opened the door to a very tired and exhausted surgeon of police.
“Give me a drink first,” said Graham Buckland, and he toppled into an arm-chair. “It’s a case for a warrant on a charge of murder.”
Grant mixed a stiff whisky-and-soda for his guest and watched him drink it. Then he sat down opposite him and said quietly:
“Let me hear!”
“I was puzzled over that book from the beginning,” Buckland explained. “Partly for the reasons I gave you, partly too because that bloodstained page looked to me a little used. I put that together with the disheartened tone Quintash had employed last night in his lecture, and I was honestly inclined to suspect that he had deliberately committed suicide and had written that message to deceive everybody into the belief that he had died by accident. Personally, I should have been prepared to help him out, but I had got to be sure about it. A small bunch of keys was lying with his watch on the table by his bed, and I took that bunch away with me, thinking that some paper or another in a locked drawer might put me wise. There was one rather elaborate small key of Italian workmanship which particularly caught my eye. With that bunch in my pocket I came down to the drawing-room, and I had no sooner put my suspicion of suicide into words, than it was badly shaken. Do you remember what Mrs. Quintash did? She gave a gasp and said: ‘Oh, I never thought of that.’ Well, that might just mean, ‘I never dreamed he would do a thing like that.’ But it might also mean, and I had an unpleasant hunch that it did mean, ‘That would have been a better explanation, if I had thought of it.’
“Mere guess-work? Yes, but wait. We went downstairs and whilst you were telephoning to young Cleveland Hill, I went into the dining-room. Did you notice that the plate in front of Mrs. Quintash’s chair had been pushed forward and the salt-cellar upset? You did, and thought no more about it than I did. But I moved the plate back to its original place, and I saw that it covered four little sets of marks in the tablecloth — not exactly rents, but threads in the linen had been torn, the nap fluffed up a little, and the cloth pricked. And these four sets were the corners of a small square and they were quite fresh. It seemed to me that at some time during supper a small square box mounted on metal claws had been placed on the table in front of Mrs. Quintash and that she had sprung up and pushed her plate violently away from her, upsetting the salt-cellar and whatever it was which had been placed in front of her.
“I looked round the room and could see nothing which offered any explanation. So I went along the passage to the study.”
“And I followed you,” said Inspector Grant.
“But you were called to the telephone by that ebullient young gentleman, Mr. Cleveland Hill,” Graham Buckland continued. “By that time I had spotted something which might account for the marks, a square steel box of old make mounted on claw feet, standing on the top of a high bookshelf. I jumped on to a chair and took it down. The small Italian key upon Quintash’s bunch slipped exactly into the lock. I opened the box. It was about the height of a spirit case and, like a spirit case, the front fell down with the raising of the lid. I was looking at a human face about the size of a small melon, a face with every feature intact and there was hair upon the scalp. The only real disfigurement was that the lips were bloated and there were holes in them as though they had been skewered together. After the first jar, I remembered Quintash had been in Brazil. To reduce the head of the enemy you have killed to the size of an orange without spoiling the features is a secret of the Indians on the Amazon. You put it up on the mantelpiece, as it were, as a memento, and if you feel down and out, why, you have something to cheer you up again. A good many people have brought one of these heads home as a curiosity. But something puzzled me about this one. It didn’t look native,” and Inspector Grant sat back in his chair with a gasp. He looked round his sitting-room, comforting himself with the knowledge that he was in the Brixton Road with taxis and late omnibuses roaring past his door.
“The face was dark, of course, dark as an Indian’s, but then it had been kippered. It had been hung up by the lips and smoked, but it didn’t look native. No! I took it up in my hands and I got the shock of my life. Upon my soul, I almost dropped it. I feel myself tingling now. For a great scar ran down from the corner of the eye to the jaw. I was looking at the head of Quintash’s young friend, Julian Devenish. The loyal and devoted partner to whom Quintash had paid so pathetic a tribute in his lecture. You see, I had to revise my opinion of Quintash. What was he? A hypocrite? A man who hated Devenish and when he was dead treated him with the same horrible indignity which an Indian would use towards his enemy? I replaced the head in the box and the box again on the bookshelf. I went back to the dining-room with my brain in a whirl, and five minutes afterwards young Cleveland Hill gave the whole show away. Quintash wouldn’t let him stay for supper — not he. He meant to complete his day. He had been presented with a gold medal and he meant to make a presentation to his wife. What he presented her with was Julian Devenish’s head, exact in every feature but the lips — eyes, skull, nose, scar, everything, but reduced to the size of a small melon which you could hold in your hand. The end of a perfect day, what?”
“But that’s devilish,” Grant exclaimed, wiping his forehead with his handkerchief. “Even if there were provocation.”
“Was there provocation?” Buckland resumed. “Was Julian Devenish Doria Quintash’s lover? Was this Quintash’s revenge? And if so — that was the question I was stubbing my toes against — what was Doria Quintash’s reaction last night? Do you see, Grant? I fell back upon my first idea — modified. The book held the secret and I had got to tear it out of it.”
“What did you do?” Grant asked, leaning forward eagerly in his chair, and Graham Buckland resumed his narrative.
“I looked up an old copy of Who’s Who and I found that at the time this French book was published, Quintash was living near to Farnham. I drove down to Farnham and found the house, smothered in roses and surrounded by a garden — a haunt of peace on a country road. Then after a few inquiries I found the doctor who had attended them. He was a tall, lean man, who seemed to think that the world was a ridiculous joke and went off into great fits of laughter over catastrophes and disasters, a Dr. Sturgis.
“‘And what do you want to see me about, Mr. Buckland?’ he asked.
“‘About this,’ I answered, and I held the book out to him.
“‘Where in the world did you get that?’ he continued, in surprise. I saw in the evening paper that Quintash had died.’
“‘So you know the book?’ said I.
“‘Know it? I should think I do. I attended Quintash after his accident.’
“‘Accident?’ I cried.
“‘Yes. He took that book to bed with him and a sharp knife to cut the leaves, and he fell asleep and rolled over on his side and wounded himself.’
“‘And when was that?’
“Dr. Sturgis searched in a little safe and fetched out a case-book.
“‘That’s the time. Seven years ago.’ To Dr. Sturgis it was the funniest episode. ‘He thought he was going to die — he wasn’t near dying really — and he wrote that message on the margin. “It’s all my fault, etc.’”
“‘To save his wife any difficulties if he did die, I suppose,’ I said, and Sturgis roared with amusement.
“‘I’m sorry, but you’ll have to do that bit over again, Mr. Buckland. It won’t do,’ said Sturgis. And then out the truth came. Quintash and his wife hated one a
nother like cat and dog. There was a young fellow, called Julian Devenish, who had just made a little name for himself by a journey in Arabia. He was always about the place, adored her. I made a remark about her striking appearance and I was afraid Dr. Sturgis was going to roll out of his chair on to the floor, so diverting he found it.
“‘Oh, yes, the Mona Lisa stunt. She had the sideways glance all right — if a young man was around — but that’s all. She was a common little trollop.’ And Sturgis added, and, my dear Grant, I beg you to notice the addition, ‘The only Italian in that menage was Anthony Quintash. He was small, supple, vindictive, patient and proud. Remember him! Dress him up in a doublet and hose. He came straight out of the Cinquecento, didn’t he? He wrote those lines on the margin of his book, because if he died he wasn’t going to have his neighbours think that he’d killed himself out of jealousy or unhappiness. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. Anthony Quintash was waiting his turn. He could even find enjoyment in waiting. Sooner or later, in his own good time, at the artistically perfect moment, he meant to tread a measure with his Mona Lisa.’
“Thus spoke Dr. Sturgis, and last night Quintash trod his measure with his Mona Lisa. He had been received with acclamation, he had been presented with his gold medal. She, indifferent to him and confident in her own attractions, was stringing along a new lover. Imagine the moment if you can when Anthony Quintash placed in front of her, no doubt with a thousand ceremonious and courtly words, the head of her old lover, reduced to the compass of an eight-day clock. No wonder she pushed her plate away and upset the salt. How shall we explain her? Panic? Horror? Fear? Hatred? Wouldn’t that be the order? But she rememberes that accident seven years ago, and when Quintash is asleep, she stages it more effectively in the dead of the night.”
Graham Buckland rose to his feet.
“I am going home. The rest is for you.”
Inspector Grant knocked his pipe out against the firebars.
“Yes,” he said heavily. “The steel box is on the top of the bookshelf in the library? And I have the book of travels? And the name of the doctor at Farnham is Sturgis? Yes, I’ll take action. You’ll want a taxi?”
“Please!”
Inspector Grant came out on to the steps of his house with the surgeon, and hailed a passing taxi.
“Good night, Mr. Buckland.” He looked up and down the street with its vista of little villas lit and ensured by the rows of street-lamps linked as far as the eye could see.
“I’ve at times, Mr. Buckland,” he said, “felt an urge to see the world, but upon my word, there’s something to be said for the Brixton Road.”
MAGIC
MR. COLIN SAUNDRY, C.M.G., started out as usual upon his circuit through the Barotse country at the end of the rainy season. He went with his usual pleasure in a few months’ freedom from routine. But his pleasure was not shared by everyone in that forest-covered province. There were others besides malefactors who sighed with regret when they saw the first of his caravan and relief when they saw the last of it. Tall, lean, loose-limbed, with an odd, ugly monkey face and a voice which creaked like a rusty machine, he had a way of setting a lonely settlement rocketing with excitement. He was Commemoration Week, Eton and Harrow, Ascot, and a Court Ball all in one. To the wives he was romance and adventure and a whisper from old days. To the men he was an interference and a blatancy. He was too obviously The Great Big Noise, and too arrogantly explicit that nothing but his career must stand in the way of his pleasures.
On this occasion, however, he brought two guests along with him, a Major George Hardacre and Hardacre’s wife, Carmel. He had found them two days out from his Headquarters sitting disconsolately at a fruit farm which had never begun to be anything but a failure.
“We hadn’t enough capital or enough knowledge,” Hardacre had said, pulling moodily at his moustache. He was a retired cavalry officer of thirty-six years, heavy, vacuous, and just as unfitted for the work of a pioneer as a man could well be.
“And we hadn’t the resources in ourselves which might perhaps have made up for the want of other things,” Carmel added, gently enough; but there was a gleam in her eyes which Colin Saundry was quick to notice. Also, she was tall and slim and no more than twenty-eight years old, dark of hair and eyes, full-lipped and rather beautiful. To Colin Saundry a challenge. So he made his suggestion.
“You both ought to get away from here at once. You can’t see things in their proper proportion with the litter of a failure about you. If you come along with me, you’ll have the leisure to make your plans, and I shall be very glad of your company.”
They locked their door and came along. Colin Saundry was in no hurry. He was quite content to let the contrast between his easy efficiency and Hardacre’s moody helplessness loom up into something very large and important. He went about the work of administering his district, and for a week saw little of his companions until the day was done. In the end a night came when Hardacre maundered with more than his usual monotony.
“I can’t really forgive myself, you know. I didn’t play fair with Carmel. You can see that for yourself, Saundry. I got her to put her little bit of money into that farm with mine. It seemed the right sort of thing to do after the War. Try the new lands, eh? But I wasn’t the man for it.”
And suddenly Carmel rose up with a look of exasperation upon her face.
“Oh, what’s the use?” she cried.
They had been sitting in their camp-chairs about a big log-fire built in the open. Behind them were their sleeping-huts. A little way off, Saundry’s police and his servants were chattering about a fire of their own. Carmel took a few steps away from the fire and spoke again with her back towards them.
“Don’t let’s talk of it! We’ll only spoil this lovely night.”
Saundry got up quickly and joined her.
“I’ll show you something,” he said; and he led her across the grass and between the bushes to the foot of a little hill. As they climbed it a thunderous, muffled noise as of enormous engines revolving beneath the earth reached their ears and grew louder. On the top they halted, and Carmel drew in a deep breath, throwing her head back. Forest and open glade and scattered bush were spread out before them under a silver moon.
“It’s magical,” she said. “Listen!”
Far away in a stretch of forest a baboon mumbled and barked.
“It’s the country of magic,” Saundry returned. “Look!”
A long way off in the south-east above a hollow a white mist hung and swirled and changed its shape like a great canopy in a wind; and every now and then some corner of it flashed brightly as though the canopy disclosed an edge of glistening embroidery.
“The spray of the Victoria Falls,” he said.
For a little while they watched, held by the enchantment of the scene. Then suddenly Carmel cried:
“If he’d only turn on me once and tell me I was no more use to him than a wet rag, I’d love it. I don’t believe I’d mind if he smacked my face. But he’s on his knees — always. Oh!”
And he was on her nerves, Colin Saundry could have added. The devout, remorseful lover! Could there be in the world a person more exasperating to a young and beautiful woman in the ruin of her fortunes? What she wanted was courage, resolution, a definite plan to set things right. Instead she got a whine.
“How did it happen?” Colin Saundry asked.
“Our marriage?” said Carmel. She looked at her companion thoughtfully. She had no wish to belittle herself in his eyes by imitating her husband’s whine. On the other hand, she did not want him to think her an empty-headed fool who had been caught by the ancient glamour of a uniform. As they turned and walked back towards the camp she replied, choosing her words and watching her companion’s face.
“You must go back to the War, no doubt, to understand it,” she said. “I was eighteen. We were all easily carried away. The same sort of spirit brought us out here to Africa. A new Britain! A new world!”
She laughed half i
n scorn, half in regret, remembering those vanished enthusiasms, and then suddenly caught Saundry by the arm. They were half-way down the hill.
“Look!”
“I have been looking for some while,” Saundry answered in an odd voice.
“At George there by the fire?”
“At George before he went to the fire?”
Hardacre, his pipe in his mouth, was leaning forward in his camp-chair fiddling with the lighted boughs of the camp-fire, pushing one into the heart of the blaze, shifting another to one side, and all with such method that the little pyramid of flame and smoke might have been to him the most important thing in existence.
“Oh, can’t you do something, Colin?” she cried passionately, and looked at him. Saundry was standing very still at her side with his eyes upon her; and she was suddenly alarmed. She drew back, conscious of a shock. She repeated, rather to break the silence than to compel an answer:
“Can’t you do something?” — and this time she omitted the Colin.
“Yes,” he replied. “I can. This, as I told you, is the country of magic.”
And now she was almost sorry that she had put the question. As they returned to the fire, Hardacre took his pipe from his mouth.
“I say — you two! I’ve been thinking.”
“You have? Yes?”
There was a lively eagerness in Carmel’s voice. After all, then, he had been working out some plan whilst fiddling with the branches of the fire.
“I’ve been thinkin’ that since we’ve got to get a move on pretty early in the mornin’, it’s about time we did a little shut-eye, what?”
Carmel turned abruptly away, so that the look upon her face was hidden. Colin Saundry answered:
“There’s no hurry. We shan’t, after all, be starting until the afternoon. A little thing has happened to-day. I meant to have told you about it at dinner. But I forgot.”
He went at once across the clearing, and spoke to the head man of his police. It seemed that he too had not been warned of this change of plan. Carmel wondered, with a small stab of fear, whether Colin Saundry could have told them at dinner of the little thing which had happened; and whether it hadn’t happened within the last hour. She watched Saundry anxiously as he returned to the camp-fire.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 827