Among these phantasms, Death Bredon, driving his pen across reams of office foolscap, was a phantasm too, emerging from this nightmare toil to a still more fantastical existence amid people whose aspirations, rivalries and modes of thought were alien, and earnest beyond anything in his waking experience. Nor, when the Greenwich-driven clocks had jerked on to half-past five, had he any world of reality to which to return; for then the illusionary Mr. Bredon dislimned and became the still more illusionary Harlequin of a dope-addict's dream; an advertising figure more crude and fanciful than any that postured in the columns of the Morning Star; a thing bodiless and absurd, a mouthpiece of stale clichés shouting in dull ears without a brain. From this abominable impersonation he could not now free himself, since at the sound of his name or the sight of his unmasked face, all the doors in that other dream-city–the city of dreadful night–would be closed to him.
From one haunting disquietude, Dian de Momerie's moment of inexplicable insight had freed him. She no longer desired him. He thought she rather dreaded him; yet, at the note of the penny whistle she would come out and drive with him, hour after hour, in the great black Daimler, till night turned to daybreak. He sometimes wondered whether she believed in his existence at all; she treated him as though he were some hateful but fascinating figure in a hashish-vision. His fear now was that her unbalanced fancy might topple her over the edge of suicide. She asked him once what he was and what he wanted, and he told her stark truth, so far as it went.
“I am here because Victor Dean died. When the world knows how he died, I shall go back to the place from which I came.”
“To the place from which you came. I've heard that said before, but I can't remember where.”
“If you ever heard a man condemned to death, then you heard it said then.”
“My God, yes! That was it. I went to a murder trial once. There was a horrible old man, the Judge–I forget his name. He was like a wicked old scarlet parrot, and he said it as though he liked it. 'And may the Lord have mercy upon your soul.' Do we have souls, Harlequin, or is that all nonsense? It is nonsense, isn't it?”
“So far as you are concerned, it probably is.”
“But what have I got to do with Victor's death?”
“Nothing, I hope. But you ought to know.”
“Of course I had nothing to do with it.”
And indeed, she might not have. This was the most phantasmal part of the illusion–the border where day-dream and night-dream marched together in an eternal twilight. The man had been murdered–of that he was now certain; but what hand had struck the blow and why was still beyond all guessing. Bredon's instinct told him to hold fast to Dian de Momerie. She was the guardian of the shadow-frontier; through her, Victor Dean, surely the most prosaic denizen of the garish city of daylight, had stepped into the place of bright flares and black abysses, whose ministers are drink and drugs and its monarch death. But question her as he might, he could get no help from her. She had told him one thing only, and over and over again he pondered it, wondering how it fitted into the plot. Milligan, the sinister Milligan, knew something about Pym's, or somebody who worked at Pym's. He had known of this before he met Dean, for he had said on meeting him: “So you're the chap, are you?” What connection was there? What had Dean, at Pym's, had to do with Milligan, before Milligan knew him? Was it merely that Dian had boasted, laughing, of having a lover from that respectable agency? Had Victor Dean died merely because of Dian's fancy for him?
Wimsey could not believe it; the fancy had died first, and the death of Dean was, after that, surely superfluous. Besides, when they of the city of night slay for passion's sake, they lay no elaborate schemes, wipe off no finger-prints and hold no discreet tongues before or after. Brawls and revolver-shots, with loud sobs and maudlin remorse, are the signs and tokens of fatal passion among leaders of the bright life.
One other piece of information Dian had indeed given him, but at that moment he could not interpret it, and was not even aware that he held it. He could only wait, like a cat at a mouse-hole, till something popped out that he could run after. And so he passed his nights very wearily, driving the car and playing upon a penny whistle, and snatching his sleep in the small hours, before taking up the daily grind at Pym's.
Wimsey was quite right about Dian de Momerie's feeling for him. He excited her and frightened her, and, on the whole, she got a sensation of rather titillating horror at the sound of the penny whistle. But the real reason of her anxiety to propitiate him was founded on a coincidence that he could not have known and that she did not tell him.
On the day after their first encounter, Dian had backed an outsider called Acrobat, and it had come in at 50 to 1. Three days after the adventure in the woods, she had backed another outsider called Harlequin, each way, and it had come in second at 100 to 1. Thereafter, she had entertained no doubt whatever that he was a powerful and heaven-sent mascot. The day after a meeting with him was her lucky day, and it was a fact that on those days she usually succeeded in winning money in one way or another. Horses, after those first two brilliant coups, had been rather disappointing, but her fortune with cards had been good. How much of this good fortune had been due to sheer self-confidence and the will to win, only a psychologist could say; the winnings were there, and she had no doubt at all about the reason for them. She did not tell him that he was a mascot, from a superstitious feeling that to do so would be to break the luck, but she had been to a crystal-gazer, who, reading her mind like a book, had encouraged her in the belief that a mysterious stranger would bring her good fortune.
Major Milligan, sprawling upon the couch in Dian's flat with a whisky-and-soda, turned on her a pair of rather bilious eyes. He was a large, saturnine man, blank as to morals but comparatively sober in his habits, as people must be who make money out of other people's vices.
“Ever see anything of that Dean girl nowadays, Dian?”
“No, darling,” said Dian, absently. She was getting rather tired of Milligan, and would have liked to break with him, if only he had not been so useful, and if she had not known too much to make a break-away healthy.
“Well, I wish you would.”
“Oh, why? She's one of Nature's worst bores, darling.”
“I want to know if she knows anything about that place where Dean used to work.”
“The advertising place? But, Tod, how too yawn-making. Why do you want to know about advertising?”
“Oh, never mind why. I was on to something rather useful there, that's all.”
“Oh!” Dian considered. This, she thought, was interesting. Something to be made out of this, perhaps. “I'll give her a ring if you like. But she's about as wet as a drowned eel. What do you want to know?”
“That's my business.”
“Tod, I've often wanted to ask you. Why did you say I'd got to chuck Victor? Not that I cared about him, the poor fish, but I just wondered, especially after you'd told me to string him along.”
“Because,” replied Major Milligan, “the young what-not was trying to double-cross me.”
“Good heavens, Tod–you ought to go on the talkies as Dog-faced Dick the Dope-King of the Underworld. Talk sense, darling.”
“That's all very well, my girl, but your little Victor was getting to be a nuisance. Somebody had been talking to him–probably you.”
“Me? that's good! There wasn't anything I could tell him. You never tell me anything, Tod.”
“No–I've got some sense left.”
“How rude you are, darling. Well, you see, I couldn't have split to Victor. Did you bump Victor off, Tod?”
“Who says he was bumped off?”
“A little bird told me.”
“Is that your friend in the black and white checks?”
Dian hesitated. In an expansive and not very sober moment, she had told Tod about her adventure in the woods, and now rather wished she had not. Milligan took her silence for consent and went on:
“Who is that fellow, Dian?”<
br />
“Haven't the foggiest.”
“What's he want?”
“He doesn't want me, at any rate,” said Dian. “Isn't that humiliating, Tod?”
“It must be.” Milligan grinned. “But what's the big idea?”
“I think he's on Victor's lay, whatever that was. He said he wouldn't be here if Victor hadn't popped off. Too thrilling, don't you think?”
“Um,” said Milligan. “I think I'd like to meet this friend of yours. When's he likely to turn up?”
“Damned if I know. He just arrives. I don't think I'd have anything to do with him, Tod, if I were you. He's dangerous–queer, somehow. I've got a hunch about him.”
“Your brain's going to mush, sweetest,” said Milligan, “and he's trading on it, that's all.”
“Oh, well,” said Dian, “he amuses me, and you don't any more. You're getting to be a bit feeding, Tod.” She yawned and trailed over to the looking-glass, where she inspected her face narrowly. “I think I'll give up dope, Tod. I'm getting puffy under the eyes. Do you think it would be amusing to go all good?”
“About as amusing as a Quaker meeting. Has your friend been trying to reform you? That's damn good.”
“Reform me, nothing. But I'm looking horribly hag-like tonight. Oh, hell! what's the odds, anyway? Let's do something.”
“All right. Come on round to Slinker's. He's throwing a party.”
“I'm sick of Slinker's parties. I say, Tod, let's go and gate-crash something really virtuous. Who's the stickiest old cat in London that's got anything on?”
“Dunno.”
“Tell you what. We'll scoop up Slinker's party and go round and look for striped awnings, and crash the first thing we see.”
“Right-ho! I'm on.”
Half an hour later, a noisy gang, squashed into five cars and a taxi, were whooping through the quieter squares of the West End. Even today, a few strongholds of the grimly aristocratic are left in Mayfair, and Dian, leaning from the open window of the leading car, presently gave tongue before a tall, old-fashioned house, whose entrance was adorned with a striped awning, a crimson carpet and an array of hothouse plants in tubs upon the steps.
“Whoopee! Hit it up, boys! Here's something! Whose is it?”
“My God!” said Slinker Braithwaite. “We've hit the bull, all right. It's Denver's place.”
“You won't get in there,” said Milligan. “The Duchess of Denver is heaven's prize frozen-face. Look at the chucker-out in the doorway. Better try something easier.”
“Easier be damned. We said the first we came to, and this is the first. No ratting, darlings.”
“Well, look here,” said Milligan, “we'd better try the back entrance. There's a gate into the garden round the other side, opening on the car-park. We've more chance there.”
From the other side, the assault turned out to be easy enough. The cars were parked in a back street, and on approaching the garden gate, they found it wide open, displaying a marquee, in which supper was being held. A bunch of guests came out just as they arrived, while, almost on their heels, two large cars drove up and disgorged a large party of people.
“Blow being announced,” said an immaculate person, “we'll just barge right in and dodge the Ambassadors.”
“Freddy, you can't.”
“Can't I? You watch me.” Freddy tucked his partner's arm firmly under his own and marched with determination up to the gate. “We're certain to barge into old Peter or somebody in the garden.”
Dian nipped Milligan's arm, and the pair of them fell in behind the new arrivals. The gate was passed–but a footman just inside presented an unexpected obstacle.
“Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Arbuthnot,” said the immaculate gentleman. “And party,” he added, waving a vague hand behind him.
“Well, we're in, anyhow,” exulted Dian.
Helen, Duchess of Denver, looked round with satisfaction upon her party. It was all going very nicely indeed. The Ambassador and his wife had expressed delight at the quality of the wine. The band was good, the refreshments more than adequate. A tone of mellow decorum pervaded the atmosphere. Her own dress, she thought, became her, although her mother-in-law, the Dowager Duchess, had said something rather acid about her spine. But then, the Dowager was always a little tiresome and incalculable. One must be fashionable, though one would not, of course, be vulgarly immodest. Helen considered that she was showing the exact number of vertebrae that the occasion demanded. One less would be incorrect; one more would be over-modern. She thanked Providence that at forty-five she still kept her figure–as indeed, she did, having been remarkably flat on both aspects the whole of her life.
She was just raising a well-earned glass of champagne to her lips when she paused, and set it down again. Something was wrong. She glanced hurriedly round for her husband. He was not there, but a few paces off an elegant black back and smooth, straw-coloured head of hair announced the presence of her brother-in-law, Wimsey. Hastily excusing herself to Lady Mendip, with whom she had been discussing the latest enormities of the Government, she edged her way through the crowd and caught Wimsey's arm.
“Peter! Look over there. Who are those people?”
Wimsey turned and stared in the direction pointed by the Duchess' fan.
“Good God, Helen! You've caught a pair of ripe ones this time! That's the de Momerie girl and her tame dope-merchant.”
The Duchess shuddered.
“How horrible! Disgusting woman! How in the world did they get in?...Do you know them?”
“Not officially, no.”
“Thank goodness! I was afraid you'd let them in. I never know what you're going to do next; you know so many impossible people.”
“Not guilty this time, Helen.”
“Ask Bracket how he came to let them in.”
“I fly,” said Wimsey, “to obey your behest.”
He finished the drink he had in his hand, and set off in a leisurely manner in pursuit of the footman. Presently he returned.
“Bracket says they came with Freddy Arbuthnot.”
“Find Freddy.”
The Hon. Freddy Arbuthnot, when found, denied all knowledge of the intruders. “But there was a bit of a scrum at the gate, you know,” he admitted, ingenuously, “and I daresay they barged in with the crowd. The de Momerie girl, eh, what? Where is she? I must have a look at her. Hot stuff and all that, what?”
“You will do nothing of the sort, Freddy. Where in the world is Gerald? Not here. He never is when he's wanted. You'll have to go and turn them out, Peter.”
Wimsey, who had had time for a careful calculation, asked nothing better.
“I will turn them out,” he announced, “like one John Smith. Where are they?”
The Duchess, who had kept a glassy eye upon them, waved a stern hand in the direction of the terrace. Wimsey ambled off amiably.
“Forgive me, dear Lady Mendip,” said the Duchess, returning to her guest. “I had a little commission to give to my brother-in-law.”
Up the dimly-lit terrace steps went Wimsey. The shadow of a tall pillar-rose fell across his face and chequered his white shirt-front with dancing black; and as he went he whistled softly: “Tom, Tom, the piper's son.”
Dian de Momerie clutched Milligan's arm as she turned.
Wimsey stopped whistling.
“Er–good evening,” he said, “excuse me. Miss de Momerie, I think.”
“Harlequin!” cried Dian.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Harlequin. So here you are. I've got you this time. And I'm going to see your face properly if I die for it.”
“I'm afraid there is some mistake,” said Wimsey.
Milligan thought it time to interfere.
“Ah!” said he, “the mysterious stranger. I think it's time you and I had a word, young man. May I ask why you have been tagging round after this lady in a mountebank get-up?”
“I fear,” said Wimsey, more elaborately, “that you are labouring under a misapprehension,
sir, whoever you are. I have been dispatched by the Duchess on a–forgive me–somewhat distasteful errand. She regrets that she has not the honour of this lady's acquaintance, nor, sir, of yours, and wishes me to ask you by whose invitation you are here.”
Dian laughed, rather noisily.
“You do it marvellously, darling,” she said. “We gate-crashed on the dear old bird–same as you did, I expect.”
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