The Case of the Crumpled Knave

by Anthony Boucher

  Camilla refused to take the rebuke seriously. “Why, Mr. Willowe, I’ve only been telling you the most respectable aspects of my Long and Varied Career. Now if I told you about that place on the east side, you could really be shocked. Lawrence always used to call it the Swan, because it was such a wide-open dive.”

  Fergus pounced on the unexplained detail. “Lawrence?”

  The dark girl seemed surprised by herself. “It’s your own fault, Kay. You shouldn’t have served wine. Whiskey, yes—even gin; but wine makes me talk. All right then, since I’ve said that much anyway: Lawrence Massey.”

  Rand sat up even straighter than usual. “Lawrence Massey! But my dear young lady, that is—”

  “Yes. I know. Richard Vinton.”

  Dinner had stopped for the moment. All those at the table looked at the girl in amazement—all save Maurice Warriner, who was evidently quite unable to appreciate the danger of Camilla’s conversational bomb.

  “Don’t start asking questions,” Camilla went on. “There isn’t anything to tell. His Dread Past used to be a secret, but it’s in all the papers this afternoon.”

  “You knew then about old Vantage and the Cunarder—about the knave of diamonds?”

  “Yes. That was always one of his favorite stories. It was strange, too, Colonel Rand—hearing your name that way.”

  “My name?” Rand was puzzled. “But how could that—”

  “I mean, when I heard Kay talk so much about you later. I kept wondering what would happen when you came out here and recognized him. Of course, you mightn’t have at that; people don’t always.”

  “How well did you know him?” from Fergus.

  Camilla fingered her wineglass. “I used to see him around. He was on very good terms with my roommate. She wasn’t always home when he called. That’s all.”

  “I know,” Kay said quietly. “He—he told me all about it.”

  “Did he indeed?” Camilla smiled. “And that is very odd, you see, because he never recognized me.”

  Kay bit her lip. Colonel Rand gently touched her hand under the table. He understood. One has one’s pride.

  “But how could that be?” Fergus was asking. “I shouldn’t think you’d be easy to forget.”

  “It was years ago, remember. For one thing, I was a blonde then. For another—well, I was young. That makes a difference.”

  Rand could see a gallantly Irish speech forming on Fergus’s lips; but professional interest took its place. “Was this what you wanted to tell us?”

  Camilla, however, clearly felt that she had said too much already. “Was it what you wanted to know?” she countered lightly, and fell silent.

  But with Arthur Willowe the account of her shocking past still rankled. “My dear Kay,” he began to protest, “that your father should have exposed you to this—”

  “Tush,” Warriner interposed. He had been observing the scene closely with impersonal amusement. “Let us say that she has committed—whatever she may have committed. But that was in another country; and besides, the wench is dead.”

  “I’m not sure,” Camilla murmured thoughtfully, “that I like that crack.”

  XII

  Colonel Rand Is Not a Gentleman

  Colonel rand found the hours after dinner unsatisfactory. Kay, exhausted and nervous, apologized to the company and went off to rest. The Sallice girl vanished without even an apology. The five men, honoring the family tradition even on this night, retired to the study.

  There Fergus began questioning Maurice Warriner on technical aspects of playing cards in general and particularly of the famous Garnett collection; and Rand, deciding that he could trust Fergus to separate the wheat from the chaff in all these learned details, engaged Will Harding in a game of chess. Arthur Willowe, of course, sat in a corner and played solitaire. He had visibly aged even since that morning, Rand thought; his pale hands trembled and were hardly able to lay out the cards.

  Despite the painful scene at dinner, Harding was in top form. He displayed what seemed to Rand a truly exceptional chess mind for a young man. It was small wonder that Garnett had kept him on, even aside from his probable value as an assistant. Where in other matters, save for his fanatically enthusiastic pacifism, he was dry and retiring, as a chess opponent he inevitably commanded your attention and respect. It was only with great difficulty that Rand, himself an excellent player, managed at last to force a stalemate.

  He looked up from his absorption to see Fergus standing over the table.

  “Didn’t want to break up the game,” the young detective said. “But Warriner’s gone—said he had an appointment some place—and I’ve got to keep myself busy. So now, Harding, if you’d like to go over those notes with me and see what you can make of them—”

  Harding was once more the dully efficient assistant. “Glad to, O’Breen.”

  “Want to listen in, Colonel?”

  But again Rand decided that he would rather have a concise digest later. A cigar in the cool evening would do him more good now. The other two turned to the desk, only to find it already occupied. Unnoticed as always, Arthur Willowe had abandoned his solitaire and settled himself to write something on note paper.

  He rose as the young men approached him. “The desk is yours, gentlemen. I have finished.”

  Rand, leaving the room, detected a harshly definite note in the old man’s voice which disquieted him.

  The hills proved as admirable for walking as he had hoped. You had all the beauty of the city’s distant lights without the overpowering proximity of its noises. There was moonlight and a fresh breeze. A younger man might have become sentimental; to Rand it was simply a perfect night for exercise both of body and of mind.

  A Watson, he reflected stolidly, is always supposed to have his own ideas on a case, if only so that the dazzling detective may refute them. So, as he strolled and smoked in the sweet of the night, he went over the possibilities carefully.

  Opportunity, so far as was known, included the entire household. Motive was a more narrowing question. Vinton, of course—but for Kay’s sake he must he eliminated. Kay herself—obviously absurd, despite the inheritance. Miss Sallice—he admitted that he was not wholly convinced of the innocence of her relations with. Garnett. But what had she to gain by his death? Unless perhaps a codicil to the old will … And then too, what was this possibility which she had almost mentioned to O’Breen? Yes, assuredly the dark girl was, in some as yet unexplained fashion, a significant factor in the case.

  To Will Harding, he resumed his chain of thought, Garnett’s death meant only the loss of a good job. To Arthur Willowe—Rand paused. Ten thousand dollars would mean a great deal of independence—perhaps the first that he had ever known. And if he feared Garnett so much …

  No, there were still too many questions to answer. You couldn’t be sure yet; you couldn’t lay your finger on one point out of so many and say, “There. That’s vital.” He frankly admitted to himself that he had no idea what Fergus’ two definite possibilities were, nor why they should preclude another murder.

  Reluctantly, the Colonel gave up his dutiful puzzling and turned back toward the house. The paths along which he passed had been deserted; long strolls in the hills are not popular in a city so overequipped with automobiles. But now he saw a figure ahead of him on the sidewalk—a tall, exasperatingly familiar figure. Rand quickened his already rapid stride.

  The figure turned as the Colonel came abreast of it, and revealed the aged gentility of Maurice Warriner.

  “Good evening, Colonel Rand,” he smiled. “You too seek the beauties of the evening air?”

  “It seems to be good for you, Warriner. I didn’t recognize you from behind; you were holding yourself with such a firm carriage.” But even as the Colonel spoke, Warriner’s shoulders were sinking into their habitual hump. “Cigar?” Rand produced his case.

  “Thank you, no. Even my vices are, I fear, archaic. Tobacco seems flat beside the sharp stimulation of snuff.”

  The tw
o old men strolled for a moment in silence. “I thought you had an engagement this evening,” Rand ventured.

  “To be sure, sir. So I did. But my evening in the Garnett household has perturbed me strangely.

  There’s gunpowder i’ the court—wildfire at midnight.

  I wished to think a bit. I take it that that is why you too sought the consolation of evening?”

  “Frankly, Warriner, yes.”

  “And what, Colonel, have you concluded?”

  “I have concluded, sir, that there is damn-all to conclude. We have no facts, and far too many half facts. We must grope half-seeing; and despite the proverb, the one-eyed man has far less chance than the blind of arriving at the truth.”

  “Perhaps you underestimate yourself, Colonel. If I may permit myself to paraphrase:

  Truth is a creature of so strange a mien That oft revealed, she yet remains unseen.”

  “Well, sir, have your thoughts been more profitable?”

  The curator slowed his pace. “I realize, Colonel, that I spoke out of turn at dinner. But I have known something of scientists and other research workers. As that earnest young man spoke so intently on such a trivial point, I suddenly understood a possible motive which the police, I fear, would not consider. I should not have spoken then; I see that now. But the more I think of this affair, the more that motivation seems plausible to me.”

  “Nonsense, sir. Harding’s a fine young man. A bit dull, perhaps, but devoted to Garnett and his work.”

  “No devotion in mankind is stronger than devotion to glory. Self-preservation, it has been said, is the first law of nature; but one’s self must be preserved immortally in the intoxicating alcohol of fame. Every man alive longs to be alone in splendor above the rest and ride in triumph through Persepolis.”

  The allusion escaped Rand. “Persepolis?”

  “Surely you recall the great conqueror Tamburlaine speaking to his lieutenants in a moment of glory:

  Is it not brave to be a king, Techelles?

  Usumcasane and Theridamas,

  Is it not passing brave to be a king,

  And ride in triumph through Persepolis?

  Tamburlaine helped Cosroe to attain fame and empery; then, inevitably, he brought about his master’s death and supplanted him. Even so with Harding and Garnett.”

  Rand thought a bit. “It’s no case for a jury,” he said practically.

  “No. That much I grant you. The frenzy of Marlovian verse would hardly make the case clearer to twelve good men and true. I beg your pardon, Colonel, for intruding my imagination on your practicality; and I give you a very good night. I shall try to keep my belated appointment.”

  But a thought had suddenly crossed Rand’s mind. “Just a minute before you go, sir. I have never paid much attention to playing cards; but I have just thought of something that interests me as a military man. Perhaps you would help me?”

  “Gladly, sir.” Warriner stood impatiently.

  “The playing cards which were manufactured for the Confederate States of America—that is, cards with the Confederate flag on them—are they of value?”

  “Decidedly. There were not many of them manufactured, and most of those have been lost or destroyed. Emphatically, they are collector’s items. But why—?”

  “I believe that I have some among my various war trophies. My specialty, of course, is firearms; but I own a few other relics. All this talk about cards made me wonder.”

  “When you return to your home, sir, do me the favor of sending me a description. I shall be glad to tell you what I can about them. And now I must bid you good night. Remember Persepolis.”

  The tall, gaunt figure vanished in the evening. A brief sneeze sounded faintly as his steps died away.

  Even as Warriner had observed, Colonel Rand was essentially a practical man; but he found even his practicality sorely bothered by the plausibility of the curator’s reasoning. He remembered that one black moment in his military career when he had been passed over for promotion. Yes, a man might well commit murder to ride in triumph through that strange name.

  Rand shrugged and went on toward the house.

  As he drew near, he heard voices on the sun porch. Now eavesdropping should be the last act of a gentleman and an officer, retired or not; but he came closer because one of the voices was strange. He could not help thinking of their dire need for an outsider; and the voice of a stranger talking with Kay was too great a temptation.

  “… since before you ever met him,” the voice was saying. “You’ve known that, I’m afraid, even though I’ve tried so hard to hide it.”

  “Yes,” Kay answered softly. “I’ve known. And I haven’t been very happy about it.”

  “When your happiness is all that I have ever wanted. Kay, my dear, I wouldn’t have spoken even now. Perhaps it isn’t fair. But we can’t be sure about—about all this. For your sake, I hope he is innocent; but even if he is, that doesn’t mean for certain that he’ll go scot free. They may make out a case against him anyway. And I want you to know that—well, that I’m here. For anything you want.”

  “That’s sweet of you.” Her voice was clouded a little. “But why did you have to wait so long? If you’d said a little word even a year ago… But it’s silly to think about that now. All—all this has only made me stronger. You see, my dear, I’m so much more to him now. And I love him very much.”

  The strange man’s voice was humble and broken. “I shouldn’t have said a word. But I couldn’t—Oh, well.” He seemed to regain his control. “We’ll get him off somehow.”

  Colonel Rand swore silently. Stranger’s voice, indeed! He recognized it now—Will Harding’s. It was only that emotional stress had so far distorted it from its natural quiet precision. Rand mentally gave himself a severe and well-aimed kick. Eavesdropping on this poor young man, hopelessly confessing his love for Kay! And who wouldn’t love her—Alicia’s daughter?

  The Colonel lit a fresh cigar, gave an especially loud “harrumph,” and joined the couple on the sun porch.

  Under the circumstances, conversation was forced and awkward. The group broke up with inevitable promptness. Harding retired to the study, to resume his work with Fergus; and Kay and Rand walked slowly upstairs to their respective bedrooms.

  She was near tears as she kissed the old man good night. “Last night,” she murmured, “I was saying good night to Father, and now … But at least you’re here, Uncle Teddy; I can hold on to you. Don’t leave me, please. Don’t ever leave me.”

  Deeply touched, Rand retired to the room which had been assigned to him. But his involuntary eavesdropping, despite the hell it played with his gentlemanly conscience, was not over for the night. As he started down the hall to the bathroom, vested in the crimson tailored dressing gown which was the one flamboyant touch in his otherwise severe taste, he saw Camilla Sallice tapping on the door of one of the bedrooms.

  He was still unfamiliar with the house. He could not be sure whose room that was, save that it was not the one he had just seen Kay enter. But as he reclined in a warm tub and lathered himself richly, he worried over the small problem. Then the answer hit him: That was the only one of the bedrooms, aside from his own, which he had entered that day. Besides, Fergus and Harding were presumably still in the study. Yes, by due process of elimination, the Sallice girl was paying a secret visit to Arthur Willowe. Though secret, he reminded himself, was a somewhat unfair word. There had been nothing surreptitious about her manner.

  Nonetheless, he took a long time over his tub. It was a disconcerting little episode, in view of the marked hostility which Willowe had been displaying toward the girl. At last he left the bathroom, turning out the light, only to retire at once into the shelter of the dark doorway. Camilla Sallice was leaving the bedroom which she had entered.

  The hall made a good sounding box. “Thank you, my dear,” Rand could overhear—and there was no mistaking Arthur Willowe’s thin voice. “You have made me very happy indeed—changed, perhaps, the cours
e of my life. And now that I know your secret, it may be that I should tell you my own. Yes, Camilla, I will tell you.” There was a curious mixture of pride and shame in the voice. “I am Hector Prynne.”

  “No!” Her rich voice was incredulous. “You? How fantastic!” She laughed deep in her throat—the happiest laugh which Rand had yet heard from her.

  “There! Now we’re even, aren’t we?” And Arthur Willowe kissed the dark girl long and tenderly.

  XIII

  Colonel Rand Hears Things Go Bump in the Night

  It was a very confused dream. There was something about a banshee in a yellow polo shirt and a knave of diamonds which stole a pieman (Rand was later ashamed to recollect that his subconscious mind could rhyme so outrageously) and a man who hung from a gallows by one foot and gestured Heil Hitler! with the other. Then the banshee and the pieman, who had by now found a yellow polo shirt of his own (with meringue on it), decided that the Colonel should be hanged too. So they took a long rope twisted out of strands of dry ice and tied it around his right foot. He didn’t like it very much, but they kept pulling him on up. The blood rushed to his head in purple torrents, and his foot began to freeze off, chipping a little at the edges. The knave of diamonds held his Welsh hook in his right hand and began thumping things with it. As the Colonel’s foot touched the iron top of the gallows, the knave’s hook shattered a glass of Scotch and plain acid, no ice.

  At this point the Colonel awoke. His right foot jutted chilly out of the covers and pressed against the metal frame of the bed. His head lolled over the edge, and blood tingled in it. He adjusted himself more comfortably and grinned. Nightmares were the just punishment of those who were too long to fit easily into an ordinary guest bed.

  But his amused grin began to fade. Slowly he was growing aware that this had not all been part of a dream. That shock of broken glass still rang in his waking ears. And there came a faint distant bumping sound which could no longer be attributed to a malicious knave of diamonds wildly brandishing a Welsh hook.