The Secret of Chimneys

by Agatha Christie

  “How many of them are there?” he asked, taking a firmer grip of his poker.

  “I couldn’t see properly. You know what a keyhole is. And they only had a flashlight.”

  “I expect they’ve gone by now,” said Bill hopefully.

  He sat on the bottom stair and drew off his boots. Then, holding them in his hand, he crept along the passage that led to the Council Chamber, Virginia close behind him. They halted outside the massive oak door. All was silent within, but suddenly Virginia pressed his arm, and he nodded. A bright light had shown for a minute through the keyhole.

  Bill went down on his knees, and applied his eye to the orifice. What he saw was confusing in the extreme. The scene of the drama that was being enacted inside was evidently just to the left, out of his line of vision. A subdued chink every now and then seemed to point to the fact that the invaders were still dealing with the figure in armour. There were two of these, Bill remembered. They stood together by the wall just under the Holbein portrait. The light of the electric torch was evidently being directed upon the operations in progress. It left the rest of the room nearly in darkness. Once a figure flitted across Bill’s line of vision, but there was not sufficient light to distinguish anything about it. It might have been that of a man or a woman. In a minute or two it flitted back again and then the subdued chinking sounded again. Presently there came a new sound, a faint tap-tap as of knuckles on wood.

  Bill sat back on his heels suddenly.

  “What is it?” whispered Virginia.

  “Nothing. It’s no good going on like this. We can’t see anything, and we can’t guess what they’re up to. I must go in and tackle them.”

  He drew on his boots and stood up.

  “Now, Virginia, listen to me. We’ll open the door as softly as possible. You know where the switch of the electric light is?”

  “Yes, just by the door.”

  “I don’t think there are more than two of them. There may be only one. I want to get well into the room. Then, when I say ‘Go’ I want you to switch on the lights. Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “And don’t scream or faint or anything. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

  “My hero!” murmured Virginia.

  Bill peered at her suspiciously through the darkness. He heard a faint sound which might have been either a sob or a laugh. Then he grasped the poker firmly and rose to his feet. He felt that he was fully alive to the situation.

  Very softly, he turned the handle of the door. It yielded and swung gently inwards. Bill felt Virginia close beside him. Together they moved noiselessly into the room.

  At the farther end of the room, the torch was playing upon the Holbein picture. Silhouetted against it was the figure of a man, standing on a chair and gently tapping on the panelling. His back, of course, was to them, and he merely loomed up as a monstrous shadow.

  What more they might have seen cannot be told, for at that moment Bill’s nails squeaked upon the parquet floor. The man swung round, directing the powerful torch full upon them and almost dazzling them with the sudden glare.

  Bill did not hesitate.

  “Go,” he roared to Virginia, and sprang for his man, as she obediently pressed down the switch of the electric lights.

  The big chandelier should have been flooded with light; but instead, all that happened was the click of the switch. The room remained in darkness.

  Virginia heard Bill curse freely. The next minute the air was filled with panting, scuffling sounds. The torch had fallen to the ground and extinguished itself in the fall. There was the sound of a desperate struggle going on in the darkness, but as to who was getting the better of it, and indeed as to who was taking part in it, Virginia had no idea. Had there been anyone else in the room besides the man who was tapping the panelling? There might have been. Their glimpse had been only a momentary one.

  Virginia felt paralysed. She hardly knew what to do. She dared not try to join in the struggle. To do so might hamper and not aid Bill. Her one idea was to stay in the doorway, so that anyone trying to escape should not leave the room that way. At the same time, she disobeyed Bill’s express instructions and screamed loudly and repeatedly for help.

  She heard doors opening upstairs, and a sudden gleam of light from the hall and the big staircase. If only Bill could hold his man until help came.

  But at that minute there was a final terrific upheaval. They must have crashed into one of the figures in armour, for it fell to the ground with a deafening noise. Virginia saw dimly a figure springing for the window, and at the same time heard Bill cursing and disengaging himself from fragments of armour.

  For the first time, she left her post, and rushed wildly for the figure at the window. But the window was already unlatched. The intruder had no need to stop and fumble for it. He sprang out and raced away down the terrace and round the corner of the house. Virginia raced after him. She was young and athletic, and she turned the corner of the terrace not many seconds after her quarry.

  But there she ran headlong into the arms of a man who was emerging from a small side door. It was Mr. Hiram P. Fish.

  “Gee! It’s a lady,” he exclaimed. “Why, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Revel. I took you for one of the thugs fleeing from justice.”

  “He’s just passed this way,” cried Virginia breathlessly. “Can’t we catch him?”

  But even as she spoke, she knew it was too late. The man must have gained the park by now, and it was a dark night with no moon. She retraced her steps to the Council Chamber, Mr. Fish by her side, discoursing in a soothing monotone upon the habits of burglars in general, of which he seemed to have a wide experience.

  Lord Caterham, Bundle and various frightened servants were standing in the doorway of the Council Chamber.

  “What the devil’s the matter?” asked Bundle. “Is it burglars? What are you and Mr. Fish doing, Virginia? Taking a midnight stroll?”

  Virginia explained the events of the evening.

  “How frightfully exciting,” commented Bundle. “You don’t usually get a murder and a burglary crowded into one weekend. What’s the matter with the lights in here? They’re all right everywhere else.”

  That mystery was soon explained. The bulbs had simply been removed and laid in a row against the wall. Mounted on a pair of steps, the dignified Tredwell, dignified even in undress, restored illumination to the stricken apartment.

  “If I am not mistaken,” said Lord Caterham in his sad voice as he looked around him, “this room has recently been the centre of somewhat violent activity.”

  There was some justice in the remark. Everything that could have been knocked over had been kocked over. The floor was littered with splintered chairs, broken china, and fragments of armour.

  “How many of them were there?” asked Bundle. “It seems to have been a desperate fight.”

  “Only one, I think,” said Virginia. But, even as she spoke she hesitated a little. Certainly only one person—a man—had passed out through the window. But as she had rushed after him, she had a vague impression of a rustle somewhere close at hand. If so, the second occupant of the room could have escaped through the door. Perhaps, though, the rustle had been an effect of her own imagination.

  Bill appeared suddenly at the window. He was out of breath and panting hard.

  “Damn the fellow!” he exclaimed wrathfully. “He’s escaped. I’ve been hunting all over the place. Not a sign of him.”

  “Cheer up, Bill,” said Virginia, “better luck next time.”

  “Well,” said Lord Caterham, “what do you think we’d better do now? Go back to bed? I can’t get hold of Badgworthy at this time of night. Tredwell, you know the sort of thing that’s necessary. Just see to it, will you?”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  With a sigh of relief, Lord Caterham prepared to retreat.

  “That beggar, Isaacstein, sleeps soundly,” he remarked, with a touch of envy. “You’d have thought all this row would have br
ought him down.” He looked across at Mr. Fish. “You found time to dress, I see,” he added.

  “I flung on a few articles of clothing, yes,” admitted the American.

  “Very sensible of you,” said Lord Caterham. “Damned chilly things, pyjamas.”

  He yawned. In a rather depressed mood, the house party retired to bed.

  Eighteen

  SECOND MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE

  The first person that Anthony saw as he alighted from his train on the following afternoon was Superintendent Battle. His face broke into a smile.

  “I’ve returned according to contract,” he remarked. “Did you come down here to assure yourself of the fact?”

  Battle shook his head.

  “I wasn’t worrying about that, Mr. Cade. I happen to be going to London, that’s all.”

  “You have such a trustful nature, Battle.”

  “Do you think so, sir?”

  “No. I think you’re deep—very deep. Still waters, you know, and all that sort of thing. So you’re going to London?”

  “I am, Mr. Cade.”

  “I wonder why.”

  The detective did not reply.

  “You’re so chatty,” remarked Anthony. “That’s what I like about you.”

  A far-off twinkle showed in Battle’s eyes.

  “What about your own little job, Mr. Cade?” he inquired. “How did that go off?”

  “I’ve drawn blank, Battle. For the second time I’ve been proved hopelessly wrong. Galling, isn’t it?”

  “What was the idea, sir, if I may ask?”

  “I suspected the French governess, Battle. A: upon the grounds of her being the most unlikely person, according to the canons of the best fiction. B: because there was a light in her room on the night of the tragedy.”

  “That wasn’t much to go upon.”

  “You are quite right. It was not. But I discovered that she had only been here a short time, and I also found a suspicious Frenchman spying round the place. You know all about him, I suppose?”

  “You mean the man who calls himself, M. Chelles? Staying at the Cricketers? A traveller in silk.”

  “That’s it, is it? What about him? What does Scotland Yard think?”

  “His actions have been suspicious,” said Superintendent Battle expressionlessly.

  “Very suspicious, I should say. Well, I put two and two together. French governess in the house, French stranger outside. I decided that they were in league together, and I hurried off to interview the lady with whom Mademoiselle Brun had lived for the last ten years. I was fully prepared to find that she had never heard of any such person as Mademoiselle Brun, but I was wrong, Battle. Mademoiselle is the genuine article.”

  Battle nodded.

  “I must admit,” said Anthony, “that as soon as I spoke to her I had an uneasy conviction that I was barking up the wrong tree. She seemed so absolutely the governess.”

  Again Battle nodded.

  “All the same, Mr. Cade, you can’t always go by that. Women especially can do a lot with makeup. I’ve seen quite a pretty girl with the colour of her hair altered, a sallow complexion stain, slightly reddened eyelids and, most efficacious of all, dowdy clothes, who would fail to be identified by nine people out of ten who had seen her in her former character. Men haven’t got quite the same pull. You can do something with the eyebrows, and of course different sets of false teeth alter the whole expression. But there are always the ears—there’s an extraordinary lot of character in ears, Mr. Cade.”

  “Don’t look so hard at mine, Battle,” complained Anthony. “You make me quite nervous.”

  “I’m not talking of false beards and greasepaint,” continued the superintendent. “That’s only for books. No, there are very few men who can escape identification and put it over on you. In fact there’s only one man I know who has a positive genius for impersonation. King Victor. Ever heard of King Victor, Mr. Cade?”

  There was something so sharp and sudden about the way the detective put the question that Anthony checked the words that were rising to his lips.

  “King Victor?” he said reflectively instead. “Somehow, I seem to have heard the name.”

  “One of the most celebrated jewel thieves in the world. Irish father, French mother. Can speak five languages at least. He’s been serving a sentence, but his time was up a few months ago.”

  “Really? And where is he supposed to be now?”

  “Well, Mr. Cade, that’s what we’d rather like to know.”

  “The plot thickens,” said Anthony lightly. “No chance of his turning up here, is there? But I suppose he wouldn’t be interested in political memoirs—only in jewels.”

  “There’s no saying,” said Superintendent Battle. “For all we know, he may be here already.”

  “Disguised as the second footman? Splendid. You’ll recognize him by his ears and cover yourself with glory.”

  “Quite fond of your little joke, aren’t you, Mr. Cade? By the way, what do you think of that curious business at Staines?”

  “Staines?” said Anthony. “What’s been happening at Staines?”

  “It was in Saturday’s papers. I thought you might have seen about it. Man found by the roadside shot. A foreigner. It was in the papers again today, of course.”

  “I did see something about it,” said Anthony carelessly. “Not suicide, apparently.”

  “No. There was no weapon. As yet the man hasn’t been identified.”

  “You seem very interested,” said Anthony, smiling. “No connexion with Prince Michael’s death, is there?”

  His hand was quite steady. So were his eyes. Was it his fancy that Superintendent Battle was looking at him with peculiar intentness?

  “Seems to be quite an epidemic of that sort of thing,” said Battle. “But, well, I daresay there’s nothing in it.”

  He turned away, beckoning to a porter as the London train came thundering in. Anthony drew a faint sigh of relief.

  He strolled across the park in an unusually thoughtful mood. He purposely chose to approach the house from the same direction as that from which he had come on the fateful Thursday night, and as he drew near to it he looked up at the windows cudgelling his brains to make sure of the one where he had seen the light. Was he quite sure that it was the second from the end?

  And, doing so, he made a discovery. There was an angle at the corner of the house in which was a window set farther back. Standing on one spot, you counted this window as the first, and the first one built out over the Council Chamber as the second, but move a few yards to the right and the part built out over the Council Chamber appeared to be the end of the house. The first window was invisible, and the two windows of the rooms over the Council Chamber would have appeared the first and second from the end. Where exactly had he been standing when he had seen the light flash up?

  Anthony found the question very hard to determine. A matter of a yard or so made all the difference. But one point was made abundantly clear. It was quite possible that he had been mistaken in describing the light as ocurring in the second room from the end. It might equally well have been the third.

  Now who occupied the third room? Anthony was determined to find that out as soon as possible. Fortune favoured him. In the hall Tredwell had just set the massive silver urn in its place on the tea tray. Nobody else was there.

  “Hullo, Tredwell,” said Anthony. “I wanted to ask you something. Who has the third room from the end on the west side? Over the Council Chamber, I mean.”

  Tredwell reflected for a minute or two.

  “That would be the American gentleman’s room, sir. Mr. Fish.”

  “Oh, is it? Thank you.”

  “Not at all, sir.”

  Tredwell prepared to depart, then paused. The desire to be the first to impart news makes even pontifical butlers human.

  “Perhaps you have heard, sir, of what occurred last night?”

  “Not a word,” said Anthony. “What did occur last night?”

/>   “An attempt at robbery, sir!”

  “Not really? Was anything taken?”

  “No sir. The thieves were dismantling the suits of armour in the Council Chamber when they were surprised and forced to flee. Unfortunately they got clear away.”

  “That’s very extraordinary,” said Anthony. “The Council Chamber again. Did they break in that way?”

  “It is supposed, sir, that they forced the window.”

  Satisfied with the interest his information had aroused, Tredwell resumed his retreat, but brought up short with a dignified apology.

  “I beg your pardon, sir. I didn’t hear you come in, and didn’t know you were standing just behind me.”

  Mr. Isaacstein, who had been the victim of the impact, waved his hand in a friendly fashion.

  “No harm done, my good fellow. I assure you no harm done.”

  Tredwell retired looking contemptuous, and Isaacstein came forward and dropped into an easy chair.

  “Hullo, Cade, so you’re back again. Been hearing all about last night’s little show?”

  “Yes,” said Anthony. “Rather an exciting weekend, isn’t it?”

  “I should imagine that last night was the work of local men,” said Isaacstein. “It seems a clumsy, amateurish affair.”

  “Is there anyone about here who collects armour?” asked Anthony. “It seems a curious thing to select.”

  “Very curious,” agreed Mr. Isaacstein. He paused a minute, and then said slowly: “The whole position here is very unfortunate.”

  There was something almost menacing in his tone.

  “I don’t quite understand,” said Anthony.

  “Why are we all being kept here in this way? The inquest was over yesterday. The Prince’s body will be removed to London, where it is being given out that he died of heart failure. And still nobody is allowed to leave the house. Mr. Lomax knows no more than I do. He refers me to Superintendent Battle.”

  “Superintendent Battle has something up his sleeve,” said Anthony thoughtfully. “And it seems the essence of his plan that nobody should leave.”

  “But, excuse me, Mr. Cade, you have been away.”