Then, “What’s that thing?” he heard her snap suddenly. “What utter foolishness—Teddy! Come, mother’s little lamb! Come, Teddy!”
Even in his laughter Mr. Sutton-Cornish felt the wing of a regret brush his cheek. Poor little Teddy. He stopped laughing and sat up, stiff and alert. The room was too quiet.
No sound answered him.
He closed his eyes, gulped, opened them again, crept along the room staring. He stood in front of his little alcove for a long time, peering, peering through that bronze portal at the innocent little collection of trivia beyond.
He locked the door with quivering hands, stuffed the key down in his pocket, poured himself a stiff peg of whisky.
A ghostly voice that sounded something like his own, and yet unlike it, said out loud, very close to his ear:
“I didn’t really intend anything like that… never… never… oh, never… or—”—after a long pause—“did I?”
Braced by the scotch he sneaked out into the hall and out of the front door without Collins seeing him. No car waited outside. As luck would have it she had evidently come up from Chinverly by train and taken a taxi. Of course they could trace the taxi—later on, when they tried. A lot of good that would do them.
Collins was next. He thought about Collins for some time, glancing at the bronze door, tempted a good deal, but finally shaking his head negatively.
“Not that way,” he muttered. “Have to draw the line somewhere. Can’t have a procession—”
He drank some more whisky and rang the bell. Collins made it rather easy for him.
“You rang, sir?”
“What did it sound like?” Mr. Sutton-Cornish asked, a little thick-tongued. “Canaries?”
Collins’ chin snapped back a full two inches.
“The dowager won’t be here to dinner, Collins. I think I’ll dine out. That’s all.”
Collins stared at him. A grayness spread over Collins’ face, with a little flush at the cheekbones.
“You allude to Mrs. Sutton-Cornish, sir?”
Mr. Sutton-Cornish hiccuped. “Who d’you suppose? Gone back to Chinverly to stew in her own juice some more. Ought to be plenty of it.”
With deadly politeness Collins said: “I had meant to ask you, sir, whether Mrs. Sutton-Cornish would return here—permanently. Otherwise—”
“Carry on.” Another hiccup.
“Otherwise I should not care to remain myself, sir.”
Mr. Sutton-Cornish stood up and went close to Collins and breathed in his face. Haig & Haig. A good breath, of the type.
“Get out!” he rasped. “Get out now! Upstairs with you and pack your things. Your check will be ready for you. A full month. Thirty-two pounds in all, I believe?”
Collins stepped back and moved toward the door. “That will suit me perfectly, sir. Thirty-two pounds is the correct amount.” He reached the door, spoke again before he opened it. “A reference from you, sir, will not be desired.”
He went out, closing the door softly.
“Ha!” Mr. Sutton-Cornish said.
Then he grinned slyly, stopped pretending to be angry or drunk, and sat down to write the check.
He dined out that night, and the next night, and the next. Cook left on the third day, taking the kitchenmaid with her. That left Bruggs and Mary, the housemaid. On the fifth day Bruggs wept when she gave her notice.
“I’d rather go at once, sir, if you’ll let me,” she sobbed. “There’s something creepylike about the house since cook and Mr. Collins and Teddy and Mrs. Sutton-Cornish left.”
Mr. Sutton-Cornish patted her arm. “Cook and Mr. Collins and Teddy and Mrs. Sutton-Cornish,” he repeated. “If only she could hear that order of precedence.”
Bruggs stared at him, red-eyed. He patted her arm again. “Quite all right, Bruggs. I’ll give you your month. And tell Mary to go, too. Think I’ll close the house up and live in the south of France for a while. Now don’t cry, Bruggs.”
“No, sir.” She bawled her way out of the room.
He didn’t go to the south of France, of course. Too much fun being right where he was—alone at last in the home of his fathers. Not quite what they would have approved of, perhaps, except possibly the general. But the best he could do.
Almost overnight the house began to have the murmurs of an empty place. He kept the windows closed and the shades down. That seemed to be a gesture of respect he could hardly afford to omit.
Scotland Yard moves with the deadly dependability of a glacier, and at times almost as slowly. So it was a full month and nine days before Detective-sergeant Lloyd came back to No. 14 Grinling Crescent.
By that time the front steps had long since lost their white serenity. The apple-green door had acquired a sinister shade of gray. The brass saucer around the bell, the knocker, the big latch, all these were tarnished and stained, like the brass work of an old freighter limping around the Horn. Those who rang the bell departed slowly, with backward glances, and Mr. Sutton-Cornish would be peeping out at them from the side of a drawn window shade.
He concocted himself weird meals in the echoing kitchen, creeping in after dark with ragged-looking parcels of food. Later he would slink out again with his hat pulled low and his overcoat collar up, give a quick glance up and down the street, then scramble off around the corner. The police constable on duty saw him occasionally at these maneuvers and rubbed his chin a good deal over the situation.
No longer a study even in withered elegance, Mr. Sutton-Cornish became a customer in obscure eating houses where draymen blew their soup on naked tables in compartments like horse stalls; in foreign cafes where men with blue-black hair and pointed shoes dined interminably over minute bottles of wine; in crowded, anonymous tea shops where the food looked and tasted as tired as the people who ate it.
He was no longer a perfectly sane man. In his dry, solitary, poisoned laughter there was the sound of crumbling walls. Even the pinched loafers under the arches of the Thames Embankment, who listened to him because he had sixpences, even these were glad when he passed on, stepping carefully in unshined shoes and lightly swinging the stick he no longer carried.
Then, late one night, returning softly out of the dull-gray darkness, he found the man from Scotland Yard lurking near the dirty front steps with an air of thinking himself hidden behind a lamppost.
“I’d like a few words with you, sir,” he said, stepping forth briskly and holding his hands as though he might have to use them suddenly.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Mr. Sutton-Cornish chuckled. “Trot right in.”
He opened the door with his latchkey, switched the light on, and stepped with accustomed ease over a pile of dusty letters on the floor.
“Got rid of the servants,” he explained to the detective. “Always did want to be alone some day.”
The carpet was covered with burned matches, pipe ash, torn paper, and the corners of the hall had cobwebs in them. Mr. Sutton-Cornish opened his study door, switched the light on in there and stood aside. The detective passed him warily, staring hard at the condition of the house.
Mr. Sutton-Cornish pushed him into a dusty chair, thrust a cigar at him, reached for the whisky decanter.
“Business or pleasure this time?” he inquired archly.
Detective-sergeant Lloyd held his hard hat on one knee and looked the cigar over dubiously. “Smoke it later, thank you, sir… Business, I take it. I’m instructed to make inquiries as to the whereabouts of Mrs. Sutton-Cornish.”
Mr. Sutton-Cornish sipped whisky amiably and pointed at the decanter. He took his whisky straight now. “Haven’t the least idea,” he said. “Why? Down at Chinverly, I suppose. Country place. She owns it.”
“It so ’appens she ain’t,” Detective-sergeant Lloyd said, slipping on an “h,” which he seldom did any more. “Been a separation, I’m told,” he added grimly.
“That’s our business, old man.”
“Up to a point, yes, sir. Granted. Not after her solicitor can’t find her
and she ain’t anywhere anybody can find her. Not then, it ain’t just your business.”
Mr. Sutton-Cornish thought it over. “You might have something there—as the Americans say,” he conceded.
The detective passed a large pale hand across his forehead and leaned forward.
“Let’s ’ave it, sir,” he said quietly. “Best in the long run. Best for all. Nothing to gain by foolishness. The law’s the law.”
“Have some whisky,” Mr. Sutton-Cornish said.
“Not tonight I won’t,” Detective-sergeant Lloyd said grimly.
“She left me.” Mr. Sutton-Cornish shrugged. “And because of that the servants left me. You know what servants are nowadays. Beyond that I haven’t an idea.”
“Oh yus I think you ’ave,” the detective said, losing a little more of his West End manner. “No charges have been preferred, but I think you know all right, all right.”
Mr. Sutton-Cornish smiled airily. The detective scowled and went on:
“We’ve taken the liberty of watching you, and for a gentleman of your position—you’ve been living a damn queer life, if I may say so.”
“You may say so, and then you may get to hell out of my house,” Mr. Sutton-Cornish said suddenly.
“Not so farst. Not yet I won’t.”
“Perhaps you would like to search the house.”
“Per’aps I should. Per’aps I shall. No hurry there. Takes time. Some times takes shovels.” Detective-sergeant Lloyd permitted himself to leer rather nastily. “Seems to me like people does a bit of disappearin’ when you ’appen to be around. Take that Skimp. Now take Mrs. Sutton-Cornish.”
Mr. Sutton-Cornish stared at him with lingering malice. “And in your experience, sergeant, where do people go when they disappear?”
“Sometimes they don’t disappear. Sometimes somebody disappears them.” The detective licked his strong lips, with a cat-like expression.
Mr. Sutton-Cornish slowly raised his arm and pointed to the bronze door. “You wanted it, sergeant,” he said suavely. “You shall have it. There is where you should look for Mr. Skimp, for Teddy the Pomeranian, and for my wife. There—behind that ancient door of bronze.”
The detective didn’t shift his gaze. For a long moment he didn’t change expression. Then, quite amiably, he grinned. There was something else behind his eyes, but it was behind them.
“Let’s you and me take a nice little walk,” he said breezily. “The fresh air would do you a lot of good, sir. Let’s—”
“There,” Mr. Sutton-Cornish announced, still pointing with his arm rigid, “behind that door.”
“Ah-ah,” Detective-sergeant Lloyd waggled a large finger roguishly. “Been alone too much, you ’ave, sir. Thinkin’ about things. Do it myself once in a while. Gets a fellow balmy in the crumpet like. Take a nice little walk with me, sir. We could stop somewhere for a nice—” The big, tawny man planted a forefinger on the end of his nose and pushed his head back and wiggled his little finger in the air at the same time. But his steady gray eyes remained in another mood.
“We’ll look at my bronze door first.”
Mr. Sutton-Cornish skipped out of his chair. The detective had him by the arm in a flash. “None of that,” he said in a frosty voice. “Hold still.”
“Key in here,” Mr. Sutton-Cornish said, pointing at his breast pocket, but not trying to get his hand into it.
The detective got it out for him, stared at it heavily.
“All behind the door—on meathooks,” Mr. Sutton-Cornish said. “All three. Little meathook for Teddy. Very large meathook for my wife. Very large meathook.”
Holding him with his left hand, Detective-sergeant Lloyd thought it over. His pale brows were drawn tight. His large weathered face was grim—but skeptical.
“No harm to look,” he said finally.
He marched Mr. Sutton-Cornish across the floor, pushed the bronze key into the huge antique lock, twisted the ring, and opened the door. He opened both sides of it. He stood looking into that very innocent alcove with its cabinet of knickknacks and absolutely nothing else. He became genial again.
“Meathooks, did you say, sir? Very cute, if I may say so.”
He laughed, released Mr. Sutton-Cornish’s arm and teetered on his heels.
“What the hell’s it for?” he asked.
Mr. Sutton-Cornish doubled over very swiftly and launched his thin body with furious speed at the big detective.
“Take a little walk yourself—and find out!” he screamed.
Detective-sergeant Lloyd was a big and solid man and probably used to being butted. Mr. Sutton-Cornish could hardly have moved him six inches, even with a running start. But the bronze door had a high sill. The detective moved with the deceptive quickness of his trade, swayed his body just enough, and jarred his foot against the bronze sill.
If it hadn’t been for that he would have plucked Mr. Sutton-Cornish neatly out of the air and held him squirming like a kitten, between his large thumb and forefinger. But the sill jarred him off balance. He stumbled a little, and swayed his body completely out of Mr. Sutton-Cornish’s way.
Mr. Sutton-Cornish butted empty space—the empty space framed by that majestic door of bronze. He sprawled forward clutching—falling—clutching—across the sill—
Detective-sergeant Lloyd straightened up slowly, twisted his thick neck and stared. He moved back a little from the sill so that he could be perfectly certain the side of the door hid nothing from him. It didn’t. He saw a cabinet of odd pieces of china, odds and ends of carved ivory and shiny black wood, and on top of the cabinet three little statuettes of pink marble.
He saw nothing else. There was nothing else in there to see.
“Gorblimey!” he said at last, violently. At least he thought he said it. Somebody said it. He wasn’t quite sure. He was never absolutely sure about anything—after that night.
The whisky looked all right. It smelled all right, too. Shaking so that he could hardly hold the decanter Detective-sergeant Lloyd poured a little into a glass and took a sip in his dry mouth and waited.
After a little while he drank another spoonful. He waited again. Then he drank a stiff drink—a very stiff drink.
He sat down in the chair beside the whisky and took his large folded cotton handkerchief out of his pocket and unfolded it slowly and mopped his face and neck and behind his ears.
In a little while he wasn’t shaking quite so much. Warmth began to flow through him. He stood up, drank some more whisky, then slowly and bitterly moved back down the room. He swung the bronze door shut, locked it, put the key down in his own pocket. He opened the partition door at the side, braced himself and stepped through into the alcove. He looked at the back of the bronze door. He touched it. It wasn’t very light in there, but he could see that the place was empty, except for the silly-looking cabinet. He came out again shaking his head.
“Can’t be,” he said out loud. “Not a chance. Not ’arf a chance.”
Then, with the sudden unreasonableness of the reasonable man, he flew into a rage.
“If I get ’ooked for this,” he said between his teeth, “I get ’ooked.”
He went down to the dark cellar, rummaged around until he found a hand ax and carried it back upstairs.
He hacked the woodwork to ribbons. When he was done the bronze door stood alone on its base, jagged wood all around it, but not holding it any longer. Detective-sergeant Lloyd put the hand ax down, wiped his hands and face on his big handkerchief, and went in behind the door. He put his shoulder to it and set his strong, yellow teeth.
Only a brutally determined man of immense strength could have done it. The door fell forward with a heavy rumbling crash that seemed to shake the whole house. The echoes of that crash died away slowly, along infinite corridors of unbelief.
Then the house was silent again. The big man went out into the hall and had another look out of the front door.
He put his coat on, adjusted his hard hat, folded his damp handkerchief c
arefully and put it in his hip pocket, lit the cigar Mr. Sutton-Cornish had given him, took a drink of whisky and swaggered to the door.
At the door he turned and deliberately sneered at the bronze door, lying fallen but still huge in the welter of splintered wood.
“To ’ell with you, ’ooever you are,” Detective-sergeant Lloyd said. “I ain’t no bloody primrose.”
He shut the house door behind him. A little high fog outside, a few dim stars, a quiet street with lighted windows. Two or three cars of expensive appearance, very likely chauffeurs lounging in them, but no one in sight.
He crossed the street at an angle and walked along beside the tall iron railing of the park. Faintly through the rhododendron bushes he could see the dull glimmer of the little ornamental lake. He looked up and down the street and took the big bronze key out of his pocket.
“Make it a good ’un,” he told himself softly.
His arm swept up and over. There was a minute splash in the ornamental lake, then silence. Detective-sergeant Lloyd walked on calmly, puffing at his cigar.
Back at the C.I.D. he gave his report steadily, and for the first and last time in his life, there was something besides truth in it. Couldn’t raise anybody at the house. All dark. Waited three hours. Must all be away.
The inspector nodded and yawned.
The Sutton-Cornish heirs eventually pried the estate out of Chancery and opened up No. 14 Grinling Crescent and found the bronze door lying in a welter of dust and splintered wood and matted cobwebs. They stared at it goggle-eyed, and when they found out what it was, sent for dealers, thinking there might be a little money in it. But the dealers sighed and said no, no money in that sort of thing now. Better ship it off to a foundry and have it melted down for the metal. Get so much a pound. The dealers departed noiselessly with wry smiles.
Sometimes when things are a little dull in the Missing Persons section of the C.I.D. they take the Sutton-Cornish file out and dust it off and look through it sourly and put it away again.
The Bronze Door Page 3
