But whose corpse? And what functions? Could this be a West End hotel, Racksole's own hotel, in the very heart of London, the best-policed city in the world? It seemed incredible, impossible; yet so it was. Once more he remembered what Felix Babylon had said to him and realized the truth of the saying anew. The proprietor of a vast and complicated establishment like the Grand Babylon could never know a tithe of the extraordinary and queer occurrences which happened daily under his very nose; the atmosphere of such a caravanserai must necessarily be an atmosphere of mystery and problems apparently inexplicable. Nevertheless, Racksole thought that Fate was carrying things with rather a high hand when she permitted his chef to spend the night hours over a man's corpse in his State bedroom, this sacred apartment which was supposed to be occupied only by individuals of Royal Blood. Racksole would not have objected to a certain amount of mystery, but he decidedly thought that there was a little too much mystery here for his taste. He thought that even Felix Babylon would have been surprised at this.
The electric chandelier in the centre of the ceiling was not lighted; only the two lights on either side of the washstand were switched on, and these did not sufficiently illuminate the features of the man on the bed to enable Racksole to see them clearly. In vain the millionaire strained his eyes; he could only make out that the corpse was probably that of a young man. Just as he was wondering what would be the best course of action to pursue, he saw Rocco with a square-shaped black box in his hand. Then the chef switched off the two electric lights, and the State bedroom was in darkness. In that swift darkness Racksole heard Rocco spring on to the bed. Another half-dozen moments of suspense, and there was a blinding flash of white, which endured for several seconds, and showed Rocco standing like an evil spirit over the corpse, the black box in one hand and a burning piece of aluminium wire in the other. The aluminium wire burnt out, and darkness followed blacker than before.
Rocco had photographed the corpse by flashlight.
But the dazzling flare which had disclosed the features of the dead man to the insensible lens of the camera had disclosed them also to Theodore Racksole.
The dead man was Reginald Dimmock!
Stung into action by this discovery, Racksole tried to find the exit from his place of concealment. He felt sure that there existed some way out into the State bathroom, but he sought for it fruitlessly, groping with both hands and feet. Then he decided that he must ascend the rope-ladder, make haste for the first-floor corridor, and intercept Rocco when he left the State apartments. It was a painful and difficult business to ascend that thin and yielding ladder in such a confined space, but Racksole was managing it very nicely, and had nearly reached the top, when, by some untoward freak of chance, the ladder broke above his weight, and he slipped ignominiously down to the bottom of the wooden tube.
Smothering an excusable curse, Racksole crouched, baffled. Then he saw that the force of his fall had somehow opened a trap-door at his feet. He squeezed through, pushed open another tiny door, and in another second stood in the State bathroom. He was dishevelled, perspiring, rather bewildered; but he was there. In the next second he had resumed absolute command of all his faculties.
Strange to say, he had moved so quietly that Rocco had apparently not heard him. He stepped noiselessly to the door between the bathroom and the bedroom, and stood there in silence. Rocco had switched on again the lights over the washstand and was busy with his utensils.
Racksole deliberately coughed.
14. Rocco Answers Some Questions
ROCCO turned round with the swiftness of a startled tiger, and gave Theodore Racksole one long piercing glance.
'D--n!' said Rocco, with as pure an Anglo-Saxon accent and intonation as Racksole himself could have accomplished.
The most extraordinary thing about the situation was that at this juncture Theodore Racksole did not know what to say. He was so dumbfounded by the affair, and especially by Rocco's absolute and sublime calm, that both speech and thought failed him.
'I give in,' said Rocco. 'From the moment you entered this cursed hotel I was afraid of you. I told Jules I was afraid of you. I knew there would be trouble with a man of your kidney, and I was right; confound it! I tell you I give in. I know when I'm beaten. I've got no revolver and no weapons of any kind. I surrender. Do what you like.'
And with that Rocco sat down on a chair. It was magnificently done. Only a truly great man could have done it. Rocco actually kept his dignity.
For answer, Racksole walked slowly into the vast apartment, seized a chair, and, dragging it up to Rocco's chair, sat down opposite to him. Thus they faced each other, their knees almost touching, both in evening dress. On Rocco's right hand was the bed, with the corpse of Reginald Dimmock. On Racksole's right hand, and a little behind him, was the marble washstand, still littered with Rocco's implements. The electric light shone on Rocco's left cheek, leaving the other side of his face in shadow. Racksole tapped him on the knee twice.
'So you're another Englishman masquerading as a foreigner in my hotel,'
Racksole remarked, by way of commencing the interrogation.
'I'm not,' answered Rocco quietly. 'I'm a citizen of the United States.'
'The deuce you are!' Racksole exclaimed.
'Yes, I was born at West Orange, New Jersey, New York State. I call myself an Italian because it was in Italy that I first made a name as a chef - at Rome. It is better for a great chef like me to be a foreigner. Imagine a great chef named Elihu P. Rucker. You can't imagine it. I changed my nationality for the same reason that my friend and colleague, Jules, otherwise Mr Jackson, changed his.'
'So Jules is your friend and colleague, is he?'
'He was, but from this moment he is no longer. I began to disapprove of his methods no less than a week ago, and my disapproval will now take active form.'
'Will it?' said Racksole. 'I calculate it just won't, Mr Elihu P. Rucker, citizen of the United States. Before you are very much older you'll be in the kind hands of the police, and your activities, in no matter what direction, will come to an abrupt conclusion.'
'It is possible,' sighed Rocco.
'In the meantime, I'll ask you one or two questions for my own private satisfaction. You've acknowledged that the game is up, and you may as well answer them with as much candour as you feel yourself capable of. See?'
'I see,' replied Rocco calmly, 'but I guess I can't answer all questions.
I'll do what I can.'
'Well,' said Racksole, clearing his throat, 'what's the scheme all about? Tell me in a word.'
'Not in a thousand words. It isn't my secret, you know.'
'Why was poor little Dimmock poisoned?' The millionaire's voice softened as he looked for an instant at the corpse of the unfortunate young man.
'I don't know,' said Rocco. 'I don't mind informing you that I objected to that part of the business. I wasn't made aware of it till after it was done, and then I tell you it got my dander up considerable.'
'You mean to say you don't know why Dimmock was done to death?'
'I mean to say I couldn't see the sense of it. Of course he - er - died, because he sort of cried off the scheme, having previously taken a share of it. I don't mind saying that much, because you probably guessed it for yourself. But I solemnly state that I have a conscientious objection to murder.'
'Then it was murder?'
'It was a kind of murder,' Rocco admitted. Who did it?'
'Unfair question,' said Rocco.
'Who else is in this precious scheme besides Jules and yourself?'
'Don't know, on my honour.'
'Well, then, tell me this. What have you been doing to Dimmock's body?'
'How long were you in that bathroom?' Rocco parried with sublime impudence.
'Don't question me, Mr Rucker,' said Theodore Racksole. 'I feel very much inclined to break your back across my knee. Therefore I advise you not to irritate me. What have you been doing to Dimmock's body?'
'I've been embalming it
.'
'Em - balming it.'
'Certainly; Richardson's system of arterial fluid injection, as improved by myself.
You weren't aware that I included the art of embalming among my accomplishments. Nevertheless, it is so.'
'But why?' asked Racksole, more mystified than ever. 'Why should you trouble to embalm the poor chap's corpse?'
'Can't you see? Doesn't it strike you? That corpse has to be taken care of.
It contains, or rather, it did contain, very serious evidence against some person or persons unknown to the police. It may be necessary to move it about from place to place. A corpse can't be hidden for long; a corpse betrays itself. One couldn't throw it in the Thames, for it would have been found inside twelve hours.
One couldn't bury it - it wasn't safe. The only thing was to keep it handy and movable, ready for emergencies. I needn't inform you that, without embalming, you can't keep a corpse handy and movable for more than four or five days. It's the kind of thing that won't keep. And so it was suggested that I should embalm it, and I did. Mind you, I still objected to the murder, but I couldn't go back on a colleague, you understand. You do understand that, don't you? Well, here you are, and here it is, and that's all.'
Rocco leaned back in his chair as though he had said everything that ought to be said. He closed his eyes to indicate that so far as he was concerned the conversation was also closed. Theodore Racksole stood up.
'I hope,' said Rocco, suddenly opening his eyes, 'I hope you'll call in the police without any delay. It's getting late, and I don't like going without my night's rest.'
'Where do you suppose you'll get a night's rest?' Racksole asked.
'In the cells, of course. Haven't I told you I know when I'm beaten. I'm not so blind as not to be able to see that there's at any rate a prima facie case against me. I expect I shall get off with a year or two's imprisonment as accessory after the fact
- I think that's what they call it. Anyhow, I shall be in a position to prove that I am not implicated in the murder of this unfortunate nincompoop.' He pointed, with a strange, scornful gesture of his elbow, to the bed. 'And now, shall we go?
Everyone is asleep, but there will be a policeman within call of the watchman in the portico. I am at your service. Let us go down together, Mr Racksole. I give you my word to go quietly.'
'Stay a moment,' said Theodore Racksole curtly; 'there is no hurry. It won't do you any harm to forego another hour's sleep, especially as you will have no work to do to-morrow. I have one or two more questions to put to you.'
'Well?' Rocco murmured, with an air of tired resignation, as if to say, 'What must be must be.'
'Where has Dimmock's corpse been during the last three or four days, since he -
died?'
'Oh!' answered Rocco, apparently surprised at the simplicity of the question. 'It's been in my room, and one night it was on the roof; once it went out of the hotel as luggage, but it came back the next day as a case of Demerara sugar. I forgot where else it has been, but it's been kept perfectly safe and treated with every consideration.'
'And who contrived all these manoeuvres?' asked Racksole as calmly as he could.
'I did. That is to say, I invented them and I saw that they were carried out. You see, the suspicions of your police obliged me to be particularly spry.'
'And who carried them out?'
'Ah! that would be telling tales. But I don't mind assuring you that my accomplices were innocent accomplices. It is absurdly easy for a man like me to impose on underlings - absurdly easy.'
'What did you intend to do with the corpse ultimately?' Racksole pursued his inquiry with immovable countenance.
'Who knows?' said Rocco, twisting his beautiful moustache. 'That would have depended on several things - on your police, for instance. But probably in the end we should have restored this mortal clay' - again he jerked his elbow - 'to the man's sorrowing relatives.'
'Do you know who the relatives are?'
'Certainly. Don't you? If you don't I need only hint that Dimmock had a Prince for his father.'
'It seems to me,' said Racksole, with cold sarcasm, 'that you behaved rather clumsily in choosing this bedroom as the scene of your operations.'
'Not at all,' said Rocco. 'There was no other apartment so suitable in the whole hotel. Who would have guessed that anything was going on here? It was the very place for me.'
'I guessed,' said Racksole succinctly.
'Yes, you guessed, Mr Racksole. But I had not counted on you. You are the only smart man in the business. You are an American citizen, and I hadn't reckoned to have to deal with that class of person.'
'Apparently I frightened you this afternoon?'
'Not in the least.'
'You were not afraid of a search?'
'I knew that no search was intended. I knew that you were trying to frighten me.
You must really credit me with a little sagacity and insight, Mr Racksole.
Immediately you began to talk to me in the kitchen this afternoon I felt you were on the track. But I was not frightened. I merely decided that there was no time to be lost - that I must act quickly. I did act quickly, but, it seems, not quickly enough. I grant that your rapidity exceeded mine. Let us go downstairs, I beg.'
Rocco rose and moved towards the door. With an instinctive action Racksole rushed forward and seized him by the shoulder.
'No tricks!' said Racksole. 'You're in my custody and don't forget it.'
Rocco turned on his employer a look of gentle, dignified scorn. 'Have I not informed you,' he said, 'that I have the intention of going quietly?'
Racksole felt almost ashamed for the moment. It flashed across him that a man can be great, even in crime.
'What an ineffable fool you were,' said Racksole, stopping him at the threshold,
'with your talents, your unique talents, to get yourself mixed up in an affair of this kind. You are ruined. And, by Jove! you were a great man in your own line.'
'Mr Racksole,' said Rocco very quickly, 'that is the truest word you have spoken this night. I was a great man in my own line. And I am an ineffable fool. Alas!' He brought his long arms to his sides with a thud.
'Why did you do it?'
'I was fascinated - fascinated by Jules. He, too, is a great man. We had great opportunities, here in the Grand Babylon. It was a great game. It was worth the candle. The prizes were enormous. You would admit these things if you knew the facts. Perhaps some day you will know them, for you are a fairly clever person at getting to the root of a matter. Yes, I was blinded, hypnotized.'
'And now you are ruined.'
'Not ruined, not ruined. Afterwards, in a few years, I shall come up again.
A man of genius like me is never ruined till he is dead. Genius is always forgiven.
I shall be forgiven. Suppose I am sent to prison. When I emerge I shall be no gaol-bird. I shall be Rocco - the great Rocco. And half the hotels in Europe will invite me to join them.'
'Let me tell you, as man to man, that you have achieved your own degradation.
There is no excuse.'
'I know it,' said Rocco. 'Let us go.'
Racksole was distinctly and notably impressed by this man - by this master spirit to whom he was to have paid a salary at the rate of three thousand pounds a year. He even felt sorry for him. And so, side by side, the captor and the captured, they passed into the vast deserted corridor of the hotel.
Rocco stopped at the grating of the first lift.
'It will be locked,' said Racksole. 'We must use the stairs to-night.'
'But I have a key. I always carry one,' said Rocco, and he pulled one out of his pocket, and, unfastening the iron screen, pushed it open. Racksole smiled at his readiness and aplomb.
'After you,' said Rocco, bowing in his finest manner, and Racksole stepped into the lift.
With the swiftness of lighting Rocco pushed forward the iron screen, which locked itself automatically. Theodore Racksole was hopelessly a prisoner wit
hin the lift, while Rocco stood free in the corridor.
'Good-bye, Mr Racksole,' he remarked suavely, bowing again, lower than before.
'Good-bye: I hate to take a mean advantage of you in this fashion, but really you must allow that you have been very simple. You are a clever man, as I have already said, up to a certain point. It is past that point that my own cleverness comes in. Again, good-bye. After all, I shall have no rest to-night, but perhaps even that will be better that sleeping in a police cell. If you make a great noise you may wake someone and ultimately get released from this lift. But I advise you to compose yourself, and wait till morning. It will be more dignified. For the third time, good-bye.'
And with that Rocco, without hastening, walked down the corridor and so out of sight.
Racksole said never a word. He was too disgusted with himself to speak. He clenched his fists, and put his teeth together, and held his breath. In the silence he could hear the dwindling sound of Rocco's footsteps on the thick carpet.
It was the greatest blow of Racksole's life.
The next morning the high-born guests of the Grand Babylon were aroused by a rumour that by some accident the millionaire proprietor of the hotel had remained all night locked up m the lift. It was also stated that Rocco had quarrelled with his new master and incontinently left the place. A duchess said that Rocco's departure would mean the ruin of the hotel, whereupon her husband advised her not to talk nonsense.
As for Racksole, he sent a message for the detective in charge of the Dimmock affair, and bravely told him the happenings of the previous night.
The Grand Babylon Hote Page 10
