by Sax Rohmer
“Hello, Wake,” he said, “you are prompt.” And his accent possessed a faint transatlantic flavor.
“Yes, Mr. Francis. I came along as soon as possible.” Wake entered, removing his black hat and peeling off his suede gloves.
“We might as well go down right away,” said Mr. Francis.
The rooms through which he led Wake were notable for a luxury which was almost magnificence; even the kitchen, which presently they reached, although small, was unexceptionally equipped. Mr. Francis, for all his heavy build, had a cat-like gait; he seemed to rest his weight in walking, on the ball of his foot and not on the heel. Opening a door, the two men stepped out onto a fire ladder. They found themselves on one side of a narrow courtyard, around which Gatacre House was built. Descending the iron steps, they entered a flat immediately below that of Mr. Francis, by means of a door which also communicated with a kitchen.
“Wait a moment,” muttered Mr. Francis.
Leaving Wake in the kitchen, he retired, but was absent no more than a minute or so.
“All clear,” he reported. “Mrs. Destrée is expecting you.”
Again he led the way with that feline stride, along a corridor closely corresponding with that above, to a door at the end upon which he knocked.
“Come in,” said a bell-like voice.
Wake, who seemed suddenly to have become far less composed, entered a room, Mr. Francis holding the door open, which in many respects might have reminded readers of Coleridge of something conceived by Kûbla Khân.
Reclining on a settee and watching the doorway, was a woman.
The room contained an unusual quantity of lacquer and ivory. Two particularly fine ivory chests, silver mounted and having inlaid designs in semi-precious stones, were undoubtedly museum pieces. Wake suspected that, otherwise than at Warwick Castle, he had seen nothing like them. There was lacquer furniture, and a tall lacquer screen enfolded a couch upon which the woman was lying. Ivory and jade ornaments materialised out of purple shadows; for heavy silk curtains were drawn, and the only light was that cast by a lamp with a purple shade. It was in the form of an ivory serpent, poised to strike.
On a number of low tables rested porcelain bowls in which floated water lilies of a great variety: green-gold, pink, mauve and yellow; and in tall vases bloomed a profusion of white arum lilies, so that the atmosphere was laden with their rather sickly perfume.
But although Wake noted these things, they formed no more than a hazy background for the figure of the woman who reclined among many cushions. She was smoking a cigarette in a tortoiseshell mouthpiece ornamented with small emeralds, and she wore a clinging robe, having full, open sleeves, a robe which displayed all those variegated tints of the Californian poppy. Her skin possessed a peachlike quality, and her arms, freed by the silken garment, were rounded, slender and girlish. Indeed, her tiny figure, from glossy black head down to toes peeping like lotus buds out of sly sandals, was of rare perfection.
Features, delicate with the delicacy of a jade cameo, so that even slightly distended nostrils failed to mar their calm serenity, were almost overpowered by dark eyes, magnificent in a slightly oblique beauty. They were the eyes of a sorceress, and in them, when she smiled, that image of a beautiful child faded, and became altogether effaced. A soul steeped in experience, a soul which Flaubert might have thought to have shared secrets with Messalina and strange loves with Thais, a spirit old as the lost magnificent sins of Alexandria, shone out through those brilliant eyes, to seduce, but to terrify.
Although he had seen her many times, this was the first occasion upon which Wake had actually spoken to Ysolde Destrée — and he stood before her tongue-tied. A man of some resource and of no little cunning, a vague fear which he had always recognised, threatened now to betray him.
Yet, she was smiling, and so of what had he to be afraid? Perhaps of her smile ...
“Please sit down, Mr. Wake.”
He fumbled for the nearest lacquer chair, looked for his hat, and remembered that he had left hat, gloves and umbrella in the apartment above. He glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the door partly close. Mr. Francis had gone. He sat down.
“Good evening, madam,” he said.
Destrée watched him for a time in silence, and he found himself to be reviewing all his sins, major and minor, and trying to make sure that he had overlooked no loose ends which this woman might have picked up. A certain assurance with which he had come to the interview, an assurance based upon what he believed to be a mutual danger, was deserting him, and deserting him so rapidly that he sought to account for it in another way. A man of full habit, he decided that the atmosphere, the overpowering perfume of lilies, was making him begin to perspire. Above all he wished, now, that Destrée would cease to smile.
“Well, Mr. Wake—” she spoke with no identifiable accent, but with a quaint intonation, her childlike voice caressingly pretty— “I asked you to call and see me this evening, because I wished to make quite sure that you realise in how grave a position we find ourselves.”
“Er—” Wake cleared his throat— “you refer, no doubt, madame, to the — er — regrettable incident.”
“To the death of Sir Giles Loeder.” The lancet of her contemplation pierced him inexorably; he could not escape it. “But, of course! what did you think I meant?”
“You fear, madam—” Wake was fumbling badly for words— “that this unfortunate incident, happening at a time when he was actually leaving one of the games ...”
“The game at Mrs. Sankey’s flat, to be exact, Mr. Wake — yes. You were acting for us that night.”
“Yes, madam. I have been happy from time to time to place my services at your disposal, or rather at the disposal of Mr. Francis.”
“No, no.” She laughed, and her laughter was like a peal of fairy bells. “Leave it the first way, Mr. Wake. You are a citizen of the world, I think, and you know that Mr. Francis is merely my agent. You know that I, Destrée, control roulette in Mayfair.”
“Well, madam—” his pointed collar began to bother him— “I may — er — have suspected it, but I assumed that you wished to remain incognito, if I may employ that word.”
Destrée continued to smile. “That was so wise of you. Because your employment was satisfactory? Yes? Ten guineas a night, I believe we paid you?”
“That is correct, madam.”
“Well—” she dropped ash into a little jade bowl— “what I have to say to you, Mr. Wake, is that on Wednesday night, when there is to be roulette here, in my own flat, although it was arranged for you to act as second croupier, I think it would be wiser—” the words ended on that enigmatical smile.
“I quite agree with you, madam.” Wake spoke eagerly: Destrée’s smile became more pronounced, became almost voluptuous. “You mean that should police inquiries associate my employment by Lord Marcus with my employment—”
“Just so. That is what I mean.”
“Then, madam, I agree with you, the consequences indeed might be disastrous.”
“Quite so, my good Mr. Wake. How quickly you grasp things. You will be difficult, of course, to replace, but this will be only temporary, I trust. Good croupiers are rare in London, and you are very good.”
Wake bowed gratefully. He began to feel slightly more at ease. “I sometimes accompanied one of my former — employers, Sir Guy Warberly, to Monte Carlo, and he permitted me to play an occasional game on my own account. I — er—” he cleared his throat again— “acquired some knowledge of the subject by watching the croupiers in the Casino.”
“The best school in the world,” smiled Destrée. “And so Mr. Wake—” she took up an envelope from a lacquered table beside her and handed it to him— “here is your fee for Wednesday night. It is not fair that you should suffer because of this small accident.”
“But, madam!”
“No, no, I wish it. And we shall continue to — keep in touch with you, Mr. Wake, at all times.”
Now there was somethi
ng in the way these words were pronounced which served to destroy Wake’s growing confidence and to plunge him back again into a state of acute discomfort.
“Certainly, madam,” he muttered. “Thank you.”
“I suppose—” Destrée stretched herself luxuriously, so that one perfect satiny knee peeped out for a moment through a gap in her silken robe: she was like some beautiful Persian kitten in her lithe movements— “I suppose there is nothing, nothing that has not appeared in the newspapers about the mysterious death of poor Sir Giles, which you know and would care to tell me?”
“I, madam!” exclaimed Wake, almost dropping the envelope. “I assure you, madam, no one was more surprised than myself when I returned and found him lying there.”
“He left just before you — if I remember rightly,” murmured Destrée.
“Possibly, madam. For my own part I did not actually see him go. I was — balancing my accounts. As no doubt you recall, the table had done badly that night.”
“I recall it very well. It is to endeavor to recover some of our losses that we are playing again so soon. I am not sure that we are wise.”
“I see, madam.”
“In other words, Mr. Wake, you can throw no more light on this mystery?” She rolled indolently onto her back, the tortoiseshell mouthpiece drooping from full lips, and stretching up her arms, rested her head upon pillowed hands.
“Nothing at all, madam, I assure you.”
“I am sorry,” she murmured, watching him through a screen of lowered lashes. “He was an old friend and I am deeply concerned.”
“I quite understand that.”
“I thought, but I may have been wrong, that when I left Mrs. Sankey’s you were already gone. In that case, it occurred to me that you must have been a long time in reaching South Audley Street — yes?”
Wake became aware, again, of that unaccountable perspiration. “I see what you mean, madam. But it is quite simple. I had left my household accounts in Grosvenor Square and I knew I should require them in the morning. I called there and knocked up my wife — who acts as caretaker for Sir George Clarking, as I believe you know.”
“Yes, I know.” Destrée’s eyes were nearly closed; but she continued to smile. “The newspapers are so small nowadays. So little space is given to so great a tragedy. I suppose you told the police that you had been at Grosvenor Square?”
“I did, madam.”
“It would be a great misfortune for you if they should find out that you had been acting as croupier—”
“Indeed, madam—”
“Yes.” She sighed. “It would, indeed. However, Mr. Wake, we quite understand one another, I am sure. We shall make a point of keeping in touch with you.” She pressed a bell. “Mr. Francis will take you back to his own flat, as no doubt you have duties at Lord Marcus’s house.”
Wake stood up. “Thank you, madam. I am sure I am deeply obliged. At any time — any time, I mean, which synchronises with suitable leave from Lord Marcus — please regard me as entirely at your service.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wake.”
The door had opened quite silently, and Mr. Francis had entered. One might have guessed that he had never been far away. Wake bowed to the seductive, inscrutable creature reclining on the settee, saw that she was still smiling, and nearly overturned a low stool supporting a bowl of lilies as he made his way out into the corridor.
He had just grasped a highly alarming fact. Unless she possessed private sources of information, Mrs. Destrée had tricked him into an admission that Sir Giles’s body had been found in Lord Marcus’s house ... for no newspaper had reported this!
12
M. Gaston Max
Later the same night, Colonel O’Halloran remained at work in his book-lined office in Scotland Yard. He was industriously initialling a pile of chits with the letters J.N.G.O.’H. which had earned him the soubriquet of “Jingo.” A tin of tobacco stood at his elbow, and he smoked a notably clean looking briar. Indeed it was his custom directly a pipe demanded cleaning to cast it aside and to buy a new one. As he was a heavy smoker, this custom, in view of wartime prices, represented an outrageous outlay. One of several telephones on the desk buzzed discreetly. Colonel O’Halloran took up the receiver.
“Yes, at once; expecting him.”
He replaced the receiver and went on signing chits. He was still engaged in this way when someone might have been heard coming along the corridor, someone who whistled that old English song, “Up in the morning early”. The door opened, the whistle ceased, and a man entered, reclosing the door and then rapped upon it. The Assistant Commissioner looked up.
“Hello, Monsieur Max,” he said, not taking the pipe from between his teeth— “sit down. Sha’n’t be a jiffey.”
Gaston Max smiled. “Always I knock after I come in,” he explained, “in case I have the bad luck to intrude.”
He crossed and sat down in a padded armchair set before the Colonel’s desk; and anyone who had chanced to meet Peter Finch, taxidriver, would almost certainly have declined to believe that Peter Finch and Gaston Max were one and the same.
The celebrated French investigator, in his proper person, was a man of about medium height. In his youth he had inclined to corpulence, but in middle life had conquered the tendency, possibly by dieting. At his present age his hair was touched with silver at the temples, but heavy eyebrows remained obstinately black, shading large intelligent eyes of so indeterminate a shade that few observers would have cared to put a name to it. A blueness of lip and jaw (a rather heavy jaw) indicated that he was called upon to shave closely. This he did, and was in every respect a model of good grooming. His abundant hair he kept carefully brushed and trimmed, and if his taste in shirts and suits was perhaps a trifle spectacular, at least these garments were distinctive and well tailored. To-night he wore a blue suit with a determined red stripe, a dark blue shirt and a green tie relieved by black spots. A handkerchief of similar design drooped gracefully from his breast pocket. He carried a soft brown hat, and a monocle on a thick silk cord swung to and fro, a glittering pendulum, whenever he moved. But despite this slight bizarrerie of toilet, no one would have given a second glance at the man’s attire: his pale face must have commanded one’s whole attention.
Gaston Max’s features possessed a mobility rather bewildering. In collaboration with his eyes, they seemed to respond to every passing thought; even in repose, or the nearest approach to repose which he ever achieved, his flexible lips almost rippled in sympathy with his mental impressions. One sympathised with Sergeant Bluett’s opinion that this was the face of a comedy actor, but it was that of a comedy actor supremely endowed.
He took out a cigarette case bearing his initials in small diamonds, selected a cigarette, lighted it with a gold lighter, and replaced the case in his pocket as the colonel, a final chit signed, pushed the pile aside and looked up, blinking furiously as was his wont.
“Well, M. Max — shall we talk French or English?”
“To me, colonel, it is a matter of indifference.” Gaston Max shrugged: “I speak all kinds of English. Tell me which kind you prefer. Or French (which you speak with the fluency of a Parisian) I also command to no small degree. Choose, then, my colonel, and let us begin.”
The Assistant Commissioner stared at him for a while, replacing the mouthpiece of the pipe between his teeth, and holding the bowl with a square muscular hand which seemed too large for a small man.
“You’re a bit of a responsibility, Max, you know,” he said in his staccato fashion. “No more sense of discipline than a Spanish mule. So far as I’m aware, you have no rank — at Scotland Yard, anyway. You were sent here by the Home Secretary and I was glad to see you. Reputation familiar to me for years. Didn’t know what to do with you, so lent you to the Special Branch. We get on well; I like you; but if any of your antics land you in the soup, I’m responsible.”
“I shall land in no soup,” Max assured him. “To my regret I must avoid soup — it is bad for my figu
re.”
Colonel O’Halloran grinned. “To-date, I’m told, you have done uncommonly well; but I won’t disguise from you, Max, that you have more rope than any other officer here.”
“I acknowledge this with gratitude, Colonel O’Halloran, my friend; I am grateful — but, yes.”
“I engineered your taxi license, for instance; madly irregular, you know.”
“Ah! my taxi? But think what I have learned with this taxi! A London taxi is like a shrimping net. One gathers many shrimps, and sometimes a small octopus. But there is a matter which troubles me. I should like to discuss this.”
“Good,” said the colonel, “go ahead.”
“In the first place the inquiry upon which I have now been at work for several months recently crossed a case of our good friend, Inspector Firth.”
“So I believe.”
“I am dramatic, I am the sensationalist; and because this is the first big inquiry which has been entrusted to me since I joined Scotland Yard, I am anxious to present it complete, garnished, piping hot, on a gold plate. Name of a name! I am made that way — I cannot help it. It was, oh, so long ago that I last worked with Scotland Yard. I have worn well, eh, my colonel? I carry the burden of heavy years with some grace, is it not so? But no matter. This time I look for a very big fish indeed; and I have not yet learned the name of this fish. But he is one who snaps up secrets known only to the War Cabinet, and transmits them to Berlin in time to make of himself a bloody nuisance. Sometimes I have wondered if my fish is a Jack pike or a mermaid.”
“A mermaid? meaning what?”
“A woman fish. Women to-day are permitted to play a very large part in the troubles of the world. Sometimes they bring about a thousand deaths because one poor fool kisses another. However, ma’lêsh, as the Arab says. What I am anxious to settle is this: I have certain information which strictly belongs to Inspector Firth; and this information I wish him to have.”
