The Blind Barber dgf-4

by John Dickson Carr

  Again she smiled. That was how she came to order champagne.

  Alter the soup, Morgan felt a warmth steal through him. After the fish, his wolfish silence began to wear thin and III* spirits stirred from their depths. In the midst of a tender steak, done rare between crisp marks of the grill and smoking between those smooth-slipping chipped potatoes whose edges have no hardness, he suddenly felt a pleased sense of relaxation. The music of the orchestra did not not i nd far away, and he rather liked the appearance of the faces about him. Life looked less like a heap of unwashed dishes, and the warm lights were comforting. Champagne nipped warm and soothing. Captain Valvick said, "Ahh-h!" on a long-drawn note. When the steak disappeared, to be replaced by mysteriously tinted ice-cream and smoking black coffee, his spirits commenced to soar. He appreciated the noise that people were making around him. The champagne nestled through his innards, causing him to beam round on Mrs. Perrigord and the captain; to find himself keeping time with his foot when a reckless orchestra ventured into Gilbert and Sullivan.

  "Ta-ti-ta-ta-ta-, ti-ta-ta-ta-ri; sing, 'Willow, tit-willow, tit- willow,' " murmured Henry Morgan, wagging his head expansively. He smiled, and Mrs. Perrigord spread effulgence in reply. "'Iss it veakness of intellect, birdie, ay cried—!'" whoomed Captain Valvick, drawing back his chin for a thoughtful rumble; " 'Or a tough worm in youah little in-side—' " gently speculated Mrs. Perrigord, beginning to giggle; and all three together, inspired with a surge of mirth, whirled out together:

  "With a shake of his poor little head he replied, "'Willow, " 'Tit-willow,

  "'Tit-willow!' (Whee!)"

  "Oh, I say, you know," protested Mrs. Perrigord, whose face was growing rather flushed and her voice more loud, "we reolly shouldn't be doing this at oil, should we? Oh, I say! Heh-heh-heh! Shall we have anothah bottle?" she beamed on them.

  "You yust bet we do!" boomed Captain Valvick. "And diss one iss on me. Steward!" A cork popped, pale smoke sizzled, and they raised glasses. "Ay got a toast ay like to giff… "

  "Oh, I say, you know, I reolly mustn't!" breathed Mrs. Perrigord, putting her hand against her breast; "just fancy! What would deah Les-leh ay? But if you two positively outrageous people positively insist, you know… Heh-heh-heh! Here's loud cheaahs!"

  "What I mean to say is this," said Morgan vigorously. "If there's any toast to be drunk, first off there ought to be a toast drunk to Mrs. Perrigord, Skipper. She's been the best sport in the world this after, Skipper, and I'd like to see anybody deny it. She came with us on a fool's errand, and never asked one question. So what I propose—"

  He was speaking rather loudly, but he would not have been heard in any case. The entire dining-saloon had begun to converse in an almost precisely similar vein, with the exception of one or two crusty spoil-sports who stared in growing amaze. They could not understand, and would go to their graves without the ability to understand, that mysterious spirit which suddenly strikes and galvanises ocean liners for no reason discernible to the eye. Laughter in varying tones broke like rockets over the tumult; sniggers, giggles, guffaws, excited chuckles growing and rushing. More corks popped and stewards flew. It being against the rules to smoke in the dining-saloon, for the first time a mist of smoke began to rise. The orchestra smashed into a rollicking air out of The Prince of Pisen; then the perspiring leader came to the rail of the balcony and bowed to a roar of applause, dashed back and whipped his minions into another. Jewels began to wink as total strangers drifted to one another's tables, made appointments, gesticulated, argued whether they should stay here or go up to the bar; and Henry Morgan ordered a third bottle of champagne.

  "… Oh, no, but I say, reolly!" cried Mrs. Perrigord, dining back in a sort of coy alarm and talking still more loudly, "you mustn't! You two outrageous people are positively outrageous, you know! It's simply dreadful how you take advantage of a pooah, weak woman who" — gurgle, gurgle, gurgle—"it's reolly lovely champagne, isn't it? — who can't defend herself, you know. Just fancy, you wicked men, I shall be positively tight, you know. And that would be owful, wouldn't it?" She laughed delightedly. "Simply screamingly, deliriously owful if I am tight when 1 am tight, and—"

  "What ay say iss diss," declared Captain Valvick, tapping the table and speaking in a confidential roar. "De champagne iss all right. Ay got not'ing against de champagne. But it iss not a man's drink. It do not put hair on de chest. What we want to drink iss Old Rob Roy. Ay tell you what. After we finish diss bottle we go up to de bar and we order Old Rob Roy and we start a poker game…"

  "… but I say, you mustn't be so owfully, owfully formal," said Mrs. Perrigord chidingly. "Henry. Theah! I've said it, haven't I? Oh, deah me! And now you'll think I'm positively" — gurgle, gurgle, gurgle—"positively dreadful, won't you? But I have so many things I should like to discuss with you, you know…

  A new voice chirped:

  "Hullo!"

  Morgan started up, rather guiltily, to see Peggy Glenn, in a green evening gown that looked rather disarranged, negotiating the last step of the staircase and bearing down on them. She was beaming seraphically, and something in her gait as she moved through the layers of smoke struck Morgan's eye even out of a warmth of champagne. Mrs. Perrigord turned. "Why, my deah!" she cried, with unexpected and loud affection. "Oh. how reolly, reolly wonderful! Oh, do, do come heah! It's simply wonderful to see you looking so spic hic, so sick and span after oil those owful things that happened to you last night whee! And—"

  "Darling!" cried Peggy ecstatically.

  "Peggy," said Morgan, fixing her with a stern eye, "Peggy, you — have — been — drinking."

  "Hoo!" cried Peggy, lifting her arm with a conquering gesture by way of emphasis. Her eyes were bright and pleased.

  " Why have you been drinking?"

  "Why not?" inquired Peggy, with the air of one clinching a point.

  "Well then," said Morgan magnanimously "have another. Pour her a glass of fizz, Skipper. All I thought was after all that bawling and screaming this afternoon—"

  "You did. You bawled and screamed this afternoon about Curt being shut up in a foul dungeon with the rats, and—"

  "I hate him!" Peggy said passionately. She became tense and fierce, and moisture came into her eyes. "I hate and loathe him and despise him, that's what I do. I don't ever want to hear his name again, ever, ever, ever! Gimme a drink."

  "My God!" said Morgan, starting up. "What's happened now?"

  "Ooo, how I loathe him! He wouldn't even speak to me, the f-filthy w-wretch," she said, her lip trembling. "Don't ever mention his name again, Hank. I'll get blind, speechless drunk, that's what I'll do, and that'll show him, it will, and I hope the rats gnaw him, too. And I had a big basket of fruit for him, and all he did was lie there and pretend he was asleep, that's what he did; and I said, "All right!", so I went upstairs and I met Leslie — Mr. Perrigord — and he said, would I like to listen to his speech? And I said yes, if he didn't mind my drinking, and he said he never touched spirits, but he didn't mind if I did; so we sort of went to his cabin—"

  "Have another drink, Mrs. Perrigord — Cynthia!" roared Morgan, to drown out the possibilities of this. "Pour everybody a drink. Ha-ha!"

  "But, Henry!" crowed Mrs. Perrigord, opening her eyes wide, "I think it's p-perfectly wonderful, reolly, and so screamingly funny, don't you know, because oil deah Les-

  He evah does is tolk, you see, and the pooah darling must have been most dreadfully disappointed. Whee!" Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle.

  "Ay like to see de young foolks have a good time," observed Captain Valvick affably.

  "… and for Curt to act like that just when everything was nice and arranged for the performance to-night, when I'd finally succeeded in keeping Uncle Jules sober! And it was such a ghastly task, you know," explained Peggy, wrinkling up her face to keep back the tears, "because four separate times I caught him trying to sneak out after that horrible old gin!" The thought of that horrible old gin Almost overcame her with tears, but she turned a grim if wrinkled f
ace steadily towards them. "But at last I made him see reason, and everything was all right, and he came down here in lovely shape to the dining-room to eat his dinner, and everything is nice—"

  "Your Uncle Jules," said Morgan thoughtfully, in the midst of a curious silence, "came down where to eat his dinner?"

  "Why, down here! And—" "No, he didn't," said Morgan.

  Peggy whirled round. Slowly, painstakingly, with misted eyes and lips slowly opening, she scanned the dining-saloon Inch by inch. Babble and riot flowed there under a fog of smoke; but Uncle Jules was not there. Peggy hesitated. Then she sat down at the table and burst into sobs.

  "Come on!" said Morgan, leaping to his feet. "Come on, Skipper! There's a chance to salvage the wreck if we work Nut, He'll be in the bar if he's anywhere… How long's he been on the loose, Peggy?"

  "Th-thrree-qu-quarrbolooo!" sobbed Peggy, beating her hands against her forehead. "And only an hour unt-t-il the bolooo. Oh, w-why w-was the aw-ful st-stuff ever invented, lind w-why do beastly m-men drink—?"

  "Can he drink much in three quarters of an hour?" "G-gallons," said Peggy. "Whoooo!" "My de-deah," cried Mrs. Perrigord, the tears starting to her own eyes, "do you reolly mean that that cher M'skieux Fortinbras has really m'uskic, hie, has reolly got

  himskehelp tight? Oh, my deah, the horrible, owful, drunken—"

  "Lady, lady," thundered Captain Valvick, hammering the table, "ay tell you diss is no time for a crying yag! Come on, Mr. Morgan; you take care of one and ay take care of de odder. Stop it, bot' of you! Come on now… "

  By dint of holding firmly to Mrs. Perrigord's arm while the captain took Peggy's, they slid through the rollicking, friendly crowd that was now streaming upstairs for a headlong rush on the bar before the hour of the ship's concert. The bar, already crowded and seething with noise, seemed even more crowded and noisy to Morgan. Each of his trio had consumed exactly one bottle of champagne; and, while he would have scorned the imputation that he could become the least sozzled on a quart of fizz, he could not in honesty deny certain insidious manifestations. For example, it seemed to him that he was entirely without legs, and that his torso must be moving through the air in a singularly ghostly fashion; whereas the more lachrymose became the two ladies over Uncle Jules going off on the razzle-dazzle, the more it impressed him as an excellent joke. On the other hand, his brain was clearer than normal; sights, sounds, colours, voices took on a brilliant sharpness and purity. He felt in his pores the heat and smoke and alcoholic dampness of the bar. He saw the red-faced crowd milling about leather chairs under the whirring fans and the pastoral scenes of the roof. He saw the amber lights glittering on mosaic glass in the windows, and heard somebody strumming the piano. Good old bar! Excellent bar!

  "Come on!" said Captain Valvick. "Shovf de ladies into chairs at de table here and we make de round. Coorosh! Ay vant to see that marionette show myself. Come on. We start along de side and work ofer. You see him anywhere? Ay dunno him at all."

  Morgan did not see him. He saw white-coated stewards shuttling in and out of the crowd with trays; but everybody in the crowd seemed to get in his way. Twice they made the circuit of the room: and no Uncle Jules.

  "It's all right, I think," said Morgan, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief when they drew back towards a door giving on B deck. "He's probably gone down to take a last look at the marionettes. It's all right. He's safe, after all, and—"

  " 'When chapman-billies leave the street,'" intoned a sepulchral voice just behind them, " 'and drouthy neighbours neighbours meet — When market-days are wearin' late, and folk begin to tak the gate'… Not bad, not bad," the voice broke off genially. "Guid evening to ye, Mr. Morgan!"

  Morgan whirled. A hand was raised in greeting from a leather alcove in a corner, where Dr. Oliver Harrison Kyle sot bolt upright in a solitary state. On Dr. Kyle's rugged face there was an expression of Jovian pleasure; a trifle frozen, it is true, but dreamy and appreciative. He had stretched out one hand levelly, and his eyes were half-closed as he rolled out the lines. But now he gestured hospitably.

  Dr. Kyle was full of reaming swats that drank divinely. Dr. Kyle was, in fact, cockeyed.

  " 'Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses,' " announced Dr. Kyle, with a gesture that indicated him to be a local boy and proud of it, " 'for honest men and bonnie lasses'! Aye! A statement ye ken, Mr. Morgan, frae the wairks o' the great Scottish poet, Rabbie Burrrns. Sit down, Mr. Morgan. And perhaps ye'll tak a drap o' whusky, eh? 'The souter tauld his queerest stories—'"

  "Excuse me, sir," said Morgan. "We can't stop now, I'm afraid, but maybe you can help us. We're looking for a Frenchman named Fortinbras; short, stocky chap — perhaps you saw—?"

  "Ah," said the doctor reflectively. He shook his head. "A guid horse, Mr. Morgan, a guid horse, but ower hasty. Weel, weel! I could ha' tauld him frae his ain exuberance at clearing the firrst sax hurdles he wadna gang the courrse. Ye'll find him there," said Dr. Kyle.

  They hauled Uncle Jules out from under the lounge, a pleasant far-off smile on his red face, but unquestionably locked in slumber. Peggy and Mrs. Perrigord arrived just as they were trying to revive him.

  "Quick!" Peggy gulped. "I knew it! Stand round, now, so nobody sees him. The door's right behind you… carry him out and downstairs."

  "Any chance of reviving him?" inquired Morgan, rather doubtfully. "He looks—"

  "Come on! Don't argue! You won't say anything of this, will you, Dr. Kyle?" she demanded. "He'll be perfectly all right by curtain-time. Pease don't mention it. Nobody'll ever know…"

  The doctor assured her gallantly the secret would be safe with him. He deplored the habits of inebriates, and offered to give them assistance in moving Uncle Jules; but Valvick and Morgan managed it. They contrived to lurch out on the deck and below without more than the incurious observation of stewards. Peggy, stanching her tears, was a whirlwind.

  "Not to his cabin — to the dressing-room at the back entrance to the concert-hall! Oh, be careful! Be careful! Where can Abdul have been? Why wasn't Abdul watching him? Abdul will be furious; he's got a fearful temper as it is… Oh, if we can't revive him there'll be nobody to speak the prologue; and Abdul will have to take all the parts himself, which he probably won't do…. Listen! You can hear the hall filling up already… "

  They had come out into the corridor in the starboard side of C deck aft, and Peggy led them up a darkish side-passage. At its end was a door opening on a steep stairway, and beside it the door of a large cabin whose lights she switched on. Faintly, from up the staircase, they could hear an echoing murmur which seemed to come chiefly from children. Panting hard, Morgan helped Valvick spill on a couch the puppet-master, who was as heavily limp as one of his own puppets. A small whistle escaped the lips of Uncle Jules as his head rolled over. He murmured, "Magnifique!" and began to snore, smiling sadly.

  Peggy, weeping and cursing at once, rushed to an open trunk in one corner of the cabin. It was a cabin fully fitted up as a dressing-room, Morgan saw. Three superb uniforms, with spiked helmets, broadswords, scimitars, chain mail, and cloaks crusted in glass jewels, hung in a wardrobe. A scent of powder was in the air; on a lighted dressing table were false whiskers of varying hues, wigs in long fighting-curls, face creams, greasepaints, spirit gum, make-up boxes, and pencils of rich soft blackness. Morgan breathed deeply the air of the theatre and liked it. Peggy snatched from the trunk a large box of baking-soda.

  •'You neffer do it," said Captain Valvick, looking gloomily at Uncle Jules. "Ay seen lots of drunks in my time, and (til you—"

  "I will do it!" cried Peggy. "Mrs. Perrigord, please, please stop crying and pour out a glass of water. Water, somebody! I got him round once in Nashville when he was nearly as bad as this. Now! Now, if somebody will—"

  "Oh, the poah deah!" cried Mrs. Perrigord, going over to stroke his forehead. Immediately, with a deep snore which rose to crescendo in a reverberating whistle, Uncle Jules slid off the couch on the other side.

  "lip!" wailed Pe
ggy. "Hold him — lift him up, Captain! Hold his head. That's it. Now tickle him. Yes, tickle him; you know." She dropped a lump of baking-soda into a glass of water and advanced warily through an aroma of gin that was drowning the odour of grease-paint. "Hold Him now. Oh, where is Abdul? Abdul knows how to do (Hi*! Now, hold him and tickle him a little… "

  "Gla-goo!" snorted Uncle Jules, leaping like a captured

  An expression of mild annoyance had crossed his face.

  face

  dolphin.

  "Viens, mon oncle!" whispered Peggy soothingly. Her steps were a little unsteady, her eyes smearily bright; but lip whs determined. "Ah, mon pauvre enfant! Mon pauvre ftfflt fiosse! Viens, alors…

  The pauvre enfant seemed vaguely to catch the drift of fill* lie sat up suddenly with his eyes closed; his fist shot Mil with unerring aim, caught the glass full and true, and muled it with a crash against the opposite bulkhead. Then Uncle Jules slid down and serenely went on snoring. "Haah, whee!" breathed Uncle Jules.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Peggy nearly screamed as she backed away. "That can't

  Mr, Perrigord!" she wailed. "Oh, it can't be! He'll ruin us if he learns this. He hates drinking, and he says he's going to write an account again for the papers. Abdul! Maybe it's Abdul. He'll have to do it now. He'll have to____"

  "Dat," said Captain Valvick suddenly, "is a very funny knock. Lissen!"

  They stared, and Morgan felt a rather eerie sensation. The knock was a complicated one, very light and rapid, rather like a lodge signal. Valvick moved over to open it, when it began to open of itself in a rather singular and mysterious way, by sharp jerks…

  "Ps-s-sst!" hissed a voice warningly.

  Into the room, after a precautionary survey, darted none other than Mr. Curtis Warren. His attire was much rumpled, including torn coat and picturesquely grease-stained white flannels; his hair stood up, and there was some damage done to his countenance. But a glow of fiendish triumph shone from it. He closed the door carefully and faced them with a proud gesture.