Dusty Death

by Clifton Robbins

“And what is more to the point,” said Harrison. “We shan’t be headed for the hotel at all. We shall be making for Dawnay’s flat with all speed.”

  As Harrison had said, the shadow made no attempt to cross the bridge and there seemed to be nobody obviously following them as they made their way to Dawnay’s flat. There they found Dawnay and Miss Warley impatiently waiting for them.

  Henry introduced the girl with a certain pride to Harrison, who thanked her warmly for coming.

  “Thank me,” said the girl. “Thank you, Mr. Harrison, for letting me come. It’s most exciting. I’m all shaking.”

  “You mustn’t do that, you know,” he said. “We’ve a long time to wait yet.”

  “I don’t mind a bit,” she answered.

  “But I can assure you, Miss,” said Harrison, “it’s not going to be a bit exciting for you. All you will have to do will be to give a telephone call and then go home.”

  “Shan’t I see anything happen?” asked the girl in a disappointed voice.

  “Perhaps nothing will happen,” replied Harrison. “But if anything does I’m afraid you can’t be here.”

  The girl looked as if she was going to weep with disappointment.

  “But you said I was important?” she said, turning to Henry.

  “You are important,” broke in Harrison. “Very important. In fact, if you don’t help me, my whole scheme goes to bits.”

  “You mean that?” asked the girl, brightening up.

  “Honest,” answered Harrison.

  “I had hoped it would be more exciting than that,” said the girl. “But if I can be really useful—”

  “There’s no doubt of that,” said Harrison.

  “Then of course I’ll do everything I can,” she said. “But must I go home?”

  “No way out of it,” replied Harrison.

  “Very well,” said the girl and Henry gave her one of his specially affectionate smiles.

  “Now we can’t do anything for some time yet,” said Harrison. “We must amuse ourselves. Any cards, Dawnay?”

  “Of course I have,” replied Dawnay. “Bridge?”

  “Heavens no,” said Harrison. “Bridge would be the death of me. Do you play rummy?”

  They all confessed to a knowledge of the game although Henry sagely remarked that everybody seemed to make their own rules; still he had no doubt that, after a hand or two, they would find a compromise although he admitted that with some people it was a most quarrelsome game.

  “Rummy it is, then,” said Harrison. “And, Dawnay, as a great favour, will you let Henry make me a cup of tea, when we finish the first game?”

  Chapter XV

  Death In Two Places

  The tea had long been consumed and a great deal of rummy had been played before Harrison gave any hint of his further wishes. They had put aside the cards and were sitting round, talking rather desultorily, when the clock struck two.

  “You must be tired,” said Harrison, turning to Miss Warley. “I’m so sorry but it wouldn’t have done any earlier.” Then he turned to Dawnay. “Is the car outside?” he asked.

  “All ready,” answered Dawnay. “Whenever you are.”

  “I am really nearly ready now,” said Harrison. “But there’s some coaching to be done before the actual rise of the curtain.”

  “I don’t feel a bit tired now,” said Miss Warley. “It’s too exciting.”

  “You must keep calm, Miss Warley,” said Harrison. “Such a lot depends on you. Indeed you’re like the royal personage who presses the button and the whole avalanche of water dashes into the new reservoir. You must press the button properly. Now I think I told you your part was a telephone call.”

  “Yes,” said the girl.

  “Henry,” said Harrison. “Look up Dr. Kellerman’s number.”

  Henry did as he was ordered and Harrison made a note of it.

  “Now, Miss Warley,” said Harrison, “I want you to listen very carefully. You are in great distress. You are an Englishwoman living in Geneva and you have been entertaining a lady named Jeanne de Marplay—don’t forget the name. What was it?”

  “Jeanne de Marplay.”

  “Unfortunately just as Miss de Marplay was going home she fell ill, and you are very worried about her. What is most serious is that Miss de Marplay seems a bit delirious and is saying the queerest things. As she has mentioned Dr. Kellerman in her wanderings, you thought it best to ring him up and ask him to come along. Is that clear?”

  “Quite.”

  “A friend of yours has a car at the door and will immediately come and fetch him.”

  “I understand,” said the girl.

  “Well, now repeat the whole story.”

  The girl repeated what Harrison had told her while he occasionally interrupted and suggested some modification.

  “Now then, try and act it as if you were talking into a telephone,” said Harrison.

  This proved somewhat more difficult and the girl had to rehearse a number of times before Harrison was in any way satisfied. “Like making a film,” commented Henry to Dawnay.

  “Must be hard work being a star then,” said Dawnay.

  “Just once more then, Miss Warley,” said Harrison, “I think we shall be all right.”

  The girl repeated her pathetic story and Harrison seemed satisfied.

  “Are you ready, Dawnay?” asked Harrison. Dawnay nodded. “Now, Miss Warley, you ring up this number. I expect Dr. Kellerman will answer it himself, but if he doesn’t, ask for him, and then tell your story.”

  The girl took up the telephone and the others gathered round her anxiously as she obeyed her instructions. Obviously Dr. Kellerman had answered it himself and, according to Henry, Miss Warley surpassed herself in the tone of distress she managed to impart to her voice.

  “Is he coming?” said Harrison, as she hung up the receiver.

  “Directly we call for him,” said Miss Warley. “I thought he sounded a bit scared.”

  “That’s good,” said Harrison. “I was hoping it would take him that way. Now, Dawnay, off you go.”

  Dawnay departed and Miss Warley started putting on her hat and coat.

  “That’s right,” said Harrison. “You don’t know how much I appreciate your help, Miss Warley.”

  “Not enough to let me stay, of course,” said the girl.

  “That’s quite a different matter,” answered Harrison. “I’d very much like to let you stay, but it’s far better not. We shall be a rather overwhelmingly masculine party when the doctor joins us, and I think we had better stick to that.”

  “You don’t even need me to make your excuse more convincing?” asked the girl.

  “Not even that,” replied Harrison, with a smile. “That’s over now.”

  “Very well, hard-hearted man,” she said. “Goodnight.”

  Henry made as if to go out with her but Harrison interposed, saying, “And yet there is one more favour, Miss Warley. I’m so sorry to have to beg yet again, but would you mind going home alone to-night, even without Henry seeing you down to the front-door? Forgive me for being so ungallant, but I want Henry to stay with me.”

  “I don’t mind,” said the girl. “But it does sound frightfully serious. You will take care of yourself, won’t you? Good night.”

  “You see, Henry,” said Harrison, as the door closed, “she mustn’t be identified with us in any way. If she stayed and the worthy Kellerman recognised her afterwards it might be very uncomfortable. Even if, by any accident, you were seen at the door with her or escorting her home, it might be difficult. You can’t be too careful.”

  “I suppose not,” said Henry, grudgingly.

  “Come, come, Henry, cheer up,” said Harrison. “This should be one of our big nights to-night. And besides, if the girl is not recognised, I may want to use her again. She is obviously very intelligent, isn’t she, Henry?”

  Henry smiled an affirmative and seemed enormously cheered.

  “I hate firearms,” said Harrison, produ
cing a small automatic from his pocket. “But I should equally hate physical violence with our Dr. Kellerman, so I had better keep this handy. Now, Henry, I’m going behind the door and you stay on this side of the room, too, so that he doesn’t see you as he comes in. We’ll only have a little light—we must be economical, you know.”

  They took up their positions, and it was not long before they heard a key in the front-door.

  “Come right in, Doctor,” said Dawnay’s voice, and Harrison heard a guttural response and footsteps cross the small hall of the flat.

  Dawnay opened the door of the room wide and the doctor walked in. Immediately Harrison sprang to the door, put his back against it and faced the doctor.

  “Good evening, Doctor,” he said. “We do meet again, after all.”

  Dr. Kellerman looked round angrily at Harrison and was obviously about to speak in accordance with his feelings, but then made a supreme effort of will and answered, in an almost too normal tone: “So I see, Mr. Harrison, a trick.”

  “I’m afraid so, Doctor,” answered Harrison.

  “You seem fond of playing tricks to see me,” said the doctor, with a smile.

  “You are so unwilling to see me any other way,” was the reply.

  “And firearms, too, I shouldn’t be surprised,” said the doctor, looking at Harrison’s right hand in his pocket.

  “Right again, Doctor,” answered Harrison. “A needless precaution, I trust.”

  “Of course, I feel complimented, Mr. Harrison,” said the doctor. “The great detective corners the Swiss doctor. All the melodramatic surroundings, too, excellent. Of course, there is no lady ill?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Am I to congratulate you on your admirable assumption of the feminine voice, Mr. Harrison? Very charming, I must say; I was quite deceived.”

  “That was another accomplice in the melodrama,” said Harrison.

  “Quite a large theatrical company,” said the doctor. “And now I suppose you reckon I am a prisoner.”

  “Not quite that, Doctor,” replied Harrison. “I just want to ask you a few questions. My reception at your flat this afternoon did not warrant a second attempt. The atmosphere was not good enough. So I thought it would be better here.”

  “From your point of view you may be right,” said the doctor. “Although I’m inclined to doubt it. From mine, certainly not, and I propose to give you a warning before this foolery goes any further.”

  “Yes?”

  “Get away from that door and let me go at once and I promise I will keep this very discreditable episode to myself.”

  “If not?”

  “You realise you are unlawfully detaining a Genevese citizen in Geneva. That is a serious offence in this country, as I expect it is in yours.”

  “Very,” commented Harrison.

  “Still more so that you deceive a professional man in the way you did and then threaten him.”

  “Threaten him?”

  “In the way, no doubt, you will do. I warn you, Mr. Harrison, you are making a great mistake. I have told you anything I know, and if you detain me here another minute against my will I shall have the whole force of the law against you tomorrow, with the most unpleasant consequences.”

  “To-morrow is a long way off,” said Harrison.

  “Which means, I suppose, that you do not propose to listen to my warning,” answered the doctor. “Very well, now you can start your third degree.”

  “I wish you would get all that queer stuff out of your head, Dr. Kellerman,” said Harrison. “First of all, let’s be comfortable, for we have no idea how long we are going to be. Now I have a feeling that you haven’t told me everything you know about Mr. Brown whose Christian name was unfamiliar to me, and I want the rest of the facts.”

  “There aren’t any.”

  “Oh yes, there are, Doctor. You told Mr. Blacklock quite a lot, you know.”

  Kellerman looked quickly at Harrison but betrayed no surprise.

  “If Mr. Blacklock is willing to give away his professional secrets, if I may call them that,” he said, “I do not propose to follow his example.”

  “I repeat what I said this afternoon, Dr. Kellerman; I think it would be wiser.”

  “It would be useless, I suppose, for me to repeat what I said this afternoon, Mr. Harrison,” said the doctor. “But I must say your methods are very tiring in their similarity.”

  “Not really, Doctor,” answered Harrison. “I have more information to go on to-night.”

  “Bluff again,” said the doctor.

  “Not this time,” replied Harrison, and he mentioned the address upon which he had called earlier in the evening.

  “Very interesting,” said the doctor. “But I am not impressed.”

  “You will be,” answered Harrison, cheerfully. “I mentioned your name as a recommendation, and he sold me this—” he produced the small packet of cocaine—“happy dust, Doctor, happy dust. Now can you tell me anything?”

  The doctor had turned pale, and his assurance was definitely shaken, but he replied: “Nothing.”

  “Now I think it is my turn to discuss the future,” said Harrison, gravely. “You know what this means to you Doctor, if one word is mentioned to the authorities. Ruin, stark, staring ruin.”

  “People won’t believe you,” said the doctor, weakly.

  “Oh, I forgot to introduce you,” said Harrison. “Mr. Dawnay—Dr. Kellerman. Mr. Dawnay is a very important League official connected with the drug traffic. He knows your connection with the traffickers. People will believe him.”

  “What do you want to know?” asked the doctor, seemingly broken by this last remark.

  “Doctor, the death of Mr. Brown is, from my point of view, a very fishy business,” answered Harrison. “There was an unusual amount of concealment about it—more than I care about, and I want the facts.”

  “Honestly. Mr. Harrison, I think you are making a mystery where none exists,” replied the doctor.

  “I shall judge that for myself,” said Harrison. “But you will admit that your own behaviour was calculated to make me a little suspicious.”

  “Assuming that you wanted to be suspicious, you might feel like that, but professional etiquette usually prevents a doctor from discussing his patients with strangers—to them and him.”

  “First of all, Dr. Kellerman,” said Harrison, ignoring the last remark and realising that the doctor was again showing very great self-control, “what were Mr. Brown’s bad habits?”

  “Bad habits?”

  “Yes, that was the phrase you used to Mr. Blacklock.”

  “Oh, yes,” replied the doctor, “I remember now. I should say that Mr. Brown had been in the habit of drinking pretty heavily. He was undermined by alcoholism and had no resistance left at all.”

  “I see,” said Harrison, not over-impressed by the speed with which this last statement was made. “Now tell me exactly what happened round about Mr. Brown’s death.”

  “It’s really very simple,” answered the doctor. “I was asked by a woman whom I had never seen before, but whom I should take to be the concierge of some flats, if I would go and look at an Englishman who was very ill. She said he lived all alone and that she looked after him, from the domestic point of view. She had the key of his flat and, on going in to tidy up in the afternoon, she had found him huddled up in a chair, practically unconscious. So she had come straight away to me.”

  “Leaving Mr. Brown alone?”

  “She had to. She said she could do nothing else. She was so distressed that I decided to go back with her immediately. When I got to the place I found Brown was practically dead. He had had some kind of a seizure and, as I said, the alcohol had done its own damage to his system, leaving no reserve. He was quite unconscious and, I regret to say, lasted only a very short while. He could not have recognised anybody in that state so that it really didn’t matter whether anyone he knew was present or not. One thing I am satisfied about, and that is the caretake
r did no harm by leaving him alone. He was too far gone for that. When he was dead I was in rather a quandary—”

  “Why?”

  “Well, there seemed nothing really to identify him by. We looked around but there seemed to be no papers. In fact—”

  “Yes, Doctor?”

  “Oh, nothing,” answered the doctor.

  “Surely?” interrogated Harrison.

  “Well, as a matter of fact, it looked as if he had burned up a number of his papers. Quite recently, too. Indeed, it seemed to me that he must have felt the seizure coming on and have got rid of some inconvenient correspondence.”

  “Very curious,” commented Harrison.

  “I agree,” answered the doctor. “So did his friend.”

  “His friend?”

  “But I am anticipating. I was just thinking of notifying the authorities when there was a ring at the front door bell and the caretaker let in an Englishman. He asked for Brown, saying he was an old friend of his, and I took upon myself the unpleasant duty of telling him what had happened. You can imagine the shock it was. He said he had not seen Brown for years and he was passing through Geneva so he thought he would look him up. He tactfully suggested that Brown was the black-sheep of a fairly well-known English family. That he received an allowance to live in Geneva—and not return to England. Quite a lot of that happens, you know, Mr. Harrison.”

  “I have heard so,” answered Harrison. “And what did this providential gentleman do next?”

  “He asked me what I was going to do, and I told him that I should get in touch with the authorities. He then said Brown’s family would never forgive him if they knew he was in Geneva and had allowed that to happen. Brown must have a decent English burial. There was no lack of money and I would be well paid if I could arrange it.”

  “By the way, Doctor, what was this Englishman’s name?”

  “Quite honestly, Mr. Harrison, I don’t know,” answered the doctor. “Of course, I asked him, but he said I could choose any name I liked. It would be almost as accurate as the name of Brown was to the dead man and about as useful. In fact, he seemed rather to resent the question.”

  “Strange.”

  “Hardly, Mr. Harrison,” said the doctor. “You English are very secretive. When there is anything queer about a family you talk of the skeleton in the cupboard. I assumed that this man was typically English in his desire to avoid any chance of a family scandal.”