Dusty Death

by Clifton Robbins

  “You are very observant, Doctor,” said Harrison.

  Thank you,” replied the doctor, with a slightly ironical note. “The rest of the story I think you know as well as I do. The Englishman’s explanations seemed entirely natural, and so I went along and saw Mr. Blacklock.”

  “You were perfectly satisfied as to the cause of death?”

  “Oh, yes,” answered the doctor. “I would never have consented to help had I thought otherwise.”

  “And, of course, the Englishman did not attend the funeral?”

  “Oh no.”

  “And it might be suggested that you deceived Mr. Blacklock into thinking he was going to?”

  “I don’t think so,” answered the doctor. “But I must admit I wanted to make things as easy as possible.”

  “And you were very well paid?”

  “Obviously. It was worth the trouble I took,” said the doctor. “There was nothing unprofessional in it as far as I see.”

  “Possibly not,” returned Harrison. “You have your own ideas of professional conduct. Now there is one further thing in which you can be of great assistance, Doctor. I want you to see if you can identify Mr. Brown.”

  “Certainly,” said the doctor.

  “Come to the light, then,” said Harrison. “Because I want you to have a good look at a photograph.”

  The doctor rose from his chair and walked across to where a light was hanging over a small writing table. Harrison picked up the photograph of Twining together with those which had been given to him by the police when he left London. As he did so, he noticed the doctor give a slight start. “I’ve got my man at last,” thought Harrison.

  He handed the doctor the photograph of Twining and the doctor looked at it intently.

  “No,” said the doctor, “that certainly isn’t Brown. I can’t say I have ever seen that face before.” He examined the photograph closely. “No, that’s not Brown.”

  Harrison felt baffled. He was certain the doctor had invented his story but he thought the photograph would settle everything. The whole case straightened out, everything in his hands and nothing more to do but to draw in the stray threads and then complete victory. But the doctor had not recognised the photograph. Something had gone badly wrong, but, even as he realised this, he saw the doctor’s eyes stealing furtively towards the other photographs in his hand, the one of Mrs. Humbleby’s lodger, as he lay dead in his bed, being uppermost. The blood seemed to go out of the doctor’s face as his eyes became almost riveted on the dead Timothy Mountford.

  Harrison made up his mind in an instant. He pushed the photograph into the doctor’s hand and said quickly: “I gave you the wrong one, Doctor, that’s a photograph of Brown, isn’t it?”

  The doctor staggered into a chair and muttered: “My God.”

  “And he was lying in his bed, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “The window was open?”

  “Yes.”

  “And on a table by the side of the bed there was a bottle of drugs in tablet form, half used—” and Harrison mentioned the name of the firm of makers.

  “Yes,” said the doctor abjectly.

  “And yet on his wrist were the marks of a hypodermic syringe?”

  The doctor jumped up, his face livid. “How the devil do you know all this?” he cried.

  “It’s true isn’t it?” pressed Harrison.

  “Of course it is,” groaned the doctor.

  “And so you have been lying to me all the time about the way Brown died?”

  “Yes,” said the doctor.

  “He died of drugs.”

  “Yes,” answered the doctor. “He committed suicide.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “And you did not report it?”

  “No, I thought of his friends.”

  “You are lying again.”

  “No, I’m not. They paid me well.”

  “Who?”

  “The Englishman who called.”

  “And you did all this for money?”

  “I swear I did.”

  “And what about all the other lies?”

  “What lies?”

  “That you don’t know the name of the Englishman who paid you so well?”

  “I swear I don’t know it.”

  “You do.”

  “I swear I don’t.”

  “Very well,” said Harrison, not convinced. “What was the address of Brown’s flat?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Dawnay,” said Harrison, “ring up the police.”

  “No, don’t do that,” cried the doctor. “I shall remember in a moment. I know, it was 28, Chemin des Noisettes. Top floor.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Positive.”

  “No more lies.”

  “I daren’t lie to you.”

  “I wish I could believe you,” said Harrison. “Still I shall have to check the truth of it, you know. Dawnay, the doctor will have your bedroom for to-night.”

  “You’re not going to keep me here?” the doctor exclaimed.

  “Of course I am,” answered Harrison. “At any rate until I’ve paid a visit to the Chemin des Noisettes.”

  “You can’t,” said the doctor feebly.

  “Put him in the bedroom and lock the door,” commanded Harrison.

  Dawnay pulled the doctor up from his chair and gently urged him towards the bedroom. There was little defiance left in the doctor and he was quite tamely locked in.

  “I’m afraid I can’t understand it at all,” said Dawnay as they settled down to smoke again. “But I must admit I was almost relieved when he didn’t recognise Gilbert’s photograph. But where did you get the others? It sounded as if you had been behind a curtain when the whole thing happened.”

  “I got them in London, Dawnay.”

  “Good heavens, that makes it still more difficult.”

  “In a way it does and, in a way, it doesn’t,” answered Harrison. “I am glad I had those photographs with me. Dr. Kellerman might easily have beaten us without them. What do you think, Henry?”

  “The same man can’t die in two places, sir,” replied Henry. “And yet it seems to have happened. I knew you connected Mrs. Humbleby’s lodger with this business but really, sir, you were rather obstinate and wouldn’t agree with me when I said it.”

  “Not obstinate, Henry,” said Harrison. “But I wasn’t nearly sure.”

  “And yet you went for the doctor as if you were quite sure?”

  “That was an inspiration, Henry,” answered Harrison.

  “But, sir, you can’t believe that a man can die in two places at once?”

  “Dr. Kellerman seemed to make it fairly plain.”

  “I know, sir,” said Henry. “But this is the twentieth century. We don’t have witchcraft now.”

  “If that’s how you feel about it, Henry,” replied Harrison, “I must leave you to your own conclusions.”

  “Won’t you give us any hint, Harrison?” said Dawnay.

  “I’m just guessing at present,” answered Harrison. “Guessing and guessing and guessing and I daren’t tell you what my guess is. I must admit that the doctor’s recognition of the photograph was a surprise to me. I’m not as clever as all that—although you both may think so. But directly I saw him turn pale when he looked at it, I seemed to have known it all the time. All we can say, at the moment, is that we’re on the right road. I’m certain of that. We want more facts yet but we have done amazingly well up to now.”

  “And Gilbert?” asked Dawnay sadly.

  “We mustn’t speculate any more,” answered Harrison gently. “It would not be fair, Dawnay, but we’re going to get to the bottom of it, no doubt of that.”

  “Thank you,” returned Dawnay.

  “And now for a map of Geneva. Have you one, Dawnay?” asked Harrison.

  A stout plan was produced of the town and Harrison laid it out on the floor and proceeded to study it inten
tly. Suddenly he called to the others.

  “Look,” he said triumphantly, placing his finger on the map. “Do you see? There is the Chemin des Noisettes.”

  “Yes,” they answered.

  “And here,” continued Harrison, “is where Dr. Kellerman lives.”

  They both pored over the map with him.

  “They’re a long way apart,” said Dawnay.

  “Of course they are,” answered Harrison. “Don’t you see the whole business is put up? Kellerman knows much more than he told us. He wasn’t casually summoned there by a concierge. She wouldn’t have been such a fool as to go all that way for a doctor. No, it was all arranged and Kellerman is as deeply in the scheme as anybody else.”

  “Are you going to ask him some more questions?” said Dawnay.

  “I don’t think it’s worth it,” replied Harrison. “I should only get another version and then not the true one. But this address must be true. He wouldn’t have faked an address that gave so much away. So it’s Chemin des Noisettes in the morning. Meanwhile, Dawnay, I’m very sorry but Henry and I will have to shake down with you here. It’s a bad time to be going into a hotel. Some people might draw quite the wrong conclusions, while others—who may still be watching—might draw quite the right ones.”

  Chapter XVI

  The Bookcase

  They were all awake in good time in the morning. Henry declared he had not slept a wink, but Harrison was sceptical because it was practically true in his case and, as he lay thinking, the sound of Henry’s emphatic snoring had kept him company. A bath, however, made him feel greatly invigorated, and he proceeded to work out plans for the day.

  “I should say, Dawnay,” he said, “that this is going to be the busiest day of the lot. In fact, it might see the end of my work—”

  “You mean?” queried Dawnay.

  “Exactly what I say—the end of my work, one way or the other,” answered Harrison. “And I can’t be certain which.”

  “Success, then, is by no means certain?” asked Dawnay.

  “That’s exactly what I do mean, I’m sorry to say,” said Harrison. “The Baron and his friends are a pretty tough proposition. I thought things were working out quite well, if rather slowly, but I must confess this Kellerman business gave me rather a jolt.”

  “A pretty hefty shock, I should say, sir,” commented Henry.

  “Not quite in the way you mean, Henry,” said Harrison. “It was more in the matter of tactics, Dawnay. You must admit that Kellerman’s first story was remarkably probable, and I should say he only worked out the details on the spur of the moment. It was lucky the photograph really upset him, but that’s the kind of luck one can’t always expect. If they’re all as cool and quick-witted as Kellerman in a crisis it’s going to be very very difficult. And I must admit, Kellerman rather took me in himself. He was so exceedingly violent tempered when I saw him first. I suppose it was the beard.”

  “What on earth do you mean, Harrison?” said Dawnay.

  “The beard made me think of him as a foreigner and my mind at once reacted to the idea that foreigners are excitable and quick-tempered and all that sort of nonsense.”

  “And so they are,” said Henry stoutly.

  “Not all of them, Henry; particularly not this one—and I thought I was going to frighten him into talking. Well, it’s a lesson anyway. And now, Henry, go and ring up the hotel and see if there is anything for us.”

  While Henry was telephoning, Harrison explained his plans somewhat further to Dawnay. “First of all,” he said, “you are more important to me to-day than to the League. You can go to the office, of course, but be ready to come along directly I ask you to. I won’t go into any explanations now. I know I can trust you. Will you do that?”

  “Of course I will.”

  “And one other thing. This Miss Warley. Can you fix things at the office so that she can come along, if necessary, in the same way?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I wish you would,” said Harrison. “She may be very useful. And still one more request. Will you ring up Crill, the journalist? Tell him I asked you to get into touch with him. Ask him to be ready in the same way—either by his telephone or at the League office. Clay Harrison summons his supporters, like Lars Porsena of Clusium. It’s a lot to ask but it will be very helpful.”

  “Of course I will,” answered Dawnay.

  Henry had finished telephoning and came back with a serious face.

  “What is it, Henry?” asked Harrison.

  “No letters, sir,” answered Henry, “but there has been a telephone call for you from London, from Miss Graham, about half an hour ago. She told me they must find you as it was very urgent and that she would ring up again in an hour’s time. They seemed quite relieved when they heard my voice.”

  “That sounds serious,” said Harrison. “We may have to go back to the hotel after all, and collect that call before we go on to the Chemin des Noisettes. That means the doctor will have to stay here a little longer, Dawnay. Will you keep him for an hour and then turn him loose?”

  “I will,” answered Dawnay.

  “I’ve just one more question to ask him before I go,” said Harrison, going into the bedroom where he found the doctor sitting on the side of the bed staring into space.

  “Good morning, Doctor,” said Harrison, briskly. “Just one final question. Was there a hypodermic syringe in the room where you found Brown dead?”

  “I don’t know,” answered the doctor.

  “Try and remember.”

  “I don’t know,” said the doctor. “I didn’t look.”

  “There wasn’t in the other one, you know,” said Harrison.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” said the doctor.

  “I didn’t expect you to,” answered Harrison. “You didn’t see one then?”

  “I can’t remember seeing one,” said the doctor. “I tell you I didn’t look, but I can’t remember seeing one.”

  “If there wasn’t one,” said Harrison solemnly, “don’t you think, Doctor, it might be a case of murder?”

  The doctor’s face turned ashen, and he jumped up from the bed. “You don’t suggest it was murder?” he cried.

  “I certainly do,” answered Harrison.

  “My God,” said the doctor. “Impossible. It can’t be.” There seemed no doubt of the genuineness of the doctor’s feelings and the terror which the suggestion had obviously inspired in him.

  “That’s all, thank you, Doctor,” said Harrison, going out of the room.

  “Not quite so deeply in it as I thought,” mused Harrison, as he went downstairs with Henry. “He’ll be pretty frightened now.”

  On arrival at the Hotel des Montagnes, they were greeted quite warmly by the hall porter. This somewhat annoyed Henry, who, classing hall porters with any other kind of foreigner, considered such conduct lacking in respect.

  Foreigners may be effusive with each other, thought Henry; that was their own business, even if it was a misfortune as well, but a certain distance must always be maintained with anyone of British birth.

  The hall porter explained that the lady speaking from London had been so insistent that Mr. Clay Harrison must be found that he felt it his duty to speak to her himself.

  “Very condescending,” thought Henry, with an irony which gave him infinite satisfaction.

  The lady had seemed greatly disturbed, the hall porter continued, and even his own assurances that Harrison had not returned to the hotel had not soothed her feelings—in fact, she seemed, by her voice, to get even more excited. Finally, she said she would ring up again in an hour’s time, and the hall porter told her that he would do everything in his power to help.

  “I am very grateful to you,” said Harrison.

  Henry glowered at him as if he felt that such approval of the hall porter’s attitude was an unpardonable surrender.

  “And you’ll put the call through to my room directly it comes?”

  “
Of course, sir; of course,” answered the porter, with the greatest relief.

  It was not long before the telephone bell rang and Harrison heard Miss Graham’s voice at the other end.

  “Is that really, Mr. Harrison?” asked Miss Graham.

  “Of course it is,” replied Harrison cheerfully.

  “Thank heaven,” came the answer, with considerable emphasis.

  “Why, what’s the matter?”

  “I thought something had happened to you.”

  “Very unlikely.”

  “No, it isn’t. It’s extremely likely.”

  “They’ve been worrying you again, Miss Graham.”

  “They have, Mr. Harrison. I’ve been nearly mad with anxiety. Late last night I had another telephone call. It came from the Continent. I was so worried that I did not find out where from. But it was about you and—”

  “And Mr. Twining?” asked Harrison.

  There was a sound from the other end of the telephone as if she was trying to keep back a sob and Harrison waited.

  “Yes,” came Miss Graham’s reply, very quietly, after a few moments. “I don’t know how to tell you. It’s too terrible.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Yes, they told me I could be certain he was—” the voice stopped.

  “The cads,” answered Harrison. “I understand, Miss Graham, but we can still hope.”

  “I don’t think so,” she replied, wearily, but as if she had now regained full control of herself. “I have felt all along that he was dead but I didn’t dare admit it to myself. It was a kind of instinctive knowledge. Women have it—” she paused again—“they spoke with such certainty and finality. There can be no doubt—”

  “They?”

  “Not really they. It was a man’s voice. Brutal, oh, terribly brutal and not quite English, I should say. He said Gilbert had taken a risk and had paid for it. That was his own fault.”

  “His own fault?”

  “Yes, that was what he said. But if the same thing happened to you it would be my fault.”

  “Nonsense.”