In a few minutes the dream which Jacobson, the butler, was dreaming (a horsey affair, in which the Ascot Gold Cup was being unaccountably run round and round the grounds of Thrackley, with Jacobson and Edwin Carson neck-and-neck on a pair of shaggy pit-ponies) was rudely interrupted by a loud knocking on the bedroom door. The pit-ponies took a last convulsive swerve through the pine-trees, and then vanished as Jacobson blinked himself awake.
“Who the hell’s that?” he asked.
“Me, you fool. Come and open this damned door.”
Jacobson was surprised. Firstly at the idea of his employer returning at this hour of night; and secondly at the idea of his employer being so drunk as to be incapable of opening a perfectly simple door. He threw a pair of thin, hairy legs out of the bedclothes and crossed to the door, swearing at the meanness of an employer who lays thick carpets in the guests’ bedrooms and iced linoleum in the rooms of the staff. Then he turned the handle of the door, and saw that there was something in Edwin Carson’s failure at opening it. Which, thought Jacobson, was extremely odd, for he had never locked his bedroom door since that unfortunate evening when only that door (or one very like it) stood between a getaway and a three years’ detention in one of His Majesty’s prisons.
“It’s locked,” he said.
“I can see that, you blasted idiot,” said the voice on the other side. The boss, Jacobson told himself, was in one of his moods.
“Jussaminute. I’ll get the key.”
“A very sensible idea, Jacobson. Would you mind being as quick as you can about it?” Jacobson crossed to his dressing-table. He looked over the conglomeration which was scattered over it—the cheap solidified brilliantine, the double set of teeth floating serenely in their glass of water, the six and fivepence in small change, the watch and chain. Where the devil… And then suddenly he remembered. Burroughs!… Opening up the garage. Damn the man.
“Listen, boss… Burroughs got my keys. He’d left something in the garage. Wanted to go and get it. I lent him the bunch.”
“My God! Of all the… wait a minute. I’ll get mine. They’re downstairs.”
Jacobson, having no alternative to waiting a minute, sat on the edge of his bed and thought. Burroughs had locked the door, had he? Now why, in heaven’s name? Queer chap, Burroughs. A bit dippy, thought Jacobson. Not quite—
The noise of a key scraping its way into the lock made him give up his debating on the dippiness of Burroughs. Edwin Carson opened the door and walked into the room. Looking, in Jacobson’s eyes, like hell warmed up.
“Back early, boss,” said Jacobson.
Edwin Carson snorted.
“You think so, do you? Personally I think I’m back a damn sight too late.”
A tiny trickle of sweat fell from his brow on to one of the thick lenses of his glasses.
“Anything the matter?”
“Anything the matter? Oh, no! Nothing except that the entire staff have been fools enough to be locked in their rooms. Nothing except that my study has been broken into and the entrance to the cellars burst open. Nothing except that several of my so-called guests are having a tour of inspection of the cellars at this moment. Oh, no. Nothing’s happened.”
Jacobson allowed his jaw to drop several inches. He said, “What?”
“You heard. And it’s all through you, you brazen-faced nitwit. Didn’t I tell you definitely not to give your keys to anyone? Why on earth can’t I get hold of someone I can trust? Someone who wouldn’t be quite fool enough to give the keys to every room in this house to the first person who asks for them.”
“But Burroughs—”
“Good God, man, what do you know about Burroughs? And Burroughs apparently knows a great deal too much about me to be presented with the keys of my house.”
“But—”
“Shut up, will you!”
And Edwin Carson raised himself on tiptoe and brought the palm of his hand across Jacobson’s cheek, so that for an instant the cheek turned white and rushed into a crimson outline of Carson’s fingers.
“My God, you little swine!”
“Don’t speak to me, Jacobson. There are three men down in my cellars just now. You know what that means. We’re caught. Come and let the others out of their rooms. And take that.”
“That” was a revolver, black and shiny. Jacobson took it slowly out of Carson’s hand.
“Now go and unlock Kenrick and Adams. Bring them here to me at once.”
The butler disappeared in the folds of a thick grey dressing-gown, and stooped to pull a pair of felt slippers on to his feet. He stopped as he reached the door.
“What about the girl?” he asked.
“I’ve tried her door—it’s locked. Owing to your thoughtfulness, Burroughs was able to do his job thoroughly. You’ll leave her where she is. Much better for her door to remain locked to-night. Now, for God’s sake, hurry.”
In five minutes Carson and his three servants were down in the study. With the exception of Carson, they were all a slightly bleary and ill-dressed collection. But from the pocket of each of their not too fashionable dressing-gowns the hard barrel of an automatic protruded in a businesslike manner.
“All right?” said Carson.
The three men nodded.
“Very well, then. We’ll just go down and see what these guests of mine are up to. There is no necessity to use those revolvers except as… a little persuasion. Come on, then.”
The four crowded into the narrow lift. The machinery whirred almost inaudibly, and the lift lowered itself smoothly to the level of the cellar. When it had stopped Carson bent close to the doors of the lift and listened for a minute. Then he pressed the button at his side and the doors parted silently. The flood of light which came from the cellars blinded him for an instant. He blinked, and then saw that, so far, things were in his favour. The three men, Jim and Freddie and Burroughs, had their backs to the lift entrance. They had evidently not heard the whirr of the lift. They were bending over a large object sprawling on the floor. He saw between their legs that the large object was Catherine Lady Stone.
“Good evening,” said Edwin Carson.
The three swung round. Burroughs, the chauffeur, said “Carson!” Freddie muttered “My God!”
“I’m sorry,” said Edwin Carson, “if I have interrupted you. I had no idea that you were so interested in precious stones as to break into my private collection. Adams… Kenrick… just step out of the lift and keep your revolvers levelled at these gentlemen. Jacobson, you might remove that ugly-looking object from the chair at Captain Henderson’s side, will you? I have a feeling that Captain Henderson might wish to play with it.”
The butler, somewhat shapeless in his dressing-gown, laid his hand on the revolver and stuck it in his other pocket.
“Now then,” said Edwin Carson, “it is really time that we were all in bed. Don’t you agree, gentlemen?”
The three stared at him. He had obviously recovered his humour and stood before them pulling at his nose and choosing his words carefully.
“Kenrick, you will escort Mr. Usher to his room. I am sure you must be tired, Mr. Usher, after such an exhausting evening. Personally I always find housebreaking a much more tiring way of spending an evening than, say, a quiet game of bridge.”
“Really?” said Freddie. “But I should have thought you must be quite used to it by now.”
“Thank you, Kenrick. You know Mr. Usher’s room? See that he is comfortable, please, and lock the door, won’t you? And, Adams… will you do the same to Captain Henderson?… Thank you. I shall see Burroughs to his room myself… I’m afraid I shall have to dispense with your services after this, Burroughs… a pity… but you were never really a very good chauffeur. And Jacobson… will you see Lady Stone to her room? You always had a way with the ladies, hadn’t you, Jacobson?… otherwise I would have escorted her myself. I see
that she has recovered from her unfortunate… er… experiences… no doubt these gentlemen have been doing all they could for her. A pity, isn’t it, that you found Lady Stone? You might have been quite a long way from Thrackley by now if you hadn’t wasted so much time over her. You’ll find, I think, that women are scarcely ever worth the trouble one takes over them… good night, then, gentlemen.”
The three moved over to the lift, a dressing-gowned attendant behind each.
“Oh, just a minute, gentlemen.” Edwin Carson had crossed to his desk. He peered back at the group at the lift doors. “I see that you have been playing with these switches. Interesting, aren’t they? I’m afraid you missed one of them, though… quite an important one, too. This one…”
He pulled back a panel at the side of the desk, revealing a single switch on a base of ebonite.
“I’m going to switch this one on. It’s a burglar-alarm that up to now I’ve always regarded as a great waste of money. Perhaps I was wrong. In any case, I should not advise you to touch any of your windows this evening. You will not repeat the experiment, I think… good night, gentlemen… good night, Lady Stone.”
The doors of the lift closed with an effort behind Lady Stone’s limp body. The slight whirr went on for a moment and then stopped. Edwin Carson listened to the footsteps crossing the study floor above his head. Then he pulled back the switches one by one, so that each brilliant square of light vanished in turn and the cellar was left finally in a darkness broken only by the single light at the desk. He sat down slowly in his chair and poured himself out a very large brandy.
Not, after all, such a terribly dull evening, he thought.
XVII
At a quarter to six in the morning Catherine Lady Stone decided that she could stand it no longer. Catherine Lady Stone had been twice in her life to the films, and the extraordinary behaviour of the people on the pictures was the only thing to which she could compare this weekend at Thrackley. The annoying thing about the weekend was that the other members of the house-party seemed to think that it was a quite ordinary house-party. She sat on the edge of her bed and reviewed the situation. She decided at once that Edwin Carson was mad. But not pleasantly mad; very dangerously mad. Lady Stone, in her capacity as Chairman of the Society for the Care of the Mentally Deranged, had come across a good deal of madness in her time. But it had all been of the harmless variety. Bank clerks under the impression that they were Julius Caesar, and housemaids imagining themselves to be Boadicea, and so on. Edwin Carson’s madness was not of the Caesar-Boadicea type. Definitely not. In addition to being mad, Catherine Lady Stone decided, this man Carson was also a criminal. Possibly at one time a quite normal collector of precious stones… but now a man who had become so obsessed by his hobby that he would stop at nothing in order to add to his collection. Not even at attempting to steal the jewels of one of his guests. Not even at ramming a very nasty-smelling handkerchief down the throat of that guest when she fortunately wakened at the time of the theft. Not even at keeping that guest under lock and key for two days in a dismal cellar, six feet square, with very little ventilation, light, food, or drink. Very well, then.
Catherine Lady Stone got up from her bed and crossed to the dressing-table. She was on the point of switching on the lights at the side of her dressing-table, when she remembered that what dressing there was to be done had better be done in the dark. A very difficult job, for Lady Stone was accustomed to have her corsets laced around her by an efficient French maid, and consequently was rather lost when she had to do anything by herself, even in the broadest of daylight. But at last she was ready, and Lady Stone looked around her and felt along the top of the dressing-table to see just what should be taken and what left. Her fingers came upon her note-case and her jewel-case—the first full, the second empty. She groped further to find her handbag and stuffed the note-case and a few odds and ends inside it. Catherine Lady Stone had one idea only: to get out of Thrackley as soon as possible, to reach (even if she were forced to do so by walking) the nearest police-station, and to get, if necessary, the flying squad itself to pay a visit to Thrackley and to put Edwin Carson exactly where he belonged. It was, she decided, no use talking about this to the other members of the party. This was a job that needed someone with initiative and organizing powers. The others, poor souls, would be quite hopeless at it. She realized that Captain Henderson and Mr. Usher and that smart young man who was Edwin Carson’s chauffeur must have become suspicious about her absence and made their way to the cellar and eventually found her. But what good would it do to get in touch with them now? They were probably locked in their bedrooms, anyway (she tried her own door at the thought; unlocked, heaven be praised!), and in any case one woman with all her wits about her had a much better chance of getting out of this damnable house than three outsized, heavy-footed males. Catherine Lady Stone was secretly beginning to enjoy herself. This was, she felt, a situation made to measure for a woman like herself. And, to tell the truth, Catherine Lady Stone’s first thought was to remove her own body as far from Edwin Carson and his house in as short a time as possible. She did not hold with hosts who placed chloroformed handkerchiefs over the mouths of their guests.
She opened her bedroom door slowly and peered out. The light of the sun’s rising was effectively hidden by the trees outside, but there was enough light coming through the big staircase window to enable her to see her way across the landing. She made her way slowly down the stairs, thanking heaven that Edwin Carson had laid these heavy carpets over his floors. She reached the lounge and steered her way between the furniture to the big French windows. And here Lady Stone stopped and regretted that her knowledge of burglar-alarms was so small. Did the wretched things go off as soon as one touched the window? Or did one have to actually open the window before they worked? For an instant she thought of creeping back upstairs to waken Captain Henderson and employ him as an accomplice. Such a nice, sensible young man. The very man who would know all about things like burglar-alarms. And then Catherine Lady Stone decided, no: to blazes with the men in this house. A spineless lot, more than likely all quaking in their bedrooms at this minute, with not a single idea of getting out of Thrackley among the lot of them. No, if she couldn’t get the better of a little thing like a burglar-alarm, then she (Catherine Lady Stone) was not the President of the Women’s Council of Charitable Workers. She reached out a hand gingerly to touch the pane of the window in front of her. The lounge remained quite silent. She felt her way along to the bronze handle of the window. Now this was where she must be careful. Many a woman would have muttered, “To hell with the thing!”; would have tugged at the handle and trusted in Providence. But not Catherine Lady Stone. Providence, where burglar-alarms were concerned, was not altogether reliable. She felt the handle with the tips of her fingers, ran them up the frame of the window until they stopped at a small metal box, followed the frame up again as far as she could reach. Splendid, thought Catherine Lady Stone. Now, all that needs to be done is to find something to cut this wire and Edwin Carson and the rest of them will be in Vine Street, or Marylebone, or wherever it was, before breakfast time. She saw it all as she ran her fingers along. the thin wire which might have been so efficiently damning in the hands of anyone else: “Country house sensation. Well-known charity worker foils dangerous gang of crooks”. And now for something to cut this damned wire.
A knife. Or a pair of scissors. Catherine Lady Stone dived into the handbag which she had brought with her. Her fingers rattled through its contents. There was a welter of keys, odd change, a pair of ear-rings, a dozen letters in envelopes, even a nightdress rammed into the bag on the assumption that a woman, even one escaping from a lonely house at six in the morning, cannot be wholly lost if she has with her her nightdress. But the little pair of nail scissors for which she was searching was not to be found. “Damn!” said Catherine Lady Stone, a member of the Council of the Society for the Purification of the English Language. She felt her way around the
room. There must be something, somewhere, which would cut its way through this ridiculous piece of wire. She felt the tops of two tables, nearly upsetting a vase of geums in her hurry. Nothing there. She crossed on tiptoe to the bureau which she knew stood against the opposite wall. Locked. How like Edwin Carson to lock his bureaux at night. She felt the top of the grand piano. Two framed pictures and another vase of flowers. There was nothing for it—she would have to go back upstairs and get the pair of scissors. Catherine Lady Stone repeated the word “Damn!”
The sun was feeling its way through the pine-trees now, and the landing at the top of the stairs was lighter. The door of her bedroom was open as she had left it… she crossed the room to her dressing-table and felt once more over its glass top. Her fingers touched at last on the scissors… wretched little things which even the lightest strand of wire would ruin… but at least they were sharp. Then her hand touched something else. She felt it and gave a little gasp of astonishment. Her choker necklace of rubies. Impossible that she could have missed it before… yet how in heaven’s name was it here? She rammed it deep into the folds of the nightdress in her bag, and crept out again to the landing.
In a few minutes Catherine Lady Stone was very busy trying to coax a pair of scissors whose forte had always been finger-nails to do a spot of work on wire. It was an annoying job. The wire had been fastened tightly down to the style of the window, and it was a difficult matter to force the scissors in behind it. And, having done so, the scissors behaved in a most perplexing manner. Having led, up to now, a comparatively easy life in helping to keep Lady Stone’s hands presentable, they protested very strongly at being set to cope with a length of exceedingly tough wire. Lady Stone perspired freely, a thing she had not done since the Henley Regatta of 1897. The scissors, instead of getting to work on the wire, cut into the flesh of her hand and made a thin trickle of blood run down the window-pane. But at last the wire snapped, and Lady Stone stood back and mopped her forehead. Now then, thought Catherine Lady Stone. She gripped the handle of the French windows, tucked her handbag under her other arm, and prepared to make a bolt for it. The thought flashed across her mind that she might quite easily have cut a wire which had nothing to do with the alarm. Part of the electric light wiring, for instance. No time to worry about that now, though. She turned the handle slowly downwards and listened for the sound of a hundred or so electric bells and buzzers. The lounge remained silent. She pulled the French windows inch by inch towards her, and still there was an entrancing lack of noise. And then Catherine Lady Stone flung open the window and stepped out on the veranda with an air of something attempted and something done which none of the other poor goofs in the house would have had either the sense or the courage to attempt to do. She looked round about her at the garden and the pine-trees and took a satisfying gulp of the morning air. She had done it! Only the front gates of Thrackley to negotiate now, and she was out of this appalling place and ready to get the arm of the Law to reach out to the equally appalling Mr. Carson. Catherine Lady Stone, feeling a great deal more satisfied with herself than she had done for two days, stepped briskly off the veranda and on to the grass at the edge of the gravelled drive. The “Society Woman Foils Crook” posters seemed nearer and clearer than ever at that moment.
Weekend at Thrackley Page 13
