Murder by Matchlight

by E. C. R. Lorac

  “Yes. That’s quite true,” said Macdonald, and the other went on gleefully:

  “Excellent! excellent. Now believe me, Inspector, on that Thursday night when Rameses stood beside me in the wings, he had not got a wart on his right hand.”

  “Perhaps he had had it removed: it’s quite simple to have a wart burnt off,” said Macdonald, interested to see how far his visitor’s intelligence went.

  Mr. Veroten winked rapidly. “True. True. In fact he has had it burnt off. It’s gone. Yet though you saw his wart on Friday morning, Inspector, the hand I saw fidgeting with Rameses’ robe on Thursday night had got no wart on it. It wasn’t Rameses’ hand, Inspector.”

  Macdonald sat very still and looked hard at the pink shining face of his obese visitor. “You had better think this out very carefully, Mr. Veroten,” he said. “It is a very serious allegation you are making. It’s one thing to make a statement light-heartedly, it’s quite another to repeat it on oath. You know what perjury means?”

  “Yes, Inspector. I know. Anyway, it’s my word against any one else’s. I saw Rameses’ hand—and the wart wasn’t on it on Thursday night. You say you saw it—on Friday morning that’d be? I heard Ladybird singing your praises on Friday afternoon. She’s a talker, that one.”

  Macdonald was thinking hard. If this evidence was true, it looked like settling this case out of hand—but was it true ? Mr. Veroten described himself as doing a ‘song and patter with juggling’ act, and his turn preceded the Rameses’ turn on the programme—that was to say Mr. Veroten’s turn was not regarded as such a valuable performance as the Rameses’. Considering the two men, Macdonald guessed that Veroten would not be in the same street as that ‘graven image,’ Mr. Rameses. There was much bitter jealousy among variety players.

  “There are other talkers to be reckoned with in addition to Mrs. Rameses,” said Macdonald. “Have you ever heard an able counsel cross-examining a witness? They’re very formidable talkers, these learned gentlemen.”

  “Let’em talk,” said the other, with his lightning wink. “Think I’m likely to go back on you, Inspector? I shan’t. What I saw, I saw.”

  “Other issues will be raised. Apparently you don’t think highly of Mr. Rameses’ skill, but it’s not many people who could take his place on the stage and do his stuff sufficiently well to deceive everybody.”

  “Not many people, no—but Rameses has a son. Did you know that, Inspector ? Well, you ask.”

  “I will,” said Macdonald, “and meanwhile, there are one or two things I should like to ask you, since you’ve been so obliging as to come and see me. About those masks you mentioned: are they the usual theatrical properties you can buy at the dealers?”

  “No. Nothing of that kind. They’re very remarkable productions, that I’ll admit—life-like. Rameses won’t say where he got them. Personally I believe he made them. He’s as clever as hell in some ways. He’s got a pair for himself and his missis that were made from casts of their own faces. He can put that mask on on the stage before a gaping audience without’em ever seeing him do it. One second it’s not there, next second it is—and once he’s got it on, you can’t tell which way he’s facing. Damned funny: childish, but funny all the same.”

  “I’m sorry that I haven’t seen the Rameses doing their act,” said Macdonald. “I can imagine I should get my money’s worth. Can you tell me where Mr. Rameses keeps his masks, Mr. Veroten? Would they be in the dressing-room at the Surrey Met?”

  “I can’t tell you, Inspector. I’ve never been into their dressing-room. As a rule variety artistes are a friendly lot—matey and generous. You may know it’s difficult to buy makeup materials now—very difficult. Generally speaking, if I’m short of a liner or cream somebody obliges if I mention it—just as I should in the case of a fellow artiste—all friends together is our motto.”

  “Yes: all things in common—like the early Christians,” observed Macdonald, and Mr. Veroten stared a moment.

  “Ha ha!” he chuckled: “early Christians . . . very good indeed.”

  “But I gather the Rameses don’t share this amiable attribute,” went on Macdonald, and the fat man snorted—a fine loud snort which would have carried to the back of the pit, so that the attendant constable jumped in surprise.

  “You’re right, Inspector. Mean? You’d hardly believe the meanness of that man! However, that’s neither here nor there. You asked me about the masks. I don’t think Rameses keeps them in his dressing-room. He sets great store on those masks. They’re made of some queer plastic—rubbery, so that the masks aren’t rigid like the usual stage properties. I should say Rameses takes’em home with him in that case he always carries about.”

  “Does he take his make-up box home with him, too?” queried Macdonald innocently, and the other replied:

  “Believe me, that’s just what he does do. Suspicious, that’s what he is. I hate suspicious characters. All out of place in the profession.”

  “Yes—open-handed friendliness such as yours seems more becoming,” said Macdonald gravely, and Veroten stared, his mouth open to reply, but Macdonald went on: “I’m afraid I shall have to keep you here for a little while, Mr. Veroten, just until the main part of your statement is typed, and then you can sign it. Booker” (turning to the constable) “ take Mr. Veroten to the waiting-room and send me a typist.”

  The fat man, looking distinctly less happy than he had done a moment ago, was ushered from the room. Macdonald, after a glance at his watch, (it was now half-past ten) took up his telephone receiver and put a call through to a number on the Flaxman exchange.

  “Is that Mr. Borrington, the Flodeum manager? Chief Inspector Macdonald speaking. Could you put me in touch with somebody who has enough knowledge to swear authoritively that Mr. Rameses’ act last Thursday could not have been performed by anybody other than Rameses himself?”

  “Good God! Are you still barking up that tree ? I tell you I’m fed up with all this nonsense. Rameses was doing his stuff on Thursday. Look here, tell you what. I’ll send you old Potter. Potter does the lighting effects for Rameses, and has to synchronise his changes with the act. Potter knows Rameses’ stuff backwards. To-morrow morning do? He lives out Morden way.”

  “To-morrow morning will do. Thanks very much,” said Macdonald, and as he hung up the receiver Constable Booker reappeared. “Got the gist of that statement,. Booker? Good. You’d have made your fortune as a Press reporter—terse and to the point. What did you make of Mr. Veroten, Booker?”

  The constable scratched his thatch of greying hair absentmindedly: he had been attached to Macdonald for years, and though he was one of the stupidest men in Cannon Row in many respects he had the native shrewdness of the real London Bobby—and he loved Macdonald with an almost maternal affection.

  “If you ask me, sir, I’d say Veroten’s a dirty dog. Jealous, that’s what he is, trying to do the dirty on that Rameses. The awkward part of it is that it’s going to be difficult to bowl him out over that wart story. Cunning it was: very cunning indeed.”

  “Very cunning,” agreed Macdonald. “If it’s true, that wart might hang Mr. Rameses. If it’s not true, and I can prove it’s not true, I’ll see to it that Mr. Veroten loses some of his adipose before he’s heard the last of it. However, apart from the wart, he gave us some interesting information. Those masks sound suggestive to my mind.”

  “You ought to go and see that Rameses, sir,” said Booker. “’E’s a marvel! I went when I was off duty this afternoon and’e fairly got me moithered. Clever? you’d hardly believe it. Clever as the devil’imself !”

  “Well, well! Mr. Rameses is getting the attention of this department in more ways than one,” said Macdonald, and Booker said:

  “Seems to me if that Rameses wanted to murder anyone, he’d do it so neat no one’d ever guess how. I was almost frightened, sir—and it takes a bit to get me rattled.”

  It was at that moment that Macdonald’s telephone rang and after a terse “Put him through,” Macdonald
said:

  “Good-evening Mr. Rameses,” and Booker’s eyes goggled. “Well, I’ll take your word for it, and I’ll be along with you shortly,” said Macdonald. He turned to Booker. “Would you like to see Mr. Rameses in private life, Booker? It won’t be much like fun for you—waiting about, probably in the dark, while I do the chatting.”

  “Would I like . . .? Not’arf! Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” said Booker.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  i

  IT WAS very dark when Macdonald turned his car under the arch at Cannon Row and set out westwards. Booker, sitting in front, was glad that it wasn’t his lot to be driving in the murk of that solidly black November night. They went along Birdcage Walk, past Buckingham Palace and up Constitution Hill and Booker was glad to see the traffic lights at Hyde Park Corner: his eyesight was poor in the dark at any time, and it seemed to him that they were alone in the world—not a car on the road and nothing to break the blackness save the blur of a searchlight hazed by the London mist. Marble Arch, then a left turn at the Bayswater Road, then a right turn and Booker was lost again in the dark maze of streets near Notting Hill. Just as the car slowed down in Belfort Grove the sirens sounded, wailing in hideous cacophony.

  “The bastards!” muttered Booker, (he had never got over his dislike of sirens) and he heard Macdonald’s placid voice inquiring:

  “Which, Booker—sirens or Jerries ?”

  “Both, sir,” replied Booker, somehow glad of the unruffled calm in the other’s voice as he got out and stood in the blackness.

  “Five steps up here—steady on,” said Macdonald, grabbing Booker’s tunic as that worthy turned blindly away from number five as the first guns thumped in the distance.

  “Hullo, we’ve got company,” said Macdonald, and a shrill cheerful voice replied from the neighbourhood of the front door: “So it’s you again. Can’t say I’m glad to see you cos I can’t see you, but you’re welcome. Someone’s left the front door open. Silly the way they all loses their heads. Ought to be used to Wailing Winnie by now.”

  It was Mrs. Maloney, just come home after her evening “usual.”

  “Now that’s funny—bulb must have gone,” she went on conversationally, and Macdonald heard the click as she worked a switch up and down: “That bulb was all right when I went out,” she continued, and a heavy thud shook the ground and set the doors vibrating. “Oh, go on, you!” she said contemptuously, as though addressing the distant explosion, “take more’n you to frighten me.”

  Macdonald had let go Booker’s arm, and they were standing on the doorstep when the Hyde Park guns roared out.

  “Go on! Give’em beans!” said the undaunted voice as Macdonald went inside and put his hand in his pocket for his torch. At that second he was aware, amid the racket of the guns, that someone had run across the hall of the house to the open door and Booker gave a sudden grunt and a heavy thud told its own story.

  “Be damned!” exclaimed Macdonald, believing that he had brought out an elderly constable to get him killed by shrapnel on a doorstep in Notting Hill. “Booker, are you there?”

  “Here sir,” grunted a voice from the pavement. “’E landed me one in the wind . . .”

  “And he’s gone with the wind, too,” said Macdonald, whose quick ears had caught a sound of running footsteps during a second’s lull. “Can you manage, Booker? I can’t show a light until the door’s shut.”

  “O.K., sir,” grunted the constable and Macdonald guessed from the sounds that followed that the heavy fellow was mounting the steps on all fours to avoid tripping up again. Mrs. Maloney’s voice chirupped on:

  “It’s one o’ them from upstairs. Always runs when the guns go. Dippy I call it. I wouldn’t demean meself like that.”

  A second later Macdonald closed the front door and switched on his torch.

  “Now we’re all cosy,” shrilled Mrs. Maloney. Her hat was very much askew and her cheeks flushed. “Well—I’ll be off to me bed. Don’t’old wiv late hours.”

  “I say, hadn’t you better stay downstairs until things are a bit quieter?” shouted Macdonald, but she shrilled back with gusto:

  “Not me. Take more’n that ’Itler to keep me out of me bed. I’m not going to get meself killed running out to no shelters—like that silly boob as did a bolt just now. Put me’ead under the clothes and takes no notice. Good-night all!”

  A line of light from a cautiously opened door seemed to throw a brilliant illumination on the dreary lobby and a deep voice inquired:

  “Is that you, Chief Inspector? Rameses here. Sorry to have brought you out in this racket.”

  “Not at all. We ought to be used to it,” replied Macdonald. “I’ll bring my man inside—he’ll feel more cheerful somewhere with a light on. The fact is he doesn’t like air-raids.”

  “Don’t blame him. Damn’ silly business it all is—like small boys chucking stones,” said Rameses. “There’s a cup of tea if he’d like one—and something in it.”

  A moment later Macdonald was sitting in Mr. Rameses’ practice room, while Booker occupied a chair in the little lobby and gratefully accepted a cup of tea (which smelled pleasantly of rum) from the illusionist who had “nearly frightened him “that afternoon.

  “Like a cup yourself, Inspector?” inquired Rameses and Macdonald said:

  “Thanks. I should. It’s against regulations—but on occasions like this regulations seem silly.”

  “Silly? You’ve said it. Everything looks silly—and the silliest thing of all is for a chap like you with first-class brains and physique to be bothering about who killed Johnnie Ward last Thursday. However—if you’re still interested I’ve got a few things to tell you.”

  “Good. I’m like Mrs. Maloney—at least I try to be,” replied Macdonald. “I decline to be put off ‘by ’im’”

  “That old woman’s pure gold,” said Rameses unexpectedly. “I hope for her sake she’ll go out with a direct hit, knowing nothing at all about it—and if there’s anything in the philosophy of any religion at all she ought to wake up in her own idea of heaven. That may be nothing to do with your case, Inspector, but I admire courage when I see it, and by the lord, I lift my lid to her!”

  Sitting as immobile as some squat Buddha, Mr. Rameses regarded Macdonald with mournful inscrutable eyes while the London barrage roared overhead. There were shutters at the windows, and the heavy curtains—which quivered now and then—helped to reduce the racket so that Rameses’ deep slow voice sounded distinctly against the muffled clamour.

  “There have been some damned funny things going on in this house, Inspector,” he went on. “Whether they’re due to people inside the house or outside it, I don’t pretend to know, but you may as well hear about them. Incidentally, have you had a visit from an outsize in fat boobs, a yellow-haired son-of-a-gun named Veroten? Thought so,” he added, before Macdonald had made any reply at all. “That bloke’s asking for trouble—and he’ll get it in God’s good time. Now I take it you’ve been round this house and know the amenities—including the storage-room downstairs.” He paused a second, staring with his unwinking eyes. “The old lady didn’t split,” he went on. “She’s a rare one to hold her tongue and she’s taken a fancy to you. I don’t know if you’ve gone through all the junk down there—but someone has.”

  “No. I haven’t gone through it all,” said Macdonald. “I didn’t open any of your boxes, for instance.”

  “So I imagined. If you’re anything like the chap I take you for you’d have done it more neatly than the merchant who did do it.. . That one was somewhere close Marble Arch way,” he added. There had been a thud and reverberation which told of a near-by “incident “and Macdonald moved his cup farther on to the table for safety as the saucer bounced a little on the bare wood. When he looked at Mr. Rameses again he thought at first that the “something” in the tea had affected his vision. The man’s face had completely changed: in place of the high shining forehead with shinning hair brushed back from the temples was a low bumpy forehead
fringed with thick oily hair, and the chin had coarsened and thickened, while the black eyes seemed to protrude under bushy eyebrows.

  “Look out! look out! it’s coming,” wheezed a voice behind Macdonald as another thud shook the room. For the life of him he could not help looking round, and when his eyes sought Rameses’ face again the illusion had passed, and the stolid melancholy-eyed Rameses faced him as before.

  “Look here,” protested Macdonald. “If you must practise your technique, will you kindly wait until the All Clear goes. I’m willing to regard air-raids as all in the day’s work, but if you throw Guy Fawkes stuff in too, I’m liable to lose my temper. Now about that mask——?”

  “Yes, about this mask,” said Rameses, holding the thing up by its black wig. “What do you bet me that if that young Bruce Mallaig had been in here when that last bit of iniquity exploded somewhere in Kilburn, he’d have identified the man he saw on the bridge in Regents Park ?”

  “We can ask him about it later on,” said Macdonald, “for the moment will you kindly tell me just what you’re getting at?”

  “Right. There’s a storage room below and I keep some of my properties there—including this mask and a few others. Somebody has been through the boxes in which I keep the masks. Somebody has had this one out and put it back out of its place. Nothing to make a song about, is it ?—nothing stolen, nothing broken.”

  There was a second’s pause, and Macdonald was so much interested in what Rameses was going to say next that he didn’t even notice the guns.”

  “Nothing to make a song about,” went on the melancholy voice. “I heard the evidence at the Inquest—Ward was killed by somebody who got behind him so quietly that even the man under the bridge didn’t hear a footstep. A face was seen in the matchlight—a dark heavy face with bulging eyes. Now how could you get behind a man so quietly that another just below the boards of the bridge didn’t hear a footstep? By avoiding footsteps, eh? You’ve looked in that cupboard of mine downstairs. What did you see? There’s a stage cycle down there. Don’t tell me you didn’t see it.”