To Wake the Dead (Dr. Gideon Fell series Book 9)

by John Dickson Carr

  There was a click, and the wall-lights over the beds came on; Sergeant Preston was no longer sure with his shorthand notes. Nobody except Wrayburn, Kent thought, would have had the nerve to pour all this out to a note-book. He was now regarding them with sour poise and flippancy, his hands dug deep into his coat-pockets. The wall-lamps, behind their frosted-glass shades, made a sleek, theatrical light in the sleek, theatrical room.

  “That’s it,” Wrayburn said complacently, nodding towards them. “Crafty little devil! I knew then; I felt it; though I couldn’t imagine what the game was. I might have pursued the subject then, because all of a sudden it was beginning to hurt. But I couldn’t—because that was when we heard the knock at the door.”

  Hadley jerked up his head.

  “Knock at the door? Which door?”

  “At what I suppose you’d call the main door: the one that had the sign hung on it later.”

  “What time was this? Do you know?”

  “Yes. It was just a few seconds short of midnight. I know, because I looked at my watch when Jenny said good night.”

  “You were actually in the room when you heard this knock?”

  “Certainly I was in the room—” Wrayburn was beginning with some asperity, when he stopped, and for the first time his eyes shifted. He added in a lower tone: “Oi! Here! You don’t mean it was— Nobody told me——”

  “Go on; what happened when you heard the knock?”

  “Jenny whispered to me to get out in case I should be found there. So I ducked out of the side door, with the ‘keepsake’ in my pocket. I think Jenny bolted the door after me. I walked straight across to my own side door and went in.”

  “The time being——?”

  “Oh, midnight. It couldn’t have taken more than ten seconds. I admit I was feeling a bit mixed-up, and not too good-humoured; but I was going to see the thing through. In case I should forget it, I rang up the porter on the telephone (or at least I put through a call downstairs) and told him I was to be waked up at a quarter to seven next morning. I also wondered, with a few less romantic fumes in my head, where we should get breakfast at that time; and what in the name of sense we were going to see at that hour. Most people get over calf-love by the early twenties. I waited for a brief, bad bout of it until the early thirties. I suppose I saw us riding on a bus in the snow. Anyhow, I asked the porter a lot of questions, and I must have talked for three or four minutes on the phone.”

  Kent found himself fitting together the pieces of evidence. Wrayburn’s story coincided exactly with the ascertained and ascertainable facts as regarded the man himself. He had been speaking on the telephone (according to Hardwick’s schedule) from midnight until three minutes past. If any wonder might have been felt as to what could have been the reason for such a fairly long call at so late an hour, there was now a strong and plausible motive behind it. Wrayburn also spoke with an air of weary earnestness which was difficult to disbelieve. The question was now how far this evidence coincided with Dan’s. Dan had seen in the hall this goblin, the figure carrying bath-towels, at exactly two minutes past midnight—standing outside Jenny’s door. If Dan’s statement were accepted (and nobody had questioned it), Wrayburn could not possibly be the elusive figure in uniform.

  But there was one extra question. Someone, undoubtedly the figure in uniform, had knocked on the main door at a few seconds before midnight. Would it have remained there for two full minutes after the first knock, without going into or being admitted into the room? Why not? At least, so it appeared to Kent, who was watching Hadley and Dr. Fell.

  Hadley drew a design in his note-book.

  “Did you see anything of the person who knocked at the door?”

  “No,” said Wrayburn shortly. “No gratuitous information. I’ll answer what you like; but I’m not bubbling over any longer. Thanks.”

  “Are you sure your watch was right about the times?”

  “Yes. She’s a good timekeeper, and I set her early in the evening, by the big clock on the wall outside this room.”

  (The same clock Dan had seen. Well?)

  “Just continue your story,” Hadley said. “You left this room at midnight, with Mrs. Kent’s bracelet——?”

  “And I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t. There was no need to ring me; I was awake long before seven. I got dressed, feeling seedy. At seven o’clock I went over and knocked at Jenny’s door. There was no answer, even when I knocked harder. That made me mad, rather. It occurred to me that, since she would be sleeping in one of the twin beds, she would be closer to the main door, and would hear me better if I knocked there. I went round to the main door. The shoes were outside it, and the ‘quiet’ sign was hung from the knob. Now begins the story of my derelictions. I looked at the sign, and saw ‘Dead Woman’ scrawled on it. I picked up the sign to look at it closer; then I could see, behind it, the key still stuck in the lock outside the main door.”

  Dr. Fell puffed out his cheeks. So far he had been shutting out the view of one window, but now he lumbered forward.

  “The key,” he said, “was in the lock outside the door. Kindly take note of that, Hadley. The night before it had been in her handbag. Well?”

  “I opened the door with it,” said Wrayburn obediently, “and took the key out of the lock. Automatically, I suppose. I stuck my head inside the room, and saw her.”

  “That door wasn’t bolted on the inside, then?”

  “Naturally not, or I couldn’t have got in. There was a heavy stuffy smell inside the room, and I thought, ‘Doesn’t the little so-and-so put her windows up at night?’ Then I saw her; she was lying on the floor with her head inside that trunk. I went over and touched her. She was cold. I didn’t investigate further; I didn’t want to. But now comes the hardest part of the story to tell. I walked back out of the room by the way I had come, with the key in my hand, and stood in the hall. My first impulse, naturally, was to set up an alarm; to go and wake Dan, or wake somebody. But I’ll admit it: I got the wind up. My trouble is that I always want to know what’s going on, and I won’t act until I do. Without saying a word I went back to my room and tried to think. This was about five minutes past seven o’clock.

  “At a quarter-past seven I heard the maid coming on duty; I heard her jingle. And I was still racking my brains. Somebody had killed Jenny. I knew something queer had been going on last night, but I wasn’t going to find that body. I had been the last person alone with her, and—you know. What bothered me most, and kept on bothering me, was how she had been killed. I wondered why on earth I had not stopped to make sure. There had been something done to her face; that’s all I could tell, because it was early morning and very nearly dark. I felt I had to know, but I couldn’t screw up quite enough nerve to go back to that room.

  “It was going on towards eight o’clock when I remembered something that was nearly the last devilment. I had Jenny’s bracelet. It’s a distinctive-looking thing; it undoubtedly cost a lot of money; it would be certain to be missed; and if they found it in my possession——

  “Well, no frills. I felt like that, anyhow. On top of this, I heard two men coming along the corridor saying something about 707. I got my door open a crack, and saw them go round, and heard them talking about a master-key in front of the main door of 707. How the devil was I to know one of ’em was you?” he demanded, turning to Kent. “I heard the door to 707 being opened, and closed, and then dead silence. The other man—the porter—was still out in the hall talking to the maid. On top of all this, the side door of 707 opened, and the first man (you) slid out with his head tucked into his overcoat collar. He didn’t give an alarm; he hurried down the hall and got away.”

  Dr. Fell interposed again, this time turning to Kent.

  “Hold on! When you got out the side door, Mr. Kent, do you remember whether or not it was bolted on the inside?”

  “It was bolted,” said Kent. “I remember that quite well—drawing the bolt back.”

  “H’mf, yes. Go on, Mr. Wrayburn.”
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  “I’ll tell you exactly what it was like for me,” said the other, who had been reflecting, and could not stop his own garrulousness. “It was like standing in the street before oncoming traffic, and wanting to get to the other side. You think you’ve got good clear margin to get across before the traffic bumps you; but, all the same, you hesitate. Then, when it’s almost too late, you suddenly make up your mind and dash for it. And the traffic nearly bumps you to glory after all. That’s what I did. I had Jenny’s bracelet in one hand, and the key in the other. Just after that fellow—you—had gone, I made up my mind to do what I should have done before. If the key opened the main door of Jenny’s room, I was sure it would open the side door as well: my own key did. I went across the corridor and got in there while the porter was still outside. Mind, I kept some sense. I touched things only with a handkerchief. All I wanted to do was dispose of that bracelet, so I simply dropped it in the bureau drawer. That took only a few seconds; and there was Jenny on the floor. I had to see her and find out what was wrong, now I’d got my courage to the sticking-point. It was broad daylight, though the blinds were drawn. I wanted to see her face, but I couldn’t because her head was still inside that trunk. I dragged her out. I took one look—and then bolted. I was back in my own room again, closing the door, by the time the porter barged into 707. And, of course, I walked off with the blasted key after all. There it is.

  “That’s what I did, and that’s all I did. Call it what you like; I claim it was only natural and human. The trouble is that I’m a ruddy rotten criminal. I once picked up a pound-note off the floor in the foyer of a theatre and kept it; and afterwards I was convinced everybody in the place had seen me, and was ready to denounce me. That’s how I felt to-day. I couldn’t keep it down. So I decided, in the words of your favourite film-star, to come clean. I’ve now come so clean that I feel I’ve been through a wringer. Thus spake Zarathustra.”

  He ended with a deep breath, and sat down on the bed with enough violence to make it creak. He had sketched out a perfect characterisation of himself, Kent thought.

  Dr. Fell and Hadley looked at each other.

  “Is it too early to inquire,” said Wrayburn, “whether you believe me? Or is it handcuffs and bread-and-water. Arrh!”

  Hadley looked hard at him. “It certainly fits all the facts,” he acknowledged. “And coming clean, I don’t mind telling you, was very wise. Well, Mr. Wrayburn, if your story about the telephone-call at midnight is confirmed, I don’t think you’ve got much to worry about. One other thing. While you were in this room on any of those occasions, did you come across a silver linked bracelet set with diamonds, and belonging to a Mrs. Jopley-Dunne?”

  “Eh? No. I never heard of it or her.”

  “For the moment, then, that’s all. You might wait across the hall.”

  When Wrayburn had gone, Hadley whistled softly between his teeth. “So that’s the story of the reappearing bracelet. Yes, I don’t think we can doubt that the murderer was looking for it, and made a thorough search to find it. Only, it wasn’t here. And therefore, presumably——?”

  “The murderer pinched Mrs. Jopley-D.’s property, wondering if it might be an old friend in disguise,” said Dr. Fell. “Why not? The background of both, so to speak, is similar. Both are linked bracelets, and silver looks much like white gold. H’mf, yes. The murderer was looking for the bracelet with the black stone, all right. But that’s not, I think, the really important point of the story. And, oh, Bacchus, Hadley, the real point is important! I mean the key left behind in the door.”

  “You think it clarifies anything?”

  “I know it does. Look here!—Eh? Yes? What is it?”

  A knock at the door was followed by the entrance of Sergeant Betts.

  “Just finished, sir,” he reported to Hadley. “And it’s no go. I’ve been over every room, cupboard, cranny, and rathole in this wing; and there’s no uniform hidden anywhere.”

  11

  The Solution According to Fiction

  A WINTER EVENING, WHEN there is good food behind plate glass, money in the pocket, and a warmth of light to be seen on snow from inside, may be considered the best of all times for argument. Christopher Kent, entering the Restaurant des Epicures in Lisle Street at seven o’clock that evening, was ready for all of them. It had been a long day—which, for him, only began when Hadley and Dr. Fell finished their questioning at the Royal Scarlet Hotel.

  The most important business had been the establishing of his own alibi for the night before, and the cashing of a cheque to bring him to the surface again. The first was not difficult; the second enabled him to pour largesse on the clubmen at the coffee-stall who swore to it, and to redeem his suitcase from the landlady in Commercial Road, East. Once his alibi was beyond question, Superintendent Hadley became genial and almost talkative. Kent was accumulating facts, facts, facts. He felt somewhat surprised at this: facts had never before been a great concern of his. But, relaxing under the ministrations of the barber, and spending a fine hour steaming in the Turkish baths at the Imperial, he began to tabulate the discoveries for reference.

  The writing-printing in red ink on the “quiet” sign, which might have been so promising a clue, ended in nothing. It was so much printing and so little writing that it had to be classified as the former; and could never be identified.

  The two sets of finger-prints found in the room were his own and Jenny’s. Since the room had been cleaned and dusted by the maid just before Jenny moved into it, there were few old prints beyond smudges. Wrayburn, evidently by accident the first time and design the second, had left no prints at all.

  Wrayburn was proved to have been speaking on the phone between midnight and three minutes past. Hadley, nothing if not thorough, set half a dozen persons to speak anonymously over the wire to Billings, the night-porter, and Billings had again identified Wrayburn’s voice at once.

  There was nothing wrong with the clocks, and no possibility of tampering with them. They were all electric clocks, with glass fronts which did not come off; all were operated on Greenwich time from a central switch. If Dan had seen the figure in uniform outside Jenny’s door at two minutes past twelve, the time was exactly two minutes past twelve and no other.

  Nothing, so far as could be ascertained, was missing from Jenny’s possessions. Melitta Reaper went through them and said she was certain of this. There were several good pieces of costume jewellery in Jenny’s trunk, in addition to £30 in notes in her handbag and travellers’ cheques for £400 on the Capital Counties bank. But there was no silver or loose change whatever in her handbag.

  The batch of small folded cards, bearing the room-numbers of each guest, had in fact been handed to Dan. He did not definitely remember seeing the card for 707 among them, since he had not looked at them. But he confirmed Melitta’s statement that he had put them down on the bureau in their bedroom.

  A detailed deposition from each of the persons concerned, regarding where they were at about two minutes past midnight, produced the following statements: Sir Gyles Gay had been reading in bed. Melitta Reaper had been taking a bath in the private bathroom of their suite. Francine Forbes had been “doing her hair” in her own room. Wrayburn and Dan were accounted for. Kenneth Hardwick, the hotel-manager who had been questioned along with the others, provided another alibi: from midnight until ten minutes past, in his own rooms, he had been going over the next day’s menus with the head-waiter of the Royal Scarlet dining-room.

  Thus the facts stood; and Christopher Kent had been tinkering with them as though for a story. To be near the party, he had reserved the only vacant room in Wing A, and he wondered about a number of things. He had invited Francine, Dr. Fell, and Hadley to dinner that night. Hadley (as usual) would be detained at the Yard, but Dr. Fell accepted with heartiness and Francine after some consideration.

  When he entered the Restaurant des Epicures at seven o’clock, he found Francine waiting for him. She looked rather lonely in that crowd, and he suddenly
felt protective. They sat down by a shrouded window, with a yellow-shaded lamp between them, and he ordered cocktails; but, instead of taking advantage of this mood, he said, “Well?”—which was definitely the wrong thing.

  “Well, what?” she said instantly, and put down her glass.

  He had meant nothing by it, merely a sort of clumsy opening to start a conversation: which causes much difficulty. He admitted this.

  “Look here, what’s wrong between us?” he inquired in some desperation. “I’m not your worst enemy: I swear it. I’m not trying to put one over on you or do you in the eye. But——”

  After a time she spoke in a reflective tone. “Oh, Chris, if you weren’t so beastly intolerant!”

  His own glass slid on the table as he put it down.

  “Intolerant? Me?”

  “If you could only hear yourself say that,” said Francine, and was amused. “Oh, come on, let’s face it. You think being intolerant merely means persecuting somebody for moral or religious reasons, or not liking low-brows and fish-and-chips, or all the rest of it. But it doesn’t. It doesn’t!” she said fiercely. “It means that you simply go your own sweet way, and pay absolutely no attention to anything that isn’t in your ken. You’re tolerant on moral grounds because you sympathise with most of the offences, you’re tolerant on religious grounds because you haven’t got any religion, you’re tolerant of lowbrows because you like Wild West stories and band music and merry-go-rounds. But if there’s something that doesn’t come into your ken, like doing some real good in the world—all right: I won’t say that: I’ll take something in your own province—like the work of certain great authors whose beliefs you don’t agree with, then you simply don’t discuss them as being beneath contempt. Grr! Your idea of being generous is merely to be ridiculously generous with money, that’s all.”