The Murder on the Enriqueta: A Golden Age Mystery

by Molly Thynne

  She found herself in a room she had never seen before. It was well and solidly furnished, and, as her eyes fell on the heavy wardrobe which stood opposite the bed on which she lay, she realized that it was an exact replica of the one in her aunt’s bedroom. The window at the other end of the room was draped with thick curtains of some dark material, and, though she listened intently, she could hear no sound of traffic outside. From the general aspect of the room she felt fairly certain that she was still in the Escatorial, and she had very little doubt as to the identity of the owner of the flat in which she found herself. Taking the lack of sound into account she judged that it was one of the rooms looking on to the garden at the back, no doubt the one corresponding to her aunt’s room; hence the presence of the second wardrobe, the significance of which she could guess after what she had seen in her aunt’s bedroom.

  Her heart gave a wild leap and then seemed to stop beating. Footsteps were coming down the passage outside. From her position on the bed she could not see the door, but she heard the handle turn and she knew, without a vestige of a doubt, who was entering the room. She lay rigid, listening to the soft, light footfall on the carpet as the owner approached the bed. A hand came into her line of vision, holding a glass.

  “Drink this.”

  The voice was the one she dreaded most to hear, and a long shudder ran through her body. It seemed in that moment as if all hope left her. Even in the comparative security of her aunt’s flat she had feared de Silva; now, alone with him and utterly at his mercy, her terror became almost uncontrollable.

  In desperation she twisted her head away from the glass.

  “Do not be foolish,” said de Silva sharply. “It is only brandy. You will feel better when you have drunk it. Quickly, please!”

  She shook her head. His hand was already loosening the bandage over her mouth, but, even if her lips had been free, she could not have spoken.

  “You will have to take my word for it that it is not drugged,” he went on, “but, believe me, I have every reason to desire to keep you in full possession of your senses. Now!”

  He raised her head and, as the muffler dropped, held the glass to her mouth. Half hypnotized by sheer terror, she swallowed a mouthful, and almost immediately felt her head clear and her nerves stiffen. De Silva did not force her to drink more, but set the glass down on the table behind him and picked up the muffler from the bed.

  He stood looking down at her, swinging it gently to and fro in his hand.

  “I do not wish to use this,” he said quietly. “But if you scream I shall kill you. You understand? Things have gone so far now that there would be nothing else for me to do. You will be quiet?”

  She nodded, knowing that he spoke nothing but the truth.

  “If you will undertake not to be foolish I will put this scarf away, but, remember, any attempt to get help and you will suffer; and you have suffered already, only, this time, you will not come to your senses again.”

  He fetched a chair and sat down by the bed.

  “For the moment,” he said, “I am going to do the talking. In the first place, you have perhaps guessed that you have only yourself to blame for what has happened. Believe me, I have never had any desire to hurt you, and, if I could get what I need by legitimate means, I should infinitely prefer to do so. But to-night you forced my hand. It was pure chance that I heard you leave the balcony and was able to act in time, and it is no one’s fault but your own that I have been drastic in my measures.”

  He sat looking at her for a moment in silence, a little smile playing on his lips, then:

  “If you had stayed on at the flat you would have married me in time, you know,” he said gently.

  Seeing the passionate denial in her eyes, he went on:

  “Oh yes, you would. By the time I had finished with you you would have had to. In the flat there you were at my mercy, and there would have come a day when your engagement to your fool of a cousin would have come to an end, broken off by you because, knowing what you knew, you would not dare go on with it. Those are the measures I should have preferred to have taken, but, as I say, you have forced me to modify my plans. If you behave reasonably now you have nothing to fear. You will leave this flat a little poorer and, perhaps, a little wiser than when you came into it, and you will be free to marry that solemn prig Dalberry whenever you feel inclined.”

  In spite of himself he could not control the venom in his voice, and Carol realized that, though cupidity had been his main inspiration from the beginning, his hatred and jealousy of Dalberry had now become almost uncontrollable.

  “What do you want me to do?” she whispered.

  He rose and pushed his chair out of the way.

  “I am glad you are beginning to see reason,” he said smoothly. “You know what I want?”

  Her throat was so dry that the words came with difficulty.

  “My money?”

  “A little of your money,” he corrected. “You need not be afraid. You will not go to Dalberry with empty hands. There are certain papers of your father’s which I happen to know are in the hands of your solicitors. I need not bore you with business details. It is enough to say that they will satisfy my needs. You have only to put your signature to a letter I will give you, telling the solicitors to hand the documents over to Lady Dalberry, and I will not trouble you further. I shall leave England by the eleven o’clock boat this morning, and, before I step on board at Dover, I will undertake to post a letter to Dalberry, telling him of your whereabouts. Until he gets it, I am afraid you will have to put up with a little discomfort, but I can promise you that you will be none the worse for your adventure. If I fetch the letter now, will you please sign it?”

  Carol hesitated.

  “How can I be sure that you will tell them where to find me?” she said at last, in desperation. “If the servants see you leaving they may not come up here for days. How can you expect me to trust you?”

  He smiled.

  “For the simple reason that you have no alternative and you are not a fool. I am desperate, and you know it. Do you realize how easy it would be for me to put you away? Just enough chloroform to send you to sleep. A little expedition back to your own bedroom, where Lady Dalberry will find you to-morrow morning with the doors and windows closed and the tap of the gas fire turned on. She will be heart-broken, of course, and, in her evidence at the inquest, she will describe how for some time you have been nervous and depressed. Believe me, it will be easy and, from my point of view, necessary. You will do better to trust to my word and do what I ask.”

  Now that she knew the worst, Carol’s courage was beginning to return, and with it her reasoning powers. Though lacking in experience of the world, she had inherited much of her father’s acuteness and sound common sense, and, terrified as she still was of de Silva, she was sufficiently mistress of herself now to realize that his arguments did not ring quite true. He might very well be bluffing. On the other hand, she believed him to be more than capable of carrying out his threats.

  “You will gain nothing by killing me,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady.

  “Except your silence,” he reminded her, with a grim note in his voice that sent a shiver coursing down her spine. “You know too much now. Once you are out of the way there is nothing to prevent my staying on here, but so long as you are alive England will be closed to me. It is not much to ask, that you should pay me to go.”

  He looked at his watch.

  “It is nearly five now,” he said. “I will leave you half an hour to think it over in. It is all I can spare. I have my own arrangements to make, and I need sleep. When I come back it will be for the letter, and I think you will sign it.”

  The door closed softly behind him, and Carol was left to her thoughts. At first she found it impossible to force them to any kind of coherence. The fear with which he inspired her and the knowledge that she was absolutely in his power made the temptation to give in to his demands almost irresistible, and yet, deep
down in her mind, lay the conviction that his real plans were very different from those he had chosen to reveal to her.

  It seemed barely ten minutes before she heard his footsteps returning and realized that she was still in a state of miserable indecision. Every instinct now urged her not to put her name to the letter, but, in this moment of panic, she doubted whether she would have the courage to withstand him.

  He came swiftly towards her.

  “Well?” he said.

  She looked up and saw his face, and knew that part, at any rate, of what he had told her was true.

  “I will sign,” she answered, in a voice that was hardly audible.

  Without a word he fetched a table and placed it by the bed. On it he laid a sheet of foolscap, the upper portion of which he had covered with a piece of blank paper.

  She raised herself with difficulty to a sitting position and stared at it.

  Below the space he had left for her signature, two other people had already signed their names. One she recognized as that of Captain Bond; the other was unknown to her.

  “The witnesses,” he informed her, in answer to her puzzled look. “As they were unfortunately unable to be present, I had to settle with them beforehand. I may tell you that they have been well drilled in their parts.”

  Again she did not believe him. She was convinced that Bond, with all his faults, would never have lent himself to this.

  “I can’t sign unless you set me free,” she said.

  He laughed softly.

  “All in good time. The stage is not set yet.”

  He moved to a writing-table near the window and opened a drawer.

  “A broad nib is what you generally use, I believe,” he continued. “Tell me if I am wrong.”

  She did not answer. In passing the table the edge of his coat had caught in the corner of the covering paper and shifted it, and the whole of the piece of foolscap underneath it lay open to her eyes. She had only a moment in which to read while, with his back to her, he bent over the drawer of the table, but one glance would have been enough.

  This was no letter that he was forcing her to sign, but a will. Her own will, written in the typical script of a solicitor’s clerk. Her eyes caught the words: “I hereby will and bequeath,” and, farther down the page: “To my uncle’s wife, Irma, Dowager Countess of Dalberry.” In a flash she realized the diabolical significance of the whole plot. The will once signed, she would die, in the manner so vividly described by de Silva, and Lady Dalberry would step into her inheritance. That she should leave her money to the aunt with whom she had been living would seem natural enough to the outside world. In putting her name to the document that lay before her, she would be signing her own death-warrant.

  She glanced swiftly at de Silva. He was already in the act of raising himself. In a second he would turn.

  With an effort that wrenched her whole body, she managed to get her shoulder against the rickety little table and send it spinning to the floor. The papers on it fluttered through the air and fell almost at de Silva’s feet.

  He whirled round to find Carol lying motionless on the bed.

  “I was trying to raise myself,” she panted. “Cramp! It’s horrible …”

  His eyes darted to the papers, but they had fallen face downwards, and there was nothing to suggest that Carol had had any opportunity to read them.

  He picked them up and replaced them on the table, carefully adjusting the covering paper. Then, setting the pen and ink down beside them, he bent over to untie the silk scarf that bound the girl’s hands.

  With the courage of despair, Carol managed to twist herself out of his grasp. She knew now that her one chance lay in her refusal to sign the paper.

  “I can’t do it now,” she sobbed incoherently, her eyes closed so that she should not see his face. “You must give me time. I didn’t know what I was saying when I said I’d sign.”

  There was a silence that she thought he would never break. She was shaking uncontrollably now in every limb, and she did not dare look at him, but she knew he had not moved from his place beside the bed.

  His voice came at last, soft and venomous.

  “So you prefer the other alternative,” he said.

  She heard the protesting creak of the mattress and felt it sag as he placed his knee on it.

  Then his hands were at her throat. His fingers crept to the back of her neck, and the pressure of his thumbs under her chin began to tighten.

  She was past struggling now, and lay waiting for what she knew to be the end. The sense of suffocation increased, and she could hear the blood drumming in her ears.

  Then, miraculously, the pressure relaxed and his voice reached her.

  “I will give you one more chance,” he said. “Will you sign?”

  She shook her head.

  He raised himself, and she felt that he was standing looking down at her. For an instant the cloud lifted from her brain, and she realized that he had been bluffing, trying to frighten her into signing. Unless he were driven to it he would not kill her till he had forced her to put her name to the paper, and, when he did kill her, it would not be after so crude and incriminating a fashion.

  He was bending over her once more, unfastening the silk that tied her hands. He released the left hand and bound the other tightly to her side.

  “You will need this one to write with,” he told her. “We must not hurt it.”

  She opened her eyes and looked him full in the face.

  “I will never sign,” she said, with the courage of despair.

  He took a firm grip of her left wrist.

  “I think you will,” he assured her, with an icy smoothness that was more terrifying than anger.

  His grasp tightened and he began, slowly and inexorably, to twist her arm.

  Not a sound escaped her lips, though, as the pain increased, tears of sheer agony welled from under her closed lids and trickled down her cheeks. He waited till she was sick and dizzy with the pain, and then abruptly released his grip.

  “Will you sign now?” he asked.

  Again she shook her head.

  He hesitated.

  “I do not want to hurt you,” he said. “Why not be sensible?”

  Then, as she did not answer, his hand closed on her wrist once more.

  “This time I shall not be so gentle,” he assured her, and waited for her answer.

  But it did not come. She lay rigid, her lips tightly closed, steeling herself to bear the agony she knew was coming.

  It came. But this time he was to defeat his own ends. There is a point beyond the endurance of human nature, and Carol had reached it.

  A shriek that died into a moan of anguish broke from her lips; then her whole body, that had been tense with agony, relaxed, and de Silva knew that she had fainted.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  When Carol recovered consciousness she was alone.

  The scarf had been replaced over her mouth, her hands were once more firmly bound to her sides, and she could tell, by the throbbing ache and discomfort in her left arm, that it was rapidly swelling. She tried to ease it a little, but the pain that resulted was so atrocious that she gave up the attempt and set herself to bear it as best she might. She could still move the joint, however, and knew that the bone was not broken.

  While she was engaged in these tentative efforts to discover the extent of the injury, she heard the slow, reverberating chime of a church clock. She counted the strokes. Seven o’clock. The night was over. Would she live through another day? She wondered. At the moment she felt so ill, so utterly beaten, that she would almost have welcomed death as an alternative to this endless struggle in which she seemed doomed to be worsted. Of one thing she felt convinced—if de Silva touched her arm again, she would give in. She could only pray that he would leave her alone until she had managed to regain at least a semblance of courage.

  There was not a sound in the flat. If de Silva were there he must be sleeping.

  She tried to free
her feet, but the long strips of silk that bound them to the bed were so cunningly tied that they tightened, rather than gave, with her efforts. In desperation she tugged harder.

  Suddenly something ripped under the bedstead. She pulled harder and felt the silk slowly give. In another second her feet were free.

  She worked her way into a sitting position and managed to get her feet to the ground, but when she tried to stand, she found herself so stiff and cramped that she was glad to sink back on to the bed, rubbing one foot against the other to restore the circulation. Her hands were still bound to her sides, and the change to a more upright position made her sprained arm ache almost unbearably.

  And all the time she was beside herself with fear that de Silva would return.

  She managed at last to get on to her feet and progress awkwardly across the room. It was an absurd and crablike progress, and, owing to her fettered arms, she could reach nothing higher than a couple of feet from the ground.

  Thus it was that, when at last she found what she was looking for, it turned out to be quite hopelessly out of her reach.

  Lying on the top of the high chest of drawers, in company with de Silva’s hair-brushes and other toilet articles, was a small pair of nail-scissors.

  They were placed so far away from the edge that it seemed out of the question that she should ever reach them, until she noticed that, across the top of the chest of drawers, was a runner of embroidered linen.

  She listened intently, but there was not a sound in the flat. Gathering all her courage she leaned forward and managed to get the edge of the runner between her teeth. Very carefully she pulled. The runner, carrying with it all the things that were lying upon it, slid over the edge of the chest of drawers on to the ground. The hair-brushes fell with a thud that brought her heart to her mouth, but fortunately the carpet was thick and, judging by the silence that ensued, the noise had not reached de Silva’s ears.

  With some difficulty she managed to kneel and get the fingers of her right hand round the scissors. By twisting her wrist, she found she could insert one of the blades under the edge of the scarf where it passed round her body. She worked the blade clumsily backwards and forwards against the silk, and it seemed an age before she felt the fabric begin to give. Once it had started to rip her task became easier, but infinitely more painful, owing to the pressure on her swollen arm. White with pain, she strained the silk to the utmost with her right arm, keeping her left as rigid as possible, and with each effort she could feel the tear lengthening. Soon she had her arms free, after which it was an easy matter to loosen that portion of the silk that had been wound tight round her wrists.