Death Knocks Three Times

by Anthony Gilbert

  “Are you sure Mr. Sherren understands the working of the elevator?” asked Frances dourly.

  “If not, he can presumably learn.”

  Mrs. Potter teetered out, saying something about “We oldsters not being as young as we were,” and Miss Bond scarcely waited for the door to close before she remarked: “Nevertheless, some of us still retain possession of our senses.”

  Then the door really did close, leaving John feeling like a very unprotected rabbit in the presence of a completely unscrupulous boa-constrictor. But he hoped no one guessed this. He reminded himself this was the last time, the last time, the last time …

  14

  HE MUST have started saying the words aloud for he became aware of his aunt looking at him in a most peculiar manner.

  “Really, John,” she said, “you are exhibiting the worst traits of the elderly maiden gentleman.”

  “I don’t agree in the least,” said John. “Writers are perpetually involved in conversations which I have no doubt sound quite meaningless—to any one who happens to overhear them.” He thought he had dealt with that with admirable firmness. “What was it you wished to say to me. Aunt Clara?”

  “Nothing in particular,” retorted his spirited companion, “but I don’t choose to have Frances Pettigrew giving me orders when she’s my guest. However, since you yourself have raised the point, and since this may be my last opportunity of giving you advice— no, John, do not contradict me, if you please. At my age one must be prepared for emergencies, and if you weren’t thinking of that, why were you mouthing that phrase—‘The last time, the last time’ —so feverishly a moment ago? Since, as I say, this may be my last opportunity, I propose to say a few plain words. After your mother died and your father so foolishly threw himself into the jaws of the heathen, I did my best to bring you up as I would a son of my own. As you know, I consider life is intended for some particular purpose, and even you can hardly suggest you have fulfilled such a purpose by writing a handful of novels that, if we are to be candid, can have made no difference to humanity in the mass, and little, I fear, to your own finances. You are still no more than middle-aged. In these days forty is regarded almost as a young man. It is not too late to make something of your life. I don’t, of course, suggest you should enlist for the mines or anything drastic like that. You would naturally be more of a liability than an asset, but there must be some useful service you could render to the community. It is not enough to claim that you live within your income unless-you do something to merit that income.”

  John by this time was white with passion: he would have been delighted to see his aunt drop dead on the carpet before him.

  “I don’t think material success is the only or even the best criterion for judging the permanent value of a man’s work,” he compelled himself to stammer. “The novelist is said to be the best historian of his time and though I admit I am not widely recognized at present, future generations …”

  But he got no further. “My dear John, if your books are not in print, how can you hope they will influence future generations? Now, what qualifications have you? You received an excellent education, you held some sort of position during the war …”

  “I don’t really know why you suddenly take this interest in me. Aunt Clara, but in these days, when nearly every one wants to be in some other country or doing some other job, I should have thought you’d agree that when you find a man who is perfectly happy the way he is …”

  He was getting so much involved he was almost obliged when she interrupted him.

  “A man’s aim must exceed his grasp.”

  “Mine does,” he said simply. “All the same. Aunt Clara, I’m happy to say there are a few people who differ in their estimation of my work, and in any case,” he wound up on a burst of overwhelming honesty, “I like doing it, even if it’s never likely to make my fortune.”

  For some reason this so much enraged the old woman that she said abruptly: “I am exceedingly tired. I cannot continue this pointless conversation. I understand that any one foolish enough to play cards with Major Atkins experiences this utter exhaustion almost immediately afterwards. It is different, of course, for Frances. She is made of whalebone.”

  John, relieved that the conversation had come to an end and only sorry that Hart wouldn’t be there to take up the elevator, collected the old lady’s impedimenta, her knitting-bag and library book, and opened the door, conscious that he didn’t do it with half the éclat of that arch-poseur. Roger Marlowe. Miss Bond put her huge haughty nose in the air and said, “I trust you understand these elevators, John,” and he replied, “I doubt it, but I dare say there will be instructions …”

  “I will give you instructions,” said Miss Bond.

  The hall into which they emerged was quite empty; only John’s coat hung forlornly like a forgotten corpse on the wall. That, at least, was how John saw it, remembering the famous Father Brown story whose title momentarily escaped him. Miss Bond, looking neither right nor left, made a bee-line for the elevator. The clock over the deserted desk stood a few minutes to eleven.

  “Open the gate,” said Miss Bond. “John, where are you? Why are you loitering there?”

  “There seems to be a letter for you on the table,” murmured John.

  “What’s that?” The old voice sharpened. “The post came in a long time ago.”

  “I don’t think it came by post.”

  She marched forward and snatched it out of his hand.

  “Another of these scurrilous communications,” she said with an assumption of carelessness that didn’t in the least deceive that student of human nature, John Sherren. “Since I propose to go to the police tomorrow I may as well show them this, too.” She opened her vast bag and thrust it in. Just as she was closing it she exclaimed: “My gold pencil is missing. I had it this evening adding up the score. Do you suppose that creature … ?”

  “I shouldn’t think so,” said John, but his voice lacked conviction. He wouldn’t be the least surprised to know that the pencil lay at this moment in Marlowe’s pocket. “You must have dropped it when you got up. The servants will find it in the morning.”

  “My father always taught me it was wrong to put temptation in their way. It is not asking a great deal of you, John …”

  John made his way back to the drawing room, crawling about on all fours looking under chairs and rugs like a plump little bear. Eventually he found the pencil tucked away under a cushion, together with a long gray hairpin and somebody’s bill for haberdashery.

  “What a long time you’ve been,” said his aunt, who was standing where he had left her. “I’m an old woman to wait about in this draught, and it may be very unpleasant for you if I catch pneumonia and die and it comes out that you deliberately kept me hanging about with that end in view.”

  “She’s as dotty as poor Aunt Isabel,” reflected John, following her into the elevator and shutting the gate. “Quite as dotty and much less pleasant.” He glanced surreptitiously at the watch on his wrist. Eleven-three. In twelve hours he’d be back in London at his desk, back amid sympathetic surroundings where he was John Sherren, a man who not only wrote books but got them printed, whose landlady was clever about sugar and managed to get him real China tea and lemons, and washed all his shirts and socks herself.

  Miss Pettigrew, waiting stiffly in her room, thought she would never hear die elevator creak to the second floor. What on earth was Clara saying to her nephew? Like all people who don’t trust their neighbors. Miss Pettigrew thought it quite probable the conversation was about herself and took on a most uncomplimentary complexion. At last she heard the sound of footsteps coming along the corridor and then the sound of a door closing. She waited for the familiar sound of the elevator door clashing, but instead there came a rap on her door and when she opened it there was John himself, looking, she thought, a bit wild and frayed, not at all the successful novelist of fiction. He even looked a little alarmed, but then the sight of her masterful self, clad in a
masculine Jaeger dressing-gown with a plaid lining and a gentlemanly brown cord, might have staggered even the experienced Mr. Marlowe.

  “Oh, Miss Pettigrew,” he began nervously, “my aunt sent me to say she is very tired and she is going straight to bed. She looks forward to seeing you in the morning.”

  “Did she say that?” inquired Miss Pettigrew dryly.

  John, remembering his aunt’s final, “I really think it is time Miss Pettigrew returned to her other friends. She means well no doubt, but she has been a governess for so long she forgets the world is not entirely composed of mentally deficient children,” hesitated. Miss Pettigrew smiled appreciatively.

  “Of course it has been a most exciting evening. We don’t generally get so many London visitors at one time, and both in their own way so distinguished.” Vipers weren’t in it, thought John desperately.

  “As a matter of fact,” he broke out, “she’d be furious if she knew I was saying this to you, but I’m troubled about her. I am her sole surviving relative and I do have a sense of responsibility, as any man in my position must. I wonder if I may ask you a favor.”

  “What is that?” She had personality, all right, he thought. He’d made no mistake that first afternoon at Garrods. His mind went to the book he had just begun, the book revolving around her, though of course it wasn’t her really, but his conception of a woman who resembled her in appearance. He hadn’t done his subject justice. When he got back to town tomorrow he’d start it again.

  “Am I such an ogress, Mr. Sherren, or have you forgotten what it was you were going to ask me?” Miss Pettigrew put an end to his mooning.

  “It’s about Aunt Clara,” he said rapidly. “She strikes me as definitely deteriorating—in health, I mean. She’s as sharp-witted as ever, but she does seem to me—feeble is perhaps the word. At her age it’s not so surprising, and of course these anonymous letters arc clearly preying on her mind. And then that fellow Marlowe?”

  “Are you linking him up with the letters?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” said John slowly, “but I suppose it’s possible. In fact, that might explain …”

  “Explain what?”

  “There was another of them tonight. Did you know?”

  “How should I? Miss Bond didn’t speak of it.”

  “It was on the table in the hall. I found it there on our way to the elevator.”

  Up came Miss Pettigrew’s nose, like a questing hound. “Mr. Sherren, that letter was not there when I came upstairs.”

  “You mean, you didn’t notice it,” prompted John, unwisely.

  “I mean, Mr. Sherren, precisely what I say. It was not there. Even if I had overlooked it, it is morally impossible that Commander Potter should have done so. That man could not pass a letter without picking it up, examining the handwriting, the postmark, the superscription and even acting as amateur postman if that were possible. If that letter had been on the table at half-past ten tonight the Commander would have held up the elevator for the pleasure of bringing the letter into the small drawing room and delivering it in person.”

  “In that case,” he said shortly, “we can assume it was not there when you and the Potters went past. Was Marlowe with you?”

  “He stopped to get his coat and followed us into the elevator.”

  “Stopped, eh?”

  “For a moment, yes. Hart held up the elevator for him.”

  “His coat was hanging on the wall near mine,” said John, slowly. “To fetch it he would pass by the table where the letter was found.”

  “The same idea,” said Miss Pettigrew dryly, “had occurred to me. Did you see the contents of this letter?”

  “Aunt Clara hadn’t opened it when I left her. She said she pro^ posed to take it to the police in the morning.”

  “I think that improbable,” said Miss Pettigrew, grimly.

  “I had doubts myself,” acknowledged John. “That’s another reason why I wanted to ask if you would be kind enough to keep in touch with me if you see any change in her. This is my address …” He offered her a very correct visiting card. It was typical of him that even in 1949 he had beautifully engraved cards.

  “You see,” he amplified, “this enemy of my aunt’s is someone close at hand, possibly even someone we haven’t so far suspected. I admit it looks a little suspicious that Marlowe should have passed through the hall immediately before the letter was discovered, but we should have to prove that he has been in Brakemouth on various occasions during the past few months—unless, of course, he has a partner.” His eyes brightened speculatively.

  “Very ingenious,” approved Miss Pettigrew. “It is not difficult to guess the identity of the partner you have in mind. Well, Mr. Sherren, I promise you I will let you know how things progress, and I must say I admire your conscientious attitude. It’s not every man who would take so much trouble for an old woman who treats him with scant respect.”

  But John didn’t intend to be drawn. He said gracefully that when people got older their outlooks were sometimes a little distorted and went ofiE.

  The stage was now all set for the fall of the curtain.

  The hotel was very silent and almost entirely dark. In the corridors the merest gleam of light burned, for Hammond was an ardent disciple of Mr. Gaitskill, -who didn’t believe in wasting electricity, and of Sir Stafford Cripps, who didn’t believe in wasting

  money. Nearly all the residents were asleep; only behind three doors (apart from Hammond who, in his own quarters, was still wrestling with the various problems that beset a man in his position) did the light still burn, the rooms allotted to Miss Bond, Miss Pettigrew and Mr. Marlowe. Marlowe was remembering the old woman’s threat to go to the police the next day. In spite of his bluff, it might prove disastrous for Roger Marlowe if she did.

  “But you won’t,” he decided, and once again his face wore the wolfish look that had transformed it a few hours before. “No, my lady,” he apostrophized her, “you may think a lot of yourself, but that’s one thing you’ll never do.”

  Miss Pettigrew fastened steel curlers into her Spartan hair-do and thought about her conversation with John Sherren. She looked at the card he had left her. What did he expect was going to happen to the old lady that he was so insistent on being kept informed?

  “Well,” she said in her deep, incisive voice, putting up her hand to the electric-light switch, “time will show.”

  She took off her dressing-gown and got into bed, an uncompromising figure in a nainsook nightdress, her hair bristling like the head of a Medusa.

  In her room Miss Bond sat on the side of her bed, reading the last of the anonymous letters. The writer had thought better of his recent threat—“This is the last you will receive”—or perhaps he had thought they weren’t moving fast enough.

  This final message was in rhyme.

  Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,

  Nor the furious winter’s rages,

  Thou thy worldly task has done …

  The paper dropped from her shaking hand on to the eiderdown. She was so tired. Yet there was danger in yielding to this sense of overwhelming exhaustion. Someone wanted her to go to sleep. Why? Because when you’re asleep you’re helpless. Rising stiffly, she tottered over to the door and turned the key. Back on the bed she picked up the paper again. There was another line—something about wages. Wages of sin is death. Death. She began to shiver. Goose walking over my grave. Death. She’d seen them all go before her. Her father—Isabel—all her contemporaries except

  Frances—and Locket, of course. Frances—was she a friend or an enemy? Fear no more—who wrote that? Frances would know. Frances knew everything. Or—she caught herself up sharply— nearly everything. No one knows everything. It wouldn’t be safe. Except God, of course, and if He didn’t interfere to prevent two world wars you can’t expect Him to take much interest in poor, tired Clara Bond. Still, even if God didn’t, someone did. These letters didn’t write themselves. And they were dangerous. Any day now she m
ight find it was her turn to join those others. A knock at the door and when you opened it there’d be death on the other side. Clara Bond, thou fool, this night is thy soul required of thee.

  In sudden nervous rage she seized the slip of paper, tore and clawed it to shreds, flung the tortured remnants out of die window. Then, exhausted, she sank back.

  The envelope slipped to the floor, where the police found it the next day.

  “Tomorrow,” said Miss Bond in the unnaturally clear voice of someone just about to ‘go off,’ “tomorrow I have something very important to do. I mustn’t forget. Tomorrow may prove the most important day of my life.”

  The room seemed very dark in spite of the light that was still burning. Her throat seemed very dry. She took up the glass of water John had poured out for her just before he left the room and began to drink. Lovely and cool, she thought, lovely—and—cool. Lovely … She only just put the glass down in time. Now she lay back on the bed fully dressed, a shriveled, helpless old woman, who didn’t know how she was going to cope any more. All the years of battle beat up in her mind, harder battles than any one could guess; all her enemies, that widow, Thomas, the nurse, Marlowe, the writer of these letters. They seemed to be converging on her, a ruthless shadowy army.

  “Frances!” she exclaimed sharply. “Frances, where are you?”

  But no one came, and though she wanted to get up she couldn’t move any more. She thought sleepily that if the door was locked no one could get in, knew a moment of terror at the thought that perhaps someone had been in the room all the time, tried to cry out, but her throat was too dry, tried to find the glass of water, but someone must have taken it away. The light was going out, too, going out in the room and going out in her mind.

  And quite soon the last glimmer faded and she went down into the final darkness of all.