Scandal at High Chimneys

by John Dickson Carr

  If he saw anything at all, he saw Kate Damon’s pictured face. Since last night it had drawn and fascinated him. He ached to rescue her from imagined dangers, after the fashion of the romances he wrote. But this particular danger he could not take very seriously.

  “Believe in ghosts?” he repeated. “No.”

  “No! We are too sensible for that; we must look further afield.”

  Mr. Damon brooded for a moment, and seemed to shy back at what he imagined.

  “The past three months, Mr. Strickland, have been no easy time for me. It is strange that a man may go on for years, almost decades, wilfully blinding himself to what must sooner or later be the result of his own folly. It was not sin; no. But assuredly it was folly. We postpone decisions, in the hope of we know not what. The mind tricks and befools us. And then we are lost.”

  He paused.

  “Mine is the blame; so be it! Yet this is not to say all. Kate’s restlessness (I call it no worse) and Celia’s nervous state have combined with other circumstances to produce some malaise. My wife, good woman that she is—”

  Here he stretched out his left hand to Georgette, who pressed it gently in both her hands and gazed out of the window.

  “—my wife, being persuaded I must be ill, last week wrote to our London physician. Nonsense! I am not ill.”

  “Poor Matthew,” murmured Georgette.

  “I am not ill, I say! It would require a bullet to kill me. However, Mr. Strickland, all these remarks are not to our purpose. You may perhaps remember Burbage, my house-steward?”

  “Yes; very well.”

  “You may also recall that Burbage has a daughter?”

  “No, sir. Or, at least, I don’t remember her.”

  “Well! Burbage has a daughter named Penelope. For some days she has been paying a visit to her father, being accommodated in a room among the servants on the top floor. Penelope, I should explain, is employed as a governess by a well-to-do family in Wiltshire. She is a young woman educated above her station in life, but well-conducted and sensible and trustworthy.

  “Yesterday was Monday, the sixteenth of October. Penelope Burbage asked leave to attend a lecture at St. Thomas’s Hall in Reading that night. She said that she would walk there and back, begging permission for Burbage to admit her if she should be late.

  “The members of my household, Mr. Strickland, retire at ten-thirty. At ten-thirty Burbage is accustomed to close and bar all the shutters, and to lock and bar the doors. Such is my ruling; ordinarily I allow no one to be out after that time unless I myself am of the company.

  “However!

  “On this occasion I felt justified in making an exception. The young woman, of course, could not go unescorted. I instructed my coachman, an elderly married man whose living-quarters are over the stables, to drive Penelope to St. Thomas’s Hall in the trap; to attend the lecture with her; and to drive her home.

  “Further! I permitted Burbage to entrust his daughter with a key to the back door, telling him to leave it locked but unbarred. The young woman, I said, might let herself in and bar the door afterwards when she returned. No doubt this was foolish.”

  Again Matthew Damon leaned forward.

  “Now mark well what I tell you. Ask any questions which may occur. It is of the most deadly importance, though my wife may call it trivial.”

  At the moment Georgette did not call it anything. Plump, uneasy, perhaps more mature than her youthful appearance indicated, she moved in her chair as though at some suspicion of which she was ashamed.

  Her husband seemed to be fighting phantoms.

  “For some time, Mr. Strickland, I have slept badly. The most sober of us may be visited by dreams of a frightening sort, and I have occupied a room apart from my wife. Last night I dozed amid such horrors, though I was wakeful enough to hear the noise of the horse-and-trap returning from Reading.

  “You may recall the singular acoustic qualities at High Chimneys. The slightest noise indoors may be heard anywhere in the house with great distinctness. I thought I heard (correctly, as it proved) the sound of Penelope Burbage unlocking and opening the back door.

  “I heard her close and lock this door on the inside. I heard her put up the bar and close it in its sockets, which cannot be managed without clatter. Very well. I was about to doze again when it occurred to me that I should have heard the young woman’s footsteps going up the back stairs.

  “They did not do this. The footsteps, her footsteps, went through the house into the main hall, where they moved about for a moment and grew louder as though approaching or ascending the main staircase at the front of the house.

  “A trifle, you say? No doubt! But trifles become our preoccupation in the dark hours.

  “I lit my bedside candle and opened my watch. The hour was just eleven-thirty, later than I had imagined.

  “It was then I heard Penelope’s voice say something. Next, distinctly, she cried, ‘Who’s there?’ It could not have been three seconds afterwards that I heard—”

  Mr. Damon stopped.

  He lowered his head so that his chin rested on the fringes of the shawl and on a black satin necktie with a pearl pin. Clive, who had been watching a blue vein beat in the other’s temple, spoke with unusual sharpness.

  “Gently, sir! You heard what?”

  Matthew Damon looked up.

  “Screams,” he said.

  The Bath-and-Bristol Express had attained its fullest speed of fifty miles an hour. It swept round a curve, flinging Clive against the chair-arm.

  “May God have mercy upon sinners! I have not heard such cries since Harriet Pyke, whom I visited so often in the condemned cell at Newgate, was carried to the gallows in ’46. Do not think, I beg of you, that my conscience was troubled—”

  “Why should it have been, sir?”

  “—or that these screams put me in mind of Harriet Pyke. The woman was guilty. No: it put me in mind only of housebreakers and thieves. I knew Penelope Burbage must have encountered one. In the shortest time it took to put on robe and slippers, I was at the head of the stairs with my candle held high.

  “Burbage and the two footmen, I must confess, were not much longer in descending from the top floor. Penelope Burbage had not fainted, though she crouched at the foot of the staircase in a pitiable condition of shock.

  “Her father would have run to her, but that I ordered him and the footmen to make an immediate search of the house and discover if we had been robbed. I myself lifted the young woman to her feet. Did I—did I mention that my physician, Dr. Thompson Bland, was our guest at the time and is still with us? Did I mention that?”

  Clive shook his head.

  “No, sir. You said Mrs. Damon had written to him, that’s all.”

  “Well! I was grateful for his presence. For some reason this young woman appeared to harbour extraordinary suspicions of me (of me!), shrinking away and screaming again. Dr. Thompson Bland descended soon afterwards and administered brandy. It was some time before Penelope could be persuaded to tell what happened.”

  “And what had happened?”

  Silence.

  “What had happened, sir?”

  “As I surmised,” continued Mr. Damon, calm and bleak once more, “Penelope had entered by the back door, which she locked and closely barred after her. Burbage had left her bedroom candle on a table by this door, but she could not light it. The kitchen fire had gone out, and there were no Lucifers at hand.

  “Our rooms at High Chimneys, you may recall, are heavily curtained. However, it was not too difficult to grope her way through and light the candle by what little remained of the fire in the main hall. This being contrived, Penelope started up the front staircase. She did not go far.

  “There was a man standing partway up the staircase, looking down at her.

  “The man did not move or speak, nor did Penelope. After a moment Penelope said, ‘Is that you, sir?’ and lifted the light higher without being able to see his face. Still the figure did not move or sp
eak. Penelope cried out, ‘Who’s there?’ The man put out both hands and ran down at her to seize her, but his footsteps made no sound as he ran.

  “Penelope stumbled backwards, throwing her arm across her face. The candle went out. Penelope screamed and continued to scream in the dark, though nothing touched her. By the time I myself appeared, she was alone.”

  Georgette Damon started as a head loomed up dark in silhouette outside the compartment-windows. It was only the guard, edging past on the footboard outside to collect tickets. Much dirt blew in; afterwards Clive closed the window hastily.

  “She was alone?” he repeated. “What had happened to the man on the stairs?”

  “Apparently he had disappeared.”

  “Could Penelope describe him?”

  “After a fashion. She stated with some positiveness that he was wearing a frock-coat, a dark waistcoat, patterned trousers, and socks without shoes. Aside from the last point, which would account for the absence of sound, half the men in England must own such a costume.”

  “True; but …”

  “Was he tall or short? Old or young? Fat or thin? Penelope, badly frightened, could not say. Nor did she see his face. She has an impression that the figure was gigantic; but this, she acknowledges, may have been because it stood well above her on the stairs.”

  “Did you learn anything else from her?”

  The deep-set eyes gleamed.

  “Only that Penelope told the truth. I have not spent half a lifetime at the Old Bailey for nothing. But it is ironical, Mr. Strickland, that the level-headed Penelope’s story should have seemed so unconvincing to others. I can still see Dr. Thompson Bland turning to me and saying, ‘My dear Damon, this young woman has been dreaming.’ Apparently, I repeat, apparently, the mysterious prowler did not exist.”

  “Didn’t exist? May I ask why you say that?”

  “You may. When I had finished questioning Penelope, Burbage and the two footmen returned. They had searched every inch of the house from cellars to roof. No person was hidden there. And every door and window still securely locked and barred on the inside.”

  Clive sat up straight.

  “But that’s conclusive, isn’t it?”

  “I wonder!”

  “Really, Matthew—!” began Georgette.

  “My wife has an explanation, of course.”

  “Yes, to be sure I have,” declared Georgette, with a trembling kind of dignity. “Much as I really and truly dislike to mention it—”

  “Mention it, my dear. Pray mention it, by all means.”

  “Matthew, she invented the whole story! Despite her so-called virtues your Penelope Burbage is a sly-boots, and anyone but a man would have seen it long ago.”

  “Indeed, my love?”

  “Oh, whim-wham!” cried Georgette, not without vulgarity. The auburn curls danced at the back of her flat oval hat. “Who else saw this mysterious prowler? No one, I think. Miss Penelope is too plain-faced and dowdy to attract men’s notice in any other way, and so she invents this fable to have you all at her feet. I know her. You will at least allow the possibility?”

  “It is a possibility, let us grant. At the same time, since I am familiar with the girl’s character, it is a possibility I cannot credit.”

  “Just a moment, sir!” Clive intervened hastily, before the other’s temper should rise too far. “Was this the reason you asked about Victor? Why should you think the prowler might have been Victor?”

  The question caught Matthew Damon in mid-flight, one unsteady hand at his side-whisker, giving Clive an odd, indecipherable look.

  “In my heart, Mr. Strickland, I could not credit that either. My son has been addicted to pranks, stupid and indefensible pranks. But the most ingenious young gentleman cannot leave a house locked and barred behind him; I have never known the boy to be malicious; and I accept your word that he was with you last night. Question for question, Mr. Strickland! A moment ago you said the evidence of the locked house was ‘conclusive.’ Conclusive of what?”

  “Well, sir, that’s fairly clear.”

  “Is it? Be good enough to explain.”

  “The prowler, if a prowler existed, must have been someone at High Chimneys. For instance, how many menservants live in the house?”

  “Only Burbage and the two footmen. Do you suspect one of those?”

  Clive stared at him.

  “Confound it, Mr. Damon, I don’t suspect anybody! I only said—”

  “Apart from the fact that Burbage has the appearance and mind of a non-conformist clergyman, not one of those three could have frightened Penelope, run up to the top of the house, doffed the prowler’s costume, and descended again in different clothes at the time each did descend. Am I under suspicion, young man? Or is my friend Dr. Thompson Bland? We were the only other men in the house.”

  “It must have been someone, you know. If you won’t allow a ghost, as I hope you won’t, then where are we left?”

  “We are left, it would seem, with a frock-coat, a dark waistcoat, and patterned trousers described as being of a red-and-white chequered design. Explain it how you can or will.”

  Patterned trousers of a red-and-white chequered design. Patterned trousers of a red-and-white chequered design. Those words droned in Clive’s mind to the click and bump of wheels, creating grotesque images. All of a sudden he laughed.

  “Do you find this so very amusing, Mr. Strickland?”

  “No, I do not,” said Clive, catching the mood and retorting in the same tone. “But it occurred to me that there might be one other explanation.”

  “I should be interested to hear it.”

  “Thank you, no. It’s so absurd that I prefer to keep it to myself.”

  “For the last time, young man, I will not be trifled with. What is your explanation?”

  Again Clive stared at him.

  The whistle of the train screamed for a level-crossing. Far ahead of them, reflected back on a damp sky, fled the rolling fire-glare of the locomotive. Georgette, clearly much bewildered, had taken a flask of smelling-salts from her reticule.

  “It has been remarked, Mr. Strickland,” Matthew Damon said judicially, “that our younger generation have no manners. Hitherto I had considered you an exception. I see I was mistaken.”

  “That, sir, must be as you please.”

  “Mr. Strickland, for pity’s sake!” cried Georgette.

  But the others, unheeding, took on that air of stuffy, buttoned-up politeness which both generations so well knew how to assume.

  “Since I am to be your host, Mr. Strickland, I may be forgiven for reminding you that you visit me at your own invitation.”

  “At my own invitation, sir, but not entirely at my own wish. In one respect I am here against my own wish, and in my capacity as a lawyer, because I promised as an act of friendship to put before you a certain matter concerning your daughter.”

  Mr. Damon’s tone altered suddenly. “My daughter?”

  “Yes, sir. The truth was bound to come out sooner or later—”

  Despite the chattering floorboards, Matthew Damon rose to his feet. Clive stood up too.

  “—and it had better come out now. A rather offensive gentleman named Tressider wants to make an offer of marriage. That’s one reason why I’m here, if it’s not the only reason by a long way.”

  Georgette screamed. Her husband’s face had already grown rigid with an emotion very like horror. He swayed, and might have fallen if the astounded Clive had not caught his arm. Then he sat down heavily, muttering to himself, with the top-hat trembling on his head and one big-knuckled hand shading his eyes.

  IV. TWO SISTERS FOR A VALENTINE

  ONLY A FEW MINUTES before Clive met Kate Damon, he had begun to wonder whether he would see her at all.

  In the drawing-room at High Chimneys, where only one paraffin lamp was burning now, he glanced at the clock under its glass bell on the mantelpiece. It was five minutes past six. Very clearly Clive remembered Matthew Damon’s words when th
ey had left the train, and after he had visited the office of the Electric and International Telegraph Company at Reading.

  “I must tell you everything, Mr. Strickland, whatever the consequences. Do not press me now! But I am resolved to be at peace before dinner this night.”

  Before dinner this night.

  Clive had dressed for dinner in haste, impeded by a footman whose assistance he did not want. But nobody else seemed to have come downstairs. Except for hints of a storm gathering over the Berkshire hills, he heard little or nothing.

  Soundlessly the pendulum switched back and forth on the gilt clock under glass, its image reflected in the mirror-panel behind the white-marble mantelpiece. Clive looked round; everything seemed new and strange in that dim light.

  The drawing-room was not the shabby place he remembered from old years. Round him loomed rosewood furniture, much carved and at a high polish from vinegar and beeswax. The floor was muffled in a thick Turkish carpet of vivid pattern, as the windows were muffled in thick new curtains. It showed the taste and hand of the second Mrs. Damon, to whom her husband could deny nothing.

  You must not smoke a cigar here, Clive could well imagine. Behind the drawing-room lay the library, unlighted; and behind that, if he remembered correctly, was Matthew Damon’s study.

  Clive opened the door giving on the main hall. Just across the broad hall was the morning-room, used by the family as a sitting-room when there were no guests. Clive heard a girl’s clear voice upraised beyond its open door.

  “They—they brought a guest, I am told?” it asked in an offhand way.

  “Ah. That they did. A Mr. Strickland. You’d not remember him.”

  The second voice belonged to Mrs. Cavanagh, who remained in Clive’s mind as a middle-aged straight-backed woman full of piety and unctuousness. Mrs. Cavanagh had risen to the post of housekeeper at High Chimneys after having been the children’s nurse long ago.

  “I remember Mr. Strickland quite well,” the girl’s voice replied straightforwardly. Then it grew charged with some kind of emotion. “But tell me, Cavvy. Why did my stepmother go to London this morning?”