Scandal at High Chimneys

by John Dickson Carr

  “Well! Georgette had been going on, as usual, about one of us getting married. All of a sudden my father got up and said none of us was going to get married without ‘the truth being known first.’ I don’t know what he meant; he spoke in the middle of simply a—a general discussion, that’s all.

  “At that very second, as though by a kind of dreadful stage-signal, Burbage came into the dining-room and said there was a Mr. Whicher, an Inspector of the Detective Branch at Great Scotland Yard, calling to see him. My father put his knuckles on the table and told Burbage to show Mr. Whicher into the dining-room. That astonished everyone still more.”

  Celia, her gloved hands twisting at the wooden dagger, swallowed hard.

  “Inspector Whicher came into the dining-room. He said, ‘Sir, I’ve brought you a letter from a dead woman, written nearly nineteen years ago; but I think you’ll find it’s good news.’ Then he looked round at all of us. My father swayed as though he might faint. All he said was, ‘Let us go into my study.’ He spoiled my birthday dinner. It was hard to forgive him for spoiling my birthday dinner.”

  Once more Celia’s voice rose piercingly.

  “That’s what happened. I can’t say what it means; I don’t know. But that’s what happened. Don’t you believe me? Ask Uncle Rollo! He was there. Ask—”

  Dr. Bland took one step into the room.

  “Celia,” he said gently.

  Except for Celia’s gasp, as her large eyes turned sideways and she saw the doctor, a hush held the curtain-muffled room. Dr. Bland’s brown moustache and beard stood out against a face far less florid.

  “At Mivart’s Hotel, my dear, they said you had inquired after Kate. They also said you had inquired after Mr. Strickland.” The doctor’s gaze moved round. “Ah. Mr. Strickland. May I ask, sir, whether you will be at home this evening after dinner?”

  “No! That is to say, I shall not be at home.”

  “It is vitally necessary, sir, that I see you this evening.”

  “That’s impossible. I am going to the Alhambra—”

  “To the Alhambra?” repeated the startled Dr. Bland. He did not speak loudly, but there was a jump in his voice. “I tell you, sir, that I am obliged to see you. By your leave, then, I must meet you even there.”

  “And I tell you, sir, it is quite impossible. Don’t come there! Don’t try! In the meanwhile,” and Clive still watched Celia’s face, “did you hear what Miss Damon was saying?”

  “Yes,” replied Dr. Bland.

  “What part of it?”

  The doctor’s rich voice, full and hypnotic, took on rounded utterance.

  “If you refer to a murder-plot conceived and executed by Kate Damon and Lord Albert Tressider, I heard all of it.”

  “Is her explanation the true one?”

  “Alas!” smiled Dr. Bland. “Or, rather, the word should be ‘happily.’ Celia is the best and dearest girl on earth. But she is sometimes fanciful. Happily (I say happily!) she was utterly mistaken from beginning to end.”

  Celia’s expression changed. Dr. Bland stretched out his hand.

  “You should not have left Devonshire Place, my dear,” he said gently. “Come home now. Come home to your aunt and uncle. You are weary, Celia; come home.”

  What happened then, as Celia’s expression changed still more and her grip tightened on the painted dagger, toppled Clive into a realm of nightmare.

  “Celia!”

  The girl did not reply. There was a splintering crack of wood, like the cracking of a neck, as she broke the paper-knife in two pieces and flung them across the room. Then, dodging under the doctor’s arm, she ran out through the entry. Clive had a last glimpse of her face, wistful and tragic, before she ran out into the passage and frantically down the stairs into the dark.

  XVIII. NIGHT-LIFE: THE ALHAMBRA

  INTO THE DARK.

  But it was light now, with the lines of misty gas-lamps stretching down towards the Regent’s Quadrant and beyond to Leicester Square, as a hansom took Clive to a rendezvous that might mean everything or nothing.

  He was late. Not too late, he hoped, but late all the same.

  “No, sir,” the liveried hall-porter at Mivart’s had assured him for the sixth time. “Miss Kate Damon has not yet returned.”

  Nearly all theatrical performances commenced at a quarter to eight, or with a curtain-raiser which began at that time. The customary dinner-hour was at seven; but it was wiser to dine far earlier if you meant to be punctual.

  Clive, taking dinner at Mivart’s after hastily donning evening-clothes, could no more hurry the waiters than he could hurry the seven courses. He declined three of the courses. He declined four different wines so as to keep his head. But the steam of cooking rose, in the stately dining-room with the looped curtains of blue and canary silk. When he hailed a hansom in Brook Street, it was twenty-five minutes to nine.

  Fortunately, the roar and crush of crowds had partly dwindled away into theatres or music-halls or public-houses. There would not be much yelling or carousing until nearly eleven; the streets lay reasonably clear. Even so …

  “Cabby!”

  The roof-trap flew open.

  “Make haste! Twice your fare if we’re at the Alhambra by a quarter to nine.”

  “Dunno, governor. ’Tain’t easy. I’ll try.”

  The long whip cracked as the hansom tried a less crowded approach by way of Piccadilly instead of Regent Street. The danger of delay was caused by omnibuses, which pulled up wherever a passenger elected to call out to the conductor and get down. If you were caught behind one of those, you could be infuriated and lost.

  Furthermore, Clive decided as they passed the Burlington Arcade with its vast amount of female flesh, the West End seemed to be preparing for a large night. A new law, attempting somewhat to purify the night-haunts by forbidding the sale of spirituous liquors after midnight, could not be enforced; it only delighted robust souls by providing opportunities for breaking it.

  Twenty minutes to nine.

  “Cabby!”

  “Doing me best, governor.”

  There was more delay in the approach to the Quadrant. Some few figures capered in silhouette outside the misted lights of the Argyll Rooms in Windmill Street. One or two pleasure-seekers, who had begun the evening’s drinking too early or with too much enthusiasm, were being sick in the gutter. Clive’s hansom jingled past the top of the Haymarket, followed by a mirror-glitter and a burst of song from the Sweet Daisy.

  And he was going towards … what?

  Celia had gone long ago. Dr. Bland had gone, without a word of explanation. Assuredly, he told himself, he would not meet Celia Damon in the promenade at the Alhambra. But then he would not meet Kate either.

  The sickening shock he had felt, when Celia began her explanation about how the first murder must have been committed, was in some degree passing off. He could laugh at it now, or thought he could.

  How to understand, now, in what fashion he had been duped towards half-belief?

  ‘If one thing may be accounted certain,’ he said to himself, ‘it is that the first murder was designed to throw the blame on Kate. Kate herself, even supposing her capable of it, which I do not for a moment—’

  ‘Are you sure?’ whispered a horned and devilish doubt.

  ‘I am sure. Kate herself would never have dressed in a man’s clothes and thereby done what she was bound to be accused of doing. Celia, at the beginning, knew Kate would be accused. Georgette Damon knew Kate would be accused. Whicher knew it too and bases his course of action on that belief.’

  Once more Clive looked at his watch.

  It was a bitter experience, he reflected, that in defending Kate against Celia’s fancies he had been compelled to defend Tress. Tress, of all people! If only Tress could be the murderer, without in any way involving Kate, Clive felt he could die happy for one blow at that sneering face.

  Tress could not be the murderer. Fulfilment of hopes is not granted so easily in this world. And yet Tress (now
Clive felt sure of it) had been at High Chimneys on the night Georgette Damon was strangled. If only as one who had suavely blackmailed Georgette for her favours of love, Tress fitted somewhere into the pattern.

  If only—

  “Cabby!”

  “Haven’t yer got no eyes, governor?” demanded an injured voice, as the trap flew up. “Look where we are.”

  The hansom stopped. Music, even though muffled by the gaudy shell of the theatre, smote out into Leicester Square. It shook the twinkle of so many gas-jets, up there amid Moorish arches and minarets against the sky.

  Clive paid the driver. An angry curiosity and beat of excitement, like the pulse of the “Oriental” music itself, carried him up through the red-and-white arch into the outer foyer. And Inspector Hackney of the Detective Branch tapped his arm as he passed.

  Inspector Hackney, a face of uneasiness behind moustache and fan-shaped whiskers, spoke in a low hoarse voice.

  “Sir, where in God’s name have you been?”

  “It’s Miss Damon, Miss Kate Damon. She’s disappeared—”

  “Oh, ah. We know she has,” agreed Inspector Hackney. “But I’d rather you’d not question me, sir, or say aught about Miss Damon.”

  There had recently been an interval in that “Oriental musical spectacle,” L’Enfant Prodigue, whose chief attraction was its large corps of ballet-girls kept by the management for purposes in addition to dancing.

  Distantly in the shell, a female voice was singing above the music. Here in the foyer, under gaslight, the bare and muddy floorboards were strewn with orange-peel, prawn-shells, drifts of paper, and discarded cigar-ends.

  Clive stared at Inspector Hackney.

  “Where is Miss Damon? Do you know that too?”

  “No, we’re not sure. But don’t worry.”

  “Don’t worry, eh?”

  “It’s ten minutes to nine.” The other’s voice grew loud. “Buy a promenade-ticket, sir, and cut along upstairs. I’m here now, at risk of being seen, to give you an extra word from Whicher.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Stand by the third pillar from the oranges-and-sweets counter,” said Inspector Hackney, sweating. “When Cherry gives you the signal, move to one side and take off your hat. But, whatever you see,” and here the Inspector cleared his throat powerfully, “don’t speak and don’t interfere. Mum’s the word, and don’t move. That’s all.”

  Then he had slipped out into the quiet square. Thirty seconds afterwards, with a promenade ticket, Clive went upstairs into noise, smoke, and confusion.

  This place, he thought, ‘is going to lose its dancing-license one day. And why should the police trouble about being recognized or even seen in such a mob?’

  In the promenade, under dim gas-globes with glass prisms, about a hundred low-pitched voices seemed to be murmuring and laughing at once. A dampness of beer and brandy tinged the layers of tobacco-smoke. The women, more than half of them in evening-gowns with bared shoulders, posed on their best behaviour; when they could not wheedle a bottle of champagne from gallants in silk hats, they spoke refinedly for a tall gin and remembered not to call it a yard o’ white satin.

  “So I am too a clergyman’s daughter! Don’t you believe that?”

  “Ho!”

  “Stand up, Elvira! You’re as drunk as Davy’s sow. Stand up!”

  “Thirty bob, madam? Come, now. I’d not pay thirty bob for—”

  “Same again. Damn that barmaid. Same again.”

  “’Swelp me, sir, and no bloody chaff! What I say—”

  Heat flowed over Clive in a dizzy wave. Feet shuffled on mosaic tiles. The ballet-girls, in costume, hurried here when a particular turn was finished. Oriental draperies fluttered as one of them leaped, landed in front of Clive, and suggested that he was lonely.

  “Fizz, ducky? I loves fizz. Buy us a bottle of fizz?”

  “Another time, perhaps.”

  “Not now? Ducky!”

  “No; not now.”

  He could not even see the counter at which Cherry sold oranges, prawns, and sweets. Pushing forward, he found the third pillar and established himself there while the low-voiced tumult swirled round him and the minutes ticked past.

  Nobody paid the least attention to the stage. Seen as though through tunnels at the front of the promenade, operatic shadows swayed against a vast back-drop to the swell of music and cries from rowdy spectators on the bare benches in pit and galleries.

  The crowd in the promenade shifted. Briefly Clive caught a glimpse of the bright-eyed Cherry behind the counter: no longer tipsy, it seemed, wearing a scarlet gown with a very low bodice, serving no one.

  The gas-globe, somewhat brighter than this afternoon, shone above her head. It lighted Cherry’s fair hair; it kindled colours in the great pyramids of oranges and in the heavy bottles of sweets. Then the movement of the throng blotted out the sight.

  If he stayed by that third pillar, how could he see anything at all?

  Mysteriously, the ballet-girls in their tights and draperies had begun to disappear. One of them laughed soundlessly amid the buffeting of noise and dodged away.

  Clive backed away, moving first left and then right. Except by accident, the counter at the end of the promenade remained out of sight.

  And it was nearly nine o’clock.

  The music rose to crescendo and stopped amid spatters of applause mingled with jeering calls. Somebody whistled between his teeth.

  Already Clive had removed his gloves to gain easier access to the watch in his waistcoat pocket. His greatcoat he also removed, draping it over one arm. He was about to remove his silk hat when he remembered the signal in time, and stopped. Not anywhere in the crowd was there a face he recognized.

  “Walk-er!” yelled a voice.

  “What is it?”

  “Stage. Dance of the What-d’ye-call-’ems. Eh?”

  A strolling lady in a swaying striped crinoline flicked her cigarette into the air. Another cursed as the glowing cigarette landed in the flowers of her hat. There seemed to be a fight or at least a scuffle on the edge of the tunnels overlooking the stage.

  Once more Clive groped for his watch and opened the lid. It was just nine o’clock.

  And, as he did so, a hand fell on his shoulder from behind.

  Clive stood still.

  Many times afterwards he tried to analyse his feelings in the second or two before he turned round to see who was standing there. But the attempt always failed, as it failed before he turned now.

  “Dr. Bland,” he said, getting a grip on his nerves, “I have no wish to be discourteous. But some hours ago, when I told you it would be impossible for me to speak to you here at the Alhambra, I meant exactly that.”

  The physician, in evening clothes and greatcoat, with white gloves and silk hat, wore an expression Clive could not read. It was a disturbing look none the less.

  “No doubt you did,” returned Dr. Bland, breathing noisily. “Under any other circumstances, I might have accepted your refusal. Now I can’t. Believe me, sir! I can’t. I have been searching all over the theatre for you, Mr. Strickland. If you will accompany me downstairs, where we may have some privacy …”

  “For the last time, Doctor, that’s impossible!”

  “Sir, you must. The situation has changed.”

  “How?” Clive drew back. “Nothing has changed! If you guessed why I am here—”

  “Sir, I think I know why you are here.”

  They were keeping their voices studiously lowered, though Clive could have yelled aloud.

  “Doctor, trust my discretion. I won’t betray you.”

  “About what?”

  “About Celia Damon. You think, perhaps you’ve thought since the beginning, that Celia may be … how shall I say this? … a little disturbed in the balance of her mind. Whether that’s true or not I can’t presume to say. But that’s what you have come to tell me, I suppose.”

  “No,” retorted Dr. Bland, his eyes opening as he rounded the
syllable firmly. “That is not what I have come to tell you. A few hours ago it might have been. Not now.”

  Suddenly Clive realized that he had turned his back to the counter at the far end, from which Cherry might have given a signal while he was not looking. He whipped back again, to find a transformation.

  The crowd, for the most part, had begun to clear away.

  They were shuffling, pushing, edging shoulders and elbows towards the front of the promenade towards the stage, so that they could watch what was going to happen there. Their expressions were eager, perhaps a little furtive.

  Very clearly, now, Clive could see straight towards the counter over which Cherry White presided. But Cherry herself, at the moment, was invisible. As Clive had noted that afternoon, two thin wooden pillars were in the way. Painted a dingy red and white, supporting the roof of the promenade, they loomed as obstacles in gloom.

  In the orchestra-pit, distantly, the orchestra-leader lifted a baton. Cymbals smote in brassy clang on the opening bar of new music; the dreaming violins took it up with a wave of melody. And, as Clive ran to the right to look towards the counter, his companion seized his arm. At the same moment, he saw Cherry—alone.

  “Doctor, for God’s sake!”

  “Mr. Strickland, understand me—”

  “Understand me. I can’t accompany you anywhere.”

  “Then I must stay here.”

  “This is a public place,” Clive snapped. “Nobody can prevent you from staying. But you will have to address the side of my head while I watch that counter there. I tell you, I can’t discuss anything with you now! I am waiting …”

  “Exactly,” said Dr. Bland. “You are waiting for the murderer, I fancy. That was what I wished to discuss.” He drew a harsh breath, with something of bitterness mingled with defiance. “Very well!” added the doctor. “Shall I explain my guilt?”

  XIX. NIGHT-LIFE: AT THE THIRD PILLAR

  STILL CLIVE DID NOT look round, though he felt Dr. Bland’s eyes on him as he felt those of Cherry.

  Under a swell of sensuous music from the direction of stage, the promenade had gone almost silent. Two or three persons leaned against a bar-counter towards Clive’s left, whispering and muttering together.