He Dies and Makes no Sign: A Golden Age Mystery

by Molly Thynne

  Civita made a sweeping gesture.

  “What was his life in Paris? His pupils all the morning; in the afternoon, his quartette; in the evening, sometimes an engagement, sometimes a concert—but music, nothing but music all the time. What could there be?”

  “He had his enemies, I suppose? He seems to have been downright to a fault.”

  “Disputes, you mean? Over the merits of Puccini and Wagner, Strauss and Verdi! But people do not entice an old man from his home many years afterwards to avenge Wagner or Puccini!”

  Constantine sighed.

  “If only the spirit had moved you to go into the lounge on Tuesday night, we mightn’t be puzzling our brains now,” he said.

  “And I was here in my office all the time. Tuesday was a busy night for me, and I did not get away till nearly two in the morning. I remember that night, because my car was stolen.”

  Constantine looked up quickly.

  “Did you get it back?”

  Civita nodded.

  “The police found it in a street in Kensington. It was none the worse, but it robbed me of an hour’s sleep when I needed it most. And Wednesday was another heavy day, but last night I slept—oh, how I slept! I am like Napoleon, you know. I can always sleep.”

  Constantine laughed.

  “Went to bed early, did you?” he asked innocently.

  Civita leaned forward impressively.

  “Listen. At seven o’clock yesterday morning I went to Mass. Always, every morning, I do that. That surprises you, yes? But I promised la Mama, years ago, and I never forget. Then I came here and I worked. But at five in the afternoon I went home and at six o’clock I was in bed. And I did not wake till six o’clock next morning. The affairs here managed themselves last night. Civita was asleep!”

  He laughed, a huge, boyish laugh that filled the room. Constantine rose to his feet.

  “I wonder whether you’ll say the same when you’re my age,” he said ruefully. “Where do you keep your car?”

  Civita cast a shrewd look at him.

  “You think there is some connection between the theft and the affair of Anthony? I do not believe it. I keep the car in a lock-up garage near my flat. When I got home on Tuesday I went upstairs to fetch the key of the garage to put my car away, and by the time I got downstairs again the car was gone. I go to bed, but in the morning I get up early and ring up the police before I go to Mass. Later I hear that when I telephoned to them they had already found the car.”

  “I can’t see any connection, unless Anthony stole it himself,” admitted Constantine with a smile; “but the whole business is so fantastic that I’m prepared to accept any explanation.”

  “You will express my sympathy to Miss Anthony if you see her?” said Civita as they parted. “I was so sure myself that her grandfather would return. It is a tragic ending.”

  Constantine repeated the conversation to Arkwright when he dropped in late that afternoon.

  “It doesn’t amount to much,” he said, “though, if you want to add him to your list, his alibi for yesterday evening is even poorer than that of Howells. I don’t know whether Civita’s servant sleeps in or not, but he can hardly have had his eye on him all the time.”

  “We shall have to take him into account as a matter of course,” answered Arkwright, “but, for the life of me, I can’t see why he should have had anything to do with the affair. If he’d had any designs on Anthony he’d hardly have fixed on the Trastevere as his jumping-off place. His own restaurant, teeming with witnesses! I’ve got one bit of news for you, by the way. Stolen cars seem to be our strong suit just now! Anyway, I think Plaskett’s queer manner is accounted for.”

  “The cobbler? He’s been at the back of my mind all day.”

  “His son was arrested at Esher yesterday evening for pinching a car. The father’s record’s all right, but the boy’s been in bad company for some time, and I fancy Plaskett’s been expecting something of the sort. When he saw my card he thought the worst had happened. The boy was with two other lads, and there’s no reason to think they were doing more than joy-riding. There’s no evidence that the car had been used for nefarious purposes. As it is, he’ll come under the First Offenders Act.”

  “I suppose Anthony couldn’t have interfered with him in any way? He was interested in the boy remember.”

  “The idea’s far-fetched, but possible. He seems to have been a determined old gentleman. I called young Plaskett a lad, but he’s nineteen and would probably be more than a match for an old man. Anyway, I’m seeing him to-morrow.”

  “Has the doctor’s report come in yet?”

  Arkwright shook his head.

  “The Flying Squad had a nasty smash-up in our division this morning and he’s been busy. I’m expecting the report every minute now. I’ll let you know what he says.”

  “What about Howells?”

  “We’ve verified everything he told us, but, so far, we’ve no means of tracing his movements during the concert. We’ve questioned the attendants and struck a blank there, which is hardly surprising. Of course, he may have been in his seat all the time.”

  He hesitated for a moment, then:

  “You’ll be glad to hear that Lord Marlowe’s definitely out of it. He was with us, as you know, at Miss Anthony’s till nearly nine yesterday, and spent the evening at Steynes House, where the Duchess was holding a reception.”

  He shot a rather nervous glance at the old man, remembering the time when another of Constantine’s friends, Lord Richard Pomfrey, had fallen foul of Scotland Yard, but Constantine did not rise to the bait.

  “In view of that letter from Anthony, you could hardly leave him out of your calculations,” he said mildly. “As a matter of fact, I’m still wondering whether Anthony didn’t go back to the Trastevere on the chance of catching him there. He was evidently very anxious to see him, and may have known that he was in the habit of meeting Betty there.”

  “Drawing a blank there, he may have gone on to Steynes House,” suggested Arkwright with a wicked twinkle in his eye.

  “And been slain by the Duchess. After all, she is the only person who may be said to have had a motive. Oh, you may laugh, but I’ve heard you propound an even more preposterous theory than that in my day,” retorted Constantine pointedly.

  “Give me some facts to work on and I’ll undertake to leave your friends alone, sir,” Arkwright assured him, as he took his departure.

  An hour later he rang up to say that the doctor’s report had come in.

  “As we thought, the wound in the neck was superficial, and undoubtedly caused after death,” he said. “And he didn’t die of heart failure. The cause of death was morphia poisoning. The marks of the injection are plainly visible on his arm.”

  “Surely Anthony wasn’t a drug addict?”

  “Macbane’s convinced that he wasn’t. For one thing, there are no other punctures on the body; for another, there is every indication that he was a remarkably well-preserved man for his age. Must have had a thoroughly sound constitution, according to Macbane. Besides, we searched that room pretty thoroughly, and there was no sign of a hypodermic syringe.”

  “He might have administered the drug to himself outside somewhere, and had time to get rid of the syringe.”

  “We considered that possibility, but, unfortunately, there’s further complication. About fifty grains of chloral hydrate have been found in the stomach. Macbane’s opinion is that it was taken by the mouth and not in sufficient quantity to cause death. The implication is obvious.”

  “That he was drugged in the first instance, you mean?”

  “Exactly. If he were given butyl chloride, say, in coffee or beer, it would have been easy to administer the injection while he was unconscious. Of course, there is still the possibility of suicide, but, in that case, why chloral?”

  “Taking into account the position of the body when found, I think we can knock out suicide,” said Constantine.

  “Just so. Julius Anthony was murdered
right enough.”

  CHAPTER VI

  THE Duchess chose the precise moment at which Constantine was sitting down to dinner to make her final and triumphant effort to get him on the telephone.

  Manners’ expression, as he silently removed the soup and bore it back to the kitchen, expressed his master’s feelings admirably.

  Constantine, realizing that “The Parthenon Mystery”, as it had already been christened in the evening papers, would hammer the last nail into the coffin of Marlowe’s hopes, made a hasty endeavour to formulate some sort of plan of campaign as he answered the imperious “Hullos” that were booming across the line.

  To his surprise the lion was roaring as gently as any sucking-dove, and his conscience-stricken apologies for having proved so inaccessible passed almost unnoticed.

  “Of course, I quite understand! I know how splendid you’ve been all through this terrible affair. Marlowe is full of gratitude, and that nice Inspector Arkwright can’t say enough about you. You know I’ve got the poor child here?”

  For a moment Constantine was puzzled. Even the most besotted admirer could hardly relegate Arkwright’s six feet of brawn to the nursery. But the Duchess’s next words enlightened him.

  “Of course I went to her the moment Bertie told me what had happened, and found the poor little soul alone in those dreadful lodgings, with a crowd of the most horrible young men with cameras on the doorstep. I got her away and into the car before they realized what I was doing, but they’ve no reverence for anything, even grief. I’ve just found Bertie giggling over the most appalling photograph of me, looking exactly like old Lady Caradoc, only worse, in one of those abominable evening papers. It’s a comfort to feel that poor little Betty is at least protected from that sort of thing now she’s with me.”

  “I’m so very glad you’ve taken her under your wing,” was all the bewildered Constantine could find to say.

  “It’s a pleasure to have her. Why didn’t you tell me how charming she was? And just the person for Marlowe, who, you must admit, isn’t easy. When one thinks of what he might have chosen!”

  Constantine swallowed the reproof meekly. After all, knowing the Duchess, he ought to have expected this. He contented himself with enquiring after Betty.

  “She’s worrying terribly, poor child, about that report Civita’s circulating about her grandfather. The man’s insufferable! I only wish we’d never been persuaded to have any dealings with him!”

  “This is news to me,” answered Constantine, completely puzzled. “What has he been saying?”

  “Some absurd story about Mr. Anthony’s having borrowed money from him. Betty says he wouldn’t have dreamed of such a thing.”

  A light broke on Constantine.

  “I’m so sorry that’s been troubling her. There was no question of a loan in the ordinary sense. Civita had agreed to help him in a purely business venture. I don’t know what the arrangement was between them, but I’ve no doubt he would have had his share in the profits. Tell Betty not to worry her head about it.”

  “But she is worrying! She says her grandfather had a horror of debt and would never have lent himself to such a thing. Apparently other people have offered to finance him in the same way, and he never would even discuss it. She feels very hotly about it on his account. She says he would have been furious at the mere report of such a thing.”

  “I expect she’s overwrought and probably exaggerating the whole thing. As it was, owing to her grandfather’s death the scheme never came to anything. I’d no I’d no idea she felt like that about it, but I’m afraid it’s true. Civita was quite definite in his account of the transaction. No doubt he persuaded Mr. Anthony. He’d be difficult to resist, once he gave his mind to it.”

  He had forgotten for the moment that Civita was in the Duchess’s black books.

  “I’ve no doubt he took advantage of the poor old man!” she retorted bitterly. “All the same, I wish you’d see Betty. She’s taking it more seriously than is good for her.”

  “I’ll call on her to-morrow,” Constantine assured her.

  He sent Manners out for all the evening papers, and was amply rewarded by the snapshot of the Duchess, apparently in the act of delivering a running kick at her own car, dragging a cowering Betty behind her.

  It was the first opportunity he had had of reading the reports of the tragedy. Arkwright had handled the press artfully. The accounts, lurid though they were, did not mention any wound on the body, and, having gone to press before the autopsy, were written on the assumption that Anthony had died a natural death.

  Constantine heaved a sigh of relief. Not only was Betty in good hands, but, for one night at least, she would be spared the knowledge that her grandfather had been murdered.

  In the meantime, while Constantine was talking to the Duchess, Arkwright sat in his room at the Yard listening to the report of a police constable.

  “I’m morally certain it’s the same, sir,” the man as saying, “but the bench was between two street lamps and he was lying in the shadow. The name and address are identical. I only saw the circular this evening.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Just on three-thirty by Big Ben on Wednesday morning, sir. He was lying full length on a bench on Westminster Embankment and appeared to be asleep. I roused him and told him to move on. He objected on the grounds that he wasn’t destitute, in proof of which he produced some silver and coppers from his pocket. He then gave his name as Julius Anthony. I took down that and his address, and, seeing that he’d complied with the regulations, continued on my beat. When I passed again, half an hour later, he had gone.”

  “How was he dressed?”

  “In a dark overcoat, with the collar turned up against the cold, and a black felt hat with an unusually broad brim. I put him down as an artist, judging from his clothes.”

  “What about his face?”

  “Pale and clean-shaven, that’s as much as I can say, owing to the light being bad. He spoke like an educated man, rather stilted like, and his voice was the voice of an old man. I’ve been to the mortuary and inspected the corpse, and I’ve no doubt in my own mind about its being the same, sir.”

  Left to himself, Arkwright stretched a long arm across his table, picked up the report on Binns, the door-keeper at the Parthenon, and apostrophized it moodily.

  “Sleeping on the Embankment when he’d got a perfectly good bed of his own waiting for him. What the devil for? Last seen talking with a man unknown outside the Trastevere Restaurant at approximately ten-thirty. No further trace of him till a constable finds him asleep on the Embankment at three-thirty. It’s got me beat!”

  The door opened to admit Macbane, the police surgeon.

  “Any developments in the Anthony case?” he asked.

  “Seen on the Embankment at three-thirty on Wednesday morning. That doesn’t help us much at present. Unless someone comes forward who saw him yesterday we’re at a deadlock.”

  “Well, you won’t love me any better when I’m through,” announced Macbane imperturbably.

  Arkwright waited while he ran his matches to earth in his trouser pocket and busied himself with the relighting of his pipe. He had a feeling that doctor was in no hurry to make his announcement.

  “I should have embodied it in my report,” he said at last, with true Scottish deliberation, “but, to tell you the truth, the thing had escaped my memory. Since writing it I’ve had a look at my text-books.”

  He leaned forward, emphasizing his words with the stem of his pipe.

  “In the case of almost any other form of death my estimate as to time would have been correct, but this man died of morphia poisoning. Now here’s the snag. Whereas in the case of poisoning by strychnine, or after death from convulsions, rigor mortis may persist for months, in the case of narcotic poisoning the effects are reversed. Rigor mortis is not only delayed, but may be absent altogether. The same rule applies to coagulation of the blood. Oxyhæmoglobin is almost entirely absent and clotting ve
ry feebly developed. Taking into account the fact that the body was that of an old man and would, therefore, cool more rapidly than that of a person in the prime of life, I placed the time of death at about five to seven hours previous to the finding of the body, but in view of the quantity of morphia present in the body we may now extend this period almost indefinitely.”

  Macbane’s little lecture, delivered in a voice even more precise and deliberate than usual, ceased. He sat puffing stolidly at his pipe, and awaited the outburst he knew was coming.

  Arkwright glared at him in silence for a moment, then:

  “We’ve been going on the assumption that the death occurred any time between four-thirty and six-thirty yesterday afternoon. Are you trying to tell me that it may have taken place any time before then?”

  Macbane nodded.

  “Owing to the action of the morphia I cannot undertake to give any opinion as to the time of death,” he announced sententiously.

  Arkwright exploded.

  “Confound it!” he exclaimed. “Do you realize where this lands us?”

  But Macbane was already at the door.

  “All the pretty little alibis gone west, eh?” he said, as he backed neatly through it. “Man, I’m sorry for you, but I’d have you remember that I’m not responsible for the text-books.”

  “Some other damned Scotsman was, I’ll be bound,” snapped Arkwright, to the sound of the closing door.

  He turned once more to the report on Binns. The man had suffered from shellshock during the War and was apt to show the effects if he were excited or under the influence of drink. After the incident that so nearly led to his dismissal he had been heard to threaten Anthony by more than one witness. He appeared to be unaware of the fact that he owed his reinstatement to him. He had been on duty at the cinema on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and could have slipped round to the stage door at any time during the performance, though, if he had been absent for more than a short time it would undoubtedly have been noticed. Assuming that the man was unbalanced and apt to exaggerate a grievance, the motive was there, and he possessed the necessary knowledge of the locality.