Dancing Death

by Christopher Bush

  As he went out of the door he heard the babble of conversation begin. On the landing he halted for a word with Palmer.

  “All right, Palmer? Had lunch?”

  “Yes, sir—thank you.”

  Travers nodded kindly. “Mr. Franklin and the police’ll be here in an hour or so—at least, we hope so.”

  “What was the matter with the telephone—if I may ask the question, sir?”

  “Elm bough broke the wires—on the bye road.”

  Palmer shook his head. “It may not be my place to say it, sir, but I shan’t be sorry when . . . something does happen, sir. This place is getting on my nerves, sir.”

  “Well, you’ve got to stick it for a bit. Anybody been along?”

  “Only Mrs. Fewne, sir. I told her the door was sealed up.”

  “Good!” He nodded again, then moved up the stairs to the main landing. There he stopped. Should he have a confidential word with Brenda before the police got there? He made a step forward—stopped again—then entered his own room and locked the door. Things were too deep for him to handle. That last terrible business had made him feel so mentally tired that his mind refused, with something more than horror, to think it out from the mass of devilish complications that held it in.

  He prowled about the room restlessly; hopelessly at a loss. The only solid ground had gone from under his feet when Ransome’s body had been seen down there in the snow. The murder couldn’t have concerned Fewne at all! That money business must be an unimportant side issue. If it were not—where was the connection? Ransome in Challis’s room—the dagger that hadn’t been in the rack—that awful position of Fewne’s body—that uncanny scrawl on the sheet of paper—the packet of treasury notes—the dead matches beneath the bed—the phone that should have been free from snow—Ransome’s body out there where it might have been hidden for days: a dozen things like that came crowding into his mind as he prowled round the room.

  Something would have to be done to keep his mind off it; something to concentrate it on a single point. His eye caught that file of newspapers on the table. He got into his dressing gown, had a cold wash down, then, with a rug over his knees and his pipe going, set to work again to search those papers for a clue. From time to time, as things occurred to him, he jotted them down—literary notes, a mention of Cornwall, a discussion of the law of copyright. That lasted till just on three, when it came to a sudden end.

  From somewhere above him he heard the scamper of feet. A shot! Another! A shouting that became frantic! Then the noise shifted ground. It died away as quickly as it had begun.

  Travers, with more than a vague wonder, stepped out to the corridor. Where had those shots come from? William had no revolver! That statement to Crashaw was merely a ridiculous bluff!

  CHAPTER XIV

  CRASHAW LIVENS THINGS UP

  FOR a minute or two things happened so suddenly that Travers seemed to be turning his head in several directions at once. Braishe and William came rushing up the stairs, and a yard or so behind, Wildernesse, well ahead of Challis. Behind, on the landing, came Celia’s voice and the yap of Ho-Ping. The advancing forces met with Travers in the middle.

  “Where is he? Have you seen him?” This from Braishe.

  “Martin! What is all this noise about?” boomed Celia.

  Braishe put his hand on her arm as if to lead her away. She shook him off angrily.

  “Martin! How dare you treat me like a child! What was that noise?”

  He gave Travers a look, then explained. “It’s the burglar, Aunt Celia. We had him in the attic, and he’s got out. Now, go back to your room, please! You’re holding everything up.”

  “Seen anything?” he asked again.

  “Nothing,” began Travers. But the hunt had moved on. Celia was just disappearing inside her room, and with the murmur of her voice as she consoled the Pekinese came the sound of scurrying over the bare boards towards the attic. Then came Braishe’s voice, issuing instructions; steps receding, then more steps, this time down the side staircase as Palmer came into view. All he knew was that he’d heard a noise; then William had come bounding down to the hall like a lunatic. Thereupon, still scared stiff after those revolver shots, he’d gone along himself to investigate.

  Travers, with a sudden feeling of alarm, glanced quickly at the door knob, then drew a breath of relief. The seals were undisturbed! At the top of the servants’ landing, William was standing as if on sentry.

  “What’s up, William?”

  The footman shook his head sheepishly. “He did me, sir—clean in the eye!”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, sir, after Mr. Braishe had gone I heard him fumbling—or tinkering, you might say—with the lock. I didn’t pay any attention to that, sir, because I thought he was doing it to annoy me. Then, a minute or two later, sir, I heard his voice at the keyhole, sir. ‘Good-bye, William; I’ll see you later!’ That’s what he said, sir. I didn’t say a word, sir; thought he was pulling my leg. Then I heard the glass smash, sir. ‘The window!’ sir: that’s what I thought. ‘He’s gone out of the window!’ So I got hold of the knob and put my shoulder to the door, and what do you think happened, sir? The door was unlocked! and in I fell, and when I looked at the window, it was smashed and there wasn’t a sign of him. So I went over to have a look, sir, thinking he’d let down a rope or something, when what do you think happened, sir?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “He nipped out of the door, sir! He’d been behind it all the time! And when I got there he was just going down the steps, so I loosed off a couple of shots at him—”

  “Shots! Where’d you get the revolver from?”

  “The master gave it to me, sir. He said he was the murderer, sir, and I was to let him have it point-blank if he tried any tricks.”

  “Hm! . . . And what happened then?”

  “Well, I chased him as far as our staircase, sir, then I went down to the hall and saw Mr. Braishe.”

  Travers suddenly wondered—then clicked his tongue involuntarily.

  “Then Crashaw must have thought that revolver business was all bluff, William?”

  “He didn’t give a damn, sir; that’s all I know. He just nipped out and ran.”

  Travers rattled the loose silver in his trousers pocket. “Mr. Braishe with him . . . long?”

  “About ten minutes, I should say, sir.”

  “Hm! You didn’t hear anything, by any chance? He wasn’t threatening or anything like that?”

  “I didn’t hear a word, sir. Oh, and after he’d been in a minute, Mr. Braishe looked out, sir, and told me to wait at the bottom of the stairs till he came out.”

  “I see. And what did you think of that?”

  “Well, I knew, if he cut up rough, Mr. Braishe’d eat two like him, sir . . . and I was there if he bolted. But nothing did happen, sir, and when the master came out he locked the door, and then he fetched me the revolver and asked if I could use it, sir.”

  “Had you said anything to him about a revolver?”

  “Well, sir, I told him when he first come up, what you’d said to Mr. Crashaw inside the room, sir, about a revolver.”

  “And are you a good shot?”

  “Not so dusty, sir!”

  “And Mr. Braishe knew that?”

  “He did when I told him, sir!”

  “Exactly!” Travers smiled. A couple of coins changed hands. “Keep what we’ve been talking about to yourself, William! Don’t even mention that you’ve been talking to me at all. Not a word to anybody, mind!”

  As he hurriedly dressed in his room, he felt no particular gratification. The fact that Crashaw had, by bolting, acknowledged the truth of the accusations was merely an unnecessary confirmation of the obvious. It was the other factors—the disturbing ones—that kept coming into his mind. Why had Crashaw insisted on seeing Braishe? True, he was the owner of the house, yet somehow Travers felt there was more to it than that. Then after Braishe’s visit, he’d escaped. Then there’d been
that revolver. Crashaw, in his opinion, had had no hand in the killing of Mirabel Quest—and almost as certainly not in the killing of Ransome; but, wherever he’d gone, there might be delay in laying hands on him, and that might mean holding up a good many things else. In his movements about the house that night, for instance, he might have heard or seen some very strange things.

  Down in the hall the search party reassembled, chattering and excited. If their reports were to be believed, Crashaw had disappeared into thin air, with devil a footprint anywhere.

  “Can’t think how he did it!” Braishe exclaimed angrily. “If he picked the lock, where’d he get the wire from?”

  “If he’s a first-class man,” smiled Travers, “he probably had some on him. Still, he’s gone; the thing is, what to do about it. You see, all he’s waiting for is a chance to slip into the drive as soon as the plough arrives. He can’t possibly get away till then. He must be lying handy somewhere.” Then an idea: “Why not call up Levington and tell them to have a man or two waiting for him at the drive gates?”

  “Good!” Braishe slipped off at once.

  “Don’t think I’m being funny,” said Travers, “but have you checked the route Franklin took yesterday morning?”

  “Martin looked out of the window,” said Paradine. “So did I—and we couldn’t see anything.”

  “What about the door—and the hedge path? You couldn’t see as far as that.” On a sudden impulse he moved off, the others trailing at his heels. But the breakfast-room door, when they tried it, was locked!

  “That’s the way he’s gone—and he’s taken the key!” was Travers’s opinion. “Slip upstairs, Tommy, and have a look out of a window.”

  The others looked away across the wild garden and the wood, behind which nothing could be seen. The branches of the larches made a screen that shut everything off, but within the small field of view nothing was seen stirring, not even a blackbird. Then Wildernesse came rushing in.

  “You can see the footprints outside the door—but there isn’t a sign of him!”

  “He’s gone, old boy! Taken the line Franklin took.”

  Travers shook his head. “Franklin said it took him two hours to get to the side road—and there’s been a couple of foot of snow since then.”

  “I’ve got it!” exclaimed Wildernesse. “I’ll bet you he’s in one of those evergreen trees—what d’you call ’em?—pines of some sort! That’s the only spot of cover there is—and it’s handy for the drive!”

  “I think you’re right,” said Paradine, looking round. “And it’ll be a tree close up to the hedge. Let’s follow up the footprints.”

  “Just a minute!” said Travers. “Tommy and I’ll be enough. We’ve got the longest legs. You fellows watch.”

  “What about your clothes?”

  “Oh, damn the clothes!”

  The window was opened, and the pair of them set off in Crashaw’s footprints along the hedge, floundered along in the wild garden, sogged across the shallow ditch and into the wood. Twenty yards, and the holes made by Crashaw’s progress turned sharp left to a clump of Douglas firs. There they stopped short. Travers’s eye ran up a trunk, with its disturbed snow and the scrape marks where feet had slipped. Halfway up a pair of legs were visible.

  “Coming down, Crashaw—or are we going to fetch you?”

  Nothing happened for a moment; then there was a movement. Crashaw came down hand under hand, then dropped to the snow. He was a forlorn figure: trousers sticking to his legs, and collar wet with snow and perspiration; for all that, he was looking perfectly resigned. Then he actually laughed.

  “Well, I’ve given you a good run for your money!” There was nothing plaintive about his voice now.

  The procession of three, Crashaw in the lead, battled back to the house. Crashaw produced the key from his pocket, but he kept his eyes averted when they joined the main body. Everyone seemed tongue-tied and remarkably self-conscious. Challis bobbed up first.

  “Ask him where he put the boodle!” he whispered to Travers.

  Travers nodded. “If you people don’t mind, I’ll stay here with him. Get me a pair of trousers, somebody; and a pair for him. We don’t want him to get pneumonia.”

  “Sit down, Crashaw!” He indicated the chair opposite his own. “What made you do such a baby trick as scrambling up that tree?”

  Crashaw raised his eyebrows. “Baby trick! My dear fellow, if you’d given me a few minutes more till the snow had covered my steps—or crevasses, rather—that’d have been the last you’d have seen of me!”

  “I see! . . . And how did you get into this game?”

  Crashaw smiled. “You’re not asking me to start snivelling, are you?”

  “Oh, dear, no! I merely wondered. I suppose, by the way, you went to Westover?”

  “I did . . . as a matter of fact. Pretty bad break, that of mine, wasn’t it?”

  “It was . . . rather. And you made a good many more. Where’d you put the—er—boodle, as Challis calls it?”

  “In a handkerchief—in the soil by that rambler rose up against the front porch.”

  “I see! Well, here’s our changes of raiment!” He sent Challis off with the news about the boodle and set about his own toilet.

  “Of course, you’re not bound to answer me—as you know. I might perhaps do you a good turn with the police. Already, I believe, Franklin’s arranging for you to be held on his charge only. The others’ll be withdrawn. . . . You didn’t commit the murder?”

  Crashaw sneered. “Should I be such a fool as to say yes?”

  “Everybody assumes you did it. The police’ll assume it. You’re in a bad way, Crashaw!”

  “Don’t you believe it! May I smoke?”

  “Do, please!” He even passed over his own case. “See anything suspicious that night?”

  “Perhaps! . . . I saw you and Franklin, and if it’s any use to you, I can corroborate that little love affair of your friend Charles!”

  “I say! That’s interesting!” His tone changed. “But about that petty pilfering of yours—that’s what it amounts to really, plus a certain amount of nerve—I’d be glad if you’d tell me something. When did you go into Miss Quest’s room?”

  “Well, I waited till Braishe went upstairs, then I started—”

  “Where were you, by the way?”

  “Clothes cupboard—servants’ corridor. I waited till I heard the first snore—Wildernesse, that was—then waded in. Everybody slept like a log. I was actually just inside Miss Quest’s room when you and Franklin disturbed me. As soon as you’d gone 1 slipped up the side stairs.”

  “But you came back to the room?”

  “I didn’t. Honestly I didn’t. I looked in—that’s all I did—and thought the room was unoccupied. Then I went down to the dining room and made myself comfortable for an hour or two.”

  “Have a drink?”

  “Teetotaler—as you know.” He smiled. “It’s no use asking me to prove the last tot was doped!”

  “Quite! And to get back to the point. You didn’t know Miss Quest was murdered?”

  “Good God, no! Do you think I’m a fool? I’d have been out of the house if it’d killed me! I’d have been a thousand miles away by now!”

  “Did you wear a harlequin costume, by any chance?”

  “Good Lord, no! Came in just as I am—except these trousers!”

  “And why exactly were you so anxious to see Braishe?”

  Crashaw hesitated. “Oh—er—merely thought I could tell him the tale. I rather hoped he’d override you!”

  “And you found him a tougher proposition than you’d anticipated?”

  Crashaw’s voice was at variance with the subtle sort of smile that crept over his face. “Oh, yes! Frightfully so!”

  “Are you prepared to give evidence against Charles?”

  “Depends on what sort. If you mean . . . his little rendezvous—well, no!”

  “What other evidence is there?”

  Crashaw raised his
eyebrows. “None—that I’m aware of!”

  “Did you cut the light cord?”

  “Good Lord, no! Light or dark, it’s all the same to me!”

  “What about the phone?”

  Crashaw smiled. “Rather funny, that! I went to do it, but somebody’d done it already!”

  “When was that?”

  “Oh—er—just before I left.”

  Braishe and Challis came in just then; the former with Travers’s missing notecase.

  “Here’s your share of the proceedings, Travers. It comes to a bit less than you thought. Do you mind if . . . he’s asked whether he pocketed any notes?”

  Crashaw answered for himself. “Never do it—not when I’m coming back to breakfast!”

  Braishe’s face flushed. “We’ve only your word for that!”

  “My word means a good deal!” Crashaw looked at him with what Travers thought unnecessary directness. After all, Crashaw’s word wasn’t the Bank of England.

  “Damn funny!” cut in Challis. “Your share’s forty-five, old boy. We’ve settled with everybody else.”

  “Pardon me!” Crashaw got to his feet. “Mr. Travers should have forty-nine ten. I don’t know if you’ve helped yourself to the ten you claimed to have lost. If you have, you’re a profiteer. There was a fiver, all told, in your pockets!”

  “You’re a liar!”

  “And you’re a dirty little swine!”

  “That’ll do!” snapped Braishe. “We’ll settle that with you afterwards, Travers.” He lowered his voice. “The tractor’s getting pretty loud. They should be here in a few minutes.”

  “Splendid!” He felt for his glasses, then restoked his pipe instead.

  “I wonder if you’d care to be there when they turn up? I’ll carry on here.”

  “No, really!” Travers smiled gratefully. “Awfully good of you, but I’ll stay on with Crashaw. You’d better be there. You’re the real person in authority!”

  Braishe paused, then. “Right-ho! Sure there’s nothing you want?”