Dancing Death

by Christopher Bush

  He got to his feet. “Keep that report under lock and key, Mr. Mabberley. I won’t have anything to do with it myself, but Superintendent Wharton’ll want it in a day or two. And may one of your people get me through to him now. I’ll jot down the number.”

  Mabberley gave the order, then put the report away in his safe. “You think there’s the least danger of an attempt being made to get hold of it?”

  Travers smiled. “I’ll bet a thousand pounds to a dead match that till I came in here this morning not a soul outside your people who handled it had the wildest idea there was ever such a thing in existence. If there had been”—he waved his hand at the paper—“two of those three people—perhaps the whole three—would have been alive now!”

  “Really!” He pushed the cigarettes over expectantly. “Curious how a quiet-looking man like Fewne had all that under his hat! Regular cat-and-mouse business he’d been playing!”

  Travers shook his head. “Not he! Er—tell me. Why do you think he came to this office?”

  “Why, to have this man Braishe watched!”

  “Oh, no! He came merely to have a look round; to get atmosphere for a chapter of a novel. He’d have drawn this room—and probably yourself. And he really did want a report of somebody—or anybody—just to see how it was written: the language employed, and so on. And he was prepared to pay for it—though I rather suspect he wasn’t anticipating paying nearly so much. That isn’t to say your charges weren’t reasonable, because I’m sure they were!”

  “Then why did he suggest watching Braishe?”

  “Because it was the most ludicrous thing he could think of! Braishe was going down to Oxford for a scientific conference. Also he intended seeing Braishe himself at twelve-thirty and telling him all about it. He was so anxious for Braishe to know the joke that he went twice to the club to get news of him. Then he thought the joke would keep till Braishe got back to Levington. He might have decided to say nothing about it—though that would have been contrary to his nature.”

  “You might say that Fewne drew a bow at a venture!”

  “Exactly! Do you know that story of O. Henry? The one about the chap who took poison?”

  “Can’t say I do.”

  “Well, as far as I remember it, it was like this: A chap took poison by mistake, so they gave him an emetic and kept him walking up and down the room, and all the time this chap would keep drowsing off—a perfectly fatal thing to do, I believe. Then one of the men who was keeping him on the move thought of something to rouse him. He started to curse the head off him about a wholly imaginary girl in a wholly imaginary place. ‘Damn dirty trick that was you played on that little girl down in Virginia!’ or wherever it was. As a result, the chap who’d taken poison began to rouse himself—and actually recovered. Next morning his friend called round to see how he was getting on, and found a note.”

  “Thanks for your advice last night. Am just off to Virginia to marry the girl.”

  Mabberley didn’t quite see it. “But there wasn’t one!”

  “Yes, there was! It was that bow you were talking about—drawn at a venture.”

  The bell rang. Mabberley took off the receiver, spoke, then handed it to Travers.

  “That you, Wharton? . . . Splendidly, thanks! I’m coming down at once. . . . Something very urgent. Can you hold Braishe for the M. Q. Case? . . . Aren’t the prints and harlequin business enough? . . . Well, you know best. But about Crashaw. You got anything to tell him yet? . . . I have! How? . . . Oh, I see! Oh! and can you make Wildernesse stay on? Most important. . . . Yes. . . . Really! Anything left? . . . Well, get the foundations grubbed up! ... I say I know you’re itching to get the foundations grubbed up! . . . Very good! . . . Good-bye!”

  Travers buttoned up his coat and prepared to go. Mabberley looked at him inquiringly. “Anything special you want done, Mr. Travers?”

  “Don’t think so, thanks very much. There’s been a bit of a fire down there, by the way.”

  “Really!”

  “Yes. A sort of summerhouse—pagoda, they call it—got burnt down during the night.”

  Mabberley was still looking somewhat swindled as Travers took his leave.

  CHAPTER XXI

  THE LINKS ARE JOINED

  TRAVERS did not return to Levington—at least, direct. The reason again was one of those happenings that might be called coincidence.

  As he stepped out to the pavement he made up his mind to run round to the Isis Club for confirmation of one or two points. Strolling along the Strand towards Trafalgar Square he was still very preoccupied. So many things remained unexplained: those metal tabs, for instance, found in the fireplace; the finger prints on the dagger, which nobody but a fool could have left; and then Celia’s harlequin, which went across to Tommy Wildernesse’s room. How Ransome got into it all seemed fairly clear, though some connecting link might have to be found. Those were some of the things he was thinking over as he turned into the Tube station; then the taking of his ticket made him forget for a moment those particular trains of thought.

  The lift was practically empty, and the attendant stood waiting for it to fill up. Travers ran his eyes over the massed advertisements of gadgets, clothes, books, and theatre programmes. It was at the Paliceum programme for the week that the particular thing happened—merely the catching sight of one of the star turns.

  THE GREAT MALLARMO

  in his protean song act introducing

  twenty nationalities

  It was a recollection that made him smile. A long while ago it had been, on almost his last holiday from school, and his father had taken him to the Paliceum, then recently opened. One of the turns had been a sort of protean act, and the boy had been almost as puzzled how one man could be so many people, as the unfortunate monarch had been about the apples and the dumpling. At one moment there’d been an Italian on the stage; he’d merely made his bow and had passed rapidly behind a screen, emerging almost at once as an Irishman, complete with stage hat and shillelagh and bottle-green suit! And so on through the other transformations. Travers smiled again—then his face straightened as if he’d felt a sudden spasm of pain. Instinctively he felt for his glasses—then turned to leave the lift. It was already in motion.

  At the bottom he remained in. A quarter of an hour later, he was in the Isotta—Isis Club and lunch completely forgotten. This time he drove at a speed that barely missed being dangerous; schooling himself to think of the road and not of those importunate things that would come crowding into his mind. In spite of that, by the time he drew up before the police station at Folkestone he had formed certain definite theories, and all that remained was the final testing out.

  The superintendent, phoned up urgently, seemed rather anxious to see him.

  “We’ve got some news about those pliers, Mr. Travers,” he said. “The gentleman in question bought some at Wallace’s in the High Street, on the Tuesday. Insulating pliers they were.”

  “Insulating!”

  “That’s right, sir. Insulating. Were you expecting ordinary ones?”

  “I was!” said Travers. “But I’m damn glad they weren’t. . . . By the way, could you spare a few minutes to do a job of work with me? I’ll tell you what it is as we go along.”

  With the Bristol as starting point, the pair of them moved off along the High Street. It was the superintendent who had the luck of the find, and he called Travers across to a branch of one of those first-class, outfitting, multiple concerns, where he’d evidently got the news he wanted. The manager was waiting for them.

  “Good-afternoon,” said Travers. “You’ve definitely identified the man whose costume you saw?”

  “Yes, sir. I saw him myself—and the assistant says he’s sure.”

  “Splendid!” said Travers. “In any case, there wouldn’t be another man in the county likely to come for what he wanted. Tell me, did he order a costume for a fancy-dress ball?”

  “That’s right, sir. A harlequin costume. He approached the assistant—Mr
. Green, over there, if you’d like to speak to him—and asked about the costume. Green hadn’t met an order of the kind before, so he sent him to me.”

  “What was his manner like?”

  “Manner? Well, pleasant. What we should call a good customer. At any rate, he asked if we’d any costumes in stock, and of course we hadn’t. Fortunately we had some material left over from the hospital fête.” He raised his voice. “Mr. Green, bring along that silk we had for the harlequin costume! . . . I’d rather like you to see it,” he explained, and then inquiringly, “Some trouble or other about the gentleman who came in?”

  “Oh, no!” said Travers. “We’re just trying to trace his movements.” He gave a humorous nod towards Dollis. “You know what the law is like!”

  The manager smiled. “So long as it’s not me he’s after! Now, sir, here’s the material. Purple, with white lozenges, as you see. Quite a good quality silk, as I told him, and he said he’d have it, provided he received it in twenty-four hours. I told him we could do that all right—and I took his measurements. You see, sir, there wasn’t anything to it. A couple of people could run it together in an afternoon. At any rate, he paid three pounds down; any difference to be adjusted later.”

  “Any ruff for the neck?”

  “No, sir. There wasn’t any mention of a ruff.”

  “And you sent it?”

  “Just a minute, sir. I’ll look at the book!” and he moved away to the cashier’s desk. In a minute the manager came scurrying back with a look of interest on his face.

  “Excuse me, sir, but is this the Mr. Fewne all this case is about?”

  Travers told him it was—to a certain extent. Then Dollis added a cautionary word about gossiping. The manager made a hasty disclaimer.

  “You needn’t worry about me, gentlemen. I know how to keep my mouth shut. Now, sir, about the parcel. It was sent off as arranged—late the same night, and registered. Oh, and we forgot the lace—”

  Travers stared. “Lace! What lace?”

  “The lace for the neck of the costume, sir. It fastened at the neck by a plain white lace; through eyelet holes.”

  “Something like a football jersey?” suggested Dollis.

  “The very thing, sir. We forgot it, as I said, so we sent it on by special letter, with an explanation.”

  “And were the eyelet holes of metal or celluloid?” asked Travers.

  “Composition of some sort, sir.”

  Travers nodded. “We’re much obliged to you, Mr. Adams. Much obliged!”

  After a belated lunch Travers again thought things over. Practically every detail was now complete. Thanks to the forgetfulness of somebody in that outfitting shop it was possible to follow events almost moment by moment. As he leaned back in the chair with eyes closed he could see the light snap out . . . hear the quick rush up the stairs . . . the half gasp in the room . . . the blow . . . He shook his head. That was the one link missing. How had that particular piece of devilry been done?

  It took him half an hour to arrive at a possible solution, and only after he’d gone over again the movements of Fewne on the Tuesday. Every action must have had a motive, and the more bizarre the action, the easier to find the motive. And, as he realized, it wasn’t necessarily the actions that were eccentric in themselves: it was the peculiar intricacy of the motives governing the whole series of actions. In any case, he’d make the first test. If it fitted, the rest must follow.

  This time his visit was to the antique shop—the second of those Fewne had visited. Travers reintroduced himself to the manager.

  “If you’d be so good, I’d like to have some more details about that gentleman’s visit on the Tuesday; you know, the one to whom you sold the poker. May I see the set you offered him originally?”

  “Certainly, sir!” He led the way once more to the back of the shop. “Here’s the set, sir: fender, poker, tongs, shovel, and fire dogs.”

  Travers nodded, then picked up the poker and tried its strength with his hands. The manager chuckled.

  “You won’t bend that, sir. Good stuff they made in those days!”

  Travers agreed. “And these knobs on the fire dogs—are they soldered on, or what?”

  “There’s a rod running through the upright, sir. The knob screws on flush.” He illustrated the point. “Quite simple, sir—and ingenious.”

  “It is!” said Travers. “Like a good many things when you know how. And may I see the odd assortment of brass where he found the poker?”

  Travers got down on his haunches before the miscellaneous collection. In less than a minute he found what he wanted.

  “When the gentleman grubbed among these things as I was doing then, did you leave him to himself, or did you stay here?”

  “He was all alone. He wasn’t that sort, sir.”

  “Quite. He wasn’t a sneak thief, in other words.” He nodded to himself abstractedly, then looked down at the poker he was holding in his hands.

  “I’ll take this, if I may. What’s it worth to you?”

  “Five bob, sir—and cheap at the price.”

  “Wrap it up!” said Travers.

  Along the main road the countryside was still under snow. The air was now muggy, and some rain had fallen, and a couple of days at the outside should let the fields show themselves again. Whether, somewhere under the snow away beyond the pagoda, that pair of insulating pliers was ever found or not mattered very little, except as a possible exhibit for the museum at Scotland Yard. Every step was clear, each with its cloud of witnesses, knowing or unknowing. All that remained was to bring the guilt home, and that was a matter of infinitely greater, if not insuperable, difficulty.

  Along the drive the car splashed through slush. At the turning to the house he slowed the car up and let the headlights play across the lawn where the pagoda had been. Nothing was visible. Even the foundations were indistinguishable in the general mass of melted snow and shadow. The house itself was lighted up, and as he sounded the horn Pollock appeared on the porch. To Travers, at that moment, it seemed as if it were weeks he had been away, rather than a bare two days.

  “Glad to see you back, sir!”

  “Thank you, Pollock. Where’s Mr. Wharton?”

  “At tea, sir, in the dining room. I’ll send yours in immediately, sir.”

  He found the General behind a pot of tea and met with a remarkably genial reception. Franklin had been called back to town but was hoping to see him the following day.

  “Any other news?” Travers asked.

  Wharton shrugged his shoulders. Elimination seemed to have gone on fairly well. Wildernesse had been retained, as Travers had suggested. Braishe, too, was still available.

  Wharton lowered his voice almost to a whisper.

  “You know what I was telling you about those finger prints on the dagger—how they couldn’t lie—and that was why I wouldn’t arrest him? Well, they were a washout!”

  “How?”

  “I’ll show you.” He picked up the poker. “Look at my thumb, down the poker shaft, the handle resting in the palm of my hand, and three fingers round the handle. Those are the prints on the dagger. It was pushed into the wound—not struck.”

  “Was it pushed?” Travers asked bluntly.

  “Well, it wasn’t. There’s no point in being clever or secretive. The prints on the dagger showed the end of the thumb as left clean in the air! Impossible, of course, since the end of the thumb ought to have been pressing against the shield. That gave us the idea. The dagger was struck into the body, but that brass handle was screwed on afterwards. The dagger came from the hall stand—I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. Where the handle came from is another matter.”

  “I can tell you about that,” said Travers, and produced his small parcel. Then he told that much of the story: how Fewne took the dagger with him to Folkestone; how he noticed the handles and knobs of most antique fire irons unscrewed, and how he found among the lumber of the antique shop one that fitted near enough. Perhaps th
e final fitting of the poker handle to the dagger was done just before lunch when he’d been seen coming from the garage, with its tools and turnscrews all ready to hand.

  “Is Braishe handy?” Travers asked.

  “Yes, he’s in the drawing room with Wildernesse. They’ve been to the funerals to-day. We let Mrs. Fewne go back to town with the Paradines—and Challis too.”

  “Right. I’ll have a word with Braishe. Is he pretty normal?”

  “Oh, quite! I’ve let him know he can go where he likes.”

  “Verdicts all right?”

  “The usual. Both adjourned for a fortnight.”

  When Travers came back he seemed on quite good terms with himself.

  “It’s all right, George!” he said. Wharton looked up at the unusual address. “Fewne did ask Braishe to stir up the fire in the pagoda; that’s when the prints were made. Then he unscrewed the handle, put it carefully aside, and put the usual poker in the fireplace. We shall probably find the shaft of the antique poker under the snow where Fewne threw it. By the way, how’d the pagoda get burnt down?”

  “No one knows. We were all away—hadn’t got back from Levington. Braishe was here—and one of my men. They had the sense to take all Fewne’s things away earlier in the day. When I got here it was burning like hell. Braishe said let the damn thing burn—and we did. The sparks went into the snow, and there wasn’t any danger.” Then Wharton slewed round in his chair and gave the other a shrewd look. “Rather seems as if you were right about that pagoda!”

  “Just a shot in the dark. If he grubs the place up by the roots, it doesn’t matter a damn. The evidence is that the pagoda is burned down! If it had vanished into thin air, it’d still be evidence!”

  “You’re too subtle for me,” said Wharton.

  “Oh, no, I’m not! You’ll see why in a minute, when you hear the whole story.”

  “Just a moment before you begin that,” Wharton said. He pulled out his pipe and got it going before he asked his question. “You’ve found out a good deal?”