The Murder on the Enriqueta: A Golden Age Mystery Page 10

  “Bond faced the music all right this morning,” said Shand thoughtfully. “He’s done for. He won’t get another licence, but no doubt the club will crop up again under new management.”

  “De Silva’s?” inquired Mellish blandly.

  Shand looked up sharply, then he smiled.

  “Now I wonder where you picked up that bit of information, Mr. Mellish,” he said. “We’ve known, of course, for some time that Bond was only acting under de Silva, but he had us in a cleft stick. We’ve been waiting for this opportunity, though I must say we never expected to get him under the Gaming Act. I didn’t think he’d be such a fool.”

  “And even now he’s slipped through your fingers.”

  “We’ve nothing on him whatever,” admitted Shand. “The premises were hired by Bond and the licence taken out in his name. De Silva never appeared at all in any of the transactions. I doubt if he’ll have the face to open the club again under his own name, though. He must know he wouldn’t get a licence.”

  “Who is de Silva?” asked Dalberry.

  “A wealthy Argentino, by his own account, who’s come over here to spend his money. He turned up in England a few months ago. As far as is known, that was his first appearance in this country.”

  “You heard nothing of him when you were out in Buenos Aires the other day?” asked Mellish.

  Shand shook his head.

  “Nothing; but you must remember I wasn’t looking for him. He had nothing to do with my man.”

  He rose to go.

  “There’s one thing of which you can feel certain,” he said, addressing Dalberry. “If you were drugged that night, and from your account I think you were, it was done at de Silva’s orders. Bond’s just a tool—he’d never act on his own initiative.”

  “There’s one person who might give you some information about de Silva,” suggested Mellish. “He was at the Terpsychorean on the night of the raid, dancing with a very pretty lady. A useful couple, I should imagine.”

  Shand’s eyes twinkled.

  “You don’t miss much, Mr. Mellish,” he admitted appreciatively. “You were looking at his portrait the other day, I remember. Conyers, his name is. It took him six weeks to get into that card-room. No, he knows no more about de Silva than we do.”

  How far this last statement was from the truth he was to find out later. Dalberry and Mellish went with him to the door.

  “By the way,” Mellish asked idly, “what about that murder on board the boat you and Lady Dalberry came over in? There was a short notice in one of the papers about it, and I’ve always meant to ask you what really happened.”

  “That’s a thing a good many people would give something to know,” returned Shand ruefully, “myself included. Roughly speaking, a man called Smith (which, by the way, seems to have been his real name) was found strangled. That’s about all there is to it.”

  “How did the affair end?”

  “There was an inquest, with the usual verdict. Then, as no relatives turned up, the man was buried in Liverpool by the parish. There were the usual advertisements, but no one answered them. He was a bit of a black sheep, I fancy, and his people weren’t anxious to claim him.”

  “You’ve no theory yourself as to who killed him?”

  “You can have my theory for what it’s worth, Mr. Mellish,” said Shand, with a rather wry smile. “Smith was killed by a fair man, dressed in green pyjamas, and, unless I’m much mistaken, the man’s name was Strelinski.”

  “And you couldn’t hold him? Not enough evidence, I suppose?”

  “The man disappeared on the night of the murder, and I have no proof that Strelinski was ever on the Enriqueta. Unless the murderer went overboard with the pyjamas, which I very much doubt, I don’t know what happened to him. He was seen by a steward, after which no one set eyes on him again.”

  “Annoying business,” commented Mellish mildly.

  He knew his Shand, and could guess the state of mind in which he had landed at Liverpool. He had also had practical proof of the detective’s tenacity, and knew that he would never rest until he had ascertained whether Smith’s assailant had gone overboard or not.

  “Very,” assented Shand drily. Then, as he picked up his hat: “By the way, how did Miss Summers get away last night? She wasn’t among that crowd this morning.”

  For once Mellish was caught napping. He had been congratulating himself on having kept Carol’s name out of the business, and had no reason to believe the police had been aware of her presence at the club.

  “What makes you think that Miss Summers was there?” he asked evasively.

  “She was seen,” answered Shand, with equal vagueness, “with Lord Dalberry. You’ve no idea what happened to her, I suppose?” he asked, turning to Dalberry.

  “She must have left before the raid,” answered Dalberry curtly. It was not a pleasant question to have to answer. “Mr. Mellish heard from her this morning, I believe.”

  “She telephoned at about eight o’clock this morning,” admitted Mellish, in answer to Shand’s inquiring glance. “She merely said that the news of the raid had reached her through Lady Dalberry after she got home last night. How Lady Dalberry heard of it I don’t know. Miss Summers was afraid that Lord Dalberry might be in trouble, and asked me to ring him up.”

  “She didn’t say how she got home?”

  “Not a word. She was mainly concerned about Lord Dalberry. Five minutes afterwards I got his message.”

  “She was no doubt taken home by Bond or de Silva,” reflected Shand. “Probably the latter, as he was observed going back into the club again later. She wasn’t seen at all later in the evening.”

  “Good workers, those friends of yours,” commented Mellish drily. “I suppose it was they who reported on Miss Summers?”

  Shand nodded.

  “The woman’s the brains of the combination. She’s seen the inside of Aylesbury all right, but she’s kept Conyers straight for over two years now. They’re getting a bit too well known on this side, though, for our purposes.”

  After he had gone Dalberry lingered on in Mellish’s rooms. The fat man watched him throw away his third half-smoked cigarette, then stretched out an arm and quietly placed the box out of his reach.

  “It will save time and some of my best tobacco if I tell you at once that Carol didn’t leave any message for you when she telephoned this morning,” he remarked gently.

  Dalberry turned on him with a rather sheepish smile.

  “You’re a beast, Jasper!” he said; but he did not try to conceal his eagerness. “What did she say?”

  “Nothing, except that she had left you at the club and was afraid you might not have got away. She gave no reason for having gone away without you, and when I questioned her she rang off. But her tone, I may tell you, was that of one performing an unpleasant, but necessary, duty. You’re in for a bad time, Gillie, and the best thing you can do is to see her as soon as possible.”

  Dalberry rose.

  “I’m going now,” he said. “I was only waiting to find out how I stood with her. She must think me a pretty average swine.”

  Carol’s attitude was brought home to him before he had been five minutes inside the hall of the Escatorial.

  “Miss Summers is very sorry, but she is not well enough to see any one,” announced the porter, as he turned away from the house telephone.

  “Thanks,” said Dalberry, taking out his case and choosing a cigarette with elaborate care.

  “Might just as well ’ave said ‘damn’ and ’a done with it, by the look on ’is face,” reflected the porter, as he went back to his lodge.

  Dalberry hesitated. There seemed nothing for it but to go home and write to her. He was just about to leave, when the lift doors opened and Lady Dalberry stepped out. At the sight of him she hurried forward.

  “Gillie, I am so glad I caught you,” she exclaimed. “I guessed it was you on the phone, and I could not help hearing what Carol said. I was just going out, and I hurried a
little in the hope to catch you.”

  “I’m sorry Carol isn’t well,” said Dalberry formally.

  “Carol is just so ill or so well as she pleases, my friend,” remarked Lady Dalberry in her quaint English. “Are you walking? Yes? Then we will go together and then we can talk.”

  They left the building in silence. Lady Dalberry was the first to speak.

  “I do not know what has happened,” she said, with her usual bluntness, “but I am not blind, neither am I deaf. Carol seems to have returned home very early last night, with you, as I supposed, until I heard her telephoning to Mr. Mellish this morning. The telephone is in the hall, and it is impossible not to hear what is being said. In this way I discover, for the first time, that she left you at the club last night. When I ask her she tells me only that she came home with Mr. de Silva, and that she does not know what happened to you. I do not wish to interfere. This matter is between you and her; but I tell you this, Gillie, my friend, she is mad with you, through and through. I do not think she will see you, however often you call!”

  She looked troubled, and her deep, warm voice was full of real sympathy.

  “If you have any message for her I will try to give it,” she went on. “But I warn you it will not be easy to get her to listen. She is angry, deeply angry. I did not think the little Carol could be like that.”

  “She’s got good reason to be,” said Dalberry. “But she’s got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I’ll write to her, but if you can get her to see Jasper, do. He will explain better than I can, and she’ll listen to him.”

  Lady Dalberry placed a sympathetic hand on his arm.

  “I will do what I can. I should be very sad if anything came between you. I was so happy myself in my married life, and I want to see those I care for happy too. And you two have known each other for so long.”

  She waited, hoping, no doubt, for further confidences, but Dalberry merely thanked her for her offer and left it at that.

  “It’s very good of you,” he said vaguely. “I’ll tell you what happened some day, if I may. It wasn’t quite so bad as Carol thinks. If you can make her believe that, and persuade her to give me a chance to explain, I should be very grateful.” They parted, Dalberry feeling less antagonistic towards her than he had done in the past, but unable, even now, to treat her with ordinary frankness. He could not forget, either, that it was through her that Carol had met both de Silva and Bond. He remembered Carol’s suggestion that Lady Dalberry had put money into the club, and wondered if she were very hard hit now that it was closed down. He reflected grimly that that, at any rate, would put an end for a time to the activities of Bond and the Argentino.

  His satisfaction would have been short-lived if he could have been present at the interview between these two which had taken place some hours earlier.

  But Bond was not de Silva’s only visitor. He was preceded by the man with whom the Argentino had made an appointment, very much against his will, the night before. The interview ran, more or less, on the lines de Silva had foreseen, and did not last long.

  “See here, Conyers,” he said frankly, as he led the way into his study. His tone was conciliatory, indeed it remained so, with the exception of one lapse, throughout the interview. He was helpless, and he knew it. “I do not mind telling you that what happened last night gave me a bad knock. The Terpsychorean is closed down for good, and, as you may have guessed, I had a large interest in it. I was out to make big money, too, if it had run long enough. As it is, I am badly hit financially.”

  Conyers cast an appraising eye round the room.

  “You’re not so hard hit that you won’t make a little loan to an old friend when he asks for it,” he declared, with cheerful conviction. “I’ll go easy with you, but you must realize that that little slip last night pretty well tore it. It’s a damn good make-up, and I should never have spotted you if we’d met casually in the card-room. You’ll have to divvy up, Kurt!”

  “You will drop that name if you wish this deal to go through,” said de Silva curtly. “How much do you want?” Conyers named a sum considerably larger than he hoped to get. He had guessed that de Silva would not dare to risk the revelation of his real identity, and had gambled on the fact; but, unfortunately for his plans, he had no idea as yet what his silence might be worth. He hoped later, by dint of perseverance, to find out what the Argentino’s little game was. Then he might have a chance to tighten the screw.

  To his surprise de Silva showed no inclination to bargain. “You understand that this is the limit, Conyers,” he warned him smoothly, as he unlocked the drawer of his writing-table. “If you think you are going to bleed me, you make a bad mistake, my friend. I have my own reasons for wishing to tie your tongue at this moment, but I shall be finished with my business here in a month or so, and your information will not be worth twopence to the police or any one else after that.” The other man’s face changed colour, but he let the implication pass. He knew the value of silence, supposing, as he suspected, de Silva was merely making a shrewd guess at his connection with the events of the night before.

  The Argentino took a bundle of notes out of the drawer and counted them swiftly.

  “I will give you fifty on account—that is all I have in the flat. You will have to wait a day or two for the rest.”

  Conyers stretched out a greedy hand, and then, with an effort, drew it back.

  “Nothing doing. It’s all or nothing, Kurt.”

  “Keep that name off your tongue, or it will be nothing,” snarled de Silva, for the first time letting his temper get the better of him.

  “It’ll be ‘Kurt’ till the money’s paid over, so you’d better get a move on,” answered Conyers, with the calm insolence of one who knows he has the upper hand.

  But de Silva’s outburst of anger was over, and he had himself well in hand.

  “See here, Conyers,” he said smoothly, “I am doing the best I can for you. I have got the winding up of this infernal club on my hands, and it is absolutely impossible for me to raise a cent till things are straightened out there. As it is, I am offering you all the spare cash I possess, and putting myself to great inconvenience. Give me ten days, and I will undertake to pay you. The money is not there, I tell you.”

  Conyers thought for a moment, then he picked up the notes.

  “All right,” he said. “Only remember, it’s no good trying any funny business with me.”

  De Silva laid a friendly hand on his shoulder and propelled him towards the door.

  “Good,” he said. “I knew you would see reason. We have always worked well together, old chap. To-day is the 10th. Make it the 19th. That will give me time to get things straight. Clear out now, like a good fellow. I am too busy to talk.”

  “Where do we meet? Here?”

  Conyers was on the other side of the front door by now, and it was closing gently behind him. De Silva smiled at him through the crack.

  “I have your address. I will let you know. Good-bye, old man!”

  Before he could expostulate, the door was shut in his face.

  De Silva went back to his room, humming a little tune softly to himself. He had been blackmailed shamelessly, and by a man he not only disliked, but despised, and yet he seemed singularly unperturbed. When Bond arrived, half an hour later, he found his employer in the best of spirits.

  In depressing contrast, Bond was even more peevishly gloomy than usual.

  “Well, the fat’s in the fire now,” he whispered, as he entered the room. “I’ve paid the fine, and that pretty well clears us out. And even if we sell, we shan’t get a brass farthing for the goodwill of the place now. And if you open again anywhere else you’ll have to get a new manager. I’m through as far as another licence is concerned.”

  “What is so encouraging in you is your joie de vivre,” remarked de Silva acidly. “It is a comfort to have you round when things go wrong.”

  “Well, if you’d spent the morning I have, being bully-ragged by a brute of a m
agistrate in a stinking court, you wouldn’t feel like a little ray of sunshine. If you think I enjoy getting all the kicks while you rope in the halfpence, you’re mistaken. Little enough I made out of the beastly place, goodness knows!”

  “And little enough you are losing over it!” snapped de Silva. “Madre de Dios, any one would think it was you who had put up the cash. What does it matter to you if the club closes down?”

  “It matters this much to me. I’m a marked man from now on. I’m dead, as far as any other job of that sort’s concerned. If you’ve lost money, you can damned well afford it, but I’d like to know what’s going to happen to me!”

  “Nothing is going to happen to you, if you are a good little boy and keep your temper,” answered de Silva. The biting contempt in his voice made the other writhe. “If you had not begun your lamentations so early I should have told you that I have every intention of keeping you on at the same salary. If you can get more elsewhere, you are at liberty to go.”

  Bond stared at him, his pale eyes bulging with amazement. “You’re not mad, are you?” he inquired. “If you’d heard the magistrate this morning you’d know better than to suggest anything so preposterous. You’re not in the Argentine now, de Silva. I don’t know how far palm-greasing will take you there, but it’s a wash-out in this country. You can’t do it, you know.”

  “I am not trying to do it, my impetuous friend. I said that I would keep you on at your old salary, but I did not say in what capacity. It has not struck you, I suppose, that I may have more than one string to my bow?”

  Bond continued to stare at him in silence.

  De Silva chose a cigarette and lighted it. He did not offer one to Bond.

  “Ever heard of the Onyx preparations?” he asked quietly.

  Bond’s eyes opened still wider. “The stuff you see advertised?” he queried. “Judging from the money they’ve spent on ‘ads,’ I should say every one’s heard of them. Face-creams, hair-wash, depilatories, and all that sort of thing. Is that what you mean?”

  “All based on a marvellous receipt discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamen, or words to that effect,” supplemented de Silva appreciatively. “Extraordinary how the public love that sort of thing. The face-cream is worth its weight in gold already, and it is sold in half-pound pots and costs slightly under sixpence a pound in ingredients. Have you ever been inside the shop?”