The Murder on the Enriqueta: A Golden Age Mystery Read online

  “I daresay you don’t, but your personal antipathies have nothing to do with it. And let me tell you this. Your only chance of keeping an eye on Carol and seeing that she does not fall too much under the influence of the wrong people lies in standing well with Lady Dalberry. If you take my advice you will keep on as good terms with her as possible, and cultivate the habit of running in and out of the flat.”

  It was obvious that this suggestion did not appeal to Dalberry.

  “It’s not a very inviting programme,” he said disgustedly. “You can hardly expect me to force myself on the hospitality of a woman I dislike simply to gain my own ends. I’d do a good deal for the sake of keeping in touch with Carol, but not that!”

  “I’m not suggesting that you should go to the flat merely to keep in touch with Carol.”

  Dalberry stared at him.

  “What other reason could I possibly have for going?”

  “To keep an eye on Lady Dalberry,” was Mellish’s surprising answer.

  “Then you’ve been bluffing all this time, and you don’t trust her!”

  “I trust her as much as I trust anybody in this wicked world, and, as I’ve said, I’ve got nothing against her. What I don’t trust is this sudden desire for Carol’s company just as the girl is about to come into her money. I may be doing the woman an injustice. Very likely she has merely taken a fancy to Carol, and is really, as she says, lonely and in need of companionship; but the fact remains that Lady Dalberry has been spending money like water since she arrived in England. Where that money has gone I don’t know, but I’d give something to know who her broker is, and still more to meet him. And I don’t want Carol dragged into that sort of thing. I consider that, for her sake, there ought to be some one on the spot to see that she does not fall too much under the influence of Lady Dalberry and her friends.”

  It was unlike Mellish to be either verbose or explicit. He usually preferred to sow a seed here and there in his sleepy way, and then, apparently, leave the matter to Providence. Dalberry knew that to have spoken so freely, he must have felt more strongly about the matter than he chose to admit. He still shrank from the idea of deliberately trying to ingratiate himself with his uncle’s wife, but he salved his conscience by reminding himself that he had not yet called on her in her new flat, and that, in common courtesy, he owed her a visit. The day after his conversation with Mellish he went to see her.

  He took an instant and quite unreasoning dislike to the great block of flats in which Lady Dalberry had taken up her abode. Ten years before it had been the Escatorial Hotel, one of the maddest of the wild ventures of a Swiss ex-waiter with a genius for organization and more than a touch of megalomania, who made and lost three fortunes before he ended his career by committing suicide in the lounge of one of his own palatial hotels. In the Escatorial he had tried to realize his dream of what a perfect residential hotel should be, and for a time it looked as though he had succeeded. Then, owing no doubt to the ruinous charges, the tenants began to drift away in search of cheaper quarters, and the management found itself obliged to cater to a less wealthy and more transient type of guest. In spite of admirable food and excellent service it failed to appeal to the right people, and it was slowly degenerating into a second-rate hotel when the “Urban Flats Company” bought it and added it to their long list of “desirable town residences.” As regards comfort, position, and general magnificence, the Escatorial was undoubtedly one of the finest blocks of residential flats in London, and if Dalberry took exception to the spacious white and gold vestibule, with its banks of palms and superfluity of uniformed porters and page-boys, it was no doubt because his own tastes were almost eccentrically simple.

  Lady Dalberry’s flat was on the fourth floor, the bedrooms and Carol’s sitting-room looking on to the large garden which formed one of the chief attractions of the Escatorial, the other rooms facing the street. The room into which Dalberry was shown reminded him of nothing so much as the stage setting of an American super-film. Perhaps this impression was due to the incongruous mixture of Chinese embroideries and heavy Jacobean furniture and the overpowering mass of heavily scented flowers with their accompanying gilt pots and baskets; but the embroideries, if out of place, were genuine, and the furniture was good. Either Lady Dalberry had been lucky in her advisers or she possessed an unusual flair for such things; certainly she had not been cheated, and Mellish, had he been there, would have recognized the fact that, whatever she may have done with the rest of her money, in her furniture she had made an excellent investment.

  She greeted Dalberry with a warmth that struck him as a little exaggerated, for he had a growing conviction that she did not like him. Carol, who had got over the slight constraint of their first meeting after her long absence, was frankly delighted to see him. She introduced him to the only other visitor, a stocky little man with very pale blue eyes and a voice so low as to be almost inaudible.

  “Captain Bond knew Uncle Adrian in America,” she explained.

  “Before I left the Service,” put in Captain Bond in a voice hardly above a discreet whisper. “War Office job. Buying horses.”

  “He stayed with us on the ranch,” said Lady Dalberry, “and liked the life so much that he very nearly decided to remain in the Argentine.”

  “Wish I had,” murmured Captain Bond. “They’ve no use for an ex-soldier in the old country. Since I sold out I’ve had to take what I could get.”

  “He is secretary to one of your London clubs,” explained Lady Dalberry.

  “Not a very grateful job, I’m afraid,” said Dalberry sympathetically.

  “Not what I’ve been accustomed to, but beggars can’t be choosers,” was Bond’s rather lugubrious reply.

  A depressing little man, Dalberry thought him, and a bit of a snob. After all, the secretaryship of a good club was a reputable enough job from a social point of view. It was Carol who shed an unexpected light on the situation.

  “Do let’s go there one night, Gillie,” she exclaimed enthusiastically. “Captain Bond says it’s the best in London, and they’ve got a magnificent band.”

  “No need to join first,” explained Bond significantly. “Pay your money at the door and no questions asked, what?”

  “I didn’t realize you meant a dance club,” said Dalberry. “Which of them is it?”

  “The ‘Terpsychorean.’ And I flatter myself, though I say it as shouldn’t, that there’s not a better run show in London.”

  “It’s certainly enormously popular,” said Dalberry noncommittally.

  He knew the “Terpsychorean” well by name, though, as it happened, he had never been there. It was one of the few night clubs that could boast of never having been raided, a distinction which did not go far towards sweetening its rather unsavoury reputation.

  “Why not bring Miss Summers along one evening,” insisted Bond eagerly. “If you settle a date now I’ll see that a table’s reserved for you. There’s a good show next Monday. A couple of dancers from Monte Carlo. Come now, why not make it Monday?”

  Carol supported him enthusiastically.

  “Do, Gillie! Or are you doing anything else? If not, let’s go. It’s ages since we danced together, and Aunt Irma says there’s no reason why I shouldn’t go to that sort of thing, even if I am in mourning.”

  “They tell me that, here in England, it is different,” said Lady Dalberry. “Even in New York they are more strict about mourning, and in the foreign colony where I was raised we do not go out at all for a long time. But here she could go to such a place, I think.”

  “There’s no reason why she shouldn’t,” admitted Dalberry. “After all, her mourning’s largely complimentary. Uncle Maurice wasn’t her real uncle.”

  He was no frequenter of night clubs. Being essentially an open-air man, stuffy rooms and late hours did not appeal to him; but he welcomed the chance of dancing with Carol, and, after all, if she wished to sample that sort of life, it was better she should do it with him than with comparative strang
ers. He wondered if Aunt Irma had many more friends of the Bond kidney, and was thankful that her deep mourning prevented her from getting up a party for Carol herself.

  “Then let’s settle to go on Monday,” insisted Carol. “Or does the idea bore you too hopelessly? You don’t look very keen!”

  “Perhaps he does not approve of these clubs,” put in Lady Dalberry gently. “I am not sure that I do not agree with him. For young girls it means sometimes too much freedom.”

  Dalberry winced. He was being made to look an insufferable prig before Carol, and he could feel her astonished eyes on him.

  “Good heavens! I’ve nothing against night clubs,” he exclaimed, “provided they’re properly run. I was trying to remember whether I’d let myself in for anything on Monday, that’s all. As far as I know, I’m free. Shall I call for you here, Carol? We can dine somewhere first. You’re moving in at once, aren’t you?”

  “To-morrow,” she said. “Aunt Irma, may I show Gillie my new rooms?”

  “Of course, my dear. I’ve had the light altered in the bedroom. See if you like it.”

  Dalberry was obliged to admit that the rooms were charming. Lady Dalberry had contented herself with making them as fresh and bright as possible, with the result that they had escaped the curious, rather theatrical atmosphere of the drawing-room.

  “I was rather amused at Aunt Irma’s denunciation of night clubs,” said Carol confidently. “I think she must have done it to impress you with her suitability as a chaperon! I happen to know that she’s frightfully keen on this one.”

  “On the club or on Captain Bond?” asked Dalberry.

  Carol laughed.

  “I don’t think she’s got much use for poor Captain Bond. She snubbed him frightfully the other day, and he took it like a lamb. But after he’d gone I asked her if she thought he was making a success of his job, and she said she hoped so, because he had persuaded her to put some money into it.”

  So that, at any rate, was where some of the money had gone! It looked uncommonly as if Mellish were right.

  CHAPTER VII

  Punctually at four o’clock on the following Monday a taxi drew up before the marble steps of the Escatorial, and Mellish climbed ponderously out. He had decided that it was about time he saw Carol’s new quarters for himself, and as he stood in the hall waiting while the porter telephoned to Lady Dalberry’s flat, his blandly benevolent eye travelled thoughtfully down the list of names inscribed in Gothic characters on a satinwood panel set into the wall close to the porter’s lodge.

  “Lady Dalberry is out, sir,” said the man, as he hung up the receiver. “But Miss Summers is at home, and would be very pleased if you would go up.”

  Mellish, accompanied by two pages in skin-tight grey and silver livery, made a dignified entry into the lift, and was shot up to the fourth floor. He noticed that one of the boys carried a pass-key on a chain, and wondered how many people had access to these keys and what steps the management took to insure the honesty of the staff. A foolish, risky arrangement at best, he considered, and was glad that he had seen to the insurance of Carol’s jewellery himself.

  In the old days of the Escatorial Hotel two long corridors, with rooms opening out of them on either side, had run to right and left of the broad main staircase. To convert the hotel into flats, it had been necessary merely to close in each of these corridors with a door, making two large flats on each floor of the building, their front doors immediately facing each other.

  As Mellish stepped out of the lift a man issued from the flat opposite to Lady Dalberry’s and came swiftly towards him. He was slightly built and walked with the short, light step peculiar to dancers and boxers, but the quiet elegance of his clothes was more suggestive of a man of leisure than of one of the professional classes, and he gave the impression of being lithe rather than muscular. He carried his hat in his hand and was dressed with the meticulous neatness and finish that is characteristic of the well-to-do Latin. Indeed, with his clear olive skin, dense black hair, and unusually small hands and feet, he was noticeably un-English. Mellish put him down as secretary to one of the smaller Latin legations. He vanished into the lift as Mellish followed the boy through the door of Lady Dalberry’s flat.

  Carol received him in her own little sitting-room.

  “I’m sorry you’ve missed Aunt Irma,” she said. “But it’s nice to have you to myself. Besides, I want to show you everything. Isn’t it charming?”

  Mellish cast an appreciative eye round the room. He liked its fresh, bright colouring.

  “Who’s responsible for this? You or Lady Dalberry?”

  “Aunt Irma. She took any amount of trouble over it. If I’d been her own daughter, she couldn’t have been keener on making me comfortable.”

  “Happy here, eh?”

  “I should be a pig if I wasn’t,” she said gratefully. “She’s kindness itself, and the whole place is extraordinarily convenient. The restaurant downstairs is first-rate, and we can have our meals sent up if we like, and there’s none of the bother of housekeeping. Honestly, I think I’m in clover.”

  Mellish nodded.

  “It’s got its advantages, but I prefer more privacy myself. I don’t know what the staff is in this place, but practically every member of it must have a pass-key to this flat. I should keep my private correspondence and all my valuables under lock and key if I were you. You’ve got a dispatch-box, haven’t you?”

  Carol laughed.

  “What a suspicious old thing you are!” she said. “As a matter of fact, I’ve not only got a dispatch-box, but a steel deed-box! I bought it when I first came out, because it seemed such a grand, business-like sort of thing to have, but I’ve never used it, except for a few private letters which really anybody might read.”

  “Well, use it now. You’ll have some important documents to put in it soon. And I should add what jewellery you’re not wearing at the moment.”

  She consented, though she thought him unnecessarily fussy.

  “I’ll get a small safe, if you like,” she said. “I suppose after the 28th I shall have all sorts of papers that will need taking care of.”

  “You can keep the bulk of them at the bank. I don’t think a safe will be necessary, unless you’re going to invest largely in jewellery.”

  She shook her head.

  “I don’t hanker after that sort of thing. I’ve got my mother’s pearls, you know, but they’re at the bank.”

  “Better leave them there for the present, unless you’re very anxious to wear them.”

  During tea the conversation drifted to other things. Carol mentioned that she was dining with Dalberry and going on to the Terpsychorean with him afterwards.

  “Why don’t you come, Jasper?” she suggested. “You’re getting into an awful groove. A little dissipation would do you all the good in the world.”

  “Do you suggest that I should dance?” he asked, glancing ruefully down at what was once his waist.

  “It would be uncommonly good for you, you know,” laughed Carol. “And you’d probably love it.”

  “You may not believe it, but I’m a very good dancer. All fat men are. But it’s more pain than pleasure nowadays, alas! I’ll dine with you, though, if you and Gillie can put up with me, and I’ll drop into the Terpsychorean with you afterwards for a few minutes. I’d rather like to see the place.”

  “It’s quite good, isn’t it?”

  “Quite bad would describe it more accurately, but I suppose you like it all the better for that. By the way, do you know anything about your next-door neighbour? He was coming out of his flat as I arrived, and I see he’s down on the notice-board as Juan de Silva. Do you suppose he’s an embassy man?”

  Carol looked up quickly.

  “It’s funny you should have seen him. He worries me to death.”

  “Has he been pestering you?” demanded Mellish sharply.

  Carol laughed outright.

  “Jasper dear, how you do fear the worst!” she mocked. “I
don’t mean in that way—he’s an entirely harmless person. But I can’t place him. I’ve never seen him before—that I’m sure of—but he reminds me of some one, and I cannot think who it is.”

  “I only saw him for a moment. How did you come across him?”

  “He’s a friend of Aunt Irma’s. A South American, I think. Anyhow, she knew him out there. It was through him that she heard of this flat. They’re difficult to get, you know, and this one happened to fall empty. I believe he’s something in the City.”

  “Stock Exchange, eh?”

  “I don’t know, but I fancy he’s invested some of Aunt Irma’s money for her. The day I arrived here I found him waiting for her with some papers he wanted her to sign. She was out, so we introduced ourselves to each other and got quite friendly. He’s not a bad little man, if he’d only realize that I don’t really care for a lot of silly compliments that mean nothing.”

  “Lays it on thick, does he?”

  “I think all foreigners do—at least the Latin kind. I got fed up with it on the Riviera. They ought to give one credit for a little sense. It’s an insult to one’s intelligence.”

  Mellish regarded her thoughtfully and rather sadly. She was extraordinarily unsophisticated for her age, and he wondered how soon she would realize the part her money was bound to play in her relations with men, and how long it would be before her frank acceptance of all that life had to offer would turn to bitter disillusionment. He wished with all his heart that she were safely married to Dalberry.

  “They may possibly admire you,” he suggested mildly.

  “I hope they do,” she said honestly. “I like being admired, but not for things I know I haven’t got. When they tell me I speak French like a native, for instance, I know they’re lying. I hadn’t been in France five minutes before I discovered the truth about my French! And that’s only one of the silly things they say.”

  “Turn ’em down if you don’t like ’em, that’s the best plan,” advised Mellish.

  “Who is to be ‘turned down’? Not some of my friends, I hope!” said a voice behind him, and he swung round quickly to find Lady Dalberry standing in the doorway.