The Murder on the Enriqueta: A Golden Age Mystery Page 9

  “I shall find Lord Dalberry’s number in the telephone book, I suppose,” he said. “I had better ring up his rooms now and tell his man to be ready for him.”

  “It’s in the book,” answered Carol gratefully. “But I can give it to you, if you’ll wait a minute.”

  “Do not trouble yourself—I can find it easily.”

  He hesitated for a moment, then:

  “Miss Summers!”

  She stood waiting with her hand on the latch of the door. “Please do not think me interfering,” he said earnestly. “I know it is no affair of mine. But do not judge Lord Dalberry too hardly. It is the sort of accident that can very easily happen to a man when he has had a hard day, and is tired, and has, perhaps, got into the habit of pulling himself together occasionally with the help of stimulants.”

  Carol met his gaze squarely. There was a cold glint of anger in her eyes. Annoyed though she was with Gillie, this man’s facile excuses for him, and all that they implied, struck her as insufferable.

  “I don’t understand about to-night, Mr. de Silva,” she said bluntly. “But Lord Dalberry does not drink, if that’s what you mean.”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “I did not mean to imply that he drank. That would be a gross exaggeration. But everybody nowadays is burning the candle at both ends. It is not surprising if people are forced to resort to stimulants. I am sure he could not help what happened to-night.”

  Suddenly Carol’s nerves betrayed her. She felt her eyes fill with tears, and, furious with herself for this exhibition of weakness, she drew hastily back into the dimmer light of the hall.

  “It’s no good discussing it, is it?” she said, keeping her voice steady with an effort. “Good-night, and thank you.”

  Then, as he opened his mouth to speak, she managed to get the door shut between them before her composure deserted her entirely.

  The Argentino waited for a moment, listening intently, then, instead of going into his flat, turned and ran lightly down the stairs without waiting for the lift. He passed swiftly through the hall into the street, hailed a passing taxi, and drove back to the Terpsychorean.

  Bond met him in the hall.

  “I’ve had him moved into the ante-room,” he whispered. “What are you going to do?”

  He looked badly rattled for a man who, if de Silva’s words to Carol were true, was accustomed to dealing with cases like Dalberry’s.

  The Argentino brushed past him without a word and made his way up the stairs and through the closed bar. The dancing was still in full swing, and no one noticed him as he opened a small door to the right of the bar and passed through it, followed silently by Bond. In front of him, at the end of a short passage, was a heavy oak door. He unlocked this and pushed it open, and as he did so there was not one among the players who stood or sat round the baize-covered tables that filled the big, brilliantly lighted room that did not look up with a quick spasm of alarm, and then, in relief, return to the absorption of the game.

  De Silva paused for a moment, while Bond was relocking the door behind him, and ran his eye over the room. It was characteristic of him that in that swift and ostensibly careless scrutiny he missed nothing.

  “The man standing next to Captain Green, who is he?” he jerked over his shoulder.

  “His brother,” answered Bond. “He brought him along last night.”

  “Have you looked him up?”

  Bond nodded.

  “He’s all right. I went round there this morning with a scarf some one left in the cloakroom. He’s Green’s brother. Been staying with him for a week.”

  De Silva strolled slowly through the room, nodding to an acquaintance here and there. To the majority of the players he was merely a friend of Bond’s, a gambler like themselves, who dropped in occasionally for an hour, but who was not looked upon as an habitue. The truth was that he preferred to leave the management of this, the most paying and at the same time the most dangerous, branch of the establishment in the capable hands of Bond. Some day, he told himself philosophically, the place would be raided. Bond would have to face the music—that was what he was paid for—and the club would be closed down. It was an extraordinary piece of luck that the card-room, cunningly built out over the kitchen at the back of the house, had not been discovered before by the police.

  He drew aside a heavy portiere, unlocked a small door, and passed through into the ante-room, closing the door carefully behind him.

  Dalberry was stretched on a couch by the window. He was sleeping heavily, and his face had lost its first ashen pallor. Bond had taken off his collar and tie and unfastened the neck of his shirt.

  De Silva stood looking down at him thoughtfully.

  “What are you going to do with him?” muttered Bond at his elbow.

  “Send him home, of course. He cannot sleep it off here. I will telephone to his man, and you must take him. I can keep my eye on things here while you’re gone.”

  Bond swallowed nervously once or twice, then:

  “What’s the matter with him?” he asked, in his curious, muffled voice.

  De Silva turned on him.

  “Soused, of course. Do you not know a drunken man when you see one? You may be sure this is not the first time he has been taken home like this. What do you think is the matter with him?”

  Bond quailed before the cold menace in his eyes.

  “Nothing,” he said hastily. “He keeled over a bit suddenly, that was all. He won’t be easy to move.”

  “You will move him all the same, my friend,” snapped the Argentino, then broke off suddenly as the other gripped him by the arm.

  His mouth gaping, his face white as chalk, Bond was staring at the door through which they had come. On the other side of it an electric buzzer whirred insistently.

  Before he could move, de Silva was at the door and had wrenched it open. Some one on the other side had already torn aside the portiere, and was trying to force his way through the doorway. The card-room was in a state of indescribable confusion. A few of the players stood motionless, knowing that all the exits were closed by now, and philosophically ready to let things take their course; but the rest, under the impulse of a blind instinct for self-preservation, were fighting their way towards the narrow opening that gave on to a flight of steps leading to the kitchen below.

  De Silva was struggling with the man in the doorway. One glimpse of the card-room had been enough; he had no desire to enter it, but neither did he propose to admit any of the club “members” to the ante-room from which he had just come.

  “Get back, you fool!” he gasped, exerting all his strength to force the man back. “You cannot get out this way. Here, Bond!”

  The doorway was so narrow that Bond could give him very little assistance. Between them, however, they managed to throw the man back into the card-room. Bond followed him. As nominal proprietor of the club he would gain nothing by evasion. De Silva slipped back into the ante-room and slammed the door behind him.

  As he did so the heavy door on the far side of the card-room burst open with a crash, and a plain-clothes officer appeared in the opening.

  Bond, mechanically adjusting his tie and pulling his coat into position, went to meet him. He did not notice that the man he had helped de Silva to eject had taken his opportunity, and, opening the door quietly, had slipped through it into the ante-room.

  Once inside, the intruder stood hesitating on the threshold. De Silva had switched off the lights, and the little room was in darkness. Then he caught sight of a black silhouette against the pale light of the open window. So that was the bolt-hole!

  In a second he was across the room and had his leg over the sill of the window. De Silva had already climbed through and dropped lightly on to the flat roof of the scullery below. The other man followed, but just a fraction too soon, for, in his anxiety to get away, he dropped full on to the top of the Argentino, and the two rolled, clutching wildly at each other, almost over the edge of the narrow roof. They w
ere on their feet almost at once, and stood glaring at each other in the light that still streamed from the card-room window, then the Argentino stooped swiftly, so that the light no longer fell on his face.

  But he was too late. The other man gave an exclamation of amazement.

  “Kurt, by all that’s holy!” he exclaimed. “Now, what do you think of that!”

  De Silva’s only answer was to slide, like an eel, over the edge of the roof and drop into the yard below. He landed on his hands and knees, picked himself up, and ran. The rest of the flight was easy—across a low wall into the next yard, and from there, through a flimsy apology for a door that yielded to the pressure of his shoulder, into the mews that ran behind the house.

  Here he was in luck, for two of the stables had been converted into studios, and the occupants had combined in giving a party. The guests were strolling up and down the mews and standing about in groups. Some were in fancy dress, a few in tweeds, and one or two in dinner jackets. The sight of a man in evening clothes roused no comment, and de Silva was able to make his way safely enough to the corner of the mews, where he stood for a moment taking his bearings before venturing into the open street.

  He was not surprised to hear a voice behind him and feel a hand close firmly on his arms. He had known that his pursuer would not allow himself to be shaken off easily after that one illuminating moment on the roof, and all through the physical strain of his flight from the club his alert brain had been dealing rapidly and adequately with this new situation. He turned quickly.

  “See here,” he said, speaking in an urgent whisper, “it is impossible for me to stop now. And it will not do for us to be seen together. We shall be lucky if we get away at all. Tell me where I can find you.”

  The other man laughed softly.

  “Tell me where I can find you!” he retorted derisively. “I’m not such a sucker as all that, Kurt! I’ll come and see you at your own place, my son!”

  De Silva only hesitated for a moment. He never wasted time or strength in fighting the inevitable.

  “To-morrow morning at eleven-thirty at the Escatorial,” he said briefly. “You will see the name, de Silva, on the board in the hall. Though what you think you will gain by it I do not know. I have nothing in your line.”

  For a moment the other eyed him suspiciously.

  “Right-o,” he said, relaxing his grip of the Argentino’s arm at last. “I’ll chance it.”

  He turned on his heel and vanished, and de Silva, after another cautious glance down the road, departed hurriedly in the opposite direction. He went on foot and chose the less frequented thoroughfares, for he had no desire to add a taxi-driver to the already inconveniently long list of people who had seen him in the vicinity of the club that evening.

  Once inside the hall of the Escatorial he felt at liberty to indulge the curiosity he had kept sternly within bounds all through his walk home. He stepped softly to a small window to the right of the front door and peered out into the street. And as he looked he laughed softly to himself.

  The man who had shared his flight from the Terpsychorean had not “chanced it.” Having seen de Silva safely home and verified the address he had given, he was now, in the full light of the street lamp opposite, turning to depart, presumably with a quiet mind.

  Carol, who had gone to bed and was trying in vain to read herself to sleep, was startled by a knock at her door. She answered languidly enough, for her head ached, and Lady Dalberry was the last person she wished to see at the moment.

  “You must have spent a very dissipated evening,” she said, trying to speak lightly and naturally. “I’ve been home for ages.”

  Her effort was wasted, for Lady Dalberry was far too agitated to be observant.

  “You are all right, then? I have just met Juan de Silva on the stairs, and he declared to me that you were safe, but I had to see for myself. Thank goodness you left that place in time!”

  Her voice was warm with solicitude. Evidently she had only just come in, for her fur coat hung loosely over her shoulders, and she was dressed in the high black dress she affected for quiet evenings at her club.

  Carol’s first feeling was one of indignation against de Silva for having given away Dalberry to her aunt; but with Lady Dalberry’s next words her anger turned to bewilderment.

  “Did Gillie suspect something?” she asked. “Was that why he brought you away so early? How did he know, I wonder?”

  Carol stared at her.

  “Know what? Aunt Irma? I haven’t the remotest idea what you are talking about.”

  “How stupid of me! Of course you would not know! I was so distressed at the thought that you might not have got away in time. For you to be mixed up in such a thing! And all my fault, I thought, for letting that silly little Bond man have his way and persuade you to go to such a place. When de Silva told me I was beside myself.”

  “Aunt Irma, what did Mr. de Silva tell you?” urged Carol, in desperation.

  Lady Dalberry drew her fur cloak closer around her.

  “My dear,” she said, with an intensity that was almost tragic, “the Terpsychorean was raided to-night. De Silva only just got away in time. If you had stayed you would now be in the hands of the police.”

  For a moment Carol was conscious only of relief. Then the Argentino had behaved decently after all! He had not betrayed Gillie. Perhaps the sudden reaction, coming after all she had gone through that night, made her a little hysterical, or it might be that Lady Dalberry’s tragic attitude, combined with the sudden vision of herself and Gillie “in the hands of the police,” would have upset her gravity at any time. The fact remains that, after a vain effort to treat the announcement with the seriousness it deserved, she lay back on her pillows and laughed till she cried.

  Lady Dalberry stared at her in blank astonishment.

  “My dear,” she said severely, “I do not think that you realize what Gillie saved you from when he took you away just in time.”

  Her words had the desired effect. Carol’s laughter died on her lips. Long after Lady Dalberry had left her she lay staring up into the darkness. For it was de Silva who had saved her, while Gillie, whom she could have sworn would never fail her, was lying helpless in a drunken stupor.

  CHAPTER IX

  It was close on midday, nearly ten hours after the raid on the Terpsychorean, that Dalberry, in company with twenty-eight other chastened and bedraggled victims of circumstance, found himself at liberty to return home.

  Mellish, hastily summoned by telephone, had sat listening with an impish gleam in his eyes while the magistrate admonished the delinquents and expressed the somewhat vain hope that the experience would prove a lesson to them. He had then dealt imperturbably with the necessary formalities to be gone through before Dalberry was finally rescued from the clutches of the law. Being still uninformed as to the circumstances in which he had been taken, he was disposed to treat the affair with a certain sardonic humour. How Carol had been kept out of it he had no idea, but he felt fairly certain that it was to her adventurous spirit that this ignominious end to an apparently harmless evening was due. He could imagine Bond’s whispered invitation, Carol’s enthusiastic acceptance of it, and her delight at finding herself in what she had read of in books as a “gambling hell.” It was hard luck that the immediate result of this innocent attempt to see life should have been a night in the cells for Dalberry, followed by an ignominious appearance before a magistrate in the morning. Mellish had good reason to hope that this morning, at any rate, she was in a condition to appreciate the advantages of a well-ordered life.

  He was chuckling as he climbed into a taxi with Dalberry, but his mirth was short-lived. Dalberry, hollow-eyed and unshaven, hatless, his coat collar turned up to hide his soiled dress-shirt, was in no mood for laughter. It did not take him long to put Mellish in possession of the facts, and by the time he had finished he had no cause to complain of the fat man’s attitude. Mellish knew him too well to question his statement for a moment.
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  “What it’s all about, I don’t know,” insisted Dalberry doggedly; “but both those drinks were doctored, of that I’m quite certain. I felt pretty rotten after the first, but the second was a knock-out. I didn’t know a thing till I woke up at the police-station in the early hours of the morning, and even then I couldn’t keep myself awake, and it was all they could do to rouse me four or five hours later. There’s something damned fishy about the whole thing. As for playing, I never saw the card-room; hadn’t an idea there was such a thing. You’re sure Carol’s all right?”

  “Quite,” said Mellish. “She telephoned from the flat this morning.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll drop you at your rooms. Get a bath and a change, and come on to the Albany in about an hour’s time. I’ll try to get on to Shand. He’d better hear about this.”

  He dropped Dalberry and went on to his own rooms. Once there, he rang up New Scotland Yard. Here he was in luck. Chief Detective-Inspector Shand was in his room, and both ready and willing to come round. He knew Mellish too well to doubt the real urgency of the summons.

  Lunch was on the table when he arrived, and Dalberry, looking considerably more human than he had been an hour before, followed close on his footsteps. While they were eating he put the facts before Shand. When he had finished the inspector glanced at him shrewdly.

  “Ever been drunk before?” he asked bluntly.

  Dalberry laughed.

  “Of course,” he answered frankly. “Who hasn’t? But I don’t make a habit of it. You’ll have to take my word for that.”

  Shand nodded.

  “Ever been knocked clean out like that before?” he went on.

  “Never. I must have been absolutely dead to the world for about four solid hours, and when I woke up at the station I was still half doped.”

  “Who brought those drinks? The waiter?”

  “That chap de Silva brought the whisky. He fetched it from the bar himself, and, now I come to think of it, Captain Bond brought the other, the cocktail. He gave Miss Summers one at the same time.”