Concerning Murder on a Lamp Shade
"Rummy, sir," said Masters with genial uneasiness, "the ideas you get, eh?" He clucked his tongue and tried to smile. "I've been interviewing servants, you know. They all said that Alsatian was howling this morning just before — I'm very fond of dogs. Now what?"
H. M. pinched the side of his jaw. His dull eye wandered round the room; and his stolid bulk conveyed somehow an impression of restlessness.
"Hey? Oh! Now! Well, I'll tell you what. You and the young un go down and look in on Rainger. Make sure he's sleepin' the sleep of the just. Dammit, where do you suppose Potter's got to with that butler? I want to talk with him, and then I want a look round this room. Ah! He nodded almost affably when there was a knock at the door. Inspector Potter towered behind a rather frightened Thompson.
"Enfin!" growled H. M. "You're the man I want to see. Tut, now, I ain't goin' to hurt you! You may stay, Potter. Cut along, you other chaps. Come back here when you've finished. Rrrum! Now, then. I want to know just how bad that jaw of yours was last night, Thompson. Toothache's the devil, ain't it? I know. I was wonderin' if it let you get any sleep at all last night? If, for instance, you might have dozed off a bit towards the end of the night, about four or five o'clock..:'
That was all Masters and Bennett heard, for Masters closed the door. Then the stolid Chief Inspector lifted a big fist and shook it with violent pantomime in the dimly lighted gallery. Bennett said:
"What's on his mind? Have you got the cloudiest notion what's on his mind?"
"Yes," said Masters, and let his hand fall. "Yes. But, I tell you straight, I don't like to think what it means. Or — no. 'Tisn't exactly that I don't like to think of it, if he's got his eye on the man I think he has. But I don't see how he's going to prove it. There's gentlemen that are apt to be a bit too canny even for him. Above all, I don't see what he hopes to gain by reconstructing that attempt on the lady's life last night. Blast it, that seems unimportant! It's not as though the thing succeeded, you know."
"Yes. That's it. Can you hear that dog howling, now?'
"All dogs howl," said Masters curtly. "It seems we've got a job of work. Let's go to the chap's room and take his pulse. Great work for the CID. Eh? If he's not satisfactorily in a stupor, we shall probably catch it from Sir Henry. This way."
Rainger's room was near the head of the staircase, just at the turn of the gallery in the comparatively modem part of the house. A light shone out over the transom, and the door was partly open. Almost instinctively Masters jerked back as he heard voices. One was a woman's and it choked something between sobs. The other was Emery's, shrill with a sort of wild patience.
"Now listen!" Emery urged. "I've been trying to tell you for five minutes-stop bawling, will you? You've got me so jittery I can't sit still. Quit it! If you've got anything to tell me, go on and tell it. I'm listening. Here, for God's sake have some of this-have a drink of gin, huh? Now, listen, Miss Umm — what'd you say your name was?"
"Beryl, sir. Beryl Symonds."
"All right! Now take it easy. What were you trying to say?"
The choking voice controlled itself. "I tried, sir, honestly I tried to tell the gentleman this afternoon, really I did, but he was so awful blued that all he did was make a g — grab for me. And I was going to tell him I couldn't tell the master, because of course the master w-wouldn't understand and I should simply get the s-sack"
"Look," said Emery. "Are you trying to tell me Carl made a pass at you? Is that it?"
"They said you were a friend of his, sir, and you won't make me tell! You mustn't. He told me this morning when I brought him his tea, `You was right'; that's what 'e said; `you was right!' I mean, for turning the key last night. And I told him what they was saying about the murder being done, and he turned a funny color first he was already getting blued, you see-and he come running after me, truly he did, pulling on a bathrobe and saying, `Good girl, good girl; well, if I come into this, you know where I was last night, don't you?' And I said, Yes. But —'
Masters knocked at the door and pushed it open with almost the same gesture.
Something that was probably sheer terror prevented the girl from screaming out. She jerked back and said, "Oh my God, it's the police!" It was Emory, white-faced and dishevelled, who leaped up from his chair, spilling a lurid-covered magazine out of his lap; and he choked back a nervous yelp just in time.
He had been sitting beside a tumbled bed, empty, and near him on the table burned a lamp with a newspaper tied round its shade. There were several bottles, two of them empty, on the table; it was sticky with lemon-peel, soda-water, and sugar; and even the filled ashtrays were damp. Stale smoke hung against the dull lamplight, and the air was nauseously
"Quite right," said Masters. "It's the police. And I'm the one who wants to hear your story, Miss."
"Look," said Emery. He sat down again. He took the stump of a cigarette from a comer of the ashtray, and his hand shook when he put it to his lips. "What kind of crazy business is going on in this place? Somebody knocks at the door, and you open it and there's nobody there. And the lights are out. And somebody ducks around a corner of the hall. "
"What's this?"
"I'm not kidding you! Ask her. It was a little while ago; I don't know when. It can't be Carl being funny, because he never gets that kind of a drunk. Never has, since I've known him I'm telling you, it scared the pants off me for a second. Like somebody was calling my attention to something. I don't know. Crazy, like."
Masters' glance darted to the bed. "Where," he said, "is Mr. Rainger?"
"Oh, he's all right. He went out to-" Emery glanced at the girl, checked himself, and said: "He went to the bath. They feel better when you let 'em alone. But I'm telling you, Cap, that man can't hold much more liquor, or you're gonna have a case of acute alcoholism on your hands. He-"
"Yes," said Masters. "The young lady."
Beryl Symonds had backed away. She was a small brunette, with a pretty if rather heavy face, a somewhat dumpy figure, and earnest brown eyes swollen with weeping. She wore a maid's cap and apron, which she seemed trying to arrange.
She burst out suddenly: "I seen all his pictures! He directs 'em. His name's in as big letters as 'ers. And I couldn't see the harm in talking, but I don't want the sack. Please I don't want the sack!"
"I talked to you," said Masters with slow deadliness, "this afternoon. You said you knew nothing about what had happened last night. That'll tell against you, you know. Were you ever up before a magistrate?"
By degrees they got the story. Bennett, always with the twisted, despairing, and rather ludicrous figure of Rainger in his mind, wondered why he had not anticipated it. Psychologically, it was a!most inevitable with Rainger. He might even have anticipated the twisted and ludicrous sequel. Beryl Symonds had been told to light the fire and prepare Rainger's room when he arrived the afternoon before. He had seen her then; but he had done nothing but give her a certain jocose pinch ("which some gentlemen does, and some gentlemen doesn't"), and mutter arch incomprehensibilities as she left left the room. She had been All of a Flutter, really. And flattered. She had not seen him until late last night, at eleven o'clock, when she was going up to bed. The Master and his guests had been coming back from looking at King Charles's Room. Rainger was some little distance behind the rest, seeming "upset, and mad, and very funny." All of a sudden he stopped and looked at her, waiting till the others were out of sight.
Inevitable? Well, the idea had been that she was to come down to his room at two o'clock when the rest were asleep and he should tell her all about Hollywood. He said that he had a bottle of gin. He said to hell with everything. And she was so much All of a Flutter with the romantic adventure, "just like the films he makes, and think of me in them," that she had said maybe. She went upstairs with the flutter growing; she whispered it to Stella, who had the same room with her, and Stella had a fit and said, "Holy Mother, don't be a daft silly; suppose the master sees you?"
"Never mind that," said Masters. "Did you come down at two o'clock?
But both he and Bennett were beginning to realize the meaning of Rainger's last satiric snarl at Kate Bohun when he went upstairs at half-past one. Beryl cried out, and kept repeating over and over, that all she had meant was to come down and look at him. She seemed to derive strength from this notion of coming down for a last look, and reconnoitering, and making up her mind when she saw him then..
"But when I did go down, I knew I oughtn't to stay the minute I got inside the door. Because Mr. Rainger was a-drinking already, and walking about, and muttering things to himself. Then he turned round and saw me. He started to laugh. For a minute when I saw his face I was so clear awful frightened I couldn't move; that's when I knew it was wrong to come down… "
"Yes, yes; never mind that. What did you do?"
"'E started over after me, sir. And then I saw the key was in the outside of the door, so I got out and pulled the door shut and turned the key in the lock."
Masters looked at Bennett, and slowly rubbed his hand across his forehead.
"But you opened it again, I daresay?" he demanded.
"No, sir! I even held on to the knob outside, and I'd got such a scare I didn't move. And then he called, not very loud, so I could hear him through the transom; 'e said, `What's the idea of this?' That's what 'e said. And then started to get mad and said, `Better open that door, if you don't want me to smash it and rouse the 'ouse, and then where'll you be?' And I couldn't think of anything to say, except I said, `You'd better not,' I said, `because if you do you'll look an awful silly ass, sir, won't you?"'
Beryl swallowed hard. She stared from one to the other of them.
"It was all I could think of to say!" she cried defensively. "And, anyway, it usually stops the gentlemen."
"Quite," said Masters, with noncommittal heaviness. "Well?"
"Then I didn't know what to do, sir, because I was afraid to unlock it, and I didn't want to stay there in the gallery for fear the master might come along like 'e does. So I backed away and stood at the end of the gallery. And he didn't say anything, or make any more noise at all, till 'e tried to climb out through the transom."
"Through the transom," repeated Masters. "What was he wearing then?"
"Wearing? I won't stand," cried Beryl, "for them hints! I won't! I'd rather get the s-sack. 'E was dressed! 'E was in shirt-sleeves. But I knew he couldn't get out by the transom, because it opens the other way; and all he did was get himself mucky on the shoulders a-trying to squeeze through. So he stopped. And I heard 'im say, `You're still there, I'll bet. Never mind. I'm a-going to get drunk.' And he laughed a little. And I was so frightened at the way he said that. sir, I ran on upstairs, and that's the truth so help me, and I didn't let 'im out till morning."
Masters lowered his head.
"Sunk," he said. "Second explanation shot to blazes. And Sir Henry knew it would be, somehow. So that's what the chap meant by saying he had an alibi!" He turned fiercely to Beryl. "Well? What about this morning?"
"Why, I opened the door. And in the meantime there was this awful talk about murder. So I thought, `Aaoow! If 'e tries to say anything to me, and 'e's mad, I'll stop him by telling him first off Miss Tait's gone, poor lady" For a moment Beryl's tears nearly overflowed again. "And it w — worked. So help me, I thought it'd kill 'im. And right away he grabbed my arm and said, `Bohun did it, didn't he? Where's Bohun now?' And I said, `The Master?' And 'e said you know, a word I won't say-'No! the other one.' And I said I didn't know what could 'ave 'append to Mr. John, because his bed wasn't slept in but his things was scattered about; and I told him what I'd 'eard downstairs. Then he wanted me to tell them, in case there was trouble for 'im, about being locked in the room. And I said I would, just to get away from him then. But now Stella's saying the Master says 'e did do it, and I was trying to tell this gentleman. "
"Get out," said Masters.
"Sir?"
"Go on, Miss. Hop it! That's all. Now, now, don't come grabbing my arm, Miss; I'll see what can be done about you. I'm a copper, blast it! That's all I can say, but I'll do what I can."
When she had been urged out of the door, Masters turned back again and shook his fist.
Masters said bitterly: "Very fine and revealing. I'm beginning to see through Rainger to the core. I understand now what's been on his mind; I understand every word he said to us this morning; and I also see why he wasn't anxious to explain what his alibi was. But it don't help us! Eh?"
"He's taking," said Bennett, "a devil of a long time to come back here."
He was startled at his own words. Staring at the empty and tumbled bed, at the mess of bottles on the table, he found himself half hypnotized by the glow of the lamp with the newspaper round its shade. The light gleamed through smeary print, and a part of a headline was traced out on it. He could make out only one word, shaky on the crumpled paper, but it grew more clear in black letters as he looked…
"A long time," he repeated, "to come back. Oughtn't we-'
"Nonsense!" said Masters. "There's somebody coming now."
It was not Rainger. It was H. M., alone. He stood massive in the doorway; still inscrutable, but humped and dangerous. He came in, closed the door after looking round outside, and stood against it.
Masters wearily took out his notebook. "We've got more evidence, sir. I don't know whether you suspected it or not, but Rainger's got an alibi. There's a girl… I'll read it to you. Rainger hasn't come back yet, but it clears him absolutely."
"You don't need it, son," replied H. M. slowly. "He's never comin' back."
The terrible deadness and force of those words struck into the room as sharply as a cry. Outside the wind had fallen nearly to silence; the whole house was very still. Bennett glanced at H. M., who stood with his arms outspread against the tall door, and then back again to the dullglowing newspaper round the lamp. The word that stood out was murder.
After a silence H. M. lumbered up to the table. He glanced at Masters and then Bennett and then Emery.
"We four," he said, "are goin' to have a council-of-war about tonight. My scheme still holds, y'see; and the insane part of all this is that the scheme's better than ever, if we've got the nerve and the callousness to put it through. D'you believe in the Devil, Masters? Do you believe in the devil as a human entity, that listens at keyholes and taps at doors and moves people's lives like a set of dominoes'.. Steady, now. Rainger's dead. He was strangled and thrown down those stairs in King Charles's Room. Poor swine! He was too drunk to defend himself, but not too drunk to think. Thinking killed him. What's that you got in the bottle? Gin? I hate gin, but I'll take one neat. He wasn't very pretty in life, and he's even less pretty when he's dead. I can rather sympathize with him now.
"But," Emery shrilled, "he went out to-"
"Uh-huh. That's what you thought. Ever know that chap when he was too far gone to keep some part of his brain still clickin'? He went out, and surprised Somebody down in that room at the end of the gallery. Somebody strangled him and chucked him downstairs… I'm a pompous ass, ain't I?" inquired H. M., opening and shutting his hands. He peered at Bennett. "I kept jeerin' at your bogies and noises. And, all the while I was sittin' in that room, that poor frustrated swine of a Rainger was lying at the foot of the steps with his face blue and fingermarks on his throat. But how was I to know it? I only suspected one thing. I didn't suspect murder. We only saw it when Potter and I looked at the stairs. -Easy, Masters! Where are you goin'?"
The Chief Inspector's voice shook a little. "Where would I be going, sir?" he demanded. "This puts the lid on it I'm going to find out where everybody in this house…"
"No you're not, son. Not if I can prevent you. Nobody else in this house is to know he's dead."
"What?"
"That's what I said. Potter's guardin' him, and Potter won't let anybody in. What can we do for him now, except piously take off our hats? He's dead. We're goin' to leave him exactly where he is, Masters, for maybe a few hours. It may be a brutal trick; it may be insultin' the clay to turn it into a dummy for a show; but the show's goin' to go on according to program. When our little group goes to that staircase in the dark, and the candle's held up, they'll see him down there just as he fell. All right. I'll have that drink now."
He took bottle and glass from Emery's unsteady hands, and then looked at Emery, who had sat down on the bed.
"I got some instructions for you, son. I want you to listen carefully, and for God's sake don't deviate from what I tell you. You're the only one who can carry it off to convince 'em, because you're Rainger's friend. You're not to go down to dinner. You're to stay here, with that door locked on the inside. If anybody comes to the door, no matter who it is or on whatever pretext, you're not to open it. You're to tell 'em through the door that Rainger is waking up from his stupor, but that he's a pretty unsightly object and you won't show him until he's presentable. Got that?"
"Yes, but-?'
"All right. As soon after dinner as we can manage, the whole crowd of us will come up here for a little experiment in King Charles's Room. Never mind exactly what it is. If anybody tries to rout Rainger out to make him take part in it, use the same excuse as before. Jim Bennett here will take Rainger's place in the experiment, and I'm goin' to be Marcia Tait. I don't dare have Masters directly on the scene; and he's goin' to be, for a certain very good reason, at the foot of the staircase. When we've gone into King Charles's Room, so that they still think you're back here, sneak out of this room; go down there; stand in the doorway, and watch. They probably won't notice you. They'll be on the landing, and there'll be no lights but a candle. Whatever you see or hear that you don't expect, don't say anything until I give you the word. Is that clear?"
Masters struck his fist on the table.
"But look here, sir! Can't you give us some intimation as to what you do expect? I'll fall in with this lunacy, if you like. But you're not mad enough to imagine that the murderer will give himself away when he sees Rainger's body down there, are you? The murderer knows it's there."
H. M. regarded him curiously. With a shark-like gulp, and without apparent effort, he swallowed three fingers of neat gin. Then he stared at the glass.
"You still don't see it, do you? Well, never mind. I got some instructions for you too. Better come down with me and take a look at Rainger. I'm afraid The Devil hasn't left much of a signature; but we'll grub round a bit and see. Hey!" He shook Emery's shoulder. "Pull yourself together, son. Yes, and you too. Fine nephew I got, lookin' pale around the gills! When you go down to dinner, act natural! Understand?"
"I'm all right," said Bennett. "But I was just wondering how much dinner you expect a person to eat. Is that included, with your little scheme in front of us? Look here, sir, it's not on the level! It's a damned dirty trick! Pull all the games you like on us, but what about those women? What are they going to feel like when they look down? Louise has had about enough shocks as it is; and you know she's not guilty. You know Kate isn't guilty either. Then what's the use in dangling a dead man in front of them, like a kid with a rubber spider on a wire?"
H. M. set down the glass. He lumbered to the door, and turned only when he beckoned to Masters.
"It's a conjurin' trick," he said, "that I can't explain now. But I've got to do it. And my rubber spider's goin' to bite somebody, son, unless I'm very much mistaken. All I've got to tell you is that you'll let me down badly, and you'll do something that won't be pleasant for you to remember when you see the consequences, if you give a hint to anybody as to what's goin' on. Understand? Anybody. Come on, Masters. "
He opened the door. Mellow and deep through the house, but with something in its note at once of terror and finality, quivered the stroke of the dinner-gong.