Читать книгу Bats in the Belfry - Edith Caroline Rivett - Страница 4

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It was two nights later, on the evening of the day when Neil Rockingham had gone to Paris, that Grenville began his researches into the matter of Debrette’s abode.

Walking home in the fog, after his talk with Rockingham, Grenville had done some hard thinking. The story he had heard struck him as peculiar, but he had sensed something odd about Attleton’s behaviour of late. When Grenville had first met him, three years ago, Bruce Attleton had been a cheery soul, a bit caustic in wit, perhaps, a little on the precious side, but good company, and full of mirth. Recently his good humour had deserted him and he had become increasingly irritable and nervy, so that his friends found him a trial and his wife grew tired of his captiousness. Grenville, observant and keen-witted, guessed that the charming house in Park Village South was kept up mainly on Sybilla’s money, for Bruce Attleton had not sustained his early success as a writer. Two bestsellers and then flop, meditated Grenville. Didn’t do to succeed too early. Better build up a reputation slowly.

Nevertheless, he thought to himself, there was no reason why Attleton should be so intransigent over the matter of Elizabeth’s marriage. She was nineteen, by no means too young to know what she wanted, especially in these days when the young arrived at early conclusions as to the problems of life, and as for Grenville, he was as much in love as a healthy young man of thirty could be. Wait for two years, till Elizabeth attained her majority and was free of her guardian? Two years? Hell! Grenville guessed that his chance of marrying her would grow steadily less good with every day of those two years.

As he walked eastwards through the fog it was not unnatural that something inside his head asked, “Anything for me in all this?” If all was fair in love and war, what was against him, Robert Grenville, discovering some lever to move the obstinacy of a guardian over that hedged-in privilege of powers concerning his ward? Grenville was fair-minded and honest enough, but he was very much in love, and his blood was hot within. Small wonder that he scorned the cautiousness of that careful old stick, Neil Rockingham, and let his mind wander afield over the possibilities latent in that queer conversation. Blackmail? suggested a voice inside him, realising that what he contemplated was not far removed from that unsavoury practice. Well, damn it, this ward and guardian business was a species of slavery, anyway, and a man had no business to be a guardian at all if he were susceptible to the activities of blackmailers.

“No harm in looking into it, anyway,” Grenville had said to himself. “It’s probably all a mare’s nest, anyway. Someone dunning Attleton for a gambling debt, and trying to frighten him into paying up. Rockingham’s got rattled over young Fell pipping off like that, and he’s just looking for trouble.”

Nevertheless, when Grenville had got into bed that night he admitted to himself that it wasn’t like Rockingham to get rattled. He was generally the most level-headed of men.

It was on a Friday evening that Grenville paid his first visit to The Knight Templar, which he found by asking a newspaper vendor at Notting Hill Gate Station. Even with the very precise directions given by the knowledgeable paper-man (and Grenville was quick to recognise an authority on pubs when he met one) it took him a long while to find Mulberry Hill where this particular pub was situated. It was a horrible evening, raining miserably with an admixture of sleet, and Grenville cursed the quiet little roads of Notting Hill as he trudged along, raincoat buttoned up to his chin, pipe turned downwards in his mouth.

Mulberry Hill, when he reached it, seemed the most improbable road on earth to boast a public house. It was a wide, quiet street—what the house agents would call “a good residential quarter,” with pleasant little stucco-covered houses, well set back in gardens, and shady with trees. Grenville knew enough about the neighbourhood to know that there were plenty of studios hereabouts. Gittings, the portrait painter, had a big place nearby in Burdon Hill; old Sir George Crampton had lived in the same road, and Delaney, the black-and-white man, had his place in Burdon Place—though why the deuce Rockingham supposed his dago was connected with the arts, Grenville couldn’t see.

Just when he was feeling most depressed, and apparently miles away from any pub of any kind, Grenville saw the lights and the signboard of the very discreet-looking tavern which called itself The Knight Templar. It appeared to have got there by mistake, and looked more like an ordinary residence than a public house, standing back in its little garden, with a few modest signboards to betoken the beers it proffered.

Once in the bar, Grenville was quick to decide that as pubs went, this was a good pub, and with a double whisky inside him felt more amiably disposed to this quarter of London. They were a mixed lot in the saloon bar—a couple of men in dinner jackets arguing earnestly together, one or two prosperous-looking tradesmen, discussing greyhound racing with a fellow whom Grenville took to be a bookie, and a tall man in rather shabby clothes who looked a somebody in spite of an ancient coat worn over an old pullover. It was to the latter that Grenville addressed himself, getting on to the topic of renting a studio. He knew enough artist’s jargon to keep his end up, and was soon able to bring in the name of Debrette, whom he believed “hung out somewhere in the neighbourhood.” The painter to whom he was talking cocked up an eyebrow.

“Debrette? Sculptor, isn’t he? Friend of yours?”

“Umps... so so. Friend of a friend,” replied Grenville.

“Quaint bird—and he’s got a damn’ quaint corner to roost in. Shouldn’t care for it myself. I should drink myself blind if I lived in that place.”

“Where does he live exactly? I want to look him up.”

“Lord, you’ll have a fit when you see it. Some wag called it the Morgue. It’s the devil of a fine studio, but enough to give you the blue jimmies. I forget who built the place, some rum sect with a religion of their own, and a private Messiah. Must have had pots of money. Anyway, it was a place of worship way back in the nineties, then the sect died out, or the money died out, and it was derelict for years. Eventually some chap bought it and turned it into a studio, but it’s too big and too expensive, and it’s just been mouldering with occasional tenants in it for years. I believe it’s sold now, and they’re going to pull it down in a few months’ time and put flats up. I say, Melisande” (this to the barmaid), “who was the last chap who had the Morgue before old beaver took it on? That sculptor chap?”

“Mr. Lestways,” replied the lady in question. “He was a one, he was. I was told not to serve him at last. Half seas over all the time, he was.”

“Lestways, that was the chap. Hung himself to a beam in the jolly old place. Don’t wonder. There’s a tower at one end where owls nest, and bats. Great snakes! It’s a looney sort of hole.”

“Sounds jolly,” replied Grenville. “What about old Debrette? He dotty too?”

“Well, if he’s not a particular pal of yours I’ll admit I think he’s borrowed a bat or two from the belfry. Comes chasing in here and gets outside a couple in double quick time and goes chasing off again. Rum bird. Doing some big stuff, I believe, and wanted an adequate sized place. Well, he’s got it! I reckon you could seat five hundred in that barn, and it leaks like a colander in rainy weather. He says he’s fixed up a tarpaulin to keep his clay dry while he’s working.”

“He must be a bit dippy,” said Grenville, and the other replied:

“That’s about the size of it to my mind. You go and see him. It’s worth a visit. First on your right when you leave here, you can’t miss it.”

“Thanks. I’ll go and have a look-see,” replied Grenville. “I reckon it’s worth the walk.”

He paid for the drinks and buttoned up his coat again, feeling distinctly more cheerful than when he had come in, and walked out again into the chill, wet darkness. His mind was busy trying to sort things out and make sense of them. What could be the connection between a sculptor “with bats in the belfry” and Bruce Attleton, that distinguished ornament of the Authors’ Club, husband of the beautiful Sybilla? A doubt flashed through Grenville’s mind. Could this sculptor chap be another Debrette, a connection perhaps, of Rockingham’s “dago”?

“ ‘Run and find out’—like the mongoose,” said Grenville to himself, and took the first on the right as indicated.

The road he found himself in was wider than Mulberry Hill and planted with plane trees, and he soon caught sight of the building described by the painter in The Knight Templar. A gaunt tower showed up against the lowering sky, which was lit by the reflection of Neon lights in the West End. At the corner of the tower gargoyles stood out against the crazily luminous rain, and the long roof of the main body of the building showed black against the sky.

It was a queer-looking building to find among the prosperous houses of that pleasant-looking road, and Grenville was aware of a feeling of apprehension, quite unreasonable, at the sight of the dark massive structure. “The Morgue”—and a sculptor who hanged himself from a beam. “Jolly!” he said to himself, but having got so far he wasn’t going to funk that dark-looking pile. He went up to the iron gate which stood between the two imposing stone pillars and shook it, and found that it swung to his hand. Pushing it open, he went in, up a stone-flagged path, and found himself faced by an arched doorway, so overgrown with ivy that it was obvious it could not have been opened for years. He turned down the path which led by the side of the long hall and saw a light in a window at the end. Rehearsing to himself the story he had fabricated of a friend who wanted a portrait bust, he walked on until he found a doorway close below the lighted window. Here were deposited empty milk bottles and a tin dustbin—sure signs of occupation. In some way their appearance gave him confidence. Milk bottles. Nice and homely and commonplace. Perhaps the chap wasn’t batty after all. He glanced back at the lamp-lit street and heard the steady tramp of a constable on his beat, the hoot of a passing taxicab, and laughed at his own premonitions of a moment ago. Still—“odd things do happen in London,” he heard his own voice saying, and was glad that he had brought a good heavy stick. With that thought he raised his hand and gave a tug to the bell chain beside the door.

Hearing the clang of the bell inside, Grenville also heard his own heart beating. It was absurd, but the place was uncanny, something out of the normal. He heard footsteps on a stone floor within, and then a small panel was opened in the upper part of the door and light fell on Grenville’s face. He could see a dark shape against the light—a man’s head, but it was in silhouette, and he could not make out any detail.

“Yes, who is it?”

The voice from the open panel had an unmistakable accent—the “who” had no aspirate in it, and Grenville felt encouraged.

“Is that Mr. Debrette? I’ve been asked to look you up. A man I know wants a portrait bust done.”

“And who is your friend?”

“Chap named Martin. Never mind if you’re busy. It’s damned wet out here, and I’m not a philanthropist, nor yet a performing seal.”

The aggressiveness in Grenville’s voice seemed to please the other. He laughed and replied in a more friendly way:

“Milles pardons! This place is the ’ome of tramps. Wait. I will open the door. I am alone. I ’ave to be careful.”

There was a rattle of bolts, and then the door opened and a blaze of light from an unshaded bulb shone in Grenville’s face. He saw a man’s figure against the light, and was able to perceive that the man’s face was bearded and that he wore very large spectacles. Then the unexpected happened. A hand was raised, and the contents of a tumbler were shot in Grenville’s face. The tumbler contained whisky and soda, and the journalist staggered back, momentarily blinded and bewildered by the unexpected attack.

“Go back to your friend Attleton and tell ’im to go to the devil,” shrilled the bearded man at the door. “As for you, go! Allez vous en! Diable! Pah!”

With a final sound like a spitting cat, the man slammed the door, leaving Grenville out in the rain with whisky running down inside his collar, his eyes streaming with the smart of the spirit, and his temper very much in evidence. He heard a cackle of laughter before the sliding panel was closed, and in a fit of unreasoning rage he began to kick the solid door, mainly with the desire to vent his temper on something.

This unprofitable occupation was interrupted by a deep voice from the gate by the road.

“Now then, what’s all this about? Steady on there!”

Grenville found his handkerchief and wiped his eyes as a police constable appeared on the path.

“The damned blackguard chucked a glass of whisky at me.”

“Now you’d better get this straight,” said the constable firmly. “Any charge to make?”

Grenville collected his wits, which had been bemused by the unprovoked attack. He didn’t want complications with the police as the sum total of his evening’s activities.

“No. Sorry, constable. I expect I asked for it. He emptied his glass over me, dirty dog. Made me mad for a minute. I like whisky all right in the proper place. Smell my coat if you don’t believe me—and then the blighter laughed. Wouldn’t you have been mad yourself if any one played you a dirty trick like that?”

“Well, I’m not saying I wouldn’t,” replied the other gravely. “You artist gentlemen, you’re all the same. Better go home and sleep it off, sir.”

Grenville laughed. He couldn’t help it.

“I’m a damned great fool! Right-o, constable, only these little things get one’s goat.”

The large policeman led him down the path and finally shut the gate firmly behind him when they stood on the pavement outside.

“Now then, sir, you go straight home,” he admonished, and watched Grenville as he set off at a good round pace from the scene of his ignominious encounter.