Читать книгу Bats in the Belfry - Edith Caroline Rivett - Страница 5

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Neil Rockingham did not stay long in Paris. A week after he had left London he was back again in his little Mayfair house, and the first thing he did on his return was to ring up Robert Grenville. The latter hailed the call with satisfaction.

“I say, I’m jolly glad you’re back. I’ve got some news for you, of a sort. Can I roll round now? I want to talk things over.”

“Good. Come straight here. I can give you a scratch meal of sorts. Don’t bother to dress. In about half an hour? Excellent!”

When Grenville was ensconced in Rockingham’s room—it was then about seven o’clock, the latter having reached Charing Cross Station at six—the dramatist said abruptly:

“Any luck in the matter of our friend Debrette?”

“Well, so-so. I ran him to earth. Before I spill my yarn, I wish you’d tell me this. Did you see Attleton in Paris?”

“No, I didn’t. I’m worried to death about him, Grenville. He booked a room at the Bristol, but he didn’t turn up. I rang up Sybilla to find if he’d changed his plans, and she said no. He was in Paris, or if he weren’t, she didn’t know where he was.”

“I see. Well, wherever else he went, I’m prepared to wager he didn’t go to Paris.”

“What the deuce do you mean?” Rockingham held a lighted match in his fingers, preparatory to lighting his pipe, but Grenville’s sentence made him forget all about the pipe, and the match burnt down to his finger so that he dropped it with an oath as the flame touched him.

“It’s a longish story. I’d better begin at the beginning.”

With a neat turn for narrative, Grenville described his visit to The Knight Templar, and his subsequent exploration and discomfiture. He laughed aloud as he told of the whisky which so unexpectedly greeted him at the strange doorway of The Morgue, but Rockingham’s fair face did not lose its frown of troubled expectancy, and Grenville hurried on with his story.

“When I woke up next day, I can tell you I felt pretty mad. No one likes to be made to feel such a sanguinary ass as I felt when I heard that blighter cackling behind his sported oak. I thought I’d like to get even with him.”

“If you’d only not butted in,” began Rockingham in a schoolmasterly voice, and Grenville sat up and fairly let fly.

“Look here. You can sit there like an animated bust and lecture the book shelves if you like, and I’ll buzz off home and leave you to it, but don’t expect too much of human nature. You ask me to do the donkey work, and then expect me to switch off like an automatic gramophone and forget the last record. It won’t do, old boy! You gave me a hand to play, and I played it in my own way. If you don’t like it, say so. I’ll keep my scoop to myself and be damned to you.”

Rockingham hastened to apologise. “Sorry, Grenville. The fact is I’m worried, and consequently unreasonable. Go on, for God’s sake, and get to the doings, whatever they are.”

“Right oh!—and not so much about butting in,” said Grenville, his square chin tilted up aggressively, but a grin on his wide, good-humoured mouth. “Thinking it over I decided I’d go and call on Mr. Bloody Debrette next day—with a pepper-pot. I woke up full of beans, pocketed the pepper-pot, and round I mooched to The Morgue. When I got there I met a young fella in a billycock hat coming out of the door. ‘And what might you require?’ sez he, for all the world like a draper. I said I wanted my friend Debrette, and he says, ‘Oh, he’s gone. Lease up yesterday. He’s left no address.’ ‘Sorry about that,’ sez I, and made for the gate, not wanting this young house-agent’s errand boy on my heels. After a diplomatic circuit of the neighbourhood I came back to The Morgue. Place fascinated me—I wanted to get inside. On further inspection I found a sort of trap-door effect that led to a coal cellar—quite unfastened, and in I popped. I won’t bore you with descriptions of the place—you can wait till you see it—but I’ll just tell you this. The place I got in was a coal cellar, pretty foul and all that, but there was a smart leather suitcase lying in one corner. I opened it—a liberty, perhaps, and all that—but it intrigued me. You see, it was Bruce Attleton’s suitcase.”

“Hell!” Rockingham fairly jumped in his seat. “Good God, man! Don’t you see this may mean something ghastly! It’s no joke, Grenville. Heavens above!”

“Keep your wool on, old man,” replied Grenville. “This is where you need a cool head—and remember the bit about fools butting in.” He grinned, not without malice. “I don’t know what Bruce is up to, but maybe it’s some little game of his own that he won’t thank you to publish. I’ve often wondered whether Bruce hadn’t some little affair of his own on when Sybilla was so snorty to him.”

He looked Rockingham straight in the face and saw him flush. “Thought as much. We’re not all of your equable temperament. However, that’s as may be. I tell you I opened the suitcase. All neatly packed, pyjamas, sponge-bag and what nots, a copy of the London Mercury—and his passport, in the pocket inside the lid. Wherefore I say—he’s not gone to Paris. Perfectly sound, what?”

Rockingham bent and knocked out his pipe on the bars of the grate with a deliberation which was almost exaggerated. His lofty brow was creased in thought, and his eyes, when they met Grenville’s again, were very troubled. He spoke quietly this time.

“Perfectly sound.” His voice was dry. “This has got to be looked into, Grenville. I’m not misjudging you, I know your flippancy’s just skin deep—like my censoriousness. This may mean the deuce of a lot of trouble, putting it at the lightest count. It may mean something much more grim—in which case, God help us! Now you say that you broke into this damned place—last Saturday, wasn’t it? Presumably what you did once, we can do again.”

“Undoubtedly,” replied Grenville, “but I think we’d better have all the cards on the table this time. First—are you going to make a police matter of it right away?”

“No.” Rockingham’s deep voice was very decided. “Not until—or unless—we make some further discovery which will take the matter out of our hands. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m a law-abiding man, not one of those half-baked fools who think criminal investigation is the province of the amateur. But first, I’d like to decide that there is a case for the police. If Bruce is just up to some of his wild-cat games, the less muck-raking the better.”

“Ker-wite. Meaning I heartily agree. Next. A straight question. How much do you know about this Debrette?”

Rockingham met Grenville’s inquiring eyes squarely.

“Nothing at all, barring what I told you, absolutely nothing. I saw the chap on the occasion I mentioned, and I heard his voice on the phone. I couldn’t get a word out of Bruce about him.”

“Right. Now for the house-breaking.” Grenville produced a key from his pocket, a remarkably large, clumsy affair. “That, oh reverend senior, is the key of Ye Morgue. Having done a spot of investigation it occurred to me that it might be as well to legalise the position. I’m like you—all for law and order—on occasions. I climbed out of the cellar and then went and called on the leading house-agents nearby in that very desirable neighbourhood. As I told you, the place is at the fag end of a ground lease. In a few months it goes to the housebreakers—quite time, too, and the chap who’s got the end of the lease on his hands would let it to the devil himself for tuppence. The agents are bored stiff with it, but quite willing to rake in an extra commission. They made no bones about letting it to me for three months at a pound a week, tenant responsible for his own interior decorations. My aunt! I laughed till I rocked over that! I paid twelve quid down as rent in advance, thinking it might be bread cast upon the waters, and I’ve been camping out there at night, if you’ll believe me, waiting for Debrette—or Bruce Attleton—to come and retrieve the suitcase. Thoughtful, what?”

“Very thoughtful.” Rockingham’s quiet voice was grateful this time. “I apologise again for what I said about butting in, Grenville. You’ve been extraordinarily decent and sensible over the whole show, though I can’t help regretting that you didn’t take that bobby at his word, and make a charge against Debrette for unprovoked assault. Then we might have got him where we could find him.”

“D’you know, I’ve thought that once or twice myself, in the interim,” admitted Grenville. “But it was infernally difficult, you know. You’d warned me not to make too much palaver, and I didn’t want you to come home cursing me to hell for getting the whole show into the limelight. After all, I didn’t know—I don’t know now—what Bruce has been up to. If Debrette’s got hold of any murky secrets about Bruce’s affairs, the latter wouldn’t have thanked me for running the blighter in. Besides, I had myself to think about. When it comes to brass tacks I hadn’t a leg to stand on. I was trying to interview the chap under false pretences, when all’s said and done. Still, it’s a nice point as to whether I should have done better to try to get him run in.”

Rockingham got to his feet. “No use going over ‘ifs’,” he said. “You’ve done uncommonly well, and it was a damned good idea to get possession of that blasted place. By the way, what’ve you done about that coal hole?”

Grenville grimaced. “When I come away I fasten it up,” he said. “When I’m in residence I leave it open—with a booby trap of pails and what nots to give the alarm if anybody gets in. Still, I admit it’s a nervy business sleeping there.”

“Good God! I should say it is,” exclaimed Rockingham. “Well, there’ll be two of us to see to it in future. Now what about a meal? It’ll be out of tins, I warn you. I don’t keep any domestics on the premises—can’t be bothered with ’em. I have a saturnine dame who comes in and does the place in the mornings. She hardly ever speaks to me, thank God, and we suit one another admirably.”

He led the way downstairs to a tiny dining-room—there were only two rooms on each floor of the little house—and soon the two men sat down to the scrap meal. Since this was produced out of Fortnum and Mason’s dishes, Grenville had no fault to find with it, and the bottle of Liebfraumilch which accompanied it was of a quality no man could cavil at.

Grenville started talking about what he chose to call “l’affaire Debrette,” but Rockingham shook his head.

“Do for God’s sake leave the whole show alone for a bit. Honestly, I’m as puzzled as you are, but it’s no use hazarding suggestions. There are a dozen explanations which might fit, all equally far-fetched. Let’s give the subject a miss until we get to the blasted place.”

“Blasted just about suits it, with no exaggeration at all,” chuckled Grenville. “It’s got a blight on it. The roof leaks in so many places that the walls have grown a species of green mould. It’s clammy and mouldering and mildewed, and yet it has an awful air of fallen grandeur, of sanctity debased.”

“Chuck it,” groaned Rockingham. “Don’t try your journalistic gifts on me. They’re wasted. If you want to show your intelligence, tell me what you think of dramatising the Brontë works.”

Grenville found himself being hurried through one of the best arrangements of quails in aspic he had ever tasted. There was Stilton cheese, too, and a prime one at that, but no time to do it justice. Rockingham produced some old brandy, however, that Grenville sniffed lovingly at as he tilted it in its Venetian goblet. He guessed that his host was glad of that fine drink to enable him to keep up his pose of studied detachment. For all his superior air, Neil Rockingham was worried, and he was less able to conceal his perturbation than Grenville.

Swallowing down his drink in a manner that did it much less than justice, Rockingham said:

“We’ll take a taxi to Notting Hill Gate and then walk. Better not take the car. Might be noticed if we left it nearby.”

“If we left your Lagonda standing outside The Morgue I think it’s likely it might attract a little attention,” drawled Grenville. “Contrast a bit too striking, what?”

It was fine when they reached Notting Hill and they strode through the quiet streets at a great pace. When they reached the corner of Mulberry Hill and Rockingham saw the gargoyles at the angles of the tower he said:

“Good Lord! There’s no end to the fantastic things you come upon in London. If this were set in a woodland clearing you’d swear it was ages old.”

“Whereas it’s set in Notting Hill, and in daylight you can see it’s the most lunatic jumble of Victorian Gothic mixed with Oriental detail and debased Byzantine embellishments,” said Grenville airily. “This way, old man, and watch your step! The paving’s none too even.”

Opening the door at which he had suffered his repulse five nights ago, Grenville fumbled for a switch, and Rockingham found himself in a porch with a vaulted roof, the walls of which had once been stencilled with Oriental patterns, but which were now discoloured and mouldy. Having shot the bolts on the heavy door, Grenville opened another door in the farther wall of the porch, pressed down a switch inside and flung the door wide, saying:

“Well, here we are! I never thought to possess a studio of my own, let alone one so spacious.”

Rockingham stood by the door post like a man petrified.

“Good God!” he exclaimed. “Good God!”

It was a weird sight. Two immensely powerful electric bulbs hung from the lofty roof and shed their naked rays over the vast hall. The floor was littered with the remains of a sculptor’s craft, chips of marble, lumps of clay, unfinished models, filthy wrappings. One or two ancient modelling stands and a drunken-looking easel were there, together with a crazy-looking camp bed, half concealed by torn curtains hanging from rods, and a dirty sink was set against one wall. On a low platform at the farther end stood an old concert grand, very long and gaunt, and above the centre of the floor a tarpaulin had been rigged up, fastened by cords reaching out to the side walls. Beyond the platform the groining of a shadowy apse was visible, and when Grenville switched on the lights there was a flutter of wings in the darkness of the beamed roof overhead, and the call of a startled bird.

“Well, I’m absolutely and completely damned!” said Rockingham. “I’ve never seen anything so demented looking in this world. My dear chap, you don’t mean to say you’ve been sleeping here?”

“Well, more or less,” replied Grenville. “I’ve spent the night here, anyway. I thought if Debrette did come back, he’d be more likely to come by night than by day. I’m not troubled with nerves, and this crazy place has actually fascinated me a bit. There’s a gas-ring, you see, and water laid on, and a stove if you care to light it—all modern conveniences, in short. Then there are mice, nice appealing little beggars, not too shy, and cats who get in God knows how, and birds who roost in the beams up there, to say nothing of the owls in the tower—quite a nice rural touch about that. I brought my own blankets, but the camp bed seemed quite clean. It’s in a good strategic position. The roof doesn’t leak over that bit.”

Rockingham walked slowly down the littered floor, looking almost fearfully to left and right.

“That any one should live in such a place is simply inconceivable to me,” he said, but Grenville replied:

“Oh, you’re an epicure, spoiled with the flesh-pots of Mayfair. I’ve seen many a studio in Paris which was a long chalk worse than this one. I wish I’d got a pile of money, I’d buy the place and do it up properly. Gorgeous place to live! I tell you I got a fright one night. That jolly piano up there is rusted all to glory, most of the strings bust, but one of the remaining bass strings took it into its head to snap just after I’d turned the lights off. It was uncanny. First a report which sounded as loud as a pistol shot, then the quiver and hum of the string springing back, and that woke the echo of every remaining string—the dampers have all rotted to glory—and the whole thing seemed to sing. Then a cat began to howl in accompaniment and the owls woke up and hooted. Very pretty! A sort of diabolic concert.”

Rockingham shook his head. “Well, I’ve never thought I was a coward. I went through the war like other folk, but I’d rather put up with a night’s bombardment than spend one here. It’s beastly—uncanny.”

“Oh, rot! A whole succession of chaps have lived and worked here. If Mr. Dago-Face wasn’t afraid of the creeps, why should I be? As a matter of fact, the bed was in the vestry, or robing room, or high priest’s chamber—a cubby hole over there, but I somehow preferred to be in the open if you see what I mean.”

He led the way across the hall and pushed open a door leading to a small room less than half the height of the main building. “This is what the agents describe as bedroom, bathroom and kitchenette. Fact! There’s a bath in the cupboard effect beyond, and a range of sorts. The cellar stairs are through here.”

He stopped and glanced back over his shoulder.

“Shall I turn out those lights in there? We’re advertising our occupation to folks outside.”

“No matter,” said Rockingham. “In any case, I want to have a good look over the place, and we can’t do it in the dark. Be damned to whoever is outside.”

“Now if you were Bruce Attleton, I should expect you to behave just as you’re behaving now,” said Grenville. “You’ve made up your mind that something ghastly’s happened.”

“I can’t help it, my dear chap. There can’t be any normal explanation of Bruce’s suitcase, unlocked, in a cellar in a place like this. The fact that Debrette has bolted makes it all the more sinister.”

“Rotten word that. Anyway, how d’you know that Bruce isn’t tailing the other bird? The steps are down here. I’ve left the suitcase where I found it. Take my flash lamp. There’s no light down there.” Rockingham went forward to the door which the other indicated, and turned his light on to the stone steps which led downwards, and began to descend. Grenville added:

“Be careful of the steps, they’re slippery. Hell! What’s that?”

A sound of something falling came from the hall behind them, and the younger man turned back, saying, “Confound it! I know I bolted the damned door. There’s no other way in.” He sprang across the little room and lunged out into the hall—and then the lights went out.

Rockingham, at the bottom of the shallow flight of stairs, let out a yell.

“Here, stay where you are until I come, you fool!” His words were drowned by a crash up above, and then equally incomprehensibly the lights flashed out again.

His heart pounding, Rockingham dashed up the mildewed stairs, slipped, came down on one knee, swore, recovered himself, and gained the body of the hall to see Grenville sitting on the floor, his hands touching a red weal on his forehead.

“The bastard!” he said thickly. “Caught me one on the head in the dark. Bat me one over the boko, as I said to Elizabeth.”

“Look here, I’ve had about enough of this,” said Rockingham disgustedly. Having bent over Grenville to ascertain the extent of his injuries, he stood up again and glared round the dishevelled-looking studio. It was empty save for their two selves, and the door by which they had entered remained shut. “I don’t believe in spooks and what nots,” he said. “There’s somebody in the damned place, and I’m going to find them.”

“It wasn’t a spook that biffed me,” complained Grenville, struggling up on to his knees. “Got a flask on you, old chap? I can see myriad stars and all that.”

“Brandy’s no good to you then,” replied Rockingham severely, speaking in that schoolmasterly tone of his which always made Grenville feel obstreperous. “Stay where you are till the dizziness goes off. I’ll get a cold compress on that thick head of yours. Is the water in that tap drinkable?”

Grenville grinned feebly. “Water!” he protested disgustedly. “Good to wash in, you blighter.”

“It’s all you’ll get from me. Never give a head injury spirits. I studied medicine for a bit once, if it interests you.”

He went to the sink and drenched his large silk handkerchief under the tap, as cool now as he had been rattled when he first came in. Grenville, still feeling sick and shaky, grinned feebly and demanded, “What do you do if the lights go out again?”

“They can’t—not while I’ve got my eye on those switches,” retorted Rockingham. “I told you—I’ve no use for spooky theories. The lights went out because someone turned ’em out. Hold on to that flash-lamp and keep your own wool on!”

He returned with the wet handkerchief and a cup full of water, and tied up Grenville’s head with skilful fingers.

“Now you stay where you are, young fellow, while I mooch round. I’m going to consider the door fastenings first.”

“He’s not such a frightened auntie as I thought him,” meditated Grenville, swallowing the cold water quite gratefully. “Funny—show him a spot of something that looks like danger, and he’s as cool as a cucumber. Blast my head! It’s just spinning.”

Rockingham was thorough in his survey. He found that there were three doors in all—one to the porch, one to the bedroom-kitchenette, and one to the tower. Of these, the porch and tower entrances had their bolts shot on the inside. The great west door, which Grenville had seen from the outside, overgrown with ivy, was boarded up on the inside. The only possible exit for Grenville’s assailant was through the cellar, where Rockingham had been when the lights went out. Examining this, he found that Grenville’s strategic arrangement of pails and tin trays was undisturbed. It seemed incredible that anyone could have got out that way without making a din which would have echoed throughout the place.

Grenville got to his feet after awhile, and walked round with Rockingham, while the latter, more and more exasperated, hunted in cupboards and shook out curtains which contained spiders and moths in abundance. It was all quite futile, and at last Grenville burst into a shout of laughter at the sight of the immaculate Rockingham, ruining his trousers by kneeling on the filthy floor, make a wild tug at a boot under the camp bed. It was a very old boot, and contained nothing at all but beetles.

“Glad you think it’s funny,” growled Rockingham. “It’s a wash out, so far as our search is concerned. There must be a trap-door or something which we haven’t spotted. I’m not going to fool around any more. It’s the police after this.”

“Well, it’s your pigeon,” returned Grenville, “though I must admit I’d like to get to grips with the sportsman first. That’s twice he’s done the dirty on me.”

“And there’s not going to be a third time if I can help it,” retorted Rockingham. “I’m going to take that suitcase away. No object in leaving it here for the devil to pinch it, and make us look bigger fools than we shall look already when a police inspector starts asking us questions.”

“Sure it hasn’t gone already—from under your very nose?” inquired Grenville sweetly, and Rockingham swore, and dashed off to the stairway, returning shortly, suitcase in hand.

“Weighs about a ton,” he grumbled. “I hope to God we find a taxi. Always loathed lugging things round. Come along, Grenville. No object in stopping in this foul place any longer.”

They locked the door which Grenville insisted on calling the “vestry door,” and when they stood in the porch again, and had switched off the lights in the hall, Grenville called into the darkness:

“All right, Mr. Bloody Debrette! Two tricks to you. You wait, that’s all! I’ll get my own back before long.”