A Man Lay Dead

Chapter XIV Meeting Adjourned

Sumiloff’s arms were beginning to ache and his legs were agonized with pins and needles. With somewhat unnecessary precaution they had strapped his wrists and ankles to the chair. The three other Russians were sitting over the empty grate talking intermittently and scarcely glancing at him. Yansen, the Scandinavian, was less detached. He leant across the table where only a little while before Nigel and Angela had tasted Alleyn’s port. Yansen was staring at Sumiloff and had just finished telling him all over again exactly what they proposed to do.

Vassily came into the room. His face was masked with a curious thick pallor. His look at Sumiloff suggested some sort of repressed compassion. He spoke swiftly in Russian and then for Yansen’s benefit in English.

“The man outside says Mr. Bathgate is coming now,” he said.

“We shall receive him,” said Yansen. He turned to the others. “Are you ready there?” he said. “It is quite simple. Vassily had better not open the door; if he were to do so it would make an awkwardness.” The others nodded and rose to their feet.

Nigel was in fact turning into the cul-de-sac at that moment. He could not imagine what had necessitated this unexpected move of Alleyn’s. Was he to walk into the meeting as if by accident? Was he merely to ask Vassily if a Mr. Sumiloff was there, or should he give Vassily the password and pretend, unconvincingly, that he was a member of this musical comedy society?

He looked fixedly at the shop opposite Alleyn’s house. Was the eye of the Yard observing him from behind those blind shutters? Would he find Alleyn already in possession?

He rang the bell and waited. The man who opened the door obviously was not Vassily. He was younger and taller, but the glare of light behind him prevented Nigel from seeing his face.

“Krasinski,” said Nigel self-consciously.

“That’s all right, Mr. Bathgate,” replied the man cheerfully. “Come right in.”

“Well, really!” said Nigel and he walked in. The man shut the door carefully and turned to the light

“You!” exclaimed Nigel.

“Yes, Mr. Bathgate. I was glad to find you at the Hungaria. You told me just what I wanted to know. Will you come along in, sir?”

Nigel followed him to the dining-room. At the door the man stood aside and Nigel, still very bewildered, went in. Sumiloff was sitting in the wooden chair with his wrists and ankles tied up. Three other men stood at the far end of the table and Vassily was behind them.

The man who had been at the Hungaria locked the door and joined the others.

“Sumiloff,” said Nigel, “what does all this mean?”

“You see for yourself,” said Sumiloff.

“Mr. Sumiloff has been a bit indiscreet,” remarked the tall man, “and so, if you’ll excuse me, have you, sir.”

“But,” stammered Nigel, “is Sumiloff one of the society, then?”

“On the contrary. I am. Not Inspector-Detective Boys, Mr. Bathgate, but Erik Yansen. Allow me to present my comrades. We are all armed and you are covered, Mr. Bathgate.”

While they were binding him to the other armchair, Nigel’s predominant thought was what a fool Angela would think him. And what a triple damnable fool Alleyn would think him, he reflected, as a leather strap bit into his ankle. He looked at Sumiloff.

“How has it happened?” he asked.

“Yansen saw us together in Regent Street. It is my fault. It was criminally careless; we should never have gone so far together. He recognized me and, being already suspicious, followed you to the Hungaria.”

“Quite correct,” said Yansen. “And since our Comrade Vassily had told us how puzzled Mr. Alleyn is with the doctor’s song, I ventured to mention it. Your face encouraged me to proceed, Mr. Bathgate.”

“Inspector-Detective Alleyn,” said Nigel, “has told me my face is eloquent.”

“So when I arrived there, we arranged to send you a little message.”

“It’s all beautifully clear now, thank you,” said Nigel.

“Before the arrival of Comrade Yansen, however,” said Sumiloff suddenly, “I was able to collect an appreciable amount of information. Tokareff did not murder your cousin, Mr. Bathgate.”

Vassily exclaimed abruptly in Russian and was answered peremptorily by one of his compatriots.

“It would have been big glory for him if he had killed zis man,” added the Russian heavily.

“Nonsense,” said Sumiloff loudly.

The Russian who had spoken walked across the room and hit Sumiloff across the mouth.

“Svinya!” said Sumiloff disinterestedly. “He is upset because I do not know where Alleyn is. Look at the room.”

It had begun to dawn on Nigel that the house was in a chaotic state of disruption. The curtains had been dragged aside, the furniture pulled out from the walls, a desk had been opened and the great open fireplace was littered with papers. He remembered noticing the same sort of disorder in the hall.

“They have been down into the cellars and up into the attic too,” said Sumiloff. “Now they do not know what to do with us.”

“Listen to me,” said Yansen forcibly. “One of you or both of you can tell us what Alleyn is doing. Give us some line on where he is. It is ridiculous to refuse, to oblige us to use force.”

He stood over Nigel.

“Where is Alleyn?” he said.

“I have no idea,” said Nigel. “It is the truth — I do not know.”

“When and where did you arrange to meet him after — this?”

“I made no arrangements.”

“Lying pig,” whispered Yansen vehemently. He slapped Nigel’s face, knocking the back of his head against the chair. The Russians began talking together.

“What are you saying?” demanded Yansen.

“Shall I interpret?” offered Sumiloff sweetly.

“Niet! No!” said the tallest of the three. “I can myself make it all right in English. I say give them some torments to talk. There is no time for waiting. It is not safe. Then afterwards what to do with them? I think better to kill them bose, but then for dispose the bodies? It is difficult. But first make them spik.”

The clock in the little hall cleared its throat and struck twelve. Angela would ring up now, the police were just across the street. There was no need to get the wind up. Vassily suddenly burst out crying. The embarrassing tears of an old man. The Russians apparently cursed him and the one who could speak English came over to Sumiloff, fingering the lapel of his coat. They spoke together in Russian.

“Bathgate,” said Sumiloff quietly, “they are going to run a pin up my nails. And yours too. It is rather an infantile form of torture and not at all up to the traditions of the brotherhood. But it hurts.”

He ended with a quick intake of his breath. Nigel heard himself cursing. Yansen and one of the Russians bent over him. Nigel remembered a remark of Arthur Wilde’s: “It should be possible so to divorce the mind from the body that one could look on at one’s own physical pain with the same analytical detachment one directs towards the agony of another person.”

A sickening and disgusting pain violated his fingers. His whole body jerked and the straps cut his flesh. “I shall not be able to bear this,” he thought. Vassily was sobbing loudly. The four men stood over Sumiloff and Nigel. Nigel shut his eyes.

“Now,” said Yansen, “you will tell us — where is Alleyn?”

“Immediately behind you,” said Alleyn. A sort of blare of amazement lit up inside Nigel’s brain. Close to his ear someone was blowing an ear-splitting whistle. The noise corresponded precisely with the pain in his finger-tip. He opened his eyes. A nigger minstrel with a revolver squatted, straddle-legged, over the dead fire.

“No funny business,” said this apparition. “You’re covered all round, you know. Put ’em up, my poppets.”

The room was full of men — policemen and men in dark suits. Nigel was unbound, but he still sat in his armchair staring at a black-faced Alleyn who talked busily to Sumiloff.

“I knew it was possible to get up that chimney,” he said, “they had a photo of it in The Ideal Home, and they said, ‘lovely old-world chimney, untouched since the days when the master-sweep sent his boy up to the roof.’ ‘Untouched’ is the word, witness my face. I’m no boy and it was a damn tight squeeze and hellish hot too. Got your men, Boys? Right you are — take ’em off.”

“How about the old chap?” asked a burly gentleman whom Nigel rightly took to be the true Inspector Boys.

“Vassily? No. He’s an old fool, but he’s not under arrest. I’ll be along at the station when I’ve cleaned up.”

“Roight oh, sir,” said Inspector Boys richly. “Come along please, gentlemen.” In a few minutes the front door slammed.

“Vassily,” said Alleyn, “no more brotherhoods for you. Get some iodine, tidy up, produce drinks, run a hot bath, and get the Hungaria on the telephone.”

Nigel could scarcely believe only an hour had elapsed since he had left Angela. She was looking very worried and seemed immensely pleased and relieved at his arrival. She fussed over his finger, appeared horror-stricken at his narrative and made him feel a hero instead of the fool he knew he had been. They ate some bacon, Nigel paid the bill and, being much in love with Angela, thought the drive back to Frantock all too short.

Bunce, P.C., held them up at the gates and they fed him with a few morsels of news. Frantock was in darkness and the hall with its dying fire eerily reminiscent of Sunday’s tragedy. Nigel kissed Angela gently as she stood with her lighted candle at the head of the stairs.

“With Tokareff off the list,” she said suddenly, “it narrows matters down a bit. Nigel, do you think Mr. Alleyn means it when he says he no longer suspects— us?”

“Goodness, darling, what a thought to go to bed with! Why, of course — anything else is unthinkable. Would he trust us as he has done, otherwise?”

“It seems to me,” said Angela, “that he trusts nobody. What am I to do with these letters?”

“Give them to me. I’ll show them to him to-morrow and perhaps we can go up to London after the inquest and return them ‘unbeknownst.’ ”

“Yes, perhaps,” said Angela. “Thank you very much, Nigel dear, but if you don’t mind I’ll keep them till then myself.” She kissed him suddenly, whispered “goodnight” and went away.

Nigel undressed and slipped into bed. The throbbing pain in his finger kept him awake for a little while, but at last, amidst a crowd of grotesque faces mouthing in the semblance of Sumiloff, Vassily, Yansen, and the three Comrades, he fell backwards into a fast car and with a nervous leap of his pulses drove down through whirling night into nothingness.

The inquest was held in Little Frantock at eleven o’clock the next morning. It took very much shorter time and was altogether less formidable than any of the house-party had anticipated. Nigel had, of course, already been informed of the nature of Rankin’s will. Charles had left the bulk of his property to Nigel himself, together with his house and furniture, but there were several legacies, including a sum of three thousand pounds to Arthur Wilde and a bequest of books, pictures, and objets d’art to Sir Hubert Handesley. The terms of the will were brought up at the inquest and Nigel felt that he looked exactly like a murderer, but otherwise came remarkably little into the picture. The coroner spent some time over Mary the ’tweenmaid’s evidence, and put a good many questions to Arthur Wilde, these two having been the last to speak to Rankin. A great deal of time was spent over the Russian element. Alleyn gave a brief, colourless account of the meeting of the Comrades and emphasized the point that he had clearly overheard them all state definitely that Tokareff had had no hand in the murder. Sumiloff was called and supported Alleyn on this point. A remarkably plain and dowdy little lawyer “watched” the proceedings on behalf of Doctor Tokareff. The treasonable and theatrical goings-on of the brotherhood caused a considerable sensation.

Rosamund Grant was not called, but Mrs. Wilde, wearing rouge on her mouth but none on her face, supported Wilde in their own account of their joint conversation during the time of the murder. Sir Hubert, seeming terribly shaken, was treated with elaborate courtesy by the coroner. The incident of the willing of the knife by Rankin to Sir Hubert was touched on, but the coroner made little of it.

Alleyn asked for an adjournment; the whole affair ended, leaving the onlookers with a sense of having been served with treason when they ordered murder.

The guests were now at liberty to leave Frantock, and Nigel’s house-party was at an end. He was faced with the prospect of returning to his newspaper office, replete with forbidden copy. The office had been heavily tactful. Jamison, his chief, had rung him up, telling him rather wistfully not to worry. Nigel pictured the news-hungry Scot and, grinning to himself, had actually spent an hour before the inquest writing up the Russian element.

Now he stood for the last time at his window in the little Welsh room, listening to the querulous overtones of Mrs. Wilde’s voice as she talked to her husband amid their suitcases, beyond the bathroom. Angela had disappeared immediately after the inquest, presumably with the object of hurrying up to London with the letters. Nigel had had no opportunity of talking to her and felt rather injured. With a sigh he turned from the window and laid a pound note on the dressing-table for Ethel the Intelligent. A whole pound! Handsome and rather extravagant, but, after all, she had seen him before the lights went out and thus, he reflected, established his alibi.

There was a tap on the door.

“Come in,” said Nigel.

It was Sir Hubert. He came in uncertainly, hesitated at the sound of the Wildes’ voices and then, turning away from Nigel, spoke softly.

“I only interrupted you,” he said, “to tell you, while there is an opportunity, how deeply I feel—” he hesitated and then went on more vigorously, “how deeply I regret the tragic circumstances of your first visit here, Bathgate.”

“Oh, please, sir—” began Nigel, but the other interrupted him.

“You are going to be polite and generous about it, I know, but, though that is very nice of you, it does not make very much difference to what has happened. I feel — horribly responsible to you all, but particularly to you. If I can ever be of any use to you, you must promise to let me know.”

“It is very kind of you,” answered Nigel impulsively. “I do hope you will try, sir, if it’s not an impertinence for me to talk like this, to get rid of any feeling of morbid responsibility to any of us. I–I was fond of Charles, naturally, but I do not believe I knew him half as well as you. I think that you, his greatest friend after all, feel his death most of any of us.”

“I was extremely fond of him,” said Handesley, tonelessly.

“You know, of course, that he has left you a number of pictures and things. I shall see that they are sent here as soon as everything is settled up. If there is anything else among his possessions that you know of and would like to have as — a remembrance of Charles, I do hope you will let me know. This sounds awful, but I thought—” Nigel paused uncomfortably.

“Thank you very much indeed. I do perfectly understand, but I am sure there is nothing—” Handesley turned towards the window, “except perhaps the dagger. As you know, that will be mine in any case. I believe the will is quite in order.”

For two or three seconds Nigel was literally unable to speak. He stared at the back of Sir Hubert’s distinguished white head and thoughts of the complete incalculably of human reactions raced in utter confusion through his mind.

“Of course—” he heard himself say. Handesley interrupted him.

“You think it very strange that I should want to possess this weapon,” he said. “To you, perhaps, it is strange, but you are not a passionately enthusiastic collector, nor have you the detached point of view of the student. This knife cannot remind me more forcibly of that which, in any case, I can never forget, but it seems to me that it is due to Charles’ memory that I should have it when once the police have finished with it. You do not understand this, but Charles himself, who knew my character, would have understood. I think anyone interested in such things as I am interested would also understand. It is the scientific point of view.”

“What’s this about the scientific point of view?” asked Wilde, poking his head round the bathroom door. “Sorry if I’m interrupting, but I heard the phrase.”

“You should be able to interpret it, Arthur,” rejoined Sir Hubert. “I must go down and relieve Rosamund. She is terribly upset still and Alleyn insisted on interviewing her again to-day. Arthur, tell me, do you think—?”

‘I’ve given up thinking,“ said Arthur Wilde bitterly.

Nigel saw Handesley as he went out steal a glance at his old friend.

“What’s the matter with Hubert?” asked Wilde when they were alone.

“Don’t ask me,” said Nigel wearily. “This crime seem to have acted like a corrosive acid in all our hearts. Do you know, he wants to have the dagger?”

“What!”

“Yes. He reminded me of that will you witnessed— you remember, the joke will.”

“I remember,” said Wilde, sitting on the bed and staring blankly at Nigel through his glasses.

“He said you would understand.”

“The scientific point of view. I see. How terribly consistent! Yes, I suppose in a way I do understand, but— good Lord!”

“I know. Have a cigarette.”

“Arthur!” called Mrs. Wilde from beyond the bathroom. “Have you rung up and told them what time we are arriving to-night? I do wish you wouldn’t wander off like that.”

“Coming, darling,” said Wilde. He hurried back to his wife and Nigel, wondering if Angela had returned, went out on to the landing. He met Alleyn at the head of the stairs.

“I was looking for you,” said the Chief Inspector. “Can you come down to the study for a moment?”

“With pleasure,” answered Nigel drearily. “What’s up now? Are you going to tell me you’ve discovered the murderer?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I am,” said Alleyn.