Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 19, No. 99, February 1952

The Sensation Club by L. J. Beeston

Another story by that zestful English tale-spinner, L. J. Beeston... Those of you who read Mr. Beeston’s previous stories, “The Pipe” and “Volturio Investigates,” will know what to expect — or will you? No, on second consideration, this third story is altogether different. It is not a tale of ingenious deduction, like “The Pipe”; nor a tale of pure suspense, like “Volturio Investigates.” Rather, it is a real oldtime thriller — a tale of murder, danger, and unrelieved melodrama.

The author has written nearly one thousand short stories. Picture him in a small room — the smaller the better, he tells us — gazing at the ceiling and reaching out for plots, plots, and more plots; and catching them with the long tentacles of his mind — intangible webs, to quote the author, floating in the silence of that small room...

“Landlord,” said Garman, finishing his bottle of claret, “I believe that I passed in my car, two miles north of here, that lonely house on a hill-top where an old man was brutally murdered a week ago.”

The landlord of The Nine Bells, who had looked in to see if his visitor was enjoying his dinner, set his face to a grave expression.

“You mean the crime at Windy Oaks?” said he. “Yes, you would pass the place, coming that way. ’Twas terrible. Mr. Tracer was well known about here, sir. They found him in his bedroom one morning, cruelly battered, dead as that salmon in the glass case on the wall.”

“A forceful simile,” murmured the middle-aged, robustly-built guest, feeling for a cigar. “A shocking affair, and still not cleared up, you say?”

“Nothin’ material done. All we hear is that the police are looking for a man in a brown suit: a man between thirty and forty, with black hair. That don’t amount to much — lacking further particulars. Such a man was seen near the house on the night of the murder.”

“Well, I hope they get him,” said Garman, rising.

“Strange enough,” went on the landlord of the inn, rubbing his blue chin up the wrong way, “the very last time I saw Mr. Tracer was in this ’ouse, taking his dinner in this very room. A square-built man, sir, with a blue reefer-cut coat, brown beard turning to yellow, and gold spectacles. I little thought—”

“Well, I must be off,” interrupted Garman, preparing to pay. “I shall have to push my little car along to get to town by nine o’clock. And there’s a moaning sou’-west wind about that may mean rain.”

Garman left the cosy inn a minute later. Its cheerful light showed his car waiting by the roadside. Garman was driving it himself. After bestowing a tip or two he got in, buttoned up well, and glided off into the absolutely dark night. There was no moon, the stars were obscured, and the only sound to be heard was the whining plaint of the wind to the telegraph wires.

Garman had scarcely got going, and The Nine Bells was about fifty yards behind, when a figure leaped into the middle of the road and waved its arms for him to stop. The car carried good headlights for its size, and in the searching glare Garman, as he applied his brakes, saw that the interrupter of his progress was a man of about thirty-seven, who was wearing a brown suit.

A voice, husky with entreaty, called to him — “If you are going to London, sir, or only a part of the way, I beg of you to give me a lift.”

The car came to a stop. The man’s face looked deathly white in the headlights’ glare.

Garman was a man of swift consideration. He fixed a penetrative gaze upon the man, and he reflected. He did not like that brown suit and those thirty-seven years. But Garman was a man without fear, and very well able to take care of himself. Also he never jumped to a conclusion.

“What’s the trouble?” he inquired.

“I am stranded here,” answered the other, with beseeching. “No train-stops here for hours, and I want to get to London at the earliest moment. I cannot say how grateful I should be—”

“All right, get in,” invited Garman, curtly.

With a hurried outburst of thanks the stranger climbed into the car and took the only other seat — on Garman’s left.

Away hummed the automobile, skimming beautifully to the crest of a long ascent. The white road streamed under the hood; sheer pace gave a whistle to the wind, and a raw, chilling breath.

Said Garman to himself as he gripped the wheel: “Now I wonder who the devil this fellow is? He is very anxious to get away from here, but I wouldn’t think anything of that if he was wearing a different-colored coat. Still, the situation is not without interest. If he tries any hanky-panky trick on me I shall break his jaw. Of course, he may not be that fellow. He wouldn’t be found so near the spot. But if he is—”

Garman suddenly checked the conjecture. A soft whistle crept to his lips. A startling idea had darted like an electric current through his mind. He muttered to himself: “In that case — in that case, what would they say to it at the Club? Why... why — good heavens, what a point to score!”

So strange and powerful was the idea that had presented itself to Garman that it imparted an almost literal flash to his eyes. In the grip of it he stared straight ahead, thinking rapidly, guiding the car subconsciously. He did not see the uneasy glances which his companion kept bestowing upon him.

After they had covered seven miles Garman decided to act. His first move was to bring the car to a standstill. They were then in a partly-sunken road, heavy and black with mud, and the twisted roots of trees came out on the bank like monstrous serpents.

“Now, then, answer short and sharp!” commanded Garman. “Who are you?”

The other winced at the demand, and put out a hand towards the door. “You take a strange tone with me,” he replied.

“I do. And I have a reason. You are the man looked for in the Tracer murder.”

“That’s an infernal lie,” was the stammered response.

“Is it?” snarled Garman, grimly. “It is up to you to prove your word. You will not object?”

“What do you mean?”

“That we stop at the next police station, where you can answer a few questions.”

“You can stop at all of them if you choose,” sneered the other.

“One will be enough.”

As he spoke, Garman restarted the car; but before it had traveled a yard his companion vaulted clean over the side of it. Garman lost a second or two, then was after him. The pursuit was of brief duration, for suddenly the stranger stopped as if a pistol ball had pierced his heart.

“Oh, my God! He’s there — again — there!” he cried in a voice hoarse and broken by terror.

A thrill quivered over even Garman’s well-strung nerves. He stared intently in the direction to which the other pointed. In the dark wall of the night all he could perceive — and that very faintly — was a gnarled oak tree with its writhing limbs, on which the unfallen brown and withered leaves made a husky sound in the wind.

“Who’s there? What the devil do you mean?” cried Garman, as he grasped the fugitive by the shoulder.

“He!” was the gasped response. “I saw the flash of his gold spectacles. There... there! He’s got on the same reefer coat! He has taken his hands from his pockets! Keep him off! He isn’t dead! Can’t be! I have seen him like that twice since. He’s alive! Keep him away!”

The voice rose almost to a scream, sending an icy shiver the length of Garman’s spine. With a single action he spun the man round and pushed him by main strength into the car, where he collapsed. Garman started again, and he flung a queer and apprehensive glance towards the oak tree as he passed it.

The car covered several miles before either man spoke. Presently Garman broke the silence between them.

“We are drawing near town,” said he. “I suppose you will no longer deny that you are the man wanted by the police for the murder of Mr. Tracer of Windy Oaks?”

“My story isn’t a matter for their ears,” answered the other. “That is what I shrink from. There is more in it than I dare tell the police. No one would understand — but a friend; and where am I to find one — now?”

His teeth chattered together, for the speed-created half-gale of wind had penetrated to his bones.

“Do you deny that you murdered Mr. Tracer?” demanded Garman.

“It is that word ‘murder’ that I take exception to.”

“That you killed him, then?”

“Suppose I say that I did?”

“Then I should offer you a chance.”

“You? How is that possible?”

“I cannot explain here and now. You shall know in an hour’s time.”

“You want me to do something?”

“Perhaps I do, and perhaps I don’t.”

“It must be something devilish, then.”

“You can refuse, if you choose. What is your name?”

“Milt.”

“All right, Milt. Now you know as well as I do that if you get into the clutches of the police you are done for. And if you try to leave me again, without my permission, I will hand you over as sure as I live. I am twice as strong as you are, and twice as determined. Will you trust yourself to my hands? I repeat — I mean to offer you a chance. Now will you be placable or not?”

The other was silent. He looked at Garman in a queer and furtive manner.

“Confound you! What are you thinking about?” asked Garman.

“I was thinking that you have something ugly at the back of your head,” was the slow and resentful answer.

“Very well; it’s the police for you,” snarled Garman, savagely.

“No! I’ll chance it,” replied Milt, with abrupt vehemence.

Garman nodded, muttered something unintelligible, and lengthened put the speed. In a few minutes a faint glow in the sky showed that the strange ride was coming to a finish.

Fifty-five minutes later two men turned out from Regent Street into Beak Street. The elder had tucked his arm into the other’s, and they walked along in that old-fashioned way, as if they were the best of pals, though a close observer could have detected the fact that one man was in reality preventing a possible desire to bolt on the part of his companion.

As the hour was nine o’clock the big arteries of the West End had absorbed most of the life of the streets, and the narrow thoroughfares this side of Regent Street were almost deserted. A thin veil of rain had turned the dust to a clayey paste; refuse from the small, mean shops had been swept into the gutters; iron shutters were up and dingy blinds drawn.

Suddenly the older man halted. “This is our destination,” he announced.

He had stopped before a low shop with an embayed Georgian front, which bore the name, Alexander Diarmid, Cigar Merchant.

There was a shabby side-door, and to the lock of it he applied a key. A narrow and common little passage was disclosed, covered with a cheap linoleum. At the end of this mean hallway ascended a long flight of stairs, lighted at the foot by the naked flame of a gas-jet in a wire guard.

“This way, Milt,” said the older man, and still holding the other lightly by the arm he climbed the ladder-like staircase. As they drew near to the door at the top, a voice was heard speaking in a monotonous accent, as though reading. As Garman rapped seven times on the door the voice stopped. He then knocked four times, paused, then gave two more raps.

A clear voice called, “Enter!”

As Garman opened the door he felt his companion shrink back, but he was prepared for that, and grasping him by the back of the neck, he hurled him forward with violence.

Recovering his balance, Milt looked round. In a long room about a dozen men were seated, and one standing at the head of a table, with a paper in his hand. Each man had a strip of black cloth across his eyes, which had been adjusted when Garman knocked, and each was in evening dress.

He who had been speaking, after a glance at the interrupters, continued: “I have to confirm the secession of Lord Mountcarres. In the matter of the Rochfort Cobras he thinks we stepped beyond the limits of our cult. He resigns, therefore.

“I have to report three new applications for membership. The greatest care must be exercised. One is supported by Dr. Yeatman, not present. Another by Mr. Clark Anstey, present. The third by Professor Hungars, abroad. These gentlemen know the rules of membership. As I say, great care is demanded. We all remember the affair of the Canaris Mummy, when the weak nerves of a candidate nearly burst the Club to pieces.

“With regret I have to state that the Club’s address may have to be changed once more. An absolute secrecy is hard to maintain; a rumor has been spread—”

The monotonous voice continued, but was no longer listened to by Milt. From the masked face of the speaker and his audience his eyes traveled round the room — uneasily, stealthily. Here was luxury. The Persian rugs upon the floor were worth a fortune. It was a large room of grotesque faces. They stared — a grimacing multitude from great spreads of canvas upon the walls; they grinned from the painted ceiling; they glared from the carven bodies of squat monsters of Chinese and Indian fashioning. Along the length of a table in the middle of the room stretched an immense dragon of brass covered with burnished scales. A powerful electric light glowed in the jaws of this beast, and sent two slanting green rays from its eyeballs.

At a touch upon his arm Milt turned and saw Garman still by his side. Both men were standing by the door, and in shadow.

“I will tell you where you are,” whispered Garman. “This is one of the least known and most exclusive clubs in London, and one of the most expensive. It is called The Sensation Club. Are you listening?”

“What do they do here?”

“Here we worship the cult of the Sensational. Here we drink the heady wine of sheer excitement.”

Milt gulped, and Garman tightened his hold upon his arm.

“Who are these men?” inquired Milt, huskily.

“Their names would astonish you; with that you must be satisfied. Most of them have run the gamut of all the thrills that life offers to the lover of them; and that is why they are here, why they are members of this association whose first duty is to provide breath-stopping, heart-stopping excitement. There is no other club in the world where such fare is to be found.”

“Good Lord!” murmured Milt, rolling dilated eyes.

“You heard the President speak of three new aspirants for membership. Probably not one of them will be successful.”

“Why not?”

“Because he must provide a new Sensation; or, failing that, must submit himself to one. I tell you that this is no place for weak nerves.”

“What have you brought me here for?”

“That you shall know at once. Come forward!”

The President had completed his remarks, and now, for the first time since their entry, all eyes sought Garman and the stranger with him. And the sight of them, glittering behind the slits in the half-masks, boring into him, affected Milt like stabs from an electric needle.

“I have to request that someone will be so good as to keep between my charge here and the door,” commenced Garman, urbanely. He spoke well; he “had the floor,” and it was evident that he meant to make the most of his opportunity.

“Mr. President and gentlemen,” he continued, “it is my good fortune to introduce tonight one of those adventures in pure Sensation which are the essence of this Club. I assume that we have all heard of the crime at Windy Oaks, in which a Mr. Tracer was done to death. Gentlemen, I have no doubt that the criminal is this man whom I have brought here. Of his own free will he comes; and, on his behalf, I claim for him the privileges of The Sensation Club.”

The President rested his finger-ends on the table before him. “That is to be seen,” said he, gravely. “Explain further.”

Garman went on: “This evening I dined at the inn called The Nine Bells, which is two miles north of Windy Oaks. The landlord spoke of the crime, describing the dead man, whom he knew, and that Unknown who is wanted by the police. When I came away it was quite dark. At a lonely spot in the road my car was stopped by our friend here, who implored me, in tones of real fear and distress, to give him a lift along the London road. His manner, and his appearance — which is that of the wanted man — roused my suspicion. When I came to demand of him the truth, he jumped from the car and bolted. But he was held up in a remarkable manner. In the gloom of a sunken road he saw — or shall we say that he fancied that he saw? — the form of his victim. In his agony he described it to me — a man in a blue reefer coat, with gold spectacles; a square-built man with a brown beard changing to yellow. These were the words used by the landlord of the inn, and they were practically repeated by our terrified guest here. More, he declared that he had twice before seen that unsubstantial presence since the act — his act — of foul murder. This we may or may not believe; but in an access of mortal fear, he practically admitted the deed. My first impulse was to place him in the hands of the police; my second, to bring him here. He wishes to know what you will do with him; his plea is for the protection of the Club. That is all, gentlemen. I have played my part. I have brought you a grim guest. Mr. President, you will decide.”

The moment Garman ceased talking an excited babel of voices arose. Milt turned his wild eyes upon the crowd, but he failed to catch what was being said. Twice he looked behind him to the door, but a big man was on guard there.

Suddenly the President made a sign for silence.

“Certainly Professor Hungar’s queer discovery has never been put to a decisive test,” said the President, calmly. “And as it seems to be the most popular suggestion, we will put it to a practical application.”

While speaking he unlocked a drawer in the long table. A moment later a tiny phial of blue glass, octagonal, was in his hand.

“A wine glass,” he requested, “half-filled with pure water.”

He inserted the bare end of a match into the phial, and when he withdrew it there clung to it a drop of liquid. He held this over the wine glass and gently shook off the drop into the water, which slowly changed to the color of grass-green. Milt watched the proceedings with deeply uneasy intentness. The red crept from his cheeks; his eyes were haggard.

“You will drink the contents of that glass.”

“What devil’s game are you playing?” said Milt, huskily.

“Drink!”

“Yes — perhaps — when I know what it is.”

“It is your chance of your life,” said the President, with iron sternness. “It will save you — at a price. What that price is you shall know. The liquid in this phial was sent to us by a member — Professor Hungars. It contains a germ obtained by him from a West Indian swamp. He claims that the effect of this germ in the human system is to produce, with a terrible swiftness, all the signs and appearance of advanced years. The tissues waste, the arteries harden, the eyes lose their lustre, the skin yellows. So he states, and Professor Hungars is one of our foremost bacteriologists. You must now perceive the chance which we extend to you, Milt. The police are looking for a man — a young man — between thirty and forty years of age. It is highly likely that this liquid offers you the power to baffle them.”

“I see,” said Milt, moistening his lips. “If they find an old man — shrunken, white-haired — ah, what ghouls you are! I will not touch it!”

“You will!”

“I swear I won’t!”

“You have two minutes in which to make up your mind.”

“An old man of me?” muttered Milt, huskily. “How old? Fifty? Sixty? More than that?”

“Probably much more. You know as much as we do. But I am not here to answer your questions. One of your two minutes has expired. I warn you that you are in a dangerous position.”

“My soul! I can believe that,” groaned the fugitive, casting a dazed and cowed look at the masked faces.

No one spoke. Milt breathed heavily; slowly he reached out a hand that shook with agitation. He took up the glass. Excited whispers arose. “He’ll drink!” “No! He’s afraid!” “And, by Heaven, he has reason to be!”

Milt lifted the glass to his lips; but at the last moment, when he seemed about to toss the liquid down his throat, he changed his mind, and with a shout of “Blast the lot of you!” he hurled the crystal to the floor, where it shivered to pieces.

Then he leaped to the window.

“Stop him!” roared everyone.

But there was no need. Milt had become abruptly paralyzed. Clutching the dark curtains, his eyes a-glare, he was looking into the street as if he saw some unimaginable horror there.

“There he is!” he gasped. “The fourth time! He is looking up at me! He is coming over — he! Bolt the door! For God’s sake keep him out!”

There was a rush to the window. Garman was first. In the light of a street lamp, crossing the road, his gaze lifted steadily towards the window, they all saw a square-built man with a brownish-yellow beard, and wearing a blue reefer-cut coat, and the white light flashing on the lenses of his gold spectacles. They all saw its stone-like, bloodless face.

“That’s Tracer,” said Garman, pitching his voice low for control.

Milt spun round as if he had been cut with a whip. “That’s a lie! Tracer’s dead!” he snarled.

“Perfectly true, and he is coming up here,” said Garman.

That grim figure in the street was now so far below the window level as to be out of sight. A tense silence had gripped the occupants of the room. And then, as everyone listened in the most acute suspense, they heard the door downstairs open and close. Thirty seconds followed that ominous sound, but no other was heard.

Someone tried to scoff — “What are we getting scared about?”

No one replied. Garman stepped to the door which opened upon the long steep staircase. He opened it softly, gave one look, then recoiled as if a pistol had been thrust into his throat.

“It’s coming up!” he gasped.

Milt turned round, staggered, and fell upon his knees, with one hand grasping the table’s edge. At the same moment a face, ashen-livid, appeared in the doorway. Its eyes were fixed upon the crouching man.

“Keep him off! Keep him off!” screamed Milt, writhing.

But no one stirred. The bizarre figure approached the agonized Milt, slowly and stealthily. It flung out both its arms and gripped him by the throat! Milt uttered a frightful cry and closed with the terrible visitor. For a moment they rocked to and fro as if in a death clutch.

Then Milt broke loose with a shout of laughter.

“Call it off, Yeatman!” said he. “Show the cards! You’ve introduced me all right; and I reckon I’ve earned a membership to the Club!”

“I perfectly agree,” said the visitor, with a chuckle. He swept off his beard, removed his spectacles, rubbed his cheeks effectively. He looked round upon the stupefied company. “A true Sensation, gentlemen! Admit it!”

“Dr. Yeatman!” gasped every voice.

“Precisely and exactly,” purred that beaming individual, “and one of yourselves. This is my friend, Mr. Milt, and he is my candidate for membership. Allow that he has proved himself a most suitable applicant! We worked this little stunt together. Only he and I were in it. I knew that Garman was to dine this evening at The Nine Bells, Windy Oaks, for he told me so. At my suggestion my friend Milt — whose remarkable powers of acting you must concede — passed himself off as the man looked for by the police. Garman was tricked absolutely. I felt certain that he would perceive, in the encounter, an opportunity to make a big hit at the Club. To bring to it the man all the country is talking about! What a chance! And Garman snapped at it; fairly ate it up. I ask his pardon. As for me — I became a suggestion of poor Mr. Tracer, whose cruel end, still a mystery, we all hope justice will avenge.

“That is the very simple story. Allow me formally to introduce my friend and candidate for membership of The Sensation Club. May I venture to predict his enrollment?”

“I think you may,” said the President.

He had to shout to make himself heard above the din of applause; and he furtively passed a handkerchief over his forehead, which was beaded with perspiration.