Murder Must Advertise

Chapter IX. Unsentimental Masquerade of a Harlequin

Dian de Momerie was holding her own. True, the big Chrysler and the Bentley ahead of her had more horsepower, but young Spenlow was too drunk to last out, and Harry Thorne was a notoriously rotten driver. She had only to tail them at a safe distance till they came to grief. She only wished “Spot” Lancaster would leave her alone. His clumsy grabs at her waist and shoulders interfered with her handling of the car. She eased the pressure of her slim sandal on the accelerator, and jabbed an angry elbow into his hot face.

“Shut up, you fool! you’ll have us into the ditch, and then they’d beat us.”

“I say!” protested Spot, “don’t do that. It hurts.”

She ignored him, keeping her eye on the road. Everything was perfect tonight. There had been a most stimulating and amusing row at Tod Milligan’s, and Tod had been very definitely told where he got off. All the better. She was getting tired of Tod’s hectoring. She was keyed up just enough and not too much. The hedges flashed and roared past them; the road, lit by the raking headlights, showed like a war-worn surface of holes and hillocks, which miraculously smoothed themselves out beneath the spinning wheels. The car rode the earth-waves like a ship. She wished it were an open car and not this vulgar, stuffy saloon of Spot’s.

The Chrysler ahead was lurching perilously, thrashing her great tail like a fighting salmon. Harry Thorne had no business with a car like that; he couldn’t hold it on the road. And there was a sharp S-bend coming. Dian knew that. Her senses seemed unnaturally sharpened-she could see the road unrolled before her like a map. Thorne was taking the first bend-far too wide-and young Spenlow was cutting in on the left. The race was hers now-nothing could prevent it. Spot was drinking again from a pocket-flask. Let him. It left her free. The Chrysler, wrenched brutally across the road, caught the Bentley on the inner edge of the bend, smashing it against the bank and slewing it round till it stood across the road. Was there room to pass? She pulled out, her off wheels bumping over the grass verge. The Chrysler staggered on, swaying from the impact-it charged the bank and broke through the hedge. She heard Thorne yell-saw the big car leap miraculously to earth without overturning, and gave an answering cry of triumph. And then the road was suddenly lit up as though by a searchlight, whose powerful beam swallowed her own headlights like a candle in sunlight.

She leant over to Spot.

“Who’s that behind us?”

“Dunno,” grunted Spot, twisting ineffectually to stare through the small pane at the rear of the car. “Some blighter or other.”

Dian set her teeth. Who the hell, who the hell had a car like that? The driving mirror showed only the glare of the enormous twin lights. She drove the accelerator down to its limit, and the car leaped forward. But the pursuer followed easily. She swung out on the crown of the road. Let him crash if he wanted to. He held on remorselessly. A narrow, humpbacked bridge sprang out of the darkness. She topped it and seemed to leap the edge of the world. A village, with a wide open square. This would be the man’s chance. He took it. A great dark shape loomed up beside her, long, low and open. Out of the tail of her eye she sought the driver. For five seconds he held beside her, neck and neck, and she saw the black mask and skull-cap and the flash of black and silver. Then, in the narrowing of the street, he swept ahead. She remembered what Pamela Dean had told her:

“You will see him when you least expect him.” Whatever happened, she must hold on to him. He was running ahead now, lightly as a panther, his red tail-lamp tantalizingly only a few yards away. She could have cried with exasperation. He was playing with her.

“Is this all your beastly Dutch-oven will do?” Spot had fallen asleep. His head rolled against her arm and she shook it off violently. Two miles, and the road plunged beneath over-arching trees, with a stretch of woodland on either side. The leading car turned suddenly down a side-road and thence through an open gate beneath the trees; it wound its way into the heart of the wood, and then abruptly stopped; all its lights were shut off.

She jammed on her brakes and was out upon the grass. Overhead the treetops swung together in the wind. She ran to the other car; it was empty.

She stared round. Except for the shaft of light thrown by her own headlamps, the darkness was Egyptian. She stumbled over her long skirts among briars and tufts of bracken. She called:

“Where are you? Where are you hiding? Don’t be so silly!” There was no answer. But presently, far off and mockingly, there came the sound of a very high, thin fluting. No jazz tune, but one which she remembered from nursery days:

Tom, Tom the piper’s son

Learned to play when he was young,

And the only tune that he could play

Was: “Over the hills and far away-”

“It’s too stupid,” said Dian.

Over the hills and a great way off

The wind is blowing my top-knot off.

The sound was so bodiless that it seemed to have no abiding-place. She ran forward, and it grew fainter; a thick bramble caught her, tearing her ankles and her sheer silk stockings. She wrenched herself pettishly away and started off in a new direction. The piping ceased. She suddenly became afraid of the trees and the darkness. The good, comforting drinks were taking back the support they gave and offering her instead a horrible apprehensiveness. She remembered Spot’s pocket-flask and began scrambling back towards the car. Then the beaconing lights went out, leaving her alone with the trees and the wind.

The high spirits induced by gin and cheerful company do not easily survive siege by darkness and solitude. She was running now, desperately, and screaming as she ran. A root, like a hand about her ankles, tripped her, and she dropped, cowering.

The thin tune began again.

Tom, Tom the piper’s son-

She sat up.

“The terror induced by forests and darkness,” said a mocking voice from somewhere over her head, “was called by the Ancients, Panic fear, or the fear of the great god Pan. It is interesting to observe that modern progress has not altogether succeeded in banishing it from ill-disciplined minds.”

Dian gazed upwards. Her eyes were growing accustomed to the night, and in the branches of the tree above her she caught the pale gleam of silver.

“What do you want to behave like an idiot for?”

“Advertisement, chiefly. One must be different. I am always different. That is why, my dear young lady, I am the pursued and not the pursuer. You may say it is a cheap way of producing an effect, and so it is; but it is good enough for gin-soaked minds. On such as you, if you will pardon my saying so, subtlety would be wasted.”

“I wish you would come down.”

“Possibly. But I prefer to be looked up to.”

“You can’t stay there all night. Think how silly you would look in the morning.”

“Ah! but by comparison with yourself I shall retain an almost bandbox perfection of appearance. My costume is better suited than yours to acrobatic exercise in a wood at midnight.”

“Well, what are you doing it for, anyway?”

“To please myself-which is the only reason you would admit for doing anything.”

“Then you can sit up there and do it all alone. I’m going home.”

“Your shoes aren’t very suitable for a long walk-but if it amuses you, go home by all means.”

“Why should I have to walk?”

“Because I have the ignition keys of both cars in my pocket. A simple precaution, my dear Watson. Nor do I think it will be very much good to try to send a message by your companion. He is plunged in the arms of Morpheus-an ancient and powerful god, though not so ancient as Pan.”

“I hate you,” said Dian.

“Then you are on the high road to loving me-which is only natural. We needs must love the highest when we see it. Can you see me?”

“Not very well. I could see you better if you came down.”

“And love me better, perhaps?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then I am safer where I am. Your lovers have a knack of coming to bad ends. There was young Carmichael -”

“I couldn’t help that. He drank too much. He was an idiot.”

“And Arthur Barrington-”

“I told him it wasn’t any good.”

“Not a bit of good. But he tried, all the same, and blew his brains out. Not that they were very good brains, but they were all the brains he had. And Victor Dean-”

“The little rotter! That wasn’t anything to do with me.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“Why, he fell down a staircase, didn’t he?”

“So he did. But why?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Haven’t you? I thought you might have. Why did you send Victor Dean about his business?”

“Because he was a silly little bore and just like all the rest.”

“You like them to be different?”

“I like everything to be different.”

“And when you find them different, you try to make them all alike. Do you know anybody who is different?”

“Yes; you’re different.”

“Only so long as I stay on my branch, Circe. If I come down to your level, I should be just like all the rest.”

“Come down and try.”

“I know when I am well off. You had better come up to me.”

“You know I can’t.”

“Of course you can’t. You can only go down and down.”

“Are you trying to insult me?”

“Yes, but it’s very difficult.”

“Come down, Harlequin-I want you here.”

“That’s a new experience for you, isn’t it? To want what you can’t get. You ought to be grateful to me.”

“I always want what I can’t get.”

“What do you want?”

“Life-thrills-”

“Well, you’re getting them now. Tell me all about Victor Dean.”

“Why do you want to know about him?”

“That’s a secret.”

“If I tell you, will you come down?”

“Perhaps.”

“What a funny thing to want to know about.”

“I’m famous for being funny. How did you pick him up?”

“We all went out one night to some frightful sort of suburban dancing place. We thought it would be such a scream.”

“And was it?”

“No, it was rather dull really. But he was there, and he fell for me and I thought he was rather a pet. That’s all.”

“A simple story in words of one syllable. How long was he your pet?”

“Oh, about six months. But he was terribly, terribly boring. And such a prig. Imagine it, Harlequin darling. He got all cross and wanted bread and cheese and kisses. Are you laughing?”

“Hilariously.”

“He wasn’t any fun. He was all wet.”

“My child, you are telling this story very badly. You made him drink and it upset his little tummy. You made him play high, and he said he couldn’t afford it. And you tried to make him take drugs and he didn’t like it. Anything else?”

“He was a little beast, Harlequin, really he was. He was out for what he could get.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Me?” Dian was really surprised. “I’m terribly generous. I gave him everything he wanted. I’m like that when I’m fond of anybody.”

“He took what he could get but didn’t spend it like a gentleman?”

“That’s it. Do you know, he actually called himself a gentleman. Wouldn’t that make you laugh? Like the middle ages, isn’t it? Ladies and Gentlemen. He said we needn’t think he wasn’t a gentleman because he worked in an office. Too mirth-making, Harlequin, darling, wasn’t it?”

She rocked herself backwards and forwards in amusement.

“Harlequin! Listen! I’ll tell you something funny. One night Tod Milligan came in and I told him: ‘This is Victor Dean, and he’s a gentleman, and he works for Pym’s Publicity.’ Tod said: ‘Oh, you’re the chap, are you?’ and looked too utterly murderous. And afterwards he asked me, just like you, how I got hold of Victor. That’s queer. Did Tod send you out here to ask me?”

“No. No one ever sends me. I go where I like.”

“Well, then, why do you all want to know about Victor Dean?”

“Too mystery-making, isn’t it? What did Milligan say to Dean?”

“Nothing much, but he told me to string him along. And afterwards, quite suddenly, he told me to give him the push.”

“And you did as you were told, like a good girl?”

“I was fed up with Victor, anyhow. And it doesn’t do to get wrong with Tod.”

“No-he might cut off supplies, mightn’t he? Where does he get it from?”

“Coke, do you mean? I don’t know.”

“No, I suppose you don’t. And you can’t get him to tell you, either. Not with all your charms, Circe.”

“Oh, Tod! he doesn’t give anything away. He’s a dirty swine. I loathe him. I’d do anything to get away from Tod. But he knows too much. And besides, he’s got the stuff. Lots of people have tried to chuck Tod, but they always go back again-on Fridays and Saturdays.”

“That’s when he hands it out, is it?”

“Mostly. But-” she began to laugh again-“you weren’t there tonight, were you? It was too amusing. He’d run short, or something. There was a hellish row. And that septic woman Babs Woodley was screaming all over the place. She scratched him. I do hope he gets blood-poisoning. He promised it would be there tomorrow, but he looked the most perfect idiot, with blood running down his chin. She said she’d shoot him. It was too marvellous.”

“Rabelaisian, no doubt.”

“Fortunately I’d got enough, so I gave her enough to keep her quiet, and then we thought we’d have a race. I won-at least, I should have, if it hadn’t been for you. How did you happen along?”

“Oh, I just happened along. I always happen.”

“You don’t. You only seem to happen occasionally. You aren’t one of Tod’s regular lot, are you?”

“Not at present.”

“Do you want to be? Because, don’t. I’ll get the stuff for you if you want it. But Tod’s a beast. You’d better keep clear of him.”

“Are you warning me for my good?”

“Yes, I am.”

“What devotion!”

“No, I mean it. Life’s hell, anyway, but it’s worse if you get mixed up with Tod.”

“Then why don’t you cut loose from Tod?”

“I can’t.”

“Afraid of him?”

“Not so much of him. It’s the people behind him. Tod’s afraid too. He’d never let me go. He’d kill me first.”

“How fascinating! I think I must know Tod better.”

“You’d end by being afraid, too.”

“Should I? Well, there’s a kick in being afraid.”

“Come down here, Harlequin, and I’ll show you how to get a kick out of life.”

“Could you?”

“Try and see.”

There was a rustle among the leaves, and he slid down to stand beside her.

“Well?”

“Lift me up. I’m all cramped.”

He lifted her, and she felt his hands hard as iron under her breast. She was tall, and as she turned to look at him she could see the glint of his eyeballs, level with her own.

“Well, will I do?”

“For what?”

“For you?”

“For me? What are you good for, to me?”

“I’m beautiful.”

“Not so beautiful as you were. In five years’ time you will be ugly.”

“Five years? I wouldn’t want you for five years.”

“I wouldn’t want you for five minutes.”

The cold daybreak was beginning to filter through the leaves; it showed her only a long, implacable chin and the thin curl of a smiling mouth. She made a snatch at his mask, but he was too quick for her. Very deliberately he turned her towards him, putting both her arms behind her back and holding them there.

“What next?” she demanded, mockingly.

“Nothing. I shall take you home.”

“You will? Ah, you will, then?”

“Yes, as I did once before.”

“Exactly as you did before?”

“Not exactly, because you were drunk then. You are sober now. With that trifling difference, the programme will be carried out according to precedent.”

“You might kiss me, Harlequin.”

“Do you deserve kissing? Once, for your information. Twice, for your disinterested effort to save me from the egregious Mr. Milligan. And the third time, because the fancy takes me that way.”

He bestowed the kisses like deliberate insults. Then he picked her up bodily, still holding her arms imprisoned, and dumped her into the back of the open car.

“Here’s a rug for you. You’ll need it.”

She said nothing. He started up the engine, turned the car and drove it slowly along the path. As they came abreast of the saloon, he leaned out and tossed the ignition key on to the knees of Spot Lancaster, happily snoring in his seat. In a few minutes, they had turned out from the wood into the main road. The sky was faintly streaked with the ghostly glimmer of the false dawn.

Dian de Momerie slid from under the rug and leaned forward. He was driving easily, slumped down in his seat, his black poll leaning carelessly back, his hand slack on the wheel. With a twist, she could send him and herself into the ditch, and he would deserve it.

“Don’t do it,” he said, without turning his head.

“You devil!”

He stopped the car.

“If you don’t behave, I shall leave you by the roadside, sitting on a milestone, like the bailiff’s daughter of Islington. Or, if you prefer it, I can tie you up. Which is it to be?”

“Be kind to me.”

“I am being kind. I have preserved you from boredom for two solid hours. I beg you not to plunge us both into the horrors of an anti-climax. What are you crying for?”

“I’m tired-and you won’t love me.”

“My poor child, pull yourself together. Who would believe that Dian de Momerie could fall for a fancy-dress and a penny whistle?”

“It isn’t that. It’s you. There’s something queer about you. I’m afraid of you. You aren’t thinking about me at all. You’re thinking of something horrible. What is it? What is it? Wait!”

She put out a cold hand and clutched his arm.

“I’m seeing something that I can’t make out. I’ve got it now. Straps. They are strapping his elbows and dropping a white bag over his head. The hanged man. There’s a hanged man in your thoughts. Why are you thinking of hanging?”

She shrank away from him and huddled into the farthest corner of the car. Wimsey re-started the engine and let in the clutch.

“Upon my word,” he thought, “that’s the oddest after-effect of drink and drugs I’ve met yet. Very interesting. But not very safe. Quite a providential interposition in one way. We may get home without breaking our necks. I didn’t know I carried such a graveyard aura about with me.”

Dian was fast asleep when he lifted her out of the car. She half woke, and slipped her arms round his neck.

“Darling, it’s been lovely.” Then she came to with a little start. “Where have we got to? What’s happened?”

“We’re home. Where’s your latch-key?”

“Here. Kiss me. Take that mask off.”

“Run along in. There’s a policeman thinking we look rather disreputable.” He opened the door.

“Aren’t you coming in?”

She seemed to have forgotten all about the hanged man. He shook his head.

“Well, good-bye then.”

“Good-bye.”

He kissed her gently this time and pushed her into the house. The policeman, stumping inquisitively nearer, revealed a face that Wimsey knew. He smiled to himself as the official gaze swept over him.

“Good morning, officer.”

“Morning, sir,” said the policeman, stolidly.

“Moffatt, Moffatt,” said his lordship, reprovingly, “you will never get promotion. If you don’t know me, you should know the car.”

“Good lord, your lordship, I beg your pardon. Didn’t somehow expect to see you here.”

“Not so much of the lordship. Somebody might be listening. You on your beat?”

“Just going home, my-sir.”

“Jump in and I’ll drive you there. Ever see a fellow called Milligan round this way?”

“Major Tod Milligan? Yes, now and then. He’s a bad hat, he is, if ever there was one. Runs that place down by the river. Mixed up with that big drug-gang as Mr. Parker’s after. We could pull him in any day, but he’s not the real big noise.”

“Isn’t he, Moffatt?”

“No, my lord. This car’s a treat, ain’t she? Shouldn’t think there’s much catches you on the road. No. What Mr. Parker wants is to get him to lead us to the top man of all, but there don’t seem to be much chance of it. They’re as cunning as weasels, they are. Don’t suppose he knows himself who the other fellow is.”

“How’s it worked, Moffatt?”

“Well, my lord, as far as we’ve been told, the stuff is brought in from the coast once or twice a week and run up to London. We’ve had a try at catching it on the way more than once, that is to say, Mr. Parker’s special squad have, but they’ve always given us the slip. Then it’ll be taken somewhere, but where we don’t know, and distributed out again to the big distributors. From them it goes to all kinds of places. We could lay hands on it there-but lord! what’s the use? It’d only be in another place next week.”

“And whereabouts does Milligan come into it?”

“We think he’s one of the high-up distributors, my lord. He hands it out at that house of his, and in other places.”

“In the place where you found me, for instance?”

“That’s one of them.”

“But the point is, where does Milligan get his supplies?”

“That’s it, my lord.”

“Can’t you follow him and find out?”

“Ah! but he don’t fetch it for himself, my lord. There’s others does that. And you see, if we was to open his parcels and search his tradesmen and so on, they’d just strike him off their list, and we’d be back where we was before.”

“So you would. How often does he give parties in that house of his?”

“Most evenings, my lord. Seems to keep open house, like.”

“Well, keep an eye open on Friday and Saturday nights, Moffatt.”

“Fridays and Saturdays, my lord?”

“Those are the nights when things happen.”

“Is that so, my lord? I’m much obliged to you. We didn’t know that. That’s a good tip, that is. If you’ll drop me at the next corner, my lord, that’ll do me champion. I’m afraid I’ve took your lordship out of your way.”

“Not a bit, Moffatt, not a bit. Very glad to have seen you. And, by the way, you have not seen me. Not a question of my morals, you understand, but I’ve a fancy that Major Milligan might not approve of my visiting that particular house.”

“That’s all right, my lord. Not being on duty at the time, I ain’t bound to put it in a report. Good morning, my lord, and thank you.”