Books: Number Seventeen
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Louis Tracy >> Number Seventeen
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"Them 'tecs were very pressin', sir," said Bates, rather indignantly,
"very pressin', especially the little one. He almost wanted to know
what we had for breakfast."
At that Theydon laughed dolefully, and, as it happened, Bates's grim
humor prevented him from ascertaining the exact nature of Furneaux's
pertinacity. Moreover, the time was passing. At 7:15 Theydon called a
taxi and was carried swiftly to Mr. Forbes's house in Belgravia, while
Bates disposed himself and the dressing case on top of a northbound
omnibus.
The mere change of clothing, aided by the stimulant, had cleared
Theydon's faculties. Though he would gladly have foregone the dinner,
he realized that it was not a bad thing that he should be forced, as
it were, to wrench his thoughts from the nightmare of a crime with
which such a man as "Evelyn's" father might be associated, even
innocently.
At any rate, he was given some hours to marshal his forces for the
discussion with the representatives of Scotland Yard. He knew well
that he must then face the dilemma boldly. Two courses were open. He
could either share Bates's scanty knowledge, no more and no less, or
avow his ampler observations. And why should he adopt the first of
these alternatives? Was he not bringing himself practically within the
law?
Why should any man be shielded, no matter what his social position or
how beautiful his daughter, who might possibly have caused the death
of the pleasant-mannered and ladylike woman fated now to remain for
ever a tragic ghost in the memory of one who had dwelt under the same
roof with her for five months?
It was a thorny problem, yet it permitted of only one solution. Duty
must be done though the heavens fell.
This conviction grew on Theydon as his cab scurried across the Thames
and along Birdcage Walk. A pretty conceit could not be allowed to
sweep aside the first principles of citizenship. Indeed, so reassuring
was this reasoned judgment that he felt a sense of relief as he paid
off the cab and rang the bell of the Forbes mansion.
He gave his name to a footman, who disposed of his overcoat and hat,
and led him to an upstairs drawing room. Even the most fleeting
glances at hall and staircase revealed evidences of a highly trained
artistic taste gratified by great wealth. The furniture, the china,
the pictures, were each and all rare and well chosen.
"Mr. Theydon," announced the man, throwing wide the door.
A lady, bent over some prints spread on a distant table, turned at the
words, and hastened to greet the guest.
"My father is expecting you, Mr. Theydon," she said. "He was detained
rather late in the city, but will be here now at any moment."
Theydon was no neurotic boy, whose surcharged nerves were liable to
crack in a crisis demanding some unusual measure of self-control. Yet
the room and its contents-- and, not least, the graceful girl
advancing with outstretched hand-- swam before his eyes.
Because this was "Evelyn," and it was certain as the succession of
night to day that Mrs. Lester's mysterious visitor must have been
"Evelyn's" father, James Creighton Forbes.
CHAPTER II
THE COMPACT
So petrified was Theydon by coming face to face with the last person
breathing whom he expected to meet in that room, that he stumbled over
a small chair which lay directly between him and his hostess. At any
other time the gaucherie would have annoyed him exceedingly; in the
existing circumstances, no more fortunate incident could have
happened, since it brought Evelyn Forbes herself unwittingly to the
rescue.
"I have spoken twenty times about chairs being left in that absurd
position," she cried, as their hands met, "but you know how
wooden-headed servants are. They will not learn to discriminate.
People often sit in that very place of an afternoon, because any one
seated just there sees the Canaletto on the opposite wall in the best
light. When the lamps are on, the reason for the chair simply ceases
to exist, and it becomes a trap for the unwary. You are by no means
the first who has been caught in it."
Theydon realized, with a species of irritation, that the girl was
discoursing volubly about the offending chair merely in order to
extricate an apparently shy and tongue-tied young man from a morass of
his own creation.
That an author of some note should not only behave like a country
bumpkin, but actually seem to need encouragement so that he should
"feel at home" in a London drawing room, was a fact so ridiculous that
it spurred his bemused wits into something approaching their normal
activity.
"I have not the excuse of the Canaletto," he said, compelling a
pleasant smile, "but may I plead an even more distracting vision? I
came here expecting to meet an elderly gentleman of the class which
flippant Americans describe as 'high-brow,' and I am suddenly brought
face to face with a Romney 'portrait of a lady' in real life. Is it
likely that such an insignificant object as a chair, and a small one
at that, would succeed in catching my eye?"
Evelyn Forbes laughed, with a joyous mingling of surprise and relief.
Most certainly, Mr. Theydon's manner of speech differed vastly from
the disconcerting expression of positive bewilderment, if not actual
fright, which marred his entrance.
"Do I really resemble a Romney? Which one?" she cried.
"An admitted masterpiece."
"Ah, but people who pay compliments deserve to be put on the rack. I
insist on a definition."
"Lady Hamilton as Joan of Arc."
He drew the bow at random, and was gratified to see that his hearer
was puzzled.
"I don't know that particular picture," she said, "but I cannot
imagine any model less adapted to the subject."
"Romney immortalized the best qualities of both," he answered
promptly. "Please, may I look at the Canaletto which indirectly
waylaid me?"
She turned to cross the room, but stopped and faced him again with a
suddenness that argued an impulsive temperament.
"Now, I remember," she said. "Dad told me you had written novels and
some essays. Have you ever really seen Romney's portrait of Lady
Hamilton as Joan of Arc?"
Those fine eyes of hers pierced him with a glance of such candid
inquiry that he cast pretence to the winds.
"No," he said.
"Then you just invented the comparison as an excuse for colliding with
the chair?"
"Yes. At the same time I throw myself on the mercy of the court."
"It was rather clever of you."
He laughed, and their eyes met, at very close range.
"May I share the joke?" said a voice, and Theydon knew, before he
turned, that the man he had last seen disappearing around the corner
of Innesmore Mansions in a heavy rainstorm was in the room.
"Why did you tell me that Mr. Theydon was a serious scientific
person?" cried the girl. "He is anything but that. He can talk
nonsense quite admirably."
"So can a great many serious scientific persons, Evelyn. Glad to see
you, Mr. Theydon. Professor Scarth's letter paved the way for
something more than a formal meeting, so I thought you wouldn't mind
giving us an evening. My wife is not in town. She is a martyr to hay
fever, and has to fly from London to the sea early in May to escape.
If caught here in June nothing can save her. Tonight, as it happens,
you're our only guest, but my daughter is going to a musicale at Lady
de Winton's after dinner, so you and I will be free to soar into the
empyrean through a blaze of tobacco smoke."
Standing there, in that delightful drawing room, made welcome by a man
like Forbes, and admitted to a degree of charming intimacy by a girl
like Forbes's daughter, Theydon tried to believe that his meeting with
those ill-omened detectives at Waterloo Station was, in some sort, a
figment of the imagination.
But he was instantly and effectually brought back to a dour sense of
reality by Evelyn Forbes's next words. She, by chance, looked at
Theydon just as she had looked at him the previous night.
"Were you at Daly's Theater last night?" she inquired suddenly.
"Yes," he said. Then, finding there was no help for it, he went
on:----
"You and I have hit on the same discovery, Miss Forbes. We three stood
together at the exit. I was waiting for a taxi, and saw you get into
your car. Now you know just why I fell over the chair."
Forbes glanced up quickly.
"Don't tell me Tomlinson forgot to move that infernal chair again!" he
cried. "Really, I must get rid either of our butler or the Canaletto,
yet I prize both."
"Don't blame Tomlinson, Dad," laughed the girl. "If Mr. Theydon hadn't
made an unconventional entry we would have talked about the weather,
or something equally stupid."
At that moment Tomlinson himself, imperturbable and portly, announced
that dinner was served. The three descended the stairs, chatting
lightly about the musical comedy witnessed overnight. It was no new
revelation to Theydon that truth should prove stranger than fiction,
but the trite phrase was fast assuming a fresh and sinister personal
significance. He believed, and not without good reason, that no man
living had ever undergone an experience comparable with his present
adventure.
When he left that house he was going straight to two officers of the
law whose bounden duty it would become to call upon Mr. Forbes for a
full and true explanation of his visit to Mrs. Lester-- provided, that
is, he (Theydon) told them what he knew. Talk about a death's-head
grinning at a feast! At that bright dinner-table he was a prey to
keener emotion than ever shook a Borgia entertaining one whom he meant
to poison.
In sheer self-defense he talked with an animation he seldom displayed.
Evelyn was evidently much taken by him, and, fired by her manifest
interest, he indulged in fantastic paradox and wild flights of fancy.
Seemingly his exuberance stimulated Forbes, himself a well-informed
and epigrammatic talker.
An hour sped all too soon. The girl rose with a sigh.
"It's too bad that I should have to go," she said. "I shall be bored
stiff at Lady de Winton's. But I can't get out of it except by telling
a positive fib over the telephone. Dad, next time you ask Mr. Theydon
to dinner, please let me know in good time, and neither of you will be
rid of me so easily."
She shook hands with Theydon. While she was giving her father a
parting kiss the guest moved to the door and held it open. As she
passed out she smiled and her eyes said plainly:
"I like you. Come again soon."
Then she was gone and the pleasant room lost some of its glow and
color.
"Don't sit down again, Theydon," said Forbes, rising. "We'll have
coffee brought to my den. What is your favorite liqueur-- or shall we
tell Tomlinson to send along that decanter of port? It's a first-rate
wine. Another glass won't hurt you, or me, for that matter."
Theydon had hardly dared to touch the champagne supplied during the
meal. Abstemious at all times, because he found that wine or spirits
interfered with his capacity for work, he felt that a clear head and
steady nerves were called for that night more than any other night in
his life. Following the lead given by his host, therefore, he elected
for the port.
"You are right, too," said Forbes. "You remember Dr. Johnson's dictum:
'Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be
a hero must drink brandy'? Tonight, not aspiring to the heroic, we'll
stick to port."
"It is a curious fact that on my return from Brooklands today I took a
glass of brandy," confessed Theydon. "I seldom, if ever, drink any
intoxicant before dining, but I needed a stimulant of a sort, and some
unknown tissue in me cried aloud for brandy."
He hoped vaguely that the comment would lead to something more
explicit, and thus bring him, without undue emphasis, so to speak, to
the one topic on which he was now resolved to obtain a decisive
statement from the man chiefly concerned before he faced the
representatives of Scotland Yard.
But Forbes, motioning to an easy chair in a well-appointed library,
and flinging himself into another, gave heed only to the one word--
Brooklands.
"Did you fly?" he asked.
"No. I was soaking in theory, not practice."
"Ah, theory. It would, indeed, seem to be true that folded away in
some convolution of our brain are the faculties of the fish and the
bird. Those latent powers are expanding daily. The submarine has
already gone far beyond the practical achievement of aerial craft. But
why, in the name of humanity, should every such development of man's
almost immeasurable resources be dedicated to warlike purposes? I am
sick at heart when I hear the first question put in these days to each
inventor: 'Can you enable us to kill more of our fellowmen than we can
kill with existing appliances?' Is it a new engine, a new amalgam of
metals, a new explosive, a new field of electrical energy, one hears
the same vulture's cry-- 'How many, how far, how safely can we slay?'
I regard this lust for destruction as contemptible. It is a strange
and ignominious feature of modern life. Forgive me, Mr. Theydon, if I
speak strongly on this matter. The men who spread the bounds of
science today are, nominally, at any rate, Christians. They tell of
peace and goodwill to all, yet prepare unceasingly for some awful
Armageddon.[*] We teach Christ's gospel in pulpit and schoolhouse,
strive to express it in our laws, obey it in our lives and social
relations, yet we are armed to the teeth and ever arming, adding
strength to the plates of our warships and distance to the range of
our guns, constantly riveting and welding and forging monsters which
shall shatter men and cities and States."
[*This story was written before the outbreak of war in 1914.]
It was not the younger man now who talked brilliantly and forcibly.
Theydon, frankly abandoning the effort to twist the conversation to
that enigma which, the more he saw and heard of Forbes the more
incredible it became, listened enthralled to one who spoke with the
conviction and earnestness of a prophet.
"Don't imagine that I am framing an indictment against Christianity,"
went on Forbes passionately. "The Sermon on the Mount inspires all
that is great and noble in our everyday existence, all that is
eternally beautiful in our dreams of the future. But why this din of
war, this smoke of arsenals, this marching and drilling of the world's
youth? Nature's law appears to have two simple clauses. It enforces a
principle in the struggle for existence, a test in the survival of the
fittest. Great heavens, are not these enough, without having our ears
deafened by powder and drumming? That is why I am devoting a good deal
of time and no small amount of money to an international crusade
against the warlike idea, and I see no reason why a beginning should
not be made with the airship and the airplane. We are too late with
the submarine, but, before the golden hour passes, let us stop the
navigation of the air from forming part of the equipment of murder.
Surely it can be done. England and the United States, Italy, France
and the rest of Europe-- the founts of civilization-- can write the
edict, with all the blazonry of their glorious histories to illuminate
the page-- There shall be no war in the air!'"
Theydon was carried away in spite of himself.
"You believe that the airship might develop along the unemotional
lines of the parcel post?" he inquired.
Forbes laughed.
"Exactly," he said. "I like your simile. No one suggests that we
Britons should endeavor to destroy our hated rivals by sending bombs
through the mails. Why, then, in the name of common sense, should the
first-- I might almost say the only use of which the airship is
commonly supposed capable-- be that of destruction? Don't you see the
instant result of a war-limiting ordinance of the kind I advocate?
Suppose the peoples and the rulers declared in their wisdom that
soldiers and war material should be contraband of the air-- and
suppose that airships do become vehicles of practical utility-- what a
farce would soon be all the grim fortresses, the guns, the giant steel
structures now designed as floating hells! Humanity has yet time to
declare that the flying machine shall be as harmless and serviceable
as the penny post. I believe it can be done. Come now, Mr. Theydon, I
think you've caught on to my scheme-- will you help?"
Help! Here was a man expounding a new evangel, which might, indeed, be
visionary and impracticable, but was none the less essentially noble
and Christian in spirit, yet Theydon was debating whether or not he
should give testimony which would bring to that very room a couple of
detectives whose first questions would make clear to Forbes that he
was suspected of blood-guiltiness!
The notion was so utterly repellent that Theydon sighed deeply; his
host not unnaturally looked surprised.
"Of course, such a revolutionary idea strikes you as outside the pale
of common sense," he began, but the younger man stayed him with a
gesture. Here was an opportunity that must not be allowed to pass. No
matter what the cost-- if he never saw Evelyn Forbes or her father
again-- he must dispel the waking nightmare which held him in such an
abnormal condition of uncertainty and foreboding.
"Now that your daughter is gone I may venture to speak plainly," he
said. "I told you that, I felt the need of a brandy and soda at
Waterloo. As a matter of fact, I did not leave the Brooklands track
until six o'clock, and, as Innesmore Mansions, where I live, lie
north, and I was due here at 7:30, I had my man meet me at the station
with a suitcase, meaning to change my clothes in the dressing room
there, and come straight here. Guess my astonishment when I found
Bates-- Bates is the name of my factotum-- in the company of two
strangers, whom he introduced as representing the Criminal
Investigation Department."
He paused. He had brought in his own address skilfully enough, and
kept his voice sufficiently under control that no tremor betrayed a
knowledge of Forbes's vital interest in any mention of that one block
of flats among the multitude.
Now, for the first time, Innesmore Mansions figured as his abode, the
correspondence which led to the dinner having centered in his club.
But not a flicker of eyelid nor twitch of mobile lips showed the
slightest concern on Forbes's part. Rather did he display at once a
well-bred astonishment on hearing Theydon's concluding words.
"Do you mean detectives from Scotland Yard?" he cried.
"Yes."
Forbes smiled, and commenced filling a pipe.
"Evidently they did not want you as a principal," he said.
His tone was genial, but slightly guarded. Theydon realized that this
man of great wealth and high social position had reminded himself that
his guest, though armed with the best of credentials, was quite
unknown to him otherwise, and that, perhaps, he had acted unwisely in
inviting a stranger to his house without making some preliminary
inquiry. This reversal of their roles was a conceit so ludicrous that
Theydon smiled too.
At any rate, he meant now to pursue an unpleasing task, and have done
with it.
"No," he said slowly. "It seems that I am the worst sort of witness in
a murder case. I may have heard, I may even have seen, the person
suspected of committing the crime, or, if that is going too far, the
person whom the police have good reason to regard as the last who saw
the poor victim alive and in ordinary conditions. But my testimony,
such as it is, is so slight and inconclusive that, of itself, no one
could hang a cat on it."
"Good gracious! That sounds interesting, though you have my sympathy.
It must be rather distressing to be mixed up in such an affair, even
indirectly."
Forbes struck precisely the right note of friendly inquiry. He wished
to hear more, and was at the same time relieved to find that Professor
Scarth had not introduced a notorious malefactor in the guise of a
young writer seeking material for an article on air-ships!
Theydon could have laughed aloud at this comedy of errors, but the
fact that at any moment it might develop into a tragedy exercises a
wholesome restraint.
"I happen to live at No. 18 Innesmore Mansions," he said. "Opposite--
on the same floor, I mean-- lives, or did live, a Mrs. Lester. I do
not--"
"Are you telling me that a Mrs. Lester of No. 17 Innesmore Mansions is
dead-- has been murdered?"
Forbes's voice rang out vibrant, incisive. His ordinarily pale face
had blanched, and his deep-set eyes blazed with the fire of some
fierce emotion, but, beyond the slight elevation of tone and the
change of expression, he revealed to Theydon's quietly watchful
scrutiny no sign of the terror or distress which an evildoer might be
expected to show on learning that the law's vengeance was already
shadowing him, even in so remote a way as was indicated by the
presence under his roof of a witness regarded by the police as an
important one.
"Yes!" stammered Theydon, quite taken aback by his companion's
vehemence. "Do you-- know the lady? If so-- I am sorry-- I spoke so
unguardedly--"
"Good heavens, man, don't apologize for that! I am not a child or
weakling, that I should flinch in horror from one of life's dramatic
surprises! But, are you sure of what you are saying? Mrs. Lester
murdered! When?"
"About midnight last night, the doctor believes. That is what Bates
told me. I was so shaken on hearing his news, which was confirmed by
the two detectives, that I really gave little heed to details.... She
was strangled-- a peculiarly atrocious thing where an attractive and
ladylike woman is concerned. I have never spoken to her, but have met
her at odd times on the stairs. I was immeasurably shocked, I assure
you. In fact, I was on the point of telegraphing an excuse to you for
this evening, but the Chief Inspector-- Winter, I think his name is--
said it would suffice for his purpose if I met him at my flat about
eleven o'clock, as he was engaged on other inquiries which would
occupy the intervening hours."
"But if the news of this dastardly crime only reached you tonight at
Waterloo Station, and you have no personal acquaintance with Mrs.
Lester, what evidence can you give that will assist the police?"
"Mrs. Lester received a visitor last night, an incident so unusual
that I, who heard him arrive, and Bates, who was in my sitting room
when we both heard him depart, commented on the strangeness of it.
That, I suppose, is the reason why I am in request by Scotland Yard."
"You say 'him.' How did you know it was a man? Did you see him?"
"Er-- that was impossible. We were in my flat, behind its closed door.
Bates and I deduced his sex from the sound of his footsteps."
Again Theydon nearly stammered. Events had certainly turned in the
most amazing way. Instead of carrying himself almost in the manner of
a judge, he was figuring rather as an unwilling witness in the hands
of a skilled and merciless cross-examining counsel.
"Did the police officers supply any theory of motive for the crime?
Was this poor woman killed for the sake of her few trinkets?"
By this time Theydon was stung into a species of revolt. It was he,
not Forbes, who should be snapping out searching questions.
"I regret to say that my nerves were not sufficiently under control at
Waterloo that I should listen carefully to each word," he said, almost
stiffly. "Bates had picked up such information as was available; but
he, though an ex-sergeant in the Army, was so upset as to be hardly
coherent. When I meet the detectives in the course of another hour I
shall probably gather something definite and reliable in the way of
details."
Forbes laid the pipe which he had filled but not lighted on the table.
He poured out a glass of port and drank it.
"Try that," he said, pushing the decanter toward Theydon. "They cannot
trouble you greatly. You have so little to tell."
"No, thanks. Nothing more for me tonight until the Scotland Yard men
have cleared out."
Forbes rose as he spoke and strode the length of the room and back
with the air of a man debating some weighty and difficult point.
"Mr. Theydon," he said, at last, halting in front of the younger man
and gazing down at him with a direct intensity that was highly
embarrassing to one who had good cause to connect him with the actual
crime. "I want you to do me a favor-- a great favor. It was in my mind
at first to ask you to permit me to go with you to Innesmore Mansions,
and to be present during the interview with the detectives. But a man
in my position must be circumspect. It would, perhaps, be unwise to
appear too openly interested. I don't mind telling you in confidence
that I have known Mrs. Lester many years. The shock of her death,
severe as it must have been to you, is slight as compared with my own
sorrow and dismay. More than that I dare not say until better
informed. I remember now hearing the newsboys shouting their ghoulish
news, and I saw contents bills making large type display of 'Murder of
a lady,' but little did I imagine that the victim was one whom-- one
whose loss I shall deplore.... Are you on the telephone?"
"Yes," said Theydon, thoroughly mystified anew by the announcement
that Forbes had even contemplated, or so much as hinted at, the
astounding imprudence of visiting Innesmore Mansions that night.
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