Read Death in a White Tie Online
Authors: Ngaio Marsh
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #det_classic, #Mystery & Detective, #Police Procedural, #Police, #Great Britain, #England, #Alleyn; Roderick (Fictitious character), #Upper class
“Evening, m’lord,” said the driver.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said Lord Robert. “Evening. We’re going home.”
“Two hundred Cheyne Walk. Very good, m’lord,” wheezed the driver. He was a goggle-eyed, grey-haired, mottle-faced taximan with an air of good-humoured truculence about him. He slammed the door on them, jerked down the lever of his meter, and started up his engine.
“Everybody knows you, Uncle Bunch,” said Donald in a voice that was not quite natural. “Even the casual taxi-driver.”
“This feller cruises about in our part of the world,” said Lord Robert. He twisted himself round in his seat and again looked at his nephew over the top of his glasses. “What’s up?” he asked.
“I — well — nothing. I mean, why do you think anything’s up?”
“Now then,” said Lord Robert. “No jiggery-pokery. What’s up?”
“Well, as a matter of fact,” answered Donald, kicking the turned-up seat in front of him, “I did rather want a word with you. I–I’m in a bit of a tight corner, Uncle Bunch.”
“Money?” asked his uncle.
“How did you guess?”
“Don’t be an ass, my boy. What is it?”
“I — well, I was wondering if you would mind — I mean, I know I’ve been a bit extravagant. I’m damn sorry it’s happened. I suppose I’ve been a fool but I’m simply draped in sackcloth and steeped in ashes. Never again!”
“Come, come, come,” said Lord Robert crisply. “What is it? Gambling?”
“Well — yes. With a slight hint of riotous living. Gambling mostly.”
“Racing? Cards?”
“A bit, but actually I dropped the worst packet at roulette.”
“Good Gad!” exclaimed Lord Robert with surprising violence. “Where the devil do you play roulette?”
“Well, actually it was at a house out at Leatherhead. It belongs to a man who was at that party. Some people I know took me there. It turned out to be a rather enterprising sort of gamble with a roulette-table and six fellows doing croupier. All in order, you know. I mean it’s not run for anything but fun naturally, and Captain Withers simply takes on the bank—”
“
Who
?”
“The person’s name is Withers.”
“When was this party?”
“Oh, a week or so ago. They have them fairly regularly. I paid all right, but — but it just about cleaned me up. I had the most amazing bad luck, actually. Would you believe it, there was a run of seventeen against me on the even chances? Bad. Very bad,” said Donald with an unconvincing return to his lighter manner. “Disastrous, in fact.”
“You’re shying about,” said Lord Robert. “What’s the real trouble?”
“One of my cheques has been returned R/D. I’m bust.”
“I paid your Oxford debts and started you off with five hundred as a yearly allowance. Are you telling me you’ve gone through five hundred since you came down?”
“I’m sorry,” said Donald. “Yes.”
“Your mother gives you four pounds a week, don’t she?”
“Yes.”
Lord Robert suddenly whisked out a notebook.
“How much was this returned cheque?”
“Fifty quid. Awful, isn’t it?” He glanced at his uncle’s profile and saw that his lips were pursed in a soundless whistle. Donald decided that it was not as bad as he had feared and said more hopefully: ‘Isn’t it a bore?”
Lord Robert, his pencil poised, said: ‘Who was it made out to?”
“To Wits — Withers — everyone calls him Wits. You see, I had a side bet with him.”
Lord Robert wrote, turned, and looked over his spectacles at his nephew.
“I’ll send Withers a cheque tonight,” he said.
“Thank you so much, Uncle Bunch.”
“What’s the address?”
“Shackleton House, Leatherhead. He’s got a flat in town but the Leatherhead address is all right.”
“Any other debts?”
“One or two shops. They seem to be getting rather testy about it. And a restaurant or two.”
“Here we are,” said Lord Robert abruptly.
The taxi drew up outside the house he shared with his sister. They got out. Lord Robert paid and tipped the driver.
“How’s the lumbago?” he asked.
“Not too bad, m’lord, thank you, m’lord.”
“Good. ’Evening to you.”
“Good evening, m’lord.”
They entered the house in silence. Lord Robert said over his shoulder: “Come to my room.”
He led the way, a small, comic, but somehow a rather resolute figure. Donald followed him into an old-fashioned study. Lord Robert sat at his desk and wrote a cheque with finicky movements of his fat hands. He blotted it meticulously and swung round in his chair to face his nephew.
“You still of the same mind about this doctoring?” he asked.
“Well, that’s the big idea,” said Donald.
“Passed some examinations for it, didn’t you?”
“Medical prelim,” said Donald easily. “Yes, I’ve got that.”
“Before you were sent down for losing your mother’s money. And mine.”
Donald was silent.
“I’ll get you out of this mess on one condition. I don’t know the way you set about working for a medical degree. Our family’s been in the diplomatic for a good many generations. High time we did something else, I dare say. You’ll start work at Edinburgh as soon as they’ll have you. If that’s not at once I’ll get a coach and you’ll go to Archery and work there. I’ll show you as much as the usual medical student gets and I’ll advise your mother to give you no more. That’s all.”
“Edinburgh! Archery!” Donald’s voice was shrill with dismay. “But I don’t want to go to Edinburgh for my training. I want to go to Thomas’s.”
“You’re better away from London. There’s one other thing I must absolutely insist upon, Donald. You are to drop this feller Withers.”
“Why should I?”
“Because the feller’s a bad ’un. I know something about him. I have never interfered in the matter of your friendships before, but I’d be neglectin’ my duty like anything if I didn’t step in here.”
“I won’t give up a friend simply because you choose to say he’s no good.”
“I give you my word of honour this man’s a rotter — a criminal rotter. I was amazed when I recognized Withers this afternoon. My information dates from my Foreign Office days. It’s unimpeachable. Very bad record. Come now, be sensible. Make a clean break and forget all about him. Archery’s a nice old house. Your mother can use it as a
pied-à-terre
and see you sometimes. It’s only ten miles out of Edinburgh.”
“But—”
“Afraid it’s definite.”
“But — I don’t want to leave London. I don’t want to muck about with a lot of earnest Scots from God knows where. I mean the sort of people who go there are just simply The End!”
“Why?” asked Lord Robert.
“Well, because, I mean, you know what I mean. They’ll be the most unspeakable curiosities. No doubt perfectly splendid but—”
“But not in the same class with young men who contract debts of honour which they cannot meet and do the London season on their mother’s money?”
“That’s not fair,” cried Donald hotly.
“Why?” repeated Lord Robert.
“I’ll bet you got into the same sort of jams when you were my age.”
“You’re wrong,” said Lord Robert mildly. “I did as many silly things as most young men of my day. But I did not contract debts that I was unable to settle. It seemed to me that sort ofthing amounted to theft. I didn’t steal clothes from my tailor, drink from my hotel, or money from my friends.”
“But I knew it would be all right in the end.”
“You mean, you knew I’d pay?”
“I’m not ungrateful,” said Donald angrily.
“My dear fellow, I don’t want you to be grateful.”
“But I won’t go and stay in a deserted mausoleum of a Scotch house in the middle of the season. There’s — there’s Bridget.”
“Lady Carrados’s gel? Is she fond of you?”
“Yes.”
“She seems a nice creature. You’re fortunate. Not one of these screeching rattles. She’ll wait for you.”
“I won’t go.”
“M’dear boy, I’m sorry, but you’ve no alternative.”
Donald’s face was white but two scarlet patches burned on his cheek-bones. His lips trembled. Suddenly he burst out violently.
“You can keep your filthy money,” he shouted. “By God, I’ll look after myself. I’ll borrow from someone who’s not a bloody complacent Edwardian relic and I’ll get a job and pay them back as I can.”
“Jobs aren’t to be had for the asking. Come now—”
“Oh, shut up!” bawled Donald and flung out of the room.
Lord Robert stared at the door which his nephew had not neglected to slam. The room was very quiet. The fire settled down with a small whisper of ashes and Lord Robert’s clock ticked on the mantelpiece. It ticked very loudly. The plump figure, only half-lit by the lamp on the desk, was quite still, the head resting on the hand. Lord Robert sighed, a slight mournful sound. At last he pulled an envelope towards him and in his finicky writing addressed it to Captain Withers, Shackleton House, Leatherhead. Then he wrote a short note, folded a cheque into it and put them both in the envelope. He rang for his butler.
“Has Mr Donald gone out?”
“Yes, m’lord. He said he would not be returning.”
“I see,” said Lord Robert. “Thank you. Will you see that this letter is posted immediately?”
Lord Robert had sat on the blue sofa since two-fifteen but he was not tired of it. He enjoyed watching the patrons of music arriving and he amused himself with idle speculations on the subject of intellectual snobbishness. He also explored the blue sofa, sliding his hands cautiously over the surface of the seat and down between the seat and the arms. He had taken the precaution of leaving his gloves on a chair on the left of the sofa and a little behind it. A number of people came and spoke to him, among them Lady Carrados, who was looking tired.
“You’re overdoing it, Evelyn,” he told her. “You look charming — that’s a delightful gown, ain’t it? — but you’re too fragile, m’dear.”
“I’m all right, Bunchy,” she said. “You’ve got a nice way of telling a woman she’s getting older.”
“No, I say! It wasn’t that. Matter of fact it rather suits you bein’ so fine-drawn, but you are too thin, you know. Where’s Bridgie?”
“At a matinée.”
“Evelyn, do you know if she sees anything of my nephew?”
“Donald Potter? Yes. We’ve heard all about it, Bunchy.”
“He’s written to his mother who no doubt is giving him money. I suppose you know he’s sharing rooms with some other feller?”
“Yes. Bridgie sees him.”
“Does Bridgie know where he is?”
“I think so. She hasn’t told me.”
“Is she fond of the boy, Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think of him?”
“I don’t know. He’s got a lot of charm, but I wish he’d settle down.”
“Is it botherin’ you much?”
“That?” She caught her breath. “A little, naturally. Oh,
there’s
Lady Alleyn! We’re supposed to be together.”
“Delightful woman, ain’t she? I’m waiting for Mrs Halcut-Hackett.”
“I shouldn’t have thought her quite your cup of tea,” said Lady Carrados vaguely.
Lord Robert made his rabbit-face and winked.
“We go into mutual raptures over Bach,” he said.
“I must join Lady Alleyn. Good-bye, Bunchy.”
“Good-bye, Evelyn. Don’t worry too much — over anything.”
She gave him a startled look and went away. Lord Robert sat down again. The room was nearly full and in ten minutes the Sirmione Quartette would appear on the modern dais.
“Is she waiting for the lights to go down?” wondered Lord Robert. He saw Agatha Troy come in, tried to catch her eye, and failed. People were beginning to settle down in the rows of gilt chairs and in the odd armchairs and sofas round the walls. Lord Robert looked restlessly towards the door and saw Sir Daniel Davidson. Davidson made straight for him. Sir Daniel had once cured Lord Robert’s sister of indigestion and Mildred, who was an emotional woman, had asked him to dinner. Lord Robert had been amused and interested by Davidson. His technique as a fashionable doctor was superb. “If Disraeli had taken to medicine instead of primroses,” Lord Robert had said, “he would have been just such another.” And he had encouraged Davidson to launch out on his favourite subject, The Arts, with rather emphatic capitals. He had capped Davidson’s Latin tags, quoted Congreve against him, and listened with amusement to a preposterous parallel drawn between Rubens and Dürer. “The extrovert and the introvert of Art,” Davidson had cried, waving his beautiful hands, and Lord Robert had twinkled and said: “You are talking above my head.”
“I’m talking nonsense,” Davidson had replied abruptly, “and you know it.” But in a minute or two he had been off again as flamboyantly as ever and had left at one o’clock in the morning, very pleased with himself and overflowing with phrases.
“Ah!” he said now as he shook hands. “I might have guessed I should find you here. Doing the fashionable thing for the unfashionable reason. Music! My God!”
“What’s wrong?* asked Lord Robert.
“My dear Lord Robert, how many of these people will know what they are listening to, or even listen? Not one in fifty.”
“Oh, come now!”
“Not one in fifty! There goes that fellow Withers whose aesthetic appreciation is less than that of a monkey on a barrel-organ. What’s he here for? I repeat, not one in fifty of these humbugs knows what he’s listening to. And how many of the forty-nine have the courage to confess themselves honest philistines?”
“Quite a number, I should have thought,” said Lord Robert cheerfully. “Myself for one. I’m inclined to go to sleep.”
“Now, why say that? You know perfectly well — What’s the matter?”
“Sorry. I was looking at Evelyn Carrados. She looks damn seedy,” said Lord Robert. Davidson followed his glance to where Lady Carrados sat beside Lady Alleyn. Davidson watched her for a moment and then said quietly:
“Yes. She’s overdoing it. I shall have to scold her. My seat is somewhere over there, I believe.” He made an impatient gesture. “They all overdo it, these mothers, and the girls overdo it, and the husbands get rattled and the young men neglect their work and then there are half a dozen smart weddings, as many nervous breakdowns and there’s your London season.”
“Lor!” said Lord Robert mildly.
“It’s the truth. In my job one sees it over and over again. Yes, yes, yes, I know! I am a smart West End doctor and I encourage all these women to fancy themselves ill. That’s what you may very well think, but I assure you, my dear Lord Robert, that one sees cases of nervous exhaustion that are enough to make a cynic of the youngest ingénue. And they are so charming, these mamas. I mean really charming. Women like Lady Carrados. They help each other so much. It is not all a cutlet for a cutlet. But” — he spread out his hands — “what is it for? What is it all about? The same people meeting each other over and over again at great expense to the accompaniment of loud negroid noises of jazz bands. For what?”
“Damned if I know,” said Lord Robert cheerfully. “Who’s that feller who came in behind Withers? Tall, dark feller with the extraordinary hands. I seem to know him.”
“Where? Ah.” Davidson picked up his glasses which he wore on a wide black ribbon. “Who is it, now! I’ll tell you who it is. It’s the catering fellow, Dimitri. He’s having his three guineas’ worth of Bach with the
haute monde
and, by God, I’ll wager you anything you like that he’s got more appreciation in his extraordinary little finger — you are very observant, it
is
an odd hand — than most of them have in the whole of their pampered carcasses. How do you do, Mrs Halcut-Hackett?”
She had come up so quietly that Lord Robert had actually missed her. She looked magnificent. Davidson, to Lord Robert’s amusement, kissed her hand.
“Have you come to worship?” he asked.
“Why, certainly,” she said and turned to Lord Robert. “I see you have not forgotten.”
“How could I?”
“Now isn’t that nice?” asked Mrs Halcut-Hackett, looking slantways at the blue sofa. Lord Robert moved aside and she at once sat down, spreading her furs.
“I must find my seat,” said Davidson. “They are going to begin.”
He went to a chair beside Lady Carrados on the far side of the room. Mrs Halcut-Hackett asked Lord Robert if he did not think Sir Daniel a delightful personality. He noticed that her American accent was not quite so strictly repressed as usual and that her hands moved restlessly. She motioned him to sit on her right.
“If you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll stick to my chair. I like straight backs.”
He saw her glance nervously at his chair which was a little behind the left arm of the sofa. Her bag was on her lap. It was a large bag and looked well filled. She settled her furs again so that they fell across it. Lord Robert perched on his hideously uncomfortable chair. He noticed that Dimitri had sat down at the end of a row of seats close by. He found himself idly watching Dimitri. “Wonder what he thinks of us. Always arranging food for our parties and he could buy most of us up and not notice it, I shouldn’t mind betting. They
are
rum hands and no mistake. The little finger’s the same length as the third.”
A flutter of polite clapping broke out and the Sirmione String Quartette walked on to the dais. The concealed lights of the concert chamber were dimmed into darkness, leaving the performers brilliantly lit. Lord Robert experienced that familiar thrill that follows the glorious scrape of tuning strings. But he told himself he had not come to listen to music and he was careful not to look towards the dais lest his eyes should be blinded by the light. Instead he looked towards the left-hand arm of the blue sofa. The darkness gradually thinned and presently he could make out the dim sheen of brocade and the thick depth of blackness that was Mrs Halcut-Hackett’s furs. The shape of this blackness shifted. Something glinted. He bent forward. Closer than the exquisite pattern of the music he caught the sound made by one fabric rubbed against another, a sliding rustle. The outline of the mass that was Mrs Halcut-Hackett went tense and then relaxed. “She’s stowed it away,” thought Lord Robert.
Nobody came near them until the lights went up for the interval and then Lord Robert realized how very well the blackmailer had chosen when he lit upon the blue sofa as a post-box, for the side door beyond it was thrown open during the interval and instead of going out into the lounge by the main entrance many people passed behind the blue sofa and out by this side door. And as the interval drew to a close people came in and stood behind the sofa gossiping. Lord Robert felt sure that his man had gone into the lounge. He would wait until the lights were lowered and come in with the rest of the stragglers, pass behind the sofa and slip his hand over the arm. Most of the men and many of the women had gone out to smoke, but Lord Robert remained uncomfortably wedded to his chair. He knew very well that Mrs Halcut-Hackett writhed under the pressure of conflicting desires. She wished to be alone when the bag was taken and she dearly loved a title. She was to have the title. Suddenly she murmured something about powdering her nose. She got up and left by the side door.
Lord Robert rested his head on his hand and devoted the last few minutes of the interval to a neat imitation of an elderly gentleman dropping off to sleep. The lights were lowered again. The stragglers, with mumbled apologies, came back. There was a little group of people still standing in the darkness behind the sofa. The performers returned to the dais.
Someone had advanced from behind Lord Robert and stood beside the sofa.
Lord Robert felt his heart jump. He had placed his chair carefully, leaving a space between himself and the left-hand arm of the sofa. Into this space the shadowy figure now moved. It was a man. He stood with his back to the lighted dais and he seemed to lean forward a little as though he searched the darkness for something. Lord Robert also leant forward. He emitted the most delicate hint of a snore. His right hand propped his head. Through the cracks of his fat fingers he watched the left arm of the sofa. Into this small realm of twilight came the shape of a hand. It was a curiously thin hand and he could see quite clearly that the little finger was as long as the third.
Lord Robert snored.
The hand slid over into the darkness and when it came back it held Mrs Halcut-Hackett’s bag.
As if in ironic appreciation the music on the dais swept up a sharp crescendo into a triumphant blare. Mrs Halcut-Hackett returned from powdering her nose.