Surfeit of Lampreys

  “Fox,” he said, “how many men did we leave at Brummell Street?”

  “One, sir. Campbell. The house is being watched.” And staring at his superior’s face, Fox asked: “What’s wrong?”

  Alleyn’s long finger went out in that familiar gesture. “Read that.”

  Fox put on his glasses and bent over the Compendium. “THE SECOND BOOK,” he read, “DEALING WITH THE VARIOUS KINDS OF WITCHCRAFT AND CERTAIN OTHER MATTERS WHICH SHOULD BE KNOWN.”

  “Go on.”

  “CHAPTER I. OF SOPORIFIC SPELLS. ARGUMENT.” Fox read on in his best police-court manner until Alleyn stopped him. “Well,” said Fox, “It seems to be very silly sort of stuff. It’s marked in the margin so she evidently made something of it. I suppose it’s given her ideas.”

  “There are several more works on witchcraft down in the library. Some of them are very rare. Yes, I think it’s given her ideas, Fox. I’m wondering if we’ve bumped our heads on the keystone of her behaviour. How soon can we get back?”

  “To London? Not before eleven thirty, sir.’

  “Damn. Fox, I’ve got a very rum notion, so rum that I’m half ashamed of it. I believe I know why she wanted his body brought home.”

  “Lor’!” said Fox. “You don’t think she would get up to any of these capers?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her. I’m uneasy, Fox. Pricking of the thumbs or something. When are they delivering the goods? About ten, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir. The mortuary van—”

  “Yes, I know. Let’s get back to London.”

  It was a few minutes after ten when they brought Uncle G. to Brummell Street. Henry and Roberta were in the library. The rain made a great drumming noise on the windows and the wind soughed in the chimney but they were at once aware of new sounds inside the house and Henry said: “You stay here, Robin. I’ll come back soon.”

  He went out, shutting the door but not shutting away the heavy sounds of Uncle G.’s progress across the great hall and up the long stairway. Roberta sat on the hearthrug and held her hands to the fire. Her heartbeat was faster than the bump of feet on the stairs. In their morning’s exploration she and Henry had visited the green drawing-room. It was over the library and soon the ceiling gave back to her the sound of Uncle G.’s progress. The footsteps stopped for a little while and then lost their heaviness. Now the men were coming downstairs again, crossing the hall, leaving 24 Brummell Street for the kindlier storm-swept streets. She heard the great front door close. In a little while Henry came back. He carried a tray with a decanter and two glasses.

  “I got them out of the dining-room,” he explained. “We’ll have a little drink, Robin. Yes, I know you don’t, but to-night I prescribe it.”

  The unaccustomed glow did drive away Roberta’s cold, sunken feeling. Henry threw more logs on the fire and for half an hour they sat before it talking of the old days in New Zealand.

  “I am quite determined,” Henry said, “that after this is all over I shall get a job. Yes, I know I’ve talked about it for six years.”

  “And now,” said Robin tartly, “when, for the first time, it isn’t a crying necessity—”

  “I make up my mind to do it. Yes. I shall continue in the territorials in my humble but exacting capacity. I shall sit for strange examinations and thus prepare myself for the obscure and unattractive performance known as ‘doing one’s bit.’ And when war comes,” said Henry in a melancholy manner, “Henry Lamprey, Earl of Rune, will take his place among the flower of England’s manhood guarding an entrance to some vulnerable public convenience.”

  Roberta knew that Henry was trying to brighten this ominous night and although his jokes were not quite up to Lamprey standard she contrived to laugh at them. The clock struck eleven. They couldn’t stay all night by the library fire. Sometime those stairs must be climbed, those passages traversed. In an exhausted, uncertain fashion Roberta longed for her bed. She ached for sleep yet was not sleepy. Her throat and mouth kept forming half yawns and her head throbbed.

  “How about it, Robin?” asked Henry presently. “Bed?”

  “I think so.”

  Past the stuffed bear with his open mouth and extended paws…Past the cold marble persons at the foot of the stairs… Past the second landing where Aunt V. and her nurses and perhaps Tinkerton slept or watched behind closed doors… Then the long passage, lit now by electric lights…

  “I asked them to put a fire in your room, Robin.” Heavenly of Henry to think of that…Better by far to undress by this cheerful fire…And when she crept out in her dressing-gown, there was Henry in his dressing-gown, and they went into the bathroom together and Henry sat on the edge of the tub in a friendly manner while Roberta brushed her teeth. They returned together to their bedroom doors.

  “Good night, Robin darling. Sleep well.”

  “Good night.”

  The Kentish slow train was late. The police car had punctured a tyre half a mile from Deepacres Halt and they had missed their connection with the express. At every station the slow train halted, breathing long steamy sighs which were echoed by Alleyn.

  “What’s biting you, Inspector?” asked Nigel cheerfully.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ve never seen you so jumpy.”

  “That fellow Campbell was told to keep his wits about him, Fox?”

  “Yes, Mr. Alleyn.”

  “Good God, we’re stopping again!”

  Roberta’s heart beat so thickly that she wondered if it alone had awakened her. She lay with her eyes opened upon blackness. She could not see so much as the form of the curtains that hung beside her head or the shape of her hand held close to her eyes. For a moment she was confused. The memory of this room was gone from her. She had no sense of her position or of her invisible surroundings but felt as though she had opened her eyes on nothingness. She dared not put out her hand lest the wall should not be there. Now she was wide awake. She remembered her room and knew that round the curtains on her left side she should be able to see the fire. She touched the curtain, so close yet invisible, and it moved. Somewhere beyond her bed glowed a point of redness. The fire was almost dead; she had slept a long time. Outside it was still raining and the wind still moaned in the chimney but neither the wind nor the rain had awakened Roberta. She knew that some one had walked past her door. She began to reason with herself, telling her thumping heart that there was no cause for fear. Perhaps it was the man on guard in the house, making some cold round of inspection. Yet even while she sought in panic for comfort she knew, so densely woven are the strands of thought, that the footstep in the passage was the secondary cause of her alarm and that it was another sound that had horrified her dreams and rushed her upwards into wakefulness. She lay still and waited, tingling, for full realization. Presently it came. Beneath her, beyond the mattress of her bed, the carpet on the floor, the floor itself, the ceiling below the floor—beyond all these, there was a sound that fretted the outer borders of her hearing. It had a kind of rhythm. It suggested some sort of harsh movement with which Roberta was familiar. At the moment when she recognized it, it ceased, and she was left with a picture of a hand and a saw. Then she remembered that underneath her bedroom was the green drawing-room.

  Perhaps if the sound had not begun again Roberta would have lain still in her bed. But there are degrees of terror and with the stealthy resumption of the sound she knew that she could not endure it alone. She snapped down the switch by her door but no light came and she supposed that it had been turned off at the main. She groped on her bedside table, found a box of matches and lit her candle. Now her room was there with her clothes lying across a chair. Her shadow reared up the wall and stretched halfway across the ceiling. She put on her dressing-gown and, taking her candle, went to her door and opened it. As she did this the sound stopped again.

  Henry’s door was wide open. Roberta crossed the passage and went into his room but before she looked at the bed she knew he would not be there. The clothes were turne
d back and there was no candle on his table. She found some comfort in being in Henry’s room. It smelt faintly of the stuff he put on his hair. Roberta wrapped his eiderdown quilt round herself and sat on the bed. Henry had heard the noise and had gone to see about it. But at once she grew afraid for Henry and as the seconds went by this fear increased until it became intolerable. She went to the door and listened. The sound had stopped for some minutes and she heard only the rain, muffled here where there were no windows. She faced the passage and perceived a thinning of darkness at the far end, where the landing was and where the well of the house gaped up to the roof. As she peered down the passage this dimness changed stealthily to a faint shadow, moving slow. It must be Henry returning with his candle. Now she could see the landing with its gallery rail and stairhead. She caught a glint of light on a far wall and remembered that a looking-glass hung there. A glowing circle appeared on the landing floor. It widened and grew more clearly defined. Henry was coming upstairs. In a moment she would see him.

  Framed by the black walls of the passage, a figure carrying a lighted candle moved from the stairs across the landing. It paused, and slowly turned. The light from the candle shone upwards into its face. It was Lady Wutherwood. Her head was slanted as if she listened intently; her eyes were turned upwards towards the next landing. She moved away, became a receding shape rimmed by a golden nimbus, and disappeared.

  Roberta, in the dark passage, stood still. Henry’s door, caught in a draught from his open window, banged shut, and her whole body leapt to the sound and was still again. At last the landing began to grow light once more. The manner of its lighting was so exactly as it had been before that her nerves expected Lady Wutherwood to come upstairs again like a ghost that punctually repeated its gestures. But of course it was Henry. He shielded his candle with his hand and seemed to look directly into Roberta’s eyes. Forgetting she was invisible she wondered at his look, which held nothing of the comfort she had expected. Then, realizing that he had not seen her, she went down the passage to meet him.

  “Robin! Why have you come out! Go back.” He scarcely breathed the words.

  “I can’t. What’s happening?”

  “What have you seen?”

  “I saw her. I think she went up to the next landing.”

  “Go back to your room,” Henry said.

  “Let me stay. Give me something to do.”

  He seemed to hesitate. She touched his arm. “Please Henry.”

  “What wakened you?”

  “A noise in that room. Like sawing. Have you been there?”

  Again Henry hesitated. “It’s locked,” he said.

  “Where’s the detective? Shouldn’t you find him?”

  “Come with me.”

  So he was going to let her stay with him. She followed him across the landing. He paused at a door, bent down to listen. Then, very gingerly, he turned the handle and with his head motioned Roberta to come closer. She obeyed. Through the crack of the door came the sound of snoring, very deep and stertorous.

  “Night nurse,” breathed Henry and closed the door.

  “What are you going to do? Find the detective?”

  “I’d like to find out for myself what she’s up to.”

  “No, Henry. If anything’s wrong it would look so strange. Ssh!”

  “What?”

  “Look.”

  A circle of light bobbed up the stairs and across the landing. “Damn!” whispered Henry. “He’s coming.”

  He walked swiftly to the stairhead. “Hullo,” he said softly, “who’s that?”

  “Just a minute, sir.”

  The man came up quickly, flashing his torch on Henry. As he moved into the candlelight Roberta saw he wore a heavy overcoat and muffler and remembered that she herself was cold.

  “What’s wrong here, sir?” asked the man. “Who’s been interfering with these lights? I said they were to be left on.”

  Henry told him quickly that he had been awakened by a sound from the green drawing-room, and that he had seen Lady Wutherwood walk across the landing with a candle in her hand. “Miss Grey saw her too. Miss Grey came out soon after I did.”

  “Where did she go, sir?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “You stay here, if you please, sir. Both of you. Don’t move.”

  He threw his torch light on the upper stairs. They were half the width of the lower flight and steeper. The man ran lightly up and then disappeared. Roberta and Henry heard a door open and close, then another, and another. Then silence.

  “Hell!” said Henry loudly, “I’m going…” Roberta snatched at his arm and he stopped short. Somewhere in the top floor of the house Lady Wutherwood screamed. Roberta knew at once it was she who screamed. It was the same note that had drilled through the silence of the lift well. It persisted for some seconds, intolerable and imbecilic, and then a door slammed it away into the background. Other voices sounded on the top floor. Somebody had joined them on the landing. It was the night nurse with her veil askew.

  “Where’s she gone?” cried the night nurse. “I don’t accept the responsibility for this. Where’s she gone?”

  On the top floor the man in the overcoat was saying: “Get back to your rooms, the lot of you. Move along now. Do what you’re told.” And a voice, Tinkerton’s: “I’m going to my lady.” “You’re doing what you’re told. Into your rooms, now, all of you. I’ll see you later.”

  “You can’t lock me out.”

  “I have locked you out. Stand aside, if you please.” The man in the overcoat came downstairs.

  “Where’s my patient?” said the nurse. “I must get to my patient.”

  “You’re too late,” said the man, and to Henry: “You two come along with me, sir. I’m going to the telephone.”

  They followed him to a small study on the second landing. He sat down to a desk and dialled Whitehall 1212. His fingers shook and his mouth looked stiff.

  “…Campbell here on duty at 24 Brummell Street. Mr. Alleyn, please. What’s that? On his way? Right. There’s been a fatality here. We’ll want the divisional surgeon quick. Get him, will you, I’m single-handed.”

  He replaced the receiver.

  “Look here,” said Henry violently. “What was she doing? You can’t drag us around like a brace of dummies and tell us nothing. What’s happened? What’s this fatality?”

  The man Campbell bit his fingers and stared at Henry. “Who locked the door of the room where the body is?” he demanded.

  “I didn’t,” said Henry.

  “But you knew it was locked, sir?”

  “Of course I did. I heard a damned ghastly noise in the room and went down to investigate. What’s happened upstairs?”

  The man seemed to weigh something in his mind and come to a decision. “Come and see,” he said.

  They seemed to have forgotten Roberta but she followed them up the long stairs. On the next landing they picked up the nurse and went on to the top floor, a strange procession. The nurse and Campbell had a torch and Henry his candle. The top landing gave on to a narrow passage. The detective opened the first door. The Moffatts, two girls, and Tinkerton, fantastic in their night-clothes, were huddled round a candle.

  “Here, you,” said Campbell, “Mr. Moffatt. Go down and fix up the lights. Some one’s pulled out the main fuse. Find it and get it back. Or have you got a spare?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, fix it. Have you got a police whistle?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Go to the front door and blow it. When the constable comes, take him up to the door of the room where the body is and tell him I said he was to stay there. Detective-Sergeant Campbell. Then wait by the front door. Let in a doctor who will be here in a few minutes and send him upstairs to the top floor. Then wait for Chief Inspector Alleyn who’s on his way from Victoria Station. Send him up too.”

  He passed the next door and paused by a third. “Your patient’s in there, nurse. We’ll take a look at her first. We’
ll have to see if there’s a key on her. You come in with me, sir, and look out for yourself. She may give trouble.” He turned to Roberta. “You slip in after us if you please, Miss, take my torch and shut the door. If we’ve got to hold her I may trouble you to help. And you, Nurse. Now then.”

  He unlocked the door, glanced at Henry, and then opened it quickly. He went in, with Henry on his heels. The nurse followed; Roberta slipped in behind her and shut the door.

  It was an unused servant’s bedroom. For a moment Roberta thought Lady Wutherwood was not there but the light from the torches found her. She sat on the floor at the head of the stretcher bed. She turned her head and looked blindly into the light and though her retracted lips at first suggested a snarl it was evident by the noise she made that she was laughing. Her hair hung about her eyes; the white discs at the corners of the mouth glistened; she turned her head gently from side to side. Her throat was bare and in its pale thickness a pulse beat rapidly. She wore a dark gown over her nightdress and her hands moved among its folds.

  “Now, my lady,” said Campbell, “nobody’s going to hurt you. Here’s Nurse come to take you back to bed.”

  The nurse in a most unnatural voice said: “Come along, dear. We can’t stay in a nasty cold room can we? Come along.” Lady Wutherwood shrank back against the wall. The nurse said; “We’ll just help you up, shall we?” and moved forward.

  Lady Wutherwood was on her feet with a swiftness that suggested some violent wrench of pain. She pressed herself against the wall. Her hands were in the pockets of her gown, holding them together, crushed tight against herself.

  “That’s better,” said the nurse. Campbell moved closer to Lady Wutherwood and in answer to this signal Henry followed him.

  “Now you come along with Nurse, my lady,” said Campbell. “We’ll just take your arms. Look out!”

  Henry’s candle rolled on the floor and went out. The nurse and Roberta pointed their torches at the three struggling figures. Lady Wutherwood struck twice at Campbell with her right hand before he caught her arm. Henry had her left arm. The left hand was still rammed down in the pocket of her dressing-gown but she fought with the violence of an animal. Suddenly the room was flooded by a hard white light. Roberta threw her torch on the bed. “Collar her low, Robin.” said Henry’s voice. Roberta was on the floor. Her arms embraced a pair of soft legs, struggling inside the folds of robe and nightgown. “Disgusting, disgusting,” said her thoughts but she held on. “That’s better,” Campbell said, and abruptly they were all quiet, blinking in the glare. The nurse still pointed the torch at them. She was talking. “It’s a case for a mental attendant. I should never have been asked to take the case,” gabbled the nurse, carefully pointing her torch. “It’s not a case for ordinary duty.” Lady Wutherwood’s left hand doubled inside her pocket, touched the top of Roberta’s head. The hand and arm were rigid, yet they moved with their owner’s violent breathing. A new voice, harsh and broken, sounded and was silent.