The Grand Babylon Hôtel
The electric chandelier in the centre of the ceiling was not lighted;
only the two lights on either side of the washstand were switched on,
and these did not sufficiently illuminate the features of the man on the
bed to enable Racksole to see them clearly. In vain the millionaire
strained his eyes; he could only make out that the corpse was probably
that of a young man. Just as he was wondering what would be the best
course of action to pursue, he saw Rocco with a square-shaped black box
in his hand. Then the chef switched off the two electric lights, and the
State bedroom was in darkness. In that swift darkness Racksole heard
Rocco spring on to the bed. Another half-dozen moments of suspense, and
there was a blinding flash of white, which endured for several seconds,
and showed Rocco standing like an evil spirit over the corpse, the black
box in one hand and a burning piece of aluminium wire in the other. The
aluminium wire burnt out, and darkness followed blacker than before.
Rocco had photographed the corpse by flashlight.
But the dazzling flare which had disclosed the features of the dead man
to the insensible lens of the camera had disclosed them also to Theodore
Racksole. The dead man was Reginald Dimmock!
Stung into action by this discovery, Racksole tried to find the exit
from his place of concealment. He felt sure that there existed some way
out into the State bathroom, but he sought for it fruitlessly, groping
with both hands and feet. Then he decided that he must ascend the rope-
ladder, make haste for the first-floor corridor, and intercept Rocco
when he left the State apartments. It was a painful and difficult
business to ascend that thin and yielding ladder in such a confined
space, but Racksole was managing it very nicely, and had nearly reached
the top, when, by some untoward freak of chance, the ladder broke above
his weight, and he slipped ignominiously down to the bottom of the
wooden tube. Smothering an excusable curse, Racksole crouched, baffled.
Then he saw that the force of his fall had somehow opened a trap-door at
his feet. He squeezed through, pushed open another tiny door, and in
another second stood in the State bathroom. He was dishevelled,
perspiring, rather bewildered; but he was there. In the next second he
had resumed absolute command of all his faculties.
Strange to say, he had moved so quietly that Rocco had apparently not
heard him. He stepped noiselessly to the door between the bathroom and
the bedroom, and stood there in silence. Rocco had switched on again the
lights over the washstand and was busy with his utensils.
Racksole deliberately coughed.
Chapter Fourteen ROCCO ANSWERS SOME QUESTIONS
ROCCO turned round with the swiftness of a startled tiger, and gave
Theodore Racksole one long piercing glance.
‘D--n!’ said Rocco, with as pure an Anglo-Saxon accent and intonation as
Racksole himself could have accomplished.
The most extraordinary thing about the situation was that at this
juncture Theodore Racksole did not know what to say. He was so
dumbfounded by the affair, and especially by Rocco’s absolute and
sublime calm, that both speech and thought failed him.
‘I give in,’ said Rocco. ‘From the moment you entered this cursed hotel
I was afraid of you. I told Jules I was afraid of you. I knew there
would be trouble with a man of your kidney, and I was right; confound
it! I tell you I give in. I know when I’m beaten. I’ve got no revolver
and no weapons of any kind. I surrender. Do what you like.’
And with that Rocco sat down on a chair. It was magnificently done. Only
a truly great man could have done it. Rocco actually kept his dignity.
For answer, Racksole walked slowly into the vast apartment, seized a
chair, and, dragging it up to Rocco’s chair, sat down opposite to him.
Thus they faced each other, their knees almost touching, both in evening
dress. On Rocco’s right hand was the bed, with the corpse of Reginald
Dimmock. On Racksole’s right hand, and a little behind him, was the
marble washstand, still littered with Rocco’s implements. The electric
light shone on Rocco’s left cheek, leaving the other side of his face in
shadow. Racksole tapped him on the knee twice.
‘So you’re another Englishman masquerading as a foreigner in my hotel,’
Racksole remarked, by way of commencing the interrogation.
‘I’m not,’ answered Rocco quietly. ‘I’m a citizen of the United States.’
‘The deuce you are!’ Racksole exclaimed.
‘Yes, I was born at West Orange, New Jersey, New York State. I call
myself an Italian because it was in Italy that I first made a name as a
chef--at Rome. It is better for a great chef like me to be a foreigner.
Imagine a great chef named Elihu P. Rucker. You can’t imagine it. I
changed my nationality for the same reason that my friend and colleague,
Jules, otherwise Mr Jackson, changed his.’
‘So Jules is your friend and colleague, is he?’
‘He was, but from this moment he is no longer. I began to disapprove of
his methods no less than a week ago, and my disapproval will now take
active form.’
‘Will it?’ said Racksole. ‘I calculate it just won’t, Mr Elihu P.
Rucker, citizen of the United States. Before you are very much older
you’ll be in the kind hands of the police, and your activities, in no
matter what direction, will come to an abrupt conclusion.’
‘It is possible,’ sighed Rocco.
‘In the meantime, I’ll ask you one or two questions for my own private
satisfaction. You’ve acknowledged that the game is up, and you may as
well answer them with as much candour as you feel yourself capable of.
See?’
‘I see,’ replied Rocco calmly, ‘but I guess I can’t answer all
questions.
I’ll do what I can.’
‘Well,’ said Racksole, clearing his throat, ‘what’s the scheme all
about? Tell me in a word.’
‘Not in a thousand words. It isn’t my secret, you know.’
‘Why was poor little Dimmock poisoned?’ The millionaire’s voice softened
as he looked for an instant at the corpse of the unfortunate young man.
‘I don’t know,’ said Rocco. ‘I don’t mind informing you that I objected
to that part of the business. I wasn’t made aware of it till after it
was done, and then I tell you it got my dander up considerable.’
‘You mean to say you don’t know why Dimmock was done to death?’
‘I mean to say I couldn’t see the sense of it. Of course he--er--died,
because he sort of cried off the scheme, having previously taken a share
of it. I don’t mind saying that much, because you probably guessed it
for yourself. But I solemnly state that I have a conscientious objection
to murder.’
‘Then it was murder?’
‘It was a kind of murder,’ Rocco admitted. ‘Who did it?’
‘Unfair question,’ said Rocco.
‘Who else is in this precious scheme besides Jules and yourself?’
‘Don’t know, on my honour.’
‘Well, then, tell me this. What have you been doing to Dimmock’s body?’
‘How long were you in that bathroom?’ Rocco parried with sublime
impudence.
‘Don’t question me, Mr Rucker,’ said Theodore Racksole. ‘I feel very
much inclined to break your back across my knee. Therefore I advise you
not to irritate me. What have you been doing to Dimmock’s body?’
‘I’ve been embalming it.’
‘Em--balming it.’
‘Certainly; Richardson’s system of arterial fluid injection, as improved
by myself. You weren’t aware that I included the art of embalming among
my accomplishments. Nevertheless, it is so.’
‘But why?’ asked Racksole, more mystified than ever. ‘Why should you
trouble to embalm the poor chap’s corpse?’
‘Can’t you see? Doesn’t it strike you? That corpse has to be taken care
of.
It contains, or rather, it did contain, very serious evidence against
some person or persons unknown to the police. It may be necessary to
move it about from place to place. A corpse can’t be hidden for long; a
corpse betrays itself. One couldn’t throw it in the Thames, for it would
have been found inside twelve hours. One couldn’t bury it--it wasn’t
safe. The only thing was to keep it handy and movable, ready for
emergencies. I needn’t inform you that, without embalming, you can’t
keep a corpse handy and movable for more than four or five days. It’s
the kind of thing that won’t keep. And so it was suggested that I should
embalm it, and I did. Mind you, I still objected to the murder, but I
couldn’t go back on a colleague, you understand. You do understand that,
don’t you? Well, here you are, and here it is, and that’s all.’
Rocco leaned back in his chair as though he had said everything that
ought to be said. He closed his eyes to indicate that so far as he was
concerned the conversation was also closed. Theodore Racksole stood up.
‘I hope,’ said Rocco, suddenly opening his eyes, ‘I hope you’ll call in
the police without any delay. It’s getting late, and I don’t like going
without my night’s rest.’
‘Where do you suppose you’ll get a night’s rest?’ Racksole asked.
‘In the cells, of course. Haven’t I told you I know when I’m beaten. I’m
not so blind as not to be able to see that there’s at any rate a prima
facie case against me. I expect I shall get off with a year or two’s
imprisonment as accessory after the fact--I think that’s what they call
it. Anyhow, I shall be in a position to prove that I am not implicated
in the murder of this unfortunate nincompoop.’ He pointed, with a
strange, scornful gesture of his elbow, to the bed. ‘And now, shall we
go? Everyone is asleep, but there will be a policeman within call of the
watchman in the portico. I am at your service. Let us go down together,
Mr Racksole. I give you my word to go quietly.’
‘Stay a moment,’ said Theodore Racksole curtly; ‘there is no hurry. It
won’t do you any harm to forego another hour’s sleep, especially as you
will have no work to do to-morrow. I have one or two more questions to
put to you.’
‘Well?’ Rocco murmured, with an air of tired resignation, as if to say,
‘What must be must be.’
‘Where has Dimmock’s corpse been during the last three or four days,
since he--died?’
‘Oh!’ answered Rocco, apparently surprised at the simplicity of the
question. ‘It’s been in my room, and one night it was on the roof; once
it went out of the hotel as luggage, but it came back the next day as a
case of Demerara sugar. I forget where else it has been, but it’s been
kept perfectly safe and treated with every consideration.’
‘And who contrived all these manoeuvres?’ asked Racksole as calmly as he
could.
‘I did. That is to say, I invented them and I saw that they were carried
out. You see, the suspicions of your police obliged me to be
particularly spry.’
‘And who carried them out?’
‘Ah! that would be telling tales. But I don’t mind assuring you that my
accomplices were innocent accomplices. It is absurdly easy for a man
like me to impose on underlings--absurdly easy.’
‘What did you intend to do with the corpse ultimately?’ Racksole pursued
his inquiry with immovable countenance.
‘Who knows?’ said Rocco, twisting his beautiful moustache. ‘That would
have depended on several things--on your police, for instance. But
probably in the end we should have restored this mortal clay’--again he
jerked his elbow--‘to the man’s sorrowing relatives.’
‘Do you know who the relatives are?’
‘Certainly. Don’t you? If you don’t I need only hint that Dimmock had a
Prince for his father.’
‘It seems to me,’ said Racksole, with cold sarcasm, ‘that you behaved
rather clumsily in choosing this bedroom as the scene of your
operations.’
‘Not at all,’ said Rocco. ‘There was no other apartment so suitable in
the whole hotel. Who would have guessed that anything was going on here?
It was the very place for me.’
‘I guessed,’ said Racksole succinctly.
‘Yes, you guessed, Mr Racksole. But I had not counted on you. You are
the only smart man in the business. You are an American citizen, and I