The Secret of Chimneys
latchkey, remembered she hadn’t got it with her, and hastily rang the
bell.
It was not answered at once, but as she waited there a young man came
up the steps. He was shabbily dressed, and carried in his hand a sheaf
of leaflets. He held one out to Virginia with the legend on it plainly
visible: “Why Did I Serve my Country?” In his left hand he held a
collecting-box.
“I can’t buy two of those awful poems in one day,” said Virginia
pleadingly. “I bought one this morning. I did, indeed, honour bright.”
The young man threw back his head and laughed. Virginia laughed with
him. Running her eyes carelessly over him, she thought him a more
pleasing specimen than usual of London’s unemployed. She liked his
brown face, and the lean hardness of him. She went so far as to wish
she had a job for him.
But at that moment the door opened, and immediately Virginia forgot all
about the problem of the unemployed, for to her astonishment the door
was opened by her own maid, Élise.
“Where’s Chilvers?” she demanded sharply, as she stepped into the hall.
“But he is gone, madame, with the others.”
“What others? Gone where?”
“But to Datchet, madame—to the cottage, as your telegram said.”
“My telegram?” said Virginia, utterly at sea.
“Did not madame send a telegram? Surely there can be no mistake. It
came but an hour ago.”
“I never sent any telegram. What did it say?”
“I believe it is still on the table _là-bas_.”
Élise retired, pounced upon it, and brought it to her mistress in
triumph.
“_Voilà_, madame!”
The telegram was addressed to Chilvers and ran as follows:
“Please take household down to cottage at once, and make preparations
for week-end party there. Catch 5.49 train.”
There was nothing unusual about it, it was just the sort of message she
herself had frequently sent before, when she had arranged a party at
her riverside bungalow on the spur of the moment. She always took the
whole household down, leaving an old woman as caretaker. Chilvers would
not have seen anything wrong with the message, and like a good servant
had carried out his orders faithfully enough.
“Me, I remained,” explained Élise, “knowing that madame would wish me
to pack for her.”
“It’s a silly hoax,” cried Virginia, flinging down the telegram
angrily. “You know perfectly well, Élise, that I am going to Chimneys.
I told you so this morning.”
“I thought madame had changed her mind. Sometimes that does happen,
does it not, madame?”
Virginia admitted the truth of the accusation with a half smile. She
was busy trying to find a reason for this extraordinary practical joke.
Élise cut forward a suggestion.
“_Mon Dieu!_” she cried, clasping her hands. “If it should be the
malefactors, the thieves! They send the bogus telegram and get the
_domestiques_ all out of the house, and then they rob it.”
“I suppose that might be it,” said Virginia doubtfully.
“Yes, yes, madame, that is it without a doubt. Every day you read in
the papers of such things. Madame will ring up the police at once—at
once—before they arrive and cut our throats.”
“Don’t get so excited, Élise. They won’t come and cut our throats at
six o’clock in the afternoon.”
“Madame, I implore you, let me run out and fetch a policeman now, at
once.”
“What on earth for? Don’t be silly, Élise. Go up and pack my things
for Chimneys if you haven’t already done it. The new Cailleuax evening
dress, and the white crêpe marocain, and—yes, the black velvet—black
velvet is so political, is it not?”
“Madame looks ravishing in the eau de nil satin,” suggested Élise, her
professional instincts reasserting themselves.
“No, I won’t take that. Hurry up, Élise, there’s a good girl. We’ve got
very little time. I’ll send a wire to Chilvers at Datchet, and I’ll
speak to the policeman on the beat as we go out and tell him to keep an
eye on the place. Don’t start rolling your eyes again, Élise—if you
get so frightened before anything has happened, what would you do if a
man jumped out from some dark corner and stuck a knife into you?”
Élise gave vent to a shrill squeak, and beat a speedy retreat up the
stairs, darting nervous glances over each shoulder as she went.
Virginia made a face at her retreating back, and crossed the hall to
the little study where the telephone was. Élise’s suggestion of ringing
up the police station seemed to her a good one, and she intended to act
upon it without any further delay.
She opened the study door and crossed to the telephone. Then, with
her hand on the receiver, she stopped. A man was sitting in the big
arm-chair, sitting in a curious huddled position. In the stress of the
moment, she had forgotten all about her expected visitor. Apparently he
had fallen asleep whilst waiting for her.
She came right up to the chair, a slightly mischievous smile upon her
face. And then suddenly the smile faded.
The man was not asleep. _He was dead._
She knew it at once, knew it instinctively even before her eyes had
seen and noted the small shining pistol lying on the floor, the
little-singed hole just above the heart with the dark stain round it,
and the horrible dropped jaw.
She stood quite still, her hands pressed to her sides. In the silence
she heard Élise running down the stairs.
“Madame! Madame!”
“Well, what is it?”
She moved quickly to the door. Her whole instinct was to conceal what
had happened—for the moment anyway—from Élise. Élise would promptly
go into hysterics, she knew that well enough, and she felt a great need
for calm and quiet in which to think things out.
“Madame, would it not be better if I should draw the chain across the
door? These malefactors, at any minute they may arrive.”
“Yes, if you like. Anything you like.”
She heard the rattle of the chain, and then Élise running upstairs
again, and drew a long breath of relief.
She looked at the man in the chair and then at the telephone. Her
course was quite clear, she must ring up the police at once.
But still she did not do so. She stood quite still, paralysed with
horror and with a host of conflicting ideas rushing through her brain.
The bogus telegram. Had it something to do with this? Supposing
Élise had not stayed behind? She would have let herself in—that is,
presuming she had had her latchkey with her as usual, to find herself
alone in the house with a murdered man—a man whom she had permitted to
blackmail her on a former occasion. Of course she had an explanation of
that; but thinking of that explanation she was not quite easy in her
mind. She remembered how frankly incredible George had found it. Would
other people think the same. Those letters now—of course she hadn’t
written them, but would it be so easy to prove that?
She put her hands on her forehead, squeezing them tight together.
“I must think,” said Virginia. “I simply must think.”
Who had let the man in? Surely not Élise. If she had done so, she would
have been sure to have mentioned the fact at once. The whole thing
seemed more and more mysterious as she thought about it. There was
really only one thing to be done—ring up the police.
She stretched out her hand to the telephone, and suddenly she thought
of George. A man—that was what she wanted—an ordinary level-headed,
unemotional man who would see things in their proper proportion and
point out to her the best course to take.
Then she shook her head. Not George. The first thing George would think
of would be his own position. He would hate being mixed up in this
kind of business. George wouldn’t do at all.
Then her face softened. Bill, of course! Without more ado, she rang up
Bill.
She was informed that he had left half an hour ago for Chimneys.
“Oh, damn!” cried Virginia, jamming down the receiver. It was horrible
to be shut up with a dead body and to have no one to speak to.
And at that minute the front-door bell rang.
Virginia jumped. In a few minutes it rang again. Élise, she knew, was
upstairs packing and wouldn’t hear it.
Virginia went out in the hall, drew back the chain, and undid all the
bolts that Élise had fastened in her zeal. Then, with a long breath,
she threw open the door. On the steps was the unemployed young man.
Virginia plunged headlong with a relief born of overstrung nerves.
“Come in,” she said. “I think that perhaps I’ve got a job for you.”
She took him into the dining-room, pulled toward a chair for him, sat
down herself facing him, and stared at him very attentively.
“Excuse me,” she said, “but are you—I mean——”
“Eton and Oxford,” said the young man. “That’s what you wanted to ask
me, wasn’t it?”
“Something of the kind,” admitted Virginia.
“Come down in the world entirely through my own incapacity to stick to
regular work. This isn’t regular work you’re offering me, I hope?”
A smile hovered for a moment on her lips.
“It’s very irregular.”
“Good,” said the young man in a tone of satisfaction.
Virginia noted his bronzed face and long lean body with approval.
“You see,” she explained, “I’m in rather a hole, and most of my friends
are—well, rather high up. They’ve all got something to lose.”
“I’ve nothing whatever to lose. So go ahead. What’s the trouble?”
“There’s a dead man in the next room,” said Virginia. “He’s been
murdered, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
She blurted out the words as simply as a child might have done.
The young man went up enormously in her estimation by the way he
accepted her statement. He might have been used to hearing a similar
announcement made every day of his life.
“Excellent,” he said, with a trace of enthusiasm. “I’ve always wanted
to do a bit of amateur detective work. Shall we go and view the body,
or will you give me the facts first?”
“I think I’d better give you the facts.” She paused for a moment to
consider how best to condense her story, and then began, speaking
quietly and concisely.
“This man came to the house for the first time yesterday and asked to
see me. He had certain letters with him—love letters, signed with my
name——”
“But which weren’t written by you,” put in the young man quietly.
Virginia looked at him in some astonishment
“How did you know that?”
“Oh, I deduced it. But go on.”
“He wanted to blackmail me—and I—well, I don’t know if you’ll
understand, but I—let him.”
She looked at him appealingly, and he nodded his head reassuringly.
“Of course I understand. You wanted to see what it felt like.”
“How frightfully clever of you! That’s just what I did feel.”
“I _am_ clever,” said the young man modestly. “But, mind you, very
few people would understand that point of view. Most people, you see,
haven’t got any imagination.”
“I suppose that’s so. I told this man to come back to-day—at six
o’clock. I arrived home from Ranelagh to find that a bogus telegram had
got all the servants except my maid out of the house. Then I walked
into the study and found the man shot.”
“Who let him in?”
“I don’t know. I think if my maid had done so she would have told me.”
“Does she know what has happened?”
“I have told her nothing.”
The young man nodded, and rose to his feet.
“And now to view the body,” he said briskly. “But I’ll tell you
this—on the whole it’s always best to tell the truth. One lie involves
you in such a lot of lies—and continuous lying is so monotonous.”
“Then you advise me to ring up the police?”
“Probably. But we’ll just have a look at the fellow first.”
Virginia led the way out the room. On the threshold she paused, looking
back at him.
“By the way,” she said, “you haven’t told me your name yet?”
“My name? My name’s Anthony Cade.”
9
Anthony Disposes of a Body
Anthony followed Virginia out of the room, smiling a little to himself.
Events had taken quite an unexpected turn. But as he bent over the