The Mayfair Mystery: 2835 Mayfair

‘Yes, yes?’

‘I let myself in with the latchkey and went into the sitting-room, which is at the back of the house on the ground floor, the second room from the front. The front room is not furnished. And there I saw Clifford lying on the floor—dead.’

The barrister was silent at the horror.

‘Dead,’ he whispered at last. ‘My oldest friend, my best friend! What could have happened?’

‘That’s the mystery,’ answered Reggie. ‘That’s the extraordinary thing. What does a man, a man in robust health and strength die of…like that?’

‘Heart disease?’

Reggie shook his head.

‘No, not in this case. I know, in fact, that only three days ago Clifford went to his Life Insurance Office and increased his insurance enormously. Besides,’ and he shrugged his shoulders, ‘you know perfectly well that he was sound in wind and limb. You have shot with him. You know how deuced strong he was. Not an ounce of superfluous flesh on his body. No, no, it wasn’t heart disease.’

‘Then you suspect…’

Reggie leant over:

‘I suspect nothing. I’m afraid they may suspect me…the police may suspect…me.’

Harding threw himself back in his chair and drew a long breath.

‘Have you told the police?’

‘No, I came straight here. I thought it would be better to come straight here. But the police must be called in. You see how much worse it makes it for me if I don’t call them in at once.’

Harding rose from his chair and stood by the mantelpiece.

‘I can’t believe it!’ he said, ‘I can’t believe it! Isn’t it possible that you’re mistaken?’ he said, snatching at a hopeless gleam of hope.

Reggie shook his huge, flabby head.

‘No, no chance of that. I know death when I see it. I was in the Boer War, you remember. Besides, his chin had dropped; his eyes were staring. Poor chap, he was very good to me.’

Quickly Harding spoke:

‘I will go with you to the house. We must go at once. This is a terrible affair. No, we won’t take a cab. We must walk.’

The two passed out into South Audley Street.

They walked rapidly in the direction of King Street.

There was a quick fire of questions and answers.

‘Where did he dine?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What time did he leave the house?’

‘At seven-thirty.’

‘Was he dressed?’

‘Yes.’

‘What time did you leave?’

‘At seven-fifty.’

‘Did he know that you were going to the Covent Garden Ball?’

‘Yes.’

‘He seems to have given you a pretty free hand?’

‘Certainly. I was practically my own master.’

‘And no one else was in the house when you went out?’

‘No one.’

‘That seems extraordinary! What about burglars?’

‘Well, you see, I don’t think that anybody would know the house is occupied. The dining-room is shut up. There is nothing to burgle. There are only a few valuable vases and bronzes that wouldn’t appeal to burglars.’

‘So he would let himself in with his key, would he?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many keys are there?’

‘Only his and mine.’

By this time they had reached the door of a small house in King Street. The house had been newly built. The bricks were red, the paint was white, and the door was green with dull red copper fittings.

Reggie opened the door, and they passed into a narrow hall and thence to the sitting-room.

Scarcely had Reggie turned the handle when he started back.

‘My God!’ he whispered, ‘someone has been here. The light has been turned out!’

CHAPTER III

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE CORPSE

WITH hesitating fingers he turned on the electric light, and then fell back nearly into the arms of Harding.

‘My God!’ he said. ‘It’s gone! There’s nothing on the floor!’

With wild, staring eyes he looked at Harding.

Harding returned his glance curiously. The conviction gradually growing in his mind was that Reggie had gone mad.

‘But I saw it, I saw it,’ said the other, detecting the suspicion. ‘I saw it, and I touched it. It was almost cold. It was lying there by the sofa—between the sofa and the fire. The head was on the ground. It seemed as though he might have fallen off the sofa. No, George, no. This is no hallucination. The body was there, as I told you, and it is not there now. Someone has taken it away!’

‘Thank Heaven,’ gasped Harding, ‘he may not be dead!’

‘Oh, yes,’ replied Reggie, firmly, ‘he is dead. Only the body has been taken away. That makes the mystery worse, more terrible.’

‘Come with me,’ said the lawyer, ‘this may be a matter of life and death for you. We must leave no stone unturned. I must search the house in your presence.’

And they searched it thoroughly. The kitchen door proved to be securely fastened: the windows had all been carefully closed. There was not a nook or cranny in which anyone could hide. No means of egress could be discovered.

At length, they returned to the sitting-room. Harding, who had had considerable experience of criminal work at the bar before taking ‘silk,’ felt himself completely nonplussed…provided Reggie was of sound mind. If the body on the floor was an hallucination, then the mystery ceased to exist. If his story—and he had told it lucidly and with no more excitement than the circumstances warranted—was accurate, that he had actually touched the dead man, then the mystery was so appalling as to be almost incredible. Either Clifford would return that night and, as a consequence, Reggie’s mental condition would be inquired into by people competent for such an undertaking or…or there were more things in heaven and earth…

Vainly he cast his mind this way and that, seeking a clue. Automatically he stroked the bronzes on the mantelpiece. Suddenly he took up a pair of spectacles which were lying there, open.

‘That’s curious,’ he commented. ‘I didn’t know Clifford had anything the matter with his eyes. He is one of the best shots I’ve ever seen.’

He was standing with his back to Reggie, who inquired:

‘What do you mean by that? He has the most wonderful eyesight. What makes you think he hasn’t?’

‘Why,’ exclaimed Harding, turning round, ‘these spectacles. A man does not wear spectacles if he has perfect sight.’

‘But Clifford never wore spectacles. These are not his spectacles.’

‘Are they yours or the charwoman’s?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘Who can have left them here?’

‘My dear Harding,’ Reggie answered, ‘since I have been here, not a soul has entered the house. I tell you he never receives anybody here. I don’t know what he keeps the place for except for the excuse for giving me my £500.’

‘Nonsense,’ replied Harding, ‘you could have taken £500 a year all right without his putting himself out to run such an expensive hobby as a house in King Street, even a little house like this.’

‘I tell you what it is, Harding, the whole thing beats me. I have never been able to understand why a man should have his consulting-rooms in Harley Street and sleep here. Of course, no man could live in Harley Street. It is like living in a dissecting-room. But with his reputation he could have brought his patients to…Bayswater or Tulse Hill.’

Carefully the barrister examined the spectacles. He placed them on his nose. Then he whistled.

‘These are a woman’s spectacles,’ he said. ‘I am almost sure of that. They are too small for a man’s face. And the extraordinary thing about them is that they are plain glass, practically plain window-glass. Now what has he got these here for? How did a pair of woman’s spectacles of plain glass come into the possession of an eminent medical man?’

‘I don’t know, Harding. I’ve never seen them before. I suppose he brought them here.’

‘But why, in Heaven’s name?’ queried Harding.

‘A woman does not give away a common pair of steel spectacles as a gage d’amour. You noticed they were open when I found them, as though they had just been taken off the owner’s nose.’

‘Well, what do you make of it?’

The lawyer shrugged his shoulders.

‘Make of it? I don’t make anything of it, at all.’

He affected an air of joviality.

‘But I tell you what it is, Reggie. When Clifford comes home we will have you put away in an asylum for the term of your natural life. A man who comes to one’s house late at night with cock-and-bull stories of corpses on carpets is not needed; there is no market for him. Now I’m going home.’

Reggie, as he let him out, asked: ‘Do you really think that he’s not dead?’

‘The only conclusion to which I have come is that either he is dead or you are mad…if that is a conclusion.’

‘Am I to tell the police?’

‘No. Certainly not. Good-night.’ He turned abruptly up the street.

Reggie remained at the door, looking after the tall figure that strode briskly along the pavement.

CHAPTER IV

THE ALLEGED ADA

‘OH, we’re not proud at all, are we? Not puffed up with pride, not likely.’

Attracted by the unattractive voice, Reggie looked to his right.

A female servant at No. 35, a much larger house, was seeking to engage him in conversation. This was not the first, the second, nor the third time that she had sought to gain the friendship and—who knows—perhaps, the hand of the ‘gentleman ‘valet in the mysterious house.

‘No, we’re not puffed up with pride,’ answered Reggie, ‘but we don’t converse with menials.’

‘Not when we’ve got our white waistcoat on, eh?’ the girl replied. ‘My word, you are a toff! You’re a deal toffier than your gov’nor. You’re too good for your guv, that’s what you are.’

‘Look here, Ada, we don’t need to go into that.’

The maid was not even pretty. She had a face of the colour and texture of pink blotting-paper. It was of the tint often to be seen on a hard-working hand, unbecoming on the hand, unpleasant on the face. He had no use for her.

‘Not so much of your Ada! My name ain’t Ada,’ she said, tilting up her nose.

‘I thought all scullery-maids were called Ada,’ answered Reggie.

‘That shows what little you know about scullery-maids, mister, and you don’t know anything at all about me. I’m not a scullery-maid. I’m an under-housemaid. £16 a year and beer money. That’s what I am. Scullery-maid, indeed!’

‘I beg your pardon,’ replied Reggie, who had no desire to prolong the conversation. He was on the point of shutting the door, but the girl was agog for a chat. ‘Next door’ was the great topic of conversation in the servants’ hall. ‘Next door’ was a mystery, and the valet of ‘Next door’ was the most glorious valet there had ever been. Apparently he had a position which for lack of labour was the ideal that all gentlemen’s valets strove to find. If his remuneration were in proportion to the comfort of his place, he would make a most desirable husband. That was the universal opinion in the servants’ hall of No. 35.

‘Don’t go in, mister,’ she pleaded.

‘Why not, miss?’ he answered.

‘Don’t call me miss: it’s so stiff like. Call me Nellie.’

‘I decline to call anyone Nellie. It’s a most repulsive name. I regret that your name is Nellie, but,’ he added judicially, ‘I am afraid you deserve it.’

‘Oh, don’t start chipping me, and don’t you go in, neither. Your guv. will be pleased to meet you when he comes back. It will be a great help for him to find you standing there.’

‘What do you mean?’ he inquired in surprise.

‘Well, if he don’t sober-up before he gets home, it will be a difficult job to get him indoors. He was that drunk! And I know something about drunkenness myself, Mr Man. I once had to give notice to one of my guvs for intemperitude. And he never was what you might call rolling drunk: he merely got cursing and fault-finding drunk. But I gave him some of my lip, I can tell you. A nice example to set the other servants!’

‘Who are you talking about?’ persisted Reggie.

‘Who should I be talking about but your guv.’

‘Well, then…Nellie, you’re not talking sense. Sir Clifford is a teetotaller.’

The words had slipped from him in his surprise.

‘Oh, he is a Sir Clifford, is he? Well, that’s something to know. Sir Clifford what, pray?’

But he would go no further.

‘Well, it’s something to know he is Sir Clifford. I don’t suppose there’s so many Sir Cliffords kicking about that I shan’t be able to find out what his full name is. Lor’, he was that drunk I thought he would never get into the cab. I thought I should have died of laughing. Oh, he’s a bad hat, your Sir Clifford is…to go about with a creature like that: a drab I call her.’

‘Look here,’ interjected Reggie, sternly, ‘what are you talking about?’

‘Oh, you want to know, do you? I’ve interested you at last, have I?’

She placed a value on her information.

‘Give me a kiss, mister, and I’ll tell you.’

She coquettishly put up her rough red face and he paid the price. He did not like paying it, and she did not regard his payment as liberal.

‘Why, our Buttons kisses better than that,’ she said. ‘Being kissed by you is like catching a cold. It’s a pity, isn’t it, that gentlemen’s servants aren’t allowed to grow moustaches? That’s where postmen have a pull. When I was living in Westbourne Terrace, I once walked out with a postman…he was proper, I can tell you…’

But Reggie stemmed the tide of amorous recollection. He insisted on knowing what she had seen.

Very deliberately, and in a manner entirely convincing, she said:

‘Just about a quarter past eleven I happened to be standing here; never you mind what for, old inquisitive, but my folks were at the theatre and I do what I like and no questions asked. I should like to see anybody ask ’em. They wouldn’t get any answer, not much…only a month’s warning. Suddenly your door opened and a sort of untidy middle-class woman comes out with your guv. He was so drunk he couldn’t stand. I thought she would have dropped ’im. She must have been a strong woman! But she got him into a four-wheeler as was waiting. Then she comes back and shuts the door, says something to the driver, jumps in, and off they goes. Such goings-on! And not the sort of woman a gentleman should keep company with, to my way o’ thinking; but when the drink takes ’em, you never know. I had a uncle—a Uncle Robert—who was just the same; he was an oil and colourman, too, in a fair way of business. Oh, dash, there’s our rubbish coming back. Must be going. So long!’

And she disappeared down the area as a motor-brougham, with the servants in conspicuous semi-military grey uniforms, dashed up.

Reggie, completely mystified, entered the house. A great weight was taken off his mind.

‘It is much better,’ he reflected, ‘to be drunk than dead…not so dignified, perhaps, but on the whole better…infinitely better.… Besides, I shan’t lose my job.’

CHAPTER V

AT THE GRIDIRON

ENGROSSED in thought, Harding scarcely noticed where he was going. His mind was full of the extraordinary circumstances that had occurred.

Automatically he stopped in front of his house. But he hesitated to go in. The December night was clear and crisp. It seemed to him improbable that were he to go to bed, he would sleep.

Therefore he walked on to Piccadilly, and eastwards past the Circus.

Suddenly he felt a hand clapped upon his shoulder, and a hearty voice inquired:

‘Are you on your way to the Gridiron?’

He turned round to find himself in the presence of Lampson Lake, a jovial, middle-aged man whose chief characteristic was his extraordinary versatility in failure. He had failed at everything, and on that account, perhaps, was universally popular with successful men.

At the mention of the club’s name Harding realised that he was hungry and the two turned into the Gridiron.

The single long room which constituted the famous club was desolate except for two men, Sir Algernon Spiers, the famous architect, and Frederick Robinson, a somewhat obscure novelist, who were seated together at the table.

The newcomers took two seats next them.

Robinson, a wisp of a man with a figure like a note of interrogation and hair brushed straight back without any parting, was, after his usual practice, dealing in personalities.

‘I can’t help thinking, Sir Algernon, that it is a very sound scheme of yours to wear your name on your face.’

‘What the dickens do you mean?’ asked Sir Algernon. ‘How do I wear my name on my face?’

‘I will explain. Your name is Algernon, is it not?’

‘Of course, my name is Algernon,’ replied the other, huffily.

‘Well, don’t you know the meaning of Algernon?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘It has a very curious origin. Waiter, another whisky-and-soda. A very curious origin. It would be idle for me to assume that you are not aware that you suffer from whisker trouble. In fact, you are at the present moment toying with your near-side whisker. You are massaging it for purposes of your own. Whether it will do any good I can’t say. But both you and I and any intelligent observer must be aware that you cultivate a superb pair of white face-fins. Now, whiskers were originally introduced into England by the founder of the Percy family. He came over with William the Conqueror. He was known among his friends as William Als Gernons, or “William with the Whiskers”; whence, says Burke, his posterity have constantly borne the name of Algernon. Curious, isn’t it?’

‘It’s damned impertinence, sir,’ roared Sir Algernon, purple with indignation.

‘On the contrary,’ replied Robinson. ‘It is merely useful information; very, very useful information. There is no need to thank me for the information.’

Then he turned his attention to Harding.

‘Ah,’ he said cheerily, ‘here we have the woman-hater.’

Harding gave him the lie.

‘I’m not a woman-hater,’ he said. ‘Life is only long enough to allow even an energetic man to hate one woman—adequately. If a man says he hates two women he is a liar or he has scamped his work, or he has never known a single woman worthy of his hatred. The ordinary “woman-hater” hates one woman and has no claim to the title. Would you call a man a football player because he has played football…once?’

He had no desire to talk. His desire was to eat a devilled bone and return home. But he had always considered it preferable to bore a man than to be bored by him. Also, he was in no mood for the absurdities of Robinson.

‘Still, you have never married,’ pursued the novelist.

‘I told you I was not a misogynist,’ replied Harding, with a perfunctory smile. ‘No girl that I ever knew was so radically bad as to deserve me.’

‘Nonsense,’ broke in Lampson Lake, ‘my dear old chap, I don’t believe there is a man in England who is so anxious to marry as you are. You have got everything in the world except a wife. You are a huge success. You have got a beautiful house…’

‘Thanks to the advice of Sir Algernon here,’ Harding answered.

‘Heaps of friends,’ continued the other. ‘A face that would not exactly frighten the horses. Why, my dear fellow, your whole life is directed with a view to a happy marriage. You are only looking out for…the impossible.’

‘What do you mean by the impossible?’ queried Robinson.

‘Oh, not you,’ replied Lampson Lake, glancing at the novelist, ‘I don’t go in for personalities. You needn’t worry. The impossible is the perfect woman. And that is what Harding is looking for.’

And herein Lampson Lake was right.

Indeed, Harding, tall, sparsely built, handsome—in a non-theatrical manner, despite his clean-shaven face—with bright brown eyes and athletic figure, seemed rather a happily-married man than a man whose one grief was the fact that he had never yet met a woman with whom he had desired to live for the term of his natural life. He knew that life should be duet. The confirmed soloist is regarded with mistrust. If a man declines to take a partner into his life’s business, surely that life must indeed be a dull and drab affair. And Harding was exceedingly popular with both men and women. Yet he had never come across a woman who could rouse in his heart any feeling warmer than the great affection he had for Clifford Oakleigh.

‘But you’re not married either,’ said Sir Algernon to Lampson Lake. ‘Are you looking for the perfect woman, too?’

‘It is no good my looking,’ he replied. ‘No woman will marry a failure—a specialist in failures, that is.’

‘On the contrary,’ interposed Robinson, ‘some of the most shocking failures I know are married.’

‘Yes, but they married first,’ explained Lampson Lake, ‘they became failures afterwards. It is a great consolation for a man, who has made a muddle of his life, to throw the blame on his wife, especially if he can get his wife to believe it.’

‘A perfectly trained wife will believe in anything,’ was the architect’s comment.

‘Except in her husband,’ corrected Robinson, who, not being married, knew all things about wedlock.

‘A woman wants to marry a man who will succeed or who has succeeded, and I think most women prefer the first. It is surely the greatest privilege of her life to accompany the man she loves from poverty to riches, from obscurity to fame.’

‘No doubt,’ answered Lampson Lake. ‘But I am not in a position, and I never have been in a position, to give a woman the chance. I am one of Nature’s failures. And, mind you, I’m not complaining. The world has need of failures. It is a great pleasure to any K.C. who was called to the Bar at the same time as myself to realise that no sane solicitor would ever give me a brief. Besides, people are kind to me because they are not jealous. They give me their best in the way of food and wine because they know I am not too busy to notice such things. They trust me with their wives because they know I am not ambitious, with their daughters because I am too poor to marry. Oh, I have an excellent time, thank you.’

‘Then, Lampson,’ asked the K.C., ‘you really enjoy not being a…success?’

‘Well, I shouldn’t like to be a failure…as a failure. I am, at any rate, the leading failure of this club. But that’s not saying much, because we’re all famous here; except, of course, Robinson. He is merely notorious.’

‘Thank you,’ replied Robinson, smiling. ‘I know you meant to be rude, but you failed even at that. Fame is what we call the reputation of people who are dead, of great men who are dead. Notoriety is the reputation of great men who are alive.’

‘What,’ asked Lampson, ‘would you call Clifford Oakleigh? Is he famous or is he notorious?’

‘As he is alive,’ replied Robinson, ‘he is notorious. When he is dead he will be famous.’

Harding shot a keen glance at him. He was on the point of speaking. But his lips shut tight.

‘He is a most extraordinary man,’ said Sir Algernon. ‘You know I built that house for him in Pembroke Street, No. 69. He gave me an absolutely free hand to do anything I liked, and I must say I was pleased with what I did. Everything went well until the house was almost finished, and then suddenly Clifford, who is one of the best chaps in the world as we all know, began taking a very great personal interest in the details. So keen was his interest that it became very awkward for me, as a professional man. And, mind you, I discovered that he knows a great deal about architecture. In fact, I have never come across anything that he doesn’t understand. Well, we had a sort of amicable quarrel. We agreed to differ. And the result of the whole thing was that the completion of the building was taken out of the contractor’s hands and he gave the job to some tenth-rate builder that he had discovered in Hammersmith.’

Harding had listened in astonishment to the statement made by Sir Algernon. He had never heard that his friend was building a house in Pembroke Street. Yet another house!