скачать книгу бесплатно
The K.C. looked down at the frightened figure in the chair, went into the dining-room, and returned with a brandy-and-soda.
‘Drink that,’ he said.
While Reggie drank with long gulps, his eyes stared at the gaunt barrister.
As he scanned the clear-cut, intellectual face, with its piercing grey eyes, its long, sinister, thin nose and tight-shut vigorous mouth, he felt a sensation of returning confidence. At the same time, also, there floated through his mind a feeling of irrelevant despair. Each was thirty-eight years of age. They had been at Christ Church together. George was a brilliant advocate and Reggie was—well, Reggie was an ex-black sheep. A passion for backing losers had been his undoing.
Harding took away the glass.
‘Feel better?’ he asked.
The other nodded.
‘What’s the trouble now?’
It was eleven o’clock, and from the library one could hear the sound of carriages and cabs passing along South Audley Street. In the home there was complete silence.
Reggie shook his head.
‘It’s not a trouble of mine this time, not directly. But it’s the most awful thing that’s ever happened. That’s why I’ve come to see you.’
Harding smiled. His friends always came to him in time of trouble. There was something in the man’s vigorous personality that invited sympathy; his vast reputation for acumen and knowledge of human life rendered him an invaluable adviser in moments of difficulty or danger.
He went back to his chair and lit a cigarette, waiting for his friend to speak.
The first words that came from Reggie’s lips were:
‘Clifford Oakleigh is dead.’
‘Dead!’ cried Harding, aghast at the news that his best friend at Eton and Oxford, and indeed in the world, had died. Horrified, he pressed for particulars.
‘When did he die? How do you know?’
‘I have just come from his house.’
‘From Harley Street?’
‘He doesn’t use that as a house.’
‘I know. He lives at Claridge’s.’ The K.C. corrected himself.
Reggie shook his head.
‘He has lately taken, or rather built, a little house in King Street, Mayfair; just near here. Didn’t he tell you?’
‘Never a word.’
‘Well, he only moved in a week ago.’
‘But what were you doing there? I thought that you and he were not quite…’
‘No,’ said Reggie, grimly. ‘But he has been very good to me one way and another. He has lent me a lot of money; I wouldn’t have gone to him again, but…the fact is I’m his valet.’
The barrister gazed at him in surprise.
‘I was his valet,’ repeated Reggie. ‘He engaged me as a valet.’
‘You were his valet?’
Harding stared at the prematurely fat young man with three pendulous chins and an unbecomingly large waist. It seemed incredible to him that Sir Clifford Oakleigh, one of the most famous physicians of his day, one of the most brilliant men of all time, had selected that mountain of adiposity as his valet. Further, it struck him as extraordinary that a man like Reggie Pardell, a scion of one of the oldest families in England, should be willing to perform these duties.
Reggie explained.
‘You see it was like this, George…Harding. I was absolutely stony. Of course, I’d got clothes, and the run of my teeth, and so on. But I was broke to the world. Poor Clifford met me one day at Arthur’s and he guessed how things were. He made me a sporting offer. He said: “Look here, old chap, you have failed at most things. The only thing you do understand is clothes. Come and be my valet. I will give you £500 a year.” At first, I thought he was joking. But he wasn’t, and he installed me in this little box of his in King Street. Only part of the house is furnished; his sitting-room and bedroom and my bedroom. He never has his meals there. The charwoman comes in every day and sees to the place; all I had to do was to look after his clothes. It really was the most extraordinary arrangement that I’ve ever come across. It was philanthropy on poor old Clifford’s part, because my time was entirely my own.’
The other reflected.
‘It’s strange he never told me about this.’
‘Dear old Clifford wouldn’t,’ rejoined Reggie.
‘You see, he knew that I shouldn’t like it to be known that I was doing a bit of valeting. Well, after all, what’s the disgrace? My elder brother, Horace, is chaperoning the “Venus” at the Nasallheimers’ Gallery in Bond Street. It is his duty to show financiers and peers and people of that sort the beauties of Titian. Of course, if he ever succeeds in selling it, he will lose his job as vestal virgin to the “Venus”. And my cousin, Dartmouth, keeps body and soul and motor together by selling Stereoscopic Co. et Fils Cuvée Anonyme to unwilling aristocrats. Still, Clifford knew that I shouldn’t like people to hear that I was his valet.’
The lawyer’s knowledge of Reggie’s character told him that interruption would be useless. He must tell his story in his own way. He merely showed his impatience by taking out his watch and clicking it.
‘I know,’ said Reggie, accepting the hint.
‘Well, tonight I dined with three pals at White’s. We were going on to the Covent Garden Ball. But, somehow, an extra man turned up and someone suggested Bridge. You know I’ve not got a very good reputation for solvency, and I could see they’d be just as well pleased if I didn’t cut in, so at ten o’clock I left them. I thought at first of going on to the ball alone. But that struck me as being a dull scheme, and so I walked back to King Street.’
‘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 (#uf3426624-facb-5a26-8c3a-6d886bfa06df)
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE CORPSE (#uf3426624-facb-5a26-8c3a-6d886bfa06df)
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.
