The Clue of the Twisted Candle · Chapter 8 (2/3)

The house in Cadogan Square was a large one, occupying a corner site. It was peculiarly English in appearance with its window boxes, its discreet curtains, its polished brass and enamelled doorway. It had been the town house of Lord Henry Gratham, that eccentric connoisseur of wine and follower of witless pleasure. It had been built by him “round a bottle of port,” as his friends said, meaning thereby that his first consideration had been the cellarage of the house, and that when those cellars had been built and provision made for the safe storage of his priceless wines, the house had been built without the architect’s being greatly troubled by his lordship. The double cellars of Gratham House had, in their time, been one of the sights of London. When Henry Gratham lay under eight feet of Congo earth (he was killed by an elephant whilst on a hunting trip) his executors had been singularly fortunate in finding an immediate purchaser. Rumour had it that Kara, who was no lover of wine, had bricked up the cellars, and their very existence passed into domestic legendary.

The door was opened by a well-dressed and deferential manservant and T. X. was ushered into the hall. A fire burnt cheerily in a bronze grate and T. X. had a glimpse of a big oil painting of Kara above the marble mantelpiece.

“Mr. Kara is very busy, sir,” said the man.

“Just take in my card,” said T. X. “I think he may care to see me.”

The man bowed, produced from some mysterious corner a silver salver and glided upstairs in that manner which well-trained servants have, a manner which seems to call for no bodily effort. In a minute he returned.

“Will you come this way, sir,” he said, and led the way up a broad flight of stairs.

At the head of the stairs was a corridor which ran to the left and to the right. From this there gave four rooms. One at the extreme end of the passage on the right, one on the left, and two at fairly regular intervals in the centre.

When the man’s hand was on one of the doors, T. X. asked quietly, “I think I have seen you before somewhere, my friend.”

The man smiled.

“It is very possible, sir. I was a waiter at the Constitutional for some time.”

T. X. nodded.

“That is where it must have been,” he said.

The man opened the door and announced the visitor.

T. X. found himself in a large room, very handsomely furnished, but just lacking that sense of cosiness and comfort which is the feature of the Englishman’s home.

Kara rose from behind a big writing table, and came with a smile and a quick step to greet the visitor.

“This is a most unexpected pleasure,” he said, and shook hands warmly.

T. X. had not seen him for a year and found very little change in this strange young man. He could not be more confident than he had been, nor bear himself with a more graceful carriage. Whatever social success he had achieved, it had not spoiled him, for his manner was as genial and easy as ever.

“I think that will do, Miss Holland,” he said, turning to the girl who, with notebook in hand, stood by the desk.

“Evidently,” thought T. X., “our Hellenic friend has a pretty taste in secretaries.”

In that one glance he took her all in⁠—from the bronze-brown of her hair to her neat foot.

T. X. was not readily attracted by members of the opposite sex. He was self-confessed a predestined bachelor, finding life and its incidence too absorbing to give his whole mind to the serious problem of marriage, or to contract responsibilities and interests which might divert his attention from what he believed was the greater game. Yet he must be a man of stone to resist the freshness, the beauty and the youth of this straight, slender girl; the pink-and-whiteness of her, the aliveness and buoyancy and the thrilling sense of vitality she carried in her very presence.

“What is the weirdest name you have ever heard?” asked Kara laughingly. “I ask you, because Miss Holland and I have been discussing a begging letter addressed to us by a Maggie Goomer.”

The girl smiled slightly and in that smile was paradise, thought T. X.

“The weirdest name?” he repeated, “why I think the worst I have heard for a long time is Belinda Mary.”

“That has a familiar ring,” said Kara.

T. X. was looking at the girl.

She was staring at him with a certain languid insolence which made him curl up inside. Then with a glance at her employer she swept from the room.

“I ought to have introduced you,” said Kara. “That was my secretary, Miss Holland. Rather a pretty girl, isn’t she?”

“Very,” said T. X., recovering his breath.

“I like pretty things around me,” said Kara, and somehow the complacency of the remark annoyed the detective more than anything that Kara had ever said to him.

The Greek went to the mantelpiece, and taking down a silver cigarette box, opened and offered it to his visitor. Kara was wearing a grey lounge suit; and although grey is a very trying colour for a foreigner to wear, this suit fitted his splendid figure and gave him just that bulk which he needed.

“You are a most suspicious man, Mr. Meredith,” he smiled.

“Suspicious? I?” asked the innocent T. X.

Kara nodded.

“I am sure you want to enquire into the character of all my present staff. I am perfectly satisfied that you will never be at rest until you learn the antecedents of my cook, my valet, my secretary⁠—”

T. X. held up his hand with a laugh.

“Spare me,” he said. “It is one of my failings, I admit, but I have never gone much farther into your domestic affairs than to pry into the antecedents of your very interesting chauffeur.”

A little cloud passed over Kara’s face, but it was only momentary.

“Oh, Brown,” he said, airily, with just a perceptible pause between the two words.

“It used to be Smith,” said T. X., “but no matter. His name is really Poropulos.”

“Oh, Poropulos,” said Kara gravely, “I dismissed him a long time ago.”

“Pensioned hire, too, I understand,” said T. X.

The other looked at him awhile, then, “I am very good to my old servants,” he said slowly and, changing the subject; “to what good fortune do I owe this visit?”

T. X. selected a cigarette before he replied.

“I thought you might be of some service to me,” he said, apparently giving his whole attention to the cigarette.

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure,” said Kara, a little eagerly. “I am afraid you have not been very keen on continuing what I hoped would have ripened into a valuable friendship, more valuable to me perhaps,” he smiled, “than to you.”

“I am a very shy man,” said the shameless T. X., “difficult to a fault, and rather apt to underrate my social attractions. I have come to you now because you know everybody⁠—by the way, how long have you had your secretary?” he asked abruptly.

Kara looked up at the ceiling for inspiration.

“Four, no three months,” he corrected, “a very efficient young lady who came to me from one of the training establishments. Somewhat uncommunicative, better educated than most girls in her position⁠—for example, she speaks and writes modern Greek fairly well.”

“A treasure?” suggested T. X.

“Unusually so,” said Kara. “She lives in Marylebone Road, 86a is the address. She has no friends, spends most of her evenings in her room, is eminently respectable and a little chilling in her attitude to her employer.”

T. X. shot a swift glance at the other.

“Why do you tell me all this?” he asked.

“To save you the trouble of finding out,” replied the other coolly. “That insatiable curiosity which is one of the equipments of your profession, would, I feel sure, induce you to conduct investigations for your own satisfaction.”

T. X. laughed.

“May I sit down?” he said.

The other wheeled an armchair across the room and T. X. sank into it. He leant back and crossed his legs, and was, in a second, the personification of ease.

“I think you are a very clever man, Monsieur Kara,” he said.

The other looked down at him this time without amusement.

“Not so clever that I can discover the object of your visit,” he said pleasantly enough.

“It is very simply explained,” said T. X. “You know everybody in town. You know, amongst other people, Lady Bartholomew.”

“I know the lady very well indeed,” said Kara, readily⁠—too readily in fact, for the rapidity with which answer had followed question, suggested to T. X. that Kara had anticipated the reason for the call.

“Have you any idea,” asked T. X., speaking with deliberation, “as to why Lady Bartholomew has gone out of town at this particular moment?”

Kara laughed.

“What an extraordinary question to ask me⁠—as though Lady Bartholomew confided her plans to one who is little more than a chance acquaintance!”

“And yet,” said T. X., contemplating the burning end of his cigarette, “you know her well enough to hold her promissory note.”

“Promissory note?” asked the other.

His tone was one of involuntary surprise and T. X. swore softly to himself for now he saw the faintest shade of relief in Kara’s face. The Commissioner realized that he had committed an error⁠—he had been far too definite.

“When I say promissory note,” he went on easily, as though he had noticed nothing, “I mean, of course, the securities which the debtor invariably gives to one from whom he or she has borrowed large sums of money.”

Kara made no answer, but opening a drawer of his desk he took out a key and brought it across to where T. X. was sitting.

“Here is the key of my safe,” he said quietly. “You are at liberty to go carefully through its contents and discover for yourself any promissory note which I hold from Lady Bartholomew. My dear fellow, you don’t imagine I’m a moneylender, do you?” he said in an injured tone.

“Nothing was further from my thoughts,” said T. X., untruthfully.

But the other pressed the key upon him.

“I should be awfully glad if you would look for yourself,” he said earnestly. “I feel that in some way you associate Lady Bartholomew’s illness with some horrible act of usury on my part⁠—will you satisfy yourself and in doing so satisfy me?”

Now any ordinary man, and possibly any ordinary detective, would have made the conventional answer. He would have protested that he had no intention of doing anything of the sort; he would have uttered, if he were a man in the position which T. X. occupied, the conventional statement that he had no authority to search the private papers, and that he would certainly not avail himself of the other’s kindness. But T. X. was not an ordinary person. He took the key and balanced it lightly in the palm of his hand.

“Is this the key of the famous bedroom safe?” he said banteringly.

Kara was looking down at him with a quizzical smile. “It isn’t the safe you opened in my absence, on one memorable occasion, Mr. Meredith,” he said. “As you probably know, I have changed that safe, but perhaps you don’t feel equal to the task?”

“On the contrary,” said T. X., calmly, and rising from the chair, “I am going to put your good faith to the test.”

For answer Kara walked to the door and opened it.

“Let me show you the way,” he said politely.

He passed along the corridor and entered the apartment at the end. The room was a large one and lighted by one big square window which was protected by steel bars. In the grate which was broad and high a huge fire was burning and the temperature of the room was unpleasantly close despite the coldness of the day.

“That is one of the eccentricities which you, as an Englishman, will never excuse in me,” said Kara.

Near the foot of the bed, let into, and flush with, the wall, was a big green door of the safe.

“Here you are, Mr. Meredith,” said Kara. “All the precious secrets of Remington Kara are yours for the seeking.”

“I am afraid I’ve had my trouble for nothing,” said T. X., making no attempt to use the key.

“That is an opinion which I share,” said Kara, with a smile.

“Curiously enough,” said T. X. “I mean just what you mean.”

He handed the key to Kara.

“Won’t you open it?” asked the Greek.

T. X. shook his head.

“The safe as far as I can see is a Magnus, the key which you have been kind enough to give me is legibly inscribed upon the handle ‘Chubb.’ My experience as a police officer has taught me that Chubb keys very rarely open Magnus safes.”

Kara uttered an exclamation of annoyance.

“How stupid of me!” he said, “yet now I remember, I sent the key to my bankers, before I went out of town⁠—I only came back this morning, you know. I will send for it at once.”

“Pray don’t trouble,” murmured T. X. politely. He took from his pocket a little flat leather case and opened it. It contained a number of steel implements of curious shape which were held in position by a leather loop along the centre of the case. From one of these loops he extracted a handle, and deftly fitted something that looked like a steel awl to the socket in the handle. Looking in wonder, and with no little apprehension, Kara saw that the awl was bent at the head.

“What are you going to do?” he asked, a little alarmed.

“I’ll show you,” said T. X. pleasantly.

Very gingerly he inserted the instrument in the small keyhole and turned it cautiously first one way and then the other. There was a sharp click followed by another. He turned the handle and the door of the safe swung open.

“Simple, isn’t it?” he asked politely.

In that second of time Kara’s face had undergone a transformation. The eyes which met T. X. Meredith’s blazed with an almost insane fury. With a quick stride Kara placed himself before the open safe.

“I think this has gone far enough, Mr. Meredith,” he said harshly. “If you wish to search my safe you must get a warrant.”

T. X. shrugged his shoulders, and carefully unscrewing the instrument he had employed and replacing it in the case, he returned it to his inside pocket.

“It was at your invitation, my dear Monsieur Kara,” he said suavely. “Of course I knew that you were putting a bluff up on me with the key and that you had no more intention of letting me see the inside of your safe than you had of telling me exactly what happened to John Lexman.”

The shot went home.

The face which was thrust into the Commissioner’s was ridged and veined with passion. The lips were turned back to show the big white even teeth, the eyes were narrowed to slits, the jaw thrust out, and almost every semblance of humanity had vanished from his face.

“You⁠—you⁠—” he hissed, and his clawing hands moved suspiciously backward.

“Put up your hands,” said T. X. sharply, “and be damned quick about it!”

In a flash the hands went up, for the revolver which T. X. held was pressed uncomfortably against the third button of the Greek’s waistcoat.

“That’s not the first time you’ve been asked to put up your hands, I think,” said T. X. pleasantly.

His own left hand slipped round to Kara’s hip pocket. He found something in the shape of a cylinder and drew it out from the pocket. To his surprise it was not a revolver, not even a knife; it looked like a small electric torch, though instead of a bulb and a bull’s-eye glass, there was a pepper-box perforation at one end.

He handled it carefully and was about to press the small nickel knob when a strangled cry of horror broke from Kara.

“For God’s sake be careful!” he gasped. “You’re pointing it at me! Do not press that lever, I beg!”

“Will it explode?” asked T. X. curiously.

“No, no!”

T. X. pointed the thing downward to the carpet and pressed the knob cautiously. As he did so there was a sharp hiss and the floor was stained with the liquid which the instrument contained. Just one gush of fluid and no more. T. X. looked down. The bright carpet had already changed colour, and was smoking. The room was filled with a pungent and disagreeable scent. T. X. looked from the floor to the white-faced man.

“Vitriol, I believe,” he said, shaking his head admiringly. “What a dear little fellow you are!”