Complete works of peter.., p.524
Complete Works of Peter Cheyney. Illustrated, page 524
Alonzo pushed his silk hat further back on his head, and rumpling his shirt front after the manner of an all night roisterer, addressed the sergeant.
"What's the excitement, officer?" he asked. "Want any help?"
The sergeant grinned.
"Too late, I'm afraid, sir," he said. "It's all over bar the shouting. This place has been burgled tonight, and they've got away with the Duquesne pendant. Pretty slick work, whoever they are!"
Alonzo said good-night, and walked down Brook Street, his brain whirling. He stood for a moment on the corner of Grosvenor Square, utterly amazed. Then a suspicion of a smile broke over his face and, walking quickly to Oxford Street, he hailed a cab, and drove off rapidly to the Langley Hotel.
"No, sir, Miss Duquesne isn't here," said the night clerk in answer to his question. "She left suddenly, about an hour and a half after she arrived here with you. She said you might be calling, and she asked me to give you this note."
He handed a sealed envelope to Alonzo. MacTavish walked out into Piccadilly, the note in his pocket. At the first street lamp he tore open the envelope and read:
Dear Mac,
A pretty good bluff, wasn't it? Don't you think I acted the part of the sorrowful Miss Duquesne awfully well? I thought you'd recognise me any moment, in spite of my dyed hair. You see, we had got the key to the front door of the Duquesne house, but there's only one man in Europe can open a Briggs burglar proof safe, and that's yourself! I knew you'd go off and crack the crib immediately. The young man who held you up was not Sloan Duquesne, but my brother, Fred. He was rather good, wasn't he? You're rather a dear, aren't you, Mac? And if you'd like to join us at Monte, I'll thank you personally. Please find enclosed banknote for £500. Buy yourself a cigarette case, or something in memory of
Yours,
Nita Duquesne, Alias Kitty Marshall.
Alonzo leaned up against the lamp post and gasped. Then he roared with laughter. For the first time in his life he had been double-crossed—and by a woman! A passing policeman regarded him with amusement. "It's a fine night, sir," said the policeman.
Alonzo felt in his pocket for a pound note.
"Officer 434K," he said, handing the note to the astonished police officer, "It's the finest night I've seen for a long time."
So saying, Mr. MacTavish adjusted his monocle in his eye and went home to bed.
07. — THE MYSTERY BLUES
As published in The Queenslander , Australia, 10 July 1926
AS the last notes of the violin echoed through the Music Hall, a thunder of applause rang through the building, and away, and recommenced as John Ackroyd, 'The Singing Fiddler,' came through the curtains to take his final call. It seemed impossible to Alonzo that the tired features—the lines apparent under the stage make up—were those of his friend, John Ackroyd. Ackroyd had been a laughing, cheerful fellow in the old days somewhat inclined to stoutness, and Alonzo wondered what trouble or ill-health had caused the great change in appearance which had undoubtedly taken place.
The applause continued and Ackroyd, bowing and smiling, prepared to play a final encore, and the house hushed into a deep quietness as the haunting melody flowed from his violin.
It was a slow mysterious Blues that seemed to hypnotise the whole audience. Alonzo's eyes were riveted on the performer. Ackroyd's smile seemed very forced, and occasionally he appeared to stagger as if the strain of playing were too great.
As the final notes of the violin died away, Alonzo rose, and made his way to the stage door. He nodded to the stage doorkeeper—an old acquaintance—and went upstairs to the star's dressing room.
"Evening, Tom," said Alonzo to the dresser, selecting a cosy armchair.
"Good evening, Mr. MacTavish. It's a long time since we've seen you. Mr. Ackroyd won't he long, he hasn't been well lately, and likes to take some rest in the wings before he comes up. Strangely enough, he won't let me stay with him neither."
Alonzo lit a cigarette. "I thought he looked seedy from the front of the house," he said. "What's wrong, Tom?"
"I don't rightly know, sir," answered the dresser. "He's been nervy-like, very irritable for about three months as near as I can remember. I think it was Miss Sally wanting to marry Mr. Lassey upset him first of all."
"Mr. Lassey!" queried Alonzo.
"I don't think you ever met him, sir," said the dresser. "Clever chap, Mr. Lassey, but evidently Mr. Ackroyd didn't think he was good enough for his sister. He's very fond of Miss Sally is Mr. Ackroyd, and he's too kind-hearted to have stepped in without good reason. I've been with Mr. Ackroyd thirty years, and I've never known him lose his temper, except with Mr. Lassey."
Alonzo smiled. "Thirty years is a long time, Tom. You must be very nearly a millionaire!"
The clothes brush slipped from his fingers, and as he stooped to pick it up, Alonzo noticed that the dresser's face had paled, and that his lips were trembling.
"Excuse me, sir," he said, making for the door, "but I think I can hear Mr. Ackroyd coming."
Almost as he spoke Ackroyd entered the room. Surprised as he had been at his friend's changed appearance on the stage, MacTavish was amazed to see him at close quarters. His face was wan and drawn, and the light of fun and mischief had gone from his eyes. He handed his fiddle to the dresser and, with a smile at Alonzo, sank wearily into a chair.
"Well, Mac," he said. "I'm glad to see you. It's strange that you should have come tonight. I was on the point of writing you."
He glanced nervously round the dressing room. "I shan't want you for a bit, Tom," he said. He watched the man out of the room, then leaned closer to Alonzo.
"Listen, Mac," he said. "There's some mysterious business going on around me. Something that I can't understand or see. I feel as if I were in a net, which is closing tighter and tighter about me each day. It sounds silly, I know, but look at me! I'm a shadow of my former self, and I've never suffered with nerves in my life."
Alonzo lit another cigarette. The thought came to him that there was something almost pathetic in the appearance of his old friend.
"Can't you think of any explanation?" he asked, eventually. "Have you any enemies who might try to do you harm?"
"I haven't an enemy in the world that I know of," replied Ackroyd. "Besides, if I had, that wouldn't account for this business."
He rose and walked wearily to the dressing-room door, saw that it was safely shut, and returned to his seat. "Three months ago," he said, "I was as fit as a fiddle. Then, suddenly, after my performance one night, I seemed to have an indescribable feeling of nausea. I can't explain it. About the same time my health began to fail, and I dreaded coming down to the theatre at night. Then I began to smell the violet scent! I couldn't get away from it."
"Violet scent," interrupted Alonzo. "What do you mean?"
John Ackroyd raised his head and sniffed the close air of the dressing room. "It's here now, can't you smell it?" he said. "Wherever I go, I smell the same odour—the scent of violets. Very faintly in the morning, but always strongly at night." He laughed nervously. "I know it sounds like an old woman's tale," he said, "but I've a feeling that there's a connection between this scent and my illness, whatever it may be."
Alonzo sniffed the air, but he could smell nothing. He wondered for a moment if Ackroyd had developed nerves, and whether the whole story was simply the remit of a disordered imagination. He was about to ask more questions, when he noticed that the door, which had been tightly shut, was slightly ajar.
"Possibly an over-scented young female of the soubrette variety," he drawled, languidly, his eyes on the crack in the door. "I shouldn't bother my head about it, John."
"Perhaps you're right, Mac," Ackroyd assented wearily, and they fell to discussing other matters.
The door of the dressing-room closed silently, but not before Alonzo had caught a glimpse of the white coat of Ackroyd's dresser, Tom.
ABOUT ten minutes later Alonzo rose. "I'd like to stand at the side of the stage in the next house, if you don't mind, John," he said. "We'll talk about yourself again, some time. See you later, old chap," he concluded, as he strolled out.
At the end of the corridor he met Tom. "Excuse me. Mr. MacTavish," said the dresser. "It's no affair of mine, but I wish you'd persuade the Guv'nor to cut out that encore piece he plays—the 'Mystery Blues' he calls it."
"Cut it out, Tom! Why that's the best thing he does."
Tears came into the old dresser's eyes. "I know it is, sir," he said, "but somehow he always seems worse on the nights he plays that for an encore. I hate that 'Mystery Blues.' Couldn't you persuade him to cut it out, sir?"
Alonzo shook his head. "I'm afraid I couldn't interfere," he said. "Oh, by the way, I forgot to ask Mr. Ackroyd for his private address whilst he is in town. Can you give it me?"
"I'll write it down," the dresser answered. He pulled out a stump of pencil and wrote the address on the back of an envelope. "There you are, sir," he said as he handed the envelope to Alonzo. "Good night, Mr. MacTavish." He hurried off down the corridor.
Alonzo stood gazing at the back of the envelope. He had turned it over nonchalantly between his fingers, and printed on the back were the words, "The Associated Counties Life Insurance Co."
He stood looking after the retreating figure of the dresser, wondering.
HALF an hour later Alonzo stood quietly in the prompt corner, his eyes on the stage as John Ackroyd made his entrance in the second house. Ackroyd, he thought, looked better and seemed more cheerful. The first part of the act consisted of a 'cello solo, then a song, and the finale, a violin number. Sally Ackroyd, her eyes on her brother, stood at the side holding his violin, ready to hand it to him when the time came.
The first part of his act over, Ackroyd came to the side of the stage and took the violin and a clean handkerchief from his sister's hands. He returned to the centre of the stage and, tucking the handkerchief in his collar, commenced to play. As the first notes of the violin echoed through the house, Alonzo, his eyes riveted on Ackroyd, noticed the sudden paleness of the latter's face.
He felt a touch on his arm, and found Tom, the dresser, standing beside him. "Look at the Guv'nor," whispered Tom. "Do you see how his face has changed. It's that accursed 'Mystery Blues.' I'll swear that's the cause of all the trouble."
Alonzo was about to reply when his foot touched something. He bent down and picked it up. It was a small cork, and some instinct made him hold it to his nose. A peculiar violet smell, languid and seductive, filled his nostrils, and his mind flashed back to the remark which Ackroyd had made an hour previously, the remark about "the violet scent."
He quietly slipped the cork into his waistcoat pocket.
"Tell Mr. Ackroyd I couldn't wait," he said to the dresser, and moved quietly to where Ackroyd's sister was standing.
"Good night, Miss Sally," he whispered.
"Good night, Mr. MacTavish," she smiled. She held some letters towards him.
"Do be nice and post these for me," she whispered. "I'd forgotten them."
Once out of the theatre, Alonzo made for a telephone box, and was soon connected with Lon Ferrers.
"Is that you, Lon? Good. I've just left the Frivolity Music Hall. I want you to keep an eye on Tom Watson, who acts as dresser to John Ackroyd, the 'top of the bill,' at the Frivolity. Find out what dealings he has had with the Associated Counties Life Insurance. Let me know as early as possible tomorrow morning. Good night, Lon!"
NEXT morning Alonzo found Lon Ferrer's note awaiting him on the breakfast table.
Dear Mac,
Watson—Ackroyd's dresser—has drawn all his savings out of the bank. He hasn't a bean except his weekly wage. He has insured the life of John Ackroyd with the firm you mention for £10,000. That's all at the moment.
Yours, L.
Alonzo finished his breakfast and lit a pipe. A plan of campaign was beginning to shape itself in his mind.
At half past eleven he went out and took a 'bus to Notting Hill Gate. He investigated the outside of No. 17 Denman Street, taking careful note of the "geography" of the house, after which he returned to his flat at Earl's Court and indulged in a long conversation with Lon Ferrers.
AS the neighbouring church clock struck eleven-thirty, Alonzo moved out of the shadows opposite 17 Denman Street, Notting Hill Gate and, opening the iron gate, walked quietly along the strip of pathway which led to the back of the house. The place was as quiet as the grave and, as far as he could see, all the rooms at the back of the house were in complete darkness, except one on the right of the top floor, where a tiny glimmer of light showed between the blind and the window ledge.
He found a door which was evidently the back entrance to the kitchen and, drawing a bunch of skeleton keys from his pocket, commenced operations. Eventually he found the right key and, opening the door, entered the house. The light of his torch showed him that he was in the kitchen. He crossed the room and found a passage, and a short flight of steps leading up to the hall. At the top of these steps he stood and listened. From somewhere above came a noise, and, sniffing the air, Alonzo was certain that there was an almost imperceptible scent of violets about the place.
He switched off his torch and commenced to ascend the stairs leading to the bedrooms. The noise from above became more distinct, and as he ascended the stairs to the second floor he discerned a glimmer of light coming from beneath the door of the third room along the passage. He crept along the passage and listened.
From within the room came a steady grinding noise, and Alonzo moved silently along the passage and entered the next room. It was a bedroom and had been slept in recently for the bedclothes were untidy. By the moonlight which flooded through the dirty windows he saw that the room was in disorder, articles of attire and pieces of scientific apparatus being scattered about the place. A glimmer of light high upon the wall caught his eye, and a quick examination showed him that it was a ventilator between this and the next room from which the grinding noise still came.
Alonzo put the chair upon the bed and, standing upon it, was able to look through the ventilator into the next room. Standing in front of a long table loaded with apparatus stood a short, fat individual, who was busily engaged with a pestle and mortar, which accounted for the noise which Alonzo had heard. Eventually he finished his task and poured the white powder from the bowl into a glass bottle. Then he went to a cupboard and, taking a chemist's mask from within, put it over his face. He then returned to the table and, taking another bottle, poured some liquid on to the powder. A pungent and sickly smell of violets came to Alonzo and for a moment his brain reeled. Then he quietly descended from the chair and, sitting upon the bed, considered the situation. Presently a grim smile crossed his face and, stealing quietly from the room into the passage, he halted outside the door of the next room. He had noticed that the key was in the outside of the door and he turned it quietly in the lock. Having done this, he returned to the bedroom and once more mounted the chair and looked through the ventilator.
The man, an evil grin on his face, was regarding the corked bottle which stood upon the table, beside which lay the chemist's mask. Alonzo quietly drew his automatic pistol from his pocket and pushed back the ventilator to its full extent.
"Good evening, Mr. Lassey," said Alonzo through the ventilator. "I got your address from a letter I posted for your wife. You really should tell her not to be so trusting!"
Lassey spun round, amazement written on his face.
"Don't move, Lassey," said Alonzo. "I've got you covered, and if you move an inch I'll shoot you like the murdering dog you are. Put your hands on the table in front of you. Good. Now listen to me. I have just locked the door of that room from outside, and you are a prisoner. In that bottle on the table there is enough poison gas to kill a dozen men—not a particularly nice death either. Now, you are going to sit down at that table and write a full confession of the means which you and your double-faced wife have been using to encompass John Ackroyd's death. Quite a good scheme, wasn't it, for you two to get married quietly after he had refused his consent, and to commence a systematic scheme of murder, knowing that his fortune would go to her? Still more clever to blackmail old Tom Watson, whose soul you had got in your clutches, and cleverest of all when you forced him to take out that insurance policy when he had no more money to pay out! The idea of your wife putting a little of that poison on the handkerchief which John Ackroyd used each night when he played his violin solo, so that he inhaled the poison, was very neat, but not quite neat enough! It was unlucky for you that she dropped the cork from the phial, otherwise your little plot would probably have been successful. Well. Lassey, what about it?"
"It's a lie!" snarled the man, his face white with fear.
Alonzo grinned. "A lie, is it?" he said. "Very well. If it's a lie you can prove it! I happen to be a pretty good shot. You can't get out of that room, and I'm going to fire through the ventilator and smash that bottle on the table. Then I'm going to close the ventilator, and if you're alive ten minutes afterwards I'll confess I'm wrong!"
Alonzo pushed the barrel of his automatic a little further through the ventilator and took careful aim. Lassey flung himself in front of the bottle. "For God's sake don't shoot!" he screamed. "I'll confess anything you like, only don't smash that bottle..."
His voice trailed off into a whimper.
"Good," said Alonzo. "There's a pen and ink on the table. The estimable Sally—your accomplice—will be here shortly, and the police soon afterwards. I arranged that this afternoon. Now sit down and write the whole story, and when you've finished it get on a chair and pass it up to me. Incidentally, before you begin, as I see you have a telephone in that room, you can ring up the Frivolity Music Hall, and tell John Ackroyd's dresser that the mystery of the 'Mystery Blues' is solved!"
08. — CHINESE MUSIC
As published in The Queenslander , Australia, 17 July 1926
ALONZO listened intently, but heard no sound except the occasional hooting of a tug as it steamed slowly up the river. Through the mist he could see the lights blinking faintly on the opposite shore.
