The Whisper in the Gloom Read online

  “This party couldn’t be more heaven, don’t you think?” she said; her voice was flat, unexhilarated, and Knights-bridge.

  “Smashing.”

  “I don’t think we’ve met, have we?”

  “The loss is mine,” replied Foxy, with the feeling of one who had got well into the swing of things, and took a tighter grip on the judy. “Do you know Alec Gray?”

  “Vaguely.”

  The champagne, churned up by the dance, rose to Foxy’s throat in a rush of bubbles. He removed a hand from the maiden, to cover a belch. “Pardon. He’s on the crook,” said Foxy, confidentially.

  “On what?”

  “Let it ride, let it ride.”

  “You mean—Hesione?” A spark of animation momentarily gleamed in the young woman’s eye as she put two and two together. “I say, are you one of Hesione’s kid brothers—the ones she keeps dark?”

  Foxy drew himself up to his full four foot three. “I am a friend of Lady Dunbar’s,” he declared, treading mercilessly upon his partner’s toes.

  “Ow! You horrible little—!” she began, but the turbaned imp had glided away.

  From the corner of his eye, Foxy had seen the unspeakable Gray again. He was properly up a tree if that b— had penetrated his disguise. But up a tree seemed the safest place, at the moment, to be; darting behind a bit of shrubbery, away from the crowd, he tore off his hampering gold robe, then swung himself into the leaves of the nearest tree. Footsteps were approaching. A voice he seemed to have heard before began to speak, softly.

  “Oh, there you are, Alec. I’ve been looking for you. Did you bring him?”

  “He’s in the study. I locked him in, with a bottle of rye.”

  “Good man.” The voice was lowered. “What about the other matter?”

  “It’s a washout. We got the piece of paper, but it’s the wrong paper.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “I showed it just now to one of these newshounds. What was written on it didn’t make sense, anyway. He said it had been torn off the News of the World.”

  “Well?”

  “The News of the World happens not to be the paper that D. W. was reading,” said Alec Gray in a whisper Foxy could only just catch. “The kid with the boat was pulling a fast one: practical joke, more like.”

  “You’re a fool, Gray. Why should this boy substitute one message for another?”

  “Perhaps someone told him to,” said Gray in his cold, careless, public-school voice. “Perhaps the police told him.”

  “And what was written on the piece of paper? The wrong piece that you so cleverly acquired?”

  “‘Halibut twelve all set. X 520. Pass on.’ Penny-dreadful stuff. I wouldn’t give it another thought.”

  “No doubt you wouldn’t.” There was a pause, a grunt from Gray’s companion. “The boy has got to be questioned.”

  “That’s all right. He was followed home. Produce him for you any moment.”

  “I don’t want the boy. I want the information. See to it, please. I’m going to talk to our friend now.”

  “Here’s the key. And keep away from you know where; the concert party’ll be on the job any moment.”

  The two speakers began to move away. Peering after them, to establish the identity of the second, Foxy lost his balance and fell noisily out of the tree.

  4

  Model for an Emergency

  NIGEL STRANGEWAYS LET his eye rove along the line of miniature horses ranged on the sill of the great studio window. Their simplified forms, their muzzles tapering to an open o like hose nozzles, were curiously restful. As other people might doodle, or play with a length of string, so Clare Massinger’s restless fingers shaped these little clay horses, almost unconsciously, when they had nothing else to do. At present she was engaged upon a portrait head of Nigel. He sat immobile and anonymous as the doltish clay mass over there from which Clare was beginning to conjure his likeness. To her, he thought, I am just an interesting arrangement of planes and lights; or an idea in the mind, which she can only realize through that lump of clay, like the Creator when he brooded over Chaos. He smiled faintly.

  “No! Don’t make faces!” said Clare Massinger. “I’ll put in the expression, thank you.”

  “Just a little embryo in the womb of your genius,” Nigel murmured, resuming the utterly passive role. His mind returned to the story, printed in an early edition of the Evening Standard which he had bought on the way here. Big Robbery at Millionaire’s House. The crime wave Blount had spoken of was piling up already. That woman, Durbur, must be a fool: a party to which half the guests came in fancy dress with their faces blacked—it was asking for trouble; anyone could walk in, move freely around, take his time, take his pick. And a nice haul it had been, by all accounts.

  Clare Massinger patted, slapped, pummeled, gouged away at the clay. By a sort of sympathetic magic, Nigel felt as if he himself was undergoing a violent facial massage. She leaned away, prowled round him, returned to her stand, meditated for a little, strode aggressively up to him and glared into his face from a distance of six inches, then withdrew again: the ritual dance of the sculptor.

  That boy, thought Nigel uneasily. Where is he? What was the message Dai Williams gave him? He had spent most of the previous day wandering in Kensington Gardens, by the Round Pond, hither and thither through Notting Hill and Notting Dale, keeping his eyes skinned for a small ordinary, bespectacled boy. Might as well look for one particular rabbit in a warren.

  “Don’t frown,” said Clare sharply. “I want that light on your left temple.”

  Presently she glided toward him and appeared to have designs upon the lobe of his right ear.

  “Don’t bite the exhibits,” said Nigel.

  “Do you know, I believe you’re lopsided,” she announced interestedly. “You really have a very peculiar face. Very odd indeed. Never mind; I dare say we shall make something of it.”

  She opened a pair of calipers. “Shut your eyes,” she said. “I’m just going to drive these through your eyeballs.”

  He felt the tips of the calipers touch his eyelids in a butterfly kiss, tremble faintly upon them, and withdraw. Opening his eyes, he saw the same operation performed upon his alter ego of clay.

  “You’ve a wonderfully steady hand.”

  “Not this morning. I was at a party till the small hours.”

  After another ten minutes, Clare groaned heavily.

  “You can come down, Nigel. I’m no good today. We’ll have some coffee.”

  “Where was your wild party?”

  “At the Durbars’.”

  Nigel whistled. “It was, was it?”

  “I don’t go much for these bloody silly parties,” she said, a little on the defensive, “but Hesione Durbar is sitting for me. A commission. So I thought I’d better turn up.”

  Nigel studied her as she bent over the gas ring in the cluttered studio: dead pale face; coal black hair streaming down her back, released now from the peaked cap she wore when working; strong, stubby fingers; a thin body, curled up like a spring now on the floor, immensely resilient. Like a cat’s, her body could suggest utter relaxation and extreme tension in one and the same pose.

  “They were burgled last night, you know.”

  “Oh, were they? I never read the papers,” she replied vaguely. “Two lumps?”

  “Thank you. Tell me about the party.”

  “It was hell. Supposed to be a cannibal party. I ask you! Pretentious and silly. No expense spared, and a waste of shame. The usual obscene gang of debs and nobs and snobs. I don’t know why Hesione does it; she’s rather a golden girl, really; sensible too; beautiful bone. Where she got it from, I can’t imagine. As she always says, her husband took her out of the gutter.” Clare yawned and stretched like a cat. “Oh such a dull party! The only rewarding feature was when the boy fell out of the tree. How vile this coffee tastes. Have some more.”

  “Just a minute, Clare. A boy fell out of a tree?”

  “Y
es. Then someone—Alec Gray, I should think—started making hunting noises, and they all joined in—it gives you rather a line on the clientele, doesn’t it? But the boy dodged through the crowd and got away over the garden wall. Hesione was furious when she heard about it.”

  “Had he pinched something? What was he doing there?”

  “Hesione’d picked him up somehow. I couldn’t quite gather. No, she was furious that they’d chased him out. I heard her giving Gray hell.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “The present incumbent. She’s mad about him, actually. God knows why. He’s one of the most noisome bits of sub-Tatler riffraff you could hope to find. A neighbor of mine, too, curse it.”

  “Going back to the boy—did you see him yourself? What he looked like?”

  “When he ran away, his turban fell off. Hesione dressed him up, I believe. He had bright red hair. Why?”

  Nigel got up, and rummaging on a littered table, found pencil and paper. “I know you can’t draw. But just do me a crude impression of this boy, will you?”

  “But damn it, his face was blacked.”

  “Never mind. Let’s have the skull beneath the skin.”

  Nigel hardly knew why he made this request. Clearly, it had not been the same boy; but he had no trace of a clue to the one he was seeking, and now a second boy had cropped up; perhaps one boy would lead to the other.

  Clare was sketching the head in thick, swift strokes, and chattering on about the party. There had been another incident, later, when some of its rowdier elements had taken over the saxophone and drums from the band, and started up a swing version of “The Red Flag.” They had moved on to the “Internationale,” with a number of tipsy guests giving a raucous, vocal caricature, when Sir Rudolf Durbar, hurrying out of the house, put a stop to it.

  “I don’t know why he took on so. If he will ask that sort of people, what does he expect?”

  “Of course, if you never read the papers, my poor love, you wouldn’t. The Durbars’ house is well within earshot of the Russian embassy.”

  “Oh, is it? I see. International rudery. Undiplomatic.”

  “Who started the ruction?”

  “I don’t know. The Gray creature was playing one of the saxophones.”

  At that moment there came a frantic banging on the door. Nigel opened it, and a boy shot in—a boy with white face and carroty hair.

  “Hide me!” the boy sobbed. “He’s after me! I must hide.” His eyes flickered desperately round the studio, as if he were looking for some hole into which he could disappear. Nigel reacted instantaneously. Dumping the boy into the chair on the model’s throne, he fetched a stand, with a lump of clay impaled on its upright, from a corner of the studio.

  “It’s all right, son. Sit tight and don’t talk. Go on, Clare. Get to work on it.”

  Clare Massinger began kneading the clay, frowning, her lower lip stuck out. She could hear footsteps crossing the courtyard which led from Number 34, Radley Gardens, to her studio at the back of it.

  “Who’s after you?” asked Nigel quietly.

  “Mr. Gray.”

  “Good-oh,” murmured Clare.

  “Now listen. This lady is Miss Massinger, and she asked you to sit for her. Got that? What’s your name?”

  “Foxy.”

  The door bell rang. It did not just ring, and stop. The man outside kept his finger on the bell push till the door was opened. It was Nigel’s first taste of Alec Gray—a very nasty taste indeed.

  A round-headed, sleek-haired young man, in Norfolk jacket and tight Edwardian trousers, stood at the doorway, his finger still on the bell push.

  “Is the house on fire?” asked Nigel.

  “Not that I know of,” said Alec Gray, brushing past him. “Yes, I thought he must have come in here. I want to have a talk with this lad.”

  “Well, you can have it some other time,” said Clare, her dark eyes flashing. “We’re busy just now.”

  “Ah. Spitfire type. Carry on with the art work while I interrogate, then.” The man’s effrontery was formidable; it created an area of positive disquiet all round him; Clare Massinger’s fingers were trembling.

  “Shall I throw the young gentleman out, Clare?”

  “I wouldn’t, if I were you,” said Gray, leaning against the wall. “I was in the Commandos, and they taught us some horrible tricks, you know.”

  “I’m sure they came naturally to you,” said Clare.

  Gray studied her, as if seeing her for the first time. A flicker of interest disturbed the veiled insolence of his gaze, which slowly moved up her, from foot to head.

  “I’ve caught this brat snooping, twice now. I’m going to teach him a lesson.”

  In the model’s chair, Foxy froze cowering like a small animal, and Clare made an involuntary movement, as if to protect him.

  “Snooping?” said Nigel. “He was simply trying to find Miss Massinger’s studio. She’d fixed up with him to sit for her this morning.”

  “Really? Now I’d be surprised if Miss Massinger had ever set eyes on him before.”

  “As you’re here, you’d better make yourself useful,” said Clare unexpectedly. “Get me the six-inch ruler out of that cupboard, please.”

  While Gray was rummaging, his back turned, she rapidly sketched in Foxy’s mouth on her drawing: she’d had to leave it blank before, since at the party it was concealed by the blubber lips which Hesione Durbar had painted over it. When Gray straightened up again, she was back at the stand.

  “Now, to return to the brat here. Last night he gate-crashed a party at the Durbars’; and by a strange coincidence she had her jewels stolen.”

  “Here! I didn’t take any—” protested Foxy; then suddenly broke off, remembering the jade idol and the cigarette lighter. They could pin it on him for that. Who’d believe that the lady had given them?

  “I’m not supposing the brat swiped Hesione’s jewels,” Alec Gray was saying. “But these gangs do have lookout men, and such-like; and it’d be quite bright to employ an innocent-looking cheeild for the purpose. So when I find him snooping round my premises—”

  “I wasn’t snooping,” cried Foxy.

  “Pipe down, kiddo,” said Clare. “Now, once and for all, Mr. Gray, I saw this boy in the Gardens the other day, took a fancy to his face, and asked him to sit for me. In fact, I did a rough sketch of him at the time. Perhaps this will dispose of your delusions that I’d never seen him till this morning.”

  She handed Gray the sketch. It was fairly certain, from the way he had spoken, that he was not aware she had been at the Durbars’ party.

  “Well, I know nothing about art, but I know what I like,” he said, his eyes moving from the sketch to Clare’s body. He seemed, for once, a shade disconcerted. “So we let the brat off with a caution? Next time you come, you come straight here, not via my staircase, sonny. Got that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “When you’ve finished impressing the boy with your regimental personality,” said Clare, “the door is behind you.”

  “Now we’ve met at last, we mustn’t drift apart,” said Alec Gray with a long look at her. “What about—”

  “Next time you pay a visit, ring me up first, and I’ll arrange to be out.” Anger made Clare quite exceptionally attractive—which, under the circumstances, Nigel thought was not altogether desirable. “Now, clear out, you insufferable little twerp! I’m busy,” she said.

  A flush came over his blond face: his eyes, with their congested look, went narrow; and he started toward her. Nigel was out of his chair in an instant; but, before he reached the young man, Clare had thrown the lump of clay she was kneading, with unerring aim, slap across his eyes. He picked it slowly off, standing there.

  “Rough games end in tears,” he said. It sounded absurd, somehow, in that public-school voice of his, and Clare went off into a peal of laughter. Alec Gray, head lowered like a young bull, looked dangerously about him, and
his eye lit on Nigel.

  “Did I hear you laugh?” he said to him.

  “You really must try to grow up and behave yourself,” Nigel replied. “Clare and I are not impressed by subaltern’s mess antics. By the way, let me introduce myself. My name is Strangeways. And I believe we have, or rather had, an acquaintance in common.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “A chap called Williams. Dai Williams.”

  Nigel, his eyes fixed sleepily on Gray, did not see Foxy’s start of surprise. But Clare Massinger did. Gray’s face went quite blank. If the arrow Nigel had shot at so wild a venture had struck him, he certainly did not flinch.

  “Dai Williams? The only Dai Williams I’ve ever heard of is the chap who was killed near the Round Pond the other day. They gave his name in the papers this morning.”

  “He talked about you quite a lot, the chap I mean,” said Nigel. “Called you ‘the toff.’”

  “Never heard of him. You’re off the beam. Must’ve been some other Gray.”

  Without another look at Clare, the young man departed.

  “And now,” said Nigel to Foxy, “you’d better come clean. What were you doing, gum-shoeing around Mr. Gray’s premises just now?” …

  After breakfast, Foxy had gone round to Copper’s house. He described with a wealth of detail—exaggeration being neither necessary nor possible—the events of the previous night, and put in as evidence the little jade idol, which had already become a mascot for him. Copper was finally convinced. Neither of them, at this point, knew about the robbery at the Durbars’; had they done so, Copper’s law-abiding tendencies might have produced a different course of action. What seemed the nub of it all was the conversation Foxy had heard from his hidingplace in the tree. It clearly indicated the man, Gray, was Public Enemy Number One. Gray was behind the attempts to get back from Bert Hale the piece of paper: Gray had seen through the fake message they had written on the substitute paper; Gray knew which newspaper it was that Dai Williams had been reading just before he was killed. Ergo, Gray was the killer, or at least had laid on the murder.