The Secret of Chimneys, Agatha Christie [reading a book txt] 📗
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The Baron took a step forward and looked searchingly in Anthony’s face.
“Mr. Cade,” he said, not without dignity, “it is not, I hope, that you wish to make fun of me?”
Anthony returned his gaze steadily.
“Baron,” he said, and there was a curious note in his voice, “when this evening is over, I think you will be the first to admit that there is more earnest than jest about this business.”
Bowing to both the men, he left the room.
His next call was in the City where he sent in his card to Mr. Herman Isaacstein.
After some delay, Anthony was received by a pale and exquisitely dressed underling with an engaging manner, and a military title.
“You wanted to see Mr. Isaacstein, didn’t you?” said the young man. “I’m afraid he’s most awfully busy this morning—board meetings and all that sort of thing, you know. Is it anything that I can do?”
“I must see him personally,” said Anthony, and added carelessly. “I’ve just come up from Chimneys.”
The young man was slightly staggered by the mention of Chimneys.
“Oh!” he said doubtfully. “Well, I’ll see.”
“Tell him it’s important,” said Anthony.
“Message from Lord Caterham?” suggested the young man.
“Something of the kind,” said Anthony, “but it’s imperative that I should see Mr. Isaacstein at once.”
Two minutes later, Anthony was conducted into a sumptuous inner sanctum where he was principally impressed by the immense size and roomy depths of the leather-covered arm-chairs.
Mr. Isaacstein rose to greet him.
“You must forgive my looking you up like this,” said Anthony. “I know that you’re a busy man, and I’m not going to waste more of your time than I can help. It’s just a little matter of business that I want to put before you.”
Isaacstein looked at him attentively for a minute or two out of his beady black eyes.
“Have a cigar,” he said unexpectedly, holding out an open box.
“Thank you,” said Anthony. “I don’t mind if I do.”
He helped himself.
“It’s about this Herzoslovakian business,” continued Anthony, as he accepted a match. He noted the momentary flickering of the other’s steady gaze. “The murder of Prince Michael must have rather upset the applecart.”
Mr. Isaacstein raised one eyebrow, murmured “Ah?” interrogatively and transferred his gaze to the ceiling.
“Oil,” said Anthony, thoughtfully surveying the polished surface of the desk. “Wonderful thing, oil.”
He felt the slight start the financier gave.
“Do you mind coming to the point, Mr. Cade?”
“Not at all. I imagine, Mr. Isaacstein, that if those Oil concessions are granted to another company you won’t be exactly pleased about it?”
“What’s the proposition?” asked the other, looking straight at him.
“A suitable claimant to the throne, full of pro-British sympathies.”
“Where have you got him?”
“That’s my business.”
Isaacstein acknowledged the retort by a slight smile, his glance had grown hard and keen.
“The genuine article? I can’t stand for any funny business.”
“The absolute genuine article.”
“Straight?”
“Straight.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“You don’t seem to take much convincing?” said Anthony, looking curiously at him.
Herman Isaacstein smiled.
“I shouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t learnt to know whether a man is speaking the truth or not,” he replied simply. “What terms do you want?”
“The same loan, on the same conditions, that you offered to Prince Michael?”
“What about yourself?”
“For the moment, nothing, except that I want you to come down to Chimneys to-night.”
“No,” said Isaacstein, with some decision. “I can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Dining out—rather an important dinner.”
“All the same, I’m afraid you’ll have to cut it out—for your own sake.”
“What do you mean?”
Anthony looked at him for a full minute before he said slowly:
“Do you know that they’ve found the revolver, the one Michael was shot with? Do you know where they found it? In your suit-case.”
“What?”
Isaacstein almost leapt from his chair. His face was frenzied.
“What are you saying? What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you.”
Very obligingly, Anthony narrated the occurrences in connection with the finding of the revolver. As he spoke the other’s face assumed a greyish tinge of absolute terror.
“But it’s false,” he screamed out, as Anthony finished. “I never put it there. I know nothing about it. It is a plot.”
“Don’t excite yourself,” said Anthony soothingly. “If that’s the case you’ll easily be able to prove it.”
“Prove it? How can I prove it?”
“If I were you,” said Anthony gently, “I’d come to Chimneys to-night.”
Isaacstein looked at him doubtfully.
“You advise it?”
Anthony leant forward and whispered to him. The financier fell back in amazement, staring at him.
“You actually mean——”
“Come and see,” said Anthony.
The 13th of October (contd.)
The clock in the Council Chamber struck nine.
“Well,” said Lord Caterham, with a deep sigh. “Here they all are, just like little Bo Peep’s flock, back again and wagging their tails behind them.”
He looked sadly round the room.
“Organ grinder complete with monkey,” he murmured, fixing the Baron with his eye. “Nosy Parker of Throgmorton Street——”
“I think you’re rather unkind to the Baron,” protested Bundle, to whom these confidences were being poured out. “He told me that he considered you the perfect example of English hospitality amongst the haute noblesse.”
“I daresay,” said Lord Caterham. “He’s always saying things like that. It makes him most fatiguing to talk to. But I can tell you I’m not nearly as much of the hospitable English gentleman as I was. As soon as I can, I shall let Chimneys to an enterprising American, and go and live in an hotel. There, if anyone worries you, you can just ask for your bill and go.”
“Cheer up,” said Bundle. “We seem to have lost Mr. Fish for good.”
“I always found him rather amusing,” said Lord Caterham, who was in a contradictory temper. “It’s that precious young man of yours who has let me in for this. Why should I have this Board meeting called in my house? Why doesn’t he rent The Larches or Elmhurst, or some nice villa residence like that at Streatham, and hold his company meetings there?”
“Wrong atmosphere,” said Bundle.
“No one is going to play any tricks on us, I hope?” said her father nervously. “I don’t trust that French fellow, Lemoine. The French police are up to all sorts of dodges. Put India-rubber bands round your arm, and then reconstruct the crime and make you jump, and it’s registered on a thermometer. I know that when they call out ‘Who killed Prince Michael?’ I shall register a hundred and twenty-two, or something perfectly frightful, and they’ll haul me off to gaol at once.”
The door opened and Tredwell announced:
“Mr. George Lomax. Mr. Eversleigh.”
“Enter Codders, followed by faithful dog,” murmured Bundle.
Bill made a bee-line for her, whilst George greeted Lord Caterham in the genial manner he assumed for public occasions.
“My dear Caterham,” said George, shaking him by the hand, “I got your message, and came over, of course.”
“Very good of you, my dear fellow, very good of you. Delighted to see you.” Lord Caterham’s conscience always drove him on to an excess of geniality when he was conscious of feeling none. “Not that it was my message, but that doesn’t matter at all.”
In the meantime, Bill was attacking Bundle in an undertone.
“I say. What’s it all about? What’s this I hear about Virginia bolting off in the middle of the night? She’s not been kidnapped, has she?”
“Oh, no,” said Bundle. “She left a note pinned to the pincushion in the orthodox fashion.”
“She’s not gone off with anyone, has she? Not with that Colonial Johnny? I never liked the fellow and, from all I hear, there seems to be an idea floating around that he himself is the super crook. But I don’t quite see how that can be?”
“Why not?”
“Well, this King Victor was a French fellow, and Cade’s English enough.”
“You don’t happen to have heard that King Victor was an accomplished linguist, and, moreover, was half Irish?”
“Oh, Lord! Then that’s why he’s made himself scarce, is it?”
“I don’t know about his making himself scarce. He disappeared the day before yesterday, as you know. But this morning we got a wire from him, saying he would be down here at 9 P.M. to-night, and suggesting that Codders should be asked over. All these other people have turned up as well—asked by Mr. Cade.”
“It is a gathering,” said Bill, looking round. “One French detective by window, one English ditto by fireplace. Strong foreign element. The Stars and Stripes don’t seem to be represented?”
Bundle shook her head.
“Mr. Fish has disappeared into the blue. Virginia’s not here either. But every one else is assembled, and I have a feeling in my bones, Bill, that we are drawing very near to the moment when somebody says ‘James, the footman,’ and everything is revealed. We’re only waiting now for Anthony Cade to arrive.”
“He’ll never show up,” said Bill.
“Then why call this company meeting, as Father calls it?”
“Ah, there’s some deep idea behind that. Depend upon it. Wants us all here while he’s somewhere else—you know the sort of thing.”
“You don’t think he’ll come, then?”
“No fear. Run his head into the lion’s mouth? Why, the room’s bristling with detectives and high officials.”
“You don’t know much about King Victor, if you think that would deter him. By all accounts, it’s the kind of situation he loves above all, and he always manages to come out on top.”
Mr. Eversleigh shook his head doubtfully.
“That would take some doing—with the dice loaded against him. He’ll never——”
The door opened again and Tredwell announced:
“Mr. Cade.”
Anthony came straight across to his host.
“Lord Caterham,” he said, “I’m giving you a frightful lot of trouble, and I’m awfully sorry about it. But I really do think that to-night will see the clearing up of the mystery.”
Lord Caterham looked mollified. He had always had a secret liking for Anthony.
“No trouble at all,” he said heartily.
“It’s very kind of you,” said Anthony. “We’re all here, I see. Then I can get on with the good work.”
“I don’t understand,” said George Lomax weightily. “I don’t understand in the least. This is all very irregular. Mr. Cade has no standing—no standing whatever. The position is a very difficult and delicate one. I am strongly of the opinion——”
George’s flood of eloquence was arrested. Moving unobtrusively to the great man’s side, Superintendent Battle whispered a few words in his ear. George looked perplexed and baffled.
“Very well, if you say so,” he remarked grudgingly. Then added in a louder tone, “I’m sure we are all willing to listen to what Mr. Cade has to say.”
Anthony ignored the palpable condescension of the other’s tone.
“It’s just a little idea of mine, that’s all,” he said cheerfully. “Probably all of you know that we got hold of a certain message in cipher the other day. There was a reference to Richmond, and some numbers.” He paused. “Well, we had a shot at solving it—and we failed. Now in the late Count Stylptitch’s Memoirs (which I happen to have read) there is a reference to a certain dinner—a ‘Flower’ dinner which every one attended wearing a badge representing a flower. The Count himself wore the exact duplicate of that curious device we found in the cavity in the secret passage. It represented a Rose. If you remember, it was all rows of things—buttons, letter E’s, and finally rows of knitting. Now, gentlemen, what is there in this house that is arranged in rows? Books, isn’t that so? Add to that, that in the catalogue of Lord Caterham’s library there is a book called The Life of the Earl of Richmond, and I think you will get a very fair idea of the hiding-place. Starting at the volume in question, and using the numbers to denote shelves and books, I think you will find that the—er—object of our search is concealed in a dummy book, or in a cavity behind a particular book.”
Anthony looked round modestly, obviously waiting for applause.
“Upon my word, that’s very ingenious,” said Lord
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