THE EVIDENCE OF MADAME BONNELL
Instead of excusing myself I thought it the best plan to plunge into
the account of what had taken place at the Domino Club, in the hope
that it would absorb his mind. The alert physician made only one
comment as I finished.
“A case for Inspector Charles is pretty sure to be a case for me; but
you didn’t know that.” He was out of bed the next moment.
“Please tell him I am coming at once, and order round my car. And be
ready yourself as soon as you can.”
I needed no injunction to make haste. I was in a fever to be back
at the scene of that masked revel, and find out what had happened
there. I congratulated myself on the care I had taken to cover my own
tracks. I had left the doctor’s house and returned to it in my ordinary
clothes. Not a soul in the Domino Club, except the member from whom I
had obtained a ticket of admission, could have the least idea of my
identity. So far as I could see I was absolutely secure from discovery.
But it had been a dangerous game to play, and Tarleton was a dangerous
man to play against. With all his kindness for me I trembled at the
thought of coming within the range of his uncanny powers of detection.
As soon as I had dispatched his messages, and put a pot of coffee on to
boil over a little spirit stove, I sluiced my head in cold water, and
got into my clothes again as quickly as I had got out of them. I was
ready with a steaming cup of coffee for my chief as he came out of his
room, and was rewarded by the heartiness with which he gulped it down.
His square leather bag, fitted with everything likely to be needed
for the treatment of a poisoning case, was always kept ready in his
bedroom, and he had it in his hand. I relieved him of it not presuming
to bring my own; and we found the car waiting for us when we opened the
front door.
As we rolled through the streets, just beginning to show signs of life,
Tarleton acquainted me with the personality of Inspector Charles.
“He’s a retired Army man; he likes to be called Captain Charles. He’s
also the younger son of a peer but he doesn’t like that noticed. His
family are silly enough to object to his being in the police, and he
drops the Honourable on their account. But of course it’s known in the
Yard, and he gets most of the society jobs in consequence. I suppose
they think he’s more likely to know his way about among the big people.
But if you ask me, I think an experienced valet knows ten times more.
You’ll find Charles straight, and you’ll find him thorough, but you
needn’t expect him to see an inch beyond his own nose.”
This was comfortable for me. But the next words of my chief gave me an
awkward jar.
“By the way, you ought to be able to tell me something about the place
we’re going to--what is it?--the Domino Club. It sounds like the sort
of night haunt the Home Office objected to so much when I asked for you
as my assistant.”
I had to make up my mind in a hurry. To tell the truth was out of
the question. It was not only my own honour and safety that were at
stake; there was another for whose sake my presence at that fatal dance
must be concealed. I was on the point of denying all knowledge of the
club when it struck me that I might be betrayed into some unconscious
movement in going through the premises, or some thoughtless remark,
which would reveal to a keen intelligence like Tarleton’s that I had
been there before.
I made an effort to seem as if I had been searching my memory.
“Yes,” I said slowly, “now you speak of it I remember having been
there. But I am not sure that I am free to say anything about it. My
impression is that there was an implied pledge of secrecy. Everyone
wore a mask and a disguise of some sort. It was supposed to be a
place where people in very high positions could let themselves go in
security. I was told there were sometimes judges present, and I rather
think Cabinet Ministers, as well as peeresses, and so forth.”
The specialist nodded gravely. “I expect the authorities knew what they
were doing when they told Charles to call for me. We shall see whether
he has found out who the man is that has been poisoned.”
“He didn’t say it was a man,” I ventured to suggest.
Sir Frank pursed his lips, but made no answer. He took out his gold
repeater and began swinging it slowly, a sure sign that he was
following out some train of thought.
In another quarter of an hour the car drew up in one of the
old-fashioned streets of Chelsea between King Street and the Fulham
Road, at the entrance to the curious building or group of buildings
that bore the name of Vincent Studios.
The place resembled a rabbit warren. A short flight of steps led down
from the street pavement into a dark, cavernous hall with doors opening
out of it on three sides. Behind most of these doors were the studios
of artists--one or two of them known to me--studios as cavernous if
not as dark as the hall, and ending in glass doors that opened on
mysterious gardens or garden yards overgrown with nasturtiums and other
plants that seem to love the grime and cinders of suburban London. In
the background one was aware of gray piles of timber, as of a mountain
range closing a landscape. Some forgotten builder, perhaps, had died,
leaving those stacks behind him, and his heirs had never discovered
their existence, so that they had been left to the possession of the
rats.
At the far end of the entrance cavern two doors side by side still
bore the name of artists, one of whom had lately blossomed into an
Academician and been transplanted to the sunnier region of Bedford
Park, while the other had exchanged the brush for some more promising
weapon in what, I fear, had been a losing fight with Fortune. Only
the initiated knew that the door still bearing the name of J. Loftus,
A.R.A., was now that of the Domino Club; while its companion, from
which the name of Yelverton had been roughly effaced, served as a
back door for the use of the tradesmen and servants of the club, and
also for such members as had reasons of their own for not coming
through the streets in fancy costume. For their benefit a row of small
dressing-rooms had been fitted up, in which they could transform
themselves from sober moths into bright artificial butterflies and back
again.
In front of the club entrance an officer in plain clothes was stationed
who recognized Sir Frank with a respectful salute.
“You will find Inspector Charles inside, sir,” he said, opening the
door for us.
We found ourselves in a dark narrow passage empty of everything but
cloak- and hat-pegs. A door at the further end opened straight into
the dancing-room.
The former studio had been decorated in a fashion evidently meant to
recall the Arabian Nights Entertainment. Vistas of Moorish arches and
fountains playing among palms and oleanders had been painted on the
walls. At intervals wooden columns had been set up to support curtains
of gauze embroidered so as to afford a half concealment to the nooks
that they enclosed. The whole place was still suffused with the lurid
glow of a series of red lanterns hanging from the roof. But a glass
door at the further end had been thrown open to admit the daylight, and
where it reached the crimson glow became haggard and spectral and the
whole place had the air of an old woman’s face from which the paint had
peeled in streaks, revealing the wrinkles and sharp bones beneath.
Inspector Charles, tall, upright, and looking the personification of
law and order, stood beside one of the curtained alcoves close to the
garden door, and invited us with a solemn gesture to approach.
This was the moment I had been dreading. I endeavoured to keep my face
passive, and give no sign of recognition, as I came behind my chief and
took my first glance at the spectacle the Inspector had to show us.
Within the curtains, stretched at full length on a low divan, was a
figure attired as an Inquisitor. The black robe was folded carefully
round him, but the peaked hood with its two eye-slits had been thrust
back over the head, so that the face was fully exposed. It was a
striking face in every way, the face of a man of fifty or thereabout
in the full possession of his powers. The forehead was intellectual;
the eyes, wide open but glazed in the death stare, must have been full
and penetrating in life; the nose and chin were strongly carved; only
the lips showed a certain looseness, as of over-ripened fruit, that
seemed to hint at something evil underlying the dignity and strength
manifested in the rest of the face.
I scanned that prostrate figure with painful curiosity. The costume
was only too familiar; I had had ample opportunity of observing it
during the night that had just elapsed. But the face was as strange to
me as it was to either of the other two who stood and gazed beside me.
Even the eyes, unnaturally dilated by the drug, seemed to bear little
likeness to those that had peered through the holes in the black hood
when I last looked on the sombre shape in life.
The Inspector spoke briefly, addressing himself to my companion.
“This is how he was found when they came in to put out the lights
after everyone was gone as they supposed. They thought at first that
he was in a drunken sleep, and tried to rouse him by shaking. When
they failed, they went to bring Madame Bonnell, the proprietress of
the club. They dared not uncover the face without her authority; the
rules of the club are so strict on that point. She laid back the hood
herself, and saw at once that he was dead. After that she rang us up,
and saw that the body was not touched till I got here. I thought it
best not to touch it myself till you came.”
Clear, succinct, containing the bare facts and nothing more, such
was the report of Inspector Charles. It was evident that no better
man could have been put in charge of an affair in dealing with which
prudence was the most essential requisite.
The great physician received the statement with a nod of satisfaction.
“You suggested to Dr. Cassilis over the wire that it looked like a case
of opium-poisoning,” was his first remark.
Captain Charles favoured me with a cautious glance, in which I read
some disapproval of my youthful appearance.
“I thought an opiate must have been the cause of death, Sir Frank,
because there was no sign of a struggle nor of any suffering. He seemed
to have died in his sleep.”
Again the consultant gave an approving nod. All this time he had not
once removed his eyes from the pallid face on which a leaden tinge had
become visible. Now he turned to me.
“What do you say, Cassilis?”
I shook my head. There was something in the case that puzzled me.
“I agree with Captain Charles to some extent. The appearances
are consistent with opium-poisoning. But----” I turned to the
Inspector--“can you tell us the hour at which the body was found with
life extinct?”
Captain Charles consulted his watch. Tarleton’s fingers were already
pinching the shabby ribbon of his repeater, and it was going to and fro
with the slow movement of a pendulum.
“It is now half-past six. I got here soon after five. It must have been
about half-past four when the body was found.”
I looked questioningly at the great specialist.
“Unless the opiate was given very early, in which case the effect would
surely have been noticed by someone, it must have been a very powerful
dose to produce death so soon. I should be inclined to suspect some
weakness in the heart, or some other derangement, to account for such
rapid action. I don’t like the colour of the skin.”
“Ah! You see that?” Tarleton bent over the dead face in grave scrutiny
for some moments. Then he straightened himself up.
“And now, who is this man?” he asked the Inspector.
“His name is Wilson, so the proprietress says. But she seems to know
very little about him.”
“Wilson?” The doctor repeated the name with a sceptical intonation.
“That is the sort of name that man would be likely to give himself in a
place of this kind, I should think. Can I see the proprietress?”
Captain Charles went out in quest of her. He was no sooner gone than my
chief whispered quickly in my ear, “Not another word about the cause of
death before anybody else. I blame myself for asking your opinion. I
underrated your powers of observation. Hush!”
I looked round to see a capable middle-aged Frenchwoman dressed in
black silk, emerging from a portière across the room. Very capable and
businesslike she looked, with her well-arranged hair and commanding
black eyes, and well-preserved face and figure, and that amazing air of
respectability which only a Frenchwoman can keep up in an atmosphere
charged with evil. In Madame Bonnell’s presence vice was deprived of
its impropriety, and even murder took on the character of a business
mischance about which the less fuss made the better.
Madame had obviously employed her time since the discovery of this
particular mischance in making the best of her personal appearance. She
greeted us with affability.
Even Tarleton, I thought, was softened by her graceful and yet
dignified deportment. In a moment we seemed to become four friends
engaged in a confidential talk over a matter of common interest. It was
Madame who induced me to sit down.
“You understand, no doubt, Madame, that we are not here with any
hostile purpose,” the representative of the Home Office began. “If it
is possible to dispose of this matter privately, without involving you
or your establishment in any scandal, I shall be glad.”
The explanation seemed unnecessary. Madame Bonnell by her manner
refused to perceive the possibility of her being involved in scandal,
or in anything else inconsistent with the character of a respectable
business woman.
“You have identified the deceased, I understand, by the name of Wilson.
Have you any idea whether that was his real name, or an assumed one?”
Madame Bonnell had no idea. Madame Bonnell was desolated by having
no idea, since the amiable Sir Frank seemed to wish her to have one.
Monsieur the late Wilson had introduced himself to her originally under
that name, and she had never inquired if he had any other.
Madame succeeded in conveying to us that she was not in the habit of
inconveniencing her patrons by inquiries of any sort, or of distracting
her own mind by curiosity on any subject except their ability to pay
her.
Under the polished surface of indifference I nevertheless thought I
could detect in the proprietress of the Domino Club a consciousness
that she was being examined by the representatives of the law about
a serious business, and that it would not be prudent on her part to
withhold any material information. It must have been clear to her that
candour was her best policy, up to a certain point at all events.
To Tarleton’s next question, how she came to make the acquaintance
of the dead man, she made a pretty full reply. Monsieur Wilson had
introduced himself to her a year or two before, when she was managing
a small restaurant in Soho, in a street in which there is more than
one small restaurant, and the restaurants are patronized by more than
one class of customers. It was Monsieur Wilson who had proposed to her
that she should exchange her position there for the more profitable one
of proprietress of a fashionable night club. Monsieur had offered to
provide the funds required for starting such a club, and had undertaken
to make it fashionable, and in both respects he had kept his word. All
the first members of the club had been brought by him, and he had gone
on introducing others since. Madame avowed that she was under a debt to
Monsieur Wilson, which she could not easily repay. She made an effort
to repay it, as she spoke, with tears for his fate, but the dividend
forthcoming did not strike me as a heavy one. By this time, doubtless,
the Domino Club was fairly on its feet, and in no great need of the
dead man’s further support.
Madame Bonnell’s evidence so far had only served to deepen the mystery
instead of lightening it. Who was this unknown Wilson? Why should he
have wanted to start a night club, and what was the influence that had
enabled him to fill it with so many members drawn from the highest
social ranks? The chief part in the examination had been taken by the
physician, Inspector Charles intervening mostly to secure dates and
addresses for his note-book after the meticulous fashion of the law. At
length I took advantage of a break to put a question which had been in
my mind for some time.
“These people whom Wilson, if that was his name, brought into the club
must have been his friends, apparently. So far as one can see the club
was entirely composed of his personal friends and other friends of
theirs. Doesn’t that make it more probable that he took poison himself
than that anyone else gave it to him?”
I threw out the suggestion generally, and my three companions all
turned and stared at me as though it took them by surprise, although
it was an obvious alternative. The physician said nothing, but the
compression of his brows told me plainly that he had rejected such a
theory. Captain Charles made a fatal objection.
“After he had founded the club and done everything to make it a
success, why should he have come to it to commit suicide--the very
thing that would damage it most?”
Madame Bonnell became genuinely agitated for the first time.
“But of course that will not be known!” she exclaimed sharply. “You
sir,” she appealed to Tarleton, “you will know how to contrive that
this unfortunate shall be taken elsewhere. Think of the scandal if it
should be known that a crime was committed in the presence of the Crown
Prince!”
Evidently His Royal Highness was a strong card in Madame’s estimation,
and one which she could rely on to win her game. Perhaps it was not
the first time in her business experience that she had found the
police disposed to shut their eyes to awkward incidents in which great
personages were involved.
The consultant of the Home Office looked by no means yielding.
“I have not yet decided what course I shall recommend the authorities
to take,” he said. “Have you anything to say in answer to Dr. Cassilis?
Is he right in assuming that everyone present here last night must have
been Wilson’s friend?”
Thus pressed, Madame Bonnell presented the appearance of an unwilling
witness, who hesitates to speak for fear of the consequences to himself.
“As long as I believe that no proceedings will be taken against the
Club, which is my property, everything I know, my suspicions even, are
at the service of the police,” she replied cautiously.
It was a bargain which the astute Frenchwoman was proposing openly to
the authorities. Tarleton shrugged his shoulders. He was the last man
to commit himself to anything of the kind.
“The moment I am satisfied that you are withholding any information
that bears on the case I shall advise the police to close this place,
and apply for your deportation as an alien, Madame Bonnell.”
The capable Frenchwoman saw that she had made a false step. She
retracted it immediately in admirable distress.
“But Monsieur must pardon me! I am bewildered by the situation in which
I find myself. I do not understand the Britannic law. I am ready to
throw myself on Monsieur’s consideration. What is it that he would have
me say?”
The physician looked at his watch.
“I am waiting for your answer to Dr. Cassilis.”
Madame Bonnell gave me an appealing look, of which I thought it best to
take no notice. I had seen nothing of her during the time I had spent
at the dance, and I was confident that she was quite ignorant of my
presence at it. She found herself compelled to speak without assistance.
“The Doctor Cassilis is mistaken,” she said at last, with an air
of weighing each word before she uttered it. “Monsieur Wilson was
acquainted with the people whom he introduced here, undoubtedly, but
they were not all his friends. On the contrary, some of them were his
enemies, and he went in fear of them. Even in mortal fear.”
It was the revelation Tarleton seemed to have been anticipating. He
gave the short, satisfied nod I knew so well.
“Go on,” he commanded. “Explain how you knew this.”
“In effect I knew it because he told me so himself. He took me into his
confidence in order to ask for my protection. He feared this very thing
that has happened. He instructed me to pour out everything he was to
drink with my own hands, and to send it to him by the waiter he thought
he could trust--Gerard.”
“Now I think we have some real information,” the specialist observed.
“Be good enough to send for Gerard, if you please.”