THE BOOKS OF THE DOMINO CLUB
It was at once evident that Sir Frank Tarleton had taken the measure of
his opponent accurately. As soon as she felt the police officer’s touch
Madame Bonnell’s confidence deserted her, and she collapsed in a state
of mingled panic and bewilderment.
“_Mon Dieu!_ But what have I done? What is it that I am accused of?”
She looked imploringly from Charles to Tarleton and from him to me.
It was the Inspector who answered.
“Obstructing the officers of the law in the course of their duty is the
charge at present. There may be others later on. Meanwhile I have to
caution you that anything you say will be taken down and may be used in
evidence against you.”
Madame’s reception of the stereotyped warning convinced me that this
was the first occasion on which she had come into collision with the
English law. It appeared to impress her favourably, and to dispel her
first terrors.
“But there is some mistake,” she protested. “I did not understand. I
have no wish to resist the law. I thought there was an understanding
that this misfortune should not be dealt with by the police.”
“Nonsense,” my chief interjected roughly. “It is being dealt with by
the police. They have been in possession of these premises since five
o’clock this morning--since you called them in yourself. Do you intend
to produce the register, or must we search for it?”
Madame Bonnell gave a last sigh of reluctance. Then she was all
submission. She led the way out of the dancing-hall into the adjoining
premises. Her private apartment was between the kitchen and the row of
dressing-rooms for the accommodation of the dancers who preferred to
assume their costumes on the spot. Drawn curtains on one side concealed
what was no doubt Madame’s bed; the rest of the room having the aspect
of a business man’s parlour, furnished with a roll-top desk, a typing
machine and shelves for books and correspondence. In one corner was a
cupboard with a stout door which the proprietress unlocked with a show
of eagerness, and threw open for our inspection.
The contents of the cupboard seemed innocent enough. A private ledger,
a file of accounts, a cash-box into whose contents Tarleton forbore
to pry, and, more important for our purpose, two thin volumes bound
in black leather, one of which was labelled “_Members_” and the other
“_Visitors_.” It would have been unchivalrous to speculate as to the
contents of certain little bottles and boxes on a lower shelf which had
a look of feminine elegance.
My chief pointed to the two black-bound volumes.
“Will you take charge of these books, Cassilis. We can examine them at
our leisure.”
The Frenchwoman uttered a faint groan as I stretched out my hand to
obey. I could have groaned in sympathy with her. And yet I was not in
any fear on my own account. I had no reason to think that my name would
be found in the Visitors’-book. I had been too careful for that. But
there was another name which I had only too much reason for expecting
to see in the other volume. And I cursed the proprietress in my heart
for not destroying the dangerous record while it was in her power. She
had fancied herself secure, and had cared nothing for the security of
her patrons. What did it matter to her who might be incriminated, as
long as her livelihood was not threatened? True, she had done her best
at the last moment to prevent the authorities from gaining access to
these books. But it was easy to see her self-interest in that. Those
records were part of her stock-in-trade. They gave her a hold on the
members of the club, who might be disposed to forsake it as soon as
any hint of the tragedy got abroad. In that case she had only to say
to them, “Leave the club, throw me over, and I take my books to the
newspaper offices, and sell them for what they will fetch.”
Such was the situation, so far as I could see it. Either the reputation
of the Domino Club was to be saved, and all was to go on as before;
or it would be for Madame’s benefit that the scandal should be as
widespread as possible, and that every member and visitor should pay
heavily for having his or her name kept out of it. In parting with
these two volumes she was parting with her most valuable weapons as a
blackmailer.
Whether any such considerations as these influenced my chief, I could
not tell. Outwardly he seemed to have only one end in view--the tracing
of the crime to its perpetrator. As soon as I had possessed myself of
the two books he made a sign to Captain Charles.
“It will be as well for you to lock this cupboard and keep the key for
the present. Unless there is anything that Madame Bonnell particularly
wishes to remove first.”
Madame glanced longingly at the row of mysterious little boxes and
bottles, but she prudently shook her head.
“_Merci, monsieur._ I will take nothing. I wish to have no secrets from
the police. I prefer to replace my perfumes from the shop.”
Tarleton smiled with a grudging respect. This was an adversary after
his own heart, one who knew every point in the game, and knew when
to play for safety. The Inspector locked the door and pocketed the
key with the same wooden precision with which he would have taken the
number of a taxi or arrested the Crown Prince of Slavonia.
“Is Madame Bonnell still under arrest?” he inquired stolidly.
“Not as far as I am concerned,” the physician said lightly. “My
business with Madame is over. All I have to do now is to make the
medical examination, and to wait for the result of your inquiries
elsewhere.”
A significant nod conveyed to the Inspector that there was no occasion
to let the Frenchwoman know of the search that had been set on foot
among the costumiers. It was not unlikely that the proprietress of the
club could have thrown some light on the identity of Salome and the
mysterious Leopardess, and could have told us whether the Crown Prince
had masqueraded as Zenobia, if she had chosen. But it was a good deal
more likely that any question put to her on the subject would result in
the parties being privately warned.
Inspector Charles formally released his prisoner who affected to take
the step as a matter of course. I had remarked, however, a light of
intense gratification in her black eyes when Sir Frank announced that
he had dismissed her from the case. She impressed me as the sort of
woman who could never breathe quite easily in the near neighbourhood of
the police.
The arrangements for the removal of the body were soon made. A covered
police-van was requisitioned to convey it to the retired house in
Montague Street, and the consultant and I drove on in advance, taking
the black-covered volumes with us. He talked to me quite cheerfully on
the way.
“An interesting woman, that. Her mind would be a curious study for a
psychologist--a real one, I mean, not a charlatan like this wretched
Weathered. The words right and wrong have no meaning at all for her, I
should say. She must find it difficult to understand our point of view.
In her opinion, I expect, the only thing that matters is that the name
of the Crown Prince should be kept clear of scandal. If he has chosen
to commit a murder, all that is necessary is that the King of Slavonia
should send me the Order of Saint Somebody or other, and of course the
investigation will be dropped.”
We reached the house in good time for lunch, and my kindly chief
pressed me to make a good meal.
“You are looking fagged,” he observed. “If you weren’t a teetotaller I
should prescribe a half-bottle of Burgundy. Our work is only beginning.
As soon as lunch is over I am going through the Members’-book,
comparing the names in it with those in Weathered’s appointment-book.
In that way we may get a key to the mysterious numbers.”
I did my best to conceal the apprehension with which I heard of this
intention. I could see the search narrowing by degree, and gradually
isolating a few names among which I had too much reason to fear
that one would be found which I would have given all I possessed to
exclude. I made an effort to brighten up and eat the good things before
me. The doctor knew how to make the best of life, and an excellent
digestion enabled him to enjoy the lobster mayonnaise and the tender
cutlets provided by his accomplished cook. He drank nothing stronger
than claret, but it was such claret as is not often found in private
cellars, and its perfume reached my nostrils across the table like the
breath of roses.
As soon as I thought he was sufficiently warmed and cheered to relax
a little I ventured to put the question that had been trembling on my
lips for hours.
“Is it too soon to ask if you have formed any opinion as to the cause
of death, Sir Frank?”
He looked at me rather sharply, and his bushy eyebrows drew together.
“I can form no opinion till I have made an autopsy. If you mean have I
made any conjecture, I have made several, any one of which may be right
or may be wrong. Up to a certain point I am inclined to agree with your
theory.”
“With my theory!” I was surprised into repeating.
“Yes. If you recollect, you suggested that whoever administered opium
to Weathered had no intention of causing death. The object seems to
have been to send him off into a state of unconsciousness so as to
obtain possession of his keys; and we know what the keys were wanted
for.”
“To suppress the evidence against some patient, you mean?” I faltered.
“That is one view. Another possible view is that the person who stole
the case-book wanted to obtain evidence for his own purposes. He may
have wanted to put pressure on some patient--or patients.”
“Oh, no!” The protest escaped from me almost unawares. A slight lifting
of Tarleton’s brows caused me to qualify it the next moment. “I mean
that wasn’t my theory.” I pulled myself together as I went on. “Putting
together everything we learnt from Madame Bonnell and from the waiter
and from Miss Neobard, I suspect that Weathered had become a thorough
scoundrel. My view is that he was taking advantage of the confessions
made to him as a medical man to blackmail his patients, and that one of
them was driven to desperation. She thought she could deliver herself
by obtaining access to his safe, and destroying the documents. But she
never dreamed that she was giving him a fatal dose.”
“I needn’t tell you that would be no defence in the eye of the law if
it actually was fatal,” the specialist put in grimly. “So you think it
was the work of a woman, do you?”
“The evidence, Gerard’s evidence, is to that effect, surely? He
described three women in connection with the masked Inquisitor--not one
man.”
“He described one woman as being rather like a man. He suspected
Zenobia of being His Royal Highness.”
I hardly knew what to say. If there were any chance of the waiter’s
theory being adopted by my chief, the relief to me would be as great as
to Madame Bonnell herself. But dare I hope anything of the kind? The
situation was so critical that I feared to commit myself one way or the
other. I fell back on the other point in doubt.
“Do you consider it possible, sir, that an otherwise harmless dose
of morphia might prove fatal if the person to whom it was given had
already saturated his system with opium?”
Again the specialist’s voice had a note of surprise.
“I should have thought your own knowledge was amply sufficient to
answer that question, Cassilis. In ordinary circumstances, no; quite
the contrary, the dose would fail even to produce the effect intended;
it would hardly render the victim insensible. But suppose that he had
just taken his maximum dose, and the extra quantity was administered
immediately after, then the effect might be very serious, indeed.”
Somehow I felt that I was being fenced with. Tarleton must have
perceived a lack of candour on my part in discussing the problem, and
decided to withhold his confidence for the time being. I had to remind
myself of the admissions I had been driven to make in the course of the
morning. My chief knew that I had been a visitor to the Domino Club on
one occasion. He knew that I had heard something of Dr. Weathered, and
heard it in confidence, as he supposed, or affected to believe, from a
patient of my own. He must have put two and two together by this time.
Some inkling of the truth must be in his mind. It did not call for very
much acuteness on his part to see in me the confidential adviser of
one of Weathered’s patients--perhaps one of his victims--possibly of
the very one who had administered the fatal dose, and carried off the
incriminating book.
I resolved to hold my tongue for the future. I would make no more
attempts to sound Sir Frank, and would trust to his respect for
professional secrecy to protect me from any awkward questions from him.
The resolution was easier to take than to keep.
As soon as lunch was over the consultant led the way upstairs to his
study. It appeared that the autopsy was to be postponed; the first
business was to be the examination of the books that Madame Bonnell had
been so unwilling to give up.
The physician seated himself at his massive bureau, a combination of
desk and cabinet, and drew the volume labelled “_Members_” in front of
him, while I placed myself respectfully on a chair at the side.
“The list of members isn’t a very large one,” was his first
observation. “One could hardly expect it to be. The Domino Club has
more the character of a secret society than a club; a society for the
pursuit of illicit pleasures, let us say. Whom have we here?” He opened
the book as he spoke, and ran his eye slowly down the first page. “The
Duke of Altringham--I am not surprised at seeing his name; General Sir
Francis Uppingham, K.C.B.; the Countess of Eardisley; Honourable Janet
Wilbraham; Mrs. Worboise; Sir George Castleton, Bart.--h’m, we are
beginning to come across some of the names in the appointment-book, but
I don’t see anything to account for the numbers attached to them. And
I shall be very much surprised if those numbers don’t contain the true
key to the mystery.”
He paused in reflection, and took Weathered’s diary from his pocket.
“The first thing, it seems to me, is to make out a list of the members
who were also patients, and to underline the names of those who had a
number as well. It is among them that we may expect to find Zenobia
and Salome and possibly the Leopardess as well, though her behaviour
suggests that she can hardly have been a patient. She may have been one
formerly.”
I listened anxiously. Every moment I was expecting the name which
I foresaw too surely would be found in the final list of suspects.
Suddenly Tarleton turned to me with an unexpected order.
“While I am comparing these two books you can go through the
Visitors’-book It may interest you to find the entry of your own name.”
I could not tell whether my dismay was visible to the gray eyes that
seemed to look at me with such perfect indifference. My dilemma was
truly critical. I knew, of course, that my name did not appear in the
volume I was required to search. And if I pretended to look for it
I should land myself in a series of traps. My chief would want some
explanation of its absence; and what explanation could I give? If I
said that I had been present under a false name he would naturally
expect me to tell him that name. And he would expect me to tell him
at once, before I opened the book and began the mock search. I had
barely a second in which to make up my mind. If only my own reputation,
or even my own life, had been at stake, I think I should have thrown
myself on his mercy, and come out with the whole truth. But I was held
as in an iron vice. The knowledge that the police were actively engaged
in tracing the purchasers of the costumes which had been described to
us by Gerard haunted my consciousness. I was driven in despair to tell
my first direct falsehood to my chief.
I opened the volume hurriedly as I spoke.
“I don’t think I shall find my own name here.”
“Why not?” The question came instantly, though it came in a quiet,
friendly tone.
“My recollection is that I gave some other name. I am trying to
remember what. I was rather doubtful about the character of the place,
and didn’t want to run the risk of it being known that I had been
there. I considered the name didn’t matter; I thought it was merely a
form.” I was glancing feverishly through the pages as I talked, trying
to pick out some name too common to be easily identified. “Ah, yes, I
remember now--Carter.”
I placed my finger on an entry nine months old. A Mr. Robert Carter had
been introduced on that date by a Captain Smethwick.
Much to my relief Tarleton accepted the explanation readily.
“I dare say a good many of the names in that book are equally
fictitious,” he said with good humour. “Look and see what name the
Crown Prince took last night.”
It was easily found. A Count Donau had been introduced by the
Chancellor of the Slavonian Embassy.
“Any other visitors?” the consultant asked lightly.
I read aloud one or two masculine names, but he pulled me up.
“Any ladies?”
There were two lady visitors. I read out both their names without
misgiving. One was a Lady Greatorex, the other a Mrs. Antrobus, both of
them assumed names for aught I knew.
The specialist paid little attention for the moment. He was busy with
his duplicate list. I watched him with increasing anxiety as he ticked
off name after name. At the end of half an hour he had completed his
task for the time being.
“I have here thirty-eight names of people who were both patients of
Weathered and members of the Domino Club. And all of them, without
exception, were patients first. It is clear that he started the club
for their benefit, at once to keep them under his influence, and
to confirm them in the very inclinations he pretended to relieve
them from. The man was a moral monster. If ever Satan had an active
instrument on earth this Weathered was the man. And I doubt if the law
could have touched him.”
His words almost invited me to say, “In that case the law can very well
afford to shut its eyes to his fate.”
The adviser of the Home Office shook his head. “That depends. The law
must first know what was his fate. It looks to me as though we were as
far off from knowing that as ever. We know neither how he died, nor at
whose hands, nor the motive of the assassin at present.”
“Doesn’t everything point to his death being more or less an accident?”
I ventured to plead.
“On the contrary, I should say that everything points to its being a
deliberate and deeply-planned murder.”
I gave a horrified gasp. Before I could collect myself sufficiently to
take in this formidable judgment I was saved from exposing myself by
the familiar sound of the telephone bell.
In our hasty departure from the house that morning I had neglected to
disconnect the receiver in my bedroom, and connect the one downstairs.
I sprang out of the room and upstairs, thankful for the interruption.
I was destined to receive a second shock, though a less unnerving one.
The call again came from Inspector Charles, who had just received a
report from one of his subordinates engaged on the case.
The costumier who had supplied the dress of Salome had just been found.
The costume had been delivered two days before to Miss Sarah Neobard,
Warwick Street, Cavendish Square.