Confusing the Issue
In the shadow of a shrubbery two hitherto respectable English citizens
clutched one another with ecstatic fingers, moaning feebly. Through
uncurtained French windows just in front of them a large policeman
could be seen, flourishing a revolver. The words, “You stand still!”
floated out into the peaceful night.
“Oh, my sacred _hat_!” moaned the shorter of the two citizens in the
shrubbery. “This is better than the films—far, far, better. Why go to
the cinema, when you can stage this sort of thing in your own home?”
The other citizen, a tall, lanky figure with bowed shoulders, removed
his pince-nez, misty with emotion, and polished them hastily. His long
body quivered with guilty joy. “Yes, but look here, Doyle,” he said
reluctantly, “what’s going to happen? We can’t have Laura taken off to
the police-station.”
“Why not?” asked that young woman’s future brother-in-law unfeelingly.
“It’d do her all the good in the world. And I wouldn’t bail her out
either. Oh, sportsman!” he added, as more words floated out on the
still air. “He’s trying to get her to bolt for it, see? Strikes me
that old Priestley’s coming through this with colours flying.”
“He is,” agreed Guy. “But I really think we ought to intervene now,
you know. Matters have been taken rather out of our hands, with this
ass of a policeman interfering. We don’t want to get involved in a
conspiracy to make a bigger hass of the law than it usually is. We’d
better go along and explain before things get worse.”
“Good God, _no_!” croaked Mr. Doyle with emotion. “For Heaven’s sake
don’t spoil things now, Nesbitt. They’re just beginning to get
interesting. We couldn’t have got a policeman into it more neatly if
we’d plotted for a month. Just think how his presence is going to
intensify our friend’s reactions, my dear chap!”
“That’s true enough,” said Guy quivering again.
“And you needn’t worry about things,” pursued Mr. Doyle earnestly.
“Not so long as Laura’s on the spot. You leave it to her. I’d back
that girl to— Hullo! What the blazes is happening now?”
In the lighted room two uneasy backs now confronted their audience.
The constable could be seen approaching them with awful determination
in every line of his massive form.
“Great Scott!” observed Mr. Doyle a moment later, in tones of respect.
“He’s _handcuffed_ ’em. Handcuffed ’em together. Handcuffed Laura
to—well, well, I’ll be blowed!” One gathered that the person who
ventured to handcuff Laura had earned Mr. Doyle’s deepest veneration.
Guy began to chuckle silently. The idea of a handcuffed Laura appeared
to appeal to him too.
“Keep still!” Mr. Doyle implored, recovering from the first shock of
this novel spectacle. “Oh, Nesbitt, keep still! We mustn’t interrupt
this. Oh, sacred pigs, how gorgeous! Look, he’s going to make out a
report. My dear chap, _can_ you see Laura’s face? We’ll rescue ’em
later somehow, but—oh, _cripes_!” He clung to a laurel-branch and
abandoned himself to helpless giggling.
Guy, scarcely less self-controlled, caught at his arm. “Look! That
friend of yours is turning the tables. Oh, well done, man, well done!
Look—he’s going to put him in the cupboard. He—well, I’ll be hanged!”
With damp eyes they watched Mr. Priestley’s imitation of an American
film-drama. An instant later a heavy body in swift if somewhat
unsteady motion, lumbered past their hiding-place; peeping cautiously
out, they were just able to catch the look of alarm and despondency
which was being worn by the most disconcerted damsel in England at
that moment. They clapped their hands hurriedly over their mouths and
clung to one another again. Then came George.
“Did you fellows see?” demanded George weakly. “_Did_ you see?”
“We did, oh admirable corpse,” moaned Mr. Doyle and promptly clung to
this more solid support. “And do you mean to say you lay through it
all and never gave yourself away?”
“Don’t think I did, no,” replied George modestly. “But look here, I
say, what on earth are we going to do? That bobby’s rather messed
things up, hasn’t he?”
“We’ll give them ten minutes to get away,” Guy grinned, “and then
we’ll liberate him. It’s all right, I think. Laura will take her cue
from that handcuff, and see the game’s up. She’ll bring him back here,
and we’ll have to file the thing off. Do you know, I wondered all the
time whether it would come off at all (the plot, I mean, not the
handcuff), but I never dreamed it would fail as gloriously as that.”
“She got him up to scratch all right,” George observed. “Something to
do with letters, he was babbling about. Anyhow, he pooped off like a
good ’un. Well, what about wandering along to the drawing-room and
telling the other two what’s happened? I say, we’ll have to let that
bobby out soon, or he’ll have the house over. Listen to him!”
They listened. Through the French windows now came sounds as of a
large person in distress, whoopings, bellowings and thuds, mingled now
and then with muffled solos on the policeman’s whistle.
“We’ll give him five minutes,” Guy decided. “Come on, then.”
Doyle caught his arm, his face alight with new excitement. “I say,
Nesbitt,” he spluttered, “don’t go in yet. I—I’ve had a tremendous
brain-wave. Look here—don’t you see what the gods have sent us?”
“Beyond a bellowing bobby,” said Guy, “and an awkward pair of
handcuffs, I don’t, no.”
“Why,” exclaimed Mr. Doyle, now almost incoherent with excitement,
“why, don’t you see? A detective story in real life! The stock
beginning of half the thrillers ever published! Mysterious stranger
murdered, bobby surprises suspicious couple who may or may not be
guilty, couple turn tables on bobby and make their escape, and when
bobby is released—_the corpse has disappeared_! Man, it’s great! We
must make use of it somehow!”
They stared at each other. George stared at both of them. He was not
quite sure what was happening, but as long as they did not want him to
put on another false beard or spoil another white shirt with red ink,
he was perfectly game.
Over Guy’s features spread an unholy smile. “This wants looking into,”
he agreed. “Let’s to the drawing-room.”
Disregarding the muffled frenzy from the library, they went.
Two agitated women rose at them as one girl, and danced before them.
“Guy, dear,” demanded that gentleman’s wife, “what _has_ been
happening? We heard the shot, and then. What _is_ that curious
whistling noise?”
“Pat, tell me the whole story,” Miss Howard danced with impatience,
“or I’ll _scream_! I couldn’t have stood it a minute longer. I don’t
care how strict your orders were, we were coming out the very next
minute. Weren’t we, Cynthia?”
With all possible haste Guy put them out of their misery. He went on
to mention Mr. Doyle’s brilliant scheme.
“Oh, dear!” Cynthia collapsed weakly into a chair. “Guy, this is too
silly. _Poor_ Laura! Handcuffs! Oh, _dear_!”
But Miss Howard was made of sterner material. Disregarding her
sister’s interesting predicament, she concentrated on the matter in
hand. “Clues!” she announced, wrinkling her own pretty forehead in the
same way as that which, in her sister’s case, had led directly to Mr.
Priestley’s undoing. “Wait a minute—let me think! The body’s gone.
Yes, but how did it go? It was dragged! Where to? Obviously the river,
where there was a boat waiting in readiness to receive it. How’s
that?”
The others looked at her with respect.
“But look here,” George interposed, “what’s it all about? I mean, what
are you getting at? What’s the idea?”
The others looked at him, without respect.
“They want to set the scene for an ordinary conventional
shilling-dreadful, George, in order to find out what would really
happen in actual life instead of fiction,” Cynthia told him gently.
“I’m not at all sure that I approve. Anyhow, never mind those
children; come and sit here and tell me how you liked being shot. But
do, for goodness’ sake, take off that dreadful beard!” she concluded
with a little squeak, collapsing again.
George did as he was bid, and tugged manfully at his spirit-gummed
beard. Having tugged the tears into his eyes, he gave up the effort in
despair and continued to wear his face-embroidery.
The others were busily conferring.
“A sack of potatoes is what we want,” Doyle remarked. “We don’t want
to have to drag George on the seat of his trousers, but unless you can
suggest anything else——!” He looked inquiringly at Guy.
“I don’t think we have a sack of potatoes,” Guy replied, “and there’s
always the possibility that George might object. What about a rug,
with George sitting on it? That ought to give the right track.”
“That’s fine,” Dora agreed breathlessly. “Come on, George; you’re
wanted.”
“At once, do you think?” Doyle demurred.
“Of course, idiot!” retorted his fiancée frankly. “We must let him
_hear_ the corpse being dragged out.”
“Dora,” said Mr. Doyle, “you’re a wonder. Come on, George!”
Not altogether willingly, George came.
In the hall Doyle held up his hand. “We’re murderers, don’t forget,”
he whispered. “Now, where the murderer in real life usually goes wrong
(the one who gets caught, I mean) is, as my fellow criminologist will
tell you, through insufficient attention to detail. Take care of the
details, and the body takes care of itself. Let us therefore
concentrate upon details. We are a couple of genteel desperadoes,
aren’t we? Therefore, we’re in boiled shirts and dinner-jackets. Good!
But we are on a river-trip, and we don’t want to be recognised by
stray passers-by; therefore we wear overcoats and hats, and mufflers
across our mouths. Overcoats, hats and mufflers forward, please?” He
grabbed his own coat and began to struggle into it.
“Is that really necessary?” asked George plaintively.
“Not for you. You’re only a corpse. For us, yes. Ready, Nesbitt? Then
you creep very softly in by the door here, George, and take up your
former position. We will enter by the French windows, talking in gruff
voices in a foreign tongue, to match your beard and decorations. We
are, as a matter of fact, inhabitants of Jugo-Chzechovina, and
converse almost entirely in ‘z’s’ and ‘x’s.’ Let her rip!”
George crept dutifully off, and Guy, pulling his soft hat well down
over his eyes, led the way down the passage. Mr. Doyle hovered near
his fiancée, who was keeping a superintendent’s eye upon all of them.
“Do you realise this means our furniture, old girl?” he grinned at
her.
“Furniture? Pat—what do you mean?”
“Why, isn’t this the chance of a life-time? I’ve got a scoop here,
backed by that bobby’s evidence, that’s going to be worth a whole
houseful of furniture, and a watering-can for the garden as well. What
else do you think I’ve been engineering it all for? Thzmx zp! as they
say in Jugo-Chzechovina.” He sped after his host, winding his muffler
across the lower part of his face as he went. Dora gazed after him
with a very different expression on her face from that usually seen by
the public.
When the two approached the French windows a moment later, the noise
was still in full swing, though now spasmodic and conveying a somewhat
dispirited effect; but they had hardly stamped over the threshold and
exchanged a few gruff “z’s” and “x’s” before it ceased abruptly.
“Eel ehcoot, ler jongdarm, sxs zz,” grunted the shorter of the two
Jugo-Chzechovinians. “Oo eh ler zbodyx? Ahxha! Venneh soor, Zorx! Soor
ler mattoh-x, zzz.”
With stealthy movements and sibilant noises they spread a mat beside
George and rolled him on to it. Refusing to wait in the wings this
time, Cynthia and Dora appeared in the doorway to watch the
performance, the latter going so far as to lend a helping hand,
tapping about on the parquet flooring with her high heels; for, as she
very reasonably pointed out to her fellow-conspirators as they bent
over the corpse together: “Il faut absolument xsx avoir une vamp,
zzz?”
The inert George was then conveyed on his rug across the floor, over
the threshold into the garden (involving a four-inch drop on the small
of his back) and across the lawn to the river at the bottom. There Mr.
Doyle caused all four of them to jump energetically about, so as to
leave the choicest collection of footprints that any sleuth could
desire, after which they returned to the house.
From the cupboard in the library all this time had come a silence even
more eloquent than the former protestations.
“Anything else to be done?” asked Mr. Doyle, thoughtfully, when they
had returned again to the hall. He seemed to have taken charge of
affairs for the moment and Dora, observing the gleam in his eye, had
no difficulty in understanding why. She gave her fiancé the credit of
being an artist; he was, she knew, quite capable of arranging the
whole thing purely for art’s sake. But the vision of that elusive
furniture was a very powerful aid to art.
She was very ready to encourage him. “Clues!” she said, wrinkling her
forehead again. “We must have some more clues. But what?”
“It’s a pity we’ve got to do things in such a hurry,” remarked Guy.
“This sort of affair wants properly thinking out. I don’t see how
we’re going to arrange a real set of interdependent clues, on the spur
of the moment.”
“Well, I can think of one at any rate,” said Mr. Doyle thirstily.
“Blood! When all’s said and done, there’s nothing like blood. The
river was all right, but blood is well known to be thicker. Some
blood, please, somebody!”
“No, I’m hanged if I will,” said George with decision, catching the
predatory gleam in his eye. “I’ve done my share.”
“But only in red ink, George,” Mr. Doyle pointed out wistfully. But
George, muttering about “this infernal beard,” was already on his way
upstairs and to the bathroom.
“I suppose you haven’t got a spot of blood to spare, have you?” Mr.
Doyle inquired politely of his host.
“Pat, I won’t have you after my husband’s blood,” Cynthia interposed.
“Besides,” added her husband, “I gave away most of mine yesterday. I’m
afraid I’m almost bloodless at the moment.”
“And it’s practically useless trying to get any out of a stone, I
understand,” said Mr. Doyle thoughtfully. “How exceedingly awkward. I
shall have to furnish some myself. I take it that you have at any rate
a lethal weapon of some sort on the premises; a safety razor, for
instance. Lead me to the slaughter, then, please.”
“Don’t bleed to death, darling one, will you?” remarked Dora with
anxiety.
“Dora, you touch me,” said her fiancé with emotion. “This solicitude
is admirable. No, for your sake, my dearest, I will try very hard not
to bleed to death.”
“I was thinking of the furniture we’re going to get out of this,”
retorted his fiancée frankly. “We don’t want it wasted.”
Mr. Doyle moved with dignity upstairs.
Guy, following him, looked back over his shoulder. “I think you’d
better turn the library light out,” he said. “We don’t want any more
unwelcome visitors. And turn all the other lights out as well, will
you, Cynthia? I’ve been thinking that we may want an _alibi_ later.”
Cynthia turned into the drawing-room to carry out this request; Dora
made her way out into the garden to enter the library once more. She
was an astute young woman, and she had recognised that a light turned
out by somebody entering the library from the house instead of the
garden might give the policeman material for thought upon the wrong
lines.
Guy’s chance reference to further visitors proved to be not wide of
the mark. As Dora was tap-tapping out into the garden again after
extinguishing the light, a form loomed up out of the darkness in front
of her.
“Hullo, Mrs. Nesbitt,” observed the form cheerfully. “Bit late to
call, I know, but I saw a light as I was passing (seems to be out now)
and it’s rather urgent, so I thought you wouldn’t mind. Oh, I—I beg
your pardon. I thought it was Mrs. Nesbitt.”
If Dora had been nonplussed it was only for a moment. In rather less
than a second and a half she had determined on her line of action.
Drawing the chiffon scarf she was wearing across the lower part of her
face, she clutched violently at the form’s arm. “Murder!” she
exclaimed tensely. “There’s been murder done in there. No—don’t go in,
you’ll only make matters worse. Go for the police—quick!”
The form (a thick, short form it was) staggered back. “_M-Murder?_” it
echoed. “Good gracious, you don’t mean Mr. or Mrs. Nesbitt?”
“No!” Dora replied impatiently. “They’re out of the way. They’ve been
got out of the way, if you must know. It’s nothing to do with them.
It’s the Crown Prince of—no, I daren’t tell you. My own life hangs by
a hair. Quick, I must go; I can’t keep _them_ waiting any longer. The
police—run for the police!”
“Th-th-_them_?” repeated the now thoroughly agitated form. “Good
Heavens, do you mean the—the murderers?”
Dora laughed bitterly. “You can call them that, of course. They call
themselves executioners. It’s a matter of opinion, I suppose. But I
mustn’t stay a moment longer. If _he_ caught us we shouldn’t be alive
another second!”
“Who is _he_?” gasped the form.
“The Man with the Broken Nose,” Dora replied in sardonic tones.
“You’ve never heard of him, I suppose? Oh, God, would that I hadn’t
either!” Her voice broke with considerable artistry. Dora was
certainly wasted in revue.
“But look here!” squeaked the form. “Who is—the Crown _Prince_? Good
gracious, but——”
Dora shook his arm with awful agitation. “Hush!” she whispered
tensely. “He’s coming. Run, man—run for your life! And for the police,
of course. Run!” With a final shake she broke away from him and darted
in the direction of the river.
The form stood for a hectic moment gazing after her. Then it too
lumbered away at a brisk jog-trot. It did not lumber in the direction
of the library.
Considerably pleased with herself, Dora returned to the house. Only
Cynthia and George (now beardless) were available, sitting, a little
uneasily, on the couch in the now darkened drawing-room. Guy and Mr.
Doyle were still about their bloody business.
“George, I’m surprised at you,” remarked Miss Howard facetiously, when
this state of affairs had been made known to her. “Sitting there and
holding hands with Cynthia in the dark. Why haven’t you been up and
busy, like me? Listen to what sister’s been doing for the cause.” With
no little zest Dora embarked upon an account of her encounter with the
form.
She was just finishing it when the other two conspirators returned,
Mr. Doyle complaining bitterly of weakness and requiring his fiancée
to support him on his feet. Shaking him off, that unfeeling young
woman promptly began to recite her adventure over again.
“But who on earth was it?” Cynthia wondered.
“Search me!” responded Miss Howard tersely. “I didn’t stop to ask him
his name and address. Anyhow, you see what I’ve done. Provided a new
and independent witness, and filled him up with just the sort of tale
we wanted—Crown Prince and executioners and gangs and distressed
damsel and all the rest of it. The Man with the Broken Nose! Do you
know, I’m rather proud of that title; I feel there’s a good thriller
behind that title, simply waiting to be written. Oh, by the way,
here’s a souvenir,” She tossed a handkerchief into Cynthia’s lap. “I
extracted it from his coat-sleeve in the intervals of shaking same. I
could have relieved him of his watch and chain if I’d wanted too, and
probably his collar and tie as well; he was far too dithery to notice
little details like that. Most useful knowledge I’ve gained, if I ever
take to crime in real earnest.”
Cynthia was examining the handkerchief by the light of a candle which
Guy had lit. “R.F. in one corner,” she announced. “Who on earth is R.
F., Guy?”
“Reginald Foster!” replied her husband promptly. “The biggest bore in
creation.” He began to shake again with unholy glee. “Have you any
blood left, Doyle?”
“Precious little, and I don’t mind telling you that I’m not parting
with it. There may be a few scrapings in the cup, though. Why?”
“Just an idea. Here, George; something you can do. On the hall-table
you’ll see a cup, bearing traces of blood. Wipe that handkerchief
round inside it, and then go and drop it on the river’s brim—where
we’ll hope that not even the Inspector from Scotland Yard will mistake
it for a primrose. Hurry, won’t you?”
George hurried.
“I think you’re being perfectly horrible, Guy,” said his wife. “Why
couldn’t you go on using red-ink, like civilised human beings?”
“Because red-ink when analysed does not respond to the tests for human
blood, wife.”
“But good gracious, you’re not expecting matters to get as far as
that, are you?”
“I was once a Boy Scout, Cynthia,” Mr. Doyle intervened, “and my motto
was ‘Be Prepared.’ It still is. Another of my mottoes,” he added
thoughtfully, “if I remember aright, was ‘Zing-a-zing, Bom Bom!’ But
don’t ask me what that means, because I never could discover. It’s
probably Jugo-Chzechovinian.”
“But what did you _do_ with the blood?” Cynthia pursued.
“Oh, just sprinkled it about in convenient dollops, like the gentle
dew from Heaven, you know.”
“Well, goodness knows what’s going to come of all this,” Cynthia
sighed.
“I say,” remarked George, with the appearance of careful thought,
“wouldn’t it be a good idea to put your brother and sister off now?
Er—supposed to be coming on Tuesday, aren’t they? Yes,” said George
weightily, “if I were you I should put them off.”
“We’re certainly going to get into the most dreadful mess,” said
Cynthia, not, however, relieving George’s mind.
“Your library carpet’s got into that already,” said Mr. Doyle
consolingly.
“Enough of this chatty badinage!” Dora broke in. “Do you know that Mr.
Reginald Foster has gone galloping off for the police? He won’t find
him, because he won’t think of looking in your library cupboard, but
he’ll ring up the nearest station; and then things are going to get
busy. We’ve got to work out a plan of campaign. Remember I’ve had it
put on record that our host and hostess were lured away from the
house.”
“Well, there’s nothing to contradict that,” Guy agreed. “It’s lucky we
gave the maids the week-end off, just in case of emergencies.
Emergencies seem to be arising every minute. I’ve thought out a plan.
I’ll get George and you, Doyle, to help me push the car out of the
garage and a little way down the road, and then I’ll come driving
back, making as much noise as I can, and generally enact the
householder arriving home after a long ride. I surmise that those
strange sounds, which seem to have died away altogether, will then
break out with renewed force from the library, and I shall liberate
our prisoner. I will then deal with any other emergencies as they crop
up. It doesn’t matter about our stories coinciding, because your
household won’t have heard or know anything at all. So, after you’ve
helped me with the car, you three sneak home and go straight to bed.”
“All except me,” murmured Mr. Doyle, “who will be summoned to the
telephone a few minutes after the prisoner has been liberated.
‘Knowing that such a distinguished journalist was in the vicinity, Mr.
Nesbitt, etc.’”
Guy grinned at him guiltily. “You’re not going to make a newspaper
story of it too, Doyle, surely?”
“You bet I am,” rejoined Mr. Doyle grimly. “And a houseful of
furniture too. My motives, let it be understood, are entirely
mercenary.”
“Well, good luck to them! Now then, here comes George; are we all
ready?”
“I say,” said Cynthia suddenly. “I wonder what’s happening to poor
Laura all this time? It’s nearly half-past eleven. Oughtn’t we to do
something about her? But I suppose we can’t!”
It was the first time anybody had given a thought to poor Laura for
almost an hour.
“By Jove, yes, Laura,” agreed her husband. “We must keep an eye open
for her. I hope she doesn’t bring that fellow gaol-bird of hers back
at an awkward moment. And what the deuce are we going to do about
_him_?”
Had Guy but known it, that question was already in process of being
answered for him at a spot some considerable distance away.