She Fell Among Thieves (23 page)

I sometimes wonder whether there was not some trick by which the doors could be opened by someone within the chair – some trick which had baffled Mansel, for all his wit: but I am told that chairs that lacked handles inside were not at all uncommon, and I do not find it likely that Vanity Fair ever entered this chair herself. If it was used, it was probably used by a witness whose presence she wished to conceal, for, thanks to the rows of air-holes, anyone in the chair could see and hear what he pleased.

What Mansel had seen and heard, he shall presently tell for himself: at that moment he told me nothing.

As I helped him out of the chair –

‘Virginia,’ he said. ‘She’s–’

‘Virginia’s safe,’ said I. ‘She’s down in the Rolls.’

‘Well done,’ said Mansel. ‘That only leaves old Below.’

As he stepped to the door –

‘But what about Esther?’ said I. ‘She’s going to fire the place.’

‘Let her,’ said Mansel. ‘Come on.’

In a flash we were out of the suite.

How Mansel moved so fast, I shall never know: after a day in that chair, I should, I am sure, have been crippled for half an hour: but he afterwards said that he had made it his business not to get stiff, in case, when once he got out, he should have to run. Be that as it may, he led us at break-neck speed – through the mahogany doors, down the stairs to the lobby and up by a tiny staircase into a low-pitched room.

And there he stopped dead, and a hand went up to his mouth.

‘Too late,’ he breathed: ‘it’s too late.’ And then, ‘It can’t be helped.’

His words conveyed nothing to me: but that was because of my surroundings – because I could think of nothing but what I saw.

There was no light in the room, which, though it was nearly square, had only three walls. Where the fourth wall should have risen, there was stretched a very thin veil. And beyond the veil were the depths of the dining-room, that very lovely chamber which I have elsewhere described.

And Vanity Fair was at table…

We were, of course, in the musicians’ gallery, which hung like a cave high up in the dining-room’s wall: and the veil was the Gobelin tapestry with which the dining-room was hung. But while these things are easy enough to write, I despair of conveying the impressions I then received.

Of the four who were sitting at meat, not one had the faintest idea that they were being observed. We could not be seen, and, so very thick was the carpet which lay on the floor and the stairs, we could not be heard. Yet we could see all they did and hear all they said, as they sat in their stalls below us, some twenty feet down. We stood in the dark, while they sat in a blaze of light: and, perhaps because this remarkable picture was framed – for framed it was by the square of the gallery’s mouth – I had the feeling that I was seeing some film and that soon the lights would go up and we should go home. I remember turning to Carson and asking him if he could see.

Vanity Fair was at table. Acorn sat on her right and Below on her left. Gaston, as always, faced her. The cloth had been drawn and the servants were out of the room.

One thing at once caught my eye.

A bottle was standing on the table in front of Vanity Fair.

This was out of all order. No bottle ever stood on the table until she had left the room.

Below was speaking. His glass was cupped in his hands.

‘Madam,’ he said, ‘this is brandy. I have never drunk such a liquor for thirty-five years.’

‘I’m afraid that’s my fault. You’ve been with me thirty-three.’

‘Not your fault, madam, only your whim. You have “kept the good wine until now”.’

‘“And when men have well drunk”.’

‘
Touché
,’ cried the chaplain, and buried his nose.

His mistress advanced the bottle.

‘Have another glass,’ she said. ‘You’ll need it before I’ve done.’

Below helped himself.

‘Do your worst, madam,’ he hiccoughed. ‘I am forearmed.’

Gaston tossed off his brandy and filled his glass.

‘I have tasted worse,’ he said.

‘Where?’ said Vanity Fair. ‘On the
Pompadour
?’

Below was consumed with indignation.

‘You poisonous bounder,’ he belched. ‘I was a judge of brandy before your father was jailed.’

Acorn was shaking with laughter: but Vanity Fair only smiled.

‘The church militant,’ she said. ‘You’d better help yourself, Acorn, and see how you feel.’

‘And you, madam?’ said Acorn, bottle in hand.

‘I have no need of courage,’ said Vanity Fair.

The only coward present took the slight to himself.

‘Do you say that I drink to find courage?’

‘I think you’d be well advised to,’ said Vanity Fair.

Gaston laughed.

‘I am tired of Jezreel,’ he said softly. ‘I think I will go to Paris. You see, I am married now.’

‘To five thousand a year?’

Gaston shrugged his shoulders.

‘I have done my part,’ he declared. ‘I do not choose to rest in this house.’

‘I see. And how will you live?’

‘I do not think that you will allow me to starve.’

Vanity Fair laughed.

‘Optimist,’ she said lightly. And then, ‘By the way, I ought to have told you, Chandos knows who you are.’

Gaston started violently.

‘Chandos? That – that–’

‘English gentleman,’ said Vanity Fair.

Gaston writhed.

‘What does he know?’

‘One night in his presence you mentioned the
Pompadour
. And Chandos had friends on board. A Mr and Mrs Cheviot. You may recollect them – by sight.’

‘It is not true,’ mouthed Gaston.

‘As you please,’ said Vanity Fair. ‘They knew your master quite well. He borrowed your clothes one night and took your place.’

Gaston’s face was working.

‘What can they prove?’

‘Nothing,’ said Vanity Fair. ‘All his relations are dead, so you’re perfectly safe. Chandos merely confirmed the report of his eyes and ears. That you look like a waiter is nothing: so, it seems, did de Rachel himself. But your ways are the ways of a waiter and will never be anything else. You have a waiter’s instincts, a waiter’s tastes – and if you must know, why, I think that your master cursed you before he died, for the leprosy of Gehazi creeps in your hang-dog eyes.’

This shocking denunciation sobered even Below, for he seemed to forget his brandy and wagged his head and raised his eyes to heaven, as though he were a Judge’s Chaplain, accorded a seat on some Bench. For Gaston himself, from being most red, the fellow went white as ashes, and when Acorn passed him the brandy, he emptied his glass and refilled it without a word.

The spirit revived him forthwith.

As he set down the bottle –

‘After all, who is Chandos?’ he said. Vanity Fair raised her eyebrows.

‘If you want to know,’ she said, ‘I should keep an eye on
The Times
. I think he’s going to marry Virginia Brooch.’

For one moment there was dead silence. Then something like uproar arose.

Both Below and Gaston were talking violently, at first demanding information and then each rending the other and bidding him hold his peace. Acorn stared straight before him, with a shadow of a smile on his lips.

‘Madam,’ boomed Below, ‘this is serious–’

‘Serious?’ screamed Gaston. ‘Whom have I married today?’

‘I believe her name to be Schmidt,’ said Vanity Fair. ‘Mabel Schmidt of Utah, a–’

A yelp of rage from Gaston smothered what else she said.

‘But, Madam–’

‘Silence, drunkard,’ howled Gaston. Before the other could counter, he had turned upon Vanity Fair. ‘Is this your sense of humour? Or how should you know?’

‘He admitted as much this morning.’

‘
Before I was married?
Knowing this, you let me marry–’

‘If you ask me,’ said Vanity Fair, ‘I think you’ve made a very good match.’

‘Madam,’ insisted Below, ‘I am involved in these matters.’

‘Up to the neck,’ said his mistress. ‘If you remember–’

‘You have paid my poverty, madam, but not my will. Be that as it may, I am most deeply involved: and I have a right to be told what I may expect.’

A changed Below had spoken: his dignity was compelling: his voice rang out clean and strong. His mistress started and stared – and for once a prelate stared back.

So for a long moment, while Gaston and Acorn watched. Then Vanity Fair bowed, and her chaplain bowed in return. Deep had called unto deep – and had been answered.

Vanity Fair was speaking.

‘Chandos came here to find out as much as he could. I suspected him from the first, but I held my hand. With the unhappy result that he did find out – quite a lot. How much, I am not quite certain: but from what he said this morning, he seemed very well informed. After three days he left here, and six nights later he carried my daughter off. That would have been enough for most men, but Chandos saw fit to come back – no doubt, to find out still more. But I was ready then, and I got him down. In a word, I’d pulled everything round. And then, while my back was turned, his colleague stepped out of the shadows and helped him up.’

‘His colleague,’ said Acorn, staring.

‘His colleague,’ said Vanity Fair. ‘I didn’t know he had one, till noon today –
when John Wright never turned up
.’

Acorn was half out of his seat.

‘Wright?’ he cried. ‘Wright?’

Vanity Fair nodded.

‘Explains such a lot, doesn’t it? Jean’s failure…the forged letter sent to Lafone…Chandos’ escape. But those are details.
Wright’s was the brain that conceived and directed matters from first to last
. What beat me all ends up was how such a fool as Chandos could do what he did.’

‘Well, I’m damned,’ said Acorn.

He filled his glass with brandy, and tossed it off.

‘If you please,’ said Below, and stretched out a trembling hand. The bottle passed.

Gaston said and did nothing. The man seemed sunk in despair.

There was a little silence.

Then Below cleared his throat.

‘Madam,’ he said, ‘you have said that you cannot be sure; but how much do you think that they know?’

‘More than enough. Lafone was arrested for murder – this morning at seven o’clock.’

That this was no news to Acorn was very plain, for the man sat perfectly still with his eyes on the board: but the others made no secret of their distress. Below was breathing most hard and beating his breast, while Gaston rocked in his stall, with his head in his hands.

‘God shut her mouth,’ he kept wailing. ‘God shut her mouth.’

Vanity Fair regarded him.

‘What God,’ she said, ‘are you delighting to honour?’

Gaston made no reply.

‘If it’s the God of your fathers, then Father Below would be the appropriate channel for such an appeal. I say “would be”. Perhaps I should say “would have been”. I am honestly happy to inform you that your request has already been treated as it deserves…

‘Lafone was being taken to Gobbo – some weary miles. On the way, by the merest chance, she and her zealous escort overtook Marc. Now Marc was there because Marc had failed in his duty. Lafone knew this – and the sight of him sent her mad. There and then she let him have it –
in front of the police
.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know what she said, but of course they arrested Marc.’

‘My God,’ said Below.

‘And Marc,’ said Vanity Fair, ‘has opened his mouth.’ The priest let out a whoop of dismay: tremulous fingers to lip, he gazed at his dispassionate mistress with starting eyes.

‘How much does he know?’ he quavered.

‘Quite enough to set the police thinking,’ said Vanity Fair.

Gaston burst into tears.

‘It is not fair,’ he blubbered, and banged his head on the board. ‘What wrong ’ave I done? Because I ’ave try to ’elp you, because I ’ave kept your secrets which I ’ave not want to be told…’

In a ghastly welter of sobbing the rest of the sentence was lost.

The others regarded the creature with what, I suppose, was surprise.

Then, as though ashamed of their manhood, the men averted their gaze. But Vanity Fair looked on.

Her voice cut through the lament with the crack of a whip.

‘Is this repentance?’ she said.

Buoyed by God knows what hope, Gaston lifted a shocking visage and swore at some length that it was.

‘Then,’ said Vanity Fair, ‘there is joy in heaven. I imagine that the joy is restrained, but joy there is. Let that be your consolation. You’re some way from heaven, of course, and soon you’ll be further still: but–’

‘No, no,’ screamed Gaston.

Vanity Fair sighed. Then–

‘Pass him the brandy,’ she said. ‘I’m not through yet.’

Before this sinister statement, Gaston appeared to collapse. At least, for two or three minutes he made no sound but sat in his stall like a dummy, with his arms hanging down by his sides and his chin on his chest.

Vanity Fair picked up the thread of her tale.

‘Well, the police telephoned from Gobbo about eleven o’clock, and I sent Acorn over to see how the wind was setting and do what he could. Somehow he managed to bluff them – to hold them off. I don’t know how he did it: I don’t think he knows himself. But they won’t be here till tomorrow, and he said I was away from Jezreel…

‘Now Acorn did his best, but, of course, it’s a great mistake to lie to the police. I mean, tell an obvious lie. Because, when they find it out, your credit is gone. Acorn should never have said that I was away from Jezreel: for now, the moment they see me, the police will know that he lied. And that would be fatal. I have therefore, no choice but to bear his statement out… And so, by the time the police come, I shall be “away from Jezreel”.’

Even Gaston looked up at that, and for twenty seconds or more the three men stared at the woman, with open mouths.

Then –

‘And what about us?’ said Acorn.

‘Exactly,’ said Vanity Fair. ‘What about you? That was what worried me. I gave it much anxious thought. And in the end I decided that in your own interests, and mine, it was better that you should – go.’

Now whether it was her inflexion, I do not know, but I think that the word rang strangely in all our ears. I know that it did in mine. There was something – not quite natural about it…something faintly suggestive of a pregnancy, unobtrusive, yet well advanced…