The Dinner Club Page 11

  “‘If someone would open it, I’ll get along to the telegraph office,’ I remarked.

  “‘I wouldn’t dream of your going to so much trouble,’ he said suavely. ‘I’ve a lazy boy I employ in the garden; he’ll take it.’

  “For a moment I hesitated, and a glint came into his eyes, which warned me to be careful.

  “It was then that I had my brainstorm. If I hadn’t had it I shouldn’t be here now; if the powers that be in the newspaper world were not the quickest people on the uptake you can meet in a day’s march, I shouldn’t be here now either. But like a flash of light there came to my mind the story I had once been told of how a war correspondent in the South African War, at a time when they were tightening the censorship, got back full news of a battle by alluding to the rise and fall of certain stock. And the editor in England read between the lines – substituted troops for stocks, Canadians for CPR, and so on – and published the only account of the battle.

  “Could I do the same? I hesitated.

  “‘Oh! there’s one thing I’ve forgotten,’ I remarked. ‘I’ll just add it if the boy can wait.’

  “So I sat down at the table, and to my report I added the following sentences: “‘There was also some excellent mustard and cress. Will come at once, but fear tomorrow morning may be too late for me to be of further use over Ronaldshay affair.’

  “And then I handed it to the grey-haired man through the window.”

  The Writer leant back in his chair, and the Soldier stared at him, puzzled.

  “It’s a bit too cryptic for me,” he confessed.

  “Thank God! it wasn’t too cryptic for the office,” said the Writer. “There was no Ronaldshay affair, so I knew that would draw their attention. And perhaps you’ve forgotten the name of our star reporter, who dealt in criminal matters. It was Cresswill. And if you write the word cress with a capital C and leave out the full stop after it, you’ll see the message I got through to the office.”

  “It’s uncommon lucky for you his name wasn’t Snooks,” remarked the Actor with a grin. “What happened?”

  “Well, we had dinner, and I can only suppose that my attempts to appear at ease had failed to convince my companions.

  “The last thing I remember that night was drinking a cup of coffee – the old trick – and suddenly realising it was drugged. I staggered to my feet, while they remained sitting round the table watching me. Then, with a final glimpse of the grey-haired man’s face, I passed into oblivion.

  “When I came to I was in a strange room, feeling infernally sick. And I shall never forget my wild relief when the man by the window turned round and I saw it was Cresswill himself. He came over to the bed and smiled down at me.

  “‘Well done, youngster,’ he said, and a glow of pride temporarily replaced my desire for a basin. ‘Well done, indeed. We’ve got the whole gang, and we’ve been looking for ’em for months. They were banknote forgers on a big scale, but we were only just in time to save you.’

  “‘How was that’ I asked weakly.

  “‘I think they had decided that your sphere of usefulness was over,’ he remarked with a grin. ‘So after having removed suspicion by telegraphing your report, they gave you a very good dinner, when, as has been known to happen with young men before, you got very drunk.’

  “‘I was drugged,’ I said indignantly.

  “‘The point is immaterial,’ he answered quietly. ‘Drunk or drugged, it’s much the same after you’ve been run over by a train. And we found two of them carrying you along a lane towards the line at half-past eleven. The down goods to Hastings passes at twenty to twelve.’

  “And at that moment Providence was kind. I ceased to feel sick. I was.”

  Chapter 7

  The Old Dining Room

  I

  I don’t pretend to account for it; I am merely giving the plain unvarnished tale of what took place to my certain knowledge at Jack Drage’s house in Kent during the weekend which finished so disastrously. Doubtless there is an explanation: maybe there are several. The believers in spiritualism and things psychic will probably say that the tragedy was due to the action of a powerful influence which had remained intact throughout the centuries; the materialists will probably say it was due to indigestion. I hold no brief for either side: as the mere narrator, the facts are good enough for me. And, anyway, the extremists of both schools of thought are quite irreconcilable.

  There were six of us there, counting Jack Drage and his wife. Bill Sibton in the Indian Civil, Armytage in the Gunners, and I – Staunton by name, and a scribbler of sorts – were the men: little Joan Neilson – Armytage’s fiancée – supported Phyllis Drage. Ostensibly we were there to shoot a few pheasants, but it was more than a mere shooting party. It was a reunion after long years of us four men who had been known at school as the Inseparables. Bill had been in India for twelve years, save for the inevitable gap in Mesopotamia; Dick Armytage had soldiered all over the place ever since he’d left the Shop. And though I’d seen Jack off and on since our school days, I’d lost touch with him since he’d married. Wives play the deuce with bachelor friends though they indignantly deny it – God bless ’em. At least, mine always does.

  It was the first time any of us had been inside Jack’s house, and undoubtedly he had the most delightful little property. The house itself was old, but comfortably modernised by an expert, so that the charm of it still remained. In fact, the only room which had been left absolutely intact was the dining room. And to have touched that would have been sheer vandalism. The sole thing that had been done to it was to install central heating, and that had been carried out so skilfully that no trace of the work could be seen.

  It was a room by itself, standing apart from the rest of the house, with a lofty vaulted roof in which one could just see the smoky old oak beams by the light of the candles on the dinner table. A huge open fireplace jutted out from one of the longer walls; while on the opposite side a door led into the garden. And then, at one end, approached by the original staircase at least six centuries old, was the musicians’ gallery.

  A wonderful room – a room in which it seemed almost sacrilege to eat and smoke and discuss present-day affairs – a room in which one felt that history had been made. Nothing softened the severe plainness of the walls save a few medieval pikes and battleaxes. In fact, two old muskets of the Waterloo era were the most modern implements of the collection. Of pictures there was only one – a very fine painting of a man dressed in the fashion of the Tudor period – which hung facing the musicians’ gallery.

  It was that that caught my eye as we sat down to dinner, and I turned to Jack.

  “An early Drage?” I asked.

  “As a matter of fact – no relation at all,” he answered. “But a strong relation to this room. That’s why I hang him there.”

  “Any story attached thereto?”

  “There is; though I can’t really do it justice. The parson here is the only man who knows the whole yarn. By the way, old dear,” he spoke to his wife across the table, “the reverend bird takes tea with us tomorrow. But he is the only man who has the thing at his fingertips. The previous owner was a bit vague himself, but having a sense of the fitness of things, he gave me a chance of buying the picture. Apparently it’s a painting of one Sir James Wrothley who lived round about the time of Henry VIII. He was either a rabid Protestant or a rabid Roman Catholic – I told you I was a bit vague over details – and he used this identical room as a secret meeting place for himself and his pals to hatch plots against his enemies.”

  “Jack is so illuminating, isn’t he?” laughed his wife.

  “Well, I bet you can’t tell it any better yourself,” he retorted with a grin. “I admit my history is weak. But anyway, about that time, if the jolly old Protestants weren’t burning the RCs, the RCs were burning the Protestants. A period calling for great tact,
I’ve always thought. Well, at any rate, this Sir James Wrothley – when his party was being officially burned – came here and hatched dark schemes to reverse the procedure. And then, apparently, one day somebody blew the gaff, and the whole bunch of conspirators in here were absolutely caught in the act by the other crowd, who put ’em all to death on the spot. Which is all I can tell you about it.”

  “I must ask the padre tomorrow,” I said to his wife. “I’d rather like to hear the whole story. I felt when I first came into this room there was history connected with it.”

  She looked at me rather strangely for a moment; then she gave a little forced laugh.

  “Do you know, Tom,” she said slowly, “at times I almost hate this room. All my friends gnash their teeth with envy over it – but sometimes, when Jack’s been away, and I’ve dined in here by myself – it’s terrified me. I feel as if – I wasn’t alone: as if – there were people all round me – watching me. Of course, it’s absurd, I know. But I can’t help it. And yet I’m not a nervy sort of person.”

  “I don’t think it’s at all absurd,” I assured her. “I believe I should feel the same myself. A room of this size, which, of necessity, is dimly lighted in the corners, and which is full of historical associations, must cause an impression on the least imaginative person.”

  “We used it once for a dance,” she laughed; “with a ragtime band in the gallery.”

  “And a great show it was, too,” broke in her husband. “The trouble was that one of the musicians got gay with a bottle of whisky, and very nearly fell clean through that balustrade effect on to the floor below. I haven’t had that touched – and the wood is rotten.”

  “I pray you be seated, gentlemen.” A sudden silence fell on the table, and everybody stared at Bill Sibton.

  “Is it a game, Bill?” asked Jack Drage. “I rather thought we were. And what about the ladies?”

  With a puzzled frown Bill Sibton looked at him. “Did I speak out loud, then?” he asked slowly.”

  “And so early in the evening too!” Joan Neilson laughed merrily.

  “I must have been day-dreaming, I suppose. But that yarn of yours has rather got me, Jack; though in the course of a long and evil career I’ve never heard one told worse. I was thinking of that meeting – all of them sitting here. And then suddenly that door bursting open.” He was staring fixedly at the door, and again a silence fell on us all.

  “The thunder of the butts of their muskets on the woodwork.” He swung round and faced the door leading to the garden. “And on that one, too. Can’t you hear them? No escape – none. Caught like rats in a trap.” His voice died away to a whisper, and Joan Neilson gave a little nervous laugh.

  “You’re the most realistic person, Mr Sibton. I think I prefer hearing about the dance.”

  I glanced at my hostess – and it seemed to me that there was fear in her eyes as she looked at Bill. Sometimes now I wonder if she had some vague premonition of impending disaster: something too intangible to take hold of – something the more terrifying on that very account.

  It was after dinner that Jack Drage switched on the solitary electric light of which the room boasted. It was so placed as to show up the painting of Sir James Wrothley, and in silence we all gathered round to look at it. A pair of piercing eyes set in a stern aquiline face stared down at us from under the brim of a hat adorned with sweeping plumes; his hand rested on the jewelled hilt of his sword. It was a fine picture in a splendid state of preservation, well worthy of its place of honour on the walls of such a room, and we joined in a general chorus of admiration. Only Bill Sibton was silent, and he seemed fascinated – unable to tear his eyes away from the painting.

  “As a matter of fact, Bill,” said Dick Armytage, studying the portrait critically, “he might well be an ancestor of yours. Wash out your moustache, and give you a fancy-dress hat, and you’d look very much like the old bean.”

  He was quite right: there was a distinct resemblance, and it rather surprised me that I had not noticed it myself. There were the same deep-set piercing eyes, the same strong, slightly hatchet face, the same broad forehead. Even the colouring was similar: a mere coincidence that, probably – but one which increased the likeness. In fact, the longer I looked the more pronounced did the resemblance become, till it was almost uncanny.

  “Well, he can’t be, anyway,” said Bill abruptly. “I’ve never heard of any Wrothley in the family.” He looked away from the picture almost with an effort and lit a cigarette. “It’s a most extraordinary thing, Jack,” he went on after a moment, “but ever since we came into this room I’ve had a feeling that I’ve been here before.”

  “Good Lord, man, that’s common enough in all conscience. One often gets that idea.”

  “I know one does,” answered Bill. “I’ve had it before myself; but never one-tenth as strongly as I feel it here. Besides, that feeling generally dies – after a few minutes: it’s growing stronger and stronger with me every moment I stop in here.”

  “Then let’s go into the drawing room,” said our hostess. “I’ve had the card table put in there.”

  We followed her and Joan Neilson into the main part of the house; and since neither of the ladies played, for the next two hours we four men bridged. And then, seeing that it was a special occasion, we sat yarning over half-forgotten incidents till the room grew thick with smoke and the two women fled to bed before they died of asphyxiation.

  Bill, I remember, waxed eloquent on the subject of politicians, with a six weeks’ experience of India, butting in on things they knew less than nothing about; Dick Armytage grew melancholy on the subject of the block in promotion. And then the reminiscences grew more personal, and the whisky sank lower and lower in the tantalus as one yarn succeeded another.

  At last Jack Drage rose with a yawn and knocked the ashes out of his pipe.

  “Two o’clock, boys. What about bed?”

  “Lord! is it really?” Dick Armytage stretched himself. “However, no shooting tomorrow, or, rather, today. We might spend the Sabbath dressing Bill up as his nibs in the next room.”

  A shadow crossed Bill’s face.

  “I’d forgotten that room,” he said, frowning. “Damn you, Dick!”

  “My dear old boy,” laughed Armytage, “you surely don’t mind resembling the worthy Sir James! He’s a deuced sight better-looking fellow than you are.”

  Bill shook his head irritably.

  “It isn’t that at all,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking of the picture.” He seemed to be on the point of saying something else – then he changed his mind. “Well – bed for master.”

  We all trooped upstairs, and Jack came round to each of us to see that we were all right.

  “Breakfast provisionally nine,” he remarked. “Night-night, old boy.”

  The door closed behind him, and his steps died away down the passage as he went to his own room.

  By all known rules I should have been asleep almost as my head touched the pillow. A day’s rough shooting, followed by bed at two in the morning should produce that result if anything can, but in my case that night it didn’t. Whether I had smoked too much, or what it was, I know not, but at half-past three I gave up the attempt and switched on my light. Then I went over, and pulling up an armchair, I sat down by the open window. There was no moon, and the night was warm for the time of year. Outlined against the sky the big dining room stretched out from the house, and, as I lit a cigarette, Jack Drage’s vague story returned to my mind. The conspirators, meeting by stealth to hatch some sinister plot; the sudden alarm as they found themselves surrounded; the desperate fight against over-whelming odds – and then, the end. There should be a story in it, I reflected; I’d get the parson to tell me the whole thing accurately next day. The local colour seemed more appropriate when one looked at the room from the outside, with an occasional cloud scudding by over
the big trees beyond. Savoured more of conspiracy and death than when dining inside, with reminiscences of a jazz band in the musicians’ gallery.

  And at that moment a dim light suddenly filtered out through the windows. It was so dim that at first I thought I had imagined it; so dim that I switched off my own light in order to make sure. There was no doubt about it: faint but unmistakable the reflection showed up on the ground outside. A light had been lit in the old dining room: therefore someone must be in there. At four o’clock in the morning!

  For a moment or two I hesitated: should I go along and rouse Jack? Someone might have got in through the garden door, and I failed to see why I should fight another man’s burglar in his own house. And then it struck me it would only alarm his wife – I’d get Bill, whose room was opposite mine.

  I put on some slippers and crossed the landing to rouse him. And then I stopped abruptly. His door was open; his room was empty. Surely it couldn’t be he who had turned on the light below?

  As noiselessly as possible I went downstairs, and turned along the passage to the dining room. Sure enough the door into the main part of the house was ajar, and the light was shining through the opening. I tiptoed up to it and looked through the crack by the hinges.

  At first I could see nothing save the solitary electric light over the portrait of Sir James. And then in the gloom beyond I saw a tall figure standing motionless by the old oak dining table. It was Bill – even in the dim light I recognised that clean-cut profile; Bill clad in his pyjamas only, with one hand stretched out in front of him, pointing. And then, suddenly, he spoke.

  “You lie, Sir Henry! – you lie!

  Nothing more – just that one remark; his hand still pointing inexorably across the table. Then after a moment he turned so that the light fell full on his face, and I realised what was the matter. Bill Sibton was walking in his sleep.