The Dinner Club Read online

  Slowly he came towards the door behind which I stood, and passed through it – so close that he almost touched me as I shrank back against the wall. Then he went up the stairs, and as soon as I heard him reach the landing above, I quickly turned out the light in the dining room and followed him. His bedroom door was closed: there was no sound from inside.

  There was nothing more for me to do: my burglar had developed into a harmless somnambulist. Moreover, it suddenly struck me that I had become most infernally sleepy myself. So I did not curse Bill mentally as much as I might have done. I turned in, and my nine o’clock next morning was very provisional.

  So was Bill Sibton’s: we arrived together for breakfast at a quarter to ten. He looked haggard and ill, like a man who has not slept, and his first remark was to curse Dick Armytage.

  “I had the most infernal dreams last night,” he grumbled. “Entirely through Dick reminding me of this room. I dreamed the whole show that took place in here in that old bird’s time.”

  He pointed to the portrait of Sir James.

  “Did you?” I remarked, pouring out some coffee. “Must have been quite interesting.”

  “I know I wasn’t at all popular with the crowd,” he said. “I don’t set any store by dreams myself – but last night it was really extraordinarily vivid.” He stirred his tea thoughtfully.

  “I can quite imagine that, Bill. Do you ever walk in your sleep?”

  “Walk in my sleep? No.” He stared at me surprised. “Why?”

  “You did last night. I found you down here at four o’clock in your pyjamas. You were standing just where I’m sitting now, pointing with your hand across the table. And as I stood outside the door you suddenly said, ‘You lie, Sir Henry! – you lie!’ ”

  “Part of my dream,” he muttered. “Sir Henry Brayton was the name of the man – and he was the leader. They were all furious with me about something. We quarrelled – and after that there seemed to be a closed door. It was opening slowly, and instinctively I knew there was something dreadful behind it. You know the terror of a dream; the primordial terror of the mind that cannot reason against something hideous – unknown–” I glanced at him: his forehead was wet with sweat. “And then the dream passed. The door didn’t open.”

  “Undoubtedly, my lad,” I remarked lightly, “you had one whisky too many last night.”

  “Don’t be an ass, Tom,” he said irritably. “I tell you – though you needn’t repeat it – I’m in a putrid funk of this room. Absurd, I know: ridiculous. But I can’t help it. And if there was a train on this branch line on Sunday, I’d leave today.”

  “But, good Lord, Bill,” I began – and then I went on with my breakfast. There was a look on his face which it is not good to see on the face of a man. It was terror: an abject, dreadful terror.

  II

  He and Jack Drage were out for a long walk when the parson came to tea that afternoon – a walk of which Bill had been the instigator. He had dragged Jack forth, vigorously protesting, after lunch, and we had cheered them on their way. Bill had to get out of the house – I could see that. Then Dick and the girl had disappeared, in the way that people in their condition do disappear, just before Mr Williams arrived. And so only Phyllis Drage was there, presiding at the tea table, when I broached the subject of the history of the dining room.

  “He spoils paper, Mr Williams,” laughed my hostess, “and he scents copy. Jack tried to tell the story last night, and got it hopelessly wrong.”

  The clergyman smiled gravely.

  “You’ll have to alter the setting, Mr Staunton,” he remarked, “because the story is quite well known round here. In my library at the vicarage I have an old manuscript copy of the legend. And indeed, I have no reason to believe that it is a legend: certainly the main points have been historically authenticated. Sir James Wrothley, whose portrait hangs in the dining room, lived in this house. He was a staunch Protestant – bigoted to a degree; and he fell very foul of Cardinal Wolsey, who you may remember was plotting for the Papacy at the time. So bitter did the animosity become, and so high did religious intolerance run in those days, that Sir James started counter-plotting against the Cardinal; which was a dangerous thing to do. Moreover, he and his friends used the dining room here as their meeting place.”

  The reverend gentleman sipped his tea; if there was one thing he loved it was the telling of this story, which reflected so magnificently on the staunch no-Popery record of his parish.

  “So much is historical certainty; the rest is not so indisputably authentic. The times of the meetings were, of course, kept secret – until the fatal night occurred. Then, apparently, someone turned traitor. And, why I cannot tell you, Sir James himself was accused by the others – especially Sir Henry Brayton. Did you say anything, Mr Staunton?”

  “Nothing,” I remarked quietly. “The name surprised me for a moment. Please go on.”

  “Sir Henry Brayton was Sir James’ next-door neighbour, almost equally intolerant of anything savouring of Rome. And even while, so the story goes, Wolsey’s men were hammering on the doors, he and Sir Henry had this dreadful quarrel. Why Sir James should have been suspected, whether the suspicions were justified or not I cannot say. Certainly, in view of what we know of Sir James’ character, it seems hard to believe that he could have been guilty of such infamous treachery. But that the case must have appeared exceedingly black against him is certain from the last and most tragic part of the story.”

  Once again Mr Williams paused to sip his tea; he had now reached that point of the narrative where royalty itself would have failed to hurry him.

  “In those days, Mrs Drage, there was a door leading into the musicians’ gallery from one of the rooms of the house. It provided no avenue of escape if the house was surrounded – but its existence was unknown to the men before whose blows the other doors were already beginning to splinter. And suddenly through this door appeared Lady Wrothley. She had only recently married Sir James: in fact, her first baby was then on its way. Sir James saw her, and at once ceased his quarrel with Sir Henry. With dignity he mounted the stairs and approached his girl-wife – and in her horror-struck eyes he saw that she, too, suspected him of being the traitor. He raised her hand to his lips; and then as the doors burst open simultaneously and Wolsey’s men rushed in – he dived headforemost on to the floor below, breaking his neck and dying instantly.

  “The story goes on to say,” continued Mr Williams, with a diffident cough, “that even while the butchery began in the room below – for most of the Protestants were unarmed – the poor girl collapsed in the gallery, and shortly afterwards the child was born. A girl baby, who survived, though the mother died. One likes to think that if she had indeed misjudged her husband, it was a merciful act on the part of the Almighty to let her join him so soon. Thank you, I will have another cup of tea. One lump, please.”

  “A most fascinating story, Mr Williams,” said Phyllis. “Thank you so much for having told us. Can you make anything out of it, Tom?”

  I laughed.

  “The criminal reserves his defence. But it’s most interesting, Padre, most interesting, as Mrs Drage says. If I may, I’d like to come and see that manuscript.”

  “I shall be only too delighted,” he murmured with old-fashioned courtesy. “Whenever you like.”

  And then the conversation turned on things parochial until he rose to go. The others had still not returned, and for a while we two sat on talking as the spirit moved us in the darkening room. At last the servants appeared to draw the curtains, and it was then that we heard Jack and Bill in the hall.

  I don’t know what made me make the remark; it seemed to come without my volition.

  “If I were you, Phyllis,” I said, “I don’t think I’d tell the story of the dining room to Bill.”

  She looked at me curiously.

  “Why not?”

>   “I don’t know – but I wouldn’t.” In the brightly lit room his fears of the morning seemed ridiculous; yet, as I say, I don’t know what made me make the remark.

  “All right; I won’t,” she said gravely. “Do you think–”

  But further conversation was cut short by the entrance of Bill and her husband.

  “Twelve mile if an inch,” growled Drage, throwing himself into a chair. “You awful fellow.”

  Sibton laughed.

  “Do you good, you lazy devil. He’s getting too fat, Phyllis, isn’t he?”

  I glanced at him as he, too, sat down: in his eyes there remained no trace of the terror of the morning.

  III

  And now I come to that part of my story which I find most difficult to write. From the story-teller’s point of view pure and simple, it is the easiest; from the human point of view I have never tackled anything harder. Because, though the events I am describing took place months ago – and the first shock is long since past – I still cannot rid myself of a feeling that I was largely to blame. By the cold light of reason I can exonerate myself; but one does not habitually have one’s being in that exalted atmosphere. Jack blames himself; but in view of what happened the night before – in view of the look in Bill’s eyes that Sunday morning – I feel that I ought to have realised that there were influences at work which lay beyond my ken – influences which at present lie not within the light of reason. And then at other times I wonder if it was not just a strange coincidence and an – accident. God knows: frankly, I don’t.

  We spent that evening just as we had spent the preceding one, save that in view of shooting on Monday morning we went to bed at midnight. This time I fell asleep at once – only to be roused by someone shaking my arm. I sat up blinking: it was Jack Drage.

  “Wake up, Tom,” he whispered. “There’s a light in the dining room, and we’re going down to investigate. Dick is getting Bill.”

  In an instant I was out of bed.

  “It’s probably Bill himself,” I said. “I found him down there last night walking in his sleep.”

  “The devil you did!” muttered Jack, and at that moment Dick Armytage came in.

  “Bill’s room is empty,” he announced; and I nodded.

  “It’s Bill right enough,” I said. “He went back quite quietly last night. And, for Heaven’s sake, you fellows, don’t wake him. It’s very dangerous.”

  Just as before the dining room door was open, and the light filtered through into the passage as we tiptoed along it. Just as before we saw Bill standing by the table – his hand outstretched.

  Then came the same words as I had heard last night.

  “You lie, Sir Henry! – you lie!”

  “What the devil–” muttered Jack; but I held up my finger to ensure silence.

  “He’ll come to bed now,” I whispered. “Keep quite still.”

  But this time Bill Sibton did not come to bed; instead, he turned and stared into the shadows of the musicians’ gallery. Then, very slowly, he walked away from us and commenced to mount the stairs. And still the danger did not strike us.

  Dimly we saw the tall figure reach the top and walk along the gallery, as if he saw someone at the end – and at that moment the peril came to the three of us.

  To Dick and Jack the rottenness of the balustrade; to me – the end of the vicar’s story. What they thought I know not; but to my dying day I shall never forget my own agony of mind. In that corner of the musicians’ gallery – though we could see her not – stood Lady Wrothley; to the man walking slowly towards her the door was opening slowly – the door which had remained shut the night before – the door behind which lay the terror.

  And then it all happened very quickly. In a frenzy we raced across the room to get at him – but we weren’t in time. There was a rending of wood – a dreadful crash – a sprawling figure on the floor below. To me it seemed as if he had hurled himself against the balustrade, had literally dived downwards. The others did not notice it – so they told me later. But I did.

  And then we were kneeling beside him on the floor.

  “Dear God!” I heard Drage say in a hoarse whisper. “He’s dead; he’s broken his neck.”

  Such is my story. Jack Drage blames himself for the rottenness of the woodwork, but I feel it was my fault. Yes – it was my fault. I ought to have known, ought to have done something. Even if we’d only locked the dining room door.

  And the last link in the chain I haven’t mentioned yet. The vicar supplied that – though to him it was merely a strange coincidence.

  The baby girl – born in the gallery – a strange, imaginative child, so run the archives, subject to fits of awful depression and, at other times, hallucinations – married. She married in 1551, on the 30th day of October, Henry, only son of Frank Sibton and Mary his wife.

  God knows: I don’t. It may have been an accident.

  Chapter 8

  When Greek meets Greek

  I

  “But, Bill, I don’t understand. How much did you borrow from this man?”

  Sybil Daventry looked at her brother, sitting huddled up in his chair, with a little frown.

  “I borrowed a thousand,” he answered, sulkily. “And like a fool I didn’t read the thing he made me sign – at least, not carefully. Hang it, I’ve only had the money six months, and now he’s saying that I owe him over two. I saw something about twenty-five per cent, and now I find it was twenty-five per cent a month. And the swine is pressing for payment unless–” He broke off and stared into the fire shamefacedly.

  “Unless what?” demanded his sister.

  “Well, you see, it’s this way.” The boy stammered a little, and refused to look at her. “I was jolly well up the spout when this blighter told me what I owed him, and I suppose I must have showed it pretty clearly. Anyway, I was propping up the bar at the Cri, getting a cocktail, when a fellow standing next me started gassing. Not a bad sort of cove at all; knows you very well by sight.”

  “Knows me?” said the girl, bewildered. “Who was he?”

  “I’m coming to that later,” went on her brother. “Well, we had a couple more and then he suggested tearing a chop together. And I don’t know – he seemed so decent and all that – that I told him I was in the soup. Told him the whole yarn and asked his advice sort of business. Well, as I say, he was bally sporting about it all, and finally asked me who the bird was who had tied up the boodle. I told him, and here’s the lucky part of the whole show – this fellow Perrison knew him. Perrison was the man I was lunching with.”

  He paused and lit a cigarette, while the girl stared at him gravely.

  “Well,” she said at length, “go on.”

  “It was after lunch that he got busy. He said to me: ‘Look here, Daventry, you’ve made a bally fool of yourself, but you’re not the first. I’ll write a note to Messrs Smith and Co’ – those are the warriors who gave me the money – ‘and try and persuade them to give you more time, or even possibly reduce the rate of interest.’ Of course, I was all on this, and I arranged to lunch with him again next day, after Smith and Co had had time to function. And sure enough they did. Wrote a letter in which they were all over me; any friend of Mr Perrison’s was entitled to special treatment, and so on and so forth. Naturally I was as bucked as a dog with two tails, and asked Perrison if I couldn’t do something more material than just thank him. And – er – he – I mean it was then he told me he knew you by sight.”

  He glanced at his sister, and then quickly looked away again.

  “He suggested – er – that perhaps I could arrange to introduce him to you; that it would be an honour he would greatly appreciate, and all that sort of rot.”

  The girl was sitting very still. “Yes,” she said, quietly, “and you – agreed.”

  “Well, of course I did. Hang it
, he’s quite a decent fellow. Bit Cityish to look at, and I shouldn’t think he knows which end of a horse goes first. But he’s got me out of the devil of a hole, Sybil, and the least you can do is to be moderately decent to the bird. I mean it’s not asking much, is it? I left the governor looking at him in the hall as if he was just going to tread on his face, and that long slab – your pal – is gazing at him through his eyeglasses as if he was mad.”

  “He’s not my pal, Bill.” Sybil Daventry’s colour heightened a little.

  “Well, you asked him here, anyway,” grunted the boy. Then with a sudden change of tone he turned to her appealingly. “Syb, old girl – for the Lord’s sake play the game. You know what the governor is, and if he hears about this show – especially as it’s – as it’s not the first time – there’ll be the deuce to pay. You know he said last time that if it happened again he’d turn me out of the house. And the old man is as stubborn as a mule. I only want you to be a bit decent to Perrison.”

  She looked at him with a grave smile. “If Mr Perrison is satisfied with my being decent to him, as you put it, I’m perfectly prepared to play the game. But–” She frowned and rose abruptly. “Come on, and I’ll have a look at him.”

  In silence they went downstairs. Tea had just been brought in, and the house party was slowly drifting into the hall. But Sybil barely noticed them; her eyes were fixed on the man talking to her father. Or rather, at the moment, her father was talking to the man, and his remark was painfully audible.

  “There is a very good train back to London at seven-thirty, Mr – ah – Mr–”

  Her brother stepped forward. “But I say, Dad,” he said, nervously, “I asked Perrison to stop the night. I’ve just asked Sybil, and she says she can fix him up somewhere.”

  “How do you do, Mr Perrison?” With a charming smile she held out her hand. “Of course you must stop the night.”

  Then she moved away to the tea table, feeling agreeably relieved; it was better than she had expected. The man was well-dressed; perhaps, to her critical eye, a little too well-dressed – but still quite presentable.