Finger of Fate Page 4

  It was about ten o’clock when I went in there, and a glance at the card table indicated trouble. Blake and Jefferson were partners, and the sneer on Blake’s face was ugly. Mrs Delmorton and the lady who giggled were there, and about half a dozen others.

  Just as I came in the rubber ended, and Blake leaned across the table.

  “Why in God’s name, Mr Jefferson,” he snarled, “don’t you have lessons in the game? Or else stick to snap with the curate?”

  Jefferson half rose in his seat – the back of his neck a dull purple.

  “Steady,” said Murgatroyd, who was playing. “Ladies present.”

  “I tell you what I will do, Mr Blake,” said Jefferson thickly. “I’ll play you one hand of show poker for a monkey.”

  “A monkey.” Blake seemed a bit taken aback.

  “Afraid of a real gamble,” sneered Jefferson.

  And suddenly a grim smile flickered round Blake’s lips.

  “I agree,” he said.

  We drew round and watched with bated breath. Everyone seemed to realise that there was more than a monkey at stake.

  They cut and Jefferson won. Being show poker he dealt the cards face upwards from a new pack. And when they each had four cards in front of them Blake had a pair of sevens, and Jefferson wanted a nine for a straight.

  I looked at the two men, and Blake’s fingers were twitching. But Jefferson was absolutely calm. He flicked the card across the table to Blake – another seven. Three – and a little gasp ran round the circle of onlookers.

  “It would seem that I want a nine,” he said quietly.

  He held up the card with its back towards him, so that Blake could see. And Blake’s face turned livid.

  “It would seem from your appearance that I’ve got one,” he added.

  He had: it was the nine of clubs.

  “A monkey, I believe, Mr Blake, was the bet,” he remarked suavely.

  And once again Blake smiled sardonically.

  “I’ll get it,” he said abruptly and left the room.

  “What the devil does he mean?” said Jefferson, staring after him. “Get it? Get what?”

  “I’m so glad you won, Mr Jefferson,” said Mrs Delmorton, leaning over him.

  “Thanks,” said Jefferson abruptly, his eyes still fixed on the door.

  And the next moment I thought the man was going to have an apoplectic fit. Moreover, I didn’t blame him. Stanton Blake re-entered the smoking-room carrying in his arms a live monkey.

  “What’s this damned foolery?” said Jefferson thickly.

  “We were playing for a monkey, I believe,” remarked Blake calmly. “Here it is – and a very nice one, too.”

  “You…you…blasted sharper!” roared Jefferson. “I suppose if we’d been playing for a pony you’d have given me a cab-horse. We were playing for five hundred pounds – and you know it.”

  “We were playing for a monkey,” repeated Blake. “I presume I am allowed to put my own interpretation on the word.”

  It was at that moment that Jefferson picked up the heavy water-bottle that stood on the table, and lifted it above his head. Somebody – the first officer, I think – shouted – “Steady, for God’s sake…” – and all the lights went out.

  “You swine – you…”

  Jefferson’s voice came out of the darkness – and the lady who giggled gave a scream. Then after an interval the lights went on again, and we saw that Jefferson had got Blake by the throat. Mrs Delmorton was cowering back against a chair: the monkey was gibbering in the open porthole.

  “Get the skipper,” shouted the first officer, and flung himself on Jefferson, with three more of us to help. And it took us all we could do to pull him off.

  The skipper came rushing in, and he was in a towering rage.

  “If you two men give any further trouble,” he roared, “I’ll clap you both in irons.”

  Jefferson was still struggling furiously, when there came the diversion. Mrs Delmorton raised her hands to her hair, and gave one horrified scream.

  “My slide. It’s gone.”

  An instant silence settled on the room.

  “Gone,” said the skipper. “What do you mean – gone?”

  “It was in my hair. You saw it, didn’t you?” She turned to me.

  “I certainly saw it before dinner,” I said. “I can’t say I’ve noticed it since.”

  “Close the doors,” ordered the skipper curtly. “No one is to leave the room. Now let’s get at the bottom of all this. You, sir” – he turned to me – “will you kindly tell me what happened?”

  I told him, while Blake and Jefferson sat in opposite corners glaring at one another.

  “Who turned off the lights?” he said curtly as I finished.

  And no one spoke.

  “Did you?” He turned to the steward.

  “No, sir. The switch is over there by the door. And I was the other side of the room.”

  “Please,” came a frightened little voice through the porthole, “I did.”

  We all looked up: Beryl Langton – her face as white as a sheet – was looking in.

  “Come in, Miss Langton,” said the skipper more gently. “We’d like to know why you did it.”

  She came in, casting frightened glances at the two men.

  “I was passing the door,” she stammered, “and I saw Mr Jefferson with a water-bottle in his hand. And I thought he was going to kill Stanton – Mr Blake, I mean. And without thinking I switched out the light. Was it terribly wrong?”

  “The point is this, Miss Langton,” said the skipper gravely. “Mrs Delmorton has lost her diamond and emerald hair-slide.”

  “Lost it!” cried the girl. “But I thought you’d taken it off, Mrs Delmorton – and put it in your cabin or something…”

  “Taken it off!” echoed the other. “Nothing of the sort.”

  “Why did you think Mrs Delmorton had taken it off?” asked the skipper.

  “Because when I passed you twenty minutes or so ago – you were dancing with Mr Norris, I think – I’m sure you hadn’t got it in your hair then. I looked specially to see.”

  “When was the last occasion, Mrs Delmorton,” said the skipper, “that you definitely remember feeling that the slide was there?”

  And that was exactly what Mrs Delmorton could not say. In fact when pressed the last time that she could remember with certainty was at dinner, when I gave it back to her.

  “Does anybody here remember seeing it before Miss Langton turned the lights out?” asked Murgatroyd.

  And once again no one could say with certainty: we had all been far too occupied with the quarrel between the two men.

  “Well, Mrs Delmorton,” said the skipper, “unless it’s fallen overboard it must be on board the ship. And if it’s on board the ship we’ll find it for you.”

  “My goodness! Captain Brownlow,” she almost wailed. “I’ve suddenly remembered too that I did lean over the rail for quite a time…”

  “You’d have probably noticed if it had fallen off then,” he said reassuringly. “We’ll find it, Mrs Delmorton. First we’ll start with this room.”

  We were all of us searched, and naturally no one objected. Every seat was minutely examined – even the spittoons were inspected. And there was no trace of that slide. One thing at any rate was certain: it was not in the smoking-room.

  At last the skipper gave it up: even Mrs Delmorton was satisfied. But as he left he turned once more to Jefferson and Blake.

  “And as for you two gentlemen,” he continued, “I meant what I said. If you can’t behave yourselves I’ll put you both in irons.”

  But the kick seemed to have gone out of them. In fact they seemed thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

  “Confound it, Jefferson,” said Blake, “it was only a jest. I’ll write you out a cheque in the morning…”

  “Sorry if I was a bit hasty,” said the other sheepishly. “Look here, we’d better go and join in this search. Why the cursed woman wants to wea
r valuable jewels in her head at all for I don’t know! What’s it look like anyway?”

  They went out together, Blake with the monkey on his shoulder.

  “Do you think it was a jest?” said Murgatroyd to me as we followed them.

  “I’m not a thought reader,” I laughed. “Ask me another.”

  Well, that ship was searched with a fine toothcomb, but no trace of Mrs Delmorton’s hair-slide was ever discovered. And after a while the excitement died down. It was insured anyway, so she would suffer no financial loss. And the finally accepted verdict was that it had probably fallen overboard when she was leaning over the rail.

  In fact, after three days the incident was almost forgotten. And the only effect of it that remained was on Jefferson and Blake. It seemed to have sobered them up, and though by no stretch of fancy could it be said that they were friendly, one at any rate no longer feared violence when they met.

  Indeed, I was told that the night before Jefferson got off at Colombo, Blake stood him a drink. I didn’t see this amazing occurrence, but that the rumour of such a thing could have been received without derisive laughter showed the change of affairs.

  Blake went on to Singapore, and mindful of Beryl Langton’s slip when she had called him Stanton, I watched them fairly closely. I should have been very sorry if anything had come of it: Blake wasn’t the type of man for her. But nothing happened: obviously it had just been a mild board ship flirtation.

  And finally, in the fullness of time, I saw her off at Shanghai. Moreover, up on the boat deck the night before we got in, I – well… However, that is altogether another story…

  It is at this point that I can imagine the intelligent reader saying with a bewildered air – “What the deuce is all this about? What’s the point of it?”

  Sir, you are justified in your query. And if it hadn’t been that my doctor ordered me to Carlsbad a week ago, I should not have wasted my own time and yours in writing it down. But he did, and the first night I was there I noticed an elderly man of unprepossessing appearance around whom the staff buzzed like bluebottles. It was Guggenheimer – the German millionaire.

  I was watching him idly, when suddenly a flutter of excitement ran through the lounge. And the cause of it was a girl with a monkey perched on her shoulder. I gazed at her speechlessly – a perfectly gowned, soigné, cosmopolitan woman. I gazed at her speechlessly – Guggenheimer’s latest. I gazed at her speechlessly – Beryl Langton. And as she passed close to me I noticed she was wearing a lovely diamond and emerald bracelet.

  But so dense can the human brain be at times that even when a biggish red-faced man came up and spoke to Guggenheimer I didn’t realise anything was amiss. In fact I didn’t realise it until I saw the German introduce him to the girl.

  Then the brain did begin to function. For why it was necessary to introduce Mark Jefferson to Beryl Langton was a thing no feller could understand…

  My mind went back to that voyage out East, and from a totally new angle I set out to consider the things that had happened.

  That Mark Jefferson and Beryl Langton could have forgotten one another was obviously absurd: therefore they were playing a game: therefore they were in collusion.

  If they were in collusion now, there was no inherent reason why they shouldn’t have been in collusion then. With Stanton Blake as the third member of the gang.

  And if that was so the three of them had fooled us all from the very first.

  I lit a cigar: the thing wanted thought. They had fooled us with only one idea – to lead up to that culminating moment in the smoking-room when they stole Mrs Delmorton’s hair-slide.

  I ran over things from the beginning. They knew Mrs Delmorton would be travelling by the boat: they knew her habits – and they laid their plans accordingly. And then when the two men of the gang had got the attention of everyone in the smoking-room riveted on themselves, the girl switched off the lights.

  One of them – Blake probably: he had the touch of a conjuror – had whipped it out of her head in the darkness. But the point was – what the deuce had he done with it? It hadn’t been on him or in that room when the search took place. That I could swear to.

  And then suddenly it dawned on me, in all its rich genius. The monkey. The whole bet about the monkey became pointless if they were members of the same gang, unless the object was to introduce the animal into the room in a perfectly natural way.

  It was the monkey that had passed the slide to the girl through the open porthole – it had been sitting there chattering when the lights went on. And if the lights had gone on the fraction of a second too soon, it would merely have been taken as a mischievous trick.

  Clever – you know: deuced clever. Of course, I may be wrong: possibly that slide is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

  But Beryl Langton, who now calls herself Louise van Dyck, cannot have completely forgotten Mark Jefferson, who now calls himself John P Mellon, in two years. And she does wear a lovely diamond and emerald bracelet. And she did give a start of unfeigned amazement when we found ourselves drinking the water at neighbouring tables. And she did look a bit nonplussed when I asked her about Stanton Blake and her uncle in Shanghai.

  Of course, I suppose I ought by rights to warn the police or old Guggenheimer.

  But I shan’t. He’s an unpleasant-looking man. And she was perfectly adorable on the boat deck that night. Moreover, I may be wrong, but I have a sort of idea that she might…

  No – damn it! I came here to drink the waters.

  THE BLACK MONK

  1

  When Jack Tennant got engaged to Mary Darnley, their world at large decided that it was good. And it would have been difficult to decide otherwise. Jack was one of the dearest fellows imaginable: Mary was a darling. They each had looks: and – a detail which cannot be ignored in these prosaic days – there was a sufficiency of money on both sides to ensure comfort.

  They both came from the same part of the county, so that their friends were mutual. So, too, were their tastes. They both went well to hounds – in fact, there was a considerable section of the hunt who would have liked to see Jack as Master: they both played tennis and golf above the average. So that, in a nutshell, the world’s decision in their case could be pronounced correct.

  We had all seen the drift of affairs during the hunting season, but it was not till May that the engagement was definitely announced. And, funnily enough, the man who actually told me was Laurence Trent. Which necessitates another peep into our little corner of England. It had been common knowledge for two or three years that nothing would have pleased him better than that Mary should take the name of Trent, and when he told me the news I glanced at him curiously to see if he was at all upset. But not a bit of it.

  “Of course,” he said, as he stuffed tobacco into his pipe, “it would be idle to pretend that I wouldn’t have preferred Mary to choose someone else, but since she hasn’t there is no one I’d sooner see her married to than old Jack. They ought to make a thundering good pair.”

  I agreed, and felt pleasantly surprised. Not that Trent wasn’t a very good fellow: he was. But somehow I didn’t expect him to take it quite so well. I’d always felt that there was something about him, something I couldn’t define, which just spoiled an otherwise first-class sportsman. Perhaps it was that he didn’t lose very well at games. True, he rarely lost at all – he was easily the best tennis player round about. But if by chance he did, though he kept himself under perfect control, and to all outward appearances took his defeat quite pleasantly, I’d seen a glint in his eyes that seemed to prove the old tag about appearances being deceptive. However, here he was taking his loss in the biggest game of all as well as Jack Tennant would have taken it himself.

  “When are they going to be married?” I asked.

  “Fairly shortly I gather,” he answered. “There can’t be anything to wait for.”

  And sure enough when the announcement appeared two or three days later in The Times, it stated that “a mar
riage had been arranged and would shortly take place.”

  They were inundated, of course, with congratulations. And I, being old enough to be their father, felt specially honoured when they both came to dine with me quietly.

  “A dull evening, my children,” I said. “It was good of you to come.”

  “Go to blazes, Bill,” said Jack. “It was damned sporting of you as a confirmed old bachelor to run the risk of asking us. You are probably proposing to retire to your study after dinner, on the pretence of writing letters, and then herald your return with a coughing fit in the hall. I warn you that if you do we shall come too, and bonnet you with your own paper basket.”

  “It is true,” I murmured guiltily, “that some such idea had entered my brain, but in view of your threat it shall be abandoned.”

  And, by Jove! they stopped till one. Just once or twice his hand would touch her arm: just once or twice a look would pass between them that made even a confirmed old bachelor wonder if he wasn’t really a confirmed old fool. They were two of the best, and it did one’s eyes good to see them together. Certainly if any couple ever seemed to have been smiled on by Fate, it was this one. Which made the tragedy all the more dreadful when it occurred.

  However I will take things in their proper sequence. It was on the 15th of June, so I see from my diary, that a party of us went for a picnic. Jack and his girl were there, and Laurence Trent, and several others whose names are immaterial. We went in three cars, starting after lunch, and our destination was an old ruined Priory some forty miles away which was reputed to be haunted. The ghost was said to be the black cowled figure of a monk, and if it came to a man it meant death. There was a good deal of ragging and chaff, and one of the men, I remember, covered himself with a tablecloth and stalked about amongst the ruins. In fact the whole atmosphere of the party was what you would have expected when a bunch of healthy normal people find themselves in such a locality in broad daylight.

  Laurence Trent was particularly scathing on things ghostly, and roared with laughter at the usual stories of people’s aunts who had woken up in the middle of the night to feel a spectral hand clutching the bedclothes.