The club of masks

My chief made a swift search through the safe. The cash drawers were empty, and he gave me a significant nod.

“Miss Sarah has been through the safe since the policeman left. A remarkable girl that, Cassilis! How did she come to know of the Domino Club?”

I was as little able to answer the question as he was. Still, I had formed a vague theory in my own mind.

“She rather gave me the impression of hating her step-father on her mother’s account,” I threw out. “Mightn’t she have watched him on her mother’s behalf?”

“That is a possible explanation, certainly,” my chief was good enough to respond. “We are dealing with one of those family tragedies which so seldom come to light. The ambitious man has married for money, as the girl has seen from the first, and the woman won’t see. Then he has found his wife in the way, and begun to neglect her. She, poor thing, has tried to hide the situation from her child, but Sarah has found it out for herself, and resented it. She has tried to open her mother’s eyes, and failed; or rather the mother has concealed the fact that she is no longer blind. Then in desperation, perhaps, the girl has gone secretly to work to obtain proof of her step-father’s infidelity, proof that will leave her mother no excuse for keeping her eyes shut any longer; that will compel her to leave the man....”

The speech trailed off into a soliloquy, which became a silent one. Suddenly he stood up grasping in his hand a square glass bottle half full of pellets like those we had found on the corpse.

“No need for further evidence of identity than this!” he exclaimed in triumph. “But this must be between you and me, Cassilis; I don’t think Charles can have been altogether satisfied with the theory that Weathered only carried these pellets to give to his enemies and this discovery makes it still less probable. He may have administered them for other purposes.”

I shuddered at the hint. The Domino Club took on a darker shade in my imagination and I scarcely dared ask myself what horrors might have been concealed by those embroidered curtains that screened its Moorish alcoves.

Tarleton slipped the glass bottle into his coat pocket, and locked the safe. Then he turned to survey the doctor’s table.

“Now let us reconstruct the crime provisionally,” he said. “A patient of Weathered finds that he is in the doctor’s power and finds that Weathered is disposed to take some base advantage of him. He has seen the doctor recording his confession in a book, and he determines to release himself by getting hold of that book and destroying it. He is a member of the Domino Club; most likely he has been tempted or compelled to join it by Weathered. He may or may not know of these pellets and the purpose for which they are used. At all events he conceives the plan of drugging Weathered, obtaining his keys, and coming here to destroy the incriminating record. He carries out his purpose successfully, so far. But in his haste and excitement he overlooks one thing. And it is here.”

For the life of me I could not repress a start as the consultant brought his hand down sharply on a small book that lay beside the inkstand on the writing-table. Little need to say what it was! The moment after Weathered’s appointment-book was lying open, and my chief’s keen eyes were rapidly searching the pages.

I ought not to have felt so intensely anxious as I watched those bushy eyebrows knitting themselves over a meagre list of names and dates. The dead man’s patients had been numerous, and most of them no doubt had come and gone without the least suspicion of anything irregular in the doctor’s practice, and without compromising themselves by any indiscrete confidences. What evidence could such a book afford against anyone? Still, I was uneasy. My instinct warned me that Tarleton would find some information that he needed in those pages. And my observation told me presently that he had found it.

“Listen, Cassilis. Most of these appointments seem to be perfectly innocent and normal. But there are certain names occurring more than once that have numbers attached to them. What do you make of this?—Sir George Castleton, 17; he has been coming once a fortnight. Mrs. Worboise, 21; about once a month. Miss Julia Sebright, 8; she seems to have dropped off. Colonel Gravelinas, 26; h’m. Mrs. Baker, 35; rather more recent than the others. Lady Violet Bredwardine—what is the matter?”

I jerked myself round towards the door of the room. “I thought I heard someone outside.”

By a stroke of good luck someone was. The door opened as I spoke, and Sarah Neobard appeared with a hat on ready to go out.

Tarleton quietly closed the book and placed it in his pocket under her eyes.

“I am taking Dr. Weathered’s appointment-book, Miss Neobard. I shall have to make inquiries about some of his patients.”

The stately Sarah’s eyes flashed vindictively. “You are welcome to any information I can give you about them, Sir Frank. One of them is at the bottom of this crime, you may be sure.”

Tarleton lifted his eyebrows. “We don’t yet know that it is a crime—in that sense,” he said with an air of doubt. “Dr. Weathered seems to have been drugged by someone who wanted to get his keys. But whoever did it may not have meant to give a fatal dose.”

I listened anxiously. I was puzzled to understand the specialist’s theory. Did he consider that Weathered had succumbed to a dose that would not have killed a man in ordinary health? And if so, was his death due to some organic weakness, as I had myself suggested when we were viewing the corpse? Or was it possible that Weathered was in the habit of taking the pellets found upon him, after all, and that he had just absorbed such a quantity of the poison into his system that the extra dose proved mortal in consequence? My experience was not enough to enable me to form a decided opinion of my own on either of these alternatives.

While these thoughts were passing through my mind Miss Neobard was scrutinizing my companion’s face with suspicion.

“You are not saying what you really think, Sir Frank,” she pronounced boldly. “He has been murdered, and you know it, but you are afraid of shocking me by saying so outright. You needn’t mind. I look on this as a judgment, and I have seen it coming.”

The physician gazed at her as steadily as she was gazing at him.

“Have you any objection to telling me why?”

“No. Now that my mother isn’t here I don’t care what I tell you. Dr. Weathered never loved her, but she loved him. She wouldn’t believe anything bad of him while he was alive, and now he’s dead I don’t want her to hear anything that would grieve her for nothing.” She seemed to consider for a moment what to say next. “You mustn’t think he was altogether wicked, at all events at first. He was very clever, and he knew that he could do well in London with my mother’s money. And he was really interested in science. He had studied psychology for years before he started as a nerve specialist. I believe that he meant to practise quite respectably when he began here. It was the women who led him astray.”

A singular statement to be made by the step-daughter who had so much reason to hate him, and who every now and then gave me the impression that she had hated him.

“Half the women who came to consult him, I believe, had nothing the matter with them except a craving for excitement. He told us that himself, though, of course, he didn’t say what kind of excitement they craved for. He used to talk about his practice at first, and tell us the names of some of his patients, when they were big people. One was a duchess, another was a famous author. But after a time he stopped talking about them. That was when he began to fall under their influence. They sent him invitations to dinner without inviting my mother. And he accepted them.”

One could see, as it were, the rift opening, and this keen-eyed, strong-minded girl taking precocious notice of everything and watching her step-father’s downward progress.

“Then he took up with this psycho-analysis, pretending he could cure people of their troubles and change their dispositions by encouraging them to talk to him freely. I knew he didn’t really believe in it. He had sneered at it often enough when it first came up. He took to it simply because it was the way to make money. I fancy the other doctors looked down on him because of it. At all events they seemed to boycott him. None of them ever came here, and their wives left off calling on us. I soon saw there was something wrong.

“I tried to get my mother to do something, but she wouldn’t or couldn’t. She had no influence over him apart from her money, and he was making so much that he was independent of her. And she wouldn’t leave him. She had no legal grounds, of course. Whatever went on was carefully concealed from her. He couldn’t have afforded an open rupture. That would have frightened off his patients.”

Sarah paused for breath, and my chief and I exchanged looks. It was a curious revelation, and the strangest part of it was the manner in which it was being made. The accuser seemed to be also the defender. There was a very thoughtful wrinkle on Tarleton’s brow, as though he was listening to more than the words that reached his ear.

All this time there had been no reference to the Domino Club. I think we were both rather eager to learn something about that. But Miss Neobard didn’t appear to need prompting. She came to the subject of her own accord.

“At last we almost ceased to see anything of him. He went out night after night, and didn’t come home till the early morning. He was a strong man, but his health began to suffer, and I think he was taking to drink latterly. At one time he kept nothing in the house, but lately there was brandy in a cupboard, and I have seen him going to it in the morning as soon as he came down. This was after he had gone to that abominable club.”

“The Domino Club?” my chief put in quietly.

“Yes, I dare say you wonder how I came to know of it. Perhaps you think I oughtn’t to have taken any notice of what was going on. It was my mother’s business, really, but she was determined to see nothing, and I had to protect her.”

The explanation was given with a touch of defiance. Was it the true one? Was it solely zeal on her mother’s behalf that had inspired the girl of nineteen or twenty to play the part of a detective? Or had other motives mingled with the avowed one? A touch of feminine curiosity, perhaps? A subtle temptation to look down into the gulf in which the man was disappearing? Or else?...

She saw no need to tell us how she had obtained her knowledge, apparently. I didn’t think her the kind of girl to employ an agent. She was quite capable, I felt sure, of searching her step-father’s papers, or following him secretly. Her object, as far as we were concerned, was evidently to inculpate his patients even more than himself.

“It was the women,” she repeated with bitterness, “who dragged him into it. They wanted a place in which they could have all the excitement of a night club without the risk of meeting low-class people. There was a Mrs. Worboise——” I glanced at my chief as I recalled the No. 21 of the appointment-book, but his lips were firmly compressed——“I feel convinced that she provided some of the money. But there were others, too, plenty of them.”

I was thankful that she stopped there without mentioning more names. My chief also seemed to think that she had said enough for the present.

“Very well, Miss Neobard. I am sure that you have acted for the best in giving me this information, and I’m very much obliged to you. Now suppose we drive round to the Club for you to identify the body.”

The sight of Evans, the doctor’s chauffeur, in front dried up the girl’s flow of speech, and the drive was a silent one. Arrived at Vincent Studios I noticed that Tarleton stood back to let the young lady go in front, and that she took her way without hesitation towards the door bearing the name of Loftus, A.R.A. The policeman we had left in charge opened the door to us, and my chief again tested Miss Neobard’s knowledge by waiting for her to precede us. But this time the test failed.

“Where is the body?” she asked in a whisper, coming to a stand in the narrow passage.

“This way.” Sir Frank gravely took the girl’s arm in his own and led her straight to the spot. Whether she quivered as they approached the alcove I could not tell, but there was no mistaking her agitation when she caught sight of the stiff form and pallid face. A stifled cry escaped her lips. She leaned forward impulsively, almost as if she had been going to embrace the corpse, and then straightened herself up with a shudder.

“How dreadful he looks!” she gasped.

There was some excuse for the exclamation, out of place as it seemed at such a moment, and from her lips. The leaden tinge that had struck my attention earlier in the day had deepened and spread over the face and neck, and had become noticeable in the hands as well. The roughness was also accentuated, giving the skin the look of crude parchment in need of scraping before it could be written on. My experience was not enough to tell me whether these were unusual symptoms, and remembering the caution my chief had given me, I was careful to make no remark on them. I watched the great expert’s face, but I might as well have watched the dead man’s for any information it gave me. He had drawn out his golden mascot, as it were unconsciously, and was swinging it with more than usual deliberation as he scanned the ghastly features with an air of the deepest abstraction.

Sarah Neobard was less successful in hiding her emotions. In spite of the constraint she was evidently putting on herself I detected a tear edging its way down her cheek. Perhaps her memories of the dead were not all bitter ones. Perhaps there had been a time when he had treated her with kindness. Perhaps—but my speculations were cut short by a self-assertive step behind us.

All three of us turned round to see Captain Charles striding down the deserted room. By this time the red lights had been put out. The daylight reached everywhere, and gave the whole place an inexpressibly dreary, discomforting look. The gauze curtains showed bare and shabby, and the cushioned divans and couches revealed wine and coffee stains. The floor was dusty and discoloured. A comparison occurred to me between the dismal scene of revelry and the feelings of the revellers themselves as they awoke next day with jaded nerves and scorched palates and guilty recollections of their orgy.

Captain Charles was bursting with self-importance.

“I have just come from the Foreign Office,” he began, when Sir Frank pulled him up rather peremptorily.

“Be good enough to wait a moment, Inspector.” He turned to the distressed girl. “You identify this as the body of your step-father, Dr. Weathered?”

She bowed faintly. “Yes—though it is fearfully changed!”

“That is sufficient. Do you feel able to go back by yourself, or would you rather have someone to escort you?”

“I would rather be alone,” she murmured.

“Very well; then I need not keep you.” He looked away towards the outer door of the room, but the girl stood hesitating.

“Will it—shall you—the body?” she inquired in a broken voice.

“The body must be removed to my house first for me to ascertain the cause of death,” Tarleton said kindly. “After that I hope to arrange for it to be buried from your house privately. Meanwhile, the less you say to anyone the better.”

She bent her head gratefully, and I took her as far as the door of the studios, and saw her walk away. When I got back the Inspector was in the full flood of his report.

“I have never seen the Foreign Office more upset about anything,” he was saying. “And the Slavonian Embassy is in a regular turmoil. It appears that the Ambassador had no idea of where His Royal Highness was last night. He slipped out quietly without saying anything, with the Chancellor of Legation, Baron Novara. Baron Novara is a member of the Domino Club; he has always looked on it as a perfectly reputable place, a fashionable resort—in fact, like Hurlingham or the Prince’s skating-rink; and he had no idea that he was risking anything in bringing the Crown Prince here. At least so he says. The Ambassador is furious and has ordered him to go home by to-night’s express and explain matters to the King, if he can.”

My chief listened to the excited Charles with a good deal of indifference, I thought.

“The sum and substance of it all is that they want the affair hushed up, I suppose?”

I listened for the Inspector’s answer with an eagerness which I did my very best to hide. I am not sure that I did hide the relief with which I heard it.

“It must be hushed up,” he cried with positive indignation. “The Chancellor was fool enough to put in the official circular to the Press of the Crown Prince’s movements that he was present at a dance at the Domino Club last night.”

“That will be good news for Madame Bonnell,” the consultant observed dryly. “Is there any idea at the Embassy that the Prince’s life was aimed at?”

Captain Charles glanced round cautiously and lowered his voice.

“That’s the worst of it. The Bolsheviks are working their hardest to upset the monarchy in Slavonia, and it is believed that one of their agents in this country obtained admission to the club last night disguised as a woman.”

“Zenobia!” I could no more keep in the ejaculation than I could still the beating of my heart as I gave it vent.

My two companions turned sharply and looked at me, the Inspector with a certain grudging respect, my chief with a slight frown of something very like disdain. I bit my tongue too late.

“Zenobia seems to have made a bad guess at the Prince’s identity,” Tarleton said mercilessly. “Unless His Royal Highness wore an Inquisitor’s costume, too?”

The Captain’s face fell as he responded to the question.

“I didn’t inquire about that, Sir Frank,” he admitted. “I’ll go round again and find out.”

“Do, please. It will be time enough to consider Zenobia’s part in the mystery when we have heard from the theatrical costumiers. One moment——” Captain Charles had taken a step towards the exit—“I should like you to wait till I have put a question to Madame Bonnell.”

He touched the nearest bell-push as he spoke, and the Inspector and I looked at each other with curiosity as to his purpose. The bell was promptly answered by Gerard, and within a few moments the proprietress of the club sailed into the room.

She was decidedly more at ease than she had been when we interviewed her first. Touches of mourning had been added to her elegant dress, and her whole manner had been toned down to that of a dignified lady in distress. Tarleton appeared to meet this assumption by an added roughness in addressing her.

“Will you be good enough to tell me the rules of the Domino Club as to the admission of visitors?”

Madame Bonnell put her head on one side for a moment, giving herself the air of a person who was considering whether to grant a favour.

“I see no objection to that, Sir Frank. You are Sir Frank Tarleton, are you not?”

The question was almost impudent. The physician ignored it with a sharp “Well?”

“Every member was entitled to one card of admission for a friend for each dance. He was required to enter the name of the friend, and the costume he was coming in, in the club register.”

“Let me see the register, please.”

Madame had evidently expected this demand. She drew herself up.

“The register is confidential. It contains the names of all the members. I keep it for my private information, and I can’t show it to anyone else.”

Tarleton turned to the Police Inspector with a shrug. “I must ask you to do your duty, after all, I’m afraid.”

The Frenchwoman turned red with excitement.

“But what does this mean? Have you seen the papers?” She produced an evening paper from her dress, one of those evening papers that come out early in the forenoon. “Here it is announced that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Slavonia honoured me by his presence here last night. My club is under royal patronage, you see, gentlemen. This is not an affair for the police.”

My chief had described Captain Charles as thorough. He showed his quality as soon as the angry woman had spoken. First setting a whistle to his lips, he stepped forward and placed a firm hand on her arm.

“I arrest you in the King’s name.”