5
George came into the library next morning on his way to the Admiralty. I was awake, because after an hour or two of sleep the physical exhaustion which made it possible gave place to physical discomfort which effectually banished it. My head had a collection of dull, throbbing pains which played for a while, each by itself on its appointed spot, and then joined hands and danced in a ring with an initial kick-off under my swollen right ear; over the forehead they went and under the back of the eyes, scampering to the nape of the neck, drawing breath and toe-ing and heeling it to the starting place once more. I had a basin of water by my sofa and relays of handkerchiefs which I dipped and spread over my temples, but by three o'clock my arms had stiffened until I could not bear to move them, and I spent the remainder of the night turning from side to back and from back to side, trying to find some surface of my body which did not feel as if the bones were running through the flesh.
"I told Bertrand you were here," George said, "and the housekeeper, of course. But she won't say anything. How you got yourself into that condition——"
He broke off and smiled at my cuts and bruises. Later in the day, when I got a chance of looking at myself in a mirror, I could forgive his smile.
"It's a long story, George," I said. "Leave it till my head feels a bit clearer. And, once more, don't tell anyone I'm here. At the present time I don't quite know what my civic status is, whether I'm a fugitive from justice or what. Have you seen the papers? Is there anything that you can fit me into?"
"I only had time to read the war news," he answered. "Look here, I've given orders for a bed to be made up in Raney's room, and we'll shift you, as soon as you feel like moving. Is there anything else you'd care for?"
"The one thing I want is the papers," I said.
They were brought me ten minutes later by Bertrand, who strolled into the library, raised his eye-brows and withdrew his cigar long enough to give a short whistle of surprise.
"You're a pretty sight," he chuckled. "George said you wanted these. I suppose you've been fighting the police and want to see if they're advertising a description of you."
I hunted through the main news sheets, losing myself in columns of official communiqués and unofficial cabinetmaking, before I was rewarded with a four-line paragraph:—
"Accident to Well-known M.P.," I read, and underneath the heading,
"A fire broke out last evening in the house of Lieutenant-Colonel Vincent Grayle, M.P., in Milford Square. It is not known how the conflagration originated and, at the time of going to press, it is not possible to gauge the amount of damage done. We regret to say that Colonel Grayle has sustained severe injuries, which might easily have proved fatal. His condition is critical, and it is feared that there may have been actual loss of life."
I put my thumb against the paragraph, handed it to Bertrand and resumed my search. The "Times" and "Morning Post" contained no reference to the fire, but the late London edition of the "Daily Gazette" gave me plentiful reading matter and rich food for reflection. There was a title, sub-title, headings to the paragraphs and a column and three-quarters of close, descriptive print. It opened promisingly with "Tragedy in M.P.'s House" and progressed through "Mystery Fire in Milford Square" to an account which must have been supplied two-thirds by Bannerman and the rest by the constable who had directed me to the studio in the lane. Grayle's physical state or the delicacy of his position had kept him from contributing anything.
The narrative, so far as I remember it, ran on these lines. Mr. Guy Bannerman, who acted as secretary to Colonel Grayle, had been reading in the smoking-room and went upstairs at about eleven o'clock. His bedroom looked on to a strip of garden, and in making the window secure he had observed that the curtains in the wooden loft over the garage were on fire. After telephoning to the fire brigade, he had seized a jug of water, hurried into the garden and tried to force his way into the loft. The door was locked on the inside, however, and he had to run back and round to a second door opening on to a lane at right angles to the Brompton Road. The room, when at last he got into it, was a sea of fire. Some years earlier it had been roughly fitted up as a work-room and was filled with books, loose papers and maps. There was nothing to shew how the fire had started nor how long it had been going on, but the papers on the floor, the table-cloth and curtains, several straw mats and a fur hearth-rug were blazing. However it had started, its destructive course had been materially assisted by the oil from a big lamp which had been overturned and broken. By the door the flames were fortunately less fierce than at the far end of the room, or Bannerman would have been unable to enter. He emptied his jug in front of him, ran down and refilled it from the garage, emptied, filled and emptied it again until the fire had been driven back a few yards. It was now possible for the first time to see through the glare of the flames, and he was horrified to catch sight of Grayle's body lying motionless half under the table. Dragging him to the door, he was about to carry him downstairs when he observed a second body on the far side of the fire-place. Then he remembered that two men had called to see Colonel Grayle on business half an hour before; he had assumed that they must have left before the fire broke out, as it was inconceivable that three men should have been unable to conquer the flames at the outset.
After carrying Grayle into the garage, Bannerman returned for the second victim, whom he recognised as a young man named Beresford. Of the third there was no sign in the front half of the room, and he had to go for more water. The wooden walls had now caught fire, the book-cases and chairs were smouldering and the oilcloth had blistered and cracked and was smoking ominously. A very few minutes' work were to shew him that one man armed with one bedroom jug could not even keep the flames from spreading. He ran backwards and forwards drenching the floor with water, but never clearing a path sufficient to allow of his advancing more than a third of the way into the room. When the fire-engines arrived, the flames had eaten through the walls and were licking the wooden gables of the roof; they had licked to so great effect that the first jet of water brought down a cascade of tiles and charred rafters.
While the hoses played, Bannerman looked to the men whom he had succeeded in carrying out. Grayle was alive and breathing faintly, though his clothes fell away in handfuls of black ash at the first touch, and his face and head were shockingly burnt and disfigured. Beresford gave no sign of life. His hair was singed and blackened where he had fallen on his face against the bars of the grate; his clothes were as much charred as Grayle's, but his body was almost unmarked, save for a bruise over the heart, no doubt from contact with the point of the fender. Death was probably due to asphyxiation; this was the unofficial opinion of the doctor, pending the inquest. Partial and temporary asphyxiation, indeed, was the only explanation why the three men had not either put out the flames or escaped from the burning room.
There remained the second visitor, and, as soon as the fire had been put out, Bannerman returned to the loft. By the light of a stable lantern, it was possible to make a cautious search. Three-quarters of the roof had disappeared, burnt away or fallen in heaps of broken tiles and blackened timber on the floor or in the garden; the walls on two sides, the floor at one end had disappeared equally. On what remained lay a pile of charred table legs and chair backs, broken glass and blistered deed-boxes, scorched books and odd, unidentified metal fastenings and joints, the whole dripping and lapped with sinister black water. Bannerman explored every inch of the wreckage and returned to the garage empty-handed. At the end, where the ceiling had fallen in, a smaller pile of wreckage reared itself fantastically on a platform of petrol cans. A revolving book-case and a filing cabinet, charred but intact, were half buried under broken tiles and blackened volumes of Parliamentary Debates; a stout table leg and a small safe lay further away; and there was the reeking half of a burnt fur-coat.
My interest in the "Daily Gazette" narrative quickened at this point. Mr. Bannerman had admitted Beresford and another (whose name was not given). They had tried the front door-unsuccessfully, because all the servants were out for the night. A constable had suggested their going round to the door in the lane; they had entered; there was no hint that one had left before the other. No doubt in a few hours negative proof would be forthcoming, but, until that appeared, or until a further examination could be made, it was possible that the second visitor had been a second victim.
"I'm afraid we've seen the last of young Beresford," I said to Bertrand.
"What's happened to him?" he asked.
"You haven't read this yet?" I said. "Well, wait till George comes back at lunch-time, and I'll tell you the whole story. I rather fancy that a good many people have seen the last of me. I say, Bertrand, have you ever been present at a cremation?"
He looked at me sorrowfully.
"I should have thought you'd had enough trouble for one night," he said.
"I have, I can assure you. But my career of crime is in its infancy—I'll explain all this at lunch;—I want to know what sort of fire it takes to consume a human body so that there's no trace of flesh, blood, hair, bone, clothing——"
"God knows!" he interrupted. "You'd better ring up Brookwood."
"I don't think I'm likely ever to ring up anyone again," I said—rather rashly.
Some while before his usual hour George hurried in with a scared expression and wondering, wide-open eyes. He was carrying the mid-day editions of two or three evening papers, and I saw that I should not have to explain much after all. The only point of interest to me was that Colonel Grayle was not yet in a position to give any account of what had happened.
"And, until he does," I told Bertrand and George, "I propose to keep quiet, too. You see, there's unfortunately no doubt that he and I each tried to kill the other and between us we've succeeded in killing Beresford, though I can't say for certain if it was asphyxiation or the blow on the heart. I'm responsible for that fire. When I see what story Grayle puts up, I shall be better able to decide."
It was not going to be an easy explanation to frame, and the papers were already beginning to wonder how two, and perhaps three, grown men could be imprisoned in a room with two doors, one of them unlocked. If Bannerman could get in some time later, they could have got out some time earlier. I was only wondering why Bannerman had suppressed my name; did Grayle think that he had two lives on his conscience?
The evening papers gave a better account of him, though he was still too weak to satisfy the curiosity of the reporters. They also reminded their readers of his political career and the possibility of his being included in the new government.
"Have you thought out your own position?" Bertrand asked me uneasily, throwing aside his paper.
"I don't know that I have," I answered. "I'd sooner leave Grayle to explain."
"H'm. You came here, stayed here—as much knocked about as you please, raving, unconscious. But, when everyone in London's asking how the fire broke out, no one in the house can find a word to say."
"If Grayle's unconscious, I'm unconscious," I answered. "He can invent the explanation of the fire, and I'll stand by what he says."
Bertrand sat heavily on the foot of my bed with an expression of obvious dissatisfaction.
"Every hour you stay here——"
"I don't pretend that it's ideal," I interrupted. "But I shall wait for Grayle."
I was not allowed to wait for Grayle. And, if neither Bertrand nor I were satisfied with my silence, we had no reason to be more satisfied when I broke it. Yet I hardly see how I could help myself and I am sure that on balance I do not regret my action. The morning papers next day added little to the established facts and wide-ranging guess-work of the evening before, though, as a humane man, I was glad to see that Colonel Grayle's progress was as satisfactory as could be expected. There was a brief report of the inquest on Beresford—death by misadventure, with asphyxiation as the immediate cause, unsatisfied wonder on the Coroner's part that such a fire could have taken place, coupled with regret that Colonel Grayle was not well enough to give evidence. Of greater interest to me was an obviously inspired hint that a new department was to be formed for the control of recruiting and that Grayle was likely to be made its head. If the announcement lacked novelty, its setting did not; for the first time Grayle's own paper—he subsidised it, if he did not in fact own the controlling majority of the shares—accepted responsibility for the forecast.
I read the announcement about eleven in the morning. I thought over it for perhaps half an hour. Then an idea came to me, which I was powerless to resist. Without considering its effect on him or on myself, without thinking of anything but that I meant to do this, had to do this, I crawled out of bed and made my way painfully downstairs to the library. I was astonishingly weak in body and I have good reason now to think that I was a little light-headed at the time, but I am not looking for excuses. When I had made sure that I had the library to myself, I dragged two very stiff legs to the writing-table at the far end, sat down and asked for Grayle's number on the telephone. It was repeated to me, and I realised for the first time that I had not yet decided what to say. And, before I could collect my thoughts, a woman's voice was exclaiming rather impatiently,
"Hullo! Yes! Hullo!"
"I want to speak to Colonel Grayle," I said.
"I'm sorry to say Colonel Grayle is ill."
"It's essential that I should speak to him. Will you please have me put through to his room?"
There was a perceptible pause, and I chose to fancy that my voice had sounded impressive.
"Er, who shall I say it is?" she asked.
"It will be enough, if you say that it's very urgent."
"I don't know that he's well enough to speak. Are you sure you can't give me a message?"
"If he's well enough to take a message from you, he's well enough to listen to it from me. Please be as quick as you can."
The pause this time was longer, there were mysterious metallic clicks and buzzes; then a man's voice said,
"Hullo?"
"Is that Grayle?" I asked.
"Yes. Who's speaking?"
As he had not recognised my voice, I could leave recognition or avowal to come later.
"It's about this announcement, Grayle," I went on.
"Who is speaking?" he asked again with growing irritation.
"Your appointment, I mean. You know what will happen, if you take it; you can't say you haven't been warned. I suggest that, before it's too late——"
Faintly, as though the sound were coming through cotton wool, I heard a muffled cry. I waited, but there was no other sound.
"Grayle?" I began again.
But there was still no sound.