‘Go away,’ he said bluntly.
‘Ah. Good morning,’ said Perry confidently. ‘Is this the House of M-Mister John Charnage?’
‘Sir John Charnage,’ said the butler with deliberate emphasis on the ‘sir’.
‘That’s the m-man,’ said Perry. ‘Sir John. We rather need to see him.’
‘I thought I told you to go away,’ said the butler.
‘It’s very important that we see him,’ said James. ‘It’s about his friend, Alexis Fairburn.’
The butler looked at James, and wiped his nose with the back of his meaty hand.
‘And who are you, exactly? ’he said.
‘He won’t know us,’ said James.
d‘He m-might know my family,’ said Perry. ‘Tell him that –’
James interrupted before Perry could say any more. ‘We are Luc Oliver and Arthur Stevens,’ said James. ‘But the names won’t mean anything to him. Just say we have important information concerning Alexis Fairburn and Professor Ivar Peterson.’
‘Wait there,’ said the butler and he closed the door on them.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Perry. ‘I should be more careful.
Which of us is which?’
‘You’re Stevens, I’m Oliver,’ said James.
Presently the butler returned. He didn’t look any friendlier but he let them into the house. ‘Sir John will see you,’ he said, reluctantly stepping aside.
The gloomy hallway had a stale, airless smell that reminded James of full ashtrays and dead flowers, and something else, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was decorated with sporting prints that hung on green striped wallpaper. There was a coat stand near the door, laden with coats and hats and next to it stood an elephant’s-foot umbrella stand. Perry dropped his umbrella into it next to the others.
‘Follow me, please,’ said the butler and he took the boys into a library. It was dark and cold in here. There was an untidy writing desk and shelves of ancient leather-bound books. James had the feeling that nobody had read any of them in a good many years. The walls, where they were visible, were painted midnight blue and the small windows let in very little light. A mini grand piano was pushed into a corner, and looked as neglected as the books.
The only thing of any interest in the room was a cabinet of glass jars. They looked innocent enough but each one was neatly labelled with the name of a poison – Arsenic, Cyanide, Strychnine, Hemlock, Curare, Snake Venom, Gila Monster Venom, Black Widow Spider Venom, Scorpion Venom, Death Cap/Destroying Angel (Cyclopeptide Mushrooms), Blue-Green Algae, Aconite/Monkshood, Belladonna/Deadly Nightshade… There were almost too many to count.
James stood in the chilly silence of the room, listening to the ticking of an ancient clock on the mantelpiece above the unlit fire and studying the jars.
‘Beats a collection of porcelain figurines or toy soldiers, doesn’t it?’ said Perry.
‘What sort of man collects poisons?’ asked James.
Before Perry could say anything, James’s question was answered.
The door creaked open on its hinges, and Sir John Charnage came in. He flicked a light switch. A small chandelier in the centre of the ceiling lit up and the room became a little more cheery.
James recognised Charnage instantly. He was the man who had turned up at the Crossword Society meeting pretending to be Gordius.
12
A Clarinet Sang in Berkeley Square
‘Well, well, well,’ said Charnage, smiling. ‘We meet again. Shouldn’t you be at school?’
‘We’re staying at the Eton Mission in Hackney,’ said James.
‘Doing good works for the poor,’ said Perry.
‘Bravo,’ said Charnage, raising an eyebrow.
He was wearing a smoking jacket with a cravat loosely tied around his neck. He had a cigarette clamped between his teeth and held a glass of brandy in one hand. His other hand held his ivory-topped cane. He ran a finger along his thin moustache and looked at the boys with his sleepy brown eyes. He took a long, slow drag on his cigarette, then let the smoke out noisily from his nose. He slumped into an upright leather club chair with a sigh, as if the effort of smoking was too great for him. He crossed his legs, all the time staring at the two boys.
‘So what’s this all about then, eh?’ he drawled, his voice as sleepy and lazy as his eyes. ‘Why have you come knocking on my door, interrupting my weekend?’
‘Why did you pretend to be Professor Peterson?’ said James.
Charnage looked at him in silence for a long while, and then took a gulp of brandy.
‘I believe I asked the first question,’ said Charnage.
‘We wanted to talk to you about Mister Fairburn,’ said James. ‘But I’m not sure now.’
Charnage’s mouth slowly formed itself into the shape of a smile.
‘I didn’t mean to appear rude,’ he said. ‘Can I get you some refreshments? I don’t know. What do boys like to drink these days? Fizzy lemonade? Soda water? Milk? It seems an awfully long time since I was a boy.’
‘We’re fine, thank you,’ said James.
Charnage chuckled quietly. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I suppose I have some explaining to do. Alexis is a friend of mine. We were at Trinity together.’ He chuckled again and tapped his temple with the hand holding the cigarette. Ash fell on to his sleeve and he casually brushed it away. ‘Screw loose, you know. Eccentric is not the word to describe him. He always had his head in the clouds, turning over some problem in that great brain of his, and he was apt to wander off for days on end, but recently, as you know, he wandered off and never came back. I was worried sick about him, not sure who I could trust.’
‘When Ivar Peterson came to you, you told him not to worry, though,’ said James.
‘You know about that, do you?’ said Charnage.
‘Yes,’ said James.
‘How?’
‘I can’t say right now,’ said James. ‘Like you, I don’t know who to trust.’
‘Very wise,’ said Charnage and he took another drink. ‘You’re right, though, I did tell poor old Ivar not to panic. If something dangerous was going on, I didn’t want him to get caught up in it. But he told me about the meeting of the Crossword Society and I thought it might be a good way to visit Eton and try to find out more. So I went in his place.’ Charnage stopped and stared at James over the rim of his glass. His eyes may have been tired and bloodshot, but they were fiercely intelligent. ‘We are the same, you and I, Luc,’ he said and gave a little nod. ‘We neither of us know who to trust. We are careful. We don’t go blundering into things.’
‘I’m trying to find out what’s happened to Fairburn,’ said James.
‘And I think you know a lot more than you let on at the time,’ said Charnage. ‘You were obviously playing your cards very close to your chest. But now here you are. So, are you going to tell me what’s going on, now? Have you spoken to Peterson?’
‘Not exactly,’ said James.
‘Only, a boy fitting your description was seen at Trinity shortly before Ivar was found dead,’ said Charnage, quietly, looking into his glass. ‘He is wanted in connection with the professor’s murder.’
‘We had nothing to do with that!’ Perry blurted out and James cursed silently.
‘My, my,’ said Charnage and he tutted. ‘You’ve been rather foolish, haven’t you?’
James said nothing.
‘You really should have gone straight to the police as soon as you knew something was wrong,’ said Charnage, dragging a hand through his hair.
‘We were scared of getting into trouble,’ said James.
‘And consequently you have got yourself into much deeper trouble.’ Charnage said this in such a way that James suddenly felt very small and stupid.
Someone shoved his head around the door, a beefy-faced man in a tweed suit. ‘Come on, Johnnie,’ he barked, ‘get a shift on. The cards are getting cold.’
‘I’ll be with you in a minute, Baxter,’ said Charnage
without turning around. ‘I’m just dealing with something.’
Baxter looked the two boys over with tiny bloodshot eyes and took a gulp from a tumbler of whisky. ‘Kids,’ he said dismissively.
‘Go back upstairs, old man,’ said Charnage. ‘I’ll join you when I’m done.’
Baxter muttered something and backed out of the room.
‘Do you want to tell me what happened?’ asked Charnage. ‘Or should I just call the police?’
‘If we tell you everything we know so far,’ said Perry, ‘could you keep us out of it?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Charnage. ‘If you tell me the truth, and stop all this lying.’
‘No,’ said James. ‘We’re not telling you anything else.’
Charnage stuck his nose into his brandy glass, inhaled the fumes then drained the contents in one swallow. He sucked his teeth for a moment and stood up.
‘Well, then, I might as well tell you that I had no intention of keeping you out of this,’ he said. ‘I am a respectable businessman. Are you seriously suggesting that I lie to the police? Lie about something as important as murder. I don’t know what sort of boys you are, but boys in my day had a stronger sense of right and wrong. We had respect for our elders, respect for the police. I sometimes despair about what is happening to this country. You are boys from a good school, as well. You are Etonians.’
‘What are you going to do?’ said Perry.
‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do,’ said Charnage. ‘I’m going to telephone the police and I’m going to tell them everything. I am also going to tell them that I have a couple of devious little snakes at my house who were witnesses to a murder. Witnesses? Or worse? I wonder.’ He stubbed out his cigarette and went to the door.
‘Stay here,’ he said, turning in the doorway. ‘Keep quiet and try not to dig yourselves any deeper into trouble than you are already.’
Charnage left the room, slamming the door, and, with a sinking feeling, James heard the key turning in the lock.
Perry turned to James. ‘Well, that could have gone better,’ he said.
‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ said James.
‘Come off it,’ said Perry. ‘You heard what he said. We’re already in hot water. If it gets any hotter we’re going to end up as soup.’
‘There’s something not right about all this,’ said James.
‘Well, then, let’s wait for the police,’ said Perry.
‘You stay if you like,’ said James who was already at the window, seeing if it offered a chance of escape. It didn’t. A sturdy iron grille barred it securely. The other window was the same.
‘I suppose we could always climb up the chimney,’ said Perry, craning his neck to look up inside the chimney breast.
‘Concentrate, Perry,’ said James. ‘This is one occasion when you’ll have to try and take things seriously. Is there another door?’
They quickly searched the room, but there appeared to be no other way out.
‘Think,’ said James.
‘Please,’ said Perry. ‘Ask me to do anything else other than think.’
‘Try,’ said James.
Perry’s face lit up. ‘Some of these old libraries have hidden doors,’ he said. ‘Disguised as bookshelves.’
Almost before Perry had finished speaking, James spotted a section of shelving where the books were fake. The spines had been removed and pasted on to wood. From a distance it looked like part of the bookcase, but closer up James could see that it was clearly a door of some sort, though there was no obvious handle. He pressed against it and rattled it, but it wouldn’t open. Perry nudged James as he spotted a small keyhole.
‘We need to find the key,’ said James.
He ran across the room to the writing desk and began to rifle through the drawers.
Then he froze.
‘Look at this,’ he said as Perry joined him.
‘What?’
James pointed to a letter on the desktop. There were notes and scribbles written all over it.
‘I knew it,’ said James. ‘It’s Fairburn’s cipher. And not a copy. It’s the original letter.’
‘The original?’ said Perry. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’d recognise it anywhere.’
‘But how on earth did it get here?’ said Perry.
‘The break-in at Codrose’s, when the place was set on fire. Charnage must have been behind it.’ James snatched up the letter and shoved it into his jacket pocket. ‘Are you convinced now?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Perry. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
They could find no key so James grabbed a letter opener instead.
‘This will have to do,’ he said, jamming the long thin blade into the keyhole in the secret door. He jerked it hard and wrenched it round until he heard a crunch and felt something give. Then he forced the blade into the frame near the keyhole and levered the door open.
There was a narrow, winding staircase behind. It led up to another door on the floor above, mercifully unlocked, and also disguised as part of a bookcase. They pushed it open cautiously and went out on to the landing.
They tiptoed along, past pieces of dark, heavy furniture, more sporting prints and gloomy family portraits.
They could hear jazz music, presumably coming from a gramophone. A clarinettist was making his instrument sound like a human voice. It moaned and wailed like someone complaining of hard times. Then a woman began to sing wordlessly. It was obvious that she was trying to sound like a trumpet.
The music was coming from a half-open doorway further along the landing. James inched forward and peered through the crack. The room was thick with smoke and the curtains were drawn, but he could see a group of men, including Baxter, sitting around a table. They had been drinking and playing cards, though they had stopped now and were looking at Charnage, who was standing with his back to the door.
There was a reek of tobacco and alcohol fumes drifting out of the room, together with a flowery scent that instead of disguising the other smells mixed with them horribly.
Charnage said something to the other men in the room and turned. James ducked away, quickly signalled to Perry to hide and flattened himself behind a rack of antique firearms.
Charnage limped out of the room, closed the door behind him and headed in the opposite direction from the hidden boys towards the main staircase. James and Perry waited a moment and then followed. They came to the banisters and looked down. The hallway appeared to be empty. The library door was still closed, with the key in the lock.
The boys crept down, the ancient wooden steps creaking beneath them. Halfway down they froze. They could hear someone talking and smell more cigarette smoke. James carefully leant over the handrail and saw a small room with glass doors under the stairs. Charnage was inside, talking on the telephone.
James indicated in dumb show what was going on and Perry nodded.
They could see the front door from here and a clear route to freedom.
They looked at each other.
Perry nodded again. James took a deep breath and they ran for it, leaping down the stairs. They hammered across the polished tiles, hardly believing that they had got away, but at the last moment a shadow fell across the frosted glass of the doorway. It was the butler. He had stepped out from a servant’s door to one side of the hallway.
There was a shout from behind them.
‘Stop them, Deighton!’
Charnage had come out of the telephone room.
They were trapped.
What happened next happened very fast, and James moved almost without thinking. Even before an idea had fully formed in his head, he had acted on it. He was working on instinct, not intellect. It was just like when he was playing the Field Game.
‘Ram!’ he yelled at Perry, who was just in front of him, and luckily Perry understood. He dropped into a crouch and James linked his arms around his waist. The two of them barrelled forward and slammed into the startled butler, who was thrown backw
ards against the front door, shattering the glass.
James wrenched the door open, crushing the butler against the wall. He then grabbed Perry by the back of his jacket and hauled him out on to the doorstep.
The grocer’s boy was standing on the pavement outside, gawping, open-mouthed, at the house. He was carrying a full basket of food; cans and glass jars and bulging brown-paper parcels. James snatched the basket off him, and, just as Charnage came flying out of the front door, he tossed it at him with all his strength. Charnage yelled and fell heavily on to the step. The grocer’s boy tried to catch hold of James, who shoved him out of the way and sprinted northward across the square with Perry hard on his heels. They ran down the middle of the road and a noisy Model Y Ford rattled round the corner towards them, its horn blaring. The two boys parted, swerved round either side of the car and carried on running. At the top of the square, as they turned into Davies Street, James glanced back. The butler was standing in the doorway, but Charnage was running after them, swinging his cane.
‘He’s after us,’ James shouted. ‘Don’t stop.’
‘I wasn’t intending to,’ gasped Perry.
They ran into Grosvenor Street then crossed over New Bond Street into Hanover Square, their feet slapping hard on the pavement, pedestrians scattering as they approached. James didn’t risk looking back again. He was a fast runner, but had to be careful not to outstrip Perry and leave him behind.
They didn’t stop running until they came to Oxford Street, which was busy with Saturday shoppers visiting the big department stores. They slowed down, lost in the crowds.
‘You’re going to have to tell m-me what’s going on,’ said Perry, trying to catch his breath. ‘How does Charnage fit in with all this?’
‘I’m not sure, yet,’ said James. ‘All I know is that he’s lied to us from the start. And I’m afraid I didn’t buy any of that saintly guff about respecting your elders. Those men in that room had been playing cards all night. You could tell. The room stank of cigarette smoke and stale bodies. So, one minute Charnage is gambling and drinking with his cronies and the next he’s had a terrible attack of the morals and he’s up on his high horse ranting on about how boys these days don’t know how to behave properly.’