The Dorset House Affair (17 page)

‘Stand here, miss,' said Box, ‘and face the door. In a moment, I will step back into the vestibule, and the door will be closed behind me. You must wait until you hear me give a blast on this whistle, when the door will open and a young man in civilian clothing will enter. You must believe that it is Maurice – but more important than that,
you
must
believe
that
you
are
Elizabeth.
Can you do that? Think as she thought, and act as she acted. When you fire, the young man will pretend to fall dead. You must then step over his body – as Elizabeth did in her dream – and be prepared to confront me when I try to move you aside. Will you have sufficient courage to fire that pistol?'

‘I will, Inspector,' said Julia. ‘I'm no stranger to firearms. I met poor Maurice at a shoot in Northumberland.'

‘Well done, miss,' said Box. ‘Now, let us see how the business works out.'

In a moment he had gone, and the door had closed behind him. She was quite alone in the chilly passage. How frightening it was! The military pistol felt heavy in her hand, and her finger trembled
on the trigger. Yes, that door needed a good coat of brown paint! How had Elizabeth known that? But wait –
she
was Elizabeth, waiting to get her revenge for Maurice's devastating betrayal of her trust.

How many seconds, how many minutes had passed? Julia suddenly felt the unseen presence of her dead fiancé; it was as though his voice was calling to her, urgently trying to tell her something, and failing. Was it really Maurice's spirit? If so, what would she see when the vestibule door opened? Who – what – would come in?

She heard the shrill blast of a whistle, and in a moment the door from the vestibule opened, and a young man entered. He bore no resemblance to Maurice, but he was wearing evening dress, and he held a piece of paper in his hand. That was her message – the note that she had used to lure the betrayer to his death…. No, it had been Elizabeth who had done that.

The young man stood just inside the door, looking at her. Why did she feel such terror? Was it because Maurice's spirit was there? Her heart would burst if it beat so rapidly for much longer. What was that sound? Were there other people watching her? How could there be? The passage was empty. Should she turn round? No, no!

Suddenly, the young man spoke.

‘Elizabeth,' he said, ‘what are you doing with that gun? Give it to me!'

He lunged at her, and with a sudden rush of blind anger, Julia fired. The report was so loud that she almost fainted with fright. The young man gazed at her with something akin to reproach, and fell to his knees, the note fluttering from his hand. Slowly, his eyes closed, and his body relaxed. Julia Maltravers stood rooted to the spot, her ears ringing, her body trembling uncontrollably. What did Elizabeth do next?

‘Step over me, miss,' whispered the man lying on the floor. ‘Open the door, and go into the vestibule.'

It was like a corpse talking. With a shriek of fear Julia threw the
heavy pistol to the ground, stumbled across the young man, and pulled the door open. She heard Louise Whittaker say ‘two minutes and fifteen seconds', and then she stood with her back to the door as Elizabeth had done, her arms outstretched.

Immediately, Inspector Box appeared in front of her.

‘What is the matter, miss?' he asked. ‘You cried out in fear. What is your name?'

‘Elizabeth de Bellefort,' cried Julia. ‘What do you want? There's nothing in the passage. Leave me alone!'

Arnold Box took Julia gently by the shoulders, moved her away from the door, and threw it open. The passage was empty. There was no body, no piece of paper, and no revolver.

‘One minute and seventeen seconds,' said Louise Whittaker.

Julia Maltravers groped her way almost blindly to one of the chairs, and sat down. Once in the quiet, sunlit vestibule, and in the company of Louise and Mr Box, she would rapidly regain her composure. But it had been an unnerving, frightening experience. She saw Mr Box looking at her, and from the expression in his eyes she saw that he appreciated what she must have endured. Did he sense that she had imagined Maurice's ghost to be present in that vile place?

She flinched as Box put the whistle to his lips, and sent a resounding blast ringing down the garden passage.

As soon as Julia Maltravers ran from the passage, three men emerged from the island of screens and cupboards. They were all wearing evening dress, complete with silk-lined cloaks and top hats. Two of the men ran along the passage to where the
substitute
‘Maurice Claygate' still lay as though dead on the terracotta tiles. The third man quickly retrieved the note and the pistol, and opened the door leading into the garden.

The other two men swiftly picked up the inert figure, one of them looping his hands under the armpits while the second man
seized the ankles. They hurried with their burden along the passage until they reached the door into Cowper's Lane. Then they hoisted the figure upright between them, each with one of the ‘dead' man's arms held firmly around his neck. The third man opened the door, and watched as his colleagues staggered out into the quiet lane behind Dorset House. Closing the door behind them, he locked it, hung the key on its nail, and slipped
unobtrusively
into the garden. Only seconds later, Inspector Box threw open the vestibule door to see an empty passage.

Tom Fallon the groom, and Joe, his assistant, stood at the entrance to the stables in Cowper's Lane, talking quietly to Sergeant Knollys, who had a watch in his hand.

‘As far as you can remember,' said Jack Knollys, ‘this is the exact spot where you were standing on the night that Mr Maurice Claygate was murdered?'

‘As near enough as makes no difference, Sergeant,' said Tom. ‘What about you, Joe?'

‘I was just here, where you see me now,' said Joe. ‘It was a minute or two before you came out of the yard, Tom, and I was watching the toffs coming down the drive to their cabs. Of course, it was dark, with just a few gas-lamps glowing in the lane.'

Jack Knollys consulted his watch.

‘Look down the lane now, Joe,' he said, ‘and see what happens.'

In a moment the door to the garden passage was opened from the inside, and three revellers emerged shakily into the lane. Two of them were in full evening togs, but the third had neither cloak nor hat. Singing and laughing, they staggered down the steps into the lane, and made their way over the cobbles to a dilapidated hackney cab drawn up against the rear wall of Dorset House. With a great deal of fuss, and hoots of mirth, the two men managed to haul their companion into the cab, which immediately moved off in the direction of Addison Place.

‘Good God, Sergeant,' muttered Tom Fallon, ‘are you trying to say that two villains carried off our Mr Maurice right under our noses? What had they done to him? Was he drugged? He wouldn't have gone with them of his own accord. He would have seen Joe, there, and cried out for help. Or are you saying—?'

‘I'm saying nothing, Tom,' Knollys replied. ‘What you've just seen now was two stalwart police constables dragging another constable between them like a sack of potatoes. You can draw your own conclusions, but for the moment I'd like you to keep them to yourself.'

From somewhere in the house there came the shrill, strident blast of a police whistle. Sergeant Knollys nodded to the two ostlers, and made his way back into Dorset House.

Jack Knollys found Box in the grand saloon. The three officers who had assisted him in the re-enactment had retired to the far side of the room, where they were busy writing up separate accounts of their roles. Louise Whittaker and Julia Maltravers were sitting at a table, and Knollys saw that someone had brought them coffee. Perhaps the guvnor had seen to that.

‘Ah! Sergeant Knollys!' said Box. ‘How did things go out in Cowper's Lane?'

‘It was very convincing, sir,' Knollys replied. ‘PC Jones continued to sham dead, and the other two hauled him to his feet and propped him up between them. I was out in the lane with the two grooms, and if I hadn't known the truth of the matter, I'd have been quite deceived. It looked for all the world like a man far gone in drink being dragged by his merry mates to a waiting cab.'

Arnold Box looked at the two young women sitting at the table. Louise, he knew, was there primarily to give support to Julia Maltravers: she would not have wanted to play an active part in the business. But Julia – well, she had been very brave, and deeply affected by the experience of standing in for Elizabeth de Bellefort.
She deserved to hear what Box now believed to be the sober and brutal truth about Maurice Claygate's death.

‘Miss Maltravers,' he said, ‘we've shown that your fiancé could have been lured into that passage, where he was shot by Elizabeth de Bellefort. Three men, concealed in that island of cupboards, were able to remove the body very quickly – my three officers contrived to do so in one minute and seventeen seconds. Maurice Claygate was either dead or fatally wounded when he was removed from the house, and conveyed by cab to the address in Soho where his body was later found.'

‘Why?' Julia faltered. ‘Why did they choose to do such a
sacrilegious
thing?'

‘That's a question that I'm not allowed to answer, Miss Maltravers,' said Box. ‘It has to do with something connected with the secret services. Perhaps, one day, I'll be at liberty to tell you. For the moment, though, I'd like you to answer a question: Was there anything in your experience this afternoon that seemed different from Elizabeth de Bellefort's account of her dream?'

‘Well, Inspector, I did notice that there was no answering echo to the shot. Elizabeth had been quite insistent about that.'

‘That's a curious point,' said Box, ‘because I remember that echo myself. You may not have heard an echo because your pistol was loaded with blank cartridges. Still, let's record the fact, and pass on. Was there anything else?'

‘I remember being too terrified to turn round when I heard a noise – or fancied that I heard a noise – in the passage. I suppose it was one of your men, hidden behind those cupboards. In spite of that, though, I didn't feel that there was a demon standing behind me, which was something that Elizabeth felt very keenly. Oh, and I noticed that when the man standing in for poor Maurice came through the door, someone closed it quietly behind him – someone in the vestibule, you know.'

‘That was me, Miss Maltravers,' said Box. ‘But on the night of the birthday celebration – and
if
all this really happened – the
door was closed by a man called Harry the Greek, who was in the house, posing as a footman.'

Arnold Box sighed, and looked at Julia Maltravers. Poor girl! What must she think of Elizabeth de Bellefort now? What a desperate assassination it had been! How could either the brother or the sister know that the bullet would lodge in Maurice's spine? It could easily have passed through his body, and lodged in the woodwork of the door.