The Waxworks Murder

THE

WAXWORKS MURDER

JOHN DICKSON CARR

PENGUIN BOOKS

Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex

First published 1932

Published in Penguin Books 1938

Reprinted 1938, 1939, 1940

Made and printed in Great Britain by The Whitefriars Press Ltd London and Tonbridgc

'Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and piquancy and phantasm. . . . There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams.'

The Masque of the Red Death

'And we, all our lives, like Jules, are incurably romantic. We shall go, therefore, to our first ball at the Opera because it, too, will endeavour to revive the romantic age. ... And it will be the same. In the crystal cups on the buffet tables, the same golden sunlight of the champagne swims and sparkles. Beneath the black mask and below the broad concealing hat still shine the bright eyes of danger.'

GEORGE  SLOCOMBE

A Ghost with a Brown Hat

1

Bencolin was not wearing his evening clothes, and so they knew that nobody was in danger.

For there is a legend about this man-hunting dandy, the head of the Paris police, which is known and believed in all the night haunts from Montmartre to the Boulevard de la Chapelle. Your Parisian, even one with cause to fear detectives, prefers them to be picturesque. Bencolin had a habit of lounging through the bottes de nuit, the fashionable ones which begin as you ascend the rue Fontaine, or the murkier places clustering about the Porte Saint-Martin. Even those worst regions which lie tucked behind the left-hand side of the Boulevard Saint-Antoine and which visitors seldom hear of, find him drinking beer and listening to the whining, tinny sound of tango-music under a thick haze of tobacco smoke. That, he says, is what he likes. He likes to sit obscurely at a table with a glass of beer, in a gloom of coloured lights, hearing the loudest jazz music possible — to dream whatever dreams go on behind the hooked eyebrows of Mephistopheles. It is not quite a true statement, because his presence is rather less obscure than a brass band. But he does not talk; he just smiles in a pleased fashion, and smokes cigars all night.

The legend, then, says that when he wears on these occasions an ordinary lounge suit, he is out for pleasure alone. Observing this costume, the proprietors of doubtful cafes become effusive, bow low, and, as like as not, offer him champagne. When he wears a dinner jacket, he is on the trail of something, but he is only speculating and watching; the proprietors, though uneasy, can give him a good table and offer a short drink like cognac. But when he walks in evening clothes, with the familiar cloak, top-hat, and silver-headed stick, when his smile is a trifle more suave and there is a very slight bulge under his left arm - messieurs, that means trouble, and be sure that everybody knows it. The proprietor does not offer any drink at all. The orchestra gets a little off key. The waiters drop a saucer or two, and the knowing ones, if they have a favourite mome with them, hasten to get her out before somebody pulls a knife.

Curiously enough, this legend is true. I have told him that it is beneath his dignity as juge d'instruction to adopt this procedure. It does not, strictly speaking, come under the head of his duties at all, and could just as well be done by a minor inspector. But I know that to tell him this is useless, for he enjoys it immensely. He will continue to enjoy it until some quicker blade or bullet drops him in a gaslit alley in God knows what ugly neighbourhood, with his opal studs flat in the mud, and his sword-stick half-way out of its sheath.

I have accompanied him occasionally on these evenings, but only once when he wore a white tie. In that instance the night was very rough until we got the chain on the wrists of his man. I had at least two holes in a new silk hat, and I cursed and Bencolin laughed, until finally we handed the noisy gentleman over to the gendarmes. On the night in October which begins this chronicle, therefore, I listened with what my brethren call mixed feelings when Bencolin telephoned to suggest an outing. I said, 'Formal or informal ? He replied that it was to be very informal, which was reassuring.

We had followed the pink lights of the boulevards out to that garish, grimy, roaring section round the Porte Saint-Martin where brothels abound and somebody always seems to be digging up the street. At midnight we were in a night club, basement level, with considerable drinking ahead of us. Among foreigners, particularly with my own countrymen, there is a persistent belief that the French do not get drunk. This hilariously funny statement, I remember, was being discussed by Bencolin as we crowded in at a corner table and shouted our order for brandy above the din.

It was very hot in here, though electric fans tore rifts in the smoke. A blue spotlight played over the tangled shadows of dancers in darkness; it made ghastly a rouged face which appeared, dipped, and then was swallowed by the heaving mass. Moving in rhythm with a long-drawn bray and thud, the orchestra pounded slowly through a tango. Another brassy cry of horns, another rise, stamp, and fall, and the murmuring dancers swished in time, their shadows reeling on the blue-lit walls. Shop-girls and their escorts yielded to it with closed eyes, for the tango, of all dances, has the most wild and passionate beat. I watched the strained faces appearing and going, as faces swept by a black wave, under a light now turned green; and some looked drunk, and all looked weird and nightmarish ; and, through lulls in the uproar, when the accordion-wail broke, you could hear the whir of the fans.

'But why this place in particular?' I asked. With a flourish and a clink of saucers, the waiter had whirled our drinks across the table.

Not raising his eye, Bencolin said: 'Don't look up now, but notice the man sitting two tables away from us in the corner. The one who is so obviously keeping his eyes away from me.'

Presently I looked. It was too dark to see distinctly, but once the green edge of the spotlight picked out the face he indicated. The man had his arms around two girls, and was laughing between them. In the brief weird glare I saw the gleam of black brilliantined hair; I saw a heavy jaw, a crooked nose, and eyes which looked fixedly into the spotlight. It did not fit into this prosaic atmosphere, but I was at a loss to tell why. Seeing those eyes glare and turn away in the beam, it was curiously as though you had flashed a light into a dark corner, and a spider there had jumped and scuttled away. I thought I should recognize him again.

'Quarry?' I said.

Bencolin shook his head. 'No. Not at present, anyhow. But we are waiting for an appointment here. ... Ah, there's our man! He's coming towards the table now. Finish your drink.'