Patricia Wentworth - Beggar’s Choice

I made tracks down the stair, wondering all the time when somebody would put a head out of a door and scream. Nobody did. I passed the landing with a light on it and began to go down the next lot of stairs, but before I had taken a dozen steps there came a heavy banging on the front door.

Of course I knew exactly what had happened. The man who had been following me across the roofs had found the unbolted skylight and, I dare say, had taken a look inside; in which case he’d seen the open trap-door as well. He couldn’t follow me, because I don’t suppose that the law allows the police to break into a house, even in pursuit of a burglar, so he’d signaled from the roof to his pal below, and the pal was knocking at the front door. The minute any one came, there would be a request to search the house for a dangerous criminal; and with one man coming down from the skylight and another coming up from the hall, I would be fairly caught between two fires, unless I managed to get down into the basement before any one opened the door. Of course there might not be a way out of the basement.

I hadn’t a chance to find out, because I hadn’t taken two more steps down, before I could hear some one coming heavily up the basement stair. That did me in. I couldn’t go on, because the next turn would bring me in sight of the front door. I went back on to the lighted landing.

Two closed doors faced me. I listened first at one and then at the other. There wasn’t the slightest sound of any kind. I tried to see if there was a light on the other side, but I couldn’t make anything of it.

The heavy steps below reached the hall. I heard a bolt drawn back and the rattle of a chain. Then voices-one very gruff, and the other a woman’s voice, sleepy and cross. She kept saying things like “What did you say?” and “No, you can’t see her-she’s in bed.” And then, “I didn’t catch the half of that.” And then “What did you say?” all over again.

I guessed her to be an old servant, fussy, opinionated, and rather deaf. She kept the door on the chain, and had the policeman fairly bellowing before I heard her say, “Well, I’ll go and arst her.” And at the same moment I saw the handle of the farther door begin to turn.

I’ve never moved so quickly in my life. Before that handle had finished turning, I had opened the other door and was over the threshold. I heard some one coming out of the next room, and I heard the servant coming up the stairs. I shut the door and turned to see where I was.

I was in a lighted bedroom, and on the other side of it there was an old lady sitting up in bed.

It was a perfectly frightful moment.

The room was full of solid comfort and very large Victorian mahogany furniture. There was a wardrobe that would have hidden half a dozen people comfortably; it took up all one side of the room. The bed and the fireplace were opposite. The bed was a big double one. The old lady was sitting up on one side of it with a great many pillows. She had a large fluffy woolly shawl round her shoulders, and a gray wig pushed crooked on her head. Across her knees was a newspaper, and a book or two. She had a writing-block in one hand and a pencil in the other. She didn’t look up.

I advanced about three steps. There was a red carpet on the floor, and red curtains at the windows. The room was a double L-shaped one. From where I was now, I could see that both doors led into it. I had opened one at the exact moment that some one else had opened the other, with the result that I had come into the room as she went out, and neither of us had seen the other. I took another step forward.

The old lady spoke without looking up.

“A dark knight of Arthur’s court-and the name ought to have nine letters and end with an ‘S’,” she said in a deep, strong voice.

I took one desperate look at the wardrobe, but it was hopeless to think of getting the door open without being seen or heard.

The old lady tapped her block with her pencil.

“Nine letters,” she said. “A dark knight-a dark knight.”

I was brought up on the Morte d’Arthur. I counted on my fingers to make sure. Then I said.

“Sir Palomides the Saracen.”

I wondered if she was going to scream. I tried to look as little like a criminal as possible. I hoped that she had a grateful heart and would remember that I had given timely aid with her cross-word puzzle.

She didn’t scream. I went on hoping. She wrote the word down quite calmly-at least she began to write it and then stopped and asked me how it was spelt, all without looking up. I wondered what on earth was happening in the house. I could hear footsteps on the stairs-formidable, earthshaking footsteps.

The old lady finished writing Palomides. Then she counted the letters on her fingers, just as I had done, and heaved a sort of satisfied sigh.

“Palomides it is,” she said. Then she put down her pencil and looked up.

She had brown eyes, rather bulging, queer thick gray eyebrows, and a large fleshy nose. She looked at me with a bit of a frown.

“There wasn’t the slightest occasion for you to come,” she said.

I was so taken back that I nearly burst out laughing. If I could have thought of something to say, I’d have said it; because of course my voice was one of the things I was rather relying on to show her that I wasn’t the low-class ruffian I probably looked after shinning up and down all those wet roofs.

“Not the slightest occasion,” she repeated.

I thought her voice had slowed down and lost some of its ring. It struck me that she had seen the state of my knees. But she went on speaking.

“I told my niece there wasn’t the slightest occasion to send for you. It was a momentary faintness, and I am feeling perfectly well again.” Here she paused, frowned, took up a pair of spectacles which lay on the bed beside her, and putting them on, took a good long look at me.

I felt a most awful fool. When she spoke again, which she did after one of the longest minutes I have ever known, she was quite brisk. She said,

“You’ve had a busy day taking over from your uncle. I hope he’ll enjoy his holiday. You are Dr. Wilmington’s nephew, aren’t you?”

“You know I’m not,” I said, and waited for her to scream; but she only nodded her head.

“Speak the truth and shame the devil, I’ve seen you going up and down this street for the last three years. What do you want?”

She might well ask me that. It must have been nearly eleven o’clock, and I was in her bedroom.

I said, “Shelter,” and heard a trample of feet go past the door at my back.

“What have you done?” she asked with a good deal of interest.

“Nothing.” I wondered if she was going to believe me.

“Not murder?”

I laughed-I couldn’t help it.

“H’m!” she said. Then, very quickly, “Get inside that wardrobe!”

I didn’t wait to be told twice. The door was ajar, and I was inside and closing it in about half a second. If I hadn’t been quick, I should have been caught, because the other door, round the bend of the L, had opened too.

The niece came fussing into the room. She fussed about half-way across it, and then stopped and said, in a voice that was bright on top and all shaky underneath,

“Well, dear Aunt, you must have wondered where I was.”

“No,” said the old lady. “No, not at all.”

“Ellen wanted me for a moment,” said the niece.

“Quite so,” said the old lady. “My dear Fanny, how flushed you are! Ellen’s conversation must have been very exciting-or was it the police?”

I could almost hear Fanny’s jaw drop. She made a sort of bleating sound.

“Dear Aunt-”

“Oh, I know a policeman when I hear one-thumping up and down the stairs. What’s the matter? Is any one murdered?”