The Darke Chronicles (10 page)

As they grew nearer, the figures disappeared out of sight around a bend in the road. There followed a loud guttural scream and then silence.

When Darke turned the corner he came upon a body stretched out on the pavement. He knelt down and saw that it was Charles Stone, the obnoxious diner. He was alive and breathing heavily, his face bathed in sweat and grime. He gazed up at Darke, his eyes wild with fear. ‘I’ve been attacked,’ he panted hoarsely. ‘Did he get away?’

Darke glanced around him. Apart from Carla, there was no one else in view. The street was empty and silent.

Carla knelt beside Darke and helped cradle Stone’s head in her hands. ‘Are you hurt?’ she asked.

‘I… I
don’t think so. Not badly, anyway. Just … shocked … he wanted my wallet. He had a knife. My God, it was awful.’

‘Well, you’re safe now,’ said Carla.

‘Thank you.’

‘Do you think you can stand up?’ Darke took hold of Stone’s arm.

‘Yes, I think so.’ Slowly, they raised the man to his feet. There were no traces of swagger and bounce in Charles Stone’s demeanour now: he was shaken and afraid. ‘Thank heavens there was someone around. Who knows what would have happened if you hadn’t come to my rescue.’

‘Where did he go, this fellow?’ asked Darke, glancing around the empty thoroughfare. ‘Did he slip down this alleyway here?’

‘No, no. He ran off up the street, away from you.’

‘You seem very sure.’

‘Very sure.’

‘Perhaps you should see a doctor,’ suggested Carla.

‘No, no. I’ll be fine. I just need a brandy to calm me down. If you two kind people will see me home. I only live less than five minutes’ walk away … I don’t feel safe enough to go on my own.’

‘Of course,’ said Carla.

‘Thank you, and then I can reward you for your endeavours.’

‘Naturally, we’ll see you home,’ said Darke. ‘But no rewards are required.’

Carla nodded.

‘Oh, I shall insist,’ Stone smiled. ‘This way, then.’

While making their way slowly up the hill, Stone introduced himself and explained that he’d just been for a quiet meal at Leonardo’s restaurant. At the mention of the phrase ‘quiet meal’, Darke and Carla exchanged amused glances.

As predicted, in less than five minutes they had arrived at Stone’s impressive town house where more surprises were in store for them. The street door was ajar, and light from the hallway spilled out on to the stone pathway.

‘I don’t understand…’ Stone exclaimed as he approached the house. ‘I locked the door myself when I came out this evening. It is
the servants’ night off, you see. My wife has a heavy cold and she retired to bed early. That’s why I went to Leonardo’s alone.’

‘We saw you in there,’ Darke admitted.

‘Ah, did you,’ replied Stone distractedly. He shook his head in bewilderment. ‘So why is the door open now…?’

On entering the house it was clear that there had been an intruder. Vases had been knocked over, chairs turned on their sides, and drawers opened and their contents tipped on to the floor.

Stone ran to the bottom of the staircase. ‘Marjorie!’ he cried out. ‘Marjorie!’

There was no reply. With Darke and Carla close behind, he ran up the stairs and into the first bedroom on the landing. The sight that met their eyes stopped all three in their tracks. Lying sprawled across the bed in a blue nightgown was the body of a middle-aged woman. A knife had been plunged deep into her breast and the blood was still seeping on to the bedclothes. Although it seemed likely that she was dead, Darke took hold of her hand and felt for a pulse. There was none, although her flesh was quite warm. It was clear that she had not been dead very long. Stone gave a long moan of anguish and crumpled to the floor, sobbing hysterically.

Carla turned to Darke. ‘I saw a telephone downstairs. I’d better ring for the police. You keep an eye on Mr Stone, but don’t let him touch anything.’

‘Call Edward. Let’s have someone we know on the case,’ said Darke, extracting a visiting card from his pocket and handing it to her. ‘His telephone number is on there. He will most likely be at home in bed, but he won’t mind being disturbed…’

Carla gave him a wry smile. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ she said as she left the room.

With only a small degree of reluctance, Edward Thornton agreed to come along to investigate the matter. While they waited for his arrival, Carla took Stone away from the murder scene to the drawing room downstairs, where he consumed two large glasses of brandy. The alcohol, along with the shock of discovering his
murdered wife, seemed to send him into a kind of trance. He sat in a high-backed armchair, rocking backwards and forwards, staring at the floor and sighing.

Thirty minutes later Inspector Edward Thornton arrived, unshaven and somewhat bleary-eyed. He had Sergeant Grey with him, who had similarly been prised from his bed for the occasion. ‘You pick your moments, Luther,’ said Thornton, gazing down at the dead woman.

‘I thought you’d be interested. I know you’ve been rather quiet of late. So here I am, presenting you with a nice juicy murder.’

‘Tell me all about it.’

Darke took a large swig from his whisky flask and then told Thornton of all that had happened that evening after he and Carla had gone to Leonardo’s, including details of Stone’s strange behaviour in the Italian restaurant and the murderous assault that had taken place on the hill not far from the property developer’s house.

Thornton stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘It’s a funny one, all right,’ he said, gazing around the bedroom. ‘It looks as though the intruder murdered the woman first before ransacking the place, which is not the normal course of events in a burglary. There’s no disturbance upstairs, so the chap must have come up here specially to kill her. So it seems that he wasn’t just after valuables… and, of course, we won’t know if anything valuable has gone until Mr Stone is a little more…’ He made a gesture with his hands to suggest stability. ‘The lady didn’t surprise our man because it’s clear that she was murdered where she was found.’ Thornton took a sharp intake of breath. ‘Maybe murder was the motive, and the burglary bit is a bit of show.’

‘A sleight of hand, Edward? Very much in keeping with my line of thinking.’

‘What is your precise line of thinking?’

‘Nothing definite as yet. I agree that murder – rather than theft – appears to be the motive, but as for the rest … well, I’m afraid the waters are too cloudy at the moment, but something tells me that all is not as it seems.’

‘And
then there’s this mysterious attacker in the street. Are you sure you didn’t get a good look at him?’

Darke shook his head. ‘I can tell you nothing about him, not even his height. He was too far away and in shadow. Carla will give you the same story.’

‘You don’t suppose he could be the murderer do you?’ asked Grey, stifling a yawn.

Thornton pursed his lips. ‘At the beginning of an investigation we have to consider every eventuality. What do you think, Luther? Could he have run up here and murdered Mrs Stone and got away before you arrived?’

‘It’s possible, I suppose, but unlikely,’ Darke said. ‘I think she was murdered before the attack. The whole affair seems strange. What would be the motive for murdering Mrs Stone, I wonder? I suppose it’s possible that someone has a grudge against Stone and wanted to take some kind of revenge against him. He’s certainly not the most charming of men.’

‘We’ll have to ask him if he has any ideas – but not now. He looks like he’s had his brain scrambled. Poor devil. We’d better get him to the Yard for the night so’s we can interview him in the morning. Perhaps you’d like to be in on that.’

Darke nodded.

‘Very well, come along to my office at eleven tomorrow.’

‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

Darke and Carla walked slowly back to the hill, in search of a cab. Their minds were awhirl with the evening’s events.

‘I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something I’m not seeing,’ said Darke softly, almost to himself.

Carla smiled. ‘You’re not seeing the fellow with the knife.’

‘That’s true, but then neither are you. And where did he go? He vanished from view pretty sharpish.’

‘Rather
like you in the sack before they set it alight. The Disappearing Man.’

‘Exactly. Just like an illusion.’

Darke found a cab and escorted Carla home, before returning to his own quarters in Manchester Square. His mind was too active for sleep so, slipping on his smoking jacket and pouring himself a large whisky, he sat before the dying embers of the fire and ran over the events of the evening yet again. There was something unreal, contrived about things, as though he and Carla had participated in some kind of new magic act. At first he blamed his over-active imagination. He admitted that his fascination with mystery and illusion led him to see such affectations in normal life. But he knew that this excuse did not carry weight. He was certain that the incidents he had witnessed that evening were not exactly as they had been portrayed. Something was not real. That was his instinct, and he always trusted his instinct. There was some subterfuge at work, but at present he could not fathom what.

He took himself slowly through all that had happened that night, from the moment Carla had entered his dressing room until Edward had arrived at Stone’s house. He used his mind as a third eye, seeing himself along with the other characters in the strange drama. It was a three-dimensional dumb show. As the images paraded before his inner vision, he began to get a tingling sensation on the back of his neck.

‘Maybe,’ he said slowly, opening his eyes, his lips trembling on the brink of a smile. ‘Maybe.’

As he sat back in his chair and took a meditative sip of whisky, his cat Persephone emerged from out of the shadows and leapt into his lap.

‘Hello, my dear. Where have you been hiding?’ murmured Darke, stroking the cat. The cat purred gently in response. ‘It’s as though
you have been conjured out of thin air,’ observed Darke dreamily, the thin smile turning into a grin and brightening his features.

The early morning streets were still very quiet as Luther Darke made his way back to Golders Green, to the spot where Stone had been attacked – attacked by ‘the disappearing man’, as he now thought of him. He inspected the area carefully for some clue as to the assailant’s identity. He walked down the narrow alleyway that ran off at a tangent from the main thoroughfare. Stone had been adamant that his assailant had not gone down there, but Darke investigated anyway. He knew that he could not take anything at face value in this matter. Face value is the shield that helps the illusionist carry out his deception. It was a narrow, featureless avenue – featureless apart from an old wooden box tucked into a large crevice in the wall, some six feet down from the road. Darke found no difficulty in pulling the box out from its hiding place and opening the lid. As he examined the contents of the box, he beamed broadly.