Death from a Top Hat (2 page)

“There is death in that room!”

It was too much. I got up, scowling, and jerked open my door.

“What is this?” I protested. “A game?”

Facing to the northern clime,

Thrice he traced the Rhumic rhyme;

Thrice pronounced in accents dread,

The thrilling verse that wakes the dead…

The Samundic Edda

I
N THE DIM LIGHT
of the hall I saw three people. A man and a woman stood with their backs toward me, peering over the shoulder of another man who was down on one knee looking into the keyhole of Sabbat’s door. When I spoke they pivoted together like precision dancers. A monocle tumbled out of the crouching man’s right eye, bobbed twice at the end of its black cord, and was promptly replaced.

For a second no one spoke. The man with the monocle examined me closely, a cold scrutiny in his eyes that was vaguely disturbing. Finished with this leisurely, impudent survey, he turned a sudden disdainful back and again applied his eye to the keyhole.

“Scram!” he said. The acid in his voice made my annoyance boil over into anger.

“You took the word right out of my mouth,” I replied with feeling. Before I could expand on that theme, there was a prefatory cough at my elbow, and the other man edged in front of me, hat in hand, an ambassadorial smile on his face.

“Excuse me,” he said in a silky, oratorical voice. “I’m Col. Herbert Watrous. We have an appointment with Dr. Sabbat. Perhaps you know if he’s in?”

Stepping back so that the light from my room caught his face, I took a good look at him. He was a small, gray-haired man whose short legs were oddly inconsistent with a wide-shouldered muscular torso. There was a cropped military mustache in the exact geographical center of his fat face. Pince-nez glasses perched astride the bridge of his nose and were fastened to a slight gold chain that looped back over one ear and swung in uneven time to his movements. His chin waggled above a white muffler which was tucked neatly into a sprucely fitted dark overcoat.

I stared with frank, ill-mannered curiosity at this unexpected personal appearance of a figure whom until now I had always half believed to be an invention of the Sunday Supplement feature writers. I began, with some interest, to wonder what “the foremost psychical scientist in America” could be doing here, pounding on Sabbat’s door.

“How do you do,” I returned, with minimum politeness. “I don’t know if your friend Sabbat is in or out. Considering the racket you’ve been making, the latter seems indicated. And now, why don’t you people be considerate and go away—quietly? I’m trying to work.”

“I’m sorry if we’ve disturbed you,” he said, his hands fiddling with the ivory top of his walking stick. “But we…ah…that is, Dr. Sabbat was expecting us, and it does seem a bit odd, I might even say…” He hesitated, casting a nervous glance at the woman who stood beside him in what seemed to me an unnaturally rigid position.

“Alarming!” he finished abruptly. “Our host was quite insistent upon our arriving no later than 6:30.” He turned to the other man as if for confirmation, got none, and continued: “It’s not at all like him to…”

The woman swayed stiffly, and Watrous, with a swift motion, caught her arm. He looked at her anxiously and seemed to have forgotten about completing his sentence. The woman remained trance-like and soundless.

Stalling, and trying to fathom the queerness which hung around this group in the hall, I made conversation, inquiring, rather pointlessly, “What is Sabbat anyway, a chemist?”

The Colonel, eyes still on the woman, echoed absently, “A chemist?” Then after a pause he brought his attention back to myself.

“A chemist?” he repeated. “No, not…exactly. Why do you ask?”

“I just wondered. It smells that way now and then.” I became aware, as I said it, that the hall smelled that way now.

Watrous smiled faintly. “The hermetic art,” he said, half to himself, “
is
an odorous pursuit.” And then more directly: “The Doctor’s field is anthropology, with special emphasis on primitive magic and religions. He is not only a widely recognized authority on cabalistic theory, but also a practical student of many of the occult sciences. Furthermore…”

“Furthermore,” said the kneeling man quietly, “you talk too damned much.”

As he stood up and faced us I got a better look at him, though the light in the corridor was too shadowy for details and he seemed to avoid the additional illumination which came from my doorway. He was a man of medium height, in his late thirties. His body was admirably proportioned, and there was an unmistakable look of tense, willowy strength and trained coordination in his movements. I was puzzled by his clothes until I discovered who and what he was. His top hat was as shiny as they look in the advertisements, and an opera cape hung from his shoulders over evening dress that was obviously Bond Street. His face, twisted into a sardonic slant by the monocle he was wearing, had a taut, hair-trigger look. An inch-long strip of adhesive tape angled along his left lower jaw, strikingly out of key with his otherwise impeccable appearance.

Watrous pulled up momentarily, frowned, and then went on quite amiably as if nothing had happened.

“Allow me to introduce Mr. Eugene Tarot, of whom you have doubtless heard. Mr. Tarot—Mr.—” He glanced at the card tacked to my door “Harte, I think.”

I nodded coldly. The Great Tarot, of whom I
had
heard, was busily scowling at Watrous and didn’t even bother to nod coldly. Along with a considerable share of the public, I knew of him as the Card King, a sleight-of-hand performer of polished excellence, whose clever dexterity, chiefly in the manipulation of playing cards, had won him top theatrical bookings. He was, currently, garnering national publicity and pocketing a fat pay check for playing the title role in
Xanadu, the Magician,
a radio serial of his own devising that was presented nightly by a prosperous automotive sponsor.

Watrous blandly continued: “And this is Madame Rappourt, who is on her way to being recognized, if I may say so, as the greatest psychic personality of our day. The press has been so kind of late as to give her some of the attention which she so rightly merits. You have probably read…”

The Colonel’s introduction, continuing for another paragraph or so, began to sound like a side-show barker’s build up, and he lost my attention. The woman’s name was one that I half expected. Madame Rappourt was the Colonel’s discovery and
protégée,
a spirit medium who had created no little scientific and quite a lot of journalistic fuss in European circles. For the past two weeks, since her arrival in this country, the newspapers had showered the pair with publicity, largely favorable, which, paid for at line rates, would have amounted to plenty. I suspected that this was due partly to a prevailing lack of colorful news and partly to a smart press agent. When I discovered later that it was Watrous who had managed to induce the notices, I began to respect his flair for showmanship.

According to what he had given the papers, Madame Rappourt was a native of Hungary. A large, huskily built woman, with swarthy masculine features, she almost towered over the abridged Colonel at her side. Her eyes, imbedded in a blunt, yet somehow handsome, face were black holes, in each of which a tiny spark of light burned fiercely. She had an immense amount of jet-black hair which possessed an astonishing look of vitality and almost seemed to be growing before my eyes, in slow burnished movement. She wore a black evening wrap which she clutched around her awkwardly, as if she were cold.

I knew that she must be the owner of that oddly haunted voice, which, coming through my door, had talked of death.

Tarot shattered the Colonel’s rush of incipient oratory with simple directness. Without my noticing it, he had resumed his kneeling position at the keyhole, and I now saw that he held in his hands a key ring on which were a number of queerly shaped, angular bits of metal. I knew, intuitively, that they were picklocks.

“Turn off the spiel, Watrous,” he cut in, “and go see if that kitchenette door is locked.”

The Colonel stuttered in mid-sentence and then quickly did as he was told, going toward another door some twenty feet down the hall. Tarot caught my look of surprise as I saw the implements in his hand.

“You think,” he said, “that Sabbat is out. I don’t.”

“Nor do I!” As Madame Rappourt spoke I was looking full at her. Her lips did not move.

“That milk bottle,”—Tarot pointed at a pint of coffee cream standing near the door—” has presumably been there since early this morning. It is now six-thirty P.M. He hasn’t been out today, and besides…” He sat back on his heels and announced, with measured intonation, “This keyhole has been stuffed up from the inside!”

I watched the vague ghost of a smile materialize around Madame Rappourt’s mouth.

Watrous exclaimed loudly, “What!” and began pounding noisily on the kitchen door.

“Here, take this.” Tarot drew one of the picklocks from the ring and flung it toward Watrous. It rattled along the floor. “See if that keyhole’s stuffed too.” Tarot started probing again at the lock, one of the mortise-knob type with the large keyhole such as is ordinarily found on connecting doors.

Involuntarily I sniffed, and was again conscious of a vague laboratory odor. “I’d better call the police,” I said, turning.

Tarot whirled on me.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort—yet!” he said threateningly. “Watrous!”

“This lock’s stuffed up too!” Watrous shouted, his voice pitched high. His velvety bumbling gone, he almost squeaked, “I think I may be able to push it out, though.” He fumbled at the lock.

“Try it.” Tarot scowled and then added quickly, “Hell, no! Don’t be a fool. If he’s stuffed the keyhole, he’s probably thrown the bolts he has on these doors. Picking the locks won’t do us a damn bit of good. We’ll have to break in.”

Watrous came running back to where we stood. His face had taken on a purplish hue. He quavered breathlessly, “Perhaps Mr. Harte here has something we can smash a panel with.” He looked at me.

I was still glaring angrily at the officious Tarot. I turned without answering, went into my apartment and got the heaviest stick of firewood I had. Returning, I ignored Tarot’s outstretched hand and shoved it at Watrous. Then I walked back in to the phone and dialed Operator. “To hell with Tarot,” I was thinking, “he can’t push me around.” I told the operator to get me Police Headquarters and to snap into it.

Outside I could hear the battering of wood upon wood as I explained to an official, somewhat bored voice at headquarters that someone at 742 East 40th Street had possibly committed suicide by gas. I went back to the corridor and found that Watrous had succeeded in splintering one panel of the door. Another powerful swinging blow cracked it open, and a heavy cloying odor came out.

“Can you reach the bolt?” Tarot demanded.

Watrous crooked an arm through the opening, and we heard the sound of sliding metal. His hand was busy an instant longer, and then he withdrew his arm.

“This was in the keyhole.” He held up a wrinkled square of blue cloth and stood looking at it a bit uncertainly. I reached over and took it from him. It was the torn quarter of a man’s blue linen handkerchief.

Tarot meanwhile had gone into action with his picklocks. He tried one, and almost immediately we heard the catch click over. I shoved the cloth into my trouser pocket and stepped forward. Tarot, hand on the knob, was pushing at the door. It gave an inch or so, then stopped as if impeded by some heavy object. Tarot applied his shoulder, and the door moved slowly. He threw his whole weight against it, and we heard something scrape across the floor inside as the door swung inward far enough to allow an entrance. Tarot squeezed in and was silhouetted against a flickering yellowish light.

“You’d better stay here, Eva,” Watrous advised the woman and disappeared after Tarot. I started in. Madame Rappourt stood, tensely expectant, against the corridor wall, watching. Then she moved after us.

The others, having gone five or six feet into the room, had rounded the end of a davenport that had blocked the door but now slanted inward, angling away from the wall. They stood motionless, staring toward my left, within the room.

I jerked my head in that direction.

The air was misty with smoke. Four ovoid shapes of light that were tall candle flames wavered in the haze. They balanced delicately above the stubby ends of thick, black candles that stood in massive candlesticks of wrought iron. These, with a fifth in which the shortened candle had guttered out, were circularly arranged in the middle of the floor. The darkness, held off by their uncertain gleaming, lay thick around the walls and was heaped up in the corners of the room.

I saw only this at first. Then Tarot moved forward quickly, deeper into the room. Madame Rappourt behind me made a queer choking sound in her throat. On the bare, polished floor I saw the body of a man. He was clad in pajamas and dressing gown. His puffy, congested lips were drawn back from the jutting teeth in a fixed, distorted grimace; his eyes bulged hideously from their sockets and stared with an unblinking, fish-like intensity at the ceiling; his face, swollen and livid, was contorted into a grotesquely carved mask that bore not the slightest human expression. With difficulty I recognized Cesare Sabbat.