The Sleeping Sphinx dgf-17 Read online

  The Sleeping Sphinx

  ( Dr. Gideon Fell - 17 )

  John Dickson Carr

  VIOLENCE

  PASSION

  TERROR

  There was a streak of madness in the ancient and honorable Devereux family. No one, not even the family doctor, could tell when, or in whom, it might make its ugly appearance.

  Their own grandmother said of the two beautiful Devereux girls: "One of my granddaughters is all right But I've been worried about the other since she was a little child."

  Now one of the girls was dead, murdered. And no one knew which of the sisters—the dead Margot, or the lovely, living Celia— was a cunning, sexually deranged, exceedingly dangerous madwoman.

  ♦THE SLEEPING SPHINX-JOHN DICKSON CARR AT HIS BEST!"

  JOHN DICKSON CARR

  THE SLEEPING SPHINX

  CHAPTER I

  The road, so long that it looked narrow, had on its left the thick greenery of Regent's Park and on its right the tall iron railings around St. Katharine's Precinct of St. Katharine's Church. Just beyond, next to St Katharine's, you could see the line of trees which screened from the road a terrace of tall, stately houses looming white through the dusk.

  Number 1, Gloucester Gate. He could see it now.

  It was the turn of the evening: faintly blue and white, with birds bickering from the direction of the park. The heat of the day still lingered in this avenue which seemed no less rural for being in the middle of London. Donald Holden stopped in his slow walk, and gripped his hand around one of the bars of the fence. Panic? Something very like it, at least

  Of all the ways in which he had pictured his home coming —and there had been many of them—he had never pictured it as anything like this.

  Things were much too altered in seven years. You might have hoped they were not ruined; but at least they were altered.

  He thought he had appreciated the full force of it that afternoon. He had been wrong. He was only beginning to appreciate it now. Major Sir Donald Holden, late (theoretically) of the Fourth Glebeshires, seemed to have gone through eternity since the afternoon. What he saw now was not the white house, with its Regency pillars, where Celia might be waiting. What he saw was room 307 at the War Office, and Warrender sitting behind the desk.

  "Do you mean," Holden heard himself saying again, "that for over a year I'm supposed to have been dead?"

  Warrender did not shrug his shoulders. That would have been too elaborate a gesture. But a twitch of his underlip conveyed the same effect

  "Fraid so, old boy," Warrender admitted. Holden stared at him. "But—Celia ... !"

  "Good God," Warrender said flatly. "Don't tell me you're married?"

  During a silence, while they looked at each other, War-render displayed emphasis by unscrewing the cap of a fountain pen and holding the pen as though he were going to sign something.

  "You know as well as I do," said Warrender, "that if anybody gets a job like yours, where we've got to pretend he's still with his regiment and kill him in the line of duty, he's allowed to tell his wife. And we inform his solicitor. The other thing only happens in books and films. We may be a peculiar lot here," his khaki-covered arm indicated the War Office, "but that’s understood."

  "I'm not married," said Holden.

  "Engaged, then?"

  "No. Not even engaged. I never asked her."

  "Oh!" murmured Warrender. With an air of finality, with a curt breath of relief, he screwed the cap back on the fountain pen. "That's different. I was afraid I'd been remiss."

  "You haven't been remiss. When am I supposed to have died?"

  "As far as I remember, you were killed with the Glebes during the attack on ... well, I forget the name of the place; I can look it up in the file in half a tick . . . but it was in April just before the war ended. A year and three months and something today. Didn't Kappelman ever tell you?"

  "No."

  "Damn careless of him. You were supposed to have got a decoration. It was in all the newspapers. Quite a to-do." "Thanks."

  "Look here," Warrender began abruptly, and checked himself. Warrender rose to his feet: very lean, very tired looking, hardly half a dozen years older than Holden himself. He stood with his knuckles pressed against the top of the desk, supporting his weight.

  "When Jerry started cracking up," he added, "it was the signal for the big boys to hare for cover. Von Steuben bolted to Italy; we had to get Steuben; and you were the man to get him. But they had an intelligence service too. So you had to 'die,' like several other people, to give you a better chance. Well, you got Steuben. The old man's very pleased about that. Look here: you wouldn't really like a decoration of some kind, would you?"

  "Great Scott, no!"

  Warrender's tone grew bitter.

  "It doesn't matter now," he said, and nodded toward the windows overlooking Whitehall. "The war's been over for a year and three months. You're out of the army; out of MI 5; out of everything. But can't you get it through your head that there was a time, not very long ago, when it did matter a devil of a lot?"

  Holden shook his head.

  "I wasn't complaining," he answered, with his eyes fixed on his companion. "I was only ... trying to get used to it"

  "You'll get used to it," said Warrender. He broke off. "Look here, what are you staring at?"

  "You," said Holden. "Your hair's gray. I never noticed it until this minute."

  Both of them were silent for a moment, while the noise of traffic rose up from Whitehall. Warrender instinctively put up a bony hand to his hair; his mouth seemed twisted.

  "Neither did I," said Warrender, "until the war was over."

  "Well, good-by," Holden said awkwardly. He stretched out his hand, and the other took it

  "Good-by, old son. All the best. Ring me up one day, and we'll—er—have lunch or something."

  "Thanks. I will."

  Remembering not to salute, since he was now in civilian clothes, Holden turned toward the door. He had his hand on the knob when Warrender, hesitating, abruptly spoke in a different voice.

  "I say. Don."

  "Yes?"

  "Damn it all," exploded Warrender, "I'm not your superior officer any longer. Can't you tell an old pal anything?" "There isn't anything to tell."

  "The hell there isn't Come back here. Sit down. Have a cigarette."

  Holden slowly returned, with an inner breath of relief he would never have allowed even Warrender to hear. He sank down in a bartered chair beside Warrender's desk. Warrender, glowering, pushed forward a cigarette box as he himself sat down; the smoke of two cigarettes rose in heavy, office-stagnant air.

  "Your hair's not gray," Warrender said accusingly. "You're perfectly fit, except maybe your nerves. You've got a brain like . . . like . . . well, I've often envied you. What's more, wait a minute!" Again Warrender broke off, his eyes narrowing. "By George, I've got so much on my mind"—his cigarette indicated the filing-cabinets—"I forgot that tool Two years ago! Or thereabouts! Didn't you come into a title or something?"

  "Yes. Baronetcy."

  Warrender whistled.

  "Any money attached to it?"

  "Quite a lot, I believe. Which reminds me," said Holden blowing out smoke, "that I'm supposed to be dead. I suppose somebody else has got it now."

  "How many times have I got to tell you," groaned War-render, in a sort of official agony, "that this idea you've got —about the War Office not telling solicitors, when an Intelligence bloke is supposed to be dead—only happens in plays and films? You're all right. Your solicitor knows."

  "Ah!" said Holden.

  "Then that’s off your mind," Warrender said soothingly. He eyed Holden with refreshed interest. "So you're Sir Donald
now, eh? Congratulations. How does it feel?"

  "Oh, I don't know. It's all right"

  Warrender stared at him.

  "My dear chap, you're crackers," he said with real concern. "This last job in Italy has turned your brain. Why aren't you dancing the fandango? Eh? Why aren't—" He paused. "Is it this Celia?"

  "Yes."

  "What's her other name?" "Devereux. Celia Devereux."

  By twisting sideways at Warrender's desk, Holden could see the little desk calendar with the staring red figure 10. Wednesday, July tenth. It was a reminder so sharp pointed that for a moment he closed his eyes. Then, suddenly, he got to his feet and went to one window, where he stood staring down.

  Despite the comparative coolness of the office, heat danced in shimmers down stolid Whitehall. After the rainiest June in a quarter of a century, July had come in with a blaze of sun which heated the blood and dazzled the eye. A red bus rumbled past, its new paint glaring after wartime shabbiness. Sandbags, barbed wire in Whitehall, had all been swept away as traffic thickened and thundered. Seven years.

  Exactly seven years ago yesterday—the ninth of July—Margot Devereux, Celia's sister, had been married to Tborley Marsh in the little church of Caswall St. Giles. All Holden's thoughts and emotions centered round that wedding, as a kind of symbol.

  It had been, he could not help remembering, another such hot day as this. The thick grass blazing in that remote corner of Wiltshire; the shining water round Caswall Moat House; the cool little cave of the church, in whose dimness white and blue and lavender dresses mingled with the colors of flowers.

  The rustling, the occasional cough, all came from the pews of spectators behind his back. As Thorley's best man, he stood a few paces behind Thorley and to the right: with Celia, as maid of honor (how well he could remember the light of painted windows through the transparent brim of her large hat!) standing over on the other side of Margot.

  Who was it who had said that churches were like "the treasure-caves of pirates?" Confound these literary associations, which always kept twining into his mind. Yet the place had a cavelike smell and atmosphere, too, with its glimmer of stained glass and brass candlesticks. And . . .

  He couldn't see Thorley Marsh's face: only Thorley's broad, thick back, straight in black broadcloth, radiating good nature like that rising young stockbroker's whole personality. Yet Thorley was desperately nervous. And Holden could see, past the gauzy white of the veil, a part of Margot’ s profile— the healthy, hearty, laughing Margot, acknowledged as the beauty of the family, to whom Celia's delicacy formed a marked contrast—with her head a little lowered, and color under her eyes.

  How fond he was of both Margot and Thorley! How he knew, in his bones and soul, that this was going to be the happiest of marriages!

  "I, Margot, take thee, Thorley," the husky contralto voice could barely be heard, "to my wedded husband." It was in little gasps, after the clergyman's urban utterance. "To have and to hold from this day forward. For better, for worse. For richer, for poorer. In sickness, and in health . . ."

  A wave of emotion, as palpable as the scent of flowers, flowed out from the little group of spectators in the pews. Everything was emotion, catching at the throat. He had not dared to look at Celia.

  How afraid he had been, with that disquiet which always haunts the best man, that he was going to drop the ring! Or that Thorley would drop it when he handed it over. And that they would both have to scramble all over the floor for it, in front of all those people! Then the shock of astonishment at the ease with which it could be managed, when Mr. Reid in his white surplice bent forward and in a ventriloquial sort of voice murmured: "Place the ring on the book, please."

  So neither of them could fumble it He and Thorley had looked at each other in surprise, as though this were a special new bit of business ingeniously devised by the church for their benefit

  When it was all over, after what seemed an interminable amount of kneeling on hassocks—yes, that had been the high point of emotion—everybody ran forward, in a whirl of colors, and began kissing everybody else. He remembered the grandmother, Mammy Two (eighty years old, her face so whitened with age that it looked powdered) sniffing, with her handkerchief at her pale-blue eyes. He remembered Obey, in a funny hat—Obey, who had nursed both Celia and Margot—hovering in the background. And Sir Danvers Locke, who had given the bride away. And old Dr. Shepton looking on dubiously through his pince-nez. And little Doris Locke, aged twelve, one of the flower girls, for some reason suddenly bursting into tears and refusing even to attend the reception afterward.

  As for Celia .. .

  It was at this point that Frank Warrender's patient, common-sense voice roused him out of a dream. "Well, old son?"

  "Sorry," said Holden. He swung around from the window, smiling, and crushed out his cigarette on the edge of the sill. Warrender, with concern, watched that lean figure against the light from the window: the thin, intellectual face, brown from an Italian sun, with its narrow line of moustache and inscrutable eyes.

  "I was thinking," Holden continued, "about Margot’s wedding to a friend of mine named Thorley Marsh. Seven years ago, just before the war broke out"

  Warrender's eyebrows went up. "Margot?"

  "Celia's elder sister. Margot was twenty-eight; Celia maybe twenty-one. There were only three of the family left: Celia, and Margot, and the old grandmother they called Mammy Two." Holden laughed, not loudly. "Weddings, in retrospect, are always supposed to be funny. I wonder why."

  "God knows, old boy. But..."

  "I suppose," Holden went on thoughtfully, "because anything that involves strong emotion is afterward considered funny, from matrimony to having high explosives dropped on you. But in weddings there's a sort of (what's the word I want?) a sort of kindliness mixed up with the emotion, and ifs always remembered with a shout of laughter. 'Do you remember when you—?' And so on."

  He was silent for a moment, opening and shutting his hands.

  "Margot is beautiful," he added suddenly, as though War-render had doubted it "I never saw her so beautiful as then: all colored up, so to speak. Rather tall for a woman; chestnut-colored hair under the white veil; brown eyes set wide apart; dimples when she laughed, which was often. And likeable. The sort of girl who's captain of the hockey team at her school: you know? But Celia—my God, Celia!"

  "Look here, Don. Why are you harping so much on this wedding?"

  "Because it's the keynote of everything. It went to my head with a romantic bang. And I lost my chance with Celia."

  "How do you mean, you lost your chance with Celia?"

  Again Holden was silent for a moment.

  "I met Celia in the evening," he answered. "Alone. In the path, under the trees, beside that same little church. I . . ."

  And again there returned, poignant in vividness, every aspect of that day: every tinge of the sky, every fragrance of grass. The wedding reception at Caswall Moat House—with the sun making a hot cuirass of black broadcloth and starched shirt, and the dun-colored building mirrored in burning water. There had been a Devereux at Caswall ever since it had been known as Caswall Abbey, and one William Devereux bought it from the eighth Henry.

  He remembered the tables set out in the great hall, which had been remodeled in the eighteenth century. The toasts, the reading of telegrams, the haste and fuss in one throb of excitement. Then, afterward, the departure of bride and groom, wearing soberer clothes, in Thorley's car... .

  All over.

  "Just as it was getting toward twilight," said Holden, "I went for a walk in the fields. I didn't expect to meet anybody: I didn't want to meet anybody. Emotion, you seel I went toward the church, which is between Caswall Moat House and Caswall village. There's a little back gate, and a little path that goes past the side of the church between it and the churchyard, with beech trees arching over it. And there I met Celia.

  "I was tired. I was—a little crazy, I think. Anyway, for a second we just stood there looking at each other, maybe t
wenty feet apart Then I walked straight up to her and said . . ."

  "Go on," prompted Warrender, glowering down at the desk.

  "I said to Celia, 'I'm in love with you, and I’ll always be in love with you, but I haven't got anything to offer you.' She cried out, 'I don't carel I don't care!' And I said, 'Let's never speak of it again, shall we?' She looked at me as though I'd hit her, and said, 'All right, if you insist' And I hurried away from there as though the devil were after me."

  Warrender sat up straight, crushing out his cigarette in an ash tray.

  "You blithering ass!" he almost shouted.

  Ten seconds in time! Holden was reflecting. Ten seconds in time, that conversation with Celia, and the repressed emotion of months pouring out of it. The green twilight of the trees, damp and fragrant Celia with her hands pressed together, slender and gray-eyed; with brown hair like Margot, but otherwise utterly unlike her vivacious sister. Ten seconds —and then everything torn away. He became aware that Warrender was cursing him very comprehensively.

  "You blithering ass!" Warrender ended, on a note of mania.

  "Yes," Holden assented calmly. "I think so now. And yet," he shook his head, staring at the desk as Warrender did, and yet you know, I'm not altogether sure I wasn't right"

  "Pfaa!" said Warrender.

  "Think for a minute, Frank. In 1939 the Devereuxs had Caswall with umpteen-hundred acres. They had a big house here in town, out Regent's Park way. And money. Plenty of money." He reflected. "I don't know how well off they are now. Rather better off, I should think; because Thorley was an up-and-coming man in the city, and I understand he's made a good thing out of the war.—In honest business, of course!" he added hastily, as he saw Warrender’s eyebrows draw together.

  "Oh, ah? Maybe, I'm cynical. Well?"

  "And, in 1939, what was I? A languages master at Lupton, with three hundred a year and my keep. Fine old public school, yes. Cosseted life, nothing to worry about But a wife? I think not"

  "But now you're Sir Donald Holden, with a bucketful of cash!"

  "Yes." Holden's tone was bitter. "And not very glad to have two brothers, far better men than I'll ever be, die in action so that I could come into the title. Anyway, about Celia . . ." "Well?"