The Waxworks Murder Read online

  The Waxworks Murder

  John Dickson Carr

  The body of a young woman, who has been stabbed in the back, is found floating in the Seine River. The body of another young woman, with a knife in her back, is found in the arms of a wax figure, the "Satyr of the Seine", in a local wax museum. All available clues lead directly to the infamous "Club of the Silver Key", where aristocratic masked club members mix and mingle in the darkened rooms in search of adulterous entertainment. Henri Bencolin and his friend Jeff Marle must penetrate the club and make sense of the few clues before Bencolin arrives at the solution and makes a very surprising wager with the murderer.

  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.'

  The figure he indicated was squirming through the ranks of tables, clearly bewildered at the surroundings. It was a little man with a big head and limp white whiskers. When the green light shone in his eyes he shut them, and tripped over one of the parties at a table. He was growing panicky and his eyes besought Bencolin. The detective moti
oned to me; we rose, and the little man followed us towards the back of the room. I shot a glance at the man with the crooked nose. He had dragged the head of one of the girls to his breast; he was rumpling her hair with one hand, absently, while he stared unwinkingly after us. , .. Close by the orchestra platform, where the blare was deafening, Bencolin found a door.

  We were in a low whitewashed passage, with an electric bulb burning dimly over our heads. The little man stood before us, his head on one side, his back bent, blinking up nervously. His red-rimmed eyes had an uncanny habit of seeming to grow round and then shrink, as with the beat of a pulse. His scraggly moustache and fan of white whiskers were much too large for the bony face; his cheek bones were shiny, but his bald head looked as though it had been covered with dust. Two tufts of white hair stuck up behind the ears. He wore a suit of rusty black, much too large for him, and he seemed nervous.

  'I do not know what monsieur wants,' he said, in a shrill voice. 'But I am here. I have shut up my museum.'

  'This, Jeff,' Bencolin told me, 'is Monsieur Augustin. He is the owner of the oldest waxworks in Paris.'

  'The Musee Augustin,' explained the little man. He tilted his head and stiffened unconsciously, as though he were posing before a camera. 'I make all the figures myself. What! You have not heard of the Musee Augustin?'

  He blinked at me anxiously, and I nodded, though I certainly had not. The Grevin, yes, but the Musee Augustin was a new one.

  'Not so many people come as in the old days,' said Augustin, shaking his head. 'That is because I will not move down on the boulevards, and put up electric lights, and serve drinks. Pah!' He twisted his hat savagely. 'What do they think? It is not Luna Park. It is a museum. It is art. I work as my father worked, for art. Great men complimented my father on his work —'

  He was addressing me half defiantly, half beseechingly, with earnest gestures, and twisting his hat again. Bencolin cut him short by leading the way down the corridor, where he opened another door.

  At the table in the middle of a gaudy room, whose windows were muffled with shabby red draperies, and which was obviously used for assignation purposes, a young man jumped up as we entered. Such places have a sickly atmosphere of small lusts and cheap perfume, and there comes to die mind a picture of endless meetings under a light with a dusty pink shade. The young man, who had been smoking cigarettes until the stale air was almost choking, looked incongruous here. He was tanned and wiry, with short dark hair, an eye which saw distances, and a military carriage. Even his short moustache had the curtness of a military command. During the time he had to wait, you felt he was nervous and at a loss; but now that something concrete had presented itself, his eyes narrowed ; he became at ease.

  'I must apologize,' Bencolin was saying, 'for using this place for a conference. Nevertheless, we shall have privacy. ... Let me present, Captain Chaumont, Monsieur Marie -an associate of mine - and Monsieur Augustin.'

  The young man bowed, unsmiling. He was apparently not quite accustomed to civilian clothes, and his hands moved up and down the sides of his coat. As he studied Augustin he nodded, with a grim expression.

  'Good,' he said. This is the man, then ?'

  'I do not understand,' Augustin announced. His moustache bristled; he drew himself up. 'You act, monsieur, as though I had been accused of some crime. I have a right to an explanation.'

  'Sit down, please,' said Bencolin. We drew up chairs round the table over which burned the pink-shaded lamp, but Captain Chaumont remained standing, feeling along the left side of his coat as though for a sabre.

  'Now, then,' Bencolin continued, 'I only wish to ask a few questions. You do not mind, M. Augustin?'

  'Naturally not,' the other answered, with dignity.

  'You have been owner of the waxworks for a long time, I understand?'

  'Forty-two years. This is the first time,' said Augustin, his red-rimmed eye wandering to Chaumont and his voice growing quavery, 'that the police have ever seen fit to - - '

  'But the number of people who visit your museum is not large?'

  'I have told you why. I do not care. I work for my art alone.'

  'How many attendants do you have there ?'

  'Attendants?' Augustin's thoughts were jerked back on another tack; he blinked again. 'Why, only my daughter. She sells tickets. I take them. All the work I do myself.'

  Bencolin was negligent, almost kindly, but the other man was staring straight at Augustin, and I thought I detected in those eyes which saw distances a quiet hatred, Chaumont sat down.

  'Aren't you going to ask him . . . ?' the young man said, gripping his hands together fiercely.

  'Yes,' Bencolin answered. He took from his pocket a photograph. 'M. Augustin, have you ever before seen this young lady?'

  Bending over, I saw a remarkably pretty, rather vapid face looking out coquettishly from the picture: a girl of nineteen or twenty, with vivacity in the dark eyes, soft full lips, and a weak chin. In one corner was the imprint of Paris's most fashionable photographer. This was no midinette. Chaumont looked at the soft greys and blacks of the photograph as though they hurt his eyes. When Augustin had finished studying the picture, Chaumont reached out and turned it face down. He leaned into the yellow pool of light; the brown face bitten and polished as though by sandstorms, was impassive, but a glow burnt behind his eyeballs.

  'You will please think well,' he said. 'She was my fiancee.'

  'I do not know,' said Augustin. His eyes were pinched. 'I - you cannot expect me to ...'

  'Did you ever see her before ?' Bencolin insisted.

  'Monsieur, what is this?' demanded Augustin. 'You all

  look at me as though I What do you want? You ask

  me about that picture. The face is familiar. I have seen it somewhere, because I never forget. People who come into my museum I always study, to catch' - he spread out delicate hands - 'to catch the expression - the shade - in living people - for my wax. Do you understand ?'

  He hesitated.

  Earnestly he regarded each of us, his fingers still moving as though the wax were under his hand. 'But I do not know! Why am I here? What have I done? I harm nobody. I only want to be left alone.'

  'The girl in this photograph,' Bencolin said, 'is Mademoiselle Odette Duchene. She was the daughter of the late Cabinet Minister. And now she is dead. She was last seen alive going into the Musee Augustin, and she did not come out.'

  After a long silence, during which he ran a shaky hand over his face and pressed his eyeballs heavily, the old man said in a piteous tone:

  'Monsieur, I have been a good man all my life. I do not know what you mean.'

  'She was murdered,' Bencolin responded. 'Her body was found floating in the Seine this afternoon.'

  Chaumont, looking fixedly across the room, supplemented: 'Bruised. Beaten. And - she died of stab wounds.'

  Augustin regarded those two faces as though they were driving 1dm back against a stone wall, slowly, with the prods of bayonets.

  'You don't think,' he muttered at last, 'that ‘ ?'

  'If I did,' said Chaumont, smiling suddenly, 'I would strangle you. That is what we want to find out. But I understand that this is not the first time such a thing has occurred. Monsieur Bencolin tells me that six months ago another girl went into the Musee Augustin, and — '

  'I was never questioned on that!'

  'No,' said Bencolin. 'The place was only one of the spots she was known to have visited. We thought you, monsieur, above suspicion. Besides, that girl was never found again. She may only have disappeared voluntarily. So many of these cases are like that.'

  In spite of his fear, Augustin forced himself to meet the detective's gaze calmly. 'Why,' he asked - 'why is monsieur so certain she went into my museum and never came out?'

  'I will answer that,' Chaumont interposed. ‘I was engaged to Mademoiselle Duchene. At present I am at home on a furlough. We became engaged a year ago, and I have not seen her since then. There has been a great change.

 
'That does not concern you. Yesterday Mademoiselle Duchene was to have tea at the Pavilion Dauphine with Mademoiselle Martel, a friend of hers, and myself. She had been behaving - oddly. At four o'clock she phoned me to say that she must break the appointment, giving no reason. I phoned Mademoiselle Martel, and found that she had received the same message. I felt that something was wrong. So I went immediately to Mademoiselle Duchene's home.

  'She was just driving away in a taxi when I arrived. I took another cab - and followed.'

  'You followed her... ?'

  Chaumont drew himself up stiffly. Rigid muscles had tightened down his cheek bones. 'I see no reason to defend my actions, A fiance has his rights. ... I grew particularly interested when I saw her coming to this district. It is not good for young girls to be here, daytime or not. She dismissed the taxi in front of the Musee Augustin. It puzzled me because I had never known her to be interested in waxworks. I debated with myself whether to follow her in; I have my pride.'

  Here was a man who never exploded. Here was a man who was growing into that austere mould which France had fashioned for her soldiers who were also gentlemen. He looked at us with a stare which defied comment.

  'I saw on the signboard that the place closed at five. It was only half an hour. I waited. When the museum closed, and she had not come out, I supposed she had gone by another entrance. Besides, I was — angry - at having been made to stand in the street all that time - without result.' His head bent forward, and he looked up at Augustin with brooding steadiness, 'I learned to-day, when she had not come home, and I went to investigate, that the museum had no other entrance. Well?'

  Augustin edged his chair back.

  'But there is!' he insisted. 'There is another entrance.’

  'Not for the public, I think,' Bencolin put in.

  'No ,,. no, of course not! It goes out on a side-street; it communicates with the back walls of the museum, behind the figures, where I go to arrange the lights. It is private. But monsieur said — !'