The Chief Inspector’s yank on the bell pull was unmistakable. Rick Allwar, one of Lady Sara’s footmen, answered it and then came to inform us that the Chief Inspector and another gentleman had declined an offer of breakfast and were waiting for her in her study.
Lady Sara arched her eyebrows. “Another gentleman?”
“A small gentleman in plain-clothes. He doesn’t look like a policeman.”
“What does he look like?” Lady Sara asked.
“He might be something or other in the City, but it is difficult to say. He has had an unsettling experience, and he feels certain that he didn’t deserve it.”
Lady Sara laughed. “Very well. Tell them I’ll be down shortly.”
The other gentleman’s stature and slight build certainly appeared small when compared with the Chief Inspector’s massive bulk, but I had the impression that he was far more accustomed to giving orders than to taking them. His name was Vincent Uppington, and his card, which he presented to Lady Sara when the Chief Inspector introduced him, listed an impressive home address in St. John’s Wood and a business address on Threadneedle Street, the latter suggesting that whatever he did in the City was important.
Both gentlemen contrasted oddly with Lady Sara, who wore her hair plainly, dressed plainly, and never stood out in a crowd, though many men thought her beautiful. It was only when she began to talk that people became aware of a remarkable presence.
Lady Sara introduced me as Colin Quick, her assistant. She got us seated around the large conference table in the centre of the room and paused for a moment to study Uppington’s card. “Twelve Maxton Place,” she murmured. “I believe I know that neighbourhood. It is a semidetached house, is it not? Red brick construction. Both it and its companion are unusually large houses even for that neighbourhood, with extensive grounds that are surrounded by an iron-railed fence.”
Mr. Uppington was startled to find so much known about him in advance, and he fell silent.
The Chief Inspector prompted him. “It would be best for you to tell Lady Sara exactly what happened.”
“Very well,” Uppington said, “though it’s not likely to be any more believable now than it was last night. My wife and I enjoy entertaining. We have a large party at least once a month. Not a dinner party, those are bores, but a congenial gathering of friends, with a buffet table and music for dancing after everyone has eaten.
“Last night’s party proceeded as our parties always have proceeded, people enjoying the food and each other, lively talk, lots of laughter. I gauge the success of my parties by the laughter. A party where everyone stands around looking glum is a total failure.”
Lady Sara, who gauged a party’s success by the amount of serious talk it generated, gave him an encouraging nod. The Chief Inspector was looking on restlessly. This was not his idea of how to make a report. Uppington had spoken half a dozen sentences and still hadn’t gotten to the point.
“So — the party was going well,” Uppington continued. “Most of the guests had finished eating, and the musicians had arrived and were tuning their instruments in a nearby room. Afterwards, several of my guests thought they had noticed a stranger among us, but I hadn’t and my wife hadn’t, and none of my servants saw him. He could have slipped in through the front door when the servants were busy elsewhere, of course, and with so many people present — the guest list totalled more than thirty, and there were the musicians, and the servants, and several servants who were strangers to us whom we engaged for the party — probably no one, including myself, knew everyone present by sight.
“But no one mentioned there being a stranger present, no reason why anyone should, until suddenly we all took notice of him. Our salon has a magnificent fireplace, and over it hangs a large portrait, an oil painting, quite well done, of an elderly gentleman with a long, white beard. It is a portrait of the grandfather of my landlord, who occupies the premises next door. It hung there when his father was the occupant, and he had a sentimental desire that it should remain there. I had no objection. As I said, it is a well-done painting of a distinguished-looking gentleman, so I agreed to keep the portrait there and care for it.
“When I first noticed the stranger, he was standing in front of the fireplace facing my guests, most of whom were at the other end of the room. He had the same long, white beard as the man in the portrait, his face looked exactly the same except for a sort of ghostly gleam about it, he was dressed exactly the same way, and he had struck precisely the same pose as that of the man in the painting — like this.” Uppington got to his feet and raised one hand, index finger extended.
“The room gradually fell silent as more and more of my guests left off what they were doing to stare at the tableau that had suddenly arranged itself before us. And it was a striking tableau, with that silent figure exactly resembling the painting that hung behind and above him. Then the figure began to be enveloped by a haze that turned out to be smoke. As the smoke became thicker, the figure became dimmer and dimmer until it vanished in a sudden puff of smoke that completely obliterated it.
“At first, there was concern about fire, but the braver of my guests ventured into the smoke, emerged coughing, and said there seemed to be nothing there but smoke. Both guests and servants began opening windows and trying to do something about the smoke. As visibility improved in the room, we became aware that someone was lying on the floor where the smoke had been the thickest. It was a man, and one of my guests, a doctor, examined him and informed us that he was quite dead. He had been stabbed in the back by something like an ice pick, which was left in the wound. At that point, I called the police.”
Lady Sara turned to Chief Inspector Mewer. “Have you identified the victim?”
“Not yet,” the Chief Inspector said. “No one at the party knew him, and we haven’t had much time for a wider search. He isn’t listed as a missing person.”
“Did he bear any resemblance to the man who struck a pose in front of the portrait?” Lady Sara asked.
Mr. Uppington and the Chief Inspector shook their heads simultaneously.
“And the man who struck the pose vanished completely?”
This time they both nodded.
“Does everyone who was present agree that there was no body on the floor when you first saw the man posed in front of the portrait?”
“Absolutely,” Mr. Uppington said. “I mean, there were about forty people staring at that end of the room. Certainly some of them would have seen the body if it’d been there.”
“How long had the victim been dead?”
“No more than a few minutes when the doctor examined him,” the Chief Inspector said. “The body was still warm.”
“Is there any possibility that the wound could have been self-inflicted?”
“Absolutely none. Not even a contortionist could have stabbed himself in the centre of his back.”
Lady Sara reflected for a moment. “This is what we have, then — a stranger somehow got into Mr. Uppington’s party, struck a pose in front of a portrait whose subject resembled him, and then vanished in a cloud of smoke. When the smoke cleared, no evidence of him remained, but another stranger lay murdered on the floor, correct?”
Again, both Uppington and the Chief Inspector nodded.
“Of course you searched meticulously for an explanation of the first stranger’s miraculous disappearance.”
“Meticulously,” the Chief Inspector agreed. He liked the word. He said it again, “Meticulously. There are no secret panels or trap doors in that room.”
“What do you make of it?” Lady Sara asked the Chief Inspector.
He responded with a loud harrumph. “In my time,” he announced, “I have encountered numerous tales of haunts. The tales never make sense. There are always as many descriptions as there are witnesses. If the ghost was a man, one witness saw him in a bowler, another in a topper, and a third swears he was hatless. One describes him as hatchet-faced, another as pie-faced, and a third as hollow-cheeked. His head was bald, or slightly bald, or he had a shaggy head of hair. He had a full beard, or a square-cut beard, or he was clean-shaven. He wore a craftman’s smock, or a business suit, or an evening dress. Mind you, all of those descriptions purport to describe the same illusion. If the ghost was female, it’s far worse. No two people ever see a ghost the same way. This case is different. When you have forty people who saw a man posed in front of a painting and each of them is able to describe him in considerable detail, and all of the descriptions are pretty much alike, I refuse to call him a ghost.”