Strange to say, he had moved so quietly that Rocco had apparently not heard him. He stepped noiselessly to the door between the bathroom and the bedroom, and stood there in silence. Rocco had switched on again the lights over the washstand and was busy with his utensils.
Racksole deliberately coughed.
14. Rocco Answers Some Questions
ROCCO turned round with the swiftness of a startled tiger, and gave Theodore Racksole one long piercing glance.
'D--n!' said Rocco, with as pure an Anglo-Saxon accent and intonation as Racksole himself could have accomplished.
The most extraordinary thing about the situation was that at this juncture Theodore Racksole did not know what to say. He was so dumbfounded by the affair, and especially by Rocco's absolute and sublime calm, that both speech and thought failed him.
'I give in,' said Rocco. 'From the moment you entered this cursed hotel I was afraid of you. I told Jules I was afraid of you. I knew there would be trouble with a man of your kidney, and I was right; confound it! I tell you I give in. I know when I'm beaten. I've got no revolver and no weapons of any kind. I surrender. Do what you like.'
And with that Rocco sat down on a chair. It was magnificently done. Only a truly great man could have done it. Rocco actually kept his dignity.
For answer, Racksole walked slowly into the vast apartment, seized a chair, and, dragging it up to Rocco's chair, sat down opposite to him. Thus they faced each other, their knees almost touching, both in evening dress. On Rocco's right hand was the bed, with the corpse of Reginald Dimmock. On Racksole's right hand, and a little behind him, was the marble washstand, still littered with Rocco's implements. The electric light shone on Rocco's left cheek, leaving the other side of his face in shadow. Racksole tapped him on the knee twice.
'So you're another Englishman masquerading as a foreigner in my hotel,'
Racksole remarked, by way of commencing the interrogation.
'I'm not,' answered Rocco quietly. 'I'm a citizen of the United States.'
'The deuce you are!' Racksole exclaimed.
'Yes, I was born at West Orange, New Jersey, New York State. I call myself an Italian because it was in Italy that I first made a name as a chef - at Rome. It is better for a great chef like me to be a foreigner. Imagine a great chef named Elihu P. Rucker. You can't imagine it. I changed my nationality for the same reason that my friend and colleague, Jules, otherwise Mr Jackson, changed his.'
'So Jules is your friend and colleague, is he?'
'He was, but from this moment he is no longer. I began to disapprove of his methods no less than a week ago, and my disapproval will now take active form.'
'Will it?' said Racksole. 'I calculate it just won't, Mr Elihu P. Rucker, citizen of the United States. Before you are very much older you'll be in the kind hands of the police, and your activities, in no matter what direction, will come to an abrupt conclusion.'
'It is possible,' sighed Rocco.
'In the meantime, I'll ask you one or two questions for my own private satisfaction. You've acknowledged that the game is up, and you may as well answer them with as much candour as you feel yourself capable of. See?'
'I see,' replied Rocco calmly, 'but I guess I can't answer all questions.
I'll do what I can.'
'Well,' said Racksole, clearing his throat, 'what's the scheme all about? Tell me in a word.'
'Not in a thousand words. It isn't my secret, you know.'
'Why was poor little Dimmock poisoned?' The millionaire's voice softened as he looked for an instant at the corpse of the unfortunate young man.
'I don't know,' said Rocco. 'I don't mind informing you that I objected to that part of the business. I wasn't made aware of it till after it was done, and then I tell you it got my dander up considerable.'
'You mean to say you don't know why Dimmock was done to death?'
'I mean to say I couldn't see the sense of it. Of course he - er - died, because he sort of cried off the scheme, having previously taken a share of it. I don't mind saying that much, because you probably guessed it for yourself. But I solemnly state that I have a conscientious objection to murder.'
'Then it was murder?'
'It was a kind of murder,' Rocco admitted. Who did it?'
'Unfair question,' said Rocco.
'Who else is in this precious scheme besides Jules and yourself?'
'Don't know, on my honour.'
'Well, then, tell me this. What have you been doing to Dimmock's body?'
'How long were you in that bathroom?' Rocco parried with sublime impudence.
'Don't question me, Mr Rucker,' said Theodore Racksole. 'I feel very much inclined to break your back across my knee. Therefore I advise you not to irritate me. What have you been doing to Dimmock's body?'
'I've been embalming it.'
'Em - balming it.'
'Certainly; Richardson's system of arterial fluid injection, as improved by myself.
You weren't aware that I included the art of embalming among my accomplishments. Nevertheless, it is so.'
'But why?' asked Racksole, more mystified than ever. 'Why should you trouble to embalm the poor chap's corpse?'
'Can't you see? Doesn't it strike you? That corpse has to be taken care of.
It contains, or rather, it did contain, very serious evidence against some person or persons unknown to the police. It may be necessary to move it about from place to place. A corpse can't be hidden for long; a corpse betrays itself. One couldn't throw it in the Thames, for it would have been found inside twelve hours.
One couldn't bury it - it wasn't safe. The only thing was to keep it handy and movable, ready for emergencies. I needn't inform you that, without embalming, you can't keep a corpse handy and movable for more than four or five days. It's the kind of thing that won't keep. And so it was suggested that I should embalm it, and I did. Mind you, I still objected to the murder, but I couldn't go back on a colleague, you understand. You do understand that, don't you? Well, here you are, and here it is, and that's all.'
Rocco leaned back in his chair as though he had said everything that ought to be said. He closed his eyes to indicate that so far as he was concerned the conversation was also closed. Theodore Racksole stood up.
'I hope,' said Rocco, suddenly opening his eyes, 'I hope you'll call in the police without any delay. It's getting late, and I don't like going without my night's rest.'
'Where do you suppose you'll get a night's rest?' Racksole asked.
'In the cells, of course. Haven't I told you I know when I'm beaten. I'm not so blind as not to be able to see that there's at any rate a prima facie case against me. I expect I shall get off with a year or two's imprisonment as accessory after the fact
- I think that's what they call it. Anyhow, I shall be in a position to prove that I am not implicated in the murder of this unfortunate nincompoop.' He pointed, with a strange, scornful gesture of his elbow, to the bed. 'And now, shall we go?
Everyone is asleep, but there will be a policeman within call of the watchman in the portico. I am at your service. Let us go down together, Mr Racksole. I give you my word to go quietly.'
'Stay a moment,' said Theodore Racksole curtly; 'there is no hurry. It won't do you any harm to forego another hour's sleep, especially as you will have no work to do to-morrow. I have one or two more questions to put to you.'
'Well?' Rocco murmured, with an air of tired resignation, as if to say, 'What must be must be.'
'Where has Dimmock's corpse been during the last three or four days, since he -
died?'
'Oh!' answered Rocco, apparently surprised at the simplicity of the question. 'It's been in my room, and one night it was on the roof; once it went out of the hotel as luggage, but it came back the next day as a case of Demerara sugar. I forgot where else it has been, but it's been kept perfectly safe and treated with every consideration.'