Infernal Triangle
Elizabeth Chater
Infernal Triangle
Elizabeth Chater
Smashwords Edition
Published by Chater Publishing
“Infernal Triangle” Copyright 1962 Elizabeth Chater.
Originally published in The Saint Mystery Magazine under the name Lee Chaytor.
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Cover photo by AridOcean
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Chater Publishing would like to thank Jerry Chater for transcribing the following document.
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Infernal Triangle
The Very Important Personage picked up a bright-jacketed novel from the pile on the seat beside him, glanced at the lurid illustration, and threw it back with a snort of disgust. “It’s a mistake to teach children to read,” he said. “Leaves the poor little blighters vulnerable to this sort of rot.”
The man seated across from him in the train compartment permitted himself a discreet smile. The first call had already sounded, and he was hungry. “Literacy has its uses,” he offered mildly. “Enables one to read menus, for instance.”
“Never bother with ‘em. I tell the waiter what I want; he fetches it. Think I’m going to let some maître d’ and his confederates choose what I put in my stomach?”
“Newspapers?”
“Never read ‘em,” pronounced the VIP smugly. “Hear it all on the wireless. And at the club. Man can’t go anywhere these days without getting what our American cousins call an earful of the latest political perfidy or sex murder.”
“You’ll surely admit that it’s necessary to read one’s correspondence?”
“And that’s the last thing I’ll admit,” the VIP retorted.“My dear Chalfont, have you any idea of the sort of mail which comes to a man in my position? But of course you have. My secretary tackles the lot. What isn’t anonymous, scurrilous or advertising, is invitations to Gala Evenings of hideous boredom and appeals for contributions to Worthy Causes. No, my boy,” and he leaned back against the cushions with the air of one who has proved a point, “greatest blunder Homo Sap ever made, inventing an alphabet.”
“Jamie Jarvis had a case recently, where the ability to read would have prevented two deaths,” said Chalfont quietly. “To say nothing of saving a soul from damnation.”
“We’ve half an hour before the second call,” said the VIP, who had breakfasted late and well. “Suppose you tell me about it.”
The first time Lord Wilfrid George Valens Dubois saw the girl, she was fighting with another woman in the mouth of a stinking Neapolitan alley. Even distorted with animal fury, her face was strikingly beautiful, and her ragged filthy dress was stretched over the bold curves of a superb young body.
Lord Wilfrid was the rigidly conventional, unimaginative scion of a score of noblemen. He was in Italy because, having been rejected in public by a Duke’s daughter, he was conventionally removing himself from England to avoid the embarrassment of witnessing her nuptials to a more favored suitor. Since others of his class making the Grand Tour of Europe felt obligated to observe certain cultural landmarks, he was, on the morning in question, walking stoically toward a cathedral which was reputed to have a particularly notable mural, after viewing which he would be free to return thankfully to his hotel for luncheon. Instead, he saw Lydia. The most conventional and unimaginative of young men would have been brought to a halt by the sight of so much fury and so much beauty. The older woman had just knotted both her hands in the thick black hair of the girl, who retaliated with a particularly vicious foul blow. Wilfrid was shocked into interfering. Stepping forward, he raised his light cane and struck the girl across the shoulder.
“See here, young woman. That sort of thing’s not done, you know.”
Both women swiveled their eyes in his direction. His modish clothing obviously English and expensive, turned their thoughts to matters of profit. They released each other and advanced upon him.
As much shocked by his own interference—and the curious exciting warmth which ran through his body at sight of the girl,—as by the savagery of the women, Wilfrid thrust his gloved hand into a pocket and scattered a little shower of coins. At this moment, he wanted nothing so much as to get away from the sordid scene before he was recognized by someone who knew him. The older woman and most of the bystanders swooped down and scrambled in the muck for the silver. Wilfrid walked away, but the girl came after him and caught at his arm. Her eyes, the fierce bright blue of the Adriatic, searched his face. One grimy hand rubbed at the round shoulder where Wilfrid’s cane had left a red mark.
“You like me, si?”
Wilfrid stared at her coldly. One didn’t engage in conversation with ragged females. He tried to shrug off her hand. She clung the tighter.
“I am call’ Lydia. Very pretty, very nice.”
Wilfrid looked down at the dirty hand clenched on his pale grey broadcloth sleeve. Perhaps it was something in the small, imploring fist that decided him. Perhaps his pride had been more deeply bruised than he realized. It is true that the Duke’s daughter had mousey hair and rather small, close-set eyes—a smouldering wick compared with the spectacular fires of this waif. And he did intend to remain on the Continent until the furore of the wedding was over and forgotten. Several months, perhaps. It might be interesting to relieve the boredom of foreign residence by educating this child. Some of the secluded villas overlooking the sea were quite pleasant . . . Wilfrid removed the grimy hand and took a card from his case.
“You will clean yourself and come to this address,” he said in a low voice as he wrote on the back of the card. “Go to the servants’ entrance and ask for Wiggins.”