Chapter Nine

Scene in a Courtyard

 

“You almost knocked me over.” I was held effectively in Uncle Miles’ arms, and even Elaine paused for a few seconds before running to the corner of the alley. She came back. “He’s gone.”

I attempted explanation. “It was a man, he crossed the road suddenly and ran down there.”

Uncle Miles looked at us as if we had taken leave of our senses. “What man? Who was he?”

“He said his name was Ulfheim. Or it might have been Strawman.”

“Strawman?” Uncle Miles began to giggle and then the giggle turned into a laugh. He pointed to the name on the corner. It said Brick Alley. Between gasps of laughter he asked, “Do you suppose he’s a bit of the straw they make bricks out of? He’s vanished into the bricks, that’s where he’s gone. Strawman into Brick Alley.”

I began to laugh too. Elaine looked at me in amazement.

“Strawman,” I said. “Went into Brick Alley. Can’t make bricks without straw, do you get it?”

“Yes. And that’s funny?”

I gave up. Uncle Miles coughed. I introduced him and explained, as I felt I had to, that she was the niece of Ted Sullivan.

He looked hunted. “I told you I wasn’t at home, I don’t know anything about it.”

“No Wainwright wants to remember it or know much about it, isn’t that right?” Elaine demanded militantly. She had put on her glasses. “It’s no good going after that man now, whatever his name was. And anyway, I must get back to the office.”

“Shall I see you again?” I was aware that I wanted to.

“You’ll find the number in the book.”

Uncle Miles gazed after her. “What a forceful young woman. Whatever were you doing together? I don’t suppose you’ll tell me. But I have a bone to pick with you, Christopher. Let us find somewhere to pick it in peace.”

Five minutes later we were settled in the tea lounge of one of Folkestone’s stuffier restaurants. While we were talking there, and Uncle Miles was ordering coffee and sweet biscuits, of which he was very fond, I had been trying to solve a problem. Had Mr Ulfheim bolted down Brick Alley because he wanted to avoid Uncle Miles, had Uncle Miles put his arms round me in order effectively to check our pursuit of Mr Ulfheim? Or had Mr Ulfheim simply been engaged in getting away from us? I could not ignore the fact that through meeting Uncle Miles we had lost Mr Ulfheim, yet looking at his red face and bald head, considering his air of pettish annoyance and the way in which it was assuaged by the sweet biscuits, it was hard to associate him with anything that required even a small amount of devious cunning.

“We should have had tea,” Uncle Miles said abruptly.

“Why?”

“Because you need tannin.” I laughed dutifully. “You didn’t tell me you’d been to see that woman.”

For a moment I couldn’t think what he was talking about. “You mean Betty Urquhart?”

“That terrible woman.”

I said mendaciously, “I thought Stephen would have told you.”

He bit into another biscuit. “Stephen’s conduct was absolutely – ” Words failed him, and it was not often that words of a sort failed Uncle Miles. He began again. “He told me late this morning, when it was unavoidable. She is coming down to Belting this afternoon. I said that I should not be there, it was quite impossible for me to meet her. And I told him what I thought of his behaviour. I did not even stay for lunch.” That was serious indeed. It was almost unknown for Uncle Miles to be away at lunch-time, unless he was going to a cricket match or a race meeting. “I ate here in Folkestone, very poorly I may say.”

“I’m sorry.” And I did feel contrite, almost responsible for the poorness of that lunch. “I meant to say something, but didn’t know how to. And then everything seemed to happen at once, and I really forgot about it.”

“Aren’t you going to eat those biscuits?”

“No. Do have them.”

His acceptance of them signified the making of peace between us. “What did you think of her? What did she say about me?”

I gave him a carefully edited account of our meeting. Miles sighed, with a note both of regret and of relief. “Marrying her was the greatest mistake of my life.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I liked her.”

“I dare say you did. She was always mad about men. That was her trouble.” He spoke as if it were something chronic, like indigestion. “She seemed to be happy, then?”

“I think so. She’s naturally gay, isn’t she?”

He looked at me, and pushed away the last biscuit with distaste. “Kent are playing Derbyshire here at Folkestone, did you know that? I shall spend the afternoon there. If you’d like to come – or would it be too much of a fag?” I must explain at this distance of time that Arthur Fagg was then Kent’s opening batsman.

“No, I shall go back to Belting. I want to see what happens when Betty and Doctor Foster meet David.”

I regretted calling him David as soon as I had spoken, but Uncle Miles didn’t notice. “Give her my kind regards.” He seemed conscious of the inadequacy of the phrase. “Don’t tell her I went away because of her coming, she was always saying that I ran away from things. I suppose you think she’s right.”

It seemed impossible to answer this. I described Ulfheim and asked Uncle Miles if he had met him.

“No, I don’t think so. In fact I’m sure I haven’t. I don’t know what you’re playing at, but don’t do anything silly.” He smiled with a sort of wistful unhappiness. “That’s a silly thing to say, isn’t it? I shall do what people always do in their dotage, go and watch the cricket.”

 

The bus got me back to Belting by three o’clock. Neither Betty Urquhart nor Foster had arrived, and in fact there seemed to be nobody about. At least, that was my impression until I found Inspector Arbuthnot in a corner of the drawing-room. In the daylight he looked less grey, but not much less ill-at-ease. He greeted me with what might almost have been called warmth, and asked what I had been doing in Folkestone. I did not want to tell him about Mr Ulfheim, for fear that he would warn me off making any further investigation, and so said that I had been shopping. He asked when the visitors were coming.

“Some time this afternoon, I don’t know when. That’s why you’re here, is it, to see what happens when they meet him?”

“Of course.”

“And if they confirm that it is David you’ll arrest him? But for which murder?”

He stared at me. “What d’you mean?”

“I’ve found the details of Ted Sullivan’s death. I’ve talked to his niece, Elaine Sullivan – ”

“So that’s what you were doing in Folkestone.”

“I know you suspected David of killing Sullivan then, but I suppose you hadn’t got enough evidence. So if this man had been David he wouldn’t have come back, knowing that a murder charge might still be hanging over his head.”

He took out his pipe, looked at it, and said, “Damn it, I’m going to smoke my pipe, even if I am in the Wainwright home.” When he had lighted it with an air of defiance he went on, “So you think I had David Wainwright marked down for Ted Sullivan, do you? It wasn’t my case, you know that, it was Greensword’s, and he was a cautious old devil. They lied themselves silly up here, you may have heard that if you’ve been talking to the Sullivan girl. If it’d been me in charge I’d have put them through the mill, but it’s easy to say that when you’re just a sergeant and don’t have to carry the can. Greensword was cagey, he was thinking of his pension. Let’s go in the garden. In here I feel as if I ought to swallow all the smoke.”

We walked out into the big courtyard and down by the tennis court. Arbuthnot puffed at his pipe. I noticed that his grey suit was shiny at the elbows. “Supposing I was to tell you that I never suspected David Wainwright of killing Sullivan, would you be surprised?”

“Very surprised. Is that what you are telling me? What about Margaret Clay?”

“Margaret Clay.” He dismissed her with a wave of the pipe. “That’s not the way things were. I mean, that’s not the thing that mattered.”

“Then there was nothing to stop David from coming back?”

“As far as we were concerned, nothing. I believe you’re holding out on me, young man. You’ve found out something, or think you have, and you’re not passing it on. I’ll only say to you, don’t do it.”

I breathed deeply, took the plunge. “Is it right that Sullivan stumbled across a nest of pro-Germans, and one of them killed him?”

His big head jerked up. “Who told you that?”

I did not feel that I could say. If Ulfheim wanted this passed on to Arbuthnot, he could do it himself. But it seemed to me that I saw what was implied. “This person is still in the district, am I right? And something about David’s return made things difficult for him.”

He did not reply. A red sports car had entered the drive as that beetle car had done long ago, or in a time that seemed long ago. But where the beetle had come over the cattle grid with decent caution this car clattered across it at thirty miles an hour and swept past us before turning dramatically, with a screech of tyres, into the space before the house. There were two people in it, and one of them was Betty Urquhart. She was the passenger. The man in the driver’s seat was a handsome young Negro. As we approached them, Betty saw me and waved. She had a bright-coloured handkerchief round her head which she took off, shaking her bronze curls. She wore a grey jersey and bright scarlet slacks. Her companion had on a thin suit of light coffee colour with a dazzling tie held in place by a clip and black suede shoes that ended in needle points.

The inspector murmured, “Miss Urquhart, I presume. And friend.”

I introduced him, and she raised her brows. “Don’t tell me the queen bee has called in the police. Oh, by the way, this is Max Miners, he’s an action painter. I must say the old pile looks just exactly the same at it did. I’d hoped it might be nearer to falling down. Where is everybody? Or are they all dead and buried, as they should be? In particular, where’s my ex? I can’t wait to see what he looks like. I told you I had
an ex living here, didn’t I, Max?”

“Sure you told me,” Max Miners said. He put a hand on her arm, and I realised that she was distinctly drunk. I understood also, and it was my first lesson in one of the most disconcerting facts of life, how different people look in different surroundings. Seen in her natural ambience Betty Urquhart had delighted me by her forthright naturalness. Here under the shadow of Belting she seemed to me raucous and ill-mannered. I made no allowances, the young never make such allowances, for the strain she must have felt in coming back to a place she hated. I did not realise that she had been drinking to give herself Dutch courage, and I was priggishly appalled by her lack of taste in bringing down so totally unsuitable a companion.

Now she spun on her flat heel, opened the door of the sports car and closed it again with a bang. “Come on then,” she cried out. “Wake up inside there, it’s judgement day.”

As if in magical response to this call the door of the house opened and Stephen came out, followed a few moments later by David. At the same time Clarissa appeared, as she so often did, round the side of the house that led to the stables, accompanied by her bull terriers. It struck me at the time that the scene was a repetition of the one that had taken place on David’s arrival, although the personalities were different. But when history repeats itself, as has been said before, it is likely to be as farce, and so it proved now, as Betty Urquhart moved forward and took hold of Stephen by both his hands.

“Brother Creep,” she cried enthusiastically. “If it’s not Brother Creep in person. I’d have known you anywhere. How’s every little thing in the family homestead, Brother Creep?”

Stephen snatched his hands away as though they were burned. A tide of colour came up his neck and ebbed away. He tried to say something, but nothing intelligible came out.

“But where’s Miles, where’s my ex? Skulking inside, I suppose.” She put her hands to her mouth and called his name.

“He’s gone into Folkestone,” I said, and with that she turned her glazed look on me.

“Run away. Afraid of seeing me again. Typical, no guts.”

“He’s gone to watch the cricket.” I was conscious of how feeble this sounded. The words produced an unexpected reaction.

“Cricket,” Max Miners said. “Is it a county game?”

“Kent and Derby.”

“What luck, sweetie. We can go into this Folkestone and look at it for an hour or two, we’ve got time, eh? Might see your boy friend there.”

“He wasn’t my boy friend, idiot, I told you he was my ex.” She moved free of Max’s encircling arm.

“It’s all the same,” he said, grinning happily. He spoke beautiful English.

“I was the boy friend.” That was David, speaking for the first time. He had been moving towards Betty cautiously, rather as a cat approaches somebody who may be friend or enemy. His nervous depression of the morning seemed now quite gone, and he stood smiling at her with eyes that shone. I thought, this is the moment of truth, yet even as I thought this I wondered why I should place more reliance on her word than on those of Lady W or her children. Perhaps it was because I felt, even in my revulsion of her drunkenness, that there was an unusual honesty about Betty Urquhart, so that even if she had an axe she would never grind it. If I close my eyes now I can summon up the scene as I saw it then, the hot sun shining down and giving the colours an almost Mediterranean brightness, the scarlet and grey of Betty and the black and coffee colour of her smiling companion, the little red car standing on brownish gravel, the tense white face of Stephen and the grey watchful head of Arbuthnot, the dingy brown-greyness of Clarissa’s tweed and the threadbare blue of the man who called himself David Wainwright, the shiny brightness of his eyes.

“You. You’re supposed to be David Wainwright?” she said as she circled him, and she said it half-questioningly, rather as though a dozen other possible David Wainwrights might be produced in course of time for her inspection.

“Oh, come on now.” He spoke with assurance, but whether it came from genuine recognition I found myself unable, as often before, to determine. “I understand that this is embarrassing, but still.”

“Embarrassing, hell. You’re not David.” Stephen made a noise that in another man could have been called a chuckle. “How could anyone ever think so?” she asked of the blue sky, and now Stephen did speak.

“I’ve always said he was an impostor.”

“What the hell, I mean, you’re about the same height as he was, but the way you walk is different and your face is different, it’s thinner altogether than David’s was and I don’t mean just the flesh, I mean the bone structure. David looked like a lamb and you look like a wolf and, well, I just don’t see how anybody with an eye for faces could be fooled.”

“If Mamma hadn’t been ill she would never have been deceived,” Stephen said in eager explanation, and to David: “You’d better go while you can.”

David ignored him. He went up to Betty and gripped her shoulder. “You silly bitch, don’t you understand what I’ve been through? I’ve been years in a Russian labour camp, do you expect me to look the same as when I slept with you?” His voice had been high and shrill, but now it dropped as he said, “Perhaps you’d like to test me out.”

What happened after that was sudden, and the effect was strange, as if a film taken in slow motion had become transformed into a Keystone Cops comedy. In two strides Max Miners was beside David, had turned him round and had swung a fist at his jaw. David put up a hand to protect himself but the blow still caught him, although not with much force. He slipped, and fell on the gravel. A car, a sober black Austin saloon, crossed over the cattle grid and into the courtyard. And Clarissa let loose her bull terriers. It may be that she was hoping that they would attack David and pursue him down the drive as he ran away for ever. It may be that she let the dogs loose by accident. I never found out. What happened in fact was that they dashed unhesitatingly at Max Miners. One of them worried his beautiful coffee-coloured trousers and the other made for his body.

Betty pulled open the door of the car, got in, and cried, as though some last straw had been dropped on her heavily-laden head, “Oh hell, Max, come on, let’s go.”

Max was at this moment struggling with the dogs, but he managed to obey her. There was a sound of tearing cloth, a look of anguish on Max’s face, and then he was in the driving seat, had started the engine, and the little red car was whirling away down the drive like, as the old phrase has it, a bat out of hell. (But why should bats in particular wish to wing their way out of hell?) The bull terriers trotted back to Clarissa and one of them deposited at her feet a patch of coffee-coloured cloth. David got to his feet. And a stiff tall bowler-hatted man got out of the Austin and looked at us as if we were all lunatics. I had seen him once before, and I recognised him. It was Humphries.