THERE was heavy mist in the morning. It lay like white, heavy wool over the land. Down a road which might, for all the three men could see of it, as well have been a river, crawled Anthony’s car. Anthony drove. Beside him, huddled in an oil-stained, creased and ancient weather-proof of an astonishing yellowness, was Dyson. Upon the nearside running-board, clinging to door-top and windscreen, stood Flood. He was bent half-double, peering at the road’s left-hand edge. Every moment he gave hoarse directions. By them Anthony steered.
The first two miles and a half of the four-mile journey took them twenty minutes which seemed an hour. Dyson said, drawing the yellow coat yet more closely about him:
‘Quicker walk. Let’s try it.’
Anthony shook his head. ‘Might clear up any moment. And anyhow it’ll have gone by the time you want to come back.’
They went on. In patches, the mist began to lift, so that they could sometimes see as much as fifty yards ahead of them. And then would come a dense patch, seeming denser than ever by comparison. But progress became faster. The mile and a half to the lane to Dollboys’ farm was done in under the ten minutes, and Flood did not miss the turning.
The big car left the macadam of the high road for bumps and ruts and miniature pot-holes which it took with creditable smoothness. The lane was an incline of steepness and, suddenly, with the level, unhurried wonder of a miracle, they came out from the white night of the mist into the clear grey light of an early November morning. They blinked, looked, and gave thanks. Straight before them, and to their left, the countryside, wrapped in the sedate stillness of a steel-engraving, rose sharply to the crests of the three hills called collectively The Share. Down in the valley was nothing for the eye save the white, smoking sheet of the dissolving mists.
To their right, the other side of the once-white post-and-rail fencing, was the land and square stone house of Dollboys. In the yard was no stir of man nor beast. The only sign of existent humanity was a bicycle—a new and shining and heavily-built bicycle—which rested against the house’s wall to the right-hand side of the main door. And this door, they saw as the car came to the gate in the fencing and swung inwards, stood ajar. Anthony looked at the clock upon his dashboard. It showed the time to be ten minutes short of seven. He looked up at the chimneys. There was no smoke. He shook his head, like a man puzzled. He brought the car to a standstill in the centre of the yard.
Flood jumped down from the running-board. He stamped his feet upon the stones and beat cold hands against his sides. Dyson got out stiffly and stood flapping his arms like an eagle disguised as first cabman in a musical comedy. Anthony shut off his engine and stepped over the car’s low door and stood back to survey the house. His eye kept returning to the bicycle against the wall.
‘Next move?’ Dyson said. ‘Walk in or wait for invitation?’
Anthony did not reply. But the question, almost before it was out, nevertheless was answered.
The door that was ajar was flung suddenly wide. A man stood in the doorway and surveyed them. Upon his round, bucolic face, now pale where normally it was almost crimson, there dawned slowly a look of incredulous relief. A tall man, this, and a portly. A man in clothes of blue, with many shining buttons down the coat, and shining letter-badges upon the stiffly-upstanding collar. A man whose gleaming baldness of head prevented them, for one puzzled half-second, from seeing what he was. Then:
‘Bobbie, by God!’ said Anthony, and was at the door in three long strides which were leaps.
‘Y’see my trouble, sir,’ said Police-Constable Murch. He looked at Anthony, and jerked his bald head towards the corner where the old woman, Flood bending over her, was huddled moaning in the high-backed oaken chair. ‘Can’t ’ardly leave ’er. An’ yet it’s my dooty to notify the Inspector. All cases of sooicide ’ave to be notified immediate.’
Anthony nodded. Behind an impassive face, his mind was racing. He said, raising his voice:
‘Flood: can Dyson drive a car?’
Flood straightened his back. He kept a hand upon the old woman’s shoulder. Over his own he said:
‘Very well. Any sort, too.’ He turned his body again, and once more stooped over his charge.
Anthony turned to the policeman. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘My other friend will drive you where you want to go. Quicker than your bicycle; you can put that in the back. This gentleman’—he waved a hand towards Flood—‘and I will stay here and look after the woman till you get back … That suit you?’
Mr Murch beamed. His round face seemed in an instant to slough the lines of care which had been making it like a mask of unhappy infancy. He said:
‘Thank’ee very kindly, I’m sure sir, Takes a load off’n me mind like. T’wouldn’t ’a been so bad if that girl what came an’ reported would ’a come back with me. But the kid were so scairt like, it wouldn’t ’a been no manner o’ use forcin’ her t’ come along. An’ ’ow was I to know there wouldn’t be not another soul in a ’ouse o’ this size an’ what men as the deceased ’ad over away to Blackfan? What I mean t’say, sir …’
Anthony dammed this flow by retreating from it. He strode to the door and through it out into the yard.
‘Dyson!’ he called.
Dyson came, lounging but with some celerity, round the side of the house. He was shaking his head. Behind the great glasses his eyes were puzzled and resentful. He said as he came up:
‘It’s all wrong! Not suicide type. But he goes ’n does it!’
Anthony was brief and explicit. Within two minutes his car, Dyson peering over the wheel like a savage bird, was carrying Police-Constable Murch and Police-Constable Murch’s bicycle out of the yard gates.
Anthony went back into the house. In the old chair in the square hall’s corner, the mother of Dollboys still moaned and twisted and alternated dumb and safety-seeking clutches at Flood’s hands with harsh, screaming efforts to beat him off. She would cry, only half-articulately, so that her sounds were like those of an animal who miraculously has acquired speech; and then the crying, in which the only words distinguishable were ‘boy’ and ‘Andrew’ would cease as suddenly as it had begun. And the whimpering, more distressing still, would begin again.
But Flood dealt with it; most surprisingly Flood dealt with it in a manner entirely efficient; it was as if for a great part of his life he had been controlling the hysteria of women. He was kind always; adamant at times, soothing at others. He exhibited neither impatience nor distaste, too much sympathy nor too little. He was wholly admirable.
Anthony left him to it. Anthony crossed the stone floor of the hall upon noiseless feet, went again down the dark, narrow passage to the kitchen. The kitchen door he shut behind him. He leaned back against it and looked at what he had already seen, but not statically and not alone.
He was in the room to which, upon the night before, Dyson had made his deliberately dramatic entrance. And the room, save that the table was laid with breakfast and not supper furnishings and that in the big grate was grey ash instead of glowing fire, was, in regard to itself, as Dyson had seen it.
And Dollboys was in the room. Or what was left of Dollboys. He lay flat upon his back and his eyes stared up at the blackness of his ceiling. His left arm was doubled beneath him; his right half-outstretched beside him. In the fingers of his right arm’s hand was a heavy, brown revolver. His feet pointed to the fireplace; his head towards the door against which Anthony leaned. Shapeless trousers of heavy grey tweed clothed his legs and middle, and upon his feet were thick brogues with soles of crepe rubber. But upon his torso was only an unbuttoned and rather dirty pyjama jacket of greyish flannel, and the twisting of the right leg had so dragged up the trouser that between turn-up and shoe-top there showed a white patch of naked ankle. The laces of both shoes were untied and hanging. On the left side of the scalp was a round but ragged-edged hole to the edges of which clung, sticky with blood and other matters, wisps of the sparse sandy hair. From this orifice, which had been the exit of the bullet, a few drops of blood had trickled to the floor, where they now were a dark pool, swiftly congealing. They had left behind them, across the temple, a little trail. If a man knelt down beside this deadness, so that he might see the right ear of it, there was no further to seek for the place of the bullet’s entrance. Anthony, thirty minutes ago, had so knelt. Now, as he leant against the door, his eyes went to and from the sprawled body to this and that within the room. They saw, first, the hole of the bullet in the far wall, a hole whose height showed that Dollboys could not have been standing for the shot. They stayed upon this hole for awhile, but their owner did not move. And then, finished with the bullet, the eyes sent their quick frowning glance this way and that. Not long did that glance rest anywhere until, upon its fourth journey to the table, it suddenly widened; became a fixed stare.
He leant back against the door no longer. He jerked his long body upright and crossed to the table in three strides, the second of which took him over the body of the table’s owner.
He stood before the table and stared down for a long moment at its breakfast furnishings and their arrangement. The tenseness of his stance, the gleam in his eyes, unsubdued because of his solitude, showed an interest developing into excitement. He swung away from the table. He went down upon one knee by the still body. His hands moved about it, exploring. They pried into pockets; they lifted each a dead hand …
He was sitting upon a corner of the table, his pipe-smoke blue in the room’s chill air, when, heralded by trampings, there came into the room a thick-set Inspector of Police, behind him the burly roundness of Constable Murch.
Anthony got to his feet. He nodded to the Inspector and gave Murch a smile.
The Inspector neither smiled nor nodded. His small eyes, of a cold grey, were fierce and yet deprecating. He spoke from behind a clipped moustache which seemed perpetually to bristle with fury. He said:
‘You’re the gentleman who lent the car.’
From his tone, it was difficult to classify this remark; it was neither question nor accusation nor plain statement. Anthony nodded.
The hairs of the Inspector’s moustache seemed to be reaching out. ‘You arrived in the car,’ he said, with a sort of dead briskness, ‘and found this officer’—he jerked a spatulate thumb at Murch behind him—‘and loaned him the car.’
Anthony nodded. His eyes, apparently full of a mild curiosity, met the fierce grey ones.
The Inspector found himself, inexplicably, to be blushing. His tone grew undisguisedly savage. He said:
‘Who was that driving the car?’
‘A friend of mine,’ said Anthony. His tone was mild as his gaze.
The Inspector grunted. He jerked his thumb again, this time to indicate the hall from which just now he had come.
‘Who’s that out here with the woman?’
‘A friend of mine,’ said Anthony.
The Inspector’s eyes were now frankly angry. He said, his lips twisting beneath the bristling moustache:
‘And that other in the car; the one we picked up at Farrow? Who’s he? Another?’
‘Friend of mine?’ said Anthony. ‘Quite.’
The Inspector came a step nearer, so that the still thing on the floor was now within a few inches of his boots. But he did not look down at it; as yet he had scarcely glanced towards it. He kept his gaze fixed upon Anthony. He said:
‘Lot of friends, haven’t you?’
Anthony took his pipe from his mouth. ‘I’m so popular!’ he said. He kept his eyes, still mildly curious, gazing into the Inspector’s; but he pointed downwards, with his pipe-stem, at the body asprawl between them upon the brick floor. ‘Better have a look at him, hadn’t you? Must know my face by this time. I shan’t be in the way here, shall I?’ He sat down again upon the table’s corner.
The Inspector opened his mouth as if to speak; visibly changed his mind; snapped his jaws together with a click of strong teeth. He unbuttoned a tunic pocket and pulled out his notebook. His final glared seemed to say ‘More for you later!’ He stepped back from the body and for the first time really surveyed it.
He revealed himself, while Anthony smoked and watched, as an officer of thoroughness and capability. In the notebook he made a firm, capable sketch or two; entered details of the essential measurements, which he had taken with swift accuracy, necessary to establish the body’s exact position; asked crisp questions, further to those he had already asked upon the journey, of Constable Murch, and entered condensed notes of the replies; found the bullet-hole in the far wall and from it probed the little lump of flattened lead; examined, without in any way disturbing the body, the two wounds of the bullet’s entry and departure; and finally, after examining the body’s odd-lot of clothing stood, silent, looking down at it in faint puzzlement.
Anthony spoke. ‘Seems odd at first, doesn’t it?’
The Inspector started as if something had stung him. He glared. But he said:
‘Mean the clothes? Why “at first”?’ He switched his glare from Anthony to the heap that had been Dollboys; he gazed down at it, from over the bristling moustache, as if in a moment he would order it to rise and explain its trappings.
There came, breaking the silence, the sound of feet marching down the passage from the hall. Constable Murch opened the door some twelve inches; peered round it; flung it wide; said to his superior:
‘Doctor Cave, sir.’
There came in a stumpy, bustling little man in a grey, square-topped bowler. His face was round and red, with a roundness and redness far exceeding Mr Murch’s. He was clean-shaven and also, when he took off the square hat and flung it to a chair, completely bald. But he gave, by reason of a pair of shaggy eyebrows, an impression of general hairiness. He grunted pleasantly at Murch; shot Anthony a quick look from beneath the forests and nodded to the Inspector. He said:
‘Mornin’, Rawlins. What’s all this? Dollboys done himself in?’ He marched straight to the body and stood, hands on hips, looking down at it.
The Inspector, Anthony saw, stiffened a little. He plainly was inclined to resent Dr Cave and Dr Cave’s ways but, also plainly, was determined not to show this any more than he might. He said:
‘Good morning, Doctor … Yes, it’s a suicide; though what he wanted to do away with himself for’s beyond me. Always heard he was comfortable enough.’
The doctor was on his knees by the body now, his hands professionally busy about it. He did not look up to answer.
‘No telling!’ he grunted. ‘A close devil, he always was.’ He sat back upon stocky hams and cocked his head to one side. ‘And why, Rawlins, did he come down here to do it?’ He bent forward and pointed to the pyjama jacket and to the top of the pyjama-legs which showed just above the trouser-band. ‘Must’ve been to bed, got up, come down here an’ shot himself … P’r’aps he didn’t want to wake the old woman. By the way, who’s that young feller with her now, out there?’
The Inspector froze. ‘A friend,’ he said, ‘of this gentleman.’ He nodded towards Anthony. ‘This gentleman, and it seems a whole regiment of his friends, called here this morning, very early, to see Dollboys. And they found Murch, here, and …’
The doctor cut him short. Still squatting, he twisted his short neck round until he looked straight at Anthony. He said:
‘Good boy, that friend o’ yours. Wonderful way with the old woman.’
The Inspector cut in. His notebook was open. He was sharply official. He said:
‘Excuse me, doctor. How long would you say life had been extinct?’ He was talking of the body, and standing almost atop of the body, but he did not look down at the body, sprawling there—an ugly shapelessness upon its own floor.
But the old doctor did. He straightened his legs, coming from his squat to his full height with the ease of an athletic boy. He looked down at the husk of Andrew Dollboys for a long moment before he spoke. He said at last:
‘That don’t matter much to him … I’d say, roughly, not less than four hours, and not more than seven.’
The Inspector made a parade of his note-taking. He shut the notebook with a snap and returned it to its pocket. He looked again at the doctor and said:
‘I can make arrangements for its removal now?’
The old man nodded his bald head. ‘Far as I’m concerned, most certainly.’
Anthony slipped off the table, stood, and stretched himself with wide-flung arms.
‘I shouldn’t touch it just yet,’ he said.
Six eyes came round to his as one. The mouth of Murch gaped. The mouth of the doctor smiled a puzzled smile. The mouth of Inspector Rawlins showed strong white teeth but did not either gape or smile. There was a silence. Anthony said:
‘No. Really I wouldn’t.’ He looked down at the thing on the floor. ‘He must stay where he is. For a bit, anyhow.’
Rawlins found his voice. It said:
‘Oh, must he? And might I ask until when?’ His harsh tones were laden with a sarcasm so close to rage as to make them thick and throaty.
Anthony nodded. ‘Certainly you may. Until I’ve had a word with someone in authority. Colonel Ravenscourt, say. Dollboys isn’t a suicide. He’s a murderee.’
The gape of Constable Murch widened ludicrously. The doctor’s smile vanished. Beneath those terrific brows his red-rimmed eyes stared at Anthony’s face. And Rawlins, after a moment in which his face grew dark with a rush of blood beneath the skin, put back his head and laughed.
His laughter went on. It shook the square thickness of him. The three watched him, Anthony mildly, the doctor in controlled bewilderment, Murch almost in horror.
Rawlins took hold of himself. His laughter ceased, but the tears of it still stood in his eyes. He said, speaking to the doctor and jerking a thumb towards Anthony:
‘He’s seen the revolver.’ The laughter showed signs of returning, but again was mastered. ‘There’s some initials scratched on the handle, and they’re not Dollboys’. They’re K.R.B. So Mister here thinks the gun’s someone else’s. But it isn’t. And I know. I know because Dollboys brought the gun in to the Station ’bout six months ago to register it, and I did the registration. He told me then he’d just bought it, second-hand.’ Again he put back his head, and again laughter came out of him. By the doorway, Constable Murch, so bewildered by unusualness that no longer was he even trying to understand the words he was hearing, gave himself up to horror at this levity in a room where a dead man, with a hole through his head, sprawled about under the very nose of the laughter. But the laughter cut off with almost uncanny abruptness. Again there came the sound of a man’s tread—now a jingling, long-striding tread—in the passage. The door, Constable Murch notwithstanding, was flung open.
The Chief Constable, in the green-collared pink of the Brunton Hounds, stood just inside the room. His quick eyes went first to the dead man, then in turn to the three who faced him. He nodded, curtly. He said:
‘Morning, Cave. Morning, Gethryn. Rawlins, what the hell were you laughing at?’
He did not wait for an answer. He took two strides and stood looking down at the body of Dollboys.
‘Poor damn fool!’ he said. ‘It’s a fool trick.’
‘To get shot?’ said Anthony. ‘By a man so close that he must’ve been unsuspected?’
Ravenscourt jerked his head round. ‘What’s that?’ he said. ‘They told me it was suicide.’
Rawlins made his endeavour. He stood very stiff at attention. He began:
‘I beg your pardon, sir. It …’
‘Shut up!’ said Ravenscourt. ‘Fire away, Gethryn.’
‘Dollboys,’ said Anthony, ‘was killed, and not by himself.’ He stood away from the table and pointed to it. ‘Look here. Here’s the order for breakfast. That’s his mother’s place, where the teapot and cups are. And here’s his place. Look at it. One fork, one large knife, one small knife. And the knives are on the left, and the fork’s on the right.’ He walked round the table and stood at the body’s feet. ‘Look there, now. He was in bed. Someone comes. He pulls on trousers over his pyjamas and jams his feet into a pair of quiet shoes, and slops down as he is. But he’s not a careful man. He’s left, as always probably, his keys in his trousers. See the key-chain, with the button-loop still over the button. And the keys are on the other end of that chain, in his left-hand pocket. And pick up his hands and look at ’em. Even to a lay eye, there’s a marked difference; once you’ve looked at ’em you’ll see the left’s much bigger … If you’re going to believe that Dollboys killed himself, you’ve got to believe (a) that he got up and half-dressed in the middle of the night and came all the way downstairs in the cold to do it, and (b) that for this, his last act upon earth, he deliberately chose to use his right hand when the easier, natural, simple, ordinary and therefore far surer way would have been to use his left, and (c) that he neither stood nor sat nor knelt to shoot himself, but squatted or bent down as if he were looking for something he’d dropped. One might believe (a) alone or (b) alone or (c) alone. But (a) plus (b) plus (c)’s too much …’
‘By Gad!’ said Ravenscourt under his breath. ‘He was left-handed.’
‘And so he was; so he was!’ The little doctor was excited. ‘And it’s me that’s the fool for not having remembered it. But I’ve had little to do with the man. But I ought to’ve seen, that I ought.’ Excitement was bringing to his speech traces of the brogue and idiom of his birth-place. ‘And where were me eyes that I didn’t get the truth of that bullet bein’ down there in the wall. It’s right; how should a man put lead through his head in such a position as that position he must have had?’
Ravenscourt said: ‘Thanks, Gethryn. You’re right. Anything more for us?’ The half-resentful curtness that he had shown at first sight of Anthony was gone.
Anthony shook his head. ‘Sorry, nothing.’
More speech burst from the doctor, still aboil with this excitement born of unusual event. ‘But I’m wanting to ask you, sir, how is it you’re sure as you are that the man was ever a-bed? The clothes of him make it seem so. But seemings mayn’t be what they seem …’
Anthony shot a glance at Ravenscourt; a swift, nearly imperceptible glance. He said to the doctor:
‘I knew he’d been in bed. I can’t …’
Ravenscourt took his cue. He said, with curtness:
‘That’ll do, now. ’Fraid we must get on with the job. Rawlins, get back to a ’phone and get Fox to come along at once. He’ll be in charge. You’ll work under him. Understand? While you’re gone this Constable stays in charge here. No one to be allowed into this room, or into the house, without permission. Cave; you’ve finished, haven’t you? Gethryn, you won’t want to stay. Right. Now get off, Rawlins. And be quick. You can use my car: tell the chauffeur. Gethryn, p’r’aps you’ll give me a lift back in yours. I was coming to see you this morning anyhow. Rawlins, when you’ve done with my car, tell Peters to bring it to The Horse and Hound in Farrow and wait.’
Rawlins was the first to go, with a stiff salute and precisely military right turn. The old doctor, his Irishness dropped from him, was next; he appeared to have for Ravenscourt a respect tinged with affectionate awe. But before he went he insisted upon shaking hands with Anthony. He said:
‘Wondered who you were, sir, until I heard Colonel Ravenscourt use y’r name. Very proud to’ve met you!’ He bustled off in the Inspector’s wake.
Ravenscourt looked first down at Dollboys, then about the cold, bare room. He said:
‘Let’s get out of this. Nothing to do yet, and Fox is the best man I’ve got.’ He turned and made for the door. His spurs clinked, and the heels of his hunting-boots were loud on the brick floor. He said a word or two to Murch, rigid at attention, and went out into the dark passage.
Anthony followed. They came out into the hall together. And together they halted to watch. Flood and the old woman were still there; but they were not now near to each other. Mrs Dollboys had not moved from the great chair; still she was huddled, a wrinkled heap of drab clothes, in its hard embrace. But Flood was at the window beside the front door. He was standing upon a table, which tottered beneath his weight, and was reaching precariously up to touch the rod from which had parted some of the rings of the faded curtain. He was saying over a hunched shoulder:
‘This? This what’s wrong?’ He shook the loose-hanging stuff.
Ravenscourt took three steps out into the hall. At the sound of his tread, there was a swift movement in the oak chair. Out of her wizened face, looking now like that of a terror-stricken monkey, the woman stared. Anthony, too, came out into her sight. He went towards her. She cowered, her hands pressed to her face. A harsh, rattling cry burst from her.
Flood jumped down. The table which had been his support crashed to the stone floor. He crossed with rapid steps to his old position. He bent over the chair and laid a hand on her shaking shoulder. Under his touch she quietened. The hands came down from her face and clutched at him. He looked at Anthony and shook his head, which now had lost much of its sleekness. He put up one hand and smoothed back his disordered hair; with the other hand he patted the bony fingers which were gripping and kneading at his coat. He murmured, over his charge’s head:
‘Not a bit of good. She won’t have anyone but me. But she keeps asking for an Alice. And something about some curtains keeps worrying her. She’s not coherent. But she may get. If the crowd goes.’
Ravenscourt, rubbing his chin, looked at Anthony. Who said, out of the corner of his mouth:
‘This is Flood. He’s helping me. Good man. I’d suggest leaving him with her. She’s taken a fancy to him. Leave him, and give instructions she’s not to be questioned yet, except through him, and not at all unless he says so. I’ll tell him to get what he can. But if she’s worried she’ll go moost. And then she’ll only confuse us.’
Ravenscourt nodded. ‘If he’ll stay,’ he said doubtfully.
Anthony took out pencil and a small notebook. ‘He’ll stay all right. He’s on the job.’ He wrote upon a leaf from the notebook, tore out the leaf, screwed it up and threw it.
Flood’s free hand caught it neatly, and neatly unrolled it. Flood’s eyes read the message. ‘D. was murdered. She may know something. Stay with her. You’re in charge with authority. Get what you can. Can we use your car?’
Flood nodded. His eyes rested upon Anthony’s for a moment before they turned back to his charge. They showed no surprise, those eyes; their look conveyed an impression that to surprise their owner much more than all this would have to happen.
Ravenscourt turned on his heel and went back down the passage. From its end Anthony heard the crisp voice giving orders, and when it ceased the rumbling, very respectful murmur of Constable Murch.
Anthony, taking cap and coat from the hall’s centre table, went to the main door and through it and out into the air. All traces of the mist had now vanished. A yellow sun, bright and cold, made the world sparkle like a nursery picture. He drew in draughts of the earth-scented, sharp-cutting air.
From Anthony’s car, the loose figure of Dyson detached itself; it came to meet Anthony with long and flapping strides. Leaning against the car’s bonnet was Pike.
‘What’s on?’ said Dyson. His voice was querulous.
Anthony smiled with one corner of his mouth. ‘You were right, Dyson. No suicide, Dollboys.’
Dyson rubbed together his ungloved hands. Almost he smiled. He said:
‘Murdered, was he? Excellent! Knew he wasn’t a felo de se.’
Pike came forward now. ‘Got your message from Mr Dyson, sir. And here I am.’ His tone added wordlessly: and what’s to do?
Anthony answered the unspoken. ‘A lot and a hell of a lot.’ He no longer smiled. ‘While they’ve all been gabbling in there, I’ve been thinking. Or trying to. Where are we now? Up against it? It’s time again. If there wasn’t this time-limit, I believe we’d be better off; because this elimination of Dollboys is another confirmation for us. We know now that Dollboys knew something or everything, and we know too that he wasn’t X. At least, we know this, if we assume, as we’ve got to assume, that Dollboys’ murder is a direct sequel of our activities. If it isn’t we’re done anyhow; so it’s got to be. And we’re near to knowing that if we get the killer of Dollboys we’ll find that he equals X. But, though we’re ahead that way, we’re really astern. Now, we can’t talk to Dollboys and twist the truth out of him. We’ve a double job instead of a single. And only time for half a single.’ His tone was savage. His eyes looked at the men he talked with, but did not seem to see them. There was a silence, broken only by the scraping of Dyson’s shoe upon the frozen earth. Dyson was tracing an invisible pattern with his toe. Pike said:
‘But what’ll we do, sir?’ There was urgency in his voice.
‘Everything,’ said Anthony. ‘And all at once.’ His tone had changed again; the savagery had gone from it; it was eager and decisive. ‘Pike; so soon as we get back, take Flood’s car … can you drive?… Yes?… Good! Take Flood’s car and do this: from the man himself, or any other, find out what a Captain Lake, at present staying with the Carter-Fawcett woman … anyone’ll tell you where her place is … find out what this man is and why and who and how. That’s in general. In particular, find out whether, after that party of Brownlough’s last night, Lake went to bed—properly or improperly; in other words, is it possible that he was out and about? Got that?’
Pike nodded, once. A new seeming had come to his face as he listened. It seemed to have grown longer and sharper. The lantern-jaw was out-thrust like the prow of a punt. His eyes were very bright. Dyson said:
‘What for me?’
‘We get off back now, sir?’ said Pike.
Anthony said: ‘I’m taking Colonel Ravenscourt back. He’s giving the bobbie a final word. We must wait.’
‘What,’ said Dyson again, ‘for me?’
The little smile twisted Anthony’s mouth. ‘This.’ He took out his wallet and from the wallet a folded sheet. ‘I made this out in bed last night. This district creeps with soldiery, past and present. This paper’s got all their names, and as much of their particulars as I could get. I want their War Service records. Get up to town on that machine of yours, go to the War Office and ask for General Beaumont. He’ll see you’re attended to, and properly. Friend of mine. I’ll ring him up before you get there. Whether the job’s finished or not, report back at the pub tonight. Any time, but come. Also, ring me up there between one and two this afternoon. I might have more for you. Got that?’
Dyson snorted. ‘But what’s the idea?’
‘I’m damned,’ said Anthony, ‘if I know.’ He looked at Dyson. ‘But I want it done.’
Dyson was unshaken. He tried again. ‘Mean t’say: like to know what’s behind …’
Anthony cut him short. ‘You’ll hear tonight. Perhaps. Or perhaps not. According to whether or not I’ve got my present Irish Stew of a mind sorted out. But do it! Blast you, Dyson, do it!’ There was no sting in the curse, and there was a smile with the words. But Pike, watching covertly, felt rather than saw the brief combat of two minds.
Dyson shrugged. ‘Right!’ he said at last. His voice had no sulkiness in it.
Behind them, the door of the house shut with a bang. Ravenscourt came towards them. They turned. Dyson surveyed the tall figure in its red coat beneath which the dazzling white of the breeches merged into the glossy black of the boots. Beneath his breath Mr Francis Dyson, who had somehow to assert again his complete contempt for all men except Mr Francis Dyson, made an impolite noise. There came from his lips, after this, a muted parody of the hunting horn.
‘Shades,’ said Dyson, who had never in his life enforked even a seaside donkey, ‘of Surtees!’
Anthony went to meet the resplendence. Pike looked at Dyson sharply. He said:
‘You in France, Dyson?’
Dyson looked over his great glasses. ‘Great Bore?’ he said. ‘A little. Three years, nine months.’
Anthony and Ravenscourt, having halted a moment in conversation, now were coming towards the car. Dyson, his head to one side, birdlike surveyed them. Pike said, lowering his voice:
‘Don’t jeer then. That’s the Varolles VC that is.’
Dyson’s face for a moment displayed interest. ‘Zat so?’ he said. And then, recovering, again made the horn noise. ‘A-hunting,’ he murmured, ‘we will go.’ He turned back to Anthony’s car, whistling John Peel, and stripped the radiator of its rug.
Ravenscourt followed Anthony into The Horse and Hound’s Smoking Room. From without there came to their ears, and their eyes when they looked from the side-window, the sound and sight of Pike starting the small, wicked-looking and dusty car of Flood, and Dyson, upon his motor-bicycle, leaving the yard at a speed which must have been near to thirty miles an hour.
‘Have a drink?’ said Anthony. ‘Or too early?’
Ravenscourt nodded. ‘I will. Not too early today.’ He jerked his neat head to point the window and the yard without. ‘Who are those two? I’ve seen that … whatsaname? Pike?… Seem to’ve seen him before.’
Anthony smiled. He pressed the bell by the fireplace. He said:
‘You have. He knows you by sight. You’ve seen him in Scotland House. As a Chief-Detective Inspector CID.’
Ravenscourt threw himself into a chair. ‘Of course. But how …’
Anthony interrupted. ‘Easy. He’s on holiday. And he heard of my pursuit of very wild geese and just came along to help. He’s a good line in men, that. I’ve worked with him. He was on the Lines-Bower job.’
Ravenscourt nodded. ‘And the other two of your … er … staff?’
‘They’re press men. Ever see The Owl?’
Ravenscourt nodded again. ‘Always. Regular subscriber. And I get the Specials if there happens to be one when I’m in town. Good little paper. And not so little.’
‘Partly mine,’ said Anthony. He turned and pressed the bell again. ‘And partly Hastings’ who edits it. Friend of mine. Those two, Dyson and Flood, are on the “Special” staff. Hastings lent ’em to me.’
‘And you all …’ began Ravenscourt, but checked in mid-sentence and was silent. The door had opened. The girl Annie came in. Ravenscourt wanted brandy and soda. Anthony gave his order: coffee for himself. ‘And is Mrs Gethryn up?’
The girl fingered her apron. ‘Yes, sir. And she’s not had breakfast yet. She’s ordered it in half an hour, sir, in the Coffee Room. Should … should I tell her you’ll have yours then, sir?’ Her speech was quick enough, but somehow there was about it an uncertainness, as if she were talking upon one subject but thinking of another.
‘Yes, do.’ Anthony looked at her. Her china-blue eyes, round and large and polished like a doll’s, seemed to have in them a question; a something odd and appealing and tinged with fear. He held these eyes with his own; the green gaze probed the blue. She went scarlet; then, quicker than it had come, the colour ebbed, leaving an ashen paleness.
She turned with a flutter of apron. As she walked to the door, there seemed to Anthony’s eye to be an unsteadiness about her gait, the shadow of a wavering.
‘Pretty child,’ said Ravenscourt from his chair. ‘But as I was going to say when she came in, you and your … er … staff all called on Dollboys this morning? Mind if you say why?’ The tone was curt, but devoid of offence.
Anthony suddenly grinned. ‘You know why. But that Inspector didn’t. Although he thought Dollboys was a suicide, he was worried about this regiment of callers. And callers of that sort at that hour … Now he knows it’s murder, he’ll be thinking a lot more. And possibly talking. Don’t worry. None of us killed Dollboys.’ His smile was gone now; and his tone changed. ‘I told you I knew Dollboys went to bed last night. But that was because Pike was watching over him to make sure he’d be safe for us this morning. I wish to God he’d watched all night.’
‘Watching?’ said Ravenscourt. ‘How?’
‘On the roof of that shed at the end of the house nearer the road. The window above Dollboys’ chamber. Pike watched him go to bed; waited till he judged him asleep. We’d been frightening Dollboys, you see. To loosen that tongue. And Pike thought we might have so frightened him that he’d bolt. Hence the watching, and the early call.’
Ravenscourt laughed—a sound not free from annoyance.
He said:
‘Don’t know that I ought to listen to this. You’re breaking the law all round. And you insist on telling me. Why?’
Anthony’s answer was delayed. Annie came back, with a tray against which the cup and saucer of Anthony’s coffee and the glass and small soda-water bottle of Ravenscourt’s brandy seemed to beat a trembling tattoo not to be accounted for by her careful gait. She served them in speed and silence and was gone. Again Anthony’s eyes followed her to the door; again he detected that hesitant flaw in her gait; it was as if she walked every third step with closed eyes.
Ravenscourt drank. ‘That’s good. Thanks. Good health. Carry on, won’t you? Why tell me, I said.’
Anthony carried on. ‘I tell you because you’re going to help me. You may not’ve been sure last night. But you’re sure now. Dollboys has been killed. By the man—my X—who killed Blackatter and who’ll get away with his third killing—Bronson—if we’ve not found him within seventy-two hours … Seventy-two hours! Think of it, man! Seventy-two hours to save a man from hanging—a man who deserves hanging much less probably, than you or me …
‘You can’t doubt now. We scared Dollboys. What happened then must’ve been that Dollboys got in touch with X, because he was scared. He wanted support and instruction. He got, for X’s safety, a bullet through the head. We’re surer now, if more sureness was necessary. But, by God, we’re up against time still, and with much larger odds against us. I can convince you, here, now, in this room. But what sort of a case have I got to postpone Bronson’s hanging to give me time? None. You know it and I know it. Bronson’s deader than Dollboys unless we get X; get X and haul him up by the scruff of the neck and make him say “I did it! I did it because of this, like that.” Follow me? ’Course you do!… You’ve got to help me, Ravenscourt.’
The other man got suddenly to his feet. Glass in hand he walked over to the fire and stood looking down into it. His face was overcast; his brows met in a frown and beneath them his eyes seemed to have sunk back into his head with the conflict of his thoughts. Anthony watched him, seeing a struggle between human and official nature. Watching each phase as one watches a fight between two men.
And then, with a change complete in an instant when it did come, Ravenscourt put back his head and laughed. Real laughter this time; a young and joyous sound. He said:
‘We’re a couple of fools. I can’t help helping you. My job now’s to find out who killed Dollboys. And you say that when you’ve got him, you’ve got your X. There you are. We’re on the same job whether we like it or not.’ He laughed again.
Anthony said: ‘That’s not all I meant. And you …’
‘And I know it, you’re going to say. All right, I do. You want more.’ He straightened himself. He held out a hand and Anthony took it. He said:
‘You can have it, Gethryn. I’m with you; officially so far as I may—that’s confining things to the Dollboys case; and unofficially with no hesitations … But don’t forget, if you think I’ve been slow coming round, that you’re asking me to help to prove myself wrong; to expose myself as a fool who, with all his underlings, was hoodwinked; to make myself known as the sort of feller who “doesn’t mind who they hang so long as they hang someone” … Don’t forget that … But I’ll help. I’ve said so and I will; though I suppose this is the first time in my life I’ve ever gone back on my own opinion on a big issue … And I’m not utterly convinced yet, you know. But you’ve made me feel there’s a doubt and a biggish doubt. I thought it all out last night. I kept seeing that feller Bronson waiting. Just waiting …’ He broke off abruptly. He finished his drink. He set the tumbler down and said:
‘Anything you want of me now?’
Anthony nodded. ‘Yes. This is the unofficial side. What d’you know of one Lake? Called Captain?’
Ravenscourt’s brows came together again. His face set in hard lines. ‘That thing!’ he said. ‘What the devil … well, you know what you want. Lake? All I know about him is that he’s got much money, damned bad manners and a foul face. Magnificent horseman, though. I’ve hardly ever spoken to him. But he’s about these parts quite a bit. With the Carter-Fawcett crowd.’
‘Captain?’ said Anthony. ‘What in? Is or was?’
Ravenscourt’s lips twisted in a sneer. ‘Was. Temporary gent. Don’t know what in. But he did well, I believe. Guts of a lion, I should say. But a damn’ nasty job otherwise.’ Through the smoke of his cigarette he surveyed Anthony with curiosity. ‘Why Lake?’ he said. ‘D’you think? …’
‘Hardly,’ said Anthony, ‘at all.’ He smiled. ‘No, I mean it. I daren’t think yet. But I could bear to know about Lake. Thanks. I’ve also got another string on to him. Pike.’
Ravenscourt raised his eyebrows. ‘So?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Anything else? Anything official?’
‘Not yet. Now you’re on my side, I’m easier though. I had to get you to say you were, more in case of almost certain future need than anything in the present. Can I always get you quick?’
Ravenscourt gave two telephone numbers. ‘One or other of those is pretty certain always.’ He picked up his silk hat and gloves and moved towards the door.
Anthony stopped him. ‘Stay and have some breakfast. Late but good.’
Ravenscourt shook his head. ‘Thanks, no. Had mine early.’ He looked down, a little ruefully, at his splendour. ‘There’s a meet at Copthalls, only a few miles off. I was going. Matter of fact, that’s how I came to get down to Dollboys’ at all. I came here early to see whether I could get our talk in and be off by ten-fifteen. When I got here I heard Dollboys had shot himself. So I went straight along.’
They went out together by the inn’s front door. Ravenscourt’s car, a large and powerful but by no means new limousine, had just arrived. Its owner got in. ‘Home, quick,’ he said to the chauffeur; then to Anthony: ‘Hear from you soon. If anything happens on our side, I’ll telephone.’
‘So long,’ said Anthony. ‘And thanks.’ He watched as the car curled carefully way out into the road, accelerated and slid smoothly out of sight round the corner.
He went back to The Horse and Hound and breakfast.
The cell door was not quite closed. Those two in their blue uniforms were not inside the cell. But he knew where they were. They might as well have stayed on their little chairs. They were outside—only just outside—the door which seemed shut but wasn’t.
He sat upon the edge of the bed and looked heavily, without expression, at the man who sat, to face him, upon one of those chairs. A man, this, whose clean-shaven face wore a look of gentle tolerance and earnest kindliness well-nigh insufferable to the man upon the bed. The earnest one had been talking; the resonances of his deep voice seemed to be still hanging in the air, that air which was never stale, but which never seemed alive: he leant forward, his steady gaze bent upon the man on the bed, his hands clasped between his knees; his whole attitude expectant of answer.
Bronson looked up. His blue eyes, cold and steely behind their mask of deadness, stared until the gaze of the brown was lowered. Bronson said:
‘Padre: there’s no manner o’ use to it. If it’s kindness you want to do …’ he paused a moment, and jerked a thumb towards the door … ‘let them come back an’ d’you go away about your business.’
The Chaplain stirred, uneasy, upon the small chair. He began to speak, but the other would have none of it. Suddenly the veil over the blue eyes was gone, like a mist before breeze. Those eyes became vital and more than vital; they bored into the mind of the Chaplain as they had been used to bore into the minds of opponents in the ring.
‘Get out!’ said Bronson. The voice was low, scarcely more than a whisper, but the Chaplain’s plump cheeks lost much of their ruddiness. He rose, and, rising, tried once again. He said:
‘Bronson: I have come to offer … to ask you to consider … to …’
He cut off the sentence in mid-speech. He backed, involuntarily, two paces.
For Bronson, too, had risen. He stood, and the cell seemed to shrink. A thick, immovable, menacing giant of a man. He raised his voice and called:
‘Warder!’
The door which had seemed shut swung open with the word. Bronson said, his voice low again:
‘Take him away!’
The Chaplain went. Once more the two chairs supported the pair of blue-clad figures. Blue-clad figures who now were so accustomed to the silence of their charge that almost they started when his voice came.
‘Christ!’ said Bronson, ‘he was going to talk about God!’
He began to laugh.
Lucia Gethryn poured coffee for herself. She said:
‘After all, I did eat.’ She looked across the table at her husband with some wonder. ‘You said I would. I owe you five shillings, don’t I?… You know, you’ve got the most exasperating habit of being right. I’m not used to it yet, and I don’t suppose I ever shall be.’
Anthony smiled at her. He put away the notebook he had been using. He said:
‘Time for Sister Anne yet?’
Lucia shook her head. ‘Five minutes.’ Her tone was lightly despondent. ‘That was a failure, wasn’t it? I did think I’d be able to get her to talk. But all I got was your name babbled at me like a parrot.’
Anthony lit a cigarette. ‘I’m worried about that girl. Her demeanour’s magnificent—from our point of view; if ever anyone went about with a guilty secret in her bosom, that one does. And she wants to get rid of it. Trouble is, what weighs so heavy on her may really be the smallest of new potatoes. I …’
He broke off sharply. Wide-eyed, Lucia met his look. They sat motionless. They listened. Lucia lifted her chin and gazed at the ceiling; it was from above that the sound had come.
No further sound came. Lucia lowered her head. She began to speak.
‘It sounded …’
‘Ssh!’ Anthony raised a hand.
And they heard it again. The choking fragment of a scream. Then silence. Then a shuffling, scraping noise on the floor of a room above their heads.
Anthony’s chair fell with a soft crash to the carpet. He was out of the room before Lucia had moved.
He crossed from the door of the Coffee Room to the stair-foot in a stride and a leap. He took the stairs four at a time. At the stair-head he paused and stood without movement, all other senses subordinated to that of hearing.
For a moment which seemed ten times its length he heard nothing, and then there came again that shuffled scraping, with it the murmur of a voice whose low pitch did not disguise its tensity.
Anthony, in two strides, was at the door of the house’s mistress. He put his fingers to the handle and twisted. At the same instant he smote the door with his shoulder, all his weight behind the thrust. But the door was unlocked. Almost he fell, but recovered in two staggering steps which brought him well within the room.
There was a group in the recess of the room’s bay window. Two women. Mistress and servant. Selma Bronson and the girl Annie. And the throat of Annie was between the hands of Annie’s mistress, who towered over the girl like a Norn. And Annie, the uppers of whose shoes were their only parts to touch the floor, would have sunk to a huddled heap had it not been for those hands about her throat.
Anthony, even as he jumped towards them, heard Selma Bronson’s voice. She was saying, in a dull yet dreadful whisper:
‘Tell. Tell. Tell! You shall tell! Tell.’
She had not heard him. That crash of the door as it had hit the wall, his stagger as he had saved himself, no sound had penetrated to her consciousness.
The feet of Annie beat out, once more, that little scraping tattoo.
Anthony’s hand came down, heavy yet gentle, upon the shoulder of Bronson’s wife. Over the shoulder came his other hand, to loose the clutch upon the girl’s throat.
He had expected resistance. But none came. At the touch her grip loosened. She stood utterly still. She did not even turn her head. The limpness of Annie slid to the floor with a rustle, ending with a soft bump.
Anthony, his hand still upon the shoulder which might, save for its warmth and softness, have been marble, turned his head. He had heard a sound behind him. He saw his wife. She was pale and her breast rose to hurried breathing and her dark eyes were wide. But she was calm and herself. Anthony looked at her, then at the woman who stood so still. To Lucia he said:
‘Stay with her. I’ll come back.’
Lucia came close. She stood where Anthony had stood. She laid a gentle hand upon Selma Bronson’s arm.
Anthony bent over the huddled girl. She was breathing fast and jerkily, and over her doll’s-eyes was a glaze of terror. One hand rubbed gently at her throat. Anthony looked up at his wife. He said:
‘Fright’s the most of the damage.’ He bent down and lifted the girl like a child. He went from the room, carrying her against his chest. To Lucia his voice came back from the passage.
‘Shut the door,’ it said.
Lucia shut the door. By it she stood for a moment. She heard her husband’s footsteps going along the corridor towards their room; then a pause; the opening of a door and another pause; the door closing. She turned and went back to the window. The woman still stood, motionless, where she had been. It was as if she had been deprived of the power of movement.
Lucia shivered. She went past that statue and sat herself upon the curtained window-seat. She looked up at the statue. She said, in a low soft voice:
‘Sit down. Sit here.’ She patted the seat beside her. ‘You poor, poor dear!’ she said.
The statue moved. A tremor shook it. It melted and became a woman. She staggered; it was as if her stance had been a rigor suddenly fluxed. Lucia put out a quick hand. It was clutched. The woman sat. All rigidity had gone from her now. She shook. Lucia could feel the shaking of her though their bodies did not touch.
There was silence. Such silence that Lucia fancied, once or twice, that she could hear the murmur of Anthony’s voice though two rooms separated them. She did not speak; the woman beside her did not speak.
Lucia laid her hand, firm and strong and healing upon an arm that quivered without its owner’s volition. There was no word; no change in attitude; but there seemed to be born into the room a warmth. Presently the woman’s head drooped, drooped … Lucia, imperceptibly, moved nearer, an inch at a time. She kept her hand upon the arm. The quivering, though it did not cease, grew less and lesser. Presently Selma Bronson’s head was resting, almost without knowing that there come to rest it had, upon Lucia’s shoulder.
When Anthony came back, they were still like this, only Lucia’s right arm was about the shoulders that still quivered and Lucia’s cheek was resting against that smooth hair whose real colour no man might tell, so level was its balance between the palest gold and the warmest silver.
He came in softly, and softly closed the door behind him. As he crossed the room towards them, Selma Bronson stirred; she was making effort to sit erect—perhaps to stand. But the arm about her shoulders tightened.
‘Lie still, dear!’ Lucia said. ‘Lie still.’
She looked up at her husband. There was anxiety in her glance, but no more. She waited.
Anthony turned an armchair to face the window-seat. he dropped into it. Except that he had, to save the chair’s owner from the need of speech, not asked permission for his sitting, his manner was that of a man who ‘drops in for a chat’; he was ordinary-everydayness incarnate. He said:
‘The girl’s all right. She’s gone up to her room. But before she went she told me all about it.’
In spite of their meaning, these words were clothed in a voice which might have been discoursing of weather and watercress. To her husband Lucia flashed a smile so lovely that for a moment he lost all thought of anything save her. He said, after that moment:
‘Yes. It turned out almost as I thought, you know, Remember I said I was frightened those potatoes would be very, very small? Well, small they were. Not so small, mark you, as to be worthless. But small. The secret heavy in Annie’s bosom was Dollboys …’
‘Dollboys!’ said Lucia, between white teeth. ‘It’s always coming back to Dollboys. Dollboys! The name’d be silly if it weren’t terrible.’
Anthony glanced at her, a warning glance. ‘Go easy!’ said the glance. Himself he said:
‘Dollboys, you see, had fallen for Annie. Some time ago it started. Over six months. Apparently his intentions were most strictly honourable—or, at least, became so after acquaintance with the firm principles of Annie. He wanted to marry Annie; he wanted to marry Annie very badly. Annie kept him dangling; she was only a little between-maid, but oh, how she called the tune. But at last she said yes. That I gather, was about four months back. Having said “yes”, she wanted, naturally, to know roughly the date of the wedding. She was then told that this could not, just immediately, be fixed. Suitor was forced to admit that he was pushed for money. He’d have to tide over a bit; things hadn’t been going well; farming wasn’t what it had been; things would, of course, be delightful after the tide-over, but … Annie, frankly disgruntled, agreed to wait a while before insisting upon a fixed date. Privately, she thought that she would have to wait at least six months. There was every indication of such a period; a longer one wouldn’t have surprised her. But what did surprise her was, that within six weeks or so, Dollboys was telling her that no longer was there any need to hesitate in fixing a date; no longer, even, any need to delay actual wedding. They could—and would she—get married tomorrow …
‘But Annie held off. Wouldn’t make herself cheap. Made Dollboys consent to wait two months. And during the two months, she began—being, apparently, shrewder than most would guess—to wonder. For the announcement of the sudden change in the prosperity of Dollboys had taken place almost immediately after’—Anthony nerved himself here for continuation of his even, conversational tone—‘the conviction of Mr Bronson …’
He broke off. He had to break off. That head was no longer on Lucia’s shoulder. Selma Bronson sat upright; there was in her pose something again of that strange rigidity. She said, in a curiously toneless voice:
‘Dollboys had been paid to …’
Anthony interrupted her. ‘The inference is certainly that he was paid for something—some work or action, or refraining from action—in connection with the murder of Blackatter and the fixing of that on your husband. But all he did or didn’t do we can’t tell. Not yet.’ He paused for a moment, and he smiled at Bronson’s wife and looked steadily into her eyes. ‘But,’ he said, ‘we shall … To finish: Annie didn’t, of course think so clearly as that at first, or even really along those lines. But think she did. And went on thinking. And the more she thought—for in a childish sort of way she is devoted to you, Mrs Bronson—the more she disliked having anything to do with a man whom she didn’t really love anyhow, and whose fortunes seemed, to say the least, to have risen with the downfall of yours … I think that’s as far as she really got until we came down here; she was obeying an instinct, a superstition, more than a reasoned thought. But whatever it was, it was strong enough—perhaps I should say her affection for you was strong enough—to make her throw Dollboys over. She did that—it was as easy for her as she had kept her engagement secret—about a fortnight ago. Dollboys, as you know, went on hanging about here. But he got no change from Annie. And then we arrived, and I suppose, as we took no trouble to hide our intentions, she found out what we were up to. And that put it into her small head that there was “a chance for the Master after all”. And that filled her head with thoughts of how there could be that chance. And she thought: if there’s that chance, it means somebody else did it … And if somebody else did it, there was a plot. And a plot means funny goings-on … and Dollboys’ sudden reversal of fortune was a funny going-on … She thought and thought. Sometimes it seemed silly, and Annie likes no more to be laughed at than any of us. Sometimes it seemed important—terribly important—so that she grew scared of telling in case she might find grave trouble for herself through not having told before … But she decided to tell. She was to speak to me, at her own request, this morning. But somehow …’
Lucia said swiftly: ‘Oh, that’s all quite simple. Mrs Bronson had seen her hanging about us. And saw her, just now, waiting outside our room. And she wondered and asked her and the silly child got frightened and behaved so extraordinarily that Mrs Bronson, having got her in here, began to think she knew something—had been keeping back something vital. And she—Mrs Bronson—couldn’t bear to wait to know—it came just like that—and then … and then …’
A harsh, painful sound, somewhere between laugh and sob, came from Selma Bronson’s throat. She said:
‘And then I … I … I might have killed.’ She looked at Anthony. ‘But you saved me. I … I … will go to the girl.’ She stood up. She took the half of a step forward and then she crumpled.
Lucia’s arm was there. Lucia’s arm guided her so that her little fall brought her, sitting again, to the window-seat.
Selma Bronson sat huddled, rather dreadfully, with her shoulders bowed and her hands squeezed between her knees. She began to laugh; a sound that sent Lucia’s hands, before she could control them, flying for a moment to her ears.
Anthony stood up. He crossed to the window-seat. Selma Bronson stopped laughing. Her body shook and the flaxen head nodded with jerky nods and quivers. Her teeth chattered together. Through the chattering teeth she forced out words. She said:
‘I … I should like … to lie down. I … am … sorry … This is foolish … But I have not … this is not … a happy time …’ She began to laugh again.
Lucia looked, with eyes of agony, at her husband.
‘Ger her on to the bed,’ said Anthony, and was gone.
Somehow, Lucia obeyed. The bed shook with the shakings of its burden. Anthony came back. In one hand was a flask, in the other a small bottle. He took a tumbler from a table. He unstoppered the bottle and shook out into Lucia’s hands two white tablets. He said:
‘Make her swallow them.’
Lucia made her swallow them. Into the tumbler Anthony poured brandy; added water from a carafe. He sat upon the bed’s edge and slid an arm beneath the shaking head and raised it and put the tumbler to its lips. She drank, her teeth beating out a tattoo against the glass.
Anthony let the head gently down to the pillow. He stood, looking down at his patient. Lucia, beside him, slipped a hand through his arm and pressed it. They saw the eyes close, the head sink into the pillow, the twitching and shaking grow less and die away save for an occasional tremor of the whole body. Selma Bronson, who had not slept for days and nights which were carved into her mind like decades, slept now.
They covered her. Anthony nodded at the door. They left upon silent feet.
They had reached only the head of the stairs when the maid who was Annie’s understudy came lumbering up to meet them. To Anthony she gasped:
‘Pleezir, there’s a lady and a gentleman, sir. In the Smoke Room they are, sir. Name of Bricklebrock, sir.’
‘Brocklebank?’ Anthony lifted an eyebrow.
‘Yezzir, Bricklebonk?’ She turned and lumbered down the stairs again and was lost to sight.
‘You come too,’ said Anthony to his wife. ‘If it’s a party call, I’ll leave ’em to you.’
In the Smoking Room they found Sir Richard Brocklebank and his daughter, both pink-cheeked, heavily-coated and smiling. Miss Brocklebank was urgent. With no pause from her introduction to Lucia she seized upon Lucia’s husband. She said:
‘Colonel … sorry, I mean Mr Gethryn: I do hope you won’t think I’m being a perfect little fool of a busybody; but I asked Daddy and he did seem to think it wouldn’t be too ridiculous if I came and anyhow I can’t be doing any worse than wasting two minutes of your time. Only when I heard, I simply had to tell you; because, you know, whatever you didn’t say last night, it was perfectly obvious that you must be interested in the beast, specially as he was so foully rude to you …’
‘Lake?’ said Anthony swiftly, planting the word, so to speak, in between the ribs of the girl’s speech.
She nodded with violence. ‘Yes. Sorry. I’m excited. I was talking too much like a woman. Yes, Lake … Colonel Gethryn: he’s gone.’
Anthony raised his eyebrows. ‘Has he now?’
Again Miss Brocklebank’s emphatic nod. ‘And I believe he’s bunked; from you.’
Sir Richard’s laugh came then, like a low-pitched and musical neigh.
His daughter flushed. ‘Don’t be a beast, Daddy. You think so too, only you’re such a coward you won’t say anything just in case you’re wrong.’
Anthony looked at the baronet; found those bright keen eyes were watching him. Anthony said:
‘Do you agree with your daughter, sir?’
The bright eyes twinkled. ‘I’d like notice of that question, I think. Go on, Margaret.’
Miss Brocklebank was not loth. ‘I heard about it from one of the servants. She’d been sent down to the village, early this morning, six-thirty, about some parcel expected off a train. She bicycled. She was just at the bottom of Pedlar’s Hill—there’s a nasty almost right-angled turn there—when a great green car, she says: “swep’ roun’ at a t’riffic speed and all but ’ad me”. But she’s a brightish sort of girl and in spite of the “t’riffic” speed she saw the driver. It was Lake, Captain Lake. He was alone. He was travelling very fast. He was heading London-wards. His luggage—it’s an open car and she could see—was piled up in the back. Not one or two bags but a huge collection …’ Miss Brocklebank paused—for effect and breath.
‘Fast,’ said Anthony. ‘Lot of kit. Heading for London. Six-thirty a.m.’ He smiled at Miss Brocklebank. ‘Pretty certain he’s going away. But nothing to prove he’s running.’
Miss Brocklebank smiled a triumphant smile, again, bringing that soft and musical neigh from her father. She said:
‘But I’ve got something else to tell you. I was intrigued by this story …’
‘Intrigued!’ groaned her father.
‘Intrigued by this story, in view of last night,’ said Miss Brocklebank magnificently. ‘So I took matters into my own hands and I did a little telephoning. I rang up the Carter-Fawcett number—this was at about a quarter to ten, p’r’aps a bit earlier—and I was a Miss Gayley who wanted every so badly to speak, at once, to Captain Lake. I had a pleasant and refaned voice. The butler answered. He was sorry, but Captain Lake was not available. Miss Gayley persisted; it was very, very important. I was in the neighbourhood; would there be any chance of seeing Captain Lake a little later in the day if I were to motor over?… That did it. There would be no chance of seeing Captain Lake a little later in the day if I were to motor over, as Captain Lake had suddenly been called away … No. Very sorry; it was not known where Captain Lake had been called away to. There!’
Miss Brocklebank ended. Miss Brocklebank waited anxiously. She was not disappointed.
Anthony looked at her. ‘Watson couldn’t ’ve done that, he wouldn’t ’ve thought of it, and if he had he’d ’ve got the wrong number.’ He smiled at her. ‘Thank you very much,’ he said. ‘And I mean that.’
Miss Brocklebank turned upon her father, now deep in talk with Lucia. Miss Brocklebank said:
‘Did you hear that, Daddy! I was right to come. Again Colonel Gethryn’s told me I’m too good to be a Watson. I’ll believe it soon. You ought to’ve had me on Intelligence with you, Daddy!’
Anthony turned. To the baronet he said:
‘You on Intelligence during the War, sir?’
Sir Richard nodded. His bright eyes gleamed. ‘And I am intelligent,’ he said. The eyes twinkled. ‘Strange.’
‘Home?’ said Anthony. ‘Or overseas? Or both … Hope I don’t seem inquisitive. But I had S.I. III for a bit.’
‘I know,’ Sir Richard nodded. ‘No. Matter of fact I was pretty nearly all the time in France. Well, I might say, behind the lines.’
‘Daddy!’ said Miss Brocklebank reproachfully, ‘you do fib!’
Anthony looked at his watch. Sir Richard glanced at his daughter. Who took her cue, though with some reluctance.
There were goodbyes. Sir Richard raised Lucia’s fingers to his lips. With Anthony, Miss Brocklebank shook hands fervently.
‘You will,’ she pleaded, ‘let me know about … about everything. Won’t you?’
Anthony answered her. ‘I couldn’t,’ he said, ‘do otherwise. Even if I wanted to. And I don’t want to.’
‘And if,’ said Miss Brocklebank a moment or so later, her foot on the running-board of her father’s car, ‘there was anything I could do …’
‘Of course!’ Anthony smiled. ‘Ring you up at once!’
‘And come and see us!’ said Sir Richard out of the car’s window.
Lucia watched the car out of sight. ‘Nice girl!’ she said.
Anthony nodded. But his thoughts seemed elsewhere.
‘Daddy,’ said Lucia, ‘is a bit of a lady’s man. But a very good one.’
Anthony grunted. He said absently:
‘Old enough to know better.’
Lucia shook her head. ‘He’s not the kind that age affects. He’d never be gaga. He’ll remain attractive till they bury him.’
‘Attractive?’ said Anthony. ‘Well … yes. I suppose I can see it.’
Lucia nodded. ‘It’s there. With that kind—I admit they’re rare—their age simply doesn’t count with women … What’re you going to do now, dear?’
They went back into the house.
It was half-past twelve when Dyson rang up. Anthony answered the ring. To his ear there came a harsh, grating voice.
‘Dyson here.’
‘Gethryn,’ said Anthony.
‘Any more names for the list?’ said the voice.
‘One,’ said Anthony, and gave it. ‘How’re you getting on?’
‘Quick,’ said the voice. ‘G’bye.’ There was the click of a replaced receiver.
Anthony went back to the Smoking Room. He was restless. He smoked pipe after pipe. His tongue began to smart. He smoked cigarettes. He sat down. He stood up. He wandered about the room. His every movement was aimless and hesitant. But his mind worked. It raced. His eyes were blank, their greenness almost startling. But behind their blankness was a furious activity. He was alone. But he spoke once aloud. He came to a halt in one of his wanderings. He said:
‘Blast it! It might be wrong.’ The door opened. Lucia came in. He did not hear her. ‘So easily might be wrong!’ he said.
‘What?’ said his wife softly.
He grunted. ‘Theory,’ he said.
She left him to his silence. She sat mute and relaxed in a chair near the fire. Behind her he went on with that aimless prowling.
And then, at one-fifteen, came Pike.
‘He’s gone, sir,’ said Pike. His voice was hard.
Anthony nodded. ‘I know. Why?’
Pike shrugged.
‘Where?’ said Anthony.
Pike’s jaw was out-thrust. ‘Gave out it was London. I got that much. But that probably means it’s anywhere but. Unless he’s a doubler. How did you know he’d gone, sir?’
‘People I met last night. They were here just now. Servant had seen him in a car. What’s your full tale?’
Pike told it. He had gone to the house called Weydings. He had been humble. He had called at the servants’ quarters. He was inquiring for a friend of his—a valet whom he believed was staying in this house with his master. He was disappointed, none knew the valet’s name, nor the master’s. But they were hospitable. Mr Pierce was asked in. Mr Pierce—it says much for Pike’s powers when he set himself to use them—was refreshed. And Mr Pierce, by that inevitably, crushingly tedious and roundabout way which is necessary, had learnt quite a lot about Captain A. D. Featherstone Lake. But nothing (Pike was dismal) worth anything, you might say. He’d got notes of all that stuff. Sat in the car a mile from Weydings (‘My Winkey! That’s a beautiful place, sir!’) and jotted ’em down in his notebook while memory was green. No; so far as he could find out, no telegram or telephone message had come for Captain Lake. He had just left, talking of urgent business. He had tipped all right, but then he always did. Those servants whom, owing to the earliness of his departure, he had not seen he had provided for through their fellows. No; it was impossible to find out where Captain Lake had spent such of the night as came between the return from the dance and this early departure. Captain Lake might’ve been in his own bed, or in someone else’s—or in no bed at all. Mr Pierce’s informant had been a footman, who had said, winking: ‘It don’t do for us to get curious of a night in this house!’ Captain Lake had certainly come back after the dance; but whether he’d gone out again … well, he might and again he mightn’t …
Anthony interrupted. ‘How did you camouflage?’
Pike smiled, a dry, hard smile. ‘I’d been hearing gossip, sir. Something about a girl in one of the villages. Little birds ’d told me Captain Lake was out and about last night.’
Anthony nodded. ‘And what you’ve told’s about all you’ve got?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Pike’s tone was despondent. ‘That’s all … Except for a queer thing that happened after I’d left the place. I went out by the way I’d come. Walking, because I’d left the car some distance off—not in the main road, that’s a good mile from the house, but tucked away on the road through the park, well out of sight. When I got back to it there was still no one about and I drove off for the gates—that’s the East Lodge entrance. Just as I got up to the gates and pulled up for a chap to open ’em, there was the blazes an’ all of a hooting behind me and along comes a great limousine—biggest car I’ve ever set eyes on. It drew up, as the keeper’d just begun to open the gates, right beside me. There was a chauffeur in it, and a lady. Very handsome she was, if you like that sort of handsome. I don’t myself …’
‘Dark?’ said Anthony. ‘Tall?’
‘Both, sir. ’Least she seemed tall as she was sitting … Well, sir, there were the two cars side by side. There wasn’t more’n a foot between the wings; the great thing towered above Flood’s car like a battleship. I looked up, casual-like, and saw the lady was looking down at me. Most intent, she was, sir. I said to m’self, “you’ll know me again”, and looked the other way. And then the gates ’re open and I slip into gear and pop out. I swung in to the road and eased up. It’s narrow just there and I made sure the big car’d want to pass. I slowed right down, but nothing happened. I stopped and looked round. The big car was still inside the gates. The lady’d got out and was talking to the lodge-keeper. They both kept looking out into the road at me. I got out, and fiddled about under the bonnet … And presently I heard the gates shut, and by Cripes, when I looked up—very casual—there’s the car goin’ back towards the house. And it was going, too. Well over fifty, I’d say … So I moved on, stopped again, and wrote up my notes, and then came back here.’
Anthony rubbed at his jaw. ‘Odd!’ he said.
Pike brightened. ‘That’s what I thought, sir. Nothing queer, o’course, if you look at it one way …’
‘The other view,’ said Anthony, ‘is always better.’ He fell silent a moment. After a while he said: ‘And what it all means is that we’re Lakeless, and don’t know where to find him.’
‘We could try, sir,’ Pike was urgent. ‘Not so easy to hide yourself when you’re wealthy and a polo-player and all that. If it was an official job now, we’d know where he was before he did himself.’
Anthony smiled; a brief smile which vanished before it had properly shown itself. He said:
‘But it isn’t an official job. And we’ve not got anything, yet, to make it so. But I might have a word with the Chief Constable.’ He dropped into a chair and began, with an abstract air, to fill his pipe.
Pike looked at him: the eyes of Pike were intent and curious. It did not seem to Pike that Colonel Gethryn was quite himself. Colonel Gethryn seemed … tired, was it? Or dispirited? Or … no, Colonel Gethryn could not, possibly, he bored. But the longer one knew him, the harder it seemed to be to diagnose his moods; sometimes even his words. Had it not been, thought Pike, for a certain indefinable … how should he put it?… H.C.F., he might have thought, taking Colonel Gethryn’s demeanour in the Lines-Bower case as compared with his demeanour from the very beginning of this present business, that here was not Colonel Gethryn at all, but some other man of his voice and seeming and habits.
But Pike trusted. He stuck out that long jaw a little further and tried to project himself into Colonel Gethryn’s mind. He said:
‘Try Colonel Ravenscourt, sir?… That’s an idea. If he didn’t get … er … well, touchy, as you might say. He’s an … he’s got the reputation of being an opinionated gentleman.’
Anthony put the match to his loaded pipe. ‘I’ve won him, Pike.’ He spoke through a little cloud of silvery blue. ‘He’s on our side now.’
Pike smiled. But his small brown eyes were anxious behind the smile: he was still endeavouring, without success, to get into Colonel Gethryn’s mind and mood.
He became aware, quite suddenly, and with something of a shock, that Colonel Gethryn’s gaze was fixed upon him through the film of smoke from Colonel Gethryn’s pipe.
And Anthony smiled. He said:
‘It’s no good, Pike. Not a bit of good! I don’t know where I am myself. That’s honest. I’ve either got a long way or nowhere at all … It’s different, this business. Most of the other jobs I’ve done in this line were like games: in a way, anyhow. I mean, they didn’t affect me very closely, except in a spirit of “damn-it-I-will-do-this-puzzle-and-win-the-big-balloon”. But this one … well, there’s that woman upstairs. And in that prison there’s a clean, decent, bewildered first-class man waiting to have his neck snapped by a rope for something he didn’t do! …’ He got to his feet with a sort of savage jerking of his whole body and began to pace the room.
Five strides took him from fireplace to door; five strides from door to fireplace. His pipe-smoke hung about his head like an erratic nimbus. He said, suddenly, midway between the two poles of his walking:
‘And here am I, sitting on my stern. With the beginnings of a theory and a whole higgler’s parcel of uncoordinated facts. What are we to do if my theory’s tripe and the fact won’t ever coordinate? What am I to do?’ His voice was harsh with self-accusation. His long, lean length seemed to tower inches above its normally great height. His keen face seemed dark with savage thought. And, for once, the lids were lifted fully away from the strange eyes, which blazed now with a fire which changed their greenness almost to yellow.
Pike was dumb. But his heart bounded. This, although he had not seen it before, was patently a side of the Colonel Gethryn whom he knew.
Lucia’s voice came suddenly from the chair before the fire. It said softly:
‘You’re not fair, dear. Not to yourself, I mean. Look! We came down here—only a few hours ago really—knowing nothing, expecting nothing. And there you are, with a theory in your head and all these facts you talk about. You ought to be glad. And proud of yourself and Mr Pike and the others.’
Anthony took up his pacing again. He said:
‘You’re heartening. And you’re not exactly wrong. But it’s time that’s worrying me. Time!’
He broke off; stood looking at the door. In the silence came the repetition of the double knock which had interrupted his speech and movement.
In answer to his call there came that understudy of Annie who now lay up in her small room, feeling every now and then the tender fingers at a bruised throat.
‘Pleezir!’ said the understudy. ‘There’s a lady. Outzide. Innacarzir.’ She was very ruddy of cheek, and her speech and manner were flustered out of the common.
Anthony’s glance went to the window. But the car was not within this field of sight. He said:
‘All right. Coming. What name?’
The crimson cheeks went pale and then flushed again. The girl’s breath laboured. She was much excited. She gasped:
‘Pleezir, it’s Mrs Garter-Foorsit, sir.’
Anthony’s glance met Pike’s. Lucia rose and sauntered, with a quite admirable seeming of casualness, to a window.
Anthony nodded dismissal. The door closed behind Annie’s understudy. There came a low whistle from Pike’s square mouth. Anthony walked slowly from the room and into the hall. The porch door stood open, and as he went towards it he could see some part of the great car which Pike had said was like a battleship.
He pushed the porch door fully open and went out into the hard, bright sunlight. His breath made small and instant clouds upon the frosty air. By the limousine’s door stood a chauffeur in a dark-green livery. Through the window of the car there showed a dark and fierce and lovely profile framed in the black and white of small velvet hat and vast collar of some costly fur.
At that window, which the chauffeur—an automaton of more than human good-looks—lowered at his coming, Anthony bowed. There was no bow in return; but the profile became a full-face view. A harsh yet somehow pleasing voice came from it. It said, with no pretence at civility:
‘We met last night, so we can cut the cackle.’ Thin black brows met over flashing eyes. ‘I want to know,’ said the voice, ‘what the hell you mean by sending your filthy spies to nose about my house.’
Anthony was suitably astonished. ‘My filthy spies? Nose about your house?’
Rage broke through and distorted the white mask. The face was beautiful still, but yet not good to look upon. A different voice came from its twitching lips. It said, thickness marring it yet not slurring its words:
‘Cut that out! Tell me what you think you’re doing—sending your damned spies!’
‘Spies?’ Anthony was all bewilderment still.
A hand in a glove whose beauty was fit setting for the hand’s beauty came up. It reached through the window. It pointed a finger which trembled at the white, low bulk of the inn.
‘Yes, spies!’ she said. ‘The man’s in there. Now!’ In three short sentences she described Pike. A cruel description, untrue in adornment, excellent in essential; a description illuminated by three words in particular, seldom heard even in these times, from a woman’s lips. ‘What,’ she said at the end, ‘d’you mean by sending him? Damn you, how dare you!’
‘A man,’ said Anthony, ‘who is staying in this inn, where I too am staying, chooses to visit the servants’ quarters of your house. What’s that to do with me, madam?’ His tone was bland, his speech slow. He waited for what these irritants would bring.
‘To do with you!’ Atop of the words came a sudden flurry within the car, and gloved fingers fumbled at the handle. Anthony stood back. The chauffeur came out of nowhere, and his gauntletted hand swung the door wide and held it.
She came out of the car with a rush which yet did not cost her dignity. The chauffeur vanished again. She came close to Anthony, very close. Almost the great white collar of the beautiful coat brushed against him. She stood straight and tall and trembling with a passionate rage. She said, very low:
‘To do with you! You know very well. You set your spies on to ferret out things about a guest of mine—about what he was doing and when. And how and why. And all because you’re a publicity-seeking, press-toadying, jumped-up busybody who’s taken it upon himself to come down here and fidget round to try and prove that a foul dog who shot another, as bad as himself, through the back of the head, ought not to be strung up … I know all about you, you see. Not that I wish to!… But leave my household alone another time. Because a guest and good friend of mine chooses to leave unexpectedly, am I to endure your attentions? And visits from your plug-ugly staff? How the hell does it concern you and this self-imposed Sherlock-Holmsing of yours if Captain Lake does go away without proper leave-taking? Can’t he go where and when and how he likes? I didn’t know he was going, nor did anyone else in my house; but just because, for some very good reasons of his own, he did have to leave suddenly, I don’t conclude that he’s a criminal. I’m not a fool … By God, Mr What’s-your-name, I’ve a damned good mind to stop your game for good and all by reporting you to the Police. I will. I’m not on good terms with Colonel Ravenscourt—can’t stand the man—but I know him. And he’d listen to my complaint …’ Her words, all of them clear, had been coming faster and faster. Now she seemed to stop for breath.
Anthony took his chance. ‘I was just about,’ he said mildly, ‘to ring up Colonel Ravenscourt. Perhaps, if I get the number, you would like to speak first. My business is different business.’ He put up a hand and rubbed gently at the tip of his right ear, which was smarting with the cold.
The woman, for one infinitesimal fraction of time seemed about to strike him in the face.
He stood his ground. His greenish eyes held her gaze. There was silence, broken only by her hurried breathing. She said at last:
‘You damn’ dog!… It won’t be Ravenscourt I’ll see. He and you are the same kind.’
She turned on her heel, drawing that coat about her. Again the chauffeur materialised. He opened the door; settled a rug about her knees; shut the door; went lightly and with speed to his driving-seat. His face—the mask of a dead Apollo—was blank beneath his peaked cap.
The great car slid, without sound, away from the inn, gained the high road, and disappeared.
Anthony stood gazing after it. There was the look in his face of a man who sees beyond what, ostensibly, he looks at. He was motionless for a full minute. His hand which had gone in search of his pipe to his jacket pocket stayed, still as the rest of him, suspended half a foot away from the pocket.
At last he turned. His eyes closed; opened again to the present and the concrete things before them. He saw that at the windows of The Horse and Hound were many curious heads; from the Smoking Room Pike and Lucia, shoulder to shoulder, looked out at him. Suddenly he grinned. He winked at them and ran up the steps of the porch and so into the house.
Before he got to them, there was speech between Pike and his wife. To his astonishment—and utter delight when afterwards he came, as still he frequently does, to think of it—Pike felt the lady’s fingers gripping his arm.
‘Oh!’ breathed Lucia. ‘Oh! What’s happened? He … he hasn’t smiled like that since the beginning.’
Pike nodded; he had not yet properly realised that clutch upon his arm. He beamed. ‘You’re right!’ he said.
Anthony came in to them. There was difference in the whole of him. He had sloughed five years in as many minutes. He strode to the fireplace and pressed long and hard upon the bell-push which was beside it. He said:
‘Oh frabjous day! Calloo and most certainly Callay. We will now all have a little drink.’ From Annie’s understudy, who came hurrying, he ordered whisky for himself and Pike, a glass of sherry for his wife.
The understudy gone, they beset him with questions. He smiled upon them but would not speak. They gave him up. He said at last:
‘Don’t take my spirits without any soda, will you? I mean I’m disproportionately elated. That jigsaw in my poor head’s suddenly given itself a shake. And it looks like making a picture. Very much it looks like making a picture. What’s been making me like a sore with two bare heads has been that cold hot-pot I’ve had up here.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘So that now I’ve got it sorted, I’m full of bounce and egotism. All zeal, Mrs Easy!’ He looked at his wife. His tone changed. He said:
‘But you’re not to go running away with the idea that I’m bound to be Deus ex Machina. I’m not. I’ll be frank. It’s a toss-up. Fifty-fifty … I’m just happy because I can see my way. I’ve been wandering about in the dark, being very clever about it and all that, but in the dark. And now I’ve seen a bit of light, it’s gone straight to my head. So don’t be too optimistic. Don’t be optimistic at all, in fact.’
‘I won’t,’ Lucia said. But her radiance robbed the words of meaning.
Anthony groaned. ‘I meant,’ he insisted, ‘exactly what I said. Exactly.’ His tone was incisive. Once more that atmosphere of impending horror, though less heavy, less enveloping than before, settled upon Lucia’s spirit.
Anthony watched her face. He crossed to her chair and sat himself upon its arm and laid a hand upon her shoulder. He smiled down at her. A small and grave and intimate smile that Pike could not see. His fingers pressed the shoulder. He said:
‘I’m a fool. I should never’ve done the song and dance. But I couldn’t help it. And you can bet your boots, my darling, that now I can see something you won’t at least be bothered by that dread sitting-about-and-doing-nothing sort of feeling.’
Lucia looked up at him. Her shoulder lifted itself to return the caress of the hand which rested upon it.
‘But, sir,’ said Pike suddenly, ‘what is this something?’ His eyes were eager but apprehensive. ‘Be best for us all to be abreast of you, wouldn’t it?’
Anthony shook his head. A smile twisted his mouth. ‘Sorry!’ he said. ‘Not yet. It’s not ripe. And I’m constitutionally unable to spill beans before they’re properly cooked. P’r’aps I ought but I can’t. That’s all there is to it. I wouldn’t, mind you, Pike, keep you or anyone else in the dark at a point where your being in the dark might prejudice the chance of success. But until that point, or until I’m dead, cold, utterly sure—whichever is the earlier—my beans remain unspilt. Sorry and all that. Expect it comes from reading too many detective stories. My subconscious ego—a monstrous brute—wants to indentify itself with Lecoq and Rouletabille and Gore. They all hold their tongues till page three hundred and four. They’ve got to, or no one’d read about ’em … Come on, it’s late, let’s go and have some lunch. You order while I use the ’phone.’
They went luncheonwards. From a table near the fire, Pike and Lucia heard Anthony’s voice at the instrument in the hall.
‘’Lo …’ it said. Pause. ‘That the War Office?’ Pause. ‘Right. Colonel Beaumont, please.’ Pause. ‘That Colonel Beaumont’s secretary?… Oh, it’s yourself, Piggy.’ Pause. ‘Yes. Is he still with you?’ Pause. ‘No. No. That’s what I’m ringing for. Stop him. Tell him to wait where he is. I’m coming up. He’s to wait till five. If I’m not with you then, he’s to go to White’s and wait.’ Pause. ‘Thanks. G’bye.’
He came into the Coffee Room with long strides. He was whistling, very softly, a twenty-or-more-year-old music-hall ballad.
He ate swiftly, and talked not at all. The meal done, he went to the telephone again. He asked for the second of the numbers which Ravenscourt had given him in the morning. He said when he had got it:
‘I want to speak to the Chief Constable if he’s there. Gethryn’s the name.’
There was an instant ‘Yessir’ and many crackling switchboard noises. Then Ravenscourt’s voice:
‘That you, Gethryn? I’ve nothing—yet. Anything you want?’
‘Yes. First—as a matter of interest—d’you happen to’ve heard that Lake’s gone?’
‘Lake’s what?’
‘Gone,’ said Anthony. ‘Left us. Very sudden early this morning. All luggage. Destination unknown.’
‘Damn good thing. But what’s it to do with? …’
‘Ware ’phone. All I’ll say now—and I’m not pressing it—is that I could stand knowing where he could be found.’
‘Might help.’ Ravenscourt’s voice was doubtful. ‘But I can’t do much—not officially. I’ll try and get you something. Anything else? You sound frisky.’
‘Yes. Got something at last. Tell you sometime later. Nothing at all on the Dollboys job yet, then?’
‘Not a thing … Well, I’ll do my best about Lake. ’Bye.’
Anthony heard the click of a receiver, and hung up his own. He was turning to go back to the Coffee Room, where Lucia was still at table, when there came to his ears the sudden roar of a motor-engine; then a screeching of brakes. A car had come into the forecourt and come in fast.
He went along the hall to the porch-door. He opened it and came nose to nose with Flood. At the foot of the steps stood a dusty two-seater, far from new. In it, at the wheel, was a Police Inspector. Not the belligerent Rawlins, thought Anthony, and remembered the name of Fox. He said to Flood:
‘What’s doing?’
‘Quite a lot.’ Flood was nonchalant; but his eye gleamed. He put up both hands to smooth his hair.
Anthony looked at the car and its driver, who now was starting his engine. ‘Where’s he bound?’
‘HQ,’ Flood said. ‘I’ve got something. And they’re on to it, of course.’
‘Come in,’ said Anthony. ‘Food?’
Flood shook the disordered head. ‘No. Shared a constabulary packet of sandwiches. Drink, though. Very dry work, murders.’
Anthony led the way back to the Coffee Room. At its door they met Pike. He turned back and went in with them. Flood was given a drink. He drank. He said:
‘Knew I’d get something out of the old girl if I stuck it. And I did.’
‘Photo of the guilty party?’ Pike was humorously scornful.
‘No,’ said Flood lightly, ‘only his name.’ He sat back and took another drink from his glass and enjoyed the reception of this statement.
For a moment Pike’s mouth opened; he shut it with a snap and once more his lower jaw protruded. But the light of astonishment was still in his eyes. Anthony sat very still; his dark face was expressionless as a mask and his eyes were blank. But his hand, clenched into fist, lay upon the table and its knuckles showed dead-white. He said, in a flat and level voice:
‘Go on, Flood. And be quick.’
Flood went on. ‘I got on to it like this: the old girl kept on saying something about “curtain”. You remember when you and the Chief Constable were leaving she was at it and I was trying to get at what she wanted. She got much quieter after you’d gone and before the rest of the local sleuths arrived I’d managed to get her up to her room and make some tea and get it down her. Alone with me she got calmer, and gradually almost coherent. But the calmer she got the more grief-stricken she got—poor old dame!—and she was so busy weeping that she said even less than before. But I still kept hearing that word “curtain”. And I began to think about it. And suddenly, after I’d tried all the curtains in that room on her and drawn blank as I had downstairs, I saw the word in my head—and it began with a capital C. I made a wild shot and began talking to her as if Curtain was a man.’ Flood paused; he pushed aside his empty glass and leant his arms upon the table and over them his body. He said, with a sort of forced quietness:
‘I was right. Curtain was a name. I got it out of her in bits. Curtain was a man who knew Dollboys and used to come and see Dollboys. He had business of some kind with Dollboys; what it was she never knew. The full name was Luke Curtain. She’d only seen him twice, though he’d been to the house much more often than that. But he always came in the late evening; and if she wasn’t in bed already when he came she was sent there. She knew nothing about Mr Curtain and therefore nothing against him. But she never liked the … feel of Mr Curtain.’
‘She knew this Curtain came last night?’ Pike put in. He was frowning now and his eyes were glittering slits. ‘Because if he did come it must’ve been late. Very late, because I was on that roof there till …’
Flood silenced him. ‘She doesn’t know anything about last night. But she just remembers waking up and hearing a movement outside and Dollboys going downstairs. She didn’t know what the time was, and she just thought “Curtain” and turned over and went to sleep again.’
‘That all?’ said Pike. His tone said: it isn’t enough.
For the first time Anthony spoke. He said, before Flood could reply:
‘What does she say Curtain’s like?’ He had not moved; and still his voice was that curious flat-seeming sound.
Flood looked at him: ‘Biggish, slouching, untidy chap. Uncertain age. Big yellow moustache and a bit of beard. Very rough clothes. Deep, surly voice.’
Anthony moved at last. He sat back in his chair. When he spoke, his voice had lost that queer tonelessness. He said:
‘And where does he live? What part of the county?’
Flood shook his head. ‘She doesn’t know. Nor does this Alice girl: I asked her but she knew nothing at all.’
‘You’ve told the Police?’
Flood nodded. ‘Yes. They’re on it, as I said. Fox has gone to see the Chief Constable.’ He looked from Pike to Anthony, from Anthony to Pike. ‘Funny thing,’ he said slowly, ‘none of the bobbies’d heard of Mr Curtain either. Secretive person.’
There was a silence. Anthony broke it. He got to his feet. ‘I shan’t be here the rest of today. I’m going to London. I’ll bring Dyson back with me.’ He looked at the two men. ‘You must both get busy. Damned busy. On your own, go out into the highways and find out about Curtain. The Police’ll be at it, too, but that’s all to the good. Two extra cooks won’t spoil this pottage; and they might cook it quicker. I’m starting at once. Pike, would you find my wife before you do anything else, and ask her to find out from the girl Annie whether she ever heard, through Dollboys or elsehow, of Curtain. If I’m not back tonight, I’ll ring up.’
Pike and Flood were alone. They looked at each other. Flood’s round face wore a slightly dazed look. Pike’s long face broke presently into a smile. He said:
‘He’s more like himself than he’s been since the beginning of this do.’
Flood shrugged. He looked at the door by which Anthony had left. ‘What’s up his sleeve?’ he said.
Pike chuckled. As always when he was moved, a schoolboy oath came out of him. He said:
‘Don’t know! But, by Crops, I’ll bet there’s five aces.’
Outside, Anthony was shouting for his servant. Who presently came, from some nethermost region; his mouth, though he strove to conceal this, was full.
‘Get the car out,’ Anthony said. ‘I’m going to London. Hurry, you’ll drive.’
White hurried. As he hurried he muttered: ‘Thank God!’
Anthony went to the telephone. Again he gave the second of Ravenscourt’s two numbers. Again he was in luck.
‘Hullo,’ said Ravenscourt’s voice at last. ‘Just off. You caught me.’
‘Good. Tell me a thing. What was Blackatter’s unit, or units, in France? He was in France?’
There was a pause. ‘He was in France all right,’ said the telephone. ‘Can’t remember what with, though. Hang on.’
Anthony hung on. After two minutes the telephone spoke again. ‘Second-Fourth Prince Edward’s Rifles,’ it said. ‘All the time. That is from 16th January ’15 to Armistice. Three leaves during that period. A week in September ’15; a weekend in May ’16 and a long leave—six weeks—in January ’17. And a fortnight in hospital at Barrigny in May ’17. That do?’
‘Thanks,’ said Anthony. ‘Many thanks.’
‘About Lake,’ said the telephone, ‘I’ve nothing for you yet. But might have later. Heard about this talk of the Dollboys woman? Some man called Curtain? I’m off there now.’
‘Thanks about Lake,’ said Anthony. ‘Don’t forget about him. Yes: I’ve heard of Curtain. Odd business. Very odd. Who is Curtain, what is he, that no one seems to know him?’
‘Mare’s-nest probably,’ said the telephone. ‘G’bye.’
Anthony hung up the receiver. He pulled an envelope from his pocket and upon it scribbled the details of the dead Blackatter’s years in France.
Lucia came down the stairs and found him putting on his greatcoat. He kissed her. He said:
‘See Pike. I’m off. Back sooner or later.’
He was gone. Within what seemed an impossibly short time there came to Lucia’s ear the boom of the car’s exhaust. She turned to find Pike at her elbow.
Anthony sat, buried in his great frieze coat, in the seat beside the driver’s. His eyes were closed, his head sunk between his shoulders.
‘Fast, sir?’ said White.
‘Push her along,’ said his master.
White pushed her along.
Only twice upon the whole journey—and those times within three or four miles of its beginning—did the eyes of Anthony open and show him to be awake. Upon each occasion it was another car that they looked at. The first, Mrs Carter-Fawcett’s limousine; the second, the sedate coupé of Sir Richard Brocklebank. The first, going their way, they passed. Anthony’s eyes took in the emptiness of the car and the immobile, inhuman beauty of the profile of the silent Apollo at the wheel. The second car was travelling against their way. The road curved here and narrowed; White slowed down for the passing. Miss Brocklebank, driving, raised a hand to Anthony in salute. He raised his hat. Beside his daughter was Sir Richard. He waved airily. Anthony nodded and smiled. The car passed. His had gone perhaps fifty yards when Anthony leaned out and looked back, to see that the baronet had done the same. Even at that distance, Anthony imagined that he could see the twinkling of those brown and eternally youthful eyes.
White took the sharp S bend at Woodman’s Corner and was out on the arterial road. Anthony said again:
‘Push her along.’
White put down his right foot.
The Horse and Hound did not see Anthony again upon that Saturday. At eight they fetched Lucia to the telephone.
‘That you, dear?’ said the telephone. ‘I shan’t be back till tomorrow. Probably evening. Dyson’s staying up with me. Look after her.’
‘I am, dear,’ Lucia said. ‘She slept until nearly six, d’you know.’ Her voice was strained. ‘It’s done her good, of course. Her voice was strained. ‘It’s done her good, of course. But only in one way. She … she … she can feel more now …’ She broke off.
‘Stick it!’ said Anthony’s voice. ‘You all right?… Good … What did the girl say about Curtain?’ His voice gave hint of eagerness repressed.
‘Sorry, dear. She’d never heard even the name.’
‘Don’t be sorry.’ The telephone’s voice was not a downcast voice. ‘Could you get Pike?’
‘He’s waiting,’ Lucia said. ‘And Mr Flood.’ And presently Pike spoke. He said:
‘We’ve been over the whole countryside, sir. So far as we can find there’s not a soul knows anything of any Curtain. The name’s not known. I saw Inspector Fox in the late afternoon. I couldn’t pump him—very discreet these country policemen—but it doesn’t look to me, sir, as if they’d had any more luck than we have.’ Pike’s voice did not commit him to either sorrow or pleasure at the work’s result.
The telephone grunted. Pike’s hearing, strained for a note, a tone, to indicate Colonel Gethryn’s feelings, was strained in vain. The telephone said:
‘Try this for me. You and Flood. Find out if the Carter-Fawcett woman’s at Weydings or gone. If she’s there, keep an eye on the place and her if she leaves it. Only for tonight, though.’
Pike’s eyes shone. ‘Right, sir. Anything else?’
‘No. In a hurry,’ said the telephone. ‘’Bye.’ The click of the receiver came to the listener’s ear. He went in search of Flood.
Lucia Gethryn went slowly up the stairs and into the room where this morning she and Anthony had watched a woman fall into her first sleep for many days.
Selma Bronson was no longer asleep. She was walking the small room. The light, firm sound of her heels was steady and rhythmic like the beat of an engine. She went from door to window … window to door … door to window … Up, down … up, down …
Lucia sat upon the window-seat. The walking went on.