by Richard Hull
‘I told you something of the sort would happen.’ Gregory seemed perfectly unconcerned.
From the shadows at the end of the room Rushton appeared quietly and removed James’ half-finished plate. ‘For myself, sir, though I regret to have to choose so unsuitable a moment, I wish to hand you my notice. It is not my habit to stay in houses where the private differences of the family are discussed before me; I find it very embarrassing, and I shall be glad if you will release me as soon as possible.’
‘Tonight, I said.’
‘Very good, sir. Shall I put out the blue suit for you to wear tomorrow morning or the brown?’
‘Both for all I care.’
‘Very good, sir.’ It was impossible to upset Rushton’s dignity if he chose to retain it.
For the moment there was silence, so that Emily began to have a faint hope that her cousins would wisely let things take their course. If only Gregory would refrain from being sarcastic, and if Henry would say nothing, all might yet be well. But she had very little real expectation that so desirable a state of affairs would occur. So far as she could make out, Gregory, far from trying to help, seemed to be actually anxious to make his uncle angrier than ever, and experience had taught her that it was no good hoping that Henry would take a rational course. Some spark of introspection made her wonder whether, fundamentally, she was as difficult as the rest of the family. For there was no doubt that they were at all times just a little peculiar.
She was not to know one cause of Gregory’s irritation. Today ought to have been the moment when he proved to Linnell and The New Light that he was capable of, at any rate, becoming a useful reporter. But it had been quite impossible for him to narrate under the eyes of his uncle the incidents of the inquest bit by bit as they occurred, and he had had to admit as much. He had hoped, however, to be able, either to amplify the account or to think of some useful contribution that he might make later, but with all this disturbance going on, consecutive thought was impossible. For the moment he was quite reckless as to what he said, except that he was determined that nobody else should come off better than he did, and he was quite aware that his interference was not helping Emily. Whatever else might have happened, the whole business was not assisting him to gain the confidence of Linnell. But then perhaps that had never been anything more than a myth. So far as he could see, journalists had to work, and no career which involved work was of any real interest to Gregory Spring-Benson.
His meditations were, however, interrupted by Henry who, waiting until Rushton was out of the room, remarked brightly: ‘Well, that’s one good thing anyhow. Now we shall be able to get a slightly more trustworthy butler perhaps. I never did like the look of that fellow.’
‘Which is, I suppose, why you recommended me to engage him?’ James attempted to be sarcastic. ‘But in any case, his successor will be of no interest or concern of yours. How many times do I have to tell you before you understand it, that you are going tonight?’
‘You’ve been saying nothing else for the last hour. In fact, I’m tired of it. But that does not mean that I am going. In fact, I have every intention of staying. At any rate for tonight.’
James’ reply was to get up and ring the bell for Rushton. ‘Will you have the goodness to pack Mr Malcolm’s clothes straight away and tell me when you have done so. If he doesn’t take them away himself within half an hour after that, put them outside the front door. If they get wet, it will be his own fault.’
‘With the greatest pleasure, sir.’
‘You will do nothing of the sort.’
‘You will pardon me, sir, but I must obey Mr Warrenton’s orders.’
‘Quite right.’ James appeared to be coming to a decision. ‘But before you do so, light that fire.’
‘But, Uncle, we’re just going to leave here, and it’s quite warm, anyhow.’ Emily ventured to protest.
‘Light that fire.’
‘Now I do wonder,’ Gregory mused out loud, ‘why you want that done. It intrigues me. Are you going to burn Henry alive?’
‘Do not try to be a bigger fool than is necessary. What I am going to burn is neither of you, but my will. All you came down here for was to try to get into it — and the only reason why Henry is here is because he thinks he is in it — and Emily’s here partly for that reason and partly because she’s too poor a fish to go anywhere else. And the two of them have been right up to now, within limits — quite modest limits. But they aren’t going to be so very much longer.’
With that James stamped out of the room and returned within a very short time to throw a legal looking document into the now blazing fire. ‘There you are,’ he said, ‘the only will that I ever made, and a pretty penny those lawyers charged me. Tomorrow I shall make quite a short and simple one so that it can’t cost me much — or at any rate so that it ought not to. I shall leave everything irrevocably to the Psychical Research Society, and that will be the end of any wish on the part of any of my nephews and nieces to see me again.’
Emily wrung her hands unhappily, while Malcolm looked disconcerted, as if someone had told him that he had some egg on his moustache. Only Gregory was unmoved. ‘The only pity is,’ he drawled pleasantly, watching the last fragments slowly turn to black ashes, ‘that there will be three witnesses — four if Rushton will play up — who will have to say that you were quite incapable of making a will. Not of sound testamentary disposition is the legal phrase, I believe.’
‘What’s that? I didn’t quite hear.’
‘Oh yes, you did. Bats in the belfry, to put it shortly.’
Before James could recover, Rushton returned and addressed Malcolm with every appearance of making a statement of no importance in as civil a manner as possible. ‘I have placed your luggage in the rain, sir.’
‘Very rapid and rather bettering your instructions. However, it is quite easy to unpack it again.’ In his turn, Henry hurried out of the dining room, followed by James and Emily. Gregory watched their retreating figures, and then turned quietly to Rushton. ‘Very fatiguing,’ he said. ‘Bring me some liqueur brandy, please.’
Outside he could hear the banging of suitcases against the stairs and occasional angry remarks, but he took very little notice of it. Even the noise of the moving of furniture overhead did not disturb him. Alternately sipping the brandy and rounding it in his glass, he sat revolving the recent events in his mind. Presently he got up and moved to the other end of the dining room noiselessly. When James returned, he was once more sitting before the fire.
‘Where the devil did you get that from? Who gave you leave to drink my best brandy? You go on as if this house was your own, but I tell you it isn’t, and I’m going to prove it. I’m not going to have you and Rushton putting your heads together anymore. Up you go to your room, and I’m going to lock you in.’
‘I thought I was being thrown out tonight.’
‘Tomorrow morning will do just as well. Come along with you.’
‘Well, there’s much to be said for a quiet evening. You don’t mind if I take a cigar, do you?’ Despite James’ exclamation of wrath, he suited the action to the word, and when his uncle furiously snatched it from him and sent it to join the ashes of the will, he merely remarked that one was now spoilt, and took another. Very calmly, with his hands in his coat pockets, he moved to the door, and, politely motioning James out first, he followed him up the stairs.
On coming on to the landing, however, he stopped and exclaimed, ‘Now what on earth!’ Outside the door of Malcolm’s room, a large chest of drawers had been pushed. For a second James looked a little shamefaced. ‘Henry locked himself up in his room in the end, but fortunately he forgot that the door opens outwards, so I got Rushton to put the chest of drawers in front. Then I locked Rushton up in his room and Emily in hers, and now you’re going into yours.’
‘It sounds rather like the Zoo. But mustn’t Hamar and the cook and the housemaids be enjoying this!’
‘Don’t talk so much. If you choose — any of you �
�� to get out of the window and risk the drop, you can, but I don’t recommend it. It’s a fairly long way, even if you make a rope out of the sheets, and you won’t break the door down in a hurry. Tomorrow I shall let you out when I choose to, which will be when you have given me your word of honour to go straight away.’
‘I’m quite surprised that you think that I have one. But, setting that aside, how do you propose to force me to do what you want? I mean, Henry got himself into the mess he’s in — he would — and Emily, anyone can bully, but I’m not so easy a proposition. I suppose you could get hold of Hamar and perhaps Young and throw me in, but don’t worry, I’m quite happy to go. Only do tell Henry, and if you like, Emily, what you’ve done. It might make them sleep better. As for Emily, I don’t mind. She’s too far off to disturb me, but Henry may make a noise, and if there is one thing I do dislike it is noise; so, do tell him to be quiet. Goodnight. Pleasant dreams.’
He walked quietly into his bedroom and looked out of the window. It certainly was some way to the flagged pavement below, the ground floor of Amberhurst Place being unusually high, but not perhaps an impossible drop for anyone who wanted to get out so much that he was prepared to risk a broken leg. Outside he heard his uncle give Henry his message and then go downstairs, apparently to the Long Library, to judge from the direction the sound came of a door shutting.
Gregory shrugged his shoulders. Whether his uncle was capable of making a will or not he did not know, but he had certainly been a little mad for the last few hours.
18
Fenby at Four Gables
‘I don’t like leaving her there, and that’s a fact.’
‘Especially as it was she who sent me round to see you originally. You don’t think anybody guessed that, do you?’
‘No. Even though it was most unwise for her to take my part this evening.’ Fenby’s voice was almost drowned by a crash of thunder from outside. ‘Is this storm never going to end? It seems all wrong to have it so early in the year, and though I am not usually superstitious, it’s upsetting me. Somehow, too, it makes me more nervous for Miss Warrenton.’
‘You don’t really think anything is going to happen to her, do you?’
For the moment the steady grey eyes of the little man seemed to waver. ‘No, not really. But all the same, she did say more than was wise this afternoon. You see, whoever did murder your brother, was present this afternoon and heard her evidence, and it was she, and she only, who persisted in speaking of your brother as having been pushed.’
‘That’s perfectly true. Actually, as I think you know, it was she who insisted on my going round to the chief constable. Left to myself, I rather wonder whether I would have done so.’
‘If you had not, I should have gone.’ Julia barely looked up from her embroidery to interpose the words, and then resumed the making of the intricate pattern.
Fenby looked at her and nodded. ‘Yes, I know you would not have let things rest.’
‘Can’t have things like that going on, anyhow.’ This time Julia did not even trouble to raise her eyes.
‘Quite. But I doubt if we should have gone about it in the way we have if it had not been for Miss Warrenton. You see, she gave herself a part that really required more courage simply because she was frightened. Left to ourselves, Perceval or someone like him would have taken entire charge of the case and have gone about it vigorously. But because Miss Warrenton was afraid of what might happen if it were seen that the police were really acting energetically, the unfortunate inspector has had to go slowly and apparently feebly.’
Christopher laughed. ‘Bad luck on him, you know. It must have been very hard for him to restrain himself.’
‘It was. Purely by chance I happen to know Perceval pretty well, and I can generally tell when things are going to be too much for him. He had the look in his eye that means trouble once this afternoon. That was when Mr Malcolm said that ghosts were all nonsense. I fancied that he was going to press things too far, so I got up and made a demonstration, and he took the hint and cooled off.’
‘That was the second time, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. The first was when Miss Warrenton was being too definite, and I wanted to protect her. Of course, that was why I took on the guise of the secretary of the Departed Spirits Association. By the way, I rather liked the name, and I thoroughly enjoyed playing the part, except perhaps for some of those very long and stilted sentences in which I thought that I ought to indulge. That is, until I was exposed this evening.’
‘Were you shown up badly?’ Christopher laughingly asked.
‘Thoroughly and completely. Actually, I know awfully little about such things as spiritualism and psychical research and, with the arrival of a professional who really did, I got out of my depth at once — result: complete exposure of an inspector from Scotland Yard. The things your uncle called me almost make me blush now.’
‘Which reminds me that I meant to have asked you before whether you were Scotland Yard or the County Police. I only had that one short interview with the chief constable, and after that he only dropped me a hint.’
‘I expect he thought that it didn’t matter much, and the less you knew the better. For one thing, disguises are not very popular, and we only do it on special occasions, and then we almost have to be asked to, so that was one reason why the chief constable threw the responsibility on to us. Another reason was that he wanted someone whom there was no chance of anyone recognising locally, and the only person who knew me in these parts was Inspector Perceval himself. Also, he hadn’t got anyone available who was the right size. There are advantages sometimes in being small.’
Once more Christopher laughed. Even though he had been able to talk freely to Fenby for the first time only that evening, by now he thoroughly liked the little man. There was a twinkle that spoke of humour in his eye as well as an expression that made you trust him, and his face showed determination and confidence in himself as well as brains. Yet no one would have called him anything but modest, and he had entered into the game of playing the part of the psychic secretary with all the abandon and youthfulness of a schoolboy. Indeed, at heart Inspector Fenby was incurably young.
But, seeing that the conversation was straying away irrelevantly, Julia brought it back firmly to the main point. ‘Side issues, Christopher. May one ask how you are getting on, Inspector?’
‘Certainly, Mrs Vaughan, but I am afraid the answer is, not so far as I think that I ought to have got. These are the main questions. Was your son murdered, and if so, how and by whom? The answer to the first we have always thought was “yes”, but I wanted something a little bit more than Miss Warrenton’s belief, and I had to wait a few days before I got it. The answer to the second I believe that I know, but it is only a guess. For the third, the field is narrowing down, and although people are on their guard when Inspector Perceval is about, they have been less careful when there has been nobody present but myself. If only that well-meaning man had not shown me up so completely this afternoon, I think that I should have found out by now. I wanted very much to search the room, and I think that by this time it might be easier to do it because I fancy that Mr Spring-Benson and the butler will not be working hand in glove anymore.’
Christopher sat up with rather a start. The only room he could remember being mentioned at the inquest was the one in which Rushton had thought he had heard rats — a trivial incident which Christopher had almost forgotten. ‘Then you think it is—?’ he began to ask.
‘Begin at the beginning,’ Julia unexpectedly interrupted. ‘Why was it necessary to prove that Arthur was murdered? Surely we all knew it all along?’
‘We all suspected it, at least all but Mr Warrenton, but, before we could act, we had to have a little more ground to base our conviction on, especially as it seemed — and seems — that we should have to encounter quite considerable opposition from Mr Warrenton himself.’
‘And so, you proved it. If one may ask, I should like to know how.’ As Fenby se
emed to hesitate for a minute, Christopher looked at the clock and then turned to his mother. ‘I gather that Uncle James must have repented of the threats he was muttering at the inquest. Otherwise we should have had Emily down here by now.’
‘Everything’s ready for her, and you never know when James will do things.’
The short colloquy had enabled Fenby to make up his mind. ‘The proof was rather amusing, if not really my doing at all, and I don’t in the least mind telling it to you. The entire credit belongs, as a matter of fact, to the Victoria and Albert Museum.’
‘The what?’ Christopher exclaimed. ‘It’s hardly the place in which one would expect to have a murder solved.’
‘Well, I don’t know that they actually knew what they were doing. You see, I put a hypothetical case to them, so that there should be no chance of their opinion being biased.’
Julia shook her head. ‘No need to have done that. Those sort of people are literally truthful to an uncomfortable extent.’
‘I suppose you are right, but I wanted to make absolutely certain. Anyhow, there was no doubt about the fullness and conclusiveness of their answer. I only asked them for a general description of what a man would wear in 1535 (which, by the way, was the actual date that the messenger was supposed to have ridden along the side of the Great Water), and they gave me a full description. Just look at it.’
From his pocket Fenby produced a long, typewritten letter, and began to read out: ‘“Hat flat, low-crowned, wide-brimmed; the edge perhaps cut or turned up and with jewel or feather; worn tilted sideways, perhaps over a skull cap. Hair medium long.”’
‘I say,’ broke in Christopher, ‘do they really know as much as that?’
‘So far as I can make out, nothing is hidden from them. “Gown”,’ he went on reading, ‘“knee-length, turn-down or standing collar, very wide indeed in the shoulders. Sleeveless or with diminutive puff sleeves; front open to show doublet.” Then they go on to describe the doublet in great detail and the breeches and then even the shirt, embroidered perhaps at the throat and wrist, and to mention that the stockings are inconspicuous and plain and have no garters, so how they stayed up, I don’t know. Finally, they say: “dagger often worn. Eighteen inches long, large cross hilt with knob, worn low on ribbon hanger from the waist. Hangs horizontally”.’