Fair Game

by Gerald Hammond

  The sergeant was scribbling again. ‘It also provides a better possible motive,’ he said. ‘Mrs Benton being broke was a motive, but there didn’t seem to be any reason for her to decide to do the deed at that particular time. But if her brother had been faking up guns and selling them to Mr Grass, who had twigged it and demanded restitution which he couldn’t give, that would be enough to push a loving sister, who’d probably absorbed most of the money anyway, into killing in defence of her brother.’

  ‘One thing at a time,’ Keith said. He looked at Enterkin. ‘Suppose you ring Whinkirk House. Speak to Molly, if she’s in. Announce your forthcoming nuptials. Then hand over to me and I’ll find out if it really was Jack Waterhouse who passed on the word.’

  Mr Enterkin thought it over, nodding solemnly. ‘Good idea,’ he said. He squinted at the telephone. ‘Dial the number for me.’

  Keith dialled the number. They heard the ringing tone. The three men put their heads together and Penny leaned over the bar; but the connection was a loud one and every word could have been heard across the room. Molly’s voice answered. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Molly, my dear,’ Mr Enterkin said. ‘Tell me honestly, how are you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine,’ Molly said coldly. ‘Just fine! You sound a little pickled, so I suppose Keith’s with you.’

  Keith closed his eyes. Mr Enterkin drew his lower lip out and down. ‘We were hoping,’ he said reprovingly, ‘that you would come up to the inn and join us in a little party to celebrate my engagement to Mrs Laing.’

  Even over the phone, they could hear Molly swallow. ‘You?’ she said at last.

  ‘None other.’

  ‘You’re engaged?’

  ‘I certainly am. And not before time, as you have been telling me for years.’

  ‘To . . . to Mrs Laing. Is that the lady . .?’

  ‘The barmaid, my dear,’ Mr Enterkin said. ‘No need to avoid the expression. I do not find it opprobrious. Indeed, many of my happiest memories are associated with that calling – across the counter, I hasten to add. Suffice it to say that we clicked from the moment that Keith and I first entered the inn. She serves a beautiful drink, and who can ask more of a wife than that?’

  He listened for a moment and then passed the phone to Keith. ‘She wishes to speak to you, for some strange reason. Would you like us to withdraw? Not that we have the least intention of doing so.’

  ‘Keith,’ came Molly’s voice. All the old warmth was back in it, and he felt his heart lift. ‘Keith, is it really true? It’s not just that he’s drink taken?’

  ‘He’s getting rapidly stoned,’ Keith said, ‘but it’s perfectly true. Listen, we’ve only just figured it out that somebody must have told you that it was me that was – er –’

  ‘Keith, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Tell me later, in deeds, not words. This is urgent. Who was it put the poison in?’

  ‘I promised I wouldn’t tell you.’

  ‘Was it Jack Waterhouse? It’s important.’

  ‘I couldn’t see any reason why he should lie about it.’

  ‘It was?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Molly, and she added, ‘he’s here now.’

  ‘He’s what?’

  He walked in a few minutes ago and asked for you. I said you weren’t in, and he said he’d wait.’

  In the silence which followed, Keith had time to meet the eye of each one of his companions. He found no comfort in any of them. When he spoke again there seemed to be a hedgehog stuck in his throat. ‘Is there anybody else in the house?’ he asked.

  ‘Not just at the moment. The servants went –’

  ‘You’ve got to get out of there,’ Keith broke in. ‘It’s vital. Get out of there without him seeing you and go and hide in the woods or something. I’ll be right over.’

  ‘I don’t see how I can,’ Molly said. ‘He’s waiting in the hall, and I’m upstairs in Miss Wyper’s office. He’d be bound to see me come out of the corridor and cross the landing, whichever way I went.’

  ‘Is Miss Wyper’s gun handy?’

  ‘She took it out with her. There’s only –’

  Molly’s voice was cut off in mid-sentence and a new voice cut in. ‘Listen to me, Calder,’ it said.

  Listening to the nasal, slightly lisping tones, Keith could see the face and wondered now why he had not known Mrs Benton for Jack Waterhouse’s sister. If nothing else, the arrogant, supercilious expression should have been familiar. ‘Is that Jack Waterhouse?’ he said slowly, while he thought. ‘What are you –’

  ‘I’m telling you only one thing,’ Waterhouse said. ‘If there’s any one person in a position to meddle in my business, it’s you. So I’m taking your wife away with me. You’ll get her back next week if I’m satisfied that there’s nothing coming over me and my sister. Otherwise, you’ll get her back all next week, a piece at a time.’

  Keith started to say, ‘It’s too late for that.’ But the line went dead. He dialled the Whinkirk House number with frantic, fumbling fingers. There was a short but agonising delay and then the exchange signalled that the line was out of order.

  The other three were looking at him, white-faced all. The sergeant began to get up. ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.

  ‘No. You’re injured. More use here. Phone your chiefs to send cars to Whinkirk House, fast. Waterhouse drives a rusty old Rover.’

  The sergeant held out keys. ‘My car.’

  But Keith was already on his way to the door. ‘Ten times further by road. And there’s road works. Traffic lights. Quicker cross-country.’

  Keith’s last words were almost lost as the door swung to behind him. Brutus just managed to slip through the gap without losing his tail.

  *

  Keith was prepared to run all the way to Whinkirk House. He knew that it would take him all of ten minutes. That might be soon enough. Molly would fight like a tigress and it would take time to capture her, subdue her and get her into a car. But Molly should not be fighting. Molly was carrying his hope of immortality.

  Outside the inn, Keith looked frantically around, for a bicycle, a tractor, anything that could shorten the time to Whinkirk House.

  Miraculously, as if in answer to a prayer, the perfect, the only vehicle was near the door. A battered old Land Rover, and young Bert Yates just turning, with the keys in his hand, to lock the door.

  Yates was never sure what hit him. By the time that he could sit up, winded and with the beginning of what was to become a specimen cauliflower ear, Keith was in the Land Rover, Brutus had dived across him and they were away.

  Keith turned down past the general’s house – God, the general, he’d go and see the old boy in hospital – and as he went he blessed the days spent walking the estate. For a Land Rover could cut across farm-land as no car ever could. Keith began to plot his route, while part of his mind remembered Molly, Molly at her most loving.

  What had she meant, ‘There’s only –’?

  Keith felt sweat on his forehead. He thought that it must be ninety proof.

  Waterhouse might think that he had time in hand. And there were three separate drives from Whinkirk House. But Waterhouse might not know where Keith was phoning from. He might be impatient.

  What had she . . .?

  St Cynthia’s sacred twat! There was one weapon to hand in Miss Wyper’s office – the triple-damned, four-barrelled, multiple-loaded Roman Candle. Surely she wouldn’t? Yes she bloody well would! Keith slammed the Land Rover into four-wheel-drive and reduced the first gate to a memory. The general had called the Roman Candle a contraption, but that had been, if anything, flattering. It had been designed as the desperate last resort of a cornered man. In theory, the superimposed loads should fire one at a time and starting from the barrel end, but Keith was a student of that part of history dealing with and affected by firearms. There were many examples. Rupert One-hand, Prince of Dresden . . . Keith could only thank whatever gods there might be that he had been interrupted before he could finish adding all
its loads. He had been quite prepared to let the general take his chance, but Molly was different.

  Keith’s route that day took account only of impassable barriers such as ditches. Fences, gates and crops were as nothing beneath his wheels. It took a week to repair the fences, a month to restore sheep and cattle all to their proper owners, and a year before the marks of his passing were wholly gone.

  *

  Back at the inn, while Penny hovered anxiously and Sergeant Jim spoke urgently into the telephone, Mr Enterkin was thinking weighty thoughts, despite the haze induced by a substantial quantity of brandy on a stomach as empty as it was ever allowed to become. He was remembering his conversation with Keith in the car, after their meeting with Inspector Glynder. He remembered, too, Keith’s proposal for financing a legacy to the inspector. And there came to him a new and superlative task for the inspector to perform at the service.

  ‘They’re on the way now?’ the sergeant was saying. ‘That’s fine!’

  Mr Enterkin put out his hand. ‘If that is Inspector Glynder,’ he said thickly, ‘let me speak to him. I have some interesting news to impart.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Keith had chosen his route with skill. His final approach to Whinkirk House was downhill on grass, and therefore with as much silence as Mr Yates’ Land Rover could maintain, and finished up, screened by a thicket of flowering shrubs, a hundred yards from the gable of the servants’ wing. He was out and running before the Land Rover had come to a halt.

  At the edge of the gravel drive, he had to slow. He was reasonably sure that his arrival was so far undetected, and there was no point in throwing that advantage away. Walking gently, he rounded the corner of the house. To his infinite relief, Jack Waterhouse’s car stood, unkempt as ever, by the front door. He thought of waiting in ambush behind it. But Waterhouse might have used one of the Whinkirk House cars, or might intend to do so. And Molly was in no condition to struggle.

  The dining room window was slightly open. Keith pushed it up and rolled over the sill. Now he could hear a man’s voice somewhere in the house. Between relief and the whisky his knees felt loose, and he steadied himself by the long table as he tiptoed towards the door. He was quite unaware that Brutus, infected by both his urgency and his caution, was padding softly along behind.

  With the door opened just a crack Keith could be sure that the voice was that of Jack Waterhouse, and all the old antipathy came flooding back, increased a thousandfold by new knowledge. Gently, very gently so that neither sound nor visible movement nor sudden breath of air would alert the other man, he pulled the door open until, slow as a tortoise, he could ease his head through and take a look.

  Waterhouse was standing at the head of the single flight of stairs that led up to the broad landing. He stood close to the wall, and was addressing his words towards the corner of the short corridor which led to Miss Wyper’s office.

  The stairs were thickly carpeted and, as far as Keith could remember, there were no creaking treads. He heaved a sigh for his gun, still standing behind Penny Laing’s front door, and started up the stair on all fours.

  ‘You may as well come out,’ Waterhouse was saying. His voice was meant to sound calm and confident, but under the domineering tones Keith could hear a dangerous desperation. Keith saw that he had an automatic pistol in his hand, and he looked ready to use it. ‘If anybody gets here soon,’ Waterhouse went on, ‘it will be your lord and master, and he’ll get himself killed. Which might be an alternative way of solving my problems. Much better to persuade him to do it my way, by coming along quietly.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Molly’s voice.

  ‘Even to save your husband’s life?’

  ‘He’s a better stalker than you are,’ Molly said throatily.

  ‘If that’s old Grass’s Roman Candle you’ve got there, I repaired it for him,’ (bloody liar, Keith thought), ‘and if it goes off at all, which I doubt, it’s as likely to kill you as me. So I strongly advise you not to pull the trigger. I, on the other hand, am going to come round the corner in a few seconds, shooting.’

  ‘If you kill me –’

  ‘I can remove you all the more easily, and as long as your doting husband thinks you’re alive he’ll do what he’s told.’

  ‘It’s too late,’ Molly said. ‘He’s already told the solicitor, and there’s somebody coming up from London.’

  ‘If Calder buys the guns at face value, he’s admitting that his first opinion was wrong. Think of it as a sort of ransom. Now, make up your mind.’

  Keith had already made up his mind. As he arrived close behind Waterhouse, he was holding his breath in case the smell of whisky should betray his presence. He decided to hit the man hard behind the knees with his shoulder, as a preliminary to a good, old-fashioned thumping. In preparation, he retreated down one step.

  His foot came down on Brutus’ front paw.

  The yelp of a stricken dog is intended by nature to be among the most startling sounds in the universe, and it ranks high among nature’s more successful designs. The penetrating squeal jerked Waterhouse round as if he had been whipped like a top.

  If Keith had jumped like a rabbit at Miss Wyper’s shot that afternoon, his leap at Brutus’ shriek was that of a gazelle, and as he came upright he began to throw up his hands to hold his balance on the stair.

  The combined result of the movements of the two men was that as Waterhouse span round with the pistol outthrust, he placed it just above Keith’s hands. Instinctively, Keith grabbed and held.

  Immediately, they were locked in a joint-cracking tug-of-war which neither could afford to lose. Keith’s prime preoccupation was to keep the pistol pointing away from himself. He croaked Molly’s name, with some idea in mind that she might break the deadlock by batting Waterhouse over the head with the Roman Candle. Then, inevitably, the pistol fired. A blast of gas from the ejection port seared Keith’s hand, and he felt the spent cartridge try to eject and stop against his fingers. He almost smiled. Nothing was going to fire that gun again for the moment. He dropped his hands violently, pulling Waterhouse across his hip.

  In an attempt to save himself, Waterhouse let go of the pistol, grabbed for Keith’s coat and missed. He landed, in a sitting position, half-way down the stairs and bumped the rest of the way to the bottom. Keith could hear his teeth snap together at every step.

  Faintly but increasing, from outside came the double bray of an approaching police car. Waterhouse, winded as he was, staggered to his feet and made for the front door.

  Keith dropped the pistol into his pocket and stepped round the corner.

  Molly had heard Keith’s voice call her name. She had heard the shot and the sound of a body descending the stairs. When a male form appeared suddenly in silhouette against the bright landing, she pulled the trigger.

  *

  Keith’s life was undoubtedly saved by that extra tenth of a second lock-time that a flintlock takes to fire.

  In the instant when she decided to pull the trigger, Molly also recognised her husband at the far end of the barrels. But a message once sent along the nervous system can not be called back. With a modern gun, Keith would have been dead. The Roman Candle was pointed between his eyes while the cock struck down at the frizzen, but Molly’s hand was already jerking up. As the priming flashed in the pan, the gun was clearing the top of Keith’s head, and the first shot passed him by to shatter a sporting print on the landing wall. As the gun spluttered its series of shots from the super-imposed loads, Molly’s arm was still swinging up. The second ball went into the cornice. The third shattered a small chandelier in the landing ceiling, scattering crystal droplets down into the hall. The four remaining shots went through the corridor ceiling.

  Keith groped his way forward through the thick pall of gunpowder smoke and took Molly into his arms. She leaned weakly against him.

  ‘Keep it pointing at the ceiling.’ Keith said. ‘I’ve lost count. There may be another one up the spout.’

  ‘All
right.’ Molly put her other arm round his neck and pulled his head down. She planted little, fluttery kisses over his face. ‘Keith,’ she said at last, ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What?’ Keith’s ears were still ringing. He had been at the noisy end of the gun.

  ‘I said I was sorry.’

  ‘For shooting at me?’

  ‘No, that was your own fault for coming round the corner suddenly when you knew I was expecting somebody else. I’m sorry I believed what he said about you. Anyway, I’d seen him coming up the stairs with that Luger in his hand, so I wasn’t waiting to recognise a face.’

  The smoke was clearing. Keith pulled the pistol out of his pocket. ‘Luger?’ he said.

  Molly looked down. ‘No, it isn’t, is it? Well, it looked like a Luger. It’s a Finnish Lahti.’ Keith opened his hand to let her see that the grips were black instead of brown. ‘Swedish Model Forty,’ she finished triumphantly. ‘Can I put this one down now? My arm hurts.’

  ‘Well done. What? Oh yes, it’s safe now.’

  Molly dropped the Roman Candle on the carpet and hugged Keith with both arms. ‘I am sorry,’ she said again. ‘Truly I am. It’d have served me right if you’d found somebody else.’

  Keith had spent a large part of the night in the bed of Bessie the maid, but this was not the time to remember such things. ‘I’m a happily married man now,’ he said. Which, at least, was true.

  ‘And a respectable businessman,’ Molly said. ‘So you always say. And likely you’ll make a good father. Most of the time. But, Keith, you go along fine for long enough, and then suddenly you’ll go off the rails. The trouble is, you’re irresponsible.’

  A dribble of water started from one of the holes in the ceiling. It fell clear of them, and neither noticed it.