The Crime and the Crystal

by E. X. Ferrars

  “So you’re here,” he said incredulously, his voice dropping almost to a whisper. “The one place I didn’t think of. I’ve been hunting for you everywhere.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dudley said. “I suppose you’re the person I ought to have got in touch with when the police let me go.”

  “Oh, you suppose that, do you?” Bob Wilding said, his voice furiously sarcastic and his rigidity changing to a suppressed kind of trembling.

  In another moment, Andrew thought, he was going to launch himself across the room at Dudley. Recognizing with dismay that even if he tried to prevent what seemed likely to happen, it was unlikely that a man of his age would be able to do anything useful, he was glad to see that Tony took a step forward.

  But Dudley did not seem disturbed.

  “I’m really sorry,” he said. “The fact is, there was something I wanted to tell Denis. I thought I owed it to him to tell it straight away, because I believe that in a way I’m to blame for what happened here. You see, I told Jan—” He stopped abruptly, looking doubtfully at the enraged man facing him.

  “What did you tell Jan?” Bob demanded. “That Sara had been peddling drugs to you?”

  “Well, yes,” Dudley said.

  “You lying bastard!” Bob shouted, his voice shaking. “She’s never done anything but try to help you.”

  “Yes, I know that,” Dudley said pacifically. “She was only trying to help me when she slipped me a few joints from time to time. She knew I needed them and I was very grateful. They really were a great help when things went badly wrong with me, as they sometimes do. I get these terrible fits of depression, you see. You just don’t know what they’re like. They’re why I couldn’t stay at home and thought I’d come to Australia. I thought it would be different here, but of course it hasn’t been. The trouble was nothing to do with my home and family, as I used to think, it’s something in me and I take it with me wherever I go. But I oughtn’t to have talked about the thing to Jan—the pot, I mean. Only I took for granted she must know about it if she worked in the shop—”

  With a strangled sort of roar, Bob dived across the room at Dudley. Bob’s hands were raised, as if he were reaching for Dudley’s throat. Dudley stood still with a look of puzzled distress on his face. What he might have done in the way of defending himself if Bob had reached him Andrew did not discover, because before he could do so Tony had lunged forward and grasped one of Bob’s arms and Denis had made a grab at the other. While they did so, Andrew placed himself between Bob and Dudley, though he did not think he would really be much use there if Bob freed himself from the other two men, but at least it felt better than doing nothing.

  “Take it easy, Bob,” Tony said. “All right, there’s been a mistake of some sort somewhere, but this sort of thing isn’t going to help.”

  “Too right, it won’t!” Bob shouted. “You just let me go and I’ll teach him a thing or two!”

  “But I said I was sorry,” Dudley said, sounding like a small boy who was about to be punished for having broken something unintentionally.

  “Come and sit down, Bob,” Denis said, “and listen to the rest of the story. Then perhaps we can sort out what really happened.”

  Unwillingly Bob allowed himself to be thrust into a chair. Both Tony and Denis remained standing on either side of him in case he should take it into his head to make another attack on Dudley.

  “Go on, Dud,” Tony said. “Denis may have heard this, but I haven’t.”

  “It’s just that I mentioned the pot to Jan,” Dudley said, “and instead of knowing all about it, as I thought she would, it turned out to be pretty much of a shock to her, and she talked it over with Kay and Kay told her to leave the matter to her. And then, you see, Kay was murdered.”

  Denis spoke bitterly. “You’ve left out the bit this time about Kay probably having blackmailed Sara.”

  “Has he said that?” Bob demanded fiercely. “And hasn’t he said Sara murdered Kay?”

  “Actually he hasn’t,” Andrew said. He had moved away to a chair and sat down. It was disturbing to realize that the brief spell of violence in the room had made his heart beat surprisingly uncomfortably. For the first time he wondered if there was anything the matter with his heart. He had always taken for granted that it was one of the soundest parts of him. But every trouble has to have a beginning, and this might be the start of something. “He suggested that Kay threatened Miss Massingham,” he went on, “or perhaps warned would be a better word, that she was going to tell the police about the matter, and Miss Massingham told her brother, or whoever it was from whom she was getting the drugs, and it was he who murdered Kay.”

  “That’s just as bad,” Bob said. “It would make Sara part of a conspiracy. And it’s all so infamous, a lie from start to finish. Can’t you see why he’s made it up?”

  “I suppose to conceal the source from which he’s really been getting the drugs,” Andrew said, “if it wasn’t Miss Massingham.”

  “You can bet that’s it!” Bob said. “And I’ll soon get that out of him if you’ll let me get at him.”

  “You know, Dudley,” Andrew said, “I think you might be wise to leave.”

  “But I can’t while he still thinks I’m lying,” Dudley said plaintively. “Really I’m not, Bob. I dare say I’ve misunderstood something and got a bit mixed up, but it’s absolutely true I’ve been getting an occasional joint from Sara, and I told Jan about it, and Jan told me she’d talk it over with Kay and then told me Kay said she should leave the matter to her. All those things are facts. Anything else is speculation, but those things are facts and they’re absolutely all I’ve told the police.”

  “So you’ve told all this rubbish to the police, have you?” Bob said with the tremor of rage back in his voice. “I might have known it.”

  “I couldn’t help it,” Dudley said apologetically. “I couldn’t help feeling that with something so serious under discussion, I’d got to tell them the truth. But it’s a funny thing, they didn’t seem much interested. It was my impression that they knew about it already. I mean, about Sara. I think they’ve been watching her for some time, trying to find out who’s been supplying her. Assuming it’s her brother who’s been getting the stuff on his trips to Indonesia, I suppose they’ve been watching to catch him with a consignment.”

  “I wonder if her brother’s in the country now,” Tony said, “and if he is, I wonder if he’s got an alibi for yesterday afternoon.”

  “And I wonder if he’s a tall man,” Andrew said. “Have you ever seen him, Bob?”

  Bob lifted his clenched fists and beat his temples with them.

  “I don’t believe it! I don’t believe any of it! It’s all a childish lie!” he screamed.

  “But have you seen him?” Tony asked.

  “No!”

  “Well, I think Andrew and I may as well go home,” Tony said. “But you go first, Dud.”

  “It’s all right, I won’t touch him,” Bob muttered. “Anyway, not so long as he keeps his mouth shut. If he starts talking again, I don’t promise…”

  He was still mumbling what he might do in that event when Dudley quietly left the room. A moment later Tony and Andrew followed him.

  Chapter Seven

  If you don’t mind, Tony,” Andrew said as they reached the gate, “I’d rather like to go for a short walk. Just a little way along the beach. I’ll follow you presently.”

  “Want some peace and quiet?” Tony said. “Right. Will you manage to find your way back to us?”

  “Oh, I think so.”

  “See you later, then.” Tony set off along the road towards his home.

  Andrew walked to the steps that led down to the beach, but then, instead of going down them on to the strip of sandy shore which was at its narrowest at that moment, because the tide was high, he stayed on the road above it, strolling along slowly, feeling an almost sensual pleasure in the simple absence of voices round him, in the silence that was broken only by the gentle wash of the
waves over the sand.

  At intervals along the side of the road there were benches, one or two of them occupied by a couple or a solitary figure, but most of them empty. The long row of Norfolk Island pines, in their dark uniforms, were like guards keeping watch on the coast, protecting the peace of the evening. The blue of the sky, which had been so brilliant earlier, had been softened by the first tinge of dusk. There was a faint opalescent sheen on the calm sea. There were no crowds, not even cricketing children.

  After he had walked only a little way, Andrew sat down on one of the benches. Resting his elbow on the back of it, he propped his head on his hand. His mind felt blessedly blank. It was wonderfully restful. The pressure of other people’s emotions, their problems, their loves and hates and fears, had faded and left him in peace. It was a peace, he knew, which was not likely to last long, for he was not a callous man and this escape from their troubles could only be brief. But to have an empty mind for the moment was more comforting than he could remember such a condition ever having been before. He wondered dreamily how long he could decently stay here before returning to the Gardiners’ house.

  On the beach in front of him a flock of gulls had settled. They were all gazing in the same direction out to sea and were almost motionless. He believed they were called silver gulls. They were smallish, with white heads and bodies, silver-grey wings and black tails. It seemed to Andrew that they had the stolid, rather self-satisfied air of a group of business executives, gathered together for a conference. One bird that had separated itself a little from the others and was standing in front of the pack might have been their chairman. Further along the beach there was another compact group of the same kind of gull, also gazing out to sea and also motionless, but plainly wishing to have no truck with the group that was nearest to it. Then all of a sudden the further group, as if at a signal that the meeting was over, rose at the same time and flew away. Mysterious things, birds, he thought. Almost as mysterious, almost as totally beyond the understanding of a rational mind, as human beings.

  Andrew’s head, resting on his hand, felt very heavy. If the wooden bench had been more comfortable, he would probably have drifted off to sleep. As it was, he found himself reciting in his head, almost unconsciously:

  Pibroch of Donuil Dhu,

  Pibroch of Donuil,

  Wake they wild voice anew,

  Summon Clan Conuil…

  Normally it would have irritated him to find his mind possessed by the fragment of verse which in itself had no attraction for him, yet now he found that there was something soothing in it. It helped to blot out everything but the quiet of the seashore, the committee of silver gulls, the softly thumping waves, the dark, soldierly looking pines. He repeated the lines and went on:

  Leave untended the herd,

  The flock without shelter,

  Leave the bride uninterred,

  The corpse at the altar…

  There was something wrong with that, but he was too drowsy to think out what it was. He closed his eyes. In spite of the hardness of the bench on which he was sitting, he thought that he would soon fall asleep if he did not resist the inclination to do so. Perhaps it was time to be returning to the Gardiners’ bungalow. But his head only drooped farther on to his chest…

  “Professor Basnett.”

  He started and, considering how close he had been to sleep, woke up reasonably quickly. Clare and David Nicholl were standing before him. He began to get to his feet, but Clare said quickly, “Please don’t let us disturb you. We just came out for a short walk. We often do that in the evening. The crowds have all gone and it’s so quiet and nice. Then we saw you and didn’t realize you were asleep.”

  She sat down beside him. David remained standing.

  “I wasn’t asleep,” Andrew said. “Just a bit drowsy. Tired. Very tired. It’s been an exhausting day.”

  “D’you know if they’ve found out anything about the murder?” Clare asked.

  “Which murder?… Oh, of course, you mean Kay’s. I’m sorry, my mind was wandering. I don’t think they have. Nothing definite. But they seem to think it’s involved with drugs. I believe they’ve arrested Miss Massingham for trafficking in them, or at least they’ve taken her in for questioning, and it seems to be possible that Kay had found out something about what she was doing and that may have been why she was killed. But I can’t vouch for any of it. I was in the Lightfoots’ house when Bob Wilding came in and poured it all out, but he was in a very hysterical state, practically incoherent, one might say, so it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s been a mistake somewhere.”

  As he spoke he became more and more convinced that there had been a mistake somewhere, though he was not sure why he felt it. Something of importance, it still seemed to him, was eluding him, something that he ought to have grasped, and for some reason the presence of this young couple increased the feeling. There was something that he wanted to ask them, but what was it? They seemed to have had less to do with the events of this disastrous Christmas than anyone else whom he had met since he had come to Betty Hill.

  “As a matter of fact, I’m not altogether surprised,” Clare said. “I’ve always felt there was something peculiar about Sara.”

  “No, you haven’t,” her husband said sharply, as if he were afraid she was about to launch into indiscretions. “You’ve always liked her.”

  “I’ve always admired her,” Clare said with the self-assurance of hindsight. “That isn’t quite the same thing as liking. She’s beautiful and she’s clever. But I’ve always wondered how she kept that shop going. It isn’t the kind of place out of which you can make a living. I assumed she must have some money of her own and that she ran it simply for the interest of the thing. I realized that she liked to patronize young artists like Dudley Blair. But of course, if she was dealing in drugs…” She gave Andrew a penetrating glance. Her unusual green eyes in her round, plump face had lost the look of certainty that they had had for a moment. She looked bewildered. “Only you say there’s been a mistake.”

  “I don’t know, I really don’t know,” Andrew said. “Perhaps there’s no mistake about the drugs. But there’s something I’d like to ask you.” His mind had begun to clear. He knew what had been eluding him. It had to do with the corpse at the altar, with the man, that was to say, who had been found dead only a few weeks after his marriage, not actually at an altar, but in a pond, where there seemed to be no good reason for him to be. “Am I right, David, that it was you who found Luke Wilding’s body? I think you told me you did.”

  David Nicholl was still standing, looking as if he would have liked to move on and not have to take part in the conversation in which his wife had involved him.

  “Yes, but what’s that got to do with what happened yesterday?” he asked. “Do the police think the two murders are connected?”

  “I’m not in their confidence,” Andrew said, “but I can’t help feeling myself that they must be.”

  “Well, I found Luke,” David said. Giving up his resistance to taking part in the discussion, he sat down beside his wife. “But I can’t tell you why his body had been dragged to the pond. I don’t think anyone’s been able to explain that.”

  “There’s a theory that the murderer was trying to drag his body to a car,” Andrew said, “to drive it out somewhere into the bush and dump it, but then he got interrupted, perhaps by your arrival, and dropped the body and cleared out as fast as he could before you could see him.”

  David nodded. “That seems as likely to me as anything.”

  “But did you see a car?”

  David wrinkled his brow. “A car? Where?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” Andrew said. “I’ve never been to the quarry, so I don’t know what sort of approaches to it there are, but when you got there yourself, did you see a car parked anywhere?”

  “Yes, I saw Luke’s car.”

  “You knew it? You’re sure it was his?”

  “Yes, it was a Mercedes. Light blue. I
couldn’t swear to the number, but it was the only car of the kind that I’d ever seen in the neighbourhood. And later the police said it was his.”

  “How do you get into the quarry from the road?”

  “If you’ve a car, d’you mean, or if you’re on foot?”

  “Both.”

  “Well, there’s a sort of lay-by where I always parked if I wanted to go into the quarry. There was an old road leading in from it, but you can’t really drive along it now. I don’t think there was anywhere else you could have left the car if you wanted to go in. The road past the quarry is a busy main road with nowhere you can pull off it on to the verge. But of course if you were on foot you could have climbed in at a lot of places.”

  “How far off is the nearest village?”

  “The nearest is Hartwell. It’s about ten kilometres away.”

  “How far off is Wilding’s sheep station?”

  “From the quarry, d’you mean, or Hartwell?”

  “Both,” Andrew said again.

  “It’s about eight or nine kilometres from the quarry, I should say,” David answered, “and about a couple from Hartwell.”

  “So if the murderer came either from Hartwell or from the sheep station on foot, and returned also on foot, he’d a good long walk before him.”

  David nodded. “That’s right. I’m not sure what you’re getting at, but it sounds to me as if you think he must have come by car and that could only have meant he arrived with Wilding in his Mercedes.”

  “Not necessarily,” Andrew said. “There’s another possibility.”

  Clare was watching him with wide-eyed concentration. “Of course you’re sure all this has something to do with Kay’s murder,” she said. “But you don’t think Luke Wilding was involved in the drug traffic, do you? He’d no need of it, you know. He was a very successful grazier, with lots of money.”

  “I haven’t really been thinking about the drug angle,” Andrew said. “I’m sure it’s somehow connected with these murders. It would be too much of a coincidence if it weren’t. But it’s the car the murderer almost certainly came in that I’m interested in most.”