The Worm of Death

by Nicholas Blake

  “If I were you, I’d wait upon the course of events. Let it ride—just a little longer.”

  CHAPTER XVI

  Out of Mourning

  “WHAT ON EARTH have you been up to?” asked Clare, when Nigel had seen Walter Barn off on his bicycle.

  “Fighting again. Quite friendly this time. Walt was determined to demonstrate his strength. He’s a very pertinacious type.”

  “Perhaps he’ll turn out a good painter then. What did he want, apart from physical combat?”

  Nigel told her about the conversation. From this, they drifted on to the subject of Dr. Piers, his family, and the two crimes. Clare listening with the calm attentiveness of a mere on a windless day, he reviewed the motives, the evidence, the cross-hatching of lies and evasions with which more than one of the suspects had confused the pattern of the case.

  “It all points to one person,” Nigel concluded, telling her the name of this person. “I’ve no doubt in my own mind. I don’t think Wright has, either: but he’s got to eliminate the others, and offer a case that will satisfy the Public Prosecutor. It takes time.”

  “And in the meanwhile?”

  “Exactly. One can’t expect this sort of killer to sit back on his laurels.”

  Clare came over in a swirl of black hair and flung herself against him. “Nigel. Darling. I wish you’d let this alone. I’m frightened. You must be in danger yourself.”

  “Yes. And I shall probably be in worse danger before we’ve finished.”

  “You’re not going to——?”

  “If a scorpion won’t come out of its hole——”

  “You’re too big to get into a scorpion’s hole,” said Clare, with a shaky laugh. . . .

  While they were having lunch, the telephone rang.

  “It’s Harold,” said Clare when she had answered it. “He wants to see you. To-night.”

  “Ask him to come—no, tell him I’ll come round after dinner.”

  Clare gave him a long, meditative look; then, biting her lip, she returned to the telephone.

  “Between 9.30 and 10,” Nigel called after her.

  At 9.40, Nigel was walking briskly beneath the power-station. On the river to his left a dark shape slid down-stream, its engines throbbing like a headache. By the light of a street lamp he could see, scrawled in chalk by some youthful misanthrope on the wall of the scrapyard facing him, the legend I HATE MEN. Males, or just humanity in general, he wondered.

  Ahead of him lay the narrow passage between corrugated-iron walls where Sharon Loudron had been strangled. The lamps the murderer had broken were repaired now: the passage did not look sinister, only squalid. “When the lamp is shattered,” he murmured to himself, “the light in the dust lies dead.” A burst of singing came from the Cutty Sark pub as he emerged from the passage on to Ballast Quay.

  Nigel paused a moment to watch the port and starboard lights of the throbbing motor vessel swing slowly round as she made her turn northward into the reach. He could see, too, the bowsprit and rounded bows of the wrecked barge projecting towards him from behind the high wall, which hid the quay she was moored at and Harold’s house.

  What with the noises of the river and the pub, it was impossible to be sure; but Nigel could not get rid of a strong impression that he was being followed. There was so much shadow along the waterside here; and in the wind that had strengthened a few hours ago some of the shadows seemed to move, to be blowing to and fro. Moving on, he found the door in the wall unlocked. He went in and rang the bell of Harold Loudron’s front door.

  Just after Nigel had left his own house, the telephone rang. Clare took up the receiver. A hoarse, muffled voice said:

  “Could I speak to Mr. Strangeways, please.”

  “I’m afraid he’s just gone out. Who is it?”

  “Rebecca Loudron. Is that Clare?”

  “But, my dear, oughtn’t you to be in bed? You don’t sound at all yourself.”

  “Oh, I’m better, thank you. James told me not to get up, but he’s gone out somewhere, so I’ve crept downstairs.”

  “Is it something urgent, then? You could get Nigel at Harold’s house, if it is: he’s gone along there.”

  “Well, it can probably wait till the morning. I must ring off now. Good night.”

  Replacing the receiver, Clare stood for a moment in thought. Then, throwing on a warm coat and a head-scarf, she hurried out of the house.

  “Hallo. Good of you to come.” Harold lowered his voice. “Graham’s turned up. I don’t think he’ll be staying long, though.”

  Graham Loudron’s presence was not at all what he had expected: nor, for that matter, as they went into the sitting-room, did Nigel expect the transformation he found there. No dust, no disorder, no longer the air of neglect. Sprawling in a hammock-like arm-chair by the windows that overlooked the river, Graham tipped a hand at him. Nigel sensed a certain undercurrent excitement in the young man, which gave animation—even charm—to his usually inexpressive features. He remembered Rebecca—or was it James?—telling him that, in their younger days, Harold and Graham had rather paired off together.

  “Becky and I have been doing our best to cheer Harold up,” said Graham, while their host was outside fetching drinks. “He wouldn’t come to stay at Number 6, so we drop in here from time to time.”

  “Your sister has been cleaning the place up, I see.”

  “Oh yes, and cooking an occasional meal for him. Till yesterday, when you drove her into hysterics.”

  Nigel was prevented by Harold’s return from commenting on this remarkable misrepresentation of yesterday’s proceedings. As Harold poured out the drinks, after offering them in the hushed tones which he evidently thought suitable to a recently-bereaved widower, Nigel studied him with attention. His City pallor had always been so marked that grief could hardly heighten it. Nor was the small upright figure any less spruce—the temporary seediness and disorientation, which overtakes most husbands when their wives have died, were notably absent from Harold’s appearance: which was all the more notable, considering how uxorious a husband he had been. If anything showed in him different, it was a withdrawn, almost wary look of the eyes, which had black rings under them.

  “I haven’t seen you since——” began Nigel, breaking the awkward silence. “I’m most terribly sorry about it all.”

  “Yes, it was bloody awful. If I could lay my hands on the person who killed her——”

  Even tragedy could not rob Harold of his clichés.

  Nigel ploughed on. “I do hope you’ll soon be feeling better—a bit better able to cope with things.”

  “Thank you. I’ve tried to carry on. My work in the City, you know—one has to keep one’s finger on the pulse. Work is the only anodyne, though I can’t say I’m feeling any beneficial effects from it as yet,” Harold concluded, with a deprecatory and stilted little gesture startlingly reminiscent of his father.

  Nigel caught a flicker of a smile on Graham’s face. It was all the young man had contributed so far.

  “Have you any idea how soon the police will have these matters cleared up?” Harold resumed.

  “I’m afraid not. But they may be cleared up sooner than the police anticipate,” said Nigel, his pale blue eyes resting impassively upon Harold’s.

  “We were talking about Harold’s alibi, just before you came,” said Graham, still exuding that aura of repressed excitement: it gave him, Nigel thought, a positively dangerous charm.

  “I’m sure Strangeways doesn’t want to—er—to talk shop,” put in Harold, looking embarrassed.

  “I bet he does.”

  “Which alibi?” Nigel asked.

  “The trunk-call he heard but didn’t answer, the night my father died. Tremendous bit of luck for you, wasn’t it, Harold?”

  “I don’t know why you keep harping on that,” replied Harold, with a kind of cautious resentfulness.

  “Well, I ask you! Strangeways here has got it into his head that I killed Father and your wife: I’ve got no
convincing alibis for either night: naturally I’m envious of your luck in having one.”

  “This is all extremely distasteful,” said Harold stuffily.

  “What did you ask Strangeways here to talk about, then?”

  “Private matters.”

  “I stand rebuked.”

  Now it was Graham who uncannily reminded Nigel of Dr. Piers—the old man’s suave and feline manner. Odd how he had left his stamp, in such different ways, upon his two younger children.

  “Of course,” continued Graham, whose limpet-like eyes were fastened upon Harold throughout these exchanges, “you could have faked that alibi. With your tape-recorder.”

  “The police were perfectly well aware of that. The inspector played over all my reels of tape, and——”

  “All the reels he could find.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, my dear chap. The police turned this house upside down to see if I’d hidden any. Besides, I should have thought it was obvious, if I had faked up an alibi, as you put it, by leaving my tape-recorder running in the hall, near the telephone, I’d have——”

  “All this is beside the point,” Nigel interrupted in an impatient voice. He turned to Graham. “If you want to accuse your brother of the murder, why not come straight out with it?”

  “My half-brother. I’ve revealed to Harold the secret of my birth,” said Graham sardonically.

  “I don’t know why you have to pick on me—” Harold’s tone was almost sentimentally rueful—“we used to be such friends. When you were a little chap, first came to live with us, you and I were as thick as anything. I used to——”

  “You used to love money, even then,” Graham harshly broke in. “You encouraged me to pinch cash from Father and James, and gave me a percentage of it. Quite the business man!”

  “Oh damn it! Look here, we were young then. Why rake up little peccadilloes like——”

  “You’ve always been an expert in passing the buck and avoiding the blame, haven’t you?”

  Harold’s face was whiter than ever under this goading.

  “If you’re suggesting that——?”

  “Well, you’d have been ruined if Father hadn’t died so opportunely.”

  “This is absolutely intolerable!” Harold started up from his chair, trembling with anger. “And anyway,” he lamely added, “it’s damned bad form in front of a stranger—a guest of mine.”

  Graham began shaking with silent laughter. “Poor old Harold! True to type to the bitter end. ‘His white collar remained starched when all around him wilted.’ Times obituary.”

  “Won’t you have another drink?” Harold addressed Nigel, ostentatiously ignoring his brother. Nigel watched him carefully as he poured it out. It was clear that Harold wished to be alone with Nigel, but Graham showed no signs of taking the hint. The three talked in a desultory way for nearly three-quarters of an hour longer, before Harold brought himself to say, “Graham, old boy, do trot along now, will you? It’s getting late, and I want to have a private word with Strangeways.”

  “The dear old barge,” said Graham, looking left through the window. “What secrets she could tell! Why do you keep her still? Sentimental reasons?”

  “She’s going to the breaker’s yard next month. Come on, Graham.”

  As Harold went to the door, Graham, rising from the window-seat, gave Nigel a glance of urgent complicity and jerked his head in the direction of the quay. “See you very soon, I hope,” he said.

  Clare, staring through the window of the Cutty Sark bar, whose lights had just been put out to speed the unwillingly parting habitués, saw the figure of Graham Loudron stride briskly past the front of the pub.

  “Closing time, please, miss,” said the barman.

  Clare went out into the blowy night, tightening her head-scarf. Nigel was still in Harold’s house, presumably: should she go home now, or go in and pick him up? She took a few steps homewards in her heel-less shoes, which made no sound on the cobbles; then, changing her mind, she turned about and walked towards Harold’s house, scrutinising those on the opposite side of the street. One, with a small porch, seemed to be unoccupied. She glided into the porch and, resting her back against the door, prepared to wait.

  “Graham really is an extraordinary chap. Sometimes I don’t know what to make of him,” Harold was saying.

  Nigel let this unexceptionable proposition hang in the air for some moments, before remarking, “I mustn’t stay too long. What did you want to see me about?”

  Harold Loudron, who had already been punishing the whisky bottle, poured himself another stiff dose.

  “It’s an extraordinary thing,” he said, slurring his words a little. “I’d have thought Sharon’s death would’ve broken me up altogether. But, fact is, sounds a fearfully caddish sort of thing to say, but fact is I’ve been feeling a new man—what’s the word?—re—re——”

  “Juvenated,” Nigel supplied.

  “That’s it. Rejuvenated.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Whassat? Oh, I see. But you really do feel—don’t feel I should be ashamed of feeling rejuvenated? Tell me the truth, old man. I can take it.”

  “No.”

  Harold’s pale face was sweating profusely. “I don’t mind telling you, between you and I, Sharon used to play me up.”

  “Did she?”

  “You’re damn’ right, she did. Other men, you know,” Harold confidentially muttered. “Keep it under your hat, old chap, don’t want it to get around, de mortuis and all that, but Sharon was a Grade A bitch. Couldn’t help it, poor girl. Oversexed. I’ve no doubt she picked up some fellow that night, and picked a wrong ’un, and that’s how she—er—met her end.”

  “An interesting theory.”

  “You don’t sound very enthusiastic. Who did murder the poor girl, then?”

  “A person with a hopelessly deficient sense of reality,” Nigel answered. Harold stared at him blankly for several moments, then resumed.

  “What I was leading up to, she got them. Any man. She got me. Don’t mind telling you she had me lashed to the wheel and steering any course she fancied. You may think I was infatuated with her.”

  “Well——”

  “And you’d be damn’ right. But look at it from my point of view. She was so different from everything that my poor old father—and James and Becky—represented. You probably think me a very conventional sort of chap: but it’s conventional chaps like me who fall hardest for girls like Sharon, every time. And she was such a marvellous girl to do things with,” the widower enthusiastically continued. “Of course she got bored with things quickly; but as long as they were new she was like a child, she got so excited with them. I know she found me a bit of an old stick-in-the-mud after a while. But she did rely on me, in a funny way, and that’s why I simply couldn’t boot her out or create at all when she started going off the rails. D’you get the idea?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “I believe you do. Sympathetic chap, though I can’t say I took to you at the start. Don’t hit it off with intellectuals.”

  “You prefer boats.”

  “Every time, old man. What was I saying——? Oh yes, now I really loved my wife—don’t let there be any mistake about that. But it was a strain, keeping up with her and keeping down my feelings about—not to mince matters, about her affairs and so on and so forth. But this is the point, Strangeways, it was not till after her death that I realised what a strain it had been.” Harold stared, sapiently as an owl, at his companion.

  “Because the strain was no longer there?”

  “Absolutely. You’ve put it in a nutshell. I woke up a morning or two ago, after the first shock had passed, and I suddenly felt as if a tremendous weight had been lifted off me, and I was free. I felt re—re——”

  “Juvenated?”

  “Don’t be silly, old man. Never heard of it. I felt resilient. On top of the world. Sailing free. And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.”

  Haro
ld rambled on in this vein for a good while longer. At last Nigel managed to bring him to the point.

  “Why did I ask you to come round? Let me think now. Oh yes. How soon can I clear out of here?”

  “Clear out?”

  Harold explained, in a manner rather less prolix than his previous outpourings, that he had had an offer to join a party of three or four friends who proposed to sail a thirty-foot yawl round the world.

  “They want to start in April or May, and I’d like to go with them. The police simply won’t commit themselves to—trouble with them is they spend so much time asking me questions they’ve no breath left to answer one.”

  Nigel pointed out that, even if an arrest were made tomorrow, the legal proceedings might well drag on for several months.

  “Legal proceedings?” asked Harold. “But why should I be involved in them?”

  “You’d certainly be called to give evidence.”

  “But I know nothing about my father’s death.”

  “There’s the matter of your wife’s murder,” said Nigel, gazing non-committally at the pale, anxious face of Harold Loudron, who seemed to have talked himself into comparative sobriety.

  “I’m hardly likely to forget that, old man,” replied Harold, with a huffy attempt at dignity.

  “You were going to chuck up your business altogether?”

  “Why not? Actually the chap I was dining with, the night poor Sharon was killed, he’s quite keen to take it over. Anyway, I don’t need to make money now—I shall be getting my share of Father’s estate. Of course, I’ve had to borrow on it to recoup certain financial losses I’d sustained. But there’ll be plenty left over for me to live on, now that Sharon——” he broke off, looking rather shamefaced, then firmly continued. “She did run through money, you know: sometimes she behaved as if I was made of it. But I couldn’t refuse her anything.”

  “Anyway, you see yourself embarking on a new life?”

  “I want to get away from everything—the City, Greenwich, this house. Its memories are too painful for me.”

  Harold Loudron’s moment of truth had passed: he was evidently about to launch forth on a maudlin and meaningless lament for the temps perdu. Nigel cut him short with: