Head of a Traveller

by Nicholas Blake

  ‘All I can say is, if you seriously believe that, you’d believe anything. People don’t behave like that in real life. Why, it’d be the vairy lunacy of quixotism!’

  ‘The young are quixotic, sometimes, to the point of lunacy. And it’s not pure quixotism on Lionel’s part. Mara’s whole attitude towards him changed when she began to suspect he was putting himself in danger on Robert’s behalf: and she’d do anything for Robert herself. Incidentally, Blount, if you want to find them quickly, I suggest you warn all Registry Offices.’ Nigel’s eyes strayed over the entrancing lines of Plash Meadow. ‘You talk of real life, Blount. Look at that house. Don’t you wonder sometimes if it won’t vanish, like a dream, between one moment and the next?’

  ‘No,’ said Blount. ‘Frankly, the notion has never occurred to me. But I’ll bear your other suggestions in mind.’

  ‘Hurrah for bonny Scotland!’

  Blount’s mouth twitched with faint amusement. ‘Will you hold the fort here? You’ll have to tell Mr Seaton about his son. I must away to Redcote to see Gates. Then I may go down to Bristol for a night. I’ll be leaving Bower here.’

  ‘So you’re not going to chase Lionel and Mara all over the countryside in a fast car?’

  ‘Och, there’ll be no trouble pulling them in,’ said the Superintendent—a prediction which was to prove curiously wide of the mark.

  Chapter 12

  Nigel Strangeways Inquires

  IT WAS TYPICAL of what Plash Meadow stood for, thought Nigel as he walked upstairs towards Robert Seaton’s study, that he should feel a strong reluctance to interrupt the poet’s meditations with the mere announcement that his son was a fugitive from justice. However, he tapped on the door and marched bravely in. At his desk, Robert Seaton was bending over one of the little black note-books, in a pose so rigid, so attentive that Nigel almost expected to see some jewelled flower or insect come fabulously burrowing up out of the blank page before his eyes. The poet sat for a minute or two, as if hypnotised by the white sheet: then he wrote a few words, paused, altered one, altered it again, turned back to the previous page and crossed something out; then sat back with a sigh.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry to break in like this,’ said Nigel, ‘but something has happened.’

  Robert Seaton’s eyes encountered him at last. They seemed to have some difficulty in focusing him. Nigel got the impression of a gaze which had been embracing vistas infinitely far above and beyond him, now essaying to pin-point a tiny object somewhere in the vast panorama.

  ‘My dear chap, come in, sit down,’ said Robert warmly. ‘I must apologise for being so inattentive. What were you saying? Something happened?’

  Nigel told him. The poet sat there, a worried frown upon his face, raising his eyebrows when Nigel came to the bullet-hole in Rennell’s self-portrait.

  ‘Oh, dear me,’ said Robert at last. ‘He shouldn’t have done that.’ The intonation was precisely that of a person gracefully accepting a too-expensive present. He ruminated for a few moments. ‘Have you told my wife?’

  ‘She went down to the village. I’ll tell her when she comes back. Unless you’d rather.’

  ‘Please do. Very good of you . . . Well, I’ll be jiggered! And Mara, too? I say, d’you think those two are going to hit it off now?’ The poet gleefully rubbed his hands, then clasped them again on the desk.

  ‘I shouldn’t be surprised. If a spell in quod doesn’t cool them off.’

  ‘Oh, poof! A boyish escapade. Surely—I say, Strangeways, it’s not going to put any foolish ideas into your Superintendent’s head, I hope?’

  Nigel was accustomed by now to the Plash Meadow style of reference, as though Blount were some large dog over which Nigel had only imperfect control.

  ‘Even Blount’s patience is not unlimited,’ he replied. ‘And he can’t just ignore it when Lionel terrorises a witness at the crucial point of his evidence.’

  ‘No, I suppose not. But your Superintendent’s an intelligent man. He must realise that no murderer would behave like that,’ said Robert Seaton with admirable good sense.

  ‘Blount would tell you, from long experience, that it’s quite impossible to predicate anything about the ways of murderers.’

  ‘“Predicate.” Good. How refreshing it is to have someone in the house with a wide vocabulary. D’you know, Strangeways, I read in the Oxford dictionary every day. The only book a poet really requires.’

  ‘Still going well, is it?’ asked Nigel, with a glance at the open note-book.

  ‘Pretty well, thanks.’

  ‘How much longer will it take?’

  The poet gave him an odd look, half questioning, half of complicity. ‘Ah, yes, that’s the point, isn’t it? It’s turned into a sequence, and there never seems any reason why a sequence should stop’—he grinned delightfully—though there’s every reason why some sequences should never have been started. Yes. To tell the truth, I’ve never written so fast in my life. Extraordinary.’ He peered dubiously at the notebook. ‘But it seems all right . . . How much longer, you asked? Well, how much longer have I?’

  Nigel found his breath quite taken away by this last remark. He positively gaped at Robert Seaton, whose eyes were fixed upon him now with an expression of singular sagacity.

  ‘What I mean is, sooner or later something’ll have to be done about poor Oswald’s death, won’t it?’

  Nigel swallowed convulsively, and suggested that quite a lot was already being done in this matter.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. But even if it turns out that none of us here is implicated in the murder, there’s still going to be a shocking shemozzle, I’m afraid, about his original disappearance—you know, when he was supposed to have drowned himself. I don’t know what the position will be about this property. But, once all that has blown up, I can’t see myself writing any more for quite a long time. It’ll be very hard on poor Janet if we have to leave.’

  Nigel gave it up. ‘You wouldn’t read me some, would you?’ he asked.

  ‘Why not?’ Robert Seaton opened a drawer. ‘Here’s my fair copy. Mm. This passage, perhaps. Yes, I think you’ll like this’ . . .

  After the poet had stopped reading, Nigel sat in silence for a little, the tears stinging his eyes.

  ‘Good? My word, it is! It’s—it’s worth everything.’

  Nigel went away to his own room, where he sat for quarter of an hour, seeing nothing, Robert Seaton’s angelic verse still ringing in his head. ‘Glory be!’ he muttered at last; then, sighing, took out the timetable he had worked on at Paul’s last night, made a couple more entries in it, and pored over the result.

  The old problem remained—what time did Robert Seaton get back from his walk? Nigel stared at the contradictions, so sharply posed by his timetable. Mara had at first been sure it was twelve-thirty when she’d seen Robert and Janet cross the courtyard: they had confirmed this time themselves. On the other hand, the evidence of the expectant father put Robert’s return at twelve forty-five; and Mara admitted she might have been wrong about the quarter the clock had just struck. Then again, there was the discrepancy between items eight and nine. Vanessa had looked at her watch when she’d seen her father and mother outside, and it was twelve fifty-five. According to their evidence, they had gone out to look for Finny about half an hour after Robert’s return: if he had not returned till twelve forty-five, this would put their search at one-fifteen, and there was surely too great a discrepancy between this and Vanessa’s twelve-fifty-five. But, if Robert had returned at twelve-thirty, you only needed to make his ‘about half an hour’ into twenty-five minutes, and the time of the search for Finny fitted with Vanessa’s evidence; also, Mara’s first statement would be vindicated.

  The weight of evidence seemed to be on the side of Robert’s having returned at twelve-thirty. Yet Nigel was not entirely satisfied. Since there was no knowing when Oswald had been killed, it is true a quarter of an hour one way or the other seemed to make no difference. But Nigel couldn’t rid his mind of the state
ment made by the expectant father, for this witness was the only disinterested one—Robert, Janet and Mara might have a reason for falsifying the time of Robert’s return. Well, then, said Nigel to himself, let us take the hypothesis that Robert did not get back till twelve forty-five: what conceivable reason could he have for asserting that it had been twelve-thirty? And Janet and Mara for backing him up?

  Nigel racked his brains, but in vain, for a good ten minutes. Then he turned back to the other problem raised by his timetable. What time had it been when Finny Black found the head in the dairy, hid it in the chestnut tree and soon after heard footsteps coming up from the river? Oswald was still alive at twelve-thirty. Supposing even that he’d been killed the next minute, after entering the house—but no, that wouldn’t do, Gates and Blount were certain he had not been murdered there. Well then, he had to be persuaded into the dairy, his throat cut, his clothes and head removed, his body taken down to the river. It did not seem possible that all this could be done in much less than half an hour. Say, then, twelve-fifty as the earliest Finny could have found head, bundle of clothes, but no body in the dairy. All he himself could say was that there had been thunder and lightning, but no rain, at the time; and it seemed reasonable to assume that the footsteps he had heard were those of the murderer returning from putting the body in the river. The first thunder-shower had begun at twelve-thirty, and was over before twelve-fifty-five, when Vanessa had noticed the grass gleaming wet ‘after a shower.’ The second thunderstorm had begun about one o’clock and five to ten minutes later a heavier thunder-shower had followed. It looked, then, as if Finny had made his discovery somewhere between one o’clock and one-ten. But in that case it was perfectly possible that the footsteps he heard might be those of Robert and Janet searching for him.

  Finny Black’s evidence was, in fact, perfectly useless. But, according to Janet, he had returned about two a.m. ‘drenched to the skin.’ On the theory that the murder was unpremeditated—an act of sheer fright, perhaps—might not Finny have done it after all? Might he not have been drenched to the skin because he had been towing the body out into the river? No, that wouldn’t do: Lionel Seaton had categorically stated that Finny couldn’t swim. Of course, he might have been lying. But why? It could easily be verified, anyway.

  Nigel’s eye wandered despondently to the window, where beads of rain were sliding down. And at that moment, all unprompted, an answer to his first question came. At first sight, it was an answer so shocking and so bizarre that his imagination rejected it with a sense of outrage. But it would not be denied. The longer he examined it, the more stringently he tested it against the whole body of evidence in the case, the stronger its claims appeared. After half an hour’s concentrated thought, Nigel was finally convinced that he knew why Robert Seaton asserted he had returned to Plash Meadow at twelve-thirty on the fatal night.

  But there was still something missing—a link which would complete the chain of reasoning. Nigel knew he had been given this link, perhaps without recognising it; now he had mislaid it. Something had happened during Blount’s examination of Rennell Torrance this morning—was it something heard or seen?—which would clinch the whole theory. But, try as he would, he could not recapture the elusive thing. And ruefully he admitted to himself that his failure to do so must spring from a deep repugnance for the truth which had forced itself upon him. Desperately, like Jacob wrestling with the angel, his mind struggled to throw off the grip of this overmastering truth. But it was no good . . . No villain need be. Oswald Seaton was a villain, though. And villainy breeds villainy; corruption corrupts, no one is safe. That’s not the point, though—how does it go?—

  ‘’Tis morning: but no morning can restore

  What we have forfeited. I see no sin:

  The wrong is mixed. In tragic life, God wot,

  No villain need be! Passions spin the plot:

  We are betrayed by what is false within.’

  But what words are there for the tragedy of one betrayed by what is true within, for the predicament of one destroyed by the war within of two good causes?

  The door opened, and Janet Seaton came in, to stand over Nigel’s chair like a dark, accusing angel of judgment.

  ‘What’s this I hear about Lionel?’

  ‘You’ve heard? Did Robert tell you?’

  ‘It’s all over the village. Surely you could have prevented it?’

  ‘Well, we tried. But—do sit down, won’t you?’

  Mrs Seaton ignored it: Nigel had got up and was standing by the mantelpiece. He described briefly what had happened in the Old Barn.

  ‘I suppose it might have been worse. The talk in the village is that he shot Mr Torrance and wounded a policeman. We shall never live this down. What could have possessed the boy to behave like that?’

  ‘The police would naturally conclude that he wished to stop Rennell Torrance uttering some damning piece of evidence about him, or about someone he wished to protect.’

  Moving to the window, Janet Seaton said over her shoulder: ‘And did he? Afterwards, I mean? I presume the police pressed him about it.’

  ‘No. He didn’t give any one away. He said he’d nothing more to say, except that he’d heard footsteps when he went outside at 2 a.m. He supposed it was Finny returning.’

  Mrs Seaton sighed and sat down in the armchair. ‘It’s all very mystifying,’ she remarked in a vague, hostessy manner. ‘Surely the police must have formed some theory by now?’

  Nigel offered no comment. Janet went on, with an irritable gesture:

  ‘It’s most unfortunate, Mara being concerned in this. She’s an unbalanced girl, I’m afraid, and I do not consider her at all a good influence on Lionel. To be quite frank with you, Mr Strangeways, I should not be surprised if she’d concocted the whole thing—led him on to this escapade, I mean.’

  ‘I know all about Mara.’

  ‘You—?’

  ‘About her and Oswald Seaton.’

  The unbecoming flush stained Janet’s cheeks. ‘Do you mean to say she told you?’ she exclaimed in a tone of outrage.

  ‘Yes. I led her on a bit, of course. I’d guessed it some time ago.’

  ‘You can understand, then, why I don’t care for Lionel to be too closely associated with her.’

  ‘Difficult to avoid when you have the Torrances living here,’ said Nigel suavely.

  ‘That was my husband’s doing. I never approved of it.’

  ‘A young woman is not necessarily—er—undesirable, because she was the victim of a criminal assault ten years ago.’

  ‘It depends in what sense you use the word “undesirable.”’ Janet Seaton’s mouth snapped shut like a miser’s purse, but there was a glint of grim humour in her eyes.

  ‘I can quite understand,’ said Nigel after a pause, ‘that you found it undesirable to have Oswald about the place after what had happened.’

  Janet Seaton, who never lounged in chairs, seemed to sit more bolt upright than ever. Her large-knuckled hands gripped the arms. But if Nigel had sought to flurry her, it was a failure.

  ‘Are you suggesting that I engineered his disappearance?’ she asked with dignity and composure.

  ‘Somebody did. He couldn’t have managed it by himself. You realise, of course, that the police are investigating that aspect of the case now?’

  ‘What the police may be doing is no business of mine. But do you seriously think I would connive at the escape of a man who had—had behaved so abominably to a young girl in my care? Really! The imputation is quite disgraceful!’

  ‘Well, you and Robert hushed it up between you, surely. Why wasn’t Oswald given in charge straight away?’

  ‘It was not convenient.’ Janet might have been talking about a social engagement. She frowned at the quirk of amusement on Nigel’s face. ‘It’s not an unheard-of-thing for family scandals to be hushed up, is it, Mr Strangeways? And there’s a considerable difference between hushing this one up and engineering Oswald’s disappearance.’

 
‘Oh yes, I grant you that. If it was just a matter of locking the cupboard door on a skeleton—but you must see that the police are interested in the benefits you and your husband derived from Oswald’s presumed death.’

  ‘I wish you would talk straight and not in these underhand hints,’ she exclaimed with a flare of anger. ‘You mean Robert and I got Oswald to disappear so that Robert could succeed to his property? We are accused of blackmail now, are we? The next thing, I suppose we’ll be accused of—of doing away with Oswald here at Plash Meadow. Really it’s intolerable!’

  Nigel gazed at her admiringly. ‘Talking of that,’ he said, ‘was Robert wearing his mackintosh when you and he went out to look after Kitty?’

  For the first time, Janet seemed disconcerted.

  ‘His mackintosh? Why? What an extraordinary question! I don’t see the connection.’

  ‘I wondered. It had just begun to rain, hadn’t it? And you were wearing a mackintosh. Did you borrow his, perhaps?’

  ‘No, of course not. Why should I?’ replied Janet rather sharply.

  ‘I only mentioned it because Mara believed he hadn’t got a mackintosh on when she saw you two cross the courtyard. Can you remember if Robert was wearing his when he came back from his walk?’

  Janet Seaton made an odd little ducking movement with her head. Her voice was a bit flustered.

  ‘How stupid of me! I’d quite forgotten. Yes, he was. He came in. He said he thought he’d heard Kitty kicking in the loose-box. So we went out immediately; the rain was just beginning, but it wasn’t bad yet. So I slipped on Robert’s mac—it didn’t seem worth while fetching my own. Yes, I remember now.’

  So that was that. Nigel eyed the handsome, harassed woman sitting bolt upright before him, her hands clasped in her lap, the prominent eyes downcast now. So she might have sat, he thought, if she had decided at last to visit the specialist and reveal the disquieting symptoms which for long she had been stoically enduring or desperately trying to ignore.