by Ellis Peters
“There’s nothing else strikes you about it?”
“No,” said Dominic, after a minute or two of furrowing his brow over this. “Should it?”
“Oh, I’m not being clever and seeing anything you didn’t see. Just collecting any ideas you may have. Usually they seem to me worth examining,” said George, and smiled at him.
Unexpectedly Dominic blushed deeply at this, and as suddenly paled under the weight of being appreciated and praised thus in intoxicating intimacy; Something inside him was growing so fast, these days, that he could feel it expanding, and sometimes it made him dizzy, and sometimes it frightened him. It was deeply involved, whatever it was, with George, and George’s affairs, and when George trusted him and paid him a compliment it quickened exultingly, and opened recklessly like a deep, sweet flower feeling the sun. He said hesitantly: “There is one thing. Only it isn’t evidence, really; it’s only what I think myself.”
“I should still like to hear it.”
“Well—it’s only that I’m sure he didn’t do it himself. At least, not on purpose. When I talked to him, he was in an awfully good mood. Something special, I mean. He wasn’t thinking at all about ending things, more of starting them. He’d sort of gone off the deep end by telling me, and he was glad. It’s like this!” pursued Dominic, frowning down at a slim finger which was plotting the obscure courses of his mind on George’s coat-sleeve. “He’s been in the Army, and all his life apart from that he’s worked the farm for his father, and—well,” he said, suddenly raising bright, resolved eyes to George’s face, “he seemed to me as if it was the first real decision he’d ever made for himself in his life, and—and that’s what he wanted me to celebrate.”
VIII—The Pursuit of Walking-Sticks
One
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At the opening of the inquest on Charles Blunden, only evidence of identification was taken.
The church room was packed on the occasion, and the air within heavy with an uneasiness which took effect like heat, though from ill-fitting windows an elaborate network of draughts searched out every corner. It was the first really cold day. Outside, the air pinched. Inside, the entire population of Comerford, or all those who could squeeze in, stared and sweated and whispered. Comerford was full of whispers, sibilant over fences, floating down lanes, confided over counters, drawn out across pints of bitter in the bar of the Shock of Hay, where Io Hart seldom showed herself now, and always with pale face and heavy eyes. From grief for Charles, people said to one another wisely. But Io withdrew herself, and said nothing at all. She did not come to the inquest, though the cord of tension which was tugging the whole village into one congestion of feeling had drawn to the hall even the most unexpected and retiring of people. It was not quite curiosity. In this case the community was a party involved, deeply, perhaps fatally, and it behoved them to sit watchfully over their interests so long as there was anxiety, so long as there was hope.
The old man came. Everyone had been sure that he would not appear, but he did, suddenly lumbering through the narrow gangway with a heavier lurch than usual, and a more ungainly stoop, as if his big, gallant body had slipped one or two of its connections, and was shaking uncoordinated parts along with it in a losing struggle to reassemble them. His wholesome ruddiness had become a stricken mottle of purple and white, with sagging cheeks and puzzled old puffy eyelids, though the bright blueness of his eyes continued sudden as speedwell, alive and alert in the demoralization of his face. Charles had been his only child. There was not much point in the Harrow for him now, and none in his old amusement of making money, of which he had more than enough already for a dwindling middle age without an heir. People pitied him. If he knew it, he gave no sign, though it must have galled him. He had been so long kowtowed to and envied. People held their breath, pitying him. He lumbered to his place, and sat as if he believed himself to be sitting alone. And when the time came, he identified his son in a harsh, shocked, but defiant voice, daring fate to down him, even with weapons like these. But George observed that the tell-tale back view, which had always betrayed him, was now that of an old man indeed, sunken together, top-heavy, disintegrating. The old, however, sometimes have astonishing recuperative powers, because with one’s own death at least fully in sight, few things are any longer worth making a lengthy fuss about, even the deaths of the young.
Three days’ adjournment, at the request of the police, who were not yet ready to present their expert evidence; and therefore the tension remained and tightened, wound up with whispers, frayed with fears. Few people hesitated to use the word murder this time, though there was no verdict yet to support it. Few people waited for the evidence, to conclude that though the connection was not immediately apparent, this murder was fellow to the first. Murder begets murder, and the first step is the hardest. There even began to be a name in the middle of the whispers, blackening under them as under a swarm of bees settling. Who else had any motive for killing Charles Blunden, except his inseparable quarreling partner, his rival in love, his opponent in ideas, Chad Wedderburn? Who was already held to be the most probable suspect in the first crime, and showed now as almost the only one in this, unless Chad? The first death an impulse of understandable indignation, they said, from a man of his record and reputation; and the second one the fruit of the first success, adapted now, too easily, to his own inclinations and desires. Out at large, somewhere without witnesses, on the first occasion, and this time, by his own account, peacefully at home marking test papers in Latin, but alone, for his mother had been away for some days in Bristol, visiting a sister of hers who had arthritis. Again no witnesses to his movements all the evening. And when all was said, who else was in it?
Of course there was no evidence—yet—that he had gone out to meet Charles in the woods, and turned his own gun against him, and emptied both barrels into his chest. But there was no positive evidence that he had not, and by this time that was almost enough for Comerford.
Bunty came home shocked and distressed from her morning’s shopping, having been offered this solution confidently with the fish. She had stamped on the theory very firmly, but she knew that she had not scotched it. As well join Canute in trying to turn back the tide. The strain on Comerford had to find outlet somewhere, it was only to be expected. And after all, who could say with certainty that they were wrong? The most one could say was that they were premature.
She argued with herself that the two young men had always been friends, in spite of their endless wranglings, for what else could have held them together? But some insecurity within her mind answered dubiously that human creatures cling together for other reasons besides love, that there are the irresistible attractions of enmity as well. And further, that friendship has often reversed its hand when some unlucky girl got in the way. She had no peace; no one had any peace, and no one would have now until the thing was finished.
Meantime, there was Charles’s funeral to focus public feeling, and she had ordered flowers, as much for Dominic’s sake as anyone’s. To lay the ghost of the flung half-crown, and the easy, gay voice which had bidden him buy his girl an ice to celebrate a gesture of self-assertion, the first and the last, made only just in time.
Pussy and Dominic compared notes in the loft, over the last of the apple-wrapping, and the note of desperation had somehow stolen into their councils unawares.
“She won’t go out, or do anything, or take any interest in anything,” said Pussy. “She just does her work, as usual, and says nothing all the day long. And he doesn’t come in any more. He did come in once, and then it was so awful he went away very soon. I think that’s when he realized how it was. And that’s why he won’t come near her now.”
“She doesn’t think he did it, though, does she?”
“No, of course not. But all the others do, and he won’t even bring that feeling near her. If he’s going to bring bad luck he’s determined he won’t bring it here. You know, everybody’s saying it now, everybody.”
“Well, everybody’s wr
ong,” said Dominic, cussed to the last.
“Well, I think so, too, but how to prove it? Was he at school today?”
“Yes, we had him first period this morning.”
“It must be pretty awful for him,” she said.
“He looked kind of sick, but he acted just the same as ever. But—” Dominic scowled down at the apple he was wrapping, and said no more.
“What are we going to do?” asked Pussy grimly.
“The same we’ve been doing, only twice as hard. Just go on watching out for walking-sticks—anywhere, doesn’t matter where, doesn’t matter how you do it, only get a close look at all you can, until we find the right one.”
“I have been doing. And it isn’t so easy, because I’m not allowed in the bar and the snug, but I’ve done it. I bet I haven’t missed many this week, and I’ll bet almost every stick in the place has been in by now, but I haven’t seen anything like we’re looking for. And it’s all very well for you, but I’ve nearly been caught two or three times creeping about with my little bit of paper, and you can’t always think of something credible to say.”
“All very well for me? I like that! You’ve got it easy, you just sit around and wait for people to bring the sticks to you, but I have to go out and look for them. I’m fagged out running errands, just to get into people’s halls and see if there are any sticks. All this week I’ve run about for Mummy like a blinking spaniel,” said Dominic indignantly, but miserably, too.
“I bet she thinks you’re sickening for something,” said Pussy cynically.
“Oh, well, she thinks I’m trying to get round her by being extra good because of the row we had when we came home late that night.” He looked a little guilty at this, however convenient he had found it to be; for he had inherited something of Bunty’s sense of justice, and was uncomfortable in even the shabbiest of haloes when he had not earned it. “But that’s not all. Even from school I’ve collected notes to deliver, and all sorts of beastly errands, just to get into more places, and I can tell you it isn’t such fun getting yourself a reputation like I’m getting with the other fellows. But I wouldn’t care, if only we could get something from it.”
“Is it any use going on?” asked Pussy despondently.
“What else can we do? And I’m absolutely sure that if we can only find that stick, Pussy, we’ve done it, we’re through.”
“Well, of course, it would be a big thing,” she owned dubiously, “but I don’t know that everything would be settled. This other business—it seems to make the stick a bit of a back-number now.”
“It doesn’t, I’m sure it doesn’t. I’ve got a hunch. The two things are connected somehow, I’m certain. And the only clue we’ve got in either case is this.” He fished the little paper shield out of his pocket, and smoothed it ruefully on his thigh, fingering the faint convolutions of the leaves. “So you can please yourself, but I’m jolly well going on plugging and plugging at this until I do find the stick it came from. Or until I can think of something better to do.”
“O.K.!” said Pussy, sighing, “I’m with you. Only I can’t say I’m expecting very much.”
Dominic could not honestly have said that he was expecting very much himself, but he would not be discouraged. He had a hunch, and not being in a position of exact responsibility, as his father was, he could afford to play his hunches. That seemed to him the chief difference between them; he was a piece of George, bound by no rules and regulations except the normal ones of human decency, and he could do, and he would do, the things from which George was barred, like following will-o’-the-wisps of intuition, and butting his head obstinately against the weight of the evidence—such as it was—and taking subtle, implied risks which he himself could not define. And what he found he would give to George, and where he failed no one was involved but himself. But he must not fail. There was only one channel to follow, and therefore he could give every thought of his mind, every particle of his energy, to the pursuit of the walking-stick.
Sitting back on his heels among the straw, he argued the possibilities over again, and could get nothing new out of them. It is possible to burn a stick, or drop it down a pit; but would the murderer think it necessary, just because a tiny plate without a name had been lost from it? Because there was always a risk of things thrown away turning up again in inconvenient circumstances, and even things committed to the fire had been known to leave identifiable traces behind. Much simpler to keep the thing, and see if the plate came into the evidence at the inquest. And of course it had not, and even now no one knew anything about its discovery except Pussy, Dominic and the police; ergo, in all probability the owner would congratulate himself on the way things had worked out, and behave as normally as usual, destroying nothing where there was no need, not even hiding the stick, because no one was looking for it. He might use it less than usual for a time, but he wouldn’t discard it, unless he’d been in the habit of ringing the changes on several, because its disappearance might be noticed and commented on by someone who knew him. Every man, even a murderer, must have some intimates.
Conclusion number one, therefore, and almost the only one: it was worth looking in the normal places, hallstands, and the lobbies of offices, and the umbrella-stands in cafés, or in the church porch on Sundays, where one could examine everything at leisure. And the obsession had so got hold of him that he had even crept into the private staff hall at school, and hurriedly examined the single ebony cane and two umbrellas discarded there. And almost got caught by old Broome as he was sneaking out again, only luckily Broome jumped easily to the conclusion that his business had been with the headmaster, and of a nature all too usual with Dominic Felse; and he couldn’t resist making a rather feeble joke, about it, whereupon Dominic took the hint, and got by with a drooping crest and a muttered reply, and took to his heels thankfully as soon as he was round the corner.
Sometimes even he became despondent. There were so many walking-sticks. Among the young they were not so frequent, perhaps, but lots of the older men never went anywhere without them, and the old grandees like Blunden, and Starkie from the Grange, and Britten the ex-coal-owner practically collected the things. Dominic had never realized before how many were still in constant use. Ordinarily they constituted one of the many things about the equipment of his elders to which his selective eyes were quite blind, they came into sight only when they threatened him; and the days of his more irresponsible scrapes, in which he had occasionally been involved with indignant old men thus armed, were some years behind him now, so that he had forgotten much of what he had learned.
Fortunately he had a strain of persistence which had sometimes been a nuisance, and could now for once be an asset. A single objective suited him very well; he fixed his eyes on it, and followed stubbornly.
George played fair with him. The silver plate was Dominic’s piece of evidence, honestly come by, and he was entitled to know what they could discover of its significance. George would much have preferred to edge him out of the affair, even now, but if he insisted on his rights he should have them. Therefore the results of the tests on the shield were faithfully, if briefly, reported as soon as completed. Dominic expected it; almost the first thing he did when he came from school each day was to put his head in at the office door to see if George was there, and if he was, to fix his brightly enquiring eyes on him and wait for confidences without asking, with a touching faith.
On the evening after the inquest opened, George was late, and Dominic met him as he came in. Inky from his homework, the brat couldn’t wait.
So George told him; it was like cutting out one of his own nerves to hold out any part of the complications of living and dying to Dominic, thus prematurely as he felt it to be; but he owed it to him. Yes, there were positive reactions. The crumpled upper edge of the shield had retained, soon covered by sand and silt as it had been, the faintest possible traces, in its threads of tarnish and dirt, of something else which was undoubtedly skin tissue and blood.
D
ominic’s eyes grew immense, remembering how the whole accumulation of matter in those furrows had been no thicker than a rather coarse hair, and marveling how any tests could extract from them exact information about particles he could not even see.
“Could it be his? Can they tell that, too?”
“They can tell that it could be, but not that it is. Yes, it may be Helmut’s.”
“Well—” said Dominic on a long, deep breath, “being found right there, and if it could be—there isn’t much doubt, is there?”
George owned soberly that the odds in favor were certainly heavy.
“Then we’ve only got to find the stick!”
George merely smiled at him rather wryly, clapped an arm round his shoulders, and drew him in to supper. It sounded so very simple, the way Dominic said it.
Two
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The wreath for the funeral was delivered late in the evening. Dominic went into the scullery, where it reposed upon the table, and stood looking at it for a minute as if he hoped it had something to tell him, with his face solemn and thoughtful, and his lip caught doubtfully between his teeth. Then he said to Bunty, somewhat gruffly: “I’ll take it up to the farm tomorrow as I go to school.”
“It would mean getting up awfully early,” said Bunty comfortably. “Don’t you bother about it, I’ll take it up later, or George will.” Penitence was nice, but she didn’t want him too good.
“No, I can easily get up in plenty of time. I’ll take it.” For a moment she was at a loss what to say, and looked at him narrowly, hoping he wasn’t genuinely moping about Charles and the unhappy meeting with him at the tail-end of his life, and hoping still more sternly that he wasn’t doing a little artificial moping, dramatizing the encounter into something it had certainly not been in reality and his past interest in Charles into a warm relationship which in fact had never existed. She felt vaguely ashamed of supposing it possible, in this most healthy and normal of children, but round about thirteen queer things begin to happen even to the extroverts, and it pays to knock the first little emotional self-indulgence on the head, before it begins to be a necessity of life. But Dominic chewed his lip, and said jokingly: “You know, it wouldn’t seem so bad if I’d even liked him. But I didn’t much, and it’s awful humbug trying to pretend you did because a fellow’s dead, isn’t it?” He misinterpreted Bunty’s relieved silence, and looked at her a little deprecatingly. “It sounds a bit beastly, maybe I shouldn’t have said that. I do think he was quite a good sort of chap—only sort of secondhand. You know—there wasn’t anything about him you couldn’t have found first somewhere else. And—and there ought to have been,” said Dominic firmly, “he had plenty of chance.”