by Ellis Peters
“You didn’t know him so very well,” said Bunty. “I dare say there was more to him than you found out.”
“Well, maybe. Only I don’t want to go putting on any act. It doesn’t seem decent sucking up to a fellow just because he’s dead, and you were somehow sort of dragged into it at the end. It’s awfully difficult, isn’t it,” said Dominic, turning on her a perplexed and appealing face, “knowing how you ought to behave to people, not to be dishonest, and not to be just beastly, either? I get all mixed up when I start thinking about it.”
“Then don’t think about it too hard,” advised Bunty. “It only gets you a bit hypnotized, like staring at one thing till you begin seeing spots before your eyes. Mostly the spots aren’t really there.”
“Well, but does it go on being as complicated as this?” he asked rather pathetically.
“Much the same, Dom, but you get used to picking your way. Don’t you worry about it, I’ll back your instincts to be pretty near the right balance most of the time.”
Dominic frowned thoughtfully at the brilliant bronze and gold chrysanthemums of the wreath, and said definitely: “Well, I’ve got an instinct I owe him something.”
The half-crown? thought Bunty for a moment; for even that was a legitimate point, to a punctilious young thing who had lost the chance of returning satisfaction for a gift. But no, it wasn’t that. What stuck in his conscience and made him feel bound to Charles was the confidence which had suddenly passed between them. It had hardly mattered to Charles, at the time, who first received his news in trust; but it mattered to Dominic.
So she made no demur, even in the way of kindness; and Dominic, rising half an hour earlier than usual, and without being called more than twice, at that, set off through the fields and the plantation for the Harrow farm.
It was a meek sort of morning, gray, amorphous, not even cold, the tufts of grass showery about his ankles, the heather festooned with wet cobwebs in a shadowy, silvery net, and the subdued, moist conversations of birds uneasy in the trees. Dominic hoisted the heavy wreath from one hand to the other for ease, and found it awkward however he carried it. His mind behind the musing face was furiously busy, but he was not sure that it was getting anywhere. Point by point he went over all he had told George, and wondered if he had left anything out. It isn’t always easy remembering every detail of an encounter which you had no reason to believe, at the time, would turn out to be evidence in a murder case. They hadn’t yet said it was murder, of course, officially, but all the village was saying it, and Dominic couldn’t help imbibing some of that premature certainty. Charles, who had taken him into his confidence, and had thereupon astonishingly died, nagged at him now to make use of what he knew. He owed him that much, at any rate.
And seriously, who could have wanted Charles dead? It wasn’t as if he had been positive enough and individual enough to have any real enemies. You don’t kill people you can’t dislike, people who haven’t got it in them to rouse you at all. As for old Wedderburn, that was bunk. Maybe Charles Blunden had been in his way where Io Hart was concerned, but then Io had never shown any obvious inclination to single out either of them. Maybe, thought Dominic doubtfully, fellows who’ve got it bad for girls imagine these things; but it seemed to him Chad regarded his chances with Io as marred at least as surely by his own past as by the existence of Charles. As though he’d lost a leg, or something, so that he could never think of marrying, and yet couldn’t stop thinking of it, either. Was it really possible to feel yourself maimed for life, merely because you had been pushed into killing other people in a war in order to stay alive yourself? In a war, when most people thought themselves absolved for everything? But the fellow who goes the opposite way from everyone else isn’t necessarily wrong.
So apart from his instinctive certainty that Chad was not the murderer, Dominic was not even impressed with the arguments of those who thought he was. People don’t remove their rivals unless it’s going to make enough difference to justify the effort, let alone the risk. And it didn’t look as if Chad thought the removal of half her male acquaintance could ensure him a peaceful passage with Io.
And if Chad didn’t seem a likely murderer, no more did anyone else of whom Dominic could think at the moment. What earthly reason could they have? Maybe, after all, it had been the result of an accident. Powder-marks on his jacket, but no particular scufflings underfoot or round about to indicate that there had been any struggle for the shotgun.Accident, they said, was a bare possibility. Suicide, thought Dominic definitely, wasn’t even that.
He came through the broad rickyard, past the long barns and the byres, and into the kitchen-yard. He hadn’t liked to go to the front door, where he might encounter the old man; and at this hour the cook-housekeeper and the maid, both of whom slept at home in the village and went in daily, would be in and out at the kitchen door, and see him coming in, so he would be giving the least possible trouble. Also, though he did not admit that this weighed with him, if he ran errands to the Harrow at this time of year, and took care to discharge them into Mrs. Pritchard’s hands, there were usually late pears to be harvested, and yellow, mellow, large pears are very welcome at break.
In the yard, backed against the wall of the house, was a kennel, and lying before it, chin on outstretched paws, a brown-and-white field spaniel, staring indifferently at the day through half-closed lids. When he opened his eyes fully at Dominic’s approach, their blank sadness seemed preternatural even for a spaniel. He did not move until Dominic stooped to scrub civilly at the curls of his forehead, then his tail waved vaguely, and he leaned his head heavily to the caressing hand, but made no warmer response. He was chained to his kennel. Dominic never remembered having seen Charles’s dog chained up before.
Of course, that was one thing he’d forgotten to mention to George: the dog. Not that it made much difference. Only, now that he came to think of it, George hadn’t mentioned him, either, when he told how Briggs had rung up to break the news. Dogs were taken for granted in Briggs’s life, of course, maybe he wouldn’t think to say there was a dog there. Only someone must have taken him home, for it didn’t seem to Dominic that he would leave his master’s body of his own will.
The dog was moping; that was natural. He liked being saluted by his friends, but even this pleasure he accepted now abstractedly, and soon let his broad head sink to his paws again, staring slit-eyed at the day. And Dominic went to meet Mrs. Pritchard in the kitchen doorway.
She took the wreath, and being touched by his somewhat misunderstood solemnity, desired to cheer him with pears. He went back to the dog while he waited for her, for the dog worried him. Such a fine creature, in such resplendent condition, and lying here so listlessly at the end of a chain. He set himself to woo him, and did not so badly, for the tail began to wave again, and with more warmth; and presently the great, sad head lifted, and the soft jowl explored his lowered face, blowing experimentally with strong, gusty breaths. So far they had progressed when a footstep sounded at the door, and the dog stiffened, peered, and then withdrew into the dark inside of the kennel, belly to ground, and lay there. The feathery front paws disappeared under the spotted chin. Only a bight of chain coiling out from the kennel and in again, and the round luminous whites of two staring eyes, betrayed that there was any dog within. He made a small whining sound, and then was quiet, and would not come out again in spite of Dominic’s wheedling fingers and winning voice.
Dominic gave up the attempt. He got up from his knees, dusting them busily, and looked up full into old Blunden’s face. He had expected Mrs. Pritchard returning, and was speechless with surprise and shyness for a moment; but the old man smiled at him, and seemed quite himself, in spite of his ravaged face and forward-blundering shoulders. The loss was not by him, but the shock was, and his toughness had not let him down. The bold blue eyes had still a rather blank, dazed look, but the old spark of intelligence burned deep underneath the surface as bright as ever, lustrously intent upon Dominic.
“I sh
ouldn’t bother with him,” he said quietly. “Poor brute’s been temperamental since Charles went, you know. Pining here, I’m afraid. His dog, you see—with him when it happened—whatever did happen.” He seemed to be talking as much to himself as to Dominic, and yet a sense of sudden isolation, of terrifying intimacy, made Dominic hold his breath. “You’re Felse’s boy, aren’t you?” said the old man, smiling at him quite nicely but rather rigidly, so that his senses went numb, and his mouth dry. Very seldom in his life had Dominic been as tongue-tied as this.
“Yes, sir!” he whispered, like any second-former new at school.
“Wanting me? Or is Mrs. Pritchard seeing after something for you?”
“Yes, sir, thank you, she—she said she’d get me some pears.”
“Ah, good! Plenty of ’em, goodness knows, plenty! No boys to make inroads in ’em here. May as well fill your pockets, take ’em where they’ll be welcome, eh?” His eyes went back regretfully to the round, unwavering, white stare in the shadows at the back of the kennel. “Yes, poor brute, pining here! Might do well yet at some other place. Fresh start good for dogs, as well as for humans, eh, my boy? With him when it happened, you know. Came home alone!”
Dominic stood looking at him with awed eyes and wary face, wishing himself away, and yet painfully alive to every accent, every turn of voice or tension of body. And presently, as if soothed with staring, he did not wish himself away any more. He had an idea; at least, it felt like an idea, though it seemed to come out of his bowels rather than his brain, making him ask things before he knew he was going to ask them.
“Do you have to tie him up? He isn’t used to it, is he?”
“Roams off, poor beast, if you loose him. Back to where it happened, mostly. Get over it in time, no doubt, but once off the chain now, and he’s away.”
“Isn’t it odd,” said Dominic, automatic as a sleepwalker, “that he should come home that night, and now he goes back there as often as he can.”
“Don’t know, my boy! I didn’t think much about it at the time. Enough on all our minds, no time for the dog. But they’re queer cattle, too, you know—individual as humans, every one, and almost as capricious. Suffer from shock, too, like humans. Poor brute came home and crept into the stables, and hid in a corner. Heard him whining when I came through the yard. Had to hunt for him, wouldn’t come out. Found him only just before Briggs turned up with your father. Had to chain him, no doing anything with him since then. But he’ll get over it, if he goes to a new home, with decent people— fresh surroundings, and all that—no reminders.” He looked through Dominic with a fixed face, the smile dead on it, and repeated absently: “No reminders!”
Dominic ventured: “We’re all most awfully sorry, sir.”
“Yes, son, I know, I know! Your father’s been very good— very good!” He patted Dominic’s slight shoulder, and sighed. “Here comes Mrs. Pritchard with your pears now.”
Dominic accepted a bag almost as heavy as his school satchel, and distributed thanks between them, as both appeared to be involved in the gift. To tell the truth, he had little energy or attention left over from coping with the idea, which was occupying his body with the intensity of a stomachache, making him feel light and sick with excitement. When Mrs. Pritchard had gone away again into the house, and left them moving slowly toward the rickyard together, he struggled to grasp the moment and turn it to use, and for a minute or two was literally without words. Unexpectedly the old man helped him.
“You’ve been taking a real interest, so your father tells me, in this bad business that’s got hold of Comerford.” He sounded, in his preoccupied way, as indulgent about it as all the rest, as if it were something quite unreal and childish, a kind of morbid game. But he was old, and one had to make all kinds of allowances.
“Well, I don’t know!” Dominic said uncomfortably. “It was just an accident that it happened to be Pussy and me who found him. And you can’t just forget about a thing like that. But there hasn’t been anything we could do.”
“Very few leads of any kind, more’s the pity,” agreed the old man. “For you, or your father, eh?—see, now, what’s your name? Dominic, is it?”
Never particularly pleased with this admission, the owner of the name sighed that indeed it was.
“Still, you’re an intelligent boy. I hear you’ve been trying, anyhow—doing your best. That night you saw the last of my lad—” The hand on Dominic’s shoulder tightened, just perceptibly, but the pressure sent a quaking shock through him; needlessly, for the old man’s voice was level, spiritless and resigned, and Charles relinquished already, because there was no help for it. Only the old or the cold can resist trying to help what cannot be helped. “That was the occasion of some amateur sleuthing, wasn’t it? Eh, Dominic? And got you into some trouble on the rebound, too, didn’t it? No more late nights for a while, eh?”
To be teased with laughter so mournfully soft was dreadful. Dominic felt himself crimsoning to his hair, and vowed to reproach his mother bitterly for talking to outsiders about what should have remained a private matter between them. It wasn’t like her, either; but that had been a night of near-panic among the households of Comerford, and no doubt all the women had compared notes in the greengrocer’s and the butcher’s afterwards. Maybe she hadn’t really told very much, only that he was out late poking his nose into his father’s business—she wouldn’t have to tell them how angry she had been, that would be clearly visible without any words. Still, he would make his protest. It would be foolish to let one’s parents get out of hand.
“It wasn’t a great success,” he said rather glumly.
“No, there’s been no luck for the police from the beginning. No luck for the village, one could say.” They had reached the gate of the rickyard, and here the hand left his shoulder, and the heavy feet pacing beside him halted. “So you didn’t find anything of interest. Pity, after such a gallant try!” The old, indulgent, sad smile dwelt thoughtfully upon Dominic’s face. He felt the fluttering excitement inside him mounting to speech, possessing his lips. And just for a moment of panic he had not the least idea exactly what he was going to say. Frightened of his instincts, trying with a too belated effort to control them into thoughts, and shape what was already shaped, he heard himself saying in a tight, small voice:
“I have got something now, though. I didn’t give it to my father, because—well, it may be nothing at all to do with it, and they’ve had so many false starts, and—well, he doesn’t like me butting in. So I thought, if I could find out first whether it really means anything, then he’d be pleased—and if it’s no good, well, I shan’t have caused him any trouble, or—or—”
“Or got into any yourself,” said Blunden, the smile deepening almost affectionately in his blue, bright eyes. “Well, maybe you’re wise. They’ve certainly got more than enough irrelevant nonsense to sort out, without our adding to it. You do that, Dom, my boy! You make sure of your evidence first!”
Dominic closed the gate between them, and hoisted the bag of pears into the hollow of his left arm. “Yes, sir, I think I will. Only I shall need somebody’s help. You see, it’s something I can’t understand myself, it’s—” He hesitated, flushed and smiled, resettling his satchel on his shoulders. “I say, sir, I’m awfully sorry! I didn’t mean to start worrying you with my affairs—and I expect it’s all tripe, really. I’d better get on now. Thanks awfully for the pears!”
“That’s all right, my boy! If there’s anything I can do—”
“Oh, I didn’t mean—I say, I am ashamed, bothering you, when—” He made to say more, then resolutely turned himself to the drive. “Thanks, sir, all the same! Good-bye!”
“Oh, well, it’s your pidgin! Good-bye, Dominic!”
Dominic went ten yards down the drive, gnawing his knuckles in extreme indecision, and then turned, and called after him: “I say, sir!”
The old man was only a few yards from the gate, moving heavily, and at the call he turned at once and came back. The boy
was coming back, too, dragging his feet a little, still uncertain. Big hazel eyes, dark with solemnity, stared over the bitten fingers. “I say, sir, do you really think I might— If you honestly don’t mind—”
“Come on, now, better share it!” said Blunden kindly. “What is it that’s on your mind?”
“I haven’t got it here, but I could bring it to you. You see— can you read German, sir?”
They stared at each other over the gate with wide, conspiratorial eyes, half-hypnotizing each other. Then the old man said, not without some degree of natural bewilderment: “As a matter of fact, laddie, I can. But what’s that got to do with it?”
Dominic drew a deep breath, and came back through the gate.
Three
« ^ »
It was not a nice day for a boy with his mind anywhere but on his work. To begin with, he was late, which made a bad start; and a part of himself, the part with the brains, had been left behind somewhere on the way, to haggle out a worse problem than ever cropped up in algebra. It was a pity that the headmaster now took Fourth-Form maths. He wasn’t a bad sort, and he wasn’t even in a bad temper that day, but he was a man who liked a little application even where there was no natural aptitude, and above all he couldn’t forgive lack of application where the natural aptitude did exist. Dominic suffered from the reputation of having a fairly liberal share of brains; it was usually what went on out of the classroom, rather than what happened in it, that got him into hot water. But today he couldn’t do anything right. He was inattentive, absentminded, dreaming in a distant and rather harassed world where a and b, x and y indicated people, not abstract quantities. In the middle of theorems, Dominic floated. Challenged, he gave frantic answers at random, dragging himself back in a panic from some mysterious place to which he had retired to think. The Head was not convinced that what occupied him there was thought. Chewed to fragments, Dominic did not really seem to mind as much as he should have done, but only to wriggle and circle uneasily, like a dog anxious to get back to a bone from which it has been chivvied wantonly by spiteful children. If the tongue-lash left him unstung for two minutes, he was off again, blank-eyed, into the depths of himself.