‘But Lena says she gave it to you to hide.’
‘She says that? But – then, you mean it wasn’t her who –’ Phil swallowed hard – ‘who poisoned my father?’
‘No, of course it wasn’t.’ The boy’s dreadful, strained gravity made Nigel feel he wanted to get his hands on whoever was responsible for it. He had to keep looking at the boy to remind himself that Phil was a tortured, bewildered child, not the adult that so often seemed to be speaking out of his mouth. ‘Of course, it wasn’t. I admire you for wanting to protect her, but there’s no need for that now any longer.’
‘But if she didn’t do it, why did she ask me to hide the bottle?’ asked Phil, his brow painfully creased.
‘I shouldn’t worry about that,’ said Nigel incautiously.
‘I can’t help it. I’m not a kid, you know. I think you ought to tell me why.’
Nigel could see the boy’s quick, inexperienced mind already wrestling with the problem. He decided to tell him the truth. It was a decision that was going to have very strange consequences, but Nigel could not have anticipated them.
‘It’s rather a mix-up,’ he said. ‘Lena was trying to protect somebody else, as a matter of fact.’
‘Who?’
‘Felix.’
Phil’s luminous face darkened, as though a shadow passed over a pure, ash-pale mere. ‘He who shall teach the child to doubt,’ Nigel repeated uneasily to himself, ‘The rotting grave shall ne’er get out.’ Phil had turned to him, was gripping his sleeve.
‘It’s not true, is it? I know it’s not true!’
‘No. I don’t think Felix did it.’
‘But do the police?’
‘Well, the police have to suspect everybody at first, you know. And Felix has been a bit foolish.’
‘You won’t let them do anything to him, will you? Promise me.’ The innocent, physical candour of Phil’s appeal made him seem for a moment strangely girlish.
‘We’ll look after him,’ said Nigel. ‘Don’t you worry. The first thing is to get hold of that bottle.’
‘It’s on the roof.’
‘On the roof?’
‘Yes, I’ll show you. Come along.’ All impatience now, Phil dragged Nigel out of his chair and, half-running, kept a pace ahead of him all the way down to the Ratterys’ house. Nigel was out of breath by the time he had been hustled up two flights of stairs and a ladder and was looking out of an attic window on to the gabled roof. Phil pointed.
‘It’s in the gutter, just down there. I’ll climb down and fetch it.’
‘You’ll do nothing of the sort. I don’t want you to break your neck. We’ll fetch a ladder and lean it up against the wall of the house.’
‘It’s all right, sir, honestly it is. I’ve often climbed about on the roof. It’s easy as pie if you take your shoes off, and I’ve got a rope.’
‘D’you mean to say you climbed down there and put the bottle in the gutter on Saturday night? In the dark?’
‘Well, it wasn’t quite dark. I thought of letting the bottle slide down on a piece of string. But then I’d have to let go of the string and it might have dangled down the wall below the gutter and someone might have spotted it, you see.’
Phil was already tying round his waist a coil of rope which he had taken from an old leather Gladstone bag in the attic.
‘It’s certainly a jolly good hiding place,’ said Nigel. ‘Whatever made you think of it?’
‘We lost a ball there once. Dad and I were playing cricket with a tennis ball on the lawn, and he hit it on the roof and it got stuck in the gutter. So Dad climbed out of the window here and fished it up. Mum was in an awful stew. She thought he was going to fall off. But he’s – he was a jolly good climber. He used to use this rope in the Alps.’
Something rapped hard on Nigel’s mind, knocking for admittance, but the door was locked and for the moment he had mislaid the key. It would come to him presently; he had an extraordinarily comprehensive memory, in which even the most apparently irrelevant details of a case were neatly filed away. It had never failed him. At present he was too much distracted by the sight of Phil sliding down into the recess base of a chimney, crawling up the other gable and disappearing over the top of it.
I hope the rope’s sound. Damn it all, he’s quite safe with it tied round his waist, but has he tied it securely? What a long time he’s taking. He’s such a queer kid – I wouldn’t put it past him to untie the rope and chuck himself off the roof, if he got an idea into his head that –
There was a cry, an intolerable silence, and then – not the thudding fall that Nigel awaited with all his nerves wincing – but a faint, tinkling smash. His relief was so enormous that, when Phil’s face and hands appeared over the gable, coated with grime, he shouted at him irritably, ‘You are a little fool! What the devil’s the idea of dropping it? We ought to have used a ladder, only you were so darned keen on showing off.’
Phil grinned apologetically through the grime. ‘I’m awfully sorry, sir. The bottle had got slimy outside, somehow, it slipped out of my hand, just when I was –’
‘Yes. All right. It can’t be helped. I’d better go and pick up the fragments. By the way, was the bottle empty?’
‘No, about half full.’
‘Save us! Are there any dogs or cats about?’ Nigel was about to hurry downstairs; when a plaintive voice from Phil arrested him. The knots of the rope round his waist and the chimney had pulled so tight that he could not undo them. Nigel had to waste a precious minute or two scrambling out of the attic window and unfastening Phil. By the time he had got out of the house on to the lawn, he was fuming with impatience – and more than a little worried too. The thought of half a dozen doses of strychnine splashed all over the grass was not exactly reassuring.
However, he had no need to worry. As he ran round the corner of the house, he was confronted by the spectacle of Blount on his knees, his homburg still perched at the same angle of severe rectitude, dabbing at the grass with his handkerchief. There was already a neat pile of broken glass upon the path beside him. He looked up and said reproachfully:
‘You nearly hit me with that bottle. I don’t know what you were playing at – the pair of you, but –’
Nigel heard a gasp behind him. Then Phil flew past him, like a little puff of hot wind, and leapt upon Blount, kicking and scratching in a furious attempt to snatch the sodden handkerchief out of his hands. The boy’s eyes were black with fury; his whole face and body seemed transfigured into a malicious imp’s. Blount’s hat was knocked sideways, his pince-nez dangled jerking on their cord. His face, however, did not betray excess of emotion as he pinioned the boy’s arms and thrust him not ungently towards Nigel.
‘Better take him inside and see he washes his hands. I doubt he may have got some of this stuff on them. You take on someone your own size next time, Master Phil. And I’d like a word with you, Mr Strangeways, when you’ve finished with him. You might ask his mother to look after him for a bit.’
Phil allowed himself to be led away into the house. His gait was utterly dispirited. His mouth and the corners of his eyes twitched – a twitching like that of a dog having a bad dream. Nigel could find nothing to say. He felt that something besides the bottle had been shattered and the pieces would take a great deal of putting together.
11
WHEN NIGEL CAME out of the house again, he found Blount handing over the stained handkerchief and the broken glass to a constable. The liquid had been mopped up and wrung out from handkerchief and cloth into a basin.
‘Lucky the ground’s hard,’ said Blount abstractedly, ‘or it’d have sunk in and that’d have meant digging up the turf. This is the stuff all right, all right.’ He advanced the tip of his tongue with extreme caution towards the handkerchief. ‘Bitter. Can still taste it. I’m grateful to you for finding it, but there was no need to drop it on my head. More haste, less speed, Mr Strangeways. What did the wee boy try to savage me for, by the way?’
‘Oh, he’s a bi
t upset.’
‘So I noticed,’ said Blount dryly.
‘I’m sorry about the bottle. Phil said he’d hidden it in the gutter up there, and I rather foolishly allowed him to climb down and get it. He was roped to a chimney. It slipped out of his hands – the bottle, I mean, not the chimney.’
‘Oh dear me no, it didn’t.’ With irritating deliberation Blount dusted the knees of his trousers, adjusted his pince-nez, and led Nigel on to the spot where the bottle had fallen. ‘You see, if he’d just dropped it, it’d have landed on the flower bed here. But it landed farther out, just on the edge of the lawn. He must have thrown it. Now, if you can spare a moment, we’ll sit down over yonder where we’ll be out of earshot of the house, and you can tell me all about it.’
Nigel told him of Lena’s confession to Georgia and Phil’s climb on Saturday night. ‘Phil’s a remarkably quick-witted child, in some ways. He must have got the idea into his head that the bottle would incriminate Felix – and, as Georgia says, he looks up to Felix like a god. But he’d already told me he knew where the bottle was, so the only thing he could do then to help Felix was to destroy it – chuck it off the roof and delay me with untying the knots of the rope and hope by the time I’d got downstairs the stuff would all have sunk into the earth. It was logical and clever within the limits of his mental capacity. Like many solitary children, he’s capable of the most passionate hero-worship and at the same time of deep distrust for strangers. He obviously could not have believed me when I assured him that the discovery of the bottle would not necessarily hurt Felix. He may even believe that Felix poisoned his father. But it’s Felix he was trying to protect. That’s why he went for you when he saw that his plan had failed.’
‘Ye-es. That’s a possible explanation, I daresay. Eh well, he’s a plucky wee lad. Fancy him scrambling about on that gable! Rope or no rope, I’d not like it. But I never had a head for heights. It’s vertigo –’
‘Vertigo!’ Nigel exclaimed, his eyes suddenly blazing. ‘I knew I’d remember before long! By Jove, we’re on to something at last!’
‘What?’
‘George Rattery was subject to vertigo, and he wasn’t subject to it. He was afraid of the edge of a quarry, but he wasn’t afraid of the Alps.’
‘If that’s meant to be a riddle –’
‘Not a riddle. The answer to one. Or the beginning of an answer. Now stop chattering and let Uncle Nigel indulge in what passes with him for thought. You remember Felix Cairnes wrote in his diary how he’d come upon a quarry in the Cotswolds and was all set to stage an accident, only George Rattery refused to come near the edge because, he said, he was subject to vertigo?’
‘Yes, I remember that all right.’
‘Well, just now when I was up in the attic with Phil, I asked him how he came to think of such a hiding place for the bottle. He said that his father had once hit a ball up on the roof and it had stuck in the gutter, and his father had climbed out to fetch it. What’s more, he said his father was an Alpine climber. So what?’
Blount’s affable mouth was set in a thin line, his eyes gleamed. ‘It means that Felix Cairnes for some reason told a lie in that diary.’
‘But why should he?’
‘That is a question I shall very shortly ask him.’
‘But whatever possible motive could he have had? The diary was not meant for anyone’s eyes but his own. Why in the name of the Grand Cham of Tartary should he want to tell a lie to himself?’
‘E-eh, but come now, Mr Strangeways, you must admit it was a lie – this statement that Rattery suffered from vertigo.’
‘Oh yes, I admit that. What I don’t admit is that Felix told it.’
‘But, hang it all, he did – it’s down in black and white. What alternative have you?’
‘I suggest that it was George Rattery who told the lie.’
Blount gaped. He resembled momentarily a respectable bank manager who had just been told that Montague Norman had been caught tampering with a balance sheet.
‘Easy now, easy now, Mr Strangeways – you’re not seriously asking me to swallow that?’
‘I am indeed, Chief Inspector Blount. I’ve maintained all along that Rattery had become suspicious of Felix, that he communicated his suspicions to some third person, and that it was this person who actually killed Rattery – sheltering himself behind the would-be murderer. Now, suppose that Rattery was vaguely suspicious of Felix that day they went out for a picnic. He may very well have known about the quarry beforehand – people tend to return to the same places for picnics when they’ve lived in the district for some time. Felix, standing by the edge of the quarry, calls out to George to come over and have a look at something. George senses some agitation in his voice, or sees it in his appearance. The spark of suspicion is fanned into a blaze. Suppose Felix really means to push me over into the quarry, he thinks. Or, alternatively, he didn’t know there was a quarry there till Felix, as he admits in his diary, rather incautiously announced the fact. In either case, George could not confront him immediately with his suspicions. He had no proof of anything yet. His game was to give the impression of being the unconscious murderee until he had real proof of Felix being a would-be murderer. At the same time, he didn’t dare to go nearer the edge of the quarry. He had to make some excuse for not going nearer, which would not put Felix on his guard. On the spur of the moment he says, “Sorry. Nothing doing. I’ve no head for heights. Vertigo” – the very excuse an experienced climber would naturally think of first.’
After a long silence, Blount said, ‘Well, I’m not denying that’s a plausible theory. But it’s all a cobweb; it’s finely spun, but it won’t hold water.’
‘Cobwebs aren’t meant to hold water,’ replied Nigel acrimoniously. ‘They’re meant to hold flies, as you’d know if you took a rest occasionally from examining bloodstains and the interior of beer mugs, and indulged in a little nature study.’
‘And what fly, may I ask, has this cobweb of yours caught?’ asked Blount, his eyes twinkling sceptically.
‘My whole case for the defence of Felix Cairnes is based on the theory that a third person knew of his plans – or at least of his general intention. That person may have discovered them independently, but it’s not very likely. After all, Felix presumably hid his diary pretty carefully. But suppose George communicated his suspicions, perhaps from the start, to this third person – who would you say he’d be most likely to confide in?’
‘There’s no charge for guessing, is there?’
‘I’m not asking you to guess. I’m asking you to use the machine behind that bulging brow of yours.’
‘Well, he’d not confide in his wife – he despised her too much, from what one knows. Nor in Lena, if Carfax is right in saying that she and George had parted brass-rags. He might have told Carfax, I suppose. No, I’d say his mother was the most likely person – he and she were pretty thick.’
‘You’ve forgotten one person,’ said Nigel impishly.
‘Who? You don’t mean the wee—?’
‘No. Rhoda Carfax? She and George were—’
‘Mrs Carfax? Now you’re pulling my leg. Why should she want to kill Rattery? Anyway, her husband says she never came near the garage, so she’d not have taken the rat-killer.’
‘“Her husband says” – that’s worth nothing.’
‘I’ve got evidence to corroborate that. Of course, she might have slipped in at night and abstracted some of the poison. But e-eh, as it happens, she’s got an alibi for Saturday afternoon. She couldn’t have put the poison into the medicine bottle.’
‘Sometimes I think you’ve got the makings of a quite good detective. So you did have your eye on Rhoda, after all.’
‘Oh, but that was merely part of the routine investigation,’ said Blount, rather shocked.
‘Well, that’s all right. I didn’t mean Rhoda. As you say, old Mrs Rattery is the likeliest person.’
‘I don’t say that,’ replied Blount dogmatically. ‘There’s Felix Ca
irnes. All I said was—’
‘All right. Your protest has been noted and will receive our attention. But let’s stick to Ethel Rattery for the time being. You’ve read Cairnes’ diary. Did you pick up any possible motive for her there?’
Inspector Blount settled himself more comfortably in his chair. He pulled out a pipe, which he did not light but polished meditatively on his smooth cheek.
‘The old lady is very hot on the honour of the family, isn’t she? According to Cairnes’ diary, she said “Killing’s no murder where honour is at stake,” or something to that effect. And furthermore, Cairnes claims to have overheard her telling the wee boy that he must not be ashamed of his family, whatever happens. But that’s very slight evidence to go on, you’ll have to admit.’
‘Yes, in itself. But not when it’s linked up with the fact that she had the opportunity – she and Violet were alone in the house on Saturday afternoon till George came back from the river, and with what we know – and she knew – about George and Rhoda.’
‘How do you work it out?’
‘We know she asked Carfax along that afternoon to make an appeal to him to restrain Rhoda and hush up the scandal. She got very angry when Carfax said he was determined to divorce Rhoda if she wished for a divorce. Now, supposing that was the old lady’s last appeal, suppose she had already decided in her own mind that, if it failed, she would kill George rather than allow the scandal of his affair and possible divorce to smirch the good old family escutcheon. She had pleaded with George to give up playing around with Rhoda; she has pleaded with Carfax to take a strong line. Both appeals failed. So she falls back on strychnine. How d’you care for that?’
‘I’ll admit the possibility entered my mind. But there are two fearful drawbacks.’
‘To wit –?’
‘First, do mothers poison their sons to protect the family honour? It’s very fanciful. I don’t like it.’
‘As a general rule, mothers don’t. But Ethel Rattery is a real old Roman matron of the toughest school. And she’s not exactly right in the head, either. You can’t expect normal behaviour from her. We know that she’s a thorough-going autocrat, and that she’s crazy about family honour, and being a Victorian she looks upon sexual scandal as the arch-disgrace. Combine those three, and you get a potential murderess. What’s your second objection?’
The Beast Must Die Page 16