Death on a Branch Line

by Andrew Martin

  As the manservant poured more claret for both of us, Mrs Chandler said something about how the two men had been in Africa, so what could you expect? There was practically nothing in Africa but camels. Then the host, Robert Chandler, came over with his arm in Lydia’s.

  I looked at Lydia’s white-gloved hand, and there was a glass of champagne there, and the sight was so all-of-a-piece and so elegant that for a moment the shock did not register. As I looked on, she drained off the rest of the glass and shot me a look that clearly said, ‘You put away gallons of alcohol every week, so why shouldn’t I take a glass now and again?’ I understood straightaway that it was the shame of not being invited to the meal that had made her do it, but the sight of the glass so knocked me that I said to the host:

  ‘By the way, Mr Chandler, where is John Lambert?’

  ‘John?’ he said. ‘Well, we hope to see him here. But I think he is a little over-strained just at present.’

  ‘That’s what everyone says,’ I said.

  ‘Do they?’ said Mr Chandler, and he looked put out. ‘I was rather congratulating myself on my – y’know – insight. He’s not a very forward party exactly, and he’s been conferring with Captain Usher all day, so I expect he’s pretty worn out. Now that sounds as though I’m being rude about Usher when in fact he seems a perfectly pleasant chap who knows a very great deal about camels and horses and dogs and things like that. Tell me, do you know that fellow that runs The Angel? What’s wrong with him?’

  It hardly mattered what I said in reply. I was becoming confident that Chandler – who at some stage after the arrival of my fourth glass of claret told me to call him Bobby and his wife Milly – did not really know Usher, and that he was out of the picture as far as any bad business was concerned. As he burbled on in his amiable way, he kept glancing over to Lydia, who was talking to Milly, while I heard the Chief say to Usher, ‘Strange that is, sir … I always took the General for a base wallah,’ at which they both laughed, but especially the Chief.

  Of course, that would be how things stood between them. Chief inspector was a higher rank than captain, but Usher was an army captain, and it was the army that signified. The Chief had only been a sergeant major in his service days, so the Chief ‘sirred’ Usher just as I ‘sirred’ the Chief. Only that word sounded wrong on the lips of a man who’d seen as much as my governor.

  Another glass of claret was presented to me by the footman, who seemed to have become a special ally of mine. I looked across to the Chief again, and Usher was watching me. Had he been forewarned that I’d been invited? His gaze was not over-friendly, and I was quite sure that if he’d had his way I would be nowhere near the Hall at this moment, but it seemed that he was a species of guest just as I was, and so caught between good manners and whatever business he had in hand.

  I drained off my glass at a draught, and said to Bobby Chandler:

  ‘There was a murder here, of course.’

  ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘Good subject for a party conversation!’

  I gave a sudden nervous laugh, quite unintended, and Bobby Chandler made to give me a nudge with the back of his hand, saying, ‘Could it be that we share the same sense of humour, Mr Stranger?’

  And then he fell to looking at Lydia again.

  ‘It’s Stringer,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, my brother-in-law …’ he said. ‘Perfectly blameless existence walking about this place blasting animals to kingdom come, and then made away with by his own son – what do you think of that?’

  ‘It’s a bad look-out,’ I said.

  ‘Damned bad,’ said Bobby Chandler. ‘And with his own thirty-inch barrel, one-hundred-and-fifty-guinea twelve-bore.’

  ‘It’s a bad look-out,’ I said again, and I thought: I’m canned already.

  ‘When I got the news,’ said Bobby Chandler, ‘I was absolutely devastated for about – well, not that long if we’re quite honest. I didn’t know my brother-in-law all that well, and he wasn’t really my sort.’

  He was looking at Lydia again.

  ‘It’s a shame about young Hugh of course, in a way, but I hardly knew him either …’

  So it was not really such a great shame.

  ‘Good-looking boy, Hugh,’ he said vaguely. ‘Had a governess absolutely devoted to him. Absolutely devoted. Now governesses are always either terribly pretty or absolutely grim-looking, don’t you think?’

  I wondered at the question, since it must be obvious to him that I was not acquainted with many governesses. Was this generosity in him or plain ignorance? Had he expected us not to notice that we hadn’t been invited to the supper, but only the afters? He’d very likely not thought about it either way. His chief goal was avoidance of boredom, and proper form and ‘the done thing’ could go by the board as far as he was concerned.

  Well, it was all right by me.

  ‘… And if you knew anything about my brother-in-law,’ Bobby Chandler was saying, ‘you’ll know which sort young Hugh’s governess was. Can you guess?’

  ‘Pretty,’ I said.

  ‘Decidedly,’ said Chandler. ‘I only saw her twice, and even though she was a servant of sorts … Now I’m not quite drunk enough to say what I’m going to say next, so change the subject please, Mr Stranger.’

  ‘What was her name?’ I said, and the sharpness made Bobby Chandler take a step back.

  ‘That is not changing the subject of course,’ he said, ‘but I believe her name was Emma. The vicar here,’ he said, leaning forward, ‘was distinctly keen on her.’

  ‘Did either man conduct a …’

  And the world stopped, and the sliver of moon winked down at me encouragingly, as I found the word ‘liaison’.

  ‘I think that possibly they both did,’ he said with a sigh, as though suddenly extremely bored.

  ‘Both at the same time?’ I said.

  But he didn’t seem to hear. He had turned a little way away from me and, keeping half an eye on Lydia, began instructing the waiter about opening some more of the right kind of bottles.

  The vicar, who was supposed to be such a great pal of the murdered man, would not be dismissed, would not be stood down from the ranks of suspects.

  Bobby Chandler was still speaking to the manservant, having quite forgotten about the governess. Lydia was still speaking to Mrs Chandler, who was drinking hock, but Lydia had not re-filled her own glass; the first one seemed to have done the trick, and it had emboldened her to bring out her hobby horse, for she was speaking about one of her great heroines, Emmeline Pankhurst, until Mrs Chandler interrupted, saying:

  ‘I know Emmeline Pankhurst slightly.’

  The wife was shocked at this, but tried not to show it.

  ‘Oh,’ the wife said, ‘and what does she say about the progress of the cause?’

  ‘Well, I don’t really speak to her about that.’

  ‘Really?’ said the wife. ‘That’s rather like knowing William Shakespeare and never mentioning his plays.’

  ‘But William Shakespeare is dead,’ said Milly Chandler, and the force of the last word made her stumble slightly.

  ‘I admire her daughter Sylvia very much,’ the wife was saying. ‘She works tirelessly for the poor in the East End.’

  ‘Yes, she’s very tedious,’ said Milly Chandler, and she eyed Lydia for a moment, looking to see her response to this. But she burst out laughing after a second in any case.

  The small table seemed to have been replenished with red wine; there were also now walnuts, almonds, crystallised fruits in silver bowls, cigarettes and cigars in silver boxes. The manservant was at my elbow, and it seemed that he intended to take my glass away. Perhaps he’d noticed that I’d had enough. But as it turned out he only meant to give me a new one. ‘This is the ’98, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s a better vintage.’

  ‘Reckon so?’ I said.

  Bobby Chandler was facing me again, and to test my theory about him, I said, ‘Where were you when you heard the news of the murder?’

  ‘India,’ he said
, very simply. ‘We were visiting people we know out there.’

  ‘Where do you actually live?’ I asked him.

  ‘Well, here now,’ he said, ‘most of the time.’

  ‘But where were you before, exactly?’

  ‘Oh, London, you know. We’re not really country people.’

  ‘Ten to one your place in London is not as big as this,’ I said, gesturing up towards the Hall.

  Chandler glanced thoughtfully up at the great house.

  ‘Perhaps not quite,’ he said. ‘But there’s a lot I don’t care for about this place. It has no cellar, for instance – well, it won’t do after tonight. John doesn’t drink, and my brother-in-law left very, very few decent bottles, so I thought we might as well drink them off so that we know where we stand, do you see?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, if there’s nothing left, there’s nothing left. It’s an extremely straightforward position.’

  The Chief was at my elbow.

  ‘Will you step over here, lad?’

  He took me by the arm, and moved me a little way to the side of the terrace. He held one of his small cigars. He was friendlier than before.

  ‘Lydia’s looking well,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ I said, and then, after a pause, ‘Is it all in hand, sir?’

  ‘It is and it isn’t, lad.’

  The Chief was normally as straight as they came, but now he looked and sounded shifty.

  ‘I came upon a fellow lying in the woods,’ I said. ‘I thought he must be …’

  ‘We can’t speak of it here,’ said the Chief – and he was eyeing Usher.

  ‘You had supper earlier on?’ I enquired, after an interval of silence.

  ‘Aye,’ said the Chief, and he almost smiled. ‘Roast quails … and it went from there.’

  On the terrace, Usher was pacing and smoking.

  ‘Where’s John Lambert?’ I asked the Chief.

  ‘He’ll be joining us presently.’

  ‘Usher means to kill him,’ I said. ‘I’m certain of it.’

  The Chief took a pull on his cigar, and made a movement of his head that was both a nod and a shake.

  ‘Do you know who Usher is?’ he asked, putting one eye on me.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Do you?’

  He put his cigar out just then, stamping on it with his patent shoe. He did not mean to answer the question. He meant to keep whatever he knew on important points muffled up.

  I was looking the Chief’s tail-coat up and down.

  ‘Where did you get the suit, sir?’

  ‘This clobber?’ he said. ‘It belongs to the boy.’

  ‘Hugh Lambert? The one that’s about to swing?’

  ‘Twenty years of PT,’ said the Chief, looking over towards the terrace. ‘That’s the only reason I can get into it. Not bad going for a bloke of my age. Trousers are pinching a bit, mind you.’

  The Chief must think it only fair that a man convicted of murder should have to forfeit his clothes as well as everything else.

  ‘You know Usher from the colours?’ I said. ‘He must be a decent fellow if he fought with you?’

  I couldn’t let up with the questions.

  ‘Some of the biggest cunts I’ve ever known have been soldiers in the British Army, lad.’

  Here was a flash of the Chief I knew, but his heart wasn’t in it.

  ‘He was in the same regiment, was he, sir?’

  ‘Same brigade, lad, same brigade. Usher was in the Royal Marines.’

  ‘Did his lot fight alongside your lot at Tamai?’

  ‘Tamai was a bit of a mess,’ said the Chief, ‘but that was the general idea, yes.’

  He looked all-in, and I noticed that he wasn’t drinking, which was out of the usual.

  I said, ‘The station master at Adenwold – chap called Hardy – he’s made a model of that battle.’

  ‘A model of it?’ said the Chief, still watching the terrace. ‘There were ten thousand fucking dervishes …’

  ‘Oh, he hasn’t included them,’ I said.

  The Chief shook his head.

  ‘The fact that you and Usher were both at Tamai, sir – can’t you use it to get a leg in with him? Find out what’s going off as regards John Lambert? Have you seen Lambert at all yet? Seen all his timetables?’

  The Chief dropped his cigar stub, and put his boot-heel on it.

  ‘You’re not to speak of any of it, lad,’ he said. ‘It’s a pretty delicate situation.’

  It was not like the Chief to find anything delicate.

  I said, ‘What can I speak of?’

  ‘Don’t talk,’ said the Chief. ‘Just drink.’

  ‘I’m half seas over as it is,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll put you straight about everything before long,’ he said, and the Chief was eyeing the right-hand stair to the rear of the terrace, which John Lambert was descending. Looking at him, my first thought was: Well, here’s another condemned man. In his dinner suit, he might have been dressed for his coffin. He was operating on habit alone as he came down those stone steps, to be greeted by the host and hostess, with Usher waiting behind them.

  Looking on, I said, ‘Well, Usher can’t very well do for him at a party, can he, sir?’

  ‘’Course not, lad,’ said the Chief. ‘It’d be considered very poor form.’

  And he walked slowly back towards the terrace.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I followed the Chief back onto the terrace, where I crossed the wife, who was making towards Milly Chandler.

  She said, ‘Can you smell the lovely musks and damasks?’

  ‘Is that what they are?’

  There was a beat of silence.

  ‘John Lambert’s here,’ I said, indicating him with a nod.

  ‘I see him,’ she replied.

  ‘He looks rather seedy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s going off, do you suppose?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ said the wife. ‘I thought your Chief might be putting you in the picture just now.’

  I could only shake my head.

  I sat down on one of the stone steps to the rear of the terrace – and when I sat down, I really sat down. I found a glass of claret near my perch, and drank it off. Someone had placed an oil lamp on the steps to supplement the Chinese lanterns, and it had drawn any number of drab-coloured moths. This terrace was really a room without walls; it was very hard to credit that a man who’d had the run of it, and the house too, was now in a cell in Durham nick.

  Usher was speaking in low tones to John Lambert, who would meet his gaze by some great effort, and then turn away. It was rather cheering to know that two members of the upper classes did not always see eye to eye. The Chief, not being upper class, was not privy to this exchange, and he stood on the edge of the terrace looking spare. After a few minutes, Usher broke off, sighing, from the conversation and drifted towards the white-covered table, while John Lambert went over and sat on the far steps, so that he and I balanced each other as the two gloomy onlookers at the party.

  It seemed to me that of all the people around the table, Lydia was in the greatest request. She had recovered from her early shock, and I saw that this was a world to which she was very well-suited, and from which she was being unfairly kept by her low-class husband.

  Milly Chandler was saying to her: ‘I don’t agree with you about religion. I think it’s all lies.’

  ‘Is that why the vicar’s not here?’ asked the wife.

  ‘I notice you make a connection between God and vicars,’ Milly Chandler said. ‘I find that interesting. In fact, the Reverend Ridley’s not here for the simple reason that he’s a perfectly horrible man who once put his hand on my – well, let us say my derrière. It was after matins,’ she added, and at this she started doing a little dance with her glass held high in the air. As I watched her – and watched especially her white, rolling bosom (that ruby necklace was a very brave adventurer) – the manservant and three other serv
ants new to me came down the stone steps carrying a sofa and a divan.

  I thought: Christ, is this for me?

  But Usher indicated the sofa to the ladies, and they sat down in it. He then invited the Chief and Bobby Chandler to the divan, while he remained standing, letting everyone see his perfectly pressed trousers, and the golden watch chain stretched across the silk ribbon that ran around his middle.

  During all this, the wife was talking once again about the women’s movement, and Usher flashed me a couple of glances as she did so. What had the Chief told him of me?

  As the wife spoke, the Chief looked down at the glass of champagne in his hand. He was not in favour of the women’s cause: the suffragettes were too pushing. And yet he sat silent. He knew something of what was happening, and was silent on that account. The Chief had once described himself to me as ‘self-educated’ and I wondered whether I fell into that bracket. I had been taught how to fire engines, but did that really count as an education? I knew a dart from a pricker or a paddle, and that ‘little and often’ was the best way with coal and water. But my work had never impressed Lydia, and she’d thought it a blessing when I’d been stood down from the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. Well, I’d known what I was taking on when I married her. She was always trying to climb, both for her sex and for herself. She wanted everything a woman could have, and everything a man could have, too.

  The manservant came over again, and poured more claret. The stuff was too warm. They would have an ice chest somewhere for the champagne.

  ‘Might you stick the claret in the ice for a while?’ I said, but the man had already gone, and I was glad about that. You had a narrow squeak there, Jim! I thought. Cold claret! The stuff had to be warmish, like blood.

  I walked after the manservant, and asked him where the water closet was – I had never called a jakes a water closet before. He directed me through a dark arch cut out of a yew bush, and I was in the territory of the kitchen garden. On low black trees that looked like old men, lemons grew. They glowed in the deep darkness, but lemons? Could that be right, even in the heat of this summer? I walked a little way of the gravel path towards them and saw that they were lemon-shaped yellow apples. Anything seemed possible as (having given up my search for the water closet) I pissed by the sweet-smelling compost pens.