by James Hilton
“I hope so,” answered Revell sincerely enough.
They chatted on until King’s Cross was reached, and then, at the entrance of the Tube station, shook hands with great cordiality.
Four hours later, having done all he wished, Revell was again at the station on his way back to Oakington.
* * *
CHAPTER 9. — THEORIES
He was glad to be back. He realised it as he stepped out of the train at Oakington station; the sham Gothic towers and buttresses no longer repelled as formerly, but lured with a sinister fascination that grew as he walked along the lane towards them. Two boys—two brothers—had been killed within those grotesque precincts. The murderer had then killed himself. Yet somehow, instead of the apathy that usually follows the final closure of an unsavoury incident, Revell was conscious of a widening and deepening interest in the whole affair. It was closed, finished, wound up —yet he was still a little curious; there were still things that he wanted to know about it.
That evening the Head talked to him of the harm that the affair had done to the School’s reputation. Revell sincerely sympathised; Roseveare, as always, exercised a queer personal fascination over him. “It’s been pretty awful, I know,” he said, “but it’s over and done with now, and people soon forget.” (He did not really think so, but it was the thing to say.)
“They never forget a name,” Roseveare answered. “Long after I am dead —perhaps long after you are dead, even—people will still say, when they hear ‘Oakington’ mentioned—‘Why, isn’t that the school where those two boys were killed?’ Don’t you think they will? Don’t people still remember Rugeley as the town where Palmer poisoned his victims?”
It was true, Revell admitted to himself. Merely during his hasty visit to London he had been able to estimate the extent to which the Oakington tragedies had impressed themselves on the popular imagination. In Oakington village it was only to be expected that the School’s affairs would loom largely, but it had been rather a shock to see the word “Oakington” on half the newspaper placards in London. His landlady, even, had added the name to the small list of notorieties that formed the currency of her street-door and garden-wall chatter. And she had shown him proudly an article she had cut from one of the cheaper and more lurid weeklies; it was headed— “Dormitory Death-Drama and Swimming-Bath Shooting Shambles; Oakington’s Two Mystery Tragedies Now Capped by Schoolmaster’s Sudden Death.”
Revell recollected all this as Roseveare talked. The smooth and rolling periods followed each other majestically; Roseveare had acquired the rare knack of talking like a book without sounding like one. “For weeks, Revell, we have lived in a state of siege; we have had forced upon us such indignities and espionage as no community can endure without contamination. The good feeling between master and master has been sadly affected— how, indeed, could it have been otherwise, when each one of us has had an eye on someone else as a possible murderer? Discipline—esprit de corps —the tonic life-blood of the School—has almost ceased to exist. A deplorable state of affairs, but now, perhaps, we may feel that the worst is over, and may begin the task of restoration. And the first step, since this terrible chapter of mysteries has been left unsolved by the authorities, is to establish some basis of hypothesis on which the matter may conveniently be discarded. It was with this in mind that this afternoon, while you were away, I allowed myself to be interviewed by a group of newspaper-men.”
“Oh? I’ll bet they were pleased.”
“They were. I made them a short statement which will doubtless appear in the papers to-morrow. A judicious statement, I hope, which will do good, whether it is true or not. But,” he added, “it is just as likely to be true as any other supposition. When one is faced with so many theories, all without tangible foundation, one has surely a right to choose the least objectionable?”
“Surely,” agreed Revell.
The next morning, therefore, in common with some millions of others throughout the United Kingdom, he was able to read “the first authentic interview with the Headmaster of Oakington”. It was amusing to learn that “Dr. Roseveare is a tall, handsome man with a charming smile and a quiet, forceful personality. He greeted our representative most affably, and begged to be excused for not having received him before. ‘I felt’, he explained, ‘that while the case was as it was, it had better not be discussed. Now, however, that circumstances have altered, I am glad to be able to make a statement.’” (All of which, as Revell perceived, meant exactly nothing at all.)
“‘First,’” continued the statement, “‘I think I may tell you definitely that the police have retired from the case. They have discontinued the quest for the murderer, which they would hardly do if they still believed he existed. I conclude, then, that they do not now believe that any murder was committed at all. As this corresponds with the personal opinion I have myself held all along, I cannot pretend to be surprised.
“‘The first death—that of poor Robert Marshall—was, I think, undoubtedly an accident. There has never appeared, at any rate, the slightest scrap of definite evidence to the contrary.
“‘The second of the unfortunate brothers—Wilbraham—was shot, it is true, but no substantial evidence has appeared to point to any person as the assailant. The only conclusion to be reached, then, is that he died by his own hand.
“‘I myself have little doubt that this was so. The poor boy had been greatly depressed since the death of his brother, to whom he had been very closely attached.
“‘Perhaps I ought to add that the tragic death of Mr. Lambourne, one of the School staff, appears to have been quite unconnected with the other events. Mr. Lambourne, as I said at the inquest, was a peculiarly unhappy victim of the War, and had been in a poor state of health for many years. The jury rightly returned an open verdict, but my private opinion, for what it is worth, is that the overdose of veronal which caused his death was taken accidentally and not at all with suicidal intent.
“‘That, gentlemen, is really all I have to say. We at Oakington have gone through a gruelling time; for nearly a year it has seemed as if some malign fate were working against us at every turn. I can only say that the School will try to forget these terrible days as soon as possible, and will strive to do its duty in the future as nobly as it has done in the past.’”
As Revell read, he could almost hear the suave, well-chosen words spoken in the calm, soothing voice of the Head himself. The whole thing, in its evenness, its urbanity, its air of serene reasonableness, was thoroughly typical of the man. Yet was it not in some sense a shade TOO reasonable?
He was not quite reckless enough to suggest as much to its author. Indeed, at breakfast he congratulated Roseveare wholeheartedly on the statement, and expressed the belief that it would help a great deal towards the closing of the whole affair. Then, after the meal, he strolled out in the open air and smoked a languid cigarette. It was another of those glorious summer days of which the season had already been so generous; there was to be a big cricket-match against Westerham in the afternoon, and already the life of the School was noticeably beginning to revolve in a more normal orbit.
Yes, the affair was closed… and yet… and yet in some strange and secret way he could not let it be closed in his own thoughts. Neither Lambourne’s confession nor Guthrie’s exposition had given that sense of finality that ought, he felt, to have been in his own mind. Too many mysteries remained; too many questions had never been answered. Thus, with a sort of sickening willingness, he allowed himself to be led back into the realm of doubt.
The mood persisted for several days, till one afternoon, in a moment of half-sinister idleness, he got out his notebook and glanced through the pencilled relics of those many hours he had spent over the Oakington case. He had made copious notes of various conversations he had had with the chief actors in the Oakington drama; there were pages, for example, concerning Guthrie’s remarks. Then he came to reports and summaries of talks he had had with Lambourne. Queer to think that the crimes tha
t Lambourne had discussed so abstractedly and nonchalantly had all the time been his own!
Lambourne had said (according to Revell’s scribbled memoranda):
“I suspected it from the moment the news of the first accident reached me. But then I nearly always do suspect things. I have a morbid mind… Nobody, however clever, should expect to get away with more than one murder. From a technical point of view, the repetition mars the symmetry of the thing… After my years at the War, I find it hard to share the general indignation when someone tries a little unofficial slaughter on his own.”
All that, Revell had to admit, was fairly incriminating. Along with Lambourne’s bookcase of crime literature it might be held to show him as a person capable of planning and imagining murder.
Again, Lambourne had said:
“If Ellington isn’t the murderer, there probably hasn’t been a murder at all… I didn’t want you to know too much against Ellington—it might have biased you in deciding whether the accident was faked or not.”
Yes, that was certainly corroboration of the fact that Lambourne had, very cleverly and with an appearance of judicial fairness, sought to throw suspicion on Ellington. Revell was gratified to find that, even at such an early stage of the proceedings, he himself had written, apropos of Lambourne: “Is he entirely trustworthy? Is his pose of indifference sincere?”
Once again, Lambourne had said:
“Most people, if careful enough, can commit one murder safely. The temptation is to commit a second. Even that may be successful. But the third time, by the law of averages, is likely to be unlucky… Once the murderer has got it into his head that he’s cleverer than the rest of mankind, he begins to think of murder quite casually. Two successful murders very often lead to a third.”
And after saying that, Revell remembered, Lambourne had joked about the possibility of Ellington murdering some third person in due course— probably his wife.
Ah well, Revell reflected, there would be no third murder, since the murderer was now dead himself.
Suddenly, seized with a fit of inspiration, he turned to the first blank page and scribbled down:
“The beastly part of this case is the tremendous amount that depends only on what people have SAID. The explanation of my being sent for at first depends on what Roseveare SAID, and in what he SAID Mrs. Ellington SAID. The whole theory of Lambourne as the murderer depends again on what Lambourne SAID, and on what Mrs. Ellington SAID he SAID. There really seems to have been far too much SAYING and not enough discovery of independent evidence.”
Then, apparently satisfied for the time being, Revell locked the notebook in a drawer, lit another cigarette, and strolled out into the warming air. Summer at Oakington was really rather delightful, with the clank-clank of the roller over the cricket-pitch and the songs of the birds in the high trees. A pity the buildings were so frightful. Revell, varying the confession of Landor, could say that art he loved, and next to art, nature.
As he passed the front entrance of Ellington’s house, he saw, emerging from the porch, Mrs. Ellington with a man whom he did not recognise. She greeted him with a pleasant if rather wistful smile and hastened to introduce him to the stranger. The latter, apparently, was none other than Mr. Geoffrey Lambourne, who had come to Oakington to attend to matters connected with his brother’s death. Mrs. Ellington, after a few moments, left the two men together; she seemed glad enough to do so, and Revell could easily understand her motive. The raking over of recent events must have been peculiarly distressing to her.
Geoffrey Lambourne, on further examination, appeared as a short, rather stout man, round-faced and spectacled, not much like his brother and seemingly many years his senior. Revell was interested in his mere identity, and could feel considerable sympathy with him. They took a stroll, at Revell’s suggestion, round the Ring, and Lambourne, in a delicate, rather over-sensitive voice, told Revell that he was the representative of an English firm in Vienna and had come to England especially to wind up his brother’s affairs, interview his solicitors, and so on. “It’s all been a little curious, his death, don’t you think?” he said. The faintly quizzical understatement, spoken in such a quiet tone under that blazing sky, made Revell suddenly shiver.
“Very curious,” he answered, guardedly. “But then, I think your brother was in many ways a very curious man.”
“May I ask if you knew him well, Mr. Revell?”
“Oh, not very well. But we liked each other’s company, I think.”
Mr. Geoffrey Lambourne nodded. “He liked yours, at any rate. Several of his letters to me contained mentions of you.”
“Really? I had no idea he would ever think me worth writing about. I certainly liked him—he had a wry sense of humour that rather appealed to me.” (Certainly, Revell reflected, he HAD had a wry sense of humour.) “I suppose you were very much attached to him?”
“I was.” The simplicity of the admission held its own pathetic dignity. “We were the sole survivors of our family—both bachelors too, and likely to remain so.” He blinked gently as he entered a patch of open sunlight. “Max was the only human being in the world I had to care about, and I—or so I had imagined—occupied a similar place in his affections.”
Revell was quick to notice the pluperfect tense of this last remark. “So you HAD imagined?” he echoed.
The other nodded. “Yes, exactly. But I had better tell you, if you are interested, just what happened when I arrived in England.”
“Yes, please do.”
“I had been wired for, you understand, by the solicitor who acts for us both. I was not in time for the inquest, but I was able in Paris to buy English newspapers that reported it. I am glad, by the way, that the jury returned an open verdict, for I am perfectly certain that my brother was not the sort to take his life deliberately. The veronal habit was a surprise to me, but I can hardly blame him, poor fellow—he was, as your Headmaster said, a most tragic victim of the War. But I must tell you what happened at my visit to the solicitor. I had naturally expected that my brother’s possessions, small though they might be both in quantity and value, would pass to me—in fact, we had both made wills in each other’s favour some dozen years ago. Judge of my surprise when the solicitor informed me that my brother, greatly against his persuasions, had made a later will, dated only last year, leaving everything he had to a complete stranger.”
“Indeed?”
The other coughed deprecatingly. “Please do not suppose that the bequest itself troubles me. I am not badly off, and in any case, my brother left nothing but his books, a few pounds in the bank, and his term’s salary payable up to the date of his death. What does—or perhaps I had better say, DID—perturb me a little was the discovery that he knew anyone whom he cared for sufficiently to put me in, so to speak, a second place. Or rather,” he added, with a slight smile, “no place at all. In this second will of his, I was not even so much as mentioned.”
Revell was itching to learn the name of this mysterious beneficiary, but he felt that Geoffrey Lambourne was the kind of man who told his tale better when left alone. He therefore contented himself with a sympathetic murmur.
“Yes,” continued Lambourne, “I was a little hurt at first, I confess. And when I further learned that it was a woman, I was perhaps even annoyed.”
“A woman?”
“Yes. The woman who introduced us just now. Mrs. Ellington.”
“Good Lord, you don’t say so?”
“You are surprised, Mr. Revell?”
“Well, yes, I must admit I am. Though really not so much, perhaps, on second thoughts. At least, I can think of a reason for it.”
“So can I—a very obvious one.”
“You mean that your brother was in love with her?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me, having seen her.”
Revell smiled. “Yes, she’s an exceedingly attractive woman, I admit. Your brother certainly admired her, but I don’t imagine there was ever anything like a real affair between them. Mr
s. Ellington sympathised with him a great deal—they had many tastes in common—far more, no doubt, than she had with her husband, who isn’t the most suitable man for her to have married. Whenever your brother struck his bad patches she was able to help him in many ways—she had been a nurse, you know. I really think that’s all it came to.”
“You like her, then?”
“Yes, I do. Very much.”
“Thank you, Mr. Revell. You have told me just what I wanted to know. Mrs. Ellington, whom I liked, I must say, as soon as I met her, was far too modest to explain things as you have done. I can see now exactly why my brother made his will as he did, and I’m no longer troubled about it in the least. Mrs. Ellington I certainly don’t blame at all—she says that the bequest came as a complete surprise to her, which I can well believe. Perhaps as an embarrassment as well, for by the look of him, Mr. Ellington is not a man to deduce a good motive when one not so good is equally handy. I note, by the way, that YOU don’t care for him, either?”
“We’re rather different types, I’m afraid.”
They had completed the first round of the Ring, and it was Lambourne this time who suggested a second circuit. Revell agreed, offering the other a cigarette. “It’s very decent of you to tell me all this,” he said, lighting one for himself. “I haven’t been here long enough to have become really intimate with your brother, but perhaps I knew him as well as any of the others did.”
“Better, I am sure. You knew, of course, about his War experiences?”
“You mean about his—er—his court-martial and all that?”
Lambourne, however, showed by a sudden clouding over his normally benignant countenance that he had not meant any such thing. When he replied there was even a mild ring of indignation in his tones. “Good heavens, Mr. Revell, am I to understand that the story of his one single lapse followed him here? I am sorry to hear it—I had no idea of it all. I still do not believe that he committed suicide, but if ever there could have been a reason for his doing so, it would have been the raking up of that sad affair.”