"How did you do it?"
"You'd like to know, wouldn't you? Well, I'll tell you. It's very simple." He leaned still closer and said in a mock-confidential undertone: "You see, I'm a witch. I can be in two places at once."
He sat back and enjoyed Brat's discomfiture.
"You must think that I'm a lot drunker than I am, my friend," he said. "I've told you about Patrick, because you are my posthumous accomplice. A wonderful epithet, that, and I managed it very well. But if you think that I am going to make you free of the details, you are mistaken."
"Then, why did you do it?"
"He was a very stupid little boy," he said in his airy «Simon» tone, "and not worthy of Latchetts." Then he added, without facade: "I hated him, if you want to know."
He poured himself another glass of the Ayala, and drank it. He laughed under his breath, and said: "It's a wonderful spiritual twinship, isn't it? I can't tell about you and you can't tell about me!"
"You have the advantage of me, though."
"I have? How?"
"You have no scruples."
"Yes; I suppose it is an advantage."
"I have to put up with you, but you have no intention of putting up with me, have you? You did your best to kill me this afternoon."
"Not my best."
"You'll improve on it, I take it?"
"I'll improve."
"I expect you will. A person who can be in two places at once can do better than a loosened girth."
"Oh, much better. But one has to accept the means to hand."
"I see."
"I suppose you wouldn't like, in return for my confidences, to tell me something?"
"Tell you what?"
"Who you are?"
Brat sat looking at him for a long time.
"Don't you recognise me?" he said.
"No. Who are you?"
"Retribution," said Brat, and finished his drink.
He walked out of the bar and hung for a little over the banisters until his inside settled down and his breath came more easily. He tried to think of some place where he could be alone to think this thing out. There was nowhere in the hotel; even in his bedroom Simon might join him at any moment; he would have to go out.
He went to get his coat from Number 17, and on the way back again he met Bee.
"Has everyone gone crazy?" Bee said angrily. "Eleanor is upstairs crying, Simon is getting drunk in the bar, and now you look as if you had seen a ghost. What is the matter with everyone? Have you had a quarrel?"
"A quarrel? No. Eleanor and Simon have had a wearing day, I expect."
"And what makes you so white about the gills?"
"Ballroom air. I'm from the wide open spaces: remember?"
"I've always understood that the wide open spaces were just seething with dance halls."
"Do you mind if I take the car, Bee?"
"Take it where?"
"I want to see the sun rise over Kenley Vale."
"Alone?"
"Definitely alone."
"Put on your coat," she said. "It's cold out."
At the top of the rise looking over Kenley Vale he stopped the car and shut off the engine. It was still dark and would be dark for some time yet. He got out and stood on the grass verge, leaning against the bonnet, and listened to the silence. The earth and grass smelt strong in the cool damp after the sun of yesterday. The air was motionless. Far away across the Vale a train whistled.
He had a cigarette, and his stomach felt better. But the turmoil had merely moved up. The turmoil was now in his head.
He had been right about Simon. He had been right in seeing the resemblance to Timber: the well-bred creature with the beautiful manners who was also a rogue. Simon had told the truth, back there in the bar. He had been glad to tell him the truth. They said all killers wanted to boast about their killings; Simon must have longed often to tell someone how clever he had been. But he could never tell until now; when he had a «safe» listener.
He, Brat Farrar, was the «safe» listener.
He, Brat Farrar, owned Latchetts, and Simon took it for granted that he would keep what he had taken. That he would keep it as Simon's accessory.
But that, of course, was not possible. The unholy alliance with Loding was one thing; but the alliance that Simon took so mockingly for granted was not possible. It was monstrous. Unthinkable.
And that being that, what was he going to do about it?
Go to the police and say: Look, I'm not Patrick Ashby at all. Patrick Ashby was killed by his brother eight years ago. I know, because he told me so when he was a little drunk.
And then they would point out that in the course of their investigation into the death of Patrick Ashby it was proved that Simon Ashby had spent the relevant hours in the smith's company in Clare.
He could tell them the truth about himself, but nothing would be changed except his own life. Patrick Ashby would remain a suicide.
How had Simon done it?
"One has to accept the means at hand," he had said, about his slackening of the girth.
What "means at hand" had there been that day eight years ago?
The slackening of the girth had been a combination of planning and improvisation. The "signing the book" suggestion had been a long shot. If it worked successfully to get him out of the way, then Simon was free to complete the rest of his plan. If it did not work, then no harm was done. The set-up was innocent to the observer's eye.
That was the way Simon's mind had worked about the girth, and that was the way it had worked eight years ago, undoubtedly. The set-up that was innocent and unquestionable. The using of the means at hand.
How, eight years ago, had Simon used an innocent set of circumstances to provide him with the chance he wanted?
Brat's mind was still toiling round and round the problem when the first sigh of the stirring air told him that the dawn was coming. Presently the wind came again, lifting the leaves this time and ruffling the grass, and the east was grey. He watched the light come. The first bird notes dropped into the quiet.
He had been there for hours and he was no nearer a solution of the problem that faced him.
A policeman came along at leisure, pushing a bicycle, and paused to ask if he were in trouble. Brat said that he was getting some fresh air after a dance.
The policeman looked at his starched linen and accepted his explanation without remark. He looked at the interior of the car and said: "First time I ever saw a young gentleman getting fresh air alone after a dance. You haven't made away with her, by any chance, have you, sir?"
Brat wondered what he would say if he said: "No, but I'm accessory after the fact to another murder."
"She turned me down," he said.
"Ah. I see. Nursing your grief. Take it from me, sir, a week from now you'll be so thankful you'll feel like dancing in the street."
And he pushed his bicycle away along the ridge.
Brat began to shiver.
He got into the car and headed after the policeman. Where could he get something hot, he asked?
There was an all-night cafe at the main crossroads two miles ahead, the policeman said.
At the cafe, warm and bright and mundane after the grey spaces of the dawn, he drank scalding coffee. A buxom woman was frying sausages for two lorry-drivers, and a third was trying his luck at a penny-in-the-slot game in the corner. They glanced incuriously at his dance clothes, but beyond exchanging greetings with him they left him alone.
He came back to Bures at breakfast time, and put the car in the garage. The Chequers vestibule had a littered look; it was still only half-past seven, and show people notoriously made a night of it. He went up to Number 17 and found Simon fast asleep, with all his clothes in one single heap on the floor just as he had peeled them off. He changed into his day clothes, quietly at first and then less carefully as he realised that only long shaking would awaken Simon in his present condition. He looked down at Simon and marvelled. He slept quietly, like a child. Had
he grown so used to the thing after eight years that it no longer troubled him, or was it that it never had been a monstrous thing in his estimation?
It was a charming face, except perhaps for the pettish mouth. A delightful face; delicately made and proportioned. There was no more suggestion of wrong-doing about it than there was in the beauty that was Timber.
He went downstairs and washed, wishing that he had thought in time of having a bath. He had been too obsessed by the desire to change clothes without having to talk to Simon.
When he came into the dining-room he found Bee and the twins having breakfast, and joined them.
"Nell and Simon are still asleep," Bee said. "You'd better come back with me and the twins in the car, and let Eleanor take Simon when they waken."
"What about Tony?"
"Oh, he went back yesterday with Mrs. Stack."
It was a relief to know that he could go back to Latchetts with Bee in peace.
The twins began to talk about Tony's exploit, which was patently going to be part of Latchetts history, and he did not have to make conversation. Bee asked if the dawn had come up to expectation, and remarked that he was looking the better of it.
Through the green early-morning countryside they drove home to Clare, and Brat caught himself looking at it with the emotions of someone who has only a short time to live. He looked at things with a that-will-still-be-there attitude.
He would never come to Bures. He might never even drive with Bee again.
Whatever else Simon's confession meant, it meant the end of his life at Latchetts.
28
It was Thursday morning and on Sunday Charles Ashby would come sailing up Southampton Water, and nothing would stop the subsequent celebrations. He followed Bee into the hall at Latchetts feeling desperate.
"Do you mind if I desert you and go into Westover?" he asked Bee.
"No, I think you are due a little rest from the family. Simon is for ever running away."
So he took the bus into Westover and waited until it was time for Mr. Macallan to be having his mid-morning coffee. He went, to the Westover Times office and asked to see the files. The office boy, who showed no sign of ever having seen him before, took him to the cellar and showed him where they were. Brat read the report of the inquest all over again, but could find no help there.
Perhaps in the full report there would be something?
He went out and looked up Colonel Smollett in the telephone book. Where, he asked the Colonel, would the report of the inquest on himself be now? With the police? Well, would he make it easy for him to see it?
The Colonel would, but he considered it a most morbid and undesirable ambition, and implored young Ashby to think again.
So armed with the Colonel's telephoned introduction, he went to see a highly amused police force, who sat him down in a leather armchair and offered him cigarettes, and set before him the coroner's report of eight years ago with the empressment of a conjurer who has produced the rabbit from the hat.
He read it all through several times. It was merely the Westover Times' report in greater detail.
He thanked the police, offered them cigarettes in his turn, and went away as empty of suggestion as he had come. He went down to the harbour and hung over the wall, staring westward at the cliffs.
He had a fixed point, anyhow. A fixed point that could not be altered. Simon Ashby was in Clare that day. That was held to by a man who had no reason for lying, and no suspicion that the fact was of any importance. Simon had never been long enough away from Mr. Pilbeam's vicinity to make his absence felt.
Pat Ashby must have been killed between the time that old Abel met him in the early afternoon and the moment when Mr. Pilbeam had to chase Simon home for six o'clock supper.
Well, there was that old saying about Mahomet and the mountain.
He thought the Mahomet theory over, but was stumped by the coat on the cliff-top. It was Simon who had written that note, but Simon was never out of Clare.
It was two o'clock when he came to himself, and he went to have lunch at a small pub in the harbour. They had nothing much left, but it did not matter because he sat staring at his plate until they put the bill in front of him.
He went back to Latchetts and without going to the house went to the stables and took out one of the horses that had not been at Bures. There was no one about but Arthur, who reported that all the horses were safely back and all well except that Buster had an overreach.
"Taking him out like that, sir?" Arthur asked, nodding at Brat's tweed suit. And Brat said that he was.
He turned up to the down as he had that first morning when he took out Timber, and did again what he had done on Timber's back. But all the glory was gone. The whole world looked sick. Life itself tasted bad.
He dismounted and sat down where he had sat that morning a month ago, looking out over the small green valley. It had seemed paradise to him then. Even that silly girl who had come and talked to him had not sufficed to spoil it for him. He remembered how her eyes had popped when she found he was not Simon. She had come there sure of seeing Simon because it was his favourite place for exercising the horses. Because he….
The horse by his side threw up his head as Brat's sudden movement jerked the bit in his mouth.
Because he…?
He listened to the girl's voice in his mind. Then he got slowly to his feet and stood a long time staring across the valley.
He knew now how Simon had done it. And he also knew the answer to something that had puzzled him. He knew why Simon had been afraid that, by some miracle, it was the real Patrick who had come back.
He got on the horse and went back to the stables. The great clouds were racing up from the south-west and it was beginning to rain. In the saddle room he took a sheet of writing paper from the desk and wrote on it: "Out for dinner. Leave the front door on the latch for me, and don't worry if I am late." He put it in an envelope, addressed it to Bee, and asked Arthur to hand it in at the house when he was passing. He took his burberry from the back of the saddle-room door, and went out into the rain, away from Latchetts. He had the knowledge now. What was he going to do with it?
He walked without conscious purpose, unaware of anything but the dreadful question to be answered. He came to the smithy where Mr. Pilbeam was still working, and greeted him, and exchanged opinions on the work in hand and on the weather to come, without having for a moment ceased to battle with the thing in his mind.
He walked up the path to Tanbitches and up the hill over the wet grass to the crown of beeches, and walked there to and fro among the great boles of the trees, distracted and stricken.
How could he bring this thing on Bee?
On Eleanor? On Latchetts?
Had he not already done Latchetts sufficient harm?
Would it matter so much if Simon were left in possession as he had been for eight years?
Who had been harmed by that? Only one person: Patrick.
If Simon was to be brought to justice for Patrick's death, it would mean horror beyond horror for Bee and the rest.
He didn't have to do it at all. He could go away; stage a suicide. After all, Simon had staged Patrick's suicide, and it had passed a police investigation. If a boy of thirteen could do that he could do it. He could just drop out, and things would be as they were a month ago.
And-Pat Ashby?
But Pat, if he could choose, would not want justice on Simon at the cost of his family's ruin. Not Pat, who had been kind and always thought first of others.
And Simon?
Was he to make good Simon's monstrous supposition that he would do nothing? Was Simon to spend a long life as the owner of Latchetts? Were Simon's children to inherit Latchetts?
But they would still be Ashbys. If Simon were brought to justice there would be no more Ashbys at Latchetts.
And how would it advantage Latchetts to have its inheritance made safe by the condoning of murder?
Was it not, perhaps, to uncover that
murder that he had come by such strange ways to Latchetts?
He had come half across a world to that meeting with Loding in the street, and he had said to himself that so strange a chance must be destiny. But he had not imagined it to be an important destiny. Now, it would seem, it was an all-important one.
What was he to do? Who could advise him? Decide for him? It was not fair that this should be put on his shoulders. He had not the wisdom, the experience, to deal with a thing of this magnitude.
"I am retribution," he had said to Simon, and meant it. But that was before he had the weapon of retribution in his hand.
What was he to do?
Go to the police to-night? To-morrow?
Do nothing, and let the celebrations begin when Charles Ashby came home?
What was he to do?
It was late that night that George Peck, sitting in his study and conscious every now and then even from his distant vantage point in Thebes of the lashing rain on the window of the Rectory in Clare, heard a tapping at that window, and came back from Thebes and went to the front door. It was by no means the first time that people had tapped on that window late at night.
In the light from the hall he saw one of the Ashbys, he could not tell which because the soaked hat almost obscured the face.
"Rector, may I come in and talk to you?"
"Of course, Patrick. Come in."
Brat stood on the step, the rain sluicing from his coat.
"I'm afraid I'm very wet," he said vaguely.
The Rector looked down and saw that the grey tweed of his trousers was black, and his shoes an oozing pulp. His eyes went sharply to the boy's face. Brat had taken off his limp hat and the rain-water from his soaked hair was running down his face.
"Take off your coat and leave it here," the Rector said. "I'll give you another one when you are ready to go." He went to the hall cloakroom and came back with a towel. "Rub your head with that."
Brat did as he was told, with the obedient air and fumbling movements of a child. The Rector went through to the empty kitchen and brought a kettle of water.
"Come in," he said. "Just drop the towel where your wet coat is." He led the way into his study and put the kettle on an electric ring. "That will be hot in no time. I often make tea for myself when I sit up late. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"
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