"You needn't bother," she said warmly, "to regale me with any account of your disgusting love-affairs. I’m sure Fm not interested! I suppose you're one of those nasty people who think women are toys, and oughtn't to have careers and do some good in the world—"
"Right you are."
"Bah!" she said, and gave a vigorous toss of her head. That's just it. I never thought anybody could be so stupid and old-fashioned in this day and age… What are you thinking of?" she asked in some suspicion.
"H'm" said Donovan enigmatically. "You are a little liar. And you keep straying away from the subject. What' I originally said was that merely seeing you inspired me to burst into limericks, like Keats or somebody. The idea of you having a career is unthinkable. Preposterous. If you became a doctor, your patients would wake up out of the strongest anaesthetic the moment you felt their pulses. If you became a barrister, you would probably throw the inkstand at the judge when he ruled against you, and… What ho! That reminds me…"
Patricia, who was beaming, followed his expression.
"Go on," she prompted, rather crossly.
They had come out of the gloom in the coppice to the warm slope of parkland, drowsy, and almost uncannily still as the evening drew in. After the clanging of cities, this hush made him uncomfortable. He looked up at The Grange, with the poplars silhouetted behind it, and he remembered what Dr. Fell had said about a killer. He remembered that, after all, they were still as far away as ever from knowing the murderer's name. Old Depping made a pitiable ghost. These people went on their easy ways, interested in the gossip, but certainly not mourning him. And something that had persisted in Hugh's mind wormed to the surface again.
Throw the inkstand…" he repeated. "Why, I was only thinking of your poltergeist, and what it did to the vicar…"
"Oh, that?" She raised her eyebrows quizzically, and grinned. "I say, we did have a row! You should have been here. Of course none of us believed your father was mad, really — except maybe my father — but we didn't believe him when he told us about that American what’s-his-name—"
"Spinelli?"
" 'M. But that's what made it worse when we heard this morning…" She dug the toe of her shoe round in the grass, uneasily. "And that reminds me" she went on, as though she would dismiss the subject. "We don't really want to go up to the house now, do we? If we went along to Henry Morgan's, and maybe had a cocktail…?"
The power of sympathy showed the answer in both their faces. They were beginning to turn round and head the other way almost as soon as she had uttered the words, and Patricia gave a conspirator's gurgle of enjoyment. She knew, she said, a short-cut; a side gate in the boundary wall, not far from the coppice where the Guest House stood, which would lead them out to Hangover House.
"I don't know why," she continued, as though she hated thinking about the matter, but was determined to flounder through it; "I don't know why," she went on suddenly, "that Spinelli man should want to kill Mr. Depping. But he did do it; and Spinelli's an Italian, and probably a member of the Black Hand, and they do all sorts of queer things — don't they? You know. You know all about criminals, don't you?"
"Urn" said Hugh judicially. He was beginning to feel remorseful. He wanted to explain everything to this little ginch, but for some reason he found he couldn't.
"All sorts of queer things" she repeated, evidently satisfied by this logic. "Anyway, Fd be a hypocrite— and so would most of us — if we pretended we'd miss Mr. Depping. I mean, I'm jolly sorry he's dead, and it's too bad, and I'm glad they've caught the man who killed him… but there were times when I wished he'd move away, and — and never come back." She hesitated. "If it hadn't been for Betty, the few times we've seen her, I think we'd all have flown against Dad and Mr. Burke and said, 'Look here, throw that blighter out'"
They were skirting the boundary wall, and she slapped at it with sudden vehemence. It was beginning to puzzle Hugh all the more.
"Yes," he said. "That's the queerest part of it, from what I've seen…"
"What is?"
"Well, Depping's status. There doesn't seem to be anybody who more than half defends him. He came here as a stranger, and you took him up and made him one of you. It sounds unusual, if he was so unpopular as he seems to be."
"Oh, I know! I've had it dinned into me a dozen times. Mr. Burke is behind it. He puts Dad up to speaking to us about it. Dad sidles up with a red face and a guilty look, and says, "Burpf, burpf, eh, what?' And you say, ‘What?' Then he splutters some more, and finally says, "Old Depping — very decent sort, eh?' And you say, ‘No.' Then he says, 'Well, damme, he is!' and bolts out the most convenient door as though he'd done his duty. It's Mr. Burke's idea, but he never says anything at all."
"Burke? That's-"
" 'M. Yes. Wait till you meet him. Little, broad-set man with a shiny bald head and a gruff voice. He always looks sour, and then chuckles; or else he looks just sleepy. Always wears a brown suit — never saw him in anything else — and has a pipe in his mouth. And," said Patricia, embarked on a sort of grievance, "he has a way of suddenly closing one eye and sighting at you down the pipe as though he were looking along a gun. It takes some time to get used to him." Again she gave the little gurgle of pleasure. "All Fm sure of about J. R. Burke is that he hates talking books, and he can drink more whisky with absolutely no change of expression than any man I ever saw,"
Hugh was impressed. That" he declared, "is a new one." He pondered. "I always had a sort of idea that everyone connected with a publishing house had long white whiskers and double-lensed spectacles, and sat around in darkish rooms looking for masterpieces. But then I also thought Henry Morgan — I've met him, by the way — that is, the blurbs on the jackets of his books said…"
She gurgled. "Yes, they're rather good, aren't they?" she inquired complacently. "He writes them himself. Oh, you're quite wrong, you know. But I was telling you about Mr. Depping. I don't think it was so much the money he'd invested, though I gather that was quite a lot. It was a sort of uncanny ability he had to tell what books would sell and what books wouldn't. There are only about half-a-dozen people like that in the world; I don't know where he got it. But he always knew. He was invaluable. The only thing I ever heard Mr. Burke say about him was once when Madeleine and I were giving him what-for, and J. R. was trying to sleep in a chair with the Times over his face. He took the paper away and said, 'Shut up'; and then he said, The man's a genius,' and went back to sleep again… "
They had come out into the main road now, cool and shadowy under the trees that lined it, and the high hedges of hawthorn. Almost opposite were the gables of Hangover House. As they approached the gate there became audible an energetic and muffled rattling, which appeared to proceed from a cocktail shaker.
"Light of my life," said an argumentative voice, between rattles, "I will now proceed to expound to you the solution of this mystery as it would be explained by John Zed. to begin with—"
"Hullo, Hank," said Patricia, "may we come in?"
A very pleasant little domestic scene was in progress on the lawn before the house, screened by the high hedge. Madeleine Morgan was curled up in a deck chair under the beach umbrella, an expression of bright anticipation on her face. Alternately she raised to her lips a cocktail glass and a cigarette, and she was making noises of admiration between. In the faint light of the afterglow, the newcomers could see her husband pacing up and down before the table; stopping to administer a vigorous rattle to the shaker, wheeling round, slapping the back of his head, and stalking on again. He turned round at Patricia's greeting, to peer over his spectacles.
"Ha!" he said approvingly. "Come in, come in! Madeleine, more glasses. I think we can find you a couple of chairs. What's up — anything?"
"Didn't I hear you say," remarked Patricia, "that you were going to explain the murder? Well, you needn't. They've found that American, and everything seems to be finished."
"No, it isn't," piped Madeleine, with a pleased look at her husband. "Hank says it i
sn't."
Chairs were set out, and Morgan filled all the glasses. "I know they've found the American. I saw Murch on his way back from Hanham. But he isn't guilty. Stands to reason. (Here's loud cheers — down she goes! — )"
A general murmur, like the church's mumbled responses when the minister reads the catechism, answered the toast. The Martini's healing chill soothed Hugh Donovan almost at once. He relaxed slowly. Morgan went on with some warmth:
"Stands to reason, I tell you! Of course, I'm interested in truth only as a secondary consideration. Chiefly I'm interested in how this murder ought to work out according to story standards, and whether a plot can be worked up around it. You see—"
"I say, why don't you?" interrupted Patricia, inspired. She took the glass away from her lips and frowned. "That's a jolly good idea! It would be a change. To date," she said dreamily, "you have poisoned one Home Secretary, killed the Lord Chancellor with an axe, shot two Prime Ministers, strangled the First Sea-lord, and blown up the Chief Justice. Why don't you stop picking on the poor Government for a while and kill a publisher like Depping?"
"The Lord Chancellor, my dear girl," said Morgan with a touch of austerity, "was not killed with an axe. I wish you would get these things right. On the contrary, he was beaned with the Great Seal and found dead on the Woolsack… You are probably thinking of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in The Inland Revenue Murders. I was only letting off a little steam in that one."
"I remember that one!" said Hugh, with enthusiasm. It was damned good." Morgan beamed, and refilled his glass. "I like those stories," Hugh pursued, "a lot better than the ones that are so popular by that other fellow — what's his name? — William Block Tournedos. I mean the ones that are supposed to be very probable and real, where all they do is run around showing photographs to people."
Morgan looked embarrassed.
"Well," he said, "you see, to tell you the truth, I’m William Block Tournedos too. And I thoroughly agree with you. That's my graft."
"Graft?"
"Yes. They're written for the critics' benefit. You see, the critics, as differentiated from the reading public, are required to like any story that is probable. I discovered a long time ago the way to write a probable and real story. You must have (1) no action, (2) no atmosphere whatever — that's very important — (3) as few interesting characters as possible, (4) absolutely no digressions, and (5) above all things, no deduction. Digressions are the curse of probability… which is a funny way of looking at life in general; and the detective may uncover all he can, so long as he never deduces anything. Observe those rules, my children; then you may outrage real probability as much as you like, and the critics will call it ingenious."
"Hooray!" said Madeleine, and took another drink.
Patricia said: "You've whipped your hobbyhorse to death, Hank. Go back to the problem… Why couldn't this be a story; I mean, from your own preferences in stories?"
Morgan grinned, getting his breath. It could," he admitted, "up to and including the time of the murder. After that…" He scowled.
A sharp premonition made Hugh look up. He remembered that this was the person who had told them to look for the buttonhook.
"What do you mean, after that?"
"I don't think the American is guilty. And," said Morgan, "of all the motiveless and unenterprising sluggards to gather up as suspects, the rest of us are the worst! At least, in a crime story, you get a lot of motives and plenty of suspicious behavior. You have a quarrel overheard by the butler, and somebody threatening to kill somebody, and somebody else sneaking out to bury a blood-stained handkerchief in the flower bed… But here we've nothing of the kind.
"Depping, for instance. I don't mean he had no enemies. When you hear of a man who is said to have no enemies, you can practically sit back and wait for somebody to murder him. Depping was a harder sort of problem. Nobody liked him, but, God knows, nobody hereabouts would have gone to the point of doing him in. — And in your wildest imagination, now, can you picture anybody as the murderer? The bishop? Colonel Standish? J. R. Burke? Maw? Let me fill up your glass again."
"Thanks," said Hugh. "Who's Maw?"
Patricia wriggled delightedly in the deck chair. The windows of the house behind her were still glowing, though the lawn was in shadow; there was a light on her blonde hair, and even that vibrant brownish-gold skin seemed to reflect it. She lounged back in the chair, her eyes bright and her lips moist, ticking the glass against her teeth. One bare leg in a tennis shoe swung over the side. Patricia said:
"Oh, yes. Yd better explain that before you meet her, so that you'll know how to handle her… It's my mother. You'll like her. Nowadays she's a sort of tyrant who can't tyrannize, and it makes her furious. Coo! We all used to be afraid of her, until an American friend of Hank's found the solution…"
"Urn" said Donovan. He resisted a powerful impulse to go over and sit down beside her on the foot-rest part of the deck chair. "Yes, I remember your brother said something about that."
"Poor Morley is still shocked. But it's the only way to deal with her, really. Otherwise you'd always be eating turnips, or doing exercises in front of an open window, or something. It only began by everybody calling her Maw… So remember. When she comes sailing up to you and orders you to do something, or tries to dragoon you into it, you look her straight in the eye and say, firmly, 'Nuts, Maw! Just like that. And then even more firmly, 'Nuts! That closes the subject."
" "Nuts,'" repeated Donovan, with the air of one uttering a talisman. " 'Nuts, Maw.'" He drew reflectively on his cigarette. "But are you sure it works? I’d like to try something like that on my old man, if I could muster up the nerve…"
"It takes a bit of doing," Morgan admitted, rubbing his jaw. "Colonel Standish can't manage it even yet. Of course, he got off on the wrong foot. The first time he tried it he only rushed up to her and said, 'Almonds, damme, almonds'; and waited for something to happen. And it didn't. So now—"
"I don't believe that story," said Patricia defensively.
"He tells that to everybody" she appealed to Hugh, "and it never happened at all. It—"
"On my sacred word of honor" said Morgan, raising his hand with fervor, "it did. I was outside the door, and heard it. He came out afterwards and said he must have forgot the demnition countersign, and now he'd have to take cod-liver oil after all. But there you are; there's a good example… Try to find a murderer among people like that! We know these people. I can't seem to find one who would fit into the part; not one of the whole crowd we could hang for murder—!"
"Certainly.you can, dear!" his wife maintained stoutly. Her flushed face looked round at the others in some defiance. She swallowed a sip of her cocktail, said, "Urk!" and then beamed on them. "You just keep on trying, and you'll find somebody. I know you will."
"But you don't need to find anybody, old boy," said Patricia. "This is real life, you see; that's the difference. This American Spinelli shot him, and there's no detective story plot about it."
Morgan was stalking up and down, gesturing with his dead pipe. Even his striped blazer was growing indistinct in the dusk. He wheeled round.
"I am prepared to outline you a theory," he declared, "and to prove to you that what's-his-name didn't. I don't know whether I'm right. I’m only looking at it from poor old John Zed's viewpoint. But I shouldn't be surprised if it were true. Anyway, it's what I meant by saying the first part of it would make a good story… "
None of them had heard stolid footsteps coming along the road. But now an indistinct figure leaned over the gate, and seemed to be looking from one to the other of them. They could see the bowl of a pipe glowing.
"You still talking, eh?" growled a gruff voice, with a faint chuckle under it. "May I come in?"
"What ho" said Morgan. "Come in, J. R. Come in." He was apologetic but determined. Td like to have you hear this, if you think I generally talk nonsense. Mr. Burke, this is the Bishop of Mappleham's son…"
CHAPTER X
A Q
uestion of Keys
The great J. R. Burke came in with his short solid steps, head slightly down. Hugh could see him better when he moved out of the darkness near the gate, and into the faint glow that lingered over against the house. Patricia had correctly described him, except that now his large bald head was hidden under a sort of piratical hat with its brim turned up in front. A short, stocky man in a brown suit, who always seemed to be looking up at you in that squinting, sighting fashion over half-glasses. First he would preserve a Chinese-image expression, with the corners of his mouth drawn down. Then, as he seemed to see nothing dangerous on the horizon, he would grunt, assume a quizzical expression, and attain a faint twinkle of the eye.
This, as indicated, was the great J. R. Burke, potent discoverer of authors, manager of finances, and hater of books; urbane, genial, cynical, immensely well-read frequently drunk, and always at ease. He stumped across now, sighting at everybody.
"I've been sittin' on a log," he grunted, with a sniff which seemed to indicate what he thought of nature in general. "I hate sittin' on logs. If I sit on a log for two minutes, all the rest of the day I think things are crawling all over me… Hum. Let us have a little causerie?
Morgan brought out another chair, and he established himself. "Go on talking," he said to Morgan. "You will anyhow. Humph. Eh? Yes, whisky, please. Ah! — that's enough. Stop a minute. They tell me Scotland Yard's sent Gideon Fell down to look into this business. Is that true?"
"It is. Do you mean to say you haven't been about all afternoon?"
"Good man, Fell," said J. R. gruffly.
He spread himself out, squaring his arms; tasted his whisky, and then looked quizzically at everybody, blinking over the half-glasses. The pipe went back into his mouth.
"Humph," he added. I’ve been taking a walk in quiet country lanes. I won't do it again. Every time I try to walk in quiet country lanes, they are suddenly as full of automobiles as Regent Street at five o'clock in the afternoon. Twenty times I was nearly run over by bicycles coming up behind. 1 hate being run down by bicycles; there is something insulting about being run down by bicycles, damn it. They sneak up on you. When you do see them, neither you nor the cyclist can decide which way to go; so you both stagger all over the road, and finally he sideswipes you with the handlebar. Humph."
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