Another Little Christmas Murder

by Lorna Nicholl Morgan

  ‘I do,’ Dylis said. ‘If you suffer from stiff joints, a little Rubbitin well massaged around the places affected while taking a hot bath will cure it overnight. On the other hand, Quickease, a scientific blending of curative oils, will take away lumbago in three days instead of the usual five. For sciatica, there is Si-rub, and for coughs, sore throats, and general chest troubles a little Baydrop does wonders. The common cold can be instantly relieved by inhaling a few drops of Nasalo in hot water, and Necktar oil is unrivalled for stiff necks. Also …’

  ‘Miss Hughes,’ her victim said, with undisguised annoyance, ‘let me make it clear, before you try any further to interest me in your wares, that I have never suffered from any of these maladies, and having regard to my meticulous habits, I am not likely to suffer from them in the future. And I give you my solemn word that I shall leave no stone unturned to spread the gospel of my own way of life, and thus to cut the ground from under the feet of you purveyors of false hope and quackery.’

  ‘No sale, Dylis,’ Inigo said. ‘Too bad you can’t wire back to Compton and Webber that you’ve landed a whale of an order. But don’t worry. I’ll let you practise on me if you’re a good girl.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to get an order,’ Dylis said, with some heat. ‘I was simply trying to explain, for the benefit of Mr Howe’s limited intelligence, that everyone is not in a position to live in a mountain retreat and eat out of wooden bowls. Most people are forced to lead unnatural lives, and when they get sick, they’ve got to have a quick cure.’

  ‘Well, let’s go and be thoroughly unnatural in the drawing-room and have cigarettes and coffee,’ he said soothingly, and picked up the tray which Vauxhall had deposited upon the sideboard, and made a rapid departure. Dylis followed slowly. She did not know whether it was customary at Wintry Wold for the ladies to retire first, but evidently this was one occasion when they did not. Mr Howe and his secretary followed more slowly still, and the former said:

  ‘I think, Raddle, we might devote the next hour to a little useful work, and see what progress we can make with Chapter 7 of Give me the Air.’

  ‘You’re not taking coffee?’ queried Inigo, who was busy dispensing that beverage from a low table by the fire. Mr Carpenter still slept.

  ‘No, thank you, Mr Brown. We need no stimulants of any kind. On rising in the morning, we take a draught of pure well water, and the same with our meals, and before we retire.’

  ‘There, at least, we can accommodate you,’ Inigo said. ‘We’ve plenty of good well water laid on in the bathroom, as pure and icy as anyone could wish. Sugar, Dyl?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ she said, and accepted a cup of black coffee and a cigarette from the box he offered. Charlie Best, having finished the remainder of the Bordeaux, joined them then and announced that be would take his coffee with a lot of milk and two lumps of sugar. Mr Howe and his secretary retired to the corner where stood the pedestal lamp, and settling themselves upon stiff upholstered chairs, proceeded to ignore the rest of the company. Mr Raddle brought out notebook and pencil from an inside pocket, and his employer began to dictate in a voice of irritating monotony.

  The group by the fire was silent until there came from the inner room the sound of Vauxhall clearing the table, when Inigo rose, and excusing himself, went inside to speak to the butler. Charlie Best moved to sit on the arm of Dylis’s chair, and asked in a confidential undertone:

  ‘What is all this Auntie business? Mrs Brown isn’t really his aunt, is she?’

  ‘By marriage, yes.’

  ‘Strike me lucky! Some people get it all, don’t they? What does his uncle look like, Julius Caesar?’

  ‘I really don’t know. I haven’t seen him.’

  ‘Oh, you haven’t seen him. He’s the one who’s sick, isn’t he?’

  ‘So I understand.’

  ‘It’s a queer sort of household, this. Have you ever been here before?’

  ‘Is this an official enquiry?’ Dylis asked. ‘Or just unofficial curiosity?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he laughed. ‘But I like to get to the bottom of things. It’s part of my profession. You’d be surprised the amount of material I get just by asking questions.’

  Inigo returned, closing the communicating door, and ignoring a scathing look from Mr Howe as he did so. The latter remarked to the room in general:

  ‘All apertures now being closed, we can expect shortly to sink into a state bordering upon coma.’

  Dylis, warmed by good food, wine and coffee, was already approaching some such state. Inigo and Best did nothing to help matters by smoking one cigarette after another until the atmosphere of the room could have vied with the density of a London fog. They seemed, without having conferred upon the subject, to have entered into a subversive pact against Mr Howe and his views, for as fast as Inigo finished a cigarette, Best would tender his case, and vice versa, while they chatted amiably on this and that. Dylis, though approving their tactics, declined to participate on the grounds that she had already smoked more than was her custom. At length, when she had been forced to close her eyes from sheer weariness, Mr Carpenter came suddenly to life, looked at his wrist-watch, and remarked:

  ‘I don’t know if you people mean to sit up all night, but I’m turning in.’

  Whereupon he rose and left them, without attempting to wish them the conventional good night.

  ‘A nice, easy fellow to cater for,’ Best said. ‘Just a shot or two of Scotch and a seat by the fire. Who is he?’

  ‘A friend of my uncle.’ Inigo yawned, and glanced up as Theresa came in. She looked fresh and bright and her voice was brisk as she asked:

  ‘Did you have a good dinner?’

  ‘Fine, thanks, Mrs Brown,’ Best said. ‘We’re just having a comfortable chat …’

  ‘I’ve arranged your rooms,’ she interrupted. ‘So if you would care to accompany me, I’ll show you the way.’

  Mr Howe rose with alacrity and said, with a bow in her direction:

  ‘Thank you, Madam. I may say that I shall be very grateful to find myself in quarters where the atmosphere is less injurious to the lungs.’ And with his secretary obediently following, he strode out into the corridor. Inigo said:

  ‘Just a few more minutes, Auntie, and Dylis and I will be up. We know the way.’

  ‘As you please. But don’t stay up too late, Inigo. You must be very tired. Are you coming, Mr Best?’

  ‘You bet.’ Reluctantly he got to his feet, and as she went out, he said in an undertone, ‘How about swapping your aunt for one of mine, old man? I’ve got a splendid one living at Knightsbridge who’d just suit you.’

  ‘You can lose that idea,’ Inigo said. ‘You may not have noticed it, but my aunt doesn’t take kindly to strangers.’

  ‘She’s uncommonly keen on tucking us up early, though. Cheerio, folks, see you tomorrow.’ He left them, and Inigo immediately flung wide the communicating door, went into the dining-room and returned with a bottle of Cointreau. He left the door open.

  ‘Sorry to have turned the place into a smoking den,’ he said. ‘But I thought we might shift that old devil earlier. May his toes freeze. Did you ever hear such a lot of high-falutin’ nonsense in your life?’

  ‘I suppose he’s entitled to his own opinion,’ Dylis remarked sleepily. ‘But I do draw the line when he tries to force it on everyone else. What’s that for?’

  ‘You! It’s the privilege of a good host to keep the best drink for an honoured guest. Howe and his fellow sufferer wouldn’t have touched it, anyway, and it’s far too good for Charlie. He’s got a swallow like a thirsty fish.’

  ‘I don’t really want any,’ Dylis said. ‘I’ve had enough to drink.’ But she accepted a small glass, conscious that upstairs awaited her a very cold bed in a very cold room. She asked suddenly, as he poured himself a liqueur and took the chair Mr Carpenter had vacated, ‘Is your uncle very wealthy?’

  ‘Good heavens, no! I don’t suppose he ever had an income of more than a thousand a year, and most of that goes
in taxes. He’s got another property in Cumberland, which is let to someone or other, but he can’t get much out of it. Why do you ask?’

  ‘I was curious. It’s no business of mine, I know, but it seems so strange for a girl like Theresa to marry someone years older than herself, and to live miles from anywhere in this wild country.’

  ‘You underrate the charm of my family. I haven’t seen him for years, but my uncle used to be a decent-looking bloke, nice manners, easy to get on with. Why shouldn’t she marry him? If I were still unmarried at his age, I should try and find a beautiful, devoted young woman to wait on me.’

  ‘But she doesn’t strike one as being the devoted type.’

  ‘It would take another woman to see it, then.’

  ‘Probably. To me there are two kinds of women, those who crouch, and those who don’t. Your aunt crouches. What’s more, she never makes a movement that hasn’t been carefully studied in a mirror.’

  Inigo laughed. ‘I shall begin to think you don’t like her in a moment. But likes and dislikes apart, whatever she married my uncle for, it wasn’t his money. Anyone can see they haven’t much of an income. Look at the state of this house. It used to be a beautiful old place, but nothing has been done to it for years. Even the furniture is falling to pieces.’

  ‘Yet Theresa seems to have plenty of money to spend on clothes and jewellery. Where did your uncle meet her?’

  ‘The Riviera, I believe.’

  Dylis thought about that. She could imagine Theresa on the Riviera, beautifully dressed, mixing with the fashionable crowd. There she would pass without comment. It was only at Wintry Wold that she seemed out of place.

  ‘It’s all very odd,’ she said. ‘In fact, everything about this place seems odd to me.’

  ‘What, for instance?’

  ‘Well, when we first arrived she seemed to be expecting somebody else.’

  ‘So she was … the doctor.’

  ‘So she said. Then for some reason she doesn’t want you to see your uncle.’

  ‘I thought she explained that, too.’

  ‘Perhaps. She was very annoyed with you for asking those people to stay the night.’

  ‘You can’t really blame her for that. As she said, I’m used to putting people up at a moment’s notice, but she isn’t, and hasn’t the means to cater for them.’

  ‘There’s another thing,’ Dylis went on. ‘When we were in the kitchen, she was just telling me that your uncle isn’t strong enough to take anything solid, when his valet came bursting in and said that the old man wanted to see her, and that he was hungry, and thought he was being neglected.’

  ‘That’s perfectly natural. Invalids always demand food when it’s bad for them. I remember another uncle of mine who insisted on eating steak and chips with a temperature of a hundred and four. He died not long after.’

  ‘But that’s just the point. It’s all very plausible, and yet somehow … This Mr Carpenter. He’s a most extraordinary person. Your aunt says he’s been a wonderful help, yet all he does is to sit around and drink and take no notice of anyone.’

  ‘You’re not being very tolerant,’ Inigo said. ‘Perhaps he’s had so many late nights he can’t bear the sight of people. He looks rather like that. Vauxhall is feeling much about the same. When I bribed him to produce the Cointreau, he said in so many words that he loathes all men, and women give him a pain.’

  ‘There you are! There’s another extraordinary one. You can’t argue him away. Theresa says she has to allow the servants to do more or less as they please, otherwise they wouldn’t stay. But she’s the very woman I would have backed to do the heavy mistress and keep everyone’s nose to the grindstone.’

  ‘Wintry Wold has certainly gone down a bit since my time,’ Inigo mused. ‘Now if a butler wants to wear anything he fancies, from gumboots to a hat like a Pope, you’ve just got to put up with it, or do without. It’s the new age of freedom. Personally, I like it. I used to be scared stiff of butlers, but this one … why, you can treat him like a brother.’

  ‘But apart from his clothes, he doesn’t look like a butler.’

  ‘That’s nothing to go by. You don’t look like a commercial traveller. Shall I tell you what you do look like?’

  ‘I don’t want to know,’ Dylis said, annoyed at being drawn away from the subject. She finished her liqueur, replaced the glass upon the table and relaxed for a few minutes with her eyes closed. She heard no sound, was unaware that he had moved, until he leaned over with a hand on either side of the chair and kissed her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, as she opened startled eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have done that. You’re tired aren’t you? But you looked so sweet I couldn’t resist it.’

  She looked thoughtfully up into the strange darkness of his eyes for a moment or two, and said:

  ‘You’re a peculiar person. And this is a peculiar house. I think I’ll go to bed.’

  ‘Good idea.’ He put out a hand and helped her to her feet. She waited while he returned the Cointreau to the dining-room, and as they went out into the corridor together, he asked, ‘You’re not annoyed with me?’

  ‘Not particularly.’ She could not imagine anyone being annoyed with him for long, but refrained from saying so. He took a small oil lamp from one of the tables in the passage, and they started up the stairs. At the top of the first flight they met Theresa descending, carrying a candle in yet another ornate holder. She said:

  ‘I was just coming to see where you were. Are you turning in now?’

  ‘Right now,’ Inigo said. ‘What about you?’

  ‘I shall just go and see that everything’s locked up, and then I’ll try and snatch an hour or so.’ They renewed their offers of help, but she refused with gentle insistence. ‘No, thank you just the same. My husband is sleeping now, and Ledgrove is with him. If he doesn’t call for me before then, I shall take my turn in the early hours. That’s the most dangerous time for a sick person. Good night. I do hope you sleep well.’

  They reciprocated her wishes and continued up to the first floor. The way she had turned and walked slowly downstairs was calculated to make anyone feel large, clumsy and incompetent. Dylis shrugged away the feeling as they negotiated the interminable corridors, with Inigo holding the oil lamp as sole illumination. She thought it would be infinitely more convenient were they to have such things placed at strategic points all over the house. The ground floor was adequately lighted, but above an inky darkness was everywhere, and the shadows cast by the light of a single lamp were not inspiring. She was glad of Inigo’s company as far as her room, where he entered and lighted the candles for her. He asked then, faintly smiling:

  ‘Sure you’ve got everything you want? Or shall I open the windows and let in a little fresh air?’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ she said. ‘There’s enough cold air in this room to kill a regiment. It’s pouring down the chimney and through that ventilator, and I’m turning to ice as I stand.’

  ‘Well, you’ll soon be nice and warm whoever else freezes. I asked Vauxhall to put a hot water bottle in the bed. And I’ll send you up a bowl of stewed grass in the morning. Cheerio!’

  She walked across to the window when he had gone, pulled back the curtains and peered out. But it was too dark to see anything. Snow was still falling heavily, to judge by the flakes that whirled against the window-pane, and the wind howled dismally.

  Chapter IV

  The hot water bottle, Dylis found, was a nice idea, sole comfort in an otherwise pitilessly cold bed. But the length and breadth of her travels had accustomed her to cold beds in out-of-the-way places, and to offset such drawbacks she was in the habit of wearing warm pyjamas. So that it was not very long, as Inigo had predicted, before she was both warm and comfortable. The windows and door of her apartment rattled abominably, and it occurred to her that she might have had the foresight to wedge them. But once beneath a mound of blankets crowned by the sumptuous eiderdown, it seemed hardly worth while to crawl out again into the icy atmos
phere, and gradually her mind accepted the symphony of sounds within and without, and she drifted into a pleasant sleep.

  Yet as the night wore on, other and more unaccountable noises seemed to twine themselves into her subconscious, causing her to move restlessly. She woke at last, spent some minutes trying to remember what part of the country she was in, settled the point to her satisfaction, and was about to return to slumber, when her ears caught an unmistakable shuffling sound in the corridor. Slowly it came nearer, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, like tired feet in slippers upon a bare floor. Someone, she supposed, on their way to the bathroom, or Mr Howe going down to get some fresh air. The idea amused her, and she smiled sleepily.

  Then she stopped smiling, and sat bolt upright. For the shuffling, which should have continued down the corridor until out of hearing, had stopped exactly outside her door. She sat and waited. In a moment, of course, whoever it was would move on. But she wanted to make sure that they did. Gusts of wind came down the chimney and round the edges of the windows, causing her to shiver. She sat and waited for what seemed a very long time, but still there was no further sound from outside. Resolutely, then, she climbed out of her nest of bedclothes, felt for and found her slippers and dressing-gown. People might shuffle to and from anywhere they liked, but she would not have them pausing outside her door for indefinite intervals, particularly as the door had no key, a fact which she had observed earlier without interest.

  In the inky darkness that surrounded her she could see nothing, neither could she remember where she had put her torch. Cautiously she began to feel her way towards the mantelpiece, where stood the candlestick and matches. The door was rattling even more violently, almost as if someone were trying to get in. But that was a ridiculous idea, because if they wanted to get in they could do it without rattling. More likely they would enter and close the door quietly. Perhaps this mysterious shuffler had already done so, and was even now creeping across the room through the darkness.