‘Sorry, Dyl. I didn’t mean to upset you. It was just the sort of thing anyone might say. You can’t remember anything else?’
‘No,’ she said, not entirely mollified. ‘Except that your uncle seemed particularly interested in whether you’d received his letter.’
‘Oh, yes. I meant to tell you about that. It’s one of the things that are worrying me. Here, I’ve got it on me.’ He brought from an inside pocket a folded and somewhat crumpled sheet of paper, and handed it to her. ‘Read it, there’s nothing much to it.’
She opened it, inspected carefully the embossed address, and the date, and read:
‘My dear boy … Your father wrote to say that you are in London, and suggests I might like to see you. I need hardly say I shall be delighted. Please come as soon as you can, and be sure to bring a friend. Don’t trouble to answer this note, and don’t mention it to my wife. I want your visit to be a surprise to her. Affectionately … Your Uncle Warner.’
The handwriting was of the wavering, illegible kind, and it took Dylis some time to decipher it. She looked up at length with a puzzled frown.
‘It sounds mysterious to me. What am I supposed to make of it?’
‘Oh, it’s not that I’m worried about,’ Inigo said, replacing the note in his pocket. ‘Uncle always did have a weakness for intrigue. He would write you a letter about some quite ordinary thing, and finish up, “On no account tell Auntie Mabel”. Or, “Please burn this as soon as you’ve read it”. That kind of thing. What I’m worried about is this. Last night, I left my room, before turning in, to go along and clean my teeth and so on, and when I reached the bathroom I found I’d left my toothbrush behind. So back I went, and it seemed to me that someone had been in my room since I left it.’
‘How could you tell?’
‘Well, I’d changed into my pyjamas and dressing-gown and had left my suit folded over the back of a chair for the time being, and my shoes on the floor beside it. But when I got back, one of my shoes was in the middle of the room. It looked to me as if it had been kicked across the floor by someone who had fallen over it. That aroused my curiosity, and I took a good look round and found that the keys had fallen out of one of my pockets. I might have done that myself, but I don’t think so, because there’s no carpet in my room and I should have heard them. Then I found that some of my things were not in their right pockets. This letter, for instance, which I’d had on the left-hand side was on the right-hand side.’
‘Was there anything missing?’
‘Not as far as I could see, unless someone helped themselves to a few cigarettes or loose change. But just the same, it struck me as being very odd. I didn’t think of mentioning it before. It’s not the sort of thing you go around shouting in someone else’s house.’
‘I suppose not,’ Dylis said thoughtfully. ‘Who do you think it was? One of the servants?’
‘Possibly. But it seems pretty pointless, to go prowling around someone’s room without lifting anything. Unless, coming back suddenly, I disturbed them at it.’
‘That certainly might account for the shoe being kicked around. And Vauxhall looks as if he’d rifle the parish poor-box, let alone anyone’s pockets.’ But she was not thinking of Vauxhall. Her mind had absorbed and was holding on to a line in Mr Brown’s letter … ‘Don’t mention it to my wife, I want your visit to be a surprise to her …’ And it had been a surprise, to judge by Theresa’s consternation upon their arrival.
‘I shouldn’t mention it to Theresa,’ she said, upon impulse. ‘She’s got enough on her mind as things are. And I think we’d also better postpone telling her about my seeing your uncle last night. It can’t do any good just now, and when Ledgrove and the doctor turn up, we can sort it all out.’
‘Perhaps you’re right. I didn’t tell her I’d had a letter from Uncle, since he asked me not to, although it seemed pretty silly to me.’ He regarded her for a moment or two in silence, and added, ‘I’m sorry everything’s turned out so badly. I didn’t realise, in bringing you here, that I was letting you in for such a dismal time.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ she hastened to reassure him. ‘It was better than sitting on the edge of a precipice.’ But privately she wondered. He said, taking her arm:
‘You’d better come down and have some tea or coffee. You must be frozen.’
Chapter VI
They found breakfast already laid in the small dining-room, and upon the sideboard tea and coffee and a few hot dishes, to which Charlie Best was liberally helping himself. It seemed that news of Mr Brown’s death had already reached below, for when Dylis and Inigo entered, Best paused in his operations to wish them good morning, and to add:
‘Awfully sorry to hear about your uncle, old man. Nasty blow, that.’
His face wore just that expression of sympathy becoming to a disinterested party, and his voice was appropriately hushed. Then having said his piece, he returned to his habitually cheerful air, sat down at the table and began an earnest attack upon his breakfast. Dylis could not blame him for that. Whoever died, others had to live, and despite her dejection of spirits, the intense cold had made her more than usually hungry.
The atmosphere in the drawing-room and its small annex was surprisingly warm, considering that the fires could not have long been lighted, but she was glad that she had taken the precaution of donning a green suede jacket over her suit. The curtains were drawn back from the french windows, revealing part of the snowbound veranda outside, a chilling prospect to anyone with an empty stomach. Inigo pulled out a chair for her and moved to the sideboard.
‘Tea or coffee?’ he asked.
‘Tea, please.’
‘Can I get you anything else?’
‘I’ll have some of this cereal,’ she said. ‘That’ll do for a start.’
He poured tea for her and coffee for himself, and brought the cups over to the table. He sat down and stared absently in front of him. Dylis, helping herself to cereal and tinned milk, observed with surprise that a bathrobe hung over each of the chairs that had been occupied the previous night by Mr Howe and his secretary. She asked:
‘Did somebody sleep down here, or are they taking a bath on the veranda?’
Charlie Best permitted himself a chuckle, and drank his tea with obvious enjoyment.
‘They belong to our friends, Messrs Howe and Raddle,’ he said. ‘They’re out on the veranda now, doing their deep-breathing and other exercises.’
‘No!’ She turned her head in the direction of the window, but could see no sign of the hardy pair. Inigo said, ‘Good God!’ and went on drinking coffee. Charlie Best continued:
‘You’d think that with the country looking like Siberia they’d give themselves a holiday. But no fear, they’re going to show you degenerate folk what real Spartans are made of.’
‘What about you?’ Dylis asked. ‘You’re not exactly the embodiment of self-denial.’
‘I don’t count. Howe regards me simply as a medium of publicity. He told me once that journalists are one of the lowest forms of life that civilisation has begotten, but he admits that if I can write him up and splash him in one of the weeklies, it will be very useful. I will, too. But it may not be quite as flattering to him as he imagines. There are ways and ways of putting these things. Personally, I’d rather die tonight than live as he does.’
Dylis wished that he had not used that particular phrase. She was trying to forget, for the time being, that upstairs was a man whom she had expected to see alive this morning. She rose and helped herself to scrambled eggs and toast, and noticed that Inigo ate but vaguely. Just as she sat down again, the french windows were flung open, admitting the inevitable rush of icy air, and Mr Howe strode in, with his secretary close at heel, both clad solely in black shorts, white singlets and rubber-soled shoes. Mr Howe slammed to the window again, with all the contempt of a man of steel for the protesting occupants of the room.
‘A good draught of air,’ he said, ‘will do no harm to this overheated atmosphe
re. They must have kept the fires on all night to have achieved such a temperature. May I wish you all good morning? And it is a good morning, although I doubt whether anyone but Raddle and myself have yet made that discovery.’ Each donned his bathrobe, and they sat down at opposite sides of the table. Mr Howe continued, ‘Permit me to tender my sincere sympathy in your bereavement, Mr Brown. Your aunt told me the sad news. Raddle, you will please fetch the water.’
Inigo was regarding him with an expression between bewilderment and frank animosity. Then making an effort towards politeness, he thanked the sympathiser, and looked away. Dylis rose to procure fresh tea, and refilled Inigo’s coffee cup at the same time. She dare not trust herself to speak. Raddle had also risen obediently, and was on his way out, presumably to the kitchen. She stared after him and back again at Mr Howe as she resumed her place at the table. Neither of them was possessed of an ideal masculine physique. In shorts they looked highly improbable, and were not much better in bathrobes. Mr Howe’s face had turned purplish-mauve from the keenness of the cold, but the point did not appear to worry him. He rubbed his thin hands together with an air of sublime content, and reached for a piece of dry toast. Inspecting it critically, he remarked:
‘Only the whole wheat can give to bread the sustenance necessary to a high standard of health. This white rubbish is so much poison to the system, but one must eat something.’
Whereupon he proceeded to do so, without the addition of butter or marmalade. Charlie Best said:
‘Excuse me, I’m going to have a smoke next door,’ and rose quickly and went into the other room. Dylis suspected that he was near to choking. Mr Raddle came back with a glass jug filled with water, and two glasses, which he placed upon the table. Mr Howe dispensed the healthful liquid, and handed a glass to his subordinate in silence. They drank. Cold shivers ran down Dylis’s spine at sight of it. She finished her scrambled eggs and avoided looking their way again, until Mr Howe said, turning to Inigo:
‘Yes, Mr Brown, I was indeed concerned to hear of your uncle’s sudden death. He was, I believe, a comparatively young man.’
‘Compared to whom?’ Inigo asked.
‘Well … er, compared to myself, for example. I shall be sixty-eight on my next birthday. Yet I feel vigorous, fit, full of energy. Your uncle, on the other hand, had only just turned sixty, your aunt tells me. Death at such an early age is not only unnecessary, it is inexcusable. Had he lived a healthy, outdoor life, I have no doubt at all that not only would he be alive today, but would have enjoyed a ripe old age, still in possession of all his faculties.’
Inigo, who had been eyeing him stonily for the past few minutes, leaped to his feet. He burst out:
‘The man’s dead, so for God’s sake leave him alone! If he liked to live in a hothouse and pour whisky over his porridge, it’s no damned business of yours. And as a family, we reserve the right to die when we please!’ He turned to Dylis, and added in a more moderate tone, ‘If you’ve finished, Dyl, let’s go and join Charlie.’
‘I’m ready,’ she said, and followed him into the drawing-room, avoiding the petrified gaze of Mr Howe and Mr Raddle. Those two were beginning to make her feel hysterical. They found Charlie Best seated in the most comfortable chair, enjoying a cigarette. He said in an undertone:
‘Thanks, old boy. I’ve been wanting to say something like that for the last twenty-four hours.’
Inigo shrugged his shoulders and offered Dylis a cigarette, and the three of them sat and smoked in silence, until Theresa appeared, still in her black housecoat, but with her hair arranged and her face freshly powdered. It occurred to Dylis to wonder at her so very appropriate choice of black for her morning ensemble. Was it by accident that she had reached for the black housecoat when Ledgrove had announced his master’s death?
Or had she donned it later, with due regard to the air of sadness it gave her? It was a trifle early to rush into mourning. Most men would not notice a detail like that, only the general aspect of it. Evidently she had struck the right note with Inigo, for he rose to get her a chair, and said in a voice full of sympathy:
‘Aren’t you going to have any breakfast, Theresa?’
‘Oh, no, dear, thank you. I couldn’t eat.’ She made the process sound vaguely obscene.
‘A cigarette, then?’
She accepted one, and sank back in her chair, sighing wearily. She was still very pale, but Dylis knew something of the art of make-up. She wished she did not have such uncharitable thoughts, that she could accept Theresa for what she appeared to be, as Inigo did. But that brittleness, that insistence upon dramatic effect and predominance of her personality, in any circumstances, were things difficult to ignore. Even before seating herself, Theresa had cast a surreptitious glance at her reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece, and another into the one on the wall opposite. The sorrowing widow. The woman left all alone. Yet it was not all pose. The slight unsteadiness of her hand as she put the cigarette to her lips looked genuine enough. Perhaps she really had been shocked by her husband’s death, but could not resist exaggerating the role in which she found herself.
The men of the party watched her in silent sympathy, until she roused herself sufficiently to ask:
‘Have any of you made plans? About your cars, and transport and that sort of thing, I mean?’
‘I’m sticking around,’ Inigo said. ‘You’ll want someone on the spot to give you a hand, won’t you?’
‘So sweet of you, dear. Of course, I don’t want my troubles to come between you and …’
‘I’d intended to stay for a few days, in any case.’
Charlie Best said, ‘I don’t want to trespass on your kindness any longer than is necessary, Mrs Brown. Particularly at a time like this. We intended to get away as early as possible this morning, but I went out and took a look round before breakfast, and believe me, the prospect of immediate transport looks pretty dim. Unless, of course, that break-down gang manages to get through.’
‘By the way,’ Inigo put in, ‘what happened to that van-man, the one who was waiting for his mate?’
‘He’s still here,’ Theresa said. ‘Having breakfast in the kitchen, I believe. I told Vauxhall to find him a room last night, when the other one didn’t come back. I can’t think what has happened. It’s all very trying. But I did get him to move the van. Such a silly place to have left it.’
‘I’d better get my car stowed away somewhere, if there’s room,’ Inigo suggested.
‘Of course. You left it in front of the house, didn’t you? There’s an empty garage you can have. We’ve three garages and only two cars …’ She broke off and put a hand over her eyes. Dylis said:
‘I’d better do something about mine, too. I really ought to be pushing off soon.’
She was trying to be severely practical. It had been kind of Inigo to ask her to stay the night, and apart from a few minor inconveniences, it had been better than sitting in the car. But business was business, and she could not afford to winter in the wilds of Yorkshire indefinitely. It seemed that Theresa shared her opinion, for she said:
‘Of course, we don’t want to lose you, Dylis, but if you’ve business to attend to, naturally you’ll be anxious to get away as soon as possible.’
‘That’s all very well,’ Inigo said. ‘But her car is stuck in a most awkward spot, and even if the roads were clear, she’d need help in getting it off safely. I’ll see if I can start mine and make the nearest garage.’ But he did not sound very enthusiastic about it. Mr Howe and his secretary entered just then and joined the edge of the group about the fire. Inigo went on, ‘I wish I knew what has happened to Ledgrove. I don’t like to think of him trudging all that way in the snow. Anything might happen.’
‘You could call in at the doctor’s and find out,’ Theresa said. ‘If you don’t meet them on the way. Dr Thornton lives just outside Cudge. It’s the big grey house. I expect you know it, but anyone will point it out to you if you don’t. I’m trying not to worry too much about Ledg
rove. He should be all right.’
‘And why shouldn’t he be?’ Mr Howe demanded. ‘Fresh winter winds and a little snow never did anyone any harm.’
Inigo glanced up with some annoyance, and asked:
‘Have you ever tried walking along a road that isn’t a road under several feet of snow for a good many miles, Mr Howe?’
‘Are you seriously asking me that question, young man? I’ll have you know that in my time I’ve walked and climbed with the best of them. But I am proud to say that my finest mountaineering feats have been accomplished alone.’
‘And you never had a mishap?’
‘Misadventure, Mr Brown, is liable to overtake the most hardy, upon occasion. But a strong, healthy body need suffer no harm as a result. I remember very clearly spending a whole night on a narrow ledge high up in the Swiss Alpine region, and when the rescue party arrived in the morning, I may say I was none the worse for my experience. Indeed, it was not twenty-four hours later that the same heights were again the background for my solitary figure, climbing up into infinite space.’
Which announcement was received by noises of approval from Mr Raddle, and silence from the rest of the company. Dylis and Charlie Best were frankly bored, and Theresa momentarily surprised out of her despondency. Inigo said at last:
‘A very interesting story, Mr Howe, but in my own experience solitary climbing is considered too dangerous to be encouraged, and in the Swiss Alpine region rescue parties don’t go searching for lone climbers when they get lost. Having broken the unwritten rule they have to look after themselves.’
‘Are you suggesting, Mr Brown, that I am a liar?’
‘Not necessarily, Mr Howe. But you do seem to have a vivid imagination and a flair for the dramatic.’
Another Little Christmas Murder Page 8