As to what took place during the next few minutes I am in something of a quandary. The police quite patently disbelieve my own account of them. To give that account to the reader might smack of tainted evidence. I prefer, almost in self-defence, to keep within the close bounds indicated above and state only what is beyond dispute.
I had been down there, then, perhaps two minutes, perhaps three, pretending for Mrs Fitzwilliam’s benefit to be searching for the unknown firer and giving one or two hails, when I heard a second shot. It seemed to come from the farther side of the glade where the performance had taken place and to be much more distant than the last, though I could not be sure; as I had said, sound is extremely deceptive in these thick woods.
I will admit frankly that I was startled by this second shot. I would not go so far as to say that I was alarmed, but I did think, very decidedly, that the firer, whoever he was, should be discovered and headed off. In fact exactly what I had suggested in pretence now seemed to me of considerable importance. I therefore struck off at an angle, passed through the glade in question (Eric was no longer there), and called again in the direction whence I had imagined the shot to come. I called at least three times, but there was no answer; so after waiting perhaps half a minute longer, I retraced my steps, hastily picked up the odds and ends I had come down to retrieve, and made my way up the path again to the spot where I had left Mrs Fitzwilliam, I had been away from her altogether about six or seven minutes. (The reader will forgive the meticulous detail in which I have had to set down the most trivial incidents of this momentous afternoon; its importance will very shortly be only too obvious.)
Mrs Fitzwilliam was not there.
That in itself may not seem of high importance either, but I can assure the reader that it is; for after wavering for a moment in unusual indecision I did not follow her up along the path but went down again to the level of the stream. For one thing the rifle was, so far as I knew, still lying in the glade and it had occurred to me that John might not be best pleased if it were left on the grass like that, clue or no clue. In any case, down I went. And as ill luck would have it I did not go directly to the large glade but, prompted by an impulse which I had grave cause afterwards to regret, turned to the right instead of the left at the bottom of the path and entered a smaller clearing. This latter, I should explain, ran alongside of the larger one and was connected with it by a narrow path perhaps fifteen yards along. Like all paths in those woods it had two or three turns in it, so that an uninterrupted view from one open space to the other could not be obtained. Except for the path, dense thicket separated the two clearings. A similar track, but narrower and overgrown here and there by brambles, led from the foot of the path up the hill to another part of this small clearing, and it was along this that I went now. I might mention here that I had discovered this little glade myself only a few days ago and had been exquisitely delighted with it; from the state of the two tracks leading into it, it was plain that the place was hardly ever used except by cattle, and I had noted it as an ideal spot should I ever be seeking solitude.
At this particular moment, however, solitude was not the portion it had to offer me. I was not its only tenant. Lying sprawled on his face on the very path on which I stood was Eric Scott-Davies.
I stood stock still, staring at him. His position was unnatural, with one arm doubled awkwardly underneath him. The patch of red lead showed up plainly on his coat, but now it was without doubt larger. On the ground behind him something gleamed as a ray of sunshine, finding its way somehow through the leaves, struck directly upon it. It was a rifle barrel. The fellow was dead: I knew that.
What does an ordinary man – and whatever opinion the reader may have formed on me, I would not myself claim any other title – what does an ordinary man do when confronted suddenly with a dead body? Probably not one of the things he should. Probably something that he definitely should not. I know what I did the next minute. I turned on my heel and blundered (yes, positively blundered!) back the way I had come. What to do? I cannot say. But it was right into the arms of John Hillyard that I blundered at the end of the track.
He was just about to mount the path up the hillside, and greeted me ordinarily enough. ‘Hullo, Cyril, where in the world did you spring from? Well, we’d better be getting up and – Hullo, why, what’s the matter, man? You look as if you’d seen a ghost.’
I know I had gone as white as a counterpane and that my knees were literally knocking together, but I put as good a face on it as I could. ‘Eric,’ I said, with what calmness I could muster. ‘In there. I’m afraid he’s dead.’
John gaped at me. ‘What? Where?’ But he was off down the track before I could answer.
I followed him.
He bent over Eric, touching him gingerly and feeling for his heart.
‘You’re right,’ he said abruptly as he straightened up again. ‘My God! We mustn’t touch him. It – Good God, look at the rifle. It’s – it’s the very scene, over again.’
‘I know,’ I nodded, and I have to confess that I could speak only with difficulty; my mouth had gone quite dry.
‘Good God!’ muttered John again, vacantly. ‘Poor chap. And – I say, look, Pinkerton, there’s a bit of bramble right across the trigger. Why, it’s incredible, after our whole idea turned on that very danger. He can’t have been such a perfect damned fool!’
I said nothing. We stared at the body.
‘Well – I suppose I must get on the telephone to the police,’ said John heavily at last. ‘And a doctor. But – good heavens, Cyril, I can’t believe it.’
Neither could I, though I did not find it so necessary to say so.
‘Better make a note of the time,’ John muttered, glancing at his watch. ‘3:45, exactly.’
We climbed the hill in silence.
chapter six
The news brought by John and myself naturally threw the party into consternation. Not collectively, for everyone was not already at the house when we reached it; only Ethel, Mrs Fitzwilliam, Professor Johnson, and Bradley were there. Ethel, I learned, had remained alone in the drawing room ever since giving the mock alarm, the professor and Bradley had arrived shortly after passing out of the sight of Mrs Fitzwilliam and myself, and Mrs Fitzwilliam, who had followed my advice and taken the ascent very much more easily, just before ourselves.
The period of waiting for the doctor and the police was the most awkward I had ever experienced. Neither John nor I had offered the faintest hint that the tragedy was due to anything but accident, but without doubt the ominous word ‘murder’ was in everybody’s mind; I know that it certainly was in mine. To my fancy we had already begun to eye each other askance, as we sat, almost in silence, together in the drawing room. Was indeed one of our number a murderer – and if so, who? That was the terrible question which seemed to be looking out of everyone’s eyes.
The news was broken privately to the other members of the party, Miss Verity, the De Ravels, and Armorel, as they arrived in turn. Elsa, poor child, collapsed completely; Ethel took her up to her room, and we did not see her again that day. The others joined us in the drawing room: Armorel, very white and obviously shaken, but with dry eyes, perhaps ten minutes after our own arrival, and then the De Ravels together – Mrs de Ravel sweeping in with compressed lips and frowning brow like a tragedy queen fighting an overwhelming shock, dramatizing as usual for our benefit her perfectly genuine emotions. Indeed I am not sure that she was not actually (if unconsciously) enacting the rôle of murderess! I noticed that she did not sit next to her husband although he beckoned to her, but on the other side of the room; he carried the chair over which he had already taken for himself, and joined her there.
As for Armorel, she had made straight for the small settee where I was and sat down beside me, giving me a wavering smile as she did so; I pressed her hand in silence, and she clung to it as if desperately, holding it all the time we remained there. I can only hope it helped her; I know that it gave me a curious comfort during
those most uneasy minutes. Even at such a time I was able to reflect what an astonishing person Armorel was, at one moment quite crushingly sophisticated, at another almost childlike. Were all young women like that? I wondered. No, for certainly Elsa Verity was not; she never darted from one extreme to the other. Yet was not variety the spice of feminine attraction? An odd thought. In what strange and uncontrolled ways one’s mind works.
But my thoughts could not stray for more than a few seconds from the situation that faced us all. As I looked round the silent circle it gave me a cynical interest to reflect that, out of the round half-dozen persons, apart from the servants, who would be left in the house when the novelists had gone, two had openly expressed to me their wish for Eric’s death and at least two more might be considered also to have an adequate motive for killing him – three more indeed, I thought still more cynically, if I included myself. If one is to believe the detective stories a person with a motive for murder is invariably innocent of the crime, and the larger the motive the more certain his innocence. On that basis most of the party were already ruled out from suspicion. Yet I could not believe that detective stories are always quite so true to life as they should be.
The tension in the drawing room was increased rather than diminished with the arrival of the police. We did not see them then. John met them at the door, and they went down at once to look at the body, with the doctor they had brought with them. Ethel came in to tell us that a message had been left that no one was to leave the house until the superintendent had seen us all.
Morton Harrogate Bradley whistled. ‘A superintendent, Mrs Hillyard, eh? How many men did he bring with him?’
‘Oh, I think three, besides Dr Samson,’ Ethel answered, a little distractedly. ‘Two constables in uniform, and another man in ordinary clothes.’
‘A detective sergeant,’ Bradley muttered. ‘Taking no chances, evidently.’
It was a plain reference to the question that was in all our minds.
Ethel excused herself, and after a moment Bradley strolled out of the room too.
He came back in a minute or two. ‘There’s a constable on duty outside the house,’ he informed us. ‘To see nobody leaves it, I suppose. By Jove, this looks like a serious business.’
One could not fail to agree with him.
He seated himself beside Mrs Fitzwilliam. ‘I’ve never seen the police at work before,’ he said languidly. ‘Ought to be most interesting.’
It was a remark perhaps not in the best of taste, and Mrs Fitzwilliam laughed nervously. ‘I’ve no wish to in the least. I – I prefer to invent this sort of thing.’
‘I remember when I was a young man at Dublin University,’ observed Professor Johnson, and embarked on a long anecdote. The conversation gradually became general.
‘I suppose the superintendent will want to question each of us,’ observed De Ravel. ‘Going to be rather awkward, isn’t it?’
‘Why?’ asked someone.
‘Well, I mean, that damned play we were doing. We were all in different places, you see. Just as we were meant to be.’ Was it my imagination that he slightly stressed the last sentence?
‘Just as we were meant to be,’ echoed Sylvia de Ravel, in deep tones. ‘No, I’m afraid that nobody will have witnessed the – accident.’ Her pause was calculated and produced its effect. Her husband looked at her nervously; we all looked at each other nervously.
Then, as if by silent agreement, everyone began talking at once.
Under cover of the babel Armorel’s clasp on my hand tightened, and she whispered: ‘Pinkie, I’m frightened. I’m terrified. What – what do you think the police will do?’ She stared at me with widened eyes.
I did my best to reassure her, and asked if she would prefer to let me take her somewhere else away from the others, but she said she would rather remain.
To my astonishment tea was served precisely at half-past four. There was really no need for astonishment, I suppose, but the humdrum things of life seemed so unnatural in face of one of its catastrophes. When everything is upside down, anything right side up must appear misplaced.
In actual fact the tea did us good. Ethel behind the teapot looked so normal, and what is more behaved so normally, that our jangled nerves began to rearrange themselves. It was scarcely a shock when John appeared at the door and announced that the superintendent would like to see Professor Johnson, in the study.
‘Why Professor Johnson first?’ asked De Ravel of no one in particular, as the door closed.
‘Independent witness,’ replied Bradley. ‘Didn’t know the deceased. Close at hand when it happened. Facts first, before fancies. I shall be the next, then Mrs Fitzwilliam.’
‘But I did know him,’ Mrs Fitzwilliam said, hesitatingly.
‘Yes, but I don’t expect he’s aware of it.’
‘Do you think,’ Mrs Fitzwilliam asked, still more haltingly and with a nervous glance round, ‘do you think it would be better if I – didn’t mention I knew him? Of course it was only very slightly, and – well, I mean, there’s no need for me to be mixed up in it more than necessary, is there?’ She looked round again as if appealing to us to support her. Her earlier vivacious manner had quite disappeared since the tragedy.
‘I think,’ Ethel said gently, ‘we ought all to tell the exact truth, don’t you?’
‘Yes, but if he doesn’t ask me that?’ Mrs Fitzwilliam persisted.
‘It would be better, perhaps, just to mention it.’
Mrs Fitzwilliam gave a rather forced smile. ‘Yes, of course. I should have done so really, in any case.’
John came back into the room.
‘The superintendent’s seeing everyone alone, of course,’ he said, as he took a cup of tea from Ethel.
‘You’ve been with him a long time,’ remarked De Ravel. ‘At least it seemed like a damned long time. What’s been happening?’
‘Oh, I’ve just given him the facts, so far as I knew them. It took some time to make him disentangle what we were pretending to do from what actually did happen.’
‘I expect he’s got it firmly fixed in his head that Pinkie shot him with a ball cartridge instead of a blank one,’ sniggered De Ravel.
‘That is just what I’ve been wondering,’ I said, rather uneasily. ‘But I looked. It was undoubtedly a blank cartridge in the breech. I examined it carefully.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said John. ‘There’s no doubt about that.’
‘But when I saw him lying there, that undoubtedly was my first thought,’ I said, as indeed it had been.
‘But you said he was in a different place, John,’ said Ethel.
‘After all, he couldn’t have got there, Cyril, could he, in that case?’
‘I thought he might somehow have struggled there, if he had been only unconscious at first,’ I muttered.
‘Oh, well, that’s out of the question,’ said John, rather impatiently. ‘He was playing the fool right up to the last. No, it must have happened after you people had left him, of course.’
‘Where was he shot, John?’ asked Mrs de Ravel, breaking her moody silence.
‘Right through the heart, the doctor thinks, from the back.’
I think we all started at that. ‘Exactly where you’d said?’ Mrs de Ravel murmured.
‘Exactly,’ John replied shortly. ‘In fact, right through that dab of red stuff on his coat.’
‘Ah!’ Mrs de Ravel breathed. She crouched back in her chair, and fixed her green-flecked eyes on me.
I felt extremely uncomfortable. Did the woman really suspect me of having shot Eric in sober earnest?
But the general feeling, though nobody expressed it, was terribly plain: somebody had taken advantage of our little play and its arrangements to turn it from a farce into a tragedy. Who?
‘Who was it shooting in the wood?’ asked Mrs Fitzwilliam suddenly, with an air of desperation. I was sure that the question had been trembling on her lips all the time, and only good taste had prevented it from being put. Now s
he could restrain it no longer.
I was relieved to hear it, too. It had been in my mind ever since I heard the second shot, but I too had not cared to put the query. Its implications were so obvious. Moreover, the way all reference to the matter had been so carefully avoided was in itself significant.
John, however, looked merely mildly surprised. ‘I fired down there,’ he said.
‘You?’
‘Yes. I thought I’d complicate things a bit by firing a shot in the air while you were still in the neighbourhood.’
‘Complicate things? Oh, I see; the play, yes. But there were two shots.’
‘Were there?’ said John, puzzled. ‘I never heard the second.’
‘I did. Didn’t you, Mr Pinkerton? You were down there looking for the firer at the time.’
‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘I heard it.’
‘So did we,’ put in Bradley. ‘The first one fairly loud, and the second much fainter. But after all,’ he drawled, ‘there must have been two shots, mustn’t there? One that you fired in the air, Hillyard, and one that killed Scott-Davies.’
‘Yes, of course,’ John agreed. ‘How stupid of me.’ But he still looked puzzled.
There was a little silence, while all of us tried to work out this matter of two shots.
‘I suppose the police have a pretty good idea of what must have happened?’ resumed De Ravel. ‘I mean, Eric must have picked up the gun, taken it along with him and loaded it, and then – ’
‘No,’ said John. ‘That’s rather a curious thing. It wasn’t the same gun. The other was still lying where we left it.’
‘Another gun?’ I said, in a surprised voice.
‘Yes. And by the way, that completely wipes out the possibility of a blunder, because we looked at the one you’d used, Cyril, and it had obviously fired a blank cartridge. There’s no confusing a rifle barrel after blank and after ball.’
‘Ah,’ I said relievedly.
‘But where did the other gun come from, John?’ asked Ethel. ‘Who took it down there?’
‘That,’ said John in grave tones, ‘is precisely what the police will want to know.’
The Second Shot Page 9