Mystery in White (British Library Crime Classics)

by J. Jefferson Farjeon

  “Going to have your little look round?” he inquired genially.

  “’Oo’s goin’ ter stop me?” replied Smith.

  “Why should any one stop you?” answered Mr. Maltby, making space for him. “I wish you a pleasant tour. But don’t go into any room without knocking. The ladies are in one, and there is a sick man in another.”

  “Thanks fer the information.”

  “Not at all. It was given to you for their benefit, not for yours. Oh, but this is for your benefit—there is one more room I would not go into, if I were you.”

  “’Oo’s in that one?”

  Mr. Maltby hesitated for a moment, then responded, “I cannot say, but—some one.”

  “Wotcher mean?” demanded the cockney, pausing, while David and Mr. Hopkins stared.

  “You will always find, Mr. Smith, that I mean exactly what I say; it is a time-saving method,” returned the old man. “I am telling you that some one is in that room, and I do not know who it is.”

  “Oh! I see! Yer mean yer ‘eard some ‘un, and yer didn’t go in?”

  “I went in.”

  “I don’t git yer.”

  “That does not surprise me.”

  “Wot did they say when yer went in?”

  “They did not say anything.”

  “Oh! Then wot did you say?”

  “I did not say anything, either.”

  “Yer jest looked at each other, and thort?”

  “I certainly did considerable thinking. You see, if I had spoken to the—some one—I should have received no answer.”

  The voice of Mr. Hopkins came up sepulchrally from the bottom of the stairs.

  “You—you don’t mean—dead?”

  “Very definitely dead,” nodded Mr. Maltby, “only you will not see the body.”

  Smith’s inclination to continue the ascent seemed to be cooling. He glanced upwards with apprehension, and then suddenly exclaimed:

  “’Ere, is this a joke?”

  “It did not present itself to me in that light,” replied Mr. Maltby. “Nor, if you enter the room, is it likely to make you roar with laughter, Mr. Smith. You and I reached this house together, I recall, but you went away again for a period, so I have a longer acquaintance with it than you. It is not the pleasantest house I have ever been in. Well, why do you wait? Don’t let me stop you.”

  Mr. Hopkins seized the tempting moment.

  “Yes, is he coming down, or are you going up?” he asked with a glassy grin.

  “Shurrup!” grunted the cockney. There was a short pause, then he inquired, “Which bloody room is it?”

  “Bloody,” repeated Mr. Maltby reflectively. “A most appropriate term. But I shall not tell you which sanguinary room this is, Mr. Smith. No, I shall let you find that out for yourself.”

  He resumed his interrupted journey down to the hall, but before the cockney resumed his own journey he shot out one more question.

  “Attic?”

  “Why should you think that?” queried Mr. Maltby.

  “Why not?”

  “And, also, why?”

  “Bah!” grunted Smith, and went up.

  No one spoke for several seconds after he had gone. In a mood to ask questions, David forebore. But Mr. Hopkins, when he had fortified himself with a cigarette, showed less restraint.

  “I say—was—was that true?” he inquired in a low tone. “About that room?”

  “Ask that gentleman over there,” answered Mr. Maltby with a cynical glance towards the painting over the mantelpiece. “He might tell you.”

  “Of course, if you want my opinion,” muttered Mr. Hopkins, “everybody’s dotty.”

  “Before many hours, everybody may be dottier,” said Mr. Maltby dryly, and turned to David. “I looked in on our patient on my way down.”

  “Thomson?”

  “I didn’t like his appearance.”

  “I’m sorry to hear you say that. Do you think he’s really bad?”

  “Well, if I had to guess his temperature, I should put it between 102 and 103.”

  “Whew!”

  “And still rising.”

  “I’ve seen a man go up to 107,” observed Mr. Hopkins.

  “Ah, but that was probably in India,” suggested David gently.

  “As a matter of fact, young man, it was in India, though I don’t care very much for your tone. Bombay. Stayed up for three days. But he got through it.”

  “Then we may hope Mr. Thomson will get through it. Hallo, here comes our rather rude friend back again, and with my sister behind him.”

  Smith looked surly and worried as he descended the stairs, but Lydia was all smiles. She appeared to be driving the cockney before her, and half-way down the staircase she called out:

  “Silence, all of you, for a speech!”

  David and she had not parted the best of friends, but now he welcomed her reappearance, for she struck a pleasant and much needed contrast to the prevailing atmosphere of nerviness and gloom.

  “Hear, hear!” he murmured.

  “Don’t be a goat, you can’t say ‘Hear, hear’ before a speech begins!” she exclaimed.

  “It’s the safest time to say it with your speeches,” he replied with a grin. “There’s no earthly chance of saying it afterwards!”

  “Don’t pay any attention to the lad, it’s only a brother speaking,” responded Lydia. “Anyhow, whether I get any ‘hear, hear’s’ or not, this is what I’ve got to say. We’ve reached a point, all of us, where we’ve got to come to a decision. What I mean is, we’re all wandering around and about like a lot of lost sheep!”

  “Eh?” blinked Mr. Hopkins.

  “Yes, I thought you’d take that up,” said Lydia. “You’ve done a spot of wandering, haven’t you?” She rejoiced secretly in his guilty flush. “And so has Mr. Smith here. I found him wandering, too. This was our brilliant conversation in the passage above. ‘Hallo,’ I said. ‘Hallo,’ he said. ‘Where are you going?’ I said. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Then why go?’ I said. That stumped you, Mr. Smith, didn’t it? So down we came, and that little bit of the world’s history was over.”

  “Ah, then it was you, Miss Carrington, who returned this particular sheep to the fold?” smiled Mr. Maltby, while David thought, “What’s happened to sis? She’s gone all witty!”

  “Corse, you all know wotcher torkin’ abart,” mumbled the cockney.

  “I don’t quite, though it sounds good,” admitted David. “What’s this decision we’re supposed to make, Lydia?”

  “Why, to stop wandering about like the lost sheep,” she explained, “and to organise ourselves into a normally functioning community before this extraordinary situation entirely demoralises us.”

  She paused for approval or dissent. From Mr. Maltby she received approval.

  “Miss Carrington’s idea seems to me most sensible,” he nodded. “Provided, of course, it can be carried out.”

  “Then you go on with it,” replied Lydia, “and show us how it can be carried out.”

  But this time Mr. Maltby shook his head.

  “That’s not such a good idea,” he answered. “For the moment I think I will content myself with a watching brief.”

  “He’s right,” added David. “It’s your baby, Lydia.”

  “Very well. Here’s luck to the baby!” she said. “If it dies in infancy it won’t be my fault. Firstly, then, I decide that we pass a vote of confidence in our behaviour.”

  “You might remember that if my sister isn’t intelligent, she’s pretty,” murmured David.

  “And you are neither!” Lydia shot back. “And what I’m saying now is intelligent! Half our trouble is that we’ve got guilty consciences——”

  “’Oo ‘as?” interrupted Smith.

  “You can be excluded if you like, Mr. Smith,” retorted Lydia. “Perhaps your conscience is less sensitive. But I have. I keep on thinking, ‘How simply awful of us to be here like this, using the house as if it was ours,’ and then trying to m
ake excuses for myself——”

  “Same here,” interposed David.

  “What about you, Mr. Hopkins?” asked Lydia. “You’ve taken possession of another of the bedrooms. Does it worry you at all, or not?”

  Mr. Hopkins frowned rather suspiciously. He was not quite sure about anything.

  “Well, I had to get dry, same as the rest, didn’t I?” he demanded.

  “Then it didn’t worry you?”

  “I don’t say—well, one’s got to admit the whole position is rather peculiar.”

  “Only it doesn’t worry you?”

  “As much as you, I dare say.”

  “Then it worries you. And you, Mr. Smith?”

  “I’m out o’ this,” replied Smith.

  “That leaves just you, Mr. Maltby. How is your conscience getting along?”

  “If I am worried, it is not by my conscience,” said Mr. Maltby. “Just the same, Miss Carrington, I realise your point and consider it a good one psychologically, for it is impossible to function fluently through a sense of guilt. That is why any general, however wrong he may be—take Napoleon, to avoid the politics of mere contemporary examples—must believe in himself to be successful, or dupe himself into such a belief. Indeed, that is the main job of all politicians who, through their own inefficiency, muddle nations into war. If they do not fool themselves into the assumption that they are God-fearing idealists, they will never get the millions who must pay for their damage to believe the same thing, and they will lose the war.”

  “Here endeth the first lesson,” murmured David.

  “Then you think I’m fooling myself?” inquired Lydia.

  “No, I am sure you are not fooling yourself; the lesson was not intended for you,” replied the old man. “Probably I just wanted to hear my own voice. So, returning from great wars to smaller conflicts, I see no logical reason why we should depress ourselves with a sense of guilt since it is quite impossible for any of us to leave here to-night.”

  “Thank you for those kind words,” smiled Lydia gratefully. “You are being a tremendous help, and to-morrow I shall kiss you under the mistletoe! Now, then, that vote of confidence! Hands up for a good opinion of ourselves!”

  Five hands went up. Smith’s went up last, as though suddenly fearing to be left behind. Lydia laughed.

  “Carried unanimously!”

  “Can we say that?” asked David, and reminded her that there were two more hands upstairs.

  “Oh, I’ll go proxy for them,” she answered, and held up both her hands. “Right one for Miss Noyes, whose approval I’ve got in advance, and left one for Mr. Thomson. Poor Mr. Thomson, I feel sure, would do anything I asked him to. So the next step—what’s the next step? Please go on helping me, Mr. Maltby. I’m really not quite as efficient as I seem.”

  “Well,” suggested Mr. Maltby, “perhaps the next step is to justify that good opinion?”

  “How right! You shall have two kisses under the mistletoe. I might even make it three if you’d tell me how the justification proceeds!”

  “A good start would be to keep a detailed account of the damage.”

  “Mr. Maltby, you’re a genius! I don’t know what we’d have done without you. Yes, we must appoint an Hon. Treasurer. Who’ll be Hon. Treasurer? I rather think that ought to be your job, David.”

  “Before I accept the Hon.,” said David cautiously, “what exactly does the Hon. Individual do?”

  “He jots down all we take and all we break, with the cost thereof. Tea for so many, so much. Dinner for so many, so much. Broken cups, so many, so much. There’ll be plenty of those! And then, before we go——”

  “If we ever go,” murmured David.

  “—we tot up the total, add so much for use of bedrooms, bathroom, towels, serviettes, table-cloths——”

  “We’re not taking the towels, serviettes and tablecloths away with us——”

  “No, but they’ll have to be washed.”

  “How about the wear and tear of the carpets, not to mention furniture and other messuages?”

  “Don’t be tedious, darling. Where was I? We tot up the total, add something for whatever I said, plus a good Christmas tip, and leave the amount on—where?—I know, the mantelpiece under that watchful old gentleman with the splendid head of hair who is spying on us to see how we behave ourselves. Well, David, do you take the post?”

  “O.K. I take it.”

  “Good. You won’t forget, when you’re doing the accounts, that your job is an Hon. one? You are working for glory, not for profit! Now, then, next. What’s next? Domestic staff. Who can cook? I can a bit, but I loathe it.”

  Mr. Hopkins cleared his throat. He felt it was necessary for his dwindling reputation to make some contribution.

  “Well, I’ve cooked round a camp fire,” he said. “You know. Roughing it. But—well—I’m not quite sure——”

  “Then perhaps I’ll have to cook, after all,” sighed Lydia. “Which means that you’ll get things out of tins warmed up.”

  “I think I ought to do something,” replied Mr. Hopkins.

  “You can and you shall. You and Mr. Smith can lay tables and so on.”

  “Yes, that’s right, I’ll be the butler!” exclaimed Mr. Hopkins, with sudden enthusiasm. “That’s the idea. Carry trays up to the invalids——”

  “You can carry Mr. Thomson’s tray up,” said Lydia curtly. “And that, Mr. Maltby, leaves you free to play the part of Father Christmas!”

  “I am afraid I should make a very poor Father Christmas, Miss Carrington,” answered the old man. “We shall have to rule out Santa Claus this year.”

  “I have no intention of ruling out Santa Claus,” retorted Lydia. “Though, of course, we won’t insist that you play the rôle. I am going to hang up my stocking, and I shall be bitterly disappointed if I find nothing in it. Make a note of that, David. Yes, and let me warn you all, so you won’t feel ashamed of yourselves on Christmas morning, that I’m giving presents!”

  She made the statement with good-humoured defiance. Mr. Maltby, whose mind dwelt beneath surfaces, had noted the defiance all along—defiance of the situation which, in her own words, was attempting to demoralise them. “I wonder how that very excellent spirit will behave,” he reflected, “when—or if—the situation develops?” Meanwhile, he awarded her high marks for her present attitude.

  David, on the other hand, wondered whether the attitude were not exceeding its logical limit.

  “I’m all for good cheer and all that, sis,” he commented, “but don’t let’s overdo it.”

  “Why not?” she returned. “Isn’t everything being overdone? I’m fighting the absurd exaggeration of the snow and of our position with its own weapons. I’m going to overdo it. I feel like Noel Coward’s song, ‘Something To Do With Spring,’ where the grass was too green and the lambs looked like rural Deans. Only, of course, this is Something To Do With Christmas. To-morrow is going to be a riot, folks, and that’s another thing we’ll have to talk about. The Christmas programme. We’re not going to sit on our thumbs all day, if this snow keeps on. We’ll have a party and a dance. But first things first. Is anybody getting hungry? Come along, staff. Step on it. We mustn’t keep the family waiting for dinner. I may not be honest and sober, but I am punctual!”

  Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Smith glanced at each other, then followed the girl obediently into the kitchen.

  CHAPTER XI

  JESSIE CONTINUES HER DIARY

  “LYDIA really is a nice person, one of the nicest I have ever known. I think she knows I’m rather lonely up here, though she doesn’t know I’m also frightened, well, sometimes I’m frightened, not all the time, so she keeps on popping in to say hallo and give me bits of news, how she does it with all the other things she’s got to do I don’t know. She’s taken on the cooking and the general managing now, that’s why she’s so busy.

  “She came up and told me about it during what she called ‘her first moment off.’ ‘They all took it splendidly,’ she sa
id, ‘and I believe we’re going to have a happy Christmas, after all.’

  “I asked her what she’d said to them, and she rattled it all off in two minutes. Her brother backed her up, as she thought he would, and Mr. Maltby was also a sport. I wonder whether Lydia feels the same way that I do about him, I must ask her next time. He’s a nice old man really, I think, if only he wouldn’t look right through you. I’m sure he sees right through me and out the other side, he gives me a funny sensation. What’s more, I believe he knows it, because I caught him looking at me once, not through me that time, as though he was thinking about me in a way I don’t like. I don’t mean like Mr. Hopkins thinks about me, of course not, but in a way that made me remember I was once told I was psychic. I hope I’m not. Anyhow, I don’t know how to spell it.

  “But I was writing about Lydia. She said David and Mr. Maltby backed her up at once, but the other two only did so (she thought) because they were sort of roped in. They are helping her in the kitchen, laying the table, etc., but she says they’re like brewing storms. David is making out lists and things, because of course we’re paying for what we’re taking, I told her I could pay my share, and I think he’s also working out some games for to-morrow. It all seems very funny, though after all why shouldn’t we enjoy ourselves if we can? If we’re still here on Christmas night there’ll be a dance. I wish my foot were better, I think it might be by then. I can dance, anyway!

  “She didn’t know what Mr. Maltby was doing when I asked her, but she thought he’d gone to see how poor Mr. Thomson was getting on. When I begin to feel sorry for myself I think of Mr. Thomson, he’s worse. I was glad she thought he’d gone to see Mr. Thomson because I thought I’d heard some one moving in the passage, and if it hadn’t been Mr. Maltby, well, who would it have been? I had one idea, but I’m not going to write what it was!

  “I hope she’ll be in again soon, though even then she won’t be able to stop. She popped back once after she left to ask if I liked brown bread or white.

  “One thing I’m glad of. I haven’t had that horrible suffocating feeling again, though once I nearly got it. It seems so silly. This is such a lovely room, really. It’s the kind of bedroom you’d choose for Christmas time, in fact, all this ought to be ideal. Oak beams, log fires, old-fashioned beds, and snow—it’s what you want every year and never get except on Christmas cards. I expect, as Lydia said, it’s the company that’s wrong, that is, some of it. If we could have chosen who we wanted it would have been different.