Mystery in White (British Library Crime Classics)

by J. Jefferson Farjeon

  “Yes, but then I mightn’t have been chosen myself!

  “Some one’s coming. It’s Lydia. I know her step.”

  “She brought a large cup of bovril, and it certainly has taken away that sinking feeling! I was hungrier than I knew, and from what she said they all seem to feel the same way about things downstairs. ‘You never saw such greedy eyes,’ she said, ‘as when I took the first course into the dining-room!’ ‘Didn’t one of the men take it in?’ I said, because she’d told me they were going to do that kind of work. ‘No, they were more trouble than they were worth,’ said she, ‘so I put them in their places and told them to stick there! They did nothing but get in the way and bicker.’ ‘What about Mr. Thomson, what are you giving him?’ I asked. ‘He’s drowsy, he didn’t want anything,’ she answered, and I said, ‘Poor Mr. Thomson, but just as well, feed a cold and starve a fever.’ I don’t know why I’m writing all this conversation down, but it gives me something to do and stops me thinking too much, that’s one of my troubles, I think too much.

  “I hope poor Mr. Thomson isn’t going to get really bad, that would land us in a mess, because we can’t get a doctor. I wonder why this house hasn’t got a telephone? It’s funny, but when people are in trouble you like them more, I didn’t like him (Mr. Thomson) in the train, but I like him better now just because I’m sorry for him. He wants a sweetheart if ever a person did, but I’m sure even if he died I wouldn’t like him enough for that. I’ve just read what I’ve just written, but anyhow I know what I mean.

  “I asked Lydia what the next course was going to be, but she wouldn’t tell me, it’s got to be a surprise. The fire’s gone down a bit, I’ll ask her to make it up when she comes back. No, why should I ask her to? She does everything. My foot feels better, I’m sure I can do it....

  “Well, I did do it, but it wasn’t as easy as I thought. Anyhow, the fire’s blazing away now, and——”

  “It was a surprise! I don’t mean the salmon (tinned), but David who brought it. ‘I thought I’d save my sister the trouble this time,’ he said. ‘I hope you don’t mind, she’s working like a horse.’

  “ ‘Of course I don’t mind. Yes, she is,’ I said. ‘She’ll be dead by the time she goes to bed to-night.’

  “ ‘Not if I know her,’ he said, ‘she’s as strong as an ox.’ Then he laughed and said, ‘I’m sorry if I’m mixing my animals.’

  “ ‘I wish I could help her,’ I said.

  “ ‘Well, that’s more your bad luck than hers,’ he answered, ‘how are you feeling?’

  “ ‘I’m all right,’ I said.

  “Then he laughed again, and said, ‘Yes, you always say that, don’t you?’

  “ ‘Well, I am,’ I said. ‘I got out of bed just now and made up the fire, only don’t tell your sister, will you, or she’d never forgive me!’

  “ ‘I’m not sure that I’ll forgive you, either,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to look after yourself.’ He could have gone then quite easily, there was nothing for him to stay for, but he seemed rather to like to stay, and somehow it was very nice. He looked round the room, and said, ‘And I’m not sure that I’m so sorry for you, either, it’s nice and comfortable here, and cheerful. We’re not quite so cheerful downstairs.’

  “ ‘Aren’t you?’ I asked.

  “ ‘Not by a long chalk,’ he answered. ‘Half the time we sit in gloomy silence, and then some one makes a funny remark—it’s generally me—and nobody laughs.’

  “ ‘I ought to be there,’ I told him. ‘I’d laugh!’

  “ ‘I believe you would,’ he replied. ‘Even Mr. Hopkins isn’t telling his usual yarns about when he was in India, my boy, what, what!’

  “ ‘Was that one of your funny remarks?’ I said. ‘Anyhow, you see, I’m laughing. But I should have thought Mr. Hopkins would have talked enough for everybody, he did in the train.’

  “ ‘Yes, he’s in his element in trains,’ said David, I call him David here, but not actually yet, ‘but this house seems to have dried him up.’

  “ ‘Well, I think he’s best dried up,’ I said. ‘I never want to hear his beastly voice again!’

  “I expect I said it with more meaning than I meant to, because he suddenly looked at me rather hard.

  “ ‘Hallo, why did you say that?’ he asked.

  “I certainly didn’t want to tell him why. It had just come suddenly. I know a lot about men, too much I expect, but Mr. Hopkins is the sort I really can’t stand, I don’t know how to deal with them, maybe they’re all right really and can’t help it, I’ve got views about people not being able to help themselves, but even so it doesn’t make any difference to how you feel about them, you can’t help your feelings either. Isn’t it awful the way my pen, pencil rather, runs away with me? Now I’ve got to look back to see where I was!...

  “ ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  “But he went on looking at me rather hard. It’s funny what thoughts come. I was thinking, ‘I do hope my nose isn’t shiny!’

  “ ‘Miss Noyes,’ he said, ‘people don’t say things like that for nothing!’

  “ ‘Sometimes they do,’ I answered, ‘if they’re like me.’

  “ ‘Look here,’ he replied, ‘I want you to tell me something. Will you?’

  “ ‘I can’t say till I know what it is.’

  “ ‘Has he been worrying you?’

  “That was pretty quick of him, unless I’d really given the show away even more than I’d thought, and it got me all confused so that I said something silly like this, ‘No, yes, no, of course not.’

  “ ‘You’re not very good at fibs,’ he said.

  “ ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I answered, ‘and I think you’d better go down again now, don’t think I’m turning you out, only isn’t it time you tried them again with something funny, perhaps they’ll laugh this time.’

  “ ‘And you’re not very good at pretending you don’t know what people mean when all the time you jolly well do,’ he said. He wouldn’t be put off. ‘No, it’s not time to go down and be funny just yet, and you do know what I mean!’

  “ ‘All right, suppose I do, but now you tell me something,’ I said. ‘What makes you think Mr. Hopkins would worry me?’

  “ ‘Shall I tell you bluntly,’ he asked, ‘or shall I wrap it up in cotton-wool?’

  “ ‘You can tell me bluntly,’ I said, ‘no, wrap it up in cotton-wool.’

  “ ‘No, I’m not going to,’ he said. ‘I should think Mr. Hopkins would worry anybody, but particularly a—a charming girl like you.’

  “That’s what he said. It was silly that I turned red, but I couldn’t help it. Of course, I had to answer something, so I told him, like an idiot, that Mr. Hopkins hadn’t worried me, but I was afraid that he might, and somehow that made it worse than ever and I got as red as a beetroot.

  “ ‘The damned bounder,’ he said.

  “He said it so fiercely that he almost frightened me.

  “ ‘You’re not going to make a row,’ I begged him.

  “ ‘I’d like to punch his nose,’ he answered.

  “ ‘You can like to, certainly, but you won’t, will you?’ I asked. ‘Promise me!’

  “He promised me, and then I told him that I thought he really ought to go this time. Not that I wanted him to, I’m sure he understood that, but because of the others. And so, after a few more words, he went.

  “One reason I thought he ought to go was because people are so rotten at thinking things. Of course, they’re generally right.”

  CHAPTER XII

  DINNER CON FUOCO

  WHEN David returned to the dining-room he found Lydia fighting courageously, but not very successfully, against the gloom. Mr. Maltby, who occasionally lent her his aid, seemed to have gone right back into his shell, and was busy with his thoughts; her conversation, therefore, was at the mercy of Mr. Hopkins and Smith, who were a blight on any company. Alone, each would have been trying enou
gh. Together, they formed a source of constant, nervy irritation not only to others but to themselves. Mr. Hopkins was the worst. His attempts to conceal the obvious fact that he was ill at ease had turned him spiteful, and, forgetful of the danger of inciting the cockney, or else unable to control himself, he was visiting his spitefulness on that inflammatory individual. He had some cause.

  “Now, then, must you dig your elbows into my face?” he rasped angrily.

  It had been a mistake of Lydia’s to place Smith in the chair next to him. Her idea had been that by this arrangement they would lose the incitement of seeing each other across the table, but it was a good effort that had gone wrong.

  “Keep yer fice up and yer won’t git ‘em,” answered Smith.

  “I have to eat, my man!”

  “Not so much of ‘my man’! So do I ‘ave to eat, but I don’t keep bobbin’ me fice up and dahn!”

  “Impudence! Maybe not, but you keep wagging your elbows in and out!”

  “ ’Oose elbows are they?”

  “Come to that, sir, whose face is it? The face is mine, and the elbows are yours, and I am simply asking you to keep your elbows because I don’t want them!”

  “Well, I don’t want your fice.”

  Lydia interposed.

  “Perhaps,” she suggested patiently, “your limbs and your faces would get less mixed up if you moved your two chairs a little farther apart?”

  “I ain’t goin’ to move mine,” mumbled the cockney. “ ‘E can move ‘is.”

  Mr. Hopkins was beyond the wisdom of concession.

  “Why should I move mine any more than you should move yours?” he demanded. “Really, in all my life, I never heard such rudeness!”

  “It is a rude world,” murmured Mr. Maltby.

  “Thank you for nothing!” snapped Mr. Hopkins.

  David had lingered in the doorway. Now, as he resumed his seat, Lydia turned to him with relief.

  “Welcome back to the loving family,” she exclaimed. “I haven’t quite given up my idea of a happy Christmas, David, but Peace and Goodwill have got to get a move on! How are things on the upper deck?”

  “Brighter than on the lower,” smiled her brother. “You appear to have missed me. Shall I revert to desperate remedies and try to be funny?”

  “The situation isn’t quite as desperate as that. You were a long time upstairs.”

  “Yes. I took pity on loneliness.”

  “And how is Her Loneliness?”

  “I think she’s better. She got out of bed and made up the fire—oh, but I wasn’t to mention that!”

  “Why didn’t you save her the trouble, and make up the fire yourself?”

  “Because, sister mine, I wasn’t present at the stoking operation. It was all done before the salmon arrived. By the way, how much is salmon per tin? We are demolishing two tins, I understand.”

  “One and sixpence, about.”

  “Then two tins will be three bob, about, to add to the charge sheet.”

  “And two more tins of pineapple chunks will be another bob to add to the charge sheet. Our bill’s mounting as rapidly as the snow!”

  “And the one won’t stop till the other does,” said David. “It’s a good thing I drew out three thousand pounds just before I left.”

  Lydia turned to Smith, who had raised his head.

  “Another example of my brother’s humour,” she assured him. “He hasn’t even three thousand pennies.”

  The conversation continued spasmodically. Brother and sister were doing their best. When the salmon went and the pineapple came, Mr. Hopkins suddenly rose, shoving his chair back noisily and exclaiming, “Look here, look here, I’m not doing anything, I’ll take that up.” Lydia and David exchanged significant glances.

  “I don’t think Mr. Thomson will want any,” said Lydia, deliberately obtuse.

  “Thomson? Eh?” jerked Mr. Hopkins. “Oh! Well, what about Miss Noyes?”

  “I’m going to take hers up,” answered Lydia.

  And then, all at once, Mr. Hopkins burst, and the storm for which Mr. Maltby had been waiting arrived. He was surprised that it had been delayed so long.

  “What the hell’s the matter with me?” Mr. Hopkins cried, his face growing purple. “What’s everybody got against me? Told to do this, told to do that, mustn’t do this, mustn’t do that! Mustn’t I even volunteer to lend a hand with a tray? Am I—am I a leper?”

  “Please don’t get so excited, Mr. Hopkins,” begged Lydia apprehensively.

  “Who’s excited?”

  “I only thought I’d like to see how Miss Noyes is getting along.”

  “You didn’t want to see how she was getting along when your brother offered to take the tray up!” retorted the angry man. If he regretted his outburst, he seemed unable now to draw back. The tide was sweeping over him. “I expect he wanted to see how she was getting along, too, eh? Yes, and he was a damn long time about it!”

  “I don’t think I care for that remark, Mr. Hopkins,” said David.

  “I don’t care whether you care or not, I’m sick of being told what I’m to do and what I’m not to do! We’re all equal here, aren’t we? Who’s given anybody the reins? Am I the horse?”

  “No, the blinkin’ donkey,” said Smith.

  Mr. Hopkins swung round fiercely.

  “Now, then, I don’t want any more of your impudence!” he cried. “You’re the one that ought to be sat upon! Yes, and why aren’t you? Coming here and lying, and everybody sitting down under it——”

  “’Ere, wot’s that?” interrupted the cockney, his ugly face darkening.

  “Oh, shut up!”

  “’Oo’s lyin’?”

  “You, and you know it! Now shut up!”

  Smith’s fingers began to press into the tablecloth as though he were trying to hold them down.

  “I’m to shut up, am I?” he glared. “I’ll shut up when you’ve tiken that back.”

  “I’m not going to take anything back,” said Mr. Hopkins.

  “Oh, yer won’t?”

  “No.”

  Mr. Maltby cleared his throat. “I think, gentlemen——” he began. But he got no further. Smith cut him short.

  “’Ere, you keep aht of it!” he cried. “This is me and ‘im! I don’t let bags o’ flabby flesh call me a liar, and I ain’t lettin’ it go this time!” He turned back to Mr. Hopkins. “When did I lie? Go on, let’s ‘ave it.”

  “There’s no need for me to remind you,” answered Mr. Hopkins, struggling to keep his voice steady.

  “Ain’t there? Well, that’s where I see dif’rent, see? When did I lie?”

  “All right, damn you, if you want it you’ll get it. When you said you weren’t on our train.”

  “Oh, you was on the trine?”

  “I’ve not denied it?”

  “Well, why should I?”

  “You want that, too?”

  “Go on!” Mr. Hopkins hesitated. His face was now more purple than ever, but not only with anger. He was struggling against fear. “See, yer ain’t got nothink ter say! Yer a gas-bag, that’s wot yer are, and fer tuppence I’d tike yer bloody nose and twist if orf——”

  “Because you’re a murderer, that’s why!” screamed Mr. Hopkins. “Because it was you who killed that man—now you have got it——”

  The next moment he fell back as Smith’s fist caught his chin. “Quick, David,” said Lydia quietly, while Mr. Maltby rose from his chair. But David was already on his feet, and was hurrying round to the other side of the table.

  Mr. Hopkins made an effort, but before he could recover Smith was on him again. Lydia never forgot Smith’s face at that instant. She described it afterwards as “just sheerly homicidal.” As Mr. Hopkins’s arms wound despairingly round him the cockney’s fingers pressed on his throat. Mr. Hopkins’s face did not make a pleasant memory, either.

  “I shouldn’t worry, Mr. Smith,” came Mr. Maltby’s voice, with a calmness that was almost unbelievable because of its inappropr
iateness. “It’s Mr. Hopkins who is the murderer.” Smith’s fingers paused in their pressure. “Let him go, we’ll manage the rest.”

  Behind Smith’s back Mr. Maltby made a swift sign to David, and David, wise to the ruse, threw himself upon the cockney, while Mr. Hopkins slipped limply to the floor. But the cockney had a brute’s strength, and the instinct of self-preservation coupled with a ferocious anger at having been duped made him fight like a tiger. Chairs went over. So did Mr Maltby when he met one of the chairs on his way into the fray. Lydia seized somebody’s leg, to find it was her brother’s. Momentarily released by this mishap, Smith leapt away, snatched a knife from the table, and escaped from the room.

  In a flash Lydia was after him. When she reached the hall she found it empty. She did not look for the frenzied fugitive, but raced up the stairs without stopping till she was outside Jessie’s door. Then she paused, took a deep, much needed breath, and called through:

  “All right in there?”

  “Yes! Is anything happening?” came the response from the bed.

  “No, I just came to inquire. Bring you your next course in a minute or two.”

  She stood hesitating. She did not believe that Smith had ascended the stairs, but she felt she could not leave the door till she was certain.

  From below came sounds. David and Mr. Maltby had now recovered, and were beginning their search. “Lydia! Where are you?” It was David’s anxious voice. She realised that she must show herself, to allay that anxiety, and slipped to the top of the stairs. “Up here,” she called down softly. “I don’t think he came this way.”

  Then she heard an exclamation.

  “No, he didn’t!” David called back. “Stay where you are.”

  The exclamation had come from Mr. Maltby. An icy draught had led him into the kitchen towards the back door, and a window by the back door was open. Somehow or other, Smith had scrambled out. That, at any rate, was the inference. The back door itself was blocked by a snowdrift.