Darkness at Pemberley

by T. H. White

  "Morning or no morning," said the gardener, "look you——"

  "Is that so or not?"

  "As I was saying——"

  "Well, I'm afraid you'll have to leave them for the police."

  "I am a poor man, sir, in an alien country——"

  "However poor you are," answered Buller grimly, "you'll have to wear your decent apparel on weekdays as well, till after the inquest. Or else get some beggar's raiment off the next scarecrow you see. I'm sorry, but there it is."

  Buller folded up the exhibits and walked out of the shed. In the drive he bundled them into the police car and sat down wearily on the step. The surgeon sat down beside him and lit a pipe. He waited for his friend to break the silence.

  "Well," said the Inspector at last, "now we're up against it. We shall have to look into everything, of course, according to routine. But if I know Mauleverer there won't be anything to find."

  The surgeon made a noise to indicate his sympathy and attention.

  "I went for a walk with Mauleverer," said Buller, "and he confessed to both murders. He detailed the whole proceedings to me in full. There isn't a scrap of evidence which would carry weight against him in court—not a scrap of positive evidence at all, and even the negative evidence is equally applicable to the undergraduate Weans or even to the Chaplain and the Master. There was only one loose end which he'd left over, and that was this porter Rudd. Rudd was coming out of the Crown Arms, where he'd been paying an illicit visit, as Mauleverer came out of Number 23. They saw each other. I guessed something of the sort, and I intended to get a signed statement from Rudd this morning. Now Mauleverer has tidied up."

  "Perhaps you will be able to get Mauleverer over this second affair?"

  "Too neat. The inhuman swine! Three poor blighters turning into worms, without guilt or preparation." The Inspector stared moodily at the ground.

  "How did he do this last one?"

  "They'll find Rudd's body in the river, there, I suppose. We can't be sure till we've seen it. But it's fairly clear. Some time after dark last night he must have let himself out with his Fellow's key and hidden himself in the plantation. Then, in the darkness, he changed his clothes for those left by the under-gardener. I expect he wore nothing else but the coat, apron and boots. He wouldn't have wanted to risk even the smallest splash on his own things. I can imagine him there, like an animal in the shade of night, half naked, waiting.... Rudd was on duty in the college. When he came out, over the bridge, Mauleverer whistled to him. I don't know about the whistle, but he induced him away from the drive on to the path by the river. Rudd was a little on the shady side himself. Perhaps he thought it was his bookmaker or his fence or an accomplice or a victim in blackmail. (They don't like to meet their vampires very publicly.) We shall never know. Anyway, he got him to the path and slit his throat like a butcher—coolly, like a snake with a fascinated rabbit. Poor devil! This last one has upset me more than the others. I should have stopped it if I'd been sharp. Imagine that gross wicked man quivering before Mauleverer in the damp darkness. Mauleverer slit his windpipe at the same time, so he didn't make a human sound. Then he rolled him into the river, warm and dead, and probably chucked the knife in after him. It will have been a Woolworth production, bought for sixpence along with the thirty thousand facsimiles which must have been purchased in this country last year. Quite untraceable, and carefully wiped.

  "After that Mauleverer will have gone back to the potting shed and changed into his own clothes."

  "But surely," the surgeon said, "we must be able to find some circumstantial evidence?"

  "I fail to see how. The plaster cast now being made will show Rudd's footmarks and those made by the gardener's boots. The knife won't help us. Nobody saw or heard the thing done."

  "Even if Mauleverer wore the gardener's boots from the shed to the path, he must have worn his own boots to and from the shed. That's something, isn't it?"

  "Unfortunately not. The shed stands here at the edge of the drive, which is gravel and won't hold footprints. Nor will the bridge. Mauleverer reached the shed without leaving a trace, and from the shed to the bank he left only those of the gardener."

  "At least he can't have an alibi!"

  "Unfortunately you can't hang people for that. Mauleverer will say that he spent the evening reading quietly in his rooms. He won't need an alibi, for there's nothing to connect the business with him."

  As Buller stopped speaking there was a hail from the river. The two men got up and walked towards the scene of the murder. Over the path and grass where the bloodstains had been found lay a white coat of plaster of Paris. Next to this was the wet bundle which remained of Rudd. His head was nearly severed from the body, and rolled to one side over a bloodless wound, with bloodless lips coloured by the river. The sergeant held an object in his hand, which he offered to the Inspector. It was a cheap razor, marked from Woolworth's.

  "Here's the weapon," he said. "Rudd never told his wife anything about Mauleverer. Shall I arrest that gardener?"

  Fortunately the gardener had an alibi.

  PART II

  CHAPTER VII

  A fortnight later Inspector Buller was making a comfortable dinner on a westbound train. The spring was drawing on, and the panorama of sunset over the English fields soothed and elated him. He was free.

  The telegram which lay in his pocket had surprised the post office officials. It read simply: "Can you fight next week end zero Saturday noon Darcy," and was addressed from Pemberley in Derbyshire.

  Two years before, Inspector Buller had been taking a holiday near Derby. He was driving his car at the lowest possible speed along a rutty deserted lane at the back of Pemberley, when, with a rather loud explosion, something blew up under his off fore tyre. At the same time a voice spoke from the other side of the old brick wall which bounded the lane.

  "Kingdom," it said, "look over the wall and see if you've killed anybody."

  A stately head, ornamented with white walrus moustaches (uncommon in a butler), dawned solemnly over the brickwork, surmounted by a bowler hat. The whole creation slowly became a deep scarlet and disappeared. There was a whispered colloquy, and a new head popped up. This one was fair haired and fine drawn, the head of a man in the early thirties.

  "I beg your pardon?" it said.

  "I didn't speak," said the Inspector in an amused voice.

  "Then why don't you go away?"

  "Well," said the Inspector, "one of my front tyres has just blown up, and my spare wheel is punctured."

  "What a relief!" exclaimed the fair haired man. "I thought Kingdom had shot you with a 5.9."

  "Probably he has. I don't see why the tyre should blow up otherwise. It was a perfectly good tyre. In fact it was brand new. It was my spare wheel half an hour ago, until I had a puncture and changed wheels."

  The blue eyes considered the Inspector solemnly, and then suggested, "If you would care to come in and have a drink I could send somebody round to see to it."

  Buller accepted the suggestion with alacrity. He was of an enquiring turn of mind, and wondered who could be firing 5.9's in a private park during the piping times of peace. His host explained that one of the gates was a little further down, and began to walk on the inside of the wall whilst Buller trudged along the road. The Inspector heard him address a parting remark to the butler.

  "Kingdom," he said, "go and fetch Smith from the garage. You might have killed that gentleman. In future I shall discharge your pieces for you myself. And don't go prying at my positions whilst I'm away. Remember you're on your honour, Kingdom."

  And Kingdom replied: "Very well, Sir Charles. Shall I fall out the Welch Fusiliers or leave them out till after tea?"

  Whilst they were walking up the drive Sir Charles Darcy made his explanation.

  *****

  Sitting in the restaurant car and watching the careful allowance of gin slopping in his glass, Inspector Buller thought about Sir Charles. He had pieced out the story from Elizabeth Darcy—the Chr
istian name had been in the family since the famous Elizabeth in 1813—and it was an odd one. The present baronet had been married in 1918 to a beautiful and charming wife. With the War ended, almost as soon as he had found himself pitchforked into it, and with the broad acres of Pemberley in which to beguile his wife, Sir Charles had had cause to suppose himself a fortunate man. He was gifted and irresponsible, and consciously happy. The wildness of the years immediately following upon the Armistice delighted him. The newly married couple stayed little at Pemberley, which was dull even in peace time, but amused themselves perseveringly in the lights of the metropolis. They hoped that they were completely immoral.

  One night Charles was rather drunk in a night club. His wife was sober. One of their acquaintance, a fat man who was said to be something in the City, came over to their table and talked to Charles in whispers. He knew that Charles was a sport, he said, and he had a job of work for anybody who had the guts to do it. It was dangerous, he said, and just the sort of thing for anybody who was out for a bit of fun. He and some friends of his, to put it shortly, had smuggled a small cargo of liquor from Holland. It was now lying at Tilbury, waiting to be taken away. They wanted a really fast car, in case of trouble with the police, to run it up to town. Was Charles game to call for it in his Benz? Of course it was quite illegal, but everybody was doing that sort of thing nowadays.

  Charles and his wife were delighted to undertake the adventure. After all, there was nothing nasty about liquor: it wasn't one of the things which were "not done."

  The fat man explained to Charles that he and his friends were afraid the police were more or less "on to" their own car. They believed, indeed, that the police would be on the look out for the cargo in any car travelling the necessary route that evening. It was vitally necessary that the stuff should be fetched at once, before the police traced it to where it lay. Charles would have to keep his wits about him on the return journey, and go by a route which the fat man explained to him. The fat man himself would be unable to come, as he had to make things ready at this end. He gave the directions for locating the cases at Tilbury, and a sort of countersign for the man who would be waiting to deliver them there.

  Charles's wife insisted on coming too, and drove the car down herself, as he might have driven rather erratically. On the return journey, when he was more sober, Charles took the wheel. He was volleying along at sixty miles an hour when he came round a slight curve at Purfleet and found a police car drawn across the road. Four policemen with lanterns were waving him to stop. It had been raining. Charles had a confused idea of the interior of his own car, of the road and policemen swirling to the left and then to the right, of the dark police car rushing at him broadside on.

  When he woke up he was in a hospital ward with a policeman sitting beside him. Lady Darcy had been killed outright, and the cases in the wrecked car contained many thousand pounds' worth of cocaine. Nothing was ever seen again of the fat man, and nobody believed that he existed. Charles went to prison for two years.

  When he was released, he came to live at Pemberley with his sister Elizabeth. It was not a very pleasant life, for the usual country pleasures were impossible. The county no longer consented to attend his shooting parties, and it was impossible to hunt. The unpleasantness of his first day made that abundantly clear.

  He laid out a stiff point-to-point course in his own grounds, and rode round and round this for hours, trying at first to break his neck. But he broke the neck of his favourite grey mare instead, and gave up his crazy riding out of shame. He still went round the jumps every morning; but now he was riding, instead of charging his fences.

  As time went by, the curious neighbours heard that he was getting decidedly crochety. He amused himself by launching a miniature fleet, electrically controlled, on Pemberley Lake. With these he fought noisy engagements, which were heard for quite a distance round, until they were all too battered for action. Then he turned himself to warfare on land and elaborated a game which had some of the interest of chess. He used the most realistic lead soldiers imported from France, and miniature artillery specially manufactured for him by Bassett-Lowke. These pieces fired real shell, made of china, and had a very natural effect.

  The battle ground was divided by a high canvas sheet into two halves, and on either side of this sheet the combatants—Charles and Elizabeth, or the butler—entrenched their armies for two days prior to the battle. At zero hour the canvas was removed, and, after tossing for the initiative, the battle began. The rules became increasingly elaborate.

  The contending armies moved in turn, each turn being reckoned at twenty-five points. These points were controlled by a table of movements. Thus for the loss of one point one cavalryman could advance ten yards, or one infantryman could advance three yards. The discharge of a howitzer cost five points. The white army might select to expend its turn by discharging five shells from the howitzers, and the black army might reply with a ten yards charge by twenty-five dragoons or a five yard charge by fifty. Or either side might split up its points; firing one shell, advancing five cavalrymen ten yards, and fifteen infantrymen three yards. The adjustments became more and more delicately balanced, and the rules of capture more and more specialised. The impetus of the attacking force was allowed for in a charge. Moves could be commuted and saved up for a mass attack. Tanks, machine guns, mines, flammenwerfers and even poison gas were introduced. Elizabeth and the butler found that protection was necessary. The combatants operated thereafter from behind triplex screens.

  It was to one of these actions, as Charles explained while they were walking up the drive, that the Inspector owed his introduction to Pemberley. It was not entirely to these actions that he owed his continued reception there. Sir Charles had taken a quiet fancy to him, it is true, and enjoyed a change of society. They were soon fighting battles with concord and interest; but the Inspector would not have gone back to Pemberley solely on that account. He went back because he had instantly fallen in love with Elizabeth Darcy.

  He knew that a match between a police inspector and the hostess of Pemberley would be an impossible one, but he managed, as most lovers will, to justify himself in seeing her at any rate. She must be lonely, he argued, seeing nobody in that vast mansion: and she seemed to enjoy talking to him. It was his plain duty to cheer her up; not expecting anything, of course—in fact carefully retreating from the intimacy which he longed for. Inspector Buller conscientiously saw her not more than fifteen or twenty days in a year; and thought about her on all the other days from the safe distance of work in Cambridge.

  Elizabeth was worth thinking about. She was tall, with mouse-coloured hair. Her lips were Louis Philippe, and she was lovely—a natural champion of the divided skirt. How she could put up with the lonely splendours of Pemberley was more than Buller could understand. At first-nights, driving fast cars with a white cigarette between those formal roses, at house parties and grouse moors, hunting in Leicestershire, bored at Cowes, or chattering in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, she would have been indistinguishable. And she might have stayed in all these situations. Her brother's disgrace need not after all have affected her. Yet she had followed him to exile. She was a natural creature, and she loved him. She also loved Inspector Buller, and had done, from his second clumsy visit; but he was not the man to suspect that startling coincidence.

  *****

  The Inspector reached Pemberley at ten o'clock, and was bundled off to bed almost at once in preparation for the morrow's action. All the next day was spent in fortification and planning of trenches. Nobody mentioned his affairs until the table had been cleared after dinner. Then Charles looked guiltily at Elizabeth, cleared his throat and began.

  "Liz was reading in the papers," he said, "about this case of yours in Cambridge. I hope there's no truth in this talk about your resignation?"

  "Miss Darcy is right. I resigned before I came away."

  "But why?" exclaimed Elizabeth impatiently. "It isn't your fault if you can't catch the murderer. Bes
ides, you can't be expected to find out who did it straight away!"

  "The trouble is, Miss Darcy," replied Buller, with the old fashioned respect which drove her nearly to desperation, "that I have found out who the murderer is, and I can't prove it."

  "But why resign? They can't have kicked you out for that, can they?"

  "No, I've not exactly been kicked out. They weren't best pleased with me, for I've saddled them with an Unsolved Murder Mystery when the affair might have passed off quietly. They don't want any more unsolved murders at present. But I could very well have stayed if I'd wanted to."

  "Why," asked Charles, "did you resign then?"

  "General disgust."

  "What at?"

  "At my profession, I'm afraid I've been a fool. It's a good profession and it probably does quite as well as it possibly could. In fact it's a magnificent profession, and I have been a fool. What really drove me to it was disgust with myself."

  "You must tell us about it," said Elizabeth.

  "I suppose I resigned because I might have saved this last victim, the porter, if I'd acted promptly. At the time I thought I was resigning from general despair, because we couldn't bring it home to the murderer. But that would just have been pique, and I hope it wasn't the reason."

  "Do you mean to say," asked Charles, "that you know who the murderer is?"

  "Yes."

  "And he got away?"

  "No, he's there in Cambridge. We can't prove anything against him."

  "Do tell us about him!"

  "Well," said Buller, "I'm not a policeman any more, and I can trust you. You're my friends and won't repeat it, I know. Why shouldn't I? The three men were killed by a Fellow of St. Bernard's, a man called Mauleverer. He says he did it (only to me, mind you; he'd deny it to anybody else or in a court of law: but he admitted it to me privately, to gratify his vanity) in order to get the Mastership of his college when it falls vacant. The don whom he killed stood in his way, and the other two got tangled up and had to be finished off. But that's all my eye and Betty Martin really. He did it because he's a born murderer: just for its own sake. He's as clever as hell, and self centred. Beedon did stand in his way and the idea must have occurred to him that he could get rid of him by murder. It's a curious thing, and we generally refuse to admit it, but most of us have had thoughts like that. Only we dismiss the thoughts, through idleness and timidity and, I suppose, through inherent decency—whatever that may be. Mauleverer thought this out, and decided that there was no such thing as any problematical decency about it. He decided that we don't commit murders, because we're afraid to. He wondered if he had the brains to match himself against the Yard. Also, it struck him that there might be a great deal of myth about the fear of consequences which deters most of us. He figured it out that the murderers who don't get found out don't get heard about. Perhaps half the people who get doctors' certificates of death from natural causes have really been murdered. Quite a neat little percentage of the population may be murderers, and nothing known about it, while the small number of persons hanged imposes on us the belief that murder is too dangerous a pastime. Having got this far, and being naturally vain and cruel, he was too proud not to murder Beedon. If he had refused to chance it, it would have looked like squeamishness or timidity. Besides, he had a tremendous belief in his own cleverness. He set to work to plan it out with the crazy enthusiasm of a maniacal chess-player."