Darkness at Pemberley

by T. H. White

  Buller considered a moment and then added: "Well, I'm afraid he's pulled it off. We can't bring it home to him."

  "But what a wicked state of affairs!" exclaimed Elizabeth. "Do you mean to say that in this country, in this century, a man can be known to be a murderer and not be punished?"

  "I'm afraid so."

  "Then I think you were perfectly right to resign. If that's all the law and the police can do, then I'm glad you're not a policeman!"

  "I think you're wrong about that, Miss Darcy. Things must be proved to the hilt before we can hang a man. Otherwise think of all the poor wretches who might be hanged innocent. It's better that a hundred such as Mauleverer should get away than one man should suffer without deserving it. No, my only excuse for resigning is that I might have saved that porter."

  Charles interrupted. "Tell me," he said, "some more about this blighter Mauleverer."

  "Well, what would you like to know?"

  "More about him, himself."

  "Oh, I don't know. He's a small man, rather petty and neat, with a sharp face. I daresay he feels inferior about his personal appearance and that contributed to his motives—to re-assert himself physically, you know. It's partly on account of his unappetising physique that he's so vain about his mental powers. Rather a common little man. I should think he bullies his pupils. I'm not good at describing people."

  "He doesn't sound very much fun," said Elizabeth.

  "No. Not very nice."

  Buller added: "Do you know I really hate him—quite personally. I've never noticed it with anybody before. Perhaps it's because he's scored off me. I don't think so, though. He reminds me of a snake or a vicious boar, both malevolent and obstinate. What I'm afraid of is that he'll do it again. He's the sort of creature who'd get a craving for the excitement and the mental stimulus. And he'll feel much safer too."

  There was a lull in the talk, till Buller took it up again anxiously.

  "You mustn't think I'm so bitter about it for personal reasons. After all I don't think I do really hate him as a man. I ought to be sorry for him. I don't hate him. I'm afraid of him, because he isn't human. You see, if he does do it again he'll keep on with it: he'll be a maniac. That's where I'm afraid of him: it's the tiny light of insanity, of incomprehensible chaos behind his eyes, that frightens me into primitive loathing. He's so much cleverer than I am. Oh, I can't explain it, but he's wicked."

  "Some men are wicked," said Charles quietly, and suggested a game of billiards.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Next morning Buller was awakened by Kingdom in person. After Charles's disgrace the footmen had given notice—they were a post-war generation in any case—and there was no valet. Nobody had troubled to engage new ones, since Kingdom, who had been a groom when Charles's father was a boy, preferred to gather the duties on himself. Next to Elizabeth he had been his master's greatest stay.

  "Miss Elizabeth's compliments, sir," said Kingdom, putting her back into the nursery pinafore by vocal powers alone, "and if you would care to ride before breakfast the horses will be ready in half an hour. Miss Elizabeth wanted to speak to you particular about Sir Charles."

  Elizabeth was beautiful, in a blue jersey and red lips. Buller never ceased to be delighted that she did not ride astride. She was mounted on a horse called Vitty Kerumby—a name deviously derived from Webster's White Devil—a huge white mare with a bold eye who leapt her fences like a battleship, and had been round Olympia with half a fault. Buller's mount was a kindly hunter, who had never refused anything, but was gone a little in the wind.

  As they rode through the park, Buller waited for Elizabeth to speak about her brother. But she seemed inclined to let the matter wait. Buller would never have understood that she wanted to enjoy her ride with him, without perplexing discussions. So they rode down to the big field in an awkward silence, and there forgot about Charles entirely, for an hour of delight.

  While the horses walked home side by side, Buller asked: "What is this about your brother?"

  Elizabeth said: "Oh, it's nothing. I don't know. Let's wait till after breakfast."

  Charles was not at breakfast, and the two, after a hearty meal, stood side by side on the thick carpet in front of the fire—glutted with kidneys and coffee, arrogant with early rising and exercise.

  Elizabeth said: "This about Charles. My dear, I believe he's gone to murder that don of yours."

  "Why do you think that, Miss Darcy?"

  "Well, after you went to bed last night he came to talk to me in my room. He always does when he's worried. He sat on the bed and talked round and round the subject, edging up to it from every side and refusing at the last moment. Now, this morning, Kingdom tells me he's gone off. It's the first time he's been outside the grounds for eight years."

  "Do you mean that he told you he was going to kill Mauleverer?"

  "Oh no. He didn't say anything about it. He said that he was bored with life: that he had nothing to live for, no friends. That there were too many crooks going scot free nowadays."

  "But surely he isn't mad enough to take the law into his own hands? He wouldn't be such a prig as to elect himself the instrument of justice. He's never struck me as a person who would be smug enough to do that."

  "Well," said Elizabeth, "this Four-Just-Men business is pretty conceited, I admit. But then Charles's motives aren't puritanical. If I'm right, he hasn't gone off because he believes in justice, though he may think he has. You mustn't forget that he adored and still thinks about his wife. She was murdered, to all intents and purposes, by that swine who wanted the drugs smuggled. Charles personally hates all crooks. It's quite painful sometimes to see him read the newspapers. And then he's sick of life here. He wants something to do...."

  "Even then, I can't see him turning to murder as a pastime."

  "No. I hope not. I don't think he could murder anybody. But still, I'm frightened. He hasn't been away for eight years."

  Buller puffed his pipe in silence.

  *****

  Charles came back in the evening and Buller caught him in his dressing-room before dinner.

  "Well," he said, "did you tell him you were going to kill him?"

  "Yes," said Charles.

  "Would you mind," Buller asked, "telling me all about it?"

  Charles looked guilty, obstinate and embarrassed.

  "I suppose I've been a fool," he said. "It seemed possible last night. Now I don't know."

  "What happened?"

  "I went straight to St. Bernard's and asked to see him. He'd only just finished breakfast."

  "Well?"

  "Well, I just told him what you'd told me and one or two of the things I thought about him. He was surprised at first. Then he began to get angry. I can be rude at times, and that warmed me up. He was sarcastic and I was more so. We had quite a tiff."

  "What did you tell him?"

  Charles suddenly looked cast down.

  "I told him that I should kill him at the end of a week."

  "What did he say to that?"

  "He went absolutely mad."

  "And then?"

  "Then I went away."

  "And now you're not so pleased with yourself?"

  "I had a lot of time to think it over in the train."

  "And now what are you going to do?"

  "I don't know," said Charles, "it wouldn't be impossible in a fair fight. He's an utter little cad. But I can't just hide behind a bush and pot him sitting. And if I don't do it secretly I shall get caught and hanged at once. I don't know how to manage it."

  "He plotted to murder people without a fair fight. Wouldn't it be fair to do the same by him?"

  "It would be fair enough. But I can't do it."

  "So now you're stuck?"

  "Yes. You seem to like rubbing it in."

  "Oh, I'm delighted of course. The best fun will be explaining to my late colleagues how you came to be murdered."

  "What do you mean?"

  "If you want a fair fight, my dear man, you're
going to get it. Only it won't be fair. Great heavens, man, do you think you can go and talk that sort of stuff to a homicidal maniac and get away with it? There won't be any trouble about potting him sitting, if that's any consolation. You say he went absolutely mad. What exactly did he say?"

  "Oh, some balderdash or other. He was actually frothing at the mouth: little bubbles at the corners, which slurred his utterance—the first time I've ever seen it, except in a man who was slightly drunk. He called me a bumptious little puppet and told me to make my will. He was rather fine about it, in a way. He certainly believes in himself."

  "And has it occurred to you that he may have meant it?"

  "I don't think so. He was angry."

  "Listen," said Buller. "Mauleverer is a killer. He has committed a triple murder with complete success, and has no reason to believe that he will be caught if he commits another. He enjoys his success. He would be delighted to increase it. He is a man of tremendous vanity. A young man whose intelligence—I hope you won't mind my saying so—cannot have impressed him, arrives out of the blue and announces that he proposes to execute him in a week. He is also very rude. Don't you realise that, even apart from his pride, Mauleverer is actually looking about him for somebody to kill? He's tasted blood."

  "If you think that the fellow will try to kill me, I'm very glad to hear it. It will make it much easier. But I don't believe it. Full term ends to-morrow, and he'll sneak off to hide himself somewhere on the Continent."

  "May you long continue to think so. I must send a telegram."

  Buller stumped out of the dressing-room in a very bad temper.

  *****

  Next day it poured with rain. Elizabeth was jumpy at luncheon and Buller taciturn. Charles had been out to the stud farm—he still bred his own horses though he never ran them in any race—and was in a good humour. He was sipping a glass of light madeira when he remarked to Buller, a propos of nothing:

  "By the way, your friend Mauleverer nearly got his chances spoilt for him this morning. A tile came off the stable roof just as I was passing. It missed me by inches and broke in eight pieces at my feet. They're heavy things. It must have been coming at a tremendous bat."

  Buller walked straight out into the rain without a coat on. He came back in ten minutes.

  "I must ask you," he said, "now that you've got yourself into this position, to listen to me sensibly. This is for Miss Darcy's sake as well as your own. I got a ladder and looked at that roof. The tiles are as sound as they were when they were first put on, and the single tile which came down hadn't the least excuse for doing so. Are you going to insist that the thing happened by accident, and be dead to-morrow morning, or will you face the position as if there were something going on?"

  "Really," said Charles, "on the strength of one tile——"

  "Now be sensible, Chiz," Elizabeth interrupted. "Let's hear what he has to say."

  "I've got nothing to say except what I told you last night, and what I told you after dinner, Miss Darcy. Charles has raised a hornet's nest and I don't know what we can do about it. All we can do at the moment is to guard him as if he were the Bank of England."

  Charles said: "I absolutely refuse to be coddled on the off chance that a miserable maniac may be after me. And I don't believe it."

  "Very well, then," replied Buller, "I shall leave by the next train."

  All three were conscious that he did not mean it.

  "What have we got to fear?" Elizabeth asked.

  "My friend Mauleverer told Charles to make his will. He is now busy, somewhere, arranging to make it necessary. How he will do it, now that the tile effect didn't come off, God only knows. We know that he's somewhere in the neighbourhood at least."

  "What are we to do?"

  "Well," said Buller, "I'm afraid it's a question of psychology. We've got nothing to go on except our very hazy idea of what's inside Mauleverer's mind. As soon as I heard Charles's story last night I sent Mauleverer a telegram apologising for the threat and saying that I had notified the police. The apology won't do anything, of course, but the second half of the message was its raison d'être. If Mauleverer thinks that the police know of the feud between him and Charles then he will have to be extra careful that Charles dies without any possibility of implicating himself. The mere fact that Charles does die may be suspicious. So Mauleverer will have to kill Charles in some way which leaves himself beyond suspicion. This narrows his field. Charles will have to be killed—— I hope, by the way, that you don't find this a depressing topic, Charles?"

  "Not at all. I get quite a kick out of it."

  "Charles will have to be killed, as I was saying, either so that he seems to have died a natural death, or by an accident which might happen to anybody (such as tiles), or by murder at a time when Mauleverer possesses an alibi. Now Mauleverer has already worked the alibi racket, and he probably won't be interested in it. He's proved his ability as an alibi-framer with Beedon's gramophone, and he'll be out for fresh fields to conquer. So I should plump for the natural death or the act of God. Do you agree with me so far?"

  "My dear," replied Elizabeth, "I suppose it will be all right when one gets accustomed to it."

  "Either these things happen or they don't, Miss Darcy. It's a mad world when they do, but we've got to live in it. Remember nobody will ever understand people like Mauleverer. You can't argue normally, or there wouldn't be any murders at all. But there are murders. We shall just have to pretend we're in a detective story."

  "Granting that the situation is as you say," Charles interrupted, "what are you going to make me do about it?"

  Buller replied with another question.

  "Are you going to do it?"

  "Please do, Chiz," said Elizabeth.

  "Let's hear it first."

  "No. Listen, Charles. I've been a detective for a long time and I've had the pleasure of frank conversation with Mauleverer. I swear I'm not vapouring. Either you must believe me and consent to act under orders, or you must go your own way."

  "Very well. I utterly disbelieve you. I hope you won't force me into mutiny."

  "Not if you want to go on living. You're going to do as you're told?"

  "Go on, for heaven's sake, and don't bully."

  "Right," said Buller. "The first thing we're going to do is to search the house and grounds. The second thing is that you're going to be locked up in your bedroom till further orders, with a guard inside and outside it."

  "Splendid. I hope I shall be allowed out occasionally: every third Armistice Day, or something of that sort."

  "Seriously," said Elizabeth. "We can hardly keep the poor thing locked up for ever."

  "I know," said Buller. "He deserves to be, but we can't. And the trouble is that we ought to. Mauleverer may kill him to-morrow, or this time next week, or in ten years' time."

  "So what is the solution?"

  "Well, to begin with, Mauleverer would probably prefer to kill you within the week at the end of which you said you were going to kill him. That would strike him as a neat joke. We shall have to be doubly careful for the next six days. And after that, if you're still alive, we shan't be any nearer the solution. He has the patience to wait for years."

  "So you do propose to keep me locked up for the rest of my natural life?"

  "No. After this week we shall have to do what you said."

  "And what was that?"

  "Kill Mauleverer."

  Elizabeth said urgently: "Mr. Buller, I can't let you be mixed up in this."

  Charles said: "Fancy a suggestion like that coming from an ex-minion of the law!"

  Buller exploded. "Damn it, Charles! Do you think I want to kill the man? Do you think I want a skeleton like that in my cupboard? Do you think I haven't seen enough of the seamy side to hate being mixed up in it myself? You poke your stupid head into a hullabaloo like this and then refuse to believe in it, or make ridiculous jokes. What else can we do but kill him, God damn it all?"

  "There doesn't seem to be much else,
granted that the tile didn't fall off by itself," said Charles reflectively.

  "No, there isn't. You go about the country lightheartedly telling murderers that you're going to kill them, and then you damn well have to if you want to go on living yourself. Don't you see you've let yourself in for it properly? If you don't kill him now, he'll kill you."

  "But you can't kill people," exclaimed Elizabeth. "You can't be a common murderer."

  "Apart from the fact that it isn't done," said Buller coldly, "it's a hundred to one we shan't pull it off, and it's in self-defence when you come to consider it."

  "You can't do it!"

  "Remember he's murdered these people in cold blood."