The Belting Inheritance

by Julian Symons

  “Did you hope that they wouldn’t be called in?” And he added, “Don’t call me Brother Stephen.”

  “It’s your name.” David came over and faced me. I realised that he was a little drunk. “What did he say to you?”

  “Asked a lot of questions.”

  “You surprise me. About me?”

  I was saved from answering by Clarissa, who barked, “For a man who’s seen as much death as you say you have, you’re very nervous.”

  “It doesn’t mean you get used to it. Quite the contrary.”

  Markle was not gone long, and when he returned there was an interchange between him and David. “I’m going back to London,” the solicitor said.

  “No.” David’s face twitched. “I need you here. Please.”

  “Nothing I can do here that I can’t do in London.” Markle looked round at us with his somehow insulting gaze. “No need to wash our dirty linen here, let’s go outside. All right?” he said to Hasty, who nodded. They were outside for five minutes, and I could hear the murmur of voices. Then Markle poked his head inside the door. “Goodbye all. Hope I haven’t put you to too much trouble. Be seeing you again, I expect.” His head was withdrawn, and we heard his car starting up.

  Miles was sitting hunched in a corner. “Thank goodness he’s gone. A most objectionable fellow.”

  “He’s a shyster solicitor.” Stephen felt at his collar. “I asked a friend of mine about him today, and that’s what he told me. The sort of man who goes round after people who’ve been injured in accidents and offers to make a claim if he gets half the proceeds.”

  “Good God, are there people like that?” Clarissa bayed.

  Stephen looked at me. “You’re safe in telling us, now that they’ve gone. What did the inspector ask you about?”

  He used a wheedling tone that didn’t suit him. I should find it hard to say what tone did suit Stephen, but he never rubbed me the wrong way so much as when he was trying to be nice. “He asked me about–” I nodded after the departed David, and Stephen nodded too, well pleased. “And he said he’d come here ten years ago on a case.”

  Silence. Then Stephen said, “That man Arbuthnot is a trouble maker. It takes Mamma to deal with him, she doesn’t stand any nonsense.”

  “I wondered what it was all about. You weren’t here?” I said to Uncle Miles, who started.

  “No, no. I was with an ENSA party up at Catterick – the camp, you know. But I believe it was a very disagreeable business.”

  “He said it was murder.”

  “It had nothing to do with this,” Stephen said. “And there’s no need to talk about it.”

  We were silent then, until Hasty reappeared and asked for Uncle Miles. David didn’t come back. He had evidently gone to bed, and after vainly trying to get Stephen and Clarissa to talk I followed him. It was nearly midnight. I got into bed and fell asleep immediately, undisturbed by Vofs or Voffers.

  Again I was struck by the different face life wears on a fine morning. Night is the time for extremists, for revolutionaries, illicit loves of all kinds, heavy gamblers, murderers, thieves. Last night I had found it easy to contemplate David as a murderer, and to accept the idea that he might be behind bars by this evening. But in the morning it was much more difficult to believe that this pale worn man in his shabby suit had killed old Thorne. I couldn’t really believe, when I came down and found him eating haddock, that I was sitting at breakfast with a murderer.

  After breakfast I was walking through the hall when I heard Uncle Miles saying “murderer,” and paused to listen. Was it an accusation? What followed undeceived me. In a hoarse whisper the voice went on: “Ten shillings double Lovely Relations in the four-thirty and High Flyer in the five o’clock. That’s all, yes.” There was the sound of the telephone receiver being replaced, and then Uncle Miles came out of the telephone extension in the hall. He smiled sheepishly. “Just having a little flutter. Life must go on, you know, life must go on.”

  “Uncle Miles, do you really believe David killed Thorne? I know you say he’s not David, but I have to call him something,” I added hurriedly.

  “Just don’t know, my boy, the whole thing’s too much for my addled old brain. I can tell you one thing, though. That inspector’s got a very hectoring manner. And I’m not talking about Troy.”

  The world was not wholly changed, I reflected, if Uncle Miles could still make puns.

  A few minutes later I found David himself in one of the corridors, looking in an abstracted way through one of the piles of junk that, as I have said already, had accumulated like snowballs in various parts of the house. I asked if there was anything he wanted. He started when I spoke to him, and seemed certainly to have lost the composure of twenty-four hours earlier.

  “No, no, I’m just passing the time. Tremendous lot of stuff here, Mamma ought to get rid of it.”

  “She has got rid of some. All those eighteenth-century military prints that used to be piled up outside your room.”

  He frowned. “I don’t remember them.”

  “There was a set about Marlborough’s campaigns, Blenheim and Malplaquet and so on. General Wainwright liked them, I believe.”

  He said more decisively, “I don’t remember,” and this was not surprising because I had just invented the prints. I tried another tack.

  “I’ve been helping with the research on the book. Perhaps we shall be able to get on with that when you’re free.”

  He had been kneeling to look at the things. Now he sat back on his heels and smiled at me, and there was something charming about his smile, “I’ve got a feeling you’re testing me out. Yes, I do know what you’re talking about, but I can’t say the prospect of delving again into the details of Tel-el-Kebir really stirs me. After the last few years I’ve had enough of playing soldiers. Besides – ”

  He had paused. “Besides what?”

  “Doctor McNulty came again this morning. He said Mamma can’t last more than a week or two, less perhaps. You knew, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I knew.” It was true that I knew she could not live long, yet to be faced with the idea of her death as something real and imminent shocked me. Behind my eyes I felt the unfamiliar prick of tears, and I was glad when he turned away, saying soberly, “I’m glad I came back when I did.”

  I left him, thinking not of the mystery of his identity, but of the reality of death. I had known Lady W for only six years, yet she seemed to have been part of my life for ever. I had a sense, much stronger than the bewilderment I had known at the death of my parents, that the fabric of my life was being torn apart, and that what was happening at Belting would change the pattern of things for ever. I went up to my Thomas Lovell and wandered around the room, touching the Japanese grass paper, looking at the pictures, trying to induce the sense of pleasure that these things had so often given me in the past. This morning they failed, or rather, it was as though I were anaesthetised and could not feel them. I went to the cupboard where I kept the poems and stories I wrote, but never sent to editors. Work, I knew, could be a solace, and there was a fantastic tale called The Unburied Dead, which I had started during my last holidays and which I thought I might look at again. But I could not find the story, and it occurred to me that I had probably left it lying about somewhere in the room and that Lily or Jane or Susan or one of our other occasional dailies had put it in the ottic.

  The ottic was one of Uncle Miles’ whimsical inventions, evolved after I had had a row with Clarissa which had begun absurdly, as so many rows do, by my saying that bull terriers were extremely ugly. After it was over, Uncle Miles said I looked awfully neurotic. He added solemnly:

  “When you feel neurotic

  Take refuge in the ottic.”

  I had often done so since then, and in fact one of the ottics had been made into a sort of workroom for me. It was a big room with a covered ceiling and a dormer window, and I would sit up there when I wanted leisure to write or think. A large scrubbed deal table had been put there, and this
was often littered with manuscripts, books and pamphlets I was reading, and quill pens, for which at this time I had a passion. Lady W felt a deep admiration for writers of all sorts, and our dailies were given instructions that if they ever found any manuscripts of mine they were to be preserved and put into the ottic.

  I could not find The Unburied Dead (I may add parenthetically that I discovered later that Uncle Miles had found it in my Thomas Lovell, taken it away to read and left it in the bathroom cupboard – and a wretched piece of writing it was too). I began to look elsewhere. Like so much of the house the ottics were repositories for old trunks, bits of broken furniture, dusty children’s games, boxes containing used tennis balls, and so on. It was while I was searching through one of the trunks, that I came across a pile of papers beneath it, and started looking at them. Among the bills from the electricity board and the butcher I found an issue of our local newspaper, the Kent Record. I was about to put it aside when I saw that the date was 18th July, 1944, and that a story in it was ringed in black pencil. The story was headed Mysterious Death of Estate Agent. “Was it Foul Play?” asks Coroner.

  I sat in an old chair that had been in the ottic as long as I could remember – when I first sat in it I was afraid that rats lurked somewhere in the decayed horsehair with which

  it was stuffed – and read. I soon realised that Inspector Arbuthnot’s reference to coming up here ten years ago on a case must refer to the paper I was reading. The report, for those wartime days, was a long one.

  On Wednesday of this week the inquest was held on Edward Charles Sullivan, age 38, of 82 Rampiter Gardens, Folkestone, partner in a firm of local estate agents, who disappeared from his home on 3rd June. Sullivan’s body was found in the Grand Military Canal, near Hythe, a fortnight after his disappearance. He had been drowned.

  Det. Inspector Greensword gave evidence of the body being discovered by a local girl, and said the cause was asphyxiation from drowning. The Coroner (Mr F Eustace) asked him: “Can you give us any further help? Can you say positively whether or not there was foul play?”

  Inspector Greensword: “I cannot do that.”

  “I understand that the deceased was able to swim, so that if he had fallen into the canal he should have been able to save himself.”

  “Probably, sir. It would depend on the spot. In any case, the medical evidence is not conclusive.”

  “I understand that Sullivan had taken a considerable amount of alcohol. How would that affect him?”

  “He had taken the equivalent of six pints of beer. The effect would be to slow down his reactions and lessen his resistance. He also had a heart condition, although it was not serious.”

  Evidence was given by Det.-Sergt. Arbuthnot of finding marks on the towpath near West Hythe on the morning after Sullivan’s disappearance, indicating that a struggle had taken place. Sullivan was known to have been in the Duck and Drake nearby, until closing time. He was alone, C Payne and J Fry, farm workers, gave evidence that they had heard sounds of two men quarrelling by the canal, although they could not recognise voices. Miss Margaret Clay, of Freelands, near Folkestone, gave evidence that she was engaged to be married to the deceased, who was in business as an estate agent with Mr Hugh Wainwright, of Belting. She had also met Flt.-Lieut. David Wainwright, brother of the above, and had gone out with him. Sullivan had objected to this and there had been a quarrel. Sullivan was of a very jealous disposition. She knew Sullivan and Flt.-Lieut. Wainwright had had an argument, but did not know any details. On the night of 3rd June she attended a “Victory War Fund” meeting, and after that went straight home.

  Flt.-Lieut. Wainwright said that he knew Sullivan, and also knew Miss Clay. He was on leave, and had seen her once or twice.

  The Coroner: “Were you carrying on an affair with her?”

  Flt.-Lieut. Wainwright: “We were friends, nothing more.”

  “But Sullivan objected to the association?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “And there were quarrels? Did he on one occasion tell you to keep away from Miss Clay or there would be trouble?” The witness agreed that there had been something like that. He denied that he had said he would see Miss Clay as often as he liked, and that she naturally preferred a man in uniform to a civilian. He also denied that he had seen Sullivan on the night of 3rd June. That had been the last night on leave of his brother, Sergeant Wainwright, and they had spent it at home. Sergeant Wainwright had gone abroad on D-Day, and had since been reported missing, believed killed. Evidence was given by Lady Wainwright, another brother Mr S Wainwright, and domestics, to the effect that Flt.-Lieut. Wainwright had spent the evening at home.

  The Coroner said that they might have their suspicions, but suspicion was not proof. They were bound to ask, “Was it foul play?”, but the medical evidence did not greatly help them. They must not be swayed by gossip.

  The jury brought in a verdict that Sullivan had died of drowning, but that there was not sufficient evidence to show whether or not this was accidental.

  Just before I had finished reading, I became aware that my name was being called, but my absorption was too great to permit me to reply. Peterson’s head appeared at the door. Her sergeant-major’s eye glared at me.

  “Didn’t you hear me calling, Mr Christopher? Her ladyship wants you. Important. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  I followed her down the stairs and along to Lady W’s room. Her back was rigid, her face grim. I might have been a man on a charge led in to the commanding officer, and it was difficult when following her not to adopt a hands-in-pocket slouch in reaction. At the door I could not resist saying, “I can find my way in.”

  “She’s very ill.” She glared at me, and turned away.

  When I got inside I saw with surprise that they were all there. Stephen and Clarissa sat very close to each other, he white and thin, she brick-red and solid so that I was put in mind of Jack Sprat and his wife. Miles sat picking his nose, which was a bad habit of his when nervous, and David was apart from the others with one leg nonchalantly crossed over the other knee in what I have often been told is the characteristic attitude of an English gentleman, although from my observation this is far from invariably true.

  But at first I had no eyes for anybody but Lady W. She was propped up against pillows, and she looked so frail that I had the impression that she had no power to maintain herself, and that if the pillows were removed she would simply sink back in the bed. She had in one hand a small handkerchief with which she kept dabbing at her face as if it were damp, although it looked as dry and brittle as brandysnap. Her voice was thin but clear.

  My face must have shown something of what I felt, for she spoke to me. “Christopher. Here at last. Don’t look like that, boy, it’s that damned doctor. He takes it out of me. I don’t know why I pay him to come, the very sight of him makes

  me feel worse. I wanted to get you all together.” The handkerchief patted her face. “I’ve sent for Humphries.”

  Somebody exhaled a deep breath. Humphries was the family solicitor.

  “David coming back makes a difference. You all understand that, don’t you?”

  She looked from one face to another, and none of them said anything. It seemed to me inexplicable. I see now that they were all afraid of saying they believed David to be an impostor, because if they did so Lady W might in her present state of mind cut them out of her new will. But although I was subconsciously aware of this, my primary feeling was indignation. Why couldn’t they say what they thought. I found myself saying it for them.

  “Uncle Miles and Uncle Stephen don’t believe he is David.” Defiantly I added, “I’m not sure I believe it either.”

  “And since you never met him your opinion is very much worth having.” Her dark eyes blazed at me for a moment, her finger pointed. “Do you think I wouldn’t know him?”

  “Don’t excite yourself, Mamma,” Stephen said, and I saw him nudge Clarissa, who got up immediately, lurched towards the bed on her bow leg
s and gave powerful pats to the pillows. My remark was not followed up. I did not look at Stephen and Miles, I felt so ashamed of them. Lady W went on.

  “I wanted you all to know this, I don’t want anything hole and corner. There must be changes. But I shan’t forget any of my children. I count you as one of them, Christopher.” I muttered something. “But you must understand that David coming back makes a difference.”

  “I should have come before.” He turned away from her as he said it, and I was the only one able to see the look of misery on his face.

  “Stay with me a little while.” She put out her hand to him, and it was a signal for the rest of us to go.

  The door had hardly closed behind us when Stenhen turned on me. “Why did you say that, what are you trying to do?”

  “If you won’t say anything – ”

  “We can speak for ourselves, thank you,” Clarissa bayed. “And I can assure you we shall, in our own time.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?” I asked Uncle Miles.

  He shook his head at me and scratched his chin. “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”

  I was hot with anger at the sneakish way they conspired, at the sheer wretched pettiness of them. “Anyway, I’ve found out a good deal of what you’re trying to hide.”

  Stephen tugged at his collar, and then led the way into the drawing-room. There he said: “Say what you mean.”

  I told them what I had read in the paper. Stephen said: “If it were David, do you think he would have come back?”