Portrait of a Murderer

by Martin Edwards

  Richard meanwhile was exclaiming at the absurdity of the non-appearance of the daily paper, simply because it was Christmas Day, and, being started, delivered himself of a trenchant though mercifully brief lecture on idleness in industry and its effect on our export trade, with special reference to German pianos.

  Isobel sat pale and silent, eating toast. A chance reference by Ruth to Pat set her nerves quivering for the little dead Honor. Unlike Laura, she couldn’t steel her heart to memory or to hope, and life seemed to her unpardonable and intolerable.

  Amy said acidly, “You seem very gay this morning, Brand.” And Eustace remarked in sour tones that perhaps he’d been fortunate in his presents.

  Brand laughed. “Oh, very fortunate. You know, I suppose?” He lifted his eyebrows and indicated the mystified expressions on the faces of the rest of the party.

  Eustace said blankly, “Know? What? I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. But then,” he added with a peevish malice that drew the attention of the whole table towards him, “I never do understand your motives, except, of course, a visit like this.”

  Brand, who could normally be trusted to fire up at so discourteous a rejoinder, only said pleasantly, “A touch of nature—you know the rest, I expect,” at which even his grandmother was sufficiently surprised to rouse herself and say, “Really, Brand, you seem to have changed your spots completely since yesterday.”

  Brand said sincerely, “It’s quite true, I don’t feel the same man. You know—hope lost, all lost. That’s how I was when I came down here. To-day, of course, I’ve something to look forward to. It’s the first time—no, the second—in my life I remember experiencing the legendary Christmas feeling. Amy, you’ve no marmalade.”

  As the meal drew on, the continued absence of Adrian began to attract comment and conjecture. “It’s very unlike him not to be here on Christmas morning,” complained Olivia, as though his non-appearance pointed a particular insult to herself.

  “Perhaps he feels he saw enough of his family yesterday,” countered Laura in her gay sarcastic voice.

  Amy refused to smile. She only said, with an ominous folding of her lips, “I shouldn’t be surprised if he is tired. He’s had enough to make him.” She rang a bell, and, when the servant appeared, said, “Moulton, will you see if Mr. Gray is all right, and tell him that we have been at breakfast for some time?”

  On an impulse Brand got up and went to the sideboard to cut some ham he didn’t want. The sideboard was a huge old-fashioned affair, with panels of glass let into the back. Brand, aware that the moment of discovery was upon them, wished to observe their faces without himself being noticed. He cut the ham slowly, half turning to ask if he could help anyone else.

  “We’ve all finished, I think,” said Amy, with her false smile.

  Brand returned smoothly, “You forget, my dear, ham for breakfast is quite a treat for me.” Then warned himself, “Careful, you can’t afford to give yourself away now by quarrelling with that bitch. They’re all against you as it is.”

  Moulton came back while he was still at the sideboard to say that Mr. Gray’s bed had not been slept in. Brand, watching like a hawk, anticipated immediate confusion. But, to his surprise, Amy only remarked in a vexed tone, “How very provoking! He’s never fit for anything when he’s dropped off in the library. I broke up cards early last night on purpose that he should be fresh this morning. He’s got to read the lessons. He always does on Christmas Day.”

  Brand suppressed a spasm of grotesque laughter at the notion of a meek congregation waiting for that dead thing to enter the church and instruct them in their duties. Gray could read a lesson as other men preached sermons, as if he took to himself all the credit for the subject-matter and severely enjoined his hearers to obey him. There was no object in remaining at the sideboard any longer; clearly the panic was, at all events, postponed, and he could watch better by resuming his place at the table. Besides, it looked less marked. So he came back, carrying his plate, and said seriously, “I’m afraid some of us combined, quite unconsciously, to frustrate your good intentions. I had a fairly long session with him myself last night, and then there was Eustace. Of course, I don’t know how long that went on.”

  Eustace flung up his head. “You’re crazy, Brand,” he cried in sharp tones. “I don’t suppose you know what you’re saying, and certainly I don’t. I didn’t see your father, Amy, last night after cards broke up. Olivia and I were tired, and had one or two things to talk over, and we went up to bed early. I don’t understand what your brother’s hinting at.”

  He looked across the table to Brand, ruffled and flushed. Brand looked embarrassed. “Well, I beg your pardon, then,” he burst out with averted eyes. “Only—it was a pardonable mistake, I think. The library is about the only room we use down that corridor, so I supposed, naturally, you were going to talk to father. He’d let fall something about it while we were discussing my affairs. But I don’t suppose it’s of any consequence. It was really father who put the idea into my head.”

  “What idea?”

  “That he wouldn’t be exactly surprised to see you again before morning.”

  Eustace said touchily, “I fail to see why you should discuss my affairs with your father at all.”

  “They came up quite naturally in the course of conversation.”

  “Money, I suppose?”

  “Yes. We seem remarkably unanimous for once.”

  Old Mrs. Gray thumped the table with a triangular-shaped napkin-holder of Indian silver, heavily embossed with elephants. “Can’t you for heaven’s sake keep the peace this one day of the year?” she cried. “You scarcely ever meet, and when you do you’re at one another’s throats like a pack of dogs. It’s very unpleasant for Amy and myself, who never see you at any other time. If you must be unmannerly, can’t you meet at one another’s houses for that purpose?”

  It was characteristic that she paid no heed to the servant standing by, who now enquired respectfully whether he should rouse his master.

  Richard stood up quickly. “No, I’ll go. He may be asleep.”

  The general conversation was resumed in a desultory manner. Olivia raised the point of the advantages of Capri over Mallorca, as a holiday resort, with Miles, who had been to neither, but talked so deftly that Olivia presently said, “Dear me, you seem to have been quite a traveller. In your bachelor days, I suppose? Not much chance of going abroad now.” Ruth asked Eustace about his sons. Isobel murmured something about a Christmas-card Christmas, with all the snow and robins about, to Brand, who countered grimly, “And ghosts. You can’t leave them out of your old-fashioned Christmas. I wonder how many there are stalking round this house to-day.”

  Brand found himself quite composed now, and spread butter on his toast very thickly, because he knew Amy was watching him, and put marmalade on the top of that. His sister made an involuntary movement to stop him; then her hand dropped, though her eyebrows twitched with irritation.

  2

  Richard came in, very pale and grave. Holding the door in his hand, he said, with a quietness that held everyone’s attention, “Eustace, did you say you didn’t see my father last night?”

  “No,” said Eustace violently, “I didn’t. Oh, I admit, I wanted to see him, but I decided to put off the discussion until after to-day.”

  “And what time did you leave him, Brand?”

  “Shortly before midnight.”

  “I wonder how you can be so sure,” murmured Amy unpleasantly.

  “Quite simple. When I saw Eustace—not going down to the library, as he didn’t go there, but just saw him—it was in my mind to hail him with an appropriate greeting—‘Merry Christmas’ or something of that sort—but glancing at my wrist-watch I saw it wasn’t actually midnight, and, not wishing to invite a snub, I let the opportunity pass. In any case, it might possibly have looked like a taunt—the successful mendicant compassio
nating his less fortunate rival.”

  There was a minute of startled silence. Only Miles immediately realised the meaning of Brand’s words, and he was too well trained at his work to exhibit any trace of feeling. Isobel scarcely seemed to have heard what he said; Olivia was troubled over Eustace. But Eustace’s eyes were all for this hangdog brother-in-law, who spoke to-day with so debonair an assurance and gaiety. Amy, too, had realised what he meant, and she was the first to put her suspicion into words.

  “Are you trying to tell us that you made father give you money—you—when he hadn’t a penny to spare?”

  “I gathered things weren’t going too well with him. He seemed to have been pressed in various directions, but all the same…” He glanced uncertainly at Richard, then continued doubtfully, “I suppose he’ll be sure to tell you. He didn’t enjoin secrecy on me, so presumably he meant it to be quite open—but he did give me money. In fact”—the words broke quickly from him—“I’d never expected him to be half so generous.”

  “Why you?” demanded Eustace thickly. “In heaven’s name, why you?”

  Brand, who had kept himself in control under considerable provocation during the morning, broke out at that. “Why the devil not? I’m not his clever financier of a son-in-law, who gets him into a mess, and I’m not the son who wants him to buy me a title. All I wanted was a chance, and now, thanks to him, I’ve got it. He knew my position was more hopeless than either of yours. I’ve no money and no influential friends. I’ve no prospects at all, except of crawling along in Higginsons, with no hope of advancement that I can see. I didn’t marry a wife with useful relations or money of her own”—his bitter sneer embraced them all—“and I have five children…”

  “That’s your affair,” retorted Amy icily.

  “And if it comes to that, there’s no real reason why my father shouldn’t be as ready to help one relative as another. He’s used his influence to do what you two”—he looked from Richard to Eustace—“have wanted ever since you married. You come down here when you like, and sound him for anything he may be good for. Sophy’s never so much as been in the place. She’s never had an hour’s hospitality from any of you. I work like some damned galley-slave eight hours a day for two shillings an hour, and you grudge me anything I can pull out of the pie. You’re the last person, Eustace…”

  Richard broke in, “There’s nothing to be gained by a scene, Eustace; we must agree that it’s quite out of the question to cross-examine Brand like this. If my father chose to help him, it was my father’s money. It’s not that, as a matter of fact, that I’m interested in at the moment. I want to know how he seemed when you were with him last night, Brand.”

  “It was a stormy interview,” Brand admitted honestly. “You know he and I were scarcely likely to meet on mutual ground. He told me that he had practically every member of the family holding out their hands for money. He asked, as Eustace did just now, what I had ever done to deserve help from him, and reminded me of every farthing he’d ever disbursed to me. He had all the sum, down to car-fare, entered in a little black note-book. However, in the end he capitulated. But he was greatly excited.”

  Amy said passionately, “Richard, what is it? We have a right to know.”

  He nipped that attempt at melodrama instantly in the bud. “I’m keeping no secrets. He appears to have had some kind of a stroke, I should be inclined to say.”

  The grandmother pulled herself to her feet, a short, stout figure, her manner full of generalship and determination.

  “Where is he? How is he?”

  “He’s in the library still. There seemed little sense in having him carried upstairs—not, at all events, until the doctor had seen him.”

  Old Mrs. Gray experienced that sense that comes to the least affectionate mother when she hears of the loss of a child she has borne. “You mean…”

  “He’s very cold,” said Richard simply.

  She came swiftly up the room, her head bent forward, her new black dress framing her generous throat. Like a little bull she seemed, thought Ruth, charging with that cool determination, that sense of futility known only to the very old and the very young.

  “Why didn’t you tell me at once?” she asked gently, as with reluctance he opened the door. “Have you done anything about a doctor?”

  “I’ve telephoned Romford. He’ll be along in a few minutes.”

  She swept out, and Amy, small, freckled, her smooth, lustreless, carroty hair drawn tightly back from a pale forehead, followed her with the persistent obstinacy of a seeking hen.

  “There’s nothing any of us can do,” expostulated Richard unhappily, closing the door behind them. “He’d opened the window; last night’s wind was bitter. It may have touched his weak heart.”

  The words were a wretched kind of apology for his action. Having said them, he stood silent, with an air of profound gloom, watching the six people who remained at the table. These betrayed signs of an exquisite embarrassment. Eustace spread a piece of toast with a butterless knife, and ate it in spasmodic bites. Isobel was whispering dazedly, “Dead—but he can’t. And only last night…” Brand put his hand on her arm to strengthen her. “Pull yourself together,” he implored her. “After all,” he hesitated, then finished defiantly, “it isn’t as if we were Saul and Jonathan or any of those fancy men. There wasn’t such a lot of love lost between us.”

  Isobel’s reply shocked him so much that for a time he was rendered speechless. “That’s it. It’s too late. It doesn’t matter now.”

  No one else appeared to have heard her. Ruth and her husband were conferring at one end of the table; Richard’s own wife sat proud and stately, without evincing a scrap of feeling, a little further off. Eustace exclaimed, “I never heard anything about his heart before. Is it a new thing? And if it’s so bad that a gust would kill it, how is it that a company would insure him?”

  Richard said coldly, “You asked me yesterday if I knew anything of his having heart trouble.”

  “Because he’d been dropping hints about its condition. I thought he was developing into one of these faddists who always imagine they have something wrong. You must admit he was absurdly nervous about his health.”

  “He didn’t say much about it to me,” returned Richard in the same tones, and looked enquiringly at Miles. Miles said he really had never known his father-in-law intimately, and anyway he probably wouldn’t have remembered about the heart. Richard went away, and after a moment Laura followed him. Eustace, unable to let the subject alone for an instant, began once again to cross-examine his brother-in-law as to the dead man’s exact words the previous night.

  “He told me he had nothing to spare for wastrels,” he added viciously.

  “And you actually stayed on after that? You must have been in a tight place. I admit I should have done so in any circumstances. There’s a creature called a badger that holds on till death.” He could no longer restrain himself; he felt the blood burn and thicken in his veins; like a man making desperate headway against a wind that deprives him of sight, breath, and speech, he could not pause to take his bearings. He must rush headlong into debate; his period of control was over. Miles, with a despairing glance at his wife, accepted the position. The instinctive loathing between these two was coming to a head; within the next few moments almost any startling occurrence might take place. A wild battle of wits—and possibly not of wits alone—would be engaged upon, whose story would be gleefully repeated in every village kitchen so long as interest in Gray’s death served the people for gossip.

  Eustace also was breathing hard, showing all the signs of ungovernable rage. “The badger, I believe works underground,” he commented, trembling as Brand also did.

  Brand laughed fiercely. “If it so much as showed its nose above the surface it would be hit on the head without mercy.”

  “Quite right, too. There’s only one treatment for badgers, and that is,
root them out. They’re no good.”

  “They eat wasps,” Brand defended them wildly.

  Olivia cut in coldly, “Brand, you might at least have the decency to keep quiet when you remember that father’s dead and you most likely are to blame.”

  “Dead?” exclaimed Brand. “How do you know that?”

  “I think it would be difficult to misunderstand Richard,” observed Miles dispassionately. “Besides, he would scarcely have remained talking and asking questions if there had been any possibility of anything else.”

  Isobel broke in colourlessly, “He’s been dreadfully worried lately. I don’t know if that could have brought on a stroke.”

  “Of course he was worried,” said Olivia. “Aren’t we all worried to death with the state of the country and Government stupidity and shares drawing no dividends, without having a son who won’t work on your hands?”

  Brand looked up in genuine surprise, not, at first, understanding her implication. “But Richard,” he began; then stopped. “Did you mean me? Me? My God, I like that. I not work? And what work do any of you do? What does Eustace do? Bluffing money out of other people’s pockets isn’t work. And Richard. Look at his hands. Are they the hands of a man who works? Sitting about in the House, and giving parties and getting into debt in the hope of attracting the attention of more significant vermin than himself. But real work, the kind of thing that doesn’t take account of the money it’ll win you or fame it brings—what do any of you know of that?”