Dancing with Death
Page 17
Meanwhile, Mike had been reassured by the firemen that they would be able to confine the fire to the set of rooms where it had started. These had been used as a natural history museum and were full of stuffed birds and animals, which had burned with the intensity of incendiary bombs. One by one they were extinguished, however, and the firemen threw the wet carcases out of the windows on to the grass. Where the fire burned fiercest a twisted, red-hot mass of metal dared anyone to come near. Mike left the men with their hoses turned on it so that it sizzled and spat, and went to hammer at the front door of the President’s Lodging.
Nellie appeared at once in a long white nightdress inadequately covered by an overcoat.
“I was out to see what all the noise was for,” she said breathlessly. “I thought the house would be down around us.”
“It’s all right,” Mike said. “The men say you can stay here quite safely.”
“I know,” said Nellie witheringly. “I asked them. Mrs. Bradley is in the drawing-room if you want to see her.”
“If you please,” said Mike, and added after a moment: “I would not have let you be burned up without warning, you know.”
“I wouldn’t believe your Bible oath on it, sir,” said Nellie over her shoulder, as she led him to the drawing-room door.
Mrs. Bradley agreed at once to let him use the house for his own purposes, and she answered his questions with surprise. Like a shipwrecked sailor she seemed too tired to be afraid. He thought it strange that she had not asked him if she might go to an hotel for the night.
Back at the chemistry building he found that the company had split into two groups. The students formed by far the larger one, of course. Bubbling over with delight they had burst into subdued song. They had a large repertoire of songs about fires, and disasters at sea, and cruel parents who slighted their anaemic daughters-in-law until they curled up and died, and young ladies who were led astray by experienced noblemen. As Mike came in at the door a short, stout student with a light tenor voice was carolling tunefully with his eyes closed:
“Oh, happy, happy is the maid
That’s born from beauty free —
It was my lovely rosy cheeks
That’s been the dule o’ me.”
The long sigh of his friends was like the breathing of a summer sea. Mike gave them one glance of affection before turning to the second and less carefree group.
The only one of these who seemed content was Milligan. He was boiling a blue liquid in a beaker over a gas-flame, stirring it now and then with a glass rod. The others stood around him, watching intently, as if they were a class. Sodia was there, having come to fetch her father, as she explained quickly. Hamilton looked strangely naked without his smile. Mr. Leahy stood beside Fox, looking anxious. He had been visiting Fox and had stayed late, and now it seemed he was not going to be let go home until morning, he said querulously. The nearest student of the other group caught the words and chanted:
“We won’t go home until morning,
We won’t go home at all!”
“Just you wait until to-morrow,” Fox threatened through gritted teeth. “You won’t get away with this.”
“They laugh so that they will not weep, Foxy,” said Daly gently. “Let them alone.”
He glanced anxiously at Mike, who responded at once by saying:
“Mrs. Bradley says we may go over to her place. It will be much better.”
“Crabbed age and youth cannot live together,” said Daly. “Come along, Hamilton. And Sodia.”
“Very funny,” said Burren rudely. “I don’t feel any need for your particular kind of variety show to-night, Daly.”
Though Daly’s only response to this was a raised eyebrow, still it was plain that he was displeased. Burren strutted a little as he followed the others out of the theatre. Mike took Delaney by the arm and led him out. Delaney clutched his sleeve like a nervous child. Milligan regretfully turned off the gas and came last, with a warning to the Guard on duty to see that no one touched his bench. He caught up on Daly as they walked across to the quadrangle and said:
“It would be very handy to have a Guard permanently stationed in the lab. I have never left my apparatus with a greater sense of security than I did just now.” He looked sharply at Daly and said: “Did your thin friend find out about you and Helen?”
“Yes,” said Daly, “but I think I convinced him that there was nothing in it. It’s unpleasant to have these old stories brought to light, however.”
“You could have her back now,” Milligan suggested gently.
“I think not,” said Daly, after a moment. “I hope she doesn’t expect it. If I were younger, perhaps. But I have so few years left now in which to enjoy life. Just compare her with Mary O’Leary, and you’ll understand my lack of enthusiasm — Hyperion to a satyr. Oh, hang it, that’s unchivalrous. Do you think my duty lies with Helen?”
“I think she hasn’t done badly,” said Milligan judicially. “Just don’t look apologetic and everything will be all right.”
Mike waited until they were all assembled on the doorstep before ringing the bell. Mrs. Bradley herself opened the door this time. She led them straight to the drawing-room, where she had put fresh wood on the fire and had ranged chairs around almost as if she liked having visitors at two o’clock in the morning. Those of her guests who had hated her late husband seemed to find it impossible not to look around the room in a possessive, patronizing way which showed clearly their satisfaction that the house would now revert to the College. Exasperated, Mike wondered how many more days of them he could have tolerated. Mr. Leahy seemed to be the only one who felt uneasy at being entertained so soon in the dead man’s house.
Complaining of the cold, Delaney trotted across to the fire and stood with his hands spread out, warming himself. Then suddenly a light went on in his face as the fire reminded him of his recent exploit. He began to tell Mrs. Bradley about it, and then he paused and asked anxiously:
“Do you think I did right? Do you, really? Things were getting out of hand, and the President seemed to have no idea of his responsibilities. He was quite the worst President we’ve had in my time, quite the worst, without a doubt. Don’t you agree?”
He looked at her over his spectacles, so compellingly that she had to tell him he had done well to save the College when those who should have done it had failed. She smiled at Delaney’s delight in this tribute. Daly, standing by, pretended not to hear, lest she might see his gratitude and build too much on it. He went to sit at the far side of the room from her, next to Milligan. Delaney sat on the sofa as close as he could to Mrs. Bradley, whom he now regarded with adoration. Hamilton and Sodia sat together, and Fox took the big armchair at the far side of the fire. Burren sat opposite him in another. Leahy took a straight chair and placed it with its back to the wall, near the door, as if he wished to be as uncomfortable as possible.
“I want you all to tell me about the last time you saw Bradley alive,” said Mike in a conversational tone, from the hearthrug. “Try to remember if there was a forewarning of suicide in anything that he said to you.”
“What about Badger and Gleeson and Donovan and all the others?” Burren asked peevishly. “Why do you pick on us?”
“I have questioned the others,” said Mike soothingly, “I and Sergeant MacCarthy. You just happen to be here. Please help me.”
“We all saw him at dinner,” said Burren. “You were there yourself. He didn’t talk of suicide then.”
“You were not all at dinner,” said Mike.
“I wasn’t,” said Delaney sadly. “I was never at dinner here. But I saw him in the afternoon to tell him that I insisted on something being done about the rats. He said we would talk about it again to-morrow. He didn’t say he would be dead.”
“I wasn’t at dinner here either,” said Fox, “but I saw him for ten minutes in the afternoon about some routine college business.”
“What was it?”
“Hours of examinations — tha
t sort of thing. It crops up every year. He seemed his usual self.”
“Neither was I here,” said Milligan, “but Sodia was. Bradley and I were not friends. I think I told you about the last time I saw him, Kenny.”
“Yes, thank you,” said Mike. “Professor Hamilton?”
“I came with Foxy in the afternoon — ”
“Don’t you call me Foxy!” shouted Fox in sudden rage. “It’s this kind of thing that is ruining the College. The students are at it now. I heard them.”
“Sorry,” said Hamilton in surprise. “I’ve always called you Foxy. It seems to suit you, somehow. Where was I?”
“Calling on Bradley in the afternoon,” said Mike.
“Ah, yes. I came to tell him that Miss Milligan and I are getting married.”
Sodia gave a little uncontrollable start of surprise and turned sharply to look at Hamilton’s bland face. Then very slowly she reverted to her former position and gazed motionless at her shoes. But her colour was high and her jaw was set so rigidly that it was obvious she had to keep her mind on it. Both Mike and Daly saw quite clearly that the news of her engagement had been news to her, too. Hamilton patted her amiably as he went on:
“It’s in the rules somewhere that you must tell the President if you intend to get married. Probably when the rule was made the President had the power to forbid it. What would you say, Daly?”
“The rule probably dates from the old clerical universities,” Daly began, but Mike cut in:
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind reading it up for Professor Hamilton and telling him about it to-morrow. Professor Hamilton, I should be obliged if you would not try to create a diversion just now. None of us are enjoying this. And you are going to like the next part even less.”
They were interested now, all right. Mike was reminded of the way in which a class of schoolboys reacts to the headmaster’s announcement that someone has been guilty of a crime for which there will be terrible retribution when the author is discovered — the innocent turn pale and tremble, or even burst into tears, and the criminals only look up with a kind of wondering impersonal curiosity. He went on quickly:
“I’m sorry that we must do it this way, but I see no help for it. Each of you carries a wallet or purse of some sort. I want to look through them, but I must tell you first that if anyone wishes to object he may do so. I can’t compel you. You are perfectly entitled to insist on having your lawyer present — ”
“I’d hate to have my lawyer see the contents of my wallet,” said Burren sourly. “He’d never rest until he had transferred them to his own.”
Mike paused for further comments, but no one else made any. The sergeant went heavily from one to the other and received wallets in varying stages of repair from the men and handbags from Sodia and Mrs. Bradley. He carried the bundle awkwardly to a table between the windows. Mike went across and leaned over the table, with his back to the company while the sergeant returned to his place near the door.
Conversation was difficult and slow for the next fifteen minutes while Mike opened each wallet, lifted out the contents and replaced them meticulously. The owners made a point of not looking at him. Mrs. Bradley put more wood on the fire, wrecking its structure in her nervousness so that Hamilton had to come to her aid.
Now Delaney alone seemed at ease. He smiled to himself from time to time as he remembered the discomfiture of the rats. He leaned back and stretched his legs out straight before him.
“You know, Fox,” he said, in the tone of a man consulting with his chief engineer, “the next place to start on would be the students’ rooms. That part of the building is swarming with rats. You see them everywhere you go. And the students feed them — I’m sure of that. In my day we would never have thought of such a thing.”
Daly caught Hamilton’s eye and shook his head. Hamilton swallowed the laughter that had been about to burst from him, and looked for a moment as if he must blow up. No one else had shown any sign of being amused, so that Daly was doubtful if they had heard at all. This was certainly the end of Delaney, he thought sadly. He wondered if he would be able to ensure that Delaney would be made Officer-in-Charge of Rats in the mental hospital to which he would certainly be committed as soon as the first two competent doctors would rise from their beds in the morning. It was a blessing that Delaney’s final crossing of the border between sanity and lunacy had made him so happy. When he had been sane he had not been happy at all.
Now at last Mike turned around and began solemnly to return the wallets to their owners and the handbags to Sodia and Mrs. Bradley. As one or two people began to put them away he said:
“Please open them and make sure that everything is in order.”
They did so, quickly and carelessly except for Burren, who made a great show of counting his notes, of which he seemed to have a great many. Mike watched this performance with a blank countenance, and at the end of it he asked solicitously:
“Have I given you one too many?”
Burren snorted his appreciation. Mike turned to Fox, who was just putting his wallet into the inside pocket of his coat, and said:
“There was just one thing there that I wanted to ask you about.”
“In my pocket-book?”
“Yes, if you please.”
Fox handed it back, looking a little surprised. Mike fumbled through the contents and then drew out a small piece of paper.
“What is this, please?”
“Can’t you read?” said Fox rudely. Daly went perfectly still. “It’s a ticket for a symphony concert on the fourth of November.”
Mike peered closely at the ticket.
“Rather close to the front, don’t you think?” he said mildly.
“Row H, on the outside,” said Fox shortly. “It’s where I always go. I like to be near — ”
Suddenly he realized that Mike had turned away and was putting the ticket into his own pocket-book. He jerked around and saw the sergeant behind him. He heaved himself upright and charged across the hearthrug towards the door. Then, like a flash, Miss Milligan lifted her elegant foot and tripped him up.
Mr. Leahy opened the door and darted outside. Fox, crashed to his full length on the floor between Burren’s armchair and the sofa, was set upon by the Sergeant and Murphy, and borne helpless away.
Chapter 17
So they did not go home until morning after all. After the first shock of surprise, Mrs. Bradley recovered herself and went to make tea, taking Sodia with her to help.
Mike had slipped out of the room to have a talk with Fox before he was removed in the police car. As he came back again Delaney was saying eagerly:
“Did you see what they did to Fox? All those fellows taking him away — what can it all mean? I may say I don’t like it in the least — not in the least.”
“It’s all right,” said Daly. “They have to do it. He poisoned the President, you know.”
“Well, what of it? I’m sure he had plenty of provocation.” He paused to reflect. “And still I suppose it is going too far. You know, it was his idea to smoke the rats out from under the floor of the Natural History Museum.”
“Yes, I knew that,” said Daly.
“Well, that was taking a strong measure, but poisoning the President — no, I think that was going too far. Besides, how would that affect the rats?”
He looked around triumphantly at the company. Hamilton nodded in solemn agreement. Then he said confidentially to Delaney:
“Do you know, I don’t believe he cared about them!”
Delaney relapsed into a shocked silence. Burren looked up and said:
“I wonder why Mr. Leahy was in such a hurry to get away.”
“He has not gone far,” said Mike, who had been listening to Delaney with a sympathetically raised eyebrow. “I have just been talking to him. He should not have stayed so long. His kind never commits murder. He is astonished that Fox should have been so foolish as to murder Bradley.”
“Why did I not see all this?” said B
urren. “I always found Bradley’s company extraordinarily unpleasant. But I could not discover why. He seemed to try so hard to be friendly, always pawing you, slapping you on the back, clutching you by the arm.”
“He must have thought one can make friends by means of mechanical devices,” said Daly.
“It may have been that,” said Mike, “but I think he made another mistake, too, and one that he regretted later. He patronized you all, as if you were not quite as intelligent as himself. He had been away so long that he had forgotten what university people are like.”
“But he had had connections with universities in Africa,” Daly pointed out.
“That is so, but he was following the pattern of most emigrants in thinking that everyone in the old country is a fool.”
“We didn’t know what he was at,” said Hamilton. “We still don’t know.”
“No, but several of you said that he was up to no good. I have no doubt that you would have found him out in due course.”
Just then Mrs. Bradley came in with a tea tray. Mike remembered Daly’s account of another crisis in which she had sent for tea to succour the participants. She had all kinds of little cakes and buns for them, too, almost as if she had been expecting to celebrate the arrest of her husband’s murderer that evening. She certainly deserved her reputation of a good housekeeper.
“Where do you get these wonderful cakes?” Daly began, holding one appreciatively aloft. “I’ve never — ”
He stopped abruptly and became suddenly embarrassed. Mrs. Bradley, holding the teapot, waited for the end of the sentence. When it did not come she continued to pour cups of tea, smiling a little to herself in a way that made Daly feel acutely uneasy. With a calculating eye Hamilton watched Sodia hand around plates of cake. There could be no conversation except on the subject of the murder, and Mrs. Bradley’s return seemed to prohibit any further discussion of this. Mike saw Burren begin to twitch and fidget as he prepared a monumentally untactful opening remark. Then Daly noticed him, too, and quickly intervened.