‘I say! We’ve got somewhere, haven’t we? I mean … it seemed as if there wasn’t anything …’
She looked first at Anthony with those shining eyes, and then at Pike. And Anthony, for a brief moment, wished that Pike were elsewhere. And Pike, for a brief moment, was disturbed within himself by a strange and beautiful pang which seemed blent of delight and pain and longing and comfort.
‘What we have got,’ said Anthony, ‘is one of the stations on this line we’re trying to get at. First stop, Blackmail.’
Pike nodded. But he said, a little hesitantly: ‘If you’re certain, sir, that the motive was fear.’
‘Must be,’ said Anthony. ‘Look at it. Fear’s the only possible motive when you’ve got two opposites like Blackatter and Bronson as the victims. It can’t be jealousy; it can’t be gain; it couldn’t be any of the others except pure, unreasoned blood-lust. And if it’s that we’re done anyhow—you can’t run a motiveless murderer to earth in a couple of days. No, fear it is. Fear it’s damn’ well got to be!’
‘You’re right, sir.’ Pike’s voice was decisive. ‘And as it’s fear, Blackmail’s the first card.’
‘It’s the only card we’ve got yet.’ Anthony’s tone was almost savage. ‘But we’ve got to start playing and get the rest of the deal as we go. Now, how do we play?’ He got out of his chair and began to pace the room. He went to the window and stood at it, looking out. From that window one may just see, over the hedge round the garden, the bend in the road which brings one abruptly into the narrow, leaning, main and only street of the village of Farrow and the Inn of The Horse and Hound.
He seemed to be watching this corner for something; and there was a silence in the room. But at last he turned again. He said:
‘Yes. How do we play? Look for anyone and everyone in this half of the county who might be a blackmailer and a murderer? That means, even if we confine ourselves to people obviously worth blackmailing (which might lead us right off the line), that means a good six months’ work for five people. And we’ve got three days and a bit. How do we play? Interview all the turnips who gave evidence? They’ll either ’ve forgotten or say what they said before. By God! Where do we start? It’s eighty-five haystacks and one needle we don’t know the look of, which may be in the barn after all …’ He fell silent and prowled back to the window and once more stood watching the curve of the road.
Pike was huddled into his chair. His hands were clasped round his knees and his small, dark eyes gazed upwards at the ceiling. In her chair Lucia sat relaxed. Her eyes gazed into the fire, and from them had gone—with this change in Anthony from gaily-fierce concentration to savage, prowling, chafing discontent—all their eager sparkle. If there were sparkle in them now, it was of a sadder kind. Her thoughts were back with another woman; a woman who was in this house but who had in this house, though it was their own, no husband …
At last Anthony spoke. He said, slowly and almost lifelessly, without turning from that window:
‘What we must do first is look for oddity. Follow me? Split ourselves into units and look for oddity, queerness, anything sub- or super-normal in anyone remotely connected with this business. P’r’aps it’s not so difficult as it sounds. I found one small one this morning … Not that that’ll be much. And there’s another I must look into—only that’ll probably turn out a mare’s nest. You others must …’
‘Others?’ Pike put in. ‘You said five just now, sir. How did you make that?’
Anthony still stood at the window. Still he spoke without turning. He said:
‘You, me, my wife—three. The two men Spencer Hastings is lending me—five.’
Pike changed his position abruptly. His head came down; his hands unlocked themselves from his knees. He sat erect, rather as if something had stung him.
‘Will that,’ he said, ‘be two men from the Special staff of The Owl,fn1 sir?’
Anthony nodded; and with the nod suddenly stiffened. He went a half-pace nearer to the window, until his face was almost touching the glass. ‘And here,’ he said, ‘they come.’ He sighed—a sound of relief. He turned from the window now and came back to his chair and dropped into it.
Pike fidgeted. He pulled out a cigarette-case; opened it; shut it again; did the same with his mouth. But no sound came from him.
From the depths of her chair Lucia said:
‘You didn’t tell me, dear.’
Anthony smiled at her. ‘Didn’t I? Must’ve forgotten. I telephoned Hastings last night. There’s nothing doing for the Special staff just now, so we’re getting the two best. They may be useful; they’ve got to be … They haven’t lost time, anyhow …’
The last words of this sentence were, despite the room’s closed windows, almost drowned in a swooping burst of noise from without the house; a noise like a testing-garage run mad. Lucia covered her ears with her hands. She looked amazed inquiry.
Anthony grinned. Something of his almost savage hopelessness of the past five minutes seemed to have dropped from him. The noise died in a screeching wail of brakes through which there came, a blasting obligato, the explosive coughing of a motor-bicycle’s exhaust. There was a silence which seemed a large round emptiness.
Lucia took down her hands. ‘What on earth?’ she said.
Anthony lit a cigarette. ‘The rest,’ he said, ‘of us.’
There came a tap upon the door and then, through it, the girl Annie. She said, fixing her eyes upon Anthony:
‘Two gentlemen, sir.’ She then was eclipsed.
From behind her there came, to hide her completely, two young men in a hurry. The first of these was tall and thin and stooping, and was habited in the stained and weather-marred leather affected by that sort of motor-cyclist whom drivers of fast cars forever try, not often successfully, to catch. He was without a hat, but from his gauntletted hand there dangled a leather helmet and a pair of goggles. Coming out from the folds of an ancient woollen muffler of the colour of wholemeal bread, his head seemed like that of a large and ferocious bird with a sardonic sense of humour. Lank black hair, which seemed, as some hair does, only loosely attached to his scalp, tossed and flopped as he walked. Black tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses of the largest size were athwart his fierce nose and behind them were large heavy-lidded eyes which yet gave an impression of amazing, almost impudent, alertness. The long, thin fingers of his ungloved right hand were stained with tobacco and petrol and ink and yet somehow conveyed that they were washed as frequently as might be. This was Mr Francis Dyson.
Behind Mr Dyson—but only a little way behind, and with something in his gait which suggested that, though he wouldn’t show this for worlds, he was striving to get in front of Mr Dyson—came a man as different in appearance from Mr Dyson as well might be; a young man whom, at first glance, one might have put down as anywhere betwixt eighteen and twenty-three but who, one saw very soon, was much more likely to be ten years older than this; a young man with a round, smooth, freshly and rather highly coloured face, very sleek fair hair, very correct plus-fours, a nice taste in linen, round, rather prominent, light-blue eyes and a thick solidity which made him seem shorter than his actual five feet and eight inches. A picture of unspoiled, healthy, pleasant but rather foolish young Englishman with very little to do and rather too much time in which to do it—until one looked carefully at the mouth; a good mouth enough though stubborn, but a mouth with lines of experience about it and something of that same hard, sardonic humour, differently reacting, as was expressed in the whole of the head of his companion. This was Mr Walter Flood.
They came across the room fast. Anthony rose to meet them. Mr Dyson halted within a foot. Mr Flood drew level and halted too.
‘Dyson,’ said Mr Dyson crisply. ‘Sorry be late.’ He gripped the hand which Anthony offered.
‘I,’ said Mr Flood, ‘am Flood. I hope we aren’t late. We pushed along as well as we could. We were both a bit late getting to the office this morning.’ He shook hands in his turn.
Dyson nodded. �
��Pity!’ he said.
‘Be introduced,’ Anthony said, and to Lucia presented them. She smiled upon them, and they bowed, Dyson with a quick, bird-like out-thrusting of his head, Flood with a rather florid grace.
‘And this is Mr Pike,’ said Anthony.
Pike, who had so sat back in his armchair that its wings had kept his face obscured, now got to his feet. He said:
‘Mr Dyson and I know each other all right!’ There was an odd note in his voice—a blend of humour and wrath. ‘I’ve met Mr Flood too.’
The faces of Messrs Dyson and Flood showed their owners to be as near to astonishment as may come any follower of their profession.
‘Strike me!’ said Dyson. He cocked his head to one side and looked at Pike as might a benevolent vulture uncertain as to the amount of kick left in his intended dinner. Pike, his hands in his pockets, his long lower jaw out-thrust, stared back.
Flood regarded them with evident delight. He said, in a thick and unctuous voice:
‘Shake hands, my men. Shake hands. Then box on.’ He turned to Anthony and dropped his voice to a stage whisper. ‘The whole CID’s after Dyson’s gore. The last “Special” we did—that scoop on the Blattner diamond job—none of that ought to’ve come out when it did. At least, that was the Yard’s idea. Old Mogul—Dyson—thought differently though. What he did to that Insurance laddie and the busy to make ’em spill the story, nobody knows. But he got it. And he got it right. The Yard hasn’t forgiven him yet … Look at ’em. Old Master—Fur and Feather!’
But Pike made up his mind. He said:
‘I’m not a policeman; I’m on holiday, Mr Dyson.’
He took his right hand from his pocket and held it out.
Dyson shook it. ‘Good. Nothing I may say’ll be used in evidence.’
Flood stepped forward. ‘Kiss me too,’ he said.
Anthony looked at his watch. ‘Listen,’ he said. His voice was low but its tone brought the gaze of eight eyes round to him. ‘It’s 11.10. Lucia, will you take Mr Pike to Mrs Bronson? He should see her.’ He turned to Flood and Dyson. ‘You two,’ he said, ‘must stay with me. I’m going to tell you what I’ve asked you to come for. And we’re up against time.’
III
The clock upon the Smoking Room mantelpiece showed 11.30. Anthony, in twenty minutes, had been over the ground covered just now with Pike and Lucia. He said:
‘So that’s where we are. And remember—keep remembering—the essential attitude. You must believe—whether you really do or not—that Bronson didn’t murder. It may be difficult, but …’
Dyson raised his eyebrows, his long face wearing a look of almost anguish.
‘We’re journalists!’ he said.
Flood nodded. ‘Beliefs,’ he said, ‘to order.’
‘Made-to-measure,’ said Dyson. ‘Or off the peg … My trouble is: I’ll have to waste time reading. Hardly remember case at all. Wasn’t interested.’ He nodded in Flood’s direction. ‘He knows it.’
Flood shook his head. ‘I’ll have to read it up too. I did do the inquest and part of the Magistrate’s Court, true enough. But I was on the Minkwell business at the same time. And that was such a long chalk more interesting—at the time—that I took precious little notice of this one. It’ll come back all right …’
Anthony interrupted. ‘I’ll tell it you. Quicker, brighter, better. And good for me. If you clothe a thing in your own words, sometimes you see what you’ve missed and would go on missing … Have a drink?’ He pressed a bell beside the fireplace.
‘Oh, yes!’ said Dyson.
‘Please,’ said Flood, ‘I will.’
‘Forgive,’ said Dyson. He hoisted his lankness out of the chair and stripped himself of leather coat and overall leggings. He stood revealed in a battered tweed jacket and what Flood has always taken oath are the oldest pair of grey flannel trousers in the world. ‘Hot,’ he said.
Again Anthony pressed the bell. This time it was answered. By a round and nervous and rustic young woman who said:
‘Ay’m soary, sir. Has yeou roong twice?’ And went off into mutters about ‘that Annie’.
At Dyson Anthony looked inquiringly; then at Flood.
‘Oh, beer,’ said Dyson.
‘And beer,’ said Flood.
The rustic was quick. While she was gone there was silence. Anthony’s eyes were fixed upon the door through which she had vanished. Dyson filled an enormous pipe with very black tobacco. Flood lit a new cigarette from the stump of its predecessor.
The rustic returned and went away again, leaving behind her two full tankards and a glass of sherry.
The sherry was a pleasant surprise. The glass was half-empty before Anthony spoke. He said:
‘Here it is then: At just after three in the morning of the 18th of May last, the village constable here was turned out by a youth called Harrigan. Harrigan stated that he had found, in Bellows Wood, two dead men. The constable found one dead man, Blackatter, and one man just recovering consciousness from a knock on the head. This was Bronson. In Bronson’s hand was Bronson’s gun. It had been fired, and recently. Both barrels. The back of Blackatter’s head did not exist. The middle of his head was full of shot. He had been dead some hours. According to the Crown, what happened was this. Bronson and Blackatter meet in the wood, Bronson having followed Blackatter there as Blackatter went homewards from Farrow at about 10.30 p.m. They quarrel, mainly over Blackatter’s attentions, or intentions, to Mrs Bronson. They do not come to blows. Blackatter, probably with some final insult, turns away, where upon Bronson, seeing his chance, ups with his gun and at about six inches range blows off Blackatter’s head. Bronson has not, according to the Crown, done this in blind fury but (though he was doubtless passionate) in deliberation. What, says the Crown, he intends to do is to leave Blackatter’s body, go quietly home, and having cleaned his gun sit down and be Brer Rabbit. The killing will then be put down to one of those indeterminate poachers of whom Bellows Wood and the surrounding coverts have for a long time been filled o’ nights. But, says the Crown, afire with a fine indignation and a due marvelling at the slickness of Divine Providence, his intentions were not to be. On turning away from his victim, he catches his foot in a very tough bramble. He slips, staggers and, covering two yards in a stumbling run in endeavour to keep his balance, falls heavily, rolls back down the bank and strikes his head with great force against the jagged stump of a recently-felled oak. He is stunned—he is, in fact, suffering from minor concussion. And so there he lies, his empty gun still clutched in his hand, to be the chief evidence of his own crime.’ Anthony broke off; he finished the sherry.
Messrs Dyson and Flood were silent. Each held in his right hand a nearly-emptied tankard. Otherwise, their attitudes were in direct contrast. Flood sat upright, his eyes open and fixed upon Anthony; his legs were neatly crossed, his thick body in easy alertness. His bland face was empty of expression. Dyson lay sprawled in his big chair so that from untidy head to bony knees he was almost a straight line. His arms—a tankard at the end of one—were loosely and almost wildly abroad. His eyes were fast closed. But there was not, curiously, any suggestion of sleep, nor even repose, about him.
Anthony set down his empty glass upon the mantelpiece. He said:
‘Now for supporting evidence. When Bronson, still concussed, was searched by the Bobbie—Police-Constable Murch—there was discovered, among the usual cag in pockets, a note in Blackatter’s writing. This note was dated the day before. It said: “We had better meet to settle this once and for all. If you think you can bluff me you’re mistaken. Meet me in the new clearing, Bellows Wood, at 10 tomorrow night.” It was signed J. Blackatter. There was no doubt as to the letter’s authenticity. I think I’m word-perfect in it, too … That was the first bit of corroborative evidence. And pretty damning. The second was that, on the evening of the murder, Blackatter—at 7.30 to be exact—paid his first visit to The Horse and Hound for two months. At his last previous visit he had to be ordered out by Bronson, and told
by Bronson that he would only show his nose inside the door again at the gravest risks to itself and also to the rest of his body; in fact, three witnesses at the trial had it forced out of them that Bronson, in reply to Blackatter’s “answer-backs” had said that if he did have to set about Blackatter he was just as likely to kill him as not, and that, if he did kill Blackatter, it wouldn’t worry him and would probably give pleasure to a great many people. The sort of remark, you will notice, which while possibly a perfectly ordinary, justifiable and even, in certain circumstances, faintly humorous remark, is a dangerous sort of remark to make.’
Suddenly Dyson spoke. His grating voice came out of a thin-lipped mouth which barely moved. And his eyes remained fast closed. He said:
‘Why did he make it?’
Flood nodded once. Anthony, too, nodded. ‘Bronson swore,’ he said, ‘that it was because Blackatter was a general nuisance in the bars. Mrs Bronson says: because she, once and almost inadvertently, had remarked that Blackatter was unpleasant and a nuisance with his loudness, bullying and would-be gallantry which had extended, once or twice, even so far as herself. The Crown said, and ostensibly supported it by evidence, that the reason was far graver and larger than either of these; was, in fact, either some ill-doing with which Blackatter and Bronson had been jointly connected (Crown, you see, did not even attempt to whitewash Blackatter); or else Mrs Bronson, on a serious plane. Or else a bit, as it were, of both.’
Flood spoke now. For the first time he took his unwinking blue gaze from Anthony’s face. He looked now at a little notebook which, with its pencil, he had taken from a pocket. He said:
‘“Ostensibly supported by evidence,” you said. Whose? What?’
Anthony said: ‘Tittle-tattle. Mrs Bronson’s a very striking woman. The sort that either you will revere, or hate with that most dangerous type of hatred—the hatred inspired by a hopeless, helpless certainty of the hater’s inferiority to the hated. I say “tittle-tattle”. I mean, exactly, that the Crown never brought into the case any direct question or answer upon this point of to what extent Blackatter and Mrs Bronson might have been associated. But Counsel, using all the little pieces, venomous, well-intentioned, and merely verbose, which fell from the mouths—generally feminine—of the witnesses on both sides, did a very pretty bit of hinting. Most effective it must’ve been in Court, for a good deal of it got over in cold-blooded shorthand transcripts. To answer your question directly: there does not appear, from the dossier, to be any witness who deliberately set out—even under Counsel’s incentive—to get Bronson convicted. There’s one’—Anthony’s eyes strayed for a moment towards the little table by Dyson’s chair, upon which the orange-coloured folder lay—‘who seemed more anti-Bronson than most. A man called Dollboys—farmer. But he seems honest enough … To get back. This visit here, on the night of the murder, by Blackatter, was a very strong link in the Crown case. He walks in, slightly, one gathers, bolder than brass, goes into the Private Bar and orders a drink. In the Saloon Bar—from which one can see, if one is in the right position—is Dollboys, who is in that position. The Private Bar is empty. Blackatter calls for a drink. The barmaid—new since the Blackatter veto—serves him. Blackatter begins his usual fascinations. For a bit the girl’s amused; then, as Blackatter gets warmed up, a little nervous—p’r’aps on her own account, p’r’aps on her place’s. Anyhow, she drifts away and, in a moment, there arrives Bronson. Trouble. In his evidence Dollboys says he’d never seen a man “look nastier” than Bronson. Dollboys is the only witness as both the Saloon and Private Bars were empty at the moment except for these three men. Apparently, however, all that Bronson did was to lean both hands on the bar and say: “I’ve told you not to come in here. Get out. I’ll give you a minute.” He was, says Dollboys, very quiet—but, apparently, all the more dangerous-seeming for that. Dollboys says—he didn’t seem to like Blackatter any more than he did Bronson—that Blackatter, though he tried to put a face on it, was scared. He gulped down his drink—his third large whisky in ten minutes—and made for the door. Bronson did not move, only his head turned to watch the exit. At the door Blackatter paused. He turned the handle and pulled the door open. And then he said, over his shoulder: “It’s all right now. But don’t forget the night’s not over.” And he went … That’s the case against Bronson, then, in its essentials. He’s found, fallen and stunned, by Blackatter’s body. Blackatter’s head’s half blown off and in Bronson’s hands Bronson’s recently-fired gun. In Bronson’s pocket a note from Blackatter making an appointment for this night at this place. Bronson has been agin Blackatter for months—no one quite knows why—and has forbidden him this house, at the same time saying—jocularly or not—that he wouldn’t mind killing him. On the evening of the night of the murder Blackatter comes, for the first time since the veto, to the Bar here and is again turned out, but before he goes he makes his little speech which refers to the appointment.’
The Noose Page 5