by Henry Wade
Feeling at a loose end on Friday, he decided to go up to Regent’s View Mansions again and see how Desmond was. It might give him an idea of how the wind was blowing in that quarter; it would also give him a chance of counteracting any ill-effects which an unfavourable opinion from old Barradys might have had; in any case, he liked the boy and would be glad to try and cheer him up. After lunch, therefore, he mounted a 53 bus and was soon making his way to the entrance of the block of flats. As he approached the lift, the iron gate opened and out stepped Henry Carr.
At first glance Eustace thought the solicitor was looking old and careworn, but as he recognized Eustace, whose back, of course, was to the light, his face brightened with a cheerful smile.
“Eustace, by all that’s lucky. I’m glad to see you”, he exclaimed. “You’ve had the devil of an awkward time since I saw you last, I’m afraid; worse even than I had down at Coombe. I want to hear all about it. Come and dine with me at the Club one night, will you? You’re going to see Desmond now? I’ve just been lunching with him. I won’t keep you now. What about Monday? I’ve got to be in town that day.”
“Do me well”, said Eustace, making a note of time and Club. “How’s Desmond?”
Henry Carr shook his head.
“Not too well, poor chap, I’m afraid. Amazingly cheerful, though. Brave as a lion. Well, see you Monday.”
Eustace stepped into the waiting lift and was whisked to the fifth floor. The door of the flat was opened by Mrs. Toumlin, who seemed slightly taken aback at seeing him. She did not move back from the doorway to admit him.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Toumlin”, said Eustace, “can I come in and see Desmond?”
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Hendel, but really I’m afraid I must say ‘No’. Desmond is not at all well to-day.”
Eustace looked curiously at her. Why did the woman seem so embarrassed?
“I’m sorry to hear that”, he said. “But he was able to see Henry Carr, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, but . . . that’s really why I must say no. Mr. Carr’s been lunching here and, much as Desmond likes him, I think he’s made him rather tired. He always enjoys it tremendously at the time. Mr. Carr is so cheerful. But there’s always a reaction.”
“I see. Well, of course, if you say so, I must go. I should very much like to see Desmond though. When can I come?”
Mrs. Toumlin hesitated; then, after a moment’s thought said:
“Will you come in on Sunday morning? At about half-past twelve? But only for a little while.”
And she firmly closed the door.
Chapter Fifteen
A Shattering Blow
PUZZLED, and not a little disquieted, Eustace made his way slowly down the stairs. It was not so much that he had twice in the last two days been denied access to Desmond, though that seemed rather odd, especially in view of Henry Carr having just lunched with him, but why had the companion, Mrs. Toumlin, looked at him so oddly, seemed so uncomfortable? Eustace shrugged his shoulders, decided to try again in a day or two, turned the last flight that led into the hall, and found Henry Carr still waiting there.
“Hullo”, he said. “Why . . . ?”
“I thought you might possibly not be allowed to see him”, said Henry. “Thought, if that was so, you might care to stroll across the Park with me.”
They went out into the sunlight, heading for the nearest entrance to Regent’s Park.
“But why did you think I mightn’t be allowed to see him?”
“What reason did Mrs. Toumlin give?”
“She said he wasn’t feeling well—that you had tired him”, said Eustace bluntly, irritated that Carr should know he had been turned away.
“I thought that might be so”, said the solicitor quietly. “Have you got time to spare? I’ve an appointment at the Temple at half-past three; that’ll give me plenty of time for a walk if you care for one.”
Eustace had plenty of time too, and could hardly be so boorish as to pretend he hadn’t. Besides, this might give him a chance to sound Carr about that entail—if he could do it not too obviously.
It was hot walking in the blazing September sun and presently Carr suggested sitting for a bit; two chairs under a thorn tree offered rest, shade, and—as it happened—isolation. Eustace had no excuse for not telling once again his story of the death of David. He did not want to; this man was a lawyer; he might ask the same sort of questions that that infernal Procurator Fiscal had done. Eustace thought he was prepared for all emergencies, but he would have much preferred the whole thing to be forgotten; however, he could not well refuse. Henry Carr listened in silence, asked a question or two about the investigation, points about procedure, explained to Eustace about the Crown Office, the Judge Advocate, the Advocates Depute, the Procurator Fiscal, commiserated with him on his trying ordeal, and fell silent.
After a minute or two he turned to Eustace with a smile and said:
“Well, Eustace, there’s no concealing the fact that these last two months have altered your own position a bit. I suppose you realize that when poor Desmond goes you will be heir presumptive to the Barradys peerage?”
Eustace, his heart beating a little faster, nodded. “Yes, I realize that”, he said. “It’s rather extraordinary, isn’t it. I’ve never given the possibility a thought.”
“Naturally; there were so many of them.”
Henry took a long pull at his cigarette, inhaling and letting the smoke trickle out of his nostrils.
“I wonder if I might venture to offer you a word of advice”, he went on after a pause, “as a friend, but with the experience of a solicitor?”
He looked at Eustace, who nodded, wondering what was coming.
“When Desmond dies you’ll be inundated with letters from money-lenders and touts of every description, offering you everything under the sun, on no security at all. They’re very tempting gentry.”
“I suppose so”, said Eustace. “And after all, if that ever does eventuate, it wouldn’t be so very unreasonable to borrow a bit on one’s expectations; after all, old Barradys is ninety; he can’t go on for ever . . . and I’ve lived in a lodging-house long enought to want to get out of it.”
Henry Carr carefully ground the stub of his cigarette under his heel.
“This is where it gets difficult”, he said. “It’s easy enough for me to come the heavy lawyer and say: ‘don’t borrow on your expectations’; your answer, naturally enough, is: ‘why not?’ Now, I have got a reason for saying what I did, beyond the ordinary lawyer’s caution. The question is, (a) do you want to hear it? (b) ought I to tell it you? You see, it came to me more or less in confidence—not professional confidence, of course; that would settle the thing. Ordinarily I should play for safety and keep my mouth shut, but you might get badly landed and . . . well, I don’t want that to happen.”
“You sound very mysterious”, said Eustace. “So far as I’m concerned, I certainly want to hear your extra-special reason.”
“All right. Let’s approach it this way: what are your expectations?”
Eustace stared at him.
“Why, you’ve just been telling me”, he said. “That I’m likely to succeed to Lord Barradys.”
“Yes, but succeed to what?”
“The title and the . . . the entailed estate, I suppose. You explained that to me down at Coombe. Not about me, that is, but about the entailed estate. You said it passed with the title.”
“Surely not?” said Carr. “That does not necessarily follow, though, speaking generally, that might be considered a very usual line for it to take. Without bothering about generalizations, though, the position in this case now is that Lord Barradys is tenant for life, Desmond tenant in tail; Lord Barradys cannot himself interfere with the entail, Desmond can; he can bar it, he can end the entail, he can resettle the estate in a fresh entail; he has, with certain qualifications, to get the permission of the tenant for life to do these things. So you see, Eustace, it does not follow that because you succeed to the tit
le you will succeed to the estate; your money-lending friends may or may not realize this, but those who do will tighten their terms very much as a result of their knowledge.”
Carr paused to light a fresh cigarette. Eustace, realizing that this was confirmation of his uncomfortable reflections in the train, sat glumly poking at the ground with his umbrella.
“I see that”, he said. “But after all, isn’t that all rather hypothetical? Desmond can resettle the estate, but is there any reason to suppose that he will? Old Christendome said that it was practically a certainty that the family estates would remain entailed, that old Lord Barradys would never agree to the entail being broken.”
A slight smile appeared on Henry Carr’s lips.
“I think Christendome would have rather a shock if he heard that interpretation of his very guarded remarks on the subject. But, Eustace, whatever he said, he was referring to a different set of circumstances from the present; when he spoke the direct succession of the elder line was still more or less assured; David was alive and in a position to marry again; quite apart from Desmond, there was every reason to suppose that an heir would be forthcoming. Now David is dead and there is no heir of the direct line; only poor Desmond who cannot be said to count.”
“You mean, now that I’m practically the heir”, said Eustace, forgetting his resolutions of caution, “that they might want to cut me out?—resettle the estate on someone else?”
Henry Carr looked at him carefully, as if sizing him up. Then he took a decision.
“Desmond told me this morning”, he said, “that his great-grandfather had written and advised him to resettle the estate upon your first cousin, George.”
Eustace felt the blood drain out of his face, saw the trees slide away into a dim and hazy distance, heard the blood drum in his ears, felt himself sick and faint. It was like a knock-out blow on the point of the jaw, paralyzing him with its suddenness and force.
Probably it was only for a few seconds that consciousness wavered in Eustace Hendel. He clung to it, dimly aware that Carr must not see, must not notice, what his words had done to his companion. Then, beyond that thought, flickered the other: ‘all for nothing, all for nothing, murder . . . for nothing’. The news, he realized as reason returned to him, was only a confirmation of his own fears, but it was none the less shattering for that; one can bear a lot of doubts and fears, but certainty may mean smashing disaster. For this was disaster; if Desmond broke the entail, settled the estate on George instead of him, of what use was the title? Without money a title was a handicap—well, no; it might be used as a bait, but . . . Eustace sickened at the thought; was that all that he had got by what he had done, by that awful time in Scotland, by the frightful risk he had run?
These thoughts flashed through his brain as he recovered control, as the blood flowed slowly back into his cheeks. Henry Carr seemed to have noticed nothing; he was watching a nurse-maid trying to catch a flying two-year-old.
“That’s rather extraordinary? Why should he do that?”
Eustace’s voice was commendably firm.
“Apparently Barradys wants the estates to pass in the male line, but has a prejudice against your particular branch. They had very rigid ideas, those old north-countrymen; Barradys himself was brought up on the strict traditions of non-conformity; he was brought up to regard your grandfather, Clarence, who was his contemporary, as little less than a child of the devil. Clarence’s son, Victor, your father, apparently displeased the non-conformist conscience too; so you have been hung for someone else’s bad name. Unfortunately Clarence’s brother, Hubert, was a model of the virtues and old Barradys now regards his descendants as the only proper successors to the Hendel estates; he can’t stop your getting the title, but he can see that George gets the estates.”
“But can he? Surely Desmond isn’t going to be bullied by that old lunatic?” demanded Eustace angrily.
Henry Carr shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m afraid it looks like it”, he said. “He regards the old man as the family Patriarch and his word as law. He likes you, he told me—Desmond, I mean. But he’ll do what Barradys tells him.”
With difficulty Eustace fought back his indignation, stifled the fury that was raging in him. What was the good of letting Carr see it? He couldn’t do anything. Or could he? Desmond liked him; he had influence with Desmond. Was it any good . . . ?
“It seems a bit hard”, he said, speaking as calmly as he could. “Is it absolutely certain? Do you . . . do you think it’s just? If you think it’s unjust, couldn’t you . . . say something to Desmond?”
He looked anxiously at the solicitor, who shook his head.
“I’ll do my best, certainly”, he said, “but I’ve got no official standing. Christendome does the family business, as you know, and unfortunately the old man has got . . . well, he doesn’t seem to have got a very favourable impression of you.”
Eustace stared.
“Old Christendome? Why on earth not? What can have . . . what have I . . . oh!”
“Can’t imagine; old man’s prejudice against the unemployed young, probably”, said Carr, ignoring Eustace’s closing exclamation—a quite involuntary exclamation wrung from him by the sudden realization of what Christendome’s prejudice might be based on. He had been up at Glenellich, at the funeral; he might have talked to . . . the police! Or, even possibly, that damned Procurator Fiscal might have got hold of him, wanting to pump the family solicitor.
This idea started all Eustace’s worst fears into existence again. Had Christendome put ideas into Hannay’s head? Well, hardly that; because they were there before the lawyer arrived in Scotland—put there, Eustace had guessed, by that damned Hope-Fording woman, vindictive at being done out of her coveted husband! But Christendome might have told the Procurator Fiscal about the settled estate. That would be news to him; Joan Hope-Fording couldn’t have known about that. Then why had Hannay done nothing? Why had he let him leave Scotland? Had he realized that there was no evidence to support a charge of murder, or was he . . . ?
Eustace shuddered as the horrible thought struck him:
. . . was Hannay waiting for more evidence? Was he watching him, waiting for him to make a false step? Was he being watched now?
With difficulty Eustace restrained himself from looking round; with an effort he forced his thoughts back to his companion.
Carr was looking at his watch.
“Time we strolled on”, he said, “or I shall be late for my consultation. I wish I could help you, Eustace. Julia took a great fancy to you when you came down to Coombe, and the kids too. We should all like to see you come into a fortune. But I doubt if any influence I may have with Desmond will go very far. It’s difficult for us to realize the position that old Lord Barradys holds in that branch of the family. He’s been the Patriarch now for so long; they’ve all been brought up to regard his word as law. If he has decided that the estate is to go to your cousin George, to George, I’m afraid, it will go.”
Curse the old fool! Curse him! And I was afraid he might be going to die that night! God, if he only had died, this wouldn’t have happened!
Chapter Sixteen
Sentence of Death
ALL for nothing. All for nothing. That frightful day. Watching David die. That terrible voyage back in the launch. Arriving at Glenellich with the body. A nightmare of a day. And then the police; the questioning, the reconstructing, the photographing. The strain of it all. Waiting that next day, while nothing happened. Waiting for the police to . . . what were the police doing? Were they watching him, following him?
Instinctively this time Eustace looked over his shoulder. There was nobody. He was walking alone through Golden Square, on his way back to his lodgings. Why should there be anyone? What earthly point could there be in following him? What evidence could the police hope to collect against him? However much they might doubt his story, the only possible evidence against him would be that of someone who had actually seen him drive the knife into D
avid’s leg. No good looking for such a witness in London; a fisherman with a telescope in the Sound of Sleat, perhaps, or a poacher with a spy-glass on the forest itself—those were the only two remote possibilities of evidence against him.
Then why worry? If the Procurator Fiscal had disbelieved his story he would have acted at once—he or the Crown Office or the police or whoever’s job it was to take the initiative, to charge him. No; they had made up their minds either to believe him or else that there was not enough evidence on which to charge him.
But that did not alter the appalling fact that if Desmond did what the old man wanted him to do it would all have been in vain, not only in vain, but worse than in vain, because he had borrowed more money on the strength of it, taken an expensive flat, engaged an expensive man. How could he pay for them now? How could he meet the interest charges on his loan, let alone repay the capital? It meant disaster, ruin, the loss of Jill; it meant going downhill with a rush, without hope of recovery. No, not while he’d got a brain and courage! He was not going down; he would fight to his last gasp. He would . . . God, if he had known, he would have killed that old lunatic in the north before he could write his infernal letter to Desmond. He had killed one man to get this estate; he would kill another, willingly, without a quaver, to save it from slipping from him.
Was it too late? Even now, if old Barradys died, Desmond might give up the idea. Why hadn’t he done it when he was up there? How could he do it now? It might be possible if he were staying in the house; something to make him sleep and then a prick of morphine or cocaine; it wouldn’t take much with an old man like that. But how was he to get back into the house now? Write and ask for an interview? Barradys would refuse it. In any case, an interview would be no good; he must be staying in the house to have a chance of killing him without being suspected. Even so it would be difficult enough, especially if he were already suspected of killing David. Better to get into the house unbeknownst—break in—and kill him in his sleep—one prick of a needle would be enough. But how could he break in? That sort of old man’s house was always hermetically sealed at night. If only he had thought of it while he was there he could have reconnoitred, found a way in, at least have found out where the old man slept, whether anyone slept next door to him; he didn’t even know that. Why, the old man, with one foot in the grave, might have a night-nurse, or a pet pug-dog sleeping in his room—anything. It would be an appalling risk, without knowing.