Why Shoot a Butler

by Джорджетт Хейер

  "Did you find it?" asked Shirley.

  He gave her back the front-door key. "Yes, on the kitchen table. Sorry to have kept you."

  When he had deposited her at the Boar's Head he drove on to the police station but found that the sergeant was off duty. The same young constable who had received him when he brought the news of Dawson's murder said that he had no idea where the sergeant might be, but he could take a message. Mr. Amberley eyed him meditatively and said, after apparently profound consideration: "I don't think so. Thanks very much all the same."

  The young constable informed a colleague two minutes later that that Amberley chap fair got his goat.

  When he got back to Greythorne Mr. Amberley put through a telephone call. Felicity came into the library in time to hear him say: "And let me know at once. Got that? Right. That's all."

  "Sweet telephone manners," remarked Felicity. "Who were you ringing up so politely, if I may ask?"

  "Only my man," said Amberley.

  The dinner party, which Lady Matthews thought would be rather stuffy, passed off well, and to Sir Humphrey's satisfaction no one stayed very late. Sir Humphrey, like Mr. Woodhouse, was firmly of the opinion that "the sooner every party breaks up the better." When he had seen the last guest off the premises he said that that was done, anyway, and prepared to go up to bed. His nephew detained him for a moment. "By the way, Uncle, don't be surprised if you hear a car. I rather think I shall have to go out. I thought I'd better warn you. If you hear stealthy footsteps in the small hours it won't be a burglar, but me."

  "Going out?" said Sir Humphrey, astonished. "At this hour? In the name of all that's unreasonable, why?"

  "No, not at this hour. Later," said Frank imperturbably. "I'm expecting a telephone call first. I shall go when I've taken it. Don't let it distress you, sir."

  "It distresses me very much to see you making such a fool of yourself," said Sir Humphrey austerely. "No, you needn't tell me. I am well aware that you are going on police business, and I should have a better opinion of you if you ceased to meddle in matters that don't in the least concern you." He followed his wife to the door and turned back when he reached it to add: "And don't step on the fifth stair when you come in, unless you, wish to wake us all up."

  "Not the fifth, dear. The fourth," corrected Lady Matthews.

  "I won't step on either," promised Amberley.

  Left alone downstairs he wandered into the library and went over to the bookshelves to choose some suitable literature. He presently retired to the chair by the desk armed with Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, and sat reading for over an hour, the telephone at his elbow. Occasionally he glanced at his wrist watch and as the time wore on, he frowned.

  Shortly after midnight the telephone bell rang shrilly.

  Amberley lifted the receiver off the hook and said: "Hullo?"

  The conversation was a very short one and confined on Amberley's part to three words only. He listened to what the voice at the other end had to say, replied: "All right. Thanks," and hung up the receiver. Then he consulted his pocketbook and rang up a number in Upper Nettlefold. After a prolonged wait the man at the exchange informed him that there was no answer. Mr. Amberley suggested gently that the exchange could try again. There was another pause, then a slightly testy and very sleepy voice said. "Ullo!" with undue emphasis.

  Mr. Amberley grinned. "Good evening, Sergeant. How are you?"

  The voice lost its testiness. "Is that you, Mr. Amberley? What is it, sir?"

  "I just rang up to know whether you were asleep," said Mr. Amberley.

  The voice became charged with indignation. "Look here, sir — !"

  "And if you were, to wake you up. Are you asleep, Sergeant?"

  "No, sir, I am not — thanks to you! And if this is one of your little jokes…'

  "Are you feeling fit, Sergeant? Full of energy and enthusiasm?"

  There was a sound of heavy breathing. "One of these days," said the voice with emotion, "something'll happen to you, sir."

  "Well, let's hope so anyway," said Mr. Amberley.

  "I do," said the voice grimly. "Keeping me standing here in my nightshirt while you ask me silly conundrums!"

  "I don't want to keep you in your nightshirt," said Mr. Amberley. "I feel sure I should hate you in it. Go and dress."

  "Go and… Here, sir, what's this all about? What have I got to dress for?"

  "Decency," said Mr. Amberley. "I'm coming to fetch you for a little run in my car. I shall be round in about fifteen minutes. So long!"

  A quarter of an hour later he picked the sergeant up outside his house and drove him away through the town to Ivy Cottage. The sergeant was in a state of high expectation and demanded instantly to know what they were going to do. Mr. Amberley said that they were going to collect a little evidence. "I rather think, Sergeant, that you will watch a man break into Ivy Cottage."

  "Will I?" said the sergeant. "If I was to see anything like that I wouldn't waste time goggling at it, sir. I'd arrest him."

  "When we make an arrest it's going to be on a charge of murder, not of housebreaking," said Amberley briefly.

  He ran the car up the lane about a hundred yards past Ivy Cottage, rounding the next bend, and there switched off all his lights. The sergeant had not known that Shirley Brown had moved to the Boar's Head until Amberley told him. He wanted to know whether she had given Amberley the key, and when Amberley replied that he had taken it without her knowledge, he said uneasily that he hoped he was not going to get into trouble over this.

  The cottage was very silent, lit dimly by the moonlight that came in through the uncurtained windows. Amberley told the sergeant to close the kitchen shutters and went off himself to draw the curtains in the other rooms.

  "I see," said the sergeant brightly. "Make it look as though the young lady was still here. Then what do we do?"

  "I'll tell you in a minute," Amberley promised.

  When he had made his tour of the cottage he rejoined the sergeant in the kitchen and set his torch on the table. "Now, Sergeant, if you'll attend to me for a minute," he said. "With any luck you may be able to make that arrest you're so keen about. What I want you to do is to go upstairs and get into bed. If you hear anyone coming up the stairs, pull the clothes well over you. I rather think we're going to have a visitor."

  "Is that all I've got to do?" said the sergeant. "Because if it is I'd as soon be in my own bed."

  "Not at all, Sergeant. You're going to play the part of the dummy. If our visitor tries to suffocate you or chloroform you, collar him."

  "I will," said the sergeant with feeling. "Do you mean to tell me that Albert Collins is going to do in the young lady?"

  "No, I do not," replied Amberley. "No one is going to do her in if I can help it." He held his wrist in the beam of torchlight and looked at his watch. "To be on the safe side you'd better go up now. Don't make any mistake, will you? Unless he attempts to murder you keep quiet, but try to get a look at him."

  The sergeant prepared to go upstairs. "Well, I don't know," he said. "Seems funny to me. I'm trusting you Mr. Amberley, but I don't half like it, and that's the truth."

  He went heavily up, and in a few moments a prodigious creaking announced that he had got into bed.

  Amberley, left alone in the kitchen, set the door ajar and sat down on one of the wooden chairs and switched off his torch. Only the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece broke the stillness.

  The minutes crawled by. Upstairs in Shirley's narrow bed the sergeant strained his ears to catch any sound and wondered why he had not suggested that Mr. Amberley should be the dummy. He did not think he was a nervous man, but waiting in the dark for someone to come and murder one was a bit thick. He made up his mind to speak about it to Mr. Amberley. As ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed he grew impatient. A doubt shook him. Could this be a practical joke, and had that young devil gone off home? He wouldn't put it above him; he had good mind to go downstairs and see whether Amberley was still there. On seco
nd thoughts he abandoned the idea. Even Amberley wouldn't do this for a joke.

  The wardrobe creaked and gave him a bad fright. He felt a cold shiver run down his spine and hoped that Mr. Amberley was keeping a sharp lookout. He had barely succeeded in convincing himself that the creak really had come from the wardrobe when a long, eerie cry made him start up, clutching at his revolver. The cry was repeated and the sergeant drew a shuddering sigh of relief: He remembered that when he was a lad he had once shot and stuffed an owl. He was very glad he had; he wished he'd shot a few more while he was about it.

  He lay down again cautiously. Mr. Amberley was keeping very quiet downstairs. Cool as a cucumber, he wouldn't wonder. Perhaps he wouldn't be quite so cool if he was lying up here waiting for someone to come and try to murder him.

  A mouse gnawing at the wainscoting gave the sergeant a moment's uneasiness. He hissed at it, and it stopped.

  Then a different sound broke the silence; the sergeant could have sworn he heard the garden gate open. The hinge was rusty and it gave a faint squeak. He took a firm hold of the coverlet and listened.

  In the kitchen Mr. Amberley had risen silently from his chair and moved behind the door. The cottage was in pitch darkness. The clock's ticking seemed to reverberate through it.

  There was the sound of a tiny chink coming from the living-room window. The frame creaked as though something had been forced between the two sashes. Then there was a snap as the bolt securing the upper and lower half together was forced back. It was followed by a few moments' silence.

  Mr. Amberley waited, standing close to the crack of the door.

  The living-room window was being pushed gently up from the outside; it stuck a little, and Amberley heard a hand slip on the glass. The betraying sound was again followed by absolute stillness, but after a moment the window was thrust up farther and the curtains were parted, letting in the pale moonlight.

  Mr. Amberley, watching through the crack, saw for a moment a gloved hand holding back the curtain; then it moved and grasped the window sill. Soundlessly the nocturnal visitor climbed into the room; for an instant as he stood in the shaft of moonlight Amberley was able to study him. He seemed to be wearing a long coat, and as he turned, Amberley saw that there was something over his head, probably a sack with eyeholes cut in it. It gave him an oddly sinister look; Amberley wondered what the sergeant would think of it.

  An electric torch flashed over to the kitchen door; the unknown man moved softly into the small passageway that separated the two rooms, and the torch-beam swept round to light the stairs.

  The man stood still, darkly silhouetted against the moonlight beyond. Amberley watched him take something out of his pocket and make a movement with his hand as though shaking scent onto a handkerchief.

  Then he stiffened suddenly, listening. The gate had squeaked.

  Amberley drew back noiselessly, feeling his way, and came to the larder door and groped for the handle. He began to turn it. Whoever the newcomer might be, he was not expected by the man at the foot of the stairs.

  Someone else was getting in at the window; a boot scraped on the wall, and the whole window shook as a head came into sharp contact with the frame. A voice said involuntarily: "Blast!"

  The man at the foot of the stairs turned and was gone like a flash into the kitchen. Under cover of the noise made by the second man Amberley had opened the larder door. When the hooded man's torch swept the kitchen it was empty. The man was wearing rubber soles, and his feet made no sound on the stone floor. He reached the back door, twisted the key round in the lock and a moment later was gone.

  Mr. Amberley came out of the larder and strode to meet the second man, who had scrambled in at the window and was making for the kitchen. "You blithering idiot!" he said in a voice of rage. "You fat-headed, blundering ass!"

  "Good Lord!" gasped Anthony Corkran, blinking in the glare of Mr. Amberley's torch. "You don't mean to say it was you? What the devil are you doing here?"

  Amberley turned to call up the stairs. "You can come down, Sergeant. The game's up."

  Corkran jumped. "What? Sergeant Gubbins up there? Where's Miss Brown? I say, you know! Tut-tut!"

  "Anthony," said Mr. Amberley with dangerous calm, "you are very near death. Don't provoke me too far!"

  The sergeant came clumping down the stairs. "What's happened, sir?" he demanded.

  "Nothing," said Amberley bitterly. "My friend Mr. Corkran has seen to that."

  The sergeant's torch discovered Anthony; he looked at him with a kindly eye. "Well, I don't know that I'm altogether sorry," he said.

  "But, I say, look here!" began Anthony, and broke off. "What on earth's the stink?"

  "chloroform," said Amberley, moving into the living room and striking a match.

  The sergeant began to feel real affection for Mr. Corkran.

  "But dash it all, it can't have been you I followed all the way from the manor!" protested Anthony.

  "It wasn't." Amberley lit the lamp and turned. "It may interest you to know that the sergeant and I were lying in wait for the man you followed. If you hadn't come barging your way into the house with enough row to wake the dead we'd have had him by now."

  "Well, damn it, if you were here, why didn't you nab him?" said Anthony.

  "Because I wanted to get him in the act, you fool."

  "Act of what?"

  Amberley gave a sudden laugh. "chloroforming the sergeant. Well, it can't be helped. You'd better tell us your side." He moved across to the window and shut it and pushed the bolt back into place.

  It seemed that Corkran had been doing a little detective work on his own account. He had gone to bed upon his return from Greythorne to Norton Manor earlier in the evening, but not to sleep. He had read for some time; he did not think he could have turned his light out until past midnight, and for some time after that he had lain awake. He was just getting drowsy when he heard a faint sound outside. His room looked out on the front of the house, and he had often noticed that the noise of anyone's approach was considerably magnified by the loose gravel which covered the drive.

  He had thought it an odd hour for anyone to be out and had had the curiosity to get up and look out of the window. At first the drive had appeared to be deserted, but all at once he had caught a glimpse of a man's back view as he emerged from the shadow of a big rhododendron bush. He must have been about thirty yards from the house and he was going towards the gate, so that Corkran only saw his back, and that very imperfectly. He was walking on the narrow grass border and pushing a bicycle. It must have been the bicycle wheels on the gravel that Corkrann had heard. He wore a long coat and a tweed cap pulled down over his head. Corkran could not recognise him at that distance, but his stealthy mode of progression, coupled with the lateness of the hour, aroused all his suspicions. He had very little doubt himself that it was Collins, and he made up his mind there and then to follow him in the hopes of discovering some valuable clue.

  He had hastily pulled on a pair of trousers over his pyjamas, thrust his feet into a pair of shoes and socks, grabbed a coat, and tiptoed downstairs to the front door. He did not want to run any risk of waking Joan and alarming her, and he wasn't particularly keen on waking Brother Basil either. He happened to know that there was an old bicycle Joan sometimes used in a shed near the house. He had got hold of this and set off in pursuit.

  By the time he had reached the gates there was no sign of the mysterious cyclist. Corkran had chosen the Upper Nettlefold Road, thinking it the likeliest way for the man to have gone. The seat of the bicycle was too low for him, and one of the tyres badly needed pumping. Altogether it was a fairly uncomfortable journey, but he had kept on and been rewarded, about a mile from the manor, by catching sight of his quarry. After that the chase had been very good fun. He had taken care to keep well behind, for even though there was no lamp on his machine the moonlight would have betrayed him had the man he was following chanced to look round.

  He had very nearly been discovered at the end of
the journey. The unknown man had passed the end of the lane to Ivy Cottage, and he, Corkran, had pedalled staunchly after him. But some yards on the first man had dismounted and pushed his bicycle into the ditch. Corkran was luckily in the shadow of a clump of trees at the time. He too had sought shelter in the ditch and waited to see what his quarry would do. The man had turned and come back on foot. Corkran did not mind admitting that he had got a bit of a shock then. The fellow was no longer wearing his cap, but had got a sack pulled over his head with eyeholes cut in it. In the moonlight, and before he had had time to see just what it was, it had looked perfectly beastly. Of course, this had made him certain that whoever was wearing the sack was not up to any good. He wished he had got a weapon at that moment, but since Brother Basil kept the gun room locked, and he wasn't himself in the habit of travelling with a revolver, he hadn't. However, it seemed pretty feeble to give up the stalk at this moment, so he had followed the man, and from behind the hedge surrounding the cottage had watched him force open the window and climb in. After that, of course, weapon or no weapon, he had had to go on. The rest they both knew.

  The sergeant, who had listened admiringly to this tale, said handsomely that it did him credit. Mr. Amberley said that his friend's intentions might be good, but the result disastrous. He supposed he would have to run Corkran back to the manor.

  "You suppose right," said Anthony cheerfully. "Nothing would induce me to mount the velocipede again, I can tell you."

  "I'll go and lock the back door again," Amberley said. "We can go out by the front." He went through into the kitchen, carrying his torch. The door still stood open as the fugitive had left it. Amberley was about to shut it when a slight sound caught his ears. He switched his torch on and swept its beam round. Something moved by the door of the woodshed; for a moment he saw Baker's face; then it vanished, and a twig cracked under a retreating footstep. Amberley stepped quickly out into the little kitchen garden; at the same moment Corkran came up behind him and asked what he was up to now. Had he seen anyone? Amberley did not answer for a moment. Then he switched off his torch and said slowly: "No. I don't think so. I'm just going to shut the back gate. You might open the kitchen shutters again, will you?"