Cottage Sinister

by Q. Patrick

  “What’s the matter, Buss?”

  “A tragedy sir, of major impertinence.”

  “That’s too bad. What’s happened?”

  “My bicycle, sir. I left it at the Duchess of Somerset when I came back with Mr. G. Burwell in his car. He’ll probably find it there when he returns. Do you think, sir, that it will be safe overnight in the hands of such a dissoluble character?’”

  Thursday morning dawned clear and still, and, in midsummer fashion, quite incredibly early. By the time the Archdeacon sat down to his second succulent breakfast at the Crosby Arms, the day wore already that sedate look which a respectable morning puts on when the disconcerting mystery of dawn has been decently got over and forgotten about. All the same, the Archdeacon glanced out of the window with just a hint of unrest in his eye, and allowed himself to picture an all-day ramble through the fields, with a quiet book and a pipe in the evening to top it off.

  He sighed, and recalled his thoughts, with an effort, to the business in hand. For the present, he reflected, there was no use in recalculating his formulas. It was true that the presence of George Burwell and the identity of Myra Brown were two new factors that might affect his analysis of probabilities, but the second of these factors he regarded as still incomplete, pending the tracing of the source of the notes which Isabel Lubbock had recently deposited under the name of Myra Brown.

  No, for the present there was just two little jobs to tackle: the checking up of George Burwell’s alibis at Edith’s Ford, and one other matter which wanted rather delicate handling. In spite of Sir Howard’s anger at the mention of Vivien Darcy’s name in connection with Lady’s Bower, the Archdeacon felt duty bound to clear the matter up and find out all that there was to find before he complied with Sir Howard’s wishes and erased her name from his lists. After all, he reflected, supposing it to be true that she is in love with young Crosby, and looks on the Lubbock girl as a hated rival…. The Archdeacon rose from the table, straightened his waistcoat, and murmured to himself, “Hell has no fury like a woman scorned.” However, as he strolled down the village street and struck off in the direction of Somerton Court, he looked furtively about him in case of a hail from Sir Howard or one of his satellites. The eleventh Baronet’s bark, he decided, might be worse than his bite. Nevertheless, the bark had been enough.

  Somerton Court, the home of the Darcy family for over two hundred years, was a handsome house set well back from the road. Dating only from the time of Queen Anne, it might have been considered almost an interloper in Crosby-Stourton. However, it stood its ground successfully and managed to repudiate any possible reproach on the score of youthful frivolity.

  The Archdeacon walked up the gravel driveway and rang the bell with some trepidation. It would be one thing to put through a quiet talk with Miss Vivien Darcy. It would be quite another to have to explain his errand to her father, Sir Malcolm Darcy, M. F. H., and friend of Sir Howard Crosby. Luckily for the Archdeacon the maid informed him that Miss Vivien was at the stables, superintending the breaking of a colt. Sir Malcolm was engaged in his study, but would soon be free if the gentleman cared to wait…. No, said the Archdeacon politely, he would find Miss Darcy at the stables. The maid pointed out the way, and the Archdeacon strolled off, resolutely restraining his feet from hurrying him out of the dangerous field of vision of Sir Malcolm’s study windows.

  At the stables Vivien Darcy received him casually, gave no visible sign of agitation when she heard the open sesame of Scotland Yard, and led him into the harness room, where, as she put it, “we can yarn till the cows come home.” The Archdeacon sat down a little stiffly while Vivien perched herself on a handy saddle, and lit a cigarette. She was wearing riding breeches, and her short, curly, auburn hair was touseled like a boy’s. She attacked it with a pocket comb, but gave it up with a little grimace while the Archdeacon was still looking curiously about him.

  “One of these ‘wind-blown bobs,’” she explained, “that take half an hour to arrange. Well, I can guess your mission in Crosby-Stourton, but what’s brought you to Somerton Court?”

  The Archdeacon sensed friendliness and interest in her manner, but his reply was guarded. What were mere intuitions compared to mathematics?

  “Some of my investigations,” he said, “have led me here. Of course, when anything so unusual as—murder—takes place in a village like this there’s bound to be a lot of talk, and most of it irrelevant. But several people have mentioned your name in connection with—er—the Crosby family, and also the Lubbock family, and I hoped you could help me to clear up one or two points. In the first place” (here the Archdeacon’s voice suddenly conveyed a hint of menace), “I gather that you were seen with an unidentified man at a place called Podd’s Corner the night before last at about ten o’clock.”

  Vivien looked surprised. “Yes,” she said calmly, “I daresay I was. But I didn’t know anyone had recognized us. Who told you?”

  “It was, I suppose,” said the Archdeacon, disregarding her question, “Christopher Crosby—young Dr. Crosby, I should say?”

  Vivien stared at him for a moment, then burst into a merry peal of laughter.

  “Chris? Good Lord, man, you must be off your chump! You can’t have learned much in the village if you haven’t gathered that Christopher Crosby is head over heels in love with Lucy Lubbock. It’s as good as a penny novelette and quite the village romance! Anyway, why should he be meeting me after dark at the crossroads and all that? Haven’t our families thrown us at each other’s heads ever since we were two? And aren’t they all standing round with their tongues hanging out of their mouths waiting for the first maiden blush and the first youthful stammer? Sorry, but you’re after the wrong fox, my friend!”

  “However,” said the Archdeacon stubbornly, “there was someone with you, and any stranger in the village these days has to be followed up. Will you tell me who it was?”

  “No,” said Vivien abruptly. “I won’t, and I can’t see that it’s any of your business. But I’ll tell you this if you like: it has nothing to do with your murders.”

  “I could judge of that better if you’d answer my question,” said the Archdeacon with a steely timbre in his voice. “In the meantime, it’s at least useful to know that young Crosby really is infatuated with the Lubbock girl. I thought it might be just rumor.” He watched her narrowly, but could detect no trace of rancor in her answer.

  “Well,” she said cheerfully, “he certainly is. And I think the poor chap’s in a terrible state, what with her family dropping about her like flies this way. I don’t wonder he’s jumpy.” “Nor I,” said the Archdeacon grimly. “Especially when her relatives might reasonably be considered as an obstacle to his marriage with Lucy.”

  Vivien paused and stared at him with her cigarette held motionless half way to her lips.

  “Well!” she exclaimed. “I am a rotter. Here I go hugging my own little secret, and spilling out Christopher’s for the asking. You aren’t suspecting any nonsense about him, are you? Christopher’s as straight as they come. He’s a topping chap. And I suspect he knows all about my indiscretion too, but he’d never let you pump him the way you’ve pumped me.”

  “Supposing you tell me yourself, then?” said the Archdeacon. “The more so as what you have to tell may put—your friend Crosby—in a better light.”

  Vivien was quick to see that it was not “your friend Crosby” alone who needed, in the Archdeacon’s eye, to be put in a better light.

  “I see,” she said slowly. “You won’t believe I’m not in love with Christopher. Well, I’m not, and small credit to your sleuthing if you still think so. But I suppose you’d better have the story. The truth of it is that we’re all in the same boat. Only for heaven’s sake don’t tell Father. You see, I’m engaged to Jo Hoskins—you know—‘the village doctor. But Father won’t hear of it—a lot of nonsense about social position and what not. And Jo hasn’t a penny except what he earns, so there we are. I’m in favor of eloping, but the dear man is prou
d and of course I like that about him too. You’ve met him of course? Not an Adonis on wheels, and as nearsighted as a bat, but absolutely the genuine article and just the man for me. I was at the boiling point the other night because Father’d just been laying back his ears and raging about all the Darcys having been gentlemen and never disgracing themselves by doing anything useful, and I had to see Jo and let off steam. But I think we’ll come out all right. Lucy will be a great help, because of course Christopher is Father’s choice, and when Father finds that Chris won’t be accommodating anyway, he’ll be more likely to listen to me when I tell him about Jo.”

  The Archdeacon smiled benignly and lit a cigarette. What a story all this would make when he got home to his wife! Aloud, he said,

  “Thank you very much for telling me, Miss Darcy. I shall, of course, respect your confidence. Then I may take it that the meeting at Podd’s Corner night before last was with Dr. Hoskins?”

  “There’s detecting,” said Vivien with mock admiration. “It was, Inspector, though I fail to see how you guessed….”

  The Archdeacon raised a playful hand. He flattered himself that he was not the man to be literal when the situation demanded a lightness of touch.

  “Quite simple,” he said with ponderous humor, “I fear you overestimate my powers, Miss Darcy….”

  But Vivien was suddenly serious again.

  “Now that you know the worst,” she said, “be tactful. Don’t give us all away. Find out who murdered Lucy’s sisters, and whoever it was don’t let them murder her. But don’t go fussing up our parents about us while you’re at it. They don’t stand fussing at all well, though Father and I get on beautifully, you understand, except for this little matter of Being A Darcy. So, if you should happen to meet him (which heaven forbid because he’d hate having me mixed up in all this) talk foxes, talk hounds, talk anything you like, but please don’t talk daughters!”

  “Oh, Vivien!” A clarion voice was followed in a second by its owner, and Sir Malcolm Darcy stood in the doorway of the harness room.

  “There she blows,” whispered Vivien sotto voce to the Archdeacon as she swung herself down from her perch. “Hullo, Father, Allow me to introduce Mr. Inge. He’s a specialist in horses’ teeth—a regular horse dentist.”

  “All our horses,” said Sir Malcolm with an indignant glare, “have perfect teeth.”

  “Just what I’ve been telling him, Father. Too bad, Mr. Inge, but we can’t give you any work just now. Another time perhaps? Thank you. Call again.”

  With an ejaculation bounded on the east by a chuckle and on the west by a splutter the Archdeacon left the stables of Somerton Court.

  When he arrived at the Crosby Arms he asked eagerly if there had been any telephone message. Yes, he was to call a well-known number in London as soon as he got in. He hurried to the telephone where it was a matter of a few moments before he heard Norris’ cockney accents: “All quiet on the Eastern Front, Archdeacon—we’ve not yet succeeded in trycing the notes, but we’ve worked on that bottle you sent daown from the village ’ospital. The experts say it ’asn’t been opened for years—the dust round the cork proves that much but it’s deadly p’ison all right. A grain or two would kill a horse….”

  The Archdeacon hung up, disappointed, and climbed the stairs, unlocked the drawer of his table and took out his squared paper and his lists. At least he could incorporate Vivien’s information into his analysis of possible motives. An interval of figuring brought him to his results. Vivien’s score was, of course, reduced, though there were two possibilities that he could not entirely disregard: the possibility that she really was in love with Christopher, in spite of her story, and the possibility that the story was true as far as she went, but that Hoskins, no less than Christopher, was in love with Lucy. Mrs. Bedford at the hospital had hinted that Hoskins treated Lucy with more than the usual deference of a young doctor towards a capable young nurse. However, that implication might easily spring from envy, and be accounted for by Lucy’s general unpopularity. On the whole, he concluded, Miss Vivien Darcy came out of it rather well, and Sir Howard would be pleased at this exoneration of his favorite. Sir Howard … the Archdeacon paused and glanced thoughtfully at his results. Sir Howard would not be pleased by a glimpse of his own score, which, together with Lady Crosby’s and Christopher’s, had risen slightly by reason of the virtual elimination of Vivien, and the confirmation of Christopher’s attachment to Lucy. He tapped his pencil on the table and smiled as he thought of Norris’ London alibis for Lady Crosby on the Sunday and the Monday. No, Sir Howard would not be pleased, nor, of course, would Sir Malcolm Darcy, who now made a tentative appearance in the lists on the grounds of his desire to have young Crosby as a son-in-law.

  The Archdeacon allowed himself an indulgent little smile for his meticulous recording of even the most remote possibilities. But the smile faded as he thought of George Burwell, and turned to the task of fitting that gentleman into his calculations. The connection seemed tenuous and obscure. At length the Archdeacon threw down his pencil and bethought him that Burwell’s alibis in Edith’s Ford remained unchecked. Better see to that before calculating any further. Just as well to keep an eye on the man, too.

  He got up and strolled to the window. Should he telephone to Colonel Matraver at the Duchess of Somerset, and ask about Burwell? Or should he borrow Archer’s car (which had been put at his disposal)? Or should he …? An idea struck him. He looked at his heavy hunter. Nearing one o’clock, and a beautiful June day. Edith’s Ford, as he had already ascertained, lay some six miles away through as lovely a stretch of country as any in Somersetshire, and it was long since the Archdeacon’s walks had led him beyond the grey pavements and low-lying smoke of London.

  With something of the air of an incredulous school-boy who has just been granted an unexpected half-holiday and fears that it will be snatched away unless he takes advantage of it at once, the Archdeacon made his preparations, locked up his figures in the drawer of his table, and went downstairs.

  An hour later, replete with lunch and contented in heart, he sallied forth, leaving word with the barmaid that if anyone asked for him, he could probably be found at the Duchess of Somerset in Edith’s Ford. He then sauntered along the village street, left Miss Sophie Coke palpitating with excitement over the purchase of an eighteen-penny walking stick and a small tin of tobacco, and struck out over the fields by way of a meandering little by-path.

  As he walked, he resolved in his mind the possibility of some connection between two teasing facts, the fact of George Burwell’s impecuniosity, and the fact that Isabel Lubbock had in all probability been blackmailing some one shortly before her death. Was there a connection between these two, and, if so—if George Burwell could have had any conceivable reason for murdering Isabel, why had Amy also fallen victim? No one, so far as he knew had as yet said or discovered that there was anything in Amy’s past to warrant an attack upon her.

  But at least, the discovery of Isabel’s double identity, and of her prying, blackmailing tendency, had set his mind at rest on one point. If he found nothing which might possibly account for either murder, he would have felt more disturbed for the safety of others in the village. Having found, however, that Isabel had been universally disliked, and that some mystery was attached to her recent actions, he felt that he might more reasonably assume that the murders were at an end, and that the murderer, whoever he was, had accomplished his purpose by Isabel’s death. Thus communing with himself, he explained away any twinge of conscience which might have accused him of deserting his job for the sake of a pleasant walk. Besides, he reflected, he was really working as he walked—he was thinking over and analysing every aspect of the case…. He strode happily along, swinging his stick, under a hot June sun. He glanced about him at the green sweetsmelling meadows, truly fields of asphodel to his town-wearied feet, and, some fifteen minutes later, realized with a little start of surprise that he was thinking of nothing at all.

  VII

&nb
sp; While the Archdeacon was strolling away to Edith’s Ford, serene in the assumption that all was now safe at Lady’s Bower, a new act in the terrible drama of Crosby-Stourton was hurrying towards its climax. The curtain rose gently enough. Lucy Lubbock had just cleared away the remains of her own and her mother’s simple mid-day meal when a knock brought her to the door. She opened it to find Briggs, the chauffeur from the Hall, who handed her a note from Lady Crosby. Lucy glanced quickly through it, and turned to her mother with a smile of pleasure.

  “Why, Mother, here’s Lady Crosby asking us both to come up to the Hall in her car. She says she’d have come to see us to tell you all about how sorry she is, but she’s been a little unwell, so if you feel like going out. … Yes, Mother, do. It’d do you good to get away from here. You haven’t been out, you know, since…. But here’s your bonnet.”

  Old Mrs. Lubbock, protesting a little, yet still unable to deny her instinct for obeying the aristocracy, allowed herself to be persuaded, and within half an hour mother and daughter were seated beside the capable Briggs on the front seat of the great Daimler. The capable Briggs had long since made the discovery that Lucy Lubbock was a girl with points, and the fact that village gossip in the last few days had turned her into something of a sinister figure inspired him with a peculiar zest for what he would otherwise have considered a more or less routine flirtation. It was a relief to Lucy when, a little dashed by her stony reception of his advances, he finally changed his tactics, and launched amiably upon the story of his life.

  In the servants’ hall Lady Crosby’s maid, Carrie, was waiting with the message that her ladyship would like to have a talk with Miss Lucy first, alone, in her boudoir. Lucy greeted her old companions with quiet friendliness, resolutely disregarding the coolness of her reception, and saw that her mother was settled in a comfortable chair, the center of much solicitude and enquiry, before she departed in search of Lady Crosby.