Die All, Die Merrily

by Bruce, Leo

  “Was that before you called at the shop, or after? “asked Carolus.

  Mrs Bourne turned to Charles.

  “What shop, darling? “she asked. “I didn’t know you did any shopping on Saturday.”

  “Richard Hoysden’s shop,” said Carolus.

  “Before,” said Charles. “I had half an hour before I was due at the surgery.”

  “You were alone with Richard? ”

  “I was talking to him.”

  “What about?”

  “I forget now.”

  “Does it matter? “asked his mother. “Lots of people talked to Richard after Charles did. I’m sure.”

  “It matters a great deal,” said Carolus. “Were you discussing what you owed him? ”

  “I don’t …”

  “Charles, dear, you never told me about this,” said Mrs Bourne reproachfully.

  “It was only some records I had,” said Charles.

  “You didn’t get the saxophone, then? ”

  “Saxophone!“ said Mrs Bourne. Then quickly recovering—“But what has all this to do with poor Richard’s suicide, Mr Deene? You are not suggesting that he killed himself because my son had some dealings with his shop?”

  “Now would you mind telling me what you were discussing with Richard that morning?” asked Carolus pointedly of Charles, ignoring his mother.

  “Only about that. He told me to ask Dad first.”

  “Very natural,” commented Mrs Bourne.

  “Then, that evening?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said Charles.

  “What time did you go to Richard’s flat? ”

  “Charles! ”

  “I never went,” said Charles.

  “Where did you go? ”

  “To the pictures.”

  “Alone? ”

  “Yes.”

  “And afterwards? ”

  “I walked about a bit. Then came home.”

  “What time?”

  “About eleven.”

  “Meet anyone you knew? ”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “You didn’t go anywhere near Richard’s flat? ”

  “I may have passed by there. I didn’t go in.”

  “You didn’t leave by the service door of the block some time after ten-thirty? ”

  “No.”

  “You wore your school cap that evening? ”

  “Yes. Dad likes me to. Even in the holidays.”

  “And sun-glasses? ”

  “He has to wear sun-glasses, Mr Deene. The oculist…”

  “You had them on that evening? ”

  “I suppose so.”

  “I think you would find it best to tell me the truth,” said Carolus.

  “That is the truth.”

  “This is really very extraordinary, Mr Deene. Your cross-examining my son in this way. What possible connection can he have with Richard’s suicide? ”

  “I can only assure you that on his word depends almost everything,” said Carolus.

  Charles looked sulky.

  “Do tell Mr Deene anything you know, dear.”

  “I have.”

  Carolus tried again, more patiently.

  “What did you do that afternoon? ”

  “Went to tea with Aunt Olivia,” said Charles.

  “He’s devoted to his aunt,” said Mrs Bourne.

  “Was anyone else there? ”

  “Only Keith came in for a minute.”

  “Richard didn’t? ”

  “Not while I was there.”

  “You didn’t at anv time see Pippa Hoysden? ”

  “No. I didn’t know she was in the town till afterwards. I saw Rothsay. Driving down the High Street in an open car.”

  “What time?”

  “Soon after the pictures.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “Yes. He waved.”

  “You know him well? ”

  “No. Pippa introduced me once in the Carmona Café.”

  “Surely, Mr Deene,” said Mrs Bourne, “you have all the information you can possibly require from my son. Let me give you some more tea.”

  “No, thank you. I must go.”

  “But … is there nothing you want to ask me? ”

  “Nothing, thanks.”

  “How very extraordinary! I naturally thought it would be me you would question.”

  “On what subject? ”

  “Richard’s character, of course. And the unfortunate affair of Pippa and this Rothsay man.”

  “It’s very kind of you. I’m sure you would have a great deal to say. There is one small matter about which I should like to ask you, Mrs Bourne.”

  “And that?”

  “The revolver used by Richard.”

  There was a very awkward silence. Carolus might have produced a revolver and pointed it instead of mentioning one. When Mrs Bourne spoke she seemed to have forgotten the practised modulations of her voice.

  “Are you mad? Asking me about a revolver! ”

  “No, Mrs Bourne. I’m not mad. I think you may be able to help me about this. Have you ever seen a revolver in Richard’s possession? ”

  “Certainly not.”

  “When did you last see a revolver of any sort? ”

  “I … my husband has one.”

  “Where does he keep it? ”

  “Locked in a drawer in our bedroom.”

  “When did you see it last? ”

  “Oh, years ago. This is absurd, Mr Deene.”

  “Not really. Is it still there? ”

  “Of course.”

  “How do you know? ”

  “It must be. The drawer has not been broken into.”

  “But the locks of drawers have a way of being old-fashioned standard things which almost any key of that size will open.”

  “You mean you think Richard may have taken Alan’s revolver? ”

  “I mean, I should like very much to see if it is still there.”

  Mrs Bourne was silent for a moment.

  “I think we should wait for my husband to come in. He won’t be long.”

  “As you wish.”

  “No need for me to wait, is there, Mother? “asked Charles, who had begun to fidget like a very small boy.

  “No, dear, no.”

  From the windows of the drawing-room Charles could be seen making for the front gate. He had soon disappeared.

  A difficult ten minutes followed. Mrs Bourne talked in a voice which Rupert Priggley afterwards described, not altogether without justice, as ‘tarty’. She spoke of the ‘commonness’ of some neighbours, the’ niceness’ of others; how she did not associate’ with the first and ‘occasionally entertained’ the second; how her daughter was at one of the nicest of girls’ schools and was spending part of the holiday with her friend the daughter of a Second Secretary. But when these topics were exhausted Mrs Bourne returned to the surprises of Carolus’s visit.

  “The way you grilled that poor son of mine, Mr Deene! “she said archly. “Really, one would think he was an accomplice. Then to ask me questions about a revolver, of all things! Do you really think poor Richard can have got hold of my husband’s? ”

  Carolus was saved from answering this question by the hurried entrance of Alan Bourne who seemed to be feeling the heat or some violent emotion.

  “I have just met my son,” he said loudly to Carolus without any preliminary greeting, “and he has told me of your questions about my revolver. Are you serious in asking about it? ”

  “Quite,” said Carolus.

  “Do I understand that you suggest that it may have been the one used by Richard? ”

  “I have suggested nothing. I simply asked if it was still in its usual place.”

  “Perhaps you had forgotten that it was I who found my cousin’s body? Do you think I shouldn’t have recognized my own revolver? ”

  “You’d have recognized it all right.”

  “Then you accuse me of withholding evidence? ”


  “I haven’t accused you of anything, yet. I asked whether your revolver is in its place. There is nothing to get excited about. You intended to withhold evidence, as you put it, about the recording. Why not about the revolver? ”

  “That’s rather cheek, Deene.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid it was. Let’s all keep cool, shall we? Your revolver might have been taken, you know, and you might, understandably, have not wished to admit it. It might even be unlicensed. At all events, I should have asked you and not Mrs Bourne about it.”

  Alan Bourne sat down.

  “Yes. I think you should,” he said more calmly.

  “Perhaps, though, to settle the whole thing we might just confirm that it is still there? ”

  Bourne tried to smile.

  “When I’ve had a cup of tea,” he said, “I will go upstairs and look, if that will set your mind at rest.”

  “Thank you,” said Carolus.

  A moment after Alan Bourne had left the room Priggley whispered mysteriously to his hostess.

  “I wonder if I might … the lavatory …”

  “The door facing you in the hall,” said Mrs Bourne shortly, evidently disliking this near-mention of a physical necessity.

  Priggley returned in a few moments, but Alan Bourne appeared to be delayed. When he returned he was smiling.

  “Exactly as I left it,” he said. “Wrapped in a piece of flannel as I always keep it.”

  “Have you a permit for it? “asked Carolus.

  “Of course.”

  “Then you won’t mind the police knowing of its existence? ”

  “My dear man, they already know of its existence, since they gave me the permit.”

  “Naturally. I had forgotten that.”

  “You’ve rather shaken my confidence, Deene, by all this hu-ha about a revolver.”

  “Pity. You remember your cousin’s words. ‘Lucky I’ve got this revolver. A souvenir.’ Did you know he had kept this souvenir? ”

  “I … seem to remember his mentioning it once. I can’t be sure.”

  “You had never seen it? ”

  “No. No.”

  “Yours was also a souvenir, I suppose? ”

  “In a way, yes. I had it during the war.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry if I seemed rather insistent. This is an intricate case.”

  “The point is, are you any nearer to knowing whether or not we are to be faced with a corpse? That is what is troubling my aunt, and all of us. That is why we called you in.”

  “I don’t know,” said Carolus. “I simply don’t know, yet. I’m afraid it is a distinct possibility, though.”

  “Poor dear Richard,” put in Mrs Bourne. “If he hadn’t married that …”

  Bourne spoke hastily.

  “I have told Deene that I don’t believe his marriage had anything to do with it.”

  Carolus took his leave. He felt that Alan Bourne was on the verge of saying something, or was worried about something, or perhaps was feeling the strain of a situation which was trying to all connected with it. But he made no attempt to gain more information now.

  “Well? “he said to Priggley when they were in the car.

  “He didn’t mean to go upstairs at all. I found him waiting in the hall. That means that he knew the revolver wasn’t there, doesn’t it? ”

  “Not necessarily. He may have known it was there. That would mean he had looked to see quite recently and would be almost as incriminating.”

  “Of whom? ”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Carolus. “We can just make New-minster in time for dinner. Mrs Stick can produce her riz de veau at last.”

  10

  IF not ‘merry as a marriage bell’ that evening Mrs Stick was certainly in a more amiable frame of mind. She took advantage of the presence at dinner of both Carolus and Rupert Priggley to produce some of the food she had been hoping to serve yesterday.

  “I’m giving you the sweetbreads as an on tray,” she said, “then the jiggot afterwards with some jay lay der gross eye roudges.”

  Carolus smiled.

  “You go too far, Mrs Stick. Red currant jelly.”

  “Well, that’s what it’s called in the book and I do like to be correct, not like those that don’t know the proper name for anything. You’ll have a bottle of the Ma Gokes with that, won’t you, sir? ”

  But next morning all was confounded. Carolus came down to find Mrs Stick in her most disapproving mood.

  “It’s begun,” she said enigmatically. “There’s a person

  waiting to see you. Maresfield, his card says. That’s where Mr Gorringer says this poor man shot himself.”

  Carolus rose.

  “No, sir, I’ve got your breakfast all hot for you,” said Mrs Stick firmly, “so he can wait till you’ve had it whatever he’s come about.”

  She stood between Carolus and the door till he had eaten, then reluctantly let him pass.

  He found Alan Bourne waiting for him.

  “Look here, Deene. This is an awkward matter. I’ve come over early because the Inquest is today and I have to be there. It’s about that revolver.”

  “It was yours, wasn’t it, that Richard used? ”

  “Well, yes, it was. Only I didn’t want it to come out in front of the wife. She gets upset about things.”

  “Have you told the police? ”

  “Actually, I haven’t. You see you were quite right, I haven’t got a permit for it. I recognized it as soon as I found Richard’s body, but I said nothing about it. A charge of possessing a firearm without a permit couldn’t be made against him then, poor chap, and would be very damaging to me.”

  “How did you suppose he had got hold of it? ”

  “That wasn’t difficult. As you told my wife yesterday the drawer in a chest-of-drawers can be opened all too easily.”

  “It had not been forced? ”

  “No. I’ve had a good look at it. I should have been more careful, of course. I find now that the same key will open all the drawers in the chest and one of them had the key in it. So anyone could have taken it.”

  “Anyone who knew it was there. Who did? ”

  “I expect the whole family.”

  Carolus was rather tired of hearing about this family.

  “When did you miss it? ”

  “I didn’t miss it. I haven’t looked at it for years. It was only after I saw it by Richard’s bed that I realized. At least I had the sense not to take it away or hide it, or anything. That would have been foolish.”

  “It would. So Richard himself could have taken it? ”

  “I suppose so, but I don’t know when. He was fairly often at the house but never stayed a night there.”

  “That is true of the rest of your family? ”

  “Yes. There’s only one possibility that I can think of. We have, as you may have noticed, a tennis-court. This summer we’ve had several tennis parties and our room has been used for changing and so on.”

  “By men or women? ”

  “Both. On different occasions, of course.”

  “When was the last? ”

  “Last Friday, actually.”

  “Who was there? ”

  “All of us. Richard, Olivia, Keith, even my aunt came, though she did not play.”

  “Anyone else? ”

  “Her secretary, Wilma Day.”

  “Any of Richard’s staff? ”

  “Oh, yes. I was forgetting that. He asked my wife as a favour if he might bring his senior assistants, a man called Toffin and a Miss Hipps.”

  “I’m glad you’ve told me about this. I was fairly sure it was your revolver. You’ll have to tell the police. If you confide in them and don’t wait for them to find out it’s yours, I don’t think you’ll find it very serious.”

  “But the law …”

  “My dear Bourne, not for nothing do criminals call the police ‘The Law’. If they present the case in the right way to the magistrate you will get a small fine.”

  “
You really think it’s necessary? ”

  “Of course it is.”

  “You are not coming to the Inquest? ”

  “I think not. I have never learned anything yet from attending an inquest. The verdict’s a foregone conclusion. Suicide while the balance of his mind etcetera.”

  But when Bourne had left him he suggested to Priggley that he should go over on his motor-cycle and note what details there were.

  “I have a feeling,” said Carolus, “that they haven’t yet admitted the existence of the tape-recording. My bet is that a little family council decided to wait till after the inquest to avoid publicity. Then they will go brightly to the police and say they’ve only just discovered what it was. So that if no corpse is found the thing will rest there—suicide because his wife had left him—so far as public knowledge is concerned, and the Drumbone will escape any involvement.”

  “What do you want me to do? Stand up and denounce them? ”

  “I want you to notice what happens, that’s all. I’m going to take a day’s holiday from Maresfield.”

  “To think it over, I suppose? To fit together the pieces of the jig-saw puzzle in the accepted manner? Then when I come home you must look at me enigmatically and say, ‘I begin to see light’. So I goggle and say,’ Do you really?’ Then you ask some fabulously unexpected question like, ‘Has Miss Hipps a pair of tennis shoes …’ ”

  “Yes. Has she, by the way? It’s rather important.”

  “Don’t give me that, sir. I wish you’d read more crime fiction. You’ve no idea how dated you are. All this looking for clues and questioning suspects and being mysterious about your theory till the last minute—it went out ages ago.”

  “And what has come in? ”

  “Sixty thrills to the minute stuff. Death and destruction. Or else frightfully deep psychology. Sinister complexes. Appalling inhibitions. Or else, one further, sheer science fiction. Whatever it is you’re becoming just a relic of a bygone method. A reactionary. Look at you today.’ A day off to think it over …’ ”

  “I said nothing about thinking it over. I want a rest from that bedlam of bright new buildings and ‘our family life’.”

  “I see your point. All right. I’ll bring you back the dope. What do you want to know from Hoysden’s? ”

  “Nothing.”

  “I thought I’d take another look at that redhead. And you said you wanted to know about Hipps’s tennis shoes.”