The Classic Mystery Novel

by Dorothy Cameron Disney

  “Prig,” murmured Gladys with conviction, as I came to the end of the Rawnsley dossier. She did not know him, but was giving expression to a very general feeling.

  I crossed swords more than once with Nigel Rawnsley in the course of the following few months, and in our duelling caught sight of more than one unamiable side to his character. While my mood is charitable, I may perhaps say a word in his favour. It is just possible that I have met more types of men than Philip Roden; it takes me longer to size them up; perhaps also I see a little deeper than he did. Nigel went through life handicapped by an insatiable ambition and an abnormal self-consciousness. Without charm of manner or strength of personality, he must have been from earliest schooldays one of those who—like the Jews—trample that they be not trampled on. He became overbearing for fear of being insignificant, corrected your facts for fear of being squeezed out of the conversation, and sharpened his tongue to secure your respect if not your love. Some one in the House christened him “Whitaker’s Almanack,” but in fact his knowledge was not exceptionally wide. He was always right because he had the wisdom to keep silent when out of his depth, and intervene effectively when he was sure of his ground.

  I never heard him in Court, but his defect as a statesman must have been apparent as a barrister; he would take no risks, try no bluff, make no attack till horse, foot, and gun were marshalled in readiness. Given time he would win by dogged perseverance, but, as in my own case, he must know to his cost that a slippery opponent will give him no time for his ponderous grappling. Nigel’s great natural gifts will carry him to the front when he has learnt a little more humanity; and humanity will come as he loses his dread of ridicule. At present the youngest parliamentary hand can brush aside his weighty facts and figures by a simple ill-natured witticism; and the fact that I am not now languishing in one of His Majesty’s gaols is due to my discovery of the weak spot in his armour. Though my heart beat fast, I was still able to laugh at him in my moment of crisis; and so long as I laughed—though he had all the trumps in his hand—he must needs think I had reason for my laughter.

  “The last of the party,” Philip’s letter concluded, “will be Pat Culling. He is an irrepressible Irishman of some thirty summers, with a brogue that becomes unintelligible whenever he remembers to employ it. You will find him thin and short, with a lean, expressionless face, grey eyes, and black hair. He can play any musical instrument from a sackbut to a Jew’s harp, and speak any language from Czech to Choctaw. Incidentally he is the idlest and most sociable man in Europe, and gets (and gives) more amusement out of life than any one I know.

  “You should look for him first at the front of the train, where he will be bribing the driver to let him travel on the engine; failing that, try the station-master’s office, where he will be ordering a special in broken Polish; or the collector’s gate, where he will be losing his ticket and discovering it in the inspector’s back hair. He is a skilled conjuror, and may produce a bowl of gold fish from your hat at any moment. On second thoughts, you will more probably find him gently baiting the incorruptible Rawnsley, who makes an admirable foil. Don’t be lured into playing poker on the way down; Paddy will deal himself five aces with the utmost sang froid.”

  “Now we know exactly where we are,” I remarked replacing the letter in my pocket, as our taxi mounted the sloping approach to Waterloo.

  “And it’s all wasted labour,” said Gladys as I began to assemble her belongings from different corners of the cab. “Phil’s here the whole time.”

  I reminded myself that I stood in loco parentis, shook hands with Philip and plunged incontinently into a sea of introductions.

  The journey down was unexpectedly tranquil. Gladys and Philip conversed in a discreet undertone, paying no more attention to my presence than if I had been the other side of the world. Gartside told me how life had treated him since our parting in Asia Minor; while Culling produced a drawing block and embarked on an illustrated history of Rawnsley’s early years. It was entitled “L’Avénement de Nigel,” and the series began with the first cabinet council hastily summoned to be informed of the birth—I noticed that the ministers were arrayed in the conventional robes of the Magi—it concluded with the first meeting of electors addressed by the budding statesman. For reasons best known to the artist, his victim was throughout deprived of the consolation of clothing, though he seldom appeared without the badge of the C.E.M.S. Rawnsley grew progressively more uncomfortable as the series proceeded, and in the interests of peace I was not sorry when we arrived at Brandon Junction.

  We strolled out into the station yard while our luggage was being collected. A car was awaiting us, with a girl in the driving-seat, and from the glimpse gained a few days earlier in Pont Street, I recognized her as Sylvia Roden. I should have liked to enjoy a long rude stare, but my attention was distracted by the changed demeanour of my fellow travellers. Gartside advanced with the air Mark Antony must have assumed in bartering away a world for a smile from Cleopatra; Rawnsley struggled to produce a Sir Walter Raleigh effect without the cloak; even Culling was momentarily sobered.

  When I turned from her admirers to Sylvia herself, it was to marvel at the dominion and assurance of an English girl in her beauty and proud youth. She sat in a long white dust-coat, her fingers toying with the ends of a long motor veil. The small oval face, surmounted by rippling black hair, was a singularly perfect setting for two lustrous, soft, unfathomable brown eyes. As she held her court, a smile of challenge hovered round her small, straight mouth, as though she were conscious of the homage paid her, and claimed it as a right; behind the smile there lurked—or so I fancied—a suggestion of weariness as with one whom mere adoration leaves disillusioned. Her manner was a baffling blend of frankness and reserve. The camaraderie of her greeting reminded me she was one girl brought up in a circle of brothers; fearless and unaffected, she met us on equal terms and was hailed by her Christian name. But the frankness was skin deep, and I pitied the man who should presume on her manner to attempt unwelcome intimacy. It was a fascinating blend, and she knew its fascination; her friends were distantly addressed as “Mr. Rawnsley,” “Lord Gartside,” “Mr. Culling.”

  Gladys and I had lingered behind the others, but at our approach Sylvia jumped down from the car and ran towards us. Her movements were astonishingly light and quick, and when I amused an idle moment in trying to fit her with a formula I decided that her veins must be filled with radium. Possibly the description conveys nothing to other people; it exactly expresses the feeling that her mobile face, quick movements of body and passionate nature inspired in me. Later on I remember the Seraph pointed to the tremendous mental and physical energy of her father and brothers, asking how a slight girl’s frame could contain such fire without eruption.

  Eruptions there certainly were, devastating and cataclysmic.…

  “How are you, my child?” she exclaimed, catching Gladys by the hands. “And where’s the wicked uncle?”

  My niece indicated my presence, and I bowed.

  “You?” Sylvia took me in with one rapid glance, and then held out a hand. “But you look hardly older than Phil.”

  “I feel even younger,” I began.

  “Face massage,” Culling murmured.

  “A good conscience,” I protested.

  “Why did you have to leave England?” he retorted.

  It was the first time I had heard it suggested that my exile was other than voluntary. I attempted no explanation as I knew Culling would outbid me. Instead, we gathered silently round the car and watched Philip attempting with much seriousness to allot seats among an excessive population that spent its time criticising and rejecting his arrangements.

  “It’s the fault of the Roden family!” he exclaimed at last in desperation. “Why did I come down by this train, and why did you come to meet us, Sylvia? We’re two too many. Look here, climb in, everybody, and Bob and I’ll go in the other car.”

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nbsp; “You can’t ask a Baron of the United Kingdom to go as luggage,” objected Culling who had vetoed twice as many suggestions as any one else.

  “Well, you come, Pat,” said Phil.

  “We Cullings aren’t to be put off with something that’s not good enough for Lord Gartside,” was the dignified rejoinder.

  Philip was seized with inspiration.

  “Does any one care to walk?” he asked. “Gladys?”

  “You’re not going to take this child over wet fields in thin shoes,” his sister interposed. “She’s got a cold as it is.”

  My eyes strayed casually to the ground and taught me that Sylvia was shod with neat, serviceable brogues.

  “I’ll walk,” I volunteered in an aside to her, “if you’ll show me the way.”

  Within two minutes the car had been despatched on its road, and Sylvia and I set out at an easy, swinging pace through the town and across the four miles of low meadow land that separated us from Brandon Court.

  “Rather good, that,” I remarked as we got clear of the town.

  “What was?” she asked.

  “Abana, Pharpar and yet a third river of Damascus flowed near at hand, but it was the sluggish old waters of Jordan that were found worthy.”

  We were walking single-file along a footpath, and a stile imposed a temporary check. Sylvia mounted it and sat on the top bar, looking down on me.

  “Are we going to be friends?” she asked abruptly.

  “I sincerely hope so.”

  “It rests with you. And you must decide now, while there’s still time to go back and get a cab at the station.”

  “We were starting rather well,” I pointed out.

  “That’s just what you weren’t doing,” she said with a determined shake of the head. “If we’re going to be friends, you must promise never to make remarks like that. You don’t mean them, and I don’t like them. Will you promise?”

  “The flesh is weak,” I protested.

  “Am I worth a little promise like that?”

  “Lord! yes,” I said. “But I always break my promises.”

  “You mustn’t break this one. It’s bad enough with Abana and Pharpar, as you call them. You know you’re really—you won’t mind my saying it?—you’re old enough.…”

  “Age only makes me more susceptible,” I lamented. The statement was perfectly true and I have suffered much mental disquiet on the subject. So far as I can see, my declining years will be one long riot of senile infidelity.

  “I don’t mind that,” said Sylvia with a close-lipped smile; “but I don’t want pretty speeches.” She jumped down from the stile and stood facing me, with her clear brown eyes looking straight into mine. “You’re not in love with me, are you?”

  I hesitated for a fraction of time, as any man would; but her foot tapped the ground with impatience.

  “Don’t be absurd!” she exclaimed, “you know you’re not; you’ve known me five minutes. Well,”—her voice suddenly lost any asperity it may have contained, and she laid her hand almost humbly on my arm—“please don’t behave as if you were. I hate it, and hate it, and hate it, till I can hardly contain myself. But I should like you as a friend. You’ve knocked about the world, you’re seasoned—”

  I held out my hand to seal the bargain.

  “I was horribly rude just now!” she exclaimed with sudden penitence. “I was afraid you were going to be like all the rest.”

  “Tell me what’s expected of me,” I begged.

  “Nothing. I just want to be friends. You’ll find I’m worth it,” she added with a flash of pride.

  “I think I saw that the moment we met.”

  “I wonder.”

  It was some time before I did full justice to Sylvia, some time before I appreciated the pathetic loneliness of her existence. For twenty years she and Philip had been staunch allies. His triumphs and troubles had been carried home from school to be discussed and shared with his sister; on the first night of every holiday the pair of them had religiously taken themselves out to dinner and a theatre, and Sylvia had been in attendance at every important match in which he was taking part, and every speech day at which he was presented with a prize. The tradition was carried on at Oxford, and had only come to an end when Philip entered public life and won his way into the House of Commons. Their confidences had then grown gradually less frequent, and Sylvia, whose one cry—like Kundry’s—had ever been, “Let me serve,” found herself without the opportunity of service. The Roden household, when I first entered it, was curiously unsympathetic; she was without an ally; there was much affection and woefully little understanding. Her father never took counsel with the women of his family, Philip had slipped away, and neither Robin nor Michael was old enough to take his place. With her vague, ill-defined craving to be of account in the world, it was small wonder if she felt herself unfriended and her devotional overtures rejected. Had her father been any one else, I am convinced that Sylvia would have joined Joyce Davenant and sought an outlet for her activities in militancy.

  “You’re remarkably refreshing, Sylvia,” I said. She raised her eyebrows at the name. “Oh, well,” I went on, “if we’re going to be friends.… Besides, it’s a very pretty name.”

  “I hate it!” she exclaimed. “Sylvia Forstead Mornington Roden. I hate them all!”

  “Were you called after Lady Forstead?” I asked.

  “Yes. Did you know her?”

  I shook my head. Of course I had heard of her and the money left by her husband, who had chanced to own the land on which Renton came afterwards to be built. Most of that money, I learned later, was reposing in trust till Sylvia was twenty-five.

  “Your taste in godmothers is commendable,” I remarked.

  “You think so?” she asked without conviction.

  It is not good for a young girl to be burdened with great possessions; they distort her outlook on life. I wondered to what extent Sylvia was being troubled in anticipation, but the wonder was idle: nature had troubled her with sufficient good looks to make mercenary admirers superfluous.

  “Most people.…” I began, but stopped as she came to a sudden standstill.

  “I say, we forgot all about Mr. Aintree!” she exclaimed.

  “He didn’t come,” I reassured her.

  “Oh, Phil said perhaps he mightn’t. I gather he usually does accept invitations and not turn up. I hate people who can’t be reasonably polite.”

  “He usually refuses the invitation,” I said in the Seraph’s defence.

  “Why?”

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Shyness, I suppose.”

  “I hate shy people.”

  “You must ask him.”

  “I don’t know him. What’s he like?”

  “Oh, I thought you did. He.…” I paused and tried to think how the Seraph should be described; it was not easy. “Medium height,” I ventured at last, “fair hair, rather a white face; curious, rather haunting dark eyes. Middle twenties, but usually looks younger. Very nervous and overwrought, frightfully shy.…”

  “Sounds like a degenerate poet.”

  “He’s had a good deal of trouble,” I added. “Be kind to him, Sylvia. Life’s a long agony to him when he’s with strangers.”

  “I hate shy people,” she repeated. “It’s so silly to be awkward.”

  “He’s not awkward. Incidentally, what a number of things you find time to hate!”

  “I know. I’m composed entirely of hates and bad tempers. And I hate myself more than anybody else.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t understand myself,” she answered, “and I can’t control myself.”

  On arriving at the house I was introduced to my hostess. Lady Roden was a colourless woman who had sunk to a secondary position in the household. This was perhaps not surprising in
a family that contained Arthur as the nominal head, and Philip, Sylvia, Robin, and Michael as Mayors of the Palace. What she lacked in authority was made up in prestige. On no single day of her life of fifty years did she forget that she was a Rutlandshire Mornington. I fear I have little respect for Morningtons—or any other pre-Conquest families—whether they come from Rutlandshire or any other part of the globe. Such inborn reverence as I in common with all other Englishmen may ever have possessed has been starved by many years absence abroad. At Brandon Court I found the sentiment flourishing hardily: Lady Roden dug for pedigrees as a dog scratches for a bone. “You are a brother of the Judge?” she said when we met. “Then—let me see—your sister-in-law was a Hylton.”

  I had expected to find the atmosphere oppressive with Front Bench politics, but the influence of Pat Culling was salutary. Discussion quailed before his powers of illustration, and the study of “The Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur Roden Mixing his Metaphors in the Cause of Empire”—it now hangs in the library of Cadogan Square—rescued the conversation from controversial destruction. In lieu of politics we had to arrange for the arrival of our last two guests; Aintree had wired that he was coming by a later train, and Rawnsley’s sister Mavis had to be brought over some twenty miles from Hanningfold on the Sussex borders. Sylvia volunteered for the longer journey in her own little runabout, while the Seraph was to be fetched in the car that went nightly to Brandon Junction for Arthur’s official, cabinet-minister’s despatch case.

  “What’s come over our Seraph the last few years?” Culling asked me, when the two cars had gone their respective ways and we were smoking a cheroot in the Dutch Garden. “I’ve known him from a bit of a boy that high, and now—God knows—it’s in a decline you’d say he was taken. You can’t please him and you can’t even anger him. He’s like a man has his heart broken.”

  I did not know what answer to give.

  “Just a passing mood,” I suggested.

  “It’s a mood will have him destroyed,” said Culling, gloomily.

  He was a kind-hearted, pleasant, superficial fellow, one of those feckless, humorous Irishmen who laugh at the absurdities of the world and themselves, and go on laughing till life comes to hold no other business—a splendid engine for work or fighting, but too idle almost to make a start, too little concentrated ever to keep the wheel moving, a man of short cuts and golden roads.… He talked with easy kindness of the Seraph till a horn sounded far away down the drive and the Brandon car swept tortuously through the elm avenue to the house.