Something Wicked

by David Roberts

  ‘I’ve rather taken to it. The old man seems to express my philosophy of life as well as anyone. “Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.”’

  Edward saw that the other books by the armchair were also poetry and plays – Ben Jonson, John Webster, Shakespeare. He was impressed. ‘It’s a long time since I read Whitman. I can see why he appeals to you.’

  ‘It’s a funny thing. I wasn’t much of a reader at school but there’s so damn little to do in Kenya that I began to find – after you left – I was eating up books – poetry in particular. Less hard work than women . . .’ he laughed, sounding rather shy, ‘and in many ways more satisfying.’

  The coolness which had been between them seemed to vanish, re-establishing the intimacy they had shared at school. Edward had no wish to spoil the atmosphere but felt he had to ask. ‘Lady Redfern – did that . . .?’

  ‘I had a sticky few weeks but, in the end, they couldn’t pin anything on me. It was just an accident. You scurried off as quick as your feet would take you.’

  ‘I made a statement to the police,’ Edward said defensively.

  ‘I don’t blame you for getting out of it, old man.’

  ‘I didn’t “get out of it”. It was nothing to do with me. It was your accident – not mine.’

  Harry visibly restrained himself, shrugging his shoulders. ‘No hard feelings, old boy. Just one of those things, eh? Anyway, it’s good to have you here. I’m going to put together a bit of a party for the regatta. You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Not at all. I’m hoping Verity may be fit enough to enjoy a little gentle boating. It’s still a week or two off, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. It begins on the twenty-ninth and ends on the second of July. You rowed at Eton, didn’t you?’

  ‘Not seriously. I was a dry-bob. I rowed a bit at Cambridge but I’ve always been more of a cricket man. I remember you rowed.’

  ‘Yes. It’s one of the attractions of this place – being able to get on the river. In fact, I’ve been asked to make up an Old Etonian four during the regatta but I don’t think I’ll risk it. My puff isn’t what it used to be. Getting old, I suppose.’ He changed the subject. ‘Your young woman – how is she getting on with Bladon? By the way, isn’t he a Cambridge man?’

  Edward winced at the thought of how Verity would hate this description. ‘That’s right. He was up at Trinity with me.’

  ‘Is he a good doctor? I don’t hold with them myself. Kill as soon as cure, I’ve always said.’

  ‘I think so. He’s very clever and strong enough to stop Verity exhausting herself. She hates not doing anything. That’s why I’m so keen to get her working on this business of my dentist.’

  ‘Oh yes, you mentioned it on the telephone. It sounds most macabre but can’t the police deal with it? Why are you getting involved?’

  ‘I’ve drifted into doing a bit of sleuthing,’ Edward said, rather embarrassed. Here was one person who had not read about anything he had done and he should have been glad of it. Instead, he thought he ought to explain himself a little.

  ‘You remember when poor Molly was murdered?’ Molly Harkness was a woman they had both known in Nairobi. ‘Well, I managed to help . . . you know, get to the bottom of the affair.’

  ‘Oh, I say! You’re not a private eye, are you? I thought they were only in America.’

  ‘Don’t rib me, Harry. I’m not in the mood,’ Edward responded, irritably. ‘I’m not a private detective. I mean I don’t do it for money but I have solved one or two problems that the police . . .’

  ‘You are a private eye! Of course, I’m sure you are very good at it. Now, you must let me help you. It sounds like good clean fun.’

  ‘Not for Eric Silver, it wasn’t,’ Edward said roughly. ‘I’ll tell you all about it later. In the meantime, would it be possible for me to have a wash before dinner?’

  ‘I’m so sorry!’ Harry said quickly, getting up from his chair ‘I didn’t mean to josh you. Come, I’ll show you your room. Your man arrived a couple of hours ago. Everything should be ready for you. Take a bath. There’s plenty of hot water. I thought we’d dine at eight – just the two of us. Don’t dress. I wear an old smoking jacket when I’m alone, like I did in the bush.’

  ‘That suits me.’

  ‘Funny about the dentist though.’

  ‘Funny?’

  ‘Well, old man, you remember what Emerson said about being dead?’

  ‘You read Ralph Waldo Emerson?’ Edward was amused. ‘What did Emerson have to say about death and dentists?’

  ‘He said that when you’re dead, “at least you’re done with the dentist.” Of course, in this case, it’s death which did for the dentist.’

  The smile faded from Edward’s lips. He was no longer amused.

  3

  Turton House was a big, ramshackle place of no particular architectural period or interest but with a splendid view of the river, and before dinner Edward strolled down to the river bank to think about Verity. He always loved gardens like this where the lawns sloped gently down to the water. It was soothing to his troubled spirit and, in the gathering dusk, the river looked serene and infinitely gentle although he knew that even the Thames could be dangerous if taken for granted. He peered into a large boathouse containing several small craft including rowing boats and two fast-looking ‘riggers’ which reminded him of his schooldays. A young man wearing grey flannels, vest and cap sculled by, his long, elegant strokes hardly ruffling the water. He thought it would do Verity good – weather permitting – to lie in a punt and watch athletic young men row up and down.

  It wasn’t quite as it had been before the war when Henley Royal Regatta was one of the great social events of the season but it was still an important date in the sporting and social calendar. As he had reminded his host, Edward had been a dry-bob at school but, although cricket was his game, he had rowed a bit and had many friends at school and university who virtually lived on the river. He had been to the regatta once before as a guest of his friend Tommie Fox – an accomplished sportsman who had rowed for Eton and Cambridge and won a blue for boxing – who was now a hard-working, underpaid vicar in North London.

  He had an idea that, if she were well enough, Verity might find the jollities diverting. A great deal of beer, champagne and Pimm’s was drunk during Henley week and it would have been a good moment to introduce her to the world at large as his future wife. Nothing had yet been said between them about delaying the official announcement of their engagement but Edward was aware that, until Verity felt she had beaten her illness, she would not want to think about marriage.

  He sighed deeply. What would he not give to have her on his arm as they paraded among men wearing striped blazers and straw boaters or coloured caps, and women in frocks more suited to an Edwardian garden party than a sporting event.

  Lost in thought, he did not hear his host crossing the grass with a gin and tonic in each hand.

  ‘Still your tipple?’ Harry asked. ‘The gnats are beginning to bite,’ he added amiably, slapping his cheek.

  ‘Sorry, yes, it’s still my tipple. It’s good to be here, Harry. You’re sure you don’t mind me using you as an hotel? I’ll have to go to London on business at some point but it’s wonderful not to have to drive up and down the Great West Road every day to see Verity.’

  ‘You really love her?’ Harry sounded amused and faintly envious.

  ‘Yes, I do. Did you ever love any of your girls?’

  ‘That one who died – I loved her.’

  ‘But she was . . .’

  ‘I know, another man’s wife. Still, we loved each other in our own way. I suppose it wouldn’t have lasted but . . . well, you never know and now I never will.’

  ‘You really loved her?’ Edward asked in amazement.

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised, old man. I am capable of love – at least I thought so then. I had the feeling that if on
ly we had managed by some miracle to get away from that place – the Club, the bores, the stupid empty days of idleness – she might have made something out of me.’

  ‘It’s not too late. I always admired your gifts. You could charm the birds off the branches.’

  Harry grimaced. ‘Charm! Things came too easily for me. God, I was bored! So bored.’

  ‘And will you be bored here?’

  ‘Probably,’ Harry said with his crooked grin. ‘Unless I can make it more interesting.’

  Edward was conscious of an unease stealing over him. This tranquil place soothed him but Harry . . . It would be just like him to make life interesting by killing a few bores and leaving a cheap challenge on the corpses to tease the police. Ah! What was he thinking? Whatever else he might be, his friend was not a murderer. Although he possessed the necessary ruthless streak – Edward knew that for a fact.

  ‘Did you know any of the people I mentioned?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘The murder victims?’ Harry looked at him with grim enjoyment. ‘You think I might have killed those two old boys and that old woman? No, I didn’t know them so why would I kill them?’

  ‘I didn’t say I thought you might have killed anyone . . .’

  ‘Oh, I’ve killed people before now. You remember my “boy” – Gustav, I called him, though I think his name was Koondo? I killed him. I came back unexpectedly from safari and found him smoking one of my best cigars and drinking my brandy.’

  ‘And you killed him?’ Edward was shocked.

  ‘I threw him down the steps and he broke his neck. Oh, and one of the Germans . . . one of those fat, porcine ones. He found me with his wife. We were up country and no one knew. I shot him and fed him to the lions. Said it was a terrible accident.’

  ‘But surely there were witnesses . . . his wife?’

  ‘She was glad to be rid of him. Fat bastard liked to tie her to a tree and beat her. No witnesses, just our secret.’

  ‘Are you serious, Harry?’

  ‘Of course I’m bloody serious. By the way, I lied to you. I did know one of the people you were talking about.’

  ‘One of the murder victims?’

  ‘The mountaineer – what was his name?’

  ‘James Herold.’

  ‘That’s the chap. He came on safari with me once and I climbed in the Drakensberg with him. Good man, I thought. Sorry to hear he had that illness. Glad to be released from it, I expect. I know I would be.’

  Edward shivered and Harry said, ‘It’s turning a bit chilly. In any case, it’s time for dinner. Let’s go back to the house.’

  ‘Tell me you were joking,’ Edward said as they turned to go inside.

  ‘About killing? I wasn’t joking. Why should you be shocked? We can all kill if we need to – kill or be killed,’ he amended. ‘That’s why I’ll have to go back to that great dark continent as Conrad calls it. Have you ever read Lord Jim? No? You ought to. He tells the truth about the journey we all have to make.’ He put his arm round Edward’s shoulders. ‘Hey, don’t look so glum. I’d like to meet that woman of yours. From what I hear, she’s my kind of girl.’

  Over dinner – an excellent sole followed by cheese and an admirable vintage port – they jawed about Africa: blue velvet nights on the veldt tracking impala, kongoni antelope or the musky scent of waterbuck through grass which flayed their ankles drawing blood through the toughest trousers. They recalled a night of high drama under a smoky-red moon when they had been faced with a pride of six lions attracted by the scent of the gazelle chops they were roasting over the campfire. Or had it been the Mozart? Harry took his gramophone on safari with him and, predictably perhaps, Don Giovanni was his favourite.

  They laughed over the memory of a hippo which had almost done for Edward beside a crocodile-infested river and remembered the delectable taste of tinned peaches after a long day tracking leopard. Edward relived a magical flight in Harry’s Tiger Moth. Creeping across the vast African sky, they had seen far beneath them over a thousand elephant covering the Mara like a grey blanket. Later they had cracked open a bottle of warm champagne and toasted their youth and the great adventure that was Africa.

  Good though it was to share such memories, Edward was all the time aware that he was breaking bread with a murderer. On his own admission, Harry had killed an African servant and a German who had caught him tupping his wife. Could he kill again? Had he killed again?

  ‘Do you remember the day Jami came to you?’ Edward asked dreamily, recalling Harry’s Somali servant.

  ‘As noble a savage as I ever hope to meet,’ Harry said.

  ‘Memory plays such tricks. Why should I remember Jami when I haven’t thought of him for goodness knows how many years?’

  The conversation turned to motor cars and Edward asked his friend what he was driving now. ‘You’ve not still got the Bugatti, I suppose? You remember when we raced from Nairobi to Nakuru and the Bugatti beat my Hudson by twenty minutes? Of course, now I would never drive anything but my Lagonda. I was saying to Verity . . .’

  ‘I don’t drive now, old boy. Not in England, anyway.’

  ‘But you were mad about . . .’

  ‘You’re really going to marry her?’ Harry interrupted, as if he could hardly believe anyone would voluntarily surrender their freedom for the bonds of matrimony.

  ‘As I told you earlier, we’re engaged but it’s not official,’ Edward replied stiffly.

  ‘Your secret’s safe with me,’ Harry said, a touch ironically. ‘After all, I don’t know anyone. So why does it have to be such a big secret?’

  ‘It’s hard to explain. She’s an independent spirit and it took a good deal of effort on my part to persuade her to accept me. She thinks marriage might interfere with her career.’

  ‘“’Tis just like a summer birdcage in a garden: the birds that are without despair to get in, and the birds that are within despair and are in a consumption for fear that they shall never get out.”’

  Edward didn’t like the reference to consumption but was impressed. ‘Who wrote that?’

  ‘John Webster in The White Devil. I’ve rather taken to reading Revenge Tragedies. They are so expressive. “We are merely the stars’ tennis balls, struck and bandied which way please them.” Rather good, eh? Tennis balls!’ Harry laughed.

  ‘Webster’s too violent for me,’ Edward responded.

  ‘Did you say she’s a journalist?’

  ‘A foreign correspondent. She was in Prague when she fell ill.’

  ‘Of course, I read her reports from Spain. But forgive me, Edward – why choose someone who does not want to marry you when there are so many women who would give everything to . . .? Stop me, if I’m being impertinent.’

  ‘It’s just one of those things.’ Edward waved a hand. ‘You don’t choose who to love. She never bores me for one thing,’ he added and then gave up trying to explain. ‘Wait till you meet her, then you’ll understand. But come to that, why aren’t you married?’ He hesitated, wondering if he was probing too deeply. ‘You said you loved Lady Redfern – Christobel!’ The name suddenly came to him. ‘But after . . .’

  ‘There was a girl – she was in the car when the crash happened, as a matter of fact. She was very good to me but it didn’t work out.’ Harry got up and walked towards the French windows which opened out on to the lawn.

  ‘I ought not to have asked.’

  ‘No, I’ll tell you all about it sometime but here’s Ransome. I expect he wants to clear the table.’ The butler said nothing but raised an eyebrow questioningly at his employer. ‘Let’s take the port and the cigars into the library. Shelves of books. I’ve begun to sort through them. Then I find something like Leaves of Grass, settle down to read and that’s the day gone.’

  They didn’t go to bed until late but Edward slept well and at nine the following morning he strolled round to the police station. Henley was a pretty enough town of some six thousand inhabitants – hardly more than an oversized village – with a medieval church
complete with fifteenth-century tower and an even earlier chantry house, a charming theatre and a suitably picturesque bridge – dated 1786 – over the river. There were pleasant pubs and tea-shops for the tourists who flocked to the town – not just during the regatta but throughout the summer – and the Brakspear brewery supplied good ale to the Red Lion and the Angel on the Bridge. Near the bridge, on the Berkshire bank, was the headquarters of Leander, the premier rowing club in the country. On the other bank was Phyllis Court, the fashionable country club.

  Henley, Edward supposed, was a sleepy place and he imagined there was very little crime for the local police to investigate. He took it for granted that in Inspector Treacher he would find what his American friends called a hayseed, sucking on the end of a straw. In fact, when he pushed through the swing doors of the small police station and was shown into a sparsely furnished office, the man who got up to shake his hand was small, bright-eyed, yellow-haired, about thirty years of age with a pleasant smile parenthesized by bushy sideburns. He had the look of an agricultural sales representative or a dealer in cars or horses. He was shrewd, quite confident of his own authority and ready to meet this aristocrat in his perfectly cut suit with an open mind. Chief Inspector Pride had warned him not to underestimate Lord Edward Corinth and he had no intention of doing so.

  When each man had finished eyeing up the other, the Inspector offered tea and Edward accepted. Nothing was said until a young woman had brought in not just a cup of tea but a teapot and milk jug with ginger biscuits on a separate plate.

  ‘You do yourself well, Inspector,’ Edward smiled.

  ‘I think better with a cup of tea in my hand,’ he said, offering Edward the sugar bowl. ‘I gather you have some doubts about the deaths of three of our local worthies,’ he added without further ado.

  Edward, appreciating his directness, nodded his head. ‘Chief Inspector Pride will have mentioned to you that they were all patients of Eric Silver, my dentist. Silver told me that he suspected all three deaths were not the accidents they were taken to be at the time but murder. I was inclined to think there was nothing in it but, after I left him, Mr Silver was himself murdered.’