‘Oh, Malcolm,’ she said with more animation, ‘that’s too kind of you. Do tell me what it was!’
I had to think very quickly; for, to tell the truth, I had, in the rush before Christmas, completely forgotten to buy anything for Sheila at all.
‘It’s a – it’s a kind of bead necklace – a very cheap one,’ I added hastily.
Her interest waned a little.
‘Oh,’ she murmured, ‘I’m sure I shall love it. But you shouldn’t have bothered about it. We’ve none of us, I’m afraid, got anything for you. We’re a very poor family at giving Christmas presents. Mummy and Daddy, of course, give us presents, but the rest of us agreed not to bother, this year.’
Evidently, I thought, in the houses of the rich, this aspect of Christmas is not so predominant as it is amongst the comparatively poor. And by way of contrast I pictured, with mixed feelings, the family Christmases of my childhood and adolescence, and recalled the blend of generosity and greed which that season used to arouse in us all.
‘Do you think your mother has gone to bed?’ I asked.
‘No. She’ll come back to say good night. I expect she’s trying to cheer Harley up. But don’t you stay up any longer if you’re tired. I’m quite happy with my book.’
‘I think I will go to bed, then,’ I said. ‘Good night!’
‘Good night, Malcolm.’
I was not altogether sorry to be dismissed.
*
I heard no voices from the study as I undressed by the fire in my room. Either the interview was over or they were talking very quietly. I did, however, hear from time to time doors opening and shutting, steps on the stairs and, after a long interval, the shutting of the front door. Was that the going of the unknown? Like a trained spy, I switched off my light and raised a corner of the blind. A biggish man, with a cap on the back of his head, was walking down the drive. I watched him till he had opened the gate and turned to the left towards West Heath Road. All I saw was his back view, but the cap and the manner in which it was worn recalled to my mind the figure I had seen loitering by the gate before dinner.
So, I thought, switching on the light and resuming my undressing, it was no ordinary tramp that I had seen. If it had been, the discussion in the study would have been over much sooner. Were such mysterious visits part of the game of high finance? Was it blackmail? ‘Harrington Cobalts are worthless, Mr Quisberg, and you know it! Your returns are faked, your mining engineer’s a crook, and I shall write to the papers unless you give me a hundred thousand shares!’ But what were the words which I had actually heard? ‘Why, in that light, I saw it as plain as I can see you!’ Saw what?
I got into bed with my book, but instead of reading I listened. From time to time I heard steps and the shutting of doors. Well, there were several people in the house who had still to go to bed – Mr and Mrs Quisberg, Sheila, Dr Green – and several others who had not come in yet, as far as I knew – Amabel, Dixon, Clarence and the nurse. Do nurses use front or back doors, I wondered? Really, my sense of hearing seemed, that day, to have been the most valuable of my senses. Perhaps it usually was, and for that reason I tended to remember people’s words and voices rather than their gestures and faces – preferred music to painting or sculpture. Yet Dr Green had said that all my senses were acute. No doubt they were, when I used them consciously, but when I was in one of the absent-minded, introspective moods that came upon me only too frequently, it was my sense of hearing that was paramount, noticing and registering impressions without any guidance from my will.
I was still analysing my faculties, with that gentle undercurrent of self-praise which usually flows beneath such reveries, when I heard steps approaching my door and Mrs Quisberg’s knock on the panel.
‘I’ve just come,’ she said, ‘to say good night to you. I’ve had such a time with poor little Harley. He broke down completely when we left the drawing-room, and I had to take him to my room and talk to him for a long time before he recovered himself. He must have been a very devoted son. Or it may be that he wasn’t. Why is it, Malcolm, that we can only realise how much people mean to us when we lose them? It’s a real tragedy.’
She wiped away a tear, and began again.
‘Well, Malcolm, it’ll sound silly and artificial if I start apologising to you again for this miserable Christmas. We shall have to get through it, somehow. There’s Axel all upset again over goodness knows what. Martin Green’s gone upstairs with him and is putting him to bed. Some business worry, he said, and told me not to make matters worse by asking questions. He’s coming to look at your wrist when he’s finished with Axel. Well, I’m going now. You must be thoroughly sick of us all. No, I won’t stay. I’m really too worn out myself. I do hope you will be comfortable and that things will seem brighter in the morning. Good night, dear. You have the switch and a bell by the bed, haven’t you, in case you want anything? Good night, again, and sleep well.’
She left the room, barely giving me time to say anything in reply. Poor angelic woman, I thought! However, hers was a nature which would quickly rebound. How, I wondered, was Dr Green bearing up amid these alarms? I almost resolved to speak my mind to him, and say: ‘Look here, Doctor, what’s up? Why is Quisberg so jumpy? Why is Clarence so queer? Who exactly is Dixon, and who are you, prowling about among these mysteries like a panther?’ But this would have been quite the wrong way to tackle him. I could imagine his sardonic laugh, his counter-thrusts, the way in which he would soon turn the tables. ‘My dear fellow,’ he would say, ‘we all know that your poor aunt died in very dramatic circumstances. Don’t brood on it. Don’t let it go to your head. You’re among quite ordinary people here. It’s true, Harley’s mother was a somnambulist and a little deranged in the head – women not infrequently are at a certain age – and it’s true that an annoying fellow visited Quisberg to-night on business. It’s true that Dixon’s a bounder, that Clarence James is a romantic young man full of artistic rubbish, and that his half-sister, Amabel, is a bright young thing whose behind should be thoroughly chastised with my razor-strop – and it’s true I’m a character. But for the Lord’s sake leave it at that, and make some effort to adapt yourself to us – (and you’re a bit of an oddity too, you know) – instead of indulging in these utterly fantastic speculations!’
‘But, Doctor,’ I would have said, and was still prolonging an imaginary interview with him, when he came in, and a real conversation, not at all on preconcerted lines, began.
‘And now for you,’ he said gruffly, leaning over the bed and drawing my right arm towards him. ‘You’re better. You must wear the sling to-morrow. You needn’t wear it the day after. And begin to use your fingers more. Use a pencil, or strum the piano. Come on, turn over, I can’t reach you there. I’m far too tired to stand up while I rub you.’
‘Why are you tired?’ I asked.
‘I’m tired of you – by which of course I mean practically everybody in the house.’
‘I hear Mr Quisberg’s unwell again.’
‘Yes, another attack of the jimjams. Well, if you will dabble in things that are too big for you, that’s usually the end.’
‘You mean this financial deal?’
‘Yes and no. This one, that one and the other one. He can’t let well alone. He never could. Oh, your miserable Cobalts are all right. I didn’t mean them particularly.’
‘You’ve got some too.’
‘Axel’s Christmas present to me. He’s a very dear fellow, Malcolm. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him. There isn’t much I haven’t done, for that matter, in the course of my long life.’
‘What have you done for him?’ I asked, profiting by this mood of apparent expansiveness.
He chuckled.
‘I’ve mended a broken nose for him among other things.’
‘Oh,’ I said simply. ‘So that’s why his nose has a kink in it.’
He looked at me with sudden sharpness.
‘I wonder if you really are about half as clever as you think you are – that’s to say
, about as clever as I think you?’
‘Probably. Have I annoyed you?’
He did not reply, but rubbed my wrist and arm up and down, making the hissing noise of a groom attending to a horse. For a while I shut my eyes and enjoyed the sensation. Then I looked at him suddenly and said: ‘Have you seen the nurse yet?’
His fingers tightened on my arm.
‘So you’ve been having naughty thoughts! Why did you ask me that?’
‘I don’t know. I saw her this afternoon; but I assure you—’
‘Oh, come, come. There’s no need to be prudish with me. I’m the little father-confessor of all the world. If you knew all I know about human nature with its twists and turns and kinks – you’d find most people very easy to understand.’
‘I dare say. I think I should enjoy a long talk with you – if you’d let yourself go.’
Evidently, as I came to know him better, my boldness with him was growing.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘perhaps some day we’ll have a long talk, and I shall let myself go, and you’ll feel what a very dull little person you are beside the great-souled and heroic Martin Green. But not to-night. To-night we must go to sleep early. There, that should do.’
He replaced the bandage, but much more loosely than the night before.
‘Are you going to give me a sleeping draught?’
‘Am I going to give you a good-night kiss!’ he said violently. ‘No, you won’t need one. However, it’s nice of you to suggest it. Sign of trust, perhaps.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing. Well, your toilet to-morrow should be an easier matter than it was to-day. Edwins can help you if necessary, and I’ll have a look at you after breakfast, if I’ve got time. How do you like the blind?’
‘Let it up, will you? And would you mind opening the window?’
‘Wide, like this?’
‘Yes, it’s such a warm night.’
‘Now, is there any other service I can render?’
‘No – except let me thank you—’
‘For my great kindness, etc. Well, as a patient I don’t find you distasteful. Sweet dreams.’
‘Good night, Doctor.’
*
Almost as soon as he left me I fell asleep, but had a long spell of intermittent wakefulness between one and three. It was during that time that I heard the return of Amabel and Dixon – first, the car in the drive, and then, when they had put it away in the garage and stood by the porch, their voices.
‘I don’t care what happens,’ Dixon said in a thick voice. ‘I know you’ll stand by me. Let’s celebrate again, shall we? It’s been a good evening. Where are they, old girl?’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, and then, when presumably he had explained himself by a gesture, she went on, ‘Oh, they’re in the shed behind the garage. But, we can’t to-night. Remember, it’s a house of mourning.’
She giggled in exasperating fashion.
‘Now, old girl, give in to little Lennie for this once.’
‘You’ll wake them all up.’
‘No, I won’t. It didn’t last night. Besides, we’re awake. Why shouldn’t they wake too?’
‘Now come in, you great bear with a sore head. You’ll disturb Sheila. Oh, I forgot, Master Malcolm Warren is in her room to-night. I don’t mean what you mean!’
‘He’s a rotter, anyway. What do I care?’
‘Well, I do. In you go.’
‘Oh, no you don’t. All right, but you must be punished first.’
At this there was the sound of a little scuffle, followed by resounding kisses. Then the front door slammed.
So that accounted for Amabel and Dixon, I mused lazily, without trying to fathom what they had been arguing about. Was Clarence in? And what about the nurse? Did nurses use front or back doors? And how long would it be before Dr Green came in and broke my nose?
So did my waking life mingle with dreams.
IX. Tulips in Bowls
Boxing Day – 8.30 a.m.
Boxing Day. My wrist. Harrington Cobalts – (rather piano this time). The death of Mrs Harley. Amabel and Dixon at breakfast. (What was it they had been saying in the porch?) Amabel with her short and fluffy hair, Amabel with her assumed Oxford drawl, Dixon with his scowls and pugnacious rudeness, Sheila the taciturn, Clarence the difficult, Harley the pitiable – how could I face them at breakfast, with the prospect of seeing them all day? Why begin the battle before I must? I would breakfast in bed, and stay there for a long time.
I rang the bell.
*
‘Good morning, Edwins. Yes, much better to-day, thank you, but could I have breakfast in bed?’
*
It was again a lovely day, and, while I ate my breakfast, I looked with delight at the trees which I could see from my window. Surely spring could not be very far away. By way of contrast to my inquisitiveness of the previous evening, I felt detached from the household and disinterested in its woes and perplexities. Beyond making myself as agreeable as I could, why should I not just lazily enjoy the fine weather and the comforts of the house, behaving as if I were spending a short holiday in a well-managed hotel? It was a form of cowardice, I suppose, a reaction from nervous strain. Memories of Quisberg’s interview with the stranger, and of Amabel’s incomprehensible conversation with Dixon, came over me from time to time, but I brushed them aside, and deliberately tried to turn my thoughts to themes quite unconnected with my unfortunate visit to Beresford Lodge. How delightful the sunshine was! Next year I would really try to enjoy the spring and summer. I would fill my rooms with spring flowers. (I could buy hyacinths and tulips growing in fibre quite cheaply from a nursery, and transplant them in my own bowls.) I would have my sitting-room repainted. I would go for a short motor trip at Easter. For the summer, I might even take a little cottage on the river where I could have my friends to stay at week-ends. We would have bathing parties, and floodlit games of bridge on the lawn. I might even buy a little cottage – if these Harrington Cobalts . . . No, I refused to think of Harrington Cobalts or the ill-omened Christmas Eve on which I had bought them. I must escape, mentally, at least, from the deadness of the year, and the deadness of the big padded house, surrounded by so many other houses no less big and padded, in which, for a few dreary days more, I was to be a most unwilling guest. Escape! This really was the wish that drove my imagination over these extravagant fields. It was not that I had any grounds for anticipating disaster; for whenever I tried to look ‘facts’ in the face, the ‘facts’ receded from my view and became silly inventions of my own, scraps of conversation misheard and misinterpreted, mystifications without motive, puzzles unworthy of solution. But the whole atmosphere of that house, as I lay in bed trying to contemplate nothing but the sunshine, dwarfed and distorted me, making me a puny pantomime puppet whom some horse-play or other might lead into a nasty accident, if I were not continually on my guard. The sunshine, spring, tulips and hyacinths in countless bowls, a country cottage and moonlight on the river – these were the prospects in which I should find myself again, when I emerged, reduced but not extinguished, from the ordeal of the next few days.
‘Come in!’
‘So there you are, tucked up in your little pigsty. Show me the wrist!’
Dr Green put my breakfast-tray on the floor, and bent over me. His words were in his usual idiom, but his expression was strangely joyless. Was it simply exasperation at having to hunt me out in my retreat? Why should that make him look as if he hadn’t had any sleep?
‘How did you sleep?’ he went on.
‘Only fairly well, thank you. And you?’
‘I always sleep well. I had to get up and see to Axel, as a matter of fact. He was fretting again. Oh, nothing. I shall keep him in bed till dinner time, and he’ll be all right again.’
‘Have you seen the others?’
‘Sheila only – and Clarence tramping miserably up and down the terrace with a face like a dry toadstool. You’re all right.’
‘
Do you mean I’m quite cured?’
‘You will be, by to-morrow morning. Nature can do the rest, now.’
‘Don’t I need any more massage?’
‘No, no more massage.’
He spoke the words almost wearily, and turning his back on me, went to the window, where he stood for a few moments, whistling softly.
‘Well, then,’ I said, ‘I suppose I’d better get up. Will you come for a walk with me over the Heath?’
‘No.’
He paused ungraciously and continued, ‘I’m much too busy. To-morrow, perhaps – to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow. Is that Shakespeare?’
‘Yes. Were you awakened by Amabel and Dixon coming in late last night?’
‘No. Did they come in late?’
‘Yes, very. They were talking about rousing the whole house with something kept in a shed behind the garage. I heard them through my window. What could it have been, do you think? A new kind of motor-horn?’
He turned round, and surveyed me with distaste for a moment before answering.
‘Probably. Anything brazen, vulgar and noisy would certainly commend itself to their shoddy little souls!’
‘Well, they didn’t do it, whatever it was. I feel rather worried about you, Doctor. You’ve lost your bedside manner. Has anything awful happened in the night? Harley hasn’t followed his poor mother, has he?’
‘Nothing of the slightest importance, even to the most inquisitive, has happened during the night,’ he rapped out. Then, surprisingly and suddenly, he broke into loud laughter and came over to my bed. ‘Come, come, my young friend,’ he said, ‘what is it? Out with it! You seem to be suffering from a mental costiveness. I’ve been busy with Axel during the night, and I’m too busy to-day to go a walk with you, though the prospect of doing so would in happier circumstances delight me. I shan’t be in to luncheon and I very probably shan’t be in for tea. I’ve some business to do for Axel in London – in or near Baker Street, as the house agents would say. So much for me. Now you?’
Crime at Christmas Page 8