A car had in fact just driven up with Clinton Wells at the wheel. He alighted and entered the office and after a moment’s chat Mr. Longden took his leave and with it Clinton’s umbrella instead of his own. Fortunately Ralph saw what had happened and ran after the vicar. Much disconcerted, Mr. Longden wondered what he could have done with his own, and then a passing estate tenant with a grievance pounced on Ralph. Mr. Longden, wondering where his own umbrella could be, went across to the post office where it so often turned up. But this time it was not there, and suddenly he remembered he had had it in the estate office. So he went back there, passing Ralph still trying to get rid of the discontented tenant, and in the office found both the missing umbrella and Clinton Wells impatiently fidgeting at the window and demanding to know how much longer Ralph was going to spend out there with Farmer Young, notorious for his grievances and his demands.
“I’ll see if I can chase him away,” he announced, adding a brief acknowledgment of the returned umbrella.
Mr. Longden, left alone, collected his own umbrella, making sure it really was his this time, replaced Clinton’s in the stand, noticed Ralph’s keys lying on the table, triumphantly put them in his pocket under the impression that they were his own, congratulated himself on everything being all right now, and went off. Nor was it till late that night, after a call that had kept him out till nearly twelve, that he discovered as he was preparing for bed that he was in possession of two sets of keys. This puzzled him so enormously that he just sat there looking incredulously at the two bunches, which indeed resembled each other as closely as bunches of keys generally do, so that it was easy enough to mistake one for the other. Close questioning by Mrs. Longden cleared up the mystery, and then Mr. Longden was so remorseful that he would have started out then and there to return the keys to their rightful owner had not Mrs. Longden very firmly objected.
The morning would do, she said, and besides, the vicar had to confess that he was really tired, for before that late summons had come there had been the long and tiring meeting about evacuation plans. It had been a confused, muddled, quarrelsome meeting, and his job as chairman had not been easy. Mrs. Owen, who was present as a Midwych representative, gave her husband, Inspector Bobby Owen, an amused and detailed account.
“I was hoping to see the returned prodigal,” she added, for the return of the long lost heir was still the one exciting topic of the day, far eclipsing in interest that approaching dance of death down which Hitler was so soon to lead the nations of the world, “but he wasn’t there. Mr. Ralph Hoyle was. He looked awfully strained. They say he is working himself to death over the new food production plans, but it looked to me as if there were more than that.”
“Well, you can’t wonder,” answered Bobby, who had spent a happy, peaceful evening pottering about the garden, putting there into practice trial and error, especially error. “Enough to bowl any chap over. He was the big man in the district as the heir to the title and the estates, and now he’s only himself and nothing more, just a pair of hands and a head like any one else.”
“People generally seem to like him,” Olive observed. “I do myself, what I’ve seen of him.”
“It’s one thing to be liked when you’re the heir and important, and another when you are just one more in the market place,” observed Bobby, and added that all the same the new heir didn’t seem to be making himself very popular.
There were the rumours, too, that Ralph was calling the new man an impostor and a fraud and that he meant to put up a fight.
“Difficult to see what he can do at present, though,” Bobby observed, “unless he can manage an action for libel or something of that sort. And I don’t see how he can work that, if the other fellow lies low and says nothing and spends his time consolidating his position as they say in the army. Of course, if he is the genuine goods, he won’t need.”
“You would think he must be genuine with both his grandparents accepting him,” Olive said thoughtfully, “but there’s the oddest feeling about that he isn’t. Little Sophy Longden was there. She’s such a nice child and she’s dreadfully worried.”
“What about?” Bobby asked. “Doesn’t affect her, does it?”
“No, I suppose not,” agreed Olive, “but all the same she made me feel there’s something wrong at the castle and she knows it and she’s afraid.”
“Well, anyhow, it’s a civil matter,” Bobby observed comfortably, as he went off to lock up for the night. “Like the Tichborne case. Nothing to do with us, thank the Lord.”
But early the next morning, before they were up, the ’phone rang, and after he had listened, Bobby turned to Olive.
“I’ve got to get off double quick time,” he said. “I’ll grab a bit of bread and cheese and there’s some milk, isn’t there?”
Olive was out of bed in an instant, her mind full of bacon and eggs, tea, toast.
“I’ll have breakfast ready before you’re dressed,” she said.
“Can’t stop,” he told her. “I’ve to be at Castle Wych at once.”
“Castle Wych,” Olive repeated. “What’s happened there?”
“Murder,” Bobby answered as he made for the door.
CHAPTER VI
DINNER PARTY
At that confused, quarrelsome meeting held to discuss the evacuation question and destined to prove the prelude to what later on became known as the Castle Wych tragedy, Earl Wych himself had not been present.
Almost unprecedented for any public meeting to be held in the village whereat he was not either chairman or speaker. But since the return of the long-lost heir, that one might have expected would be to him so great a source of comfort and content, the old earl had tended to withdraw from all and every kind of activity or intercourse. He spent hours alone in the library he had always used as his own special retreat. He had had installed there a small wireless set and would listen to it for hours at a time, as though all he wanted were something, anything, to distract his thoughts. Frequently, too, he would not join the others at meals, but would ask simply for a sandwich and a glass of sherry to be brought to him.
Noticeable, too, was it how little disposed he seemed to be for any intercourse with Bertram, the long-lost, newly-found heir. Martin, the butler, went indeed so far as to declare that to avoid Mr. Bertram was the chief reason for the earl’s seclusion. The countess, too, now seldom left her room, or if she did so, it would only be for an hour or two in the afternoon when, on a fine day, Sophy succeeded in coaxing her to sit for a while on the terrace. Only rarely did she appear at dinner, so that often it happened that Anne, Bertram, and Sophy were alone. Occasionally, if Sophy thought the countess was not fit to be left, the evening meal became a tête-à-tête, with Anne and Bertram sitting by themselves at one end of the big table.
When that happened, the situation seemed to amuse Anne more than it did Bertram. One of the malicious stories that could in the end have been traced to Martin, recounted that on one such occasion Bertram had fairly bolted out of the room and that Anne had finished the meal alone, smiling to herself with a curiously well satisfied air.
“You mark my words,” Martin declared on another occasion, “there’s something up between those two. One way or another, she knows she’s got him.”
But when asked to explain, or to say how there could be anything between two people who had never met before, he merely shrugged his shoulders and looked wise, as is the way of those who have no answer to give to the questions put to them.
On the evening of the day of the evacuation meeting that was to become a sort of landmark in the story of the Castle Wych tragedy, there was, however, a larger party than usual assembled round the table in the old dining-room. Earl Wych had for once emerged from the library. The countess had declared herself feeling stronger and in spite of Sophy’s fears that she might be overtaxing herself, she had come downstairs. Both Ralph and Arthur had spoken at the meeting and both had come on to dine at the Manor. Ralph was silent and grim. It had somehow become known
that he had asked for a private talk with his great-uncle and there was a general impression that that talk was not going to be a very amiable one. He had been heard to say that he wasn’t going to stand it any longer, and that there had to be a show-down, one way or another. Arthur, in contrast, was very cheerful and talkative. He had made a good speech at the meeting. It had been much applauded, and it had been popular because it expressed the general feeling that the government had fallen under the influence of ‘jitterbugs’, that anyhow Brimsbury Wych wasn’t going to part with its children; though if weaker-minded localities wanted to get rid of theirs, Brimsbury Wych would, of course, look after the kids. But the government had to understand that Brimsbury Wych would only accept good, carefully brought up, well-behaved children, like their own. Brimsbury Wych was not going to allow its youngsters to be contaminated by the off-scourings of the big towns.
Arthur’s speeches had hitherto generally been made at company meetings when the applause—or lack of it—was in direct relation to the dividend—or lack of it. Of late, both dividends and applause had tended to be scant, so that Arthur found it quite exhilarating to sit down amidst a tumult of cheers.
Possibly it was this feeling of exhilaration which accounted for the fact that he was drinking more freely than usual. Fond though he was of all the good things of life that money can procure, he was generally careful in his indulgences. Bertram, too, was drinking freely, though with him that was not uncommon, and when presently Anne whispered to Martin, with the result that thereafter the wine seemed always out of his reach, and his demand for a liqueur with his coffee appeared to get overlooked, he said nothing but stared at Anne as sulkily as he dared.
Evidently, Sophy thought as she watched this byplay, Bertram knew where the prohibition originated, and she told herself that really it was very nice of Anne to watch over the behaviour of the man who had, however innocently and unavoidably, taken the place and ruined the prospects of her betrothed. Old Countess Wych, too, noticed this bit of byplay, as she noticed most things, and indeed Detective-Inspector Bobby Owen, conducting the investigation into the murder that was to happen later on, remarked in one of his reports that the countess’s story of the dinner and what passed at it, was much the clearest and most detailed.
Clinton Wells was also to have dined at the castle. He had attended the meeting, apparently to pass the time, since he was neither a resident of Brimsbury Wych, nor yet a Midwych representative. Afterwards he had asked to be excused from coming on to the castle, making the excuse of a sudden business call. There was an impression, however, that the real reason was his annoyance over Ralph’s insistence on having a show-down, to use Ralph’s own expression, with his great-uncle. Clinton, it was understood, had advised waiting. Ralph had retorted that things had got to be cleared up. Clinton retorted in his turn that Ralph was in no mood to clear anything up, that indeed in his present temper he was more likely to make things worse. Finding all remonstrance useless, Clinton had thereupon been heard to say that he washed his hands of the consequences and he had gone off in his car back to Midwych, where he lived with an old housekeeper and a maid in a house much too big for his needs.
It stood in an enormous garden, it was very expensive to keep up, but he continued in occupation because he had some reason to believe that the Midwych corporation might buy it presently in connection with a new housing scheme. Obviously one can ask a better price—even a much better price—for a well-kept house and garden, from which one is, so to say, forcibly evicted, than for a house and garden left derelict, and for which no purchaser has been found. Most of the members of the corporation understood all this very well indeed, and it much increased their respect for Clinton, since it was a clever dodge and they admired clever dodges. Besides, it all came out of the rates, anyhow.
All the same the purchase was hanging fire, and Clinton was finding the upkeep of the big house and garden an unpleasant strain, and trying, too, the grumbling of his old, slightly deaf housekeeper over the difficulty of keeping a maid. Girls didn’t like to work in such an antiquated barracks of a place, and even grumbled at having so many stairs to climb to their bedrooms on the third floor. Both maid and housekeeper might just as well have occupied rooms on the second or even the first floor, since Clinton Wells only occupied rooms—bed, sitting and bath—on the ground floor, and never penetrated elsewhere. But the old housekeeper would never have consented to make such a change. For her the third floor was for the staff, the rest of the house for the ‘family’, and that was fixed and unalterable.
Since Sophy was always so quiet at meals, no one noticed that to-night she was even quieter than usual. For one thing she was a trifle uneasy over the decision of Countess Wych to come downstairs. It was as though an abrupt access of somewhat feverish strength had come to her in startling manner. Indeed this had been so marked and so surprising after so prolonged a period of inertia and weakness that one of the maids had in Sophy’s hearing said something about the last flicker of the candle before it went out. Sophy had been extremely angry, and had told the maid quite plainly and very severely that she mustn’t say such things. All the same it had made her feel uneasy. She was worried, too, by a memory of her talk with Mrs. Bobby Owen, who had been certainly very sympathetic and understanding, but to whom Sophy now felt she had possibly said too much. Not that there was a word she could not have repeated aloud at this minute at this table, but she knew well that behind and beneath what she had said there had been an undercurrent of unease that had awakened in Olive a similar sense of brooding apprehension.
It was an apprehension that grew deeper now as she watched a curious flush grow on Countess Wych’s cheek; in her tired and aged eyes a light begin to glow that had not been there for many years, and that Sophy did not think was wholly due to the very special port of an ancient and renowned vintage that, to Martin’s surprise, the countess had ordered for herself. Nor was that sense of brooding apprehension lessened as Sophy watched how Ralph and his great-uncle hardly even looked at each other, and how, when their eyes did meet, each looked as grim and hard and resolute as the other. Like a silent duel it seemed between the old man and the young, and the others seemed aware of it, though whether as participants or as mere spectators, Sophy could not be sure. Under its influence conversation grew more and more restrained. Even Arthur’s cheerful chatter ceased, and by the time the meal was drawing to an end silence was almost complete. Sophy, for her part, scarcely knew which of the two protagonists frightened her more—the aged earl, erect and stately for all the burden of his years, about him all the prestige conferred by a long tradition of authority and high offices of state filled with success and credit; or Ralph with that set jaw and those fierce and angry eyes in which she felt there showed a determination nothing would daunt, that no obstacle would turn.
‘Ralph has made up his mind to something,” she told herself, and then blushed, because this was the first time that even in her thoughts she had used his first name without any prefix.
She noticed Anne was looking at her, a deep, curious, searching glance. Was it possible Anne had read her thoughts? Sophy became panic-stricken at the mere suspicion, and made up her mind that never again in all her life would she so much as look at Ralph.
Bertram, trying to filch for himself another glass of port, managed, as he hurriedly poured it out, to splash the wine in a dark red stain on the tablecloth. They all looked at it, but no one spoke. It was Bertram who broke the silence. He said:—
“Looks like blood, doesn’t it?”
And instantly Sophy felt that this idea had come to them all, and that that was why all of them had been so silent and had stared so intently at that red stain. The thin old voice of Countess Wych said suddenly:—
“Why, so it does. Yes, so it does.”
“Nonsense,” snapped the earl from the other end of the table; and it was a measure of the disorientation of them all, both that he should speak so roughly in public to his wife and that it seemed to them quite
natural he should do so.
The countess rose to her feet.
“I’ll go to my room,” she said.
She moved towards the door with a slow dignity that was all her own. Sophy hurried after her to give her her arm. They went into the hall together. In it hung a portrait of some value, formerly ascribed to Van Dyck but now put down to some unknown pupil of his. In any case, an excellent piece of work. It represented a woman in the dress of the civil war period. The countess paused before it. Sophy wondered why. Portrait and living woman might have been exchanging secret thoughts, for it was as though their eyes met with understanding and with knowledge. Presently, still leaning on Sophy’s arm, the countess moved on towards the foot of the stairs. She said:—
“That was the Lady Jane Elizabeth Hoyle. When she believed a son of hers was going to betray the king’s cause to Cromwell, she took a pistol and shot him. For the honour of the family, she said.”
Sophy gave a little gasp.
“Oh, how dreadful,” she exclaimed.
Countess Wych withdrew her arm from Sophy’s and said:—
“Go back to the others. I wish it. I can manage by myself very well.” She repeated:— “Go back. Tell me about it afterwards.”
She spoke in a tone of authority that Sophy dared not disobey. But she waited for a moment to make sure that the old countess was really equal to climbing the stairs unassisted. She seemed to be; and Sophy, turning to re-enter the dining-room, had a slight shock when she found Martin, the soft-footed butler, standing behind her. He had some cigars on a tray he was apparently intending to take into the dining-room, but somehow Sophy was certain the cigars were only an excuse, an excuse for spying and eavesdropping. It was from that moment that she began to entertain a real fear of Martin, whom before she had not exactly disliked, because she seldom disliked any one without given cause, but of whom she had certainly more than once wished he were more like the faithful old family retainer she had always supposed went of necessity with these ancestral mansions. He said to her in his smooth, deferential voice:—
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