‘The thing is that, even though she’s on her uppers, and has been for as long as anyone can remember, it’s common knowledge on the Hollywood grapevine that there’s one valuable she’s never pawned, a fabulous ruby offered her many years before by the Maharajah of Udaipur.
‘Then, one morning, her brutally murdered body is discovered by the cleaner. She duly rings up the police, who can find no trace of the ruby, and the sole clue to the killer’s identity are the letters LAPD which the actress was able to scrawl on her bedroom wall, in her own blood, before she expired.
‘Naturally, suspicion arises that she must have been trying to “point the finger”, as Hammett would put it, at some member of the LAPD itself – you know, the Los Angeles Police Department. That is, until Alexis Baddeley happens to come along. Nosing around in her usual incorrigible fashion, she interprets those four letters as being, instead, the dying woman’s abortive attempt to spell out the word “lapdog” and eventually finds the ruby concealed inside a cheap cameo brooch attached to the Peke’s collar.’
‘Oh gee, wow, that’s really clever,’ said Don. ‘I’d really like to read that.’
Trubshawe cupped his hands and blew into them.
‘Dashed if I can see the point any longer,’ he said. ‘Now that you’ve been served the whole plot up on a plate.’
‘Not so fast, Chief-Inspector, not so fast,’ Evadne Mount sniffily expostulated. ‘You’ll note that I didn’t give away the identity of the real murderer.’
‘Pooh, that’s no brain-teaser. It was obviously the char.’
The novelist let out a cry of triumph.
‘Hah! That’s just what I was counting on the reader to think! Actually, the murderer turns out to be a police officer after all, a “crooked cop”, as the Yanks call them. It’s a double twist, you see. Those letters LAPD meant exactly what everybody originally assumed they meant and had nothing to do with the Peke. In her death throes the film star was genuinely trying to communicate who the killer was. So that, even when Alexis Baddeley gets it wrong, she still gets it right! Eh, Trubshawe, what have you to say to that? Trubshawe? Are you listening?’
Surprised at not receiving any response, she suddenly noticed that the Chief-Inspector had fallen several paces behind her before coming to a complete halt. Arching his hand over his brow, in unnervingly the same gesture as the Colonel’s just an hour before, he was trying to make out something or somebody in the distance ahead of him.
An ominous silence descended on the party. Everyone strained to see for themselves what could have attracted the Chief-Inspector’s attention. At first there was nothing. Then, amid the restless play of shadows, a dark and amorphous form, like a mound of cast-off clothes unceremoniously dumped on the horizon, rose out of the snow. And no sooner had one’s eyes encompassed its contours, they were irresistibly drawn to a second, smaller mound a few feet away.
‘What the –?’ said Trubshawe, doffing his tartan cloth cap and scratching his scalp.
‘Why,’ said Evadne Mount, ‘I – I – I’m positive –’
Swallowing the rest of her sentence with a gulp, she exclaimed, ‘Great Scott-Moncrieff!’
‘What? What is it?’ cried the policeman. ‘My eyesight isn’t what it used to be – one of these days I’m going to have to fork out for a pair of specs – and this torchlight is dazzling my eyes.’
For a few agonising seconds Evadne Mount chose not to speak. Then:
‘Trubshawe,’ she finally said, ‘I can’t yet see what the larger of the two mounds is, though,’ she added grimly, ‘I can guess. But I’m afraid, I’m very much afraid, the smaller one is – is Tobermory.’
With lips set so tight around his pipe that he came close to biting its stem in half, Trubshawe made his way, half-walking, half-running, towards the two matchingly sinister shadows.
Tobermory’s was the first of the bodies to be bathed in the harsh yellow beam of his torchlight. The dog was lying on his side and, if it hadn’t been for his foam-flecked mouth, his smashed-up rib-cage and the blood which polka-dotted the blankness of the snow, he could almost have been asleep. He wasn’t asleep, though, he was dead. Yet the breath of life had quit his body so recently, and with such haste, that his nostrils, if no longer quivering, were still moist.
No one dared to speculate on Trubshawe’s feelings as he contemplated his dead companion. At last, though, he turned his torch on the larger of the two shapeless masses. There was, of course, no suspense whatever as to its identity. It was, as everyone knew it could only be, the Colonel.
‘Oh, Jesus!’ said Don in a whisper.
‘This is truly vile!’ gasped Evadne Mount. ‘Ray Gentry was vermin – but Roger? Why would anyone want to murder Roger?’
The Chief-Inspector wasted no time venting either grief or fury. He bent over the body like a terrier poised at a rathole and laid his head sideways on the Colonel’s chest. Then, gazing up at the cluster of faces circled about his own, he cried out:
‘He’s alive! He’s still alive!’
At first sight the Colonel had seemed just as dead as Tobermory. But when a light was trained directly on to his face, both his eyelids began to twitch – independently of one another, a strange and rather horrible sight – and, every five seconds or so, a convulsively jerky little quaver would shake each of his shoulders in turn.
‘What’s happening to him?’
‘I think he may be in some sort of a coma, Farrar – possibly he’s had an internal haemorrhage – not impossible he’s even had a stroke. Rolfe will be able to make a proper diagnosis. But he’s definitely alive. Look here.’ The policeman directed his index finger at a bloodied rip in the Colonel’s overcoat. ‘The murderer was obviously aiming at the heart, but, see, the bullet went in much too high, through the shoulder and out again.’
Quickly taking in the surrounding waste-land, he muttered, ‘No point in looking for the bullet in this weather. Or for footprints. They’ll all have long since been buried under the snow.’
Once more he looked down at the unconscious man.
‘I’m no doctor,’ he said, ‘but in my time I’ve had to deal with a good number of men who’ve just been shot and I’m convinced he can be saved.’
‘But what are we going to do?’ asked Don. ‘Don’t they always say you should never move a wounded body?’
‘Yes, I daresay they do, but I’m less worried about the wound, which seems to be a relatively superficial one, than about a possible psychological reaction setting in. No, I certainly don’t recommend leaving the old boy here on the ground while one of us runs back to the house to fetch Rolfe. In this case, we don’t have a choice. We’ve got to carry him back ourselves.’
‘Yeah, you’re right, of course.’
Don at once peeled off his racoon coat and said to Trubshawe:
‘Here. We can use this to support him. You know, like on a stretcher?’
‘We-ell, but that’s a pretty flimsy jumper you have on. Aren’t you afraid you’ll freeze out here?’
‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll be okay.’
‘Good lad,’ said Trubshawe approvingly. ‘You’ve got what it takes.’
Then Evadne Mount spoke up.
‘And Tobermory?’
‘I know, I know … For the moment, though, the only thing that matters is to get the Colonel home. Don’t think I’ve forgotten old Tober. I haven’t and I never shall. But we’re going to have to abandon him for now. I’ll come out here later and – well, I’ll make sure he’s given a decent burial. Thank you, anyway, for asking.’
‘Why gun down a poor old blind animal?’ said Don. ‘It’s just crazy.’
Again Trubshawe gazed at the lifeless creature who had once been his most faithful and, at the end, his best friend, and for a few seconds his natural unflappability was tempered by a very real and visible emotion.
‘No, son, whatever it was, it wasn’t crazy,’ he quietly replied. ‘Tober may have been blind, but they do say a blind man’s surviving
senses – specially his sense of smell – are sharpened by the loss of his sight and I imagine that’s just as true of a dog. P’raps truer. Tobermory was a witness, a dumb witness, so he had to be silenced. Dogs, even blind dogs, know right from wrong, and they remember, too, who did right and who did wrong. He would have snarled and growled at the murderer for ever afterwards.’
‘Inspector, I couldn’t be sorrier.’
‘Thanks, but this is no time for sentiment. Now, men,’ he said, gauging the strength of each one, ‘if we follow Don’s suggestion and use his coat as a stretcher, I think we can get the Colonel back home without worsening his condition. Farrar, help me roll him over – softly, softly does it – softly, I say. Don, you look as though you’re the strongest of the three of us, so why don’t you pick up your coat from the other end? That’s right – good, good – but take care you keep it from swinging too much. It’s not a hammock. Farrar, you and I will take him from this end.’
‘What about me?’ asked Evadne Mount. ‘What can I do?’
‘You? You’re going to be our guide. We’ll really need a guide, so keep your mind and your eyes focused on the way ahead. Here – take my torchlight as well as your own and direct them both at your feet. If you observe any hump, any bump, any ridge, any kind of concavity, anything at all we should look out for, make whatever detour you have to and we’ll follow suit. Understood?’
‘Understood.’
‘Now. Everyone knows what he’s got to do? Okay. One – two – three – all together!’
Then, with a wave of his hand, like the boss of a wagon train, he cried out:
‘Lead on, Evadne Mount!’
So it was that our dolorous little procession forged its slow and solemn path across the snow-mantled moors.
Chapter Thirteen
It seems that Mary ffolkes had chosen to ignore Dr Rolfe’s recommendation that she remain in a reclining position until the search party’s arrival home. Or else, more likely, knowing her, she had at the very last minute been alarmed by a cry from Selina – who at her mother’s request had stationed herself at the french window in order to catch the earliest possible glimpse of the Colonel’s return – and then leapt up to discover what had occasioned it. Whichever it was, the poor woman must have witnessed the funereal spectacle of her husband being borne across the moors on an improvised stretcher and, having assumed the worst, as loved ones inevitably do, simply fainted away. For, when the Colonel was finally transported into the drawing-room and his comatose body eased on to the sofa, Rolfe was already in the process of administering the smelling-salts.
Realising that nothing could more quickly and effectively snap her out of her fit than to be told that her husband’s condition wasn’t as terminal as she believed, Trubshawe all but elbowed Rolfe aside to give her the glad news.
‘Mrs ffolkes, can you hear me? I say, can you hear me, Mrs ffolkes?’
Half-raising her eyelids, baring eyes that were filmy with shock and grief, Mary ffolkes peered into his rough and ready features.
‘Roger? Is he …?’
‘No, Mrs ffolkes. He isn’t dead, if that’s what you were going to ask me. I won’t keep it from you. He’s in pretty bad shape. But he isn’t dead and he isn’t about to die.’
The effect was instantaneous. Her eyes appeared suddenly alive again, as though re-energised by a surge of electricity, and she even tried to sit up, though she was gently prevented in that by the policeman.
‘So he’s going to be all right?’ she murmured.
‘Yes, Mrs ffolkes, he’s going to be all right,’ said Trubshawe, lighting his pipe for the first time in anybody’s memory as he bent over her. He took a deep puff and exhaled the smoke with a pleasure all the purer for having been so long delayed. ‘That’s why I want to make sure you’ll be all right too – for his sake. He’s going to need you now more than he’s ever needed you.’
‘But I don’t understand. You tell me he’s in a bad way. What’s happened to him? What happened out there?’
The apprehension etched on Trubshawe’s face no doubt reflected the internal dialogue he was now conducting with himself. Should he tell her or not? Did this good, simple, God-fearing woman have the physical and mental stamina to learn about the cause of the Colonel’s condition? Or would it be better for her state of mind if he concealed from her (but for how long?) the fact that some as yet unknown individual’s desire to be forever rid of her husband had actually prompted him or her to commit the very worst of crimes?
He took the plunge.
‘Well, Mrs ffolkes, it’s also my regretful duty to inform you – but, if I do, it’s because I’ve a shrewd hunch you’re a strong enough woman to hear this – that someone tried to murder the Colonel.’
Mary ffolkes sat up with a start. So much so, she had to be held back by Cynthia Wattis, who had been dabbing at her friend’s fevered brow with a handkerchief.
‘What? Someone murder Roger? Oh no, no, no! It can’t be! You must be mistaken!’
‘I’m afraid not. It was no accident. He was shot at.’
‘Oh, my God!’
‘Fortunately, his assailant wasn’t the shot he imagined he was. Or the distance was just too great. Or p’raps there was too much doom and gloom out there on the moors for him to take proper aim at his target. In any event, the bullet passed through your husband’s shoulder and, thank God, there’s no obvious sign that any lasting damage has been done.’
‘But we’ve got to get him to a doctor! Immediately!’
‘You’re forgetting, Mrs ffolkes. We have a doctor among us. Dr Rolfe here. He’s with your husband as we speak, and I’m sure he’ll know what has to be done.’
Throughout their exchange the Doctor had indeed been examining the still-unconscious Roger ffolkes, placing an ear to his heart, as Trubshawe had already done, while simultaneously taking his pulse. And once his diagnosis was complete, he came across the room and stood at the Chief-Inspector’s side.
‘Well?’ said Trubshawe.
‘Well,’ replied Rolfe, ‘even if none of the important organs was touched, he’s had a terrific shock to his system. A man of his age, you know … But, Mary, do let me assure you. Roger had the – I mean, has – Roger has the constitution of an ox and – well, as you know, I ruined my life on account of one stupid, tragic blunder, but I can promise you now, I can absolutely promise you, he’s going to pull through.’
‘Thank heaven for that! And thank you, Chief-Inspector, and you other men too, Don, Farrar, Evie, for having brought him back to me safe and sound. Well, anyway’ – and if for no more than an instant, her distress was tempered by one of those half-apologetic half-smiles of hers, the only ones she ever half-permitted herself – ‘if not as sound as he might be, then at least safe. I shall be eternally grateful.’
‘Oh, Mary,’ cried Cynthia Wattis, ‘how very courageous you are, refusing to crack! But then, that’s the sort of person you’ve always been.’
‘Don’t delude yourself, Cyn,’ answered the Colonel’s wife. ‘I’m anything but courageous. To tell the truth, I’m actually shedding buckets of tears. If you can’t see them, it’s because, a long, long time ago, I learned how to channel those tears down the inside of my cheeks. It’s an art we women have to master.’
‘My dear,’ said Evadne Mount, ‘in my book, crying on the inside is the very definition of courage!’
Whereupon the novelist turned to the Chief-Inspector and, like a quick-change artiste, abruptly switched both style and subject-matter.
‘I say, Trubshawe,’ she boomed, ‘since I’m not needed here, you wouldn’t have any objection to my popping up to my bedroom to change? I’ll catch my death if I don’t get into some warm indoor clothes.’
‘No, no – go, do. Take your time,’ the Chief-Inspector carelessly replied, not a little relieved to be delivered, even temporarily, from the inhibitive presence of his brilliant but provoking rival.
‘Tell me, Doctor,’ he then asked, ‘what’s to be done wit
h the Colonel? Dare we move him into his own bed? I mean, until the weather lets up and we can get him to a hospital.’
‘I’d certainly prefer to see him in a proper bed if possible. Mary,’ said Rolfe to the Colonel’s wife, ‘I presume you’ve got a fire going in your bedroom?’
‘Oh yes. By now it ought to be quite toasty warm.’
‘Then I propose we carry him up, undress him and put him to bed. After I patch him up, I’ll give him a shot which should knock him out. What he needs now is calm and lots of undisturbed sleep.’
Trubshawe gave the Doctor a meaningful look.
‘A shot, you say, Rolfe?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Precisely what sort of a shot?’
‘Oh, a small dose of morphine. I always have some on me. It’s perfectly harmless. Just enough to –’
But before Rolfe could say another word, the Chief-Inspector had turned his unfinished sentence into an unfinished question. The change was one of intonation only, but the implication was radically different.
‘Just enough to …?’
Rolfe visibly bristled.
‘Just enough to put him to sleep for several hours, was what I was going to say. But, look here, Trubshawe, why are you asking me these questions? What is it you’re insinuating?’
‘Am I insinuating something?’
‘I would say you are. I would say you’re insinuating that I’m not competent to tend to Roger.’
‘Not at all. I have as much faith as anyone in your medical skills.’
‘Then what is the meaning of this unwarranted questioning of my methods and – and, specifically, of the medication I wish to prescribe?’
The Act of Roger Murgatroyd Page 16