Come Away, Death

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘Sir Rudri,’ said Mrs Bradley.

  ‘Yes – I know it ought to have been.’ He sounded so doubtful that Mrs Bradley said:

  ‘Very well, we’ll ask him.’

  ‘He might be shirty.’

  ‘No, he won’t be, child. Stewart, how many photographs did Mr Armstrong take?’

  ‘We’ve got a record of that! We’ve got records of everything. We all kept our eyes skinned, and Ivor put it down, and we all initialed it. It just made something to do,’ he added artlessly.

  ‘I wish you’d get those records. I’d like to see them. I suppose you didn’t record any flash-light photographs, did you?’

  ‘Well, the one of Iacchus. Sir Rudri took that himself. I don’t know of any others. I’ll go and get the book now.’

  The record, kept in a twopenny note-book and transcribed into Stewart’s diary, was interesting. Mrs Bradley asked whether she might take a copy of it. Permission was granted. Stewart dictated, and she wrote, in her unreadable, medicolegal calligraphy:

  ‘Before we started. Group in the porch. Plate.

  ‘At the convent of Daphni. Mr Currie taking off his boots. Sir Rudri cursing Dmitri. Us eating. Snaps.

  ‘On arrival at Eleusis. The wagon and oxen and everybody looking cooked. Plate.

  ‘The ruins and all that. Plate.

  ‘Sir Rudri crawling about doing measurements and cursing. Snap.

  ‘The Statue of Iacchus. Sir Rudri’s one that he brought on afterwards. Plate.

  ‘The second statue. Flash-light.

  ‘The place where the statue had stood up high, the second statue, the flash-light one. Plate. He spent a long time over this one and nobody was near except us, and he did not spot us.

  ‘At Nauplia. A few snaps, especially of Sir Rudri when he was cursing or looked blotto or anything. A snap of the ship we came in.

  ‘At Epidaurus. The snake-box. He took it out with the help of Dmitri, when Sir Rudri wasn’t there. Plate.

  ‘The vipers when the snake-box was first opened. Snap.

  ‘Sir Rudri and Mr Currie having a row. Snap.

  ‘The ruins, in lots of bits, according to what they were supposed to be. Plates.

  ‘The theatre, different views. Plates.

  ‘The museum. Plate.

  ‘The snakes, when Sir Rudri cleared everybody off, only we snooped. Ciné-camera. They were shied out of their box and did not snake about much.

  ‘The other snakes. Everybody went for walks, and Sir Rudri and Armstrong and Dmitri watched us all go, only we saw we were watched go, so we snaked back. The other snakes were taken out of the car Armstrong and Dmitri came in, only they were in a suitcase which just looked ordinary. Snap.

  ‘The snakes being put in the museum in a glass case which had been covered up with a piece of dark stuff, when the keeper was asleep. Snap. We shouldn’t think it came out. It was a bit dark in the museum.

  ‘The snakes asleep with the people they were put with. Plates.

  ‘At Mycenae. The grave-circle. The tomb of Agamemnon from outside. The Lion Gate. The ruins at the top. Plates.

  ‘Sir Rudri wanting us to be a human sacrifice, but nobody thinks he meant it, it was merely sucks. Snap.

  ‘The poor old cow. Snap.

  ‘R. Dick and Megan. Ian and Cathleen. All looking a bit soft. Snaps.

  ‘Mr Currie looking at his bites. Snaps.

  ‘Us talking to Mrs Bradley. Snap.

  ‘R. Dick with a little fork and trowel in the grave-circle. Plate.

  ‘R. Dick with ditto up at the top. Plate.

  ‘Where they found the red bath of Agamemnon. Plate.

  ‘Where the men’s hall used to be, called the Megaron. Plate.

  ‘That ass Gelert coming back without any whisky. Snap. But the light was bad.

  ‘The cow’s beastly innards. Plate.

  ‘R. Dick cutting skin off the cow. Snap. He cut ever such a long thin bit, and wound it round his hand.

  ‘Mrs Bradley and R. Dick walking away from us towards the Tomb of Agamemnon. Ciné-camera. Also of R. Dick and Gelert.

  ‘Dish quietly cutting off a piece of meat from the cow and making a little fire and toasting the piece of meat and wolfing it nearly raw and it must have been smoky, but he wolfed it. Ciné-camera.

  ‘Mr Currie tipping up his pocket flask to get the last drop because of his bites. Snap.’

  ‘That’s all we saw,’ said Stewart modestly. ‘Of course, he may have taken some that we didn’t spot him taking.’

  Mrs Bradley closed her note-book with a sigh of joy.

  ‘I envy you,’ she said. ‘I can’t tell you anything about the white figure now, but I will give the subject some thought.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d know,’ said Stewart wistfully. ‘But it’s jolly interesting, isn’t it?’

  ‘So interesting,’ said Mrs Bradley, ‘that, together with the list of Mr Armstrong’s activities which you have been so obliging as to give me, it is worth – what do you children like to do?’

  ‘Have a boat out,’ said Stewart, without a pause.

  ‘Then have a boat out, child.’

  ‘Coo, no, I say, that’s frightfully decent of you!’

  He ran off, clutching the money. Mrs Bradley gazed after him indulgently, and then went to find Sir Rudri. When she had found him, she asked for Armstrong’s address.

  Armstrong lived in a house at the foot of Lycabettos, curiously enough (Mrs Bradley found herself thinking) with his mother. She had not conceived of a domesticated, filial Armstrong. The woman was probably sixty, but must have been beautiful. It was from her, Mrs Bradley supposed, that Armstrong had his good looks, and yet the young man and the woman were not alike.

  Armstrong regarded Mrs Bradley with the expression of glowering dislike which he bestowed indiscriminately upon all the members of the party. He was looking extremely battered, the reason for staying indoors, Mrs Bradley supposed.

  ‘Yes?’ he said brusquely, when the visitor was in and was seated. His mother spoke quietly and rapidly in Greek. He nodded gloomily.

  ‘I suppose you haven’t done any harm,’ he said.

  ‘No. Not yet,’ said Mrs Bradley. She produced her notebook. ‘I understand that you have some photographs for sale.’

  ‘What made you think that?’

  ‘I have a list here of the photographs, including snapshots and the records you made on your ciné-camera, connected with, and explanatory of, Sir Rudri Hopkinson’s tour.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. How much do you want for the set?’

  ‘If you’ve come from Sir Rudri you can tell him to go to hell!’ He glowered, and then added, almost spitting with rage, ‘And you can tell him to take that fellow Dish along with him. I’ll be even with that swine before he goes!’

  ‘But you want to make money, don’t you?’ asked Mrs Bradley. ‘I thought that that was the point. Or isn’t blackmail your object?’

  ‘I’ve got him cold, and I’m sticking to those photographs, don’t worry,’ said Armstrong, twitching his chair round and refusing to meet her eye.

  ‘I shouldn’t worry,’ said Mrs Bradley gently. She got up to go. ‘A thousand pounds wouldn’t tempt you?’

  ‘Of your money, no. Of his, perhaps it would. I know he couldn’t afford a thousand pounds. That’s what I’d like. To bleed him. But not all at once.” He nodded.

  ‘It would be my money, child.’

  ‘That’ll be all, then, thank you.’

  ‘I see. I thought Gelert – yes, I see.’

  ‘Wait a bit,’ said Armstrong. He conferred so rapidly with his mother that Mrs Bradley, whose modern Greek would have been better had she had no knowledge of ancient Greek, could not follow the trend of the discourse. He turned to her abruptly at the end.

  ‘My mother would like your thousand pounds, but I haven’t made up my mind. She wants to go to America. I’ve got one or two of the negatives still to finish. I’ll think things over while I’m doing them. I’ll l
et you know by the time you come back from Ephesus.’

  ‘We leave for Ephesus in three days’ time. I don’t know how long we shall be there.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll let you know before you go, then, and, again, perhaps I won’t. I’ve been asked to tea some day by dear little Megan.’ He smirked. ‘I might let you know then. Are you coming back to Athens afterwards?’

  ‘Yes, I shall come back here and remain some months, I expect.’

  ‘O.K., then.’ He rose and showed her out. Mrs Bradley walked back to the Place de la Constitution very thoughtfully. She tackled Sir Rudri immediately upon her return to the house.

  ‘Has Armstrong a grudge against you, child?’ she asked. Sir Rudri looked troubled, not indignant. His moustache, which had gone to Set Fair during his stay at his own home after the vicissitudes of travel, drooped again, and looked discouraged.

  ‘Whatever made you think that?’

  ‘I’m trying to buy up his photographs,’ said Mrs Bradley.

  ‘I’ll buy them from you.’ The moustache cheered up again. ‘How much?’

  ‘I’m not prepared to sell them, dear child. I’m buying them because I’d like to have them, and because I feel rather sorry for the quite detestable young man. His mother has a desire to go to America.’

  ‘He’s taking her, do you mean?’

  ‘Well, we’ll hope so, for your sake. He didn’t say that, quite.’

  ‘How old is Armstrong, Rudri?’

  ‘He’d be thirty-two or three, I should imagine. Beatrice, I’ve been a damned fool. That young devil could ruin me to-morrow if he liked to publish those photographs. I meant to score off Alexander Currie. Upon my honour, that was all. I never thought of Armstrong trying to turn round on me like this. I could never stay in Athens. I should have to resign from my Societies. I – Beatrice, I have been a fool!’

  ‘Oh, Rudri, my poor dear child, don’t be so morbid. By the way, we haven’t had our little session to-day.’

  ‘Do you think we need to, now that I’ve come to my senses?’

  ‘Just as you like, child. Didn’t you dream last night?’

  ‘Oh yes. About clear blue water.’

  ‘Elementary, my dear Watson,’ said Mrs Bradley briskly. She seated herself beside him, ‘Go on. Let us exorcize the devil. You’ll be all the better, then, when we go to Ephesus.’

  ‘I shall have to take Armstrong to Ephesus, Beatrice. He’ll want to do the photographs again, and I don’t see how I’m to get out of taking him with me if he’s made up his mind to come.’

  ‘I think you are ill-advised to give in to him so completely. Leave the young man behind, and take another photographer. Couldn’t Ronald Dick take photographs? Feeling as you do, the less you have to meet Armstrong, the better, I should say. It can’t be pleasant for you. Besides, I gathered that he didn’t expect to be asked.’

  ‘I suppose Dick could take the photographs,’ Sir Rudri said, the worried frown deepening between his eyes. ‘Armstrong is waiting, though, I expect, to see whether Megan is going. She did say something about staying here with Molly. The whole business is terribly involved.’ He looked resigned and martyred. Mrs Bradley clicked her tongue. Resignation, whether Christian or otherwise, irritated her beyond measure. She repudiated the whole theory of martyrdom, regarding its victims as invariably obstinate and more often than not ill-informed. She considered that they were lacking in essential balance and judgement.

  She wondered whether the woman she had seen really was Armstrong’s mother; she was older, certainly, than he was, but her appearance of age was partly due to worry. Mrs Bradley wondered whether she was ill-treated.

  Turning these things over in her mind, she left Sir Rudri, and came out into the garden. Tea was set out in the portico and Megan was counting the number of cups. As Mrs Bradley came up the two wooden steps she called to the servant:

  ‘Two more, please. You’ll be in to tea, will you, Aunt Adela?’

  ‘No, child. I’ve promised to have tea with the wives of the scientists from Czechoslovakia in the gardens of the Academy. I told your mother at lunch that I did not expect to be in until dinner to-night.’

  ‘Oh, blow! I was depending on you to entertain the company. We’re having a last rally before we go off to Ephesus. Dinner’s at ten. Don’t be late!’

  She smiled – a big, fair-skinned girl, tall as an Amazon, strong-limbed, determined and proud. It struck Mrs Bradley, not for the first time, how like her mother she was, and how unlike. She waved as Mrs Bradley went into the house, and Mrs Bradley waved back before she went up to her room.

  The little semi-official party in the Academy garden was pleasant but not exciting. Conversation was easy, because the scientists and their wives spoke both French and German, but it was with a feeling of relaxation and pleasure that Mrs Bradley sat in her taxi and resigned herself to a breakneck dash through the streets to Sir Rudri Hopkinson’s home.

  She was met at the door by Marie Hopkinson. The lady of the house was in a flushed and dishevelled condition. She was wearing evening dress, but her hair was in disarray, and she was still in bedroom slippers.

  ‘My dear Beatrice!’ she said, clasping hold of Mrs Bradley’s arm. ‘I am ever so glad you’ve come! My dear! What do you think! The drains! My dear! They’ve gone wrong! We shall have to turn out of the house for at least two days. I’m taking you off at once to dine at the Grande Bretagne. The others have all gone on.’

  ‘You haven’t changed your shoes, and your hair wants doing,’ said Mrs Bradley, unperturbed. Delicately, whilst her hostess was concluding an interrupted toilet, she sniffed the air, and then, a little less delicately, sniffed again.

  ‘One thing, there’s no smell,’ she said, as Marie Hopkinson rejoined her.

  ‘Isn’t it fortunate,’ her hostess absently remarked. ‘We’d better go out through this way. The whole of the portico’s up.’

  ‘Up?’

  ‘The drains are underneath it.’

  Dinner at the Hotel Grande Bretagne was a great success. Megan and Gelert were in almost hysterical high spirits. The little boys, who had spent the afternoon in a boat, again paid for by Mrs Bradley, and had not been in to tea, were interested to hear about the drains.

  ‘Dish positively shoved us round to the other door,’ said Ivor. ‘But nothing smelt more than usual. I took a good sniff to see.’

  ‘Of course not, dear. It’s the dryness,’ his mother remarked. She refused three courses of the dinner, complaining that the smell had got into her inside.

  ‘But you just now said —’ remarked Ivor. His elder brother kicked him under the table.

  ‘I packed all the servants off except Dish. He’s coming round here with the odds and ends I collected up for the night,’ Marie Hopkinson continued. ‘The servants are terrified of typhoid fever. They all cleared off at once, as soon as I’d finished talking to the man. They all live in Athens, that’s one comfort, so that I can get them all back when I want them. The job may take only one day, but you know what Greek workmen are!’

  Mrs Bradley said she did not. By noon on the second day, a message from Dish informed the party that everything was ship-shape and that ‘the sanitary had passed the job as O.K.’

  Beyond the fact that all the woodwork of the portico appeared to have received a good cleaning – Mrs Bradley saw in this the hand of Dish – there was nothing at all to indicate a domestic crisis of magnitude.

  ‘So now,’ said Marie Hopkinson, having narrowly inspected the now reconditioned portico, ‘you can all go to Ephesus in peace.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Ee-aw!’

  1

  THE SHIP RAN between the southernmost end of Euboea and the north of Andros, and set her course to bring her north of Chios to take the long sweep into the Gulf of Smyrna.

  A sea-voyage, however short, again made a welcome change, and while the little boys explored the ship and familiarized themselves with the appearance, name, characteristics, and disposition of ever
y member of the crew, their immediate elders – Gelert, Cathleen, Ian, and Ronald Dick, played deck games, lounged, read, smoked, betted, and, some aloud, some privately, thanked providence that Armstrong had neglected, at the last, to come to the embarkation stage and proceed with the party to Ephesus. That Megan had elected to remain in Athens to keep her mother company was news not as rapturously received.

  Sir Rudri, torn between relief and anxiety when Armstrong did not appear, discussed the situation in all its aspects with Mrs Bradley as they stood at the rail and watched the distant mountains. She comforted him, for his fear that Armstrong would be making mischief whilst they were away was greater than the relief he felt at being without the young man’s company.

  ‘I suppose I ought to have gone to his home,’ he said, ‘and notified him again about the date. But what with the upset about the drains – I suppose, by the way, that they’ve all been properly re-laid? I shouldn’t like Molly and Megan to be exposed to any risk – and my natural reluctance to open the subject of the photographs, I procrastinated until it was too late.’

  ‘I expect it is all for the best,’ remarked Cathleen, who overheard him. ‘All I hope is that he won’t pester Megan whilst we’re away.’

  ‘She has her mother with her,’ Ian pointed out.

  ‘I hope she won’t feel lonely without us all,’ said poor Dick wistfully.

  ‘Cheer up, Romeo,’ said Gelert, whose troubles appeared to be over for the time. He smacked him between the shoulders, took his arm, and led him down to the saloon.

  The older members of the party read, knitted – Alexander Currie had a sock, Mrs Bradley her apparently perennial jumper – played cards, gossipped, threw darts, discussed Saint Paul – to Sir Rudri’s obvious dissatisfaction, his desire and intention being to keep the issue strictly to a consideration of the worship of Artemis at the sixth- and fourth-century temples at Ephesus – and told fortunes.

  The miniature cruise was pleasant. The sea was calm, the islands, like banks of the green morning, rose high out of the sea as the ship approached where they lay, and dropped astern in faint and lovely haze as the ship passed gently onwards. Their mountains were old and like dreams, and produced in Cathleen and Ian the same romantic nostalgia. They spent all of the second morning leaning over the rail and gazing at the islands, rising in greenness, declining in purple and grey, fading in faint blue far away, beautiful as a former life remembered in this life, or the recollection of an old story told once, and ever afterwards groped for in the golden clouds of the mind.