Back at the inn, he felt a need for company and drifted towards the smoking-room. Dr Ormonde was there alone, and he asked, ‘Do I intrude?’ — Price’s phrase, which the whole party had enthusiastically adopted.
Margaret Ormonde, looking up from Meade’s copy of The Times, said, ‘I wish I knew the correct answer. It’s not ‘granted.’ That’s for when someone says ‘Pardon’ after a sneeze.’
‘Or a belch. But we can easily find out. If and when Price comes back, someone can say it to him — that’s a job for Sebastian.’
He sank into a chair.
‘Tired?’ she asked him, sensing some unease. She more than liked him. Years ago, as a stocky but clear-skinned neat-featured student, she had walked in the Tyrol and there had been a young Austrian with the same mountainy air about him, the clean brown hands, the washed and weathered look which made other men remind you of things you found living under stones when you turned them over. The year and the month had been August, nineteen hundred and fourteen, and there hadn’t been time even to say goodbye. Afterwards, of course, there had been others: a spotty medical student; a well-known actor who had consulted her about stage fright; a professor of economics with a domed forehead — all from under stones you’d turned over. Now, like an echo caught and held a lifetime in these homelier hills, came Francis disproving Landor; and her voice was warm as she added, ‘Hauling young men double your weight up rocks must be exhausting, though it’s an excellent work.’
Francis said, ‘I’m rarely exhausted — physically, that is. Technically, David’s pretty good. If he doesn’t get fat, he might make a first-class rock-climber. It’s their mannerism, that fatigue me. David gives me the odious title of Skipper, and Sebastian mutters.’
‘He mutters quite amusingly.’
‘One doesn’t want to be amused on a mountain.’
‘Granted — as the Inspector would say. Gerda, thank God, is blessed with the gift of silence. Of course, even silent worship can be maddening. However, you’ve an antidote in the Inspector.’
‘Scarcely an antidote. He’s the last straw, if, as he’d say, you’ll pardon the metaphor. By God, he’s offensive. One begins to sympathize with his quarry.’
She shot him a shrewd look.
‘One’s sympathies are always with the quarry, but one must control them. Furthermore, the fox is no less a fox because one dislikes the huntsman.’
‘Pardon the metaphor. And to carry it on — perceiving the fox, one gives a view halloo?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Hmm,’ uttered Francis.
He glanced at his wrist-watch. Three minutes to seven . . . Price would be at home now; to ring Scotland Yard would be a tedious business of being switched from one department to another while his soup cooled and he grew hungrier and hungrier. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough . . . and then out on the fells to forget it! ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘That settles it. Thank you. I’ll holler . . .’
Chapter Seven – He’s Skipped It
When Price came back to Berrinsdale, everyone but Will Hardwick was in bed.
‘Have you any idea what Worthington’s got for me?’ he asked as he ate a supper of ham and eggs which he doubted he could comfortably digest. ‘I can hardly believe it to be of paramount importance, or, casual though he is, he would scarcely have retired to bed.’
‘We hadn’t any reason to expect you, sir. Mr Worthington asked me to be on the listen for the phone to ring. ’Twere a phone call he was expecting. What’s in his mind I can’t say. Happen ’tisn’t all that important, as he wasn’t expecting you.’
‘I didn’t come to oblige Worthington. There are enquiries to be made in the vicinity, and prior to Worthington’s call I intended to send my sergeant. Subsequently I decided to come myself. Worthington’s an awkward man to handle.’
‘We’ve allus found him easy, sir.’
‘Perhaps you’ve never had cause to ask him a question he doesn’t want to answer. Are you putting me in that room I had before?’
‘That’s the best we can do for you tonight. The Reeding couple are off tomorrow, and if you’re staying we can move you into their room.’
‘I’d be glad if you will. I can’t sleep on a feather mattress. In my home I am accustomed to box springs. Not that I expect to sleep after all this fried stuff. Your good lady may not know it, but excessive use of the frying pan is the preponderant factor in causing the duodenal ulcers which are increasingly common today.’
‘Nearly crowned ’im with ’is dinner plate, I did,’ Hardwick told his wife as he lay beside her on the mattress of goose feathers which was her pride and joy.
Price slept badly and rose determined to stand no nonsense from Worthington.
Francis slept soundly, received with his early morning tea the news of Price’s arrival, and rose regretting that by informing against a fellow creature he must delay a start to Great Gable and sully a lovely day.
Price was finishing breakfast when Francis entered the dining-room. They exchanged good mornings. Leaving the room, Price bent over Francis and said, ‘Will you join me in the drawing-room as soon as possible please.’
Francis said, ‘Certainly.’
Meade scowled and said, ‘Back again, is he? He’s got his duty to do, I realize that, but I wish to God he wouldn’t come snuffling round my table at meals.’
‘Sorry,’ said Francis. ‘I’m afraid I let you in for it. He wants to talk to me.’
‘Then for God’s sake tell him what he wants to know and get rid of him. Living as you do in the Middle Ages, you’re probably hardened to rats in the arras, but he leaves a nasty taste in my mouth,’ said Meade.
Francis ate two fried eggs, three rashers of bacon and a sausage, followed by three slices of toast and butter and honey, drank two cups of tea (no one who knew the Berrinsdale hotel asked for coffee), dared Sebastian to come to the drawing-room door in ten minutes’ time and say Do I intrude? and find out the answer, lit a cigarette and with a sinking heart crossed the hall to the drawing-room. The house door stood open. He saw the morning sun pouring gold on the green hillside; down the dale the cuckoo was shouting; overpowering the smell of dubbin and linoleum, into the hall floated the smell of wet grass, uncurling bracken and brambles under the sun. This miserable errand . . . he thought, and, ‘Let’s have the window open,’ he said to Price, who not only had the drawing-room window shut, but the blind drawn.
‘I have just this moment closed it,’ Price said coldly. ‘To sit with one’s back to an open window is risky in the treacherous weather which is characteristic of the season. Raise the blind, if you wish, Mr Worthington. I lowered it through sheer force of habit. The sun fades the carpet, so the ladies say.’
Francis threaded his way neatly through the furniture, pulled up the blind, sat down on a spindly chair and began, ‘On Wednesday afternoon . . .’
Price interrupted him. ‘To which Wednesday do you refer?’
‘Last Wednesday.’
‘Oh dear. That’s not at all what I wanted. I anticipated that you had thought better of your reticence with reference to the week-end of April the sixth.’
‘This is something quite different and much more interesting,’ Francis said.
‘I’ll hear it,’ said Price indulgently. ‘But I wish you would realize that, like other experts — physicians and lawyers, for instance — we prefer putting our questions and receiving the answers to listening to long rambling and generally irrelevant statements, from which we must — if you’ll pardon the metaphor — sift the gold from the dross only to find in the majority of cases that we have wasted valuable time to secure a minimum of gold.’
Francis said, ‘From that welter of verbiage I gather that you’re not interested in what I have to say.’ He got up. ‘Well, I wanted to make an early start for Gable, so that suits me.’
‘Now, Mr Worthington, there is no necessity to catch me up. I said I would hear your statement. I was merely indicating the method we prefer. Now, on Wednes
day, April the seventeenth . . .?’
And thinking, not without compassion: the little man, the jack-in-office, drunk with his draught of petty power . . . Francis controlled his irritation and began: ‘By lunch-time the weather had cleared . . .’ Price leaned back in his chair with his thin lips stretched almost to a smile. He made no interruption, and this Francis found embarrassing: he had no idea how his story was going down. All the same he was astounded when he ended with ‘Then I wakened Sebastian and we came home,’ and Price, now leaning forward and no longer smiling, asked, ‘And what is your motive for spinning this yarn, Mr Worthington?’
Pulling himself together Francis said, ‘Do you mean that you don’t believe me?’
‘I didn’t say so.’
‘The cliché ‘spinning a yarn’ implies disbelief. I’ve told you a perfectly true story.’
‘Surely a gentleman with your education must realize that in an investigation of this nature a statement must be proved before it can be considered, much less acted upon; we require more than the unsupported word of one person especially if — as in your case — that person has previously shown himself unwilling to reply frankly when questioned. You have jumped to the conclusion that I disbelieve your statement, but such is not the case. We are trained neither to believe nor to disbelieve, but to prove, and this I shall proceed to do by asking you a few questions. Firstly: are you long-sighted?’
‘Yes, unusually so.’
‘Even then, it seems strange that in failing light you could recognize for what it was an object, or objects, revealed for what could only have been a matter of a split second.’
‘The light wasn’t failing. The sun was still above Russett Howe — it’s considerably lower than High Hoister, you know. If you are prepared to look into this, Inspector, I’ll take you up the rock and you can judge for yourself what I could see.’
Price thought furiously. Duty was duty, but really — to dangle over an abyss on a nylon rope held by a murderer would be an unjustifiable risk on the part of a valuable officer. He said, ‘I appreciate your offer, Mr Worthington, but for me to ascend this rock would serve no useful purpose. I have no doubt that from its summit one can see into the yards and gardens, but that is immaterial. The fact we wish to prove is that a man crossed the stable yard and threw the number plates of a car into the well there.’
Francis said, ‘The only way to prove that is to look in the well. Will you do that, Inspector?’
‘No,’ said Price. ‘Without a search warrant, it would be impossible, and I cannot ask for a search warrant on the strength of an uncorroborated statement. We are not the Gestapo. Now for my second question: what was your purpose in turning aside to climb this rock? I understand that you were on your way home and that Mr Carey’s lesson was terminated.’
Francis said, ‘I’d no purpose. It was an amusing little problem and I enjoyed it.’
‘I could understand that in the case of a schoolboy, but grown men do not act without a reason. Are you sure your reason wasn’t to reach a height from which you could claim to see more than your companions and nobody could contradict you?’
Francis said, ‘Inspector, in spite of disfranchisement, there is still some measure of power in the universities. If I believed that you had been ‘trained’ to receive an honest statement in so offensive a manner, I would make it my business to set in motion an enquiry into this ‘training.’ But I do not believe it. I believe that you are one of those little men who feeds his feeble ego by bullying those poor wretches whose misfortune it is to fall into the power of his office. I am not a poor wretch, Inspector,’ said Francis, raising his voice to shout down Price’s protest, ‘and you can take my story and act on it, or you leave it and show yourself the pompous ass you are.’
Sebastian chose this moment to put his head round the door and say, ‘Do I intrude, Inspector?’
It was Francis who answered him.
‘No, you don’t, Sebastian. This interview is over. The Inspector makes me sick. For God’s sake let me get out on the fells and forget that such people exist and cumber the earth that He made for us.’
Sebastian, glaring at Price said, ‘What’s up? Can I do anything, Francis?’
‘No. Come on,’ said Francis.
Price said, ‘Just a moment, Mr Carey. On Wednesday, April the seventeenth, you went climbing with Mr Worthington in the vicinity of Berrinsdale Hall. On the way back to the hotel, Mr Worthington ascended a rock approximately sixty feet in height overlooking the house and garden. Did he invite you to accompany him?’
Sebastian looked at Francis, who was standing in the doorway. ‘Am I to answer or reserve my defence or something?’
‘Answer, of course. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,’ said Francis.
‘All right — he did invite me,’ said Sebastian. ‘He took up a rope and said that any of us who liked could go with him.’
‘And did anyone?’
‘No. We funked it.’
‘It was so obviously beyond your capabilities?’
‘I wouldn’t say that. I could have got up — in my fashion. But it would have been a long job, and I thought I had made enough of a nuisance of myself for one day.’
‘That’s quite a different reason. A moment ago you said, ‘We funked it.’’
‘So I did, but I should have overcome my terror; only Mr Worthington had been hauling me up rocks all afternoon and I felt he deserved a respite.’
‘I see. And he didn’t press you?’
‘No, Inspector.’
‘Nor the ladies?’
‘No, he didn’t press them,’ said Sebastian, grinning.
Price reddened. ‘I am investigating a murder case, Mr Carey, and I should be obliged if you would take my questions seriously. At the termination of his climb, what occurred between you and Mr Worthington?’
Sebastian said uneasily, ‘I don’t see the point of your questions, but if you must know I’d been asleep and he kicked me unmercifully in the ribs and said it was time we went back to dinner.’
‘And subsequently?’
‘Afterwards? Well, we went back to dinner.’
‘Did you walk in silence?’
‘Mostly. At first we talked a bit about shifting your weight in climbing.’
‘Mr Worthington seemed thoughtful?’
‘He always seems thoughtful. It’s quite possible that he is thoughtful,’ Sebastian said.
‘You’re a friend of his, are you not?’
Sebastian said, ‘I hope so.’
‘Then it seems strange that he did not confide in you.’
‘Confide what?’ asked Sebastian.
‘I’m afraid,’ said Francis, ‘that I haven’t a confiding nature.’
Price turned to him. ‘I understand that you had terminated our interview.’
Francis said, ‘I remained in loco parentis. Mr Carey is a minor.’
‘Very considerate of you,’ said Price sarcastically, ‘but I can assure you that if I had wished to talk to Mr Carey in private I should not have hesitated to dispense with your presence.’
Sebastian burst out, ‘Look here, Inspector: I haven’t a clue what you’re driving at, but your manner to Mr Worthington is most offensive. If he’s told you something and you don’t believe it, that’s your funeral. If you take my advice —’
Price interrupted, ‘Thank you, Mr Carey, but I have served in the police force for more years than you have been in existence, and I do not require advice from teenagers.’
Sebastian said sulkily, ‘You would use that ghastly word. I’m not in my teens. I’m twenty.’
‘A great age,’ said Price nastily. He rose. ‘I shall be absent from the hotel today, pursuing a more promising line of enquiry, but I shall return tonight. I assume you will still be here, Mr Worthington?’
‘Unless we fall off the Needle . . .’
*
II
Lacing his boots in the hall, Sebastian said, ‘What’s the matter
with that chap? Why doesn’t he believe you?’
Francis said, ‘Odd, isn’t it?’
‘It rather shakes me,’ said Sebastian. ‘I mean if all detectives are such total drips, one is liable at any moment to get hanged for something one hasn’t done or thought of doing.’
‘Ready?’ said Francis, taking his rope from the hat-stand.
Sebastian stamped, partly to settle his feet in his boots and partly to relieve his feelings. In his first year at Oxford Francis had rescued him from what he believed to be a unique and shocking disaster until Francis had called it a dreary commonplace, and though Sebastian had little ability and practically no judgment, he had — and it grows rarer — a hand to burn . . . for his friend. It had long been a dream of his that he, in his turn, should rescue Francis from some predicament, not the same sort of thing, of course — he couldn’t imagine Francis getting involved in a dreary commonplace — but from drowning perhaps, or a falling stone, which Sebastian would grasp and divert, regardless of consequences. Now it seemed that Francis was heading for trouble; the detective suspected him of lying, perhaps even of murder, but what could Sebastian do when Francis wouldn’t trust him, but treated him like a kid, so obviously fobbing him off with ‘Odd, isn’t it?’ and ‘Ready?’ It would be different, thought Sebastian, working himself up, if I was that damned David . . .
In sullen silence he followed Francis all the long lovely and desolate way to the Styhead Pass. Roping at the foot of Napes arrête, Francis looked at him, grinned and said, as he had said a year ago, ‘Cheer up, Mr Carey. These things pass.’
Sebastian’s sour heart melted. ‘If only I knew what it was all about, I’d make that fellow believe you.’
‘I’ll do that myself,’ said Francis absently, looking up at his mighty buttress of sunlit granite. ‘Your job is to assemble your modest powers of concentration for the purpose of climbing this rock in a manner creditable to yourself and soothing to the jangled nerves of your companion. Ready? . . .’
The Body in the Beck Page 11