Dr Ormonde said stoutly, ‘Not at all. After our riotous evening, he may have been unable to sleep and gone out for a stroll and been murdered. Or, considering what he said to me, he may have gone out to sleuth and been murdered.’
‘What did he say to you?’
‘It was all rather roundabout and analogous. We spoke of how one’s sympathies are with the quarry. He asked me whether in all circumstances one should give the view halloo.’
‘He was evidently talking of fox-hunting. The view halloo is a cry connected with that so-called sport.’
‘Yes, I know. But we were using fox-hunting as a parallel to your manhunt. The quarry was understood to be the murderer and the view halloo meant reporting the sight of him to the police.’
Price said, ‘I’m afraid we can’t attach much importance to talk like that, Dr Ormonde. In any case, the most that Worthington could have told you would have been the yarn he spun to me. No, Dr Ormonde, there is no doubt that Worthington’s yarn was a red herring, designed to put me off the scent, and that he became desperate when he realized that I was not the man to swallow a tissue of lies. All we have to do now is to locate the body. As soon as I was allowed to know that he was missing, I alerted the local police, and now I must inform them that it is a body they are looking for. To find it will only be a matter of time and then the case will be closed in a way that is always disappointing to a keen officer.’
‘Worthington a murderer! It doesn’t seem possible,’ said Meade.
‘It isn’t,’ said Margaret Ormonde. ‘You may find a dead body, Inspector, but my bet is that its injuries won’t be self-inflicted. Of course, if you find him at the foot of a crag it won’t be possible to say. However, that will be good enough for you, no doubt; you’ll close the case and the murderer will go free.’
She turned abruptly and walked off down the dale.
Price said to Meade, ‘The fair sex is very credulous, especially in the case of maiden ladies of uncertain age.’
Meade said doubtfully, ‘This Ormonde woman isn’t that type, though. She’s one of these successful women with considerable means, and though this psychology stuff is all tommy-rot in my opinion, she’s obviously got her head screwed on the right way.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Price sagaciously. ‘In the case of a good-looking man who pays them attention, they’re all the same . . .’
*
IV
David and Gerda were the first to return in the mist which at noon had crept over the pass and now enveloped the dale. Then came Meade, who, conscious that Dr Ormonde had disdained him as a doubting Thomas, had made a solitary inspection of Russet Howe; then, from the Highbeck Valley, came Hardwick and Sebastian, and none of them had anything to report, and because of the mist Meade forbade them to resume the search. Gerda worried over Dr Ormonde; she had come to the conclusion that a homicidal maniac was at large and she scolded Meade for allowing the doctor to go alone. David, discovering that Hardwick and Sebastian had divided the Highbeck Valley, seemed doubtful if High Hoister — Sebastian’s responsibility — had been thoroughly searched. ‘What about Carter’s Knott — the Crack’s a favourite climb of the Skipper’s. Did you look there?’
Sebastian said, ‘I searched every inch of High Hoister, so I must have, but I don’t know the names of all the climbs; this is the first time I’ve been here.’
‘If you went anywhere near Carter’s Knott you must have seen the Crack — it’s unmistakable — quite short and almost perpendicular.’
‘There were lots of cracks — quite short and almost perpendicular, but which was which I really can’t say.’
‘Christ Almighty!’ said David. ‘I’d have gone up Highbeck myself instead of coming home if I’d known that Hardwick had left High Hoister to you.’
‘And if I’d known that you were in charge of everything, I’d have asked for your instructions; as it was, I did as Hardwick told me. I suppose I was mistaken in thinking that he knows as much about the fells as you.’
‘What the hell are you getting at? He knows more, of course,’ shouted David. ‘But I don’t suppose he realizes how people who don’t know the fells can miss things. As you can’t say whether you even saw the Crack, I shall slip up the Highbeck and have a look along the screes.’
‘Then I shall slip up to the pass and see if you’ve missed anything,’ Sebastian screamed.
While they talked the two young men had been leaning one each side of the front door and their angry voices brought Gerda from the drawing-room, where she had been trying in vain to concentrate on an intricate knitting pattern. ‘Do you quarrel?’ she asked, and, while they remained sheepishly silent, continued: ‘It is more bad for me. You have lost your professor of climbing, but now my good old friend is gone also. It is she who has brought me to England to study, and if she is gone I must return to Chermany, where alone I shall be. I tink I go down the valley now, in spite of the forbids of Mr Meade.’
‘I’ll come with you, Gerda,’ Sebastian said.
‘You don’t know the road,’ said David. ‘Goodness knows where you’ll land up — probably in the mere. I’ll take Miss Truffer if she must go.’
Sebastian said, ‘I thought you were going up the Highbeck. You can’t do both at once, superman though you may be.’
‘I’m not a superman.’
‘I said may be.’
‘Listen, what’s that?’ said David.
‘I can’t hear anything.’
‘Why don’t you wash your ears out?’
Sebastian said, ‘You take me right back to my prep school.’
‘That’s funny, because I never went to a prep school. Carismouth Central was —’
‘Shut up. It is a car which comes,’ said Gerda.
Slowly out of the mist, behind pale headlights, loomed a long, low coupé in a startling shade of chrome. David sighed disappointedly. ‘Some blasted tourist,’ but as the car drew up out stepped Margaret Ormonde with a face at once grave and serene. With a cry of joy, Gerda ran to her. ‘Oh, my dear friend, you come back to me.’
‘And why not? I only went down the road, looked round the crags for a bit and enquired at the farm. Then I met this lady, and she brought me along.’
Harriet Nollis walked round from the off side of the car. Mist beaded her bare black curls and she shivered in spite of her mink coat. Dr Ormonde took her arm and said, ‘These are friends of Mr Worthington, Lady Nollis — climbing friends. They’ve been out all morning looking for him on the fells.’
‘That’s sweet of them,’ said Harriet.
She raised her violet-blue eyes to David. Scowling, he shrank behind Sebastian. Surely the Skipper . . . his married sister, that must be it. But Harriet said, ‘I’m a friend of his, too.’
Sebastian — pushing himself forward, thought David — said, ‘Oh good. That’s terrific. Perhaps you’ll bring wisdom to our councils. Has Ormonde told you all?’
Cheek, thought David, saying ‘Ormonde’ like the Skipper . . .
‘All,’ said Harriet, ‘and it’s really rather awkward for me. I came up to talk to Francis, but now I shall have to talk to the detective before I talk to him — Francis, I mean. However, Dr Ormonde’s been so sweet . . .’
‘This is Mr Hardwick,’ said Dr Ormonde as Hardwick came through from the kitchen. ‘Mr Hardwick, Lady Nollis is a friend of Mr Worthington and she wants a room for the night.’
‘There’s t’little room over t’kitchen,’ said Hardwick, ‘but it ain’t mooch. Ah reckon if ’er ladyship’s a friend of Mr Worthington’s ’e’d like to move in there and let ’er ’ave ’is room.’
‘What about mine?’ said Sebastian. ‘It’s awfully nice — I dote on the Highland cattle — and honestly I’m quite oblivious to my surroundings. Any small hole in the ground will do for me.’
‘That’s really sweet of you,’ said Harriet. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Sebastian.’
‘Heavenly. Now, Sebastian, will you be an angel
and fetch my little grip thing from the car?’
‘I fly,’ said Sebastian.
‘Isn’t he sweet?’ said Harriet. She looked at David again and said, ‘Which are you?’
‘The name is Brown.’
‘Brian . . .?’
‘David Brown,’ put in Dr Ormonde.
‘Oh, of course,’ cried Harriet. ‘Francis has often spoken of you, David. You were in the Alps with him last summer.’
David remained speechless and Dr Ormonde said, ‘And this is my friend, Gerda Truffer from Bavaria. We can’t really claim to be friends of Mr Worthington, but we’re all fellow climbers and Gerda was out this morning with the search-parties.’
‘Bavaria,’ said Harriet. ‘Then you are really what Francis calls ‘a mountainy person.’ I wish I was. I’m hopeless about hills. Oh, thank you, Sebastian. That was sweet of you. Just throw it down.’
‘I’ll take it upstairs,’ said Sebastian. ‘Then would you like me to put your car away?’
‘I’ll do that,’ said David. ‘I know the make. You’d only crash the gears.’
‘Shall we leave it for a bit?’ suggested Harriet. ‘We might want to dash off somewhere. Where’s the detective?’
From the stairs Sebastian said, ‘Snoozing in the smoking-room, the idle devil. Do beware of him, Lady Nollis. He’s the end.’
‘I’ve met him before,’ said Harriet ruefully. ‘Where’s the smoking-room?’
David sprang forward and opened the smoking-room door.
Sebastian was right; Price was asleep, his small mouth open, a lace antimacassar, which had slipped down the chair back, entangled in his thinning hair. In spite of her anxiety for Francis, whom, though she realized they were ‘washed up’ as lovers, she still hoped to retain in the ambiguous capacity of a good friend, Harriet was obliged to suppress a giggle as, quick to take advantage of Price’s undignified situation, she touched his arm and said, ‘Detective Inspector Price, I believe.’
Price wakened instantly and leaped to his feet. The antimacassar accompanied him, slipping down his face and chest, from which he angrily clawed it and threw it on the ground. As a Londoner born and bred, he valued an imagined sophistication and was quick to observe and condemn the gaucheries of provincials and countrymen; that he should confront a countess with an antimacassar over his face was a blow which shattered the brittle façade to which he ingeniously gave the name of self-respect. Scarlet in the face, he gulped, ‘It’s Lady Nollis. Excuse me, Lady Nollis. This is quite unexpected, Lady Nollis, quite unexpected indeed.’
‘I’m sorry I gave you a turn,’ said Harriet. ‘I expect you get short of sleep when you’re rushing around detecting. But I came up to see Francis — Mr Worthington — and now I hear that he’s missing, so I think I’d better tell you all I know. Let’s sit down, shall we?’
‘I would prefer to stand,’ Price told her. ‘But take the chair I have just vacated, Lady Nollis. I can assure you it is the most comfortable in the room.’
‘I’m not fussy,’ said Harriet, perching on the leather-topped fire-guard, unwinding the blue scarf from her neck and revealing a double row of fine pearls. ‘You see Detective Inspector, one of the things I told you when you came to Nollis to see me wasn’t true. You asked me if I knew where Francis was during the week-end of April the sixth to the eighth and I said I hadn’t a clue and that I myself had spent the week-end with a friend in Sussex. Well, that was the story which Francis and I had agreed to tell our friends and relatives — naturally, we never dreamed that we or our week-end would come to be of interest to the police. When you turned up at Nollis, you took me by surprise and I just blurted out the story we’d agreed to tell. Of course,’ said Harriet, raising candid eyes, ‘I know that on all occasions one should tell the truth to the police, and as soon as you had gone I thought how silly I’d been, especially as you’d been so sweet and not a bit like the Ogpu, so at the first possible moment I came rushing up here to tell Francis what a muddle I’d made and that I simply must come clean. I met that nice Dr Ormonde on the road and gave her a lift, and when she heard that I had come to see Francis, she told me he was missing, but that you were here so everything would be all right. There’s just one other thing — it was the Wand and Willow Hotel at Leigh-on-Thames where Francis and I were staying, and I’m afraid we were very naughty and we registered as Mr and Mrs Edwards of Edgbaston. You’re obviously a man of the world, Detective Inspector, so you’ll understand, and I’m sure you’ll be awfully sweet and keep it under your hat if you possibly can.’
Although he considered adultery — on the woman’s part — unpardonable, titles an anachronism, his judgment infallible, although he had wasted many hours and much energy in building up a case against Francis, which, the corner-stone removed, now fell to the ground, Price purred. ‘In that respect I’ll do what I can, Lady Nollis. Yes, certainly, you have my personal assurance that I will do my utmost to insure that the circumstances under which you are able to provide Mr Worthington with an alibi will be recorded only in my confidential files. Unfortunately, as you registered at the hotel under a false nomenclature, we shall be obliged, when we check there, to display your photograph and Mr Worthington’s but there will be no necessity to reveal your real names, and in the case of a good-class hotel, discretion on the part of the management will be stronger than curiosity. I will get that checked at once, Lady Nollis; then Mr Worthington will be cleared of even that breath of suspicion for which he has only himself to blame.’
Harriet asked, ‘Where did he tell you he had spent that week-end?’
‘He refused to supply any information. He merely stated that he was a long way from here. When we meet with such lack of co-operation coupled with other supporting factors — such as Mr Worthington’s delay in reporting the discovery of a body — we are in duty bound to make further enquiries, no matter what our own estimation of the character of the individual may be.’
‘And what do you think has happened to Francis now?’
‘I fear an accident, Lady Nollis. It was not unknown for Mr Worthington to stroll out before breakfast and in bedroom slippers accomplish a mountain ascent which would daunt a fully equipped but less expert mountaineer. Last night, perhaps, brooding over this matter of establishing his alibi and troubled by insomnia, he went climbing — there was a fine moon — slipped and fell. Were it not for this fog, I would be out now with the search parties, but Mr Meade, who has great experience, informs me that until the fog clears further efforts would merely imperil other valuable lives.’
‘Dr Ormonde thought he might have gone to investigate something he’d noticed — something about the murder, I mean.’
‘I can tell you about that, Lady Nollis. To put it shortly, Mr Worthington climbed a rock which overlooks the grounds of a residence situated beyond the lake and known as Berrinsdale Hall. He saw a man throw an object into an old-fashioned well in a courtyard and he convinced himself that there was something suspicious in this action and became quite impatient with me when I was unable to agree. Prior to this event, I had thoroughly investigated the household: a fragile elderly lady and her invalid son. It is absurd to suppose that they could have anything to do with a brutal murder involving the carrying of a body halfway up a mountain pass, the steepness and roughness of which I have myself experienced.’
Harriet mused, ‘It doesn’t seem likely . . . Of course, poor old Francis, he’s a romantic . . . Given a moated grange and the wind moaning in the pine trees . . .’
‘That is just the scene,’ said Price, who could not tell pines from larches.
Harriet rose and walked to the window. ‘I wish this damn’ mist would clear — oh, look, Inspector, it’s getting better. It seems to be drifting now. You will go on searching, won’t you?’
‘Yes, of course, Lady Nollis. Mr Meade will advise us when to recommence. He is experienced in rescue work, and I am sufficiently knowledgeable and willing to at all times defer to expert opinion. Ah, here they come,’ he added, as the do
or was pounded and opened a crack and Sebastian peered in.
‘Do we intrude, Inspector?’
Price answered, ‘The contrary is the case. Circumstances make it necessary for me to use the telephone and, as the matter in hand is highly confidential, you would oblige me, ladies and gentlemen, by remaining in this room until the termination of my call to Scotland Yard. I am sorry to inconvenience you, but’ — he smiled bleakly — ‘I was not responsible for placing the instrument in the situation which it occupies. Ah, Mr Meade — Lady Nollis is very anxious that the search for Mr Worthington should recommence at the earliest opportunity.’
‘She is, is she? And what about yourself? Coming with us this time?’ asked Meade.
‘I should like to accompany you,’ Price said falsely, ‘but it may be necessary for me to wait until the Yard calls me back. My first duty is to apprehend the murderer, but I sincerely trust you will find Mr Worthington alive and in good health, though I fear he must have sustained some injury or he would have returned before now.’
‘Changed your tune, haven’t you?’ said Meade. ‘At one time you thought he was the murderer you must apprehend.’
‘Lady Nollis has cleared up the question of his alibi for the week-end of April the sixth. It need never have been in question, but I was bound to take a serious view of Mr Worthington’s refusal to co-operate with me. Lady Nollis agrees that under the circumstances he has only himself to blame.’
‘Lady Nollis — never heard of the woman,’ growled Meade, and, as he passed into the smoking-room, he called back, ‘Not under the circumstances: in, man, in.’
Sebastian was saying, ‘And now we know. ‘The contrary is the case.’ I’m simply dying to tell Francis.’
‘After lying out most of the night and then in this mist with a sprained ankle or something, the Skipper won’t be in a mood for your clowning,’ David said.
The Body in the Beck Page 14