by John Lodwick
“I hope this won’t interfere with your plans,” she said.
“What plans?”
“Oh, have a drink,” she said with sudden violence, and rising, somewhat unsteadily but with fixed purpose, she made her way towards the cupboard to fetch a tumbler and the soda syphon.
“A mouth like a prune you have,” she said. “Without humour, without charity.”
“Thank you,” he said, and bowed ironically.
“Say when,” she said, and began to fill his glass, spilling a fair part of the liquor on the table. “Yes,” she continued, “astonishing how much I’ve gone downhill since I came here, isn’t it? Just tipple . . . tipple all the day. I’m sure it isn’t good for me.”
“No,” said Rumbold, “I don’t suppose it is.” He took the glass which she offered him, added more soda.
“Well . . . cheers,” she said, “or is it ‘down the hatch’ they say in your more robust milieu?” She stretched out her right hand, fingers splayed, examining an emerald ring which he had never yet seen on her finger. “I feel so wise,” she went on. “Do you ever feel wise like that? I feel as if I held the whole world in my hand. Presently, I shall set about arranging it. First I shall abolish all brass bands, then the Royal Academy, then passports. . . .”
“Yes,” said Rumbold. “I’ve often noticed that drunkards are very sententious.”
There was a silence. Rumbold, somewhat ill at ease, backed towards the fire. He stood upon the hearth and warmed his buttocks.
“An old bag . . . an ageing cow,” she said. “That’s what I am, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t go as far as that,” he said.
“No, of course you wouldn’t. You’re one of Nature’s Gentlemen, aren’t you? Excuse me . . . I’d forgotten.”
And she laughed stridently; so loud that the noise filled the room and seemed to shake the velvet curtains.
“Oh, it’s funny,” she said. “It’s so funny that I could scream at times. At other times, I just whimper. My dear little sister . . . the pride of the family, the prude, the prig, the benefactress. You think you know a lot about this house and our family, don’t you, but try going up to the old nursery just about the time the sun is setting. You want to listen carefully then because you’ll hear some whispers from space time . . . Fiona, put down that doll at once. You know it is your sister’s . . . Fiona, go and comb your hair immediately. Why can’t you be tidy like any other little girl? Fiona . . . Fiona . . . FIONA.”
As suddenly as she had begun this tirade, she stopped. Then the tears came, but in silence, and in his scaly heart the ventricle expanded, pumping all at once more blood into his pulses.
“You don’t love me, do you?” she said.
“I have great affection for you.”
“Yet you sleep with my sister. Do you have nice fun and games together? Oh, please don’t answer. I don’t wish to hear. The other day . . . love knows no locksmiths, you must understand . . . I went into the spare room where you do what you are pleased to call your drawing. The bathroom key fits perfectly. Just a tiny scrunch and the magic cave is open. I’m so sorry that you wish to kill me.”
“What makes you think that I wish to kill you?” he replied, almost steadily.
“Well . . . the Will, you know. Next time, don’t leave these things about . . . even in drawers which you imagine to be private.”
“Yes,” he said. “I admit my intention was to kill you. Over the cliff you were to go . . . just like the other. But now . . . well, now I’m not so sure.”
“Because of the detectives?”
“Yes, because of the detectives.”
They stared at each other. He refilled his glass, and hers. The world stood still.
“Please tell me one thing,” she said. “I’m a little drunk now so you must answer slowly. You have some sense of honour, I suppose. Please answer on your honour. Were you going to kill me, and take my money, merely to live with Peggy?”
“No,” he said. “I had a previous engagement . . . our mutual friend Aranjuez, in fact. I was to leave about the second week in March. Spanish politics are uncertain. I saw no reason to go unprovided.”
“Do you really,” she said, “do you really hate and despise me so much that you would be willing to kill me in order to enjoy my money, alone? Surely you must know that I would always give it to you.”
“Yes,” he said, “those sentiments are beautiful in a Scottish drawing-room, but on the port at Cassis, or Juan, or St. Jean-de-Luz they might change, and change abruptly. After all, you have already had one fisherman. To-morrow, you might have another.”
“Do you know,” she said, “I think you must be entirely bloodless. There are some things which you quite simply don’t understand.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “The sentimental side, which you stress so much, is not of much importance to me. I see my way. I follow it. Such obstacles as I encounter I remove. There was an obstacle before you not so long ago. You employed me. I removed it.”
“Yes,” she said. “I had a letter from my solicitors this morning informing me of my son’s death.”
“That’s bad,” he said.
“Why should it be bad?”
“Because you shouldn’t have heard so soon. With the time taken to notify Australia and so on, I counted up to ten weeks before you’d hear that news. Something has gone wrong somewhere.”
In the time it takes to turn a somersault, she was sober.
Sober, and pale.
“Who are these friends of yours who follow you about?” she said.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But don’t worry. I’ll find out. I have a friend called Cassell, as you know. Cassell interests himself a great deal in my private business. You ought to be grateful to him because he’s quite certainly saved your life.”
And he began to pace about the room now, rearranging china ornaments, tugging at the curtains, until at last he got a deck of cards between his fingers . . . and shuffled, shuffled. There is nothing better for the nerves.
“Yes,” he repeated, more tranquil now. He was once again, indeed, the theatrical “heavy” who, having heard the prompter, slips back into his demoniac role. “Yes, but for friend Cassell you would have been cold mutton very soon, my dear. Now, on the contrary, if you care to transfer to me two thousand pounds I won’t embarrass you any further with my presence.”
The look which she now bent upon him was one of horror. He did not perceive it. Immersed, as always, in the adjustment of his plans, he saw nothing untoward.
“Yes . . . two thousand,” he repeated. “On n’est pas exigeant.”
“And suppose,” she said, in a flat voice, as devoid of colour as it was of warmth, “and suppose that the transactions in my bank account are watched? I understand the police have powers to do these things. . . .”
“We are not now dealing with the muddled-headed copper,” he replied. “We’re dealing with Cassell and his fly back-room boys who’ve got it into their heads that I might be leaving for certain foreign parts. I shall cash your cheque in London, on the day I leave. There won’t be any trouble. If you want a personal guarantee of safety you have only to write me a receipt saying that I have advanced you the money in Spain or Portugal . . . it really doesn’t matter which.”
“Very well,” she said, still in that same flat, heartbreaking voice. “Very well. Pass me your pen,” and from her bag she took her cheque-book, smoothing down the rosy-tinted pages.
He handed her his fountain pen, and something very curious happened then: the pen nib refused to write. Blot . . . Blot . . . she tore two cheques out, unachieved, and finally succeeded.
“What date do you want?” she said.
“Oh, just put March. I’ll fill in the exact day later.”
She hande
d him the cheque, her schoolgirl script still glistening upon it. He bent, and warmed the slip of paper by the fire. At once the lustre left the sprawling commas and the dash and twiggles of the sterling symbol.
“Thank you,” he said, and rising—for his knees were scorched—made as if to kiss her chastely on the forehead. But this was too much for her: with a straight left, the palm open and the fingers clawing, she pushed him away.
“Cojones,” she said. “Salaud . . . swine . . . Dégonflé.”
He held her wrist. His boilermaker’s nails now, as always, in half mourning, pressed deep into her flesh. “Be meek and mild,” he said. “It suits you better. The next few days may very well be troublesome. I think we’d better go up and see auntie.”
Sixteen
Auntie, whose Christian name, as Rumbold now learnt, had been Ellen, died three minutes after midnight.
The doctor, a young man whose massive peasant build contrasted with his strangely foppish manners, had left about an hour beforehand, after shaking his head in the regulation manner.
“Two or three hours,” he said. “Till day-break at the most. Her heart won’t stand the strain this time.”
Reduced to non-technical terms, auntie’s death was caused, like that of King John, by simple over-eating; the fatal agency being in her case not lampreys but a caterer’s box of jam and treacle tarts provided secretly by Rumbold on the previous day.
Instead of consuming her tarts in several little snacks, auntie had hoarded them until, incapable of withstanding temptation any longer, she had gorged herself to the last crumb at a single sitting.
The pastry was heavy, and auntie’s digestion much impaired by age. As has been stated above, auntie was subject to severe fits of syncope, these fits taking place, upon an average, twice a month. Very probably one of these fits was due at about the time the pastry was delivered. Auntie’s system, overloaded, did not this time recover.
No blame could be attached to Rumbold, who, when making his gift, had warned the old lady to go slowly. Nor can it be reasonably assumed that Rumbold desired auntie’s death, which could not in any case have been very long delayed. Rumbold did not profit by this death. Nevertheless, a suspicion will remain that he was not unaware of its possibility. Like the forester who plans a new plantation, he was perhaps clearing the dry brushwood from the ground.
When all was over and the room had been cleaned and swept, the empty cake-box was discovered underneath the bed. It aroused little interest, for at the same time discovery was made of seventy-four copies of Sporting Life and three annual editions of Ruff’s Guide to the Turf. Auntie’s will, made almost two years previously, left everything to Martha. This, also, raised little comment, for it had been generally expected. What did however shake the sisters was the size of auntie’s bank balance: over four thousand pounds stood against her name in the National and Provincial. Since her income had been tiny, the only explanation could be that her betting, so long deplored and sometimes even suppressed, had been highly successful. Other documents, found among some discarded chicken bones and a volume of Mr. James Agate’s reminiscences beneath the bed, suggested that auntie also played the football pools.
However, we are anticipating . . . “clearing the ground” as Rumbold might have said. Some of these documents—the bank statement for example—did not come to light until the old woman had been dead for a whole day. Let us go back in time a little while, and seat ourselves, as Mrs. Gaskell would most certainly have done, beside the death-bed.
The time is a half-hour beyond eleven. Auntie has thirty minutes left on earth. Her cheeks are blue. Her toes, beneath the multifarious blankets, are curling. The doctor has come and gone. Likewise the Minister of the Church of Scotland, a thin man with a down-drawn mouth and eyes as metallic as a chalice; who, finding little else to say, had said a prayer, drunk a cup of Martha’s dreadful coffee, and departed.
The dying woman had not been fully conscious for three hours. Around the bed, between the commode and dressing-table with its load of medicine bottles, the chairs are grouped: the two sisters, Rumbold, Martha sit impassive. The women watch. The man fills in a crossword puzzle.
The breathing was now so faint, the flesh—that little of it that was visible—so waxen that the end appeared to be only a matter of moments.
A quarter of an hour before it came, however, auntie roused herself. She was clearly wide awake, in full possession of her faculties. Raising herself with surprising strength into a position semi-sitting she said a single word, but this single word three times.
“Bad,” she said. “Bad . . . Bad.”
None of those present knew quite what she meant, nor to whom the reproof (the exclamation was undoubtedly pejorative) could have been intended.
This was auntie’s last effort. Shortly afterwards she died, and when her corpse was stiff enough, Martha, who had the water ready, washed her according to polite usage.
“Why do you never go out?” said Peggy to Fiona on the morning after auntie’s funeral. (Rumbold was upstairs, shaving, yet such was their state of mind that both sisters looked towards the door as if they expected to see him enter or to leap out from behind the window curtains.)
“I don’t know,” said Fiona, surprised both at the question and at the irritability which she detected in her sister’s voice. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s because the Scots don’t care for women in their pubs.”
“Never mind. Fill your flask. Put on your coat, and let’s tiptoe down the steps and start the car.”
Fiona smiled. The idea pleased her. A conspiratorial and mischievous look appeared upon her face, as of a little girl about to steal the jam or to read some long forbidden book; and Peggy, she noticed, looked mischievous also.
They observed each other for an instant: then both laughed.
“Come on,” said Peggy, and hand-in-hand they tiptoed out.
“You see,” said Peggy, when the car had left the drive. “You see . . . it’s almost spring.” She swerved to avoid a flustered robin, and pointed with gloved hand to the green fields from which the last traces of snow and ice had disappeared.
“Yes,” said Fiona drily, “I daresay the first crocuses will soon be sprouting. Tell me . . . do you still keep pressed flowers?”
“No more than you do bunny rabbits,” replied Peggy gazing at her sister amicably. And again they laughed.
“Many things happen in spring,” continued Peggy, after a short silence.
“Yes,” said Fiona. “I see what you mean.”
“I’ve been thinking,” said Peggy presently, “that I still have a husband.”
“But you don’t love him very much, do you?” said Fiona. She did not say this ironically: the question had intrigued her for some time.
“No, not very much,” said Peggy, “but, after all, he represents an element of safety, and I’m told that Cingalese women are not really very attractive. So I think I should be silly if I lost him through my own stupidity.”
“You always had a good head on your shoulders, didn’t you?” said Fiona admiringly.
“Have you any idea of our guest’s plans?” said Peggy. “I’m afraid, with me, he’s rather uncommunicative.”
“He’s going to Spain,” Fiona said.
“Ah?”
“Yes, he’s going to Spain. I’ve given him a cheque for . . . well, never mind, we won’t go into that now. I don’t want to shock you. He’s going to Spain in about three weeks time. Unfortunately, some old friends of his don’t care for the idea too much. In fact, it seems quite likely that they might try to stop him . . . at least, that’s what I suppose.”
“Yes,” said Peggy. She swung outwards to pass a lorry, swung inwards again as a touring car came round the corner. Her driving had always an element of controlled recklessness about it. “Yes,” she repeated, “I’ve n
oticed a somewhat odd character hanging round the house. Tell me,” she continued, “doesn’t that make you feel just a little unsafe yourself? I mean . . . it wouldn’t do at all for the investigations to go too far, would it?”
“Oh, I think Rumbold will manage. His life has always been a little precarious, you know.”
“Rumbold may manage,” said Peggy with conviction, “but in the process he’ll throw away some ballast. I’m afraid you’ll find that with Rumbold it’s Rumbold first and all the time. That’s why I’ve been thinking that we might ante-date your stay here by a few days.”
“I’m afraid that’s not much good,” Fiona said. “It would be quite easy to find out that I stayed with him in London.”
“Did you register under your own name?”
“No, I didn’t as a matter of fact.”
“Well, then. . . .”
“I’m afraid that doesn’t help too much either,” said Fiona unhappily. “Remember . . . he still has my cheque.”
“Oh, no,” said Peggy. “That’s where you’re wrong. More lock-picking goes on inside the house than you imagine. These clever boys are always tidy. Rumbold, for example, keeps every useful paper neatly pleated in his wallet. I took your cheque out and put in a blank one of my own. I don’t mind betting you he won’t see the difference till he gets to London . . . if he ever gets there.”
“What do you mean by that?” Fiona said.
“Never mind what I mean, dear sister. The point is that you came up here four days before you actually arrived. I’ll arrange the matter with Martha. Fortunately, we don’t run constant house-parties, so no other evidence is needed or available.”
“And the boy?” Fiona said.
“The boy is dead. You can’t help it if an adventurer killed him on spec, then tried to blackmail you. One night in Madrid . . . or Barcelona if you like . . . one night you said a little too much. Rumbold took you at what he thought to be your word.”