by Cyril Hare
“It may not be any affair of mine,” put in George, in a tone that made it quite clear that he was satisfied that it was very much his affair, “but do you think it is quite decent to come home in this way, in those clothes, on an occasion like this?”
Stephen very ostentatiously did not answer him.
“You see, Mother,” he explained, “I actually got to Klosters the afternoon of the very day it must all have happened. There were the guides and Anne and everyone waiting, and I made them start out that very night. I suppose if we’d waited we’d have heard next morning. It was all my fault, really, but I couldn’t have told, could I? We were absolutely out of touch with everything for three days until we came down into Guarda, where I picked up an old paper someone had left and saw the announcement. There was just time to get down to the station to catch the train. Stopping at Klosters for clothes and things would have simply wasted a day.”
“Of course dear, I understand. Give yourself some sherry. You must be tired. It is good to have you back again.”
Anne meanwhile had quickly gravitated towards Martin, who from the moment of her arrival had ceased to feel or to appear like an ownerless dog in the family pack. Stephen, watching them together, wondered not for the first time what his sister could see in the squat, sandy, short-sighted young man.
“I have asked Martin to stay to dinner,” said Mrs. Dickinson, thereby tactfully indicating to the company in general that Martin was now to be regarded as one of the family, and to Anne that she would have plenty of opportunity of monopolizing him later.
“This business has been a step-up for Martin, at any rate,” said Stephen to himself. “Mother always had a soft place for that little squirt. I wonder why.”
He was wondering how he could contrive to say a few words to Aunt Lucy without involving himself with Uncle George when he was accosted by the least dim of the cousins, one Robert, who explained that he had been managing what he described as “the solicitor’s end of the affair,” pending his, Stephen’s, arrival. Pinning him firmly in a corner, he produced sheafs of documents and began pouring out a flood of detail concerning matters that would require attention. Stephen was somewhat overcome by the mass of work which had to be done. He had entirely forgotten what a complex legal and financial operation dying is apt to be, particularly when it is carried out at short notice.
He tore himself away from Cousin Robert at last, and began to do his duty as host with the sherry and sandwiches.
“A pity you weren’t back for the funeral,” said his spinster cousin Mabel acidly, as he handed her a glass. Her tone seemed to imply that he had kept away deliberately.
He felt inclined to point out that he could hardly be blamed for it, but contented himself with saying mildly:
“Yes, Cousin Mabel, it was unfortunate.”
“I was in favour of holding it up, but your mother wouldn’t listen to reason. You’ll go and see the grave as soon as you can, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes, Cousin Mabel.”
“You mustn’t let the inquest verdict distress you, my dear boy,” said Uncle Edward, squeezing his arm affectionately as he pushed past him to get at the decanter.
“The verdict? I haven’t heard anything about it. There was nothing in the only paper I saw.”
“Suicide,” said Uncle George with all the relish of the bearer of evil tidings. “While of unsound mind. ’Pon my soul, if I’d ever imagined that poor old Leonard would—”
“No, no!” Uncle Edward corrected him. “While the Balance of his Mind was Disturbed. Not at all the same thing, I assure you, George.”
“Same thing absolutely. Difference in wording, that’s all. Why on earth the silly asses—”
“No,” persisted Uncle Edward. “You must pardon me, George, but it is not the same thing. No Stigma, you follow me, no Stigma for the family. That makes all the difference in the world.”
The argument, once under way, showed no signs of ever coming to an end, but an interjection from Anne stopped it abruptly.
“Suicide!” she exclaimed. “Do you mean to say that they actually think Father killed himself?”
“While the Balance of his Mind—” Uncle Edward began again, in his suavest tones.
“I don’t believe it! Mother, Stephen, you don’t any of you really think that? Why, it’s—it’s too horrible for words!”
“But I assure you there’s no Stigma—”
“You were not at the inquest, Anne,” said her mother quietly.
“No, of course I wasn’t. All I’ve seen was the little obituary in The Times, the one that had the notice on the front page. It said something about an overdose of medicine. We took it for granted there had been some horrible accident, didn’t we, Stephen? Why shouldn’t it have been an accident? Nobody’s going to persuade me that Father—”
She seemed on the brink of tears. Everybody began to talk at once.
“But Anne, dear, your father was always a little—”
“The detective fellow made it perfectly clear—”
“When a man leaves a message behind like that—”
“He couldn’t have opened two bottles by accident—”
“I’ve got a complete record of all the evidence—”
Anne, her eyes swimming, her ears deafened with the sudden babel of noise, turned to her brother for support.
“Stephen,” she said, “you don’t believe this, do you? There’s been a horrible mistake somewhere. You’ve got to put it right.”
For the first time Stephen saw himself as the head of the family, the ultimate Court of Appeal in what concerned himself, his mother and sister, with whose decisions the uncles and cousins might disagree if they pleased, but dared not interfere. He squared his shoulders involuntarily beneath the weight of authority which had descended upon them.
“Obviously it was an accident,” he said. “That is, I don’t actually know anything more about the affair than you do. But I’ll make it my business to find out.” He turned to the dimmest of all the cousins, who had spoken last. “Did you say that you had a record of all the evidence at the inquest?”
“Yes. In the local paper. It’s practically verbatim. They’ve spelled some of the names wrong, but you can check that from the other papers. I’ve got them all. I keep a press-cutting book, you know.”
“All right. Will you let me have all you’ve got? As soon as you can?”
“Oh, rather. I’ll send it round tonight.”
“Thanks.”
“You’ll let me have it back again, won’t you?”
“Certainly, if it’s any use to you.”
“Oh, rather. I mean, there’s not much in my book yet, and—”
“I quite understand.”
“I don’t want to butt in, my boy,” said Uncle George, who spent most of his life butting in, with frequently disastrous results, “but is it going to make a ha’porth of difference to anyone whether it was suicide or accident?”
“Not the smallest, I should say,” remarked Cousin Mabel.
Uncle Edward’s lips were to be seen silently forming the word “stigma.”
“Probably not, I dare say,” said Stephen wearily. “It isn’t a bit what I expected, that’s all.” What did it matter what he said to these people? It was no concern of theirs.
“It makes a lot of difference to us,” said Anne. Her glance included her mother, who sat, her hands in her lap, listening and saying nothing.
As if recalled to her surroundings by the words and the look that accompanied it, Mrs. Dickinson rose from her chair.
“If you will excuse me, I shall go and lie down for a little before dinner,” she said. “Anne, I think you had better do the same. You have had a long journey. Stephen, will you show Martin where to wash his hands?”
The rest of the party took the hint and left the house in a noisy, chattering body, each with a private disappointment that he or she had not also been invited to stay for dinner. Only George, as he climbed once more into the hire
d car, with the cheerful prospect of soon getting into comfortable clothes again, was relieved that at all events the dreaded question of financial support for his sister-in-law was postponed for that evening.
Chapter Four
Uncle Arthur’s Will
Friday, August 18th
Dinner proved to be a good deal more enjoyable than might have been expected, if only for the absence of the relations. Mrs. Dickinson strove with a surprising degree of success to make the occasion as much like a normal family party as possible. Now that she was no longer coping with the irritability of George, or being exhorted to be cheerful by Edward, her naturally sunny, equable temperament reasserted itself, and she contrived to keep the conversation going throughout the meal without once touching on the subject that hung like a black curtain in the background of the minds of each of them. Stephen and Anne felt that they were seeing a new side to their mother’s character, and to each the same thought came, unbidden: that dinner at home was, regrettably but unmistakably, pleasanter for the absence of the querulous, contradictory figure who, as far back as they could remember anything, had sat at the head of the table.
But in the drawing-room, after dinner, Mrs. Dickinson’s manner changed. Her face from being serious became solemn, and she appeared to be nervously awaiting the moment when the door closed behind the maid who brought in the coffee. Then she drew a deep breath, patted her hair into place—a sure sign, in the family, that she was worried—and said:
“Stephen, I have something important to discuss with you. No, don’t go, Martin. It concerns us all, and I count you as one of the family now. I have had a letter from Jelks, your father’s solicitor, which I don’t at all understand, and which rather disturbs me. I haven’t shown it to Robert, as I didn’t think it concerned him. You must deal with it, Stephen.”
She fetched a letter from her desk, but did not immediately hand it over to Stephen. Instead, she continued to talk, holding it in her hand.
“I must explain, first of all,” she said. “You all know, of course, about the very odd and improper will that your Uncle Arthur made?”
“Yes, of course,” said Stephen and Anne together.
“Do you know what I am talking about, Martin?”
Martin looked at Anne.
“Do I?” he said. To Stephen, he appeared more oafish at that moment than he had ever done before, which was saying a good deal.
“Perhaps you don’t,” said Anne patiently. “I meant to tell you, but I don’t think I did. Uncle Arthur—”
“Perhaps I had better explain,” said her mother. “Arthur Dickinson, who was my husband’s eldest brother, and the only wealthy member of the family, died last year. He was a bachelor, and he left a considerable amount of money, which he divided equally between his brothers, Leonard and George, and the children of Tom and of his sister Mary. Those are the cousins who were here this evening, some of them. We are rather a large family, I’m afraid, but I expect Anne has told you all about us.”
“Oh, yes,” said Martin, squinting rather doubtfully through his thick glasses at Anne once more.
“Very well. As I have said, he left his money equally divided, as to the amount, that is. But in the way in which he left it, he did not deal fairly so far as we were concerned. Although he was always on perfectly friendly terms with my husband, he had or pretended to have some grievance against us, I mean against myself and Anne and Stephen. I need not go into how it all originated—it’s an old story, and rather a painful one, I am afraid—but it seems to have worked upon his mind to such an extent . . .” She began to be a little flustered, and lost the thread of the story. “Of course, he was an old man, and not perhaps altogether—at all events, I have never felt it right to blame him, because he cannot really have been himself at the time—”
“The long and the short of it is, he cut us all out of his will,” said Stephen impatiently.
Martin absorbed the information slowly.
“Cut you out? I see,” he said. Then turning to Anne he said reproachfully: “I’m quite sure you didn’t tell me anything about that. That was rather a rotten thing to do,” he added solemnly. “What made him do a thing like that?”
There was a pause, long enough to make even as thick-skinned a man as Martin aware that he had said the wrong thing. Mrs. Dickinson pursed her lips, Anne flushed, and Stephen looked savagely angry.
“That’s neither here nor there,” he said. “The point is what he did, and that’s what I’m trying to tell you. He left Father the interest on fifty thousand pounds—that was his share—for life only. Everybody else had their bit absolutely, to do what they liked with. But on Father’s death the capital of his little lot was to go to some beastly charity or another, I forget what. Do you remember, Mother?”
“No. It doesn’t matter what charity it was, does it? But as a matter of fact, only half of it was for the charity. The rest goes to somebody else—a woman,” Mrs. Dickinson explained, lowering her voice. “I’m afraid rather a disreputable person, altogether.”
Martin, to Stephen’s disgust, showed a tendency to snigger at this point. That is to say, while keeping a perfectly straight face, he gave the impression that he was only doing so with difficulty.
“My husband was of course very much upset at the injustice of the will,” Mrs. Dickinson went on, “and he decided to do what he could to provide for his family.”
“He insured his life, I suppose,” said Martin at once.
Stephen looked up in some surprise. The man was not altogether such a fool as he had thought. It was difficult to tell what went on behind those thick glasses. Had he been underrating him?
“Exactly. For twenty-five thousand pounds. The premium was very high, I understand, in view of his age. In fact, I do not think it left very much out of the income Arthur had left him. But as most of his other means consisted of his pension from the Civil Service, which would of course die with him, he thought it well worth while.”
“I see.”
“And now that we’ve had all this ancient history over again for Martin’s benefit,” said Stephen, “can we get to the point?”
His voice was impatient, and more than impatient. It seemed to contain a hint of anxiety, almost of nervousness.
Martin took off his glasses, polished them and blinked upwards at the light.
“I think that what Mrs. Dickinson is going to tell us is this,” he said. “Since your Uncle Arthur died only a year ago, I presume that the insurance policy is less than a year old. Most insurance companies have a thing they call a suicide clause in their policies. What company is this one, Mrs. Dickinson?”
“The British Imperial.”
“H’m, yes, just so,” said Martin, replacing his spectacles. “They would be quite certain to have a suicide clause, and a very strictly drawn one too. It’s a most unfortunate position altogether.”
Looking extremely pleased with himself, he pulled from his pocket a foul-looking pipe, blew through it, and began to fill it. Stephen looked at him with feelings of disgust. He was disgusted with Martin for presuming to smoke a pipe in the drawing-room without asking permission, and still more disgusted with himself for having allowed this interloper to take possession of the discussion. Before he could say anything, however, Anne intervened.
“Martin!” she said sharply. “Put that beastly pipe of yours away, and explain things properly. What is a suicide clause, and how does it work?”
Martin blushed and put his pipe in his pocket with a mumbled “Sorry!” Then he said: “It simply means that if you insure your life and commit suicide within a certain time—usually a year—you don’t recover anything on the policy. That’s all.”
“You mean,” cried Anne, “that there won’t be any money for us? Although Father insured himself?”
Martin nodded, took out his pipe again with an automatic gesture, looked at it, and put it back.
There was a shocked silence in the room for a moment or two. Then Stephen, trying to keep his
voice steady, said:
“And now, Mother, may I see Jelks’s letter?”
The letter was quite short, and only too explicit.
It ran:
Dear Mrs. Dickinson,
I have been in communication with the Claims Manager of the British Imperial Insurance Company in connexion with your late husband’s policy. He writes to me as follows:
“In reply to your letter of yesterday’s date with regard to Life Policy No. 582/31647. In view of the finding of the coroner’s jury, and of the fact that this policy has only been in force for eight months, it seems clear that Clause 4 (i) (a) of the policy applies. I am therefore instructed formally to repudiate liability on behalf of the Company. At the same time, I am to inform you that the Company would be prepared to consider the possibility of making some ex gratia payment to the widow and dependents of the assured, provided, of course, that all claims under the policy were explicitly withdrawn. Perhaps you will let me know when it would be convenient for a representative of the Company to call on Mrs. Dickinson in order to discuss this matter.”
I should be glad of your instructions as to what attitude I should take in the matter. It would be advisable, in my opinion, for you to agree to see the Company’s representative, without, of course committing yourself in any way. But bearing in mind that your husband by his will left half his estate between your son and daughter and the other half to you during widowhood with remainder to them, it would, I think, be only proper for you to discuss the position with them before coming to a decision. I should, of course, myself desire to be present at the interview, to safeguard the interests of the estate.
Yours faithfully,
H. H. Jelks
Stephen read the letter through twice, once to himself and then aloud.
“Well!” said Martin, when he had finished. “That sounds pretty definite.”
“How many halfpennies are there in twenty-five thousand pounds?” asked Anne.