The Beast Must Die Read online

  ‘Felix Lane’s diary? But what does he know –?’

  Ignoring a rather sultry glance from Blount, Nigel went on, ‘Lane noticed that Rattery – how shall I put it? – was an admirer of your wife’s.’ Nigel spoke in a subtly offensive manner, hoping to get Carfax angered and off his guard. Carfax, however, was equal to the thrust.

  ‘I see you have the advantage of me,’ he said. ‘Very well. I’ll make it as brief as I can. I’ll tell you the plain facts, and I only hope you won’t draw the wrong conclusions from them. George Rattery had been making advances to my wife for some time. She was amused, intrigued, gratified by it – any woman might be, you know; George was a handsome brute, in his way. She may even have carried on a harmless flirtation with him. I did not remonstrate with her. If one is afraid to trust one’s own wife, one has no right to be married at all. That’s my view, at any rate.’

  Good heavens, thought Nigel. Either this man is a blind but rather admirable Quixote, or else he’s one of the subtlest, most plausible deceivers I’ve come across, or there’s the possibility, of course, that Felix deliberately over-coloured the relationship between Rattery and Rhoda Carfax in his diary.

  Carfax went on, twisting his signet ring, his eyes screwed up as though against a too dazzling light, ‘Recently George’s attentions had been getting a bit too outrageous. Last year, by the way, he seemed to have lost interest altogether – he was carrying on then with his sister-in-law, at least that’s what people said.’ Carfax’s mouth was twisted into an expression of apologetic distaste. ‘Sorry about all this gossip. Apparently he and Lena Lawson had some sort of a row in January, and it was after this that George – er – redoubled his attentions to my wife. I still did not interfere. If Rhoda really preferred him to me – in the long run, I mean, there was no use my making scenes about it. Unfortunately at this point George’s mother stepped in. That’s what she wanted to talk to me about on Saturday afternoon. She pretty well accused me of Rhoda being George’s mistress, and asked me what I intended to do about it. I said I intended to do nothing at the moment, but, if Rhoda came and asked me to divorce her, of course I should do so. The old lady – she’s really rather an old horror, I’m afraid I’ve never been able to stomach her – then started a fantastic scene. Made it clear that she thought me a complacent cuckold, abused Rhoda, said she had led George on – which I thought pretty steep, and all the rest of it. Finally she more or less commanded me to put a stop to things. It would be very much the best thing, for all parties, if Rhoda was dragged back into the family pen and the whole affair hushed up; she, for her part, would see to it that George behaved himself in the future. It was, in effect, an ultimatum, and I don’t like ultimatums – ultimata, should I say? – especially from domineering old women. I repeated, more firmly, that if George liked to try and seduce my wife, it was his own lookout, and if she really wanted to live with him, I would agree to divorce her. Mrs Rattery then spoke at some length on public scandal, family honour and suchlike topics. She made me sick. I just walked out of her room in the middle of a sentence and out of the house.’

  Carfax had been speaking more and more to Nigel, who nodded sympathetically as he made his points. Blount felt excluded, and somewhat out of his depth. This put a sceptical edge on his voice when he said, ‘That’s a very interesting story, Mr Carfax. Uh-huh. But you’ll have to admit that your conduct was a wee bit – e-eh – unconventional.’

  ‘Oh, I daresay,’ said Carfax indifferently.

  ‘And you walked straight out of the house, you say?’

  There was a challenging emphasis on the word ‘straight’. Blount’s eyes glittered coldly behind his pince-nez.

  ‘If you mean, did I make a detour on the way, for the purpose of putting strychnine into Rattery’s medicine, the answer is in the negative.’

  Blount pounced. ‘How did you know that was the way the poison was conveyed?’

  Carfax regrettably failed to crumple up before this assault. ‘Gossip. Servants will talk, you know. Rattery’s parlourmaid told our cook that the police were all up in the air about a bottle of tonic having disappeared, so I put two and two together. One doesn’t have to be a Chief Inspector, you know, to be able to do a simple sum like that,’ Carfax added, with a touch of rather likeable malice.

  Blount said, ponderously official, ‘We shall have to go into your statement, Mr Carfax.’

  ‘It would save you some trouble perhaps,’ rejoined the surprising Mr Carfax, ‘if I pointed out two things. No doubt they have occurred to you already. First, even if you don’t quite understand the attitude I’ve taken up about Rattery and my wife, you can’t imagine I’m lying about it; old Mrs Rattery will confirm that part of my – er – statement. Secondly, you may be thinking that it was just a blind – this attitude of mine – to conceal my real feelings, to conceal my intention of finishing this affair between George and Rhoda. But do please realise that I’d no need to do anything so drastic as murdering George. It was I who financed the garage and, if I’d wanted to choke George off, I could simply have told him he must lay off Rhoda or be thrown out of the partnership. His money or his love life, in fact.’

  Having thus with consummate neatness spiked Blount’s whole battery of guns, Carfax sat back, gazing at him good-humouredly. Blount tried to counter-attack, but was met all along the line with the same cool candour and colder logic. Carfax almost seemed to be enjoying himself. The only new piece of evidence Blount could extract was that Carfax had an apparently unshakable alibi for the time of leaving the Ratterys’ house up to the time of the murder.

  When the two had left the garage, Nigel said, ‘Well, well, well. The redoubtable Inspector Blount meets his match. Carfax played us off the field.’

  ‘He’s a cool customer,’ growled Blount. ‘Everything pat – just a wee bit too pat, maybe. You’ll have noticed, too, in Mr Cairnes’ diary, he mentions that Carfax pumped him about poisons one day he was down at the garage. We shall see.’

  ‘So your thoughts are straying from Felix Cairnes, are they?’

  ‘I’m keeping an open mind, Mr Strangeways.’

  9

  WHILE BLOUNT WAS receiving a temporary quietus from Carfax, Georgia and Lena were sitting beside the tennis lawn at the Ratterys’. Georgia had come down to see if she could be of any use to Violet Rattery, but Violet, in the last day or two, had developed amazingly in confidence and authority. She seemed quite equal to any demands the situation might make upon her, and the jurisdiction of old Mrs Rattery was now confined to the four walls of her own room. As Lena remarked, ‘I suppose I oughtn’t to say it, but George’s death has made a new woman of Vi. She’s become what our English mistress used to call “such a serene person”. What a God-awful expression! But Vi – really, one would never suppose to look at her that she’d been a doormat for fifteen years – yes George, no George, oh George please don’t – and now George’s been poisoned and who knows the police mayn’t have got their eye on the widow.’

  ‘Oh, surely that’s not very—’

  ‘Why not? We’re all of us bound to be under suspicion – all of us who were in the house. And Felix has apparently been doing his best to get himself hung, though I don’t believe he’d have gone through with – you know, what he was telling us about last night.’ Lena paused, and went on in a lower voice, ‘I wish I could understand what – oh, to hell with it! How’s Phil today?’

  ‘When I left him, he and Felix were reading Virgil. He seemed quite cheerful. I don’t know about children, though; he’s awfully nervy at times, and then he suddenly shuts up like an oyster for no apparent reason.’

  ‘Reading Virgil. It’s just beyond me. I give up.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it’s a good idea to try and take his mind off this business.’

  Lena did not answer. Georgia stared up at the clouds that rolled overhead. Her thoughts were broken at last by a scrunching noise beside her. She looked down quickly; Lena’s hand, supple and sunburnt, was tearing up grass by the roots
, viciously tearing it up and sprinkling the handfuls on the lawn.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Georgia. ‘I thought for a minute a cow had got in.’

  ‘You’d start eating grass if you had to go through – it’s sending me haywire!’ Lena turned upon Georgia, with one of those impulsive movements of her shoulders that seemed to create a dramatic situation out of thin air. Her eyes blazed. ‘What’s wrong with me? Just tell me, what is wrong with me? Is it BO, or is it what her closest friends wouldn’t tell her?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with you. How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, why does everyone avoid me, then?’ Lena was whipping herself up into hysteria. ‘Felix, I mean. And Phil. Phil and I used to get on rather well, and now he disappears round corners to get out of my way. But I don’t care a damn about him. It’s Felix. What did I have to fall in love with the man for? Me – in love – I ask you? Several million males to choose from, in this country alone, and I fall for the one chap who didn’t want me – except as a card of introduction to the late lamented. No, that’s not true. I swear Felix loved me. You can’t pretend that sort of thing – women may, but men can’t. Oh God, we were so happy. Even when I began to wonder what Felix was after – well, I didn’t really, I wanted to be blind.’

  Lena’s face, a little stupid and conventional-pretty in repose, became beautiful when her feelings made her forget poise, make-up, and the careful ‘grooming’ of her film training. She gripped Georgia’s hands – an impulsive, extraordinary appealing gesture – and went on urgently.

  ‘Last night – you noticed now he wouldn’t come out into the garden when I asked him, alone. Well, afterwards I thought that must have been because of this diary, because he was afraid of my knowing that he’d been playing a double game with me at first. But then he told us about the diary, he knew that secret wasn’t between us any longer. But when I rang him up this morning, and said I didn’t mind about it and loved him and wanted to be with him and help him – oh, he was just calm, polite, quite the gentleman, said it would be best for us not to meet more than necessary. I just don’t understand. It’s killing me, Georgia. I used to think I had my pride, but here I go trailing after this chap on my knees, like a blasted pilgrim or something.’

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear. It must be absolutely foul for you. But pride – I shouldn’t worry about that – it’s the white elephant of the emotions, very imposing and expensive, and the sooner one can get rid of it, the better.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not worrying about it. It’s Felix I’m worrying about. I don’t care if he killed George or not, but I wish he didn’t have to kill me too. D’you think – I mean, are they going to arrest him? It’s so awful, to think they may arrest him any minute and then I’d perhaps never see him again, and every minute we’re not together now is being wasted.’

  Lena began to cry. Georgia waited till she recovered, then said gently, ‘I don’t believe he did it, nor does Nigel. We’ll get him out of it, between us. But we must have all the truth, if we’re to save him. He may have some very good reason for not wanting to see you just now, or it may be some misguided chivalrousness – he doesn’t want to get you mixed up, perhaps, in this case. But you mustn’t hide anything, keep anything back – that’d be misguided chivalry too.’

  Lena gripped her hands together in her lap. Staring straight in front of her, she said, ‘It’s so difficult. You see, it involves someone else beside me. Aren’t you liable to be chucked into prison if you conceal evidence?’

  ‘Well, if you are what they call an accessory after the act. But it’s worth risking, isn’t it? You mean, about this medicine bottle that’s disappeared?’

  ‘Look, will you promise to tell no one but your husband, and ask him to talk to me about it before he passes it on?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘All right. I’ll tell you. I’ve kept it to myself because, you see, the other person involved is Phil – and I’m rather fond of him.’

  Lena Lawson began to tell her story. It started with a conversation at dinner in the Ratterys’ house. They were talking about the right to kill, and Felix said he believed one was justified in getting rid of social pests – people who made life a hell for everyone around them. She hadn’t taken it seriously at the time, but, when George was taken ill and spoke Felix’s name, she remembered it again. She had had to go into the dining room, and there she noticed the bottle of tonic on the table. George was groaning and writhing in the next room, and somehow she immediately connected this in her mind with the bottle and with Felix’s words. It was quite irrational, but she was convinced for a moment that Felix had poisoned George. The one thought in her mind was to get rid of the bottle. It never occurred to her that, by doing so, she was removing the only possible evidence for George’s death being suicide. Instinctively, she had moved to the window, with the idea of throwing the bottle into the shrubbery. It was then that she saw Phil staring in at her, his nose pressed against the pane. At the same moment, she heard old Mrs Rattery calling to her out of the drawing room. She opened the window, gave Phil the bottle, and told him to hide it somewhere. There was no time for explanations. She didn’t know, even now, where he had put it; he seemed to be avoiding her whenever she tried to speak to him alone.

  ‘Well, you can scarcely wonder, can you?’ said Georgia.

  ‘Scarcely –?’

  ‘You ask Phil to hide a bottle – he sees you in a very agitated state. Then he hears that his father has been poisoned and the police are looking for this bottle. What conclusions could you expect him to draw?’

  Lena stared at her wildly. Then she broke out, half laughing, half sobbing, ‘Oh God! That’s just too rich! Phil thinks I did it? I – oh, that’s too much –!’

  Georgia was on her feet and bending over the girl in one swift movement. She took her shoulders and shook her without mercy, till Lena’s bright hair was tumbling in a wave over one eye and the wild, idiot laughter ceased. Looking up over Lena’s head, now held fast to her breast, and feeling the convulsive trembling of her body, Georgia saw a face gazing down at them from an upper window – the face of an old woman – harsh, sombre, patrician in feature, the mouth set squarely in an expression that might have been merely a rebuke at the wild laughter playing around this hushed house, or might have been the cold, appeased triumph of a vengeful god, a stone image on whose knees the blood sacrifice has been laid.

  10

  GEORGIA RELATED THIS conversation to Nigel when he returned to the hotel before lunch.

  ‘That explains it,’ he said. ‘I felt pretty sure it was Lena who had got rid of the bottle, but I couldn’t think why she should keep dark about it after she realised that its disappearance wouldn’t make things any easier for Felix. I suppose it couldn’t have been suicide after all. Well, we’ll have to talk to young Phil.’

  ‘I’m glad we’ve got him away from that house. I saw Mrs Rattery senior this morning. She was looking down at us from an upper window, like Jezebel – at least, not very like Jezebel, more like a ju-ju I came across in Borneo once, sitting all by itself in the middle of a forest with a great deal of dried blood on its knees. A very interesting find.’

  ‘Very, I’m sure,’ said Nigel, shuddering slightly. ‘You know, I’m beginning to get ideas about that old lady. If she wasn’t such an obvious choice – just the sort of frightfully high red herring that any detective writer might draw across the trail – Oh well. If this was a book, I’d put my money on that chap Carfax. He’s as smooth and transparent as glass; I kept wondering if he wasn’t doing some sort of mirror-trick on us.’

  ‘The great Gaboriau said, didn’t he? – “always suspect that which seems probable, and begin by believing what appears incredible”.’

  ‘If he said that, the great Gaboriau must have been a halfwit. I’ve never heard such a cheap, fantastic paradox.’

  ‘But why not? Murder is fantastic, except when it’s governed by strict rules like those of the blood feud. There’s no use taking up a realistic ap
proach to it; no murderer is a realist – he wouldn’t commit murder if he was. Your own success at your profession is due to the fact that you’re semi-unhinged a great part of the time.’

  ‘Your tribute, though spontaneous, is uncalled for. By the way, did you see Violet Rattery this morning?’

  ‘Only for a minute or two.’

  ‘I’m just wondering what it was she said to George when they had a scene last week. George’s mother was slinging dark hints when we rescued Phil from her yesterday morning. I think this is where the womanly touch will come in again.’

  Georgia grimaced. ‘For how long do you propose to use me as an agent provocateur, may I ask?’

  ‘Provocateuse. You are, my sweet, amazingly provocative, in spite of your hard-bitten exterior. I can’t imagine why.’

  ‘Woman’s place is in the kitchen. From now on I stay there. I’ve had enough of your insidious stuff. If you want to plant vipers in people’s bosoms, go and plant yourself there for a change.’

  ‘Is this mutiny?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Oh, I just wanted to know. Well, the kitchen is downstairs, first left, second right …’

  After lunch, Nigel took Phil Rattery out into the garden. The boy was polite enough, but in one of his distrait moods, as Nigel made conversation. His pallor, the pathetic thinness of his legs and arms, the occasional wincing look in his eyes kept Nigel shying away from the subject he wished to talk about. Yet the boy’s composure, his air of delicate secrecy – like a cat’s – challenged him.

  He said at last more abruptly than he meant, ‘About this bottle. You know – the bottle of tonic, Phil. Where did you hide it?’

  Phil looked straight into his eyes, with an almost aggressive expression of innocence. ‘But I didn’t hide the bottle, sir.’

  Nigel was on the point of accepting this at its face value when he remembered a dictum of his schoolmaster friend, Michael Evans. ‘A really accomplished and intelligent boy always stares a master full in the eyes when he’s indulging in any important piece of duplicity.’ Nigel hardened his heart.