The Deadly Joker Read online

  “Oh, yes. Pray continue, sir, you interest me strangely,” replied Alwyn Card in his waggish way.

  “Well, there was one shot. Then the cuckoo started calling again. Then a second shot, and it stopped. Why didn’t the first shot frighten it away?”

  He gazed at me with lively interest. “But cuckoos often call while on the wing from one tree to another.”

  “Yes, but its call—after the first shot—came from the same place. And when the second shot was fired, I heard its body falling through the branches.”

  “Highly significant, my dear Holmes.” Alwyn beamed at me. “It must have been a deaf cuckoo. It was certainly a most insensitive one, keeping us all awake like that. Ah, well,” he continued, drawing a brier and tobacco tin from his satchel, “‘the earliest pipe of half-awakened birds.’”

  The deplorable pun dated him back to the Punch of Victorian or Edwardian days. Not that I’m totally opposed to puns: they can signify a certain intellectual vivacity, even if of a low order. And Alwyn Card’s personality was beginning to exercise its potent charm over me. He dropped the tobacco tin back into the satchel with a chink, and lit up. I noticed that his suit was shabby, the shirt-cuffs frayed. Turning my back on the green, I scrutinised his ancestral home, whose noble Jacobean façade was slowly turning from grey to the old-gold of its Ham Hill stone as the dawn lightened. A velvety lawn stretched from it to the low stone wall which separated it from the lane. The mullioned windows were like rows of eyes heavily asleep.

  “What a shame you had to give it up!” I remarked tentatively.

  A spasm of emotion passed over Alwyn’s face. “Ah, well. Tempora mutantur, nos et … We must move with the times. I move out, and he moves in. Met him yet? He’s in residence just now, I believe.”

  “Paston? No.”

  “Squire Paston,” said Alwyn, grinning derisively. “Fearful bounder. Smooth chap, of course. He hunts, y’know.” The blue eyes opened wide, in a travesty of humorous indignation, directed—so I judged—not against blood sports, but at the idea of a business tycoon taking part in them. “He’ll be Master of the Tollerstock yet,” Alwyn continued, “if he has to break his neck to get there. Though what the committee’d say to having a Master who’s married to a nigger—”

  “A nigger?” I exclaimed.

  Alwyn’s features squeezed up in a sudden contortion: then he was beaming again. “Well, an Indian. Vera Paston. Hell of a looker, I must admit. When she’s visible. Doesn’t go out much. The harem type. Exotic is the word, I believe. Odd bird to find in a Dorset village. A passion-flower among the primroses.” An expression of concern came over his face. “But look here, my dear Waterson, uncivil of me to keep you out here talking; you must be chilled to the bone. I should run along in, if I was you. At your age, these early-morning dews—”

  “I’m quite warm, thank you,” I answered, slightly nettled by this reference to my age coming from a man little younger than myself. “This is a good thick jersey.”

  I began to poke about in the matted grass again. For a few minutes, Alwyn Card accompanied me as I moved up and down under the trees. Then, with a touch of irritation in his tone, he said, “You’re wasting your time, my dear fellow. I’ve been over all this ground here. Curiosity killed the cat, y’know—it got pneumonia. I’m going in. Dinner to-night? You and your wife?”

  I accepted the abrupt invitation, though it did sound rather like a royal command—Alwyn might be dispossessed, but he had the blood of a long line of authoritarian squires in his veins. He turned away, the satchel clinking, and strode off across the green.

  The sun was shining brightly now, its lateral rays turning the hoary dew to ropes and sparkles of diamond. For some quarter of an hour, I pursued my search; but no dead cuckoo did I find, only the usual debris of the countryside—a few rusty tins, sodden leaves, an empty cigarette carton, the remains of a very dead rook, a broken eggshell, a gleaming piece of wire soldered into a little cogwheel, and a few limp bluebells discarded by some picker. On an impulse I extricated the wire and cogwheel from the tangled grass in which they lay, then turned back towards the pub.

  As I did so, I was stopped by a sudden flash of gold from across the Manor lawn. A woman had come out. She stood for a moment in the great doorway, shading her eyes, then began to pace the dewy lawn. She was barefooted, dressed in a golden sari. I could not clearly make out her features, but her gait was the most graceful I had ever seen. She flowed over the grass. I remembered Virgil’s description of Camilla. I must frankly confess that I stood there, in the shadow of a tree—the woman had not noticed my presence—entranced by pure aesthetic delight, for several minutes until she went indoors.

  2. The Unlucky Cards

  Jenny was quite recovered from her shake-up of the night by the time we were walking arm in arm across the green to the Cards’ house that evening. We had taken a picnic lunch up on to the hills and lazed the afternoon away, looking over the tranquil country towards Dorchester. It was so still that one could hear cows munching the pasture a hundred yards away, and the hum of a bee sounded loud as a bagpipe’s drone. But not even these idyllic heights could keep us long away from our new house down in the valley there: at four o’clock we scrambled down the hill to gloat over Green Lane. We passed through its white wicket-gate, up the brick path bordered with wallflowers, admiring the blossom in the little orchard at the back, and went in. Jenny, her eyes sparkling, hands clasped on her breast, gave a great sigh of contentment as we entered the drawing-room.

  “Oh, how lucky I am!”

  Jenny had certainly made a charming room of it: though it lacked still our furniture, the carpet was down, and the curtains up on the two sash-windows facing south towards the line of the hills: the white wallpaper, with a pattern of golden lyres upon it, gave the room a delightful largeness. I could see from Jenny’s abstracted air that she was, for the twentieth time, rearranging our furniture in her mind so as best to suit the room. I went through into the extension, facing south and west, which was now all but ready for me except for the drying-out of the plaster. George Mills, our builder, was putting up shelves. Though he lives in Tollerton, he only came there from Somerset ten years ago, so he is still considered a foreigner in the neighbourhood.

  We chatted for a few minutes. Then he very respectfully asked if I could give him an advance on the costs of material for his work.

  “Why, of course,” I said, taking out my cheque book. “Will fifty pounds be enough? You should have asked me before.”

  George professed himself most grateful for this modest advance. “You’d hardly believe it,” he confidentially added, “the trouble we have in our trade with bad debts. Naming no names, mind you, there’s a party in this very village owes me five hundred quid. Same sort of thing all over the district. Not poor people, either—the gentry.”

  “Why don’t you sue them?”

  “Can’t afford to, sir. It’d get me a bad name. Besides, these cases can drag on; and what with the legal costs and such, you’re not much better off when you do win.” George embarked upon a tedious and complicated anecdote about a bathroom he had installed in Tollerton, and the client’s refusal to pay for some necessary modification she had verbally agreed to but which was not included in the written estimate.

  Jenny came in during this recital. She cocked an amused eye at us. “Gossiping again?”

  “That’s right, Mrs. Waterson,” said George, who obviously adored her. I’ve never understood why gossip receives so much censure from moralists. Apart from being the unwritten literature of the semi-literate, it is the recreation of allegedly higher types such as university dons and the clergy. How colourless social life would be if that unruly member, the tongue, were not let off the leash now and then.

  “I hear Mr. Paston has done a lot of improvements to his properties in the village,” I said.

  “Seems so. But he doesn’t employ local labour,” George replied in a disabused manner. “Contractor from Poole for him.”

&n
bsp; So the local five hundred pound defaulter was not the squire …

  Crossing the green, Jenny and I rang at the Cards’ front door. Their house showed a square, sober-looking Queen Anne façade of two stories: it had been built as a dower house for the Manor during a period of family prosperity, I guessed, but bore signs of neglect. Alwyn Card, in a plum-coloured velvet jacket now and yellowish-white flannel trousers, opened the door. He received us with great civility, and talking volubly to Jenny, led us through the hall to the back of the house and into the garden.

  A lawn, dotted with clumps of dishevelled pampas grass, sloped gently down to the little stream of the Pydal, whose tinkling could be heard in pauses between the fluting of blackbirds and of Alwyn’s voice. Over to the right, beneath some rheumatic-looking apple trees, stood a row of three bee-hives: a small brick annexe stuck out from that end of the house, contrasting rawly with its elegance. There were drinks on a white iron table in the middle of the lawn, and four of those new-fangled aluminium garden chairs. Alwyn Card fussed round Jenny, adjusting one for her, urging her to put her feet up.

  “No, please,” she protested, “you mustn’t treat me as an invalid.”

  “But you’ve been ill? I’m so sorry. Well, Mrs. Waterson, Dorset will soon bring the roses back to those cheeks.”

  Damn the old fool, I thought, noticing Jenny wince: how could he have heard about it?—or was it just an accidental hit in the dark?

  “You’ll find us very dull and peaceful here,” he burbled on. “Just the place for convalescence. Oxford now—it is Oxford you were living in?—I’m told it’s dreadfully noisy to-day. I was at Cambridge myself. But you must forgive me, I’m quite neglecting my pleasant duties as a host; comes of being so much out of the world. What are you allowed to drink, my dear Mrs. Waterson?”

  “Oh, anything. I’m not ill. And I’ve not been ill for quite a long time,” Jenny replied, a shade too strenuously.

  “Good. Splendid.” Alwyn’s voice was vague. “Then let me recommend gin and bitter lemon.”

  He poured out a glass for her, indicating another bottle of bitter lemon from which I should help myself. I took off the tin top and began to pour. Nothing came out. I held up the bottle to the light. It was full.

  “There seems to be something wrong with—”

  “Oh, my dear sir, how careless of me! I keep this to amuse the children. Rather neat, isn’t it? Don’t know how it got in amongst the others. Here, try this one.” His baby-blue eyes gleamed with mischief. “Have you any children, Mrs. Waterson?”

  “Two. Step-children. They’re both charming.”

  “I’m sure they are,” he said enthusiastically. “But you must have some of your own. Now mustn’t you?” His charm robbed the words of any possible offence, but Jenny’s eyes clouded over for a moment.

  “Mustn’t she what?” came a voice from behind us.

  “Have children. Let me introduce my brother, Bertie. Mrs. Waterson. John Waterson.”

  My first impression of Egbert Card was one of astonishment that he should bear no resemblance whatsoever to his half-brother. Dark, saturnine in expression, tall and slim, with a leathery skin and the cleanly-modelled features one often finds amongst expert horsemen, he straddled over to shake hands with Jenny. He wore riding breeches and what is called, I understand, a hacking jacket. I must be honest and say that I took against Bertie at the start. Too much animal magnetism for my liking. He held Jenny’s hand a bit too long, and projected himself at her through his dark brown eyes. During the conversation that ensued, in which he took little part, I caught him several times staring boldly at my wife; once he saw I had caught him, and gave me an arrogant, careless look, then turned his eyes back upon Jenny. Quite the lady-killer, as we used to call his type: the term now, my son tells me, is “wolf.” Why, I cannot imagine. Wolves are not exceptionally libidinous, nor do lady-killers hunt in packs.

  I dared not look at Jenny to see how she was taking this unmannerly scrutiny. Even the most fastidious, most faithful woman is flattered by the blatantly male approach. And then, Bertie Card looked under forty, though I discovered later he was forty-five.

  Meanwhile, Alwyn was showing off, so to say, his brother’s paces. He told us that Bertie had had considerable success as an amateur rider, played polo for the Cheetahs, and was now running a riding school in Tollerton. Bertie sat silent during this recital, sipping whisky and fingering his pencil-thin black moustache.

  “Do you ride, Mrs. Waterson?” Alwyn concluded.

  “No. I play the piano. But I like horses.”

  “You must get Bertie to give you lessons.”

  “She’d have good hands, wouldn’t you say, Alwyn?” drawled Bertie, gazing sleepily at her. “Better than your nigger. I took her out this afternoon on Kitty. She pretty well sawed her mouth off.”

  Seeing Jenny’s puzzlement, Alwyn said, “My brother refers to the exotic Vera Paston.”

  “Does he indeed?” Jenny remarked. “Mrs. Kindersley told me that Mrs. Paston is a high-born lady from India.”

  “She’s black, isn’t she?” said Bertie.

  “So anyone who isn’t white you call a nigger, Mr. Card? I thought only morons kept up this colour-bar stuff?”

  I realised that Jenny was shaking with anger. I had not noticed it boiling up, as I had been diverted by a wordless exchange (of enmity? suspicion? complicity?) between the two brothers.

  “Well, that makes me a moron, I take it,” said Bertie, irritatingly unruffled.

  “Colour seems no bar in your case, my dear brother,” remarked Alwyn.

  Bertie grinned. Attractively. His teeth were very white. “Listen who’s talking!”

  It’s a sad thing about women, they can never leave anything alone. Having made their point, or their protest, they must at once be making it again—over and over again. A dæmon drives them: consequently, they go too far. At bottom, of course, they are uncivilised—or uncivilisable. For them, the conventions of polite controversy are quite meaningless. Dear Jenny is no exception to the rule. Medusa-like she glared at Bertie.

  “It’s so—so paltry,” she said, “using words like ‘nigger’ about people. It’s not the word that matters, so much as the attitude it represents. How would you like to be called ‘white trash’ by a negro?”

  “I should knock him down,” Bertie replied, without heat.

  “But you’re safe to abuse Mrs. Paston. She’s not big enough to knock you down.”

  “She’s bowled him over,” put in Alwyn, “which is more or less the same thing.”

  “So we can reduce it all to a superior masculine joke?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact we do,” Bertie said, giving her a provocative look. “Alwyn and I both call her ‘nigger.’ To her face, I mean. It’s a joke between us. It amuses Vera. She calls us the poor whites, the palefaces of Netherplash, and suchlike opprobrious terms. That’s a joke too—a superior feminine joke.”

  “It must send Mr. Paston into stitches.” Poor Jenny was badly deflated, though. And it had given me an uneasy minute: one knows all too well how near sexual antagonism is to its opposite.

  Alwyn now asked us how our house was getting on. It turned out that George Mills had also built the brick annexe at the south end of Alwyn’s. “It’s not a dream of beauty,” he said, “but we wanted a workshop.”

  “You did, you mean. Alwyn’s a great one for gadgets,” Bertie explained. “The Do-It-Yourself-King. He does look rather like the Mad Inventor, don’t you think?”

  “You want to watch out for George Mills,” said Alwyn. “George Bills, I call him. Good journeyman, but always dunning one. Tradespeople aren’t what they used to be, y’know.”

  I saw that Jenny was getting indignant again. She has strong feelings, and rightly, about people who do themselves well at the expense of shopkeepers and local firms. Fortunately, however, Alwyn took us in to dinner before she could make her démarche. The food, cooked and served by the Cards’ old, deaf housekeeper, Mrs. Benson, was
not very appetising; but we had an excellent bottle or two of Château Talbot and some really superlative brandy afterwards. The dining-room, like the drawing-room to which we presently moved, was attractively shaped and panelled; but both rooms looked rather uncared-for, their furniture a job lot, their carpets and curtains threadbare. It transpired that Ronald Paston had taken over most of the furnishings with the Manor, as well as a collection of family portraits. “Most of ’em were much too large for this little box,” Alwyn remarked. “So we let ’em go with the big house. Paston no doubt passes them off as his ancestors when his business cronies come down.”

  Three oils had been kept and hung in the drawing-room—undistinguished portraits of their father and his two wives. The late Alwyn Card looked every inch the squire, his first wife meek and insipid, his second—Bertie’s mother—quite spectacular in a bold, gipsyish way.

  The time passed pleasantly enough in uncontroversial talk and local gossip. Alwyn produced a string of brilliant fantasies about the early career of Ronald Paston: Bertie exerted himself to be pleasant to me, listening more or less respectfully while I put forward my views about education.

  As we strolled back to the pub, Jenny said, “He’s rather a dear, the old boy, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. I can imagine him becoming a bit of a bore, though, as a close neighbour.”

  After a little, she said, “There’s no love lost between those two.”

  “Well, Paston has pushed him out of—”

  “No, between Alwyn and his brother, I mean.”

  I was astonished at this judgment of Jenny’s. The brothers had struck me as being on remarkably good terms.

  “Oh, it’s just a feeling I got,” answered Jenny vaguely when I challenged her to substantiate her curious notion. I could not help noticing that, apart from this, she made no comment at all upon Egbert Card.

  Three days later, at the invitation of the master, I went to dine at High Table in my old college. The following day I was to superintend the removal of our belongings from the Oxford house, while Jenny had stayed on at Netherplash to see them into Green Lane.