Thou Shell of Death Read online

  Sir John paused, and wrinkled his brow reflectively.

  ‘Is he real Irish?’ asked Nigel. ‘One of the Brian Boru Clan? or just West British?’

  ‘Nobody really knows, I don’t think. His origin is shrouded in mystery, as they say. Turned up suddenly in the R.F.C. early in the war, and never looked back. There must be a good deal to him. Genuine integrity, I mean. Popular heroes, particularly in the air, are two a penny nowadays: they flame up and then are forgotten tomorrow. But he’s different. Even allowing for the playboy, romantic element in all his adventures, he couldn’t have kept his grip on the popular imagination unless he was something out of the ordinary run of “heroes”. It must be some greatness of integrity that keeps the fires of hero worship burning still for him.’

  ‘Well, as you say, you’d rather I formed my own impressions,’ said Nigel provocatively. ‘But I’d be glad of the outside dope, so to speak, if you’ve got time. I’ve rather lost touch with the O’Brien saga.’

  ‘I expect you know the salient points all right. He had a bag of sixty-four Germans by the end of the war: used to go out alone and sit up in a cloud all day, waiting for them. The Germans were quite convinced he had a charmed life: used to attack anything of theirs short of a circus. The chaps in his squadron really began to be a bit afraid of him themselves. Day after day he’d go out, and come back with the fuselage looking like a sieve and half the struts nearly shot through. MacAlister in his mess told me it looked as if O’Brien deliberately tried to get killed and just couldn’t bring it off; might have sold his soul to the devil, for all anyone knew. And what’s more, he did it without drink. Then, after the war, there was his solo flight to Australia in an obsolete machine, flying one day and every other day tying the pieces together after the crack-up. And, of course, there was that incredible exploit of his in Afghanistan, when he took a whole native fort single-handed. And the stunting he did for that film company, chucking his machine all over the place between the peaks of a mountain range. I suppose the culminating feat was his rescue of that explorer woman, Georgia Cavendish. Went looking for her all over some godless part of Africa, landed in impossible country, picked her up out of it and brought her home. That seems to have sobered even him a bit. The crash at the end of it may have had some effect, too. Anyway, it was only a few months after that he decided to give up flying and bury himself in the country.’

  ‘Um,’ said Nigel, ‘a colourful career all right.’

  ‘But it isn’t these spectacular feats—the things every schoolboy has heard about—that have made the legend, so much as the things the public hasn’t heard of—officially, that is to say, the things that never got into the newspapers, but were passed from mouth to mouth; dark hints, rumours, superstitions almost—some of them fiction, no doubt, and most of them exaggerated, but the greater part founded on fact. All these have swelled up to make a really gigantic mythical figure of him.’

  ‘Such as?’ asked Nigel.

  ‘Well—one absurd little detail: they say he always fought best in carpet slippers—used to keep a pair in his plane and put ’em on when he got to a thousand feet or so; no idea if there’s any truth in it, but those slippers have become as legendary as Nelson’s telescope. Then there was his hatred of brass hats—common enough, of course, amongst those who had to do the fighting—but he took active steps about it. Later on in the war, when he had become a flight commander, some B.F. at Wing Headquarters ordered his flight out to do some ground strafing in impossible weather conditions over a nest of machine guns. You know the idea—just to keep ’em busy and justify the brass hat’s existence. Well, they were all shot down except O’Brien. After that, they say he spent most of his spare time flying about behind the lines looking for the staff cars. When he saw one, he’d chivvy it all over the countryside, with his wheels a couple of feet above the brass hat’s monocle. They say he used to drop homemade stink bombs into the tonneaux, too; fairly frightened ’em out of their wits. But they couldn’t exactly prove who it was; and anyway, O’Brien being the popular idol he was, I doubt if they’d have dared to take action. Authority always has been a red rag to him—he didn’t give a damn for orders. Went too far, finally. After the war, when his flight was out East, he was ordered to bomb some native village. He didn’t see why the natives should have their village blown to pieces just because some of them hadn’t paid their taxes, so he made his flight loose off their bombs in the middle of a desert and then flew low over the village, dropping one-pound boxes of chocolates. The authorities couldn’t overlook that—he took full responsibility, of course—so he was politely asked to resign. It was soon afterwards that he did his flight to Australia.’

  Sir John sat back, looking faintly ashamed of his unwonted verbal exuberance.

  ‘So you’ve fallen under the spell, too,’ said Nigel, with a humorous cock of the head.

  ‘What the devil do you mean …? Well, I suppose I have. And I’ll lay ten to one, young man, that you’ll be eating out of his hand by the time you’ve been at the Dower House for a couple of hours.’

  ‘Yes, I dare say I shall.’ Nigel got up with a sigh and began to prowl with his ungainly, ostrich-like stride round the room. This leather-padded, sporting-print-decorated, cigar-and-good-breeding-redolent ‘sanctum’, into which nothing more violent than a Morning Post leading article could ever have entered—how utterly remote it was from the life he had just been hearing about, the world of Fergus O’Brien, of dizzy tumblings amongst the clouds, of meteoric exploit and topsy-turvy values: a world where death was threadbare and familiar as Herbert Marlinworth’s study carpet. And yet between Lord Marlinworth and Fergus O’Brien there was no more original difference than the excess or deficiency of some little glands.

  Nigel shook himself out of these dreamy moralisings, and turned to his uncle again.

  ‘One or two more points I should like to clear up. You said at tea that there were reasons why the press should have been induced to keep quiet about the exact locality of O’Brien’s ‘retreat.’

  ‘Yes; besides practical flying, he has interested himself a good deal in theory and construction. He is now at work on the plans of a new plane which, he says, will revolutionise flying. He doesn’t want the public poking about just now.’

  ‘But surely there is a possibility that other Powers may have got wind of this. I mean, oughtn’t he to be having police protection?’

  ‘I think he ought,’ replied Sir John in a worried way; ‘but there’s his blasted cussedness. Said he’d throw all his drawings in the fire if he got so much as a smell of police surveillance. Says he’s quite able to look after himself, which is probably true, and anyway that no one else could make head or tail of his plans until they are much further advanced.’

  ‘I was thinking there might conceivably be a connection between these threatening letters and his invention.’

  ‘Oh, there might. But there’s no use getting preconceived ideas into your head.’

  ‘Do you know anything about his private life? He’s not married or anything, is he? And he didn’t tell you who was coming for this house-party, did he?’

  Sir John tugged at his sandy moustache. ‘No, he didn’t say. He’s not married, though I should think he must be pretty attractive to women. And, as I told you, nothing is known of him before 1915, when he joined up. It all contributes to the newspaper Mystery Man publicity.’

  ‘That’s suggestive. The newspapers would have been all out to rake up facts about his boyhood, and he must have had some pretty good reason for keeping them in the dark about it. Those threats might be some of his prewar wild oats come home to roost.’

  Sir John threw up his hands in horror. ‘For God’s sake, Nigel! At my time of life the system can’t stand mixed metaphors.’

  Nigel grinned. ‘Now there’s only one other point,’ he pursued. ‘Money: he must be well off to be able to rent the Dower House. I suppose nothing’s known about his source of income?’

  ‘Couldn’t say. He’
s had plenty of opportunities of making capital out of his position as Public Idol No. 1. But he’s not made great use of them, as far as I know. But all these questions you’d far better ask him. If he really thinks there’s anything in these threats, he’ll have to open up to you a little.’

  Sir John heaved himself out of his chair. ‘Well. Must be off. Got to dine with the Home Secretary tonight—fussy old hen, he’s suddenly developed Communist-phobia; thinks they’re going to put a bomb under his bed. Ought to know they don’t allow acts of individual violence. Wouldn’t mind if they did blow him up, as a matter of fact. His idea of dinner is boiled mutton and grocer’s Graves.’

  He took Nigel by the arm and piloted him towards the door. ‘I’ll just pop in and tell Herbert and Elizabeth not to go giving you away as Sherlock Minor while you’re down there. I’ll wire O’Brien you’re coming on the twenty-second. There’s a train from Paddington at 11.45: get you down there in good time for tea.’

  ‘So you’ve got everything fixed, haven’t you, you old schemer?’ said Nigel affectionately. ‘Thanks very much for the job—and the saga.’

  Pausing outside the drawing-room door, Sir John squeezed his nephew’s arm and whispered, ‘Look after him, won’t you? I feel I ought to have insisted more strongly on police protection. Those letters would make things pretty difficult for us if anything should happen. And of course you’ll let me know at once if you find out there is anything behind them. I should simply override his wishes if we had anything definite to go on. Good-bye, boy.’

  II

  The Airman’s Tale

  AS IT HAPPENED, Nigel did not travel by the 11.45. On the night of the 21st he was rung up by Lord Marlinworth’s butler, who said that his master and mistress had been delayed in town and would not be travelling down to Chatcombe till tomorrow. They would be very pleased to give Mr Strangeways a lift down in their car and would call for him sharp at 9.00 a.m. Nigel thought it politic to accept this semi-royal invitation, though four or five hours of Lord Marlinworth’s reminiscences in such a confined space would be likely to give him a headache.

  On the stroke of nine the next morning the Daimler drew up outside Nigel’s door. To his aunt and uncle road travel was still a complicated adventure, not to be undertaken lightly. Although the saloon car was as draughtless and dustless as a hospital ward, Lady Marlinworth habitually carried a thick motoring-veil, several layers of petticoat and a bottle of smelling salts for any journey of more than twenty miles. Her husband, in an enormous check ulster, cloth cap and goggles, looked like a cross between Edward the Seventh and Guy Fawkes—a point the cluster of street urchins which had rapidly formed was not slow to take up. A valet and Lady Marlinworth’s personal maid were taking the luggage down by train; but the spacious interior of the car was chock-a-block with enough equipment for a polar expedition. Getting in, Nigel barked his shin on a gigantic hamper, and the way to his seat seemed to be paved with hot-water bottles.

  When he was at last settled in, Lord Marlinworth consulted his watch, unfolded an ordnance map, took up the speaking-tube and, with the air of a Wellington ordering the whole line to advance, said, ‘Cox, you may proceed.’

  During the journey Lord Marlinworth kept up a ceaseless flow of light conversation. As they passed through the suburbs, he commented unfavourably upon their architecture and drew a parallel between it and the makeshift character of twentieth-century civilisation. At the same time he generously conceded that the people who lived there played no doubt a necessary part in the community and were admirable persons in their way. The country reached, he alternated between calling his companion’s attention to ‘pretty peeps’ and ‘noble vistas’ and recounting anecdotes of the leading families in each county through which they passed, his wife seconding him with involved researches into their genealogical trees. Whenever they approached a fork in the road, Lord Marlinworth would study his map and give directions to the chauffeur, to which Cox responded with a grave inclination of the head—as if this was the first and not the fiftieth time he had driven the route. Torpor and a haze of unreality stole over Nigel. His head nodded. He jerked awake. His head nodded again. Then he fell finally and uncompromisingly asleep.

  He was awoken for a light lunch at twelve o’clock. As soon as they had started, he fell asleep again, thereby missing a remarkable tale about the Hampshire Enderbys, the last head of which family had apparently, at the age of fifty, retired to the top of a lofty tower on his estate, and was never seen again except on the anniversaries of King Charles the First’s death, when he used to emerge and fling down red-hot sovereigns to his tenants. When Nigel awoke, they had left the main road and were sliding along a Somerset lane whose hedges almost brushed the sides of the car. Soon they turned left, through a magnificent stone gate. The drive, formally curving and twisting like a hypnotised snake, led them down the side of a combe and up the far slope; there it forked, straight on for Chatcombe Towers, and to the right for the Dower House. Cox was directed to drop Nigel at the Dower House first. As he alighted, Nigel noticed a bizarre addition had been made to the landscape since his last visit to Chatcombe. Fifty yards or so to his right as he faced the front door at the end of the garden, there had been erected an army hut. As he waited for the door to open he wondered idly how O’Brien had managed to persuade Lord Marlinworth to let him erect so unsightly an object on the estate. It also suddenly occurred to him that he had forgotten to let O’Brien know his change of plan, and therefore was not expected till teatime.

  The door opened. A very large, very broad, very tough-looking man appeared; he wore a neat blue suit, and his nose was about the shape and size of a small pancake. This worthy gave one glance at Nigel and his suitacse—the car had already driven off—and exclaimed:

  ‘No, we don’t want no vacuum cleaners, nor yet am I hinterested in silk stockings, brass polish, or parrot seed.’

  He began to shut the door, but Nigel stepped forward hastily and said: ‘Nor am I. My name’s Strangeways. I got an offer to drive down from London and hadn’t time to let you know.’

  ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr Strangeways, sir. Come in. My name’s Bellamy. Harthur, they generally calls me. The Colonel’s out just now, but he’ll be back before tea. I’ll show you your room. And then I dessay you’d like to stretch your legs around the gawden a bit.’ He added, with a wistful look: ‘Unless you’d care to put on the gloves for a round or two. Limber you up after the drive, it would. But perhaps you ain’t a devotee of the Noble Art.’

  Nigel hastily disclaimed it. Arthur looked crestfallen for a moment; but his face soon broke into a craggy grin. ‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘there’s some as is ’andy with their maulies, and others as is ’andy with their serry-bellum.’

  He tapped the small portion of his nose that stood out from the level of his face. ‘It’s OK, Mr Strangeways, sir. I know wot you’re down ’ere for. Don’t you worry yourself. Mum’s the word, sir. I can keep me trap shut. Hoyster is my middle name.’

  Nigel followed the oyster upstairs. Soon he was unpacking in a cream-washed bedroom, furnished severely but adequately with unstained oak. There was only one picture on the walls. Nigel peered at it short-sightedly, then walked up to it with a cigarette in one hand and a pair of trousers in the other. It was the head of a girl, by Augustus John. Nigel took rather a time to unpack. He was, as he admitted himself, a born snooper. He never could restrain his curiosity about the accessories of other people’s lives. He pulled open every drawer in the chest-of-drawers, not so much to dispose of his own effects as in the hope that the last visitor might have left something incriminating behind. They were quite empty, however. There were Christmas roses in a bowl on the dressing table, he noticed. He opened a box on the table beside his bed: it was full of sugar biscuits. He put three absent-mindedly into his mouth, thinking: ‘A competent housekeeper behind all this.’ He prowled over to the mantelpiece and fingered the row of books arranged there: Arabia Deserta, Kafka’s The Castle, Decline and Fall, The Sermons o
f John Donne, the last Dorothy Sayers, Yeats’ The Tower. He took down the latter; it was a first edition, with an inscription from the poet to ‘my friend, Fergus O’Brien’. Nigel began to revise his preconceptions about his host; it all fitted in very badly with his notion of the daredevil, harum-scarum pilot.

  After a bit he walked out into the garden. The Dower House was a long, two-storeyed, whitewashed building, with an overhanging slate roof. It had been built about one hundred and fifty years before on the site of the original Dower House, which had been burnt down. It looked rather like one of those old-fashioned ample country rectories, whose architects seem to have been obsessed by the reproductive power of the clergy. A veranda ran the whole length of the front of the house, which faced south, and was continued along the east face. As he walked round, Nigel saw the wooden hut again; it stood out, more of an anachronism than ever, its windows filled with the blood-red glow of the huge December sun. He went across the lawn and peered in at one of the hut windows. The interior had been fitted up as a workroom. There was an enormous kitchen table, strewn with books and papers; several rows of bookshelves; an oil stove; a safe; some easy chairs; a pair of carpet slippers on the floor. The whole effect contrasted oddly with the guest room he had just left—the one breathing a quiet, distinguished luxury, the other untidy, ascetic and businesslike. Nigel’s curiosity, insatiable as that of the Elephant Child, got the better of him. He pushed at the door. Faintly surprised to find that it opened, he went in. He poked about aimlessly for a little; then his attention was attracted by a door in the wall on his left. The living-room looked so large, it had not occurred to him that this was a partition wall. He went through this door and found himself in a small cubicle. It seemed to contain nothing but a truckle bed, a rush mat and a cupboard. Nigel was about to go out again, when he noticed there was a snapshot on top of the cupboard. He went over to it. It was the photograph of a young woman in riding clothes; it was growing yellow with age but the girl’s head stood out clearly, hatless, dark-haired, with an expression of sweet madcap innocence on the lips, but in the eyes a shadow of melancholy; a thin, elfish face, promising beauty and generosity and danger.