Thou Shell of Death Read online

  It was while he was studying this photograph that Nigel heard a voice behind him. ‘My study’s ornament. Well, I’m so glad you could come.’ Nigel wheeled round. The voice was light, almost girlish in timbre, yet of an extraordinary resonance. Its owner stood in the doorway, his hand outstretched, a humorous quirk on his lips. Nigel came forward, stuttering with embarrassment:

  ‘I … I, really I c-can’t tell you how sorry I am. Quite inexcusable, prying about like this. My cursed habit of inquisitiveness. Probably should be found examining the Queen’s correspondence if I was invited to Buckingham Palace.’

  ‘Ah, never mind, never mind. That’s what you’re down here for. It’s my fault being out when you came. I didn’t expect you so early. I hope Arthur showed you your room and everything.’

  Nigel explained his premature arrival. ‘Arthur was hospitality itself,’ he added. ‘He even offered to give me some sparring practice.’

  O’Brien laughed. ‘That’s fine. It means he’s taken to you. Whom he loveth, he chastiseth—or tries to. It’s the only way he can express his emotions. He knocks me down every morning regularly—at least he used to till me health wouldn’t stand it any more.’

  O’Brien looked a sick man indeed. As they paced to and fro over the lawn Nigel took stock of him. He had not yet really got over his feeling of guilt at being discovered in the hut, and the mental picture he had formed of what the airman would look like had been shattered so bewilderingly by his real appearance. He had expected something hawk-like, whipcord tough, of more than mortal stature. He saw a smallish man, whose clothes hung loosely on him, as though he had shrunk in the night: an almost dead-white face, with raven hair and a neat black beard that half concealed a terrible scar from temple to jaw; large but delicate hands which somehow fitted his voice. His features were homely—not in the least romantic, in spite of the beard and the pallor. Except for his eyes. O’Brien’s eyes were dark blue, almost violet, in colour, and as changeable as the sky on a windy spring day—animated one moment, and the next moment clouded over and withdrawn, quite dull, as though the spirit in them had gone somewhere else.

  ‘Look at him now, will you?’ O’Brien pointed excitedly to a robin that was hopping about on the lawn in front of them. ‘He stops quicker than your eye can stop. He stops so dead that the eye can’t brake in time: it overshoots him and stops a foot ahead. Did you ever notice that?’

  Nigel hadn’t ever noticed it. But he noticed how the airman’s intonation became more Irish under excitement. And two lines from the ‘Ancient Mariner’ came unbidden into his head:

  ‘He prayeth best who loveth best

  All things both great and small.’

  These were about the Hermit. And the airman had become a sort of hermit. Nigel felt that this man could make him see things as he had never seen them before. He knew suddenly, without any possibility of doubt, that he was walking up and down the lawn with a genius.

  At that moment two gunshots exploded from some nearby covert. O’Brien’s wrist and hand jerked involuntarily and his head twisted round. He smiled apologetically.

  ‘Can’t get out of the habit,’ he said. ‘Up in the air that meant some fella was sitting on your tail. Bloody awful sensation. You knew he was there all right, but you couldn’t help looking over your shoulder.’

  ‘Sounds as if they’re shooting in Luckett’s Spinney. I know this part of the country well. Used to stay every autumn with my aunt when I was a boy. Do you do any shooting down here?’

  O’Brien’s eyes clouded over, then twinkled again. ‘I do not. Why would I? I don’t hate the birds. Looks as if someone may be going to do a bit of shooting at me, though, doesn’t it? You’ve read those letters. But I mustn’t spoil your appetite for tea. We’ll get down to business later. Come on in, now …’

  Dinner was over. Arthur Bellamy had waited at table, with a deftness and speed surprising in one of his bulk, rather like a performing elephant. He was none of your silent, unobtrusive automatons, though, and enlivened the meal with encomia on the successive dishes and crisp comments on the personal lives of almost every member of the village, from the vicar downwards. Nigel was now sitting with his host, sipping brandy in the lounge hall.

  ‘Jolly good housekeeper you’ve got,’ he said, looking round at the immaculate order of the lounge, where everything the lounger could possibly require seemed ready to hand, and remembering the Christmas roses and the biscuit tin in his own bedroom.

  ‘Housekeeper?’ said O’Brien. ‘I don’t keep one. What made you think?’

  ‘I seemed to detect the trace of a woman’s hand.’

  ‘Mine, I should think. I like fussing about with flowers and things. Beneath me beard, I’m an elderly maiden lady. So I couldn’t have another one about the place. Too much competition. Arthur does most of the chores.’

  ‘But don’t you have any staff? Did Arthur cook that admirable dinner?’

  O’Brien grinned. ‘The sleuth getting down to it already! No, I have a cook. Mrs Grant. Your aunt recommended her. She has warts, but otherwise she’s a paragon. And there’s a gorm of a girl comes up from the village every morning when we’ve visitors to do the cleaning. Judging from her appearance, she deposits more dirt than she takes away. The gardener’s a local, too. You’ll have to look elsewhere for suspects.’

  ‘You’ve not had any more letters, I suppose?’

  ‘I have not. The fella’s saving himself up for the Feast of Stephen, I expect.’

  ‘Just how seriously do you take these letters?’

  The cloud came and went in O’Brien’s eyes. He entwined his fingers in an oddly girlish gesture. ‘I don’t know, shure. I really don’t know. I have had that kind of thing before, often enough. But there’s something about the way this fella expresses himself—’ He cocked his head quizzically at Nigel. ‘Y’know, if I was going to kill someone, I’ve a feeling I’d write to him just that way. The usual dotty threatening letter-writer gets his hate off his chest by the mere writing of the letter. He’s a physical coward. And he has no sense of humour. Mark me words, he has no sense of humour. Now it’s only when you’re in dead earnest that you can afford to joke about it. We Cartholics are the only people that jokes about our religion. Y’see the implication?’

  ‘Yes, the same thing occurred to me when I read that last letter.’ Nigel put down his glass on the floor, and moved over to lean on the mantelpiece. In the circle of lamplight O’Brien’s white face and black beard jutted out sharply from the shadows, like the head of a king on a coin. The thought came suddenly to Nigel: ‘How vulnerable he looks, and yet how calm—as if everything was over—like a poet composing his own epitaph with Death looking over his shoulder.’ O’Brien’s withdrawn expression seemed that of one who has already signed the contract with death, sewn the shroud, ordered the coffin, made all funeral arrangements, and awaits the act of dying as something irrelevant—an unimportant detail in the whole huge scheme. Nigel shook himself out of these fantastic musings and turned to business.

  ‘You told my uncle you had some vague suspicions you didn’t care to put down on paper.’

  There was a long silence. At last O’Brien shifted in his chair and sighed: ‘I don’t know if I should have said that.’ He spoke slowly, picking his words. ‘It’s not as if they could be any use to you … Ah, well … Here’s one thing. Did you notice that in the third letter he said he wouldn’t want to kill me till the festive party was over? Now I had this party arranged a week before I got the letter. I’ll tell you why I arranged it in a minute. The point is, I never have been one for house-parties. I likes keepin’ meself to meself, as Mrs Grant would say. And how could the unknown ill-wisher know I was going to have one if he hadn’t been one of the people I’d invited?’

  ‘Or a friend of one of them.’

  ‘Yes. It narrows it down, y’see. Now I can’t believe it could be one of my guests. They’re all friends of mine. But I’m not trusting anyone, just now. I don’t hanker after dying before m
e time.’ A steely glint appeared in his eyes, making him look momentarily much more like the ruthless airman of legend than the spinsterish recluse. ‘So I says to meself, after the second letter came, “Fergus, you’re a rich man, and you’ve made a will, and them that’s mentioned in the will know they are.” So, after that joker sent his second letter along, I decided to collect the principal legatees here for Christmas, where I could keep me eye on them—I never did care for having the fella with the gun sittin’ on your tail where ye can’t see him. The will is locked up in me safe.’

  ‘You mean, all the guests coming tomorrow are your heirs!’

  ‘I do not. One or two of them are. And I can’t tell you which, can I now, Strangeways? It wouldn’t be fair to them. They’re probably as innocent as a baby’s bottom. Still, there are circumstances in which even your best friend might murder ye for £50,000.’

  O’Brien’s eyes twinkled provocatively at Nigel as he delivered himself of this outrageous dictum.

  ‘You want me just to keep my eyes open, then,’ said Nigel, ‘to be a kind of watchdog in sheep’s clothing. It’s rather difficult when I don’t know whom I’ve got to watch.’

  The airman’s homely, ravaged features lit up in a smile extraordinarily winning. ‘It’s the devil. I wouldn’t ask anyone else to do it. You’ll just have to take it on trust that I’ve got good reasons for not telling you who is going to profit by my death, yet. I’ve heard enough about you, and I’ve seen enough of you, to be sure that if you can’t succeed under these conditions no one could. You’ve got psychological knowledge, analytical intelligence, common sense and imagination. Don’t attempt to deny it, now! You have.’

  It was Nigel’s first taste of blarney—that warm, outrageously personal, almost childishly direct flattery which only Irishmen can get away with. He reacted, in the conventional English way, by staring hard at the floor and hastily changing the subject.

  ‘Have you any other theory of possible motives?’

  ‘There’s these plans I’m working on. Y’know, it’s been proved lately that the interceptor type of aircraft can never be really successful against a large-scale air attack. Bombing planes can attack now from much higher altitudes—ten thousand feet and upwards. Well, now, however fast your interceptor planes climb, they can’t reach those high altitudes before the damage is done. It follows that, in the war of the future your big cities and strategic points will have to be protected by a network of planes constantly in the air at different levels. What does that mean, tell me now?’ The little airman leapt up from his chair, strode over to Nigel, and stabbed him repeatedly in the chest with his forefinger. ‘It means that your defence planes of the future must be capable of remaining in the air over long periods. They must be fast, but at the same time capable of hovering, with vertical screws on the helicopter principle. And they must, above all, have a very low petrol consumption, for there simply wouldn’t be enough petrol at the present average rate of consumption for fighting planes to keep an adequate force permanently in the air for more than a fortnight. That’s what I’m working on now. An improved type of autogyro, with the lowest possible fuel consumption.’

  O’Brien flung himself back into his chair and combed his fingers through his beard. ‘I needn’t tell ye, all this must be secret as the grave. But I’ve got wind, through entirely unofficial channels, that a certain foreign Power is getting nosey about what I’m doing, and is employing an English agent to find out. Me plans aren’t yet sufficiently advanced to be of much use to them, even if they could steal ’em. But they might think it worthwhile to have me dead before I could bring the plans to completion.’

  ‘Do you keep these plans here?’

  ‘They’re in the only burglarproof safe in the world—in me own head. I’ve a great memory for figures and such like. So I burn most of the drawings and calculations that could tell them anything vital.’ O’Brien sighed. His face in the lamplight looked weary and tortured. His wide mouth, turned down deeply at both corners, suggested the fixed agony of a Greek tragedy mask. ‘It’s a dirty game, though,’ he went on. ‘Bomb or be bombed, gas or be gassed—the law of the jungle dressed up to look respectable in that damned hypocritical word “security”. Man’s character isn’t grown-up enough to be trusted with the inventions of his brain. The Church in the Middle Ages wasn’t being reactionary when it tried to suppress scientific discovery—no more than a father is when he takes a box of matches out of his baby’s hand. Ah, I’m not codding myself. I used to enjoy dogfighting up there. I remember singing once at the top of me voice when I sent one poor devil spinning down in flames.’ His eyes took on a remoter abstraction. ‘But I had reason. I had reason. I’m too deep in it all now.’ He seemed to gather himself together and shrink, throwing a glance of peculiar intensity at Nigel, as though to measure his understanding.

  ‘Too deep?’ Nigel asked slowly.

  ‘Well, amn’t I? Talking what they call pacifism, and working out plans for bigger and better wars,’ O’Brien answered bitterly. ‘I’d like to see every airplane in the world scrapped, and to hell with “progress”. But I’m too old, too fixed in me habits to ahlter annything but the construction of carburettors. It’s your generation that’s got to change men’s minds and achieve real security—and I wish yez luck with it; yez’ll need it. Mine knows all about the horrors of war; but it’s too tired to do annything about ut. It wants to die, I dare say—y’know more than I do about Freud’s death-will; but I can feel ut in me bones. You’re young enough to want to live, and it’s your lot that’s got to see they have the chance to live, even if it means killing off us old ones in the process.’

  O’Brien spoke passionately, but Nigel felt that his passionate words concealed something quite different, something personal and more deeply rankling. There was a long silence. Then Nigel said:

  ‘Are there any other possible motives for someone wanting to kill you?’

  O’Brien’s gaze, which had been abstracted, now suddenly sharpened. Nigel thought of the eyes of a boxer warily covering himself up against an imminent blow.

  ‘Enough and to spare,’ O’Brien said, ‘but I can’t give you anything definite. I’ve knocked about and made enemies. I expect me bad deeds’ll come home to roost some day. I’ve killed men, and I’ve made love to women—and ye can’t do that without laying up a store of trouble for y’self. But I couldn’t give ye a list of them even if I wanted to.’

  ‘The tone of your anonymous letter-writer sounds to me like a personal grudge. You wouldn’t write like that to a person if you were going to kill him for his money or to get hold of some plans.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t it be the most effective way of disguising your real motive?’ said O’Brien.

  ‘Um. There’s something in that. Tell me about the other guests.’

  ‘I’ll tell ye a little. I want ye to study them yourself, without prejudice. There’s Georgia Cavendish, the explorer; I picked her up out of a nasty hole in Africa once, and we chummed up. She’s a remarkable woman, and she lives up to her reputation, as you’ll see. Her brother, Edward Cavendish, something in the city, looks like a churchwarden—the maiden lady’s prayer—but I fancy he might have been a bit of a boy in his young days. Then there’s a fellow called Knott-Sloman; quite a panjandrum in the war; runs a club now. Philip Starling—’

  ‘What? The don at All Saints’?’ interrupted Nigel excitedly.

  ‘That’s him. D’ye know um?’

  ‘Do I not? He was one of the instructors of my youth. And about the only one who ever nearly reconciled me to Greek accents. He’s a grand little man. That’s one I can strike off the list of suspects.’

  ‘Most unprofessional,’ grinned O’Brien. ‘Well, that’s about all. No, it isn’t. I was forgetting. Lucilla Thrale, a professional peach. Ye’ll have to mind yer step or she’ll have ye tied up in knots.’

  ‘I’ll do my best to keep out of Delilah’s way. Now, what precautions are you taking or do you want me to take?’
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  ‘Ah, time enough, time enough.’ O’Brien stretched lazily. ‘I’ve got a gun, and I’ve not lost the habit of using it. And I’ve a feeling the joker that’s after me will keep his word about leaving me to digest me Christmas dinner in peace. Did y’ever hear the story about Lord Cosson and the goat?’

  The rest of the evening was spent by O’Brien in relating scandalous anecdotes, most of which referred to persons in high office and sustained more than adequately his reputation for contempt of authority. Later, lying in bed, Nigel heard the front door bang and steps going away towards the hut in the garden. His mind was dazed by the mass of contradictions his host’s character presented, though he had the feeling that there was a clue, if only he could grasp it, which would bring them all into a visible pattern. Out of his sleepy musings, three points emerged and took shape. First, that O’Brien took these threats much more seriously than he had suggested to Sir John Strangeways. Second, that the light he had thrown on part of the situation left other parts of it in yet deeper darkness. Third, that even under the circumstances it was rather an odd party. Nigel might or might not have been enlightened could he have looked in through the hut window, and seen the wry smile on O’Brien’s lips as he settled into his truckle bed, and heard those passionate lines from an Elizabethan dramatist which the little airman whispered to the impassive stars.

  III

  A CHRISTMAS TALE

  NIGEL WAS AWAKENED by a thunderous knocking on the door.

  ‘Oh, God, it’s happened!’ was the first thought that rushed into his mind. It was followed by a banal but terribly clear image of a sentry sleeping at his post. He wetted his lips and croaked, ‘Come in!’ The face of Arthur Bellamy appeared round the door. It was split by a divine-like grin, which changed rapidly into almost comic solicitude when he saw Nigel’s expression. ‘Gorblime, Mr Strangeways, sir, you don’t half look ill. White as a sheet, you are, and no error. The colonel says breakfast at nine; but perhaps you’d rather have it up here?’