Thou Shell of Death Read online

  ‘It’s all right, Arthur,’ Nigel answered a bit shakily. ‘I’m not ill. It was just—just a nightmare.’

  Arthur tapped his pancake of a nose and said sagely, ‘Ar. Too much of the colonel’s brandy. Plays ’avoc with the lights, it does an’ all. When the gastric juices curdle, wot eventuates? Mental disorder, sir. Nightmares. Ar.’

  Nigel had not time to dispute the scientific accuracy of this dictum, for a resonant baritone voice was singing below the window:

  ‘And back to back by the crimson Slaney—’

  Arthur Bellamy flung back his head and began to supply a faux-bourdon in a shrill and dismal falsetto. Nigel, never one to be behindhand in such matters, was soon bellowing out a raucous obbligato. A dog or two from the village over the hill joined in: and Lord Marlinworth in his bedroom at Chatcombe Towers tapped his fingers on the eiderdown with dignified deprecation.

  When the rendering was over and Arthur departed, Nigel looked out of the window. Fergus O’Brien was standing in the garden below: there was a stack of holly under his arm, and his head was cocked at a hedge-sparrow which moved towards him mouselike over the grass. Soon two thrushes, a blackbird and a robin were standing around him also, their feathers puffed out against the cold, waiting for the bread he had in his coat pocket. What an idyllic scene, how far removed from nightmares, thought Nigel, till the airman turned and he saw in his other pocket the telltale bulge of a revolver, bringing him back to the dark and dangerous reality in which they were living. O’Brien looked up and saw him at the window.

  ‘Go in now,’ he exclaimed, ‘or ye’ll catch your death of cold.’ He was quite alarmed.

  Maiden aunt, St Francis, intrepid aviator; tender, reckless, fussy, Rabelaisian, ruthless—the outward contradictions of that extraordinary man made Nigel’s head reel. But what of the real, the inner man? How could one ever hope to arrive at that? And he, Nigel Strangeways, was expected to guard him: they might as well ask one to guard a piece of quicksilver, a dragonfly, or a shadow on a windy day.

  They spent most of the morning decorating the house. O’Brien threw himself into this with a kind of finicky abandon, dancing from room to room with holly, mistletoe, and evergreens; rushing up stepladders; standing back from his handiwork with hands raised like the conductor of an orchestra. Nigel followed him more soberly. He was intent on fixing the layout of the house in his memory. It was roughly T-shaped, with the main building as the horizontal stroke, and the servants’ quarters forming a short vertical stroke. On the ground floor, in the centre, looking south, was the lounge hall in which they had sat last night. To its right were dining room, and a small study—the latter not often in use, it seemed. The whole of the left-hand side was occupied by a huge drawing room, facing south and east, with french windows leading out on to that side of the garden where the hut had been erected. On the northwest side a billiard room had been built on, blocking in one of the angles of the original T, and on the floor above it the space was occupied by two bathrooms. Upstairs were seven bedrooms. Nigel found they had been allotted as follows: walking down the passage which ran the length of the upper floor, from west to east, he had the rooms of Lucilla Thrale and Georgia Cavendish on his right, with the bathrooms facing them. Then came Edward Cavendish’s, Nigel’s own room, Starling’s and Knott-Sloman’s. ‘And one unoccupied,’ he said, as they came to a door at the end of the passage.

  ‘Well, yes and no,’ replied O’Brien, his eyes twinkling like a schoolboy’s at the prospect of a practical joke. He led the way into the room. ‘This is where I sleep,’ he said.

  ‘But I thought you slept out in the hut.’

  ‘I do so. I got used to the ascetic life during the war, and I find ut difficult to sleep now in normal conditions. But,’ his voice lowered to a conspiratorial tone, ‘tonight and tomorrow night I’m going to sleep here. On Christmas night and after I’ll pretend to go to bed here, but I’ll jump on to the veranda roof and off that into the garden, and I’ll lock meself up in me little bunk in the hut. Murderous josser comes in here, stabs the bed, and gets the helluva shock when he sees me ating me porridge next morning.’ The little airman stood back, rubbing his hands with glee. ‘That ought to make me nights safe, annyway; and in the daytime—’ his lips snapped together in a suddenly relentless line, and he patted his bulging pocket—‘I can take care of meself. Unless they put poison in me food. And if they can do that with Arthur Bellamy about, they’re welcome to me corpse.’

  ‘In fact, there’s nothing for me to do but watch and pray.’

  ‘That’s right, me boy,’ said O’Brien, gripping Nigel’s elbow, ‘with particular emphasis on the “watch”.’

  The door opened silently. A grey-haired, harsh-featured woman stood on the threshold.

  ‘Your orrders for today, Mr O’Brien. What will you be wishing for dinner?’

  O’Brien gave elaborate instructions. Nigel looked at the woman, her bony hands folded tight over her apron, her lips thin as vinegar. When she had gone, he said:

  ‘So that’s Mrs Grant. Wonder how long she’d been outside that door. I feel somehow she disapproves of you.’

  ‘Ah, go on. She’s a bit of an ould stick, but there’s no harm in her. I do believe you’re getting nervous, Nigel,’ he added teasingly …

  At midday they knocked off work. Nigel went out of doors, and poked about. He found a yard at the back, with stables and a garage. In the latter reposed a Lagonda sports-tourer. The former contained only junk and an old man who was gazing at the handle of a spade with the glassy rigidity of a mystic contemplating eternity. Nigel rightly deduced that this was the gardener. Jeremiah Pegrum was his name, Nigel discovered. He had worked in the Dower House garden and blown the church organ, man and boy, fifty year come Easter. Nigel felt it was too late in life for Jeremiah Pegrum to be taking to murder, and turned to go. He was detained, however, by a hand on his sleeve. The gardener’s rheumy eyes took on a semblance of animation, and his next remark made Nigel start. ‘Yu look aafter Mr O’Brien, zur! ’Tes a dangerous time for him, this Christmastide. Zoon as he came down yur I sez to my missus, “Mother,” I says, “new gennulman at Dower House bain’t long for this world. Znow coming, zur. ’Tes a martal bad time for the old uns and the zick when east wind blows down tu Chatcombe. Powerful ill he looks, zur, and a fine gennulman as ever I knowed. But this wind’ll carpse ’im, zure as spinach—if he don’t bust hisself up first in that car of ’is.’

  Nigel wandered through the kitchen garden, round to the east side of the house. The wind was certainly killing. He sheltered for a moment under the lee of the hut. Peering in through the window of the cubicle, his eyes registered that something was missing there. But before his attention could concentrate on it, it was diverted by the arrival of a taxi at the front door. Out of it there bounced a small, rather fat man, immaculately clad: an unmistakable figure, even to Nigel’s short sight.

  ‘And if you don’t get some new springs in your so-called conveyance, I shall report you to the Minister of Transport,’ the little man was saying with some heat. Nigel hailed him.

  ‘Hallo, Philip!’

  Philip Starling, fellow of All Saints and the foremost authority in England on Homeric civilisation and literature, exclaimed, ‘Good God, if it isn’t Nigel!’, came stumping over the grass, shook Nigel by the shoulders, and rattled off, ‘What the devil are you doing here, old boy? Oh, I forgot. You’ve a noble kinsman in residence somewhere here, haven’t you? Mealy-Mouth? Marshmallow? Marl-pit? Marlinspike? What’s his name? No, don’t tell me! I’ve got it—Marlinworth. I’ve not collected him yet. You must introduce me.’

  Nigel firmly stemmed the flow. ‘No, as a matter of fact I’m staying with O’Brien. But what, may I ask, brings you down here?’

  ‘Celebrity snobbery, old boy. I’ve collected pretty well all the aristocracy, so now I’m taking up celebrities—and a lousy dull crew they are for the most part. However, I have hopes of the aviator. A good egg, I should judge, though I’ve only met him
once, at a dinner at Christ Church, and as I happened to be tight at the time—you know the sort of grocer’s port they dish out there—my judgement may be at fault.’

  ‘And on the strength of meeting you once at a dinner, he asks you down to this very select party?’

  ‘I expect it was my personal charm. Believe me, I’ve got my ticket; not gate-crashing this time. You sound very suspicious. Do you represent the secret police down here? Guarding the silver or something?’

  ‘Someone,’ Nigel was tempted to reply, but managed to refrain. Starling’s air of exaggerated candour was appallingly infectious, and had led three generations of undergraduates into the most wholesale exposure of their private lives. Nigel, however, had become inured to it.

  ‘Well, yes and no,’ he said: ‘but for heaven’s sake, Philip, don’t let on to any of the other guests that I’m a detective. It’s quite vital.’

  ‘Very well, old boy, very well. The clam will be a babbler compared to me. You know if I hadn’t become a don, I should have taken up your profession. I revel in the seamy side of life. But one sees so much of it in the Senior Common-room that there is no need to associate with professional criminals. Yers. Have you heard how the Master of St James was discovered stealing the papers old Wiggens had set for Honour Mods?’

  They passed into the house, Philip Starling rattling off his latest scandals, Nigel listening with his personal blend of serious concentration and noncommittal politeness. At lunch the famous airman and the famous scholar occupied themselves chiefly with a discussion of the comparative merits of Greta Garbo and Elisabeth Bergner. They were both brilliant conversationalists, O’Brien with the untutored vivacity of genius, Starling with his almost incredible trained virtuosity. Nigel, listening, reflected that he was probably hearing the last splendour of an art whose delicate tones could not live long against the ubiquitous bawling of the loudspeaker. He muttered to himself:

  ‘Who killed Cock Robin?’

  ‘I,’ said John Reith,

  ‘Will contribute to a wreath.

  I killed Cock Robin.’

  After lunch O’Brien shot away in his Lagonda and a cloud of dust to fetch Lucilla Thrale and Knott-Sloman from the station. The latter, when they arrived, proved to be a hard-bitten man with china-blue eyes and the impatient mouth of a confirmed raconteur. Lucilla Thrale certainly lived up to O’Brien’s description of ‘professional peach’; she stepped from the car with the air of Cleopatra disembarking from her ‘burnished throne’: even the bleak Somerset wind grew lovesick with her perfume. She was tall for a woman, blonde as a Nazi’s dream, full-figured. ‘O, rare for Antony,’ murmured Nigel, as she undulated towards the front door.

  Philip Starling overheard him. ‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘Pick ’em up like that two a penny at Brighton any weekend. Won’t wear well. No features.’

  ‘You must admit she has a presence, a magnificent carriage, Philip.’

  ‘Gah! Walks like a jaguar with the gripes,’ replied the little don with unexpected venom: ‘you have such old-fashioned tastes, Nigel.’

  They strolled into the lounge. Knott-Sloman was in the middle of a long and facetious account of some contretemps that had occurred on the journey down. Philip Starling ignored him completely, and to Nigel’s intense astonishment walked up to Lucilla, slapped her on the shoulder, and said, ‘Well, old girl, keeping in the pink?’

  Lucilla Thrale stood up to the onslaught well, Nigel thought. She tweaked Starling’s cheek, drawling, ‘Well, if it isn’t Philip! And how are all those sweet undergraduates of yours getting on?’

  ‘Much better now that you’re no longer in residence, Lucy.’

  O’Brien, who had been watching the scene with an impish expression, now intervened to make introductions all round. Nigel found himself raked by a long, slow look from Lucilla, which seemed to be calculating accurately the length of his purse and any other qualifications he might possess. Then she half-turned, her green eyes dragging provocatively away from him, and said to Knott-Sloman, ‘I don’t think Fergus is looking at all well, do you? I shall have to take you in hand, Fergus.’ She took O’Brien’s arm with a kind of imperious tenderness. Knott-Sloman was looking displeased. He had not liked Starling’s breaking into his anecdote, nor the perfunctory nod with which the little don acknowledged their introduction. Nigel was conscious of an immediate antipathy between the two—the antipathy, perhaps, between the conversationalist, who lives by give-and-take, and the man who must have monologue or nothing.

  ‘Starling?’ Knott-Sloman was saying, ‘haven’t I seen your name somewhere?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ replied the don, ‘you don’t read the Classical Review, do you?’

  The latest arrivals were taken to their rooms. Nigel and Starling remained in the lounge.

  ‘I’d no idea you knew that girl,’ said Nigel.

  ‘La Thrale? Oh, I get about. She used to live in Oxford.’

  Philip Starling was oddly uncommunicative, Nigel thought, with such an opening for scandalous fantasy in front of him. He had at least expected to be told that Lucilla was the natural daughter of the Vice-Chancellor.

  Just before teatime, a distant clanking and rattling were heard. Nigel looked out of the window and saw an extraordinary spectacle. An ancient two-seater was approaching up the drive, with bits of luggage tied on to every available part of the bodywork. A lady was driving it, a green parrot perched on her shoulder, and a huge bloodhound sitting up beside her. As much of the seat as was unoccupied by the bloodhound accommodated a middle-aged man in weekendish tweeds, looking justifiably rather sheepish. The car clattered to a standstill, more out of sheer inanition, it seemed, than through any application of brakes. The lady leapt out and at once set vigorously to work untying the knots which kept the luggage in place. Arthur Bellamy trundled out to help her.

  ‘Well, Arthur, you old ruffian,’ the lady exclaimed, ‘not hung yet?’

  Arthur grinned delightedly. ‘Don’t seem like it, Miss Cavendish. You’re looking a fair treat. And so is Ajax here. And is this your brother? Pleased to meet you, Mr Cavendish.’

  Georgia Cavendish rushed into the house, and practically flung herself into the arms of O’Brien, her dark, monkey-like face chattering with excitement. She certainly does live up to her reputation, thought Nigel, looking on and grinning involuntarily himself.

  Christmas Day. Seven-thirty p.m. For two days Nigel had been watching, with the whole concentrated force of his attention. The superb Lucilla, the colourful Georgia Cavendish, and her pompous, decent, elderly brother; Knott-Sloman, with his professional bonhomie; Philip Starling and Fergus O’Brien—all had passed and repassed under his trained scrutiny: and precious little he had to show for it. His mood alternated between incredulity and an apprehension that was increasing as the Feast of Stephen drew nearer. There were personal undercurrents of feeling among the guests: that was obvious. But the one sign that Nigel was looking for he could not find: it was almost impossible, he believed, to have planned murder against a person and to behave normally towards him in the interim. Yet, as far as he could observe, not one of the guests was less his normal self in O’Brien’s presence than out of it. Either someone had the most remarkable emotional control, or the threat came from outside this circle—or the whole thing was a hoax.

  Lord and Lady Marlinworth had accepted an invitation to dine at the Dower House this night, and Nigel came downstairs early to be ready for them. As he reached the drawing-room door, he heard a low-toned conversation within. There was no mistaking that resonant voice, its tones indifferent, humouring, a little impatient.

  ‘… No, not tonight.’

  ‘But, Fergus, darling, I want you so. It’s quite safe. Why can’t 1—?’

  ‘You can’t because I say you can’t. Now be a good girl and do what I tell ye; and don’t ask questions, because you’re wasting your breath.’

  ‘Oh, you’re cruel, cruel—’ the voice of Lucilla, almost unrecognisably altered from her usual cool drawl, broke
; and Nigel had time only to retreat half a dozen paces from the door before she swept out and past him, quite oblivious of his presence. Well, for once you’re getting as good as you give, thought Nigel: no wonder O’Brien doesn’t want you coming to his bedroom when he means to be out in the hut …

  The Christmas dinner was half over. At the head of the table O’Brien, his black beard jutting out from his dead-pale face, looked like an Assyrian king; he was at the top of his form, blarneying away at Lady Marlinworth till the old lady was in a positive twitter of delight.

  ‘Fie, Mr. O’Brien, I declare you are the most outrageous flatterer.’

  ‘Not a bit of it. Lady Marlinworth looks as if she were at her first ball, doesn’t she now, Georgia?’

  Georgia Cavendish, in emerald-green velvet, her cockatoo perched on her shoulder, wrinkled up her monkey-face at him and grinned elfishly. At the other end of the table Lord Marlinworth was plying Lucilla Thrale with Edwardian attentions. The girl showed no outward sign of the emotional storm Nigel had overheard. Magnificent in her low-cut white dress, she replied to Lord Marlinworth’s sallies with cool provocativeness: but Nigel could see her gaze wandering away to O’Brien and hardening for an instant when it rested on Georgia Cavendish. Georgia’s brother was talking high finance with Philip Starling: it was the first time Nigel had heard him on what was presumably his own subject, and there was no doubt he had an acute and able mind. Nigel noticed that, while Philip was talking, Edward Cavendish’s eyes kept straying towards Lucilla; considering her nonpareil appearance tonight, there was nothing odd in that: but his expression was revealing by its very guardedness—he looked at her with the deliberate reticence of a poker player inspecting his hand. Nigel noticed, too, that Lucilla was aware of these glances and studiously avoided returning them. Knott-Sloman was vying with Lord Marlinworth for her attentions. His pale blue, restless, rather stupid eyes kept returning to her mouth and shoulders with a boorish sort of aggressiveness. He held her attention by brute force, as it were, raising his voice to subdue Lord Marlinworth’s thin tenor, and piling anecdote on anecdote. He had a coarse charm of his own, undoubtedly, as well as the crude ‘personality’ of the egotist.