Thou Shell of Death Read online

  ‘That reminds me,’ said Arthur, ‘them shoes you found behind the chair. Didn’t ought to have been there. The Colonel always put ’em in the cupboard next door. Very meticularrus the Colonel was in ‘is ’abits.’

  Bleakley registered silent exultation. Another point scored by his—by his and Mr Strangeways’ theory. He pointed to the table and said:

  ‘Mr O’Brien doesn’t seem to have been so tidy with his papers.’

  ‘Ar. He let himself rip there. I tried to tidy it up one day and—gawd!—he didn’t’ arf give me his tongue; a treat it was, a real eddication to listen to. “You leave this — table alone, you — son of a —” ’e, sez. “There’s method in my madness,” ’e sez—I can ’ear ’im saying it now —“and if you lay yer — paws on it you’ll ’ave confusion thrice confounded,” ’e sez. Wot they call a hepigram, that is.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t know if there was anything wrong there now?’

  Arthur Bellamy stood for a moment over the table, fingering his battle-ram of a jaw.

  ‘’Ere,’ he said, ‘’ere, wot’s this? The Colonel used to sling all his letters down in a heap over there: that box marked “Letters” he used for keeping papers in—calculations and such like. Now all the letters ’ave got into the box and the papers ’ave got piled over ’ere.’

  Arthur made no further discoveries, but the superintendent was quite satisfied and shortly after dismissed him. As Arthur was going out he turned and whispered hoarsely:

  ‘When you and Mr Strangeways gets ’old of the barstard who did this, just give me five minutes alone with ‘im, chum—just five minutes—you know, unofficial like. You can tell the judge ‘e ran into a lorry trying to escape. Be a sport, matey.’

  Arthur winked, giving himself temporarily the appearance of a rhinoceros about to run amok, and departed. Bleakley worked hard for another half-hour, but the stream of clues seemed to have dried up, and there was no trace of a will to be found or of any drawings or formulae. By this time his reinforcements had arrived. He sent one man to make tactful enquiries in the village: whether any inhabitant had been in the park last night or any stranger been noticed about the place lately. He didn’t expect any results from this, but elimination plays a larger part in police work than deduction. A second man he stationed to guard the hut. A third relieved Bolter, who now went into the house with the superintendent.

  Nigel Strangeways, engrossed in the prospects and retrospects over which his inward eye was ranging, suddenly awoke to find himself almost walking slap into his uncle’s house. Chatcombe Towers was thoroughly English, not only in its architecture, but in the wanton illogicality of its name. Generations of Marlinworths, aided and abetted in their whimsies by an obsequious succession of architects, had combined to evolve an all-in, catch-as-catch-can, and devil-take-the-hindmost riot of brick and stone. Balustrades, cupolas, buttresses, battlements, ornament Gothic and rococo stunned the bewildered eye. The only architectural feature which the building did not possess was, needless to say, a tower. Yet the house had a sort of eccentric dignity and wit and charm like that of some old aristocratic rip resting on her wild oats, Nigel had to admit.

  He rang the bell and was admitted into a hall which would have been enormous but for the acute feeling of claustrophobia imparted by a whole herd of stags’ heads that seemed to be breathing in concert down one’s neck. The supercilious expression on their faces was repeated in that of the butler: indeed, fitted out with moth-eaten hair and a good pair of horns, his head could have been mounted on the wall and no one any the wiser. Ponsonby, having expressed his gratification at Mr Strangeways’ presence amongst them again and given the weather a pontifical but qualified blessing, proceeded suavely as a crankshaft in oil towards the morning-room door. As some geologist, lost, starving and distraught amongst the Himalayan ranges, might rush at the side of a mountain and assault it with his little hammer, so Nigel suddenly felt an insane desire to strike a spark of humanity out of the butler. He clutched his elbow and hissed melodramatically: ‘Terrible doings at the Dower House, Ponsonby! Mr O’Brien has been found shot. He is dead. We suspect the worst.’ A flaw, no larger than the chipping of a geologist’s hammer on the Himalayan ranges, appeared on the butler’s face.

  ‘Indeed sir! Very painful, I am sure. No doubt you will wish to apprise his lordship of the fatality.’

  Nigel gave it up, and, finding his uncle in the morning room, apprised him of the fatality. Lord Marlinworth’s eyes protruded and he gobbled a little. ‘God bless my soul!’ he finally ejaculated. ‘Dead, you say? Shot? Poor fellow, poor fellow. A tragic end. And to think that only last night he was sitting, inter laetos laetissimus, at the head of the festal board. Violence, they say, begets violence. A life violent, colourful, adventurous—to such a life any other manner of death had been anticlimax. Elizabeth will be much distressed: she took a great fancy to the young man. “The last of the Elizabethans,” I called him—a pretty lusus verborum, I flatter myself. And exceedingly well connected, too, I gather: one of the Irish O’Briens, you know—’

  Lord Marlinworth, after a shaky start, was now well into his stride and settled down to obituary. At lunch the news was broken to Lady Marlinworth. Once over the first shock, she behaved with a calmness and practicality surprising in one of such brittle, Dresden-china appearance. ‘I must go over at once and see that nice Cavendish gel. If she feels able to see anyone. Though I fear she will be quite prostrate’.

  Nigel smiled inwardly at the idea of the tough little explorer being ‘prostrate.’

  ‘Why should she be particularly upset?’ he asked.

  Lady Marlinworth shook a delicate, jewelled forefinger at him.

  ‘Oh, you men, you men! You never notice anything. I may be an old woman, but I can at least see when a gel is head over heels in love. Such a charming gel, too. Not a beauty, perhaps, and a little eccentric in her ways. Bringing a parrot down to dinner is not quite—Still, autres temps, autres moeurs; and one must allow some latitude to a young person who spends her life wandering about amongst savages. In my young days it would not have been encouraged at all. Where was I? Oh, yes, the gel was in love with poor Mr O’Brien. A very suitable match it would have been, too. It was really most naughty and inconsiderate of him to go and get killed like that. The poor gel will be quite heartbroken.’

  ‘Elizabeth always has been a—hum—inveterate matchmaker. Haven’t you, my dear?’

  ‘I say, Aunt,’ said Nigel, ‘how do you mean “go and get killed like that”? The doctor has no doubt it was suicide.’

  ‘The man’s a fool, then,’ said the old lady spiritedly. ‘I’ve never heard such wicked nonsense. It was an accident. Mr O’Brien would no more kill himself than Herbert would.’

  Herbert started, then smoothed his moustache with some complacence. Lady Marlinworth went on:

  ‘I shall call on Miss Cavendish this afternoon. Is there anything else you would like me to do, Nigel?’

  ‘Yes, yes, there jolly well is. You said at dinner last night you had seen O’Brien before, or someone like him. Now I want you to try and remember where. Please. It’s really important.’

  ‘Very well, Nigel, I’ll try. But I won’t have you stirring up mud about him; I simply won’t have it. Promise me, now.’

  Nigel promised. After all, the mud was already stirred up so thoroughly that the lady who sits at the bottom of the well was totally invisible.

  While Nigel had been listening to his uncle’s funeral oration, the superintendent had begun another inquiry among the guests. He found Philip Starling and Lucilla Thrale in the lounge. Lucilla had miraculously conjured up from somewhere a dress that conveyed the suggestion of widow’s weeds and at the same time was an invitation to all comers. Starling, sitting on the opposite side of the fireplace, had to admit there was a touch of genius in the way Lucilla had taken every vestige of makeup off her face. She really did look rather impressive and Andromache-like. Not every vestige, though, perhaps; the little don wondered malicio
usly whether those two dark smudges under her eyes were not the result of artifice rather than of grief. The superintendent said:

  ‘Do either of you happen to know anything about a will made by the deceased? I have been unable to find one in the hut, though I am informed that he kept all his private papers there.’

  Lucilla rose to a statuesque position, one rounded arm flung across her eyes.

  ‘Why do you torment me? What do I care about wills? They cannot give Fergus back to me,’ she said in low, broken, thrilling tones.

  ‘Don’t be an ass, Lucy,’ said Starling acidly; ‘it’s the superintendent who wants to find the will, not you. Anyway, why shouldn’t you want it found? It won’t give Fergus back to you, as you so dramatically put it, but it will quite likely give you a nice handful of his boodle.’

  ‘You contemptible little mannikin!’ she flashed back at him. ‘There are things in the world more valuable than money, though you may not be capable of understanding them.’

  Starling flushed angrily. ‘Oh, for God’s sake stop play-acting, my good girl. You never were a success on the stage, and you’re a bit old now for a comeback.’

  Bleakley hastily interposed. Lucilla looked like committing physical assault. ‘Now, now,’ he said soothingly, ‘we’re all a little overwrought. I take it you know nothing of a will, Mr Starling?’

  ‘You take it correctly,’ the little don snorted, and stumped off upstairs. Bleakley next met Edward and Georgia Cavendish coming in from their walk. To them he put the same question. Edward denied all knowledge of the whereabouts of the document. Georgia was silent for a moment, and then said:

  ‘I don’t know where he kept it, but he did tell me once that he was leaving me some of his money.’

  ‘Why not ask his solicitor?’ said her brother.

  ‘We shall get into touch with him in due course, sir.’

  Cavendish looked at him in a puzzled way. Bleakley went on hastily:

  ‘Do you know of any relatives of the deceased with whom we should get into touch?’

  ‘Afraid I don’t. He never told any of us about his relations, I don’t think, except that his father and mother had been dead for some time. Oh, I believe he once said something about some cousins who lived in Gloucestershire.’

  A few minutes later Knott-Sloman arrived back. The superintendent met him in the yard. ‘Just been out for a spin in the Cavendishes’ car,’ he volunteered. ‘Blow away the cobwebs and all that. Stopped for a drink in the village. I can recommend the Beehive.’

  ‘I just wanted to ask if you knew anything about O’Brien’s will. We can’t find it,’ said Bleakley.

  ‘No, I don’t know. What’s the idea?’

  ‘Well, sir, you being a friend of the deceased, I thought you might have perhaps witnessed it.’

  ‘See here, what are you getting at?’ said Knott-Sloman, his eyes cold and guarded. ‘Are you suggesting I am trying to suppress something? Because—let me tell you—’

  ‘Oh, no, sir. Of course not; it’s simply a routine inquiry.’

  But Knott-Sloman went off looking both offended and thoughtful; and Bleakley kicked himself for the tactical error. That question about the witnesses to the will might set minds working and tongues talking—might suggest to someone, once it got about, that the police were not so satisfied with the suicide theory as they pretended to be.

  On his return after lunch, Nigel dragged Philip Starling away from a peculiarly savage article he had begun to write exposing the imbecilities committed by a recent editor of the Pythian Odes, and brought him to his own room.

  ‘Look here, Philip, I’ve got to have the dirt on all these chaps, and you can probably give me some of it. In return I’ll give you an exclusive story—which’ll damned well have to remain exclusive for the present. But first I’ll have to ask you a question. What’s all this between you and Lucilla?’

  Starling’s cynical, arrogant, yet oddly appealing face grew tense. His eyes turned away. Then he said lightly:

  ‘I like thumping great blondes. Lucilla does not like small men.’

  He spoke in identically the same tones as he used in relating his most fantastic scandals; but Nigel knew that he was being serious now.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. Not that I think you’re missing much.’

  ‘Lord, no. She’s a bitch, all right. And one of the world’s most barefaced self-deceivers. Look at the way she’s acting up now. The field marshal’s widow walking in the funeral cortege. Couldn’t get O’Brien to sign her marriage lines on earth, so her marriage has got to be made in heaven. Gah! She makes me sick.’

  ‘O’Brien likely to have left her some money?’

  ‘Might have. She was pretty thick with him. And at the very top of the gold-digging profession. You and Bleakley seem curiously interested in his will. What’s the hurry?’

  ‘O’Brien was murdered,’ said Nigel negligently, lighting a cigarette.

  Philip Starling gave a long-drawn whistle.

  ‘Well, you should know,’ he said at last.

  ‘And if you pass the news on there’ll be another murder,’ smiled Nigel. ‘Now tell me more about La Thrale.’

  ‘She turned up at Oxford a few years ago, acting in the Thespians Repertory Company. And what a ham-actress, too. However, she compensated for her failure on the boards by her success in the bed. Drove the proctors silly. They had to intrigue to get her out of the place finally. Her face was launching too many overdrafts among the undergraduates.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘She went up to London. No visible means of support, but a series of guardian angels. Cavendish was the last of the angelic succession. She turned him down for O’Brien. Always did have an incredible nose for the sinking ship, the little rat. Cavendish has been getting into rather a sticky position financially this year, you know. I’m not sure she didn’t really fall for O’Brien. First time she’d had to do the chasing, and she had to like it. He’d got her properly taped, and she was beginning to realise he didn’t give any more for her than she’d given for her previous playmates. Lucilla in the role of cast-off glove would have been an interesting spectacle—and she wouldn’t take it lying down, either—’

  ‘Stop, stop, stop!’ cried Nigel, clapping his hands to his ears in mock desperation. ‘I can’t stand more than one motive at a time, and you’ve already given me three. Edward Cavendish might have killed O’Brien because (a) he’d taken away his girl, or (b) he wanted to expedite his legacy, or both; Lucilla might have killed him on the hell-has-no-fury-like-a-womans-corned cue. It only needs you to tell me that Georgia is O’Brien’s cast-off mistress and Knott-Sloman an agent of the OGPU and we shall have a perfect case against everyone in the household. Oh, I’d forgotten Mrs Grant. Her motive could be religious mania.’

  ‘What about me? It’s rather humiliating to be left out like this. I’ve always fancied myself as a potential murderer. The trained mind applying itself to the practical problems of life, you know.’ Starling’s face wore its most irresponsible and babyish expression, but his eyes were sharp; he looked like an overgrown infant prodigy.

  ‘I should head the list of suspects with your name, Philip, only that I can’t conceive any possible motive for you.’

  ‘No. If I had felt the need to bump off anyone in this outfit, my dear Nigel, it would have been Knott-Sloman. A really squalid fellow. Was a brass-hat in the war and runs a roadhouse in the peace, and if you can tell me a more nauseating combination of activities I’ll eat my hat. Add to that the fact that he is an anecdote-addict and eats nuts between meals, and Dante would have had to think out a special circle of hell for him. Woof!’

  ‘Where’s his roadhouse?’

  ‘Near London. Kingston bypass or somewhere. Very posh and popular. He’s just the sort of fellow to make a success of a thing like that. Smacks the women on the bottom and wears all his medals on his dinner-jacket, no doubt.’

  ‘I wonder how O‘Brien came to take up with him.’

/>   ‘You may well ask, old boy. Blackmail, probably. Sloman and Lucy are suspected by the cognoscenti of working in partnership over something or other, and blackmail would be just about his mark.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Nigel ironically, ‘I was waiting for something like that. Now you’ve only to give me a nice, succulent motive for Georgia, and I shall be quite happy.’

  ‘No, no. I yield to no one in my love of scandal for scandal’s sake. But Georgia is a good stick. Everything that a woman should be—attractively ugly, eccentric without being a frump, witty, a good cook, sensible and sensual, faithful, and a perfect seat—I am told—on anything from an armadillo to a camel.’

  ‘She’s everything, in fact, except a thumping great blonde,’ said Nigel maliciously.

  ‘Everything, as you say, except a thumping great blonde. Not that I wouldn’t have made an exception to my rule, and applied for the job; only she was booked. O’Brien, you know. Yes. He was very fond of her, and she was right in the deep end over him—wouldn’t look at anyone else. Can’t think why they didn’t get spliced.’

  ‘That’s what you meant when you said she was faithful?’

  ‘And to her brother, too. He must be ten years older, but she looks after him like an only son. The only time I’ve seen her fussy was at some party or other when he threw a faint. You’d think the end of the world had come, the way she behaved. Oh, yes, she dotes on Edward. God knows why. He’s quite a decent old trot, but definitely in the Beta class.’

  ‘I thought he seemed to have brains.’

  ‘He has, of a sort—the financier’s type of brain. Enough to make a fortune, but not enough to leave well alone when it’s made. Georgia is going to have her hands pretty full with him in the near future. Fellow’s on the edge of a nervous breakdown already. He’s been going about all this morning with a long face and twitching hands. Gives you the pip to look at him. Heaven knows Oxford is a neurotic enough place to work in, but it must be lotus-land compared with the Stock Exchange.’