The Case of the Abominable Snowman

by Nicholas Blake

  ‘You mean, it was a kind of warning?’

  ‘Or of blackmail? Or a symbol of – no, it’s no good. I’m too sleepy, and we don’t know enough of the facts yet.’

  As he composed himself for sleep, Georgia said, ‘The stuff is supplied in the form of candies or cigarettes?’

  ‘Yes. A nasty racket. Good-night, my sweet.’

  ‘Good-night.’

  Next morning, in obedience to a note received from Blount, Nigel ploughed his way to the village pub where the inspector was staying. He found him, fully dressed to the nightcap, taking porridge: a plate of cold ham stood at his elbow.

  ‘Really, Blount, with the temperature at God knows what below zero, the sight of you preparing to eat cold ham is more than I can bear. For a man who cossets himself with nightcaps, this Spartan diet is not only disgusting but inconsistent.’

  ‘Oh, well now,’ replied Blount, slapping his forehead rapidly many times, ‘oh, well now. Prime ham. Delicious. Delicious. Mustn’t derogate the noble ham. Irreverent. Sacrilege. Besides, I’m taking parritch first. Warms the cockles.’ He slapped a large spoonful into his mouth.

  ‘I often think that porridge explains the Scots,’ said Nigel darkly. ‘It’s as colourless as your kirks, as sloppy as your sentiment, as jejune as your character, as –’

  ‘Did you get anything from them in London?’ asked Blount, with one of his disconcerting returns to the business line.

  Nigel told him about the explanation of the cat’s behaviour, and his own theory that it might link up with Elizabeth Restorick’s girlhood aberrations.

  ‘It’s a plausible idea,’ said Blount slowly. ‘But I can’t see just now why such a roundabout method was employed. Suppose one of the people up there had the knowledge that Miss Restorick once took marijuana and lost her virtue, and wished to blackmail her on the strength of it. Surely he would communicate this to her secretly, not stage that funny business with the cat. After all, it took an expert to discover what had caused the cat to behave as it did. There’s no reason to think Miss Restorick would recognize its symptoms. The same argument holds good against the cat incident being a warning or any kind of symbolic by-play.’

  ‘Yes. That’s true enough.’

  ‘I’m inclined myself to put a different interpretation on it. Either it was a practical joke, unconnected with the murder, or it was an attempt by the murderer to concentrate our attention upon the drug-aspect of the whole business.’

  ‘Leading up to what?’

  ‘Well, if the murderer had some motive for his crime quite unrelated to his victim’s drug-habit, but he knew of this habit, he might try and call attention to the latter in order to confuse the whole issue.’

  ‘There’s something behind all this, I fancy.’

  ‘The murder bears every mark of a sex crime. And the motive for most sex crimes is jealousy.’

  ‘Ah! So you’ve got your knife into Will Dykes already.’

  ‘Oh now, I don’t get my knife into people,’ replied Blount, a little shocked. ‘I’m not saying, mind you, that I found Dykes a very satisfactory witness. But he’s not the only person who could have been motivated by jealousy; there’s Miss Ainsley, and Dr Bogan, and Andrew Restorick, even, maybe. But it’s unfortunate for the wee man,’ he added, spearing a slice of ham, ‘that we should have found one of the cords from his dressing-gown tassel in the deceased’s room.’

  ‘Dykes’ dressing-gown? When?’

  ‘Yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘But the local police had searched the room before that.’

  ‘Local police don’t know as much about searching as we do. Not that I blame them in this case. The bit of cord was lying in the fringe of a mat beside the bed, and it’s of very much the same colour as the fringe. Anyone might have missed it.’

  ‘Have you taxed Dykes with this?’

  ‘Oh yes. He says it’s a plant. In fact, he insinuated that we put it there ourselves, to work up the case against him. He’s got an awful dislike for the police.’

  ‘Still, it could be a plant. There’s a precedent in this case. Look at those papers in Bogan’s grate. Had the bedroom been left unguarded between the time they were told it was murder and the time you made your search?’

  ‘I’m sorry to say, yes. Last forenoon, after I’d interviewed Dr Bogan and while you were walking Dykes around the policies, Robins admits he left his post upstairs for a matter of five minutes. The laird – Mr Hereward Restorick that is – asked him to step downstairs for a snack. Mr Restorick is accustomed to having his own way down here, you see, and Robins – well, he inclines to treat Robins as a family retainer. So there it was. But I shouldn’t bank too much on it. In my experience, clues are nearly always straight clues, it’s only in books that you get false ones planted all over the place.’

  ‘Have you found out where everyone was during that five minutes?’

  ‘Yes. As a matter of routine. Mrs Restorick was in her boudoir. Andrew Restorick and Miss Ainsley were playing piquet. Dr Bogan was in the lavatory; Dykes out in the garden with you. Mr Restorick in his study.’

  ‘Oh, I thought he was giving the constable his elevenses.’

  ‘No, he told him to go down and get it in the kitchen.’

  ‘And the constable left the bedroom door unlocked?’

  ‘I’m afraid he did. In any case, Mr and Mrs Restorick have pass-keys.’

  ‘Did Robins come down the main stairs for his snack, or by the back stairs?’

  ‘The main stairs, apparently. Mr Restorick walked down with him, and then claims to have gone into his study.’

  ‘Well, no doubt you’re looking into that. What lines of investigation are you going to work on now?’

  ‘There’s the sex angle and the drug angle. We’ll have to put your friend Dykes through it, I’m fearing. Investigate further the relationships of all the people at the Manor with Miss Restorick, go into their antecedents; all the usual routine; that ought to give us something, whether it was sex or drugs behind the affair. What you’ve told me about the hashish is very interesting, but I doubt if it tells us more at present than that someone in the house was in possession of the drug two to three weeks ago.’

  Nigel admitted this to be true, though, as it happened, Georgia was to unearth during the next hour a piece of information which put hashish back in the centre of the stage, and Nigel had already heard something from Miss Cavendish that only needed a correct interpretation to advance him much further towards the solution of the case.

  Blount removed his nightcap, clapped on his head an austere bowler, summoned his detective-sergeant, and the three of them sallied but for the short walk to Easterham Manor, followed by the inquisitive or gloating eyes of half the population of the village.

  ‘A dour lot they are, down this way,’ remarked Blount. ‘Do they talk to you at all in the bar, Lang?’

  ‘No fear, sir,’ said the Sergeant. ‘The landlord’s not so bad, though. He comes from London. He was yarning to me only just now.’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘All about Mr Restorick. How they respect him in the village, and that. Of course, the Manor gives a good deal of employment, one way and another. But there’s a bit of wholesome fear, as you might say, in their respect. Landlord was telling me how Mr Restorick half strangled a man who gave him some lip, a year or two ago. Proper temper the gentleman has.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘She dealt her pretty words like blades,

  As glittering they shone,

  And every one unbared a nerve

  Or wantoned with a bone.’

  EMILY DICKINSON

  GEORGIA ADMIRED ONCE again the way Charlotte Restorick, in the midst of the disaster which had fallen upon her home, kept her stately poise and kindliness. When Georgia arrived at the Manor, Charlotte was giving the day’s orders to the housekeeper: she greeted Georgia with unruffled charm, apologized for keeping her waiting, and gave Mrs Lake a few more directions. Everything had been thought of – th
e little fads of her guests, the difficulties of provisioning caused by the snow, even the police; Mrs Lake was to inquire whether Inspector Blount and his colleagues would take lunch at the Manor, what they would like for lunch, what time would be most convenient for them.

  ‘And now, Mrs Strangeways,’ she said when the housekeeper had retired, ‘I don’t believe I ever thanked you for looking after the children yesterday afternoon. It was sweet of you. They came back quite full of it.’

  ‘They’re very charming children. I wondered whether you would like me to look after them for a bit this morning.’

  ‘Why, that’s too kind of you, my dear. But I’d hate to feel we were imposing on you.’

  ‘I’d like it. If it would take any work off your hands. Things must be terribly difficult just now. But you’re such a capable organizer –’

  ‘I know it seems heartless to be worrying about petty little domestic details just now,’ said Mrs Restorick with one of her shrewd, steady looks. ‘But what else is there for us women to do? Indeed, I think we’re lucky having these things to take our minds off – well, it quite wrings my heart to see poor Hereward moping about. He’s taking it very hard. He doesn’t know how he’ll be able to lift up his head in the county after this.’

  Georgia cocked an eye at her. Had there been a note of indulgent satire in that last remark, or was it just the American naiveté? Charlotte Restorick’s rather heavy face gave nothing away.

  ‘There is just one thing,’ said Georgia. ‘I didn’t like to press the children about it. But do they know the legend of the Bishop’s room?’

  ‘Surely not. I don’t think it’s wise, especially with highly-strung children, to talk to them about that sort of thing.’

  ‘But the servants might have –’

  ‘They’re under strict orders not to repeat the story,’ replied Mrs Restorick commandingly. ‘Why, what gave you the idea?’

  Georgia repeated John’s remarks of the previous afternoon. ‘I expect he was talking through his hat,’ she added mendaciously: ‘the male habit of boasting before the female starts early.’

  She lit a cigarette, and advanced cautiously towards another objective. ‘Tell me, Mrs Restorick, did you happen to be present on an occasion when Elizabeth got very worked up? – it was something to do with the children smoking, I fancy.’

  ‘Gracious! Smoking? What an extraordinary notion! I’m sure they don’t smoke.’

  ‘So am I. But I offered John a cigarette yesterday, just in fun. And his reaction was rather peculiar. You know the way children close down on something that frightens them, and they don’t understand. John said “Aunt Betty smoked like a chimney.” Then Priscilla said something about it’s not being fair and Aunt Betty getting “in a frightful flap” – and John shut her up quickly. I got the impression that she was going on to say “when we were caught smoking,” and it somehow seems out of character with what I know of your sister-in-law.’

  There was a wondering, far-away look in Charlotte’s eyes. After a pause, she said, ‘I believe I know what – yes, I remember now.’

  Prompted by a few questions from Georgia, she came out with the story. A few days before Elizabeth’s death, the party were acting charades with the children after tea. During one of these charades, in which the children were playing the Babes in the Wood, and Andrew, in a sinister black beard, the Wicked Uncle, he offered them – in a diabolical manner – cigarettes. Elizabeth, who was sitting next to Charlotte in the audience, had startled everyone by giving a suppressed scream and swaying in her chair as if she were about to faint. Dr Bogan, sitting on her other side, had taken her out of the room and returned later to explain that it was one of her attacks. Everyone had been rather upset.

  As well they might be, thought Georgia, for the story had chilled her own blood as if it were an outburst of lunatic talk from a person always believed sane.

  ‘The whole episode sounds so horribly meaningless,’ she commented five minutes later when she had passed it on to Nigel.

  ‘Horrible. But not meaningless,’ he said, his blue eyes gleaming with sudden intelligence. ‘I must go and think this out, darling. See if you can get the children to tell you whether Elizabeth said anything to them about the affair afterwards. It’s very important.’

  Nigel was pacing to and fro along the terrace at the back of the house, wearing a path in the snow. Cigarettes, he mused. Marijuana is peddled in cigarette form. The cat was doped with the same drug. In each episode, Andrew and Elizabeth play leading parts. Elizabeth was a marijuana addict. She and Andrew were both at school in America. Link all that up, and what have you? Twice a little play was staged in which the drug was implied or implicated. It is conceivable that Elizabeth would have been able to recognize the cause of the cat’s demoniac behaviour. She certainly saw some meaning in the offered cigarettes. Andrew offered the cigarettes, and it may well have been Andrew who doped the cat. Why? To frighten Elizabeth? He was watching her reactions attentively that night in the Bishop’s room. But why should he want to frighten his best-beloved sister?

  To frighten her off something? Ah, that’s getting warmer. And frighten her off what else but marijuana? But he could just have had a heart-to-heart with her. And besides, cocaine, not marijuana, was her present fancy. But you’re forgetting the children. God! Supposing that’s it? Suppose it was Betty that Andrew was talking about when he said there was someone in the house who revelled in evil? Suppose Betty was going to make these children addicts of the drug which had set her off upon her own vicious career? And Andrew somehow knew of her intentions and staged these dramatic episodes to warn her off? Or to discover whether his suspicions were well-founded? Like Hamlet?

  Nigel went indoors and communicated these ideas to Inspector Blount, who had been interviewing the butler in the writing-room. Blount heard him out patiently, then said:

  ‘That’s very interesting. There may be something in it. But I can’t see it’s directly relevant to the murder.’

  ‘Oh, damn it, surely –’

  ‘You don’t mean to tell me that Andrew Restorick would murder his sister, even to prevent her corrupting the children? Why should he? He’d only to tell his brother what he suspected, and Elizabeth would never have been allowed near the children again. You’re letting your imagination run away with you.’

  Nigel’s imagination was indeed frequently stimulated to frenzy by Blount’s stolid common sense.

  ‘Well then, what about this?’ he now said. ‘Elizabeth is acting under somebody else’s influence. X is using her as an instrument to get possession of the children. He realizes that Andrew is wise to her little game, and murders her lest she crack up and implicate him.’

  ‘X being Dr Bogan?’ inquired Blount dryly. ‘Or have you cast Hereward Restorick for the rôle? I’d not put it past you, in your present frame of mind. Lang, will you ask Miss Ainsley to step this way.’

  Presently the detective-sergeant ushered Eunice Ainsley into the room. Nigel, shivering on a window seat, now for the first time studied her closely while Blount ran her through some of her previous evidence.

  He put her age round thirty. She had the restlessness and slightly protuberant eyes of the neurotic – the type of woman one sees in residential hotels, living with a mother who would look equally ‘well-preserved’. Well-preserved without, ill-conditioned within. Restless, dissatisfied, kittenish in front of men, having an occasional unsatisfactory affair with a man considerably older than herself – a business man or engineer or colonial. She smelt rather stuffily, of powder, not scent. She was a chain-smoker, but not, as far as Nigel could see, a drug-addict. Her voice was husky, drawling, with harsh undertones. She wore a well-tailored, check tweed costume, and her hair – which could have been her best feature – was moulded into a disagreeable, almost metallic neatness.

  ‘– you were a close friend of the deceased?’ Blount was asking.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. We used to share a flat – that was four years ago. But I’ve told
you all this before.’

  ‘And she never hinted to you that she was afraid of – something like this happening to her?’

  ‘Oh, no. Of course a person like Betty was always taking the risk.’

  ‘“Taking the risk”?’ prompted Blount, his voice soft as silk.

  ‘Well, you can’t expect to play around with men as she did, and get away with it every time.’

  ‘You mean, she created jealousy?’

  ‘I’ve seen two men fighting like wild beasts over her,’ said Miss Ainsley, shivering, and crossing her thin legs.

  ‘Anyone connected with this case?’

  ‘No.’ Nigel fancied it came out rather unwillingly. ‘Not that it mightn’t have happened here. She’d got Mr Dykes and Dr Bogan on a string. Poor Betty – it seems awful to be talking about her like this. She couldn’t help it, after all. I mean, she was made like that, wasn’t she?’

  Blount declined to comment on the matter. He said, ‘But I understood she was engaged to marry Mr Dykes?’

  ‘Oh, that? Yes, I suppose so. But she wouldn’t have gone through with it. I heard her say as much, not long ago. They were having a bit of a row about it.’

  Pressed by Blount, she toned down the last remark. No, it hadn’t exactly been a row, but both of them had sounded worked-up.

  ‘You don’t like Mr Dykes?’ put in Nigel.

  ‘I think he’s an insufferable little twirp. He’s a pacifist, too.’

  ‘Shocking!’ said Nigel solemnly.

  ‘Have you any reason for thinking that Miss Restorick had transferred her affections to Dr Bogan?’ asked Blount.

  ‘Well, he’s a very charming, interesting-looking man, isn’t he? And poor Betty was inclined to fall for anything new in trousers.’