Head of a Traveller

by Nicholas Blake

  ‘We’d better begin,’ said Blount, and administered the official caution.

  It was like a major operation, thought Nigel, so masked and impersonal was Blount’s method, so tense the atmosphere, so like an anaesthetised patient’s the flaccid, dead-white face of Rennell Torrance. A surgical operation to extract a piece of truth which had been poisoning the patient’s system. ‘On the night of Thursday the—’ The “statement” proceeded, question and answer, question and answer, with infuriating deliberateness.

  Rennell Torrance had been sitting up late that night, Mara having gone to bed. About ten minutes after midnight he heard a light tap on the french windows: they were not locked: they opened and a man came in. For a moment he did not recognise him—Rennell admitted he’d been a bit fuddled with drunk, and besides, he’d never seen Oswald Seaton without a beard before. No, he’d not been expecting Oswald: why, damn it, how could he, when to the best of every one’s knowledge, Oswald had been dead these ten years? No, he had not been in communication with him. You could have knocked him down with a feather when Oswald had appeared.

  ‘Yes, it’s me,’ were Oswald’s opening words. ‘Back from the dead. Quite a nuisance for every one, I reckon. What about a drink? I’ve had a long walk.’

  ‘Help yourself. But where the devil did you spring from?’

  Rennell noticed that Oswald did not take off his gloves as he poured out the drink.

  ‘As you know very well, I did not commit suicide,’ Oswald had proceeded. ‘I knocked around the world a bit, changed my name, was working in Malaya when the Japs came in. Prison camp for three years. I’m not all that afraid of prison now, Torrance. I suggest you and I let bygones be bygones. You won’t find me less charitable than my dear brother. I’ll rely on you to keep—what’s her name?—Mara quiet.’

  Nigel noticed that by an eerie coincidence, the sound of the vacuum cleaner overhead stopped at this instant. Gazing through the french windows, he saw that the rain had begun in earnest: Janet Seaton, in a long dark-blue mackintosh, was walking down the drive away from the house. Nigel turned his eyes back to Rennell Torrance.

  ‘I realised,’ he was saying, ‘that Oswald was convinced I’d known all along his suicide was phony, and believed I’d been blackmailing Robert ever since.’

  ‘Was there any truth in that?’ asked Blount.

  ‘Good Lord, no. Ask Robert if you don’t believe me. Mara told me last night she’d talked about Oswald to Strangeways. So you know why he left the country?’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘I told him he’d a bloody nerve to come in here, and he’d better get out double quick before I gave him the soundest thrashing of his life. I said he’d ruined my daughter’s life and I’d a good mind to hand him over to the police straight away?’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t like the way he put his right hand in his mackintosh pocket at that point. I was afraid he had a gun in it.’ The painter’s heavy body shifted uneasily.

  ‘Did he actually threaten you?’

  ‘No. Not exactly. But—’

  ‘But he pointed out, perhaps,’ Nigel put in, ‘that his return—even if you did inform the police about what had happened to Mara—would kill the goose that laid your golden eggs? Robert would lose the estate.’

  ‘Well, he hinted something of the sort,’ muttered Rennell at last, with very bad grace.

  It dawned upon Nigel that Oswald had come first to the Old Barn in order to have a witness of his existence. He might also have hoped to strike a bargain with Rennell Torrance: but the main point of his visit was that he should be able to say in effect, if he ran into bad trouble later at Plash Meadow, ‘Keep your hands off me, don’t think you’ve got the perfect victim for a murder, somebody else knows I was here, alive, at twelve-fifteen tonight.’ He had preferred the risk of being exposed by Rennell, whom he obviously despised, to the risk he might incur from—from whom? Who was the X at Plash Meadow that this dangerous and desperate man so feared? Or was it just in Oswald’s nature to mistrust every one?

  ‘Did he suggest to you why he’d come back to England at all?’ Blount was asking. ‘Did he say who’d invited him?’

  ‘No, but he seemed cocky enough. I couldn’t make it out. As though he was sitting pretty, somehow.’

  ‘What gave you that impression?’

  ‘Well, after I’d ordered him out, he said, “O.K. But I’ll be seeing a lot of you from now on, if things go right.” Then he paused a moment, and then he said, “Robert always was a bit soft: he’ll be glad to see me, even if you aren’t. Blood’s thicker than water.”’

  Superintendent Blount now took Torrance back over the ground, trying to discover fragments of information he had overlooked. But the result seemed entirely negative. Oswald had said nothing more to Torrance about where he’d come from, or why he’d returned to England when he did. The painter had obviously been three-quarters croaked, what with drunk and fright; and Oswald had only stayed in the studio, he reckoned, seven to ten minutes.

  As Blount plugged away, Nigel’s attention wandered again. Framed in the french windows, the west corner of Plash Meadow looked—there was only the French word for it—morne. The slanting rain, the tattered clouds drifting low overhead, the wind nagging at leaves and roses; summer was going, the garden wept inconsolably. The fairy-tale house, so unreal when first he had seen it, was still less real today: then it had been the fabulous exuberance of its roses, the trance of high summer; now it was as if Plash Meadow, having drunk too deep of horrors, suffered from a blighting hangover.

  Abruptly Nigel checked his thoughts. Ridiculous. That damned house seemed able to impose its moods upon one. But the real truth of the matter was that, like the poet working away now under its roof, it had the knack of intensifying, of illuminating whatever mood one happened to be in, of adapting itself to each different personality. Which of its Protean selves had it offered to Oswald Seaton that night, Nigel wondered. But Oswald himself was still a hopelessly unreal figure; nor did Rennell Torrance’s statement help in the least to bring him alive. It was likely enough that Rennell was telling the truth now: but the truth was not enough—not his kind of truth, anyway, thought Nigel, scrutinising the painter’s flabby, defeated face, the body slumped in the chair like a sack from which all meaning had leaked out long ago.

  Something was fidgeting at Nigel’s mind, like the wind teasing the tarnished roses outside. Through the web of question and answer, question and answer that Blount and Torrance were interminably spinning, Nigel became aware of a silence. Somewhere in the background, like an attentive eavesdropper holding his breath, stood this silence. Well, of course, the vacuum cleaner stopped some time ago. But surely Mara had not finished her housework then? Surely one ought to be able to hear her moving about overhead? Or, if she has finished upstairs, why has she not come down?—there is only this one staircase, leading down from the minstrel gallery. Well, thought Nigel, she’s probably up there, listening to what we’re saying: no great harm in that.

  ‘So then he left this room.’ Blount prompted. ‘Did you see him out?’

  ‘Not exactly. I didn’t like to go too near him. But, when he’d stepped outside, I went to the french window. I shut it behind him and stayed looking out for a few moments.’

  ‘Did you see where he went?’

  ‘He must have walked over to the house. At least, I saw him once again. There was a long shake of sheet lightning, and I noticed him quite near the courtyard door over there.’

  ‘Did you see who let him in?’

  ‘No. But I assumed he must have got into the house somehow, because when the next flash of lightning came, he wasn’t visible any more.’

  ‘“Not visible any more,”’ muttered the constable who was taking it all down.

  ‘Very well. What did you do then?’ asked Blount, keeping his stride like a tireless runner. Rennell Torrance mopped his forehead: his head rolled wearily and jerked upright again, as if he�
�d been on the verge of sleep.

  ‘I locked the windows, sat down again, and had some more drink. Felt I couldn’t go to bed yet. I was uneasy. I wanted to puzzle things out. To tell you the truth,’ he went on in a sleep-walking kind of voice, ‘I began to wonder after a bit if I hadn’t dreamt it all. I simply couldn’t get used to the idea of Oswald being alive.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Well, after a bit I went to bed,’ Torrance replied lamely.

  ‘How do you account, then, for Finny Black’s statement that he saw you standing outside the french windows at’—Blount deliberately thumbed through a sheaf of papers—‘at about two o’clock?’

  Torrance seemed too exhausted even for a spurt of righteous indignation. Wearily he said:

  ‘I went to bed after that. I just wanted a breath of fresh air. That’s all.’

  ‘Did you go for a walk?’

  ‘No. I stood outside the window for a few minutes. I told you all this last time.’

  ‘Just so. But you didn’t tell me last time I questioned you that Oswald Seaton had paid you a visit.’ There was a slight edge on Blount’s voice. ‘Have you—e-eh—remembered anything else since? Anything you forgot to tell me then?’

  ‘No.’

  It was the first time that Nigel got the impression Rennell was keeping something back. His denial came too pat—a trace of defiance in it. The same idea must have occurred to Blount, for he treated Rennell to a prolonged, steady stare and a silence that positively bristled with incredulity. As he waited for this treatment to take effect upon the painter, Nigel, lying back in his chair, idly cast his eyes upwards.

  He was sitting just below the edge of the gallery. His eyes caught a dark metal object protruding from between two of the banisters which supported the rail of the gallery, at its far end. It took Nigel three full seconds to realise that this object was the muzzle of a revolver. During that space, Rennell Torrance burst out in weak exasperation, ‘What d’you want me to say?’—and the muzzle up there tilted down so that it seemed to be pointing at the back of the painter’s head.

  ‘I just want you to tell the truth. Did you not see any one moving about as you stood outside the french windows? Did you see Mr and Mrs Seaton, for instance, searching for Finny Black?’

  ‘Well, as you ask me—’

  ‘Stop!’

  ‘Stop!’

  Fantastically, Nigel’s warning shout had echoed a fierce command from the gallery above. Superintendent Blount was on his feet. Nigel sprang into the middle of the studio and stood between Rennell Torrance and the long-barrelled Mauser pistol which Lionel Seaton, lying flat on the gallery floor, his face visible between the bars, was sighting at the group below.

  ‘Don’t be a young fool!’ said Blount sharply. ‘Put that gun down at once!’

  Lionel ignored him. ‘I’m talking to you, Torrance. You’ve said enough. D’you understand me? Quite enough. I’ve been listening. If you say a word more, now or at any time, I’ll come back and knock you off.’

  Involuntarily Nigel had moved a little away from Rennell’s chair. The painter, grey-faced and shaking, had screwed his head round when Lionel began to speak: now he had slid off the chair and was grovelling behind it. Lionel Seaton’s eyes blazed at him from between the bars. He spoke again:

  ‘You see that bloody awful picture over there?’

  Four pairs of eyes switched in the direction pointed by a wave of the Mauser in Lionel’s hand—a self-portrait of Rennell Torrance, hanging on the wall to the left of the french windows.

  ‘Now look, Torrance. This is what will happen to you if—’

  There was a stunning explosion. Lionel Seaton had hardly seemed to take aim at all; but a black hole appeared in the dead centre of the greenish-white forehead of the self-portrait. Rennell Torrance whimpered.

  ‘Now!’ exclaimed Blount, and dashed heroically for the foot of the staircase, followed by the constable. Nigel, hard on their heels, suddenly checked himself. Whipping round, he saw Mara Torrance at the french windows. Before he could get there, she had opened them, withdrew the key and locked them from outside. Nigel ran out of the studio, catching a glimpse as he went of Blount falling over a heavy chair which Lionel had bowled down the staircase at him. The front door of the old barn had been locked from the outside too. The pair had planned it pretty well. Mara had, no doubt, climbed out of her bedroom window down a ladder, locked the front door, then waited for Lionel’s signal—the revolver shot—to lock the french windows while the attention of those in the studio was concentrated on Lionel.

  ‘Silly young asses!’ muttered Nigel as he went upstairs. ‘Are there any duplicate keys?’ he called to Rennell over his shoulder.

  ‘No. Afraid not. Look here, what on earth is Mara up to? You’ve got to stop her.’

  Upstairs, Blount and the constable charged Mara’s door. The lock splintered and they tumbled into the bedroom. The window was open. A ladder lay on the ground below. Lionel could hardly have had time to climb down it. He must have jumped, and then pulled the ladder away from beneath. But Lionel had been trained to this sort of thing as an officer in the Airborne: neither Blount nor the constable could risk a twenty-foot jump.

  They ran out, colliding with Nigel in the doorway. As they got to the french windows, a car whirled past down the drive. Lionel Seaton waved gaily. Mara Torrance was beside him. By the time Blount had smashed through the glass and got outside, they were well away.

  ‘They won’t get far,’ said Blount grimly. ‘I’m going across to telephone. Wait here for me.’

  Five minutes later, he was back. ‘Now then, Mr Torrance,’ he said, ‘we’ll go on from the point where we were—e-eh—interrupted.’ He cocked an eye at the constable, who turned to his notebook and unemotionally recited.

  ‘“Did you see Mr and Mrs Seaton, for instance, searching for Finny Black?” . . . “Well, as you ask me” . . .’

  In the interval, Rennell Torrance had put down a couple of strong whiskies, and his nerve was somewhat restored. He began to bluster.

  ‘Look here, Superintendent, this is outrageous! I’m threatened by a young lunatic with a pistol; and the best you can do is to—’

  ‘One thing at a time, Mr Torrance. You were about to tell us that you saw suspicious movements at two a.m., were you?’

  A look of bleary cunning came over the painter’s face.

  ‘You’re trying to catch me out, eh? Don’t care for your methods. It was at one o’clock, wasn’t it, that Robert and Janet went out to look for Finny? So how could I have seen them at two o’clock?’

  ‘Whom did you see then?’

  Rennell’s eyes wandered to the self-portrait on the wall, with the hole in its forehead.

  ‘I didn’t see any one. I can’t see in the dark, you know. The lightning had stopped by then.’

  ‘You should take no account of Lionel Seaton’s threats. If it proves necessary, we shall give you protection.’ Blount loomed formidably over the painter. ‘And I must warn you that you’re already in a very awkward position for having withheld this evidence about Oswald Seaton. I should strongly recommend you to conceal nothing more.’

  ‘But I’m not concealing anything,’ Rennell answered in the tones of a pettish child. ‘I was going to tell you, when we were interrupted, that I heard something. I heard footsteps crossing the courtyard away to my left, from the direction of the orchard; then I heard the door of the servants’ quarters open and shut. Presumably it was Finny Black I heard.’

  Rennell Torrance stuck on this, and nothing Blount could do would shift him. Nigel found it impossible to decide whether he had told the truth or not.

  Presently Nigel and Blount were chatting in the shelter of the summerhouse.

  ‘I’d like to know what that young fool is playing at,’ the Superintendent growled. ‘He’s scared the daylights out of Torrance, anyway, blast him!’

  ‘What are your ideas?’

  ‘Well, I suppose he silenced Torrance at that point e
ither to protect himself or somebody else. And the exhibitionistic way he chose to do it could only draw suspicion on him. No, I fancy he thought Torrance was just going to let out something about Mr and Mrs Seaton. Maybe he was, too.’

  ‘There’s a third possibility. All that play-acting—if Lionel wanted Torrance to keep his mouth shut, he could surely have found an opportunity to threaten him, on the quiet, last night or early this morning. What I think is that he’s playing for time: he wants to divert your mind from—’

  ‘Damn it!’ exploded Blount. ‘Is this what you were hinting at yesterday afternoon? “Another crop of mysterious occurrences?” Nothing mysterious about young Seaton’s holding us up with a pistol. Time for what, anyway?’

  ‘Time for verse, Blount.’

  ‘Now look here, Strangeways, this case is crazy enough already without your—’

  ‘I’m quite serious. The most important thing in this household is Robert Seaton’s poetry. Recently he has begun writing something which, for all we know, may be his masterpiece. We’ve got to think in terms of values utterly different from the normal man’s, while we’re dealing with this case. The Seatons—and Mara too, I believe—are people for whom art is infinitely more important than any police investigation. More real, if you like. For Robert’s poetry, they will go to any lengths and be prepared to sacrifice anything.’

  ‘You’re not telling me Oswald Seaton was murdered for the sake of his brother’s poetry? I can’t swallow that.’

  ‘It’s not impossible. But my point is this: young Lionel may or may not have reason to suspect that his father was involved in the murder; but he knows that, sooner or later, there’ll be a showdown, and he wants to postpone it as long as possible, so that his father may finish the work he’s engaged on. So Lionel stages this diversion in force. He wants you to waste time and suspicion on him. That’s why he told us it was he who’d hidden Finny Black in the vault and kept him supplied with food.’