by Ellis Peters
“No, and in any case people had another new sensation then,” said Dominic, paling at the memory of Charles. “But there are lots of things I still want to know—”
“Lots of things I want to know, too,” agreed George, “but frankly, I think you’ve shot your bolt for tonight. It’s time you and Pussy went to bed and slept it off. The urgent part’s over, and well over. We can talk it out properly tomorrow.”
It was not their double grievous outcry that defeated him, but the resigned intercession of Bunty and Io, neither of whom saw any prospect of sleep for her charge if despatched to bed in this state. The crisis was too recently over. The echo of Pussy’s enraged scream as she darted out of the bushes had scarcely ceased to vibrate in their ears, and Dominic was still shaking gently with excitement and erected nerves in Bunty’s steadying arm. If he went to bed too soon he would probably wake up sweating with shock and leaping about in his bed to evade the fall of the terrible old man’s loaded stick. If he talked himself into exhaustion and left nothing unsaid to breed, he would sleep without any dreams.
“Let him talk now,” said Bunty, smiling at George across the room. “He’ll be better.”
“I’m quite all right,” said Dominic indignantly. “I was only scared at the time, and anyhow, who wouldn’t be? But there’s nothing the matter with me now. Only look, it isn’t even my proper bedtime, quite—well, only just a little past it, anyhow.”
“All right,” said George, giving in, “get it off your chest. I want to hear it quite as much as you want to tell it, but it wouldn’t hurt for waiting a day. Still, go ahead! Tell me how you came to that performance tonight, and then I’ll tell you what brought me to the same place. How soon did you start thinking in Blunden’s direction, and what set you off on that tack?”
“Well, it was the dog,” said Dominic, frowning back into the past. “I only started to get the hang of it today, really. I never thought of Mr. Blunden until this morning. I don’t know why, but you know, he was sort of there like the rest of us, and yet not there. When we said everybody was in it, there were still people who weren’t included in the everybody, and he was one of them. Until I saw the dog this morning, and I started to think, and I thought why shouldn’t he be?”
He leaned back warmly into Bunty’s shoulder; it was still rather nice, when he began remembering, to be sure that she was there. “It was Charles dying when he did! It was almost the very minute he made up his mind to let the land be torn up, that’s what made me think. One minute he’d won the appeal, you see, and he was going out shooting in the evening, all on good terms with himself and everybody; and the very next, almost, he was shot dead with his own gun in his own woods. And the only thing that happened in between was that he changed his mind about the land. He saw me, and told me, but that was just luck—nobody was supposed to know yet, he was just on his way home to tell his father. And then inside an hour he was dead. Well, I didn’t think of it quite like that until today, because old Blunden still sort of wasn’t there in the everybody who could have done it. But I did get to thinking awfully hard about the land, and it did seem, didn’t it, that everything that happened round here was something to do with keeping that land from the coal people.”
“Everything? Previous events as well?” asked Chad, from the background.
“Yes, I think so. Only I know there were lots of other things about Helmut, he was just Helmut, almost anyone would have been glad to kill him. But even he fitted in, in a way, because, you see, it was Mr. Blunden who got him the job with the open-cast unit, and then all those things began to happen there, all the machines going wrong, and the excavator falling over the edge, and everything. And Helmut had lots of money that nobody knew anything about, odd-numbered notes that couldn’t easily be traced. And though he wrote down everything, he hadn’t kept any records to account for this extra money. Don’t you remember, we all wondered what his racket could have been, because he wasn’t known to have got into any of the usual ones? So there was he with lots of money, and the unit with lots of trouble, so much that they were thinking of dropping the claim on the Harrow land, and closing the site. And so when I just began to put everything together, today, all this fitted in, too, with the bit about the land. It looked to me as if Blunden had put Helmut into the job just to make it not worth their while to go on. I did tell you, I told Charles Blunden, Wilf Rogers on the site told me those accidents weren’t accidents at all, but somebody pretty clever monkeying with the machines, only they couldn’t get any real proof. You didn’t listen much, I didn’t much believe it myself, really, just because Wilf’s an awful old liar. He is an awful old liar, only sometimes he tells the truth.”
Chad, staring down constrainedly at the notebook in his hand, asked: “You don’t think—Charles was in on that deal, too?”
“No, I’m sure he couldn’t have been. He might have backed up his old man in all the usual sorts of monkey business, you know, the legal ones. But I don’t think his father would ever have let him in on anything like that, because he was—sort of honest. Even if he’d wanted to help, I don’t believe he could have put it over.”
Chad’s face warmed into a singularly sweet smile. He looked up at Dominic, and then beyond his shoulder to where Io sat on a hassock by the fire, with Pussy on the rug at her feet, coiled up and purring, the domestic pussy for once. “Thanks, Dom! No, I don’t believe he could.”
“But according to this business of the stick,” said Jim Tugg abruptly, “you’re going to prove that Blunden killed Schauffler. How does that fit in, if he’d put Schauffler in a position where he wanted him for his own purposes? He was doing the job all right, wasn’t he? Then why kill him?”
“Yes, I know it does seem all wrong, until you think a bit further. You think what sort of a person Helmut was. And then, the pheasants, you see, they gave the show away. You know,” said Dominic earnestly, turning his brilliant eyes on Jim, “how it was with Helmut when he came to your place. First he was always as meek as milk, but as soon as he found his feet, and someone treated him well, he began to take advantage. Everybody who was decent to him he thought could easily be afraid of him, because he thought people were only decent because they were too feeble to be beastly.”
“That’s hellish true!” said Jim. “It was him to the life.”
“Well, of course, it was a bit different with old Blunden, because he knew from the start what Blunden wanted with him, and he wasn’t being decent, particularly, he was just getting value for money. But if he hadn’t got that hold over him, he thought he’d got a better. Just think how a man like Helmut would love it if he thought he’d got a local bigwig like Blunden just where he wanted him! It wasn’t only the birds he could poach, or the money he could get out of him, but the pleasure of being able to swagger about Blunden’s land as he liked, and if the old man tackled him about it, well, he’d only got to sneer in his face, and say, one word out of you, and I’ll give the whole show away. Because Blunden had a lot more to lose than Helmut had, if it came out.”
“That’s all good sense,” agreed George. “But now you come to the real snag. Helmut wasn’t trespassing on Blunden land when he was killed, and he hadn’t got the pheasants on him, he’d been careful to dispose of them.”
“Yes, I know that’s what we thought. But when I began to sort everything out today, and got to thinking all this I’ve told you about, of course that didn’t make sense anymore. Because if Helmut was just getting to the stage of being ready to spit in Blunden’s eye, then of course he wouldn’t bother to hide the birds. He wouldn’t need to, and he wouldn’t want to. He’d want to wave them up and down in front of his boss’s nose, and say, want to make something of it? So then for a minute I thought, it’s just coincidence, they can’t have been Helmut’s pheasants, but we know they were, they’d been in the lining of his tunic. So then I thought, of course, we’ve got it the wrong way round, the one who didn’t want them connected with Helmut wasn’t Helmut himself, it was the murderer. And wh
y should the murderer care about giving Blunden a bit of a motive, unless he was Blunden? And I worked it all out that way. I think they met down beyond the well that evening, some time after Hollins had left the Harrow, and before Charles came home—between half-past nine and about half-past ten it would be, wouldn’t it? I think Helmut had got the pheasants on him, and either Blunden knew he had, or Helmut boasted about it to him. Whoever started it, I think Helmut bragged how he could do as he liked, because he had the whip hand, and there was nothing the old man could do to stop him. Only, you see, they’d both picked the wrong man, but Helmut was even wronger about Blunden than Blunden had been about him. People couldn’t threaten Blunden and get away with it. There was one thing he could do to stop it, and he saw he’d have to, sooner or later, and so he did it on the spot. When Helmut turned away from him he bashed him on the head with that walking-stick, just like he tried to bash me, and put him in the brook, and the stick in the outflow of the well, and the pheasants in the pit—so that no one should think his poaching had anything to do with his death.”
He paused, rather for breath than for words, and looked round the circle of attentive faces. “And, of course, it hadn’t, really. It wasn’t for them he was killed, they were only a sign of the way things were going. You can’t have two bosses in a partnership like that. They’d both mistaken their man, but Blunden was the first to see his mistake, and see he had to go all the way to get out of it. And you have to admit he could make up his mind fast, and act on it, too.”
“Oh, yes,” allowed George somberly, “he could do all that.”
“Well, and then things went on, and nobody connected him with the murder; and everything went his way, even the appeal, so he had everything beautifully arranged as he wanted it. Only Charles had to go and tip it all up again. He started to look at the whole question again as soon as he’d got his own way—though it was really his father’s way. And he went out with his dog and his gun, and thought it all out again by himself in the wood, and decided to hand the land over, after all. And going back toward the house he met his father, and told him so. The old man couldn’t know, could he, that Charles had already told me? I mean, why should he? So he’d naturally think no one knew but himself, and it couldn’t appear as a motive. He had to think very quickly that time, too, because Charles said he was going to tell them his decision first thing in the morning. He wasn’t expecting any trouble with the old man, and when you come to think of it, the old man couldn’t make any, because if he did it might all have to come out, the murder, too, and he couldn’t trust Charles to feel the way he did about it. He could try to persuade him to change his mind again, but supposing he wouldn’t? They were both pigheaded, and supposing he finally absolutely wouldn’t? And after the next morning it would be done, too late to do anything about it at all. So he had to choose at once, and he did, and he took the gun from Charles on some excuse or other, to carry it, or to try a shot with it, or something, and he shot him dead.”
Everybody exclaimed at this, except George, who sat frowning into the bowl of his pipe, and Jim Tugg, who looked on darkly and said no word.
“But, his own son!” whispered Io. “Oh, Dom, you must be mistaken there, surely. How could he?”
“Well, I don’t know how he could, but I’m absolutely sure he did. Maybe it was done all in a minute, because he was in a rage—only he had to take the gun from him to do it, so I honestly don’t think so. Anyhow, he did do it,” maintained Dominic definitely.
“But, just over a few acres of land and a little defeat?” Chad shook his head helplessly, though Chad had known people kill for less. “It doesn’t seem enough motive for wiping out his own family. It can’t be true.” But he was shaken by the revelation of Charles’s change of heart, and had to remind himself over and over that Charles and his father were two different human creatures. He remembered, too, Selwyn Blunden’s fixed, competent, unmistakably sane face in the glow of Dominic’s torch, in the instant when the stick was raised for a third murder. There wasn’t much, after all, which could not be true.
“It wouldn’t be enough motive for most people,” said Dominic hesitantly, “but he was a bit special, wasn’t he? I think— it wasn’t the number of acres, or the littleness of the defeat. There wasn’t any proportion about it, there wasn’t any little or big. It was his land, and it had to be his victory. And when Charles changed his mind he—sort of changed sides, too. He did, you know. And so he was a sort of traitor from the old man’s point of view.” He lifted his wide eyes doubtfully to George’s face. “I can’t help it if it sounds thin. It happened, anyhow, didn’t it?”
“Go on, Dom!”
“Well, when I was telling you about meeting Charles that night, I clean forgot about the dog. He had that spaniel of his with him, you know, the brown-and-white one that won all the prizes. But when Briggs rang you up to report about the death of Charles, and how he found him, and everything, he never said anything about the dog. And I wondered. You can’t be sure what they’ll do, but he was trained to a gun, he wouldn’t be frightened by that; and I thought most likely he’d stay by the body until somebody came. There were plenty of people out shooting that evening, all round the village, one shot more or less made no difference. And then, it was done with Charles’s own gun, and there didn’t seem to have been any struggle for it, or anything like that, so if he didn’t do it himself—and I was sure about that—then it must have been somebody who knew him well enough to walk with him, maybe to take the gun and carry it for him, or try it out as they went along. Anyhow, somebody who could get it from him without it seeming at all funny. That could still have been—” his eyes avoided Chad “—several people. But it could have been his father, easily. But it was the dog that really bothered me.”
“He bothered me, too,” said George.
“But I didn’t tell you about him.”
“No, but if he was out with a gun it was long odds the dog would be there. And, as you say, Briggs found no dog. He was gone from the spot pretty quickly.”
“Yes, that was what got me. And then, when it really started with me, when I went up to the Harrow this morning, I saw the dog there chained up, and the old man told me he’d come home by himself after the shooting, and hidden himself in the stables and wouldn’t come out—like they do sometimes for thunder, or shock, or fits. He said he’d been funny ever since, and they had to keep him chained up because he roamed off if he was loosed. Well, it all sounded on the level. But when he came near, the dog went into the kennel, and lay down right in the back and stared at him—you know, keeping its face to him wherever he went. It’d been all right with me—well, mopish, but fairly all right, it liked being petted. But he never touched it. And it was then I really started to think. I didn’t believe him. I believe the dog came home after the shooting because he brought it home, for fear it should bring anyone there too soon, and give him away. But he only just had time, because by sheer luck Briggs found Charles very quickly. And if the old man dragged the dog home with him, and then told lies about it, of course it could only be because he’d killed Charles himself. There couldn’t be any other reason for him keeping the dog out of circulation now, except because it acted so queer toward him that he was afraid to be seen with it. So then I was certain,” said Dominic simply. “It came on me like a flash. And I thought, and thought, and couldn’t see how we were ever to prove it, or get at him at all, unless he gave us an opening. Because what a dog would or wouldn’t do isn’t exactly evidence.”
“So you set to work to make an opening yourself. And a nice risk you took in the process,” said George severely.
“No, not really, because I knew you’d stand by me.” But he said nothing about the panicky moment when he had strained his ears after them with no such perfect trust. He flushed deeper; he was getting tired, but he wasn’t talked out yet.
“I had to think in an awful hurry, it was a bit slapdash, perhaps. I told him I’d found a little notebook, down in the clay holes clos
e by where Helmut was killed. I said I was scared to show it to Dad, because I’d got into a row already for interfering; so I wanted to find out first if it really was something to do with the case, before I risked another row. I asked him if he could read German, and he cottoned on at once, though he pretended he was just humoring me. He said he could. I don’t know if it was true, but you see, don’t you, that if I’d really found it where I said I had, and it really was in German, he couldn’t afford not to jump at the chance of having first look at it—whether he could read it without a dictionary or whether he couldn’t. If it had really been something of Helmut’s, why, it might have had anything in it, all about their contract, and the money that passed, and the jobs that were done for it, and everything. You know what Helmut was like about all his other business, and Blunden knew it, too. So then I said I hadn’t got the thing on me, but I’d bring it up to him if he really wouldn’t mind looking at it for me. I was careful to tell him I hadn’t shown it to anybody yet, so he figured if he could persuade me it was just rubbish, I’d take his word for it, and throw it away. Anyhow, he just had to find out. I bet he thought it probably would be rubbish, but there was always the little risk that it might not be. He’d got to be certain. But he was in a spot, because he had to go somewhere by train after the funeral, and he wasn’t coming back until the nine o’clock train in the evening. That must have been something important, too, or he’d have given it a miss. But instead, he said would I meet him up at the forest gate when he came from the train, and go up to the house with him, and we’d have a look at it together. And he told me very specially not to mention it to anyone—the book, or where I was going, or anything—because he didn’t want to make any fresh troubles for you harassed policemen, and also to keep myself out of trouble. So you see, he figured that if— well, it was always possible that he might have to—well, if I didn’t come back, you wouldn’t have a clue to where I’d gone.”
