‘You must forgive me,’ I said gently, ‘for having carried you off in that high-handed way, Miss Verity.’
‘Oh, there – there’s nothing to forgive, Mr Pinkerton,’ she replied, in charming confusion. It was her way of intimating, of course, her preference for viewing the moonlit beauties of the stream in the company of one who could not only appreciate them but voice his appreciation in fitting terms.
‘Eric is a good enough sort in his way,’ I continued, with Machiavellian ingenuity actually praising my supposed rival, ‘but really he is hardly the kind of man to fit into a romantic scene such as this, ha, ha.’
Miss Verity made no answer, her silence expressing her agreement.
‘And besides,’ I went on, waxing more and more subtle, ‘though no doubt he felt it his duty to offer to accompany you, if such a promise really had been made, I fancy he was not sorry for the excuse to stay behind.’
I could not see Miss Verity’s face, as we were already entering the darker shadows of the wood, but I distinctly saw her form make a little start. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked, in tones almost of sharpness.
I developed my theme. ‘Well, the attraction is surely obvious, isn’t it?’
‘I – I don’t think I understand,’ she said, her sharpness giving way to a rather pitiful trouble. She reminded me of a small girl who realizes she is going to be smacked, but is not quite sure for what. ‘You don’t mean that – that Mrs Hillyard – ’
It distressed me to hurt the child, but it had to be done.
‘Ethel? Oh, good gracious, no. Dear me, don’t you really know, Miss Verity? I wouldn’t have mentioned it but that I thought everyone knew.’
‘Knew what, Mr Pinkerton?’ she cried.
‘Why, about Scott-Davies and Mrs de Ravel,’ I answered simply.
We had reached a clearing at the edge of the stream by now, and in the bright moonlight I could see poor Elsa’s face as she received this blow. She stared at me for a moment, and then turned away. ‘No,’ she murmured in low tones, ‘I didn’t know anything about that, and – and I don’t believe it.’ Childlike trust!
It alarmed me, for it showed what a hold the fellow had already got over this frail and delicate creature. ‘Oh, there may be nothing in it,’ I said carelessly. ‘Only for the last year I can assure you it’s been the topic of a good deal of scandalous conversation. Not that I ever listened to such stuff, but some things become so notorious that one simply can’t help hearing of them. In fact, I’ve heard it said that nowadays it one wanted to find Eric, one should look for Mrs de Ravel.’ This was no less than the truth. I had coined the bon mot myself.
It was pathetic to see the poor girl’s shoulders shaking under the burden which I had been compelled to lay upon them. She was taking it very hardly. I was within an ace of considering what practical steps I could take to console her in her disillusionment.
I had indeed actually advanced towards her for this very purpose, when she turned round and to my astonishment I saw she was not weeping at all but laughing. ‘Oh, Mr Pinkerton,’ she said, ‘you are funny.’
‘Indeed?’ I said coldly, for I was not too taken aback by this volte-face to forget myself. ‘I am glad to have the honour of amusing you, Miss Verity.’
She laid a small propitiatory hand on my sleeve at that and her face grew more sober, as she realized that she had seriously annoyed me; though in her blue eyes there were still dancing twinkles of amusement. ‘I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. But I couldn’t help laughing when you said exactly what Eric said you would, almost the exact words.’
I was surprised out of annoyance. ‘He said I should say that?’
‘Yes; about Mrs de Ravel. Of course he told me about her – the truth, I mean – how she’s been chasing him for months and won’t give him any peace, and how he won’t have anything to do with her. And he told me you’d be sure to tell me about it, and – ’ she began to laugh again, and then checked herself – ‘and – well, you did, didn’t you?’
I spread a handkerchief on a fallen log and sat down. This information had taken me unawares. It showed that Scott-Davies possessed an amount of low cunning for which I had not given him credit. He had cleverly spiked our chief gun in advance, before we could bring it into action at all. Ethel had been right. Very drastic measures would be needed.
I was about to pursue the subject with Miss Verity, pointing out to her Eric’s duplicity and where the truth really lay, when a hail from the direction of the house interrupted me. Sound carries far in such a valley on a still night, and I had no difficulty in recognizing the shrill tones of Armorel Scott-Davies: ‘Elsa! Elsa!’
‘Take no notice,’ I smiled. ‘I want to have a very serious talk with you, Miss Verity, and – ’
The girl could not have heard me, for she replied with an equally shrill and (if the truth must be told) most unladylike howl which I should never have expected from her: ‘Hul-lo-o-o!’
‘Moonlight bathing in the poo-oo-ool! Come o-o-o-on!’
‘Co-o-o-oming!’ answered my companion, and added to me, with a prettily apologetic smile: ‘You don’t mind, Mr Pinkerton, do you? It’s such a lovely idea. And we can always talk at some other time, can’t we?’
‘I will certainly not stand in the way of your innocent amusements,’ I replied graciously; though a certain emphasis which I gave to the penultimate word conveyed a good-tempered hint.
We walked back to the house.
The others were coming out, just as we arrived, in their bathing wraps. ‘Hurry up, Elsa,’ said Armorel. ‘Join us down there.’
‘Who’s bathing?’ asked Miss Verity, with more animation than she had shown before.
‘Eric and Paul and John and Pinkie and us,’ Armorel replied. The unpleasant young woman used the same offensive designation to refer to myself as did her brother. I cannot imagine why. I had never given her the slightest encouragement to do so.
‘Excuse me,’ I interposed. ‘One at any rate of your list is incorrect. I am not bathing.’
‘Oh, do bathe, Pinkie,’ pretended to implore the grinning Armorel, executing an absurd kind of dance round me on the lawn. ‘You’ve got such lovely thin legs. Do come and show them off.’
I pass over the extreme indelicacy of this reference, and the foolish guffaws with which it was received by the other members of the bathing party. I merely turned to Elsa and said: ‘I’ll wait for you here, Miss Verity, while the others go on.’
Elsa went into the house, and I joined Ethel under the beech. She was alone, for De Ravel as usual had insisted on his wife going down to the pool with the bathing party to watch, and I was able to tell Ethel of the new contretemps. I think she was a little annoyed with me for having broached the subject at all, which was unreasonable of her, since it is obvious that a man can do these things so much better than a woman; but we both agreed that something serious must be done. If Eric was trying to keep Mrs de Ravel off the stage, where he could deal with her by suggestion and lies, it was up to us to bring her on.
‘But I am frightened of what may happen if Paul does get to know,’ Ethel said nervously.
‘You said the other day you didn’t care what it was,’ I reminded her.
‘It’s true. I don’t,’ she said, with a quick little breath. ‘So long as Elsa – ’
‘Hush,’ I said quietly. Miss Verity was coming out of the house.
I offered my escort down to the pool, and it was accepted with all her old diffident pleasure. She had evidently quite recovered from the strange discourtesy which had caused her to laugh down by the stream. It is astonishing how a boorish influence can corrupt even a creature of such tender sensibilities as Elsa Verity.
We began to walk down the winding tract through the fields that led to the bathing pool, in the opposite direction from the one which we had taken before.
And here, at the risk of appearing indelicate, I must refer to a curious phenomenon which made itself apparent to me during this walk, and which with
my practised habit of self-analysis I was able to examine concurrently with its manifestation.
It will have been gathered by the reader that I have not a very high opinion of the opposite sex, and this applies equally to its physical attributes as to its mental powers. The female form, shaped like a minute-glass for boiling eggs, has never struck me as a beautiful object. A minute-glass holds small aesthetic appeal to my mind, and so does a diabolo reel; so also does the feminine figure, with its misplaced bulges, its artistically incorrect centre of gravity, and its general top-heaviness. Girls in bathing costumes, which to judge from the pages of the popular press exercise a universal appeal, excite in me nothing but pity.
It will be seen, therefore, that if I have a prejudice (which I do not admit), it is rather against the female form than in favour of it. Yet as Miss Verity and I walked together down to the pool and, it being night-time, she forgot the natural modesty of a young girl to the extent of omitting to hold her wrap quite so closely together, so that I was able to catch glimpses from time to time of a white arm or leg, a trim waist, or other feminine peculiarities, unwonted sensations invaded me to such an extent that I found myself able actually to admire those very curves which I normally so despised, and even to see beauty in a nubbly knee. A strange experience. I set it down here, though it really has no bearing on what followed.
I was therefore disappointed to notice, when we arrived at the pool, that Miss Verity’s discarding of her wrap was almost simultaneous with her plunge into the pool, in a beautiful dive that caused her slim body to flash in a dim curve against the dark background like the bending of a giant bow – a simile which occurred to me on the spot, surprising me by its poetical aptness; the intellectual honesty on which I always insist has taught me to recognize such limitations as I have, and hitherto poetry has certainly been one of them. Could it be, I wondered, that under the influence of Miss Verity’s pure innocence something was calling from the unknown poetical depths of my own soul to similar inarticulate deeps in hers? A not unbeautiful thought in itself.
What followed was, I regret to say, singularly unpoetical. I am determined to set it down exactly as it occurred, neither exaggerating nor minimizing.
Eric Scott-Davies climbed out of the pool and came towards me. ‘Hullo, Pinkie,’ he called. ‘Aren’t you bathing?’
I had been on my way to join the solitary figure of Mrs de Ravel on a seat the other side of the pool, and merely threw back to him over my shoulder a short negative.
‘Aren’t you though, Pinkie? Aren’t you?’ exclaimed the grinning ape, and without more ado grasped me in his great wet hands and swung me up above his head (I think I mentioned that I am not a man of large physique; I stand, actually, five foot six and three quarter inches in my socks), and walked towards the edge of the pool. Still I could not believe that the oaf would really proceed to extreme measures.
‘Steady on, Eric,’ called his cousin from the middle of the pool. ‘Don’t be a damned fool.’ It was the first time I had ever found myself in sympathy with Armorel.
That little ass De Ravel, however, simply encouraged him. I have always disliked De Ravel. ‘Come on, Eric,’ he shouted. ‘I’ll catch him.’
In spite of my struggles (I was doing my best to kick him sharply with my patent-leather evening shoes) Eric held me easily above his head on the very margin of the pool. ‘I promised our Pinkie a swim just after dinner,’ he boomed, ‘and I always keep my promises.’
‘Eric, stop that!’ I heard John Hillyard call peremptorily and come splashing towards us. But it was too late. I felt Eric’s arms give way under me and then suddenly shoot up, and I was precipitated through the air. With a terrific splash I reached the water and sank beneath the surface. I am not a swimmer.
Somebody got me up and helped me to the bank (I think it was John) and I rather fancy there was a dead silence as I half scrambled and was half pushed onto dry land. Without a word I began to walk up the hill back to the house. If at that moment I had had a gun, a knife or a bludgeon – I say it frankly! – I would have killed Eric Scott-Davies.
chapter three
‘Pinkie, I’ve got to go down and get some bluebells before lunch for Ethel. Like to come and help me gather them?’
‘Thank you, Armorel,’ I smiled. ‘I should have liked to very much, but unfortunately I have another task myself.’
This little rencontre, the morning after Eric Scott-Davies’ monstrous behaviour, was typical. Everybody, with the exception of De Ravel who had now come out in his true colours and definitely ranged himself on the oaf’s side, had been going out of their way to show, by such small but unmistakable indications, their appreciation of the way I had taken the affair. Apparently I had been elected, of all things, a ‘sportsman’. It was ridiculous, but I found myself positively warming towards people for whom I had had hitherto, I must confess, no other feeling than a mild contempt.
Elsa, too, who with all her innocence could hardly have been unaware that it was, so to speak, in her cause that I had suffered, was sweetness itself. It did me good to see the prettily embarrassed way in which she repelled Eric’s victorious advances. Indeed, if I had done anything to avert the doom which hung over her, I was more than content.
When I came downstairs that evening, then, after changing my clothes, beyond apologizing to my hostess for having no second evening suit with me, I made no further reference to the incident, realizing indeed that anything of the sort would be almost more awkward for Ethel and John than for myself. Nor did the others, when they returned from the bathing pool. There was nevertheless, and naturally, a feeling of some restraint. To ease it I engaged John Hillyard in a discussion upon the modern detective story, putting forward some of the tentative views which I held on that subject.
‘The crimes you writers invent are too artificial, John,’ I said, purposely provocative. ‘Too far-fetched. The great crimes in real life are the simple ones. The classical murderers didn’t seek involved and intricate ways of dealing death. They killed simply.’
John muttered something into his whisky-and-soda to the effect that the great crimes of real life might be fine crimes, but they’d make rotten detective stories.
‘Exactly,’ I agreed instantly. ‘Because all you writers confuse intricacy with interest. You think the one means the other. It doesn’t, by any means. Does it, Armorel?’ I added, to bring her into the conversation.
‘I don’t expect so,’ she said, rather doubtfully. The discussion was, no doubt, a little above her head.
‘Yes, but our object is to bewilder the reader,’ said John. ‘Can’t expect us to stick too close to real life, you know.’
‘And do you know why?’ I countered triumphantly. ‘Because you must have a bewildering variety of clues to enable you to detect your own crimes – those of you who really do detect them. That’s why. If you were confronted with a mystery in real life, with no machine-made clues – a mystery such as the ordinary country detective inspector is often called upon to solve – why, you’d be able to make nothing of it at all. Yes, you’re all full of theories, John, but you could never turn one of them to practical account,’ I cried.
Ethel clapped her hands gently in pretended applause, and John, who knew when he was beaten and could find nothing to say, took refuge in a yawn which he hastily pretended to stifle.
I turned to the others, who had been following my words intently – all, that is, except Eric, who had the grace to absent himself, and Elsa Verity, who after shaking her head for some time at his efforts from through the window to induce her to join her out-of-doors, had (I was grieved to see) finally consented; no doubt feeling that the rest of us would be happier without him, even though it meant the sacrificing of herself.
‘Don’t you agree with me?’ I asked De Ravel.
‘Oh, probably,’ he said, with rather more indifference than I cared about. After all, it should have been the duty of all of us to keep the conversational ball rolling.
‘I don’t, at
all,’ said his wife, in her deep, lazy tones. ‘I’m sure that if anyone was murdered at Minton Deeps, John would be able to detect the criminal at once.’
It was then that Armorel had her fatal inspiration. ‘Well,’ she cried, ‘let’s murder somebody and see.’
I think we all sat up.
‘Really, Armorel!’ exclaimed dear Ethel.
‘No, not really at all, silly. Pretend to, I mean. I think it’s a jolly good idea, don’t you, Paul?’ Positively, Armorel was getting quite excited over her strange notion. ‘We could leave all the right clues about, you see, and then set John to detect it. The murder game, with variations.’
‘By Jove, Armorel, that’s a great scheme.’ To my surprise Paul de Ravel, whom I would have credited with better sense, was almost as enthusiastic as Armorel herself. ‘We should have to act it properly – work out a story and all that – to make sure of leaving just the right clues and no more.’
‘We could get any amount of fun out of it,’ Armorel shouted. ‘It’d be better than all the charades in the world.’
‘Every time. What do you say, darling?’ Naturally Paul had to refer the thing to his wife before taking any decision.
Mrs de Ravel stretched herself delicately; her polished skin, very white, gleamed in the lamplight; her sinuous body seemed to coil itself into a new position in her chair. She had not watched the door once since Eric and Elsa Verity disappeared through it, but I knew, Ethel knew, everyone in the room except her besotted husband knew that she was waiting, waiting, waiting; just doing nothing at all but waiting. And for what? That nobody knew.
She smiled at her husband – a curious smile, I thought, in which a faint contempt was blended with a hint of indescribably malicious amusement, as if at some joke that only she could see and which she would not share with anyone. Her words, however, were banal enough, though spoken in those tones of hers which lent a vast significance to the most platitudinous of sentiments. ‘I think the idea has great possibilities,’ she said slowly. It was a lot of preparation for so simple a statement, but that was just like Sylvia de Ravel.
The Second Shot Page 4
