Hamlet Revenge!

by Michael Innes

  In a flash she scrambled over into the next stall and crouched down. The moon vanished. When it came again she saw a raised arm – no, the shadow of a raised arm – groping for the rifled sack; a second later came Clay’s subdued curse. Elizabeth crouched very still, not three feet away. Her heart, she thought, must make Duke Peter’s well-cemented ruin quiver like a mill house. And she recalled – it was less a recollection than something probing to a nerve – the sheer sensory acuteness of the man near her, his everyday effortless vigilance, his perfectly co-ordinated ear, eye, and hand. And now he was very still too, listening. His picture rose up before her as he had been in the nunnery-scene – Hamlet, tense, straining his senses towards his concealed enemies. He had only to search and she was done for. Where were Giles, Noel, the police? They must have had Jean’s message long since.

  He was searching the stalls. And always, searching the stalls, he would be between her and the door. So she was done for. With some idea of finding a weapon her fingers groped, touched something, explored. It was only an empty paint tin, but it gave her a plan. Above the door was a trefoil aperture unglazed. If she could get the tin through she might have a long chance yet; if she failed she would be no worse off than staying still.

  It was dark again. She waited for the ivy to rustle and cover the sound of slight movement; then she lobbed at the scarcely distinguishable target. And the tin went through. From outside the cow-house came a splendid rattle – suggesting, she rather deliciously thought, the true Radcliffean ghost in chains. In a flash Clay was outside and in a flash Elizabeth was after him and pressed behind a buttress.

  The wind was rising; the moon was playing hide-and-seek with little, heavy scudding clouds; the moonlight was coming and going – a mild lunar lightning – about the gardens. She saw Clay standing, a revolver in his hand, some ten yards away; his eye swept round and past her; he turned and ran back into the cow-house. But she was not safe yet. Straight before her lay the long path to the house – a furlong and a half between towering hedges and oblivious deities. Down that path she must go. Up that path help must presently come – but there was no sign of it yet. And in seconds Clay would be out again. And not till she was a hundred yards or more down the path would she have some chance of escaping unnoticed.

  To her left was a little track leading only through and round a shrubbery. Could she – conceivably – trick him a second time precisely as she had tricked him the first? Elizabeth made no pause to weigh up the unlikelihood. She picked up two heavy stones from Duke Peter’s carefully dumped rubble; she gave a little panicky cry; she hurled the stones in rapid succession as far as she could into the shrubbery. It might have been somebody blundering a way through – but to Elizabeth it sounded just like two stones falling. She could hardly trust her eyes when Clay ran out and flashed past her in pursuit of the sound. He moved beautifully – like a panther. Nevertheless, Elizabeth reflected, to be taken in like that he must be rattled – more rattled than she was. And she picked up the skirts of her trailing frock once more and ran. The great dark cliff-like hedges, the pale deities dimly outlined against them, flowed past.

  She was halfway, more than halfway. And then Clay’s voice came from far behind her, carrying clearly through the night in a long-drawn call of warning:

  ‘A – nna! Com – ing!’

  Almost in the same instant a flicker of moonlight passed over the end of the path for which she was running and for a second she saw a figure standing there, waiting. It must be the woman – the Merkalova. And she would be armed. And behind, Elizabeth could now hear Clay approaching – searching as he came. On either side of her were the impenetrable, soaring hedges. Of help there was as yet no sign.

  She was trapped.

  Appleby dashed back from his garaged Bentley; slipped as he ran the safety-catch of the heavy revolver he had snatched from it. The others were fifty yards ahead…forty…thirty-five.

  Clay turned on the Merkalova. ‘You’ve let her through!’

  ‘No! But does it matter? You have it?’ She seized his arm. ‘Quickly, back and over the wall.’

  Clay swore, scanned the shadows. ‘She has it…and you let her through …you must have!’ He stopped abruptly. From somewhere in the darkness came the sound of running feet. ‘All right…back.’ He swung round – and as he did so the moon came out full. ‘God!’ He raised his arm and aimed – upwards. And in the same instant a figure rose from the dark base of the hedge, like a Red Indian from the earth, and swung a blow at his jaw.

  Clay staggered; Charles Piper leaped at him; the Merkalova ran at Piper to shoot point-blank – and took Clay’s bullet as she ran.

  For a shocked moment the two men looked at each other across the body. Then again Clay took aim. ‘Turn round’, he said, ‘and go back.’ And again Piper leapt at him. There was a flash, a report, and Piper staggered, only half-dazed from a graze on the temple.

  ‘Damn you,’ said Piper very seriously – and again advanced. This time Clay took his time. His revolver dropped to the line of Piper’s heart; his face – calm, intent – was held by a shaft of moonlight that might have been limelight on a stage. And then from forty yards away came a deeper report. The heavy bullet took him square in the forehead, lifted him perhaps half an inch from the ground, tumbled him backwards like a felled tree.

  Appleby stood up. ‘Both dead.’

  There was a silence. The moon had almost disappeared. Noel flashed an electric torch, measured with his eye. ‘Lord, Mr Appleby, what a shot!’ The beam of the torch, playing at random on the ground, flitted across what had been the face of Melville Clay. Rather abruptly, Noel leant against the pedestal of a dimly outlined goddess – looked again at the bodies. ‘Even at the base of Pompey’s statue,’ he said a little crazily.

  Again there was silence. And then the statue spoke from the darkness. ‘I should like to get dressed now,’ it said firmly.

  Everyone jumped. Noel exclaimed. ‘Who on earth–’

  ‘The Pandemian Venus,’ said Elizabeth mildly from her pedestal.

  3

  Bunney sat up in bed, his head swathed in bandages, his eyes sparkling with excitement. ‘Science never knows,’ he said, ‘to what uses–’ He paused as if realizing that he must conserve his strength, picked up the cylinder. ‘And Lady Elizabeth brought it perfectly unimpaired through all her adventures!’ He slipped it into the black box and flicked a switch.

  …what wilt thou do thou wilt not murder me help help ho help help my lord there has been a serious misadventure please all stay where you are there is very bad news mother about Ian I am just going to tell them he has been shot I have bad news the pistol-shot you all heard was aimed at Lord Auldearn he is dead for the moment nobody must leave the hall…

  …sit still Aunt Elizabeth Biddle is coming across in a moment thank you Gervase I have no desire to run about Biddle may come if he wants to this is very sad very sad we must not be too agitated drink this then my dear lady presently we shall be able to get away I hope you will be all right if I go back now a very great shock memorandum of cabinet emergency organization basic chemical industries date two six thirty –

  ‘Thank you,’ said Appleby.

  Happily, Bunney switched off.

  ‘And so,’ said the Duchess to Appleby, ‘it was a spy-story after all – every atom of it!’

  ‘Every atom; but designed to bear a very different appearance.’

  The Duchess placed delicate hands on the stone of the balustrade, already warm in the morning sun. She looked from Appleby to the Duke and from the Duke to Appleby. Then she looked away to the crown of Horton Hill. ‘Ian is dead, and poor Bose. And Elizabeth is alive only because of Piper’s courage, and Piper only because of your marksmanship, Mr Appleby. Perhaps I should wish never to hear another word about it all. But I am curious and I want you to tell it as a story; if only in return for the story – Bose’s story – I told i
n the small hours.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Duke, ‘interesting to hear it all cleared up a second time too. But I’m afraid I can’t stop. Must see Macdonald – wreaths and things, you know. Extraordinary shot that of yours, Mr Appleby. Extraordinary. You must come to Kincrae some time. Goodbye, goodbye.’

  The Duchess watched her husband disappear. ‘He will never speak of it again,’ she said. ‘But I am different, I fear. Now, Mr Appleby.’ She tapped the balustrade.

  Obediently, Appleby sat down.

  ‘The story begins with the Merkalova. She was the original spy; she became familiar with Mr Crispin, I am afraid, simply because in doing so she came very close to the sources of power and information. it is interesting that Nave detected something out of the way in their relationship and that several of the ladies – less tolerant than yourself – thought, well, unfavourably of her.’

  ‘Gervase regarded himself as having married her,’ said the Duchess briefly.

  ‘Which makes it extraordinary that she elected to continue prosecuting her profession, if one may call it that. But there she was; and she – I suspect – brought Clay in. And Clay was bloody, bold, resolute, and an artist. An artist chiefly: one must believe that he took to the game simply because it offered new and incomparably exciting scope for his craft. Certainly there was no money in it comparable to what he made on the stage. And that is all the good – if it be good – that can be said of him.

  ‘These two converged on Scamnum, probably with no very definite mischief in mind; the Merkalova because Mr Crispin brought her and Clay because it was at least a promising field for this most exciting of all games – espionage?

  The Duchess raised forlorn hands. ‘And I thought I had exercised such skill in getting him!’

  ‘But presently a less indefinite prospect showed. Auldearn was coming; to Auldearn the gravest matters were constantly being referred; and – it may be – Auldearn’s slightly eccentric habits of taking important papers about with him and so forth were known. It was at this point that Clay thought it worth while to make preliminary plans. He was an imaginative and a ruthless, reckless man – qualities which spies, contrary to popular opinion; do not commonly possess. And these qualities went into his plan, to our very great confusion – I am ashamed to say – in the early stages of the investigation. I must confess that we were caught saying: “Spies don’t work this way” – which was just what Clay designed that we should say.

  ‘Everything was to be violent, catastrophic, and – in the word Giles found so early – theatrical. And this was to serve two purposes: it was to give the affair an atmosphere remote from espionage except in the wildest fiction; and at the same time it was to satisfy Clay’s real craving for theatre – for dramatic effect. Long before there was a definite prospect of anything important being with Auldearn he amused himself with envisaging murder. And he and the Merkalova began to send the messages.’

  ‘And so to incriminate Nave.’

  ‘Yes. But the attempt to involve Nave in any crime that might be committed was not at that stage designed very seriously. All that Clay was planning was a run of circumstances which would set the police hunting, for a time at least, after some private passionate crime. It amused him to think of us tumbling at length to the anagram and worrying Nave. And I think the Revenge messages may have been prompted as well by a sight of Anderson’s book; that is to say he thought we might be persuaded to waste time over Malloch too. But, as Malloch himself pointed out to me, there was very little prospect of such a planted case being ultimately convincing. Clay could not reckon on Malloch being so uncovered in the matter of times and places as he was. Much less could he reckon on the amazing case built up against Nave by Giles Gott – Leontiasis Ossium and all the rest of it.’ Appleby chuckled.

  ‘It was a very good case,’ said the Duchess with spirit. ‘And according to Dr Biddle the Leontiasis whatever it was was perfectly sound. And if you didn’t believe it yourself, Mr Appleby, you acted in a very irresponsible way.’ She glanced at Appleby. ‘Or Colonel Sandford did,’ she said.

  ‘The responsibility for arresting Nave,’ Appleby said seriously, ‘was morally mine, even if technically it was the Chief Constable’s. I was inclined to believe the story – all but a fragment of it, as I’ll explain. And anyway–’ He checked himself.

  ‘And anyway’, prompted the Duchess with sudden perception, ‘you thought it might loosen things up.’

  Appleby looked at her with real admiration. ‘It sometimes happens that way,’ he said. ‘A criminal is at a strain; suddenly he seems to see the last danger removed; and for a moment he goes off his guard. Which was exactly what happened. Clay’s guard failed for a second and Lady Elizabeth got his middle stump.’

  The Duchess did not say, ‘He nearly got her’; one must not fuss about one’s chicken’s skin. Instead she said, ‘Poor Giles!’

  ‘Yes; you must believe that I didn’t think Sandford would call for his story in that formal fashion. At least it must have amused Clay. But to get back. We must acquit Clay of attempting – at that early stage – to get another man hanged. He was simply out to establish an atmosphere of crazy, passionate crime, and to indicate one or two suspects to keep us busy. And all this, remember, was provisional; just in case it should prove that there was a big stake to play for.

  ‘Well, there was. We don’t know how or when he got to know – though if we get at the network of spying of which he was a part we may learn yet. I suspect that before the play began he knew not only that Auldearn had this document but also something of its tenor and physical appearance. In fact, I think the original plan was a plan of substitution. But it was to be thoroughly violent; it was to involve murder – that was part of the fun. And by this time, I suspect, the Merkalova had become a mere lieutenant. She would do what she was told, however desperate the orders were. And this, then, was the plan–’

  ‘One sees’, the Duchess interrupted, ‘how right Giles was to see the whole thing as somehow implicated with the theme of the play.’

  Appleby smiled. The Duchess was evidently resolved to see justice done to the unfortunate Gott. ‘Quite so. Only the relevant aspect of the play was not the theme of private revenge but the theme of statecraft. There really was a fight to the death between Hamlet and, well, the rulers of Elsinore – or Scamnum.

  ‘But this, I say, was the plan. The document was on Auldearn’s person. Very good. When Auldearn was alone on the rear stage the Merkalova was simply to shoot him from the shelter of the curtains; shoot him and make off instantly. Clay, lingering on the front stage just long enough to demonstrate that he could not himself by any trick be responsible, was to slip through to the rear stage and get the document. He reckoned to have only Bose there before him; and Bose he could send running for help. The advantage of the arrangement is obvious. It tended at once to cut out any notion of theft. For if one thought of theft one would instantly remark that Auldearn had been shot in such circumstances that the assailant could not have reckoned on time to steal anything before the entry of Clay or Bose.

  ‘Having once got the document his plans depended entirely on what was or what was not suspected. If they didn’t search Auldearn’s body he could reckon that no theft was suspected; that the murder was passing at its face-value as a crazy crime by the author of the messages. In that case he would bank on getting out of the hall without a general search, or at least on getting the document to a confederate in the audience who would get out unsearched. But if they searched Auldearn’s body and so gave signs of suspicion he meant, I think, to fall back on a bogus document he had prepared. He would hide that in the scroll – which he would have kicked away so that it had not been searched – and then see that the scroll was discovered. If the bogus document was accepted for the moment and anxiety thereby dispelled then again there would be a substantial chance of getting away without a general search. And, finally, he had th
e resource of the Merkalova’s little camera. If the worst came to the worst he hoped to be able to withdraw to a dressing-room and photograph the document – not, technically, an easy task – and later get the tiny camera successfully away. He may have had some plan that gave him a substantial chance of that: I can’t hit on one but I’m sure Giles could.

  ‘Well, that – with a slight failure of plan to which I shall come – was how things stood when, just after the shooting, Clay hit on a more attractive technique. And if you think he acted fantastically you must remember that about the document per se he didn’t care two pence. All he wanted was to be supremely clever in the eyes of Melville Clay.

  ‘The first thing he did when this new technique came to him was to scrap provision for the old. He packed off the Merkalova’s superfluous camera – packed it off through the instrumentality of Mr Crispin. That was a superb move.’ Appleby paused, rather – the Duchess thought – as Lionel Dillon might have paused at the mention of ‘The Burial of Orgaz’; paused in a sort of professional homage. ‘it was the move of a man with the brain – well, with the sort of brain I should like to have. For it prepared the way for the tour de force by which he sent the Merkalova sweeping in on us in Mr Crispin’s room to exclaim, “Gervase, have they found out?” and throw the camera on the bed. That scene, of course, linked Mr Crispin and the Merkalova well-nigh indissolubly together in my mind, and when I learnt that Mr Crispin could not be suspect as a spy I automatically acquitted her in that direction.’ Appleby looked ruthfully at the Duchess. He liked her. ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘I think there’s some possibility of this case becoming known at the Yard as Appleby’s Waterloo.’