He moved towards the door as he spoke; but before he reached it a piano sounded not far off, and the opening bars of Sinding’s Frühlingsrauschen came to their ears. Neville turned back with his hand on the door-handle.
“By the way, Roger, what about that young nephew of ours? He seems all right—a bit moody, perhaps, but nothing out of the common. What does the doctor say?”
Roger’s face clouded.
“Arthur? He’s a young pest. About thrice a week he takes a fancy to the piano, and then he spends the whole day playing one piece over and over again, like an automatic machine—except for the mistakes. Damnable. You don’t know how I hate the sound of the Spring Song and Frühlingsrauschen. You must have heard him at it this morning; and now he’s starting all over again.”
The barrister nodded.
“Yes, but what about his general tone?” he asked. “Has he got over that encephalitis completely? Did the Harley Street man find anything permanently wrong?”
Roger’s face betrayed little satisfaction.
“Oh, the specialist looked devilish wise the last time he examined him; but that was about all it amounted to. It seems they know next to nothing about sleepy sickness. I understood him to say that the brain cells are all churned up with the inflammation; and the result may be anything you please. Of course Arthur was lucky to get off with no physical damage—his eyesight and hearing and all that are quite all right. But it seems one can never tell what changes may have taken place in the brain structure—things that don’t normally show at all. He may be all right, for all one can tell. Or again, he might turn into a homicidal maniac any day; and then, as like as not, he’d go for the nearest relation handy. A nice sort of fellow to have in one’s neighbourhood.”
The barrister evidently considered this prophecy exaggerated.
“He seems quite normal to me,” he said.
“Oh, I don’t worry much over him,” Roger admitted. “It’s just that he’s got on my nerves so much that I can hardly see him without snapping at him. I’ll have to get rid of him, I think; send him on a sea-voyage or something of that sort.”
“Perhaps you get on his nerves, just the same way as he gets on yours,” Ernest began in his low voice. “That’s what usually happens. When one starts it, the other takes it up. Usually that’s the way these things go. I shouldn’t wonder—hullo, Sylvia! I didn’t expect you just yet; not for a quite a while. I’m not quite ready.”
A girl in her early twenties had come into the room and now stood looking at her uncle with a fair pretence of indignation.
Sylvia Hawkhurst, the sister of the piano playing Arthur, had been left an orphan before she came of age; and as her uncles were her trustees, she and her brother had been brought to Whistlefield by Roger Shandon. She liked “to play at housekeeping,” as she put it; and Roger soon learned that she could run his small establishment better than any paid housekeeper. Things went like clockwork after she had taken command; and he soon realised that the secret of her management was that every one in the house adored her. One thing she had set her face against: “We’ll have no menservants, if you please, uncle; at least, not in the house itself. I don’t mind a chauffeur, of course. But I know what a girl can do, and I’d prefer to keep within my limitations, if it’s all the same to you.” Her uncle had let her have her way, and he had never found any reason to complain of the results.
Sylvia’s housekeeping, however, occupied very little of her time. She hunted in the season, drove her own car, played tennis well and golf better still, and was reckoned one of the best dancers in the neighbourhood. Most characteristic of all, in spite of her looks, she was as popular with girls as with men.
As she came into the room, Ernest got out of his chair with his usual deliberation and began a faintly shamefaced apology for his unpreparedness; but she cut him short in mock irritation.
“He hasn’t even got his boots on!” she complained. “How is it that I can run everything to time in this house except you? Are you ever in time for anything, Uncle Ernest?”
“I always seem to have so much to do, Sylvia, usually. It’s been a very busy day.”
The corners of Sylvia’s mouth quivered a little in spite of her effort to look indignant.
“Very busy! I remember exactly what you did. You played tennis for precisely thirty-five minutes this morning. Then you organised a grand shooting tournament with the air-guns and bored every one stiff with it except Arthur, who happens to be able to beat every one else. Then you came into the house; and I suppose you looked at the newspapers till lunch. And since then, you’ve sat and smoked. You must be dog-tired, poor thing. Do you think you could wrestle with your boots now; or shall I have them brought here on a silver salver and give you a hand with them myself? I’d rather not; so if you can manage by yourself, I’ll go and bring the car round. Put your watch in front of you and pinch yourself once a minute. Then you won’t fall quite asleep. Do hurry up, Uncle,” she concluded, more seriously, “I want to get off as soon as I can.”
“Where are you taking him?” asked Roger.
“I’m going over to Stanningleigh village to do some shopping first of all. Then I’m going to the Naylands to ask them to come across and play tennis. When Uncle Ernest heard that he begged me to take him along part of the way and drop him at the East Gate, so that he could walk along the main road to the bridge and have a look at the river.”
“I thought I’d like to see if it was worth fishing, just at present,” Ernest added, in further explanation. “I’ve been thinking about it for a day or two, but I’ve never found time, somehow. Usually, just when I was starting out something always seemed to come in the way. So to-day, since Sylvia was going that way in the car anyhow, I thought . . .”
He broke off, observing Sylvia’s indignant eyes fastened upon him.
“Boots!” she said, scathingly, and held the door open for him to go out.
“I’ll be ready in a minute or two,” he assured her hastily as he left the room.
“Men are a wonderful lot, aren’t they?” she said confidentially to her two remaining uncles, as the door closed. “It seems to me high time Uncle Ernest got married. He’s simply incapable of looking after himself. You two are at least able to cross the street for yourselves; but Uncle Ernest really gives me a lot of worry. I think I saw a fresh wrinkle when I was brushing my hair this morning.”
“I wondered what made you look peculiar at lunchtime,” Neville admitted. “Now you mention it, I see it on your brow. About as deep as this.”
He touched one of the deep-scored lines running down to the side of his own mouth.
Sylvia laughed.
“You alarm me, Uncle, I must have a look at the ravages in a mirror before I venture out. Good-bye!”
She hurried out of the room. Neville looked at his watch.
“Time I was moving,” he said. “I think I’ll take Ernest’s advice and try the Maze for seclusion. It’s hardly likely that anyone will bother to go into it this afternoon; and I can’t stand this piano playing of Arthur’s. It grows irritating, as you say. I’ll go now. But I must get my notes first.”
A thought seemed to strike Roger as the barrister opened the door.
“I think I’ll try the Maze myself this afternoon. I feel a bit sleepy; and it’s quiet in there. I shan’t disturb you. But if it’s all the same to you, I’ll take Helen’s Bower myself. I’m used to a chair there; it suits me. You can go to Narcissus’ Pool instead. There’s nothing to pick and choose between them, since they’re both in the Maze.”
“Very good,” the barrister agreed. “It’s all the same to me, so long as no one interrupts me.”
He nodded abruptly and left the room.
When his brother had gone, Roger Shandon went over to his writing-table and busied himself with some papers. The distant piano seemed to have become more intrusive now that he was left alone. It repeated Frühlingsrauschen with brain-wearying persistence and a reiterated error in one particula
r chord. Roger frowned irritably as he busied himself with the documents before him, jotting down a note from time to time on a scribbling-block.
“Damn that young whelp! I must talk to him about this. One can’t concentrate one’s attention when half one’s mind’s wondering if he’s going to make that same slip for the hundred and first time.”
He continued his work for a few minutes, then rose and rang the bell.
“Send Mr. Stenness, if you can find him,” he ordered when the maid appeared.
In Ivor Stenness, Roger had secured an ideal private secretary. Stenness not only had the efficiency of a machine, but he possessed a full measure of qualities hardly less important. If his employer was out of sorts, even the gruffest order failed to ruffle the secretary’s temper. He was capable of taking just the right amount of responsibility in emergencies without ever going a hair’s breadth over the score. And his especial recommendation in Roger’s eyes was that he could keep his mouth shut. He never asked for explanations which might have been difficult to give; and he never betrayed the slightest surprise when, as sometimes happened, he opened threatening letters.
“If I ever have a confession of murder to put on paper,” Roger used to say, “Stenness will take it down in shorthand, type it out, and get my signature, without turning a hair. So far as he was concerned, it would be just a letter.”
Stenness’ other qualities were more in demand among the remainder of the household. He had good natural manners; and he could play games well enough to make him useful where someone was often needed to make up a golf foursome or a bridge table. A casual glance at him would have suggested that he must employ a first-class valet; for his clothes always looked new and he had the knack of carrying them well.
With all this, he was a perfectly safe person to have in a house with a young girl. He was, somehow, too inhumanly efficient to be attractive to girls younger than himself; and he showed not the slightest desire to attract. Sylvia treated him as a good friend, but she had dozens of friends whom she treated in exactly the same fashion.
“Ah, Stenness!” Roger looked up as the secretary came in. “I’ve gone over these letters and jotted down some notes. You might get them off sometime to-day. There’s only one of them that needs any explanation. Here it is. . . .”
Neville Shandon’s grim face appeared at the door for a moment. In his hand was a sheaf of papers. Seeing his brother engaged with the secretary, he nodded without saying anything and closed the door behind him.
Roger continued his explanation of the matter in hand while the secretary took a note or two. As the instructions ended, the whirr of a car leaving the front of the house attracted Roger’s attention and he crossed the room to look out of the window. Sylvia was driving, and beside her was Ernest Shandon. They glanced up as they passed under the study window, and Sylvia waved her hand. Roger watched the car swing sharply off the main avenue on its way to East Gate, and soon it vanished behind a belt of rhododendrons.
“They might have given Neville a lift,” Roger reflected as he turned back into the room again. “They’ll be passing the Maze on the road to the East Gate.”
The sound of the piano reasserted itself in the comparative silence which followed the passing of the car. Roger made a gesture of impatience.
“I suppose that’s my nephew playing?” he demanded.
“He was shooting darts at a target in the garden, a short time ago,” Stenness explained, “but I think he came in a few minutes ago.”
“It sounds like him. Since he had that attack of sleepy sickness he always fumbles a bit in his chords—doesn’t seem able to manage his fingers perfectly. That makes this din all the harder to bear.”
Stenness refrained from any comment. Roger, after a pause, continued irritably.
“Where are the visitors, Stenness? I wish they’d attract him out of the house. Some days he’s all right and one never sees him. Other days he sits and pounds that piano till one’s head rings with it.”
“I noticed Miss Forrest and Mr. Torrance going towards the rose garden a few minutes ago.”
Stenness confined himself to answering the direct question and quietly ignored Roger’s exasperation. It was no business of his to intervene in family squabbles.
“Well, that’s all I have for you at present, Stenness. As you’re passing the door, send my nephew to me, will you? I must put a stop to this nuisance. It’s gone on quite long enough.”
The secretary made a gesture of assent, then gathered up his papers and left the room. A few seconds later, the piano playing stopped abruptly in the middle of a bar, and Roger’s ear caught the clang of the keyboard lid being carelessly slammed. After a moment or two, his nephew entered the study.
In order to give his irritation time to cool down, Roger refrained from speaking immediately. He motioned his nephew to sit down, whilst he himself pulled out his cigar-case and became busy with the preparations for a smoke. Having got his cigar well alight, he turned round.
“Must you hammer that piano for hours at a time, Arthur? I hate to interfere with your simple pleasures, of course; but the infernal din you make has had quite a long enough run. You’ve played Frühlingsrauschen at least two dozen times to-day; and that’s just twenty-four times oftener than I want to hear it. You can cut it out of the bill, after this. In fact, you can leave the piano alone, once for all. I’m sick of hearing you play. You’re a nuisance to every one, raising pandemonium at all hours of the day. Find some quieter amusement, or clear out of the house.”
Arthur Hawkhurst’s eyebrows rose in mild surprise at his uncle’s complaint.
“I’d no idea it worried you, Uncle.”
“Well, drop it.”
“Perhaps I have been overdoing Frühlingsrauschen a bit. I hadn’t thought of that. Somehow I never seem to get through it without a mistake in one or two chords, and I want to make a clean job of it, once at least.”
“I’ve got a pair of quite good ears. You needn’t think I missed your mistakes. They make it more irritating, that’s all.”
Arthur hastened to admit his errors.
“Well, no more Frühlingsrauschen, then. What about the Barcarolle? Offenbach’s, I mean. Any objection to that?”
“Yes. Will you be good enough to understand that you’re not to bang on that piano again.”
“Oh, you mean it? I thought it was just your fun, Uncle. But I like the piano. Surely you’ll let me use it sometimes.”
“No. I’ve had enough of it.”
“But . . .”
Roger’s face had been darkening.
“That’s enough! I’ve more important things to talk to you about. What age are you nowadays? Twenty-two or twenty-three, isn’t it? And you’ve never done a stroke of work in your life, so far? A pretty record, isn’t it?”
He paused, and paced over to the window and back again.
“That’s got to stop. I’ve had to support one loafer—your Uncle Ernest. But if you imagine that I have a fad for collecting loafers, you’re mistaken. I’ve got your uncle on my hands permanently, I suppose; but I don’t propose to increase my stock of parasites for your benefit. You’ll have to find something to do. I’m not going to let you hang around Whistlefield for ever.”
Arthur’s good-natured face had darkened in its turn.
“You might increase your stock of politeness without overdoing things, it seems to me. I’m not altogether a loafer. I’m an invalid.”
Roger took no notice of the plea.
“Whistlefield isn’t an hospital.”
“Or an asylum—I suppose that’s what you mean? You’d better take care, Uncle. There are some things a fellow doesn’t forget, once they’re said.”
Roger’s temper, never very far below the surface, boiled up at his nephew’s remark.
“That’s enough, Arthur. I’ll give you three months more. After that, you can fend for yourself. You won’t starve. You’ve got enough money to keep you alive even if the worst comes to the worst. Anyhow
, I wash my hands of you.”
Arthur Hawkhurst’s control was no better than his uncle’s when once the point had penetrated through the skin.
“A pretty specimen of an uncle! The kind one meets in the ‘Babes in the Wood,’ eh? Go out into the world and starve, Arthur dear. The little dicky-birds will put leaves on you—and I’ll get the money your mother left you! That’s the scheme, I suppose. It’s a wonder a thing like you is allowed to live.”
The flagrant absurdity of the charge checked Roger for a moment. After all, the boy was off his balance. One shouldn’t take him seriously.
“You’re an ass, Arthur!” was all he vouchsafed in reply.
But Arthur’s disturbed brain had tilted out of its normal equilibrium, and his rage found vent in a wild threat as he flung himself out of the room.
“I’ve a good mind to get in first myself; and do for you, before you can do any more harm. Look out for yourself!”
As the door slammed behind his nephew, Roger settled himself back into his chair. Arthur’s outbreak had come as a complete surprise. Since his illness, the boy had given the impression that he merely needed a firm hand. He had loafed about the house in a condition not far from melancholia; and at first it had required steady pressure to bring him to take any interest in normal affairs. Gradually he had improved and had passed over into a state of cheerful irresponsibility. And now, just as the specialists were taking an optimistic view of the future, had come this collapse into something which seemed little short of mania, absolutely without warning.
“I’ll have to get this looked into,” Roger reflected. “He’s evidently not so far on the road to recovery as we thought.”
Arthur’s threat had left him completely indifferent. He had almost forgotten it when he rose again from his chair. In itself it seemed unimportant, merely some wild words flung out in a brainstorm. He left the house and took the road to the Maze.
Stenness saw his figure pass into the belt of rhododendrons; and as soon as it had disappeared, the secretary made his way to Roger’s study. An ABC time table was on one of the shelves; and Stenness, taking it down, began to study the times of trains.
Murder in the Maze (A Clinton Driffield Mystery) Page 3
