Thou Shell of Death

by Nicholas Blake

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Nicholas Blake

  Title Page

  I: The Assistant Commissioner’s Tale

  II: The Airman’s Tale

  III: A Christmas Tale

  IV: A Dead Man’s Tale

  V: A Twisted Tale

  VI: The Don’s Tale

  VII: Telltale

  VIII: A Tale of Woe

  IX: A Tale Curtailed

  X: Told In A —

  XI: The Traveller’s Tale

  XII: Tales From the Past

  XIII: The Old Nurse’s Tale

  XIV: ‘As a Tale That is Told’

  XV: The Tale Retold

  More from Vintage Classic Crime

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Fergus O’Brien, a legendary World War One flying ace with several skeletons hidden in his closet, receives a series of mocking letters predicting that he will be murdered on Boxing Day.

  Undaunted, O’Brien throws a Christmas party, inviting everyone who could be suspected of making the threats, along with private detective Nigel Strangeways. But despite Nigel’s presence, the former pilot is found dead, just as predicted, and Nigel is left to aid the local police in their investigation while trying to ignore his growing attraction to one of the other guests – and suspects – explorer Georgia Cavendish.

  Thou Shell of Death is a dazzlingly complex and addictive read, laced with literary allusions, from a master of detective fiction.

  About the Author

  Nicholas Blake was the pseudonym of Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, who was born in County Laois, Ireland, in 1904. After his mother died in 1906, he was brought up in London by his father, spending summer holidays with relatives in Wexford. He was educated at Sherborne School and Wadham College, Oxford, from which he graduated in 1927. Blake initially worked as a teacher to supplement his income from his poetry writing and he published his first Nigel Strangeways novel, A Question of Proof, in 1935. Blake went on to write a further nineteen crime novels, all but four of which featured Nigel Strangeways, as well as numerous poetry collections and translations.

  During the Second World War he worked as a publications editor in the Ministry of Information, which he used as the basis for the Ministry of Morale in Minute for Murder, and after the war he joined the publishers Chatto & Windus as an editor and director. He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1968 and died in 1972 at the home of his friend, the writer Kingsley Amis.

  Also by Nicholas Blake

  A Question of Proof

  There’s Trouble Brewing

  The Beast Must Die

  The Widow’s Cruise

  Malice in Wonderland

  The Case of the Abominable Snowman

  The Smiler with the Knife

  Minute for Murder

  Head of a Traveller

  The Dreadful Hollow

  The Whisper in the Gloom

  End of Chapter

  The Worm of Death

  The Sad Variety

  The Morning After Death

  NICHOLAS BLAKE

  Thou Shell of Death

  I

  The Assistant Commissioner’s Tale

  A WINTER AFTERNOON in London. Twilight is descending with the same swift and noiseless efficiency as the lifts in a thousand hotels and stores and offices. Electric signs, winking, shifting, unrolling, flaring and blaring, announce the varied blessings of twentieth-century civilisation, proclaim the divinity of this port and that actress: a few stars, which have had the temerity to appear, seem to have quickly retired from the competition into higher air. In the streets a preponderance of children and brown paper parcels shows that Christmas is near. The shop windows, too, are piled with that diversity of obscene knick-knacks which nothing but the spirt of universal goodwill could surely tolerate—calendars to suit every bad taste or every degree of personal animosity, chromium-plated cigar cutters, sets of ivory toothpicks, nameless articles in fancy leather, illuminated and perhaps illuminating texts, bogus jewels and synthetic foods—an orgy of the superfluous. Men and money circulate with feverish activity. Even the traffic seems to pulse with greater din and violence through the main arteries, as though the whole city was sprinting desperately down a last lap.

  Vavasour Square lay out of the main currents of this Christmas spate. Its superb eighteenth-century houses stood aloof amidst the gathering darkness, like aristocrats deprecating the gaudy, loud-voiced spirit of the times. The clamour of the big streets reached them subdued to a whisper, abashed by the chill hauteur of their facades. In the garden of the square, plane trees sketched leisurely and consummate gestures against the sky, like the arms of noble ladies in brocade, and the grass held all the suavity of old tradition. Even the dogs that had the privilege of inhabiting this exclusive neighborhood seemed to address their friends or their lampposts with the courtly grace of Beaus and Corinthians. Nigel Strangeways, looking out of the window of No. 28, muttered to himself a couplet from Pope. He looked down at his waistcoat and was vaguely astonished to find it West-of-England cloth, not flowered silk. He would have been far more astonished had he been told that out of this backwater he was shortly to be swirled into the strangest, the most complicated and the most melodramatic case in all his career.

  Nigel, after a brief stay at Oxford, in the course of which he had neglected Demosthenes in favour of Freud, had turned to the profession of criminal investigator—the only profession left, he was wont to remark, which gave scope for good manners and scientific curiosity. His aunt, Lady Marlinworth, with whom he was having tea this afternoon, took good manners for granted. As to scientific curiosity she was more doubtful: it had a flavour of the banausic, the not-quite-quite. There were other things about Nigel that made here uneasy; such as his habit of taking his teacup for walks with him round the room and leaving it on the very edge of whatever article of furniture happened to be handy.

  ‘Nigel,’ she said, ‘there is a little table beside you; it would be more suitable than the seat of that chair.’

  Nigel hastily removed the offending object and placed it on the table. He looked at his aunt. She was fragile and delicately tinted as one of her own teacups, perfect in this other-worldly setting. He wondered what would happen if she were to be dropped suddenly into the middle of a violent, vulgar situation—a murder, for instance. Would she just smash into a hundred delicate fragments?

  ‘Well, Nigel, I haven’t seen you for a long time. I hope you haven’t been overworking. Your—er—profession must be very exacting. Still, it has compensations, no doubt. You must come into contact with a number of interesting persons.’

  ‘Certainly not overworking. I haven’t had a case worth mentioning since that affair down at Sudeley Hall.’

  Lord Marlinworth laid down a sandwich with some deliberation and tapped delicately with two fingers on the rosewood table before him. His appearance was so identical with that of the earl in a musical comedy, that Nigel could never look at him for long without pinching himself.

  ‘Ter-tum,’ said Lord Marlinworth, ‘that was the affair at the preparatory school, if my memory serves me. The newspapers made considerable stir about it. I have not had the acquaintance of any schoolmasters, not since my salad days. Excellent fellows, no doubt. Though I can only deprecate the effeminacy which I see creeping into education today. “Spare the rod”, you know, “spare the rod”. I believe a connection of ours is engaged in the teaching profession, headmaster of some quite reputable school—Winchester, is it? or Rugby? The name escapes my memory for the moment.’

  Nigel escaped any further memories of Lord Marlinworth, for at this moment his uncle, Sir John Strangeways, was show
n in. Sir John had been the favourite brother of Nigel’s father, and on the latter’s death Sir John had become the boy’s guardian. In a few years a bond of the deepest attachment had grown up between the two. Sir John was a man of rather less than medium height: he had a thick sandy moustache and large hands, and his clothing gave one always the impression that he had just changed, hastily and unwillingly, out of an old gardening coat. His bearing, on the other hand, was brisk, compact, self-assured and somehow invigorating, like that of a family doctor or a competent psychiatrist: contrasting in turn with this were his eyes, which held the remote horizon look of the dreamer. Whatever deduction as to his calling one might have made from these contradictory characteristics, one would almost certainly not have hit on the correct one. Sir John was neither a landscape gardener, a poet, or a physician: he was, in actual fact, Assistant Commissioner of Police.

  He stumped briskly into the room, kissed Lady Marlinworth, clapped her husband on the back, and cocked his head at Nigel.

  ‘Well, Elizabeth! Well, Herbert! Been looking for you, Nigel. Rang up your flat, and they told me you were over here. Got a job for you. Ah, a cup of tea. Thanks, Elizabeth. So you’ve not got into the habit of cocktails at teatime yet.’ His eyes twinkled quizzically at the old lady. He was in some ways a simple soul, and could never deny himself the pleasure of a leg-pull.

  ‘Cocktails at teatime! My dear John! What a horrible idea! Cocktails, indeed! Why, I remember my dear father practically turning a young man out of the house because he asked for one before dinner. My father’s sherry, of course, was famous all over the country, which made it still worse. I’m afraid Scotland Yard is getting you into bad habits, John.’

  The old lady bridled, secretly delighted to be thought capable of the excesses of fast young things. Lord Marlinworth tapped discreetly upon the table and spoke with the air of one who understands all and can pardon all.

  ‘Ah, yes; cocktails. A drink imported, I am told, from America. The custom of drinking cocktails at all hours of the day is on the increase, undoubtedly, amongst certain sections of society. I have always found a good sherry sufficient for my needs, but I dare say these American beverages are not unpalatable. Tempora mutantur. We live in times of rapid change. In my young days a man had time to savour life, to roll it round his tongue, like an old brandy. But now these bright young people take it in gulps. Well, well. We must not stand in the way of Progress.’

  Lord Marlinworth sat back again and made a benign gesture with his right hand, as though permitting Progress to resume its advance.

  ‘Are you going down to Chatcombe for Christmas?’ asked Sir John.

  ‘Yes, we are leaving town tomorrow. We think of going in the car: the trains are so disagreeably full at this time of the year.’

  ‘Come across your new tenant at the Dower House yet?’

  ‘We have not had the pleasure of meeting him personally yet,’ replied Elizabeth Marlinworth. ‘He had unexceptionable references, of course; but, really, he is quite an embarrassingly famous young man. We seem to have done nothing but answer questions about him since he took the house. Don’t we, Herbert? It quite taxes my powers of invention.’

  ‘And who is this famous young man?’ asked Nigel.

  ‘Not so young as all that. Famous, if you like. Fergus O’Brien,’ said Sir John.

  Nigel whistled. ‘Great Scott! The Fergus O’Brien? The legendary airman. The Mystery Man who Retired from Life of Daredevil Adventure to Seclusion of English Countryside. I’d no idea that he’d made the Dower House his hermitage—’

  ‘If you had come to visit your aunt lately, you would have heard,’ Lady Marlinworth rebuked mildly.

  ‘But how wasn’t it in the papers? They generally follow him about like a private detective. All they said was that he’d retired somewhere into the country.’

  ‘Oh, they were squared,’ said Sir John. ‘There were reasons. Well, you two,’ he continued, ‘if you’ll excuse us. I’ll take Nigel into the study. We’ve got to confabulate.’

  Lady Marlinworth gave a gracious consent, and Nigel and his uncle were soon ensconced in huge leather armchairs, Sir John smoking the foul cherrywood pipe which was the bane and embarrassment of his official colleagues.

  The two made an odd contrast. Sir John sat solid and upright in his chair, dwarfed by it, economical of phrase and gesture, looking now rather like an extraordinarily intelligent, tow-haired little terrier, except for that impressive longsightedness in his blue eyes. Nigel’s six feet sprawled all over the place; his gestures were nervous and a little uncouth; a lock of sandy-coloured hair drooping over his forehead, and the deceptive naïveté of his face in repose gave him a resemblance to an overgrown prep schoolboy. His eyes were the same pale blue as his uncle’s, but shortsighted and noncommittal. Yet there was an underlying similarity between the two. A latent, sardonic humour in their conversation, a friendlines and simple generosity in their smiles, and that impression of energy in reserve which is always given by those who possess an abundance of life directed towards consciously realised aims.

  ‘Well, now, Nigel,’ said Sir John, ‘I’ve got a job for you. Curiously enough, it’s to do with the new tenant of the Dower House. He wrote up to us about a week ago; forwarded some threatening letters he’d received lately—three of them—at intervals of a month each. Typewritten. I put a man on to them, but they don’t give any lead. Here are copies. Read ’em carefully and tell me if they suggest anything—anything, that is, except the obvious conclusion that someone is out for his blood.’

  Nigel took the carbon copies. They were numbered 1, 2 and 3, presumably the order in which they had been received.

  No. 1 read: ‘No, Fergus O’Brien, there’s no use trying to hide yourself in Somerset. Not even if you had the wings of a dove would you escape me, my bold aviator. I shall get you, and YOU WILL KNOW WHY.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Nigel, ‘all very melodramatic: author seems to have confused himself with Lord God Almighty. And what a literary touch the fellow has!”

  Sir John came over and sat on the arm of his chair. ‘There was no signature,’ he said. ‘Envelopes were typewritten also; a Kensington postmark.’

  Nigel took up the second note: ‘Beginning to feel a little apprehensive, are you? That iron nerve wobbling a bit? I don’t blame you. However, I shall not keep Hell waiting for you much longer.’

  ‘Coo!’ exclaimed Nigel. ‘Fellow getting all sinister. And what does this month’s bulletin say?’ He read out the third note aloud:

  ‘I think we’d better arrange the fixture—I refer, of course, to your demise—for this month. My plans are all completed, but I feel it would be improper for me to kill you till your festive party is over. That will give you over three weeks to settle your affairs, say your prayers, and eat a hearty Christmas dinner. I shall kill you, most probably, on Boxing Day. Like Good King Wenceslas, you will go out on the Feast of Stephen. And please, my dear Fergus, however shattered your nerves may be by then, don’t go committing suicide. After all the trouble I have taken, I should hate to be balked of the pleasure of telling you, before you die, just how much I hate you, you tin-pot hero, you bloody white-faced devil.’

  ‘Well?’ enquired Sir John, after rather a long silence.

  Nigel shook himself, blinked in a puzzled way at the notes, then said: ‘I don’t understand it. There’s something unreal about the whole thing. It’s too like an old-fashioned melodrama rewritten by Noel Coward. Have you ever known a murderer with a sense of humour? That crack about Good King Wenceslas is really most pleasing. I feel I could take to the fellow who wrote it. I suppose it isn’t, by any chance, a hoax?’

  ‘May very well be, for all I know. But O’Brien must have thought there might be something in it, or why should he send the letters to us?’

  ‘What are the bold aviator’s reactions, by the way?’ Nigel asked.

  His uncle produced another carbon copy and handed it over in silence. It ran as follows:

  Dear Strangeway
s,

  I am taking our slight acquaintanceship as an excuse for troubling you with what may very likely be a mare’s nest. I have received the enclosed letters, in the numbered order, on the 2nd of each month since October. It may be a lunatic, and it may be some friend of mine having his little joke. On the other hand, there’s just a chance that it may not. As you know, I’ve had a rackety life, and I’ve no doubt there are a number of people who would like to see me go down in a spin. Perhaps your experts will be able to gather something from the letters themselves. But it seems unlikely. Now I don’t want police protection. I haven’t settled down in the depths of the country in order to be surrounded by a phalanx of policemen. But if you know some really intelligent and reasonably amiable private investigator, who would come down and hold my hand, could you get me in touch with him. What about that nephew of yours you were telling me about? I could give him a few lines to work on—suspicions so vague that I don’t care to put them on paper. If he could come, I am having a house-party over Christmas, and he might come ostensibly as a guest. Let him turn up on the 22nd, a day before the others.—Yours sincerely,

  Fergus O’Brien

  ‘Ah, I see. So that’s where I come in,’ said Nigel ruminatively. ‘Well, I should like to go down there very much, if you think I come up to the required standard of intelligence and amiability. O’Brien sounds a nice sensible fellow, too. I’d always imagined he was one of the neurotic daredevil type. But you’ve met him. Tell me about him.’

  Sir John sucked noisily on his pipe. ‘I’d rather you formed your own impressions. Of course, he’s a bit of a nervous wreck—that last crash of his, you know. Looks damned ill; but you can see the spirit shining through all right still. He has never consciously courted publicity, I should say. But, like all really great Irishmen—take Mick Collins, for instance—he’s a bit of a playboy; I mean, it is their nature to do things in the most romantic and colourful way possible; they just can’t help it. I should say he had the long memory of the Irish, too—’