Penhallow

by Джорджетт Хейер

  “I’ve seen her,” Vivian answered. “She’s having a bath at the moment.”

  “Is she cut up about it?” asked Conrad.

  Vivian gave a short laugh. “She thinks she is, anyway. I’m afraid I’ve got no time for these conventionally minded women who think it incumbent upon them to shed tears just because someone whom they detested has died!”

  “Here, I say, that’s coming it a bit thick!” protested Conrad. “I don’t say Father didn’t treat her to rather a rough passage, but you’ve got no right to say that she detested him! I should have thought that she’d be bound to be cut up about it!”

  “Then you won’t be disappointed,” said Vivian acidly. “She’ll gratify all your ideas of how a bereaved person should behave, I’m sure!”

  Clay came into the room at that moment, looking reared and bewildered. “I say, is it true?” he asked. “I’ve just heard — I overslept this morning — I didn’t know a thing! But one of the maids told me — only I simply couldn’t believe it!”

  “If you mean, is it true Father’s dead, yes, it is!” said Conrad. “So you can go upstairs again, and take off that bloody awful pullover, and put on something decent!”

  “Of course I wouldn’t have put on a coloured thing if I’d known!” Clay said. “I’ll change it after breakfast, naturally. Good lord, though! I — I can’t get over it! How did it happen? When did he die?”

  The barely veiled excitement in his voice roused Bart to a flash of anger. “What the devil does it matter to you how he died, or when he died? A fat lot you care! God damn your eyes, you’re glad he’s dead!”

  “How dare you's-say such a th-thing?” Clay stammered, flushing to the roots of his hair. “Of course I’m not!”

  “Liar!” said Conrad.

  Aubrey intervened, saying in his most mannered style: “Sit down, little brother, and try to carry off this very difficult situation with as much grace as you can muster. You really could hardly do better than to model yourself on me. Now, I’m not bewailing Father’s death in the least, but neither am I permitting an indecent elation to appear in my demeanour. As my raiment, so my conduct: subdued but not funereal!”

  “Shut up, you ass!” said Conrad.

  “Listen!” Vivian interrupted, lifting her head. “That sounds like the doctor going!”

  In another minute the door opened, and Charmian came in. She looked rather pale, as though she had sustained a severe shock, and she did not at first say anything.

  “Is that Rame going?” Vivian asked. “What on earth has he been doing all this time?”

  “Where’s Ray?” Conrad demanded.

  “Seeing Rame off.” Charmian dug her hands into her coat-pockets, and took up her favourite position on the hearth-rug, with her feet widely planted. “Well, you might as well know at once what has happened. Rame won’t sign the certificate.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Her words were received in uncomprehending silence. Conrad broke it. “What do you mean, he won’t sign the certificate? Why not?”

  “He thinks Father didn’t die a natural death,” responded Charmian bluntly.

  They all stared at her. “Didn’t die a natural death?” Conrad repeated. “What on earth are you driving at, Char?”

  “Oh dear, I do wish I hadn’t come home!” said Aubrey. “I can see, because I am very quick-witted and sensitive to atmosphere, that everything is going to become too morbid and repellent for words. Char, my precious, do put us out of this frightful suspense! I can’t bear it!”

  “If you want it in plain words, Rame thinks Father was murdered,” said Charmian.

  Clara dropped her teaspoon with a clatter into her saucer. Bart half-started from his chair, and sank back again, his eyes fixed incredulously on his sister’s face. Clay turned chalk-white, and moved his lips stickily.

  “Rot!” said Conrad loudly and scornfully.

  “Yes, that’s what I said, but apparently I was wrong,” Charmian replied, drawing her cigarette-case from her pocket, and taking a cigarette from it. She shut the with a snap, and turned to feel for a matchbox on the mantelpiece behind her.

  “But what — how… ?”Bart demanded.

  She struck a match, and lit her cigarette. “Poison, of course.”

  “Rubbish!” said Clara strongly. “I never heard of such a thing! Poison, indeed! He ate and drank a lot of foolish things last night, as anyone could have told Rame! What next!”

  “There was a sort of blue look about him,” Charmian said. “I noticed it myself, though it didn’t, of course, convey anything in particular to my mind. Rame asked if Father was in the habit of taking sleeping-draughts. Reuben and Martha both swore that he wasn’t. Them was a drain of whisky left in the decanter beside the bed, and he tasted it. He has taken both the glass and the decanter away with him, and I suppose you know what that means.”

  “Do you mean — do you mean that there’ll have to be an inquest?” Conrad said, in a stupefied tone. “On Father."

  “Of course.”

  Clara, who had been staring at Charmian with dropped jaw and slowly mounting colour, found her voice to say: “Inquest? We’ve never had such a thing in our family! I never did in all my life! Why, whatever next. I should like to know? Your father would be furious at the idea of anythin’ like that happenin’! It’ll have to be put a stop to: I won’t have it!”

  “I wish it could be stopped,” returned Charmian. “Unfortunately, it can’t. This is where the police take over. Jolly, isn’t it?”

  “Police?” Clay gasped. “Oh, I say, how awful! Rame must have made a mistake!”

  “Of course he’s made a mistake!” said Clara, more moved than anyone could remember to have seen her. “This is what comes of callin’ in one of these newfangled doctors! I’ve no patience with it! Your father died because he ate and drank too much last night, and that’s all there is to it!”

  No one paid any heed to this. Bart got up suddenly, thrusting back his chair. “But, my God, this is ghastly!” he exclaimed. “Are you saying that somebody put poison in the Guv’nor’s whisky? One of us?”

  Charmian shrugged. Clay was inspired to say: “It’s titter piffle! I mean, who would?”

  “Little brother, do you think you could keep your ill-omened mouth shut?” asked Aubrey plaintively. “I am beginning to feel quite too terribly unwell, and that remark has conjured up such a number of daunting reflections that I wish more than ever that I hadn’t stupidly forgotten to bring my vinaigrette with me. I don’t know who would — at least, not yet — but when I think of all who might -well, I needn’t go on, need I?"

  “You figure on the list yourself, don’t you?” suggested Conrad, not very nicely.

  “Yes, beloved, I should think I am destined to occupy a prominent position on the list, and that is what is upsetting me. Fancy being so unfeeling as to point it out to me in that horrid way! Oh, I do wish I weren’t here!”

  “Do you mean to tell me,” demanded Clara, “that we’re goin’ to have police at Trevellin?”

  “I suppose so,” replied Charmian.

  “And it’s no use your saying that you’ve never heard of such a thing, Clara love, because they were practically never out of the house when the twins were innocent boys,” said Aubrey. “Not to mention the various occasions when Ray and Ingram and Eugene…”

  “That was nothin’!” interrupted Clara. “A bit of boyish devilry, and your father always settled it without any fuss. But this! Well, I shall never get over it!” Vivian, who had been sitting in silence for some minutes, now said defiantly: “If he really was poisoned.. I quite see, of course, that I might have been the person to have done it.”

  “Yes, darling,” agreed Aubrey, “but there’s nothing to be so grand about in that. It would be far more distinguished not to be a suspect. I mean, it’s so obvious, isn’t it, that it’s going to be too dreadfully commonplace to be one of those who might well have murdered Father?”

  Bart turned his eyes towards him. �
�Not one of us — not one of us! — would have done such a thing!” he said fiercely.

  “How sweet of you to say so, Bart! I shouldn’t think it’s in the least true, but I do appreciate the thoroughly nice spirit that inspired you to utter such noble words. I quite thought you would instantly assume that I was the guilty party.”

  “I wouldn’t put it beyond you,” interpolated Conrad.

  “No, I’m sure you wouldn’t, but that’s only because I wear a maroon velvet jacket and a silk shirt, and you can’t help feeling that such a man would be capable of committing almost any crime.”

  “Well, all I know is that Father had made up his mind to make you live at home, which is about the last thing on earth that would suit your book!”

  “Mustn’t it be lovely to be Conrad?” said Aubrey, looking round the table. “Sitting there in a perfectly unassailable position, making spiteful remarks to me! I cant help entertaining what I admit to be a very ignoble hope that we shall discover that he had a motive for killing Father after all.”

  Conrad looked rather taken aback. “Look here, who do you consider might have had a motive?”

  “It would be so much easier to tell you who hadn’t,” replied Aubrey. “I shouldn’t think even a policeman could suspect darling Aunt Clara. Unless you’re cherishing a hideous secret, you would appear to be out of the running — but do try not to look so smug about it! It goes against the grain, but I’m bound to say I don’t see what Eugene would have had to gain. Char and Ingram seem to be out of it too. I can’t think of anyone else.”

  “You’d much better not talk about it at all,” said Clara severely. “Depend upon it, it won’t lead to any good.”

  “I don’t know about anyone else, but if you mean to say that you think Bart would have laid a finger on Father...”

  Aubrey sighed. “I simply can’t bear it when you start on your oppressive Damon and Pythias act, Con dear. I daresay Bart didn’t do it, but the meanest intelligence — yes, that’s my polite way of saying yours, so that angry flush isn’t wasted — must perceive that he has a perfectly beautiful motive. Of course, if Ray is the murderer, the whole thing is most sordid, because he must have done it for filthy lucre, which one can’t help feeling lets the whole family down; but if Bart did it, his motive, however little it may appeal to me personally, lifts the crime on to a much higher plane. All for Love, in fact. Darling Clara, please pour me out another cup of coffee!”

  “I consider it in the highest degree unlikely that Bart had anything at all to do with it,” said Charmian, before Bart could speak.

  “Yes, precious, so do I, but if half what one reads is true love has a most peculiar effect, even upon people like Bart. I wouldn’t know. Of course, the thing that would afford one a really subtle gratification would be to find that Faith had atoned for years of almost complete ineffectiveness by — Oh dear, there’s Clay! To think I had nearly committed a social solecism! I didn’t quite though,, did I?"

  “If you imagine I’m going to sit here while you cast your rotten aspersions on my mother, you’re jolly well mistaken!” said Clay, growing very red in the face, and assuming the blustering tone he was too prone to use when talking to his brothers.

  “Why don’t you knock me down?” mocked Aubrey. “Go on! What are you waiting for?”

  “Oh, shut up!” said Charmian impatiently. “Of all the futile suggestions, Aubrey, that surely takes the cake!”

  “I know, but you must admit it was a very lovely thought. Oh, look! Here’s Ray, looking exactly as though he’d been stuffed!”

  Except for glancing scornfully at him, Raymond paid no attention to him. He took his place at the head of the table, and looked down the length of it at Clara. “Coffee, please. I take it Char’s told you all what Rame said?”

  “It isn’t true, Ray!” Bart had been staring out of the window, but he wheeled round to fling these words at his elder brother. “It couldn’t be true! Not the Guv’nor!”

  “Oh, isn’t Bart sweet?” Aubrey said, addressing the company generally. “Or don’t you like guilelessness above the age of consent? I think it’s rather touching.”

  “If you don’t keep your damned mouth shut, I’ll knock hell out of you!” Bart threatened, clenching his fists.

  “The wish is father to the thought, dearie. You wouldn’t believe the number of dirty Japanese tricks I’ve got up my sleeve.”

  “You can both of you keep your mouths shut!” Raymond said. “What good do you imagine you’re doing, bickering like a couple of school kids? We’re in the bloodiest mess possible, let me tell you! By midday it’ll be all over the county that Father’s been murdered! We’re going to be dragged through the mud, all of us! We shall have reporters trying to photograph the scene of the crime, and our name splashed all over the cheaper press!”

  “Will we by God!” said Conrad. “I’d like to see a reporter trying to poke his nose into Trevellin! He’d get something he wasn’t expecting!”

  “You’ll make a fool of yourself if you come to blows with the Press,” observed Charmian dryly. “What happens next, Ray?”

  “The body will be removed for a post-mortem examination. Rame will arrange that with the police.”

  “No!” Clara arose in her wrath. “That’s too much! Ray, I don’t know what you’re thinkin’ about to allow such a thing! It’s not decent!”

  “I’ve no power to stop it. You don’t suppose I want any of this to happen, do you? For God’s sake, don’t you start kicking up a fuss! I’ve had a bad enough time with Martha already.”

  “O God!” Bart said, in a breaking voice, and plunged out of the room.

  Conrad rose from his chair. “If it’s found to be true that Father was murdered, I’ll bet I know who did it!” he said savagely. “It ’ud be just about what she would do, the damned slut that she is!” He looked down at Aubrey. “As for you, you keep your tongue off Bart!”

  Aubrey waited until he had slammed his way out of the room before remarking: “Yes, that was always one the possibilities. They say poison is a woman’s weapon don’t they?”

  “I never liked that gal,” said Clara, shaking her head “but I don’t hold with tryin’ to put things on people like that.”

  “I know nothing about Loveday Trewithian,” said Charmian. “What seems to me to be of more importance is the fact that Jimmy the Bastard was out all night, and isn’t yet back.”

  “You don’t mean it!” exclaimed Clara.

  “I’ll bet he did it!” Clay said.

  “He’s disgusting enough to do anything,” said Vivian. “But why should he? I don’t see what he had to gain.”

  “Robbery, or something like that.”

  Raymond looked up quickly, his lips slightly parted, as though he were about to speak. Then he closed them again, and lowered his gaze. He had remembered suddenly that there had been no battered tin box in the cupboard above Penhallow’s bed. At least, he thought there had not been, but in his haste he might, he supposed, have overlooked it.

  “It only remains for us to discover that the three hundred pounds I fetched Father from the Bank yesterday is missing,” said Aubrey. “An unexciting finish to the episode, but I confess I should welcome it.”

  “You’re right!” Charmian said. “Now I come to think of it, Jimmy was in the room when Father spoke of it at dinner last night! Ray, was Father in the habit of drawing so much at a time?”

  “No, not as much as that.”

  “Well, then! Where ought the money to be?”

  “In the cupboard over his head,” Vivian replied eagerly. “I had to get it out for him once, so I know. Of course Jimmy stole it! It’s as plain as a pikestaff! Don’t you think so, Ray?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, can’t someone go and look in the cupboard?”

  “Not at the moment. The room has been locked up. There’s no hurry.”

  “Oh, isn’t Ray just too wonderful?” said Aubrey, awed. “So unmoved-and-all! I can’t think how you
preserve your exquisite calm, Ray, really I can’t! My nervous system is definitely shattered.”

  “Then it’s just as well mine isn’t,” Raymond replied, getting up from the table, and moving towards the door. “One of you had better go down to the Dower House to tell Ingram what has happened. I must go into Liskeard, to have a word with Cliff.”

  He opened the door as he spoke, just in time to admit Ingram himself, who came limping into the room, rather out of breath, and with a countenance expressive both of surprise and indignation.

  “I suppose it didn’t occur to you that I might like to be informed of Father’s death!” he said hotly, glaring at Raymond. “I might have expected you to leave me to hear of it through a servant! A fair sample of what we may expect to have to put up with now that you’re mounted in the saddle!”

  “I’ve had no time so far to think about you,” Raymond answered, his voice as cold as Ingram’s was heated. “If it comforts you at all, I’ve just this instant told the others to let you know.”

  “Damned kind of you! How did it happen? When was it?”

  "You can get the details from Char: I’ve got something more important to attend to,” Raymond responded briefly, and left the room, shutting the door behind him.

  “Yes, it’s going to be jolly with him in the seat!” Ingram said, with a short laugh. “By Jove, though, the old man! I never was more surprised in my life, never! Thought he’d go on for years yet! Frightful shock to me!”

  “Ah, and that’s not the worst of it!” Clara said. “They’re sayin’ your father was poisoned, Ingram!”

  He stared at her. “Why, what did he eat? I always thought there was dam’ little the old man couldn’t digest!”

  “When Clara said poisoned,” explained Aubrey, in the kindly tone of one instructing a child, “she meant murdered.”

  “Good God!” Ingram gasped, sitting down plump in Raymond’s vacated chair.

  Vivian left the room as Charmian began to tell Ingram about Dr Rame’s visit, and went upstairs to put Eugene in possession of the new facts. She was overtaken on the stairs by Clay, on his way to his mother’s room. He said to her with a sort of suppressed eagerness: “I shouldn’t think there could be a doubt it was Jimmy, should you? I mean, it’s obvious!”