The Assize of the Dying

by Ellis Peters

  ‘A police car has just turned in at the gates, with two officers in it. You had better go down, Bill, and let them in.’

  The police were in almost constant possession of Philip’s study for three days. They interviewed, and questioned, and took finger-prints, and went over the events of Good Friday again and again with every member of the household; but they did not extract from anyone the gist of the conversation which had taken place on Thursday evening. Philip himself had given them all the most explicit instructions on how to deal with this situation. ‘All you have to do is keep your nerve, admit nothing, know nothing, do nothing. The traces will end in mid air, among half a dozen people who shared the same opportunity.’ Did the police even discover any of the possible motives that were thick in the air of the house? Bill had only realised them himself, had only grown sensitive to their implications, after the event, when he saw Gerard and Estelle staring at each other with bleak and ferocious hatred through their masks of solidarity and affection, as they stood together shoulder to shoulder against the world. Not out of love, that was certain! Out of self-interest. I will swear black white for you, because it is the only way I can hope to induce you to swear black white for me. I will know nothing, absolutely nothing, of any compromising relationship you may have had with Philip Greville, on the strict though unspoken understanding that you will suppress what you know about me. Nothing was ever said, no such bargains ever made in words; that was not necessary. These two understood each other as completely as they hated each other.

  ‘We sat here for perhaps ten minutes after Miss Greville had said good night,’ Gerard had said at his first interview, ‘and then we went up to bed.’

  ‘Together?’

  ‘Of course, together.’

  There had been no need for any prior agreement between them on this point. They had drawn together instinctively in the impregnable lie. No one had heard them quarrel, no one had seen them part. No one could prove they were lying, even if Bill, grown abnormally sensitive now to the stresses round him, vibrated in protest like a lie-detector when they made their flat statements.

  And that left him, last to go up to bed that night, with no one to lie for him, or at least only by suppression. He had gone up the stairs alone, after the house was quiet; he had even hesitated for a long minute outside Philip’s door, he had – oh, God, he’d touched the coffee-pot, he might have left distinguishable prints on it! He could have dropped luminal tablets into it easily enough; he could have taken them from the bathroom at any time that day or days beforehand, they were always available to him. So much for an opportunity. What about motive? The Renauds would know nothing, though they could not choose but know how the whole house had been uneasy with his fretting after escape, and how Philip had said flatly, in front of them all, that he would not, in any circumstances, let him have the means to go off to Canada with Lawson. Mary and Helen would not lie, perhaps, but they wouldn’t volunteer any information on that subject unless they were asked, and if no one prompted the police in the first place they probably never would be asked. The household, with all its diverse personalities, was being forced into a solidarity of silence against the common enemy. Most people talk too much when the police are around, out of sheer nervousness; but these people had been tutored by Philip, and were schooled in the virtues of ignorance and silence.

  And the servants were not resident in the house, to know all too well the affairs of uncle and nephew. They came in daily from the village, and went home in the afternoon. So only Bill himself could supply the police with the facts about his motive, short of some unforeseen disaster. He was going to have some strenuous lying to do, at least by implication.

  When it came to the point, however, he did not actually have to lie about his relations with Philip; and that in itself was a revelation.

  ‘You were on good terms with your uncle, Mr Grant?’

  He had said: ‘Yes,’ even before he had time to consider, so natural and true did the affirmative seem. He spoke with a sudden half-smile of remembrance for Philip’s many-sided personality, which had rendered life with him long ago so unpredictable, so stimulating, so much fun. ‘We fell out sometimes,’ he said, still remembering, and still smiling. ‘I was fond of my own way, and he was an artist, and volatile, and the mixture was often explosive. The fireworks we generated were very handsome, but they never did any great harm.’

  After that he had found himself sweating in the expectation that the next question would be: ‘Was there anything in dispute between you recently?’ And then he would have lied, because he was scared, because when it came to the point he simply didn’t trust the law as completely as all that, because he didn’t believe that innocent people are never convicted. But the next question was: ‘Had your uncle any enemies, to your knowledge?’ And he had said ruefully: ‘He must have had one. But I don’t know who that could be. I should have said he hadn’t a real enemy in the world. There were lots of people he couldn’t get on with, lots of people he quarrelled with, all the humbugs and the climbers and the sycophants and the poseurs – he couldn’t bear them and they couldn’t bear him. But they just kept out of his way. You don’t kill people because you’re incompatible with them, not unless you’re forced to live with them – you just sheer off.’

  The inspector had looked at him thoughtfully, and said at length: ‘You’re taking it for granted someone killed him? I don’t recollect committing myself to any such opinion. We haven’t got the inquest over yet, you know.’

  ‘No, I know. But you did say that it’s already established he died of luminal poisoning, and I don’t quite see how that could have happened by accident.’

  ‘You wouldn’t, I take it, consider suicide as a possibility?’

  Bill had shouted: ‘No!’ to this, so scornfully that there was hardly any need to elaborate his rejection of the theory. But he did add, a shade startled by his own vehemence: ‘He was a hundred per cent happy – well, say ninety, maybe no one ever does better than that – and two hundred per cent alive. But even if he’d been old, and decrepit, and ill, and lonely, he’d never have killed himself – not in any circumstances. It was just the flat opposite of everything in him.’

  And then he had felt better, because it was true, and in some obscure way it was an obituary of Philip, and one he was glad to have uttered.

  The inspector said resignedly to his sergeant, on the eve of the inquest: ‘Every person in the house may have had a strong motive for wanting Greville out of the way, but we shall never know any of them, unless a miracle happens.’ He had been reviewing the relationships involved in the case, and they were all apparently blameless. Greville, his wife, his sister and his nephew had lived amicably together for fifteen years, and there was no visible reason why they should change now. The other two were strangers, an old acquaintance – perhaps more? – of Greville’s, and her husband, chance-met a few weeks ago, and invited for Easter. There was no one here, outside Hugonin’s Mill, who knew anything at all about them; and no one in the other part of their life, it seemed, who knew anything about the Grevilles. The woman was interesting, very interesting, but the connection, as it stood, extremely tenuous.

  ‘Opportunity,’ said the sergeant, ‘they all had – barring Mrs Greville, of course, she was a hundred miles away all that day. Miss Greville made the coffee, she was alone in the kitchen, she took the tray up herself. She’s the one who had the tablets – I know they were where anyone could get at them, but she’s the one most likely to think of them, because they were prescribed for her. But why in the world should she want to kill her brother? There’s the boy Grant, he came back after seeing Miss Pharamond home, and found everybody else had already gone up to bed. He says himself the tray was still there. Naturally he says he didn’t touch it, but he easily could have done, there was nobody else about by that time. But again, we don’t know of any reason he had for wanting his uncle out of the way. Then the Renaud couple – they’re out of it according to their evidence, they we
nt up to bed together. Well, they’re husband and wife, maybe you could say it’s only natural they should give each other an alibi. Only in this case I can’t say I get the impression of a devoted couple, exactly. In any case, we haven’t a scrap of evidence that either of them had a motive for killing Greville. There could have been all sorts of grudges among them, but there’s no sign of any.’

  ‘The coffee in the pot was stiff with luminal,’ said the inspector, ‘as well as the dregs in the cup. Evidently the stuff was dropped into the pot – which is just about the most unlikely way in the world of committing suicide. The only prints on the pot are Greville’s own, and those of Mrs Greville, who put the tray ready in the morning, and Miss Greville, who made the coffee at night. There’s some trace of a hand-print round the belly of the pot, but nothing identifiable. The knob on the lid has no prints except Greville’s and Miss Greville’s, which is as it should be. Everything, in fact, is as it should be, except that a man’s dead who ought to be alive. We don’t even know for certain that the luminal that killed him came from that bottle, though it’s a reasonable assumption, especially as the bottle is a dead blank where prints are concerned, which in normal circumstances it certainly wouldn’t be. We don’t, in fact, know anything for certain – except, as I said, that the poor devil’s dead.’

  ‘And none of the people involved knows anything for certain either,’ said the sergeant sceptically.

  ‘That could be genuine in all cases but one, of course. Or it could be pure fright. Or it could be a case of everybody having something to hide. We’ll stay close, and keep pegging away. Sooner or later somebody’s nerve is going to give way.’

  But nobody’s nerve gave way. They were already forewarned and forearmed against any such eventuality. Philip had had apt pupils.

  Nothing new emerged at the inquest; nothing new was allowed to emerge. Only the awkward fact that the luminal had undoubtedly been administered in the coffee, in a manner very unlikely in a suicide and almost impossible to consider as an accident, prevented the jury from bringing in an open verdict. As it was they were compelled at last to agree on a verdict of murder against a person unknown. If Thursday’s conversation on the subject of reached the same conclusion in considerably less time and with fewer misgivings; but somehow that little discursion had fallen clean out of the memory of every person who had been present to hear it. Even the rector had seen fit to put it out of his mind, perhaps because it made contacts with the household at Hugonin’s Mill too embarrassing, and he had come to rely on them too much to want to sever them now.

  ‘A perfectly sound verdict,’ said the inspector bitterly, ‘and only four people to pick from, barring the extremely remote chance of some unknown intruder. And we’re about as likely to be able to pick put the right one and bring it home to him – or her! – as we are to pan gold out of the mill-stream down there. If only they’d be a shade more talkative, at least one of them might say the wrong thing.’

  But they preserved still their impenetrable reserve. After the brief, unelaborated answers he let the silences grow long and oppressive, but no one was shaken into rushing in to fill the gaps with indiscreet sound. Only Helen, immured from all other anxieties in her solitary and unobtrusive grief, talked, as he felt, naturally; but why should Helen, in any case, labour to contain what she knew, when she knew no more than he did? She alone stood clear of all the events of that Good Friday, with some millions of witnesses to testify to her whereabouts and her actions at the close of the evening, at least a hundred miles from the scene of the crime.

  Permission had been given for Philip’s funeral to take place, and two days after the inquest they buried him. Helen in her deep black stood by the graveside, in the heavy, reddish clay, and watched what was mortal of Philip lowered into the pit. Her face was veiled, but it would seem by the stillness of her hands, which were gripped together before her, and the composure of her slight body, that she did not weep. Bill stood beside her, his arm through hers. He was extremely pale, and looked tired and haggard, and more than his age, and his eyes followed the descent of the coffin with fascination and horror; but his composure matched Helen’s. When they turned away from the grave Helen’s enormous wreath of daffodils and tulips, all white and gold, was left shining radiantly in the mist and gloom of a dull day. Rachel watched them get into the car, just as the thin, cold rain of spring began to fall. She wondered if Helen had noticed how abruptly, during the past few days, Bill had completed his growing up.

  The inspector came to see Helen the next day. He found her in Philip’s study, assembling the mass of her husband’s works, and collecting together all the letters and documents he had accumulated in the years of his celebrity. Bill, who had been helping her to sort out this material, took himself off as soon as the inspector arrived, and went down into the garden, leaving them to talk in privacy.

  He didn’t know what was the matter with him. He wished he could feel happier about the work in hand, as Helen, he was sure, took comfort in it. There ought to be a life of Philip Greville, by all means, he ought to be remembered; more than that, his memory ought to be celebrated with ardour; only somehow, when he saw that row of rather precious novels assembled, and the small honours put together, the little prizes which so delighted Helen’s heart, the sum of it seemed so ludicrously and meanly inadequate to be Philip’s memorial. And he thought, if I were writing a book about him, I don’t think I should find it necessary to do more than mention those things; they hardly seem important enough even to go in at all. Philip was something quite different, something infinitely bigger. All the same, he was glad to see Helen occupied upon a darling project of her own, something that would keep Philip ever-present with her while she worked at it. She had grown more remote, more abstracted, more radiant and silent and still, since Philip was gone, as though she had her plans already made to go after him. Philip would have been vehement in disapproval. To him, life was for living.

  Down by the pack-bridge the wet green trees leaned over angry brown water, swollen after the heavy rain. On the banks stood the Renauds, very close together, turned a little away from each other, as he had seen them constantly since Philip’s death. They looked exactly like two swordsmen, not naturally allies but drawn together for mutual protection in a world of enemies, guarding each other’s backs from treacherous assault. But when they exchanged glances he had seen their faces stiff with concealment, and their eyes looking out as through windows in a wall, anguished with mutual hate. They had been waiting for days now to get away, only to get away, to be allowed to go where they need no longer stand together in this enforced alliance which scarified them both, where they could discard the niceties of self-preservation, and tear each other to pieces. And yet he was sure, as sure as he was of their state now, that they had come to Hugonin’s Mill tolerant of each other, rather bored and mischievous on her part, rather possessive on his, nothing worse than that. What had happened between them? That it had involved Philip he was quite sure. That one of these two had been the instrument of Philip’s death he felt in his heart. Only there was nothing to show which, and no means of proving it.

  They saw him approaching, and turned to face him with expectancy, almost with eagerness. They were waiting all the time for the words that would release them, and he might easily be the messenger.

  ‘That was the inspector again, wasn’t it?’ Gerard asked without finesse. ‘What did he want this time?’

  ‘He’s still with Aunt Helen,’ said Bill. ‘I left them to it.’

  ‘How much longer does he think he can keep us here? My business is suffering. There’s surely no need for us to stay here now – if he wants us again he could very easily find us.’

  ‘If he sees fit to take the restrictions off us,’ said Bill, ‘no doubt Helen will be glad to let you know as soon as possible.’

  ‘It will certainly be a relief to her, too,’ agreed Gerard, noting the hint of asperity in this rejoinder. ‘I suppose you’ll probably be off yourself,’ h
e went on, watching the boy with wary curiosity. ‘The money, I take it, won’t be a problem now.’

  ‘Does he really think I did it?’ thought Bill. ‘And for that reason? If he means that, then he can’t have done it himself, can he? Or is it only that, precisely because he did it himself, he finds it expedient to drop these subtle indications that he believes it was my doing? And would he bother to put on a show of that kind for me, after the way we’ve all lied the last few days, either explicitly or implicitly?’ He hesitated, wondering how to reply to the question in any case, whether it was honest or whether it wasn’t. The project had dwindled so far into the back of his mind that he found it an effort to care now whether he went or stayed; the excision of Philip from his life dwarfed everything else.

  However, he was absolved from having to make any answer. Estelle’s attention had been diverted by a movement between the shrubberies, far away up the long green vista of lawns; and where she looked Gerard instantly looked, too.

  ‘Ah, here’s Mrs Greville now. He must have left already. Whatever he had to say, it hasn’t taken him long to say it.’

  Helen came over the wet grass, slender and frail in her dress of unrelieved black, which rendered her gleaming fairness more ethereal than ever. If she had news, it did not show in her face, which was calm, serene and still. It seemed strange to Bill that she could be so unmoved by the stresses round her. She had not, it was true, the unworthy motives all the rest of the household had for wanting Philip’s death to remain an unsolved mystery; but at least she ought to have cared, one way or the other, that so many creatures of her own kind should be living precariously from day to day in fear and pain. It wasn’t like her not to care.

  ‘You needn’t have run away, Bill,’ she said. ‘The inspector stayed only a few minutes.’ She looked into Gerard’s face, and very faintly and coolly she smiled, aware of his agony of impatience. ‘He apologised, Mr Renaud, for keeping you here so long. I’m sure you understand that he was only doing his duty. But now he says that we can all consider ourselves free to move again. You may leave Hugonin’s Mill whenever you wish.’