A Dark and Stormy Night

by Jeanne M. Dams

  What a royal mess, I thought in another burst of pure American.

  I shook myself, mentally, like a dog shaking itself free of water. This mood was non-productive. What I needed was someone to talk to, and my choices were limited. I couldn’t say anything to Tom and Lynn about what Alan and I had just heard. They’re my best friends in England, but Lynn, bless her, is incapable of keeping a secret. Obviously Jim and Joyce shouldn’t know the latest developments until a good many maybes were settled into definites. Ed was with Alan, and Mike was an interesting person, but I couldn’t see him being of much help in the present situation.

  That left Pat. Plainly one of us needed to talk to her, in hypothetical terms, about the inheritance question. Plainly I would prefer doing it myself; I wasn’t wild about the idea of my husband closeted with that undeniably gorgeous – and perhaps predatory – woman.

  I went off in search of Pat.

  She was in the library, a Dorothy Sayers novel in her hands, its garish yellow and red dust jacket looking out of place in that oak-panelled repository of wisdom. She looked up as I entered.

  ‘Dickens palled?’ I asked, pointing to where Bleak House lay discarded on the table by her chair.

  She grinned. ‘I know it by heart. A gross libel on the legal profession.’

  ‘I thought a written work had to be untrue to be libellous.’

  She laughed out loud at that. ‘Touché. Not that I admit a thing, mind you.’

  ‘I prefer Sayers, whatever the truth about Dickens. Which one is that?’ I peered at the title. ‘Ah, Gaudy Night. My favourite.’

  ‘Mine, too. But I presume you didn’t come in here to discuss literature. Looking for something to pass the time?’

  ‘No, I was looking for you, actually.’

  ‘Ah. There have been developments. Or are you going to warn me off your very appealing husband?’

  ‘I might do that, if I thought there was the slightest chance he might respond to your—’

  ‘Charms? Blandishments? It’s a reflex, you know. Or protective coloration, if you will.’

  I cocked my head to one side.

  ‘You see, Dorothy – you don’t mind if I call you Dorothy? You see, in my youth I had to fight off men. Literally, sometimes. It grows tiresome. I pondered my alternatives. I could, certainly, make myself as unattractive as possible, but I was too vain to do that. Quite frankly, I enjoy the way I look.’

  ‘Yes, I can see how you might.’ My tone was as dry and chill as the wind outside.

  Pat only nodded. ‘Yes. So I simply could not wear baggy clothes from Oxfam, eschew make-up, and take to wearing sensible shoes. My alternative was to go on the offensive.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Take the initiative. Most men, you know, are afraid of a woman who pursues them. The little dears want to “make the running”, as my great-grandmother would have put it. So I started to flirt outrageously, and most of the time it scares them off.’

  ‘And when it doesn’t?’

  ‘I have a mean left hook.’

  I broke up at that. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to like this woman, but she had a sense of humour. And she liked Dorothy Sayers.

  ‘OK, truce,’ I said when we had both stopped laughing. ‘I didn’t come in to fight over Alan, anyway. I want to ask your legal opinion. Hypothetically. What if—’

  ‘Wait.’ She held up a hand. ‘Do you have any money with you?’

  ‘I might have a few pence in my pocket – yes, here’s ten pence.’

  ‘Hand it over.’

  ‘Wha–at?’

  She held out her hand and I put the coin in it.

  ‘Now you have paid me a fee, and I am officially engaged as your solicitor. That makes anything you say a privileged communication. Go ahead.’

  ‘Solicitors cost a lot less here than lawyers do in America,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I’ll have to remember that. Anyway, what if—’

  ‘Purely hypothetically, right?’

  ‘Right. What if the heir to a large estate were murdered, but no one knew about it at the time. And later the murderer inherited said estate, and in due time passed it on to his heir, his son. Time elapses – many years. The owner of the estate, the entail having been broken or dissolved or whatever, sells the place. What is the legal position of the new owners?’

  ‘Do you read crime novels a lot?’

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact. Sayers is my favourite.’

  ‘Yes, well, this hypothetical case you’ve just posed is worthy of the Golden Age – Agatha Christie at her most convoluted. Coils within coils. Are you sure there isn’t going to be a long lost heir in there somewhere?’

  ‘Not that I know of. I mean, not in this hypothesis.’

  ‘Well, the short answer to your question is, I haven’t the slightest idea how the present owners of this fictional property would stand, legally. There are too many variables. For one, how certain is the identity of the murderer?’

  ‘Not certain at all. It isn’t even certain that murder was done, though the evidence makes it extremely likely.’

  ‘Ah. Then plainly, until murder is proven against an individual, the question of the legal ownership of the property doesn’t arise, assuming all the documents related to the inheritance and the transfer of property are in order.’

  ‘I think we can assume that.’

  ‘Well, then, what are you worried about? This could take as long as Jarndyce vs Jarndyce, and Jim and Joyce could be dead before it all came to a head.’

  ‘Wait a minute – we were speaking hypothetically,’ I objected.

  ‘Sure. And “Love is a thing that can never go wrong, and I am Marie of Romania”. Don’t fret, luv. My lips are sealed with that ten pence piece.’

  I grimaced. ‘How am I going to go on resenting you when you read Sayers and quote Dorothy Parker? You are a woman of parts, Patricia Heseltine.’

  ‘Pat. My given name, believe it or not, is Patience.’

  ‘Oh, dear. I can see why . . .’

  ‘Yes. Especially as the aforementioned virtue is not prominent in my character. I suppose my mother lived in hope, but she hoped in vain. Now look, Dorothy. Let’s take the gloves off. What reason do you have for believing Laurence Upshawe’s father murdered Harry? I take it there’s good reason to believe it really is Harry under that tree?’

  ‘Very good reason. Laurence found—’

  Again she held up her hand. ‘I don’t want to know. I’ll take your word for it. But what makes Alan think the senior Upshawe killed the little rotter?’

  ‘Was he?’ I asked. ‘A rotter, I mean? I got the impression he wasn’t a very likeable person, certainly, but that bad?’

  ‘From what I hear. And I hear most things that circulate in the village. I never knew him, obviously. He was gone – gone away, everyone thought – before I was born. But his memory lingers on – rather like the faint aroma of skunk long after the animal has vanished. If the truth were known, I understand, there are a good many folks in the village who should rightly be named Upshawe. He wasn’t liked, you know. Back in that era, a small place like this still expected a certain acknowledgement of noblesse oblige. His father had been good to his tenants and the villagers, but Harry never bothered. There were only two things about the village that interested him; the other was drinking at the White Horse.’

  ‘A wastrel, then, as the Victorians would have called him.’

  ‘Good word, that. Yes, he wasted his substance, like the original prodigal son. Unlike him, he never came back.’

  FOURTEEN

  I felt a little better after talking with Pat. It seemed that, unless or until Laurence’s father was proved to be Harry’s murderer, there was no question about the ownership of Branston Abbey. That was pretty much what we had thought, but it was nice to have it confirmed by an attorney.

  I wasn’t sure Alan would be comfortable with my telling Pat as much as I had. This business of working with Alan was tricky. He wasn’t official anymore
, and I’d never had any standing, but his policeman’s conscience was acute. When it seemed that he needed to know all I’d said to Pat, then I’d spill the beans, but until then I was working on the assumption that I was old enough to use my own judgment. One thing I would report, though. It seemed there had been a good many people with reason to dislike Harry Upshawe, perhaps to hate him. And where there is hatred, there is motive for murder. The father, perhaps, of one of the village maidens he had seduced? Or perhaps they hadn’t all been maidens. A husband or fiancé would have an equally powerful reason to wish Harry ill. Motive is the least important of the three prongs upon which criminal investigations rest. Means and opportunity are much more important, evidentially. But working in the dark of non-communication as we were, and fifty years after the fact, motive loomed larger than usual. And it was certainly good to know that others besides Upshawe senior had a motive for getting dear little Harry out of the way.

  The vicar came down for tea, briefly. He asked Rose to prepare a tray for Julie, who was, he said, now fully conscious, but prostrated by the news of her husband’s death. ‘I had to tell her,’ he said. ‘She kept on asking me where he was. She is grieving, as one would expect, but she also seems afraid, terrified, even. She refuses to tell me who or what she’s afraid of, but she keeps her door locked and won’t allow anyone but me to come near her.’

  ‘Not even Alan?’ I asked incredulously. ‘Surely a policeman . . .’

  ‘Especially not Alan,’ said the vicar with a sigh. ‘She grew nearly hysterical when I suggested she let him know what had happened.’

  ‘Will she tell you, then?’ asked Alan.

  ‘Not a word. I asked if I could pass on even what little she said yesterday, but she was adamant.’ He sighed again. ‘I have hopes that perhaps her sister might win her confidence in time.’

  ‘I wonder,’ I said. ‘They’re not on good terms. Never have been, I gather. Ah, well. When we have proper policemen here – saving your presence, my dear – maybe she can be persuaded to talk. Meanwhile, how is Laurence?’

  ‘No change.’

  Well, that was as expected, but unwelcome news anyway.

  The sky had grown overcast, then cloudy, then dark and heavy with impending rain. I had planned to go for a walk, there being nothing very useful for me to do in the house, but the lowering sky discouraged me. Alan suggested a nap, but I was too restless. ‘Later, maybe, love. I’m getting stir-crazy. I need to get out of the house, but it’s going to pour.’

  Without much enthusiasm I began another tour of the house; my knees needed the exercise. I found a long gallery that occupied much of the top floor. It had few pictures in it, but a number of mirrors, and there I encountered Mike. Clad in a sweater, tights and leg warmers, and ballet slippers, he was positioned in front of a mirror, holding the back of a chair and doing pliés.

  ‘Practising?’

  He nodded. ‘One has to, you know. Every day. The muscles have to be worked constantly.’

  ‘Do you know what Arthur Rubinstein said about practising? “If I miss one day, I know it. If I miss two, my wife knows it. If I miss three, the audience knows it.” Do you have a show coming up?’

  ‘Alas, no. But one must keep in shape. Hope on, hope ever. And besides.’ He left his improvised barre and began doing various steps in front of the mirror. ‘I have had an idea.’ A grand jeté down the long room, then another, then one of those spinning leaps that look so utterly impossible, then a tour jeté en l’aire and several fouettés brought him back at my side. ‘I have been thinking, you see,’ he went on, his breathing not even slightly laboured, ‘about how to get out of here.’

  ‘Not you, too. There is no way out of here, at least not until we get the phone and electricity service back. Then we might be able to get rescued by helicopter, or something, but until then, no. Be reasonable, Mike. Trying to get out of here cost Dave Harrison his life.’

  ‘Dave Harrison, besides being a thoroughly objectionable git, was a lump. I am not a lump. I am a danseur, not quite yet premier, but not at all bad. Did you see those jetés?’

  ‘I did. Very impressive, but what’s your point? Are you proposing to entertain us while we’re stuck here?’

  ‘I am proposing to go for help. I have been to the river, not to the south where it is wide and flooded, but to the north. It is very high, deep and swift and dangerous, but . . . it is narrow, and has not yet breached its banks. I believe I can jump it.’

  I goggled for a moment, then began to rant. ‘Are you out of your everlovin’? You just said yourself that the river’s dangerous right now. If you missed the bank and fell in, you’d be dead in seconds. I’ve seen it to the south, where it’s wider and slower, and it’s terrifying even there. Nobody could get out of that torrent alive. If you’re grandstanding, Mike, cut it out. I’m not impressed.’

  ‘My dear lady, I am unsure what “grandstanding” means, but I presume you imply that I am seeking attention. I do assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.’

  ‘Oh, for Pete’s sake, come off it. Sure you’re looking for attention, and at this point, I have to tell you it’s not becoming.’

  ‘Dorothy.’ He dropped the pose. ‘Do you really think I’d risk my life – or worse, my career, if I broke a leg or something frightful like that – for a publicity stunt? I’m the only one who could possibly go for help, and I mean to try it.’

  ‘But why? We’ll get out of here eventually, with no death-defying heroics.’

  ‘Laurence Upshawe could die without medical attention. He’s a nice chap. I’m the only one who might be able to help.’

  I simply could not speak. I had thought Mike a facile, shallow, if amusing, poseur. Now he was prepared to risk everything for someone he barely knew.

  I moistened my lips. ‘You’re not planning on doing it now, are you? We’re going to have a storm.’

  ‘That is precisely why I need to do it now. If we get more rain, the river will rise still more and might flood to the north, too. It’s very near it now. I was just warming up a bit when you came in, but I fear, dear lady, I must bid you adieu. There is no time like the present. If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly. And other assorted clichés. Unfortunately I fear I shall have to wear shoes. Clumsy, but necessary. Where did I . . . ah, yes. You will excuse me, won’t you?’

  He was out of the room before I could recover. ‘Mike, wait! You can’t . . . Mike! . . . I’m coming with you!’

  But an ageing woman with artificial knees is no match for a young man, fit and trained as a dancer. By the time I found my way to the stairs and reached the front door, Mike was already loping across the front lawn toward the wood. I saw him leap several downed trees with careless grace before I turned drearily back to the house. I couldn’t catch up with him. I couldn’t deter him. That beautiful man was running with foolish gallantry to his death, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. I went upstairs to find Alan.

  He was asleep, but he woke instantly at the sound of my voice. ‘Dorothy! You’re crying! What’s happened?’

  I hadn’t known I was crying. I mopped up with the handkerchief he gave me, and said, ‘It’s Mike. He’s gone on a fool’s errand, thinking he can save the world – or us, at least. Alan, he’s going to drown, and I couldn’t lift a finger to save him!’

  Long before I finished Alan had swung his feet off the bed and slipped into his shoes, and was looking for his overcoat. ‘Where has he gone?’ he asked crisply.

  ‘To the river. Near the bridge, I suppose. He was taking off through the wood, the last I saw him. I couldn’t catch him, Alan! He can run like a deer.’

  ‘If he thinks he can swim that river, he is indeed going to drown, the bloody fool.’

  ‘He isn’t going to swim it. He’s going to jump it.’

  Alan turned on me a look of sheer astonishment, and then was out the door and racing down the stairs, calling for help as he went.

  The sky grew darker s
till, and I heard a distant menacing rumble of thunder like the tympani in the Brahms Requiem, low, inexorable, ominous. I looked out the window to watch the storm come, the tears again running unheeded down my cheeks.

  The men were all back in less than half an hour, drenched to the skin and shivering with cold – and without Mike. I went downstairs to meet them.

  The admirable Mr Bates had prepared a large pitcher of hot toddies, while upstairs Mrs Bates was lighting bedroom fires and slipping hot-water bottles into beds. Hot baths were still impossible to organize, and I worried about Alan catching cold.

  They all changed as quickly as they could. Everyone was running out of clean, dry clothes, but I had no doubt the Bateses would somehow manage to wash – and dry – whatever was needed. Downstairs again, in front of the roaring kitchen fire with hot cups in their hands, they told the story.

  ‘We never saw him,’ said Jim. ‘It had started to rain by the time we got to the river, and the visibility was pretty bad. We found the place where he jumped, though.’

  I tried to speak, to ask the question, but found I could make no sound.

  Alan took up the narrative. ‘It was only the place where the marks of his shoes were pressed deeply into the bank on this side. Or the mark of one shoe, rather. He tried a broad jump, evidently.’

  ‘A grand jeté,’ I murmured. ‘And . . . on the other side?’

  There was a silence. Then . . . ‘Nothing,’ said Alan.

  No one had any appetite for dinner. Rose had somehow contrived a pot roast. Under normal circumstances it would have smelled delicious. Now I found it nauseating.

  The rain kept up all night, drumming on the roof, as menacing as the tympani/thunder. I suppose in the end I slept.

  FIFTEEN

  ‘This is beginning,’ I said to my husband in the morning, ‘to remind me of And Then There Were None. Only they were ten, to start with, and we were thirteen. Now two of us are gone, two are in bed, one is keeping a deathbed watch. Who’s next, I wonder?’