And Dollboys was in the room. Or what was left of Dollboys. He lay flat upon his back and his eyes stared up at the blackness of his ceiling. His left arm was doubled beneath him; his right half-outstretched beside him. In the fingers of his right arm’s hand was a heavy, brown revolver. His feet pointed to the fireplace; his head towards the door against which Anthony leaned. Shapeless trousers of heavy grey tweed clothed his legs and middle, and upon his feet were thick brogues with soles of crepe rubber. But upon his torso was only an unbuttoned and rather dirty pyjama jacket of greyish flannel, and the twisting of the right leg had so dragged up the trouser that between turn-up and shoe-top there showed a white patch of naked ankle. The laces of both shoes were untied and hanging. On the left side of the scalp was a round but ragged-edged hole to the edges of which clung, sticky with blood and other matters, wisps of the sparse sandy hair. From this orifice, which had been the exit of the bullet, a few drops of blood had trickled to the floor, where they now were a dark pool, swiftly congealing. They had left behind them, across the temple, a little trail. If a man knelt down beside this deadness, so that he might see the right ear of it, there was no further to seek for the place of the bullet’s entrance. Anthony, thirty minutes ago, had so knelt. Now, as he leant against the door, his eyes went to and from the sprawled body to this and that within the room. They saw, first, the hole of the bullet in the far wall, a hole whose height showed that Dollboys could not have been standing for the shot. They stayed upon this hole for awhile, but their owner did not move. And then, finished with the bullet, the eyes sent their quick frowning glance this way and that. Not long did that glance rest anywhere until, upon its fourth journey to the table, it suddenly widened; became a fixed stare.
He leant back against the door no longer. He jerked his long body upright and crossed to the table in three strides, the second of which took him over the body of the table’s owner.
He stood before the table and stared down for a long moment at its breakfast furnishings and their arrangement. The tenseness of his stance, the gleam in his eyes, unsubdued because of his solitude, showed an interest developing into excitement. He swung away from the table. He went down upon one knee by the still body. His hands moved about it, exploring. They pried into pockets; they lifted each a dead hand …
He was sitting upon a corner of the table, his pipe-smoke blue in the room’s chill air, when, heralded by trampings, there came into the room a thick-set Inspector of Police, behind him the burly roundness of Constable Murch.
Anthony got to his feet. He nodded to the Inspector and gave Murch a smile.
The Inspector neither smiled nor nodded. His small eyes, of a cold grey, were fierce and yet deprecating. He spoke from behind a clipped moustache which seemed perpetually to bristle with fury. He said:
‘You’re the gentleman who lent the car.’
From his tone, it was difficult to classify this remark; it was neither question nor accusation nor plain statement. Anthony nodded.
The hairs of the Inspector’s moustache seemed to be reaching out. ‘You arrived in the car,’ he said, with a sort of dead briskness, ‘and found this officer’—he jerked a spatulate thumb at Murch behind him—‘and loaned him the car.’
Anthony nodded. His eyes, apparently full of a mild curiosity, met the fierce grey ones.
The Inspector found himself, inexplicably, to be blushing. His tone grew undisguisedly savage. He said:
‘Who was that driving the car?’
‘A friend of mine,’ said Anthony. His tone was mild as his gaze.
The Inspector grunted. He jerked his thumb again, this time to indicate the hall from which just now he had come.
‘Who’s that out here with the woman?’
‘A friend of mine,’ said Anthony.
The Inspector’s eyes were now frankly angry. He said, his lips twisting beneath the bristling moustache:
‘And that other in the car; the one we picked up at Farrow? Who’s he? Another?’
‘Friend of mine?’ said Anthony. ‘Quite.’
The Inspector came a step nearer, so that the still thing on the floor was now within a few inches of his boots. But he did not look down at it; as yet he had scarcely glanced towards it. He kept his gaze fixed upon Anthony. He said:
‘Lot of friends, haven’t you?’
Anthony took his pipe from his mouth. ‘I’m so popular!’ he said. He kept his eyes, still mildly curious, gazing into the Inspector’s; but he pointed downwards, with his pipe-stem, at the body asprawl between them upon the brick floor. ‘Better have a look at him, hadn’t you? Must know my face by this time. I shan’t be in the way here, shall I?’ He sat down again upon the table’s corner.
The Inspector opened his mouth as if to speak; visibly changed his mind; snapped his jaws together with a click of strong teeth. He unbuttoned a tunic pocket and pulled out his notebook. His final glared seemed to say ‘More for you later!’ He stepped back from the body and for the first time really surveyed it.
He revealed himself, while Anthony smoked and watched, as an officer of thoroughness and capability. In the notebook he made a firm, capable sketch or two; entered details of the essential measurements, which he had taken with swift accuracy, necessary to establish the body’s exact position; asked crisp questions, further to those he had already asked upon the journey, of Constable Murch, and entered condensed notes of the replies; found the bullet-hole in the far wall and from it probed the little lump of flattened lead; examined, without in any way disturbing the body, the two wounds of the bullet’s entry and departure; and finally, after examining the body’s odd-lot of clothing stood, silent, looking down at it in faint puzzlement.
Anthony spoke. ‘Seems odd at first, doesn’t it?’
The Inspector started as if something had stung him. He glared. But he said:
‘Mean the clothes? Why “at first”?’ He switched his glare from Anthony to the heap that had been Dollboys; he gazed down at it, from over the bristling moustache, as if in a moment he would order it to rise and explain its trappings.
There came, breaking the silence, the sound of feet marching down the passage from the hall. Constable Murch opened the door some twelve inches; peered round it; flung it wide; said to his superior:
‘Doctor Cave, sir.’
There came in a stumpy, bustling little man in a grey, square-topped bowler. His face was round and red, with a roundness and redness far exceeding Mr Murch’s. He was clean-shaven and also, when he took off the square hat and flung it to a chair, completely bald. But he gave, by reason of a pair of shaggy eyebrows, an impression of general hairiness. He grunted pleasantly at Murch; shot Anthony a quick look from beneath the forests and nodded to the Inspector. He said:
‘Mornin’, Rawlins. What’s all this? Dollboys done himself in?’ He marched straight to the body and stood, hands on hips, looking down at it.
The Inspector, Anthony saw, stiffened a little. He plainly was inclined to resent Dr Cave and Dr Cave’s ways but, also plainly, was determined not to show this any more than he might. He said:
‘Good morning, Doctor … Yes, it’s a suicide; though what he wanted to do away with himself for’s beyond me. Always heard he was comfortable enough.’
The doctor was on his knees by the body now, his hands professionally busy about it. He did not look up to answer.
‘No telling!’ he grunted. ‘A close devil, he always was.’ He sat back upon stocky hams and cocked his head to one side. ‘And why, Rawlins, did he come down here to do it?’ He bent forward and pointed to the pyjama jacket and to the top of the pyjama-legs which showed just above the trouser-band. ‘Must’ve been to bed, got up, come down here an’ shot himself … P’r’aps he didn’t want to wake the old woman. By the way, who’s that young feller with her now, out there?’
The Inspector froze. ‘A friend,’ he said, ‘of this gentleman.’ He nodded towards Anthony. ‘This gentleman, and it seems a whole regiment of his friends, called here this m
orning, very early, to see Dollboys. And they found Murch, here, and …’
The doctor cut him short. Still squatting, he twisted his short neck round until he looked straight at Anthony. He said:
‘Good boy, that friend o’ yours. Wonderful way with the old woman.’
The Inspector cut in. His notebook was open. He was sharply official. He said:
‘Excuse me, doctor. How long would you say life had been extinct?’ He was talking of the body, and standing almost atop of the body, but he did not look down at the body, sprawling there—an ugly shapelessness upon its own floor.
But the old doctor did. He straightened his legs, coming from his squat to his full height with the ease of an athletic boy. He looked down at the husk of Andrew Dollboys for a long moment before he spoke. He said at last:
‘That don’t matter much to him … I’d say, roughly, not less than four hours, and not more than seven.’
The Inspector made a parade of his note-taking. He shut the notebook with a snap and returned it to its pocket. He looked again at the doctor and said:
‘I can make arrangements for its removal now?’
The old man nodded his bald head. ‘Far as I’m concerned, most certainly.’
Anthony slipped off the table, stood, and stretched himself with wide-flung arms.
‘I shouldn’t touch it just yet,’ he said.
Six eyes came round to his as one. The mouth of Murch gaped. The mouth of the doctor smiled a puzzled smile. The mouth of Inspector Rawlins showed strong white teeth but did not either gape or smile. There was a silence. Anthony said:
‘No. Really I wouldn’t.’ He looked down at the thing on the floor. ‘He must stay where he is. For a bit, anyhow.’
Rawlins found his voice. It said:
‘Oh, must he? And might I ask until when?’ His harsh tones were laden with a sarcasm so close to rage as to make them thick and throaty.
Anthony nodded. ‘Certainly you may. Until I’ve had a word with someone in authority. Colonel Ravenscourt, say. Dollboys isn’t a suicide. He’s a murderee.’
The gape of Constable Murch widened ludicrously. The doctor’s smile vanished. Beneath those terrific brows his red-rimmed eyes stared at Anthony’s face. And Rawlins, after a moment in which his face grew dark with a rush of blood beneath the skin, put back his head and laughed.
His laughter went on. It shook the square thickness of him. The three watched him, Anthony mildly, the doctor in controlled bewilderment, Murch almost in horror.
Rawlins took hold of himself. His laughter ceased, but the tears of it still stood in his eyes. He said, speaking to the doctor and jerking a thumb towards Anthony:
‘He’s seen the revolver.’ The laughter showed signs of returning, but again was mastered. ‘There’s some initials scratched on the handle, and they’re not Dollboys’. They’re K.R.B. So Mister here thinks the gun’s someone else’s. But it isn’t. And I know. I know because Dollboys brought the gun in to the Station ’bout six months ago to register it, and I did the registration. He told me then he’d just bought it, second-hand.’ Again he put back his head, and again laughter came out of him. By the doorway, Constable Murch, so bewildered by unusualness that no longer was he even trying to understand the words he was hearing, gave himself up to horror at this levity in a room where a dead man, with a hole through his head, sprawled about under the very nose of the laughter. But the laughter cut off with almost uncanny abruptness. Again there came the sound of a man’s tread—now a jingling, long-striding tread—in the passage. The door, Constable Murch notwithstanding, was flung open.
The Chief Constable, in the green-collared pink of the Brunton Hounds, stood just inside the room. His quick eyes went first to the dead man, then in turn to the three who faced him. He nodded, curtly. He said:
‘Morning, Cave. Morning, Gethryn. Rawlins, what the hell were you laughing at?’
He did not wait for an answer. He took two strides and stood looking down at the body of Dollboys.
‘Poor damn fool!’ he said. ‘It’s a fool trick.’
‘To get shot?’ said Anthony. ‘By a man so close that he must’ve been unsuspected?’
Ravenscourt jerked his head round. ‘What’s that?’ he said. ‘They told me it was suicide.’
Rawlins made his endeavour. He stood very stiff at attention. He began:
‘I beg your pardon, sir. It …’
‘Shut up!’ said Ravenscourt. ‘Fire away, Gethryn.’
‘Dollboys,’ said Anthony, ‘was killed, and not by himself.’ He stood away from the table and pointed to it. ‘Look here. Here’s the order for breakfast. That’s his mother’s place, where the teapot and cups are. And here’s his place. Look at it. One fork, one large knife, one small knife. And the knives are on the left, and the fork’s on the right.’ He walked round the table and stood at the body’s feet. ‘Look there, now. He was in bed. Someone comes. He pulls on trousers over his pyjamas and jams his feet into a pair of quiet shoes, and slops down as he is. But he’s not a careful man. He’s left, as always probably, his keys in his trousers. See the key-chain, with the button-loop still over the button. And the keys are on the other end of that chain, in his left-hand pocket. And pick up his hands and look at ’em. Even to a lay eye, there’s a marked difference; once you’ve looked at ’em you’ll see the left’s much bigger … If you’re going to believe that Dollboys killed himself, you’ve got to believe (a) that he got up and half-dressed in the middle of the night and came all the way downstairs in the cold to do it, and (b) that for this, his last act upon earth, he deliberately chose to use his right hand when the easier, natural, simple, ordinary and therefore far surer way would have been to use his left, and (c) that he neither stood nor sat nor knelt to shoot himself, but squatted or bent down as if he were looking for something he’d dropped. One might believe (a) alone or (b) alone or (c) alone. But (a) plus (b) plus (c)’s too much …’
‘By Gad!’ said Ravenscourt under his breath. ‘He was left-handed.’
‘And so he was; so he was!’ The little doctor was excited. ‘And it’s me that’s the fool for not having remembered it. But I’ve had little to do with the man. But I ought to’ve seen, that I ought.’ Excitement was bringing to his speech traces of the brogue and idiom of his birth-place. ‘And where were me eyes that I didn’t get the truth of that bullet bein’ down there in the wall. It’s right; how should a man put lead through his head in such a position as that position he must have had?’
Ravenscourt said: ‘Thanks, Gethryn. You’re right. Anything more for us?’ The half-resentful curtness that he had shown at first sight of Anthony was gone.
Anthony shook his head. ‘Sorry, nothing.’
More speech burst from the doctor, still aboil with this excitement born of unusual event. ‘But I’m wanting to ask you, sir, how is it you’re sure as you are that the man was ever a-bed? The clothes of him make it seem so. But seemings mayn’t be what they seem …’
Anthony shot a glance at Ravenscourt; a swift, nearly imperceptible glance. He said to the doctor:
‘I knew he’d been in bed. I can’t …’
Ravenscourt took his cue. He said, with curtness:
‘That’ll do, now. ’Fraid we must get on with the job. Rawlins, get back to a ’phone and get Fox to come along at once. He’ll be in charge. You’ll work under him. Understand? While you’re gone this Constable stays in charge here. No one to be allowed into this room, or into the house, without permission. Cave; you’ve finished, haven’t you? Gethryn, you won’t want to stay. Right. Now get off, Rawlins. And be quick. You can use my car: tell the chauffeur. Gethryn, p’r’aps you’ll give me a lift back in yours. I was coming to see you this morning anyhow. Rawlins, when you’ve done with my car, tell Peters to bring it to The Horse and Hound in Farrow and wait.’
Rawlins was the first to go, with a stiff salute and precisely military right turn. The old doctor, his Irishness dropped from him, was next; he appeared to have for Ravensco
urt a respect tinged with affectionate awe. But before he went he insisted upon shaking hands with Anthony. He said:
‘Wondered who you were, sir, until I heard Colonel Ravenscourt use y’r name. Very proud to’ve met you!’ He bustled off in the Inspector’s wake.
Ravenscourt looked first down at Dollboys, then about the cold, bare room. He said:
‘Let’s get out of this. Nothing to do yet, and Fox is the best man I’ve got.’ He turned and made for the door. His spurs clinked, and the heels of his hunting-boots were loud on the brick floor. He said a word or two to Murch, rigid at attention, and went out into the dark passage.
Anthony followed. They came out into the hall together. And together they halted to watch. Flood and the old woman were still there; but they were not now near to each other. Mrs Dollboys had not moved from the great chair; still she was huddled, a wrinkled heap of drab clothes, in its hard embrace. But Flood was at the window beside the front door. He was standing upon a table, which tottered beneath his weight, and was reaching precariously up to touch the rod from which had parted some of the rings of the faded curtain. He was saying over a hunched shoulder:
‘This? This what’s wrong?’ He shook the loose-hanging stuff.
Ravenscourt took three steps out into the hall. At the sound of his tread, there was a swift movement in the oak chair. Out of her wizened face, looking now like that of a terror-stricken monkey, the woman stared. Anthony, too, came out into her sight. He went towards her. She cowered, her hands pressed to her face. A harsh, rattling cry burst from her.
Flood jumped down. The table which had been his support crashed to the stone floor. He crossed with rapid steps to his old position. He bent over the chair and laid a hand on her shaking shoulder. Under his touch she quietened. The hands came down from her face and clutched at him. He looked at Anthony and shook his head, which now had lost much of its sleekness. He put up one hand and smoothed back his disordered hair; with the other hand he patted the bony fingers which were gripping and kneading at his coat. He murmured, over his charge’s head:
The Noose Page 15
