A Night of Errors

by Michael Innes

  ‘Lucy, dear, that is idle and horrible talk.’

  ‘It sounds silly, doesn’t it? Nevertheless that is what I think I shall do. To – to be stained so.’

  There was something in her voice that stirred Mrs Gollifer. ‘Drive home with me,’ she said. ‘I can rouse Evans and send you back in the car. Or – or you might stop the night.’

  Lucy was silent. But she had abandoned her cards and was slowly, petal by petal, tearing and shredding a rose which she had worn in her bosom. The clock ticked. Lucy glanced down at her hands. ‘A rose is a rose,’ she said. ‘A rose is a rose is a rose.’ She looked with the faintest of smiles at Lady Dromio, who appeared alarmed at this mysterious incantation. ‘Only a poem,’ she said. And there was silence again.

  ‘It isn’t quite dark yet.’ Lady Dromio spoke matter-of-factly, as if determined that something without an inner meaning should be said. ‘And I think I have seen Sebastian in the garden. Probably he is prowling with a cigar. I shall go and take a turn with him. There is nothing like a cigar in a garden at night.’ With nervous haste, or with an odd resolution, she stepped out to the terrace and disappeared.

  Lucy looked first at Mrs Gollifer and then at the clock, which stood at ten forty-five. ‘It is funny,’ she said, ‘but there really seems nothing to say.’

  ‘Then let us not try to say anything.’ And for several minutes Mrs Gollifer was silent. ‘But there is surely something to be done.’

  ‘Is it not a little late in the day? Or do you feel that the situation is happily covered by the adage Better Late than Never?’

  ‘I said that something must be done, Lucy. I realize that, for you, the chief shock is about Oliver.’

  ‘I love him.’

  ‘I know you loved him. I think we have all already understood that.’

  ‘It is not what I said. I love him. Now.’

  Mrs Gollifer’s expression flickered; there might have been read in it a mixture of perplexity, mortification and relief. ‘Then,’ she said, ‘you can hardly feel–’

  ‘Oh, dear me, yes. Do you remember the poem which says that each man kills the thing he loves? In certain circumstances it is likely to be true.’

  But now Mrs Gollifer was looking at the younger woman with dilated eyes. ‘Lucy,’ she cried, ‘was Oliver…all the time…encouraging you?’

  Lucy’s lips moved; she seemed to be seeking a precise form of words. ‘The phrase, I fear,’ she said, ‘is inadequate to the specific nature of what has occurred.’

  Mrs Gollifer seemed to take unnaturally long to elucidate this grotesque little speech. When she did so, however, she began to weep.

  ‘How does it go?’ And Lucy let the shreds of the last rose petal fall. ‘Some kill their love when they are young, and some when they are old; some strangle with the hands of Lust, some with the hands of Gold. Well, that’s very appropriate. My love has been strangled with the hands of Gold, exactly.’

  ‘We have had more than enough.’ Mrs Gollifer controlled her weeping and rose. ‘Tomorrow, perhaps, we shall be of a better mind. And now I am going. Don’t stir. I shall go up for my cloak and then find my car. Kate will understand.’ And Mrs Gollifer left the room.

  For a long time Lucy Dromio sat quite still, her hands limp on a table where lay the ruined rose. Then she got up and went to the window. The summer night had fallen. For minutes longer she stared into it, motionless and absorbed. She shivered. Very silently, she slipped into the garden and vanished.

  ‘Look here, what’s all this?’

  Sebastian Dromio strode into the drawing-room where his sister-in-law and Lucy were sitting. His entrance had rather the effect of the knocking on the gate in Macbeth. A spell painfully broke itself. Lucy picked up her patience cards and shuffled them. Lady Dromio looked about her for her embroidery.

  ‘But, Sebastian, what are you speaking of? And is half past eleven a companionable hour at which to join us?’

  ‘Companionable hour be damned. You don’t look companionable, either of you, if it comes to that. And there’s something uncanny about this house tonight. I don’t like it.’ As he spoke to his sister-in-law thus, Sebastian cast at Lucy a considering and almost fearful glance.

  ‘Old houses do sometimes get like that. Or any large building, for that matter. Lucy will tell you that I have been reading a most unusual novel about a big–’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense!’ Sebastian gave short shrift to this dive of Lady Dromio’s towards her old refuge. ‘Either of you been outside?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘We have both of us been outside at one time or another. The night is mild.’

  ‘No doubt.’ Sebastian took an irresolute pace about the room. ‘Look here, there’s something queer going on. And I knew there would be as soon as Oliver behaved in that deuced queer way this morning.’

  ‘As soon as what?’ Lucy had sprung to her feet. ‘Uncle Sebastian, whatever are you saying?’

  ‘Good heavens!’ Sebastian swung round upon his sister-in-law. ‘Haven’t you told the girl?’ He crossed to the window and appeared to be listening uneasily. ‘Secrets all the time! And where’s Mary Gollifer?’

  ‘Sebastian,’ Lady Dromio explained, ‘says that he thought he saw Oliver in London this morning. I didn’t mention it. We – we seemed to have enough on hand.’

  ‘I see.’ Lucy too appeared now to be listening. ‘And did you tell–’ She hesitated.

  ‘Mary? No, I did not.’

  ‘Well, where’s the woman got to?’ And Sebastian peered round the drawing-room much as if Mrs Gollifer might be crouching behind a sofa.

  ‘She left nearly three-quarters of an hour ago.’ Lucy was gathering her cards together and putting them away in their box. ‘It was when mama was in the garden, so she went without saying goodbye.’

  ‘Three-quarters of an hour ago? Sebastian snorted nervously. ‘Lucy, you must be dreaming. I saw the woman within the last ten minutes.’

  Lucy’s eyes rounded. ‘But I heard her car!’

  ‘Well, she was down in the garden. I couldn’t think what I had stumbled on. Some blubbering old hag.’

  ‘How dare you!’ And Lucy turned upon her uncle, inexplicably flushed and quivering. ‘Mrs Gollifer is mama’s friend. Only a horrible old Edwardian bounder would speak of her in that pot-house way. And that’s what you are.’

  ‘Lucy dear!’ Lady Dromio was very pale. ‘Perhaps Mary was taken ill and came back. And then perhaps she was – was reluctant to return to the house.’

  ‘She looked ill enough.’ Sebastian, who had unexpectedly winced beneath Lucy’s reproaches, now nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders. ‘But that’s not all. I met Swindle some time back and he looked ill too. He looked like something out of a coffin. And when he saw me he bolted. Did you ever see Swindle bolt? It’s out of nature.’

  Lady Dromio opened the window. ‘I shall go and look for Mary, though I hardly believe that what you say can be true. And I advise both of you to go to bed, and to practise more moderate language in the morning.’ And Lady Dromio lifted her chin and glanced from one to the other. The woman thus momentarily revealed had not entirely the appearance of one made to live a fantasy life in dream-hotels. ‘Good night.’

  But Sebastian had stepped to the window too. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘for heaven’s sake let’s keep civil tongues. And I’m coming with you. There’s something queer outside this house as well as in. Not long before I saw Mrs Gollifer I saw–’ He hesitated and glanced swiftly at Lucy. ‘I saw a fellow skulking in the laurels. And he appeared to me to be carrying something damned like a bludgeon.’

  Lucy too was at the window. ‘Is that why you went and got a revolver?’

  ‘What the devil do you mean?’

  ‘I can see the shape of it in the pocket of your dinner-jacket.’

  ‘Well, yes it is.’ Somewhat shamefacedly, Sebastian produced the weapon. ‘Didn’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, you know.’

  Lady Dromio was on the terrace. ‘If Mary is being dogged by a m
an with a bludgeon,’ she said, ‘there is some cause to be alarmed. Sebastian, you may come with me. But put that thing back in your pocket.’

  Sebastian did as he was bid. ‘Look here, Kate, you two had better stay behind. It’s not chilly, but there’s no sense–’

  Lady Dromio, however, had gone. They followed her. The air was stifling and still; frogs could be heard croaking very far away; and from farther yet, with an effect of inconceivable distance, a train whistled in the night. To the west heavy clouds were banked, but overhead the stars were clear. They moved down into the garden and behind them the house stood silhouetted in moonlight. The lawn where Lady Dromio had entertained Mr Greengrave that afternoon gleamed like a pale velvet; across it sprawled the distorted shadows of two stone hippogriffs pedestalled high in air – a pomp with which some long-dead Dromio had thought to embellish a large formal garden which had never been brought to completion. The creatures stood with wings outspread and a raised and threatening paw; the shadows seemed crouched and waiting to strike a premeditated blow.

  ‘It was here I saw her.’ Sebastian Dromio, peering apprehensively about him, tapped a stone seat which commanded a view of the terrace now at some little remove above. ‘What about giving a shout?’

  ‘Not yet.’ His sister-in-law, although anxious for her friend, was reluctant to make the night hideous with clamour. ‘If we look in the courtyard and the avenue for her car–’

  ‘Mama, isn’t there something funny about the house?’

  They turned round, startled by the perplexity in Lucy’s voice. Then Sebastian spoke impatiently. ‘Funny? I don’t notice anything funny about it. Dash it all, one can’t see much more than the outline of it.’

  ‘That’s so. But–’

  Lucy’s sentence was left unfinished – interrupted by the sound of a car door violently slammed somewhere round the side of the house. This was followed by the roar of a powerful engine starting into life, and then by a series of rapid crescendos as gear after gear was engaged in a swift acceleration.

  ‘Well, I’m blessed!’ cried Sebastian. ‘Somebody going hell for leather down the drive – and without switching any lights on, either. Look, there he goes.’ For a second it had been just possible to distinguish a dark, hurtling object beyond the line of elms that ran from Sherris to the highroad. ‘Whoever is in that is asking for a broken neck. Surely your Mrs Gollifer wouldn’t be so crazy.’

  Slowly the uproar died away – and as it ebbed it seemed to drain from the three people standing on the lawn any reserve of nervous calm they had left. Lucy shivered. ‘Nobody,’ she whispered, ‘would drive away like that except from – from something horrible.’

  Sebastian Dromio took a handkerchief from his pocket and with trembling hand wiped his mouth. He was an old man and physical fear had suddenly gripped him. ‘Better get up the servants,’ he mumbled. ‘Better–’

  ‘But what is this about?’ Lady Dromio’s voice was a pitch higher than usual. ‘Why are we behaving in this way? We’ve seen a car–’

  ‘And there’s something funny about the house.’ Lucy had turned and was again staring at the silhouette of Sherris Hall. ‘The chimneys!’ she cried.

  ‘Lucy, whatever do you mean?’

  ‘We can’t see the kitchens from here, or the furnace. But there are two chimneys smoking, and there should be only one.’

  It was true that two trails of smoke, one small and the other larger, were rising straight into the sky, clear against the moonlight.

  Sebastian snorted. ‘Chimneys!’ he said. ‘Who the deuce cares whether there’s smoke from every chimney in the house.’

  ‘I do. No smoke without fire.’

  ‘Fire?’ Lady Dromio’s voice rose still further.

  ‘There ought to be only one – Swindle’s. Nobody else would dream of lighting a fire on a night like this. And it must be a big fire to make all that smoke.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Lady Dromio was driven to a panic denial of the evidence of her senses. ‘Nobody could light a fire at this hour. I don’t believe there is a single fire laid in the house.’

  ‘But there is – in the study. Oliver has come home.’

  There was a moment’s silence. Startlingly it was broken by a new voice – no human voice, but a nightingale’s, piercing and full from a moonlit cedar beyond the lawn. They stood transfixed and the song rolled over them in burst upon burst of triumph and agony.

  ‘Oliver has come home.’ Lucy repeated the words almost in a whisper. Then her voice rose wildly. ‘And sang within the bloody wood–’

  ‘Lucy, be quiet!’ Lady Dromio turned upon her adopted daughter, her face blanched and ghastly in the moonlight.

  ‘While Agamemnon cried aloud–’

  From the house came voices, calling, and the sound of someone running along the terrace. Again the passionate song came from the cedar. They were hurrying, all three, between tall hedges, past the menacing hippogriffs, up a flight of stone steps. And to meet them came Swindle, grotesque in carpet slippers. His face was convulsed and twitching; his mouth hung open; he made as if to work it and only a horrible slobbering sound came. Sebastian grasped him and shook him roughly. ‘What the–’

  And Swindle found his voice. ‘Your ladyship,’ he cried, ‘your ladyship – it’s Sir Oliver! He’s dead, your ladyship – burnt to death in his study.’

  They looked at each other fearfully and in a sick silence. Unheeding, the nightingale sang out its ecstasy beyond the lawn.

  5

  ‘Would you care to come and look at something?’ said the voice.

  Appleby glanced at the clock. ‘My dear man, it’s nearly midnight.’

  ‘Quite so. But that’s when these things are apt to happen. Of course’ – and the voice took on the faint irony of the bachelor–’ if your wife–’

  ‘Judith’s away visiting her people at Long Dream. When what things are apt to happen?’

  ‘Murder.’ The voice spoke in plain triumph. ‘Murder most foul, as at the best it is–’

  ‘Good heavens, Hyland, don’t tell me you’ve taken to Shakespeare.’

  ‘Well, haven’t you taken to bees? The force must keep its cultural end up, you know. But this most foul, strange and unnatural.’

  ‘Why unnatural?’

  ‘Look here,’ said the voice most unfairly, ‘you’re simply wasting time. Will you come? It’s a baronet.’

  ‘No, no, Hyland – it won’t do. I’ve had my fill of murdered baronets – and especially at midnight, as you say. The annals of the Yard are glutted with them. It was hard at times to believe that any could be left alive in England. For you must add, you know, all those we were obliged to hang… Who is it?’

  ‘Sir Oliver Dromio – quite one of our local big-wigs. And a beautiful murder. Hit on the head – they think perhaps with the butt-end of a revolver – and then burnt to a cinder in his own fireplace.’

  ‘Rubbish. Burning to a cinder takes more than that. When I was looking into the burning of old Gaffer Odgers back in–’

  ‘To be sure – one of your most famous cases.’ The voice over the telephone was momentarily deferential. ‘But, you know, since you came to settle in these parts I’ve always hoped we might have something to show you one day. And here it is! Of course I can’t promise, but I do think it may be interesting. I’ve heard some queer things about these Dromios. Why, in this office there’s record of an investigation we thought it necessary to make into them about forty years ago.’

  Appleby laughed. ‘And endorsed “How will it be with them forty years on?” Well, the answer’s a cinder. I’ll come.’

  ‘Good. I suppose Mrs Appleby took your car?’

  ‘No, she didn’t. Billy Bidewell came over for her with Spot.’

  ‘Then that’s capital. I’ll meet you at Sherris Hall. You must have noticed it? Big place rather falling to bits. I’d better get along there myself now. I’ve only had a telephone report so far.’

  ‘All right, Hyland – and thank you very muc
h. But I rather think you’ll find more than a few calcined bones.’

  ‘Possibly so. But that’s all they found forty years ago. It’s always stuck in my mind, that. I rather see this’ – the voice was again full of gusto and excitement – ‘as a grim crime of retribution.’

  ‘As what?’

  But Inspector Hyland of the Sherris Magna police had rung off.

  Appleby smiled as he hung up the receiver. A thoroughgoing fellow, this Hyland, and evidently resolved to begin at the beginning. Few crimes have their roots a couple of generations back. But a murderer would get a good start if, for a romantic police officer, he contrived to give his crime so cobwebby a décor…

  And Appleby quieted the dogs and got out the car. As one grows older one’s pleasures become less sophisticated, and he was fond of the smooth power locked up in the big yellow Bentley. It had bound itself up with his career; more than ten years ago it had taken him to his first big case – that queer, rather creaking case at St Anthony’s College; the Commissioner had acted with the amiability of the truly great when he arranged that it should be sold to him shortly after his retirement. Routine had improved his technique since then, but it had also dulled his faculties; where was the sparkle now of those first clear runnings of detective investigation? He had done well to retire upon his marriage. And now here he was poking out his head again.

  The Bentley purred through the night. It would take more than ten years to rob that engine of its sparkle. The moon was riding high. The road was a white ribbon. The night air was close but obscurely stimulating. ‘I am old, I am old,’ sang Appleby, ‘I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled…’ Yes, one grows old; one’s tags and quotations begin to date; it is very sad. ‘Agnosco,’ Appleby chanted, ‘–agnosco veteris vestigia flammae.’ The delicious and mellow melancholy of early middle age possessed him. An owl hooted and he hooted back. He could not have comported himself so when driving down to St Anthony’s to survey the remains of Dr Umpleby.

  The road curved and as Appleby swung the wheel he noticed a car ahead, drawn into the hedge. He slackened speed and then his eye caught something which made him pull up hard, abruptly attentive as any constable on a beat. He got out and walked back. The car was an ancient tourer with its hood let down. And a man was slumped across the wheel.