Die All, Die Merrily

by Bruce, Leo

  There was a long silence.

  “Moreover,” went on Mr Gorringer persuasively, “you are, to use a colloquialism, in on the ground floor of this. Mr Bourne only discovered his cousin this morning. Too often, you have told me, you have been called in too late.”

  “I’ll hear this recording,” said Carolus at last. “But I may find it necessary to inform the police of its existence.”

  Mr. Bourne said he had come from Maresfield.

  “I’ll come over this evening. Maresfield? Isn’t that one of these new towns? ”

  “It is, yes. My aunt is a great believer in new towns.” Again that dry smile. “Especially when they replace antiquated and unhygienic villages.”

  “I see. Would ten o’clock be too late for you? ”

  “Not at all. My aunt never goes to bed before midnight, so you could see her after hearing the recording, if you wish.”

  Mr Gorringer was rummaging in a dark cupboard and finally drew forth a half-empty bottle.

  “Deene, my dear fellow, Mr Bourne, a glass of sherry? “There was no help for it.

  1Our Jubilee is Death by Leo Bruce The Way-ward Mortarboard or Thirty Years on the Slopes of Parnassus was the title of Mr Gorringer’s took of reminiscences.

  2

  THE Queen’s School, Newminster is, as its pupils find themselves under the necessity rather often of explaining, a public school. A minor, a small, a lesser-known one, they concede, but still in the required category. Its buildings are old, picturesque and very unhygienic, and one of its classrooms is a showpiece untouched from the Elizabethan age in which the school was founded.

  Some years before Mr Bourne’s visit to the headmaster the school had been given a little reflected fame, for its senior history master, Carolus Deene, published a successful book and did not scorn to print under his name ‘Senior History Master at the Queen’s School, Newminster’. The book was called Who Killed William Rufusf And Other Mysteries of History, and in it Mr Deene most ingeniously applied the methods of a modern detective to some of the more spectacular crimes of the past and in more than one case seemed to have found new evidence from which to draw startling conclusions.

  On the Princes in the Tower he was particularly original and perceptive and he disposed of much unreliable detail in his study of the murder of Edward II. The book was highly praised and sold a number of editions.

  “It doesn’t, unfortunately, make Deene a good disciplinarian,” said the headmaster. “His class is the noisiest rabble in the school.”

  Carolus Deene was forty years old. He had been a good, all-round athlete with a half-blue for boxing and a fine record in athletics. During the war he did violent things, always with a certain elegance for which he was famous. He jumped out of aeroplanes with a parachute and actually killed a couple of men with his Commando knife which, he supposed ingenuously, had been issued to him for that purpose.

  He was slim, dapper, rather pale and he dressed too well for a schoolmaster. He was not a good disciplinarian as the headmaster understood the word, because he simply could not be bothered with discipline, being far too interested in his subject. If there were stupid boys who did not feel this interest and preferred to sit at the back of his class and eat revolting sweets and hold whispered discussions on county cricket, then he let them, continuing to talk to the few who listened. He was popular but considered a little odd. His dressiness and passionate interest in both history and crime were his best known characteristics in the school, though among the staff his large private income was a matter for some invidious comment.

  The boys were apt to take advantage of his known interest in crime both ancient and modern. A master with a hobby-horse is easily led away from the tiresome lesson in hand into the realms of his fancy. He may or may not realize this as the end of the school period comes and he finds that he has talked for three-quarters of an hour on his favourite subject and forgotten what he was supposed to be teaching.

  Carolus Deene was very well aware of his weakness but he regarded his twin interests of crime and history as almost indistinguishable. The history of men is the history of their crimes, he said. Crippen and Richard III, Nero and the latest murderer to be given headlines in newspapers were all one to him, as his pupils delightedly discovered.

  But he could be firm as he was that evening with Priggley.

  “I’m not taking you over to Maresfield,” he said.

  “Oh, look here, sir …”

  “You have already given your opinion of the affair. ‘Corny’, you said, ‘tape-recorders, rich aunts and nephews’.”

  “It does sound pretty vieux jeu, doesn’t it? ”

  “It does.”

  “I suppose you regard that as a sort of challenge? ”

  “I’m interested.”

  “Only in turning it upside down. Why don’t you set about proving that it wasn’t Cain who murdered Abel but Adam? Or better, Eve? That would be a story.”

  “Because I think it was Cain. One lesson I’ve learnt in investigation is not to be afraid of the obvious. I shouldn’t be surprised if it’s useful in this case.”

  Priggley sighed noisily.

  “I should like to hear that recording, though. Oh, come on, sir. You wouldn’t want me to tell Mrs Stick what you’re about, would you? ”

  Mrs Stick was Carolus’s housekeeper, an inspired cook and a’ treasure’ who so disliked his criminoligical activities that if she heard of any more she might really do what she had so often threatened and leave him.

  “Blackmail will get you nowhere,” said Carolus and went out to the garage.

  Driving through the scented August evening he thought no more about the details given by Alan Bourne, but felt some distaste at the prospect of Maresfield ahead of him. It was, he knew, the latest and brightest of the new towns.’ It must be hell,’ he thought absently, too accustomed to the ugly places in which crime seemed most at home to take it seriously. Not more than a dozen years ago a sleepy village, with a pub, a church and a shop, it now had a population of twenty-five thousand.

  Twenty-five thousand what? Carolus asked the night, but like jesting Pilate did not wait for an answer. Only it seemed to him far from a jest. By the law of averages there would be nearly two thousand television aerials, one Citizens’ Advice Bureau, four children’s clinics, six supermarkets, twelve petrol-stations, miles of overhead wire, acres of posters, forests of pylons and four thousand similar if not identical houses with front gardens and back and … but this way madness lies, he thought. There had also, and not perhaps surprisingly, been suicide and possibly a murder. Whatever Maresfield was like it gave Carolus the hope, at least, of a problem such as he loved.

  He asked the way of a policeman in a doorway and found that the address he had was of a large block of flats. As he was entering this he noticed that the ground floor was partly occupied by a music and wireless shop called Hoysden’s. The flat he was seeking was on the first floor and Alan Bourne opened its door.

  “Come in,” he said.

  Carolus found an air of comfort and moderate luxury. The carpets were thick and soft underfoot and some fine old furniture was noticeable. There was central heating, a grand piano and artfully shaded lights.

  “This was the sitting-room. Richard was found in bed. Have a drink.”

  Carolus sank into a comfortable chair and lit a cigar.

  “Do you want to hear the recording at once or have the details first? ”

  “Details, please.”

  “I’ll do my best. It’s hard to know what you will find relevant. First of all, why we live in this town. Old Drum-bone, who married my aunt when he was sixty and she was in her thirties, had the manor house here and owned most of the land. It was all he had to leave her when he died just before the last war. She had been in Parliament for some years then. I scarcely knew the old man—bit of a cynic, I believe, who regarded her activities at Westminster as comedy, but seems to have been quite fond of her. There is no one left of his family that I kno
w of. He was an only child and the baronetcy died with him.

  “But she has collected round her quite a large family. You wouldn’t think it, would you? People are usually surprised after she has been making a nuisance of herself in Parliament to realize that she is devoted to all of us. Her trouble is partly her extraordinary credulity, you see. Someone comes and tells her that some colonial Governor hangs his prisoners up by the feet and she screams questions at the Colonial Secretary. Some of the newspapers play up to her and she loves her publicity. But she has strong family ties, as you’ll see.”

  “So had most of the Great Nuisances,” reflected Carolus. “Goebbels, Napoleon, Jezebel, Mrs Pankhurst, Mussolini, Salome, Queen Victoria and Agrippina for a start.”

  Alan Bourne ignored this.

  “When they decided to make a town of Maresfield my aunt was pretty shrewd. I don’t know this from her but it is thought here that she ‘attracted’ the scheme to this locality. I gather that she did not try to hold on to every inch of farmland but instead decided to develop for herself the big house and gardens which were to become the centre of the town. She formed a company and built large blocks of flats on her own property. There are four of these, all full to bursting, and she has retained the whole top floor of one for herself.

  “Now for the family. I am the oldest son of her sister, who married my father James Bourne. My parents are dead, but I have a younger sister, Olivia Romary, whose husband was killed in Burma during the war. My younger brother Keith has just had his twenty-first birthday.”

  “Do they live with your aunt? ”

  “Keith does. Olivia has a flat of her own.

  “Then Richard Hoysden was the only son of my aunt’s only brother. Richard was married but had no children. I have two, by the way. So there we are.”

  “You say that Richard’s wife had left him. Where did she go? ”

  “London. But she came down to see me yesterday, so she was in the town at the time of Richard’s death. This must be very much between ourselves, but I gathered, only gathered, mind you, that she had gone away with someone and was pretty disillusioned about it. She wanted to return to Richard.”

  “Then why didn’t she? Why come to you? ”

  “You’ll understand that better when you’ve met Pippa. She’s charming but a little on her dignity always, especially in anything to do with our family. What she feared most in the world, I always thought, was a snub from one of us. She wouldn’t return to Richard till I had spied out the land. She wanted me to go round and see Richard last night, and it’s a pity I didn’t. When I promised to go this morning she thrust her latch-key on me. I told her Richard would let me in but she said no, I might go before he was up and wild horses would not get him to the door. So that’s how I came to find him.”

  “Have you any idea who the man might be? With whom she was in London, I mean? ”

  “Well, new towns like gossip as much as old ones. There has been a story about her and a man called Rothsay. Rather mysterious character. Apparently lots of money. Runs a Mercedes. He stays at the Norfolk Hotel—that’s the huge thing they’ve made of the little Norfolk Arms, our only pub when this was a village. Yes, puts up there for a week or two every so often apparently doing nothing but phoning his bookmaker in the morning. Pippa has been seen in his car, I believe. But you can take that story for what it’s worth.”

  “So she was in the town last evening. Was Rothsay? ”

  “I can’t tell you that. She didn’t say how she had come. I presumed by train. We’re only forty-five minutes from town. Electric railway.”

  “Where is she now? ”

  “Staying with my aunt.”

  “Has she heard the recording? ”

  “Yes. They both have.”

  “Any comments? ”

  “Look here, Deene, before I try to answer that I think you ought to hear the thing. It’s pretty gruesome. You’ll understand then how they felt.”

  “No. I’d rather hear the facts first.”

  “Well, my aunt became … I can only say frozen. She did not move or speak for a time. Then she said very coldly ‘Who was it?’ I thought she was refusing to admit to herself that it was Richard’s voice. I was glad, in a way. It would have been best for her. But no. ‘Whom has he killed?’ she asked. Then Pippa grew hysterical.”

  “Has anyone else heard the recording? ”

  “Well, yes. When I put it on first I did not realize what it was. Richard’s housekeeper had arrived and heard it.”

  “Housekeeper? ”

  “Well, daily help. Char. Whatever you like. A Mrs Tuck.”

  “What did she say? ”

  “She’s a somewhat ferocious woman. Reputation for downrightness. I’ve always thought her plain rude, but I believe she is a good worker and I suppose fond of Richard and Pippa in a bad-tempered way. When it was finished she said, ‘I don’t believe it’. I was too staggered by the thing itself to answer her at the time but later I wanted to know what she meant. ‘He may have done for himself,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t put that past him. But not for anyone else.’ That’s all I could get out of her. She’s not a favourite with the family.”

  “Interesting, that,” said Carolus. “Now tell me, what do you all do? ”

  “I’m a solicitor. But not my aunt’s. She bought me a partnership in an old firm here when I came out of the Air Force in ’46.1 was born in 1920. Richard had the business downstairs, music, radio, television. It was successful and would have been more so if he’d gone all out for hire-purchase and television sets. He would rather sell a piano. He was a good violinist himself. Army during the war.

  “Keith’s at the artistic stage, though I don’t think he can quite make up his mind where his talents lie—if he has any. He’s musical. He wanted to go to RADA at one time but got over that. He tries to paint, sometimes. He writes a little—I don’t know what; he doesn’t tell me. But he’ll probably settle down to some ordinary job when he’s older. He’s young for his years.”

  “Your sister? ”

  “Olivia’s bone lazy. She doesn’t need to do anything because there’s always someone to do it for her. She’s very popular.”

  “Thanks. Now coming to this morning.”

  “Yes. I did not expect Richard to be up early, but I was rather surprised when I reached here at ten and got no reply. I opened the door with the latch-key Pippa had given me and came into this room first. I noticed nothing out of place, though of course I wasn’t looking for it then. I went to knock on Richard’s door. It occurred to me that in spite of what she had said on the previous evening Pippa might have returned. There was no answer, naturally, and after a while I opened the door. The electric light was on.”

  “Sure of that? ”

  “Yes, though he could have turned it off quite easily. There was a reading lamp beside him with a switch in the wire. All the curtains drawn close. The room was stuffy. Richard was in a curious position on the bed, as though he had been sitting up and slumped over.”

  “To which side?”

  “His right. He was right-handed. The pistol was on the floor beside him. There was a lot of blood half dried. I examined nothing closely. I was just going to phone the police when I saw the tape-recorder on the table beside his bed. It had run itself out.

  “I knew at once that nothing should be touched but I could not resist this. I wound it back and set it in motion. It was running when I heard something behind me and turned round to see Mrs Tuck, who must have come in quietly by the front door. There was no point in stopping it then and we heard it out.

  “Afterwards I decided at once what to do. I felt quite confident of Mrs Tuck. I told her something to the effect that I should keep this to myself and she nodded. ‘Give it to me,’ she said, ‘I’ll put it in my shopping-bag while the coppers are here.’ So we put the tape-recorder in her large bag and I remember thinking that this had probably hidden secrets in its time but none quite as explosive.

  “Having gone so far I
thought I might as well have a look at the pistol. I handled it with a handkerchief. Only one shot had been fired.

  “Then I called the police and I must say they were pretty quick off the mark. Within ten minutes a Detective-Sergeant and another plain-clothes man were here. Perhaps it was their first suicide since the new town was opened. They only asked me three or four questions at the time but invited me to come round later this morning and make a statement about finding the body. Meanwhile I went to my aunt’s, taking the tape-recorder which Mrs Tuck had returned to me downstairs.”

  “You’ve told me their reactions. Was there anyone else in your aunt’s flat? ”

  “Only Keith and Pippa. My aunt has two women to work in the house but they don’t come on Sundays. Normally Wilma Day, my aunt’s secretary, would be there, but she had asked for the week-end off—most unusual for her, I gathered. Pippa had got the breakfast for the three of them. When I came in my aunt and Keith were laughing about something, but Pippa looked up rather anxiously, I thought.”

  “Naturally enough, surely? She was waiting to hear what her husband had said.”

  “Perhaps. Anyway, I had to break the news. It was the worst moment of all, except the actual finding of the body. You see, each of them was fond of Richard in his own way. We all were. I got it out somehow then went and took a stiff whisky-and-soda.”

  “None for them? ”

  “My aunt’s TT. Pippa signalled ‘no’. Keith said afterwards he was feeling sick and it would have made him throw up. I felt pretty rotten myself and I knew I had to go home and tell the wife.

  “My aunt asked very few questions. In fact none of us spoke much for some time. Then, when I thought they could take another shock, I told them about the recording.”

  Carolus sat quite still watching Alan Bourne.

  “Please go on,” he said. “You’re being very lucid.”