Georgette Heyer

by Why Shoot a Butler?

  ‘Yes?’ said Amberley. ‘You mean Mark Brown falling into the river? Apparently half the village expected something of the sort to happen.’

  ‘But you were having him followed, weren’t you?’

  ‘I was. Not quite closely enough, as it turned out.’

  Fountain looked curiously at him. ‘Well, now that the poor chap’s dead I do wish you’d tell me why you wanted him watched. I never could understand that. Did you think he had anything to do with Dawson’s murder?’

  ‘When a man – even a drunken man – forces his way into a strange house and lets off a gun I always think it wise to keep an eye on him,’ said Amberley.

  ‘I see.’ Fountain laughed a little. ‘I wondered whether you’d hit on some dark plot!’ He became grave again and said: ‘Look here, what I really came round for was to ask you about Collins’ share in the business. The fellow is naturally a bit worried, because he’s got it into his head the police suspect him of having pushed Brown in.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so!’ Amberley replied.

  ‘Well, I’m glad of that, for the idea’s absurd. Why should he push the boy in? He tells me that he went in after him to get him out. I suppose that’s true?’

  ‘I wasn’t there,’ said Amberley. ‘It looked true enough – at face value.’

  Fountain knit his brows. ‘I wish you’d be open with me,’ he said, a touch of annoyance in his voice. ‘Collins is in my employment, and I think I’ve a right to know. Hang it all, first my butler’s shot, and then my valet is suspected of having pushed a complete stranger into the river. Isn’t it true that he tried to rescue him? Of course, I know you never can believe all servants say, but he’d hardly make up such a tale, would he?’

  ‘Hardly,’ said Amberley. ‘No one denies that he brought the body to land and applied artificial respiration.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it,’ said Fountain with relief. ‘I’ve had quite enough mysterious crimes to do with my household, I can tell you. It’s damned unpleasant. The next thing I shall know is that the whole staff will leave in a body. What gave Collins the idea that the police suspected him? It seems to me so silly. He can’t possibly have had any motive for killing Brown, can he?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge,’ Amberley replied. ‘Possibly the police felt that his presence on the scene was insufficiently explained.’

  This aspect of the case did not seem to have occurred to Fountain. He said: ‘Yes, now I come to think of it, why was he there? I forgot to ask him that.’

  Amberley recounted, without comment, Collins’ story. Fountain listened to it with a frown in his eyes and remarked at the end that it sounded so futile that it was probably true. He was not surprised the police thought it fishy. ‘Personally,’ he said, ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if there was more to it. You know what servants are. Always keeping something back. Not that I think there was anything between him and Brown. What I do think is that he probably fell foul of Brown at the Blue Dragon one night and doesn’t like to say so. And when Brown came up to the manor to do him in, he got the wind up and set about making his peace with the fellow.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Amberley thoughtfully. ‘Not a bad solution.’

  Fountain looked pleased. ‘Well, it seems more likely to me,’ he said. ‘But why the police should think he pushed Brown in, when they found him pulling him out, is more than I can fathom.’

  Amberley regarded his fingernails. ‘Well,’ he said slowly, ‘a man might do both, you know. If he was clever enough to think of it.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Fountain in a blank voice. ‘What a singularly ghastly idea! No, really, Amberley, that’s too much! Upon my soul, you’re enough to make one’s blood run cold!’

  Amberley raised his brows. ‘Sorry to offend your susceptibilities. But that’s undoubtedly how I should have planned the affair.’

  ‘Perfectly horrible!’ said Fountain. He glanced at the clock. ‘I’d better be off. What’s happening to the sister, by the way? Joan says there is one. Pretty awful for the poor girl.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Amberley. ‘At the moment she’s staying here. My aunt fetched her last night.’

  ‘What a good soul Lady Matthews is!’ said Fountain. ‘I call that being a real Samaritan. I suppose she’ll have to stay till after the inquest, will she?’

  ‘She can’t go back to London till then. My aunt would like to keep her here, but unfortunately she won’t stay. An independent female. We shall see you all at dinner tonight, shan’t we?’

  ‘Yes, rather. Looking forward to it very much,’ said Fountain, and took his leave.

  Ten

  I t was Mr Amberley who booked a room for Shirley at the Boar’s Head, and it was Mr Amberley who volunteered to transport her there. She was fighting very shy of him and would have preferred the services of Ludlow, but in the presence of Lady Matthews and Felicity she could hardly say so outright. She had arrived at a very fair estimate of Mr Amberley’s character, and she felt that a delicate hint would have no effect on him at all.

  She was persuaded to lunch at Greythorne and left immediately afterwards. When she thanked Lady Matthews for her kindness she seemed to Amberley like a transformed creature. He heard warmth in her voice for the first time, and saw her fine eyes bright with unshed tears.

  But when she got into the car beside him up went her barriers again, and she answered him in her usual monosyllabic style.

  It pleased him to make idle conversation, such conversation as he might make to a casual acquaintance. She was rather at a loss, but suspicious, which amused him.

  He drove her first to the cottage, so that she could collect her belongings. Mark’s possessions would have to be packed up later; at present she shrank from the task.

  She had supposed that Amberley would wait for her in the car, but he came up to the cottage with her and told her to go and pack her trunk while he tidied things downstairs. She blinked at him; in this domestic role he seemed like a stranger.

  Since she had left the cottage at a moment’s notice there was a good deal to be done; she was upstairs for nearly half an hour, and when she came down she found that Amberley had been as good as his word. There was very little for her to do either in the living room or the kitchen. He had even cleared the larder by the simple expedient of casting all the perishable foodstuffs in it over the hedge into the field beyond, where a party of white ducks was rapidly disposing of them.

  Shirley put the chain up on the back door, shot the bolts home and turned the key in the lock. Mr Amberley went upstairs to fetch her trunk and bore it out to the car. Shirley took a last look round and came out, locking the front door behind her. She joined Amberley in the car. He started the engine and began to back down the lane to the main road. Suddenly he stopped and said: ‘Damn!’

  ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  He began to feel in his pockets. ‘I believe I’ve left my pouch in the cottage. Yes, I must have.’

  She prepared to get out. ‘Where did you leave it?’

  ‘Not quite sure. No, don’t you bother; I’ll get it. It’s probably in the kitchen. I lit a pipe there. Let me have the key, will you? I won’t be a minute.’

  She opened her bag and gave him the front-door key. He went off with it up the garden path and let himself into the house.

  He walked quickly through into the kitchen and to the back door. He slid the bolt back softly, took the chain off and put the key, which Shirley had left in the door, into his pocket. Then he went back to the car.

  ‘Did you find it?’ asked Shirley.

  He gave her back the front-door key. ‘Yes, on the kitchen table. Sorry to have kept you.’

  When he had deposited her at the Boar’s Head he drove on to the police station but found that the sergeant was off duty. The same young constable who had received him when he brought the news of Dawson’s murder said that he had no idea where the sergeant might be, but he could take a message. Mr Amberley eyed him meditatively and said, after apparently profound c
onsideration: ‘I don’t think so. Thanks very much all the same.’

  The young constable informed a colleague two minutes later that that Amberley chap fair got his goat.

  When he got back to Greythorne Mr Amberley put through a telephone call. Felicity came into the library in time to hear him say: ‘And let me know at once. Got that? Right. That’s all.’

  ‘Sweet telephone manners,’ remarked Felicity. ‘Who were you ringing up so politely, if I may ask?’

  ‘Only my man,’ said Amberley.

  The dinner party, which Lady Matthews thought would be rather stuffy, passed off well, and to Sir Humphrey’s satisfaction no one stayed very late. Sir Humphrey, like Mr Woodhouse, was firmly of the opinion that ‘the sooner every party breaks up the better.’ When he had seen the last guest off the premises he said that that was done, anyway, and prepared to go up to bed. His nephew detained him for a moment. ‘By the way, Uncle, don’t be surprised if you hear a car. I rather think I shall have to go out. I thought I’d better warn you. If you hear stealthy footsteps in the small hours it won’t be a burglar, but me.’

  ‘Going out?’ said Sir Humphrey, astonished. ‘At this hour? In the name of all that’s unreasonable, why?’

  ‘No, not at this hour. Later,’ said Frank imperturbably. ‘I’m expecting a telephone call first. I shall go when I’ve taken it. Don’t let it distress you, sir.’

  ‘It distresses me very much to see you making such a fool of yourself,’ said Sir Humphrey austerely. ‘No, you needn’t tell me. I am well aware that you are going on police business, and I should have a better opinion of you if you ceased to meddle in matters that don’t in the least concern you.’ He followed his wife to the door and turned back when he reached it to add: ‘And don’t step on the fifth stair when you come in, unless you wish to wake us all up.’

  ‘Not the fifth, dear. The fourth,’ corrected Lady Matthews.

  ‘I won’t step on either,’ promised Amberley.

  Left alone downstairs he wandered into the library and went over to the bookshelves to choose some suitable literature. He presently retired to the chair by the desk armed with Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, and sat reading for over an hour, the telephone at his elbow. Occasionally he glanced at his wrist watch and as the time wore on, he frowned.

  Shortly after midnight the telephone bell rang shrilly. Amberley lifted the receiver off the hook and said: ‘Hullo?’

  The conversation was a very short one and confined on Amberley’s part to three words only. He listened to what the voice at the other end had to say, replied: ‘All right. Thanks,’ and hung up the receiver. Then he consulted his pocketbook and rang up a number in Upper Nettlefold. After a prolonged wait the man at the exchange informed him that there was no answer. Mr Amberley suggested gently that the exchange could try again. There was another pause, then a slightly testy and very sleepy voice said. ‘’Ullo!’ with undue emphasis.

  Mr Amberley grinned. ‘Good evening, Sergeant. How are you?’

  The voice lost its testiness. ‘Is that you, Mr Amberley? What is it, sir?’

  ‘I just rang up to know whether you were asleep,’ said Mr Amberley.

  The voice became charged with indignation. ‘Look here, sir – !’

  ‘And if you were, to wake you up. Are you asleep, Sergeant?’

  ‘No, sir, I am not – thanks to you! And if this is one of your little jokes…’

  ‘Are you feeling fit, Sergeant? Full of energy and enthusiasm?’

  There was a sound of heavy breathing. ‘One of these days,’ said the voice with emotion, ‘something’ll happen to you, sir.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope so anyway,’ said Mr Amberley.

  ‘I do,’ said the voice grimly. ‘Keeping me standing here in my nightshirt while you ask me silly conundrums!’

  ‘I don’t want to keep you in your nightshirt,’ said Mr Amberley. ‘I feel sure I should hate you in it. Go and dress.’

  ‘Go and… Here, sir, what’s this all about? What have I got to dress for?’

  ‘Decency,’ said Mr Amberley. ‘I’m coming to fetch you for a little run in my car. I shall be round in about fifteen minutes. So long!’

  A quarter of an hour later he picked the sergeant up outside his house and drove him away through the town to Ivy Cottage. The sergeant was in a state of high expectation and demanded instantly to know what they were going to do. Mr Amberley said that they were going to collect a little evidence. ‘I rather think, Sergeant, that you will watch a man break into Ivy Cottage.’

  ‘Will I?’ said the sergeant. ‘If I was to see anything like that I wouldn’t waste time goggling at it, sir. I’d arrest him.’

  ‘When we make an arrest it’s going to be on a charge of murder, not of housebreaking,’ said Amberley briefly.

  He ran the car up the lane about a hundred yards past Ivy Cottage, rounding the next bend, and there switched off all his lights. The sergeant had not known that Shirley Brown had moved to the Boar’s Head until Amberley told him. He wanted to know whether she had given Amberley the key, and when Amberley replied that he had taken it without her knowledge, he said uneasily that he hoped he was not going to get into trouble over this.

  The cottage was very silent, lit dimly by the moonlight that came in through the uncurtained windows. Amberley told the sergeant to close the kitchen shutters and went off himself to draw the curtains in the other rooms.

  ‘I see,’ said the sergeant brightly. ‘Make it look as though the young lady was still here. Then what do we do?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in a minute,’ Amberley promised.

  When he had made his tour of the cottage he rejoined the sergeant in the kitchen and set his torch on the table. ‘Now, Sergeant, if you’ll attend to me for a minute,’ he said. ‘With any luck you may be able to make that arrest you’re so keen about. What I want you to do is to go upstairs and get into bed. If you hear anyone coming up the stairs, pull the clothes well over you. I rather think we’re going to have a visitor.’

  ‘Is that all I’ve got to do?’ said the sergeant. ‘Because if it is I’d as soon be in my own bed.’

  ‘Not at all, Sergeant. You’re going to play the part of the dummy. If our visitor tries to suffocate you or chloroform you, collar him.’

  ‘I will,’ said the sergeant with feeling. ‘Do you mean to tell me that Albert Collins is going to do in the young lady?’

  ‘No, I do not,’ replied Amberley. ‘No one is going to do her in if I can help it.’ He held his wrist in the beam of torchlight and looked at his watch. ‘To be on the safe side you’d better go up now. Don’t make any mistake, will you? Unless he attempts to murder you keep quiet, but try to get a look at him.’

  The sergeant prepared to go upstairs. ‘Well, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Seems funny to me. I’m trusting you Mr Amberley, but I don’t half like it, and that’s the truth.’

  He went heavily up, and in a few moments a prodigious creaking announced that he had got into bed.

  Amberley, left alone in the kitchen, set the door ajar and sat down on one of the wooden chairs and switched off his torch. Only the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece broke the stillness.

  The minutes crawled by. Upstairs in Shirley’s narrow bed the sergeant strained his ears to catch any sound and wondered why he had not suggested that Mr Amberley should be the dummy. He did not think he was a nervous man, but waiting in the dark for someone to come and murder one was a bit thick. He made up his mind to speak about it to Mr Amberley. As ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed he grew impatient. A doubt shook him. Could this be a practical joke, and had that young devil gone off home? He wouldn’t put it above him; he had good mind to go downstairs and see whether Amberley was still there. On second thoughts he abandoned the idea. Even Amberley wouldn’t do this for a joke.

  The wardrobe creaked and gave him a bad fright. He felt a cold shiver run down his spine and hoped that Mr Amberley was keeping a sharp lookout. He had barely succeeded in convinc
ing himself that the creak really had come from the wardrobe when a long, eerie cry made him start up, clutching at his revolver. The cry was repeated and the sergeant drew a shuddering sigh of relief. He remembered that when he was a lad he had once shot and stuffed an owl. He was very glad he had; he wished he’d shot a few more while he was about it.

  He lay down again cautiously. Mr Amberley was keeping very quiet downstairs. Cool as a cucumber, he wouldn’t wonder. Perhaps he wouldn’t be quite so cool if he was lying up here waiting for someone to come and try to murder him.

  A mouse gnawing at the wainscoting gave the sergeant a moment’s uneasiness. He hissed at it, and it stopped.

  Then a different sound broke the silence; the sergeant could have sworn he heard the garden gate open. The hinge was rusty and it gave a faint squeak. He took a firm hold of the coverlet and listened.

  In the kitchen Mr Amberley had risen silently from his chair and moved behind the door. The cottage was in pitch darkness. The clock’s ticking seemed to reverberate through it.

  There was the sound of a tiny chink coming from the living-room window. The frame creaked as though something had been forced between the two sashes. Then there was a snap as the bolt securing the upper and lower half together was forced back. It was followed by a few moments’ silence.

  Mr Amberley waited, standing close to the crack of the door.

  The living-room window was being pushed gently up from the outside; it stuck a little, and Amberley heard a hand slip on the glass. The betraying sound was again followed by absolute stillness, but after a moment the window was thrust up farther and the curtains were parted, letting in the pale moonlight.

  Mr Amberley, watching through the crack, saw for a moment a gloved hand holding back the curtain; then it moved and grasped the window sill. Soundlessly the nocturnal visitor climbed into the room; for an instant as he stood in the shaft of moonlight Amberley was able to study him. He seemed to be wearing a long coat, and as he turned, Amberley saw that there was something over his head, probably a sack with eyeholes cut in it. It gave him an oddly sinister look; Amberley wondered what the sergeant would think of it.