“N-not at all,” he said, with conscientious civility. “Actually, N-Nick isn’t going to s-sue.” He wriggled and hunched his shoulders. “You s-see, he admits it’s all t-true—about that g-girl and the c-contract, I mean.”
“Oh,” said Judy rather blankly. “But surely he must realise that if he doesn’t, the studios—”
“They’ll k-kick him out.” When David, who was the soul of courtesy, descended to interruption, it was patent that he was strongly moved. “He knows that and he’s ready to p-put up with it. Atonement, he s-said. Quite d-decent of old N-Nick, in a way. I m-mean,” David added unhappily, “one’d think it was d-decent if he hadn’t p-played such a rotten uns-sportsmanlike trick. And on a g-girl, too. That m-makes it m-much w-worse.”
“And Madge? What will she do? If this story isn’t disproved, then even the abysmal film-going public is likely to lose a lot of their enthusiasm for her. And that means that Leiper will be in a state about it, too.”
“M-Madge is i-incommunicado.” And David paused, slightly disconcerted, it was possible to surmise, at having dredged up so venturesome a word. “W-we c-can’t,” he interpreted, “c-contact her. I j-just d-don’t know what she’ll do.” He glanced nervously about him and lowered his voice. “I s-say, d-did you hear that s-someone had tried to p-poison N-Nick?”
Judy sat up abruptly. “What?”
“It’s quite t-true. S-someone put p-poison in his medicine.”
“Lord, Lord...” Mingling with Judy’s very genuine shock there was an impulse of unholy curiosity. “But this morning’s papers—”
“No, the P-press hasn’t been told about it yet,” David explained gloomily, and there was a brief, painful silence before he went on. “It’s like a n-nightmare, isn’t it?”
“Oh, David, I’m so awfully sorry,” said Judy in unfeigned sympathy. “It must be hell for you.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t do to m-make a f-fuss about these things,” he said rather shortly. “G-grin and b-bear em, that’s the ticket.” He turned towards her, once more diffident. “But I say, Judy—ah, M-Miss Flecker, I m-mean…”
Here we go, thought Judy: this is the storm cone going up. And aloud she said: “Yes, David?”
“You-you w-wouldn’t c-care to have d-dinner with me some t-time, w-would you? I d-don’t expect you w-would,” he added rescissorily, “b-but I thought I’d j-just ask. I just thought I’d—”
“But of course, David,” said Judy. “It’s sweet of you to invite me. I’d be charmed.”
“You really w-would? You d-don’t think it’d be b-bad form, with M-Maurice d-dead? We c-could g-go somewhere v-very quiet.”
“No, of course I don’t think it’d be bad form.” Oh dear, Judy thought, how appallingly ingenuous this conversation must sound… “Did you have any particular day in mind?”
“It’s awfully d-decent of you.” David’s gratitude was so overwhelming as to be almost pitiful. “Just whenever you s-say, of course… I s-suppose you w-wouldn’t be f-free tonight?”
“Well, it’s rather short notice, but—”
“P-please don’t let me be a n-nuisance. I—”
“But as a matter of fact I am free tonight. What time, and where?” said Judy somewhat brusquely; in order to stop David apologising and get to the point, it was necessary, she felt, to be forthcoming and unmaidenly. Moreover, there had occurred to her a scheme calculated to satisfy the rather unscrupulous inquisitiveness she was nourishing as to the Cranes’ reactions to the scandal in which they had become so suddenly involved, and it would be desirable, in pursuance of this, to keep the conversational initiative—no very difficult job, admittedly, where David was concerned.
“W-well,” he said, “where would you l-like? There’s the S-screenwriters’, or the S-savoy, or…”
“I’ve got an idea.” Judy smiled a conscientiously winning smile. “Do you think we could perhaps dine at your house?”
David looked rather doubtful. “W-well,” he began.
“I’ve never been there, you know, and I’ve often wanted to see it. But of course,” Judy added wistfully, “if you’d really rather not…”
The glance he gave her was disconcertingly shrewd.
“You want to s-see the house?” he enquired. And had Judy not been convinced that he was temperamentally incapable of being sardonic, she might well have suspected him of it now. As it was, she felt slightly uncomfortable.
“Yes, I should like to,” she said a little breathlessly. “And also, of course, also”—she cast about in her mind for some more specific object of curiosity, and after a rather too lengthy pause found one—“oh, the Maze.”
“The M-Maze?” David echoed; and again there was that in the way he spoke which evoked in Judy a fleeting uneasiness. “Well, I d-don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t s-see the M-Maze, if you’re i-interested. I should quite l-like to have a l-look at it myself.”
“You never have?” said Judy incredulously; she could scarcely believe that there existed a person capable of having a maze on the estate and yet not exploring it at the first possible opportunity. Labyrinths are romantic and adventurous places, and beneath her surface urbanity Judy was a romantic and adventurous young woman. “You really never have?” she reiterated.
David made a fussed, apologetic gesture.
“Well, it’s a l-long w-way from the house,” he explained. “N-near where the old T-Tudor m-manor used to be. And it’s v-very n-neglected and over-g-grown. But you can certainly have a l-look at it if you c-come before the l-light goes.”
“David, what’s at the centre?”
He stared, for the moment uncomprehending. “The c-centre?”
“Of the Maze, I mean. There’s always something at the centre of a maze. A sundial, or—”
“A t-tomb.”
“Well, perhaps, but that must be—” Abruptly Judy checked herself; her eyes widened; for an instant looked absurdly young. “You mean there is a tomb,” she said excitedly, “at the centre of your Maze?”
“That’s what I’ve been t-told,” said David with indifference. “T-tomb of the chap who m-made the M-Maze, oh, hundreds of y-years ago. F-funny idea, if you ask me.”
Judy drew a deep breath of pure pleasure.
“David, we must explore it. Promise you’ll take me.”
“Yes, all right.” He was quite honestly uninterested. “I d-don’t mind.”
And at this point Judy remembered, rather belatedly, that her suggestion of dining at Lanthorn House had not been received with any great enthusiasm, and that she must not be so discourteous as to forget that it was still a re infecta.
“Oh, but look here,” she said contritely, “it isn’t really fair of me to intrude on your family when—well, with things as they are. Perhaps some other time…”
“N-no, please.” David seemed preoccupied with some species of inward calculation. “It’ll be quite all right. M-mother’ll be d-delighted to m-meet you. And p-perhaps it’d be as well if I w-wasn’t s-seen d-dining out. L-looks callous, you know.” He emerged from his abstraction and smiled. “G-good idea of yours, really.”
“Well, if you’re really sure…”
“Oh, yes. You see, I w-want M-Mother to m-meet you. I’m sure you’ll t-take to each other.”
Like a serialised Victorian novel, Judy reflected: the son, of good family, introduces to his termagant Mamma the poor but honest girl whom he loves and hopes to marry. Will she turn up in a frightful hat? Will she drop her aitches and eat peas with a knife? Will he be threatened with disinheritance if he persists in his suit? And which will prevail in him—his passion for that quite impossible She or his sense of class solidarity? (No, that wasn’t right: unsullied family traditions.) Read what happens in the next quarter’s issue of Household Words…
Poor David, thought Judy, as she abandoned this fantasy, it’s a shame to take advantage of him when one’s feeling for him is so irremediably temperate… But such penitence as she felt was unfortunately quite in
adequate to restrain her from taking advantage, and she therefore said:
“Yes, I’m sure we shall. I look forward to it.”
“I’ll d-drive you there, shall I? I b-borrowed Nick’s B-Bentley to c-come here this morning.”
“That sounds lovely. But what time are you likely to finish work? I may have to stay a bit later than usual.”
“Oh, I c-can w-wait for you.”
“No, don’t hang about.” Judy’s considerateness was partly conditioned by the fear that he might elect to do his waiting in her office. “You go on home as soon as you’ve finished, and I’ll borrow a car from Frank Griswold, or someone, and follow you on my own. I can be there by seven—it’s just outside Aylesbury, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. Once you g-get to Aylesbury anyone will d-direct you. But are you sure you d-don’t mind?”
“No, of course not.” Judy stood up. “That’s settled, then. And now I must go back and do some work. So au revoir.”
For a moment he did not reply, and in his silence there was something of that obscurely unsettling, incalculable quality she had glimpsed earlier. But then he, too, got to his feet—his delay in performing this courtesy was also vaguely discomposing—and nodded and slowly smiled.
“Au revoir,” he said. “T-till this evening.”
The picture of Judy that emerges from the foregoing conversation is, I suppose, rather mixed and ambiguous, and more particularly where her motives in accepting David Crane’s invitation are concerned. But she was, as a matter of fact, a perfectly ordinary, straightforward young woman, and her predominant emotion, for the time being, was a perfectly ordinary, straightforward curiosity. Since Saturday the studios had been full of gossip about the Cranes—a tongue-wagging of epic scope which the Mercury’s revelations had enormously intensified; and the opportunity of studying the Cranes at close quarters was one which in consequence she found quite irresistible. Woman-like, she was a great deal more interested in people than in facts, and it cannot, therefore, be asserted that her reason for contriving the invitation to Lanthorn House stemmed from any very avid desire to solve the mystery of Maurice’s death and the attempted killing of Nicholas. But the Crane family were important, half-legendary figures in her world, and she was not intellectually sophisticated enough—or intellectually snobbish enough, if you prefer—to be convinced of their ultimate insignificance in the larger scheme of things. She wanted to stand at the very centre of the scandal and contemplate it from there; and David Crane’s infatuation was her only passport to that dubious privilege…
Vulgar curiosity, she told herself as she strolled back to the Music Department: that’s all it is.
And at this stage she did not recollect that it was curiosity, in the proverb, which killed the cat.
It was when she was on her way to get lunch at the studio Club—a preserve of the Upper Orders which she sometimes used in preference to the overcrowded canteens—that she encountered Gervase Fen, who was carrying an old raincoat and had on his extraordinary hat.
“Hello,” she greeted him. “Are you detecting?”
He shook his head. “Unluckily no. I’ve just come away from an Unfortunate Lady conference.”
“Good Lord, are they still going on? I thought Saturday’s was the last.”
“So did we all. But Leiper didn’t concur with the particular brand of nonsense we agreed on, and convened us again this morning.”
“But the Cranes…”
“The Cranes were unanimous in staying away. Everyone else was there. A certain gloom was perceptible, I thought. I’m, surprised, myself, that Leiper’s going on with it.”
“So am I. What on earth does he imagine is going to happen about Nicholas and Madge?”
“From what I heard him say to Stafford, he believes the whole affair to be a conscienceless newspaper stunt having no basis in fact whatever.”
“Do you really mean to say he’s so stupid as to think it’s all lies?”
“Just that. And no one seems to have the nerve to disillusion him. I find it all,” said Fen comfortably, “very pathetic… By the way, you remember I asked you on Saturday what attitude the Crane family adopted towards Gloria Scott?”
“Yes.”
“You said that about Nicholas you didn’t know. Do you know now?”
“Yes. After all the talk there’s been I can hardly avoid knowing. It seems he was always exceedingly nice to her—and not at all because she was bedworthy, or anything of that kind. Just pure altruism.”
“So that people were a good deal surprised when the letter was published?”
“Lord, yes. Bowled over…I say, is this important?”
“God knows,” said Fen. “I’ll tell you what it is, Miss Flecker,” he went on rather balefully. “Humbleby is getting above himself. He’s not keeping me au fait with the case. All he’s done so far is to telephone me at some ungodly hour last night, gabble a few incoherent words at me, and then ring off before I had time to extract a single solid piece of information from him. Did you know that someone has tried to poison Nicholas?”
“Yes. I heard this morning. David told me.”
“David…? Oh, that’s the dim brother, of course. I haven’t met him yet.”
Judy hesitated. “Professor Fen, you—you don’t think he could possibly be the murderer?”
“My dear girl,” said Fen kindly, “for the moment I know of no cogent reason for eliminating any human being who is at present walking the earth. Why do you ask?”
“Well, he’s invited me to his mother’s house for dinner this evening, and I thought you might know if he was under suspicion, and if he had been I would have kept my eyes open, that’s all.”
“To dinner? At his mother’s house?” Fen shook his head. ‘“Tis ill pudling in the cockatrice’ den,” he murmured, “and they must walk warily that hunt the wild boar.”
“This excursion into Bunyan signifying what?”
“Keep your eyes open in any case… And now I must catch my bus. Good-bye. And look after yourself.” He was gone.
Tea-time found Judy exceptionally busy, and she was not pleased to be interrupted by David Crane. On this occasion, however, he stated the pretext for his visit with unusual directness.
“I s-say, Miss Flecker, it’s my c-car,” he said. “N-Nick’s car, I m-mean.”
Judy said patiently:
“What’s the trouble? Won’t it go?”
“S-someone’s s-smashed up the engine.”
“What?”
“W-with an iron b-bar.”
Judy stared at him. “David, are you sure you’re not dreaming?”
“N-no, of course n-not. L-look for yourself if you d-don’t b-believe me.” He seemed quite distraught. “I t-tried to s-start her, and she w-wouldn’t g-go, and then I l-looked to see if I could s-spot what was wrong, and—and there it w-was.”
“It was all right when you arrived, though, wasn’t it?” said Judy not very intelligently. “I mean—”
“Oh, yes. It w-was all right then.”
“But in broad daylight, David! I don’t understand how anyone can have dared…”
“It was in Nick’s l-lock-up,” he explained. “Only, of course, n-no one ever actually l-locks them, and I didn’t. So you s-see…”
Judy did see. Adjoining the carpenters’ workshop there was a row of lock-up garages (whose doors, as David had rightly observed, nobody ever bothered to secure) reserved for the use of the studio’s Upper Twenty. And since from morning to night the carpenters’ shop yielded an unintermittent uproar of hammering and mechanical saws, the noisy act of vandalism which David had reported could have been carried through, behind the garage’s closed door, in reasonable safety… Vandalism. Judy’s heart sank. The car was Nicholas’, not David’s, and she knew that in certain quarters the feeling against Nicholas was running high…
But this explanation had apparently not occurred to David; he seemed completely perplexed. “I d-don’t understand it,” he muttered h
aplessly. “I just d-don’t understand it at all.”
“What are you going to do?” Judy demanded; it could serve no useful purpose, she felt, to blurt out the theory she had just formulated.
“Oh, I’ll hire a c-car in the v-village to t-take me home. That p-part’s all right. B-but I w-wish I knew why. It seems so p-pointless, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Judy agreed. “Yes, it does.”
“I know I oughtn’t to be b-bothering you about it, n-not when you’re w-working. B-but I just had to t-tell someone.”
“You’ll see the police about it, I suppose?”
“Yes. C-certainly I shall. Filthy rotten t-trick,” said David miserably. “Must catch the b-bounder who did it.” He stood there shifting uneasily from one foot to the other, and now his self-consciousness, which the outrage had sent temporarily into abeyance, began to seep back. “Well. As I s-say. Thought I’d just t-tell you about it.”
“I’d go to the police straight away if I were you.”
David squared his shoulders. “Quite right. G-get it over and done with. Thanks for l-listening, Miss F-Flecker.”
“Why not Judy?”
He made a gesture so preposterously bashful that she had the utmost difficulty in suppressing a gust of ribald and unseemly mirth.
“Thanks, Judy,” he said. “I’ll g-get along now. See you l-later.”
And “Heavens!” thought Judy as the door closed behind him, “what have I let myself in for? Fathomless abysses of nescier faire…”
“But it’s damned queer,” she murmured aloud, “about that car. I wonder…”
And after a moment’s cogitation she reached for the telephone, put a call through to the College of St. Christopher in Oxford, and asked for Professor Fen.
Professor Fen was there. His voice sounded as if the telephone had awakened him from a particularly deep and agreeable bout of slumber; which in fact it had. What, he enquired rather surlily, was the matter?
But on hearing Judy’s story he became audibly more complaisant and alert. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you,” Judy said in conclusion, “but I thought it just possibly might have something to do with the case, and so…”
Frequent Hearses Page 15
