It was David, fully dressed, who came. ‘Oh, good morning, Inspector. We’ve found him.’
‘Alive or dead?’
‘Alive, thank goodness.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In bed. Dr Ormonde says not to wake him.’
‘Where did you find him?’
‘At the Hall. You see . . . well, you may think we shouldn’t have done it, but I’m sure you’ll agree that the end justified the means. Last night, after hearing from Lady Nollis that the Skipper had seen some queer goings on at the Hall . . .’
‘I knew all about that.’
‘Yes,’ said David, ‘but of course the police couldn’t do anything about it — as private individuals we could if we didn’t mind risking the consequences. As a matter of fact, Carey and I went independently, but we met at the gate and agreed to join forces . . .’
Ignoring Price’s frequent exclamations, his tongue clickings and the drawn-in breath with which he received such statements as ‘I picked the lock,’ David told his story and ended, ‘Of course, I realize this business of the begging letters might have nothing to do with the murder, but they could be the ‘subject of blackmail’ that you spoke of. In conjunction with what the Skipper said about the car . . .’
Price interrupted him. ‘I’ve heard your story, Mr Brown: I trust I am capable of drawing my own conclusions. I must see Mr Worthington at once. If you’ll excuse me while I dress . . .’ He moved to the end of the bed where his Liliwarm vest and long pants lay neatly folded.
‘But Dr Ormonde said . . .’
‘Dr Ormonde has no authority. She is merely a psychiatrist.’
‘Actually I know for a fact that she has a medical degree. And I don’t think you’ll find the Skipper very co-operative. Last time, you wouldn’t believe him.’
‘No one can blame me for that,’ said Price, angrily waving his vest. ‘When a man already involved in a case refuses to give any indication of his whereabouts at the time of the murder, one is naturally inclined to question the veracity of his subsequent statements. Now that Lady Nollis has courageously come forward with the information that they were week-ending together and that her original statement was a fabrication intended for her husband —’
‘What’s that?’ said David.
‘Oh well — never mind,’ said Price, realizing his indiscretion. ‘You’re a friend of his — I thought you knew.’ He stripped off his dressing-gown, revealing conservative blue-striped flannel pyjamas. ‘If you’d leave me, Mr Brown, I might get dressed and start things moving.’
David left the room. He went downstairs and out through the smell of frying bacon into the clear cold morning. He thought: you daft fool, you’ve been had. You looked up to him; you made him your pattern; you thought him like the chap in the legend, ‘without fear and without reproach,’ and all the time he was week-ending with a married woman, deceiving her husband, breaking up her home. Time and again he remembered, I stood up the chaps so as to climb with him; they mayn’t be first-class climbers, they mayn’t be public school and Oxford, but they’re straight, and in future I’ll stick to them and he can keep his Alps and his Himalayas . . . ‘Do you know what? The Inspector has gate-crashed into Francis’s bedroom,’ said Sebastian.
‘I don’t care,’ said David.
‘What’s eating you?’ asked Sebastian.
David flung away across the yard to the road and disappeared round the corner of the outbuildings.
Sebastian whistled.
‘Sebastian, I know it’s spring and all that, but surely it’s too early in the day for wolf calls.’
Sebastian swung round.
‘You wrong me, Lady Nollis. That wasn’t a wolf call. It was an expression of surprise and consternation. Something’s upset the good Brown and he’s gone off in a dudgeon.’
‘Oh dear, and he’s so sweet. What can be wrong?’ said Harriet.
‘They’re difficult, these North-country types. I’m always offending him.’
‘I wanted to ask you both about last night,’ said Harriet. ‘I heard from the little maid who called me that Francis is back and you found him. Do tell me . . .’
*
II
In the bedroom over the kitchen Price too said, ‘Tell me . . .’ and got instead of an answer. ‘Do you usually come barging into people’s bedrooms without knocking?’
Price was determined to keep his temper. He could not disguise from himself the fact that he had wasted nearly a week on a false scent and now had no lead beyond that which Francis could give him; in daylight he rejected, but at night was haunted by the possibility that the absurd Dr Muswell had carried out his threat of telephoning to Athens. Advancing no further into the small, untidy room, he stammered, ‘For that I apologize. I did knock, but received no reply, and, as there is no time to waste, I sincerely trust that you will pardon the intrusion.’
‘I’m hardly awake,’ said Francis, moving his sore head uneasily on the pillow. It was, in fact, Price’s knock which had wakened him. Morning, he’d thought, and instead of the Pillar, Price and his tiresome questions, and Harriet in God knows what mood, and David shocked to death or too bloody loyal to believe it, and Sebastian all set for next term’s buzz-buzz at the Cadena. But it all had to be faced, and the sooner the better. He sat up. ‘Throw me a cigarette,’ he said more amiably.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Price, ‘but I do not indulge. I have none to offer you.’
‘I meant my own. Try the chest of drawers or my jacket pockets.’
There were none on the chest of drawers, so Price picked up the leather-patched hacking coat from the floor and felt in the pockets. He brought out a crushed packet of cigarettes and with them a screw of pinkish paper.
‘By God, that’s it,’ said Francis.
Now he remembered. The front seats and the carpets were gone from the car, but by the poor light of Gloria’s little torch he had seen and groped in the dust on the floorboards for that fragment of paper, recognizing it for an out-of-date and discarded car licence. Then a footstep . . . and, turning, torch in hand, he’d looked up into the scarred young face, ferocious with its grinning lips and widely-spaced, curiously-pointed teeth. After that, stars — bursting stars and nothing more until he was being sick on the bilberries. ‘That’s it,’ he repeated.
Price was smoothing out the paper. ‘Hawkins’s number,’ he whispered. ‘Now, Mr Worthington, this is most important. Where did you obtain this valuable piece of evidence?’
Throwing his used match in the direction of the bright open window, Francis said, ‘Will you believe me?’
‘You have my assurance that that will be the case, Mr Worthington. Lady Nollis has cleared up the question of your alibi and I have promised her — as I would have promised you, had you been frank with me — that the matter will be treated with the utmost discretion.’
‘Very well.’ And Francis embarked on the story. ‘I conclude,’ he said, after telling of the blow which had knocked him out, ‘that the man came back, perhaps with reinforcements to shift the corpse, and I’d gone and they came after me. Dr Ormonde says I shall never remember that. She calls it retrograde amnesia. I suppose that David Brown has told you the rest?’
‘He made a very clear statement. I don’t think we need go over it again; his manner, unlike that of Mr Carey, denotes stability. I shall get through to local Headquarters at once with a request for a police car and a constable, and on ‘information received’ I shall take these people to the station for questioning. At the same time I shall obtain a search warrant. I should like you to accompany me to the Hall and identify your assailant.’
‘I’d sooner not. I’d broken in. He had every right to swipe me.’
‘Granted,’ said Price. ‘But we shall not be charging him with that. In searching the premises, we shall hope to find sufficient evidence to charge him forthwith with murder.’
‘A lot of chicanery in your job,’ said Francis distastefully.
‘There is mu
ch which is disagreeable, but the law must be enforced,’ said Price and left him.
In spite of a two day’s beard and a slight but persistent headache, Francis dressed quickly, spurred alike by an empty stomach and a heart filled with happiness at the thought of setting eyes on Harriet. Then Hope must needs rise from the deep grave where he had buried her. Whether in love or in a spirit of ‘playing the game,’ Harriet, learning somehow of his predicament, had hurried to Berrinsdale and here among the mountains surely she would realize that the comforts she could buy with Edmund’s money, the privileges that his position gave to her, were dull things compared with the joy you had of the hills. This afternoon he would take her up High Hoister, up Carter’s Crack, a lovely little climb, short but sensational, and at the top you came out on the warm rock of a pinnacle and the dark Highbeck Valley lay below you and you looked across it to the south face of the Pike, bloomy, like black grapes, in the westering sunshine . . .
He barely noticed, when he reached the dining-room, the sudden silence which fell on the climbers’ table. He waved to them and hurried to the table where Harriet, her coat draped over her shoulders, sat sipping coffee and contemplating without enthusiasm a plate of congealing bacon and eggs.
‘Oh, Francis!’
‘Slept well?’ he asked, bringing a chair from an unoccupied table and sitting down opposite her.
‘Good heavens, no,’ said Harriet. ‘My bed was like a board, only it had lumps in it.’
‘I’ll speak to Hardwick. God, it’s good to see you in Berrinsdale.’
‘I’m glad you think so. After our rather squalid parting, I must say I felt a little nervous of my reception.’
‘How could you be? I said we mustn’t meet again: I didn’t deny that it’s always Heaven to see you.’
‘Shush,’ said Harriet. ‘Those grim climbing people will hear you. And try to look less pleased. Don’t look at me. Look at that thing — what is it?’
‘It’s a cruet.’
‘Oh, that’s what a cruet is, is it? I can’t think what makes you come to a place like this with lumpy beds and cruets. And murders. But for your strange tastes, we should never have got into this muddle.’
‘I did my best to keep you out of it,’ said Francis. ‘You don’t suppose I care whether the Inspector ‘gets his man’ — in fact, on the whole, I’d rather he didn’t. My excursion last night — I mean the night before — was an attempt to clear myself without giving an alibi. How did you know I needed one?’
‘My dear, it was too grim. The Inspector came to Nollis.’
‘I was afraid of that.’
‘Yes, and it was sheer luck that Edmund was in Oxford, though I dare say I should have got by, because anyhow I only said yes, you were a friend of ours, and told him what we’d arranged to tell Edmund. He asked me if I thought you were likely to be the victim of blackmail and I said certainly not, you weren’t the victim type, and it was only when he’d gone out and I thought it over that it occurred to me that he must suspect you and that I’d probably said quite the wrong thing because you needed an alibi. I thought: well, I can’t let poor darling Francis swing just to protect me, especially as the Wand and Willow was my fault really, and then just when I was going mad with anxiety Edmund reminded me that he was spending this week-end with a man in Somerset and looking at — oh, you know, those things you and Edmund used to talk about before you felt awful meeting him.’
‘Muniments?’
‘Yes. Muniments.’ Harriet screwed up her little nose in distaste. ‘So I wired Freda that I was staying with her again and leapt into the car and drove up here to talk to you. When I got to the turn into the valley, I overtook that rather grim doctor woman and offered her a lift, being well-nigh mad with my own company. We got talking and she told me you were missing and advised me to tell all to the Inspector. Which I did, and I hope it was right,’ said Harriet.
‘It was noble. Thank you, my darling.’
‘It was awkward, but you’re much too sweet to swing. Silly of you not to tell him.’
Gloria asked, ‘Will you have your breakfast here or in your place, Mr Worthington?’
‘In his place,’ said Harriet, getting up and pulling her coat about her. ‘I’m going to pack my grip. You’ll find me where there’s a fire, Francis.’
Gloria said, ‘I’ll light a fire in the drawing-room.’
‘Don’t pack your grip yet,’ said Francis. ‘The Inspector wants me at the Hall this morning, but in the afternoon I want to show you Berrinsdale.’
Harriet made no reply to that, but smiled at him over her shoulder as she left the room. With an impassive face to hide a sudden self-consciousness, he slipped into his place between Dr Ormonde and Meade.
Dr Ormonde said, ‘I thought I told you to stay in bed. And where’s my beautiful bandage? You’ve a nasty little place there and you ought to keep it covered.’
‘He looks as if he needed breakfast more than bandages,’ said Meade.
Twisting in her chair, Gerda said, ‘And that Gloria — how she is slow.’
‘She approaches; she is nigh,’ said Sebastian, fussily surrounding Francis with sugar and milk and honey.
‘Your torch, Gloria, with many thanks,’ said Francis as Gloria set down his bacon and eggs. ‘The battery’s dead, I’m afraid, but it did its job nobly before it died.’
‘If you’d told me what you wanted it for, I’d have got you a better one,’ said Gloria, thinking: I’ll keep it always, always. ‘I could of got you that great big long one that Mr Hardwick keeps in the bar. And another thing — I could have told Mr Meade where to look for you instead of you laying out all night and catching your death of cold.’
‘That’ll larn you to be an introvert, Francis,’ said Sebastian. ‘And you be warned, David. You’re an introvert too.’
David said nothing.
Francis said, ‘I say, David, I’m still slightly muddled, but it’s Monday, isn’t it? Oughtn’t you to be back in Carismouth?’
Without looking up, David answered, ‘I rang my boss last night. He climbs himself. He told me to stay as long as there was need for a search party.’
Francis said, ‘It was good of you to take all the trouble. And everyone else. Thanks, everyone.’
‘It’s no more than you would have done. In fact, it’s much less than you have done in the past,’ said Meade.
‘’Ear, ’ear,’ said Sebastian. ‘Actually, but for the gnawing anxiety, it was fun. The only thing that got me down was the unsportsmanlike blow that Francis struck me on the ear. Honestly, I thought I would be deaf for life, but this morning I can hear the birds sing again.’
David got up and left the room.
‘What is eating him?’ asked Sebastian. ‘For a short while down at the Hall we were buddies. Now his allergy’s come on again.’
‘I don’t think it’s you who has upset him,’ Dr Ormonde said.
‘No, nor do I,’ said Francis.
Then Meade, who, like the rest, had got his information from Sebastian, wanted first-hand news from Francis and peevishly asked, ‘What’s the hurry?’ when Francis, still chewing his last mouthful of toast and honey, got up and said he must get on. ‘Going down to the Hall with the Inspector,’ he explained.
‘He hasn’t had his breakfast yet. He’s still on the telephone,’ said Meade.
‘Are we climbing this afternoon?’ asked Sebastian.
‘I’d like to put something on that head of yours,’ said Dr Ormonde.
Francis was gone.
He went into the drawing-room and Harriet flung herself into his arms. ‘Oh, Francis, you’ve been ages. I must start early. If Edmund gets home before me, I shall have to think up another set of lies.’
Francis kissed her gently and said, ‘Listen. I’m tired of us thinking up lies to tell Edmund. Suppose we tell him the truth? Suppose you stay here and I take your car to Kendal and pick up mine and drive down to Nollis and tell Edmund how we stand?’
‘Oh no,’ cried H
arriet. ‘We argued that out at that mouldy Wand and Willow. I do love you, Francis, but being married to you would be just too grim.’
‘In what way would it be grim?’ asked Francis, burying his face in her curls.
‘You can’t honestly think,’ said Harriet into his Shetland pullover, ‘that I’d make a suitable wife for a don.’
‘I do. I do. Anyhow, I could give up the job.’
‘There’d still be your character. You can’t give that up.’
‘I could make some minor adjustments,’ Francis said.
Harriet drew away from him. ‘I shouldn’t love you if you stopped being exactly as you are. I simply adore you, Francis, but I couldn’t live like you do, up among the mountains and the stars.’
‘Nonsense. Half the year I live in the Thames Valley.’
‘Mentally, I mean.’
‘I know, but it’s nonsense. Look,’ said Francis, conscious that his head was throbbing again. ‘I can’t talk in this bloody little room. Let’s go out.’
‘No, don’t let’s, at least not until I go for good. The sun’s shining, but the wind’s icy and all those mountains make me feel so small.’
‘Harriet, they can’t. Look, if you’d only come climbing you’d realize that it’s not that way at all. They might alter your values, but what they’d make you feel is that a day on the Pillar is worth a lifetime of the things you’re hanging on to — dull things like mink coats and nylons and whatever it is you have done to your hair.’
Harriet said, ‘There’s nothing I’d hate more than a day on the Pillar. No wind on the heath for me, thank you Brother. Besides, I don’t want my values altered. I’m perfectly happy as I am — or rather as I was till you turned sour.’
‘Sour?’
‘Yes, sour. Now do let’s drop the subject, or you’ll only get coarse, as you did at the Wand and Willow. I’m going. Where is that girl with my bill?’
Francis said, ‘Well, there it is. Thank you for coming. It was very good of you. I’m very much obliged, and shall be still more obliged if from now on you’ll leave me alone and give me a chance to forget you.’
The Body in the Beck Page 17
