Death at Hallows End (2 page)

“And if his death wasn't natural?”

“The thing becomes clumsy and almost absurd. In order to prevent the making of a will which could prevent their inheriting, these two brothers dispose of the lawyer without leaving a trace of him and proceed to murder their uncle in a way which baffles a good doctor. All in one night. Does it sound convincing?”

“No. I must say that put like that it is incredible. But where
is
Duncan Humby?”

“That, presumably, is what you want me to find out?”

“Yes. I talked it over with Theodora Humby this morning. You know her?”

“Very slightly.”

“She is, as you can imagine, in great distress. She agrees that you should be asked to investigate.”

“Very well. Then I shall start at this end.”

“At
this
end? What can you possibly want to know from us here?”

“First, what evidence is there that Duncan ever left New-minster?”

Thripp's eyes, usually rather expressionless, opened at that.

“Evidence? I don't know what you mean. Are you suggesting that he didn't drive to Hallows End?”

“I'm not suggesting anything. But do we know he did?”

“We know he had an appointment there. We know that when he left me he intended to keep it. And we know his car was found there. Isn't that enough?”

“Not really. As you yourself have said, anyone could have driven his car to that place. Anyone, that is, who knew he was going there.”

“Extraordinary,” said Thripp. “Such a thing had not occurred to me. I suppose, as far as we know, he may still be in Newminster.”

“He may be anywhere. Istanbul or Buenos Aires. Or under the ground.”

“I'm surprised to hear you talk in that sensational way. One might think poor Duncan had deliberately disappeared.”

“It is a possibility, on the facts so far as I know them.”

“But what motive could he have?”

“There, my dear fellow, you raise a point of interest. Who can possibly say what goes on in a man's mind? His wife? His partner?”

“Ridiculous. There was nothing mysterious or introspective about Duncan. I'd worked with him for nearly thirty years. He had a very open character.”

“I should still feel happier if someone had seen him on his way to Hallows End. Perhaps someone did. But I must point out that we know absolutely nothing at present. Except that he's missing.”

Thripp looked earnestly at Carolus.

“You do realise the urgency of this thing?” he asked. “You have, if I may say so, a reputation for discovering the truth about the most extraordinary circumstances, but somewhat in your own time, as it were. In this case there is poor Theodora nearly out of her mind and I am in a state of extreme anxiety. Quite apart from the personal side of it, there is the business to think of. The disappearance of a solicitor naturally attracts a great deal of attention. I have already received anxious enquiries from clients. If you are going to lose time in fruitless speculations—well, I shouldn't say that—but in remote possibilities, it will put me in an impossible situation.”

“I see that,” said Carolus, smiling. “But jumping to conclusions
wouldn't help you, either. Do you know this place—Hallows End?”

“No. It's in a very lonely part of the country, I believe, a village with a thousand or two inhabitants. You'll go down there, of course?”

“Yes. After I've seen Theodora Humby. Now will you tell me one or two things about Duncan. He had, I assume, no money worries?”

Thripp looked impatient.

“Really, Carolus, you are only wasting time with questions like that. Duncan was—
is
a methodical and contented man. He had—
has
a substantial fortune …”

“Invested?”

“I never discussed that with him, but I should imagine in gilt-edged securities. Now …”

“He had no personal worries at all?”

“So far as I know—and as I've told you I am in a position to know—none at all.”

“He had one son, I believe?”

“Yes. Alec. He's abroad.”

“He and his wife were …”

“Theodora is a somewhat difficult woman, I imagine, but they had lived together for thirty years and I really don't see what their relationship has to do with the matter.”

“Had Mrs. Humby money of her own?”

“Really, Carolus, this is absurd. I am asking you to find Duncan Humby, not to gather material for his biography.”

“It may amount to the same thing. I would be glad if you would answer my questions so that I shan't have to come to you again.”

“Theodora had no money of her own,” said Thripp almost sulkily.

“You yourself had no disagreement with Duncan?”

“You don't have a long-standing business partnership without
some
disagreement. We got on remarkably well, on the whole.”

“Had there been some recent disagreement?”

Thripp stood up and looked out of the window.

“Nothing that could have the smallest connection with Duncan's disappearance,” he said.

“Do you mind telling me the subject of it, though?”

“I think it quite unnecessary that you should know and if I had supposed that you would waste time on such irrelevancies I should not have called you in. But I shall tell you now, to prevent any misapprehensions. I wanted to sell the practice and retire and Duncan was unwilling to do this. In a business like this it would be difficult and unprofitable to sell a partnership—it has to be all or nothing. Though Duncan and I are the same age, had been to school together as a matter of fact, he believed himself to be a more active man than I and didn't hesitate to say so. It had caused some—I won't say ill-feeling—some slight disaccord.”

“Had the point about selling the business been decided yet?”

“Not actually. I had first suggested it six months or more ago and was growing a trifle impatient. But we remained on amicable terms and as a matter of fact lunched together on Monday before Duncan set out for Hallows End.”

“Oh, you did. Where?”

“At the Crown. It's been our habit for many years to lunch together at the Crown once or twice a week. On this occasion we telephoned the manager, a man named Tuckly, to arrange for lunch to be served to us half an hour early because Duncan had, in front of him, the long drive to Hallows End and back. He was in high spirits at lunch and ate a good meal—more than
I should care to do. He has always been rather a big eater, but on Monday he excelled himself.”

“So as far as we know, you and the waiters at the Crown are the last to have seen him?”

“He had to get his car from Mace's garage. I have confirmed with Mace that he did so at one-thirty. This would mean he would reach Hallows End, which is sixty miles away, somewhere about four, I imagine.”

“And when was his car found?”

“Not until the following morning, I believe, but you will hear all that when you reach Hallows End. I hope that will be this afternoon?”

“Depends on whether or not Mrs. Humby can be seen before then. I don't want to start till I've had a talk with her.”

“You don't seem inclined to think that Duncan's disappearance has anything to do with Grossiter's will and his two nephews at Hallows End.”

“I don't say that at all. It may have everything to do with them. But if you mean do I expect to find Duncan, alive or dead, in a cellar of their farmhouse, I would say frankly, no.”

Thripp nodded moodily.

“I hope you'll have news for me soon,” he said.

“I'll tell you as soon as I have,” Carolus promised, and left the somewhat overheated office.

C
OMING AWAY FROM THE
solicitor's office, Carolus Deene had a premonition that this case would lead him into deep waters, perhaps into personal danger. This did not disturb him—on the contrary, he would be glad if the long series of problems he had successfully tackled would reach a climax with one that tried his mettle as a man of action as well as a theorist. There had been too much armchair detection recently, he thought, and although he had no ambition to be one of those heroic figures, forever in and out of hideous peril and armed to the teeth, those somewhat absurd men of action so popular in the modem world, he welcomed a case that would, he believed, give him wider scope than the mere whodunits of the past.

The first thing he had to decide about the disappearance of Duncan Humby was whether it had been voluntary or involuntary. If the first, he would take no part in the search. As he had said to Thripp, no one knows another man's mind, and if Duncan had chosen to disappear, he probably had excellent reasons for doing so which were no concern of anyone else. It certainly wasn't for him, Carolus, to take any part in restoring him to his wife and partner.

If, on the other hand, Humby was being held against his will, or if he had (and it was a possibility to be faced) been murdered, there was something unusually sinister about the
crime. Humby was not a man to be easily forced into anything, and certainly not to be intimidated. He was in his sixties, but was tough and active and seemed ten years younger.

The story of Grossiter and his two nephews had an unpleasant ring to it, but, as Carolus had told Thripp, that was no reason for jumping to any easy conclusion, certainly not to such an obvious one as Thripp had suggested. But the thought of that deserted car with the ignition keys still in it on a lonely road near an isolated farmhouse, was to Carolus rather more than ominous.

He did not look forward to his first interview which would necessarily be with the wife of the missing man. He knew Theodora Humby, and considered her to be something of an hysteric, a woman who dramatised every situation so that a conversation with her was like taking part in an old melodrama. But there were certain things he had to ask her and he could, after all, discount the histrionics.

The Humbys lived in a large Victorian house on the outskirts of Newminster, a house that Theodora had renovated and spruced up with characteristic excess. The central rooms had been knocked into one with pillars to support the upper floor, and a wide staircase ran across the back of it.

The walls were white and decorated with gilt and coloured Spanish woodcarving and a suit of burnished armour stood in one corner.

The front door was opened by the housekeeper, a squat and realistic widow named Molly Caplan whom Carolus knew. She told him to sit down.

“Mrs. Humby will be with you in a minute,” she said and gave a knowing look at the staircase by which, Carolus guessed, Theodora liked to make an entry.

He was right. She appeared at the top of the stairs in something that William Morris might have designed for his wife to wear if she was to be painted by Rossetti.

“Mr. Deene!” she cried. “Thank God!” She descended a few stairs. “I knew you would come!” From the foot of the stairs she extended both her hands and rushed towards Carolus. “Tell me at once,” she said looking into his eyes, “is he still alive?”

“I expect so,” said Carolus coolly. “I'm going to try to find out. Can I ask you a few questions?”

“Ask me anything. Anything! I have no secrets now. I have been in hell these last days. It is all a nightmare. I still cannot believe it.”

“Believe what, Mrs. Humby?”

“That Duncan, of all people, would vanish in this extraordinary way. He was, you know, the most conventional of men.”

“You think, then, that he may have disappeared deliberately?”

“Impossible! He was utterly incapable of such a thing. He would never deceive me in that way. Never! He told me everything.”

Carolus wondered where he had heard those deluded words before. From sad experience he knew that when one of a married couple used them of the other, they nearly always indicated their exact opposite.

“Did he for instance tell you why he was going to Hallows End that afternoon?”

“That,” said Theodora emphatically, “was a matter of business. He never discussed his clients and I never asked him about the details of his work. Such inquisitiveness would be quite foreign to me. I meant that between us there were no
personal
secrets. If he had even thought of going away for a time I should have been the first to hear.”

“Did he discuss his finances with you, Mrs. Humby?”

“Certainly not. I should have considered that vulgar.”

“Really? Between husband and wife? It would seem to me very natural.”

“Perhaps I am rather exceptional in that, Mr. Deene. I take no interest in money. There was always sufficient for me to have the few simple things I wanted, and that was all I asked. Only once did the subject arise between us.”

“That was?”

“A trivial matter. I came on a notebook of his from which I gathered that he had some money in a Swiss bank. I made no remark, I need scarcely say, but he seemed to think it was incumbent upon him to give explanations. He took great trouble to do so,”

“And what were his explanations?”

“I scarcely recall the details now. Such things were beyond my scope. But… it was something about holidays abroad and a Labour government. He thought he might be prevented from taking sufficient money for our annual jaunt.”

“Did you happen to notice what sort of sum he had abroad?”

Carolus thought he caught a quick keen look on her large-featured face.

“There was no indication of the amount,” she said. “And of course I never asked him. But this surely is beside the point. Where is he now? That's the question.”

Ignoring this, Carolus asked about Duncan's passport.

“Then you
do
think he has run away?” cried Theodora, raising her hand to her cheek.

“I'm really only asking the most obvious questions,” said Carolus. “Clearing away some of the undergrowth. Thripp has asked me to try to find your husband and I can only do so with your help.”