Landed Gently (6 page)

On the morning after his arrival he had been at his most exuberant; he had dominated the breakfast-table with his account of his visit to London, and directly afterwards had dragged Les and herself away to the workshop to help him set up the loom for his famous cartoon. After lunch he had wanted to stretch his limbs and look at the park. She had consented to walk with him as far as the folly, from which there was a striking prospect of the house and the lake, and on the way he had talked a great deal about his home in Missouri, and about his people, and about the sort of Christmas they
would be spending there. He had also talked of a projected visit to Missouri that he was trying to persuade Les to make with him in the autumn, and which he wanted her to undertake also. His lively behaviour at the party Sir Daynes himself had been witness to. When the party broke up, the various members of it had retired in the order already vouched for, and she had first heard of the tragedy when her personal maid brought in the tea at eight o’clock.

‘Fine,’ exclaimed Sir Daynes at the end of the recital. ‘That’s all we wanted to know, m’dear, you’ve given us a perfect model of a statement. Wish everyone could be so precise, eh? Lots of people can’t. But that’s all we want to know, and you can run along now …’

The words froze on the baronet’s lips as he became aware of Gently looming up on his flank.

‘Yes, Gently?’ he demanded sharply.

‘Just one small point …’

Sir Daynes drew in his breath wickedly, but he could think of no good reason for applying a veto.

‘Well?’ he rapped.

‘At the party last night … Mrs Page, his lordship and the deceased were alone for a short time. Could Mrs Page oblige us with a description of the conversation which took place?’

‘Confound it, man! Already had that from
Somerhayes
. Young feller was still carrying on about
Missouri
, wasn’t he, m’dear?’

‘Yes – he was.’ Mrs Page was staring at Gently with something like fear in her large eyes.

‘Mmn … and after that … when you were leaving, and the deceased accompanied you to the door?’

The eyes jumped open wide. ‘My cousin didn’t tell you that! I didn’t – I—’ She broke off, turning imploringly to Sir Daynes. ‘He didn’t accompany me to the door – I left him talking to my cousin. Ask him, Sir Daynes, he’ll tell you that it’s true!’

Nobody in the room could have mistaken the baronet’s slightly delayed reaction. He weighed in quickly, but not quite quickly enough.

‘’Course it’s true, m’dear – suggestion’s downright preposterous!’

‘You’ve only to ask my cousin—’

‘Not necessary, m’dear. Take your word any day.’

‘The inspector is entirely mistaken.’

‘The inspector,’ said Sir Daynes feelingly, ‘has been a mistake all along – hrmp, hrmp! I mean, we’re all human, m’dear, always have to allow a margin for error!’

Mrs Page left the room hastily, and the baronet glared warningly, first at Dyson and then at Gently. By the latter he was met with a far-away smile, and the Central Office man’s lips formed a word which only Sir Daynes could hear: ‘
Touché!
’

‘What are we waiting for?’ bawled Sir Daynes. ‘Fetch in that feller Johnson, and let’s see if we can’t get a grip on this business!’ 

T
HE LIGHTS HAD
been on all the afternoon; the atmosphere, grown mild and expansive, was pleasantly tinctured with the smoke of cigars. Before they had drawn the curtains patterns had appeared on the single panes, and the brightness of the fire corroborated this wintry phenomenon.

‘Damned pond’ll get frozen,’ muttered Sir Daynes to Gently, forgetting his antagonism as he remembered their common addiction. ‘Don’t suppose you skate, do you? I can fix you up with a pair. Gwen likes to have her twiddle on the ice, but I’m not much of a skating man myself.’

‘We can fish through a hole, perhaps …’

‘Ha, ha, not on this pond, m’boy. When the ice gets set it’s sacred to Gwen. Woman would never forgive me if I started knocking holes in it.’

‘You can fish more often than you can skate, I suppose.’

‘That’s the argument I’ve had used against me for the past thirty years.’

‘There’s more frost on the way, sir,’ put in Dyson through his teeth. ‘I heard the one o’clock news, sir. There’s a cold airstream moving in from Siberia.’

‘Blasted Russians again … stoke up that fire! D’you reckon the Cold War’s a plot to make us use up our coal reserves?’

The fire was built up to its teeth by the time Johnson arrived. The Welshman gave it an appreciative glance, as though the rigours of a trip through the state apartments had immediately preceded his entry. He was a man of medium height, and his build was that of a boxer. He had broad, slightly rounded shoulders tapering quickly to narrow hips, his arms were long in proportion to his height, and his hands were bony and hard-looking. His head, of which the skull belonged to the long, narrow variety, sat closely on his shoulders; his hair was dark, his eyes darker, and there was a livid blue tattoo-mark on his weathered-looking forehead.

‘Hugh Llewellyn Johnson, thirty-eight, and my family lives at Merthyr.’

‘You are a tapestry-weaver, Mr Johnson?’

‘Aye, that I am, though I was ten years in the mines.’

‘That’s where you got that birthmark, eh?’
interpolated
Sir Daynes, with suspicious casualness.

‘Oh yes, I did – you can always tell a miner. I got that one in Gwrw Pit in 1940.’

‘Hit on the head, eh?’

‘Man, I was bloody well buried – did you never hear of the Gwrw? Two days we were down there, and
never heard a sound. The dead men were lying with us. There’s some who lies there yet.’

‘Hmn. Nasty experience, what?’

‘It’s one I won’t forget.’

‘Sort of thing to give you dreams, and that?’

‘Sometimes I dream I’m down there still, and wake up tearing the clothes off my limbs.’

Sir Daynes rubbed his hands with a sort of grisly satisfaction, and leaned back comfortably in his chair.

‘Suppose you never get blackouts – that sort of thing?’

The ex-miner shook his head.

‘Ah well … get on with your statement, man. Tell the inspector what you know about the “deceased”.’

Johnson’s statement followed the now-familiar
pattern
in its early stages. He had been working at his loom when Earle had been brought into the
workshop
for the first time. Johnson, who was an artist as well as a weaver, was at work on a tapestry from his own cartoon picturing the Glaslyn and Yr Wyddfa, and Earle, with his customary tactlessness, had taken it upon himself to assure Johnson that the colour-values were incorrect. Johnson had thereupon catechized Earle on his knowledge of colour-values, more
especially
as applied to tapestry and the uncertain art of dyeing. Earle had been obliged to admit his profound ignorance, at least touching the two latter.

‘Took him down a peg, did you?’ enquired the subtle Sir Daynes.

‘Oh yes, a good peg or two. He knew nothing whateffer of dyeing and sunlight tests.’

‘Sent him off with a flea in his ear, eh?’

‘Well, no, not exactly, he wasn’t a man you could handle like that. But I read him a good sermon, that I’ll warrant you. By the time I had done he knew a good deal more about tapestry than when I had started.’

Nevertheless, Earle had got off on the wrong foot with Johnson. It was easy to see that the Welshman found it difficult to forgive the reckless strictures on his expert art. When he found himself being neglected by Brass, till then his constant admirer and teacher, the grudge, already in being, was fanned into active dislike.

‘I don’t mind admitting I could neffer get on with the man. Americans within reason, I say, but this one was a plain nuisance about the place. He was always upsetting the womenfolk, man; there wasn’t half of the work done when he was around. And he had no respect for his betters at all. You would think he was a Royal Tudor at least, the way he carried on.’

‘Not so big, either, but you could have put him down, eh?’

‘Do you doubt it, man, when I have been in the ring with Tommy Farr himself, down there in Tonypandy?’

‘Boxing man, are you, Johnson?’

‘Good gracious yes – I have my cups to prove it. Five years I was the Area Middleweight Champion, and not far past it now. I have fought the best, I tell you. There are many good men with the mark of Hugh Johnson’s glove on their jaw.’

‘Wonder you didn’t clip this Yank one.’

‘I have wondered myself too, before today. But you could never get him fighting, man, that was the whole trouble. You could say what you liked to him, it would never get him mad. Some men are made that way. They haven’t got the wickedness to play on. I tell you, it would have been like meat and drink to me sometimes to see that young man with my blood in his eye!’

Sir Daynes angled a bit further, but there were no fish to be caught, so he handed the questioning back to Dyson.

Johnson, at all events, hadn’t received the news of Earle’s Christmas visit with enthusiasm. Had he known in time, he would have arranged to spend his Christmas in his home town, along with a married sister. But the uncertainty had prevented that. Christmas leave had been cancelled at Sculton, and was only restored at the last moment. Sullenly, the Welshman had brooded over the prospect of what he considered to be a spoiled Christmas.

‘You will say I was no true Christian to take against the man that way, and after what has happened, now, I may be sorry that I did. But God help us, man, there are some people who just get in our bowels and blood – Christian it may not be, but by St David, it is human!’

Earle had arrived, and Johnson’s worst fears were realized. The young American was in his most bumptious and obnoxious mood. Moreover, he had been granted a sort of general licence by the rest of the household. They were all in a tale to worship Earle,
and, as a natural consequence, to condemn the surly Welshman. Johnson had retired into his shell. He had always felt a little alien in this Saesneg establishment, and now circumstances had taken a turn that seemed to cut him off entirely. Dourly he accepted the part forced upon him. He was an outsider – very well. He would play an outsider’s role. Without looking for trouble – was it not the season of goodwill? – he would make them feel the injustice of their attitude towards him, and the folly of abasing themselves to this American clown. Merely Place had deserved its Diogenes, and it should have one.

The Welshman broke off, his dark eyes darting fiercely from one to the other of them.

‘And now I have it in mind to tell you the whole truth about what I saw after the party last night. At first I was not certain. A big thing it is, deciding if it is best to tell the police something which may cause trouble. But a crime has been done, a wicked, evil crime, and the guilt must lie where it lies though the devil himself cries Silence. So now I will tell you.’

Sir Daynes made sounds as though to applaud these upright sentiments, and Johnson, drawing his chair closer to the table, continued:

‘The bile is a bad thing for a man’s stomach, look you, and strong wine is no good fellow for it. When I got to my room after the party last night I could not sleep no more than fly, so, after pacing my room for some time, I had a mind to go to the library and fetch myself a book.’

‘Eh?’ ejaculated Sir Daynes, sitting up very straight. ‘What library, man? What time was this?’

‘As to the time, I do not know precisely, but the library is the one in the state drawing room, which is handy for our wing.’

‘The state drawing room!’ Sir Daynes was making noble efforts to establish a mental picture of the layout of the state apartments. ‘But wait a minute, man – state drawing room. Hasn’t that got a door to the gallery in the great hall?’

‘It has indeed. It gives straight on to it.’

‘And you – you’re admitting you went there, some time after the party last night?’

‘A good hour after – past one o’clock, I’d say.’

Sir Daynes stared at the ex-miner, a curious glint in his eye. ‘Go on,’ he said, ‘go on, Johnson.’

‘Well, as I stood there, looking through the
bookcase
, I thought I heard some voices in the hall. Not loud, you understand, but not soft either. It sounded like two people in an argument, and now and then they’d let their voices rise a little.’

‘Whose voices were they, man?’

‘I could not say. One of them was a woman.’

‘A woman!’ Sir Daynes jerked his head back. ‘Well … go on.’

‘The voices stopped. I slipped out to the gallery. They have a light there in the hall, a single bulb, and I could just make out the gallery stretching back there, like a great horseshoe. At first there was nothing to see, but then I heard a step over by the stairs, and out of the
big marble doorway came the figure of a woman – in a hurry she was – and disappeared towards the other side of the house. After that it was all quiet, and I went back to my room. And that is the whole truth, God help me, of what I saw after last night’s party.’

The expressions that passed over Sir Daynes’s face during the latter part of this recital were worth the study of an actor. First his eyes opened wide and his jaw imperceptibly sank. Then a flush spread over his features, and the jaw squared up. Finally his eyes narrowed to two steely points, and his lips, pressed together, pouted aggressively outwards.

‘And the woman?’ he barked.

‘I could not swear to her at all.’

‘Yet you saw her, you say?’

‘Oh yes, make no doubt of that.’

‘But you don’t know who she was?’

‘No, I could not tell her from Eve. How could I, man, in that light, and from the far end of the gallery?’

‘You could see she was a woman.’

‘That is another thing altogether.’

‘I put it to you that you’re lying, Johnson.’

‘And I tell you, man, that I am not a liar!’

There was a forward movement on the part of one constable as the fiery Welshman smashed his fist down on the table, while Sir Daynes, for his part, looked no less likely to keep the peace. For a moment they glared at each other like two enraged terriers.

‘You admit you were in the gallery?’ snarled Sir Daynes.

‘Have I not said I was?’

‘And at the crucial time?’

‘At the time I have given in my statement.’

‘And that was the time when the crime was committed.’

‘Oh no it was
not,
for I can bear testimony.’

‘And your damned testimony may put you in the dock, my man, that’s all the value
it’s
likely to have! Why didn’t you see the body?’

‘Because there was no body to see.’

‘And you didn’t hear it, eh, tumbling down those stairs?’

‘No more than you did, tucked up in your precious Manor House.’

‘Don’t answer the chief constable back,’ yapped Dyson, feeling it was time he got a word in.

‘Man,’ retorted Johnson, thrusting his face towards the inspector, ‘take that police-badge out of your lapel for a moment, and I’ll give you some free bloody dental treatment!’

It was a deplorable state of affairs. The official atmosphere had deteriorated to a point approaching zero. It was perhaps as well that at this juncture a bulky figure rose from a seat by the window and quietly joined itself to the end of the conference table.

‘About that person you saw …’ murmured Gently, spreading out his guide.

Three people, for three different reasons, restrained a
cri de coeur
that sprang automatically to the tips of their tongues …

‘I suppose you’re happy, Gently,’ observed Sir Daynes sourly, what time the room was again free of belligerent Welshmen. ‘You wanted to drag Janice into this, and you’ve confounded well succeeded. On the face of it, we’ll have to ask her what she’s got to say about the business.’

Gently’s shoulders heaved expressionlessly. ‘It might have been anyone …’

‘Might have been – but wasn’t, eh? That’s what you were going to say. And if we’re to pay any attention to that damned concussed miner with his grudges and violence!’ Sir Daynes gave one of his finance-
committee
snorts. ‘But have it your own way. Drag out all the dirty linen. We’ll have Janice and Henry through the mill a dozen times if necessary – before we send that Johnson feller up with an indictment.’

‘He’s my first choice, sir,’ assented Dyson with a touch of animosity in his tone. ‘I couldn’t begin to see my way into this case before we questioned
him
.’

‘Hah, smelt him from the first!’ Sir Daynes turned to his inspector fondly. ‘Always look for the
grudge-bearer
, Dyson, and you’ll never go far wrong. Who would want to bash the feller? Answer, Johnson. Who was the type to do it? Answer, Johnson. Who had the opportunity? Answer, Johnson. And between you and me, Dyson, we’ve got our man, only there are a few loose ends about which the best detectives don’t leave showing!’

Gently fished around in the pockets of his
waistcoat
and, after several failures, brought up a solitary,
shop-soiled peppermint cream. ‘We still don’t know why Earle was out there in the hall,’ he said. ‘Until we do know we can’t be certain of anything. The reason may be quite incidental, in which case Johnson may very well have taken an opportunity to level some scores … though, at the same time …’