The Key (4 page)

HE STROLLED INTO the churchyard after breakfast, and found Bush digging the grave which would be wanted tomorrow for Michael Harsch. Frederick wore his usual air of conscientious gloom. He was a fine broad-shouldered man, and must have cut a personable figure in his footman days, but very few people had ever seen him smile. Some said it was just his gravedigger’s pride – ‘And say what you like, none of us wouldn’t fancy having jokes cracked over our coffins.’ Others said that if they had to live with Susannah Pincott and eat her cooking, maybe they wouldn’t smile either.

Garth said, ‘Hello, Bush!’ and got a ‘Morning, Mr Garth,’ after which the digging proceeded.

‘You’re all well, I hope?’

Bush lifted a heavy spadeful.

‘As well as anyone’s got the right to expect.’

‘I suppose this is for Mr Harsch?’ Garth indicated the grave.

This time he only got a nod.

‘Did you know him? I suppose you did. Was he the sort of chap to commit suicide? Seems an odd place to do it in, the church.’

Bush nodded again and threw out another spadeful. Then he said soberly, ‘I doubt there’s two kinds of chaps – anyone might do it if they was to be pushed hard enough.’

‘What makes you think that Mr Harsch was being pushed?’

Bush straightened up.

‘Begging your pardon, I never said no such thing. Anyone might get pushed so as they couldn’t keep a hold of themselves. I seen a car run away down Penny Hill when I was a boy – something gone wrong with the brakes, they said – come an almighty smash against a big ellum in the hedge. I reckon that’s just about what happens when a chap takes his own life – brakes don’t work and he gets out of control same as a car.’ He bent to his digging again. There was no more to be got from him.

The inquest was set for half-past eleven in the village hall. Garth walked down between Miss Sophy and Miss Brown, both wearing black. Miss Brown was silent, Miss Sophy tremulously conversational. She kept a hand on his arm, and clutched him hard as they entered.

Rows of wooden chairs, a narrow aisle up the middle, a platform at the far end, an all-pervading smell of varnish. Memories of village concerts, private theatricals, and jumble sales crowded in upon Garth. To the right of that platform he had sat at the upright piano presented by Miss Doncaster and played his first solo, The Merry Peasant, with leaden fingers and a growing conviction that he was going to be sick. Behind the very table which occupied the centre of the stage his grandfather’s impressive figure had towered as he presented prizes to the more virtuous of the village youth. Where the narrow lane between the chairs now stretched tables groaning with buns had been set for the Christmas Sunday School treat. There was something rather horrid about revisiting the scene for an inquest. One thing there was in common between those past occasions and this gloomy one, the hall was full. Only the two front rows remained unoccupied, but they were farther removed from the platform then they would have been at a concert, and on the right-hand side of the space thus left clear a dozen chairs placed sideways in two rows accommodated nine embarrassed-looking men and three women.

The coroner, who might have sat alone, had chosen to call a jury – half a dozen farmers; Mr Simmonds the butcher; the landlord of the Black Bull; the baker; Mrs Cripps of the general shop; Mrs Mottram, a pretty fair-haired woman with a rolling blue eye; and the elder of the two Miss Doncasters, Miss Lucy Ellen, very thin, upright and grey, with an air of considering that her gentility was being contaminated.

On the left a couple of reporters and a small, efficient elderly man whose face Garth found familiar without being able to place it, until it came to him that he had seen it bent over papers in Sir George’s office. Obviously Sir George was not leaving the reporting of the evidence to chance.

Miss Sophy had led the way to the second row of chairs upon the right. At the far end of the corresponding row on the left there sat a middle-aged gentleman in tweeds which would have looked better if they had not looked quite so new; for the rest a very genial gentleman, not so stout as to be called fat, but a well rounded testimonial to the efficiency of Lord Woolton’s food control. He had a bald patch on the top of his head, a pair of ruddy cheeks, and a roving eye. It lighted upon Miss Sophy, and he immediately beamed and bowed. Miss Sophy’s grip upon Garth’s arm tightened. She said ‘Mr Everton!’ in a fooffly whisper, and returned the bow with a hint of discreet reproof. She had never been to an inquest before, but it felt a good deal like being in church, and though it might be permissible to recognise your friends, she did not feel that it was at all the thing to smile at them. Mrs Mottram now – she really shouldn’t be looking about her like that. To be on a jury was a most responsible and sobering position, and she was wearing that rather bright blue dress which she had bought when she went out of mourning. And turquoise earrings – really most unsuitable, though no doubt very becoming. Lucy Ellen Doncaster looked most disapproving, and no wonder. She was wearing the coat and skirt in which she always attended funerals. It must be quite twenty years old, but it was suitable. Unfortunately her hat, of approximately the same date, had tipped sideways in spite of the two long jet-headed pins with which it was transfixed. But hatpins are of very little use unless you have plenty of hair, and Lucy Ellen, who had never had much, was now decidedly thin on the top. Even at this solemn moment Miss Sophy heaved a sigh of thankfulness at the thought of her own thick, snowy curls. ‘After all, there is nothing like a good head of hair,’ she concluded.

The room, except for the two front rows, was now packed. All at once a party of three came up the central aisle – a man with an angry crooked face and black untidy hair, a woman in whom the same odd features were blurred by plumpness and timidity, and Janice Meade. Garth would have known her anywhere. She really hadn’t altered a bit, and she didn’t look very much older – the little pointed face, the way her hair grew, the very bright eyes. She followed the Madocs up to the second row on the left. Mr Madoc stood aside. Miss Madoc went forward in a hesitating manner and sat down by Mr Everton. Janice followed her. The professor jerked the outside chair as far as possible away from them, threw himself into it, and crossed his legs, right over left, after which he dragged a horrid-looking handkerchief from his pocket and mopped a brow which had every appearance of being heated by some inner conflagration.

Garth got all this as an impression. He wasn’t really looking at Madoc. His eyes were on Janice, and he was thinking how nice and cool she looked in a white tennis frock and a sort of garden hat with a black ribbon round it, whilst Miss Madoc weltered in a heavy grey coat and skirt which dipped and bulged, and Madoc wore his aged flannel trousers, his open-necked shirt, and disreputable green jacket as if they had been forced upon him by the Gestapo.

Garth’s attention came to him and remained. The man’s whole being was a protest. Waves of angry resentment spread out all round him in the most disconcerting manner. He appeared to Garth to be one of those unhappy persons to whom civilisation is at once abhorrent and necessary. As a scientist he required its order. As a man he rebelled, and detested its restraints.

The coroner came in and took his seat to the ancient formula of ‘Oh yes – oh yes – oh yes!’ Immemorial ritual, immemorial routine, and the little grey man with ruffled hair and a lagging step. But the eyes behind his tortoise-shell-rimmed glasses were steady and sharp. He called the medical evidence first. A hollow-cheeked elderly man recited it in a rapid undertone. Garth gathered that the bullet had entered the right temple, that death must have been instantaneous, that everything pointed to the weapon having been actually in contact with the head.

Janice wreathed her hands together in her lap and tried not to listen. She kept telling herself that these things had nothing to do with Mr Harsch. He had been here, and he had been her friend, but now he wasn’t here, and she hoped he was with his daughter and his wife. All this about bullets, and weapons, and the violence that went with them had nothing to do with him at all.

The police surgeon stood down, and a police inspector took his place. He had been called to Bourne church at 12.12 a.m. on Wednesday 9th September. The call was put through by the sexton, Frederick Bush. He found Bush and Miss Janice Meade in the church when he arrived. He also found the body of Mr Harsch, lying on the floor in front of the organ. The weapon lay close to his right hand. The attitude of the body was compatible with the shot having been fired whilst Mr Harsch was sitting at the keyboard. There was no disturbance, and no sign of a struggle. The organist’s bench had not been moved. The body appeared to have slipped from it to the ground.

The moment which Janice had been dreading had arrived. She heard her name – ‘Call Janice Meade!’ She had to squeeze past Evan Madoc, who merely scowled and slewed himself a little sideways without uncrossing his legs. The thought that he was the rudest man in the world passed automatically through her mind. She went up the two steps on to the platform. When she had been sworn, someone gave her a chair and she sat down.

‘Now, Miss Meade – will you tell us in your own words just what happened on Tuesday evening. I believe you were Mr Harsch’s secretary?’

‘I am Mr Madoc’s secretary. I was very pleased to do anything I could for Mr Harsch.’

‘You have been an inmate of the same household – for how long?’

‘For a year.’

‘You were on friendly terms with Mr Harsch?’

Her colour flew up, her eyes dazzled. She said, ‘Oh, yes—’ on a soft, unsteady breath.

‘Well, Miss Meade, will you tell us about Tuesday evening?’

Garth, watching her, saw her right hand take hold of her left and hold it tightly. When she spoke her voice was low and clear.

‘Mr Harsch came in from his laboratory at a little before six. He had finished something that he had been working at for a long time. I gave him some tea, and we sat talking for a little. He put through a telephone call to London, and then we talked again.’

‘Was this call in connection with the work which he had finished?’

‘Yes. He made an appointment with someone to come down next day.’

‘It was a business appointment?’

‘Yes.’

‘What happened after that?’

‘We went on talking.’

‘Will you tell us what you were talking about?’

‘About his work – and about his daughter. He had a daughter of about my age. She – died in Germany. We talked until nearly supper time. After supper he said he would go out. He always took a walk in the evening unless it was pouring with rain.’

‘Did he speak of going to the church?’

‘Yes – he said he would go down and play the organ and blow the clouds away.’

‘What did you understand him to mean by that?’

She faltered a little as she said, ‘We had been talking about his daughter.’

‘Her death was a tragic one?’

‘I think so. But he never spoke of that – only about how pretty she was, and how gay, and how much everyone loved her.’

‘Go on, Miss Meade. When did you become anxious about Mr Harsch?’

‘He was usually back by ten o’clock, but I didn’t get worried until much later than that, because he sometimes dropped in to see Miss Fell or Mr Everton. But when he wasn’t home by half-past eleven I was really frightened. Mr and Miss Madoc had gone to bed, so I took a torch and went down to the church. The door was locked and everything was dark. I went to Mr Bush’s house and woke him up. He brought his key and opened the door – and we found Mr Harsch.’ The last words were very low. She tried to keep them steady.

The coroner said, ‘I see. Very distressing for you, Miss Meade. Did you touch anything – move anything?’

Still in that very low voice she said, ‘I took his hand. Mr Bush held the torch, and we saw that he was dead.’

‘His hand was cold?’

‘Yes, quite cold.’

‘Did you see the pistol?’

‘Yes.’

‘How was it lying?’

‘About six inches from his right hand.’

‘Did either of you touch it?’

‘Oh, no.’

‘Miss Meade – you said at the beginning of your evidence that you had a long talk with Mr Harsch. Did he seem depressed?’

She hesitated for a moment, and then said, ‘No – I don’t think so.’

‘You said that he had just finished some work upon which he had been engaged for a long time. Did he say anything to the effect that his work was done – anything that could bear that construction?’

‘No – not like that. He said it was like having a child – you brought it into the world, and then you had to let other people bring it up.’

‘He did say that?’

‘Yes.’

‘And then you talked about his daughter who had died in tragic circumstances?’

Janice lifted her head.

‘Yes. But he didn’t talk about the sad part. He said that was all gone and not to be remembered any more.’

The slightly foreign turn of the sentence gave it the effect of a quotation.

The coroner leaned forward.

‘Did it occur to you at the time, or has it occurred to you since, that Mr Harsch had any thought of taking his own life?’

A bright colour came into Janice’s face. She said very clearly indeed, ‘Oh, no – he wouldn’t!’

‘Have you any reason for saying that?’

‘Yes. He talked of working with Mr Madoc – he asked me if I would help him if he decided to do that. And he rang up to make an appointment for next day with a very busy man. He was very punctilious, and considerate for other people’s time and – and feelings. He would never have made that appointment if he hadn’t been meaning to keep it.’

The coroner looked at her for a moment. Then he said, ‘The pistol you found lying beside Mr Harsch – had you ever seen it before?’

‘Oh, no.’

‘Did you know that he possessed a pistol?’

‘No.’

‘You never saw one in his possession?’

‘No.’

‘Or in the house?’

‘Oh, no.’

‘Thank you, Miss Meade.’ He sat back in his chair and said, ‘Call Mr Madoc!’