The Skull Beneath the Skin (37 page)

Roma cried: “But that’s only in a case of murder! This is an accident. He was drunk, he staggered and he fell in. Ambrose told us that Munter couldn’t swim.”

“Did I? I can’t remember. But it’s perfectly true. He couldn’t swim.”

Ivo said: “You told us so at dinner. But Roma wasn’t there.”

Roma cried: “Someone told me, Mrs. Munter perhaps. What does it matter? He was drunk, he fell in and he drowned. It’s perfectly obvious what happened.”

Ivo resumed his contemplation of the water lilies. “I don’t think anything is ever perfectly obvious to the police. But I dare say you’re right. There’s enough mystery without making more. Are there any marks of violence on the body?”

Cordelia said: “Not that I can see.”

Roma said obstinately: “We can’t leave him here. I think we should take him indoors.”

She looked at Cordelia as if inviting her support. Cordelia said: “I don’t think it matters if we move him. It isn’t as if we found him like this.”

They all looked at Ambrose as if waiting for instructions.

He said: “Before we move him, please come with me all of you. There’s something we have to decide.”

They followed him towards the castle. Only Simon glanced behind him at the ungainly lump of cold flesh, still spread-eagled, which had been Munter. His glance conveyed an embarrassed regret, almost a look of apology that they should have to desert him, leave him so uncomfortably circumstanced.

Ambrose led them into the business room and switched on the desk lamp. The atmosphere was at once conspiratorial; they were like a gang of dressing-gowned schoolchildren planning a midnight prank. He said: “We have a decision to make. Do we tell Grogan what happened at dinner? I think we ought to agree on this before I telephone the police.”

Ivo said: “If you mean, do we tell the police that Munter accused Ralston of murder, why not say so plainly?”

Simon’s hair, plastered over his brow and dripping water into his eyes, looked unnaturally black. He was shivering under the dressing gown. He looked from face to face, astounded.

“But he didn’t accuse Sir George of … well, of any particular murder. And he was drunk! He didn’t know what he was
saying. You all saw him. He was drunk!” His voice was getting dangerously close to hysteria.

Ambrose spoke with a trace of impatience.

“No one here thinks it of any importance. But the police may. And anything that Munter did or said during the last hours of his life will obviously interest them. There’s a lot to be said for saying nothing, for not complicating the investigation. But we have to give roughly the same account. If some tell and the others don’t, those who opt for reticence will obviously be placed in an invidious position.”

Simon said: “Do you mean that we pretend that he didn’t come in through the dining room windows, that we didn’t see him?”

“Of course not. He was drunk and we all saw him in that state. We tell the police the truth. The only question is, how much of the truth?”

Cordelia said quietly: “It isn’t only Munter’s shouted accusation at Sir George. After you and Simon had taken Munter out Sir George told us about an army friend of his who had drunk in just that compulsive way …”

Ivo finished the sentence for her: “And had been drowned in just that way. The police will find that an interesting coincidence. So unless Sir George told you both the same story on a different occasion—which I take it he didn’t—Cordelia and I are already in what you might call an invidious position.”

Ambrose took in this information in silence. It seemed to give him some satisfaction. Then he pronounced: “In that case the choice would seem to be: do we all give a truthful account of the evening’s proceedings or do we omit Munter’s shout of ‘murder’ and the story about Ralston’s unfortunate friend?”

Cordelia said: “I think we should tell the truth. Lying to the police isn’t as easy as it sounds.”

Roma said: “You speak from experience perhaps.”

Cordelia ignored the note of malice and went on: “They’ll question us closely. What did Munter say when he burst in? What did the rest of us talk about when Ambrose and Simon were helping him to bed? It isn’t only a question of omitting embarrassing facts. We have to agree on the same lies. That’s apart from any moral considerations.”

Ambrose said easily: “I don’t think we need complicate the decision with moral considerations. Doing evil that good may come is a perfectly valid option whatever the theologians tell you. Besides, I imagine that we all did a little judicious editing in our interviews with Grogan. I did. He seemed to feel that my staging the play for Clarissa required explaining, so I told him that she gave me the idea for
Autopsy
. An ingenious but quite unnecessary lie. So our first decision is easy. We tell the truth, or we agree on a story. I suggest we take a secret ballot.”

Ivo said quietly: “Here, or do we all repair to the crypt?”

Ambrose ignored him. He turned first to where Simon stood, his chattering mouth half open, his washed face pale under the feverish eyes, and thought better of it. He said to Cordelia with formal courtesy: “Would you be good enough to bring me two cups from the kitchen? I think you know the way.”

The short journey, the incongruous errand, seemed to her of immense significance. She walked down the empty passages and into the kitchen and took down two breakfast cups from the dresser with grave deliberateness as if an unseen audience were watching the grace of every movement. When she got back to the business room it seemed to her that no one had moved.

Ambrose thanked her gravely and placed the cups side by side on the desk. Then he went out to the display cabinet and returned carrying the round board with its coloured marbles,
Princess Victoria’s solitaire board. He said: “We each take a marble. Then we close our eyes—no peeping I implore you—and drop them into one of the cups. We’ll make it easy to remember. The left cup for the more sinister option, the right for righteousness. You’ll see that I’ve even aligned the handles appropriately so there’s no excuse for confusion. When we’ve heard the five marbles drop we open our eyes. It’s convenient that Roma wasn’t at dinner. There’s no possibility of a tie.”

Sir George spoke for the first time. He said: “You’re wasting time, Gorringe. You’d better ring for the police now. Obviously we tell Grogan the truth.”

Ambrose took his marble, selecting it with some care and examining its veining as if he were a connoisseur of such trifles.

“If that’s what you want, that’s what you vote for.”

Ivo said: “Do you then intend to take a second ballot to decide whether we tell the police about the first ballot?”

But he took a marble. Sir George, Simon and Cordelia followed. She closed her eyes. There was a second’s silence and then she heard the first marble tinkle into the cup. The second followed almost immediately, then a third. She stretched out her hands. They were briefly brushed by ice-cold fingers. She felt for the cups and placed a hand on each so that there could be no mistake. Then she dropped the marble into the right-hand cup. A second later she heard the last marble fall. The sound was unexpectedly loud; it must have been dropped from a height. She opened her eyes. Her companions were all blinking as if the period of darkness had lasted for hours, not seconds. Together they looked into the cups. The right-hand one held three marbles.

Ambrose said: “Well, that simplifies matters. We tell the truth, apart, of course, from mentioning this little divertissement. We came together into the business room and you all
sat here together appropriately subdued while I rang the police. We’ve only spent a few minutes so there will be no embarrassing hiatus of time to account for.”

He replaced the marbles, after carefully scrutinizing each one, handed the two cups to Cordelia, and took up the telephone receiver. As she was returning the cups to the kitchen two thoughts chiefly occupied her. Why had Sir George waited until the ballot was inevitable before announcing that he favoured the truth, and which of the other two of them had dropped their marbles into the left-hand cup? She did briefly wonder whether anyone could have transferred someone else’s marble in addition to dropping his own, but decided that this would have required some sleight of hand even if done with open eyes. Her own ears were exceptionally sharp and they had detected only the four clear tinkles as the other marbles fell.

Ambrose was apparently practising a policy of togetherness. He waited until she returned before ringing the Speymouth police station. He said: “It’s Ambrose Gorringe speaking from Courcy Island. Will you tell Chief Inspector Grogan that my butler Munter is dead. He was found in the pool here, apparently drowned.”

Cordelia thought that the statement was notable for being brief, accurate and carefully non-committal. Ambrose for once was keeping an open mind on the cause of Munter’s death. The rest of the conversation was monosyllabic. Ambrose eventually replaced the receiver. He said: “That was the duty sergeant. He’ll let Grogan know. He says not to move the body. The less interference the better until the police arrive.”

There was a silence in which it seemed to Cordelia that they all simultaneously recognized that they were cold, that it wasn’t yet half-past six and that while it might appear
unfeeling to express a wish to return to bed and hopeless to expect sleep once there, it was unreasonably early to get dressed and face the day.

Ambrose said: “Would anyone care for tea or coffee? I don’t know what’s likely to happen about breakfast. You may get none unless I cook it, but I assure you I’m perfectly competent. Is anyone hungry?”

No one admitted to being hungry. Roma shivered and hunched herself deeper into her padded nylon dressing gown. She said: “Tea would be welcome, the stronger the better. And then I, for one, am going back to bed.”

There was a general murmur of acquiescence. Then Simon spoke.

“There’s something I forgot. There’s some kind of box down there. I felt it when I released the body. Ought I to bring it up?”

“The jewel casket!” Roma turned re-animated, the desire for bed apparently forgotten.

“So he had it after all!”

Simon said eagerly: “I don’t think it’s the casket. It felt larger, more smooth. He must have dropped it as he fell.”

Ambrose hesitated: “I suppose we ought to wait until the police arrive. On the other hand, I have a curiosity to see what it is, if Simon has no objection to a second immersion.”

So far from objecting, the boy, shivering as he was with cold, seemed impatient to get back to the pool. Cordelia wondered if he had temporarily forgotten that sprawled body. She had never seen him so animated, almost frantic. Perhaps it was the result of being, for once, the centre of the action.

Ivo said: “I think I can contain my curiosity. I’m going back to bed. If anyone is making tea later I’d be grateful if you’d bring up a cup.”

He left on his own. Roma was apparently cured of both her headache and her tiredness. They returned to the pool. The fading moon was tissue thin and the sky was streaked with the first light of day. The air rose in a thin mist from the water and struck them with a damp autumnal chill. Bereft of the moonlight’s bleak enchantment and the sense of unreality which moonlight bestows, the body looked at once more human and more grotesque. The flesh of the left cheek, resting against the stones, was pressed upwards to distort the eye so that it seemed to be leering at them, ironic and knowing. From the drooling mouth a trickle of bloodstained saliva had hung and dried on the stubble of the chin. The sodden clothes looked as if they had already shrunk and a thin stream of water still ran from the trouser legs and dripped slowly into the pool. In the uncertain light of the first dawn it seemed to Cordelia that his life blood was seeping away, unregarded and unstaunched. She said: “Can’t we at least cover him up?”

“Of course.” Ambrose was at once solicitous.

“Could you fetch something from the house, Cordelia? A tablecloth, a sheet, a towel, or even a coat would do. I’m sure you’ll find something suitable.”

Roma turned on him, her voice harsh.

“Why send Cordelia? Why should she be expected to run all the errands round here? She’s not paid to take your orders. Cordelia isn’t your servant. Munter was.”

Ambrose looked at her as if she were an unintelligent child who had for once succeeded in making a sensible remark.

He said calmly: “You’re perfectly right. I’ll go myself.”

But Roma, in angry spate, was beyond appeasement.

“Munter was your servant and you can’t even bring yourself to say you’re sorry he’s dead. You don’t care do you? You didn’t care about Clarissa and you don’t care about him. Nothing
touches you as long as you’re comfortable and saved from boredom. You haven’t said a word of regret since we found his body. And who are you, for God’s sake? Your grandfather made his money out of liver pills and gripe water. You haven’t even the excuse of caste for not behaving like a human being.”

For a second Ambrose’s body froze, and two moons of red appeared on the smooth cheeks, then as quickly faded, leaving him very pale. But his voice hardly altered. “The only human being I know how to behave like is myself. I shall grieve for Munter in my own time and place. This hardly seems an appropriate moment for a valediction. But if its absence offends you I can always emulate Prince Hal.

And if it’s any comfort to you, I would rather see all of you, with one possible exception, dead at the bottom of my pool than lose Carl Munter. But you’re right about Cordelia. One is too ready to take advantage of competence and kindness.”

After he had left there was an embarrassed silence. Roma, her face blotched, her chin creased with stubborn anger, stood a little apart. She had the truculent, slightly defensive air of a child who knows that she has said something indefensible but who is not altogether ungratified by the result.

Suddenly she swung round and said gruffly: “Well, at least I managed to provoke a human reaction from our host. So now we know where we stand. I take it that Cordelia is the privileged one among us whom Ambrose would be reluctant to see dead at the bottom of his pool. Even he isn’t entirely immune to a pretty face, apparently.”