There Came Both Mist and Snow (15 page)

‘If you must lurk,’ said Anne, ‘you should put on a coat. You’re busy catching a cold, not me.’

‘What were you doing with that gun?’

I made a movement to break away from Appleby and reveal myself; even as I stirred, the great bottle snapped into darkness and the scene was gone. The darkness – a darkness of shadow and shifting violet penumbra – checked me, and I heard Anne’s voice say: ‘Why was Wilfred so imperfectly shot?’

‘Yes, Anne. Indeed, why?’

‘I could give a guess.’

‘I could give a guess.’

The acid green was flickering again above us. I realized with a shock that these young people carried their verbal affectations into their intimate talk – and into talk on a theme where they were surely out of place.

‘We could give guesses.’ Rose turned to amber; they were standing as before with the golden-lit Priory behind them – like two modern folk strayed incongruously into a composition of Claude’s.

‘As could others.’

‘As could others – which is the point.’

‘Which is the point.’ The light faded on their unexpected laughter. ‘But what were you doing with that gun all the same?’

‘Till breakfast to guess.’

‘And is Cecil a liar?’

‘To bed, then.’

‘To beds.’

Green…rose…amber. They were gone.

‘It took us nearly nine minutes,’ said Appleby. ‘But who would have expected such a treat at the end.’

‘I must say I don’t at all like–’

‘But I have eavesdropped and am, on the contrary, happy. And so to bed.’ Appleby chuckled. ‘Or, as Miss Anne so precisely puts it, to beds.’

‘I hope,’ I said, ‘that you make something of what you have heard.’ The coolness with which Appleby carried off our deplorable conduct exasperated me slightly.

We moved over to the locker by which Geoffrey and Anne had been talking. ‘I admit,’ said Appleby, ‘that their idiom stands a little in need of interpreting. But I have no doubt you can do that.’ He halted and flashed the torch. ‘Locked, as it certainly ought to be. The young woman came with a key and under cover of darkness returned a revolver to its place. The young man followed her. One might see the expedition as implying guilt. But I felt that it might very well be a matter of giving a suppressed sense of melodrama an airing. As they said: Woman in White and Spy in Black.’

We were retracing our steps across the park and a light night wind was now blowing the snow in our faces. My instinct was to get Appleby off the premises and crawl to bed. Nevertheless I could not resist an impulse to continue the debate. ‘Anne had some plan to fire off a revolver up in the gallery – a plan which Basil vetoed. She may have brought the revolver up to the house for that, and felt after the shooting that it was an embarrassing thing to have about. Her method of returning it would be melodrama, as you say.’

‘I gathered that she and Geoffrey Roper were not accusing each other; their clipped talk was a sort of review of possible accusations from elsewhere. And more was meant than met the ear.’

‘They talk,’ I said, ‘in a very affected way.’

‘No doubt. But – do you know? – they remind me a little of the people in your books.’

I said nothing. It was a piece of detection which I did not relish.

‘Which is a compliment to them, of course. They can play that verbal game only because they are exceptionally aware both of each other and of the world around them. Of the possibilities in this shooting – of how this or that may be made of it – they are likely to be masters. And they have certainly penetrated to the very heart of the mystery.’

‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘they are better up than we are in mist and snow.’

Appleby laughed. ‘That, as you know very well, is simply a matter of a lost association in my own mind.’ His voice became serious and convinced again. ‘I say they touched the very centre of the thing.’

We walked in silence, the torch picking out our path. Behind us Cudbird’s bottle had given over for the night; the cessation of its flicker on the snow before us made the night feel colder than before.

‘Can I get out,’ Appleby asked, ‘without coming back to the house?’

I told him that there was a sort of postern near by which would take him out on the main road; we turned off our path and found it without difficulty. ‘A Yale lock,’ said Appleby; ‘but not locked. So at night anyone may stroll into the park?’

‘You will find that, though the tram line is hard by, this actually gives on a little
cul-de-sac
. It is so quiet that I suppose nobody troubles about locking up. Turn to the right and you will come to the main road just opposite Cambrell’s mill.’

Appleby put his hand on the latch. ‘How simple,’ he said, ‘for Cambrell to slip in here and do any shooting required.’

‘No doubt.’ I was somewhat startled at the casual manner in which Appleby threw out this suggestion.

‘Well, I must be off.’ He opened the door. ‘By the way,
is
Cecil a liar?’

This nicely contrived change of theme had its effect; the torch jerked in my hand.

‘Geoffrey Roper asked that. Is Cecil a liar? And perhaps that is where you can interpret. To what would he be referring?’

I hesitated. Here was something that I had refrained from communicating to Appleby earlier. And in this chilly situation I scarcely felt like it now. But I saw that – whatever my own belief – it was something which Appleby would not consider irrelevant to his investigation. Which meant that he would get at it himself sooner or later. ‘I think,’ I said, ‘that I can give a guess.’

Appleby said nothing. But he closed the door. I had extinguished the torch. We might have been in a darkness calculated for purposes of the confessional.

‘Wilfred, as you know, is Anne’s guardian; originally he was joint-guardian with my father. He has always been the business man of the family. But he was, of course, somewhat too young to be a suitable person to act alone.’

‘I see.’

‘When my father died no further arrangement was made. Anne had no property of her own; her future was largely a matter of the discretion of her wealthy remaining guardian.’

‘So much I’ve gathered.’

‘There is really nothing more except Cecil’s gossip. I am afraid Cecil’s feelings for his brother Wilfred are unkindly. The other evening he took me for a stroll in the park here and confided to me that he did not consider Wilfred’s relations with Anne – or rather his intentions towards her – as at all proper.’

‘And that, I take it, does not cover a desire on Wilfred’s part to marry his young ward?’

‘Cecil assures me that Wilfred is a confirmed bachelor.’

I thought I heard what might have been a sigh come from Appleby. ‘Only let somebody be shot,’ he said, ‘and this sort of stuff comes up. What is your own opinion of the business?’

I hesitated. ‘Anne has a mocking way with her. Once or twice she has hinted at Wilfred’s burdening her with unwanted sentiment. But a guardian who is perfectly properly disposed may be slightly jealous of his ward’s suitor. And if ward and suitor consider themselves entitled to some sort of settlement from him out of hand friction may easily grow up. The resulting situation I can imagine Cecil misconstruing readily enough.’

‘Anne, in fact, being due to tell Geoffrey that Cecil is a liar indeed.’

‘Yes. It is very distressing to have to explain all this.’

‘I am grateful to you for keeping nothing back… Good night.’

He was gone. And as I returned to the house I found myself wondering if there had been something faintly mocking in his voice.

Breakfast on the following morning was an unusually punctual affair. That this was due to our having slept soundly seems unlikely: most of us, indeed, showed signs of a contrary experience. Nor was much appetite evident. Curiosity was the motive which brought the house party so promptly round Basil’s eggs and bacon. And of this curiosity I was myself the centre.

I can see now that Appleby had thought this out. He had affected to enlist me as an assistant on the ground that I possessed more than common insight into human character. Actually, he was proposing to use me as a sort of long-handled spoon. His technique consisted largely in a vigorous stirring-up of the human elements in his problem. And he stirred with me.

The choice was not without art. People of my sort – imaginative workers in rather a wire-drawn kind – are commonly an unhappy mingling of diffidence and ability. We tend to sit in a corner and feel that our talents entitle us to a larger share of attention than we get. Not content to rest in the consciousness of a respectable fortune in the bank, we have an itch to make a show by jingling the loose change in our pocket. To receive some attention not for what we printed last year but what we are saying and may be thinking now: this is something under which we expand. I fear I expanded more than was discreet.

Hubert Roper was the first person to speak. ‘Cecil,’ he said disapprovingly, ‘you’ve changed colour.’

Geoffrey looked up from a plate of porridge. ‘Interesting, isn’t it? Greenish tones showing through. He reminds me of the doubtful Vermeer at Brussels.’

It was certainly true that Cecil had turned pale, though an untrained eye had to take the greenish tones on trust. He crumbled a piece of toast and gulped coffee with an effort, an altogether different man from the Cecil who had been taking roast duck in his stride the day before. Whether he would have replied to the badinage directed at him did not appear, for Hubert had now turned to his sister Lucy. ‘You look off colour too, my dear. Those tiresome policemen, no doubt, ignoring all the principles of the craft. Don’t your sleuths exhaustively question everyone on the spot? But except for Arthur here and a word with Basil those fellows last night took no interest in any of us.’

‘A most mistaken impression.’ I spoke abruptly, so that everyone swung round. Hubert Roper was a person for whom I had never entertained very strong feelings either of dislike or approval; at this moment, however, he had aroused considerable irritation in me. ‘Basil’s new friend Appleby is a most pertinacious young man and takes the liveliest interest in us all. Your studio, Hubert, quite absorbed him.’

‘My studio! What the devil do you mean?’

‘He inspected it on the pretext that his colleague Leader is something of a connoisseur. He sniffed at your bottles much as if you had been the Borgias’ poisoner, and as for your sketches – well, he studied them as if they might prove the cardinal documents in the case.’

It would be idle to deny I enjoyed the sensation which this revelation caused. I had an irresistible impulse to cap it with another. ‘Cudbird was interested too. I believe there might be a commission or two in him when it comes to decorating’ – my eye went to Basil at the head of the table – ‘his skating-rink, his fun fair, his crèche–’

‘His concert hall,’ said Basil dryly, ‘and his
maison de danse
. I have been afraid, Arthur, that all that might be a blow to you. But, for what I am after, it seemed the best way.’

‘A blow?’ said Anne. ‘At the moment Uncle Arthur seems less contused than contusing. Hubert staggers.’

It was true that Hubert appeared startled. ‘Cudbird?’ he said. ‘Has that little tyke been up in the attic too?’

‘Yes. Although he confesses that his taste is rather for the photographic. He associates photographs in some way with last night’s wretched affair. His precise line of thought is obscure to me – as are a good many other things. But I am convinced that Appleby hopes to clear up the whole affair in time.’

‘As for the interrogations Hubert hankers after,’ said Basil, ‘I don’t doubt they will take place today. I expect Leader back at any time – and Arthur’s young friend as well. Unless, of course, Arthur has been left in charge.’

‘Am I mistaken,’ asked Geoffrey, ‘in distinguishing a doggy smell in this room now? After all, Arthur was virtually kennelled with the bloodhound for hours on end.’

‘Not entirely kennelled, Geoffrey,’ I said. ‘We took the air.’

Geoffrey looked blank, but Anne’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is it conceivable,’ she asked, ‘that Uncle Arthur also takes the biscuit?’

I recognized this as a fair enough description of my conduct in the ruins some nine hours before. ‘It would not be an exaggeration,’ I replied, ‘to say that I fairly took the cake. I mean’ – I looked round the table – ‘that I helped Appleby to eavesdrop on Geoffrey and Anne. A somewhat barren discussion of their riddling talk followed.’

This time the table was stupefied. But I do not think that I was now talking for effect; it seemed to me that the least I could do was to be reasonably frank.

‘The doggy smell,’ said Hubert, ‘seems to be about the mark.’

I flushed. ‘You needn’t think I am eager for a blood-hunt. Far from it. Wilfred, I hope, will recover and the whole thing be forgotten. Or forgotten by everyone but the perpetrator of last night’s folly.’

‘Folly?’ said Sir Mervyn Wale. He was evidently in his blandest mood again, and now spoke for the first time. But mild as his interjection was, I noticed that it made Cecil start.

‘Folly,’ I repeated. ‘Criminal folly, if you like. I believe the memory of it will be’ – I hesitated – ‘will be punishment enough. I see little sense in any of us going to prison.’

There was silence. My auditory was shocked. It was also a little impressed.

‘I cannot agree with you,’ said Wale presently. ‘These Tolstoian positions ignore the brute fact of bent and habit. Repentance and amendment
might
follow. But more probably what would follow would be a second attempt. Foxcroft’ – he turned to Cecil – ‘does your experience with youth not bear me out?’

Cecil’s reply was inarticulate; I had the impression that he had gulped coffee the wrong way down. And Geoffrey interrupted Wale’s speculative excursion. ‘Tolstoian or not, the fact remains that Arthur chummed up with the hound and went padding about. And we are all agog to know what happened.’

I shook my head. ‘Very little happened. We reconstructed the crime–’

Lucy Chigwidden put down her cup with a clatter. ‘Really Arthur, it makes me feel quite queer. I have so often–’