There Came Both Mist and Snow (16 page)

‘
A single pistol-shot
,’ said Geoffrey, ‘
rang through the startled hall:
will this at least cure Lucy of all that? It would be nice to feel that Wilfred’s sacrifice had not been in vain. Why not try historical fiction, Lucy? You could always let off a musket or matchlock if you felt a trick of the old rage. A single bombard reverberated in the base-court; a blunderbuss boomed in the buttery.’

‘We reconstructed the crime,’ I repeated, ‘and prowled about. There was some tentative exploring of alibis. For instance, I had gone out for a stroll – no alibi at all. Cecil was engaged in prayer.’

‘Prayer?’ said Anne. ‘One feels that if Cecil prayed one would hear him at it. Sir Mervyn, had you joined him?’

Wale smiled a very properly chilly smile. ‘I was resting in my room. Another instance of what Ferryman calls no alibi at all. It is to be hoped that in the course of his devotions Dr Foxcroft didn’t forget
you
.’

Geoffrey Roper’s chuckle was interrupted by Cecil. ‘Basil,’ he said loudly, ‘I am sorry to say that I have to leave.’ He held up a letter which had been waiting for him on the breakfast table. ‘A conference.’ He stuffed the letter in a pocket. ‘An important conference which I dare not miss.’

‘A chilly time of year for conferences,’ said Wale. ‘Where is it to be held?’

Cecil took another gulp of coffee. ‘There is some – ah – last-moment doubt. I shall receive a telegram at – um – Crewe.’

‘Cecil,’ said Anne, ‘has had a very Serious Call.’

Abruptly, Cecil set down his table-napkin. ‘I shall pack while you are finishing breakfast.’

We stared at him in astonishment. ‘Do I understand,’ asked Basil, ‘that you are proposing to go away leaving no address?’

‘What about my picture?’ demanded Hubert.

‘And what,’ said Anne, ‘about the police? If they can’t prevent his going they will certainly have him shadowed. Wherever Cecil travels he will be followed by a large man in a bowler hat. A ’tec. Observation will pursue him in his most intimate moments. The ’tec will watch and Cecil will pray. Or perhaps the police will employ Uncle Arthur once more.’

‘It would be most injudicious,’ said Basil. ‘I hope, Cecil, that you will be able to change your mind.’

Cecil sank back in his chair. Whatever terror possessed him, I think it was overborne by the prospect of being followed about by a man in a bowler hat. Presently a thought seemed to strike him. ‘A lawyer,’ he said. ‘Basil, I want a lawyer; have you a lawyer here?’

‘Certainly I have. Man named Cotton.’

‘In the telephone book?’

‘Of course. Clement Cotton. Firm is Cotton and Cotton.’

At this Cecil sprang up and retreated in the oddest backwards fashion from the room – much like one of his own charges having reason to apprehend a kick on the behind. In the baffled silence which followed his voice could be distinguished speaking urgently in the lobby. ‘He’s got on to Cotton,’ said Geoffrey. ‘One wonders is what on?’ He laughed confidently at his jingle.

Wale stood up. ‘We must have Beevor,’ he said with conviction.

‘Beevor?’ Basil, who was addressed, looked somewhat blank. It took a lot to move Basil’s masterful calm, but I think he was beginning to feel the situation as getting beyond him.

‘I ought to say that I have been Dr Foxcroft’s medical attendant for some time. Now he appears to have lost confidence in me. But before resigning the case I consider it my duty to call in Beevor. With your permission, Roper, I will go to the study.’

So while Cecil summoned Cotton, Wale summoned Beevor. The rest of us remained in the breakfast-room in silence which was presently broken by a sniff and a sob. It was Lucy Chigwidden. She had begun quietly to cry. ‘I can’t understand it,’ she said; ‘I just can’t understand a single thing!’ She put a handkerchief to her eyes and composed herself. ‘You must forgive me, Basil; but it really is very upsetting indeed. So bewildering
all round…
’

I realized that Lucy’s professional vanity was mortified. The mystery which surrounded us she was as little able to penetrate as anyone else.

There was another pause. ‘The relationship between this Wale and Cecil,’ said Hubert, ‘has been problematical from the first. For who would cleave to Cecil? The puzzle is there.’

‘And yet,’ said Anne, ‘Wale undoubtedly clave.
Vénus toute entìere à sa proi attachée
is about the measure of it. But we neglect the narrative of Uncle Arthur.’

We do not greatly uncle and aunt in our family; I regarded Anne’s Uncle Arthuring me as an irritating affectation. ‘My dear Anne, there is little narrative to give. Appleby detected you returning a revolver to the range; he listened to your talk with Geoffrey; he made certain acute observations upon your character; and then he went away.’

‘Returning a revolver?’ said Basil with severity. ‘Anne, what is this?’

‘Please, I brought a revolver up to the house to play a joke on Lucy. After the shooting I felt it might be an awkward companion, so I took it back. Geoffrey followed me and I promised to explain at breakfast. Now I’m explaining. Of course I know’ – she mimicked Basil outrageously – ‘that it was most injudicious.’

I have always felt slightly responsible for Anne; it was my instinct now to say something by way of diversion. ‘Appleby,’ I remarked, ‘is acute and pertinacious. But in one or two particulars he seemed to me to lack discretion. I have mentioned that we came upon Cudbird in Hubert’s attic. He and Appleby – they appear to be old acquaintances – exchanged somewhat enigmatic observations. And then – if I am not mistaken – they made some sort of bet as to who would get at the truth of the matter first. I could see that Leader disapproved.’

Basil – whose reactions were often unexpected – laughed for the first time since the shooting. ‘My dear Arthur,’ he said, ‘do you know that in your composition there is a touch – just the faintest touch – of Cecil? Lurking in you is the feeling that certain things are not done.’ He paused. ‘Priories, for instance, are not sold.’ He looked at me quizzically. ‘But consider this affair on its merits. Appleby wants the truth. Cudbird, who is a clever fellow with the instinct of scientific curiosity, is moved to hunt for the truth too. Why should they not spur each other on with a bet? If they had wagered, say, on the chances of Wilfred’s recovering I would be prepared to join Leader in disapproving heartily. Of Wilfred’s fight they can only be spectators. But in solving the mystery then can be
agents
. That makes all the difference.’

There were times, I reflected, at which Basil could be distinctly heavy. ‘A difference isn’t necessarily the same thing as all the difference,’ I said. ‘And, anyway, I repeat that Appleby seems to me not altogether discreet. He shows his hand. For example, I showed him out last night by the little door opposite the mills. As a result he revealed the way his suspicions were turning.’

‘There!’ said Geoffrey. ‘I knew we should get something out of Arthur at last.’

‘He remarked how easily the shooting could have been by–’

Richards appeared at the door. ‘Mr Cambrell,’ he announced.

Hard upon Richards’ announcement came Cambrell himself. ‘Roper,’ he said, ‘will you forgive me for coming in at this hour? I felt I had to say how very sorry I was to hear your bad news.’ And Ralph Cambrell pulled a long face. He pulled it, I thought, without much difficulty, as if the ribbon and tape business were going through a lean time.

Basil’s acknowledgements and report of the last news of Wilfred were accompanied by the rustle of a newspaper down the table. It was Anne. ‘But it’s not in the
Post
,’ she said. ‘However did you get to know?’

Cambrell looked embarrassed. ‘The police,’ he replied. ‘I had it from the police. The fact is’ – he turned again to Basil – ‘that I have explanations to make.’ He hesitated. ‘And something to return.’ He took a book from under his arm and laid it on the table.

‘Have a cup of coffee,’ said Basil.

Cambrell looked more disturbed still. ‘And of course an apology to offer. I beg you to forgive what I said at our parting yesterday afternoon.’

We looked uncomfortably down our noses. Basil admirably contrived not to be brusque and not to be hearty; Cambrell got his coffee, got two lumps of sugar. ‘Yes,’ he said; ‘as I say, the police. They appear to be quick-working and efficient. That is most satisfactory.’

‘Most satisfactory,’ said Anne.

‘Most satisfactory,’ said Geoffrey.

Cambrell shifted slightly on his chair. ‘The book. They traced me through the book I left in your study.’

Basil looked puzzled. ‘I am quite sure you didn’t–’

‘The book I left last night.’

‘The book,’ said Geoffrey and Anne in chorus, ‘he left last night.’

Basil, I am glad to record, stood for no more of this. ‘Anne,’ he said, ‘Geoffrey, no doubt you have your own plans for the morning.’

The door closed on the impossible couple. Cambrell looked slightly relieved. ‘I had better begin at the beginning. After leaving you yesterday afternoon I went across to the office and worked late. A little after seven o’clock I prepared to go home. Then it occurred to me that in the matters we had been discussing the – the last word had not perhaps been said. I remembered your remarking that you would probably be working in your study till dinner. So I slipped into the park by the little door–’

Basil’s eyes flickered for a moment towards mine. I could see that he knew very well what I had been about to report when our visitor was announced.

‘–and strolled up to the house. The front door was open–’

‘Yes,’ I interrupted. ‘I left it open when I went out.’

‘–and the hall deserted. I noticed that it was a couple of minutes after half past seven. I had an impulse – I am afraid it is most inexplicable – not to present myself to your servants again in a formal call. So I walked straight down the little corridor, knocked at the door of your study, and went in. It was empty.’

Basil no more than faintly raised his eyebrows. ‘I see. I had just left it. And Wilfred had not yet gone in. I am sorry I missed you.’

Cambrell received this irony unresentfully. ‘I waited for a couple of minutes. I must tell you that I had with me a circulating-library book which I was taking home. I must have laid it down on the desk.’ Cambrell paused. ‘I say I waited a couple of minutes. But perhaps it was really less than one; in fact it didn’t take me long to realize that I had done an exceedingly awkward thing.’

‘Quite so.’

‘You will not think it absurd when I say that a mild panic seized me. I picked up my book, returned to the hall, found it still deserted, and left the house, closing the door behind me. Only in my flurry I took the wrong book.’

‘Odd,’ said Basil. ‘If you had wanted to demonstrate your presence in the study you could scarcely have left a better clue.’

‘No doubt. And as I say, the police acted most expeditiously. They noticed my book when examining the room and had the thoroughness to ask your butler if you subscribed to this particular library. He told them that you had books sent down from London. So they roused the manager of the book shop in the small hours of this morning, examined his files, and traced the book to me. A young detective officer called Appleby – a very civil fellow – was on my doorstep at eight this morning and I had to explain the whole thing. He was very reasonable and seems to agree that I acted unwisely but naturally enough.’ Cambrell announced this with some satisfaction, seemingly unaware that in Appleby’s pronouncement a certain judgement of character was involved. ‘And then I felt, of course, that I must come over at once and explain everything. And return the book I took away with me.’

Basil picked up the volume from the breakfast table. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I see. Law’s
Serious Call
.’

Crossing the hall some twenty minutes later I met Geoffrey. Clad in a large sweater and muffler, he was swinging a badminton racket. ‘
This sight of death
,’ he said, ‘
is as a bell That warns my old age to a sepulchre
. You remember Wale quoting that in Lucy’s game? I was going to draw something surrealist on it this morning. But the fingers get too cold this weather. So if the sleuths come Anne and I are in the coach-house. And Cecil is locked in his bedroom.’

‘Locked in his bedroom?’

‘I mean he has locked himself in. As you know, Wale has been Badgering one Beevor. Quite a Bestiary in that.’ Geoffrey paid this the tribute of a long, loud laugh. ‘But Cecil will neither be Badgered nor Beevored. In fact he’s rapidly developing an anti-medical mania. No one is to be let in to him except this lawyer he’s sent for. Odd, isn’t it? As Lucy would say, the plot thickens. Sickens would be the better word, to my mind. Off to who-goes-with-whom, I suppose?’

This was Geoffrey’s name for my sort of writing. His generation affects to be uninterested in personal relations and to regard every drawing-room as a boring bedroom in disguise. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I shall try to do a little work, and it will be about people who are reasonably aware of each other. By the way, Appleby thinks that you and Anne are not unlike the creatures in my books.’

Geoffrey stared; I think he was really shocked.

‘He thinks of you as exceptionally well-up in who-goes-with-whom – in the whole wash and drift of feeling at Belrive. He also remarked that you have penetrated to the heart of the mystery.’

‘If he means that I see there
isn’t
a mystery, he’s right.’

‘Isn’t a mystery? I hardly think he meant that.’

Geoffrey opened round eyes on me. ‘Surely
you
don’t think there’s any doubt about who shot Wilfred?’

I looked at him in dismay. ‘Really–’

‘Basil shot Wilfred, of course. Tried to murder him. When the bed-stuff bores you come and watch the badminton.’

And my young kinsman shrugged his shoulders and moved off. But after a couple of paces he turned round. ‘Do you imagine’ – he spoke with something between irritation and vehemence – ‘that a chap like Basil would let a fat little banker stymie something
serious
?’