There Came Both Mist and Snow (18 page)

Cudbird appeared to be contemplating his fifty-shilling suit dubiously in the cheval-glass. ‘Fancy that, now. Those free and easy upper-class ways. A liberty, I should call that. A regular liberty, Mr Ferryman.’ He transferred his attention to the concave mirror.

‘Do you happen to have seen Basil this morning?’

Cudbird chuckled. ‘Come now, Mr Ferryman. The reviewers would call that rather labouring the irony. I just slipped in and up. Mind you, I want to see Hubert Roper.’ He paused and turned to the big mirror. ‘To do him a bit of good, of course.’

‘I’m sure Hubert will be very pleased.’

‘He might do me a painting of the Priory.’ Cudbird looked at me sharply. ‘It would be nice to have a record.’

‘A record!’ I cried aghast.

He chuckled again at my dismay. ‘Don’t worry. The ruins, you know, are protected. Scheduled, they call it. The Office of Works will come down and put up a little lodge with a couple of turnstiles and a roll of sixpenny tickets. And there will be notices telling folk to keep off the grass.’ He turned away from the mirror and spoke more soberly. ‘What news of the wounded man?’

‘Wilfred is thought to be out of danger. But as yet they have been unable to question him. Are you still keen on your bet? Perhaps interest will slacken now it’s known that murder has not been done.’

‘Oh, yes. I’m still keen enough.’ He looked at me shrewdly. ‘You would like to see interest slacken, as you call it?’

‘Yes,’ I spoke, I believe, with unusual firmness. ‘At present there is a great deal of useless and extravagant speculation in the family. And even among outsiders as well.’

Cudbird shook his head doubtfully. ‘I don’t know that I can be called just an outsider, Mr Ferryman.’

‘Surely you cannot pretend that the thing has concerned you?’

‘Not if you put it that way – throwing it into the past. But it might concern me – if it went on. Where would my plans be if a second attempt on Sir Basil was successful?’

‘It is far from certain that Basil was the intended victim in the first place. Basil himself seems to disbelieve it. And even if it were so I am sure that it was a matter of a crazy impulse that won’t recur. I believe Basil is safe.’

Cudbird took a couple of paces backwards and eyed me critically. ‘Well then, say it was Wilfred Foxcroft who was to be shot. Would that make Sir Basil quite safe?’

I stared at him. ‘But of course it would!’

‘Say somebody had a strong and evident motive for killing Foxcroft – and failed in the attempt. Mightn’t that person find safety in confusing the issue by taking a subsequent shot at Sir Basil?’

‘I hardly think–’

‘Or take another line. Say it was Sir Basil himself who tried to shoot Wilfred Foxcroft – and that the police might hit upon a very clear motive for that. Mightn’t Sir Basil confuse the issue by taking another shot – not fatal, you know – at himself?’

I felt suddenly out of patience. ‘My dear sir, it was to escape from very similar ingenuities by a fanciful lady downstairs that I retreated up here. Such notions cannot be useful and may be mischievous. Mrs Chigwidden has evolved just such a case against Cecil Foxcroft. And, if she has been putting it about, that may very well account for his nervous collapse and bolt.’

Cudbird was really surprised. ‘His bolt – you say Dr Foxcroft has bolted? Now, that doesn’t fit in at all.’ He looked round the attic as if it had suddenly presented him with a fresh puzzle.

‘I really don’t believe you can tell whether it fits in or not. The whole framework of the affair is utterly obscure and likely to remain so. And as for your case against Basil, I can only say that you appear to share it with that young puppy Geoffrey. If that is a recommendation, I leave you to judge.’

‘Geoffrey Roper thinks his uncle shot at Wilfred Foxcroft?’

‘Yes. And if you want yet another suspicion I believe Appleby is inclined to suppose that it was Cambrell trying to shoot Basil.’

‘Wrong, Mr Ferryman – every one of them. Believe me. And I hold no brief against Sir Basil. It was Sir Basil who was thought to be shot at, all right. Shall I tell you who did the shooting?’

There was a sudden confidence about Cudbird that appalled me despite myself. Once more he had that compelling quality which had constrained us all in the matter of Jim Meech and the canaries. I looked at him helplessly, even with a certain unreasonable anxiety. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Tell me who tried to shoot Basil.’

Cudbird’s eye swept round the studio. ‘It’s clear as–’ He broke off and frowned. ‘Or rather that’s just what it’s not. It’s
there
, all right. But it’s difficult to get straight. It’s as distorted’ – he paused and considered – ‘as my nose in that glass.’ And he pointed to the concave mirror on the wall.

I was peering at the mirror – as if that were at all likely to afford a clue to Cudbird’s speculations – when the door opened and Hubert Roper came in. He seemed to have no disposition to question our presence, but walked directly to the window and looked out over the park. I moved to his side. Unbroken snow was below us; beyond, the city sullenly resisted the pressure of a leaden sky. To the left, and closer than I had ever realized them to be, back-to-back houses spilt themselves down the valley-side in parallel rows, like grimy tentacles abruptly lopped. Everywhere, above black roofs snow-powdered, slow smoke rose grey and black to heaven, so that the city showed like a vast and cinereous altar whose useless offerings smouldered in a void. A lurid sun hung low as a furnace door in a foundry, or like a burning football tumbled between the goal-posts of the brewery chimneys. And far away down the valley, as if to suggest that here was but an outer circle in the inferno of industrialism, lay a blacker smudge that told of iron and steel in a neighbour town. That somewhere winter brought the earth repose, that somewhere the freshets drew their speed from unsullied snow: this was impossible to believe. Hubert looked intently at the brick and slate and smoke. ‘My God,’ he said, ‘what a fool I was to go south and paint their damned silly mugs!’ He turned to Cudbird. ‘Do you know that I’ve given twenty years to painting mugs that are all as alike as the bottoms of identical twins? While all the time there was that.’ And he jerked his thumb backwards at the window.

I was startled; for me the scene spelt nothing but depression. But Cudbird appeared to be startled too. ‘You find faces monotonous? Now, that’s very interesting. I should hardly have believed it. Why, even canaries–’

Hubert shook his head absently. ‘My dear man, canaries live in a state of nature – more or less. But human features are coming to compress themselves more and more within a few masks. Three or four masks to each sex in each social class, and faces have to conform. It is very boring, believe me. Of course back-to-backs are monotonous too. But one can put a quarter of a mile of atmosphere between oneself and them. And they gain in mystery and beauty with every yard.’

‘A case,’ I said, ‘of distance lending enchantment to the view.’

It was a banal remark, and Hubert contrived to give the impression of inspecting it gloomily. ‘Distance,’ he remarked presently, ‘would lend some enchantment to those confounded policemen. They’re here again, you know. First Leader badgering people about times and places. And now Appleby collecting slips of ivy in the garden. You may well look surprised. I came on him while he was at it and asked him if it was by way of souvenir. He said that was it. Incidentally, he was looking at the stuff in all gloom, as if it had let him down. I hope he grows really discouraged and goes away.’

‘You don’t think,’ Cudbird asked, ‘that the shooting had better be cleared up?’

Hubert made no reply but perched himself on the table amid a litter of sketches. He picked up a crayon and began to scrawl on the back of a portfolio, his gaze moodily lost in the cheval-glass. I broke the silence. ‘Perhaps you agree with me that the thing was a momentary madness and is best forgotten?’

Hubert glanced at me vaguely. ‘Momentary? Oh, assuredly. Takes no time to pull a trigger.’

I was disturbed by this deliberate inconsequence. ‘Well, perhaps not quite as momentary as that. Appleby has a theory that someone saw a chance of shooting Basil, went to get a weapon, and failed to notice that in the meantime Wilfred had taken Basil’s place. That gives the thing a certain sinister deliberation. But even if that happened I regard the whole series of events as a single aberration. And if I know anything of human nature – our sort of human nature in this house – the only sequel will be horror and recoil. There will be no second attempt. Don’t you agree, Hubert?’

Hubert stopped fiddling with his crayon. ‘I can’t say I do. No. I think your position is forced and risky. Decidedly risky. The truth is, Arthur, that you are the sort of person who would do a good deal to avoid a vulgar scandal. Cudbird, don’t you read him that way?’

Cudbird said nothing. Hubert looked at Cudbird as if detachedly interested in the way that Cudbird was looking at him. In the silence there floated in through the window a sound of sparrows scuffling in the eaves. I felt baffled and alarmed. ‘Appleby–’ I began.

‘It’s odd,’ interrupted Hubert, ‘how this Appleby stuffs Arthur with ideas and sends him running round. The police are telling us a lot. But what ought we to tell the police?’ His fingers jerked nervously on the crayon. ‘Where we were at the time – that sort of thing. I’ve told them I was in my room.’ He laughed vaguely. ‘Except for yourself, Arthur, about everybody has told them so. I wonder how many fibs that involves?’

Cudbird, who had picked up a drawing and perched it critically against the wall, turned round on this. ‘Perhaps everyone concerned has an irrelevant secret to hide. But somewhere someone has a secret which is
relevant
. It’s teasing, you know.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Twelve hours now, and the cat is still in the bag. Will it turn restless and give itself away? Or all the time’ – and Cudbird set up another drawing and cocked a considering head at it – ‘is there some chink through which a whisker or the tip of a tail is showing?’ He nodded his head in the slightly oracular way he occasionally affected. ‘There’s a relevant secret somewhere.’

‘Are you sure?’

We turned round at the sound of a new voice. It was Appleby who had slipped into the room. Viewed by daylight he looked older than I remembered him. Or it may have been a certain air of anxiety which gave this effect: he had the appearance of a man dissatisfied with his own efforts.

‘Are you sure?’ he repeated. ‘What if the cat is a Manx cat, with no tail to protrude? And that’s how I really feel about this problem: something missing.’

‘A Manx cat?’ said Hubert. ‘Ferryman here would like to see the mystery behave like the Cheshire sort and just fade away.’

Appleby looked soberly from one to the other of us. ‘Something missing,’ he reiterated. ‘That’s it.’

As if he were being fitted with one of his new shiny suits, Cudbird placed himself carefully between the big mirror and the cheval-glass. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘Cecil Foxcroft is said to be missing. What about that? But I’m not sure myself that we haven’t everything to hand for solving the riddle.’

Appleby paced across the attic, turned round, surveyed first Hubert and then myself. I had the uncomfortable impression that he was recording us as thoroughly unsatisfactory exhibits. ‘No,’ he said – and his manner was brusque as it had not hitherto been, ‘there’s something missing and I know it.’

Hubert swung himself off the table. ‘Rather a negative piece of knowledge, is it not?’ He took up a palette and began to scrape at it. ‘And we should hate to think of you wasting your time.’

If this was a hint Appleby ignored it. ‘I really don’t think I’m doing that,’ he said. ‘This conviction that something is missing – it may be useful. Yes’ – his voice was hesitating in evident absence of mind – ‘yes… I think you may find it that. It is what I felt from the first. Otherwise I would scarcely have pushed in.’

We looked at him in perplexity. ‘Mr Appleby believes,’ I said, ‘that the missing piece will fall into place as soon as he remembers a bit of poetry – something about mist and snow.’

Turning away from the window through which he had been peering at the back-to-backs, Appleby shook his head. ‘It’s not exactly a matter of a missing
piece
. Nor – however interesting Dr Foxcroft’s proceedings may be – of a missing man.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘If
I
had this fellow Beevor after me I’d nip out of a window myself. Incidentally, Beevor has arrived. He and Wale are discussing the case
in absentia
in the library. Not, one would imagine, the most satisfactory of clinical methods. And Mrs Chigwidden has been in conference with them too. She has a theory.’ Appleby was speaking in disjointed sentences which made me suspect that his mind was not entirely on what he said. ‘Perhaps Dr Foxcroft has a theory also.’ He glanced at us ironically. ‘Who hasn’t?’

‘I understood,’ I said, ‘that Lucy Chigwidden was reluctant to divulge her theory to the police.’

‘She is quite unaware that she has divulged it.’ And Appleby treated me to a grin which might have been reckoned – unfairly perhaps – faintly conceited. ‘Or that it is wholly untenable.’ He turned to Hubert. ‘For there is one – just one – piece of positive knowledge that I do possess. Dr Foxcroft didn’t fire that shot. But anyone else – barring Wilfred Foxcroft himself – might have. Any of you might have.’ Appleby paused and I had the impression that all this was somewhere a deliberate marking time. ‘Dr Foxcroft alone has an alibi.’

‘Cecil has an alibi!’ I cried in astonishment. ‘But we understood–’

‘Yes. But Dr Foxcroft’s devotions were not performed in solitude. In fact’ – and for a moment Appleby looked the most wooden of policemen – ‘the young person’s name is Rose. The servants have been questioned; the fact emerged.’

‘This,’ I said, ‘is what one gets by raking about. And no wonder that Rose was upset by Lucy’s remarks. I am shocked, and I can see that Cudbird is too.’

Hubert chuckled without much mirth. ‘One imagines that Cecil’s advances would be indecisive and embarrassed. I do not suppose that Rose lost her virtue – or as much as her breath.’