Thirteen Guests (10 page)

Chapter XIV

The Finding of Z

Shortly before tea-time, two cars drew up before Bragley Court. One contained the Rowes and Edyth Fermoy-Jones, the other, Lord and Lady Aveling, Zena Wilding and Mrs. Chater. The second car had been telephoned for from Churleigh, where the eight had met and lunched, and grooms were bringing back the four vacated horses.

It had, Lord Aveling considered, been a very disappointing affair. He had been vaguely conscious of the many little shadows that brooded inside Bragley Court, and he had hoped that the crisp autumn air and the atmosphere of what he designated as clean English sport would dissipate them. But the shadows had increased, and he felt them all around him now as he stepped into the hall, its brooding silence abruptly broken by the voices of the returned wanderers.

First there had been Anne. Why had she chosen this particular week-end to be so trying? Nothing definite, you know—just little things—and going off like that with Taverley hanging on to her heels! She should have stuck to the party. For a little longer, at any rate.

And then, Zena Wilding. It hadn't been her fault, naturally, that she had tired so soon and turned faint. As a matter of fact, he had been really concerned about her. But he had had to restrain his complete sympathy in public, with his wife watching him—how suspicious women were!—and when he had suggested giving her lunch and seeing her home, too many others had accepted the excuse to desert the hunt also and return. Mrs. Chater was a blight on any company!

As for the hunt itself, none of them had had even a glimpse of the stag.

But Mr. Rowe was enthusiastic as he entered the spacious hall and reacted to its pleasant warmth. Now it was all over, he could praise the memory; at the time he had struggled not to let his toes freeze. “Unlike you, Mrs. Jones,” he had said, “I've a poor circulation!” Miss Fermoy-Jones had not enjoyed the joke, since he had deleted the hyphen and was now giving her a husband.

“Well, a thoroughly enjoyable day!” he exclaimed, racing for the fire and rubbing his hands. “After all, who wants to see the animal? You can see all you care to at the Zoo! But the ride—well, there you are! Don't you agree, my dear?”

“Very,” replied his wife absently.

“Is Mr. Chater back yet?” Mrs. Chater asked a butler. Her flat, harsh voice grated.

“Not yet, madam,” replied the butler.

“Any of the others?” inquired Lord Aveling.

“No, my Lord, you are the first.”

Lord Aveling paused for an instant, then turned to Zena. He was in the position of many men of his age. He had never been unfaithful, and he was beginning to wonder why; and the wonder sometimes made conversation with pretty women difficult. He found it particularly difficult with Zena Wilding, because, by the lightest change in the balance of his mind, he knew it could become so dangerously simple.

“I hope you are feeling better, Miss Wilding?” he said.

“Oh, yes, much better!” she exclaimed.

“We shall all feel better when we've changed,” remarked Lady Aveling. “I'm sure we're all longing to.”

There was a movement towards the stairs. Lord Aveling did not join in it.

“Aren't you coming?” asked his wife.

“Yes, in a minute—I'll go and have a look at Foss. Oh, by the way,” he added, turning again to the butler, “are Mr. Pratt and Mr. Bultin in?”

“They are both out, my Lord,” answered the butler.

He moved towards the ante-room, and nearing the door he suddenly stopped short. Zena had not yet begun to ascend the stairs, and she was standing only a few feet away from him. With his eyes on the door, he was recalling that on the previous night she had stood in exactly the same spot when he had suggested taking her into the ante-room to see the Chinese vase. For the first time he wondered whether Foss had been asleep.

John looked up as Lord Aveling entered, gladly laying down his book. He had passed too quiet a day.

“Well, we have returned, Mr. Foss,” announced Lord Aveling. “I hope you have not been very bored?”

“Not in the least bored, sir,” answered John. “Much too comfortable! But Masefield would have saved me, in any case.”

“Ah, Masefield,” said Lord Aveling, glancing at the book. “A fine writer. But you've had some other company as well?”

“Mr. Bultin looked in to see me this morning.”

“And Mr. Pratt?”

“No, only Mr. Bultin.”

“Not Pratt? Well, I dare say we must blame the artistic temperament. He said he would be working on his pictures, and he has probably spent the day in the studio. I suppose Bultin interviewed you on the subject of your accident?”

John detected no real interest behind the question. His host's mind seemed to be elsewhere, and his eyes were roaming.

“Yes, he did mention the accident,” answered John, “but perhaps I didn't encourage him.” As Lord Aveling looked vaguely inquiring, he added in explanation: “He was only here a couple of minutes just after you left. Did you have a good day, sir?”

“A good day? Ah, the hunt. Yes, very enjoyable, though none of my own party saw much of it. I dare say some of the others saw more—they'll tell us later.”

“You're not all back yet, then?”

“No.”

“Is—?”

John stopped abruptly. He had been on the point of asking whether Mrs. Leveridge had returned, and he just saved himself in time from the foolishness. It occurred to him that possibly Lord Aveling would not have heard the question even if he had got a little further with it, for the roaming eyes had now come to rest at a cabinet and were regarding it contemplatively. On top of the cabinet was an oriental vase.

“That is one of my show pieces, Mr. Foss,” said Lord Aveling, casually. “Are you a connoisseur, by any chance?”

“Completely ignorant,” answered John.

“Then you can't guess where that vase comes from?”

The tone was still casual, but John was conscious that the question was deliberately put.

“The subtle devil!” he thought. “If I guess right, after having admitted ignorance,
he'll
guess that my knowledge came last night through a door!” Aloud he guessed, obligingly, “India?”

Lord Aveling was not subtle enough to hide his relief. He laughed, for the last time that day.

“No, China,” he exclaimed. “Han Dynasty. Two thousand years old. Well, I must go and change.”

He turned, then started slightly. The sight of Leicester Pratt in a doorway would not ordinarily have upset one, but as the artist stood there now, with mud on his trousers, a tear in his right sleeve, and untidy hair, he sent a chill through both men. It was the expression in his eye, however, rather than the condition of his clothes that caused the chill.

“Is anything the matter?” demanded Lord Aveling sharply.

“More than a dead dog,” answered Pratt. “A dead man.”

“Good God!” gasped Lord Aveling.

“Quite dead,” said Pratt. “Still, I suppose one sends for a doctor to confirm the obvious. Shall I phone Dr. Pudrow?”

“Yes! No, I will! But wait a moment! Where is he? Who found him—?”

“He's in the little wood at the bottom of the quarry.”

“Did you find him?” asked Lord Aveling, glancing at the artist's clothes.

“With Bultin's assistance.”

“Fallen down there, eh?” Pratt did not reply. John looked at him suddenly. “Do you know who the man is?”

“He is not one of your guests,” replied Pratt. “But—”

He paused, hesitating.

“Please go on, Pratt,” insisted Lord Aveling.

“Bultin has an idea that three of your guests could identify him.”

“Really? Who?”

“May I leave that to Bultin?”

“Where is Bultin?”

“In the quarry. He said he would wait there, while I returned to report.”

Lord Aveling nodded and left the room. For a few moments Pratt and John remained silent. Then John said bluntly:

“Unpleasant business.”

“Very,” agreed Pratt.

“It seems to me I started a pack of trouble when I came here.”

“You're not guilty. The pack of trouble was due.”

“What's that mean?”

Pratt shrugged his shoulders. Vaguely, across the hall, Lord Aveling could be heard telephoning.

“If it means anything, which it may not, it means there will be more trouble,” remarked Pratt, taking out his cigarette-case. “Have one?”

“Thanks.”

As they lit up Pratt went on: “I am an artist, Mr. Foss, and the reason sensitive people do not like my work is because I see what is behind the skin—and what I see, I paint.”

“We're more than just skeletons,” said John.

“You have expressed an unfortunate truth,” answered Pratt dryly. “Skeletons, left all alone with their bones, would be quite harmless. I did not cause the death of our friend in the quarry—I never saw him in a live state, to my knowledge—yet, because I am more than my skeleton, a turn of the wheel might hang me for it.” John stared at him. “I should object, of course—but, do you know, I think I should also get some amusement out of it. As Bernard Shaw has pointed out, we are all born under the death sentence, so the time and the form may be mere details.”

“Will you tell me something?” asked John.

“Probably not,” smiled Pratt. “Still, there's no harm trying.”

“How did you and Bultin come to find this man?”

“We did not wander in the wood to gather buttercups and daisies. We found him by looking for him.”

“Good Lord!”

“So waste no more time, young man, but ring up the police.”

John frowned.

“Do you think I'm pumping you?” he demanded.

“I'm sure you're not,” replied Pratt. “
That's
not how I'd paint you. You've a special reason for asking questions.”

“Have I?”

“Your window here looks across the lawn. And, if blinds are drawn, one still has ears.”

Pratt did not underrate himself. He saw many things. But this was a chance shot, and he gathered from John's expression that he had scored a bull.

“I believe I may presently be pumping
you
,” he said. “But finish your questions, if you have any more.”

“The next one is fairly obvious.”

“So obvious that I can guess it. Why were we looking for the corpse?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, strictly speaking, we did not know it would be a corpse, but we had a special reason for being interested in this alleged poacher who killed Haig last night—”

“What's that?” cried John.

Pratt raised his eyebrows.

“Didn't you know that the dog had been killed?”

“No one told me!”

With Pratt's eyes upon him, John tried to readjust his mind to this fresh knowledge. He guessed the time Haig had been killed as he recalled his dream of broken glass and barking, and as he remembered that the barking had suddenly ceased. Round about one a.m. But other things had occurred round about one a.m., and he could not decide, since they involved many people, whether this was the moment to reveal those other things, or, even if it was, whether Pratt was the person to whom they should be revealed.

“It may help you to make up your mind,” said Pratt with uncanny intuition, “if I tell you a little more. You know I am painting a picture of Lord Aveling's daughter?” John nodded. “Yesterday evening, at a quarter to seven, I went to the studio and found the picture ruined. This morning, at a quarter past seven, I went to the studio again and found a window broken. Without knowing it, I had locked somebody in on the night before, and he had escaped, and, apparently, killed a dog. Well, that broadly explains my interest.”

“You mean, the person who was in the studio, and who killed Haig, spoilt your picture?”

“Not quite. I mean, that person
may
have spoilt my picture. There's no proof yet. But if the proof turns up, and if the dead man in the quarry is the same man, shall I have to stand my trial for a crime of revenge? Quite between ourselves, Mr. Foss,” added Pratt, “I haven't killed anybody, and never saw our corpse in a live state. It would be bad luck to be hanged for a justifiable murder without having had the actual fun of committing it!”

The door was pushed open, and Aveling returned.

“I got on to Dr. Pudrow's house, after the usual delay,” he said, “and found he was already on his way here to see Mrs. Morris. But we won't wait for him. Come along, Pratt. I must have a look at this fellow.” He did not move immediately, however. Something was still on his mind. “I wonder whether we ought to get in touch with the police?”

“That perhaps
could
wait for Dr. Pudrow,” suggested Pratt. “It will depend on the doctor's opinion, I should say, and also on whether the man remains unidentified.”

“Yes, you're right,” agreed Aveling, “especially as Bultin is going to give me the names of three of my guests who know him—”

“Who may know him,” corrected Pratt. “I think I'll change my mind and anticipate Bultin. The guests are Mr. and Mrs. Chater and Miss Wilding.”

Lord Aveling looked disturbed.

“Are they all back?” asked Pratt.

“All but Mr. Chater,” answered Lord Aveling, “and the ladies are changing. We won't worry them just yet.”

Something ran by the window. They turned their heads and stared in surprise. It was a riderless horse, making for its stable.

Chapter XV

In the Quarry

The horse galloped across the lawn. Its homing instinct had been diverted a few moments previously by a man who, in an attempt to catch it, had sprung at it ineffectively from the roadside, causing it to jump a hedge into a flower-bed; but it was not to be kept from home, hay, and comfort, and it was finding its way back to the stables by an unaccustomed route.

A gardener caught it finally near the stable door, and was soothing it when Lord Aveling and Pratt arrived.

“Chater's!” exclaimed Aveling, recognising it immediately.

“Then I suppose Chater will follow on Shanks's pony,” remarked Pratt.

“If he hasn't had a bad fall,” answered Aveling.

He gave an instruction to the gardener—the grooms were all on duty, and had not yet returned—and then made for the path leading to the wood in the rear of the grounds.

“This seems to be a day of misfortunes,” he commented to Pratt, striding at his side.

“Yes, but I'm afraid the misfortunes began yesterday,” replied Pratt. “This is the time to tell you of another.”

As Lord Aveling heard for the first time of the ruined picture, his expression grew more and more unhappy. He had always prided himself on his expression. It signified that he kept on top of circumstances, no matter what those circumstances were, and recently they had been particularly trying. Ambitious enterprises had received a check. Money was tight, owing to unfortunate investments, but a baron with ambitions must not show any signs of poverty; he must go on spending. A few months previously Anne had refused to marry a man who would have brought new wealth and position, if no brain, to the family. Now she was threatening to adopt the same attitude towards another eligible candidate. True, Sir James Earnshaw was double her age, but he would become a force by joining the Conservative Party, while Aveling's own force would be augmented through his assistance towards the happy political event.

Tact, dignity, patience, courage, and the well-known expression of courteous solidarity had been used to fight these troubles, and Lord Aveling had even established a necessary but unpleasant association with a retired sausage merchant without, so far, too much embarrassment. It was mainly due to the Rowes that Edyth Fermoy-Jones owed her invitation this week-end. He had thought the Rowes would like to meet a well-known authoress (who had been promised an invitation to Bragley Court in an incautious moment), and that the well-known authoress would occupy most of her time impressing the Rowes.

But now, to his consternation and humiliation, Lord Aveling was oppressed with a hideous sensation that circumstances were getting the upper hand, and that this was the week-end selected by Fate to prove the point. Each new trouble attacked a nervous system that had previously refused to yield to the demands made upon it; each new trial became invested with exaggerated significance. He found he was battling against a nameless panic from which Zena Wilding seemed the only escape. Why Zena Wilding? He had asked himself that question. Would any pretty woman, not too young and not too old, have sufficed his mood, or had he really detected that she, like himself, was fighting difficulties behind a mask? He had also asked himself what he wanted of Zena Wilding. The usual thing—or just to be a little boy again, and lay his tired head in her lap?

He did not know. All he knew was that Zena Wilding, whose companionship he craved, was not dissipating his panic, but adding to it.

And now this dead fellow…and this ruined picture…

“But this is most shocking!” he exclaimed. “Yesterday evening, you say?”

“Between half-past four and a quarter to seven,” answered Pratt.

“Why did you not mention it before?”

“I thought I might find the culprit more easily by not mentioning it.”

“You had a suspicion?”

“Quite definite.”

“May I ask who?”

“If you don't mind, I will keep that to myself. You see, if the man in the quarry did it, I shall be wrong.”

“But you don't know the man?”

“Never seen him before in my life.”

“Then why should he have done it?”

“I have no idea.”

“Perhaps he ran amok after you locked him in the studio?”

“We have no proof yet that this is the person I locked in the studio.”

“Quite so, but it seems obvious!” retorted Aveling. “It would be a coincidence if there were two men around. He got out of the studio, killed the dog, and then—ended down the quarry.”

“You are forgetting one point,” said Pratt. “The picture was ruined before I locked the studio, so, if he did it, he did it before being locked in.”

They entered the wood.

“Perhaps he's a lunatic?” suggested Aveling.

“Anybody who spoils a picture by Leicester Pratt must be a lunatic,” came the dry response.

Bultin rose from a tree-trunk and slipped his note-book away as they drew up.

“Are you writing the account already, Bultin?” inquired Aveling, with a frown.

“Provisionally,” answered the journalist.

“Well, kindly keep it provisional till we know a little more,” said Aveling.

“Publicity produces knowledge,” observed Bultin.

“Also crowds,” added Pratt. “Have sympathy, Lionel. If there are any plums, you won't have to work for them—they will drop right into your mouth.”

They walked together to the edge of the great dip. The quarry was a relic of past activity. No longer in use, much of its bareness had been reclaimed by vegetation. Lord Aveling stared down into the tangled space.

“See him?” inquired Pratt.

Lord Aveling nodded.

“What brought
you
up?” went on Pratt, turning to Bultin.

“My feet,” answered Bultin.

“Not really worthy. Try again?”

“Well, I like writing about corpses, but I don't like sitting by them. This one is a nasty sight. Even nastier than when I saw him alive—”

“What! Saw him alive?” exclaimed Aveling. “When? Where?”

Bultin produced his note-book again, turned to a page, and read:

“‘Our train drew in at 5.56. We stepped out upon an ill-lit platform. The knowledge that we should shortly enjoy the greater cheer of Bragley Court—Lord Aveling's cordial welcome is almost famous—''' He paused for an instant, and noted how, during that instant, the world grew a trifle brighter for Lord Aveling. “‘—modified to some extent the horror of a British platform in the British gloaming of a British October evening. But even so I had a strange sensation that unseen fingers were stretching through the dusk, and a curious incident accentuated the feeling. In reply to a famous actress's question, I informed her that she undoubtedly
was
keeping us all waiting, and that no press photographers were about. With the famous laugh rendered even more famous by her imitators, she ran towards the waiting Rolls. And now the incident occurred.'''

He paused again.

“No, not ‘occurred'—‘took place.''' He made the alteration. “No, after all, ‘occurred.''' He altered it back again. “‘And now the incident occurred. A man suddenly loomed before her. She stopped immediately. For a moment I thought she was going to faint. But she controlled herself with an effort, pushed by him, and entered the car. Of two other guests—a Mr. and Mrs. Chater, I being the fourth who completed the party—Mrs. Chater had already taken her seat, but Mr. Chater went up to the stranger and offered him a light. The offer was not accepted. “I'll see you presently,” spat out the stranger. “I wouldn't,” Mr. Chater spat back, and, in the words of Barrie, ‘joined the ladies.' Delete, ‘in the words of Barrie.' ‘But I did not immediately join the ladies. My business is news. You want it. I supply it. So I thought I would have a few words myself with this interesting stranger.

“‘I told him who I was. To my chagrin, he did not swoon with joy. He looked more as if he could have bitten me. I told him where I was going. This information softened him slightly. I felt that now I might touch him without being mauled. I offered him a light. His unlit cigarette hung uncared-for from his moist lower lip. This time he accepted. As I struck a match I mentioned my duty to the public. He stared at me. People say I have some gift of expression, but I could never express the look that suddenly leapt into his eyes. “
You'll
get something to write about!” he promised.

“‘Did he mean to fulfil that promise? Shall we ever know? The next time I saw the man, between twenty-one and twenty-two hours later, he was lying at the bottom of a quarry, dead.'''

Bultin closed his note-book and returned it to his pocket. Then a voice hailed them, and they turned. It was Dr. Pudrow, followed by a gardener and two grooms. The gardener, with lugubrious forethought, was wheeling a barrow.

“Where is he?” cried the doctor.

The definite task before them came as a relief to Lord Aveling. Anxious thoughts, disturbing conjectures, policies to be pursued, all were necessarily shelved while the grim business of descending to the quarry was engaged in. They found the man lying, face upwards, in a crumpled heap, and the doctor did not have to examine him to confirm that life was extinct.

“No doubt about it?” murmured Aveling.

“After rigor mortis, my Lord?” replied the doctor. “He has been dead several hours.”

“Can you say how many?”

Dr. Pudrow was now bending over the body. He did not answer for a minute. Then he remarked cautiously that he did not want to commit himself at the moment.

Pratt, who thought little of doctors, and particularly of this doctor, suggested the rigor mortis might give him some indication.

“It may occur half an hour or thirty hours after death,” retorted the doctor, well aware of Pratt's opinion, and particularly sensitive when the opinion was implied before Lord Aveling, “and the condition may last for from twenty-four to thirty-six hours. The time varies according to the subject and the cause of the death.”

“The cause we know,” answered Pratt.

“Perhaps you will handle this case?” exclaimed Dr. Pudrow.

Lord Aveling interposed.

“You mean, of course, Pratt, that he died from his fall,” he said. “Quite so. But I think we can safely leave these matters to Dr. Pudrow.”

“If you want to know what time the man died,” observed Bultin, in a voice that suggested he was stifling a yawn, “it was at nineteen minutes past one last night.”

“How do you know that?” demanded the doctor, astonished, while Lord Aveling stared.

“By his wrist-watch. It is broken, and the hands mark the time it stopped. I am assuming,” Bultin added, “that your ‘several hours' meant more than three—otherwise he could have died at nineteen past one to-day.”

Against his will, Dr. Pudrow was impressed. So was Pratt. “Bultin did not waste his time while I went to the house to report,” he reflected. “I wonder what else he's discovered?”

“He has certainly been dead more than three hours,” the doctor replied, “so you are probably right. Can you also tell us who he is?”

“No, I can't tell you who he is,” answered Bultin. “There is nothing on him to suggest his identity. But there are three people up at the house who may be able to.”

“Only two at the moment, I think,” murmured Aveling, as Bultin glanced at him.

“Can you get them here?” requested the doctor. “Some one connected with him should be notified as soon as possible.”

“Yes, yes, I agree—but both these guests are ladies,” objected Aveling. “It would not be reasonable to ask them to make this descent, especially as it is getting dark, and they are tired. In fact, I doubt whether they could do it. Why not let my men carry him up?”

“To the house?” inquired the doctor.

Aveling's frown grew. The house was depressed enough, as it was.

“Or the studio,” suggested Pratt.

The frown vanished. Lord Aveling was living, emotionally, from instant to instant. Bultin's account of the incident at the station had filled him with wretched forebodings, and he discovered that his main impulse, rightly or wrongly, was to protect Zena Wilding from unhappiness. His own happiness was being invaded from so many sides that it was almost a relief to have some one else's to concentrate on. “Besides,” he argued with himself, with the self-deception of the would-be virtuous, “isn't it my duty to protect my guests from annoyance? If I happen to be particularly interested in one of them, I must not remove that protection through self-consciousness.” His over-sensitive mind was once more developing situations in advance. “I have done nothing wrong!” He thanked God for that, though it was a sign of his anxiety that he had to produce the statement to himself.

“A good idea, Pratt,” he said aloud. “Yes, the studio. But what about you? Your work?”

“My work?” Pratt smiled. “My work is obviously post-
poned.”

Aveling made a sign to his waiting men. As they commenced their task, under the doctor's direction, Bultin looked on with vague disapproval. Pratt drew him aside.

“Your expression is not heavenly, Lionel,” he said. “What's the matter?”

Bultin shrugged his shoulders.

“That's not good enough for me, you oyster!” insisted Pratt.

“Bodies are not usually moved till the police arrive,” answered Bultin.

“Nor, perhaps, are their pockets searched,” replied Pratt, “though I know journalists sometimes imagine they have special privileges.”

“Did I search his pockets?” asked Bultin innocently.

“You knew there was nothing on him to indicate his identity. It would not surprise me to learn that you so searched for laundry marks. You can't have it both ways, my boy. If the police eventually arrive, the more you anticipate their work the bigger your scoop. At the moment, you can pretend you are helping. To the local inspector you may merely be a nuisance.”