Thou Shell of Death (15 page)

‘Oh, lord,’ muttered Nigel, ‘not
another
corpse: this really is going a bit too far.’

His prayer, as it happened, was granted. As Bleakley jumped out and bent over it, the body raised itself piecemeal from the ground and was resolved into a tramp. He staggered a little, blinked, and exclaimed huskily but in the most gentlemanly of accents:

‘Great Scott! The Aurora Borealis!’

He then rubbed his eyes, and, perceiving the source of the illumination, said:

‘I beg your pardon, gentlemen, I fancied myself for a moment back again behind my huskies in the frozen North. Allow me to introduce myself: Albert Blenkinsop is the name. You see me rather at a disadvantage, I fear.
Non sum qualis eram
, as the bard has it.’

He swept off his bowler hat with a courtliness not at all diminished by the fact that the rim came away in his hand while the crown remained in position.

Bleakley was staring at him as if he was the winning ticket in the Irish sweepstakes. Nigel quickly seized Bleakley’s arm and whispered:

‘Leave this to me!’ He turned to the tramp and said, ‘Can we give you a lift anywhere? I don’t know if we are going your way.’

‘Any way you are going will suit me admirably, old man,’ replied Albert Blenkinsop, his gesture a consummate blend of politeness and magnanimity.
Nigel
followed the indescribably tattered figure and its bundle into the back of the car. Albert Blenkinsop leant back, produced a cigar stub from some cache in his rags and lit it. Then sighing with satisfaction he waved his arm airily and began to talk.

‘As I was saying, I have seen better days. I am one of Fate’s laughing stocks. Time and again life has given me to sip of her brimming abundance, only to dash the cup from my lips. Bitter words, you will say, but amply justified. You see me now in somewhat reduced circumstances. You would be surprised to hear, perhaps, that I am a rich man. Yes, I could take you this minute to a bank in Moscow where a hundred thousand rubles of mine are locked up. I happened to be over there when the Revolution broke out. I was able to assist a certain grand duke, who must be nameless, to escape; the hundred thousand rubles was a token of his gratitude—very lavish the old aristocracy was, though barbarous according to our standards of civilisation. Unfortunately the Bolsheviks got wind of the part I had played in the affair, and but for the fact that I was warned by a charming little lady—one of the corps-de-ballet there and quite infatuated with me—I should not have got away with my life. As it was, I left the country with nothing but a few rubles, a faked passport, and a signed photograph of the Czar which I managed to conceal in the sole of my boot. I would not burden you with an old man’s reminiscences. Such episodes are commonplaces in my life. It is just an example of
the
way I have been from beginning to end a plaything of Fate.’

The tramp sighed and relapsed into reverie.

‘A heartbreaking business for you,’ said Nigel gravely. Albert Blenkinsop turned abruptly upon him and tapped him on his top overcoat button.

‘You might well think so. But what
is
money?’

‘Well,’ Nigel answered cautiously, ‘money is not everything.’ He had evidently given the right answer. Albert Blenkinsop leant back again and gestured expansively.

‘That is profoundly true,’ he said. ‘As soon as I saw you tonight I said to myself: “I don’t know who this young man is, and I don’t care. He may be an old Etonian: he may be the Trunk Murderer. That is not Albert Blenkinsop’s concern. But what I
do
know is that he is sympathetic. An old head on young shoulders,” I said to myself, and I am a judge of faces. Yes, time and again in my chequered life I have asked myself that identical question, “What
is
money, after all?” And I have always answered, as you so well put it just now, “Money is not everything.” And shall I tell you what
is
the most important thing in life?’

‘Yes, I should be most interested.’

‘Romance. Life without romance is like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. I will tell you a little experience of my own to illustrate this truth. Five years ago I was in the theatrical world. A young girl came to me for an audition. She had not been in my room two minutes when I said to myself, “That girl
will
go far.” I spent every penny I had in building her career—a divine creature—the theatre was in her blood. We fell in love, I need hardly say: a few months of paradise, and then she passed out of my ken. The other day I happened to be walking down Shaftesbury Avenue: there was her name, in electric letters six foot long. I sent in my card, just for old acquaintance’ sake. The reply came back, “Miss X regrets she has never heard of Mr Blenkinsop.” Ingratitude, you may call it. The young are harsh in their judgements. To me the whole thing is different. For me those electric letters in Shaftesbury Avenue spelt one word only—Romance.’

The superintendent was chafing more and more visibly, so Nigel thought he had better drag Albert Blenkinsop back to the present.

‘And what are your plans now?’

Blenkinsop leant forward impressively.

‘Well, I don’t mind telling you that I could lay my hands on a very tidy sum of money, if only—’

Bleakley made a gargling sound that seemed likely to prelude some official pronouncement. The tramp, however, with several significant nods and winks in his direction, remarked to Nigel in a stage whisper:

‘Sorry, old man, but is your friend quite trustworthy?’

‘Oh, yes, rather. Though I couldn’t vouch for him when he is in drink.’

‘Well, it’s like this. A friend of mine, a man very high up in the scientific world—for obvious reasons I
cannot
disclose his name at this stage—has discovered’ (Blenkinsop’s voice fell to a thrilling whisper) ‘iron ore in Berkshire. I thought that would surprise you. It surprised me. Of course the thing’s a gold-mine, my dear fellow, a veritable gold-mine. He wishes me to come in with him and exploit it. In fact, I am on my way there now. Unfortunately, funds are rather low with me. I need capital. In short, if you happen to have £100 to spare, it would be a genuine gilt-edged investment.’

Bleakley’s back looked utterly deflated. Nigel said:

‘Afraid I haven’t. If ten shillings would be any use?’

Albert Blenkinsop was not in the least discomposed. He accepted the note with a nice blend of gratitude and independence.

‘I suppose you didn’t have much of a Christmas,’ Nigel said.

‘I can’t complain. I had dinner with the rector of an old-world little hamlet near here—a charming fellow, though not altogether sound on the Manichaean heresy, I thought. An old friend of mine, Lord Marlinworth, has a place just outside the village.’

‘Yes, he’s my uncle. We’re staying at the Dower House.’

‘Indeed? Well, well. What a small place the world is. I had thought of dropping in on his lordship last night, but when I had walked some way into the park
I
heard midnight strike, and it seemed a bit late for a social call.’

‘What a pity you weren’t near the Dower House: isn’t it, Bleakley? My friend and I had a wager on,’ Nigel explained; ‘it all hinges on whether someone was in a hut in the garden before twelve-thirty or not. Now if he
was
, and you supplied the evidence, I should feel bound to give you a percentage of my winnings.’

Bleakley winced at this flagrant leading of a witness.

‘As it happens,’ said Blenkinsop, ‘I can be of assistance to you over that point, I believe. I did find myself near a sort of hut last night: not long after midnight. It was just beginning to snow, I remember, and I thought “any port in a storm”. Unfortunately there was someone in there already.’

‘Really,’ said Nigel with elaborate negligence. ‘I wonder was that our man.’

‘A fair-sized, thinnish fellow. A military man, I should say, by the cut of his jib. Blue eyes and a hard-bitten face. Seemed to be looking for something. A treasure hunt in progress, I dare say. Yes, it must have been. Because a few minutes later he slipped out, and just after that another fellow went in—a small fellow with a white face and a black beard. I thought it was time for me to move on then. My presence might have been misunderstood. Luckily I found a barn not far from the park gates. We old campaigners are used to living hard, but I have had enough experience in the
Arctic
Circle to know the dangers of going to sleep in snow.’

‘This first fellow, did he go back to the house?’

‘That I couldn’t say. I was looking in at a window at the back of the hut. He went off to the right and was swallowed in the darkness.’

‘Well, I win my bet, and here’s your rake-off.’ Nigel handed over another note, and then consigned Albert Blenkinsop to the less tender mercies of Bleakley, who by this time, judging from the colour of the back of his neck, had reached boiling-point and would explode incontinent unless provided with a safety valve.

IX

A TALE CURTAILED

NIGEL STRANGEWAYS WENT
to bed that night staggering with exhaustion. The day’s stress and activity, culminating in their drive through the fog and the fantastic episode of Albert Blenkinsop, had produced in him that deadened state of the senses where everything seems to be happening to one through a kind of local anaesthetic. As though he was a holy man towards the end of a long fast, people and things appeared to him infinitely more remote and less important than at normal times. The electric light that blazed in the hall as they entered seemed to be inside his own head. He saw Georgia and Lucilla, Philip Starling, Cavendish and Knott-Sloman as through the thick glass of an aquarium, moving about with the unnatural slowness of fishes. The one advantage of this, he reflected as he tumbled wearily into bed, is that it dehumanises one. If I hadn’t had all this work to do, I should have been moping about, remembering what a grand fellow O’Brien was and tormenting myself for my abject failure to help him. Like poor Georgia. How she must have been suffering! Still, she’s tough. The
sort
whose wounds heal cleanly. Or isn’t that wrong? Isn’t it the superficial people, like Lucilla Thrale, who recover quickest and most completely, simply because they can never receive more than superficial wounds? The murderer must be feeling pretty blue, too. So certain he had rigged up a really watertight suicide, and then to find that it was leaking in every joint before a few hours were up. Driven already to the desperate expedient of attempting a second murder to cover up the first. Yes, he must be feeling bad. And perhaps someone else here may be as great a danger to him as Bellamy. Perhaps he is sitting up in bed now, revolving a dozen schemes in his head, planning mischief, knowing that somebody else must die if he is to live.

The thought made Nigel sit up in bed and reach for a cigarette. His head felt extraordinarily light and clear now. Sleep could wait for a bit: there was still work to be done before he earned it. The murderer. Bleakley and the bloke from Scotland Yard will attend to material facts far more effectively than I can, he thought. My angle must be the personal one. Very well, let’s be thoroughly unorthodox and start with the question, which of these people here is most capable of this kind of murder? The evidence goes to show that there was a struggle. It follows that this murder was unpremeditated: no one who had planned to kill O’Brien would let him get near enough the gun to grab it. Anyway, it was
his
gun. That suggests X coming in for some purpose other than murder, O’Brien holding
him
up with his revolver, either because X was doing something he shouldn’t have been, or because O’Brien suspected him of being the writer of the threatening letters, and being overpowered by X in a struggle. The first of these would fit Knott-Sloman; it would imply that he hadn’t found what the tramp said he was looking for and had gone back, thinking O’Brien was asleep. Or alternatively Knott-Sloman might have been trying on a bit of blackmail with O’Brien. Damn’ fool to pick on a man like O’Brien for that. Neither alternative seems very alluring. Lucilla? She might have gone to make a last appeal to O’Brien not to throw her over: she gets the final bird and sees red, picks up his gun or pulls it out of his pocket, etc., etc. This fits in with the note she wrote to him. A much more attractive theory. Only snag, would she have the strength to worst O’Brien in a struggle and make those bruises? What about Cavendish? He might have gone to the hut (
a
) to have it out with O’Brien about Lucilla, or (
b
) to ask for money to tide him over the crisis. A very odd time to choose for such a discussion. On the other hand, if O’Brien refused to hand over Lucilla or some cash, Cavendish might have been driven on the spur of the moment to do something desperate. On second thoughts, it must have been the cash, for the evidence goes to show that O’Brien wanted to get rid of Lucilla. Quite a sound theory, and backed up by the present state of jitters that Cavendish seems to be in.

Who else? Philip and Georgia. Philip is out, because he couldn’t possibly have done the attack on Bellamy. And Georgia could have no conceivable motive. She loved O’Brien. But wait a minute. She was desperately fond of her brother, too. Is there any situation under which she might kill one man she loved out of love for the other? Yes, if she knew she or Edward inherited by the will, she might just possibly have killed O’Brien to save her brother from financial ruin. Sounds damned melodramatic. Surely O’Brien would have given her the money if she had asked for it? Anyhow, it suggests premeditated murder, which this obviously wasn’t.

But wasn’t it? What’s the evidence for an unpremeditated one? The disarrangement of the papers on O’Brien’s table, the broken cufflinks and the bruises. Those are the only things that pointed to a struggle. Oh, yes, and the fact that O’Brien’s gun was used. Can I get round them? The papers might have been disarranged by Knott-Sloman before O’Brien came into the hut or by the murderer seeking to remove some evidence afterwards. The cufflink
might
have been snapped when O’Brien fell, or it might conceivably have got broken in some quite irrelevant way. The bruises? Surely that is insuperable. O’Brien wasn’t fighting earlier in the day. Oh, lord!
He was
, though. After dinner there was a lot of fooling about and horseplay. He and Knott-Sloman were trying that test of strength with a knife. Sloman did have hold of his wrist for a bit then. I must have been stupefied not to remember it before. But still, you can’t get round the
gun
. Nobody who planned to shoot him could have planned to do it with his own gun, surely to goodness. But hold on! If X planned the murder, he presumably planned the suicide, too. Ergo, he must have arranged somehow to get hold of O’Brien’s gun. How could he do that when O’Brien was on his guard? Only if he was a person O’Brien trusted implicitly and held above all suspicion. In other words—