So Bad a Death Page 6

  My relief made me garrulous.

  “Not at all. Come into my husband’s study. I didn’t light a fire as I was by myself, but there is a gas jet. Here! Let me take your cap. And what about your jacket? It is so cold out. You might notice it more after the warm room.”

  The bright eyes regarded me shrewdly.

  “Windy?”

  I laughed. “Very. I read too many detective stories. In here. I have been trying to forget the strange noises by unpacking.”

  Ernest Mulqueen sat down on the edge of a chair and spread his hands to the fire. I found it hard to stifle a gasp at the sight of them.

  He said: “Just as well you didn’t see them before I introduced myself. Rabbits. I have a gin set in the wood for foxes. Go round this time every night to put the bunnies out of their agony. They will jump in, silly creatures.” He scrubbed at his bloody hands with a still bloodier handkerchief. “Humane. You probably heard me.”

  I regarded him squeamishly. “I did hear some odd knocking coming from the direction of the wood. Do you—”

  “That was me. The nearest tree. Instantaneous.”

  I made a mental resolve to pass by the wood in future. Ernest Mulqueen must have read my thoughts. He was a hearty, earthy little man, gifted with a keen perspicacity. Almost at once I wondered how he came to marry into the noble family of Holland, and still further how he begot a namby-pamby daughter like Ursula. She should have been a big-boned girl with useful hands: wholesome, not in the mid-Victorian sense, but rather like brown bread.

  He reassured me regarding the results of his humaneness. “Quite off the beaten track. You won’t see any muck.”

  “Gin?” I queried, puzzled.

  “A trap,” he explained. “I’m after that fox which is making a nuisance of itself on the poultry run. He’s hiding out in the wood. Of all the crazy things the old man has ever done, importing a pair of foxes is the craziest. The only hunting people want to do round here is for houses.” He broke off abruptly. “How do you like this house?”

  “We were lucky to get it,” I said carefully.

  “Too right, you were! Never thought the old man would let it go out of the family, even after Jim’s smash.”

  “What happened exactly?” I asked, tilting back my chair to reach the cigarettes on John’s desk. I offered them to my visitor. “Not for me, thanks. I have a pipe if you don’t mind the stink. Jim? No one seems to know. Took his plane up one fine day and it fell to bits, Jim with it. The old man was rather cut up.” He drew on his pipe and said between puffs: “Tried his hardest to blame someone other than Jim. Apple of his eye, Jim was.”

  “Aren’t all sons?” I said, rather sentimentally.

  “Not like a Holland. You’d think they were the chosen people, the stuff that is spouted about ancestors and continuing the line. Suppose I shouldn’t say that, the wife being one before I married her. But they do get your goat occasionally.”

  I could not think of any suitable comment to make so I let him ramble on. He was obviously finding relief in blowing off steam after breathing in the refined air of the Hall.

  “Born and bred in the country, I was. The land is the only place for me. Can’t stand this polite roguery that goes under the name of business. The old man would sell us all to make a shilling, and then turn round and gas about upholding the prestige of the family. What family, I ask you. He’ll pop off sooner or later and Jim has already gone. There’s only that snivelling brat of Yvonne’s left, and he won’t make the grade, I bet.”

  I started a little and my cigarette fell from my fingers. I bent to pick it up.

  “Isn’t Mrs Holland’s son a strong child?”

  “I dunno. Seems to me he’s always bawling. I don’t think they give the kid enough to eat. All these fancy ideas about vitamins. Lot of rot. Mind you, it’s only just lately that he’s got like that. He used to be a bonny little nipper.”

  “Perhaps Mrs Holland should take him to a doctor,” I suggested, watching him closely.

  “James doesn’t believe in coddling the kid. There’s some old witch in the house who used to be Jim’s nurse. He swears by her.”

  “What does Yvonne say?”

  Ernest Mulqueen knocked out his foul-smelling dottle.

  “Nothing. It’s what the old man says that goes. Maybe you’ll find that out yourself one day.”

  He added with a trace of bitterness: “You can’t fight him. He always wins. Look at me! I used to run my own place up the Riverina way. When I married the wife what happens? She develops a heart or something and must be near dear James. Ursie must be brought up right. My farm can be run along with the rest of his property. To cut a long story short, he collars my land, puts me down here at a miserable screw and gathers in the profits.”

  “Why don’t you go back?”

  My practical suggestion startled him. He muttered something about not leaving Ursie in the old man’s clutches.

  “Anyway, the wife wouldn’t go now. You must have a woman on the farm. It never did suit her. Can’t think sometimes why she married me. Taken by and large, I’m fairly content. Nothing to worry about and regular money coming in.”

  “But Ursula,” I insisted. “Wouldn’t she go back with you?”

  “The wife has ideas for Ursie,” he declared bluntly. “Anyway, it’s too late. It’s all one property now. The old man made it a legal arrangement. Got in old Braithwaite and I signed on the dotted line. Fool that I was!”

  Mulqueen got up from his chair slowly, due more to reluctance to go into the cold air than physical tardiness. His actions and movements were always brisk.

  “Well, I must toddle along. What time will hubby be home, Mrs Matheson?”

  “I expect him any moment. Thank you for keeping me company. You saved me from becoming a gibbering idiot.”

  I led the way down the hall, switching on the lights as I passed. Ernest Mulqueen shrugged himself into his mackinaw.

  “You don’t want to be nervous. Very nice neighbourhood, you know.”

  “I do know. But it was the first night I had alone here. In future any bumps and bangs from the wood will make me feel safe. Mind the steps from the porch.”

  He turned back.

  “Drat! Mind like a sieve. Had a message for you from the old man. He went away today on urgent business. At least, that is what that smooth-faced young feller told me. You are to use the golf course when you like, free, nixy and for nothing. I was to tell you.”

  “That is very nice of Mr Holland.”

  Mulqueen glanced at me for a moment. He was very shrewd, despite the bunglings over his farm. Perhaps they had taught him a never-to-be-forgotten lesson.

  “Better do as he wishes,” he advised. “I’ve always found it worth while to keep on his right side myself. And you do want to buy this place, don’t you?”

  I watched my caller out of the gate and was about to switch off the porch light when a taller and very familiar figure came out of the mist. The pair nearly collided. Mulqueen said good night, and turned back to wave at me in a mischievous manner. John’s hand went to his hat in a half-hearted way of salute. He waited until Ernest Mulqueen had disappeared.

  “So!” he began, advancing up the flagged path. “I’ve found you out at last. Damn! I’ve stubbed my toe again on these beastly stones. Why is there only one here and there? Couldn’t they afford a complete path?”

  “Elizabethan effect, darling, I daresay.” I reached up to remove his hat, dropping a kiss on his nose in transit. “Aren’t you rather late? Go into the study and I’ll bring you some supper.”

  “Late! You brazen woman.” John followed me to the kitchen.

  “If you are scandalized at my caller, let me inform you that he saved your wife’s reason tonight.”

  “He has achieved the impossible. What was the trouble?”

  I stopped cutting bread and waved the knife around in a vague gesture. “Strange house. Stranger noises. Cheese toast?”

  “Definitely cheese toas
t.” He lighted the gas under the kettle and came back to sit on the edge of the table.

  “You had the jitters?” He said seriously: “Now, look here, Maggie! Are you quite certain—”

  “Absolutely,” I interrupted hastily, and went on to tell him about Ernest Mulqueen.

  I was living in the Dower on probation; dependent on Mr Holland’s whims and favors on one side, while John, on the other, was not quite satisfied. I had to steer a careful course for the next few months and convince John that everything in the garden was lovely, while bowing and scraping to our landlord. It was like walking a tightrope; an old simile, but an apt one. One slip either side would mean disaster.

  We carried the supper into the study.

  John said, sniffing the air: “Plug! I wonder how the aristocratic Holland noses like that.”

  “Probably the poor man keeps it a secret. By the way, a royal command has been issued. Dinner next week at the Hall, and will we kindly dress. Can you make it?”

  “Stiff shirt?” asked John incredulously.

  “Indubitably. I said Wednesday and left a loophole for you, just in case you didn’t feel equal to the strain. You could be working late, but I’d rather like you to meet them,” I said carefully, curious as to what impression John had of the household the other side of the wood. Although his knowledge of it was superficial and his mind too highly disciplined to indulge in imaginative conjectures, some past experience might make him view the Hall ménage with misgiving.

  John cocked an eyebrow at me. “Oho! And why, might I ask?” I met his look squarely, and replied without batting an eyelid.

  “It does you good to get out and forget crime for a change.”

  “I suppose Wednesday will be as good as any other night. Any other feelers from the big man?”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked curiously. “As a matter of fact, I have been given free run of the golf course. Do you know, I have an odd feeling that we are being used.”

  “And I have a feeling,” mimicked John, “that you are right. Explain what you mean, please.”

  “I haven’t a notion. Just a feminine shot in the dark. Why, as I have asked before, did you want to know about more feelers?”

  “The equivalent of the feminine shot. I had a telephone call from Holland first thing this morning.”

  I glanced up too eagerly.

  “You did? What did he want? You know, darling, I’m certain there’s something fishy going on at the Hall. First of all, Cruikshank, and today I overheard—”

  I shut my mouth firmly as a grin developed widely on his.

  “Trapped, by Jupiter! Give a woman a little encouragement and she’ll tell all. What was it you overheard?”

  “Very clever! What did Holland want?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  I raised one shoulder huffily.

  “You see,” John explained, “I hadn’t arrived at the office when he rang.”

  “Very, very clever. Didn’t you call him back?”

  “Certainly not. I suffer from an inverted type of snobbery. Let him come to me. Now, what was it you were about to say?” John said conversationally.

  “Nothing of great interest,” I answered, determined not to be caught again. “You haven’t inquired about Tony.”

  John continued to gaze at me. “If you are getting into mischief or anywhere near it, back we go to the flat. That is my first and last warning. All right, how is Tony?”

  “Fine,” I replied lamely. “Let me see. What happened today?” I passed over the events in my mind, blue-pencilling them severely, and thought of Connie Bellamy.

  “I met a girl from the Exchange. She is married and lives out here. I was swept along to the local Community Centre to meet Middleburn society.”

  “Do I know her?”

  “Connie Bellamy? No, she had left before your little sojourn at Central. A gasbag with a limited vocabulary. As a result, her conversation becomes rather monotonous. Husband Harold will be thrilled to know we are living in Middleburn. How is the case of the missing estate agent going?”

  “In routine, as far as I know. I gave your dope to Billings. How you change from one subject to another, Maggie!”

  “That’s just where you’re wrong,” I said in triumph. “There is a definite follow-on from talking about Connie to Cruikshank. It might be of interest to Sergeant Billings.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “Connie Bellamy told me Cruikshank has been systematically robbing them for years.” John took it quite calmly. “Sounds interesting. What did she mean exactly?”

  “I couldn’t say. I didn’t ask her.”

  “I’ll tell Billings. He may make something out of it. He still has Holland to interview. The old man is proving difficult.”

  “Mulqueen told me tonight he has gone away for a few days. Yvonne Holland will be relieved.”

  “You seem to know a great deal about the Hollands,” was John’s ominously casual comment.

  III

  But Yvonne was not at the gates of the Hall when I arrived, and it must have been after three then. Tony had been tiresome about getting dressed and had delayed us. I paused uncertainly at the foot of one of the grey stone pillars bearing a lion couchant. It might have been possible that she had gone on, not willing to be seen loitering from the house. But the road ran straight down from the Hall and there was no sign of her in the distance. I let Tony out of the pusher and decided to give her a few minutes’ grace.

  Once free of the straps Tony revelled in his unexpected freedom. I was trying to keep within the shadow of the lion, for I had no wish to be spied upon from the Hall. It gave you that feeling. The square squat tower seemed like an enormous eye which embraced all within its vision with a sinister contemplativeness. I made a half-hearted attempt to put Tony back into the pusher, but his immediate howls of protest were more likely to gain attention than his wandering inside the gate. Yvonne could not be much longer, so I let him stray to a threatened boundary.

  It was another glorious autumn day. I moved round the pillar and propped myself up against it in the sun, closing my eyes against the glare.

  Presently Tony let out a yelp. He came running up, one finger in his mouth and tears pouring with that amazing rapidity unequalled by any other than a child. When I knew he was hurt my concern at the noise he was creating vanished. I explored his finger carefully. A jagged thorn had torn the skin and imbedded itself. It looked very nasty and was quite capable of making itself unpleasant if action was not taken immediately. I held his fat wrist firmly palm up, pulling at the fast-disappearing head of the thorn.

  “Hold still, my treasure,” I adjured, but he kept jerking his hand away.

  A voice spoke from behind me. “Could I be of assistance, Mrs Matheson?”

  I glanced over my shoulder and then straightened up. It was Ames. The ubiquitous, versatile Ames. I recognized the smooth, courteous voice.

  Ames advanced towards Tony and bent down.

  “May I see? Perhaps my wife could fix it.”

  I studied him as he bent over Tony. He was long and firmly built with a well-shaped head. He appeared to be in his late thirties but was of the type who mature early and retain the same age for many years. That afternoon he wore khaki overalls and boots, for he had been working in the garden. I was to see Ames in many garbs. He dressed to each of the multitudinous jobs he handled and was sartorially perfect in each.

  He straightened up. “Come into the Lodge, Mrs Matheson. I’ll get some hot water and tweezers. We’ll have that thorn out in no time.”

  “This is very kind of you,” I said, following him to the tiny porch. The door of the Lodge opened directly into a living-room pleasant with sun-faded chintzes and flowers.

  Two people sat there.

  “Harriet,” Ames introduced his wife, “this is Mrs Matheson.”

  “Haven’t we met before?” I asked Mrs Ames. She turned her face full round and I saw the port-wine stain. “In Mr Cruikshank’s shop,
was it not?”

  She nodded without speaking and turned her face to profile again.

  “And my father, Mrs Matheson.”

  The white-haired, handsome man rose, slipping his unlit pipe into his pocket. “We heard the commotion. Has the little chap hurt himself badly?”

  “A thorn,” Ames explained. “Harriet, will you have a look at it, please?”

  Mrs Ames rose and came across the room to Tony, keeping the scar turned away from me. Ames went away for the hot water.

  “You have a professional touch,” I told Harriet Ames pleasantly, watching her firm, unhurried hands.

  A small boy came into the room bearing an enamel kidney dish with bandages and antiseptic on it.

  “Put it on the table, Robin,” Mrs Ames said in her toneless voice.

  “This is your boy?” I glanced from mother to son. He had gone to stand by his grandfather’s chair. The old man rested his hand on the dark curls. Robin was a beautiful child with a poise that would have shamed an adolescent.

  Mrs Ames did not reply, but merely nodded again and held out her hand for the bowl of water as her husband came back into the room.

  Tony, his attention taken up by this remarkable specimen of his own generation, allowed his finger to be bathed and dressed without a murmur. I saw a smile pass between the two little boys and drew my brows together, inexplicably disturbed.

  “I believe Mr Holland has gone away,” I said to Ames. “Does the arrangement still stand for Wednesday?”

  “Mr Holland left instructions. I had a wire today saying he would be home in time. He was most insistent that Mr Matheson should be present.”

  “There is a complication when it comes to us both coming,” I said, indicating Tony.

  Mrs Ames said without looking up: “I will stay at the Dower on Wednesday night. You will be able to manage, Robert. I will give the staff their orders during the afternoon.” She released Tony’s hand and turned to tidy the tray. I got up.

  “How will that arrangement suit you, Mrs Matheson?” Ames asked, following me to the door.

  “Excellently. I will be happy to leave Tony in such good hands. Good-bye and thank you.”