So Bad a Death Read online

  Mrs Potts-Power rapped her daughter on the hand with her be-ringed knuckles. It was a signal to start pushing the wheelchair.

  “I don’t care where James is. I was invited here for dinner and I intend to have it.”

  I whispered to Yvonne as we passed through to the dining-room. “How is your baby? Might I see him later?”

  “Certainly. I’ll take you up to the nursery before coffee.”

  I said: “Mr Braithwaite seems a nice person. We resumed our acquaintance capitally.” She flushed and glanced at me suspiciously. I retreated before she gave herself away any further.

  That dinner was one of the most extraordinary affairs I have ever attended. To begin with, there was no host sitting at the top of the table. Ames had come back with the news that Mrs Mulqueen must have been mistaken. Mr Holland had not yet arrived. He had left a message previously that the dinner was to start punctually, even if he was not there.

  “We don’t even know why James has been gone for the last few days,” Elizabeth Mulqueen said across the table to Mrs Potts-Power. “Do we, Ames?”

  She invited his corroboration as he leaned down to pour wine into her glass. It must have been rather disconcerting for Ames to be addressed when playing his role of butler. But he replied without flickering an eyelash.

  “No, madam.”

  “The only word we have had is a telegram from some outlandish spot saying he would be home tonight at seven,” Mrs Mulqueen complained.

  A second extraordinary thing about the dinner was an empty chair beside me with a place set opposite it. During the fish course it dawned on me who should have been sitting there. Once James Holland issued his royal command the guest should automatically be present, irrespective of whether he was dead, ill, or had lost his memory; one of which three misfortunes might be Mr Cruikshank’s excuse.

  The table was fairly quiet. Conversation was not particularly brilliant when it did take place. John was doing his best with Ursula Mulqueen, but he was somewhat frustrated by the latter’s obvious desire to monopolize Alan Braithwaite to the exclusion of Yvonne, who sat on his other hand.

  Ernest Mulqueen appeared completely crushed either by his stiff shirt or the company, and spoke little. He picked at the excellent dinner Mr Holland had provided to make up for his likely absence. I would have expected Ernie to be a hearty eater and a boisterous table-talker. Elizabeth Mulqueen sat on his right. She had ignored him from the time he had entered the drawing-room, and addressed most of her remarks to old Mrs Potts-Power. The latter was shovelling food down and not even bothering to reply to the smooth sweet talk.

  The only thing outside her plate that she noticed was Daisy, who tried to remonstrate with her about either the amount, type or speed of dispatch of the food. She rapped her daughter’s hand in a gesture which must have been familiar to Daisy. I would have rubbed the old lady’s nose all over her face for humiliating me so.

  “What an ill-assorted group of people we are,” I thought absently. Then the idea came to me that quite possibly we were all part of some scheme of our absent host’s. I glanced round again at my uncongenial table companions and felt an impotent rage spring up within me.

  John and I, as newcomers, were included in the dinner party so as to feel the weight of James Holland’s would-be omniscience. Or so I reasoned. The fact that he had failed to appear at the head of his own table held, without doubt, some significance. We were to be impressed by Elizabeth Mulqueen, cowed by old Mrs Potts-Power, and rendered pliable by both operations in time for Holland to mould us to his own purpose and satisfaction.

  As for the other members of the party, it was easy to see what would happen. The meal was heavy and rich, the atmosphere brittle with tension caused by uncongeniality. It would be a moot point whether impaired digestions would start the squabbling or the squabbling would be the cause of the dyspepsia. Either way friction was inevitable. And that, I reasoned again, was exactly James Holland’s aim.

  Mrs Potts-Power belched long, loudly and with complete unashamedness. John’s eyes twinkled at me over the table. He had no intention of being awed or cowed by these people. I grinned back, raising my table napkin as I saw Ursula Mulqueen’s eyes on me. Even while she was trying to trap Alan Braithwaite into conversation she seemed to keep everyone under observation.

  Yvonne drew me aside quietly as we left the dining-room. Instead of following the other women into the drawing-room we went upstairs together. Not until we were well out of earshot of the ground floor did she venture a remark.

  “Nurse Stone may have gone downstairs to help the kitchen staff. Her room opens into the nursery.” The remark would have puzzled me had I pondered on it. She spoke in her usual nervous way.

  “Which is Mr Holland’s room?” I asked, full of lively curiosity. The house and furnishings were magnificent even in their garishness. It was pointed out to me along with her own and Ursula’s. Elizabeth and Ernest Mulqueen had their individual apartments in the east wing of the ground floor.

  Yvonne knocked on the door almost opposite her own. A tentative, timid tap with her finger-tips. There was a slight pause before her knock was answered. I heard the creak of a bed and a few hurried movements, then the door was opened.

  Nurse Stone was another figure in James Holland’s interpretation of squirearchy—in appearance at least. She was fat, rosy-cheeked, grey-haired. A typical story-book English nanny. Her smile, I came to learn, was a permanent fixture. It didn’t deceive me even then. I had caught an odour of gin on her breath. We had interrupted Nurse Stone’s relaxation with a bottle.

  Yvonne’s plea to see Jimmy, for such indeed it was, was foiled by a battery of smiles and a warm full voice protesting between “little pets” and “poor lambs” that he had just that minute popped off to sleep.

  “But Mrs Matheson is so anxious to see him,” Yvonne begged. “Can’t we, for just one moment?” The woman’s face changed. She did not lose the false smile, but a look of hostility came into her eyes as she glanced at me.

  “So you’re Mrs Matheson,” she said with a certain significance in her voice. “No, I’m sorry, Mrs Jim, but you can’t go in. Do you want to disturb him? You might frighten him if he awakened.”

  “Surely, his own mother—” I began mildly.

  She shot me another glance. There was unveiled enmity in it now. I was quite prepared to stay and open battle. Unfortunately, my ally was for retreat. She drew me away from the room, apologizing for disturbing Nurse Stone.

  “Mr Holland thinks very highly of her,” Yvonne said. Her words were simple yet wholly explanatory.

  I walked along the passage a few steps and then retraced them softly and swiftly. Yvonne stopped and gaped. I bent one ear to the door of Nurse Stone’s room. There was a chink of glass against glass, another creak of the bed and a loud sigh. I nodded to myself.

  “What is it?” Yvonne whispered.

  “Isn’t there another entrance into the nursery?” I asked softly.

  “We could get in through the bathroom. The door may be unlocked.”

  “This one?” I asked, pointing. Yvonne nodded. We opened it carefully in case of squeaks. The door connecting to the nursery was slightly ajar.

  “Put on the bathroom light,” I told Yvonne. “It would be awful if we did wake him.”

  The child slept on his side with a dummy lying slackly in his mouth. In the dim glow from the bathroom I saw his little cheek was hectically flushed and put one finger carefully into the limp hand. It was slightly damp to feel. His temperature seemed normal. I raised my head and sniffed the air. It was close and stale. The blind was drawn over the window. When I raised it I saw the window was shut.

  “For Heaven’s sake,” I whispered to Yvonne savagely. “The child is sleeping in a closed room. No wonder he is flushed, breathing stale air all the time. Did you know of this?” I slid the window up, drawing back the curtain. The fresh sweet air flowed in like a stream. The baby stirred and whimpered a little. We backed hastily out of the room
, but not before I had pulled that beastly dummy from his mouth, confiscating both it and the jar of comforter smear which stood on the table beside the cot.

  We arrived back into the drawing-room as the party was being divided up for solo. The after-dinner male session had not lasted long. I was not surprised. Ernest Mulqueen, young Braithwaite and John would not be my idea of a convivial trio. Although John and the solicitor might have something in common insofar as both had been at the university about the same time, you could not blend shop talk with Ernest Mulqueen’s observations on gins and farming. Cruikshank, had it been possible or advisable for him to attend, would scarcely have made the party any more exciting.

  Tempers became frayed during the card game. At my table Mrs Potts-Power picked continually at Daisy, who was a shocking player but held good cards and could not help but win—chiefly her mother’s money, too. Mrs Potts-Power was a bad loser. She considered even the turn-up had a grudge against her. Elizabeth Mulqueen interrupted the game constantly by inventing small absurd errands for Ernest to run whenever he was sitting out. He became exasperated after a while and suggested, red in the face, that she fetch her handkerchief when her turn out arrived.

  I swivelled round in my chair to watch John, who was at the other table playing a tricky misère. Daisy had under-called her hand in a solo. If she didn’t walk it in with ten tricks, it wouldn’t be the fault of her outrageous luck. The hand would not be interesting.

  John made his misere through one or two awful blunders on Yvonne’s part. Ursula, after the hand had finished, asked in her sweet girlish way why she had done such and such. Her manner was perfectly innocent, but it had the effect of making Yvonne both defiant and guilty. Alan Braithwaite intervened with legal tact, declaring that with such a big hand as his he couldn’t see how John could have failed to make his misère. Ursula gave her tinkling laugh at this.

  “You’re not like poor Jim, Alan. He always pointed out Yvonne’s mistakes to her. He said it was the only way to learn, didn’t he, darling?”

  Yvonne, who sat facing me, dropped her lids over sudden tears of distress. Young Braithwaite glanced from one girl to the other unhappily. Ursula was wearing her sweetest smile, as she cut the pack to John. He dealt a fresh hand without comment.

  And so the party went on until the bickering developed near to quarrelling and the veiled barbs to open insults. Still James Holland did not appear. Ames hovered in and out, smooth with regrets, filling glasses, emptying ashtrays and adjusting cushions behind the ladies. If I had not seen Mrs Potts-Power hurl hers to the ground first I would have done the same. By the end of the evening everyone wore a look of hostility or malice. It developed into downright hatred when Elizabeth Mulqueen overheard me absently murmuring polite and untruthful phrases to Ames at the front door. I don’t know how I came to pass her by, but Ames did seem to be the proper person to thank in James Holland’s absence.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I

  The Dower House telephone rang in the early hours of the following morning. I was having a nightmare. One of those ghastly dreams which have neither form nor sense but are terrifying withal. Even the telephone bell was part of it until it penetrated my consciousness. It was not the continuous sound of an automatic impulse, for it came from the Hall, operated by whoever answered the call there.

  I slid out of bed on the instant, feeling inexplicably disturbed. It would have been easy to pretend not to hear it and let the ringing awaken John. But somehow I did not. I wanted to get to that phone and hear whatever news it could tell me.

  The clock in the dining-room was striking as I passed on the way to the study. I put my head in the door, switching on the light. It was half-past three. Something had prompted me to check the time. I spoke without thinking, all my good telephonic manners forgotten.

  “Who is it?”

  There was a pause before a slow voice that I came to know well asked to speak to John. The caller used his full official title.

  The voice was so prosaic and monotonous that I lost part of my nervousness.

  “He’s asleep,” I informed him tartly. “It’s half-past three, you know. Can I give him a message at some more Christian hour?”

  “No, that would not do. Must speak to the Inspector. Very important.”

  “What is it, Maggie?” asked John from behind me. He stood there, very large and solid, tying the sash of his dressing-gown. His hair was tousled but his face bore no trace of sleep. It was firm and his eyes were alert.

  “For you,” I said. “I think it’s Russell Street.”

  I handed him the receiver. Suddenly a tremor passed through my body. John saw me tremble and gripped one arm around my shoulders as he spoke into the receiver. I dropped my head against his arm in the hope of hearing both sides of the conversation.

  When he said: “Yes, Billings?” the disturbed feeling returned. I knew Sergeant Billings was in charge of Middleburn police station. He did most of the talking, but it was unintelligible to me. The grip around my shoulders tightened almost unbearably. I glanced up into John’s face. It was blank and very, very official. I had seen that look before. Something pretty big had turned up.

  “I’ll be at the gates in ten minutes. Get a doctor.”

  “John,” I said in a whisper.

  John made as if to hang up. On impulse he put the receiver back to his ear. I watched him wonderingly. Then he gave the instrument to me with an inquiring lift of his brow. I heard it too—an unmistakable sound of breathing.

  I gave John a slight push out of the way and rang back on the line. It was an excellent form of punishment. A direct ring in the ear is very unpleasant. John grinned broadly before his face returned to its official look. I followed him back to the bedroom, running to keep up with his speedy purposeful steps.

  “Local?” I asked. Wives of policemen do not show too much curiosity. They would only get snubbed for their pains. John nodded. He started to dress. I watched him anxiously.

  “Has Cruikshank been found?”

  “Cruikshank?” He spoke the name absently as though it struck a faint chord. He paused in the act of pulling on his shoe. I held the other ready for him. He stared straight into my eyes.

  “Maggie. That shot you say you heard. What time did it happen?” John’s voice was imperative.

  Without wanting to know the reason for his question, I thought quickly, one hand to my head.

  “After seven. We arrived on time, don’t you remember? You pointed that out. I was only in the drawing-room for a few minutes. I went to get my cape.”

  “About seven-ten, to allow a margin. Thanks.”

  He got up and found a muffler to wind around his neck. It would be cold out in that mist. It was becoming thicker at midnight when we returned from Holland Hall and that horrid dinner party. I waited for John to speak, my eyes on his face. For a moment it did not seem as though he was going to tell me. Then he did, abruptly. Another slow tremor took possession of me.

  “Maggie darling! Something pretty ghastly has happened. You’ve been in this sort of thing before. Do you think you can stand it? It will mean some beastly memories of yours dug up again.”

  “Murder?” I mouthed the word. John took my shoulders in his hands. “Not that baby?”

  He looked puzzled for a moment but brushed it off. He shelved my impulsive remark in a corner of his mind to be dealt with later.

  “Mr Holland has been found shot dead in the grounds of the Hall.” His eyes scanned my face curiously, but my only reaction was complete astonishment.

  “The Squire!” I exclaimed, heedless of what I was saying in my surprise. “It seems impossible. Why, he—”

  “I must go,” John interrupted. “Billings will be waiting for me. Prepare some coffee and then go back to bed like a good girl.”

  “How long will you be?” I asked, trying to keep the nervous note out of my voice. The idea of being left alone in the house again and this time with a murderer across the way did not fill me with a sense of
security. Even had I known then that my welfare was of immediate concern to the murderer, I doubt whether I would have been less nervous.

  “As quick as I can. You’ll be all right. There will probably be one of our men patrolling the road for the rest of the night.”

  I saw him out quickly. I was not prepared to stand in a lighted doorway for all and sundry to see I was alone in the house. The coffee took but a minute to prepare. I dallied over it, trying to spin out the time. Sleep was going to be impossible. I took a cup along to the study and lit the gas fire, using the same match for a cigarette. But drinking coffee and smoking took up only a little more time. I gazed at the clock and the asbestos bars of the fire alternately. An hour passed, and at last something happened.

  The sound of a car drawing up outside the house jerked me to my feet. I switched off the study light and drew aside the curtains at the window cautiously. The dark bulk of the car was out of my line of vision, but I could see two long arms of light shining through the mist. I opened the window an inch and bent my head to listen, the wet air pressing against the side of my face.

  Two figures slipped by me on the other side of the hawthorn hedge dividing the Dower land from that of the Hall. I caught a glimpse of white coats and a stretcher through the thicket. The figures disappeared along the track into the wood.

  Weary and chilled, I waited there for what seemed another hour before a little cavalcade came slowly down the path. The body of our late host and landlord passed me on its way to the ambulance.

  I shut the window and hurried down the passage to the kitchen. Body in ambulance meant body on the way to the morgue and post-mortem and John’s work finished for the moment. It was not his habit to go searching for clues in the dark. A picket and a man on guard were all that were necessary until daylight.

  John’s key was in the door as I came down the passage with a tray in my hands. He was not alone. Two men were with him, and I recognized one with interest.