A Graveyard to Let

7

From round the side of the house, at the northern end towards which lay the tennis court, three men were approaching. The first was dressed in street clothes. The other two, who marched a little way behind, were in uniform.

Davis, evidently feeling he had been too casual or callous, tried to show a concern he could not feel.

"Maybe," he cried, "Mr. Manning's had an accident. Maybe he hit his head on the bottom. I'll dive in and..."

"Stay where you are, son!" H.M.'s voice was not loud, but (with one exception) it kept them all petrified in the same position. "I don't want any of you to say a word—got that?—until I give you the wire."

"My pince-nez!" said Betterton, sploshing out on land. "I left my pince-nez in the bathing cabin. We all left our clothes there so that we could change for tennis! I can't deal with them if I can't see them!"

And, a stocky hairy figure in his brown bathing suit, he hurried round to the other side of the pool as the newcomers approached.

Up to Cy and H.M., carrying his hat in his hand and with quietly affable presence, marched Mr. District Attorney Gilbert Byles.

Now this was Westchester County. For a second Cy Norton wondered why Mr. Byles, of New York County, had come where he had no authority. But Cy, still watching the pool like the others, gave only a swift glance.

"Our best-dressed D.A.," as the press had it, was neither fancy poseur nor stuffed shirt If he looked much older than he actually was, it was because he took his job with intense seriousness.

A tall, sallow man, whose dark hair had not yet retreated far enough to make him seem bald, he had black arched brows over narrow brown eyes with a restrained sense of humour in them. His sallow face was strong with a pointed chin. When he saw Sir Henry Merrivale, he stopped dead and his grim expression changed.

"H.M.!" said Mr. Byles, with a broad grin. "You old sinner!"

"Lo, Gil," said the old sinner.

H.M., now lordly again, with his beach robe open to show the dignity of his corporation in a candy-striped bathing suit, shifted the big pruning shears to his left hand and shook hands.

"I didn't know you were..." Byles stopped. His grin vanished as quickly as his astonishment His quick, narrow eyes swept round the motionless figures beside the pool. "Are you a guest here?"

"That's right, son."

"Can you guess why I'm here?"

"Uh-huh. In a general sort of way."

"I want to see Mr. Manning." Byles spoke with tight-lipped satisfaction. "We've got reason to believe he's embezzled a hundred thousand dollars."

Of all the persons there—H.M., Cy, Jean Davis, and Crystal—there was no sound except a gasp from Crystal. The subject of embezzlement had not been mentioned last night. But the ugly word stayed there.

"Mind you," said Byles, "I warned him."

"You warned him?" demanded H.M. "How?"

"I phoned him last night I said I would be here"—Byles consulted his watch, finding it accurate—"at half-past nine. I said"— Byles's tone became a mockery, wickedly satiric, of Manning's tone—"that probably it was infra dig of me to come in a car myself and take him for questioning. I realized it was ostentatious, in bad taste, to be heralded by motorcycle sirens. But I had my reasons for such unusual conduct."

Then Byles's tone changed in a flash.

"Where is he?" Byles asked.

H.M. looked bothered.

"Well, son, that's a bit of a poser. He dived into that pool there." H.M. pointed with the shears. "Sure, sure! Those are his clothes."

"I see. And when did he come out?"

"That's just it y'see. He didn't come out."

"How long has he been in the pool?"

"Well... now. About five minutes."

Again Byles's expression changed.

"Five minutes! There's no man alive who can stay under water for..Byles stopped. "I want an embezzler," he said. "I don't want a suicide."

"Oh, my son!" groaned H.M., and flourished the shears in the air. "If I'd thought it had been suicide, or accident, or anything but jiggery-pokery, we'd all have been down after him in two whistles and a hoot"

Then what the hell are you talking about?"

"He went smack-bang into that pool," explained H.M., with great earnestness. "And he didn't come out Lord love a duck! Here's a man five feet ten inches tall, and naked as a forked radish; if he'd climbed out of that pool anywhere, d'ye think I wouldn't have seen him? But..."

"But what?"

"Ill bet you a hundred dollars to an old shoe," H.M. retorted calmly, "he's not in the pool now."

District Attorney Byles stood motionless, looking at him with steady narrow eyes.

There were small beads of sweat on Byles's skull, where the black hair had retreated. His jaw was outthrust, and he moved his lower lip like one who considers many things. But the queer, disquieting humour had returned to his brown eyes.

"He's down in the pool, all right," Byles said. "But do you want me to believe in magic?" ... O'Casey!"

"Yes, sir?"

It was that voice, not the name, which made Cy Norton spin round. Two motorcycle policemen stood just behind the District Attorney. Cy, with a collapsing feeling in his chest, found himself looking into the eyes of the policeman who yesterday afternoon had been mobbed and knocked out during l'affaire du subway.

Officer O'Casey, in fact, for some time had been looking like a policeman who wants to shout but does not dare. His eyes had been fixed on H.M., who remained as bland and expressionless as a holy man from the East. When Officer O'Casey heard that word "magic," together with his own name, he could not restrain himself.

"Sir," his hoarse voice addressed the District Attorney, "can I see you in private?"

"Later, man, later! I want you to..."

"Sir, it's important!"

Byles, puzzled but endlessly patient, looked at him and yielded. With sinister beckoning gestures of both hands, Officer O'Casey drew him back about twenty feet

Soundlessly, running lightly on grass, Jean Manning and Huntington Davis ran round two sides of the pool and joined Crystal. Then all three of them hurried towards Cy Norton and H.M. All three were badly shaken, though perhaps for different reasons. They tried their best to speak in low voices.

"Suppose," said Jean, who was the most nervous of all and had tears in her eyes, "he did have an accident? And we didn't go down and save him?"

"Nonsense, angel!" protested Davis, though himself not easy in mind. "Besides, what happened exactly?" For perhaps the first time in his life, he showed deep respect for Manning. "And how in blazes did the old buzzard do it?"

Crystal, still wrapped in her black robe with the gold flowers, gave a curious, speculative glance at Cy, smiled in an obscure way, and then seemed to dream. "Did you hear that charge they made against my father?" she asked.

"Naturally!"

"If he ever stole as much as the contents of a toy bank," Crystal said quietly, "I'll give up men and enter a convent. If s absolutely ridiculous."

"Be quiet, can't you?" Cy urged fiercely. "I'm trying to hear what the cop is saying to the D.A.!"

Cy couldn't hear the policeman. He saw only frantic gestures. But Byles's well-modulated voice rose clearly, as he glanced back towards H.M.

"Well, suppose he did criticize the subway? Lots of people do!"

The gestures became more expansive. Byles was growing impatient

"What do you mean, he magicked the turnstiles?"

This time the pantomime was really impressive. Officer O'Casey made mesmeric passes; he struck pugilistic attitudes; his sweeping hand movement suggested kangaroos over hurdles; and then, with a rapid rotary motion of his arms round each other, he seemed to suggest that about a thousand people were rolling down the steps of the New York Public Library.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Byles. "Sir Henry Merrivale is a distinguished man of many achievements. He wouldn't be mixed up in a thing like that. And even if he were"—here an odd note suggested that Byles knew all about it—"I'm sure the city of New York would overlook it. Now come with me!"

He marched the speechless policeman to the group beside the pool.

It was Cy Norton who performed sketchy introductions. Byles nodded politely at each.

"Thank you. Many people, Mr. Norton, remember you as being the only foreign correspondent who never lost his head or grew hysterical. — O'Casey!"

"S-sir?"

"I understand," said Byles, "you're one of the champion swimmers in the Force. Take your clothes off and dive in and find Manning!"

Officer O'Casey's ears turned the colour of a tomato.

"Listen!" he gulped, trying to stave off the inevitable. "I read a story once..."

"So did I." Byles spoke patiently. "I'm always doing it."

"But, look! This was about a guy who disappeared from the swimming pool too!" "Oh?"

'Yes, sir. Only it wasn't daylight, it was night; and they couldn't see one end of the pool. This guy (I mean the murderer, now, not the other guy) got in and out in a diving suit."

Sir Henry Merrivale rolled his eyes to heaven, and then closed them.

"Y' know," he observed meditatively, "the most fetchin' image I can think of now is Fred Manning sittin' down there in a diver's suit and blowin' bubbles."

"If you think he's down there, O'Casey, go and get him. —Yes, yes, you can keep on your underwear!"

"I can lend him a pair of trunks," Davis offered good-naturedly.

Davis and O'Casey, the latter gulping with relief, hurried round the pool towards the bathing cabins. At the same moment a new voice struck in.

"Good morning, Mr. Byles," said Howard Betterton, his voice now suave. "I understand you wish to see my client?"

Betterton, fully dressed in tennis flannels, shirt, and sports coat, had adjusted his pince-nez. His skeins of black hair were brushed back over his head with a nicety.

"Good morning, Mr. Betterton," said the District Attorney.

It was as though two duellists had come to salute, or two chess players sat down at the board.

"But I'm afraid I can't see your client," Byles added. "The police will have to do that now."

"Oh, I don't know," Betterton remarked, frowningly critical.

"I'd better tell you we've taken over Mr. Manning's office..."

"Before I can permit you to do that," Betterton interposed smoothly, "I think it would be wiser if we discussed the legal aspect in private."

Byles nodded. "After this pool business," he said, his brown eyes narrowing still more, "I want to have a little private talk with Sir Henry Merrivale. Following that, I'm at your disposal. Will that do?"

"That suits me," agreed Betterton almost smugly.

"All right, O'Casey," Byles shouted across the pool. "In you go!" And in he went

The next fifteen minutes were perhaps the most nerve-racking of all. O'Casey's head would rear up, mouth gasping for breath, blond hair flung back, then he would go down headfirst again.

When you looked at that stone pool with its opaque water, Cy thought you realized it seemed no longer a hoax or a quirk of ingenuity. Manning's clothes—the hat and the shoes and the coat and the rest of them—were bobbing away from each other, as though Manning himself were disintegrating. It was not amusing; it was horrible. Everybody seemed to feel that except Crystal, who slid closer to Cy Norton.

"It's too bad, isn't it" she whispered, "that they probably won't let us go for a swim today?"

And, as though carelessly, she slipped off her robe.

Crystal's skin was that smooth white, tinged with pink, which has seldom been exposed to the sun. Her two-piece bathing suit black and gold, was probably the scantiest ever devised. She looked up at Cy in a secretive sort of way, dark blue eyes provocative and a half-smile on her mouth. Her hair, parted in the middle and drawn over the ears, seemed now a lighter brown. Cy could feel the intense nearness of her presence, even when he did not look at her.

(Damn you, thought Cy. Damn you for disturbing my life. Damn you for...)

Now, with a flop and splash, Officer O'Casey crawled halfway out of the pool at Byles's feet. He lay there panting and exhausted, face down.

"I've covered every inch of it," he gasped, still face down. "He's not there."

"But he's got to be there!"

"This is all there was," the officer reported. A golf ball fell outof his hand and trickled across the grass.

Again Byles's jaw came out Again his glance travelled round the group.

"I warn you," he said. "If there's been any conspiracy..." He stopped. "If any of you helped him, or you're all pledged to swear he went into that pool when he really didn't..."

"Will you let me answer that?" demanded Cy.

"You have the floor, Mr. Norton."

"Awhile ago," Cy answered, "you paid me a compliment about not losing my head. All right" He paused for a moment. "Mr. Manning did go in. There were then four persons in the pool. Only three of them came out"

He looked at Betterton, at Davis, and at Jean.

"When those three did come out," Cy went on, "I had them under my eye the whole time. They were never out of my sight There has been no conspiracy, and certainly none to swear Mr. Manning never dived in. All this is true, so help me God."

Cy stood there quietly, lean in his black trunks, the long white scar across his ribs. His voice carried such conviction that Byles's reply was quiet

"But that can't be," Byles assured him. "Why not?"

"Because it's impossible!"

"The old sweet song," observed H.M., in a voice like one who begins intoning a hymn. "Burn me, I'm haunted by it! I can't get away from it"

"Wait a minute." Byles spoke softly, and snapped his fingers. "This isn't in my department"—again human nature broke through his expression—"but I'm a little interested. There's an explanation so obvious that I never thought of it!"

Cy started. Officer O'Casey dragged himself up and trotted round the pool to put on his clothes.

"What explanation?" Cy asked.

"There's a secret exit out of the pool. Below the level of the water."

"Mr. Byles, there isn't!" exclaimed Jean. She had gone to her bathing cabin for a robe, and returned wearing it "There's only an inlet and an outlet The inlet has an iron grating and a filter. The outlet has an iron grating. And neither of them is more than eight inches across!"

"Forgive me, Miss Manning, but I wasn't thinking about inlets or outlets."

'Then what were you thinking of?"

"Now why," said Byles, with eyelids half-closed, "did your father have this pool built of stone and not tile?"

Jean shook back her yellow hair, a blaze under the sun.

"But... the pool was built ages and ages ago!" she answered. "I think the main reason was that we all liked underwater games. You throw in a handful of golf balls (the non-floating ones), and see who can bring up the most. Or there's a game called Tom-Tom-Pullaway, where two teams..."

"Is your father a good swimmer?"

"Well, he's all right," Jean said dubiously. "I mean, he can swim. But he hates exercise, except with dumbbells and things."

"Can you let the water out of this pool?"

"Yes! Easily!" said Jean. "Go up to the house"— she pointed—"and find a little old man named Stuffy, in a white coat. He's the houseman. He'll show you how."

"Ferris!" Byles turned round to the second motorcycle policeman, an alert young man who ached for action. "Find this man Stuffy, and have the water let out of the pool."

'Yes, sir!"

"And now," continued Byles, slapping his hat against his side, "I think I can imagine how this exit worked. Yes! You see, Sir Henry..." He stopped. "H.M.!" he said in a louder voice than he had ever used here. "Where the devil's H.M.?"

It did in fact appear, for a second or two, that H.M. had vanished like Manning. But he was only sitting in the padded swing with the canopy, deep in thought, with a malignant scowl fixed on the pruning shears, the blades of which he was absentmindedly snapping back and forth.

The shears, though not new, had sharp and polished blade edges. They were bone dry, though the hinge pin was oiled. In H.M.'s hands they looked like a weapon. Byles had to shout to wake him.

"Hey?" grunted H.M., lifting his eyes and putting down the shears.

"I have here"—Byles tapped his inside pocket— "a subpoena ordering Manning to turn over all his books—his accounting books, I mean—to the District Attorney's Office. Unfortunately..."

Howard Betterton, now smoking a cigar, was instantly beside him.

"I was going to ask you, Mr. Byles," said Betterton, "what authority you have in Westchester County."

Byles smiled. "That can wait for our conference. If s annoying, but not important, if I can't serve the subpoena myself..."

"It's annoyin' to you, is it?" bellowed H.M., with such a blast that both lawyers stepped back. "What do you think it is to the old man?"

"But why should Manning's disappearance ... ?"

"He flum-diddled ME," said H.M., using full capital letters as he drew himself up and tapped himself on the chest. "The blighter challenged me to watch him, and then hocussed me fair and square. Of course, last night before dinner, he told one thumping big lie—lefs call it a piece of misdirection—which same I was waiting for. But this morning! Oh, my eye!

"He sort of tenderly hands me these shears," continued H.M., "and says to keep 'em as a souvenir. And then in he goes. That's his idea of a joke. Now I'm mad. Now I am goin' to get him."

"That's good news," smiled the District Attorney. "I don't really think we'll need your help,

H.M. but have you got the mystery solved already?"

With a faint noise like heavy suction in the pool, which was followed by just as faint a rattle and then a rush, the water level quivered.

"Well... no," growled H.M. "I haven't exactly solved it, y'see. But I've got at least three leads, whackin' great clues that'll unearth lots more clues if I use the spade right."

The water level in the pool was now slowly descending.

"What clues?" Byles asked sharply.

"To begin with," said H.M., ruffling his hands over his big bald head, "I was just thinking of a bust of Robert Browning."

The two lawyers looked at each other without enlightenment

"Really!" said Crystal Manning, and drew her robe close. "Will someone please tell my why Browning keeps butting into this? Couldn't we have Tennyson for a change?"

H.M. looked at her over his spectacles.

"You're a very clever gal, my wench," he said seriously.

Crystal made that sort of curtsey which used to indicate, "Thank you, sir." "When your old man quoted Browning last night"— H.M. pointed at her—"you spotted The Flight of the Duchess' straightaway. I wonder if you spotted anything else?"

"But of course not'" said Crystal, opening wide her dark blue eyes. "What on earth was there?"

"I think we can omit Browning," Byles intervened impatiently. "Forget Browning! What are these other clues"—his tone was not without sarcasm—"you seem to think are so important?"

H.M. Nodded towards the pool. Hat, shoes, gardener's gloves, coat and trousers, scarf, underpants were now swirling round as the water descended.

"I think," H.M. told Byles, "there's something in that pool." "What's that?"

"Easy, now! Lemme finish! When the pool's drained, there'll be a lot of paper bits, little things like that, clogged up to the mouth of the inlet."

"Well?"

"I want you to find me," H.M. considered, "a piece of paper, several times folded, about six inches long and about an inch wide. It may be longer."

"But why the hell do you want that?"

"Because I'm the old-man," said H.M. austerely. "It's awful important, son. Will you have 'em look for it?"

"All right I suppose so. Is there anything else you want?"

H.M.'s roving eye encountered the figure of Officer O'Casey, now fully dressed, as O'Casey marched straight towards them. Officer O'Casey, teeth gritted so that he would not look at H.M, approached Byles.

"Now you're a fine husky-lookin' feller," continued H.M., addressing Officer O'Casey as though he had never seen the man before. O'Casey stopped dead. "If the District Attorney approves, I'd like to give you some orders. Hey?"

"You'll take your orders from Sir Henry, O'Casey."

The expression on that policeman's face, as he looked at the serene H.M., would have interested many a painter.

"Our third clue," H.M. went on, "is these garden shears." He picked them up and extended them towards O'Casey. "Here you are, son. Take 'em!"

Officer O'Casey took them like a man hypnotized.

"Now you mayn't have noticed," H.M. pursued comfortably, "that one the southern side of this place there's a box hedge, about four feet high and about a hundred feet long. Son, I want you to go and trim that hedge."

There was a long silence. Then Officer O'Casey found his breath.

"The whole goddam hedge?" he yelled.

"O'Casey!" snapped Byles.

"But he ought to be in jail! He ought..."

"Never use profane language, son," admonished H.M., with all the air of a clergyman. Then he reflected. "No, not the whole goddam hedge. About twelve feet will do. Then bring the shears to me."

Under Byles's eye, the maddened officer, protesting quite accurately that there was no justice, could only lurch away.

"If I didn't know you so well..." the District Attorney began. Then he stopped, biting his underlip. "H.M., is that what you call a clue?"

"Oh, son! A whole lot may depend on it!" H.M. glanced up at the sky. "We've got to try an experiment, and we've got to try it quickly!"

"But what will it prove?"

With a kind of gurgling roar, like animal strangulation, the last of the water descended in a smooth cascade from the five-foot depth at the southern end to the ten-foot depth under the diving board. The sides of the pool, smooth and tightly fitted slabs of stone, were covered with a faint slime.

"Now well find it!" said Byles.

Nearly every member of that party jumped in to find the secret exit. And yet, five minutes later, they were all back on the coping again—staring at it without a word.

There was no secret exit of any kind.

But Manning was not in the pool, either.