A Man Lay Dead

Chapter IX Garden Piece

If you don’t mind,” said Nigel to old Mr. Benningden, “I’ll walk as far as the front gates with you.”

“Pleasure, my dear fellow,” replied the lawyer, with hurried cordiality. He snapped the catch of his grip, took off his pince-nez, eyed them severely, gave Nigel a quick glance, and took his coat and hat from the attendant Robert.

“Come along,” he said decisively, and made for the door.

“You were always an imaginative, sensitive sort of individual,” said Mr. Benningden, as they walked down the drive. “I remember your mother worrying her head off about it; but I put it to her that your boyish troubles were as short-lived as they were distressing. You will soon get over your ridiculous antipathy to accepting this bequest.”

“It’s all so beastly,” said Nigel. “I know they can’t suspect me in any way, but — I dunno. It’s not that so much as the idea of it. Benefiting by a filthy murder.”

“Sir Hubert Handesley and Mr. Arthur Wilde are also legatees — they probably feel very much the same about it, but of course they have approached the matter in a much more sensible manner. Do you follow their example, my dear Nigel.”

“Very well. I’ll be jolly glad of the money in a way, of course.”

“Of course, of course. Do not suppose that I am insensible of the delicacy of your position.”

“Oh, Benny!” said Nigel, half affectionate and half irritated, “do stop talking like the old family lawyer. Really, you are quite incredible!”

“Indeed?” said Mr. Benningden amicably. “It has become automatic, possibly.”

They walked on in silence until Nigel asked him abruptly if he knew of anything in his cousin’s life that could throw light on the murder.

“I don’t want you to betray any secrets, of course,” he added quickly; “you wouldn’t pay much attention if I did. But had Charles an enemy or enemies?”

“I have been asking myself that question ever since this dreadful crime took place,” replied Mr. Benningden, “but I can think of nothing. Your cousin’s relationships with women were, shall we say, of a slightly ephemeral nature, my dear Nigel; but so are those of many bachelors of his age. Even this aspect of his life, I hoped, was soon to be stabilized. He came to me two months ago and, after a good many circumlocutions, gave me to understand he was contemplating matrimony. I think I may safely go so far as to say he asked one or two questions about a marriage settlement, and so on.”

“The devil he did!” ejaculated Nigel. “Who was the girl?”

“My dear boy, I don’t think—”

“Was it Rosamund Grant?”

“Really, Nigel — well, in confidence, after all, why not? Yes, Miss Grant’s name was — ah, it did arise in this connection.”

“Has he mentioned it more recently?”

“I ventured to bring it up a fortnight ago when he consulted me about renewing the lease of his house. He replied, as I thought, rather oddly.”

“What did he say?”

Mr. Benningden swung his umbrella out in front of him as though he were pointing it at his own statement.

“He used, as far as I can recollect, these very words: ‘It’s no go, Benny; I’ve been caught poaching and I’ve lost my licence.’ I asked him what he meant by that, and he laughed, very bitterly I thought, and said that marriage with a woman who understood you was emotional suicide, a phrase that had the advantage of sounding well and meaning nothing.”

“Was that all?”

“I pressed him a little further,” said Mr. Benningden uncomfortably, “and he said that he had made an enemy of a woman who still loved him, and added something about grand opera passions and his own preference for musical comedy. He seemed very sour and, I thought, almost alarmed.

“The subject was dropped, and we did not refer to it again until he was leaving. I remember as he shook hands with me he said, ‘Good-bye, Benny. Control your curiosity. I may promise to reform, but it’ll be the death of me if I do.’ ”

Mr. Benningden stopped short and stared at Nigel.

“He said this quite gaily and irresponsibly,” he added. “It has only just occurred to me how strangely it may sound now that he is dead. Ah, well, it’s of no consequence, I dare say.”

“Probably not,” agreed Nigel abstractedly. “There are the gates, Benny. Let me know if there is anything I can do.”

“Yes, yes, of course. I am meeting Inspector-Detective Alleyn at the police station. He is a very able man, Nigel. I feel sure your cousin’s death will not go unavenged.”

“I am afraid,” said Nigel, “that in this respect I too have little of the grand opera instinct. My one hope is that Charles was not murdered by any of his friends. That old butler, the Russian — why don’t the police do something about him?”

“I feel sure they are doing quite a lot in that direction,” rejoined Mr. Benningden dryly. “Good-bye, my dear fellow. I shall be down for the inquest, of course. In the meantime, good-bye.”

Nigel walked slowly back towards the house. The prospect of spending the rest of the afternoon indoors was not an attractive one. The house-party lived on with a horrible posthumous individuality. The grotesque nature of their enforced familiarity was beginning to tell on the nerves of all the guests. Nigel was conscious of strange and hideous suspicions working like a ferment in their minds. Frantock had become envenomed. He longed to get away from it, and with this idea at the back of his head, turned off the drive and walked down a side path towards the wood. He had not gone far when a bend in the path revealed a green bench and sitting on it, curiously huddled, the figure of Rosamund Grant.

Nigel had seen very little of her since the tragedy. As soon as the official inspection of their rooms was over, Angela and Doctor Young had taken her upstairs, and there she had stayed, as far as Nigel knew, ever since. She raised her head now and caught sight of him. Feeling that he could not turn back, and conscious of the horrible restraint that came between himself and all of them, he walked up to her and made some conventional inquiry about her health.

“Better?” she said in her deep voice with its falling inflection. “Oh yes, I’m better, thank you. I shall be joining your jolly party downstairs in time for the inquest on your cousin’s murder.”

“Don’t!” said Nigel.

She flung herself back impatiently.

“Have I dropped a brick?” she said. “Do you cut the murder dead among yourselves? Angela and I talk about it, or rather Angela talks and I listen. She is a peculiar person, Angela.”

Nigel did not answer. She stared at him fixedly.

“Of what are you thinking?” she asked. “Are you wondering if I killed him?”

“We all wonder that about each other, all day and half the night,” said Nigel brutally.

“I don’t.”

“You are the more fortunate.”

“I only wonder what that man Alleyn is doing, what he is building up out of the mess of detail, what neat, ugly conclusion he is coming to. They say the Yard is never wrong in its inferences, though it sometimes fails to get its results. Do you believe this?”

“My only information is based on detective fiction,” said Nigel.

“So is mine,” Rosamund laughed silently, shrugging up her thin shoulders. “And nowadays they make their Yard men so naturalistic that they are quite incredible. This man Alleyn, with his distinguished presence and his cultured voice and what-not, is in the Edwardian manner. He hectors me with such haute noblesse it is quite an honour to be tortured. Oh God, oh God, I wish Charles were not dead!”

Nigel was silent, and after a moment she began to speak again.

“A week ago,” she said, “no, three days ago, I thought to myself, quite seriously, you know, that I should be glad if I knew I was going to die. Now— now I am terrified.”

“What do you mean?” Nigel broke out, and at once checked himself. “No — don’t tell me without being sure you won’t wish that you hadn’t.”

“I’ll tell you this much,” she said; “it is not the detective that I am afraid of.”

“Then why don’t you go to him and make a clean breast of whatever it is?”

“What! Betray myself!”

“I don’t understand you,” said Nigel heavily. “Why can’t you tell Alleyn what you did when you went upstairs? Nothing can be more dangerous than your silence.”

“Suppose I said I went in search of Charles?”

“That? For what reason?”

“Someone is coming,” she said quickly.

There was indeed the sound of a light footstep beyond the trees. Rosamund stood up as round the bend in the path came Marjorie Wilde.

She was wearing a black overcoat, but had no hat on. When she saw them she stopped dead.

“Oh — hullo,” she said. “I didn’t know you two were out here. Are you better, Rosamund?”

“Yes, thank you,” answered Rosamund, staring at her. A heavy little silence fell among them. Mrs. Wilde suddenly asked Nigel for a cigarette.

“We have been having a cosy chat about the murder,” said Rosamund. “Who do you think did it?”

Mrs. Wilde laid her hand to her cheek, and her lips parted showing a line of clenched teeth. Her voice, usually so shrill, came at last on an indrawn breath.

“I can’t understand you — how can you talk of it like this — or at all?”

“You are acting the woman who has been deeply shocked,” said Rosamund. “You are feeling it too, I expect, but not in the way you want to convey to us.”

“How like you!” exclaimed Mrs. Wilde. “How like you to talk and talk, silly clever stuff that makes you feel superior. I am sick of cleverness.”

“We are all sick of each other,” said Nigel desperately, “but for the love of Mike don’t let’s say so too often. Saying things makes them so real.”

“I don’t care how often I say who did this thing.” answered Mrs. Wilde quickly. “It is obvious. Vassily did it. He was furious with Charles for having that knife. He never liked Charles. He’s run away. Why don’t they get him and let us all go?”

“I’m off,” said Rosamund suddenly. “Doctor Young is coming at four-thirty to get on with his cure for the after-effects of murder. The mixture as before.” She walked away quickly, as if she were escaping from something.

“Have you seen Arthur anywhere?” asked Mrs. Wilde.

“I believe he’s indoors,” replied Nigel.

“I do think men are extraordinary.” This was evidently a stock phrase of Mrs. Wilde’s. “Arthur doesn’t seem to realize how I feel about it all. He leaves me by myself for hours at a time while he and Hubert read up the history of Russian politics. It is really rather selfish of him, and what good can it do?”

“It may have a good deal of bearing on the case, surely,” said Nigel.

“I should have thought — oh, there he is,” she broke off. Her husband had come out on to the terrace, and was walking slowly up and down, smoking. She hurried away towards him.

“Poor Arthur!” murmured Nigel to himself.

He walked on, down the path which described a wide detour, fetching up at the entrance to the orchards at the back of the house. The pleasant acrid smell of burning leaves hung on the air.

Beyond the orchard wall where the woods straggled out in a fringe of thickets, a narrow spiral of blue smoke wavered and spread into thin wisps. He wandered round the outside of the orchard towards it. As he turned the corner of the wall he saw that someone was ahead of him. The figure was quite unmistakable — Doctor Tokareff was hurrying down the little path into the thicket.

On an impulse Nigel drew back into a low doorway on the wall. He felt quite incapable of listening just then to any more of the Russian’s heated dissertations about the infamy of English police methods, and thought he would give him time to get well away. It was only after a minute or so had passed that Nigel began to wonder what Tokareff was up to. There had been something about his manner, a kind of light furtiveness; and what had he been carrying? Laughing a little at himself, Nigel made up his mind to wait until the Russian returned. He vaulted over the locked gate and settled himself down with his back against the sun-warmed brick of the orchard wall. A puckered apple lay in the withered grass where he sat. He bit into the soft flesh of it. It tasted floury and sweetly stale.

He must have waited there for ten minutes and was beginning to get sick of it, when again he heard the light firm step, and drawing back against the wall caught a momentary glimpse of Tokareff hurrying back up the path. He was not carrying anything.

“Money for jam,” said Nigel to himself, and waited another two minutes, and then returned to the path following down into the thicket.

He had not gone very far before he came to the source of the blue smoke. A little fire, such as gardeners build from underbrush and damp leaves, was smouldering in a clearing. Nigel examined it closely. It looked as though someone had been raking it over, and it now smelt less pleasantly. He pushed the top layer of smoking rubbish on one side, and there, sure enough, was a solid wedge of crisp note-paper, already half burnt away.

“Crikey!” ejaculated Nigel, snatching a page from the burning and examining it excitedly. It was covered in ridiculous pen and ink marks that he felt every justification in calling Russian. He drew in his breath, and was instantly choked with smoke. Gasping and spluttering and burning his fingers, he dragged out the rest of the paper and danced on it. His eyes streamed, and he coughed insufferably.

“Are you keen on war dances, Mr. Bathgate?” said a voice beyond the smoke.

“Hell’s boots!” panted Nigel, and sat down on the trophy.

Inspector Alleyn bore down on him through the smoke. “Two minds with but a single thought,” he said politely. “I was just going to try a little rescue work myself.”

Nigel was speechless, but he got off the papers.

Alleyn picked them up and looked them over.

“These are old acquaintances,” he said, “but I think we’ll keep them this time. Thank you very much, Mr. Bathgate.”