All Fall Down

CHAPTER SIX

Frowning to himself, Ellis stood on the narrow landing, examining a book. It was dirty, and smelled of damp. He opened it at random, and sank his chin deep in the pink folds of flesh that flowed up to meet it.

“The Tench is unwholesome,” he read, “and of hard concoction: it is a muddie and excremental fish, unpleasant to the taste, noysome to the stomach, and filleth the body with gross and slimie humours. Notwithstanding——”

The bedroom door opened, and Dr. Carter came out.

“All right,” he growled. “They’re ready for you.”

Ellis looked up from the book.

“Tobias Venner,” he said. “An early colleague of yours. He thought poorly of coarse fish.”

He put the open book into Carter’s hand, and went to the bedroom, leaving the doctor staring after him.

Rounding yet another tall pile of books, Ellis knocked and went in. Mrs. Baildon and her daughter were sitting together on a small sofa by the window, locked in each other’s arms. The first impression he got was of four enormous eyes staring at him. The eyes, and the linked embrace, reminded him of a couple of lemurs. Mrs. Baildon was dead pale, and the hollows round her large eyes were of an unnatural darkness. The girl’s eyes were even bigger; a pair of glasses with thick lenses magnified them to an almost terrifying size, and, whereas her mother’s face was blank with shock, she glared at Ellis defiantly.

Ellis met the glare with a calm scrutiny. Joan was thin, tall, and well built, though not quite out of the gawkish age. Her face and body were rigid with tension, as if at any moment she might blaze into violence. The face was a pure oval, and she had a good skin. Ellis decided that, minus the disfiguring glasses, and given proper care and suitable clothes, she would be really good-looking. Her clothes were old-fashioned, and had a shapelessness which suggested that they were originally her mother’s, and had been altered in an attempt to fit her slim figure.

There was no tension about Mrs. Baildon. She directed upon Ellis a vague look of mournful enquiry, and did not seem to hear the reassuring formulæ with which he began the conversation.

The girl listened, quivering, and regarding him with animal intentness and hostility. Ellis seated himself casually on the edge of the bed, and swung his short legs.

“So, you see,” he concluded, “I must ask you one or two questions. I don’t want to distress you; but it will help both Dr. Carter and myself if you’ll answer them as clearly as you can.”

His manner began to take effect. They relaxed a little. Mrs. Baildon disengaged herself from her daughter’s arms. The girl stood up behind her, very straight, a hand on her mother’s shoulder.

Before Ellis could question her, Mrs. Baildon took out a handkerchief, and pressed it against her upper lip, rather in the manner of a person trying not to sneeze.

“All those books,” she murmured. “I kept warning him. But no, he must stack them up and stack them up. Joan knocked them down once, without meaning to. Didn’t you, Joan? And he would have them dusted. He insisted on it. I used to be terrified, climbing up there on a chair, for fear I’d have them over. It was terrible, Mr.——”

“McKay. You remember me, don’t you? I came in yesterday.”

“Yes. You had to go by on tiptoe, or he’d scream at you that you’d have them over.”

“Did everyone know about them? I mean, that they came down easily?”

“If they didn’t, it wasn’t for want of being told. It was the first thing he’d say to anyone coming in. Before they were in the room, even.”

“Right. Now let’s come to to-day. Did anyone call to see him? If I remember rightly, he told us he was expecting someone from New York.”

“An American gentleman. Yes, that’s right. He came this afternoon, soon after dinner.”

“I understood Mr. Baildon to say he was expecting him in the morning? That was why he put us off—Mr. Gilkison and myself.”

“Yes, he was. But the American gentleman sent a wire that he couldn’t come till the afternoon. Matt was very angry. He likes to rest after his dinner.”

“But the American came all right?”

“Yes. About twenty past two. I know, because I generally go and lie down myself then for a bit. I was ill last year, and Dr. Carter said I was to.”

She looked at Ellis, on the defensive. Sympathetically, he imagined what Matt’s comments must have been.

“An excellent thing, Mrs. Baildon. I had a good nap myself this afternoon.”

She did not smile back.

“I waited so as to let him in, and I wondered how long he would keep me, but it was only five minutes after my time.”

“Couldn’t Miss Baildon have shown him in? Or wasn’t she at home?”

The girl gave a stiff jerk, and threw up her head, as if Ellis had accused her of something. Her mother answered for her.

“Yes, Joan was here. But Matt didn’t like her to let people in. He said it was my place.”

“Well; you let the American in—what was his name, by the way?”

“I don’t remember. It was on his card. Stu—something.”

“Stuyvesant?”

“Something like that. I gave Matt the card. I dare say it’s downstairs there, under all the books.”

“We can look for it later. You showed the gentleman in, and went upstairs to rest. Then——?”

“I’d been resting twenty minutes, maybe, or half an hour, and was nearly off, when there was a terrible row. Woke me right up with ever such a jump, it did. Matt was screaming something dreadful. I could hear the American gentleman’s voice, trying to calm him down, like; but it was no good. I got up and put on my shoes. I was afraid Matt would have a fit. I ran down just as the American gentleman was going out of the door. He turned and called back to Matt.”

They both looked at Ellis, like amateur actors waiting for the next line. He took the cue.

“Did you hear what he said?”

“Yes. He said, ‘All right, Mr. Baildon. But you’re not going to get rid of me as easy as that. I’ll be back.’ That’s what he said, didn’t he, Joan? ‘I’ll be back.’ ”

“Yes. Yes. He said that.”

“Where were you, then, Miss Baildon?”

“In the kitchen, putting the things away. Dr. Carter said that mother mustn’t stand more than she can help. She sits on a stool by the sink, to wash up, and I dry and put the things away afterwards.”

“It hadn’t occurred to you to go in and see what all the row was about?”

“If I’d gone in every time father raised a row, I’d have been kept busy. Besides, he’d have bitten my head off. I wasn’t curious. It wasn’t any business of mine.”

“I thought perhaps,” Ellis said, “you might have wished to save your mother from coming downstairs.”

The girl flushed swiftly.

“As a matter of fact, I did start to wonder if I should go in. I’d come as far as the door, when I heard mother coming. That’s how I heard what the American man said.”

“Yes. A difficult position for you. Well now, Mrs. Baildon; when you went in to your husband, how did you find him?”

“He was in a dreadful rage. Dreadful.”

“More than usual?”

“Oh, yes. I noticed it particularly. Made me afraid for his heart, it did.”

Ellis’s inner eye gave a twinkle. It seemed to see the promptings of Dr. Carter.

“Generally,” Mrs. Baildon went on, “he could settle down at once after one of his tempers. You’d find him quite easy in himself, as if nothing had happened. It used to surprise people.”

“Knew how to take care of himself, eh?

“He did that,” said the girl, her mouth in a hard line.

“But this time it was different?”

“Yes. He was all of a twitch and a tremble; quite out of himself, like.”

“Did he tell you what had happened to upset him so much?”

“He told me a whole long rigmarole of a story. It seems the American gentleman had a letter of introduction to him, from Sir George Tweedy. He knew about some of Matt’s books, and there were three or four he particularly wanted to see. Matt made me get them out this morning, and put them on the little table by his chair. The American gentleman looked at them, and then he offered to buy them. For some reason this made Matt furious, and he told him to go then and there, I couldn’t see what was wrong, myself: but that’s what Matt told me.”

For the first time, Ellis felt a twinge of sympathy for the deceased.

“But then,” Mrs. Baildon went on, “Matt was always unreasonable. You could never tell what would set him off.”

Ellis nodded.

“What did you do then, Mrs. Baildon?”

“I tried to calm him down, but he swore at me, so I thought best to let him be. I was too sort of roused up to rest any more, so I went up and put on my things to go and do a bit of shopping. I put my head in before I went out, just to see if Matt was all right.”

“Was he?”

“Oh yes. He was reading a book, just as if nothing had happened.”

Joan looked down at her mother, who at once looked up, either from a pressure of the hand on her shoulder, or because of the sympathy between them. Mrs. Baildon gave an uneasy cough. Ellis saw that the girl was afraid her mother was blurring the impression of wild derangement Dr. Carter had been anxious for him to receive.

“And then you went shopping?” Ellis prompted her.

“Yes. I always do my week-end shopping on a Friday.”

“Is it a very slow business, shopping here?”

Mrs. Baildon looked blank.

“Slow——?”

“I understand from Dr. Carter that you haven’t been in very long. Would your shopping normally take you the whole afternoon?”

“Not the shopping wouldn’t. I didn’t take more than half an hour. But I went to see a friend, and then I looked in on Martha—that’s my elder sister—and had a cup of tea with her. I didn’t leave her, not till a quarter to five.”

“How far off does she live?”

“I couldn’t rightly say. Not far.”

“About six or seven minutes’ walk,” Joan interrupted, “if you go by the back way.”

The ghost of a flicker passed over Mrs. Baildon’s face.

“Is that by the little gate at the side?” Ellis asked.

“No. There’s another small gate in the back wall, down past the gooseberry bushes. It opens on a footpath to the village.”

“How long were you with your friend, Mrs. Baildon—the one you went to before visiting your sister?”

“I didn’t really notice. About half an hour, I think; not longer.”

“May I have her name and address, please? I’m sorry to seem so inquisitive; but we have to check up on these things.” Mrs. Baildon hesitated and looked up appealingly at her daughter.

“I’m sure Miss Jenkinson wouldn’t want to be mixed up in any unpleasantness,” she said faintly.

“As a friend of yours,” Ellis said, “she’ll be only too glad to help you. That’s all I want of her: confirmation of what you have told me.”

“I can’t see what you’re doing here,” the girl burst out, her eyes dark and enormous behind the lenses. “We’ve done nothing wrong. Even father hadn’t—not against the law, that is. I can’t understand what’s brought you here.”

“Chance. Pure chance. And Mr. Gilkison.”

Mrs. Baildon flushed.

“I don’t see what call Mr. Gilkison had to bring a detective in on us,” she said. “We had always served him quite polite. Even Matt had, as near as he could come to it.”

“He didn’t bring me in as a policeman, Mrs. Baildon. He brought me because I’m interested in books. I’m on holiday.”

“If you’re on holiday,” Joan said, “why can’t you go away and leave us alone?”

“Miss Baildon. Innocent people have nothing to fear from the law. Why do you imagine I’m working against you? You ought to be glad that someone who represents the law is here to look after you.”

The girl looked disconcerted for a moment, but rallied fiercely.

“Inspector Bradstreet would look after us all right. He knows us.”

“Inspector Bradstreet? You haven’t got an inspector in West Nattering, surely?”

“He belongs to Compton Royal, but he comes from here. He still lives at the end of the village. He’s often been in to see us.”

“Fond of books, eh?”

“I wouldn’t say that. He used to come in to look things up. Father had some books here which they haven’t got in the library. Not even at Exeter.”

“I can well believe it. Right you are, Miss Baildon: don’t worry. You’ll soon have your friend here to look after you. He’ll see to it that I don’t do you any harm.”

He grinned at her cheerfully. She coloured again, then flung up her chin at him.

“I’ve seen you before,” she blurted out. “Aren’t you Mr. McKay?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Ellis McKay—the composer?”

For the first time, Ellis looked out of countenance.

“I have written one or two things, yes. But——”

“I saw you conduct your West Highland Rhapsody in Exeter, in the spring of last year.”

Ellis grinned, to cover his confusion.

“The ’cellos made a muck of that entry in the scherzo, didn’t they? Pity you didn’t hear it at Bath. Like music?”

She looked at him, refusing to be deflected.

“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you doing your proper work?”

“I have to earn my living. If I depended on music, my wife and small boy would have a very thin time of it. I’d have to pot-boil, or teach. No: I prefer this. It keeps me honest, and I can write what I want.”

She was still staring at him.

“I can’t understand how anyone who can write what you can could go poking about asking questions and ferreting out all sorts of nastiness.”

“Let’s hope there’s no nastiness to ferret out this time,” said Ellis heartily. “Just give me Miss Jenkinson’s address, will you, please? And your aunt’s. Then we can get on.”

Mother and daughter looked at each other. Joan spoke.

“Two, Borough Cottages,” she said unwillingly.

“That’s Miss Jenkinson’s. And your aunt’s?”

“The Cedars, Hill Lane.”

“Good.” Ellis wrote this down. “Miss Jenkinson shan’t be scandalised. I’ll use all my tact. Mr. Gilkison says I haven’t any, but he’s a liar. However. Mrs. Baildon—I’ve only a couple more questions for you. Can you tell me what happened after you came back? You did use the back way, didn’t you?—the quick one? Good.”

“I put the things on the kitchen table, and went in to see how Matt was. Then——”

“You saw what had happened. I know this is very painful and difficult for you: but can you possibly remember what you did next?”

“I got to the foot of the stairs, and called for Joan. She didn’t answer. I went to the back door, and called again. The second time I called, she came.”

“Where was she?”

“In the garden. She often sits down there, to work at her lessons.”

“Yes?”

“I told her what had happened, and said she wasn’t to go in, but to fetch Dr. Carter at once. She ran off, and then I came over queer, and came upstairs.”

“Splendid, Mrs. Baildon. That’s all quite clear. Thank you so much. Now, Miss Baildon: your turn. You’ve told us about the row between your father and the American. What did you do after that?”

“I went down to the bottom of the garden, and took a chair out of the summer-house.”

“How long were you there?”

“All the time.”

“What—till your mother called you?”

“Yes,” the girl answered definitely. “Except for about ten minutes, that is.”

“Were you working all the time?”

“No. I had a bit of sewing to do, and I was reading the paper. We get it from a neighbour after he has finished with it. Father was too mean to buy one. The neighbour—Mr. Pawle is his name—leaves it in of an afternoon. He saw me over the hedge, and called to me, and handed it to me. You can ask him, if you want to.”

“Thanks. And the ten minutes when you weren’t in the garden?”

“I remembered that I’d forgotten to tell mother we were out of petit beurre biscuits. Father always would have them. So I ran down to Stevens’ to get them.”

“About what time was that?”

“I don’t know, exactly. Some time after four, I think.”

“Didn’t you have any tea?”

“I kept a biscuit, and ate a few gooseberries.”

“Joan doesn’t take tea,” her mother put in. “Or coffee. Do you, Joan? Only cold water.”

“Not like me,” Ellis said. “I take both by the bucket. But what about your father? Didn’t you have to get him his tea?”

“Father didn’t have afternoon tea. He’d have his at half past six, or seven.”

“I see. So, apart from the few minutes it took you to go to Stevens’ and get the biscuits, you were in the garden the whole time?”

Her chin came up again.

“Yes, I was.”

“And you heard nothing unusual?”

“Nothing at all.”

“If anyone had come in by the front way, would you have seen?”

“Not unless I’d been looking out particularly. There’s just one place where you can see a person’s feet through the bushes.”

“You wouldn’t hear the gate, because it doesn’t latch. Would you hear the front door?”

“No. It was open. That’s the arrangement we always make when mother’s out. If any tradesmen call, they leave whatever it is inside the door, at the foot of the stairs.”

“What about the side gate? Would you know if anyone came in there?”

“No. It’s on the far side of the house.”

“Does it lead to the back door, or the front?”

“Either. If it was a tradesman, he’d go to the front. They all know.”

“They wouldn’t all know when your mother goes out, surely?”

“On a Friday afternoon, they would.”

“But that’s the day she does her shopping. Why should they call then?”

“I didn’t say any did call. But they sometimes do.”

“They don’t start the afternoon round till about half-past three,” Mrs. Baildon said. “Sometimes, when I’ve given an order, they pop it on the van to save me carrying it.”

“I see. You’d be too far away, Miss Baildon, to hear the books come down?”

“I didn’t hear them.”

“Then you can’t give us any light at all on what happened?”

She shrugged, and tightened her lips.

“Father had an accident. What else can have happened?”

“That’s what I’m trying to establish, Miss Baildon. We policemen are not allowed to take anything for granted. It makes things very wearisome for us. Now—just a couple more questions, and we’re through. Do either of you know if Mr. Baildon had been writing to any London bookseller?”

The question produced a definite effect. It seemed to alarm them both, and to make them wary: to set them back in their first defensive attitude of suspicion. Only from the suddenness of the relapse did Ellis realise how far he had succeeded in thawing them out.

They looked at each other in silence. Mrs. Baildon wet her lower lip with her tongue before replying.

“No,” she said carefully, “I don’t think so. But we wouldn’t see all his letters.”

“I understand from Dr. Carter that he had been upstairs a matter of three weeks. Any letters he wrote during that time you would have posted for him?”

They looked at each other again, with obvious relief.

“Not all,” Mrs. Baildon said. “He was very close, was Matt. If he didn’t want us to see a letter, he’d give it to Mrs. Exworthy, or anyone that called in. Even if he had to keep it in his pocket for days.”

“Mrs. Exworthy? Who’s she?”

“The woman who comes in twice a week to clean. She and Matt got on fine.”

“She wouldn’t tell us, whatever it was,” Joan corroborated. “She loves having something secret to spite us. She often hints at things she knows and we don’t.”

“An attractive character. I look forward to meeting her.”

“You won’t get much out of Jane Exworthy,” said Mrs. Baildon with conviction.

“I can but try. Who else would come in? You said he might have visitors.”

“Old Treweek,” the girl said scornfully. “Or Mr. Rawlings.”

“That’s the vicar,” said her mother.

“Or Mr. Pawle. If he’d given Mr. Rattray anything, Mr. Rattray would have told us.”

“Treweek. The vicar. Mr. Pawle. Mr. Rattray.” Ellis put down the names. “Excuse the question, Mrs. Baildon: but the impression I get on all hands is that your late husband was not exactly a popular figure. Yet, when he’s ill, he has a number of callers. How’s that?”

Mrs. Baildon looked at Joan, as if the question was beyond her.

“They didn’t call because they liked him,” the girl said. “Old Treweek may have, because he’s just such another. But, you see, father was somehow necessary to a lot of people because of his books. It wasn’t affection that brought people.”

“He didn’t object to being made use of? Didn’t he see through these visits?”

“He saw through them right enough, but it made him proud to think they had to come to him. He could crow over us better afterwards.”

“There was another side to it, Joan,” Mrs. Baildon said.

“Yes.” The girl’s colour deepened again. “People came and put up with father’s rudeness for our sake. To take him off our hands a bit. That’s why Mr. Rawlings came. And Mr. Rattray. Father would send for him sometimes, making wise to discuss how I was getting on with my work, but it was only pretence, because he didn’t know the first thing about it.”

“Mr. Rattray has been coaching Joan with her Latin,” explained Joan’s mother.

“Then, any one of those people, except Mr. Rattray, might have posted a letter for him.”

“They might. But he was so secretive, he probably wouldn’t trust it to anyone but old Treweek.”

“You say any of them might have called to see him. Can you remember if any of them did? During the past week or ten days?”

Mrs. Baildon looked helplessly at Joan.

“I can’t, to be sure. You see, the door was open, and they’d walk straight up.”

“Mr. Rawlings came,” the girl said. “And Mr. Pawle.”

“Well—we can look into that later. Now—yes—the letter to Mr. Gilkison: did either of you see that?”

“I don’t remember,” Mrs. Baildon answered. “But we knew he was coming. Matt warned us.”

“Warned you?”

“So that we’d be ready, and have the books dusted, and so on.”

“I see.” Ellis got off the bed. “Well, thank you very much, both of you. You’ve given me a very clear picture of the whole position, and I needn’t bother you any more for this evening.” He glanced out of the window. “I think I’d stay up here for a while, if I were you.”

“Dr. Carter said they would be coming to—to fetch Matt away,” Mrs. Baildon said faintly.

“Yes. As soon as possible. Do you want to see him, before they do?”

She stared in front of her. Her eyes slowly filled with darkness; her face became vivid and concentrated, and a muscle worked in her jaw.

“No,” she said, with an extraordinary intensity. “I don’t want to see him.”

Joan took a quick step forward, and put her hand on her mother’s shoulder. The room was electric with suppressed passion. Ellis went to the door, then stopped and looked around. He rubbed his chin with his forefinger.

“There’s just one thing. I take it there’s no reason why Mr. Gilkison shouldn’t carry on with the work he was called to do? After all, the books are your inheritance. They represent a great deal of money—more than enough to take you to Oxford, Miss Baildon. It will be well to have them valued.”

“I shan’t rest till every one of them is cleared out of the house,” Mrs. Baildon said vehemently.

“Don’t be in too much of a hurry, though. You want to get the best price you can. I knew a woman who sold her brother’s books to a local chap who offered her tuppence a book for the lot. She lost hundreds of pounds. Don’t you worry, though,” as the woman’s face wavered. “Gilkie’s the man to look after you. An honester, more scrupulous man never sewed a button on his own pants. What’s more, he knows his business backwards.”

“Matt always said he wasn’t such a fool as he looked. Oh—I——”

“High praise, Mrs. Baildon. High praise. And very true. Well—good-night to you both. Take it easy, now. Dr. Carter will give you something to make you sleep.”

He went out, aware of their eyes as they stared uncertainly after him; and closed the door.