All Fall Down

CHAPTER EIGHT

The division of labour agreed upon for the next morning was that Bradstreet should see to the tracing of the American, Mr. Stuyvesant, and of Nelder, and should set enquiries in motion as to whether anyone had been seen to enter or emerge from the Baildons’ house during the crucial two hours and a half. Meanwhile, Ellis should see to what he was pleased to call the psychological side of the case, and interview the people on the list given him by Joan Baildon.

Bradstreet suggested one exception, whom they might see together.

“Old Treweek,” he said. “I don’t reckon he’ll say anything at all to you. He won’t believe in you. But he knows me; and between us we ought to be able to make him talk.”

“Would the same apply to Mrs. Exworthy?”

“Nothing won’t apply to she,” Bradstreet grinned, lapsing for the moment into broad dialect.

“Let’s leave her for later, then. Gilk—I’d like you with me when I interview the schoolmistress. And, possibly, the vicar. You give a bogus air of respectability to the proceedings.”

“I thought you wanted me to get on with the books. After all, they’re my job. And I can’t stay here indefinitely.”

“You may have to value the lot. You heard Mrs. Baildon say she wanted to sell.”

“Impossible. It would take me a couple of weeks. Besides, if she wants to sell, I feel a delicacy about valuing them. I may want to buy quite a number myself.”

“Delicacy be damned. You can always advise her to have an independent valuation of what you intend to buy.”

“Really, Ellis. You might trust me to be aware of the elementary usages of my job.”

“Don’t talk so much. Come and lend a hand. If I’d known I was going to work, I wouldn’t have worn these clothes.”

It was one of Ellis’s delusions that he went about his official duties in sober habit. Actually Gilkison could never detect much difference between his various outfits. Some were louder, others were dirtier: that was all.

He forbore to point this out. All Ellis’s friends sooner or later forbore to point things out.

“Who are you going to take first?” he asked.

“The schoolmistress,” said Ellis.

“May she not be busy?”

“My good ass. In the first place, it’s Saturday, and Saturday is a whole holiday for schools of this type. In the second place, it’s half term, as even you must have realised.”

“Why?”

“How else do you suppose Joan Baildon would have been at home on a Friday afternoon? Use your wits.”

“I can think of several possible reasons.”

“Never mind ’em. That’s the right one. Now—Miss Caunter lives at Honeysuckle Cottage. That’s down past the station.”

“She may have gone away for the day.”

“She hasn’t. And I’ve made an appointment to see her in twenty minutes’ time. Any more backchat? Then put on your hat, and come along like a good lad.”

“What about the post-mortem?” Gilkison asked presently, as he tried to fit his long stride into some relationship with Ellis’s quick waddle.

“Starting soon. Police surgeon from Exeter. Carter assisting.”

“Is that wise?”

“Can’t stop him. Bradstreet will have tipped his man off, anyhow.”

“That seems to me a weakness of your position, Ellis, if I may say so. In so far as anyone, is a suspect, Carter is. Yet he’s allowed to assist in this business.”

“It’s only because his position is anomalous that we’ve been able to take the matter out of his hands. He can’t do anything. I don’t suppose there’s much he could do, anyway.”

“When is the inquest to be?”

“Bradstreet’s trying to fix it for Monday.”

“Are you going to want me all day, or can I have a go at the books?”

“Patience. Patience. Where the hell are these cottages? Bradstreet said down on the left. I’ll ask this old cove.” Ellis raised his voice to a shout. “I beg your pardon—but can you tell me where Honeysuckle Cottage is?”

“Eh?”

The old man put his hand to his ear in so perfectly traditional a manner that both were hard put to it not to laugh.

“Honeysuckle Cottage—where is it?”

“Yes, my dear.”

“No, my dear,” said Ellis, sotto voce. He grinned, and pointed down the road.

“Honeysuckle Cottage?”

The old man amiably surveyed the sky.

“I dare say ’twill,” he said.

“Thank you!” Ellis roared in his ear, and left him gazing in a startled fashion after them. “Let’s hope that’s not a parable of the difficulties we shall have in getting information. I’m rather afraid it is. Local collaboration, nil. Not nice, to feel that everyone’s up against you.”

“My dear Ellis. I should never have thought you’d mind for an instant.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t, eh. Let’s ask this small boy. Hallo!”

“Ullaw,” replied the urchin, unperturbed.

“That’s the boy. I began to be afraid everyone here was deaf.”

“I bain’t deaf.”

“So I see. Now—we’re looking for Honeysuckle Cottage, where Miss Caunter lives. You know—the schoolmistress.”

“Her idn’ our schoolmistress.”

“Ah. Perhaps not. But do you know where she lives?”

The child pointed with a sticky finger.

“That’s of it,” he said. “That there little ’ouse with the creepers.”

“Grand. Is the creeper honeysuckle?”

“That there’s ’Oneysuckle Cottage.”

“Thank you.”

Ellis gave the boy a penny, and went along, snapping his fingers in high good humour.

“We come to terms with the local mind, Gilk. We find it direct, practical, tenacious, and not to be diverted from the matter in hand. A good augury.”

“Particularly if the matter in hand is hushing up the affaire Baildon.”

“Don’t call it an affaire. You have the nastiest touch of any man I know. You and your old-maidish prurience. D’you recall what Augustine Birrell said about Gibbon?”

“My dear Ellis——”

“Sssh. We are there. We approach the chaste portals. Compose yourself. Nothing improper here, please.”

“I never implied——”

“Be quiet. Pull yourself together. You’re looking pink and sulky. Won’t do. Copy me. Bland and charming smiles.”

He opened the gate, and stumped purposefully up the path. With a sigh, Gilkison followed.

As he neared the door, Ellis saw an infinitesimal movement of the curtain in the front room on the right. There was no bell. He knocked, and the door was opened almost at once.

“Miss Caunter?”

“Yes. Won’t you come in?”

They followed her, Gilkison stooping to avoid the lintel, into a small, neat, crowded room. Varied and cheap though most of the furnishings were, they gave the impression of a decided personality, which was confirmed by a look at their owner.

Eunice Caunter was of middle height, with a strong, well developed figure. Her eyes and hair was very dark, and a line of down towards the corners of her upper lip hinted that it might become a nuisance later on. Her complexion was good, her features bold. Somehow, Ellis decided, she just missed being very good looking indeed. And somehow, maybe for the same reason, her feminine curves failed of their full attraction.

Ellis introduced himself and Gilkison, and her voice, as she acknowledged the introduction and asked them to sit down, strengthened the feeling that her appearance had given him. The voice was a deep contralto, but with a thread of harshness that marred its music and robbed it of warmth.

“Cigarette?”

She offered an elaborate wooden box. A thick, smooth bangle encircled her wrist.

“Neither of us smokes, thank you.”

“You don’t mind if I do?”

Ellis held a light for her. She was nervous, and needed the cigarette.

“I’ve been given the task of enquiring into the circumstances of Mr. Baildon’s death, Miss Caunter. I came here for quite another purpose, in my private capacity as a lover of books. Then—this happened.”

She drew strongly on her cigarette.

“It was an accident, wasn’t it?” she said.

“We should all like to think so. But I won’t conceal from you that there are one or two odd circumstances about it which, in the opinion of Scotland Yard, demand an enquiry.”

“That means,” she said, puffing between words, “in your opinion, doesn’t it?”

Ellis put a hand on each of his knees. He sat with his thick legs apart, facing her, upright, dogmatic.

“You see, Miss Caunter, the police force of this country has two main duties. The first is to prevent crime. If, in spite of them, a crime occurs, their job is to detect and punish those responsible for it. That means that we are on duty all the time. Our attention is continually being called to a hundred and one things which on investigation turn out not to be crimes at all. This may be one of them. But, if we didn’t look into each and every one, and if in the vast majority of cases we weren’t able to reassure people and show that no crime had been committed there would grow up such an atmosphere of uneasiness and suspicion that the public could never feel safe.”

“Yes,” she said. “I see that.”

“Good. Now, in a case like this, we don’t want—I’m sure you’ll agree with me—we don’t want formal police procedure, officers going round upsetting people and making them feel that things are all wrong. What we want is to get hold of a handful of really knowledgeable people on whose good sense we can rely, and have a series of quiet, personal talks with them, so as to find out the facts, and how things stand. And when I say ‘the facts,’ Miss Caunter, I don’t only mean times and places and who did what. I mean the facts of character and personality, of inclination and aversion: the atmosphere of the whole situation. I mean, in a word, the inner as well as the outer reality.”

She was listening to him closely. As he paused, she nodded.

“Yes,” she said.

“And that, Miss Caunter, is why I come to you. I come to you first of all, before anyone else in the place, because, like myself, you are a professional judge of character. More than that, you know, intimately, the persons concerned in this unfortunate situation. You can give us help that no one else can.

The girl took out her cigarette, eyed it for a moment, squinting a little as she did so, then looked steadily at Ellis.

“What help do you want?” she asked, “What do you want to know?”

“I want a picture of the family. Of their relations to each other and to those around them. You see, Miss Caunter, an outsider, coming in suddenly with no knowledge, will often seize on points which seem full of meaning to him, but which those who are really acquainted with the situation know are quite untypical, and perhaps misleading. I might call on you twice in three years, and each time you might have a cold in your nose. I’d get a picture of you as the girl with a cold in her nose: whereas those might have been the only two colds you’d had in the whole time.”

She smiled, as if she felt Ellis expected a smile; but she was still wary. Ellis bent forward.

“Look, Miss Caunter. Mr. Gilkison and I arrive here at an exceptional time in the history of the Baildons. Everyone who lives here is convinced that Mr. Baildon’s death must be an accident. We notice one or two things which might point another way. Only someone like yourself, who knows the family closely, can tell us whether these things are fortuitous and right out of the picture—accidental colds in the nose, so to speak—or whether they are regular features of the landscape.”

Eunice Caunter took out her cigarette again, and moistened her lips.

“What have you noticed?”

Ellis smiled, and shook his head.

“No, no. That’s not the right way round. If we start by focusing attention on them, we shan’t see the wood for the trees. Where you can help us best—where you can help the Baildons best—and, believe me, the two things are the same. The police are the allies of an innocent man, not his enemies—where you can help them best is by giving us as full a picture as possible of their family life.”

Still she hesitated, and once more squinted down at her cigarette.

“You said the police are the allies of an innocent man. Why did you put such an emphasis on the word?”

“Did I?”

“I thought so. Does that mean that Mrs. Baildon and Joan are suspected?”

“My dear Miss Caunter.” Ellis grimaced, and spread out his hands. “In a case like this, where no one is suspected, everyone is suspected. We don’t know what happened. If a crime was committed——”

“If Mr. Baildon was murdered, you mean.”

“If his death wasn’t an accident—I prefer to put it that way; there are various degrees before we get to murder—then anyone who could have got into the house might have had a hand in it. Anyone. A tradesman, an errand boy, the doctor, even. You see, it’s a ridiculous position. Nobody is suspected, because we have no definite evidence against anybody. Everybody is suspected, until we have definite evidence against somebody. That’s why we’ve come to you; as the best person to clear the ground for us, and start us off. There’s no catch in it. The more we know about the whole setup, the better. You can see that for yourself.”

With a decisive movement, she crushed her cigarette in the ash tray.

“It would be very cruel if anyone suspected Mrs. Baildon and Joan. Very cruel, and quite absurd.”

Ellis nodded encouragingly.

“For years, that poor woman has slaved to look after him. Joan, too, as soon as she was old enough. Two lives have been sacrificed to the comfort of that old beast: and not a spark of gratitude has either of them got for it. Life in that house has been perfect hell for those two. You can’t imagine it.”

Her breasts were rising and falling fast under the cherry coloured jumper. Her eyes flashed.

“I can make a pretty good guess,” Ellis said. “But that doesn’t tell me why it’s absurd to suspect them. Rather the reverse.”

“Rubbish!” she spat at him. “Mrs. Baildon did everything for that old devil. Got up in the night to fetch him things, coddled him, cosseted him, gave in to him in everything. Joan has more spirit. She’d have fought him back, and told him where he got off. But she held herself in for her mother’s sake, as much as she could. Remember, they were absolutely dependent on him, absolutely. Every penny they got they had to ask him for, and have doled out to them, like children. It was monstrous! the law shouldn’t allow such things.”

The harsh thread in her voice had grown strident. She was breathless with indignation. She sat back, grasping the arms of her chair.

“How they have put up with it all these years, I can’t imagine. I would have strangled the old devil long ago. Yes, I would! and I won’t mind you hearing me say it, or anyone else. If anyone did strangle him, they did a good day’s work, and I honour them. That’s what I say, and I don’t care whether it makes you suspect me or not.”

“It won’t have that effect,” Ellis assured her.

“I shouldn’t mind if it did. But, Mr. McKay, they didn’t do it. They couldn’t. Why should they? If they’d wanted to, why wait till now? They’d had him upstairs in bed for three weeks, and for the first week he was pretty bad. This wasn’t the first attack he’d had, either. Surely, if murder had been in their mind, they’d have done it before this, when they had so much better opportunity? If they’d popped him off in his bed, when he was so bad, Dr. Carter would have signed the certificate without a murmur. Well then—why should they wait till yesterday? It doesn’t make sense.”

Ellis inclined his head.

“I’m glad to hear you say that. You put it very forcibly. Now you see just what I mean, when I said that what we needed was a general picture of the situation, and that you were the best possible person to give it to us.”

“Anyone in the village could have told you that much. It’s obvious.”

“I hope you’re going to tell us some more.”

“What more do you want to know?”

“More about the family. Mr. Baildon was very old to have a daughter as young as Joan. How old is she? Seventeen? Eighteen?”

“Just eighteen. She’s his daughter, all right.”

An ugly smile came over her face. Gilkison inwardly recoiled.

“It never occurred to me that she wasn’t. Did he marry very late, or was she a long time coming?”

“Both. He didn’t want a child. Mrs. Baildon did. She had to have something, poor woman, to make her life endurable. She begged and begged for one. Then—Dr. Carter will be able to tell you more about that than I can.”

“Have you any idea why Mr. Baildon did not want a child?”

“Too mean. Knew it would cost money. He’s grudged every penny spent on that poor child. Look at her eyes.”

“Yes. I heard about that. Had he no sort of affection for her?”

“I’d have said, none whatever.”

“For his wife?”

“She was a convenience. I suppose he valued her that much. I don’t believe he was capable of affection.”

“I understand that, but for the handicap of her sight, Joan would be something of a scholar.”

“She is a scholar. That child has real ability. She’s miles out of the ordinary. If only she’d had a decent chance—— It makes me mad, when I think what she could have done, but for that mingey old swine! She could have done anything. She’d have gone flying into Oxford, or anywhere else, with all the scholarships she wanted. As it is, I believe she’ll get in. But it’s such a shame that she should have to struggle for what’s hers by right.”

“I understand that you have helped her a great deal, Miss Caunter.”

“I’ve done what I could. I only wish I could have done more.”

“And Mr. Rattray, too, has been helping.”

The atmosphere changed instantly. The girl receded. She was once more guarded and wary.

“Yes,” she said. “I believe he has.”

“With her Latin?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t teach Latin, I gather?”

“Not enough to be of any use. I’d have been glad to work at it with her: but there wasn’t the time. And he would be quicker, of course.”

“Well,” Ellis said heartily, “between the two of you, and her regular work at school, she’s getting a grand chance. You’re doing all that can be done to redress the unfair balance against her.”

“It would take a lot to do that.”

“Tell me about this Mr. Rattray.”

“What do you want to know about him?”

Her voice was dry, almost cracked. She took another cigarette. Gilkison lit it for her, bending stiffly down. In the low ceilinged room, his height seemed prodigious, and out of scale.

“I’ll tell you all I do know about him, and you can supplement it in any way you think necessary. I’m told he’s headmaster of the local boys’ school, conscientious, serious-minded, takes Sunday school classes, and has an invalid wife.”

She smiled bleakly.

“From your smile, I take it that, while all those details are correct, they don’t give anything like an accurate portrait.”

She tilted her head back, blew a long cloud of smoke, and watched it dissipate.

“I don’t know that I am the best person to come to for a portrait of Mr. Rattray,” she said.

“Because you are too sympathetic to him, or not sympathetic enough?”

She flushed swiftly and angrily.

“Neither,” she snapped. Then, more normally, “At least—— No. I don’t think——”

“Then——?”

“Only that I think someone else could give you a better picture.”

“What is Joan Baildon’s attitude towards him?”

She started, and looked sharply at him.

“She’s grateful to him, naturally. She has every reason to be. He has taken a lot of trouble, and put up with a great deal of insult and unpleasantness from the old man. But—— Pardon me, I don’t at all see the point of your question? What are you trying to get at?”

“Nothing in particular, Miss Caunter. I’m only trying to build up that general picture we spoke about. Everybody’s relationship to everyone else.”

“I don’t think Joan has any particular attitude to him, beyond what is normal in the circumstances.”

“Quite. Perfectly.” He looked at his notebook. “Just one more thing I want to ask you about Mr. Rattray: which will tell you, by the way, how that question about Joan’s attitude came into my mind. This invalid wife of his: what sort is she?”

Eunice Caunter for a moment looked positively venomous.

“If she wasn’t the sick creature she is, I’d say she was a perfect bitch. I’m not sure I won’t say it anyway.”

“Leads him a dance? Trades on her invalidism?”

“Trades on it in every way she can think of. Keeps him by her side morning, noon, and night. Or would like to. She can’t always, thank God.”

“A jealous type, eh?”

“She has a fit if he as much as looks at anyone else. I’ve seen her even pretend to be taken ill at a children’s Christmas party, so that he’d have to stop enjoying himself and wheel her home.”

“Did she by any chance grudge the time he gave to helping Joan with her lessons?”

“Grudge it I that woman would poison the sunshine.”

“Joan and Mr. Rattray, then, would have a bond in common. They’d each known what it is like to be domineered over by an invalid. That’s what prompted my question just now, about her attitude to him.”

She half rose from her chair, glaring like a fury.

“What are you insinuating?” she cried.

“My dear Miss Caunter, you really must not attach these imaginary meanings to my remarks. I want, as I keep telling you, to get as full a picture of the lives of these people as you can give me. I note that Joan Baildon and her tutor have in common that each has an invalid and tyrannical person in the home. It makes so obvious a link that I ask you whether it has any noticeable effect on their relationship with one another. I’m not insinuating anything. You’re doing it, if anyone is, by flying off the handle at a simple and straightforward question.”

She swallowed down her anger as best she could.

“You’d better ask them,” she said. “I’m not to know what they feel about it. How can I know?”

Ellis shrugged.

“It’s a reason for them to exchange sympathies. You’re Joan’s good friend, and in her confidence. She might easily have spoken to you about Mr. Rattray. She must have done, at one time or another.”

“I don’t see what you’re getting at,” Eunice cried, banging her hand on the arm of her chair. “I don’t see what all these questions are for. How can anything that Joan feels about D—about Ursula Rattray have anything to do with old Baildon’s death?”

“I don’t know,” Ellis replied blandly. “I don’t know what anything has to do with anything, yet. A case like this is like a jigsaw. Before you can start fitting the bits together, you must make sure you’ve got ’em all. Well—I’m trying to get all the bits. At this stage, I can’t possibly know what’s relevant and what isn’t.”

“So you go round asking everyone to betray the confidences which other people have reposed in them.”

“You said just now that Joan had not confided in you about her feelings towards Mr. Rattray.”

“Nor has she. But you said just now that I was her friend, and in her confidence, and that that’s why you’re questioning me.”

Ellis shook his head at her in good-natured sorrow.

“I wish you’d get it out of your head that we’re on opposite sides, Miss Caunter. I have no mission to persecute the widow and the fatherless. Everything I have heard inclines me to feel the liveliest sympathy for them. As a policeman and as a private individual, I’m all for them. I hope you’ll believe that. It’s my maxim that the facts can never harm the innocent, and therefore that the best way to defend the innocent is to unearth every possible fact, no matter where it may seem to point at first.”

“It’s a little difficult to remember, sometimes.” The girl had recovered her poise: she gave him a thin smile. “This idea of the police as one’s dear protector is not the first to come to one’s mind when they come rushing round suggesting there’s been a murder and asking questions.”

“I didn’t suggest there’d been a murder,” Ellis said, jerking his head up abruptly to look at her.

“What else could it be, if it wasn’t an accident? Suicide? You ask me to be frank with you, and then go all cautious at me. And I have been frank with you, anyway.”

“I’m sure you have.” Ellis put his notebook away, and stood up. “And I’m very grateful to you for it, Miss Caunter, I’m going to ask you a favour.”

He put his head on one side, and eyed her with a smiling appraisal.

“What is it?” She was not giving anything away.

“I’m going to ask, if anything turns up about Joan or her mother that puzzles me, whether I may call in and consult you about it. I’m above all things anxious to do full justice to them. Please believe that.”

She looked at him hard for a moment. Then she breathed out in a long sigh, and the tension of her body relaxed.

“All right,” she said. “I’m here most evenings.”

“Thank you. Oh!” He turned to her again. “There’s just one more point. I was forgetting. Joan Baildon’s aunt. Let me see, what’s her name?”

“Miss Attwill.”

“Miss Attwill. What sort is she?”

Eunice looked along her nose at him.

“I think she’s rather a tiresome old thing. Cranky, and fancies herself. I’m-as-good-as-you-and-don’t-you-forget-it. That sort.”

“She’s a good deal older than Mrs. Baildon, I understand?”

“Years older,” said the girl decisively. “She might be her mother, to look at her. I believe she’s very kindhearted,” she went on, in an obvious desire to be fair. “She’s been very good to Joan, I must say. Lets her go down there to work when the house is too unbearable. Joan’s very fond of her, and that’s to her credit. At least, I think so.”

“Good. Anything else I ought to know about her?”

“If there is, she’ll tell you. She never stops talking. She keeps bees, and tells fortunes, and makes cowslip wine. All that sort of thing. You know.”

“Splendid,” Ellis said, smiling. “That’s a very complete picture. I knew I’d be right to come to you first, Miss Caunter, but I didn’t realise how right. Thank you so much. Good morning.”

“Good-morning.”