The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop

CHAPTER I

Inconsiderate Behaviour of a Passenger to America

IT was Monday. Little requires to be said about such a day.

Charles James Sinclair Redsey, who, like Mr Milne’s Master Morrison, was commonly known as Jim, sat on the arm of one of the stout, handsome, leather-covered armchairs in the library of the Manor House at Wandles Parva, and kicked the edge of the sheepskin rug.

Mr Theodore Grayling, solicitor, sat stewing in an uncomfortably hot first-class smoking-compartment on one of England’s less pleasing railway systems and wondered irritably why his client, Rupert Sethleigh, had seen fit to drag him down to an out-of-the-way spot like Wandles Parva when he could with equal ease have summoned him to his offices in London.

Mrs Bryce Harringay, matron, lay prone upon her couch alternately sniffing languidly at a bottle of smelling-salts and calling peevishly upon her gods for a cool breeze and her maid for more eau-de-Cologne.

Only the very young were energetic. Only the rather older were content. The very young, consisting of Felicity Broome, spinster, dark-haired, grey-eyed, red-lipped, aged twenty and a half, and Aubrey Harringay, bachelor, grey-eyed, brown-faced, wiry, thin, aged fifteen and three-quarters, played tennis on the Manor House lawn. The rather older, consisting of Mrs Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, twice widowed, black-eyed, claw-fingered, age no longer interesting except to the more grasping and avaricious of her relatives, smiled the saurian smile of the sand lizard and basked in the full glare of the sun in the charming old-world garden of the Stone House, Wandles.

The train drew up at Culminster station, and Theodore Grayling alighted. There would be a luxurious limousine to meet him outside the station, he reflected happily. There would be tea under the trees or in the summer-house at the Manor. There might possibly be an invitation to stay to dinner. He had eaten Rupert Sethleigh’s dinners before. They were good dinners, and the wine was invariably above criticism. So were the cigars.

The road outside the station was deserted except for a decrepit hansom cab of an early and unpromising vintage. Theodore Grayling clicked his tongue, and shook his head with uncompromising fierceness as the driver caught his eye. He waited, screwing up his eyes against the glare of the sun, and tapping his stick impatiently against the toe of his boot. He waited a quarter of an hour.

‘They’ve forgot you, like,’ volunteered the driver, bearing him no ill-will. He flicked a fly off the horse’s back with the whip, and spat sympathetically.

Theodore Grayling laid his neat case on the ground and lit a cigarette. It looked a frivolous appendage to his dignified figure. He glanced up and caught the cabby’s eye again. Common humanity compelled him to proffer his gold case, the gift of a grateful client. The cabby lit up, and they smoked in silence for two or three minutes.

‘Wouldn’t hurt, like, to take a seat inside while you’re waiting,’ suggested the man hospitably. ‘It’s full ’ot to stand about.’

Theodore Grayling shrugged his shoulders.

‘Doesn’t look as though anyone is coming to meet me,’ he said. ‘I want the Manor House, Wandles Parva. Know it? All right. Carry on.’

The driver carried on.

The young man who received the lawyer in the fine hall of the Manor House looked apologetic when Grayling asked for Rupert Sethleigh.

‘Come into the library,’ said the young man. ‘It seems a bit awkward to explain. In fact, I can’t exactly explain it – that is to say’ – he paused, as though anxious to be certain that he was using the words he wished and intended to use – ‘it is very difficult to explain it. I mean, the fact is, he’s gone to America.’

Feeling more than surprised, Theodore Grayling followed the young man into the library.

‘I’m Redsey,’ the young man said. He was a big, untidy, likeable fellow, although his usually frank expression was marred at the moment by a look of strain and anxiety, and his nervous manner seemed at variance with his whole appearance. He stooped down and straightened the corner of the rug which he had been kicking, and invited the lawyer to be seated.

‘So your cousin has gone to America?’ said Theodore Grayling, pressing his finger-tips together and gazing benignly down at them. ‘When?’

‘To-day.’ The young man seemed definite enough on that point. ‘Early this morning.’

‘To-day? What boat is he on?’

‘Boat?’ Jim Redsey laughed unconvincingly. ‘It sounds a bit daft to say so, but I don’t know. Cunard Line, I believe – yes, I’m sure it was – but the actual name of the boat – !’ He knitted his brows. ‘I did know it,’ he said, ‘but it’s gone now.’

‘To America,’ said Theodore Grayling pensively. ‘Strange! Very strange! Perhaps you can tell me why he requested me to come down here this afternoon in order to discuss and effect certain alterations in the testamentary disposal of his property!’

‘Eh?’ said Redsey, startled. ‘Do you mean he – he asked you to come down here to-day? I say’ – he chuckled feebly – ‘he must be off his chump, don’t you think? Look here, my aunt will be down to tea. We had better discuss the thing together.’

The lawyer raised his eyebrows, but then nodded and turned to study the backs of the books in one of the glass-fronted shelves. Redsey, with an inaudible but heartfelt sigh of relief at what was evidently the termination of a disquieting conversation, lounged on the arm of a stout leathered-covered armchair and picked up a sporting periodical from the table.

On the lawn outside the library, two young people, the boy of fifteen and the girl of twenty, were still playing tennis. Their fresh voices and the clean, strong cello-note of rackets striking new balls came clearly into the room through the open French windows. These windows, together with part of the tennis-net, a stretch of level green turf and, occasionally, the figures of the white-clad players, were reflected darkly and strongly in the glass doors of the bookcase towards which Theodore Grayling was turned. The lawyer, however, was concerned at the moment neither with the books in the bookcase nor with the pleasant images which were reflected in the glass. He was puzzling over the news which had just been given him by the young man lounging on the arm of the massive armchair. At the end of five minutes’ fruitless pondering he shook his head, and, swinging round from the bookcase so suddenly that the startled young man beside him dropped his well-illustrated periodical on to the floor, he demanded with unusual abruptness:

‘And do you know that your cousin has invited the Vicar of Crowless-cum-Boone to spend a few weeks here to catalogue all this’ – he waved his hand round to indicate the solemnly splendid library – ‘and to give him some advice about his Alpine plants?’

Jim Redsey’s mouth opened. He tried to answer, but no words came. He turned exceedingly pale, became stammering and confused, and, in order to gain time, stooped and picked up his sporting paper from the floor. Having placed it with meticulous care in the very centre of the table, he moistened his lips, furtively wiped clammy hands on the seat of his plus fours, and tried again.

‘No – I – er – no. No, I didn’t know they were coming – that is – he was,’ he stammered confusedly. ‘As you know – I should say – as you probably don’t know – I am only staying here until I hear about a job – a post I’ve been promised. It’s in Mexico, this job. I don’t quite know what sort of a job it is. I believe I sweat round on a horse or something, and generally try and get the other wallahs to put a bit of a jerk in it, and so forth. Anyway, I’m rather keen to get out there, and so on, and I’ve given up my digs in Town, so I’m sort of filling in time down here until I hear definitely. Of course, it was rather decent of Sethleigh to have me here at all, especially as we don’t really know each other frightfully well. Our respective maters didn’t exactly hit it off, you see. They were twins, and my mater always thought Aunt Poppy, that was his mater, put one over her, and a dirty one, too, by beating her into the world by a short head – two hours or something, I believe it was. By doing so, she collected the bulk of the boodle when the old lad died – the house and property, you know – while my mater got fobbed off with the loser’s end, a beggarly thousand quid. Not,’ concluded the young man thoughtfully, but with a certain amount of animation, ‘that a thousand quid wouldn’t come in handy to pretty nearly all of us; but, still, one can see my mater’s point of view. After all, when you expect something and get handed something else, only less so, I suppose you do feel a bit peevish about it. She always felt as though she’d taken a dirty one below the belt. As I suppose you know, the referee dismissed the appeal, too. Oh, yes. She ran it through the courts, and never forgave Aunt Poppy the judge’s summing-up. Idiotic name for an aunt, Poppy, I always think. Makes you wonder whether she’s on the variety stage or something. It’s a sort of a fruity name, if you know what I mean. And my Aunt Poppy’, he concluded sorrowfully, ‘was anything but fruity. Anything but.’

‘Quite, quite,’ murmured the lawyer absently. ‘But, you know, I am quite at a loss to understand your cousin’s going off to America like this,’ he went on, reverting to the matter in hand with some abruptness. ‘And without a word of warning, too! It is not at all the kind of thing Rupert Sethleigh would do. I’ve known him for many years now, and the idea of his going off to America without a word of warning – no, no.’

Jim Redsey mentally substantiated this theory. A vision of Rupert Sethleigh rose before him. A conventional, smirking, fattish fellow, he remembered. One who always appeared a little too well dressed, a little too well fed, a little too self-satisfied; that was Rupert Sethleigh. He was smug. He was contemptible. He considered every word before he uttered it and every action before he performed it. It was difficult to imagine him rushing off to America without warning. It was more than difficult, thought Jim Redsey, who liked to be fair-minded; it was impossible. Rupert Sethleigh was five feet seven and a quarter in his socks, the wrong height for such impetuous behaviour.

‘And what motive had your cousin for going off like this?’ the lawyer demanded brusquely, cutting across the current of Redsey’s thoughts.

Jim smiled uncertainly. The lawyer glanced down at his restless, fidgeting fingers.

‘Motive?’ The sinister word struck oddly and uncomfortably on the ear. ‘What do you mean – motive?’

Before the lawyer could answer, noises off, in the parlance of the stage, announced the entrance of Jim’s only living female relative. It was significant that this was the first time in his whole life that Jim felt glad to see her. She appeared in the hall doorway of the library and petulantly demanded her tea.

Mrs Bryce Harringay was what used to be known as a magnificent woman. She was tall, large, and spirited. By virtue of her relationship to the absent Rupert Sethleigh she was accustomed to claim his hospitality, invade his house, order his servants to wait on her, his cars to transport her, and his meals to suit her convenience. This occurred summer after summer with almost unfailing regularity. Rupert loathed her whole-heartedly. So did Jim. It was the one bond between two exceedingly diverse natures. The one opinion the cousins held in common was that any social gathering, however enjoyable otherwise, was irretrievably ruined by their aunt’s presence. Conversely, they held that any function, however tedious or harassing, was at least tolerable provided that their aunt could not be there. Her conduct on public occasions, they agreed, was only one degree less trying than that of a female lunatic suffering under the delusion that she was a cross between Lorelei Lee and the Queen of Sheba. Jim, given the choice between being afflicted by the plague or with the burden of conversing with his Aunt Constance, would undoubtedly have chosen the plague with all its attendant horrors.

Mrs Bryce Harringay usually was accompanied on her visits to the Manor House by her son Aubrey, a likeable, intelligent boy, and by her pomeranians, Marie and Antoinette, who might have been likeable, intelligent animals but for the inordinate amount of pampering they received from their mistress, and the storms of abuse they incurred from other people. Yappy, snappy little brutes were Marie and Antoinette, with a propensity for sly thieving. Jim Redsey was never quite certain whether his loathing for his Aunt Constance exceeded his loathing for her pets, or whether he detested the little animals rather more than he detested their mistress. In moments when time hung heavily upon his large, powerful hands, he was wont to ponder the problem. He was a slow thinker.

On this particular occasion it happened that his aunt was unaccompanied by her favourites. Having demanded her tea, she lowered her thirteen stone of stately flesh into a comfortable chair, disposed her draperies, which were diaphanous but full, in a graceful and modest manner, folded her hands in her lap, sat bolt upright, fixed Jim Redsey with an accusing glare, and observed with venom:

‘James! What is this I hear?’

‘I – er – may I present Mr Grayling – Mr Theodore Grayling,’ babbled Jim, avoiding her basilisk eye.

‘Long ago I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Mr Grayling,’ replied his aunt coldly. She flashed upon the family lawyer a gleaming smile. Her dentist was an artist in his way. ‘You might have imagined that fact for yourself,’ she continued, shutting off the smile promptly as she turned to her nephew.

‘Yes, Aunt Constance,’ agreed Jim jumpily.

‘That is,’ his aunt went on, ‘if you possessed the brain of a bat. Which, of course,’ she concluded roundly, ‘you do not, and never will, possess! Now listen to me. I have made the most appalling discovery!’

Jim gave forth something between a moan and an incipient bellow of fear. The lawyer and Mrs Bryce Harringay stared at him with misgiving, and then glanced at one another.

‘Oh, well, you know – oh, well –’ began Jim thickly. ‘All for the best, I mean. What I mean to say – all these things sent to try us, and all that. I suppose –’

‘I agree,’ said Mrs Bryce Harringay frigidly, ‘that it will certainly try me most sorely, James, most! And your Manifest Sympathy is most touching, especially as the lady in question is entirely unknown to you.’

‘Eh?’ said Jim feebly, taking out his coloured silk handkerchief and wiping his face. ‘Er – oppressive this afternoon, isn’t it? What? Lady in question?’

He sank down, perspiring with relief.

‘Certainly. Mrs Lestrange Bradley has taken the Stone House.’