White Priory Murders

CHAPTER EIGHT Dr. Dryasdust at Breakfast

"Give me a hand, Potter," said Masters briskly. Masters' stolid, heavy-jawed face was still imperturbable. "Get him over on the settee. Better ring for the butler and have himno! Wait a bit. Here, get hold of his feet."

They lifted the inert lump, with its features now gone smeary and its lips drooling; a bag of dough where there had been a brain. The breath wheezed through his nose. As they put him down on the couch his dressing-gown slid back. They saw that he was wearing evening-dress trousers and a collar less stiff shirt; his feet, as small as a woman's, were thrust into red leather slippers. Masters carefully took the cigar from his fingers and threw it into the fire. He picked up the unbroken bottle from the floor; looked at it, and then at his companions.

"Very rummy chap," he said, "very rummy indeed. Now I wonder? — Wait a bit, Mr. Bennett. Where are you going?"

"Breakfast," said the other, with heartfelt weariness. "This thing has got me nearly crazy. "

"Now, now. Easy, my lad. Just wait a bit and I'll go with you. I have something to talk about. For the moment?'

Bennett regarded him curiously. For some time he had been unable to understand why the Chief Inspector of the C.I.D. should be so anxious for his company, and almost eager to make friends with him. He learned why soon enough.

`-the question arises," continued Masters, rubbing his chin, "is this man right? Did it happen as he said it did? What do you think, now, Potter?"

The county-inspector shifted, chewed his cud, looked at the notebook for inspiration, and finally swore.

"It sounds all right, sir," growled Potter. "In a way. And yet-" he stabbed out with the pencil. "That's it. I dunno what half of it's all about. This business of backing plays and the like. But the way it was done., well, 'ow else could it have been done? That's the worst."

Masters' pale blue, genial eyes swung over to Bennett. "Ah! Always glad to listen to suggestions, Potter and I are. What do you think?"

Bennett said violently that it was nonsense. "Why nonsense?"

"Well "

"Because Mr. Bohun's your friend? Tosh tosh tosh. Leave that out of it. Does you credit, o' course. But we shall have to admit that it does explain everything. Eh?" Masters' eyes opened wide.

"I know. But do you honestly think he could have pulled off that funny business with the footprints? If the first part of it weren't so plausible, and if it didn't account for several queer things, you wouldn't give it a minute's thought. I don't believe he could have done it. Besides, that man," Bennett heard himself talking loudly and foolishly, "is drunk enough to say anything. Didn't you hear all the wild statements he made?"

"Oh, ah. Yes. What statements did you refer to?" "Well, for instance, about Bohun's niece trying to kill

Marcia Tait by throwing her downstairs..:'

Suddenly he saw that he had fallen into a very bland, very easy trap. Masters said affably: "Yes, indeed. I shall want to hear all about that. I talked to Mr. Willard and Mr. Bohun both, and yet neither one of them made any mention of an attempt to kill Miss Tait. Very rummy. Somebody tried to throw her downstairs, eh?"

"Look here, let's go and get some breakfast. I don't know anything about that; you'll have to ask them again. Besides — you don't want second-hand information. And I'm no stool-pigeon."

"Stool-P Masters had been inspecting the supine and flabby figure on the couch, whose jaws moved like a bellows with its wheezing breath. Masters' big laughter boomed. "Stool-pigeon, yes. You mean a copper's nark? Why, no. But I want any kind of information; d'ye see? Any kind. Eh, Potter? This niece of Mr. Bohun's is young, good-looking, I take it? And Mr. Rainger made another interesting statement: about Miss Tait being married. We shall have to check that. I say, I wonder how Mr. Rainger got so dirty? I mean in a literal sense this time. Look at him."

He drew back the edge of the dressing-gown. There were powdery streaks of a dead blackish color down the front of the white shirt, as though dirt had been sifted on him; the shoulders were more grimy and a thicker black; and, as Masters lifted him a little, the arm of the shirt showed in the same condition. And, as he rolled him over like a dummy, they saw that there were also stains on the back of the shirt.

"Hands new-washed; shiny-washed. Look at them. H'm. Never mind, but I also wonder what he meant by saying he had an alibi. I suppose we ought to have him taken upstairs, and yet I think I shall just leave him there. Well, Potter? You said you'd done some trapping, and knew about tracks in the snow? Do you think Mr. Bohun could have worked that little trick?"

Potter ruminated, uneasily. "'Ere!" he said with irrelevance but determination, and stared up. "I'll tell you what it is. I don't want this case. You said you were my superior officer, and so you are. Well, I'm going to telephone the Yard, official and all, and say we need help. Bloody little I'm going to mess about with it. There."

"That means you don't think he could have done it. Eh?"

"I dunno. That's what beats me. But," said the inspector, rising and slapping shut his notebook, "I'm going out to look at those tracks and see. There might be something."

Masters said he had some instructions for him. Masters accompanied him to the door, speaking in a low voice, and Potter uttered a pleased snort. His expression was one of heavy craftiness as he went out. Then Masters beckoned to Bennett, and spoke encouragingly of breakfast.

The big raftered dining-hall was at the rear of the house, its windows looking down over the lawns towards the avenue of evergreens and the pavilion. Sprigs of holly were fastened to the chandelier, and round a darkisn portrait over the mantelpiece. It was a sort of shock to see their gaiety; the gaiety of the big fire and the gleaming pewter dish-covers on the sideboard. At the table, leaning back in his chair, staring dull-faced and incurious at the ceiling, sat John Bohun. A cigarette drooped from his lips, and he had a convalescent's pallor. Across from him, industriously at work on bacon and eggs, sat a very prim fastidious little man who rose in haste as the newcomers entered.

"I beg your pardon," the little man said, coming across in his nervous little strut. "You are…" A hazy expression was in his eyes, and he still dabbled at his mouth with a napkin. He had a bony face dominated by his very large hooked nose, and a high domed skull with gray hair brushed flat across it. His whole expression-with the wrinkles, the fidgety mouth, and the pale gray eyes in which the small pin-point pupils were dead black-was one of vagueness mixed with swift moods which might be of good-humor or pettishness. He was very fastidiously dressed in black, with a quiet donnish primness, and his air was that of someone wandering past shelves in a library.". you are — how extraordinarily stupid of me! I keep forgetting. You will be my guest, and you will be the inspector of police." After a limp handshake, he hustled them towards the table. "Did I introduce myself? I am Maurice Bohun. This is my brother John. You have already met him, have you not? Of course. Good God, what a dreadful business all this is! I only learned of it half an hour ago, you understand. But I informed John that the best way to keep up his strength in assisting justice was, in brief, to eat. You will take breakfast with us? Excellent. Thompson! More-ah-comestibles. "

As this almost invisible genie moved out from the sideboard, Maurice Bohun sat down. Bennett noticed that he limped slightly, and that a stick with a large gold knob was propped against his chair. This fussy little man to be the author of a bawdy robust comedy? Masters studied the two brothers; especially John, who had not moved from sitting back inertly with his hands in his pockets.

"I've got to warn you, sir," announced Masters, in his voice that always seemed to dispel tense atmospheres, "that you take me in at your own risk. I'm not officially connected with this case, although Inspector Potter's a relative of mine. So that only makes me a sort of guest at your pleasure. So if you don't mind sitting down to table with a copper; eh? Just so. An! Yes, the kippers, if you please."

John Bohun lowered his head.

"I say, inspector, you may omit the urbanity. Have you found out anything since you talked to Willard and me?"

"I'm afraid not, sir. Matter of fact, I've been talking to a gentleman named Rainger," Masters answered, with his mouth full.

"Your esteemed friend, Maurice," said John, turning his head. "The one who's going to make you a technical adviser on the films…"

Maurice put down his knife and fork gently. He peered across the table and said, "Why not?" in a voice of such clear common-sense that Bennett turned to look at him. Then Maurice smiled vaguely and went on eating.

"I'm afraid — said Masters, and seemed to hesitate. His big grin showed behind a loaded fork. "Mr. Rainger's a very interesting gentleman, and I admire his work, but I'm afraid he's been drinking this morning. Eli? Just so. That, and making wild accusations he may not be able to support. Can't support."

"Accusations?" John Bohun asked sharply.

"Um. Of murder." Masters was deprecating. "Point of fact, he accused you. Lot of such rubbish. Ah! Real cream!"

John got up from his chair.

"He's been accusing me, has he? What's the swine been saying?"

"Now, now, sir, don't let it bother you. Everything's easily proved, isn't it?. But I wanted to talk to you, sir," he added, turning to Maurice as though he had dismissed the subject, "about this Mr. Rainger. He said you two had been together most of last evening; and, since he'd drunk himself a bit over the mark, I was curious as to how many other-um-hallucinations he might have got."

Maurice pushed back his plate. and meticulously folded his napkin. Then he folded his hands. Against the gray light his big forehead, unwieldy for the frail body, threw into shadow those curious pale-gray eyes with the tiny black pupils. He looked muddled and mildly deprecating.

"An, yes," he said. "Er-where was I? Let me see. You ah wish me to satisfy you that I did not commit this murder."

"Sir?"

"I was, of course, ah, answering the spirit of your question rather than the precise words. " He was apologetic, as though there were nothing at all odd in this, and took the whole thing for granted. "So Mr. Rainger has been drinking? I do not approve of drinking, because the world has a tendency to use alcohol as a drug against tedium. It is not that I disapprove of a drug against tedium, but I prefer that the drug against tedium should be purely intellectual. Do you follow me, sir?. I-ah-perceive that you do not. I was referring to a study of the past."

Masters nodded his big head, with a show of deep interest.

"Ah," he agreed wisely. "Reading history, sir. Quite. Very instructive. I'm fond of it myself."

"Surely," said Maurice Bohun, "that is-ah-not quite what you mean, sir?" A faint crease ruffled his forehead. "Let me see. You mean that you once read a chapter of Macaulay or Froude, and were pleased with it and yourself when you discovered it to be a little less dull than you had anticipated. You were not inclined to read further, but at least you felt that your interest in history had been permanently aroused… But I really meant something deeper than that. I referred to the process that is nowadays — slurringly termed `living in the past.' I frankly live in the past. It is the only mode of existence in which I find it possible to skip the dull days."

His smooth, pleasant voice rarely lifted or altered its tone. With his elbow on the table, and the fingers of a frail hand shading his eyes, he was still mildly deprecating. But Bennett, who had been wolfishly eating, looked up. He began to feel the power of this vague-looking man's personality; the wire and subtle strength of his ruling in this house. Bennett did not like the man, because he had a nervous schoolboy sensation, under the look of those disconcerting pin-point eye pupils, of having come to class unprepared before a gently satiric master with a habit of calling on you in the last five minutes before the bell.

"Well, sir," said Masters, still imperturbably, "it seems to be rather a good, um, mode of existence. The young lady's death doesn't seem 'to have bothered you much, I should fancy."

"No," said Maurice Bohun, and smiled. "There will be others like her. That has always been so. Er — we were discussing…?"

"Mr. Rainger."

"Ah yes. Quite so. I was forgetting: a most abominable habit of mine. So Mr. Rainger is drunk? Yes, I–I should have imagined that such an unfortunate occurrence would have affected him in precisely that fashion. I found him very interesting and amusing, with strange claims to scholarship. For various reasons of my own, I — ah — what is the term I jollied him along.' John, would you mind not tapping your fingers on the table? Thank you."

"Masters," said John Bohun violently, "I demand to know what that swine said. I've got a right to know!" He came round the table.

Maurice interposed in an almost distressed fashion: "Oh, come, John. Come now. Surely I am not mistaken in thinking that — ah," he frowned, "Mr. Masters is attempting to work you into a nervous frame of mind? In that case," explained Maurice, with a gentle bewildered expression, "you must not expect him to tell you. Be reasonable, my boy. He has his duties."

Bennett's dislike of Maurice Bohun was growing with every word he uttered. It might have been his intolerable assumption of rightness in everything, especially when he happened to be right; and his old-maidish way of expressing it. Bennett began even more fiercely to sympathize with Katharine. He noticed, too, that Masters had been feeling the discomfort. Masters, in whose big face there was a suppressed anger, folded up his own napkin and said a surprising thing.

"Do you never get tired, sir," said the stolid practical Masters, "of playing God?"

For a brief time the muddled expression held Maurice's face, as though he were on the verge of protest. Then Bennett saw a look of cool Epicurean pleasure.

"Never," Maurice answered. "You are shrewder than I had thought, Mr. Masters… May I suggest something? Now that you have removed the button from your foil, or perhaps I should say — ah — the tinfoil from your club, would it not be better to ask me questions in your best Scotland Yard style? I shall do my best to answer." He looked rather anxious. "Perhaps I can even prevail on you to state your whole problem? I should much appreciate it. I have some considerable interest in the subject of criminology. It is quite possible that I might be able to help you."

Masters seemed affable. "Not bad, sir. Maybe not a bad idea. Do you know the situation we're in?"

"Er-yes. My brother has been explaining."

"Half an inch of unmarked snow all around that little house," said Masters, "and no footprints, no marks anywhere, except your brother's tracks; innocent, of course. "

"Of course. I really wish you wouldn't walk about in that manner, John. I think," said Maurice with a cool smile, "I can take care of you."

"I rather think you can," returned Masters grimly. "But can you explain how that murder was committed, then?"

Maurice touched the bridge of his nose as though for absent spectacles, and his smile was apologetic. "Why-why, yes, inspector," he ventured. "It is quite possible I can."

"Hell's fire!" cried Masters, suddenly letting off steam. He got up from the table, obviously contemplating what seemed to him the queerest fish that had ever slipped into his net, while Maurice made clucking noises. Masters hesitated, swallowed, and sat down again. All the tinfoil was removed from the club now. "Very good, sir. Everybody seems to have an explanation of it except the police. Very neat and stimulating it is. I tell you frankly, I pity old Charley Potter if he'd bad to fall in among this crowd without assistance. And I don't want to listen to any rubbish about anybody flying out of that house, or walking on stilts, or vaulting, or hanging to trees. There's not even a shrub within a hundred feet of it, and no mark whatever in the snow. And there was nobody hidden there when we looked. But it's a very queer place, Mr. Bohun… Why do you keep it all fitted out like that?"

"A whim of mine. I told you that I lived in the past. I often spend nights there myself." For the first time there was a sort of hazy animation about Maurice. The hand shading his eyes opened and shut. "You would not understand, I fear. I can take the same sheer utter pleasure in talking to you as I would to a deaf person. Mr. Masters, I have done a remarkable thing. I have created my own ghosts." He laughed softly, and stopped. "May I offer you more kippers, sir? Thompson, more kippers for the inspector."

"Were you very much interested," struck in Masters, "in Miss Tait?"

Maurice looked concerned. "To your question — ah-`Were you in love with Miss Tait,' I must answer, sir, no. At least I do not think so. I admired her as a sort of accidental reincarnation."

"Yet you wrote a play for her, I think?"

"So you have heard," murmured the other, wrinkling his forehead, "of my modest effort. No. I wrote it for my own amusement. I had become rather tired of being called Dr. Dryasdust. " He placed the palms of his hands together before him, weirdly as though he were going to dive, and hesitated. "In my younger days I suffered from illusions. These lay in a belief that the proper value of historical study consisted in its economic and political significance. But I am old enough now to be aware that almost the only gift no historian has ever possessed is any knowledge whatever of human character. I am now, I fear, an old satyr. You will be informed (I think you have been informed?) of my senile ecstasies over Miss Tait? Your expression indicates it. That is only partly true. In Miss Tait I admired the charms of all the dead courtesans with whom I should like to have had love affairs."

Masters drew his hand across his forehead.

"Don't mix me up, if you please! — You encouraged Miss Tait to sleep out in that pavilion?"

"Yes."

"Which," Masters went on musingly, "you had got repaired and restored, and which was used in the old days for a king to visit his fancy ladies on the sly… "

"Of course, of course, of course," interposed Maurice, hastily and rather as though he were impatient with himself for having overlooked something. "I should have understood. You were thinking of a secret passage underground, perhaps, to explain the absence of marks in the snow? I can reassure you, There is nothing of the kind."

Masters was watching him; and Masters pounced now. "We might have to take it to pieces, sir. Tear off the panelling, you know, which you mightn't like… "

"You wouldn't dare do that," said Maurice. His voice suddenly went high.

"Or take up the floors. If they're the original marble, it would be a bit hard on you, sir; but to satisfy ourselves…"

As Maurice got up from his chair, his frail wrist knocked over the walking-stick that was propped against the arm, and its heavy gold head struck the floor with a crash. That crash had its echo in Masters' voice.

"Now, sir, let's stop this fiddling and evading and being so neat and slippery. Let's talk like men and answer questions; do you hear me?" He struck the edge of the table. "It would be no trouble at all for me to get a warrant to take that beloved little shack of yours apart piece by piece. And, so help me, I'll get mad enough to do it before very long! Now, then, will you or won't you give assistance in this thing?"

"Surely-ah-surely I had already promised to do so?"

In the long pause afterwards, that pause when Bennett knew that the chief inspector had got his man, John Bohun walked away from the window out of which he had been staring. John Bohun's face (when both he and his brother were frightened) had a curious resemblance to Maurice's which you would never ordinarily have noticed. It was as though Masters held two men in play, like a fencer who conceals his skill under clumsiness.

"Your-your subordinate," said John, and pointed behind him. "He's out there on the lawn. he's examining

.. What's he doing?"

"Only making measurements of your tracks in the snow, sir. That doesn't bother you, does it? Won't you sit down, gentlemen; both of you?… There, that's better."

It was not better. John's face had gone white.

"An attempt was made on Miss Tait's life last night before the time she was smashed over the head. Somebody tried, I think," Masters went on, turning to Maurice, "to throw her downstairs. Who was it?"

"I do not know."

"Was it your niece, Miss Bohun?"

Maurice sat down quietly. He was smiling again. "I should not think so, my friend. If the-ah-culprit was anybody, I should say it was the Honorable Louise Carewe, the daughter of my old friend Lord Canifest. However, if you will look round now, you will see my niece just behind you. You have my full permission to make inquiries."