The Literary Lord Peter

 

CHAPTER XVII

 

Crown Imperial

 

 

One cried, "God bless us!" and "Amen" the other,

As they had seen me with these hangman's hands.

 

William Shakespeare: Macbeth

 

 

Peter came in cautiously, carrying a decanter.

 

"It's all right," said Harriet. "She's gone."

 

He put down the wine at a carefully calculated distance from the fire and observed, in a conversational tone:

 

"We found some decanters, after all."

 

"Yes—I see you did."

 

"My God, Harriet—what was I saying?"

 

"It's all right, darling. You were only quoting Donne."

 

"Is that all? I rather fancied I had put in one or two little bits of my own.... Oh, well, what's it matter? I love you and I don't care who knows it."

 

"Bless you."

 

"All the same," he went on, determined to put the embarrassing topic in its place for good and all, "this house is making me jumpy. Skeletons in the chimney, corpses in the cellar, elderly females hiding behind the doors—I shall look under the bed to-night—— Ough!"

 

He started nervously, as Bunter came in carrying a standard lamp; and covered his confusion by stooping, unnecessarily, to feel the decanter again.

 

"Is that the port, after all?"

 

"No, claret. It's a youngish but pleasant Hermitage, with only a very light sediment. It seems to have travelled all right—it's quite clear."

 

Bunter, setting the lamp near the hearth, cast a look of mute anguish at the decanter and retired with hushed footsteps.

 

"I'm not the only sufferer," said his master, with a shake of the head. "Bunter's nerves are very much affected. He feels this Ruddle muddle acutely—coming on top of everything else. I enjoy a little bustle and movement myself, but Bunter has his standards."

 

"Yes—and though he's charming to me, our marriage must have been an awful blow to him."

 

"More in the nature of an emotional strain, I think. And he's a little worried about this case. He fancies I'm not giving my mind to it. This afternoon, for instance——"

 

"I'm afraid so, Peter, yes. The woman tempted you——"

 

"O felix culpa!"

 

"Frittering away your time among the tombstones, instead of following up the clues. But there aren't any clues."

 

"If there ever were any, Bunter probably cleared them away with his own hands—he and Ruddle, his partner in crime. Remorse is eating his soul like a caterpillar in a cabbage.... But he's quite right; because all I've done so far is to throw suspicion on that wretched boy, Sellon—when I might just as well have thrown it on someone else, as far as I can see."

 

"On Mr. Goodacre, for instance. He has got a morbid passion for cacti."

 

"Or on the infernal Ruddles. I could climb through that window, by the way. I tried after lunch."

 

"Did you? And did you find out whether Sellon might have altered Mrs. Ruddle's clock?"

 

"Ah!...you took that point. Trust a detective novelist to go hot-foot for a clock problem. You're looking like the cat that's swallowed the canary. Out with it—what have you discovered?"

 

"It couldn't have been altered more than about ten minutes either way."

 

"Indeed? And how does Mrs. Ruddle come to have a clock with quarter-chimes?"

 

"It was a wedding-present."

 

"It would be. Yes, I see. You could put it forward, but you couldn't put it right again. And you couldn't put it back at all. Not more than ten minutes or so. Ten minutes might be valuable. Sellon said it was five past nine. Then, by all the rules, he should need an alibi for—— Harriet, no! that makes no sense. It's no use having an alibi for the moment of the murder unless you take pains to fix the moment of the murder. If a ten-minute alibi is to work, the time must be fixed within ten minutes. And it's only fixed within twenty-five—and even then, we can't be sure about the wireless. Can't you do something with the wireless? That's the mystery-monger's white-headed boy."

 

"No, I can't. A clock and a wireless ought to add up to something, but they don't. I've thought and thought——"

 

"Well, you know, we only started yesterday. It seems longer, but that's all it is. Hang it! We've not been married fifty-five hours."

 

"It feels like a lifetime—no, I don't mean that. I mean, it feels as if we'd always been married."

 

"So we have—from the foundation of the world—— Confound you, Bunter, what do you want?"

 

"The menu, my lord."

 

"Oh! Thanks. Turtle soup.... That's a little citified for Paggleham—a trifle out of key. Never mind. Roast duck and green peas are better. Local produce? Good. Mushrooms on toast——"

 

"From the field behind the cottage, my lord."

 

"From the——? Good God, I hope they are mushrooms—we don't want a poison-mystery as well."

 

"Not poison, my lord, no. I consumed a quantity myself to make sure."

 

"Did you? Devoted Valet Risks Life for Master. Very well, Bunter. Oh! and, by the way, was it you playing hide-and-seek with Miss Twitterton on our stairs?"

 

"My lord?"

 

"All right, Bunter," said Harriet, quickly.

 

Bunter took the hint and vanished murmuring, "Very good."

 

"She was hiding from us, Peter, because she'd been crying when we came in and she didn't want to be caught."

 

"Oh, I see," said Peter. The explanation satisfied him, and he turned his attention to the wine.

 

"Crutchley's been behaving like a perfect beast to her."

 

"Has he, by jove?" He gave the decanter a half-turn.

 

"He's been making love to the poor little wretch."

 

As though to prove himself a man and no angel, his lordship gave utterance to a faintly derisive hoot.

 

"Peter—it isn't funny."

 

"I beg your pardon, my dear. You're quite right. It's not." He straightened himself suddenly and said, with some emphasis: "It's anything but funny. Is she fond of the blighter?"

 

"My dear, pathetically. And they were going to be married and start the new garage—with the forty pounds and her little savings—only they're gone, too. And now he finds she won't come into any money from her uncle.... What are you looking at me like that for?"

 

"Harriet, I don't like this at all." He was gazing at her with an expression of growing consternation.

 

"Of course, he's chucked her over now—the brute!"

 

"Yes, yes—but don't you see what you're telling me? She'd have given him the money, of course? Done anything in the world for him?"

 

"She said nobody knew what she had done for him—— Oh, Peter! You can't mean that! It couldn't be the little Twitterton!"

 

"Why not?"

 

He flung the words out like a challenge; and she faced it squarely, standing up to him with her hands on his shoulders, so that their eyes met level.

 

"It's a motive—I see it's a motive. But you didn't want to hear about motive."

 

"But you're cracking my ear-drums with it," he cried, almost angrily. "Motive won't make a case. But once you've got the How, the Why drives it home."

 

"All right, then." He should fight on his own ground. "How? You made no case against her."

 

"There was no need. Her How is child's play. She had the key of the house, and no alibi after 7.30. Killing hens is no alibi for killing a man."

 

"But to smash in a man's head with a blow like that—she's tiny, and he was a big man. I couldn't break your head open like that, though I'm nearly as tall as you are."

 

"You're about the one person who could. You're my wife. You could take me unawares—as a loving niece might her uncle. I can't see Noakes sitting down and letting Crutchley or Sellon go pussy-footing about behind him. But a woman one knows and trusts—that's different."

 

He sat down at the table, with his back towards her, and picked up a fork.

 

"Look! Here I am, writing a letter or doing my accounts.... You're fidgeting round somewhere in the background.... I take no notice; I'm used to it.... You take up the poker quietly...don't be afraid, you know I'm slightly deaf.... Come up on the left, remember; my head leans over a little to the side of the pen.... Now...two quick steps and a brisk rap on the skull—you needn't hit too hard—and you're an exceedingly wealthy widow."

 

Harriet put the poker down rather hastily.

 

"Niece—widow's a hateful word; so weedy—let's stick to niece."

 

"I slump down, and the chair slips away, so that I bruise my right side against the table in falling. You remove any finger-prints from the weapon——"

 

"Yes—and then just let myself out with my own key and lock the door behind me. Quite simple. And you, I suppose, when you come to, obligingly tidy away whatever you were writing——"

 

"And tidy myself into the cellar. That's the idea."

 

"I suppose you've seen this all along?"

 

"I have. But I was irrational enough to tell myself that the motive was insufficient. I couldn't see the Twitterton doing murder for money to extend her hen-runs. Serve me right for being weak-minded. The moral is, Stick to How, and somebody will hand you the Why on a silver salver."

 

He read remonstrance in her eyes, and added earnestly:

 

"It's a whacking great motive, Harriet. A middle-aged woman's last bid for love—and the money to make the bid."

 

"It was Crutchley's motive, too. Couldn't she have let him in? Or lent him the key, not knowing what he wanted it for?"

 

"Crutchley's times are all wrong. Though he may have been an accomplice. If so, he's got damned good reason for giving her the chuck now. In fact, it's the best move he can possibly make, even if he only suspects she did it."

 

His voice was like flint. It jarred on Harriet.

 

"It's all very well, Peter, but where's your proof?"

 

"Nowhere."

 

"What did you say yourself? It's no good showing how it might have been done. Anybody might have done it—Sellon, Crutchley, Miss Twitterton, you, I, the vicar or Superintendent Kirk. But you haven't proved how it was done."

 

"Good God, don't I know that? We want proofs. We want facts. How? How? How?" He sprang up and struck at the air passionately with his hands. "This house would tell us, if roof and walls could but speak. All men are liars! Send me a dumb witness that cannot lie!"

 

"The house?... We've silenced the house ourselves, Peter. Gagged and bound it. If we'd asked it on Tuesday night—but it's hopeless now."

 

"That's what's biting me. I hate fooling about with may-be and might-have-been. And Kirk isn't likely to examine the thing too closely. He'll be so damned thankful to get a likelier suspect than Sellon that he'll hare off after the Crutchley-Twitterton motive——"

 

"But, Peter——"

 

"And then, as like as not," he went on, absorbed in the technical aspect of the thing, "he'll fall down on it in court for lack of direct proof. If only——"

 

"But, Peter—you're not going to tell Kirk about Crutchley and Miss Twitterton!"

 

"He'll have to know, of course. It's a fact, as far as it goes. The point is, will he see——"

 

"Peter—no! You can't do that! That poor little woman and her pathetic love-affair. You can't be so cruel as to tell the police—the police, good heavens!"

 

For the first time he seemed to realise what she was saying. "Oh!" he said, softly, and turned away towards the fire. "I was afraid it might come to this." Then, over his shoulder:

 

"One can't suppress evidence, Harriet. You said to me, 'Carry on.'"

 

"We didn't know these people then. She told me in confidence. She—she was grateful to me. She trusted me. You can't take people's trust and make it into a rope for their necks. Peter——"

 

He stood staring down into the flames. "It's abominable!" cried Harriet, in a sort of consternation. Her excitement broke against his rigidity like water against a stone. "It's—it's brutal."

 

"Murder is brutal."

 

"I know—but——"

 

"You have seen what murdered men look like. Well, I saw this old man's body." He swung round and faced her. "It's a pity the dead are so quiet; it makes us ready to forget them."

 

"The dead—are dead. We've got to be decent to the living."

 

"I'm thinking of the living. Till we get at the truth, every soul in this village is suspect. Do you want Sellon broken and hanged, because we wouldn't speak? Must Crutchley be left under suspicion because the crime was never brought home to anybody else? Are they all to go about in fear, knowing there's an undiscovered murderer among them?"

 

"But there's no proof—no proof!"

 

"It's evidence. We can't pick and choose. Whoever suffers, we must have the truth. Nothing else matters a damn."

 

She could not deny it. In desperation, she broke through to the real issue:

 

"But must it be your hands——?"

 

"Ah!" he said, in a changed voice. "Yes. I have given you the right to ask me that. You married into trouble when you married my work and me."

 

He spread out his hands as though challenging her to look at them. It seemed strange that they should be the same hands that only last night ... Their smooth strength fascinated her. License my roving hands and let them go before, behind, between—— His hands, so curiously gentle and experienced.... With what sort of experience?

 

"These hangman's hands," he said, watching her. "You knew that, though, didn't you?"

 

Of course she had known it, but—— She burst out with the truth:

 

"I wasn't married to you then!"

 

"No.... That makes the difference, doesn't it?... Well, Harriet, we are married now. We are bound. I'm afraid the moment has come when something will have to give way—you, or I—or the bond."

 

(So soon?... Yours, utterly and for ever—he was hers, or else all faith was mockery.)

 

"No—no!... Oh, my dear, what is happening to us? What has become of our peace?"

 

"Broken," he said. "That's what violence does. Once it starts, there's no stopping it. It catches us all, sooner or later."

 

"But...it mustn't. Can't we escape?"

 

"Only by running away." He dropped his hands in a hopeless gesture. "Perhaps it would be better for us to run. I have no right to drag any woman into this mess—least of all, my wife. Forgive me. I have been my own master so long—I think I have forgotten the meaning of an obligation." The stricken whiteness of her face startled him. "Oh, my dear—don't upset yourself like this. Say the word, and we'll go right away. We'll leave this miserable business and never meddle again."

 

"Do you really mean that?" she said, incredulously.

 

"Of course I mean it. I have said it."

 

His voice was the voice of a beaten man. She was appalled, seeing what she had done.

 

"Peter, you're mad. Never dare to suggest such a thing. Whatever marriage is, it isn't that."

 

"Isn't what, Harriet?"

 

"Letting your affection corrupt your judgment. What kind of life could we have if I knew that you had become less than yourself by marrying me?"

 

He turned away again, and when he spoke, it was in a queerly shaken tone:

 

"My dear girl, most women would consider it a triumph."

 

"I know, I've heard them." Her own scorn lashed herself—the self she had only just seen. "They boast of it—'My husband would do anything for me....' It's degrading. No human being ought to have such power over another."

 

"It's a very real power, Harriet."

 

"Then," she flung back passionately, "we won't use it. If we disagree, we'll fight it out like gentlemen. We won't stand for matrimonial blackmail."

 

He was silent for a moment, leaning back against the chimney-breast. Then he said, with a lightness that betrayed him:

 

"Harriet; you have no sense of dramatic values. Do you mean to say we are to play out our domestic comedy without the great bedroom scene?"

 

"Certainly. We'll have nothing so vulgar."

 

"Well—thank God for that!"

 

His strained face broke suddenly into the familiar mischievous smile. But she had been too much frightened to be able to smile back—yet.

 

"Bunter isn't the only person with standards. You must do what you think right. Promise me that. What I think doesn't matter. I swear it shall never make any difference."

 

He took her hand and kissed it gravely.

 

"Thank you, Harriet. That is love with honour."

 

They stood so for a moment; both conscious that something had been achieved that was of enormous—of overmastering importance. Then Harriet said, practically:

 

"In any case, you were right, and I was wrong. The thing has got to be done. By any means, so long as we get to the bottom of it. That's your job, and it's worth doing."

 

"Always provided I can do it. I don't feel very brilliant at the moment."

 

"You'll get there in the end. It's all right, Peter."

 

He laughed—and Bunter came in with the soup.

 

"I regret that dinner is a little late, my lady."

 

Harriet looked at the clock. It seemed to her that she had lived through interminable ages of emotion. But the hands stood at a quarter past eight. Only an hour and a half had gone by since they had entered the house.