At the _Load of Mischief_
By next morning Bredon’s spirits had risen. He had received by the
early post a confidential letter from the company describing Mr.
Mottram’s curious offer, and suggesting (naturally) that the state of
his health made suicide a plausible conjecture. The morning was fine,
the car running well, the road they had selected in admirable
condition. It was still before tea time when they turned off from its
excellent surface onto indifferent by-roads, through which they had to
thread their way with difficulty. The signposts, as is the wont of
English signposts, now blazoned “Chilthorpe,” “Chilthorpe,”
“Chilthorpe,” as if it were the lodestone of the neighbourhood, now
passed it over in severe silence, preferring to call attention to the
fact that you were within five furlongs of Little Stubley. They had
fallen, besides, upon hill country, with unexpected turns and
precipitous gradients; they followed with enforced windings the bleak
valley of the Busk, which swirled beneath them over smooth boulders
between desolate banks. It was just after they had refused the fifth
invitation to Little Stubley that the County Council’s arrangements
played them false; there was a clear issue between two rival roads,
with no trace of a signpost to direct their preference. It was here
that they saw, and hailed, an old gentleman who was making casts into
a promising pool about twenty yards away.
“Chilthorpe?” said the old gentleman. “All the world seems to be
coming to Chilthorpe. The County Council does not appear to have
allowed for the possibility of its becoming such a centre of fashion.
If you are fond of scenery, you should take the road to the left; it
goes over the hill. If you like your tea weak, you had better take the
valley road to the right. Five o’clock is tea time at the _Load of
Mischief_, and there is no second brew.”
Something in the old gentleman’s tone seemed to invite confidences.
“Thank you very much,” said Bredon. “I suppose the _Load of Mischief_
is the only inn that one can stop at?”
“There was never much to be said for the _Swan_. But to-day the _Load
of Mischief_ has added to its attractions; it is not everywhere you
can sleep with the corpse of a suicide in the next room. And the
police are in the house, to satisfy the most morbid imagination.”
“The police? When did they come?”
“About luncheon time. They are understood to have a clue. I am only
afraid, myself, that they will want to drag the river. The police
always drag the river if they can think of nothing else to do.”
“You’re staying at the inn, I gather?”
“I am the surviving guest. When you have tasted the coffee in the
morning you will understand the temptation to suicide; but so far I
have resisted it. You are not relatives, I hope, of the deceased?”
“No; I’m from the Indescribable. We insured him, you know.”
“It must be a privilege to die under such auspices. But I am afraid I
have gone beyond my book: when I say poor Mottram committed suicide I
am giving you theory not fact.”
“The police theory?”
“Hardly. I left before they arrived. It is the landlady’s theory, and
when you know her better you will know that it is as well not to
disagree with her; it provokes discussion.”
“I am afraid she must be very much worried by all this.”
“She is in the seventh heaven of lamentation. You could knock her
down, she tells me, with a feather. She insists that her custom is
ruined for ever; actually, you are the second party to stay at the inn
as the result of this affair, and the jug and bottle business at
mid-day was something incredible. The Band of Hope was there _en
masse_, swilling beer in the hope of picking up some gossip.”
“The other party, were they relations?”
“Oh no, it’s a policeman; a real policeman from London. The secretary,
I suppose, must have lost his head, and insisted on making a _cause
célèbre_ of the thing. I forgot him, by the way, a little chap called
Brinkman; he’s at the _Load_ too. A thousand pardons, but I see a fish
rising. It is so rare an event here that I must go and attend to it.”
And, nodding pleasantly, the old gentleman made his way to the bank
again.
Chilthorpe is a long, straggling village with the business part (such
as it is) at the lower end. The church is here, and the _Load of
Mischief_, and a few shops; here, too, the Busk flows under a wide
stone bridge—a performance which at most times of the day attracts a
fair crowd of local spectators. The houses are of grey stone, the
roofs of blue slate. The rest of the village climbs up along the
valley all in one street; the houses stand perched on the edge of a
steep slope, too steep almost for the cultivation of gardens, though a
few currant and gooseberry bushes retain a precarious foothold. The
view has its charms; when mists hang over it in autumn, or when the
smoke of the chimneys lingers idly on a still summer evening, it has a
mysterious and strangely un-English aspect.
The hostess, presumably to be identified with “J. Davis, licensed to
sell wines, spirits and tobacco,” met them on the threshold, voluble
and apparently discouraging. Her idea seemed to be that she could not
have any more guests coming and committing suicide in her house.
Bredon, afraid that his patience or his gravity would break down, put
Angela in charge of the conversation, and so delicate was her tact, so
well-placed her sympathy, that within ten minutes their arrival was
being hailed as a godsend, and Mrs. Davis, ordering the barmaid to
bring tea as soon as it could be procured, ushered them into a private
room, assuring them of accommodation upstairs when she could put
things to rights. It had been one thing after another, she complained,
all day, she didn’t really hardly know which way to turn, and her
house always a respectable one. There was not much custom, it seemed,
at Chilthorpe, lying so far away from the main road and that—you would
have supposed that in a R.A.C. Listed Hotel suicides were a matter of
daily occurrence, and the management knew how to deal with them.
Whereas Mrs. Davis hadn’t anybody but the girl and the Boots, and him
only with one arm. And those boys coming and looking in through the
front window; “disgraceful,” she called it; and what were the police
for if they couldn’t put a stop to it? And the reporters—six of them
she’d turned away that very day—coming and prying into what didn’t
concern them. They didn’t get a word out of her, that was one thing.
Though, mark you, if Mrs. Davis didn’t know poor Mr. Mottram, who did?
Coming there regular year after year for the fishing, poor gentleman;
such a quiet gentleman too, and never any goings-on. And how was she
to know what would come of it? It wasn’t that the gas leaked; time and
again she’d had those pipes seen to, and no complaints made. If there
had have been anything wrong, Mr. Pulteney, he’d have let her hear
about it, he was one for having everything just as he liked, and no
mistake. . . . Yes, that would be him, he was a great one for the
fishing. Such a queer gentleman too, and always taking you up short.
Why, yesterday morning, when she went to tell him about what had
happened in the night he was as cool as anything; all he said was, “In
that case, Mrs. Davis, I will fish the Long Pool this morning,” like
that he said. Whereas Mr. Brinkman, that was the secretary, he was in
a great taking about it, didn’t hardly know what he said or did, Mr.
Brinkman didn’t. And to think of all the gas that was wasted; on all
night it was, and who was to pay for it was more than she knew.
Summing up, Mrs. Davis was understood to observe that it was a world
for sorrow, and man was cut down like a flower, as the sparks fly
upward. However, there was them above as knew, and what would be would
be.
Of all this diatribe Bredon was a somewhat languid auditor. He
recognized the type too well to suppose that any end was to be gained
by cross-examination. Angela cooed and sighed, and dabbed her eyes now
and again at appropriate moments, and in so doing won golden opinions
from the tyrannous conversationalist. It was a strong contrast when
the maid came in with the tea things; she plumped them down in
silence, tossing her head defiantly, as who should imply that somebody
had recently found fault with her behind the scenes, but she was not
going to take any notice of it. She was a strapping girl, of
undeniable good looks, spoilt (improved, the Latins would have said)
by a slight cast in one eye. In the absence of any very formidable
competition it was easy to imagine her the belle of the village. So
resolute did her taciturnity appear that even Angela, who could draw
confidences from a stone, instinctively decided that it would be best
to question her later on. Instead, she whiled away the interminable
interval which separates the arrival of the milk jug from that of the
teapot by idly turning over the leaves of the old-fashioned visitors’
book. The Misses Harrison, it appeared, had received “every attention”
from their kind and considerate hostess. The Pullford Cycling Club had
met for its annual outing, and the members pronounced themselves “full
to bursting, and coming back next year.” An obviously newly married
couple had found the neighbourhood “very quiet”; a subsequent
annotator had added the words “I don’t think!!!” with the three marks
of exclamation. The Wotherspoon family, a large one, testified to
having had a “rattling good time” at this old-world hostelry. The
Reverend Arthur and Mrs. Stump would carry away “many pleasant
memories” of Chilthorpe and its neighbourhood.
Miles was wandering aimlessly about the room inspecting those art
treasures which stamp, invariably and unmistakably, the best room of a
small country inn. There was the piano, badly out of tune, with a
promiscuous heap of dissenting hymn-books and forgotten dance tunes
reposing on it. There were the two pictures which represent a lovers’
quarrel and a lovers’ reconciliation, the hero and heroine being
portrayed in riding costume. There was a small bookshelf, full of
Sunday-school prizes, interspersed with one or two advanced novels in
cheap editions, clearly left behind by earlier visitors. There was a
picture of Bournemouth in a frame of repulsive shells. There was a
photograph of some local squire or other on horseback. There were
several portraits which were intended to perpetuate the memory of the
late Mr. Davis, a man of full bodily habit, whose clothes, especially
his collar, seemed too tight for him. There were a couple of young
gentlemen in khaki on the mantelpiece; there was a sailor, probably
the one who had collected the strange assortment of picture post-cards
in the album under the occasional table; there were three wedding
groups, all apparently in the family—in a few words, a detective
interested in such problems might have read there, a picture, the
incredibly long and complicated annals of the poor.
To Bredon it was all a matter of intense irritation. When he visited
the scene of some crime or some problem, he was fond of poking his way
round the furniture, trying to pick up hints from the books and the
knickknacks about the character of the people he was dealing with. At
least, he would say, if you cannot pick up evidence about them you can
always catch something of their atmosphere. Mottram had hardly played
the game when he died in a country inn where he had not been able to
impress his surroundings with any touch of his own quality; this inn
parlour was like any other inn parlour, and the dead body upstairs
would be a problem in isolation, torn away as it was from its proper
context. The bedroom doubtless would have a text over the
washing-stand, a large wardrobe stuffed with family clothes and
mothballs, a cheap print of the “Soul’s Awakening”; it would just be
an inn bedroom, there would be no Mottram about it.
“I say,” Angela interrupted suddenly, “Mottram seems to have visited
this place pretty regularly, and always for the fishing season. There
are some fine specimens of his signature; the last only written two
days ago.”
“Eh? What’s that?” said Bredon. “Written his signature in already, had
he? Any date to it?”
“Yes, here it is, ‘J. W. Mottram, June 13th to’—and then a blank. He
didn’t know quite how long he would be staying, I suppose.”
“Let’s see. . . . Look here, that’s all wrong, you know. This isn’t a
hotel register; it’s just a visitors’ book. And people who write in a
visitors’ book don’t write till the day they leave.”
“Necessarily?”
“Invariably. Look here: look at Arthur Stump. You can see from his
style and his handwriting what a meticulous fellow he is. Well, he
came here on May twenty-first, and stayed till May twenty-six. The
Wilkinsons came here a day later, on the twenty-second, and left on
the twenty-fourth. But the Wilkinson entry comes first, and that’s
because they left first, don’t you see? And here is Violet Harris
doing the same; she puts her name before the Sandeman party. Look at
Mottram’s entry last year. He didn’t leave a blank then, and fill in
his date of departure afterward; you can always tell when a thing is
filled in afterward because the spacing is never quite exact. No;
Mottram did something quite foreign to his habit when he wrote June
thirteenth to blank, and quite foreign to the habits of every one I
know.”
“You get these little ideas sometimes. No; you can’t have tea till you
come and sit at the table. I don’t want you sloshing it about all over
the place. Now, what can have been the idea of writing that entry?
Nobody wanted proof that he’d been there. Could it be a forgery, done
from last year’s entry? That would mean that it isn’t Mottram upstairs
at all, really.”
“We shall know that soon enough. . . . No; there’s only one idea that
seems to me to make sense. He came to this place knowing that he was
never going to leave it alive. And consequently he wanted to put an
entry in the book which would make it look as if he had been paying
just an ordinary visit, and was expecting to leave it alive. People
will never see that they’re overreaching themselves when they do that
kind of thing. It’s absurd to go on such slight indications, but so
far as I can see the presumption is this: Mottram meant to commit
suicide, and meant to make it look as if he hadn’t.”
“The date’s all right, I suppose?”
“Bound to be. No sense in falsifying it when it could always be
verified from the bill. Landladies have a habit of knowing what night
guests arrived.”
“Let’s see, then. He arrived on the thirteenth; and he was found dead
in the morning, that’s yesterday morning, Tuesday. The thirteenth was
Monday—he’d only been here one night.”
“Well, we’ll hope we can find all that part out from the secretary. I
don’t much want another hour of Mrs. Davis. Meanwhile, let’s see if
you can knock any more out of that teapot; I’m as thirsty as a fish.”