“There’s the drive,” said Edna. “You’ll stay to dinner, won’t you?
Oh, _please_--I can’t face them alone!” And Michael, feeling he might
as well see the thing through, agreed to stay, though he was not
quite sure of his own wisdom.
The car moved slowly up the long, curving drive, which at points was
singularly narrow for the entrance to a “gentleman’s residence” of
any size.
“More like a country lane than a drive,” Michael commented. “Isn’t
it rather dangerous?” he asked, as they swung suddenly round a
completely blind corner which was not rendered any the safer for
having a stretch of wider road leading up to it, and a broad expanse
of parkland almost immediately beyond. He did not feel that the shape
of the bend was compensated for by the trails of honeysuckle which
brushed his shoulders on the one side, a high fence forming the other.
“Oh, frightfully, I should think,” Edna said. “But it’s always been
the same, and nobody will have it altered. They cut back the hedge
every now and then. But it isn’t so dangerous as you think. Every one
hereabouts knows it, and coming from the village they always hoot and
wait to see if anything’s coming.”
“But coming from the Grange? Or a stranger?”
“Cars from the Grange have the right of way. Anyway, nobody runs
straight through except Godfrey, and every one knows his horn. And
strangers oughtn’t to dash up other people’s drives at any pace they
like. Serve them right if they do get smashed,” said Edna, with such
surprising callousness as Michael could only excuse by assuming she
had grown up from birth with the death-trap. “Do you like the park?”
“It’s in awfully good order,” Michael said appreciatively. “It isn’t
often one sees timber as well kept in these degenerate days.”
“Oh, that’s Tulumba,” Edna said. “Rubber, I mean. You know Father
and Godfrey both got disgustingly rich on rubber plantations. So
Godfrey can afford to have the place properly kept up. It wasn’t
like that when I first remember it; it was full of dead wood, and
half the trees were falling down. But Father had all the dead stuff
cleared away, and Godfrey’s planted a lot, and brought the deer back.
We couldn’t do it if we weren’t bloodsucking capitalists. But it’s
rather nice, isn’t it?”
“You didn’t have to plough the park up in the war?”
“No, Father was on the County Agricultural Committee,” Edna explained
simply. “There’s the house. Isn’t it hideous?”
On the whole, Michael thought, it was. In origin it was probably
Elizabethan, or earlier, and a mellow group of red brick stables set
at one side seemed to belong to the earliest period. But the large
square Queen Anne block immediately to their left did not match them
at all; and worse still was an enormous Early Victorian atrocity in
yellowish-grey, with bands of Palladian ornament, which stood beside
the Queen Anne block, and just succeeded in overtopping it with an
obvious and ludicrous effort. It was as if one’s grandmother had
decided to stand permanently on tiptoe. Beyond that again came an
indifferent restoration of something seventeenth-century in type; and
a water tower or similar object of late nineteenth-century origin
towered above everything else in the extreme left-hand corner. As
the car swept across the front of the house preparatory to turning
into the stable-yard, Michael saw, across a couple of tennis-courts,
a flagged and flowered terrace on which half a dozen people were
distributed.
“Wallace hasn’t come back, anyway,” Edna said. “That’s one good
thing. Come along and I’ll introduce you.”
“Who are all those people?” Michael asked, as they neared the
terrace, having left the car to return to Colchester.
“Oh, nobody in particular. That’s Godfrey--my brother--in the
deck-chair, and the one walking up and down behind him is Brian
Mackenzie, the Zambesi man. That’s Tom Shane leaning up against the
sundial, and the one sitting on the steps is Leslie Buckton. The
woman by him is Dora Schlesinger, and the other’s Tony Druce. Olga
Felling ought to be somewhere about, but I don’t see her. I wonder
where Sylvia is?”
As soon as she had finished her introductions, Edna repeated the
last question, while Michael surveyed the group for possible
murderers. As an honest man, he was forced to admit that he met with
little success. Nobody’s face expressed much but boredom and slight
ill-temper, though Mackenzie favoured him with a glance of fierce
suspicion. Except for the two women, who belonged to an angular,
high-coloured type which he strongly disliked, the smooth face of
Shane the barrister impressed Michael most unfavourably. Leslie
Buckton he put down as a pink-faced goose. But Wilson, he remembered,
had contemptuously dismissed any idea of Shane’s criminality. This
was very annoying.
At Edna’s question Godfrey Loring threw up his hands in mock despair.
“My dear Edna--must you join the gang? Tom and Brian have been asking
me that question in alternate five minutes for the last two hours.”
The K.C. gave an angry shrug; but Mackenzie took no notice. “I did
think you would have spared me. Couldn’t Wallace tell you?--or what
have you done with him?”
“Don’t be silly, Godfrey. I only asked where she was.”
“I do not know. Cross my heart, I do not know. She disappeared after
that ridiculous ceremony in the town--don’t you want to hear about
it, by the way?”
“No. I met Nick.”
“Well, anyway, she departed, and I’ve not had the pleasure of seeing
her since. Gone to hold Lockwood’s hand, most likely. Sylvia always
has a tenderness for the old and decrepit. Were you nice to Wallace?”
“I don’t know. He’s gone to town,” Edna said in an indifferent tone.
“Damn quick work,” said the Squire coarsely. “I will say that for
Wallace, he doesn’t waste time. One woman for breakfast, another for
lunch, and just in time to get a third for dinner. It’s a shame to
leave you to forage for yourself, though”--with a glance at Michael.
“Shut up,” said Edna.
“Don’t get shirty, my child. I tried to find your young man for
you, but he wasn’t to be seen. Nick was representing the firm’s
sorrow--only he left his black band at home. Try consoling one of
these chaps, if you’re hard up. Dora and Tony have been at it ever
since tea without getting a rise.”
“She won’t have long to try,” either Dora or Tony remarked without
heat, as Edna turned crossly back to Michael. “There _is_ Sylvia.”
A perceptible electric movement ran through the little group; and
all, Michael included, swung round to see Sylvia’s slim figure
turning the corners of the terrace. She was paler than on the
previous day, and there was a definite furrow of anxiety or fear
between her brows. Obviously she was looking for some one; and
Michael noticed with distinct satisfaction that she favoured him with
a special stare of hostility before her eyes finally came to rest on
the Squire. There was some sort of appeal or command in her glance,
to which Godfrey Loring responded with a grunt and a wriggle, which
was probably his limit of graciousness; but she delayed long enough
to fling crumbs to the hungry trio.
“Hullo, everybody!” she said. “Isn’t it sinfully hot? Leslie, have
you got a fag? You were quite right to keep out of that court. It’s a
blessing for me Brian was brought up in the tropics, and kept cool.
He was about the only cool thing in the room. Why didn’t you come,
Tom? You could have asked Dr. Evershed leading questions--isn’t that
what you call them?--and made life a little more interesting for all
the poor dears who’d put on their Sunday-best to come. Oh, God! I’ll
never go to another inquest, not even if it’s my own. Godfrey, I
want to talk to you. Come indoors. No, lazy pig, I won’t stay here.
It’s too hot, and I want a drink. Come on.”
Firmly declining all the rather feeble efforts made to keep her
on the terrace, she led the way indoors, whither Godfrey Loring
eventually followed her, with steps lighter than his bulk would have
led one to expect. The group on the terrace stood limply still for a
moment after they had gone.
“Oh, _come_ on!” one of the women remarked at last in a sudden shrill
voice. “What’s the _use_ of standing about? Who’ll play tennis?”
“Go on, Tom,” said Leslie Buckton. “It’ll keep your figure slim.”
“No, thank you,” said Shane. “Come down and look at the frogs,” to
Edna, who merely shook her head.
“I must say,” the woman who had spoken complained to the world at
large, “you are a nice _cheerful_ set.”
This was also Michael’s feeling when, after nearly an hour of almost
pointless conversation, he was sent in Buckton’s charge to wash
his hands for dinner. If these were murderers, he felt they had
singularly little pleasure in their deed. So far from being a giddy
haunt of vice, Loring Grange appeared at the moment to be nearly the
most boring place on earth. His impression was deepened when they met
again over listless cocktails, and he observed how each of the three
men kept his eyes unashamedly glued to the door. As the gong went,
Godfrey Loring, wearing a triumphant grin, looked in.
“To save everybody trouble,” he observed, “may I just announce that
Sylvia’s not coming to dinner?”
“Fagged out?” inquired Buckton solicitously. He, at least, appeared
to have the merit of bearing his infatuation lightly; at least, he
put his arm round the woman called Olga, with a very fair attempt at
friendliness.
“Fed up, I should call it,” his host responded brutally. “She
seems to have had enough of the lot of you. Anyway, she’s gone
off--skipped--and isn’t coming back to-night, or for some time. So
sorry for you all. Another cocktail, doctor? No? Well, you can wait
for me to have one.” He drank it off. “Shall we go in and drown
Sylvia’s memory? Champagne, I think? Or would you prefer Australian
Burgundy?”
They went into the dining-room, there to partake of a longer and
drearier meal than Michael would have believed possible. There was
plenty to eat and drink, and of excellent quality, and if he had
only wanted to get drunk, he had plenty of opportunity. As he did
not, he could only listen to Godfrey Loring, who appeared to be in
excellent spirits, making inferior jokes against all the company
impartially, most of them not in what Michael considered good taste.
As his own drink mounted to his head, he began to wonder fiercely how
Mark Warden could endure to leave his fiancée a day longer in that
atmosphere--though Edna, he noticed with regret, appeared to object
to it much less than he did.
Towards the end of the meal, the K.C., who had been firmly resisting
the determined attempts of both Dora and Tony to annex him,
announced, with a carefully detached air, that he regretted that
business would call him to London early next morning.
Loring laughed heartily, and flicked some bread at him. “Mind you
call on Wallace,” he said. “Perhaps he’ll go shares with you. Well,
Brian, what about you? Where are you thinking of going? Buluwayo?”
Mackenzie clenched a lean fist but said nothing.
“Falling like autumn leaves,” the Squire said. “Well, doctor, you and
I’ll have to console ourselves. How about a game of billiards? Oh,
come, you’re not going after Sylvia too? A hundred up!” But this,
Michael thought, was really more than chivalry required, though he
was surprised to hear Edna second her brother’s invitation. Firmly he
said he must go.
“I’ll drive you down to the town, if you like. I’m going that way,”
Mackenzie offered. It was almost the first time he had spoken, and
Michael, after a little hesitation, accepted. Perhaps Mackenzie would
provide some information.
The intervening time he spent in detaching himself from his host and
wandering with Edna in the hot, dark garden. As unobtrusively as he
could, he tried to find out where all the house-party had spent the
fatal hours of Friday week; but he got little or no satisfaction.
As far as Edna knew, they had all been at the dance. But Michael
gathered that from midnight onwards nobody had been very clear
where anybody else was, and that, though alibis might possibly be
forthcoming, they would have to be sought in detail.
“They’re _all_ suspects, in fact,” he said to himself; “and not one
more than the other. Where’s Mrs. Meston gone, do you know?” he asked.
“Not an idea,” Edna said, with indifference. “Godfrey knows, but he
likes to keep things to himself if it annoys people. She’ll come
back some time, I suppose. There’s Brian--if you really must go.”
As they came back, they passed by the Squire’s study-window, and saw
the owner standing by his telephone, asking it in a rather thick
voice for Colonel Lockwood. “Does he want to have the house raided?”
Michael wondered. “I should think it ought to be.” From which it will
be observed that Dr. Prendergast was prejudiced.
“Now,” he thought, “for Mackenzie.”
But if he had anticipated any remarkable revelations on the drive,
he was disappointed. Mackenzie swore a great deal, mostly beneath
his breath, and in general appeared so near a breakdown of some sort
as to enlist Michael’s professional sympathy in spite of himself;
but immediately, it seemed, he wanted no more than physical relief
for his feelings, and all he provided for his passenger was a very
lively speculation on whether he would arrive at his destination
with a broken neck. However, there was no accident; and soon after
ten o’clock Michael made his way up to his sitting-room at the inn,
armed with a certain amount of not very useful information and
undifferentiated suspicion enough to hang an army.