Give a Corpse a Bad Name (15 page)

‘Ah yes, to the murder. You think I make a good suspect?'

They were standing now beside the old Sunbeam. Toby was lighting a cigarette. Round the flame his shrewd eyes studied the other man. George remarked: ‘Kind of a hero, ain't he, Tobe?'

‘Yes,' said Toby, ‘kind of. If there's talk of murder, you're all for having it directed at you, aren't you, major? Seems that the rumours I've heard about the decay of chivalry are all bunk. Unless of course—'

‘Unless what?' said Maxwell.

‘Unless you just think you'd like to keep the police on the hop for a bit, knowing that when you feel like it you can pop out with some nice watertight proof of how it couldn't have been you. However, let's go into the possibilities where you're concerned. Because obviously Mrs Milne isn't the only person who could have committed the murder. She did the killing with her car, there doesn't seem to be much doubt of that. But the murderer, if there was one, was the person who got the drunk man to lie down in the right place. May have been her, or may have been anyone else who happened to be around—and who, of course, carried away with him that bottle we hunted for so busily the other day. And there's no denying that you're a good candidate for that vacancy.'

‘Just so,' said the major. ‘I live very close, I'd have recognized Shelley, I've got whisky on my premises. But you want a motive, don't you?'

‘Badly.'

‘Well, I've got one.'

‘Inheritance?'

Maxwell nodded.

Toby chuckled. ‘Almost too pretty to be real, isn't it? And then there are your various—um, lies.'

‘Yes,' said Maxwell. ‘I can explain them, of course, only—'

Toby raised a questioning eyebrow.

‘Only,' said Maxwell, ‘I don't know how good a story the explanation makes. Which lies, by the way, do you want explained?'

‘I'd like to know,' said Toby, ‘why you told the police you went straight home when Mrs Milne dropped you on the way back from the badminton match. Because her car stopped opposite the stile, didn't it, for a goodish time?—long enough for quite a lot of oil to drip on the road. And why did you make up the tarradiddle about looking along the road and seeing the lights of a car? Because, if you
had
looked along the road and seen the lights of a car, you'd also have seen, and later you'd have remembered, the bridge, which would have blotted out anyone walking along the road beyond it.'

‘Ye-es,' said Stuart Maxwell, ‘I suppose that's so. Didn't strike me, but you're quite right. It isn't particularly important though. But the other bit—well, I had to say it, to corroborate Mrs Milne's story. You see, what actually happened was this. At the end of the match Mrs Milne gave me and Miss Willis a lift home. Miss Willis lives a little way down the main road. Mrs Milne dropped me at the crossroads, we said good night, and I started home. But I waited at the stile. When she came by after dropping Miss Willis I stepped out and stopped her. I'd intended, you see, to use the drive home to ask her to marry me. I hadn't expected Miss Willis. And having got myself to the point, it was too much of an anticlimax just to let the thing slip by. See what I mean? So I waited and got down to it. We talked, I should think, for about ten minutes. I got a pretty definite refusal. Well, that was that, and I went home. Incidentally, all the time I was standing there—and altogether it must have been about twenty minutes—nobody passed me in either direction. That was why I went to the trouble of inventing the story about the car. I didn't see why the police shouldn't have the information they wanted, the perfectly accurate information, that nobody had passed. But as I was supposed to have gone straight home I had to make up something to explain how I could be so certain.'

‘I see,' said Toby.

‘I'm not worrying much,' said the major, ‘about whether or not you're believing me.'

‘That,' said Toby, ‘is one thing at least that I don't believe. But go on.'

‘Well, for myself, I'd have had nothing against telling the truth about all this straight away, but I couldn't do that without contradicting Mrs Milne's story. I'd no idea at the time, of course, how serious it was going to turn out to be. But what happened was this. When the police asked Mrs Milne about her movements on the Tuesday night, she decided to leave out the bit about our conversation. Her object was merely to save me embarrassment, nothing more. She told them that when she'd dropped Miss Willis she drove straight back, until she was held up by that sports car coming over the bridge. Heard anything about that car yet, by the way?'

Toby shook his head. ‘Though they go on asking for it on the wireless, I believe.'

‘Well, having modified the truth in this manner,' the major went on, ‘she rang me up as soon as she knew the police intended to check up on me and told me her story and asked me to stick to it. So when the constable turned up here I was all prepared—too prepared, I'm afraid; I don't think I acted surprise at the accident quite as well as I ought to have done. Anyhow, there are all the facts for you, and you can make what you like of them.'

‘On the contrary,' said Toby, ‘I shall have to let them make what they like of me. Still, I'm glad to know. Mind if it all gets handed on to Eggbear?'

The major hesitated, then said: ‘No, I don't mind.'

‘Thanks. Then George and I'll be getting back to Chovey.'

They got into the car. The major waited until they had started, then turned away in the direction of his cottage. George sank low down upon the seat, closed his eyes and said that he could do with a nice cup of tea. Toby agreed absentmindedly.

After a few minutes George remarked: ‘You know, I like driving in the dark. Kind of soothing. I like the way the telephone-poles jump out at you.'

‘George,' said Toby, ‘you've got a nose. You've got a way of knowing things without exactly being told. What d'you think of that story?'

‘D'you mean,' said George drowsily, ‘do I believe it?'

‘Do you?'

‘Well, you know, Tobe,' said George, ‘I'm a trusting enough soul myself, but when I'm with you I pick up the habit of expecting even the hall umbrella-stand to tell me lies. So I reckon I'm spoilt for your present purpose.'

‘Sam,' said Toby, ‘have you ever heard of a Mrs Langman?'

‘No,' said the sergeant.

‘Sure?' said Toby.

‘Yes,' said the sergeant.

‘Say,' said George, ‘is there any way of making this stove give out a little heat?'

Eggbear heaved himself on to his feet, went to the stove, opened it at the top and looked inside. ‘Yes,' he said, ‘you could relight it.' He slumped back into his chair, picked up a pencil and started chewing the indiarubber at the end of it.

Toby's face was patient. ‘So you haven't heard of a Mrs Langman?'

‘No,' grunted Eggbear. ‘When did you?'

‘Recently. She's the sister of Mrs Milne's cook.'

‘What about her?'

‘I was just thinking you could save me a bit of trouble if—'

‘Eh?' said the sergeant. ‘I could save you some trouble, could I? How nice. I could save you—' He broke off and tittered sardonically. ‘You're savin' me a lot of trouble, I suppose? You're makin' everythin' nice and easy for me? I should think so! Why, if you'd not been along this way, would anyone have written you anonymous letters? I ask you, would they? 'Tis you bein' here that's put the notion in somebody's head. People like you are always puttin' notions where they don't belong. 'Tis all along of you—'

‘Listen,' said Toby, ‘there's something I want done. I want you to send someone round to Mrs Langman, of this address—' and he handed over the envelope on the back of which he had noted down the address that Ruby Leat had given him—‘and get him to find out why, in the opinion of Mrs Langman and her sister, Mrs Milne is beyond the pale. And tell him not to be put off with stories of unmentionable sins; I want my revelations concrete.'

‘What's it all about?' said Eggbear, frowning and running the tip of his pencil up and down the corrugations on his forehead. ‘All this you been tellin' me about what you been up to today, and now this … D'you know what you'm talkin' about, Toby, or are you just throwin' things all around you like, and waitin' to see what comes back?'

‘A few of the things I've thrown around have already come back, Sam. You see, in my opinion—'

‘Tobe,' said George, ‘would you mind telling me if we're going to be remaining in this ice-box more than a minute or two, or shall I relight the sergeant's stove, like he says?'

‘It's all right, we're just going,' said Toby. ‘You see, Sam, in my opinion this village of yours is a very unhealthy spot. Maybe mortally unhealthy. And you are, so to speak, its medical officer. I should hate to see you fail in serious realization of your responsibilities.'

Eggbear whistled. ‘But look here, that letter you shown me today, and that other …'

But Toby had gone to the door. ‘We'll be in the bar this evening if you've anything to tell us about that Mrs Langman. So long, Sam.'

Eggbear found himself alone. He sat there, chewing fiercely on his indiarubber.

In the bar of the Ring of Bells, George and Toby, over their beer, talked with Tom Warren of horses, dogs and football. Not a single corpse was mentioned, not a single anonymous letter. But after about twenty minutes someone called Tom Warren away, and when he came back it was to tell Toby that Lady Maxwell was in the vestibule, wanting to speak with him.

Toby gulped his drink.

‘Where can I take her?' he asked.

‘Drawing-room upstairs'll be empty,' said Tom Warren, ‘and there's a nice fire.'

‘Thanks. Come on George.' And Toby hurried out.

Upstairs, amongst the bulrushes in tall, painted vases, the velvet-framed pictures of nymphs, the mirrors, the green and pink rugs and the deal stained-mahogany furniture of Tom's refined drawing-room, Lady Maxwell hurried into explanations of why she had come. Beside the nice fire she unbuttoned her sealskin coat; she put her small feet on the brass fender. Eagerness made her face look oddly young.

‘I felt I had to come, Mr Dyke, the
moment
I could get away,' she said. ‘I felt you would be certain to want some explanations from me. I felt I owed them to you. So as soon as Harvey was free—I don't like to interrupt his work, you see, he really has such a lot to do, and is so good about it—just as soon as he was free I got him to drive me here. And I mustn't be long, because I don't think it's fair to keep him. Well, I feel I ought to explain that strange little incident this afternoon—not explain it, that's to say, because I can't. What I'm hoping is that you may be able to explain it to me. But I can at least explain to you why I was so deeply, so profoundly puzzled by what may have seemed to you quite a commonplace little incident.'

‘You mean by Mrs Milne's accusing you of calling your husband a prating fool?' said Toby. ‘I've heard husbands called worse things than that.'

‘Oh, I hope you have, Mr Dyke, for of course many of them deserve far worse things than my husband. But you see, this is why I was so bewildered: I have only once used that particular expression about him. Only once. I'm quite positive of that. And that once was—well, I cannot understand by what possible means Anna Milne could have knowledge of it.'

‘Would you mind telling me?'

She lifted a hand to shield her face from Tom Warren's generous fire. ‘That's why I'm here. Mr Dyke, I've told you of my relations with my son. You've seen some of his letters. For each of those letters I must have written three or four to him. In fact, I've written at least once a week ever since he went away. And with my weekly letter I nearly always sent him a copy of our local paper. I knew he'd like to be kept in touch with what was going on. Just our little local events, you know, that no other paper would notice. He wrote to me that he always looked forward very much to receiving it. Well, in one copy of the paper there was a report, a very long and dull report, I'm afraid, of a speech my husband had made to the local branch of the League of Nations Union. Dear, dear, such a very long and very dull speech I found it, though that may just have been my own very personal reaction, and not at all a fair criticism, since, naturally, all its contents were familiar to me. I had heard my husband say everything in it a great many times before. Of course, I suppose that people who do a great deal of public speaking can't help repeating themselves, unless they have very original minds. But you see, I had argued with my husband over a number of points in his speech, offered thoughtful criticisms, and had found that my view was totally disregarded. So you can understand that when I had to listen to yet another repetition of his too, too familiar fallacies, my state of mind became definitely censorious. Then when I read the report in the paper, taking up nearly two and a half columns, well—' She gave a little titter. ‘Out came my silver pencil, a present from Shelley at least twenty years ago, and I wrote in the margin: “The wise in heart will receive commandments, but the prating fool shall fail.” Then I put the paper in the envelope with my letter and posted it. Now—' Her earnest eyes widened with excitement. ‘Now how did Anna Milne know about that?'

Toby balanced the poker, which he had picked up during her story, across two outstretched fingers. ‘You're dead sure she couldn't have seen it before you stuck it in the envelope?'

‘But of course. I was in my drawing-room, sitting at my bureau. There was no one else in the room.'

‘Who posted the letter?'

‘I posted it myself. I've always posted all my letters to my son. I wasn't anxious that anyone should know I was in such regular communication with him.'