Busman’s Honeymoon (27 page)

  ‘Now it’s you who are asking Why. But suppose Crutchley came to rob the house, and was rummaging in a bureau or something—in the kitchen, where the will was found—and Noakes heard him and came downstairs.’

  ‘Stopping to put on his collar and tie, and carefully taking all his precious bank-notes with him?’

  ‘Of course not. In his night-things. He interrupts Crutchley, who goes for him. He runs away, Crutchley hits him, thinks he’s dead, gets the wind up and runs off. locking the door after him from outside. Then Noakes comes to, wonders what he’s doing down there, goes back to his room, dresses, feels queer, goes towards the back door, meaning to fetch Mrs Ruddle, and falls down the stairs.’

  ‘Excellent. But who made the bed?’

  ‘Oh, bother! Yes—and we haven’t explained about the wireless.’

  ‘No. My idea was that Crutchley had put the wireless out of action, meaning to establish his alibi for the night before the murder. I meant it to be a murder—but you put me off with your theory about robbing a bureau.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I was starting two hares at once. The Crutchley red herring does seem to be rather a mild one. Is the wireless working now, by the way?’

  ‘We’ll find out. Supposing it isn’t, does that prove anything?’

  ‘Not unless it looks as though it had been deliberately put out of order. I suppose it works from batteries. Nothing’s easier than to loosen a terminal in an accidental-looking manner.’

  ‘Old Noakes could easily put a thing like that right for himself.’

  ‘So he could. Shall I run down and see whether it’s working now or not?’

  ‘Ask Bunter. He’ll know.’

  Harriet called down the stairs to Bunter, and returned to say: ‘Working perfectly. Bunter tried it yesterday evening after we’d gone.’

  ‘Ah! Then that proves nothing, one way or the other. Noakes may have tried to turn it on, failed to spot the trouble till the news-bulletin was over, put it right and left it at that.’

  ‘He may have done that in any case.’

  ‘And so the time-scheme goes west again.’

  ‘This is very discouraging.’

  ‘Isn’t it? It now leaves the way open for a murderous attack by the vicar, between 10.30 and 11 o’clock.’

  ‘Why should the—? Sorry! I keep on asking why.’

  ‘There’s an awful strain of inquisitiveness on both sides of the family. You’d better reconsider those children, Harriet; they’ll be intolerable pests from the cradle.’

  ‘So they will. Frightful. All the same, I do think it looks neater to have a comprehensive motive. Murder for the fun of it breaks all the rules of detective fiction.’

  ‘All right. Well, then. Mr Goodacre shall have a motive. I’ll think of one presently. He walks over from the vicarage at about 10.35 and knocks at the door. Noakes lets him in—there’s no reason why he shouldn’t let in the vicar, who has always appeared mild and friendly. But the vicar, underneath his professional austerity, conceals one of those dreadful repressions so common among clergymen as depicted by our realistic novelists. So, of course, does Noakes. The vicar, under cover of a purity campaign, accuses Noakes of corrupting the village maiden whom subconsciously he wants for himself.’

  ‘Of course!’ said Harriet, cheerfully. ‘How silly of me not to think of it. Nothing could be more obvious. They have one of those squalid senile rows—and the near ends up with a brain-storm and imagines he’s the hammer of God, like the parson in Chesterton’s story. He lays Noakes out with the poker and departs. Noakes recovers his senses—and we go on from there. That accounts beautifully for the money’s having been left on the body; Mr Goodacre wouldn’t want that.’

  ‘Exactly. And the reason why the vicar is so pleasant and innocent about it all now, is that the brain-storm has passed, and he has forgotten the whole thing.’

  ‘Dissociated personality. I think that’s our best effort yet. We only need now to put a name to the village maiden.’

  ‘It need not even be that. The vicar may have had a morbid fancy for something else—a passion
à la
Plato for an aspidistra, or a strange, covetous longing for a cactus. He’s a great gardener, you know, and these vegetable and mineral loves can be very sinister indeed. Remember the man in the Eden Phillpotts story who set his heart on an iron pineapple and brained a fellow with it? Believe me or believe me not, the vicar came prowling round for no good, and when old Noakes flung himself on his knees, crying, “Take my life but spare the honour of my cactus!” he upped with the aspidistra-pot.’

  ‘It’s all very well, Peter—but the poor old thing was really killed.’

  ‘My heart, I know it. But until we find out
how,
one theory’s as fanciful as another. We’ve got to laugh or break our hearts in this damnable world. It makes me sick to think that I didn’t go down into the cellar the night we came. We might have made a job of it then, with the place left just as it was, no clues disturbed, no Ruddles and Puffetts and Wimseys tramping round and upsetting everything. My God! that was the worst night’s work I ever put in!’

  If he had been wanting to make her laugh, this time he succeeded beyond hope or desire.

  ‘It’s no good,’ said Harriet, when she had recovered. ‘Never, never, never shall we do anything like other people. We shall always laugh when we ought to cry and love when we ought to work, and make ourselves a scandal and a hissing. Don’t do that! What ever will Bunter say if he sees you with your hair full of ashes? You’d better finish dressing and face the situation.’ She wandered back to the window. ‘Look! There are two men coming up the path, one of them with a camera.’

  ‘Hell!’

  ‘I’ll go and entertain them.’

  ‘Not alone,’ said Peter, chivalrously; and followed her down. Bunter, in the doorway, was fighting a desperate verbal battle.

  ‘It’s no good,’ said Peter. ‘Murder will in. Hullo! it’s you. Sally, is it? Well, well! Are you sober?’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ said Mr Salcombe Hardy, who was a personal friend, ‘I am. Have you got anything in the place, old man? You owe us something, after the way we were treated on Tuesday.’

  ‘Whisky for these gentlemen, Bunter; and put some laudanum in it. Now, children, make it snappy, because the inquest’s at eleven and I can’t turn up in a dressing-gown. What are you after? Romance in High Life? Or Mysterious Death in Honeymoon House?’

  ‘Both,’ said Mr Hardy, with a grin. ‘I suppose we’d better begin by offering our mingled congratulations and condolences. Do we mention that you are both in a state of collapse? Or is the message to the Great British Public that you are marvellously happy in spite of this untoward occurrence?’

  ‘Be original. Sally. Say we are fighting like cat and dog, and only relieved from irritable boredom by the prospect of a little detective occupation.’

  ‘That would make a grand story,’ said Salcombe Hardy, with a regretful shake of the head. ‘You’re conducting an investigation in double harness, I take it?’

  ‘Not at all; the police are doing that. Say when.’

  ‘Thanks very much. Well, cheerio! The police, of course, officially. But dash it all, you must have some personal angle on the thing. Come on, Wimsey, look at it from our point of view. It’s the story of the century. Famous amateur sleuth weds mystery-writer, finds corpse on bridal night.’

  ‘We didn’t. That’s the snag.’

  Ah! Why, now?’

  ‘Because we had the sweep in next morning and all the clues got destroyed in the muddle,’ said Harriet. ‘We’d better tell you, I suppose.’

  She glanced at Peter, who nodded. ‘Better we than Mrs Ruddle,’ was in both their minds. They told the story as briefly as possible.

  ‘Can I say you’ve got a theory of the crime?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Peter.

  ‘Fine!’ said Salcombe Hardy.

  ‘My theory is that you put the corpse there yourself. Sally, to make a good headline.’

  ‘I only wish I’d thought of it. Nothing else?’

  ‘I tell you,’ said Peter, ‘the evidence is destroyed. You can’t have a theory without evidence to go on.’

  ‘The fact is,’ said Harriet, ‘he’s completely baffled.’

  ‘As baffled as a bathroom geyser,’ agreed her husband.

  ‘My wife’s baffled too. It’s the only point on which we are at one. When we’re tired of heaving crockery about we sit and sneer at one another’s bafflement. The police are baffled too. Or else they confidently expect to make an arrest. One or other. You can take your choice.’

  ‘Well,’ said Sally,’ it’s a devil of a nuisance for you, and I’m a nuisance too, but I can’t help myself. D’you mind if we take a photograph? Quaint Tudor farmhouse with genuine rafters—bride delightfully workmanlike in tweed costume and bridegroom in full Sherlock Holmes rig-out—you ought to have a pipe and an ounce of shag.’

  ‘Or a fiddle and cocaine? Be quick. Sally, and get it over. And see here, old man—I suppose you’ve got to earn your living, but for God’s sake use a little tact.’

  Salcombe Hardy, his violet eyes luminous with sincerity, promised that he would. But Harriet felt that the interview had left both her and Peter badly mauled, and that, of the two, Peter had come off the worse. He had picked his words carefully, and his light tone rang brittle as glass. There was going to be more of this—much more. With sudden determination she followed the pressmen out of the room and shut the door.

  ‘Mr Hardy—listen! I know one’s absolutely helpless. One has to put up with what newspapers choose to say. I’ve reason to know it. I’ve had it before. But if you put in anything sickening about Peter and me—you know what I mean—any of the sort of things that make one writhe and wish one was dead, it’ll be pretty rotten for us and pretty rotten of you. Peter isn’t exactly a rhinoceros, you know.’

  ‘My dear Miss Vane—I’m sorry—Lady Peter.... Oh, and by the way, I forgot to ask, do you intend to go on writing now you are married?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Under the same name?’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘Can I say that?’

  ‘Oh, yes, you can say that. You can say
anything
except all that awful matrimonial tripe about “said he with a laughing glance at his brand-new wife”, and the rest of the romantic bilge-water. I mean, it’s all quite trying enough; do leave us a little human dignity, if you possibly can. Look here! If you’ll be reasonably restrained, and try and keep the other reporters reasonable, you’ve much more chance of getting stories out of us. After all, we’re both News—and it’s no good offending News, is it? Peter’s been very decent; he’s given you all the facts he can. Don’t make his life a burden to him.’

  ‘Honestly,’ said Sally, ‘I’ll try not. But editors are editors—’

  ‘Editors are ghouls and cannibals.’

  ‘They are. But I’ll really do my best. About this writing story—can you give me anything exclusive on that? Your husband eager you should continue your professional career—that kind of thing? Doesn’t think women should be confined to domestic interests? You look forward to getting hints from his experience for use in your detective novels?’

  ‘Oh, damn!’ said Harriet. ‘Must you have the personal angle on everything? Well, I’m certainly going on writing, and he certainly doesn’t object—in fact, I think he entirely approves. But don’t make him say it with a proud and tender look, or anything sick-making, will you?’

  ‘No, no. Are you writing anything now?’

  ‘No—I’ve only just finished a book. But I’ve got a new one in my head. In fact, it’s just come there.’

  ‘Good!’ said Salcombe Hardy.

  ‘It’s about the murder of a journalist—and the title is,
Curiosity Killed the Cat.
’

  ‘Fine!’ said Sally, quite unperturbed.

  ‘And,’ said Harriet, as they passed along the path between the chrysanthemums, ‘we told you that I knew this place when I was a child, but we didn’t mention that a dear old couple lived here who used to ask me in and give me seedy-cake and strawberries. That’s very pretty and human, and they’re dead, so it can’t hurt them.’

  ‘Splendid!’

  ‘And all the ugly furniture and aspidistras were put there by Noakes, so don’t blame us for them. And he was a grasping sort of man, who sold the Tudor chimney-pots to make sun-dials.’ Harriet opened the gate and Sally and the photographer walked meekly through.

  ‘And
that,
’ continued Harriet, triumphantly, ‘is somebody’s ginger cat. He has adopted us. He sits on Peter’s shoulder at breakfast. Everybody likes an animal story. You can have the ginger cat.’

  She shut the gate and smiled over it at them.

  Salcombe Hardy reflected that Peter Wimsey’s wife was almost handsome when she was excited. He sympathised with her anxiety about Peter’s feelings. He really thought she must be fond of the old blighter. He was deeply moved, for the whisky had been generously measured. He determined to do all he could to keep the human story dignified.

  Halfway down the lane, he remembered that he had somehow omitted to interview the servants. He looked back; but Harriet was still leaning over the gate.

  Mr Hector Puncheon of the
Morning Star
was less lucky. He arrived five minutes after Salcombe Hardy’s departure, and found Lady Peter Wimsey still leaning over the gate. Since he could scarcely force his way past her, he was obliged to take his story then and there, as she chose to give it to him. Halfway through, he felt something blow warmly upon his neck, and turned round with a start.

  ‘It’s only a bull,’ said Harriet, sweetly.

  Mr Puncheon, who was town-bred, turned pale. The bull was accompanied by six cows, all inquisitive. Had he known it, their presence was the best guarantee of the bull’s good conduct; but to him they were all, equally, large beasts with horns. He could not with courtesy drive them away, because Lady Peter was thoughtfully scratching the bull’s forehead while contributing some interesting and exclusive details about her own early life at Great Pagford. Manfully—for a reporter must accept all risks in the execution of his duty—he stuck to his post, listening with (he could not help it) a divided attention.