Death on Allhallowe’en (17 page)

‘I don't know.'

‘Was it the way he talked?'

'No. He talked like anyone else. He did say one night, “I haven't got far to go.” But that's nothing to go on. He might have been lying, or London might not seem far to him. I think it was something more definite than that.'

‘Was the newspaper he talked about in London?'

‘That was it! He was always on about this big London newspaper and never mentioned the name of it. But he said once, “When I get up to the newspaper office tomorrow.” That's what made me think he didn't live there. “Get up to the newspaper office” sounds as though he had a journey to make, doesn't it? That's what gave me the impression.'

‘It's not much to go on, but it's something. But you never saw him with anyone from a newspaper—even on the night of the dance?'

‘No. His bringing the television and that was a load of baloney. I sometimes wonder if he was anything to do with a newspaper.'

‘Did he speak to anyone else here—other than you and Charlie?'

‘Not to say speak to. He'd order drinks from Harry Mason and perhaps say good evening here and there, but I never saw him in conversation. I
do
know he went up to the House, though. He never mentioned Matchlow, but I know he went to see him.'

‘And that's all you can tell me?'

‘I'm afraid it is. I think the police believe I'm making it up about Poley Grant lending me the gun and telling me to scare Horseman. They think I did it on my own. If it wasn't that they have witnesses to say I didn't actually shoot Horseman I should be on a murder charge. But what I have told you is true, Carolus.'

Carolus decided to find the mysterious Poley Grant. His first step was to see the only person in the neighbourhood, other than the Slomans, believed to have spoken with him, and he went up to the House.

Xavier Matchlow received him with the same courtesy as
he had shown before, and listened while Carolus explained his mission.

‘I ought perhaps to tell you that when I came here at John Stainer's invitation it was because I have some experience in clearing up mysteries of one kind or another.'

‘Oh, I knew that. Poor old Stainer has thought for a long time that he is sitting on a sort of diabolic time bomb.'

‘He seems to have had some justification. Horseman has been murdered. And the circumstances, if not diabolic, are at least unusual. You yourself saw him shot in front of a large number of people none of whom, apparently, saw or heard the revolver fired.'

‘A bolt from the sky? Is that what they say?'

‘A bullet from a .38 revolver. The point is that a young man of the village, your village, is suspected.'

‘So I gather. But I'm no criminologist. I haven't the slightest idea whether the suspicion is justified.'

‘Sloman says he was lent the revolver, from which a shot had recently been fired.'

‘The
shot, surely? There can't have been two.'

‘It could be. Sloman says the pistol was lent him by a man named Poley Grant.'

Carolus watched Xavier Matchlow narrowly.

‘Poley Grant? I seem to have heard the name.'

‘He came to see you.'

‘So he did. I remember him. A journalist fellow who asked a lot of impertinent questions. I sent him away.'

‘How many times did he come to see you, Matchlow?' Carolus asked steadily.

Matchlow showed no discomfiture.

‘You must ask Judith that. Or one of the servants. They may have turned him away half a dozen times for all I know. I only saw him once. He was trying to build up some story about black magic in Clibburn. I told him to ask Stainer about it and told him to leave.'

‘You never saw him again?'

'No. I shouldn't have known him again. He wasn't a man to remember.'

‘So, presumably, you wouldn't know if you'd ever seen him before he came here?'

Xavier looked up.

‘Seen him before? I certainly wasn't conscious of having done so. Anything else? I admire your enthusiasm, Deene, and your curiosity, but I don't much like being the victim of them.'

‘One other thing. Had you any idea where this man came from? Did he say anything which might indicate that?'

‘No, no. He was just an impertinent fellow who called himself a journalist. Crowley used to have lots of them.'

‘Thanks. I'm sorry to have taken your time.'

‘That's all right.' Xavier became cordial again. ‘Wish I could have helped you.'

There was only one chance of finding Poley Grant and it was a thin one. Drummer had said that he came in a different car each time. This suggested that he had hired drive-it-yourself vehicles from firms not too far away. There were other possible explanations, but this one was perhaps worth trying. The number of these firms within a radius of, say, fifty miles was limited, and it would not be beyond Carolus's power to try them all.

With Drummer's help he concocted an approximate timetable of Grant's visits. There had, it seemed, been four since he had met the Slomans, concluding with the night of the dance.

After two days of continuous motoring and fruitless enquiries he came to the large town of Girdlestone in Thanet, just over his limit of fifty miles from Clibburn. In the offices of the first car-hire firm he tried he encountered a character named Jerry Crafter who looked at him knowingly while he said his piece about dates of hiring. When he had finished Jerry Crafter said quietly, ‘Yes. I know who you mean.'

‘He hired these cars from you?'

There was a pause, then Jerry said, ‘Who are you?'

'I'm not the law. I'm investigating something that happened about fifty miles from here.'

There was a grunt from Jerry, then silence.

‘It would help enormously…'

‘I dare say it would.
What
happened fifty miles from here?'

‘Murder,' said Carolus.

Another grunt.

‘Why haven't the law been to see me?' Jerry asked.

‘I've no idea. Perhaps they don't think this man's movements are worth investigating. It has taken me two days to find the firm he hired from.'

‘I haven't said he hired from us. I only said I know who you mean.' After another pause Jerry said, ‘I don't want the law round here.'

‘In that case,' said Carolus, ‘I suggest you tell me what you know. I'm not interested in your business or what connection you had with this man. All I want to do is to find him.'

‘Ah.' Jerry was in deep thought. ‘Well, I may be able to help you to do that. He gave his name as Arthur Rudd. He was staying at the Pemberton Hotel. I haven't seen him since the last date you mention. If you find him you don't need to say it was through me.'

‘No. How many times did he hire cars?'

‘Five. The four you mention and one about a week before the first of those.'

‘Did he pay cash?'

‘Yes. Always in pound notes.'

‘What distances had he done?'

‘About the same each time. Just over a hundred miles.'

‘I'm afraid you may have to give this information sooner or later. I shan't reveal the source of it, but the police have a way of discovering things by what are called routine enquiries.'

‘Don't I know it?' said Jerry bitterly. ‘Soon as you said “murder” I knew what was to come. Did this chap do it?'

‘I don't say that. I want to ask him a few questions.'

‘Because if he did he won't be waiting round at the
Pemberton Hotel for you to come there, will he? He'll have got his skids on.'

‘I'm afraid so. No suggestion about where he might make for?'

‘If I were in his place it would be London,' said Jerry.

‘Why?'

‘His sort can lie up comfy there.'

‘His sort?'

‘He'd been in trouble.'

Carolus was aware that this was a euphemism for gaol. ‘How did you know?'

Jerry looked more knowing than ever.

‘I can tell,' he said.

‘Do you know his real name?'

‘Yes. Walter Brandt. But I'm looking to you to keep me out of this. I know your kind. You won't drag me in unless you have to. But I want more than that. Don't
have
to. I've given you the information you wanted so it's up to you to do what I ask.'

‘I'll do my best.'

‘And don't get away with the idea that there's anything screwy about this firm. It's straight.'

‘And the capital to start it? But we won't go into that. You've done me a favour.'

‘I don't like murder,' reflected Jerry, as Carolus prepared to leave.

He went, without much expectation, to the Pemberton Hotel. Yes, Mr Rudd had stayed there for several weeks. His entry in the book showed that he came from London—no specific address. Well, they didn't like asking their guests for a lot of details. It wasn't necessary in a quiet private hotel like this. Mr Rudd usually stayed in at night looking at television. But once or twice—well, yes, it might have been four or five times—he had gone off in the afternoon and not come back till very late at night. But he came in quietly—never disturbed anyone. He always paid his bill in pound notes. A very quiet gentleman.

Carolus returned to Clibburn.

Carolus received a message through Lucy Smith and Margaret Lark that Mrs Murrain wanted to see him and would be glad if he could call and have a drink with her at six o'clock that evening.

After what Canon Copely had told him about Alice Murrain in her younger days he felt less contemptuous of her pretensions. They still seemed to him absurd, but he realised that to some extent they might have been wished on her by the credulous and superstitious Guys people. What had started with a knowledge of elementary herbalism and an interest in folklore could have grown, in the early stages without her seeking, into a reputation as a ‘wise woman', all too easily gained among backward people. Later she had doubtless exploited this and herself come to believe that she had some extraordinary powers. Perhaps she had, for fear in others often gave power.

Or perhaps Alice Murrain had passed over some borderline—of sanity or of knowledge of right and wrong. People could be in the service of the devil as others were in the service of God. Even during his first visit, when he had treated her with amused scepticism, he had been conscious of something very strange about her, something which had made him feel uncomfortable.

He had passed her house a number of times, before and since the murder, and he had come to feel that it was in some way different in aspect and purpose from other human
habitations. The blinds in the upper rooms were always drawn close and at night their windows showed a dim half-light. This could be due to their doors being open on an ill-lit passage, but the whole house had an air of the unknowable. Impossible to guess, as with most houses, what was in its rooms. You looked at another exterior and assumed that this was a dining-room, that a drawing-room, the upper windows were those of bedrooms, but with Chimneys no such guesswork was possible. The only room he had seen had been furnished in Victorian times and this gave it a faded and stuffy look. Perhaps the rest of the house was similarly furnished? Or perhaps—it wouldn't have surprised Carolus—it wasn't furnished at all?

But whatever he felt about Alice, he had no doubts about her husband. Murrain was a lazy and shifty creature who had lived on his wife's money for thirty years and played up to her pretensions for the sake of his own ease and comfort.

On his way round to the house, his mind still full of what he had learned about Poley Grant, or Arthur Rudd or Walter Brandt, he had an idea. It could conceivably be a good idea, it might be fruitful, and if it fell flat nothing was lost. He resolved to try it.

When Gerald Murrain opened the door he said, ‘Hullo, Murrain. How's Walter Brandt?'

He had not dared to hope for the results this achieved. Murrain dropped the hand he held out to greet him. His face seemed to lengthen. He was visibly startled. When he was not in the fortifying presence of his wife he was a poor creature, Carolus thought, and seemed to grope for guidance.

‘I haven't seen him lately,' he said.

‘What do you call lately?' Carolus asked, but Alice Murrain's voice from the sitting-room put an end to his questioning.

‘Come in, Mr Deene,' she called loudly. Clearly she had heard the exchange and was coming to Gerald's rescue. Carolus obeyed.

She was sitting, as before, in a high Victorian armchair and wore, if not the same old-fashioned clothes, at least ones extremely similar. A woman sitting in a chair like that, with a carved frame and half-padded arms, might be expected to be occupied with something, a book perhaps, some needlework, or a newspaper. There was no sign of these, and yet he felt uncomfortably that Alice
was
occupied in some way. Those dark eyes in her pasty face, like raisins in dough, were alert and watchful.

He greeted her and she asked him to sit down and offered him a whisky as though she knew his habits.

Carolus was aware of a curious smell in the room, which was airless and stuffy, though not very warm. It might have come from the old upholstered furniture, or over-heated and scented humanity of long ago. It was stale and pervasive, and Carolus found a word coming unsought to him—the smell of corruption. He threw the word out of his mind as ridiculous and wondered what on earth could have made him think of it, but it had made the smell itself more noticeable and unpleasant.

‘How are your investigations proceeding?' asked Alice.

‘As well as can be expected,' said Carolus, attempting to sound cheerful.

‘You can drop them. I am going to tell you what you want to know.'

Carolus realised that, although the door of the room in which they sat was closed behind him, Gerald had not followed him in. He was alone with Alice Murrain.