Landed Gently (13 page)

‘Just
what
was your attitude toward Earle?’ Gently could almost hear the perplexity of his own voice.

‘Why, surely I was jealous … You will not have forgotten that I am in love with my cousin?’

‘It doesn’t fit in. Jealousy won’t sit square on your record.’

‘I assure you that I
was
jealous, Mr Gently—’

‘I know, I know! But it wasn’t the right sort of jealousy … Couldn’t you have had it in for Earle because he was an American or something?’

Somerhayes looked gratified. ‘You are restoring my faith, Mr Gently. Yes, you are quite right. His being American had a great deal to do with it. It was nothing against him
per se, you
understand. I have the greatest admiration both for America and the Americans – they are magnificently young, intoxicatingly virile. Purely at a surface level, one would say that nothing could be
more fitting than the mating of fresh American blood with a scion of English aristocracy. But that is leaving out the personal element, and I am afraid that in this instance it cannot be lightly dismissed. I know my cousin, Mr Gently. She is a Feverell, with all the family strengths and weaknesses. It is, unfortunately, a
Feverell
characteristic to be swept off one’s feet, and Janice, in spite of her constancy to her husband’s memory, was being swept off her feet by Earle.’

‘Wouldn’t that be her business?’ interrupted Gently.

‘Impersonally again – yes, it would. But how can one see with equanimity a beloved person rushing into unhappiness?’

‘How do you know it would have been
unhappiness
?’

‘Because, I repeat, Mr Gently – I know my cousin. In many ways she is spiritually delicate and easy to injure. It would have been the height of folly for her to have married Earle and consented to live with him in America – as he would, quite properly, have required her to do. She is completely unfit for any such transplantation. She is a creature of her environment, and if her roots were cut she would wither away. Yet her character is such that Earle might easily have hurried her into that error, and my anxiety at what was transpiring was correspondingly intense. She is the only tie of blood I have in the world, Mr Gently, and I feel for her as a kinsman as well as loving her as a woman.’

‘Hmn.’ Gently exhaled a long mouthful of smoke.
‘I like that better, but it still won’t focus any too sharply.’

Somerhayes flashed him a quick look. ‘Have you no daughter or kinswoman dear to you?’

‘No.’ Gently shook his head. ‘Like you, I am rather short on the ties of blood …’

‘Ah. I felt we had much in common. But you will still appreciate the powerful emotions involved.’

‘Oh yes, to a certain extent …’

‘To an overwhelming extent, rest assured.’

‘Very well, if you say so. Overwhelming – but not, perhaps, exclusive?’

Somerhayes pressed his thin lips together and stared out over the heavy-grey expanse of the roofs. Gently noticed the contraction of his multi-coloured hands till white spots appeared over the knuckles.

‘Then I will go a little further with you,’ he said slowly. ‘I want you to be quite satisfied, Mr Gently – I want your focus, as you call it, to be as sharp as you can possibly desire. There is another element that enters into this. My cousin, as perhaps you do not know, is an indispensible factor in the success of the tapestry workshop. I myself am no more than an organizer, and an indifferent one at that. Mr Brass is a great creative artist, and cannot be expected to expend his unique powers in matters of business, even supposing he has the ability, which he has not. The workshop, in effect, is entirely dependent on my cousin’s shrewd head for its business management, and my conviction is that it would quickly come to grief if
it lacked this able hand at its helm. You are already aware of the importance to me of this venture. I could never willingly allow the work of Mr Brass to be interrupted or jeopardized. You will see, then, that I had here a strong additional reason to view with concern Lieutenant Earle’s overtures to my cousin. Have I now assisted you, Mr Gently, to get your picture into a definitive focus?’

He stopped to look at the huddled figure of his companion. There was a far-away expression in the Central Office man’s eyes, and he seemed to be listening to something not comprised by the blustering wind and Somerhayes’s smooth, level voice. Suddenly he whirled round, grabbed the handle of the
hatch-door
and tried to thrust it open, and, finding it bolted, launched his bulky shoulder at the obstacle with a resounding crash.

‘Mr Gently—’ exclaimed Somerhayes.

‘Quick!’ bawled Gently, grabbing his arm. ‘Which is the way we came up?’

‘The way … ? It’s that hatch by the long court. But what in the world is the matter?’

‘We’ve been eavesdropped – for the second time – that’s what’s the matter. And I’m getting remarkably curious to know who is taking such a profound interest in our conversations.’

Lugging the protesting Somerhayes after him, he scrambled off in the direction of the long court. It was a slender chance, and such as it was it was being jeopardized by Somerhayes’s apparent inability to go
straight to the hatch with the unbolted door. By the time they were down in the attics Gently realized with chagrin that the listener must have had sufficient interval to make good his retreat. The eternal silence of the great house was all that there was left to hear …

‘Mr Gently, I feel certain that you were mistaken,’ panted Somerhayes, catching up with the detective as he whisked along the narrow corridor. ‘I assure you I heard nothing … It is straining probability to suppose that anyone should be accidentally in the attics.’

Gently slackened his flying stride till the nobleman was abreast of him. ‘You didn’t hear it – and I shouldn’t have done, eh?’

‘I fail to understand you.’

‘That’s something else we have in common.’

‘Your imagination, Mr Gently—’

‘Is something that doesn’t topple busts!’

Savagely he threw open doors along the corridors, revealing nothing but dark, empty and cobwebbed rooms. On the other hand, the door at the top of the stairway to the main floor swung mockingly ajar …

Somerhayes, like a marble-eyed spectre, stood watching him in his fruitless activity.

T
HE INTERROGATION ROOM
in the north-east wing was empty; Sir Daynes and Inspector Dyson, Gently was told, had jointly carried off the offending Welshman to durance vile.

‘Did they get anything fresh from him?’ enquired Gently perfunctorily.

‘Oh yes, sir,’ replied his constable informant. ‘He admitted that he was in the wartime Special – knew all about the handling of truncheons, he did. The chief constable wants to give him one to see how he would go about it, only our inspector don’t much like it, so the CC scrubs round it.’

‘Just as well for Inspector Dyson.’ Gently permitted himself a grin. ‘And that was all – after two hours’ interrogation?’

‘Well, they trips him up a bit, sir – you know how it is. And there was something about him killing a sheepdog with a bottle when he was a nipper – dog jumps out at him, and he fetches it a clout with a pop-bottle.’

Gently clicked his tongue. ‘I wouldn’t have said that was habit-forming. There was no charge made, was there, other than for assault and battery?’

‘No, sir. Not yet. But between you and me, sir, it’s working up to it.’

Gently stood brooding in the empty room with its settling fire and suggestive disposition of chairs and table. With the light switched off, it looked doubly depressing. The corners were full of gloom which the north-facing window failed to dispel. What effect did it have on the character of its inhabitant, this mighty museum of perished vanity? How did one, tethered here, adjust oneself to the rushing current of the world outside? ‘A hymn of the eighteenth sounding sweet in the ears of all centuries succeeding’ – that was the quotation the author of the guidebook had dug up out of somewhere. But it was a hymn with forgotten music, a hymn of which only the antique words remained. And, in the meantime, a godless generation had camped at the gates of antiquity, unleashing its Jepsons and Brasses to sound chaos through the halls of pomp and circumstance. Would not the last lonely chorister be baffled by the universal shout? Would he not waver and lose the thread, and lose himself, and lose his balance … ?

Unconsciously Gently shook his head at the dying fire. But you couldn’t put history in the witness-box, either for the defence or the prosecution! A number of the cruder facts and a presumption of responsibility … that was the substance of justice in a court of law. But
what were the facts of this case, and how far dare one to presume? What blindness and double-blindness awaited the trier-on of justice?

‘You are not returning to the Manor House for lunch, sir?’

Thomas had stolen noiselessly in with a fresh chute of coal.

‘I’d forgotten about it, Thomas … Any prospect of a bite here?’

‘We keep an excellent table, sir, in the south-east wing. In the usual way his lordship patronizes it, but today he is being served privately with his cousin.’

‘Thanks for the tip, Thomas … His lordship and I have temporarily exhausted our small-talk.’

Without much appetite, Gently made the diagonal journey through the forsaken building, and by trial and error discovered the south-east dining room. He was apparently late, since Percy Peacock and his wife, with Norah, the dark girl, were just leaving as he entered, and Brass was the solitary remaining occupant. The artist sat gloomily cracking nuts and drinking port. He made a weary gesture as Gently took a seat opposite him.

‘God, what a bloody Christmas! It’s giving me the willies. I wish I was in Kensington, and a thousand miles away!’

Gently made a face and poured himself an aperitif from a bottle that stood on the table. A face looked through the service-door, and a moment later a plate of julienne soup was placed before him.

‘Last year I made an excuse to get out of this dump – there was only Anne and Norah here then. This year there was more of a crowd, so I was brain-sick enough to give it a whirl. Never again, Chief Inspector Gently, never again in this damned round of existence!’

Brass cracked a nut so viciously that a fragment flew half across the room.

‘Of course, the circumstances are exceptional …’

‘I wonder,’ retorted Brass. ‘Yes, I really and truly wonder! You say it’s exceptional, because we’ve got an unexplained corpse on our hands. Well, I think his lordship would make like he had an unexplained corpse on any blasted Christmas, and in that strong belief I’m going to Kensington next year.’

He finished his port, and poured another. His fiery beard stuck out discontentedly from a stubborn chin. This was Brass having the blues, his aspect seemed to say, and woe-betide the mere mortal who came between the man and his grouch.

‘You’ve seen his lordship?’ hazarded Gently.

‘Yes, I’ve seen the damned fellow. Came moaning into the workshop, looking as though he’d seen the ghosts of his benighted ancestors. I tell you, the man’s up the pole. It’s inbreeding, or some bloody thing. Once I used to be charitable and think he was just a harmless eccentric, but the more I see of his lordship, the more I’m convinced that he’s crackers – and so was I, when he talked me into this infernal set-up!’

Another nut distributed its shell impartially about the south-east dining room.

‘Do you know what he had the crust to ask me?’

‘No?’ Gently rested his spoon.

‘He asked me if I’d toppled that bust over last night – serious you know, just like a blasted judge! I mean, what do you make of a man who goes round asking things like that? If I wanted to have a spree I wouldn’t stop short at one bloody bust.’

There was a fresh-air nature about Brass that, in spite of his ill-humour, was a welcome relief in that house of shadows. Here, at least, was a boisterous and aggressive sanity, a mind determined to stand square on its shameless egoism. If you bounced a question on Brass, it would come back clean without a
wherefore
…

‘Seriously, though … do you think his lordship is quite himself ?’

‘Seriously, my son.’ Brass screwed his large features up over a refractory Brazil. ‘You know what I’ve said – and I’m not going back on it. But I’ve been thinking around, as I pottered over my dye-vats, and there’s one thing that struck me which I think ought to go on the record. Somerhayes never told you about his will, I suppose?’

‘His will?’ Gently sat up.

‘Yes – I can see he didn’t get round to it. And that convinces a suspicious mind like mine that there might be a reason for it. Wait a minute, old man, till they’ve brought in your pheasant.’

The serving maid appeared with the dish Brass predicted, and Gently contained himself in some
impatience while she performed her various
ministrations
. Brass watched her with unconcealed interest. She was quite a pretty serving maid …

‘As you were saying before we were
interrupted
?’

Brass nodded and tossed off his second glass of port.

‘It’s not so much the will – I imagine that’s pretty straightforward. It’s what hangs to it that makes the thing suggestive. You’ve got a fair inkling by now, have you, of where the sixth baron and myself stand with each other?’

‘He appears to admire you very highly.’

‘Admires me – huh!’ Brass gave an expressive snatch of his head. ‘Gently, my son, that cock-eyed page of Debrett worships the bloody ground I walk on – like a damned heathen! He’s got a fix about artists. They do the one thing no Feverell has ever been able to do – make something. And so here I am, the tin god of the last of the Feverells, the sacred calf cherished and worshipped in the high places of Merely – with Somerhayes, of course, my self-appointed priest. Do you ask me now how far round the fellow’s gone?’

‘He’s got a complex character …’

‘Complex is hardly the word, child. If you’d lived beside him for eighteen months … but hell an’-all, we won’t go into that! Just get the picture of Brass the God and Somerhayes the Priest, that’s all you really need to understand. Now Brass Divine all gods excelling has got one bad flaw in his make-up. He’s a little too easy about the come-and-go of cash. Priest Somerhayes
isn’t so hot in that direction himself, but by the grace of inferior gods he’s got a cousin who is – and there, my maestro, the plot begins to thicken. Our High Priest can’t content himself with his cousin being a mere lay-sister. Her holy duty is too plain before her. She must take the veil, she must espouse the Church, and by way of endowing the sacred institution, she is to bring with her all the tin, shekels, tenements and messuages yet possessed by the house of Feverell – which is the substance and contents of the will I mentioned to you. Think that one over, sonny, and see where it gets you.’

Gently gazed at his untouched pheasant as though it were something rare and miraculous in the field of ornithology.

‘You mean she’s the heiress to the estate, contingent on her marrying you?’

‘Not contingent, old fellow – at least, not as far as I know. She gets it anyway. It’s the bribe to make me sit up and take notice.’

‘And Mrs Page – what are her views?’

‘Hell! It’s not as crude as that. Janice hasn’t been told – it’s up to Leslie to make the running.’

Gently nodded to the pheasant. ‘And of course, you haven’t made any …’

‘Don’t be so blasted cunning!’ retorted Brass, grinning at him. ‘Do you think I’m made of stone, to sit behaving with a trollop like that in the offing? I made a pass at her for her own sake, long before I got the wink from Somerhayes. But as I told Sir Daynes,
she’s man-proof, and it’ll be a year or two yet before there’s anything doing there.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting Earle?’

‘No, I’m not forgetting Earle. That kid was certainly storming the ramparts, but you can take it from me he wasn’t getting anywhere, and never would have done.’

Gently at last made a motion with his knife and fork, but he seemed to be eating without much
consciousness
of the act. Brass sat watching him with an air of devilment. He cracked a nut to give the Central Office man time to take in the significance of what he had heard.

‘You were sure about Earle … but his lordship wasn’t. Is that what occurred to you when you were thinking it over?’

Brass shrugged massively. ‘Without putting too fine a point on it, as someone said.’

‘In fact he might have taken Earle seriously?’

‘He might. I don’t say he did. But it seemed an idea worth toying with.’

‘Mr Brass.’ Gently looked the artist in the eye. ‘Either you think his lordship capable of letting his obsession get the better of him or you don’t … Which is it going to be?’

Brass laughed gleefully and levered his great body away from the table.

‘This is where I leave you!’ he said, tossing the nut-crackers on the table. ‘Enjoy your pheasant, try some apple foam – and don’t be afraid of that bottle of
port. God Brass is going to the workshop. You’ll find him there if you want to talk weaving.’

And he strode out of the dining room, still laughing loudly to himself. But there wasn’t any smile on Gently’s wooden countenance.

Sir Daynes returned, looking, if not cheery, as though he felt he had coped ably with the iniquity of things. Gently met him in the hall, flanked by Dyson and a constable, and the good baronet expressed his apology for having failed to take Gently back to lunch.

‘Said you’d gone up on the roof – wouldn’t be having a game, would they?’

Gently grinned faintly. ‘No – I was up there all right.’

‘Damned odd place to be, but I suppose you know your own business best. Anyway, we popped Johnson in the cooler, and he’ll be remanded tomorrow. Just going to run over the servants to see if we can pick up anything fresh.’

‘Naturally, you won’t have charged him … ?’

‘Not yet, man. Probably will do this evening.’

‘Before you do, there’s a couple of small matters worth considering.’

‘Eh?’ barked Sir Daynes, apprehension suddenly gripping him.

Gently hunched himself owlishly in the depths of his ulster. ‘Firstly, Mrs Page has made a statement which supports Johnson’s account of his movements … Secondly, his lordship has made one that practically exonerates Johnson.’

Sir Daynes’s blue eyes opened wider and wider, and by way of support, Dyson’s jumped open too.

‘You said …
what
?’ gaped the baronet in desperate incredulity.

Gently repeated his thunderbolt without any
enthusiasm
.

‘But good God, man – we’ve got Johnson – got a case – this is preposterous! What do these people think they’re doing, making irresponsible statements?’

Gently shrugged from his depths. ‘There’s still a loophole … but it’s a small one. On the whole, I think we’d better discuss the matter before we go any further.’

With a lengthened face Sir Daynes led the party back to the milder atmosphere of the interrogation room, and the face was still longer when he had heard what Gently had to tell him.

‘Good heavens!’ he kept interjecting. ‘Good heavens! It’s unbelievable! Can’t call you a liar – good heavens, what a business!’

At the end of the relation he stood rigidly with his face towards the fire. His hands, clasped behind his back, were the only barometer of his bewildered anguish. A long minute passed before he turned. Then he shot a fierce, bitter look at Dyson.

‘Well!’ he rapped. ‘Go on – you’re in charge of this blasted case.’

Dyson wilted a little and sucked his lip under his teeth. ‘Well, sir, it seems to me …’

‘Go on, blast you – what are you stopping for?’

‘It seems to me sir … on the present evidence … that there’s a strong case against his lordship.’

Sir Daynes took a deep breath and bit his lips until he must have hurt himself. The age showed in his rough-hewn features more cruelly than Gently had ever seen it. And slowly, he bowed his head.

‘Yes,’ he muttered through his teeth. ‘Yes, Dyson – quite right, Dyson! There’s a case against him – a strong case – a case a blundering old fool like me ought to have seen all along! Been pointers enough, Christ knows. Been men around me who could see it as clean as a pikestaff. Only I’m an obstinate old fool. I didn’t want to see it, and I wouldn’t. I knew Somerhayes’s father … thought I knew Somerhayes. Time, high time, for an old dotard to retire!’