Rehearsals for Murder (11 page)

“Now you go and look what happens behind that armchair.”

Toby went to the armchair and looked behind it.

There was a piece of cardboard pinned to the back of the armchair. Close together, three small holes punctured the cardboard. The armchair stood out about a foot from the wall in front of a door; Toby had noticed the door the evening before but had found it locked.

“Ready?” said George. “Now watch.”

He pulled out the drawer of the dressing table.

From a small, round hole in a panel of the locked door something projected itself into the piece of cardboard. Toby stooped with an exclamation. It was a little metal dart. It plunged in, almost touching one of the holes that punctured the cardboard. Toby looked at the door, at the dart, and then up at George.

George made an expressive gesture. It was plain that had the chair and the target not been there, the direction of the dart would have taken it straight into George's plump posterior.

“All right,” said Toby, sitting back on his heels, “now how does it work?”

George crossed to the chair and extracted the dart.

“Come next door, and I'll show you.”

The room next to Toby's, connected with it by the locked door, was really a kind of cupboard. Its walls were lined with shelves—shelves that were piled up with old picture books, toys, pictures, ornaments and other lumber.

George went to the locked door. Stooping beside it, he pulled away from it a contraption like an elementary gun. It was constructed on much the same principles as the toy guns owned by children. A spring contained in a narrow tube could be depressed by having the dart pushed down the tube against it, and the dart could then be held there by a simple trigger. When the trigger was released the dart would be shot out. This apparatus had had its barrel pushed into a hole that had been bored in the door. The other end of the tube had been supported by a clamp screwed onto one of the uprights that carried the shelves. To the end of the lever that acted as a trigger was attached a piece of fine, strong wire; this ran through a staple on the wooden upright and then out through the open window. George showed Toby how the wire had been carried along the wall outside and in again at the window of his own bedroom.

“And the dressin' table's right in front of the window. See?” said George.

Toby looked musingly down at the toy.

“How did you find it?” he asked.

“That nice little girl showed it to me.”

“Nice? Nasty, neurotic kid I should have called her.”

“Why,” said George in surprise, “her and me, we get along fine. But she wouldn't tell me how it got here or how she knew it was here. She said she never told secrets.”

“And she wouldn't tell about that matchbox thing last night. How long ago did she show it you?”

“A bit before you came in. She came hoppin' up to me and asked me if I'd like to see somethin'. She said”—he gave an apologetic glance at Toby—“that if that chair weren't there and you pulled out the drawer and the dart stuck into you you'd be changed into a gnu.”

Toby scowled with distaste. “You know, George, I was just trying to remember when I pulled that drawer out last. I can't remember whether or not I pulled it out this morning. I
think
I did, but this I know definitely: when I left the room this morning that chair with the target on it wasn't in front of the door. I had it pulled forwards in front of the window. Someone's pushed it back since. This thing must have been fixed up sometime this morning. I don't like this bloke who's going around practising different ways of murder. That stunt with the matchbox and now this—and then there were the drinks yesterday afternoon. I believe that was another of them. Lou made some drinks, and they tasted of disinfectant, and that little fellow in shorts says he went and sampled the ingredients out of curiosity and, as there was nothing wrong with them, he supposed it must have been something wrong with the ice. Well, I remember reading a detective story where the poison was got into some drinks by the ice. Somebody here seems to be making an inquiry into various methods of murder, seeing whether they
would
work if you wanted them to.”

“But, Tobe, this dart wouldn't kill you even if it did get into your backside, unless there was poison on it.”

“Poison!” Toby snatched the dart back from George. He looked at it closely. Its tip was covered with a brown stain. He dropped the dart into an empty matchbox and the matchbox into his pocket.

“Well, there you are,” said George, “and now I reckon we might go and collect those drinks that are probably waiting for us.”

“Drinks?” said Toby. He looked as if he found the idea a little less excellent than he usually did. “Wonder how much longer we'll feel safe here eating and drinking what's put in front of us. However, let's go.”

“There's just one thing more, Tobe,” said George. “Tell me, have you ever heard death called the ‘Great Change'?”

Toby stared at him. “Yes, and the ‘Great Beyond' and the ‘Valley of the Shadow' and ‘Passing Over' and the ‘Other Side' and all sorts of other things. Death has many elegant variations. Why ever d'you want to know? Are you writing a great-aunt's obituary?”

“No,” said George, “it's just that I wanted to make sure you
can
call it that if you want to.”

Together they went downstairs.

“Here come Tobias and his angel.” Looking round and speaking without much enthusiasm as Toby and George emerged on the terrace, Eve filled a couple of glasses for them.

Most of the party were gathered on the terrace with a good supply of drinks on hand. As Eve picked up the two glasses one of them met the outstretched hand of Max Potter, and she had to fill a third. In a dull, tired way she muttered: “I don't know how many you've had already, Max.”

“Neither do I,” he answered with warm satisfaction, “neither do I. That's a grand feeling. I'm feeling grand this morning. No offence to the murder, it's just a fact—I'm feeling grand. I've been drinking these things half the morning, and now they're beginning to work.” His large, baby face beamed radiantly at George, to whom he appeared to have taken a liking. “Gorgeous feeling when they begin to work. Specially when one had almost given up hope. I wish you'd some Spanish brandy, Eve. That's the stuff. The waiter who introduced me to it asked me if I didn't think it was very full of alcohol. I liked that way of putting it, you know. Full of alcohol. That's good.” He ended up in throaty chuckles.

“Well, don't forget you're driving a car, Max, and that my child's going in that car.” Eve gulped her own drink and slumped into a chair.

“Vanessa?” said Mrs Fry sharply. She turned on Max Potter. The great, wool-embroidered garden hat rocked from side to side. “You're taking Vanessa in your car, Professor Potter?”

He turned his beam on her, raising his glass to her. “Yes, Mrs Fry, I'm taking that terrible child in my car. But she can't hurt it. I've never been able to hurt it myself. It always goes. Now why should one want more out of a car than that? I don't. I never want more out of it than that. You know, I'd a nervous breakdown once——”

Eve interrupted, explaining to her aunt: “Since Max is going that way and Roger wants Vanessa for lunch Max may as well take her.”

“I'd a nervous breakdown once,” said Max Potter, “and one of my delusions was about my car. I believed it'd keep going forever on faith.”

Mrs Fry said coldly: “Well, I hope Professor Potter will be careful. I shouldn't trust a child of my own to anyone who had been drinking.”

“Personally,” said Mr Fry, “it strikes me as a trifle inconsiderate of Roger to be asking for Vanessa at the moment.”

Eve said: “Oh, run along, Max, before Aunt Nelia thinks it 'll be safer to drive herself. Vanessa, take him away.”

The child, who had been squatting on the grass, jumped up and snatched his hand. She had dressed herself up for the occasion in a blue silk dress and a hat and she carried a small, patent-leather handbag which she swung elegantly from one wrist.

He said: “Oh, you horrible child, if you were mine d'you know what I'd do? I'd keep a chimpanzee as well and record the mental growth of you both until I got tired of it, and then I'd keep the chimpanzee and send you to the zoo.” But he allowed himself to be led off by a giggling Vanessa.

Eve gave a sigh. Vaguely she invited everyone to help himself to more drinks, including in her gesture Colin Gillett who just then came strolling across the lawn from the wood.

The voice of Charlie Widdison suddenly fluted its way into the conversation. “Er, Dyke, you've seen the police this morning, haven't you?”

“Oh, have you?” said Eve with immediately quickened interest.

“What had they to say?” said Mr Fry, and Druna asked: “What are they doing?”

Toby looked round at them all. In every face there could be seen the signs of strain. Of uneasiness also. It made the faces, in spite of a surface friendliness, sullen and, in spite of avid curiosity, shut in and defensive.

Toby's tone was bleak. “Yes, I've seen the police. They say that Lou was poisoned with brucine. They also say that she was pregnant.”

There was silence.

Then Druna:
“Lou
was——!”

Mrs Fry echoed: “Lou!” Then she said decidedly: “I don't believe it.”

“Let's all say we don't believe it,” drawled Lisbeth Gask. “That 'll help such a lot.”

Charlie Widdison muttered something. Druna turned on him and gave him a long stare. Colin Gillett also stared at him. It was a burning but expressionless stare; Charlie, raising his head, suddenly encountered it. The two young men, Charlie with his smooth cheeks flushing, Colin with his ravaged face pale, stared at one another. Then, at the same moment, both turned away.

In a cracked voice Eve exclaimed: “Then they'll think that the person who did it was——” She stopped herself. She pressed a hand against her scarlet lips.

“The person who did it,” said Toby, “was the father of Lou's child. That's obvious, isn't it? Can anyone think of any other kind of reason why anyone should want to murder Lou? But it's a good reason, isn't it? Think. If it's a young man, hard up, got his way to make, marriage or at least a maintenance order might wreck a future. Or suppose it's an older man with wealth or position of some sort; exposure might wreck that present and that future.”

“Yes, yes,” said Mr Fry, “of course it's quite obvious.”

Eve gave a wild croak of laughter. “Don't look so pleased, Uncle Dolphie! Even if we all know it couldn't have been you, don't look so damned pleased!”

Sharply Lisbeth Gask said to her: “What a fool you are, Eve.” With a hand on her shoulder she gave her a hard shake. “Pull yourself together.”

“You're all fools,” said Druna Merton. “You're letting Toby Dyke make fools of you all. Couldn't you tell from the way he said his little piece that he didn't mean it?”

“Didn't mean it?” said Eve weakly. She was trembling from head to foot.

“Didn't you mean it, Mr Dyke?” asked Mrs Fry, aloof, cold, intensely angry.

“No,” said Toby, “I didn't mean it, but it's what the police mean. You'd better pay some attention to it.”

“Then don't you believe,” said the little man in shorts, “that it was the father of the child who murdered Lou?”

“You said yourself,” said Mr Fry, “what other cause could there be? Lou was a dear child, quite inoffensive. Yes, she was. I shall stick to that even now that we know this—this tragic truth about her. I'm certain she was really innocent. In her heart.”

“Dear me, you're getting quite broad-minded in your old age, Uncle Dolphie,” said Eve, still in an unnatural voice.

Her aunt said: “You're disgustingly ill-bred, Eve. Even a crisis seems to draw no good to the surface.”

“Never mind, Aunt Nelia, you're having a lovely chance to make the same mess of Vanessa that you made of me—that ought to compensate you. Mr Dyke”—Eve made a feverish effort to control her writhing, plucking fingers—“why don't you believe it was because she was going to have a child that Lou was murdered? Mind you, we all ought to be murdered if we're going to have children. We aren't fit to have children. We aren't fit to know them. We aren't fit to instruct their ignorance. We haven't a world that's fit to contain them. Why, we aren't even fit to live. So why was Lou murdered if it wasn't because she was going to have a child?”

There was another silence.

Toby looked down at the ground. He muttered: “There's a discrepancy.”

Mrs Fry cleared her throat. “I'm afraid,” she said in a prim, false voice, “that I don't understand and I should really prefer not to talk about it any more. To return to the question of the brucine—that's been on my mind ever since I heard of it.”

A movement went round the group at this deliberate change of topic.

“The curious part of it, of course,” Mrs Fry went on, raising her voice a little, “is the knowledge of brucine possessed by the police. It's an obscure drug; of all the people here at the moment I imagine Colin's the only one who really knows anything about it. Yet we are a fairly well educated collection of people. Sergeant Gurr may have more native intelligence than any of us, but it's improbable that he's had as much education. Now I've had an idea about that. Of course, I realize there may be nothing in it, but I'm going to suggest it to Mr Dyke and see what he thinks of it. Mr Dyke, in this matter of brucine, don't you think Professor Potter might be able to help you?”

Toby nodded. “Yes, I'd been wondering myself....”

“Quite so. You see, Colin here hasn't been at the Victor Hildebrand Institute very long, so if there had been a theft of brucine from the institute, say six months ago, he might not have heard of it. But Professor Potter would certainly know. After all, how
could
the police know, unless they'd been introduced to it, so to speak, criminally?”