Rehearsals for Murder (12 page)

Toby nodded again. “Yes. Pity the professor's gone already. Where was he going to? Home?”

Lisbeth Gask replied: “He said he was going to the V.H.”

“Is that far?” asked Toby.

“About seven miles. There's a bus.”

“Eve,” said Mrs Fry, “why don't you take Mr Dyke there after lunch?”

Eve had just been helping herself to another drink. She gave a deep sigh and said nothing.

“Give me directions,” said Toby, “and I'll get there on my own.”

“You don't know the Victor Hildebrand Institute, Mr Dyke,” said Mrs Fry. “It's a rabbit warren. Someone had better take you. Eve. Eve, I really think you——”

Eve broke in viciously: “I'm not going near the V.H.!”

“But——” her aunt began.

“No!” Then Eve shrugged her shoulders. “Colin, you take him if he wants to go.”

With a start, jolted out of some secret concentration of thought yet clearly only half aware of what had just been said to him, Colin glanced round the group with looks of resentment and suspicion.

“Colin, d'you mind taking Mr Dyke over to the V.H. this afternoon?” Eve repeated.

“I'd meant to get on with some work,” he muttered. “I brought it home with me. There's a paper the old man wants me to get on with. I'd meant to settle down and——”

“Colin, please!” Eve exerted herself for a moment to produce one of her lovelier smiles. “It won't take you long; you can take the car.”

“All right, all right!” He barked it at her as if she had been nagging at him for half an hour. Then he looked down and when, a moment
afterwards
, he once more raised his head there was abject apology in his eyes. “All right, Eve, I'll take him.”

But Eve, turning away indifferently, had already become immersed again in her own distracting thoughts.

T
oby's drive with Colin Gillett to the Victor Hildebrand Institute began as a silent one.

Just before leaving Toby had looked round for George but had not been able to find him. Getting into the car beside Colin, he had lit himself a cigarette and sunk himself, rather ostentatiously, in thought. It was difficult to keep this up, for Colin was an exceptionally incompetent driver. He had the incompetence of sheer indifference; a car was no joy to him, movement no stimulation. Two miles of his casualness with gears and his irritated challenging of corners shook Toby's nerves into urgent desire for protest.

Colin, who had not indeed been silent, having cursed quietly, steadily and obscenely at every stone in the road, but who had savagely ignored his passenger, suddenly said: “Well then, why did they kill her?”

“Why did who kill her?”

“I said ‘they' because it's impersonal. Why—if it wasn't the father?”

“I haven't said it wasn't the father,” said Toby.

A lurch, a swerve and some more cursing answered this. But Colin managed a swift look at Toby.

Toby asked abruptly: “What d'you know about Charlie Widdison?”

“Why Charlie?”

“Is he a friend of yours?”

“Not particularly. I don't mind him. Doesn't know anything. How those chaps have the nerve to practise medicine when they haven't the most elementary grounding in scientific principles is beyond me. But he isn't really a fool. He's a fool about some things, of course, but he's not as much of a fool as he might be.”

“Kind of a limited description of the intricacies of a personality,” said Toby.

“What? Well, you talk to him yourself. Get him off the women he wants to go to bed with. Sometimes he's got something to say.”

“I see.”

Colin snatched another look at him, inevitably accompanied by another lurch of the car which necessitated more swearing. Then Colin resumed: “But what does Charlie know about this murder?”

“How should I know?” said Toby. “He doesn't confide in me.”

“But you asked——”

“Only what you knew about him. I've got plenty of general curiosity.”

“I see.”

“Well, I wish you'd seen that gatepost. It wanted to hit me.”

“Sorry,” said Colin absently.

They had just left the road and turned into the drive that led up to the Victor Hildebrand Institute. The building was ahead of them. An ungainly, lumpy piece of brickwork with countless additions and annexes, it sprawled upon the top of a hill where, unlovely but noticeable, it could be seen for miles around. Acres of farmland surrounded it—experimental farmland there to meet the needs of the physiologist, the pathologist, the geneticist, the bacteriologist, rather than the plodding ploughman.

The car stopped in front of one of the entrances. One of Colin's hands gripped Toby by the elbow.

“What other motive could there be?” he demanded fiercely. “Why should anyone,
anyone
, kill Lou?”

“Whoever can tell you can probably tell you who the murderer is.” Toby disengaged himself irritably. “Now where's the man Potter?”

Colin swung himself out of the car. “Come on,” he said, “I'll show you.”

Colin pointed. “He'll be in there. I'll wait for you in the car. If he isn't there give me a shout. I won't come in; he gives me the jitters.”

“Why?” said Toby.

“He's such a…” Colin struggled for a moment with a type of analysis to which he was unaccustomed. “He gives everyone the jitters.” He swung off down the passage.

Toby gave him a moment to get out of sight, then went up and tapped at the door. Max Potter's voice roaring unnecessarily loud, told him to come in.

Max Potter was doing nothing. Sitting at a desk, he was leaning back with his hands clasped behind his large head. The way they were clasped had pushed his reddish hair up in clumps. He had a cigarette in his mouth and a good deal of ash on his waistcoat.

On the desk in front of him were a glass of whisky and a blank sheet of paper. His face was as blank as the paper.

He said: “Oh, it's you.”

Toby came in and closed the door.

Max Potter went on: “Thought it was that boy Gillett. I'm always finding him about, even on Sundays. You'd think he'd stay at home on Sundays. Suppose he would if he was married. Now why doesn't a boy like that get married?” He gave Toby a moment in which he might have answered had he been very quick to seize the opportunity, then: “I'll tell you why. Superfluity of opportunity. That's why. Are you married?”

“No,” said Toby.

“Why not? I'll tell you why. Superfluity of opportunity.”

“I'm informed,” said Toby, “that you're getting married.”

“What? Oh, you mean Eve, Did she say so?”

Toby considered. “No, I don't think it was Mrs Clare who told me.”

“You're sure? I mean, if she were saying it, it'd mean she expected it. Don't you think so? Perhaps I ought to find out. Come to think of it, we've discussed it quite often. I wonder what we decided. You know, I'm glad you turned up. I was feeling like talking to someone. But I was afraid it was that boy Gillett; he always gives me the jitters. I've been sitting here thinking about a book I've been reading recently. Couldn't think about it up at Wilmer's End; everyone was too busy with that murder. Most extraordinary book. It's all about fishing. Just that. Fishing. Now why——?”

“Professor,” said Toby, “I'm busy with the murder too. Damn busy. I want to talk about brucine.”

“Brucine?” said Max Potter. “Why? I don't know anything about brucine.”

Toby's face revealed a sense of helplessness. “I thought,” he said, “that you were just the sort of person who does know about brucine.”

“Yes, yes, of course. But I'd have to look it up. I never remember anything.”

“You don't even remember if the police got agitated about a theft of brucine a few months ago?”

“What, not remember that? Of course I do. Why shouldn't I? There's nothing the matter with my memory.”

Toby ran a nervous hand through his black hair. “Have you, by any chance,” he inquired, “got any of that whisky to spare?”

“Excellent, excellent,” said Max Potter. “I much prefer to talk to a man when he's drinking. Sorry I didn't think of it. I keep thinking about that book on fishing. Now why does a man——?”

“Thanks, Professor.” Toby drank. “About the brucine. You say there was a theft.”

“Yes.”

“How long ago?”

“Just after that damn party. That's why we couldn't do anything about it. Whole place crawling with people. Might have been anybody.”

“You'd a party here at the institute?”

“Yes, rotten affair, too—nothing to drink.”

“Just when was it?”

“Halloween. It's always at Halloween.”

“And who came to it? Just the staff of the place?”

“The whole countryside for miles round.”

“I see.” Toby was frowning. “The whole countryside for miles round—including Wilmer's End?”

Bleakly the pale eyes of the scientist met Toby's. “I don't remember.”

Toby set the glass down on the top of the desk. He rose.

“Anyway,” said Max Potter, “why all the fuss about the brucine? It wasn't the only thing that disappeared.”

“Well, thanks for the whisky, Professor.”

“Have another.”

Toby shook his head and turned to the door.

“Don't you want to know what else disappeared?” Max Potter's voice sounded startled and aggrieved.

“I don't mind,” said Toby. “What disappeared?”

“Potassium cyanide, silver nitrate, colchicine, mercuric chloride, lead oxide——”

“Well, good-bye,” said Toby. “Thanks for the whisky.”

“Hey, man, wait a minute!”

“Can't,” said Toby. “I want to take out some shares in the local cemetery.”

“Good God,” shouted Max Potter, “we can't have flippancy at a time like this. Sit down, sit down and have another drink. I want to talk to you.”

“Listen,” said Toby, “we'll discuss that book about fishing another time. I'll tell you then just why men like fishing and just why they write books about fishing and just how much money they make out of their books about fishing and whether or not they eat the fish they catch. But just now I'm going to Wilmer's End. Of course”—and he put his hand into his pocket, bringing out the matchbox containing the dart—“if you felt like it, here's a job you could do. See that dart? And see the stain on it? Well, I'd like to know whether that stain could have been made by potassium cyanide or silver nitrate or whatsit—and if not, then what. What about it?”

Max Potter looked down at the matchbox in front of him. He frowned at it. He did not touch it; he did not say anything. Toby went out, closing the door behind him.

Toby found Colin waiting for him in the car, but he was in the back of it sound asleep.

Taking advantage of this, Toby put himself in the driver's seat.

Asleep, Colin revealed the sprawling coltishness of the very young. His head was flung back, his arms hung limp at his sides, the ravaged look had been smoothed from his face, but it was very pale and tired.

Driving along, Toby started a quiet whistling. From time to time he glanced over his shoulder. They were about halfway back when he noticed that though Colin's eyes were still closed the tautness had come back to his face. His sleep was no longer genuine. Toby went on with his whistling and snatched no more glances into the back of the car.

When the car stopped at the house Colin sat up with a jerk.

“Sorry. Had no sleep at all last night, you see.”

He said he was going back to his cottage to do the work he had taken home with him. Stumbling a little, he set off towards the path through the wood. Toby went into the house and found Vanner talking to Eve.

“But he is
not
here, Inspector,” Eve was saying.

She was in one of her more collected moods, with a firm, hard look on her face.

Vanner was obviously impatient. “Then can you tell me of any reason, madam, why he should tell the people at The Dolphin that he was coming to Wilmer's End if he had no intention of doing so?”

“I can tell you very little about my husband's actions nowadays,” she answered.

“He told Mrs Black at The Dolphin that if anyone wanted him he would be at Wilmer's End. That was about three quarters of an hour ago. He set off by car. It would have taken him barely ten minutes to get here.”

“But he didn't get here. I can't tell you why. I can't tell you anything about it.”

Toby intervened: “What's your trouble, Vanner?”

Vanner turned his impatient, distrustful face on him. “I want to speak to Mr Clare, but he seems to have found it worth his while to mislead us about his whereabouts. Where've you been yourself, Dyke?”

“Over to the Victor Hildebrand Institute to have a chat about Halloween parties.”

“Oh,” said Vanner, then antagonistically: “Hope you enjoyed yourself. Where's your friend George?”

“Am I George's keeper?”

Eve remarked: “He came to me a few minutes ago and asked me if I could give him some olive oil.”

“Eh?” said Toby.

“For his ears,” she explained.

The perplexity remained on Toby's face.

She added: “It's earache or something. He says he often gets it.”

“Oh yes,” said Toby, “yes. George gets all sorts of things as often as he likes.”

“Mrs Clare,” said Vanner, “when do you expect to see your husband next?”

Eve turned on him with a tensing of every nerve in her body. “I don't expect to see him! I never expect to see him! He isn't my husband any longer! Don't you understand, you fool?”

Vanner seemed almost grateful for her rage. In some way it gave him confidence he lacked. “I'm quite certain, Mrs Clare, that you expect to see your—to see Mr Clare sooner or later.”

She turned away from him. Her hand groped for a box of cigarettes on the mantelpiece.

“Well,” she said, “I expect I'll see him when he brings Vanessa back. She had lunch with him. I expect all he's doing now is taking her for a run round in his car. I daresay they'll turn up at any moment.”

Vanner shook his head. “Your daughter wasn't in the car, Mrs Clare. She left the hotel by herself at least a quarter of an hour before he did. That's a curious thing, don't you think? If he'd been intending to come to Wilmer's End he'd have brought her home himself, eh?”

“A quarter of an hour before he did? But that's about an hour ago.” Eve frowned. “It doesn't take even Vanessa an hour to walk here from Larking. Where is she?”

“Playing around somewhere probably,” Toby suggested.

She said to Vanner: “If you don't mind, I'll just make sure.” She went out.

Vanner perched himself on the corner of a table and began to hum. He avoided any glance in Toby's direction, making it plain he had no wish to fill the few minutes of her absence with conversation.

Eve returned.

“She hasn't come back,” she said. “I expect she's gone to Belling Lodge, to my aunt and uncle. I wonder…” She put a hand on the telephone. “I think perhaps I ought to make sure. She doesn't usually get lost or anything and she goes about quite a lot by herself, but perhaps I ought…”

Toby said: “Aren't Mr and Mrs Fry still here?”

“No,” she said, “they went home after lunch. I think I'll just telephone.” She picked up the telephone and gave the number. After a few moments she put it down again. “No answer. Well, I expect it's all right. Is there anything else you want from me, Inspector?”