Speedy Death (12 page)

Mrs Bradley took his arm. ‘Oh, I should love to see them by moonlight,’ she cried, in a voice shrill enough to pierce the full flood of discussion which was still being carried on by the others. ‘Do, please, Mr Philipson, come outside, and point them out to me!’

She tugged at the young man’s arm with such determination, and the others had ceased talking and were now gazing at him with such interest, that he was compelled to comply, and, feeling foolishly yet wretchedly like the unfortunate Filch, allowed this strong-minded little Mistress Peachum to hale him into the garden.

‘Come, now,’ she said, ‘I haven’t really brought you out to show me anything, of course, but we can speak freely out here. Eleanor’s been making herself a nuisance to you, hasn’t she?’

Bertie’s mouth opened and shut again. He blinked. Then he gurgled. Finally he ejaculated:

‘How on earth do you know?’

‘Tell me when it began, and all about it,’ commanded Mrs Bradley, altogether disregarding his question.

Bertie kicked an inoffensive early aster and then looked up at the full moon and scowled.

‘It began when I stayed here two years ago,’ he said. ‘I’ve known Dorothy Clark since we were kids, and they invited her and told her to bring a man as there was a shortage of males, especially dancing ones, in this part of the county, so she froze on to me and dragged me along. Well, I knew old Garde, of course, so that was all right. Well, it wasn’t a bad sort of show. Nearer Christmas than this, and we got some skating, I remember, and Eleanor unbent a bit and I taught her the Charleston or something, and Dorothy showed her a new way to do her hair. Well, after a day or two, when I’d got the hang of the house, I used to go into old Bing’s study and swot his books—I’m rather keen and he’s got some decent stuff, as I expect you know. One morning I found Eleanor in there. Of course, I knew she sort of devils for the old man when he’s got a working fit, so I greeted her in the conventional brotherly way and got down to a book. Suddenly she came over and squatted on the arm of my chair and began to be most pally. Asked me all about myself, and my prospects, and my parents, and everything under the sun.

‘I didn’t take much notice at first, but then I
found she followed me when I went out walking alone, and would catch me up as soon as the road got a bit lonely, and in every possible way she began to suggest that I should, well, fall in love with her I suppose you would call it. Once she asked me outright to marry her. I put her off—I can’t remember what I said—I tried to let her down lightly, of course, and she—well, wept a good bit, and hung on my neck and so forth. It was pretty awful and I felt a frightful fool, and somehow a bit of a rotter, although heaven knows I hadn’t given her any encouragement to behave as she did.

‘Well, she left me alone for a couple of days after that, and then she made a—a suggestion—I can’t go into all that. It is enough to say that I let her see how horrified I was, and next morning, of course, I made some excuse to old Bing, and left the place, thinking that I should never go there again and that it was the end of the affair for me, as Eleanor never comes up to Town or visits round about.’

Mrs Bradley said nothing, and, after a short pause, Bertie went on:

‘I soon forgot all about it once I had got back to Town. I think at the time it made little impression on me. I just thought the poor girl probably was a bit bored with the quiet country life and wanted a little excitement. Anyhow, I had forgotten all about it, as I say, until I had a letter from Dorothy a week ago, asking me to come down here again, and saying that she was going to marry Garde Bing some day fairly soon, and that if I wanted to see
her once more while she was still a spinster, I had better hop along. I wouldn’t have come, even for that, though, had it not been for the postscript, which read:

‘“And what do you think? Eleanor has gone and got herself engaged to an explorer who is staying here. I expect you have heard of him. Mountjoy is the name. Everard Mountjoy. But don’t tell anybody, because it isn’t actually announced yet.” She went on to say that she had not seen the fellow then, but would arrive at Chaynings the same day as I did. Incidentally, it was the day after.’

‘Well, I was keen on seeing Dorothy again. We’ve always been pals. Besides, I thought that the engagement of Eleanor to this chap Mountjoy would sort of put me out of the running, and I shouldn’t be harassed any more by her attentions. So I came.’

He paused again.

‘Yes?’ breathed Mrs Bradley, so softly that he could scarcely hear the word.

‘Well, that’s about all,’ said Bertie gloomily. ‘All was as right as rain until Monday evening after dinner, and then she found me in the alcove in the drawing-room, and started leaning against me and—oh, damn it!—trying to hold my beastly hand! It was awful.’

‘Monday!’ exclaimed Mrs Bradley. ‘Are you positive it was Monday? The day before the—before Mountjoy died?’

‘Positive,’ Bertie asserted. ‘As a matter of fact, although it sounds most frightfully callous and all
that, after the death business on Tuesday I remember thinking, “Well, there’s one comfort—Eleanor will surely have more sense of decency than to come and maul me tonight.”’

He paused again. Mrs Bradley, feeling certain there was more to come, said nothing to break the spell of the young man’s confidences.

‘It
was
all right on Tuesday night,’ he continued slowly, and with evident reluctance, ‘but on Wednesday, that is, last night——’ He stopped speaking, and stood still in the centre of the gravel walk which they were traversing.

‘Look here, Mrs Bradley,’ he said, ‘I feel a pretty frightful bounder telling you all this about the poor girl, but I think some woman ought to know about it. On Wednesday night, yes, last night, Eleanor came into my bedroom at about half-past twelve and—and wanted to stay there! I thought it was a ghost at first. I had terrible difficulty in getting rid of her. In fact, I had to get out of bed and shove her outside and lock the door. Choice, isn’t it?’

After a long time, during which they resumed their measured pacing round the lawn, Mrs Bradley spoke:

‘Of course you will lock your door tonight,’ she said.

‘You bet I shall,’ said Bertie fervently, ‘and nothing short of the house catching fire is going to persuade me to open it.’

‘Yes, well, leave everything else to me,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Shall we go in?’

They went in without further words—Bertie wondering whether he had done well or ill to confide in this reptilian little woman; Mrs Bradley turning over in her mind the one strikingly significant statement in Bertie’s narrative, and determining to communicate it to Carstairs at the first convenient opportunity.

‘Ah, here you are!’ said Garde, as they entered the drawing-room. ‘What about the light fantastic, Father? Shall we be treading on your corns—house of mourning and so on?’

‘What’s that?’ asked Alastair Bing sharply, for he was becoming a trifle deaf and did not want anyone to know it.

‘I thought we’d have some dancing,’ said Garde.

‘By all means, my boy, if the others would like it. Do exactly as you please. I shall go to my study.’

‘I think I’ll come with you, Father,’ said Eleanor. ‘I could look up your references for you in the library if you like.’

‘I’m glad Sis has gone,’ observed Garde truthfully. ‘She hates dancing. What shall we have?’

‘A foxtrot is the only thing I can manage,’ confessed Carstairs.

‘Foxtrot it is!’ said Garde, choosing a record.

‘I’ll work the machinery,’ said Bertie obligingly.

‘No, you won’t. Take Dorothy. She refuses to dance with me. Carry on.’

The gramophone, whirring forth the preliminaries, burst into full syncopated harmony. Bertie, grinning
happily, swung Dorothy into the hot flood of negroid excitement, and Carstairs took Mrs Bradley into a dignified embrace.

‘I suppose you like that weird old woman quite well?’ said Bertie to his partner, as they swung out into the hall.

‘Of course.’

‘Well, I mean, you don’t think she’s the juicy jimmy who did in that Mountjoy, do you?’

‘Good gracious!’ said Dorothy. ‘No!’

‘Oh, all right. Only, to me,’ pursued Bertie, negotiating a standard lamp with masterly ease, ‘she looks the sort of Caesar Borgia Nero de Medici who would fluff out her own mother for the fun of it. Don’t you think so?’

‘She’s a very gifted woman,’ said Dorothy severely.

Bertie, steering miraculously between a Japanese lacquer screen and a potted palm, kissed her swiftly and precisely upon the mouth.

‘Yes, that’s what I say,’ he averred, as they emerged into more open surroundings.

‘Beast!’ said Dorothy, laughing, and referring to the kiss. ‘Don’t you know that I’m on the verge of being married to Garde Bing?’

‘More tomorrow,’ said Bertie, smiling. ‘In fact——’

‘Not out here!’ Dorothy removed her hand from his shoulder and put it over his mouth. Bertie paused in his stride, and, as she blundered against him, caught her about the waist and neck and kissed her with youthful zest.

‘Let go, idiot!’ panted Dorothy, when she could speak. ‘Don’t be a little cad! Oh!’

For at that instant she became aware of the prim disapproval of Eleanor Bing, who had emerged from the library with a clock in her hand, and was standing looking at them.

‘I say, Eleanor, please go and ask Garde to shove on a waltz. I feel in the mood for it,’ said the graceless youth, apparently not in the least taken aback by her sudden appearance.

‘So it appears,’ said Eleanor coldly.

‘Tell him,’ yelled Bertie, who felt that nothing could make things appear much worse, ‘that I’ll lend him his wench for the next dance but three! If he’s a good boy, that is!’

‘I loathe you, Bertie,’ said Dorothy, putting both hands in front of her face. ‘You make me blush. What a loathsome sex yours is, angel-face.’

Bertie swung her up in his arms and grinned at her.

‘See?’ he shouted ferociously. ‘I am the robber of the cave! Macbeth. No, Chu-Chin-Chow! See?’

‘Yes, Bertie,’ said Eleanor’s voice from the drawing-room door. ‘Chiefly stockings, that is one comfort!’

‘Put me down, fool!’ said Dorothy imperatively. ‘Quick, or I’ll tell my young man. Such goings-on!’

Bertie lowered her to the ground.

‘There, pretty one,’ he observed, smoothing her ruffled dark hair with exaggerated tenderness.

Crash!

Both, laughing, turned to see what Eleanor had dropped. It was the clock.

‘My
clock, you bad girl!’ cried Dorothy, running to pick up the ruins.

‘Don’t be daft, Dorothy! You’ll cut yourself on the broken glass!’ shouted Bertie.

‘Any damage?’ asked Carstairs, appearing in the open drawing-room doorway.

‘Hard luck!’ said Garde, appearing beside him.

‘Your clock? Never mind! It can be mended,’ said Mrs Bradley, poking her head out and immediately withdrawing it in a disconcerting and tortoise-like manner.

‘Good heavens! What a fuss!’ snarled Alastair Bing, emerging, ruffled as to hair and temper, from his lair. He went back, slamming the door irritably behind him.

‘If you loved Susie, as I love Susie!’ bawled the gramophone, blatantly indifferent to clocks and their fate.

‘Did you ring, sir?’ asked a servant of Garde.

‘Yes. Have this mess cleared up, and send the clock to be mended,’ said Garde, giving his arm to Dorothy. ‘Come along. Let’s go back into the drawing-room while they clear up.’

‘I’m sorry, Dorothy,’ said Eleanor correctly.

‘Don’t mention it,’ said Dorothy. ‘It really doesn’t matter a scrap…. Although why she should be carrying my clock about the house is more than I can fathom,’ she added, in low tones, to Garde as they passed through the drawing-room doorway.

‘Dorothy dear!’ Mrs Bradley called after her, in honeyed tones.

Dorothy let Garde pass on, while she herself turned back at the sound of Mrs Bradley’s voice.

‘Did you say it was your clock? Do you mean it is your own actual property?’

‘Yes.’ Dorothy laughed in a slightly embarrassed fashion, and played with the fringe on her frock. ‘It sounds silly, but I love that old clock. I’ve had it for six years, and I always take it with me when I visit people. It’s like a friendly voice if I wake up in the night. Eleanor laughs, and calls it “Dorothy,” because she says it and I are like twin souls. But still I can’t imagine what she was doing with it.’

‘What were you doing when she dropped it?’ asked Mrs Bradley.

‘I wasn’t doing anything,’ laughed Dorothy, blushing a little. ‘That ass Bertie was trying to kiss me. He doesn’t mean anything by it,’ she added hastily.

‘DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING
by it,’ mused Mrs Bradley. ‘I see. And now I want you to do something for me. I am proposing to make a little experiment tonight, and if it is to be successful you will not be able to use your own bedroom. Would you mind that very much?’

‘Yes,’ replied Dorothy, ‘especially if it means I have to tell Eleanor I want my room changed. She hates having the domestic arrangements upset.’

‘I don’t see why they need be upset,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Why shouldn’t you occupy the other twin bed in my room just for one night?’