The Skeleton in the Grass (16 page)

“Yes. A rifle you would naturally recognize.”

“An old friend,” acknowledged Minchip. “And that's another. Would you mind if I took those guns, sir?”

“I appreciate you have your duty to do, Inspector.”

Major Coffey went forward to the case, but Minchip detained him by putting his hand on his sleeve.

“There seems to be a gap. There seems to be one rifle missing from the case.”

Major Coffey gazed at the gap between two guns with no sign of consternation. Indeed he looked, if anything, a touch self-satisfied.

“There is. It's at my gunsmith's, for repair.”

“Could you tell me the name of your gunsmith's?”

“Swettenham and Fulcher, in the Strand. I took the rifle there myself.”

“Very well, sir. If you would now let me take those two Lee-Enfields, I'll be on my way.”

And, bearing them gingerly with the aid of handkerchiefs, Minchip left the cottage, nodding a curt goodbye, and promising himself he had not seen the last of the Major.

It was lunch-time, and the little street that wound through Chowton seemed deserted as he made his way back towards the Police Station. He didn't doubt, though, that he was being watched—from a closer range, as it turned out, than he had anticipated. As he passed the last cottage before the little string of shops began, a head came over a garden gate.

“Is one o' they the gun that killed Chris Keene?”

Inspector Minchip paused for a moment, recalling all the village information purveyed to him by Sergeant South.

“You're Barry Noaks?”

Barry nodded, in his apparently vacant way, quite unsurprised that he should be known to this strange policeman.

“Is one of they the gun that blew Chris's head off?”

“I doubt it,” said Minchip.

Barry smiled a slow, relishing smile.

“It won't be one of the Major's guns that did it. He's a sharp ‘un, is the Major. Right down cunning.”

“You know him well?”

“No. He wouldn't have me along with the rest.” The tone was regretful, but not resentful. “But he's a crafty old weasel. An' he got those Hallams on the run.”

He chuckled with delight.

“Why should you be so pleased that the Hallams are on the run?”

“Think they're God Almighties, don't they? But they're nothing but rabbits. Throws up, does Hallam, if he sees a bit of blood.”

“Ah—you've seen him?”

“Might have. You're no man if you can't stand the sight o' blood, are you? Stands to reason. A man's got to be able to fight, if he's a man at all.”

Inspector Minchip realized he was hearing Major Coffey's world view reduced to its lowest common denominator. He wondered just how much Barry Noaks knew.

“You and I must have a little talk some time,” he said, going on his way.

T
he Hallams were regaining a little of their old spirit. Oliver and Sarah had said nothing of their reception in the village, and the woman who had come to help with the cleaning that day kept well out of everybody's way. If Elizabeth was conscious of how the affair was viewed in Chowton, she said nothing. She was talking about her Season next year, though, and with a slightly feverish gaiety, so Sarah wondered whether she wasn't seeing her months in London as some form of escape. Oliver was pouring them all a sherry before dinner when Dennis darted over to a heap of newspapers on a side-table.

“I found something in the
News Chronicle
for the ‘This England' column,” he said with relish. The column, in the
New Statesman and Nation
, was a collection of clippings from newspapers, usually unintentionally comic or revealing. The
New Statesman
was very much one of the Hallams' journals, and both Dennis and Helen contributed to the book pages on occasion.

Dennis riffled through the pages of the
Chronicle
.

“Here it is. It's a letter, of course. ‘What a pleasant thing it would be if all those people earning £2000 and over a year would each adopt an unemployed man and help him to preserve his sense of proportion by sending an occasional letter or an old book.' ” When they had finished
laughing Dennis shook his head. “My God—what sort of world do these people live in?”

“They live in the South, for a start,” said Helen acutely. “We've become two nations again. Most of the people in Kent or Surrey haven't the first notion of what it's like to be unemployed in Bolton or Bradford.”

“I found something for the ‘This England' column the other day,” said Elizabeth, “but in the . . . stress I forgot to cut it out. Lord Redesdale said that to abolish the House of Lords would be to strike at the very foundations of Christianity.”

“I hope you went very carefully through the New Testament to find out where Christ extolled the virtues of an hereditary upper chamber,” said Oliver, handing her her sherry.

“Redesdale's the man with all the daughters,” said Dennis. “Even Mostyn says he's practically certifiable.”

“Oh, by the way,” said Helen to Sarah, “Winifred Hallam rang this morning while you were out. She wondered whether you'd like to take Chloe over there tomorrow. She felt it would get her away from the fuss and strain. But I thought it might be dull for you, so I didn't commit you.”

The phone rang in the hall, and Dennis got up to answer it.

“Actually I'd rather like to go,” said Sarah. “I've been wanting to have a good look at her garden, and she's promised to show me round.”

“I didn't realize you were interested in gardens. I'll telephone to say you'll come. Pinner or Oliver should be able to drive you, or maybe Elizabeth could.”

“Does Elizabeth have a licence?”

“Do you have to have a licence?”

“Yes, Mummy, you do,” said Elizabeth, with a grin. “Mind you, there
have
been times, but with things as they are at the moment I don't think tomorrow should be one of them.”

“I'll take you, Sarah,” said Oliver. “I've nothing to do except packing for Oxford.”

“I'm sorry if I was a bit off-putting,” said Helen softly to Sarah. “I don't quite like . . . well, to be honest, I don't quite like the way Winifred looks at Chloe. Sort of
yearning
. Silly of me, I know, but I can't help it. Somehow it doesn't seem healthy.”

“I know,” said Sarah. “I've seen that look. I'm sure it doesn't mean anything. She seems a very kind woman.”

“Of course she is. I shouldn't have said anything . . . Who was that ringing?”

Dennis had come back from the hall, his face drawn.

“Minchip. He wants to come up and talk to us tomorrow.”

“Oh dear,” said Helen, biting her lip. “Perhaps it is a good thing Sarah is taking Chloe to Cabbot Hall. I suppose he won't want to talk to Sarah again, will he?”

“No,” said Dennis, abstracted. “I didn't get the impression he wanted to talk to Sarah.”

“Listen to this,” said Elizabeth, from behind the
Daily Sketch
. “ ‘Lazy girls should be jogged into action by the news that the Duchess of Kent is doing her own nails.' ”

They laughed, but nervously. Soon they trailed raggedly into dinner.

 • • • 

Dennis looked haggard next morning. Haggard but immensely handsome. Even towards the end of his life he had the same ascetic magnetism. Sarah saw him on television, walking near Michael Foot among the leaders of one of the early Aldermaston marches, and she said to her daughter:

“He's always had this wonderful and complete moral commitment. And when I knew him he was so extraordinarily handsome.”

“Still is,” said Sarah's daughter, who was devoted to ‘thirties films, and admired Leslie Howard. On the screen
Dennis marched forward with the wise and the good, and Sarah thought she could see the face of the man of forty-five, even that of the man of twenty she had never known.

When breakfast was over Dennis went to his study, but not to work. He was sure that Minchip would be early—was the sort of man who got up at sunrise, and talked about not letting grass grow under his feet. When Pinner showed him in at ten, Minchip thought the room was the most overpoweringly learned he had ever been in. The study—oaken bookcases, dark wood ceiling—housed the reference books so essential to Dennis's reviewing work, so he sat at his desk framed by the
OED, Britannica
, the
Dictionary of National Biography
and Groves, with hosts of lesser works around the walls. The picture within this frame ought to have been one of tranquil wisdom, but it was not.

“Are you getting anywhere?” Dennis asked abruptly.

Minchip sat down on the other side of the desk, and meditated how to answer him.

“I have talked to Major Coffey,” he said carefully. “I've no doubt he was behind the series of pranks played on you.”

“I never doubted that,” said Dennis impatiently. “Though what the fool expected to achieve by it God only knows.”

“It was all part, I gather, of preparing the lads of the village for the next war.”

“Oh God—he's on that tack too, is he? Like that damned warmonger Churchill.”

“Not quite, sir. Major Coffey sees our next enemy as Stalin and the Russians.”

Dennis gave a wintry smile.

“I might have guessed that. Well, Stalin is doing some fine things, but I don't admire him with quite the fervour that Shaw and the Webbs display, so I can't say I relish being some sort of stand-in or stalking-horse for him.”

“I have taken some guns from Coffey's cottage, but I have no great expectations from them. Tell me, sir, do you have any guns in this house?”

“No,” said Dennis, without having to pause to think. “None at all. I don't shoot game, and I got rid of the family guns. I didn't want my children to grow up regarding the hunting and shooting of living creatures as a light matter.”

“No war souvenirs?”

Dennis flinched.

“One keeps souvenirs of
happy
experiences. I do, anyway.”

“I take your point, sir.”

“I believe there was something you wanted to ask me, Inspector.”

“In point of fact, no, sir. Not at this time. The person I wanted to talk to was
Mrs
. Hallam.”

“Oh—ah—”

Minchip looked at him acutely.

“You seem to have an inkling of what I want to talk to her about, sir. You wouldn't prefer that I talked it over with you?”

“No. No, of course not. This isn't the sort of household where the husband speaks for the wife. Naturally you must talk to Helen.”

But Minchip thought he had seldom seen a man more miserable.

 • • • 

Chloe was in most ways an admirable child. She was quite happy to be sat in the morning-room at Cabbot Hall with drawing-book and crayons. Inevitably she was a favourite with the staff, and one of the maids promised to look in periodically to see that she was all right. Sarah was not too happy when the little girl announced to Winifred that they'd had a murder at Hallam—murder was a word she'd picked up from Mrs. Munday, and she said it rather as she
might have announced a cocktail party or the village fête—but Winifred smiled vaguely and talked of something else.

So Sarah and Winifred roamed the garden, talking begonias and wistaria, the horror of hydrangeas and the techniques of planning a wilderness. Most things in the garden were over, or near-over, but Winifred's enthusiasm and knowledge recreated the effect Sarah remembered from the July visit. In between they talked and gossiped, not of the murder, but of the King's Matter.

“Mostyn says it's about to break,” said Winifred. “But he's been saying that for weeks. If it doesn't break soon he'll burst!
I
think it's just going to cool off, because I can't believe the King would be such a fool.”

“What's she like, this American woman?”

“Very striking. Immensely smart, in an un-English way.”

“You've
seen
her?”

“Just once. At the opera, when he was still Prince of Wales. He looked so boyish, beside her. She actually straightened his tie in public! People in the Crush Bar were absolutely horrified, though looked at in another way it was rather sweet.”

“What I actually meant was, what's she like as a person?”

“I only know what people say. Sophisticated. Clever—as our royal family as a whole is
not
. Dominating rather than domineering. Unwise, it is said. But that may just mean she doesn't understand English ways, or think like an English person.”

When they had finished their tour of the garden, and before going in for lunch, they stood by the corner of the house, in a patch of weak October sun, and Winifred asked: “How are the Hallams taking this?”

“Very well. But their nerves are frazzled. And I'm not sure that Dennis and Helen realize the full . . . implications.”

“You mean the village reaction? No. Dennis and Helen are charming people, and good ones, but they don't always understand how ordinary people think.”

“I only hope the village reaction will pass.”

“It may. The old habit of loyalty to ‘The Hall' has not entirely died. Then again, the fact that the Hallams are embarrassed about employing servants, and tend to have people in from the village part-time, means that quite a lot of people in Chowton are economically dependent on them. It's an awful thing to say, but it keeps them respectful.”

“What I really hope for,” said Sarah, “is an arrest.”

“Oh, so do I. That would really clear things up. But Mostyn is not hopeful. He says that the longer it goes on the less likely it is to be cleared up.”

“Yes, Oliver says the same . . . They'd hate that.”