Why Shoot a Butler (18 page)

They had reached the gate and passed through it on to the road. A little way down it a red tail-lamp glowed; they walked towards it.

"Mr. Amberley, how much do you know already?" Shirley asked abruptly.

She knew that he was smiling. "Something for nothing, Miss Brown?"

"If I only knew - had some idea - I don't know what to do. Why should I trust you?"

"Feminine instinct," said Mr. Amberley. "If you'd only tell me…'

"I shan't tell you anything. You shall come all the way. Didn't I say so?"

"You're quite unreasonable," she said crossly, and got into the car.

Chapter Thirteen

Mr. Amberley breakfasted early next morning, and had been to Upper Nettlefold and back before the rest of the family had risen from the table. He sauntered in to find Sir Humphrey fuming and Felicity just about to go out.

Sir Humphrey was declaiming against the dilatory methods of glaziers, but he stopped when he saw his nephew and requested him to listen to that fellow Fountain's behaviour. Felicity slipped from the room, making a grimace at her cousin.

"What's the matter?" inquired Amberley.

It appeared that Fountain had done something unmannerly, boorish and inexplicable. He had sent a servant over at nine in the morning to ask for the return of his book. Had Frank ever heard anything to equal it?

"Never," said Amberley, not visibly impressed. "Which servant?"

"I fail to see that it matters."

"Nevertheless, it does matter," said Amberley, and rang the bell. When Jenkins came in he put the question to him and learned that it was the valet who had come. "I thought so," said Amberley. "Getting desperate."

Sir Humphrey jabbed his glasses onto his bony nose. "Why did you think so? Are you going to tell me that all this business has something to do with your - your meddlesome investigations for the police?"

"Everything," said Amberley. "Didn't you guess?"

"Damn it, Frank, next time you come and stay in my house…'

"But I'm enjoying it all so much," interposed his wife, emerging from her correspondence. "Shall we be murdered, Frank? I thought these things didn't happen. So very enlightening."

"I hope not, Aunt. I might be, of course. You never know."

She glanced up at him shrewdly. "Not pleased, my dear?"

"Not so very," he admitted.

"Annoying," she said, "losing things. I once lost my engagement ring. It turned up. Better not say where, perhaps."

He took his pipe out of his mouth. "You're too acute, Aunt. I shall go and play golf with Anthony."

"I prefer that you should not mention this disagreeable occurrence to Fountain," said Sir Humphrey stiffly. "I myself intend to ignore it."

"I should," said Amberley. "It would surprise me very much if he knows anything about it."

He arrived at the manor to find Corkran practising approach-shots on the lawn. Corkran hailed him with enthusiasm. It appeared that Amberley was just the man he wanted to see. He announced that the manor had just about got his goat. Joan was right: there was something about the darned place that made everyone behave in an odd manner. He enumerated the various vagaries, starting with his prospective relative's moodiness, and passing on by way of the murder of Dawson to the night prowlings of Collins and the extraordinary conduct of Baker. He wanted to know what Amberley made of a butler who started to dust the library at ten o'clock at night.

"Damn it, butlers don't dust!" he said. "Have you ever seen one at it?"

"Dusting the library?" repeated Amberley.

"Absolutely. Those people from the grange - woman with a face like the back of a cab, and spouse - were here to dinner and we played bridge. I went to fetch my cigarette case, which I'd left in the library, and I'm dashed if that Baker fellow wasn't there dusting the books. Well, I mean to say! Told me he didn't like to see them so dusty and understood Fountain didn't allow the skivvies to touch 'em. A whole lot of eyewash about not having time - no, leisure - to do it in the daytime. Too jolly fishy by half. What do you think?"

"I think I'd like to see Mr. Baker."

"Well, if you stick around long enough you will. He's gone to fetch me some more golf balls," said Anthony morosely.

The butler came out of the house at that moment with three golf balls on a silver tray.

"Looks like an egg-and-spoon race," said Anthony. "Silly ass!"

Baker came sedately across the lawn; he did not look at Amberley, but went to Corkran and presented his tray. "Your golf balls, sir. I could only find three in your bag."

Anthony took them with a brief word of thanks. The butler turned to go, but halted as Mr. Amberley spoke."Just a moment."

Baker turned and stood waiting, his head deferentially inclined.

"Do you know if Mr. Fountain sent to Greythorne for a book that was borrowed the other day?"

Baker flashed a quick look up at him. "A book, sir?" He seemed to choose his words carefully. "I could not say, sir, I am sure. I do not think that Mr. Fountain gave any such order. Not to my knowledge."

Mr. Amberley's pipe had gone out. He struck a match and held it between his cupped hands; over it his eyes held Baker's. "It's not important. Sir Humphrey had finished with it." He threw the match away. "Interested in books, Baker?"

The butler gave his little cough. "I do not get much time for reading, sir."

"Only dusting," said Anthony.

The butler bowed. "Exactly so, sir. I do my best with indifferent success, I fear. Mr. Fountain has a large library."

"Quite a valuable one," drawled Amberley. "To connoisseurs."

"So I believe, sir." Baker met his gaze limpidly. "I fear I know very little about such things."

"A book is just a book, eh?"

"Yes, sir. As you say."

"Well, what the devil should it be?" demanded Anthony, pausing in the act of taking a chip-shot onto the terrace.

The butler permitted himself a discreet smile. "Will I here be anything else, sir?"

"Not at present," said Amberley, and transferred his attention to the golf enthusiast.

Anthony professed himself entirely at sea over the whole business. He complained that Amberley was as bad as the rest of them; prowling about and saying nothing. "And just what are you doing?" he said. "I'm damned if I know."

"I'm looking for lost property," said Amberley.

"Whose lost property?"

"I'm not sure."

Anthony blinked at him. "Look here, what the devil are you driving at?"

"I'm sure, of course," said Amberley maddeningly, "but I've no proof. Awkward, isn't it?"

Anthony shook his head. "I can't cope with it. I thought you were looking for Dawson's assassin, and now you say…'

"I've never had much interest in Dawson's murder," said Amberley.

Mr. Corkran raised his eyes to heaven. "Of course I shall end up in a looney-bin," he said. "I can feel it coming on.

In spite of what he had told Sir Humphrey Mr. Amberley did not invite Corkran to play golf, but drove away from the manor to Carchester, where the chief constable and Inspector Fraser were awaiting him.

They found him in a discouraging mood. Colonel Watson was dismayed, the inspector triumphant. The inspector was following up a trail of his own and held forth on its possibilities until he realised that Mr. Amberley was not listening to him.

Colonel Watson, more perceptive than the inspector, had been watching Amberley. He said: "You're on to something?"

"I thought I was," Amberley replied. "I still think it. But the only piece of evidence in the whole case hass gone astray and I tell you candidly I'm afraid it may have got into the wrong hands or been destroyed. Where it is I don't know. Until it's found neither you nor I can do anything. Once I get my hands on it you'll have your whole case cut and dried."

The inspector gave a superior smile. "Very fanciful, sir. I suppose it'll clear everything up - Dawson's murder and all? Pity you can't tell us anything now."

There was a glint in Mr. Amberley's eyes. "Since you're so keen on Dawson's murder - a somewhat unimportant link in the chain, as I believe I remarked once before - I'll tell you who did murder him."

The colonel jumped. "You know?"

"I've known since the night of the fancy-dress ball at the manor," said Mr. Amberley calmly. "Collins murdered him."

The colonel stuttered: "But - but…'

"Very nice, sir," said the inspector, still smiling. "A little thing like a good alibi doesn't count, I suppose?"

"You should always beware of alibis, Inspector. If you'd had rather more experience of crime you'd have learned that lesson."

The inspector grew purple in the face. "Perhaps you'll favour us with the proof, Mr. Amberley." "None," said Amberley. "One person might shake the alibi, but he daren't do it. You may as well make up your mind to it; you won't get a conviction."

"That's very interesting," said the inspector sarcastically. "Useful too. No charge of murder at all, in fact."

"On the contrary," said Amberley.

"I see," said the inspector. "I've heard your opinion of Brown's death. Going to charge Collins with that, I daresay?"

"Collins," said Mr. Amberley, picking up his hat, "was the last man in the world to want Brown dead." He turned to Colonel Watson. "About the missing evidence, Colonel. If you can get a tactful man onto the job - not Fraser - send someone to interview Dawson's sister. It is just possible that he had it at the time of his death. I want all his effects carefully gone through and any papers brought to me. It's a slim chance, but worth trying. Particularly a torn paper, Colonel. Remember that."

On his way back to Greythorne he stopped in Upper Nettlefold to see Sergeant Gubbins. The sergeant was busy with a motor accident, but he left it for a moment to speak to Amberley.

"Done as I asked?" Amberley said briefly.

"Yes, sir. Tucker. He won't make a second mistake."

"That's all right then," said Amberley, and departed.

It was at nine o'clock that evening that a scared housemaid presented herself in the drawing room at Greythorne and said hysterically: "Oh, sir! Oh, my lady! Burglars!"

"What?" snapped Sir Humphrey, letting the evening paper fall. "Here?"

"Oh yes, sir! At least it does seem so. It's Mr. Amberley's bedroom, sir. It give me such a turn, I feel quite bad."

Amberley regarded her with unimpaired calm. "What happened?" he inquired.

Her story was somewhat involved, and embellished with a great deal of irrelevant detail, but it seemed that she had gone upstairs at nine o'clock to turn down the beds and found that Mr. Amberley's room had been ransacked. Every drawer was pulled out and the contents strewn on the floor; the little desk in the window had been burst open and the papers all scattered about; his suitcases wrenched open; and a leather attache-case in which he might be supposed to keep private papers, with the lock torn off. Even the bed had been disarranged, while as for the suits in the wardrobe, never had she seen anything to equal it.

She paused for breath; and Sir Humphrey, fixing his nephew with a smouldering eye, said that he had had enough.

Lady Matthews murmured: "Better tidy it, Molly. Did he find anything, Frank?"

Amberley shook his head. "Quite bright of him to suspect me, but not so bright to think I should leave it lying about in my room. So he thinks I've got it. That's illuminating anyhow."

"How fortunate, dear! So glad. Why, by the way?"

"At least it means that it hasn't fallen into the wrong hands," said Amberley, smiling at her.

"Delightful, my dear. Don't fuss, Humphrey. Nothing to do with us."

This was too much for Sir Humphrey. If a couple of robberies in his own house were nothing to do with him he would like to know what was. And how did the burglar get in without anyone hearing? Really, it was too much of a good thing.