The Notched Hairpin (6 page)

“Then, when I was arranging the ‘elevens,' Mr. Millum was, I believe, putting the book down on that other table. I'm as sure as can be he said something about having brought round ‘that book,
Suet 'n Onions
.' I remember the name, for Mr. Sankey was very fond of food, but food wasn't fond of Mr. Sankey, and small blame to it, I say. He soured enough things round him, heaven knows. Not that I'd say a word against the dead; but if I did, well, I'd wager sweet food and such an acid stomach could never match or mingle. And when he couldn't eat, as when he could, then he'd read about cooking. Oh, cook had her times, as I had. A sorrow shared is a true tie, and cook and I have shared ours, and make no mistake! He'd read up new recipes in fancy cook books by people who maybe could write, but, Lord, the troubles their fancies made for cook's fingers. She'd say to me, ‘Doubt if one of them ever put down his pen to handle a rolling pin. And as for washing up, why, they'd faint at the sight of a dishcloth!' Mrs. Beaton did for cook and for me. But this fancy stuff! Look at those books up there:
Second Helping
—heaven help us, what a name! And there, that white finical one,
The Gay Glutton
, and it so you couldn't put it on a kitchen table for an hour! As cook used to say, ‘A cook book with a poor back is as bad as one empty in its insides.' But I must say this latest Mr. Millum lent was, you see, well-bound, sensible as all things about Mr, Millum are. And the name, too. When you come to think of it, plain and frank-like—
Suet and Onions
, both good, plain victuals.”

Even Mr. M. began to flag under this drive of anecdotage and took to handling the classic author degraded to the kitchen. He began lensing its pages for lack of other interest. Jane, too, at last perceived she had had her great hour and that repetition would not add force to her presentation.

“Thank you, thank you,” tolled Mr. M. like a passing bell.

And with, “So you see, murder it was and murder by some dangerous tramp,”
as
her last line, Jane was content to make her final exit.

When she was gone, the two men were rapidly businesslike. The inspector ran through the points and Mr. M. checked them over.

“No one enters the garden on the day of the murder save Millum, and he is seen off the premises by Jane. Hence we are once more back at suicide, suicide of a melancholic prompted by reading the classic passage which says that stabbing yourself through the heart is both quite easy and practically painless, and even permits of a graceful exit and last words of an improving sort, if you wish.”

We had retreated to the hall, and I was glad to go, for I was tired and disappointed. A suicide is no substitute—save to a sleuth—for a charming summer resort. But Mr. M. was not finished.

“You will, of course, now tell me about this Mr. Millum?”

I was relieved by the answer: “Oh, that, as you've seen, is as clear as the rest of the case. He was an old friend of the deceased who lives in that twin house over the road here. He had taken great care of Sankey—who was not the kind of man with whom other people would trouble—and clearly Sankey depended on him quite a lot. He is a man—I've made the routine inquiries—liked as much by others as you see he is by the maid here. And another routine point: he is a man of very considerable means and has always lived quietly and generously with his neighbors down here. The vicar, though he said he was not what he could claim as one of his constant churchgoers, said that in all matters of charity he could always depend on his kindliness. No, even if any feature of the case should seem to point to him—and none do—the utter lack of motive would keep him clear. Indeed, he was so upset—for he is a sensitive type—that he has gone off for a few days' holiday. I may add,” added the inspector, with rather a father-confessor look, “after quite rightly asking me whether it would be correct for him to do so. Yes, a likeable, open man, as you will have judged from our loquacious Jane!”

Mr. M. paused, and I thought the day might be called a day and closed. But suddenly, of all things, I was called on to prolong it!

“You see,” began Mr. M. almost diffidently, “you see, I brought my friend Mr. Silchester down here almost under false pretenses. I have often found his angle on things useful, so that, though he takes no interest in my work, I value and sometimes employ his gifts—so complementary to mine—by stealth! But today we were killing two birds with one stone, or viewing a kill and also chasing another kind of quarry. We thought we might take a house in the country, and certainly the one we have seen is very choice and maybe, with the slight cloud over it, might be cheap. I myself would not be disturbed by the fact that the late owner had launched himself from the garden into the unknown. But, anyhow I am glad to have seen this house and, as twins of this sort are as interesting as they are rare, do you think, before we go back to town, we might view that one opposite?”

The inspector evidently respected Mr. Mycroft and was pleased to have won him from the certainty of murder to the higher certainty of suicide—a real gain in the gruesome gain of wits these two obviously loved to play. So he replied, “Yes, I think we could. I've been in and out there these last two weeks and know the housekeeper quite well now. As our Jane said, she too is a kind woman; though it is queer, isn't it, how often kindly women don't very much like each other?”

While this was going on, he'd stepped up the flight of stone stairs that led to the hall door of this house, as a similar flight led to that we had just left behind us. The door opened so quickly that I felt we might have been watched, and we were welcomed here much as on the other shore. The inspector explained that Mr. Mycroft had been looking at the other house and had been so interested at the two being twins that he hoped she could be so kind, as he was sure Mr. Millum would wish, to show us over the place and its garden. She was a large, cheery, rather flouncy body in a copious but, in spite of that fact, tight chintz, and she bustled and chuckled ahead of us like a giant hen.

As we were led off, the inspector said, “I'll leave you in Mrs. Sprigg's good hands. I'll be down at the inn when you come back to town.”

“Don't trouble to send the carriage for us,” called out Mr. Mycroft. “We'll walk back; it will be charming.”

We were taken over the whole house, and I fancied that Mrs. Sprigg felt a certain competitive necessity to show that her twin was as well-reared and cared for as was the rival over the way. Perhaps there was not quite the polish of the one we had first visited, but there were more beautiful things. And evidently here it was the master who cared while the maid seconded, while there it was the maid who provoked and the master who grudgingly permitted. When we had been taken to every room, I believe, save our leading lady's bedroom, Mr. M. paused and so did Mrs. Sprigg, no doubt now certain that all that remained was the small transfer of cash-loaded thanks with which such surveys always terminate. But Mr. M. had a further request.

“One of the charms of these houses is the beauty of the landscape which they serve to adorn. With their tine, parapeted roofs, what a noble prospect must be obtained from them. Do you think we might just run up ‘and view the landscape o'er,' as the hymn says?”

It was tactfully put. Mrs. Sprigg was evidently what is called in that part of the world “of chapel folk,” to whom an apt quotation from Isaac Watts, hymnist, is as sweet and telling as one from Horace to a classicist. “Why, of course,” she beamed. “But I fear the way up …” and here we saw professional pride getting ready its defenses, “is not quite dusted out, as you might say. I haven't been out on that roof for ever so long and I've never seen Mr. Millum go up there neither. Come to think of it, the last time anyone was up there was last Michaelmas, when the tilers had to go up fixing down the tiles after the last big equinoctial blow we had.”

“Never mind,” smiled back Mr. M. “It will be worth a dirty hand or two to see the landscape.”

She led us up to where at last the grand staircase shrank to attic stairs and these in turn dwindled to what was little more than an enclosed loft ladder. Mrs. Sprigg then paused, for the ascent had become steep and the way narrow. Neither her kindly but laboring heart nor her copious periphery could make the final grade.

“You'll find it ever so stuffy up there,” she called as a panting farewell.

And to my surprise, when we reached the final stage and were about like chicks to break free, Mr. M. also paused and panted. Going ahead of me, he had reached the very top of the loft ladder and was about to push open the skylight door when he breathed deeply several times and bent his head. Then, recovering his wind, he pushed back the miniature glazed door-panel. A breeze came down, relieving the Mot, still air which, almost like a gas, had gathered in this pocket of unventilation and no doubt was the cause of the catch in his breath.

I followed quickly, and we emerged onto as seemly a panorama as I've seen in its mild spaciousness. The Severn flowed in the distance—long stitches of silver threaded across the green. Blue Welsh hills closed the farther view, and all about was dale and orchard flowering and burgeoning, with silver-gray church towers and russet roofs of comfortable, seemly houses punctuating this easy, flowing picture-poetry of garden and field wealth.

But, after Mr. M. had hummed
Sabrina fair
and then a bar or two from the
Shropshire Lad's
“Bredon Hill,” he turned back and began to peer over at the other house we had so shortly left and which I thought we had certainly viewed with sufficient thoroughness, at least for the time being. Mr. M., however, seemed in a brown study as he leaned looking over the cornice, he himself appearing not wholly unlike one of those brooding gargoyles which, with their chins in their hands, stand on the top of Notre Dame and look out over Paris. Perhaps he was thinking up some notion as to how we might possibly still get the house for our summer stay. As I wasn't quite sure whether I would like it if we could—murder is not my metier—and anyhow thought it very unlikely that even such a crafty person as my friend could really manage any such thing, I didn't pay much attention to him. The view out over the countryside was wonderfully refreshing, and I was determined to enjoy it and let the sunlight, the gentle breeze, and the obvious security and comfort of the view brush from my mind the impressions of the morning.

After a few minutes, Mr. M. came across to me proposing that, if I had taken in the topography, we go down. I agreed, but could gladly have spent half an hour dreamily gazing at that bright and reassuring landscape. I seconded him heartily when he told Mrs. Sprigg how much he had enjoyed the view. She took a motherly credit for the whole countryside as much as for her master's house.

“Shropshire born and bred,” she remarked. “And though we don't take much count of those clever folk that never come back home but write clever rhymes about us, still, if I was a poet, I'd never fail for themes looking over this, our land.”

We were now on such good terms because of our joint admiration that, when Mr. M. said, “Do you think I might come back tomorrow and have a second glimpse from this Pisgah? Today I didn't know this treat was in store and so did not bring my field glasses with me,” she was all welcome. I must say, I felt that to peer with field glasses at a view which, if you had
a
real sense of landscape, should be taken in all as one—with a single stroke of the eye, as the French put it—showed, alas, in my old friend how much the scientist, with his passion for taking things to pieces, dominated over the artist, content to contemplate and become himself part of the beauty of the place.

We walked back to the little town. At the inn, where we had had rooms engaged by our inspector friend, we found him packed and ready to catch the evening express back to London. Mr. M. explained that we'd be staying a day or perhaps two more, for we were, he remarked, if not killing two birds with one stone, trying to see whether one house could prove to be not merely a neat problem but a commodious perch. I remember particularly noting his repetition of that faint pleasantry. Perhaps he himself saw that it was so thin that it required “to be applied in two coats,” as house painters say. Its interest for me lay in the fact that such feeble little quips, as clearly as facial tics, prove (and I am quite as observant and able to build up a proof as he) that great power of penetration necessarily denies men like Mr. M. of a delicacy of surface touch, that sense of nuance and style which are the natural endowment of the man of taste and tact—in fine, the artist.

Our inspector simply remarked, “Well, thank you for confirming me in my second thoughts. Though less dramatic, they are, I am sure, not only better but final, and not only final but happier. I must own to you privately, as you are really a colleague, I always feel not a little relief when what could be a suicide but may be a murder reverts to its first promise! Indeed, I often wonder whether we men of skill aren't serving, in the judges and the lawyers, men who are really behind us in real understanding of crime. We should be thinking, I often think, not how it must be punished but how it may be understood and so prevented.”

Mr. M. didn't seem at all surprised at this confidential outburst. All he remarked was, “I'm glad we agree, Mr. Sark, on basic principles. Even if we should ever differ on detail, I shall feel, however I think or act; we mean
au fond
the same thing, and are aiming at the same goal.”

The inspector was obviously pleased at thus being treated as a
cher confrere
and after a hard handshake went off.

When he was gone, Mr. M. remarked, “A man who is not ashamed of knowing something about Impressionist painting, and also of modern theories of light and shade and the psychophysical problems of perception, is always a much wiser fellow than his professional cleverness would lead you to expect. He can ask questions, not merely find answers; open issues, not merely close cases; and, if you have to choose and have time to watch, you will find it is the clever who do the latter and the wise who do the former.”