The Skeleton in the Grass (20 page)

“Ah—now I understand! You didn't think the attacker was a Hallam. You thought it was one of your boys!”

T
he Austin Seven had been giving hints for some time that she was going to have one of her fits of temperament. Why are motor-cars always “she,” Dennis wondered, as she spluttered again? And ships too. Were aeroplanes also female? The Austin choked, as she had been doing almost since Dennis left Banbury, where he had been buying records of the Razumovsky Quartets for Helen's birthday. She's going to fail me, Dennis thought, referring to Bumps rather than Helen. I should have brought the Wolseley.

Bumps finally gave up trying just before he got to Chowton. Dennis got out and raised the bonnet. He didn't know much about the insides of cars—got confused by talk of carburettors, and even of batteries—but he had been taught by Pinner that if one screwed this or reconnected that, the car would sometimes start. He looked intelligently at the collection of grimy innards, and worked through his repertory of cures.

After twenty minutes' fiddling, and rather dirty fiddling at that, Bumps still refused to start. Dennis realized that five minutes back on the road there was a country pub called the Lamb and Fleece. He could at least telephone from there to his garage in Wilbury. But when he got there and knocked at the back door—it still being the afternoon closing time—the landlord, when he opened it, shook his head.

“Oh no. No telephone here. You could ‘a seen that if you'd used your eyes. Little country pub like this be can't afford things like telephones.”

He stood there, fat and unobliging. Dennis was forced to mutter “Sorry,” and go away. He told himself as he walked back to Bumps that he had never patronized the Lamb and Fleece, so there was no reason for its landlord to put himself out on his account. He bent over the engine once more, noting that there was someone coming along the road from the village, so at least he could get a push if he wanted one.

So absorbed was he in his screwing and tightening that the man had passed him before he realized it, and was twenty yards away before Dennis decided that he might represent his last chance of a push.

“I say,” he shouted. “I'm having a bit of trouble here. Could you give me a shove so I can try and get it started?”

The man turned. It was one of the farm labourers from Wilton Farm, Dennis thought. The man stood there, looking at him, deliberately creating an awkwardness.

“No,” he shouted at last, brutally loud. “Push your own bloody car. I don't have no truck with murderers.”

 • • • 

Inspector Minchip loved Oxford. To be sure there were the undergraduates, and lately an unpleasant amount of motorized traffic, but these were the inescapable crosses, and he bore them as the lover of Manchester would bear the grime or the lover of Brighton day-trippers. It was his county town, and he felt it had associations and reverberations that no other county town could match.

He walked from the station to Balliol College slowly and with relish, drinking in the sights and sounds. He would like to have been an Oxford man himself, but in his young days boys of his class—unless they were quite exceptionally brilliant—did not go to Oxford. Not that
many did today, he thought, his observant eye and ear tabulating the traces of class in the dress and accents of the undergraduates he passed. Though he recalled South mentioning that one of the boys from Chowton had in fact become an undergraduate here.

The Martyrs' Memorial brought back memories of more than one historical novel in which saintly and heroic Protestants suffered under the zealot Mary for their faith, and he walked along the façade of Balliol, viewing it with approval. He had heard the joke about
“C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la gare,”
and he had had enough history, and just enough French, to appreciate it. It was a good joke, but it lacked in his eyes aptness. Balliol College was not like any railway station he had seen. It was, he thought, an imposing building, and eminently suitable for a college, in its blend of palace and jail.

The college porter, like all such, was a genius. He rather thought, which meant he knew, that Mr. Hallam was at a special tutorial with a Fellow of Oriel. No doubt he'd be back soon after five. It was Mr.
Oliver
Hallam he was wanting to see, was it? He'd understood that a Mr. William Hallam was to have come up this term, but he gathered he'd gone off to fight in Spain. Quite a number of young gentlemen seemed to have taken it into their heads to fight in Spain. No doubt the decision did them credit. But somebody of
their
generation knew a deal too much about fighting on foreign soil, wasn't that right? and would wait until they were sent to war, rather than rush into it.

The two men settled down to a mellow gossip.

“ . . . and though as far as official consumption is concerned they're all nice young gentlemen, between you and me there's a number of 'em that the word excrement would be a compliment for, if you get my meaning. But your Mr Hillam is a nice young gentleman and no mistake—ah, there he is now.”

Oliver Hallam had come through the big gates leading to the Broad, and was looking into his pigeon-hole. With a brief wave to the porter Minchip went out and accosted him.

“I wonder if I could have a few words, sir.”

“Oh, Inspector . . . of course. Come up to my rooms. I'll get the scout to fetch us some tea and sandwiches.”

“No call for that, sir.”

“No trouble,” said Oliver as they walked into the small quadrangle. “You've come a fair way to talk to me.”

“Oh, as to that, the Force isn't letting me spend all my time any longer on the Chowton business. I'm here about a drug addict from Banbury who we think has come into Oxford to get money by peddling the stuff.”

“A dope fiend?”

“That's what the newspapers call them, sir, though in my experience they're more pathetic than fiendish. We have to step down hard on that sort of thing in a community of young people like Oxford . . .”

They had come up to Oliver's room, a turreted affair at the top of one of the front quadrangle's staircases. Oliver ordered tea, and they made conversation about Oxford until it arrived. The ham and cucumber sandwiches were rather heftier than Minchip had expected—man-sized sandwiches, he thought approvingly, and he ate them with relish.

“I did have some purpose in dropping in on you like this,” he said at last, wiping his mouth. He looked at the young man sitting on the other side of the coal fire—slightly overweight, kindly of feature, not yet fully defined or decided in character.

“Anything I can do to help,” murmured Oliver, occupying himself with his last sandwich.

“You see, we know—or think we know, because people don't always tell us the truth—that Major Coffey left
Beecham Park on the night of the party, and took the lane down to the river. He was bored with the games, and wanted to watch Chris Keene on his unpleasant expedition—which, as you all suspected, he had masterminded. Now, what he says happened next was this: he says Chris laid down the skeleton carefully where we found it, and was about to place the rifle in its hand—”

“—pointing at its foot,” said Oliver.

“Ah—you'd got that far, had you, sir? Yes, indeed: I'm afraid so. Well, what Coffey says happened next is that a shape—he says a man, but I'm keeping an open mind—came from the willow tree, from behind or from within the cover of the overhanging branches, and that there was then a brief struggle in which Chris Keene was killed.”

“I see,” said Oliver neutrally.

“Now, so far as I'm concerned that puts a rather different gloss on the whole thing. For a start, there seems to be a strong element of accident there, certainly of unpremeditation. It was the victim who had the gun, too, not the aggressor. To my mind a
murder
charge would be quite inappropriate, and even if manslaughter is in question there would be mitigating circumstances . . . You get my drift, sir?”

“Yes,” said Oliver, after a pause.

“Now, Major Coffey, I'm convinced, thinks it was one of the village lads in his troop who did it. Maybe a jape that went wrong. A bit of horseplay, to frighten the life out of him—if that's not an unfeeling turn of phrase. He knows that the standing he has in the village would scarcely survive if that turned out to be the case. Well, I've talked to these boys, and I didn't notice that they were concealing anything like that. Not that I necessarily would. These are not bumpkins—they're bright lads, the pick of the bunch. So I'm keeping an open mind on that too. Because there are other possibilities . . .”

“Yes,” said Oliver.

Minchip shifted his position in his chair.

“Now, why I came to see you, sir, is that I thought you might like to change your account of what you did in the latter part of the evening.” Oliver took a sip of his tea. “That account never quite made sense to me. A walk in the garden, yes.
So long a walk,
no. You'd been very conscientious earlier in the evening—seeing the young children were all right, talking to Lady Wadham, who—well, never mind what I think of Lady Wadham. Then suddenly you forget about the party and the games and take a long, long walk round and round a darkened garden (one that isn't at all attractive even in daylight). Your evening, if you take my point, doesn't hang together.”

“It's what happened,” said Oliver.

“So I ask myself,” said Minchip, ignoring him, “whether something rather different might have occurred. One possibility is that you saw the Major leaving, and decided to follow him. Natural, in the circumstances, after the cruel tricks that had been played on your family. You probably thought he was up to some further mischief, as indeed he was. If that's what happened, you could also have seen what went on in the grounds of Hallam, and you could either confirm or contradict the Major's account.”

He left a short space of silence, but Oliver said nothing.

“There is another possibility, of course, and that is that you anticipated trouble that evening. You're an intelligent chap, and you realized that everyone would know that the Hallam family would be at Beecham Park that night. So it is just possible that you took the lane some time before the Major, that you heard somebody coming along the river path, and concealed yourself behind the willow tree. And that you were so enraged by what you saw that you threw yourself on Chris Keene, with the result that we know.”

This time the pause was more definite, but Oliver obviously realized he could not let it go on too long.

“No,” he said calmly. “I just walked around at Beecham, as I told you.”

 • • • 

“It was appalling,” said Dennis, his handsome face positively haggard with misery. He poured himself a strong Scotch, and forgot to offer anybody else anything. “Absolutely humiliating and upsetting. I'm a damned fool. I should have realized.”

“But, darling, how on earth could you?” Helen asked. Her eyes, from the sofa, were of a watery brilliance.

“That innkeeper's behaviour should have told me. He was almost impertinent. I should have realized then. The people in the villages have never had much sympathy for us, but they've always been civil.”

“Who was this man?” Sarah asked. “The one who called you a murderer?”

“I have an idea he works for Edwards, at Wilton Farm. I think his name is Dunnock.”

“Ah,” said Sarah. “Mrs. Keene's friends.”

“Mrs. Keene's friends?” Helen turned to ask.

“When Oliver called to see her, Mrs. Dunnock was there. She was very unpleasant.”

“Oh dear,” said Helen. “In all this trouble I forgot to ask Oliver about Mrs. Keene. Not that it matters. It doesn't sound as if she would allow us to do anything for her.”

“What exactly did he say, Daddy?” Elizabeth asked.

Dennis took a gulp of his whisky, then realized he was the only one drinking and went over to the sideboard to pour them some sherry. With his back turned to them he said:

“I asked him to give me a shove, you see. To try and get Bumps started. And he turned and just stood there, looking at me. Then he said: ‘No. Push your own bloody car.'
And then he said he didn't have any truck with . . . murderers.” Dennis straightened and brought the glasses over, his face a mask of pain. “It was like being . . . hit with a heavy club. I had to sit in the car to get my breath back. I just couldn't believe the words had been spoken.”

“But if they are friends of Mrs. Keene—” Helen Hallam began.

“Oh, that wasn't the end. I had to walk home, of course. And that meant coming through Chowton. There weren't many people about, luckily, because it was nearly five, but the ones that were . . . looked right through me. And one man—Sid Cotton, you know, someone I've always thought a splendid chap—he simply turned round and went back the way he'd come, to avoid meeting me. It was terrible.”

Elizabeth unconvincingly said: “You're sure you're not imagining some of this, Daddy?”

“Yes, yes, I'm sure . . . You knew about it, didn't you, Sarah?”

“Yes,” Sarah said simply. “And Oliver knew. We decided to say nothing to you. We hoped it would blow over, though I don't think we thought it would. Not until someone was arrested.”

“Of course, I've always known they had no great affection for us, for
me,
” said Dennis bitterly. “The younger son who stepped into his brother's shoes. Edward would have done the Squire thing so much better: he enjoyed it, and they liked him. They wept in the village when he died. I was the cuckoo in the nest. And then there were those daft rumours about my wound.” He looked at Sarah. “I suppose you've heard them?”

Sarah nodded.

“Oliver hinted something about them, after he'd been to see Mrs. Keene.”