Thou Shell of Death (3 page)

‘Couldn’t say. He’s had plenty of opportunities of making capital out of his position as Public Idol No. 1. But he’s not made great use of them, as far as I know. But all these questions you’d far better ask him.
If
he really thinks there’s anything in these threats, he’ll have to open up to you a little.’

Sir John heaved himself out of his chair. ‘Well. Must be off. Got to dine with the Home Secretary tonight—fussy old hen, he’s suddenly developed Communist-phobia; thinks they’re going to put a bomb under his bed. Ought to know they don’t allow acts of individual violence. Wouldn’t mind if they did blow him up, as a matter of fact. His idea of dinner is boiled mutton and grocer’s Graves.’

He took Nigel by the arm and piloted him towards the door. ‘I’ll just pop in and tell Herbert and Elizabeth not to go giving you away as Sherlock Minor while you’re down there. I’ll wire O’Brien you’re coming on the twenty-second. There’s a train from Paddington at 11.45: get you down there in good time for tea.’

‘So you’ve got everything fixed, haven’t you, you old schemer?’ said Nigel affectionately. ‘Thanks very much for the job—and the saga.’

Pausing outside the drawing-room door, Sir John squeezed his nephew’s arm and whispered, ‘Look after him, won’t you? I feel I ought to have insisted more strongly on police protection. Those letters would make things pretty difficult for us if anything should happen. And of course you’ll let me know at once if you find out there
is
anything behind them. I should simply override his wishes if we had anything definite to go on. Good-bye, boy.’

II

The Airman’s Tale

AS IT HAPPENED
, Nigel did not travel by the 11.45. On the night of the 21st he was rung up by Lord Marlinworth’s butler, who said that his master and mistress had been delayed in town and would not be travelling down to Chatcombe till tomorrow. They would be very pleased to give Mr Strangeways a lift down in their car and would call for him sharp at 9.00 a.m. Nigel thought it politic to accept this semi-royal invitation, though four or five hours of Lord Marlinworth’s reminiscences in such a confined space would be likely to give him a headache.

On the stroke of nine the next morning the Daimler drew up outside Nigel’s door. To his aunt and uncle road travel was still a complicated adventure, not to be undertaken lightly. Although the saloon car was as draughtless and dustless as a hospital ward, Lady Marlinworth habitually carried a thick motoring-veil, several layers of petticoat and a bottle of smelling salts for any journey of more than twenty miles. Her husband, in an enormous check ulster, cloth cap and goggles, looked like a cross between Edward the
Seventh
and Guy Fawkes—a point the cluster of street urchins which had rapidly formed was not slow to take up. A valet and Lady Marlinworth’s personal maid were taking the luggage down by train; but the spacious interior of the car was chock-a-block with enough equipment for a polar expedition. Getting in, Nigel barked his shin on a gigantic hamper, and the way to his seat seemed to be paved with hot-water bottles.

When he was at last settled in, Lord Marlinworth consulted his watch, unfolded an ordnance map, took up the speaking-tube and, with the air of a Wellington ordering the whole line to advance, said, ‘Cox, you may proceed.’

During the journey Lord Marlinworth kept up a ceaseless flow of light conversation. As they passed through the suburbs, he commented unfavourably upon their architecture and drew a parallel between it and the makeshift character of twentieth-century civilisation. At the same time he generously conceded that the people who lived there played no doubt a necessary part in the community and were admirable persons in their way. The country reached, he alternated between calling his companion’s attention to ‘pretty peeps’ and ‘noble vistas’ and recounting anecdotes of the leading families in each county through which they passed, his wife seconding him with involved researches into their genealogical trees. Whenever they approached a fork in the road, Lord Marlinworth would study his map and give directions
to
the chauffeur, to which Cox responded with a grave inclination of the head—as if this was the first and not the fiftieth time he had driven the route. Torpor and a haze of unreality stole over Nigel. His head nodded. He jerked awake. His head nodded again. Then he fell finally and uncompromisingly asleep.

He was awoken for a light lunch at twelve o’clock. As soon as they had started, he fell asleep again, thereby missing a remarkable tale about the Hampshire Enderbys, the last head of which family had apparently, at the age of fifty, retired to the top of a lofty tower on his estate, and was never seen again except on the anniversaries of King Charles the First’s death, when he used to emerge and fling down red-hot sovereigns to his tenants. When Nigel awoke, they had left the main road and were sliding along a Somerset lane whose hedges almost brushed the sides of the car. Soon they turned left, through a magnificent stone gate. The drive, formally curving and twisting like a hypnotised snake, led them down the side of a combe and up the far slope; there it forked, straight on for Chatcombe Towers, and to the right for the Dower House. Cox was directed to drop Nigel at the Dower House first. As he alighted, Nigel noticed a bizarre addition had been made to the landscape since his last visit to Chatcombe. Fifty yards or so to his right as he faced the front door at the end of the garden, there had been erected an army hut. As he waited for the door to open he wondered idly how O’Brien had managed to persuade Lord Marlinworth
to
let him erect so unsightly an object on the estate. It also suddenly occurred to him that he had forgotten to let O’Brien know his change of plan, and therefore was not expected till teatime.

The door opened. A very large, very broad, very tough-looking man appeared; he wore a neat blue suit, and his nose was about the shape and size of a small pancake. This worthy gave one glance at Nigel and his suitacse—the car had already driven off—and exclaimed:

‘No, we don’t want no vacuum cleaners, nor yet am I hinterested in silk stockings, brass polish, or parrot seed.’

He began to shut the door, but Nigel stepped forward hastily and said: ‘Nor am I. My name’s Strangeways. I got an offer to drive down from London and hadn’t time to let you know.’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr Strangeways, sir. Come in. My name’s Bellamy. Harthur, they generally calls me. The Colonel’s out just now, but he’ll be back before tea. I’ll show you your room. And then I dessay you’d like to stretch your legs around the gawden a bit.’ He added, with a wistful look: ‘Unless you’d care to put on the gloves for a round or two. Limber you up after the drive, it would. But perhaps you ain’t a devotee of the Noble Art.’

Nigel hastily disclaimed it. Arthur looked crestfallen for a moment; but his face soon broke into a craggy grin. ‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘there’s some as is ’andy with
their
maulies, and others as is ’andy with their serry-bellum.’

He tapped the small portion of his nose that stood out from the level of his face. ‘It’s OK, Mr Strangeways, sir. I know wot you’re down ’ere for. Don’t you worry yourself. Mum’s the word, sir. I can keep me trap shut. Hoyster is my middle name.’

Nigel followed the oyster upstairs. Soon he was unpacking in a cream-washed bedroom, furnished severely but adequately with unstained oak. There was only one picture on the walls. Nigel peered at it short-sightedly, then walked up to it with a cigarette in one hand and a pair of trousers in the other. It was the head of a girl, by Augustus John. Nigel took rather a time to unpack. He was, as he admitted himself, a born snooper. He never could restrain his curiosity about the accessories of other people’s lives. He pulled open every drawer in the chest-of-drawers, not so much to dispose of his own effects as in the hope that the last visitor might have left something incriminating behind. They were quite empty, however. There were Christmas roses in a bowl on the dressing table, he noticed. He opened a box on the table beside his bed: it was full of sugar biscuits. He put three absent-mindedly into his mouth, thinking: ‘A competent housekeeper behind all this.’ He prowled over to the mantelpiece and fingered the row of books arranged there:
Arabia Deserta
, Kafka’s
The Castle, Decline and Fall, The Sermons of John Donne
, the last Dorothy Sayers, Yeats’
The Tower
. He took down the latter; it
was
a first edition, with an inscription from the poet to ‘my friend, Fergus O’Brien’. Nigel began to revise his preconceptions about his host; it all fitted in very badly with his notion of the daredevil, harum-scarum pilot.

After a bit he walked out into the garden. The Dower House was a long, two-storeyed, whitewashed building, with an overhanging slate roof. It had been built about one hundred and fifty years before on the site of the original Dower House, which had been burnt down. It looked rather like one of those old-fashioned ample country rectories, whose architects seem to have been obsessed by the reproductive power of the clergy. A veranda ran the whole length of the front of the house, which faced south, and was continued along the east face. As he walked round, Nigel saw the wooden hut again; it stood out, more of an anachronism than ever, its windows filled with the blood-red glow of the huge December sun. He went across the lawn and peered in at one of the hut windows. The interior had been fitted up as a workroom. There was an enormous kitchen table, strewn with books and papers; several rows of bookshelves; an oil stove; a safe; some easy chairs; a pair of carpet slippers on the floor. The whole effect contrasted oddly with the guest room he had just left—the one breathing a quiet, distinguished luxury, the other untidy, ascetic and businesslike. Nigel’s curiosity, insatiable as that of the Elephant Child, got the better of him. He pushed at the door. Faintly
surprised
to find that it opened, he went in. He poked about aimlessly for a little; then his attention was attracted by a door in the wall on his left. The living-room looked so large, it had not occurred to him that this was a partition wall. He went through this door and found himself in a small cubicle. It seemed to contain nothing but a truckle bed, a rush mat and a cupboard. Nigel was about to go out again, when he noticed there was a snapshot on top of the cupboard. He went over to it. It was the photograph of a young woman in riding clothes; it was growing yellow with age but the girl’s head stood out clearly, hatless, dark-haired, with an expression of sweet madcap innocence on the lips, but in the eyes a shadow of melancholy; a thin, elfish face, promising beauty and generosity and danger.

It was while he was studying this photograph that Nigel heard a voice behind him. ‘My study’s ornament. Well, I’m so glad you could come.’ Nigel wheeled round. The voice was light, almost girlish in timbre, yet of an extraordinary resonance. Its owner stood in the doorway, his hand outstretched, a humorous quirk on his lips. Nigel came forward, stuttering with embarrassment:

‘I … I, really I c-can’t tell you how sorry I am. Quite inexcusable, prying about like this. My cursed habit of inquisitiveness. Probably should be found examining the Queen’s correspondence if I was invited to Buckingham Palace.’

‘Ah, never mind, never mind. That’s what you’re down here for. It’s my fault being out when you came. I didn’t expect you so early. I hope Arthur showed you your room and everything.’

Nigel explained his premature arrival. ‘Arthur was hospitality itself,’ he added. ‘He even offered to give me some sparring practice.’

O’Brien laughed. ‘That’s fine. It means he’s taken to you. Whom he loveth, he chastiseth—or tries to. It’s the only way he can express his emotions. He knocks me down every morning regularly—at least he used to till me health wouldn’t stand it any more.’

O’Brien looked a sick man indeed. As they paced to and fro over the lawn Nigel took stock of him. He had not yet really got over his feeling of guilt at being discovered in the hut, and the mental picture he had formed of what the airman would look like had been shattered so bewilderingly by his real appearance. He had expected something hawk-like, whipcord tough, of more than mortal stature. He saw a smallish man, whose clothes hung loosely on him, as though he had shrunk in the night: an almost dead-white face, with raven hair and a neat black beard that half concealed a terrible scar from temple to jaw; large but delicate hands which somehow fitted his voice. His features were homely—not in the least romantic, in spite of the beard and the pallor. Except for his eyes. O’Brien’s eyes were dark blue, almost violet, in colour, and as changeable as the sky on a windy spring day—animated one moment, and the next moment clouded
over
and withdrawn, quite dull, as though the spirit in them had gone somewhere else.

‘Look at him now, will you?’ O’Brien pointed excitedly to a robin that was hopping about on the lawn in front of them. ‘He stops quicker than your eye can stop. He stops so dead that the eye can’t brake in time: it overshoots him and stops a foot ahead. Did you ever notice that?’

Nigel hadn’t ever noticed it. But he noticed how the airman’s intonation became more Irish under excitement. And two lines from the ‘Ancient Mariner’ came unbidden into his head:

‘He prayeth best who loveth best

All things both great and small.’

These were about the Hermit. And the airman had become a sort of hermit. Nigel felt that this man could make him see things as he had never seen them before. He knew suddenly, without any possibility of doubt, that he was walking up and down the lawn with a genius.

At that moment two gunshots exploded from some nearby covert. O’Brien’s wrist and hand jerked involuntarily and his head twisted round. He smiled apologetically.

‘Can’t get out of the habit,’ he said. ‘Up in the air that meant some fella was sitting on your tail. Bloody awful sensation. You knew he was there all right, but you couldn’t help looking over your shoulder.’

‘Sounds as if they’re shooting in Luckett’s Spinney. I know this part of the country well. Used to stay every autumn with my aunt when I was a boy. Do you do any shooting down here?’