Читать книгу Mystery at the Rectory - A. Fielding - Страница 5

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NEXT morning, Friday, the rector was in his study before breakfast. The waiting that he had imposed on himself was a strain. It did not seem fair to Olive either. She and Doris were making plans for the wedding—Grace had very sensibly gone away for the time being to stay with a friend who lived nearby, but who was tied to her room as the result of a car accident. She would come back on the Monday when, the rector had told her, he and she could thrash out what had best be done.

Doris had taken it for granted that Olive was no longer a companion, but was merely staying on at the rectory as a guest. This put the rector in a most uncomfortable position. But he could not alter it at the moment.

He pulled some papers towards himself, and took up his pen. He was busy bringing out a Life of Saint Paul. In another moment the machine began to work, the wheels to turn, the wings to lift, and then he was up and away; far away from the problems of ordinary life. In short, he was that enviable thing a writer in full swing.

Fraser, the butler, came into the study, and stood in the door which led into the library. The two rooms opened out of each other.

"Major Weir-Opie to see you, sir."

Major Weir-Opie was the Chief Constable of the county. He and the rector were old friends.

"Put them on the writing table," murmured Avery without looking up, "and I hope they're riper than the last lot."

"It's not fresh apples, sir, it's Major Weir-Opie to see you, and I've shown him into the study."

Avery came to earth. Rising, he went into the next room and greeted a short, thick-set, straight-backed, man warmly. Weir-Opie had a red face with keen eyes, and a business-like expression.

"I've called on very tragic business," he said at once, "but I wanted to let you know immediately, and I hoped to find you alone. Anthony Revell has just been found shot dead at The Causeway. Apparently he had an accident with his revolver. It was lying under his fingers."

Mr. Avery was profoundly shocked.

"But I thought—we thought—that he was away in Derbyshire."

Weir-Opie agreed. "We thought so too. We had entered the name of The Causeway on the list of houses on which to keep an eye during the owner's absence. Well, he evidently returned late last night.

"One of our constables patrolled all round the house at ten last night and it was shut up then, he says. Yet a milkman, who called there at half-past seven this morning for some bottles that the cook had promised to put out when she left, and which he hadn't had time to fetch before, saw that one of the ground floor windows was standing wide open. He went to the back, to ask if he should leave any milk, and got no reply. He tapped on the open window and got none either. Meeting P.C. Marsh a little later, he spoke about it to him. The constable went to investigate, and found Revell's sports car in the garage, and his dead body stretched out in the drawing-room."

Avery was astounded. Why had Revell returned home without a word to any one, or had it been without a word?

The other continued:

"He lay in the drawing-room beside a table on which was a box of cartridges. Close to one hand was the revolver, beside the other a cleaning cloth. He must have been cleaning the revolver and possibly caught the cloth in it. The shot went through his temple—the right temple. Death must have been instantaneous. Absolutely."

"What a dreadful affair," Avery repeated slowly, "does Lady Revell know yet?"

"She heard of it with fortitude," Weir-Opie said rather dryly. "I went there before coming here. Gilbert is now the heir, I suppose, and he has always been his mother's idol."

"What about that lady artist—Mrs. Green, though I understood that she wouldn't be at The Causeway any more."

"Nothing to keep her there, you mean?" Weir-Opie asked in the same tone. "No, she was with Lady Revell. Returned Monday evening, it seems. Gilbert spoke of fetching her to hear the news. Lady Revell sensibly shut him up. She says she has no idea why Anthony was at The Causeway. We think that he came back for something forgotten, heard some one prowling around; we've had a good few housebreaking jobs lately that we can't account for—opened his drawing-room window so as to hear or see better—got out his revolver, he bought one some months ago for just that purpose, and then as nothing happened and time began to drag, he began to tinker with his revolver—was careless and killed himself. The doctor thinks he must have shot himself around about one o'clock."

The telephone rang beside them.

"That'll probably be for me. I told my men I should come in here next."

It was for Weir-Opie, who listened, murmured "Good!" and hung up.

"We've got into touch with the couple with whom Revell was climbing. They say that he told them early yesterday morning that he must go back to London to see his dentist about an aching tooth. He drove off around nine. That accounts for his being able to drop in at his home last night. He evidently came on here after having had his teeth attended to, to fetch something he wanted while away. Now to the next step, Padre. Lady Revell told me that she had just had a letter from Anthony—she's been away till Tuesday and so didn't see him when he left—saying that he was engaged to a Miss Olive Hill, who, she tells me, is Miss Avery's companion, and that she was on the point of coming over to see Miss Hill and get up a dinner-party for her, when I brought her the news of this. That's why I came on at once from The Flagstaff to you. It's a terrible thing to have happened. Is the young lady in?"

The words were a fresh shock. Avery had forgotten Olive for the moment. What an appalling piece of news for her. Whatever her faults, what a dreadful blow!

Avery rose and with a word of excuse went up to Doris's sitting-room. Some one was on a couch, her head buried in the cushions. As he stood a moment he heard a sound as of an animal in agony. It was too late to withdraw. Doris, for it was she, had sensed a presence in the room. She sat up with a jerk.

"I locked my door," she began in a harsh sort of whisper.

"My dear Doris!" came from the doorway. It was Grace just entering. "I had no idea that you cared for poor Anthony like this—"

"Anthony?" came from Doris in a sort of screech. "Who cares about Anthony It's Richard!" There was no mistaking the lack of affection in the one case, the agony in the second.

"But what's happened?" Grace was aghast as Doris staggered to her feet.

"I've had no letter, and I told him I should count the days," Doris said wildly.

"But there was a letter for you that came yesterday. I sent Olive to you with it at once. She wanted to ask you about some dress or other." Grace was speaking to Doris.

"She didn't give it to me. I haven't had a line for ages—I thought—I thought—" Without finishing, Doris, with a travesty of her usual grace, fairly swept the two from her room under the plea of a frightful headache.

Grace stepped into her own.

"She's been worrying lately. Something that Violet-May Witson said started it, I think," Grace whispered.

Lady Witson was a dreadful gossip as they both knew. And one of her brothers was a fellow Commissioner out in West Africa.

"But what does she mean about not having had Dick's last letter? As I met Olive running down with some patterns that Doris had promised to help her with yesterday, I handed her the letter. She went on straight into the room, I'm sure."

"Well, we can't ask about it now," remarked the rector.

Grace nodded and gave him a meaning look. "No need to worry about telling poor Anthony now, and you would have had to tell him—"

"How did you know that something had happened to him?" he asked.

"The milkman, of course! He told cook. Cook told Margery who brings in my tea. Well, I wanted the engagement broken off, as you know, but hardly like this I can't understand it! Poor Anthony!"

She stopped as Doris, looking herself again, came in.

"Where's Olive?" she asked. "I want that letter from Dick that you gave her, Grace."

"And John wants to break some bad news to her."

"Bad news? Is Anthony ill? Was that what you meant just now? I'm afraid I was too wrapped up about Dick to care what had happened to any one else." She was facing the rector.

"It'll be a shock to you too, though," he said now. "Revell is dead, Doris."

She stared at him open-mouthed.

"It seems that he has accidentally shot himself," he explained. "Weir-Opie has just told me. He thinks Anthony was cleaning his revolver and did something awkward—a bullet went through his temple."

"How awful!" breathed Doris. "What will that poor girl do? What a dreadful thing for her!"

"I want to tell her at once. Weir-Opie wonders if she knew that Anthony was back last night."

"Back? But he's away rock-climbing surely. How could he be back! You don't mean—" her tone grew more shocked still "—that it happened at The Causeway?"

He nodded gravely. "In the drawing-room there. I don't know more myself."

"I'll find her," Doris volunteered. "And I'll let the letter stand over for the time being."

For a moment the rector wished that he could also let her break the news to Olive. But with all her attractiveness, Doris was not a religious woman at all. And in moments such as this, the only consolation was that which religion had to offer. It might, probably would, fail, but there was no other.

The two women left him, and a minute later Olive came in, looking very confident and smiling.

Avery stepped forward and took her hand.

"My dear girl," he said in a very kind voice, for after all she was engaged to the dead boy. After all a smile and a pat, or even a jarring laugh might mean little. "Prepare yourself for bad news. Very bad news. Sit down here—" and then he told her just what the Chief Constable had told him. It seemed to turn her to stone. Before her pallid silence Avery was at a loss, for it had some unexpected quality in it that he felt, but could not name. Of personal grief, as he expected to meet it, there was practically none.

Had she not loved Anthony then? Had she only accepted him as what he was, in one sense, a marvellous stroke of luck? The rector had had his doubts on that score since yesterday, but he had told himself that it was not fair to probe too deeply into her motives.

"Major Weir-Opie wonders whether you would let him ask you a few questions," he went on.

She made for the door without a word. The Major turned at her entry with some apprehension. But a glance at her tearless face relieved him. He looked at her with secret curiosity. Anthony Revell was a young man who could have married any one, and he had chosen this girl, Olive Hill, a companion here at the rectory. True, Anthony Revell had always seemed quite unconscious of his position as fortune's favourite, a country life and books had always seemed to attract him more than the smart world, but even so, he was a prize in the matrimonial market, and this white-faced girl had won it. She was, he saw, quite pretty, but still—and then she raised her eyes.

"Anything's possible with those eyes," he thought, meeting them full on. They were so intelligent. They seemed to be asking something of him...or trying to suggest something to him...The Major felt touched. He expressed his sincere sympathy with her in her great loss. Then he asked if she knew about Revell's return to his house some time last night after ten o'clock?

She said that she only knew what the others knew, that Anthony was joining a friend and his sister rock-climbing, as the three had arranged months before. Anthony's engagement to her was to be publicly announced on his return. The delay in doing this was her wish.

"Now, Miss Hill," the Chief Constable went on, "had he any valuables in the house? Anything that would especially attract thieves?"

"He had lots of cups," she said, after a long silence.

He cocked his head to one side. Cups nowadays, with silver at the price it was—not much temptation, besides Major Weir-Opie had an idea that Revell sent his silver to the bank when he left his house for any length of time, and he was leaving for a fortnight, wasn't he?

Except for the cups, Olive seemed to have no suggestion to make.

"You're wearing no ring," he went on a little anxiously. Tears must be near, he did not want to start the flood. "I wondered whether by any chance he would have the ring he meant to give you at the house? Would that be possible?"

She said that she did not think it likely. He intended to bring her the ring on his return. A London firm was setting it.

And then, since she could not apparently help him with any information, Major Weir-Opie left. Olive, palely composed, held out a hand which he found icy to the touch. She turned at once and went up to her room, locking herself in.

Weir-Opie hurried away.

The rector walked up and down his study. No need now to raise the question of Grace's terrible accusation. No need for him to prevent the marriage now. He felt the sincerest pity for Olive, and yet she baffled him.

He had his car sent round; he must call at once on Lady Revell. But when nearly at the flagstaff he had his man take the turning to The Causeway, where the tragedy had happened. The house, a large one, lay isolated but for one cottage on the winding road, the cottage where lived the unsatisfactory Captain Byrd, or Mr. Byrd as he preferred to be called.

The door of The Causeway was standing open. A policeman rose from his chair in the hall and saluted as the rector stepped in. Jamieson, the young butler whom Byrd had got Anthony to try, and who was doing well, came forward, his face working.

"They sent word," he explained. "I came up at once, sir—not that I can do anything now—but at least I'm here."

"The other servants?"

"No need for them to come back, the Major says, till the inquest to-morrow, sir."

The rector stepped into the room, the drawing-room which had been turned by Jamieson and the gardeners into a sort of chapel. It had a raised part at one end and there, on a draped bed, lay a long, motionless figure covered with a beautiful Chinese rug.

The rector spent a quarter of an hour beside the dead boy, then he let himself out and continued along the road to The Flagstaff. This was a big house which stood behind high walls. It had, unlike the homely Causeway, regular entrance gates, and a lodge beside them. There was quite a sweep up to the front door, of a size that suggested that nothing under a Rolls or a Bentley could ever stop here. There were footmen. There was a butler. There was a general air of exalting the fussiness of life, that had always amused the rector, for the Admiral had considered anything less than a dozen servants as squalor. Small wonder that Gilbert lent a discreet ear—when his mother was out of the way—to some of Byrd's stinging words, Byrd whose theory was that no man should serve another, except the latter were a cripple or over the age of ninety. Anthony, with the excuse of attachment to his grandfather, had early escaped to The Causeway, where life was more to his liking.

Lady Revell, dressed in pale blue, rose to receive the rector. She flung her cigarette into the fire and motioned him to a seat beside her. Her face wore its usual thick coating of white, on which level black eyebrows were beautifully drawn above her eyes, which were small and close-set.

She had strange eyes, had Lady Revell. Green as the sea, and of an infinite melancholy unless she were laughing, when they could glitter like cut glass.

"I was just thinking, as you came in, Mr. Avery," she said in her rich deep voice, a voice with an enormous amount of verve and 'go' in it, "that one doesn't trust Providence half enough."

The rector was surprised. Piety had not been a quality which he had ever found in Lady Revell.

"I've been a pig to Anthony," she continued in a remorseful tone, "because Gilbert was so obviously better fitted to have all that money that it made me wild. And, after all, in the end, its Gilbert, and not Anthony, who is to have it."

She had been a pig indeed. The rector knew how the elder boy had felt the frost that seemed to grow harder and more severe with each year after Gilbert was born. Lady Revell might well feel remorse now. She had acted as though she hated Anthony because his grandfather had left him his vast fortune. But for the genuine sweetness of Anthony's nature she might have ruined his temper. As it was, she had saddened the lad. Still, it was something to find that the mother had come again to the surface, the mother who used to be so fond of little Anthony, before Gilbert came to sweep all her affection up to himself.

They talked a while of the death. Lady Revell asked warmly about Olive, and, just as Anthony had thought, did not seem opposed to the match. "She might have steadied him," she said finally, "and he needed steadying. His looks were too much for most women. I know of two at least around here who would have gone any length."

"Mrs. Green for one," murmured Gilbert, who had just come in. "The silly woman was really off her chump about him."

"Mrs. Green for one," agreed Lady Revell. "But scandal bores the rector;" and they talked of the dreadful accident instead.

Gilbert was only eighteen years old, and though to the rector, as to his father and grandfather, he had none of the charm of Anthony, Anthony the sunny who never lost his temper, never complained, never blamed others, Gilbert was not without his friends. Spoiled he was, but he had unexpected grit in him which had refused to let his mother turn him into a pet. He had insisted on going to Rugby, and that breezy and robust school had liked him, while Anthony was a true son of Eton. The two brothers had been fond of each other, which spoke well for both. And now all that had been meant for the one would go to the other, with probably a good slice for Lady Revell. She was Irish, a sailor's daughter, and had no settlements, the rector knew, and from certain signs at The Flagstaff he was sure that she was hard pressed for money lately. The Admiral had had no idea of retrenchment, and there were hair-raising tales told of the extravagance that still went on in the servants' hall.

The rector drove away feeling that his dislike of Lady Revell had been mistaken, that in spite of her biting tongue to Anthony, she had really loved her first-born.