Читать книгу Fires Burn Blue - Andrew Caldecott - Страница 4

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1

Moonlight, and curtains not back yet from the cleaners! That was why Tom Cromley was still awake at one o'clock of this cold November night; and how he was able to see his wife, Kathleen, rise suddenly in her bed and sit rigidly upright. Tired, and in no mood for conversation, he continued to lie still and pretended sleep. He watched her nevertheless until, again suddenly, she thrust an arm across the narrow space between their beds and clutched his eiderdown. It slipped across him and a corner of it brushed his face.

'Hullo, Kitty, what's up?' he asked in cross surprise.

'Hush, Tom! Can't you hear it?'

'Hear what?'

'That moaning, groaning noise. Listen—there!'

'Oh that? Why, it's only the hot-water pipes. They're bound to grunt and growl a bit at first. We started the stove going only a few hours ago, and there are probably air locks. One can't expect perfection on a trial run. All the same, the radiators are piping hot; which is the main thing. You did a fine stroke of business, Kitty, in getting the stove so cheap; and this house too. We couldn't have found a nicer one at double the price. Now lie down and go to sleep again, darling, and don't keep your ears waiting for noises, or you'll begin imagining them.'

'I'll try, Tom, and I'm so thankful you like our new home. It has been great fun, really, getting it all fixed up; but I wish—' The sentence was left unfinished, and merged into a little sigh.

'You wish what? Look here, Kitty, I hope you're not worrying about all that rubbishy talk of Aubrey Roddeck's.'

'No, not exactly; but I wish I'd never listened to him. There! I've taken another of my tablets, and ought to get to sleep quickly. You'd better do the same, darling. Thank Heaven, that horrid noise has stopped.'

Cromley did not like his wife's taking sleeping tablets; especially as she had no idea what they contained, and had been given them not by a doctor but by her artist friend, Miss Bevisham. What could be the cause of her insomnia? She had no physical weakness, he was sure, being of a strong athletic type and able to give him points at golf or tennis. Her nerve, too, was good at both games; even in matches and tournaments. Nor had she been nervy in other things until quite lately. On the contrary, lawyers and brokers, employed by her in the management of her inheritance from a godfather-uncle, had spoken to him of her business grip and quick brain. Of the rightness of their judgment he himself found proof in her running of household affairs; he had in fact added garage and garden to her domestic domain after his discovery that she could get much more out of the two men than he, and they less out of her than of him. He thus had nothing now to interfere with his work, which (as that of a regular writer for a leading daily, two weeklies and several monthlies) had become voluminous and exacting.

He was just as deeply in love with Kathleen as when he married her six years ago; and to the bonds of affection had been added those of gratitude. One grievous disappointment they equally shared. They had no children. Was it brooding over this, perhaps, that made Kathleen nervy and sleepless? The thought so worried him that he began fidgeting with quilt and pillows; but a moment later, as though symbolising the lifting of a load from his mind, he extracted his now lukewarm hot-water bottle from between the sheets and laid it on the bedside table. No: it definitely couldn't be that; for her insomnia had started suddenly, and he could put a date to it. It was the night following Roddeck's visit.

He cursed himself now for ever having asked Aubrey to stay with them. One might have guessed from his novels that he would introduce unusual, if not sinister, topics of conversation. But what was it that Aubrey had actually said? Kitty, he remembered, had been boasting about the bargain she had struck in getting house and land for five thousand five hundred. 'Cheap,' she had said, 'and the opposite of nasty.' It was then that Aubrey butted in with 'cheapness is never without cause: the vendor must have had good reason to get it off his hands.' 'What on earth do you mean,' Kitty had challenged, 'the place isn't haunted, you know, or anything of that sort.' 'Not haunted perhaps, but waiting', were, Cromley remembered quite clearly, the exact words of Aubrey's reply; but of the explanation that followed his recollection was less distinct. He must make an effort therefore to reconstruct it if, as he felt sure, it had been the root cause of Kathleen's trouble.

At this point he slipped out of bed, and crept silently on tiptoe to see whether she was yet asleep. Yes—and peacefully. Reassured, he climbed back again and braced himself for an inquisition of his memory. Present perception, Aubrey had said, is a sense-stream trickling between the sludge of the past and the sands of the future; ever eating away the latter and depositing it on the former. On this stream fall many reflections, sometimes of things upon its alluvial bank and sometimes, though less often, of things that loom upon the other. Most often of all, the rippling of the stream over pebbles and shells prevents its reflecting anything. Of Roddeck's explanation of this simile Cromley found it impossible to recollect anything intelligible, except that Aubrey had gone on to claim for himself an ability to sense in the atmosphere of a house (such was his jargon) reflections of its past, in which case he classified it as 'haunted', or of its future, in which case he categorised it as 'waiting'. He himself, he had concluded, would prefer the former sort of house to the latter.

Kathleen, Tom remembered with a grin, had paid Aubrey back in his own coin by asking him whether he did not feel that her house might be waiting for his early departure. They had all three laughed at this retort, but rather a stagy sort of laugh; and the thought of play-acting reminded Tom that Roddeck had said that 'waiting' houses always gave him the feeling of an empty scene on the stage before the entrance of actors.

'Damn Aubrey,' muttered Cromley; 'that's three o'clock striking, and not a wink of sleep so far. I must get all this business off my mind till the morning: so now for counting sheep.'

Sleep did come to him at last; but with a foolish dream, in which he and his wife were paddling in a little stream between two banks. He was picking from it little stones and shells, while Kathleen looked as though she were trying to skim off from its surface some dark reflections from either bank.

2

Mrs Cromley's insomnia grew no better. Her pride in Thurbourne Manor was unabated; but her enjoyment of it marred by recurrent fits of depression. For the first time in their married life Tom found her not always quite sure of herself. Until now she had been in the habit of looking through the advertisement columns of newspapers in search of bargains. That was how she had picked up the central-heating stove so cheaply. A notice in the Stokehampton Mercury had invited offers for it to be sent to a post-box number; and their surprise had been great when a small lorry drove up the back drive three days later, with the stove aboard, and its owner prepared to deliver it on payment of the modest sum she had offered. Tom, with previous experience of such stoves (it was a No. 3 Keepalite), had inspected and approved; and the stove was fixed up for them next day by old Fennings, a retired plumber, in place of the old-fashioned and worn-out fuel-eater that they had found in the house.

In her present changed mood Mrs Cromley was no longer on the look-out for bargains, and even began to consult her husband before placing the most ordinary orders for household goods on well-established firms. She would also examine such purchases on delivery with a strange air of suspicion. One day, for instance, he found her gazing intently at a new meat-saw, which she had unwrapped on the hall table.

'I suppose,' she said, avoiding his glance of inquiry, 'that surgeons have to use something of this sort?'

'For amputations, yes: but I've never been in an operating theatre, nor want to for that matter.'

'No; it's a horrid-looking thing; but cook insisted on our having one, though I can't imagine what she wants it for. I always order small joints. I shall hide it in the tool cupboard.'

'Very well, but it may be wanted if Sir Matthew sends us venison again next year.'

'I detest venison,' Mrs Cromley muttered crossly, very far from her usual self.

Little outbursts of this kind were becoming of daily occurrence; so much so that her husband began to think of seeking medical advice. They and her insomnia must be interconnected; but which was cause and which effect? Or were both the result of some third trouble? It would be interesting to see what, if any, effect Christmas with the Bridleys at Hartlingsea would have on her condition. He would not, Tom decided, consult any doctors until the new year.

Sir Matthew and Lady Bridley were excellent as host and hostess and the house party was convivial. In such surroundings Mrs Cromley soon regained sleep and normality. But on return to Thurbourne the former symptoms began to reappear, and her husband's work to suffer from his anxiety. Then, in mid January, she went down with influenza; but to his surprise and relief physical illness seemed to improve rather than aggravate her mental malaise. It was not until she was convalescing that fits of irritability and depression again set in. A possible clue to their causation was soon to be furnished by a trivial accident.

Although she was no longer in bed, the doctor would still not allow her downstairs. As he sat with her in the bedroom one evening she asked Tom to bring up her writing portfolio from the library, and on the way back there fell from it a thin notebook. He had unconsciously swung it against the banisters. Stooping to pick the book up he noticed, on the page at which it had fallen open, a newspaper cutting. The headline was 'WILL MURDER OUT?' Hurriedly putting the book back in the portfolio Cromley decided to take an early opportunity of a further look at it; for why had his wife taken and kept a cutting of that sort?

He had not to wait long. The same evening, after supper, Kathleen asked him to read aloud to her; and he had not droned more than three or four pages before he saw that she was asleep. That was good, for she had slept little the night before. He soon had the notebook out of the portfolio, and looked first for the newspaper cutting. It was not too long for reproduction here.

WILL MURDER OUT?

It is credibly reported that the incoming tenant of a house in this vicinity has found in his vegetable plot certain remains; which may afford some explanation of the sudden departure, without address given, of his predecessor; also perhaps of the previous disappearance of the latter's housekeeper. Complaints made by neighbours of disagreeable odours from a stove chimney may or may not prove to be of relevance to police investigations now understood to be in hand.

The name of the newspaper was not on the cutting, but the greenish paper and the wording of the report were suggestive beyond doubt of the Stokehampton Mercury. Ever since its proprietor, old Mr Catchwater, had been mulcted in heavy damages for an article about hauntings at Tresswell Court, the editor had been under strict orders not to insert any local news that could be represented as likely to cause depreciation of the value of any specified premises or property. But fancy printing such stuff; and fancy (Cromley frowned at the thought) cutting it out and pasting it in a notebook!

Puzzled and discomfited he turned to the other pages. Many were blank; others contained addresses, recipes, prescriptions, names of books, new stitches for knitting, a list of insecticides for the garden, and so on, uninterestingly, to the last page. At the top of this was written 'Quotations' and the entries, only two, were in manuscript. The first was from the Bible:

Until a time and times and the dividing of time. Dan. vii, 25.

Under this was a note in pencil: 'But see Revised Version and Rev. xii, 14.' Odd, thought Cromley, for his wife was no Bible reader. The second quotation was from Aubrey Roddeck's last published novel, Arrival Platform, and ran as follows:

We are prisoners set to quarry in a crevice between the cliff-face of the future and the slag-heap of the past. At any moment either may cave in and fall on us.

Having put the notebook into the portfolio Cromley lit a cigarette and sat down to think things out. His wife slept on.

3

Tom Cromley's meeting next day with Colonel Honeywood, the Chief Constable, in the Stokehampton Club was not, so far as the former was concerned, accidental. He knew the Colonel to be in the habit of lunching there on Tuesdays, and this was not the first time that they had sat down together at the same table. They had been contemporaries at Winchingham and Oxbridge.

'Anything behind that rubbish in the Mercury, some weeks ago, about human remains being found in somebody's garden, Colonel?'

'More than I like, I'm afraid; bits of a body buried in the fowl run, and the rest of it, probably, burnt in a stove. The Mercury made a boss shot about the housekeeper, though. She left to take up another job, and is alive and kicking somewhere near Penchester.'

'Any clue yet as to murderer or victim?'

'No, but one or two pointers. We're pretty sure now that no killing was done down our way; only disposal of a body, and not necessarily a murdered one. That's all I can say at present.'

'What sort of stove was it?' asked Cromley; aware, as he put the question, of its oddity.

The Colonel slowly helped himself to salt and mustard before reply. 'I rather think, Cromley,' he said, 'that I know the real question at the back of your mind; and it may save you further beating about the bush if I answer it at once. The new tenant of the house, when reporting the unpleasant find in his garden, asked whether we had any objection to his removing the stove forthwith. He didn't fancy its associations. We agreed; on condition that he gave us details of its disposal for our future reference, should need arise. He advertised it in the Mercury; and, as I believe you to have already guessed, the purchaser was Mrs Cromley. Well, you've got a first-rate stove, but I wouldn't let your wife get any inkling of its past history, if I were you: women are so imaginative. I've a Keepalite No. 3 myself, by the way, and wouldn't mind feeding it with little bits off more than one person I could name!'

This little joke, as the Colonel intended, enabled them to drop the subject with a feeble laugh; and their talk shifted to vagaries of the weather and prophecies about the coming bye-election.

On the drive home Cromley decided that he must tell Kathleen of his verification of what, he was sure, had been her suspicions. He knew now why she had been so upset by moanings and fizzlings in the hot-water pipes. His sharing with her the facts about the stove would, he told himself, reassure her. What a pity she had kept her suspicion to herself! Or would he, perhaps, if she had told him, have merely exhorted her to put foolish fancies out of her pretty head? Anyhow, it was for him to do the telling now. Better wait though, he reflected, till she was quite recovered from the 'flu. In the meantime he would drop a line to Roddeck and warn him not to make trouble for his friends in future by his insane mystifications. Back, therefore, at Thurbourne he went to his desk and wrote as follows.

MY DEAR AUBREY

I feel it right to let you know that ever since your stay with us Kathleen has suffered considerably from nerve trouble. Some of your quaint theories and metaphors about the past, present and future have stuck in her mind and made it most uneasy. I know you well enough to be sure that you would be the last man wittingly to cause anxiety to a lady friend and that is why I write this letter. You have probably never had cause to consider the effect of your fantasies (is this the right word?) on an unsophisticated mind. Even such a remark as yours about cheapness never being without cause may lead to sinister speculation. Indeed, to be quite frank, I do not think that my wife has been quite happy about this house since you said that to her. I am sorry to have to write this but, as I said at the beginning of this letter, I feel in conscience bound to let you know. With all good wishes.

Yours ever,

Tom

The letter was posted that evening.

4

The scene now is Lestwick House, in Northshire, where Aubrey Roddeck was staying the night with Lord Henry Hoverly. Lady Henry being on a visit to friends in Ireland, the two men sat alone in the library after dinner. They were second cousins, Aubrey's mother having been a Crimley-Hoverly; but their acquaintance had arisen not out of their family connection but from Lord Henry's partnership in the firm which published Roddeck's novels.

'I don't much care,' Lord Henry was saying, 'for modern tendencies in art, literature or music. There seems to be in all three a spirit of revolt from rhyme or reason, a sort of constitutionalising of anarchy. I noticed in last week's Cosmos that even that sane chap Cromley is catching the infection. By the way, do you remember telling me that his wife had bought Thurbourne Manor, the house that I've always had an eye on? It used once to belong to the Hoverly family; in Stuart times I think.'

'I remember your saying that you'd give me a thousand guineas if I could induce her to sell it to you.'

'Not guineas, Aubrey, pounds.'

'Well, make it guineas and I believe that I could do the trick for you.'

'We'll make it guineas then; but no tricks, mind you. You said before that nothing would induce her to part with it, but I'd willingly give ten thousand; a good deal more than it would fetch in the market.'

'Not inclusive of my commission of a thousand guineas, I hope?'

'No, that would be by way of charity to an indigent cousin or undeserving author. But seriously, Aubrey, you seem to possess unusual powers of persuasion. You got that house at Badwood for the Frannocks, and the old churchyard cottage at Mistlebury for—I've forgotten whom. How do you manage to do it?'

'Oh! I just put wanted houses on my waiting list; throw out a hint or two perhaps, if occasion offers, and bide my time. For instance, when I stayed at Thurbourne, Mrs Cromley struck me as not finding the house as comfortable as she had expected; and I expressed a sympathetic understanding of her disappointment. To my mind the Cromleys and Thurbourne Manor somehow just don't fit; and the thought occurred to me that the next time I stayed there it might be as guest of a noble cousin and with a thousand guineas in my pocket!'

'Well, you seem to make money easily,' grunted Lord Henry, 'and to my taste rather nastily. You haven't, I suppose, got your eye on this place for anybody, should I get Thurbourne?'

'No, my bent is to get houses at the lowest possible price; and I can't see you parting with Lestwick for a song, unless—'

'Unless what?'

'Oh, nothing! I was stupidly thinking of somewhere else. Sorry. By the way, I notice that you've had the archway into the old north wing built up. Hardly an architectural improvement is it?'

'No, but my wife was always complaining of draughts.'

One feels them quite unaccountably in old buildings, doesn't one? You'll both be more comfortable at Thurbourne, if only I can induce the Cromleys to sell.'

It would be an hour nearer to London, that's its main attraction for me. But look here, Aubrey, don't you go spreading it abroad that this house is draughty.'

'Ah! Lady Henry imagined it, did she? That's another drawback to old houses. People begin imagining things, especially women when they're left alone.'

Lord Henry was plainly annoyed by the turn which their conversation had taken. 'I wish, Aubrey,' he said, 'that you wouldn't talk like a character in your books. I know nothing about people's imaginations, and have no truck with spooks or anything of that sort.'

'But I said nothing about spooks.'

'No, but I could see that you were leading up to it. Well, I'm off to bed. Switch the light off on the landing, will you, when you come up.'

'Certainly, and it won't be long before I turn in too. I've only got one letter to write. Good night.'

Roddeck's one letter ran as follows:

MY DEAR TOM

Thank you so much for writing to me about poor Kathleen's neurosis. There is certainly no call for any but plain words between old friends. I should feel happier about her than I do if I could share your belief that my idle talk had any causal connection with what you report. I am however certain that her trouble had begun before my short stay with you. As you know I am critically observant of people's psychology. The modern novelist has to be. Very soon after my arrival at Thurbourne her too enthusiastic references to the bargain which she had made in her purchase of the house indicated to me beyond doubt her actual disappointment in, even dislike of, it. This however did not surprise me because nature has endowed me with the faculty of sensing the past and future associations of a building, an unpleasant sort of intuition that I would much rather not possess. On stepping inside your hall I was at once affected by a presentiment of not far distant tragedy. I hate writing this, but as you have been frank with me I must be equally so with you. Should you and your wife (as I much hope may be the case, in your own interest) think of moving elsewhere I believe that I could prevail on my host here, Lord Henry Hoverly, to offer almost twice as much for Thurbourne Manor as she gave for it. It used, as you probably know, to belong to the Hoverly family and a return to ancestral proprietorship might perhaps mitigate, if not dispel, the ominous atmosphere that I so vividly sensed. Be that as it may I shall not of course breathe a word to Lord Henry about my apprehensions. Caveat emptor! Yours ever, AUBREY

Having inscribed, stamped and sealed the envelope Roddeck looked at the clock as it struck eleven, smiled, and murmured purringly to himself 'a thousand guineas!' And so to bed.

5

'Why of course, darling, we'll sell at that price,' Mrs Cromley exclaimed, 'and there's no need to bother about replacing the stove. It seems quite providential, doesn't it, for we can now store the furniture and make our promised visit to your brother in New Zealand. It'll do your writing good to have a change of scene, and you can send your stuff to the papers by this new air mail. So that's that.'

That was that. Tom, overjoyed at his wife's recovery, fell in at once with her eager plans; and the lawyers were instructed to put through the transfer of Thurbourne Manor to Lord Henry Hoverly for a consideration of ten thousand pounds. By midsummer the ownership had passed to him.

Aubrey Roddeck saw the Cromleys off by the boat train from London. He rather overplayed, Tom thought, the rôle of benefactor; but of course they had good reason to be grateful to him. The voyage out was entirely enjoyable; calm seas, a pleasant lot of fellow passengers, and a well-found and well-run ship. At the journey's end they found New Zealand so much to their liking that they accepted the invitation of Tom's brother to stay over Christmas.

It was two mornings or so after Christmas that their host tossed a newspaper across the breakfast table with the words 'Column five on the second page will interest you both.' It was a telegram from a London Correspondent, reporting the death of the novelist Aubrey Roddeck. He was spending Christmas, they read, with Lord Henry Hoverly at Thurbourne Manor, when a fire broke out in the furnace room as a result of logs and firewood being stacked too near the stove. Mr Roddeck, who was sleeping in the room above, jumped from its window in ignorance, presumably, of there being a paved terrace between house and lawn. The Stokehampton Fire Brigade got the fire under quickly and prevented its spreading to the rest of the mansion. Had only Mr Roddeck preserved presence of mind, he could have made his escape by a door leading into a back passage. But, it was surmised, he was too stupefied by the fumes.

Mrs Cromley sat staring out of the window. Then, turning to her husband, 'Poor Aubrey!' she said, 'So his premonition was true. He must have felt the walls about to cave in on him!'