Читать книгу The Five Red Herrings - Dorothy L. Sayers - Страница 7

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STRACHAN

Strachan lived in a pleasant, middle-sized house handily situated for him a little way out of Gatehouse on the road that goes up to the golf-course. The neat maid who came to the door smiled kindly upon the visitor and said that the master was at home and would his lordship please step in.

His lordship stepped accordingly into the sitting-room, where he found Mrs. Strachan seated by the window instructing her small daughter Myra in the art of plain knitting.

Wimsey apologised for calling just before dinner, and explained that he wanted to fix up with Strachan about a foursome.

"Well, I don't quite know," said Mrs. Strachan, a trifle doubtfully. "I don't think Harry is likely to be playing for a day or two. He's had rather a tiresome--oh, well! I really don't know. Myra, dear, run and tell Daddy Lord Peter Wimsey is here and wants to talk to him. You know, I never like to make any sort of arrangements for Harry--I always manage to put my foot in it."

She giggled--she was rather a giggly woman at the best of times. Nervousness, Wimsey supposed. Strachan had an abrupt manner which tended to make people nervous, and Wimsey more than suspected him of being a bit of a domestic tyrant.

He said something vague about not wanting to be a nuisance.

"Of course not," said Mrs. Strachan, keeping an uneasy eye on the door, "how could you be a nuisance? We're always so delighted to see you. And what have you been doing with yourself this beautiful day?"

"I've been up to the Minnoch to see the body," said Wimsey, cheerfully.

"The body?" cried Mrs. Strachan, with a little squeal. "How dreadful that sounds! What do you mean? A salmon, or something?"

"No, no," said Wimsey. "Campbell--Sandy Campbell--haven't you heard?"

"No, what?" Mrs. Strachan opened her large baby-blue eyes very wide indeed. "Has anything happened to Mr. Campbell?"

"Good Lord," said Wimsey, "I thought everybody knew. He's dead. He tumbled into the Minnoch and got killed."

Mrs. Strachan gave a shrill shriek of horror.

"Killed? How perfectly dreadful! Was he drowned?"

"I don't quite know," said Wimsey. "I think he bashed his head in, but he may have been drowned as well."

Mrs. Strachan shrieked again.

"When did it happen?"

"Well," said Wimsey, cautiously, "they found him about lunch-time."

"Good gracious! And we never knew anything about it. Oh, Harry"--as the door opened--"what do you think? Lord Peter says poor Mr. Campbell has been killed up at the Minnoch!"

"Killed?" said Strachan. "What do you mean, Milly? Who killed him?"

Mrs. Strachan shrieked a third time, more loudly.

"Of course I don't mean that, Harry. How absurd and how horrible! He fell down and cut his head open and got drowned."

Strachan came forward rather slowly and greeted Wimsey with a nod.

"What's all this about, Wimsey?"

"It's perfectly true," said Wimsey. "They found Campbell's dead body in the Minnoch at 2 o'clock. Apparently he had been painting and slipped over the edge of the granite and cracked his skull on the stones."

He spoke a little absently. It was surely not his fancy that his host looked exceedingly pale and upset, and now, as Strachan turned his face round into the full light of the window, it was obvious that he was suffering from a black eye--a very handsome and well-developed black eye, rich in colour and full in contour.

"Oh!" said Strachan. "Well, I'm not surprised, you know. That's a very dangerous spot. I told him so on Sunday, and he called me a fool for my pains."

"Why, was he up there on Sunday?" said Wimsey.

"Yes, making a sketch or something. You remember, Milly, just on the other side of the burn from where we were picnicking."

"Goodness!" exclaimed Mrs. Strachan, "was that the place? Oo! how perfectly horrid! I'll never go there again, never. You may say what you like. Wild horses wouldn't drag me."

"Don't be ridiculous, Milly. Of course you needn't go there if you don't want to."

"I should always be afraid of Myra falling in and being killed," said Mrs. Strachan.

"Very well, then," said her husband, impatiently. "Don't go there. That settles that. How did all this happen, Wimsey?"

Lord Peter told the story again, with such detail as he thought desirable.

"That's exactly like Campbell," said Strachan. "He walks about--that is, he used to walk about--with his eyes on his canvas and his head in the air, never looking in the least where he was going. I shouted out to him on Sunday to be careful--he couldn't hear what I said, or pretended he couldn't, and I actually took the trouble to fag round to the other side of the stream and warn him what a slippery place it was. However, he was merely rude to me, so I left it at that. Well, he's done it once too often, that's all."

"Oh, don't speak in that unfeeling tone," exclaimed Mrs. Strachan. "The poor man's dead, and though he wasn't a very nice man, one can't help feeling sorry about it."

Strachan had the grace to mutter that he was sorry, and that he never wished any harm to the fellow. He leaned his forehead on his hand, as if his head was aching badly.

"You seem to have been in the wars a bit yourself," remarked Wimsey.

Strachan laughed.

"Yes," he said, "most ridiculous thing. I was up on the golf-course after breakfast when some putrid fool sliced a ball about a thousand miles off the fairway and got me slap-bang in the eye."

Mrs. Strachan gave another small squeak of surprise.

"Oh!" she said, and then subsided swiftly as Strachan turned his parti-coloured eyes warningly upon her.

"How tiresome," said Wimsey. "Who was the blighter?"

"Haven't the faintest idea," replied Strachan, carelessly. "I was completely knocked out for the moment, and when I pulled myself together again and went to spy out the land, I only saw a party of men making off in the distance. I felt too rotten to bother about it, I simply made tracks for the club-house and a drink. I've got the ball, though--a Silver King. If anybody comes to claim it I shall tell him where he gets off."

"It's a nasty knock," said Wimsey, sympathetically. "A beautiful specimen of its kind, but uncommonly painful, I expect. It's come up nicely, hasn't it? When exactly did you get it?"

"Oh, quite early," said Strachan. "About 9 o'clock, I should think. I went and lay down in my room at the club-house all morning, I felt so rotten. Then I came straight home, so that's why I hadn't heard about Campbell. Dash it all, this means a funeral, I suppose. It's a bit awkward. In the ordinary way we should send a wreath from the Club, but I don't quite know what to do under the circumstances, because last time he was here I told him to send in his resignation."

"It's a nice little problem," said Wimsey. "But I think I should send one, all the same. Shows a forgiving spirit and all that. Keep your vindictiveness for the person who damaged your face. Whom were you playing with, by the way? Couldn't he have identified the assassin?"

Strachan shook his head.

"I was just having a practice round against bogey," he said. "I caddied for myself, so there were no witnesses."

"Oh, I see. Your hands look a bit knocked about, too. You seem to have spent a good bit of your time in the rough. Well, I really came in to ask you to make up a foursome to-morrow with Waters and Bill Murray and me, but I don't suppose you'll, so to speak, feel that your eye is in just yet awhile?"

"Hardly," said Strachan, with a grim smile.

"Then I'll be popping off," said Wimsey, rising. "Cheerio, Mrs. Strachan. Cheerio, old man. Don't bother to see me off the premises. I know my way out."

Strachan, however, insisted on accompanying him as far as the gate.

At the corner of the road Wimsey overtook Miss Myra Strachan and her nurse taking an evening stroll. He stopped the car and asked if they would like a little run.

Myra accepted gleefully, and her attendant made no objection. Wimsey took the child up beside him, packed the nurse into the back seat and urged the Daimler Double-Six to show off her best paces.

Myra was delighted.

"Daddy never goes as fast as this," she said, as they topped the tree-hung rise by Cally Lodge and sailed like an aeroplane into the open country.

Wimsey glanced at the speedometer-needle, which was flickering about the 85 mark, and took the corner on a spectacular skid.

"That's a fine black eye your Dad's got," he remarked.

"Yes, isn't it? I asked him if he'd been fighting, and he told me not to be impertinent. I like fighting. Bobby Craig gave me a black eye once. But I made his nose bleed, and they had to send his suit to the cleaners."

"Young women oughtn't to fight," said Wimsey, reprovingly, "not even modern young women."

"Why not? I like fighting. Oo! look at the cows!"

Wimsey trod hastily on the brake and reduced the Daimler to a ladylike crawl.

"All the same, I believe he was fighting," said Myra. "He never came home last night, and Mummy was ever so frightened. She's afraid of our car, you know, because it goes so fast, but it doesn't go as fast as yours. Does that cow want to toss us?"

"Yes," said Wimsey. "It probably mistakes us for a pancake."

"Silly! Cows don't eat pancakes, they eat oil-cake. I ate some once, but it was very nasty, and I was sick."

"Serve you right," said Wimsey. "I'd better put you down here, or you won't be back by bed-time. Perhaps I'd better run you part of the way home."

"Oh, please do," said Myra. "Then we can drive the cows and make them run like anything."

"That would be very naughty," said Wimsey. "It isn't good for cows to run fast. You are an impertinent, bloodthirsty, greedy and unkind young person, and one of these days you'll be a menace to society."

"How lovely! I could have a pistol and a beautiful evening dress, and lure people to opium-dens and stick them up. I think I'd better marry you, because you've got such a fast car. That would be useful, you see."

"Very," said Wimsey, gravely. "I'll bear the idea in mind. But you might not want to marry me later on, you know."