Duck Season Death (18 page)

I

Although she had, early in her marriage with Dr Spenser, reluctantly resigned herself to life in a small country town, Mrs Spenser had resolved never to let herself go. This ambiguous phrase covered not only things like good foundation garments and never being caught in an apron by callers, but also the intellectual side of life.

In Dunbavin her social stocks were high and, being a worthy and energetic citizen, she had built up a continuous round of activity to prevent others from letting themselves go. There was the Reading Circle, the Arts and Crafts Group, the Dunbavin Dramatic Society and the Choral Club. Mrs Spenser was either the president or the chief patroness of them all, but the one nearest her heart was the Reading Circle.

The programme of the Reading Circle consisted of discussion of the latest books and talks by the members on subjects like ‘My favourite novel and why' or ‘The influence of the Gold Rush on Australian literature'. Occasionally a guest speaker was invited to add to the literary feast, but this was rare and the only Dunbavinites interested in books or lecturing on abstruse subjects were already in the Circle. For this reason, Mrs Spenser always looked forward to the duck season, regarding it as a source of possible speakers.

Surveying the programme she had arranged with the help of the Duck and Dog guests, she felt pleased with the variety it offered. The
pièce de résistance,
she considered, was Charles Carmichael. It was not so much what he was going to lecture on, but what
he represented that Mrs Spenser regarded as her own personal triumph.

Every member of the Circle was a subscriber to
Culture and Critic
—in fact, but for the magazine their own culture would have been in a critical way. To the Dunbavin audience that afternoon, Charles was going to be a figurehead of the world of letters.

Dr Spenser came in as his wife was making last-minute adjustments to the circle of chairs in the living room. “Ah, the great day! I trust it will be a successful one, my dear. I must try to look in after surgery.”

“Yes, do! You know they all love to see you. And I'm rather relying on you to entertain Ellis Bryce's crowd.”

A slow frown settled on the doctor's face. “Oh, they're coming, are they? Will that young fellow, Carmichael, be among them?”

“Yes, and he is going to give a talk,” said Mrs Spenser happily.

“I rather wish you hadn't asked him. He was damned impertinent to me, you know, and from what I've been told he's been making a confounded nuisance of himself out at the Dog. I don't want him using your meeting as a platform to air his outlandish notions.”

“Oh, I'm sure he won't do that,” she replied, without querying what he meant by outlandish notions. “By the way, who was that man who brought Jerry Bryce to the surgery this morning?”

“Fellow by the name of McGrath. Young Jerry did not seem to know much about him. It seems he tagged himself on to Carmichael when he knew there was a room vacant at Bryce's. Why do you ask?”

Mrs Spenser backed up a step or two to regard the effect of a bowl of dahlias. “I was just wondering. Ethel Motherwell told me this McGrath fellow came to see Tom this morning. He was with him for the best part of an hour. Tom seemed rather upset when he'd gone, but he wouldn't tell his mother anything. Rather strange, don't you think?”

“Strange that Sergeant Motherwell managed to hold his tongue for once, or that Mrs Motherwell failed to elicit any information?”

She gave an uncertain smile. “What I meant was why should this stranger McGrath who is staying at the Bryce's want to visit the police?”

“I haven't a notion,” returned the doctor shortly, turning to go. But before he left the room he said, “If young Carmichael starts anything, send for me and I'll come and put a stop to it.”

Charles, however, had been wishing fervently that he had not allowed himself to be inveigled to the Spensers. “I know these would-be intellectual groups,” he remarked gloomily to Shelagh as he helped to clear the tables after lunch. Anyone who wanted to talk to Shelagh was always given some task to perform at the same time. “A bunch of gregarious gas-bags who would be far happier discussing each other's operations than literature.”

“They do that at the Social Committee meeting,” replied Shelagh, with a smile. “The Reading Circle is an earnest affair.”

“That makes it worse. Earnest people are a blight on the community.”

“I rather admire the characteristic.”

“Then I must try to cultivate it. I would like you to approve of something about me.” He gave her a sidelong glance to gauge the effect of his words, but she went on stacking plates without a change of expression. He tried another gambit as he took one end of the table-cloth she held out silently. “Shelagh, if I told you I was tired, depressed and feel as though I haven't a friend in the world, what would you say?”

“I'd say you were run-down and need a course of vitamin injections,” she answered briskly.

“Don't be clinical,” he implored, allowing the cloth to be twitched from his fingers and holding his hands at the ready for another to be tossed to him. “My mental shape calls for a more psychological treatment.”

“You mean womanly sympathy, I suppose. What a pity Mrs Turner has left. She seemed good at that kind of thing.”

He brightened. “I liked the way you said that. There was a faintly jealous note.”

“Don't flatter yourself,” she said coldly. “And please hurry up with the table-cloth. I've got a lot to do before I go out.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Mrs Spenser's—with you. Someone has to see to it that you behave yourself.”

“You certainly have a lowering effect on a man,” he said doubtfully. “Athol told me you were the hardest nut he ever tried to crack. He called you his brilliant failure.”

“Athol—” she began, and then abruptly changed her tone and subject. “Charles, what are you and McGrath going to do? Jerry was telling me about the scene this morning.”

“That was your respected parent's doing. He had everyone owning up to a motive for murdering Athol—even your Aunt Grace. Oh, a very humorous man, your father—so puckish!”

“Yes, he can be annoying. Jerry said he left McGrath in Dunbavin.”

“He told me he had some commissions to perform. You know, of course, that he thinks or pretends to think that I murdered both my aunt and Athol—a belief that has been strengthened by his discovery of the missing Wilding rifle under the seat of my car. He intends sending it down to town for a ballistics check.”

The girl looked at him with an anxious frown. “That puts you in rather a bad position, doesn't it? What are you going to do?”

He threw out his hands in a helpless gesture that, had he but known, made more impression on her than anything he had done or said before. “I just haven't a clue.”

II

Mrs Spenser advanced with gracious outstretched hands as her guests from the Duck and Dog entered the living room. “How charming of you all to come! Some of your big family are already at home, Ellis.” She indicated the Turners sitting somewhat subdued in a corner and McGrath wedged in a group of Dunbavin intellectuals. “You didn't tell me you had a police inspector staying with you. He has been entertaining us with some of his experiences. Quite fascinating!”

“How remiss of me!” said Ellis smoothly. “I really guessed something of the kind, you know, Charles.”

Mrs Spenser transferred her clinging hand. “Welcome to our little group, Mr Carmichael. We are looking forward so much to your talk. Such a stimulating and provocative subject, the—ah—
roman policier
! My dear Mrs Dougall!”

Mrs Dougall extended a hand like a Headquarters C.O.'s wife visiting a hill station. “Did I understand you to say that man is a detective?”

“Why, yes. Didn't you know?”

“Jumbo, did you hear that? One certainly rubs shoulders with the strangest people nowadays. Adelaide, have you those albums? Just a few photographs I have brought along to pass around as I give my lecture.”

“Well, come along everybody, and we'll get down to work,” cried Mrs Spenser, clapping her hands.

“The identity of your friend has shaken us all,” Ellis murmured in Charles's ear, as their hostess moved on to greet the others. “Tell me—is it going to be like one of those books you review? After amassing a weight of evidence quite unknown to the hapless reader, the great detective stands up at a most fortuitous gathering of the suspects and points the accusing finger. The guilty one, like a good sportsman, acknowledges his guilt by either swallowing the cyanide tablet hidden in his signet ring or by blowing his brains out with his pistol disguised as a pipe.”

“How I'd like that finger to be pointed at you!” rejoined Charles, dividing his scowl equally between Ellis and McGrath, who raised a laconic hand at him in greeting.

Ellis slapped his pockets. “No gun, and I left off carrying cyanide after my first successful murder. Of course, there is always the crashing leap through the window, but what hope has one of breaking one's neck amongst Mrs Spenser's flowers? It shall have to be an attempted getaway, foiled by the stalwart arms of Tom Motherwell who has been warned of the possibility and is stationed outside.”

He broke off and gave a sound of mild surprise. “Well, well! I never thought the devil would appear in the guise of our worthy sergeant.”

A hush fell over the room as Sergeant Motherwell came in, tightly uniformed and looking self-conscious with a certain air of importance. After a word to Mrs Spenser, he crossed to where McGrath was sitting and handed him a folded piece of paper. McGrath glanced at it casually, smiled affably at the ring of curious faces about him, then put it in his pocket.

Quelling an impulse to rush over and enquire what was going on, Charles strolled to the back of the room where Margot Stainsbury had signalled to him. Mrs Spenser had taken up her position at the opposite end, flashed a presidential smile around the gathering and announced the meeting of the Dunbavin Reading Circle open.

“Charles,” said Margot carefully. “What have we got ourselves into? How has it all come about? I've got the craziest feeling it must be a dream.”

“More like a dashed nightmare. Just another thing we've got Athol to thank for.”

“Athol—Chas, you're not going to do anything silly here, are you? You and that McGrath person?”

He pretended not to hear as he watched Mrs Dougall being guided to the speaker's table amid clapping led loudly by Major
Dougall. Under cover of the applause, McGrath leaned back in his chair and spoke to Shelagh who was sitting beside him. Soon Mrs Dougall was booming away about hot Indian nights and the sounds of the jungle and passing out slightly dimmed and dog-eared photographs. Charles found Shelagh handing him a picture of a slimmer Major Dougall standing triumphantly beside a supine carcass.

“McGrath said to tell you the bullet matched Father's Wilding,” the girl whispered. “Tom Motherwell just brought word.”

“Ah—so he agrees now that Athol was murdered! It's a pity he didn't take my word for it in the first place.”

She made no rejoinder, apparently intent on Mrs Dougall's discourse. Presently, giving a sidelong glance, Charles caught her troubled gaze fixed on him.

“What is the matter? What else did McGrath say?”

“He said that you still topped his suspect list. Charles, what are you going to do? He can't really mean that.”

“Oh yes he can,” he muttered back grimly, only partly comforted by her concern.

Mrs Dougall came to the end of her tiger hunt and waited for the applause, displaying both rows of her dentures which looked like trophies of the same shoot. Still clapping, Mrs Spenser came to stand beside her and presently raised her hands for silence. “Well, I'm sure we all enjoyed that most interesting talk. And now for something in a lighter vein from Mrs Andrew Turner. I understand this will take the form of—what was it again, Mrs Turner?”

Frances gave a shy murmur and shrank back in her corner. Her husband nudged her sharply. “It's a kind of sketch. She takes people off,” he announced. “Go on, Frankie!”

Momentarily diverted from his predicament, Charles braced himself to listen to a few shoddy imitations of well-known film stars. Frances stood in front of the table, staring about the room as though stricken with stage-fright. Then quite calmly she moved the table to one side, flicking at it with an invisible duster and talking about her actions in complaining half-sentences.

Shelagh stirred and murmured in a quivering voice, “Good heavens! It's Aunt Grace! She even looks like her.” Almost at once a ripple of amusement went through the audience. As the impersonation was recognised, Frances slipped into another. She seemed to grow taller and carried her head at a quizzical tilt. The bored, half-supercilious tones were uncanny in their likeness to Ellis Bryce. From the back of the room, Jerry let out an unfilial guffaw which ricocheted back as the girl started slouching about with hands in invisible pockets and denouncing the world.