Duck Season Death (8 page)

Charles, annoyed with himself for obeying her summons and with the soundness of Shelagh's advice about having something to eat, was betrayed into rash utterance. “More shocking than you think. It is my opinion that Athol was not shot accidentally but murdered.”

He turned his back on her, dragged out a chair from the adjoining table, and reached for the nearest thing to eat, which was toast from Wilson's rack. Shelagh brought him some coffee, putting the cup and saucer down with a near approach to a bang. He did not even thank her, but went on eating wolfishly, rejoicing in his sudden madness and the gratifying stunned silence about him. Even the mellowing influence of bacon and eggs did not bring about remorse, for the way the room cleared silently convinced him that he had not only shocked but frightened the other guests.

Beside him, Wilson slid out of his chair, then paused uncertainly, trying to speak. Charles looked at him challengingly. “Well, what is it?”

“D—did you f—?”

“For heavens' sake, what?”

“Fire your gun?”

“If you are asking—did I shoot Athol—no! He was killed by someone fifty yards or more away—using a rifle. A bullet killed him, not shot.”

Wilson shook his head and started to mouth again.

“Oh, this is impossible,” Charles muttered, glancing up as Ellis Bryce came sauntering into the room.

He was wearing sandals, ancient flannels and a bright yellow pullover over his pyjama jacket. “Shelagh, my dear, breakfast! Now don't reproach me about being late. You should know that I consider it quite beneath me to follow the herd and be on time for meals. Ah, good morning, Mr Wilson. Charles, I have greeted earlier. Judging from the expostulatory remarks passing my door, I gather you have announced poor Athol's untimely decease. I also gather by a certain moroseness in your demeanour that our good but mentally lacking friends, Spenser and Motherwell, did not appeal to you. Ah, thank you, Shelagh! Where is Jerry this morning? Grace, I can hear dropping saucepans.”

“Still in bed, I suppose,” said the girl off-handedly, uncovering the fried egg and sausage she had been keeping hot.

Ellis shook his head. “He wasn't five minutes ago, when I went to get this pullover.” He had a habit of borrowing clothes he fancied. “Now if Athol were here—how I miss the bad fellow, already, Charles—he would immediately ask if I had looked in Margot's room. What was that, Mr Wilson?”

The little man blinked and mouthed, “I s-saw him g-g-”

“You saw him go out? Dear me, how unlike my son to be abroad before breakfast.”

“Jerry often goes for a walk before breakfast,” said Shelagh, clearing plates from the Dougalls' table.

Charles glanced at her, then at Ellis who met his eyes blandly. “Ah quite, my dear, I forgot. And his walk always takes him in the opposite direction from Teal Lagoon. Nota bene, Charles.”

“Have you finished, Mr Wilson?” asked Shelagh, adding more plates to her tray.

He leapt aside, but remained nearby, hovering and uncertain. Suddenly he put a hand into a pocket and produced a card which he put on the table in front of Charles. “I'll h-have to con- con-”

Ellis picked up the card. “Confiscate your gun. Well, well! Not an anthropologist, after all. A field inspector from Fisheries and Game. I must tell Grace.”

“Oh, so that's who you are. Athol thought he'd seen you before. Sorry to upset your ill-timed officialism, Mr Wilson, but my gun hasn't been used. You may inspect it if you wish.”

“Mr Sefton's is the one you want,” said Ellis helpfully, “though how that penalises Athol now, I can't see.”

Charles said truculently, “I bet if Athol were here, he wouldn't allow anyone to lay a finger on it. You'll find both guns in the hall rack.” He waited until Wilson had gone, then added, “I'm not sure that Greenet doesn't belong to me now.”

Ellis, spreading marmalade thickly, raised his brows. “Is that so, indeed? Athol's beneficiary. Congratulations.”

“Athol wouldn't have much to leave. But there should be my aunt's money.”

Ellis licked his forefinger delicately. “What an invidious position that places you in—almost as bad as my tempestuous son's habit of not taking a walk before breakfast. Ah, the number of detective stories that feature that solitary pointless walk. I gather from Shelagh's praiseworthy attempt that, although she does not approve of your ideas how Athol met his death, she does not altogether discredit them.”

“Your idea originally,” conceded Charles, thinking he had an ally in Ellis. “I confess I thought it in poor taste at first.”

“You mustn't let the notion obsess you. There is no one more tedious than a person with an
idée fixe.
To be quite frank, I find myself already losing interest in the subject. Before it wanes completely, tell me of the sufferings you endured from our worthy medico.”

Charles paused in the act of lighting a cigarette to make an eloquent face.

“You found him pompous, oppressed with the dignity and power of his profession and entirely brainless?”

“Entirely. Motherwell likewise. Any suggestion on my part that further investigation into what they insisted could only be an accident was regarded as unwarranted. I shall take great pleasure in showing up their criminal stupidity.”

“And how do you intend to do that?” asked Ellis, smothering a yawn as he helped himself to one of Charles's cigarettes.

“I need your co-operation.”

Ellis looked startled. “My dear fellow, what can you mean?”

“I want your support in this business. It was your notion in the first place that Athol was murdered. You must help me.”

“My dear chap, you don't want to take any notice of what I say before breakfast. What's more I take as much as a dozen notions a day. My latest is that Athol committed suicide. As for co-operating with anyone, I wouldn't know how. No really, Charles, I couldn't possibly mix on the same lowly plane as Motherwell.”

Charles took a deep, exasperated breath. “Tell me, do you or do you not seriously consider Athol was murdered?”

Before Ellis could start saying that he never thought seriously about anything, certainly not immediately after breakfast, the door opened and Margot Stainsbury entered.

V

She was wearing black matador pants and a white shirt with pushed-up sleeves. There was a chunky gold bracelet on one slim arm and dangling rings in her small ears. Her eyes were round and innocent, her mouth a little open in a smile of studied childishness. She addressed Shelagh who had appeared at the kitchen door with a face so expressionless that Charles could only guess what she was thinking of the latecomer.

“So drefful sowwy! But such a ghastly night I had. I felt so haggish I simply had to have a little more sleepy-bye.”

Charles remembered Margot's bouts of baby-talk of old. “Just some fruit and black coffee like an angel—oh, and a teeny piece of toast, very thin and crisp. Can do?”

She pirouetted on one flat shoe and said in the same breath, “And they say the country is quiet, Chas! All those frightful bird and animal noises—did they keep you awake too?” She flashed a smile at Ellis. “Aren't we city people just too dismal!”

“Devastatingly so,” agreed Ellis. “I trust that is the right reply. This bucolic specimen is not up on the latest phraseology. Do please sit down opposite where I can gaze on your deliciously haggish countenance.”

She sank into a chair and rested her chin on the back of one delicate hand. “I absolutely adore the things you say. Do you mind if I call you Ellis?”

“Not in the least, but Jerry might.”

“Oh—Jerry!” she smiled tolerantly. “I'm furious with him. He behaved so badly last night. I told him I was going straight back to town today.”

Ellis murmured to Charles, “Now I come to think of it, Shelagh was partly right. I seem to recall Jerry tramping the countryside last year too.”

“Of course Athol can be an absolute swine,” stated Margot. “I could have simply murdered him myself. In fact—what are you making such faces for, Chas? Are you ill, darling?”

Ellis scraped back his chair, took another of Charles's cigarettes and yawned. “You must forgive me if I leave now. I cannot abide reiteration. Furthermore, I offered in a misguided moment last night to give the herd some target practice in preparation for tomorrow's blaze away.”

Shelagh came in with Margot's breakfast. “Jerry's having his in the kitchen,” she informed the room at large. “And he did go in the opposite direction from Teal Lagoon.”

“So yah! The pair of us!” said Ellis from the doorway as he slopped out.

“What in the world is the matter with them?” asked Margot. “Jerry can have breakfast in the fowl yard for all I care. Such a trying boy, Chas. What makes me take up with neurotics? Oh sorry,
darling—present company excepted of course. Anyway you were never really in love with me.” She put out a hand to pat his.

Charles caught hold of it. “Margot, something terrible has happened. Athol is dead.”

Her scarlet nails pressed slowly into his skin. “Charles!” she put up her free hand to her cheek in a shocked gesture. “Oh, poor Athol! How—why—”

“I don't know exactly yet, but he didn't die naturally.”

Her large eyes were fixed on his face. “What do you mean?”

“He was shot. We went out early this morning after duck, to that place they call Teal Lagoon. It is my theory that someone followed us there and took up a position waiting to kill Athol.”

Margot gave a horrified gasp. “Charles, do you know what you're saying!”

“Yes, I know. Now don't get into a flap like a good girl. I know you were fond of Athol, but you're as tough as they come actually.”

“But Chas, this is absurd, frightful, I don't know which. You should have broken it more gently. You always were a clumsy-tongued creature.” She put both her hands over her face for a moment, but not too roughly so as to disturb her skilful make-up, then emerged looking dewy-eyed. “Charles, they don't really think Athol was murdered, do they?”

He deplored the loose pronoun. “If by ‘they' you mean the local authorities—no, they don't. They think Athol was killed accidentally by another duck-shooter. For several reasons to which they refused to listen, I think Athol was murdered. You know one of those reasons yourself, Margot.”

She looked startled. “No, I don't. Now Charles, don't be silly. I told you before you made too much of a thing of this detective business. Don't you remember?”

“Yes, I remember. I can also recall the occasion when you issued that rebuke. At a cocktail party when you were talking to me about Athol's odd behaviour in Sydney, and how you thought he was haunted.”

“Did I say that?” she asked lightly, after an almost imperceptible pause. “I can't recall exactly, but if you say so, darling, I won't deny it.”

“You'd better not deny it,” he said good-humouredly, hoping to coax away the slightly guarded look that had come over her face. “I want you to tell Sergeant Motherwell that you had also noticed a change in Athol and about that mysterious phone call he received while lunching with you at Manonetta's. You wouldn't want the person who killed Athol to get away with it, would you? Imagine, Margot—someone was deliberately playing on his nerves before finally murdering him!”

She lit a cigarette, inserting it in her long, tortoise-shell holder with fingers that trembled slightly. “Damn, I'm as nervy as a cat. I feel ghastly over this, Chas. I simply can't believe that Athol was actually murdered. What I mean is—who would have done such a thing?”

“Someone staying here at the Duck and Dog.”

She stared at him for a moment, then her lids lowered and a little smile played around her mouth. He knew that expression of old. You could go so far with Margot, but when she chose to stop there was no forcing her on. “Oh now, Chas!” she said in an amused voice. “You can't really mean what you say. It just doesn't make sense. I know quite a few people hated poor Athol, but no one would actually murder him. Darling, you're trying to complicate something which is quite simple. You know, dear,” she went on, changing to earnestness, “I don't think you've looked a bit well lately. All that writing about detective novels—you've got murder on your mind.”

Next she'll be telling me I need a holiday, thought Charles.

She got up and came round to put an affectionate arm around his shoulders. “Believe me, Charles, I know just how you feel. Just as soon as this dreadful business is wound up, you must get away from everything—take a trip somewhere.”

“I've taken a trip,” said Charles. “I came here—and here I am going to stay until I find out who killed Athol.”

“Darling, do be reasonable! You can't go round poking and prying. Goodness knows what you'll turn up.”

“Which is precisely what I hope will happen. Someone here hated Athol with more than the usual animosity he aroused—enough to murder him.”