The Beast Must Die (23 page)

‘But that’s a quibble.’

‘Oh yes, I agree. But I think it more than likely he quibbled because he didn’t want his little conversation with Violet Rattery to be brought up.’

Nigel pricked up his ears. Now they were getting somewhere.

‘And what was this conversation about?’ he asked.

Blount paused impressively before replying. Then, his face grave as a judge’s, he said, ‘Infant Welfare.’

‘You mean, Phil’s welfare?’ said Nigel, puzzled.

‘No, I mean Infant Welfare. Just that.’ Blount’s eyes twinkled. He did not get many openings to pull Nigel’s leg, and when he did get one, he liked to make the most elaborate possible use of it. ‘According to Violet Rattery – and I see no reason to disbelieve her – there are plans for starting an Infant Welfare centre here. The local authorities are giving a grant towards it, and the rest of the money will be raised through private subscriptions. Mrs Rattery is on the committee formed for the purpose of getting these subscriptions, and Mr Carfax came in to tell her that he wished to give a considerable sum, anonymously. He’s the kind of man whose left hand is not allowed to know what his right hand is doing. That’s why he kept dark about his little conversation with Violet Rattery.’

‘Dear me. “The sweet converse of an innocent mind.” So Carfax is out. Or could he have slipped into the dining room on his way to old Mrs Rattery?’

‘That possibility has been eliminated too. I had a word with the wee boy on the way up here. As it happens, he was in the dining room when Mr Carfax entered the house. The door was open, and he saw Carfax go through the hall and straight upstairs.’

‘So it boils down to old Mrs Rattery, then,’ said Nigel.

They were pacing up and down the waterfront of the hotel garden. On their left, a dozen or so yards in front, was a small shrubbery of laurels. Nigel idly noticed a slight stir of the bushes, unusual on so windless an evening; a dog in there, probably, he thought. Had he gone to investigate that movement, it is just possible that the course of several people’s lives might have been profoundly altered. But he did not.

Blount was saying, his voice raised a little argumentatively, ‘You’re stubborn, Mr Strangeways. But you’ll not convince me that all the evidence so far doesn’t point at Felix Cairnes. There’s a case to be made out against old Mrs Rattery, I’ll admit, but it’s too theoretical, far too fanciful.’

‘You’re going to arrest Felix, then?’ said Nigel. They had turned and were walking past the shrubbery again.

‘I see no other alternative. He had the opportunity; he had a far stronger motive than Ethel Rattery; he has practically convicted himself out of his own mouth. Of course, there’s still a certain amount of routine work to be done – I’ve not lost hope that someone may have seen him taking some of the vermin-killer from
the
garage, or we may yet find microscopic traces of it in his room at the Ratterys’, though admittedly we’ve not been able to so far. The fragments of the bottle may yield fingerprints – though, again, that’s unlikely after its exposure in the gutter, and besides a detective writer would be the last person to leave fingerprints. So I shall not be arresting Cairnes at once, but he will be watched, and – as you know very well – it’s after the murder, not before, that a criminal often makes his worst mistake.’

‘Well, that’s that, I suppose. But tomorrow I’m going to see a chap called General Shrivenham. And I shouldn’t be at all surprised if I didn’t return bringing my sheaves with me. You had better start reconciling yourself to the idea of being foiled again, Chief Inspector Blount. You know, I’m convinced that the solution of this problem can be found in Felix Cairnes’ diary, if we only knew where and how to look for it. I believe it’s been staring us in the face all the time. That’s why I want to find out more about the Rattery family history; I’ve a notion it’ll throw a spotlight on to something in the diary that we hadn’t noticed before.’

15

THE SAME NIGHT
, Georgia had gone to bed. She knew better than to fuss Nigel when he was in one of his
intense
, abstracted moods and stared through her as though she was a bit of glass. But I wish to God, she thought, he’d not come down here at all, he’s tired out, and he’ll be in for a nervous breakdown if he’s not careful.

Nigel was sitting at a desk in the hotel writing room. It was one of his more remarkable eccentricities that his brain functioned quite efficiently in the writing rooms of hotels. There were several sheets of notepaper in front of him. He began slowly to write …

Lena Lawson

Opportunity to obtain poison?

Yes.

Opportunity to poison tonic?

Yes.

Motive for murder?

(a) Affection for Violet and Phil: to remove George Rattery who was ruining their lives. Inadequate. (b) Personal hatred of G. R. Result of previous liaison with him and/or shock of manslaughter of Martin Cairnes. No,
ridiculous
. Lena was quite happy with Felix. (c) Money. But G. R. left his money to his wife and his mother in equal shares, and he hadn’t much to leave anyway. L. L. is definitely out.

Violet Rattery

Opportunity to obtain poison?

Yes.

Opportunity to poison tonic?

Yes.

Motive for murder?

Fed up with George (a) because of Rhoda, (b) because of Phil. But the Phil business had been smoothed over, and V. had put up with G. for fifteen years, so why should she suddenly break out like this? If jealousy of Rhoda was motive, she’d have poisoned her, not G. V. R. is out.

James Harrison Carfax

Opportunity to obtain poison?

Yes. (Far more opportunity than any of the others.)

Opportunity to poison tonic?

Apparently none. Went straight up to Ethel Rattery’s room on Saturday, evidence of Phil. Came down from there to talk to Violet, who saw him off the premises, evidence of Violet. Has sound alibi from then onwards, viz. Colesby’s investigations.

Motive for murder?

Jealousy. But, as he pointed out to us, if he had wanted to stop affair between G. and Rhoda, he could have done so by threatening to end partnership with G., over whom he had the whip hand financially. C. seems to be eliminated.

Ethel Rattery

Opportunity to obtain poison?

Yes. (Though she was very much less often in the garage than the others.)

Opportunity to poison tonic?

Yes.

Motive for murder?

Insane family pride. Anything to end scandal of George–Rhoda affair, and particularly to prevent scandal of divorce. She begs Carfax to put his foot down, but C. tells her he is determined to divorce Rhoda if Rhoda wishes it. Her behaviour towards Violet and Phil shows that she can be completely ruthless, the autocrat for whom might is right.

Nigel looked over each sheet of paper carefully, then tore them up into very small pieces. An idea had struck him. He took another sheet and began to write …

Have we possibly missed a tie-up between Violet and Carfax? It’s interesting that, to a certain degree, they give each other alibis – both factual and psychological. Carfax could, most easily of all four, have abstracted the vermin-killer; Violet could have put it in the tonic. It’s not inconceivable that each of them, disillusioned by the behaviour of his own mate, may have turned to the other. But why not simply go off together? Why anything so drastic as poisoning George?

Possible answers: that George would have refused to divorce Violet, and/or Rhoda ditto Carfax; that,
by
going off together they would have left Phil in the hands of George and Ethel Rattery, a thing Violet would surely have shrunk from. Plausible. We must investigate the relations between V. and C. more thoroughly. But, unless it was sheer coincidence that the poisoning took place on the same day as Felix’s attempted murder (which is almost unthinkable), the murderer must have been wise to Felix’s plan – either through being taken into George’s confidence or having discovered the diary independently. The former is unlikely in the case of Violet and Carfax, but V. might have found the diary.

Conclusion. One cannot disregard a possible conspiracy between Carfax and Violet. It’s noticeable, by the way, that whenever I’ve been at the Ratterys’ house, Carfax was
not
there. As her husband’s partner and a friend of the family, Carfax might have been expected to be in attendance – giving Violet all the help and comfort possible. The fact that he has not been doing so may suggest he is unwilling to give us any opening for suspecting a guilty relationship between them. On the other hand, Carfax’s attitude when interviewed by Blount was remarkably open, candid and consistent, and at the same time sufficiently unusual to compel credence. It is difficult for a criminal to carry off
consistently
a false moral attitude towards his recent victim – much more difficult than the mere carrying through of a prearranged plan (alibi, concealment
of
motive, etc.) I am inclined, provisionally, to believe in Carfax’s innocence.

That leaves Ethel Rattery and Felix. The case against Felix is superficially by far the stronger. Means, motive, everything – even a confession of intent. But it is just there, at the diary, that it breaks down. It is just – but only just – conceivable that Felix should have prepared a second weapon (the poison) to work in case his dinghy plan failed. I cannot, in fact, bring myself to believe that he is either cold-blooded or mad enough to indulge in such complex strategy. But suppose for a moment that he did. What is absolutely inconceivable is that, after having had the tables turned on him in the dinghy, and after being told by George that his diary was in the hands of solicitors and would be made public in the event of George’s death, Felix should allow the strychnine plan to go through.

To do so was simply to put his head into a noose and jump off into thin air. If Felix had doctored the tonic, he would inevitably – once he knew George’s death meant his own destruction – have either told George about the poison or else have slipped into the house before dinner and removed the bottle. Unless, of course, he was so crazed with hatred against George because of Martin’s death that he did not mind committing hara-kiri in the process as long as he killed George. But, if Felix had no regard at all for saving his own neck, why should he take all the trouble to work out a murder plan
which
would look like a drowning accident, and why should he get me down here to save his bacon for him? The only possible answer to all this is that Felix did not put the poison in the tonic. I do not believe he murdered George Rattery; it’s against all probability and all logic.

Which leaves Ethel Rattery. A wicked, wicked woman. But did she kill her own son? And if, as I think, she did, will there ever be any way of proving it? George’s murder is typical of the sort of egotistical high-handedness one associates with Ethel Rattery. No attempt on her part to trail red herrings – though to be sure there was no need for that, since she knew that all suspicion would fall upon Cairnes. No attempt to create an alibi for herself for Saturday afternoon, when the bottle was tampered with. She just dopes the medicine and sits back on her excessive haunches till George drinks it. And then issues an edict to Blount that the affair had better be called an accident. ‘Disposer supreme and judge of the earth’ is the role she sees herself playing. There’s an almost aggressive lack of subtlety about George’s poisoning that squares very well with Ethel Rattery’s character. But is the motive strong enough? When it came to the point, would she act upon her own dictum that ‘killing is no murder where honour is at stake’? Maybe I shall get enough material from old Shrivenham, or one of his cronies, to decide on that point. In the meantime …

Nigel sighed wearily. He glanced through what he had written, grimaced, and set a match to the sheets of paper. The grandfather clock in the hall outside gave a long, bronchial wheeze, gasped, announced that the time was midnight. Nigel took up the folder in which was fastened a carbon copy of Felix Cairnes’ diary. Something caught his eye on the page at which it fell open. His body stiffened, his tired brain became suddenly alert. He began to flick the pages, looking for another reference. An extraordinary idea began to build up in his head – a pattern so logical, so neat, so convincing, that he had to distrust it. It was too like one of those marvellous poems one composes on the edge of sleep and looks at again in the disillusioned light of morning and finds commonplace, meaningless or mad. Nigel decided to leave it till the morning; he was not in a state now to test its truth; he shrank from its harsh implications. Yawning, he got up, put the folder under his arm and made for the door of the writing room.

He turned off the electric light and opened the door. The hall outside was dark as death. Nigel groped across the hall towards the electric light switches on the opposite wall, feeling his way with his hand on the front door. I wonder is Georgia asleep, he thought, and at that moment there was a swishing sound in the darkness and something came out of the darkness and struck him on the side of the head …

Darkness. A black velvet curtain against which painful lights flared, danced, dithered and went out. A firework ballet. He watched it without curiosity; he
wished
these lights would stop fooling about, because he wanted to open the black curtain and they got in the way. Presently the lights stopped fooling about. The black velvet curtain remained. Now he could walk forward and open the curtain, though he must first remove this hard board which seemed to be strapped to his back. Why was there a board strapped to his back? He must be a sandwich-man. For a moment he remained still, delighted by the brilliance of this deduction. Then he started to walk towards the black curtain. Instantly a blinding pain shot through his head and the firework ballet started up again with furious empressement. He let it dance to its finish. When that was over, very gingerly he allowed his brain to begin working: let the clutch in too suddenly and the whole damned contraption would fall to pieces.