The Bloody Wood (15 page)

‘The gun?’

‘The gun that fired the bullet that killed Uncle Charles. It was Uncle Charles’ gun. There’s no question of that. He kept it, ready loaded, in a drawer in that damned room. Nobody knows why. I heard Sir John tell this chap Morrison – the Chief Constable, you know – that quite a lot of people do something of the sort. Arrested development and boyhood dreams of the Wild West. Or some quite unconscious prompting to suicide. Or the more or less rational feeling that a man of property should be able to defend his possessions until the Dicks turn up. But the point is that the photographers and the fingerprint chaps have been having a field-day with it. You understand? A clever murderer could fake that sort of suicide easily enough. But he might make some tiny error that these blue-serge characters could spot if they were clever enough. And now all that’s going on.’ Bobby paused in this torrent of speech. ‘It’s horrid, of course. But there’s a kind of morbid excitement in it.’

‘There seems to be.’

‘Particularly for me. Perhaps for Martine too, in lesser degree. As yet, we know nothing about the wills, and so forth. Martine had her prospects. But mine were the big ones.’

‘Bobby, ought you really to be talking like this? It’s rubbish, but I rather resent it, all the same. These deaths are not matter for idle wit. Anything of the sort can only seem hysterical and rather silly. But I suppose I must tell my husband what you’ve been saying. Or this Colonel Morrison, who is of course the man in charge.’

‘Tell them both.’ Bobby Angrave, who was carrying his customary walking-stick, flung this in the air and caught it deftly as it came circling down. ‘Don’t you see? These two people – my uncle and aunt – stand between me and a great inheritance. And suddenly I’m in a fix with them. I needn’t tell you about that now: it will emerge soon enough. And, straight away, both come to a violent end.’ Bobby stopped in his tracks. It appeared to be his intention to accompany Judith no farther. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Frightfully bad form, and all that. But you’ll see that I have to keep my spirits up. And I’m not likely to do that by retiring into a summer-house and writing bad Latin verse.’

Heirs and Assigns

‘On the back of the neck,’ Colonel Morrison said. ‘Our surgeon is a very reliable man. And now he’s had his opposite number out from the town. This fellow Pendleton too. He seems such a big wig that it seemed civil to ask him. He stipulated that he wouldn’t be required to give evidence to the coroner. Perfectly right and proper, that. Of course if it came to a criminal trial, it would be another matter.’

‘And Pendleton concurs?’ Appleby asked. The two men were standing on the podium of the belvedere. ‘He suspects violence?’

‘Yes. But what worries me, you know, is that it doesn’t make sense.’

‘Murder, you mean, in a place like this?’

‘I mean nothing of the sort. Crime may turn up anywhere.’ Colonel Morrison chuckled grimly. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Teaching you your business, eh? I keep on forgetting.’

‘The more you do that, the happier I shall be. I’m not out for a busman’s holiday.’

‘Of course not. But you won’t withhold your advice, all the same.’ Morrison was silent for a moment. ‘What I meant was something quite different,’ he went on. ‘Why grab the old lady by the neck and leave your marks on her? Why present the police with the slightest hint of violence? Everybody about this place must have known Mrs Martineau’s physical condition. Once in that pool, she hadn’t a chance. All that was needed – granted she could be got to the edge of it – was a shove. Nothing more.’

‘I see your point.’ Appleby found himself taking mental note of the fact that Morrison was a man worth working with. ‘But one has always to remember the irrational state in which even contrived and cold-blooded crimes of violence are actually committed. And this crime – if it
was
a crime – may not even have been like that… What about robbery, by the way?’

‘She was wearing some quite valuable jewellery. She could have been reckoned on as doing so, at that after-dinner hour. But it was there when they fished her out.’

‘A bag?’

‘That was fished out too. Nothing much in it. Nor would one expect much. Women don’t carry wads of banknotes on an evening stroll.’

‘A woman might be carrying an incriminating document.’

‘Perfectly true. Or she might be carrying a key to the Kremlin’s top cipher of the moment. One must rule nothing out.’

‘Neither about Grace Martineau nor about her husband.’

‘I quite agree.’ Morrison glanced swiftly at Appleby. ‘The fellow’s own weapon. In his hand, and without any prints other than his. Discharged at close range into his right temple. Hence that quite ghastly mess.’

‘Quite so.’

‘But access is the important point. And there it is; actually three doors to that small room. We’ve got to face it. Anybody without an alibi might have possessed himself of the gun beforehand, walked in, killed Martineau, fixed things as they were found, and walked out again – all within sixty seconds. Lucky that chaps don’t get round to murdering each other all that often, wouldn’t you say? It’s too damned easy.’

‘The clock is the important thing, in this case. Who was where, when – and with whom.’

‘Yes, indeed. And the Applebys have an alibi.’ Morrison paused broodingly. ‘If you and Lady Appleby hadn’t gone out to dinner, you know, this might never have happened. Nobody would have had the nerve. Homicide, or double homicide, under the nose of the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police. Think of it!’

‘I wasn’t all that far away. And I can imagine somebody seeing the virtual presence of such a personage as a challenge. But what about that clock?’

‘Ah!’ Colonel Morrison’s exclamation was one of satisfaction. Perhaps he felt that he had hooked his man. ‘Would you like my chaps to come with their notebooks, or will you trust me to have got it pretty clear in my head?’

‘Not chaps with notebooks, please. Go ahead.’ Appleby sat down on a broad stone step. ‘Nicely warmed by the sun,’ he said. ‘Won’t do even the elderly any great mischief.’

‘If you’re prepared to risk it, so am I.’ Morrison sat down too. ‘And here goes.’

‘Ten p.m.,’ Morrison said. ‘It has just struck on the stable clock here at Charne. The summer solstice. A clear sky. Even in Charne Wood you can see your way clearly. Macaulay and his nephew have no difficulty.’

‘I don’t know them,’ Appleby said. This dramatic style of narration on the part of the Chief Constable had taken him by surprise. Then he remembered. ‘Is that the name of the head gardener?’

‘Yes. A most respectable man, it seems, who has been about the place for a long time. And his nephew – actually a grand-nephew – has lately arrived from Aberdeen to be one of his assistants. They are returning from some occasion in the village. The servants, it seems, like everybody else, use one or another of the paths through the wood.’

‘So they do. The butler does.’

‘The butler? Ah, yes – Friary. I’ve a note on
him
.’ Morrison paused. ‘Well, these two come on Mrs Martineau’s body. It wasn’t totally submerged, you know. A leg caught in something overhanging the bank. They haul her out, and Macaulay is convinced she is dead. Unfortunately he says so – before sending his nephew hurrying down to the house for help. He himself starts some thoroughly efficient attempt at artificial respiration. He was in the Black Watch in the Kaiser’s War. Sound chap.’

‘And then?’

‘The nephew – he’s called Neil Something-or-Other – came rushing out of the wood, and found Charles Martineau alone on the terrace.
Everybody
was alone, you know. That’s part of the devil of it.’

‘Except Macaulay of the Black Watch and nephew Neil.’

‘Yes, yes. The boy told Martineau that his wife had been drowned. He’s only a lad, you see, and that’s what he blurted out. Martineau seemed stupefied. He cried out “Where?” – just like the fellow in some play or other.’ Morrison paused. ‘Funny thing – I can’t remember which.’

‘Hamlet
– and it’s what Laertes asks about Ophelia.’ Appleby had seen that it was necessary to supply this information before Morrison would go on. ‘And then?’

‘The poor devil recovered a bit, and did get out of Neil that Macaulay was with Mrs Martineau and doing what he could. At that, Martineau turned and ran into the house.’

‘And ran to his death?’

‘Almost instantly. Nobody can be found who saw him alive again. Five minutes later – or it might have been ten – Friary came into the music room in a panic. At least I suppose he was in a panic. There was nobody in the room except the niece, Martine Somebody–’

‘Rivière.’

‘Thank you. Miss Rivière was there, playing the piano–’

‘Something noisy?’

‘It’s a point, Appleby. We must find out. Well, Friary behaved with no more control than young Neil. He stuttered out something about a pistol-shot in the master’s office. And at that–’

‘One moment. Suppose that Friary did really hear the shot – by which I mean merely hear it, and not fire it as well. Is it certain that he ran
straight
to the music room?’

‘I don’t think it is. In fact I have a notion that he put in a minute, or thereabout, blundering around. And I see what you’re after. It’s perfectly true. Miss Rivière herself could have made the music room before him – and started banging out Beethoven or whatever. But the whole damned household is in the same boat. And the design of the house – or at least of the ground floor – is a kind of dream setting for this sort of thing. Several routes from any one point to any other.’

‘Oh, quite so.’ Appleby had already reflected upon this point. ‘And then?’

‘I was going to say that Miss Rivière wasted no time on this wretched Friary. She jumped up and made for Martineau’s office. In the hall she heard a click of balls from the billiard room, and knew that it was her cousin – the young man called Andover, or some such name.’

‘Angrave. Bobby Angrave.’

‘That’s right. I don’t care for him – but that’s by the way. Miss Rivière called to him, and they both ran through the library, where they picked up this top surgeon, Pendleton. And then the three of them went in and found the body. And that’s the whole story. At that point, you may say, our investigation begins.’

‘But we have to go back a bit, don’t we?’ Appleby had got to his feet again. Leaning against a pillar, he was staring absently at the closed door of the belvedere. ‘You rang the curtain up at ten p.m. But what about before that?’

‘Yes, indeed. Well, my impression is that they were all behaving a bit oddly, you know, for what you’d reckon to be a tolerably sociable hour of the day. Young people, of course, have simply ceased from civilized living. But in a place like this you’d surely expect–’ Colonel Morrison shook his head and broke off gloomily.

‘I know what you mean. But life hasn’t been quite normal at Charne just of late. Remember that Mrs Martineau was a very sick woman indeed.’

‘And other strains and stresses too, eh?’

‘Well, yes. Indeed, we’ll have to come to them. Related strains and stresses. Marriages and inheritances. That sort of thing.’

‘I thought so.’ Morrison nodded sagely. ‘So many wheels within wheels in this place, if you ask me, that one can pretty well hear the damned things whirring all the time.’

‘That puts it quite admirably. But how did things go after dinner?’

‘That’s certainly a good point at which to begin again, and get the hang of this unsociable scatter I was speaking of. Do you know, Appleby, that even the butler scatters?’

‘Friary?’ Appleby sat down again, laughing. ‘Yes, indeed. He’s supposed to go off to the village for a modest pint. For my own part, I’d distrust a beer-drinking butler.’

‘I certainly distrust Friary. But the first point is that, quite soon after dinner, the Martineaus strolled away together. It’s something, it seems, that was becoming a habit with them.’

‘They used to come up to this little temple – it’s called a belvedere – in their early days. The small trip was a sort of continuation of their wedding journey, I’d say. Which is why–’

‘I quite see.’ Morrison appeared to find this sufficiently uncomfortable to want to cut it short. ‘Well, up they came – or so one has to suppose – and that, once more, is the end of the matter. The next direct sight of either of them is of Mrs Martineau already dead, and of Martineau himself staggering under the news young Neil brought to him.’

‘But what about Friary – whether we trust him or not? We were talking about the clock. Well, Friary
was
a clock. It was the Martineaus’ own word for him. He would pass here – just down there, below us – on his way back from the village, with the precision of an ocean liner picking up a light at its precise moment. Or so we’re asked to believe.’

‘Yes, I’ve got that. And the fellow
did
pass – and saw nothing and heard nothing. At least we’re asked to believe that too.’

‘Any inquiries made about him in the village yet?’

‘Give us a chance, my dear fellow!’ Colonel Morrison was suddenly plaintive. ‘We’re not, you know, one of your flying squads.’

‘Of course not. But it occurs to me that you and I might take a stroll there now.’

‘To the village?’ Getting obediently to his feet, Morrison allowed himself a brief stare of surprise. ‘I’m in your hands.’

‘And here’s my wife, coming up through the wood. I expect she’ll join us. Do you mind?’

‘I’ll be delighted, I need hardly say.’ Morrison’s enthusiasm was detectably of the surface. ‘We need all the help we can get.’

‘Well, yes. And Judith, as a matter of fact, has rather a knack of picking things up. I shouldn’t be surprised if she had something to tell us now.’

‘There’s plenty to think about in all that,’ Colonel Morrison said ten minutes later. He had listened to Judith in silence as they continued their walk through Charne Wood. Now he turned to Appleby. ‘It would certainly seem that a little investigation in the village is in order. But how would you say that we organize things after that?’