The Second Shot (17 page)

‘But, my dear girl, really I don’t think it advisable, for your own sake, that – ’

‘Oh, come
on!
In two minutes.’ And before I could protest further she had gone.

I really did not know what to do.

In the end I complied with her wish and, feeling uncomfortably furtive, tiptoed along the passage to knock on her door.

It was whisked open in front of me. ‘Come in, you
idiot!’
muttered this surprising young woman. ‘Don’t stand there banging and telling every policeman within miles where you are.’ And catching my arm, she literally jerked me over the threshold. ‘There’s a chair over there.’

I sat down in the one she indicated, at the foot of the low bed. Armorel locked the door, hung a garment of some kind over the handle, and then seated herself on the bed close to me.

‘Pinkie – what are you going to
do
?’

‘Do?’ I could only echo feebly. ‘How do you mean? I don’t think I intend to “do” anything.’

She stared at me for a moment, her small, oval face intensely serious beneath its cap of shining dark hair. With a curiously detached interest I noticed tiny pin-points of moisture on her upper lip.

‘Look here, Pinkie,’ she said slowly, ‘we’ve got to have this out. Don’t fence with me. I
know
you shot Eric.’

‘The devil you do!’ I exclaimed involuntarily, surprised for the first time in my life into bad language in the presence of a woman.

‘And if you’re really not in love with Elsa, it must have been because of what I said to you in the morning. The De Ravel business wouldn’t mean anything to you. Do you swear you’re not in love with Elsa, Pinkie? No, don’t look so prunes-and-prisms; answer me: Do you swear that?’

‘I can certainly give you my word of honour that my feelings towards Miss Verity are not of the nature you indicate,’ I replied, striving after my fleeting dignity. To tell the truth I had never been in a feminine sleeping chamber before, and the litter of articles all round, from which I felt it only decent to keep my eyes averted, indicated that Armorel certainly did not possess the foible of orderliness in domestic details. My embarrassment was increased by the fact that if I wished to preserve the decencies thus, there was hardly any place in the room on which I could rest my eyes. ‘I have indeed already given you my word, I thought, to that effect. But that does not imply – ’

‘Then it
was
because of what I said,’ Armorel interrupted with a little sigh, and continued to look at me with disconcerting intentness.

I shrugged my shoulders in silence. There was no use in making undignified denials. But my feeling of uneasiness deepened. What could be in her mind?

‘I’m not going to be a hypocrite and pretend I’m sorry you did it,’ Armorel continued, ‘except for your own sake, Pinkie. It was dear and sweet of you, just as it’s dear and sweet of you to pretend now that you didn’t, to save my feelings. But why you ever thought I was worth it, I can’t imagine. I’m not. But you’ve given me Stukeleigh – or rather, the privilege of looking after Stukeleigh, and it’s up to me…’

Her voice went on, and in a way I heard what she said. But I suppose the recent strain had been too great for my mind, for I found my attention wandering uncontrollably and the most odd thoughts passing through my brain. It was perhaps one of the most remarkable moments of my life, and yet I found that instead of the closest concentration on the matter in hand my attention to Armorel’s words was interspersed with the most highly irrelevant reflections:

‘…get you out of this ghastly mess…’ What an odd word to choose in connection with shooting her cousin, ‘sweet’; ‘a sweet murder’; how very Armorel-like! ‘…absolutely
bound
to suspect you…’ Why
do
they wear such things? ‘…tumble to it sooner or later…’ Quite impractical and no doubt ridiculously expensive. ‘…simply terrified they may get it out of me…’ But pretty; oh, yes, really quite astonishingly pretty. ‘…of course they’d realize at once…’ Lemon-yellow, I suppose. ‘…anything to stop that, simply anything…’ No, I like the mauve ones better. Is it mauve? ‘… can’t give evidence against her husband…’ Impractical, yes; but charmingly so. It isn’t my idea of a… ‘…so naturally I’m game…’ Those are the stockings she wore last night, with the green dress; I recognize them distinctly; how remarkably different they look off!

‘So
would
you, Pinkie?’ Armorel was saying urgently.

I turned to her with a start. ‘I beg your pardon, Armorel. Would I what?’

‘Why, like to marry me, of course!’

I fear I gaped at her. ‘Good gracious me, what did you say?’

‘Because a wife can’t be called upon to give evidence against – Pinkie! Haven’t you heard a word of what I’ve been saying?’

‘Yes, yes,’ I said hastily, trying to reorient my ideas to the remarkable fact that I must have been receiving a proposal of marriage. ‘Yes, of course, my dear girl. But really…’

I managed somehow to reassure her.

The line I took, in all seriousness to match her own, was that if we married the situation would actually be worse for me than before, because the police would then immediately say that I had killed Eric in order to become master of Stukeleigh. Fortunately Armorel quite saw the point, and I was able to escape back to my room.

It was with some humility that I locked myself in alone; humility over the totally erroneous judgment I had once passed upon the dear girl I had just left. I had pronounced her empty-headed, flighty, unbalanced, insincere, and heaven knows what; and now, under the impression that I had killed a man on her behalf, she had been offering quite sincerely to requite me by sharing her life with me, solely so that she could not be put into the witness box against me. And to testify to what? Apparently just to the conversation we had had that morning, for there was nothing else to which she could testify. It was truly a great-hearted offer.

I did not feel like writing any more that night. Instead I put into operation a plan I had formed. I did not wish, now that my possessions were under the scrutiny of the police, to leave my manuscript in my bedroom, for any Constable Tom, Dick, or Harry to pry into. I intended to conceal it, and I thought I knew by what means.

Putting the papers into a stout flat waterproof metal box, which I often took into the country for the purpose of housing specimens of rare mosses (another hobby of mine), I slipped carefully out of the house and made my way in the darkness to the Moorland Field. There I made for a certain gorse bush which I had already noticed by day as having a hollow among its roots, and, having paused a moment or two to make sure whether I had been followed or not, deposited my box in the cavity.

And so (to quote a phrase from the diary of Samuel Pepys) to bed, if not in my case to sleep.

So far my nerves, unaccustomed though they were to a strain of this nature, had answered to the demands I had put upon them. The next morning they broke.

Questioned for a full two hours by the superintendent, who did not trouble to disguise his hostile intentions, about all the points of suspicion which he had marked against me, about my quarrel with Scott-Davies, about Miss Verity, about my movements in the wood when that fateful second shot was fired, I lost my head; my answers were so confused and contradictory that it was a marvel to me that I was not arrested on the spot.

Released at last I made my way from the house in something (I admit it freely) not unlike panic. I could no longer carry the burden alone; I must have some independent adviser to work for me as the police were working against me.

I still shrank from sending for my solicitor, but a new idea had presented itself. I remembered a man who had been in my house at Fernhurst, who had in fact been of the same term as myself, so that although we had drifted apart as we grew larger, as small boys we had necessarily been thrown much together. This man, I had gathered from reports in the newspapers, had recently obtained some success in unravelling the complications of crimes which had baffled even Scotland Yard. I had not really credited it at the time of reading, for I remembered him as a very ordinary – and indeed somewhat offensive! – small boy, but I was now ready to clutch at any suggestion of help that was offered.

Presuming on our very early acquaintance, I sent a telegram to Roger Sheringham intimating that I was in a perilous position and asking urgently for his aid.

Sheringham’s reply came with admirable promptitude. He would arrive that same evening. I was surprised and agreeably impressed. Sheringham must have changed for the better. I did not remember him as particularly ready to put himself out on anyone else’s behalf.

Within half an hour came a second telegram, announcing his train and the time of its arrival in Budeford, with a request to be met there.

I took John aside after lunch and informed him of what I had done. He was good enough to express his eagerness to offer the hospitality of the farm to anyone working on my behalf, but I could see that he did not altogether approve of my action; his fear was obvious that Sheringham might only confirm the conclusions of the police; was I quite sure that my own solicitor would not have been better? I smiled and said that I was sure that Sheringham was a better investigator than any solicitor, and all I wanted was my own innocence proved; Sheringham would do this for me, and, on my request, not seek to prove a case against anyone else. John did not seem altogether convinced, but that I could not help.

Such is the pleasure of even the most self-reliant man in shifting some at least of his burdens onto the shoulders of another, that I was already feeling much calmer when, at six o’clock, I went up to the garage to get out my car for the purpose of driving into Budeford to meet Sheringham. John had seemed so impressed with his skill as a detective (at times even a semi-official one, attached temporarily to Scotland Yard, I had gathered from John, who seemed to know all about him) that I was confident of his ability to unearth some definite evidence in my favour, and already the lowering horizon about me seemed to have lifted somewhat.

I had reversed out of the garage, and was just beginning to go forward, when a man suddenly appeared out of the hedge on my left and called to me to stop. I obeyed, and he informed me, addressing me by name, that I must not leave the farm premises.

I was not unreasonably annoyed. ‘That is ridiculous. I am on my way to meet a friend, by the 6:42 train at Budeford.’

‘I’m sorry, sir; those are my orders. The superintendent doesn’t wish anyone to leave the place for a day or two, in case he wants to question them in a hurry.’

I asked him who he was and demanded his credentials. He turned somewhat red, and said it didn’t matter about credentials; those were the superintendent’s orders. I spoke to the man sharply and, disregarding his minatory attitude, drove on. The incident was of no importance, but it served to unsettle me once more. Evidently I was to be allowed very little scope. Not for a moment was I deceived into believing that such restrictions were to apply to anyone but myself. The position was not merely dangerous but humiliating.

It was therefore without surprise that I observed a loiterer outside Budeford station as I drew up there, who followed me, almost without troubling to conceal the fact, onto the platform. The net could not be eluded for long.

I recognized Sheringham instantly, in spite of the many years since I had last seen him. Indeed, he was only too conspicuous. Even in the country I endeavour to preserve the neatness of my attire. It would have pained me considerably had anyone I knew ever surprised me in such a disreputable pair of flannel trousers as Sheringham was wearing, or such an inconceivably shapeless hat. And he actually must have had the thing on in London. His pockets, too, were bulging with papers, and he had four books bundled under his left arm.

‘Well, well,’ he said, wringing my hand as if genuinely delighted to see me, which I certainly found a warming sensation. ‘And how the devil are you, Tapers?’

In spite of my pleasure in welcoming one whom I was already looking on as my deliverer, I could not help wincing at this odious nickname, which I had thankfully imagined dead and buried these twenty years. For some totally obscure reason I had been hailed, on the very first day I ever set foot in Fernhurst, as ‘Tapeworm’, a highly offensive appellation of quite incomprehensible relevancy; nor had its subsequent abbreviation to ‘Tapers’ ever seemed very much better to me. I remember once my dear mother asking me: ‘But my dear Cyril,
why
do the boys all…’ But that has no bearing on the present situation.

It would, however, have been churlish of me to remonstrate with a man who had come over two hundred miles to do me a service, so I put the best face I could on the thing and replied with a smile, perhaps somewhat forced: ‘At the moment, I’m afraid, rather precariously.’

Sheringham responded with a violent thump behind my left shoulder, which was doubtless intended to be encouraging but succeeded actually in jarring my spine rather painfully. ‘Cheer up, cheer up, you’re not dead yet, you know,’ he said, with brutal good humour. ‘Not even arrested. Where can we get some beer?’

‘Beer?’ I said deprecatingly. There was only just time to get back to Minton Deeps to dress comfortably for dinner, and in any case I do not care at all for beer so shortly before a meal. A light sherry and bitters, perhaps; or even, if the circumstances warrant it, an inoffensively flavoured cocktail; but
beer,
no.

‘Beer,’ Sheringham repeated firmly. ‘I’ve got a wonderful thirst after that journey. That looks a likely sort of pub over the road. We’ll try it.’

I was forced to accompany him, but I did refuse to let him order beer for me.

‘So it is murder, your little affair down here,’ Sheringham positively beamed at me. ‘I rather gathered it might be. And they suspect you of it, Tapers. Marvellous! Well, here’s luck.’

‘To such an extent,’ I replied dryly, sipping my sherry, ‘that the gentleman on your left, who has just ordered a bitter beer, is here for the express purpose of seeing that I do not bolt by the next train.’ It seemed necessary to impress on Sheringham the real seriousness of the situation, which he had not apparently quite realized.