Why Shoot a Butler (3 page)

Lady Matthews displayed no particular alarm. "Good gracious, Frank; not here, I trust?"

"No, on the Pittingly Road. Someone's been murdered. Uncle thinks probably by bandits."

"Dear me!" said his aunt. "So mediaeval. On the Pittingly Road too. Such an improbable place to choose. My dear, did they give you anything to eat?"

"Yes, thanks; excellent dinner."

Sir Humphrey, always a Perfect Husband, patted his wife's hand soothingly. "You must not allow this to worry you, Marion."

"No, my dear, why should I? Very disagreeable for poor Frank though. I hope we haven't got a gang of desperate criminals near us. Terrible if one's own chauffeur turned out to be the leader of a sinister organisation."

"Ludlow?" said Sir Humphrey, taken aback. "My love, we have had Ludlow in our employment for over ten years! What in the world makes you suppose that he can have anything to do with this shocking affair?"

"I'm sure he hasn't," replied his wife. "I find that nothing of that nature ever really happens to one. But in this book' - she dived her hand among the sofa-cushions and produced a novel in a lurid jacket - "it was the chauffeur. So unnerving."

Sir Humphrey put on his pince-nez again and took the book. "The Stalking Death," he read. "My dear, surely this doesn't entertain you?"

"Not very much," she admitted. "The nice man turned out to be a villain after all. I think that's so unfair when one had become quite fond of him. Frank, did I tell you to bring a fancy dress?"

"You did, Aunt. Who are these Fountains? New?"

"Oh no, not new. Surely you remember old Mr. Fountain? Though why you should I can't imagine, for he went nowhere. He's dead."

"Is that why he went nowhere?" inquired Frank.

"Not at all, dear. How should I know his movements now? How long has jasper Fountain been dead, Humphrey?"

Two years, or rather longer if my memory serves me."

"I expect it does. I never liked the man but at least one never saw very much of him, and Felicity did not insist on becoming intimate with that girl - not that I have anything against her. Far from it; I am sure she is charming, but I always disliked Basil and I daresay I always shall. How is your mother, dear boy?"

"All right, and sent her love. Don't side-track, Aunt. Who is Basil and why don't you like him?"

Lady Matthews looked up at him with her gentle smile. "Don't you find, Frank, that one never knows why one dislikes a person?"

Mr. Amberley considered this gravely. "I think I usually do know," he pronounced at length.

"Ah, so masculine," murmured his aunt helplessly. "I can't explain."

Sir Humphrey, who had retired into the evening paper, emerged to say: "My dear Marion, don't make a mystery out of Fountain. There's nothing wrong with the fellow at all. I can't say I care very much for him, but I am possibly old-fashioned - dear me, Felicity, pray shut that door! There's a direct draught."

Felicity obeyed. "Sorry. That was Joan. She's had a ghoulish day. Whatever do you think, Mummy? Her fancy dress had come, and there was a bill with it, and Basil saw it and kicked up a frightful row, and said he wouldn't pay. Anyone'd think he was going bankrupt. Jean says he's always groaning about money, which is too absurd when he must be rolling."

Sir Humphrey looked over the top of his glasses. "You should not encourage your friend to talk disloyally about her brother, Felicity," he said.

"He's only a "step"," Felicity said impenitently. "And pretty moth-eaten at that. However, Joan's managed to smooth him down over the frock. I expect he's comforting himself with the thought that he won't have to support her at all much longer."

"Do you mean to tell me that you've been all this time telephoning to one person?" interrupted Frank. "Yes, of course. Why not? I say, by the way, Joan says she tried to make Basil be Mephistopheles, because of her and Tony being Marguerite and Faust, only he wouldn't. Rather fortunate. I told her I was bringing one who really looks the part. She was thrilled."

"Do you mind elucidating this mystery?" said Frank. "It's beginning to get on my nerves. Who is Basil?"

Joan's step-brother, idiot."

"I had gathered that. Is he the present owner of the manor?"

"Yes, of course. He inherited everything when old Mr. Fountain popped off."

Sir Humphrey again looked up, mildly pained. "Died, my dear."

"All right, Daddy. Died. He was Mr. Fountain's nephew, and as Mr. Fountain hadn't got any children of his own, he was the heir. Quite simple."

"Oh yes, jasper Fountain had children of his own," interposed her mother. "That is to say, one. He died about three years ago. I remember seeing the notice in The Times."

Felicity was faintly surprised. "I never heard of any son. Are you sure, Mummy?"

"Perfectly, darling. He was an extremely unsatisfactory young man and went to South America."

"Africa, my dear," corrected Sir Humphrey from behind the paper.

"Was it, Humphrey? Very much the same thing, I feel. There was a very unpleasant scandal. Something to do with cards. But the young man drank, which probably accounted for his erratic habits. His father would never have anything more to do with him. I don't know what became of him, except that he died."

"That finishes him off, then," said Frank. "Does the objectionable Basil have - er - erratic habits?"

"Not that I am aware of, my dear."

Sir Humphrey laid down the paper. "Nowadays the papers contain nothing but sensational descriptions of most unpleasant crimes," he said severely. "Do you young people feel like bridge?"

Upon the following day Felicity, having shopping to do for her mother in Upper Nettlefold, decreed that Frank should accompany her. His suggestion that the expedition might be conducted by car was sternly contradicted. Wolf, said Felicity, must be taken for a walk.

Wolf was Felicity's Alsatian. When fetched from the stables he evinced his satisfaction by bounding round his mistress and barking madly for the first hundred yards of their walk. Exercising him was not, as Frank knew from experience, all joy, as he was not in the least amenable to discipline, had to be caught and held at the approach of any motor vehicle, and had a habit of plunging unadvisedly into quarrels with others of the canine race.

The narrow main street of the town was, as usual upon a weekday, crowded with cars whose owners had parked them there while they shopped. Wolf exchanged objurgations with an Airedale seated in a large touringcar and Felicity, her attention attracted towards the car, announced that it belonged to Tony Corkran. At that moment a slim, fair-haired girl in tweeds came out of the confectioner's with a young man at her heels.

"There is —Joan!" Felicity said and darted across the street.

Frank followed, basely deserting Wolf, who had obvious designs on a butcher's shop.

Felicity turned as he came up. "Oh, Frank, whatever do you think? Joan says their butler's been murdered! By the way, this is my cousin, Frank Amberley, Joan. He says he knows you, Mr. Corkran. I say, how thrilling about Dawson, though! How did it happen? Frightfully ghastly, of course," she added, as an afterthought.

"Your butler?" Frank said, released from Mr. Corkran's hearty handshake. "Oh!"

"Beastly, isn't it?" said Anthony, a young man of engaging ingenuousness. "What I mean to say is - one moment the fellow's murmuring, "Will you take hock, sir?" and the next he's been bumped off. Bad business, what?" He regarded his erstwhile school-friend with the respect due to Higher Beings. "Of course, I know these little contretemps are everyday matters to you brainy johnnies at the Bar. Still - not nice, you know. Definitely a bad show."

"Definitely," Frank agreed. He was frowning slightly. His cousin accused him of lack of proper interest. "No. By no means," he said. "I'm quite unusually interested. How did it happen, Miss Fountain?"

The fair girl said shyly: "Well, we don't know very much yet. It was Dawson's half-day and he seems to have gone off in the Baby Austin. Basil keeps it for the servants because the manor's such a way from the town and there aren't any buses near us. We didn't know a thing about it till a policeman turned up late last night and told Basil they'd found a man dead on the Pittingly Road, and he'd been identified as Dawson. He'd been shot. It's rather awful. Because he'd been at the manor for simply ages, and I can't imagine anyone wanting to shoot him. Basil's dreadfully upset about it."

"An old retainer, in fact?"

"Oh, rather!" said Anthony. "Stately old fossil. Frightfully keen on the done thing. Pretty grim."

Joan gave a little shiver. "It's horrid. I - I hate it having happened. I mean - Dawson wasn't our retainer, really, because we took him on with Collins when Uncle Jasper died, but all the same it's a beastly thing to happen, and it makes it seem pretty heartless to go on with the dance on Wednesday."

"Yes, but my dear old soul, we can't sit and gloom about the place forever," objected her betrothed. "I don't mind telling you that Brother Basil's getting on my nerves already. After all - a poor show, and all that sort of thing, but it's not as though it was his best friend, or what not."

"Darling, it's not that," said Joan patiently. "I keep on trying to explain to you what Basil feels about dead things. He can't bear them. You will insist on thinking he's a callous sort of he-man just because he looks the part, and he isn't. It's one of the things I like about him."

"But dash it all," expostulated Anthony, "he shoots and hunts, doesn't he?"

"Yes, but he doesn't like being in at the death, and I bet you've never seen him pick up the birds that have been shot. Don't say anything about it, because he'd hate anyone to know. He wouldn't even bury Jenny's puppies for me. Wouldn't touch them."

"Well, anyway, I think all this mourning's a bit overdone," said Corkran.

Joan was silent, she looked troubled. Felicity had begun to say: "It isn't particularly enlivening to have one's butler shot…' when she was interrupted by a disturbance in the middle of the road. "Oh, good Lord! Wolf!" she cried.

Wolf, emerging from the butcher's shop, had encountered a bull-terrier. Mutual dislike had straightway sprung up between them, and after the briefest preliminaries battle was joined. As Felicity spoke a girl ran forward and tried to catch the bull-terrier. Mr. Amberley joined the fray and grabbed Wolf by the scruff of his neck. The girl's hands grasped the bull-terrier round the throat. "Hold your dog!" she panted. "I'll have to choke Bill. It's the only way."

Mr. Amberley glanced quickly up at her, but her face was bent over the dogs.

The bull-terrier had acquired a satisfactory grip on Wolf's throat, but his mistress ruthlessly squeezed his windpipe and he had to let go. Mr. Amberley swung Wolf back and held him.

The girl clipped a leash on the bull-terrier's collar and at last looked up. "It was your dog's fault," she began and broke off, staring in a startled way at Mr. Amberley and growing rather pale.

"It usually is," said Frank coolly. "But I don't think your dog's hurt."

Her eyes fell. "No," she said and would have moved away had not Felicity come up.

"I say,. I'm most awfully sorry!" Felicity said. "I ought to have had him on the lead. I do hope he hasn't hurt your dog?"

The other girl smiled rather scornfully. "Rather the other way round, I should say."

Felicity was surveying her with friendly interest. "Aren't you the girl that's living at Ivy Cottage?" she inquired.

"My brother and I have taken it furnished."

"Are you going to stay long? You are Shirley Brown, aren't you? I'm Felicity Matthews. This is my cousin, Frank Amberley."

Miss Brown bowed slightly, but she did not look at Mr. Amberley.

"I rather wanted to get to know you," persevered Felicity. "I'm awfully glad we got ourselves introduced. There are practically no young people in this benighted place. Do you know Miss Fountain?"

The girl shook her head. "No, I'm afraid I don't go out much. My - my brother is rather an invalid."

"Oh, bad luck!" sympathised Felicity. Joan, this is Miss Brown, who is living at Ivy Cottage."

"May I suggest," interposed Frank, "that you are obstructing the traffic?"

Felicity became aware of an indignant motorist who was violently sounding his hooter. She drew the rather unwilling Miss Brown on to the pavement. "Have you heard the news?" she asked. "The Fountains' butler has been murdered! Isn't it awful?"

"No, I hadn't heard. Are you sure he was murdered?"

"He was shot through the chest, you see," said Mr. Amberley gently. "Seated at the wheel of an Austin Seven."

"I see," Shirley said.

Mr. Corkran was puzzled. "Yes, he was. But how the devil did you know all that?"

"I found him," said Mr. Amberley.

He created a sensation; only the dark girl at his side betrayed neither surprise nor incredulity. There was something rather tense in the way she held herself, but her eyes, travelling from Joan's shocked face to Felicity's eager one, were indifferent to the point of boredom.

"I thought," said Mr. Amberley, interrupting the fire of questions, "that you might as well know now as later."

"Oh, did you?" said Felicity witheringly. "Go on, tell us how it happened!"

He threw her a mocking glance. "I'm reserving my evidence for the inquest, loved one."

Shirley Brown stiffened slightly. She said, as though jesting: "The whole truth and nothing but the truth, in fact."

" I see you know all about the procedure," said Mr. Amberley.

She gave him back look for look, but said nothing. The two dogs, who had been snarling softly all the time, created a diversion by attempting to lunge suddenly at each other's throats. Shirley twisted the bull-terrier's leash round her hand and stepped back. "I mustn't wait any longer," she said. "I have some shopping to do. Goodbye."

Joan watched her walk away down the street. "What a queer sort of a girl!" she remarked.

"Oh, I don't know! Rather nice, I thought," said Felicity. "Look here, we can't stand here for ever. I've got to go to Thompson's and Crewett's. Come with me? Frank, for God's sake hold on to Wolf. I shan't be more than five minutes."