"Look for the Buttonhook"
Hugh Donovan saw The Grange for the first time late that afternoon. He had lunched with the bishop, Dr. Fell, and Colonel Standish at Groom's in Fleet Street while they discussed plans. The bishop was affable. When he learned that the stout man in the cloak and shovel hat, who had blinked on everybody with such good humor in Hadley's office, was the celebrated schoolmaster whose amiable eye had singled out half-a-dozen of the shrewdest murderers ever to appear at Madam Tussaud's, then the bishop unbent. He was disposed to make his conversation that of one criminologist to another. But he seemed shocked at the doctor's lack of knowledge, and even lack of interest, with regard to modern criminals and up-to-date scientific methods.
Fortunately, he did not try to draw his son into the discussion. And the latter realized, with silent profanity, that he had missed the best opportunity ever put before him to save his face. If he had known on the boat who Dr. Fell was, he could have explained his difficulties to the old codger, and the old codger would /have helped him. You had only to listen to Dr. Fell's rumblings and chucklings, and his roaring pronouncements on the world in general, to be aware that nothing would have pleased him more than a game of this sort. Even now it was not too late. And besides, Hugh Donovan reflected, there was a consolation. Undoubtedly he would be admitted to the shrine now, under the most excellent of false pretenses, and see the high priests making their magic in a real case. He had always wanted to do so. Hitherto the bishop would have instructed him to go and roll his hoop, or some other undignified pastime, while papa had a shot at it. But now he theoretically knew all about ballistics, microphotography, chemical analysis, toxicology, and other depressing studies with figures in them. From the one or two glances he had taken at his textbooks, he had been mystified and annoyed. It was a fake. Instead of giving you something juicy in the way of hints about catching axe-killers, all they seemed to do was babble on about something being four-point-two and one-half plus x more than eleven nought-nought-point-two over y hieroglyphic. It was worst than chemistry.
Morosely he listened to the bishop expounding theories to Dr. Fell, and sipped Groom's excellent beer. All the alluring-sounding things were fakes, anyway: like chemistry. He remembered as a boy being fascinated by the toy chemical outfits in the shops. When they bought him one for Christmas, he had been delighted first off to see instructions for making gunpowder. That, he thought, was the stuff. Your mixture produced a fine black compound, very sinister-looking and satisfying. But it was a failure. He put a mound of it under his father's favorite easy-chair, attached a paper wick, lighted it, and awaited results. All it did was flare out like a flashlight-powder, and scorch the bishop's ankles; though his leap showed his athletic training of old. However, Hugh had to admit, better results were obtained with his manufacture of chlorine gas. By a liberal use of ingredients, he had contrived to paralyse the old man for fully five minutes. But, all in all, he was disappointed, and it had been the same with criminology. He much preferred detective work as set forth in the novels of his favorite author: that distinguished and popular writer of detective stories, Mr. Henry Morgan.
He frowned. This reminded him. If he remembered correctly, Morgan's novels were published by the firm of Standish & Burke. He must ask the colonel who Morgan was, and what he was like, The nom de plume Henry Morgan," his blurbs always announced, in tones of hushed reverence, "conceals the identity of a figure internationally known in the world of letters and politics, who has turned his genius and his knowledge of police procedure to the writing of the roman police" Donovan was impressed. He pictured the original as a satanic individual in evening clothes, with forked whiskers and piercing eyes, who was always frustrating somebody's plot to pinch the plans of the latest electromagnetic gun.
But he did not dare question Standish now, not only because the colonel seemed moody and distraught at the lunch table, but because he did not want to attract his father's attention at all. The Bishop of Mappleham was busy with Dr. Fell.
So they left London in Standish's car early in the afternoon, and the bishop was still explaining how his efforts had been misdirected by unfortunate circumstances. How (he freely admitted) he had been mistaken in thinking that Hilda Doffit, a housemaid, was the notorious and light-fingered Piccadilly Jane; and had been led thereby into several equivocal positions. Then, on the night he genuinely did see Louis Spinelli in the geranium beds, his conduct had been misinterpreted by Colonel Standish, due to somebody's idiotic prank at playing ghost on the Reverend George Primley.
This prank, it must be confessed, roused the interest and approval of Hugh Donovan. He looked forward to meeting the person, whoever it might be, who had taken advantage of a poltergeist's notoriously rowdy habits to throw ink at the vicar. But it seemed evident that Colonel Standish was not yet satisfied, and had his own secret doubts about the bishop's conduct.
They made good time through the countryside, and at four o'clock they had turned off the London road at a village called Bridge Eight. It was a hot, still afternoon. The road wound through dips and hollows, overhung by maple trees; and bees from the hedgerows were always sailing in through the wind screen and driving Standish wild. Towards the west Donovan could see the smoky red roofs of the suburbs round Bristol; but this was rural scenery of the thatched-roof and cowbell variety. Here were rolling meadows, frothing yellow with buttercups, and occupied by cows that looked as stolid as a nudist colony. Here were rocky commons, and unexpected brooks, and dark coppices massed on the hillsides. And, as usual when he ventured into the country, Donovan began to get good resolutions. He breathed deeply. He removed his hat and let the sunlight burn his hair to an uncomfortable state. This was health.
He could look back on New York with a mild pity. What asses people were! To be shut into a hot apartment, with twenty different radio programs roaring in your ear; with every light shaking to the thunder of parties on each floor; with children yelling along Christopher Street, and papers blown in gritty over-hot winds, and the rumble of the Sixth Avenue L rising monotonously over the clatter of traffic. Sad. Very sad. Already he could picture his poor friends staggering in and out of cordial shops; wasting their substance by depositing nickels in the slot machines, pulling the lever, and getting only a row of lemons for their pains. Tonight, round Sheridan Square, one poor friend would be measuring out gin drops, with the fierce concentration of a scientist, into a glass jug containing half-a-gallon of alcohol and half-a-gallon of water. Others would be thirstily waiting to drink it, poor devils. Then they would forget to eat dinner, and make love to somebody else's girl, and get a bust in the eye. Sad.
Whereas he… The bishop was saying something about Thomas Aquinas, and his son eyed him benevolently as the car sped on. Whereof he…
There should be no more of that. He would rise with the thrush (at whatever hour that exemplary bird does begin raising hell outside your window). He would go for long walks before breakfast. He would decipher inscriptions on gravestones, and meditate on the fallen tower, like those fellows who write the pleasant essays, and who never have any base impulse to go and get plastered at the nearest pub.
And he would listen to quaint bits of philosophy from rustics — those fellows who always tell the local legends to the writers. "Aye" he could hear an old graybeard saying, "aye, it were twenty year come Michaelmas that poor Sally Fewerley drownded herself in yon creek, and on moonlight nights…" Excellent. He could already see himself leaning on his ash stick in the twilight as the story was told, looking with sad eyes at the brook, and musing on the villainy of those who drink alcohol-and-water in cities, and then come out and seduce poor girls all over the countryside, and make them drown themselves in brooks. He had worked himself into a high state of virtue, when he was suddenly roused by a hail from the roadside. "What ho!" cried a voice. "What hoi" He roused himself, putting on his hat again to shield his eyes from the sun, as the car slowed down. They had come through a cluster of houses, the largest of which was a white-washed stone pub bearing the sign of the Bull, and turned to the left up a long low hill. Midway up on the right was a little square-towered church, a miniature of great age, with flowers round it and the gravestones built up close to its porch. At the crest of the hill the road ran straight for a quarter of a mile; and, far away to the left, Donovan could see acre upon acre of parkland, enclosed along the road by a low stone wall. In the middle of the park lay a vast, low stone house, with its eastern windows glowing against the gold sky.
But the hail had come from closer at hand. On the opposite side of the road, just past the top of the hill, stood a timbered house of the sort that used to be called black-and-white. Its frontage was enclosed by a box hedge as high as a tall man's head. An iron gate in the hedge bore a name plate in small, severe black letters, HANGOVER HOUSE. Leaning on this gate, and gesturing at them with a pipe, stood the lounging man who had called out.
"What ho!" he repeated. "What ho!’
Donovan noticed that his father closed disapproving jaws, but the colonel uttered a grunt of pleasure or relief and swung the car towards the gate. The amiable figure proved to be a lean young man, not many years older than Donovan himself, with a long face, a square jaw, a humorous eye, and tortoise-shell glasses pulled down on a long nose. He was dressed in a loud blazer, soiled gray trousers, and a khaki shirt open at the neck. With one hand he shook the ashes out of his dead pipe, and the other held a glass containing what looked very much like a cocktail.
The colonel stopped the car. "Don't go on saying, 'What ho, demmit," he complained. "We can't stay. We're in a hurry. What do you want?"
"Come on in," invited the other hospitably. "Have a cocktail. I know it's early, but have one anyway. Besides, there's news." He turned his head over his shoulder, and called, "Madeleine!"
At the sight of the amber-brown contents of that glass, Donovan's feelings underwent a sudden convulsion. On the lawn beyond the hedge he could see an enormous beach umbrella propped up over a table bearing materials which reminded him forcibly of New York. And, unless his eyes were deceiving him, the sides of that great nickelled cocktail-shaker were pale with moisture. A nostalgia swept over him. He was aware that ice for drinks was an almost unknown commodity in rural England. At the young man's hail, a girl's head appeared round the edge of the umbrella and gave everybody a beaming smile.
Getting up from a deck chair, she hurried to the gate. She was a dark-eyed, bouncing little piece of the sort known as a Japanese brunette; and that she was sturdy and admirably fashioned was rendered obvious by the fact that she wore beach pyjamas and one of those short silk coats with the flowers on them. She hung over the gate, inspected them all pleasantly, raised her eyebrows, and said, "Hullo!" as though she were very pleased with herself for thinking of it.
Colonel Standish coughed when he saw the pyjamas, looked at the bishop, and went on hastily:
"Don't think everybody knows everybody. Hum. This is Dr. Fell — detective fella, you know; heard me speak of him, hey? — come down from Scotland Yard. And Mr. Donovan, the bishop's son… I want you to meet," he said, rather proudly, "Henry Morgan, the writin' fella. And Mrs. Morgan."
Donovan stared as the introductions were acknowledged. Not even his formidable father could keep him quiet now.
"Excuse me," he said, " you are Henry Morgan?"
Morgan wryly scratched the tip of his ear. "Um," he said in an embarrassed way. "I was afraid of that. Madeleine wins another bob. You see, the bet is that if you say that to me, I pay her a shilling. If, on the other hand; you look at her and make some remark about The Old, Bold Mate of Henry Morgan,' then I win it. However…"
"Hoora!" gurgled Madeleine delightedly. "I win. Pay me." She regarded Dr. Fell and said with candor: "I like you." Then she looked at Donovan and added with equal impartiality: "I like you too."
Dr. Fell, who was chuckling in the tonneau, lifted his stick in a salute. Thank you, my dear. And I’m naturally pleased to meet you both. You see—"
"Hold on a bit!" Donovan interrupted with pardonable rudeness. "You are the creator of John Zed, diplomatist-detective?"
"Um."
Another question, which could not be kept down despite his father's eye, boiled to the surface. He pointed to the glass in the other's hand and demanded: "Martinis?"
Morgan brightened eagerly.
"And how!" agreed the creator of John Zed, diplomatist-detective. "Have one?"
"Hugh!" interposed the bishop in a voice that could quell the most rebellious chapter, dean and all. "We do not wish to take up your time, Mr. Morgan. Doubtless all of us have more important matters to which we can attend." He paused, and his furry brows drew together. "I hope I shall not be misunderstood, my friend, if I add that in the solemn presence of death your attitude seems to me to be somewhat reprehensibly irreverent. Start the car, Standish."
"Sorry, sir," said Morgan, looking at him meekly over his spectacles. "I mean to say — sorry. Not for a moment would I in my irreverence stay your headlong rush to get at the corpse. All I wanted to tell you was—"
"Don't you mind him, bishop," said Madeleine warmly. "Don't you mind him. You can slide down our bannisters as much as you like, and nobody shall stop you. There! Fll even get a big cushion for you to land on, though I expect," she added, scrutinizing him with a thoughtful air, "you won't need it much, will you?"
"Angel sweetheart," said Morgan dispassionately, "shut your trap. What I was about to say was—"
"Madeleine gurgled. "But he won't, will he?" she protested, swinging on the gate. "And what's more, I wouldn't be mean like you, when you said you'd put the goldfish bowl there instead of a cushion. I mean, that isn't nice, is it?"
"Dawn of my existence," said her husband querulously, "all this is beside the point. Whether nature in her abundance has equipped His Reverence with a lower dorsal frontage sufficiently spacious to withstand the shocks of sliding down bannisters all over England, is not only beside the point, but savors of indelicacy." He looked at Standish, and his face suddenly clouded. He moved the loose spectacles up and down his nose, uneasily. "Look here, sir. We don't — well, the bishop is right. We don't take this very seriously, I admit. If it weren't for what Betty would feel about it, I shouldn't be very much cut up about it. I know; de mortuis, and all that. But after all, sir — old Depping was rather a blister, wasn't he?"
Standish punched at the steering-wheel, hesitantly.
"Oh, I say!" he protested…
"Right," said Morgan in a colorless voice. "I know it's none of my business. All I wanted to tell you was that I was to look out for you when you arrived and tell you that Inspector Murch has gone home for something to eat; he said to tell you he would be back directly… He allowed me to prowl about the Guest House with him, and we found a couple of things.
"And may I ask, young man," said the bishop, stung, "on what authority you did that?"
"Well, sir, I suppose it was rather like your own. There wasn't much to be seen there. But we did find the gun. I should say a gun, though there isn't much doubt it's the one. The autopsy hasn't been performed, but the doctor said it was a thirty-eight bullet. The gun is a thirty-eight Smith & Wesson revolver… You will find it," said Morgan, in the negligent manner which would have been employed by John Zed, diplomatist-detective, "in the right-hand drawer of Depping's desk."
"Eh?" demanded Standish. "In Depping's desk? What the devil is it doing there?"
"It's Depping's gun," said Morgan; "we found it there." He noticed that he had a cocktail in his hand, and drank it off. Then he balanced the glass on the edge of the gate, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of the red-and-white blazer, and tried to assume a mysterious profundity like John Zed's. But it was difficult. For the first time Donovan saw the excitability of his nature. He could imagine him striding up and down the lawn with a cocktail in one hand, shifting his spectacles up and down his nose, and hurling out theories to a beaming wife. He said:
"There's no doubt it was his gun, sir. His name on a litde silver plate on the grip. And his firearms license was in the same drawer, and the numbers tallied… By the way, two shots had been recently fired."
Dr. Fell bent forward abruptly. He made a queer figure against the hot green landscape, in his black cloak and shovel hat.
"Two shots?" he repeated. "So far as we have heard, there was only one. Where was the other bullet?"
That's the point, sir. We couldn't discover it. Both Murch and I are willing to swear it isn't lodged in the room anywhere. Next—"
"I am afraid we are wasting a great deal of time," the bishop interposed. "All this information can be obtained officially from Inspector Murch. Shall we proceed, Standish?"
There were times, Donovan thought, when his old man was lacking in ordinary courtesy. Still, these constant references to sliding down bannisters must be wearing on his temper; and Madeleine Morgan seemed to be pondering some new remark about cushions. Dr. Fell rumbled something angrily, glaring at the bishop, but Standish was under the influence of that cold ecclesiastical eye, and obediendy pressed his starter.
"Right," said Morgan amiably. "Break away as soon as you can," he suggested to Donovan, "and come down and try one of our Martinis…" He leaned over the gate as the car backed round. He looked at the bishop. And then up rose Old John Zed himself, to speak in a tone of thunder across the road. "I don't know what deductions you will make, Your Reverence," said Old John Zed, "but I’ll give you a tip. Look for the buttonhook."
The car slewed round slighdy as it sped on. Standish goggled.
"Eh?" he inquired. "What was that he said, hey? What button-hook? What's a demnition button-hook got to do with it?"
"Nothing whatever," said the bishop. "It is merely some of that insolent young man's nonsense. How sensible people can read such balderdash by a young man who knows nothing of criminology, is more than-"
"Oh, look here!" warmly protested the colonel, whose favorite reading was the saga of John Zed. "Murder on the Woolsack, eleventh printing comprising 79,000 copies. Who Shot the Prime Minister? sixteenth printing comprising — well, I don't remember, but a dem'd lot, demmit. Burke told me. Besides," added Standish, using a clinching argument, "my wife likes him."
Dr. Fell, who had been cocking a thoughtful eye at the house along the left, seemed to repress a chuckle. He cast a surreptitious glance at the bishop, and observed dreamily:
"I say, you are in a most unfortunate position, I fear. The impression seems to be widespread that your conduct is at times, humf, a trifle erratic. Heh. Heh-heh-heh. Sir, I should be careful; very careful. It would be unfortunate, for instance, if other lapses occurred."
"I don't think I understand."
"Well, the colonel and I would be compelled to put you under restraint. It would exclude you from the case. It might get into the newspapers. Listen, Your Grace…" Dr. Fell's red face was very bland, and his eyes opened wide. "Let me warn you to walk very softly. Attend to those who want to speak, and what they say; and brush nothing aside as unimportant. Eh?"
Dr. Fell, it was obvious, had been struck with ah idea which he continued to ponder while the car turned through the lodge gates of The Grange. The iron gates were shut, and at the porter's lodge a large policeman was trying to maintain a Jovian unconsciousness of the little group of idlers that had gathered outside. He opened the gates at Standish's hail.
Tell you what," said Standish, 'I’ll drive on up to the house and tell 'em to make ready for you and get your luggage out. You fellows go along to the Guest House and look about. Join you shortly. The bishop knows where it is."
The bishop assented with great eagerness. He asked the policeman, sharply, whether anything had been touched, looked round him with satisfaction, and then sniffed the air like a hunter as he strode off across the lawn. The three of them, his son reflected, must have made a queer picture. Up beyond them, at the end of a shallow slope, the gables of the low, severely plain house were silhouetted on the yellow sky. Except for a border of elms on either side of the driveway curving up to it, all the ornamental trees were massed behind The Grange in an estate that must have covered eight thousand acres. The Grange was restored Tudor in design, full of tall windows, bearded in ivy, and built on three sides of a rectangle with the open side towards the road. It had almost the stolid aspect of a public building; and must, Donovan reflected, take an enormous income to keep up. Standish could certainly be no army man retired on half-pay.
The Guest House lay on the southern fringe of the park, in the clearing of a coppice which gave it a deserted, mournful, and rather ominous appearance. It was in a hollow of somewhat marshy ground, with a great ilex tree growing behind it, so that it seemed much smaller than it was. If The Grange itself was of plain design, some domestic architect seemed to have spread himself to make this place an unholy mongrel from all styles of building, and to give it as many geegaws as a super-mighty pipe organ in a super-mighty cinema theatre. It looked as though you could play it. Upon a squat stone house rose scrolls, tablets, stops, and fretwork. Every window — including those of the cellar — was protected by a pot-bellied grille in the French fashion. It was encircled by an upper and lower balcony, with fancy iron railings. Midway along the upper balcony Donovan could see on the west side of the square the door by which the murderer must have escaped. It still stood ajar, and a flight of stairs near it led down to the lower balcony. The very bad taste of the house had a sinister look. Despite the sunlight, it was gloomy in the coppice, and the stickiness of last night's rain had not disappeared.
The bishop was leading them up a brick walk, which divided at the house and encircled it, when he stopped suddenly. At the side of the walk that ran round the west end, they could see the figure of a man kneeling and staring at something on the ground.
The bishop almost said, "Aha!" He strode forward. The kneeling figure raised its head with a jerk.
"But they're my shoes!" it protested. "Look here, confound it. They're my shoes!"