By the time Gavin returned to The Cedars it was half-past six, and the party was beginning to break up. Mrs. Ainstable was the first to leave, driving home alone in her aged Austin, and very nearly running Gavin down as she came somewhat incautiously round the bend in the drive. She pulled up, calling out: “So sorry! Did I frighten you?”
“Yes, I gave myself up for dead” he replied, leaving the grass verge beside the shrubbery on which he had taken refuge, and approaching the car. “And me a cripple! How could you?”
“It's stupid to talk like that: you're not a cripple. You deserved to be frightened, anyway, for behaving so atrociously. You didn't take anyone in, you know. It was as plain as a pikestaff you didn't want to sit out with Mavis Warrenby. She is dull, of course. I can't think why very good people so often are. Why on earth didn't you pretend you had to go home early, and just leave?”
“That would have looked as if I were not enjoying the party.”
“Well, it would have been better than hatching up that quite incredible story about having to fetch a lot of unimportant papers for Bernard!” she said tartly.
“You wrong me. May I hand over to you the proofs of my integrity?” he said, drawing a long, fat envelope from the inner pocket of his coat, and giving it to her, with his impish smile. “Is the Squire still playing tennis?”
“Yes. It's no use my waiting for him. He's going home the other way, so that he can look at what's been done in the new plantation. So foolish of him! He'll only wear himself out to no purpose. How insufferably hot it is!”
“Is it? It doesn't seem so to me. Are you quite well, Mrs. Ainstable? Well enough to be driving alone?”
“Thank you, perfectly well! Is this your way of asking for a lift?”
“No, I should be afraid,” he retorted.
“Oh, don't be so silly!” she said, rather roughly putting the car into gear.
He watched her sweep through the gates on to the lane, and walked on to rejoin the rest of the party.
One of the sets had come to an end, and Delia Lindale, who had been playing in it, was taking leave of her hostess. Since it was past Rose-Veronica's bedtime, Mrs. Haswell made no attempt to detain her. Her husband waved to her from the other court, and she sped away through the gate into the public footpath.
“I ought to be going too,” said Abby.
“No, you oughtn't: I'm going to run you home,” said Charles.
“Oh, rot! I can easily walk.”
“You can do more: you can walk beautifully, but you aren't going to.”
She laughed. “You are an ass! Honestly, there's no need to get your car out just to run me that little distance.”
“Of course not, and I shouldn't dream of doing so. I'm doing it for Mr. Drybeck,” said Charles, with aplomb.
“Really, that is very kind of you, my dear boy,” said Mr. Drybeck. “I am far from despising such a welcome offer. A most enjoyable game, that last.”
“Well, if you're going to motor Abby and Mr. Drybeck home, you could give the Major a lift too,” suggested Mrs. Haswell. “You won't mind waiting till the other game finishes, will you? Mavis, now that I've got you both here, I want you and Mrs. Cliburn to help me over the prizes for the Whist Drive. I ought to get them on Monday, I think, but we never settled what we ought to spend on them. It won't take many minutes. Ah, I see the game has ended! Who won? You looked to be very evenly matched.”
“Yes, a good ding-dong game,” said the Squire, mopping his face and neck. “Midgeholme and I just managed to pull it off, but it was a near thing. I'm not as young as I was. Hallo, you back, Plenmeller? Thought you'd gone.”
“But could you have doubted that I should, sir? Your words struck home. I have fetched the correspondence which has for too long languished on my desk. I have no excuse: I didn't even find it interesting.”
The Squire stared at him under his bushy brows, and gave a grunt. “No need to have rushed off for it then and there. However, I'm obliged to you. Where is it?”
“Can it be that I have erred again? I gave the envelope into Mrs. Ainstable's keeping.”
“Pity. Lindale could have taken it home, and run his eye over it. If you're going my way, I'll walk along with you, Lindale.”
“I'm afraid I'm not, sir. We didn't come in the car. I'm going by way of the footpath.”
“Yes, yes, that's all right, so am I. Going to have a look at my new plantation. My land stretches as far as the path, behind this place, you know.”
“Now nobody must go before they've had a drink,” interposed Mrs. Haswell hospitably.
“Nothing more for me, thank you,” Mr. Drybeck said. “I must not hurry my kind chauffeur, but I have promised my housekeeper I will not be late. She likes to go to the cinema in Bellingham on Saturday evening, you know, and so I make it a rule to have an early supper to accommodate her.”
“By Jove, yes!” said the Major, glancing at his watch. “I must be getting along too!”
“Perhaps I had better go quietly away,” said Gavin, setting down his empty glass. “Something tells me I am not popular. Of course, I see now: I should have presented those papers to the Squire on bent knee, instead of handing them casually to his wife. It is all the fault of my upbringing.”
“If you want a lift, it'll be a bit of a tight squeeze, but I'll see what I can do,” said Charles, disregarding this speech.
“No, I shall wend my lonely way home, a solitary and pathetic figure. Goodbye, Mrs. Haswell: so very many thanks! I enjoyed myself enormously.”
He followed the car-party to the drive, and saw them set off before limping in their wake.
“I say, is it all right? I mean, oughtn't you to have given him a lift?” asked Abby, who was sitting beside Charles in the front of the sports car. “Does it hurt him to walk?”
“Lord, no!” said Charles. “He can walk for miles. Just can't play games.”
“It must be fairly rotten for him, I should think.”
“Oh, I don't know!” said Charles, with cheerful unconcern. “He's always been like it, you see. Trades on it, if you ask me. People like my mother are sorry for him, and think they've got to make allowances for him. That's why he's so bloody rude.”
“I must say, it was the outside edge to walk off like that, and leave Mavis stranded,” admitted Abby.
“Yes, and absolutely typical. Does it for effect. Walter Plenmeller was a God-Awful type too, though I daresay being smashed up in the War had something to do with that. I say, sir,” he called over his shoulder to Mr. Drybeck, “were all the Plenmellers as bad as Walter and Gavin?”
“I was not acquainted with all the Plenmellers,” replied Mr. Drybeck precisely. “The family has been established in the county for five centuries.”
“Probably accounts for it,” said Charles. “Run to seed.”
“Tragic affair, Walter Plenmeller's death,” remarked the Major. “Never more shocked in my life! I must say, though I don't like Gavin, I was damned sorry for him. Of course, the poor chap wasn't in his right mind, but it can't have been pleasant for Gavin.”
“He committed suicide, didn't he?” said Abby. “Aunt Miriam's always a bit cagey about it. What happened?”
“Gassed himself, and left a letter to Gavin, practically accusing him of having driven him to it,” said Charles briefly, swinging the car round the corner into the High Street. “It was all rot, of course: he used to have the most ghastly migraines, and I suppose they got to be a bit too much for him.”
“Set me down at the cross-roads, Charles,” said the Major, leaning forward to tap him on the shoulder. “No need to come any farther.”
“Sure, sir?” said Charles, beginning to slow down.
“Quite sure—and many thanks for the lift!” said the Major, as the car stopped. “Goodbye, Miss Dearham: I hope we shall have the opportunity of playing again before you go back to town. Goodbye, Drybeck. Right away, Charles!”
They left the Major striding off in the direction of Ultima Thule, and turned the corner into the Trindale road. A few hundred yards along it, Charles stopped again to set down Mr. Drybeck, and then drove forward, and into Fox Lane.
“Come in and have a drink!” invited Abby. “Aunt Miriam would adore you to. She never drinks anything herself, but she's firmly convinced I can't exist without having gin laid on, practically like running hot and cold water, so she lays in quantities whenever I come to stay. She's an absolute toot, you know. Most people's aunts disapprove madly of cocktails, and say "Surely you don't need another, dear?" but she never does. In fact, you'd think she was a confirmed soak, the way she fills up the glasses.”
“Of course I'm coming in,” said Charles, swinging his long legs out of the car, and slamming the door. “That's why I brought you home.”
“I've a good mind not to ask you.”
“Wouldn't be any use at all. I've been hopelessly in love with your Aunt Miriam for years, and I shan't wait to be asked. What's more, she's my Aunt Miriam too.”
“She is not!”
“You ask her! She adopted me when I was a kid,” said Charles, opening the wicket-gate into the neat little garden of Fox Cottage, and stooping to thump with hearty goodwill, apparently much appreciated, the elderly and stout black Labrador, who had advanced ponderously to greet him. “You see! Even Rex knows I'm persona grata here, and you wouldn't say he was bursting with intelligence, would you? Go on, you old fool, get out of the light!”
“No, and I wouldn't say he had any discrimination either,” replied Abby, with spirit. “He'd welcome any tramp to the house.”
She glanced up to see how this retort was being received, and found that Charles was looking at her with a smile in his eyes, and something more than that. “Would he?” he said.
“Yes, he's—he's disastrously friendly,” she said, aware of a rising blush. “Oh, there's Aunt Miriam, at the window, beckoning to us! Come on!”
Charles followed her into the cottage.
Miss Patterdale, in happy unconsciousness of having timed her interruption inopportunely, greeted them with a nod, and said, addressing herself to Abby: “Well? Had a good time?”
“Lovely!” replied Abby.
“She can't very well say anything else,” Charles pointed out. “I was her host.”
“I don't suppose that would stop her. Have some gin!” said Miss Patterdale, supporting the character given her by her niece. “You'd better mix it yourself: I bought the things the man said people put in gin. I hope they're all right.”
Charles grinned, surveying the array of bottles set forth on the Welsh dresser. “Something for every taste. You have been going it, Aunt Miriam! Let's experiment!”
“What on earth is it?” asked Abby, presently receiving a glass from him, and cautiously sipping its contents.
“The discovery of the age. And a glass of nice, moderately pure orangeade for Aunt Miriam,” Charles said, putting a glass into Miss Patterdale's hand, and disposing his large person on the sofa beside her.
“You haven't put anything in it, have you?” said Miss Patterdale suspiciously.
“Of course I haven't! What do you take me for?”
Miss Patterdale regarded him with grim affection. “I'm not at all sure. You were one of the naughtiest little boys I ever encountered: that I do know!”
“That was before I came under your influence. Best of my Aunts.”
“Get along with you! Who was at your party? Besides Thaddeus Drybeck, and the Major! I know they were there.”
“Everyone was at our party, except you and Our Flora. In fact, it was the success of the season. The Major told us that Our Flora was expecting a litter. No, I don't mean that, though she looks so like an Ultima herself that I almost might.”
“Ullapool,” said Miss Patterdale. “I ran into Flora on the common, and she told me.”
“Ullapool!” exclaimed Charles reverently. “That's a new one on me, and it has my unqualified approval.”
“It isn't as good as Ultima Uplift,” objected Abby. “That's my favourite, easily!”
“What, more than Umbrella?” said Charles incredulously.
This, naturally, led to a lively discussion on the respective merits of all the more absurd names which Mrs. Midgeholme had bestowed on her Pekes. Miss Patterdale, entering into the argument, said in her incisive way: “You're both wrong. Ultima Urf was the best.”
“Ultima What?” demanded both her hearers.
“Urf. It was the runt of the litter, you see. It died.”
“Angel, I don't see!” complained Abby.
“It means a stunted child,” explained Miss Patterdale. “Not bad, really, except that one would feel such a fool, shouting Urf, Urf, Urf, in the street. At least, I should. Not that I've any right to poke fun at Flora. Anything more unsuitable for a couple of goats than Rosalind and Celia I've yet to discover. I must have been out of my mind. Celia got loose this afternoon, and strayed. That's how I met Flora. She was giving some of her dogs a run on the common.”
“Has Ullapool had her puppies? I'd love to see them,” said Abby.
“You wouldn't be able to for several weeks. No, she hasn't. Flora doesn't think they'll arrive until tomorrow. It wasn't really that which kept her away from the party. She didn't want to meet Mr. Warrenby. They've had a violent quarrel. He kicked Ulysses off one of his flower-beds.”
“Beast!” said Abby.
“Yes, I'm not at all in favour of that,” said Charles. “I shall pay a visit of condolence. I like Ulysses. He's a dog of dignity. Ready for another Haswell Special, Abby?”
She handed him her glass. “Thanks. As a matter of fact, Mr. Warrenby wasn't there. He had to do some work, or something. Mavis was rather dim and boring about Poor Uncle having to get his own tea.”
“Do him good!” said Miss Patterdale. “If Mavis had an ounce of common sense—but she hasn't, and she never will have! The longer I live the more convinced I become that self-sacrificing people do a great deal of harm in the world.”
Charles choked over the Haswell Special. Abby, regarding her aunt with indulgent fondness, said: “You're a nice one to talk!”
“If you mean by that that I'm self-sacrificing, you are mistaken.”
“Aunt Miriam! You spend your entire life slaving for the indigent, and the sick, and every charity that raises its head—”
“That isn't self-sacrificing. It comes of being a parson's daughter, and acquiring the habit young. Besides, I like it. Shouldn't do it, if I didn't. When I talk of self-sacrificing people, I mean people like Mavis, making doormats of themselves, and giving up everything they like to satisfy the demands of thoroughly selfish characters like Sampson Warrenby. Making a virtue of it, too. It isn't a virtue. Take Sampson Warrenby! If he weren't allowed to ride roughshod over Mavis, he'd be very much better-behaved, and consequently much better-liked.”
“He might be,” said Charles dubiously. “Speaking for myself, I find him even more unlikable in his ingratiating moments than when he sees himself as Lord of all he surveys. You ought to hear Dad on the subject of his antics on the Borough Council! He says Warrenby would like to be a sort of puppet-master pulling strings to set the rest of 'em dancing to his tune. Peculiar ambition!”
“Power-complex,” said Abby, nodding wisely. “I expect my old toot would find him an interesting study.”
“I may be out of date,” said Miss Patterdale, “but I do not think you ought to call Geoffrey Silloth a toot—whatever a toot may be!”
“But he is a toot, angel! You are too, and it's someone lamb-like, and altogether a good-thing-and-memorable!”
“I have never met Mr. Silloth, but I know what I look like, and it isn't a lamb. Not at all sure it isn't rather like a goat,” said Miss Patterdale reflectively. “Not Celia, but Rosalind.”
This unflattering self-portrait met with such indignant refutation that Miss Patterdale, though maintaining her customary brusqueness, turned quite pink with pleasure. Another drink was clearly called for by the time her young admirers had, as they hoped, convinced her that she bore no resemblance to a creature it would have been the height of mendacity to have called a pet animal; and Charles got up to mix it. It was as he was handing her glass to Abby that an interruption occurred. The garden-gate was heard to click, and Abby, glancing over her shoulder, saw through the open casement Mavis Warrenby, coming in a stumbling run up the flagged path, one hand pressed to her panting bosom, and her whole appearance betokening extreme agitation.
“Good lord, what's up?” exclaimed Abby. “It's Mavis!”
The front-door of Fox Cottage stood hospitably open, but it was seen that even in emergency Miss Warrenby was not one to burst uninvited into a strange house. A trembling knock was heard, accompanied by a tearful voice uttering Miss Patterdale's name. “Miss Patterdale! Oh, Miss Patterdale!” it wailed.
Charles, who was standing by the dresser, with the gin-bottle in his hand, cast a startled and enquiring look at his hostess, and then set the bottle down, and went out into the narrow front passage. “Hallo!” he said. “Anything wrong?”
Mavis, who was leaning in a limp way against the door-post, gasped, and stammered: “Oh! I didn't— I don't know what to do! Miss Patterdale— Oh, I don't know what to do!”
“What's the matter?” asked Miss Patterdale, who had by this time joined Charles in the passage. “Come inside! Good gracious, are you ill, child?”
“No, no! Oh, it's so awful!” shuddered Mavis.
“Here, hold up!” said Charles, seeing her wilt against the wall, and putting his arm round her. “What's so awful?”
“Bring her into the parlour!” commanded Miss Patterdale. “Abby, run up and get the sal volatile out of my medicine chest! Now, you sit down, and pull yourself together, Mavis! What has happened?”
“I ran all the way!” gasped Mavis. “I shall be all right. I didn't know what to do! I could only think of getting to you! I felt so sick! Oh, Miss Patterdale, I think I am going to be sick!”
“No, you aren't,” said Miss Patterdale firmly. “Lay her on the sofa, Charles! Now, you keep quiet, Mavis, and don't try to tell me anything until you've got your breath! I'm not surprised you feel sick, running all the way from Fox House in this heat. That's right, Abby: put a little water in it! Here you are, child! Swallow this, and you'll feel better!”
Miss Warrenby gulped the dose down, and shuddered, and began to cry.
“Stop that at once!” said Miss Patterdale, recognising the signs of hysteria. “No! It's no use trying to tell me what is wrong while you're sobbing in that silly way: I can't make out a word you're saying. Control yourself!”
This bracing treatment had its effect. Mavis made a great effort to obey, accepted a proffered handkerchief, and after mopping her face, and giving several gulps, sniffs, and sobs, grew more composed. “It's Uncle!” she managed to say “I didn't know what to do: I thought I was going to faint, it's so awful! I could only think of getting to you, Miss Patterdale!”
“What's he been doing?” demanded Miss Patterdale.
“Oh, no, no! It isn't that! Oh, poor Uncle! I knew I oughtn't to have left him alone like that! I shall never forgive myself!”
“Look here!” said Charles, who was becoming bored with Mavis's exclamatory and obscure style of narrative. “Just what has happened to your uncle?”
She turned dilating eyes towards him. “I think—I think he's dead!” she said, shuddering.
“Dead?” Charles repeated incredulously. “Do you mean he's had a stroke, or something?”
She began to cry again. “No, no, no! It's much, much more dreadful. He's been shot!”
“Good God!” said Charles blankly. “But—”
“For heaven's sake, girl!” interrupted Miss Patterdale. “You say you think he's dead. Surely you didn't come here, leaving the unfortunate man alone, without making certain there was nothing you could do for him?”
Mavis covered her face with her hands. “I—I know he's dead. I thought he was asleep, and it seemed so unlike him, somehow. I went up to him, and then I saw!”
“You saw what?” said Miss Patterdale, as Mavis broke off. “Try to pull yourself together!”
“Yes. I'm sorry. It's been such a shock. In the side of his head—just here—” she pressed her left temple—”a—hole! Oh, don't ask me! And I heard it! I didn't think anything about it at the time. I was just getting over the stile at the top of the lane, and I heard a gun fired. It made me jump, because it sounded quite close, but of course I only thought it was somebody shooting rabbits. And then I opened the garden-gate, and saw Uncle on the seat under the oak-tree . . .”
“Gosh!” uttered Abby, awed. “Who did it? Did you see anyone?” Mavis shook her head, wiping her eyes. “No one hiding in the garden? Round the back? If you were in the lane they couldn't have escaped that way, could they?”
Mavis looked at her in a bemused fashion. “I don't know. I was so shocked I never thought of anything but that poor Uncle was dead.”
“But didn't you even look?” insisted Abby. “I mean, it had only just happened, and whoever did it can't possibly have managed to get away! Well, not far away, at all events!”
“No, I suppose— But I didn't think about that! I only thought of Uncle.”
“Yes, well, all right!” said Charles. “I suppose that's fairly natural, but when you realised he was dead what did you do?”
She pushed her rather lank hair back from her brow. “I don't know. I think I was sort of stunned for a few minutes. It seemed so impossible! My legs were shaking so that I could hardly stand, and I felt so sick! I managed to get to the house, and I'm afraid I was sick—”
“Yes. That's not what I mean,” said Charles, trying not to speak impatiently. “Have you rung up the police? the doctor?”
She blinked. “No—oh, no! I knew it was no use sending for the doctor. I didn't think about the police. Oh, need we do that? It seems to make it worse, somehow. I mean, Uncle would have hated it! Having an inquest, and everyone talking about it!”
“Merciful heavens!” ejaculated Miss Patterdale. “Have you no sense, Mavis? You know very well I'm not on the telephone, and you come running here before ever you've—now, don't, for goodness' sake begin to cry again! Charles, where are you going?”
“Fox House, of course. I'll ring up the police-station from there, and stand by till they arrive.”
“Yes, that's the best thing,” she approved. “I'll come with you.”
“Better not, Aunt Miriam.”
“Nonsense! There may be something we can do for the poor man. You don't imagine I mean to be sick, do you?”
“Oh, Aunt Miriam, couldn't I go with Charles?” begged Abby. “I know all about First Aid, and—”
“Certainly not! You'll stay here and look after Mavis.”
“I can't—I mean, you'd do it much better! Do let me be the one to go with Charles!” Abby said, following them down the garden.
“Absolutely not,” said Charles, in a voice that admitted of no argument. “Hop in, Aunt Miriam!”
He slammed the car-door on Miss Patterdale, got into his own seat, and started the engine. As the car shot forward, he said: “Of all the damned, silly wet hens, that girl takes the biscuit! A child in arms would have had sense enough to have rung the police! Blithering idiot! I say, Aunt Miriam, what on earth do you think can have really happened?”
“I have no idea. It sounds as though somebody was shooting rabbits. I'm not at all surprised. I've often thought it most dangerous to allow it on the common.”
The distance between Fox Cottage and Fox House was very short, and they had already reached their goal. The house was set back from the lane, from which it was separated by a low hedge. It had no carriage sweep, a separate gate and straight gravel drive having been made beside the garden to enable Mr. Warrenby to garage his car in a modern building erected a little to the rear of the house. Charles drew up outside the wicket-gate giving access to a footpath leading to the front-door, and switched off his engine. In another minute he and Miss Patterdale had entered the garden, and were bending over the lifeless form of Sampson Warrenby, slumped on a wooden seat set under an oak-tree, and at right angles to the lane.
Warrenby, a short, plump man, dressed in sponge-bag trousers, an alpaca coat, and morocco-leather slippers, was sitting with his head fallen forward, and one hand hanging limply over the arm of the seat.
Charles straightened himself after one look, and said, rather jerkily: “Who was his doctor?”
“Dr. Warcop, but it's no use, Charles.”
“No, I know, but probably we ought to send for him. I'm not familiar with the correct procedure on occasions like this, but I'm pretty sure there ought to be a doctor here as soon as possible. Do you know which room the telephone's in?”
“In the study. That one, on the right of the front-door.”
He strode away across the lawn to the house. It was built of mellow brick, in the form of an E, and the principal rooms faced across the garden to the lane, and the rising ground of the common beyond it. The long windows on the ground-floor stood open, and Charles stepped through one of these into Sampson Warrenby's study. The telephone stood on the knee-hole desk, which also bore a litter of papers and documents. Charles picked it up, and dialled Dr. Warcop's number.
When he rejoined Miss Patterdale, a few minutes later, that redoubtable lady was staring fixedly at a bed of snapdragons. “Well? Find Dr. Warcop in?” she said.
“Yes. Surgery-hour. He's coming at once. Also the police, from Bellingham.”
Miss Patterdale cleared her throat, and said in a fierce voice: “Well, Charles, there's nothing you or I can do for the poor man. He's dead, and that's all there is to it.”
“He's dead all right,” said Charles grimly. “But if you imagine that's all there's going to be to it, Aunt Miriam, you'd better think again!”