Hobby of Murder (6 page)

He laughed too and shook his head. ‘I haven’t brought the necessary apparatus, no magic jugs that disgorge yards of silk scarves, or hats with rabbits in them. Actually I don’t do the trick with a rabbit, because I shouldn’t be able to look after the poor creature properly. But I’m coming along quite nicely. Strictly as an amateur, but I believe I could keep a children’s party entertained, at least if the children were very young.

Eleanor was saying, ‘I used to know Luke years ago, before he became successful. Such an unassuming, modest young man he used to be, but very reserved. I suppose all the ideas he had were already beginning to go round in his head, but he never talked about them.’

Mollie stood up and started handing round a plate of canapés that she had made, and Ian brought round more wine. The party broke up about eight o’clock, with the Waldrons leaving first, having extracted a half-promise from Audley that he would at least think about attending their dinner, though they were by no means to expect him. Audley himself left soon after them, then Eleanor and Brian. Felicity Mace was last.

Standing in the doorway, just about to leave, she said, ‘Of
course, Ernest will go to the dinner, but don’t be surprised if he manages to make some sort of scene. He may even be working out now just what kind of scene to make.’

‘I didn’t know solicitors made scenes,’ Andrew said. ‘I thought they left that to barristers.’

‘But solicitors are said to be human,’ Felicity said. ‘Of course, his scene might simply consist of refusing to notice Luke Singleton’s existence. Cleverly done, it could make all of us feel very uncomfortable. Good night now, my dears, and thank you for the party.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Ian said, and went to see her home.

She evidently lived quite near, for he was back in a few minutes. In the quiet that came to the room when all the guests had gone, Ian poured out one more drink for the three of them who were left, which they drank almost in silence, pleasantly relieved of the necessity to talk, then Mollie went out to the kitchen to heat some Cornish pasties in the microwave, put the nectarines that Brian had brought her out in a bowl on the table there, and made some coffee.

Andrew went to bed early, claiming to be very tired. At least, he said that he was going to bed, and it was true he felt very tired. The day seemed to have been a very full one, and nowadays he was finding that even a quiet little party of the kind that he had been at that evening seemed to fret his nerves in a way that made him feel an acute desire for peace. But once in his room and in his pyjamas, he did not get into bed, but put on his dressing-gown and sat down in a chair by the open window.

The night sky was starry and there was a soft scent in the air of green things that were just beginning to feel the breath of autumn and yield a little to the first touch of decay. He had an Agatha Christie with him, one that he knew he had read at least once before, but which he was fairly sure he had managed to forget. One of the things for
which he admired her was the number of times that he could read one of her books as if it was for the first time. He was most unlikely, even at a second or third reading, to remember who had done the murder. Most of his reading nowadays tended to be re-reading. He seemed almost to be on the defensive against new writers. Those who were recommended, or even lent to him by his friends had a way of remaining unread. He told himself frequently to resist this failing, but in the end he generally fell back on old friends.

But this evening, even Agatha Christie did not engross him fully. He found himself thinking with some apprehension of the Waldrons’ dinner-party. The idea of it, based on the menu of an eighteenth-century parson, sounded amusing, but he was sure that he would find it a great strain, even if nothing dramatic happened in the way of a quarrel between Ernest Audley and Luke Singleton. He hoped that Ernest Audley would stick to what he had proclaimed and stay away. Andrew had never been an aggressive man, and he shrank with great distaste from aggression in others. The often reasonless aggression to be encountered in the academic world, the jostling for position, for power, had always bewildered him. The escape from it had been one of the compensations for retirement. But now it sounded as if on the visit to old friends in the quiet of the countryside he was to be embroiled in it. He did not like the thought of it. He did not like it at all.

Ernest Audley went to the Waldrons’ dinner-party. In fact, with his habit of punctuality he was the first guest to arrive. Andrew had met him once between the evening of the Davidges’ little party and the night of the dinner. He had been strolling back from the village one day about five o’clock after posting some letters at the nearest letter-box when a car had stopped beside him and Audley had leant out. They were, it appeared, just at the gate of Audley’s house, and he had invited Andrew in for a drink.

The house, it had seemed to Andrew, was large for a man to live in by himself. It stood some way back from the road, with a stretch of well-tended garden in front of it. It had gables, a green pantile roof, picture windows, and had probably been built between the wars. Inside it felt cold, as if it suffered from not being fully inhabited. The room into which Audley took Andrew was of medium size, had a fitted dark brown carpet and was furnished with tall, wing-backed chairs covered in stiff blue linen, some reproduction chests and cabinets, a small bookcase filled with uniform editions of classics that looked as if they were seldom handled, and something that caught Andrew’s eye at once: a row, hanging on the wall, of three glass-fronted cases containing butterflies. They had plainly been skilfully pinned and set, and under each specimen was a minute label.

Standing looking at them as Audley brought sherry from a corner cupboard, Andrew asked, ‘Your hobby?’

‘My father’s,’ Audley replied. ‘And it’s one that isn’t too well regarded now when we’re trying to preserve the sort of species that he has there. But I must admit that I used
to go out with him when I was a child, and enjoyed chasing the things, and I wouldn’t be parted from his collection for anything.’ He poured out sherry. ‘You’ve been retired for some time, I believe.’

‘About ten years,’ Andrew replied.

‘I often wonder how I shall occupy myself when I retire,’ Audley said as they both sat down. ‘Have you found it a problem?’

‘Not so far,’ Andrew said. ‘It’s taken me all that time to get a book written. Not that I ever worked at it very consistently. I’ve travelled a good deal, and besides, the book required a good deal of research. But now it’s in the hands of the publishers, I can’t say I’ve made any very definite plans for myself.’

‘You aren’t married, I believe.’

‘My wife died shortly before I retired.’

‘Ah, I’m sorry. You’ll have been told I and mine are separated. In fact, divorced. You could hardly help knowing that after what I said the other evening about that fellow Singleton. Curious how different those two brothers are. Brian’s a very good friend of mine.’

‘In any case, you’ve a good many years ahead of you before you need worry about retirement,’ Andrew said. ‘Do you see yourself staying in Lower Milfrey indefinitely?’

‘That’s something I ask myself pretty frequently. A flat in Rockford would save me a lot of trouble. But I dislike the idea of a move, probably having to sell off half my furniture because the flat would be very much smaller than this house, and undoubtedly I’d get cheated in the process, because I know nothing about the value of what I’ve got. I dislike the idea of being cheated. And I’ve some good friends here. Yes, probably I shall stay here for the foreseeable future.’

They chatted for a while longer, then Andrew made his way back to the Davidges’ house, where he explained why
it had taken him so long to post his letters and where he was given more sherry.

‘I always think there’s something pathetic about Ernest living on in that house by himself,’ Mollie said. ‘I think it’s a kind of act of defiance. Luke Singleton got his wife, but he isn’t to be allowed to feel he drove Ernest out of his home as well. Absurd, really, because he’d be far better off in Rockford, near to his office. But at least he’s got a very good daily woman here, Mrs Crewe, a widow. I sometimes think he’ll end up marrying her. They’re about the same age and it would really suit them very well.’

‘You see marriages everywhere,’ Ian said. ‘Why don’t you try to marry him to Eleanor?’

‘I don’t think she’d be in the least interested,’ Mollie answered. ‘Anyway, she’s too old for him. Of course, she might do it for the money. He’s pretty well fixed, and my impression is that she finds things a bit difficult. I think she might set up as a professional photographer in Rockford, because she’s really very good. But when I suggested it to her once she said the endless passport photographs and wedding-groups would bore her to death and I suppose it would be pretty frightful. Even children, if you had to make them the smiling cherubs their parents wanted, would be a bit awful.’

‘I’m not really sorry for Ernest,’ Ian said. ‘Life with him can’t have been very exciting, and he’d have made very sure that it wasn’t.’

Andrew had been out with Ian early that morning, and to Ian’s delight they had seen a flock of what he told Andrew were lapwings arrive. They came down from the north, he said, to winter in the temperate climate of England. They came every year to Lower Milfrey, to the muddy verges of the lake on the common. They were big, greenish-black birds, with a strange, distinctive voice that seemed to be saying, ‘kee-wi, kee-wi’. For a short while the sky was
almost black with them and Ian was entranced and for a few minutes Andrew felt the thrill of it too. But on their way back to breakfast he found to his great annoyance that the rhyme which by now he intensely disliked was going round and round in his head.

No! He was not going to let it drive out of his mind the real pleasure that he had felt in watching the great flock of birds descending, handsome creatures with their tall, wispy crests and white breasts. Perhaps it was a pity that in St John’s Wood there were seldom any birds to be seen but sparrows and the occasional pigeon. However, the place had other attractions and when he had been away from it for only a short while he generally found himself glad, as he was beginning to feel at the present moment and in spite of all the friendliness of the Davidges, that he would fairly soon be returning to it.

On the evening of the dinner-party they set out in the Davidges’ Ford Escort at seven o’clock to the Waldrons’ house which was beyond the far end of the village. Lower Milfrey was one of the villages that are built along a road, which once might have been considered a main road but now was little more than a country lane, and which bent more than once, with a church at one bend and a public house at the other. The church was built of stone, with a square tower and an arched Norman doorway, the pub was white and thatched, with some dark beams, small windows and a fairly freshly painted sign which gave its name as the Black Horse. Most of the houses along the road were old, though here and there a modern bungalow had been
jammed in where there was some room to spare. There was a post office which sold most essential groceries, a village hall and a garage. Behind the houses were mostly fields and a little woodland.

They had left the village behind by about a quarter of a mile before they reached the gate that opened on to the drive that led up to the Waldrons’ house. The gate was standing open now and they could see that several cars had arrived before them. The house was a modest example of a Queen Anne manor. It was built of a soft golden-coloured brick, had tall sash windows and a portico of great dignity. The house stood on a slight rise so that it overlooked the village, seeming to dominate it. A park which stretched away into darkness surrounded it.

This evening all the windows of the house were alight and a light shone over the front door, which stood open. When Ian had parked the car in the wide gravelled court in front of the house, he and Mollie and Andrew walked in at the door, knowing from the noise that was coming from one of the doors inside where they were expected to go. But an elderly woman emerged from a passage that led out of the hall and greeted them and took their coats. Perhaps in honour of the peculiar nature of the occasion she was wearing a long white apron over a black dress and a mob cap. The Davidges evidently knew her, for they exchanged a few words with her as she led them to the door from which the sound of voices came, then turned and disappeared once more down the passage.

There were about fifteen people in the room, one of whom was Ernest Audley. He was in a corner of the room, with a drink in his hand but a look of having withdrawn as far as he could from the other guests. He was in a dark suit, as Ian was too, but there was great variety in what the people there were wearing. Some of the men were in gaudy pullovers, one in a crimson velvet jacket with a white frilly
cravat spilling out at the neck, one or two in dinner-jackets. Some of the women were in long skirts and well decorated with jewellery. One or two were in tight skirts that reached only halfway down their thighs, with brightly coloured blouses and shoes with very high heels. Mollie had come in probably the best dress she had in a fairly scanty wardrobe, for clothes had never been one of her interests. It was of ivory-coloured silk, simple and close-fitting. Anna Waldron, who came to meet the Davidges and Andrew as they came into the room, was in a plain black velvet dress, cut low at the neck, low-heeled black shoes with silver buckles and a collar of pearls. The hand that she held out to each of them was loaded with ancient-looking rings.

‘You must forgive Sam for not being here to welcome you,’ she said, as she had no doubt said to everyone else who had arrived. ‘He’s busy in the kitchen. He and I won’t actually be dining with you tonight. When Parson Woodforde entertained or was entertained by his friends there was probably a whole staff of servants to cook and serve the wonderful meals they had, we’ve only got our two dear Bartletts. They’ve been splendid, entering into the spirit of the thing in the most delightful way, but of course Sam’s the cook and he needs me to help him.’