Heads You Lose (5 page)

He was sitting at the kitchen table when she and Pendock found him, a hot cup of tea before him. He raised to his master weary and haunted eyes.

“Why don’t you go and get some sleep, Bunsen?” said Pendock kindly.

The old man stumbled to his feet, “I can’t, sir. I keep seeing the poor lady. You was warned, sir, and you took it bad enough; me, I just—just come upon it, lying there by the drive, and I can’t get it out of me mind. Not that I knew then that the ’ead was off, Mr. Pendock, sir: I don’t think I could ever have got across them lawns if I had. But I thought it was Miss Fran with ’er dark ’air all over her face and that little hat on her head—so help me God, I thought it was our Miss Fran…” He buried his face in his hands, but after a moment he said apologetically: “Begging your pardon, Miss Fran dear, for I shouldn’t be saying this in front of you, I know.”

“Oh, Bunsen, don’t think of it; try to blot it out. And, look, don’t drink that tea—it’ll only keep you awake.”

“You must go to bed, Bunsen, and take some aspirin or something,” said Pendock. “Sleep as long as you can; Cook and the girls can see to things in the morning… don’t you get up. But, I say, Bunsen—before you go: you locked up as usual last night?”

“Oh yes, sir, just as usual; all but the front door and that, of course, I left for you just as I always do.”

“And the windows and things? Don’t be afraid to say; it would be a relief to know that there had been some way into the house.”

“I locked ’em all, sir, before I started for Tenfold,” said Bunsen, shocked at the bare suggestion that he might have failed in so important a duty; for was there not talk of an invasion, and a nice thing if he should be capable of leaving doors and windows open at such a time! “And the back door; I had to use my key to it when I got back to the house. If you’re doubtful, sir, we can go round and see; but you’ll find they’re all in order, sir—I’m sure you will.”

The constable, who had followed them into the kitchen, was not prepared for a round tour of the house. “The Inspector’s seen to it already,” he said. “Everything locked all right.” He gave a rather dreadful sniff.

“Thank you,” said Penfold, but he did not feel very thankful; for if the house had been securely locked all night, how had the maniac got in? And supposing he had got in, what had he originally come for? Not for the hat, for, apart from himself and his guests, nobody knew about that.

Evidently Fran was following the same train of thought, for she said suddenly: “Bunsen: about my hat? You didn’t mention it to anybody this evening? To the servants, or to anyone in Tenfold?”

“No indeed, Miss Fran. What would I mention it for?”

“Well, I know it seems silly, Bunsen, but did you? To amuse your sister perhaps…”

“I never said a word about it, Miss,” said Bunsen positively. “Not even in the ’all, and I’m perfectly certain of it. I don’t know that I might not have done so, if you’ll excuse me, Miss, for indeed you did look a picture in that ’at. Miss Fran put it on her head in front of the mirror in the hall, sir,” he explained to Pendock, “and, ‘What do you think of it, Bunsen?’ she says to me, and ‘I think it’s a treat, Miss,’ I says; didn’t I, Miss Fran? But when I got back to the kitchen Cook had took a message to say my sister was worse again, and from that moment I didn’t think of nothing else but that, and of course of my work. As soon as I’d taken the coffee into the dining-room, I got on my bicycle and went off to Tenfold, and from then on everything else was drove right out of my head.”

“Well, all right, Bunsen, off you go to bed. I’m sorry to have worried you; forget about it—it’s nothing. Good-night, and don’t get up in the morning until you’re thoroughly rested. The maids can see to things.”

“Good-night, Bunsen dear,” said Fran, and put her hand for a moment on the old man’s arm. “Sleep tight, and—try not to think about things.” She smiled at him and went back with Pen up the stairs.

Most of the rest of the party had gone to bed. Venetia, however, put her head out of her door to say: “I say, Pen, we couldn’t have left the french window open when we let Aziz out for his widdle?”

“I shut the damn thing myself,” said Pen reluctantly. Fran was looking more and more depressed.

For how awkward, thought Fran, that she and James should have chosen that one night of all nights to go down and talk in the orchard, leaving the back door open so that they could get in again. Not that it could have anything to do with the murder, of course; but she supposed that the maniac might have come in that way for some unexplained purpose and, seeing the hat in its box on the table, have taken it out and carried it off to decorate the poor dead body in the ditch; unless Miss Morland herself… but how could she have known the back door would be open just for those few short minutes? Why should she have wanted the hat? She thought it was a dreadful hat; she had said that she wouldn’t be seen dead in a ditch in it…

And now she
was
dead. Dead in a ditch, in the hat. And only six people—she faced it squarely, as she faced everything in life—only six people had heard her say those words: herself and Venetia, her twin, her other half; and Granny, who was father and mother and friend to them both; and Pen—dear Pen, best and kindest and most honourable of men; and Henry, whom Venetia so desperately loved; and James. James, who had held her in his arms in the orchard; had held her crushed against him, until her body ached, and poured out such a torrent of love and longing… lazy, sleepy James who had suddenly woken up. Venetia and Granny and Pen and Henry and James. Nobody else had heard.

B
REAKFAST NEXT MORNING WAS
a rather ghastly affair, for most of them had lain awake as Fran had done, putting two and two together, and arriving at somewhat similar conclusions. The meal was punctuated by the sound of noisy feet and the loud cries of Cockie’s henchmen, who had taken possession of the house and were subjecting it to a very severe scrutiny. The hall was closed to the family, and they had been obliged to make a series of detours to reach the dining-room. By this route also came a young lady who was introduced, disapprovingly, by Bunsen as: “Miss le May, with Inspector Cockrill’s permission, sir.”

Miss Pippi le May stood regarding them with inquisitive grey-green eyes. She was a tiny creature with a stringy little body and small, expressive brown hands. Her hair, which Nature had made red and Art had assisted into a handsome auburn, was so thick and close-cut that it made a sort of woolly cap about her head; she had wound a bright scarf around it and joined the ends gaily with a couple of gigantic gold hair-pins; there was an air of chic about her, but all the washing in the world could not make her look quite clean. She was a not unsuccessful character actress making her determined way upon the West End stage. And she was Grace Morland’s cousin.

Pendock rose to meet her. “Miss le May! I’d no idea you were down. Or have you just arrived?”

“I arrived last night,” said Pippi briefly. She tipped her hand to her head in a casual salute. “Morning, Lady Hart. Hallo, Venetia. Hallo, Fran. Oh, hallo, James.”

“Hallo, Pippi,” they said, staring at her.

Pendock pulled up a chair to the table. “Thank you,” she said, accepting it calmly. “Can I have some coffee? What a mess this is about poor old Grace, isn’t it?”

“It’s the most ghastly affair,” said Pendock, looking at her with troubled eyes.

“She seemed a bit agitato when I got here last night. I thought it was because I’d just turned up, and you know what an old fuss-pot she was, she liked about six weeks’ notice; but I’d only decided yesterday, myself, and I was darned if I was going to bust ninepence on a telegram or whatever it is with these ghastly war-time prices.”

“You could have ’phoned here; we’d very gladly have taken her a message,” and Pen, for Pigeonsford Cottage did not rise to a telephone.

“Oh, a trunk call would have been just as much; and as a matter of fact I never thought about it at all.”

“You say she seemed agitated and upset?”

“Well, she looked as if she’d been howling and her nerves were all on edge; this was at about eight o’clock.”

“What time did you last see her?” said several voices at once.

“Good heavens, you’re as bad as old Cockrill; he arrived at some unearthly hour this morning and hoicked us out of bed and started asking us the most peculiar questions. We finally worked it out that we last saw her just after eleven o’clock, when we went to bed. Trotty gave me some Horlicks and stuff, and went off to give Grace hers. She came back and said that Grace was in a great state of excitement and quite different from what she had been earlier in the evening; she said she was running round and round the room like a chicken with its head cut off… Oh dear,” said Pippi, clapping her hand to her mouth and regarding them over it with humorously horrified eyes: “What a very unfortunate metaphor!”

“I should just go on with what you were saying, my dear,” said Lady Hart, though she did not regard Pippi as her dear, at all.

“Well, anyway, she was flapping round, saying that now she had somebody in the hollow of her hand, or some such expression.”

“Who on earth could she have meant?” said Fran, quite thrilled.

“Goodness knows. Actually her expression was ‘a certain person’—a bit vague, and, as reported by Trotty, vaguer still. What’s all this about a hat?” asked Pippi abruptly.

They had not mentioned the hat that morning. There had been a sort of reticence about it, as though its significance were too deep, and possibly too dangerous, to be lightly put into words. They stiffened at Pippi’s crude question. Pendock said: “Hasn’t the Inspector told you?”

“He asked me a devil of a lot of questions which didn’t seem to me to make sense at all. How could I be expected to know anything about some hat of Fran’s?”

But perhaps she had known, thought Venetia, and the horrors of the night seemed to lift like a dark cloud from about her heart. Here was escape from the ghastly conclusions of the early hours of the morning, when life and humour and a sense of proportion had been at their lowest ebb. Grace might have told Pippi, her cousin; she might have told Trotty, her old maidservant. Trotty might have told half the village. Perhaps dozens of people had known that Grace Morland had said that she wouldn’t be seen dead in the hat; now, in the dear, familiar white-panelled dining-room, with its warmth and beauty, the thin winter sunshine streaming in through the high french windows, she could suddenly see that it might have been all a coincidence. Somehow or other, perhaps to spite Fran, Miss Morland had got hold of the hat; and coming back from the house with it, had been overtaken and murdered and her body thrown into the culvert at the side of the drive. No need for the ghastly, shadowy suspicions that last night she had felt she couldn’t tell even Henry about; no need for any of their beloved ones to be involved; all clear, all easy, all simply explicable. She turned eagerly to Pippi le May.

“Didn’t Miss Morland mention to you or to Trotty that Fran had this particular hat? Miss Morland didn’t like it; she thought it was frivolous and silly, and her last words to Pen at her door were something to that effect… I expect her mind would be full of it and she’d say something to Trotty about it as soon as she got into the house…”

“I can’t say, not having been there at the time,” said Pippi indifferently. “She certainly didn’t mention it to me, and Trotty says she’s heard nothing about it. Does it make any difference?”

Lady Hart could see that Fran was distressed by all this talk of the hat. Fran felt it shocking and dreadful that her comic little hat should have been put to so horrible a purpose, as though she were in some way to blame because Grace Morland was dead and made ludicrous, poor silly woman. She said, to change the subject: “Why are you down here, Pippi? I thought you were in a revue?”

“I got a few days off,” said Pippi airily. “We’ve got a new idea—we swap the turns about so that it’s never the same on consecutive nights; it’s pretty hot, actually, because people come time after time, knowing that they’ll see the same artists and some of the same numbers, but always some different ones. The best of it is that it doesn’t make much difference if one or other of the cast is away, so it’s fairly easy to wangle a day or two off, if it’s absolutely necessary.”

They could not help reflecting that it could hardly be absolutely necessary for Pippi to wangle a day or two off to pay a visit to her cousin Grace. She spent most of her summer holidays there, as she had done since she had been a schoolgirl; for Pigeonsford village is not very far from the sea, and Grace had a baby car and a month with her cost Pippi nothing. But, in the depth of winter, with nothing more gay than a Village Institute Party in Tenfold or tea at the Vicarage…

James Nicholl had known her better than any of them, in the old days, for she had always been very willing to go sailing with him in the
Greensleeves
and to stay and drink beer in the pub when the Pigeonsford party had gone decorously home to dinner; perhaps it was this old familiarity that emboldened him to say suddenly: “Er—Pippi. What were you doing last night between half-past ten and eleven?”

Pippi put down her coffee-cup with a little clonk; but it was the briefest possible moment before she said coolly, “I got bored with Grace and Trotty and went out for a stroll in the orchard; it was nice in the moonlight with the snow on the downs and so forth. I’m afraid, Mr. Pendock, that I may have been trespassing on your property; but it runs so close to the Cottage that I’m always getting mixed up. The orchard’s yours actually, isn’t it?”

“It’s all mine,” said Pendock briefly. “I lease the Cottage to Miss Morland.”

“Did you see anyone in the orchard?” asked James, apparently not interested in the layout of Mr. Pendock’s property.

“I thought I saw a man strolling there too,” said Pippi promptly. “It may have been imagination, and I certainly couldn’t say who it was; but I thought there was someone there. I had to tell the police, of course.”

At half-past ten, thought Lady Hart, they had all been in the drawing-room, playing Vingt-et-un; all, that was, except James, who had said that he had a headache and would go for a stroll outside. But by eleven o’clock he had come in and gone straight to his room. Fran had said so; she had leaned over the banisters and called down to Pen: “James has gone to bed. He says he’s got a headache and doesn’t want to be disturbed.” And at eleven, Grace Morland had been still alive.