Ellis Peters - George Felse 01 - Fallen Into The Pit (27 page)

Everybody exclaimed at this, except George, who sat frowning into the bowl of his pipe, and Jim Tugg, who looked on darkly and said no word.

“But, his own son!” whispered Io. “Oh, Dom, you must be mistaken there, surely. How
could
he?”

“Well, I don’t know how he could, but I’m absolutely sure he did. Maybe it was done all in a minute, because he was in a rage—only he had to take the gun from him to do it, so I honestly don’t think so. Anyhow, he
did
do it,” maintained Dominic definitely.

“But, just over a few acres of land and a little defeat?” Chad shook his head helplessly, though Chad had known people kill for less. “It doesn’t seem enough motive for wiping out his own family. It can’t be true.” But he was shaken by the revelation of Charles’s change of heart, and had to remind himself over and over that Charles and his father were two different human creatures. He remembered, too, Selwyn Blunden’s fixed, competent, unmistakably sane face in the glow of Dominic’s torch, in the instant when the stick was raised for a third murder. There wasn’t much, after all, which could not be true.

“It wouldn’t be enough motive for most people,” said Dominic hesitantly, “but he was a bit special, wasn’t he? I think— it wasn’t the number of acres, or the littleness of the defeat. There wasn’t any proportion about it, there wasn’t any little or big. It was
his
land, and it had to be
his
victory. And when Charles changed his mind he—sort of changed sides, too. He
did
, you know. And so he was a sort of traitor from the old man’s point of view.” He lifted his wide eyes doubtfully to George’s face. “I can’t help it if it sounds thin. It happened, anyhow, didn’t it?”

“Go on, Dom!”

“Well, when I was telling you about meeting Charles that night, I clean forgot about the dog. He had that spaniel of his with him, you know, the brown-and-white one that won all the prizes. But when Briggs rang you up to report about the death of Charles, and how he found him, and everything, he never said anything about the dog. And I wondered. You can’t be
sure
what they’ll do, but he was trained to a gun, he wouldn’t be frightened by that; and I thought most likely he’d stay by the body until somebody came. There were plenty of people out shooting that evening, all round the village, one shot more or less made no difference. And then, it was done with Charles’s own gun, and there didn’t seem to have been any struggle for it, or anything like that, so if he didn’t do it himself—and I was sure about that—then it must have been somebody who knew him well enough to walk with him, maybe to take the gun and carry it for him, or try it out as they went along. Anyhow, somebody who could get it from him without it seeming at all funny. That could still have been—” his eyes avoided Chad “—several people. But it
could
have been his father, easily. But it was the dog that really bothered me.”

“He bothered me, too,” said George.

“But I didn’t tell you about him.”

“No, but if he was out with a gun it was long odds the dog would be there. And, as you say, Briggs found no dog. He was gone from the spot pretty quickly.”

“Yes, that was what got me. And then, when it really started with me, when I went up to the Harrow this morning, I saw the dog there chained up, and the old man told me he’d come home by himself after the shooting, and hidden himself in the stables and wouldn’t come out—like they do sometimes for thunder, or shock, or fits. He said he’d been funny ever since, and they had to keep him chained up because he roamed off if he was loosed. Well, it all sounded on the level. But when he came near, the dog went into the kennel, and lay down right in the back and stared at him—you know, keeping its face to him wherever he went. It’d been all right with me—well, mopish, but fairly all right, it liked being petted. But he never touched it. And it was then I really started to think. I didn’t believe him. I believe the dog came home after the shooting because he brought it home, for fear it should bring anyone there too soon, and give him away. But he only just had time, because by sheer luck Briggs found Charles very quickly. And if the old man dragged the dog home with him, and then told lies about it, of course it could only be because he’d killed Charles himself. There couldn’t be any other reason for him keeping the dog out of circulation now, except because it acted so queer toward him that he was afraid to be seen with it. So then I was certain,” said Dominic simply. “It came on me like a flash. And I thought, and thought, and couldn’t see how we were ever to prove it, or get at him at all, unless he gave us an opening. Because what a dog would or wouldn’t do isn’t exactly evidence.”

“So you set to work to make an opening yourself. And a nice risk you took in the process,” said George severely.

“No, not really, because I knew you’d stand by me.” But he said nothing about the panicky moment when he had strained his ears after them with no such perfect trust. He flushed deeper; he was getting tired, but he wasn’t talked out yet.

“I had to think in an awful hurry, it was a bit slapdash, perhaps. I told him I’d found a little notebook, down in the clay holes close by where Helmut was killed. I said I was scared to show it to Dad, because I’d got into a row already for interfering; so I wanted to find out first if it really was something to do with the case, before I risked another row. I asked him if he could read German, and he cottoned on at once, though he pretended he was just humoring me. He said he could. I don’t know if it was true, but you see, don’t you, that if I’d really found it where I said I had, and it really was in German, he couldn’t afford
not
to jump at the chance of having first look at it—whether he could read it without a dictionary or whether he couldn’t. If it had really been something of Helmut’s, why, it might have had
anything
in it, all about their contract, and the money that passed, and the jobs that were done for it, and everything. You know what Helmut was like about all his other business, and Blunden knew it, too. So then I said I hadn’t got the thing on me, but I’d bring it up to him if he really wouldn’t mind looking at it for me. I was careful to tell him I hadn’t shown it to anybody yet, so he figured if he could persuade me it was just rubbish, I’d take his word for it, and throw it away. Anyhow, he just
had
to find out. I bet he thought it probably would be rubbish, but there was always the little risk that it might not be. He’d got to be
certain
. But he was in a spot, because he had to go somewhere by train after the funeral, and he wasn’t coming back until the nine o’clock train in the evening. That must have been something important, too, or he’d have given it a miss. But instead, he said would I meet him up at the forest gate when he came from the train, and go up to the house with him, and we’d have a look at it together. And he told me very specially not to mention it to anyone—the book, or where I was going, or anything—because he didn’t want to make any fresh troubles for you harassed policemen, and also to keep myself out of trouble. So you see, he figured that if— well, it was always possible that he might have to—well, if I didn’t come back, you wouldn’t have a clue to where I’d gone.”

The same reflection had not escaped either George or Bunty.

“But if I produced some ordinary rubbish,” went on Dominic, stumbling a little in haste to get past a thought which he himself, on reflection, did not like very much, “or even if it was really something, and I obviously didn’t know it, and would take his word for it that it was rubbish—then he was O.K., he could just burn it and forget it, and I could forget it, too. Most likely that’s really what he expected. Only he had to be
sure
I didn’t know too much about it already, he couldn’t take any chances on me. And I had to be sure, too. It wasn’t any good half-doing it. So I went the whole hog. After school I got on to Pussy. I suppose she told you all that part—”

“I didn’t know what you meant to do,” protested Pussy. “I knew it was something desperate, by the way you looked, but I didn’t know how bad. Or I’d have told your mother, right away, and put a stop to it.”

“You would not! And if you had, you’d have spoiled the whole thing. But you wouldn’t! Well, then I went up to the well, and took my German vocabulary notebook from school—” His eyes strayed rather dubiously toward Chad, who smiled, and laid the wreckage on the table. “I’m afraid it’s rather past it now. Do you suppose we can square it? I had to have something fairly convincing, and with a bit of faking the figures, and then doctoring it in the mud, and drying it again, it made a pretty good show. Anything that came through, you see, was at least German.”

“I dare say we can square it about the notebook,” said Chad gravely, “all things considered.”

“Well, you know everything else, you were there. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded, truly it wasn’t. And I couldn’t think of any other way. I had to make him think I knew too much to be let go, or he wouldn’t have given himself away. I
was
scared, but it was the best I could do. Mummy, you’re not awfully mad at me, are you?” The reaction was setting in. He was very tired, his eyelids drooping; but he wanted to get rid of all of it, and sleep emptied of even the last dregs of his seething excitement.

“Not tonight,” said Bunty comfortably. “I’m saving that up for tomorrow.”

“But, Dad, if Pussy didn’t bring you there, like I expected, how did you get there? I’m jolly glad you did, but
how
did you?”

“I followed Blunden,” said George simply. “I’d gone part of the way you went, about Helmut’s murder, about the way the land kept cropping up. But I won’t say I seriously thought of Blunden, until the dog came into the picture, or rather didn’t come into it when he should have done. I smelt the same rat. The spaniel more or less vanished. Nobody exercised him, he was never seen out with the old man. I got the same ideas you had. So I started a close watch on Blunden; and when he suddenly groomed the dog and took it down to the station after the funeral this afternoon, Weaver and I went after him. He went to get rid of it, of course, before anyone else could start noticing things.”

“He didn’t kill the dog, too?” asked Pussy anxiously.

“No, he sold him—to a man who’d made several attempts to buy him from Charles before, for a very good price. Quite a known name in the spaniel world, lives in Warwickshire, right in the country miles from anywhere. We found out all about him quite easily. No, dogs were something it hardly occurred to Blunden to kill. He used them to help him kill other things. It didn’t seem necessary to kill the dog, and it could have been dangerous. But it was quite natural to get rid of him, after what had happened—a gesture to get rid of a bereavement, and give the dog a fresh start, too. Besides, when he had a thing of value, he couldn’t resist getting a price for it. Well, he sold the dog, and he came home, and we were on his heels—just in time to come in on your little scene, and a nice fright you gave us.”

“Do you mean you were close behind us all the time?” asked Dominic, opening his eyes wide.

“As close as was safe.”

“I wish I’d known! I’d have felt a lot better,” He yawned hugely. “And do you mean, then, that you’d have got on to him just the same, without all that performance? I scared myself nearly to death for nothing?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said George, smiling. “I was certain he’d killed Charles. I might have got hold of the stick sooner or later, and got him on that charge. But to date we hadn’t a shred of real evidence. You provided that—at least enough to let us get our hands on him, and the rest followed.”

“I’m glad if I was useful,” said Dominic, “anyway.” He yawned again. Io took the gentle hint which poised on Bunty’s near eyelid, and rose from her hassock.

“It’s time we went home. Dad might be wondering, and we’ll have a lot of explaining to do for him. Come on, Pussy, you can see Dom again tomorrow, he’s had about enough for tonight, and so have you, I should think.” And she turned with equal simplicity to Chad, and gave him the full candid look of her brown eyes, and her hand, too. “Come back with us, Chad! Just for half an hour!”

Jim Tugg’s dog was stretched out on the office rug. He rose at the first sound of his master’s step on the threshold of the room, and fell into his place in the little procession, close at the shepherd’s heel. Subdued good-nights drifted back to Bunty in the doorway, soft, relaxed murmurs of sound, tired, content. She watched them go, and her gratitude went after them down the moist October street, where the lamps were just winking out for half-past eleven. Chad with his hand protectively at Io’s elbow, as if he had had the right for years, Io with her arm round Pussy’s shoulders. A lot of knots had somehow come untied, and when the nine-days’ wonder had passed over, Comerford could sleep easy in its bed. Bless them all, Jim and the collie, too, everyone who had stood by Dominic and brought him back alive.

She went back to the kitchen. Dominic had come down to the fire, and was kneeling on the rag to warm himself, shivering a little from the cold which follows nervous strain. But he was still talking, rather drunkenly but with great determination.

“There was something in it, you see, about the people who get to take killing for granted. Only Cooke had hold of the wrong ones,
I
think. It isn’t the people like old Wedderburn, who had to do it because there wasn’t any other choice at all. You know, Dad, sometimes things get into such a jam that there isn’t a right thing to do, but only a least wrong one. And that’s how it was with the people like him, in the war. And then, even if you do the best you can, you feel dirty. And you hate it. You don’t know how he’s hated it! But it wasn’t like that with Blunden at all. The only use he had for a lot of things was to kill them. He bred things to kill. He was brought up to it. The little things in the woods, that he could have left alone without missing much, the badgers, and foxes, and crows—anything that took a crumb of his without paying for it double, he killed. And the war didn’t hit him, you see, because he was here, all he had to do was feel the excitement of it, a long way off, and talk about knocking hell out of the beggars. He didn’t have to
do
it. He didn’t have to feel dirty. Of
course
it came easy to him. Why shouldn’t it? In a way it wasn’t even real. Nothing was, that didn’t happen to him.”