Here Comes a Chopper (10 page)

‘And it was after you were received at the house, then, sir, that you knew that Mr Lingfield was missing.’

‘Of course it was!’

‘Very good, sir. Now if you wouldn’t mind just giving me a simple account of all that occurred ….’

Roger gave a grudging but unexaggerated account of all that had occurred, including the remarkable statement made by the driver of the train, and then, in response to another question, detailed how he and Dorothy and Bob had met Mrs Bradley that morning.

‘But what made you think of returning to this house this morning, sir, in the first place?’ enquired the inspector.

‘Oh, I don’t know. The whole episode was rather peculiar, and——’

‘The episode was peculiar?’ said the inspector. ‘What do you mean by that, sir?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. The whole thing seemed a bit odd.’

‘You mean the business of the corpse on the line, sir?’

‘That, and all the rest of it. Our being rushed in to make up the dinner numbers, particularly, and then being brought back after we’d set out for home.’

‘Yes, I see, sir. Can I take it that you had no previous knowledge of any of the people living in this house?’

‘Well, it depends on what you mean by previous knowledge. I’d never
met
any of them before, but at least four of them were known to me by repute.’

‘And those, sir?’

‘Well, Mrs Bradley, of course, Mrs Denbies the violinist, John Hackhurst the poet, and this chap who’s missing, Lingfield.’

‘I understand, sir. But, apart from their reputations, you knew nothing about them?’

‘Nothing at all.’

‘That seems clear enough, sir. Now I’d better have your name and address, and then I can interview the young lady.’

Dorothy’s version of their arrival at Whiteledge and the reason for it corresponded with what Roger had said, and the next witness to the finding of the body was Mrs Bradley herself.

It was the dog, it appeared, which fascinated the inspector.

‘Just what led you to take him, mam?’ he enquired.

‘Oh, I don’t know. We both needed exercise,’ Mrs Bradley replied. The sergeant solemnly wrote this statement down.

‘I see, mam,’ said the inspector. ‘But you were not surprised when the dog located the body?’

‘I was neither surprised nor the reverse, Inspector. It was one of the things that happen.’

‘Did you—were you well acquainted with the missing gentleman?’

‘No, I was not. I am almost newly arrived at this house.’

‘Is it your opinion that the body is that of Mr Lingfield, mam?’

‘My acquaintance with Mr Lingfield, as I have stated, is slight, Inspector. In any case I should be obliged to deny a knowledge of so much or so little of him as I saw of the corpse this morning.’

The inspector coughed.

‘Yes, of course, mam. (Don’t put that question and answer down, Sergeant.) I should have said, mam——’

‘Of course you should, Inspector. And I should have replied that I have no opinion to offer.’

‘Had Mr Lingfield enemies, mam?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you. I hope not. Lady Catherine might know. He was, after all, her nephew.’

‘Then I will enquire of Lady Catherine, mam. I suppose’——he cocked a wary eye at the doorway—‘I suppose Lady Catherine is a reliable witness, mam? Her response at present seems—well, mam, flippant is the word that presents itself.’

‘Do you think so?’ asked Mrs Bradley. ‘I am only fairly well acquainted with Lady Catherine, Inspector. I am, as you know, a mental specialist by profession, and I was called here on Wednesday to give a professional opinion upon the condition of someone who seemed to need the services of a psychiatrist.’

‘May I ask, mam——?’

‘No, you may not!’ said Mrs Bradley vigorously. ‘When you have identified the corpse you may ask me that question if it still seems to be part of your enquiry, and I shall feel compelled to answer it. But, until then, professional etiquette suggests to me that I do not disclose to you the name of my patient. It cannot possibly help you at present,’ she added, much more kindly.

‘Perhaps I’m the best judge of that, mam,’ suggested the inspector with kindling eye.

Mrs Bradley cackled.

‘I wonder whether you are a judge of cars?’ she retorted. ‘It took young Mr Hoskyn to point out that the abandoned car on the common was not the car which has been there for some months, but
quite another car which certainly was not there yesterday afternoon.’

‘We have examined the car in question, mam,’ said the inspector amiably, ‘and there is nothing whatever to suggest that it ever carried a headless corpse, I assure you.’

A
NONYMOUS
(16th century)

‘THAT’S THE POINT,’
said Lady Catherine, upon being appealed to on the question of whether Lingfield were married. ‘He was. Far too much married, poor man. Bigamy. Didn’t you hear? The scandal of two continents; three, if you count India as Asia.’

‘I remember his wife,’ said Mrs Bradley. The inspector looked bewildered.

‘Bigamy, Lady Catherine?’ he said. ‘I never heard of a Mr Lingfield——’

‘Oh, it didn’t come into court, of
course!
’ said Lady Catherine, amused. ‘But there was no doubt whatever about it. One in Buenos Aires and another in Paris. Before the war, naturally. We were less democratic then, and bigamy was not allowed in the Foreign Office.’

‘But was Mr Lingfield a member of the Foreign Office?’ asked the inspector, now thoroughly puzzled.

‘Of course he wasn’t. But he was a bigamist, say what you like. Apart from poor Claudia, I mean!’

If the inspector did say what he liked, it was under his breath, for it was Mrs Bradley who spoke next.

‘I think the inspector’s point is that he must try to find someone to identify the body,’ she said. The inspector looked at her gratefully.

‘Well, that shouldn’t be difficult,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘Anybody here could do it.’

It was explained to her, carefully and gently, why this statement was a little too wide to be acceptable.

‘Oh, well, that makes a difference,’ she remarked; and then, as though the full purport of the information had suddenly dawned on her, she added, ‘Good gracious! But how perfectly dreadful! Where did he leave his clothes?’

‘It’s his head we are as much concerned about,’ said Mrs Bradley kindly.

‘Oh, yes, of course,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘But what can have happened to the poor man?’

‘Accident, suicide or murder,’ replied the inspector, who was becoming fatigued.

‘Accident? On the railway, I suppose?’

‘Yes, Lady Catherine, very likely.’

‘Then how did he get to the Common?’

‘Presumably somebody carried him there.’

‘But why?’

‘That is just one of those things I have to find out, Lady Catherine.’

‘How dreadful! Because, of course, nobody would have done that unless they were concerned in the accident, would they?’

‘That is an inference, Lady Catherine, by which I hope to be guided.’

‘Quite right. One should always be guided by inferences. I remember quite well inferring, when I heard of his second marriage, that it must be bigamous, you know, because I knew for a fact that at the time poor Lilian was living in Kent with her old nurse. And I did know, too, that there hadn’t been any divorce.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said the inspector, brought back to the point upon which he had previously touched. ‘His wife. I suppose you don’t know where we can find her? Would she still be in Kent, do you suppose?’

‘I see no reason why she should not be, and I see no reason why she should be. I will give you the last address I have.’

She went out of the room and returned in about five minutes (during which the inspector stared out of the window and the sergeant, rather more woodenly, at the mantel piece and its carvings) carrying a large piece of writing paper.

‘Ah, thank you very much, Lady Catherine. That should be of material help,’ said the inspector. ‘Well, I don’t think we need trouble you further, unless you can tell me whether Mr Lingfield had enemies.’

‘Who hasn’t?’ replied Lady Catherine. ‘But our enemies, for the most part, lack the courage of their convictions. Now, if I did not lack the courage of mine, Inspector——’

‘Yes, no doubt,’ said the inspector hastily. ‘Mr Lingfield, then, had no particular enemies that you could name?’

‘I could name dozens,’ said Lady Catherine, looking prepared to do so. ‘Who could not?’

‘Then it comes to the same thing, madam. I will keep you in touch with the march of events, and you shall know what transpires when we get this unfortunate gentleman identified.’

‘Very well,’ said Lady Catherine, baulked not too tactfully of the monologue she had prepared. ‘I suppose we must not take up your time, even with matters which may assist you.’

‘Oh, there
is
one more thing,’ said the inspector, as though upon inspiration. ‘It has come to my knowledge that somebody in this house is under treatment for—for——’

‘Amnesia,’ said Lady Catherine. ‘Yes, quite true. What of it?’

‘Amnesia, Lady Catherine? But I understood——’

‘Amnesia I said, and amnesia I meant. If you want any more information upon
that
subject, Inspector, you will have to ask Mrs Bradley. She is the visiting specialist. I suppose,’ she added, with a shrewdness which her questioner had certainly not expected, ‘that you have already asked her and have failed to obtain a satisfactory reply. I don’t
call that a nice way to go on. I thought you were more intelligent than that.’

So saying, she left him, taking Mrs Bradley with her. The inspector, looking worried and slightly dazed, gazed at the doorway through which she had passed, and then discovered that the sergeant’s eye was on him.

‘Peculiar, these old families, sir,’ said the sergeant sympathetically.

‘I don’t know about that,’ said the inspector. ‘Got their heads screwed on the right way. Or if it’s the wrong way, they’re still screwed on pretty tight. Well, we’ll have to see the rest of them, I suppose, because if that dead man’s not Harry Lingfield, then I’m a Dutchman, which, incidentally, I partly am, on my mother’s side. Touch the bell, my lad, and ask for Mrs Denbies.’

Claudia Denbies kept the inspector waiting. Then she appeared dressed in a Chinese robe of great beauty. Its patterns had a background of jade green against which her Titian hair looked, as she intended, splendid, untidy and bizarre. She was wearing no make-up except some orange lipstick, and her extremely white face looked somewhat heavy and old in the hard, clear light of the morning.

She took an armchair and crossed her feet, which were bare except for their jade-green sandals. She gave the impression of an exotic and heavily-flowering plant, healthy enough to have made strong growth in an alien soil, but, nevertheless, out of place, and living in a climate really much too cold for it.

The inspector and the sergeant, a couple of bare and thorny shrubs of native stock, gazed rather helplessly at Claudia; then the inspector, scraping his chair and giving the usual slight cough which introduced such of his remarks as he suspected might be going to give offence, demanded, in tones louder than he intended:

‘And to what do you attribute the absence of this missing gentleman, madam?’

‘To his quarrel with me, of course,’ replied the lady, studying the tips of her fingers and then flexing and unflexing her hands. ‘You don’t mind if I fidget, do you? I am giving a recital tomorrow, and I have to keep my hands ready.’

The sergeant, who had often been instructed by his superior that, if you want to know when people are giving themselves away, lying, or withholding information, you watch their hands rather than their faces, snorted with sudden amusement at seeing this theory overthrown. The inspector took no notice of him.

‘So you admit that you quarrelled with Mr Lingfield, madam?’

‘Of course. We were always quarrelling.’

‘But——’

‘And he always left me. He would shut himself away and do his sculpture. He
could
have been a quite respectable pianist, but that would have made things rather difficult.’ She raised her eyes candidly and met those of the inspector. ‘I thought everyone knew all that,’ she added. ‘Poor Harry is temperamental. I disagreed with Lady Catherine
that there was any need to put the police on his track. He’ll return in due course. He always does.’

‘He
has
returned, madam,’ said the inspector, with dramatic emphasis. ‘At least, we should be obliged if it could be known that it is he.’

‘Known?’ Her eyes widened, but it was, the inspector thought, a histrionic and not an involuntary reaction. ‘What do you mean—known? He isn’t—dead?’

‘The gentleman we have been shown is most certainly dead, madam. We should be very glad to be told whether it is Mr Lingfield or not.’

‘Well, I could tell you, of course.’ She looked down at her hands again. ‘Poor Harry! I always told him that one day he would be thrown and break his neck. I knew he would. Riding off like that in such a passion, and threatening my life, as usual.’

‘Break his neck?’ said the inspector, interested.

‘Oh, he was no horseman,’ said Claudia Denbies tensely. ‘I always told him so. In fact, that was the cause of our last quarrel. Where is he now? In this house?’ She sounded nervous, the inspector noticed.

‘No, madam. In the mortuary at Guildford. He—the fact is, madam——’ He met her eyes again as she looked up.

‘Disfigured?’ She spoke as offhandedly as before, but it was still with the effect of unbearable nervous tension. ‘Pity. He was a handsome brute, in his way.’

‘Worse than that. He—you must take a bit of a hold on yourself, madam—he is without his head. We think a train——’

Claudia Denbies threw back her own head and laughed herself into hysteria. Much taken aback at this reaction to what he himself had considered a tactful breaking of the news, the inspector rushed to the bell, rang it violently, opened the door and shouted for assistance.