Seeing is Believing (6 page)

We had more sherry, then our lunch, then Brian said he felt like a sleep and went to lie down in his room and Malcolm went to his study to try to do a little work on his autobiography.

I suspected that he actually fell asleep as soundly as Brian, for I heard no sound from his typewriter, and I fell asleep myself for a while in a chair in the sitting room, then, when I woke, picked up my copy of
Romeo and Juliet
and started studying my part. I had had a good memory when I was young and could have learnt my lines in no time, but it was going to take some hard work, I recognized, to do it now. About half-past four, I made some tea and called the two men down to it.

It was at about five o'clock, when we were still sitting round the tea-table, that the doorbell rang.

Whoever was ringing kept their finger on the bell for so long that it had a sound of excitement about it, of impatience and perhaps of distress. Then, before Malcolm could reach the door, the ringing stopped and our doorknocker was violently pounded. He opened the door and Avril took a swift step inside, then almost fell into his arms. If he had not caught her it looked as if she would have fallen. Her face was dead white and her eyes were wide and staring.

‘Oh, Malcolm, help me!’ she gasped. ‘I can't go in there again all by myself. It's too awful!’

He led her forward into the sitting room.

‘What is it, Avril?’ he asked.

‘He's dead, he's stone dead!’ she cried. ‘Peter — lying on the floor in the hall. There's a gun beside him — his gun — and there's blood all over his face. And half of his face isn't there. Oh, please help me. Tell me what I ought to do!’

Malcolm took charge. He could always be relied on to take charge in a time of serious crisis, just as certainly as he would avoid having anything to do with the minor crises that occur continuously in domestic life. When the boys’ wing at Granborough had gone on fire one night, due to some child's practical joke that had gone wrong, he had taken control with grave-faced equanimity, got all the boys out into the quad, directed the school fire brigade until the fire brigade from Edgewater arrived, and had given no sign of the anxiety that he was feeling internally. But if his pyjamas did not come back from the laundry, or if we ran out of sherry, it was for me to put the matter right. What we had on our hands at the moment was a very serious crisis, and as a matter of course, he took charge.

‘I'll go over and Brian will come with me,’ he said. ‘You stay here with Frances, Avril. Can we get into the house? Is the door unlocked?’

He had handed Avril on to me by then. I had her in my arms and felt her violent shuddering. She clung to me for a moment, then jerked herself away.

‘Yes, it's unlocked, but I've got to go over with you,’ she said. ‘I must.’

‘No, no, you must stay here,’ Malcolm said. ‘If a doctor's needed, we'll phone for Redfield, and if it looks as if we've got to get the police. We'll phone the people in Otterswell. But there's no need to inflict all that on you.’

‘Of course it's the police you'll need,’ Avril said, her
voice unnaturally shrill. Her face was colourless, but her eyes looked unusually large and luminous, with a shine that might have come from fear. ‘But I've got to go back with you. The dogs are shut up in the kitchen and they're going crazy. They know something terrible's happened, though they can't know what, and they're making a fearful noise and trying to break the door down. I don't know why they're shut up in the kitchen. Peter wouldn't have put them there like that. I suppose the — the murderer did it, but I don't know how he managed it. They never obey anyone but Peter and me.’

The bloody dogs!’ Malcolm said. ‘Sorry, Avril, but it doesn't sound as if they're the most important thing at the moment. But come with us if you must.’ He looked at me. ‘Coming, Frances?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘I shouldn't have come rushing round like this,’ Avril said, trying to sound calmer, ‘but I couldn't stand it in there alone. And I'd a feeling he — the man — whoever it was — might still be there, though I knew he wasn't. Peter's stone cold. I think he's been dead for hours. And the man wouldn't have stayed around all that time, would he? If he went in to steal, he'd have had plenty of time to find there was nothing much worth taking. A little jewellery, a little money in Peter's wallet. He could have found those at once and got away hours ago. All the same, I was frightened.’

‘Well, let's go, shall we?’ Malcolm said. He put an arm round her shoulders. ‘Of course you were frightened. Who wouldn't be? And coming here was the obvious thing to do. I only hope we can help a bit in some way.’

He drew her back to the door. I hesitated. There were several things I wanted to say, but I was fairly sure this was not the time to say them. I looked at Brian and he gave a little shake of his head, almost as if he were telling me that now was not the time to talk, though really I think he was telling me to leave Avril to Malcolm. We
went out of the house behind them, down the path to the gate and along the lane to the Loxleys’ gate, and up the path to their door. It was wide open and the noise that the dogs were making reached us while we were still in the lane.

A heap of something that I was afraid to look at was at the foot of the stairs. I had seen dead people before in my life, but they had all been calmly and decently laid out in bed, with their eyes closed and the set of their features serenely peaceful. They had not had one side of their head half blasted away, and their one remaining eye staring fiercely into nothingness. Peter looked as if he had been very angry at being killed. There was a good deal of blood on what was left of his face and on his shirt, and near him on the floor lay a revolver, with one of his hands looking as if it were reaching for it. But I did not think for a moment that it was he who had fired it, or if he had, it had not been at himself.

Avril had gone straight into the kitchen and had shut the door behind her. The barking of the dogs stopped at once. Malcolm stooped over the dead man on the floor and felt one of his hands.

‘Yes, stone cold,’ he said, ‘and rigor beginning. This happened a good while ago.’

‘I think I know when it happened,’ I said. ‘A little after twelve o'clock. I think I heard a shot.’

He turned his head quickly to look at me.

‘D'you mean that?’

‘Yes.’

‘You'll have to tell the police about it.’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, I'll phone them now.’ He looked round, saw that there was no telephone in the hall, then said, ‘What's happened to Avril?’

‘And the dogs,’ I said.

‘She's taken them out into the garden, I should think,’ Brian said. ‘Sensible thing to do.’

‘Anyway, where's the telephone?’ Malcolm asked me, as if noticing such things was more the kind of thing that I should do than could be expected of him.

He happened to be right, for not only had I been in the house far more often than him, drinking coffee and gossiping with Avril, but I do notice such things and he does not. He could have been in their drawing room, where as a matter of fact the telephone was, a dozen times and afterwards not be able to tell you what colour the curtains were, or what pictures were on their walls.

I led the way into the drawing room, a high, elegant room with tall sash windows overlooking a garden that was fading into the twilight. Brian was right about Avril. She was on the sweep of lawn that stretched from the house to a high old wall of rosy brick, half-hidden in creepers. She was throwing a ball for the dogs to chase. I was not sure if it shocked me or if I admired her. It was a way of keeping them employed and out of the way in a manner that I should certainly have admired if they had been young children whom it was important to save from understanding the horror that was in the house. But they were not young children, they were dogs, and what she was doing simply left all responsibility for what had to be done now to us.

‘Do you think we ought to get her inside, so that she knows what you say to the police?’ Brian said.

‘It looks as if she'd rather leave it to us to get on with it.’ Malcolm's tone was sardonic. ‘And the sooner we do it, the better.’

He made the call to the police in Otterswell, and after a little explaining was put through to someone whose name apparently was Detective Inspector Holroyd, who told him to stay where he was, touch nothing, and wait for the arrival of the police, which would be as prompt as possible. Malcolm put the telephone down and gave a deep sigh.

‘Didn't you say you came to Raneswood for peace and quiet?’ he said to Brian.

‘It's usually one of its attractions,’ Brian answered.

Malcolm threw himself down on a sofa. I had sat down in one of the deep armchairs near the fireplace and Brian had gone to one of the windows and was gazing out, as if the sight of Avril throwing the ball and the dogs happily chasing it had a sort of fascination for him.

‘About the shot you heard,’ Malcolm said to me, ‘how did that happen?’

‘I'd been down to the village,’ I said, ‘to do some shopping, and I met Jane there and we had a coffee together in the Green Man. Then I came home and the reason I know it was just about twelve o'clock when I got here is that Mrs Henderson was coming out of their house, and you know how punctual she is. She arrives on the dot of nine and leaves exactly at twelve. But as it happened, Fred Dyer was arriving just then, and he went up to the house and in at the side door, which was a bit odd for several reasons.’

Brian turned quickly when he heard the name.

‘Fred Dyer? He was here?’

‘Yes. But as I said, it was a bit odd. I wouldn't say that he's normally the most friendly of human beings, but when we meet he generally greets me and says a thing or two about the weather, but this morning he did neither. He literally turned his back on me, so that as I remember it, I didn't even see his face. And it was the same when he met Mrs Henderson halfway up the path. He looked away, as if he didn't want to see her

‘Just a minute,’ Malcolm interrupted. ‘You're sure of all this, are you?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Because you'll have to tell it all to the police.’

‘Of course.’

‘And wasn't it a bit peculiar, his coming here at twelve o'clock? He usually works for the Loxleys in the afternoon.’

‘That's one of the things I was going to say,’ I said. ‘But
he might have dropped in to change some arrangement he'd made with them, or something like that. The other thing that I thought was really odd was that he'd come on foot, not in his van. He always comes in his van when he comes up here, but this morning he walked.’

‘Suppose that girlfriend of his had wanted the van for some reason.’

‘She's got her own car.’

‘Hm. Yes. It is a bit strange. But what happened next? I mean, about the shot you heard.’

‘Well, I went home and started on a bit of cooking, and suddenly I heard what sounded like a shot. It would have been about a quarter of an hour after I got in.’

‘And naturally you took no notice of it.’

‘No, I thought it was someone shooting at rooks or rabbits, or it could even have been a back-fire on the road. I didn't give it a thought until — well, until Avril came in this evening.’

‘And you could have been right about the rooks and rabbits. It may not have been the shot that killed Peter that you heard.’

‘I see one's got to take that into consideration,’ I said, ‘but it would have been a bit of a coincidence if it wasn't.’

‘Fred Dyer,’ Brian said. ‘Jack Benyon. If he shot Loxley, then he's changed his
modus operandi
. No plastic bag and strangling this time. Unusual in murderers, I believe, but I suppose not unheard of. I wonder what he had against Loxley?’

‘Now let's not jump to conclusions,’ Malcolm said. ‘That's strictly for the police. Ah, Avril…’ For she had just appeared at the drawing room door. ‘I've phoned the police. They'll be here as soon as possible.’

‘I've shut the dogs up in the kitchen again,’ she said, as if that was the most important thing she had to tell us. ‘And I've given them their supper. They'll be quiet now that they know I'm back.’

‘Frances, don't you think you should tell Avril what you've just been telling us?’ Malcolm said.

I could see myself having to tell the story a number of times before the evening was out. I would have to tell it to Detective Inspector Holroyd, and perhaps to some other policemen, and now there was no question that I would have to tell it to Avril. But she seemed hardly interested. Her haggard face was blank and empty. She was in a state of shock, I thought, and it might be a good idea to look for some brandy. I remembered having been told that the right treatment for shock was hot, very sweet tea, but to make tea I should have to go into the kitchen and deal with the three dogs, probably upsetting them and starting them barking again. I should also have had to go towards the hall, passing close to that tragic thing that lay on the floor at the foot of the stairs. I asked Avril whether there was any brandy in the house.

She pointed at a fine old cabinet between the windows, and dropped into a chair. Brian went to the cabinet and took out brandy and four glasses. He filled them and brought them to Malcolm and me, keeping one for himself when he had given one to Avril.

‘What is it Frances ought to tell me?’ she asked. Her voice had lost its shrillness and was merely flat and dead.

I told her the story that I had told the others.

‘Fred Dyer,’ she muttered, as if it was not a matter of much importance. ‘I don't know what he was doing here. He wasn't coming here to work today.’

‘You weren't expecting him for any reason?’ Malcolm asked.

She shook her head wearily. It was then that I noticed that tears were trickling out of her eyes and down her cheeks. She sipped her brandy.

‘Perhaps Peter had thought of some job he wanted him to do,’ she said. ‘Our shower keeps going wrong. It's the hard water. It gets choked up. He might have rung Fred up and asked him to come and see to it.’

‘Hardly a reason for murder,’ Brian said.

‘And wouldn't Dyer have come in his van with his tools, instead of on foot?’ Malcolm said.