The Key (6 page)

He cast his mind back to the previous evening and thought furiously – Miss Brown at the grand piano with her back to them, a Beethoven thunderstorm going on up and down the keyboard, and Aunt Sophy telling him that Eliza Pincott who married a young Braybury from Ledstow had had triplets – ‘So very inconvenient, but she’s as proud as a peacock. But then the Pincotts are like that – everything that happens to them is just what they wanted and quite all right, except that old Ezra turned up drunk at the christening and they didn’t like that. And she sent me a snapshot – just behind you there, dear boy, in the left-hand top drawer of my bureau—’ Well, the snapshot was there all right, but he was prepared to stand up in any court, at any time, and take oath that the key was not. Of course that was Thursday evening and not Tuesday. Mr Harsch had been shot on Tuesday evening. Aunt Sophy might have removed the key. Miss Brown had only sworn that she had put it back in the drawer after practising in the church between eleven and twelve on Tuesday morning. He went on wondering furiously.

ON THE OTHER side of the narrow aisle Janice Meade was thinking too. Her hands were folded in her lap, her head a little bent. The chairs were set so close together in the row that if she had not been so slim and lightly built, Miss Madoc’s lumpy grey shoulder would have touched her on the one side and Mr Madoc’s bony one on the other. She sat between them, quite still and withdrawn. After she had given her evidence she had slipped into the quiet place she kept among her thoughts. It was a place which very few people entered. She locked it against everyone except the people whom she really loved. Her father was there. Not the tired, failing man whom she had nursed so devotedly, but the father of her nursery days incomparably strong and omniscient. There was nothing he couldn’t do, nothing he didn’t know. When she could think of him like that, life didn’t feel so lonely. She couldn’t remember her mother at all, but she was there too, a lovely shadow, rather felt than seen, never any older than the miniature which had been painted when she was twenty. A few months ago she had opened the door to Mr Harsch. He came and went. He had been sad, and now he wasn’t sad any more.

There was one other person who was always there – Garth Albany. She had not looked at him yet, beyond the one glance which told her where he was sitting when she entered the hall. She knew, of course, that he was staying with Miss Sophy. Tommy Pincott had delivered the news with the milk at eight o’clock. As long as the milkman delivered and the baker called, you were sure of the village news. It was a long time since she had seen Garth – three years. She had been away at each time he came. There is quite a gap between nineteen and twenty-two. Nineteen hasn’t really quite put off childish things. And how she had adored him when she was a child. She had enough love to go round a dozen brothers and sisters, but there hadn’t been any brothers and sisters, so she had to give it all to Garth. And all her hero-worship, and all the silly romantic dreams which must have a peg to hang on when you are in your teens. Now, of course, everything was quite different. She was twenty-two and quite grown-up. You didn’t despise your old romantic dreams, but you kept them in their place. They were no part of the practical everyday life in which you lifted your eyes and looked across at Garth Albany sitting beside Miss Sophy.

Her heart turned over, because he was looking at her. Their eyes met and something happened. She didn’t know what it was, because for the moment she couldn’t think, she could do nothing but feel.

Afterwards she knew only too well what had happened. Garth wasn’t going to be put away with childish things, or shut away in a secret place of dreams. He was most actually alive and there. He wasn’t anyone’s dream. He was Garth on his own, as he had always been, and if she was fool enough to fall in love with him, her folly would be its own reward – she would get hurt. She had an agonised premonition of just how much it would be possible for Garth to hurt her – and she would only have herself to thank.

Garth’s eyes smiled at her for a moment. Then she was looking down again at her folded hands and the coroner was summing up.

It was some time before she could listen coherently. Words came and went – ‘services rendered to science… deplorable persecution… cruel personal bereavements…’ She came out of her own thoughts to take in what he was saying.

‘Mr Harsch had just completed work to which he had given all his time and energies for a number of years. There is some evidence to show that he had the feeling which would be natural in such a case. On that last evening of his life he spoke to Miss Meade of having brought a child into the world and having now to give it over to others to be brought up. He was, of course, referring to his work, which had reached the stage when it had to be taken out of his hands in order that it might be usefully developed. He also talked at some length about the daughter he had lost in such a tragic manner. When he went out after supper he spoke of blowing the clouds away. I am not musical, but I understand that though music may in some circumstances have a soothing and consoling effect, it has also admittedly the power of heightening the emotions. We have no direct evidence to show the state of Mr Harsch’s mind during the time that he was in the church. We do know that he was there for a considerable time. He left Prior’s End at eight, and according to Miss Fell’s evidence the shot was fired at a quarter to ten. Even if he had walked quite slowly he must have reached the church no later than twenty minutes past eight. For the best part of an hour and a half, therefore, he was in the church playing the organ. As the sexton has explained, there were four keys to the church, and the rector has told us that these keys belonged to a modern lock which had been fitted to the side door of the church, the other two doors being bolted on the inside and their keys no longer in use. Of the four keys to the side door, the rector and the sexton had one each, Miss Fell had one which was used by Miss Brown, and Mr Harsch had one. When Miss Meade and the sexton arrived at the church the door was locked. Behind that locked door Mr Harsch lay dead. When his body was examined by the police the key he had used was found in his left-hand jacket pocket. I am going very fully into this question of the keys, because you will have to decide whether you are satisfied that Mr Harsch locked himself into the church and afterwards shot himself there, or whether it is possible that some other person entered the building and shot him. The sexton’s evidence is to the effect that it was not Mr Harsch’s habit to lock himself in but that he had known him do so. If a man were either in some distress of mind or contemplating suicide, it would, I think, be natural for him to guard against intrusion by locking himself in. As to the possibility that some other person entered the church and shot Mr Harsch, you have to consider how this entry might have been effected. Either Mr Harsch must have admitted his assailant, or one of the other three keys must have been used. If Mr Harsch was engaged in playing the organ, the chance of anyone’s attracting his attention and thus gaining admittance is a slender one. Even if it is a possibility, it leaves unanswered the question as to how this suppositious person managed to quit the church, leaving the door locked and the key in Mr Harsch’s pocket. There remains the question as to whether one of the other three keys could have been used. On this point you have the evidence of the sexton, Frederick Bush, of Miss Brown, and of the rector. Bush says his key was hanging upon the kitchen dresser when he locked up for the night at a quarter past ten. The rector says his key was on his chain, and that he did not go down to the church at all. Miss Brown says she used Miss Fell’s key in the morning, put it back in the drawer where it was kept, and did not return to the church. The police inspector has told us that Mr Harsch’s key shows only one blurred fingerprint, this print being similar to the blurred print left by the forefinger of a set of fingerprints found upon the pistol. These latter prints are unquestionably Mr Harsch’s own, and in the case of the other three fingers and the thumb they are perfectly clear. The blurring of the print upon the key and the printless condition of the other side of it is, I think, accounted for by the fact that the pocket in which it was found contained also a handkerchief, a matchbox, and several other small objects. In these circumstances there would probably be some friction on the surface of the key, especially when it is considered that Mr Harsch was playing the organ, an occupation involving a considerable amount of movement. As regards the pistol, there is no evidence as to ownership. It is of a common German make. Anyone who had been in Germany might have acquired it and brought it to this country. Mr Harsch had no licence to cover this or any other firearm. It is, however, a regrettable fact that there are a great quantity of unlicensed firearms in this country, a large number of which are either service revolvers retained by ex-servicemen after the last war or foreign weapons brought in as souvenirs.’

The coroner paused.

‘Well, ladies and gentlemen, that is the evidence. You will now retire and give it your consideration. I may say that the medical evidence will not admit an accident as a basis for your verdict. You have to decide whether Mr Harsch shot himself, or whether someone else shot him.’

The jury got up and trooped out. They were away for less than five minutes. They returned with the verdict that Michael Harsch had shot himself while the balance of his mind was disturbed.

EVERYBODY CAME OUT of the hall rather as if they were coming away from a funeral. The ceremony being over, you could recognise your friends and converse with them, but in an appropriately subdued manner. Mrs Mottram’s manner could not, unfortunately, be called subdued even by the least candid friend. She was obviously excited, and the bright blue of her dress did nothing to disarm criticism. She rushed, positively rushed – the expression is Miss Doncaster’s – up to Mr Everton and kept him talking on the steps of the hall, her light high-pitched voice making everything she said plainly audible.

Miss Doncaster’s strictures were what might have been expected. She joined Miss Fell’s party for the short homeward walk, and she had no hesitation in stating that she considered Mrs Mottram’s behaviour brazen.

‘Pursuing – positively pursuing Mr Everton! Asking him at the top of her voice whether she had “done it nicely”! Exactly as if she had been taking part in a play instead of discharging a solemn and most unpleasant duty! I really cannot say what I think of her behaviour!’

Miss Sophy demurred. She was partial to the young. She liked Mrs Mottram, and she had no objection to her flirting with Mr Everton, whom she considered very well able to look after himself. She even liked the bright blue dress, which she thought gay and becoming, though of course not suitable to an inquest. She armed herself for the fracas which always ensued when you disagreed with Lucy Ellen.

‘My dear, you really have managed to say a good deal.’

Miss Doncaster looked down her long, thin nose.

‘If I stated my true opinion—’

Miss Sophy hastened to interrupt.

‘My dear, I shouldn’t. And do you know, I like Mrs Mottram. She is always so pleasant.’

Miss Doncaster snorted.

‘She hasn’t the brain of a hen!’

‘Perhaps not – but there are such a lot of clever people, and so few pleasant ones.’

They had arrived at the gate to the village street. Whatever Miss Doncaster might have replied was lost because Miss Sophy turned to put out a hand to Janice whom she had at that moment discovered to be just behind her with Garth.

‘Come to tea, my dear,’ she said. ‘I would ask you to lunch, but you know what it is – Florence would give notice. At least she wouldn’t really, because she has been with us for so many years, but she would talk about it, and that is almost as upsetting.’ She turned back again. ‘You may say what you like, Lucy Ellen, but Mrs Mottram was the only one of us to say straight away that she would take in an evacuee, though in the end she never got one.’

Irritation passed into cold rage. Miss Doncaster paled and stiffened.

‘If you imagine, Sophy—’ she began, but Miss Sophy made haste with an olive branch.

‘Now, Lucy Ellen, don’t let us quarrel. No one expects you to take in a child, with Mary Anne in the state she is. And I won’t say I didn’t beg Mrs Pratt not to put one in on me, because I did, and everyone knows it. But by the time the village had taken theirs, and Mr Everton and the Rector, there really were, quite providentially, none left over, otherwise it would have been my duty, and I hope I should have done it whether Florence and Mable gave notice or not.’

Garth and Janice walked side by side. They had hardly spoken. The feeling of having been at a funeral hung over them. They walked in silence as far as the corner. Here the road branched off on one side to the houses which faced the Green, and on the other something not much better than a track led through a straggle of cottages and beyond them to Prior’s End. They stopped and looked at each other.

‘You will come to tea?’

‘Yes.’

‘Look here, come out early and we’ll go for a walk. I want to talk to you – not in Aunt Sophy’s drawing-room. I’ll be at the stile by the Priory field at half-past two. Can you make it?’

She nodded.

‘I’ll ask for the afternoon off.’

They stood for a moment. There was at once too much and too little to say, and none of it could be said within earshot of half the village streaming home. She turned and went quickly away from him up the track.

Garth followed Miss Sophy and Miss Doncaster, who by now were safely discussing the best method of storing onions. Far in front of them, moving with a kind of restive energy, was the tall black figure of Miss Brown. As it turned in at the Rectory gate, Miss Sophy heaved a sigh.

‘Medora has felt it all very much.’

Miss Doncaster stiffened.

‘I hope we have all felt it, Sophy. But some of us were brought up to control our feelings. Miss Brown makes hers too conspicuous for my taste.’

Miss Sophy’s round blue eyes administered the reproach which for prudence sake she refrained from putting into words. Then, with a faint chill upon her voice, she went on talking about onions.

Arriving at the Rectory, and Miss Doncaster safely on her way to her own house and her afflicted sister, Garth grasped Miss Sophy by the arm, took her into the drawing-room, and shut the door.

‘Look here,’ he said, ‘you remember last night?’

‘My dear boy—’

He shook the arm a little.

‘About the Pincott girl’s triplets – which one was it – Minnie?’

‘No dear – Eliza.’ She gazed at him out of eyes as blue and bewildered as a baby’s.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter. The point is this. You sent me to get the snapshot of them out of your bureau drawer – the left-hand top drawer.’

‘I don’t see—’

‘You will. Isn’t that the drawer where you keep the church key?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Well, it wasn’t there last night.’

Miss Sophy’s gaze was quite untroubled.

‘My dear, it must have been.’

‘It wasn’t.’

‘But my dear – it is always there except when Miss Brown is practising, and last night—’

‘She was playing the piano with her back to us – I know. And the key wasn’t in the drawer. There was nothing there except a clip of bills and the snapshot.’

Miss Sophy released herself, walked over to the bureau, and pulled out the small top drawer on the left. The clip of bills was there, the snapshot was there, and right on the top of Eliza and the triplets lay the fourth church key. Garth stared at it over her shoulder.

‘It wasn’t there last night, Aunt Sophy.’

She said, ‘It must have been,’ but she looked disturbed.

Garth put his arm round her.

‘Aunt Sophy, look! If it had been there last night, I couldn’t have helped seeing it. And if it had been there last night it wouldn’t be on the top of the snapshot now – the snapshot would be on top. I had it out, and I put it back, and the key wasn’t there. Someone has put it back since last night. That’s the only way it could be on the top of the photograph. Don’t you see?’

Something touched the blue of Miss Sophy’s eyes. They didn’t look blue any more, they looked frightened. She put out a hand which was not quite steady and shut the drawer. Then she said, ‘There is some mistake, my dear. I think we won’t talk about it any more.’