The March Hare Murders (2 page)

“Kind!”

“Yes, really. But I’m sorry about it, if you mind.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You know, it did help talking to him,” Stella went on unhappily. “I felt frightened and helpless about it all, and Verinder knows so much.”

“It doesn’t matter,” David said again. “But this woman Deirdre …?”

There was a pause before Stella answered, “It’s Deirdre Masson. She’s a bookbinder. She does some lovely things, and I believe she’s quite well known. Her husband was killed in the war. She’s rather nice; I like her. I should think you’d like to meet her. She’s clever and she’s beautiful in a queer way. I’ll ask her here one evening.”

It was said in a rush, too rapidly. David moved restlessly, and once more looking at his sister’s face, he began, for the first time since she had met him at the station, to think about her.

He began to wonder what was behind the changes in her personality. At first he had tried not to take them in. In his tired state he would have preferred to ignore everything to which he was not accustomed. But he had always been very fond of Stella. They had got on pretty well and had had a good understanding of one another. If anything was wrong with her he knew he would have to think about it sooner or later. Besides that, any one who has lived under a great nervous strain for some time has an instinctive recognition of the same condition in another person. Stella was under a strain. All at once David knew that he had recognised that fact already at the station.

But he was still too deeply sunk in himself and too drained of life to have much sympathy to offer. Laying down his half-eaten sandwich, he reached for another cigarette and began reluctantly. “Stella, look here …”

She interrupted. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“Not particularly,” David said.

“I’m sorry there isn’t any cake.”

“Look here,” he said, “I want to know, is it going to be a great nuisance to you, my being here?” It was not what he had meant to say; it was an evasion.

“Of course not,” Stella said.

“Sure?”

“Of course.”

“I’ve scarcely said thank you. I’ve acted as if I were taking it for granted.”

“Why shouldn’t you?” she said.

“I don’t think I should. And, listen …”

“Yes?”

“If I’m in your way, you’ll just push me around, won’t you?”

“Oh yes, rather.” She laughed. “I’ll push you around like anything.”

“But really. If you and Ferdie find me in the way, will you shove me out? And as far as the housekeeping and everything goes, will you tell me how you want me to help? I don’t want to add to any difficulties you’ve got.”

“Difficulties? I haven’t any difficulties.”

They looked at one another. Then Stella twisted sideways on the sofa, punched the cushions beside her and put her feet up. For the moment, the subject was closed.

Leaning back, David crossed his legs, settled himself more comfortably and wondered suddenly if there was a pub anywhere near the house. It seemed years since he had been in a pub. But if it was going to mean a long walk to find one he would not bother with it, not this evening. He was too tired. Some day, he supposed, he would get over this continual tiredness and find things like wandering along country lanes on a summer evening to hunt for a nice pub worth doing. But not now, not to-night. Then suddenly it struck him that it would be pleasant to go for a swim.

“Stella, how far is it actually to the beach?” he asked.

She replied, “Oh, not ten minutes. You can cut along by the side of Verinder’s garden and through the wood there, and that brings you out on the cliff path. You can easily scramble down from there. Of course if you want to go round by the road, it takes longer.”

“I thought I might go for a swim later,” David said.

“I’ll come with you, if you like.”

“Good.”

“Though I ought to get on with cooking the dinner,” she went on uncertainly. “Perhaps I’d better leave the swim till another day. David—”

“Yes?”

“We’ll have to leave you alone a good deal while you’re here. Ferdie’s working pretty long hours at present, and I’ve very little help in the house. I’ve only got Mrs. Scales, who comes in three mornings a week, and no help at all in the garden. It’s a biggish place to manage alone. D’you think you’ll mind?”

“Of course not. I told you so.”

“But won’t it be bad for you, being mostly alone?”

“I shall like it.”

“Really?” She looked at him doubtfully. “Well, I suppose it can be quite pleasant for a bit.”

“D’you mean you don’t like it yourself?”

“Oh no, I’m much too busy to think about that,” she said.

“How about the piano?” he asked suddenly. “D’you get time for that?”

“No,” she said, “I scarcely touch it.”

“Isn’t that a pity?”

“No, why should it be? I was never any good. Never any good at all.”

“I thought you were some good.”

“No.” She shook her head. “One grows out of that sort of thing. One finds more important things to do.”

“What has Ferdie got to say about that?”

“Oh, he says I ought to go on with it, but he doesn’t realise how little time I have. If we’d a smaller, more convenient house, perhaps. … But don’t let’s talk about me all the time. David, don’t you want to tell me anything about what really happened?”

He had seen that coming. He had known that sooner or later he would have to attempt explanations, and with a part of himself he wanted to talk and to go on talking till there was nothing left to say. But that struck him as a danger to be avoided at all costs, a cruelty, an indecency to others that he must not allow himself to be tempted into committing. But the only alternatives seemed to be calculated lies or silence.

Taking off his spectacles, he swung them gently to and fro in front of him and tried to think of words.

He heard Stella say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you. I’m not trying to make you say anything you don’t want to.”

“No,” he said. “But I will tell you about it sometime, Stella. … Sometime.”

“Don’t worry,” she said.

“And I’ll tell you one thing now. …” All at once it was as if the words were being pressed out of him and he could not stop them. He felt again that unpleasant heat in the room and the pricking pain in his eyes. The words had to come. “Stella, when I was abroad, I …”

“Don’t worry,” she said.

“I killed a man—”

“But of course,” Stella said. “We all know that. Don’t worry, David, we won’t talk about it.”

•   •   •   •   •

That was David’s first effort at explaining to Stella about the accident. He knew, of course, that she knew of the event. She knew that he had knocked a man down and run over him in an army lorry and had killed him. She knew, too, and would tenderly remind him of the fact if he went on talking, that he had been exonerated from all blame. The man had been drunk. He had run out suddenly from behind a car drawn up by the roadside. There had even been evidence to suggest that he had deliberately thrown himself in front of the lorry.

But that was where it all began to get complicated. For the man’s snatching of death at his hands seemed to David the most outrageous injury that had ever been done to him, and he could not forgive his victim, he could not come to terms with him. But that was a terrible feeling. Hatred should precede a killing, not follow it, not eternally outlast it.

David stood up. He had a feeling of uncomfortable enclosure in the room. “I think I’ll go and have that swim now,” he said.

“Won’t you stay and see Ferdie first?” Stella suggested. “He’ll be in any time now.”

“Well, all right.” But he did not sit down again. “I think I’ll go upstairs and unpack my things. You can call me when Ferdie comes.” He went to the door, went upstairs and shut himself into his bedroom.

It was a big room at the front of the house, and from its window he could see the pale blue shimmering of the sea between wind-battered pine trees. He could also see a cottage which he supposed was Bell Cottage, the week-end home of Professor Verinder. It was a small white building with green shutters, and two surprisingly tall chimneys which put David in mind of the March Hare’s cottage in
Alice in Wonderland.
In the garden a woman in a light dress was stooping over one of the flower-beds, picking some dahlias. While David was at the window, she suddenly glanced up and appeared to see him. Straightening her back, she stood looking at him with a curious, long stare. Annoyed, David moved back from the window and began his unpacking.

His suitcase was on the floor in the middle of the room. Lifting it on to the patchwork quilt on the bed, he unlocked it and took out the grey suit that was packed at the top. Shaking out the suit, he carried it to the tall wardrobe in the corner and arranged it on a hanger. It was a long time since he had worn that suit. He had collected it that day, in passing through London, together with some other possessions that he had not seen for a long time, from his old rooms in Doughty Street. His landlady had kept everything for him carefully. She had shown off her care to him with pride, pointing out moth-balls and tissue-paper wrappings. David had wondered about it. She had had no obligation to be so careful for him. But no one had any obligation to be as helpful as they seemed ready to be. Yet, as he looked round the pleasant room, at the bowl of white and yellow daisies on the table and the books beside the bed, he wished with a surge of desperation that he had made up his mind to go away from all this helpfulness and kindness.

As he took his pyjamas out of the case, something heavy slid out of their folds on to the counterpane. It was his service revolver, which he ought to have surrendered long ago. His landlady had found it among his things and had begged him to remove it. She had told him it made her uneasy to have it in the house. David picked it up. The touch of it gave him an unpleasant feeling, and he wished he had got rid of it at the proper time. But he had never been good at getting rid of things. To do so needed some power of decision in which he was usually lacking. Glancing around at drawers and cupboards, he wondered what to do with the thing. At that moment the door opened.

“Good Lord,” his brother-in-law said, “whatever are you doing with that?”

“Wondering where to put it,” David said, laying the revolver down on the dressing-table. “Hallo, Ferdie.”

“Hallo,” Ferdie Pratt said and came into the room and clapped David on the shoulder.

Ferdie was thirty-seven. During the last five years he had aged, so it seemed to David, far more than one would have expected. He looked tired and seedy and uncertain, and with that, he had become heartier and louder and less convincing. He had been the athletic type that loses its vigour early. But he still had a kind of good looks, a wiry compactness of body, a ruddy simplicity of feature. His sandy hair was turning grey. He was an architect with offices in Wellford and was not unsuccessful in his work, but all his life he had disliked it, recognising his creative limitations and resenting his inability to do anything else instead. He was a man of vague discontents and day-dreams, mixed up with some hard-headed shrewdness. There had never been any intimate liking between him and David, though they had always treated one another with reasonable friendliness.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Ferdie watched as David went on unpacking.

“Stella says you’re really pretty well now,” Ferdie said cautiously, his eyes on David’s face.

“Why, yes,” David answered, “there’s nothing much the matter with me.”

“You just need to take things quietly, I expect.”

“Yes, that’s all,” David agreed.

“Fine. Well, you can do that here all right.”

“It’s extremely good of you and Stella to have me.” David bundled some socks into a drawer. “How are things with you, Ferdie?”

“Me? Oh, not so bad. How d’you like the house?”

“It’s very nice indeed.”

“Cost five thousand,” Ferdie told him.

“Good Lord!” David said.

“I could sell it for seven to-morrow.” Ferdie suddenly sprang up. With a folded newspaper, he started lashing at a fly that was circling in the air above him. As the fly evaded him, Ferdie pursued it across the room. “I can’t stand flies!” he panted, beating with his paper against the window-pane until the fly dropped dead on the sill. “Never know what they’ve been on last, never can tell what infection they’re carrying. What I say is, one deserves to get ill, if one doesn’t keep the flies down in one’s house. … Yes, as I was saying, seven thousand, easily, to-morrow.”

“But you aren’t thinking of selling it, are you?” David asked.

“No, no, it’s a good property, worth hanging on to. Besides, property round here’s going to go up.” Ferdie looked out of the window. “That cottage of Verinder’s, I wouldn’t mind buying that up if I got the chance; it’d be a good investment.”

“Is there any hope of his leaving?”

“Not that I know of. Anyhow, he’s only the tenant—pays some fabulous rent, I suppose. The place belongs to a man called Fortis, who’s got a book-shop in Wellford.”

David had found his swimming shorts, and tossing them aside, closed the suitcase. “D’you see a lot of Verinder?” he asked.

“Oh, a goodish bit. Nice chap. Sound. I didn’t expect to like him. I used to read those articles of his on sociology and personal problems and what not, and his ideas got me down, they seemed so smooth and tricky. But I must say, what he said was often sense, and he’s all right when you get to know him.

Conceited as hell, and can’t leave any woman alone, and you’ve only to rustle a pound note for him to come running up; besides, he’s a bore if you see too much of him, but still …” Again Ferdie lashed at the window-pane to slaughter a drowsily buzzing fly. The movement was so unexpected and so violent that David found something alarming in it, yet the fly escaped and wheeled away towards the ceiling. “Damn,” Ferdie muttered, smoothing the paper between thin, strong hands.

“If I have to see much of Verinder …” David began, but he stopped himself.

“Oh, he’s not so bad really, you know,” Ferdie said, “and he’s got a nice lot of books in that place of his. Very interesting—first editions and so on. And his wife’s nice. I feel sorry for her sometimes; still, I suppose she knew what she was doing. Oh, Verinder’s not so bad. … Now what about yourself, David? Got any plans yet?”