The Polo Ground Mystery (11 page)

“I see,” replied Ralli, with a smile. “You wouldn't like me to pay you for bringing me to the gallows. Damn it, your talk about bacon and eggs has made me ravenous. Pick up your gear and let's make for home.”

Before gathering his equipment together, Vereker made an ostentatious search in his pockets, which produced the result desired.

“You're hunting for a fag?” asked Ralli, and promptly producing his case offered it to Vereker.

“Thanks; I've got mine somewhere, but I can't just place them,” replied Vereker, as he took one of the proffered cigarettes.

“I don't know whether you like Russians, but they're supposed to be pretty good. They're Bogdanov's of Petrograd.”

“So I see,” returned Vereker reflectively, as he struck a match. “They're very nice. My own tastes run to something cheap and deleterious. Even depravity, I sometimes think, is more or less a matter of habit. Don't you find these rather strong before breakfast?”

“I never smoke before breakfast,” said Ralli, as he returned the case to his pocket.

“Then you've never plumbed the delights of the vice to its depths,” remarked Vereker, but his thoughts were centred on the butt of the cigarette which he was carrying in his wallet. Customers of Bogdanov seemed to be strangely numerous in the district.

For some minutes they walked along in silence.

“Do you always get out and about before breakfast, Ralli?” resumed Vereker, as if forcing conversation.

“If there's any sunshine I generally manage to, but this morning I made an appointment for a short tramp before breakfast with Trixie—Miss Collyer—she's my fiancée.”

Though the information came as a surprise to Vereker, he hoped his demeanour completely hid it. He refrained from any comment in order to let Ralli continue, a course to which he seemed not at all averse.

“I think at this point I ought to take you into my confidence about Trixie. We've been secretly engaged for a month, but now it doesn't matter a rap who knows.”

“You hid the fact from your uncle, I suppose?” asked Vereker.

“You bet. He found out somehow that I was in love with her and raised Cain. He wanted me to marry some one of good birth, whatever that may mean. The
roturier
always talks of good birth, and the skivvy's child worships the baroness very much as people who chatter about good manners invariably lack them. Civilization teems with such paradoxes. Breeding's all right, I dare say, with pigs and horses and dogs, but as a specimen of
homo sapiens
I've always wanted to follow my own inclinations—I won't call it choice in these days of philosophical confusion. I'm a natural romantic in spite of our rational age. I argued with my Uncle Sutton, but he was a hopelessly confused thinker on everything except finance. In fact, I might say he could never rise above a syllogistic inference. It was useless. Prior to our discussion, I was to benefit comfortably under his will—the bulk of the estate was to go at that date to Angela. If I'd been rational I'd have comforted myself with the assurance that after all love is a purely temporary contraption on Nature's part and that an assured income for life isn't. Nature offered me Trixie, reason offered me an end to all money troubles. But Nature's a hypnotist, and I'm under her spell. I wouldn't promise to surrender Trixie, so my uncle cut me out of his will. Fantastically enough, I was delighted because we had both acted strictly according to a faded and fragrant romance. In this instance I agreed that
vox populi
was
vox dei
. It sounds reckless, but love is never sciurine; it simply won't hoard up nuts for winter grub.”

“
Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur
,” quoted Vereker, and asked, “Your uncle knew at last that you were engaged to Miss Collyer?” 

“No bally fear. After our little rumpus I refused to discuss the matter with him any further, and until recently I never came near Vesey Manor if I could help it. His attitude caused a temporary estrangement between Trixie and me. In a spirit of almost morbid self-sacrifice she refused to let me lose my inheritance on her account and tried hard to break away from me. Self-sacrifice is too often a wallowing in pain as a virtue. At length, with feminine practicality, she pointed out that we might ostensibly part until my uncle weakened. It was a saving gesture that re-established my confidence in her sanity. I didn't like the idea, but love can transfigure even dishonesty. Neither did I like the delay. I forgive procrastination for being the thief of time, but to put love to a lingering death is an unpardonable crime. It's more humane to kill it swiftly by marriage!”

“What caused your uncle to relent?” interrupted Vereker pointedly.

“He never relented on that score. He was utterly deceived. Finding out that Trixie and I never met, he thought I'd repented and sent for me just a month ago. He tried to bring up the subject again, but I was dead off and refused to discuss the matter. He had kept up a childishly simple system of espionage on us, and convinced that although beaten I was defiant, he said: ‘I see you've acquired common sense, Basil, but you've got the indomitable pride of the Armadales and won't admit defeat. I admire you for it, my boy!' The pride of the Armadales forsooth! You see, Vereker, the infantile sort of self-adulation and the truly pitiable homage of the pleb to lineage that his words implied. They almost conjured up to me our hatchments, a coat of arms, a column in Debrett, and I could hear myself murmuring piously, ‘
Noblesse oblige
, my dear uncle.' Can you wonder at his objection to Trixie? He was an aristocrat, not by birth, but by auto-suggestion. It's a widespread form of delusion.

“Then, to my surprise, he told me he had left the whole of his fortune and this place to me. He couldn't have surprised me more if he'd turned up at a hunt meet in November in a pullover and a ski-ing cap. I didn't tell him at once that the relations between Trixie and me hadn't changed. I was momentarily flabbergasted and felt that I'd just collared something like two millions of money by false pretences. All I could ask was, ‘What are you going to do about Angela? ' ‘I've cut her off with an annuity of five hundred a year,' was his reply. I protested, but he told me to mind my own business. There our interview ended. For a week I was terribly depressed. I was the battleground on which the romantic spirit put up a staggering fight against two millions sterling. Cupid fought Croesus over my body for possession of my soul! And then my uncle was murdered, and I discovered that silence for once had been golden!”

Ralli concluded his narration with a sigh of intense relief. He seemed to have mentally reacted that bitter struggle of his spirit as he talked, and the following quiet suggested to Vereker the image of a canoe that has shot through the thundering welter of a barrier reef into a sunlit and glassy lagoon. Ralli resumed in a matter-of-fact tone:

“The whole damned business looks too jolly opportune, Vereker. I almost feel guilty of my uncle's murder. People professedly believe in chance or a deity, but they always bank on human intervention. I shall suffer agonies till this shocking affair is cleared up.”

“I suppose your aunt feels hurt at being cut off with the time-honoured bob?” asked Vereker casually.

“No. Angela's made of a finer texture. She doesn't care two hoots—I might say one hoot—about that side of this tragedy. I'm very fond of my aunt $ she also is a natural romantic. Besides, I've told her I shall go fifty-fifty with her over the income from the residue. She actually cried when I made this surrender, and Angela's tears are jewels. They were neither tears of joy nor of grief, but of religious ecstasy. She was overwhelmed by the victory of our common belief in the romantic tradition. She'd been damnably afraid that I was going to apostatize at the last moment. Our slogan is, ‘Mammon for Monkeys!'”

With these words the two men entered the magnificent hall of Vesey Manor.

“And now for breakfast, Vereker. Let's be monkeys shamelessly! A month ago it would have been boiled eggs, probably Polish, with toast and marmalade and a cup of tea. This morning I fancy a bunch of my own Muscat of Alexandria, a portion of cold grouse, and a glass of still Moselle. No man can grow a big heart on Polish eggs and tea. From the moment you discover the dependence of soul on stomach, you can progress spiritually with leaps and bounds!” said Ralli, with boyish jocularity.

“I heartily agree,” laughed Vereker in reply; “it's a basic part of my philosophy. Nobody can be a good Christian on crystallized ginger. Cheap claret will turn any man into a misogynist, and fish and eremitism are synonymous. Oysters—but perhaps I'd better not say anything about oysters.”

“Frederick, when you've disposed of Mr. Vereker's kit, kindly show him to his room—the one next to mine,” said Ralli to a footman, and turning to Vereker added, “While you're in this neighbourhood, Vereker, that room will be reserved for you. Count it your headquarters. I'll join you at breakfast in about ten minutes. There's a lot more I've got to tell that maybe helpful, and we can start jaw-wagging after our grub.”

During breakfast both men were unusually silent. Ralli seemed intent on the enjoyment of his food. Vereker was deep in thought, weighing with critical appreciation the general tenor of the story Ralli had told him. On the face of it it seemed sincere and true, but the difficulty of detecting falsehood, he knew from experience, was far greater than is generally admitted. There are men who are bad liars for the simple reason that they are bad actors. They lie unconvincingly because they have no histrionic genius. Instead of living their parts they are merely dissimulating. Vereker would not have gone so far as to say that all fine actors could, if they chose, be accomplished liars. Here moral principles might be too strong to allow a full expression of their talent for playing a part. But a man without moral principle, gifted with histrionic genius, was a danger to society. Perhaps Ralli possessed this combination. He had a quick, supple mind, with a faculty for glib generalization, an easy and assured manner, and a supreme confidence in himself. His claim to be a natural romantic savoured of pose. At Oxford that sort of posture, assumed with all the gravity of youth, might be forgiven as a pardonably silly phase, but to carry it into social life or the world of affairs was detestable. As Ricky had once vulgarly put it, “Any man who does so should have his nose rubbed in it.” On the other hand, Ralli might be perfectly sincere and flinging a challenge to what he considered the cynical nastiness of his contemporaries. It was impossible as yet to decide, and Vereker impressed upon himself that he must move cautiously.

After breakfast Ralli suggested that they should sit out on the solarium and, having made themselves comfortable in wicker chairs and lit their pipes, he commenced to talk.

“As people may suspect Angela of having something to do with her husband's death—” he opened.

“Why should they?” asked Vereker abruptly.

For some moments Ralli seemed discomposed, but, recovering himself, resumed:

“That's just what I want to explain, Vereker. While the police are poking their snouts into this mystery, her relations with her husband are sure to be questioned. To all her friends and relatives they were pretty well known. I'm going to tell you something which is not generally known and which neither she nor I would like to be yapped abroad. I must leave it in your hands as to whether it will be necessary to make it public.”

“I will be tact itself,” assured Vereker.

“When Sutton married Angela two years ago his first wife, Sarah, had been dead about six months. It's not necessary to go deeply into the history of my Aunt Sarah. She was a homely Yorkshire woman without any pretensions of her own. Sutton thrust those upon her as his fortune swelled and his own social pretensions grew. He was, as I've said, an aristocrat by auto-suggestion and, though he was fond enough of Sarah, he began to think she was not quite cast for the role of a society leader. It was an illuminating comment on his outlook when he suddenly ceased to call her Sarah and insisted on either Maureen or Renee. ‘Sarah' smelled of the scullery. My aunt loathed Reeny, as she pronounced it, and fought a retreating battle over Maureen and all that Maureen implied. Finally she surrendered and tried to live up to it. It was a tragicomedy that used to make me laugh and weep alternately. She was dreadfully unhappy, but she did her best. She even tried to learn to ride, though she feared horses more than she dreaded cows. Bovine horns had always seemed to her less capricious than equine hoofs. But the advent of a butler was the climax of her troubles. Dunkerley always scared her stiff because he came to Vesey Manor from Lord Bravington's. To her he was a terrible embodiment of the hierarchy of caste. I shall never forget when he told her, ‘You mustn't put your whisky in a tantalus, madam; it's only done among the poorer middle classes. The tantalus is now honly seen on suburban sideboards.' At this time, too, my Aunt Sarah's physical charms began to wane. She grew stout and, in spite of all sorts of mortification, persisted in growing stout. Sutton was mature enough to dislike the Rubenesque, and developed a secret promiscuity which ended in the seduction of his wife's maid. She was a very beautiful and rather ingenuous young woman. It was a stunning blow to Sarah. Though infidelity was abhorrent to her, the prospect of a scandal was infinitely more so. Sutton allayed her fears on the latter score to such an extent that she almost forgave him his unfaithfulness to her. Mrs. Grundy was more exacting than Venus. She was genuinely sorry for her maid; it's a commentary on her thundering good nature. The family went abroad for a year; the maid disappeared, and gave birth to a daughter, which was secretly farmed out, and after a wangle adopted by Collyer, the keeper's wife. She was christened Beatrix, is now called Trixie, and is my fiancée.”