V
Supper, and Mr. Brinkman
Mrs. Davis’s cuisine, if it did not quite justify all the ironic comments of the old gentleman, lent some colour to them. With the adjectival trick of her class she always underestimated quantity, referring to a large tureen as “a drop of soup,” and overestimated quality, daily suggesting for her guests’ supper “a nice chop.” The chop always appeared; the nice chop (as the old gentleman pointed out) would have been a pleasant change. As surely as you had eggs and bacon for breakfast, so surely you had a chop for supper; “and some nice fruit to follow” heralded the entrance of a depressed blancmange (which Mrs. Davis called “shape,” after its principal attribute) and some cold greengages. These must have come from Alcinous’s garden, for at no time of the year were they out of season. If Angela had stayed in the house for a fortnight, it is possible that she would have taken Mrs. Davis in hand and inspired her with larger ideas. As it was, she submitted, feeling that a suicide in the house was sufficiently unsettling for Mrs. Davis without further upheavals.
The coffee room at the Load of Mischief was not large enough to let the company distribute itself at different tables, each party conversing in low tones and eyeing its neighbours with suspicion. A single long table accommodated them all, an arrangement which called for a constant exercise of forced geniality. Bredon and Leyland were both in a mood of contemplation, puzzling out the secret of the room upstairs; Brinkman was plainly nervous, and eager to avoid discussing the tragedy; Angela knew, from experience in such situations, the value of silence. Only the old gentleman seemed quite at his ease, dragging in the subject of Mottram with complete sangfroid and in a tone of irony which seemed inseparable from his personality. Brinkman parried these topical references with considerable adroitness, showing himself as he did so a travelled man and a man of intelligence, though without much gift of humour.
Thus, in reply to a conventional question about his day’s sport, the old gentleman returned, “No, I cannot say that I caught any. I think, however, that I may claim without boasting to have frightened a few of them. It is an extraordinary thing to me that Mottram, who was one of your grotesquely rich men, should have come down for his fishing to an impossible place like this, where every rise deserves a paragraph in the local paper. If I were odiously rich, I would go to one of these places in Scotland, or Norway, even, though I confess that I loathe the Scandinavians. I have never met them, but the extravagant praise bestowed upon them by my childhood’s geography books makes them detestable to me.”
“I think,” said Brinkman, “that you would find some redeeming vices among the Swedes. But poor Mottram’s reason was a simple one; he belonged to these parts; Chilthorpe was his home town.”
“Indeed,” said the old gentleman, wincing slightly at the Americanism.
“Oo, yes,” said Angela, “we saw Mottram on the map. Was he a sort of local squire, then?”
“Nothing of that sort,” replied Brinkman. “His people took their name from the place, not the other way round. He started here with a big shop, which he turned over to some relations of his when he made good at Pullford. He quarrelled with them afterward, but he always had a sentimental feeling for the place. It’s astonishing what a number of group names there are still left in England. There is no clan system to explain it. Yet I suppose every tenth family in this place is called ‘Pillock.’ ”
“It suggests the accident of birth,” admitted the old gentleman, “rather than choice. And poor Mottram’s family, you say, came from the district?”
“They had been here, I believe, for generations. But this habit of naming the man from the place is curiously English. Most nations have the patronymic instinct; the Welsh, for example, or the Russians. But with us, apparently, if a stranger moved into a new district, he became John of Chilthorpe, and his descendants were Chilthorpes forever.”
“A strange taste,” pursued the old gentleman, harping on the unwelcome subject, “to want to come and lay your bones among your ancestors. It causes so much fuss and even scandal. For myself, if I ever decided to put a term to my own existence, I should go to some abominable place—Margate, for example—and try to give it a bad name by being washed up just underneath the pier.”
“You would fail, sir,” objected Brinkman; “I mean, as far as giving it a bad name was concerned. You do not give things a good name or a bad name nowadays; you only give them an advertisement. I honestly believe that if a firm advertised its own cigarettes as beastly it would draw money from an inquisitive public.”
“Mrs. Davis has had an inquisitive public today. I assure you, when I went out this morning I was followed for a considerable distance by a crowd of small boys who probably thought that I intended to drag the river. By the way, if they do drag the river, it will be interesting to find out whether there were, after all, any fish in it. You will let me be present, sir?” turning to Leyland, who was plainly annoyed by the appeal. Angela had to strike in and ask who was the character in Happy Thoughts who was always asking his friends to come down and drag the pond. So the uneasy conversation zigzagged on, Mr. Pulteney always returning to the subject which occupied their thoughts, the rest heading him off. Bredon was deliberately silent. He meant to have an interview with Brinkman afterward, and he was determined that Brinkman should have no chance of sizing him up beforehand.
The opportunity was found without difficulty after supper; Brinkman succumbed at once to the offer of a cigar and a walk in the clear air of the summer evening. Bredon had suggested sitting on the bridge, but it was found that at that hour of the evening all the seating accommodation was already booked. Brinkman then proposed a visit to the Long Pool, but Bredon excused himself on the ground of distance. They climbed a little way up the hill road, and found one of those benches, seldom occupied, which seem to issue their invitation to travellers who are short of breath. Here they could rest in solitude, watching cloud after cloud as it turned to purple in the dying sunlight and the shadows gathering darker over the hill crests.
“I’m from the Indescribable, you know. Expect Mrs. Davis has told you. I’d better show you my cardcase so that you can see it’s correct. They send me to fool round, you know, when this sort of thing happens. Have to be careful, I suppose.” (“This Brinkman,” he had said to Angela, “must take me for a bit of a chump; if possible, worse than I am.”)
“I don’t quite see—” began Brinkman.
“Oh, the old thing, suicide, you know. Mark you, they don’t absolutely bar it. I’ve known ’em pay up when a fellow was obviously potty. But their rules are against it. What I say is, If a man has the pluck to do himself in he ought to get away with the stakes, Well, all this must be a great nuisance to you, Mr. Brickman—”
“Brinkman.”
“Sorry, always was a fool about names. Well, what I mean is, it can’t be very pleasant for you to have so many people nosing round; but it’s got to be done somehow, and you seem to be the right man to come to. D’you think there was anything wrong in the upper story?”
“The man was as sane as you or I. I never knew a man with such a level head.”
“Well, that’s important. You don’t mind if I scribble a note or two? I’ve got such a wretched memory. Then, here’s another thing: was the old fellow worried about anything? His health, for example?”
There was an infinitesimal pause; just for that fraction of a second which is fatal, because it shows that a man is making up his mind what to say. Then Brinkman said: “Oh, there can be no doubt of that. I thought he’d been and told your people about it. He went to a doctor in London and was told that he’d only two more years to live.”
“Meaning, I suppose—”
“He never told me. He was always a peculiar man about his health; he got worried even if he had a boil on his neck. No, I don’t think he was a hypochondriac; he was a man who’d had no experience of ill-health, and the least thing scared him. When he told me about his interview with the specialist he seemed all broken up, and I hadn’t the heart to question him about it. Besides, it wasn’t my place. I expect you’ll find that he never told anyone.”
“One could ask the medico, I suppose. But they’re devilish close, ain’t they, those fellows.”
“You’ve got to find out his name first. Mottram was very secret about it; if he wrote to make an appointment, the letter wasn’t sent through me. It’s a difficult job, circularizing Harley Street.”
“All the same the doctor in Pullford might know. He probably recommended somebody.”
“What doctor in Pullford? I don’t believe Mottram’s been to a doctor any time these last five years. I was always asking him to these last few months because he told me he was worried about his health, though he never told me what the symptoms were. It’s difficult to explain his secretiveness to anybody who didn’t know him. But, look here, if you’re inclined to think that his story about going to a specialist was all a lie, you’re on the wrong track.”
“You feel certain of that?”
“Absolutely certain. Look at his position. In two years’ time he was due to get a whacking annuity from your company if he lived. He was prepared to drop his claim if the company would pay back half his premiums. You’ve heard that, I expect? Well, where was the sense of that, unless he really thought he was going to die?”
“You can’t think of any other reason for his wanting to do himself in? Just bored with life, don’t you know, or whatnot?”
“Talk sense, Mr. Bredon. You know as well as I do that all the suicides one hears of come from money troubles, or disappointment in love, or sheer melancholia, There’s no question of money troubles; his lawyers will tell you that. He was not at the time of life when men fall badly in love, bachelors anyhow; and his name was never coupled with a woman’s. And as for melancholia, nobody who knew him could suspect him of it.”
“I see you’re quite convinced that it was suicide. No question of accident, you think, or of dirty work at the crossroads? These rich men have enemies, don’t they?”
“In storybooks. But I doubt if any living soul would have laid hands on Mottram. And as for accident, how would you connect it with all this yarn about the specialist? And why was the door of his room locked when he died? You can ask the servants at Pullford; they’ll tell you that his room was never locked when he was at home; and the Boots here will tell you that he had orders to bring in shaving-water first thing.”
“Oh, his door was locked, was it? Fact is, I’ve heard very little about how the thing was discovered. I suppose you were one of the party when the body was found?”
“I was. I’m not likely to forget it. Not that I’ve any objection to suicide; mark you, I think it’s a fine thing, very often; and the Christian condemnation of it merely echoes a private quarrel between St. Augustine and some heretics of his day. But it breaks you up rather when you find a man you said ‘Good night’ to the night before lying there all gassed. … However, you want to know the details. The Boots tried to get in with the shaving-water, and found the door locked; tried to look through the keyhole and couldn’t; came round to me and told me about it. I was afraid something must be wrong, and I didn’t quite like breaking down the door with only the Boots to help me. Then I looked out of the window, and saw the doctor here, a man called Ferrers, going down to take his morning bath. The Boots went and fetched him, and he agreed the only thing was to break down the door. Well, that was easier than we thought. There was a beastly smell of gas about, of course, even in the passage. The doctor went up to the gas, you know, and found it turned off. I don’t know how that happened; the tap’s very loose, anyhow, and I fancy he may have turned it off himself without knowing it. Then he went to the bed, and it didn’t take him a couple of minutes to find out that poor old Mottram was dead, and what he’d died of. The key was found on the inside of the door, turned so that the lock was fastened. Between you and me, I have a feeling that Leyland is wondering about that tap. But it’s obvious that nobody got into the room, and dead men don’t turn off taps. I can’t piece it together except as suicide myself. I’m afraid your company will be able to call me as a witness.”
“Well, of course it’s all jam to them. Not that they mind coughing up much; but it’s the principle of the thing, you see. They don’t like to encourage suicide. By the way, can you tell me who the heirs are? What I mean is, I suppose a man doesn’t insure his life and then take it unless he makes certain who comes in for the bullion?”
“The heirs, as I was saying at supper, are local people. Actually a nephew, I believe—I didn’t want to say more at the time, because I think between ourselves that Mr. Pulteney shows rather too much curiosity. But Mottram quarrelled with this young fellow for some reason—he owns the big shop here; and I’m pretty certain he won’t be mentioned in the will.”
“Then you don’t know who the lucky fellow is?”
“Charities, I suppose. Mottram never discussed it with me. But I imagine you could find out from the solicitors, because it’s bound to be common property before long in any case.”
Bredon consulted, or affected to consult, a list of entries in his pocketbook. “Well, that’s awfully kind of you. I think that’s all I wanted to ask. Must think me a beastly interfering sort of fellow. Oh, one other thing—is your room anywhere near the one Mr. Mottram had? Would you have heard any sounds in the night, I mean, if there’d been anything going on in his room above the ordinary?”
“My room’s exactly above, and my window must have been open. If there were any suspicion of murder, I should be quite prepared to give evidence that there was nothing in the nature of a violent struggle. You see, I sleep pretty light, and that night I didn’t get to sleep till after twelve. It was seven o’clock in the morning when we found him, and the doctor seemed to think he’d been dead some hours. I heard nothing at all from downstairs.”
“Well, I’m tremendously obliged to you. Perhaps we’d better be wandering back, eh? You’re unmarried, of course, so you don’t have people fussing about you when you sit out of an evening.” In this happy vein of rather foolish good fellowship Bredon conducted his fellow guest back to the inn; and it is to be presumed that Brinkman did not feel that he had spent the evening in the company of a Napoleonic brain.