Epilogue: 4 - 3

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BUNNEY sat up in bed, his head swathed in bandages, his eyes sparkling with excitement. ‘Science never knows,’ he said, ‘to what uses----’ He paused as if realizing that he must conserve his strength, picked up the cylinder. ‘And Lady Elizabeth brought it perfectly unimpaired through all her adventures!’ He slipped it into the black box and flicked a switch.

. . . What wilt thou do thou wilt not murder me help help ho help help my lord there has been a serious misadventure please all stay where you are there is very bad news mother about Ian I am just going to tell them he has been shot I have bad news the pistol-shot you all heard was aimed at Lord Auldearn he is dead for the moment nobody must leave the hall

. . . sit still Aunt Elizabeth Biddle is coming across in a moment thank you Gervase I have no desire to run about Biddle may come if he wants to this is very sad very sad we must not be too agitated drink this then my dear lady presently we shall be able to get away I hope you will be all right if I go back now a very great shock memorandum of cabinet emergency organization basic chemical industries date two six thirty----

‘Thank you,’ said Appleby.

Happily, Bunney switched off.

+++

‘And so,’ said the Duchess to Appleby, ‘it was a spy-story after all---every atom of it!’

‘Every atom; but designed to bear a very different appearance.’

The Duchess placed delicate hands on the stone of the balustrade, already warm in the morning sun. She looked from Appleby to the Duke and from the Duke to Appleby. Then she looked away to the crown of Horton Hill. ‘Ian is dead, and poor Bose. And Elizabeth is alive only because of Piper’s courage, and Piper only because of your marksmanship, Mr. Appleby. Perhaps I should wish never to hear another word about it all. But I am curious and I want you to tell it as a story; if only in return for the story---Bose’s story---I told in the small hours.’

‘Yes,’ said the Duke, ‘interesting to hear it all cleared up---a second time too. But I’m afraid I can’t stop. Must see Macdonald---wreaths and things, you know. Extraordinary shot that of yours, Mr. Appleby. Extraordinary. You must come to Kincrae some time. Good-bye, good-bye.’

The Duchess watched her husband disappear. ‘He will never speak of it again,’ she said. ‘But I am different, I fear. Now, Mr. Appleby.’ She tapped the balustrade.

Obediently, Appleby sat down.

‘The story begins with the Merkalova. She was the original spy; she became familiar with Mr. Crispin, I am afraid, simply because in doing so she came very close to the sources of power and information. It is interesting that Nave detected something out of the way in their relationship and that several of the ladies---less tolerant than yourself---thought, well, unfavourably of her.’

‘Gervase regarded himself as having married her,’ said the Duchess briefly.

‘Which makes it extraordinary that she elected to continue prosecuting her profession, if one may call it that. But there she was; and she---I suspect---brought Clay in. And Clay was bloody, bold, resolute, and an artist. An artist chiefly: one must believe that he took to the game simply because it offered new and incomparably exciting scope for his craft. Certainly there was no money in it comparable to what he made on the stage. And that is all the good---if it be good---that can be said of him.

‘These two converged on Scamnum, probably with no very definite mischief in mind; the Merkalova because Mr. Crispin brought her and Clay because it was at least a promising field for this most exciting of all games---espionage.’

The Duchess raised forlorn hands. ‘And I thought I had exercised such skill in getting him!’

‘But presently a less indefinite prospect showed. Auldearn was coming; to Auldearn the gravest matters were constantly being referred; and---it may be---Auldearn’s slightly eccentric habits of taking important papers about with him and so forth were known. It was at this point that Clay thought it worth while to make preliminary plans. He was an imaginative and a ruthless, reckless man---qualities which spies, contrary to popular opinion, do not commonly possess. And these qualities went into his plan, to our very great confusion---I am ashamed to say---in the early stages of the investigation. I must confess that we were caught saying: “Spies don’t work this way”---which was just what Clay designed that we should say.

‘Everything was to be violent, catastrophic, and---in the word Giles found so early---theatrical. And this was to serve two purposes: it was to give the affair an atmosphere remote from espionage except in the wildest fiction; and at the same time it was to satisfy Clay’s real craving for theatre---for dramatic effect. Long before there was a definite prospect of anything important being with Auldearn he amused himself with envisaging murder. And he and the Merkalova began to send the messages.’

‘And so to incriminate Nave.’

Yes. But the attempt to involve Nave in any crime that might be committed was not at that stage designed very seriously. All that Clay was planning was a run of circumstances which would set the police hunting, for a time at least, after some private passionate crime. It amused him to think of us tumbling at length to the anagram and worrying Nave. And I think the Revenge messages may have been prompted as well by a sight of Anderson’s book; that is to say he thought we might be persuaded to waste time over Malloch too. But, as Malloch himself pointed out to me, there was very little prospect of such a planted case being ultimately convincing. Clay could not reckon on Malloch being so uncovered in the matter of times and places as he was. Much less could he reckon on the amazing case built up against Nave by Giles Gott---Leontiasis Ossium and all the rest of it.’ Appleby chuckled.

‘It was a very good case,’ said the Duchess with spirit. ‘And according to Dr. Biddle the Leontiasis whatever it was was perfectly sound. And if you didn’t believe it yourself, Mr. Appleby, you acted in a very irresponsible way.’ She glanced at Appleby. ‘Or Colonel Sandford did,’ she said.

‘The responsibility for arresting Nave,’ Appleby said seriously, ‘was morally mine, even if technically it was the Chief Constable’s. I was inclined to believe the story---all but a fragment of it, as I’ll explain. And anyway---he checked himself.

‘And anyway, prompted the Duchess with sudden perception, ‘you thought it might loosen things up.’

Appleby looked at her with real admiration. ‘It sometimes happens that way,’ he said. ‘A criminal is at a strain; suddenly he seems to see the last danger removed; and for a moment he goes off his guard. Which was exactly what happened. Clay’s guard failed for a second and Lady Elizabeth got his middle stump.’

The Duchess did not say, ‘He nearly got her’; one must not fuss about one’s chicken’s skin. Instead she said, ‘Poor Giles!’

‘Yes; you must believe that I didn’t think Sandford would call for his story in that formal fashion. At least it must have amused Clay. But to get back. We must acquit Clay of attempting---at that early stage---to get another man hanged. He was simply out to establish an atmosphere of crazy, passionate crime, and to indicate one or two suspects to keep us busy. And all this, remember, was provisional; just in case it should prove that there was a big stake to play for.

‘Well, there was. We don’t know how or when he got to know---though if we get at the network of spying of which he was a part we may learn yet. I suspect that before the play began he knew not only that Auldearn had this document but also something of its tenor and physical appearance. In fact, I think the original plan was a plan of substitution. But it was to be thoroughly violent; it was to involve murder---that was part of the fun. And by this time, I suspect, the Merkalova had become a mere lieutenant. She would do what she was told, however desperate the orders were. And this, then, was the plan----’

‘One sees,’ the Duchess interrupted, ‘how right Giles was to see the whole thing as somehow implicated with the theme of the play.’

Appleby smiled. The Duchess was evidently resolved to see justice done to the unfortunate Gott. ‘Quite so. Only the relevant aspect of the play was not the theme of private revenge but the theme of statecraft. There really was a fight to the death between Hamlet and, well, the rulers of Elsinore---or Scamnum.

‘But this, I say, was the plan. The document was on Auldearn’s person. Very good. When Auldearn was alone on the rear stage the Merkalova was simply to shoot him from the shelter of the curtains; shoot him and make off instantly. Clay, lingering on the front stage just long enough to demonstrate that he could not himself by any trick be responsible, was to slip through to the rear stage and get the document. He reckoned to have only Bose there before him; and Bose he could send running for help. The advantage of the arrangement is obvious. It tended at once to cut out any notion of theft. For if one thought of theft one would instantly remark that Auldearn had been shot in such circumstances that the assailant could not have reckoned on time to steal anything before the entry of Clay or Bose.

‘Having once got the document his plans depended entirely on what was or what was not suspected. If they didn’t search Auldearn’s body he could reckon that no theft was suspected; that the murder was passing at its face-value as a crazy crime by the author of the messages. In that case he would bank on getting out of the hall without a general search, or at least on getting the document to a confederate in the audience who would get out unsearched. But if they searched Auldearn’s body and so gave signs of suspicion he meant, I think, to fall back on a bogus document he had prepared. He would hide that in the scroll---which he would have kicked away so that it had not been searched---and then see that the scroll was discovered. If the bogus document was accepted for the moment and anxiety thereby dispelled then again there would be a substantial chance of getting away without a general search. And, finally, he had the resource of the Merkalova’s little camera. If the worst came to the worst he hoped to be able to withdraw to a dressing-room and photograph the document---not, technically, an easy task---and later get the tiny camera successfully away. He may have had some plan that gave him a substantial chance of that: I can’t hit on one but I’m sure Giles could.

‘Well, that---with a slight failure of plan to which I shall come---was how things stood when, just after the shooting, Clay hit on a more attractive technique. And if you think he acted fantastically you must remember that about the document per se he didn’t care twopence. All he wanted was to be supremely clever in the eyes of Melville Clay.

‘The first thing he did when this new technique came to him was to scrap provision for the old. He packed off the Merkalova’s superfluous camera---packed it off through the instrumentality of Mr. Crispin. That was a superb move.’ Appleby paused, rather---the Duchess thought---as Lionel Dillon might have paused at the mention of ‘The Burial of Orgaz’; paused in a sort of professional homage. ‘It was the move of a man with the brain---well, with the sort of brain I should like to have. For it prepared the way for the tour de force by which he sent the Merkalova sweeping in on us in Mr. Crispin’s room to exclaim, “Gervase, have they found out?” and throw the camera on the bed. That scene, of course, linked Mr. Crispin and the Merkalova well-nigh indissolubly together in my mind, and when I learnt that Mr. Crispin could not be suspect as a spy I automatically acquitted her in that direction.’ Appleby looked ruthfully at the Duchess. He liked her. ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘I think there’s some possibility of this case becoming known at the Yard as Appleby’s Waterloo.’

The Duchess laughed. ‘I hope so; my sympathies won't stretch further than Giles and Nave this morning. But I don’t believe it. You’re word-perfect already and obviously going to write an astoundingly wise report. And now, as you kept saying to everybody yesterday, please go on.’

‘Clay got rid of the camera, then, and no doubt burnt the bogus document, just as Miss---but that is irrelevant. Then he waited to put across the great performance of his career. There, sitting by herself in the front row and isolated from the audience, was the Dowager Duchess, a very old lady constantly nodding off to sleep. And beside her was Bunney’s machine, purring away---so to speak---and ready to record anything murmured into it. And several people had gone to speak to the old lady; it didn’t seem to count at all as communicating with the audience. So Clay waited till she had nodded asleep again after Biddle’s draught, walked over the front stage, sat down solicitously beside her, made scraps of soothing conversation that the nearer people could hear---and meanwhile, bit by bit, read the whole document to Bunney’s contraption. He would hold the paper, I suppose, concealed in a programme---and the whole effect to the people behind would be that of two or three minutes’ courteous attention to an old lady. Presently he went away and came back with old Mr. Cope---a beautiful completing of the effect. Then he simply put the document in the scroll where it would presently be found. If Bose had not found it Clay, no doubt, would have done something about it himself.

‘But he had by no means got clear yet. For the Duke, despite the belated discovery of the document, still took precautions. He sent the audience away, without allowing any communication between them and the players. And then he kept the players in the hall until I arrived from London. By that time Clay had slipped the cylinder out of the machine---to do that unnoticed would not, with his peculiar abilities, be difficult---and was walking about with it. And by this time he guessed there would be a search. It is dreadfully humiliating to have to record that he thereupon got the thing away effortlessly under my nose. He simply dropped it in an empty coffee-urn which Bagot, quite automatically, would take away when bringing a full one---and which the constable at the door would, equally automatically, let through. It was all rather fantastic---too fantastic for me, certainly, as I stood there on the stage solemnly watching Bagot’s exit. But remember, again, that Clay was not a common spy prosaically anxious to filch securely and make his money; he was a reckless and inspired creature playing the game of his life.

‘And so the first act ended. There had been, from Clay’s point of view, two unforeseen turns to it: the Merkalova had shot Lord Auldearn not from the shelter of the curtains but from right out on the rear stage itself; and the substance of the document was now, of all places, on a wax cylinder in a coffee-urn somewhere in the Scamnum offices. And the first of these unforeseen turns gave Miss Sandys her chance and the second gave Lady Elizabeth hers.

‘The Merkalova was not quite first-class; she was not quite worthy of Clay. She was liable to muff things slightly. For instance, when she made that descent on us in Mr. Crispin’s room she went wrong twice. She was a little too pat, so that I had an obscure feeling that it was a put-up job. Not that that did any harm; it merely kept my thoughts centring for a little longer on the fictitious Crispin-Merkalova conspiracy. A more serious slip was a story she let fly about Miss Sandys; it was a serious slip because it tended to keep the spy idea alive. She was liable, then, to muff things slightly and one is not surprised that Clay charged her with letting Lady Elizabeth through their trap last night when actually Lady Elizabeth was not very far away.’

‘I’m pleased with Elizabeth,’ said the Duchess. ‘It was intelligent.’

‘It was genius. But the point is that the Merkalova was afraid of missing. And that’s what Miss Sandys got to. While Giles and I were finding fine theories to account for the murderer stepping right out of cover and under the possible observation of Bose---the iron-cross, gloating-avenger, Fate-in-Les-Présages theory, and all the rest of it---while our minds worked like that Miss Sandys’ worked like this: Why break cover to get closer? Because you're afraid of missing. And then she asked: Why are you afraid of missing at that comparatively close range? And she answered---with incomparable brilliance and disinterestedness if you consider her feminist attitude: Because you're a woman. And then she went further in what has been the purest detective process in the case. The revolver had been found. There would be no finger-prints on it. How does one avoid leaving finger-prints? Either by wiping the object afterwards or by wearing a glove. A glove is best, because one mightn’t succeed in rubbing prints off adequately if pressed for time. The men had no gloves but the women had: they came straight to the hall to change from what had been rather a grand dinner. After the search they left mainly in their player things. Gloves would still be in the hall. So she broke into the hall with Mr. Gylby, found the Merkalova’s gloves, and convinced herself and myself---if nobody else---that the right-hand glove smelt ever so faintly of gunpowder---as in the circumstances it might just conceivably do. Miss Sandys had us beaten badly there and the wise report you speak of will have to say so.

‘Now the other point---the cylinder in the coffee-urn. Clay knew the ways of big houses and knew that no footman up at two a.m. was going to clean out such a thing; it would be put by for the appropriate maid or boy in the morning. And he knew, roughly, where he could find it in the small hours. What he didn’t know was the severe nature of Mr. Rauth, who likes to lock things up. As a consequence of that he had to break into the pantry where it was and so leave traces of himself. And to avert suspicion from what he had really been after he broke open a tin of biscuits, filled his pockets with them, and later transferred them to the box in his bedroom. And that was his undoing. For Lady Elizabeth, who was familiar with the precise dispositions in these matters imposed, again, by the excellent Rauth, knew at once that he must have been the raider of the pantry. And Clay made the slip of denying it.

‘Now review the position yesterday morning. Clay had the cylinder: later in the day he managed to hide it in the cow- house. The danger arising from Bose’s having seen the Merkalova shoot was over, for the simple reason that he had killed Bose. What, then, had he now to do? Nothing but sustain if possible the impression that the whole affair was one of private vengeance. Did the police, indeed, any longer suspect anything else? He got his answer to that when he looked out in the morning and saw that the house was closely guarded. He knew then that we had some substantial suspicion. He may have guessed that we had intercepted a message we had in fact intercepted: the message promising delivery of the goods. If, then, we knew that there were spies his best course was to persuade us that they had been unsuccessful. And to that end he contrived another intercepted message. I had ensured that no long message could be flashed out from Scamnum in the night. But for this purpose only three or four words were necessary. And they went---a few flicks of a shaving mirror---from Piper’s bedroom window to Horton Hill. And so the second message was got deliberately into police hands: the spies had been unsuccessful; the murders were quite another affair; all chance was gone. He had to send the message from Piper’s room; it was the only one available to him that commanded the hill. But it was a big risk, the sort of risk he loved. For Piper, if a shade slow, has a brooding and analytical eye. And---in fact---hours afterwards Piper saw.

‘To substantiate the particular picture of the crimes he was trying to build up he had risked dragging Bose’s body about the house. And now he had only one substantial anxiety. When he had delivered one of the messages through Bunney’s box he had not foreseen what part the box was later to play. And at any time now there might occur to someone the possibility of investigating the voice which Bunney held recorded. I doubt if he cared twopence for that in itself. But it involved another danger. For as soon as Bunney was given his box in order to put this idea into practice he would discover that the final cylinder recording the interrupted play was missing. At all costs that must be avoided until the cylinder with the document was got safely away. Hence the attack on Bunney. Clay boldly broached the matter at breakfast and then made sure that for twenty-four hours at least Bunney would be silent. Of course he stole the “curious message” cylinder. Doing so killed two birds with one stone; it removed any possible danger of the identification of his voice; and it gave a motive for the attack on Bunney that offered no suggestion of a connexion with the spy-theme. And there, incidentally, was the one thing I positively stuck at in Giles’s theory: that Bunney had been mistaken for me. And I was just trying to work out the implications of that---that it must be a conspiratorial crime, that it might be a spy crime after all---when, well, when the final whirlwind overtook me.

‘Clay made one other move to keep up the Revenge theory. He had the habit of strolling into people’s rooms and yesterday evening he strolled into Nave’s. Nave was in his bath. And on the table was a Shakespeare open at the play-scene. Nave, you see, had tumbled to the anagram-business before anyone else; trust a psychologist for that. He knew somebody was out to incriminate him and he wondered what more might come. And he found himself going over his Shakespeare in a fascinated sort of way, noting “ravens”, “revenges”, and so forth. He had just looked at this most apposite of all lines — almost fatally, he had just laid his finger on it---when Clay came in and saw it. The temptation was overwhelming; he sent the sixth message over the telephone from the Raven’s own room.’ Appleby paused. ‘And that was a definite move to get Nave hanged. In other words, Clay was a cowardly scoundrel as well as a very, very able man.

‘And now I must go and say good-bye to Giles. Death at Scamnum Court has not made good hunting for either of us. It has been Ladies’ Day. Miss Sandys got the Merkalova. Lady Elizabeth got Clay.’ Appleby rose. ‘And the Duchess of Horton, in the middle of a very terrible night, remembered how to tell a story as the Duchess of Horton can.’

+++

Jean was packing suitcases into the back of Elizabeth’s car; Elizabeth was packing dogs into the front. And the talented author of Death at the Zoo and Poison Paddock came rather dubiously down the steps.

‘Straight away, Elizabeth?’

‘Straight away. They’ll run for Kincrae early, I think, and I’m going ahead. By paternal decree. The affair must be blown away from the maidenly mind.’

‘I wish it could be blown away. I’ve made a most frightful----’

‘Giles, is Nave annoyed?’

‘No. The unkindest cut of all is there. It’s all matter of scientific interest to him. I don’t believe, ideologue though he be, that he’s capable of one flicker of enmity towards any living creature. And we're going for a walk together after tea to talk it all over. Think of that.’ Gott’s fingers strayed nervously through his hair; he looked shyly at Elizabeth. As Nave had said: painful lack of knowledge how to proceed. ‘It’s nice to see you with a whole skin, Elizabeth---praise heaven and Piper.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Elizabeth, ‘Piper was all right. And I owe him an idea too.’

‘An idea?’

‘Yes; if he hadn’t tried to make fun of you at breakfast yesterday---about Pygmalion and his statue, you remember?---I should never have thought of the Pandemian Venus.’

Elizabeth climbed into the car. Then she sighed---her mother’s sigh. ‘Giles, it’s such a pity. That it wasn’t true, I mean. It was such a good story.’

‘I say, don’t pile it on.’

‘But it was. It ought to have been true. And you can tell Nave I think so when you take your walk.’ Elizabeth turned to see Jean safely stowed; pressed the self-starter.

‘Good-bye, Elizabeth. And I hope you'll truly blow it out of mind---our play and all that followed.’

‘Perhaps we'll have the play again, Giles.’ Elizabeth slipped into gear.

‘You'd be Ophelia again---even if I produced it?’

‘Even if you played Hamlet, Giles---mad, mad Hamlet.’

Elizabeth let in the clutch; the car glided forward. And Gott stepped back.

‘Nymph, in thy orisons,’ he said, ‘be all my sins remembered’

THE END