The Deadly Joker

  I toyed with the idea of Ronald Paston as informer. What his relationship was with his wife, I had never fathomed, though I suspected she might be little more to him now than a status symbol. If he had discovered her infidelity, would he not have taxed her with it directly, rather than adopted so roundabout a method of humiliating her—a public exposure which would also damage his own prestige? And even if he had tipped off the boys, or got someone else to do it, he could hardly have been responsible for the anonymous letters, since he surely did not possess all the requisite local knowledge. Still, one had to remember that the episodes of the Mills bomb and the rick-firing had taken place at week-ends, when Ronald was in residence down here.

  A pattern of events had been forming in my mind for some time. The nocturnal cuckoo—a mechanical device it would not have been beyond his powers to fabricate—and the Mastership hoax, I attributed to Alwyn: possibly also the “Lhude sing cuckoo” scrawled on my study wall. The poison-pen letters and the subsequent episodes, according to my hypothesis, were the work of some X, who had seized the opportunity of Alwyn’s practical jokes to launch a really vicious campaign, whose objective I could not yet surmise, but which would be laid at Alwyn’s door.

  These speculations effectively occluded my attempts to decide on a textual emendation in Æneid, Book One, so at midday I walked over to the Manor Farm. Gates had already forestalled me in one item. I gave him my version of the gipsy episode, apologising for having let the fellow slip. He told me that he thought it most unlikely the gipsy boy was the culprit, and added that he had questioned his son about the previous night: he and his gang had come upon the gipsy quite by chance: unless the lad was lying, there was no question of his being tipped off. Gates told me an investigator from the insurance company was expected this afternoon.

  While we were talking, the County C.I.D. sergeant came in. I repeated my story, which was getting smoother with practice. The sergeant took down my description of the gipsy: I felt, absurdly, that he would be bound to identify Vera from it, so vividly was she imprinted on my mind’s eye; but my evidence must have tallied with that of young Gates and his friends, and the sergeant evidently regarded it as an unimportant routine matter.

  I asked him if he would have a drink with me—it seemed a good opportunity for a bit of pumping—and we walked along the lane past the church and the Manor House to the Quiet Drop. There was only one person in the bar, a large hearty type running to seed, wearing a loud check sports jacket, whom Fred Kindersley introduced as Mr. Maxwell. We had hardly got under way with our pints of shandy when this individual—he had arrived yesterday evening, he said, for a short stay at the pub—began talking about the recent doings in Netherplash.

  “Here I come, straight out of the Smoke, for a bit of peace and quiet at our good friend Mr. Kindersley’s hostelry, recommended to me by a mutual acquaintance, and I find myself in the middle of a war.”

  “Oh, it’s not as bad as that, Mr. Maxwell,” said Fred, poker-faced.

  “Why, they were all buzzing with it at the bar last night. Idyllic spot. Far from the maddening crowd. Deep in the heart of rural Dorset. And stone me cold if there aren’t outrages taking place right and left. Still, good for custom, eh, landlord?”

  “I can sell all the drink I need to without I pitch bombs through my own windows.”

  The preposterous stranger bellowed with laughter. “That’s damned good! But no one’s accusing you, old man. No offence meant. And do you expect to apprehend the miscreant soon, sarge?”

  “We are pursuing our investigations,” the sergeant stolidly replied.

  “Jolly good show! Not much material evidence to hand yet?”

  My occasional reading of detective fiction had taught me that policemen are more disposed to ask questions than to answer them; but the Tollerton sergeant appeared to be an exception. With Mr. Maxwell vigorously working the pump handle, he emitted a flow of interesting, if negative, information. Item, several persons in the village, besides the Cards, had admitted to the possession of war souvenirs in the shape of Mills bombs, but none of these was missing, unless there had been more than one amongst the clutter of objects in the Pydal attics—the Cards simply couldn’t remember. Item, the police had not yet traced the provenance of the playing-cards to which the anonymous messages had been affixed, nor had any fingerprints other than those of the recipients been found on them. The only way to trace the jokers would be to find the packs of used cards from which they were missing: higher authority was not yet prepared to apply for search warrants, and in any case it could be presumed that the poison-pen would have destroyed the remainder of each pack.

  “How many of these letters were received?” asked Mr. Maxwell.

  “Seven, so far as we know.”

  “You wouldn’t expect the ordinary villager to have seven packs of used cards, old man, would you?”

  “No. And my inquiries have not discovered any packs missing.”

  “The point is,” I put in, “the jokers were worn cards, so the packs must have been used for playing some game like poker or rummy.”

  “Aha!” exclaimed the ineffable Maxwell, “our friend here has his head screwed on the right way. Now, asks Sherlock H., who around here runs a poker school? The vicar? No, that’d be bingo. Are jokers used in bingo? What about your local magnate—Mr. er—”

  “Paston.”

  “He and his business associates might sit down to poker in the wet week-ends.”

  “I understand they do, sometimes. But his servants assured me there are no packs missing, so far as they know.”

  “He can afford to pay them well,” pursued Mr. Maxwell, “what with all the dough they tell me his dad made out of scrap-iron or something. Hey, hey! Scrap-iron. Blow me down! A Mills bomb is scrap-iron. Got it, chummie? Has your Mr. Paston an alibi for the night our friend here got his window broken.”

  “We are investigating the whereabouts of local residents on that occasion, sir,” said the sergeant repressively.

  “O.K., O.K., sarge. Mum’s the word. Don’t want to stick in my oar. Stranger in these parts,” babbled Mr. Maxwell …

  As I walked home to lunch, I strove to recollect where I had heard his style of conversation before—the same sort of glib but perfunctory patter. Yes, it was on a train in Yorkshire, many years ago. Three men had entered my compartment, severally, and started talking to one another as strangers when the train pulled out, but in just such an artificial patter, so unconvincingly that, even had I not been warned by the guard that card-sharpers were working these trains, I should have suspected them of being in some sort of collusion. After a few minutes of this, one of the men produced a pack of cards, with the practised legerdemain of a conjuror, and asked me to take a hand. Since it was not a corridor train, and the men looked rough customers, I duly allowed myself to be fleeced of a pound before we reached the next stop, when the men bundled out almost before the train had come to a halt, and walked rapidly through the exit.

  The preposterous Mr. Maxwell reminded me, as I say, of these men. I had no reason to believe him a crook; but his patter, his bonhomie, his inquisitiveness about our affairs had rung hollow. Could he conceivably be in collusion with one of us? Not with me: surely not with Fred Kindersley. With the C.I.D. sergeant, then? But it seemed most improbable that a clandestine plain-clothes man should have been sent, in addition to the sergeant, to investigate our trifling troubles. Then I remembered Ronald Paston decrying the local police, and complaining that the chief constable had shown no interest in his theory about the hoax. Might not Maxwell be a private investigator—perhaps a security officer in Ronald’s own business—whom he had sent down here? Maxwell’s joky insinuations about Paston could well have been a clumsy expedient to cover up still more deeply the association between them. The sergeant, then, must be in the know—which would explain his talking so freely in front of a total stranger.

  Corinna was very silent at lunch. Despite her tan, there were bluish patches under her eyes: she
had not been sleeping well, and her air of lassitude alarmed me. I had promised Jenny to have a talk with Corinna before we finally decided about the riding lessons; so after lunch, when she was lying in the hammock, a book face down in her lap, I pulled up a deck-chair beside her. It’s one thing to be on good terms with your children; but to pry into their secret lives is another matter—repugnant to me, at any rate, for I have the normal male shrinking from emotional scenes. With an effort I forced myself to begin:

  “Jenny and I are worried about you, darling.”

  “I know,” she replied, staring up at the leaves.

  “Wouldn’t it be better for you to stop seeing him?”

  “I suppose so.” Corinna’s voice was flat and apathetic.

  “We could find you somebody else to have riding lessons with.”

  “Oh, it’s not them I mind about,” she exclaimed.

  “You’re very much in love with Bertie?” I tentatively asked.

  “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it—a girl of sixteen and a middle-aged man.” Her pain made Corinna lash out. “I don’t expect you to understand it. I just want to be left alone.”

  “Not ridiculous a bit. But it’s a hopeless proposition, and you’ve got to accept that.”

  “I don’t agree it’s hopeless. And I don’t care if it is, either.”

  How hard it is to deal with a person of Corinna’s age, half child, half adult, helplessly oscillating between the two.

  “But surely, love, you don’t think he’d marry you?”

  “Why shouldn’t he? In a year or two?”

  “Because he’s not the marrying kind. He’s a—he just goes from one woman to another. He has at least one mistress now. I know that for a fact.”

  “I wouldn’t mind being his mistress,” she said stubbornly. “Who do you mean? Mrs. Paston, I suppose.”

  “I dare say you wouldn’t. In fact, it would be tremendous fun. For a bit.”

  She sat up with a start, and stared down at me, her hair falling over her face. “Tremendous fun? Really, Papa, are you encouraging me to—?”

  “‘ For a bit,’ I said. Then you’d get your heart broken.”

  “I’m getting it broken now, I think,” she said, reaching out a hand to me. I nearly wept. Presently I said:

  “Yes. It’s absolute agony being in love at your age. Pure agony, I mean: because there’s nothing to dilute the feeling or take your mind off it.”

  “Perhaps I ought to busy myself with good works.” Corinna was smiling a little now.

  “Heaven forbid! Look, darling, I don’t want to vivisect you: but has he—?”

  “Made a pass at me? Sorry, I didn’t mean to shock you.”

  “You didn’t shock me. Women are realists—down-to-earth, coarse-fibred creatures. You’re all but a woman now, that’s evident, you horrible girl.”

  Corinna squeezed my hand, giving a tremulous laugh. “No, not what you’d call a pass. He kissed me once. In the stable. Well, I suppose I threw myself at him a bit. He—it’s just the way he talks to me: sort of interested, and flattering: he doesn’t treat me like a schoolgirl, I mean. Honestly, you know, he’s quite different from what you—what Jenny thinks.”

  “Can you keep a secret?” I asked after a pause.

  “Oh, yes!”

  “The reason Jenny doesn’t like him is that he—he keeps making passes at her.”

  For a little I feared lest, picking my way through this minefield, I had trodden on a mine. Corinna gazed at me, eyes wide, then turned her pretty head away.

  “Oh, poor Papa!” she breathed.

  “Don’t you start pitying me, young woman! He’s not irresistible, whatever you may think.”

  Corinna ignored this. “I suppose I did wonder,” she said slowly. “Bertie’s asked me a lot about—well, about you and Jenny.”

  “Has he indeed? What sort of things?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. How you get on. How much money you have. Whether you could afford to send me to Oxford. He does talk rather a lot about money. His brother keeps him so short. Apparently Alwyn inherited all his mother’s money—what there was of it—and half his father’s. The other half went to Bertie, but he says he spent it long ago on riotous living. Now he only has what Alwyn allows him. He’s awfully extravagant, of course: I told him so,” Corinna added with some complacence.

  “But you think you could reform him?” I said gently. “That’s a woman’s most common and disastrous delusion. When do you have these conversations? Not in front of all those female centaurs at the riding school?”

  “Oh, no, Jenny always comes there with me. I’ve met him now and then, out walking. By chance, honestly,” she added, flushing.

  “I believe you, darling,” I said; but I could not forget Jenny’s remark that every woman in love is sly.

  “He is awfully handsome, of course, and such a marvellous horseman,” Corinna went on dreamily. “I suppose it’s that sort of don’t care a damn air he has that makes women fall for him.”

  “Yes. And he really doesn’t care a damn. As the poor women find out, sooner or later.”

  Corinna gave me a mischievous look. “I suppose I shall have to chaperon Jenny in future. Not that she could ever look at another man when she has you.”

  “You’re too kind, ma’am.”

  “Don’t worry about me, dear Papa. I feel this conversation has been thera—thera-what’s-it?”

  “—peutic.”

  The telephone was ringing. I went indoors to answer it, with a lightening of heart, but Jenny had got there first. From my study I could hear her speaking in the hall. I was about to turn away, when something in her voice arrested me—a tone I could only describe to myself by the word “false.” There were long pauses: the person at the other end was doing most of the talking.

  “… No, he’s in the garden … Yes, and I absolutely refuse to— What you don’t seem to realise yet is that I have a profound, personal loathing for— … Oh, don’t be so stupidly conceited … That’s not true … Yes, I know that … I simply couldn’t believe you were serious. Don’t you begin to see how contemptible—? … Well, it seems I have no alternative … Very well, I shall have to, then … To-night? oh, but— … Yes, I know where it is … I’ve said so; but I warn you—”

  I crept out on to the veranda, blind to the radiant sunshine. Everything was blackened by the jealousy, so long repressed, which Jenny’s words had let loose. I had no least doubt that it was Bertie Card on the telephone. Jenny had consented to an assignation with him: oh, yes, reluctantly, but her protests had rung false in my ears—the usual mimic resistance of the female to the pursuing male. Perhaps all her previous rudeness to him had been dust thrown in my eyes; or at least an attempt to hide her real feelings from herself—a futile attempt to disown them. What could I expect? A man of sixty-one with a young wife?

  Vera’s voice whispered in my ear, like Eve’s tempting Adam, through the bitter swirling of my jealousy. On the lawn in front of me, Corinna was playing with her puppy. My reason was utterly darkened.

  At tea, then at dinner, Jenny talked brightly, avoiding my eyes. Well, if she wants to, let her, I thought, my pride stiffening against the idea of making an abject appeal to her. Her own face held a febrile look—apprehensive, yet exalted—which I could interpret in one way only; the look of one who goes willingly to an ordeal.

  Or was it that, I wondered, soon after I heard the front door close behind her. A martyr might have that look of exaltation and fear. My vision cleared, letting me glimpse again Jenny’s impulsive, quixotic nature. I called to Corinna, saying I’d changed my mind and was going to catch up Jenny. Though she was out of sight, I did not need the faint sound of footsteps to tell me which way she had gone. I went up the lane down which Vera and I had walked last night, and climbed over the gate where we had sat. In the twilight I could see Jenny fifty yards off, moving up the field path towards the Chantry wood. I called to her—not very loud, but she stopped, turned, stood quite still for a few mo
ments, then came running back and threw herself into my arms.

  “How did you know?” she asked presently, when she had stopped crying and trembling.

  “I heard you on the telephone. Come and sit down for a little, my Jenny.”

  “I don’t think I could have gone on with it. But thank God you came after me, John, darling John. Why didn’t you stop me, though?”

  “I thought—well—you didn’t want to be stopped. I’ve been quite insane with jealousy. And pride.”

  “But don’t you realise how I detest him? Don’t you understand why I agreed to—?”

  “Yes, love, I do now. You wanted to divert him from Corinna. I suppose he said he’d leave her alone if—”

  “I tried to tell you last night. But you wouldn’t let me—your mind seemed to be miles away.”

  “Poor love. I am sorry. And it wouldn’t have been necessary. I had a talk with Corinna this afternoon, and I really believe she’ll soon be over the worst.”

  “Oh, why didn’t you tell me before, John?”

  “I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

  We must have sat talking in the field for half an hour. I remember Jenny at one point hiding her face in my shoulder and saying, “You know, the awful thing is that I did find him attractive—even though I knew he was such a heel”; and at another she said, “Look at that old hat. I wonder who left it here.” I might have made my own confession then, but I had promised never to betray the secret of the “gipsy”; and a few minutes later all such thoughts were swept away by the wild screams from the direction of the Chantry wood.

  We started to our feet. I have never been a superstitious man, nor inclined to place much credence in the super-natural; but I must admit that for a moment, at the sight of what was coming over the skyline, I was palsied with terror like any medieval peasant. It stood up against the sky two hundred yards away, in the fading light monstrously tall, a hooded figure wearing what appeared to be a monk’s habit, and began moving down the hill with impossibly long strides towards us. At the same instant as it appeared there to the right of the farther end of the wood, some small figures—invisible to us till now because of a fold in the ground—had risen up from the wood’s edge, lower down the hill, and rushed headlong, scattering and thinly screeching like starlings, in flight from the apparition.