Only that gaping pit, ringed in spikes, fifty feet below the balcony. Beyond it the northern meadows were sunlit, and starred with white flowers. You could see across the lowlands, cut with hedgerows like a rolling checkerboard; the white road, the stream glimmering, the white houses among trees, and the church spire. Peace. The meadows were not now black with faces to watch a hanging. Rampole could see a hay-wagon dawdling along the road.
"— it seems solid enough," Rampole heard Sir Benjamin saying, "and we've quite a lot of weight on it. I don't like messing about with it, though. Steady! What are you doing?"
Fell was grubbing among the ivy over the black balustrades.
"I've always wanted to examine this," he said, "but I never thought I should have the opportunity. H'm. It wouldn't wear, or would it?" he added to himself. There followed a sound of ripping ivy.
"I should be careful, if I were you. Even — “
"Ha!" cried the doctor, loosing his breath in a gust. "What ho! 'Drinc heil' — as the Saxon toast was. Mud in your eye! I never thought I should find it, but here it is. Heh. Heh-heh-heh." He turned a beaming face. "Look here, on the outer edge of the balustrade. There's a worn place I can put my thumb in. And another, not so worn, on the side towards us."
"Well, what about it?" demanded Sir Benjamin. "Look here, I shouldn't mess about with that. You never know."
"Antiquarian research. We must celebrate this. Come along, gentlemen. I don't think there's anything more out here."
Sir Benjamin looked at him suspiciously as they reentered the Governor's Room. He demanded:
"If you saw anything, I'm hanged if I did. What has it got to do with the murder, anyhow?"
"Nothing whatever, man! That is," said Dr. Fell, "only indirectly. Of course, if it weren't for those two worn places in the stone… Still, I don't know." He rubbed his hands together. "I say, do you remember what old Anthony's motto was? He had it stamped on his books, and his rings, and Lord knows what all. Did you ever see it?
"So," the chief constable said, narrowing his eyes, "we come back to Anthony again, do we? No. I never saw his motto. - But unless you have anything more to suggest, we'd better get out of here and pay a visit to the Hall. Come, now! What's this all about?"
Dr. Fell took a last glance about the gloomy room.
"The motto," he said, "was 'Omnia mea mecum porto' ‘All that belongs to me I carry with me.' Eh? Think it over. Look here, what about a bottle of beer?"
Chapter 9
A gravel walk, winding. Grey pigeons that waddled suspiciously under elms. Shaven lawns, and the shadows of birds under the sun. The tall, bluff house of mellowed red brick, with white facings and a white cupola surmounted by a gilt weather-vane, growing old gracefully since the days when Anne was queen. Bees somewhere, droning, and a sweet smell of hay in the air.
Rampole had not seen it thus the night before. It had been raining when the rector's Ford drew up here then, and he and Saunders had carried the light, stiffening body up those steps. Before him had opened the mellow hallway, as though he had been suddenly thrust on a lighted stage with that dripping burden, before a thousand people. As he walked up the drive with his companions now, he shrank from meeting Her again. That was how it had been: thrust upon a stage, without lines, dazed and futile; unclothed, the way you feel in dreams sometimes. She hadn't been in the hall then. There had been only that butler, what was his name? — stooping slightly forward, his hands clasped together. He had prepared a couch in the drawing-room.
She had come out of the library, presently. Her red eyes showed that she had been crying desperately, in one of those horrible paroxysms; but she was steady and blank-faced then, squeezing a handkerchief. He hadn't said anything. What the devil was there to say? A word, a motion, anything would have seemed crude and clumsy; he didn't know why; it just would have seemed so. He had merely stood wretchedly by the door, in his soaked flannels and tennis shoes, and left as soon as he could. He remembered leaving: it had just stopped raining a moment before, and the grandfather clock was striking one. Through his wretchedness he remembered fastening foolishly on a small point: the rain stopped at one o'clock. The rain stopped at one o'clock. Got to remember that. Why? well, anyway
It wasn't as though he could feel any sorrow at the death of Martin Starberth. He hadn't even liked Martin Starberth. It was something he stood for; something lost and damned in the girl's face when she walked in to look at her dead; a squeeze of a flimsy handkerchief, a brief contortion of a face, as at pain too great to be borne. The immaculate Martin looked queer in death: he wore an ancient pair of grey flannels and a torn tweed coat…. And how would Dorothy feel now? He saw the closed shutters and the crape on the door, and winced.
Budge opened the door to them now, looking relieved when he saw the chief-constable.
"Yes, sir," he said. "Shall I call Miss Dorothy?"
Sir Benjamin pulled at his lower lip. He was uneasy. "No. Not for the moment, anyhow. Where is she?" "Upstairs, sir."
"And Mr. Starberth?"
"Upstairs also, sir. The undertaking people are here." "Anybody else here?"
"I believe Mr. Payne is on his way, sir. Dr. Markley was to call; he told me that he wished to see you, sir, as soon as he had finished his morning round."
"Ah yes. I see. By the way, Budge… those undertakers: I shall want to see the clothes Mr. Starberth wore last night, and the contents of his pockets, you know."
Budge inclined his flattish head towards Dr. Fell. "Yes, sir. Dr. Fell mentioned that possibility last night. I took the liberty of preserving them without removing anything from the pockets."
"Good man. Get them and bring them to the library now…. And I say, Budge — " "Yes, sir?"
"If you should happen to see Miss Starberth," said Sir Benjamin, fidgeting, "just — er-convey my deepest… you, know? Yes." He hesitated, this honest police official, growing slightly red in the face at what he apparently considered deception on friends. "And I should like to see Mr. Herbert Starberth as soon as is convenient."
Budge was impassive. "Mr. Herbert has not yet returned, sir."
"Oh, ah! I see. Well, get me those clothes."
They went into a darkened library. It is women who are most efficient in a house of death, where emotionalism runs high; men, like these four, are tongue-tied and helpless. Saunders was the only one who showed any degree of calmness; he was getting back his smooth manners, and seemed as unctuous as though he were opening a Prayer-book to read.
"If you'll excuse me, gentlemen," he said, "I think I had better see whether Miss Starberth will receive me. It's a trying time, you know; a trying time; and if I can be of any assistance…."
"Quite," said the chief constable, gruffly. When the rector had gone, he began to pace up and down. "Of course it's a trying time. But why the devil talk about it? I don't like this."
Rampole thoroughly agreed with him. They all fidgeted in the big old room, and Sir Benjamin opened some shutters. Silver chimes rang with fluid grace from the great clock in the hall, sounding as though they were striking through the vault of a cathedral. In this library everything looked old and solid and conventional; there was a globe-map which nobody ever spun, rows of accepted authors which nobody ever read, and above the mantelpiece a large mounted swordfish which (you were convinced) nobody had ever caught. A glass ball was hung up in one window, as a charm against witches.