Kitabı oku: «Murder Is Easy», sayfa 2
‘That’s right. Rather a nasty little man too! Pompous! He was born in Wychwood-under-Ashe, and being the kind of snob who rams his birth and breeding down your throat and glories in being self-made, he has returned to his home village, bought up the only big house in the neighbourhood (it belonged to Bridget’s family originally, by the way) and is busy making the place into a “model estate”.’
‘And your cousin is his secretary?’
‘She was,’ said Jimmy darkly. ‘Now she’s gone one better! She’s engaged to him!’
‘Oh,’ said Luke, rather taken aback.
‘He’s a catch, of course,’ said Jimmy. ‘Rolling in money. Bridget took rather a toss over some fellow—it pretty well knocked the romance out of her. I dare say this will pan out very well. She’ll probably be kind but firm with him and he’ll eat out of her hand.’
‘And where do I come in?’
Jimmy replied promptly.
‘You go down there to stay—you’d better be another cousin. Bridget’s got so many that one more or less won’t matter. I’ll fix that up with her all right. She and I have always been pals. Now for your reason for going there—witchcraft, my boy.’
‘Witchcraft?’
‘Folklore, local superstitions—all that sort of thing. Wychwood-under-Ashe has got rather a reputation that way. One of the last places where they had a Witches’ Sabbath—witches were still burnt there in the last century—all sorts of traditions. You’re writing a book, see? Correlating the customs of the Mayang Straits and old English folklore—points of resemblance, etc. You know the sort of stuff. Go round with a notebook and interview the oldest inhabitant about local superstitions and customs. They’re quite used to that sort of thing down there, and if you’re staying at Ashe Manor it vouches for you.’
‘What about Lord Whitfield?’
‘He’ll be all right. He’s quite uneducated and completely credulous—actually believes things he reads in his own papers. Anyway Bridget will fix him. Bridget’s all right. I’ll answer for her.’
Luke drew a deep breath.
‘Jimmy, old scout, it looks as though the thing is going to be easy. You’re a wonder. If you can really fix me up with your cousin—’
‘That will be absolutely OK. Leave it to me.’
‘I’m no end grateful to you.’
Jimmy said:
‘All I ask is, if you’re hunting down a homicidal murderer, let me be in at the death!’
He added sharply:
‘What is it?’
Luke said slowly:
‘Just something I remembered my old lady saying to me. I’d said to her that it was a bit thick to do a lot of murders and get away with it, and she answered that I was wrong—that it was very easy to kill …’ He stopped, and then said slowly, ‘I wonder if that’s true, Jimmy? I wonder if it is—’
‘What?’
‘Easy to kill …’
CHAPTER 3
Witch Without Broomstick
The sun was shining when Luke came over the hill and down into the little country town of Wychwood-under-Ashe. He had bought a second-hand Standard Swallow, and he stopped for a moment on the brow of the hill and switched off the engine.
The summer day was warm and sunny. Below him was the village, singularly unspoilt by recent developments. It lay innocently and peacefully in the sunlight—mainly composed of a long straggling street that ran along under the overhanging brow of Ashe Ridge.
It seemed singularly remote, strangely untouched. Luke thought, ‘I’m probably mad. The whole thing’s fantastic.’
Had he really come here solemnly to hunt down a killer—simply on the strength of some garrulous ramblings on the part of an old lady, and a chance obituary notice?
He shook his head.
‘Surely these things don’t happen,’ he murmured. ‘Or—do they? Luke, my boy, it’s up to you to find out if you’re the world’s most credulous prize ass, or if your policeman’s nose has led you hot on the scent.’
He switched on the engine, threw in the gear and drove gently down the twisting road and so entered the main street.
Wychwood, as has been said, consists mainly of its one principal street. There were shops, small Georgian houses, prim and aristocratic, with whitened steps and polished knockers, there were picturesque cottages with flower gardens. There was an inn, the Bells and Motley, standing a little back from the street. There was a village green and a duck pond, and presiding over them a dignified Georgian house which Luke thought at first must be his destination, Ashe Manor. But on coming nearer he saw that there was a large painted board announcing that it was the Museum and Library. Farther on there was an anachronism, a large white modern building, austere and irrelevant to the cheerful haphazardness of the rest of the place. It was, Luke gathered, a local Institute and Lads’ Club.
It was at this point that he stopped and asked the way to his destination.
He was told that Ashe Manor was about half a mile farther on—he would see the gates on his right.
Luke continued his course. He found the gates easily—they were of new and elaborate wrought-iron. He drove in, caught a gleam of red brick through the trees, and turned a corner of the drive to be stupefied by the appalling and incongruous castellated mass that greeted his eyes.
While he was contemplating the nightmare, the sun went in. He became suddenly conscious of the overlying menace of Ashe Ridge. There was a sudden sharp gust of wind, blowing back the leaves of the trees, and at that moment a girl came round the corner of the castellated mansion.
Her black hair was blown up off her head by the sudden gust and Luke was reminded of a picture he had once seen—Nevinson’s ‘Witch’. The long pale delicate face, the black hair flying up to the stars. He could see this girl on a broomstick flying up to the moon …
She came straight towards him.
‘You must be Luke Fitzwilliam. I’m Bridget Conway.’
He took the hand she held out. He could see her now as she was—not in a sudden moment of fantasy. Tall, slender, a long delicate face with slightly hollow cheek-bones—ironic black brows—black eyes and hair. She was like a delicate etching, he thought—poignant and beautiful.
He had had an acknowledged picture at the back of his mind during his voyage home to England—a picture of an English girl flushed and sunburnt—stroking a horse’s neck, stooping to weed a herbaceous border, sitting holding out her hands to the blaze of a wood fire. It had been a warm gracious vision …
Now—he didn’t know if he liked Bridget Conway or not—but he knew that that secret picture wavered and broke up—became meaningless and foolish …
He said:
‘How d’you do? I must apologize for wishing myself on you like this. Jimmy would have it that you wouldn’t mind.’
‘Oh, we don’t. We’re delighted.’ She smiled, a sudden curving smile that brought the corners of her long mouth half-way up her cheeks. ‘Jimmy and I always stand in together. And if you’re writing a book on folklore this is a splendid place. All sorts of legends and picturesque spots.’
‘Splendid,’ said Luke.
They went together towards the house. Luke stole another glance at it. He discerned now traces of a sober Queen Anne dwelling overlaid and smothered by the florid magnificence. He remembered that Jimmy had mentioned the house as having originally belonged to Bridget’s family. That, he thought grimly, was in its unadorned days. Stealing a glance at the line of her profile, at the long beautiful hands, he wondered.
She was about twenty-eight or -nine, he supposed. And she had brains. And she was one of those people about whom you knew absolutely nothing unless they chose that you should …
Inside, the house was comfortable and in good taste—the good taste of a first-class decorator. Bridget Conway led the way to a room with bookshelves and comfortable chairs where a tea table stood near the window with two people sitting by it.
She said:
‘Gordon, this is Luke, a sort of cousin of a cousin of mine.’
Lord Whitfield was a small man with a semi-bald head. His face was round and ingenuous, with a pouting mouth and boiled gooseberry eyes. He was dressed in careless-looking country clothes. They were unkind to his figure, which ran mostly to stomach.
He greeted Luke with affability.
‘Glad to see you—very glad. Just come back from the East, I hear? Interesting place. Writing a book, so Bridget tells me. They say too many books are written nowadays. I say no—always room for a good one.’
Bridget said, ‘My aunt, Mrs Anstruther,’ and Luke shook hands with a middle-aged woman with a rather foolish mouth.
Mrs Anstruther, as Luke soon learned, was devoted body and soul to gardening. She never talked of anything else, and her mind was constantly occupied by considerations of whether some rare plant was likely to do well in the place she intended to put it.
After acknowledging the introduction, she said now:
‘You know, Gordon, the ideal spot for a rockery would be just beyond the rose garden, and then you could have the most marvellous water garden where the stream comes through that dip.’
Lord Whitfield stretched himself back in his chair.
‘You fix all that with Bridget,’ he said easily. ‘Rock plants are niggly little things, I think—but that doesn’t matter.’
Bridget said:
‘Rock plants aren’t sufficiently in the grand manner for you, Gordon.’
She poured out some tea for Luke and Lord Whitfield said placidly:
‘That’s right. They’re not what I call good value for money. Little bits of flowers you can hardly see … I like a nice show in a conservatory, or some good beds of scarlet geraniums.’
Mrs Anstruther, who possessed par excellence the gift of continuing with her own subject undisturbed by that of anyone else, said:
‘I believe those new rock roses would do perfectly in this climate,’ and proceeded to immerse herself in catalogues.
Throwing his squat little figure back in his chair, Lord Whitfield sipped his tea and studied Luke appraisingly.
‘So you write books,’ he murmured.
Feeling slightly nervous, Luke was about to enter on explanations when he perceived that Lord Whitfield was not really seeking for information.
‘I’ve often thought,’ said his lordship complacently, ‘that I’d like to write a book myself.’
‘Yes?’ said Luke.
‘I could, mark you,’ said Lord Whitfield. ‘And a very interesting book it would be. I’ve come across a lot of interesting people. Trouble is, I haven’t got the time. I’m a very busy man.’
‘Of course. You must be.’
‘You wouldn’t believe what I’ve got on my shoulders,’ said Lord Whitfield. ‘I take a personal interest in each one of my publications. I consider that I’m responsible for moulding the public mind. Next week millions of people will be thinking and feeling just exactly what I’ve intended to make them feel and think. That’s a very solemn thought. That means responsibility. Well, I don’t mind responsibility. I’m not afraid of it. I can do with responsibility.’
Lord Whitfield swelled out his chest, attempted to draw in his stomach, and glared amiably at Luke.
Bridget Conway said lightly:
‘You’re a great man, Gordon. Have some more tea.’
Lord Whitfield replied simply:
‘I am a great man. No, I won’t have any more tea.’
Then, descending from his own Olympian heights to the level of more ordinary mortals, he inquired kindly of his guest:
‘Know anybody round this part of the world?’
Luke shook his head. Then, on an impulse, and feeling that the sooner he began to get down to his job the better, he added:
‘At least, there’s a man here that I promised to look up—friend of friends of mine. Man called Humbleby. He’s a doctor.’
‘Oh!’ Lord Whitfield struggled upright in his chair. ‘Dr Humbleby? Pity.’
‘What’s a pity?’
‘Died about a week ago,’ said Lord Whitfield.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Luke. ‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘Don’t think you’d have cared for him,’ said Lord Whitfield. ‘Opinionated, pestilential, muddle-headed old fool.’
‘Which means,’ put in Bridget, ‘that he disagreed with Gordon.’
‘Question of our water supply,’ said Lord Whitfield. ‘I may tell you, Mr Fitzwilliam, that I’m a public-spirited man. I’ve got the welfare of this town at heart. I was born here. Yes, born in this very town—’
With chagrin Luke perceived that they had left the topic of Dr Humbleby and had reverted to the topic of Lord Whitfield.
‘I’m not ashamed of it and I don’t care who knows it,’ went on that gentleman. ‘I had none of your natural advantages. My father kept a boot-shop—yes, a plain boot-shop. And I served in that shop when I was a young lad. I raised myself by my own efforts, Fitzwilliam—I determined to get out of the rut—and I got out of the rut! Perseverance, hard work and the help of God—that’s what did it! That’s what made me what I am today.’
Exhaustive details of Lord Whitfield’s career were produced for Luke’s benefit and the former wound up triumphantly:
‘And here I am and the whole world’s welcome to know how I’ve got here! I’m not ashamed of my beginnings—no, sir—I’ve come back here where I was born. Do you know what stands where my father’s shop used to be? A fine building built and endowed by me—Institute, Boys’ Clubs, everything tip-top and up to date. Employed the best architect in the country! I must say he’s made a bare plain job of it—looks like a workhouse or a prison to me—but they say it’s all right, so I suppose it must be.’
‘Cheer up,’ said Bridget. ‘You had your own way over this house!’
Lord Whitfield chuckled appreciatively.
‘Yes, they tried to put it over on me here! Carry out the original spirit of the building. No, I said, I’m going to live in the place, and I want something to show for my money! When one architect wouldn’t do what I wanted I sacked him and got another. The fellow I got in the end understood my ideas pretty well.’
‘He pandered to your worst flights of imagination,’ said Bridget.
‘She’d have liked the place left as it was,’ said Lord Whitfield. He patted her arm. ‘No use living in the past, my dear. Those old Georges didn’t know much. I didn’t want a plain red-brick house. I always had a fancy for a castle—and now I’ve got one!’ He added, ‘I know my taste isn’t very classy, so I gave a good firm carte blanche to do the inside, and I must say they haven’t done too badly—though some of it is a bit drab.’
‘Well,’ said Luke, a little at a loss for words, ‘it’s a great thing to know what you want.’
‘And I usually get it too,’ said the other, chuckling.
‘You nearly didn’t get your way about the water scheme,’ Bridget reminded him.
‘Oh, that!’ said Lord Whitfield. ‘Humbleby was a fool. These elderly men are inclined to be pig-headed. They won’t listen to reason.’
‘Dr Humbleby was rather an outspoken man, wasn’t he?’ Luke ventured. ‘He made a good many enemies that way, I should imagine.’
‘N-no, I don’t know that I should say that,’ demurred Lord Whitfield, rubbing his nose. ‘Eh, Bridget?’
‘He was very popular with everyone, I always thought,’ said Bridget. ‘I only saw him when he came about my ankle that time, but I thought he was a dear.’
‘Yes, he was popular enough on the whole,’ admitted Lord Whitfield. ‘Though I know one or two people who had it in for him. Pig-headedness again.’
‘One or two of the people living here?’
Lord Whitfield nodded.
‘Lots of little feuds and cliques in a place like this,’ he said.
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ said Luke. He hesitated, uncertain of his next step.
‘What sort of people live here mostly?’ he queried.
It was rather a weak question, but he got an instant response.
‘Relicts, mostly,’ said Bridget. ‘Clergymen’s daughters and sisters and wives. Doctors’ dittoes. About six women to every man.’
‘But there are some men?’ hazarded Luke.
‘Oh, yes, there’s Mr Abbot, the solicitor, and young Dr Thomas, Dr Humbleby’s partner, and Mr Wake, the rector, and—who else is there, Gordon? Oh! Mr Ellsworthy, who keeps the antique shop and who is too, too terribly sweet! And Major Horton and his bulldogs.’
‘There’s somebody else I believe my friends mentioned as living down here,’ said Luke. ‘They said she was a nice old pussy but talked a lot.’
Bridget laughed.
‘That applies to half the village!’
‘What was the name now? I’ve got it. Pinkerton.’
Lord Whitfield said with a hoarse chuckle:
‘Really, you’ve no luck! She’s dead too. Got run over the other day in London. Killed outright.’
‘You seem to have a lot of deaths here,’ said Luke lightly.
Lord Whitfield bridled immediately.
‘Not at all. One of the healthiest places in England. Can’t count accidents. They may happen to anyone.’
But Bridget Conway said thoughtfully:
‘As a matter of fact, Gordon, there have been a lot of deaths in the last year. They’re always having funerals.’
‘Nonsense, my dear.’
Luke said:
‘Was Dr Humbleby’s death an accident too?’
Lord Whitfield shook his head.
‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘Humbleby died of acute septicæmia. Just like a doctor. Scratched his finger with a rusty nail or something—paid no attention to it, and it turned septic. He was dead in three days.’
‘Doctors are rather like that,’ said Bridget. ‘And of course, they’re very liable to infection, I suppose, if they don’t take care. It was sad, though. His wife was broken-hearted.’
‘No good rebelling against the will of providence,’ said Lord Whitfield easily.
‘But was it the will of providence?’ Luke asked himself later as he changed into his dinner jacket. Septicæmia? Perhaps. A very sudden death, though.
And there echoed through his head Bridget Conway’s lightly spoken words:
‘There have been a lot of deaths in the last year.’
CHAPTER 4
Luke Makes a Beginning
Luke had thought out his plan of campaign with some care, and prepared to put it into action without more ado when he came down to breakfast the following morning.
The gardening aunt was not in evidence, but Lord Whitfield was eating kidneys and drinking coffee, and Bridget Conway had finished her meal and was standing at the window, looking out.
After good-mornings had been exchanged and Luke had sat down with a plentifully heaped plate of eggs and bacon, he began:
‘I must get to work,’ he said. ‘Difficult thing is to induce people to talk. You know what I mean—not people like you and—er—Bridget.’ (He remembered just in time not to say Miss Conway.) ‘You’d tell me anything you knew—but the trouble is you wouldn’t know the things I want to know—that is the local superstitions. You’d hardly believe the amount of superstition that still lingers in out-of-the-way parts of the world. Why, there’s a village in Devonshire. The rector had to remove some old granite menhirs that stood by the church because the people persisted in marching round them in some old ritual every time there was a death. Extraordinary how old heathen rites persist.’
‘Dare say you’re right,’ said Lord Whitfield. ‘Education, that’s what people need. Did I tell you that I’d endowed a very fine library here? Used to be the old manor house—was going for a song—now it’s one of the finest libraries—’
Luke firmly quelled the tendency of the conversation to turn in the direction of Lord Whitfield’s doings.
‘Splendid,’ he said heartily. ‘Good work. You’ve evidently realized the background of old-world ignorance there is here. Of course, from my point of view, that’s just what I want. Old customs—old wives’ tales—hints of the old rituals such as—’
Here followed almost verbatim a page of a work that Luke had read up for the occasion.
‘Deaths are the most hopeful line,’ he ended. ‘Burial rites and customs always survive longer than any others. Besides, for some reason or other, village people always like talking about deaths.’
‘They enjoy funerals,’ agreed Bridget from the window.
‘I thought I’d make that my starting-point,’ went on Luke. ‘If I can get a list of recent demises in the parish, track down the relatives and get into conversation, I’ve no doubt I shall soon get a hint of what I’m after. Who had I better get the data from—the parson?’
‘Mr Wake would probably be very interested,’ said Bridget. ‘He’s quite an old dear and a bit of an antiquary. He could give you a lot of stuff, I expect.’
Luke had a momentary qualm during which he hoped that the clergyman might not be so efficient an antiquary as to expose his own pretensions.
Aloud he said heartily:
‘Good. You’ve no idea, I suppose, of likely people who’ve died during the last year.’
Bridget murmured:
‘Let me see. Carter, of course. He was the landlord of the Seven Stars, that nasty little pub down by the river.’
‘A drunken ruffian,’ said Lord Whitfield. ‘One of these socialistic, abusive brutes, a good riddance.’
‘And Mrs Rose, the laundress,’ went on Bridget. ‘And little Tommy Pierce—he was a nasty little boy if you like. Oh, of course, and that girl Amy what’s-her-name.’
Her voice changed slightly as she uttered the last name.
‘Amy?’ said Luke.
‘Amy Gibbs. She was housemaid here and then she went to Miss Waynflete. There was an inquest on her.’
‘Why?’
‘Fool of a girl mixed up some bottles in the dark,’ said Lord Whitfield.
‘She took what she thought was cough mixture and it was hat paint,’ explained Bridget.
Luke raised his eyebrows.
‘Somewhat of a tragedy.’
Bridget said:
‘There was some idea of her having done it on purpose. Some row with a young man.’
She spoke slowly—almost reluctantly.
There was a pause. Luke felt instinctively the presence of some unspoken feeling weighing down the atmosphere.
He thought:
‘Amy Gibbs? Yes, that was one of the names old Miss Pinkerton mentioned.’
She had also mentioned a small boy—Tommy someone—of whom she had evidently held a low opinion (this, it seemed, was shared by Bridget!) And yes—he was almost sure—the name Carter had been spoken too.
Rising, he said lightly:
‘Talking like this makes me feel rather ghoulish—as though I dabbled only in graveyards. Marriage customs are interesting too—but rather more difficult to introduce into conversation unconcernedly.’
‘I should imagine that was likely,’ said Bridget with a faint twitch of the lips.
‘Ill-wishing or overlooking, there’s another interesting subject,’ went on Luke with a would-be show of enthusiasm. ‘You often get that in these old-world places. Know of any gossip of that kind here?’
Lord Whitfield slowly shook his head. Bridget Conway said:
‘We shouldn’t be likely to hear of things like that—’
Luke took it up almost before she finished speaking.
‘No doubt about it, I’ve got to move in lower social spheres to get what I want. I’ll be off to the vicarage first and see what I can get there. After that perhaps a visit to the—Seven Stars, did you say? And what about the small boy of unpleasant habits? Did he leave any sorrowing relatives?’
‘Mrs Pierce keeps a tobacco and paper shop in High Street.’
‘That,’ said Luke, ‘is nothing less than providential. Well, I’ll be on my way.’
With a swift graceful movement Bridget moved from the window.
‘I think,’ she said, ‘I’ll come with you, if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course not.’
He said it as heartily as possible, but he wondered if she had noticed that, just for a moment, he had been taken aback.
It would have been easier for him to handle an elderly antiquarian clergyman without an alert discerning intelligence by his side.
‘Oh well,’ he thought to himself. ‘It’s up to me to do my stuff convincingly.’
Bridget said:
‘Will you just wait, Luke, while I change my shoes?’
Luke—the Christian name uttered so easily gave him a queer warm feeling. And yet what else could she have called him? Since she had agreed to Jimmy’s scheme of cousinship she could hardly call him Mr Fitzwilliam. He thought suddenly and uneasily, ‘What does she think of it all? In God’s name what does she think?’
Queer that that had not worried him beforehand. Jimmy’s cousin had just been a convenient abstraction—a lay figure. He had hardly visualized her, just accepted his friend’s dictum that ‘Bridget would be all right.’
He had thought of her—if he had thought of her at all—as a little blonde secretary person—astute enough to have captured a rich man’s fancy.
Instead she had force, brains, a cool clear intelligence and he had no idea what she was thinking of him. He thought: She’s not an easy person to deceive.
‘I’m ready now.’
She had joined him so silently that he had not heard her approach. She wore no hat, and there was no net on her hair. As they stepped out from the house the wind, sweeping round the corner of the castellated monstrosity, caught her long black hair and whipped it into a sudden frenzy round her face.
She said smiling:
‘You need me to show you the way.’
‘It’s very kind of you,’ he answered punctiliously.
And wondered if he had imagined a sudden swiftly passing ironic smile.
Looking back at the battlements behind him, he said irritably:
‘What an abomination! Couldn’t anyone stop him?’
Bridget answered: ‘An Englishman’s house is his castle—literally so in Gordon’s case! He adores it.’
Conscious that the remark was in bad taste, yet unable to control his tongue, he said:
‘It’s your old home, isn’t it? Do you “adore” to see it the way it is now?’
She looked at him then—a steady slightly amused look it was.
‘I hate to destroy the dramatic picture you are building up,’ she murmured. ‘But actually I left here when I was two and a half, so you see the old home motive doesn’t apply. I can’t even remember this place.’
‘You’re right,’ said Luke. ‘Forgive the lapse into film language.’
She laughed.
‘Truth,’ she said, ‘is seldom romantic.’
And there was a sudden bitter scorn in her voice that startled him. He flushed a deep red under his tan, then realized suddenly that the bitterness had not been aimed at him. It was her own scorn and her own bitterness. Luke was wisely silent. But he wondered a good deal about Bridget Conway …
Five minutes brought them to the church and to the vicarage that adjoined it. They found the vicar in his study.
Alfred Wake was a small stooping old man with very mild blue eyes, and an absent-minded but courteous air. He seemed pleased but a little surprised by the visit.
‘Mr Fitzwilliam is staying with us at Ashe Manor,’ said Bridget, ‘and he wants to consult you about a book he is writing.’
Mr Wake turned his mild inquiring eyes towards the younger man, and Luke plunged into explanations.
He was nervous—doubly so. Nervous in the first place because this man had no doubt a far deeper knowledge of folklore and superstitious rites and customs than one could acquire by merely hurriedly cramming from a haphazard collection of books. Secondly he was nervous because Bridget Conway was standing by listening.
Luke was relieved to find that Mr Wake’s special interest was Roman remains. He confessed gently that he knew very little of medieval folklore and witchcraft. He mentioned the existence of certain items in the history of Wychwood, offered to take Luke to the particular ledge of hill where it was said the Witches’ Sabbaths had been held, but expressed himself regretful that he could add no special information of his own.
Inwardly much relieved, Luke expressed himself as somewhat disappointed, and then plunged into inquiries as to death-bed superstitions.
Mr Wake shook his head gently.
‘I am afraid I should be the last person to know about those. My parishioners would be careful to keep anything unorthodox from my ears.’
‘That’s so, of course.’
‘But I’ve no doubt, all the same, there is a lot of superstition still rife. These village communities are very backward.’
Luke plunged boldly.
‘I’ve been asking Miss Conway for a list of all the recent deaths she could remember. I thought I might get at something that way. I suppose you could supply me with a list, so that I could pick out the likelies.’
‘Yes—yes—that could be managed. Giles, our sexton, a good fellow but sadly deaf, could help you there. Let me see now. There have been a good many—a good many—a treacherous spring and a hard winter behind it—and then a good many accidents—quite a cycle of bad luck there seems to have been.’
‘Sometimes,’ said Luke, ‘a cycle of bad luck is attributed to the presence of a particular person.’
‘Yes, yes. The old story of Jonah. But I do not think there have been any strangers here—nobody, that is to say, outstanding in any way, and I’ve certainly never heard any rumour of such a feeling—but then again, as I said, perhaps I shouldn’t. Now let me see—quite recently we have had Dr Humbleby and poor Lavinia Pinkerton—a fine man, Dr Humbleby—’
Bridget put in:
‘Mr Fitzwilliam knows friends of his.’
‘Do you indeed? Very sad. His loss will be much felt. A man with many friends.’
‘But surely a man with some enemies too,’ said Luke. ‘I’m only going by what I’ve heard my friends say,’ he went on hastily.
Mr Wake sighed.
‘A man who spoke his mind—and a man who wasn’t always very tactful, shall we say—’ he shook his head. ‘It does get people’s backs up. But he was greatly beloved among the poorer classes.’
Luke said carelessly:
‘You know I always feel that one of the most unpalatable facts to be faced in life, is the fact that every death that occurs means a gain to someone—I don’t mean only financially.’
The vicar nodded thoughtfully.
‘I see your meaning, yes. We read in an obituary notice that a man is regretted by everybody, but that can only be true very rarely I fear. In Dr Humbleby’s case, there is no denying that his partner, Dr Thomas, will find his position very much improved by Dr Humbleby’s death.’
