Death at Hallows End, page 2
“Not until the following morning, I believe, but you will hear all that when you reach Hallows End. I hope that will be this afternoon?”
“Depends on whether or not Mrs. Humby can be seen before then. I don’t want to start till I’ve had a talk with her.”
“You don’t seem inclined to think that Duncan’s disappearance has anything to do with Grossiter’s will and his two nephews at Hallows End.”
“I don’t say that at all. It may have everything to do with them. But if you mean do I expect to find Duncan, alive or dead, in a cellar of their farmhouse, I would say frankly, no.”
Thripp nodded moodily.
“I hope you’ll have news for me soon,” he said.
“I’ll tell you as soon as I have,” Carolus promised, and left the somewhat overheated office.
CHAPTER TWO
COMING AWAY FROM THE solicitor’s office, Carolus Deene had a premonition that this case would lead him into deep waters, perhaps into personal danger. This did not disturb him—on the contrary, he would be glad if the long series of problems he had successfully tackled would reach a climax with one that tried his mettle as a man of action as well as a theorist. There had been too much armchair detection recently, he thought, and although he had no ambition to be one of those heroic figures, forever in and out of hideous peril and armed to the teeth, those somewhat absurd men of action so popular in the modem world, he welcomed a case that would, he believed, give him wider scope than the mere whodunits of the past.
The first thing he had to decide about the disappearance of Duncan Humby was whether it had been voluntary or involuntary. If the first, he would take no part in the search. As he had said to Thripp, no one knows another man’s mind, and if Duncan had chosen to disappear, he probably had excellent reasons for doing so which were no concern of anyone else. It certainly wasn’t for him, Carolus, to take any part in restoring him to his wife and partner.
If, on the other hand, Humby was being held against his will, or if he had (and it was a possibility to be faced) been murdered, there was something unusually sinister about the crime. Humby was not a man to be easily forced into anything, and certainly not to be intimidated. He was in his sixties, but was tough and active and seemed ten years younger.
The story of Grossiter and his two nephews had an unpleasant ring to it, but, as Carolus had told Thripp, that was no reason for jumping to any easy conclusion, certainly not to such an obvious one as Thripp had suggested. But the thought of that deserted car with the ignition keys still in it on a lonely road near an isolated farmhouse, was to Carolus rather more than ominous.
He did not look forward to his first interview which would necessarily be with the wife of the missing man. He knew Theodora Humby, and considered her to be something of an hysteric, a woman who dramatised every situation so that a conversation with her was like taking part in an old melodrama. But there were certain things he had to ask her and he could, after all, discount the histrionics.
The Humbys lived in a large Victorian house on the outskirts of Newminster, a house that Theodora had renovated and spruced up with characteristic excess. The central rooms had been knocked into one with pillars to support the upper floor, and a wide staircase ran across the back of it.
The walls were white and decorated with gilt and coloured Spanish woodcarving and a suit of burnished armour stood in one corner.
The front door was opened by the housekeeper, a squat and realistic widow named Molly Caplan whom Carolus knew. She told him to sit down.
“Mrs. Humby will be with you in a minute,” she said and gave a knowing look at the staircase by which, Carolus guessed, Theodora liked to make an entry.
He was right. She appeared at the top of the stairs in something that William Morris might have designed for his wife to wear if she was to be painted by Rossetti.
“Mr. Deene!” she cried. “Thank God!” She descended a few stairs. “I knew you would come!” From the foot of the stairs she extended both her hands and rushed towards Carolus. “Tell me at once,” she said looking into his eyes, “is he still alive?”
“I expect so,” said Carolus coolly. “I’m going to try to find out. Can I ask you a few questions?”
“Ask me anything. Anything! I have no secrets now. I have been in hell these last days. It is all a nightmare. I still cannot believe it.”
“Believe what, Mrs. Humby?”
“That Duncan, of all people, would vanish in this extraordinary way. He was, you know, the most conventional of men.”
“You think, then, that he may have disappeared deliberately?”
“Impossible! He was utterly incapable of such a thing. He would never deceive me in that way. Never! He told me everything.”
Carolus wondered where he had heard those deluded words before. From sad experience he knew that when one of a married couple used them of the other, they nearly always indicated their exact opposite.
“Did he for instance tell you why he was going to Hallows End that afternoon?”
“That,” said Theodora emphatically, “was a matter of business. He never discussed his clients and I never asked him about the details of his work. Such inquisitiveness would be quite foreign to me. I meant that between us there were no personal secrets. If he had even thought of going away for a time I should have been the first to hear.”
“Did he discuss his finances with you, Mrs. Humby?”
“Certainly not. I should have considered that vulgar.”
“Really? Between husband and wife? It would seem to me very natural.”
“Perhaps I am rather exceptional in that, Mr. Deene. I take no interest in money. There was always sufficient for me to have the few simple things I wanted, and that was all I asked. Only once did the subject arise between us.”
“That was?”
“A trivial matter. I came on a notebook of his from which I gathered that he had some money in a Swiss bank. I made no remark, I need scarcely say, but he seemed to think it was incumbent upon him to give explanations. He took great trouble to do so,”
“And what were his explanations?”
“I scarcely recall the details now. Such things were beyond my scope. But… it was something about holidays abroad and a Labour government. He thought he might be prevented from taking sufficient money for our annual jaunt.”
“Did you happen to notice what sort of sum he had abroad?”
Carolus thought he caught a quick keen look on her large-featured face.
“There was no indication of the amount,” she said. “And of course I never asked him. But this surely is beside the point. Where is he now? That’s the question.”
Ignoring this, Carolus asked about Duncan’s passport.
“Then you do think he has run away?” cried Theodora, raising her hand to her cheek.
“I’m really only asking the most obvious questions,” said Carolus. “Clearing away some of the undergrowth. Thripp has asked me to try to find your husband and I can only do so with your help.”
“Of course. I see that I mustn’t draw foolish inferences. His passport, entirely by coincidence, is with him. That afternoon he wore an old overcoat that he hadn’t put on since we returned from Denmark. His passport was in the pocket.”
“How can you be sure of that?”
“My good Caplan noticed it some weeks ago. She never interferes with anything and left it there. Besides, it is nowhere to be found.”
“You have looked? Then you too must have had some idea that your husband might have gone abroad?”
Theodora looked a little confused.
“I had nothing of the sort,” she said at last. “I was merely doing what you said you were doing—clearing away the dead-wood. I know that Duncan would not go even to London without telling me.”
“Did he mention that he was going to see Mr. Grossiter?”
“Grossiter? Who is he?”
“A client of your husband’s who had summoned him urgently to Hallows End. It was in order to sign a new will which your husband had drawn up.”
“So that was why he went! He certainly said nothing about that to me. As I told you, he never discussed business. Did he see this Grossiter?”
“Apparently not. But his car was found near the house where Grossiter was staying. As perhaps you know.”
“I know nothing except that my husband is missing. If it weren’t so tragic it would be almost squalid. Like those photographs one sees in the paper.”
“I knew your husband a little, Mrs. Humby. I gathered that he took great pride in his physical fitness.”
Theodora rose to her feet dramatically.
“It was a fetish!” she said. “I told him so many times. Because he was not fit, really. A dickie heart, ever since he had rheumatic fever. Dr. Boyce told him so a score of times. ‘Don’t overdo it,’ he used to say. But Duncan was so courageous. He would never give in to that sort of advice. He drove his car, played eighteen holes of golf and a fast game of tennis. He even danced, Mr. Deene. Not with me, I may say. He was a powerful man. ‘Brawny’ would be a better word.”
“He could take care of himself in any trouble that might arise, you think?”
“I only saw him fight once. That was in the south of France one year. I was angry at the time because it made us so conspicuous, but he did it for me, in a way. A man was most insulting. Duncan knocked him down. But like that, Mr. Deene. We walked away and left him on the ground,”
“How long ago was that?”
“Not long. Duncan must have been in his fifties at the time. You may discount any thought of his having been kidnapped if you had any idea like that. Duncan would never allow it.”
“You must have something to account for his disappearance, though,” pleaded Carolus.
“I never theorise,” announced Theodora. “But I must confess to you that I begin to have the blackest forebodings. I know that he is not absent by his own wish. I know that he would never give me a moment’s anxiety if he could help it. Then what remains? I ask you, Mr. Deene. What possibility remains?”
“Several,” said Carolus. “Loss of memory. An accident. Sudden illness.”
Theodora shook her head. “No! No! I have intuitions, Mr. Deene. I can see only one way of accounting for his disappearance and it is the most terrible. But how or why it can have happened is beyond my imagination. It is for you to discover that.”
“I hope it may not be. I hope we shall find some other explanation. I am going tomorrow to Hallows End and when I have even the smallest information I’ll phone you or Thripp at once to tell you what I can.”
He had a most uncomfortable feeling about Theodora Humby. It was as though her habit of dramatisation demanded to be fed with more startling events, as though she would in some macabre way almost enjoy receiving news of her husband’s death. This did not mean that she was indifferent to him. She might even love him in her fashion. But she was clearly a pathological case and her histrionics were a kind of outlet for her emotions.
She was very quiet now. Carolus thought there was something furtive, almost snakelike in her eyes as she looked aside at him.
“You think you will find him?” she asked.
“How can I say?”
“Exactly. How can you? We know nothing really. Do we even know that he left Newminster?”
“His car …”
“But many people can drive a car. Anyone who knew that he intended to go to Hallows End might have driven it there.”
“But who did know?” asked Carolus. He could scarcely believe that her suggestion pointed in the direction it might seem to point.
“That is for you to discover, surely. I certainly did not. But someone must have done.”
Carolus kept his eyes on her face as he asked the next question.
“Surely he told you that he would be later than usual in coming home that evening?”
“He did! Of course he did! But it was quite casually that he mentioned it. A matter of business. He had to drive out somewhere to see a client. He would get something to eat on the way back. Nothing more was said.”
“On the way back. Then you gathered that he had to go some considerable distance?”
“I gave very little thought to it at the time.”
“Is it possible that he said anything to Mrs. Caplan?”
“Ask her, Mr. Deene. Leave no stone unturned! If my good Caplan knows anything she will tell you at once. I will take you to her little sitting room. She will be watching the television now. Unless there is anything more you wish to ask me?”
Carolus was silent for a moment. He felt certain that Theodora knew things that would be valuable, but he doubted whether she herself was aware of this. He decided that until he had gone farther and could make his questions definite and explicit, it was useless to press her with vague enquiries.
“No. Nothing,” he said. “At least for the present. Yes, I should like to see Mrs. Caplan.”
“You shall. Come with me. She is so much more realistic than I am. I can only wish that I were as unimaginative as she. Imagination, in circumstances like these, is a terrible thing.”
They found Molly Caplan warming her toes before a bright coal fire. When she saw Carolus she switched off the television.
“Mr. Deene would like to ask you one or two things,” said Theodora. “I shall leave you together. You know him, don’t you? If anyone can help us it is he!”
She left them in a dramatic and purposeful way, shutting the door firmly behind her.
Molly Caplan smiled.
“You’re not fooled, are you?” she said. “Theodora’s terribly upset, really. You mustn’t think because she behaves like Ophelia that she’s not suffering. I know she is.”
“I’m sure she must be. Yet I can’t help feeling that in some way she enjoys that suffering.”
“Could be,” said Molly Caplan sharply. “What do you want to know from me?”
“To be frank, I can’t really say. Anything you like to tell me, I suppose.”
“Do I think he’s left her, for example. No, I don’t. It was a strange relationship, but they were fond of each other. He was a bore with all his health and fitness and she as you know is a tragedy queen, but somehow it worked. He would have said he made allowances for her, but really she did for him. A man in his sixties who did physical jerks before a window every morning and threatened to take up yoga can’t have been easy to live with. I’ve been in the house five years and I’d describe them, without hesitation, as a happily married couple.”
“You think he confided in her?”
“There was nothing much to confide. He never talked about his business, if that’s what you mean.”
“Never? Did you know for instance that Thripp wanted to sell their practice and Duncan Humby wouldn’t hear of it?”
“As a matter of fact I did. Lionel Thripp is an old friend of mine. It was through him I came to look after Theodora and Duncan. But I think it’s perfectly possible that Theodora didn’t know that. Duncan made a point of not talking shop.”
“So she would not have any idea where he was going that day?”
“None, I should say. Not an inkling.”
“Had you?”
“What?”
“An inkling?”
For the first time Molly Caplan looked a little uncomfortable.
“I don’t see why you should ask. How can it possibly help your enquiries?”
“It may not. But someone must have known, apart from Thripp.”
“Yes. I knew. But not from Duncan Humby. I think we won’t go into that any farther.”
“All right. Just tell me how long you had known?”
“Well, since the previous evening. Now …”
“What’s your theory, Mrs. Caplan?”
“Don’t have one. But it looks pretty ugly to me. Duncan’s an obstinate man. Someone might have to kill him before he’d give in.”
“Unless he could be fooled or persuaded into something incautious,”
“Most unlikely,”
“You have a car, Mrs. Caplan?”
She stared at him.
“What on earth …”
“Nothing, really,” said Carolus, smiling. “It’s a question I may have to ask several people in Newminster. Call it a formality.”
“I have a car, yes,” said Molly Caplan sulkily.
“Did you use it that Monday?”
“This is absurd, you know. Mondays are my days off. Naturally I used my car.”
“But you don’t feel like telling me where you went?”
“I certainly don’t. I find your questions impertinent and foolish.”
“They must seem so. I’m sorry. Will you at least tell me at what time you took your car out?”
“Immediately after lunch, of course.”
“And you returned?”
“Before midnight. Now that’s enough.”
“Your car is a …”
“Ford Consul. Blue,” snapped Molly Caplan and stood up as though to dismiss him.
Carolus left the house after going back to say goodbye to Theodora. He had a pretty shrewd idea of the two women, if nothing else.
He decided to go over to Hallows End next day, and was irritated to find thick fog. Last Monday, the day on which Duncan Humby had left his partner in order to go to Hallows End, had been a clear September afternoon, he remembered, and later as he walked home from a friend’s house, Carolus had noted a bright sky with the stars unhidden by clouds. Wherever Humby had been that evening, his movement had not been concealed by the weather, unless it was very different at Hallows End.
He reached his comfortable little house to find Mrs. Stick, his housekeeper, in some agitation.
“Wherever have you been, sir?” she asked. “I’ve phoned everywhere likely and couldn’t get word of you anywhere. The Headmaster’s been ringing up every half hour or so. He sounds as if he’s in a state.”
Carolus, whose position as Senior History Master at the Queen’s School, Newminster, had never yet prevented him from undertaking an investigation, nodded calmly.
“If he phones again, tell him I’ve come in.”
“There it goes now,” said Mrs. Stick, a small resolute-looking woman with steel-rimmed glasses and a thin mouth. “That’s him, for certain.” She hurried to the receiver. “Yes, sir. He’s just come in. No, I’m sure he’d be pleased. Five minutes? All right. I’ll tell him.” She turned to Carolus. “He’s coming round at once,” she said as though she was announcing Nemesis herself.
