No Wind of Blame

Though Vicky could not appear to turn pale, she could flush quite unmistakably, and did so, stamping her foot, and darting so flashing a look at Hugh that he ought to have been withered on the spot. ‘I now know that you’re a beast, and practically reeking of mothballs, or whatever it is you put with blankets, and winter coats, and everything else that’s completely fusty! Also, you’re as unfeeling as a cabbage, which is another thing you remind me of, and I suppose if you saw anyone stretched dead at your feet, you wouldn’t shed a tear, but would just pass it off as a poor joke or something!’

‘As I haven’t yet seen anyone stretched dead at my feet, I can’t say,’ replied Hugh. ‘And what that has got to do with your having black smudges on your face, I fail to grasp.’

‘Well, that’s exactly what I have seen!’ said Vicky, trying to wipe away the smudges. ‘You can be jolly thankful it’s only a little eye-shadow gone astray, instead of me being sick in front of you, which, as a matter of fact, is a thing I might quite easily do, from the utterly eccentric feeling I’ve got in my tummy!’

Hugh stared at her suspiciously. ‘Look here, are you putting on one of your acts?’ he demanded. ‘If not, what in the devil’s name are you talking about?’

‘You are an idiot, or you’d see I haven’t had time to think up an act! It’s caught me absolutely unawares, and I almost wish it hadn’t happened, in spite of its probably being a blessing in disguise once we’ve got used to the idea.’

Hugh grasped her by the shoulders, and shook her. ‘Stop talking in cypher, and pull yourself together! What’s happened?’

‘Someone’s shot Wally right through the chest!’ said Vicky. ‘On the bridge, and Janet shedding the most aprocryphal tears and a man in a striped shirt exactly like Brighton Rock, and that malignant Harold White telling me to break the news to Ermyntrude!’

‘Good God in heaven!’ ejaculated Hugh. ‘Here, I say, don’t throw a fit of hysterics for the love of Pete! Is he dead?’

‘Oh, he looked totally dead!’ shuddered Vicky.

The same thought which Harold White had given utterance to, that Wally had very nearly been shot the day before, slid into Hugh’s mind. He did not, however, speak of it, but turned his attention to the present task of soothing Vicky. She showed every sign of nervous collapse, and it was with a feeling of relief that he saw Mary come out of the house towards them.

‘Thank the Lord you’ve come,’ he said, thrusting Vicky into her arms. ‘Look after this wretched wench, will you? There seems to have been some kind of an accident. In fact, your cousin’s been shot. I’m going to find out what it’s all about.’

He did not wait to observe the effect on Mary of this baldly delivered piece of news, but hurried off towards the path that wound down through the shrubbery to the bridge across the stream.

By the time he arrived on the scene of the accident, Dr Hinchcliffe, a bloodless-looking man some years older than his partner, Maurice Chester, had risen from his knees beside Wally’s body, and had stated that there was nothing to be done, and that Wally had probably been killed instantaneously. Samuel Jones, still in his pink-striped shirt sleeves, was trying to explain to him, firstly how he himself came to be present, and secondly what he had been doing at the moment when the shot was heard. Harold White was standing beside Wally’s body listening, with a sardonic expression on his face, to his friend’s volubility, and Janet was hovering in the background, alternately sniffing, and blowing her nose.

Dr Hinchcliffe gave the impression of a man who disliked being called out on a Sunday afternoon, and, further, found such violent forms of death distasteful. He cut short Jones’s explanations by saying testily: ‘Yes, yes, my dear sir, but all that is a matter for the police, not for me!’ He turned a cold grey eye upon White, and added: ‘The police must be notified immediately. If you have not already done so, I will.’

‘I notified them as soon as I’d got hold of you,’ replied White. He caught sight of Hugh, and stared at him for a moment. ‘What do you want?’ he demanded. ‘Oh! Dering, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, I’m Hugh Dering. I met Miss Fanshawe a few minutes ago, and, frankly, what she told me sounded so incredible that I came along to find out just what has been happening.’ His gaze flickered to Wally’s body. ‘Apparently,’ he said, with the lightness of tone a man assumes when confronted by the macabre, ‘her story was correct.’

‘Wally Carter’s been shot,’ said White unnecessarily.

‘So I see. Do you happen to know how, or by whom?’

‘No, I don’t. And since you seem to like questions, where, may I ask, did you spring from?’

‘I,’ said Hugh, quite pleasantly, but with a certain hardening of the jaw, ‘sprang out of the drawing-room at Palings.’

‘If you’re Mr Dering,’ said Jones, ‘you’re staying at the Manor. Had you been at Palings long?’

‘No, I’d only just arrived there,’ Hugh responded. ‘Why?’

‘Only that it struck me suddenly that you must have passed close by here on your way from the Manor,’ explained Jones. ‘What I mean is, you might have seen someone sneaking out of this blooming shrubbery on to the road.’

‘Sorry,’ said Hugh. ‘I didn’t.’

‘Such questions, Mr – er – Jones,’ interposed the doctor, with an air of disgust, ‘would be better left to the police.’ He nodded at Hugh. ‘Good afternoon, Dering. Didn’t know you were at home.’

‘Just on a visit,’ said Hugh. ‘Nasty business, this.’

‘Quite shocking,’ replied the doctor repressively. ‘Such a thing has never happened in all the years I’ve been in practice here. Not a patient of mine, I’m glad to say.’

‘Well, I think I’ll get back to the house,’ said Hugh, unwilling to appear like an onlooker at a street accident. ‘You don’t want outsiders hanging about.’

‘Hold on a bit!’ said White. ‘You were one of that shooting-party, yesterday, weren’t you?’

‘I was, yes. What’s that got to do with it?’