order to stay alive yourself? In a war, when most people thought themselves absolved for everything? But the fellow who goes the opposite way from everyone else isn’t necessarily wrong.
So apart from his instinctive certainty that Chad was not the murderer, Dominic was not even impressed with the arguments of those who thought he was. People don’t remove their rivals unless it’s going to make enough difference to justify the effort, let alone the risk. And it didn’t look as if Chad thought the removal of half her male acquaintance could ensure him a peaceful passage with Io.
And if Chad didn’t seem a likely murderer, no more did anyone else of whom Dominic could think at the moment. What earthly reason could they have? Maybe, after all, it had been the result of an accident. Powder- marks on his jacket, but no particular scufflings underfoot or round about to indicate that there had been any struggle for the shotgun.Accident, they said, was a bare possibility. Suicide, thought Dominic definitely, wasn’t even that.
He came through the broad rickyard, past the long barns and the byres, and into the kitchen-yard. He hadn’t liked to go to the front door, where he might encounter the old man; and at this hour the cook-housekeeper and the maid, both of whom slept at home in the village and went in daily, would be in and out at the kitchen door, and see him coming in, so he would be giving the least possible trouble. Also, though he did not admit that this weighed with him, if he ran errands to the Harrow at this time of year, and took care to discharge them into Mrs. Pritchard’s hands, there were usually late pears to be harvested, and yellow, mellow, large pears are very welcome at break.
In the yard, backed against the wall of the house, was a kennel, and lying before it, chin on outstretched paws, a brown-and-white field spaniel, staring indifferently at the day through half-closed lids. When he opened his eyes fully at Dominic’s approach, their blank sadness seemed preternatural even for a spaniel. He did not move until Dominic stooped to scrub civilly at the curls of his forehead, then his tail waved vaguely, and he leaned his head heavily to the caressing hand, but made no warmer response. He was chained to his kennel. Dominic never remembered having seen Charles’s dog chained up before.
Of course, that was one thing he’d forgotten to mention to George: the dog. Not that it made much difference. Only, now that he came to think of it, George hadn’t mentioned him, either, when he told how Briggs had rung up to break the news. Dogs were taken for granted in Briggs’s life, of course, maybe he wouldn’t think to say there was a dog there. Only someone must have taken him home, for it didn’t seem to Dominic that he would leave his master’s body of his own will.
The dog was moping; that was natural. He liked being saluted by his friends, but even this pleasure he accepted now abstractedly, and soon let his broad head sink to his paws again, staring slit-eyed at the day. And Dominic went to meet Mrs. Pritchard in the kitchen doorway.
She took the wreath, and being touched by his somewhat misunderstood solemnity, desired to cheer him with pears. He went back to the dog while he waited for her, for the dog worried him. Such a fine creature, in such resplendent condition, and lying here so listlessly at the end of a chain. He set himself to woo him, and did not so badly, for the tail began to wave again, and with more warmth; and presently the great, sad head lifted, and the soft jowl explored his lowered face, blowing experimentally with strong, gusty breaths. So far they had progressed when a footstep sounded at the door, and the dog stiffened, peered, and then withdrew into the dark inside of the kennel, belly to ground, and lay there. The feathery front paws disappeared under the spotted chin. Only a bight of chain coiling out from the kennel and in again, and the round luminous whites of two staring eyes, betrayed that there was any dog within. He made a small whining sound, and then was quiet, and would not come out again in spite of Dominic’s wheedling fingers and winning voice.
Dominic gave up the attempt. He got up from his knees, dusting them busily, and looked up full into old Blunden’s face. He had expected Mrs. Pritchard returning, and was speechless with surprise and shyness for a moment; but the old man smiled at him, and seemed quite himself, in spite of his ravaged face and forward- blundering shoulders. The loss was not by him, but the shock was, and his toughness had not let him down. The bold blue eyes had still a rather blank, dazed look, but the old spark of intelligence burned deep underneath the surface as bright as ever, lustrously intent upon Dominic.
“I shouldn’t bother with him,” he said quietly. “Poor brute’s been temperamental since Charles went, you know. Pining here, I’m afraid. His dog, you see—with him when it happened—whatever did happen.” He seemed to be talking as much to himself as to Dominic, and yet a sense of sudden isolation, of terrifying intimacy, made Dominic hold his breath. “You’re Felse’s boy, aren’t you?” said the old man, smiling at him quite nicely but rather rigidly, so that his senses went numb, and his mouth dry. Very seldom in his life had Dominic been as tongue-tied as this.
“Yes, sir!” he whispered, like any second-former new at school.
“Wanting me? Or is Mrs. Pritchard seeing after something for you?”
“Yes, sir, thank you, she—she said she’d get me some pears.”
“Ah, good! Plenty of ’em, goodness knows, plenty! No boys to make inroads in ’em here. May as well fill your pockets, take ’em where they’ll be welcome, eh?” His eyes went back regretfully to the round, unwavering, white stare in the shadows at the back of the kennel. “Yes, poor brute, pining here! Might do well yet at some other place. Fresh start good for dogs, as well as for humans, eh, my boy? With him when it happened, you know. Came home alone!”
Dominic stood looking at him with awed eyes and wary face, wishing himself away, and yet painfully alive to every accent, every turn of voice or tension of body. And presently, as if soothed with staring, he did not wish himself away any more. He had an idea; at least, it felt like an idea, though it seemed to come out of his bowels rather than his brain, making him ask things before he knew he was going to ask them.
“Do you have to tie him up? He isn’t used to it, is he?”
“Roams off, poor beast, if you loose him. Back to where it happened, mostly. Get over it in time, no doubt, but once off the chain now, and he’s away.”
“Isn’t it odd,” said Dominic, automatic as a sleepwalker, “that he should come home that night, and now he goes back there as often as he can.”
“Don’t know, my boy! I didn’t think much about it at the time. Enough on all our minds, no time for the dog. But they’re queer cattle, too, you know—individual as humans, every one, and almost as capricious. Suffer from shock, too, like humans. Poor brute came home and crept into the stables, and hid in a corner. Heard him whining when I came through the yard. Had to hunt for him, wouldn’t come out. Found him only just before Briggs turned up with your father. Had to chain him, no doing anything with him since then. But he’ll get over it, if he goes to a new home, with decent people— fresh surroundings, and all that—no reminders.” He looked through Dominic with a fixed face, the smile dead on it, and repeated absently: “No reminders!”
Dominic ventured: “We’re all most awfully sorry, sir.”
