Fallen Into the Pit

“It wouldn’t be enough motive for most people,” said Dominic hesitantly, “but he was a bit special, wasn’t he? I think— it wasn’t the number of acres, or the littleness of the defeat. There wasn’t any proportion about it, there wasn’t any little or big. It was his land, and it had to be his victory. And when Charles changed his mind he—sort of changed sides, too. He did, you know. And so he was a sort of traitor from the old man’s point of view.” He lifted his wide eyes doubtfully to George’s face. “I can’t help it if it sounds thin. It happened, anyhow, didn’t it?”

“Go on, Dom!”

“Well, when I was telling you about meeting Charles that night, I clean forgot about the dog. He had that spaniel of his with him, you know, the brown-and-white one that won all the prizes. But when Briggs rang you up to report about the death of Charles, and how he found him, and everything, he never said anything about the dog. And I wondered. You can’t be sure what they’ll do, but he was trained to a gun, he wouldn’t be frightened by that; and I thought most likely he’d stay by the body until somebody came. There were plenty of people out shooting that evening, all round the village, one shot more or less made no difference. And then, it was done with Charles’s own gun, and there didn’t seem to have been any struggle for it, or anything like that, so if he didn’t do it himself—and I was sure about that—then it must have been somebody who knew him well enough to walk with him, maybe to take the gun and carry it for him, or try it out as they went along. Anyhow, somebody who could get it from him without it seeming at all funny. That could still have been—” his eyes avoided Chad “—several people. But it could have been his father, easily. But it was the dog that really bothered me.”

“He bothered me, too,” said George.

“But I didn’t tell you about him.”

“No, but if he was out with a gun it was long odds the dog would be there. And, as you say, Briggs found no dog. He was gone from the spot pretty quickly.”

“Yes, that was what got me. And then, when it really started with me, when I went up to the Harrow this morning, I saw the dog there chained up, and the old man told me he’d come home by himself after the shooting, and hidden himself in the stables and wouldn’t come out—like they do sometimes for thunder, or shock, or fits. He said he’d been funny ever since, and they had to keep him chained up because he roamed off if he was loosed. Well, it all sounded on the level. But when he came near, the dog went into the kennel, and lay down right in the back and stared at him—you know, keeping its face to him wherever he went. It’d been all right with me—well, mopish, but fairly all right, it liked being petted. But he never touched it. And it was then I really started to think. I didn’t believe him. I believe the dog came home after the shooting because he brought it home, for fear it should bring anyone there too soon, and give him away. But he only just had time, because by sheer luck Briggs found Charles very quickly. And if the old man dragged the dog home with him, and then told lies about it, of course it could only be because he’d killed Charles himself. There couldn’t be any other reason for him keeping the dog out of circulation now, except because it acted so queer toward him that he was afraid to be seen with it. So then I was certain,” said Dominic simply. “It came on me like a flash. And I thought, and thought, and couldn’t see how we were ever to prove it, or get at him at all, unless he gave us an opening. Because what a dog would or wouldn’t do isn’t exactly evidence.”

“So you set to work to make an opening yourself. And a nice risk you took in the process,” said George severely.

“No, not really, because I knew you’d stand by me.” But he said nothing about the panicky moment when he had strained his ears after them with no such perfect trust. He flushed deeper; he was getting tired, but he wasn’t talked out yet.

“I had to think in an awful hurry, it was a bit slapdash, perhaps. I told him I’d found a little notebook, down in the clay holes close by where Helmut was killed. I said I was scared to show it to Dad, because I’d got into a row already for interfering; so I wanted to find out first if it really was something to do with the case, before I risked another row. I asked him if he could read German, and he cottoned on at once, though he pretended he was just humoring me. He said he could. I don’t know if it was true, but you see, don’t you, that if I’d really found it where I said I had, and it really was in German, he couldn’t afford not to jump at the chance of having first look at it—whether he could read it without a dictionary or whether he couldn’t. If it had really been something of Helmut’s, why, it might have had anything in it, all about their contract, and the money that passed, and the jobs that were done for it, and everything. You know what Helmut was like about all his other business, and Blunden knew it, too. So then I said I hadn’t got the thing on me, but I’d bring it up to him if he really wouldn’t mind looking at it for me. I was careful to tell him I hadn’t shown it to anybody yet, so he figured if he could persuade me it was just rubbish, I’d take his word for it, and throw it away. Anyhow, he just had to find out. I bet he thought it probably would be rubbish, but there was always the little risk that it might not be. He’d got to be certain. But he was in a spot, because he had to go somewhere by train after the funeral, and he wasn’t coming back until the nine o’clock train in the evening. That must have been something important, too, or he’d have given it a miss. But instead, he said would I meet him up at the forest gate when he came from the train, and go up to the house with him, and we’d have a look at it together. And he told me very specially not to mention it to anyone—the book, or where I was going, or anything—because he didn’t want to make any fresh troubles for you harassed policemen, and also to keep myself out of trouble. So you see, he figured that if— well, it was always possible that he might have to—well, if I didn’t come back, you wouldn’t have a clue to where I’d gone.”

The same reflection had not escaped either George or Bunty.

“But if I produced some ordinary rubbish,” went on Dominic, stumbling a little in haste to get past a thought which he himself, on reflection, did not like very much, “or even if it was really something, and I obviously didn’t know it, and would take his word for it that it was rubbish—then he was O.K., he could just burn it and forget it, and I could forget it, too. Most likely that’s really what he expected. Only he had to be sure I didn’t know too much about it already, he couldn’t take any chances on me. And I had to be sure, too. It wasn’t any good half-doing it. So I went the whole hog. After school I got on to Pussy. I suppose she told you all that part—”

“I didn’t know what you meant to do,” protested Pussy. “I knew it was something desperate, by the way you looked, but I didn’t know how bad. Or I’d have told your mother, right away, and put a stop to it.”

“You would not! And if you had, you’d have spoiled the whole thing. But you wouldn’t! Well, then I went up to the well, and took my German vocabulary notebook from school—” His eyes strayed rather dubiously toward Chad, who smiled, and laid the wreckage on the table. “I’m afraid it’s rather past it now. Do you suppose we can square it? I had to have something fairly convincing, and with a bit of faking the figures, and then doctoring it in the mud, and drying it again, it made a pretty good show. Anything that came through, you see, was at least German.”

“I dare say we can square it about the notebook,” said Chad gravely, “all things considered.”

“Well, you know everything else, you were there. It wasn’t as bad as it sounded, truly it wasn’t. And I couldn’t think of any other way. I had to make him think I knew too much to be let go, or he wouldn’t have given himself away. I was scared, but it was the best I could do. Mummy, you’re not awfully mad at