“He does indeed!” said George. “The Jolly Barmaid was a classic example of Armiger’s inflated habits of mind. “Good night, Bennie.”
“Good night, Mr. Felse.”
George walked home into Comerford, and gave his wife and son a brief account of his evening’s entertainment.
“Your girl-friend was there, Dom,” he said, glancing mischievously at Dominic, who was in his homework corner still bent over a book, though it was a late start rather than an exaggerated sense of duty that had kept him at it until this hour. He slapped the Anglepoise lamp away from him and quickly switched it off, to hide the fierce blush that surged up into his cheeks, and assuming his protective colouring with the dexterity of a cornered animal, said eagerly: “No, was she? Did you see the car? Isn’t it a beauty?”
“I wasn’t looking at the car.”
“Gosh, can you beat it! No soul!” said Dominic disgustedly, for once removing himself to bed without having to be driven. He had told his parents about coming home in the Karmann-Ghia because he was experienced enough to know that even if they had not witnessed his arrival themselves, someone among the neighbours was sure to have done so, and to retail the information over pegging out the washing or giving the lawn its last autumn mowing. Better and safer to give them an edited version himself, and the car made wonderful cover, but if his father was going to spring nasty little surprises like that sudden dig tonight, Dominic was going to have to stay in dark corners, or keep his back turned on his family.
Bunty Felse awoke just after midnight from her first light doze with a curious question on her mind, and stroked George into wakefulness with the gentle ruthlessness wives employ instead of open brutality.
“George,” she said as he grunted a sleepy protest into her red hair, “do you remember that singer girl at Weston-super-Mare last summer. The one who dragged Dom into her act, the way they do?”
“Mmm!” said George, dazed by this seeming irrelevance. “What about her, for goodness’ sake?”
“He noticed her all right, didn’t he?”
“Couldn’t very well miss her,” admitted George, “she was round his neck. How on earth did she get him up there? Some trick, I don’t remember. I know I blushed for him.”
“Yes, you did,” said Bunty significantly. “He didn’t. He bragged about it for days, the little ass. He said she was a dish.”
“That’s all those paperbacks he reads.”
“No, I think it’s pop records. The point is, apparently this Norris girl really is a dish. But he never said so. Why?”
“No accounting for tastes,” mumbled George. “Maybe he doesn’t think she is a dish.”
“Why shouldn’t he? Everybody else does. You do,” said Bunty, and was drifting off to sleep again, still worrying over the discrepancy, when the telephone beside their bed rang.
“Damn and blast!” said George, sitting up in bed wide awake and reaching for the instrument. “Now what’s up?”
The telephone bleated in a quavering voice which at first he hardly recognised for Bennie Blocksidge’s. “Mr. Felse?” it wailed. “Oh, Mr. Felse, I dunno if I’m doing right, but I’d sooner it was you, and you’re the nearest, and being as you were here tonight it’s you I called. We got bad trouble here, Mr. Felse. It’s the guv’nor, Mr. Armiger. He never come back. Past closing-time, and he never come, and eleven, and half past eleven, and the lights still on in there. And Mr. Calverley got worried, and one thing and another, even if he did say not to disturb him, they went to see was he all right, , , “
“Make it short,” said George, groping for his slippers. “What’s happened? I’m on my way, but what’s happened? Make it three words, not three hundred.”
“He’s dead,” said Bennie, making it two. “there in the barn, all by himself, stone dead and blood all over.”
CHAPTER III.
THE MOMENT OF truth had overtaken Armiger in the middle of an expanse of new flooring almost big enough for a bull-ring, and of a colour not so far from that of fine sand. He lay in the full glare of his brand-new lights, sprawled on his face with arms and legs tossed loosely about him, his right cheek flattened against the glossy parquet. If you stooped to look carefully the thick profile in its bold, bright colouring still showed clear and undamaged; but the exposed back of his head was crumpled and indented, welling dark blood that oozed up out of the splintered cavities and spilled sluggishly over into the puddle gathering on the floor, where the crimson of blood and the thin clarity of wine met and intermingled in long, feathery fronds of pink.
All round his head and shoulders blood and champagne had spattered to a distance of two or three feet, but not so lavishly as old Bennie had made out, you could easily approach him between the splashes, at least from the back, from which position, George thought, squatting over the body, this ferocious damage had been done. Any enemy of Alfred Armiger’s might well prefer not to face him when he hit out at him at last. The neck of the magnum lay in the pink ferns of the pool, close to the shattered head, and slivers of glass glittered on the bull shoulders; two yards away the rest of the bottle lay on its side, a thin dotted line of blood marking where it had rolled when it broke at last.
Well at least, thought George grimly, we’re spared the classic hesitation between accident, suicide and murder; the one most easily associated with Armiger was the one that overtook him, and nobody’s ever going to argue about it.
He had called his headquarters in Comerbourne before he left home, called them again after his first check-up on the scene, and turned everyone else out of the ballroom until the van should arrive. He had the place to himself for a quarter of an hour at the most. For Armiger he felt as yet nothing but a sense of shock and incredulity that so much demoniac energy could be so abruptly wiped out of existence. The blob of black in the acres of pallor looked like a squashed fly on a window-pane.
He stood back carefully, avoiding the splashes of blood, and looked round the room. No sense of reality informed this scene, it was a stage set, lavish and vulgar, the curtain rising on a run-of-the-mill thriller. The barn, pretty clearly, had once been the hall of the older house. Its proportions were noble, and its hammer-beam roof had been beautiful until Armiger got at it. His impact had been devastating; the hammer-beams and posts, the principals and curved braces and purlins had all been gilded, and the squares of common rafters between the gold had been painted a glaring glossy white, while from the centre beam depended four spidery modern electric chandeliers. The concentration of reflected light was merciless. All round the upper part of the walls he had built a
