“I’m sorry, I hope now we shan’t be interrupted again. My mother is giving us cause for anxiety, but she is sleeping now. You’ll forgive me if I go to her occasionally, just to make sure she’s still asleep, and needs nothing. At the moment I’m alone in the house with her, you see. It isn’t easy to get anyone to come out here for private nursing, but by tomorrow Doctor Braby hopes to find me a night nurse, at any rate. And tomorrow my brother will be back.”
“I very much regret,” George said gently, “having to trouble you at such a time, and I hope Mrs. Macsen-Martel will be improving by tomorrow. But you’ll readily understand that my job doesn’t allow of delays, even on the best of grounds. I’ll try not to let our presence here touch your mother at all.”
Robert did not question the phrase “our presence here” openly, but his thin brows soared towards his pallid hair.
“Thank you, you’re very considerate. How can I help you?”
The strangest thing was that there seemed to be no curiosity in him. Tension, yes, interest, yes, wariness, yes, but no curiosity. Everything about this house Robert knows already, thought George, it’s merely a question of how much others may know. And the old lady upstairs, doped with antibiotics and rustling on the edge of pneumonia? Was it equally certain that there was not much to be known here that she did not know?
“By giving me
Something immediate and extreme, though hardly visible, happened to the clay-pale features. They petrified before George’s eyes into grey granite, about as durable as anything in the world. The blue-grey eyes were like the inlaid eyes of a late Egyptian bust, brilliant and hard in lapis-lazuli, alabaster, silver, black stone and rock crystal, more alive than life, and yet fixed for ever in one dead stare.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think you have shown the necessity for any such move. What evidence can these premises possibly have to offer concerning a murder that took place somewhere else? I understand it’s with that case that you’re concerned?”
“The door that has played such a prominent part in the murder and attempted murder with which I’m dealing,” George pointed out patiently, “formerly hung in your cellar. I don’t regard that as irrelevant. Will you give us permission to investigate as we think fit—on the site?”
He waited, and the stone figure sat motionless, head raised, as if he listened for a faint call from upstairs. He closed his eyes for a moment; the lids were lofty, blue-veined, chiselled into pure, simplified lines like the eyelids of a dead man on a tomb. When he opened his eyes again they were human, defensive and inexpressibly weary.
“I admitted you, Chief Inspector, as a normal visitor. What you propose I regard as abnormal and inadmissible. I understand that I have the right to reserve any such permission as you are demanding—”
“Requesting,” George corrected him very gently.
“Requesting, if you prefer. I beg your pardon. I’m sorry, but I can’t accommodate you.” He rose from his chair; so did George. “Good evening, Chief Inspector!”
“Am I to take it,” asked George mildly, “that you insist upon a search warrant? Certainly that’s your right. But innocent people often waive it.”
“I do require to see a warrant—yes. I think we should avail ourselves of these safeguards. They were provided for a purpose.”
George reached into his briefcase, and fished out the warrant he had taken out with a magistrate in Sergeant Moon’s own proprietary village of Abbot’s Bale before mounting this operation. “Very well! I would have liked to have your co-operation freely offered, but you’re certainly within your rights. These also are provided for a purpose.” He held out the warrant before Robert’s eyes. “Please satisfy yourself that everything is in order.”
Robert read, and remained standing for a long while unmoving. The stone ebbed gradually into clay again; his shoulders sagged, the lines of his face dragged downwards into a kind of resigned despondency, and melted and refined still further into a purity of withdrawal such as George could not remember ever seeing before in all his experience. When everything becomes impossible, you go into yourself; you do not necessarily close the door, but you make sure that no one else comes in after you; there is a ban on the entrance, but outward there is still a clear view, even if it has to be upon ruin. And there you sit down and watch, as unwaveringly as a viewer before a compulsive television screen.
“In that case, of course,” said the remote voice coldly from somewhere within the enclosed place, “I recognise your authority. I can only protest at what I feel to be an unwarranted intrusion—warrant or no! But of course you must do your duty.”
He sat down. It was more like the folding up of a jointed figure when the human hand is withdrawn. His long fingers gripped the arms of his chair and clung, but all the rest of him was lank and limp in the black leather cushions. Once he looked up at the ceiling, again listening with strained attention; but after that he was quiescent.
“We’ll try not to disrupt your existence or your house too much,” said George, “and in particular not to disturb your mother in any way.”
“Thank you,” said the dead voice, “I appreciate that.” George went out to summon his reserves from the stableyard. It was almost dark now, the October evening had settled in clear and still, even the twilight breeze had dropped. A mute and eerie calm closed in upon the Abbey. Two carloads of police moved quietly through the hall to the cellar stairs. They had picks with them, crowbars, shovels, everything they needed to excavate the floor of the cellar. Robert made no effort to get up and watch their passage or their progress. There was no need; whatever they found, he would be appraised of it all too soon.
After a while he went up to sit with his mother, though her sleep, stertorous and halting as it was, shut him out beyond appeal. At least he could take care of her as long as he was free to do so.
Quarters were cramped inside the cellar by the time they had installed a couple of lights powerful enough for their purpose, and deployed enough men to be able to deal, one by one, with the huge flagstones. This must, George thought, have been merely the private wine-cellar of the abbot’s lodging, for it was of no great size. Perhaps at some time other, related chambers, rendered unsafe by decay, had been sealed off, and this one buttressed to continue in service. There must once have been more rooms than this; but this was going to be enough to keep them busy all night.
They numbered the flagstones, and stacked them in order against the wall of the anteroom as they were prised up from their seating. The photographic team recorded the scene at every stage. And what with the concentration of lights and the hard labour in an enclosed space, everyone began to sweat, even in this chilly underground
