S. Willy Kost.
Twenty-eight
'I was wondering when you'd turn up,' murmured Ducane. Richard Biranne was standing in Ducane's drawing-room and had not yet taken the chair to which Ducane had invited him. Ducane was seated beside the empty fireplace. The lamps were lit and the curtains were drawn upon a dark blue evening. The room smelt of summer dust and roses.
Biranne stood fingering the edge of the mantelpiece, swaying his body restlessly and twitching his shoulders. His long head was thrown back and averted and his narrow blue eyes glanced quickly at Ducane, surveyed the room, and almost coquettishly glanced again. A lamp was behind him, shadowing his face and lighting up his fuzzy crest of fair hair. He had arrived on Ducane's doorstep unannounced two minutes ago.
'Well?' said Ducane. He had adopted a cold almost lethargic composure to conceal his extreme satisfaction, indeed exhilaration, at Biranne's arrival.
The inspection with McGrath of Radeechy's 'chapel' had finally satisfied Ducane that Radeechy was, as far as the 'security aspect' was concerned, innocuous. He was certain that the necromantic activities were not a front. There was sincerity, there was evident faith, in Radeechy's pathetic arrangements; and if Radeechy had been up to anything else he would scarcely have risked attracting attention by nocturnal visits with girls. The suicide itself remained unexplained. But the glimpse of the chapel had been enough to persuade Ducane that such a man might well have suicidal prompting. What had come to Ducane in the course of that candle-lit occasion was an intimation of the reality with which Radeechy had been meddling: Of course Ducane did not believe in 'spirits'. But what-had gone on in that room, upon that altar, when the blood of the pigeons dripped down on to the black mattress, was not childish mumming. It was a positive and effective meddling with the human mind. Ducane could not get the smell of it out of his nostrils, and he knew that McGrath was right to say that it was not only the smell of decomposing birds. Radeechy had discovered and had made to materialize about him a certain dreariness of evil, a minor evil no doubt, but his success might very well have set him on the road to suicide.
All this made sense, and would have made reasonably complete sense if it were not for the involvement of Biranne.
Biranne had tampered with the body, he had concealed his visits to Radeechy's house, he knew Judy McGrath. However Ducane was not now by any means so sure that Biranne held the key to Radeechy's suicide or knew any more about it than Ducane had already been able to conjecture. It suddenly began to look to Ducane as if his inquiry was finished, or as finished as it would ever be, and that he would with a clear conscience write a report in which Biranne was not mentioned at all. Everything that connected Biranne with Radeechy, though so odd and suggestive, could have an innocent explanation. He might have touched the body out of curiosity or solicitude and then decided it was prudent not to mention it, his relationship with the McGraths might be quite fortuitous, his visits to Radeechy's house might have had Judy as their object, and he might have concealed them precisely for this reason. In fact in so far as these things fitted together they did so in a way which tended to acquit Biranne of any sinister role.
All this was logical and rational, and Ducane should have been pleased to be convinced and to have his case thus cleanly ended. However he was not pleased, partly because he felt sure, on no very clear grounds, that there was some aspect of the matter which was still hidden and that Biranne knew about it, and partly because of what by now amounted almost to an emotional involvement with Biranne. He had become used to regarding Biranne as his quarry. He had developed a sharp curiosity about the man, a curiosity which had something of the quality of a form of affection. He very much wanted to 'have it out' with Biranne and the idea was exciting. Yet he had, in the two days which had passed since his underground journey with McGrath, hesitated to make any move. He had been delighted to find Biranne on his doorstep.
Biranne was in a state of emotion the nature of which was not easy to discern but which he could not conceal and did not attempt to conceal. He walked the length of the room and back and then stood staring down at Ducane.
'Sit down and have some whisky,' said Ducane. He had already placed a decanter and two glasses upon a low table beside the hearth. He motioned to the chair opposite.
'No thanks, I'll stand,' said Biranne. 'No whisky.'
Ducane, who had been thinking hard ever since he had seen Biranne's tense face in the blue twilight of the doorway, said in a tone which was half persuasion, half command. 'You've come to tell me something. What is it?»
'I'm afraid I don't quite understand you '
'Look here,' said Ducane, 'I'll be quite straight with you and I want you to be quite straight with me. You've come to tell me something about Radeechy. I know a good deal about Radeechy and a good deal about you, but there are still one or two things that puzzle me. These may be perfectly innocent things and if you can give me a satisfactory explanation I'll be the first to be pleased.'
Biranne, still staring, stroked his hair back. He said, 'For a man who proposes to talk straight you've used a lot of words to say nothing. I want to know why you came to my house.'
'I wanted to question you.'
'What about?' Biranne's high-pitched voice crackled with nerves.
'I wanted to know why you had told me certain lies,' said Ducane carefully. He found that he was now leaning forward, and with deliberation settled himself back again into his chair.
