The Eight of Swords

kind.

'Depping, for instance. I don't mean he had no enemies. When you hear of a man who is said to have no enemies, you can practically sit back and wait for somebody to murder him. Depping was a harder sort of problem. Nobody liked him, but, God knows, nobody hereabouts would have gone to the point of doing him in. — And in your wildest imagination, now, can you picture anybody as the murderer? The bishop? Colonel Standish? J. R. Burke? Maw? Let me fill up your glass again.'

'Thanks,' said Hugh. 'Who's Maw?'

Patricia wriggled delightedly in the deck chair. The windows of the house behind her were still glowing, though the lawn was in shadow; there was a light on her blonde hair, and even that vibrant brownish-gold skin seemed to reflect it. She lounged back in the chair, her eyes bright and her lips moist, ticking the glass against her teeth. One bare leg in a tennis shoe swung over the side. Patricia said:

'Oh, yes. Yd better explain that before you meet her, so that you'll know how to handle her… It's my mother. You'll like her. Nowadays she's a sort of tyrant who can't tyrannize, and it makes her furious. Coo! We all used to be afraid of her, until an American friend of Hank's found the solution…'

'Urn' said Donovan. He resisted a powerful impulse to go over and sit down beside her on the foot-rest part of the deck chair. 'Yes, I remember your brother said something about that.'

'Poor Morley is still shocked. But it's the only way to deal with her, really. Otherwise you'd always be eating turnips, or doing exercises in front of an open window, or something. It only began by everybody calling her Maw… So remember. When she comes sailing up to you and orders you to do something, or tries to dragoon you into it, you look her straight in the eye and say, firmly, 'Nuts, Maw! Just like that. And then even more firmly, 'Nuts! That closes the subject.'

' 'Nuts,'' repeated Donovan, with the air of one uttering a talisman. ' 'Nuts, Maw.'' He drew reflectively on his cigarette. 'But are you sure it works? I’d like to try something like that on my old man, if I could muster up the nerve…'

'It takes a bit of doing,' Morgan admitted, rubbing his jaw. 'Colonel Standish can't manage it even yet. Of course, he got off on the wrong foot. The first time he tried it he only rushed up to her and said, 'Almonds, damme, almonds'; and waited for something to happen. And it didn't. So now—'

'I don't believe that story,' said Patricia defensively.

'He tells that to everybody' she appealed to Hugh, 'and it never happened at all. It—'

'On my sacred word of honor' said Morgan, raising his hand with fervor, 'it did. I was outside the door, and heard it. He came out afterwards and said he must have forgot the demnition countersign, and now he'd have to take cod-liver oil after all. But there you are; there's a good example… Try to find a murderer among people like that! We know these people. I can't seem to find one who would fit into the part; not one of the whole crowd we could hang for murder—!'

'Certainly.you can, dear!' his wife maintained stoutly. Her flushed face looked round at the others in some defiance. She swallowed a sip of her cocktail, said, 'Urk!' and then beamed on them. 'You just keep on trying, and you'll find somebody. I know you will.'

'But you don't need to find anybody, old boy,' said Patricia. 'This is real life, you see; that's the difference. This American Spinelli shot him, and there's no detective story plot about it.'

Morgan was stalking up and down, gesturing with his dead pipe. Even his striped blazer was growing indistinct in the dusk. He wheeled round.

'I am prepared to outline you a theory,' he declared, 'and to prove to you that what's-his-name didn't. I don't know whether I'm right. I’m only looking at it from poor old John Zed's viewpoint. But I shouldn't be surprised if it were true. Anyway, it's what I meant by saying the first part of it would make a good story… '

None of them had heard stolid footsteps coming along the road. But now an indistinct figure leaned over the gate, and seemed to be looking from one to the other of them. They could see the bowl of a pipe glowing.

'You still talking, eh?' growled a gruff voice, with a faint chuckle under it. 'May I come in?'

'What ho' said Morgan. 'Come in, J. R. Come in.' He was apologetic but determined. Td like to have you hear this, if you think I generally talk nonsense. Mr. Burke, this is the Bishop of Mappleham's son…'

CHAPTER X A Question of Keys

The great J. R. Burke came in with his short solid steps, head slightly down. Hugh could see him better when he moved out of the darkness near the gate, and into the faint glow that lingered over against the house. Patricia had correctly described him, except that now his large bald head was hidden under a sort of piratical hat with its brim turned up in front. A short, stocky man in a brown suit, who always seemed to be looking up at you in that squinting, sighting fashion over half-glasses. First he would preserve a Chinese-image expression, with the corners of his mouth drawn down. Then, as he seemed to see nothing dangerous on the horizon, he would grunt, assume a quizzical expression, and attain a faint twinkle of the eye.

This, as indicated, was the great J. R. Burke, potent discoverer of authors, manager of finances, and hater of books; urbane, genial, cynical, immensely well-read frequently drunk, and always at ease. He stumped across now, sighting at everybody.

'I've been sittin' on a log,' he grunted, with a sniff which seemed to indicate what he thought of nature in general. 'I hate sittin' on logs. If I sit on a log for two minutes, all the rest of the day I think things are crawling all over me… Hum. Let us have a little causerie?

Morgan brought out another chair, and he established himself. 'Go on talking,' he said to Morgan. 'You will anyhow. Humph. Eh? Yes, whisky, please. Ah! — that's enough. Stop a minute. They tell me Scotland Yard's sent Gideon Fell down to look into this business. Is that true?'

'It is. Do you mean to say you haven't been about all afternoon?'

'Good man, Fell,' said J. R. gruffly.

He spread himself out, squaring his arms; tasted his whisky, and then looked quizzically at everybody, blinking over the half-glasses. The pipe went back into his mouth.

'Humph,' he added. I’ve been taking a walk in quiet country lanes. I won't do it again. Every time I try to walk in quiet country lanes, they are suddenly as full of automobiles as Regent Street at five o'clock in the afternoon. Twenty times I was nearly run over by bicycles coming up behind. 1 hate being run down by bicycles; there is something insulting about being run down by bicycles, damn it. They sneak up on you. When you do see them, neither you nor the cyclist can decide which way to go; so you both stagger all over the road, and finally he sideswipes you with the handlebar. Humph.'

'Poor Mr. Burke!' said Madeleine, keeping her face straight with an expression of concern. 'Diddums get hit by a mean old bicycle?'

'Yes, my dear,' said J. R., and squinted sideways with his rifle-barrel glare, 'yes, I did. And on the main road. I was deliberately assaulted by a bicycle on the main road—after having successfully dodged twenty-four of them in all the back lanes of Gloucestershire. Fellow coming down this hill at a speed that ought to be prohibited. It's a blind corner. I didn't see him. Bang?

'Never mind, sir,' said Morgan consolingly. 'You were just off your game, that's all. You'll fool him next time.'

J. R. looked at him.

'Fellow got up off the road dizzy, and helped me get up. Then he said, 'Are you Mr. J. R. Burke?' I said yes. He said, I’ve got a telegram for you.' I said, 'Well, this is the hell of a way deliver it, isn't it?' Imagine his confounded nerve. 'What is your procedure,' I said, Svhen unusual circumstances compel you to deliver a telegram at somebody's house? Is it necessary to use a tank, or do you only wrap the telegram round a hand grenade and chuck it through the window?' ' Evidently satisfied by this retort, J. R. recovered some of his good humor. He growled something into his glass, and glanced sardonically at Morgan. 'By the way, it was from Langdon, Depping's solicitor in London. You people at The Grange — I don't suppose anybody thought to do that, eh? Fine practical minds. Suppose you thought his affairs would take care of themselves.'

'Any ideas,' said Morgan, 'about the murder?'