Джорджетт Хейер - Why Shoot a Butler

"Not the fifth, dear. The fourth," corrected Lady Matthews.

"I won't step on either," promised Amberley.

Left alone downstairs he wandered into the library and went over to the bookshelves to choose some suitable literature. He presently retired to the chair by the desk armed with Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, and sat reading for over an hour, the telephone at his elbow. Occasionally he glanced at his wrist watch and as the time wore on, he frowned.

Shortly after midnight the telephone bell rang shrilly.

Amberley lifted the receiver off the hook and said: "Hullo?"

The conversation was a very short one and confined on Amberley's part to three words only. He listened to what the voice at the other end had to say, replied: "All right. Thanks," and hung up the receiver. Then he consulted his pocketbook and rang up a number in Upper Nettlefold. After a prolonged wait the man at the exchange informed him that there was no answer. Mr. Amberley suggested gently that the exchange could try again. There was another pause, then a slightly testy and very sleepy voice said. "Ullo!" with undue emphasis.

Mr. Amberley grinned. "Good evening, Sergeant. How are you?"

The voice lost its testiness. "Is that you, Mr. Amberley? What is it, sir?"

"I just rang up to know whether you were asleep," said Mr. Amberley.

The voice became charged with indignation. "Look here, sir — !"

"And if you were, to wake you up. Are you asleep, Sergeant?"

"No, sir, I am not — thanks to you! And if this is one of your little jokes…'

"Are you feeling fit, Sergeant? Full of energy and enthusiasm?"

There was a sound of heavy breathing. "One of these days," said the voice with emotion, "something'll happen to you, sir."

"Well, let's hope so anyway," said Mr. Amberley.

"I do," said the voice grimly. "Keeping me standing here in my nightshirt while you ask me silly conundrums!"

"I don't want to keep you in your nightshirt," said Mr. Amberley. "I feel sure I should hate you in it. Go and dress."

"Go and… Here, sir, what's this all about? What have I got to dress for?"

"Decency," said Mr. Amberley. "I'm coming to fetch you for a little run in my car. I shall be round in about fifteen minutes. So long!"

A quarter of an hour later he picked the sergeant up outside his house and drove him away through the town to Ivy Cottage. The sergeant was in a state of high expectation and demanded instantly to know what they were going to do. Mr. Amberley said that they were going to collect a little evidence. "I rather think, Sergeant, that you will watch a man break into Ivy Cottage."

"Will I?" said the sergeant. "If I was to see anything like that I wouldn't waste time goggling at it, sir. I'd arrest him."

"When we make an arrest it's going to be on a charge of murder, not of housebreaking," said Amberley briefly.

He ran the car up the lane about a hundred yards past Ivy Cottage, rounding the next bend, and there switched off all his lights. The sergeant had not known that Shirley Brown had moved to the Boar's Head until Amberley told him. He wanted to know whether she had given Amberley the key, and when Amberley replied that he had taken it without her knowledge, he said uneasily that he hoped he was not going to get into trouble over this.

The cottage was very silent, lit dimly by the moonlight that came in through the uncurtained windows. Amberley told the sergeant to close the kitchen shutters and went off himself to draw the curtains in the other rooms.

"I see," said the sergeant brightly. "Make it look as though the young lady was still here. Then what do we do?"

"I'll tell you in a minute," Amberley promised.

When he had made his tour of the cottage he rejoined the sergeant in the kitchen and set his torch on the table. "Now, Sergeant, if you'll attend to me for a minute," he said. "With any luck you may be able to make that arrest you're so keen about. What I want you to do is to go upstairs and get into bed. If you hear anyone coming up the stairs, pull the clothes well over you. I rather think we're going to have a visitor."

"Is that all I've got to do?" said the sergeant. "Because if it is I'd as soon be in my own bed."

"Not at all, Sergeant. You're going to play the part of the dummy. If our visitor tries to suffocate you or chloroform you, collar him."

"I will," said the sergeant with feeling. "Do you mean to tell me that Albert Collins is going to do in the young lady?"

"No, I do not," replied Amberley. "No one is going to do her in if I can help it." He held his wrist in the beam of torchlight and looked at his watch. "To be on the safe side you'd better go up now. Don't make any mistake, will you? Unless he attempts to murder you keep quiet, but try to get a look at him."

The sergeant prepared to go upstairs. "Well, I don't know," he said. "Seems funny to me. I'm trusting you Mr. Amberley, but I don't half like it, and that's the truth."

He went heavily up, and in a few moments a prodigious creaking announced that he had got into bed.

Amberley, left alone in the kitchen, set the door ajar and sat down on one of the wooden chairs and switched off his torch. Only the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece broke the stillness.

The minutes crawled by. Upstairs in Shirley's narrow bed the sergeant strained his ears to catch any sound and wondered why he had not suggested that Mr. Amberley should be the dummy. He did not think he was a nervous man, but waiting in the dark for someone to come and murder one was a bit thick. He made up his mind to speak about it to Mr. Amberley. As ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed he grew impatient. A doubt shook him. Could this be a practical joke, and had that young devil gone off home? He wouldn't put it above him; he had good mind to go downstairs and see whether Amberley was still there. On second thoughts he abandoned the idea. Even Amberley wouldn't do this for a joke.

The wardrobe creaked and gave him a bad fright. He felt a cold shiver run down his spine and hoped that Mr. Amberley was keeping a sharp lookout. He had barely succeeded in convincing himself that the creak really had come from the wardrobe when a long, eerie cry made him start up, clutching at his revolver. The cry was repeated and the sergeant drew a shuddering sigh of relief: He remembered that when he was a lad he had once shot and stuffed an owl. He was very glad he had; he wished he'd shot a few more while he was about it.

He lay down again cautiously. Mr. Amberley was keeping very quiet downstairs. Cool as a cucumber, he wouldn't wonder. Perhaps he wouldn't be quite so cool if he was lying up here waiting for someone to come and try to murder him.

A mouse gnawing at the wainscoting gave the sergeant a moment's uneasiness. He hissed at it, and it stopped.

Then a different sound broke the silence; the sergeant could have sworn he heard the garden gate open. The hinge was rusty and it gave a faint squeak. He took a firm hold of the coverlet and listened.

In the kitchen Mr. Amberley had risen silently from his chair and moved behind the door. The cottage was in pitch darkness. The clock's ticking seemed to reverberate through it.

There was the sound of a tiny chink coming from the living-room window. The frame creaked as though something had been forced between the two sashes. Then there was a snap as the bolt securing the upper and lower half together was forced back. It was followed by a few moments' silence.

Mr. Amberley waited, standing close to the crack of the door.

The living-room window was being pushed gently up from the outside; it stuck a little, and Amberley heard a hand slip on the glass. The betraying sound was again followed by absolute stillness, but after a moment the window was thrust up farther and the curtains were parted, letting in the pale moonlight.