Maurice Walsh - Nine Strings to your Bow

More particularly there was the final row Peter had with his Uncle Mark. The five years of his contract as estate manager were up and Mark wanted to renew, but Peter had refused. He had said he was going back to Canada. Old Mark had been extraordinarily mild about it and had offered to double his salary, so that he could settle down and find himself a wife. Peter had said, irritatingly, that he didn’t want the salary or a wife and that he was leaving for Canada on the Monday. After that Uncle Marcus ran true to form. He bellowed and most of his bellowing was abusive. He threatened to cut Peter out of his will. It was all heard by the servants and members of the family. Peter left the big house and stormed off to the Home Farm by himself.

The terms of the will which Mark Aitken had threatened to change did not help Peter’s case. There was every reason why Peter shouldn’t have wanted it changed. In Superintendent Mullen’s mind it clinched matters. Mark had made two wills, the first about ten years ago. In that one he left his estate between Peter, Barbara and Toby. But six months before his death he made a new will, the one which was valid now. Under its terms Toby was left three hundred pounds a year, to be paid out of the estate at the rate of twenty-five pounds a month as long as he lived, and the testator expressed the opinion that he would not live long. Barbara Aitken was left six hundred pounds a year until her marriage, at which time the annuity was to cease. The residue of the estate was left to Peter Falkner, and there were no strings attached to it. That residue was reasonably estimated as worth two hundred thousand pounds.

Con looked across the tops of the fresh tankards which Michael had brought to Peter Falkner. “I would like for once,” he said, “to hear your own account of what happened after that last quarrel with your Uncle Mark. I’d like to hear it without the objections and interruptions of the Crown Prosecutor.”

Peter sucked on the stem of his pipe, which had gone dead. “After that row with my uncle,” he said, “I needed a bit of calming down. I had in mind a discussion I’d had with Barbara. She and Hughes Everitt, to whom she’s engaged, were going fishing for salmon early the next morning. I told her the salmon would not be biting. She stubbornly insisted they would. It gave me the thought of fishing, which is as good a way as I know to cool off from a row. While I knew the salmon could not be had, I also knew that the sea trout could.

“About five-thirty I set out. It was grand fishing, and the trout were tricky and game and tender in the mouth. I kept at it until the light went about ten-thirty. By that time I had a bag full of eighteen beauties, averaging about a pound and a half. I found that I was at a bend of the river only a couple of fields away from the golf club. I decided to cross over and get one of the stewards to cook me a dish of bacon and eggs. In order to lighten my burden and to save my catch from some of the sharks at the club, I hid my fishing bag under the overhang of a sally-bush and laid my rod among its branches.”

“You weren’t afraid someone would find them and take them?” Con asked.

“It was all posted land,” Peter explained. “The only danger of that was from Charley Wells, the local poacher, and I wasn’t much worried about him. I’d run him off the place with a good beating a while back and I didn’t think he’d be in a hurry to catch another.”

“Go on,” Con said.

“I went to the club and had my supper. As a matter of fact I talked to several friends about my catch of fish. Among them was Hughes Everitt. He’s my best friend, you know. I swore him to secrecy, knowing he was going fishing with Barbara in the morning. She’s so blasted stubborn. After she’d failed to get any salmon I intended to produce my catch of trout to rub her nose in the dust. I meant to stop on my way home to pick them up. But that didn’t happen.”

“And why not?” Con asked.

“I got into a poker game in the club manager’s back room. It lasted until six in the morning. After that I shaved and bathed and got into some clean things I kept in my club locker. Then I started for Danesford House. You understand, it was a custom for us all to have Sunday breakfast at the big house.”

“How did it happen,” Con asked, “that your Uncle and cousins Barbara and Toby live at Danesford House, and you a mile away at the Home Farm? Not very clubby, was it?”

Peter took a deep drink from his tankard. “When I came back from Canada my Uncle and I were stepping round each other like two fighting cocks. I wasn’t forgetting he’d disapproved of my father, and suspected he disapproved of me. When he offered me the job of estate manager I took it, but it was a business contract. He expected me to live as a member of the family at Danesford House, but I chose to live at the Home Farm, which was built for the estate manager. I wanted no favours. I lived at the farm with Denis Buckley, the foreman. My one concession to the family tie with Uncle Mark, was those Sunday breakfasts.”

“I see. So you headed for Danesford House instead of the Home Farm when you left the club.”

“Right,” Peter Falkner said. “On the road Barbara and Hughes Everitt caught up with me in Barbara’s car. They’d been after their salmon and as I’d predicted, they’d got none. That reminded me of my own catch, and that I must get it after breakfast. Hughes winked at me when Barbara cursed out the salmon. He’d been a good fellow and kept my secret.”

“As I recall,” Con Madden said, “Marcus Aitken was not, after all, on hand for that Sunday’s breakfast.”

Peter nodded, frowning. “I thought nothing of it. It wasn’t unusual for him to be off on a tramp with his two wolfhounds. After breakfast I left Barbara and Hughes and started back along the mile of path to the Home Farm. I decided to send one of the farm boys to the bend in the stream to retrieve my fish and tackle.

“I was walking along the path at a good clip when I saw my uncle’s two wolfhounds lying down on the edge of a copse. I wasn’t surprised to see them, but I was surprised not to see my uncle about. Not that I wanted to, mind you. We’d probably only have renewed the quarrel of the day before. Then I noticed something. There was grass fringing the path, and I noticed the hounds were lying unusually high, as if they were resting on something. I walked through the grass to see what it might be. As I approached, the dogs showed their teeth and hackled and growled, fiercely. I was puzzled. Ordinarily they were friendly to me. As I drew closer they grew more savage. Then I saw they were lying on the body of a man.” Peter’s mouth drew together in a hard line.

“You didn’t recognize who it was at first?” Con asked.

“No. My first thought was that the dogs had turned man-killer and done in Charley Wells, the poacher. Then I saw the brown heather-mixture of the tweed jacket on the body, and I knew it was Uncle Mark.

“I couldn’t approach closer, with those two red-eyed angry dogs standing guard. I had to get help, and a gun with which to deal with the dogs if necessary. I was still thinking it was the dogs who had done him in. I ran to the Home Farm. My double barreled shotgun, which usually rested on hooks behind the door, was gone. I thought only at the time that some one of the farm hands had borrowed it for rabbit shooting. I phoned the police at Eglintoun. I told them where the body was and to bring a gun with which to deal with the dogs, as mine was missing. I started back for the scene of what I still thought was an accident, and was overtaken before I got there by the police, in the persons of Superintendent Mullen and Inspector Myles.

“They had to kill the dogs, finally, to get to the body. It was then they found that Uncle Mark had been shot through the spine and the back of the head, and that it had been no accident. It was murder.” Peter hesitated.