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Kenneth and the Tundish · The Dalehouse Murder

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  Chapter nine of The Dale House Murder by Francis Everton. This Liberty Box recording
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  is in the public domain. Read by yoganandt The Dale House Murder, Chapter
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  nine, Kenneth and the Tundish Ethel did not come down to dinner, and
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  altogether it was an unsatisfactory, unsatisfying meal. Jaded and worn out. We
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  were really in need of food. But the meat was neither hot nor cold,
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  the potatoes uncooked, ununeatable. Cook being evidently too overcome to attend to
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  such every day affairs. Annie, poor girl, looked tired out and not
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  a little ashamed at having to set such dishes before us. Indeed, she
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  nearly broke down altogether when she informed us that she was sorry, but Cook
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  had made no pudding. Why not not, Annie? What was she thinking
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  of? The Tundish, exclaimed She says, she's all of a flutter.
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  Sell, you know how she goes on. I'd have made you something rather
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  myself, while she told me nothing about it until it was too late.
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  You're a good girl, Annie, and it's no fault of yours. I'll
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  see Cook. Afterward. Margaret looked her amusement, and as usual, managed
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  to bring in one of her proverbial's sayings. This time it was passably apt.
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  However, fools rushing where angels fear to tread, she said, glancing
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  round the table brightly. Kenneth's lips curled. The doctor was interfering again.
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  The telephone bell rang a good half dozen times before we had finished, and
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  each time the Tundish quart up to answer it without murmur or protest. I
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  could hear his end of the conversation, which ran almost word for word alike
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  on each occasion. I'm sorry, but she's gon to lie down, and
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  I don't want to disturb her. Yes, very sad, indeed, sorry,
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  but I can't hear what you're saying. This line's very indistinct. Hello.
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  I let her know that you rang a rup. Then the receiver was
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  put up and he would return, looking amused. It's easy work on the
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  telephone, he laughed. It's all far too easy, was Kenneth's comment.
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  After dinner, we sat about uncomfortably, Margaret curling herself up like some large
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  cat in one of the big arm chairs and busying herself with her interminable knitting.
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  I felt that somehow it would have been in keeping with her had she
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  produced black wool, but it was still a pink jumper which had appeared at
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  many odd moments before that engaged her attention. The two boys strolled up and
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  down the garden for a time, and then they tried a game of chess.
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  I went out into the garden with a book and sat under the cidar
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  with the Tundish. We hardly spoke. He was really reading, I think,
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  from the regular way he turned the pages of his book. But try
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  as I might, my own thoughts would wander from the printed page and revert
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  to the day's events. But I could not think consecutively. Ethel had set
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  the seal of terror on us all when she had burst in on us at
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  breakfast time with her do come, I'm afraid. And from that moment,
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  while the sun had blazed and scorched, we had passed from distress to stress.
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  Now the shadow under the garden wall was broadening out across a larm toward
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  us. Would the darker shadow that seemed to threaten this uonderful man breathing so
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  calmly and so peacefully at my side, with its steady, inexorable encroachment,
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  darkenessed life and then blot him out forever? Or would a door in the
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  high wall open, slashing the shadow with the path of light, a down
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  which he would pass. Perched high on the center post of the arch that
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  spans the garden walk, where it peerss a hedge of a yew. A
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  thrush was filling the air with its limpid song, and when the deeper notes
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  of the chimes came booming down from the cathedral tower, he would stop a
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  while, bright head cocked, alert and listening. Then as he died away,
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  he would throw himself back and with throbbing throat, filled the air again
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  with pure ecstasy. The long hot day of death and horror was closing on
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  a note of peace. That was my hope as he sat in the mellowing
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  evening light. But the sun was not to set before I witnessed yet another
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  angry scene between Kenneth and the doctor. And Ralph came round to the end
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  of the house. As the thought crossed my mind, catching sight of es,
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  they halted, talking urgently together. Even from where I sat, I
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  could see that Kenneth was obstinately overriding advice that Ralph was giving. He stood
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  with his legs wider part, his hands thrust deep into his trowsy pockets,
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  his chin stuck out, stolid and determined to have his own way. Then
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  they hurried toward us. Ralph lagging behind a little, half reluctant, I
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  wondered what new trouble at Arizon. It was a medicine the thundersh had given
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  to Ethel. Margaret had told them about it. Kenneth was furious. I
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  say, is it true about you giving some medice to Ethel? He asked,
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  planting himself straight in front of the doctor's chair. Yes, quite true.
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  Have you any objection, the Tunish replied, gently, closing his book,
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  keeping his place with inserted finger and looking up with a slow smile in
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  a twinkling eye. Objection, I should think, I damned well have I?
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  For one, don't care for your way of making a prescriptions? Now,
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  well, if you should be taken ill, Kenneth and I have to
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  prescribe the medicine shall be made up at the chemist and delivered in a sealed
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  bottle. Now, if you will excuse me, I should like to get
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  on with my book. But Margaret says she has just been upstairs to find
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  out if Ethel wanted anything, and her bedroom door is locked and there's no
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  reply. When she knocked Ralph firshed, looking anxiously up at Ethel's bedroom window,
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  in which the blinds were drawn, My dear young friend, I told
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  her to lock it myself. I hope that Margaret hasn't waked her up.
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  Now, Please be sensible and let the poor girl have what rest she can
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  get. You can do no earthly good by making any bottle if I poison
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  Ethel's medicine, which I take it is a friendly suggestion, you are both
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  of you making. She's dead by now, and nothing that you or any
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  one else could do would save her. If I haven't, then isn't it
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  rather a pity to wake her up merely to satisfy your curiosity. That's a
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  logic of the position. But if you feel it to be your duty.
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  Can't have a word with Inspector Brown about its packing up his treasures prior to
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  departure. This I felt was taking things a little too calmly, and I
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  could understand the frown that had gathered on Ralph's dark face where the doctor was
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  speaking. Could not his behavior, which I had described to myself as calm
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  and un ruffled, perhaps be more aptly labeled callous and cold blooded, and
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  if so, what revision of ideas and estimates of possibilities might not then be
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  necessary. Kenneth had turned round and called out to the inspector at once as
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  he was on the point of opening the door into Dalehouse Lane. Ralph was
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  hesitant, but Kenneth took him by the arm and dragged him across the lawn.
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  While I watched them talking to the inspector, wondering with interest what that
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  stolid individual would advise him to do. The Tundish had returned to his book.
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  He was absorbed, immediately lost to the world. He had given them
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  his advice, and that apparently was the end of it as far as he
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  was concerned. After a few minutes conversation, Inspector Brown departed. A brief
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  consultation between the two boys followed, and then Kenneth came back to us alone.
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  We have decided to do as you are, he said, tersely,
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  thank you. I'm glad to hear it. Kenneth came a step nearer.
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  But if anything happens to Ethel, I'll I'll kill you. He spoke very
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  slowly and leaned over toward the doctor. His fists were clenched, and for
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  a moment I thought that he was going to strike. The tundush never moved
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  a muscle. Do the hangman out of one job and give him another.
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  That the idea. He laughed pleasantly, and returned once more to his interrupted
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  reading. Kenneth controlled himself with difficulty and stowed away. A boy went whistling
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  down the lane. The doctor continued his reading. I looked at him slyly
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  as he sat quietly engrossed by my side. I can't help sympathizing with Kenneth
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  and Ralph, You know, I said, it isn't that I suspect you
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  of having had anything to do with Stella's death. But but he interrupted quizzically.
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  I did not know how to finish my sentence, how to put into
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  words that would not offend the feeling I had that there was something foreboarding,
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  something suggested when his having made it medice pastella one night, and then again
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  after the terrible disaster for Ethel, the circumstances were too much, alike two
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  taper glasses, two come, Jeff Cock, he said kindly, when he
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  saw my hesitation. For heaven's sake, don't let the hot weather get on
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  your nerve stir. That's all very well, I reminded him. But you
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  must have had some very similar feelings yourself, or why did you want us
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  to witness your making up of Ethel's prescription? He looked at me and laughed
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  outright wrong again, I never felt a qualm. I wanted you and Margaret
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  in the dispensary for a very different reason. I am sure that my astonishment
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  was obvious, but he ignored my surprise and closed his books, saying now
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  I'm going to bed. Thank God, this awful day is over. It
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  was evident that I should get no further information from him as to his real
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  reasons for a presence in the dispensary. Even if I pressed him, the
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  subject was closed. We walked slowly across a bronze cotch lawn and back to
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  the house. In the whole we met cook, dirty and unkempt, a
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  wisp of greasy hair straggling across a pasty, unhealthy looking face. She was
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  on her way upstairs to bed. The Tundish was as good as his word
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  and asked her, rather sharply why the dinner had been so badly cooked.
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  She folded her arms across her floppy apple bosom, and layered at him offensively,
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  Come, grace, I want an answer to my question. She tilted
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  back, her ugly pasty face, half closed of beady eyes, and nodded
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  slowly backward and forward, the greasy wisp of hair waving ludicrously with every movement
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  that she made. The layer became an ugly smile, and then she laughed
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  aloud, a low, disturbing laugh. Fat red arms folded against her untidy
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  dress. She looked revolting as she stood there, nodding at his leering and
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  laughing in tense. The doctor gazed at her solemnly, unmowed, showing neither
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  annoyance nor the disgust that I felt myself. His steady eyes were disconcerting.
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  Her laughing ceased. Then she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth,
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  stuck her head forward at the doctor, and whispered hostly, I knows
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  what I knows, Doctor Alice. She waddled away unsteadily. I turned to
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  the tunis to see how he would take it. He was standing, immoveable,
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  and seen only the same morning had I seen him standing thus in the
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  doorway as we were having breakfast. His brains so deep in thought that his
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  eyes, while open wide, were blind, inanimate, and uncontrolled. Then
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  he had muttered, I can't have made a mistake. I simply can't have
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  made a mistake. But now he whispered, nearly inaudibly, I wonder what
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  she knows. Now, I wonder what she knows. He came back to
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  life with a start and a smile of amusement at his own abstraction, told
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  me that he was going straight to bed, as he half expected that he
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  might be called out in the early hours to a case of indisputable first aid.
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  And then, with one foot on the bottom stair, he turned to
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  me and said, and by the way, Jeff Cock, if you'll take
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  me advice, you'll lock your bedroom door to night. Then he said good
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  night and was gone. The end of chapter nine