Thou Shell of Death by Nicholas Blake Page B

stiffened fingers of his right hand. His eyes were blank, but his black beard jutted out indomitably even in this hour of defeat, and some whimsy of death had set his lips into a smile—the half-impish, half-sardonic smile with which he had looked down the dinner-table only twelve hours before. Nigel never forgot that look. It seemed to forgive him for his own failure, to invite him to be amused at the way death had outwitted them both. But Nigel was very far from being amused. In a few days he had come to feel for O’Brien an affection and deep respect he had never felt for anyone but his uncle before. He had failed; and the completeness of that failure was the measure of his determination to win through to the truth in the end.
    ‘Keep still, and don’t touch anything!’ he snapped at his companion. Cavendish was not in a state to touch anything. He was standing against the wall, mopping his brow with a handkerchief, breathing heavily, and staring at the body and the revolver as though he expected the one to leap up and the other to explode at any moment. He made some incoherent sounds, then controlled his voice and said:
    ‘What on earth? Why did he—?’
    ‘We shall find out. Close that door—we don’t want everyone looking in. No! Keep your hands off it! Use your elbow.’
    Nigel made a hasty survey of the room and the adjoining cubicle. The bed had not been slept in. Nothing seemed out of place anywhere. The windows were shut and locked. The key was on the inside of the door. Nigel felt the oil stove; it was cold as O’Brien’s hand. The hut was icy, too. He looked round in a puzzled way, as though missing something.
    ‘I wonder where his—’
    ‘There’s Bellamy,’ interrupted Cavendish, standing at the window. ‘Shall I call him?’
    Nigel nodded absent-mindedly. Cavendish shouted ‘Bellamy!’ at the top of his voice; but the sound seemed deadened and, though he shouted again, it had no effect. Nigel opened the door, using a handkerchief to turn the handle. Arthur Bellamy was standing on the veranda, blinking into the sun and rubbing his eyes with his huge fists.
    ‘Arthur!’ he called. ‘Come over here, and keep off that single trail of footprints. Didn’t you hear us shouting for you?’
    ‘Can’t hear much from in there when the door’s shut,’ said Arthur, lumbering over the snow like a bear. ‘The Colonel had it sound-proofed like. Says ’e can’t work with the shindy the cocks and ’ens and whatnot make round about ’ere.’
    ‘That’s why no one was awakened by the shot,’ thought Nigel.
    ‘’Ere, wot is all this, Mr Strangeways, sir?’ said Arthur, now approaching the door and suddenly realising that there was something unusual in the situation. ‘Ain’t the Colonel in there? I was coming to call him. I overslept, you might say, and—’
    Nigel’s expression silenced him. ‘Yes, the Colonel is in here. But he won’t be working here any more,’ Nigel said gently, and let Arthur Bellamy come in.
    The big man staggered, as though he had collided with a wall. ‘So they got him!’ he gasped finally in a high, hoarse voice.
    ‘Who “got him”?’ asked Cavendish, bewildered. No one paid any attention to him. Arthur, who had been bending over O’Brien, straightened himself, as it were, with a giant effort—like Atlas with the sagging sky on his shoulders. Tears were pouring down his face, but his voice was firm as he said, ‘When I gets my hands on the—wot did this, I’ll beat his—carcase into a—paste, I’ll—’
    ‘Hold it, Arthur. Some of the others will be coming out in a minute.’ He drew the big man aside, and whispered to him quickly. ‘
We
know this isn’t a suicide, but it’s going to be damned difficult to prove. There’ll be no harm the rest thinking we think it’s suicide, for a bit. Pull yourself together now and act up.’
    Arthur acted up. ‘Strite, guv’nor? You’re sure it’s sooicide? Ar, the gun there and that scorching on his