Free What Happened at Hazelwood? by Michael Innes Page A

Willoughby said. ‘For goodness sake, stow it.’
    The night was full of surprises. For Willoughby to pitch a glass of sherry at Mervyn was one thing; for him to address an aunt like this was quite another. Even Hippias looked at him in befuddled surprise.
    ‘It’s a perfectly ghastly picture, anyway,’ said Willoughby. ‘The very worst sort of picture.’ He paused and sought fleeting comfort from the Caravaggio once more. ‘Do you know, every year they used to take me to Burlington House and then to luncheon at a horrible great hotel afterwards. And always I used to be sick going back to school on the train. I thought it was the luncheon, and every year I ventured to eat less and less. But I was always sick, just the same. And then I realized that it wasn’t the food but the Royal Academicians. Well, this very bad picture of uncle George is just that sort. Who wouldn’t heave a whiskey bottle through it? Not that I’d throw a bottle. I’d throw a–’
    ‘Willoughby,’ said Bevis, ‘you forget yourself.’
    It was, I suppose, all pretty comical, and they had all very abundantly forgotten themselves. But I wasn’t a bit amused. Jokes about the Royal Academy can scarcely be said to have the charm of novelty, and this one seemed altogether untimely. I could see that Willoughby was jabbering like this because he was upset; I could give him a good mark for being genuine about George’s beastly portrait as well as tiresome. But certainly I couldn’t be amused.
    Nor could Grace. From a chafing-dish she turned to a coffee-percolator – one that suddenly bubbles and erupts. ‘Willoughby,’ she screamed, ‘was it you who–’
    ‘Of course it was.’ Willoughby nodded savagely. ‘I’m roaring drunk and I pitched the bottle through the beastly picture.’
    There was an uncertain pause. Then Gerard spoke.
    ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘It was my father. Cousin George was here by the fireplace, and it is fair to say that he said something very insulting. My father, who had just returned to the room, picked up the bottle and threw it at him. It was a rash act.’
    ‘It was a deuced ineffective one.’ Bevis spoke abruptly, as on a sudden discovery. ‘Try to chuck a bottle towards the fireplace and succeed in hitting that picture? It doesn’t make sense.’
    Well, quite a lot just didn’t. And I was going to point out that Hippias, being a bit fuddled, must have got himself foxed by George’s absurd mirrors when there was another exclamation of surprise. This time it was from Gerard, who had walked over to examine the damage done to the picture.
    ‘It’s hinged!’ he exclaimed.
    We all turned to look – and were in time to see the remains of the pink-coated George swing outwards. What was revealed was nothing so very startling. In fact, it was merely a small safe let into the wall.
    But somehow the whole of the events of the evening seemed – quite irrationally – to fall into place as so much deliberate build-up for this discovery. Naturally George had a safe for his more private papers. And naturally it would be masked in just such a way as this. A wall-safe is as proper to a baronet as is a study, or a row of ancestors, or a pink coat.
    Yet we all looked at it much as if here was the truth revealed at last.

 
     
8
     
    Some nine hours later the winter sun rose for the last time on George Simney. It rose, too, upon a day full of incident. Indeed, I have something to record of the very moment in which I opened my eyes.
    At first I thought that Mervyn was prowling about my room; then I realized that it was Timmy Owdon. He had set down a tray and was putting considerable subdued rage into pulling back the curtains; the light caught his curls and the fine line of his nose; it was, after all, the best of the Simneys (I came wide awake reflecting) who had been born on the wrong side of the blanket.
    This didn’t prevent my feeling annoyed. For one thing, Timmy was apt to remind me of that day when I had