Marion’s eyes had acquired a certain fixity. Drawing a deep breath, she sat down very straight in one of the massive chairs and motioned him towards another.
“David, she telephoned. That’s extraordinary. Aunt Blanche hates the telephone and won’t touch it. But this time she was obliged to use it. She’d sent all the servants out of the house, she said; packed them off at a moment’s notice, and told them not to come back until late tonight. Some woman was going to call on her, she said mysteriously, and she didn’t care to be alone in the house. Could I come immediately and keep her company. Now, really!”
“Yes?”
Garth, who had remained standing, inclined his head. The light of two lamps shed a deathly pallor on the high gloss of furniture. Benares brass glimmered in corners.
“Uncle Sel spends every Wednesday and Friday evening at his club; he wouldn’t be here in any case. And Vince was out, as he usually is, so I couldn’t send him. Still, it was hardly eight o’clock. You had said you couldn’t be at Hyde Park Gardens before ten o’clock at the earliest I thought I really ought to humour this ridiculous whim of Aunt Blanche’s; at least I could return in good time.
“David, it wasn’t a ridiculous whim.
“First I was stupid enough to take a motor taxicab. And the driver was foolish enough to try that enormous long hill up Fitzjohn’s Avenue. The motor gave a jump and went dead before we were two-thirds of the way up. Then it seemed that the brakes weren’t going to hold, as they don’t half the time; we began to slip backwards; I could almost feel the car rolling all the way down out of control. That’s what would have happened if the driver hadn’t managed to wrench it over and stop with the left back wheel against the kerb.
“I daresay that’s not important, except that I was nervous. I walked the rest of the way, and through the gate in the wall out there, and up to the front door. The front door was partway open. It was still daylight, but Aunt Blanche kept all the blinds drawn on the ground floor. When I stepped inside it was dark. That was when I heard Aunt Blanche’s voice crying out.
“She was talking to someone on the upstairs landing. I could just see the two of them behind the balustrade along the landing up at the back of the hall. Aunt Blanche was repeating one word, over and over and over. David, the word was whore. That’s what she kept shouting: ‘Whore, whore, whore.’”
Marion paused.
All the flush and colour rushed back into her face. But the expression of the eyes remained fixed. Briefly, for one flash, the poise and stateliness dissolved; an adolescent peered out through those eyes.
Garth sat down in the carved chair opposite. He moved slowly. He sat there listening, his elbow on the chair-arm and his chin in his hand, without looking up.
“David, I never heard Aunt Blanche use that word before. All of a sudden she stopped, and didn’t say anything at all. There was an odd kind of noise. I ought to have gone straight up the front stairs. But I didn’t; I ran through the house and up the back stairs. By the time I got there, on the front landing near Aunt Blanche’s room—well, you were right. That woman had her by the throat.
“Aunt Blanche was face down on the straw matting. The other woman was bending over with her back to me. Then I shouted something, and she looked round. There’s a coloured-glass window at one end of the landing. She was about as far away from me as I am from you. I jumped at her and raised my arms like this. And she ran straight down the front stairs.
“The front door was wide open; I thought she was making for that, when she groped round and ran back like a blind person. I shouldn’t have understood, except that I fell over Aunt Blanche. If you’re near the floor on the landing up there, you can look out through the balustrades to the front gate. There was a policeman out at the gate, looking in.
“The policeman went on. It was a warm night, and not dark; he must have thought the open gate and door were all right The woman didn’t see him go. There’s only one other way out of a house like this: down the enclosed cellar-stairs from a door under the main stairs, and through the cellar to a basement-entrance at the side of the house. She made for it.
“This is the silliest part, now. All I could think was, “We’ve got her, we’ve got her.’ When she ran down into the cellar, I followed as far as the door to the cellar stairs. It’s got a big heavy bolt on this side. I shot the bolt, and held it in place and completely forgot there weren’t any servants down there waiting. All she had to do was open the basement door from inside, and go out by the side gate without being seen.
“I was still holding the bolt when I heard the basement door open and slam. It was so quiet I thought I heard her running to the gate, though I may have imagined that. Then I was alone, and it was beginning to get dark, and Aunt Blanche was lying up there without moving.”
Again Marion paused.
“I see,” observed Garth.
“David dear,” Marion said in a totally different voice, “how very tiresome this must be for you! And how dreadfully tiresome I must seem too!”
It was as though no storm of weeping had ever existed. Marion rose up. She had dropped the lace handkerchief; the palms of her hands were pressed together. Five feet eight in height, statuesque again, she sauntered across towards the fireplace.
“It was all very dreadful about Aunt Blanche,” she added, turning with her back to the mantelpiece, “and nobody feels it more deeply than I do. But it might have been very much worse, you know.”
“No doubt.” Garth followed her with his eyes. “When you discovered this intruder had disappeared, Marion, what did you do?”
“Really—!”
“What did you do? Did you communicate with the police?”
“No, I did not. Whatever would have been the good? Besides, think of the talk! Think what people might say!”
“You didn’t report an attempted murder because it might cause talk?”
“My poor darling David, that’s how the world is. I learned it when I was fourteen years old, thanks very much, and I’ve never forgotten. When Aunt Blanche recovers, and she’s able to talk to me or you or anyone else, I’m sure she’ll be the first to agree.”
“Possibly she will. But you haven’t told me what you did?”
“I telephoned to Dr. Fortescue, of course. He was here within two or three minutes, and between us we got the poor, silly old woman into bed.”
“Did you tell him the story you have just told me?”
“I didn’t tell him anything, dear.”
“You understand, I hope, that Dr. Fortescue will have to report this affair to the police? If, in fact, he hasn’t already done so?”
“No, David, I’m afraid I don’t understand anything of the kind. Dr. Fortescue won’t say a word. He’ll stand by us. People always stand by us.”
“I see. A certain woman, whoever she was, brutally attacked and nearly killed Mrs. Montague on the upstairs landing. Aren’t you at all concerned, Marion? Don’t you want to see her punished?”
“Oh, I want to see her punished.” The pale-blue eyes slid sideways. “I don’t think anyone will ever, ever know,” Marion breathed, “how much I want to see her punished and make her suffer! But I’ll manage in my own way, if you don’t mind.”
“Did you recognize this woman?”
“‘Recognize’ her?”
“Had you ever seen her before?”
“Great heavens, no. How absurd!”
“Do you know who she is?”
“No.”
“Can you think of a reason why anyone should want to kill Mrs. Montague?”
“Really, David, I make no pretensions to being a mind-reader. Why ever do you ask?”
“If you never saw her before, and don’t know who she is or what motive she may have had, it may be a trifle difficult to find her unless the police do. For instance, could you describe her?”
“She looked…well! I won’t use that word again; it’s repulsive and disgusting. But she looked to be just what poor Aunt Blanche said she
was.”
“We were speaking of her appearance, Marion, not her character. Can you describe that appearance?”
“Quite easily. She was about thirty, probably older. Shorter than I am: oh, four or five inches. Brown hair and eyes. Not very pretty, but I daresay tolerable enough for that profession.”
“How was she dressed?”
“Her clothes were quite good. Tailored jacket and skirt of Navy-blue serge: from Redfern’s, I should think. Stiff-pleated white blouse with lace at the neck. Small gold watch: Garrard or Lambert, it might be. Sailor straw hat with a blue-and-white band.”
“By the way, Marion, at what time did you see her? Can you remember that too?”
“Oh, near enough! It was…David.”
She broke off.
Both of them had been speaking in studiously moderate tones, Garth with apparent disinterest and Marion addressing the wall between the two front windows. A pallor of lamplight shone on the sleek red hair piled above Marion’s ears, and on golden-oak furniture, and in the glass eyes of the tiger’s head high over the mantelpiece. The unpleasant atmosphere in this house (and Garth suddenly believed he knew its source) had so infected them both that Marion went rigid when they heard a footstep in the foyer.
“David,” Marion repeated.
Garth sprang up, went out into the foyer, and almost collided with Vincent Bostwick.
“My dear old boy,” drawled the equally startled Vince, who was wearing a grey summer suit and carrying a bowler hat, “are you stalking your prey or something?”
“I wish I could say I weren’t.”
They looked at each other.
“There was rather a curious note from Marion,” Vince said in a louder voice, “when I got home.”
“Marion’s here, Vince. She’s in there.”
“Yes, old boy, but doesn’t anybody ever answer the door? I must have knocked for five minutes.”
“I’m afraid we didn’t hear you. We were talking.”
“Dash it, somebody might have heard me! I even went round and down those steps to the basement door at the side. There’s a night-light in the kitchen; you can see it through the glass panel. But nobody answered; the place was locked up like a fortress. Back I came to the front door, on this Walpurgis night, and blow me to Bedminster if the ruddy front door hadn’t been unfastened and on the latch after all. Greetings, old chap. I took the unusual course of just walking in.”
“Vince, this isn’t funny. All the servants are out. There’s nobody here except—”
Garth stopped suddenly.
Perhaps Vince didn’t think it funny either, though his air of amiability never wavered. In the long face, its planes and hollows sunburnt or windburnt, little amusement-wrinkles deepened. His crisp hair, parted in the middle, had begun to turn dry at the temples. Through Garth’s mind a dozen images of Vince Bostwick, so deceptively different from the idler’s look he showed the world, all ended in an image of Vince with Betty Calder.
Forget that! Forget it!
“Vince, are you sure?”
“Eh? Sure of what?”
“That the basement door is locked on the inside?”
“If we’re going to be precise,” retorted Vince, “I’m not sure the key is turned in the lock, no. But that door has a couple of good fool-the-burglar bolts, one at the top and one at the bottom. I’m pretty sure they’re fastened. Does it make any odds?”
“Yes. There’s been an accident. Go in and see Marion.”
“What kind of accident?”
“Go in and see Marion.”
Vince went.
Small night-noises creaked and crackled in the foyer. Its walls were panelled to head-height in dark oak; above it stretched roughish material like dull-red burlap. On the newel-post of the stairs a bronze figure of Diana, not very convincingly holding up one electric bulb, illumined stair-carpet, stair-rods, and the balustrade of the upper landing that faced the front door.
Garth glanced round.
He went to the back of the staircase. The entrance of the enclosed steps leading to the cellar, as Marion had said, was cut off by a door still heavily bolted. Garth drew the bolt, pressed an electric switch just inside, and went down into a cavern.
If the atmosphere of any house has grown oppressive enough for suicide, it may have been infected by too much emotion that has found outlet. “I can’t stick this place,” we have heard people say; “let’s clear out.” And if such feelings have been repressed, repressed and denied because they are thought to be abnormal or unnatural, the caged prisoner may become even more dangerous.
Garth explored that cellar. He moved through kitchen, servants’ hall, pantry, larder, and laundry, turning on lights and watching blackbeetles scurry away. He looked into coal-bin as well as wine-cellar. Every semi-underground window had a locked catch and was sealed up with grime.
It was true that in the kitchen, the first as well as the last room he studied, the key had been turned to an open position in the lock of its big outside door. It was also true that both small tight bolts, top and bottom, remained fastened in their sockets. He needed a wrench of the wrist to open them.
An old-fashioned rush-light burned blue on the coal cooking range built into the flue of the chimney, bringing memories of his own boyhood. Its reflection glimmered in the glass panel of the door. Garth may have been in that cellar ten minutes; his footsteps rang on the wooden stairs as he hastened back. In the drawing-room, alone, Marion Bostwick sat back smiling at him.
“Marion, where is Vince?”
“He went up to see Aunt Blanche.” Marion lowered her eyes. I said the doctor had given her morphine.”
“Did you tell him what happened?”
“Of course I did. Can’t you feel the air shaking, sort of? He’s upset, poor old boy. Good heavens, not that I blame him! David, weren’t you asking me something just before Vince got here?”
“I was.”
“About the time I saw that woman?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t pin me down in the matter of a minute or two?”
“No.”
Marion walked her fingers along the arm of the golden-oak chair. They slid out, sinuously questing, to touch his sleeve just above the left wrist. No doubt she did not mean to use her sensual allure, which was strong, but it flowed up from the expression of eyes and mouth when Marion lifted her head.
“I was very late, as I told you, from that wretched accident with the motor taxicab. I walked the rest of the distance. When I came in by the front door, it must have been about ten minutes to nine.”
“Are you sure of that?”
“Yes. Quite sure. Oh, David, stop!”
She did not explain what she meant by “stop.” Garth ignored it.
“You gave quite a good description of this woman, Marion. Would you recognize a photograph of her?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Reaching into his inside breast pocket, he extracted the note-case and took out a glossy-paper Kodak snapshot about the size of a postcard. It showed Betty Calder on the beach near her cottage, facing the morning sun, and behind her the bathing-pavilion built on its low stilts above the tide.
“Is that the woman you saw?”
“David, where did you get this?”
“Is that the woman you saw? Look at it, please. Is that the woman you saw?”
“Yes. Yes, it is! She doesn’t wear stockings with a bathing-costume, does she? You don’t know her, do you?”
“Yes, I know her quite well. Her name is Calder. She is the widow of a former Governor of Jamaica, and we are to be married some time this year.”
“Oh, my God,” Marion whispered after a pause. “Oh, my God.” Her hands flew to her cheeks.
For all his assurance, for all his quiet speech, Garth’s heart gave a painful bound and seemed to be choking him. What peered out of Marion’s eyes was horror, commiseration, real affection.
“It doesn’t matter what you’ve already said,” he
insisted, “provided you say it only to me. Or to Vince, if it comes to that. Don’t go on saying it, that’s all. You haven’t been telling the truth, now have you?”
“But I have been telling the truth! I have! Every word!”
If he had not known better, he could have sworn Marion believed this. Garth controlled his voice.
“Marion, listen. At ten minutes to nine this evening, Betty Calder was at my house in Harley Street. She must have been talking to an assistant of mine named Michael Fielding. I myself can testify she was there at just nine o’clock; I was exactly on time for a professional appointment with—” He checked himself.
“With whom?”
“It doesn’t matter. Let me stress the important fact. The house is so far from here that a matter of a few minutes, or ten minutes or even twenty minutes, makes no difference at all. Betty Calder couldn’t possibly have been at Hampstead either before or after the time you say she was.
“That’s point number one; it’s irrefutable. The second point is equally strong. A while ago you told me this ‘mysterious woman’ ran out of the house by the basement door and slammed it when she left.”
“And I still say so! It’s true!”
“Marion, did you go down into the cellar at any time?”
“No! No, of course not!”
“Did anyone else go down there? Dr. Fortescue, for instance?”
“No; why ever should they?”
“Well, I did. The basement door was still secured with two tight stiff bolts until I opened them a few minutes ago. A combination of Messrs. Maskelyne and Devant themselves couldn’t have gone out by that way and left the door fastened on the inside. Even if you were mistaken about hearing the door open and close, your ‘mysterious woman’ couldn’t have got out through a window; they’re locked too. She couldn’t have returned by way of the foyer; you yourself bolted the door to the cellar-stairs and left it bolted. And she’s not there now.”
“My poor David,” cried Marion; who seemed less angry than badly upset on his behalf, “you’re very much in love with this creature, aren’t you?”
The Witch of the Low Tide Page 5
