“Mr. Bostwick,” he said, with somewhat ominous suavity, “you may perhaps remember having met me. In my own small way I do represent the police. And there seem to be several things about which Dr. Garth has not informed me. Sir, may I beg leave to accompany you in the car?”
“Sir,” replied Vince, “you may. There are things Dr. Garth hasn’t told me either.”
Vince strode to the still-open front door, and made a gesture to the chauffeur at the wheel of the Daimler.
“All right, David! I won’t ask you. But does this mean we’re approaching the end of the road?”
“Yes, Vince,” said Garth. “I think we may be approaching the end of the road. One moment!”
“If we’re bound to go through with this,” and Vince was his old casual self again, “let’s get on with it. What’s the trouble now?”
“I have a small errand first. No, wait! I shall not be long.”
The chauffeur had climbed out of the car, carrying its starting handle. Motioning the others to remain where they were, Garth returned to the little library.
He went quickly to the writing-desk by the fireplace, but he did not at once sit down. He could hear, against a quiet night, the creak and thump, creak and thump, as that starting-handle wrenched against a reluctant motor. It might have symbolized Garth’s own state of mind.
From his inside pocket he took out half a dozen sheets of writing-paper folded lengthways, and weighed them in his hand as though he weighed them in a scales: the uncertainties, the risks, the horrifying consequences that might follow a wrong decision.
And there must be no wrong decision. There must be no mistake now.
Then the car-engine roared into life, settling to a steady throb. Garth sat down. He took a long envelope from the rack, slipped the folded sheets inside, and in firm characters wrote someone’s name across the envelope.
PART IV
THE DEADFALL
Derby Street, on the E. side of Parliament Street, leads to New Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police since 1891. The turreted building, in the Scottish baronial style, was designed by Norman Shaw, and is impressive by the simplicity of its outline and the dignity of its mass.
—Baedeker’s London and Its Environs for 1908
17
“COME IN, DOCTOR,” SAID Colonel Selby.
The foyer of the house loomed out of shadows. Its bronze Diana on the newel-post of the staircase, holding up an electric light seldom found in classic mythology, seemed no less fusty than walls panelled to head-height in oak and papered above with some material like dark-red burlap.
But no such fustiness could apply to Colonel Selby himself. Iron-grey and balding, thick-set and clean-shaven, he faced them with a bearing of power and authority only slightly tempered with fright.
Behind those eyes, Garth knew, would be a kind of fanatic: over-dogged, over-scrupulous, in the smallest detail of conduct. His professional costume, the uniform of retirement, was the same frock coat with silk lapels, set off by white waistcoat and broad black cravat, he had worn on Friday evening.
“Come in, Doctor,” he repeated. “Got to open the front door myself. Sorry! Blanche (Mrs. Montague, that’s to say) dismissed the servants—”
“Again?” Garth was thinking. Alarm shot through his mind. But the next words reassured him.
“For the time being, that’s to say, while we were in Fairfield. They’re not back yet. Didn’t expect to be back ourselves.”
“That’s my fault, I’m afraid.”
“Not at all! Best thing that could have happened, maybe.” The heavy voice hesitated. “Hullo! I wasn’t expecting…”
“What’s got into everybody?” demanded Vince Bostwick. “You were expecting me, surely? I spoke to you on the telephone not so very long ago.”
“Oh. That! Yes, to be sure. When your voice answered, my boy, I’d an idea the doctor himself wasn’t very far away.”
“Then you must be a ruddy mind-reader!”
“Think so? Not necessarily.”
“Anyway,” said Vince, “I don’t believe you’ve met Mr. Cullingford Abbot here. Mr. Abbot is—”
“On the contrary,” interposed Abbot, his eyeglass gleaming, “I’ve had the pleasure of meeting this gentleman at the Oriental Club. Your servant, Colonel Selby.”
“Your servant, sir.” By instinct Colonel Selby straightened up stiffly. But some repressed emotion made his face swell. “Yes, I remember,” he added, towering above Abbot as the latter entered. “You were the one who telephoned here on Saturday morning, weren’t you?”
“I was.”
“Spoke to my manservant before he left? Asked if you could have a word with Mrs. Montague?”
“I did. It might be pointed out, furthermore,” retorted Abbot, “that I have not yet exchanged one word with the lady or so much as had a glimpse of her even at Fairfield.”
“And now, I daresay, you want to thrash the whole matter out? Well, never mind. Maybe that’s best. Come in, please. Come in, all of you.”
Colonel Selby glanced at the door of the drawing-room, which was uncompromisingly closed. Unsure of himself, unsure of all things, he hammered the heel of his hand against his forehead. Then he led them to his den at the back of the foyer.
The green-shaded gas-lamp was burning on his desk in the den. Its light shone on brown-leather chairs and was reflected in the glass of a rifle-cabinet above which loomed so many bound copies of The Field. The tiger-skin lay by the fireplace. Round the walls, high up, animal-heads bared their fangs against dark wallpaper obscurely patterned in dull gold.
“Look here,” Colonel Selby went on in a conciliatory tone, addressing Abbot. “I had rather, of course, the police didn’t question Blanche just yet—”
“Indeed? If you have something to hide—?”
“Hide? What in blazes do you mean by that, sir?”
“One moment!” said Garth.
It may have been the effect of the animal-heads, like a gallery of frozen violence. It may have been the fact that three persons had committed suicide in this house. Certainly Garth felt the tainted atmosphere as soon as he entered the foyer. So, plainly, did Abbot.
For the first time Abbot had encountered someone who could match and outface him at his own game of authority. Though Colonel Selby might be less intelligent and far less sensitively perceptive, he had an advantage that did not lie in mere height or bulk. Yet it became clear that Abbot, moustache lifting above his teeth, could give as good as he received.
“Mrs. Montague,” said Colonel Selby, “is prepared to answer any questions from Dr. Garth. She is not at the disposal of any Scotland Yard jack-in-office who chooses to intervene. I won’t try to prevent her being questioned, mind! Maybe that’s best. Still! There can be no harm done, can there, if Dr. Garth goes upstairs and speaks to her first?”
“Yes, I think there can be,” Abbot said coolly. “Dr. Garth has already spoken to the lady today, I believe?”
“Yes. At Fairfield. What of that?”
“He has had his chance,” said Abbot, “and he has failed. Even if the twenty-four-hours’ grace to Lady Calder and Mrs. Bostwick had not expired some time ago, I made no promise about Mrs. Montague. What I did make—” again the moustache lifted above the teeth—“was a foolish promise which has earned me only a reprimand from the Commissioner. At my age, sir, I do not enjoy being treated as a schoolboy. Now it’s time to use my own wits.”
“One moment!” Garth said again.
Reaching into his inside pocket, he took out the envelope across which was written the name of Mrs. Blanche Montague.
“There is no need for anyone to question her,” Garth went on, “if we permit her to make her own response. Colonel Selby, will you undertake to deliver this to Mrs. Montague?”
“What is it? Will it upset her?”
“Yes,” Garth answered honestly, “I am bound to admit it will upset her. But it is the only way out.”
“What is it, I asked?
”
“It’s a statement of certain facts known to her, and, I think, to you as well. I can only hope it will be persuasive. Will you take the statement, Colonel Selby? And make sure she reads it?”
“I will take the statement, by your leave,” said Cullingford Abbot.
Garth swung round.
“No, Abbot, you will not. If we are to avoid scandal and a good deal worse, no one must see this except Mrs. Montague and Colonel Selby.”
“Aren’t you forgetting, my dear fellow, that I represent the Commissioner of Police?”
“No. Nor am I forgetting we must wreck no more lives than we need. Well, Colonel Selby?”
“Avoid scandal, you said?”
“I can’t swear it will. I can only hope so.”
“Then give it me,” said Colonel Selby, stamping forward and thrusting the envelope into his own breast-pocket. “Mind! If you don’t want anybody else to see this, I can’t hand it over now. Marion’s with her—”
“Marion’s with her?” exclaimed Vince Bostwick. Abbot’s face had gone rather grey at this apparent treachery on Garth’s part. Vince, who had been standing by the rifle-cabinet with his back turned and his hand on its ledge, moved slowly round as though supporting himself.
“Marion is with her?” he repeated.
“Yes. They’re up in Blanche’s room with the door locked. God’s thundering guns,” said Colonel Selby, “but what’s so very surprising about that? Before she married you, Vincent, this was the girl’s home. Where else should she go if she’s unhappy? We—we may not approve things we hear of. And preach sermons, maybe, at ourselves and everybody else. When the pinch comes, though, we stand by our own. Got to! What else can we do?”
“May I beg, Colonel Selby,” snapped Cullingford Abbot, “you will spare us your own brand of prosing?”
“Now look here—”
“I assume, sir, you refuse to hand over that envelope in your pocket?”
“By God, sir, you assume dead right.”
“Then would you mind taking me to Mrs. Montague at once?”
Colonel Selby nodded curtly. He had marched forward, with a bald and lowering forehead, when a new thought struck him.
“Got your legs?” he asked. “Good! Up the staircase; first door on the landing at the head of the stairs. Can’t miss it. You’ll hear ’em talking.”
Nodding in reply, eyeglass turned over his shoulder almost as though his neck were dislocated, Abbot left the study with a noiseless step. Colonel Selby breathed noisily.
“No, Vince,” Garth said; “stay where you are.”
“I was only—”
“Vince, stay where you are.”
Anguish flowed in that garish room under the animal-heads. In contrast to most of its decoration was the old swivel-chair before their host’s neat desk, with the light of the gas-lamp shining on it Colonel Selby groped for the swivel-chair. It creaked underneath him as he sat down, his hands suddenly pressed over his eyes.
“Colonel Selby,” continued Garth, looking steadily at Vince, “this is not a pleasant time for anyone. I am loath to disturb you. It’s only that you telephoned me a while ago. Vince couldn’t or wouldn’t give me a message.”
“Oh. Yes. To be sure.” With an effort the other seized and found thought in a kind of physical action. He rose to his feet, his face smoothing itself out. “Probably nothing in it. But you can’t tell. Not now! Not any longer! Er—at Fairfield today, Doctor, I had the idea (sorry!) you were interested in this girl Lady Calder.”
“Yes. I am very much interested in her. Why do you say that?”
“Well! When she called here tonight…”
The atmosphere changed again.
“Lady Calder is here?”
“Yes! Steady! Called here about an hour ago, wanting to see Marion. Marion answered the door. Things didn’t seem quite right between ’em. They went up to Marion’s old room, and seemed to be having a bit of a slanging-match.” Colonel Selby made a gesture. “Never interfere between two women, Doctor; you’ll soon learn that when you live in the same house. Anyway! It’s not what I wanted to tell you.”
“What did you want to tell me?”
“This police-officer, chap named Twigg…”
Garth stood very still. “Yes?”
“He got here ten or fifteen minutes later, and I answered the door. Said that fellow Abbot sent him. Well! No reason he shouldn’t be here, but be seemed to be trailing your friend.”
“Yes?”
“Just then Marion and Lady Calder came downstairs. Pretty little thing, too. Like the other one, only honest-looking. Twigg went at her in a stalking kind of way, like a beater through the bush after a tiger, and shooed her into the drawing-room.” Colonel Selby broke off. “Damme, Doctor, what’s wrong? I can’t see to everything.”
“No. I beg your pardon. Where are they now?”
“Still in the drawing-room, I daresay! Why not?”
“And Mrs. Bostwick?”
“Marion ran back up the stairs to Blanche’s room.” Sweat stood out on Colonel Selby’s forehead. “Later I wondered—”
“Yes. So do I.”
“I told you it wasn’t all gas and gaiters, didn’t I?” interposed Vince Bostwick, pointing a long finger. “I told you it’s not easy when you lose your head and your heart and everything else that keeps the world steady and the rest of us sane. Possibly you believe that now, old boy. Or don’t you?”
Garth did not answer.
Flinging open the door of the den, he went out into the foyer more quickly than Abbot had moved. Vince, to do him justice, could not maintain a kind of cynical frenzy that went into his question; Vince’s expression changed, and he followed.
The foyer had never seemed so ominous in its quiet. Garth ran to the door of the drawing-room. He knocked, and knocked again, before opening that door too. The drawing-room was empty.
Golden-oak furniture and starched lace-curtains mocked him under the pale lamps. The tiger’s head—had they spoiled the tiger’s hide in skinning it, so that only its head remained for a trophy?—opened fangs above the mantelpiece. Garth ran back to Vince, who was standing in the middle of the foyer.
“Vince, you’re acquainted with this house. I’m not. Go up and look in ‘Marion’s old room,’ wherever that is. Look in at Mrs. Montague’s room too. Betty and Twigg are here somewhere. We’ve got to find them.”
“Now take it easy!” Vince was already embarrassed at his own outburst. “She’s been questioned before, hasn’t she? Anyway, why imagine they’re here? Probably they’ve gone.”
“Oh, no. They haven’t gone. If you imagine that you can’t anticipate Twigg’s tactics when he’s moving in for a kill.”
“Don’t use words like that! Dash it all, didn’t you say no evidence was given against her at the inquest?”
“Yes. I should have seen that was a part of the game. Twigg wanted her to think the worst was over just before he jumped at her to get a confession.”
“Confession?” Vince shouted. “Are you admitting that woman’s guilty after all?”
“No, she is not. She didn’t kill her sister. But that won’t save her. Partly due to my own asinine attempts to make her story better, no jury on earth will ever believe what she says. Go and look for her, won’t you?”
“Aren’t you coming too?”
“No. Not for a moment.” Garth’s eyes roved round. “It’s not likely, but it’s just possible—”
“What is?”
“Go on!”
And now Vince was running, up the staircase with its carpet and its brass rods. Garth walked straight past that staircase and to the back of it, where the door with the bolt led down to the cellar.
The bolt was not pushed into its socket. Turning the knob, Garth yanked the door open. Just inside, where a flight of wooden steps led down between whitewashed stone walls into earth-smelling depths, one sickly electric bulb burned at the foot of the stairs.
Though he ran down the step
s, he tried to tread softly so as to make as little noise as possible. He was almost certain he heard voices, and sure of it an instant later.
The underground corridor which led to the kitchen carried sounds with the effect of a whispering-gallery, though the heavy door of the kitchen was closed. A very faint line of light showed under the sill.
Both the voices he heard were unmistakable.
“Now, miss (oh, ah; beg pardon; it’s ‘my lady’; but no matter o’ that) now, miss, I’ll just remind you of something. It wasn’t me that brought you down here. It was you that brought me. Eh?”
“Yes, it was.”
Betty’s voice sounded clearer and firmer than he had heard it since the whole twisted affair overtook them.
“Just to tell me this cock-and-bull story?”
“It happens to be true.”
“Let’s see if I’ve got it straight,” said Twigg. The pouring scepticism of his voice increased with each word. “On Friday night, you expect me to believe, Mrs. Bostwick tried to kill her own aunt? A nice lady like Mrs. Bostwick?”
“A ‘nice lady.’ Is that what you think she is?”
“Oh, ah. That’s just what I think. But never mind me. Your sister, you say, was never in this house at all. She never went out through this door at all. Nobody went out through this door. Mrs. Bostwick made it up, after Mrs. Bostwick tried to kill her aunt?”
“That woman isn’t her aunt! They’re not related.”
“I’d appreciate it, miss, if you made up your mind what it is you want to tell me. How do you know Mrs. Bostwick did this?”
“She admitted it!”
“Who’d she admit it to? To you?”
“No.”
“Who was it, then? Who’d she admit it to?”
“To somebody else. I—I can’t tell you who it was. I mean I won’t tell you!”
“Now you’re shielding somebody, eh? Have you ever been in this cellar before?”
“No.”
“That’s very interesting, that is. What did you think we could discover, just by standing here and looking at a door to the outside, like? There’s not one grain of sense in any of this, is there?”
The Witch of the Low Tide Page 20
