In the Balance

by Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver 04 - In the Balance

  Miss Silver got up.

  “I must not take up any more of your time.”

  He said, “Wait! About Mrs Jerningham—was she going to take your advice —change her will?”

  She shook her head with an air of concern.

  “I am afraid not. She did not say, but—I am afraid not.”

  March went to the door, but stopped there without opening it.

  “I’ve gone as far as I can. The Chief Constable is very insistent that there should be no scandal unless we’ve got evidence that can be taken to a jury. I’ve let Rafe Jerningham see that he’s under suspicion, and that’s as far as I can go. You can’t give a girl police protection in her own home. Could you induce her to go away, do you think?”

  Miss Silver shook her head again.

  “What would be the use of that, my dear Randal? An accident may happen in one place just as easily as in another.”

  “In fact,” said March grimly, “accidents will happen. I have often wondered what proportion of them were really murders.”

  “A good many,” said Miss Silver. She paused, and added, “It is a very shocking thought.”

  40

  IT WAS NOT until they were having coffee under the cedar after lunch that anyone mentioned the Inspector’s visit. It was Lisle who mentioned it and immediately had reason to wish that she had held her tongue.

  Alicia yawned ostentatiously.

  Rafe—what had happened to Rafe? Something—but she couldn’t have said what. She was not looking at him, or he at her, but for a fantastic moment it was just as if a wire ran tightly stretched between them and from his end of it there had come—well, that was just it, she didn’t know what. Shock—anger —surprise—fear—a signal—a warning? She didn’t know.

  It was all over in a flash, and they had emerged into the reality of Dale’s anger.

  “March? When did he come?”

  “This morning, when you were out.” She sounded as she looked, a little bewildered, like a child who has offended without quite knowing how.

  Dale set down his coffee-cup with a bang.

  “And no one told me—no one thought it worth their while to mention it? What did he want—and why wasn’t I told about it? Or didn’t he want anything at all? A social visit perhaps! Are we going to have that damned policeman walking in and out all day and every day?”

  Rafe tilted his head back against the canvas of his chair.

  “Probably. But why so heated? It might be worse. He’s quite a nice chap when he isn’t being a policeman, I should think.”

  “What did he want?”

  “To see me—and Lisle.”

  “What for?”

  Rafe’s eyes were half shut. He gazed through his lashes at the heavy green of the cedar overhead.

  “Fingerprints,” he murmured—“on Lisle’s coat, you know—some new process. Naturally the whole thing would be plastered with our prints. That’s the worst of being such a united family.”

  “Mine?” interjected Alicia. There was so much sarcasm in the word that the colour rushed to Lisle’s face.

  “And mine—and Dale’s,” said Rafe amiably. “Possibly William’s and Evans’—probably Lizzie’s. A nice bag of tricks for our modern scientific police. You put ’em in a hat and shake ’em up, and then you put in your hand and pick your murderer.”

  Alicia said, “Really, Rafe!”

  Dale laughed angrily.

  “Quit fooling and tell me what happened!”

  Rafe opened his eyes and sat up.

  “Oh, nothing. We’re all still here—no gyves on any wrist, though I think he had his eye on mine. You see, I helped Lisle on with that coat last time she wore it, and our imaginative Inspector is all het up over some especially clear prints which I must have left on it then.”

  Dale stared at him in a kind of horror.

  “You don’t mean to say the man suspects one of us!”

  Rafe Jerningham leaned sideways and stubbed out his cigarette on the short, dry turf.

  “He has a nasty suspicious mind,” he said. “He’d suspect his own grandmother for twopence.”

  “But it’s insane!” said Dale. “Cissie Cole! Good heavens—what possible motive could any of us have had?”

  There was a pause. Lisle didn’t look at any of them. She looked down at the dry turf between her feet—short, burnt grass with the colour scorched out of it. It was in the shade now, but presently the sun would reach it again. The shadow of the cedar would shift away from it and the scorching would go on. She heard Rafe say in his pleasant casual voice,

  “Oh, one can always think up a motive. In March’s place, I could produce half a dozen.”

  After a moment Dale said in a horrified tone,

  “Rafe, you don’t seriously mean—”

  Rafe got up.

  “March does. He hasn’t got any evidence of course—he’d never dare take those prints to a jury. He knows that, and he knows that I know it. We had quite a pretty fencing match—honours easy. But we’ll have to watch our step, I think. All of us.”

  Alicia Steyne turned her eyes upon him. He was smiling, a hand in his pocket getting out a cigarette-case. She said, in her high, sweet voice,

  “Why have you gone back to that old battered thing? What have you done with the one Lisle gave you for your birthday?”

  With the shabby old case in his hand, he smiled at her. Then he snapped it open and took out a cigarette.

  “It’s gone missing. It will turn up again all right.”

  “Missing? Since when?”

  “Oh, a day or two. Have you seen it?”

  Alicia looked at him, then she looked away.

  “Perhaps.”

  “Mysterious—aren’t you? Well, I’m not offering a reward, so it’s no good your holding on for one.” He strolled away.

  From where she sat Lisle could see glimpses of his light shirt amongst the trees on the seaward slope. He walked slowly, aimlessly—the perfect picture of an idle young man with the whole summer afternoon to idle in. But there was the funeral—Cissie’s funeral—

  Suddenly she felt as if she could not sit here any longer between Dale and Alicia. She got up.

  Dale said at once, “Where are you going?”

  “I thought I would rest for a little before the funeral.”

  “Wait a minute! You saw March too?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say to you—what did he want to know?”

  “Very little, Dale—just when I wore the coat last, and whether any of you had touched me when I was wearing it.”

  “And you said?”

  “Rafe helped me on with it—I told him that.”

  “Well, if it comes to that, I suppose we all touched you.”

  She shook her head.

  “Not whilst I was wearing the coat.”

  He laughed and looked up at her, all his anger gone.

  “Darling, I’d just got home—we’d had a most affectionate meeting.”

  She began to move away.

  “I wasn’t wearing the coat then. Rafe brought it to me afterwards.”

  When she had reached the terrace she looked back. The shadow of the cedar had shifted. Dale was still in it, but the sun touched Alicia. At the instant in which Lisle turned she saw Alicia’s hand go up with something bright in it. It dazzled and flew from her to Dale. He reached forward and caught it.

  As Lisle went into the house she wondered a little idly what the bright thing had been.

  41

  CISSIE COLE’S FUNERAL was over. With a sigh of relief the little groups about the grave broke up and began to drift away. The Vicar’s surplice dazzled under the bright sun. The flowers were wilting already. Black dresses, much too hot for the day, had a rusty look and showed shiny at the seams. Lisle turned back to put a hand on Miss Cole’s arm and say a word or two in a low voice, and then it was really over. They got into Dale’s car and he drove them home.

  There was tea under the cedar, cool dr
inks as well for anyone who wanted them. A green slope to a blue sea, and the breeze coming off the water. It was all over, and one could set about the uphill business of forgetting.

  All over. Lisle said it to herself, but she couldn’t make it sound true. She went away up to her room to take off her black dress. Dale came up too, and she could hear him walking about in his room. She slipped on a short-sleeved washing frock, and presently he opened the communicating door and came through in shirt and flannel trousers.

  “Well, that’s a relief! Darling, you look like a little girl in that silly little dress.”

  “Little?” She tried to smile. “Do you know how tall I am?”

  “Term of endearment, darling.” He smiled at her with his eyes. And then quite suddenly the smile went. “Look here, I’ve got to talk to you, and it’s about something so damnable that I’ve gone on putting it off, only now I can’t any longer.”

  “Dale—what is it?”

  “Darling, I’d give anything in the world not to tell you—or even to put it off, but I can’t. I would if I could, but—well, the fact is I’ve got to tell you for your own sake.”

  “Dale!”

  She was sitting on her dressing-stool half turned from the glass. He came to her and took her hands.

  “Will you try and remember that I hate what I’m going to do—that I’d give anything in the world not to do it? I’ve held my tongue all these years, and if I can’t go on holding it now, it’s because it isn’t safe—for you.”

  She drew her hands away. They were cold. She lifted her eyes to his and said,

  “Please tell me, Dale.”

  “I’ve got to.” He turned away with a groan and began to walk up and down in the room. “It’s about Rafe. You mustn’t go about with him as you’ve been doing—it won’t do.”

  Lisle’s head came up. She said quickly,

  “What do you mean, Dale?”

  “Not what you think—I’m not such a fool as that. Rafe makes love to everyone, but it doesn’t mean a thing.”

  “He doesn’t make love to me. Do you think I would let him?”

  “Of course not. Darling, I didn’t mean that—I told you I didn’t.”

  “Then what did you mean?”

  He walked to the middle window, and then swung round to face her.

  “Lisle, I’m trying to tell you. Will you just listen and not say anything? Rafe —well, he’s always been like a younger brother. He, and Lal, and I, we were just like brothers and sister. None of us can remember the time when the others weren’t here. Well, Rafe was the youngest. There’s not three years between the three of us, but even a year makes a lot of difference when you’re children. He was the one who had to be looked after—got out of scrapes and all that sort of thing. Well, we went on here together till Lal and I got married. That broke the thing up. Lal married Rowland Steyne, and I married Lydia. That left Rafe odd man out. I didn’t think about it at the time—one doesn’t. It was only afterwards I realised that it sent him right off his balance with jealousy. He was eighteen and he was at a loose end between leaving school and going up to Cambridge—and he didn’t like Lydia.”

  He began to walk again, passing her and then coming back to pause and look at her. It was a deep distressed look.

  “Lisle—has anyone ever told you about Lydia’s accident?”

  “Yes.” She had to moisten her dry lips before they would say the word.

  “Who?”

  “Rafe—and Mrs Mallam.”

  “What did they tell you?”

  “Rafe said she fell. He said—”

  “Oh, yes, she fell—poor Lydia. It was the most ghastly show. Never mind what they told you—I’m going to tell you the truth. I’ve never told it to anyone before, but I’m going to tell it now because I’ve got to. We weren’t climbing, you know—Lydia wasn’t strong enough. We were just walking along one of those winding paths—Rowland and Alicia, Lydia and I, the Mallams, and Rafe. We got a bit strung out, and the minute you got round a corner you were out of sight of the others—you’ve got to understand that. You’d be right in the crowd one minute and completely cut off a minute later. Well, we came to a place where the path widened into a sort of bay scooped out of the hill. When you were in the bay you were right out of sight of the people in front and the people behind. Lydia and I and the Steynes were there together. Rafe had just gone on, and the Mallams had fallen a good way back. There was an easy scrambling slope going up from the inner side of the path, but on the outer side there was a most horrible sheer drop. Lal and her husband went up the hill after some flowers. Lydia and I were there together. Well, she sent me back to see if the Mallams were coming. I couldn’t have imagined there was any danger, and I went. But I’d hardly got round the first bend—there was a second one just beyond—when I heard her scream—” He broke off. “Lisle, it was horrible! I went on hearing it for months. When I got round the corner again she was gone. There was a broken bush—she must have caught at it, poor girl, but it wasn’t strong enough to hold her. And just where she had gone over, there was Rafe, staring down after her.”

  “Dale!” Her lips hardly framed the word. It came to him as a broken gasp.

  He spoke himself, with a calm that appalled her more than any vehemence would have done.

  “He pushed her over. I have never had the slightest doubt of it, nor, I think, has Lal. We’ve never discussed it at all. I don’t know if she saw anything. I couldn’t ask her—she was completely broken down. Rowland saw nothing, but Alicia—well, I’ve never been sure—”

  Lisle sat there stiff and white, staring at him.

  “What are you saying?”

  “What I never meant to say to anyone—what I should never have said even to you if—it hadn’t happened again.”

  A moment before she would have said that she was past feeling—too shocked, too frozen. Now she knew that there was something more, something worse. She repeated his last word,

  “Again—”

  He came nearer, catching her by the shoulders so that she felt the warmth of his hands and wondered at it.

  “Lisle—wake up! Don’t you realise what has been happening? That accident to your steering—did you think it did itself? I tried to make myself believe that it was Pell who had been playing tricks, and I very nearly succeeded. And then—Cissie Cole—”

  Lisle pulled away from him.

  “How could it be Rafe? He was here with me after she went away.”

  “And he went off for a walk along the beach a good half hour before she fell. He says he only went half way and turned back. But suppose he didn’t—suppose he went up the track on to the cliff path and saw Cissie standing up there on the headland looking out to the sea. She was standing there with her back to him on the edge of the cliff—like Lydia. It was getting dark. She was wearing your coat. Her hair would show up in the dusk—fair hair, like yours. Wouldn’t he take her for you? He’d left you at Tanfield, but why shouldn’t you have taken my car or his and driven up there to see the sunset just as Lal and I had done? I tell you he saw Cissie there. He thought he was seeing you, and he pushed her over, just as he had pushed Lydia over and for the same reason.”

  She moistened her lips.

  “What reason, Dale?”

  He went and sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands for a moment. Then he looked up again.

  “Lisle, you have thought I cared too much for Tanfield—no don’t say anything, because it’s no good. I’ve felt you thinking that time and again, and I suppose in a way you were right, because I can see where that sort of thing gets you if you don’t take a pull on it. Rafe’s always been crazy about the place. Nothing else has ever counted with him. He doesn’t love people—he loves Tanfield. I expect you’ve been taken in by the way he talks about it —most people are. He’ll call it a great barrack of a place and say how much better off we’d be if we hadn’t got it slung round our necks, but it doesn’t mean a thing—it’s a cover--up. He’s always been lik
e that—if he cares about anything he’ll make a joke of it. And what he cares about, and always has, and always will, is just this place and the fact that it belongs to us. He’d do anything, sacrifice anyone. You’ve got to believe me, because I know what I’m talking about. If Lydia hadn’t died when she did, Tanfield would have had to go. He saved Tanfield—that’s the way it would look to him. What did Lydia matter? Just one life in all those generations. And then we come to you —the same situation, the same danger. He knows I’ll have to sell. He knows that if you died, I shouldn’t have to sell. Look back and think about the things that have been happening. I’ve had to, and I can’t resist the weight of the evidence. You were nearly drowned. Who was making all the noise, splashing and ducking us, whilst you were calling for help? Rafe. The steering of your car snapped on the hill. Why? Evans said the track-rod had been filed half through. I shut him up. He thought it was Pell, and that’s where I began to be afraid about Rafe—little things I noticed in his manner when we were talking about it, and once I saw him look at you—well, there’s no mistaking hate.”

  Lisle sat there. She had asked Rafe if he hated her, and he had said yes—on the Wednesday night—just after Cissie had gone—Dale went on speaking in a deep, troubled voice. “I can’t imagine why that car smash didn’t kill you. He was down in the village waiting for it—do you remember that?—waiting to see you come down that hill and smash against Cooper’s barn. You know, Lisle, you were born lucky. Just imagine his feelings when the car went to glory without you. And that meant he had to try again. He wouldn’t give up —not with Tanfield at stake. Besides, once you start a thing like that, it gets you and you’ve got to see it through. He must have been thinking what he could do next when he saw Cissie on the cliff and took her for you. It must have looked like the most marvellous chance—and he took it. That’s how those prints of his got on the shoulders of the coat—he took her by the shoulders and pushed her over. And then he found he’d been tricked again. He hasn’t had much luck, has he? You’ve had it all. But you mustn’t try it too far—it might turn against you. That’s why I’m telling you this. I must tell him I know and send him away. And meanwhile you’ve got to be careful. Don’t let him drive you anywhere. Don’t be alone with him. Stick to Alicia or to me. I couldn’t do anything until this funeral was over—we mustn’t have talk. Besides, I only got the proof today.”