“I see what you mean,” Margaret said slowly. “Yes, and I see that it’s quite true too. But how on earth are we to get any new facts?”
“Well, let’s see if a little judicious questioning will bring anything to light.” Roger paused for a moment as if considering. “I suppose you were very fond of your cousin, Margaret?” he said after a second or two in an almost careless voice.
It was Margaret’s turn to pause and consider. Then: “No!” she said almost harshly. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you, though I realise that it doesn’t make my position any better. I detested her!”
“You detested her?” Roger repeated, raising himself on his elbow to look at her in his astonishment. “But I thought she’d been so kind to you? I thought she was such a charming woman?”
Margaret laughed bitterly. “Quite a number of people think that. Elsie took good care that they should. Isn’t there a saying about speaking only good of the dead? Well, I never have been a conventional person. Elsie was one of the most loathsome people who can ever have existed!”
“Oho!” said Roger softly. “She was, was she? Talk about new facts! This looks like opening up a whole new field of enquiry. Perpend, lady! Why was Elsie ‘one of the most loathsome people who can ever have existed’?”
“It is rather a sweeping charge, isn’t it?” said Margaret soberly. “Well, I’ll tell you the whole story and you can judge for yourself. When Elsie met George she was in rather the same position as I was in myself a few months ago – broke to the wide. But she didn’t let him know that. She pretended to belong to a good family and to have plenty of money of her own. In fact, she deliberately set out to deceive him. George believed every word she said, fell in love with her and married her – which, of course, was what she’d been aiming at.”
“You mean she married Dr Vane for his money?”
“Purely and simply! I know, because she used to boast of it to me, and advise me to do the same. Boast of it! How she’d taken him in and hoodwinked him from beginning to end. She got a tremendous marriage settlement out of him, too. All the money she left me. Ten thousand pounds settled on her absolutely. Of course she hadn’t a penny of her own. She often used to tell me how well she’d done for herself. Oh, Elsie was a true daughter of her grandfather – our grandfather, I should say!”
“I see,” said Roger thoughtfully. “Yes, that does shed a somewhat different light on the lady. And she took you to live with her so that you could have the chance of meeting another wealthy man and hoodwinking him similarly?”
“Indeed she didn’t! That’s what she used to tell me, but nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is that there were several reasons why she wanted me with her. In the first place, she wanted someone whom she could order about in a way that no servant would stand for a minute, someone who would do things for her that she would never have dared to ask any servant to do. Oh, Roger, you can’t imagine the things I’ve had to do since I came here! Menial things that she couldn’t have made anybody else in the world do for her. And yet nothing outrageous, if you understand – nothing that I could flare up at and flounce out of the house over. Oh, it’s extraordinarily difficult to explain. You see, you probably haven’t any idea what a beast one woman can be to another in a subordinate position without ever doing anything that you could actually call beastly.”
“I think I have, though, for all that,” Roger murmured sympathetically.
Margaret knitted her brows. “Well, suppose we’d been out for a walk together in the rain and come in rather tired, and rather wet and rather muddy. The first thing she’d do would be to send me upstairs with her wet coat and hat and tell me to bring down a pair of dry shoes. I should go down and find her sprawling in a chair in the drawing-room in front of the fire, but otherwise just as I’d left her. She’d want me to change her shoes for her, probably even pull her gloves off for her as well. Then she’d find out that her stockings were wet too, and I should be sent to get a dry pair – and probably dry those for her as well. Then she’d decide she didn’t like those shoes with those stockings, and off I’d have to go to get another pair. As soon as I’d done that, I’d be sent up again for something else that she’d pretend to have forgotten all about, and then for something more after that. In other words, she kept me on the go the whole time: I was hardly ever allowed to have a single second to myself.”
Roger nodded understandingly. “I know the type.”
“Well, that was one thing she wanted me for. Another was that she was a horrid little bully, and she must have someone to bully. You can’t bully servants; they give notice. There’s nobody like a poor relation for bullying. And all with a sweet smile you know, that seemed to make it even more unbearable if anything.”
“But why did you stick it?” Anthony asked indignantly.
Margaret flushed slightly. “Because I was a coward, I suppose. I’d had about enough of roughing it by then, and I was comfortable at any rate. Besides, there was that ten thousand pounds she was dangling over me. If you’d ever known what it was like not to be able to afford a penny bun or a cup of tea, you might realise what a tempting bait ten thousand pounds can be and what a lot you’ll put up with to qualify for it. Very mercenary, isn’t it? But Elsie knew all right. She’d been through it herself.”
“I’m sorry, Margaret,” Anthony said in some confusion. “I was an ass to say a thing like that. Of course I understand.”
“As a matter of fact,” Margaret went on more calmly, “I was going to cut and run for it. I’d discovered the game wasn’t worth the cradle after all. But I hadn’t fixed any date or made up my mind what to put my hand to next, and then – and then this happened.”
There was a little silence.
“Can you give me a few more details about your cousin?” suddenly asked Roger, who seemed to have been pursuing a train of thought of his own. “A little bit more about her character, and what she looked like, and all that sort of thing?”
Margaret considered. “Well, she was little and fragile to look at, with a rather babyish face, fair hair, and a slight lisp which she cultivated rather carefully. She used to pose as the helpless, appealing little woman, though anybody less helpless than Elsie, so far as her own interests were concerned, I’ve never met. Her idea (as she told me perfectly frankly) was that men liked the helpless, appealing type; and judging by the results, she wasn’t far wrong. As for her character, I don’t see what else there is to tell you. She was a hypocrite, a bully, utterly selfish, mean, and bad all through.” Margaret gazed out to sea, breathing heavily, her cheeks flushed. Evidently she was calling to mind some of the humiliations and unkindnesses she had suffered at the dead woman’s hands. Anthony watched her with deepening indignation.
“Did her husband know her real character?” Roger asked thoughtfully.
Margaret removed her eyes from the horizon and began to pluck with aimless fingers at the turf by her side. “I don’t know!” she said slowly, after a momentary hesitation. “As a matter of fact I’ve often wondered that. Sometimes I think he must have, and sometimes I’m quite sure he didn’t. Elsie was clever, you see. I don’t suppose she showed her real self to anybody but me. And I shouldn’t say that George was very observant. He was always perfectly courteous to her.”
“Is he very upset about her death?”
“Outwardly, not a bit; but what he’s feeling inside him I haven’t the least idea. George never shows his feelings. He might be made of stone for all the emotion he ever displays. Besides, he spends nearly all his time shut up in his laboratory, just as he has all the time I’ve been here.”
“You can’t say whether they got on well together, then?”
“Not a word! All I can tell you is that he was always courteous to her, and she –” Margaret uttered a cynical laugh. “Well, it was going to pay her to keep on good terms with him, so I’ve no doubt she did.”
“I see. There’s nothing further you can tell me about her?”
“W
ell, there is one thing,” the girl said a little doubtfully, “but it’s so very vague that I’m not sure whether I ought to mention it. It’s this. I couldn’t help feeling once or twice that there was somebody Elsie was afraid of.”
“Afraid of? Hullo, That’s interesting! Who?”
“That I haven’t the least idea. In fact the whole thing is quite probably moonshine. I’ve really got nothing definite to go on at all. It’s just a sort of impression I formed.”
“Well, impressions are often valuable. And you can’t say anything more definite than that?”
“I’m afraid I can’t. Probably I ought not to have mentioned it at all, but it might give you a line of enquiry perhaps.”
“I should think so. That’s just the kind of thing I want to know.” Roger plucked a handful or two of grass and scattered them over the edge of the cliff. “Margaret,” he said suddenly, “What’s your opinion about it all? Your perfectly private, not-for-publication opinion?”
“I think there’s a great deal more to it than meets the eye,” said the girl without hesitation.
“So do I, by Jove!” Anthony concurred.
“Yes, there’s no doubt about that,” Roger said thoughtfully. “But it’s all so infernally vague. If one could get hold of a definite thread to follow up, however tiny! You’ve widened the area of enquiry enormously with what you’ve told us about your cousin, but even now we’re quite in the dark. All we know is that, instead of nobody having a grudge against her, any number of people might. Isn’t there one single definite pointer you can get hold of for us? Somebody might have a cause for hating her, say, or a reason for wanting her out of the way. Rack your brains!”
Margaret racked them obediently and for some minutes there was silence, broken only by the cries of the swooping gulls and the splash of the waves against the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs.
“There’s only one person I can think of who had cause for hating Elsie,” she said slowly at last. “Or rather, did hate her, I’m quite certain – whether with cause or without, I don’t know. Mrs Russell!”
Roger popped on his elbow. “Mrs Russell?” he repeated eagerly. “Why did she hate Mrs Vane?”
“She had an idea that Elsie and Mr Russell were a little too friendly, not to mince matters!”
“Oho! The plot thickens. And were they?”
“I don’t know. They were very friendly, certainly. Whether they were too friendly, I can’t say.”
“But it’s possible?”
“Quite – as far as Elsie is concerned. She had neither morals nor scruples.”
“And Mr Russell? What sort of man is he?”
“Oh, jolly and red-faced and beefy, you know. The sort of man you see in those old hunting prints.”
“Just the sort to whom her type might appeal, in fact. So I should imagine it was quite possible as far as he was concerned too, eh?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Roger smote the turf with an enthusiastic fist. “By Jove, Margaret, I believe you’ve hit on something here. Mrs Russell was simply eaten up with jealousy, of course. And there’s no motive like jealousy!”
“Aren’t we getting on a little too fast?” asked the girl dubiously.
“Not a bit! Now tell me – what sort of woman is this Mrs Russell?”
“Oh, she’s rather fat too; very downright and decided. A lot of people would call her rude, but I rather liked her. Not at all good-looking now, though she might have been once. Pince-nez, hair going a little grey, about forty-five years old, I suppose.”
“In other words, exactly the sort of woman to be furiously jealous of a young and pretty one throwing sheep’s eyes at her husband!” Roger summed up, not without satisfaction.
“I say!” Anthony exclaimed excitedly. “You said she was big, didn’t you? Has she got rather large feet?”
“Yes, I fancy she has. Why?”
The two gentlemen exchanged significant glances. Then Roger sprang to his feet.
“Good for you, Anthony! You mean that second lot of footprints, don’t you? Well, goodbye, my children. Amuse each other till lunchtime.”
“Where are you going, Roger?” cried Margaret.
“To look into this matter of the lady with the large feet and the jealous disposition,” Roger called back, disappearing at full speed over the bank.
chapter eight
Introducing a Goat-faced Clergyman
Roger had no definite plan in his mind as he walked with quick strides along the clifftop in the direction of Ludmouth. His impulsive flight from the other two had been dictated by two instinctive feelings – that he wanted to be alone to ponder over the significance of the fresh information, and that Anthony and Margaret would probably be not at all averse to a little dose of each other’s undiluted company. His first idea, equally instinctive, had been to make a beeline for the Russell’s house and pour out a torrent of eager questions into the lady’s astonished ears. Second thoughts warned him against any such precipitation. He sat down on a convienient little hummock facing the sea, pulled out and relit his pipe and began to think.
It did not take him many minutes to see that, if this new line of enquiry were not to prove a blind alley, there were two questions of paramount importance first requiring a satisfactory answer. Of these one was concerned with Mrs Russell’s shoes: did they fit the second lot of footprints in the patch of mud on the cliff-path, or not? If they did, that did not actually prove anything, but Mrs Russell remained a suspected person; if they did not, then she must be exonerated at once. The second, and far more important, was this – who had been at the Russells’ house during the time when Mrs Vane might have been expected to call?
Roger was still considering the interesting possibility depending on the answer to this question, when a gentle voice behind him cut abruptly into his reverie.
“A charming view from this point, sir, is it not?” observed the gentle voice.
Roger turned about. A little elderly clergyman, with silvery hair and a face like a benign but beardless goat, was peering at him benevolently through a large pair of horn spectacles, “Oh, Lord, the local parson!” Roger groaned to himself – not because he disliked parsons, local or otherwise, but because parsons are inclined to talk and Roger, at that particular moment in his existence, surprisingly enough was not. Aloud he said, courteously enough, “It is indeed; particularly charming.”
The little old parson continued to beam, the sunlight glittering on his huge spectacles. He did not go nor did he very definitely stay – he hovered.
“He’s going to talk,” Roger groaned to himself again. “He wants to talk. He’s aching to talk – I know he is! My pipe to the Coliseum he’s going to talk!”
Roger’s deduction was not amiss. It was only too plain that the little old clergyman had every intention of talking. He had, to be accurate, on seeing Roger’s back in the distance, come nearly a quarter of a mile out of his way for the expressed purpose of talking. He began to talk.
“I don’t remember seeing you in our little village. Perhaps you have walked over from Sandsea?”
“No,” said Roger patiently. “I’m staying in Ludmouth.”
“Ah! At Mrs Jameson’s, no doubt? I did hear that she was expecting a visitor.”
“No, at the Crown.”
“Oh! Oh, dear me! Surely I am not talking to Mr Roger Sheringham, am I?” twittered the little clergyman.
“That is my name, sir, yes,” Roger admitted, with a mental side note upon village gossip, its velocity and the surprising quarters it reaches.
“My dear sir!” The little parson’s beam grew brighter than ever. “You must permit me to shake hands with you. No, really you must! This is indeed a gratifying moment. I have read all your books, every one; and I cannot tell you how I enjoyed them. Well, fancy, now!”
Roger was never in the least embarrassed by this kind of encounter. He shook hands with his admirer with the greatest heartiness.
“It’s very k
ind of you to say so,” he smiled. “Very kind indeed. I won’t pretend I’m not gratified. Any author who pretends to be indifferent to appreciation of his books is a hypocrite and a liar and an anointed ass.”
“Quite so,” agreed the little clergyman in some bewilderment. “Quite so, no doubt. Well, well, well!”
“How did you know I was staying at the Crown, sir?”
“Oh, these things get about in a little community like ours, Mr Sheringham; very rapidly indeed, if I may say so. And having read your books, to say nothing of your recent articles in the Courier, including even this morning’s … Ah, a sad business that brings you down here, Mr Sheringham! Very sad indeed! Dear me, poor lady, poor lady!”
Roger’s annoyance at the interruptions to his thoughts, already considerably lessened, vanished completely. If this garrulous old man had anything of interest to tell, without doubt he could be induced to tell it. Perhaps the encounter could be turned to good account; in any case it would be no bad thing to be persona grata with the vicar. He indicated with the stem of his pipe the hummock on which he had been sitting.
“Won’t you sit down, sir?” he asked with a fittingly serious face. “Yes, indeed it is; extraordinarily sad.”
The little clergyman seated himself with a nod of gratitude and Roger dropped on to the warm turf by his side.
“Do you know, there is a most distressing rumour going about in the village, I understand,” remarked the former deprecatingly, but none the less gossipingly. “Something about foul play. That is nothing new, of course; your article this morning hinted quite plainly at it. But they have got to the stage in the village of importing actual names into their suspicions. Do you know that? Most regrettable; most regrettable.”
“It’s what you’d expect, isn’t it?” said Roger a trifle shortly; he had stayed to pump the other, not to be pumped himself. “What name or names have they imported?”
“Really, Mr Sheringham,” the parson hesitated, “I’m not sure whether I ought –”
“I’ve only got to walk into the bar at the Crown and ask the nearest loafer, if you don’t wish to tell me,” Roger pointed out with an air of indifference.
Roger Sheringham and the Vane Mystery Page 7
