‘Here, what do you want with that ring? It’s mine, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, we’re not disputing that. The ring and the stone are both undoubtedly yours. By the way, have you any idea where you dropped that diamond?’
‘Not the slightest. Where was it found?’
Detective Inspector Sharp stood by, and was glad that he had not had to come alone. Abbott was answering her in that la-di-da way he had.
‘We were rather hoping that you might have something to tell us about that.’
‘Well, I haven’t.’
He let her have it then, short and sharp.
‘It was found in the gazebo at The Lodge.’
It was a blow – you could see that. She blinked the way a man does when he has been hit. It was a blow and it rocked her, but she got herself in hand again. She said in a sharp, steady voice,
‘In the gazebo at the Grahams’? I don’t see…’
‘No? Well, that is where it was found. Perhaps you can tell us when you were last there.’
She was recovering.
‘Oh, I don’t know… I’m often at The Lodge… I play bridge there.’
Frank’s eyebrows rose.
‘In the gazebo?’
‘Of course not! But we don’t play till after tea – I might have gone up to look at the view.’
‘Can you remember that you did so?’
‘Not specially. We were in the garden one day last week – it might have been then.’
‘Mrs Harrison, Miss Lily Pimm states that there was no stone missing from your ring on Tuesday evening when you were playing bridge at the house of some people named Reckitts.’
She gave an exasperated laugh.
‘Oh, Lily Pimm – if you’re going to take what she says!’
‘Is there any reason why we shouldn’t?’
Her foot tapped the carpet.
‘Only that she’s barmy – that’s all.’
‘She appears to be an exact and accurate observer. She told us that she admires your rings very much and always notices them. She is positive that on Tuesday all the stones were present in the five-stone diamond ring. When she met you next day on the ten o’clock bus and you took off your glove to find some change for the fare she noticed at once that one of the stones was missing. She says she pointed this out to you, and you were very much upset and said you didn’t know that the stone was gone.’
The colour which Ella Harrison had applied was reinforced by an angry flush.
‘Of course I knew it was gone! It had been missing for days!’
‘And you continued to wear the ring?’
‘I always wear it!’
‘It didn’t occur to you that the other stones might be loose?’
‘No, it didn’t!’
‘But you told us just now that it was for this reason that you were not wearing the ring.’
Her eyes were bright with anger.
‘I didn’t think of it at first, and then I did! Any objection to that?’
‘When did you first notice that the stone was gone?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Think carefully, Mrs Harrison. This seems to be a valuable ring. Since you wear it always, it must be valuable to you. When you discovered that one of the stones was missing you would naturally be upset.’
‘Anyone would be!’
‘I quite agree with you. It is an unpleasant thing to happen. You would naturally speak about it to your maid – ask her to look for it very carefully in case it had dropped in the house.’
‘Well, I didn’t!’
Her foot was tapping again. If he would only stop these questions and give her time to think. He didn’t give her a moment. He went on,
‘It would seem to have been the natural thing to do.’
‘Well then, it wasn’t! I knew I hadn’t dropped it in the house.’
‘May I ask how you knew that?’
She had to make up her mind quickly. When you hadn’t time to think you had to do what you could and chance your luck. She said,
‘Because I knew the ring was all right when I went out.’
‘Oh, you have remembered which day you missed the stone?’
She said smoothly,
‘It must have been the last time I went to the Grahams’, if that was where it was found.’
Frank said, ‘Yes,’ and gave it a moment to sink in before he went on, ‘The last time you went to the Grahams’ – that would be on Tuesday after the bridge party at the Reckitts’?’
‘What are you trying to make me say? I wasn’t anywhere near them on Tuesday evening! It was the week before – Wednesday or Thursday, I don’t remember which. I was there to tea, and Mrs Graham took me into the garden afterwards to show me some plant or other.’
‘Who else was there?’
‘No one. It was just Mrs Graham and me.’
‘I thought you said you played bridge after tea.’
‘I couldn’t have. There wasn’t anyone to play with – even Thea was out. We were in the garden.’
‘Did you say you went up into the gazebo?’
‘Yes, I did. Mrs Graham wanted me to see the view.’
‘She didn’t go with you?’
‘No.’
‘And when you came home and discovered that a stone out of your ring was missing you would naturally make inquiries as to whether you had dropped it at the Grahams’?’
She met his searching look with a hardy one.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Curious that Mrs Graham should not have mentioned the fact to her daughter.’
‘I suppose she forgot. She wasn’t really interested in anything that didn’t happen to herself.’
‘You didn’t mention the loss of the stone to your maid, and Mrs Graham didn’t mention it to her daughter. Quite a coincidence, isn’t it? I suppose you mentioned the loss to your husband?’
If Jack had been out – if she could have been certain of the opportunity of telling him what to say – but he was in the study – she couldn’t be certain of anything. She took the next best chance and said,
‘I didn’t want him to know. It’s a ring from his side of the family. He gave it to me when we were married.’
Frank thought, ‘She’s lying all along the line.’ Out loud he said,
‘You are quite sure about these dates, Mrs Harrison?’
‘I’m not sure whether it was Wednesday or Thursday when I went to the Grahams’ – Wednesday or Thursday last week.’
‘But you are sure that it was last week?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘And that that was when you lost the stone out of your ring?’
‘Yes.’
‘Mrs Harrison, Miss Pimm is extremely definite in stating that she saw that ring on your right hand at the Reckitts bridge party, and that all the stones were there. She says she counted them.’
Ella Harrison’s blazing anger broke. Her furious voice leapt at them.
‘Then she’s a damned liar as well as a damned fool! Anyone – anyone with a grain of sense could see what she and her sisters are – spiteful old maids with nothing to do but gather up gossip and peddle it round to a lot of credulous nitwits who don’t know any better than to lap it up! Just try putting your Lily Pimm in the box and see what kind of shape she’d be in by the time a lawyer had finished with her! You just try it!’
There were a number of unprintable words in this speech. Some shocked Inspector Sharp a good deal, coming from a lady in Mrs Harrison’s position. In court he might have characterized them as obscene. In his own mind he set them down as low. He really wondered where she had picked them up.
Frank Abbott, waiting until she was done, saw the door open behind her and Mr Harrison come into the room – a small quiet man with greying hair and a patient look about the eyes. He said, ‘What is the matter?’ and Ella Harrison whirled round upon him.
‘I’m being insulted, that’s what! A pretty state of things when the police come tramping
into your drawing-room without a with your leave or by your leave and insult you!’ She swung back again.
‘Perhaps you’ll be a bit more careful what you say now my husband’s here – bursting in and calling me a liar in my own house!’
Jack Harrison stood where he was. He had a certain half bewildered dignity as he said,
‘Perhaps someone will tell me what is going on.’
Frank Abbott told him quietly and succinctly. The air of bewilderment deepened.
‘A stone from my wife’s ring – in the gazebo at The Lodge? Are you sure there is no mistake? But she was wearing the ring on Tuesday evening – I saw it myself. There was no stone missing then.’
The fool – the immeasurable fool! Just for a moment she couldn’t think – speak – move.
Frank Abbott said,
‘Are you sure about that?’
Jack Harrison said, ‘Oh, yes.’ He was neither quick nor clever. He found the situation confusing. His wife’s anger daunted him. He steadied himself on the plain question of fact. Ella couldn’t have dropped a stone out of her ring last week, because she was wearing it at the Reckitts’ on Tuesday. He said so, repeating himself as he was rather inclined to do.
‘Oh, yes, it was all right when we were at the Reckitts’. We were playing at the same table for part of the time. It’s a beautiful ring, and I noticed it particularly. The stones came from Golconda. A great-uncle of mine brought them home and had them cut. They are well matched. They were certainly all there on Tuesday.’
Ella Harrison had been going back step by step.
It was a purely instinctive movement. In a moment she would think of something to say, to do. The moment wasn’t yet. She would have to wait for it. She went back until the fireplace brought her up short. There was a Sèvres jar in the middle of the mantelpiece with a delicate china figure on either side of it. Eighteenth-century figures – a lady in a hooped skirt with powdered hair, a gentleman in a brocaded coat with red heels to his shoes. She picked up the lady by her slender neck and slung her at Jack Harrison.
THIRTY
MR HARRISON DUCKED. The china lady in her applegreen gown and flowered petticoat smashed against the door which he had closed behind him and fell in splinters on the parquet floor. The head rolled under a small gold gimcrack chair. Ella Harrison stood against the mantelpiece, heavily flushed and breathing deep. Nobody spoke until Frank Abbott said, his voice very cool and detached.
‘Perhaps it would be better to defer the rest of this interview until Mrs Harrison is calmer.’
Jack Harrison spoke.
‘I think it would be better. If you want me, I shall be in the study.’ He turned and went out of the room.
Ella Harrison left the hearth and came forward.
‘And now we can get on with it!’ Her voice was loud and dominant.
She was furiously angry, but she had got past smashing china. There were other things that could be broken, and she was out to break them. She came up to one of the easy chairs and stood there, resting her hands on the back.
‘You…’ she said, addressing Frank Abbott, ‘you’ve been free enough with your questions. Now you’re going to listen to me! I’ve got something to say!’
‘You wish to make a statement?’
‘If that’s what you like to call it! I’ve got something to say, and if you want to write it down you can!’
Inspector Sharp found himself a chair. He got out a notebook and propped it on the edge of the table where the diamond had lain.
Frank said, ‘Perhaps you would like to sit down, Mrs Harrison.’
She stared angrily.
‘I’d just as soon stand! It won’t take long! Quite a nice change it’ll be me talking and you listening, instead of your popping off questions at me for all the world as if you were a cross-talk comedian and I was your stooge! Now, you get this, Mr La-di-da policeman – I’m nobody’s stooge! And if you think you can pin anything on me, you can just set to work and think again, because I’ve got an alibi! And you, Mr What’s-his-name Sharp, you can write that down and be damned to you!’
The veneer was clean stripped off. This was the woman who had grown up in a drunken home and learned her language from hearing her father and mother swear at one another in their not infrequent rows, who had played as a child in the gutter, who had fought and clawed her way into a children’s act in pantomime, and from there with the help of good legs and a resonant voice into a variety turn. She hadn’t taken anything from anyone then, and she wasn’t taking anything from these policemen now. She said so at the top of her voice.
‘I don’t know what you think you’re getting at with your was I down at the Grahams’ on Tuesday night! Well then, I wasn’t, so you can put that in your pipe and smoke it! And why wasn’t I? You see, I’m asking the questions this time, and here’s the answer to that one! I wasn’t down at the Grahams’ because I’d got other fish to fry! And if you want to know who I was frying them with, it was Nicholas Carey! He came to this house as the clock struck eleven, and he didn’t go out of it again – I can answer for that. Here he was, and here he stayed, and neither of us wanted it any different. Jack was off to bed at ten o’clock, and the servants sleep out, so there wasn’t anyone to interfere with us, and that’s how we wanted it to be. So now you know!’
Frank Abbott’s cool detached gaze rested upon her. He was wondering how much of this was to Jack Harrison’s address. Just another and more effective way of hitting him where it hurt? Some of it no doubt, and the rest the alibi foreshadowed by Miss Silver. He said,
‘When you were questioned before, you stated that you were in bed by eleven, and that you had no idea when Mr Carey came in. Now you say he was in by eleven, and that you remained together.’
She had gone back to tapping with her foot.
‘Yes, you don’t put everything in the shop-window right away, do you?’
‘Meaning that you don’t always tell the truth unless it suits you?’
‘Don’t you go trying to make out I’ve said what I haven’t!’
‘By your own account you have said first one thing and then another with regard to your movements on Tuesday night.’
‘I didn’t see it was anyone’s business – not then. But if you’re trying to pin something on me, then it’s my business to see you don’t get any wrong ideas! Nicky was here with me from eleven o’clock and for the best part of the night. It didn’t suit either of us for it to come out – not then. But that’s how it was, and you can’t get from it!’
Her flush was one of triumph now. She had flung her stone and killed two birds with it. If she had an alibi, they couldn’t make out she’d been down at the Grahams’ on Tuesday night, and if the alibi was going to hit Jack where it hurt, well, he’d asked for it – chipping in to say he’d seen the ring on Tuesday evening and none of the stones missing! Anyone else would have had the sense to hold his tongue, with the police in the house and a murder charge flying round. But not Jack Harrison, not her poor boob of a husband – oh dear, no! He must come chipping in with having seen the ring and noticed that all the stones were there! Well, if he liked to divorce her he could, and a good riddance to him!
The local Inspector wrote down what she had said and read it over to her. When she had signed it they both went out of the room. She heard them go across the hall to the front door. She heard it open and shut again behind them.
The warm satisfied anger in her began to die down.
THIRTY-ONE
NICHOLAS CAREY SAT at the dressing-table of his room at the George, but he was not engaged with the affairs of the toilet. The old-fashioned dressing-mirror with its five drawers, two on each side and one in the middle to take rings, trinkets, and what have you, had been pushed on one side to make way for the typewriter upon which he was rapidly tapping out his latest article. The room was furnished in a heavy mid-Victorian style, the only change which it had suffered since the days when the George was a posting inn being the substitution of up-
to-date spring beds for the gloomy four-poster of a hundred years ago. If the carpet had been renewed, Mr Pickwick himself would not have been able to swear to it, and the general air of gloomy respectability remained intact.
When the telephone bell rang Nicholas stopped tapping, crossed to the space between the beds, and took up the receiver. A voice informed him that there was a gentleman to see him, ‘Name of Abbott – Mr Abbott.’ He said, ‘Send him up,’ and went back to the dressing-table, where he stood gathering up a couple of sheets already typed. He was frowning at the one still in the typewriter, wondering whether he would be allowed to finish it if they arrested him, and whether the Janitor would want it if they did.
There was a knock at the door before he could make up his mind. Frank Abbott came in and shut it behind him. He was alone, and the official manner was in abeyance.
Nicholas raised his eyebrows, laid down his sheets of typescript, and said,
‘Mr Abbott? Is that tact or…’
‘Well, perhaps unnecessary to give the hall porter anything fresh to talk about.’
‘But I take it you haven’t just dropped in to pass the time of day?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Well, we might as well sit down.’
He gave Frank Abbott the armchair, sat on the side of the nearer bed, and waited. If police officers chose to come butting in they could break the ice for themselves.
Frank leaned back, crossed his long legs, and said easily,
‘I thought it might be useful to have your views on Mrs Traill’s evidence. Miss Graham has told you about it?’
‘She has.’
‘Would you care to comment on it at all? You need not of course – I expect you know that. If you do, I suppose I ought to caution you.’
‘That anything I say may be taken down and used in evidence? All right, we’ll take it as said. About this Mrs Traill’s statement – I certainly wasn’t in the gazebo at twenty past eleven on Tuesday night. I left as soon as Althea had taken her mother into the house.’
‘You are sticking to that?’
‘It happens to be true.’
‘Mrs Traill heard Mrs Graham use your name. She is prepared to swear to hearing her say, “How dare you, Nicholas Carey!” ’
The Gazebo Page 19
