‘It was the simplicity and sheer daring of the scheme that made this the well-nigh perfect crime it was. It was here that the maniac hatred he had of Hoode helped him so greatly. I cannot conceive any but a man insane running the tremendous risk of discovery which he took with such equanimity. Nor would any but one with the great clarity of mind only attained by the mad have even dreamed of carrying out a crime so adult by means of the schoolboy trick of the dummy. It was an application of the bolster-in-the-dormitory-bed idea which nearly succeeded by virtue of its very unlikelihood.
‘I have little more to say, though it would, of course, be possible to go much further in endeavouring to show the subtler shades of motive for each separate link of Digby-Coates’s plot, and to go into such questions as whether he chose Deacon as scapegoat merely for convenience in drawing suspicion away from himself or whether he had some darker reason; but the time for that sort of thing is not yet.
‘One more word. I wish to make it plain that as a case I know this report to be less complete than is desirable. I know that it might be impossible to hang Digby-Coates simply upon the strength of what I have set down. I know that in all probability the Crown would say that, unless the case were strengthened, it could not be regarded as enough even to try him on. I know the later stages of the report are mainly conjecture—guesswork if you like.
‘I know all this, I say, but I also know that if there is any justice in England today I have shown enough of the true history of John Hoode’s death to bring about the immediate release of Archibald Deacon.
‘I know that Arthur Digby-Coates is guilty of the murder of John Hoode, and, having gone so far towards proving this beyond doubt, I intend to see him brought to trial.
‘The only way to bring this about is to give my work the substantial backing of a confession by the murderer. This I intend to obtain.
‘I cannot but think that, if I succeed, my work is finished and the agreement of even the most sceptical assured.
‘A. R. GETHRYN.’
CHAPTER XVIII
ENTER FAIRY GODMOTHER
I
DINNER that night had been a melancholy business for the sisters. During the day the anodyne of action had brought them at times almost to cheerfulness; but from the moment when they had left the chambers of the great Marshall’s junior, their spirits had begun steadily to evaporate.
Of the two, perhaps Lucia suffered the most. She was older. She had not the ingenuousness which enabled Dora to take at their face value the reassurance of barristers and the like. And she suffered, though she would barely admit it to herself, from a complication of anxieties.
As the evening grew old so she grew angry and more angry—and always with Lucia Lemesurier. She felt something of contempt for herself. Surely, a woman of thirty—Heavens, what age!—should have more feeling, more decency, when her little sister was in trouble so grave, than to offer only half her mind for the duty of consolation? Surely it was hardly seemly for this middle-aged woman to be—well, worrying, at such a time as this, over a petty quarrel with a man she barely knew? Yet, yet—well, he might have answered that note if he couldn’t come.
Lucia took herself in hand. This must stop! She looked across the pretty room to where Dora lay coiled upon a sofa, a book held before her face.
Lucia conceived suspicions of that book. She investigated, to find them well-founded. The book was upside down; the face behind it was disfigured by tear-laden, swollen eyes.
Contrite, Lucia attempted consolation, and was in a measure successful. For an hour—perhaps two—Dora lay with her head on her sister’s breast.
‘Feeling better, dear?’ Lucia said at last.
Dora nodded. ‘I do. Really I do. Sorry I’m such a little idiot. Only it’s—it’s—I can’t help thinking, wondering—oh, what’s the good? Everything’s going to be all right. It’s got to be! It must be!’
‘Of course it will,’ Lucia stroked the red-gold hair.
Dora sat upright, hands pressed to flushed cheeks.
‘Don’t know why I’m behaving in such a damn silly way!’ she burst out. ‘You ought to shake me, darling, instead of being so sweet. Look at Archie. He’s wonderful! And he’d hate it if he knew I was slobbering here like a nasty schoolgirl. He says it’ll be all right! And so does Colonel Gethryn.’
Lucia drew away; then silently reviled herself. Why, why in Heaven’s name, should mention of this man affect her?
But Dora went on. Dora was no fool, and Dora was interested. A good thing for Dora; for a moment it lifted from her that black pall of brooding fear.
‘Weren’t you surprised, Loo, when Archie told us this morning about Mr Gethryn really being Colonel Gethryn? And all those wonderful things he did in the war with the Secret What-d’you-call-it?’
‘No,’ said Lucia absently. Then hurried mendaciously to correct herself. ‘Yes, I mean. I was surprised. Very much!’ She felt a hot flush mount to her cheeks. This did not lessen her annoyance with Lucia Lemesurier.
Came a silence, broken at last by the younger sister.
‘I,’ she said, with a gallant attempt at frivolity, ‘am going to repair to my chamber, there to remove traces of these ignoble tears.’ And she hurried from the room.
Lucia stared a moment at the closed door; then sank back into the softness of the couch. Her thoughts cannot be described with any clarity. They were, as may be imagined, again a jumble. One moment she would smile at some secret thought; another would find her tense, pale, vivid imagination of horrors to come to her sister and her sister’s lover possessing her.
Would everything, as she had so confidently said, be ‘all right’? Would miracles indeed be worked by this—by Colonel Gethryn? How absurd the ‘Colonel’ sounded! Colonels, surely, were purple, fat, and white-moustached, not tall, lean, ‘hawky’ persons with disturbing green eyes.
She was startled from her reverie. Had she heard anything? Yes, there it was again—a tapping on the window. The thunder had stopped now, and the sound came sharply through the soft hissing of the rain.
There is always something sinister in a knocking upon a window. With a jump one exchanges the dull safety of ordinary life for the uncomfortable excitement of the sensational novel. Lucia, her nerves wrecked by the emotions of the past week and further jarred by the noise of the storm, sprang to her feet and stood straining her eyes, wide, startled and black as velvet shadows, towards the French windows.
The tapping came again, insistent. She took hold of her courage, crossed the room, and flung them open.
Anthony stepped across the sill. He was, as he had left Mr Lucas ten minutes before, without hat or mackintosh. He seemed, as indeed he was, serenely unconscious of his appearance. But the pallor of fatigue, the blazing eyes, the labouring breath, the hatless head shining with wet, the half-sodden clothes, all had their effect upon Lucia. It had been for her an evening of horror. Now, surely, here was news of worse.
Her eyes questioned him. Her heart hammered at her breast. Speech she found impossible.
Anthony bowed. ‘Enter Fairy Godmother,’ he said. ‘Preserve absolute calm. The large Mr Deacon is a free man. Repentant policeman are busy scouring his ’scutcheon. I think it not unlikely that he will be here within an hour or so.’
Lucia was left without breath. ‘Oh—why—what—’ she gasped.
He smiled at her. ‘Please preserve absolute calm. My nerves aren’t what they were. What do we do next? Tell little sister, I imagine.’
‘You—I—I—’ she stammered, and rushed from the room.
Anthony, having first covered the seat with a convenient newspaper, sank into a chair.
He communed with himself. ‘Lord, I’m wet! How is it that I can be melodramatic as well? I must curb this passion for effect. Still, it kept her off any expressions of gratitude and the like. Good God! Gratitude! It’s not that I want. And what do I want? All. Yes, all! But I must go softly. One must wait.’ He shook himself. ‘And anyhow, you blasted idiot, what chance can
you have?’ He grew depressed.
The door burst open. There was a flurry of skirts. Dora, transfigured, rushed at him as he rose, words pouring from her. Anthony was dazed.
He waved hands to stem the flood. Arms were thrown about his neck. Warm lips were pressed to his cheek. Another flurry—and she was gone.
Anthony looked after. ‘If you were your sister, my dear,’ said he to himself, ‘escape would’ve been more difficult.’
The door opened again. This time it was Lucia, composed now and more mistress of herself than for days past. With relief, her sense of humour had returned in full strength; there is nothing more steadying than one’s sense of humour.
Anthony was still on his feet. She looked first at him and then at the damp pages of the Telegraph covering the chair. She began to laugh. He was well content; the most seductive, the most pleasant sound within his experience.
He stood smiling at her. The laughter grew. Then, with an effort, she controlled it.
‘I’m sorry. Only I couldn’t help it. Really I couldn’t!’ Her tone was contrite.
‘And why should you?’ Anthony asked. ‘But I hope you appreciate my tender care of your cushions.’
She seated herself, waving him back to his chair. ‘Oh, I do! I think it was wonderful of you to—to think about my furniture at a time like this. But then you’re by way of being rather a wonderful person, aren’t you?’
‘You deceive yourself if you mean that,’ said Anthony. ‘A matter of common sense plus imagination; that’s all. The mixture’s rare, I admit, but there’s no food for wonder in it.’ He hardly heard his own words. He found clear thought an effort. He wanted only to be left in peace to look at her and look and look again. He found himself glad, somehow, that tonight she was not in an evening gown. The simplicity of her clothes, perfect though they were, seemed to make her, paradoxically, less remote.
She smiled at him. ‘Now, please, you must tell me all about everything.’
Anthony groaned.
‘Pleeease.’
‘Must I?’ He raised feeble hands.
‘Of course, you silly person, I don’t really mean “everything”. How could I when you’re so tired, so awfully tired! But you come here all strange and mysterious and dramatic and simply tell us that Archie’s all right. How can one help being curious? Why is he all right? Have you only persuaded them that he didn’t do it? Or have you shown them the person that really did?’
‘The second,’ Anthony said, covertly feasting his eyes.
‘Who? Who?’ She had risen in her excitement.
Anthony looked up at her, and looking, forgot the question.
She stamped her foot. ‘Oh, you irritating man!’ she cried, and shook him by the shoulder. ‘Tell me at once!’
‘It was—Digby-Coates,’ said Anthony slowly, fearing the news might affect her deeply.
She took it in silence. Whether astonishment or other emotions had affected her he could not at the moment discern. Her next words told him.
‘I suppose’—her tone was thoughtful—‘that I ought to be surprised. And horrified. But somehow I’m not. I don’t mean, you know, that I ever suspected him or anything like that. But I’m just not awfully surprised, that’s all.’
It dawned upon Anthony that if he were not to seem a boor he must make an effort at intelligence. He strove to quiet the exuberant agility his heart had exhibited since her hand had touched his shoulder.
He did his best. ‘You didn’t like him, I gather,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘No. Not that I really disliked him. I just wasn’t quite comfortable whenever he was with me. You know. I always had to be nice, of course. Before my husband died they were always together. You see, they had the same tastes. They were about the same age, too.’ She relapsed into silence.
‘So they were much of an age, were they?’ Anthony said to himself. ‘Now, that’s illuminating. Coates is over fifty.’ He was about to speak aloud, but was forestalled.
‘What on earth must you think of me?’ Lucia cried, ‘Here are you, that’ve done all these miracles for us, all tired and wet, and I’m sitting here as if this was afternoon tea at the Vicar’s.’ She ran to the bell. ‘First, you must have a drink. Whisky? That’s the second time I’ve forgotten my hospitality when you’ve been here.’
Anthony got his drink. When he had finished the second:
‘You,’ she said, ‘must go back to your inn. And you’ll have to walk, poor thing. My little car’s been out of action for a fortnight and I’ve sent away the one we hired today. But the walk may do you good. You’ll get warm.’
Anthony set down his tumbler. ‘Exit Fairy Godmother.’
The great eyes burned him with their reproach. ‘That’s not fair,’ she said, and Anthony could have kicked himself. ‘You know it isn’t! What I want to do is to offer you a bed here. Well, there’s a bed, but nothing else. No razor. No pyjamas even. You’d be uncomfortable. And you’ve simply got to take care of yourself tonight!’
Anthony rose. ‘Forgive me. It seems my fate always to be rude to you. And you’re quite right.’ He moved towards the door.
She followed him. With his fingers on the handle, he paused. ‘Damn it!’ he thought. ‘She’s hard enough to resist when one’s in full command of oneself. But now! Oh, Jupiter, aid me!’
He prepared to make his adieux. She touched him on the arm.
‘One more question before you go.’ She smiled at him, and Anthony caught his breath. ‘Was I—am I—oh! I mean, is my evidence part of your case? You know, about my being outside the window that night—what I saw—’
‘Two of my main objects,’ Anthony said, ‘have been to get Deacon off and to keep you and your brother out. I think I’ve done both. I thought at one time that I couldn’t round off the business without dragging you in. But the gods were good and dropped into my hands a little man who knew as much and a deal more than you. I exulted. I still exult. Like Stalky, I gloat!’ He thumped his chest with an air. ‘I know everything; but I shan’t tell. I know so much that I could tell you almost to a minute what time it was when you looked through the window of Hoode’s study—and that’s more than you know yourself. But I won’t tell. Your secret, lady, is safe with me!’
She laughed; but there was something more than laughter in the sound.
‘I think,’ she said slowly, ‘that you are a very perfect—Fairy Godmother! And now you must go, or you’ll have pneumonia. And if you did you might never hear those thanks I’m going to give you’—she smiled, and he saw with wonder that the dark eyes were glistening with tears—‘after I’ve apologised for behaving as I did the other night.’ She paused; then burst out: ‘And, please, will you shake hands?’
Anthony looked at the white fingers held out towards him. The last shreds of self-control went flying.
‘No, by God, I won’t!’ he shouted.
Lucia, amazed, was caught in long arms. Kisses were rained upon her mouth, her eyes, her hair, her throat. She strove with hands against his chest.
The great eyes blazed dark fire into his above them. ‘Let go! Let go, I say! Will you let me go!’ The words came between her teeth.
Some measure of sanity returned to him. His arms dropped to his sides. Lucia, released, fell back against the wall. There she remained, hands behind her and pressed to the panelling. Her eyes (‘God! what eyes!’ thought poor Anthony) never left his face.
He said heavily: ‘I suppose—I suppose I’ve been presumptuous. Oh! I’ll grant you it was unpardonable. But, Lord, there’s reason enough for my madness. I know I’m ridiculous, I feel, believe me, sufficient dislike of myself. But I make this excuse for the inexcusable.’ He paused and moistened his lips. They were parched, dry.
The woman stayed half-leaning, half-crouching, against the wall. Still those eyes were fixed upon his.
Anthony went on: ‘I offer this excuse, I say. It is that I love you. Oh, I know I’m laughable! You can tell me I’ve only known you for—what is it?—t
hree days. You can tell me that I have only been in your company for a few—a very few—hours of those days. You can tell me all this and more. You can tell me that I know nothing of you nor you of me. And to it all I answer: Days? Time? Hours? Friendship? What have all these to do with me? I love you.’
The diffidence born of contrition for his treatment of her was fading fast. He came a step nearer.
‘D’you hear what I say? I love you. I love you. I love you! From the first moment I saw you—in this room here—when I had come to make you tell me what you knew, from that moment, in that moment, I loved you.’ He straightened himself and flung out both hands in a gesture almost Latin. ‘And, by God, can I be blamed? Can I be blamed for what I did just now, I say? For a hundred hours that were a hundred years I have been obsessed by you. Your hair—that black net of beautiful magic; your eyes—those great dark windows of your heart—they have been with me all those hundred hours that were a life-time. I have drowned my soul in those eyes of yours, Madonna Lucia. I have—’
‘Oh, stop, stop! What are you saying? This is all madness! Madness!’ She was erect now, hands pressed to flaming cheeks.
But he would not stop.
‘Oh, I haven’t finished!’ He laughed—a wild sound. ‘Not yet. You say this is madness. What is it that has made me mad? It is you, you, you! You—your face, your body, all the unbelievable wonder of you! You say that I am mad. I say that I am sane. What could be saner than a man who tells you, as I have told you, that he loves you? For how could any man help loving you? Madness, the real madness, would have lain in not telling you.’ He came close and caught her hands and carried them to his lips. Fingers, palms, wrists, he covered them with kisses.
He straightened himself and released her. ‘And that,’ he said wearily, ‘is that. I’m afraid I’ve grown dramatic. Forgive me.’
She did not speak. Anthony looked down; he could not trust himself to meet those eyes.
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