II
“I’m all right, darling, really. Please stop worrying,” said Helen. She sat up in bed, her shoulders very white against the soft peach colour of her nightdress. Her eyes looked huge in the pallor of her face.
“Well, don’t get up yet,” Gerald said. He sat on the side of the bed holding her hand and looking at her anxiously. “I must ring up the office, and then I must talk to Derek. He seems to be in a hell of a mess, one way and another. I’ll come back when I’m through with all that and see how you are. You snuggle down till then.”
“That Bludgen witch will be here today. Send her home, Gerry,” Helen said. “I can’t face her.”
“You needn’t, She can stay downstairs.”
“Oh Gerry, no! Please send her home, or up to Phyllis. She could use her, surely? She gives me the creeps,” said Helen. “Imagine her working here all those years and then spying on you all and telling the police about everyone’s movements.”
“To be fair to the Bludgen, she can’t have had any idea of what’s at stake,” said Gerald. “In any case, as a law-abiding citizen she’s obliged to answer the questions of the police.”
“I suppose so. All the same, I don’t like her,” Helen said.
“Well, darling, if you really feel so strongly, of course I’ll send her home,” said Gerald. He bent to kiss her. “Just you rest. There’s nothing to worry about,” he added, and went out of the room.
But when the door was closed behind him his face lost its calm expression. There was a very great deal to worry about, but he could think of nothing to be done to improve the situation.
He went heavily down the stairs.
Clattering sounds came from the kitchen, where Mrs Bludgen was already at work washing up the glasses from the night before. When Gerald told her that she could go home as soon as this task was completed she looked surprised, but did not protest. She accepted the two pounds he gave her and put them in the pocket of her flowered pinafore; then she polished the glasses with tremendous application, put them away, and left. He watched her walk down the path with her quick, bouncing step, her brilliant curls glittering in the sunlight. How well-disposed in fact she was? If she really was ignorant of what was at the bottom of the police inquiries, she was probably harmless, but if she understood she might take it into her head to telephone Fleet Street. He thought about pursuing her with pleas for discretion, but dismissed the idea. She would do it anyway, if she thought of it. She was the type who couldn’t resist sensation.
He went back into the house and telephoned his office. Once that task was done he could think about matters nearer at hand. His conversation lasted for over half an hour. Then he spoke to Derek. Phyllis, last night, had supplied more details of his disastrous predicament, when everyone else had gone home. A very depressed voice answered him. They had a guarded conversation, for it would not do to be overheard, and agreed to meet in the evening.
“How are things with you?” Derek asked.
“Nothing new,” Gerald said.
“How’s Helen this morning?” In spite of his own misfortunes Derek had time to spare sympathy for his brother’s plight.
“Oh, still a bit upset,” Gerald said.
Derek was surprised that she seemed to be at home; he thought she must at least be “helping the police with their inquiries”.
“It’s the lull before the storm, I think,” Gerald said. “It can’t last.”
“No. How’s Mother?”
“Seems to be all right. Phyl is being pretty good. Cathy will have to be told what happened last night.”
“I suppose so. God, what a mess,” said Derek. “Well, I must go. I’ve got to see my lawyers. We’ll talk tonight.”
“Right. Good luck,” Gerald said.
“And you.”
The brothers rang off, feeling warmer towards one another than they had done for years. Gerald sat by the telephone for some minutes, thinking. Could anything be done? Should he get on to the lawyers too? How would the police react to last night’s disclosure? The shocked faces of his own family were a portent. Helen was in grave peril.
He must go up to her, but there was nothing consoling to say; it was only a question of time before the police arrived. He stood up, but before he had reached the foot of the stairs Cathy came into the house.
“How’s Helen?” she asked. “Aunt Phyl said she didn’t feel well last night. I came to see if I could do anything.”
“She’s still a bit peaky,” Gerald said. “Come up and see her.” Cathy would be a diversion, and mean postponing a discussion on what could be done, to which there was no answer.
“The police were here for ages last night,” Cathy said.
“Yes. They dug up all the family skeletons,” said Gerald.
“Aunt Phyl said Dr Grant was here. I like him. He wants to help us,” Cathy said.
“He seems to have got young Tim taped,” said Gerald. Beyond this he could think of nothing good to say about the Dean of St Mark’s.
By this time they had reached the landing. Gerald tapped on the bedroom door and opened it. The room was empty. The bed was made, but there was no sign of Helen.
Gerald, alarm in his voice, called her, but there was no answer. He pushed past Cathy and opened the bathroom door, but she was not there. Then he hunted all over the house, but she was nowhere to be found. It was Cathy who saw that her little overnight bag had disappeared with her brushes and make-up from the dressing-table, and who found the note left in their place.
“Oh, Daddy, she’s gone!” Cathy cried.
Gerald tore open the envelope with feverish fingers and took out the sheet of paper that was in it.
My darling Gerald, he read, in Helen’s neat, small handwriting.
When you find this note you will know that I have gone. Please don’t raise the larm; that way I shall have a chance to get ahead of your police before they come for me. I now they must do this when they find out how I met Joyce Mackenzie, for they will realise I would not want your family to learn about it.
It was asking too much to hope for another chance. Whoever loads the dice must have laughed at my coming to the one house in England where I would be recognised.
Bless you, dearest Gerry, and forgive me.
Helen.
Gerald read this through twice. Then he folded it up again and put it in his pocket.
“What’s happened, Daddy? Couldn’t she bear all this police business?” Cathy asked. “That’s it, more or less,” said Gerald. Cathy was frightened, looking at her father. His face was grey and there were queer lines round his mouth that she had never seen before.
“Oh Daddy! But she’ll come back when it’s all over,” she tried to reassure him. “Well get her back. Where has she gone?”
“I don’t know.” Gerald thumped his head with his clenched fists. “Oh God, what am I to do?” he groaned. Timidly Cathy put her hand on his arm. “We could go after her,” she said. “When do you think she went?”
“She must have slipped out while I was on the telephone,” said Gerald. That was why she had wanted Mrs Bludgen sent away. “I’ve been talking for over an hour.”
“She hasn’t taken the car,” Cathy said. “It was in the garage just now as I came in.”
“She can’t have got far, then,” Gerald said. What could be in Helen’s mind? Where would she plan to go, in a strange country, without much money - for he knew she could not have very much in her purse. How could she hope to elude the police? They would catch up with her all right, and by running away she had made things look so black for herself. Her best hope, when the police came to question her, would have been to face up to them, but what a thing to expect of her after her former experiences.
Mrs Bludgen would have seen her leave. Helen would not have known how to cross the meadow and get over the fence, avoiding the lodge. But Gerald would not waste time asking her.
“You’re right, I’ll go after her,” he said. “She’ll be aiming for the station.”
He strode out to the garage, followed by Cathy.
“I’m coming too,” she said.
“London’s the only place she knows. That’s where she’ll go,” Gerald said, getting into the car.
“My bike’s gone,” Cathy said. “Look! She’s taken it.”
“Christ!” said Gerald. He shoved the car into gear and backed rapidly out of the garage, catching a geranium tub as he turned. They drove off down the drive, Cathy sitting forward as if she might see Helen pedalling in front of them.
“If she’s biking to the station it will take her ages,” said Cathy. “She’s got that little suitcase with her, that vanity one. It will slow her up. We’ll catch her, Daddy.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Gerald. He caught a glimpse of Mrs Bludgen’s face, a round white disc pressed to the window as they passed the lodge. Wretched woman.
Cathy’s eyes were fixed on the way ahead. An agony was in her heart. If Helen really loved her father she would not run away when things were bad for him.
“She won’t know the way,” Gerald said, between gritted teeth. She would be in danger, too, cycling along on what was to her the wrong side of the road. How did she expect to manage it?
They passed Reynard’s. Patrick’s car was parked outside the cottage in the lane. There was no time to notice if Andrew’s pram was under the apple tree. Then they drove into Winterswick, forced to slacken their speed at the road junction.
“There’s my bike, look, by the bus shelter!” Cathy cried.
“Sure it’s yours?”
“Yes, I think so. Slow up.”
Cathy jumped out, ran to the bike and looked at it, and then jumped back into the car.
“It’s mine all right,” she said. Her name was neatly painted on the mudguard, a requirement of her school so lately left. “There’s a bus to Fennersham at a quarter to ten, she must have caught it.”
Gerald put his foot down hard and the big car surged forward. Nevertheless the journey into the town was fraught with hazard; a laundry van rushed out in front of them from a side turning, they met three cows being driven down the road, and the traffic lights at the foot of the High Street turned red as they approached, but at last they reached the station, only to find that the London train had left half an hour before.
“We could have worked that out for ourselves. It would have been better to drive straight to Waterloo and hope to catch her there,” said Gerald bitterly.
“You’d never have done it, Daddy,” Cathy said gently. She thought her heart would break for him, he was so stricken. He sat in the car with his shoulders sagging, looking old.
“Derek might go. He might find her,” Gerald said suddenly, sitting up. “I’ll ring him.”
It was something, anyway; a chance. At least the thought of it removed that hopeless look from his face. He drove into the yard of the Lamb Hotel near the station and asked to use the telephone.
Cathy sat waiting in the car. It was so terribly sad. She felt wretched on her own account, too, for she had liked Helen and thought they would get on well together once they had learned to know one another just a little better.
Gerald came back some ten minutes later. He seemed calmer, but his face was still grey. He got into the car beside Cathy and sat for a moment gripping the steering- wheel.
“Uncle Derek wasn’t in his office,” he said. Derek had gone round to his solicitor’s. There was no point in trying to ring him there, he would either have left, or be too distracted on his own account. Gerald had rung up Martin, who was in such deep trouble anyway not only with his private cares, but also with his office for his ill-justified absences, that he thought another defection more or less would make no odds. He agreed to waylay Helen and try to persuade her to go home with him to the Chelsea house; Gerald could then come and fetch her, or, if she would not return, stay up there too.
He told Cathy this.
“We’ll go home,” he said. “Martin will ring as soon as he can, so I must be there.”
They drove silently back to the Stable House, stopping in Winterswick to pick up Cathy’s bicycle which was still in its resting-place by the bus shelter. It had been transported in the boot of Gerald’s car often enough before. By the time they reached the house Gerald had made up his mind to tell Cathy the full story of what had happened the night before so that she should understand why Helen had fled.
Trying to speak very calmly, he told her. Cathy did not interrupt, but her eyes grew larger and larger as she listened, and once or twice she gasped.
“Poor Helen,” she said at the end. “Oh, Daddy, how awful!” She got up from the sofa where she had been sitting and perched on the arm of his chair, where she rubbed her cheek against his as she had done when she was a little girl. “She must love you very much.” She was so relieved that her father had not, after all, been emotionally cheated that at first this was her only thought. But soon she felt a wider reaction.
“But it’s mad to think like that,” she said. “How could the police believe such a thing? Of course she didn’t do it.”
“Who did, then?” Gerald asked.
Cathy stared at him.
“You don’t mean you believe she did?” she said, appalled.
“No, of course not, chicken,” said Gerald. “But it puts us back into square one with the original idea of someone trying to kill your grandmother.”
“I’d rather believe that than this other thing,” Cathy said, shuddering. “Oh Daddy, it’s like some dreadful nightmare”
“It is.” And it was dreadful for his young daughter to be so deeply involved. The two people in the world most precious to Gerald were in it up to the hilt, but of them both there was no doubt that Cathy was the tougher; less had been demanded of her, thus far in her life, in the way of courage and resilience. He could not tell her what it was he feared so gravely now. When Martin telephoned to say that Helen had not been on the train that arrived at Waterloo from Fennersham he admitted, but only to himself, his utter terror.
III
Soon after twelve o’clock Inspector Foster arrived at the Stable House with a warrant for Helen’s arrest. With a set face Gerald said that she had gone away and he had no idea where she might be. Beyond that, he said nothing. The house was searched by Sergeant Smithers, who looked extremely uncomfortable, and a policewoman who had come too. After this the Inspector took his little troop away; they went straight down the drive towards the lodge.
“Mrs Bludgen will soon tell him what time Helen left,” Gerald thought. He felt it vital to stay near the telephone: how else could Helen find him if she wanted him? Cathy had gone back to Pantons to help her aunt and to tell her what had happened, but Gerald thought that they should keep as quiet as possible about Helen’s disappearance. Derek would tell Betty that night, if the police had not found her by then.
Phyllis was in the kitchen making a sauce. Cathy peeled potatoes while they talked. Grandmother’s appetite remained unaffected by what went on beyond her room.
“She’s asked for Helen several times this morning,” Phyllis said. “She seems to have taken a fancy to her. Helen promised to read to her today.”
“What did you say?”
“Well, I rang the Stable House and couldn’t get an answer, so I said the phone was out of order,” Phyllis said. “Now that you’ve told me about it, I’ll say Helen’s got a headache.”
“Isn’t it awful, Aunt Phyl? Helen’s had such a terrible time already. It isn’t fair.”
“It isn’t,” Phyllis agreed. But life seldom was. “I suppose Gerald never mentioned Mrs Mackenzie’s name when he was telling her about the set-up here. There must have been hundreds of women in that prison, too. It had to be one she’d known quite well.” She poured the sauce over some flaked cod in a fireproof dish. “She said they were quite friendly.”
“Poor Daddy’s very unhappy,” Cathy said.
“Of course he is,” said Phyllis.
“I think he’s afraid that Helen might - well, sh
e wasn’t on that train,” said Cathy. She dared not put into words the thing that had crossed her mind.
“Trains go in two directions,” Phyllis said. “Helen may have gone the other way.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.” Cathy looked more hopeful. “I was afraid Dad thought she might—”
“I doubt it,” Phyllis said. “Helen’s been through a lot already. If she was the type to commit suicide she’d have done it years ago.” Brisk words, and empty ones, for who could tell what might make a person snap? Helen was the sort of person to do what she thought would cause those she loved the least distress. A quiet disappearance into a river, perhaps, to be found in a few days’ time, would tie up neatly the mystery of Joyce Mackenzie’s death without too much damaging reflection on the Ludlows. Phyllis ran water into the saucepan she had used and scrubbed it fiercely with the scourer.
A pealing sound made both her and Cathy jump. It was Mrs Ludlow’s bell.
“I’ll go,” said Cathy. “It’s my turn.” She dried her hands and left the kitchen. She seemed to her aunt to have grown up almost overnight; she was proving to be a tower of strength.
Cathy found her grandmother playing patience on a table that she could swing across her chair.
“Well, Gran, what is it?” she asked briskly.
“Oh, it’s you. I want Helen,” Mrs Ludlow said. “She promised to read to me today. I like her voice.”
Dead In The Morning Page 16
