The most normal person in the room was Miss Bray. She exclaimed just as one would have expected her to exclaim, asked a number of questions which no one could possibly answer, and produced a gratified stream of conjecture and speculation with which nobody but Wilfrid attempted to cope.
“Now really, you know, I do call this a very extraordinary thing. It was of course extraordinary that the necklace should have been stolen, but it does seem a great deal more extraordinary that it should have been sent back. Now do you suppose that the person who took it had a sudden change of heart? You do hear of such things, don’t you? I remember a long time ago reading about a case like that-in a magazine or a book. I forget what the man had stolen, but he heard the clock strike twelve one night, and it suddenly came over him how wrong he had been and he made up his mind to send it back. Perhaps that is what has happened now.”
Sally took a sip of the coffee which David had brought her. She thought, “It has come back because Moira said it was to come back. She knows who took it, and she knows who murdered Arthur Hughes. Don’t have anything to do with her, David-don’t, don’t, don’t! She shut her eyes, because everything in the room had begun to tilt and slide. She took another scalding sip of coffee and pushed the cup away. David’s hand came down hard upon her knee. Her own went groping to meet it and was held.
Wilfrid Gaunt was saying something about the necklace being too hot to hold, and Elaine Bray went on and on and on about valuable jewellery being only an anxiety, and why did people want to have it anyway when you could get such beautiful paste? It may be said that everyone was glad when breakfast was over.
Lucius Bellingdon rang up the police. When he had done that he told Hilton to find Mrs. Herne and ask her to come to him in the study. She arrived, the old indifferent look back upon her face and the old drawl back in her voice.
“You wanted me?”
The words set up an echo in his mind. He had never wanted her. They had started wrong. It was Lily who had done this to both of them. Lily-weak, obstinate, harmless-she had done enough harm without meaning to.
The mornings were cold. There was a little fire on the hearth. Moira had lighted a cigarette. She wore grey slacks and an emerald pull-over. She stood with one foot up on the kerb and blew a smoke-ring. It broke, and the haze was between them. He said,
“Come and sit down.”
“I’d rather stand.”
He slewed round his writing-chair so as to face her.
“Just as you like. I want to talk to you before the police come.”
She drew at her cigarette.
“The police?”
“Naturally. I have to report the fact that I believe my car to have been tampered with. There is also the return of the necklace.”
“Your car-I thought you had a smash-”
“I did. I should like the police to find out why.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“Getting a bit jumpy, aren’t you?”
“You can put it that way.”
After a brief pause he went on speaking.
“That scene you made in the dining-room was a mistake.”
“Was it?”
“I think so. You wanted to put it on record that I had given you the necklace. Exactly the reverse has happened. Everyone who was there will be in a position to say that I contradicted you when you said so. I contradicted you flat, and reminded you that it was merely to have been lent to you for the Ball. I went on to say that I intended to get rid of it as soon as possible.”
She stood there looking down into the fire, smoking her cigarette, her hand steady, her face colourless. Perhaps it was the brilliant emerald of the pull-over which gave the blanched skin its harder, older look. Perhaps not. She had nothing to say. Lucius Bellingdon went on.
“I have been meaning to speak to you for some time now. I don’t think it will be any surprise to you to hear that I am thinking of making certain changes. I am, in fact, going to be married.”
She said with an accentuation of her drawl, “So Annabel has brought it off. It’s been fairly obvious that that was what she was after.”
He went on as if she had not spoken.
“My marriage will necessitate a good many other alterations.”
“Alterations?”
“To my will, amongst other things. I shall have to make a new one.”
“Is that supposed to affect me?”
“It does affect you-that is to say, it will. All the changes will affect you. I think it is only fair to tell you so.”
He paused briefly, but she neither looked at him nor spoke. The hand with the cigarette went up to her lips and came down again. The lips parted, a cloud of smoke was expelled. The lips closed again. He went on.
“I don’t think the present arrangements have been a great success. I believe we shall all be happier when changes have been made. I shall make Elaine an allowance, and if she likes to set up house with Arnold she can. Since it will be an allowance and not a settlement, he won’t be able to sponge upon her to any marked extent.”
“And are you going to make me an allowance too?”
“No, I don’t think so. You have your settlement.”
“You don’t suppose I can live on that!”
“I think you will have to.”
She sketched a gesture with the cigarette.
“Well, I can’t.”
When he made no reply, she looked at him for the first time. If he had had any illusions as to their relationship that look would have killed them. It would have killed him if it had had the power. He met it with a hardening of his determination.
“You will have to. Are you in debt?”
“What do you suppose?”
He said, “You had better make out a list of what you owe and let me have it. I will see that you start clear, but from now on you will have to stand on your own feet.”
She was looking down now at her own hand. A curl of smoke went up from the cigarette which it held. She said,
“It can’t be done.”
He had a moment of compunction, of desire to be quit of the strain between them. He said,
“I realize that this has come on you a bit suddenly. You have expected everything to go on just as it has for years. I don’t want to make it too hard for you. I will add to your settlement by an allowance of five hundred a year on the understanding that you keep free of debt.”
“And suppose I don’t?”
“The allowance will go to paying what you owe until you are clear again.” He tried for an easier tone. “Come, you know, it’s not such a bad offer.”
He got a glancing look of which he made nothing.
“That’s what you say. Is that all? Because if it is, I’ll go.”
He said, “Yes, that’s all.”
She flicked her cigarette into the fire and went.
Chapter 30
THE police arrived-Inspector Crisp, Inspector Abbott. After seeing Mr. Bellingdon in his study and viewing the necklace they collected all the wrappings and the crushed paper in which it had been packed in order to examine them for fingerprints and other possible clues, and proceeded to interview Parker and other members of the household on the subject of the car.
Parker could hardly have been less co-operative. He had taken the ten-thirty bus into Ledlington on Sunday morning, and he had taken the ten-thirty-five bus back to the corner on Sunday night. If there had been any tampering with the car, it hadn’t been done when he was about. No, it stood to reason the garage wasn’t locked. What would be the sense of locking it with everyone in the house wanting to get in and out and take their cars of a Sunday? Mrs. Herne, she had hers out regular. Mrs. Scott, she might have hers out or she mightn’t, and if she didn’t Mr. Bellingdon would be wanting one of his. A fine business it would be if everything was locked up and no one could get at it.
Inspector Crisp was short with him, and got short answers back. Parker’s cars were the core of his heart, and he was prepared to stick up to the
police or anyone else who suggested that he might have neglected them. As for the rest of the household, Arnold Bray said he had arrived on a bicycle and had put it away in one of the old loose-boxes opposite the garage. When? Oh, sometime before lunch. Couldn’t he be a little more particular as to the time? No, he didn’t think he could. He didn’t look at his watch, he just wandered round to the stables and put the bicycle away.
“Didn’t you notice if any of the cars were out, Mr. Bray?”
“Oh, no. I just put my bicycle into the loose-box and came up to the house.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“Oh, no.”
Moira Herne said that she had taken out her car in the morning. She had run David Moray in to Ledlington to the station, and then she had joined a party of friends. She had got back about six and gone for a walk in the grounds.
“Did you see anyone when you were at the garage in the morning?”
She gave Inspector Crisp her bright, pale stare.
“Only Hubert.”
Crisp knew what he would have liked to do with her. Slapping-that was what she wanted, and it hadn’t been done. Under that look of hers his class-consciousness flared. He knew her sort-brought up in the lap of luxury and never done an honest day’s work in her life. He restrained himself, but his tone was sharp as he said,
“You mean Mr. Hubert Garratt?”
“Yes, I said so-Hubert.”
“What was Mr. Garratt doing?”
“Coming out of the garage.”
“Come out as you went in?”
“That’s what I said.”
They were all together in the study, Inspector Abbott at one end of the writing-table taking notes. Hubert Garratt had a chair with his back to the light. He looked ill. When Crisp turned to him he said,
“I was having a look at my car. I thought of taking it out, and I was checking the oil.”
“Did you go out?”
“No-I didn’t feel well enough.”
Crisp went on with his questions, and they got him exactly nowhere.
Most of the party had been in or near the garage. Each of them had had some perfectly natural reason for being there. Any one of them could have loosened the nuts on the wheel of Mr. Bellingdon’s car. But Moira Herne had not been there at lunch when he had talked of going out on the road which led down over Emberley Hill. Nothing to say whether she already knew that Mr. Bellingdon intended to go that way.
When the questioning was over and the party was dispersing, Annabel Scott lingered. Inspector Crisp was busy with the box in which the necklace had come. She found the London Inspector at her elbow.
“Mrs. Scott-whose choice was the drive to Emberley?”
She looked at him, a little surprised.
“I think it was mine. I wanted to see some friends-the Coldwells. They live about ten miles out on the other side.”
“Had you mentioned this to anyone?”
She said, “I expect so,” and got a quick “Please think whether you did.”
He was watching her face. Definitely easy to look at. Lovely eyes and an air of charm. Something more than good looks too-intelligence. She was saying,
“Yes, I must have spoken of it. Muriel Coldwell is one of my oldest friends. She rang up on Saturday evening and said couldn’t we come over.”
Her colour had deepened. He said,
“Mrs. Coldwell rang up, and you came away from the telephone and spoke of her invitation?”
“I told Mr. Bellingdon about it.”
“And afterwards you spoke of it-to whom?”
They were standing together near the door. They kept their voices low. Over by the writing-table Lucius Bellingdon and Crisp were making a parcel of the wrappings. Annabel said,
“To Miss Bray-I know I did that.”
“Who else was there at the time?”
Her eyes had a distressed look.
“I think-nearly everyone-”
He dropped his voice lower still.
“Was Mrs. Herne there?”
There was an effect of withdrawal. He wondered whether she was going to answer him.
In the end she said, “Yes, I think so,” and went out of the room.
Chapter 31
IT was a little later that Miss Silver, who had been looking for Sally Foster, came upon her in what had once been a schoolroom. Lucius Bellingdon had taken it over as it was when he bought the house. But Moira Herne had never done her lessons here. She had gone to an expensive school selected by Lily Bellingdon, and the Victorian atmosphere had remained intact. Two of the walls were lined with books. There was a Turkey carpet on the floor, and a large pale green globe on a mahogany stand. There were old comfortable chairs and a practical table. Sally had come here for refuge. You can’t stay in your bedroom when the maids have to get in and do it. She wanted to get away from the others, and very particularly she wanted to get away from Moira Herne. She didn’t know what to do, and she had to think.
She stood at the window looking out for a time, then turned and began to wander along the shelves, picking up a book here and there and looking at it. There were bound volumes of an old magazine called Good Words. There was an old bound Punch with pictures of about the time of the Crimean War-elegant young men with long trailing whiskers, and girls with flowing skirts and little turned down collars. She put it back and looked at the upper shelves. Novels by Charlotte Yonge- The Heir of Redclyffe, The Pillars of the House. The Channings and East Lynne by Mrs. Henry Wood. Charles Kingsley-Sermons, Hypatia, and Westward Ho. Mrs. Markham’s History of England. Miss Strickland’s Lives of the Queens.
She was putting back a volume with rather a charming engraving of Joanna of Navarre, when the door opened and Miss Silver came into the room with a flowered knitting-bag on her arm. Just for a moment Sally had the feeling that she really was back in the past. Here was the old schoolroom, here were the old books. Miss Silver might so easily have been the governess for whom these things were waiting. She would sit down at the table and teach from Mrs. Markham’s history.
Miss Silver smiled.
“You are looking at the old books, Miss Foster?”
Sally said, “Yes,” and with the spoken word the past receded and the trouble in her thought was back upon her.
Miss Silver came up to her and put a hand on her arm.
“One cannot really talk standing up. Shall we sit down?”
“Are we going to talk?”
She received an encouraging smile.
“Oh, yes, my dear, I think so. These chairs are shabby but comfortable.”
It was not until they were seated that she went on, and not then until she had taken a half-finished baby’s bootee out of the flowered bag and begun to knit, her hands held low in her lap, her eyes fixed on Sally’s face in the kindest and most attentive manner. The atmosphere was cosy and soothing, Miss Silver’s voice agreeable in the extreme, but her words made Sally jump.
“I should like to talk to you about the return of Mr. Bellingdon’s diamond necklace.”
If Sally was startled, it was because she had a rather horrid feeling that the ground had opened in front of her, and that perhaps everything was going to begin sliding again. She said,
“You want to talk to me?”
Miss Silver coughed.
“I should like to ask you why the return of the necklace alarmed you so much.”
“Alarmed me?”
Listening to her own faltering words, Sally thought they were enough to make anyone think that she had stolen the necklace herself.
Miss Silver was knitting briskly.
“You were so much alarmed that you were ready to faint. Mr. Moray noticed it and brought you some coffee. He also took your hand and held it, and when you had drunk some of the coffee the faintness passed.”
Sally said, “Oh-” She wasn’t at all sure that it wasn’t coming on again. She leaned her head against the back of the chair and saw Miss Silver lay her knitting down upon her lap and dip into h
er knitting-bag, coming up with a small round box of Tonbridge ware. It had an inlaid pattern on the lid, and it unscrewed. She was unscrewing it now and holding it out to Sally.
“Pray take an acid drop, Miss Foster. You will find it very refreshing. It is, I believe, practically impossible to faint while one is sucking an acid drop, and it would be exceedingly inconvenient for both of us if you were to faint just now. There is also not the slightest reason for you to do so.”
Sally found herself taking what Miss Silver had called an acid drop. The lemon flavour was certainly strong, and whether for that reason, or because of the practical course which the conversation seemed to be taking, she no longer felt as if everything was sliding away. She said,
“I don’t faint-ever.”
Miss Silver had resumed her knitting.
“It is not a practice to be commended. And now, my dear, what frightened you at breakfast this morning? No, wait a moment before you answer. It was something to do with the arrival of the parcel which contained the necklace. It gave you a shock which almost caused you to faint-and as you have just told me, you are not in the habit of fainting. I need not remind you that the necklace was taken from a murdered man. If the circumstances of its return have given you any clue to the identity of the murderer, you will be in no doubt as to your duty.”
The words “no doubt” impinged on Sally’s ear in an ironic manner. She was full of doubts. They blew about in her mind like veering winds, scattering her thoughts as if they were fallen leaves and making it impossible for her to order them. She looked at Miss Silver and said,
“No doubt?”
Miss Silver’s answer was firm.
“I believe that you can have none.”
After she had been silent for a little Sally said,
“You see, I know who you are.”
“Yes, my dear?”
The Listening Eye Page 19
