The Listening Eye

by Patricia Wentworth

  The room sprang into light, and he no longer had to think. He saw. There was a cut-glass bowl in the middle of the ceiling. The light dazzled in rainbows on its facets and shone down upon the bed where Lucius Bellingdon lay, straight and tall and very deeply asleep. It shone down upon the man and woman who leaned together across the low pillow and the sleeping face. They held another pillow between them, and when the sudden revealing light came on they had been lowering it. Just for an instant they were there like that, with outstretched hands and the pillow coming down. Then the picture broke. It was the man who had his back to David and Miss Silver. He dropped his end of the pillow and ran for the open window. He had a leg across the sill, when David’s two hands came down upon his shoulder and hauled him back. They went down on the floor with a thump, the large Mr. Moray on top. After a passing glance Miss Silver spared them no more of her attention. She needed it all for Moira Herne who stood on the far side of the bed and stared at her as if she saw a ghost. Perhaps she did. The ghosts of dead hopes, dead plans, dead fortunes. After a moment she pulled the dropped pillow towards her, and as she did so Lucius stirred. He threw up an arm, muttered unintelligibly, and blinked at the light. Moira spoke. She said in a dragging voice,

  “What do you want?” and Miss Silver said, “To stop a crime.”

  Lucius Bellingdon got up upon his elbow. He had the look of a man who is dazed or drugged. Moira spoke again.

  “He was having a bad dream-he called out. I came in to bring him another pillow.”

  Miss Silver crossed the room, slim and upright in her blue dressing-gown. She put out a hand to the pillow which Moira had brought. The movement took Moira by surprise. She stepped back, but not in time. Miss Silver’s hand falling from the linen cover was already damp.

  It all took so short a time to happen. Of the two struggling men on the floor one lay prone and the other, David Moray, was getting to his feet. If he was still quite at a loss to know why a man with a handkerchief over his face and two slits cut in it for eyeholes should have been trying to smother Lucius Bellingdon in his bed, he was at least quite sure in his own mind that that was what had been happening, and that if ever a fellow had asked for it, it was the fellow whose head he had just had the pleasure of banging on the floor. Though in no case at the moment to offer any further resistance, it was desirable that he should be well and truly secured. Looking back on it afterwards, David was astonished at his own temerity, but at the time it seemed perfectly natural to approach Miss Silver and not so much ask for as demand the cord of her dressing-gown. Since she immediately complied, he was able to tie his captive up and make a good job of it, by which time Lucius was on his feet and dominating the scene. It struck David forcibly that he showed no surprise, yet the scene must be considered an unusual one, including as it did one man barefoot and in his pyjamas, another unconscious on the floor, Moira Herne clutching a draggled pillow and looking like death, to say nothing of Miss Silver in the blue dressing-gown.

  Lucius, however, looked at one person and one person only. He looked at Moira Herne, and she looked back at him.

  The first impact of the shock was very great. There are things which the mind does not readily receive. If it is obliged to do so it cannot immediately accustom itself to the alien presence. The girl who stood there facing him with the naked stare of hatred was the child that Lily had brought into his house all those years ago. Lily had had no right to do it without asking him. Any man would have been angry about it, and they had quarrelled. But Moira had been a child in his house. He wondered now whether his anger and Lily’s resentment were the parents of the hatred with which she looked at him. He had not loved her-was that the head and front of his offending? He wondered whether Lily had loved her either. If a child was starved of love, would hatred take its place? He did not formulate these things, he felt them. But something in him rose in protest. He had not been unkind. If it had been possible, he would have loved her. You cannot love at will, and even when she was a child it was not love that Moira wanted. She wanted to have her way, to be admired, to be deferred to. She wanted all the glittering toys of life. She wanted money, and she wanted power, and if they were not hers as a willing gift she would take them, and at any cost.

  David got up from the floor. The man who remained there would not get away. The cord of Miss Silver’s dressing-gown was strong. He dusted his hands and became aware of the group by the bed-the group by the bed and the silence in the room. It was broken when Lucius Bellingdon spoke. He said in his ordinary voice-and it seemed strange to all of them that there should be no change in it,

  “What were you going to do?”

  When Moira had no answer, Miss Silver gave one.

  “You had been drugged, and that pillow is wet. They were going to smother you in your bed.” Her tone was low and sad. It did not accuse. It stated a dreadful fact, and it carried a dreadful conviction.

  Lucius turned away from the girl who had been his daughter. He spoke to David Moray.

  “Who is the man?”

  David said, “There’s a handkerchief over his face.”

  “Take it off!”

  The man on the floor was moving. There was an attempt to raise the bound hands, to struggle up. He had got to his knees, when the handkerchief was ripped away and there was nothing any more to cover his face. Most people had thought it a pleasant one, the face of an ordinary pleasant man-not dark, not fair, not anything very much at all-a face to pass in a crowd and leave no strong impression behind. But now it wasn’t like that at all. It was informed by something that made it dreadfully different-hatred and the lust to kill. It was the face of a killer, and it was horribly and unmistakably the face of Clay Masterson.

  What they all saw was there to see for the briefest possible space. There was a fading out, a smoothing over, a swift assertion of control. It was in a bewildered voice that Masterson said,

  “Mr. Bellingdon, I don’t know what all this is about. You were calling out-Moira said you were dreaming-she said she would get you another pillow-we came to help you-”

  “With a mask over your face?”

  There was no killer there now, only a young man with a deprecating smile.

  “Well, sir, that was rather stupid, I know, but I’d come to see Moira, and if I ran into anyone I didn’t want to be recognized. You see, we weren’t quite ready to give out our marriage.”

  Moira had let the pillow fall. When Lucius turned to her and said, “Have you married this man?” she said, “Yes.” There was a pause. Then he said,

  “What am I going to do with you?”

  She tilted her head and looked up at him.

  “You won’t really like the headlines in the papers.”

  Miss Silver said,

  “Mr. Bellingdon, this has been an attempt upon your life. In view of the other deaths which have occurred it cannot be hushed up.”

  Moira turned upon her.

  “Hold your tongue, damn you! What’s it got to do with you?”

  Lucius came in harshly.

  “I am not concerned with anything in the past. I have to deal with what has happened tonight. In the morning I shall report to the police and everything will be in their hands. For now, you and your husband will leave this house. You can go to your room and bring away whatever you can carry. I presume he came in a car. You can go away in it. Masterson will remain here while you fetch what you want.”

  She looked down at her green house-coat.

  “I can’t go like this.”

  “You have ten minutes. Make the most of them!”

  Half way to the door she turned and came back.

  “Look here,” she said in her old drawling voice, “we might as well do a deal. Let me have the necklace and I’ll clear off for keeps.”

  The blood rushed to Lucius Bellingdon’s head. He swung round and picked up the hand-telephone from the table beside his bed.

  “I give you ten minutes! If you’re not out of the house by then, I shall call the p
olice!”

  “Well, you needn’t be so cross about it,” she said and turned again towards the door. Clay Masterson’s voice followed her.

  “Not very clever, my sweet. That damned necklace is about as safe as an atom bomb.”

  She said contemptuously.

  “You haven’t any guts. He won’t prosecute.” She went out of the room, and the door fell to behind her.

  Lucius turned to Clay Masterson.

  “There is no question of my prosecuting or not prosecuting, as you very well know. Murder isn’t a private matter, and you have both done murder and attempted it.”

  “Prove it!”

  It was the last thing any of them said before Moira came back. If the occasion had not been a tragic one somebody might have laughed. She had dressed, and she was wearing two fur coats and carrying a miscellaneous armful of suits and dresses. A crammed suit-case gaped in the doorway.

  Lucius Bellingdon spoke to David, on guard over Clay Masterson.

  “You can let him go.”

  The cord of Miss Silver’s dressing-gown was unknotted, the crossed wrists were set free. Masterson stretched, went over to the door, and picked up the suit-case, forcing it to close. On the threshold he turned.

  “Moira’s right, you know, about the headlines and the general stink. And you won’t be able to prove a thing. Better let dead men lie.”

  They came down to the car which waited at the turn of the drive. It stood in deep shadow, and in this shadow someone moved. Masterson dropped the suit-case and reached for and found an arm. Even in the dark it was beyond cavil the limp and undermuscled arm of Arnold Bray. He quailed, cried out, and tried to twist away, but Masterson held him.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to see you. I knew you would come back to the car. I want my money.”

  “And what are you supposed to have done for it?”

  “I did what you told me-I loosened the nuts on his car.”

  “And you will stand in the dock for it if you start blabbing!”

  “I’ve got to have the money!”

  “I haven’t got it to give you. You’ll have to wait for it.”

  The grip that held him had loosened. Arnold stepped back.

  “You’re clearing out-the two of you? I wish I had never had anything to do with you and your dirty work! For the last time-do I get what you promised me?”

  Clay Masterson reached for him, swung him about, and knocked him sprawling amongst the bushes. Moira was already in the front seat, her armful of garments tossed in behind. He threw the suit-case in after them, slid into the seat beside her, and started the car.

  As the sound of the engine died away, Arnold Bray got to his feet. He had a deep scratch on his cheek and quite a few bruises. His eyes were overflowing with weak vindictive tears. He shook his fist in the direction which the car had taken and cursed it. Presently he slipped a hand into his pocket and brought out three hexagonal objects. He could not see them, but it gave him great pleasure to feel them there. The fingers that ran over them came away greasy. He stooped down and wiped off the grease on the leaves and pine needles under the trees. He had taken off three of the nuts from Clay Masterson’s off front wheel and he had loosened the others. He had, in fact, repeated exactly what he had done under Masterson’s orders to Lucius Bellingdon’s car. He had a long score to settle with Masterson. He thought that he was in the way of settling it. What?-he was to be the dogsbody, to do what he was told, to take the most damnable risks, and to get nothing-nothing after all? When he thought of the risks he had run, a cold sweat came out on him and trickled down his back. He lifted the hand which held the nuts and flung them wide and far among the bushes which bordered the drive. He had been a fool and he was getting a fool’s payment, but he could do some paying too. Clay and Moira were gone and he could whistle for his money. But how far would they get before the wheel came off?

  If they had had to come away in all that of a hurry they would be making for the coast and a quick get-away across the Channel. That meant the Emberley road. Let Clay Masterson find out what it felt like to plunge down Emberley Hill on three wheels. Let him find out!

  Chapter 36

  THEY were perhaps a quarter of the way down the hill, when Masterson became aware that there was something odd about the steering. He might have noticed it sooner if he and Moira had not been engaged in so violent a quarrel. If she had not been such a fool as to drag in the necklace, if he had not been such a fool as to tie that wretched handkerchief over his face, if each of them had had the sense to steer clear of the other, if they had never met-on some such mud-slinging lines recriminations were being bandied, until in their sound and fury normal perception was blotted out. It was only when the car swerved dangerously and his automatic attempt to right it failed that Masterson came back with a shock to the fact they they were on the most dangerous hill in the county, and that the car was out of control. Moira came to it no more than a panic moment later. She screamed, he cursed her, and the car ducked and swerved to the right.

  They had not Lucius Bellingdon’s luck. They were on the steepest part of the hill with a sheer drop into the old Pit quarry on the right. While the wheel which Arnold Bray had loosened went bounding on down the descending road the car lurched to the brink, hung there for a moment, and plunged to the rocks below.

  The news came through in the early morning hours. Someone had seen the gap in the low bank and reported it. There was splintered glass on the edge, and a gold shoe which had belonged to Moira Herne. It must have been among the welter of things she had thrown in at the back of the car, but just how it had been flung clear when everything else went down was one of those happenings which no one can explain. The Emberley police certainly did not attempt to do so. They came out to investigate, and they found the off front wheel at the bottom of the hill, and Clay Masterson and Moira Herne at the bottom of the quarry, both of them dead and the car mere scrap. From the police station they rang up Lucius Bellingdon and told him what they had found. Moira Herne was well enough known in Emberley. She was a careless driver, and had been before the magistrates there on more than one occasion -parking on the wrong side of the road, crossing against the lights, driving without due care and attention. There would be plenty of gossip as to why the wheel of Mr. Masterson’s car should come off on Emberley Hill not much more than twenty-four hours after the same thing had happened to Mr. Bellingdon, and how it came about that Mrs. Herne was there with most of her clothes all thrown in loose as if she had left home in an almighty hurry.

  Lucius Bellingdon took the news with a set face. He turned from the telephone and went to find Miss Maud Silver. She was in her room and she was packing. Their last interview had been strained in the extreme. He had set his mind upon an attempt at hushing up what had happened in the night, and she had told him that she could not be a party to it. If the attempt upon his life had stood alone it might have been possible, but so far from standing alone, this attempted crime was the fourth in a series which comprised the murders of Arthur Hughes and Paulina Paine and the previous attempt upon himself. Whether it was possible to bring these crimes, or any of them, home to Clay Masterson would be a problem for the police, but to withhold what information they possessed and thereby set so dangerous a criminal free to continue to prey upon society would not only be a moral offence, but would place each one of them in the position of being an accessory after the fact. Miss Silver’s unswerving rectitude of character forbade her to consider the possibility of such a course. The utmost concession to which she could force her conscience was to defer communicating with the police until she had left Merefields. Hence the packing interrupted by Lucius Bellingdon’s knock upon her door.

  It came at the moment when she had folded her warm blue dressing-gown and was disposing it lightly but firmly at the top of her suitcase. She said, “Come in!” without turning her head, supposing that one of the daily maids had come up to do the room. Lucius came a step or two inside the
door, closed it behind him, and spoke her name.

  “Miss Silver-”

  She had straightened the bed, her suit-case was packed, her coat and hat lay ready to put on. If he had come with the purpose of trying to induce her to change her decision, he would find her inflexible. He would have discerned as much from her composed and resolute manner if he had had any thought to spare from what was on his mind, but her own, always alert and receptive, informed her immediately that he had not come to argue or persuade.

  “Mr. Bellingdon-something has happened?”

  On the brink of telling her what it was he paused to say,

  “Yes.”

  She came towards him.

  “What is it?”

  His voice, his look, were stiff and steady as he said,

  “They are dead-both of them-Clay and Moira. His car went over the edge on Emberley Hill.”

  Miss Silver said, “How?”

  “A wheel came off.”

  “Mr. Bellingdon!”

  He looked back at her with hard eyes.

  “Someone had tampered with it. Someone had tampered with mine. I came to tell you that there is no need for you to go. You can ring Abbott up from here.”

  He turned and went out of the room.

  Chapter 37

  INSPECTOR ABBOTT was of the opinion that the elimination of Mr. Masterson and Mrs. Herne was, to use a favourite word of Miss Silver’s, providential. His present use of it, however, drew from her a look of reproof which stimulated him to defend himself.

  “A particularly cool and dangerous murderer, and one of the most callous young women I have ever encountered as his accessory before, during and after two murders and two attempted murders-and I don’t suppose it would have been possible to get up a case against either of them! We might have nailed them on this last attempt, but you can’t even be sure about that. The girl was in her own home-she had married Masterson secretly, and he was visiting her. By the way, I’m sorry the evidence about the marriage didn’t come through yesterday-not that it would have made any particular difference if it had. But what put you on to the idea that there might have been a marriage?”