Vanishing Point

by Patricia Wentworth

  “The police, Fred!”

  He said, “Nonsense!” And then, sharply, “What do they want?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t go to the door like this.”

  He gave the bedclothes such a shove that they fell over onto the floor and hung trailing. Someone was banging on the door now. He threw her an angry look and went padding down the passage to open it.

  Mrs. Selby stood where she was. She got her arms into her dressing-gown and did up the buttons. There was talk going on, but she couldn’t hear what was said. It would be something about Miss Holiday. She didn’t want to hear what it was. Every time she thought of that poor thing going down the well it made her feel giddy and sick.

  There were footsteps in the passage, and Fred came back into the room. He looked as if he might be getting a chill. A raw morning like this he ought to have his clothes on. There was one of the policemen with him. He cleared his throat and said,

  “You’d better go back to your room, ma’am. Mr. Selby is going to get dressed.”

  And Fred said,

  “Yes, my dear. Better get your clothes on, and then you can make us some tea. The police just want to go over the premises again, and as I tell them, I’m sure we’ve no objection. We’ve got nothing to hide.”

  The constable coughed behind his hand. Like a stabbing knife the thought came into her mind, “What has Fred been up to?” He had a smile on his face, and to anyone who didn’t know him like she did his voice was just the jolly, friendly voice he’d use for company. But it couldn’t take her in. There was something wrong, and he was trying to put a face on it.

  She went into her own room and put on the first clothes that came to hand, a royal blue skirt and jumper and a purple cardigan. She dragged a comb through her hair and tidied it. The bright colours gave her a ghastly look, but she didn’t think about that. She put on her stockings and a pair of quilted slippers with a fleecy lining that were warm to her feet. She took a little pleasure from the warmth.

  Fred came out of his room, and there was a trampling of feet through the house and out by the back door. Mrs. Selby went into the kitchen and put a kettle on the oil stove, but it had boiled, and come off the boil, and cooled, and gone back on a low flame, before anyone came into the house. The rain was falling in a steady drizzle when she went to the back door and looked out. Sometimes there was nothing to see except the rain falling on the hen-houses, and the hens, rather draggled, pecking and scratching in their runs. Sometimes the men came into view, crossing from one shed to another. There were two good sheds on the place. She couldn’t think what they wanted with them.

  In the end the trampling feet were back in the house again. Only one of the men came through into the kitchen, the Inspector from Melbury. He came right up to her with his hand shut down over something and stood there, the kitchen table between them. Then he laid down his hand on the bright checked cloth and opened it, and there in the middle of his palm was one of Miss Holiday’s beads. There was no mistaking it- bright sky-blue, with those gold and silver flakes mixed in under the glass. Her mouth opened, and before she could stop herself she said,

  “But that’s one of Miss Holiday’s beads!”

  The Inspector said,

  “Sure about that, Mrs. Selby?”

  “Oh, yes-of course I’m sure. Why, she-”

  There was a chair beside her. She sat down on it and stared at him.

  “Mrs. Selby, when you gave us a description of what Miss Holiday was wearing on Sunday night you included a string of blue beads. Do you identify this bead as having formed part of that string?”

  Her voice had sunk away. She could hardly hear it herself when she said,

  “Yes-”

  He said,

  “When Miss Holiday’s body was taken up out of the well the string of beads had broken, but some of them were discovered in her clothing. This bead has just been found in the last of the sheds we searched. It had slipped inside the mouth of an old sack. Is there any way in which you can account for its being there?”

  She said, “No.”

  “Miss Holiday was alive when you saw her last?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “She was wearing these beads?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “The string wasn’t broken?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Did you see her again after she left this house?”

  He had taken her back to the Sunday evening-sitting there with Miss Holiday in the lounge-seeing the blue beads and thinking how pretty they were when the bits of gold and silver sparkled under the light-going to the door with her and seeing her out. Everything else seemed to have slipped away. It was just saying good-bye on the Sunday evening that was real. She could see Miss Holiday going out of the front door, and herself shutting it and turning the key. She said,

  “I let her out, and I locked the door. I never saw her again.”

  CHAPTER 43

  When Lydia Crewe stopped screaming she began to talk. She talked through all that remained of the night, and she was still talking when they brought Fred Selby into the station and began to question him there after cautioning him that anything he said might be taken down and used in evidence. Lydia Crewe had been cautioned too, but it made no difference, she just went on talking. Something-some control, some check, had slipped. Frank Abbott was reminded of a clock belonging to his grandmother, the redoubtable Lady Evelyn Abbott. It had started striking in the middle of family prayers and no one had been able to stop it. Her look of surprise and disapproval merging into outraged rebuke remained with him as a pleasant memory.

  But there was nothing pleasant about Lydia Crewe’s performance. Plainly enough, she had passed the bounds of sanity whilst remaining dreadfully and convincingly lucid. First and foremost there stood out pride in her own achievements. To preserve Crewe House, to endow it with new wealth, were objects which justified all that she had done, and she took great pride in the doing of it. When they told her that her conversation about the Melbury rubies had been overheard by two witnesses and the rubies themselves recovered, two from the bodies of spiders freshly mounted by Henry, and the rest from his table drawer, she ran off into telling them exactly how she had changed the stones.

  “What was the good of them to Felicia Melbury or to anyone else kept locked up in a safe? How many times do you suppose she wore them last year? Exactly twice-at the County Ball and the Melbury Hunt Ball! So I rang her up and said could I come over-we are connected by marriage, you know-and when I got there she told me she was wearing the famous necklace, which I knew already, and she was quite pleased to show it off. So I had my chance. You wouldn’t understand the process, because I invented it myself-paper specially prepared to take an exact impression. It has, of course, to be supplemented by a keen colour sense and a photographic memory, both of which I possess. I had only to invent a pretext for getting her out of the room for a moment. I said that I had forgotten my handkerchief, and she went into her bedroom next door to get me one. By the time she returned the impression had been taken and the paper was safe in my bag. To make a finished sketch from which a jeweller could work was a business requiring a great deal of skill. The stones for the substitute necklace came from Paris to my specification. Selby has an extremely clever workman in his shop in Garstin Street. You didn’t know he had a jeweller’s shop, did you-but no one expects the police to be clever. We outwitted you every time.”

  The Melbury superintendent said nothing. A massive man, not given to change of countenance. Frank Abbott said,

  “Not this time, Miss Crewe.”

  She went on as if he had not spoken.

  “It’s just a shabby shop in a shabby street-pins on brooches, and watches to mend-cheap strings of pearls for the local girl to put round her neck and think she looks like somebody. You didn’t know Selby had a shop like that, did you? He retired from the business he used to run with his brother, but he stuck to his little jeweller’s shop and the clever Hirsch-a very industrious man an
d actually very trustworthy. When the necklace was ready I had only to wait for the Hunt Ball and go over to Melbury Towers again. Felicia doesn’t like me, but she is afraid of my tongue. I go there when I choose, and she is always very polite. There is very little I don’t know about most people in the county. I went over, I admired the necklace, and I changed it for the one which Hirsch had made. She was actually in the room at the time. I had called her attention to something in the garden, and the change only took a moment.”

  The harsh voice went on and on. She was asked about Miss Holiday. She took up the tale of the envelope thrust carelessly into an overall pocket by a frightened woman and dropped again for Lucy Cunningham to pick up and bring back to Crewe House.

  “So then, you see, she had to go. She might have looked inside and seen the sketch for the necklace. Selby managed very cleverly.”

  The Superintendent said,

  “How did he manage?”

  Her eyes looked past him, pleased like a cat with a bird.

  “I went across the fields and let him know. He said she would be coming down to see his wife as soon as he went past to the Holly Tree. She was frightened of men, you know! Such a fool! He said he could slip out and catch her just before nine, when she would be going home. She always went at the same time because the old woman locked up then. He said no one would miss him if he slipped out for a minute or two like that. It’s no distance. So that is what he did.”

  “He killed Miss Holiday?”

  “Oh, no, he only stunned her. And we put her in one of the sheds at the back of the bungalow. You see, we couldn’t put her down the well until quite late in the night in case of there being anyone awake. It wouldn’t have done for Mrs. Selby to notice anything, or old Mrs. Maple.”

  The Superintendent put his hand to his chin.

  “Miss Crewe, you have been warned that what you say is being taken down and may be used in evidence. Am I to understand that you were present when Miss Holiday was first stunned and at some time later thrown into the well at the bottom of Mrs. Maple’s garden?”

  Her glance flickered over him, dry and bright.

  “Oh, yes-he couldn’t possibly have managed without me. There is a most convenient path across the fields which comes out at the stile in Vicarage Lane quite close to the Selbys’ bungalow. I can assure you the whole thing was extremely well organized. I spared no trouble. You must understand, Superintendent, that the controlling mind has been my own throughout. Selby has been useful, but he has always taken his orders from me. He is quite incapable of working out the intricate plans which have made our enterprise so successful. I must insist that you are clear on this point.”

  “And Mr. Cunningham-what was his position?”

  She said, “Oh, Henry!” Her hands gestured as if letting something fall. Her rings flashed under the light. Frank Abbott thought, “They’ll take them away, and she’ll mind like hell.”

  An odd irrelevancy which came and went in between one breath and the next.

  “Henry!” she said. “Why, he couldn’t plan anything if he tried! All he could do was to mount the stones in his specimens. And we never told him anything we could help. He liked doing the work, but the other side of it worried him. He really made some excellent models of caterpillars. Some of them are quite large, and he was very clever about packing them with diamonds. You can get quite a number of diamonds into one of those big caterpillars. He used some stuff like plasticine and painted them when they were dry. They were supposed to be used for instructional purposes abroad.”

  Frank Abbott’s light sardonic gaze rested upon her.

  “Very ingenious, Miss Crewe. The whole thing must have given you a great deal of thought. May I ask whether the disappearance of Maggie Bell was another instance of your ingenuity? I suppose she saw something she wasn’t meant to see at the Dower House, and when Henry Cunningham told you about it you took the matter in hand?”

  Her brows drew together in a frown.

  “What do you know about Maggie Bell?”

  He leaned back in his chair, his pose negligent, his voice easy.

  “Well, if you ask me what I think, I should say Henry was careless. Let me see-you had already got away with Lady Melbury’s necklace. You may have intended to get the stones out of the country a year ago, and then have decided to wait. Henry may have had some of them to pack into a specimen. At a guess, he probably left them lying about loose on his blotting-pad while he went out of his room, and when he came back, there was Maggie Bell looking at them.”

  “She had no business in his study,” said Lydia Crewe severely. “She had been told she must never interrupt him when he was working. If people disregard orders they must take the consequences.”

  “May I ask how you induced her to-er-take them? How did that clever planning brain of yours deal with what must have been quite a dangerous situation?”

  “Naturally I saw at once that the matter was urgent. Maggie would not be likely to mention anything she had seen to her parents-very disagreeable people and interested in nothing except themselves and their ailments. But Maggie used to slip down to that cousin of hers who works for Mrs. Merridew, Florrie Hunt. Lucy Cunningham happened to mention that she was going there that evening. Lucy always mentions everything-a tiresome habit, but sometimes it is convenient. I told Selby to have his car ready and to pick me up. The Hunts’ house is the last in the village, and we drew up beyond it. I went back, and when Maggie came along I was waiting for her. I said I had a note for Mrs. Hunt, and she walked with me to the car to get it. Really a very stupid woman, though quite an efficient worker. I told her to get into the car, as there was something I wanted to explain about the note. When Selby had dealt with her, we disposed of the body and went home. There was really no risk about it at all. Selby posted two cards which I had prepared, and everyone thought she had just got bored with Hazel Green and gone off.”

  “What did you do with the body?” said the Superintendent.

  Lydia Crewe bridled-there was no other word for it. The effect was ghastly.

  “Ah!” she said. “You never found out, did you? If you had found a body, people wouldn’t have believed she had run away, would they? So I took good care that the body should not be found!”

  Frank Abbott raised his eyebrows and said,

  “Well, we have only your word for it that she didn’t run away, haven’t we? All that clever plan of yours that you’ve been telling us about rather goes by the board without any evidence to back it up. Personally, I shan’t believe a word of it unless you can produce the body. If you really disposed of it as you say you did, then you will be able to tell us what you did with it, and when we have found it you can expect us to believe your story. At the moment I don’t feel particularly credulous.” She went on talking.

  CHAPTER 44

  Miss Silver was quite ready when Craig called for her at a little after half-past nine. She wore the hat which had been her best for no more than two winters, a black felt with a bunch of pansies on the left-hand side. Frank Abbott has always maintained that during the years he has sat at her feet Maudie has only possessed two hats, labelled respectively Best and Second Best, but that periodically, like the Phoenix, they renew their youth and rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things-these being exemplified by new black or purple ribbons and fresh bunches of the more sober kind of flower. It is, of course, so far true that her hats are always of the same shape, and that they are always made of black felt or black straw, according to the season. The current hat carried a black ribbon edged with purple, and the stalks of the pansies were controlled by a small jet buckle. She had in readiness to put on the pair of grey suede gloves which Cecilia Voycey had sent her for Christmas. She considered them far too light to be practical, but for a wedding they would be most appropriate. From her composed and serene appearance nobody would have guessed that she had been up all night.

  After a search of the study at the Dower House had disclosed the presence of
the Melbury rubies the arrest of Henry Cunningham had, of course, been inevitable. Lucy Cunningham’s distress had been painful to witness, and it had not been possible to leave her until she had fallen into an uneasy sleep. Nicholas had been really helpful, and she had come away towards morning feeling that Lucy might safely be left in his care until Mrs. Merridew could relieve him.

  Fortunately, Marian had slept through the hours of the night without any suspicion that the front door was unlocked and her guest absent. By the time she awoke to these facts they could no longer be considered of the first importance. The arrest of Lydia Crewe, of Henry Cunningham, of that good-natured Mr. Selby, dominated everything.

  “Oh, my dear Maud, those poor girls-what will they do! And Lucy! She will feel it quite dreadfully, poor thing! I must go to her! Poor Henry-it doesn’t seem possible! He was such a good-looking young man. Of course Lydia has always been strange. It isn’t really good for people to live in the past as she has done. After all, these old houses, and pictures, and furniture-they don’t matter as much as people do, and we oughtn’t let ourselves think so. But Lydia did-one couldn’t help seeing it. And whatever happened, she had to have her own way.”

  Hazel Green buzzed with talk. But for once Florrie was not first with the news. She found Mrs. Merridew and Miss Silver already informed, and very little inclined to talk of what they knew. Mrs. Merridew’s, “It’s all very sad, Florrie, and I must hurry and get dressed so that I can go to Miss Cunningham,” was as much as she could get from her, and Miss Silver had taken her cup of tea into her own room and shut the door.