Who Pays the Piper?

by Patricia Wentworth

  The Inspector’s reply was still more off-hand.

  “In the circumstances, very strange indeed.”

  He had downed him though, he had downed him, because he had been able to produce the draft, and neither the Inspector nor anyone else was to know that it was a copy of Mr. Dale’s own notes.

  And why not? And why not, if you please? A secretary who was conversant at all points with his employer’s business was in a position of considerable strategic importance. There were times when knowledge became a very valuable thing. Mr. Phipson rather thought that this was one of those times.

  He walked slowly down the orchard path between the apple, pear and plum trees which would be sheeted with pink and white blossom in another two months time. He went round the house to the front door, knocked, and was pleased when Susan herself opened it. They had not met since the day when she had talked with Lucas Dale in the rose garden. That was Thursday—the day Lucas Dale had proposed to her—the day Vincent Bell had arrived—the day that all this horrible business had begun. It was not quite a week ago, but it felt like years. Susan looked at him across the gap and felt dizzy.

  But Mr. Phipson was quite at his ease. He said, “May I come in?” and when she moved away from the door and they were in the hall he led the way to the drawing-room and made the careful little speech which he had prepared.

  “May I offer my condolences, Miss Lenox, and, if you will accept them, my services?”

  Susan stopped feeling dizzy, and could have laughed. What a ridiculous little man he was, with his dignity and his absurd stilted speeches. They had been meeting continually for months, but they were still Miss Lenox and Mr. Phipson, though he called Cathy by her name. Susan and Cathy and Bill had always called him Fibs behind his back. Cathy said he crept and crawled, and Bill said he was like one of those pale, flat, jointed insects which you turn up under a stone. If he only knew——She said as quickly as possible,

  “It’s frightful—isn’t it? It was nice of you to come.”

  She supposed this was a call. They sat down, Susan in one corner of the sofa, Montague Phipson in the other. He gazed, cleared his throat, and said,

  “I wished to lose no time in offering you my services.”

  Susan hesitated.

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  He shook his head.

  “I am entirely at your disposal.”

  Susan thought, “If Fibs is going to propose to me, I shall scream.” She said in a controlled voice,

  “It sounds very kind, but I don’t really know what you mean.” And then she had a panic, because if he was thinking of proposing, she didn’t want to know what he meant, and he would be certain to think she did.

  Mr. Phipson looked atrociously solemn and important. If he had belonged to an earlier generation he would have addressed Susan as “My dear young lady”.

  “When I said I was at your service, I was alluding to the trying and protracted business of settling so large an estate as Mr. Dale’s. You will certainly require assistance, and I think you will agree that there is no one so well qualified as myself.” He shifted his pince-nez and gazed at her through the lenses. “Without any failure of modesty, I think I can say that.”

  Well, he wasn’t proposing. But this was almost as bad, because if it meant anything at all, it meant that he knew about Lucas Dale’s will. She winced from the thought and said,

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  His gaze sharpened, shifted, and then came back to dwell upon her with a certain quality of reproach.

  “You don’t really mean that, Miss Lenox.”

  The colour of anger came to Susan’s face.

  “I think you had better explain.”

  Mr. Phipson desired nothing better.

  “Certainly, Miss Lenox. As you are probably aware, I was a good deal in Mr. Dale’s confidence, and I am naturally aware that he made a new will on the very day of his death. I am also aware of the terms of that will. Mr. Duckett and yourself are the executors, and you are the sole legatee. I naturally assume——”

  Without waiting to hear what Mr. Phipson assumed, Susan broke in vehemently.

  “It’s all a dreadful mistake! The will should never have been made!”

  “But it was made, Miss Lenox. I believe it is perfectly in order, and that Mr. Duckett will be coming to see you about it as soon as this very painful business of the inquest is over. I understand it is to take place on Friday, and——”

  Susan broke in again.

  “Mr. Phipson, all this has nothing to do with me—that will has nothing to do with me. Mr. Dale made a dreadful mistake. I couldn’t possibly take anything.”

  Mr. Phipson’s mouth fell open, his pince-nez fell off. He considered that his ears must have deceived him. He could not possibly have heard a penniless young woman assert that she intended to refuse a fortune. Things like that didn’t happen. As he replaced his glasses he fully intended to ensure that this rule held good.

  “You are the sole legatee,” he repeated.

  “Not if I won’t!”

  “My dear Miss Lenox!”

  Susan’s eyes were dark with indignant distress. A bright colour burned in her cheeks.

  “Nothing would induce me to take a penny of it!”

  “That,” said Mr. Phipson, “is nonsense.”

  “I don’t think so. I couldn’t possibly take it.”

  “I hope you will change your mind.”

  Someone else had said that to her—someone else—Lucas Dale—on the far side of the gap that had opened so suddenly between Monday and all the time that went before. Lucas Dale had said it when he had asked her to marry him. And she had said no—and she had changed her mind—or had it changed for her. The words put a chill upon her angry mood. She said, “No,” and he repeated them.

  “I hope you will. I can’t tell you just what the estate is worth—Mr. Duckett will be able to do that—but there is at least four hundred thousand pounds invested in this country, and the American holdings come to as much again or more.”

  The cold and the anger had fused. Susan felt an icy rage. She said in a level voice,

  “It has nothing to do with me. Please stop talking about it, Mr. Phipson.”

  “Oh, but I am afraid I can’t—I can’t do that. You see, Miss Lenox, it is very important indeed that you should accept this bequest.” He leaned forward a little. “If you will allow me——”

  Susan said, “No.”

  She heard him make a small, vexed sound, and wondered at his pertinacity. It appeared that he was not at all prepared to let the subject drop.

  “If you please, Miss Lenox, I would just like to clarify the position. There is this large fortune which is actually and legally yours. If you refuse it, what happens to it? There are no relatives—I have heard Mr. Dale say he had not a relation in the world. It will revert to the Crown.”

  “I don’t care what happens to it,” said Susan bluntly.

  Mr. Phipson looked a good deal shocked.

  “But it is your duty to care, Miss Lenox. Consider for a moment. Mr. Dale in leaving everything to you placed a very great responsibility upon your shoulders. There were bequests which he should have made—which he might have made if he had taken a little more time to consider. I happen to know that he intended to consider these bequests at leisure after his marriage.”

  Susan said steadily, “It was all a mistake. I should never have married him. That is why I can’t take the money.”

  Inconceivable folly—really quite inconceivable. He made the same vexed sound again.

  “I hope you will hear me out. You are, if I may say so, in the position of a trustee. If you refuse, those people who would have received bequests will lose their money. Your aunt, Mrs. O’Hara, is one of them. Cathy is another. He intended to provide for them, but had not decided on the exact amounts. If you refuse, you will deprive them of the benefits he intended.”

  Susan flared.

  “If he intende
d it, why didn’t he do it? And how do you know what he intended?”

  Mr. Phipson looked so smug that she could have slapped him.

  “I was more in his confidence than you seem to think. You must understand that this will was in the nature of a gesture. He wished, I think, to impress you, to be able to come to you and say, ‘Look at this—I have left you everything.’ He did tell you that didn’t he?”

  The anger died out of Susan, the cold stayed. Yes, Lucas Dale had done that. She remained silent.

  Mr. Phipson said, “I see he did. It was a gesture. No one would really leave so large a fortune to a single person and make no provision for those who had served him. He intended to make a new will in the immediate future. Naturally, he could have had no idea that for him there was to be no future.”

  Susan shuddered. The words called up a picture of Lucas Dale as she had last seen him—a dominant, vital figure, proud, handsome, sure of his power to take what he wanted from life. No, he hadn’t expected to die almost before the ink on that will was dry.

  Mr. Phipson went on speaking.

  “You see now what I meant when I said that you were in the position of a trustee towards those people who would have received bequests under the will he intended to make.”

  Susan felt as if the room had grown smaller, as if the walls were closing in. The crowding furniture stood about her and Montague Phipson and closed them in. She was too near him. It was like being in a trap. She had been in a trap from which Dale’s death had released her. She saw the will now mainly as another trap, closing down. With a vehement revulsion she cried,

  “Who are these people—besides Cathy and Aunt Milly? How do I know that he wanted to leave them anything? And how do you know? What has it got to do with you?”

  She had a feeling that the room shook. And then that some violent clash had shaken her. And then that it was her own anger—because she wasn’t used to being angry like this. It couldn’t have anything to do with Fibs, because he was looking at her quite mildly through his thick lenses and saying,

  “There was Mrs. O’Hara, and Cathy—I told you that. And a sum for Mr. Vincent Bell, though he had, I believe, not quite made up his mind about that. Some provision for a woman who had been his wife, a Miss de Lisle—I suppose you knew that he had been married. Money bequests to any servants who might have been with him for more than a year. And—well, I have no reason to conceal it—a substantial recognition of my own services.”

  Something in Susan’s mind gave a small mocking laugh and said, “Now we’re getting there!” There was a glint of satire behind the deep blue of the eyes she turned upon him.

  “I see.” She got up rather quickly. “I can’t take the money. I don’t think we’d better go on discussing it, because it’s no use. I can’t take it.”

  Mr. Phipson got up too. He fumbled in a pocket and brought out a large square envelope which he held towards her without speaking. Susan took it, lifted the flap, which was not fastened down, and drew out something small in a wrapping of tissue paper. She looked at it doubtfully.

  “What is this?”

  Mr. Phipson took it from her, opened it, and displayed in the middle of a tissue paper square a small, fine linen handkerchief. An initial S was visible upon one of the up-turned corners.

  He said, “I think this is yours,” and watched her colour fade.

  “I don’t know——”

  “I am sure you do. Even I know that it is one of a set Cathy gave you at Christmas. I have watched her embroidering the initials.”

  She put out her hand to take it, and he went back a step.

  “You don’t ask me where I found it.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It matters very much. Or shall I say that it would matter very much if Inspector Lamb were to know where I found it? There is no need for him to know.”

  Susan looked at him. One of those jointed insects that you turn up under a big stone—pale, brittle, and faintly repulsive, but quite, quite harmless. Fibs—just how harmless was Fibs? They had always laughed at him——

  She said firmly, “Where did you find it?”

  Mr. Phipson said, “Ah!”

  “Where did you find it?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I shouldn’t ask you if I did.”

  “You didn’t miss it?”

  “Why should I?”

  Mr. Phipson said, “True—you would not necessarily know where you had dropped it.”

  “Where did I drop it?” said Susan, and wondered why her lips should feel so stiff.

  He looked at her—pale—brittle—faintly unpleasant.

  “You dropped it when Mr. Dale was shot. It was found beside his body.”

  Susan looked back at him. He was still there, but she could not see him, because the air had thickened between them—thickened and grown dark. She moved away from him, a step at a time, very carefully, until she touched the sofa. She sat down, leaned back into the corner, and heard him say,

  “I am afraid that was a shock. Would you like me to fetch you a glass of water?”

  She heard herself say “No.”

  “Are you sure? I will wait until you are quite yourself again.”

  Susan shut her eyes and called up all the strength and courage she possessed. The darkness passed from her eyes and from her mind. She said in quite a clear, steady voice,

  “It was horrible to hear you say that. But I don’t know what you mean. I never went into the room. My handkerchief couldn’t have been there.”

  Mr. Phipson cleared his throat.

  “Miss Lenox, this is waste of time. Consider whether it would not be better to be frank with me. You are doubtless aware that Raby found Mr. Dale at a quarter to seven. He did not wait to make any examination, but rushed upstairs to fetch me in a state of horror and distress. We entered the room together, and as I bent over the body I saw this handkerchief lying crumpled up near the feet. I do not know whether Raby noticed it or not—I do not think that he did. He was groaning aloud and averting his head. I recognized the handkerchief at once and put it in my pocket. If I were not your friend, would I have run this considerable risk? Had you not better be frank with me and let me help you?”

  Susan said, “I couldn’t have dropped it. I wasn’t there.”

  “Somebody dropped it,” said Mr. Phipson. “Cathy gave you the handkerchiefs. Perhaps she picked it up—perhaps she dropped it.”

  Susan said, “She was ill—Cathy was ill.”

  “Somebody dropped that handkerchief,” said Mr. Phipson.

  There was a long silence. Susan looked down into her lap and saw the knuckles whiten where one hand clasped the other. She thought quick and clear, “I didn’t drop it. Somebody dropped it. Somebody wore my shoes. Cathy? Aunt Milly? Impossible.” Was it impossible? She had come to the place where possible and impossible met, mixed, parted, and came together again like the reflections in broken water. She could not tell real from unreal, unreal from real. Two things emerged with clarity—the handkerchief, and Fibs who had brought it to her. Now just why had he brought it? And why had he spoken about the will first—the will and Lucas Dale’s intention of recognizing his secretary’s valuable services? She thought Mr. Montague Phipson looked upon her as the heir to that intention. She thought he was there to drive a bargain. She thought she was to make Lucas Dale’s intention good. She wondered if it had ever existed, and what she was going to do about it. Suppose she snatched the handkerchief out of his hand and went straight up the hill to Inspector Lamb. Cathy—Aunt Milly—she couldn’t do that. She didn’t know what she could do.

  She lifted her head and said, “Why?”

  “Why, Miss Lenox?”

  Susan spread out her hands.

  “All this—the will—the handkerchief. What is it all about—what does it mean—what do you want?”

  He smiled a polite and formal smile.

  “I want to help you, Miss Lenox. I am your friend. I should like to know that we a
re to work together in friendly association. I am——” He cleared his throat again. “Frankly, Miss Lenox, I am without any resources to fall back upon. Mr. Dale’s death has been a great blow to me. If I could feel assured of a continuance of my present salary and something on account of the legacy which Mr. Dale intended me to have——”

  The sheer impudence of it took Susan’s breath away. She came to her feet with the strength of anger.

  “Mr. Phipson!”

  He said, “Careful, Miss Lenox—I really do advise you to be careful. Once I have laid this evidence before the police there will be no turning back.”

  Susan caught her breath, caught back the words which that breath should have carried. She could hold them now, but once spoken they would be beyond recall. And if she made this man her enemy, what would be the end of it? She didn’t know. No one could possibly tell. With a very great effort she forced her voice to a quiet tone.

  “Mr. Phipson, I don’t know what to say. You must give me a little time.”

  He echoed her words with a difference.

  “A little time? Oh, certainly, Miss Lenox, but it would really have to be a little time. I will call again tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER XXXI

  Susan shut the front door behind Montague Phipson and stood there leaning against it. The solid, old-fashioned brass door-knob was cold in her hand. She didn’t know how long it was before she straightened herself and turned. She was not faint. Faintness would have been a relief. She went slowly through the hall and up the stair to where her door faced Cathy’s across the narrow passage.

  Cathy’s door was ajar, and Susan could hear her moving. With sudden energy she pushed open the door and went in, shutting it behind her. Cathy, on her knees before a pulled-out drawer, looked round and showed a startled face. She was still exceedingly pale, and her eyes had smudges under them. She said rather quickly,

  “I was turning out this drawer.”

  Susan sat down on the bed. She was so tired that it would be easy just to sit here—pull up the pillows and lean back—leave unsaid the things she had come here to say. It would be easy, but she couldn’t do it—she had to go on.