Dead or Alive

by Patricia Wentworth

  Neither Bill nor Meg had heard the car. It was out of sight of the lodge just round the bend of the drive, with the engine ticking over but no lights showing. The most humiliating part of a humiliating experience was being hoisted and dragged into the back seat, with Meg flung down on it like a dead thing. He had a moment’s horrible fear that she was dead, that one of the shots had struck her and she was dead—already. And then it came to him that he ought to be glad, because they were going to kill them anyhow, and Meg would be saved the pain and fear of dying.

  The car began to back along the drive until it came to the first of the open ground, where Henderson made his turn and took them smoothly up to the house. There were six of them in the car, the woman and Henderson in front, and Miller and Johnny at the back. He didn’t know where Miller had sprung from, but he was here now, and when they got out of the car and came in at the door, it was he who carried Meg, and Johnny who shoved Bill up the steps, while Henderson turned the car again and then stayed there ready at the wheel, with the engine running.

  They were in the hall with its one dim light which merely served to make the gloom visible. The woman had the lead. She was still bare-headed and coatless, but Henry Postlethwaite’s ulster hung over her arm and his black wideawake dangled from her left hand. In her right she held the revolver. Miller came next to her, carrying Meg, with one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees. Bill and Johnny brought up the rear. Bill could only just hobble. At every step he was in danger of pitching forward upon his face. His arms were crossed and bound behind him, and the cruel strain disturbed his sense of balance. He felt oddly top-heavy, as if he were a mere trunk without limbs. As to his mental state, it was one of savage despair.

  “Straight through the house,” said the woman. She still used Miss Cannock’s voice. Perhaps she had used it so long that she used it now without thought.

  Bill’s despair deepened. Straight through the house meant straight to the edge of the lake—at least he took it that way. It meant the end. It meant that they were to die now. He prayed that Meg wouldn’t wake up. Let her sleep and not know. But a horrified flash of imagination showed her waking at the cold touch of the water—waking unprepared to an instant of panic fear—perhaps screaming. He prayed he would be dead before he heard her scream.

  And then, sudden and sharp on the front door, there came a loud, insistent knocking. There was just the one instant of shock, and then the woman was giving her orders, low and steady. “Run them into the blue room! Come back at once!” And with that she was gone into the empty room on the right whose windows commanded the entrance.

  Bill was propelled forward by Johnny. Miller turned once to say, “Make a sound and she’s dead!” And so they came to the blue room. It was dark, but no one waited to make a light. Meg was thrown down on the floor, Bill shoved in so that he came down across her. The door was shut. The sound of running feet advertised Miller’s haste to be gone. The knocking on the door persisted—a loud, continuous rat-rat-tat.

  Bill had fallen with his head against Meg’s shoulder, and now in the dark he felt her move. Through the sound of the knocking he heard her catch her breath and say his name in a piteous voice like a child’s.

  “Bill—is it you?”

  “Meg! My darling! You’re not hurt?”

  Foolish, senseless thing to say on the edge of death, but it said itself. His heart was broken with his love for her, and her danger. He could not have said what words he used.

  She gave a small bewildered sob.

  “I—don’t know. Where are we?”

  Bill was making strenuous efforts to get up. He was on his knees as he said,

  “In the blue room. Meg, get up! Can you? There’s someone knocking at the front door. With any luck it’s Garratt. But we ought to get out of here, because she may send someone back to finish us.”

  Meg’s wrists were tied, but her legs were free. She got up feeling giddy and bruised. With a jerk and a struggle, Bill was on his feet.

  It took them a minute to get the door open. They stumbled into the hall as a very large policeman entered it from the other side.

  XXXIII

  Colonel Garratt came into the hall a minute later by way of the front door, which the large policeman had obligingly opened. He was in a very bad temper and made no attempt to conceal it. The spectacle of Bill in process of being unroped twisted his mouth into a sardonic grin. He used regrettably strong language before he noticed Meg, and then failed to apologize for it.

  “Got away?” he said. “Of course they got away! It’s all that damned fool Murray’s fault! I never knew a Chief Constable yet—” He checked himself, glared at the large policeman, and barked, “Can’t talk here! Where’s a room? What’s been happening? You look as if you’d been making a fool of yourself too! I suppose I’m the deus ex machina!”

  They went into the blue room and put on the light. The sofa on which Meg had slept her drugged sleep was still pushed against the wall. Bill pulled it out, but she shuddered away from it and found a chair instead.

  “Well?” said Garratt. “What’s up? What have you been doing? Murray’s away chasing them—but he won’t get them, the silly old fool! I denied myself the pleasures of the chase”—he smiled malevolently—“in order to find out just what kind of a fool you had been making of yourself.”

  Bill, stretching his arms, flexing the muscles, desisted for a moment in order to grin amiably and say,

  “Always the perfect little gentleman—ain’t you, Garratt? The glass of fashion and the mould of form, and all that!”

  “How did they get away?” said Meg quickly.

  “Yes, we’d like to know that.”

  “Murray’s a fool,” said Garratt, “and I told him so. We drove up to the door—by the way, I suppose that’s your car outside by the gates?”

  Bill nodded.

  “And you may thank me that you were able to drive in at all, because if it hadn’t been for my superhuman intelligence in burgling the lodge, finding the key, and unlocking the gates, you’d be stuck outside them still—and a fat lot of use you’d have been to us there. But go on with your story. You drove up in style—and then what happened?”

  Garratt scowled at him.

  “One of Murray’s beef-headed policemen banged on the door. No one came. He went on banging. And when plenty of time had been given for everyone to get away who wanted to, a car came out of the hinterland and biffed off into the blue at a hundred m.p.h.” He laughed his barking laugh. “And Murray’s gone chasing them in his old buzz-box!”

  “Um—” said Bill. “That would be Henderson. The car’s a Bentley. He carted us up here and turned, and when he heard you coming he must have backed her up the drive out of sight. I wonder how many of them he took on board.”

  Garratt made his horrible grimace.

  “He seemed to have a busful. Murray’s beefeaters are searching the premises. Not my job, thank heaven!”

  “Is any of it?” said Bill with atrocious ingratitude. “I won’t say we weren’t glad to see you, but I’d like to know how you got here, embedded, so to speak, in a solid mass of County constabulary?”

  “I suppose you think you’re funny!” said Garratt.

  “Oh no—it’s only intelligent curiosity. Was it my message that brought you? I left one for you, but it doesn’t explain the constabulary.”

  “Henderson explains the constabulary,” said Garratt briskly.

  He was warming himself at the sunk fire. He rattled a shovelful of coal down upon the embers, kicked them into a blaze, and went on speaking.

  “Beastly cold room this! Damned damp here! Mrs O’Hara looks frozen. Yes, Henderson accounts for the constabulary. He’s an old lag—string of aliases, string of convictions—mostly robbery with violence—and he’s wanted for a job in the Midlands. One of Murray’s bright lads spotted him in Ledlington the other day—made some inquiries on his own. Murray had the whole thing up before him this afternoon. Well, he was dilly-dally
ing over it, afraid of running his head against a stone wall—Henry Postlethwaite’s household—Henry Postlethwaite’s chauffeur—Henry Postlethwaite’s international reputation. Murray’s an old woman, you know, and he was afraid to tackle it—afraid of its being just the sort of business it’s turned out to be. Well, he came up to town, dined at his club, saw me, told me all about it, and right on top of that my man rang up—said you’d been calling me, said you’d left a message to say you were off to Ledstow Place. I told Murray we’d better make a night of it, trotted him off to collect his posse, and we arrived, I gather, in the nick of time. And now I’d like to hear your end of the business.”

  “Tell him, Meg,” said Bill.

  Meg was curled up in one of the blue chairs, a boyish figure in the black stockinette knickers and navy cardigan, with the old woman’s night-gown showing like a shirt in front. Her hair had dried in rumpled curls. The colour had come to her cheeks again, her dark blue eyes were brilliant. She told her story well and quickly, and when she came to the scene in Miss Cannock’s room and described the astonishing changes she had witnessed from her hiding-place on the top of the wardrobe, Garratt suddenly slapped his thigh and burst out:

  “Maud Millicent, or I’ll eat my hat!”

  Bill and Meg repeated the names—“Maud Millicent!”

  Garratt slapped his thigh again and recited in jerks: “Maud Millicent Deane—daughter of the Reverend Geoffrey Arthur Deane—born Jan. 1st 1900—married 1919 John Harold Simpson bachelor, and, December 13th 1929—Simpson having gone west—Bernard James Mannister—the Bernard James Mannister.” *

  “Lord!” said Bill. “You mean she’s the woman in the Denny affair?”

  Garratt nodded.

  “She was the Vulture’s right hand while he lived—she’s run the show since he died. She can act any part, write any hand, mimic any voice.” He stopped, fascinated Meg by gritting his teeth audibly, and added with concentrated bitterness, “And that chump Murray’s let her slip through his fingers!” He kicked at the fire, and the flame shot up. Then he swung round and snapped out, “How was she dressed?”

  “As Uncle Henry,” said Meg. She jumped out of her chair, ran to Garratt, and caught him by the arm. “Oh, Colonel Garratt—Uncle Henry—we’ve forgotten Uncle Henry! How could we? He’s on the island! Oh, please come and see if he’s all right!”

  “Island? What island?”

  “There’s a bridge,” said Meg. “It goes over to the island. This house is on the edge of the lake. It belonged to an old lady who was rather mad and thought everyone was trying to kill her, so she built another house on the island and shut herself up there. The bridge has a door at each end, and the one at this end’s been broken down, but the other one’s locked. Oh, do come quickly!”

  Garratt scowled, walked to the door, opened it, and bellowed. When the large policeman arrived his manner was very respectful indeed.

  “If you please, sir, there’s nobody in the house at all except for an old woman that Hawkins has brought up from the lodge and the cook that’s crying her head off and says she don’t know nothing.”

  So they had jettisoned the old woman and poor Milly. Meg determined to do what she could for poor Milly who hadn’t wanted her to be drowned, and had cried almost as bitterly as she was now crying for herself.

  They proceeded to the bridge and passed the burst door, which hung drunkenly from one hinge, and the smashed window through which Meg had dived into the lake. The second door took some breaking down, but in the end it gave, and they came into a little dark hall on the farther side of which a line of light showed beneath a closed door.

  It was Meg who ran forward and opened it. The three men came up behind her. She stood with the door in her hand and stared into the room. It was a very untidy room. The walls were entirely lined with books. The fire was out, the air was cold and damp. A brilliant globe hung from the middle of the ceiling. Beneath it at a crowded table sat Henry Postlethwaite writing busily. At Meg’s exclamation, an exclamation which came very near to being a sob, he looked round for a moment, put up his hand in the familiar gesture which enjoined silence, and bent again to the foolscap page.

  There was a prolonged hush. Meg’s eyes were full of tears, because she really hadn’t been sure that Uncle Henry was alive. She stared through her tears. Bill stared. Garratt stared. The large policeman stared. They had made enough noise to disturb the dead, but they hadn’t disturbed Henry Postlethwaite. The breaking down of a door had made no more impression upon him than had the fact that the temperature of the room was rapidly approaching freezing-point. Like Gallio he cared for none of these things. On some remote intellectual plane he gave battle, he prevailed.

  He wrote to the end of the page. Then he flung down his pen and turned with an air of triumph to the staring group at the door.

  “That settles Hoppenglocker!” he said.

  * See Walk with Care.

  XXXIV

  The house on the island gave up enough evidence to consign Maude Millicent Mannister and her associates to a very long term of penal servitude, even if they escaped on the capital charge of murdering Robin O’Hara. But “first catch your thief is a very practical proverb. They were not caught, and therefore they could neither be hanged nor imprisoned. The Bentley was discovered in a garage on the outskirts of London, but Maud Millicent, Henderson, Miller and Johnny seemed to have vanished into space. Ledstow Place had provided them with a safe retreat for a year. From the house on the island had emanated a flood of forged notes which baffled the police for months. Miller was an expert engraver, and had already served one sentence for forging and uttering. Henry Postlethwaite, who had been persuaded to the house by his secretary under pretext that it would afford him complete seclusion during the critical later stages of his book, was slow to suspect, and slower still to discover, that there was anything wrong with his household. It is difficult to say what first aroused his suspicions, but once it became evident that they had been aroused, he found himself a prisoner on the island. His precious manuscript was confiscated, and the threat held over him that it would be destroyed if he gave any trouble. Under this threat he signed cheques, signed letters typed by Maud Millicent, and was in return graciously permitted to go on with his book. On the day of Bill’s visit he had seen him go down the drive. He had mislaid some important notes, and his search for them had taken him into the attic where many of his books and papers were stored. Its windows looked over the wall which surrounded the island, and across the lake. When he saw Bill going down the drive—going away, he made a bid for freedom. The window had probably never been opened since the house was built. Its bolt had rusted fast. Henry Postlethwaite took up a book and broke the glass, but before he could lean out or call the attic door flew open and the boy Johnny ran in upon him. There had been a painful and undignified scene—there had even been something of a struggle. Henry Postlethwaite refused to go into details about this. His cheeks flushed, and he assumed a vague hauteur which discouraged further questions.

  He had, not unnaturally, taken a great dislike to Ledstow Place, and intended to return without delay to Way’s End.

  “And we shall have to let him have the Evanses,” said Bill with a groan.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Meg. “But you know they always would have called me Miss Meg, and never really believed I was quite grown up, so perhaps it’s just as well.”

  Garratt pulled strings. Formalities were gone through with what the official mind obviously considered indecent haste, and Robin O’Hara was pronounced legally dead.

  Garratt as well as the bank manager was present when Meg opened the packet which O’Hara had deposited at the bank just before his disappearance. It contained a couple of snapshots and half a sheet of paper. One of the snapshots showed the Millers, the other Henderson standing by the car in his chauffeur’s uniform. There was a note on the back of each. On the first: “Compare Rogues’ Gallery Scotland Yard—Crooked Sue.” On the second: “Think this is the Basher.
See Rogues’ Gallery.”

  The sheet of paper contained a very few lines of writing in the form of rough notes:

  “Chauffeur’s photograph—Henderson, Ledstow Place. Good references. Forged?”

  “Second photograph—Millers, Ledstow Place. Man and wife.”

  “Cannock—secretary, Ledstow Place. Very good references from Professor Oliver Smallholm, deceased.”

  That was all.

  Garratt put the paper down.

  “The real Miss Cannock died just a month before Maud Millicent used her references to get the job of secretary to Henry Postlethwaite. By the way, I wonder what’s happened to the woman she replaced—Williams—Wallace—what as her name? She left because she was ill, didn’t she? So did the Evanses leave because they were ill!” He laughed his barking laugh. “I wonder if she ate toadstools too. I wonder whether the real Miss Cannock ate ’em, poor soul. Quiet, retiring woman—invaluable secretary—no friends, no money, no private life—no relation nearer than a distant cousin. Maud Millicent just slipped into her shoes and wore ’em as if they belonged to her. She’s a dab at a secretary’s job anyhow—that’s the way she got round Mannister. I see he’s begun speechifying again, the old gas-bag. I wonder what he would have said if we’d nabbed her. He likes the limelight, but he might have found it a bit too strong. Well, we shan’t get her now—not until next time.” He grimaced and shuffled his papers together. “That’s one thing—there’s always bound to be a next time, and one of these next times Maud Millicent will slip up, and when she slips we shall be waiting for her. She’s got away with being Asphodel, and Geoffrey Deane, and Della Delorne, and the Cannock woman, but some day she’ll go too far and she won’t get away with it. Blackmail—forgery—murder—we’ll get her some day, and when we do she’ll have a damned heavy bill to foot.”