Corpse Path Cottage

by Margaret Scutt

  CHAPTER XXII

  THE LONDON TRAIN was not crowded, and they obtained a compartment to themselves. White settled himself in a corner seat, stretched his mighty legs, and smiled across at his companion.

  ‘Just the two of us, Mr Endicott. And very nice too.’

  ‘Very nice indeed,’ agreed Mark. ‘Especially as you will now be able to tell me what it’s all about.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the Super, taking his disreputable pipe from his pocket and proceeding to fill it, ‘I suppose you are feeling rather in the dark.’

  ‘You put it mildly. Here am I, reft from home, whirled off to London on the pretext that you wish me to take you to a theatrical agent whom, on reflection, I realize that you are well able to discover without my help. You haven’t brought me merely for love of my blue eyes, so what is the idea?’

  The Super’s pipe made a horrible gurgling sound. He said, ‘You can be of the greatest help to me, Mr Endicott. I told you that when I asked you to come with me, and I meant it.’

  ‘I’d like to know a little more about it, all the same.’

  White regarded him indulgently. The Chief Constable’s number one suspect, he felt, was behaving very well. No ifs or buts about setting off at the shortest possible notice; he merely changed his trousers, put on a clean shirt, made arrangements for the welfare of his dog, and there he was. Make a good policeman, thought the Super, mentally conferring high praise.

  He said, ‘Tell you what, you ask me some questions, and if I can answer them I will. And you needn’t start with the reason for this trip. Begin at the beginning—’

  ‘Go on till I come to the end, and then stop?’

  ‘It’s a very good rule, you know,’ said White seriously.

  ‘And would that more writers of modern fiction were of your opinion! Well, to go to the beginning — why didn’t you arrest me right away?’

  ‘Because I wasn’t sure that you had done it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because you showed me an anonymous letter.’

  ‘I don’t see—’

  ‘Oh, there were other reasons as well. We won’t go into details now, Mr Endicott, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘A fat lot of use for me to mind,’ grumbled Mark, staring discontentedly at the bland smoke-wreathed face. ‘I know you’ll tell me precisely what you think fit.’

  ‘Well, naturally. But you can always ask me some more.’

  ‘Thanks very much, I’m sure. I suppose you dismissed Grey and Marlowe for equally good reasons?’

  White nodded.

  ‘Then throwing out the three of us, where the dickens do you find your murderer? Other people in the village were nothing to Laura.’

  ‘I’ll ask you a question now,’ said the Super, removing his pipe and pointing a large finger at Mark. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Good Lord, man, that’s easy. The whole of God’s Blessing, if you remove Brian Marlowe, held no-one who would interest her in the slightest degree. Laura’s preoccupations weren’t with women, you know. And strangers in the place would scarcely pass unnoticed.’

  ‘Especially,’ said the Super with severity, ‘if they make foolish jokes on their arrival about forgers and murderers and wanted men. Very ill judged of you, those words, Mr Endicott.’

  ‘I know that now,’ said Mark meekly. ‘At the time it seemed a good idea. I only wanted to shut the mouths of the two females sitting in front of me — and to take a rise out of Miss Faraday, who was convinced that I was either mad or drunk.’

  ‘Nice little woman, that. More to her than meets the eye,’ said the Super warmly. He chuckled suddenly. ‘She and her book,’ he said.

  Mark stared. ‘She told you about it? That is a queer thing! The other day she would have gone through fire and water rather than let that out.’

  ‘I fancy she would go through fire and water now,’ said the Super, ‘though not for quite the same reason.’

  ‘Having trailed your red herring sufficiently across the path,’ said Mark, with his colour somewhat heightened, ‘suppose we get back to the subject? Not that my questions seem to be getting me very far up to now.’

  ‘They don’t, do they?’ The Super, who seldom laughed, chuckled again. ‘Perhaps you don’t ask the right ones.’

  ‘Probably not. At any rate, I’ve finished asking, and my lesson is learnt. I’ll wait until you’re prepared to spill the beans.’

  He pulled a newspaper from his pocket and disappeared behind it. White smoked placidly until his pipe was done, then leaned forward.

  ‘You see, Mr Endicott, it’s like this,’ he said.

  * * *

  ‘I’m going for a stroll,’ said Dinah, putting her head in at the sitting room door. ‘Shan’t be long.’

  ‘It’s a lovely evening,’ said Amy, looking up. ‘I’d come with you only I must wash my hair.’

  ‘What a pity,’ said Dinah, rather too heartily. She added in haste, lest the older woman should change her mind, ‘If you like I’ll set it for you when I come in. I have some really good setting lotion.’

  ‘It’s very good of you,’ said Amy, with a deprecating smile, ‘but I don’t think anyone can do much for hair like mine. It never would stay tidy.’

  ‘You wait until I get going. You won’t know yourself when I’ve finished with you,’ said Dinah.

  The encouraging smile faded from her face as she went out, and the dark shadows under her eyes emphasized the look of strain which had been noticeable of late. It was an evening of breathless heat, but the weather was not responsible for her lack of energy. Her feet moved as reluctantly as if she were one of her own pupils, creeping like a snail unwillingly to school.

  She passed through the village, turned the corner and came, as Endicott had once done, to the gate of Killarney. Pausing there a moment before entering, she found her breath coming unevenly and her heart beating so fast that when she glanced down, she actually imagined that the bodice of her thin dress was visibly stirred by its violence. Hold on to yourself . . . don’t be a complete fool, she thought, and opened the gate.

  ‘Well, Dinah,’ greeted Mrs Marlowe from the deckchair set in a shady patch on the lawn, ‘come and get cool.’

  No word of surprise at seeing her after her long absence, reflected Dinah, as she crossed the lawn, but you could trust Mrs Marlowe for that. Not a hearty welcome, either, but nothing to make you uncomfortable for your past neglect. It must be very pleasant never to be troubled by emotion — to take life as it came and be ever placidly content. But one must be old to embrace that Nirvana, so perhaps it wasn’t so enviable after all.

  ‘There’s another deckchair over by the wall,’ said Mrs Marlowe looking incuriously at her visitor. ‘It’s cooler here than indoors.’

  ‘It’s all right, thanks,’ answered Dinah. ‘I’ll sit on the grass.’

  She did so, tucking her brown legs under her and making an attractive enough picture in her pale cotton dress against the green background. Mrs Marlowe’s calm gaze saw beyond this, noting the nervous movement of the hands in the girl’s lap, and the lines of strain about the sensitive mouth.

  ‘You’ve been worrying your head about that boy of mine,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t, you know.’

  Dinah flushed unhappily but did not speak.

  ‘He’s got himself into a spot of trouble, I know that well enough, but it won’t last. He’ll find his feet again.’

  Just as simple as that, thought Dinah, and wondered. Once again she saw Brian’s face as she had seen it that night in the hall while the thunder rolled overhead. A spot of trouble . . .

  ‘I was pleased when he drove off that night to fetch you from the dance,’ said Mrs Marlowe, settling back more comfortably in her chair. ‘I knew that silliness with Laura Grey wouldn’t last.’

  Dinah found her voice at last. ‘You knew about that?’

  ‘There’s not much,’ said Mrs Marlowe simply, ‘that goes on in God’s Blessing that I don’t hear of sooner or later.’


  ‘But — but didn’t you mind?’

  Mrs Marlowe looked down at her shocked face with an indulgent smile.

  ‘My dear, men have to make fools of themselves over women like that sooner or later. Like puppies and distemper. His father had it late in life, and it’s worse then. Besides, I hadn’t learnt how to take it. I know better now.’

  ‘But it was wrong! And it didn’t even make him happy.’

  ‘Unhappiness like that doesn’t last,’ said Mrs Marlowe placidly. ‘Any more than growing pains. But he wasn’t the only one who suffered.’

  For a moment her plump hand touched the girl’s downcast head. The gesture was a tender one, though the placid face was unchanged.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ said Mrs Marlowe. ‘I know.’

  Dinah glanced up quickly and began to understand. The protective covering, after all, was something achieved, not granted easily by a benevolent Providence. It was as if she saw, beneath the comfortable exterior, a girl who had once been hurt, humiliated and afraid.

  She said in a choked voice, ‘I think life is horrible.’

  ‘You won’t go on thinking that.’

  With the desolate certainty of youth, Dinah knew that she was wrong. Whatever might happen in days to come, life was horrible. It took you just when happiness, that shining thing, seemed well within your grasp, and behold, the shining thing was a bubble which you had never really held at all. The brief moment of understanding for Brian’s mother had gone. She meant to be kind, but there was nothing more.

  ‘You’re vexed with him, and of course you’ve reason to be,’ said Mrs Marlowe drowsily. ‘He’s weak, like his father and always has been, but he’ll come back to you.’

  ‘Like a dog crawling back to be forgiven,’ said Dinah under her breath.

  ‘What did you say, dear?’ There was an enormous yawn. ‘So sorry — I’m half asleep.’

  ‘It was nothing.’ There was a pause. Mrs Marlowe closed her eyes.

  A shadow fell across Dinah, and she looked up with a start.

  ‘Brian! I didn’t hear you come.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t.’ He sat down beside her on the grass. ‘The car’s at the garage. I’ve walked up.’

  ‘Your mother’s asleep.’

  ‘Yes. She feels the heat. Did you come to see Mother, or me?’

  ‘You. Brian, the superintendent has been to see Miss Faraday again.’

  He looked up quickly. ‘Any news?’

  ‘Not about — that.’ The word ‘murder’ she found herself reluctant to use. ‘He was talking about the anonymous letters.’

  ‘Good Lord,’ said Brian disgustedly, ‘do you mean he’s still wasting time nosing after that? I can’t imagine why. They put such an old apple-woman in charge of the case. Good enough for motoring offences or petty thieving, but out of his depth in an affair like this.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure. He’s nobody’s fool,’ said Dinah.

  Her heart was uplifted. For the moment she forgot what Laura had meant in her life. Brian wished the criminal to be found; she had been utterly, gloriously wrong in her suspicions.

  ‘What are you looking so pleased about all of a sudden?’ asked Brian.

  ‘Nothing. Just that it’s a lovely day.’

  ‘Yes. It has been all along. Could you break away from your preoccupation with the weather sufficiently to go on with your tale?’

  The tone took them easily back to their old relationship. It seemed that Brian was himself again. Wicked to rejoice in the death of another, but it was as if with the passing of Laura Grey the shadows had been swept away.

  ‘I remembered that anonymous letter you had the evening when you and Endicott went to fight.’

  ‘Oh yes. Have you told him?’

  ‘What do you think? But it would be a good idea if you told him yourself.’

  ‘It would, indeed. Only there’s no need, you see. He got it out of me when we first met. Though what the devil it has to do with his investigations—’

  ‘Apparently he thinks it all links up.’

  ‘I’m dashed if I can see it. However, I was a good boy, and made my life an open book to the great detective.’ He dropped a hand lightly over hers as it lay on the grass. ‘May I take it that you’ve ceased from casting me as the first murderer?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ said Dinah in a choked voice.

  ‘Oh, my pet. You know that you thought I came to you with gore on my hands, to make you a cover for my activities. I was very hurt until I got things straight and realized how feasible it must have seemed to you.’

  ‘I hated myself for thinking it — I never really believed it. Only it was the way you looked that night, as if the world had come to an end.’

  ‘That’s how I felt.’ He hesitated, and his face was shadowed again. ‘It’s hard to explain but you see, Dinah, it’s one thing to think that you and another person are both victims of a grand passion — quite another to know that you’ve been a conceited, misguided fool.’

  The hand beneath his quivered slightly.

  ‘I don’t want to hear about you — and her,’ said Dinah.

  ‘Let me tell you. I ought to have known in the first place — but she made me believe it was real.’

  ‘And wasn’t it?’

  ‘That evening when I drove her home, she made it clear enough. I had been good enough to pass the time for her, but she was utterly sick of me — bored to tears. I’d had it, in fact. She wanted no part in me then or ever.’

  Dinah snatched her hand away. She turned on him, flaming with anger.

  ‘So you came to me!’

  He said in a low voice, ‘You were all I wanted.’

  ‘Thank you so much.’ She sprang to her feet, her cheeks blazing. ‘How simple. She didn’t want you anymore, so you came to me. Am I supposed to be grateful?’

  He had risen when she did. Now he laid his hands on her shoulders, compelling her to look up at him.

  ‘Like a dog crawling back for forgiveness,’ he said.

  ‘You heard? Well, it’s true! Don’t think I’m sorry that I said it!’

  ‘You’re perfectly right, yet you’ve got it all wrong. I know I behaved abominably to you — my God, I don’t need to be told that! But what I felt for you was utterly different.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ snapped Dinah.

  He gave her shoulders a little shake. ‘Shut up, will you, and listen. I didn’t turn to you as second best. Can’t you realize that a man can be mad and suddenly come to his senses? I swear to you my misery that night wasn’t because she’d turned me down. It wasn’t that at all.’

  ‘How can I believe that? You looked as if you’d been through hell.’

  ‘I felt it.’

  ‘At losing her!’

  ‘Can’t you understand it wasn’t that? It wasn’t, I tell you! I was miserable, utterly humiliated, yes, but it was because in that instant I realized what a fool I’d been. I had lost her, but that was nothing. I’d never really had her to lose. The thing was that through my own damned folly I’d lost you.’

  He released her and turned away, pushing his hands into his pockets. Forgotten in her deckchair, Mrs Marlowe cautiously opened her eyes.

  ‘So now you know. You won’t believe, of course, but there it is. The dog came crawling back all right, didn’t he?’

  There was a pause before Dinah said, in a queer voice, ‘Yes, he did.’

  Brian swung round, saw her face, and pulled her into his arms. Smiling, Mrs Marlowe closed her eyes again, and the ghost of Laura Grey went sighing down the breeze.

  * * *

  ‘It’s a queer thing,’ said Mr Julian Ross, leaning back in his chair and examining his shining nails with critical approval. ‘I hadn’t set eyes on the woman for a couple of years until three days ago, and now you come in making enquiries about her. I call it very queer.’

  The Super, sitting very foursquare, nodded. He looked as out of place in the glossy surroundings of the theatrical
agent’s office as Laura had looked in God’s Blessing. Mark, on the contrary, appeared quite at home.

  ‘Poor Kathryn,’ continued Mr Ross, tapping his teeth reflectively with a silver paperknife. ‘Very dependable actress, and extremely good in her line. But her husband’s death broke her all to pieces. When she walked out of the company no-one saw or heard of her again. Until now.’

  ‘The husband was an actor too?’

  ‘That’s right. Gerald Arbuthnot. Real matinee idol — bundle of conceit until our Laura got her claws into him. Then, they say, he went completely dippy. Mad about her. The company thought the balloon would go up at any moment. Then Laura turned him down—’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Lord knows. She tired easily. Probably for a better proposition. Anyhow, Arbuthnot’s nerves go all to pieces, he becomes a wreck, takes an overdose of sleeping tablets and makes his final exit. Laura disappears and, it is rumoured, meets one of the landed gentry and becomes a pillar of county society. Kathryn goes no-one knows whither. And that’s the end of that.’

  ‘Until Kathryn reappeared,’ said Mark.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. And Laura, too, makes her final exit.’

  He looked at them intelligently. ‘You aren’t hinting that Kathryn is mixed up with the murder?’

  ‘We have no evidence,’ said the Super heavily, ‘that she was implicated in any way. But the past life of the murdered lady might shed a light for us.’

  ‘A pretty lurid light if you ask me,’ said Mr Ross candidly. ‘However, I sent Kathryn off to the Bunthorne Rep Company. They had a couple of actresses down with food poisoning, and were in a bad way.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘Sandbourne Bijou Theatre. Month’s run. Second week,’ said Mr Ross succinctly. ‘That be all?’

  ‘You haven’t a photograph of the lady, I suppose?’ asked White, glancing round at the lavishly endowed walls.