“’Morning, Miss Halliday.” The ghost of a smile, perhaps at Jeanie’s unwelcoming and distrustful look, was permitted to lighten for a moment the perennial melancholy of the Superintendent’s face. “I hope I’m not disturbing you, but as I was coming this way I thought perhaps I might have a word with you.”
“Of course, Superintendent,” replied Jeanie, with an alacrity she was for from feeling, and led the way to the parlour. Hostile she might be, but she was curious too, or she felt positively disappointed when Finister, refusing a chair, said:
“I just wanted to inquire how little Miss Molyneux is? I’ve not seen her since the other night and I’m afraid I gave her rather a shock then.”
“Oh, I think she’s all right, thank you.”
Jeanie looked warily at Finister. Sarah’s health, she perceived, was not really the man’s preoccupation. Why come to Jeanie to inquire about Sarah’s health?
“You won’t—I do hope you’ll see your way to leave Sarah out of your inquiries!” she said anxiously. “Children oughtn’t to be mixed up in this kind of thing!”
“Nobody,” responded Finister with sad reasonableness, “ought to be mixed up in this kind of thing. This kind of thing oughtn’t to happen. We all know that. As for that rifle, we needn’t trouble little Miss Molyneux about that. It belongs to Miss Dasent.”
He looked quickly at Jeanie as he spoke, and she saw how acute and observant his long face could suddenly appear. The impersonal ruthlessness of the law was suddenly brought home to her. She felt almost as if she herself were guilty.
“I know. Sarah saw her hide it under a culvert.” Finister nodded.
“Extraordinary thing to do,” he commented. He corrected himself thoughtfully after a moment. “Not extraordinary. Idiotic.”
There was a silence, while he appeared mournfully to contemplate the ordinariness of idiocy.
“I interviewed Miss Dasent yesterday afternoon,” he went on. “But I don’t propose to go any farther at present. Her explanation seemed quite satisfactory.”
“Oh, good!”
A wave of relief broke over Jeanie, then subsided again as she met Finister’s direct, watchful glance. She hesitated. Finister had not yet come to the purpose of his visit, then.
“Why do you tell me this, Superintendent Finister?”
He replied with calm evasiveness:
“I thought you would be interested to know. Of course Miss Dasent’s behaviour was very suspicious. Very foolish. But there really isn’t enough evidence to arrest her on. Or rather, there’s evidence which seems to point in quite another direction. And we policemen can’t afford to make mistakes, you know.”
“Another direction?” stammered Jeanie. His dark, direct glance actually made her feel as though it might be in her direction that this evidence pointed. She flushed and was furious with herself for doing so.
“Well, there is the question of the Colt automatic target-pistol, you know, Miss Halliday.”
“Oh yes?”
“It’s been missing, you know, since the day of the murder, from the Tower room. And no one has come forward to explain its disappearance.”
Jeanie felt inclined, as Finister paused, to cry: Well, I didn’t take it! Why come to me?
But it was her turn to maintain silence when the superintendent asked suddenly:
“You’ve known Mrs. Molyneux a long while, haven’t you?”
Jeanie stared at him in surprise.
“Mrs. Molyneux?” she echoed at last. “Yes. Ten years or so. Why”
Finister nodded indifferently.
“Mrs. Molyneux is a very attractive lady.”
Jeanie hardly knew whether to laugh or be indignant at this unexpected remark. Finister went on:
“Do you know if Mrs. Molyneux’s friendship with Mr. Johnson is of long standing? Did they know one another before her marriage to Mr. Molyneux?”
Now Jeanie saw where Finister’s questions were tending. He was still, was he, obsessed with the notion of Peter’s guilt! She felt herself flush hotly. She felt extraordinarily and very suddenly angry with this lanky saturnine know-all.
“Not as far as I know.”
“Mr. Johnson had been secretary to Mr. Molyneux for three years. They had been on friendly terms, anyway, for that length of time?”
“Very likely,” replied Jeanie with extreme hostility. “But if, when you say ‘friendly terms,’ you mean a love affair, why not say so? And let me say that if you do think that, you’re quite mistaken!”
Even as she spoke, Jeanie saw her own folly. She foresaw, before he uttered it, Finister’s bland question: “But, Miss Halliday, why do you suppose I should think such a thing?”
Jeanie stammered defiantly:
“The way you spoke just now! It was obvious!”
“Because I said that Mrs. Molyneux was an attractive lady?” uttered Finister in mild but, Jeanie was sure, assumed astonishment. “It was obvious to you that by that I meant that she and Mr. Johnson were lovers? Surely, Miss Halliday, if that was the sequence of your thoughts, it can only have been because such a suspicion was already in your mind?”
Jeanie realised that she had fallen instantly, obligingly, headlong into a trap. She detested, she loathed the tall and mild-eyed Finister. His feet polluted her carpet. His breath poisoned her domestic air. With a rising pulse and temper, she scarcely cared how she floundered farther into the trap he had set for her.
“Well, of course it was in my mind! Mr. Johnson told me himself about the questions you’d been asking him!”
Finister murmured blandly:
“Oh, but we didn’t ask any questions about the state of Mr. Johnson’s affections, I assure you!”
“Perhaps not,” cried Jeanie angrily. “But no doubt it was obvious what you were driving at!”
“Obvious?” echoed Finister gently. “Mr. Johnson found it obvious, did he, that we suspected him of a liaison with his employer’s wife? That is interesting.”
Jeanie, bursting with fury, with difficulty held her tongue. She had said, she perceived, too much.
“It may interest you to know that we have a note written by Mr. Johnson to Mrs. Molyneux which is in somewhat remarkable terms, considering their respective positions. One of my men found the letter crumpled up on top of some rose-leaves in a bowl on a table in the upstairs gallery, soon after the murder was committed.”
“I know. It didn’t mean anything.”
“‘You have all my devotion, always,’” quoted Finister reflectively.
“Why not? A romantic devotion.”
'Plenty of crimes have been committed under the influence of a romantic devotion.”
Jeanie sat down. She felt suddenly limp and depressed. The man had made up his mind, it was obvious, that Peter Johnson was Molyneux’s murderer, and Jeanie’s championship was doing only harm. Let her say no more. What did it matter in the long run? There could be no real evidence brought against an innocent man. Let Finister run his silly obstinate head against the brick wall of Peter’s innocence if he chose!
Finister walked to the window and stood for a moment, hands clasped behind him, gazing out into the quiet garden.
“You know,” he said at last gently, “or rather, you probably don’t know, that yesterday my men fished up the Colt automatic from the bottom of Hatcher’s Pond?”
Jeanie said:
“Oh?”
She found herself shaking a little all over.
“Yes.”
A silence fell.
“Well,” said Jeanie at last, for obviously somebody must say something: the silence was becoming unbearable. “Well, it was clever of you to know it was there.”
“It was simple. If people want to lose things they always throw them in water if they can. And Hatcher’s Pond is the only water near Cleedons. And when Mr. Johnson first approached Mr. Agatos on the day of the murder, he came from the direction of Hatcher’s Pond.”
“That doesn’t sound very incriminating,” said Jeani
e, trying to speak lightly.
“Not in itself, perhaps, no,” replied Superintendent Finister politely. He added: “The pistol is one which Mr. Johnson was in the habit of using for target practice. Didn’t he tell you?”
“Why should he?”
“No reason, of course. I just thought he might. I’m told he’s a brilliant shot.”
“I know.” In spite of herself, Jeanie’s voice sounded defensive and unhappy.
“Well,” said the superintendent, giving Jeanie a melancholy valedictory smile, “I’m glad little Miss Sarah wasn’t too scared the other night. Thank you, Miss Halliday. I can see myself out.”
Jeanie pulled herself together and accompanied her detestable visitor to the door.
‘Tm afraid I’ve disturbed you,” said he apologetically.
Jeanie felt sure that he was as well aware as herself of the double meaning of the words.
He had, in fact, so much disturbed her that she found herself when he had gone unable to settle down again to her lunch. She had a dry taste in her mouth and an uneasy feeling in her heart. She made herself some tea, and stood at the window looking dismally out at the half-dug garden and sipping an infusion that tasted like sawdust.
“But damn it, Peter!” she cried angrily to the indifferent garden. “You said you’d told me everything!”
A robin perching on her spade cocked his head at her movement and flew off. Jeanie put down her cup, put on her coat and went out. She had had enough of innuendoes and suspicions and suppressions of the truth. She would ask Peter, who was supposed to be a friend of hers, a plain question about that pistol. And she would ask Agnes, also supposed to be a friend of hers, a plain question about that zircon brooch. It would be something to do, anyway, Jeanie told herself miserably, tramping along the damp road towards Cole Harbour. She could not go on placidly eating her lunch and digging her garden and waiting to hear from Mrs. Barchard or some other gossip that Peter was arrested. She thought of Peter, gay, casual and talkative, as he had been in Gloucester. She did not know whether she felt more frightened, angry, or sad. Her heart ached extraordinarily.
Hugh Barchard, in his character of houseman, opened the door.
“Is Mr. Johnson in?”
“He’ll be back soon, I expect, Miss Halliday, if you care to wait. Mr. Fone’s at home. He’s on the library roof.”
“The roof? Why?”
“There’s going to be a meeting of the Field Club gentlemen there next Wednesday, and Mr. Fone’s going to try and convert them to this old straight track theory he’s taken up. You can see over the country in most directions from the library roof. Perhaps you’d like to go up there yourself, Miss Halliday? It’s quite safe behind the balustrade. The roof’s quite flat.”
“No, Mr. Fone’s invited me for Wednesday, and I think I’d better not anticipate the meeting. I’ll wait till Mr. Johnson comes back.”
But perhaps Peter Johnson would not be coming back, except to collect whatever few things a man under arrest is allowed to take with him to the police station. Jeanie had little doubt, after her interview with the superintendent, that Peter’s arrest was impending. The only thing that puzzled her was why Finister should have allowed her to know of it. Perhaps, after all, the police were not quite sure of their man, and Finister hoped to get from Jeanie some further incriminating evidence. If so, she flattered herself he had not got it!
Barchard showed her into the little white panelled parlour where an ordnance survey map lay open on the table with a ruler and pencil beside it.
“I’m just working out some leys for Mr. Fone,” explained Barchard, indicating a network of pencil lines drawn across the map. “Mr. Johnson’s been helping me.”
He put a chintz-covered chair for Jeanie by the fire and was about to depart when it suddenly occurred to Jeanie that if she wanted to spend an embarrassing afternoon asking plain questions of people who did not want to answer them, here she had a victim ready to her hand. She flushed, plucked up her courage and called him back. He turned and awaited her pleasure, friendly, incurious, at ease.
“I expect Mr. Fone told you,” said Jeanie, in an unexpectedly loud voice which she instantly toned down. “We went to a picture show in Gloucester. I had a picture hung there.”
“I congratulate you, Miss.”
Leaning against the table, his pose was easy, but his blue eyes set in their nets of crow’s-feet were watchful. No doubt he wondered what on earth Jeanie was leading up to, blushing like an idiot and shouting at him like a sergeant-major! Oh dear, thought Jeanie, I shouldn’t make at all a good detective! I don’t how to handle people.
“So had—so had Mr. Southey a picture there. Hubert Southey.”
Jeanie turned upon Hugh Barchard an eye which, she hoped, was not too fixed and stern. His watchful look relaxed, and he smiled faintly as if he guessed at her embarrassment and its reason.
“Yes, I know the chap you mean. He used to stay down here in the summer.”
“Yes. Well, this picture he’s exhibiting in Gloucester is a portrait.”
“Of Valentine?” asked Barchard simply. “I know the one, I expect. With her sitting in a field, wearing red gloves. It was a very good likeness.”
He spoke calmly, gently, as of someone dead. And after all, as Jeanie reminded herself, the trouble had occurred two years ago: there was no need for her to feel this excessive embarrassment.
“Hubert Southey was there,” added Jeanie. Barchard showed no emotion.
“Was Valentine there?”
“No.”
“I’d like to see her again.”
More freely now that the ice was broken, Jeanie stammered:
“In this picture, she’s wearing a zircon brooch.”
“Zircon?”
“Cingalese diamonds. A star-shaped brooch, quite large.”
“Oh yes, I remember it. Her diamond brooch.”
For the first time a sort of emotion showed itself in Barchard’s bearing. The brooch perhaps recalled some words, some scene he had forgotten. His voice went oddly gruff. He cleared his throat and as if to cover his emotion took a ruler from the table and played with it, bending it backwards and forwards.
“Well—diamonds! It isn’t real diamonds, you know.”
“Not?”
“Zircons like those, small ones, have hardly any value.”
“Val always spoke as if it was very valuable. She used to say they were real diamonds.” He looked at Jeanie thoughtfully. “How do you know about that brooch, Miss Halliday, if it isn’t a rude question?”
“I’m afraid it’s I who am going to ask rude questions!” replied Jeanie, and they both smiled. “Well, you see, Mr. Barchard, I recognised the brooch. I bought it.”
“You bought it, Miss?”
“Yes. A long time ago. Six years! And I couldn’t be mistaken. It’s too well painted for that. And so I wondered—I thought perhaps you might know how Miss Frazer came by it, and wouldn’t mind telling me,” faltered Jeanie, for now that she had come to the point the question seemed a rather impertinent one. The brooch had long ago passed out of her legal possession! She felt a little qualm when Barchard, frowning a little and bending the ruler like a bow in his strong fingers, said slowly:
“I don’t quite understand, Miss Halliday. Did you lose the brooch, then?”
“No, I gave it away. I bought it to give away.”
“Oh?”
Rapidly thinking things over, Jeanie saw no reason why she should not reply to Barchard’s unasked question. She owed candour, if she expected it.
“To Mrs. Molyneux.”
This, it seemed, did startle him. The ruler dropped with a little clatter on the polished boards. He looked blankly at Jeanie.
“Mrs. Molyneux?” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Molyneux? But what had Val to do with Mrs. Molyneux? As for that brooch—”
He paused so long that Jeanie prompted him.
“Well?”
“I th
ought the painter fellow gave it her. In fact she told me he did. As a sort of payment for sitting to him. We quarrelled a bit about it, because I thought it was too valuable, thinking it was real diamonds, you see.”
“I gave twenty-five shillings for that brooch in Islington cattle-market.”
“Well, I don’t know anything about diamonds and their value, and neither did Val, evidently. She certainly thought it was valuable, because we had a bit of a row about it. The painter chap had given her a pearl necklet already. Not real ones, you know, but still I didn’t like her taking jewellery from the chap. Not that I minded her sitting to him. Only I didn’t like her being paid for it. Well, it’s ancient history, now. This chap Southey flattered Val, and told her she was a marvel to paint. And she got the idea that all the big artists in London would come falling over themselves to paint her. And so off she went. Poor Val! I bet she didn’t find being a model all she thought it’d be.”
At a loss, Jeanie stared at Barchard. Lolling against the table, fiddling with his ruler, he wore a thoughtful, regretful look, as though his mind were occupied with pleasant memories.
“But—”
He looked up mildly.
“Yes?”
“Well, for one thing, the pearl necklace. That was real. It was quite valuable.”
Barchard frowned, and after a pause asked slowly:
“But, Miss Halliday, how do you know?”
“That’s the extraordinary thing. I found a piece of it, about half the string, in the cupboard under the stairs at Yew Tree Cottage.”
“At Yew Tree!” echoed Barchard. He stared in the fire as though he might find the answer to this puzzle there, and found it not, and with a shrug appeared to give it up. “Well, I certainly understood from Valentine they were a cheap cultured string. And you say they were valuable?”
“Quite valuable. Worth about fifteen hundred pounds.”
“Good Lord! Miss Halliday, there must be some mistake. Val can’t have thought they were valuable, or why should she have left them behind? Perhaps they’re not the same string!”
“Is it very impertinent of me to ask if you know who Valentine Frazer was? I mean, where she’d lived and what she’d done, and so on?”
Barchard looked thoughtful, and taking his pipe from the table began to fill it.
Let Him Lie Page 16
