The Grass Widow's Tale gfaf-7

by Ellis Peters

  Bunty turned the little thing incredulously in her hand. It couldn’t have weighed much more than half a pound. “You mean it was on safety all that time…” She let it go there, sparing a brief smile for the memory of her night’s ordeal. His subconscious rebellion against death had certainly been doing its best for him and for her.

  “I think so. I hope so! I don’t actually know which way is which, and I haven’t fired it, to find out. But you can’t help picking up the general principles if you see enough telly serials. And she certainly wasn’t in any mood to be switching it on to safety when she started waving it at me. And it wasn’t muzzled when it killed her, either, that’s for sure. I only pushed the catch off again,” he said, paling, “when the police… when you went to the door…”

  She knew exactly when he must have given this little snake its teeth back, and for what purpose, and the less he thought about that now, the better. “I suppose we can take it for granted,” she said briskly, “that this is the gun that killed her? It’s the only way it makes sense. They wouldn’t leave you there holding a different one, what would be the use? As soon as the police had recovered the bullet you’d have been in the clear. We could at least have a look how many shots have been fired from it, couldn’t we? How do you open this thing, do you know?”

  He took it from her. “Most of them seem to have a little catch at the bottom of the butt, and the magazine slots in there. This must be it…” His finger was on the little clip when she suddenly caught him by the wrist, her eyes flaring.

  “No, wait… don’t! I’ve just thought of something! What’s it like, this magazine thing?”

  “A sort of little oblong steel box with one side open. You slot the bullets in, and a spring moves them up singly into the chamber. I think! But we can have a look,” he said reasonably.

  “No, don’t open it! If there are good hard surfaces, like that, it would hold prints, wouldn’t it? Whoever loaded it would have to handle it… and I know we’ve completely wrecked any chances there might have been of getting anything off the outside, and in any case there wouldn’t be any traces there but ours. But we haven’t touched the inside! And I bet nobody thought of wiping that part off before they planted it on you.”

  “But it isn’t going to tell us anything, is it?” he objected ruefully. “Whoever shot Pippa didn’t have to touch the magazine. She was the one who loaded it…”

  “Ah, but was she? How do we know that? She got that gun from somebody else, probably somebody shady. And you said yourself, she was hopeless with her hands, she had to wrestle with things. If she got somebody to give her a gun, wouldn’t she get him to load it for her, too?”

  “You could be right, at that!” he agreed, reflecting the cautious glow of her excitement back to her; and he took his finger from the clip in haste. “You don’t think, do you, that the chap who gave it to her may be the same as the chap who killed her?”

  “Why not? Pippa got into something that was too deep for her, if you ask me, and where the guns are the motives for murder often are, too. But even if we only find out who gave it to her, that’ll be something. You know,” said Bunty intently,“what really puzzles me about Pippa? Not so much why she dropped you—most likely that was when she picked up with this other man—but why she picked you up again. Not out of any affection, you soon found that out. She wasn’t changing back, not on the level. No, she came running after you and made herself charming again because she wanted something out of you.”

  “It would make sense,” he agreed painfully, remembering Pippa alive, ambitious and energetic. “Only she never actually asked me for much, did she? A trip to London in my company. Oh, yes, and the loan of the car on Thursday, because she was going shopping for clothes. It’s a bind, getting on buses with dress-boxes. She brought it back in the evening, and we went to a cinema. But that’s all she asked from me. And what is there in that?”

  “But that drive to London with you she wanted very, very badly. She showed you that when you held out on her. What could possibly have been so urgent about it? I mean, she could as easily have got herself there by train, if she wanted to go as badly as all that. But that wouldn’t do. It had to be with you.”

  “But why? Why should it matter to her how she ran out, even if for some reason she had to run?”

  “I don’t know. But Pippa knew. She knew of a very strong reason indeed, or why should she still go on persisting, even when she found out that you knew about her visitor, and weren’t going to be taken in any more? When she couldn’t get her own way by charm, she was even desperate enough to use the gun. And now I’ve thought of something else about this gun. You were meant to be found right there on the spot, a sitting duck, ready to be charged. Either still out, or half-dizzy and half-drunk, dithering over the body and not knowing which way to run. Caught red-handed with a murder you couldn’t even begin to deny… even believing yourself guilty…”

  “Yes,” he said, “that’s the way it would have been.”

  “Then,” she said, closing her eyes tightly in concentration, “whoever planted you would have to take steps to ensure that you should be found like that. He couldn’t leave it to chance. I’d stake my life that the police got an anonymous telephone call to go to your house, just as soon as the other fellow had made sure he was out of range. From a public call box. Not too near. He’d have liked to keep a watch and make sure everything went according to plan, but he wouldn’t risk it. Professionals don’t take chances, he’d get well away. And you said you were only out about twenty-five minutes… Whoever he was, he was relying on having much longer than that.”

  She opened her eyes, wide, brilliant, greenish-hazel, and stared at him. “You know what? I reckon you slid from under simply by having a good hard head, and coming round more quickly than anyone could have expected. Your part was to be discovered groggy and helpless with drink, if not still out, with the girl dead on the floor and the gun still in your hand, caught in the very act. Instead, you came round too early and scared sober, cleaned up the place, ran for the car, and got out with all the evidence. And you know, I begin to think it may have been the best thing you could do.”

  “Maybe I had one more small stroke of luck,” he said, taking fire almost reluctantly from her sparks. “I’m sure about one thing, we were wrestling for the gun, and somehow we lost our balance and started to fall. Supposing someone coming in behind me had just let loose with a cosh—just supposing it’s true:—then if I was already falling with the blow I should partially ride it. And he might not even know.”

  “And that is how you were placed? I was right? You had your back to the door?”

  “More or less, yes. If you’d known Pippa… She owned whatever she made part of her outfit, like me. She owned whatever was mine. When she walked in, she walked right in. You always ended up with your back to the door.”

  “So if either of you saw a third person enter, it would be Pippa. Did her face change? Did she cry out?”

  “Oh, God, do I know?” he said, groaning with the effort to remember clearly. “We were so tangled, neither of us knew about anyone else but the two of us. I don’t know… I don’t remember… She was yelling at me all the time, what would one yell more mean?”

  “No, I see that. No, don’t worry, it wouldn’t prove anything, anyhow. Let it go.”

  “Bunty,” he said suddenly, reaching across the table to touch her hand, “I don’t want you to hope too much, and find yourself badly let down in the end. God knows you’ve made me begin to believe I couldn’t have done it, but everything we’ve got is only conjecture. There isn’t one blind bit of evidence to show that there was ever anyone else there but the two of us. Not one! Not that I’m giving up so easily, I don’t mean that… I don’t want to believe I’m a killer. But if it should turn out… I don’t want you hurt!” he concluded with abrupt passion, and plucked his hand away.

  There could hardly, Bunty thought, be a better demonstration of her contention that he had nothing of the
killer about him, and not even his own despairing conviction had been able to instil the makings into his nature. Here was he struggling to extend himself to accept the possibility of his guilt, and his chief worry was to save her from becoming so involved that she might be seriously damaged by the disillusionment.

  “Give me time,” she said, wisely sticking to the practical point he had raised, “and I’ll find the sign you want. I’ll prove there was someone else there. There wasn’t, for instance, anything missing from the body? Or from the house?”

  He shook his head with a wry smile. “That’s just what I was thinking of, as a matter of fact. Pippa’s still wearing her engagement ring! It isn’t such a valuable job, I know, but surely if some sort of crook acquaintance had followed her to my place and killed her, he’d have gone to the trouble to take a solitaire diamond from her finger before he left? It wouldn’t delay him long.”

  She thought that over rapidly, her lip caught in her teeth. “That could also mean something that seems to me much more likely. After all, you don’t just kill over a slight difference of opinion, or a few shillings in crooked money. The mere fact that it was worth murder suggests to me that whoever it was wasn’t interested in one ring, not even on the side. What was at stake was bigger than that. The ring was worth more to him right there on Pippa’s finger when the police came, to make them say just what you’re saying: If there’d been an intruder here, he’d have made off with this. Everything had to be left intact, or there was a hole in the case against you.”

  “Then how,” he asked with a perverse smile, “are you ever going to produce that sign for me?”

  “You want to bet?” said Bunty. “Don’t side-track me, and we’ll get there yet. Where were we? Yes… with you set up as the fall guy, and the murderer telephoning the police from a suitably distant call box. Now you can take it as read that the police would have to check on such a call, whether they took it seriously or not, simply because it always might be true. In this case they found only an empty house, locked and innocent, no body, no criminal, no gun, nothing—just a bachelor cottage with the two tenants gone off for their half-term breaks, as probably some neighbour would confirm. Or the school caretaker, if there isn’t a neighbour who occasionally swops gossip with you. All in order. So what would they do next? Shrug it off as a false alarm? They do happen, all too often, out of spite, or boredom, or just a perverted sense of humour. Or would they put in the squad and go over the place thoroughly? In their present state, shorthanded and overworked, and taking into account the surface improbability of two respectable young men like you getting involved in murder, I’d say they wouldn’t spare the time. On the other hand, they’d still be a little bit curious, just as to what was behind that call.”

  “Do you think the caller would mention names?” Luke asked alertly.

  “A good point! No, I don’t think he would. The more anonymous your anonymous call is, so to speak, the less likely ever to tie up with you. No, he wouldn’t mention Pippa’s name, certainly not if he had some traceable connection with her himself. He’d just say, you boys want to get along to such-and-such an address, fast, there’s a girl been killed in there.”

  “Then when the police drew a blank at my place, they’d have no way of following up by checking on Pippa’s flat and movements. So what more could they do?”

  “I’ll tell you. They could pass out to the papers a little news item about the police being called to an apparently false alarm of the murder of a girl at a Comerbourne address. And then they’d sit back and wait to see if somebody comes forward with word of a daughter, or a sister, or a friend, going missing. No details, of coursé, just the general bait.”

  “But to-day,” he said, “is Sunday.”

  “Exactly. And the Sunday papers go to press before Saturday evening, and couldn’t even get this para. into the stop-press. So nothing can result until at least to-morrow. For my money, the police don’t yet know, nobody yet knows but you and I and the murderer, that Pippa is dead. Which matches with what the police here said. All they were following up was a case of dangerous driving.”

  “That does give us a little time, anyhow,” he acknowledged.

  “And a hypothetical good mark if we’re the ones who come forward voluntarily to report her death and tell all we know about it.”

  He had turned away to pick up Pippa’s suitcase, but he swung on his heel then to take a long, considering look at her. Her face was intent, candid and utterly serious.

  “You really have a lot of faith in the police, haven’t you?” he said, studying her curiously.

  “Yes. They’re human, and not all of them what they ought to be, but by and large, yes, I’ve got a lot of faith in them. Bring that over here on the settee, where the light’s good.”

  Pippa Galliens suitcase was of the air-travel persuasion, large but light, in oatmeal-coloured fibreglass with a rigid frame, and secured, in addition to its twin locks, with a broad external strap. Luke laid it on the couch, unbuckled the strap, and tried one of the locks with his thumb. The flap sprang back at once, a success he had not expected. He released the other one, and opened the case on as tempting a collection of feminine fashion as Bunty had ever seen under one lid. Pippa had loved clothes, and cared for them tenderly. Everything was delicately folded and cunningly assembled, protected in plastic and held in place by pink corded ribbon. Luke shrank from touching these relics, almost as much from awe of their perfection as from remembrance of their owner. It was Bunty who loosed the ribbon tethers, and began to lift out the upper layers carefully, surveying each before she removed it.

  “She did herself well. Doesn’t it seem to you that a lot of this is brand-new?”

  “I told you, she took the car shopping on Thursday. I said she’d have time to shop in London, but she couldn’t wait. She loved clothes,” he said helplessly, watching delicate feminine colours lifted one by one from Pippa’s treasury.

  “I see she did. Too well,” said Bunty sharply, “to have let this pass when she was packing.”

  He had noticed nothing wrong, and indeed there was little to notice, just a corner of a folded skirt in its plastic envelope crumpled together like a buckled wing after a collision, stubbed into creases. And directly below that, the lace edge of a slip folded back on itself. Bunty slid her hand into the corner and felt down past layer after layer, turning them back to examine each as she came to it. Then she readjusted them, a glint of excitement in her eye, and treated all the other corners in the same way.

  “You see?”

  He didn’t see; his own packing would have looked so different that this still appeared perfection, but it is on perfection that tiny blemishes show most clearly.

  “He was very neat, he hardly disturbed anything, but he left his traces, all the same. She’d never have left those corners crumpled like that, not even by one fold. Even if she had to disturb her case again to put in something else, she’d do the job properly. Somebody has been through this case, hunting for something. Something big enough to be easily found, because he didn’t lift out the things, he just ran his hands down in the corners and here, at the front, and felt for it. And what’s more,” she said with certainty, “he didn’t find it!”

  “Oh, now, hold it! How can you possibly know that?”

  “Because if he had, something big enough to be located that way, he would have to lift things out to get at it, or else pull it out by force from under, and in either case we’d be able to tell. If anything sizable had been yanked from under these pretties, not only would they have been disarranged a good deal more, but also the hole where the thing had been would be there to be seen and felt. You try it, some time. And even if he’d lifted things out, I think I’d be able to tell the difference. Besides, I doubt if he had time.”

  “He certainly didn’t have too much, but…” He was afraid to believe too readily in her conclusions. She might consider this as proof positive that some third person had been present in the cottage that night, but h
e was still waiting for the unmistakable sign, something that didn’t depend on opinion, something as positive as a fingerprint.

  “I wonder,” said Bunty, “what he was looking for?” She closed the lid again over the delicate remains of Pippa’s human vanity, and turned to their last card, the large handbag of cream-coloured glove-leather, soft as velvet and almost as expensive as mink. “This is new, too? She was really intending to start afresh, wasn’t she?”

  He said sombrely: “Yes ”; thinking, but not with me.

  Bunty unclasped the opulent bag, and turned it upside-down over the table, letting its contents slide out gently through her fingers to be spread out on the polished surface and examined almost in one glance. She moved the items aside one by one, innocuous things like comb, handkerchief, purse-cum-wallet, stamp-case, compact, lipstick, tissues in a clear plastic holder, Quickies…

  “… ball-pen, manicure, Kwells… Was she a bad traveller in a car?”

  “Not that I know of. But we hadn’t made any long trips together before. Maybe she was. When you come down to it, I didn’t really know much about her.”

  “… a folder about what’s on in London, a small wallet of hair-grips. That’s all. Well?”

  “Well?” he repeated, without understanding. “Yes, that’s all. Nothing remarkable there.” His voice was discouraged, though he tried to keep it level and reasonable. What, after all, had he been expecting? “Nothing there to tell us anything new.”

  “Oh, no?” said Bunty. “Then where are her keys?”

  “Keys?” he echoed, shaken, blinded, transfigured with realisation. “Keys!”

  He began to shake uncontrollably, and she put her arm round him and held him strongly, watching his face. In similar circumstances she might even have ventured to put her arms round Dominic, yes, even at his ripe, daunting age of twenty, rising twenty-one, though with Dominic she would have had to go very much more carefully, simply because he was her son, and still a little in love with her, and terribly in love with someone else, and jealous of his own manhood. Luke was an easier case, their relationship, complex as it might be, had not that ultimate complexity.