Dark Threat

by Patricia Wentworth

  ‘Don’t tell me he got fresh! But I’m sure you were more than equal to the occasion. Snubbing a magician would be a new experience — and what else does one live for? You’re not going to tell me you lost your nerve?’

  ‘It wasn’t anything like that. And I’m serious — it was horrid.’

  His eyebrows rose.

  ‘Don’t tell me he raised the ghosts of all the unfortunates whom you have stabbed with a glance or frozen with a frown!’

  She said very low,

  ‘I’m serious. I told you so.’

  ‘And you expect me to encourage you, put straws in both our hairs — they’ll spoil your wave — sit on the floor and moan to the appropriately barbaric strain which the orchestra is at present discoursing? We shall be in all the gossip notes, if that is what you want — “Major Antony Latter, who has just joined the publishing firm founded by his famous great-uncle Ezekiel — ” ’

  She interrupted him in a gentle, hurt voice.

  ‘I want to tell you about it. Won’t you listen?’

  She was pale and appealing. He hadn’t ever seen her like that before.

  ‘What on earth did the fellow say to you?’

  She dropped her voice until he could only just hear the words.

  ‘He said — I’ve got to be careful — about poison.’

  Antony sat back in his chair.

  ‘What an extraordinary thing to say!’

  ‘Yes, wasn’t it? Not very nice.’

  ‘Not a bit. What made him say a thing like that?’

  Her colour was coming back — the pure, bright colour which was her greatest beauty. Yet without it she had been younger.

  Antony thought, ‘That’s curious.’

  Lois felt an odd sense of relief. He was really looking at her, really listening to her now. She told him more than she had meant to tell — to him or to anyone.

  ‘He said most extraordinary things. He said someone was trying to poison me — he really did.’

  ‘The food here isn’t really as bad as all that.’

  ‘Don’t joke about it. It was horrible. I’m not very easy to frighten — you know that. But he — almost — frightened me.’

  ‘He was out to make your flesh creep, and apparently he succeeded.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Not quite. But it isn’t exactly pleasant to be told that someone — very near — is trying to poison you.’

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘Yes, he did — someone very near me. But he wouldn’t say whether it was a man or a woman. He said he didn’t know. Why, he even said it might be I myself!’ Her laugh was not quite steady. ‘And I told him I was the last person in the world to take poison. I like my life a great deal too much to throw it away.’

  ‘Yes — I think you do.’

  She had taken out a cigarette, and leaned towards him now for a light. When the tip was glowing red and a little haze of smoke hung on the air between them, she said in a puzzled voice,

  ‘He said such a very odd thing — he said there was more than one kind of poison.’

  ‘How trite — how true!’

  ‘It didn’t sound trite — not when he said it.’

  Antony laughed.

  ‘The man has glamour, or women wouldn’t be paying him tenners to turn it on.’

  Those lightly sketched brows of hers drew together in distaste.

  ‘He was quite old — there wasn’t anything like that. Let's talk about something else.’

  THREE

  ANTONY CAME OUT OF the Luxe and got on to a bus. Change of air was indicated. He was going in search of it.

  When he got off the bus he made his way to one of those blocks of flats which were being built just before the war to accommodate office workers. This one had ridden out the storm, and with the exception of window-glass and paint it was as it had come from the builder’s hands in 1938. There was an automatic lift, and Antony went up in it — right up to the fifth floor, where he pressed an electric buzzer and had the door opened to him by Julia Vane.

  Julia and her sister Ellie Street were the daughters of Jimmy Latter’s stepmother by a second marriage. Antony and Jimmy were first cousins on the Latter side. As the girls had grown up at Latter End and Antony had spent all his holidays there, they were on the sort of terms which admit of intimacy, affection, and a familiarity which may breed anything between contempt and love. In fact a very wide frame into which almost any picture could be fitted.

  Antony may have had Julia in his mind when he contrasted Lois with the less fortunate women who got hot and untidy. Julia, opening the door to him, was hot and untidy. Her curly dark hair looked as if she had just run her hands through it, and there was ink on her nose. It would, of course, have been worse if the hair had been straight, but no girl looks her best when she is imitating a golliwog. Julia knew this for herself, and it was having a devastating effect on her temper. To expect the baker’s boy, and to open the door all inky to Antony for whom she had broken her heart two years ago, was enough to set the mildest temper in a blaze, especially when he had been lunching with Lois. She had got over Antony of course — you do if you make up your mind to it. The whole thing was dead. She hadn’t seen him for two years. She dared the dead thing to stir in its shroud.

  Antony looked at her glowering at him across the threshold. He couldn’t see that two years had changed her at all. One of her untidier moments, but the same Julia. Too much brow and too much chin, but the bones all good, and between brow and chin those dark, heavily lashed eyes which could be passionately glad or passionately unhappy. Julia never did anything by halves, just now they were passionately cross.

  He put a hand on her shoulder, laughing, turned her about, and came in with her, shutting the door behind them.

  There was no lobby, and only the one room — a big room, partitioned all down one side to make bathroom, dressing-room, kitchenette. There was a divan which obviously became a bed at night. There were two really comfortable chairs. There was a plain strong table littered with manuscript, but otherwise the room was surprisingly tidy, and the colours were good — deep, rich, and restful. There were a couple of Persian runners on the floor. He liked Julia’s room, and was actually on the verge of telling her so, when he changed his mind.

  ‘You’ve got ink on your nose, darling.’

  She flamed at once. Quite the old Julia.

  ‘If you will come when I’m working, you must take me as you find me! You’ve seen me with ink on my nose before!’

  ‘I have. But, as I have invariably pointed out, you look better without it.’

  ‘I don’t care how I look!’

  ‘Darling, that’s only too painfully obvious. Comb the hair and wash the face, and then you can give me the low-down on the family.’

  ‘I haven’t really got time,’ said Julia. But the flame died down. Quite suddenly the one thing she wanted on earth was to get away from Antony’s teasing eyes.

  She disappeared into one of the cubicles. When she came back the nose was inkless and the hair in not unattractive curls.

  ‘As a matter of fact I didn’t think you’d be here so soon. Lunch with Lois generally takes longer than that.’

  ‘How do you know I was having lunch with Lois?’

  ‘Didn’t you tell me? No, she did — she would of course!’

  ‘Darling, that sounds like womanly spite.’

  ‘It is.’

  A laughing look just lit her eyes, and then burned out. What was the use of talking to Antony about Lois? He’d been crazy about her two years ago, and even if he wasn’t now, she would probably be one of those lingering memories. Men were more sentimental than women. And always, always, always they hated to hear a woman run another woman down.

  She laughed, out loud this time. How furious Antony would be if anyone called him sentimental.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’

  Julia said, ‘Us.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You might have been a
way two minutes instead of two years.’

  ‘Because I told you about the ink? A nice homely touch, I thought.’

  She nodded. When she wasn’t in a rage with him, or breaking her heart, there was that quick give and take between them which uses words but hardly needs them. Just now she wasn’t angry and her heart was behaving itself. She felt young and happy, as if not two years but a dozen had been rolled away, and Antony home for the holidays, coming up to schoolroom tea. You washed your face and hands and combed your hair, and as long as Miss Smithers was there you were on your best behaviour, but as soon as tea was over and they could escape to the garden—

  They sat side by side on the divan, Antony in a beautiful new suit which must have cost the earth, and Julia, who wasn’t a little girl any more but a struggling novelist, in an old red smock as inky as her nose had been.

  Antony was saying, ‘Well now, what about everything — and everyone?’

  ‘You haven’t seen Jimmy?’

  ‘No. I rang him up. I shall be going down to Latter End in a day or two. I wondered if you would be there.’

  Her black brows drew together.

  ‘I may have to go down. I don’t want to. Look here, what has Lois been telling you?’ She reached sideways, rummaged behind a cushion, and produced a packet of cigarettes. ‘Here — have one.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll smoke my own.’

  ‘Not good enough for you?’

  ‘You’ve taken the words out of my mouth. Control the temper, darling, and have one of mine.’

  If she had been going to be angry, it passed. She laughed instead. It was his old game of fishing for a rise. Just at the moment she didn’t even want to.

  He struck a match and lighted her cigarette. Their lips were very near. With sickening suddenness Julia’s heart turned over. ‘Oh, God, it’s all going to begin again! How damnable to be a woman!’

  She drew back, her face gone hard, all the muscles tightened, the brow heavy, the bones of the chin defined. Before he could speak she had repeated her question.

  ‘What did Lois tell you?’

  He drew at his cigarette.

  ‘I gathered from her, and from Jimmy, that I should find a regular family party at Latter End. Ellie and Minnie are there, aren’t they?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’

  ‘And what do you mean by that, and by having to go down?’

  She blew out a little cloud of smoke.

  ‘Did Lois tell you how she was running the house?’

  ‘She gave me to understand that it was the perfect communist state — each for all and all for each.’

  ‘Do you see Lois being communal?’

  ‘Frankly, no. But she was quite lyrical over the beauty of the arrangement.’

  Julia looked at him with frowning intensity.

  ‘Did she tell you who did the work?’

  ‘I gathered that Mrs Maniple was still in the kitchen, but practically single-handed.’

  ‘There’s a girl from the village, one of the Pells —quite a nice child. Even Lois couldn’t expect Manny to scrub all those stone floors.’

  ‘She did say Manny was getting past her work.’

  ‘She cooks like an angel, but Lois will out her as soon as she can find anyone else. Manny hates her, and she knows it. Of course she’s pretty old. She remembers Jimmy being christened.’

  ‘Well, he’s only — what is it — fifty-one?’

  ‘She was kitchenmaid — that would make her about seventy. At the moment Jimmy is digging his toes in, but it’s not much good with Lois. Well, that’s the kitchen. Did she tell you who did all the rest of the work?’

  Julia leaned forward with her eyes blazing.

  ‘Mrs Huggins comes up from the village once a week and the garden boy fills the coal scuttles, and every other blessed bit of work in the house is done by Minnie and Ellie! Lois does damn-all!’

  Antony murmured, ‘Each for all, and all for each—’

  ‘Each and all for Lois,’ said Julia roundly. ‘You’ve just been having lunch with her. Did her hands look as if she ever did any housework? Ellie used to have pretty hands—’

  ‘Well, why do they stand it? Why don’t they go off and get themselves decent jobs?’

  Julia drew fiercely at her cigarette.

  ‘What sort of job could Minnie Mercer get? She’s never been trained for anything, and she’s nearly fifty. She’s always lived in Rayle, and ever since Dr Mercer died she’s been at Latter End. She’s a pet and an angel, but it’s no good pretending she’s got a backbone, because she hasn’t. She’s anybody’s doormat. And as long as it was Jimmy and Mummy it didn’t matter, because they loved her, and she was perfectly happy being their doormat. It’s not so much fun when it’s Lois.’

  Her voice went down into its own depths and was lost, but her eyes went on speaking. They said furiously, ‘Go on! Take up the cudgels and defend her! Say how delightful it would be to be Lois’s doormat! Say how much you enjoyed it yourself two years ago!’

  Antony said nothing. He allowed a slightly sarcastic smile to curve his lips and waited for the silence to suggest to Julia that she was making a fool of herself. When a betraying colour ran up into her cheeks he said,

  ‘All right, I grant you Minnie — she wouldn’t transplant. But Ellie could get herself a job, couldn’t she?’

  ‘She won’t — because of Ronnie. I suppose they oughtn’t to have married on nothing, but they were awfully in love, and everyone round them was doing it, so they did it too. He was training for estate management under old Colonel Fortescue’s agent, and the job more or less promised to him when Mr Bunker retired. Well, now that Ronnie has lost a leg it isn’t so easy. Colonel Fortescue has been awfully decent — he’ll hold the job for any reasonable time. I believe he’s doing the work himself, but it’s too much for him. Old Bunker died just before the total surrender, and the bother is, Ronnie’s not up to it — he still has a lot of pain, and they can’t get him fitted with an artificial leg. Well, he’s in hospital at Crampton, and Ellie can get over to see him two or three times a week. That’s what keeps her at Rayle, but what with doing twice as much as she ought to do in the house, and those long bicycle rides, it’s getting her down. She has just gone away to a shadow.’

  The antagonism between them had died. She was talking and he was listening as if they were still part of one family, one household, with no Lois to disturb its peace or wrench its ties apart. He said,

  ‘I see. And Ellie isn’t much of a go-getter — she never was.’

  ‘We can’t all be go-getters. And I thought men didn’t like them anyway.’

  ‘They don’t, unless it’s very carefully concealed.’

  Her eyes laughed scornfully back at him.

  ‘That’s it! I seem to remember your telling me I’d never get a husband if I didn’t get a nice velvet glove to cover my iron hand. Well, I haven’t got a husband.’

  Antony smiled disarmingly.

  ‘And you don’t want one. You see, I know all the answers. You hate, loathe and despise my unfortunate sex, and you wouldn’t dream of marrying one of them. But, my child, take it from me that the most ferocious man-eating female of the pack rather likes to feel that she could have had one of the despicable creatures if she had wanted to. It would, for instance, be a solace to your old age to remember how many of us you had refused. I suppose you would refuse us?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, and I’d rather like to. Just as a matter of academic interest of course. Suppose I were to say, “Darling, I love you passionately,” what would be your reaction?’

  Julia was as honest as she was brave. Her courage stood up well to the stab, but her honesty took rather a bad fall. She was pleased and amazed to hear herself laugh and say,

  ‘When you do love me passionately you’ll find out.’

  He said in rather an odd voice,

  ‘The question is adjourned. Perhaps we’d better get back to Ellie. Street must have some
thing?’

  Julia felt as if she had been running hard. She took a long breath.

  ‘They’ve got about three hundred pounds between them, and they’re hanging on to it like mad to furnish their house if he gets Colonel Fortescue’s job. There’s a house, but nothing in it.’

  ‘How soon is Street likely to be fit?’

  ‘They don’t know. That’s really why I’m going down. Look here, you won’t say anything, will you, but Ellie thinks they’d let Ronnie out of hospital if she had anywhere to take him. She says Matron told her so last time she went over. You see, he’s rather got stuck. They think if he was at home with her, it would give him a lift. The question is, can it be managed?’

  ‘Jimmy — ’

  ‘It isn’t Jimmy, and you know it. It’s Lois. Jimmy would say yes like a shot, but if Lois says no, it’s no. You think I can’t be fair about her, but I’m being as fair as I can. From Ellie’s point of view and mine Jimmy is our brother, and Latter End has always been our home. From Jimmy’s point of view Ellie and I are his sisters, he is very fond of us, and Latter End is still our home. But from Lois’ point of view we don’t count — we’re not any relation at all. The way she looks at it, Jimmy’s stepmother went off and married a man called Vane who got killed in a car smash, after which she came back to Latter End, had twins, and imposed on Jimmy’s good nature by staying on and bringing them up there. Lois thinks Jimmy was lamentably weak over the whole business. At least when Mummy died he could have pushed us out to earn our living, instead of which he just went on pretending that we were his sisters, and that he liked having us there. You see, I’m being perfectly fair.’

  Antony blew out a lazy curl of smoke.

  ‘Oh, perfectly.’

  ‘I do see her point, you know. She’s married Jimmy, but she hasn’t married his stepmother’s twins. What gets me is that she tries to have it both ways — makes Jimmy think she’s an angel to have Ellie there, and then treats her like a housemaid and works her to death. You know’ — Julia’s voice fairly throbbed — ‘if I weren’t pretty strong-minded and a lot of other things which you think women oughtn’t to be, I’d probably be doing scullerymaid at Latter End myself.’