“When you’ve grown up, John, and are earning a living, you can squander your money if you wish, though I hope my training will produce better results. But remember, money has to be earned. Every time you spend a penny someone has given you, you are paying for your pleasure with someone else’s toil.”
John inherited a small income from his mother’s estate when he was twenty-one, and thankfully left his aunt’s house and came to London. His capital, carefully and even enterprisingly invested, brought him in enough to live on in a frugal way. He had no major vices and, though he would have shrunk from admitting it, he preferred women in print to women in the flesh. He took his work very seriously. Every time—that is, about every two years—a book »of his appeared he would go around the shops and libraries and make sure it was being properly displayed. If he found it hidden away on some obscure shelf he would take it down and leave it carelessly in some conspicuous place. In libraries he would pick up a copy—there never seemed a great run on any of his works— and hang about until he got into conversation with some fellow-borrower, when he would say speculatively he’d heard very good opinions of this fellow’s work.
In the press of his work he didn’t forget his aunts. He paid them visits every two months or so, and he wrote to them for their birthdays, and usually went down to Brakemouth for Christmas. During the June before Colonel Sherren’s death he spent two or three days at Seaview House, and at that time he was struck by a great change in the younger sister. She had always been timid, hesitant, given to hurried whispering in corners, little pushes, bland assumptions of indifference that deceived no one. In short, she had no confidence at all, and breathlessly agreed to anything her more dominant sister proposed. But this particular summer she seemed suddenly to have discovered a personality of her own. She even sat out on the balcony, a thing she had never done before. And it wasn’t alwayt convenient, she suggested, to fall in with Clara’s plans.
“I am sorry,” she would say calmly. “I don’t think I can accompany you to the Denvers tomorrow.”
“What can you be doing?” Clara would demand, and Isabel, with a little toss of the head that was certainly new, would smile and say she simply didn’t particularly care about visiting the Denvers. Mrs. Denver was a very monotonous conversationalist— didn’t Clara really think so?
“It is most inconsiderate of you,” Clara scolded. “They will think it very strange your absenting yourself, after I accepted for both of us.”
But Isabel said, “No,” she hardly thought Mrs. Denver would notice whether she came or not. Pressed inexorably by Clara as to how she intended to spend the afternoon, she said tranquilly she thought of going to the cinema.
“Really, Isabel, you cannot expect me to offer the Denvers such a frivolous excuse. You can go to the cinema any day.”
“I really am not concerned with what the Denvers think, Clara. And as to going to the cinema some other day, the programs are changed on Thursday and I should miss seeing this particular picture.”
“One would almost think,” said Clara, icily, “that you had a rendezvous.” She glanced at John with a small, pinched smile. But John didn’t smile back. He was really just like scores of other authors. He wrote because he enjoyed writing, he made very little money, very few people had heard of him, and he spent most of his time either thinking about the book he was writing now or the book he was going to start whenever he could get an idea. He got the faint scent of one now. Aunt Isabel and a rendezvous! Well, why not? He remembered his publisher saying to him once: “Woman’s second blooming is always a hot penny.”
And really Isabel was looking almost coquettish. She was more fortunate than Clara, he decided. These willowy statuesque girls became angular, frigid old ladies, while the soft plump ones simply got softer and plumper. Not, of course, that one would approve of Aunt Isabel going to extremes. The Colonel, he had been given to understand, had left quite a packet, presumably dividing the bulk of it between his two daughters. Isabel had once whispered to him, “Of course, dear, everything I have will come to you eventually,” by which he imagined she meant that Clara would have the use of the income if she survived her sister, and that when she, too, died, Isabel’s portion at least would come to that well-meaning, painstaking but virtually unread novelist, John Sherren.
When they were alone together he teased his aunt gently.
“I believe you’re developing a secret vice,” he had said.
“I suppose I seem a very old lady to you, though I am ten years younger than Clara, but even as you get near the end of your life you may find compensations you never dreamed of. Of course, it’s different for you, you’re still quite a young man with, we hope, a great many years ahead of you. I dare say you’re a little disappointed sometimes, about your work, I mean. But, don’t you see, one day you may be as well known as—as Charles Dickens.”
“Oh, come, Aunt Isabel,” John rallied her. “You know you don’t really think that, nor do I.”
“But that’s just my point.” She was extraordinarily urgent. “It may be just the thing one doesn’t anticipate at all, that seems absolutely fantastic, that may be waiting for you around the next corner. The important thing is to be prepared. Don’t look over your shoulder at the past all the time. I’ve done so much of that in my life, and then of course you miss what’s coming toward you. And though you can look backwards, you can’t walk backwards.”
He said, “Something’s happened to you. Aunt Isabel. I can see that.”
At once she seemed apprehensive. “Oh, no, dear. That is—don’t say anything like that to Clara, will you? It’s just that—I begin to wonder if I haven’t perhaps been rather foolish with my life, 1 mean. It isn’t enough to be just negative, one should be positive …”
John didn’t put his thoughts into words, but he felt pretty certain his Aunt Isabel wasn’t going to the cinema alone. Those ideas she had been voicing had been put into her mind by someone else.
But when he tried to draw her out a little she took fright and wouldn’t tell him anything.
John had no intention of raising the matter with Clara; he knew she wouldn’t confide in him even if she knew anything, which was doubtful. Instead, he decided to have a word with Locket.
Locket, however, proved as unhelpful as even Clara could have been. “I have my work to do, Mr. John. I don’t have time to go
around noticing whether people look different today from what they did yesterday. But if Miss Isabel is a bit brighter, you leave her be. She’s had a hard row to hoe all these years, and she deserves any bit of fun that may be coming to her.”
John was masculine enough to think that old ladies of sixty should be past thinking about fun.
“I notice she sits out on the balcony now,” he went on. “That’s a change.”
“A good thing, too,” snapped Locket.
“So long as she doesn’t get giddy.”
“She won’t get giddy the way you mean.” She laughed abruptly, and bustled off.
The same night, when Isabel went onto her balcony she was startled to find her nephew already there.
“I didn’t frighten you, I hope,” he asked with some concern. “I felt I must discover what it was that lured you up here night after night. Are you watching for a new star?”
She smiled at him in a warm and trusting way. “Clara was right about the balcony,” she said, “though that doesn’t mean she’s always been right about everything.” Her face took on a reminiscent look. Then, as though she shrugged aside all memories of the past that were not altogether agreeable to her, she went on in her usual eager tone: “It is delightful to sit here looking out to sea. I like to think of all the people sailing back to their lovers, the young ones going out to seek their fortune.”
John leaned forward. “I believe I can actually see the lights of France. It seems so close, doesn’t it?” The next moment his voice changed. “Take care, Aunt Isabel. I don’t think this balcony is very safe.”
“Oh, co
me, John, you’re trying to alarm me. Clara would be very cross with you if she were here. She’s been trying to induce me to sit out here for weeks and months, and now, when at last I have taken her advice, you’re trying to dissuade me.”
John caught the balustrade and shook it gently. “These balconies were made for appearance rather than use—at all events, this part of them. You tell Aunt Clara she ought to get her man to come and have a look at this. Oh, I know you don’t weigh much more than a bouncing ball, but there’s no sense taking unnecessary risks.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary, dear,” returned Isabel cosily, “Anyway, I never go near the edge.”
He shrugged, turning back toward the lighted room. “You must do whatever you wish, of course, but if you come to a disastrous end, remember you were warned.”
Really, he reflected an instant later, she was almost too sensitive. At his words the light died out of her eyes; her face was white.
“What made you say that, dear? You shouldn’t. It’s not lucky. A disastrous end, indeedl” Then, for the second time, she recovered herself. “You see what a silly old woman I’m getting? Quite superstitious. My second childhood, Clara calls it. Now, John, you are to promise me you won’t go frightening your Aunt Clara with stories about this balcony not being safe. She would only try to stop me from sitting here, and really I do need a little privacy.”
“So long as you remember to be careful,” agreed John, and he returned to town the next day.
5
IT REALLY was very odd. He hadn’t been back forty-eight hours when he got a telegram recalling him at once.
Serious accident Aunt Isabel
Just as, six months later, he was to learn of his uncle’s sudden death within twenty-four hours of leaving the old man’s house.
He showed Clara’s telegram to his landlady, the worthy Mrs. Pringle. “I do hope it’s nothing to do with the balcony,” he said. “I should feel quite responsible. I believe I ought to have mentioned it to Aunt Clara, after all.”
The landlady, who was proud of her lodger and was helping him to pack a bag, said comfortingly that probably it was one of these road accidents, and, in any case, she was sure he hadn’t anything to blame himself for. But John felt anxious all the way down to Brakemouth.
A taxi driver, who recognized him as Miss Bond’s nephew and not, as John would have preferred, as a well-known novelist, confirmed his suspicion that the balcony was the cause of the accident. A shocking thing, he said, poor lady. At Seaview he found Locket looking as grim as grief would allow her—she really had been devoted to Isabel, he remembered—and Clara as rigid as one of those wooden dolls dear to an Edwardian childhood. When she saw him she said: “I suppose you have heard what has happened? The whole neighborhood appears to be buzzing with the news. When I was a young woman there was a quality called reticence. You didn’t, if you were a gentlewoman, concern yourself with other people’s business.”
John repressed a desire to say that such a Golden Age had never existed, and laid himself out to be sympathetic. He asked how it had happened and who had discovered it.
“It happened presumably because Isabel leaned too far over the balcony and part of the woodwork gave way. I discovered it. It was most harrowing. Your aunt had not come down to dinner, so I went up to her room, which was in darkness. However, I knew she sat a good deal on the balcony, day-dreaming, I suppose, so I went out there. Of course it was obvious at once what had occurred.”
John said hesitantly. “The—the body? It’s been recovered?”
“Some fishermen picked it up from the rocks this morning.”
“And—were there—of course there must have been—injuries, I mean?”
“There was a wound in the head, but the doctor considers that may well be due to her striking her head on the rocks when she fell.”
John drew a deep breath. “A regrettable accident,” he murmured.
Miss Bond took him up sharply. “Accident? Of course it was an accident. I hope you haven’t been listening to malicious local gossip.”
“I—no, of course not. I haven’t seen any one. Why—^why shouldn’t it have been an accident? I warned her …”
Miss Bond was on to that like a hawk dropping on an unfortunate shrew-mouse.
“Warned her? Of what?”
“Why, that the balcony wasn’t safe, of course.”
His aunt looked as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “You knew the balcony was unsafe, and you didn’t say a word to me?”
He mumbled something about Aunt Isabel asking him to say nothing, and promising to be very careful.
“My dear John, you must have been out of your mind. You know how forgetful Isabel is—was, rather. Of course I see now what happened. She was mooning there and she leaned over and went crashing down. Really, John, you can’t be absolved from all blame. I don’t want to make things difficult for you, but if at the ^ inquest any one suggests anything except accident …”
“What could they suggest?” asked John, looking bewildered. “I mean, no one could want to murder Aunt Isabel.”
“Really, John, I begin to think you are out of your mind. Of course there is no question of murder.”
“I never supposed there was,” he muttered. “After all, why should anyone suspect such a thing?”
“Of course not. But—Isabel was always impulsive and she was not always the best judge of what was best for her, and so …”
“You mean suicide?” Astonishment jerked the words out of him. “Oh, but surely that’s out of the question. The last time I saw her, only a day or two ago, she was happier than I ever remember her. I got the impression that something she had always hoped for had happened at last.”
“May I ask what she told you?” The old voice was brittle as fine glass.
“Oh, nothing definite. But people who are as happy as that on Monday don’t throw themselves over balconies on Tuesday or ei^en on Tuesday week.”
“My dear John, I thought you claimed to be a realist. It is precisely people like Isabel, who live entirely by temperament rather than by any reasonable theory, who take these drastic steps. Still, as I say, this death was an accident. You will be able to go on the witness-stand and repeat what you have just told me. That should silence lying tongues. I am afraid it was common knowledge that she was always a little peculiar …”
“You mean, you’re going to let people think she was non compos mentis‘7d”
“I said nothing of the kind, and I will thank you, John, not to
twist my words. But she was utterly at the mercy of her emotions. If I had listened to her I should have had the house filled with strays, human and animal. Did you know she once actually wanted to adopt the baby of some immoral housemaid we had? She cried for days when I told her it was out of the question. My father recognized this unreliable trait in her. That is why he left all his money to me to be administered for the two of us.”
“Do you mean,” asked John incredulously, “that Aunt Isabel had nothing of her own?” It was unthinkable.
“A few pounds, perhaps, from our mother’s jointure. But all the household expenses came out of my purse. I promised my father to make a home for her until she married. Unfortunately, marriage was out of the question; she was quite unsuited to such a life. But I intended to devote all my time to making a home for her, as our dear father wished. Now, don’t forget what I’ve told you. John, are you listening to a word I say? You look perfectly dazed.”
John might have retorted that he was—by the information he had just received. What would other people think, what suspicions would they harbor? Not that it mattered. His Aunt Clara intended to get a verdict of death by misadventure, and of course she was successful.
When the inquest was over John inquired whether he could be of any assistance in settling his deceased aunt’s affairs.
“There’s nothing to settle,” said Clara, briskly. “In any case, our man of affairs, Mr. Twemlow, will be down tomorrow, to giv
e me his advice. He was unable to come today, as he had to attend the funeral of another client.”
“Very tactless,” murmured John. “Of the other client, I mean.”
There was clearly nothing to be gained by prolonging his stay, so next morning he repacked his bag and came back to town. He couldn’t help wondering who came into all the cash when the last of the sisters died. There was nothing in the old man’s will to suggest that it would come to him. And with any one as unreliable as Clara it was hopeless to count on anything. Still, he was the last relative. He couldn’t forget diat. Indeed, he brooded on it continuously.
Some time later he heard from Mr. Twemlow that a will had been found among Isabel’s possessions, correctly drawn up and witnessed, leaving her personal belongings to Locket and any monies outstanding to her dear nephew, John Sherren. (Under the late Mrs. Bond’s will the daughters’ portions did not come to them absolutely; they might spend the income how they pleased, but on the death of one the interest passed to the survivor.) John’s share of Isabel’s fortune was not a large one; still, even a little ready cash was warmly welcomed, and presently Mr. Twemlow turned up some war bonds that Isabel had bought without consulting the lawyer, and a post office account, and it was agreed that these also were part of John’s legacy. Nice little bonus, thought John, if it isn’t the income I’d half counted on. Sweet of the old dear. And then … Poor Aunt Isabel. Didn’t seem to get much out of her life.
The next news was contained in a letter from Clara to the effect that she was selling the house at short notice and moving into a hotel. Seaview was too big and then Locket was most inconsiderately going to look after a newly widowed brother, who had, declared the irate Miss Bond, no claim on her at all, seeing they had hardly corresponded in twelve years. When John got that news he felt as though a weight had fallen off his shoulders. He had been haunted by the dread that his aunt might take a companion, one of those unscrupulous elderly women so popular in radio drama, who wind their tentacles around the heiress and are discovered, after the funeral, to have Inherited All. He went down at Christmas, as usual, only this time he put up at the Railway Hotel. As he anticipated, his Aunt Clara had already impressed her personality on her fellow guests, and a certain chair, the best, was regarded as hers, and newcomers were warned that she did not care to find it occupied when she came into the lounge. John exerted himself to talk of his own books, and an American offer his agents had managed to get for the latest of them. Miss Bond, however, had no intention of playing second fiddle to the boy she had brought up.
Death Knocks Three Times Page 4
