“I agree with your nephew, Clara,” intoned Miss Pettigrew. “Shortly before her death I also received a letter from Isabel that was, in the words of the poet, fired with hope. The next news I had was that she was dead. But for an unfortunate attack of influenza I should naturally have attended the funeral, but business affairs have kept me in town ever since.”
“I noticed you had not visited Brakemouth since receiving the news,” acknowledged Miss Bond with an acid smile. “Now, Frances, I should not say this unless Isabel were dead, but we can do her no harm now. Her whole life was one long series of hopes and disillusionments. She was perpetually making new and often quite unsuitable friendships on which she pinned the most absurd hopes. She had, as you know, a nature at once romantic and uncontrolled, and she could not visualize a normal end to any of these casual acquaintanceships. A man had only to raise his hat to her for her to begin planning what she would wear at the wedding. Yes, John, that is true. I have had more trouble in the past than you have any conception of. She had a way of suggesting she possessed ample means, and she would give quite disproportionate sums to congenital beggars. Any one with a hard-luck story could engage her sympathies, and persons of that susceptible temperament are bound to be deceived again and again. As I told you just now, she had not confided in me, but when these baseless hopes of hers came to nothing, as was perpetually the case, she would be plunged into an abyss of despair, from which she only rose to clutch at some fresh acquaintanceship, some fantastic day-dream which could never, in reason, be translated into reality. It was because he knew of this instability of hers that my father left his money as he did. Any unscrupulous person could have taken advantage of Isabel, and she might long ago have figured in one of these melodramatic criminal cases had she not had someone to look after her. I don’t say she was definitely unbalanced, but her balance was so delicate that she could never have managed her own life. And although naturally I have heard whispers as to the correctness of the verdict, I question whether any one so timid about heights would have chosen that way out.”
“Timid people are often desperate people,” said John in a worldly-wise manner. “They may act on impulse …”
“In any case, I see no sense in reopening this sad affair,” snapped Miss Bond.
“It is not left to you to reopen it,” returned Miss Pettigrew coolly. “The author of these,” she laid her long yellow finger on the anonymous letters, “clearly does not intend to let the matter rest. Had you thought of turning these over to the police?”
“Of course I have thought of it. It would be exhilarating to get some return for the exorbitant taxes we are called upon to pay. But surely you see the impossibility of such a course? If you and I and John here can suspect suicide, the police would be far more definite, and I cannot have dear Isabel’s memory smirched by such a suggestion made publicly. And I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that during those last weeks my sister’s attitude was painfully reminiscent of other occasions when she was, as it were, working up for a climax. Still, she was a woman fully grown, and at her age one looks for common sense.”
“On the contrary,” contradicted Miss Pettigrew, “hers was a very dangerous age.”
Miss Bond rose and walked over to the window. “We are like people going around in circles,” she said. “My real reason in inviting you here, Frances, is to ensure that you know the facts, and if the writer of these miserable effusions attempts to put his or her threats into force, you can communicate the truth to the police.”
“My own reading of the letters,” said Miss Pettigrew, “is that the writer means to apply the screw until he or she considers you in a sufficient state of—dither is, I believe, the word—to pay blackmail as the price of silence.”
“You are talking nonsense,” said Miss Bond contemptuously. “The greatest optimist cannot demand blackmail without some tangible weapon in the shape of documents or some kind of evidence, and I can assure you both that no such documents exist. Nor is any person in possession of information that could form a ground for such an illegal demand.”
“Perhaps he thinks you’re made of the same stuff as Aunt Isabel, and because she could be intimidated the same holds good for you.”
“In that case, he or she is certainly going to be disappointed,” announced Clara, sweeping the four bits of paper together and stuffing them back into her capacious bag in which she carried practically all her portable property, from her gold pencil to her sleeping tablets and sweet ration. She trusted no one, not even Miss Pettigrew or John, if the truth were known. “No, I shall await further developments. And now I believe I hear the luncheon gong. I had warned the management I should have one guest, but I dare say they will be able to support one more.”
Having made her nephew feel his lack of an invitation, she marched ahead of them into the dining room.
“It is just as well to be on the early side,” she explained. “Otherwise some of these ancient vultures, who live only for their stomachs and their bridge, will sweep the board before we can secure a mouthful for ourselves.”
After lunch Clara and Miss Pettigrew settled down to one of those interminable afternoons apparently beloved of women, each pulling out a memory like an old dance program or a pair of satin
shoes. John endured it for a while, and then showed signs of restiveness.
“You are anxious about your train, John?” inquired Clara maliciously.
“As a matter of fact I’m not going back to town tonight. I need a few days’ change—a bit run down, I fancy—and the air’s good here and once I get back to my book I shan’t be able to knock oflF at all. I’m putting up at the Railway Hotel.”
“Very noisy, I understand,” said Clara, with satisfaction. “But a great opportunity for you to observe your fellow-creatures. So essential for a realistic novelist, I always think.”
“I hope if there’s anything more I can do to help you, you’ll let me know,” he said.
“And, of course, if I am found with my throat cut, you will be on the spot to assist the police.”
“I understand they consider that very suspicious,” returned John, and was instantly aware of both ladies regarding him in a very peculiar manner. Hurriedly explaining that this was a joke, John got himself out of the room. He didn’t like the situation at all. At the reception desk he asked for the number of his aunt’s room; he said he wanted to send in a few flowers. They told him No. 12— no difficulty about it at all.
9
JOHN SHERREN had not asked his aunt for Locket’s address, partly because she probably wouldn’t have given it to him in any case, and partly because she would have wanted to know if he meant to visit the old woman, and, if so, why? Knowing from experience that she always wormed the facts out of him, he had had the sense to keep his mouth shut, and for once he thought she had given away more than he. When he was young he had often sought Locket’s company in preference to that of his aunts and their friends, as being more lively and altogether more rewarding, so he had often met her particular cronies. The chief of these was a Mrs. Pearson, owner of a villa called Sandringham in a turning off the parade, and he remembered hearing her say on a number of occasions: “If ever you want to claim your independence, May, you come along to me. There’ll always be a room for you in my house.” So now he bent his steps toward Marine Villas, knowing that even if Locket wasn’t lodging there he would get some information as to her whereabouts. He recognized the house at once by the misshapen china cat wearing a yellow boater, also made of china, peeping between the windown curtains, and when he rang the bell Locket herself opened the door.
She seemed surprised and, at first, a little suspicious. “Why, Mr. John, I didn’t know you were coming down.”
“Nor did Aunt Clara. A surprise package for every one.” He smiled genially. He had always been at home with Locket. “And you’re a surprise package for me, too. I thought you were in Wiltshire.”
“My brother’s married that trollop,” said Locket, who had n
ever minced her words, “and it wasn’t to be expected I should stay in the house after that. Mind you, they wanted me, the baby coming, and all. You should have thought of that earlier, I told them. I suppose you’ve seen Miss Bond?”
“Yes. She’s getting anonymous letters. Locket.”
He watched her intently. For a minute the old woman didn’t speak. Then she said: “You know what they say about the mills of God.”
“What exactly does that mean?”
“You’d best come in, Mr. John.” He followed Locket into a room that looked like something from a stage set, everything so true to life it had a theatrical effect. “It’s about Miss Isabel, I suppose,” Locket continued, pushing John toward a basket-work chair and taking a rocker herself.
“So you thought there was some hanky-panky there?”
“I’ve got eyes and ears like others, and more opportunity of using them,” was Locket’s dry retort. “Well, did you believe it was an accident?”
“No,” said John, after a moment’s pause. “I could believe suicide—or murder …”
“Murder?”
“I said I could believe it—more easily than accident.”
“I’ll lay you didn’t say that to your Aunt Clara.”
“I don’t want to be served with a writ for defamatory libel. What’s your view. Locket?”
“I think when a body’s stopped having anything to look forward to, they don’t see any sense in going on.”
“So you plump for suicide.” He held out his cigarette case. “Do you smoke, Locket?”
“When I’m off duty, I do. Yes, Mr. John, that’s my view, and if you’d been in the house those last few days you’d think the same.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense, Locket, What happened during those three days to drive Aunt Isabel to suicide?”
Locket pulled deliberately at her cigarette for a moment. Then she said: “Being able to take charge is very good, no doubt, if you don’t let it override you. Then you’re as much of a slave to your methods as the rest of the world. I’ve seen some managing people in my time, but none to equal Miss Clara. The way she’d come down of a morning, saying, ‘It’s another wet day,’ her face all curling up as if to add, ‘Of course, if it had been me planning the world I wouldn’t have had any wet weather at all.’ She got used to having her own way and then she couldn’t bear to be crossed. It began with the Colonel. He wanted to marry again, and much better for everybody if he had. There was a very nice lady, a widow, who was taken with him and him with her. A nice-looking, well-dressed person she was, with a bit of money, too. But Miss Clara stopped it somehow. You don’t recall the Colonel, of course, but there was something—sapped—about him. Pruning may be all very well in the time and season, but if every time a tree throws out a new shoot you get out your scissors and snip it off, pretty soon the tree’s going to die.”
“And that’s what Aunt Clara did?”
“All the time. First the Colonel and afterwards Miss Isabel.”
“I’ve always wondered she didn’t marry.”
“She didn’t marry because Miss Clara didn’t mean her to. To begin with, she persuaded the Colonel to tie up his money away from her sister.”
“How did she persuade him to do that? I always thought Aunt Isabel was his favorite, from die scraps of gossip I heard and was able to put together.”
“So she was, but the two of them together weren’t a match for
Miss Clara. As for the money, that was after the affair of Mr. Thomas. Mr. Thomas was a young gentleman Miss Isabel fancied. I don’t say he was anything special to look at, and he’d never end up in the House of Lords, but he was Miss Isabel’s choice. She didn’t want anyone showy—she wasn’t the showy kind. When Miss Clara heard about it she was livid. She didn’t want any of them to get away from her, you see,”
“A power complex,” murmured John.
“It might be partly that, but it was the money, too. You must have noticed how careful she is about money. Miss Isabel was just the other way. You can’t take it with you, she used to say. Sometimes when she came in with something she’d fancied I’d see Miss Clara’s face. ‘You’re not fit to be trusted with money,’ she’d tell her. ‘Somebody had to earn that with the sweat of their brow.’ But to my mind if somebody else gets pleasure spending it, then it was worth earning.”
“I never knew that, about the money, I mean, till after the funeral. Poor Aunt Isabel. It must have cramped her style considerably.” He brooded a moment. “What’s all this about Mr. Thomas? I never heard of him.”
“It was so long ago. Over thirty-five years. As for him, he’s probably still at St. Albans. He came to Brakemouth for a holiday, and he and Miss Isabel got acquainted and he wanted to marry her and take her back with him, but Miss Clara said it wasn’t to be thought of that her sister should marry a clerk, which is all Mr. Thomas was. But what I say is, why not let somebody be happy? They were both the timid kind, didn’t want a lot of flummery.”
“And Aunt Clara broke that up? What about her father, though?”
“He couldn’t stand up to her. He’d have been married himself if he could. And then this Mr. Thomas wasn’t anything much to look at. Though, mind you, he fought for her. Came down to see the old gentleman and wrote every day—why, they planned to run away together but Miss Clara found out, and she played her sister a very dirty trick. She sent a telegram signed with Mr. Thomas’s name saying he was changing his plans and she wasn’t to come that day, and she sent another to Mr. Thomas signed with her sister’s name saying she wasn’t coming after all. Poor Miss Isabell It quite broke her up, being thrown over, as she thought.
and when Mr. Thomas came around saying he’d got to see her, she was in bed with a fever and she couldn’t see anyone.”
“But if he wrote. Locket . . ,”
“He did, of course, but it wasn’t Miss Isabel that saw the letters. And then, poor gentleman, he had to go back to St. Albans. Things were different in those days; you didn’t take french leave, not unless you wanted to lose your employment, and once he was back at St. Albans it was easy for Miss Clara to spirit her sister away to a convalescent home and write that she never wanted to hear Mr. Thomas’s name again. Oh, he never had a chance from the beginning, and so I could have told him. His father had been a clerk in the same business and his mother was a nursery governess before her marriage. It wasn’t to be thought of that he’d be let marry Miss Isabel.”
“And that was the end of him?” John was fascinated by what seemed to him a quite appalling story. But what depths of subtlety it revealed in the surviving sister.
“So far as Miss Isabel was concerned. I dare say he married someone in his own walk of life. But it was a long time before she got over it, poor lady.”
“But, Locket,” he urged, “you aren’t asking me to believe that because of something that happened thirty-five years ago Aunt Isabel pitched herself off a balcony?”
“Not thirty-five years,” conceded Locket grimly. “Nearer thirty-five weeks.”
“You mean, history repeated itself? There was a second Mr. Thomas?”
“Only his name was Marlowe.”
“And that’s why she was so excited the last time I saw her. I knew she’d discovered a new interest. But—how did she expect it to end?”
“Mr. Marlowe expected it to end in marriage, till he heard what Miss Clara had to say. Oh, yes, she found out. Saw them saying good-bye one evening. It was after she had pneumonia that spring, and the doctor sent a nurse. That gave Miss Isabel some time off and she used to go for long walks along the front, and one day she met this Mr. Marlowe. Oh, I suppose there are plenty like him in all seaside resorts, a handsome face run to seed, came of a nice family, I shouldn’t wonder, but something wrong somewhere. Like
the odd pup of a litter, that isn’t quite up to scratch. It wasn’t quite like history repeating itself. Mr. Thomas was really taken with Miss Isabel.”
“And Mr. Marlowe more with what he thought A
unt Isabel had?”
“That’s about the size of it. Oh, she was infatuated, Mr. John, there’s no other word. He was on the look-out for someone like her, a nice, easy-going lady, not too young, with a bit of money. The Sunday papers used to be full of such stories before they stopped printing them and spoilt everybody’s fun.”
“You’d think they’d have more sense,” suggested John.
She flashed around on him. “Why should they? What have they had—^what had Miss Isabel ever had—to make her careful of her life or think it was worth saving? Of course, there’s no knowing if he had a wife somewhere, and she’d never think to ask, just like a person who’s been half-starved doesn’t stop to know if the bun you give them has been paid for. Oh, to her it was her last chance. That man could have done anything with her. Any man could, who took the trouble, and he was a gentleman born, and knew how to talk. I know. I heard him talking to Miss Clara.”
“You mean, she stopped this, too?”
“Of course she stopped it. A blind man would have noticed the change in Miss Isabel. Miss Clara didn’t find any letters, because Mr. Marlowe had too much sense to write any, but it wasn’t difficult for her to find out what was going on. And what was going on was that Miss Isabel was planning to come up to London with Mr. Marlowe and get married on the sly. She’d been saving for years in a post-office book, one thing she did manage to keep from her sister, and she was going to take out all the money and take it up to London and get married. Mr. Marlowe had told her he was waiting to hear the result of a lawsuit, and he didn’t think he ought to marry her till he knew it was going to be all right.”
“And, of course, that won her completely.”
“Of course it did. Oh, I dare say Mr. Marlowe had told the story so often he could tell it in his sleep. Then Miss Clara found out where he was staying and she wrote and asked him to come and see her one morning when Miss Isabel was going to the dentist.”
Death Knocks Three Times Page 7
