Death Knocks Three Times

by Anthony Gilbert

  “So that’s how you know what he was like and what he said.”

  “Yes. There’s a door behind the curtain in the drawing room

  leads onto the veranda, and if that door’s a mite open and a body’s standing behind it, that body doesn’t miss much. Oh, it was the same old story. Her sister had confided to her that she was going to London to be married, and there was no need for secrecy, but did Mr. Marlowe understand she wasn’t quite like other people—this had happened before—but if he was really fond of her. Miss Clara wouldn’t stand in the way if Mr. Marlowe could keep her. That was a facer for our fine gentleman. Of course. Miss Isabel had given the impression she had money of her own, and so she had, but nothing like as much as Mr. Marlowe had thought, and not enough to make the game worth the candle, not with a proper religious ceremony marriage. Mind you, the way Miss Clara told it, making it sound as though she’d given up her life to looking after her sister, you couldn’t blame any man for wanting to back out, quite apart from the money. After all if Miss Isabel had delusions about being a rich woman when really she had practically nothing, she might have other delusions on other subjects.”

  “And I suppose after that you couldn’t see Mr. Marlowe for dust?”

  “I must say he got out of it very neatly,” acknowledged Locket in grudging tones. “He said he was afraid Miss Isabel had been a little previous. He didn’t deny that he was fond of her, but he was waiting to hear the result of a lawsuit. If, as he hoped, it went in his favor, then he would come down and take her away, but if it wasn’t in his favor, then he didn’t feel he had the right to ask her to marry him. He even said something about a man not liking to live on his wife’s money.”

  “Was there a lawsuit?”

  “I couldn’t say. He gave out it was something to do with his first marriage. He had been married very young and when it broke up he made over nearly everything he had—he was a rich man in those days, according to himself—to her. But now she was dead and her heirs were trying to make out that all the money was theirs. I didn’t rightly understand it all, but it seems that he was left some more money after the break-up, and his wife’s lawyers were trying to make out that that was covered by the first agreement. You’d understand better than I do, Mr. John …”

  “Since there probably wasn’t any money I don’t suppose it matters,” returned John gloomily.

  “Anyway, he had to go up to London and he asked if he could leave a note for Miss Isabel.”

  “What did it say?”

  “I never saw it, and if you ask me, Mr. John, Miss Isabel never saw it either. Miss Clara saw her when she came in and what she said to her I couldn’t tell you, but it was that night …”

  “That she fell from the balcony?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did Marlowe come back?”

  “Never Miss Clara said she wrote to him, but again I don’t know. Maybe he never meant to come back, and found something more worth his while up in London.”

  “From all you’ve told me, Locket, my aunt seems to have done Aunt Isabel a good turn by stopping that marriage. Your Mr. Marlowe sounds as if he were in the true George Joseph Smith tradition.”

  “Oh, I don’t think he was the murdering kind. I think when he’d got everything out of her, he’d have left her flat. Still, even so she’d have had something. But if Miss Clara told her he’d come to find out about the money and when he learnt she hadn’t got any he didn’t think she was worth troubling about …”

  “But she had got money, Locket, she had. I took the trouble to look up Colonel Bond’s will once, and if Aunt Isabel married she was to have half whatever was left of the fortune. I suppose Aunt Clara never let her know that.”

  Locket’s face was a study. “It’s to be hoped Providence follows its own advice and repays fourfold,” she said, and now her voice was choked with grief and rage. “Of course Miss Clara had to make sure that Miss Isabel didn’t find out. She’d never think of looking up the will …”

  “But Marlowe might. And he never came back?”

  “It wouldn’t have been any use. Miss Isabel was dead.”

  “If that had come out at the inquest we might have got a very diflEerent verdict. Or rather, things might have been damned unpleasant for Aunt Clara. A lot of people who aren’t geniuses know how to add two and two together. Locket, what happened to Marlowe?”

  “Making up to some other poor lady at this minute, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  &4 DeathKnocksThreeTimes

  “Does it ocrur to you,” asked John, slowly, “that perhaps he’s writing the anonymous letters?” Another thought struck him. “Did Aunt Isabel leave a letter that night?”

  “If she did I never saw it.”

  The same thought was in both their minds. If Isabel had left a letter her sister was perfectly capable of destroying it.

  “So that’s really why you left, not because of your brother?”

  “Seeing I hadn’t seen Thomas for twelve years, it’s not to be expected I’d change my whole way of living for him, and risk my future, come to that. For Miss Clara always said if I stayed I shouldn’t be forgotten when I was past work. Not that I put my faith in that,” she added, cynically. “Still, she didn’t stop in the house long herself. P’raps she found it haunted, too. I tell you, Mr. John, I’d as lief stop on with a man-eating tiger as stay at Seaview. Oh, I dare say the police can’t touch her, but what you said just now was right. It’s murder if ever there was one, and I only hope that one day her ladyship’ll be brought to account.”

  “You make my blood run cold. Locket. By the way, did you ever meet a female gorgon called Pettigrew?”

  “Miss Pettigrew?” Locket’s voice was warm with curiosity. “You don’t mean she’s popped up again?”

  “I never seem to have heard of her.”

  “She was Isabel’s friend. Miss Isabel, I should say. Very thick they were at one time. Some plan of setting up together, I believe, but nothing came of it. No money, you see. So now Miss Clara’s got her claws into that one, too. She never could abide Miss Isabel having anything of her own. Wonder what Miss P. wants.”

  “As usual. Locket, it’s what Aunt Clara wants.”

  “And diis time it’s what?”

  “Help and comfort. She’s frightened. Locket, probably for the first time in her life. Hitherto all her dangers have taken a concrete form. She could see them and she knew how to deal with them. This is different. She’s in the dark, and she hates it. Oh, I tell you, she may not admit it to me, but she’s afraid.”

  “A change for her,” said Locket, composedly.

  “Yes. In a way, it’s terrifying. She always gave one the impression of being invulnerable. But even she has her heel of Achilles.”

  “Nice to know even she can be human,” said Locket.

  John looked at her sharply. He thought if he were Aunt Qaia he would take the advice he had himself ofiEered and go away te some safe place like London, where she could be as anonymous as her alarming correspondent.

  10

  AT ALMOST the same moment Miss Bond was saying to Miss Pettigrew, “My dear Frances, I asked you down here not merely for your advice, for, apart from suggesting I might approach the police, I fail to see what you could propose that had not already occurred to me, but for the benefit of your support. I told you just now I was afraid. That is true, and it is a new sensation for me. I don’t like it. And there is another point. We’ve already agreed that X must have known Isabel well; a number of details point to that. But he must also have known me well. I used to think I had become pretty—tough, I believe, is the word. I had to fight my father’s battles and then Isabel’s—but this policy of secret intimidation is unnerving. It’s not only the letters, not only that I am beginning to dread going into the hall, in case there is another of these obscene envelopes waiting for me; it’s more than that. For instance, twice recently I have been called to the telephone. When I have taken up the receiver a voice has said, ‘Miss Bond? Stil
l there? Good,’ and rung off again.”

  “A man’s voice or a woman’s?”

  “It is difficult to say. Clearly a disguised voice. It is all part of a scheme to make my life intolerable.”

  “Perhaps,” Miss Pettigrew agreed. “That shows that whoever is behind this tyranny has intelligence. You always found suspense hard to bear, didn’t you? If you had to see the dentist you must go at once. If you objected to something someone had said, you couldn’t wait for the next morning, by which time everybody would have forgotten the paltry little insult; you must seize the cudgels at once. If you decided you couldn’t endure this situation any longer you would swallow a bottle of aspirin or stab yourself with a bread-knife or whatever seemed to you best, without stopping to realize that that is perhaps what X wishes you to do.”

  “My dear Frances, you are very strange today. And, in any case, as a religious woman I could not consider taking my own life in any circumstances. I wonder why you choose this evening to say these extraordinary things to me?”

  “Because, although a good many other people have been saying even more extraordinary things, you haven’t heard them. There are disadvantages, my dear Clara, in being a superior person. If you were ever to be found gossiping at an Olde English Tea Shoppe at eleven o’clock or outside the post office, you might realize that a third explanation has been freely offered for Isabel’s death, an explanation that is neither accident nor self-destruction. A number of people think she may have died because she had nothing left to live for. Others,” she wound up deliberately, “think she may have died to suit someone else’s book.”

  Miss Bond was very white, but her tone was incredulous and haughty as she said: “That can only imply murder. I cannot believe, Frances, that any one could be wicked enough to suggest such a thing. Who, may I ask, is being—tipped is the word, is it not?—as the criminal? Locket? or myself?”

  “It is difficult to see what benefit Locket would derive from Isabel’s death. Every one knows she was devoted …”

  “I see. And can anyone explain how I should benefit by such a death?”

  “I believe it is a fact, Clara, that if Isabel married, half your father’s fortune would go to her?”

  Miss Bond stiffened. “Did Isabel tell you that?”

  “I don’t even know if she knew. I was at some pains to examine the will when I was at Somerset House on other business some time ago …”

  “I see. Spying on me. I hardly expected that of you, Frances. It seems there is no one I can trust.”

  Miss Pettigrew remained quite unmoved. “Isabel was my greatest friend. As you know, at one time I hoped we might set up an establishment together, but that proved impossible.”

  “It was quite out of the question. I think I made it clear at the time that Isabel required constant care. You would have been out at your work all day. Then, too, there was the question of means.

  Oh, I know what you are going to say. I could have made her an allowance out of my own income, but I do not feel that any such arrangement would have been approved by my father. The money was left to me specifically to make a home for my sister, and no one can deny that I have spent all my life in the service of my nearest and dearest. The most malicious cannot accuse me of neglecting them.”

  “On the contrary,” pointed out Miss Pettigrew, “that is precisely what someone is doing. The letters may be anonymous, but there was nothing vague about the accusations.”

  Miss Bond once again reared her head. “I refuse to treat such communications seriously,” she flamed.

  “Very unwise of you, Clara. Oh, I know from experience the futility of trying to persuade you to change your mind, but there is one rather peculiar factor about these letters. As a rule, threats lead up to blackmail, to a demand for money. There is no such hint in any of these letters. The significance of that has, surely, not escaped you.”

  “Blackmail, my dear Frances, if you insist on using such an unpleasant word, can only be levied where there is concrete evidence to support the demand. Documents, letters, confessions, which it may be worth the while of the person receiving the threats to buy in. In this case no such documents exist. These letters are sheer bluflf.”

  “In that case,” murmured Miss Pettigrew, “it seems a waste of every one’s time to send them. Oh, I know malicious half-wits have been known to terrorize a whole village with this sort of activity, but personally I cannot believe the letters are an end in themselves. You see, the one threat that is made is that you personally are in danger, your life actually is in danger. Ergo—-these letters are either written by a moron, a moron with unusual knowledge of Isabel, and it should be simple to identify the writer, or else they mean what they say. The writer may be the woman at the next table at this hotel, the person sitting in the same shelter on the parade or standing behind you in the bus queue, and this last is a very strong attacking position. No, Clara, in your case I should unhesitatingly go to the police. If you will not take that advice …”

  “You are wasting your breath, Frances. It is impossible for me to

  go to the police. I cannot brand Isabel as the slightly unbalanced person we know she was …”

  “And lend color to the theory that she took her own life? So that is what you really believe? No, she said nothing in any letter to me to support such a theory. In fact I agree with your nephew. Just before her regrettable accident she was in unusually good spirits. However, if you refuse to adopt the sensible course, there is nothing to be done but await events. Incidentally, do you like flowers at funerals or do you prefer the modern method of sending subscriptions to a particular charity?”

  Miss Bond could endure it no longer. “I really do not understand, Frances, why you troubled to come down. You clearly intend to make matters even worse …”

  “I am trying to convince you, Clara, that the situation can hardly be worse. There are probably quite a number of insignificant people whose very names would convey nothing to you …”

  “Who would like to do me actual damage? My dear Frances, your imagination does you credit, but I can hardly believe any of them can be interested to the point of risking their lives for the «ake of a—prejudice, shall we say?”

  “My dear Clara, if anything unfortunate should happen to you I shall feel it my duty at the subsequent inquest to ask for a verdict of suicide.”

  Miss Bond rose. “I regard your remarks as being in the most execrable taste,” she said in a dignified voice. “I think it is time for tea.”

  “I could do with my tea,” agreed Frances Pettigrew, quite unmoved.

  As they came into the hall someone was sorting a bunch of letters that had just arrived. Miss Bond hesitated, then turned resolutely toward the large drawing room where tea was served.

  “Shall I stay and see if there is anything for you?” offered her detestable companion.

  Miss Bond swept by without a word. But when Miss Pettigrew joined her she was carrying three envelopes.

  “Two by the post,” she announced cheerfully. “The third was left by hand. It was found on the mat during the afternoon. So that proves one thing: That your enemy is on the spot. Are you

  quite sure, Clara, you won’t go to town for a little and see the sights?”

  It was the usual envelope, the usual cheap paper, the usual illiterate scrawl. It said:

  This is the last you’re going to get, Miss Bond. You’ve come to the end, too.

  Arthur Crook walked through the prosperous seaside community of Brakemouth with his bowler hat over his eyes, and his large, competent hands linked behind his back, in the fond belief that he looked exactly like every other tripper and therefore, being part of the scene, was invisible. The fact that he was not a tripper but had come down on business he had just concluded, he chose to ignore. On the cliffs near the end of the town he saw a woman standing, a tall woman dressed in a rather shapeless coat. Her skirt was long and her hat had a flat brim, but all the same she didn’t contrive to have the New Look. She peer
ed down at the beach and the rocks, which were now clearly visible, and moved a step nearer the edge. In a flash, though he didn’t appear to quicken his steps. Croak was at her side.

  “I wouldn’t, lady,” he said, earnestly. “Really, I wouldn’t.”

  She turned her pale unyielding face toward him. She looked like someone in a restaurant rejecting a dish on the ground that she ate neither horse nor whale.

  “Anyhow,” amended Mr. Crook, hurriedly, “not for about four hours. The tide’s wrong.”

  “If you imagine that I am going to throw myself into the sea to oblige Miss Bond, you are mistaken,” said Miss Pettigrew, coolly.

  “Would it?” asked Crook. “Oblige her, I mean?”

  “You are, perhaps, acquainted with Miss Bond?” Her tone was as chilly as the sea.

  “Me, lady? Not yet. I don’t go putting my head into lions’ mouths till someone makes it worth my while. But you might say I was interested in an economical sort of way. I mean, I saw you out a few days back with young Lochinvar.”

  Miss Pettigrew stiffened. “If you are referring to Mr. Sherren, I hardly consider that a very apposite comparison.”

  “Comes out of the West,” said Mr. Crook, “West-End anyhow. North West-End,” he amended.

  “A friend of yours?”

  “You might say he was a fellow-victim.”

  “How very interesting. I should hardly have thought your orbit and his would have crossed at any angle.”

  “Not his fault,” said Crook, earnestly. “We happened to be witnesses at the same inquest.”

  “Inquest?” Her tone changed sharply. “You are not referring to his aunt, Miss Isabel Bond?”

  “To his uncle, name of Sherren. Lived in the Moated Grange in the north, and passed out inconsiderately as soon as little Johnny got back to town.”

  “Really,” reflected Miss Pettigrew. “That is more interesting still. A wealthy gentleman?”