Kay nodded slowly.
“O.K., then. Come on.”
His warm, strong hand went to her arm and pulled her forward toward the door.
Together they hurried to the dock.
Terry, Simon, and Elaine were still grouped together under the gleaming lantern at the end of the jetty. It was strange to see them in color again after the silver monochrome of the moonlight—Simon with her black, skin-tight dress and her water-darkened chestnut hair; Elaine in her pure-white swimming suit; Terry with his bronzed body and bright-scarlet trunks.
Kay stared at them. Then, suddenly, she felt the wooden boards shift under her. For she had seen something which until then had been invisible in the moonlight. Streaking around Elaine’s temple, curving down to the smooth skin of her cheek, was a long red scratch—as if a cat had clawed her.
None of them spoke. Don went to the edge of the dock and shone the beam of his flashlight straight on the body huddled in the stern of the speedboat. For a long moment he held the torch steady, spotlighting that macabre tableau. Then he flicked the light off and turned to the others.
“I called Thorne. He’ll be here soon—with Major Clifford.”
His gaze, moving around, settled with a sudden frozen jolt on Elaine. Their eyes held each other in a long, vibrant glance. Abruptly he crossed to her and stood very close, slipping his hand around her small white fingers.
There was something passionately possessive about that gesture. Kay noticed it. Simon noticed it too. Kay saw her staring with a white, icy intensity.
Don gazed straight back at her, defying her. “You girls better scram to the house and change,” he said. “There’s no point in your sticking around. Terry and I…”
He stopped, staring along the path which led to the house. The others turned to look too. The indistinct figure of a woman was coming across the lawn toward them.
Almost at once Kay recognized Maud. Almost at once too her sister reached the dock and stepped into the circle of light from the lantern. Tall and aristocratic, with her dark hair loose around her shoulders and a cool-green robe over her nightdress, she seemed utterly out of place in that melodramatic setting. Her calm gray gaze moved to Don and Elaine, lingered on them a second, and then turned to the others.
“I heard voices,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure everything was—was all right.”
“Everything’s far from all right.” It was Don’s harsh voice. “I’m afraid there’s been an accident, Mrs. Chiltern. Mr. Drake’s dead. They found him over on the island beach—drowned.”
In those first moments when every gesture, every inflection of voice seemed so terrifyingly important, Maud was the focal point of attention for Kay. There was something magnificent about her composure. And it was only then, when they had Maud with them, that Kay realized just how much they needed that strong, steadying influence.
Maud Chiltern had moved to Elaine and, ignoring Don, laid her hand on her daughter’s shoulder.
“Elaine, my darling,” she breathed. “Elaine, my poor child.”
For one second Kay saw her sister’s eyes flick to the scratch on Elaine’s temple. Then hastily, in a voice whose brusqueness rang very false, she said: “Go back to the house, Elaine, before you catch your death of cold. Kay, take her in. Simon, you should go too. You oughtn’t to be here.”
No one moved.
Her hand still on Elaine’s shoulder, Maud glanced at her son. “Terry, was it you who—who found him?”
“No, Mother.” Terry moistened his lips. “It was Kay and Simon.”
“But you’re sure he’s dead, that there is nothing we can do.”
Terry nodded stiffly.
“I’ve called Dr. Thorne,” cut in Don. “He’s coming over with Major Clifford.”
“That was the right thing to do, Don.”
While they all watched her dumbly, like children looking to a grownup to rescue them from some awful dream monster, Maud moved away from Elaine toward the end of the dock where the speedboat was moored. She reached it, but she did not look down. Slowly she turned, her gray eyes shifting back to Simon and Kay who had crossed to Elaine and were standing together under the hurricane lantern.
“Don’t go for a moment,” she said quietly. “I think we ought all of us to decide several things—before the police come.”
They all stood motionless, watching her.
“Of course”—she framed the words with exaggerated distinctness—“there can be no doubt that this has been an accident, a terrible accident. But the Major may want to know where the rest of us were at the time and what we were doing. As a pure formality.” She paused. “When something like this happens it is easy to become confused. It might be better if we got everything settled now.”
Kay could hardly believe her ears. In spite of that tranquil voice, it was only too obvious what Maud was doing. Obliquely she was saying: We’ve got to get our stories straight before the police come.
Why? Why should she say that unless she, too…?
Maud’s gaze had moved now to Kay. “Terry was out sailing. I know that. But you found Ivor, Kay.” Her voice was almost unbearably casual. “How did you come to be on the island?”
Kay felt the shift of interest to herself. She saw Don’s questioning gaze, saw Simon move her head to stare. She couldn’t mention Rosemary’s diary, not there in front of all those tense, curious faces.
As steadily as possible she said: “You know that— that book I was telling you about. It was missing from my room and I thought Ivor must have taken it. I went over to the island to get it back.”
Elaine glanced at her sharply and then looked away. Maud’s expression did not change.
“And you found the book, Kay?”
“No. If Ivor took it, it—it must still be on him or in the speedboat.”
“We’ve got to get it back.” Maud spoke with sudden authority. “What did it look like?”
“A little green leather notebook.”
“Don, look for it in the speedboat, look everywhere.”
It was amazing how no one questioned that extraordinary order. Don switched on his flashlight and jumped down into the boat.
Suddenly Terry said: “Kay wasn’t the only one who found Ivor, Mother.” The curve of his jaw was grim as he turned to face Simon. “Simon was there too.”
The pause which followed was excruciatingly alive. As the girl stared back into Terry’s challenging eyes, she lifted a hand to her throat and let it drop again. Her red lips half parted, but she did not speak.
Obeying a blind impulse, Kay said: “Simon was with me. I—I met her here on the dock. She’s come over to look for Terry. I asked her to go to the island with me because I thought it would be easier to look for the book if she was there to talk to Ivor.”
Even while she was speaking, Kay had no real idea why she had told that feeble lie. Perhaps it was partly because Simon seemed so defenseless at that moment; partly because she guessed how much it would hurt Terry if ever he knew Simon had actually gone to see Ivor—alone.
Terry, staring blankly, began: “But…”
“Is that so, Simon?” cut in Maud.
The girl shot Kay a queer, complex glance. “Yes. I went over with her.”
No one challenged her. Maud was staring down at her own hands. Without looking up she said: “That leaves you, Elaine.”
Once again there was that suspended silence which implied so much more than it should have implied. Terry ran a hand through his wet hair and said precipitously: “Elaine was with me, Mother. In the sailboat. I—I picked her up on the dock about… oh, about eleven-fifteen, before Ivor came down from the house.”
Kay was sure he had lied. Elaine had come swimming to the island from a direction completely opposite to the point around which Terry’s sailboat had later appeared. Simon must have known too. And Kay, looking at her sister, felt that even Maud realized it had been a clumsy fabrication of the moment.
But none of them spoke.
It was only then, after that second obvious lie had been told, that Kay realized exactly what it was they were doing. They were none of them trying to convince each other by these pitifully threadbare stories, any more than they could convince themselves that Ivor had died by accident.
This was nothing but an elaborately disguised rehearsal—a rehearsal of what they were going to tell the police.
Maud asked Don: “Did you find the book?”
“No, Mrs. Chiltern. There’s no book there.”
“Very well,” said Maud briskly. “Then since Ivor did not have it, there will be no need to mention it, will there?”
Don was staring at her. “If you want to know where I was, Mrs. Chiltern,” he said suddenly, “I was at Dr. Thorne’s house. I biked over there at eleven-fifteen for a nightcap. I’d only just got back here when Miss Winyard came to the cottage. Dr. Thorne will check on that when he arrives.” His mouth twisted sardonically. “Since you’re getting us all so nicely fixed up it might relieve your mind to know I have a real alibi, supported by the coroner’s physician himself, for the time of the—accident.”
The unmistakably ironical stress he had given the word accident had its effect on all of them. For a moment Kay felt the whole flimsy pretense would break down. But Maud, with a placid little shrug, dismissed Don.
“Girls, you must go back to the house now and change. Terry, you should get some clothes on too. Don can wait here for the police. I think I should go in and break the news to Gilbert.”
Slowly her gray eyes moved from one face to another, like a captain gauging the morale and staying power of his troops before a crucial engagement. As if speaking half to herself, she remarked softly: “Yes. I think everything will run smoothly now.”
Chapter Five
LEAVING DON ON THE DOCK, the rest of them went back to the house in silence. Alone in her own room Kay stripped off the wet playsuit, dried herself vigorously with a large Turkish towel, and pulled on a warm sweater and skirt.
During the keyed-up moments on the dock she had never stopped thinking of Elaine’s silver bathing cap. Now, as she stared at it apprehensively in the light from the bedroom lamp, she noticed for the first time that it had been split all the way down the central seam from the crown to the back.
She had been planning to take it to Elaine right away and demand an explanation. But now that the police were expected any minute that would be too dangerous. She must hide it somewhere and wait for a safer opportunity.
She looked around the room. After her experience with the diary, she was not going to risk using the keyless dressing table as a place of concealment. There was a tall copper vase on the mantel. She moved to it and slipped the cap inside.
When she went downstairs, a little group had collected in the living room waiting for the police. Terry in a green turtle-neck sweater and gray flannel pants; Maud; Gilbert in his wheel chair; and the nurse, Alice Lumsden, who stood self-consciously apart, neat and starched as ever in a crisp white uniform.
Unexpectedly it was Gilbert now rather than Maud who was the dominating figure as he sat in the wheel chair. In spite of his paralyzed legs, pitifully thin and shrunken from disuse, there was a compelling dignity about him with his white hair, his aristocratic profile, and his strong, competent hands folded in his lap. Gilbert may not have been a successful lawyer, but he certainly possessed his full share of the cool, legal manner.
It was comforting now.
Elaine and Simon came in. Gilbert’s steady gaze moved to his daughter.
“Elaine, dear, there is no need for you to go through this, you know.”
Elaine’s face was white and impassive as a mask. “Thank you, Dad, but I’d rather be here.”
“Very well.” Gilbert’s fingers tapped on the arm of the wheel chair. “Dr. Thorne and Major Clifford have arrived. They are examining the body and will be with us very shortly.” He paused. “This has been a terrible shock for all of us. But we must do everything in our power to help the authorities.”
“Of course we will.” The words came from Maud, gently, calmly—exactly as if she meant them!
As she spoke, the door opened and a young man of about thirty-five in a sports coat and gray flannel pants stood on the threshold. Something about his dark face, its dark, unapproachable eyes and faintly ironical mouth, was familiar to Kay. And she thought with a stab of alarm: I met him once with Ivor. I’m sure of it.
Gilbert said: “Come in, Dr. Thorne.”
So this was Dr. Thorne, the coroner’s physician, the man at whose house Don Baird had been having a drink at the time of the—accident. He moved to Elaine, putting his hand on her shoulder in tacit sympathy. Then he turned to Gilbert.
“Major Clifford’s still down on the dock,” he said in a soft, slightly lilting voice, “but he’ll be up soon. I hate having you all go through this, but—there’ll be a few questions.”
Gilbert inclined his head.
Alice Lumsden, who had been watching from intent eyes, echoed sharply: “Questions? Why should there…?”
“Of course there have to be questions.” Maud’s serene voice stopped the sentence. “In all accidents like this, they have to know exactly how it happened.”
“Mrs. Chiltern is right.” Dr. Thorne’s gaze, faintly curious now, moved to the nurse. “In all accidents like this, we have to know exactly how it happened.”
“But he was drowned, wasn’t he?” blurted Terry.
“But of course he was drowned.” Dr. Thorne’s quiet gaze turned to the boy. “There was never any doubt about that, was there?”
In the taut silence which followed, the faint scraping of a vine against the window sounded unnaturally loud. Terry had flushed scarlet and was staring down at his shoes.
“I—I only wondered. I thought perhaps something else… heart failure…”
“I see.” There was a tone in Dr. Thorne’s voice that Kay could not interpret. Suddenly he looked at her. “I believe you were the one who found him, Miss Winyard?”
So he knew her name, just as she knew his face.
“Yes. Miss Morley and I.”
He continued to look straight at her, paying no attention to Simon. “There are one or two points that as coroner’s physician I would like cleared up. I wonder if I could talk to you alone for a moment.”
Kay could feel the others watching her. Gilbert said: “You know the house, Doctor. You could take Miss Winyard to the library.”
“If she will be so kind.”
The coroner’s physician stood back, waiting for Kay to make the first move. After a second’s hesitation she crossed to the door. He followed.
In the library Dr. Thorne shut the door behind them. Although there were a few shelves stacked with current fiction, the room was more properly a playroom. Magazines were strewn on the low cedar tables; a large radio-Victrola stood in the corner with untidy piles of records heaped around it.
Dr. Thorne picked up one of the records, glanced absently at its title, and turned to face Kay, the record still in his hands.
“We’ve met before, Miss Winyard.”
“Y-yes.”
If only she could remember where! It was rather terrifying not being sure, and yet his eyes, watching her with a coldness that was almost distaste, seemed to be defying her to ask him, and she did not have the strength to take up the challenge.
“The Chilterns are naturally upset. That’s why I prefer to talk to you alone. Perhaps you will tell me as clearly as you can the exact position of the body when you found it.”
So there was no need yet for her to embark upon the awkward explanation of why she had gone to the island or with whom. That was a relief. Jerkily she reported the bare facts of the discovery.
Dr. Thorne listened with an impassivity wh
ich was disturbing. Every now and then he twisted the Victrola record around in his fingers. But he did not speak until she had finished.
“One small fact, Miss Winyard. From what you tell me, I understand the motor of the boat was idling. That is, it was out of gear but the ignition was not turned off?”
“That’s right.”
“Then you think Mr. Drake must have stopped the boat, perhaps to dock at the island. Somehow he caught his foot in the aquaplane rope, tripped, and fell overboard. Since the boat wasn’t moored, it drifted to the shore with the tide, towing him after it?”
“I—I suppose so.”
“He’d been drinking?”
“He’d had cocktails before dinner and then a couple of highballs.”
Abruptly Dr. Thorne said: “It all sounds very plausible, doesn’t it?”
“What do you mean—plausible?”
“I mean it all sounds very much as if it did happen that way, that it was an accident.”
“Of course it does.”
With exaggerated care, Dr. Thorne placed the record back on the pile beside the Victrola.
“Then perhaps you would explain something to me. Why is it that all you people in this house think Ivor Drake was—murdered?”
Those few, casually spoken words ripped through Kay’s control, leaving her stunned and without a plan. “I don’t know why—what you mean.”
“I’m not blind. The moment I walked into that room I saw it written over all of your faces. Terry thinks it, Elaine thinks it, Simon thinks it—even Mrs. Chiltern thinks it. They’re all of them frightened, very frightened. And so are you. Why?”
Once again she felt that unmistakable antagonism in him as if he felt a definite, personal dislike for her. It increased the already crushing awkwardness of the situation.
Trying to keep control she said: “Dr. Thorne, this is quite absurd. If you expect me to fall into a clumsy trap like that…”
“It isn’t a clumsy trap. And I’m not trying to trick you. Why should I? I’m only interested in the truth.” He paused. “You seem to forget that I am the coroner’s physician in this parish and I’ve already made a preliminary examination of the body.”
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