Return to the Scene

by Patrick Quentin

  She glanced at Kay from behind long, flickering lashes. There was something almost calculating about that look as if she were trying to gauge the exact effect of what she was saying.

  “At the end he—he tried to make love to me, of course. He’s terribly strong. He put his arms around me, kissed me. I couldn’t get away. I struggled. I guess my dress got torn and I—I got scratched.”

  And Don had said he knew nothing about that torn dress!

  “And after that, Elaine?”

  “Why, nothing, I managed to get away. I was furious. I told him I hated him, never wanted to see him again. I ran out of the cottage. That’s all.”

  “Leaving the torn dress behind?” asked Kay tartly.

  “That was later. I went back there later to change into my swimming suit. Don wasn’t there then.”

  “You went to Don’s cottage to change even though you’d just told him you never wanted to see him again?”

  Elaine stared at her, letting the iron rest on the pajamas. “I’ve told you the truth. Can’t you leave me alone now?”

  Kay looked back at that obstinate boyish figure in the incongruously adult house coat. She took a wild shot in the dark. “You admitted Don hated Ivor. I knew it anyway. Maybe he killed Ivor. Maybe he got his pajamas wet swimming back to the dock after he’d driven the body toward the island. Maybe that’s why you’re ironing them now—to protect him.” She paused. “But then you wouldn’t want to protect him, would you, because you loathe him and you loved Ivor so much?”

  She hated herself for having to say that, hated to see the sudden, trapped look in Elaine’s eyes.

  “You don’t believe me. You don’t believe what I said.”

  Elaine gave a little cry and snatched the iron up from the pajama pants. There was an acrid smell of burning and a broad brown stain showed on the white cotton. With trembling hands Elaine put the iron down on its stand and started to fold the pajamas into a neat bundle.

  With sharp vehemence she said: “That about Don—it’s mad. These aren’t his pants. I told you they weren’t. You’re just trying to trick me. You know Don couldn’t have had anything to do with it. He had an alibi. He was with Tim Thorne when it—it happened. Ask Tim if you don’t believe me!”

  “Elaine, maybe Don isn’t involved. Maybe you’re right. But there are so many other things. You’ve got to tell me the truth.”

  “What do you want me to say?” Elaine picked up the folded pajamas, clutching them tightly against her breast. “What can I say but the truth? I’ve told you. After I left Don I went back to the house. I didn’t know what to do. You—you were all playing bridge. I thought of Terry. I saw his boat out in the bay. I got my swimming suit, ch-changed in Don’s cottage, and swam out to Terry from the dock. I was with him all the time from then on. You heard him say so himself.”

  “I heard him say so. That doesn’t mean I believe him. After what happened between you and Terry at dinner is it likely you would have gone out to him in the sailboat? And later when you came swimming to the island beach you came from an entirely different direction from Terry’s boat. Elaine, don’t you see how this is all no use?”

  “I don’t care. I don’t care what you think.”

  “Why did you swim to the island beach?”

  “Because I felt like it, because it was such a beautiful night.”

  “That isn’t true. You were looking for something— looking for something you knew would be there.” Feeling suddenly tired and hopeless Kay put her hand in the pocket of her towel bathrobe and brought out the split bathing cap.

  “You were looking for this, weren’t you? Your bathing cap. You didn’t find it because I found it first. Perhaps you know where it was. It was clutched in Ivor’s fingers.”

  Elaine was staring at the silver cap, her pupils contracting with horror as if it were something unclean.

  “You—you found it in Ivor’s hand. No, no. I don’t believe…”

  Suddenly she reached out and snatched it from Kay’s hand.

  “What if it is my bathing cap?” she asked torrentially. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about what you’re saying. It’s just another trick.”

  “A trick that I found it in Ivor’s hand?”

  “It was on the rail of the dock. Yes, it must have fallen in. It must have gone with the tide. Ivor saw it, tried to pick it up, and fell overboard. That’s how it happened.”

  “If Ivor did that, how would it have become split all the way down the crown?”

  “Split? How should I know? I never saw it, I tell you. And I didn’t swim to the island to look for it. How could I? How could I have known it was there?”

  Footsteps sounded beyond the door. Elaine swung round, whipping the pajama pants and the bathing cap behind her back. Kay turned too. The door opened, and Terry stood on the threshold, a tall, tousled figure in navy-blue pajamas.

  His eyes moving from Kay to Elaine were bright and tired. He crossed to his sister.

  “I heard you go by my door. Then I saw lights come on down here. I—I couldn’t sleep. I’ve got to talk to you.”

  Elaine stared at him defiantly. “What do you want?”

  Terry’s gaze shifted to Kay. Kay said: “Terry, you know it’s all right to talk in front of me. Eve been trying to make Elaine tell the truth, trying to make her realize we’ve got to trust each other. She still pretends she swam out to you in the sailboat and was with you at the time Ivor must have been killed. That isn’t true, is it?”

  Terry’s young face was very haggard. For a moment he stood savagely twisting the tasseled end of his pajama cord. Then with a bleak little shrug he said: “No. It isn’t true. Elaine was never with me tonight at all.”

  Those few words sent the whole flimsy structure of Elaine’s story tottering to the ground. But there was absolutely no change in the girl’s expression. There seemed to be nothing in her now except a dull apathy.

  “Why did you pretend, Terry?” she asked uncertainly. “Why did you lie to Mother and the police?”

  “I just had to, I guess.” Terry moistened his lips. “I was beastly to you at dinner. I hated myself for it. When this ghastly thing happened, I thought the least I could do was—was to try to help you.”

  “I see.”

  “And I’ll go on telling that story to the police. You know I’ll do everything for you. But it can’t be this way between us. I’ve got to know what you were really doing tonight.” He paused and then said in a tight, husky voice: “I can’t go on like this, wondering if you killed Ivor, not being sure.”

  “Killed Ivor!” Elaine gave a sharp little laugh that was like a sob. “You and Kay! Why do you keep on saying I killed him? Why would I have wanted to kill him? You don’t even know he was murdered. It’s just Major Clifford, something crazy he said. It isn’t true. It’s all a terrible nightmare and we’re going to come out of it.”

  “It isn’t a nightmare, Elaine. It’s real. And there’s no hope for us unless we tell each other the truth.”

  “But what can I tell you when—when I don’t know anything?”

  Brother and sister were staring at each other with a cold, desperate intensity. Terry’s hand went out toward Elaine.

  “How can you pretend you don’t know anything when I saw you just about a quarter of twelve, just about the time Ivor died, saw you swimming around outside the mainland beach, right there where—where Major Clifford thinks Ivor was murdered?”

  “Me? Swimming? You saw me?”

  Kay felt numb. Quarter of twelve! That was before Ivor’s speedboat had started from the dock, before Kay herself had left her room—the most crucial of all those crucial moments!

  “I was tacking,” Terry went on, “had to come close to shore on my way out beyond the island. That was how I happened to see you. I saw you plainly—saw your silver bathing cap in the moonlight, bobbing across the water.”

  The bathing cap… Kay made herself look at Elaine then. It was heartbreaking seeing her eyes go blind
, seeing her lips tremble out of control.

  “I wasn’t…”

  “Elaine, it’s no use. Tell me what you were doing.”

  “I can’t. I won’t say anything. What right have you to torment me? You’re not the police. It’s nothing to do with you.”

  The words faded in a stifled sob. For a moment the girl stood there, clutching the pajamas and the bathing cap against the front of her house coat. Then, tossing back her dark hair, she spun round and ran out of the room.

  “Elaine…!”

  Terry moved to follow her and then stopped. His throat working, he turned to Kay.

  “It’s true, Kay. I did see her swimming, saw her bathing cap in the moonlight. Why doesn’t she see I want to help her? She must know I’d stand by her even—even if she did kill Ivor.”

  If she did kill Ivor. The words throbbed in Kay’s mind. That phrase had a terrible ring of probability to it now. How else could she explain Elaine’s desperate fabrication of lies and denials?

  Kay said wearily: “We mustn’t think that way about Elaine, Terry. We’ll all go mad if we start suspecting each other. She may have perfectly innocent reasons for not wanting to say what she was doing this evening. Just now she swore to me that she loved Ivor. Perhaps she was telling the truth.”

  “Loved Ivor? As if she could have gone on loving him after what he said tonight about Simon, telling us all that he and she…” he blurted. “You lied to the police too, didn’t you? Simon didn’t go over to the island with you.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw her. After I’d seen Elaine swimming, I headed out past the edge of the island. I saw Simon canoeing over from her house toward the island. I saw her go right up to the dock and disembark,” He kept from looking at her, staring down at the floor. “Until tonight I—I’d never dreamed about Simon and Ivor. Shows how dumb I was. I didn’t really believe it even after Ivor said that filthy thing at dinner. It was only later when I saw Simon paddling to the island that I knew,” He paused. “She was there in the playhouse when you got there, wasn’t she?”

  There was no point in keeping the truth from him now.

  “Yes, Terry.”

  “Then—then she could have…”

  He broke off. She knew what he meant. He was trying to say that Simon could have murdered Ivor too.

  “Terry, dear, it’s too early to think of anything yet.”

  “Too early. It’s too late.” Standing there with his hair tousled, his square, rangy-limbed body too big for the old blue pajamas, he looked tragically hurt and young. “I was crazy about Simon, Kay. I guess you know that. And I thought she sort of cared for me. It was pretty tough finding out suddenly that I’d been fooled, that she was just—just another of Ivor’s slave bracelets, that all the time she’d only been playing around with me for something to do.”

  He looked up suddenly. “It’s tough because it hasn’t made any difference. I’m still crazy about her in spite of it all—only now I know I haven’t got a chance. She’ll always be thinking of Ivor, despising me because I’m not glamorous and exciting, don’t know much about anything.”

  “You’ve got no right to think that. Maybe she’s changed.”

  “But we can’t change now. Ivor’s dead. And it’s much worse with him dead than when he was alive.” Terry stared down at his sun-tanned hands. “Elaine, Simon—and me too.” His voice was shaky. “All evening I was out alone, sailing. No one saw me. No one can give me an alibi. How can I possibly prove I didn’t kill him?”

  He was watching her now with the patient trust of a child expecting a miracle.

  “What are we going to do?”

  Kay put her hands on his broad, pajama-clad shoulders and kissed him.

  “It’ll be all right, Terry. You and Elaine stick to your story. Simon and I’ll stick to ours.”

  Threadbare as that rope was, it seemed to reassure him. He said quickly: “You won’t tell Simon I saw her going to the island, will you? And I don’t want her to know I know about—about her and Ivor, either.”

  “I won’t tell.” Terry, Elaine, Simon—they all seemed suddenly so helpless, so tragically young. It made Kay feel—responsible. In this awful thing that was surrounding them all like a net, someone had to look after the children.

  Terry was staring at her miserably. She smiled.

  “Come on, darling, let’s try to forget for a while and go to bed. We’ll need sleep if we’re going to talk to Major Clifford tomorrow.”

  She looked at the ironing board and the iron which Elaine had left plugged into the socket. Impulsively she disconnected it and took the iron and board back into the laundry. The servants mustn’t be given a chance to find them and wonder.

  Terry was waiting for her. Together they slipped silently upstairs and went to their rooms.

  When Kay crept back into her bed, Simon was still sound asleep.

  Chapter Nine

  KAY SLEPT TOO. Before she could try to straighten the tangle of obvious lies and probable half-truths she had learned from Elaine, she drifted into a deep, exhausted slumber.

  But she did not sleep long. When she awoke again a few hours later, sparkling sunlight was streaming through the window. She felt unexpectedly refreshed and alert. She glanced across at the other bed. Simon was still asleep, her head with its mane of chestnut hair buried in the pillows.

  Kay’s first thought was for Rosemary’s diary. She picked up her pocketbook from the low bedside table and pushed open the clasp. The little green leather-bound book which Dr. Thorne had so fantastically returned to her after its unknown travels was still there. She looked at her watch—7:45. Soon Major Clifford would arrive and the machinery of police investigation would be under way.

  Somehow the diary must be hidden or, better, destroyed before then.

  She slipped out of bed and went into the bathroom for a shower, taking the pocketbook with her.

  There was no sign of life upstairs. She moved down the sunny passage to the head of the stairs. Below she heard the clatter of china; a colored maid was laying breakfast in the dining room. The maid started when she saw Kay and stared as if she were a ghost. That meant the news of Ivor’s death was probably all over the island by now.

  There was orange juice on the table. Kay took a glass and moved into the living room. No one was there, but the French windows leading out onto the terrace had been opened. She moved to them, looking out.

  The morning sunlight still had its early freshness. The pink camellias in the terrace tubs shone flawless as photographs in a horticulturist’s catalogue. Beyond them the lawn, with its riot of yellow, orange, and scarlet hibiscus, stretched to the glittering ultramarine of the bay. Bermuda was at its most tranquil. It was beyond the realms of belief that somewhere down by the swimming beach a policeman was on guard, that last night here in this paradise Ivor had been murdered.

  She drank her orange juice and stood by the French windows, fingering her pocketbook, wondering what was the best and safest thing to do with the diary. Footsteps sounded behind her. She turned to see the large, impassive figure of Alice Lumsden, starchy white in her nurse’s uniform.

  “Good morning, Miss Winyard.”

  Kay’s hand tightened on her pocketbook. “Good morning.”

  “I’m glad you’re up early. It gives me a chance to speak with you alone.”

  Something tense and hostile in the nurse’s manner put Kay on her guard. “What is it, Miss Lumsden?”

  “At a time like this I’d rather not discuss my problems with Mr. and Mrs. Chiltern. But I thought I might talk to you.” Alice Lumsden folded bony, uniformed arms. “You may know that Mr. Drake’s mother and my mother were cousins. Of course, his family had a great deal of money. Mine never did. I’ve always had to earn a living, never moved in the same social circles as Mr. Drake. But he was always good to us.” Her thin lips tightened. “His death has been a great personal bereavement to me.”

  “Of course I understand.”

  “I
’m glad someone in this household does.” She looked at Kay balefully. “I was very—very fond of Mr. Drake. I left my hospital work in Rochester and came here to Bermuda to attend Mr. Chiltern simply because Mr. Drake asked me to. It was to please him.” In spite of her mistrust Kay felt a grudging sympathy for this poor relation spinster who had so obviously worshiped Ivor Drake. She couldn’t have got much fun out of him. But anxiety was mixed with her sympathy. She remembered the nurse’s distinct antagonism to the Chilterns the day before, remembered too her almost eager co-operation when Major Clifford was trying to prove that Ivor had been murdered.

  She asked: “Are you trying to say that you want to leave now and go back to your old job?”

  “It’s not that. I’m merely putting it on record that I have to work for money.” The nurse gave a hard little laugh. “The Chilterns may expect me to stay on for love. That isn’t the case, I’m afraid. I have to think of myself. And up till now it has been Mr. Drake who paid my salary. He gave me a check at the end of last month. I’m owed for two more weeks.”

  Kay tried not to show her irritation. “I can assure you that you’ll be paid whatever’s owing to you.”

  “You’re sure about that?” Alice Lumsden’s deep-set eyes were fixed on her face. “Even though the Chilterns have been living in luxury here, I understand they’re as poor as church rats. I wouldn’t have thought they could afford to pay me.” She paused. “Unless, of course, everything’s changed now that Mr. Drake is dead.”

  “Just what do you mean by that?”

  “It isn’t difficult to see what I mean, is it?” The nurse smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “Mr. Drake died last night. I don’t imagine the Chilterns would have let that accident happen unless he’d already changed his will in their favor.”

  The brutal remark came so unexpectedly that for a second Kay did not grasp its terrifying implications. When she did, anger sent the blood racing in her veins. But she struggled to control herself. For she realized that in this sour, challenging woman with her jealous hatred of the Chilterns she was up against a danger far more real than Simon had been last night. A false move—a show of uneasiness or alarm—might be fatal.