Return to the Scene

by Patrick Quentin

  “I’ve been looking for you, sir. I went to your house. You weren’t there. There’s something I have to report.” Curious brown eyes moved to Kay and Maud. “Could I speak to you at once?”

  The Major said sternly: “You had instructions to stay here, Masters. You shouldn’t have gone away.” Then, with a glance at Dr. Thorne: “Perhaps you’d take the ladies indoors. I will join you shortly.”

  On this note of dismissal, he turned back to the policeman. Obediently the others moved away from them up the tamarisk walk to the house.

  With sudden uneasiness, Kay remembered how Don had told her that he had seen the policeman come up from the swimming beach and pedal furiously away— as if he had found something important. At the time she had merely been relieved because his departure gave her a chance to get to the island without being seen. Now she started wondering what it was he could have found. Something on the swimming beach, where Major Clifford believed the lethal attack on Ivor probably had been made—that didn’t sound so good.

  The three of them reached the terrace and made their way past the gay tubs of camellias to the open French windows. They were so quiet that Elaine and Don, sitting close together on a couch in the living room, did not hear them immediately. It was only when Maud had actually stepped into the room that the two young people were conscious of them. Then, with startled swiftness, they both jumped up.

  Elaine’s face was white and set and the red scratch on her temple stood out sharply against the ivory skin. Don, his blue eyes savagely bright, looked angry, harassed, and bewildered.

  It was less than an hour ago that Kay had advised Don to try to make Elaine tell him the truth. Then it had seemed the natural thing to do. Now that she herself had heard part, at least, of the truth from Maud, Kay scarcely dared to meet Don’s eye. But the young boatman’s hot gaze, switching to her, had exasperation in it and not dread. Kay was almost certain that Elaine had told him nothing.

  Probably it was just as well.

  “Hello, Tim.” Don nodded jerkily at Dr. Thorne. “Has the Major come?”

  “Yes. He’s down at the dock. He’ll be here in a minute.”

  Abruptly Elaine turned away, took a cigarette from a box.

  No one spoke. The door from the hall opened and Simon came in. All traces of her tempestuous hysteria the night before had gone. She looked suave and exotic in white slacks and a white-and-green-striped shirt. Fingers with dusty-pink lacquered nails pushed at her chestnut hair.

  “Hello, everybody. Elaine, I went over to my house to get some clothes. Your bicycle was there. I rode it back and…” She saw Dr. Thorne and stopped with a little: “Oh.”

  “It was I who took Elaine’s bicycle over to your house,” said Kay.

  Simon’s glance flickered curiously to her. “You? Why?”

  At that moment Terry hurried in through the French windows. His young face was pale and worried.

  “The Major’s come. I saw him down at the dock.” His eyes moved around the little group, settling awkwardly on Dr. Thorne.

  Maud went to him, giving him the shirt and shorts. “Terry, darling, here are some things for you. I thought you’d need them.”

  Terry looked at the clothes blankly, then glanced at Dr. Thorne again and said: “Why, th-thank you, Mother.”

  Silence came again. Only Elaine was seated. The others stood around in a kind of taut expectancy, like actors assembling on a stage waiting for the curtain to rise. It was nerve-racking—waiting. Whatever it was the policeman was telling the Major, it seemed to take time.

  There was a sound and everyone stiffened. It came again—a low, trundling sound. Then the hall door was pushed open and Gilbert came in, wheeling himself in the chair. His face was drawn and intent. Instantly his gaze moved to Kay. She shook her head slightly, trying to tell him that her mission had failed. Then quickly she looked away because Alice Lumsden had come in after Gilbert. Her bright eyes had intercepted their exchange of glances and narrowed with inquisitive suspicion.

  The nurse was still wearing her white uniform, but there was a subtle change in her. The old air of trained self-effacement was gone, and the stiff carriage of her angular body was aggressive. Kay was sure then that Gilbert had told her about her sensational inheritance and that she was triumphantly conscious of her new position as mistress of Hurricane House.

  Elaine said suddenly: “Why are we all sticking around here? I want to go out and get some air.”

  Her voice wasn’t very steady. Dr. Thorne looked at her and said: “I’m sorry, but I think Major Clifford wants to talk to all of you.”

  Footsteps sounded on the terrace and the Major’s vast figure blocked the sunny opening of the French windows. He stepped into the room. Looking at him, Kay was sure her fears had been justified. Major Clifford, for all his British impassivity, was no poker face. There was a new jut to the granite jaw, an intensified gleam of authority in his eyes.

  Deliberately choosing a position from which he had a clear view of everyone in the room, he folded large arms across his chest and stared.

  “You all seem to be here,” he said. “That’s good. No need to waste time.”

  When he stopped speaking, the sunlit room lapsed into uneasy silence, and in that overlong pause the Major seemed to be exploiting every ounce of anxiety that his entrance had generated.

  When the suspense was at its climax, he said: “I want you all to confirm one particular thing you told me last night. As you know, it’s my belief that the attack was made on Mr. Drake at or near the swimming beach. If I am right, he was dragged across the beach to the water. Last night none of you admitted that you had been on the swimming beach at any time after dinner. Do you still hold by that—all of you?”

  No one spoke. Elaine tapped the ash from her cigarette into a brass tray. Maud’s eyes met Terry’s and looked away. For one second the Major’s gaze settled on Kay’s face. He didn’t have to speak. That bright glance told her better than words that he was interpreting her silence as a lie.

  It was a queer sensation, knowing that a policeman suspected her of murder.

  He said peremptorily: “I’m to understand then that all of you maintain you did not go to the swimming beach after dinner last night?”

  “I didn’t, Major,” said Maud softly. “And I’m sure none of the others did.”

  “Very well.” That very well was ominously final— as if he had already reached his first objective and that, from then on, there was nothing to prevent his attaining his eventual goal. He looked around the room, that small, satisfied smile again on his lips.

  Abruptly he said: “Were any of you ladies wearing a white dress last night, white—ah—satin, I believe?”

  There was a little clatter as Don’s hand, moving to grip the edge of a table, sent a cigarette box tilting over. Kay felt slightly dizzy.

  “Yes,” she said. “I was wearing a white satin last night.”

  Once again Major Clifford’s gaze singled her out. The conviction in it was even stronger. His hand moved to the pocket in which he had slipped Rosemary’s diary. With sudden dread, Kay wondered: “What will happen if Elaine is unexpectedly confronted with the diary?”

  For a moment the Major’s fingers slipped into the pocket. Then he withdrew them again and his hand fell at his side.

  “Then you are the only one who wore a white satin dress last night, Miss Winyard?”

  Then in a voice that was harsh and challenging, Alice Lumsden said: “Elaine, why don’t you tell the Major you were wearing white satin? Surely you haven’t forgotten.”

  It was amazing how those two sentences shifted the balance of attention in the room. Suddenly, where before the tension had been general, it became entirely focused on Elaine. Even the Major’s eyes seemed to have forgotten Kay as they stared keenly at her niece.

  “Well, Miss Chiltern, is this true?”

  Slowly Elaine crushed her cigarette into the ash tray. Her face was very drawn and pinched. Her gaze, moving aimlessly aroun
d the room, met her father’s and then dropped to the floor.

  “Yes, I was wearing white satin.”

  “And yet neither you nor Miss Winyard went to the swimming beach after dinner?”

  Elaine looked up quickly. “I didn’t.”

  “Neither did I,” said Kay, but she hardly heard her own words. She could think of nothing but Elaine— Elaine and what Maud had just told her.

  The Major’s large figure seemed even larger and more intimidating now, dwarfing everyone else in the room.

  He said: “Perhaps you two ladies would be good enough to bring me the dresses you wore last night. You, Miss Winyard, will you do that?”

  “Surely.”

  Once again Kay was scarcely conscious of her own voice. Her mind was crowded with memories of Don last night in the cottage holding up Elaine’s crumpled white dress, memories of the jagged tear in the front and the dreadful scarlet stain, memories of Don’s tormented expression and then of his voice this morning: But I can’t take the dress to Elaine, I destroyed it. I burnt it last night.

  “And you, Miss Chiltern,” the Major’s voice boomed in, “will you bring me your dress too?”

  Don took a quick step forward and then stopped. His odd, arrogant face was white as death and that look of horror which had been there last night was back in his eyes. Kay knew that he had realized it too—realized that in destroying that dress he had helped Elaine into this trap.

  “Well, Miss Chiltern?” said the Major.

  Elaine looked at him dazedly. “No. I’m sorry. I—I can’t let you see the dress. I don’t have it any more. It’s gone. It’s…”

  Her voice trailed away. Simon was leaning forward, her chestnut hair falling around her shoulders, watching the other girl fixedly. Maud was watching her too.

  Relentlessly the Major continued: “What do you mean—you haven’t got it any more, Miss Chiltern?” “Because I haven’t. It’s gone, I tell you. I…” “You mean you destroyed it. I understand. You probably destroyed it because it was torn—no good any more.” The Major paused, and, in that grueling second, Kay knew that this was the moment he had chosen to play his trump card. “That’s very interesting, because my man just found this caught on the yuccas at the end of the swimming beach.”

  His hand slipped into his pocket. He took out an envelope and from it produced a small strip of white material—satin.

  He held it up.

  “White satin,” he said. “A little piece of white satin torn from a dress by the sharp leaves of the yuccas. Under the circumstances it’s going to be difficult for you to go on denying that you were at the swimming beach last night, isn’t it, Miss Chiltern?”

  Then, while Elaine rose and stood staring at him whitely, he put his hand in his other pocket and pulled out the diary.

  “Since we seem to be identifying things, perhaps you’re familiar with this too, Miss Chiltern.”

  Elaine’s eyes dropped to the diary and fixed it blindly. She gave a little stifled gasp which betrayed her as completely as a written confession signed at police headquarters.

  “I thought as much.” The Major smiled. “Miss Winyard told me she’d shown this book to no one, but I rather felt she wasn’t telling the truth.”

  Kay tried to keep herself steady. And yet that little strip of satin, limp in the Major’s large hand, was one more unequivocal piece of evidence. It proved that Elaine must have been on the beach last night, and seemed to make inevitable all the rest of the terrible theory—Elaine and Ivor quarreling; a struggle; Ivor falling; Elaine towing him through the moonlit water to the speedboat…

  Kay looked at Maud. Her sister’s face was set and cold.

  What use now were their pitiful plans for shielding Elaine—suppressing the truth?

  “Last night, Miss Chiltern,” said the Major quietly, “you told me you had spent the evening sailing with your brother. Perhaps you’ll tell me now what you were really doing.”

  Elaine’s pale lips half parted as if she were going to speak, but suddenly Don said: “Keep still, Elaine. This is my affair.”

  He moved to her, taking quick, long strides. He stood directly in front of her, his back to the rest of them. Above the open collar of his striped polo shirt, Kay could see the muscles taut in his neck. For a long moment he stood there, staring straight at Elaine. Kay saw the girl’s face drawn and dazed, saw her long lashes quiver and then drop over her eyes as if she could no longer endure his burning stare.

  It was then that Don swung round to face the Major. His lips were twisted in the savage travesty of a smile and there was desperation in his eyes.

  He said: “What’s the use of going on with this? We might as well get it over as quickly as possible. I was the one who killed Ivor Drake.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE ROOM WAS QUIET. They were all watching the young boatman with a sort of fascinated dread. Gilbert was leaning forward in his wheel chair, his hands gripping the arms. Both Terry and Simon wore the same expression of incredulous anxiety. Kay’s glance met Tim Thorne’s. The doctor’s face was suddenly blank, uncertain.

  Then Elaine’s voice, small in the silence, sounded. “Don, you can’t…”

  “Keep still, Elaine.”

  “But-”

  “Keep still, I say.”

  Don pushed her back, away from the path of the Major’s glance. “Well, Major, what are you going to do?”

  The Major ran a finger along his clipped mustache. He said slowly: “This is rather unexpected, Baird.”

  “Who the hell cares whether it’s unexpected or not? You ought to be grateful you cracked your damn case so easily.”

  “I might be grateful,” conceded Major Clifford, “if you’d be kind enough to give me some details.”

  “That’s easy.” Don Baird drew back his shoulders. “That book you’ve got in your hand… you know what it is. It’s Rosemary Drake’s diary. Ivor’s wife’s diary. Elaine brought it to me in the cottage last night. I read it. I’d always known Drake was a swine. I’d always thought this wedding was a crazy mistake. When I read that book and saw what he’d done to Rosemary, I realized someone had to stop the wedding and I guess I hated Drake just a little too much for health. That wasn’t so long before eleven-thirty, the time he was through with bridge and came down to the dock. I kept the diary. I—I sent Elaine back to the house. I’d made up my mind to get the thing settled with Drake in my own way.”

  He was standing squarely in front of Elaine now, his muscular body blocking her from the Major’s view.

  “I went down to the dock. I hid behind the tamarisks. I heard Drake and Mrs. Chiltern coming down from the house. I heard them talking on the dock. Then I heard the speedboat engine start and Mrs. Chiltern call good night. She went back to the house. I slipped out and stopped Drake just as he was starting off. I had the diary with me. I—well, I told him what I thought of him. I told him he had to break with Elaine or else…”

  He stopped, shrugging and throwing out his hand. “What’s the use of going on? We both got mad. I socked him. He fell, banging his head against a rock. I thought he was dead. I didn’t give much of a damn anyway. The boat was still running. I couldn’t think what to do. Then I thought of dragging him across the beach, towing him round to the boat, and—well, you figured it all out for yourself last night, Major.”

  Even in the first shock. Kay had never really believed Don. Now that she had heard that confession, so obviously riddled with fallacies, she was certain that it was nothing more than a clumsily heroic attempt to shield the girl he loved—the girl he was sure now had committed a murder.

  Major Clifford’s voice came, deep and incisive: “You would be prepared to repeat this confession at the police station and sign it, Baird?”

  Don’s tongue came out to moisten his lips. “Of course.”

  “Very interesting.” The Major folded his large arms again over his spotless drill uniform. “But your statement doesn’t altogether fit with the facts. You say the speedbo
at was at the dock with the engine running. You say your fight with Drake took place on the dock too. Why should you have gone to the great risk and trouble of dragging him to the swimming beach and towing him through the water to the boat when you could just have carried him a few feet over the dock and put him right in the speedboat?”

  Don said: “I—that is, I didn’t get that right. We didn’t fight on the dock. We’d moved down the cliffs. We were just above the swimming beach.”

  “I see. You overlooked that point. There’s another point you seem to have overlooked too.” Little creases of intentness settled around the Major’s blue eyes. “Last night you told me you left Hurricane House about eleven, while Drake was still playing bridge. At eleven-thirty you were at Dr. Thorne’s house and had been there for quite a while. If that is true, you could hardly have been killing Drake at the same time.” His bushy gaze moved to Dr. Thorne. “How about it, Thorne?”

  They were all looking at Tim Thorne now. His face was strangely passive. A pale little smile played around his lips.

  “Perhaps Don knows what he’s doing,” he said. “I’m sure I don’t. It’s all of it untrue, Major. Don arrived at my house before eleven-thirty. He stayed till twelve. He couldn’t possibly have killed Drake, couldn’t possibly have done any of those things.”

  Don looked at him rather wildly and then at the Major. “He’s lying,” he said. “I asked him to say I was at his house last night. And he’s sticking by it because he’s a friend of mine and he doesn’t want me to get into trouble.”

  “You seem very eager to be proved a murderer, Mr. Baird.” The Major’s mouth moved dryly. “But I’m afraid you’ll find it hard to make me believe that the coroner’s physician would continue to give you a false alibi against your own wishes. I’m afraid this confession has been rather a waste of time.” His steel gaze turned abruptly to Elaine. “In the first place, there is no motive for you to be interested one way or the other in Drake’s marriage. In the second place, it gives no explanation of how Miss Chiltern got her face scratched, how her white dress happens to have disappeared, or why a piece of it was found caught on the yuccas of the swimming beach.”