“What’s any of that got to do with anything?” flared Don. “She could have got scratched anywhere, couldn’t she? She—she could even have been on the swimming beach. That doesn’t mean she’s a murderess, that doesn’t prove… I’ve told you the truth.” His lips were white. “Why don’t you take me away and have done with it?”
The Major’s gaze was still on Elaine. She had moved slightly forward from behind Don. Her face was as set and immobile as ice.
“And you, Miss Chiltern, do you think I should take Mr. Baird away and have done with it?”
Don swung round to her, gripping her arm fiercely. She shook herself free. Slowly, like a woman in a dream, she lifted a hand to her dark hair, pushing it back from her cheek.
“I knew you wouldn’t believe him,” she said almost in a whisper. “I knew that—otherwise I would have stopped him. Of course it’s all lies. He’s doing it to protect me because he thinks I killed Ivor.”
She turned to Don. Her movements were curious, wooden, as if she were some exquisitely assembled doll. Then, slowly, as she watched him, her face softened. Her eyes were alive again and her mouth moved in a warm little smile.
“He tried to take the blame because he’s in love with me,” she said softly. “And he knows I’m in love with him. That’s why he’s so afraid I killed Ivor.” She took Don’s hand. She murmured: “Thank you, thank you so much. But it’s no use. Don’t you see that?”
Slowly Elaine turned from Don. Her green eyes, amazingly calm now, moved around the room. She looked at her father who was staring at her with grave anxiety. She looked at her mother, too, and Terry— and smiled.
“They’ve all been trying to protect me, Major. They’ve all been lying because they think I killed Ivor. Maybe you think that’s terrible of them. But I’m grateful, very, very grateful. And yet I’m glad this has happened too because it’s been so ghastly keeping it all to myself, not knowing how it could possibly end.”
Gilbert leaned forward in his wheel chair and said sharply: “Elaine, not only as your father but as a lawyer I must warn you…”
“It’s all right, Daddy.” Elaine smiled fleetingly. “Don’t worry. I’ll be all right.” She turned back to the Major. “In the first place, Terry was lying. You knew that, of course. He said I was sailing with him. I was never with him at all.”
Her brother’s face was blanched and miserable. Elaine’s hand went out to him and she said: “Don’t worry, Terry.”
She looked very young and slight and beautiful as she stood there, a study in black and ivory with her smooth white skin and dark, tumbling hair. Her gaze had shifted to the little green book in the Major’s hand.
“You have Rosemary Drake’s diary. I don’t know how you got it, but you know what it is. You probably know too that Kay brought it to Bermuda with her. Yesterday afternoon when I went to her room, she was reading it. I was sure from her expression that the book was important. I couldn’t help wondering about it, wanting to find out what it was all about. And then, after dinner, I was upstairs alone. I slipped into Kay’s room and found the book in a drawer. I took it back to my room and read it.” She hesitated, adding in a cold little voice: “When I’d read it, I realized exactly how much it concerned me.”
She glanced at Don’s fiercely vigilant face. “I’ve got to talk a bit about myself. It’s awfully hard because— well, I guess I did think I was in love with Ivor once. At least I was fascinated because he was so gay, so glamorous. Maybe I’d never have really understood how I felt if—if Don hadn’t come here.” She bit her lip. “When Don came, I knew that whatever I’d felt for Ivor even in the beginning—it wasn’t love. Oh, Don didn’t know anything about it. I mean, I never told him. I hardly spoke to him; tried to avoid him. You see, I couldn’t admit the truth even to myself, because I’d decided to marry Ivor and I—I couldn’t be that mean, couldn’t marry him if I was really in love with someone else.”
She looked down at her white, slim hands. When she looked up again it was at her brother and not at the Major.
“I guess you’ve all been despising me. You thought I was marrying Ivor for his money. Maybe you were right. It’s all so appallingly difficult now, trying to straighten it out in my mind. But what I was doing seemed right to me then. You see, I knew how important it was for father’s health to stay here. I knew how everyone’s life had become more or less dependent on Ivor. I knew that if I broke off the engagement he would throw us all out—just like that. Father would have to go back and… well, Ivor was offering everything. If I went through with it, if I married him, there’d never be any poverty, misery for Mother and Father. That seemed so important, and the fact that I didn’t love Ivor—how important was that? Lots of people marry people they don’t love.”
As Kay listened, she thought rather ashamedly how even she, like Terry and Simon, had suspected Elaine of playing a deep, hard-boiled game for a rich husband and an admirer “on the side.” And this was the truth—this poignant attempt at self-sacrifice for her parents’ happiness!
. Elaine gave a little rueful shrug. “Yesterday Don and I did—did talk really for the first time. He told me he loved me. He tried to make me break the engagement. Oh, it was hard, but I wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t admit a thing. In the afternoon the wedding dress came. It was a sort of zero hour. I’d steeled myself. I thought, in spite of everything, I’d be able to go through with the wedding. And then, later, I read Rosemary’s diary.”
Her eyes moved to the Major. “You’ve probably read it. You’ll understand how I felt. Maybe some people, reading that diary might think Rosemary was just half crazy making up all those terrible things. But I didn’t feel that because everything rang so true to me. Once I’d seen it all in writing I realized so many things about him that I hadn’t understood. It was a nightmare. Just when I thought everything was settled, I read the diary and I knew I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t marry Ivor then—not for anything in the world.”
She hesitated, laying her hand on Don’s arm, her gaze flickering to her father. “Maybe I should have gone to Mother or someone first and told them my decision. But I could only think of Don then and how I wouldn’t have to pretend with him any more. I went straight to—to his cottage. I took the diary with me. I told him how I felt about him, why I’d been acting the way I had and how I couldn’t go through with the wedding.”
It was the Major now of whom Kay was most acutely conscious. Elaine was moving now into the realm of hard facts, facts made exaggeratedly significant by murder. Major Clifford’s blue eyes were keen—very much on the job.
“Don read the diary,” said Elaine quietly, “at least he read enough of it. He’d always hated Ivor. He’d known Rosemary when he was a kid and he’d guessed pretty much of the truth anyway. But the diary made him furious. He wanted to go to Ivor right away himself and tell him what he thought of him. He…”
She broke off hastily as if it was only then that she remembered this was a murder investigation and that every word she said was evidence for Major Clifford.
“But Don didn’t see Ivor,” she added. “All those things he said just now were lies to protect me. You see, I know how impulsive, crazy, he can be when he’s mad. I was terrified there’d be a fight or something if he saw Ivor that night. By the time I’d told everything it was after eleven. Just because I was afraid of what he might do, I made him go over to Dr. Thorne’s house—where he’d be safe from himself.”
She looked at Dr. Thorne. “And it’s true, isn’t it? He got to your house before eleven-thirty, before Ivor even finished playing bridge. And from then on he was with you?”
Tim Thorne nodded gravely. “It’s perfectly true, Elaine. You needn’t worry about the Major thinking Don had anything to do with this.”
Elaine smiled—vividly. Then the smile faded. “I made Don go away, Major,” she said quietly, “because I’d decided to have it out with Ivor myself—once and for all. I had decided to break the engagement that night.”
/> When she stopped speaking, the silence in that long, sun-splashed room was almost unbearable to Kay. Elaine was getting so perilously close to the danger point now.
“And you did see Ivor Drake, last night, Miss Chiltern?”
That was the first time the Major had spoken since Elaine had started. The sound of that low, booming voice focused all the tension in the room.
“Yes.” Elaine looked back at him squarely, the scarlet scratch on her temple stark against her white skin. “That’s where Mother lied to you. Mother told you she’d gone with Ivor to the dock and seen him drive off to the island alone. That wasn’t true. I was there at the dock, waiting for Ivor with the diary. I hadn’t expected Mother to come with him. I—I asked her to go away. She did.”
The Major’s unwinking blue gaze shifted to Maud. “Is this true?”
“Yes.” Maud’s lips were very tight.
Elaine said quickly: “You can’t blame Mother for lying. All she knew was that she had left Ivor alone on the dock with me. And then you said Ivor was murdered. How could she possibly tell you the truth?”
The Major said: “Don’t let’s bother about ethical problems, Miss Chiltern. Let’s have the facts.”
“The facts!” blazed Elaine. “Do you suppose I don’t know what you think the facts are? But you’re wrong. I was there alone on the dock with Ivor. I told him exactly what I’d planned to tell him, that I was through, that I loved Don, that—that if he tried to get nasty with Father, I’d show Rosemary’s diary to the world.” Her words came breathlessly. “He was furious. It was because his vanity had been hurt. He couldn’t bear to think I preferred Don to him. He didn’t care much about anything else, I’m sure. It was just that—his pride. He stood there, staring at me. Then suddenly he tried to snatch the diary. Just before he gripped my arm, I managed to throw it into the yuccas there at the side of the dock. I thought he was going to jump down and search for it. But he didn’t. He—he just swung away from me, dropped into the speedboat, started the engine roaring and headed out to the island.”
She was staring straight into the Major’s eyes, challenging him not to believe her. Then slowly she turned to Don.
“So you see, Don. You needn’t have worried. I should have told you the truth from the beginning. But I—I couldn’t bear to talk about it, not even to you.”
Slowly the awful, blind look had been fading from the young boatman’s eyes. His mouth moved in a tentative little smile and the rigid stance of his shoulders relaxed as if it were gradually dawning on him that the danger for Elaine was not so extreme.
But the danger was far from over yet. As Kay looked at Major Clifford’s granite face, she traced skepticism in the line of his lips. She should have expected it, of course. Major Clifford was a policeman. What people said wouldn’t mean much to him. Naturally, even if Elaine had killed Ivor, she would still have said something like this, still have come out with an innocent sounding story.
Quietly the Major said: “And that was your only traffic with Drake last night, Miss Chiltern.”
“Yes. I never saw him again.”
“It’s a very simple story.” His eyes moved slowly up and down Elaine. “But it doesn’t explain how your face was scratched. It doesn’t explain either how a shred of your dress was found on the yuccas of the swimming beach.”
“Oh, that’s so easy to explain. I know you’ve been thinking it suspicious. But—it was nothing to do with Ivor. After he’d started off in the boat for the island, I went down to the beach to try to get the diary back from the yuccas. I didn’t have a flashlight and there in the shadow the moonlight didn’t help much. I felt around in the sharp leaves. Once I straightened quickly. I caught my temple on the edge of a leaf. It scratched down my cheek and when I started back it ripped my dress. That’s all. That’s exactly how it happened.”
“I see.” The Major’s tone revealed absolutely nothing. “And you were there on the beach for long?”
“Quite a few minutes.” Elaine glanced at Maud. “Soon after Ivor left, Mother came down to the dock again. She called my name. But I hid in the shadow of the yuccas and didn’t answer because I didn’t want her to know what I was doing; didn’t want her to know I had stolen the diary and read it.”
So that was why Maud had failed to find Elaine and had jumped to the dreadful conclusion that she had gone over to the island with Ivor. It had been as simple as that.
Major Clifford was still watching her. “And the end of this story?”
“The end?” faltered Elaine. “Oh, that—that’s really the end. I decided it was impossible to find the diary without a flashlight. I thought there’d probably be one in Don’s cottage. I went there. Don hadn’t come back from Dr. Thorne’s, of course. And I couldn’t find a flashlight.”
Her lashes flickered uncertainly as if her strength to resist the Major’s stare was almost gone. “I—I felt so helpless. I wished Don was there. I knew he’d be able to find the diary. Suddenly I—I felt I had to see him. I decided to swim over to Dr. Thorne’s house. That’s the quickest way. I got my swimming suit from the dock and changed in the cottage, leaving my dress there. I dived off the dock. I was swimming toward Dr. Thorne’s house. Then—then I heard voices on the island. I wondered what was the matter. I swam over to the island swimming beach. I found Kay and Simon there. They’d discovered Ivor. Of course, I—I forgot everything else then.”
She paused and added quickly: “That’s all I know. Of course, later, Don found my dress in his cottage. I hadn’t had time to explain anything to him. He destroyed it because he thought—well, I guess he thought what you thought.” She gave Don a little smile. “Otherwise there’s nothing else I know. Nothing.”
Kay leaned forward, the pulses in her wrists throbbing. Her mind had flashed back to those dreadful moments on the island swimming beach last night when she had seen Elaine’s slim figure slip out of the sea and start cautiously down the surf toward her. Now, as then, there was no doubt in her mind that Elaine had swum deliberately to the island, thinking she would be alone, to search for something.
And yet here she was calmly telling the Major that she had been swimming to Dr. Thorne’s and had been merely deflected to the island by the sound of voices.
Kay knew that wasn’t true, and her suspicions flared up again. She thought of the white cotton pajamas; she thought of the split bathing cap and the look of blind horror on Elaine’s face when she had snatched it from Kay’s hand in the kitchen the night before.
Until then she had placed implicit faith in her niece’s story. It was rather awful, this sudden realization that, if it were true at all, it was only partly so.
With by far the most dangerous part still unexplained!
She looked at Elaine as she stood by Don’s side, staring at the Major. It seemed to her that even the girl’s face now gave away the fact that she was lying. With a twinge of dread she wondered whether the Major realized it too.
As usual, his expression kept its own counsel. After a moment of silence, he said brusquely: “So that’s all you can tell us, Miss Chiltern?”
“Absolutely all.”
Major Clifford folded the fingers of his hand into the large palm and examined the blunt nail. “You’re prepared to swear that Ivor Drake left the mainland dock alone and alive?”
“I am.”
“And you don’t think he came back?”
“I know he didn’t come back,” said Elaine quickly. “If he had, I’d have heard and seen him.”
“That’s what I imagined.” Major Clifford looked up and cleared his throat with an explosive noise. “In that case, if you are right, we’ll have to abandon the theory that Drake was killed on the mainland. We’ll have to think up another explanation for those marks on the sand.”
“Yes, yes.” Elaine’s voice was suddenly rasping. “And without those marks, you haven’t any proof that murder was committed at all.”
“Come, come, it’s not quite as simple as that.” The Major’s teeth
showed, sharklike, in a smile. “We don’t give up so easily, Miss Chiltern. All we have to do is to change the locale. If what you say is true—if Drake was not killed on the mainland, then he was killed either on the island or on his way to the island.” Major Clifford looked around the room, his faintly derisive gaze selecting each of them in turn for a brief but significant scrutiny.
“That’s a new idea,” he said. “And it’ll be interesting to check back over all your numerous untrue statements with that new idea in mind.”
Chapter Fifteen
THAT WAS THE FIRST TIME the Major had admitted to being fully conscious of the fact that they had all been lying. The slightly mocking tone in his voice implied that their attempts at concealing the truth were much too feeble to bother him.
He pulled at a massive gold chain which produced an even more massive gold watch from his fob pocket.
“Twelve-thirty. Well, there’s no need to disturb you any more before lunch, since Miss Chiltern has told me everything she knows.”
His sarcasm, solid as his gold watch, obviously pleased him.
“The inquest has been arranged for two o’clock this afternoon. There will be no need for you all to attend, but I’m afraid Miss Winyard and Miss Morley will have to come since they discovered the body. I will send a man up after lunch to fetch them.”
He moved to the French windows, turning abruptly to glance at Kay over his shoulder.
“But there is no cause for alarm, Miss Winyard. It will be a purely formal affair. You will be expected to tell the truth only in so far as the details of the actual discovery are concerned.”
She had the preposterous impression that he was going to wink at her like a Peter Arno colonel. “By the way, Constable Masters has instructions to remain on the dock all afternoon. I trust that you and your sister found what you wanted while you were over on the island this morning because, if you didn’t, it might be too late now.”
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