With that direct hit, he nodded to Thorne. The two men moved out onto the terrace.
The tension in the atmosphere which, so long as the Major was there, had been taut as a stretched steel wire, sagged now like a piece of damp string. His departure had brought no sense of relief, only of frustration and apathy—frustration because he had given no hint as to what he really thought of Elaine’s story; apathy because it was so obvious that there was nothing any of them could do.
Only Don and Elaine, who had been through the hardest fire, had retained any spirit. The young boatman still carried himself with the same old devil-may-care arrogance. Elaine’s small face with its sharply accented cheekbones and its delicate pointed chin was pale but determined.
Suddenly, breaking the heavy silence, she said: “Mother, Don and I want to get married as soon as possible. That’s all right with you and Daddy, isn’t it?”
Everything was so unreal that her extraordinary statement seemed perfectly normal.
“It’s rather—sudden, dear.” Maud smiled a wry little smile. “But if it will make you happy…”
Gilbert, intent and faintly amused, said: “Our attempts at making you happy have not been conspicuously successful, Elaine. I think you should follow your own instincts this time.”
Terry was staring at his sister and the boatman uncertainly. Simon was watching them too, her face solemn and, Kay thought, completely without hostility. This was a far cry from last night when she had so bitterly attacked Elaine for her betrayal of Ivor.
But then all this was an infinitely far cry from yesterday. Yesterday Elaine had been engaged to marry Ivor in three days. Now, in less than twenty-four hours, Ivor was dead and Elaine was ready to marry Don.
Kay wondered if any engagement in the Winyard family had ever been announced so precipitously or under less auspicious circumstances.
Terry shuffled his feet and said: “I suppose congratulations are in order.”
“Congratulations!” echoed a voice from the door. “Ivor hasn’t even been buried and you congratulate her on her engagement to somebody else.”
They all turned uneasily to see Alice Lumsden standing, large and starchy white, by the door. During Elaine’s story. Kay had almost forgotten the nurse, but now, as she saw the dark, sunken-eyed face alight with antagonism, she knew that Alice Lumsden was someone who should definitely not have been forgotten.
Ivor’s cousin took a short step forward, her gaze focusing its malice on Elaine.
“I’ve got something to say to all of you.”
Maud glanced at her sharply and began: “Alice…”
“Don’t Alice me!” The nurse tossed her head. “Those days are all over now. Quite over.” Kay watched her with weary anxiety, guessing what was coming next. “Perhaps Mr. Chiltern hasn’t told you the news. I’m sure it will interest you. Poor Ivor left this house to me in his will.” She drew herself up. “Hurricane House, everything in it, is my property now. And things are going to be extremely different.”
Alice Lumsden’s hands with their long bony fingers clutched each other across the stiff cotton of her bosom.
“Ivor knew who his real friends were and I hope I can prove myself worthy of his trust. At least there’s one thing I can do. You’re probably expecting to stay on here indefinitely. That isn’t so, I’m afraid. My charity isn’t as broad as Ivor’s. Certainly it isn’t broad enough to house his murderer under my own roof.”
Simon put in suddenly: “You’ve no right to say it was one of the Chilterns who killed Ivor.”
“No right!” Alice Lumsden laughed. It was an unpleasant laugh. “I’ve made myself clear, haven’t I? As long as the police want you, I suppose you’ll have to stay. But at the very first moment the Major’s through with you, you leave.”
She laughed again, half turning with a rustle of skirts to the door.
“And, unless I’m very much mistaken, when you leave there’ll be one of you left behind—locked up in the Hamilton jail, waiting trial for murder.” She paused, her eyes very bright. “And when that time comes, I doubt whether the identity of the murderer will be a surprise to me.”
While they all watched her bleakly, she tossed her starched cap again and flounced out of the room.
Terry stared after her, his jaws sagging. Then he swung round to Gilbert.
“Father, is she nuts? This can’t be true.”
“It’s perfectly true.” Gilbert’s hand smoothed the yellow cushion of his wheel chair. “At least it’s true about Ivor’s having left her this property in his will.” Elaine said dazedly: “And she can turn us out—just like this?”
“Not quite as dramatically, my dear. She has no legal right to the property before the will has been probated. But as soon as that takes place…”
A shrug finished the sentence.
Terry was still staring at his father, his face pale and miserable. “Then that means we’ll have to go back to Pittsburgh and you…”
“Terry, dear, surely you didn’t expect to stay on here anyway after what has happened.” Maud’s voice was mildly reproving, but her gray eyes, shifting to her husband, were anxious. “Gilbert, that’s the second time she’s hinted she knows something that involves one of us.”
Gilbert folded the blanket back over his paralyzed legs. “If Miss Lumsden knows something, my dear, you may be sure she will pass it on to the Major. If she doesn’t, she won’t.” His eyes crinkled slightly at the corners. “And since we all presumably have clear consciences, I don’t see why it should disturb us, one way or the other.”
He looked at Kay then, his lips tightening. “Kay dear, I’m a little exhausted. Since I seem to have lost Alice’s professional services, perhaps you’d be good enough to help me to my room.”
“Of course, Gilbert.”
Kay realized that her brother-in-law must be very anxious to hear the outcome of her expedition to the island. Until then there had been no opportunity to talk to him alone. She moved to the wheel chair, but Maud, who had reached it first, said: “I’ll take you, Gilbert. Kay’s going to the inquest and she’ll have to change before lunch.”
Before Kay could argue, Maud had wheeled her husband out of the room.
Kay did not see them again until lunch which was served in the patio by a flustered, wide-eyed maid. The meal was enough of a strain in itself, but the strain was considerably heightened when at the last minute Alice Lumsden appeared, wearing an unsuitably informal maroon playsuit. In the past she had eaten meals in her own room. Now, her sallow face flushed and defiant, she conspicuously took the seat at the head of the table—assuming her new role as mistress of the house.
Her hostile presence was exasperating. But there was something that worried Kay infinitely more. Every now and then as the silent meal progressed, the ex-nurse’s deep-set eyes flickered a malicious glance around the table. It was a glance with triumph in it and yet with a tinge of uncertainty too—as if she still lacked one small piece of evidence to confirm a theory, some little clue which she was expecting to fall into her lap at any moment, provided she watched them all closely enough.
Just as they were all shakily sipping coffee, a rednecked police sergeant came to take Kay and Simon to the inquest. They drove to the small police station along white coral roads in a double carriage with a canopy to shield them from the sun. Little colored children, tumbling through gaps in oleander hedges, watched them pass, open-mouthed.
And that same open-mouthed quality was conspicuous in the attention Kay and Simon received at the bare country courtroom. Presided over by Major Clifford, impressive as magistrate, a jury of prim, English-looking men regarded them with a hostility which was distinctly suspicious. During the brief, strictly censored inquest, in which Kay, Simon, and Dr. Thorne gave bald statements, the hostility of the jury seemed to increase. An open verdict was brought in, pending further investigations.
But Kay was convinced that, so far as the jury was concerned, “further investigations” had been merely a pol
ite way of saying “murder investigation.”
Major Clifford’s official and cautious insistence on the possibility of “accidental causes” had obviously not convinced them.
The Major drove back with them to Hurricane House and was conducted to Gilbert with whom, as Ivor’s lawyer, he planned to go through the dead man’s papers. Kay, deprived once again of a chance to talk to her brother-in-law, went upstairs to change and then joined Maud, Elaine, and Don who were grouped listlessly on the terrace, staring out to sea.
Something had happened to the afternoon. The sparkle had gone out of the sunlight and the horizon behind the island was banking with clouds. There was an ominous heaviness and the heat on the terrace was heavy also with a subtle threat of thunder.
The hours rolled by heavily too. Simon and Terry joined them. Every now and then there was a sputter of conversation as artificial and short-lived as a wet firecracker. That absence of talk when there was so very, very much to talk about was oppressive. Kay wondered what was happening between Gilbert and the Major and wished there was a chance for her to go over to the island and retrieve the securities from Ivor’s baggage.
But from where they sat they could just see the dock and occasionally, a mute reminder of how far from well things were, they could catch a glimpse of Constable Masters’ white sun helmet as he paced up and down the jetty. Beyond, in a small rowboat, a man was rowing leisurely back and forth in front of the island dock.
Was he a policeman too?
The only thing that seemed to change was the panorama in front of them. The thunderheads on the horizon grew increasingly massive. There was an eerie plum color to them, and the stifling afternoon heat became breezeless with a dead, threatening quality. In the dazzling light the smooth water of the bay was polished and dark as black marble and the island seemed so close that Kay felt as if, by leaning forward, she could almost touch the playhouse.
A storm was certainly banking up. A bad one.
At about six, Major Clifford emerged from the living room, carrying a brief case under his arm. He exchanged only a bare greeting with them and moved out of sight through the gay scarlet and yellow hibiscus bushes. Soon Gilbert trundled his wheel chair out onto the terrace. He looked pale and spent.
“A lot of talk about nothing,” he murmured. Then, his eyes moving anxiously to Kay, he said: “A game of backgammon might help Major Clifford out of my system. How about it, Kay?”
Kay assented quickly before anyone else forestalled her and wheeled Gilbert’s chair away from the brooding sunlight of the terrace, through the living room and down the corridor toward the library.
The door to the library was ajar. Gilbert leaned forward in the wheel chair and pushed it full open. Kay trundled him into the room.
With a shock of surprise Kay saw Alice Lumsden’s angular figure stooped over a low couch at the far end of the room. As they entered, the nurse seemed to shuffle something hastily under the cushions. She swung round to them. And Kay was startled at her expression. It was alight with malevolent excitement.
For a moment Alice Lumsden just stood there, staring, her breath coming jerkily as if she had been running. Then, without a word, she brushed past them and out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Kay stared at Gilbert. “What do you suppose she was doing?”
Gilbert shrugged. “Looked as if she was hiding something under the cushions.”
Kay moved to the couch. It was piled high with lemon-yellow cushions. She pushed them aside. At the bottom of the heap was a light-green cushion with a dark-green stripe. She picked it up, expecting to find something underneath.
But there was nothing there.
She turned back to Gilbert, the cushion still in her hand. It was damp and slightly stained.
“Nothing here,” she said. “I don’t understand, Gilbert. She—she looked so sort of excited as if she’d found something.”
“She probably did.” Gilbert smiled, a tired little smile. “And she probably took it away with her. She has a genius for the theatrical, that woman.” Then with a shrug: “But whatever it is, we can’t do anything about it. So why worry? Let’s play backgammon. Oddly enough, I really want to.”
A suede-covered card table was set up in front of a low window which looked out over the carriage drive to a lowering clump of cedar. A tray with Scotch and soda-water bottles was the only reminder that the Major had been there. Kay moved it to a side table, settled Gilbert at one end of the card table, found the backgammon board, and sat down herself.
They both set up their boards with the shiny, colored checkers in silence. The imminent storm outside had created a false dusk in the room. Kay turned on a standard lamp. She deliberately did not start the conversation. She knew Gilbert liked to take his own time.
“It’s going to be a real storm,” he murmured. Then, as they threw their dice for the first move, he looked up at her, his face with its lean, aristocratic features faintly ironical—as if somehow he were mocking himself.
“At last we’ve been left alone. I presume you weren’t able to get the securities?”
He had won the throw. Without waiting for her reply, he began moving his men. And they both continued to play with a stubborn denial of urgency as Kay outlined to him the humiliating sequence of events which had taken place on the island that morning. Repeating what had happened made her feel inadequate, as if, in failing on a mission which involved the Chilterns’ entire financial future, she had let the family down.
She concluded: “I’m terribly sorry, Gilbert, but I suppose it turned out for the best. If I hadn’t hidden the folder under the mattress I’d have had it with me when the Major caught us. He’d certainly have got it then.”
“I realize that, my dear.” Gilbert threw a double three and picked up two of her men. “And from my interminable chat with Major Clifford this afternoon I’m almost sure he hasn’t found the securities—yet. That’s something, at least.”
His voice sounded flat, as if the subject had momentarily lost its importance for him. For a while he sat in silence, twisting the little dice box in his hand and looking out across the drive to the grove of cedars, dark now in the fading light.
“What Elaine told us this morning,” he said suddenly, “it was a terrible shock to me, Kay. All this time I’d been thinking that she was genuinely in love with Ivor. I never dreamed she was deliberately making that incredible sacrifice just for me and my—my health.” He looked at her, little haggard lines forming around his sensitive mouth. “How could I have been so blind?”
“In this day and age children usually keep their parents blind,” said Kay gently. “It seems to be the way of the forties.”
“The way of the forties!” He gave a hard little laugh. “It’s not very attractive, is it, when it’s a way that leads to murder?”
“Murder! But this morning, Gilbert, you said you thought it was probably just an accident, after all.”
“That’s what I said because it was what I was so desperately hoping. I can’t hope that way any more— not now when we all seem so dreadfully involved.” Gilbert leaned over the backgammon board, his dice box forgotten. His eyes were poignantly unsure of themselves. “Kay, I love Elaine more than anything in the world. I’ve always loved her ever since she was an angry little slip of a thing with pigtails and a brace on her teeth. You—you do believe what she told the Major, don’t you?”
Believe Elaine! Kay thought of the girl’s patently false explanation of why she had swum to the island. She thought of the split bathing cap and the pajama pants. And yet, looking at Gilbert, she couldn’t bring herself to let him know how little she did believe his daughter.
Hesitantly she said: “Why, yes, Gilbert. Of course I believe Elaine.”
She had expected the anxiety to smooth itself out of his expression. But it didn’t. Gilbert picked up a checker at random from the board. He tossed it up and caught it again nervously.
“Then if you believe Elaine, you must also belie
ve what the Major believes, that Ivor was killed at the island or on the way to the island?”
“I—I suppose so.”
Gilbert’s fingers closed in a viselike grip over the checker. He looked at her, his face stripped now of all ironic pretense. She had never seen him this way before, Gilbert who had drifted through a life of failure to the final tragedy of paralysis without ever once losing his carefree insouciance.
In a small, urgent voice, he said: “Kay, you’ve got to get that folder back from the playhouse. Somehow you’ve got to get it.”
“Of course I’m going to try,” she said reassuringly. “I realize how important…”
“But you don’t. This morning I was only telling you half the truth. All that about the stocks, my improvident flutter on the market, that’s true, of course. But there’s something more, something that’s much worse.”
In the curious light, half bright from the lamp, half broodingly dark from the threat of storm outside the window, her brother-in-law, huddled in the wheel chair, looked unreal, like some thin, suffering Buddha.
“Gilbert, what do you mean?”
Gilbert passed a hand across his snow-white hair. There was resignation and weariness in the gesture. “This morning I was lying to you about Ivor. All I told you, about how grateful I was to him, how much I liked him—that wasn’t true. I used to feel that way. But yesterday morning, before you came, I heard something which made me realize just what sort of man he was, something that made me hate him just as much as the others seem to have hated him.”
“But, Gilbert…”
“Wait, my dear.” He gave a dry little smile, a typically Gilbert smile which, for a moment, seemed to make things real again. “At least, whatever you may say about us, the Chilterns are a united family. Elaine was prepared to marry Ivor because she thought that would help me. Maud was prepared to take the suspicion of murder on her own shoulders to protect Elaine.” He paused, his face very grave again. “I only hope you’ll be willing, whatever the danger, to help me protect someone who did something very foolish, criminal even—for my sake.”
Return to the Scene Page 17
