“I don’t understand.”
He said almost fiercely: “Don’t you see how everything’s changed now? Alice is dead. That’s cold, straight murder with nothing to justify it—nothing. You couldn’t really forgive that, could you?”
Suddenly her fear was more than she could bear. “Tim, you—you don’t mean you know who killed Ivor and Alice?”
He didn’t answer. He just stood there, looking at her with a wry, sad little smile.
“It’s out of your hands now,” he said. “We’ve been dreaming and it’s time to wake up. Whatever happens, you must remember that.”
“Tim…”
But he paid no attention. He had turned away from her and was hurrying toward the door.
Kay stared after him bleakly. Her fear had imperceptibly transformed itself into exhaustion now, blank, crushing exhaustion. It seemed an effort even to move her limbs.
It was only after the door had shut behind him that she remembered Tim had taken his medical bag with him. The bag which contained not only the Chilterns’ securities, but also the evidence against Terry—the evidence she had sworn never to let slip through her fingers again.
Chapter Nineteen
ALL THAT HAPPENED later seemed to Kay like a dream. Somehow she found her way upstairs to her room. She slipped off her sodden clothes and soaked herself in a steaming-hot bath, trying to get warmth back into her. But even after she had dressed in a woolen sweater and skirt, that deep-seated chill had not been banished.
Her impression of the living room, as she went downstairs, was vague as if it had been seen by someone else who had told her about it in snatches. Broken images of pale, anxious faces, Gilbert’s, Maud’s, Terry’s, Elaine’s, Simon’s, Don’s—all of them there, all of them sitting and standing around in the room that had been Ivor’s and then, for a brief hour, Alice’s.
Only two faces stood out to Kay—Tim Thorne’s, set and alert as he stood by the closed French windows, and Major Clifford’s, rough and unyielding as granite, exaggerated later in her memory to giant size.
She didn’t know how long he had been there or how much had happened. But the storm of his arrival, if there had been a storm, was over now and they were all settled into apathetic stillness.
It was the Major’s voice that dominated everything. Slowly she began to listen. He was talking about Tim.
“… Dr. Thorne has made a preliminary examination of the body. Miss Lumsden was killed by a blow on the side of the head, a heavy, crushing blow, probably delivered while she was riding down the drive on her bicycle. Since she was found so close to the house, it’s obvious that she must have been killed just after she took her bicycle out of the shed—in other words, a few minutes after the storm started this evening.”
His voice stopped and then went on again: “One of my men has discovered a full soda-water bottle which had been thrown in the bushes near by. It’s my belief and Thorne’s that the bottle was the murder weapon. The glass is thick, coarse. It is unlikely that even a blow strong enough to inflict death would break a full bottle.”
Dimly a recollection came back to Kay of the living room that evening just before the storm, a recollection of the weird storm light gleaming evilly on a tray of squat Bermuda soda-water bottles with little glass marbles in their thick necks.
The murder weapon…!
She wondered—her first coherent thought: Does the Major know the body was moved? Has Tim told him? And then again: Was it Maud who moved the body? And if so, why?
But the Major didn’t seem to want to talk about that. He had changed his tune. He had started to ask questions: “Where were you when the storm started? Where were you when Alice Lumsden went out to the bicycle shed?”
They were all answering, one after the other. Kay answered too, calmly and logically, not really knowing what she said. Gradually, as the interrogation went on, the facts started to register with her. Gilbert had been able to give her an alibi. After she had been with Maud, she had been in the library with him. Yes, she remembered. Maud and Elaine had been upstairs together in Elaine’s bedroom, they said. But the Major’s quiet “I see” sounded skeptical.
Don Baird, his face pale and arrogant above the green turtle-neck sweater, said he had been in the slave cottage ever since the rain started. Constable Masters had come in, sheltering from the storm, and had been there with him all the time from then on.
“Get Masters in here to confirm it,” he said, “if you don’t believe me.”
Major Clifford looked at the boatman, his eyes faintly sardonic. “First an alibi with Dr. Thorne; now an alibi with Masters. Only the best is good enough for you, eh, Baird?”
Don scowled. Kay glanced shakily at him, remembering Tim Thorne’s story of what had really happened last night, realizing with a chill of doubt that, however good his alibi for this crime, Don had, in fact, no alibi at all for the time of Ivor’s death.
The Major concentrated his attention on Terry now. “Well, Mr. Chiltern, only you and Miss Morley are left. I suppose you’re going to tell me you were together all the evening?”
His sarcasm was heavily obvious. Kay saw its effect on Terry, saw the lips in his pale face flinch. This was the first time she had been with him since Gilbert had told had the pitiful story of his forgery. Poor kid, he must have been in agony all day, fearing that at any minute the facts of it might come out and open up for him untold avenues of danger.
Sharply she remembered that the evidence against him was still in Tim’s possession. She looked at the doctor, still uneasy from his cryptic remarks in the library.
The black medical bag—as menacing to Kay as a time bomb—lay on the floor at his feet.
Terry had not answered the Major’s question. He glanced at Simon who sat next to Don on the couch.
Then he said: “Yes. Simon and I were together all evening. We were here in the living room with Mother and Elaine and Don when Alice told us she was going to the police station. Then Mother made us all go away. Simon and I went off together to—to the dining room.”
“The dining room?”
“Father and Kay were in the library. There wasn’t anywhere else to go.”
“And if you’re interested in what we were doing,” put in Simon calmly, “we were playing Chinese checkers.”
Major Clifford turned to her aggressively. “Is there an outside door in the dining room?”
“Yes, the French windows open out onto the terrace.” Simon turned her incalculable blue eyes on him. They were amused. “But we didn’t plunge out into the rain hand in hand and murder Alice Lumsden with a soda-water bottle. Our Chinese checkers was quite thrilling enough on its own.”
The Major’s neck was turning a dull red. “We can do without frivolity, Miss Morley.”
“Then it might be better if you stopped asking questions with frivolous implications.”
It was a mistake to make the Major angry. Kay realized that at once with a feeling of indignation against Simon. Since Kay had lied to protect her, Simon was out of this so far as the Major was concerned. She had no right to make it worse for the rest of them.
For a long moment the Major was silent, the pause serving the double purpose of intimidating them and giving him time to control his irritation.
When he spoke again the old, slightly pompous irony was in his voice.
“So you all have perfect alibis for the time of Miss Lumsden’s death! I expected something of the sort. I suppose one of you’ll suggest that she killed herself by accident, falling off her bicycle, hitting her head on a rock?”
No one answered. It wasn’t a question that had expected an answer. But to Kay those words brought a tingle of anxiety. They all had perfect alibis—yes.
All of them except Tim.
The Major hadn’t even thought of questioning Tim!
She looked at Dr. Thorne again, amazed that he could be standing there, so calm and impersonal, knowing as he did how murderously involved in this discussion he could become. He c
aught her eye and smiled. It was a curious, indefinite smile that did not comfort her.
The Major’s voice boomed again: “Well, we will leave this for a moment. After all, the motive for Miss Lumsden’s murder is clear. She was killed because she knew or believed she knew who had killed Mr. Drake and was planning to tell me what she knew. The two crimes are as closely connected as any crimes can be.” He stroked his stubbly gray mustache. “In consequence, I am going to return to the events of last night which is still the crux of the case.”
Once again he extracted from the pause that followed every ounce of suspense. By now Kay was becoming familiar with his tactics and she felt that this was the zero hour for a new, unexpected offensive. His gaze had switched back to Terry.
“I understand, Chiltern, that you went out sailing immediately after dinner and remained in the sailboat until after Drake’s body was discovered?”
Terry’s face tried to conceal its apprehension. “Yes. That’s right.”
“Last night you claimed that your sister was with you at the actual time of the death. But this morning, when Miss Chiltern revised so much of her original statement, she denied having been with you at all.” Elaine looked up sharply, her dark hair tumbling around her face. Terry said: “No. She wasn’t with me. That—that was a lie.”
“In other words you were alone?”
“Yes. I was alone.”
“Your sister claimed something else this morning,” the Major said in a voice that was ominously quiet. “She claimed that she saw Drake leave the mainland dock in the speedboat alone and alive. If she’s telling the truth, we have to assume that Drake was killed either at the island—or on the way to the island. Don’t we?”
Terry looked at Elaine and then down at his blue-sandaled toes. “I guess so.”
“Where was the sailboat moored last night when you went to it?”
The sharpness of the question startled Kay.
Terry said blankly: “About fifty feet or so off the mainland dock.”
“And how did you get to it?”
“I took a rowboat over from the dock.”
“And left it moored at the sailboat’s moorings?” Terry hesitated and then said: “Y-yes.”
“Did you have any difficulty rowing out to the sailboat?”
“Difficulty? Why… no.”
“I thought not.” The Majors smile came and went. “You’ve admitted you were alone in the sailboat all evening. Where were you at the time of Drake’s death—that is, between eleven-forty-five and midnight?” Kay, sitting tensely upright, noticed little beads of perspiration glistening on Terry’s forehead.
He said: “I had tacked in close to shore by the mainland beach, then I sailed out again. When I heard Ivor’s speedboat leave the dock I was way out past the island, off the promontory beyond the Morley house.”
“You didn’t land on the island at any time?”
“No.”
“And you didn’t sail around the promontory when you heard the speedboat start, and meet Drake just off the island jetty?”
Terry stared at him, his jaw working. “That’s a lie. I never…”
“I didn’t say you did. I just asked if you did.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“But you admit you might have done?”
“No. I was too far out. I couldn’t have got in against the wind even if I’d wanted to.”
“That’s not what I mean. I mean that no one saw you. You were alone. You could have met Drake’s speedboat just off the island. There’s no way of proving you didn’t.”
Simon had been leaning forward on the couch, very alert. Now her hand went out impulsively toward Terry. For the first time Kay noticed that she was no longer wearing the silver slave bracelet which had become so disastrously associated with Ivor.
Terry said jerkily: “I guess you’re right, Major. I can’t prove I was anywhere. I can’t be definite.”
“But you were definite about one point. You told me that you had no difficulty in rowing out to the sailboat. That’s a hard fact, Chiltern. And it’s an interesting fact. This afternoon, before the storm started, I sent a man out to look at the rowboat you used last night, the rowboat which is still at the sailboat’s moorings. He noticed one very informative thing. In that rowboat one of the two iron rowlocks was missing.”
He paused. “If it had been missing when you used the boat last night you would have had difficulty navigating it, wouldn’t you? You’ve just told us you had no difficulty at all. One must assume therefore that both rowlocks were in the boat last night when you rowed it to the sailboat’s moorings.”
Don broke in: “What has that got to do with anything?”
“It’s got a great deal to do with everything. When I heard the rowlock was missing, it gave me an idea. I had the man spend the afternoon rowing back and forth between the dock and the mainland—searching for the rowlock. He found it finally, thanks to the clearness of the Bermuda ocean. It was lying on the sand under the water about fifty feet out from the island jetty.”
With sudden, alarming clearness, Kay saw where the Major was leading them.
“My man brought the rowlock back to the police station, Chiltern. Dr. Thorne and I examined it. Thorne compared it with the wound on Drake’s temple. The shape, the curious curve of the wound, exactly fits the curve of the iron rowlock.” He turned to Tim. “I think I’m right in saying, Thorne, that you feel the rowlock was almost certainly the weapon used last night to knock Drake unconscious before he was drowned?”
Tim nodded without speaking.
Kay’s fingers tightened into fists. He had said nothing about this to her on the island. Why? Why hadn’t he…?
The Major was still staring at Terry’s white, haggard face.
“Now, Mr. Chiltern, what do you have to say to that?”
Terry seemed completely spent. His boyish face was without any defense.
“You mean you think Ivor was—was killed over there by the island jetty, where that rowlock was found?”
“It would fit with your sister’s story that Drake left the mainland alive. And you believe your sister, don’t you?”
“Why, of—of course.”
“And it’s a much simpler theory than the first one which involved Drake’s having been knocked unconscious on the mainland, dragged across the beach, and towed through the water.” Once again Major Clifford built up one of those nerve-twisting pauses. “Look at it this way. Someone, presumably in a boat, hails Drake just as the speedboat is approaching the island dock. Drake throws the speedboat out of gear, slows up. The person who hailed him boards the speedboat. He has already obtained the iron rowlock which, with the cord twisted around the wrist, makes an efficient weapon. Drake is in no way suspicious. How easy for his assailant to strike him, push him overboard, drop the rowlock in the water, and then return to his own boat. As it happens, Drake’s foot catches in the aquaplane rope. The speedboat drifts with the tide to the island beach, dragging Drake after it.”
Kay was suddenly very conscious of Gilbert and Maud; Gilbert very gaunt, leaning forward in his wheel chair; Maud, her chiseled face wearing that same dead impassivity which it had worn when Tim and Kay had caught her in the bicycle shed.
At the back of her mind, where she was trying to stifle it, the thought came to Kay: If Ivor was killed that way, Terry isn’t the only person who was out in the bay at that time.
Tim had been out there too!
Major Clifford’s needle-sharp gaze was used for no one except Terry.
“Couldn’t it have happened that way, Chiltern?”
Terry’s sun tan was a rather sickly yellow now. “I suppose so.”
“You’re sure that’s just a supposition?”
“What—what do you mean?”
“I should think it’s fairly obvious what I mean.” The words came in an irritable explosion. “Do I have to make myself clearer? All the rest of your truth-loving family claim that they were on the mainland at the tim
e of Drake’s death. But you were out in the bay alone in your sailboat; you were the one who had used the rowboat; you had every opportunity to get the rowlock; you have no witness to the position of your sailboat or to any of your movements either before or immediately after the crime was committed.” He snorted. “Get what I’m driving at now?”
It had never occurred to Kay that the attack against Terry might come this way—through opportunity and possession of the murder weapon, instead of motive. With a sinking heart she realized how damning things were against him—even without the forgery evidence which she had so signally failed to destroy.
She glanced instinctively at Tim Thorne whose medical bag, squatting at his feet, was now the sanctuary of that crucial evidence. To her surprise, surprise that tilted over into alarm, she saw that Tim’s eyes were bright with a keen, unemotional attention—almost as if he were pleased with the way things were going.
The Major said gruffly: “Well, Chiltern, I’m waiting for your reaction.”
It was Elaine now rather than Terry who arrested Kay’s concern. Her face was as pale as the monk’s-cloth curtains screening the window behind her. One hand fluttered dazedly to her cheek and dropped again.
“That’s fantastic,” she blurted. “You can’t think Terry killed Ivor—with a rowlock. I tell you it’s a fantastic idea.”
The Major looked at her coldly. “It’s an idea, Miss Chiltern, which would never have occurred to me without your valuable assistance.”
“Well, the idea might as well stop occurring to you right now.”
It was Simon, unexpectedly, who had spoken. She got up and, leaning across Don, took a cigarette from a box. Her sultry mouth, as she turned to the Major, had a dangerous tilt at the corners. “You’ve just said that all of us except Terry were on the mainland at the time of Ivor’s death. That’s a simplification, I’m afraid. I happened to be out in the bay too.”
The Major stared at her, his jaw dropping. “But you told me you were on the mainland dock. That later you and Miss Winyard went out together in a canoe to…”
“… to enjoy the moonlight,” completed Simon. “When you’ve already decided that we’re all liars, you shouldn’t be so gullible, Major. That was just a little fairy tale Miss Winyard thought up so that I could shelter under her wing.”
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