There was someone else, evidently, who paused for doors to be opened to them. For there came a knock and the police, suitably apologetic, were waiting to invite themselves in.
Among these four, thought Chief Inspector Charlesworth, unctuously proffering regrets at having been obliged to arrive earlier than expected—among these four people is a murderer.
Or two murderers in collusion? Or three in collusion? Among the Eight Best Friends there had been, always, an underlying sense of all for one and one for all, which had by no means escaped him—and the combinations and computations were endless. But one pair of hands had strangled the woman, and he was looking for that one pair of hands.
Pale hands, lovely hands, narrow, with long, oval palely varnished nails—which yet with sufficient strength might fasten upon a scrawny throat. White hands, wristed with a tinkle of gold bracelets, as capable of the same. Fine hands, well-shaped, well cared for with a man’s simple, casual care; and the hands of a surgeon, long in the palm with short blunt fingers trained to the mind’s will, and very strong.
Sari, Rufie, Etho, Phineas Devigne. He had boiled it down to these four.
And here present also, a stout little girl whose innocent head might well, all unknowingly, hold the secret of which pair of hands had killed.
He civilly brushed aside all repudiations, and simply walked into the room. Just a matter, he explained, of the extraordinary communications that had come through Miss Morne’s letterbox. The first on the Tuesday after the murder—which had been committed, as they were hardly likely to forget, on the previous Saturday night; the second today, Friday, almost a fortnight after the woman had died. ‘Sergeant Ellis will pass them round among you; it’s OK to handle them now.’ The envelopes, one blank except for the seal, the second addressed in a hand which so far nobody claimed to recognise; but anyway a not very easily recognisable hand, a copy-book, sloping script without much exposition of character. Thought by the experts to be certainly not any attempt at disguise. To ‘Miss Sari Morne’, at this address. The envelope bearing stamps of the island of San Juan el Pirata, with the island’s postmark and a legible date and the ordinary London postmarks, confirming date of arrival.
And if they would care to compare the seals... And the sketches...
Curled up in a chair, Ena Mee sat blissful and unaware in her absorption with Ronald Pig.
With the trump-card he now held in his hand Mr Charlesworth had prepared himself very carefully for the interviews to come.
Accept once and for all that Vi Feather had been a blackmailer. Blackmailers come in many shapes and forms and in the vast number of cases are merely opportunists. And blackmail itself comes in many forms; from knowledge of some secret so trivial as to seem nothing in any eyes but the eyes of those who hold it -—to discovery of a secret that may cost a man all that is dear to him even to his very life.
Phineas Devigne had a secret that was new; but Vi Feather had known the three others long ago and might have held secrets that were old. For the moment it was academic, what secrets she might have known.
The case against Sari Morne was—to Mr Charlesworth’s infinite regret—the most obvious of all.
She leaves the cinema, she calls in at the pub, she passes before the tree falls, she drives straight home. Somewhere along the way she kills the woman and leaves the body in the back of her car.
Objections. At the time she left the pub the body was not in the back of the car. In the boot? But why then transfer it to the place where it was found? And the experts are sure that nothing, let alone a dead body, very difficult to lift and handle, in wet clothes, with bedraggled wet hair—has ever been in the boot of that brand new car. Picked up somewhere along the way, then, between pub and home? But where? And why not simply bundle the body out by the lonely roadside in the heart of the storm? Or Vi Feather was waiting for her in the garage shed, when she arrived home? But how did the woman get there?—the police had long ago eliminated all but some manner of transport deliberately being kept secret. And killing her there, why heave the body into the car and leave it there? Objections; but minor objections—all explicable by collusion, by knowledge and assistance before or after the fact.
Only one great objection: impossible if there had been an exchange of cars when the tree fell.
The case against Ethelbert Wendover. Had known the woman in Rome. Had possible reasons for going to the cinema, and for going secretly since Sari had insisted that all her friends stay away.
Objections. An alibi but an alibi covering a time which would still have allowed him, having left the cinema early (and he must have done so, to have avoided the fall of the tree) to be at home with an appearance of having been there all along.
The case against Rupert Soames—more or less identical. Objections identical also. It must however be observed that there might be mutual advantages in these alibis, offered by a couple of close friends.
Come then to the far more complicated case of Phineas Devigne. Had Phineas Devigne, or had he not, exchanged cars with Sari Morne at the fallen tree?
No such exchange took place? The story was made up by Sari Morne inspired by her recognition of a car identical with her own, passing her on the road just before the fall of the tree?
No exchange then: and the case against Phineas Devigne.
Motive very strong: blackmailed on account of an affair, which could have cost him the custody of his child, to an unfit mother.
He meets Vi Feather outside the cinema or picks her up along the way, kills her and conceals her body in the back of the car, drives on and dines with his mistress; drives home, calling in on his patient at the pub, The Fox.
Objections. No sign that the body had ever lain in the back of his car. But the car had been into the garage for an all-over servicing, would have been thoroughly hoovered, polished, cleaned out. A young lout at the garage had been entrusted with this service but, similarly employed day in and day out on other cars, could remember nothing particular about any of them.
The same, when one came to the boot, must apply to the boot.
But—would he leave the body in the back of the car anyway, rather than hide it in the boot? Answer: if he had killed her in the car, it might well be less dangerous than stopping by the roadside or wherever else, and lugging the body into the boot.
Very well then—he drives home alone toward’s Wren’s Hill passing before the fall of the tree; picks up the woman along the way or even finds her waiting for him, when, having visited his patient, he comes out of the pub; strangles her and drives straight on home. (The time element allows for no diversion between his leaving The Fox and arriving home.)
Objection: no opportunity to leave the house between the time he gets home that night and starts off again the next morning with the nurse and child; and at that time, most certainly the body was not lying behind the driving seat in the back of the car.
And even more to the point—the body is found, not in his car anyway, but in Sari Morne’s.
Imparse, as Ginger would have said.
So play it that he did indeed exchange cars with Sari Morne at the tree—what then?
He has killed the woman before he arrives at the restaurant to dine; or—but the time element very nearly rules this out—he kills her between the time of his leaving the restaurant and his arrival at the tree. Either way, the body is already there when Sari Morne turns and drives his car home to Hampstead.
Objection: But the body is found in Sari Morne’s own car.
Driving her car, then, and after exchange at the tree, he meets Vi Feather and kills her; and now her body is in Sari Morne’s car.
Objection: once again—no opportunity whatsoever to have swapped the cars back, between the time he arrived home that night and the time he set off for the picnic in Greenwich with the nurse and little girl.
Point inexplicable: there lay on the body as though fallen there, a short stemmed red rose such as a man might...
A mist as red as the ros
e suffused, all of a sudden, Mr Charlesworth’s mind. A picnic at Greenwich—twelve miles across the London traffic from Sari Morne’s home. A red rose, And a man who always wore a buttonhole.
He shook his head clear; he went across and sat on the arm of Ena Mee’s chair and stroked the moist black nose of gently snoring Ronald Pig. ‘Gosh, you’ll have fun with him!’ he said.
‘You can put him on a little lead and take him out for walks. And picnics. I expect he’ll love picnics. I know you do.’
‘I didn’t like the last one,’ said Ena Mee. ‘We came away and had it on a bench at the zoo. I gave all mine to the monkeys.’
‘What, all that lovely food? I expect you had lots. Do you have a big picnic basket? Does it have to go in the boot of the car?’
‘No, Nanny had it beside her and the tarpauling, folded up; there was hardly room for Nanny. Nanny said can’t you put it in the boot but Daddy said, oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s all right where it is.’
‘Chief Superintendent,’ said Phin, angrily, ‘what is this?’
‘Well—just chatting. About picnics; no harm in that? My little girl loves Greenwich Park,’ said Charlesworth, lying in his teeth. ‘Didn’t you like Greenwich Park, Ena Mee? After all, you had your Daddy to play with you all the time.’
Phin looked up again sharply. ‘That’s enough! Leave the child alone,’ but Ena Mee was not listening. ‘He wasn’t with us all the time, he went and left a message and Nanny got more and more cross.’ The voice: ‘Him and his women! A message about a case, indeed!’
‘That’ll do, Ena Mee,’ said Phin. ‘I was away exactly ten minutes. And it was not a lady.’
‘Oh yes it was!’ said Ena Mee in an unlovely jeering tone.
‘In fact it was not.’
‘Oh yes it was!’ said Ena Mee again; and since he would not continue a back-and-forth argument, added: ‘You wouldn’t give a flower to a man. But when you came back, you didn’t have your red rose in your buttonhole.’
The shock ran through them like a physical shiver. Mr Charlesworth walked across to the window and looked out at the falling away of the heathland down to the silver gleam of the ponds at the foot of the hill. Phin had got up out of his chair and stood ramrod straight, as though he protected his child. When at last Charlesworth spoke, however, it was to say, easily, casually, ‘All the same Ena Mee—such a lovely place! Up at the top of the hill, looking down at the river.’
‘We didn’t like it,’ said Ena Mee. ‘Dull old grass and a few bushes and only a weeny little bit of the river. Nanny said she’d never been there before and she never was coming there again, messages or no messages. And Ronald wouldn’t like it either; we’ll never take Ronald there.’
‘It’s nicer out here on Hampstead Heath.’
‘Well, we’ve never been on Hamstid Heath either. But we will now that we know Sari. Ronald and me will often go on Hamstid Heath.’
‘I bet,’ said Charlesworth and could hardly keep his voice from shaking. He stooped down and ticked the piglet. ‘Oh, dear, I believe I’ve woken him up! And now he’ll be hungry again. Ginger, why don’t you go with Ena Mee into the kitchen and try and rustle up something for Ronald to eat?’ And as the sergeant led the child, happily skipping, out of the room, he swung round upon Phin Devigne. ‘So?’
‘So,’ said Phin with a desperate, weary shrug.
‘So you drove them round, this ignorant countrywoman and innocent child, made a detour through the busy streets and brought them back here to Hampstead. You were not in Greenwich, Mr Devigne, on the other side of London: you were here on the heath, a few minutes away from these flats.’
They were all on their feet now, rising as by some unconscious impulsion from their places, stunned with astonishment. Sari stood close to Phin, her two hands clasped with an ever tightening grip about his right arm. Now she released her grasp, moved back from him, stared wildly from Charlesworth’s face to his and cried out, ‘Phin?’
‘I didn’t kill her,’ he said. ‘I didn’t kill her.’ And to Charlesworth he blurted out, almost stupidly: ‘Her body was in my car.’
Etho, ever coolest in any company. ‘Inspector—could we take a moment’s breather?’ And he was moving swiftly, motioning them back to their seats, with a hand against his chest actually pushing Rufie down; and was filling up glasses, thrusting a glass into Charlesworth’s hand who stood almost as shaken as they. Duty or no duty, Charlesworth took a great gulp before he put the glass aside. From the kitchen came the happy squeakings of Ena Mee and Ronald; Ginger would doubtless be standing very close indeed to the intervening door.
It had all been managed so quickly and neatly, a sort of ordered shock tactic that the briefest of moments seemed to have passed. Charlesworth, still standing, said, ‘Well, then, Mr Devigne?’
His face was ashen, he sat upright on the couch, Sari in her shimmering gown sitting close, with her hands on his arm again, but leaning backwards away from him, her eyes on his face. Rufie’s face was a sheet of blank white paper; he put the glass aside blindly. Etho leaned across from his own chair, put the glass back into his hand and said, ‘Drink it!’
‘Well, Mr Devigne?’
He said again, ‘I didn’t kill the woman. All the rest... ’ He jerked his head towards the kitchen door. ‘It was for her.’
‘So?’
‘Yes, of course it was me at the tree,’ said Phin. ‘I had to get back, I couldn’t let it come out that I’d been at The Angel.’ He made no more secret of any of it. ‘The whole affair was madness, I was trying to break it up; they only know now about an occasional luncheon or dinner, the Press have ferreted all that out of course, but that’s all they know at The Angel; and they’re nice people there, they’ve been discreet. But of course there was more to it than that, I’d lost my head completely—’
‘And Miss Feather might have discovered that?’
‘No, no, Inspector, that rat won’t run! She might have recognised that I didn’t always stay at the cinema; she couldn’t know more. I’d hardly murder a woman for what she might have known.’
‘But even the few luncheons and dinners, could get a bit awkward?’
‘If that damned nurse knew—she’d tell my ex. and she’d soon get weaving. So I simply had to get home.’ He paused for so long that Charlesworth prompted: ‘But then, there you were landed with this stranger’s car.’
‘Yes, well... I’d given her a wrong ‘phone number,’ he said, with a gesture towards Sari. ‘I deliberately put my finger on it, my glove absolutely sodden, so that it would half obliterate the thing. So she couldn’t get in touch with me, I couldn’t have that happening, I couldn’t let the nurse know about the exchange of cars; that would place me on the wrong side of the tree and she’d have been through to my wife in a flash. And if I’d taken them to Hampstead, same thing, they’d have placed some girlfriend in Hampstead—it was a girl I’d swapped cars with—and my wife would have rootled out this girl and God knows what could have happened. So—I played this trick; Nanny knows nothing about London, I just drove around a bit to look as if we were driving through town-y streets to Greenwich—in case anyone asked them; I have to watch every step and... Well, you’ve got it,’ he said to Charlesworth. ‘I parked them there, with a glimpse of the ponds and told them it was the river; if they’d found out it would have been a joke of some kind... Even from that,’ he said, ‘you can see it wasn’t all that serious. Would I have taken such chances if there’d been any question in my mind about a murder?’
‘I knew you were the man at the tree,’ said Sari. ‘Of course, I knew you. They didn’t believe me, about the tree. But knowing it was true, I knew the man must have been you. And they never believe about the Followers, but I knew they were true too, so I didn’t worry because all the rest was just the Followers.’
‘But the next part... I couldn’t explain it to you, Sari, I just had to keep saying it wasn’t me. And you didn’t ask.’
‘I just knew about the Followers. Nobody else
believed in the Followers but I knew. So I knew whatever had happened, it must be them.’
‘Mr Devigne—please,’ said Charlesworth.
‘I’m sorry. Yes. So, well...’ His shoulders dragged, he half closed his eyes, he looked as though he might topple forward in a faint, supported only by her clinging to his arm. ‘I made them this excuse about leaving the message. I meant to go to the address she’d given me, get the car keys from her and make the exchange and hurry back. But I could see the Halcyon in this open shed, my own Halcyon. I drove in beside it and I saw that the keys were still hanging in the ignition. Well, all the better, I thought, I’ll simply swap back and she need never know who I was. And then... Oh, my good God!’ His shoulders sagged forward again.
‘You saw the body—in the back of your car?’
He sat with his head in his hands. Charlesworth said quietly: ‘Take your time. Finish your drink.’ Etho sat very still, Rufie was staring like an idiot, demented: with slowly dawning realisation, Sari drew back and away from him. He said to her, mumbling through his spread fingers: ‘How could I know that the car I’d exchanged with was yours?’
‘You dragged the body out of your own car and put it into hers?’
‘Why does one do what one does?’ he said. ‘I was shaken to the core. And always at the back of my mind—protect myself from scandal because of the child. I could have got it out and left it lying on the ground, I suppose, but—I don’t know, someone might have appeared and noticed it, even from a distance—taken the number of my car as I drove away... God knows what thoughts flash through your mind... And there was this sort of vague idea that the body belonged with this other car, it was nothing to do with me, it ought to be where it belonged. So—nobody about, nothing could be seen from the windows of the flats. I got her out and pushed her in, head first, and went round and dragged her in from the other side. It was then that the rose must have fallen out of my buttonhole.’ He became aware of the whitening faces, the disgust and shock at the horror of the act. ‘I’m a doctor. I’ve been through it all as a student, the cadavers for dissection...’ A half shrug, apologetic. ‘Dead bodies don’t mean very much to me.’
Rose in Darkness Page 22
