“Carr has found out.”
James leaned back against the writing-table, handsome, sure of himself, not exactly smiling but with a definite hint of amusement.
“That sounds intriguing. What has Carr found out?”
“That you ran away with his wife.”
He raised his eyebrows slightly.
“Didn’t he know?”
“Of course he didn’t. Nor did you until last night at Catherine’s.”
He reached into his pocket for a gold cigarette-case, opened it, selected a cigarette, and then, as if suddenly recollecting himself, held out the case to her.
“My dear Rietta, forgive me.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t smoke.”
“Quite right!” The case went back into his pocket, he struck a match. “It would be quite out of character-” he drew at his cigarette, blew out a mouthful of smoke, and added- “Pallas Athene!”
She was suddenly, sharply angry. Colour burned in her cheeks. Her voice hardened.
“I’ve come to warn you. It was a frightful shock-I don’t know what he might do.”
“Really? May I ask why?”
“Do you have to ask? I didn’t like Marjory very much, but she was quite young-only twenty-four when she died. You took her away from her husband and her home, you left her penniless in France. She had to sell nearly everything she had in order to struggle back. She travelled in bitter weather without a coat, and died two days later of pneumonia. Carr didn’t know the name of the man she’d gone off with, but he found your photograph in the back of her powder-compact. He saw a reproduction of the same photograph with your name under it in a picture-paper this evening. He regards you as Marjory’s murderer, and I’m afraid of what he may do.”
James had his cigarette held lightly between the second and third finger of a well groomed hand. He sketched a salute with it.
“And you came here to protect me? How extremely charming of you!”
Her dark brows drew together. She said,
“Don’t!”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t talk to me like that. Carr rushed out of the house. I don’t know where he is, and I don’t know what he may do. He thinks you murdered his wife.”
“Then he ought to have gone to the police station.”
Rietta stamped her foot. In a stormy voice which obliterated more than twenty years of separation she said,
“Stop it, James!”
He stood up, came over to her, and tossed his cigarette into the fire.
“All right. Now suppose you listen to a few facts. You’re forty-three years old, and if you don’t know what Marjory was like you’ve been wasting your time. I don’t pretend to morality, but I shouldn’t have wasted my time over a girl who wasn’t easy money. Marjory was dead easy. She was bored with her life, she was bored with her husband-and she was fed to the teeth with being a grass widow, she wanted to have a good time. I took her to France and I gave her a rattling good time. Then I had to fly over to the States on business, and she got bored again. She walked out of the flat where I’d left her and moved in on a gentleman who had been running after her a good deal-wealthy international financier. I could have told her he wasn’t a good investment. I imagine he found her out doing something he didn’t care about and pitched her into the street. He was perfectly capable of it. It may surprise you, but I’m not. I should at least have given her a third-class ticket back to London.”
“Is that the truth-all that about her leaving you and going to someone else?”
“Gospel, my dear.”
She said bitterly, “When you talk like that you make everything sound like a lie.”
He said quite soberly, “It’s true nevertheless.”
He went back to the table and stood half turned away, fingering the papers which lay there. Presently he lifted one of them, looked at it, laughed, and turned to face her.
“Your young firebrand hasn’t turned up here, so I imagine he’s walking his feelings off. When he comes home you can administer those cooling facts. He can’t have been married to Marjory for three years without finding her out. I think you’ll be able to get him to see reason. I’ve got a good deal of business on hand just now-I don’t particularly want to be murdered!” He laughed a little. “Funny you should come along tonight, Rietta. I’ve been burning your letters.”
“My letters?”
“Love’s young dream! Most instructive-a little black ash in the fireplace. But they made a very hot fire-that’s why the room is so warm.”
She looked down at the heaped ash which choked the fireplace. Some of it still kept the shape of those folded letters. The curled edges wavered in the chimney-draught, a few red sparks ran to and fro, hurrying to be gone. She frowned at them, stern and pale.
James was speaking.
“I had to turn everything out because I was looking for a memorandum my mother left me-a very interesting memorandum.” He laughed a little. “Everyone is going to hear a good deal more about it before we are through.” Malice sparkled in his eyes. “Here it is, on the table, and some people would be glad if it wasn’t. It would reassure them a good deal if they could be certain that it was in ashes like your letters. I found them, you know, when I was looking for it. They were locked up where I left them when I went away. And this with them.”
He put the paper he was holding into her hand-an old will-form, yellowing. She stared at it, uncomprehending at first, then with surprise and discomfort.
“James-how absurd!”
He laughed.
“It is rather, isn’t it? ‘Everything to Henrietta Cray, the White Cottage, Melling.’ My mother had the life-rent of what my father left, and a power of disposal, so at the time I made this will I was leaving you some school prizes, a valued collection of football groups, and my not very extensive wardrobe. The comic thing is that I have never made another will, so if young Carr were to murder me tonight, you would come in for quite a tidy fortune.”
She said quietly, “I don’t like that kind of talk. Anyhow, here it goes-”
The paper dropped from her hand on to the piled ash, but before it had time to catch James Lessiter snatched it back.
“No, you don’t, my dear! That’s my property. Don’t you know it’s a criminal offence to destroy a will? I don’t know how many years penal servitude it lets you in for-you might ask Holderness next time you see him.”
She said in a tone of dislike,
“James, it’s ridiculous. Please burn it.”
He stood there half laughing with the paper in his hand held up high as if they were boy and girl again and she might catch at it. In a moment his expression changed. He reached across the table and put the will down on the blotting-pad. Then he turned back to her and said soberly,
“I don’t know anyone I’d rather leave it to, Rietta.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“Is it? I don’t think so. I’ve no relations except a distant cousin or two about the same degree as Catherine-and you. They don’t interest me. I shan’t marry-I have no qualifications for the domestic hearth, and no desire to found that tiresome thing, a family.” His tone lightened again. “What would you do if it came to you? It’s quite a packet.”
She stood up straight and frowning.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Please put that paper on the fire.”
He burst out laughing.
“You don’t get much fun out of life-do you? Relax and discuss a hypothetical case with me-a purely hypothetical case, because I assure you that I mean to live to be a hundred, and a conscience like yours will nag you into your grave long before that. But it would interest me very much to know just how you would react to-well, to coming into a packet.”
They had to talk about something. She wanted to be reasonably sure that Carr was only walking off his passion. She allowed herself to relax, and said,
“That would depend-”
“How truly cautious! It w
ould depend on what I mean by a packet? Well, let us say enough to run this place on quite a lavish scale. Would you want to live here?”
She laughed frankly.
“I should hate it. I like my cottage.”
“No urge to go elsewhere and make a splash?”
“My dear James!”
He was leaning back against the table again, his eyes bright, his lips smiling.
“Then what would you do with it? You’ve got to do something-in my hypothetical case.”
She said in a considering voice,
“There are such a lot of people who haven’t any homes. Nobody wants them. They drift into cheap bed-sitting rooms and shrivel up. I thought some of the big country houses might be run on communal lines-a lot of comfortable bed-sitting rooms, and the big public rooms for meals and recreation-”
He nodded, and then laughed.
“A hennery! I don’t envy you the running of it. Just think how they’d scratch each other’s eyes out!”
“Why should they? And I wouldn’t only have women. Men want homes even more-they can’t make them for themselves.” She held out her hand. “And now, James, please burn that paper.”
He shook his head, smiling.
“It’s my will, and none of your business. If I’d ever cared enough, I’d have made another years ago. I just haven’t bothered. But if I did bother, I’ve an idea that I should do the same thing all over again.”
He got a very direct look.
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you. Stand by to receive a bouquet. There was love’s young dream, as I said-and, believe it or not, I never managed to repeat it. I’ve made love to quite a number of charming women, and I’ve enjoyed myself, but if I may say so, the contacts were-on a different plane. The idyllic note was-well, lacking. The other ladies bore no resemblance whatever to Pallas Athene. Without any desire to return to the uncomfortable period of youth, it has in retrospect a certain charm. You, as it were, personify that charm.”
“You know perfectly well I’ve never had an atom of charm.”
“Ars est celare artem. Do you know, when you said that you made me feel like a boy again.”
She laughed.
“You used to tell me I was as blunt as a poker. I am still. I never did have any tact, so you must just take me the way I am. There’s something I want to say to you. It’s about Catherine.”
Outside upon the steps, leaning against the glass door, Catherine Welby heard her own name. At the top of the window above her head there was one of the old star-shaped ventilators dating from the discovery round about 1880 that fresh air was not necessarily lethal. The ventilator was open, the voices of the two people in the study were vigorous and resonant. She had heard a good deal. She now heard James Lessiter say,
“What about Catherine?”
Rietta took a step forward.
“James-don’t harry her.”
“My dear girl, she’s a thief.”
Catherine was wrapped in a long black cloak. It was very warm, because it was lined with fur. Mildred Lessiter had given it to her long ago. The fur was still good and warm. Inside it her body shrank with cold.
“She’s a thief.”
“You’ve no right to say that!”
“I think I have. Here’s my mother’s memorandum-you can read it if you like. She’s put everything down on it. Catherine was lying when she said the things were given to her. If she.can’t or won’t produce them, I shall prosecute.”
“You can’t do that!”
“I can, and will.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s a thief.”
Rietta shook her head.
“It isn’t that. You’ve got something against her. What is it?”
“You don’t need me to tell you that. She broke our engagement-lied about me to you-”
“James, they weren’t lies!”
“She lied about both of us to my mother.”
She came up quite close to him and stood there at the side of the table, her right hand resting on it.
“James, those were not the things which broke our engagement. I broke it-when you killed your dog.”
A dark flush of anger had come up into his face. His jesting manner had gone.
“Did you expect me to keep a brute that had turned on me?”
“You frightened him and he snapped. You killed him- cruelly.”
“I suppose Catherine told you that.”
“No, it was one of the gardeners-he saw it. Catherine didn’t know. I’ve never told anyone.”
He said moodily, “What a fuss about a dog.” Then, with a resumption of his earlier manner, “I told you I paid my scores. I think I’m going to enjoy settling with Catherine.”
“James-please-”
As she met his look she knew just how useless it was. He laughed lightly.
“It’s going to give me a good deal of pleasure to see Catherine in the dock.”
The words hit her like a blow. He had stirred the past, played on her feelings, even for a moment reached out to touch her with the old charm. And now this. If he had actually struck her in the face, it would have been no more of a stinging shock. Rietta’s anger broke. Afterwards she couldn’t remember what she said. The words sprang up out of her anger and she flung them at him. If she had had anything in her hand she might have flung that too.
And then suddenly she was afraid of her own anger. It came up out of the past, and she was afraid of it. She said in a choked voice,
“I’ll go.”
When she had said that, Catherine drew back from the glass. She stepped down into the bushes out of which she had come. She saw the curtains pulled back and the door wrenched open. Rietta Cray ran down the steps, bareheaded, in her red dress.
CHAPTER 13
She opened her own door and went in. All the way back she had met no one, heard nothing. Her anger was so hot in her that she did not miss the coat, lying where she had dropped it in the study at Melling House. She did not remember it or think of it at all. She thought about Carr, she thought about Catherine, she thought about her own quick anger and was aghast.
She opened the door of the living-room and went in. Fancy looked up, yawning.
“You’ve missed the nine o’clock news.”
Instinctively Rietta glanced at the clock, an old round wall-clock hanging on the chimney breast. It was twenty past nine. A dance band was swinging the latest song hit. She put out her hand and switched it off.
“Has Carr come back?”
Fancy yawned again. She really had lovely teeth, as white as milk and as even as peas in a pod.
“No, he hasn’t. What’s the matter with him, Miss Cray?”
Rietta came and stood over her, tall and frowning.
“I want you to tell me what happened-when I was out of the room.”
The large blue eyes blinked up at her. There was an obvious attempt to control another yawn. Rietta thought with exasperation that the creature looked exactly like a sleepy child. You couldn’t blame her for it, but it wasn’t a situation in which a child was going to be much use. She said,
“I want you to tell me just what happened whilst I was at the telephone.”
“Well-” the eyes remained wide and a little unfocussed- “I don’t know that anything happened-much. Not till the end.”
“What happened then?”
“Well, we were looking at those papers-the ones Mr. Ainger brought-and I’d seen a hat I liked, and I was thinking about how I could copy it, so I wasn’t taking a lot of notice- you don’t when you’re thinking about something special. And all at once there was Carr, calling out. I thought he must have been stung or something. He looked awful, Miss Cray, he really did. And he said, ‘The damned swine!’ and I said, ‘Where?’ because I didn’t know what he meant-I don’t see how I could. And then you came in, and he said that piece about its being the man who took Marjory away-in the picture he was looking at-and he asked you if it was James Lessiter. Marj
ory was his wife, wasn’t she? I mean, she was Carr’s wife, and that James Lessiter went off with her. Carr won’t do anything silly, will he?”
Rietta said, “No,” in a deep, determined voice. It seemed to surprise Fancy a little. She blinked.
“Well, you can’t pick up spilt milk again, can you?”
Rietta said, “No.”
Fancy yawned.
“By what I’ve heard she wasn’t much loss, was she?” Then she blinked again. “Perhaps I oughtn’t to have said that. You weren’t fond of her, were you?”
“No, I wasn’t fond of her.”
“By all accounts nobody was. I expect Carr got a bit of a jolt with her. He’s kind of-nice, isn’t he? When I told Mum about him she said she reckoned he’d had his feelings pretty badly hurt. She told me to look out and be careful. ‘Have him if you want to, Ducks, or don’t have him if you don’t want to, but don’t play him up.’ That’s what Mum said.”
“And which are you going to do?”
At any other time there might have been sarcasm in the question. At this moment Rietta put it with complete simplicity, and with equal simplicity Fancy answered her.
“He doesn’t want me. He said we wouldn’t fit in. I think he likes that girl where he took me to tea-that Elizabeth Moore. He was fond of her, wasn’t he?”
“A long time ago.”
“Why didn’t he marry her?”
“He met Marjory.”
Fancy nodded.
“She was the sort who’d snatch. I only really met her once, but you could see how she was. Oh, Miss Cray, whatever have you done to your hand-it’s all over blood!”
Rietta glanced down at her right hand. It was astonishing how much blood had come from that small scratch. Up at Melling House she had wrapped James Lessiter’s handkerchief about it. It must have dropped whilst they were talking, and the bleeding had started again. It was dry now, but what a mess. She went down the passage to the lavatory and held it under the cold tap until the stain was gone.
Miss Silver Comes To Stay Page 7
