Late and Cold (Timothy Herring)

by Gladys Mitchell

  Marion’s writing to Phisbe in the first place had been innocent and comprehensible enough. Some of her subsequent conduct he had found less innocent and far from comprehensible. “In-and-out running” was the phrase which, to his mind, passed none too harsh a verdict on her behaviour. He considered this behaviour in detail, but was aware of the difficulty of summing it up. The trouble was that, although he partly distrusted her, he liked Marion and, to that extent, was prejudiced in her favour.

  “Tabulation,” he said aloud. “The detective’s secret weapon.” He took Coningsby’s scribbling-tablet out of the drawer. So many leaves had already been used for rough notes, and then torn out, that he felt no compunction in appropriating the book to his own use.

  Marion’s original application to Phisbe could be ignored. The Society received dozens of such letters in the course of a year. The facts which could not be ignored were, first, that Marion had adopted three children and, secondly, that, having done so, she had housed them and herself in such a dingy and (what was much worse) such an unfriendly house as the one in Earls Court. She claimed that she had done so because the rooms were cheap, but Timothy could not help wondering whether rooms outside London would not have been equally inexpensive and far more desirable. After all, nowhere in London was so cheap that all disadvantages could be overlooked.

  In fairness to her, there was, of course, the question of her job, but, in a time of acute teacher-shortage, did one have to hang on to one’s job to that extent? He thought not. As for accommodation, she could manage quite well, until the children were older, with three rooms and a kitchen, even if the kitchen had to be used also as a bathroom. However, she had decided upon the Earls Court place, and it was up to her to please herself, he supposed.

  The real trouble had started when he took her to Nanradoc and allowed her to wonder whether she might have some claim to the house and the estate. He blamed himself entirely for that, and from it, of course, everything else had followed.

  As for his idiocy in espousing her cause to the extent of lodging her and the three children on Phisbe’s third floor, he could put that down to one reason only. He had been affronted by the two women who had constituted themselves Marion’s critics, and who had reflected, with no evidence whatever to support their argument, upon her moral character. “No, (thought Timothy), dash it, that’s not true. I didn’t give a damn what they thought of Marion. What really annoyed me was that they thought she was my little cup of tea. They called in question my taste in women, and thought that Marion was my choice of pick-up. Why, the three kids alone would be enough to put off any right-thinking man, let alone the fact that the poor girl is indeed what Kipling unchivalrously called a hag and a rag and a hank of hair, or something.”

  He visualised her: Marion pleading with him to persuade Phisbe to lend her the money to repair Nanradoc Castle; her despair when she saw the ruins; her cupidity when he had suggested that the whole estate might fall to her; her reluctance to be housed on Phisbe’s third floor and her falling-out with the Dewes. (Faults on both sides there, no doubt. The Dewes had not wanted her, and certainly had not wanted the children, about the place. Small blame to them for that, but not pleasant for Marion.)

  He speculated upon this particular type of unpleasantness and found himself dissatisfied with Marion. She was living rent-free in quarters and in a neighbourhood infinitely more agreeable than the district of Earls Court in which he had found her. The Dewes, whatever their prejudices, were surely to be preferred as fellow-inmates to Mrs. Ralley and Mrs. Studd. The children had only to be escorted across the street to be able to play in Kensington Gardens. Marion could take them over there for games and a picnic tea. Surely she could meet the Dewes half-way and keep them placated and happy? It was unnecessary and certainly unpolitic to antagonise them.

  At this point in his meditations another idea occurred to him. He tenderly touched the lump which the poker had raised on his head. He had found the poker lying across Marion’s bed. She had been most unwilling to have him go up to the third floor that night. Somehow the monk had obtained admission to the Phisbe premises and there was nothing to suggest that he had broken in. The poker was long and heavy. The lump on Timothy’s head was at the back.

  He found the poker, which had been kept in the kitchen, went into Coningsby’s office in search of a ruler marked off in inches and also found a soft-lead pencil. Then he went to the foot of the attic stair. As he passed by, he flicked open the door of the top cupboard in which Mrs. Dewes kept her upstair cleaning materials. It was a roomy cubby-hole, as large as some modern spare bedrooms, and he felt sure that, at separate times, Marion and the monk had hidden themselves in it.

  He mounted the narrow stairs to the attic and measured the depth between the top and the second-from-top step. Then he stood on the top step with his back against the wall, laid the pencil across his head, point first, and made a mark. A short calculation, followed by an experimental slosh with the poker, showed him that it would have been quite possible for a person of Marion’s height, standing as much as three or even four stairs below him, to have hit the back of his head.

  “Proof presumptive, but, of course, not proof positive,” he said aloud, and all his suspicions returned with doubled intensity. If he was right, there could be little doubt but that she and the monk were in collusion, so that the only reason for the blow on the head had been to allow the monk to make his escape on to the roof. But, once on the roof, he could not escape any further; that was the objection to the theory that Marion was in league with him, for, if he did not realise that, once on the roof, there was no means of getting down except through the attic of another house or (as had happened) by fireman’s ladder, surely Marion would have known this—or did she, perhaps, not know it?

  He gave up these speculations and went downstairs as a loud knocking came on the back door. He unlocked and unbolted it to admit Mrs. Dewes and the children. The latter were grimy, happy, and expansive. He went with them into the kitchen.

  “Well, how did you get on?” he asked.

  “I had hamburgers and ice-cream and Coke,” said Bryn. “And we rode on elephants and camels and things.”

  “I had sausage rolls and doughnuts,” said Bron. “Oh, and ice-cream and lemonade. I went pop.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said Timothy. He picked up Miranda. “And what did you have, Mrs. Noah?”

  “A ride on a lion,” said Miranda.

  “They were ever so good, sir,” said Mrs. Dewes. “No trouble at all. I’m sure we’re very much obliged, sir. I’ll just give you your change.”

  “You give yourself a cup of tea,” said Timothy. “I’m sure you must have earned it. I’m just off, as a matter of fact. By the way, I’ve seen the police about last night. There won’t be any more trouble.”

  By five o’clock he was on his way to Shrewsbury, having rung up Parsons and made sure of his welcome. After lunch on the following day he was in Pembroke Pritchard Jones’s drawing-room. Marion was still with her cousin and would be staying until she caught her train in the morning.

  “You’d better stay, too, if you won’t mind sleeping in here on a camp bed,” said Leonie, “and then you can take Marion back with you.”

  “I’ve got a return ticket,” said Marion. “Tim and I are not friends.”

  “Aren’t we?” asked Timothy, ironically. “Well, fancy that! I hope you’ll forgive me for the harsh thoughts I entertained of you! We’ve had fun and games since you left. I wonder whether you’ve described to Jones our friends at Nanradoc?”

  “She has,” said Jones. “It makes a mystery.”

  “Perhaps you’d care to have my description of the lady.”

  “Surely. Go ahead. If your description tallies at all with what Marion has told us, the simple fact is that the woman can’t be my sister, for all that she seems to call herself by Olwen’s name.”

  Timothy described the trousered woman. When he had finished, Jones shook his head.

  �
�Unless Olwen has changed a great deal, that doesn’t sound like my sister,” he said. “Olwen is small and thin, and (although she isn’t) she looks fragile. You say that this is a large, heavy, masculine type of female who certainly won’t see fifty again. My sister is a lot younger than I am; in fact, she’s thirty-two, not much older than Marion here, and, because of her slight build and fair hair, she looks a good bit younger than she is. I can’t think how she came to sell Nanradoc to these people, but that’s what I think must have happened.”

  “She can’t have done,” said Leonie, decidedly. “One of you can’t sell without the other’s consent. They must simply be tenants, and, if they are, then Olwen ought to be paying you half the rent.”

  “Of course, Olwen and I had a row,” said Jones, “so it’s quite likely she may have acted without consulting me. Anyway, I can’t go along at present. I’m much too busy.”

  “Oh, nonsense! You mean you’re much too lazy,” said his wife. “We’ll go tomorrow, as soon as we’ve seen Marion off. What were the fun and games you mentioned, Tim?”

  Timothy glanced at Marion and raised his eyebrows. She flushed, and looked angrily at him. “So she is beautiful,” he thought.

  “I’m going for a walk,” she said. “I don’t suppose Tim wants to blacken my character to my face. Anyway, you don’t have to believe every word he says!” She tore out of the room and, to stress her feelings, slammed the door violently behind her.

  “Well!” said Leonie, staring at the door which Marion had slammed shut. “And what’s the meaning of that?”

  “Oh, hasn’t she told you about the goings-on? Well, I’m not surprised. She’s feeling sore at me, and I’m not sure I’m very pleased with her, as a matter of fact.”

  “Unburden yourself,” said Leonie. “If it’s fit for Pembroke’s ears, that’s to say.”

  “Has Marion asked you to give her and the children a temporary home here?”

  “She has. We can’t, of course. She must be pretty desperate to have put forward such a suggestion. She knows perfectly well why we pay her to look after Miranda. The idea of three children about the place is impossible to contemplate, and we had to tell her so.”

  “Yes, I see. I feel responsible for them all, as I winkled them out of those ghastly rooms in Earls Court, so it’s up to me to find them somewhere, I suppose. I may tell you that it was not at my suggestion that she asked to park herself and the kids on you. I knew you wouldn’t agree. All I suggested was that she should come here alone, as she was determined to come.”

  “It isn’t completely your responsibility,” said Pembroke. “If I’d never made her that offer of Nanradoc Castle you’d never have known she existed. But, after all, the fact remains that she’s my cousin and Miranda is my daughter.”

  “It’s certain she can’t live here! If we have to take Miranda back, well, that’s that,” said Leonie harshly. “I suppose we can engage a nurse or someone to take her off our hands. As for housing Marion and her twins, that’s quite unthinkable.” She glared angrily at her husband. “So don’t be a fool!”

  “She can stay on at Phisbe for a bit, if she will,” said Timothy. “Didn’t she tell you why she felt she couldn’t?”

  “She indicated that matters were complicated there, and thought that you wanted her to go. Do tell us what happened,” said Leonie, calming down. Timothy gave the details. He omitted offering his opinion of Marion’s part in the night’s work. He was allowed to finish his story without a single interruption, and there was silence when he came to the end of it. Then Pembroke said,

  “It’s all of a queer do. My sister Olwen was always a starry-eyed idiot, but this pseudo-monk is a new departure entirely. He’s completely phoney, I take it, and therefore he must be a villain.”

  Timothy agreed, and, before any more could be said, Marion came back.

  “It’s beginning to rain,” she said, in excuse of her abrupt reappearance. “I suppose Tim has told you I hit him over the head with a poker and laid him out?”

  “No. He said the Nanradoc monk did that,” said Leonie. “Sit down and join in the rest of the conclave. We’ve just decided that there’s dirty work afoot. Tim has been giving us his report. The police were called, and they called the fire brigade, to pick the reverend father off the roof where he was treed. It made an enthralling story. I’m glad he came. Go on, Timmy. We’re all agog.”

  “I don’t think there’s any more,” said Timothy. “I had a brief chat with Mr. Ignatius, after he’d been lowered to safety, and advised him not to trouble us again, but he did give me one bit of information—if information it was. He said that Olwen Jones had been caught up into his group of fanatics, whatever they are, after she had heard him speak, and that she asked whether they would like accommodation at Nanradoc.”

  “The devil she did!” exclaimed Pembroke. “When and where did she pick up this charlatan, then?”

  “A couple of years or so ago, I gathered, in Chester.”

  “In Chester? But . . .”

  “She seems to have gone to an exhibition of your paintings.”

  “She couldn’t have done! We’d had the most fearful row. She—she met with an accident which lamed her. She thought it was my fault. Well, I suppose it was, in a way. It happened soon after I was married and took Leonie to live at Nanradoc. Olwen hated the marriage . . .”

  “She hated me,” said Leonie.

  “Only because she thought you had taken me away from her. We’d always been pretty close, Olwen and I. I was a lot older than she was, and I think I’d been a bit of a hero to her. She didn’t want anybody muscling in on our relationship, and she blackguarded Leonie to me on more than one occasion. I refused to be angry with her because I knew what she was feeling, but one day I got so fed up with it that I took her out for a mountain scramble while Leonie was working—Leonie had the castle chapel as a studio when she was carving; we had it built up a bit to shelter her from the wind, but we didn’t roof it because a drop of rain didn’t hurt the stone she worked on, and she liked the fresh air—and on this scramble I had a few hard things to say to Olwen. She took them badly, of course, and, after we’d had a bit of an up-and-downer while we stopped to eat our lunch, she said she might as well be dead.”

  “What happened was her own fault, not yours,” said Leonie. “It’s silly to blame yourself, silly and wrong.”

  “She took the lead after we started again,” said Pembroke. “She was light and keen and very sure-footed, and she was so furious that she set a cracking pace and I had all I could do to keep up with her. Well, we came to the Esgair, a long ridge with a lot of scree on the north slope of it, and instead of keeping along the top of it she suddenly veered off and lost her footing and went slithering and rolling down towards the valley. I shouted, and went after her, somehow keeping my feet on the beastly shale, but my extra weight and the pace I was making dislodged a small boulder. It went crashing down and caught her leg and crushed it.”

  “It wasn’t your fault!” cried Leonie. “It was her own bad-temper and madness. You are not to blame yourself! It’s all wrong! I’m sure she really meant to kill herself.”

  “When she came out of hospital,” went on Pembroke, “it was known that she would be crocked for the rest of her life. As soon as she could get about—she’d had an amputation, of course—I left Nanradoc, and I never want to see the place again.”

  “He tried to make over the whole estate to her,” said Leonie, “but the lawyers wouldn’t let him. We tried to keep in touch with Olwen, too, but she wouldn’t answer our letters. We knew she’d got good servants, so we didn’t—at least, I didn’t—worry too much.”

  “Well, there don’t seem to be any servants there now,” said Marion. “I think Pembroke should pull himself together and go along to Nanradoc and find out what’s going on.”

  “There’s another thing, too,” said Timothy. “This woman who calls herself Olwen Jones certainly isn’t lame. Don’t you think that perhaps the injury to the leg w
as not as serious as you thought?”

  “The bone was crushed. There was an amputation below the knee,” said Pembroke. He was silent and the others respected his silence. Suddenly he broke it. “I’m not satisfied,” he said, “about this woman you said you saw. I’m not satisfied about this monk fellow. All right! I will go to Nanradoc! I’ll face the bogey-man! I’ll sort that couple out! If there are no servants any longer there must be something wrong. And, by God, Marion,” he added, swinging round on her so suddenly and with such ferocity that she shrank back and clutched at Timothy’s sleeve, “you’re coming with me. You’ve mixed yourself up in this. You and this monkish clown have something up your sleeves. Brother? I don’t believe this rubbish about your brother! Those damned brats are your own, your fly-by-nights! Leonie is right! You’re out to get Nanradoc for them! Well, you won’t! You’ll come along out there with us and we’ll bring you face to face with this precious priest!”

  Marion let go of Timothy’s sleeve. She was very pale but she spoke with composure, although Timothy could see that her hands were shaking.

  “If you like to believe Leonie’s lies,” she said, “you’re welcome. All right. I’ll come with you to Nanradoc. And I don’t believe your story about your sister. You wanted to get rid of her, to get Nanradoc for yourself.”

  “Be quiet, Marion, at once! How dare you say such a thing!” screamed Leonie. There was a deathly silence. Then Leonie controlled herself, although obviously with an effort, and said, “We have all been talking wildly, and I’m sorry I said what I did. I take it back. You’re only twenty-four, and Bryn and Bron can’t possibly be your children. Please forgive me for anything I ever said to the contrary. Of course you must come with us to Nanradoc. The more witnesses we have there, the better. This business must be sorted out. If you ask me, it’s been going on for far too long already.”

  “But what about her job?” asked Timothy. “Can you really take time off like this?” he added, turning to Marion.

  “I shall lose some pay, I expect, but there won’t be any fuss otherwise. I’ve pleaded urgent family business, to wit, that one of the children is ill. My boss knows it isn’t true—I told her so over the telephone—but that’s what I’ve written in the official letter regretting that I have to ask for leave of absence. That reason lets her out as well as myself, you see. It’s a cast-iron excuse.”