Below Suspicion (11 page)

The muffled lamp glowed again on the bedside table. Two oblongs of orange-yellow colour stole into the electric-fire. With scarcely a glance at the room itself, Dr. Fell carefully closed the door and faced Lucia and Butler.

"Ma'am," he said to Lucia in a heavy voice, "please accept now the fact that I am a bumbling old duffer. I suffer from, as it were, a certain absence of mind. I am just as apt to lift my hostess's best Wedgwood-china tea-pot and drop it on the hearthstone under the impression that there is a table there. But you had better hear these things from me than from Chief Inspector Soames."

"Just a minute!" Butler was beginning, when Dr. Fell's gesture cut him short.

"So I want to speak to you," the doctor went on to Lucia, "in the presence of your counsel and with his permission. For your own sake don't lie to me. The police have only begun to work. They are endlessly patient to track down a lie." Dr. Fell's face grew lopsided with supplication. "Mrs. Renshaw, do you have any antimony in your possession?"

"No!" Lucia said in horror.

"Did you ever buy it, or try to buy it? At any time in the past?"

"Never!"

Instinctively Lucia had taken hold of Butler's arm; and the current of intimacy wound them together again.

"That in itself," Butler interposed dryly, "is a stone-wall for the defence. You couldn't convict Satan himself unless you could show he had access to poison."

"Sir," retorted Dr. Fell, with a shade of wonder, "is it possible that even you don't realize the danger of the situation?"

"Naturally I realize it! But, in the remote chance that they did arrest Lucia," Butler glanced at her soothingly, "I mean to get her acquitted."

"And suppose you did? Would that solve your problem?"

Butler realized, with surprise, that he was still gripping the stone paperweight from the writing-desk downstairs. He looked at it blankly, as he looked at Dr. Fell, and dropped it into his side-pocket.

"Suppose," continued Dr. Fell with fiery emphasis, "you devised an explanation—as you or I probably could!—of how the poison got into the water-bottle. Suppose you secured Mrs. Renshaw's acquittal in a blaze of triumph. Don't you see the police might have still another charge against her?"

"Another charge? What charge?"

"The murder of Mrs. Taylor."

FOR about ten seconds Lucia Renshaw did not seem to understand.

Then her shm hand, with the pink fingernails, shd from Butler's arm as though her whole body had gone nerveless. She backed slowly away from Dr. Fell, an oddly crouching gesture for so tall and graceful a woman.

She backed into one of the twin beds, started to sit down there, suddenly looked round in horror until she saw it was not the bed where Dick Renshaw had died, then sat down and supported herself with the palms of her hands flat on the bed.

"Mrs. Taylor?" Lucia almost screamed. "Aunt Mildred?"

Dr. Fell nodded.

"But that's s-silly!" protested Lucia, with the air of a child who stretches out its hand towards fire and is unsure whether the fire will bum. "It's ridiculous! It's all finished and done with!"

"It is never done with, I fear. After Joyce Ellis, you were the principal suspect from the beginning."

"How. do you know that?" Butler asked quickly.

"My dear sir!" grunted Dr. Fell, between petulance and distress. "I was on the inside of that affair from the beginning. Didn't I tell you they threw me out of Hadley's office when I tried somewhat bumblingly to explain what I really did mean? Then Joyce Ellis was acquitted. Somebody turned the police's attention straight back to you."

Now Lucia's voice was almost a whisper. "Who turned their attention back to me?"

"Mr. Butler did," said Dr. Fell. "He proved, to the satisfaction of a jury, that the locked house was not really locked at all. He proved that an outsider must have got in. He proved many things even more damaging to you."

(And I did it with a fake defence. Joyce herself kept teUing me, in private, that the hack door was locked all night.)

"Shall I outline the case, Mrs. Renshaw, as it might appear to the police?" said Dr. Fell.

Butler did not look at Lucia, who had raised her head. Yet he was strung up to alertness.

"Before I let you ask any question, Dr. Fell—which side are you on?"

"Side?"

"Are you running with the hare or hunting with the hounds? You're either for us or against us. Which is it?"

"Look here," said Dr. Fell, nibbing his forehead under the tumbled hair. "This whole affair is too tangled for an unqualified 'yes' or 'no.' If I can get a few things straight, I am on your side with a bang. But perhaps I had better go." His eyes wandered up to the crucifix on the wall. "I am much disturbed."

"No!" cried Lucia. "Please! Patrick! Make him tell us!"

Butler shrugged his shoulders. Dr. Fell studied Lucia, who in a hypnotized way had been incredulously murmuring "Principal suspect" and "Kill Aunt Mildred?" as though she had walked through a valley of snakes without ever seeing one. Dr. Fell cleared his throat.

"Did you tell the police, today, that you had wanted a divorce?"

"Yes!"

"Is it true, as Miss Cannon said, that your husband lived above his income?"

"Dick never talked to me about money. But I think he was in debt."

"H'mf, yes. Were you—confound it alll—were you entirely dependent on him for support? Had you any money of your own?"

The blue eyes opened wide. "No. Not a bean. I never had."

"Then, if you simply up and left him, you would have no means of financial support?"

"No, I—suppose not. I never thought of it. Besides, Dick wouldn't have allowed me to leave him."

"Now we know," persisted Dr. Fell, trying to cover his embarrassment by looking fierce, "that you and your husband were Mrs. Taylor's only relations. To be strictly accurate: you were her only relative. And her heiress."

Lucia's body grew rigid. But she did not reply.

"Tonight, before Mr. Butler came downstairs, I had a word with young Denham about Mrs. Taylor's will. You inherited three prop-

erties: Mrs. Taylor's home, called The Priory'; this house, called 'Abbot's House,' and a third property called The Chapel.' Curious flavour of religion about those names, isn't there?"

Lucia merely gave a jerk of her head, as at some irrelevant question, and scarcely seemed to breathe.

"In cash and securities, with all taxes deducted," said Dr. Fell, "you inherited fifty thousand pounds. That sum would free any woman from dependence on her husband."

"Dr. Felll You don't think I'd . . . oh, no!"

"On the afternoon preceding Mrs. Taylor's death during the same night," pursued Dr. Fell, "I think you paid an unexpected call on her?"

"Yes! But . . ."

"It was not your habit to pay calls at Balham, was it?"

"N-not exactly. But I went when I could. She was old and lonely."

"During your talk with her, Mrs. Taylor was already mentioning her craving for Nemo's salts, and protesting that there weren't any in the house? Do you remember hearing your aunt talk about it?"

Lucia hesitated. "She did say something, yes. But I didn't pay any attention to it."

"You see," rumbled Dr. Fell, again making motions of distress, "Dr. Bierce can testify that she did talk about it. By the way, did you know about the antimony which was kept in a tin in the stable."

"Don't answer that question!" snapped Patrick Butler.

"But I did know about it," Lucia whispered. "Bill GrifBths, the coachman, told everybody about it. To warn them."

"Let us take the morning after Mrs. Taylor's death," continued Dr. Fell, with his voice in—deliberate?—imitation of Butler's courtroom manner. "We know, now, that the key to the back door was not in the lock of the back door. We know it was lying inside the door, on the floor of the passage. Mr. Butler proved—"

"Wait a minute!" Butler exclaimed. "That wasn't—"

"Wasn't what?" Dr. Fell asked sharply.

(I can't tell them it wasn't true. I can't tell them it was a lie I invented myseli, and put into Joyce Ellis's mouth. I can't tell them the key was really in the lock all nightl)

"You were saying, sir?" intoned Dr. Fell with polished courtesy.

"Nothing at all. Sorry."

"Therefore," Dr. Fell turned to Lucia Renshaw, "we have a clear

case. Someone—someone from outside—had only to take a pencil, and push the key through the lock from outside. Then the door could be opened, and locked afterwards, with another key. Mr. Butler proved.

(God Almighty, where is this leading? What was in that glance Lucia gave me just now.'*)

". . . that it was a key to a Grierson lock," said Dr. Fell. "Isn't there a Grierson lock on the back door of this house, Mrs. Renshaw?"

"I don't know! I don't know!"

"Well, unfortunately there is. That provides you with a key. Of course, if you could prove your whereabouts on the night of the 22nd of February, that would be different. Where were you then?"

"Here! In this house!"

"Can you prove that by any witness?"

"No. Dick went away on his trip the day before, the 21st, and—" Lucia stopped suddenly, her eyes more horrified, her pink fingernails pressed against her cheeks. "Dick's dead," she said. "I forgot."

"Could you prove your presence here by a sen'ant, for instance?"

"No. In this part of the world, Thursday is the servants' day oS; and they don't get back until late at night."

"Miss Cannon's testimony, then?"

"Poor Agnes is . . . well, she's a paid companion. Dick wanted to get rid of her. She was away on Tliursday night too." There was a silence. "But I couldn't have killed Dick," Lucia cried, as though seizing at a straw. "Somebody said it only a minute ago! I didn't have any poison!"

"Ma'am, there is another piece of evidence I am bound to tell you now. It was not presented at the trial; because the pohce, quite rightly, believed it immaterial to that case."

"Well?"

Dr. Fell began to wheeze as though that vast bulk had been running.

"Bill Griffiths, the coachman, testifies that more than four table-spoonfuls of antimony were taken from the tin. That's over twice the amount Mrs. Taylor swallowed. The murderer was keeping another heavy dose in reserve."

Then Dr. Fell did not give her time to comment, even if she had wished to comment.

"You said a moment ago, Mrs. Renshaw, that your husband 'wouldn't have allowed you to leave him.' WTiy not?"

"If he couldn't have me"—Lucia's golden hair gleamed as she looked at the floor—"nobody else was going to have me."

"Were you afraid of him?"

"Horribly!"

"In your statement to me downstairs, and probably to Mr. Butler as well, you quoted Richard Renshaw as saying: 'Unless you can get evidence against me, which you can't, just forget that divorce; you know what happened to your private 'tecs when you tried it.' "

"Yes," Lucia agreed in a whisper. Still she did not look up.

"What did he mean by those words?"

"That's the part I'm ashamed of. That's the part I'm really and horribly ashamed of." Lucia's breast rose and fell under the grey silk blouse. "But what can you do? I hired a firm of private detectives to— you know—follow him."

"Yes?"

"In about a week they wrote to me and said they had to give up the case; but they wouldn't say why. I hired another firm. Before long a man came round to say they had to drop it. Finally I coaxed the truth out of him."

"Well? What was it?"

"One of their operatives, or whatever they call it, was so badly smashed up with brass knuckles that he's still in hospital."

It was as though a fist smote through the human lives of this affair, or a catapult released more evil forces than they had dreamed of. But Dr. Fell did not seem surprised.

"Then you could never get free from your husband. Or thought you couldn't?"

Lucia spoke miserably. "That's what I thought, yes."

"And so, for real independence, the poison was as necessary as the fifty thousand pounds. And you killed your husband as you killed Mrs. Taylor. That, I fear, would be a rough outline of the case against you."

Silence.

Lucia, sitting on the edge of the bed with each hand out a little way to support herself, seemed to be staring at her crossed ankles. They did not see her eyes, but they saw two tears fall from her eyes. Then the light ran along her hair as she lifted her head. The heavy-lidded blue eyes regarded her companions with numb appeal.

Though Patrick Butler had never any doubt about her innocence— and, as he would have said, he was never wrong—his belief was

yS BELOWSUSPICION

strengthened, and upheld and made happy, by Lucia's expression now. His heart went out to her in love, and in pity, and in as much humility as he was ever able to feel.

But Lucia was looking at Dr. Fell. "Is that what you think of me?" she asked wonderingly. "Is that what you really think of me?"

"No, no, no!" spluttered Dr. Fell, making such mesmeric passes that his cloak flew around him.

"Then why do you— ?"

"Dash it, didn't I explain? That is the charge as it might be brought by the police." His tone changed. "But with one part of it I do agree. These two deaths, Mrs. Taylor's and Mr. Renshaw's, are interlocking factors of the same crime. They depend on each other. One murderer is responsible for them both."

"But—what do you think?" asked Lucia. "You said, when you'd got certain things straight, you'd know what to believe about me. Tell me!"

"My dear young lady!" Dr. Fell looked dumbfounded. "I haven't asked you a single question about the matter which interests me most!"

"You . . . what?"

"No, no, no, no!" he assured her gravely. "Only two questions overwhelm and overshadow everything else. By thunder, they do!"

"What are they, then?"

"You were present," said Dr. Fell, screwing up his face, "at the first day of the trial. You heard the testimony of Alice GrijQSths, Mrs. Taylor's maid. She said that you and Mrs. Taylor, when you paid a call there 'had words' about religion. What did she mean by that?"

Lucia, obviously still stunned with shock, could have been no more puzzled than Patrick Butler.

"About religion?" Lucia echoed.

"Yes!"

"But I can't remember . . . wait!" There was a curious, quick shift and gleam in Lucia's eyes. "I believe Aunt Mildred did say something about joining the Roman Catholic Church."

Dr. Fell was taken aback. He blinked at her, holding hard to his eyeglasses on the black ribbon.

"You're sure of that?" he persisted, with a kind of panting effect. "You're sure Mrs. Taylor used the term 'Catholic Church'?"

"Well, that's what I understand. Aunt Mildred was nice, but she had such a queer sense of humour—like calling Dr. Bierce 'Ambrose'— and every time she made some kind of joke she'd leer and show her

teeth like a wolf. I said we belonged to the Anglican Church, of course!"

"My last question," said Dr. Fell. He looked at her steadily. "Do ladies nowadays still wear garters?"

(The old hoy's oS his chump/ Or is he?)

"Why—" Lucia was beginning, as though in a startled rush of words to answer. Then she stopped. "We really don't, you know," Lucia said dryly, "unless we can't get a suspender-belt. It hasn't been done for some time."

"Not even," said Dr. Fell, "red garters?"

It was at this point that Patrick Butler made a fierce shushing gesture.

For some time Butler had been conscious of a sense, purely animal, that someone was watching or listening. It grew more intense because he seemed to be excluded from the conversation. Glancing towards the door to the gallery, where hghts now bumed, he noticed that the keyhole was obscured. Feeling at once intensely curious and yet foolish, like a man in a farce, he edged across and threw the door open.

Outside, bent over to listen, stood nobody more alarming than Kitty Owen, the maid. Kitty was not at all discomposed as she straightened up.

"Yes, Kitty?" inquired Lucia, as casually as though the maid had tapped at the door. Lucia rose to her feet. "What is it?"

"I was looking for your knitting-bag, ma'am. Can I come in and see if it's here?"

"Yes, of course."

Kitty straightened her lace cap. What was the look she gave Lucia, as she sidled past into the room. Dislike? No. A sense of superiority? Perhaps. Butler, conscious of being obscurely disturbed, tried to analyze it.

All this time Lucia had never looked at him.

"Kitty," she explained to the air, "is so fond of knitting. I don't like it, really. She carries that bag about like a treasure, and finishes all the things I start. But she mustn't carry books there. Miss Cannon says. Have you found it, Kitty?"

From the other side of a chest-of-drawers, where it had evidently fallen, Kitty picked up the large dull-green knitting-bag.

"Yes, ma'am. I'll finish the sweater, if you don't mind."

"Very well, then. Run along."

Kitty ran. But, as she paused in front of Butler, she turned up her

vivid dark-brown eyes in the same look of astonishment and fright she had given him at the front door.

"You do remind me of Mr. Renshaw!" Kitty said, and the door cHcked softly after her as she hurried out. Lucia, now standing in the middle of the room, had the dangerous poise of a woman near breaking-point.

"I'm sure," said Lucia, "you'll excuse me if I don't hear any more about how guilty I am. Dr. Fell—"

She stopped abruptly, not finding him in his proper place. All that could be seen now was what looked like a huge black tent, topped with a mop of shaggy hair, as Dr. Fell stood between the beds and blinked down at the water-bottle on the bedside table.

Moving over to one side, Butler again looked at that infernal bottle. It contained little more than an inch of water, full of microscopic beads that gleamed under the light, but still deadly.