Bride in Flight (23 page)

Gilbert’s wedding was to take place in a register office at ten next morning. The Brisbane police had gone as far as they could. They thought it wise that he should be allowed to attempt the ceremony. The registrar had been warned, told how to play his part.

Nicola and Patty and Simon were to be allowed to be present. They could be of assistance. The police party arrived early, were shown into an ante-room. From a window, behind a lace curtain, they saw a taxi arrive. Gilbert got out, assisted a girl from it, tall, dark, rather queenly, heavily made-up but expertly so. She wore a turquoise suit and a spray of orchids was pinned to her lapel.

Simon caught Kirsty’s slight gasp, slid his hand into hers. “I’m here,” he said.

They heard the steps going into the registrar’s office, the sound of voices in greeting, then an assistant, trying to look casual, opened the door and beckoned to them.

The door into the room where the ceremony was to be performed was open, of course. Any room where a marriage is to take place must be open to the public. The outer door was open too.

Gilbert and Dallas turned a little as they heard movement at the door, expecting the witnesses they had requested.

Dallas saw a group of strangers.

Gilbert saw Kirsten, behind her Patty and Nicola, and some stalwart men.

He turned greeny-white. “My god!” he said.

Startled, not understanding at all, Dallas looked at him.

The registrar cleared his throat nervously. “These people are here to investigate a charge of alleged bigamy.”

Kirsten’s eyes were on Gilbert’s face. She looked for signs of guilt. She found none—only bewilderment. Her heart sank.

Her eyes came up to Dallas’s face. The girl didn’t deserve this, she thought.

Somebody ought to explain things to her, maybe she ought to leave things to the police, but she knew what a shock it had been on her own wedding day, so she looked straight at Dallas and said in a rush, “I’m Christine Macpherson, the runaway bride. We’ve never met, though I’ve heard your voice.”

That statement made Dallas too turn slightly green.

Detective-Sergeant Hepstone from Sydney couldn’t take his eyes off her. Was this just the shock of having a posse of trouble-making strangers thrust their way into her wedding, or—

The Brisbane sergeant took charge.

“Miss Macpherson alleges that you, sir, are already married. That you tried to commit bigamy with her in January last, that you are trying to commit bigamy now with Miss Springston. It has to be investigated before we can allow this ceremony to proceed. Have you anything to say in explanation? I might add that only the truth can serve.”

Gilbert’s voice, though astonished and outraged, came clearly and confidently.

“I can honestly assure you I’ve never been married before. How absolutely preposterous! It seems to me that there’s a hoodoo on me as far as getting married is concerned! May I know on what possible grounds Christine has laid this charge? A girl who left her bridegroom ... me ... at the altar only a matter of months ago?”

All of them, except Sergeant Hepstone, looked a little uncomfortable. This had the ring of truth. Kirsten felt as if she were living in a nightmare. For one horrible moment she almost believed she had dreamt the whole thing. That she
was
going mad.

Sergeant Hepstone wasn’t taking his eyes off Dallas Springston.

Sergeant Rethington went on: “Today’s bride seems to have been in this from the start. In fairness to all, I’d better explain. It may induce you, Mr. Brownfield, to render us some assistance. According to Miss Macpherson she came across to the flat in which you had spent the night before your wedding, to give you the wedding ring. She heard voices ... yours and Miss Springston’s ... raised in anger.”

Sergeant Hepstone, following his hunch, watched in fascination as Dallas Springston’s eyes widened in surprise, then saw the color of relief flow back into her ashy cheeks. Why? In heaven’s name why? And where had he—? He pulled up his racing thoughts as his colleague from Brisbane continued.

“She heard you pleading with her fiancé—with the man she was to marry that day—to break off the wedding. You hinted he owed it to you, said he had promised to do just that, coming down early to do it. He did arrive earlier than expected—we’ve checked that—but if he meant to do just that, he certainly changed his mind. For he said nothing to Miss Macpherson, though she was worried about the change in him. Finally she realized that, still quarrelling, you were coming towards the open door. She fled. Back home, recovering, she rang Mr. Brownfield to ask him about it, but he spoke to her so naturally, so lovingly, she lacked the courage to broach the subject. She thought she ought to go through with the wedding, trusting it had been a passing infatuation. While her attendants were dressing, the phone rang. An alleged call from Brisbane.”

Sergeant Hepstone saw Dallas blanch again. Queer ... but it was adding up.

Sergeant Rethington went on: “The voice that came to her was definitely a Yorkshire voice.” He addressed himself directly to Gilbert. “You come from Yorkshire, I believe. It informed Miss Macpherson that Miriam Brownfield was speaking ... Mrs. Gilbert Brownfield. That you had deserted her, that she had landed in Brisbane trying to trace you, only to find you. were on the point of being married. She said she was going to the Brisbane police but had rung the bride first to stop the wedding. She was going to make an attempt to reach you by phone.” He paused, waiting for Gilbert to speak.

Gilbert said: “Well, where is this mythical wife? I think, sergeant, you know the answer to that one. She never existed except in Christine’s imagination. Only as an excuse, a very ingenious excuse, to explain her defection at the wedding. I suppose she was mad at what she had heard earlier. I don’t deny
that.
It happened. Suppose this bigamy story was true, what girl would have run away? Wouldn’t she have faced her perfidious bridegroom in righteous anger, eager to see him unmasked?”

Kirsten broke in. “Your wife suggested I run away. Said she would handle the whole thing. As far as I was concerned it was one shock on top of another. I know now it was foolish, but at the time I was beside myself.”

Gilbert’s voice was contemptuous. “I’ll say you were! In fact completely unbalanced. The victim of an hallucination. That’s the kindest construction to put upon it. The truth is probably this: it was your way of paying me out for my affair with Dallas.”

His confidence shook Kirsten badly. It rang true. She could feel her knees sagging. They would believe him. She could not blame them if they did. At that moment Simon’s grip on her hand tightened.

“Steady, my love,” his voice said in her ear. “Chin up, I’m with you all the way.”

They were all startled to hear Sergeant Hepstone butt in. He addressed Dallas Springston, but his words were so irrelevant that they all stared at him as if he had gone mad.

He remarked, “I’ve just remembered where I’ve seen you before, Miss Springston, it’s been teasing my mind.” Dallas, in company with the rest, kept staring.

He said suavely, “You’re in a dramatic society, aren’t you? I was up here on a case last year about this time. I very much enjoyed your performance in “The Smallest Riding.’ Remember how well you took the part of Miriam, the Yorkshire lass! Quite a gift for a dialect, haven’t you?”

Dallas Springston lost her color again, but she tried desperately to hold her look of amazement.

“What a—what an extraordinary thing to bring up here and now. Anyone would think this was a social call. It isn’t the place for small talk. I—”

He held his hand up. “Oh, come, Miss Springston, credit the police with a little intelligence. You were desperate, were you not? Determined to stop this wedding at all costs. Your bid to get Gilbert Brownfield had failed. You were doubtful if an attempt to stop the wedding at the church would succeed. You made a last mad bid to try to make the bride the one to call it off. And succeeded. How easy for you to use your ordinary voice to say ‘Brisbane calling’ and your stage voice to make the charge against the bridegroom. Better make a clean breast of it.”

Against her ashy cheeks the clover-rouge of her lipstick look ghastly, the eye-shadow made her look greener than ever, but she made a further attempt to deny it.

“It’s quite the most fantastic story I’ve ever heard. It’s—”

Gilbert Brownfield spoke. “It’s no use, Dallas.”

She turned on him. “How dare you! How dare you believe
her
before me! She’s just trying to justify herself. A woman who humiliated you so. She’s trying to smash up our wedding. It ought to go on ... immediately ... just to show her!”

Sergeant Hepstone said gently: “You must realize, of course, that that just can’t be done. If this was
not
a cruel hoax ... played by
you
... then we can’t allow a marriage that might in time prove to be bigamous take place. You must be content to wait till the fullest inquiries have been made in England. If, of course, you’re willing to admit that you perpetrated the hoax, then, when you’ve made your peace with Mr. Brownfield, the wedding will be permitted.”

The silence that followed was almost tangible. She was in a cleft stick and knew it.

“All right,” she said suddenly. “I did it. It was just a fluke that it came off. My last throw. Can anybody blame me? I’d been promised marriage.”

Simon felt Kirsten sag with relief. His arm came swiftly round her. She straightened immediately.

Dallas looked at Gilbert. He laughed. And in that laugh, Dallas knew she had lost. And oddly enough Kirsten hated that laugh, that unkind laugh, more than she had ever hated anything.

She said, “Well, that’s all, I suppose. I’d like to get away, Simon. I’ve got a nasty taste in my mouth.”

He shook his head. “No, it isn’t quite over yet, Kirsty. There’s something you haven’t realized, something you’ve got to get straight. You’ve been living for months with the idea that Gilbert, the man you were going to marry, had attempted bigamy. He hadn’t. So ... don’t you want to see him alone, Kirsty? I’ve got to know that, dear. The issue has to be clear-cut. I want you to be sure of what you want.”

Kirsten stared at him. Then his meaning sank in. She saw the doubts, the fears, the pain in his eyes.

She laughed tenderly. “Oh, Simon, you idiot! You’re worth a dozen Gilbert Brownfields! He only wanted to marry me after all because he thought Uncle Dick had shares in a uranium mine!” She turned to look at Gilbert. “Didn’t you, Gilbert?” They saw the dull red creep up from his collar, his eyes shift. “That’s why you didn’t break it off. You arrived down to do so. I think you did want to marry Dallas. But the news about the mine was in the paper the night you arrived. But don’t worry ... you haven’t let a fortune slip through your fingers. Uncle Dick had sold his shares three months before.”

Dallas lifted her head, looked at Gilbert. Kirsten said, “I’d say, get on with the wedding. You’re a pretty pair. Married to each other you would at least save making two homes unhappy. You could so easily ruin other people’s lives.” She opened her bag; took out an engagement ring, Gilbert’s, and the wedding ring she had so hated wearing, laid them gently on the table before him. “As far as I’m concerned, this is finished. No bigamy, so no case.”

Simon’s voice cut in, strong, determined. “It isn’t finished. Kirsty, your name swept the headlines: It’s going to do it again ... vindicated. I’m going straight to the nearest newspaper office when we get away from here, and it will be flashed across the cables of the world. Kirsty is not going to live the rest of her life in the shadows of this.”

“And,” said Sergeant Rethington in a tone of the utmost satisfaction, “while there can be no charge of bigamy, there is the matter, of course, of misrepresentation ... of false pretenses. It’s over to you, Miss Macpherson.” Gilbert’s head came up, Dallas’s too.

“Oh, no,” said Kirsty wearily. “I think there has been suffering enough. I want to forget. I’m going back to New Zealand, where I belong, with my fiancé.”

Simon said clearly, “Not your fiancé, Kirsty, but with your husband.” He turned, grinned at Sergeant Hepstone, said, “Well, Nicola’s husband is here, he can be best man, but Patty will need a groomsman to escort her. How about it, Sarge?”

Sergeant Hepstone drew himself up.

“Delighted,” he said.