Cover Her Face (10 page)

Stephen Maxie looked him straight in the eye and said almost casually: “It was thirty-three minutes past twelve by my watch. I wasn’t able to get to sleep and at twelve-thirty I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t locked up. So I got out of bed and did so. I didn’t see anyone or hear anything and I went straight back to my room. It was no doubt very careless of me, but if there’s a law against forgetting to lock up I should like to hear of it.”

“So that at twelve thirty-three you bolted the south door?”

“Yes,” replied Stephen Maxie easily. “At thirty-three minutes past midnight.”

In Catherine Bowers Dalgliesh had a witness after every policeman’s heart, composed, painstaking and confident. She had walked in with great self-possession, showing no signs of either nervousness or grief. Dalgliesh did not like her. He knew that he was prone to these personal antipathies and he had long ago learned both to conceal and evaluate them. But he was right in supposing her to be an accurate observer. She had been quick to watch people’s reactions as she had been to note the sequence of events. It was from Catherine Bowers that Dalgliesh learned how shocked the Maxies had been at Sally’s announcement, how triumphantly the girl had laughed out her news and what an unusual effect her remarks to Miss Liddell had produced on that lady. Miss Bowers was perfectly prepared, too, to discuss her own feelings.

“Naturally it was a terrible shock when Sally gave us her news, but I can quite see how it happened. No one is kinder than Dr. Maxie. He has too much social conscience as I am always telling him and the girl just took advantage of it. I know he couldn’t have loved her really. He never mentioned it to me
and he would have told me before anyone. If they had really loved each other he could have relied on me to understand and release him.”

“Do you mean that there was an engagement between you?” Dalgliesh had difficulty in keeping the surprise out of his voice. It needed only one more fiancée to make the case fantastic.

“Not exactly an engagement, Inspector. No ring or anything like that. But we have been close friends for so long now that it was rather taken for granted … I suppose you might say we had an understanding. But there were no definite plans. Dr. Maxie has a long way to go before he can think of marriage. And there is his father’s illness to consider.”

“So that you were not, in fact, engaged to be married to him?” Faced with this uncompromising question Catherine admitted as much, but with a little self-satisfied smile which conveyed that it could only be a matter of time.

“When you arrived at Martingale for this weekend, did anything strike you as unusual?”

“Well, I was rather late on Friday evening. I didn’t arrive until just before dinner. Dr. Maxie didn’t arrive until late that night and Mr. Hearne only came on Saturday morning, so there were only Mrs. Maxie, Deborah and me at dinner. I thought they seemed worried. I don’t like having to say it, but I’m afraid Sally Jupp was a scheming little girl. She waited on us and I didn’t like her attitude at all.” Dalgliesh questioned her further but the “attitude” as far as he could judge consisted of nothing more than a slight toss of the head when Deborah had spoken to her and a neglect to call Mrs. Maxie “Madam.” But he did not discount Catherine’s evidence as valueless. It was likely that neither Mrs. Maxie nor her daughter had been entirely oblivious to the danger in their midst.

He changed his tack and took her carefully over the events of Sunday morning. She described how she had woken with a headache after a poor night and had gone in search of aspirin. Mrs. Maxie had invited her to help herself. It was then that she had noticed the little bottle of Sommeil. At first she had mistaken the tablets for aspirin but had quickly realized that they were too small and were the wrong colour. Apart from that, the bottle was labelled. She had not noticed how many Sommeil tablets were in the bottle but she was absolutely certain that the bottle was in the drug cupboard at seven o’clock that morning and equally certain that it was no longer there when she and Stephen Maxie had looked for it after the finding of Sally Jupp’s body. The only Sommeil in the cupboard then had been an unopened and sealed packet.

Dalgliesh asked her to describe the finding of the body and was surprised at the vivid picture which she was able to give.

“When Martha came to tell Mrs. Maxie that Sally hadn’t got up we thought at first that she’d just overslept again. Then Martha came back to say that her door was locked and Jimmy was crying so we went to see what was wrong. There’s no doubt that the door was bolted. As you know, Dr. Maxie and Mr. Hearne got in through the window and I heard one of them drawing back the bolt. I think it must have been Mr. Hearne because he opened the door. Stephen was standing near the bed looking at Sally. Mr. Hearne said, ‘I’m afraid she’s dead.’ Someone screamed. It was Martha, I think, but I didn’t look round to see.

“I said, ‘She can’t be! She was all right last night!’ We had moved over to the bed then and Stephen had drawn the sheet down from her face. Before that it had been up to her chin and folded quite neatly. I thought that it looked as if someone had tucked her up comfortably for the night. As soon as we
saw the marks on her neck we knew what had happened. Mrs. Maxie closed her eyes for a moment. I thought that she was going to faint so I went over to her. But she managed to keep on her feet and stood at the bottom of the bed gripping the rail. She was shaking violently, so much that the whole bed was shaking. It is only a light single bed as you will have seen, and the shaking made the body bounce very gently up and down.

“Stephen said very fondly, ‘Cover her face’, but Mr. Hearne reminded him that we had better not touch anything more until the police came. Mr. Hearne was the calmest of us all, I thought, but I suppose that he is used to violent death. He looked more interested than shocked. He bent over Sally and lifted one of her eyelids. Stephen said roughly, ‘I shouldn’t worry, Hearne. She’s dead all right.’

“Mr. Hearne replied, ‘It isn’t that. I’m wondering why she didn’t struggle.’ Then he dipped his little finger into the mug of cocoa on the bedside table. It was just over half full and a skin had formed on the top. The skin stuck to his finger and he scraped it off against the side of the mug before putting the finger in his mouth. We were all looking at him as if he were going to demonstrate something wonderful to us. I thought that Mrs. Maxie looked—well, rather hopeful. Rather like a child at a party. Stephen said, ‘Well, what is it?’

“Mr. Hearne shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘That’s for the analyst to say. I think she’s been doped.’

“Just then Deborah gave a kind of gasp and fumbled towards the door. She was deathly white and was obviously going to be sick. I tried to get to her, but Mr. Hearne said quite sharply, ‘All right. Leave her to me.’ He guided her out of the room, and I think they went into the maid’s bathroom next door. I wasn’t surprised. I would have expected Deborah to
break down like that. That left Mrs. Maxie and Stephen in the room with me. I suggested that Mrs. Maxie should find a key so that the room could be locked and she replied, ‘Of course. I believe that is usual. And oughtn’t we to telephone the police? The extension in the dressing-room would be best.’ I suppose she meant that it would be most private. I remember thinking, ‘If we ’phone from the dressing-room the maids won’t overhear’, forgetting that ‘the maids’ meant Sally and that Sally wouldn’t be overhearing anything again.”

“Do you mean that Miss Jupp was in the habit of listening to other people’s conversation?” interrupted the inspector.

“I certainly always had that impression, Inspector. But I always thought she was sly. She never seemed the least grateful for all that the family had done for her. She hated Mrs. Riscoe, of course. Anyone could see that. I expect you’ve been told about the affair of the copied dress?”

Dalgliesh expressed himself interested in this intriguing title and was rewarded with a graphic description of the incident and the reaction it had provoked.

“So you can see the type of girl she was. Mrs. Riscoe pretended to take it calmly, but I could see what she was feeling. She could have killed Sally.” Catherine Bowers pulled her skirt down over her knees with complacent mock modesty. She was either a very good actress or she was unconscious of her solecism. Dalgliesh continued the questioning with a feeling that he might be facing a more complex personality than he had at first recognized.

“Will you tell me please what happened when Mrs. Maxie, her son and you reached the dressing-room?”

“I was just coming to that, Inspector. I had picked up Jimmy from his cot and was still holding him in my arms. It seemed terrible to me that he should have been alone in that
room with his dead mother. When we all burst in he stopped crying and I don’t think any of us thought about him for a time. Then suddenly I noticed him.

“He had pulled himself up by the bars of his cot and was balancing there with his wet nappy hanging around his ankles and such an interested look on his face. Of course, he is too young to understand, thank God, and I expect he just wondered what we were all doing round his mother’s bed. He had become perfectly quiet and he came to me quite willingly. I carried him with me into the dressing-room. When we got there Dr. Maxie went straight to the medicine cupboard. He said, ‘It’s gone!’ I asked him what he meant and he told me about the missing Sommeil. That was the first time I heard about it. I was able to tell him that the bottle had been there when I went to the cupboard for aspirin that morning. While we were talking Mrs. Maxie had gone through to her husband’s room. She was only there for a minute and when she got back she said, ‘He’s all right. He’s sleeping. Have you got the police yet?’ Stephen went across to the telephone and I said that I would take Jimmy with me while I dressed and then give him his breakfast. No one replied so I went to the door. Just before I went out I turned round. Stephen had his hand on the receiver and suddenly his mother placed her hand over his and I heard her say, ‘Wait. There’s one thing I must know.’

“Stephen replied, ‘You don’t have to ask. I know nothing about it. I swear that.’ Mrs. Maxie gave a little sigh and put her hand up to her eyes. Then Stephen picked up the receiver and I left the room.”

She paused and looked up at Dalgliesh as if expecting or inviting his comment. “Thank you,” he said gravely, “Please go on.”

“There isn’t really much more to tell you, Inspector. I took Jimmy to my room, collecting a clean nappy from the small bathroom on my way. Mrs. Riscoe and Mr. Hearne were still there. She had been sick and he was helping to bathe her face. They didn’t seem very pleased to see me. I said, ‘When you feel better I daresay your mother would like some attention. I’m looking after Jimmy.’ Neither of them replied. I found the nappies in the airing cupboard and went to my room and changed Jimmy. Then I let him play on my bed while I dressed. That only took about ten minutes. I took him to the kitchen and gave him a lightly boiled egg with bread and butter fingers and some warm milk. He was perfectly good the whole time. Martha was in the kitchen getting breakfast but we didn’t speak. I was surprised to find Mr. Hearne there, too. He was making coffee. I suppose Mrs. Riscoe was with her mother. Mr. Hearne didn’t seem inclined to talk either. I suppose he was annoyed with me for saying what I did to Mrs. Riscoe. She can do no wrong in his eyes as you’ve probably guessed. Well, as they didn’t seem inclined to discuss what should be done next I decided to take matters into my own hands and I went into the hall with Jimmy and telephoned Miss Liddell. I told her what had happened and asked her to take back the baby until things had been sorted out. She came round by taxi within about fifteen minutes and, by then, Dr. Epps and the police had arrived. The rest you know.”

“That has been a very clear and useful account, Miss Bowers. You have the advantage of being a trained observer, but not all trained observers can present their facts in logical sequence. I won’t keep you very much longer. I just want to go back to the earlier part of the night. So far you have described very clearly for me the events of yesterday evening and this morning. What I want to establish now is the sequence of
events from ten p.m. onwards. At that time I believe you were still in the business room with Mrs. Maxie, Dr. Epps and Miss Liddell. Could you please go on from there.”

For the first time Dalgliesh discerned a trace of hesitation in his suspect’s response. Until now she had responded to his questioning with a ready fluency which had impressed him as being too spontaneous for guile. He could believe that, so far, Catherine Bowers had not found the interview unpleasant. It was difficult to reconcile such uninhibited outpourings with a guilty conscience. Now, however, he sensed the sudden withdrawal of confidence, the slight tensing to meet an unwelcome change of emphasis.

She confirmed that Miss Liddell and Dr. Epps had left the business room to go home at about ten-thirty. Mrs. Maxie had seen them off and had then returned to Catherine. Together they had tidied the papers and locked the money in the safe. Mrs. Maxie had not mentioned seeing Sally. Neither of them had discussed her. After locking away the money they had gone to the kitchen. Martha had retired for the night, but had left a saucepan of milk on the top of the stove and a silver tray of beakers on the kitchen table.

Catherine remembered noting that Mrs. Riscoe’s Wedgwood beaker wasn’t there and thought it strange that Mr. Hearne and Mrs. Riscoe could have come in from the garden without anyone knowing. It never occurred to her that Sally might have taken the beaker although, of course, one could see that it was just the sort of thing she might do. Dr. Maxie’s mug had been there, together with a glass one in a holder which belonged to Mrs. Maxie and two large cups with saucers which had been put out for the guests. There was a bowl of sugar on the table and tins of two milk drinks. There was no cocoa.

Mrs. Maxie and Catherine had collected their drinks and taken them up to Mr. Maxie’s dressing-room where his wife was to spend the night. Catherine had helped her to make the invalid’s bed and had then stopped to drink her Ovaltine before the dressing-room fire. She had offered to sit up with Mrs. Maxie for a time but the offer had not been accepted. After about half an hour Catherine had left to go to her own room. She was sleeping on the opposite side of the house from Sally. She had seen no one on the way to her room. After undressing she had visited the bathroom in her dressing-gown and had been back in her room by about a quarter past eleven. As she was closing the door she thought she heard Mrs. Riscoe and Mr. Hearne coming up the stairs but she couldn’t be sure. She had seen or heard nothing of Sally up to that time.