Cover Her Face (28 page)

    He looked indeed as if he could have done with protection against more than James Ritchie. He was a scrawny redfaced little man with the look of an angry hen and a trick of jerking his head as he talked. He was neatly but cheaply dressed.

    The grey raincoat was clean and the trilby hat, held stiffly in his gloved hands, had recently acquired a new band. Catherine said suddenly, "You were in this house on the day of the murder, weren't you? We saw you on the stairs. You must have been coming from Sally's room."

    Stephen glanced at his mother and said:

    "You'd better come in and join the prayer meeting, Mr. Proctor. Public confessions are said to be good for the soul. Actually you've timed your entrance rather well. You are, I assume, interested in hearing who killed your niece?"

    "No!" said Hearne suddenly and violently. "Don't be a fool, Maxie. Keep him out of it."

    His voice recalled Proctor to a sense of his surroundings. He focused his attention on Felix and seemed to dislike what he saw. "So I'm not to stay! Suppose I choose to stay. I've a right to know what's going on." He glared round at the watchful, unwelcoming faces. "You'd like it to be me, wouldn't you? All of you.

    Don't think I don't know. You'd like to pin it on me all right if you could. I'd have been in queer street if she'd been poisoned or knocked on the head. Pity one of you couldn't keep your hands off her, wasn't it? But there's one thing you can't pin on me and that's a strangling.

    And why? That's why!"

    He gave a sudden convulsive movement, there was a click and a moment of sheer unbelievable comedy as his artificial right hand fell with a thud on the desk in front of Dalgleish. They gazed at it fascinated f0f\ while it lay like some obscene relic, its rubber fingers curved in impotent supplication. Breathing heavily, Proctor hitched a chair beneath himself with a deft twist of his left hand and sat there triumphantly, while Catherine turned her pale eyes on him reproachfully as if he were a difficult patient who had behaved with more than customary petulance.

    Dalgleish picked up the hand.

    "We knew about this, of course, although I'm glad to say that my own attention was first brought to it less spectacularly. Mr. Proctor lost his right hand in a bombing incident. This ingenious substitute is made of moulded linen and glue. It's light and strong and has three articulated fingers with knuckle joints like a real hand. By flexing his left shoulder and slightly moving his arm away from his body, the wearer can tighten a control cord which runs from the shoulder to the thumb. This opens the thumb against the pressure of a spring. Once the tension on the shoulder is released the spring automatically closes the thumb against the firm fixed index finger. It is, as you can see, a clever contraption, and Mr. Proctor can do a great deal with it.

    He can get through his work, ride a bicycle and present an almost normal appearance to the world. But there's one thing he can't do, and that is to kill by manual strangulation.' ' "He could be left-handed."

    "He could be, Miss Bowers, but he isn't, and the evidence shows that, Sally was killed by a strong righthanded grip." He turned the hand over and pushed it across the table to Proctor.

    "This of course, was the hand which a certain small boy saw opening the trapdoor of Bocock's stables. There could only be one person connected with this case who would be wearing leather gloves on a hot summer day and at a garden fete.

    This was one clue to his identity and there were others. Miss Bowers is quite right.

    Mr. Proctor was in Martingale that afternoon."

    "What if I was? Sally asked me to come. She was my niece, wasn't she?"

    "Oh, come now, Proctor," said Felix. "You aren't going to tell us that this zoi was a dutiful social call, that you were just dropping in to inquire after the baby's health! How much was she asking?"

    "Thirty pounds," said Proctor. "Thirty pounds she was after and much good they would do her now."

    "And being in need of thirty pounds," went on Felix remorselessly, "she naturally turned to her next of kin who might be expected to help. It's a touching story."

    Before Proctor could answer Dalgleish broke in:

    "She was asking for thirty pounds because she wanted to have some money ready for the return of her husband. It had been arranged that she should go on working and save what she could. Sally meant to keep that bargain to the last pound, baby or no baby. She intended to get this money from her uncle by a not uncommon method. She told him that she was shortly to get married, she didn't say to whom, and that she and her husband would make his treatment of her public unless he bought her silence. She threatened to expose him to his employers and the respectable neighbours of Canningbury. She talked about being done out of her rights. On the other hand, if he chose to pay up, neither she nor her husband would ever see or worry the Proctors again."

    "But that was blackmail," cried Catherine. "He should have told her to go ahead and say what she liked. No one would have believed her. She wouldn't have got a penny out of me!" Proctor sat silent. The others seemed to have forgotten his presence. Dalgleish continued. ‹I think Mr. Proctor would have been very willing to take your advice, Miss Bowers, if his niece hadn't made use of one particular phrase. She talked about being done out of her rights. She probably meant no more than that a difference was made in the treatment of herself and her cousin, although Mrs. Proctor would deny that this was so. She may have known more than we realize. But for reasons which we needn't discuss here that phrase struck uncomfortably on her uncle's ear. His reaction must have been interesting and Sally was intelligent enough to take the clue. Mr. Proctor is no actor. He tried to find out how much his niece knew and the more he probed the more he gave away. By the time they parted Sally knew that those thirty pounds, and perhaps more, were well within her grasp."

    Proctor's grating voice broke in: ‹I said I'd want a receipt from her, mind you. I knew what she was up to. I said I was willing to help her this once as she was getting married and there was bound to be expense. But that would be the end. If she tried it on again I'd go to the police, and I'd have the receipt to prove it."

    "She wouldn't have tried it on again," said Deborah quietly. The men's eyes swung round to her. "Not Sally. She was only playing with you, pulling the strings for the fun of watching you dance. If she could get thirty pounds as well as her fun so much the better, but the real attraction was seeing you sweat. But she wouldn't have bothered to go on with it.

    The entertainment palled after a time. Sally liked to eat her victims fresh."

    "Oh no, no." Eleanor Maxie opened her hands in a little gesture of protest.

    "She wasn't really like that. We never really knew her." Proctor ignored her and suddenly and surprisingly smiled across at Deborah as if accepting an ally.

    'That's true enough. You knew what she was like. I was on a string all right.

    She had it all worked out. I was to get the thirty pounds that night and bring it to her.

    She made me follow her into the house and up to her room. That was bad enough, the sneaking in and out. That's when I met you on the stairs. She showed me the back door and said that she would open it for me at midnight. I was to stay in the trees at the back of the lawn until she switched her bedroom light on and off. That was to be the signal."

    Felix gave a shout of laughter.

    "Poor Sally. What an exhibitionist! She had to have drama if it killed her."

    "In the end it did," said Dalgleish. "If she hadn't played with people Sally would be alive today."

    "She was in a funny mood that day," remembered Deborah. "There was a kind of madness about her. I don't only mean copying my dress or pretending to accept Stephen. She was as full of mischief as a child. I suppose it could have been her kind of happiness."

    "She went to bed happy," said Stephen.

    And suddenly they were all quiet, remembering. Somewhere a clock struck sweetly and clearly but there was no other sound except the thin rasp of paper as Dalgleish turned over a page. Outside, rising into coolness and silence, was the staircase up which Sally had carried that last bedtime drink. As they listened it was almost possible to imagine the sound of a soft footfall, the brush of wool against the stairs, the echo of a laugh. Outside in the darkness the edge of the lawn was a faint blur and the desk light reflected above it like a row of Chinese lanterns hung in the scented night. Was there the suspicion of a white dress floating between them, a swirl of hair? Somewhere above them was the nursery, empty now, white and aseptic as a morgue. Could any of them face that staircase and open that nursery door without the fear that the bed might not be empty? Deborah shivered and spoke for them all. "Please," she said. "Please tell us what happened!"

    Dalgleish lifted his eyes and looked at her. Then the deep level voice went on.

    "I think the killer went to Miss Jupp's room driven by an uncontrollable impulse to find out exactly what the girl felt, what she intended, the extent of the danger from her. Perhaps there was some idea of pleading with her - although I don't think that is very likely. It is more probable that the intention was to try to arrange some kind of a bargain. The visitor went to Sally's room and either walked in or knocked and was let in. It was a person, you see, from whom nothing was feared.

    Sally would be undressed and in bed. She must have been sleepy but she had only taken a little of the cocoa and was not drugged, only too tired to be bothered with finesse or rational argument. She didn't trouble to get up from her bed nor to put on her dressing-gown. You may think, in view of what we have learned about her character, that she would have done so had her visitor been a man. But that is hardly the kind of evidence which is worth very much.

    "We don't know yet what happened between Sally and her visitor. We only know that, when that visitor left and closed the door, Sally was dead. If we assume that this was an unpremeditated killing we can make a guess at what happened. We know now that Sally was married, was in love with her husband, was waiting for him to come to fetch her, was even expecting him daily. We can guess from her attitude to Derek Pullen and from the careful way in which she kept her secret, that she enjoyed the feeling of power that this hidden knowledge gave her. Pullen has said, 'She liked things to be secret.' A woman I interviewed for whom Sally had worked said,*She was a secretive little thing. She was with me for three years and I knew no more about her at the end of them than when she first came.' Sally Jupp kept the news of her marriage secret under very difficult circumstances. Her behavior wasn't reasonable. Her husband was overseas and doing well. The firm would hardly have sent him home. The firm need not even have known. If Sally had told the truth someone could have been found to help her. I think she kept her secret partly because she wanted to prove her loyalty and trustworthiness and partly because she was the kind of person to whom secrecy made its appeal. It gave her an opportunity of hurting her uncle and aunt for whom she had no affection, and it provided her with considerable entertainment. It also gave her a free home for seven months.

    Her husband has told me,* Sally always did say that the unmarried mothers had the best of it.' I don't suppose anyone here agrees with that, but Sally Ritchie obviously believed that we live in a society which salves its conscience more by helping the interestingly unfortunate than the dull deserving and was in the position to put her theory to the test. I think she enjoyed herself at St. Mary's Refuge. I think she sustained herself by the knowledge that she was different from the others. I imagine that she relished in advance the look on Miss Liddell's face when she knew the truth and the fun that she would have mimicking the inmates of St. Mary's to her husband. You know the sort of thing. 'Let Sal tell you about the time she was an unmarried mother.' I think, too, that she enjoyed the feeling of power which her hidden knowledge gave her. She enjoyed watching the consternation of the Maxies at a danger which only she knew had no reality."

    Deborah moved uncomfortably in her chair.

    "You seem to know a great deal about her. If she knew the engagement had no reality why did she consent to it. She would have saved everyone a great deal of trouble by telling Stephen the truth."

    Dalgleish looked across at her.

    "She would have saved her own life.

    But was it in character for her to tell?

    There was not much longer to wait. Her husband would be flying home, perhaps in the next day or two. Dr. Maxie's proposal was merely one additional complication, adding its own stimulus of excitement and amusement to the total situation.

    Remember, she never overtly accepted the proposal. No, I would have expected her to act as she did. She obviously disliked Mrs.

    Riscoe and was becoming more audacious in showing it as the time for her husband's return drew nearer. This proposal offered new chances of private amusement. I think that, when her visitor came to her, she was lying back on her bed in sleepy, happy, amused confidence, feeling perhaps, that she held the Maxie family, the whole situation, the world itself in the hollow of her hand. Not one of the dozens of people I have interviewed have described her as kind. I don't think she was kind to her visitor. She underestimated the force of the anger and desperation which were confronting her. Perhaps she laughed. And when she did that the strong fingers closed around her throat."

    There was a silence. Felix Hearne broke in by saying roughly:

    "You've mistaken your profession, Inspector. That dramatic histrionic was worthy of a larger audience."

    "Don't be a fool, Hearne." Stephen Maxie lifted a face drained of color and etched with weariness. "Can't you see that he's satisfied enough with the reactions we're providing." He turned to Dalgleish with a sudden spurt of anger. "Whose hands?" he demanded. "Why go on with this farce? Whose hands?"