Crooked Wreath (20 page)

“I don't see how he could possibly have done it, so you needn't worry either way but concentrate on us four.”

“After all, we haven't known Philip for very long, even if he is our cousin; only since he came back from America. I don't see why I should feel awful if
he
turned out wicked and horrible.”

“Nobody's asking you to, pet. Don't start a thing about it.”

Edward made satisfying noises by blowing into the bottle. “Do you like Philip, Peta?”

“Yes, I do, frightfully; I'm terribly fond of him. I didn't like him much when he first came home though.”

“I was only twelve or something.”

“Well, he was rather off-hand and peculiar. I suppose it was awkward for him,” admitted Peta, “because, of course, Grandfather went all haywire in his usual fashion, and made a terrific fuss over him, and wanted to make over the house and estate and all that to him as being the only male heir and carrying on the name and so forth.”

“Good Lord, how grim for you!”

“Oh, I didn't mind much. How did you make that sort of moaning noise, Edward?”

Edward explained the mechanics of the moaning noise and for a little while the woodlands echoed dismally.

“I must say, I didn't think Grandpop would ever really disinherit me for Philip,” acknowledged Peta, afraid of having appeared to put on the pot by her claim to indifference as to the disposal of her fortune. “But I daresay he raised poor Philip's hopes. After all, I mean, Philip's human.”

Edward sat up and began to throw small stones into the river, just for the sound of the lovely little plop! At the third throw he paused suddenly, arm uplifted, struck by an idea. “I say, Peta–good Lord!–you don't think by any chance Philip
isn't
Philip?”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Well–good heavens, Peta, this is terrific–suppose Philip is somebody else who knew Philip in America–well the real Philip I mean–and he died or something and the other Philip, this one, pinched his diary and read up all about his childhood and us and Grandfather and everything, and came home and impersonated him.
You
know, intimate stories about this island that only you and he would know, and things like that. How long is it since Aunt Anne went to America?”

“They went when Philip was a little boy, about five or six, or something.”

“Well, there you are; people change like anything between six and thirty-whatever-Philip-is. And he wouldn't have to pretend to remember very much; he could have been a very bad-memoried little boy!”

“And we were just
saying
how odd Philip was when he first came home,” agreed Peta, slowly.

“I know. Of course, he was sort of feeling his way. I expect he worked on Grandfather like anything, really, to make him change his will from you to him, and only pretended to be thankful when he didn't.”

“Good
Lord
, Edward.”

“Yes, isn't it terrific? Come on, let's go back and tell them.”

“No, no, don't be silly, we mustn't tell a soul; we must just watch like mad and try to prove it.” Nevertheless she got up with great despatch and scrambled back into the punt.

It was harder work going back upstream; with the exertion, Edward began to lose some of his effervescent confidence. “Of course, I don't see exactly what difference it makes, really. Philip had no more reason to kill Grandfather if he was a pretence Philip than if he was the real one.”

“Grandfather might suddenly have found him out!”

“Oh, gosh, so he might,” said Edward.

“On the other hand, it still remains impossible for Philip to have done the murder,
whoever
he is. He just was not near the lodge that evening before the paths were done; and the next morning he was dressing in his room when Claire came and said she'd found Grandfather dead.”

“Well, she said she
thought
he was dead.”

They stared at each other across the length of the punt. “But he–he'd been dead all night,” said Peta. “He was sitting at his desk … He'd been sitting there all night …”

“Unless he'd just got up and was sitting there waiting for his breakfast. Perhaps he was only–only keeping very still, and Claire thought there was something wrong, and there wasn't really …”

“Or perhaps he'd just had a little weeny heart attack …”

“And Philip rushed in and–and when Claire wasn't looking quickly gave him a terrific injection of coramine, so that he'd never come round … After all, if anyone had access to the stuff, it was Philip. And so carefully drawing our attention to it and all that, so as not to be the only one to be suspected … And, Peta, Philip knew all about the sand having been put down, because he'd walked to the gate with Stephen the night before.”

The punt pole, used most energetically to prod home Edward's excited reasonings, finally embedded itself deeply into the mud. He gave it a jerk, wobbled perilously, and only just regained his balance. Peta started forward in a purely impulsive attempt at rescue. “But Edward–(Edward, look
out
, darling!)–Edward, Philip can't have murdered Grandfather then. Grandfather had been dead for hours. I mean, Philip said to Claire, he said, ‘He's been dead for hours …'”

“Yes,
Philip
said so,” yelled Edward, just in time, and overbalanced completely and fell with a splash into the river …

And while, miserably, the family eased their tortured nerves, in accusation and argument, wrangling unceasingly among themselves, siding now with one and now with another, irritable, dejected, over-excited, ashamed, Inspector Cockrill prowled, ever watchful, through the house and grounds. Now and again he put a sharp question; now and again he stood unblushingly outside a door to listen; now and again he appeared among a group of them, stirring up with a sort of mischievous joy those easily ignited fires; but all through the day and half through the night, he harried his men in his ceaseless search for the will. “It hasn't gone outside this place. Whole or in pieces, it's somewhere inside the walls of these grounds. Burnt? Well, it may have been burnt, but I doubt it. It's in human nature to hang on to the thing, just in case it might some day be necessary to produce it–as proof of this or that–don't ask me why. Signed or unsigned, I say that that will exists, and if you dig the whole place into allotments in the search for it, I don't care–it's got to be found.”

“Somebody's moving it about,” confided Sergeant Troot to the minions under his immediate command. “That thing's not buried nowhere, nor yet hidden in any one place. Somebody's moving it about, if only he'd be caught going to see it.”

Mrs. Brough watched the search with a smile of tolerant contempt. “They don't even know what they're looking for,” she said to Bella who came across her standing in the grounds outside her lodge.

“They're looking for the will,” said Bella curtly, for she was now by no means enamoured of Mrs. Brough, and only wondering how soon, under the circumstance, one might decently give her notice.

“The will–what will? There's two wills, m'lady, isn't there? Never mind where the new will is–where's the old one, that's what I want to know!”

“It's in Mr. Garde's office, of course,” said Bella, suppressing a desire to add that what it could have to do with Mrs. Brough she did not know.

“It's along of our Rosy's brooch,” said Mrs. Brough, as though in reply.

“Well, I've no doubt the brooch is in both wills. In any event, Mrs. Brough, I should think you would know me well enough, after all these years, to be certain that Rosy would have her brooch if that's what Sir Richard intended.

“Yes, m'lady,” said Mrs. Brough submissively. She added, as though merely politely inquiring: “If the new will isn't found, m'lady, I suppose the old one stands?”

“It would probably have to be settled in court,” said Bella, recollecting that on Mrs. Brough's word only would their future stand.

“I see,” said Mrs. Brough. After a moment, she asked: “I take it you'll be there at Brough's inquest tomorrow, m'lady; you and the family?”

Bella was not familiar with the etiquette involved; but since it was evidently expected of her, she said with a sort of idiotic heartiness that of
course
they would.

“Gabble and talk, gabble and talk,” said Mrs. Brough, suddenly and viciously. “I wonder who they'll find to pin it onto this time? That Turtle, I wouldn't be surprised.”

“Serve her right for saying all that awful stuff about Mr. Edward, the other day,” said Bella, half smiling. Edward's eccentricities could be no secret from such old servants as the Broughs.

“Well, they can't pin nothing on Mr. Edward
this
time,” said Mrs. Brough triumphantly, for though she did not care two pins for daft Edward Treviss, it was good to have any theory in opposition to “them.” “This was a woman's murder, my lady, and they can't help but see that. No man killed Brough–no man would have thought of that trick.”

“What trick?” said Bella, surprised.

“The trick with the dust,” said Mrs. Brough.

Bella stood staring over at the opposite lodge, a small, pretty, dumpy woman in her “good” grey summer mourning, beside the big gaunt woman in her uncompromising black. Had Mrs. Brough got another of her terrifying theories? She said, nervously: “Do you mean that you know about–about how they got away across the hall?”

“I daresay,” said Mrs. Brough. She folded her big hands in front of her waist. “The police have been experimenting with carrying somebody in; I suppose they think Brough might have lifted the murderer in–which at least fits in with my idea of its being a woman.”

Bella had a wild vision of Brough, playfully carrying a mock bride across the threshold of the little house of death; his thin legs tottering under the weight of lanky Peta or muscular, plump Ellen, or even Claire who was slim and not very tall. “I can't think of any earthly
reason
for such an action, Mrs. Brough.”

“No more can I,” said Mrs. Brough coolly. “No, no, m'lady, Brough just walked in there alone, by hisself, of course he did. There was a sireen just before dawn, they say, though I didn't hear it; but I daresay it woke him up, and for some reason he got up and put on his dressing gown and slippers and went over to the lodge–why I don't know, though maybe I could guess. He unstuck the police seal, meaning to put it back again so as not to show–he was clever with his fingers, was Brough–and in he went, not thinking how his footprints would show in the dusty hall. And in went the murderer after him. I can't say what happened there, m'lady, nor what they said; but she killed Brough then and there with her dirty syringe–killed him in agony, poor old devil …” She turned her hard face aside, staring into the rhododendron bushes that bordered that part of the drive.

“It's dreadful for you, Mrs. Brough,” said Bella, once more daring to be kind.

“I don't set up to have been a loving wife,” said Mrs. Brough, abruptly. “He was a hard man to live with, was Brough–an ignorant know-all and bad tempered and dishonest to boot; but I'd lived with him for thirty years and he was my husband … I wouldn't let a dog die the way he died.”

Bella was silent.

“Well, she killed him,” said Mrs. Brough at last. “And there were her footsteps clear across the hall, giving her away to all the world …”

“You keep saying ‘her' …”

Mrs. Brough looked her full in the face. “I told you I knew that this was a woman's job–too.”

Bella walked away from her without waiting to reply, up the sanded path now free of barriers, and in at the French window. Inspector Cockrill was in the sitting-room of the lodge, standing looking down as though he had been for a long time standing looking down, at the floor of the hall; seven square feet of dust, evenly laid and undisturbed but for the three footprints and the neat row of letters. No other mark. He did not seem to resent her presence and she stood beside him, first looking casually, then staring at the floor. And after a minute she said: “But where is my squiggle?”

“Your squiggle?” said Cockrill.

“That day–the day Richard died–I came down here with him, Inspector. The hall hadn't been cleaned; I said to him that it wouldn't be used anyway, and I just shut the door on it … But before I did so, I–I put out my foot and made a little squirl in the dust and said something about how thick it was, after a whole year; or even more, because possibly the hall wasn't dusted
last
time either. Well–where's the little squirl?”

Cockrill clapped his hand to his mouth and stood gazing at her with wide-open eyes, pinching the end of his nose between finger and thumb. “Ye Gods! I believe you've got it!” He took his hand away and said (more clearly): “That dust has been removed, and put back again!”

“
Nonsense
, Cockie!” said Bella. “How could it?”

“God knows,” he said. “But that's what's happened. The floor's been polished free of dust and the dust put back again.”

“But why? Why put it back? Even if such a thing was possible? Why not just leave it polished and come away with no footprints showing?”

“Oh, well, that's easy,” said Cockrill. “Because of the confession, of course. The murderer suddenly saw that the whole thing could be turned to advantage; stage a suicide to account for Brough being dead; forge a confession to account for Sir Richard being dead. If he could only make it clear that no one but Brough had been in the lodge, he freed himself and everybody else of suspicion and everything would be all right again.”

“Well, I'm glad you say ‘he,'” said Bella, fresh from Mrs. Brough's rough handling.

Cockrill did not seem to hear her. “He polished this floor free from dust–that would have been simple enough with this vacuum cleaner standing here so handily …”