Dead In The Morning (18 page)

“He won’t have much to go on,” Patrick said. “Besides, he won’t know whether to suspect Helen, or your brother Gerald. They both had the opportunity, and the motive was the same.”

“We’ll take it as read that there must be some shady event in Helen’s past that Mrs Mackenzie knew about,” said Derek. “Allowing for that, how could either she or Gerald have done this thing?”

Patrick said: “When I came here on Saturday evening, I arrived at eight-thirty. Just before that, your brother had been absent for some time, ostensibly fetching ice. He could have been up at Pantons, doping Mrs Mackenzie’s whisky. Everyone seemed to know that she always had a nightcap. He could have slipped up through the garden so as to avoid Mrs Medhurst and Cathy coming down, and also that would explain why I did not meet him. He could have used the back door and slipped up unseen, or if he did meet Mrs Mackenzie, he could pretend to be visiting his mother. Mrs Mackenzie herself would be busy in the kitchen then. It would have been easy for him to remove the bottle containing the drug from her room later, and to exchange the glass by her bed for another. We don’t know if it was checked for prints; probably not, since there was no trace of barbiturate in it, but a glass from the cupboard downstairs would be certain to carry Mrs Mackenzie’s prints since she would have put it away.”

He paused and looked at Phyllis.

“Your brother did come up to Pantons directly after you found the body?”

“Yes. He was with us in ten minutes,” Phyllis said. Her colour had faded now.

“It could have been a joint operation,” Patrick said. “Mrs Helen Ludlow went to fetch some money for my collecting box. She was gone for rather a long time. She could have slipped up to Pantons and put the pills in the whisky then, and her husband could have cleared up later.”

“Helen wouldn’t have known the way,” said Derek. “The house was strange to her. She wouldn’t have known where Mrs Mackenzie’s room was.”

“She and Gerald went up to see Mother on Friday night, after you’d gone home,” said Phyllis heavily. “She would have known. But I’m sure they had nothing to do with it, whatever you say, Dr Grant. I wish you hadn’t interfered. It would have been better if Inspector Foster had arrested me. He wouldn’t have been able to prove anything against me in the end; the whole thing is circumstantial. Now look what’s happening to Gerald and Helen.”

“People do strange things for love, Mrs Medhurst,” Patrick said. “You seem willing to be charged with a crime you did not commit in order to spare your brother. Might he not have been capable of carrying it out to protect the woman he loves?”

“But what from?” said Betty. “What had she done?”

“I think I’d better tell you,” Phyllis said. She looked at Patrick, but he gave her no help. “Yes,” she decided. “You’ll have to know. Then you’ll realise what we’re up against. But it must never be mentioned to anyone else, unless in the end it becomes public knowledge. Is that understood? Boys?”

Martin and Timothy nodded. Martin already knew what was coming, since he had been with Patrick and Alec Mackenzie during the long telephone conversation with Canada.

“I’m not certain of dates and places,” Phyllis said. “But briefly it was like this. Helen, as we know, was married before. She was moderately happy for a year or so. Then she had a baby - a little girl. After that, her husband changed; he seemed to turn against her, he resented the baby, and he started to drink a lot - he’d always been a heavy drinker, but Helen had hoped he’d change when they were married.”

“Many a foolish girl has been caught like that,” said Derek dryly. “Sorry, Phyl. Go on.”

“Her husband lost his job, on account of the drinking, and they moved around a bit, but he never kept any job for long, and Helen couldn’t go out to work because of the baby, who was delicate. Her husband thought there was nothing wrong with it, and that it was just Helen making a fuss, but the baby died. It had some heart trouble - they might have been able to put it right nowadays, this was all about ten years ago. Anyway, things got worse than ever after this, and Helen eventually left her husband. After a long time - some years - she met someone else, and they were going to get married. Helen got a divorce - it’s quite easy over there, and she didn’t have any trouble about that. But her husband found where she was living with this other man, in a lakeside hut somewhere in Ontario. The other man was a Canadian. Her husband turned up, and beat up this man. Helen was there when it happened. She said that by this time her husband was on drugs. She was involved in the fighting. Her husband got hit on the head and fell off the little jetty into the lake. As he was unconscious, he drowned. Helen went to gaol for manslaughter and that’s where she met Mrs Mackenzie.”

“What! In prison?” The gasp came from Betty.

Phyllis nodded.

“Mrs Mackenzie was in for stealing. She’d been working for some rich family and had been taking money that was left lying about, and jewellery. Her son Alec was very ill, and she needed it. There’s no welfare state over there.”

“Mrs Mack pinching the spoons! No, I can’t believe it,” Derek said.

“It’s true. She made Alec come over to England when she was sentenced. There were some relations over here, who helped him get started. She followed later. She’s been perfectly honest ever since, I’m certain,” said Phyllis. “It’s a bit of a shock, isn’t it? But it adds up. Canada’s a big place, but to start again Mrs Mack thought she’d better come home, and Helen went back to America.”

“What happened to the other man? Helen’s - er - the other man?” asked Martin. Young Mackenzie’s sister had not given them as clear an account as this on the telephone.

“He died as a result of the brawl. The police found Helen with a stick in her hand covered in blood and hair from her husband’s head. That was what finished it for her. The other man probably struck the fatal blow, but he was dead and couldn’t say so, and Helen was too shocked to be able to help herself. She said she didn’t care what happened, she simply wanted to die. She was lucky not to be charged with murder!”

“Murder!” The word, uttered on a sigh by Betty, shivered round the room.

“What a perfectly ghastly story,” Derek said. “Did Gerald know all this?”

“Yes, she told him right away, when he started to get serious about her. That was why she didn’t want to marry him. She says she brings bad luck to the people she loves,” said Phyllis. “It seems to be true.”

Patrick said: “Look, let’s all help ourselves to some of your brother’s whisky. I’m sure he won’t mind. And then we’ll just think about this quietly.” He crossed to the tray where Gerald had set out the bottles earlier, and began liberally handing out drinks all round. Martin helped him. Everyone was silent, stunned by what they had heard.

“Now then,” said Patrick. “As I see it, your sister-in- law Helen Ludlow has had a most unlucky life so far, but she is not a proven murderer. She was involved in a violent situation which she did not provoke. The man she loved and the man she feared both died; neither could describe the fight. A good lawyer might have got her off any charge, but as Mrs Medhurst has said, she was beyond caring, and she went to prison. Years later, when she hopes that all this could be forgotten, she meets on the other side of the world a woman who can reveal her past. A chance in a million. Those are the facts.” He puffed away at his pipe.

“Mrs Mackenzie could have told Grandmother and ruined Helen’s chance of a new life,” said Martin slowly.

“Helen could also have ruined Mrs Mackenzie’s reputation,” Patrick said. “She might have lost her job.”

“That could account for suicide!” Phyllis snatched at this straw. “Mrs Mackenzie might have thought Helen’s position was the stronger one. She might have been afraid for Alec - the disgrace, if it got out. I presume he never knew what happened?”

“No. His sister is the elder. She saw to getting him off, over to England. They made out that Mrs Mackenzie had T.B. and had to go to a sanatorium. He heard the truth today for the first time.”

“Poor young man.” This was Betty.

Phyllis had no time to spare for pity outside the family.

“Gerald will be down soon,” she said. “We ought to go. We can’t discuss it here like this. I’m certain Helen is innocent, and if either she or Gerald is arrested I shall tell the Inspector I knew all about this business.”

“Ah, but when did you learn?” asked Patrick. “Just now, upstairs? Or earlier?”

“That’s my affair,” said Phyllis brusquely.

“You’ve always had a soft spot for Gerald, haven’t you, Phyl?” said Derek rather wistfully.

“There’s Cathy to be thought of, too,” said Betty. She seemed to have recovered some of her self-control.

“Yes. Quite right, my dear,” said Derek. He patted her shoulder absently. “You’d better know the worst,” he said. “We’re in real trouble with the business. Fifty thousand pounds of clients’ money has disappeared.”

“Dad!”

“Derek!”

Betty and Martin spoke together. Tim remained silent; his ears had received so many shocks in the last minutes that he was almost unable to absorb any more.

“Oh, I haven’t been embezzling the clients’ money,” Derek said. “But someone has, and I’m responsible. I’m the senior partner, and I’ve been negligent.”

So that was it. Patrick, in an odd way, felt quite relieved for Betty’s sake that the trouble was not another woman. Looking at her face, he saw that she was, too.

“Don’t tell Gerald yet. Poor fellow, he’s got enough on his plate as it is,” said Derek. “But I was hanged if I was going to tell that policeman. Let him find out for himself what he doesn’t know already. He seems to have got wind of it, as it is.”

It might have been bluff on the Inspector’s part, thought Martin. Or could someone in his father’s office have said something outside?

“We’d better go home,” said Betty. Her face looked piteous. “Then you can tell us what we’re going to do.”

“Yes,” agreed Derek. “We can’t do anything here before the morning. You’ll stay and see Gerald, Phyl?”

“Yes. If he doesn’t come down, I’ll go upstairs again,” she said.

“Tell him not to worry too much,” said Derek vaguely.

They straggled out of the room, Tim last. Patrick put out a hand and held him back.

“Just a minute, Timothy,” he said, and drew from his pocket a letter which he handed to the boy.

“Yours, I think. Come and see me about it tomorrow morning, early. I’ll expect you at my sister’s house at eight. The matter seems to be urgent, and we’re going to be busy.”

It was nearly eleven o’clock when Phyllis opened the front door of Pantons and went quietly into the house. All was still. She looked into each downstairs room to make sure it was empty before she went upstairs. How had Derek and Martin managed to slip past her on Saturday night without being seen? She felt foolish as she opened the lift door in case it held a concealed intruder, but her nerves were on edge and she did not know from which direction to expect the next blow.

There was a light showing under Cathy’s door, so she knocked gently and went in.

Cathy was lying flat on her back in bed with a book held above her nose.

“Cathy dear, you’ll go blind reading at that angle,” said her aunt.

Cathy put the book down on her stomach and blinked at Phyllis, slowly returning to the present day from the time of the Jacobites.

“It stops you getting a crick in your neck,” she said. “This is one of your library books. I took it from your room, I hope you don’t mind?”

“That’s all right, dear,” said Phyllis.

“It’s blissfully soppy,” Cathy said. “Just the thing for now, after all the gloom.”

“Did you manage all right this evening? No storms with your grandmother?”

“No. She was okay,” said Cathy. She struggled up into a sitting position. “We played cards for a bit, and I read to her. That book’s pretty terrible. Does she really enjoy it?”

“I don’t think she listens,” said Phyllis. “I think it’s the sound of a voice that she likes. Did she take a pill?”

“She had her red one. She wouldn’t take a sleeping pill,” said Cathy. “I coped all right with her bodily needs. Golly!” She made a wry face at the memory. “I wouldn’t be a nurse for anything. But it was worse for Gran. Do you know, I really believe she was embarrassed.”

“You’ll both get used to it,” Phyllis said. They must.

“We’ll never find anyone else like Mrs Mack, willing to turn her hand to anything,” Cathy lamented.

“I’m inclined to agree,” said her aunt.

“Perhaps we should get a nurse? It would mean more liberty.”

“We won’t think about it now. One thing at a time,” said Phyllis.

“How did you get on with the cops? Was it grisly?”

“It was rather,” said Phyllis.

“Did it do any good? Did the murderer blench and confess?” Flippancy masked her true concern.

“Of course not,” said Phyllis shortly. “There isn’t one. The Inspector put forward various ideas, but he was only guessing. In the end he gave up. I don’t think we’ll ever know what really happened.” Time enough for Cathy to hear more the next day. It was late, and she was too tired to know what to say for the best.

“Your friend Dr Grant turned up,” she said.

“Oh, did he?” Cathy brightened. Patrick would tell her the details; it was only fair in return for all she had told him. By this time she knew he was totally gripped by the puzzle. “Why did he come?”

“He seems to consider himself almost one of the family,” said Phyllis. “He brought Alec Mackenzie with him.”

“Oh. Poor chap, having to be there. It must have been horrid.”

“Yes,” said Phyllis. “And totally unnecessary. He looked a bit green. Well, I’m for bed, my dear. Good night. Don’t read too late.” She bent and kissed Cathy, as she had done most nights of her life for the last eleven years except during absence at school.

“Good night, Aunt Phyl. Sleep well,” said Cathy.

Her aunt left the room, and she slid down under the sheet again and picked up her book. Soon she was back in an underground passage below a gaunt Cornish mansion, where a girl like herself was trapped while the incoming tide dripped through a hole in the tunnel, and her lover, above, galloped his horse through the night to her rescue.