Death Among the Sunbathers (25 page)

She had spoken no word, she had uttered no sound, and yet there was something visible about her, as it were, of the terror and the horror that she felt, a visible emanation of her dread. They were all looking at her, Keene in doubt and wonder, Bryan in cold fury, Dodd with a sort of sullen contempt. Only Hunter was unaffected, and he merely because he was insensible to all but the overpowering relief he experienced in knowing that what had before been behind that closed door was now no longer there.

Keene came forward from the doorway where till that moment he had been standing. He said, loudly and clearly,

‘Something's been happening here... you know something you are trying to hide.'

‘Oh, really, Mr Keene, really,' protested Bryan with the best laugh he could summon up, but one that even to himself sounded false.

‘There is,' Keene repeated with vehemence; ‘there's something, and you're trying to hide it. I know there is, I can see it, the way you look. I interrupted something. What?'

‘We were talking business, I think, when you came in,' Bryan replied.

‘Then why did you all look the way you did? Why do you all look like you do now?' Keene demanded. He flung out a challenging hand. ‘I'll ask you something,' he said. ‘It's been on my mind long enough and now I'll ask you. Did Jo Frankland know anything... or suspect...? Did she ever guess it was arson you got your money from?'

‘There's no need to shout like that,' Bryan answered. ‘How should I know what she knew or suspected? If she did, it could only have been if you told her things – did you?'

‘She may have guessed, perhaps,' Keene admitted. ‘I don't know. If she guessed Hunter and I were planning to have big fires at our places to draw the assurance money, if she managed to get to know somehow that it was you who were behind us, well, then perhaps she came here to try to find out more, and if you found her out in that–' He paused and then went on, ‘I've tried to think that wasn't possible. I tried to think arson was only a bit of sharp practice with an assurance company that had lots of money already and could easily stand a loss or two. Only somehow Sybil made me see it differently. But anyhow murder's different, a long way different. If there's anything happened to Sybil, I'll go straight to Scotland Yard and tell them all I know and just what we had planned to do.'

‘If you do that,' retorted Bryan, ‘the only result will be, you will get a dose of penal servitude, that's all... and I don't know that that would help you to marry the lady you're working yourself into such a state of excitement about. That is, if they believed you at the Yard, but I don't know that they would, for you've no evidence, not a scrap. I've taken care of that.'

‘Bobs-the-Boy,' began Keene, and then stopped, for the unexpected mention of that name that was so heavy in all their minds so startled them that one and all they turned to look at the still closed door admitting to the adjoining room.

Again and again before then, Keene had subconsciously been aware of this trick they all seemed to have of letting their eyes turn towards this door, as though there were something behind it that held intensely their interest and their thoughts. This time his awareness of their action was more acute, made itself more felt, and he asked sharply,

‘Why do you keep looking at that door, all of you? Is there something there?'

‘Really, Mr Keene,' Bryan protested, ‘you seem to have quite lost all common sense... Do you think Miss Sybil Frankland's hiding there?' He crossed to the door and flung it widely open. ‘Go in and look for yourself if you like,' he said. ‘Perhaps you would like to search the rest of the house for her as well afterwards?'

Keene went into the room. That there was no one there was evident enough. It was a large room and held a good deal of furniture, but that was all, it seemed, till Keene, advancing across it, looking sharply around, saw lying on the floor a dirty red silk handkerchief knotted into a noose at one end, and not far away, a lady's handbag.

‘That's Sybil's,' he said and picked it up. ‘What is it doing here? What have you done with her? What's this for?' It was the noosed handkerchief he held up now. ‘What's happened here?' he asked.

They did not answer him, but Bryan's attitude had grown suddenly rigid and in the doorway loomed the huge and threatening figure of Zack Dodd.

‘I'll show these to Owen,' Keene said, and leapt away with all the speed he could command towards the door that opened into the corridor without, while Dodd thundered in pursuit and Bryan went sprawling on the floor from a swinging blow Keene aimed at him as he fled by.

It was late, it was midnight past, when Bobs-the-Boy came back again across the lawn Miss James had seen him traverse earlier, carrying a woman's body slung over his shoulder.

He bore no such burden now as he came quickly and softly to the door of Leadeane Grange and knocked and rang and rang again. When he got no answer he pushed the door, as Maurice Keene had done before, and, finding it unlocked, went in quickly.

The darkness was profound, the silence unbroken, and when he called he got no answer. He had a pocket electric torch with him. He took it out and by its light made his way up the stairs. Plainly he was puzzled and a little uneasy. At the head of the stairs he waited and then called out again, and getting no answer went on to Miss James's room. The door of it hung open, and when he swung the ray from his torch about the room he saw her sitting there in a chair, quite still.

He addressed her by name, but she took no notice. He switched on the electric light and spoke to her again, but she still made no response, only looked blankly at him. He said to her,

‘What's the matter? What's been happening here? Where's the Guv'nor?'

She tried twice before she managed to articulate a reply, and then, instead of answering, it was other questions she put him.

‘Where have you... what... how...?' she muttered and again, ‘Where have you...?'

‘Where have I planted her?' Bobs-the-Boy completed her question for her. ‘Never you mind, don't you worry about that. What I'm asking is, where's the Guv'nor?'

She continued to stare at him, but without making any attempt to answer. She appeared indeed quite dazed. Bobs-the-Boy seemed puzzled, and then from one of his pockets he took a small flask of brandy. Nearly half its contents he poured out and put to Miss James's lips.

‘Drink it up,' he commanded briefly.

She obeyed, and the strong spirit seemed to restore to her that balance of mind which at more normal moments it might have been likely to overthrow. Her dazed look and manner gave place to one more natural. She said presently, as under the influence of the brandy her life began to flow again,

‘I saw you taking – her – away. What have you done...?'

‘You saw me when someone pulled the curtain back up here and the light showed me up, eh?' Bobs-the-Boy asked. ‘Gave me a scare that did, I nearly dropped – what I was carrying, to run for it. Any one else see me?'

‘No.'

‘Gave me a scare,' Bobs-the-Boy said again. ‘It's always the way, things happen just as they didn't ought. Just another half second and I should have been in among the trees and no one wouldn't have seen nothing. It's a wonder I didn't just drop her and run for it. Good thing I didn't though, if no one saw me but you. You're sure of that?'

‘Yes. What have you... where have you... suppose they find...?'

‘Well, they won't,' Bobs-the-Boy retorted, ‘and never you mind what I done about it. What folk don't know, they can't tell. But you can take it from me – her dead corpse won't never be found by no one, not never.' He said that quite quietly, but with an accent of profound confidence and conviction it would have been difficult indeed to doubt. ‘Not possible,' he repeated, ‘the way I've fixed things, not possible, no more than jumping over the moon or picking winners in a string without ever going wrong.'

‘Are you sure?' Miss James asked. ‘You can't be sure! How can you be sure?'

‘Sure and certain,' he asserted once again, ‘sure and certain as me and you sitting here, her dead corpse won't never be found just simply because it never can be, not possible.'

‘What do you mean? What have you done?'

‘That's my affair,' he answered coolly. ‘I don't tell everybody how it's done... no one will ever find her dead corpse; why, I couldn't even myself supposing I wanted to, which I don't. But if I did, I couldn't.' He paused to chuckle softly to himself. ‘Don't you worry none about that,' he said. ‘It won't be found, because – well, because it don't exist no more, it just simply isn't there to be found, that's all.'

‘How can... you mean you've burnt it up or something?... you couldn't... not so quickly.'

‘I'm not telling you no more,' he answered coolly, ‘and I didn't say anything about burning anything – anyone could do that, or try rather. I'm just telling you her dead corpse can't be found because it don't exist now and that's gospel truth. Where's the Guv'nor?'

‘He's gone. He thought the police would be coming. So he's gone.'

‘Bunked?' cried Bobs-the-Boy, disgusted. ‘Well, I did think he had more sense than that – where's he gone?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Abroad or somewhere?'

‘I don't know,' she repeated. ‘He's had his plans ready for long enough – he used to say you never know when things mightn't go wrong. Oh, he's clever, he thinks of everything. And no one will ever find him. Some snug hole he's made ready where they'll never find him.'

‘And Dodd, Mr Dodd, what about him?' Bobs-the-Boy asked. ‘Lost his head and bunked too, I suppose?'

‘I don't know,' she answered. ‘He hasn't come back; he ran after Maurice Keene, he meant to kill him if he caught him, but I don't know if he did. But he ran after him and he hasn't come back again yet.'

‘Things seem to have been a bit lively after I went,' observed Bobs-the-Boy drily. ‘I thought the Guv'nor had a cooler head on his shoulders, though. And that Hunter chap – what about him?'

‘I suppose he went away, some time or another,' she answered. ‘We didn't notice; when we remembered him he wasn't there any longer.'

‘And me,' complained Bobs-the-Boy, ‘fixing things up nice and quiet like, making it sure and certain no one couldn't ever be charged with putting out that girl's light, and I done it proper, too, so no one can't ever be pinched for that, and then I come back here to find everyone's done a bunk, and all the fat's in the fire all over again. Suppose the “busies” had come before, what could they have proved? But suppose they come now and find every one's run for it? Giving yourself away, I call it. What was it happened next after Zack Dodd unlocked the door into the corridor and told me to clear, same as I was only too glad to do?'

‘Maurice Keene came. He was looking for her. He kept asking questions, he suspected something. Esmy Bryan wanted to know if he would like to look in the next room, as he seemed to think the girl was hiding there. Of course Bryan thought that would be all right now you had gone and taken – taken her away as well. So he told Mr Keene to go and look for himself, and he did, and he found a handbag lying on the floor. I suppose you hadn't noticed it. There was your handkerchief, too – the one you made into a noose. You left it lying on the floor. Keene knew the handbag belonged to – to her. You could see what he was thinking, and all at once he said he would show them both to Owen. And we knew what that would mean, and he saw us looking at him, and he understood, and he ran. He knocked Esmy over before he could do anything, and ran out of the house as hard as he could and Zack after him – we heard them run, the two of them, as fast as they could. Zack's big and heavy, but he can run fast when he has to. And that's all, for Zack's not come back as yet.'

‘Well, now,' Bobs-the-Boy exclaimed, ‘there's a nice mess, and just when I thought I had everything fixed right. Why haven't you bunked with the others anyhow? Bad for you as for them, isn't it?'

‘I'm waiting for Zack,' she informed him. ‘I thought perhaps he would come back, and if he did and I wasn't here, then he would kill me – he's my husband, you know,' she added as if to explain.

‘Oh, married, are you?' Bobs-the-Boy grunted; ‘married – that means you act under his influence, in law, of course. I know that much. Rummy thing, the law. But it doesn't help much. Who would have thought of Mr Bryan losing his head that way? Lay the best plans that ever were; and then they all go west, because someone acts the way no one ever could have dreamed of.'

‘I would have gone, too, if I had dared,' she said moodily.

‘That means you're as big a fool as he is,' Bobs-the-Boy retorted angrily. He was evidently a good deal disturbed, and for a time he was silent, deep in thought apparently.

Presently he went on. ‘They had no real evidence – the police I mean. What did it matter if Miss Frankland's handbag was found here? Or my handkerchief either? Couldn't I have picked it up in the grounds somewhere and brought it to you as instructed in all cases of lost property? And I might have wrapped it up in my handkerchief, mightn't I? To keep it clean. What's there in all that to make Dodd give himself away by trying to murder Keene?'

‘It wasn't only that,' she answered. ‘There's the other thing, too. They're suspecting us of that, too. There's one of them called Owen – he's everywhere, asking questions, questions; you can tell when you hear about them, what he's thinking.'

‘What's it matter what he's thinking? What's it matter what the whole boiling of them's thinking?' scoffed Bobs-the-Boy. ‘We should worry – what matters is what they've got they can put before a jury, and that's not much. Don't you realize the police haven't got to know? – They've got to make a jury know, and know on the facts put before 'em. Why, I've heard of a fellow walking straight into the Yard where they were working overtime on a job he had done, and he knew they knew he had done, and ask them cool as you like, how they thought they were getting on, and tell them just the piece of evidence they wanted to bring it home to him – only he knew they couldn't ever get it themselves, and what he said himself of course they couldn't use. You lot were as safe as he was, if only you had had the sense to sit tight instead of bolting for it – or trying to murder Keene and perhaps succeeding for all I know – and you may get away with it once easy enough, and twice with a bit of luck, but not three times, unless you've been rubbing luck off all the sweepstake winners that ever were. What evidence was there against you? Not much that I can see, unless of course you tell yourself how you did it.'