Heads You Lose (21 page)

“Don’t believe that
I
think you’re a murderer, Pen,” said Lady Hart, turning towards him, putting out her hand to him. He seemed hardly to notice it. She went on eagerly: “Couldn’t it have been Trotty after all, Inspector? Never mind the snow and all that: suppose that Pippi came back here and made her call and took her scarf from the hall-stand; suppose that Trotty had followed her—perhaps had stood at the open front door and listened to what she said… don’t you think that Trotty might have waited for her in the drive, and killed her to revenge the death of Miss Morland—or perhaps to save Fran…?”

“No,” said Cockrill.

She looked about her desperately, as though to find inspiration in the lovely familiar room. “But Pen—it’s impossible. It’s dreadful and ludicrous. Why should he have had to kill the girl? We were in the drawing-room; there was a policeman in the kitchen; he had only to raise his voice to bring us all running to his aid. Fran wasn’t in danger from Pippi, once we knew what Pippi was. We could simply have overpowered her, and sent for you; you could have traced the telephone call and probably would have recognised Pippi’s voice… we could have proved it all to you. Pen didn’t
have
to kill Pippi… he had no
need
.”

“He had no motive,” said Henry quietly from his chair.

They all swung round upon him. “But Henry, if Pippi killed Grace Morland…”

“Pippi didn’t kill Grace Morland,” said Henry.

“Why do you say that?” asked Cockrill sharply.

“Your theory depends entirely on Pippi having been able to get the hat. Well, Pippi couldn’t have got the hat. James and Fran came in from the orchard a few minutes after eleven, locking the back door behind them, and the hat was in the hall then. Trotty says that she went back to Pippi’s room at about eleven and was talking to her there and ‘listening to her tales’ for more than half an hour.”

Cockrill shifted his ground a little but remained unimpressed. “It isn’t an important point. The fact remains that Pippi le May said over the telephone that she was the murderer. Pendock would not have waited to find out the rights and wrongs of it.”

Pendock got suddenly to his feet. “Inspector Cockrill—you honestly think that I am responsible for this crime?”

Cockrill was a little taken aback by so direct an attack. He said, however, steadily: “I do.”

“Even if you didn’t, you’d be convinced that it was at least one of us six?”

“Certainly,” said Cockrill again.

Pendock shrugged his shoulders. “Then come on; let’s get on with it. Go ahead and arrest me, or whatever it is you want to do. I can’t stand any more talk and argument; I’m tired and my head’s aching, and all I want is to cease this eternal speculation and get some peace. Let this be the end of it. Come on, do what you want.”

Fran flew to him. “Pen—Pen darling, you mustn’t do this. We know you didn’t do it; don’t go and say you did… don’t go and do something foolish. Pen! Don’t let them take you away…”

He looked down at her sadly, and putting out his hand brushed the dark curls from her forehead with aching tenderness. “Don’t cry, my little love. I don’t care; truly I don’t. They can hang me by the neck until I’m dead, and it will only be something like a release. After all, I’ve got nothing to lose—have I, Fran?”

“Do you confess to this murder, Pendock?” said Cockrill, taking Fran by the arm and pulling her aside.

Pendock looked at him vaguely, dazed and shaking. “Yes. Yes. Anything you like.”

The two police guards advanced. Lady Hart pushed her way between them and Pendock. “Don’t you lay hands on him! Inspector Cockrill, you’re mad. Can’t you see that he’s saying this to save the rest of us? He thinks that it will never be cleared up and that suspicion and shame will rest on us all to the end of our lives.” As Cockrill caught Pendock by the arm and shoved him towards the door, she cried desperately: “He’s innocent. You’re accusing an innocent man. He’s no more a murderer than I am!”

“Very much less,” said Henry evenly, and got up out of his chair.

T
HEY STOOD ROOTED TO
the floor, like a “still” from a motion picture: Pendock and Cockrill and the two guards, grouped together, half-way to the door; Lady Hart, her hands still held out towards Pendock, staring at Henry with wide eyes in a white face; Venetia sat upright in her chair, her mouth in a little round O of horrified distress; Fran was before the fireplace, petrified into stillness; James unstirring in his deep arm-chair. Henry stood in the centre, the focus of their desperate attention. He broke both stillness and silence, moving forward quietly, saying in a low, apologetic voice: “I can’t let them take Pendock, Lady Hart. I’m sorry. I didn’t say anything before because I thought you had—your reasons; but you can’t let him take the blame…”

She said wildly: “Are you suggesting that
I
killed Pippi le May?”

“And
Grace Morland,” he said, and added gently:
“Did
n’t you?”

Venetia ran to him and clasped his arm. “Henry darling—no!”

“Yes, Venetia,” he said wretchedly. “I’m sorry, my sweet, but—we can’t let Pendock suffer, can we?”

Lady Hart had recovered herself sufficiently to come forward and sit down upon the sofa. She said, looking up at him: “When am I supposed to have killed Pippi? She was alive at eleven o’clock. At twenty-five to twelve the last train went past the summer-house. Till at least half-past eleven I was sitting in the drawing-room with you all, writing a letter to the Income Tax…”

“Out of sight,” said Henry.

“Out of sight?”

“In the L of the drawing-room,” said Henry again. “And so busy that you asked us not to disturb you. I’m sorry, Lady Hart.”

She was silent again. After a while, in which nobody spoke, she said quietly: “All right. Tell us what you know.”

“I know that Pippi was a danger to Fran,” said Henry unhappily. “Not because she wanted to kill her, but because she was coming between Fran and James, because she was going to drag their names in the mud. You have a horror of notoriety and scandal, haven’t you, Lady Hart? You couldn’t bear to see Fran threatened, right at the beginning of her life; and she was threatened by Pippi and by Grace Morland, too. It was James and Fran that Grace Morland saw in the orchard, and it was Fran that she held in the ‘hollow of her hand.’ You killed her; and the next evening when Pippi was here to dinner, something must have happened to give her a clue. She might have told Pendock on her way down to the cottage, but she knew he wouldn’t believe her; she decided to ring up the police, and she made an excuse to come back up to the house and do it from here. But the excuse didn’t work, because Gladys told her in front of Pen that she hadn’t left her glasses here; so she followed Pen back, and came into the hall, while he was in the drawing-room and rang up, just as the Inspector’s worked it out; and while she was standing there with the receiver in her hand, she looked up and saw you, Lady Hart, at the door of the drawing-room L, the one away from the card table. She—she was frightened. She said the first thing that came into her head: she thought you wouldn’t suspect her of knowing the truth if she accused herself, and she cried out, ‘This is the murderer speaking.’ It would at least fetch the police; and to hurry them up, to bring them without any waste of time, she added wildly: ‘Francesca’s next.’ Fran, or Venetia—anyone would have done: it didn’t matter, if only the police would come. You would hand her over to them, and then she would be safe and could tell them what she knew.”

Venetia caught his arm again. “Henry—for God’s sake stop this horrible story. I won’t listen to it! I hate it—I hate you… If you go on with it any more, I will never speak to you again…”

He looked at her sorrowfully. “I’m sorry, Venetia. I can’t help it. I can’t see Pendock suffer…”

“Go on,” said Lady Hart grimly.

“Well—Pippi’s ruse didn’t work, did it, Lady Hart? She would have turned away from the telephone and gone through the motions of giving herself up, pretending perhaps that she was a little bit crazy, that in a craving for sensation she had convinced herself that she was guilty of the crime; or that she was just an actress, out for publicity; but it didn’t work. You got your hands round her throat; you’d done it before. And then, there she was lying dead by the telephone table, in her nasty little ocelot coat; and at any moment Pendock might come out of the other door from the drawing-room.”

“Spare us the drama, Henry,” said James from his arm-chair.

Henry came down to earth a little. “Well, anyway, Lady Hart just pushed the body under the table—Pendock wouldn’t see it there in the hall, now that it’s darkened for the black-out—or else she dragged it into the dining-room opposite. She went back to her desk and sat there writing, in the L of the drawing-room, out of sight. And when he called out ‘Good-night,’ she was there to answer, ‘Good-night, sleep well.’”

Venetia went to her grandmother. “I don’t believe one word of it, not one word.”

Lady Hart took her hand in a loving grasp. “And you, Fran?”

Fran came over slowly and knelt at her feet. She looked into the old, faded blue eyes, and saw that, for the first time, Lady Hart was afraid; and she said deliberately: “I don’t believe it, Gran.”

“Then that’s all I care about,” said Lady Hart, and smiled at them gratefully.

Cockie said impatiently: “Go on with your story, Gold.”

“There isn’t any more of it,” said Henry, looking resentfully into their hostile faces. “I say that she killed the girl and hid her, either in the hall or in the dining-room; and that after Pendock had gone up to bed she left the drawing-room again, while we were all noisily playing Vingt-et-un; she dragged the body out through the french window of the dining-room, collecting the scarf on her way; she waited until the train passed, and then she put Pippi in the summer-house and came back into the house and bolted the french window after her; and she sat down at the bureau and went on writing her letter to the Income Tax people. And the snow was still falling, covering up the prints of her high-heeled shoes…”

“I will never speak to you again,” said Venetia steadily.

He went and stood humbly before the little group. “I’m sorry, Venetia. I couldn’t help myself.” And to Lady Hart he added: “I realised this long ago. I wanted to protect you. I tried…”

“You tried to throw suspicion on to Trotty,” said Fran roughly. “Where are all your fine professions of justice after
that
?”

He moved his head impatiently. “Trotty! Give me credit for a little common sense. It was all of
you
that suggested that Trotty had done it; and I knew well enough she could never be seriously accused. All I was trying to show was that the thing could have been done after the snow stopped falling, so as to draw attention away from all us innocent ones—and from the guilty.”

Lady Hart said gravely: “But why try to protect me, if you believe me guilty?”

He looked at her with those dark, mysterious eyes. “How was I to know your reasons? Who was I to be your judge? And could I have denounced someone that Venetia loved so much…?”

“You’re denouncing her now,” said Fran swiftly.

“Because she’s letting an innocent man be accused in her place.”

Lady Hart no longer looked frightened. She got to her feet and stood, holding a hand of each of her granddaughters, gathering her forces about her. “Venetia knows I’m not guilty, and so does Fran. James, do you believe this story?”

James came to with a start. “What, me, Lady Hart? Well, no. I don’t think I do.”

“You say that from purely sentimental reasons,” said Henry angrily.

“Not at all. She was writing a letter to the Income Tax people; it was in answer to one she’d received that afternoon, so she couldn’t have cooked it up before, and she showed us the finished article when she’d done. You can’t write a sensible letter to the Income Tax people when you’ve got murder on your mind.”

“This is not a laughing matter,” said Henry shortly.

“I never was more serious in my life,” said James.

Lady Hart looked around her with something of triumph dawning in her eyes. “And you, Pen? What do you think?”

Pendock stood silent in the doorway, in a turmoil of doubt and confusion and pain. He lifted his eyes to hers, and he remembered her white face that night as she had stood by his bed and tried to make him understand that, out in his own garden, a woman was lying murdered; remembered how she had swayed and tottered and finally fallen in a huddled heap on the floor; remembered his own frantic flight down the stairs and across the hall and over the moonlit lawns; remembered the sickening dread that had turned his legs to water as he ran—the dread that he would find Fran, his lovely one, dead in a ditch, with her beautiful head hacked off.

With her head hacked off…

Bunsen had called up, standing below the window, breathing heavily after his run across the grass, that there was a woman—or had he said, ‘a young lady’?—lying in the garden, down by the drive. He had added: “She seems to be wearing Miss Fran’s hat.”

Nothing about the head.

Nothing about the head; and yet, he, Pendock, had known about the head—and only Lady Hart could have told him.

She had come into his room, and standing by his bedside she had said…

She had said: “Bunsen has found a girl—has seen a girl…” And then she had swayed and steadied herself and gone on: “There’s a woman lying in the garden, down by the stream. She seems to be wearing Fran’s hat…”

Not a word about the head.

And suddenly he knew the truth, the real truth; and the truth was so horrible that something snapped in his brain and he lunged forward and fell, unconscious, into the arms of his guard.

Pendock was dreaming again. He dreamt that he walked down the long, familiar tunnel and that at the end, out in the sunshine, the girl was standing, her head bent down and her dark hair hiding her face. He struggled through the blackness towards her, dragging his leaden legs; she did not move, and he was shaken with the urgency of his desire to see her face. He came out of the tunnel and went up to her, and still she did not move. He put his hand beneath her chin to lift her face to the sun; and suddenly both hands were round her throat and beginning to close upon it. There was a sudden sharp pain in his leg, and at once she lifted her face, and it was Fran.