Let Him Lie (20 page)

“Did you tell him about the rifle you hid under the culvert the day poor Molyneux was murdered?”

There was a silence. Still Marjorie swung along and still Jeanie swung along beside her, and still the spaniel sniffed desirously at the road and dragged himself past delights in the pursuit of duty. They walked thus in silence for a moment. Then Marjorie said with a great gulp, slowing down:

“Superintendent Finister knows about that!” A little muscle worked in her cheek. “He knows I didn't do it, though! He doesn't suspect me! He'd have arrested me if he did!”

“Not necessarily,” said Jeanie brutally, also slowing down. “He might be keeping you in cold storage.”

Caesar, released from duty, found a horse-dropping and occupied himself voluptuously with it. A car passed and the two ladies moved towards a field-gate and stood on the grass verge and faced one another. Marjorie was flushed, hostile, hot-eyed, Jeanie pale, cold and distrustful.

“Why do you speak to me like this, Miss Halliday?” asked Marjorie with a sort of trembling resentment.

“I don't know why I'm speaking to you at all,” said Jeanie gloomily. “It can't do any good. That
was
your cigarette-end that was found in the lambing-shed wasn't it?”

“Yes. Oh, I was a fool. I know I was a fool!” said Miss Dasent brokenly. “But, Miss Halliday! You can't—you
can't
think that I—that
I
—”

“Why on earth not? I do think it!''

“But I—but I was
pals
with Robert Molyneux!” protested Marjorie with a trembling chin. “How can you? Oh, I know I was a fool and hid my rifle! I lost my head, I saw he was dead, I was terrified!”

Her large hand positively dragged at Jeanie's arm in her attempt to carry conviction, to make Jeanie turn and look at her.

“Miss Halliday! You can't—nobody could think
I
wished Robert any harm! We were the best, the best of pals!”

She wept.

“Why didn't you come forward at the inquest?”

“How could I? I'd been a fool and hidden my rifle. I thought I'd go back one night and fetch it, and nobody would ever know I was in the orchard that day. Only, whenever I went to fetch it, there seemed to be policemen about. Or people I was afraid were policemen. I was afraid to get it in case I was seen! Oh, I've been through Hell!”

“What made you hide it in the first place? Wasn't it a frightfully stupid thing to do?”

“Yes!” whispered Marjorie, wiping her eyes on a large handkerchief. “But I was so frightened. Nobody knew I was there. In the lambing-shed. And with a rifle.
He
didn't know. Nobody knew. How could I have proved that—that I only wanted to look at him? Just to look at him and to say good-bye in my own mind to—oh, to some silly thoughts I'd had! How could I have proved it? How could I have explained even? Without making things seem horrible that weren't horrible at all? I was watching Mr. Molyneux pruning his trees. I was saying good-bye to a lot of nonsense in my heart, and resolving to be sensible. And suddenly I saw him falling out of the tree, and I realised that there'd been a shot. I—it seemed ages, years before I could move. I felt as if I'd imagined the whole thing. As if it couldn't really have happened and if I shut my eyes and looked again there he'd be still on his ladder. At last I went as near him as I dared. I saw the bullet-hole in his temple. I knew that he was dead. I was terrified! I couldn't wait and be found there! I couldn't take my rifle with me, I was frightened—oh, of everything!”

“Sarah saw you hide it.”

“Sarah? Oh, poor kid,” stammered Marjorie. She wept a little, leaning on the field-gate, and then polished her eyes and face thoroughly on her gentlemanly white handkerchief.

“I'm sorry to make such a fool of myself. Come here, Caesar! Bad, dirty dog!”

Caesar, disconcerted perhaps by his owner's gruff broken tone, paused for several last sniffs before lumbering up, and received a half-hearted welt over the back which made him wag his tail even more amiably than before.

“What are they going to do?” asked Marjorie. “I go on and pretend everything's all right and nothing's going to happen. Only, how do I know whether Superintendent Finister believed me yesterday when I explained? I had to tell him things I could hardly bear even to think of! And even then, how do I know he believed me?”

A sudden horrible thought seemed to strike her.

“How do I know
you
believe me? Perhaps you don't!”

She waited for a protest, but Jeanie did not make it.

“Perhaps nobody would believe me! After all I was there, in the lambing-shed, secretly, and with a rifle. And I'd been very unhappy. And that awful man Fone said at the inquest that Robert was facing towards Cleedons when he was shot. Making the coroner say the shot must have come from the direction of the lambing-shed! Who'd believe me after that?”

“Why? Didn't it?”

“Didn't what?” asked Marjorie, blowing her nose. “Didn't the shot come from the lambing-shed direction, then? Was Mr. Molyneux facing towards the house when he was shot, or was he not?”

“I don't know,” stammered Marjorie. “I couldn't see him, then. The boughs of the tree were between him and me. And I heard the shot without noticing—you know how one does when it's quite an ordinary noise that one's accustomed to. I was so surprised at seeing him fall I didn't realise for a moment that there'd been a shot, my first thought was he'd been taken ill. I suppose if that man Fone says he was facing the house when the shot came, he
was
facing the house. Only, that means the shot must have come from quite near me, and I should have thought I would have heard it instantly. I should have thought it would have quite startled me.”

“Didn't it?”

“No. I—I'm telling you, I hardly noticed it until afterwards.”

“I heard it plainly enough in the stable.

“The worst part of all this for me,” cried Marjorie suddenly, “the horrible part, is, that I'm thinking all the time of myself and what may happen! Whether the police will find the murderer in time to save me from being arrested! I think so much about it that I haven't time to be properly sorry about poor Robert. It's horrible! And by the time all this is over and settled, I shall have got used to him not being there, and perhaps I shan't be able to be properly sorry!”

“Being sorry doesn't do anybody any good. I shouldn't worry about that,” said Jeanie, and turned off at the gate into Cole Harbour woods. And as she walked up the foot-path she wondered whether Marjorie Dasent had it in her to be “properly sorry” for Robert Molyneux's death. She had her pal Robert for ever enshrined now in her probably somewhat embellished memories. Perhaps that was where she wanted him. Perhaps, in fact, in spite of her very natural denials, that was where she had put him...

Jeanie had her walk in the woods and returned to make herself an omelette for lunch and a cup of tea. She was just pouring the water on to the tea when a loud sudden knock on the door caused a spurt of water to jerk from the spout of the kettle. Conscious that her face was flushed by the fire and her hair untidy, she was not in the mood for visitors, but putting down the kettle and tucking in a stray lock of hair, she went to the door.

Superintendent Finister stood on the door-step, watching a robin hop from clod to clod of the turned earth. Jeanie felt an odd little twinge of nervousness at the sight of him. Her feelings towards the police had undergone a change since her meeting with Finister and Sarah on Grim's Grave. She knew vicariously now a little of the fear of the law-breaker. It was a queer sensation, to feel afraid of a policeman!

“'Morning, Miss Halliday.” The ghost of a smile, perhaps at Jeanie's unwelcoming and distrustful look, was permitted to lighten for a moment the perennial melancholy of the Superintendent's face. “I hope I'm not disturbing you, but as I was coming this way I thought perhaps I might have a word with you.”

“Of course, Superintendent,” replied Jeanie, with an alacrity she was for from feeling, and led the way to the parlour. Hostile she might be, but she was curious too, or she felt positively disappointed when Finister, refusing a chair, said:

“I just wanted to inquire how little Miss Molyneux is? I've not seen her since the other night and I'm afraid I gave her rather a shock then.”

“Oh, I think she's all right, thank you.”

Jeanie looked warily at Finister. Sarah's health, she perceived, was not really the man's preoccupation. Why come to Jeanie to inquire about Sarah's health?

“You won't—I do hope you'll see your way to leave Sarah out of your inquiries!” she said anxiously. “Children oughtn't to be mixed up in this kind of thing!”

“Nobody,” responded Finister with sad reasonableness, “ought to be mixed up in this kind of thing. This kind of thing oughtn't to happen. We all know that. As for that rifle, we needn't trouble little Miss Molyneux about that. It belongs to Miss Dasent.”

He looked quickly at Jeanie as he spoke, and she saw how acute and observant his long face could suddenly appear. The impersonal ruthlessness of the law was suddenly brought home to her. She felt almost as if she herself were guilty.

“I know. Sarah saw her hide it under a culvert.” Finister nodded.

“Extraordinary thing to do,” he commented. He corrected himself thoughtfully after a moment. “
Not
extraordinary. Idiotic.”

There was a silence, while he appeared mournfully to contemplate the ordinariness of idiocy.

“I interviewed Miss Dasent yesterday afternoon,” he went on. “But I don't propose to go any farther at present. Her explanation seemed quite satisfactory.”

“Oh, good!”

A wave of relief broke over Jeanie, then subsided again as she met Finister's direct, watchful glance. She hesitated. Finister had not yet come to the purpose of his visit, then.

“Why do you tell me this, Superintendent Finister?”

He replied with calm evasiveness:

“I thought you would be interested to know. Of course Miss Dasent's behaviour was very suspicious. Very foolish. But there really isn't enough evidence to arrest her on. Or rather, there's evidence which seems to point in quite another direction. And we policemen can't afford to make mistakes, you know.”

“Another direction?” stammered Jeanie. His dark, direct glance actually made her feel as though it might be in her direction that this evidence pointed. She flushed and was furious with herself for doing so.

“Well, there is the question of the Colt automatic target-pistol, you know, Miss Halliday.”

“Oh yes?”

“It's been missing, you know, since the day of the murder, from the Tower room. And no one has come forward to explain its disappearance.”

Jeanie felt inclined, as Finister paused, to cry:
Well, I didn't take it! Why come to me?

But it was her turn to maintain silence when the superintendent asked suddenly:

“You've known Mrs. Molyneux a long while, haven't you?”

Jeanie stared at him in surprise.

“Mrs. Molyneux?” she echoed at last. “Yes. Ten years or so. Why”

Finister nodded indifferently.

“Mrs. Molyneux is a very attractive lady.”

Jeanie hardly knew whether to laugh or be indignant at this unexpected remark. Finister went on:

“Do you know if Mrs. Molyneux's friendship with Mr. Johnson is of long standing? Did they know one another before her marriage to Mr. Molyneux?”

Now Jeanie saw where Finister's questions were tending. He was still, was he, obsessed with the notion of Peter's guilt! She felt herself flush hotly. She felt extraordinarily and very suddenly angry with this lanky saturnine know-all.

“Not as far as I know.”

“Mr. Johnson had been secretary to Mr. Molyneux for three years. They had been on friendly terms, anyway, for that length of time?”

“Very likely,” replied Jeanie with extreme hostility. “But if, when you say ‘friendly terms,' you mean a love affair, why not say so? And let me say that if you do think that, you're quite mistaken!”

Even as she spoke, Jeanie saw her own folly. She foresaw, before he uttered it, Finister's bland question: “But, Miss Halliday, why do you suppose I should think such a thing?”

Jeanie stammered defiantly:

“The way you spoke just now! It was obvious!”

“Because I said that Mrs. Molyneux was an attractive lady?” uttered Finister in mild but, Jeanie was sure, assumed astonishment. “It was obvious to you that by that I meant that she and Mr. Johnson were lovers? Surely, Miss Halliday, if that was the sequence of your thoughts, it can only have been because such a suspicion was already in your mind?”

Jeanie realised that she had fallen instantly, obligingly, headlong into a trap. She detested, she loathed the tall and mild-eyed Finister. His feet polluted her carpet. His breath poisoned her domestic air. With a rising pulse and temper, she scarcely cared how she floundered farther into the trap he had set for her.

“Well, of course it was in my mind! Mr. Johnson told me himself about the questions you'd been asking him!”

Finister murmured blandly:

“Oh, but we didn't ask any questions about the state of Mr. Johnson's affections, I assure you!”

“Perhaps not,” cried Jeanie angrily. “But no doubt it was obvious what you were driving at!”

“Obvious?” echoed Finister gently. “Mr. Johnson found it obvious, did he, that we suspected him of a liaison with his employer's wife? That is interesting.”

Jeanie, bursting with fury, with difficulty held her tongue. She had said, she perceived, too much.

“It may interest you to know that we have a note written by Mr. Johnson to Mrs. Molyneux which is in somewhat remarkable terms, considering their respective positions. One of my men found the letter crumpled up on top of some rose-leaves in a bowl on a table in the upstairs gallery, soon after the murder was committed.”