Nothing Can Rescue Me (20 page)

“Would have been, you mean, if she hadn't inherited a hundred thousand dollars and this property from Mrs. Mason.”

“Let me inform you of something. Mrs. Mason loathed marriages among her young friends. They made barren her life, as Swinburne would have said, and, in fact, did say. She would not have objected to Susie Burt marrying, because she was not personally attached to Susie; but she might very well have cut Miss Evelyn Wing off with a shilling if Miss Wing had married me.”

Windorp leaned back in his chair to look at Percy with some surprise. Percy, with a sudden start, looked at him; and Gamadge said gently: “Logic is a rare and priceless gift. You see what cross-examination would do to you, Mr. Percy? Lieutenant Windorp possesses that art in the highest degree.”

Percy said: “I talk too much, and that's a fact.”

“It was Swinburne that let you down. Lieutenant Windorp can't be confused by words, no matter how many of them there are.”

Windorp, if gratified by this praise, did not show gratification; he merely said: “I don't suppose you'd repeat that statement on the witness stand, and this isn't a court of law.”

“But Sergeant Morse seems to have it on the record.” Percy's dark eyes were on the sergeant's shorthand pad.

“You haven't signed any statement.”

“Let me qualify what I said. If I seemed to provide Miss Wing with an additional motive for committing two murders, or if I provided myself with one, it was because the notion was too preposterous to register itself properly on my brain. Mrs. Mason was not the most constant of human beings, you know; I haven't a word to say against her, I was extremely fond of her and she was always charming to me. But she tired of people. She wouldn't have gone on cherishing Miss Wing for ever. At best, she'd have turned her off at last with a small pension and her blessing. Evelyn Wing knew three years ago that she was down for something in Mrs. Mason's will—she had no reason to think that she was still down for it. With Mrs. Mason nobody could count on anything.”

“Heavy going,” said Windorp. “Nobody knows what Miss Wing knew about those wills; and now you tell us that she probably stood to lose what she was down for if she married you.”

“Henceforth I shan't volunteer information.”

Gamadge said: “I wonder if you'd tell me something.”

“I doubt it very much; I don't feel inclined to tell anybody anything.” Percy's eyes had a savage anger in them, and Gamadge thought he had a distinct glimpse for a moment of Glenido, a Roman Gentleman.

“I merely want to know why you didn't say anything when you realized that the books you were reading were being used to corrupt the text of Mrs. Mason's novel.”

“I didn't fully realize anything of the sort until the Marlowe showed up. I didn't recognize the Poe, the Ford, or the Herbert.”

“You said nothing to Sylvanus or to Mrs. Mason.”

“I wasn't afraid they'd think I had a hand in it, of course; a child of six would have replaced the books after using them. But—again, I don't like to criticize Mrs. Mason.”

“That's understood.”

Percy looked at him quietly. “I've stayed in this house,” he said, “time and again, since childhood. I told you that Mrs. Mason was always kindness itself to me. But I know the kind of atmosphere she created about her, and I have witnessed such exhibitions of jealousy, deceit and small cruelty here, such tale-bearing, injustice and general deviltry that no outbreak of childish revenge would have surprised me. That's what I thought it was, and I think so now; a mean way of getting back at Mrs. Mason.”

“Two atrocious murders followed.”

“You don't think much of my logic; now I don't think much of yours.”

“I'm not speaking of cause and effect; the tampering with Mrs. Mason's script was the beginning of a long-planned campaign. Well, thanks, Mr. Percy.”

Windorp nodded to Briggs, who opened the door. When Percy had gone, and Windorp had sent for Miss Burt, Gamadge asked to be excused.

“You're not interested in hearing her and Mrs. Deedes tell me they never wore slacks in their lives?”

“No. I'm going down to see what that walled garden looks like in the daytime.”

“I'll miss you. I like hearing you tell people I've got the art of cross-examination. This isn't for the record, Morse; but I didn't know where Percy was heading for till he got there.”

“Didn't you? Poor Percy.”

“If he or any of them thinks I'm tougher than you are, they're making the mistake of their lives.”

Gamadge, laughing, said that he was a mere jelly of sentiment. But he looked anything but sentimental as he strolled from the room, and Morse, watching him, bit the end of his pencil.

“He's got something,” remarked the sergeant.

“If he has,” replied Windorp, “try to shake it out of him.”

“That Mrs. Deedes; you thought she was about half-crazy anyway. Perhaps she's the one ought to be locked up before she bumps the Wing girl off.”

“Perhaps she wouldn't bump her off for a hundred thousand. She knows now that Wing has lost the residuary estate.”

“If she had two hundred thousand and this property perhaps she thinks she'd get that husband of hers back again. I'd give money myself to see him play tennis the way he used to play it at the Bethea matches when I was a kid.”

“From what I hear, you'll never see him play that or any other kind of tennis again. He's been drinking like a fish.”

“He might swear off for two hundred thousand.”

Windorp said: “Bring me those papers and bills out of Hutter's upstairs desk.”

“Nothing there but old bills, all paid.”

“I'm going to look at every paper in this house. You might as well learn it now, Morse; in a case like this, don't skip anything. We don't want to leave all the clues for that Gamadge to tell us about.”

Morse got up without enthusiasm and went into the office. He came back with a discouraging mass of slips, cancelled cheques and vouchers, which he dumped on the round table. Then, sighing, he sat down opposite his superior officer. “Judson, printer,” he began. “Four hundred dollars.”

Gamadge, standing on the back steps of the house, turned up the collar of his overcoat; a fitful wind was driving rags of cloud before it, and then closing them up again to shut out patches of blue. He was hailed from above, and looking up and to the left saw Corinne Hutter at her open window.

“Mr. Gamadge,” she asked, “if you're going for a walk would you take the dogs? We're not allowed out and the servants are busy.”

“Can't they run by themselves?”

“Oh, no; they're never out loose. Something might happen to them. A cat scratched Bobo awfully once.”

“Come along yourself, and bring them.”

“We're not supposed to leave the house.” Gamadge hailed Briggs, who stood ten yards down the walk. “Will you be kind enough,” he asked, “to see whether Lieutenant Windorp will allow Miss Hutter to go down to the walled garden with me? I'll bring her back.”

Briggs went in with the message, and returned to say that Miss Hutter could go, if Gamadge would be responsible. She thereupon disappeared, the window was shut down, and Gamadge and Briggs had a smoke together.

“Don't know why all these people couldn't take a walk down here,” said the officer. “I could watch in and back. Some of 'em might go crazy shut up like this; it isn't only dogs that need regular exercise.”

“Humane suggestion,” said Gamadge.

“These folks aren't used to being penned up. They can't all have done it.”

“You weren't on hand yesterday during the catastrophes. There came to be a sort of a sense of black magic going on. Windorp can't take chances.”

Corinne Hutter came out, the griffons on leashes. Her knitted cap was pulled well down over her ears, and her plaid coat buttoned to her chin. The griffons bounded in front of her, entangling themselves.

“Horrible noise they make,” complained Gamadge, following along. “I think they're trying to trip you.”

“They're just wild with joy at being let out; so am I, kind of. Listen to the water,” she said, as they reached the mouth of the yew alley. She paused; the griffons, bounding in circles, wrapped their leashes about her skirts.

“And I bet the swimming-pool isn't any colder now than it is in August.”

They entered the yew alley. She said: “I don't like these hedges. I don't like this garden at all. It was nicer when there were just trees and the stream.”

“Something to be said for your point of view. Did you hear about the slacks?”

“Nobody's talking about anything else this morning.”

“Hutter's murderer came this way yesterday, soon after three o'clock in the afternoon, wearing Percy's hat and coat and a pair of bloodstained slacks.”

“Why did they have to be slacks?”

“It's a useful guess of mine which covers a lot of possibilities. Slacks—with all metal fastenings and buttons removed—are not so easily missed from a wardrobe as trousers or a skirt, and perhaps not so easily identified.”

“They'd be pretty easily identified around here if there was anything left of them. People didn't wear slacks at Underhill.”

“Perhaps people concealed slacks at Underhill; they concealed plenty of other things from Florence Mason.”

A brick archway let them through into a broad walk, six feet wide and bounded on the side opposite the wall by a tall yew hedge. They went under a second arch—cut in yew—and emerged upon a large open place, bricked, and set out with flower-beds and shrubbery. A second yew hedge enclosed the inner mysteries—the dry pool, with its bronze fountain. Gamadge and Corinne Hutter descended shallow steps to the broad verge, and sat down on a stone bench. There were four of these benches, backed by flower-beds and small cedars.

“I hope you won't be cold,” said Gamadge.

“I won't be if you don't stay all morning.” She looked about her. “Which urn were those ashes in?”

“That one.” Gamadge moved his head towards the right. “And opposite us, going along to the south, Miss Wing saw Percy's hat
passant
. If I saw such a thing I should investigate. I dislike extremely the idea of someone or something dodging about among the hedges of a place like this while I sat unaware.”

Miss Hutter, slightly amused, said: “I shouldn't worry if I saw a hat.”

“And how wrong you would have been yesterday, not to worry. There was a murderer—perhaps a demented murderer—under Percy's hat.”

“Well, that wouldn't happen often.”

“I see that you are not cursed with imagination.” He added: “Perhaps I am; or did I really hear a rustling, a sound like soft footfalls on brick?”

“I guess you heard squirrels or dead leaves. Don't let them scare you.” She looked at him quizzically.

“I'm so easily scared when there's a murderer loose.”

“He isn't after us!”

Gamadge listened again for a moment, his hand lightly on her arm; then he said clearly: “But will be after me, when I've broadcast the fact that I know who it is.”

“You do?” she looked incredulous.

“Of course I do.”

“And you're going to broadcast it?”

“Well—we don't want any more fatalities, do we? Perhaps I could scare the party.”

“Not just by saying so.” She studied his face, trying to decide whether or not he could be serious.

“No, I need evidence. I'm going to fish for some.” He removed his hand from her arm, got a pencil and an envelope out of his pocket, and wrote on his crossed knee: “Somebody behind us.”

She read the message, frowned, and then nodded slightly.

He wrote: “Stay where you are,” got up slowly, looked about him, slowly turned, and then sprinted up the steps and through the opening in the nearest hedge. Mrs. Deedes, bent over and motionless, craned up, saw him, and immediately fell on her knees.

“Oh, sorry,” said Gamadge, assisting her to her feet and picking up her walking-stick. “Did I startle you?”

“You did, rather. I have something in my shoe. I've just been limping along, and I was trying to get it out.”

Gamadge looked down at her grey sandal. “Let me help.”

“It's all right now.”

He put his hand through her arm and conducted her down to the bench beside the dry pool. She nodded to Corinne Hutter, who returned the nod coolly; the griffons, quietly established at Corinne's feet, gazed up at her like two disagreeable, whiskered little old men; but they did not bark.

“Cross little things,” she said, smiling down at them.

“Not to you, Sally,” said Gamadge.

“Oh, no; they know me.” She sat beside Corinne Hutter, and Gamadge considered her; a mere bundle of nerves she was this morning, unable to look at him for more than a moment at a time, unable to be quiet. Her hands fumbled with the crook of her walking-stick, with her woollen bag, with the folds of her dress, the collar of her loose coat. She was hatless; her grey hair blew about her face.

“How did you get here?” he asked. “Did Windorp let the bars down?”

“Yes, I heard that officer—Briggs—asking Lieutenant Windorp if you and Corinne could come here, and I asked too. I hurried after you as fast as I could. I want to speak to you, Henry.”

“I can go.” Corinne made as if to rise, but Mrs. Deedes's gloved hand on her arm restrained her.

“No, Corinne, please stay. You're so sensible. You always liked Evelyn. Henry, she's in a dreadful state.”

“Miss Wing is? Since when?”

“Ever since she came out of the library; ever since she saw Lieutenant Windorp.”

“But I was there when she saw him. She seemed in pretty good shape when she left.”