Out Of The Past (12 page)

Mrs. Rogers got down on her hands and knees at Cliff Edge and started to do the stairs. Properly ashamed she’d be if anyone took a good look at them, for they hadn’t been done all the week, and no good saying there wasn’t sand brought in off the beach, because there was. It just wasn’t possible to get round to doing them every day, not with all the extra work there was in the house, but Monday, Wednesday, and Friday she did reckon to do them regular. Well, Monday was all right, and she was all set to get on with them on Wednesday, only Mrs. Beeston called her off to give Major Hardwick’s dressing-room a thorough turn-out, and then it was one thing after another, and the day so hot you couldn’t rightly be expected to hurry, so she left the stairs to the last, and blessed if Mrs. Beeston didn’t go and call her off again—Lady Castleton’s white shoes to be cleaned, “And very particular about them she is too.” So the stairs were left till Thursday morning.

And come Thursday morning, Mr. Alan Field had been murdered, and there was the police all over the place. It was as much as you could do to get into the bedrooms, what with poor Mrs. Field crying in hers, and Lady Castleton’s head that bad she wanted the curtains drawn and a tray brought up. Properly upset, the whole lot of them, and no wonder, for if he wasn’t murdered in the house, their own beach hut was as near as makes no difference. And how he got the key, seeing it was kept locked—could anyone tell her that? And what did he want with it anyway? Looked as if he was going to meet someone there to her way of thinking, and if she had her guess who it would be, well, she knew the name that would come into her mind. Married or single, you could pick out the flighty ones, and flighty was what that Mrs. Maybury was, you couldn’t get from it.

The stairs didn’t get done on the Friday neither. She was all set to do them, when that London police officer come along with his B.B.C. voice and the kind of way with him you’d think he was someone. And then it was Wednesday all over again. He’d got to see everyone, and not what she was accustomed to, being interviewed by the police about a murder and lucky if you didn’t get your name in the papers, and Major Hardwick saying perhaps better keep off the stairs while there’s all this coming and going. Well, you can’t keep off stairs and do them at the same time, so they just hadn’t got done. But she was going to do them now. No matter what anyone said or did—and it looked as if there was a regular spite against it—she wasn’t going to let them go dirty over the week-end. A fair disgrace, that’s what they were. She’d be ashamed for anyone to see them and know she worked here.

She went down on her knees and began to brush. Dust swished into the pan. And then she saw the stain. The stair carpet was a handsome one. It had a fawn and blue pattern on a deep crimson ground. What caught Mrs. Rogers’ eye was a piece of the tread where it looked as if the pattern had slipped. There was an extra patch of the dark red. She looked at it, frowning, and brushed again. The colour stayed. She went down a step. All right there. She brushed with vigour and went down again, and there was another of those dark brownish marks. Something came over her, she didn’t quite know what. She had had a herring for her breakfast, and she had a feeling that perhaps it wasn’t going to agree with her. She got to her feet and fetched a wet cloth from the housemaid’s cupboard, and as she went and came again she took care that she didn’t step upon the carpet. She hadn’t begun to think why she was doing any of these things, she just did them.

When she came back to where she had left her dustpan and brush she didn’t kneel down. She bent over and rubbed at the brownish mark with the cloth which she had in her hand, and when she saw the stain which came away on the wet linen she let out a scream which was heard by everyone in the house.

The time being round about half past eight in the morning, most of them were not yet fully dressed. Colonel Trevor put his head round the bathroom door. He had been towelling his hair and it stood wildly on end. Pippa Maybury ran out to the middle of the landing in one of those filmy undergarments which emphasize rather than conceal. Adela Castleton was wearing a chinstrap and a kind of mask of some cosmetic preparation which gave her a horrid resemblance to a corpse. James Hardwick was half way through his shaving. Esther Field had snatched up her dressing-gown, but she had not put it on. Cami-knickers of a solid character fitted closely over corsets that were doing their best. Her hair was in curlers. She clutched the voluminous blue draperies which she made no attempt to draw round her. Carmona came out of her room, slipping her dress over her head.

Since the hall door stood wide to air the house, and the whole of the stair was plainly visible from the threshold, it was this astonishing scene which met the eyes of Colonel Anthony.

As Mr. and Mrs. Beeston came running from the baize door which led from the back premises, Mrs. Rogers screamed again. She stared at the reddened cloth in her hand and went on screaming.

Colonel Anthony said, “God bless my soul!” and stepped briskly into the hall. He might be an old man, but he hoped he could still tackle an emergency. A corpse at cockcrow in a neighbour’s beach hut, a charwoman in hysterics on a neighbour’s stair—he could take them all in his stride and be damned to them. He had, as a matter of fact, dropped in to have a word with Hardwick on the subject of the corpse. Very odd thing—very peculiar thing. He felt that they should have a friendly chat about it. Since he was in the habit of rising at six himself, it did not occur to him that the hour was an unseasonable one. Bare-headed, his spare trim figure comfortably arrayed in what survived of a tropical outfit, he strode across the hall and up the stairs. He reached the screaming Mrs. Rogers a bare moment after James Hardwick, who had paused to snatch a towel and wipe some of the lather from his face.

“Mrs. Rogers!” said James. And, “Good God, woman, whaf’s the matter?” said Colonel Anthony.

Mrs. Rogers could find no breath for words. With her left hand she clutched James Hardwick’s arm, and with her right she held out the blood-stained cloth. Because there was no doubt now as to the nature of the stain. The red-brown blotches on the carpet, the red-brown streaks on the linen cloth, were quite unmistakably and dreadfully blood. She was now sobbing continuously, and between her sobs she pointed and stumbled into speech.

“There—on the carpet—there! And I didn’t know—I didn’t know! I wouldn’t have touched it! It’s blood!”

Carmona came down, white-faced, to put a hand upon her shoulder. She couldn’t imagine what Colonel Anthony was doing on their stairs, but here he was, and he would have to be reckoned with. She had a dreadful picture in her mind of Pippa coming up from the hall in the middle of Wednesday night, the front of her dress all wet through where she had knelt in Alan’s blood.

Mrs. Rogers jerked and heaved under her touch.

“Cold water!” said Colonel Anthony in a loud military voice. “A cold wet spongeful of water! One of you up there— and be quick about it!”

Mrs. Anthony had always responded immediately to cold water down the back of the neck. During their early married life she had been regrettably prone to hysterics, but the persistent application of a cold sponge had brought about a permanent cure. Mrs. Rogers didn’t wait to see if it would cure her. She wrenched away from his restraining hand and ran down into the hall, where she cast herself weeping on Mrs. Beeston and was presently led away to be solaced with cups of tea.

The remainder of the party stood where they were. They stood looking at the cloth which Mrs. Rogers had dropped. Maisie Trevor, in a becoming lace cap and a frilly dressing-gown which she had waited to put on, now emerged, enquiring vaguely whether the house was on fire.

“Most inconvenient in such hot weather. Or has that woman hurt herself? I thought I heard her scream.”

Colonel Anthony made a sound which may be written “Tchah!” and continued the highly unwelcome remarks he had been making to the Hardwicks.

“You see, my dear fellow, there’s no doubt about it—it’s blood. A spot here, and another on this lower step—and oh, several lower down. There, Mrs. Hardwick—look for yourself! A most extraordinary thing, you know—really a most extraordinary thing. You know, Hardwick, in all the circumstances, and however unpleasant you may feel it, I cannot see that you have any alternative but to report the matter to the police.”

Carmona turned her head. She was standing on the fifth or sixth step from the top. She turned her head and looked up at Pippa Maybury.

Pippa had not moved. She had run out on to the landing almost as far as the head of the stairs. She had been brushing her hair. It stood out in clouds about her head, as light as thistledown and almost as pale. There was no colour in her face. It was as white as milk—as white as her throat, her shoulders, as her whole body except where the pale film of chiffon covered it. Every line of her slim figure showed through the film. Carmona went to her and touched her on the arm.

“We had all better finish dressing. Come and put something on,” she said.

But Pippa didn’t move. She looked down over the stairs. She looked at the wet patch on the step which Mrs. Rogers had rubbed. She looked at the stained white cloth which lay there. And she said in a voice which everyone could hear,

“That’s blood, isn’t it—blood? It must have come off my dress when I came upstairs.”

Colonel Anthony said, “God bless my soul!”

It was a couple of hours later that Colonel Anthony walked into the police station and demanded to see Inspector Colt. He was not best pleased, because he considered he should have been able to see him before. He had important information to impart, and in his opinion he should not have been told that Colt was engaged. He resented it. He resented being fobbed off with the suggestion that he should see somebody else. He had no desire to see anyone else. He wanted to see Inspector Colt, with whom he should have some standing as the person who had originally discovered young Field’s body. He could not conceive that Colt could possibly be engaged on anything more important than the really crucial evidence which he was in a position to impart.

And he had been kept waiting for the best part of two hours. He had been present at the discovery of incriminating blood stains. He had heard a young woman make what practically amounted to a confession. And he was kept dangling. He had been extremely military on the telephone. No, he was not prepared to give a message. He would like to know when Inspector Colt would be free… Yes, he would hold on whilst the constable enquired… Very well, then, he would come around to the police station at ten-thirty precisely.

It was now ten-thirty precisely.

He was shown into a room where Inspector Colt was prepared to cut the interview as short as possible, having just given it as his opinion to Frank Abbott that the old chap had a theory and wanted to ram it down his throat.

He was to change his opinion in time to call Frank back, and after no more than a brief outline of what Colonel Anthony had that morning witnessed at Cliff Edge for the two of them to proceed there with all possible speed.

Colonel Anthony would have liked to accompany them. Or would he? He wasn’t sure. He had lived next door to Octavius Hardwick for the best part of twenty years. Having discharged his duty as a citizen, he could remind himself of his duty to his neighbour. Very awkward situation for James Hardwick. Perhaps better to keep out of it. He had seen young James grow up. Painful situation all round. Better keep clear of it as far as he could. He went for his usual morning walk.

At Cliff Edge breakfast, such as it was, had been cleared away. Colonel Trevor ate three fishcakes and his usual four slices of toast and marmalade, but nobody else approached this standard. As far as the women were concerned, tea or coffee was for the most part the beginning and the end of it. Mrs. Rogers broke a coffee-cup, one of the set which Mr. Octavius Hardwick’s mother had brought into the family when she married his father in 1859. Informing her of this fact with some severity, Mrs. Beeston remarked that she had better take and pull herself together, because they hadn’t got china to break—“And I’d say best go home and have a good lay-down, if it wasn’t certain sure the police would be here again and wanting to see you.”

Mrs. Rogers gave a rending sniff.

“Do you think she done it, Mrs. Beeston?”

Mrs. Beeston looked very decided.

“It’s not my business to think, nor yet yours, Mrs. Rogers, and there’s the work to get on with.”

Adela Castleton had come down to breakfast after all. She ate some fruit and she drank a cup of tea, and she looked very handsome and self-possessed.

Pippa stayed in her room.

Going upstairs when the rather ghastly meal was over, Carmona found the fruit and toast she had sent up untasted, though the cup of coffee had been drained. Beyond stretching out her hand for the cup and setting it down again Pippa did not seem to have moved. She sat there in her transparent undergarment, her hair still floating wild.

Carmona made herself speak as firmly as she could.

“Pippa, you must dress—you really must! And you must do something to your hair!”

“Why?”

“The police—they will be coming up.”

“Will they?”

“Pippa, they are bound to.”

“You mean—that horrible old man—will tell them?”

She spoke in a flat expressionless voice, and she did not look at Carmona. If she had looked up she would have seen her own reflection in the mirror on the wide Victorian dressing-table. But she looked no higher than the china tray which lay there. It had a pale green edge and a pattern of primroses on it. She had been counting the primroses. If she counted them from left to right she made them seven, but if she counted them from right to left she made them nine.

Carmona stood silent. Whichever way she looked, there was trouble. She had not thought whether she believed Pippa’s story. She must believe it, because she couldn’t believe that Pippa had killed. People don’t—not the people you know— not the girl you were at school with. It must be somebody from quite outside, someone from the world in which Alan had been living for the last three years. It couldn’t be anyone they knew. But when she thought about James her heart shuddered and was afraid. Why had he gone out in the middle of the night? It was after twelve when Pippa had gone to meet Alan. Where was James when she went? Carmona herself was asleep. James had not come to bed. His coming would have waked her. He had not come. Where was he? When she waked to hear Pippa’s footsteps, to see her come slowly up the stairs with that dreadful stain on her dress, it must have been something not far short of half past twelve, because later when she looked at the clock in Pippa’s room the hands were standing at twenty to one. Half an hour later, when they had finished all they had to do and had gone back to their rooms, James was in bed and asleep.

Something checked in her mind. Was he asleep? Or did he only mean her to think so? The time that had passed since then was the time between Wednesday night and Saturday morning, and neither had asked the other, “Where were you?” She had waked and found him gone. He had returned and found her empty place. Neither of them had said, “Where were you?” The days had been full of the comings and goings of the police, of making statements, of the watchful guarding of tongue and eye. Even when they were alone they kept guard. You never knew when someone might be listening, you never knew if someone might come by, you never knew whether you were really alone. They had kept close council.

Carmona stood there with these thoughts in her mind. And then they were startled out of her, because Pippa whirled round upon her suddenly. All the deadness, the dullness, the flatness was gone. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks flamed.

“What’s the good of our sitting here like this? We’ve got to do something! I’ve been like a rabbit caught in a headlight, just scared stiff and waiting to be run over! And if we wait long enough, I shall be! Only I’m not going to! I know exactly what we’ve got to do, and we’re going to do it at once! We’ve got to call in Miss Silver!”

“Miss Silver?” Carmona’s blank dismay showed in her voice.

Pippa had jumped up. She was opening a cupboard, pulling on a dress, slipping her feet into beach shoes, and talking, talking, talking all the time.

“Yes, yes, yes—Miss Silver! Don’t you know who she is? I didn’t at first, because you’d never think it to look at her! But then I remembered that is just what Stacy said she looked like—a little old-maid governess, but frightfully, frightfully on the spot!”

“Pippa, what are you talking about?”

“Stacy Mainwaring,*The Brading Collection darling. At least she is really Stacy Forrest, because she married Charles all over again, but she sticks to Mainwaring for her miniatures.”

“Pippa, I still do not know what you are talking about.”

Pippa stopped winding a bright red scarf about her head.

“That’s because you’re not trying,” she said. “Stacy Forrest painted a miniature of me for Bill—he simply adores it. And she told me all about Miss Silver to keep me quiet whilst I was sitting. And at first I didn’t think it was the same, and then I did, because I said something about Stacy, and she fairly beamed over her and Charles—who really is a lamb, and how Stacy ever thought she could get on without him, I don’t know, but anyhow they are madly happy now.”

“Pippa, do come to the point! What did Stacy Forrest tell you about Miss Silver?”

Pippa stared.

“You haven’t been listening, and we’ve got to do something quickly. Stacy and Charles got caught up in that jewel murder—you know, the Brading Collection. It was dreadful for them, because they thought Charles had done it, and it was Miss Silver who found out he hadn’t. Stacy says she’s marvellous. And Minx Raeburn was in a most awful flap because her mother-in-law had lent her some frightfully historic jewelry and it had got stolen. Minx said she nearly died, because Lady Dalrae is the world’s grimmest Gorgon. But Miss Silver got it back for her, and the police never came into it at all.”

Carmona assembled these disjointed facts.

“You mean she is a detective?”

Pippa nodded vigorously.

“And we must get her to come here at once. That London policeman is the one who was on the Brading Case. He is the new Police College sort. Stacy says he more or less eats out of Miss Silver’s hand. I can’t think why I didn’t get hold of her straight away—I must have been asleep or something.” She was tucking in the ends of the red scarf.

“But Pippa—what do you want to do?”

“Get hold of Miss Silver—at once, before the police get here. You do think they’ll really come?”

Carmona, unfortunately, had no doubts about it.

“Colonel Anthony went off to tell them. He said it was his duty.”

“Don’t you hate people who say that? It just means they are going to be unpleasant.” She had begun to do her face— lacquer-red lipstick—

Carmona said,

“Pippa, I wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t what, darling?”

Carmona indicated the lipstick.

“I really wouldn’t—it’s too bright. And that head-scarf—I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

Pippa stared.

“Because it’s red? Darling, you’re not suggesting I should go into mourning for Alan, are you?”

Carmona shook her head.

“Just not red. There’s the one you had on yesterday—that shaded blue one.”

Pippa changed the scarf, but refused to give up the lipstick.

“And I’ve got to hurry—because of the police! If I can get away before they come I’ll have a chance of talking to Miss Silver before they start asking all their frightful questions!”

Carmona said,

“Pippa, the person you ought to be talking to is Bill. Have you sent for him? Because I think you ought to.”

“Bill? No, of course not! You don’t listen when I tell you things! He’s over in Germany giving evidence at some dreary trial! I don’t suppose I could get hold of him if I wanted to!”

“It will be in the papers.”

“Do they get them over there? Well, it doesn’t really matter, because it’s all about Alan and his being Penderel Field’s son, and bits about you, and Esther, and James. And as Bill doesn’t even know I’m here—”

“Oh, Pippa—doesn’t he?”

“No, darling. He thinks I’m staying with his Aunt Muriel— the world’s completest dreep. I rang you up instead.”

She laid down the lipstick, used her powder-puff in an expert manner, and turned from the glass with an encouraged expression.

“There, darling—I must fly! Keep your fingers crossed!”