Rolling Stone (28 page)

Terry sat there looking at him. Peter got up out of his chair and came over to the fire. He stood there behind Garrett facing Terry, his back against the mantelshelf and his hands in his pockets. He said,

“Terry, it's no good. You've got to the place where you can't get out of telling us what you know. You do know something—you've known something all along—and it's much too dangerous to go on holding it up. If you hadn't held it up to start with you wouldn't have been kidnapped, and we shouldn't both have come as near being murdered as makes no difference.”

Her eyes brightened fiercely.

“Are you going to say it was my fault?”

“If you want me to,” said Peter obligingly. “It was, you know, and it will be again if you go on holding things up and there are any more corpses. Speaking from the purely selfish point of view, I don't want to be a corpse. I don't even want you to be one.”

“A Daniel come to judgment!” said Garrett, with his barking laugh. “Now, Miss Clive—”

Peter saw the colour leave her face. He said,

“The truth won't hurt any innocent person, Terry.”

She said in a low voice, “I know—but it's so difficult. I will tell—I will really. I said I would if the picture didn't come back.”

Garrett opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again with a snap. Terry's right hand took hold of her left and held it tightly. She said in a voice that was uneven and distressed,

“I didn't say anything that wasn't true. I looked out of the window and I saw someone—and I couldn't have said who it was—I really couldn't. It was just a shadow. I told everything about that right from the very beginning.”

“Then what didn't you tell, Miss Clive?”

Terry looked at him earnestly.

“It was very little—very little indeed. It was just that I wanted to know who had gone out like that, so I opened my door and listened.”

“You looked out?”

“No. I got into bed, but I couldn't sleep. I listened. I didn't go to sleep for a long time, and—and—no one ever came past my door at all.”

Garrett made an extraordinary grimace and snapped his fingers.

“Now we're getting down to it! And who ought to have come past your door, Miss Terry Clive?”

“No one—no one.”

Garrett jerked his chair nearer.

“Come along—out with it! I've seen a plan of the house, you know—stairs coming up in the middle, and a bedroom wing on either side. Which side were you?”

“Left,” said Terry.

“And who else was along there?”

“First Mr. and Mrs. Cresswell—they have two rooms. And then me, and Mrs. Yorke beyond, and Mr. Applegarth opposite, and bathrooms and things.”

“And the other side, on the right of the stairs?”

“Norah Margesson first, and then two empty rooms, and at the end of the passage Uncle Basil, and Fabian over the way.”

“And no one came along your passage at all? You're sure of that?”

“Yes, I'm quite sure.”

“That leaves us where we were before. If you count Norah Margesson out—and I agree she's highly improbable.… Are you quite sure that she knew you'd seen her with the pearls?”

“Oh, yes. She looked back over her shoulder and saw me coming along the terrace. She ran like the wind.”

“Well then, I think we can cut her out. And it's a man we're looking for—a tall man—”

Terry said, “Oh!”

“That's the one thing you were certain about, Miss Clive. Your shadow was too tall to be Mrs. Yorke, you remember.”

Her eyes widened piteously.

“Yes, it was tall.”

“Fabian Roxley is tall,” said Garrett.

“Yes—he's very tall—he's six foot one.”

“And Mr. Ridgefield—what is his height?”

“About six feet.”

“A good deal slighter than Fabian, eh?”

Terry said, “Yes.”

Garrett thrust his head forward over the back of the chair he bestrode.

“Can you put your personal feelings on one side? Women never can. I want you to try. You saw this shadow. It had shape—it had height, breadth, thickness—because you said one person wasn't tall enough and another was too broad. So in your own mind your shadow has a definite shape. Which of these two men best fits into that shape? They are not at all alike in the day-time. Even in a thick dusk there must have been a difference. Come, Miss Clive—who fits?”

Terry's hands fell open on her lap.

“I—don't—know.”

“You
must
know!” Garrett's tone was very sharp.

Terry broke.

“I don't—I don't! I don't really! Don't you think I want to be sure as well as you? There was something all over his head—like a cloak. It was Uncle Basil's cloak, because—afterwards—I found—I found a smear of treacle on it—and a splinter of glass. It was his cloak, but that doesn't say it was he. It was hanging downstairs in the cloakroom—anyone could have taken it. Don't you see that anyone could have taken it? You're trying to make me say that Uncle Basil or—or Fabian—Oh, don't you see, if it was one of them, then he knew that I was going to be kidnapped and—and murdered? And they wouldn't—because they love me.”

Peter's eyes met hers across Garrett's hunched shoulder.

“Does Fabian love you?”

Everything went out of Terry—anger, defiance, pride. She said in the forlorn voice of a child,

“I thought he did.”

CHAPTER XL

“As a matter of fact, the picture was returned yesterday.”

Garrett had got up from his chair and was pouring himself out another cup of well stewed tea. He put in four lumps of sugar and another tot of whiskey. His expression was that of a dog who has stolen a bone and means to keep it.

Terry had been lying back with her eyes closed. Her lashes were wet. She looked exhausted, but at Garrett's words she sat up. A tear ran down her cheek, but she took no notice of it.

“The Turner has come back?”

“Yes,” said Colonel Garrett, setting the whisky bottle down with a bang.

Quite a bright colour came into Terry's face.

“I said I would tell if the picture didn't come back. You made me tell, and you never said it had come back!”

“You wouldn't have told if I had.”

Peter said in a curious angry voice,

“What does it matter? You said you wouldn't tell if the picture was back before Tuesday. Well, it wasn't back before Tuesday. And you were kidnapped
and
nearly murdered. I don't think there's anything left of their side of the bargain—if you're going to call it a bargain. And anyhow what you had to tell doesn't amount to very much that I can see.” He went across to Garrett and caught him roughly by the arm. “Look here, Frank, I've had enough! She's all in—she ought to be in bed. What are we going to do with her?”

Terry's colour faded.

“I can go home,” she said. “Please, I'd like to go home.”

Peter said, “You can't.” He shook Garrett insistently. “She can't go back to Ridgefield's house. I won't have it—do you hear? She's not running any more risks.”

Terry said, “Oh—” Her voice shrank, her whole body shrank. It came to her that she hadn't anywhere to go, or anyone to turn to. She stared at Peter with a lost look.

There was a dead silence. Into the middle of it came the harsh buzzing of an electric bell. Colonel Garrett cocked his head, looked at the clock, and gave vent to a short ejaculation.

“Two in the morning—and that's the front door bell! Having fun, aren't you?” He frowned horribly. “Here, this may be anyone—I don't know. People don't come at this hour unless—anyhow you two had better not be seen. Take her in there with the telephone, Peter, whilst I see who it is. You can light the gas fire, but don't talk too loud. I'm not advertising you.”

The little room off the hall was horribly cold. Terry sat down in the first chair she came to. The gas fire lit with a pop and began to glow. They heard the bell ring again and go on ringing as Garrett came to the door and made a noisy business of shooting back a bolt and turning a key. It stopped suddenly when the door opened, and was flung right back so that it struck against the wall of the room they were in. They could hear every sound. They could hear Garrett stamp back a couple of paces. They heard him say with a rasp in his voice,

“Good lord, Fabian! What brings you here at this time of night?”

Peter was on his knees by the hearth with the matches still in his hand. Terry leaned forward and caught at his arm. They stayed like that whilst Fabian Roxley said heavily,

“I couldn't sleep. I saw your light. Can I come in?”

They heard the door bang and feet crossing the hall. They heard the sitting-room door. And after that voices—a come-and-go murmur of sound without any words.

Terry didn't move. She sat there straining, her hands clenched on Peter's arm, every sense keyed up, every muscle tense. After a little while Peter let the matchbox fall. The small sound made her start. A hard shiver ran over her. He turned and put his arm round her shoulders. He unclasped her hands and put them to his lips, kissing them gently. He went on kissing them. She leaned her head against his shoulder and began to cry. He said,

“It's all right, Terry—it's all right. You've got me—I won't go away. You've got me for keeps.”

In the sitting-room Fabian Roxley stood at the window. He had his back to the room, but he was not looking out. The curtains showed a handsbreadth of dark street and darker sky, but he was not aware of these things. At the sound of Garrett's voice offering him a drink he turned heavily round, presenting a grey, drawn face and haggard eyes.

“I can't sleep,” he said. “It's no use—you can't go on when you can't sleep. So when I saw your light I thought I'd get it over.”

Garrett looked at him.

“Drunk?” he said. “Because if it's that, I won't waste whisky on you. If it isn't, you'd better have some.”

Fabian Roxley came forward. He moved slowly, as if his limbs were heavy. He said,

“I'm not drunk, sir. I wish I were.”

He tipped whisky into a glass and drank it neat. And fell into Terry's chair and sat there staring at the fire. Garrett pitched a log on to the embers and pushed it with his foot. A shower of sparks went up. A bright jagged flame licked the dry bark.

“And now what?” said Garrett with his back to the fire.

“She had a hold over me,” said Fabian Roxley in an odd indifferent voice. “Something I did. I was horribly dipped, and Elsinger—it all seemed quite easy at the time and it didn't hurt anyone, but she found out somehow and threatened me.”

Garrett said sharply, “You took a bribe and let yourself in for blackmail—is that what you're saying?”

Fabian lifted a hand and let it fall again. His eyes dwelt on Garrett without fear or shame—the eyes of a man who is too tired to care.

“Yes, that's it—a little information in advance, and no harm done. It seemed all right at the time. Then I got dipped again. No luck with cards or horses, but you keep on thinking it's bound to turn—that's how. And she came along and suggested this picture racket.”

Garrett said explosively, “Maud Millicent Simpson?”

“I suppose so. She called herself Madame X. If I hadn't come in with her, she'd have given me away. She had proof that I had taken the money. And nobody was any the worse—only the insurance companies. It's difficult to feel passionately about defrauding an insurance company.”

Garrett's eyes snapped. He restrained a snort, but not with marked success. Fabian Roxley said,

“I was sorry about Oppenstein's butler, but he recognized me, so there wasn't any way out of it. I told her after that that I couldn't go on. She agreed. She was inclined to blame me about the butler, and she said we'd better get someone to put it on, so that I could go on being useful in other ways. There was a fellow called Reilly who did the correspondence with the insurance companies—she said he was getting dangerous. She said we'd better get him over and put it on him, so we did. We had him out to Heathacres, and I gave him the Turner. It was all arranged to look like an outside job. But Terry Clive saw me. That's what we hadn't reckoned on. She saw me out of her window. I think she wasn't quite sure who it was she had seen, but she would have come to be sure. She went round telling everyone in the house that she had seen something. She said she wouldn't say what she had seen if the picture was put back. I wanted to send it back, but Madame X wouldn't have it. She said I might as well make a signed confession and have done with it. The picture had got to be found in Spike Reilly's car, and she wanted a day or two to complete her plans. I didn't know what they were. I thought Terry was in danger, and I did my best to find out how much she knew, but she wouldn't tell. Then she disappeared. I haven't been able to sleep since. I tried to get hold of Madame X. I've never known where she lived or what she called herself—I've never had anything except an accommodation address.”

Garrett stopped him sharply.

“I'll have that address.”

“They don't know anything. Do you think I haven't tried?”

Garrett dragged a notebook from his pocket.

“The address!” he barked.

“Fifty-seven Paley Street. It's a tobacconist's shop.”

Garrett scribbled.

“All right—go on! How did you and Maud Millicent meet? And where?”

“When she wanted to see me she used to write or telephone, and pick me up after dark in a car. I've never seen her in daylight. I don't know what she looks like—she's always worn a mask. There wasn't any way I could get at her. And I've been going mad.”

Garrett struck backwards at the log with his heel. There was a rush of flame. He said violently,