Scandal at High Chimneys (17 page)

“Where’s Dr. Bland, for instance?”

“I don’t know! Anyway, I had nearly finished dressing a few minutes ago when I heard Georgette and Penelope Burbage go past on their way downstairs.”

“On their way downstairs?”

“Yes! Georgette was saying that she needn’t change her gown; it was enough to bathe her eyes; and asking Penelope please to leave her because she was going to the police. Penelope said, ‘I’ll take you to the study, ma’am; I promised.’”

“Go on.”

“That’s all there is,” cried Kate, staring at him. “I only tell you because you seem so awfully concerned about my stepmother.”

“Not nearly so much as I am about you. And you’re right; she can’t come to any harm now. What happened then? What made you scream like that?”

“I had finished dressing and I—I put on some rice-powder. I took up the candleholder (the candle was burning then) to light my way downstairs. When I opened the door, I was holding the light in front of me. And that door doesn’t make much noise.

“The man, the person, I don’t know what to call it, was standing at the head of the stairs in the dark, looking down. For about half a second I was only startled. I never really expected to see it, because I thought….

“Anyway, I saw the red-and-white pattern of the trousers. I cried out before I realized what I was doing. I said, ‘Who’s that?’ and ‘What do you want?’ and then I could have bitten my tongue off for speaking at all. It turned round. It seemed to have no head. That was the worst: it seemed to have no head.

“I screamed for help. I dodged back into the dressing-room. The candle fell and went out. In the dark I was too frightened or bewildered; I couldn’t even find the knob of the door to close it, and I thought the—I thought it was going to run at me, and I couldn’t keep it out. Next I heard someone running upstairs; that was you. When I heard your voice I struck a match and lit the candle. But I dropped it again. I’m a fool. I’m awfully sorry.”

Kate’s voice trailed off in a shudder. She pressed her fingers up under her eyes, and Clive held her gently.

“You’re not a fool,” he said, “and there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Did he run at you?”

“No.”

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t know. It was all dark. He made no noise. Where are
you
going?”

“I had better search—”

“No! Please! Don’t leave me.”

Holding the lamp high above his head, Clive looked round narrowly at the passages, at the lines of closed doors, at the steel engravings hanging in the wall-spaces between. Somewhere the wind was rattling a loose window-frame.

“This is madness,” said Clive, and heard Kate draw in her breath. “You won’t understand me; the subject was not mentioned in your presence. But it seems inconceivable that there are two sets of murderer’s clothes here, when one set is now hidden at the Princess’s Theatre. Tell me: when you saw this man (or woman, whichever it was!), you say he was standing at the top of the stairs, looking down?”

“Yes.”

“As though following your stepmother and Penelope Burbage?”

“I—I don’t know. That never occurred to me.”

“How long was it after the first two had gone down?”

“A minute or two, maybe. I can’t say exactly. It’s so very hard to estimate time. Why is it important?”

Clive himself was growing desperate.

“Kate,” he said abruptly, “won’t you trust me? Won’t anyone trust me?”

Love and amazement and alarmed tenderness were all to be seen plainly in Kate’s face.

“Of course I trust you! What do you mean?”

“Come with me.”

Holding her arm as he had held Georgette’s, but in a somewhat different way, he guided her into the dressing-room.

The dressing-room, its pink wallpaper in the latest flower-design and a Turkey carpet underfoot, served two bedrooms: there was a bedroom door on each side. An identical gilt-painted bowl and pitcher stood on an identical marble-topped wash-hand-stand beside each bedroom door. According to the old-fashioned views of Matthew Damon, whose body now lay at an undertaker’s in Reading, there would be no lamp here; there would have been no gaslight even if gas were obtainable so far out in the country.

A faint dampness clung to the room. The lamp Clive carried illumined drawn curtains, identical dressing-tables, and an empty hip-bath in front of the fire.

“Kate—”

“Sh-h! Don’t speak too loudly,” begged Kate, and nodded towards the left-hand bedroom door. “Celia’s asleep in there.” Then passionate sincerity made her speak loudly too. “Clive, my dear, why do you say I won’t trust you?”

“You won’t, you know. Let me repeat that nobody will.”

“Clive, that’s not true!”

“Two persons, Whicher and your stepmother, claim they can guess who the murderer is. I am certain that two more persons, Mrs. Cavanagh and yourself, really know who it is. And not one person will say a word.”

Kate’s eye shifted at mention of Mrs. Cavanagh.

“Darling, I can’t! I daren’t!”

“Yes; that’s what I mean.” Clive’s desperation grew greater. “I’ve done my best, Kate; but I’m not a detective and I can’t pretend to be one. If you were frank with me—”

“Have you been completely frank with me? Wasn’t there something my father told you, last night in the study, that you haven’t told me or even mentioned to anyone? Wasn’t there?”

“Well—yes.”

“And he told you, I suppose, as Uncle Rollo hinted this afternoon, that there might be insanity in our family?”

“Insanity? Great Scott, no! If I haven’t been frank with you, it was only to spare you unnecessary worry and give you peace of mind.”

“But that’s it!” said Kate, her gaze moving towards a bedroom door. “That’s why I haven’t been frank with
you!
”

On the marble-topped centre-table was a copy of a recent novel by Anthony Trollope, called
Can You Forgive Her?
and dealing with a question much under debate. Clive eyed it with some bitterness before banging down the lamp there.

“Kate, the proprieties and the social customs be damned! This is murder. I’m not in danger, and you are. For instance: Georgette is with Superintendent Muswell now, telling him what she knows or suspects. And yet that’s no good at all if she has no proof against the murderer, and I don’t believe she has. I’m beginning to think the best course might be to kidnap you out of this house and take you to London.”

There was a brief pause. Then Kate looked up into his eyes with a meaning he could not mistake.

“Take me!” she said. “Dear God, if only you would! Take me! Tonight!”

The wind whistled past the windows, tapping a branch there. Clive made a fierce gesture.

“You don’t understand what you’re saying!”

“Oh, yes, I do! You live in Brook Street, don’t you?”

“Yes. Near Mivart’s Hotel. I could—”

“No matter for Mivart’s Hotel. Take me! Don’t you want me?”

“You know I do.”

“Then take me. As you say yourself, the proprieties be damned!”

“My dear, that was not my meaning. You’re not in danger as Georgette is in danger: that the murderer may think she knows too much, and try to kill her. You’re being kept very much alive to take the blame for this; that’s now certain. You haven’t been told, have you, that someone hid a set of the murderer’s clothes in your bedroom for the police to find? And Georgette took them away and hid them elsewhere?”

A dusting of rice-powder emphasized the pallor of Kate’s face, but brought out the vivid pink of her open mouth.

“That’s the truth,” said Clive. “So far as I know, the police haven’t been told that piece of information. Superintendent Muswell won’t believe this is a woman’s crime, at least up to now, because he can’t imagine a woman firing a revolver. But if—”

“Oh, I can fire a revolver,” said Kate.

Again the wind whistled past while they looked at each other.

“At least,” cried Kate, “I can fire the old-style kind with percussion caps. I can’t hit anything. My arm’s not strong enough to hold it steady.” Terror showed in her eyes. “But I’ve been taught to fire a pistol as I’ve been taught to ride horseback without using a ladylike side-saddle.”

“Then it would be madness to run away. Muswell’s already suspicious enough of me. If he learns I’m in love with you—”

“
Are you?
You haven’t said so.”

“Do you want me to demonstrate?”

“Yes. I do. In every way.” Tears of intensity came into Kate’s eyes. “And do you trust Mr. Whicher? Do you believe he can discover the murderer, without my having to speak?”

“I think so. But the world …”

“Who cares what the world says or thinks?” Kate bit her lip. “Since you—since you force me to say this, I want to be with you and I’ve dreamed of it for a long time. Take me away! Or, if you don’t want me …”

“Listen!”

“To what? What was it?”

It might only have been a tree-branch tapping the windowpane. Or it might have been someone stealthily moving in an adjoining room. Picking up the lamp, Clive went softly towards the door of the bedroom on the left. Very quietly, so that there should be no creak, he turned the knob.

Nothing!

In Celia’s bedroom, its windows fast-closed and shuttered against night-air, the flame of a candle burned straight and steady in its holder on a chest of drawers. Shadows draped the room like its heavy curtains. Celia, her fleecy light-brown hair spread out on the pillow, breathing gently in sleep, lay pale and waxen-lidded in a great feather-bed from which the bolster had been removed.

Nothing!

Clive shut the door and turned back, meeting Kate’s eyes.

“Kate, how long would it take you to pack a portmanteau?”

Kate, looking towards Celia’s room and suddenly stricken with remorse, cried out and pressed her hands over her eyes.

“What am I saying? Dear God, what am I saying? I can’t! With Celia in there, alone and unprotected—”

“Don’t be a fool!” Clive went back to the table, set down the lamp, and took her in his arms. “How long would it take you to pack?”

“I …”

“How long, my dear?”

An intoxication of the senses gripped them both. Though Kate attempted to draw away from him, he held her and she yielded.

“Fifteen minutes, Kate? Half an hour?”

“Half an hour? Five minutes, and I mean no more! But—”

“We must slip away from here.” Clive took his watch from his waistcoat pocket, opened it, and replaced it. “It’s twenty minutes past six. The servants will be having their dinner until at least six-thirty. But we can’t lose the time for a carriage to be made ready. Could you contrive to walk four miles, as I did last night?”

“What do you take me for? I could walk fifteen, if need be!”

“Good. My portmanteau is still in my bedroom here. I’ll get it. Meanwhile, lock the door and admit no one until you hear my voice outside. Five minutes: I’ll take you at your word.”

He kissed her with a violence he did not try to conceal. Leaving the lamp, since there were matches in his pocket, he went out into the passage. After him the key turned in the lock of the dressing-room door.

In the passage darkness had shut down like an extinguisher-cap. High Chimneys, in a high wind, creaked and cracked as though at the stirring of Matthew Damon’s ghost.

Groping his way along to the transverse passage, and then to the bedroom assigned him yesterday afternoon, Clive struck a match and found a spare candle. His evening-clothes he had worn back to London last night. A matter of seconds sufficed to fling back into the bag the clothes that had been unpacked here.

In a few more seconds, in hat and greatcoat, carrying the portmanteau, he had returned to the front of the upstairs hall. He could hear Kate moving about, with quick lithe steps, in the locked dressing-room.

Does your conscience bother you, my lad? Well, yes. But to the devil with it!

Do the police bother you? No!

All the same, he thought, the excitable Superintendent Muswell and the equally excitable Georgette Damon were being infernally quiet back in that study. Putting down his portmanteau at the head of the stairs, he went quietly down that uncarpeted oak staircase.

Still nothing!

At the back of the downstairs hall the paraffin lamp burned in its wall-bracket beside the green-baize door to the servants’ quarters. Mrs. Cavanagh and Penelope Burbage too, presumably, would be at the table with the others.

He and Kate could leave by the front door. They need not pass the study. That left only …

Whereupon Clive had, or thought he had, one of those sheer illusions of sight which had occurred to him before.

He thought he saw Tress.

Standing in the downstairs hall, between the open doors of the drawing-room and the morning-room, Clive looked towards the drawing-room. For a split-second’s lunacy he imagined he saw Tress, Dundreary whiskers and greatcoat and all, dodge back out of sight in the dull glow of a lamp painted in blue forget-me-nots against red and white.

A coal in the drawing-room fire spat and crackled. He heard no other noise except the wind. And there was no time to sponge away this illusion. A door opened and closed upstairs. Kate’s footsteps crossed coconut matting towards the top of the stairs.

‘I must be going completely—’ he thought, and then quietly hurried up to meet her. Kate’s was the image which swallowed up all other thoughts or feelings. When he saw her at the head of the staircase, touched dimly by light from below, the illusion had gone.

Kate, gloved and in the boat-shaped hat, with a short
sortie-de-bal
jacket over a low-cut evening-gown of scarlet and yellow, did not speak. She only looked at him, and that was enough.

He took the portmanteau from her hand, and picked up his own. Together they descended the stairs towards the front door.

“Clive, do you think—”

“Quiet! We don’t want Muswell to….”

“What’s the matter?”

He had turned the knob of the front door, and turned it again.

“The door’s locked,” he whispered. “It’s not barred, as you can see, but it’s locked.—Did you hear somebody laugh?”

“No.”

The quick little furtive whispers struck at each other as they glanced over their shoulders.