She Fell Among Thieves (20 page)

Still feeling rather dazed, I touched his arm.

‘I don’t like leaving you,’ I said.

‘Don’t be greedy,’ said Mansel. ‘You’ve played a glorious innings: don’t grudge me the winning hit.’

‘A glorious innings.’

I turned and looked back at the castle – at the dim silhouette of its roof and the sable thrust of its tower.

‘You came to find me,’ I said. ‘And saved my life – and the game.’

Mansel clapped me upon the shoulder.

‘See you tomorrow, William. And don’t forget what I said. Give Marc a hell of a pasting, but don’t do him in.’

Ten minutes later I took my seat beside Carson and told him to drive to the thicket where Mansel had hidden his car.

Mansel would have made a fine general in olden days, if for no other reason because, if he knew the facts, he could predict the action which his opponent would take. Of this talent he always made light. ‘It’s simple enough,’ he would say. ‘All you’ve got to do is to try and put yourself in the other man’s place.’ Which, of course, sounds easy enough. But, viewed from opposite standpoints, facts do not look the same: and the one, which, seen from the north, seems insignificant, may hit you between the eyes, when seen from the south.

Be that as it may, Vanity Fair had shown me the cards she held. It was Mansel who told me the way she was going to play them – and how he knew she was going to play them that way.

And since I have reason to think he was perfectly right, before I relate what happened that summer morning, I will set down Mansel’s prediction, because, of course, it dictated the moves I made.

‘Why was John Wright sent to Poly? That he might be out of the way. Why did Vanity Fair want him out of the way? Because no one but Wright ever drives her when she goes out: if, therefore, she did go out with another man, Wright, the detective, would know that she was visiting something which she did not wish Wright to see. What was it, then, that she did not wish Wright to see? Not the bridle-path to the pleasance, because he’s driven her there – it’s the other side of Carlos and it brings you into the circus quite close to the fall.
She did not wish Wright to see Mr Chandos’ car
.

‘Very well. Vanity Fair’s going out and she’s going to meet Marc. Where is she going to meet him?

‘Jenny is going to die, and Vanity Fair herself is going to put her to death. But no one knows that but Lafone – and no one must ever know. Of course not Marc. So Jenny must be in good health when Marc puts her out of the car. Now transporting a corpse is no joke. It’s very, very hard labour – you know the phrase “dead weight”. Then again the day will be breaking and waking a curious world. So Jenny will travel alive to the nearest point to the pleasance to which the car can be got. And there her mother will meet her – at the mouth of the bridle-path.

‘It’s a mile and a half beyond Carlos – there’s only one road. The path’s overgrown, and the villagers never use it, for it only runs to the circus and they’re all of them frightened stiff of the
Cirque des Morts
.

‘A car has gone from the garage: no doubt it has taken Lafone to the bridle-path. From there she will walk to the pleasance, dig a grave close to the cleft and then come back to the road to meet Vanity Fair. She might bring a mule with her.

‘I’ve little doubt that Jenny’s to die by poison. Her mother will give her an injection. As like as not, she will use the very syringe we found upon Jean.

‘Don’t forget that Bell will be there – almost certainly drugged. You’ll be saving his life as well. Marc would have done his business – left him inside the car, set the engine running, put her in gear and turned her over the edge.’

That, then, was Mansel’s prediction. But when I had asked him how I should go to work, ‘As you think proper,’ he said. ‘I leave it to you.’

With the enemy’s plan before me, and plenty of time to spare, I could, indeed, hardly go wrong, and before we had reached the thicket, my plans were laid.

Driving from Carlos to Gobbo, at a point three miles from Carlos you turn to the left. If you do not turn there, but drive on, you will only have to come back, for the road has never been finished, and after a mile and a half it comes to an end.

But a road such as that has its uses. This one made me a siding that summer night.

Almost exactly at midnight I berthed the French car there: then I walked back to the Rolls and Carson drove me up to the bridle-path.

There was no one there, of course. The car which had brought Lafone had gone back for Vanity Fair. It seemed unlikely that she would arrive before three, for Marc could not possibly get there before four o’clock.

I sent Carson back to the siding and walked to the
Cirque des Morts
.

The going was very easy, and twenty minutes later I passed through the dripping vapour that hid the mouth of the cleft.

As I left the bushes which masked its opposite end, I saw a light in the meadows, not very far from the pool which Jenny had used. I made sure that the light was not moving. Then I went slowly towards it, using the greatest care…

Since I am determined to relate without passion the things which I saw and the part which I played that night, I will only say that if Hell is hung with pictures, the scene which I was to witness should have a place on its walls.

The light was shed by a lantern, set on a pile of loose earth at the head of a grave. In the grave a man was working, and on the turf by his side was standing Lafone.

The woman’s skirt was kilted, her sleeves were rolled, and her hands and arms and feet were all caked with dirt. She was leaning upon a pickaxe, grimly surveying the work she had helped to do. Uncleanness became her. I found it hard to believe that she had been born of woman and once was a baby child.

The man was using a shovel, and the two must have laboured hard, for when he stood up he was elbow deep in the ground. I had never seen him before, but he looked very dull, and I had no doubt that he belonged to the pleasance and so to Lafone’s command.

As I watched, he stopped, to wring the sweat from his brow. ‘It is deep,’ he said slowly. ‘Too deep for a lazy man. You could put two of him here.’

‘There would be a mound,’ said Lafone.

The man shook his head.

‘Never.’ He sighed and spat. ‘I always say a man should dig his own grave.’

Lafone was bowed with laughter.

With a hand to her side, she laughed till the tears hopped down her cheeks. So perhaps witches laugh. The sight and the sound of her mirth made my blood run cold.

The clown stared up at the woman. Never before, I dare swear, had he seen her smile. Then a grin spread over his features – an eloquent grin. He perceived that a saying of his had made his mistress laugh.

Then –

‘Deeper, you fool,’ crowed Lafone, and pointed into the grave.

With a gesture of resignation, the fellow put up his shovel, took up a second pickaxe and fell to work.

‘Deeper there,’ said Lafone and stepped to the head of the grave.

The man stood up to face her.

‘Deeper where?’

Lafone pointed down.

‘There. Make a hole for his head.’

As he swung his pick, she swung hers…

I shall never forgive myself, but I was still wondering why she should swing her pick, when its head sank into the base of the other’s skull.

So I saw bloody murder committed – to cover the crime to come. I confess that I fled from the pleasance – and moved with my chin on my shoulder for half a mile…

I crossed the
Cirque des Morts
and took the way to the road which Jenny and I had taken a week before.

At last I came to the spur which masked the bend of the road: and when I had climbed over this and down to the bank, I sat down with my back to a beech-tree, to take some rest.

And there I sat until Vanity Fair went by – at a quarter past two. I knew it was she, of course: but as she went by, I leaped down, to look at her number-plate. Sure enough, it was that of the car that had taken Lafone.

The eagles were gathering.

I walked down the road to the siding, two miles away.

As Carson rose out of the shadows –

‘Bring up the Rolls,’ I said. ‘I’ve a job to do.’

‘You saw her go by, sir?’

I nodded.

‘We’ve plenty of time.’

Twenty minutes later we ran into sleeping Gobbo and stopped by the only house which was showing a light.

As I got out of the car –

‘Turn her round,’ said I. ‘And if you should hear a car coming, sound your horn.’

‘Very good, sir.’

As before, I walked into the office, to see the same grey-haired gendarme behind the desk…

‘Will you rouse the sergeant?’ I said. ‘I’ve just seen a murder done.’

The sergeant came.

‘Now look here,’ said I. ‘Statements and things can wait. The point is to catch the murderess – whilst you have time.’

The sergeant agreed, and his fellow took a cap from a peg.

‘Less than two hours ago a woman murdered a man before my eyes. I will tell you where she did it, and drive you two-thirds of the way. The body lies where it fell – in an open grave. In an hour or two’s time the woman will return to the spot, to fill the grave in. If you are there, in hiding, you will, of course, be able to…watch her at work. And later, if you require it, I’ll make any statement you like.’

Two minutes later I ushered them into the Rolls.

As I took my seat by Carson –

‘This by the way,’ I said, ‘is my cousin’s car. If you’d like to look at her papers…’

But the sergeant waved them away.

‘If you please, sir, describe this woman and tell us exactly how the murder was done.’

I did as he asked…

I set them down at the spot where I had rested, at the bend of the road: then I set them on their way to the circus and told them of the fall and the cleft and the pleasance beyond.

Whilst I was doing these things, Carson was turning the Rolls: and five minutes later he backed her into the siding and round a bend out of sight of the Carlos road.

It was now a quarter to four, and since Marc might be expected from four o’clock on, we took the French car from the siding and berthed her a furlong ahead by the side of the way. We chose a place where the road was very narrow, where two cars could barely have passed:
and we berthed her four feet from the edge
, as drivers who know no better will sometimes do. Unless and until she was moved, no car could go by.

I left her key in the switch, but I opened her bonnet and turned the petrol off, letting her engine run till it fainted for lack of fuel. Then I switched it off and left her – for Marc to find.

Ten or twelve paces away, towards the siding, a clump of bushes was clothing the mountain-side. We took our seats behind them, Carson and I, and there I gave him his orders and told him very briefly what was to come.

He was a splendid servant, and because he knew that I did not feel like talking, he never asked a question in all those hours: and I often think that my silence laid upon him a burden he should not have borne, for he had played his part in the drama and had played it uncommonly well.

So we sat behind the bushes, while the sun came up in splendour, to flush the heads of the mountains and kiss the face of the landscape we knew so well.

And then, at last, came Marc…at a quarter past five. His brakes went on, and he stopped directly below us. And I heard him let out a curse as he left the Rolls.

He left her engine running and stepped to the other car. And when he had glanced inside her, he cursed her driver again and flung open a door.

As he took his seat inside her, I opened a door of the Rolls…

As a hare in her form, Jenny was lying asleep in a nest of rugs. Only her face was showing, and her golden hair was all tumbled, and her lashes looked very long against the bloom of her cheeks. I put my face close to hers. Her breathing was steady and even: her breath was sweet. So I knew that her sleep was natural – and thanked my God.

I turned to see Carson slide into the seat Marc had left.

Marc, of course, was attempting to start the French car…

As Carson closed his door, I lifted Bell’s head. He was sunk down beside the driver, and might have been dead. His breath reeked of chloroform.

‘Carry on,’ I said. ‘Don’t disturb Miss Jenny, but get him out in the air as quick as you can.’

I closed the door, and Carson took the Rolls backwards without a word.

I watched her steal round a bend. Then I stepped to the side of the road, leaned against a boulder and folded my arms…

Hoping, I suppose, against hope, Marc continued to use his self-starter – of course, in vain. But at last he knew it was hopeless and, using excusable language, he erupted into the road.

‘Well, Marc,’ said I, quietly.

As well he might, the fellow stared upon me, as though I were not of this world. Then he turned his head very slowly, to gaze at the place in the road where the Rolls had stood…

I thought he would never look round, but at last he turned again, to find me standing before him within arm’s length.

‘You filthy blackguard,’ said I, and hit him between the eyes.

I must have hit harder than I thought, for though he was standing four feet from the side of the car, the back of his head hit a window and shattered the glass. To my content, however, he did not fall…

If the man was tired, so was I, and I thrashed him without compunction until he could not stand up. And then I held him up against the side of the car and ‘very near knocked his head off’, as Bell would have said. And when my arms were weary, I lugged him to the edge of the road and kicked him down the mountain with all my might.

Since he could no longer see, I suppose he thought I was launching him into space, for he let out a scream of terror that warmed my heart. Then he met the ground and pitched headlong… In spite of the frantic efforts which I would not have thought he could make, he rolled and slid and tumbled for a hundred and fifty feet, to fetch up against a boulder, to which he clung like a madman, as though to slide any further must cost him his life.

And that was as much as I saw.

I gave the French car petrol and backed her down to the siding without delay.

Bell was still unconscious, and Carson and I, between us, put him in Mansel’s Rolls.

And Jenny, too, was sleeping, with a smile on her lovely lips.

A sudden impulse struck me, and I turned to the side of the road. Some little wild flowers were blowing between the grey of the rocks, and the dew was still painting their beauty and sweetening their faint perfume. Quickly I pulled nine or ten and bound them into a posy as well as I could. Then I laid it in Jenny’s lap, and hoped that she would see it as soon as she waked.