So Bad a Death (16 page)

She fell back against the pillows with closed eyes.

“Yvonne!” I said in an urgent voice.

Yvonne opened her eyes and gave a twisted smile, quite without mirth. “Don't worry. I haven't fainted.” She turned her head towards the window and seemed to forget me.

“What did you mean by that outburst?” I demanded. “Why did you say ‘I could kill you for it'?”

“Did I say that?” she asked, in a whisper still. “I don't remember. Did I really say that?”

I returned her gaze steadily.

A knock came at the door. I went to answer it.

“Please,” said Yvonne in a soft tone, “if that is Ursula, don't let her in. I don't think I can bear it now.”

It was Nurse Stone. She gave me the same look of scarcely veiled hostility I had earned the previous night. But I thought I detected a certain fawning quality in her tone, no doubt due to John's position again.

“The police want to interview me. Will you tell Mrs Holland to listen for Baby?” She made an attempt to peer around the door, which I frustrated.

Yvonne was struggling off the bed. “I must go downstairs. He is on the terrace in the sun.”

“Stay where you are,” I ordered. “I'll go and see if he is all right and get one of the maids to listen for him. They'll tell you if you're wanted.”

IV

The child was sleeping peacefully. I tucked his hand under the blanket and watched him frowningly. Hitherto I had considered that the baby was, as it were,
in medias res,
but now it appeared he was
inter alia,
and that a bigger and much deeper game was being played.

A familiar voice called my name. I wandered along the terrace to the study window.

“Can I come in?” I asked, bending double under the French window as I spoke.

“What are you doing here?” John demanded, getting up from the big mahogany desk.

“I came in answer to a royal summons. The brat is playing at the Lodge.” I wandered over to James Holland's desk. John had been going through it.

“What a rotten game yours is,” I remarked, indicating the piles of papers which included letters.

“You become hardened to it,” John replied briefly. “Maggie, did we ever receive a letter from Holland?”

“I don't think so. I never saw one.”

John took my handbag from my grasp, extracted the hand mirror and held it in front of the blotting-pad from the desk. “Holland blotted an envelope addressed to me. Why didn't I receive it?”

“Perhaps he forgot to post it,” I suggested, “or decided not to send it.” John frowned at the pad and then put it aside. He ran both hands through his hair in a tired fashion. “Are you tossing to decide whether it is murder or suicide?” I asked.

He grinned ruefully. “It looks like coming to that. Certain facts are hard to get away from. Take a look at that, for example.”

I picked up the letter. It bore the inscription of a well-known firm of private detectives. Messrs. Dawson & Heeps regretted very much that they had nothing further to report on the inquiry into the death of James Alexander Holland who crashed in his plane in the north of Victoria eighteen months ago. The letter suggested politely but firmly that Mr Holland was wasting his time in trying to bring about any other decision but that of accidental death.

“Did the Squire think there was dirty work done?” I asked, passing back the letter.

“Evidently. But look what an excuse this is for suicide, Maggie. For eighteen months old man Holland has been hanging on, trying to make someone pay for the death of his son. Then Dawson & Heeps tell him to snap out of it, it was an accident. The boy had come to the end of his allotted span and you can't argue with the Almighty about the justice of it.”

“That's all very well,” I objected. “But why doesn't he shoot himself immediately on receipt of this letter? Why go off on some trip, arrange a dinner party and keep his suicide for that moment? Where had he been?”

John put the letter back on its pile.

“Nobody seems to know exactly where James Holland went. Not even Ames.”

“What about the telegram Ames received? Where was it lodged?”

“Some obscure little country town out of Bendigo.”

“Can't Ames tell you why the Squire left Middleburn? I thought he was conversant with all Holland's business.”

“He has no idea,” John said, seating himself at the desk. “I have someone trying to trace Holland's movements, but it is a hell of a job.”

“So it is going to be suicide,” I said, sitting down on the arm of a chair. “Well, that should fit in with everyone's wishes, except perhaps Ames,” I added as an afterthought.

John looked up quickly. “What's that?”

I told him about my conversation with Elizabeth Mulqueen, Ames and Yvonne, omitting the part about the baby. With his new official standing John could and would order me offstage if he considered my concern for Jimmy was involving me in the affairs of the Hall. However, he was more interested in the missing gun Ames spoke about than any tell-tale break in my story.

“Ames said Mr Holland complained of the loss? That's odd, if the man meant to use it on himself.” There was a pause. John stared in front of him, frowning again.

“When do you want lunch?” I asked presently.

He looked up, his face clearing.

“Now,” he grinned, “but unfortunately I can't come yet. Young Braithwaite is coming out from town with the will. Don't wait for me. I may be able to scrounge something here.” Billings appeared at the window. He saw us together, backed a step and coughed.

“Come in, Sergeant,” John called. “Did you find it?”

Billings stepped over the sill.

“Not a trace, sir. Are you sure we are looking for the right thing?” I glanced from one man to the other with raised brows. Observing my mystification, John grinned again.

“What are you talking about?” I demanded. There were times when I knew I was allowed to ask questions.

“We don't know ourselves. There was a note in the post-mortem report about a wound in the right leg of the body just above the instep. The trousers Mr Holland wore were torn at that place. I sent Sergeant Billings out this morning to look for barbed wire with traces of the material adhering. He reports no luck.”

“Look here!” I protested. “I thought you inferred this was going to be suicide. Why all these careful investigations?”

“Just routine,” John replied airily. “We now await the will. Further light might be thrown on this question of murder or suicide. Money, and there must have been quite an amount of it, always talks. In this instance I hope it will speak long and loudly.”

“I had better go,” I said, getting up. “Tony will be wanting his dinner and his sleep. Do I expect you when I see you? Steak and kidney pie and the remains of the day before yesterday's sweet for dinner.”

“It will make me rush home madly at six o'clock,” John promised, as I nodded good-bye to Sergeant Billings.

Ursula Mulqueen was strolling leisurely down the drive in the direction of the gates. It was only my knowledge of the time which caused me to catch up with her. I had intended passing on after a brief word.

“Oh, Mrs Matheson!” she said, opening her eyes and mouth wide. “Isn't it perfectly dreadful about poor dear Uncle. To think that we were all sitting down to dinner waiting for him last night and he was lying out there in the wood alone. It pains me to think of him being by himself at such a time, without anyone to help him on his journey.”

“As far as I can see someone did help him on his journey,” I told her with brutal frankness.

The shocked and sad expression changed immediately to horror. Her face mirrored exactly the transition that had taken place on her mother's.

“Surely,” she protested, “your husband doesn't think someone deliberately killed Uncle James! Who would want to do that? What reason could they have?”

My mind fled back to something John had once told me. Even motives for murder can be arranged into tabular form.

“Either someone who was frightened of him or jealous or else money was involved. In your Uncle James' case I'm inclined to think there might have been two reasons. Fear and money.”

“I was never frightened of him,” Ursula remarked inconsequentially, but with deadly aim. “Not like poor dear Yvonne. By
the way, little Jimmy will be the owner of Holland Hall now, will he not?”

“How should I know?” I asked, recognizing a figure coming through the gates. “I see Mr Braithwaite approaching. Why don't you ask him? He is to bring a copy of the will to show the police.”

Ursula left me at once. I watched her well-shaped legs flash up and down under the unattractive dress.

She drew the young solicitor off the drive into the garden, one hand on his arm. She must have known Alan Braithwaite was coming and was pacing the drive waiting to meet him. I shrugged disinterestedly and continued on my way.

Old man Ames was sitting on the porch sunning himself. I thought he looked dejected. His head was leaning on one hand as though he was deep in memories. It suddenly occurred to me that of all those living in and connected with the Hall, he was the one most likely to feel a sense of loss at James Holland's death, and to grieve sincerely.

There was no sign of Mrs Ames. Anxious to be on my way I called to him to convey my thanks for letting Tony play at the Lodge. Ames rose and came over to the railing. When I looked into his handsome face, I said what I should have said to each member of the Holland household I had seen and yet could not say. For Ames the words came spontaneously.

“I am so sorry. So very sorry.”

He looked down at me in silence for a moment before he spoke. Somehow the words he quoted in reply did not jar my sympathetic mood. That line or two from the dying King Arthur's speech, unspoiled by further comment, seemed more appropriate than the most eloquent panegyric.

CHAPTER SIX

I

As he finished with each patient, Doctor Trefont came to the door connecting the surgery with the waiting-room to usher in a fresh one. Presently my turn came. I pulled Tony along with me. He was as nervous as a horse running a maiden race in that scrubbed and chromium environment, with the odour of antiseptic heavy in the air.

Doctor Trefont might never have seen me before for all the signs of recognition he gave. He put his blunt-fingered hand on Tony's head for a brief moment before going round to his side of the desk. He selected a card and spoke without raising his eyes from his pen.

“Your name, please?”

“Matheson,” I snapped, annoyed at the pretence.

He looked up at me with his mild gaze. “I want your full name,” he said gently.

“This is not exactly a professional visit,” I confessed. “I thought it a good notion since we propose settling in this district to make myself known to a Middleburn doctor.”

He accepted this with a friendly nod. I watched him carefully over Tony's head. “You were recommended by Mrs Bellamy. Sister Heather at the Health Centre also told me to come to you.”

He inclined his head without speaking.

I went on deliberately. “I went there one day with Mrs Yvonne Holland.”

“So I learned from Sister Heather,” said the doctor calmly. “You ran a great risk of earning the displeasure of Mr Holland.”

“Doctor,” I said, trying to hold his eyes. “Why is the attitude at the Hall so hostile towards you and Sister Heather? Mrs Holland almost begged me not to come here. Have you ever attended her?”

He looked at me in an odd, almost quizzical way. “If I said no, it would be the truth. But you wouldn't believe it, would you? You would keep on ferreting around until you found some reason for that animosity you say the family at the Hall have for me. Let me give you some advice, Mrs Matheson, as an ordinary person as well as your doctor. It is never wise to become too curious about things outside the law. Leave it to your husband and the men of his profession.” He dropped his gaze and made some notes on the card under his hand.

“I agree with what you say,” I replied, trying to maintain the conversation on the same lines, “but unfortunately there are certain factors which place me in an awkward position. I consider that I have in my possession more information than the police have.”

“You should give this information to Inspector Matheson,” Doctor Trefont said, continuing with his spasmodic writing.

I put my head on one side to look at him speculatively.

“I wonder. I think it is rather brave of you to make that suggestion. I can't tell my husband because any proof I have which involves me even slightly with the Hall will mean expulsion from Middleburn and a house to which I am becoming rather attached, in spite of its bizarre appearance. If you knew the miles I walked to find that house, you would understand.”

I got up and said without hope: “I suppose you wouldn't like to save me the trouble of ferreting, as you call it?”