The Case Is Closed (8 page)

Hilary sat down on the arm of a large leather-covered chair. She was glad to sit down, but it put her at a disadvantage, because Henry remained standing. He leaned against the mantelpiece and gazed silently over the top of her head. Enraging. Because if you wanted to stop Henry talking you couldn’t — he merely raised his voice and continued to air his views. And now, when you wanted him to talk, he went all strong and silent and looked over the top of your head. She said, in rather a breathless voice,

‘Don’t do that!’

Henry looked at her, and immediately looked away again. ‘As if I was a black beetle!’ said Hilary to herself.

He said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ and Hilary forgot about her knees wobbling and jumped up.

‘Henry, I really won’t be spoken to like that! I wanted to talk to you, but if you’re going to be a perfectly polite stranger, I’m off!’

Henry continued to avert his gaze. She understood him to say in a muffled tone that he wasn’t being a polite stranger, and inside herself Hilary grinned and heard a little jigging rhyme which said,

‘Henry is never very polite,

But when he is he’s a perfect fright.’

She emerged, to hear him enquire what he could do for her, and all at once her eyes stung, and she heard herself say,

‘Nothing. I’m going.’

Henry got to the door first. He put his back against it and said,

‘You can’t go.’

‘I don’t want to go — I want to talk. But I can’t unless you’ll be rational.’

‘I’m perfectly rational,’ said Henry.

Then come and sit down. I really do want to talk, and I can’t whilst you go on being about eleven feet high.’

He subsided into a second leather chair. They were so close that if she had been sitting in the chair instead of on the arm, their knees would have touched. She had now a slight adyantage, as from this position it was she who looked down on him whilst he looked up to her. She thought it an entirely suitable arrangement, but had serious doubts as to its ever becoming permanent. Even now Henry wasn’t looking at her. Suppose he wasn’t just putting it on — suppose he really didn’t want to look at her any more… It was a most unnerving thought.

Quite suddenly she began to wish that she hadn’t come. And just at that moment Henry said rather gruffly,

‘Is anything the matter?’

A new, warm feeling rushed over Hilary. Henry only spoke like that when he really minded, and if he really minded, it was going to be all right. She nodded and said,

That’s what I want to talk to you about. Things have been happening, and I can’t talk to Marion because it upsets her, and I feel as if I must talk to someone, because of course it’s very, very, very important, so I thought we — we —well, we were friends —and I thought if I talked to you, you’d tell me what I ought to do next.’

There! Henry ought to adore that —he liked them meek and feminine. At least he did in theory, but in practice he might get bored.

‘Henry would like his wife to be meek

If he had a new one once a week.’

Henry brightened a little.

‘You’d better tell me all about it. What have you been doing?’

‘Nothing.’ Hilary shook a mournful head. ‘At least I only got into a wrong train by mistake — and that wasn’t my fault. I — I just saw someone who — who frightened me, so I got into a Ledlington train by mistake and didn’t find it out for ages.’

‘Someone frightened you? How?’

‘By glaring. It’s very unnerving for a sensitive young girl to be glared at on a public platform.’

Henry looked at her with suspicion.

‘What are you getting at?’

‘You,’ said Hilary, and only just stopped herself saying ‘Darling.’

‘You’ve no idea how you glared —at least I hope you haven’t, because it’s much worse if you meant it. But I was completely shattered, and by the time I’d picked up the bits, there I was in a lonely carriage in a Ledlington train with Mrs. Mercer having suppressed hysterics in the other corner and beginning to clutch hold of my dress and confide in me, only I didn’t know it was Mrs. Mercer or I’d have encouraged her a lot more.’

‘Mrs. Mercer?’ said Henry in a very odd tone indeed.

Hilary nodded.

‘Alfred Mercer and Mrs. Mercer. You won’t remember, because you’d gone back to Egypt before the trial, came off — Geoff’s trial — the Everton Case. The Mercers were James Everton’s married couple, and they were the spot witnesses for the prosecution — Mrs. Mercer’s evidence very nearly hanged Geoff. And when I was in the train with her she recognised me, and then she began to cry and to say the oddest things.’

‘What sort of things, Hilary?’ Henry had stopped being superior and offended. His voice was eager and the words hurried out.

‘Well, it was all about Marion and the trial, and a lot of gasping and sobbing and staring, and a funny sort of story about how she’d tried to see Marion when the trial was going on. She said she went round to the house where she was staying and tried to see her. She said, “Miss, if I never spoke another word, it’s true I tried to see her.” And she said she’d given her husband the slip. And then she said in quite a frightful sort of whisper things like “If she had seen me.” But she didn’t see her, because she was resting. Poor Marion, she was nearly dead by then —they wouldn’t have let her see anyone — but Mrs. Mercer seemed most dreadfully upset about it. And then she said her husband came and she never got another chance. She said he saw to that.’

Henry was looking straight at her for the first time.

‘It really was Mrs. Mercer?’

‘Oh yes. Marion showed me a photograph and I recognised it at once. It was Mrs. Mercer all right.’

‘What did she look like?’

‘Do you want me to describe her?’

‘No — no. I want to know how she seemed. You said she was having hysterics. Did she know what she was saying?’

‘Oh yes, I should think so — oh yes, I’m sure she did. When I said hysterics, I didn’t mean she was screaming the place down. She was just awfully upset, you know — crying, and gasping, and trembling all over, and every now and then she’d pull herself together, and then she’d break down again.’

‘Something on her mind — ’ said Henry slowly. Then, with a good deal of emphasis, ‘You didn’t think of her being out of her mind, did you?’

‘No — no, I didn’t — not after the first minute or two. I did at first because of the way she stared, and because of her bursting out that she knew me, and things like “Thank God he didn’t,” and, “He’d never have gone if he had.” ’

‘He?

‘Mercer. He went along the corridor. I — I’d been looking out of the window, and when I turned round I just saw a man getting up and going along. I’d been picking up the bits, you know — the ones you shattered by scowling across the platform at me — so I hadn’t been noticing who was in the carriage, and when I’d got myself put together again, and turned round, there was the man going out into the corridor and the woman staring at me, and I did think she was mad for about a minute and a half.’

‘Why?’

‘Why did I think she was mad at first — or why didn’t I think so afterwards?’

‘Both.’

‘Well, I thought she was mad at first because of her staring and saying “Thank God” at me — anyone would. But when I found out that she really did know me because of seeing me with Marion at the trial, and that the reason she was all worked up and emoted was because she was frightfully sorry for Marion and couldn’t get her off her mind, I didn’t think she was mad any more. That sort of person gets gulpy at once if they’re fond of someone who’s in trouble, so I just thought it was that, but when I found out who she was, all the rather odd things she’d been saying came up in my mind, and I wondered.’

‘You wondered whether she was mad?’

‘No — I wondered what she’d got on her mind.’

Henry leaned forward with his elbow on his knee and his chin in his hand. ‘Well, you said yourself that her evidence nearly hanged Geoffrey Grey.’

‘Yes, it did. She’d been up to turn down Mr. Everton’s bed, you know, and she swore that when she came down again she heard voices in the study and she thought there was a quarrel going on, and she was frightened and went to the door to listen, and she swore that she recognised Geoffrey’s voice. So then she said she thought it was all right, and she was coming away, when she heard a shot, and she screamed, and Mercer came running out of his pantry where he was cleaning the silver. The study door was locked, and when they banged on it Geoff opened it from inside with the pistol in his hand. It’s frightful evidence, Henry.’

‘And Grey’s story was?’

‘His uncle rang him up at eight and asked him to come along at once. He was very much upset. Geoff went along, and he would have got there at between a quarter and twenty past eight. He went into the study through the open French window, and he said his uncle was lying across the writing-table and the pistol was on the floor in front of the window. He said he picked it up, and then he heard a scream in the hall and the Mercers came banging at the door, and when he found it was locked he unlocked it and let them in. And there were only his finger-prints on the handle and on the pistol.’

Henry said, ‘I remember.’ And then he said what he had forborne to say during the six months of their engagement — ‘That’s pretty conclusive evidence. What makes you think he didn’t do it?’

Hilary’s colour flared. She beat her hands together and said in a voice of passionate sincerity,

‘He didn’t —he didn’t really! He couldn’t! You see, I know Geoff.’

Something in Henry responded to that sure loyalty, it was like trumpets blowing. It was like the drum-beat in a march. It stirred the blood and carried you along. But Hilary might whistle for the comfort of knowing that she had stirred him. He frowned a little and said,

‘Is Marion as sure as you are?’

Hilary’s colour failed as suddenly as it had flamed. She wasn’t sure, poor Marion — she wasn’t sure. She was too worn out with pain to be sure. A cold terror peered at her from her own thoughts and betrayed her from within.

Hilary looked away and said in a voice of sober courage,

‘Geoff didn’t do it.’

‘Then who did?’

‘Mrs. Mercer knows,’ said Hilary. Her own words startled her so much that she felt herself shaking. She had not known that she was going to say that. She hadn’t even known that she was thinking it.

‘Why do you say that?’ said Henry quickly.

‘I don’t know.’

‘You must. You can’t say a thing like that without knowing why you said it.’

Henry was riding the high horse. Its trampling had a reviving effect upon Hilary. She might marry Henry, or she might not marry Henry, but she simply wasn’t going to be trampled on. She stuck her chin in the air and said,

‘I can. I don’t know why I said it, because it just popped out. I didn’t first think, “Mrs. Mercer knows,” and then say it — I just said it, and then I felt perfectly certain that she did know. That’s the way my mind works — things I’ve never thought about at all come banging out, and then when I do start thinking about them they are true.’

Henry came down off the high horse with a bump. She was so comic when she talked like that with her colour glowing again, and her eyes as bright as a bird’s, and the little brown curls all shining under her perky hat. She wanted shaking and she wanted kissing, and meanwhile he burst out laughing at her.

‘It’s all very well to laugh!’ But in her inside mind she laughed too and sang a little shouting song of joy, because once you begin to laugh together, how can you go on quarrelling? You simply can’t. And she was tired right through to the very marrow of her bones of quarrelling with Henry.

‘Prize fool!’ said Henry, no longer strangely polite.

Hilary shook her head and caught the inside corner of her lip between her teeth, because she wasn’t going to laugh for Henry to see — not yet.

That’s only because you can’t do it yourself. And you’ve got a nasty jealous disposition — I’ve told you about it before —and if you ever marry anyone, Henry, you’ll have to watch it because she’ll either walk out on you or else turn into a dreep because you’ve broken her spirit by giving her an ingrowing inferiority complex.’

Henry’s gaze rested on her with something disturbing in it. This was the Henry who could laugh at you with his eyes, and make your heart beat suddenly and hard.

‘I haven’t noticed any signs of it,’ he said.

‘Oh, I’m the sort that walks out,’ said Hilary, and met his eyes with a hardy sparkle in her own.

Henry said nothing. He didn’t intend to be drawn. He continued to look at her, and in a panic Hilary returned to Mrs. Mercer.

‘Don’t you see, Henry, if you don’t believe Mrs. Mercer’s evidence — and I don’t — well then, she must know who did it. She wouldn’t just go telling all those lies to amuse herself — because she wasn’t amused, she was frightfully, frightfully miserable — or to spite Geoff, because she was frightfully, frightfully miserable about Geoff and about Marion. So if she was telling lies — and I’m sure she was — it was because she wanted to screen somebody else. And we’ve got to find out who it is — we’ve simply got to.’

Henry stopped laughing at Hilary with his eyes and frowned instead, not at her, but past her at the Mercers, and the Everton Case, and the problem of finding about a quarter of a needle in several hypothetical bundles of hay. It was all very well for Hilary to propose a game of Spot the Murderer, but the trouble was that so far as he himself was concerned he had a conviction amounting to certainty that the murderer had already been spotted, and was now expiating his exasperated shot at the uncle who had cut him out of his will. It was, and had been all along, his opinion that Geoffrey Grey had got off light and was uncommonly lucky not to have been hanged.

Henry’s regiment was in Egypt, and after a leave spent very pleasantly in the Tyrol he had gone back to Cairo. James Everton was shot a couple of days before his leave was up. He had, at the time, been a good deal preoccupied with trying to make Hilary see the question of an engagement in the same light as he did. In the end they more or less split the difference, Henry asserting that they were engaged, whilst Hilary maintained that being engaged was stuffy. Snippets about the Case filtered through to Egypt. Hilary wrote voluminously about it from a passionately personal and partisan point of view, but he had never really read the evidence. He accepted the verdict, was sorry for Marion Grey, and counted the days till he could get home and make Hilary marry him. And here she was, without any intention of marrying him at all and every intention of trying to drag him into a wild goose attempt at re-opening the Everton Case. He reacted in the most obstinate and natural manner, focused the frown on Hilary, and said in his most dogmatic voice,

‘You’d better let it alone — the case is closed.’

Hilary beat her hands together again.

‘It isn’t — it can’t be! It won’t ever be closed until the real murderer is found and Geoff is free — and the more I think of it, the more I feel quite, quite sure that Mrs. Mercer knows who it is. Henry, it’s a hunch!’

Henry frowned upon the hunch.

‘What’s the good of talking like that? You say yourself that your first impression of the woman was that she was mad. I don’t mean to say she’s a raving lunatic, but she is obviously a morbid, hysterical person. If she was fond of the Greys she would naturally feel having to give evidence against Geoffrey. I can’t see anything in what you told me except that having given the evidence she apparently tried to crash in on Marion and make a scene about it.’

‘No,’ said Hilary — ‘no. No, it wasn’t that. She’d got something eating into her — I’m sure she had. Why did she say, “If I’d only seen her?” ’

‘Why does a hysterical person say anything?’

‘And why did she say things like “I didn’t get another chance — he took care of that,” and the bit about thanking God Mercer didn’t recognise me, because he wouldn’t ever have left us alone together. Why did she say that?’

Henry shrugged his shoulders.

‘If you’ve got a mad wife, you do your best to stop her annoying people — I don’t see anything in that. As a matter of fact I believe she really is unhinged.’

‘I should hate to be married to Mercer,’ said Hilary.

Henry burst out laughing.

‘Hilary, you really are!’

Hilary looked at him in a melting manner which it had taken her a good deal of time and trouble to acquire. She had copied it from a leading film star, and she wanted to seewhat effect it would have on Henry. It didn’t seem to have any effect at all, and as she began to feel that it was going to bring on a squint, she permitted a natural sparkle of anger to take its place.

‘When you make eyes at Henry, he

Behaves as if he didn’t see,’

said Hilary’s imp in a sort of piercing mosquito whisper. The angry sparkle became a shade brighter. Henry was a beast — he really was. The man in the film had gone down like a ninepin. It really wasn’t the slightest use making eyes at Henry, and if he was the last man left in London she wouldn’t marry him. She would almost rather be married to Mercer. No, she wouldn’t. A shiver went all down the back of her neck, and she said in a hurry,

‘You know what I mean. It would be enough to drive anyone into a lunatic asylum, I should think.’

‘Then you agree that she’s mad.’

‘No, I don’t. And the more Mercer follows me round and tells me she is about twice in every sentence, the less I’m going to believe it.’

Henry got up.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Mercer. Henry, his name’s Alfred. Isn’t it awful?’

‘Hilary — has he been following you?’

She nodded.

‘Yes, darling —I told you he had —most persistent. I should think he probably followed me all the way from Solway Lodge to Pinman’s Lane to where I got on to my bus, because he was talking to me most of the way and telling me about Mrs. Mercer being out of her mind, and when he’d said it more than six times I began to wonder why he was saying it.’

Henry sat down on the arm of the chair beside her. There was just room and no more.

‘Perhaps because it was true,’ he said

‘Or perhaps because it wasn’t.’

Their shoulders were touching. She looked round at him with a defiant gleam in her eye and prepared to do battle. But Henry had dropped his point. He put his arm round her in a sort of matter-of-course way as if they were still engaged and said,

‘That’s odd.’

‘What is?’

‘Mercer’s following you round like that.’

Hilary nodded. Henry’s arm made a good back — something nice to lean against. She said,

‘He’d found out that it was me in the train. I expect he bullied it out of her, poor thing. And he wasn’t quite sure what she’d said to me, but he was going to make sure that whatever it was, I wasn’t going to believe it. Now if he could make me believe that she was mad — Henry, don’t you see?’

Henry’s arm tightened a little.

‘I don’t know — she might really be mad,’ he said. ‘But it’s funny — was it today he followed you?’

‘Just now — just before I came here. Why, Henry?’

‘Well, it’s funny that he should have been saying it to you just about the same time that Bertie Everton was saying it to me.’

Hilary whisked round so suddenly that she would have fallen off if Henry hadn’t clutched her.

‘Here — hold up!’

‘Bertie Everton!’ said Hilary, taking no notice of being clutched.

‘That’s what I said. He went out as you came in. Didn’t you see him?’

‘Of course I did —he’s not the sort of person you can miss. Did he tell you Mrs. Mercer was out of her mind?’

‘Several times — same as Mercer did to you.’

‘Henry, you’re not making it up to pull my leg or anything of that sort? Because if you are — ’

‘What?’ said Henry with interest.

Hilary wrinkled the top of her nose at him.

‘I don’t know, but it’ll probably begin with never speaking to you again.’

‘That would give you lots of time to think out what you were going to do next! All right, I’m not for it this time. And I’m not pulling your leg.’

‘Bertie Everton came here on purpose to tell you Mrs. Mercer was out of her mind?’

‘Not ostensibly — nothing so crude as that. He knew old Henry Eustatius — said he’d bought a set of Chippendale chairs from him and was doing needlework covers for the seats — petit point or something of that sort. And I was afraid he’d find out that I had only a very hazy idea of what petit point was, so I tried to switch him off on to china — I’ve been burning a lot of midnight oil over china lately — and he said, “Oh, yes,” and “Quite.” And then he mentioned you, and said were you a friend of mine, and I said “Yes” — which was a bit of a lie, of course.’ Here Henry paused, the obvious intention being that Hilary should (a) burst into tears, (b) contradict him, or (c) fall into his arms.

Hilary didn’t do any of these things. Her colour rose brightly and her tongue flicked out at him and back again.

Henry frowned and went on as if he had never stopped.

‘And then, I think, he got me to mention Marion, and after that it was all plain sailing — something on the lines of what an unpleasant thing it was for the whole family, and a bit about Geoffrey’s temper, and then to Mrs. Mercer by way of everyone liking him, and — “My uncle’s housekeeper has never got over having to give evidence against him. She’s gone clean off her head, I believe.” And then he went off at a tangent about that big blue jar in the shop, but after a bit Mrs. Mercer cropped up again, and he said what a queer thing it was that she should have got so worked up over the Everton Case. “She can’t think or talk about anything else,” he said — “pretty bad luck on her husband, and all that”. And then a piece about what a decent soul Mercer was, and then a bit more about the blue jar. And then you come in and he went out. And there we are.’

‘Um — ’ said Hilary.

She began to rock gently to and fro. She was trying to get Henry to rock, too, but Henry wouldn’t. His arm had about as much resilience as a crowbar, but it was fortunately not quite so hard to lean against. She stopped trying to rock, and became mournful and earnest on the subject of Bertie Everton.

‘He would have done so beautifully for the murderer if it hadn’t been for his alibi. Darling, don’t you simply hate alibis? I do.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Bertie Everton, of course.’

‘Has he got an alibi?’

‘Dozens,’ said Hilary. ‘He’s simply stuck all over with them. And, mind you, Henry, he wanted them, because poor old James had just made a will in his favour after not being on speaking terms with him for years, or practically not, so Bertie had a pretty strong motive. But with all the motives in the world, you can’t shoot anyone if they’re in Putney and you’re in Edinburgh.’

‘And Bertie was in Edinburgh?’

Hilary gave a dejected nod.

‘Sworn to by rows of people in the Caledonian Hotel. James was shot at eight o’clock in the evening on July 16th. Bertie dined with him on the evening of the 15th—just about twenty-four hours too soon to have been the murderer. He then caught a train at King’s Cross and fetched up at the Caledonian Hotel in time for a late breakfast on the morning of the 16th. From then till a quarter past four half the people in the hotel seem to have seen him. He made a fuss about the bell in his room, and the chambermaid saw him writing letters there, and soon after four he was in the office asking about a telephone call. And then he went out and had too much to drink. And the chambermaid saw him again at about half-past eight, because he rang for biscuits, and then she saw him again next morning at nine o’clock when she brought his tea. And if you can think of any way he could possibly have shot poor old James, I wish you’d tell me. I sat up the best part of last night reading the inquest and the trial all over again, and I can’t see how anyone could have done it except Geoff. And today I ferreted out the daily help who used to work at Solway Lodge, and she told me something that makes it all look worse than ever. And yet I don’t believe it was Geoff. Henry, I don’t, I don’t, don’t!’

‘What did she tell you?’ said Henry quickly.

‘I can’t tell you — I can’t tell, and I made her, so I can’t tell anyone.’

‘Hilary,’ said Henry with a good deal of vehemence, ‘you’ve got to drop it! You’re only stirring up mud, and Marion won’t thank you for that. What do you think you’re doing?’

She pulled away from him and stood up.

‘I want to find out what Mrs. Mercer knows.’

‘Drop it!’ said Henry, getting up too. ‘Let the mud settle. You won’t help Geoff, you won’t help Marion. Let it alone!’

‘I can’t,’ said Hilary.