The China Governess (36 page)

Mrs. Broome's eyes met Luke's.

‘If Miss Saxon was the nursie, that was why she was so fond of the kiddie and why she tried to tell me about the diamonds.'

‘The
diamonds
?' He was as amazed as if she had attempted to introduce elephants.

‘The diamonds in the Safe Deposit,' said Mrs. Broome placidly. ‘In the beginning, when Mrs. Eustace wrote in his fussy way and told Mrs. Telpher not to bring a lot of jewellery to the house but to put it in a safe deposit, he put an idea in her head. She invented some diamonds because she saw that he expected her to have some with her, and pretended she'd put them under lock and key. When she mentioned them in front of me Miss Saxon told me – in front of her – that they were so big that she wouldn't have believed they were real if she hadn't known. Well, she did know, didn't she? If they were in service together she'd have known Mrs. Telpher wasn't wealthy. She knew the diamonds weren't real and probably weren't even there. She was on the verge of telling me the joke. We were getting far too friendly, Miss Saxon and me; that was why
she
had to have her head put in a bag! It was aspirin, not drink, that was used
that
time I expect!'

‘Quiet!' Luke's big hand thumping on the desk silenced her.
‘You open your mouth once more, my girl, and it's you and no one else who'll be inside! Doctor, suppose the gentleman upstairs had died, what would the autopsy have shown?'

The doctor glanced over at him in astonishment.

‘Oh, I don't think there would have been any need for an autopsy, Superintendent. It was perfectly clear what had happened to him.'

‘Yes, I know, sir. It's a hypothetical question. What would have been the finding if the man had died and the bag been removed and hidden?'

‘If I hadn't known? If I had simply been presented with the corpse and not told about the bag?'

‘That's it, sir.'

The little man hesitated. ‘Well, I don't know,' he said irritably. ‘How can I know? There might be any sort of condition which could account for death. We're a bit more complex inside even than a television set, Superintendent. I certainly shouldn't be able to tell that he had suffocated, if that's what you mean.'

‘You wouldn't?'

‘No. There might be a slight increase in the carbon monoxide in the blood but – no, I couldn't be expected to diagnose suffocation. There'd be no foreign matter in the mouth or windpipe, no bruising, no marks of any kind. No, I should not have thought of suffocation. Fortunately it doesn't arise.'

‘Exactly,' said Luke and scowled at Mrs Broome. ‘And it mustn't', he said, ‘or we'll all be in the bag! Don't you forget it! Chief Inspector, has your sergeant gone to put out that call? Where will you take Leach?'

‘Ebbfield, I think,' Munday said seriously. ‘We'll sort out the charges down there on the home ground, don't you agree?'

Luke's reply was forestalled by a knock on the door, and the Chief Inspector, who was nearest it, pulled it open to reveal a sleepy-eyed, yet harassed looking young man whom he welcomed with relief. There was a hasty conference on the mat whilst the noises from the excited house swept into them from the well of the staircase. After a moment or so the Chief Inspector turned back into the room and leant across the table to Luke.

‘There's a question of a glove which Leach was thought to have with him. It's missing.'

The doctor snorted with impatience but the superintendent was very interested. He turned to Mrs. Broome.

‘You said you had your coat cut tonight. What did you mean?'

She caught her breath. ‘Oh, I wasn't going to think about that until the morning!'

Luke's bright teeth flashed in his dark face and the look he gave her was positively affectionate.

‘In case you got frightened of the dark, I suppose? You'll do. Run along with the gentleman at the door. He's not a policeman, he's a probation officer. Tell him everything he wants to know. He's trying to help someone before they break his heart for him, poor chap.'

Mrs. Broome had the final word. She was bustling to the doorway when it occurred to her and she looked back.

‘You could have a very nice nature if you weren't so cheeky,' she said and went out, Munday after her.

Charlie Luke, reduced to half-pint size, flushed and turned sharply on the doctor, who was making noises. ‘Now, sir?'

‘I want to get that man in a nursing home.' The statement was aggressive. ‘He won't die now but he's still ill. He's still confused. Some of it may be alcohol, you understand. Professional nursing at this stage is essential.'

Luke stepped back.

‘Excellent idea,' he said briskly. ‘As soon as possible. You make the arrangements and as soon as the Chief Inspector returns he will make provision for a preliminary statement. Nothing detailed. Just enough to take us through the next phase. We've got to charge the lady when we find her, you see.'

‘Of course.' The doctor was satisfied and busy. ‘Fortunately there's a telephone in Mr. Eustace Kinnit's bedroom.'

Luke smiled at him without irony. ‘Fortunate indeed, sir,' he said cheerfully and turned to Mr. Campion as the man hurried off leaving the door open.

‘It could be a long trial, you know,' he said presently. ‘She might get away with it on the medico's evidence of Toberman's
first waking words. I can just hear Sir Cunningham cross-examining Mrs. Broome about what she saw on the landing, can't you? That'll be murder if you like!'

Mr. Campion was still standing by the table, looking into the limpid mahogany.

‘The world is certainly going to hear about the Kinnit family and their governesses, alas!' he said at last. ‘No one on earth can prevent that now, I'm afraid. There'll be no more hushing up Miss Thyrza. She's out of the grave. She wins after all.'

‘Murder doesn't hush,' Luke had moved over to the doorway. ‘My old copy-book was dead right.
Murder will out.
There's something damn funny about it. The desire to pinpoint the blame gets out of the intellect and into the blood. I've known murderers give themselves away rather than leave it a mystery!'

Mr. Campion was thinking along other lines.

‘It's very odd how the word “governess” is a guilty one in this particular history,' he remarked. ‘Just before we came in here I had an account from Julia of the row in the kitchen tonight. Apparently Eustace Kinnit's father tried to suppress the truth about a governess. Eustace himself went to considerable lengths to prevent the word Kinnit and the word Governess appearing together. Mrs. Telpher was responsible for a fearful accident whilst acting as a governess and she came over here, deceiving her relatives and bringing an assistant whom she said, quite unnecessarily, was a governess. To the Kinnits it has become an evil word which is always accompanied by trouble. Miss Thyrza is not so much a ghost as their minds playing the goat.'

Luke laughed briefly. ‘I know which one frightens me the most!' he said. ‘Mr. Eustace and Miss Alison are going to need their adopted boy's support. It's a merciful thing he has a sound young woman.'

He went out into the corridor and when Mr. Campion joined him he was standing in the shadow by the balustrade.

They paused together, looking down at the curious scene which the old house presented with its open doors and lighted alcoves. It was strongly reminiscent of one of the early Netherlandish mystery paintings; little bright unrelated groups were set about in the dark
and tortuous background of the carved staircase, and its several stages and galleries.

From where they stood they had a foreshortened view of a knot of men below in the hall. Munday was speaking to a constable and a plain-clothes man down there while a dejected black wand, bent like a question mark, wavered between them like some spineless overgrown plant.

On the next floor, through the open doorway of the drawing-room, they could see Julia talking to Eustace. She appeared to be comforting or reassuring him, for he was leaning back in one of the pink sofas looking up at her while she talked, emphasizing her words with little gestures. It was a very clear scene, the colours as vivid as if they were painted on glass.

On the upper floor, in the corridor to their right, Mrs. Broome was showing her coat to the probation officer. She had carried it to the baluster rail to catch the light from the candelabra, and the purple folds gleamed rich and warm out of the shadow. Miss Aicheson, wearing a plaid dressing-gown and carrying a tray with a white jug and a cup upon it, was coming up the kitchen staircase. And opposite them, across the well, the doctor, stepping out of Eustace's bedroom, paused a moment to look across at Luke and give an affirmative sign.

Mr. Campion was comforted. It was a picture of beginnings, he thought. Half a dozen startings: new chapters, new ties, new associations. They were all springing out of the story he had been following, like a spray of plumes in a renaissance pattern springs up from a complete and apparently final feather.

The murmur of voices from the corridor directly below them caught his attention. Luke was already listening. Councillor Cornish was talking to Timothy.

‘It was very good of you and I know how you felt,' he was saying earnestly. ‘But if you do happen to know where this glove weapon is I think we'd better go and pick it up and let the police have it. We're not the judges, you see. That's one of the very few things I've learned in the last twenty years. We're simply not omniscient. That seems to me to be the whole difficulty. We haven't got all the data, any of us. When we do gang up and make a concerted effort
to try to get it, as in a trial of justice, that's the thing which becomes most apparent. As I see it now, anything we suppress may turn out to be the one thing absolutely vital to the lad's safety or salvation. We have absolutely no sure way of telling, that I can see. Life is not predictable.'

‘I wasn't trying to hide anything.' Timothy's young voice, which possessed so much the timbre of the other was vehement. ‘I was merely not rushing at them with it. I didn't want to be the one who damned him, that was all.'

‘Oh, my boy, don't I know!' The older voice was heartfelt. ‘That state of mind has dogged me all my life!'

There was a long pause before a laugh, curiously happy, floated up to the two men by the banisters.

‘We may not see much of each other,' the Councillor was saying as he and his companion began to move away towards the lower floor, and his voice grew fainter and fainter. ‘You're going to have your hands full with your commitments here, I can see that. But now that we have an opportunity there is just one thing I wanted to say to you. It – er – it concerns my first wife. She was just an ordinary London girl, you know. Very sweet, very brave, very gay, but when she smiled suddenly, when you caught her unawares, she was so
beautiful
. . . .'

The sound faded into a murmur and was lost in the general noises of the busy household.

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