The Key (7 page)

GARTH SAT ON the stile at the end of Prior’s Wood and whistled, ‘Tell it to the soldier, tell it to the sailor, tell it to the lad from the marines.’ He sat with his back to the wood through which he had come by way of a green winding path known locally as Lover’s Walk, and his face to the Prior’s Field, where the ruins of what had been Bourne Priory lay in picturesque disorder. There was still an arch or two of the cloisters where the monks had paced up and down with the western sunlight slanting in, but for the most part what had once been chapel, refectory, dormitories, and kitchen, was now nothing but heaped masonry with much of its stonework pilfered to make the doorsteps, the well-heads, and the tombstones of Bourne. Beyond the field and the tall hedgerow which bordered it was the lane leading to Prior’s End. The roof of the house was visible amongst sheltering trees. The nearer hedge was broken by another stile. Janice would not have far to come.

Garth whistled because he didn’t particularly want to think. He wanted to see Janice and hear what she had to say before he set his mind working upon such things as the glass on the Rectory stair, the glass on Evan Madoc’s shoe, and the odd behaviour of Aunt Sophy’s key. It is much easier to make up your mind not to think than it is to stop thinking. Behind the silly jingling words suggested by the tune he was whistling there came and went a crowd of shadowy, half-conscious speculations. It was a relief when something moved behind the hedge on the far side of the field and a moment later Janice came into view at the stile. He jumped down and went to meet her.

She had hurried a little, and there was colour in her cheeks. She wore the white frock which she had worn at the inquest, but she had taken off the hat with the black ribbon. The sun picked up the gold threads in the short brown curls. He thought again how little she had changed. The very bright eyes of no particular colour – they could look grey, or brown, or green – the little brown pointed face, the short bright curls, and the short white frock belonged as much to Janice at ten years old as to Janice at twenty-two.

He laughed, and said, ‘You haven’t grown a bit.’

The colour brightened against the brown of her skin. She stuck her chin in the air.

‘Why should I have grown? Last time you saw me I was nineteen. People don’t grow after they’re nineteen.’

His eyes teased her.

‘I did – I grew two inches.’

‘Well, I call that extravagant! You were six foot already – another two inches was just swank. And everybody doesn’t want to be yards high anyhow.’

Garth laughed. It was really very difficult to disentangle her from the little girl who had passionately wanted to be tall, and who had coloured up just like this when he teased her. Then all of a sudden the past shut down. The old safe, easy world was gone – its rules, its pattern, its way of life. The violence which was shaking the world had reached out and shaken Bourne, for whether Michael Harsch had shot himself or had been murdered, he had most certainly died because an Austrian house-painter aspired to an empire beyond the dreams of the Caesars. He said abruptly, ‘I want to talk to you, Janice. Where shall we go – up over the downs?’

‘Yes, if you like.’

‘Or we can stay here, if you don’t want to get hot.’ Her colour had failed, and he noticed how tired she looked – quite suddenly. ‘Lots of good places to sit, if you’d rather do that.’

‘Yes – I think so—’

They found a place where tumbled heaps of stone would screen them from the lane. Garth felt again how far away the past had gone. The little girl Janice had tagged about at his heels all day with as little thought of fatigue as a rabbit. He frowned and said, ‘You look all in. What’s the matter? Is it this Harsch business?’

She said, ‘Yes. I don’t mean just because he’s dead.’ She leaned forward, her hands locked about her knees. ‘Garth – he didn’t shoot himself – I know he didn’t.’

He was looking at her hard.

‘If you know anything, you ought to have said it at the inquest.’

‘But I did—’

‘You mean you just think he didn’t shoot himself. You don’t really know anything at all.’

This was the old superior Garth, talking down over a five years gap. She reacted at once.

‘Don’t be stupid – facts aren’t the only things you can know. You can know people – you can know a person so well that you can be quite sure he wouldn’t do that sort of thing.’

‘Meaning it would be out of character for Harsch to have committed suicide?’

Her ‘Yes’ was very emphatic.

‘But, Janice, don’t you see that when something pushes a man off his balance, that’s just what he does do – he acts out of character. It isn’t normal for a man to pitch on his head or go down on his hands and knees, but if his physical balance is upset, it may happen. And when it comes to mental balance, well, it’s the same thing, isn’t it? Normal motives and restraints cease to operate, and he does the last thing he would dream of doing if he were himself.’

Janice looked at him with those very bright eyes.

‘He didn’t do it, Garth.’

‘You’re just being obstinate. You’ve got nothing to go on.’

‘But I have. You haven’t listened to me yet. I want you to listen.’

‘All right – go ahead.’

She set her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand and went on looking at him.

‘Well then – it’s five years since Mr Harsch came over here. That’s to say it’s more than five years since his wife and daughter – died. That would have been the time to kill himself if he were going to do it. The Nazis had stripped him of everything. He hadn’t got anything left except his mind, and they couldn’t touch that. If they didn’t break it then, why should it break suddenly now? I don’t care how dreadful a tragedy has been, it can’t be quite the same after five years as it was at first. He told me himself that last day that in the beginning he kept going because he wanted punishment and revenge, and he thought this stuff he was working on would give it to him.’

‘Harschite – yes.’

Her face changed.

‘You know about that?’

‘Yes – that’s why I’m here. Don’t tell anyone, Jan.’

The colour came brightly to her face. She nodded and went on with what she had been saying.

‘But now, he said, all that had gone. He said the desire for revenge wasn’t civilised. He only wanted to stop the dreadful things that were being done, and to set people free. And he spoke of working with Mr Madoc, and asked if I would help him. You see, none of that is like a man who is off his balance. He wasn’t like that at all – I lived in the house with him for a year, and I know. He was gentle, and considerate, and very patient. He was always thinking of other people. I know he wouldn’t have made that appointment with—’ she stopped suddenly.

Garth supplied the name she had bitten off.

‘With Sir George Rendal.’

‘Oh, you know that too?’

‘I’m acting for him – but that’s not to be known. Go on.’

‘I was going to say that he would never have made that appointment and failed to keep it. I know he wouldn’t.’

Garth leaned back and looked at her. No doubt about it at all, she most passionately believed what she had said. Her eyes, her lips, the colour in her cheeks, made up a picture of absolute conviction. He was, if not himself convinced, a good deal impressed. The impression was definite enough to make him give a little more weight to such things as two pieces of glass and a key. He said, ‘All right, you’ve got that on the record. Now it’s my turn. I want you to answer some questions. Will you?’

‘If I can.’

‘You think Michael Harsch was murdered?’

She brought her hands together in a way he remembered. Her colour was all gone.

‘I didn’t say that.’

He gave his old impatient jerk of the shoulder.

‘What else? If he didn’t commit suicide, he was murdered, wasn’t he? What else have you been saying, except that he was murdered?’

She looked down at her hands and said, ‘Yes.’ And then, in a childish, almost inaudible voice, ‘It sounds so dreadful.’

It touched him in an odd kind of way, like a child saying ‘I don’t like it’ in the middle of a thunderstorm or a bombardment. He said in a tone that was grim just because he had been moved, ‘Well, murder is dreadful.’

She said, ‘I know—’

‘And the murderer, if it were murder, is still at large. Now let’s go back to my questions. I want to know a lot of things that the coroner didn’t ask. I want to know whether you suspect anyone.’

She took a long time to answer that. Then she said, ‘No.’

He looked at her sharply.

‘Tell me about the other people in the house. Tell me about Madoc. That show he put up at the inquest – was that genuine, or was it a stunt? Is he like that all the time?’

‘Oh, yes – he really is. He doesn’t put it on – he’s like that.’

‘Gosh!’

She was looking at him again. There was a sparkle behind the brown lashes.

‘You’d say so if you worked for him.’

‘What does he do?’

‘Scolds – calls you names – things like atomy—’

Garth burst out laughing.

‘My poor child! You can sue him for libel.’

‘I shouldn’t have stayed if it hadn’t been for Mr Harsch.’

Garth was grave again.

‘How did they get on?’

‘Oh, you couldn’t quarrel with Mr Harsch – nobody could. He always said Mr Madoc didn’t mean anything, and just went on being nice.’

‘There was no quarrel between them, then?’

‘Oh, no.’

‘Jan, what happened on Tuesday night – after Harsch went out? Do you sit with the Madocs in the evening – were you all together?’

She said slowly, ‘Miss Madoc and I were together.’

‘And Madoc?’

‘He hardly ever sits with us.’

‘Where does he sit?’

‘In the laboratory. It’s really his study too. He’s got his writing-table there, and all his books.’

‘Did you see him at all on Tuesday evening after Harsch went out?’

‘Not till he was going up to bed.’

‘When was that?’

‘About a quarter past ten.’

‘Then you can’t say for certain whether he left the house or not. You don’t know that he didn’t leave it?’

Her eyes changed. She looked down again.

He put a hand on her arm.

‘Jan, you’ve got to tell me! Did he go out – do you know that he went out?’

In a whisper which yet seemed not to have enough breath to carry it, she said, ‘He often goes out—’

The hand on her arm felt very strong, very warm, very insistent. She wasn’t sure whether she was shaking just of herself, or whether Garth was shaking her. His voice wasn’t loud, but it meant to have an answer.

‘Did he go out on Tuesday night?’

Janice said, ‘Yes.’

The hand let go, but she was still shaking. The voice went on.

‘How do you know?’

‘I heard the front door. You can’t help hearing it.’

‘It couldn’t have been anyone else? Who else is there?’

‘Only the housekeeper, Mrs Williams, and she’d die before she went out in the dark. She’s a townswoman really, from Cardiff. She only stays because she adores Mr Madoc.’

So Madoc had gone out. He wondered where he had gone.

‘When did he go?’

‘It was just before we turned on the nine o’clock news.’

‘And when did he get back?’

Her voice went away to a whisper again. She said, ‘It was about ten minutes past ten.’

SILENCE FELL BETWEEN them. The sky was very blue overhead and the sun shone, a little wind went whispering through the wood. Garth tilted his head and watched a small white cloud move very slowly just above the line where the downs cut the sky. All the way between, the land ran upwards in a gentle even slope. A very quiet, peaceful land. Sound of the light wind moving among summer leaves. Sound of the Bourne water slipping idly over its stones. Sound of the wind in its bordering willows. The stream ran down the farther edge of the field and then slid into the wood no more than a dozen yards from the stile.

Janice watched him, and wondered what he was thinking about. She had always liked to watch him when he was thinking, and it was quite safe, because his thoughts took hold of him and made him forget that anyone else was there. She thought he hadn’t changed at all, but then of course the three years between twenty-four and twenty-seven don’t make such a lot of difference to a man. The long, lightly built figure; the thin, dark face; the rather grave mouth; the marked brows with the upward kink which somehow gave him an impatient look; the eyes grey where you would have expected them to be brown; the hair so dark as to be almost black – all these things were as familiar to her as her own face in the glass. Dear and familiar too the knowledge that the grave lips could take on the most mischievous smile, and that when they did this the slant of the eyebrows no longer spelled impatience, but served to set an accent upon laughing, teasing eyes. She had thought a hundred times, ‘He’ll fall in love with a fair-haired girl – he’s simply bound to. She’ll be pink and plump, and she’ll have lovely blue eyes and a most frightfully sweet temper, and they’ll be very, very happy. And if you’re going to be stupid enough to mind, you’ll get hurt, and it will be your own fault and nobody else’s.’

Garth brought his eyes down from the sky, and said abruptly, ‘What is going on between Madoc and Miss Medora Brown?’

It was partly because she had been caught looking at him that the startled colour ran right up to the roots of her short brown curls, but he wasn’t to know that. She gave a little gasp.

‘Miss Brown?’

‘Miss Medora Brown.’

‘Is anything going on between them?’

‘I’m asking you.’

Janice got hold of herself.

‘What makes you think there’s anything between them?’

‘Well, I just do. Don’t you really know anything about it?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘What sort of terms are they on?’

‘I don’t know – I’ve never thought about it. I suppose they know each other, but she doesn’t come to the house or anything like that.’

‘Does he go to Aunt Sophy’s?’

‘He goes when there’s music – sometimes, when he’s not busy. He really does love music’

‘And Medora is musical.’ There was a note of sarcasm in his voice.

Janice looked distressed.

‘What do you mean, Garth? She plays beautifully, and she has a very good voice. There wouldn’t be anything wrong if they did like each other. I’ve never thought about it at all.’

He leaned suddenly forward and took her by the wrist.

‘Look here, Jan. Last night Aunt Sophy sent me to her left-hand top bureau drawer for a snapshot of the Pincott girl who had triplets. That’s where she keeps her church key, isn’t it? Weil, it wasn’t there. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know it ought to be there, and Miss Brown didn’t see anything because she was playing the piano with her back to us. Somewhere after midnight I looked out of my window and I saw Miss Brown come up the garden in the black lace dress she had worn at dinner. You can think she was just taking the air, or you can think she had slipped out into the Church Cut to meet someone.’

‘But, Garth—’

‘Oh, she’d been out into the Cut all right. Tommy Pincott smashed a milk bottle there yesterday. Miss Brown picked up a splinter, and I found it on the stair carpet before anyone was up this morning. I wondered who she’d been meeting, because I don’t think you go out into the Cut at midnight just to enjoy your own society. And in the middle of the inquest I found out all, because when your Mr Madoc crossed his legs I could see the sole of his boot, and he had picked up a splinter too.’

‘Garth—’

‘Wait a minute. When we got back from the inquest I led Aunt Sophy to her bureau drawer to show her that the key wasn’t where Miss Brown had just been swearing she put it. And there it was, spang on top of the triplets. Very careless of Medora, but I expect she was feeling flustered. If she’d had the sense to put the key under the photograph she could have sworn it was there all the time, but the only way it could have got on top was the way it did get there. She put it there sometime between bedtime last night and lunch-time today. My own guess is that someone else has had the key since Tuesday, that she’s been in a most awful stew about it, and that she went out last night to get it back. I heard the study door creak when she went, and I saw her come back. She wasn’t away for more than a quarter of an hour, so she didn’t go far. When I saw that Madoc had got a bit of glass stuck in his rubber sole, I thought I knew who it was she had gone to meet, and when I saw that the key was back in Aunt Sophy’s drawer, I thought I knew why.’

All the blood was gone from Janice’s face. He thought, ‘She’s like a little sunburned ghost.’ A momentary amusement stirred, a momentary compunction.

She stared at him, her eyes quite round with horror, and said, ‘Oh, no! He couldn’t – he wouldn’t! Why should he?’

His shoulder jerked.

‘Lots of reasons. Take your choice. He had a secret pash for Medora, and he was jealous of Harsch. That’s a bit fictional, but you never know, do you? Then there’s the stone-cold, cast-iron fact that he is Harsch’s sole executor and legatee.’

‘Garth, there isn’t any money. Mr Harsch hadn’t anything to leave.’

‘Who’s talking about money? He left Madoc all his notes, his papers, his formulae. That means harschite. He left it to Madoc. There might be quite a lot of money in it, or there might be just the kind of case of conscience a crank would revel in. I gather that Madoc is going to revel all right. His conscience won’t let him loose what he calls “a devil’s agent” upon “an already tormented world”. Putting the money on one side – and I believe murder has been done for as little as twopence halfpenny in cash – don’t you think the chance of restraining a number-one-size devil’s agent like harschite might be too much for Madoc?’

Janice shook her head.

‘He wouldn’t – he wouldn’t!’

‘My dear, a crank will do anything. I can see Madoc enjoying martyrdom, holding the right hand in the fire in the best traditional manner. He’s got zealot written all over him – you’ve just said yourself that he’s the genuine article. Well then, he’d burn for his convictions, and it’s not a very long step from that to burning the other fellow. Don’t forget that the same century which produced the martyrs produced the Grand Inquisitors too. I doubt if there was anything to choose in the fanatical temper of their minds between Savonarola and Torquemada.’

‘Don’t – don’t – it’s horrible!’

‘Of course it is. That’s not my business. I’m here to find out whether it’s true. There’s more at stake than just catching a murderer, Jan. Harsch was shot immediately after he had completed his last experiment, and immediately before he could hand on the results. The margin of time is a very narrow one. He came in about six o’clock on Tuesday. He telephoned to Sir George, who was expecting a message, and made an appointment for Wednesday morning. In less than four hours he was dead. Who knew how near his work was to completion? There had been a paragraph in some of the papers. No one seems to know how it got there, but it was the usual vague gossipy puff – it didn’t really give much away. The only people who knew how near he was to success were Sir George and the experts he was bringing down, but they didn’t know that the last experiment had succeeded until Harsch rang up at half-past six. Anyone else who knew must have been someone directly in touch with Harsch himself and deeply in his confidence. It comes back to Madoc again – a fellow scientist living in the same house, a trusted friend.’

‘No—no!’

‘Who else could have known?’

She beat her hands together.

‘You’ve forgotten about the telephone.’

‘You mean someone might have listened in. Well, who was there? The housekeeper – Miss Madoc – Madoc himself – you. By the way, what’s the sister like? She looks harmless.’

‘She is. Kind – woolly – devoted to her brother – dreadfully afraid of offending him.’

‘And the housekeeper?’

‘Oh, no. She’s a lamb.’

‘Then we’re back at Madoc – unless you did it yourself. There wasn’t anyone else to listen in, was there?’ Then quite suddenly his jaw dropped. ‘Gosh – I’d forgotten!’

There was a touch of defiant malice about the tilt of Janice’s chin and the sparkle in her eyes.

‘Yes, I thought you had. We’ve still got the old party line, and any one of the subscribers could have taken up its receiver and heard what Mr Harsch was saying to Sir George Rendal.’

‘That’s torn it! Do you mean to say that there’s still only the one line, and everybody who has a telephone can tap it?’

She nodded.

‘Miss Mary Anne Doncaster listens in all the time, like some people do with their wireless. She always took a passionate interest, and now she doesn’t go out it’s the one thing she lives for. Perhaps you think she shot Mr Harsch.’

He said quickly, ‘She doesn’t go out – but do people come in?’

‘Oh, yes. What do you mean?’

He said slowly, ‘I think I would like to find out who saw Miss Doncaster between half-past six and a quarter to ten.’