The Listening Eye (21 page)

THERE were two other interviews that day. The first was between Lucius Bellingdon and his secretary. It took place at the East Lodge in Hubert Garratt’s sitting-room. Lucius walked down there and walked in. He found a grey-faced man sitting at his writing-table. He was holding a pen, but there was no writing on the sheet that lay before him. His eyes were fixed and he paid no heed to the opening of the door. There was a moment when his stillness and his ghastly look offered a suggestion against which Lucius reacted with vigour. He spoke his name loudly and harshly as he tapped him on the shoulder. Hubert turned like a man in a dream. He said in a vague, abstracted voice,

“She’s dead—”

The hand on his shoulder weighed there heavily.

“Yes, she’s dead. What’s that to you?”

“Everything. Nothing.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“I’d have sold my soul for her. Perhaps I did.”

“And just what do you mean by that?”

Garratt turned dull eyes on him.

“It doesn’t matter what I tell you now, does it? She’s gone—everything is finished. You see, I’ve known all along that she never cared a snap of her fingers for me and never would. Why should she? I had nothing to offer her. There were always other people. There was Arthur—but she was through with him. And there was Clay. And she was all set to get off with David Moray. I know the signs by now. And whoever it was, or whatever she did, she knew I would hold my tongue. She didn’t want me, but she knew she could count on me for that.”

Lucius released him and stood back a pace.

“And just what have you been holding your tongue about, Hubert?”

Garratt said again,

“It doesn’t matter if I tell you now—she’s dead. You see, I’ve known all along that she was in this business somewhere. She knew that I was going to fetch the necklace, and she knew when, and she got the snuff out of the old snuffbox and put it on my pillow—”

“How do you know that?”

“She must have slipped down here sometime during the evening. I knew she’d been here because of the scent she uses. No one else who comes here uses scent, so I knew she had been here, and I wondered why. Afterwards I knew. She put the snuff there to knock me out, and of course it did—she could count on that all right.”

“And why should she want to knock you out?” said Lucius Bellingdon.

Garratt’s face twitched.

“She wanted to get me out of fetching the necklace. She wouldn’t ever have cared for me, but I’ve always been around, and I suppose she didn’t quite—didn’t quite—” His voice petered out. He put up a hand to his shaking lips.

Lucius sat down on the edge of the writing-table. He said in a cool, hard voice,

“She didn’t quite fancy putting you up to be shot at by Masterson? I’ve been around quite a long time too, but she doesn’t seem to have had any scruples about me.”

Garratt’s hand dropped. He said on a startled tone,

“About you?”

“Yes, me. Wake up, Hubert! Who was the most likely person to fetch the necklace if you were knocked out? Me, every time. And I should have fetched it—I was all set to fetch it —but I was doing some garden planning with Annabel, and when I saw it was going to take a bit longer than I thought I sent Arthur Hughes instead. A last minute decision, and one that nobody knew about until it happened. So who do you think was really meant to be crossed off the list when the necklace changed hands? Not you, Hubert, and not Arthur, but me. That’s been borne in upon me for some time now. Miss Silver got on to it right away, but I wasn’t admitting it. I haven’t admitted it now—not to anyone but you, and I think we’ll keep it that way. They were flying for higher game than the necklace all the way through. I was to be got out of the way before I could marry Annabel and alter my will. My plans must have been obvious enough. So the bargain was made. I was to be eliminated, and Clay and Moira were to go shares in the proceeds. Marriage and a half share for him, the necklace and the other half for her. That of course is why it was returned —whatever happened, she had to have the necklace. Not many scruples about all that, are there?”

Hubert said, “She wouldn’t—” but his voice fell away from the words and let them drop into a gulf of silence. It was so deep that it seemed to be bottomless, but in the end Lucius said,

“I don’t know who loosened the nuts on my off front wheel yesterday afternoon, but it was someone who knew we should be running down Emberley Hill. Moira knew that, and what she knew Masterson would know, though in view of what has happened to them, I don’t suppose they did the job themselves—that’s pushing coincidence too far. I suspect Arnold, who is definitely in the jackal class, but I suppose we shall never know for certain unless he gives himself away. They were probably double-crossing him by going off without giving him his pay, so he repeated his performance for their benefit. Meanwhile the two of them had another trick up their sleeves, and it’s thanks to Miss Silver that it didn’t come off. Now this is for you, and it’s to go no farther. Moira drugged my coffee last night, and she brought Masterson into my room between twelve and one in the morning to smother me with a damp pillow. I don’t know what put it into Miss Silver’s head that anything of that sort was on foot, but something did, and she brought David Moray along and caught them. Masterson came out with being married to Moira—a last gambler’s throw—and I told them to clear out. They cleared, but they didn’t get far.”

He stopped, and there was a long pause. Garratt had pushed back his chair a foot or two. He did not look at Lucius. After a while he said in an exhausted voice,

“When do you want me to go?”

Lucius Bellingdon leaned sideways and picked up a pencil. He sat there on the edge of the table and balanced it between two of his fingers, his air one of intense concentration. Anything or everything might have hung on that delicate balance. All in a moment he tossed the pencil back on to the tray from which he had taken it and said,

“Why should I want you to go?”

Hubert Garratt lifted one of his hands and let it fall again.

“I ought to have told you—about the snuff —I’ve been in hell. You wouldn’t feel—you could trust me. I don’t trust myself.”

Lucius got to his feet. He said in a casual tone,

“Don’t be more of a damned fool than you can help, Hubert. Be up at the house in half an hour, will you. There’s quite a lot to do.”

SALLY had never been so glad to get away from a house in her life. She had never been so glad to get back to London. They travelled up together, she, and Miss Silver, and David, and Wilfrid Gaunt. Miss Silver said goodbye at the terminus, but Wilfrid insisted on making a third in the taxi which she had hoped to share with David. He not only accompanied them to Porlock Square but came in and up the first flight to Sally’s very door, where she turned upon him.

“Wilfrid, I don’t want you and I can’t do with you. I want to unpack.”

He leaned negligently against the jamb.

“Darling, you don’t know what unpacking can be till you’ve seen me do it.”

Aware of David moody in the background, Sally’s tone sharpened as she said,

“Then go and unpack at home!”

He shook his head mournfully.

“Not a sympathetic atmosphere—not one that inspires me to do my best. Mrs. Hunable is definitely an earthy influence. Her father, so she tells me, was a market gardener. She has all the virtues of the cabbages amidst which she grew up, but she lacks charm. Now to watch you unpack—”

Sally put her key into the door.

“You are not going to watch me unpack—no one is! I’m going to light my geyser and have a bath. I feel as if it would take about a dozen baths to get rid of the feeling the last few days have given me.”

Wilfrid appeared interested.

“How psychic of you, my sweet. Now just what sort of a feeling was it?”

Sally opened the door just enough to slide her suit-case inside and to follow it herself. She said,

“Slugs and snails and spiders and snakes!” And then she said, “For goodness sake go away, Wilfrid!” and she banged the door and shot the bolt on the inside.

David had already gone on up the stairs. He didn’t look back either then or when Wilfrid heaved an ostentatious sigh and departed.

It was an hour or two later Sally opened her door to find him on the other side of it. She had told herself that it would be Wilfrid if it was anyone. She had to change her expression rather quickly, but when she was about half way through she thought about its being a give-away, because she really had turned on quite a glare, and David might get ideas if it suddenly changed into a welcoming smile. Actually it would have been better if she hadn’t stopped to think, because the colour rushed into her face, and blushing is just one of those things which you can’t explain away. She stepped back, and David came in and shut the door behind him. Then he said, “I want to talk to you,” and she didn’t say anything at all.

Sally had some nice furniture. There was a very comfortable sofa with its back to the windows. She sat down in one corner of it and David sat down in the other. He repeated his previous remark.

“I want to talk to you.”

Sally didn’t say anything at all. She didn’t seem to have any words, only bright elusive thoughts weaving soundlessly to and fro in the clear space that was her mind. There was a pause. Sally watched her bright weaving thoughts. They were there, and David was there. He looked very large, and he had a most portentous frown. He said,

“Why don’t you say something?”

“I haven’t got anything to say.”

His frown deepened.

“As if that stopped anyone! The difference is, I have got something to say.”

She waited for him to say it, but he just sat there not even looking at her, until at last he came out with,

“He’s offered me a commission, but of course it won’t be the same thing.”

Sally said,

“Who has offered you what?”

“Bellingdon of course—a commission. But it won’t be the same.”

Sally put up a hand and pushed back her hair. If he had been looking at her he would have known it for a weather sign.

“David, if you want me to scream, you’ll go on talking just like that. I haven’t the least idea what it’s all about.”

He stopped frowning at the opposite wall and frowned at her instead.

“You would have if you were paying attention. What’s the use of my coming down here to talk to you about it when you won’t take the trouble to listen to what I say?”

Sally took hold of her temper with both hands and downed it. If he really wanted to talk to her… Something in her melted. Her eyes softened, and so did her voice.

“I really am listening. You were just being cryptic. What has Mr. Bellingdon given you a commission for?”

He shook his head.

“For is the wrong word. You’ve got the whole thing wrong. He has given me a commission to paint Annabel Scott.”

She couldn’t stop herself from putting out her hands to him.

“Oh, David!”

His corner of the sofa was too far away for him to take the hands—he mightn’t have taken them anyway. He said in an abstracted voice,

“She’s quite paintable. As a matter of fact it’s beginning to grow on me. I’ve got rather a good idea for the pose. She took it the other evening quite naturally, and I thought then, ‘If I was going to paint you I would do it like that.’ And I believe I could—but of course it’s not the same.”

Sally had got there. She said rather carefully,

“You mean it won’t be like doing Moira Herne as Medusa?”

He nodded.

“I could have done that and made something of it. I could still do it. I’ve got the sketches I made—but I can’t use them. I told Bellingdon I wouldn’t.”

“Oh, no, you couldn’t—not now! It would make the most frightful lot of talk.”

David gave a gloomy nod.

“He was very decent about it. He’s giving me this commission to paint Annabel Scott. I told him I’d like to paint him too. I would, you know. He’s got the makings of a fine portrait. He said something about ‘All in good time.’ He wants Annabel first. They’re going to be married, you know, right away.”

The clouds were lifting over Merefields. Annabel would make a home of it. Sally was glad about that, and she was glad about David. Lucius Bellingdon could do quite a lot to help a young man with his foot on the ladder. If he made a success of Annabel’s portrait, there would be plenty of other people with commissions for him. What she knew nothing about was the scene in Lucius Bellingdon’s room when Moira had stood by his bed with a pillow in her hand and David had hauled Clay Masterson back from the window and thrown him. Whether Sally was ever to know about it or not, Lucius was not likely to forget it, and remembering, he would do what he could to repay a debt. His acknowledgment to Miss Silver had taken the form of a generous fee. In the case of David Moray there would be a commission for Annabel’s portrait and the consequent mention of his name in circles where there is still money enough to keep the wolf from a painter’s door. David would have been stupid if he had not been aware that the way up the ladder was now clear before him, but to the end of his days he would regret the lost Medusa.

These things lay between them. On the surface Sally said,

“I’m glad they’re going to be married. They are just right for each other. I could be friends with her, but I don’t suppose I shall ever see her again.”

“I don’t see why not.”

Sally threw him a glance.

“I don’t see why.”

“When we are married—”

“When we are what?”

David said, “Married.”

“Who said we were going to be married?” Sally hoped her voice wasn’t shaking, but she had a horrid feeling that it was.

David sat at the other end of the sofa and frowned at her. All at once he crossed the gap, took both her hands in his, and said,

“We hadn’t got down to saying things, but you knew. You’ve always known—haven’t you? I have. I knew the very first minute when I ran into you on the stairs and nearly knocked you down and Paulina said you were her first-floor flat and your name was Sally Foster. And I said to myself then, ‘Well some day it will be Sally Moray, because she’s going to be my wife, and I’ll always be able to say that I made up my mind in that very first minute.’ ”

“David, I don’t see how you could!”

“It doesn’t take me any time at all to make up my mind—not about important things.”

“It’s taken you time enough to tell me. I thought you were falling in love with Moira Herne.”

“Her? I just wanted to paint her.”

“How was I to know that? You never took your eyes off her!”

“You can’t paint a woman if you don’t look at her—at least I can’t. Sally, I want to paint you—I’ve wanted to paint you all along! Only I was afraid if I did that I’d be saying all the kind of things I had made up my mind I wasn’t going to say until I’d got on a bit.”

He had his arms round her, and there was something in his voice that tugged at her heart. She gave him the smile which he had always found undermining.

“What sort of things, darling? Nice ones?”

He nodded. It was getting difficult to speak.

Sally said softly,

“Why don’t you say some of them now?”

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