The Sleeping Partner (24 page)

‘No, don't say. It may be that …' She didn't finish.

‘What got into John last night? Why on
earth
did he go to London?'

‘He gave me the slip, came back by taxi about midnight.'

‘Is he all right?'

‘Not too good.'

‘Stella, what is it?'

‘He collapsed about five this morning.'

‘I'll come at once.'

‘No, Mike! No. Hullo!'

‘Hullo.'

‘Don't ring off for a moment. And don't come here. John gave me a message for you. He woke me about half-past four – he said: “If Mike rings, tell him the wedding has to be stopped!” '

‘The – wedding?'

‘Yes. Does it make sense?'

I stared at the telephone. ‘It's coming to make sense. But I don't know how John knows.'

‘He said, “Tell Mike it's up to him.” '

‘Why shouldn't I come to see you?'

‘I must go. There's someone at the door. Have you – read your Sunday papers?'

‘No.'

Words came suddenly, hurriedly. ‘I must go, Mike. Good luck, my darling. Take care.'

I said: ‘Stella, what about John? What does—? Hullo! Hullo!' But she had rung off.

Once again I walked back to the car. Stop the wedding, John said. Ray French was marrying Margot du Caine at three this afternoon. I had the invitation in my pocket. ‘What are you going to do, live at The Towers?' What were the legal consequences of marriage? That a wife or a husband couldn't be called in evidence against the other?

I looked at my watch. A little over four hours yet. But there was no legal way to stop a perfectly legal wedding.

And what had Stella meant by all her hints and guarded allusions, as if she thought someone might be listening on the phone?

I got back to the car and opened the Sunday paper. At first there didn't seem anything of importance to me, except a column headed ‘Torit Massacre.' The NUR had put in a new wage claim with a threat of strike action if it wasn't met. An Egyptian had swum the Channel both ways. And then I saw it at the bottom of the front page. It was quite a short paragraph but was headed in strong black type: ‘Girl's Body Found in Cellar.'

S
OMETIMES YOU
go hot like that when the doctor is stitching up a cut or the dentist's drill goes on too long.

Acting on information received, the police this evening entered a house at Hockbridge (Beds.) and found in the cellar the body of a woman believed to be Mrs Lindsey Granville, 27, the wife of the owner. Mrs Granville has been missing for three weeks and enquiries have been proceeding for some time. A police officer declined to comment on the likely cause of death. Mr Michael Granville, husband of the deceased, factory owner and top-rank radar expert, has not yet been interviewed.

I'd clung to the safety-valve too long. I might have expected it. Sergeant Baker hadn't looked like a man who spent his time growing roses.

Mr Michael Granville had not yet been interviewed. If that car turning in at the aerodrome was what I now thought it to be, it was by a matter of about ninety seconds that he had not been interviewed …

I glanced over my shoulder but it was only two women coming down the street.

I started the car and accelerated away through the quiet town. The police would have my number now and a description of the car. I didn't know how these things worked. Was I now so badly wanted that they would stop me on the road, or did they reserve that sort of high-pressure stuff for escaped bank raiders?

Don't take the most direct route to London anyway; if anything they'll watch the Oxford Road. At Witney fork left for Bicester and Aylesbury.

I could imagine Greencroft now, the reporters, the unemotional police, the whispering peering people outside; and inside the professional activity, the technical expertise that as a technical man myself I ought to be able to appreciate. By now they'd have taken
her
away. By now Mrs Lloyd would have made her statement. The quarrels we'd had, the way I'd been carrying on in my own house with another woman, she'd seen it with her own eyes, the way I'd been reluctant to open the door to her that first morning. Mrs Granville's gone away, he'd said, to look after her mother; she won't be back for some time. By now the police would have been to see Stella. Tell me, Mrs Curtis, how long have you known Mr Granville? How often have you been to his home since Mrs Granville disappeared?

And John Curtis was dying. Was that what Stella had said over the phone? You couldn't get away from what it added up to. ‘What,' I'd said to him, ‘would you do if you found out the things in this petition were true?' And he'd answered, ‘Take steps to remove myself from the scene.' Guessing by now, perhaps, about Stella, he'd reasoned that after all he didn't need the gas fire. There was an easier way. And what more suitable than to kill himself helping the man who'd taken his wife?

Wasn't that following the code of conduct that he lived by? Wasn't it true to his ideals that he should squander his failing vitality in some forlorn hope helping a worthless self-seeker like me?

I stopped a couple of miles from Aylesbury and found a crumpled cigarette in the cubby-hole and smoked that. Three hours yet. What did the self-seeker do now?

John expected me to tackle Ray French in some way, either through Digby Hamilton or on my own. He expected me to put a stop to a wedding designed to prevent the police from coming at evidence which would clear me. How John had come to that conclusion I hadn't the faintest idea, but after what Frank had told me I was sure he was right. I knew who had been in the room at Greencroft on the afternoon Lynn died, and presumably Margot du Caine knew too. Somehow in the next three hours I had to devise some means of stopping Ray French from marrying her, even if it meant tackling him in his flat and tying him up and locking the door. A delay in the wedding for even twenty-four hours might give time for the saving moves to be made.

While John Curtis quietly died in Letherton. That was it, wasn't it? It was all laid out on a plate for me. I saved myself and he bled to death. As simple as that.

I chucked the cigarette away. It was faintly flavoured with something, and I saw that an old lipstick of Lynn's had been rolling against it in the cubby-hole. I started up the car. After about five miles I turned left again, away from London and towards Letherton.

The cottage might be watched. Stella was the woman in the case, and the police would expect me to turn up there. But a wood came down behind the cottage at the back, and a narrow lane, beginning at the Cock and Pheasant half a mile away, wound round to the other side of the wood. I took that.

About thirty yards separated the wood from the cottage, and at the last tree I took a good look round. No one. Smoke came from the chimney of the cottage, and upstairs the curtains were part drawn as if to keep out the light. Not that there was much light, because heavy clouds had blown up.

I jumped over the hedge and made across the grass. I didn't bother to knock. Stella was in the kitchen.

‘Mike!' She stared at me with huge dark-shadowed eyes.

‘Are you alone?'

‘At present. Except for John. I came down to refill his bottles. But if—'

‘How is he?'

‘He came round about nine. Mike, why ever did you come here when—?'

‘How did he get up to London last night?'

A bit startled by the way I said it, she told me. ‘… I couldn't think why he wanted the soda water. When I got back he wasn't here; only a note. He came back at midnight – didn't seem much worse at first – even though he's not been out of the cottage for weeks.'

‘And then?'

‘The police have been here, asking— Did anyone see you come in?'

‘I don't think so—'

‘Darling, what a
terrible
thing; when John told me … Who killed her, Mike?'

I said: ‘ Tell me about John.'

The kettle was boiling and she switched it off.

‘A haemorrhage about five. Dr Lewis wanted to get him to hospital but he was too weak. They gave him a blood transfusion here at seven. We couldn't get a nurse but the District Nurse came in for a couple of hours. She'd just gone when the police came …'

‘What did they want to know?'

She began to fill the bottle. It was queer standing here in this cottage kitchen on a domestic chore. Her lashes were very dark on her face when it was as pale as this. ‘… And they thought I might know where you were. I choked them off – made the excuse that John … They're coming back later.'

‘What chance is there now for him?'

‘Dr Lewis didn't say much. This – this is the way people die of this complaint. But he's been better since about eleven.'

‘Can I go and see him?'

‘Yes. Yes, for a few minutes. Can you tighten this screw?'

I took the bottle from her. ‘ Did he tell you where he'd been last night?'

‘Enough for me to know you ought to be in London now.'

We looked at each other. Then she turned to fill the other bottle.

‘What did he tell you?' I said.

‘He says he reasoned it out. This man you spoke of, Ray French, told you that Lynn was a nymphomaniac, didn't he?'

‘Well?'

‘Well, John apparently reasoned that Ray French couldn't be mistaken. That is, he couldn't be
wrong.
Either he was right or he was lying.'

‘Yes, I see that.'

‘Then he thought,
you
didn't think she was a nymphomaniac, but you might be deceived. Who else might know? The best chance was Simon Heppelwhite, who, you told him, had employed Lynn for some years and who had been a great friend of hers. He thought Simon Heppelwhite might have views on the subject.'

Too much steam had got into the bottle and it suddenly bubbled and spat hot water. She held it away from the kettle.

‘And what did Simon say?'

‘He said no. He said, to talk of nymphomania was nonsense. He'd known about Lynn and Ray French for months, and had quarrelled with Lynn about it, for letting you down. She was mad over Ray French; no one else.'

I took the second bottle from her. ‘And then?'

As I spoke there was the sound of a heavy fall overhead.

Stella had been going to refill the kettle, but now she dropped it and fled up the stairs, and I was close behind her.

We got in to see the bed empty and John sprawled upon the floor beside it. The whiteness of his skin when we rolled him over was nearly grey.

‘John,' she said.
‘ John …'

He was breathing, but there was no pulse at all.

‘Can you help me?' I said.

‘Of course.'

I took his shoulders and she his feet. He seemed a terrific weight. Somehow we got him back on the bed.

‘He said he'd be all right while I went downstairs. He must have tried to get out and fallen …'

Now that he was back in a normal position his breath was coming in deep gasps, like a man drowning.

‘The doctor left something,' Stella said, her lips trembling. ‘If he fainted. That syringe. Cora something.'

‘Coramine.' I picked up the syringe and held it up to the light. ‘Shall I do it?'

‘Please.'
I put the thing somehow into his arm and pressed it home. His

skin was sweaty and cold.
‘I'll get Dr Lewis,' she said.
‘Wait. I think he's coming round.'
Perhaps my clumsy puncture had roused him. His eyelids were

fluttering. Stella moistened his lips, and suddenly I found him looking

straight at me. Without a sound he said my name.
‘John,' I said.
His eyes travelled to Stella. ‘Sorry about that,' he muttered.

‘Thought I could …'
‘Don't talk.'
He shifted slightly. ‘Used to believe – couldn't keep a good man

down. Now I realise – only a relative statement.'
I made some sort of answer.
He frowned. ‘You shouldn't be here, Mike. Time is it?'
‘Plenty of time yet.'
‘You – got my message?'
‘Yes, it's all right. I'm going to act on it.'
His eyes closed then. I looked at Stella and nodded. She slid out

of the room.
He'd gone off again. I felt for the pulse at the root of his neck;

it was just there. On the table by the bed was a glass pot on a

stand with a rubber tube and a filter, and a few other odds and

ends. The light in here was distilled by the curtains, discreet and

without shadows. I went to the window and looked out. The garden

was empty.
She came back. ‘He's not in, but they'll ring me as soon as they

can find him.'
I nodded.
We were silent for a time. The drug was having a good effect

on him, but he hadn't come round again.
She said: ‘You
must
go, Mike.'
‘Not yet.'
‘What time is the wedding?'
‘There's time.'

‘How can you stop it? Can you see Digby Hamilton?'

I said: ‘What else did John tell you about last night?'

‘He went to see Margot du Caine.'

‘What?

‘I'm only telling you what he told me. There was a girl there with Simon Heppelwhite. I've forgotten her name—'

‘Joy Fraser.'

‘Yes. She knows Margot du Caine and is going to her wedding today. I don't know how much John told Joy Fraser or what she said, but it came out that Ray French had been making a great attempt to get the wedding put forward. A week ago he almost had a row with everyone concerned, and at last Margot agreed to get married by licence this Sunday.'

‘I still don't see why John …'

‘He said, if Ray French were innocent, the haste to get married to
that
extent, was hard to understand. If he were guilty, and he was sure he was, then the haste was simple to explain. You only had to look on Margot as an accessory, especially if she was an innocent one … I don't know what he said to Joy Fraser, but whatever he said must have impressed her, because she took him straight along to the du Caines' flat and introduced him.'