Thirteen Guests (23 page)

He paused. Taverley sat on an impulse to ask a question. Nadine, watching Taverley, read both the impulse and the restraint. John felt the atmosphere suddenly tighten.

“Bessie was carrying a tray,” he said. “I noticed a blue water-bottle on it.…Then Rowe went, and
you
came in, Nadine. Our chat was cut short by Miss Fermoy-Jones. That woman—oh, well, never mind! You left, and she jawed on and on—five minutes, perhaps, but it seemed five hours—and during that time I saw you and Anne come down, Taverley—and then Anne suddenly left you and went upstairs again, I think—she looked a bit queer. A moment after she had gone up, Chater came down. Then you came to my door, Taverley, Miss Fermoy-Jones left, and you waited till Anne returned.”

“Did you notice anything particular about Anne's mood?” asked Taverley quietly.

“I should say I did!” answered John. “It was quite different. Almost—hysterically gay. She lugged you off—and that was that.”

“But there's something more,” suggested Taverley. “I can see you haven't quite finished.”

“Yes, I noticed one thing more. Bessie again. Coming down with the tray. The blue water-bottle was on it, broken.”

“I wonder why you noticed that?” murmured Taverley.

“A broken water-bottle—wouldn't anybody notice it?” replied John. “I'd noticed it originally because it was rather a pretty one.”

“It was Mrs. Morris's water-bottle,” said Taverley slowly. “Her special one. Anne broke it because she had poisoned the water.”

Nadine's hand went up to her heart. John sat very still. Taverley did not continue for a few moments. His mind seemed suddenly to have stopped. Then he frowned at himself and went on:

“Anne's story is very simply told, but probably no one could ever tell the agony behind the simplicity. Probably no one will ever know Anne's character completely. I know her as well as anybody, but there are depths that beat me. I think she ought to have been a boy. Her parents wanted her to be. But, thank God, she isn't! She's a mixture of hardness and softness. Each hates the other, and tries to cheat it. But—my view is—the softness wins. She has spent hours and hours with her grandmother, being that grand old woman's companion while she suffers—and then coming out of the room blinded with tears. She hides her tears, just as her grandmother hides her suffering.…My God—yes—I understand Anne!”

His voice had become a little unsteady. He continued, almost apologetically:

“I expect I'm a bit soft myself where those two are concerned.…Anne told me what she had done while we were riding together on the afternoon of the meet. I speak as though it were weeks ago, yet it was only yesterday! She knew her grandmother wanted to die—she had told Anne so often, though never complainingly—and Anne found the way of granting the wish on Friday, during dinner. She had left the table during the first course, because she had forgotten to say good-night to her grandmother. On her way down she overheard a conversation between Thomas and the cook. She found that the cook kept some painless poison in a cupboard over his bed. She decided to steal it that night. You interrupted her at her first attempt, Foss. At the second she succeeded.”

“I heard that Chater's fingermarks had been found on the cupboard, Harold,” interposed Nadine.

“Yes—by a rare bit of good fortune,” answered Taverley. “I think he must have intended to steal the poison, and then changed his mind. He may have overheard the conversation, too—he was out of the dining-room at the time—or he may have got on to it in some other way through Thomas. Anyhow—as we know—he didn't steal it. Perhaps he thought better of it, or the cook may have moved at the crucial moment and made him lose his nerve. Anne nearly lost hers.

“The poison was in a little glass tube. Anne kept it on her. All night she was torn with doubts. But next morning, just before the meet, she went in to see her grandmother again, and found her in such pain that she made up her mind to take the first opportunity to bring the old lady peace.

“The opportunity occurred as she left the room. Outside, on that wall-table you may have noticed, Nadine, was Mrs. Morris's water-bottle. Bessie had brought it up, and—as I have since found out—had been called by Chater into his room. Anne seized the chance impulsively, poured the contents of the tube into the bottle—and a second later I came along, found her in a very agitated state, and brought her downstairs.

“Well, as you know, she went up again. Panic had got hold of her. She went up to smash the bottle. And that, she expected, would end the incident.

“But I knew—and so did you, Nadine—that something was wrong with Chater's complexion when we came upon him at Mile Bottom. And, remember, I had just heard Anne's story. While you were both away getting help, I had a search, and I found Chater's flask a little way off. He had obviously drunk from it before falling—otherwise the flask would still have been in his pocket. He had obviously taken the poison in that drink. And he had come down from his room a minute after Anne and I had come down, and before Anne had gone up again—they actually met on the stairs—and he had passed by the water-bottle on the table.

“The bedroom water-bottles had not yet been filled that morning. My own bottle was empty, I remember. Chater always drank his spirits diluted. The deduction was clear. He diluted his whisky from the bottle, and Anne did not notice in her hurry that some of the water had gone.”

He paused and shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, what would you have done?”

“Probably what you did,” answered Nadine, “only not half so well. What did you do?”

“Actually, very little—but, aided by other circumstances, it proved enough,” he answered. “I had made Anne give me the little glass tube, saying I would get rid of it. Instead of getting rid of it, I eventually stuck it in the lining of Chater's hat. If I had thought of this at once I should have stuck it in his pocket, but by the time the idea came—when we had returned to the house—the hat was the only thing available, for by that time I couldn't get near Chater's body alone.”

“How did you manage to get near the hat?” inquired John.

“I brought that back myself,” Taverley answered. “That was easy. I also brought back the flask, though nobody knew this. At first I put it in a locked drawer in my room, but when the inspector interviewed me before dinner he got too interested in flasks. So, when he'd gone, I took it out of the drawer and kept it on me. Lucky I did. My room was searched while we were dining.”

“Where is it now?” asked John.

“Same place,” replied Taverley, touching his hip pocket. “It's been thoroughly cleaned, but I'm not using it.
You
know, don't you, Nadine, that I've had this old flask for years?”

“I gave it to you,” answered Nadine.

Taverley smiled rather wearily.

“All this seems thoroughly unscrupulous. Perhaps it is. I even told Kendall I'd heard the Chaters quarrelling in their room—as the Rowes actually did—and invented a remark I pretended I'd caught. But I'm not shielding a murderer, you know. Just helping events to take their happiest course, and trying to avoid increasing the tragedy. My greatest difficulty was to direct Kendall's attention to the hat. I mentioned it casually to him, with no result. To have done so deliberately would have been fatal.”

“But it was Bultin who looked in the hat,” said Nadine.

“Yes—after I'd played a little trick on him to give him the idea.”

There was a pause.

“What's Anne's own attitude?” asked John.

“I've had the devil's own time with Anne,” Taverley answered. “But I convinced her at last that her confession would just about crush things here, and that if anything happened to
her
, a county cricketer would drown himself. Well, Foss, what about it?”

“Don't ask fool questions,” replied John.

Two floors above, the subject of their discussion was sitting by her grandmother's bed.

“Here's that piece, Grandma,” she said. “The squiggly blue bit. I'm beating you this time—I'm finding them all!”

She looked up and smiled. Her grandmother smiled back. Peacefully and motionlessly. Suddenly Anne's heart began thumping like a great hammer. The next moment her face was buried in the bed, and she was sobbing with a wild, unbearable joy.

Chapter XXXIII

Death and Life

“And now, John,” said Nadine, entering his room late that evening, “
us
!”

“That's what I've been wanting to talk about more than anything else,” replied John. “Do you know, Nadine, we haven't talked about us since the evening you brought me here!”

“Two evenings ago,” she reminded him, as she sat down.

“It seems more like two years,” he answered. “Lord, what a lot has happened since then! Have you reckoned up the tragedies?”

“Yes, and I can only find one.” He stared at her. “The death of poor Haig. Tell me, John, is Mr. Chater's death a tragedy? Don't be hypocritical. I want your true answer.”

“I don't think the world's poorer by it,” John admitted.

“And Mrs. Chater's?”

“One can feel sorry for her—though once you told me it was difficult.”

“I was wrong. I can feel sorry for her now. And that makes me all the more convinced that her death isn't a tragedy. She'd have had a stickier end in a lunatic asylum. Yes, and after a heart-to-heart with Zena Wilding, I think the same might be said of Bultin's ‘Body No. One.' By the way, Zena told me Lord Aveling was backing her play, and that Lady Aveling is all for it. So that doesn't sound like a tragedy, either.”

John smiled grimly.

“One would think, from the way you're talking, that we've all had a merry time!” he said.

“It's been a ghastly time,” she responded, “but it's had some mighty good effects. Quite a number of the survivors have had a shake-up they badly needed. Do you know, I believe even Bultin is one per cent. more chastened! And Anne has discovered sanity and escaped from Earnshaw. But let me go on with my list. The ruined picture. Was
that
a tragedy?”

“I never saw the picture,” answered John, “so I can only guess.”

“Guess that it deserved to be ruined, and you'll be right! Of course, Thomas, the butler, is out of a job; but that attractive maid—do you remember I remarked on her looks the first afternoon?—she's doing the serial-story stuff, and following her erring man to reform him.”

“Do you mean she's going, too?”

“Handed in her notice, I hear. I'll give her a big tip.…And dear Grandma Aveling, who has done her last jig-saw—ask Anne if
that's
a tragedy, though the blinds will remain down to-morrow?…I've seen her. Anne asked me to. I was rather afraid—I loathe illness, though I can stick it—but Grandma Aveling gave me an entirely new idea about death. I—I don't think I've ever seen anything more lovely. So perhaps this week-end has done me a bit of good, too!…Well, that only leaves the dog. I can't find anything redeeming about that.”

“You've missed out a stag,” said John.

“Are you going to be trying?” she asked.

“I hope not. But hunting people—when they're nice, as most are—always baffle me. Hunting is the one thing you and I won't agree on.”

“It was one of a thousand things the late Mr. Leveridge and I did not agree on,” replied Nadine. “Which almost brings the conversation back to us, doesn't it?”

“Yes,” he nodded. “Nadine, will you marry me?”

She looked at him solemnly as she answered. “That was the way to ask me. I knew you would do it. But this is the way to answer you. No, John. Even in this short time, I've learned to love you too much.”

To her surprise, he was not depressed.

“That's as good as I could expect in two days,” he smiled. “You'll let me have your London address?”

“It won't be any good.”

“You never know.”

“How old are you?”

“Forty-three.”

“Do I take off twenty years?”

“About that.”

“And I am—”

“As old as you feel,” he interrupted.

But she shook her head.

“A woman may be as old as she feels, to herself,” she said, “but to a man she is as old as she looks.”

“Very well,” he answered. “You don't look bad to me.”

“Idiot! Use your vision, and now put twenty years on
me
! When you're forty-three, and pretty girls of twenty-three are flitting all round you, will I look as good to you as I look now?”

“I say, Nadine!” he exclaimed. “You don't think much of men, do you?”

“Men can't help it, any more than women can,” she retorted. “It's not a question of ethics, but of simple common sense—of facing things as they are, and not as you want them to be. But even putting aside the question of age, what do we know about each other?”

“Only that we love each other,” he replied. “That seems enough.”

“May I risk hurting you?”

“Of course.”

“You were in love with somebody else two days ago.”

“I guessed it was going to be that. I'm not hurt. You were right to remind me—only, as it happens, I didn't need to be reminded. You see, this is quite different.”

“It always seems quite different, John, and it's always the same.”

“That's another thing we'll disagree about, Nadine,” he smiled. “And I win, either way.”

“How?”

“Why, if I'm right, it
will
be different, and if I'm not, and all love
is
the same, you and I won't do any better by looking elsewhere. So why try?”

She gave a despairing little laugh.

“Just a small boy!” she murmured.

“Do you dare come six inches closer to the small boy?” he challenged.

“That's our trouble,” she answered. “I daren't!” She bent forward, then drew back quickly and jumped up. “It's unfair! I won't do it!” she exclaimed. “Yes, of course I love you, and of course you love me. But—you'll deny this—you were ready to tumble into anybody's arms. Well, that train tumbled you—and my wretched feminine instinct finished the job. If you'd turned out to be clever or cynical or immoral, we'd have been a match, and at this moment might be planning to buy tickets for Monte Carlo. We'd have kissed more than just once. And ahead would have been half a dozen glorious months, which would have ended naturally or stormily, according to our moods.” She had turned away from him. Now she turned back and faced him squarely. “I don't want any stormy memories of you, John. I don't want you to have any unhappy ones of me. Believe me, my dear, I know best. Some queer freak of chance has made us fond of each other—just now—but we haven't been designed for each other. I'd give you the hell of an experience—”

“You're not forgetting, I haven't asked you to go to Monte Carlo with me?” he interrupted. “I've asked you to marry me.”

“—and I dare say that presently you'd bore me stiff. No, I'm not forgetting that. I'm remembering it hard—and thinking for both of us.…The tragedies of this week-end are shouting warnings at us!” she exclaimed. “All due to physical passion, or physical misfits!”

“You didn't call them tragedies a little while ago,” he reminded her.

“John, that's the small boy arguing again, and you know it! They
ought
to have been tragedies! Instead, they were just releases!”

“All right, Nadine—I'll try and grow up in my arguments,” he said. “Are you going to take the warnings yourself? Are
you
going to give up physical passion?”

“I'm going to give up the misfits!”

“Now I'm going to risk hurting you. Did you give your husband the hell of an experience?” She frowned at him. “Was that a misfit?”

“We didn't fit anywhere!” she retorted.

“Did he regret marrying you?” The frown remained, but she was silent. “Did you regret?”

“John—you're impossible!”

“You can't have it both ways. I'm impossible when I'm a small boy idealising you, and I'm impossible when I'm a man realising you. I'll tell you something. In my first conversation with Taverley, he read me like a book, and he warned me against you. In the strict, always-play-cricket Taverley manner. You wouldn't have been offended if you'd heard him. He warned me in much the same way you're warning me yourself. Well, I didn't take his warning, and I'm not taking yours. Life's a risk, however you look at it—isn't it?—and I prefer to take the risk with somebody I've made a solid start with.”

“Do you call ours a solid start?” she asked.

“It seems to me astonishingly solid,” he replied. “Anyway, there hasn't been any moonlight.”

“No, but there have been other things equally devastating. Give me your hand a moment.” He held it out, and she took it. “I know we had to have this conversation, John. It couldn't be otherwise. But we're both confused—tired—too close up to events to see them clearly in perspective. We mustn't rush into this madly.” His heart rejoiced, but he said nothing. “I'm speaking as your companion now, in a very queer world. You've no idea how queer it is that a man like you should want a woman like me—and that a woman like me—”

She withdrew her hand.

“Yes, mad, John, absolutely mad. I'm nearly ten years older than you are.”

“I'll still love your white hairs.”

“You say all the hackneyed things so convincingly!”

“I'll repeat the most hackneyed thing of the lot. Will you marry me?”

“Will you ask me again in six months—if you want to? Then we'll both know.”

“It's a bargain, Nadine. I'll keep it.”

Then silence entered the room and lingered for a while. It was the silence of life, destined to be broken. Not far above them lay the completer silence of death, no less happy.

“Nadine,” said John suddenly. “I wonder—would it be possible—understood?—if you helped me upstairs to see Grandma Aveling for just one moment before we go?”