Through The Wall (12 page)

When Richard arrived at Cove House Eliza met him at the front door and took him through to the kitchen. She had her own views as to what his place in the family was going to be, and she considered that he did ought to know what was going on. Miss Marian’s raincoat found down by the body, and Miss Marian’s scarf with a great bloodstain on it hanging up in the passage which led through to next door. And Sergeant Jackson taking charge of it, and in there in the study this minute asking all manner of questions which no one could answer. She did think Mr. Cunningham ought to know. And when she had told him all about it, so did he.

Then, right on the top of that, there was Mrs. Woolley at the back door. He never really knew what excuse she made, or whether she troubled to make one, because the minute she saw him she burst out crying all over again and began to tell him about finding the body.

The ground floor door between the two houses stood open as he walked through the hall from the kitchen. Sergeant Jackson went down the passage which led to it and passed out of sight on the other side. His solid blue back brought home the realities of the situation with something like a physical shock. Marian’s house wasn’t her own any longer. It was merged with a house where someone had been murdered. All its doors and all its rooms were open to the police. And if anyone in either house had any secret thing to hide, it would be open too.

Marian came out of the study. As soon as she saw Richard she put a finger to her lips and went back. He followed her and shut the door, but she stepped away from his outstretched hand.

“Richard, you mustn’t get mixed up in this.”

She was dreadfully pale. There was the control of which he had been aware when she rang him up. He said,

“My dear, I am mixed up in it—at least as much as you are. It’s been a great shock, but it’s not as if you were involved in any way.”

She looked at him. He was aware that she had an impulse to speak, and that she checked it. She stood in the place to which she had fallen back after shutting the door. She did not move from it. But the distance between them had widened, her thought had withdrawn.

He went on to say quietly,

“After all, you hardly knew her. I gather that the Inspector from Ledlington has just arrived. He sounds very vigorous and efficient. If Mrs. Woolley hadn’t been over here visiting Eliza, I feel sure that I wouldn’t have had the chance of seeing her. One of the constabulary has now recalled her to the fold, and she will have to tell her story all over again. She’s enjoying it, you know. Nice amiable creature, and quite properly shocked and horrified, but just at the moment she’s got the centre of the stage and she can’t help enjoying it.”

Her mind shuddered, but she held her body still. He was as much aware of that as if it was his own thought that was shaken. He said,

“Felix Brand is missing?”

“Yes.”

“That means the police will suspect him.”

She said, “Yes,” again. And then, “I haven’t seen Penny. Eliza says she’s like a bit of stone. She loves him dreadfully.”

He nodded.

“How is Ina?”

She took a long breath.

“It’s been a most frightful shock.”

“Where is she?”

“In her room. She won’t come down.”

“The police will want to see her.”

“The sergeant asked us all whether we had heard anything in the night. They think she would have—cried out. Nobody seems to have heard any cry. He said the Inspector from Ledlington would want to see us when he came, and not to go out. But Cyril says he has to go up to town.”

“He’d better not.”

“He says he has an audition.”

“He’ll have to tell that to the police.”

As he spoke, Cyril Felton walked in. Like everyone else in the two houses, he looked the worse for wear. He had shaved carelessly and cut himself. Richard thought there was a moment in which he was undecided as to how he should play the part which had been thrust upon him without rehearsal. He came down on the side of being shocked but brave—the man of the world who knows that life and his own affairs must go on. He came forward with his hand out.

Richard felt that a really good producer would have cut the handshake down to a nod, but the “Hullo, Cunningham— shocking business this,” achieved quite the right casual note.

Richard said, “Yes.”

Cyril continued.

“Naturally they think it’s Felix. Frightfully silly of him to do a bolt like this. Of course the chap was insane with jealousy.”

“Cyril!” Marian’s voice cut in with a note of anger in it.

He stared at her.

“What’s the matter?”

“You’ve no right to say it was Felix!”

“All right, all right—I’m not saying it, but the police will. As as matter of fact I don’t see why it couldn’t have been an accident.”

Marian grew perceptibly paler.

“You would if you had listened to Mrs. Woolley.”

He gave a vague half shrug.

“Oh, well, I should have thought pitching down over that drop on to the shingle would account for anything. But the police will have it their own way. It’s no concern of mine. I just felt sorry for the chap, that’s all. Look here, what’s the matter with Ina? I’ve got to get up to this audition today, and there she is, locked in her room. I can’t get up to town without some cash—I’m cleaned right out. And there she is, locked in her room and won’t let me in.”

“The police won’t let you go.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Darling, they haven’t the slightest right to stop me. It’s all quite simple. I believe the Inspector from Ledlington has arrived. I just go through and tell him what I know, which is just about nothing at all, and I catch the next bus to the station. If he insists, I can come back tonight, but I must get up for that audition. So if you can make it a fiver—”

Marian looked as if she was going to say something, and changed her mind. She went out of the room, leaving the door open behind her. They heard her run up the stairs.

Cyril stuck his hands in his pockets, whistled a few bars from “Only Fancy Me,” and drifted over to the glass door leading to the garden. Standing there, he remarked conversationally,

“Nasty business all this. But I must say I think Ina might pull herself together. Shutting herself up like this. I mean, it’s the sort of thing that puts ideas into people’s heads—the police, you know. I mean, it’s not as if she even liked the girl. Other girls didn’t. And no need to go locking herself in her room and behaving as if she’d lost her dearest friend. Not reasonable, I mean—is it? Look here, if you get a chance you might put that to Marian. She’ll listen to you, and there’s an odd chance Ina will listen to her. You put in a word and see what you can do about it. I mean, there’s no sense in putting ideas into people’s heads, is there?”

Richard observed him with interest. A young man with one idea, and that one Cyril Felton. Most people were selfish, but there was quite often a blend of other interests. In this case the mind appeared to have but a single thought.

They heard the running feet on the stairs again. Marian came back into the room with a little packet of folded notes in her hand. She gave them to Cyril and stepped back to avoid his casual embrace. She had a little more colour. It looked as if her patience with Cyril had worn very thin indeed. He kissed his hand to her, said, “Wish me luck with the police!” and wandered out of the room as if he had all the time in the world and nothing special to do with it.

When he had gone Marian made an exasperated movement.

“What am I to do? He’ll come back without a penny, and we shan’t even know whether there was an audition or not. This is the first time it’s been mentioned. If he really had one, why didn’t he say so before? I think he just wants to get away from all the unpleasantness.”

“I shouldn’t wonder.” Richard’s tone was dry.

She turned round to him with both her hands out.

“And you come into it when you needn’t—when there isn’t the slightest obligation. We shan’t ever forget that.”

He took the hands, held them strongly for a moment, and let them go again. It would be easy to go too far and spoil everything. What she needed just now was friendship and stability—the feeling that there was someone who wouldn’t fail her. At least that stiff control had broken. He said lightly, but with an underlying seriousness,

“Well, here I am, and here I’m going to stay. You’ll have to make use of me.”

The look she turned on him was full of trouble.

“Richard—you shouldn’t! There are things—you don’t know.”

“Suppose you tell me what they are.”

“I don’t think I can.”

He put a hand on her shoulder.

“You can tell me anything. Don’t you know that? I believe you do.” He withdrew his hand, but went on speaking in the same low, intimate tone. “There isn’t anything you can’t tell me, and very little that needs putting into words. Where most people have walls between them, you and I have windows. I knew that when I walked down the corridor of that train. I only saw your face for a moment, and I don’t think you saw me at all—you didn’t look as if you did. But just in that moment I knew more about you than I do about people I’ve known all my life. It’s something like being on the same wave-length, and there’s just nothing you can do about it, my dear. So now are you going to tell me what’s bothering you and let me do what I can to help you?”

She went on looking at him. The trouble darkened her eyes. He saw how beautiful they were like that, wide and deep, but they tore his heart. He said,

“If it’s anything that touches you, it touches me. If it touches Ina too, I’ll go as far as you will. And now will you tell me what’s on your mind?”

At the almost imperceptible movement which meant, “Yes,” he said,

“Very well then. Now come and sit down. And just remember nothing is ever quite so bad as you think it is.”

They sat down on Martin Brand’s comfortable, shabby old couch with its wide seat and deep padded back. Marian leaned against the cushions and thought how wonderful it was to have someone who wanted to help, and how easy to let him do it.

“What is it? If it’s the raincoat, you don’t suppose Mrs. Woolley held her tongue about it, do you?”

“Oh!” It was just an involuntary catch of the breath. Her hands took hold of one another, but she was able to manage her voice.

“What did she say?”

“That your raincoat was found hanging over the back of the seat on the terrace from which Helen Adrian fell. You didn’t put it there, I take it.”

She shook her head. Her eyes were clear on his face.

“Or Ina?”

There was a pause before she said, “No.”

“Was it left down on the beach after the picnic? You were sitting on something of the sort, weren’t you?”

She thought, “He notices everything.” Then, aloud, “No, it wasn’t left out. You brought it in yourself.”

He said, “So I did!” and for an odd intimate moment they smiled at one another. Then he laughed. “I brought it in, and I hung it up in that bit of passage where the door goes through to the other house. That’s where you keep it, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Anyone could take it from there.”

She said, “The door was locked.”

“You mean, Helen Adrian couldn’t have taken it?”

She said again,

“The door was bolted. There are bolts on our side. We keep them shut.”

“You mean, someone from this side must have taken your coat?”

“The police will say so.”

He said, “I should think they would be too busy suspecting Felix Brand.”

She shook her head.

“The sergeant asked me about the coat—he wanted to know how it got there. He asked us all, and we all said we didn’t know.”

Richard said in a reasonable tone,

“Well, I should say offhand that if anyone is lying it would be Cyril.”

She said, “Why should he take my coat?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know why anyone should, but somebody did. It may have been just accidental, or there may have been a motive behind it.”

“What do you mean, Richard?”

“I mean, someone may have taken your coat because they wanted one and yours was handy. Or they may have taken it because it was yours, to turn suspicion towards you—away from someone else.”

“That’s—horrible.”

“Yes.”

“Richard, there’s something more.”

“I knew that. What is it?”

She said, speaking slowly with pauses between every few words,

“I have—a blue and yellow scarf—a square to tie over the head. There’s so much wind here—it blows my hair. I got it in Farne—the day after we came down—it’s rather pretty and bright. It was hanging in the passage—with my coat. The sergeant wanted to see—where I kept the coat—so I showed him. The scarf was there—hanging on the peg—so he took it down and looked at it. He asked—if it was mine. I said it was. Then he held it out—for me to see.” A long shudder went over her. She said, “It was—stained—”

“Blood?”

“Yes.”

He sat quite still for a moment, frowning and intent, his mind working, emotion shut off. Then he said,

“Your scarf—stained and put back. That’s proof that someone wants to bring you into it.”

Her lips just moved. He barely caught the words they formed.

“Unless—they didn’t know—”

“You mean, the person who was wearing the scarf might have put it back without knowing it was stained. What sort of stain was it—slight?”

“No—dreadful.”

“Then whoever handled it must have known.”

“I don’t see how they could help it.”

He got up and walked to the glass door. It stood open. A bee blundered by, heavy with pollen, a scent of flowers was distilled upon the sunny air—the sort of day one calls heavenly. And things moving in some perverted mind—sick, evil things reaching out to injure and befoul. He had a moment of awareness that set every nerve tingling. He turned and came back.

“Marian—”

She looked up, startled.

“What is it?”

“There’s something deliberate about this. I can see no motive for bringing that stained scarf back into this house except the damnable one of trying to involve you in the murder. But look here, my dear, that lifts your worst fear. You needn’t tell me what it is, for I know. You’ve been afraid about Ina. But you needn’t be. The worst of this kind of shock is that it puts your thinking out of action and hands you over to your emotions. Now just pull yourself together and think! Yesterday afternoon Cyril was having the kind of casual flirtation with that young woman which I suppose he, and she, would have with every second person they met. That is so, isn’t it?”