Who Pays the Piper? (27 page)

“Oh, Mrs. Green, what is it?”

“Miss Susan my dear, I had to come and tell you.”

Susan caught at the newel-post of the stair.

“Bill?” she said with lips that barely moved.

“Now, my dear, don't you take on. I wouldn't have hurried myself like I have if I'd been bringing you bad news—stands to reason I wouldn't.”

Susan shut her eyes for a moment.

“It isn't bad news?”

Mrs. Green fanned herself with a clean pocket-handkerchief.

“Stands to reason it wouldn't be. You wouldn't think so little of me as that! If I run myself out of breath, which I have and no mistake, it's on account of what you said to me this morning. ‘Let me know', you said, ‘if so be you hear anything'. And first minute I got Lily off and had a word with William Cole that come in behaving himself as if he was Hitler—that directly minute I put on my hat and run over.”

Susan opened the dining-room door.

“Better come in here.”

For the moment her relief was beyond words—just that immediate relief which does not look ahead. Then it changed to suspense. But there was no way of hurrying Mrs. Green. She would take her time and tell her tale in her own way.

The dining-room table was strewn with large sheets of drawing-paper. Bill Carrick, with a pencil in his hand and a determined frown upon his brow, was concentrating upon the possible plumbing problems of Mr. Gilbert Garnish. When he lifted his head and beheld Mrs. Green the frown deepened involuntarily.

Susan put a hand on his shoulder.

“Bill, Mrs. Green has come to tell us something—good news—you did say good news, didn't you?” Her voice implored Mrs. Green—or fate—to let the news be good.

Mrs. Green regarded them with benevolence. She was not offended by the frown, because men were all alike the way they looked at you if you interrupted them when they were doing anything. You'd think they hated the very sight of you if you didn't know better. She took the chair which Susan had pulled out for her, loosened her coat at the neck, and told them what Lily had seen on Monday evening.

“Oh, Mrs. Green!” Susan took hold of one of her hands and squeezed it.

Bill Carrick had turned pale. Gilbert Garnish's drains dazzled before his eyes. He pushed the sheets away.

“Lily is sure she saw Miss de Lisle—she couldn't be making a mistake?”

Mrs. Green turned a glowing face upon him.

“Now would I be coming here to tell you if she wasn't sure?”

“I don't know,” said Bill. “That's the point—is she sure?”

“Certain sure. Lily isn't one to say she seen anyone if she didn't. A truthfuller girl doesn't live though I say it. The best eyes in the village too—and I don't mean for looks only. No, Mr. Bill, if Lily said she seen her, then she seen her and there's no getting from it. William Cole, he tried hard enough to stop her letting on, but I had it out of her, and I had it out with him when he come round just now. He needn't think he can come it over me like he does over her. ‘No,' I said, ‘Lily's not here, William', I said, ‘and if you want to know where she is, she's gone back up to King's Bourne to tell the police what she did ought to have told them Monday night, and what she would have told them if so be as you hadn't carried on like you hadn't got any right to. Look at the talk and trouble you've brought on Mr. Bill and Miss Susan making Lily hold her tongue like that. You did ought to be ashamed of yourself', I said. Well, he flared up properly, I can tell you. Jealous, that's what he is. Said all Lily wanted was to get her picture in the papers, and to put herself forward to be took notice of by the London police. And I said to him, ‘William Cole, you're just plain jealous, and a jealous husband's like having a stone in your shoe, it don't get any better as you go along, and if I've any say, you won't never be any husband of Lily's,' I said. And with that he said something he shouldn't and banged the door and off down the street on his bicycle.”

Bill pushed back his chair and got up. Mrs. Green would go on like this till all was blue, and he couldn't stand any more of it. Was this story of Lily's going to make any difference, or wasn't it? Was it dawn after nightmare, or was it only a spark of hope which might peter out and leave them in the dark again?

He stood by Susan for a moment and pulled her round to face him. He was frightfully pale.

“I'm going out—I've got to think. I'll try and give Lane the slip. Don't build
too
much, Susan.”

For a moment Mrs. Green might not have been there. Susan looked at him and said with quivering lips,

“I must have
something.”

He put his cheek against hers. The grip of his hands hurt her. Then he straightened up, let go of her, and went out through the kitchen.

Mrs. Green dabbed her eyes.

“Don't you take on, my dear,” she said. “A nice walk'll do him all the good in the world. I could see how he was when I come in. I've often thought it funny about men. When a woman's upset in her mind what she wants is a lay down on her bed or a nice cup of tea, but men's all the same, they want to get outside—can't stay in the house, and don't want to be fussed round. Walk miles they will, where a woman'll set down and cry. Of course if they're the drinking sort they'll be down to the Magpie. But that's not Mr. Bill's way. He isn't the drinking kind, and you've got to be thankful for that.” She dabbed her eyes and said in a choked voice, “Lily's father was. And that's why I take on about Lily. If you've had a bad husband yourself you know what it means. And I don't say William drinks, for he don't, but an overmastering, dictating, domineering king of the castle he is, and there's no getting from it. And that don't make for a happy life whether you take it lying down same as Lily does, or standing up and giving him back as good as you get, which 'ud be my way.”

Susan was to look back afterwards and think how strange it was that with Bill's life, and her life, and all their happiness in the balance, she and Mrs. Green should have sat there for the best part of an hour by the clock talking about William Cole, and Lily's chances of happiness as his wife.

CHAPTER XL

Up at King's Bourne Inspector Lamb continued his interrogation of the household. Mrs. Raby, Esther the other housemaid, and Doris the betweenmaid, had each assured him that they had neither seen Robert go out nor heard his motor-bicycle—“but then of course we wouldn't—we had the wireless on.”

Old Lamb lost his temper. His red face turned plum-coloured and he brought his fist down with a bang upon Lucas Dale's blotting-pad.

“Don't anyone in this house ever stop playing gramophone records, or having baths, or listening to the wireless?”

“Oh, yes, sir.” That was Doris, with a sniff. But Esther Coleworthy, small, dark-eyed, and uppish, flickered her eyelashes and said with a toss of the head, “Oh, well—once in a while—when there's something better to do.” Mrs. Raby, stout and shapeless, opined in a good-natured voice that a bit of music kept things going and didn't do no harm to nobody.

Lamb dismissed them curtly.

“Well, that brings us back to Raby, who told Robert he could go out about six o'clock.”

Frank Abbott nodded.

“It was just on six when I came out of the study and Raby told me he'd let Robert go.”

“And that's all we've got. Raby no more than anyone else heard the motor-bicycle. They were all listening to that infernal wireless, and when Robert came in about seven I suppose it was still going on, and the water-pipes drumming into the bargain. Seems to me they could have a machine-gun going in this house and nobody'd hear it. Not that I think it was Robert. It might have been, but I don't think it was. After all, you've got to have a motive, and where's anything that begins to look like a motive for Robert?”

“You never can tell.”

“No, but you can make a pretty good guess and see what comes of it. Take Carrick—he's got an overwhelming motive. He's overheard threatening to do what I believe he did do, and by his own admission and that of Miss Lenox he was on the spot when the shot was fired, or as near as makes no difference. As to this second business, if he hasn't got a cast-iron alibi, I'll say what I said before, it's ten thousand pounds to a halfpenny he knew Robert had a motor-bicycle and where he kept it, and with all those women sitting with their heads in a loudspeaker there was nothing to stop him running the bike out, and running it over to Ledlington, and running it back again. So you'll just step down to the Little House and ask Lane what comings and goings there've been. And then you will tell Mr. Carrick I'd like a word with him, but you needn't tell him why.”

Frank Abbott strolled down the garden. Just across the village street from the Little House he came upon Constable Lane in an apologetic frame of mind.

“Come down the hill not five minutes ago, Mr. Bill did, and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘I'm one up on you, Lane,' he says. ‘We've had some nice outings, but I've a fancy for my own company tonight', he says. Then he laughs and off into the house, and I give you my word I didn't know he was out.”

“Mrs. Green been here?”

“An hour and a bit over—only just gone.”

Frank Abbott gave his Inspector marks. If Mrs. Green had been here for an hour, then the Little House knew as much as Lily did. He went across the road and used the knocker.

The talk in the drawing-room broke suddenly at the sound. They were all there—Mrs. O'Hara on her sofa, Bill and Susan standing together in front of the fire, Cathy in a low chair, leaning forward with her chin in her hand, eyes wide and lips parted. Susan had just finished repeating Mrs. Green's account of what Lily had seen.

“But that means—oh, Susan, if Lily really saw Miss de Lisle there——” Cathy's voice shook and trailed away.

“It might mean she shot him, or——” Susan hesitated—“or it might mean that she saw who shot him. I should think they would arrest her. Anyhow they're bound to find her—to find out what she knows.”

Cathy's eyelids fell. Her lips moved stiffly.

“Arrest her?” she said.

Mrs. O'Hara gave a little cough.

“The thought of an innocent person being arrested is naturally disturbing, but nothing of that sort will happen, my dear.”

Cathy looked up with a startled expression, and it was at this moment that the knocking came upon the door. Before anyone else could move she ran out of the room. Through the half open door they heard Frank Abbott's voice. A cold breath from the outer air blew in. Mrs. O'Hara pulled her shawl about her, and Bill put his arm round Susan for a moment and held her close. Then he turned with a jerk and went out into the hall, and she after him. There was a low, brief interchange of words, and the sound of the front door falling to.

Mrs. O'Hara shivered slightly. She pushed the rug off her feet. As Cathy came back into the room, she was putting her knitting away.

“Mummy—oh, Mummy!”

“Darling, what is it? You look very much upset. Have they really arrested that Miss de Lisle?”

“I don't know—I don't think so. I think something dreadful has happened. He—he looked like that.”

“Darling, who?”

“That Mr. Abbott. He wanted to know where Bill had been since six o'clock and—and—why should he want to know that?”

“I can't imagine,” said Mrs. O'Hara.

Cathy came quite close and stared at her.

“I know it's something dreadful. He's taken Bill up to King's Bourne, and Susan's gone too. I think they're going to arrest Bill.”

“Oh, no, my dear, they won't do that.”

Cathy put out her hands, and drew them back again without touching her mother.

“They will unless you stop them. Perhaps they'll arrest Miss de Lisle. Oh, Mummy, you can't let them do that—you can't let them arrest anyone!”

Mrs. O'Hara sat up and put her feet down.

“Darling, why not?”

“I saw you,” said Cathy in a breaking voice.

“Dear me!”

“You came along to my room and looked at me, but I didn't open my eyes—I didn't feel as if I could talk to anyone. And then you went into Susan's room, and you put on the light there. Both the doors were open, and I could see right through. I saw you take her shoes and put them on.” She paused and said with a sob, “Susan thinks it was me—and I let her—I didn't tell. There was a footprint inside the study—you must have stepped in the clay—and I let Susan think it was me—she thinks I wore those shoes.”

“They were most uncomfortable,” said Mrs. O'Hara. “So much too large. But I thought I should feel the damp in my house shoes—all mine are so thin. Of course yours would be a much better fit, darling, but I didn't want to disturb you.”

Cathy gave a dry sob.

“I saw you pick up Susan's handkerchief from the dressing-table and tuck it into your sleeve.”

“I am always dropping handkerchiefs,” said Mrs. O'Hara—“and the interview might have been a very emotional one.”

“What interview?”

“Darling, I thought you would guess. I was going to tell Mr. Dale that I couldn't possibly dream of letting Susan marry him. She was obviously very unhappy about it, and I was going to tell him so.”

Cathy stood still and trembled.

“And did you?”

“No, darling,” said Mrs. O'Hara in a practical voice. “I didn't get the chance.”

“Mummy!”

Mrs. O'Hara removed her shawl and patted her hair.

“I think, darling, if you will get me my fur coat and those shoes of Susan's, I had better just go up to King's Bourne and talk to the Inspector. I felt no ill effects at all the other night. And I don't think I need trouble about a hat—this light shawl will do very well to put over my head. But I should like my gloves—the loose washing ones I took the other night will do. They are in my left-hand drawer.”