Wicked Uncle (15 page)

Miss Masterman was writing a letter. It began, “Dear Mr. Trower—” and it ended, “Yours sincerely, Agnes Masterman.” It was written in a firm, legible hand.

When she had signed her name she folded the sheet, put it in an envelope, and addressed it to Messrs. Trower and Wakefield, Solicitors. Then she put on her hat and the shabby fur coat and walked down the drive.

She came back in about twenty minutes. Mr. Masterman was knocking about the balls in the billiard-room. When he saw his sister come in, still in her outdoor things, he frowned and said,

“Where have you been?”

She came right up to the table before she answered him. Watching her come, he felt a growing uneasiness. When she said, “To post a letter,” the uneasiness became an absolute oppression. He wanted to ask her, “What letter?” but he held the words back. It wasn’t any concern of his, but she wrote so few letters—none at all since old Mabel Ledbury died. Why should she write to anyone now?

They stood there, not more than a yard apart, with that uneasiness of his between them. He didn’t like the way she was looking at him. There was something hard about it, as if she had made up her mind and didn’t give a damn. He put down his cue and said,

“Hadn’t you better take your things off? It’s hot in here.”

She didn’t take any notice of that, just looked at him and said in quite an ordinary voice,

“I’ve written to Mr. Trower.”

“You’ve—what?”

“I’ve written to Mr. Trower to say that we’ve found another will.”

“Agnes—are you mad?”

“Oh, no. I told you I couldn’t go on. I said it was hidden in her biscuit-box—there won’t be any trouble about it. I told you I couldn’t go on.”

He said in a stunned voice, “You’re mad.”

Agnes Masterman shook her head.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I thought I’d better tell you what I’d done. Now I’m going to take my things off.”

Afterwards he was glad that Leonard Carroll chose this moment to drift into the room, obviously bored and wanting a game. Agnes walked out with the same detached air which she had worn throughout their brief encounter, and he had the satisfaction of beating young Carroll’s head off. Much better than having a row with Agnes. No use having a row if the letter was posted. They’d have to go through with it, but he would keep her to her offer about the fifty thousand. He’d be no worse off if he had it, and he’d be safe. If he had known how Agnes was going to carry on he would never have risked it at all. Women hadn’t the nerve for a bold stroke, and that was a fact.

Whilst the game of billiards was going on Justin went up to the Mill House.

“Put your hat on and come out,” he said.

Dorinda went away and came back again. They walked down the road towards the village in the late dusk of a damp, misty evening. Little curls of smoke came up out of the chimneys of the village houses to join the mist and thicken it. Here and there a lighted chink showed where a curtain had been drawn crookedly. There was a faint smell of rotted leaves—especially cabbage leaves—manure, and wood smoke.

Just short of the first house a lane went off between high hedgerows and overarching trees. Until they had turned into it neither of them had spoken. There was that feeling of there being too much to say, and an odd sense of being too much out in the open to say it. Here in the lane they were shut in—alone.

Justin spoke first.

“How are you getting on?”

She didn’t answer the question, but said quickly,

“The police came—”

“Did they see Mrs. Oakley?”

“No—Mr. Oakley wouldn’t let them. He said she wasn’t well enough. They’re coming back tomorrow. They saw the maid, and they saw me.”

“You’d better tell me about it.”

“They were very nice. I mean they didn’t make me feel nervous or anything. The Chief Inspector asked all the questions, and the other one wrote down what I said. And—oh, Justin, the very first thing he asked me was how long had I known Mr. Porlock.”

“What did you say?”

She had turned and was looking at him through the dusk. It was really almost dark here between the hedges and under the trees. He had sent her to put on a hat, but she had come down in her tweed coat bareheaded. The colour of the tweed was absorbed into all the other shades of brown and russet and auburn which belonged to drifted leaves, brown earth, and leafless boughs. Her hair had vanished too, melting into the shadow overhead. There remained visible just her face, robbed of its colour, almost of its features, like the faint first sketch of a face painted on a soft, dim background. The sunk lane gave an under-water quality to its own darkness. She seemed at once remote and near. He could touch her if he put out his hand, but at this moment it came to him to wonder whether he would reach her if he did.

The pause before she answered was momentary.

“I said I didn’t know him at all when we went there last night. Justin, it doesn’t seem as if it could be only last night— does it?” She caught her breath. “I’m sorry—it just came over me. Then I said when we came into the drawing-room I recognized him.”

“Oh, you told them that?”

She said in a voice which was suddenly very young,

“I thought I must. And I thought if I was going to, then I had better do it at once.”

“That’s all right. Go on.”

“Well, they asked a lot of questions. I told them his name was Glen Porteous when I knew him, and that he was Aunt Mary’s husband. And they asked when she died, and I said four years ago. So then they wanted to know whether there had been a divorce, and I said yes, she divorced him about seven years ago after he went away the last time, and that I hadn’t seen him since. They wanted to know whether I was sure that Gregory Porlock was Glen Porteous, and I said I was, and that he knew I had recognized him. He did, you know. You can always tell by the way anyone looks at you, and that was the way he looked at me. Well, after that they asked about the photograph I picked up off the nursery floor. I don’t know who told them about it. I said it was the twin of the one Aunt Mary had and I recognized it at once. And then they went back to that horrid business at the De Luxe Stores. And do you know what I think, Justin? I think the Wicked Uncle cooked that up to get me out of my job with the Oakleys. You see, he couldn’t count on my not recognizing him, and if he was going about being Gregory Porlock he wouldn’t want a bit of his past turning up and saying, ‘Oh, no—that’s Glen Porteous, and my Aunt Mary had to divorce him because he was an out and out bad lot.’ I mean, would he?”

“Probably not.”

“They seemed to know about Miss Silver. The young one got a sort of twinkly look when I told them how she talked to the manager at that horrid Stores. He said something that sounded like ‘She would!’ and the Chief Inspector went rather stiff and said that Miss Silver was very much respected at Scotland Yard. Oh, Justin, I do wish she was here!”

“What makes you say that?”

She caught her breath.

“It’s the Oakleys. Justin, I feel frightened about them. You know how she called out when she saw that he was dead? She called him Glen. She must have known him before he was Gregory Porlock. She wasn’t supposed to know him at all. There’s something frightening there. She does nothing but cry, and Mr. Oakley looks as if it was a funeral all the time. There’s something they’re both dreadfully afraid about. She’s afraid to tell him what it is, and he’s afraid to ask her. It’s grim.”

He said, “I don’t like your being there.”

“Oh, it isn’t that. I can’t help feeling sorry for them—even if—”

“What did you mean by that, Dorinda?”

She said almost inaudibly, “It frightens me.”

The thought which frightened her hung between them in the dark. A desperate hand striking a desperate blow. Perhaps a woman’s hand—perhaps a man’s—

She said with a little gasp,

“He was the sort of person who gets himself murdered.”

Will you see Miss Moira, my lady?”

Lady Pemberley had breakfasted in bed. She was now reading the paper. She said,

“Miss Moira? She’s very early. Yes, of course. Take the tray, and ask her to come up.”

The paper she had been reading lay tilted to the light. A black headline showed—“Murder in a Country House. Guests Questioned.” When the door opened and Moira Lane came in it was the second thing she saw. The first was Sibylla Pemberley’s face, pale and rather austere under the thick iron-grey hair which she wore drawn back in a manner reminiscent of the eighteenth century. Everything in the room was very good and very plain—no fripperies, no bright colours; a dark oil painting of the late Lord Pemberley over the mantelpiece; a jar of white camellia blooms on the shelf below; a purple bedspread which Moira irreverently dubbed the catafalque; a lace cap with purple ribbons; a fine Shetland shawl covering a night-dress of tucked nun’s veiling. With all these Moira was quite familiar. They made up the picture she expected. Her first glance was for the look on Lady Pemberley’s face, which told her nothing, and her second for the newspaper, which told her a good deal. To start with, it wasn’t the sort of paper Cousin Sibylla read. Headlines and pictures weren’t what you would call in her line. That meant that Dawson had brought it up specially, and if she had, it meant not only that the murder was in it, but that Miss Moira Lane was mentioned.

“Amongst those present was Miss Moira Lane.” Almost a daily occurrence in some paper or another. You got to the point where you took it for granted. “Attractive Miss Moira Lane”— “Lord Blank and Miss Moira Lane at Epsom”—“The Duke of Dash, Lady Asterisk, and Miss Moira Lane on the moors”— “Miss Moira Lane and Mr. Justin Leigh…” Not so good when it was a murder story—“Miss Moira Lane at the Inquest on Gregory Porlock.”

She came up to the bed, touched a thin cheek with her cold glowing one, and straightened up again.

“Good-morning, Cousin Sibylla.”

“You’re very early, Moira.”

“I had the chance of a lift. Justin Leigh brought me up. He’s fetching papers from his office. We’ll have to get back by one or so. I suppose it’s all in the papers?”

Delicate dark eyebrows lifted. There was no other likeness between the young woman and the old one, but those fine arched brows belonged to both. In Lady Pemberley they gave an effect of severity. The eyes beneath them were grey, not blue like Moira’s. Grey eyes can be most tender, and most severe. In Lady Pemberley’s rather ascetic face they tended to be severe. She said,

“It is very unfortunate—very unpleasant.”

Moira nodded. She sat down on the edge of the bed.

“I’m going to tell you what happened.”

The story did not go down at all well. The atmosphere became charged with all the things Lady Pemberley had said in the past. She didn’t say them now, but there they were, quite as insistent as if she had. If you kept to your own set you did at least know by what rules they played the game. If you went outside it you were out of your own line of country and anything might happen. A man could leave his own set and amuse himself elsewhere, but it was folly for a woman to attempt it. These themes, with endless variations, had been so often sounded in Moira’s ears that it needed no more than a single note to recall the whole. She went through to the end.

Lady Pemberley repeated her former remark.

“Very unfortunate—very unpleasant.”

“Epitaph for Gregory Porlock,” said Moira with a tang in her voice.

The eyebrows rose again.

“My dear—”

Moira was looking at her—a straight, dark look.

“Do you know, I meant that.”

“My dear—”

Moira gave an abrupt nod. Her glowing colour had gone. She looked pale and hard in her grey tweeds.

“He was a devil.”

“Moira—”

“He was a blackmailer.” She stood up straight by the bed. “He was blackmailing me. I’ve come here to tell you why.”

There was a brief silence. Lady Pemberley had become paler too. She said,

“You had better sit down.”

Moira shook her head.

“I’d rather stand. Cousin Sibylla, you won’t believe me—I suppose nobody would—but I’m not telling you about it because Gregory Porlock has been murdered. I was coming anyhow. I made up my mind that I would—after I got down there on Saturday—after he tried to blackmail me. I was coming up to tell you. You won’t believe me of course.”

“I haven’t said so. Go on, please.”

The dark blue eyes went on looking at her.

“A little while ago I was in a bad hole—money. I went down for a week-end with some people who played a bit too high for me. I had the most damnable luck. It put me in a hole.”

“Yes?”

Moira set her teeth.

“I came to see you. You remember—it was the first week in November.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was going to. Everything went wrong. The Lamonts were here. You were vexed.”

“I remember.”

“Mrs. Lamont had made you vexed. She’s always had a down on me.”

“She is one of my oldest friends.”

“She hates me like poison—she always has.”

“You should not exaggerate, Moira.”

“Let’s say she doesn’t love me.”

“I don’t think you have given her much reason to do so— have you? Your manner towards her is scarcely—”

“Oh, I expect I was as rude as the devil! Don’t you see, I wanted them to go, but they stayed, and stayed, and stayed. And then—” She broke off.

“And then, Moira?”

“You sent me to tell Dawson you wanted your jewel-case. You were talking about Molly Lamont’s wedding, and you said you would like her to have a brooch you had worn at your own wedding. You wanted her to have it because Cousin Robert gave it to you and he was her godfather. I brought the case down, and you showed her the brooch, and then they went away. You went on showing me things.”

“Yes, Moira?”

“There was a diamond and ruby bracelet. You began to say something about leaving it to me. Cousin Sophy Arnott was shown in, and you said, ‘Oh, take these things back to Dawson, Moira.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’ll say good-bye,’ because I knew it wasn’t any good—Cousin Sophy’s a sticker.”

She came to a standstill. It was not only difficult, it was impossible. But there were times when the impossible had to be done. This was one of them. Everything in her was stiff with effort. She went on.

“I took the things upstairs. Dawson wasn’t there. I looked at the bracelet again. You said you were going to leave it to me. I was angry—you know I’ve got a foul temper. I don’t think I’d have done it if I hadn’t been angry.”

Lady Pemberley’s face was almost as white as the lace of her cap. She said,

“Why should you have been angry?”

“Mrs. Lamont staying on like that—I knew she’d been saying things. She hates me. I thought you kept her on purpose because I wanted to speak to you.”

“But when she went you did not speak—”

“I was working up for it—and then Cousin Sophy had to come in—I felt as if everything was against me. I took the bracelet.”

There was silence for some time before Lady Pemberley said,

“What did you do with it?”

It was out now. There couldn’t be anything worse. She drew in her breath.

“I meant to pawn it. I had to have the money at once. I meant to pawn it and tell you what I’d done. And then you got ill—I couldn’t.”

“You pawned it?”

Moira shook her head.

“I tried to. I got the wind up—the man asked questions—I should have had to leave my name and address and pay interest. I funked it. I went into Crossley’s and sold it over the counter. They didn’t ask any questions. It seems they knew me, though I didn’t think of that at the time. I couldn’t get at you—you were very ill.”

She heard Lady Pemberley say,

“And you thought that if I died, the bracelet would be yours and nobody would know?”

It was true. She hadn’t any answer to make. She made none.

After a while Lady Pemberley said,

“How does Mr. Porlock come into it?”

“He saw the bracelet. He recognized it. He said it was one of a pair, and that Napoleon gave them to Josephine. He knew they belonged to you. He bought the bracelet and tried to blackmail me. He wanted me to do jackal for him—scavenge for scandals, so that he could carry on his blackmailing business. I told him there was nothing doing. That was on Saturday evening. I made up my mind then to come up to town on Monday morning and tell you. Then after dinner somebody stabbed him.”

“Do you know who did it?”

“No.” She laughed suddenly. “I should have liked to do it myself! But you needn’t be afraid—I didn’t.”

It is possible that Lady Pemberley had been afraid—it is possible that she now experienced relief. It was not in her character to admit to either. She put out a thin, ringless hand and rang the bell on her bedside table.

Dawson came in, elderly, sensible, a little prim. Lady Pemberley spoke to her at once.

“Oh, Dawson—my keys, and the large jewel-case. Miss Moira has one of the ruby and diamond bracelets, and she might just as well have the other. It is a pity to separate them. Get it out and let me have it.”

Moira said nothing at all. It had not often happened to her to find herself without words. It happened now. She stood like a stone whilst Dawson set the jewel-case down on the dressing-table—whilst she unlocked it, lifted out trays, and came over to the bed to put the other bracelet into Lady Pemberley’s waiting hand.

Dawson was a little cross because Miss Moira didn’t speak. She thought she might have said something pretty and given her ladyship a kiss, instead of standing there for all the world like Lot’s wife. She was locking up the jewel-case again, when Lady Pemberley spoke.

“Just remind me to alter the list of my jewellery, and to let Mr. Ramsay know about taking the bracelets out of my will. It will be much pleasanter to think of Miss Moira wearing them now. Thank you, Dawson, that will be all.”

When the door had shut and they were alone again Moira lifted her eyes. She had the stolen bracelet in her hand. She took a step forward and laid it down on the purple coverlet.

“I can’t take them, Cousin Sibylla.”

Lady Pemberley said gently,

“But I want you to have them.”

Something in Moira gave way. A kind of dizzy warmth swept over her. She sat on the edge of the bed and felt the tears run scalding down.