Wicked Uncle (23 page)

The inquest was over. Verdict, wilful murder by Geoffrey Masterman. Dispersal of the guests at the Grange. Miss Masterman to a nursing-home. The Totes to the expensive and uncomfortable house in which she always felt a stranger. Moira Lane to the three-roomed flat which she shared with a friend. Miss Silver would stay to keep Dorinda company until after the funeral, when she too would return to town.

It was Dorinda’s destination which was in doubt. She could return to the Heather Club and look for another job. But on the other hand why should she? Two murders and a legacy which she had no intention of keeping didn’t really interfere with the fact that she was Mrs. Oakley’s secretary. She put the point to Moira Lane, and Moira blew a smoke-ring and said,

“Too right.” Then she laughed and said, “Ask Justin!”

Dorinda asked him. At least that is not quite the way to put it. She just said of course there wasn’t any reason why she shouldn’t go back to the Oakleys, and he said, “What a mind!” and walked out of the room. He didn’t slam the door, because Pearson was coming in with the tea-tray, but Dorinda got the impression that if it hadn’t been for that, he might have banged it quite hard.

After tea she walked up to the Mill House and was ushered by Doris into the pink boudoir, where the Oakleys had been having tea. Doris took the tray. Martin Oakley shook hands and edged out of the room. She was left with Linnet, in one of her rose-coloured negligées, reclining on the sofa propped up with pink and blue cushions. Dorinda thought she resembled a Dresden china figure, a little the worse for wear but obviously cheering up. The stamp of tragedy, so ill-suited to her type, was gone. The shadow under the forget-me-not blue eyes no longer suggested a bruise. Some slight natural colour was evident beneath a delicate artificial tint. She was affectionate to the point of warmth. She held Dorinda’s hand for quite a long time whilst she gazed at her with swimming eyes and said how dreadful it had all been.

Dorinda agreed, and came straight to the point.

“I could come back any day now—”

It was at this moment that her hand was released. A lace-bordered handkerchief came into play. Between dabs Mrs. Oakley murmured that it was all so difficult.

“You don’t want me to come?”

There were more dabs.

“Oh, it isn’t that—”

“Won’t you tell me what it is?”

It took quite a long time. Dorinda was reminded of trying to catch a bird with a damaged wing—just as you thought you had got it, it flapped off and you had to start all over again. But in the end out it came. There was a lot of “Martin thinks,” and “Painful associations,” and a very fluttery bit about “the dead past.” But, in much plainer and more brutal English than Linnet Oakley would permit herself, what it amounted to was that Dorinda knew too much. There were little sobs, and little gasps, and little dabs, but it all came down to that.

“Of course, we shall get married again at once, and nobody need ever know. The Scotland Yard Inspector promised us that, unless it was necessary for the case against the murderer. And it couldn’t be, could it? So as Martin says, it’s just to go through the ceremony again, and then we can forget all about it. I’m sure you’ll understand that. You see, it’s been so dreadful, because I did think perhaps Martin had done it—not Mr. Carroll, you know, but Glen. And Martin thought perhaps I had, which was very, very stupid of him, because I shouldn’t have had the strength, besides not being so dreadfully wicked. And you know, there was a time when I was very, very fond of Glen—I really was—and I couldn’t ever have done anything to hurt him. I can’t say that to Martin, because he has a very, very jealous temperament—that was why I was so frightened.”

She gave a last dab and reached for her powder compact.

“I mustn’t cry—it makes me look such a fright. And I really ought to be thankful—the way it’s turned out, I mean—its not being Martin. Because if it had been—” The hand with the powder-puff drooped. The blue eyes swam with tears again. A sobbing breath caught in her throat. “If you’ve been in love with anyone and been married to him you can’t feel just the same as if he was anyone else. And I was in love with Glen— anyone could have been. There was something about him, you know, though he wasn’t even kind to me after all the money had gone. And he went away and didn’t care whether I starved or not—and I very nearly did. But there was something about him—”

Dorinda remembered Aunt Mary dying grimly and saying with a bitter tang in her voice, “What’s the good of asking why? I was a fool—but there was something about him.” There couldn’t be two more different women anywhere in the world, but they had this one thing in common—neither of them had known how to say no to the man who was Glen Porteous and Gregory Porlock. She said in a calm, soothing voice,

“I wouldn’t go on thinking about it—and you’re making your eyes red. You haven’t really told me whether you want me to come back to you. I don’t think you do, but it’s better to get it quite clear, isn’t it?”

Mrs. Oakley dabbed with the powder-puff and said,

“Oh, yes.”

“You see, I must know, because of getting another job.”

Linnet stared.

“But Glen left you all his money.”

“There isn’t very much, and anyhow I can’t keep it. All I want to know is whether you want me—and I think you don’t.”

It seemed that she was right.

“Not because we don’t like you and all that, because we do. But you see, you know, and we should always know that you knew, and I don’t think we could bear it. So if you don’t mind—”

Dorinda came back to the Grange and informed Mr. Justin Leigh that she was out of a job.

“I shall go back to the Heather Club and look about me. I’ve got a month’s salary in hand, and as I shan’t have done a stroke of work for it, it’s not too bad. In a way it’s a relief that the Oakleys don’t want me back, because I think it would be nice to go where no one had ever heard of Uncle Glen. It’s stupid of me, but I’ve rather got that feeling.”

Mr. Leigh, extended full length in the easiest of the study chairs, neither raised his head nor fully opened his eyes. He might have been asleep, only Dorinda felt perfectly sure that he was not. After a short lapse of time he murmured enquiringly,

“Declaration of Independence?”

She said with dignity,

“Miss Silver and I can go up to town after breakfast tomorrow.”

“Yes, I should have breakfast first. Never travel on an empty stomach.”

“I wasn’t going to. Now I’m going upstairs to pack.”

He opened his eyes enough to let her see that they were smiling.

“You don’t need six or seven hours to pack. Come and talk to me.”

“I don’t think I want to.”

“Think again. Think of all the things you’ll think about afterwards and wish you’d said them to me. If you can’t think of them for yourself, I’ll be noble and oblige.” The smile had spread to his lips. “Come along, darling, and relax.” He reached out and pulled up another chair until it touched his own. “I’ll say this for the late Gregory, he knew how to pick a house with good chairs. And what have we been doing for days, and days, and days? Sitting on the edge of them as taut as bowstrings talking to policemen! No way to treat decent furniture. Come along and tell me all about the new job.”

Dorinda weakened. She had a horrid conviction that she would always weaken if Justin looked at her like that. But of course there wouldn’t be a great many more opportunities, because they would both be going back to work, and they wouldn’t be seeing nearly so much of each other.

She came and sat down in the chair, and the very first moment after she had done it she knew just what a mistake it was. It is a great, great deal easier to be proud and independent when you are standing up. Soft well-sprung chairs are hideously undermining. Instead of being buoyed-up with feeling how right it was to be self-supporting and independent, she could only feel how dreadfully dull and flat it was going to be. And as if that wasn’t enough, her mind filled with pictures and images which she had been firmly resolved to banish. There was the moment in the hall on Saturday night when Justin had put his arm round her and of course it meant nothing at all because they were cousins and someone had just been murdered. And there was the moment which really filled her with shame when she had pressed her face into his coat and clung to him with all her might. That was when the police were arresting Geoffrey Masterman and he had broken away and taken a running jump at the end window. The horrid sound of the struggle—men’s feet stamping and sliding on the polished floor, the clamour of voices, the clatter of breaking glass, came back like the sound-track of a film. Justin had pulled away from her and gone to help. It made her feel hot all over to think that he had had to push her away. That was why she mustn’t let go of herself now.

His hand came over the arm of the chair and touched her cheek.

“You’re not relaxing a bit—you’re all stiff and keyed-up. What’s the matter?”

Dorinda said soberly, “I think I’m tired.”

She heard him laugh softly.

“I think you are. And of course that’s a magnificent reason for sitting up as stiff as a board.”

“I get like that when I’m tired. Justin, please let me go!”

“In a minute. Move a bit so that I can get my arm round you… That’s better. Now listen! I’m thinking of getting married.”

She couldn’t help starting, but after that one uncontrollable movement something poured into her—some flood of feeling which carried her right away from all the things which had been troubling her. They didn’t seem to matter any more—they were drowned and swept away. She didn’t know what the feeling was. If it was pain it wasn’t hurting yet. What it was doing was to make her feel that nothing else mattered.

She turned so that she could look at him.

“Is it Moira Lane?”

“Would you like it to be?”

“If it made you happy—”

“It wouldn’t. Anyhow she wouldn’t have me as a gift.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t think she’d care about taking someone else’s property.”

He spoke, unconscious of incongruity, and, incongruous or not, it was the truth. Moira had stolen a bracelet, but she wouldn’t take another girl’s lover. Queer patchy sort of thing human nature.

Dorinda said, “Someone else?” And then, “Who is it, Justin?”

She was looking straight at him. His arm had slipped from her shoulders. He took her hands and said,

“Don’t you think it would be a good thing? I’ve seen a flat that would do. I’ve got furniture. Will it amuse you to help me choose carpets and curtains? All my mother’s things are in store, but I expect they will have perished. I’ll get a day off and we’ll go down and see if there are any survivors.”

“Who are you going to marry?”

“I haven’t asked her yet, darling.”

“Why?”

“Just the feeling that I didn’t want to get it mixed up with policemen and inquests and funerals.”

Dorinda said, “The funerals are over.”

“That’s what I was thinking. Are you going to marry me?”

“Do you want me to?”

“Oh, Dorinda!”

She saw that his eyes were wet. It did something to her. He was still holding her hands. All of a sudden he jumped up pulling her with him, and put his arms round her. It wasn’t until he let go of her hands that she knew how tight he had been holding them. They felt quite stiff and numb. She set them against the rough stuff of his coat and held him off. But she didn’t feel that the stuff was rough. She knew it was, but she couldn’t feel anything because her hands were numb. She held him off, and said what she had to say.

“I’m not the right person for you—I’ve always known that. I don’t know enough about how things ought to be done. You ought to marry someone like Moira. I thought you were going to marry her—I’ve thought so for a long time.”

“Think again, my sweet. Think about saying yes. Did I tell you I loved you? I do, you know. It’s been coming on for months. I thought you’d understand when I gave you my mother’s brooch.”

Her eyes widened.

“I thought you were fond of me—”

He gave an odd shaky laugh.

“I’ve gone in off the deep end. Are you coming in too? Dorinda—”

She took her hands away and put up her face like a child.

“If you want me to.”

After dinner that evening a party of four sat comfortably round the study fire. Frank Abbott made the fourth. The Chief Inspector having departed leaving him to tidy up, he had most thankfully accepted an invitation to stay at the Grange. Tomorrow they would all have gone their separate ways. Tonight they sat peacefully round the fire and talked like friends. The sense of strain had gone from the house. Old houses have seen many deaths, many births, many courtships, much joy and sorrow, much good and evil. In more than three hundred years this house had known them all. Gregory Porlock and Leonard Carroll had joined themselves to the past. They were no more to the house now than Richard Pomeroy who had stabbed a serving-man in 1650 and been hanged for it under the Lord Protector, or than Isabel Scaife who married James Pomeroy some fifty years later and threw herself out of a window of the very room occupied by Mr. Carroll. For what reason was never clearly known. She fell on the stones of the courtyard and was taken up dead. Men looked askance at James Pomeroy, but he lived out his life, and it was his son who was known as good Sir James and endowed a foundation to provide twelve old men and twelve old women of the parish with a decent lodging and wearing apparel, together with food sufficient for their needs “for as long as they shall live, with decent Buriall afterwards.”

There were other stories, other minglings of good and bad— men who thought little of their own lives, risking them in battle, throwing them away to bring a wounded comrade safe; men who sinned and men who suffered; men who did well and men who did ill; men who died riotously abroad, or piously abed. The house had outlived them all. Gregory Porlock and Leonard Carroll were neither here nor there. The house could live them down.

The fire burned bright. The room was comfortable and warm. Miss Silver had finished the vest she had been knitting and had begun another. An inch of ribbing ruffled on the needles in a pale pink frill. She looked at Justin and Dorinda with a benignant smile. Nothing pleased her better than to see young people happy.

She turned her glance on Frank, and met one from him which was cool and a little cynical.

“Well, revered preceptress, are you going to perpend?”

“My dear Frank! What do you want me to say?”

The cynical look changed to a smile.

“Anything you like.”

She smiled too, but only for a moment. She was grave again as she said,

“I shall not ask you to be indiscreet, but I assume that since Mr. Masterman was brought up before the magistrates this morning on the charge of having murdered Leonard Carroll, there does not seem to be enough evidence to charge him with Gregory Porlock’s death, although it must be clear to everyone that he committed both these crimes.”

Frank nodded.

“Those handprints you put us on to and the trace of luminous paint on the edge of his dinner-jacket sleeve are the only things you can begin to call evidence in the Porlock case, and counsel would make short work of them. He could have put his hand on the mantelpiece for a dozen innocent reasons. He could have touched the staircase panelling during the charade. They all came down the stairs, turned at the newel, and went through the spotlight towards the back of the hall. That left-handed print on the panelling occurs just where he would have been leaving the spotlight and passing into the dark again. Quite a natural action to put out a hand and touch the wall.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“But in that case the hand would have been pointing towards the back of the hall. The print was, I understand, very nearly upright, but with some inclination in the other direction—in fact just as one would expect to find it if, as I suggested, Mr. Masterman had been crossing from the hearth in the dark with a hand out in front of him to let him know when he reached the staircase. I expected a left-hand print, because the right hand would be held ready to use the dagger.”

Frank nodded.

“Oh, that’s how it happened. But we couldn’t go into court with it—a clever barrister would tear it to shreds. No, we’ve got him for Carroll—I think that’s a cert. His prints on the telephone extension in Porlock’s room and on the billiard-room door and window, and Miss Masterman’s statement—”

Dorinda said quickly, “I’m so dreadfully, dreadfully sorry for her.”

Miss Silver looked at her kindly.

“She has been through a terrible time. I think there is no doubt that she has suspected her brother of causing their old cousin’s death. Not necessarily by poison or actual violence. She was, I understand, in no state to be frightened or shocked. I think Miss Masterman fears that she was frightened and died of it. That is a terrible thing for her to have had on her mind, quite apart from the suppression of the will, which did not actually benefit her since she received the same amount under the will which has now been produced. I cannot help wondering how long Miss Masterman herself would have survived if her brother’s guilt had not come to light. Suppose Mr. Oakley had been arrested. Suppose her to have held her tongue—I do not think it possible that she could have concealed her remorse and distress from her brother. And he must have become aware of the danger he would be in should she break down, as she did in fact break down. He had just killed two men—do you think he would have hesitated to kill again? I think we should have had a very convincing suicide. I feel sure that Miss Masterman saved her own life when her conscience would not allow her to stand by and see an innocent man arrested.”

Justin raised his eyebrows.

“I wonder whether she thinks it was worth saving.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked with vigour.

“I must disagree with you there, Mr. Leigh. Life is always worth saving. Miss Masterman is a conscientious woman. She has good religious principles. She will have a large fortune. She can be encouraged to look forward to the good she can do. There will be painful times for her to go through, but I shall try to keep in touch with her. I believe that she will come through and take up her life again as a trust for others. I shall do my best to encourage her. You know, as Lord Tennyson says:

No life that breathes with human breath

Has ever truly longed for death.”

Justin restrained himself.

“An echo from the great Victorian Utopia, where the more articulate portion of the population made believe that all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.”

Miss Silver coughed in a reproving manner.

“It was an age which produced great men and women. Pray do not forget those who toiled tirelessly for the better social conditions which we are beginning to see realized. But to return to Lord Tennyson’s aphorism. I do not believe that faith and hope can be separated from life, and where these linger, however faintly, they can be revived. A real longing for death could only follow upon their complete extinction.”

Frank’s bright, cool glance held a spark of unaffected admiration. Maudie, so practical, so resolute, so intelligent, so inflexible in her morality, so kindly, and so prim—in all these aspects she delighted him. He blew her an impudent, affectionate kiss and said,

“You don’t know what a lot of uplift I get from being on a case with you. My moral tone fairly shoots to the top of the thermometer. But go on telling us. There’s quite a lot I want to know, and most of it will never come out in court.” He turned to Justin. “Strictly off the record, I don’t mind telling you something of a highly confidential nature.” He dropped his voice to a whisper and said, “She knows everything.”

“My dear Frank!”

He nodded emphatically.

“Don’t take any notice of her. She was brought up modest—a Victorian failing. You can take it from me that as far as she is concerned the human race is glass-fronted. She looks right through the shop-window into the back premises and detects the skeleton in the cupboard. So next time you think of committing a crime you’d better give her a wide berth. You have been warned. It is only the fact that I have a perfectly blameless conscience that enables me to meet her eye.”

Miss Silver pulled at her pale pink ball.. “My dear Frank, I really do wish you would stop talking nonsense. Pray, what is it that you wish me to tell you?”

“Well, I should very much like to know whether Carroll was bluffing—all that talk of his about what he might have seen when the lights came on. There’s no doubt that he was very advantageously placed. From the top of those stairs—well, three steps from the top, which comes to very much the same thing— he would be looking right down on all those people round the hearth. If there was anything to see, he’d have seen it all right. But was there anything? If there was, what was it?”

Miss Silver coughed in a gentle, thoughtful manner.

“I think that there was something. I have given some consideration to what it may have been. There is no possibility that Mr. Carroll could have seen the blow struck, or the removal of fingerprints from the handle of the dagger. After hearing Mr. Porlock call out and fall, Mr. Leigh had to push Miss Dorinda back against the wall and then feel his way along it to the front door and turn on the lights. The murderer had ample time to wipe the handle of the dagger and remove it from the vicinity of the corpse. I think there is only one thing which Mr. Carroll could have seen. In stabbing Mr. Porlock, the sleeve of Mr. Masterman’s dinner-jacket came in contact with the luminous paint with which he had marked his victim. He would not notice it until he had gained the position where he intended to be found when the lights came on. But once there, he might very naturally glance down at his hand and arm and see in the darkness a faint glow from the smear of paint. To try and remove the smear would be instinctive. If the lights went on whilst he was rubbing the edge of his sleeve, this is what Mr. Carroll may have seen, and I think he was too clever not to draw his own deductions. You will remember that Mr. Masterman subsequently took the opportunity of brushing against Miss Lane, who had some of the paint on her sleeve, and that he then drew everyone’s attention to the fact that he had stained his cuff. Now this stain was right on the edge of the cloth sleeve and nowhere else. It would be very difficult to acquire a stain of this sort by brushing against a lady in a light frock—so difficult that I cannot believe it happened. Whereas it would, I think, be extremely difficult for a man to stab someone up to the hilt in the middle of a luminous patch without getting some of the paint on the edge of a shirt cuff or coat sleeve. I have asked everyone whether there was anything noticeable about Mr. Masterman’s dinner-jacket. Four of them, including Mr. Leigh, remarked that the sleeves were too long, practically hiding the shirt cuff. This would account for the smear being on the cloth.”

Justin Leigh said, “That’s very interesting, Miss Silver. But if Carroll thought Masterman was the murderer, why didn’t he blackmail him instead of going for Oakley?”

Miss Silver shook her head. There was some suggestion that a pupil was not being quite as bright as she expected.

“Did Mr. Carroll strike you as a courageous person? He did not make at all that impression upon me.”

Justin gave a half laugh.

“Oh, no.”

“I do not think that he would have approached anyone whom he knew to be a murderer directly. He would certainly not have gone to meet Mr. Masterman in that deserted courtyard but Mr. Oakley was a different matter. Like everyone else, Mr. Carroll had seen Mrs. Oakley on her knees beside the dead man and heard her call him Glen. He could hardly fail to guess at Mr. Oakley’s state of mind, or to suspect that he might be terribly afraid of his wife having some part in the crime. He was prepared to play upon those fears. He rang up, dropped his malicious hint, and rang off again. When Mr. Oakley rang, him up and said he was coming over, Mr. Carroll must have felt confident of success. That his purpose was blackmail is certain from the words overheard by Mrs. Tote when Masterman, pretending to be Oakley, said, ‘It might be worth your while to keep a still tongue. Come down and talk it over.’ Mr. Carroll laughed and came. That was his moment of triumph. But the triumphing of the wicked is short.”

Justin said, “Yes, you’re right—it would have been like that. Very satisfying. It all fits in. Well, we’re all off tomorrow, but I hope it isn’t goodbye. You’ll come and see us when we’re married?”

She smiled graciously.

“It will be a pleasure to which I shall look forward. It is always delightful to look forward. As Lord Tennyson says,

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!”

There was a slightly awed silence. Dorinda produced rather a shy smile, but Frank Abbott rose to the occasion. There was laughter in his voice, but it was the laughter of real affection. He leaned over and kissed Miss Silver’s hand, knitting-needles and all.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Pure gold doesn’t rust.”

—«»—«»—«»—