Dead or Alive (15 page)

I'm writing this so as to have something to do. If you write me a nice long letter I shall read it gratefully for the same reason.

“Meg.”

PS. The water is cold.

P.PS. There is mould on my mattress, which is wringing wet.

P.P.P.S. Some time in the next twenty-four hours there'll be mould on me.”

Bill got this letter at breakfast—not the day after it was written, but the day after that. He looked at the heading and the postmark, and frowned. He would like to feel that Meg's letter would reach him quicker than that.

As he turned the envelope over, something arrested his attention. It was a very little thing—a very little smear beside the flap. He slanted the envelope to get the light on it, and found the smear again, just a mere track of it on the other side of the flap. His frown deepened. Meg might have opened the envelope and then stuck it down again, or she might not. Somebody had.

After Bill had frowned at the envelope for about a minute and a half he made up his mind that Meg had written something which she had afterwards thought better of. She had therefore opened the envelope, torn up her original letter, and written another one. He wanted very badly to know what she had said in the first letter. There was no means of finding out.

He put the letter away in his wallet and went out and looked at the flat which he was taking over from the Hewletts. Jack Hewlett was just leaving the War Office and having two months' leave before rejoining his regiment in the north. Bill was therefore taking on the flat furnished for the first two months, which suited the Hewletts because they didn't want to store their furniture, and suited him because he hadn't got any. Before the two months were up he hoped that Meg would have been brought to believe that she was a widow, and that there was no reason why she should remain one. They could then buy furniture together, and he wouldn't risk putting his foot in it by getting things that she wasn't going to like. He felt sure she would like the flat, because there was a really topping view and all the rooms were light and airy. He wanted to move in as soon as possible, because he loathed living in an hotel, but he would have to fish round for a reliable couple. Mrs Hewlett gave him the address of three registry offices, and he started off with the quite irrational feeling that to engage a suitable couple was the first step towards marrying Meg.

All the offices promised him couples of unexampled integrity and efficiency. It was almost bewildering to realize that there were so many worthy people all passionately anxious to cook his dinners and serve them.

He was leaving the third office, when a man who had stood aside to let him pass looked up suddenly and exclaimed,

“Mr Bill!”

Bill received a shock of pleasant surprise.

“Good Lord—
Evans!
”

Evans took the hand which he extended and shook it respectfully.

“I beg your pardon, sir, but I was took—taken—entirely by surprise, thinking you was—you were—still abroad.”

“I'm home for good,” said Bill. “And what are you and Mrs Evans doing? I'd no idea you had left the Professor.”

Evans' face, lofty of brow and benign of aspect, assumed an expression of settled melancholy.

“Ah, sir, and well you might say that. If anyone had told me or Mrs Evans that we should be looking for a job, and Mr Postlethwaite still above ground, well, we wouldn't have believe it, sir.”

“Good Lord, Evans!
Are
you looking for a job?”

“Mrs Evans and me is—are—so obligated, sir.”

“Walk along with me!” said Bill abruptly. Visions of Mrs Evans making pancakes for him and Meg—making omelettes—making those game pies which were like a beautiful dream—floated rosily into his mind. He wanted a couple—the Evanses wanted a job. Oh, frabjous day, calloo, callay! “Now tell me all about it. Why did you leave the Professor? Get it off the chest!”

Evans' melancholy became a shade more marked. Bill discerned a trace of hauteur, a trace of feelings too badly hurt to be revealed, a tinge of the “I could an' I would, but nothing will induce me too.”

He patted Evans on the shoulder and said encouragingly, “You'd much better tell me.”

“Mr Bill, sir,” said Evans, “I couldn't have believed it—no, nor Mrs Evans neither. Twenty-five years we been with Mr Postlethwaite, and give every satisfaction.”

“He didn't give you notice!”—Anyone who sacked the Evanses must be completely batty.

Evans coughed.

“I won't deny that we were took—taken—ill. And a very remarkable indisposition, if I may say so, sir. Mushrooms it were attributed to, but to ask me to believe as Mrs Evans, with her experience, could be deceived in a mushroom is just beyond the bounds of possibility. She has expressed herself very forcible on the subject, Mr Bill, and very constant. ‘Snakes in the grass that wants you out of the way is one thing,' she says, ‘and toadstools is another, and I know which of them I'm going to believe in,' she says. And put like that, I won't deny as—that—her words made an impression on me.”

Bill turned and looked at him. It was rather a curious look.

“You mean you think someone wanted you out of the way?”

“That undoubtedly was Mrs Evans' meaning, sir.” Evans' tone was one of dignified detachment.

“But good Lord—who?”

The detachment became more marked.

“That, sir, is hardly for me to say.”

Bill looked at him sharply for a moment. Then he said,

“Well, you were both ill. What happened after that?”

“Mr Postlethwaite, sir, who was always the soul of kindness, suggested that we should take a holiday. It was a very inconvenient time for illness to occur, being within a week of the move to Ledstow Place, and it was put to me and Mrs Evans that it would be best if the move was put through with a temporary staff while Mrs Evans and me recuperated. The indisposition was very severe, and there was no denying that we should have been more of a hindrance than a help, so we come away to my married brother in London, and when the fortnight was up and I had wrote—written—to say that being now recovered we were ready and wishful to take up our duties again, there come back a letter to say that Mr Postlethwaite was keeping the temporary staff on permanent, and enclosing a month's wages in lieu of notice.”

“A letter? From whom?”

Evans turned a mutely understanding eye upon him.

“From Mr Postlethwaite.”

“You're sure?”

“It was in his hand, Mr Bill.”

“Poor old boy—he must have gone off his head.”

“It's very kind of you to say so, sir, I'm sure. I won't say as—that—I hadn't a similar thought, but Mrs Evans, sir—”

“Yes, Evans. Go on.”

“Perhaps I'd better not, Mr Bill.”

“No, I think you'd better.”

“Well, sir, what Mrs Evans says is that Mr Postlethwaite never wrote the letter, or if he did he was drove to it. But that's a bit farfetched to my mind, and I put it down to her being upset, though I don't deny that there's those that might have worked on him for their own ends.”

“Why didn't you go to Mrs O'Hara?” said Bill.

“Well, sir, there's no denying we were hurt—with the whole family as you might say—and by all accounts Miss Meg had troubles of her own. Then just when we were thinking what we'd better do, Lady Latimer writes and says will we go to Scotland to her mother, Mrs Campbell, and Mrs Evans says ‘The further the better, William,' so we went.”

“But I thought—”

“Mrs Campbell deceased a month ago, sir. She was ninety-seven years of age. And Mrs Evans and me, not being wishful to stay in Scotland, we come to my brother again with a view to looking around.”

Bill heaved a sigh of relief. He plunged into an offer of his flat and himself with something of the trepidation which accompanies a proposal of matrimony. In some odd way the Evanses and Meg were associated in his mind. Meg might refuse him, but would she—could she refuse them?

Evans received the offer with a dignity which only thinly disguised a very real gratification. There was a touch of emotion instantly and sternly controlled. It was with an air of benign loftiness that he intimated his own favourable consideration of the offer, coupled with the necessity for talking things over with Mrs Evans.

They parted.

Bill had lunch, and after lunch went round to see Garratt.

“Has that young woman of yours seen her lawyer yet?”

Bill grinned maliciously.

“No, but I have just engaged the cook—
la cuisinière
, feminine—of her uncle—
oncle
, masculine—and the butler of her uncle—still masculine but probably batty, and I haven't the slightest idea what butler is in French. And do you know why, my friend—
ami
, masculine? … You don't? Then I'll tell you—
je te dirais
. It's because only England can produce an Evans.”

“Sounds more like Wales,” said Garratt. “What are you talking about anyway?”

“My
butler and
my
cook—once Henry Postlethwaite's butler and Henry Postlethwaite's cook, but now, owing to the Satanic activities of an—unnamed—snake in the grass, my cook and my butler. In fact, my married couple.”

“Are you drunk?” said Garratt rudely.

“You're always asking me that. I'm only exhilarated, and if you knew all, you would be exhilarated too, because when Mrs Evans is my cook you shall come and dine with me and have the meal of your life. She always was wasted on the Professor, but how even he could have been balmy enough to let her go—”

“Have you come here to talk to me about cooks and butlers?” said Garratt dangerously.

“Not entirely. I want to know if you've dug up anything more about the Delome woman”—his tone was now entirely serious—“and I want to see anything you've got in the way of proof—documentary proof of O'Hara's death. You've got to give me something that will convince Meg. She won't go a step till she's sure.”

Garratt fixed him with a hard stare.

“Why didn't you bring her along?”

“She's gone out of town—to her uncle's.”

“Run away?”

“Run away,” said Bill. Oddly enough, it had not occurred to him before, but it did now. The thrill of the chase was added to the other feelings which he had about Meg.

Garratt went over to a nest of drawers at the far side of the room.

“Damn all women!” he said, after which he jerked a drawer open and came back with a file in his hand. He threw it on the table in Bill's direction and said, “You can look at that there, but you can't take it away. We'll put everything that's necessary at the disposal of Mrs O'Hara's lawyers. The really conclusive thing is the break in the leg. We dug up the X-ray of O'Hara's break. There were some peculiar features. It's there—you can compare it with the X-ray we had done of the unnamed corpse. It's the same break—there's not the slightest doubt. Look for yourself. There's the surgeon's affidavit. It's unpleasant evidence to put before Mrs O'Hara, but if she won't take your word for it, you'll have to bring her along and let her see for herself. I want that packet, and I want it p.d.q., before the clever swab who is after it thinks out some new dodge for stopping me and getting it himself.”

“What do you think is in it?” said Bill.

Garratt grimaced.

“Dunno. Perhaps t'other fellow don't either.” His eyebrows went up and his scalp twitched. “Might be anything—nothing—finger-prints—complete dossiers, present whereabouts, and machinations of some of the leading shrinking violets of international crime. T'other fellow's got the jumps about it whatever it is, or he wouldn't be trying to put the wind up Mrs O'Hara or—taking pot shots at you in the dark.”

Bill looked at him steadily.

“Why at me?”

“Well,” said Garratt in a drawl unnaturally removed from his ordinary staccato speech, “well, you might be considered in the light of an incentive, you know. Mrs O'Hara can't very well marry you unless she proves O'Hara's death, and if you were out of the way, they might think that she wouldn't be so keen about proving it.”

An angry colour ran up to the very roots of Bill Coverdale's hair. Garratt jerked a shoulder impatiently.

“You needn't bother to murder me—I'm not saying it. But t'other fellow may be.”

Bill mastered himself with a furious effort. It was no good raging at Garratt, it would merely gratify him. He said drily,

“I thought the official theory was that I'd invented the shot or imagined it, or that I'd done it myself, or that Meg had done it in a pair of trousers she'd been wearing under her evening dress. You'll remember that I dug in my toes about the trousers.”

“There isn't an official theory,” said Garratt gloomily. “But the people who killed O'Hara certainly wouldn't stick at doing you in if they thought you were in their way. Now about this Della Delorne woman—”

“What about her?”

“Next door to nothing. She's away—it seems to be a more or less chronic state. The char-lady hasn't produced anything worth having up to date. She's been away too, visiting her sister in the country. Oh Lord—what a life!” He grinned suddenly at Bill. “Get along out of here and bring that young woman of yours up to the scratch! I'm supposed to be doing some work.”

Bill went back to his hotel and sat down to write a difficult letter to Meg O'Hara. It was difficult because he had to convince her that Robin was dead, and to do this it was necessary to put before her with plainness the evidence which Garratt had shown him. He wrote this part of the letter two or three times, because whenever he had been really plain and convincing it sounded bald and brutal, and whenever he tried to present the evidence tactfully it didn't sound in the least convincing, and Meg had simply got to be convinced. He made a pencil draft, read it through, thought he had done it very badly, and proceeded, still in pencil, to the second part of the letter. It was even more difficult, because his thoughts were quite full of the flat, and the Evanses, and wanting to marry Meg with as little delay as possible, and it wouldn't be decent to let these things escape into a letter which contained the proofs of Robin O'Hara's death. He could, of course, tell her that he had taken the Hewletts' flat. There was nothing
ipso facto
indecent about his telling her that he had taken a flat. It looked a little bald as he added it to the pencil draft—“I have taken the Hewletts' flat.” Perhaps it would be better if he didn't add anything to the first part of his letter.…