Death in High Heels (17 page)

“Well, as a matter of fact, I do,” replied Holly, all of a flutter. “Why?”

“Because I seem to have run out of water and the car’s boiling a bit. Do you think you could possibly let me have a jugful?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll come back with you and get the maid to give you some.”

Gladys obliged with a large enamel jug, filled at the kitchen sink, and with this the young man replenished his radiator. The accelerator responded to his touch and he was just about to drive off when he appeared to be struck with a sudden idea.

“I suppose I couldn’t give you a lift anywhere?” he suggested.

Holly hesitated. All men were beasts and a fate sometimes overtook young women which, according to her mother’s teaching, was worse than death itself. On the other hand, there was an air of impeccable respectability about the young man with the little car and, what was very much more to the point, a distinct look of Robert Taylor; there was not much adventure for a young lady of nineteen, stuck away in a Kentish village with an old lady and a young man enmeshed in his mother’s apron-strings. “Do or die,” thought Holly, and tilting her chin in imitation of Myrna Loy, she scrambled into the car.

It transpired from her rather feverish chatter that she was not alone at Trianon. She lived there with an elderly lady whose son had just come down for the weekend. He was staying till Monday morning.

“How do you know
that?
” said the young man, with a bovine humour rather surprising in one hitherto so well conducted. “He may be going to run off to-night and when you get back he’ll be gorn.”

“Oh, no, he won’t,” said Holly, essaying such coyness as was evidently expected of her. “He distinctly told his mother that he would be staying till Monday. He generally goes back on Sunday night, but he isn’t this time.”

Detective Officer Tomlinson heaved a sigh of relief. That meant that he could take a room at the local pub and at least have a decent night. Meanwhile, he might as well cultivate the companion and see if he couldn’t dig any information out of her. He inquired as to her plans for the evening.

“Well, I was going to the flicks, as a matter of fact,” replied Holly, who found it necessary to qualify a great many of her statements with this, frequently meaningless, phrase.

“Oh, don’t do that. It’s far too lovely a night to spend in a stuffy cinema. Why don’t you let me take you for a run and perhaps have a bite and a cup of coffee somewhere?”

Here was adventure with a vengeance. Supposing that he should stop the car and suddenly produce a tin of black-lead and cover her with it from head to foot! Holly had heard of such incomprehensible occurrences and even worse, and for a moment her heart failed her. A sideways glance at the young man’s face, however, showed such an indubitable resemblance to Robert Taylor as caused caution to be thrown to the winds. She settled herself more comfortably in the seat beside him and, tilting the chin until it ached, cried with a pronounced American accent: “Drive on, big boy!”

The rain that had made a muddy heap of poor Doon’s grave had brought out the sweet scent of the Kentish orchards, where the fruit hung ripely upon the boughs and the whitened stems of the trees were gentle ghosts in the twilight. There was a magic over the rolling countryside and the boy felt guilty and a little ashamed at the game he was playing with this foolish girl. However, duty was duty and he could not go back to Mr. Charlesworth with a tale that the summer evening had gone to his head; he plied her with innocent questions, and she, flattered and fluttering, poured out her story of small woes and delights; of petty triumphs and trifling heartaches and still-childish longings. The actress who had called her Pretty Poppet; the “ladies” who came down from Town; the doting old mother and sloppy young man, and the overwhelming excitement of the murder in the very shop that Mr. Cecil worked for.

Mr. Tomlinson had heard of the murder, of course, and was thrilled to meet someone in close contact with so famous an affaire. Not that Holly could tell him much, she admitted. She had expected Mr. Cecil to be full of it, but instead he had kept talking about his own affairs—as usual, just like him! and something or other which he had done, something rather awful—he wouldn’t even tell his mother what it was.

“Whatever could it have been?” asked Mr. Tomlinson, no longer obliged to show more interest than he felt.

“I can’t imagine. Something awful, anyway. He kept saying that she would never forgive him if she knew, which was perfectly silly because she would forgive him whatever he did. They spend their lives forgiving each other.”

“Perhaps he did the murder himself?”

“Good gracious, no. He’d faint at the sight of blood.”

“There wasn’t any blood,” pointed out the young man, laughing. “It was done by poisoning.”

“I meant it metterphorically,” said Holly, with much dignity. “Anyway, it was nothing to do with that; I think he must have been to a fortune-teller or something. He kept talking about crystals.”

The young man stopped the car so suddenly that Holly expected the blackleading to begin at any moment, and a half-pleasurable excitement rose within her at the thought that she might be about to find out at last what was worse than death. However, Mr. Tomlinson’s interest seemed to be confined to Mr. Cecil and his stupid maternal confidences. He ran the car gently down a little grass slope at the edge of the road and, putting his arm along the back of the seat behind her shoulders, asked, in a strangely excited voice: “What about the crystals?”

“It’s all nothing,” said Holly, piqued. “He told Mrs. Prout that somebody had given him some crystals or
a
crystal, I couldn’t hear that part very well; and that he had done something dreadful with them, or it. It must have been it because nobody could possibly want more than one crystal.”

“Did he say who he’d given it to?”

“He didn’t say he’d given it to anybody. He said he’d done something dreadful with them or with it, and that his mother would never forgive him if she knew. Then he got all sloppy and asked her if she’d mind if he left her for ever, which was simply fishing, because he knows perfectly well that the old girl would die without him; but, of course, she got frightfully het up and said that he mustn’t say such dreadful things.”

“Did he mean that he might be going away—abroad, perhaps?”

“Oh, no, it sounded more as if he might die or be killed or something. It was all mixed up with Mr. Elliot in some way.”

“Not with Miss Doon?”

“Yes, it was something to do with her, too. He was telling his mother that it was all Miss Doon’s fault that Mr. Elliot had left him; he said that Elliot had told him that he was in love with Miss Doon and was going to ask her to marry him. I’m sure she wouldn’t have, because she seems to have been rather a bright sort of a person and he was nearly as girlish and silly as Cecil himself. He tried to squeeze my hand once, when he came down here, and Cecil saw him and got quite worked up about it; Elliot told him that he ought to make friends with some girls himself, and Mrs. Prout was furious and said that her darling was much better without a lot of designing women, and Cecil cried and said that his Faerie was the only woman in the world he needed; he always calls her Faerie, isn’t it sick-making? It’s out of Shakespeare, I think.”

“Did Mr. Cecil seem to be angry with Miss Doon for taking Mr. Elliot away from him?”

“Well, I know he was, as a matter of fact, because last Saturday he was down here, and he was in a terrible flap about it. He kept on saying that he would die if Elliot broke up their friendship, or that he would kill Elliot sooner than see him married to that cruel girl, or that he Would kill Miss Doon. I say,” cried Holly, as the import of her own rapid gabble burst upon her, “I never thought of that—I wonder if he could have killed her, after all.”

“If he was saying only the day before that he would like to—it does seem funny, don’t it?”

“Yes, but he couldn’t—I mean, he would pass out at the sight of—at the thought of poison; besides, he’s always saying wild things like that; I don’t think it really means anything. You don’t honestly believe that he could have done it?”

“Well, it does seem funny, don’t it?”

“I wish he wouldn’t keep on saying that,” thought Holly. “It goes give him away a bit. He isn’t a gent at all, really. What Mother would say if she could see me now, a parson’s daughter, with a strange young man who can’t even talk the King’s English, sitting in a car and arguing about a murder.” “I tell you what,” she exclaimed aloud, the King’s English eluding even the parsonage upbringing in the intensity of her sudden excitement, “I tell you what—I believe you’re right; because now I come to think of it, at one time he started to blub and say that he would never have done it if he’d known she would die like that, and it was a terrible thing to take life and a lot of intense stuff like that, and about the spark of life and put out the light and then put out the light, which comes out of
Hamlet
, I think, and a lot more tripe like that. The old lady was nearly as keen to find out what he was talking about as I was, and she kept calling him my boy, my boy, and saying that he mustn’t upset himself and that she knew he had nothing to reproach himself with, and so on; and he blubbed more and more and said, ‘Ah, Faerie, you don’t know what I’ve done!’ Fancy calling her Faerie—it’s
too
revolting, isn’t it?”

Mr. Tomlinson led her skilfully back to the “crystal,” but nothing more definite was forthcoming. He decided that it would be best and safest, for all parties, to allay her fears, and accordingly made out a very good case for Cecil’s innocence in the murder. This he found not difficult, for, on analysis, his evidence to the contrary proved extremely vague. Holly allowed herself to be comforted, and after the promised bite and cup of coffee, was deposited back at the gate without even a smell of blacklead. She wandered disconsolately up to bed; the evening post had brought a reply from “Margot” about her spots, but she threw it aside and went to the window, where she could catch the last faint phut-phut-phut of the departing car. Voices came from below and once more she crouched, bottom up, with her ear to the ground; they were still at it, or if they had stopped they had started all over again; this time it was Mrs. Prout who was in tears and she was saying over and over again: “Of course your old mother understands, my precious; of course she understands. But oh!—it’s dreadful to think of the risks you ran—and even now, what are we to do? Supposing the police find out? How could you have done such a thing, Cecil, my darling? The descriptions of what the poor girl suffered were terrible—terrible. I can’t bear to think of it: it was a dreadful thing to do, a dreadful, dreadful …”

Here was confirmation beyond her wildest dreams. Holly leapt up and rushed to the window. But the phut-phut-phut of the car had died away.

Nine

1

T
EN
people read their post on Monday morning in stricken silence, for even the black heart of the murderer quailed at the things the anonymous letters had to say about Irene Best. Bevan was beside himself with remorse; he had chosen her to be absent from the funeral for no other reason than that she had been at hand when he had made his decision; if only that old fool Mrs. ’Arris had obeyed him, there would have been at least two objects for the public’s suspicion, if they must take it in this way. He was bound to admit that it did look rather peculiar for one single person to have absented herself on a feeble excuse of ill-health, and he cursed the hour in which he had made his ill-fated arrangements and brought down this horrible attack upon her gentle head. Victoria, distraught, rushed round to Irene’s little room with the Dazzler, unshaven and protesting, at her side. To her surprise, she found Aileen already there, roused to something approaching energy by her disgust at the cowardly attacks, holding Irene’s hand and beseeching her not to allow herself to be upset. “
I
wouldn’t,” avowed Aileen, which was probably true, since no one in the memory of Christophe et Cie had seen her moved from her indifferent calm.

Irene looked terrible. Her face seemed to have shrunk to a tiny point and her eyes under their heavy lids were dark with despair. “Don’t let yourself be upset by it Irene, my darling,” implored Toria, joining her hopeless plea with Aileen’s. “It’s all too vile and cruel and wicked; but why should you care what such cheap and cowardly people think or say? We know you didn’t—didn’t kill Doon so as to enjoy her suffering, and—and all these revolting things … I mean, Irene, all your friends believe that you didn’t murder her; why should you care what these horrible, unbalanced creatures write?”

“Have they sent letters about me to everybody?” asked Irene, dully.

“I don’t know, darling. They sent one to me, and I suppose you got one, Aileen, did you? They must have got our addresses from the papers. But still, what does it matter if they have?”

“Everyone at Christophe’s knows that you’re the last person in the world that would have killed her, Rene,” said Aileen, kindly. “Not a soul will take any notice of what a lot of mad people say; we all know that it was Bevan who told you to stay away, and why he told you. He said the same to Mrs. ’Arris, and if only that silly idiot Judy hadn’t let her come, there wouldn’t have been all this beastliness.”

“Poor old Mrs. ’Arris would have got them too,” said Irene, miserably. “You don’t know how awful it is—how can I go to work to-day, with all the people in the streets thinking I stayed away from Doon’s funeral because I killed her? I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t have killed Doon for anything.… I was very fond of her—at least, if I wasn’t fond of her, I did quite like her; she’d never done me any harm … she was the last person I’d want to kill.…” She burst into tears.

“She’d better not come to the shop to-day,” said Aileen, across the weeping head.

“Oh, Aileen, she must. It’s the only thing to do. If she doesn’t it will only give a worse handle to people to say things against her. Rene, darling, you must pull yourself together and come to Christophe’s as if nothing had happened; Bobby Dazzler will take us all down in the car—he’s waiting outside; once you’re at the shop, there won’t be anyone to see you who doesn’t believe you’re innocent. You must come, darling; if you don’t, it will only give those ghastly people something much more to go upon. Be brave, my pet, and make up your mind to it; let’s have a go at your face and get rid of the tear marks; and put on a good big hat that’ll cover up your poor little mug and the fresh air will soon make it all right. You should see the Dazzler,” prattled Victoria, vigorously applying a sponge; “he came out without shaving or anything, and he looks too awful—nobody could be dazzled by him to-day. You see how much Bobby thinks of you, Rene, darling. He’s willing to imperil his reputation for beauty in my eyes and in the eyes of the world. There, that’s better, isn’t it, Aileen? It doesn’t show a thing now, does it?”