Death Knocks Three Times (9 page)

“It is just as well to be on the early side,” she explained. “Otherwise some of these ancient vultures, who live only for their stomachs and their bridge, will sweep the board before we can secure a mouthful for ourselves.”

After lunch Clara and Miss Pettigrew settled down to one of those interminable afternoons apparently beloved of women, each pulling out a memory like an old dance program or a pair of satin

shoes. John endured it for a while, and then showed signs of restiveness.

“You are anxious about your train, John?” inquired Clara maliciously.

“As a matter of fact I’m not going back to town tonight. I need a few days’ change—a bit run down, I fancy—and the air’s good here and once I get back to my book I shan’t be able to knock oflF at all. I’m putting up at the Railway Hotel.”

“Very noisy, I understand,” said Clara, with satisfaction. “But a great opportunity for you to observe your fellow-creatures. So essential for a realistic novelist, I always think.”

“I hope if there’s anything more I can do to help you, you’ll let me know,” he said.

“And, of course, if I am found with my throat cut, you will be on the spot to assist the police.”

“I understand they consider that very suspicious,” returned John, and was instantly aware of both ladies regarding him in a very peculiar manner. Hurriedly explaining that this was a joke, John got himself out of the room. He didn’t like the situation at all. At the reception desk he asked for the number of his aunt’s room; he said he wanted to send in a few flowers. They told him No. 12— no difficulty about it at all.

J
OHN SHERREN had not asked his aunt for Locket’s address, partly because she probably wouldn’t have given it to him in any case, and partly because she would have wanted to know if he meant to visit the old woman, and, if so, why? Knowing from experience that she always wormed the facts out of him, he had had the sense to keep his mouth shut, and for once he thought she had given away more than he. When he was young he had often sought Locket’s company in preference to that of his aunts and their friends, as being more lively and altogether more rewarding, so he had often met her particular cronies. The chief of these was a Mrs. Pearson, owner of a villa called Sandringham in a turning off the parade, and he remembered hearing her say on a number of occasions: “If ever you want to claim your independence, May, you come along to me. There’ll always be a room for you in my house.” So now he bent his steps toward Marine Villas, knowing that even if Locket wasn’t lodging there he would get some information as to her whereabouts. He recognized the house at once by the misshapen china cat wearing a yellow boater, also made of china, peeping between the windown curtains, and when he rang the bell Locket herself opened the door.

She seemed surprised and, at first, a little suspicious. “Why, Mr. John, I didn’t know you were coming down.”

“Nor did Aunt Clara. A surprise package for every one.” He smiled genially. He had always been at home with Locket. “And you’re a surprise package for me, too. I thought you were in Wiltshire.”

“My brother’s married that trollop,” said Locket, who had never minced her words, “and it wasn’t to be expected I should stay in the house after that. Mind you, they wanted me, the baby coming, and all. You should have thought of that earlier, I told them. I suppose you’ve seen Miss Bond?”

“Yes. She’s getting anonymous letters. Locket.”

He watched her intently. For a minute the old woman didn’t speak. Then she said: “You know what they say about the mills of God.”

“What exactly does that mean?”

“You’d best come in, Mr. John.” He followed Locket into a room that looked like something from a stage set, everything so true to life it had a theatrical effect. “It’s about Miss Isabel, I suppose,” Locket continued, pushing John toward a basket-work chair and taking a rocker herself.

“So you thought there was some hanky-panky there?”

“I’ve got eyes and ears like others, and more opportunity of using them,” was Locket’s dry retort. “Well, did you believe it was an accident?”

“No,” said John, after a moment’s pause. “I could believe suicide—or murder …”

“Murder?”

“I said I could believe it—more easily than accident.”

“I’ll lay you didn’t say that to your Aunt Clara.”

“I don’t want to be served with a writ for defamatory libel. What’s your view. Locket?”

“I think when a body’s stopped having anything to look forward to, they don’t see any sense in going on.”

“So you plump for suicide.” He held out his cigarette case. “Do you smoke, Locket?”

“When I’m off duty, I do. Yes, Mr. John, that’s my view, and if you’d been in the house those last few days you’d think the same.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense, Locket, What happened during those three days to drive Aunt Isabel to suicide?”

Locket pulled deliberately at her cigarette for a moment. Then she said: “Being able to take charge is very good, no doubt, if you don’t let it override you. Then you’re as much of a slave to your methods as the rest of the world. I’ve seen some managing people in my time, but none to equal Miss Clara. The way she’d come down of a morning, saying, ‘It’s another wet day,’ her face all curling up as if to add, ‘Of course, if it had been me planning the world I wouldn’t have had any wet weather at all.’ She got used to having her own way and then she couldn’t bear to be crossed. It began with the Colonel. He wanted to marry again, and much better for everybody if he had. There was a very nice lady, a widow, who was taken with him and him with her. A nice-looking, well-dressed person she was, with a bit of money, too. But Miss Clara stopped it somehow. You don’t recall the Colonel, of course, but there was something—sapped—about him. Pruning may be all very well in the time and season, but if every time a tree throws out a new shoot you get out your scissors and snip it off, pretty soon the tree’s going to die.”

“And that’s what Aunt Clara did?”

“All the time. First the Colonel and afterwards Miss Isabel.”

“I’ve always wondered she didn’t marry.”

“She didn’t marry because Miss Clara didn’t mean her to. To begin with, she persuaded the Colonel to tie up his money away from her sister.”

“How did she persuade him to do that? I always thought Aunt Isabel was his favorite, from die scraps of gossip I heard and was able to put together.”

“So she was, but the two of them together weren’t a match for

Miss Clara. As for the money, that was after the affair of Mr. Thomas. Mr. Thomas was a young gentleman Miss Isabel fancied. I don’t say he was anything special to look at, and he’d never end up in the House of Lords, but he was Miss Isabel’s choice. She didn’t want anyone showy—she wasn’t the showy kind. When Miss Clara heard about it she was livid. She didn’t want any of them to get away from her, you see,”

“A power complex,” murmured John.

“It might be partly that, but it was the money, too. You must have noticed how careful she is about money. Miss Isabel was just the other way. You can’t take it with you, she used to say. Sometimes when she came in with something she’d fancied I’d see Miss Clara’s face. ‘You’re not fit to be trusted with money,’ she’d tell her. ‘Somebody had to earn that with the sweat of their brow.’ But to my mind if somebody else gets pleasure spending it, then it was worth earning.”

“I never knew that, about the money, I mean, till after the funeral. Poor Aunt Isabel. It must have cramped her style considerably.” He brooded a moment. “What’s all this about Mr. Thomas? I never heard of him.”

“It was so long ago. Over thirty-five years. As for him, he’s probably still at St. Albans. He came to Brakemouth for a holiday, and he and Miss Isabel got acquainted and he wanted to marry her and take her back with him, but Miss Clara said it wasn’t to be thought of that her sister should marry a clerk, which is all Mr. Thomas was. But what I say is, why not let somebody be happy? They were both the timid kind, didn’t want a lot of flummery.”

“And Aunt Clara broke that up? What about her father, though?”

“He couldn’t stand up to her. He’d have been married himself if he could. And then this Mr. Thomas wasn’t anything much to look at. Though, mind you, he fought for her. Came down to see the old gentleman and wrote every day—why, they planned to run away together but Miss Clara found out, and she played her sister a very dirty trick. She sent a telegram signed with Mr. Thomas’s name saying he was changing his plans and she wasn’t to come that day, and she sent another to Mr. Thomas signed with her sister’s name saying she wasn’t coming after all. Poor Miss Isabell It quite broke her up, being thrown over, as she thought.

and when Mr. Thomas came around saying he’d got to see her, she was in bed with a fever and she couldn’t see anyone.”

“But if he wrote. Locket . . ,”

“He did, of course, but it wasn’t Miss Isabel that saw the letters. And then, poor gentleman, he had to go back to St. Albans. Things were different in those days; you didn’t take french leave, not unless you wanted to lose your employment, and once he was back at St. Albans it was easy for Miss Clara to spirit her sister away to a convalescent home and write that she never wanted to hear Mr. Thomas’s name again. Oh, he never had a chance from the beginning, and so I could have told him. His father had been a clerk in the same business and his mother was a nursery governess before her marriage. It wasn’t to be thought of that he’d be let marry Miss Isabel.”

“And that was the end of him?” John was fascinated by what seemed to him a quite appalling story. But what depths of subtlety it revealed in the surviving sister.

“So far as Miss Isabel was concerned. I dare say he married someone in his own walk of life. But it was a long time before she got over it, poor lady.”

“But, Locket,” he urged, “you aren’t asking me to believe that because of something that happened thirty-five years ago Aunt Isabel pitched herself off a balcony?”

“Not thirty-five years,” conceded Locket grimly. “Nearer thirty-five weeks.”

“You mean, history repeated itself? There was a second Mr. Thomas?”

“Only his name was Marlowe.”

“And that’s why she was so excited the last time I saw her. I knew she’d discovered a new interest. But—how did she expect it to end?”

“Mr. Marlowe expected it to end in marriage, till he heard what Miss Clara had to say. Oh, yes, she found out. Saw them saying good-bye one evening. It was after she had pneumonia that spring, and the doctor sent a nurse. That gave Miss Isabel some time off and she used to go for long walks along the front, and one day she met this Mr. Marlowe. Oh, I suppose there are plenty like him in all seaside resorts, a handsome face run to seed, came of a nice family, I shouldn’t wonder, but something wrong somewhere. Like

the odd pup of a litter, that isn’t quite up to scratch. It wasn’t quite like history repeating itself. Mr. Thomas was really taken with Miss Isabel.”

“And Mr. Marlowe more with what he thought Aunt Isabel had?”

“That’s about the size of it. Oh, she was infatuated, Mr. John, there’s no other word. He was on the look-out for someone like her, a nice, easy-going lady, not too young, with a bit of money. The Sunday papers used to be full of such stories before they stopped printing them and spoilt everybody’s fun.”

“You’d think they’d have more sense,” suggested John.

She flashed around on him. “Why should they? What have they had—^what had Miss Isabel ever had—to make her careful of her life or think it was worth saving? Of course, there’s no knowing if he had a wife somewhere, and she’d never think to ask, just like a person who’s been half-starved doesn’t stop to know if the bun you give them has been paid for. Oh, to her it was her last chance. That man could have done anything with her. Any man could, who took the trouble, and he was a gentleman born, and knew how to talk. I know. I heard him talking to Miss Clara.”

“You mean, she stopped this, too?”

“Of course she stopped it. A blind man would have noticed the change in Miss Isabel. Miss Clara didn’t find any letters, because Mr. Marlowe had too much sense to write any, but it wasn’t difficult for her to find out what was going on. And what was going on was that Miss Isabel was planning to come up to London with Mr. Marlowe and get married on the sly. She’d been saving for years in a post-office book, one thing she did manage to keep from her sister, and she was going to take out all the money and take it up to London and get married. Mr. Marlowe had told her he was waiting to hear the result of a lawsuit, and he didn’t think he ought to marry her till he knew it was going to be all right.”

“And, of course, that won her completely.”

“Of course it did. Oh, I dare say Mr. Marlowe had told the story so often he could tell it in his sleep. Then Miss Clara found out where he was staying and she wrote and asked him to come and see her one morning when Miss Isabel was going to the dentist.”

“So that’s how you know what he was like and what he said.”

“Yes. There’s a door behind the curtain in the drawing room

leads onto the veranda, and if that door’s a mite open and a body’s standing behind it, that body doesn’t miss much. Oh, it was the same old story. Her sister had confided to her that she was going to London to be married, and there was no need for secrecy, but did Mr. Marlowe understand she wasn’t quite like other people—this had happened before—but if he was really fond of her. Miss Clara wouldn’t stand in the way if Mr. Marlowe could keep her. That was a facer for our fine gentleman. Of course. Miss Isabel had given the impression she had money of her own, and so she had, but nothing like as much as Mr. Marlowe had thought, and not enough to make the game worth the candle, not with a proper religious ceremony marriage. Mind you, the way Miss Clara told it, making it sound as though she’d given up her life to looking after her sister, you couldn’t blame any man for wanting to back out, quite apart from the money. After all if Miss Isabel had delusions about being a rich woman when really she had practically nothing, she might have other delusions on other subjects.”

“And I suppose after that you couldn’t see Mr. Marlowe for dust?”