Evidence of Things Seen (21 page)

“No,” said Gamadge, “his record isn't good.”

Craye said: “Thumbs down on the Grobys.”

“But who else is there, Gil?” asked Fanny.

“Anybody Alvira Radford knew.”

“And who knew about this cottage, Mrs. Hickson's wardrobe, the condemned door, and all the rest of it.” Hunter shook his head. “Not anybody, Fanny.”

“And
still
,” cried Fanny, “we don't know how on earth Miss Radford was killed!”

“Mrs. Gamadge fainted,” said Mrs. Star. “There can be no doubt that she fainted. If she had not fainted, the murderer would have killed her, too.”

Clara had sat silent and grave throughout the conference; even now she did not speak, or even shake her head.

“Well,” and Gamadge picked up his typed papers and restored them to their envelope, “there we are. I am to find out who it was that persuaded Miss Radford to do her shopping at Keene's, and afterwards had an immediate and pressing need for seventy thousand dollars; not a huge sum to kill for. Meanwhile, let's have at least one rubber of bridge—it isn't late.”

But it was rather late, and only one rubber was played. Fanny begged off, and so did Clara; but the game was not what it had been on the preceding night, with Craye and Mrs. Star wiping Hunter and Gamadge off the map. Craye paid no attention to the cards, and Mrs. Star was led into an injudicious double—she did not know Gamadge well enough to know that he never bid without cards.

As the others were saying good night to Clara, Hunter took Gamadge aside. He asked with a doubtful look: “Er—have you any firearms, old man?”

“No, I can't say I have.”

“I can supply you tomorrow; but I'd be better pleased if you were—I think the word is heeled—tonight.”

“Don't think of it. Besides, I have no license; I understand that your state is punctilious; I'd better speak to Duckett first.”

“I could drive up and back in no time.”

“I'd do the driving, but I really think the matter isn't pressing.”

“Your exposition has made me as nervous as a cat—on your behalf. I hardly know why.”

“I'm quite nervous myself.”

They both laughed. The guests departed, and Clara was about to climb the living room stairs when Gamadge, shutting and locking the door, spoke over his shoulder: “I think we might as well try the other bedroom tonight.”

“The Herons'? Maggie's in it!”

“I had a word with her before dinner, and she agreed to move back to her own room. She'll be right at the head of our stairs, you know.”

“But for goodness' sake why?”

“I just thought I'd like to see what it was like.”

Clara looked at his averted face, asked no questions, and went upstairs. She found that Maggie had transferred her belongings and Gamadge's, their bedding and their books, to the other room, which was cozy and cheerful with lamps and flowers. It was very snug, but Clara did not sleep well there. In the first place, Gamadge not only locked both doors, but put a chair under each knob. In the second place, she woke towards morning convinced that she heard a kind of scrabbling outside, at the north end of the cottage. Gamadge had disappeared. She looked out of the window, which seemed very high above the ground, could see nothing, and almost instantly felt Gamadge's hand on her arm.

“Nothing at all,” he said, and replaced the chair beneath the knob of the door. “Squirrels on our bedroom porch.”

This time Clara slept until morning.

N
EXT MORNING CLARA
went into the north bedroom, unfastened and opened the doors and windows, and then went out and looked at the rustic stairway and porch. She was examining a scarred and broken crosspost under the little platform when Eli came sauntering down the road. He climbed the hillside to join her.

“Good morning,” said Clara.

“Good morning.” Eli looked at the splintered rustic bough from which bark hung in shreds; he followed Clara's glance from it to the window above and on the left.

“New break,” he said.

“Yes. It must have happened last night, Eli. We heard something, but Mr. Gamadge thought it was an animal of some kind.”

“It wasn't done in the storm? Tree falling?” Eli had evidently dismissed the animal with the contempt it deserved. Clara was rather glad she had not mentioned squirrels.

“I don't think it was broken yesterday,” she said, “and there wasn't any fallen tree.”

Eli said: “I thought you slep' in there.”

“Last night we didn't.”

Eli proceeded to a silent demonstration; he put a foot on a lower strut, sprang up, caught hold of the railing, and put his other foot—the left one—on a solid end of the broken bough. Then he swung away from the railing, gripped the window sill with his left hand, and peered in. The bough emitted a loud and ominous cracking sound, and he jumped lightly down to the slope below. He stood looking at Clara.

“Why didn't they go to a window on the other side of the house?” she asked him.

Eli pointed. There was a faint indication on the leaves that carpeted the slope, which might to his eyes be the trace of recent footsteps. He led the way, avoiding them, up the little hill and around the cottage to the nearer back window. Thence he looked down along the rear of the house.

“Came up this way first,” he said, waving a brown hand at the long grass below. “Window shut. Came around to the front. I think they wore a skirt. You didn't hear any car?”

“No. Henry thinks they always left the car on the highway or up the reservation road—before.”

Eli got his pipe and tobacco out, lighted the pipe, and replaced his tobacco in his pocket. He said: “You might have a man here.”

“A watchman? I don't think Henry wants one.”

Eli drifted away. Clara sat down on the doorstone, where she was joined a few minutes later by Gamadge. He had mail for her; one long, flimsy envelope contained her summons to the inquest on the body of Alvira Radford; it was to be held at Avebury Town Hall on Monday, July 13th, at ten o'clock.

“We'll be there,” said Gamadge, “and so will Bob Macloud. You'll like Bob being there, won't you?”

She let him light a cigarette for her; then she said: “I'm making so much trouble for everybody. Henry—ought I to say that perhaps I did faint, after all?”

He took his cigarette out of his mouth to give her the smile she liked best, full of love, comprehension and amusement. “Say what you think.”

“I can only say what I saw.”

“And it will be one of the most impressive instances of direct versus circumstantial evidence on record. But a letter was once written advising its recipients to put faith in the evidence of things
not
seen; I shall obey it—you mustn't.”

“They wouldn't like me to bring Saint Paul into it, would they?”

“No, hang it all, they want fact. You stick to it.”

A horn sounded from the road. Gamadge went around the house to find Hunter at the wheel of his car. He leaned out and handed Gamadge a parcel.

“Here you are,” he said, looking quizzical. “Fully loaded, safety catch on, and never—so far as I know—been fired in anger. My father acquired it during the last war. You'd better test its powers against a tree.”

Gamadge thanked him. “I'll let Clara have a shot,” he said. “She's good at pistols, which is more than I can say for myself.”

“I have to tell you that poor Fanny's rather upset today.”

“I'm sorry to hear that. Why?”

“Well, you sent her home last night in a thoughtful and doubting mood. Doubts at last submerged and overwhelmed her. She went to bed very unhappy, began to cry at two A.M., and had me up shortly afterwards to communicate her sorrows.”

“What was the trouble?” Gamadge had unwrapped his parcel, and now weighed a rather large automatic pistol in his hand; he seemed to like the feel of it.

“Well, as you may know, Craye was invited to dine here last Saturday with Fanny and me, but declined on the score of a previous engagement.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Last night Mrs. Star and Fanny were in the dressing room just after dinner, and Mrs. Star casually said something which—though Fanny did not realize it at the moment—seems to mean that Craye had no previous engagement at all. He appears to have come home rather late for dinner that evening, and went up to bed early. They all live quite independently, I believe; Mrs. Star, for instance, has a car at her disposal and comes and goes as she likes.

“Well, Fanny casually passed this bit of information along to me. Then came your discourse. Fanny—after clutching eagerly at Mrs. Star's argument as to the guilt of the Grobys—began to worry very much; not, mind you, because she thinks Craye can be your man, but because she was afraid that I might casually pass the fact of his destroyed alibi on to you.”

“But
your
immediate reaction to her story was to offer me a gun.”

“I thought a gun could do you no harm.”

“It might have come in handy last night. We had a caller; at least we heard somebody about the cottage, and this morning Eli found tracks.”

“No! Really, Gamadge, this is too much. I don't know how you can expose Clara to it.”

“I'd rather expose her to anything than to that inquest.”

“You and she had better come back to us.”

“She makes converts by staying here. Everybody is thinking up ways of exonerating her.”

“Exonerating her! The thing's fantastic, and if there is lunacy in it somewhere, as I begin to believe, the lunacy isn't Clara's. Well, last night I promised Fanny that I would say no word to you about Craye and his non-alibi without her express permission, and I make no apologies for the promise; I knew that the facts, whatever they are, would sooner or later be dug up by you or Duckett or Ledwell. But this morning I am told by the invaluable Colley that neither have the Grobys any alibis for the crucial dates and hours.”

“They haven't. Duckett says Groby was driving about alone on every occasion, presumably for business reasons, and that Mrs. Groby was always at home alone, with an extra car in their private garage.”

“Well! Those unfortunate and dismal Grobys; who is to protect them, while people of our sort protect other people of our sort? Last night I didn't much care for the way Mrs. Star took it upon herself to argue the case against them; I can see now that she was probably a good deal worried by that time at the memory of her own indiscretion to Fanny.

“I put the case to Fanny. She is very fair-minded, and she at last agreed to let me put it to you, on condition that she might speak to Craye first. She shut herself up in our telephone cupboard, and I may say that the first thing I shall do when the war is over will be to get an extension put in. I simply cannot communicate with people while standing in a mummy case. I make poor Fanny do most of the communicating. She told me that Craye said he would call you and explain.”

“He hasn't called yet.”

“He will, and thanks to our warning he will explain. But Heavens, we must be completely on the wrong track; I tell myself so a dozen times a day. What motive could he possibly have?”

“If people's bliss depends on a lot of money, and they're short of money––”

“Short of money? The Crayes have been rolling ever since Grandfather Craye went into copper mines, in the big days.”

“Or Alvira Radford might have had something on him.”

“Craye has had practically everything on him since he left school, and survived.”

The telephone was heard to ring. Hunter, with a smile and a wave of the hand, drove on; Gamadge went into the cottage. Craye's voice came hurried over the wire:

“Gamadge?”

“Hello, Gil.”

“We're all of a twitter here this morning. As far as I can make out, Mrs. Star and Mrs. Hunter think they've let out something about me that will land me in jail, and Mrs. Star says that you'd see the whole human race exterminated in order to save Mrs. Gamadge from a moment's anxiety. I told her I didn't blame you.”

“Clara must hear that; she'll be flattered. What's the fuss about?”

“It seems that Mrs. Star told Mrs. Hunter last night that I had no engagement after all for last Saturday night. I'd refused one for dinner at the cottage, you know. Well, I did have one; a man was coming to see me on business. I expected him at about nine o'clock, and I didn't mention the engagement to any of my household—why should I have mentioned it? I waited for him until eleven, and then went to bed. Oh—I meant to say that I went up to bed at ten, but I have a telephone up there. He telephoned at one—his plane had been delayed. He came on Sunday.”

“I see.”

“He's off again now, and I'm afraid you won't be able to get in touch with him to check up—if you want to check up. I don't know why you should, but your talk last night seems to have made all the women nervous. Their minds are running on alibis and stuff. Mrs. Hunter was all upset because she'd told Hunter, and the Grobys had no alibis, and he thought they'd better tell you. I can't make head or tail of it all. Are you still convinced that I'm withholding information about the Radford woman?”

“You are.”

“Nothing of any value to you, nothing at all. But if you're wasting time on me, perhaps I'd better have a talk with you—clear it all up. I would have before, but it wasn't entirely my business; in fact, I ought to consult other people first. Now what I suggest is this: I'll drive over late this afternoon, can't make it before. But I don't want to talk in your cottage; it's a bird cage, and I want to avoid shutting ourselves up as though we were talking secrets. Same goes for my place here—you saw the situation; and the wretched Medos kids crawl out of cupboards and from behind curtains. You know that trail—the Ladder?”