Green for Danger (27 page)

“I don't know what you're talking about, Woody,” said Eden.

“My dear, that night of the party—she said she knew who'd done the murder; and that she had proof. Well, so she had. Then why hadn't she told the detective? Who was she protecting? Not me, for example! And not Frederica—she had no love for our Freddi! And not Esther, you can bet your life; and why should she go out of her way, make herself accessory after the fact or whatever it's called, to shield Major Moon or Barney? Of course it could only be you. As Inspector Cockrill said, she really only half believed the evidence of her own reason, but she hoarded the ‘proof' up so that she could make a scene with you about it one day; and then you were unkind to her on the night of the party and she was angry with you, and decided to give you up to justice! I followed her to the theatre that night to see what she was hiding there.”

“You followed her?”

“Oh, not actually. I mean, it wasn't me creeping up the drive after her. I really did wait for you, as I said; and then I decided to go home, but on the way I thought I'd drop in and see what she was up to in the theatre.”

“Why on earth?” said Gervase.

Woods fiddled with the tap, running little spurts of water into the sink and turning it off, and running it again. She said, off-handedly: “
I
don't know—just curiosity.”

“Why didn't you tell the Inspector all this?” said Eden.

The tap gave an extra big squirt, deluging her sleeve with water. She said, busily mopping her arm: “Oh well, when he talked to us that night—after she was killed, I mean—I saw that it couldn't have been you.”

“Why not?” said Eden.

“Because of the look of astonishment on her face when she died. He said that she looked—incredulous.”

“So would you, if you saw a masked and gowned figure standing in the doorway at one o'clock in the morning.”

“Yes, in any other doorway. But not in the doorway of an operating theatre! You expect to see masked and gowned figures there. You might be surprised, because you didn't think there was anything going on in the theatre, but you wouldn't be as
ton
ished; you wouldn't be in
cred
ulous.”

“You would if you realised that this was the murderer.”

“Well, she probably did realise that this was the murderer; and that's my point. She was terribly surprised to see who it was.”

“You mean …?”

“I mean that she expected it to be you; and if she was astonished, it was because it wasn't.”

Eden was silent; after a while he said: “So that convinced you that I wasn't Slayer Eden, the Butcher of Heron's Park?”

“That and—well, next morning it all looked different. It was one thing to have monkeyed about with the anæsthetic in the theatre—or whatever it was that had been done, because of course I didn't know then what had killed Higgins, but quite another to have stabbed poor, silly little Bates; and above all, to have stabbed her the second time, after she was dead. That was so—so cold-blooded and dreadful: I didn't think you could have done a thing like that. Then, afterwards, there was the Freddi affair; and I got all tied up again.”

“For heaven's sake, Woody—you didn't think I'd tried to murder Frederica?”

“Well, what were you doing in the cottage that morning, then?” said Woody bluntly.

“In the cottage? Here? That morning? Of course I wasn't.…” His face cleared. “Oh, good lord! So I was! At least I wasn't in the cottage at all, actually; but I wanted to speak to Freddi and I watched for her from my window in the Mess; when she didn't appear, I thought I must have missed her—I realised afterwards that she was a bit later than usual because she'd have to have breakfast at the V.A.D. Mess, as the gas had run out in your quarters—anyway, I went to the door, here, and put my head in and called out to see if anyone was in. I didn't get an answer, so I came back to the gate and waited and met her there. I wanted to talk to her about—well, I just wanted to talk to her.”

“You must have been very much in love to want to talk to anybody at that hour of the morning,” said Woods, with bitter jocularity.

He looked at her, weighing her up, and said, after a moment: “I had some—reparation to make, Woody, I—I like Barney, you know. I think the world of him; and I—well, I lost my head a little a couple of nights before and—and said something to Freddi; and I wished I hadn't. Freddi didn't respond, of course,” said Gervase loyally, “but I felt I'd let Barney down. He'd gone off to Heronsford to get his car fixed up and he was taking her to lunch in town, and I thought it would be a marvellous opportunity for them to get really engaged; to buy the ring and all that, you know. It sounds as if I were trying to crash in where angels fear to tread,” said Gervase wretchedly; “but I don't mean it like that. I just wanted to apologise to Frederica for having kissed—for having talked to her like I did, and ask her to forget all about it, and say how much I wanted to see her and Barney happy.” He broke off miserably.

“In other words you wanted to tell her that you were out of the running, and leave the path clear for Barney,” said Woody coolly.

“No, it wasn't that, of
course.
…”

“All right, darling, don't bother to put on an act for me. I understand. So then what?”

“Well, then, when Freddi arrived, she wouldn't have anything to do with me anyway; I suppose she'd arrived at the same conclusion as you had, my clever one, and thought I was the big, bad wolf, and she was next on the list.”

“It was because of what she overheard between you and Bates, in the bunk,” explained Woody. “Bates was threatening you with breach of promise and various other reprisals, and of course Freddi knew Higgins had heard.”

“That might have been a motive for my murdering Marion, but hardly for my killing Higgins!”

“Well, our Frederica is not exactly overburdened with the grey matter,” said Woody, smiling.

“You all seem to have been very ready to suspect me,” said Gervase, bitterly.

“And to protect you,” said Woods.

He put his hand under her chin and turned her face so that her eyes met his. She looked plainer than ever, now that the make-up was wiped away by her recent tears; with little smears of mascara still under her eyes, and the crows' feet etched deeply at the outside corners; there was a faint streak of rouge down one cheek. He pulled her to him and held her for a moment close to him, his head thrown back so that he could still look into her eyes. “You're rather a splendid person, aren't you, Woody? All through this hideous time—how loyal you've been!”

“It's easy to be loyal to those you love,” said Woody, her shaking hands on his coat sleeves; she felt the twitch of the muscles in his forearms, the almost imperceptible stiffening and drawing away, and added, with hardly a pause: “If you mean that I've been loyal to my brother.…”

3

Frederica was tired of sitting in the stuffy little room with Esther and Major Moon. She preferred either to be alone with Barney or to have Gervase there to witness their happiness together. She had quite persuaded her blunt little mind that Eden had been madly in love with her and was now being punished for his temerity by the spectacle of her devotion to Barney, whom he would have betrayed; so did she cast out the uncomfortable memory of her own temporary disloyalty to her love. She said restlessly: “Can't we go for a walk or something, darling? It's so fuggy in here.”

“I'll take you for a little run in the car,” said Barney immediately.

“Oh, yes, that would be heaven!” She jumped down off his knee and wiggled herself into her long, blue coat, pulling the round V.A.D. cap over her springy gold hair.

“You look like something out of an orphanage,” said Barney, laughing at her; “I've never seen anything so pathetic.” He hastened to add: “But something quite adorable out of an orphanage!”

Frederica laughed ruefully, rolling up her hair over the edge of the cap, twitching into prominence the scarlet lining of the coat collar. “Well, I
know
it couldn't be more frightful; sometimes one just can't believe it's oneself in this awful scruffy coat, can one, Esther?”

“It seems like another life, that one had nice tailored coats, and silk frocks and funny little hats with flowers and feathers and things; I've forgotten how to put on anything except this wretched little round cap.…”

“What a girl does for King and Country,” sighed Frederica. She hitched down a respirator case and tin hat from a hook on the door. “I suppose I'd better take the old gas mask and tin hat.”

“That's mine, darling,” said Esther.

“No, it isn't. Oh well, it may be; we really must mark these new haversacks, Esther, we're always getting them mixed up. However, I can soon tell.” She fished in the recesses of the canvas respirator case, and produced a small glass phial with one white tablet in it. “Yes, it is mine, here's my what-not of morphia.”

Esther looked shocked. “Freddi—you didn't get some more? I thought Cockie said we were not to have any.”

“No, I didn't get any more; I just kept back half I had,” said Frederica, smiling coolly. “I produced a quarter of a grain so smartly that he never thought of asking me if that was the lot. Wasn't I clever? Barney was glaring at me, but he didn't dare to give me away, did you, sweetie? He meekly forked out his own two tablets and so did everyone else; but I only gave up one!”

“I don't know how you put up with her, Barnes,” said Major Moon slightly scandalised, but unable to help laughing at her naïve pride in this achievement.

Barnes would willingly have put up with a great deal more from Frederica. “Well, come along, darling.”

Freddi picked up the gas mask and tin hat and swung them in her hand, deliberating. “Oh, hell to it! I
can't
be bothered to take them.…” She slung them up on the hook again and took his arm and they went out into the wintry afternoon.

They walked in silence for a minute or two, until Barney suddenly stopped. “Does it look rather rotten to go off for a drive and not to ask them to come? It might do Esther good to go out for a bit; she oughtn't really to mug in there, worrying about William.”

Freddi knew that if they were alone, Barney would stop the car somewhere, would take her in his arms and kiss and caress her, would tell her that she was lovely and adorable; emotionally inarticulate, these were the only moments when she could express her very real love for him, and these were the moments she craved. She would not, however, deprive Esther of a little pleasure when Esther needed it so much, and she said immediately: “Darling, of course; go and ask them!” and stood and waited for him while he ran back to the house.

Gervase and Woody were still in the kitchen. Esther was vaguely uncomfortable alone with Major Moon, for though he said not a word that could trouble her, nor, since the night of her engagement, had he ever touched her, there was a helpless and hopeless devotion in his eyes that broke her tender heart; and she was thankful for the invitation to go for a drive. There was a general reshuffle in the little room as Eden and Woods, emerging rather constrained from their conversation at the sink, were informed of the plan. Major Moon went off to fetch the men's gas masks from the Mess having apparently rather more conscience in the matter than Frederica. Barney returned to Freddi, who was walking up and down rather impatiently in the cold park. She was pleased at the information that Gervase and Woody were all going to try and squash in. A policeman, however, stopped them at the gates.

“I beg your pardon, sir; was you thinking of going out?”

“We're going for a drive,” said Freddi.

“I'm afraid one of us will have to go along of you,” said the policeman apologetically.

“Well, you can't,” said Freddi calmly. “There won't be room.”

“We can't let you go alone, Miss.”

“We're not going alone. We're going with four other people.”

“Sorry, Miss,” said the policeman stolidly.

They returned disconsolately to the cottage, and the first little murmurings of uneasiness began; the first strange sense of being always watched, of being never alone, of being dogged and harried and badgered, that was to drive them to desperation in the next few days; the first creeping faint irritation of the nerves that was to arise to a hideous crescendo in Cockie's process of ‘breaking the criminal down'. They sat about crossly, staring out of the window at a broad back motionless just outside. Freddi said fretfully: “Esther, darling, even
now
you've gone and got our haversacks mixed up again!”

“I haven't. I took mine out and left yours on the hook.”

“Well, this is mine on
your
hook.”

“What the dickens does it matter, anyway?” said Woods impatiently.

“Well, I'm sure Esther's put mine on
her
hook.”

“Oh, for Pete's sake!” said Woody. She got up and went over to the door and took down the respirator case. “You're quite wrong, Freddi; this is Esther's—there isn't any morphia. And here's yours with the bottle in it, so do for goodness' sake stop fussing about it.…” She stood with the haversack in one hand and the tiny bottle held out to them in the other.

But the morphia that had been there ten minutes before was gone.

4

The three men walked slowly back to dinner at the Mess. “I don't like to leave those girls alone there,” said Moon, shuffling along in the centre with his eyes on his boots. “One doesn't know.… All that morphia.”

“Two grains the murderer took from the theatre cupboard.…”

“And now he's got two and a quarter; it all adds up.”

“Do you think two and a quarter would be fatal, Moon?”