Ladies’ Bane (9 page)

She made a sound of pure exasperation. Jim Severn laughed.

“He was perfectly respectful. There really wasn’t anything for you to resent-just an involuntary tribute.”

She said in a low voice,

“You don’t understand. And we can’t talk here. Let’s get away from all these houses and things and find a country road where you can stop the car.”

They did not have to go very far. No more than two miles out of Wraydon the village of Ring has a charming green approached by broad grass verges and centering upon a pond complete with ducks. Off the road and in the lee of a hedge they could talk as privately as they chose and for as long, with the rain blurring the windscreen and the sound of trees lashing in the wind. Now that it had come to the point, Ione was wondering just what her story was worth. Seen in retrospect, the whole thing partook of the vagueness, the insubstantiality of the fog which had been its setting.

Jim Severn turned towards her and said,

“Well-what is it?”

“When I ran into you in the fog that night and asked you to say I was with you-”

He interrupted her.

“That isn’t quite what you said. You wanted me to say you had bumped into me a little way back.”

“Yes-I didn’t want him to know I had been following him.”

“Why?”

“I had better tell you the whole thing from the beginning. The fog had come up suddenly, and I was lost. I went on, because there was always a chance of getting somewhere. What I did get to was one of those streets where the houses stand a little way back with steps going down to an area and a stone balustrade across the front. It’s terribly difficult to walk quite straight in a fog. I’m one of the people who bear to the right, and all at once I found myself clutching at a gate which swung away from me. As a matter of fact, I hit it pretty hard with my knee, and the next thing I knew I was falling down the area steps. I landed on some horrid wet flagstones-that is where I collected the green slime-and I was quite glad to keep still for a bit and make sure I hadn’t got any broken bones. And the next thing that happened was that someone came out of the house by the front door and stood there talking to the person who was letting him out. There were steps running up from the street, and neither of them had any idea that I had just fallen down into their area.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because of what they said. The one who came out was the Professor, Robert MacPhail-Regulus Mactavish-The Great Prospero-whatever he chooses to call himself. The other was just a whisper. I don’t really know that it was a man. I just took it for granted, the way the Professor was talking-offhand, you know, and not troubling about being polite. Of course I can only give you his side of the conversation, because I never got a word of what the other creature said.”

“All right, what did you get?”

“Well, the Professor began by saying what a dependable man he was, and that his word was his bond. He said there wasn’t a man living who could say he had let him down, and that he was a sure friend in trouble. Then there was some whispering from the other. I think he wanted to shut the door, and the Professor had his foot in the way. Anyhow he said he was just going, and grumbled about being turned out in the fog. He said it was as black as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat, and I remembered our old Scotch nannie saying that about a very dark night. Then there was some more talk-whispering on one side, and the Professor talking about the fog. And then he said, ‘All right, all right-I’m going! And I haven’t said I’ll do it yet, but I’ll give it my careful consideration and let you know.’ I’m not trying to do his Scotch, but I think I’ve got the words right. And then he went on-and I’m quite sure about this-‘But mind, you’ll have to think again-about the remuneration. I’ll not do it for any less than two thousand. It’s my neck I’ll be risking, and I’ll not risk it for a penny less than two thousand.’ And with that he came down the steps and went away up the road whistling, ‘Ye’ll tak the high road, and I’ll tak the low road.’ And I followed him.”

“Why?”

“He seemed to know where he was going, and I wanted to get away from that house and the whispering creature. But I don’t want him to know that I followed him, because then he would know that I could have heard what he said about risking his neck.”

“That frightened you?”

“It would have frightened you too if you had heard it, sitting in a slimy area in the middle of a fog.”

“It would certainly make it easier to put a sinister construction on the words. But you know, they might have had a perfectly innocent meaning. The Professor is in the show business. I gather he is what is called an illusionist, with a spot of hypnotism thrown in, and I daresay he is as phoney as you please. But don’t you see all that about risking his neck could apply to almost any dangerous stunt?”

“Two thousand pounds? I shouldn’t think that the price ran as high as that in the show business!”

“Well, what did you think at the time?”

“I thought he was being asked to get someone out of the way, and that he wasn’t turning it down-it was just a matter of whether it would be worth his while or not.”

“And now?”

There was quite a long pause. Then she said very low,

“I don’t know-I’m frightened-”

The raindrops stopped pattering upon the pond and rushing down the windscreen. The clouds were lifting. Between them there appeared first streaks, and then a broad expanse of a pale, lovely turquoise, January’s gift to the English winter sky. Presently there was that clear shining after rain which makes amends for the wettest day.

They drove slowly back to Bleake, not talking very much but happy. Ione had a sense of release. She was ready to believe that it was the fog, the shaking she had just received, and her own sense of being lost which had given a sinister tinge to the Professor’s words. She was ready to believe anything so long as she didn’t have to see him again, or to listen to that rolling voice. It went through her mind that he had produced the story of the unknown Chinese mandarin-if by pressing a button you would cause the death of this person, and at the same time benefit three-quarters of the human race, would you, or would you not, be justified in pressing that button? And she remembered that Jim Severn had said, there in the fog, when they were huddled together on the stairs of the empty house and she was drowsing and waking against his comfortable shoulder-he had said that he felt pretty sure the button-pusher was really only interested in one member of the human race-himself.

A warm sense of security flowed between her and the recollection. She chose her friends with a sure instinct, and she always knew at once what the possibilities of that friendship were going to be. There were the people to whom you responded on the artistic, the practical, the purely personal side. There were the people with whom it was quite possible that you might fall in love, and yet at the same time there would be an inner conviction that you could not imagine spending your life with one of them. But with Jim Severn-this sense of intimacy and security. It was as if they had known each other for so long that the security was a thing tried and proved, and the intimacy a bond which could never be broken.

When they drove into the garage of the Ladies’ House-converted stabling, very roomy and spacious-Ione saw that Geoffrey’s car was out. He had said something about taking Allegra for a drive if it cleared, and she supposed that he had done so. Well, it was lovely now, with the clouds all drawn away to a rampart along the horizon and the whole sky of that magical rain-washed blue-

Jim Severn put a hand on her arm.

“Like to show me the gardens? Or is it too wet?”

She lifted a foot in a sensible country shoe for his inspection.

“It’s not the wet, but what Geoffrey will say. He’s sure to want to take you round himself.”

He laughed.

“Well, so he can. No need to tell him I’ve been round with you. It’s rather nice with everything clear and the trees dripping. Those birches look as if they had been strung with diamonds.”

They wandered down the terraces. Looking back at the house, Ione said,

“Do you know, the garden almost persuades me. Those Americans must have loved it a lot.”

“What became of them?”

“He was killed in the war, like the last male Falconer, and she went back to the States. End of a dream.”

“Yes.”

She turned to him abruptly.

“Don’t you see, the house is simply hung about with old sad stories. Allegra oughtn’t to have that kind of atmosphere. There’s the decaying family just petering out after five hundred years, and goodness knows how many crimes and horrors piling up all the way. If you are well, and happy, and strong-minded, you can take it all in your stride like Geoffrey does. But Allegra is neither well nor happy, and she certainly isn’t strong-minded. I can just see it seeping into her and getting her down.”

He said very gravely,

“You will have to say all that to Mr. Sanderson, my dear.” Ione took a moment before she said, “Yes.” She felt as if she had made a momentous decision, and that once made, she was pledged to it. A weight lifted from her spirits, colour came up in her cheeks, and she turned to him with a gaiety which surprised them both.

“I’ve been letting myself get too intense. I do when I haven’t got anyone to talk things over with. Come along and see the marvellous rock garden that the Americans made out of a disused quarry.”

She began to tell him about the trick Margot Trent had played on Geoffrey and herself the day before.

“It really was horrible. She took us in completely. And when we got to the foot of the cliff, there she was, roped to a tree near the top and laughing her head off.”

“Does she make her home permanently with your sister and brother-in-law?”

“Yes, she does. That is one of the things that worries me. She isn’t normal, and it isn’t good for Allegra, but there’s just nothing to be done about it. Schools won’t keep her, and Geoffrey seems to be the only relation she has got in the world.”

They were approaching the quarry from rather a different angle to that which she had taken with Geoffrey on the previous day. She began to point out how beautiful it would be when the aubrietia was in flower and the bare stems of the wistaria were clothed in their feathery green and the long drooping tassels of lavender and white. She had turned back to point to a clump of wanda primroses already in bloom, when she found that he had not turned with her. He was standing on a boulder above the path and staring in the direction of the cliff. Her own view blocked by a clump of rhododendrons, she had no idea of what he was looking at. She said, “Jim!” on a surprised note, and he jumped down from the rock.

“What is it?”

“There’s something lying at the foot of the quarry wall.”

“Something?”

“Someone!”

He began to run as Geoffrey had done. Ione followed him, and something said over and over in her mind, “It’s a trick-it’s a trick-it’s just another trick.” But when they came out from between the bushes and up to the place where Margot lay in a sprawling heap with a bit of frayed and broken rope in her hand, the words went faint and passed into a dreadful silence. Margot had played her last trick. She lay on the stones with a broken neck and that ragged end of rope in her hand.

Geoffrey Trent sat facing the Inspector who had come out from Wraydon, a pleasant-looking man whose fresh colouring contrasted sharply with his own haggard appearance.

“You tell me the young lady played a trick on you and Miss Muir on Saturday at a place very near the one from which she fell on Sunday afternoon.”

“It was not exactly the same place.”

“No. We have photographs of both places of course. I’m trying to find out just how serious that trick may have been.”

“It was not serious. It was a trick.”

“But it might have been serious if the rope had broken.”

“I don’t think so. The place where she was standing by that conifer-there was plenty of foothold, and there would be no strain upon the rope.”

“It was the rope you showed me?”

“Yes.”

“A good strong rope-it wouldn’t have broken. But this other rope was rotten-the one she was using when she fell.”

Geoffrey’s pallor became more extreme.

“After-after she played that trick-I took the rope away and locked it up in the garage. I-was-afraid-” His voice petered out.

“Then where did the other rope come from?”

“She must have got it out of the potting-shed. There were some old ropes there. Humphreys, the gardener, says-”

“Yes, I’d like a word with him presently. He may have been one of the last people to see her alive. Now, Mr. Trent, when did you see her last?”

Geoffrey braced himself.

“She had lunch with us-as usual. Miss Muir and Mr. Severn were out, but the rest of us went into the drawing-room and had coffee there. My wife rests in the afternoon. I told her I would take her for a drive if it cleared in time. Margot and Miss Delauny went off to their sitting-room.”

“That’s the governess, I take it. I haven’t seen her yet. How long has she been with you?”

“Nearly three years.”

“You had tried sending the girl to school?”

Geoffrey gave a deep sigh.

“Oh, yes! But they wouldn’t keep her. Good-tempered to a fault-affectionate-all that kind of thing. But she didn’t fit in. There were always these trying practical jokes, and they wouldn’t put up with them.”

“You had medical advice?”

“Of course. They said it was a case of arrested development.”

“It was not suggested that she ought to be under restraint?”

A slight flush tinged Geoffrey’s pallor.

“Oh, no-there would have been no case for anything of that sort. She was as harmless as a child. In fact that is what she was-a child of six or seven with a particularly strong and active body ten years too old for her mind. She would have been wretched in a home.”

“You were her guardian, Mr. Trent?”

“Yes.”

The Inspector asked his next question with reluctance, but he felt bound to ask it.

“I have heard that there is some talk in the village to the effect that Miss Trent was fond of saying what a lot of money she was going to have when she came of age. Can you tell me if that was true?”

Geoffrey frowned.

“Her father was a cousin of mine. He made a considerable fortune in the Middle East and left it in trust for Margot. As a matter of fact the war did a good deal of damage to his interests. Securities which were considered safe at the time are practically worthless to-day. In any case Margot had no idea of the value of money.”

“Who are her trustees, Mr. Trent?”

“There was another cousin who was killed in the war, and myself.”

“And who succeeds to the property now?”

Geoffrey drew another of those long melancholy sighs and said,

“Unfortunately I do. There are no other relations.”

The pause that followed was not so unduly prolonged as to be significant. With an air of turning to another subject, Inspector Grayson said,

“Well, Mr. Trent, you were telling me about the Sunday afternoon. You had coffee in the drawing-room and then separated. Will you go on from there.”

Geoffrey leaned his head upon his hand.

“I came in here and wrote a few letters. Some time before three o’clock I could see that it was going to clear. I told my wife that the air would do her good, and I went along to ask Miss Delauny whether she and Margot would like to come. She said she didn’t think she would come, as she had some letters to write, and she said Margot had just gone out into the garden, but she would see if she could find her. I said I couldn’t wait for her, as the afternoons were so short, and I went to get the car. Neither Margot nor Miss Delauny turned up, so I took my wife for a short round and got back at a quarter to four. My sister-in-law came out to the garage as I was putting the car away and told me that there had been an accident, and that-Margot-was dead-” He seemed hardly able to get the last words out.

“And then, Mr. Trent?”

“I went with her and Mr. Severn to the quarry. And then I came back to the house and rang up the police.”

“How long was it since they had found her?”

“Only a few minutes, I believe.”

As this was what he had already been told by the two people concerned, Grayson had no comment to make. He said briefly,

“I should like to see the governess if I may.”