Let Him Lie (23 page)

“Oh, Peter,” cried Jeanie, the tears spilling over her lids, “it isn't what I
want
, it's what's the safest thing for you!”

“Don't worry, Jeanie,” said Peter gently, clasping one of her hands in both his for a moment. “What is there to worry about? After all, aren't we both forgetting. I
didn't
murder Molyneux.”

“What, Peter? Oh no, Jeanie! You must have misunderstood Superintendent Finister! How could he suspect Peter, of all people? What on earth sense could there be in such an idea?”

Agnes had gone very pale at Jeanie's news, and although she had quickly recovered her poise, little drops of sweat actually stood now on her fine-skinned, finely-wrinkled forehead. She cared so much, then, for Peter's safety? It was not like Agnes to care so much about another person's safety! Was it possible that the detestable Finister's loathsome fancies might have after all some foundation in fact?

Jeanie was once again with Agnes in the little parlour at Cleedons in which Agnes spent most of her time. The room, as usual, was over-heated, over-cushioned, over-scented, stifling after the cool airs and fresh clean scents of Cole Harbour House.

“But Agnes, Superintendent Finister as good as told me himself that Peter was their man! I know they'll arrest him! He doesn't deny that it was his pistol that was dragged up out of the pond! He doesn't deny that he threw it there just about the time Mr. Molyneux was killed! He doesn't deny that only one cartridge was in it!”

‘‘Does he deny anything?” asked Agnes, speaking in a cold sarcastic tone that brought back to Jeanie memories of Agnes the schoolmistress, much admired of the few, much hated of the many. “Does he deny, for instance, that he shot Robert?”

“Yes. He says he took the pistol out intending to commit suicide.”

“What a pity he didn't carry out his intention!”

“Agnes!”

Agnes had spoken with a sudden vehemence, a cold anger, which startled Jeanie. They looked at one another. Agnes's blue eyes were dark and cold. Her broad low forehead on which the thick greyish-blonde hair was parted and waved back had usually a suggestion about it of Greek art, a Clytie or a Sybil. But now as she stooped her tense head and looked angrily up at Jeanie under her brows, that low wide forehead gave her the look of a snake.

“I mean it. What a pity h
e didn't
commit suicide, and save himself the trouble of being hanged, if he had to play the fool at all! What's going to happen now? It'll be pleasant for me, won't it, the trial?”

“For you?” stammered Jeanie, aghast as much at the vindictive expression upon her friend's face as at the cold egotism of her words. Evidently, Jeanie could put Finister's suspicion of illicit love quite out of her mind. This was not love. It was the meanest sort of fear.

“Yes, for me!” cried Agnes shrilly. “So nice having one's dirty linen washed in public, isn't it? Has it escaped your memory that Peter was my husband's private secretary? And that he was dismissed for taking money out of the safe? All that'll be gone into publicly, I suppose! I shall have to give evidence at the trial. That'll be delightful for me, won't it? Probably my photograph will be in the picture papers!” 

“Oh, Agnes!” said Jeanie. She felt a little sick. Did no feeling for Peter touch Agnes's heart at all? Was there never room at all in that queer, acute but blinkered mind for any generous thought, for any interest that was not of self? She pulled herself together and spoke firmly.

“Oh, that. I know all about why he took the money, Agnes. And so do the police, of course.”

“And so will all England, soon! That'll be charming for me, won't it?”

Agnes's little face was quite distorted with fear and fury. The fine lines which were as a rule almost invisible on her delicate, well-cared-for skin all had grown dark as if a malicious pencil had been at work about her face. She looked lined as a little monkey, venomous as a little snake. All kinds of abuse seemed to hover about her lips, but suddenly she paused. She put her hands over her eyes. There was a silence. In the silence Jeanie heard footsteps on the gravel terrace. Somebody passed the window. Jeanie recognised the loping stride of Sir Henry Blundell.

Slowly sighing, Agnes withdrew her hands from her eyes, cupped them around her chin. She seemed to have wiped away in that gesture most of the lines upon her face and all the snake-like anger of her look. Exhausted, pale, tragic, fragile as a late autumn flower, she gazed at Jeanie.

“I'm sorry, Jeanie. I hardly know what I'm saying. That was Sir Henry, wasn't it? He said he was calling here at half-past three.”

Evidently Jeanie was expected to take her leave. So strong was the force of suggestion that seemed to emanate from Agnes's sudden silence and quiescence, that she almost did so. But she remembered her errand here, and suddenly determined that she would not be driven away until she had fulfilled it.

“I want to ask you something first, Agnes.”

Agnes frowned.

“Some other time.”

“No. Now.”

If you'd only let me know you were coming! I haven't time now!”

I want to ask you a question and it won't take long,” said Jeanie, breathless with nervousness, for never in her life had she defied Agnes before, and the submissive habit of years is not easily broken. “Sir Henry can wait.”

“He can't! There's the bell! I shall ask Bates to show him straight in here!”

“Then I shall ask my question in front of him, and you won't like it. You'd better do as I want, Agnes.”

“Jeanie! Do you know what you're talking about?”

“Perfectly well. I'm not a schoolgirl now, Agnes, and you're not a school-mistress, and it's not the slightest use putting on that tone!”

“I think you're mad, Jeanie.”

“Listen, Agnes. I gave you a zircon brooch once; do you remember?”

“Really, Jeanie, is this the moment for your reminiscences?”

“Agnes, the question I want to ask you is about Valentine Frazer.”

There was a pause, as Bates entered the room. At last Agnes said:

“Show Sir Henry into the hall and tell him that I shall only be a moment.”

“Very good, madam.”

The door closed. On the instant the calm employer's mask fell from Agnes's face. She turned furiously upon Jeanie, then checked as if she found something formidable in Jeanie's look. Her limp:

“I don't know what you're talking about, Jeanie!” fell unconvincingly from her lips.

“Why didn't you tell me that pearl necklace was yours?”

“Mine? What pearl necklace?”

“The one I showed you the day before yesterday. The one I found at Yew Tree Cottage.”

“Really, Jeanie, haven't I got enough to think about without—”

“If Sir Henry has to wait hours in the hall it won't be my fault. Don't waste time, Agnes. You gave your pearl necklace to Valentine Frazer, and I want to know why.”

There was a pause. Agnes took a cigarette from a box on the mantelpiece and searched nervously around for something to light it with.

“Really, I think you're demented, Jeanie,” she said. “Valentine Frazer. That's the woman who lived with Hugh Barchard at Yew Tree Cottage. What conceivable reason could I have had for giving her a pearl necklace?”

“That's what I want to know.”

“I lost my necklace, it's true. Possibly she found it.”

When you saw it the other night you pretended not to recognise it.”

“I didn't recognise it. One pearl necklace is very like another, if one isn't an expert. Oh damn. Must these damned housemaids leave empty match-boxes all over the place?”

She flung a brocaded match-box into the fire.

You gave Valentine Frazer your pearl necklace, and you gave her your zircon brooch.”

“What in Heaven's name are you talking about?” cried Agnes angrily.

“I've seen a portrait of the woman wearing your brooch. How did she get it if you didn't give it to her?”

“Don't be a fool! As if there can't be two zircon brooches in the world! They're the commonest kind of rubbish travellers in Ceylon bring back with them!”

Absurd Jeanie! This description of the lovely brooch she had given Agnes cut her to the quick!

“You didn't think it was rubbish eight years ago!” she cried.

“It was sweet of you to give it me. I still wear it sometimes.”

“Show it me, and I'll believe you!”

“Really, Jeanie, you said just now you weren't a schoolgirl!”

“You gave that brooch to Valentine Frazer!”

“I did not.” Again Agnes put her cigarette between her lips and looked about her for a match.

“Here's a match, if you want one!”

“What on earth should I be giving things to that woman for? I didn't even know her! I never met her! How should I? What had we in common, I should like to know? Perhaps you can tell me that, as you seem to know everything! Would I be likely to meet a woman like that?”

Agnes held out her hand, but Jeanie struck a match. Frowning, Agnes stooped to the flame.

“Why not? She was a tenant of your cottage, wasn't she? And I think you had a good deal in common! You'd both been professional women—you a school-mistress and she an actress! You were both daughters of clergymen who'd held the same living!” said Jeanie, remembering Mrs. Barchard's gossip. “You—”

She broke off sharply, gazing at Agnes's face, her straight, delicate nose, her thin pink-stained lips pursed lightly around the already pink-stained cigarette. A puff of smoke came sharply into her face.

“Sorry,” said Agnes, as if she had not done it on purpose. But Jeanie scarcely noticed it.

“What the devil is the matter with you, Jeanie? You look semi-idiotic with your mouth open like that!”

There was a mirror over the mantelpiece, and Jeanie found herself looking at her own face in it, thinking of the painted smiling face of the lady in red gloves.

“
Is
she like me? I don't think so, but Peter saw it. So I suppose she must be. And I thought she was like
you
. Agnes, she's your sister, isn't she? Your sister, that was supposed to be dead!”

Agnes stood very still. Her protest when it came sounded oddly half-hearted.

“What are you talking about?”

Her cigarette dropped on the fur rug. It was an appreciable moment before she picked it up. She seemed suddenly all at sea, ill-co-ordinated, lost. She was wondering wildly, Jeanie knew, whether to confess or deny. Jeanie decided to save her the trouble.

“I know she is, by the way you're behaving! I hadn't even thought of it a moment ago, but now I know! Your sister, Agnes! The sister who died young, soon after she'd started her stage career! The sister you sacrificed so much to! The sister I reminded you of. Only it seems she didn't die! You were quite broken by her death, you said. Nine years younger than you, almost more like a daughter than a sister—”

“Jeanie, don't.”

To Jeanie's astonishment, Agnes spoke quietly. She had dropped her cigarette into the fire. She had turned and laid her arm upon the mantelpiece, her head upon her arm. One appealing hand stretched out behind her as if she actually expected Jeanie to take it. Disconcerted, ashamed of what seemed of a sudden cruel jeering, Jeanie became silent.

“You know as well as I do, Jeanie, that a schoolmistress can't afford to have disreputable sisters. Vera—Valentine, she called herself, it was her stage name—
had
to be dead. I paid for her to go to Canada. I hoped she'd stop there, never be able to raise the passage home. But she got home somehow. You see, Jeanie, she knew what a handicap she could be to me. She only had to appear, and—”

“What would it have mattered?” asked Jeanie, feeling clumsy, awkward and at sea in the face of Agnes's mournful quietude. Agnes raised her muffled head to answer with spirit:

“You didn't know Vera! She was impossible! She was everything you can think of that's impossible! We never liked one another. Well, was it likely? She had a kink. She used to behave outrageously from her childhood. And she hated me, she was always ready to do some malicious thing to annoy me. I'd have left her alone. But she wouldn't leave me alone. And I knew it. And she knew that I knew it. And when she took up with this man Barchard, and then came to live here on purpose to annoy me and frighten me, although she promised me when I married Robert that as long as I gave her a hundred a year she'd never so much as write to me—! Of course she knew she could break her promises as she pleased. She knew I couldn't do anything! I believe she only ever got hold of Barchard because she found out he was a tenant of ours!”

“But what were you afraid of, Agnes? She couldn't hurt you!”

Agnes raised her head and turned. She looked outraged and indignant.

“She could tell everyone she was my sister! And I shouldn't have been able to deny it! She could prove it! She could make life here impossible for me, that's all! If you call that nothing! My sister, a common woman, who lived with a working man without being married to him! My sister, turned out of the village inn for using bad language! Delightful it would have been for me, wouldn't it?”

“She couldn't
hurt
you.”

“Don't be silly, Jeanie! She could have ruined me socially, made Cleedons impossible for me, spoilt my marriage—”

“Hadn't you told your husband about her, then?”

“No. I—I didn't want Robert to be worried.”

“I see.”

“It's all very well for you, Jeanie! You didn't know Vera!”

“What did you expect to happen in the end?”

“I thought if I could keep her quiet for a bit, she'd get tired of annoying me and go off, as she'd done before. And as she did, this time, in the end. I gave her things. Money, when I could manage it. And bits of jewellery—in the end, even my pearls. I had to pretend they were lost, because Robert missed them, and we got insurance for them.”