The Second Shot (26 page)

Sheringham shook his head. ‘No. Much too untidy. I shouldn’t be able to sleep for weeks. Besides, the police won’t, you know.’

‘No,’ Armorel agreed calmly. They’ll be like a pack of hounds on my trail now, I suppose.’

‘Nonsense!’ I said loudly. ‘Sooner than that, I shall – ’

‘Pinkie, if you interrupt again I shall come and sit on your knee; and that’ll make you feel so silly, in front of Mr Sheringham. You know it will, so do be quiet. Well, Mr Sheringham?’

‘Well, we seem to be confronted with much the same problem over again, with you this time instead of Tapers. He’s cleared, and you’re not. If you postulate the same conditions as he did, our job is to clear you without incriminating someone else. Is that the idea?’

Armorel nodded. ‘Yes. The police can suspect me as much as they like. I don’t care about that, but – ’

‘They shall do nothing of the sort,’ I exclaimed. Really, it was too absurd. ‘Sooner than that they should suspect you for a minute, I will – Armorel!’

‘I warned you,’ Armorel laughed lightly, apparently quite unembarrassed by the equivocal picture we must have presented. ‘And the next time, I shall kiss you. And you’ll blush even more than you do now. – He
is
blushing prettily, isn’t he, Mr Sheringham?’

‘Yes, I love to see modesty nowadays in the young middle-aged,’ Sheringham said foolishly.

They both looked at me. It was most embarrassing. But I did not care to use force to a woman, and there seemed no other means of dislodging Armorel. I leaned back and smiled, as if indifferent; though I fear it was a feeble pretence.

‘By the way,’ Sheringham said suddenly, ‘there’s one very promising line of inquiry which seems to have been unaccountably neglected. At least, it doesn’t appear to have occurred to the police, so naturally I didn’t suggest it.’

‘Oh?’ said Armorel. ‘What?’

‘Why, Elsa Verity. According to what I’ve been told, she was in the far end of the wood – Bluebell Wood, isn’t it? – when the thing happened. Well, no one seems to have asked her which way she came back to the house. I’ve been over all the ground today, and there are two ways from Bluebell Wood, either straight up and through the fields, or else along the stream and up the path that Tapers and Mrs Fitzwilliam followed. So it’s even chances which way she came. Now if by any chance she did come along the stream, she may have seen something. At any rate, it’s worth a few questions.’

Armorel looked dubious. ‘Is it? I doubt if you’ll get much out of Elsa.’

‘No, indeed,’ I had to agree. ‘I regret to say that Miss Verity is – well, very small reliance can be placed upon her word.’

It was an unfortunate remark. Armorel at once began to laugh. Sheringham of course inquired the reason, and in spite of my protests Armorel told him of the way in which Miss Verity had succeeded in hoodwinking me. Once again I was surprised by the positive malice with which Armorel recounted the story. Indeed, she went so far as to hint that Elsa had by her duplicity interested me to the extent of real affection, which was very far from the case.

‘I see,’ Sheringham grinned. ‘I shall have to be very subtle. But she can caricature me behind my back as much as she likes, so long as I get what I want out of her; in other words, the truth. And talking of the truth, Armorel – ’

‘Meaning me?’ interposed Armorel quickly, to my secret pleasure.

‘That
is
your name, isn’t it?’ Sheringham smiled, quite unabashed. ‘But I’ll call you Miss Scott-Davies if you’re really young enough to like it better.’

‘Cunning, aren’t you? All right, stick to Armorel.’

‘Certainly. Well, talking of the truth, Armorel, there’s one point on which I must press you. You remember quoting your cousin as making a reference to an appointment with somebody. I needn’t emphasize the importance of that, if it’s true. What I want to know is, is it? Did he really say anything of the kind, or didn’t he? You’ll save me a lot of wild-goosechasing if he didn’t, and you tell me so here and now.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Armorel replied easily. ‘He did. But of course I can’t remember the exact words. It was something about – ’

‘He didn’t!’ I interposed, ‘For the plain reason that Armorel wasn’t anywhere in the –
Armorel!
’ I fear the last exclamation was somewhat smothered.

‘I warned you,’ Armorel muttered, also in smothered tones. ‘You can’t say I didn’t warn you. Keep
still,
Pinkie, will you?’

‘Sic him, Armorel!’ that idiot Sheringham encouraged her.

‘Armorel!
’ I could only protest, feebly.

‘Well, well, well!’ said a voice from the door. ‘Cyril, I wouldn’t have believed it of you.’

To my relief Armorel sat up. ‘Oh, John, do speak to Pinkie. He’s been
such
a caveman. He dragged me onto his knee, and began kissing me like anything. And all in front of Mr Sheringham. Didn’t you hear my screams?’

‘Yes, quite deafening,’ John saw fit to grin. ‘Ethel thought it was a mouse. Well, don’t let me interrupt you, Cyril. I only came in to say that the rest of us are going to bed. Put out the lights, if you’re sitting up longer.’

‘On the contrary,’ I said, ‘I think it’s time we all went up. ’

‘I warn you, Pinkie,’ Armorel remarked, getting up and smoothing down her dress, ‘I shall lock my door.’

Really, I was not sorry to escape upstairs. Sheringham came too. Armorel, however, remarked that she was far too excited over being a police suspect to think of bed; she was going into the drawing room to read an improving book for an hour or two. She undertook to turn out the lamps.

It was with a strange mixture of feelings that I found myself at last alone. Intense relief at realizing myself safe from the attentions of the police mingled with the determination that I would not allow my immunity to be bought at the price of Armorel herself becoming suspect. As to my paramount emotion, of intense and overwhelming gratitude to the dear girl for the incredible generosity of her action of that morning, I cannot trust myself even now to write temperately.

But in truth I did not know what to do. At one moment I told myself that I could not possibly accept such a gift; at another, that if only Sheringham could clear her name as effectually as she had cleared mine, it would be possible for me to do so. But that he could do so, without involving some third person in the tangle, seemed out of the question. I was very much distressed; and to add to my uneasiness was the conviction that I had been churlish towards Armorel. I had seemed to take her wonderful sacrifice for granted; certainly I had not thanked her adequately – if indeed adequate thanks were possible, which they were not. And she was ready even to go to the length of pretending to have shot her cousin, on my behalf!

I had thrown myself into a chair and was still debating, fully dressed, these matters, when there was the faintest tap at my door and Sheringham immediately followed it into my room, in his pyjamas and dressing gown.

‘Just a few last words with you, Tapers, really alone and unoverheard,’ he said in a low voice, drawing a chair up beside mine.

‘I’m glad you came,’ I agreed at once. ‘I am exceedingly worried, Sheringham. What am I to do? Please advise me. I cannot let that poor girl continue in this attitude, if it means that she is in danger; and yet you say no one will believe me however much I deny the truth of her story – not even if I state that I shot Scott-Davies myself. What am I to do?’

‘That’s just what I’ve come to tell you,’ Sheringham replied cheerfully. ‘Look here, am I to take it that you’d go to any lengths to save her?’

‘Good gracious, yes. Most certainly I would.’

‘Well, first of all, then, realize this, Tapers. The police have only got one witness against her, just one – and that’s you. According to her story, you saw her come from the direction, or the general direction, in which her cousin was already lying dead. In clearing you, she’s made you a witness against herself.’

‘But I shall deny it. I never saw her at all, let alone in any particular direction. How can I be a witness against her, if I give totally contradictory evidence?’

‘It seems to me that if you give any evidence at all, you’ll do her harm; because if, as you say, you deny her story, the court may well assume that there’s a conspiracy between you to clear each other. That you conspired, to put it bluntly, to kill Scott-Davies between you, and clear each other afterwards.’

‘That is precisely what I told her, though I considered it a prevarication at the time, when the dear girl offered to – ’ I broke off in some confusion.

But Sheringham persisted; and as the incident after all only added fresh credit to Armorel, I told him how she had offered actually to marry me, if I thought it advisable.

To my surprise Sheringham did not smile indulgently. Instead he said at once: ‘Then she showed more sense than you. Tapers, it was to suggest that very thing to you that I’ve come along now.’

‘Sheringham!’ I exclaimed, in astonishment.

‘Listen,’ he said rapidly. ‘The two of you are bound up in this. You can incriminate each other, you can clear each other, you can give evidence for or against each other. But what you both want is not to have to give evidence at all. You don’t want her to perjure herself on your behalf; she doesn’t want you to do your best to spoil the results of her perjury. And remember this: that without the inculpatory evidence of the other, the police have no real case against either of you: only suspicion. I don’t see how they can possibly arrest either of you now, after her story, unless they can call the other in support of their case. Obviously, therefore, it’s up to you two to make it
impossible
for the police to do anything of the sort. And there are only the two ways of achieving that: you must both be either dead, or married. And I’m not advocating a suicide pact.’

‘Good gracious me,’ I could only gasp. ‘But – ’

‘Yes?’

‘But you must see that – ’

‘What?’

‘Well,’ I said, in acute embarrassment, ‘it would be most unfair, that she should have to suffer for – Really,

Sheringham, I mean – ’ I had seldom found myself at such a disadvantage.

‘Are you sure she would suffer?’ Sheringham merely smiled.

‘I – don’t quite understand.’

‘Tapers, tell me the truth. Don’t get on your hind legs, and push your chest out and pant; just tell me the truth. Are you fond of this girl or are you not?’

It will scarcely be believed, but I was past resenting this extraordinary interference in my private affairs. ‘I don’t know,’ I said unhappily.

‘Then think. I needn’t remind you that you’ve already gone to the length of confessing to murder, to rescue her from suspicion.’

But, still more strangely, I had no need to think. As soon as I had spoken, I had known that I was lying. I did know. To my astonishment it came upon me that I
was
fond of Armorel – intensely fond. I wanted to be with her a great deal. Indeed, all the time. I had thought I was merely exceedingly grateful, but it was not only that. I was (I could hardly credit the notion, but I was convinced it was correct) actually in
love
with Armorel.

The reader must not think that I jumped to this astonishing conclusion without at once confirming it. I hastily applied certain tests, which put the issue beyond doubt. Did I wish to kiss Armorel again? Indubitably I did. Would I enjoy exhibiting my stamp collection to her, and teaching her how to distinguish between rarer kinds of wild mosses? I should. Could I contemplate with equanimity the idea of sharing a bedroom with her? It was a disturbing thought, but I fancied I could. Could I bear with her less pleasant habits, her untidiness, her tendency towards stridency when excited, her slanginess, and the rest, until such time as I gently moulded them into ways more befitting the young chatelaine of Stukeleigh? I was sure of it; and the idea of transforming her untamed wildness thus was a singularly pleasing one.

These thoughts passed very rapidly through my mind, so that it was still in a tone of considerable surprise that I answered Sheringham: ‘Yes, I am fond of her.’

‘I should think so,’ he said severely.

Something in his voice struck me as ominous. I realized what it was. Armorel, as he himself had said, was a girl in a million; only too plainly I saw that now; but was I a man in a million? With unwonted clarity I perceived that I was not. I was not even, perhaps, a man in a thousand – perhaps not even in a hundred. There was, in fact, every reason why I should be fond of Armorel, but none at all why she should be fond of me. It was a highly distressing thought.

My face fell. ‘What,’ I asked Sheringham humbly, ‘am I to do about it?’

‘Ask her to marry you, of course.’

‘But she wouldn’t contemplate such a thing,’ I assured him. ‘Why should she? You must see yourself that she wouldn’t. A – a high-spirited young girl, and a – well, I must confess that I have become exceedingly set in my ways. No,’ I added sadly, ‘looking at myself frankly, I can see no attraction in me at all for a high-spirited girl like Armorel.’

‘But I thought the high-spirited young girl had already proposed marriage to you?’

‘That was quite different,’ I had to point out. ‘That was merely the prompting of her generous nature.’

Sheringham shifted in his chair and recrossed his legs.

‘Tapers, these evidences of humility are most welcome, because to tell you the truth I’d come to the conclusion that you’d turned into about as conceited a little prig as ever I met, and ever since I came here I’ve been simply longing to introduce my toes once more to your hinder parts. I’m glad to learn I was wrong. But I still agree with you in wondering what the devil the girl can see in you. However, that’s her affair, not mine.

‘In the meantime let me tell you this. If a high-spirited young woman proposes marriage to you one minute, from whatever generous motives, and gets up the next in the witness box and perjures herself black and blue on your behalf, it isn’t merely out of gratitude to you for, as she thinks, neatly removing her cousin. It’s because she looks on you as her own blue-eyed boy. So I don’t think you need have much fear on that head.’