Towards Zero (9 page)

“So you feel it too?” said Lady Tressilian sharply.

“Yes, I am puzzled, I must confess. The true feelings of the parties remain obscure, but in my opinion, there is gunpowder about. The explosion may come any minute.”

“Stop talking like Guy Fawkes and tell me what to do,” said Lady Tressilian.

Mr. Treves held up his hands.

“Really, I am at a loss to know what to suggest. There is, I feel sure, a focal point. If we could isolate that—but there is so much that remains obscure.”

“I have no intention of asking Audrey to leave,” said Lady Tressilian. “As far as my observation goes, she has behaved perfectly in a very difficult situation. She has been courteous, but aloof. I consider her conduct irreproachable.”

“Oh quite,” said Mr. Treves. “Quite. But it's having a most marked effect on young Nevile Strange all the same.”

“Nevile,” said Lady Tressilian, “is
not
behaving well. I shall speak to him about it. But I couldn't turn him out of the house for a moment. Matthew regarded him as practically his adopted son.”

“I know.”

Lady Tressilian sighed. She said in a lowered voice:

“You know that Matthew was drowned here?”

“Yes.”

“So many people have been surprised at my remaining here. Stupid of them. I have always felt Matthew near to me here. The whole house is full of him. I should feel lonely and strange anywhere else.” She paused, and went on. “I hoped at first that it might not be very long before I joined him. Especially when my health began to fail. But it seems I am one of these creaking gates—these perpetual invalids who never die.” She thumped her pillow angrily.

“It doesn't please me, I can tell you! I always hoped that when my time came, it would come quickly—that I should meet Death face to face—not feel him creeping along behind me, always at my shoulder—gradually forcing me to sink to one indignity after another of illness. Increased helplessness—increasing dependence on other people!”

“But very devoted people, I am sure. You have a faithful maid?”

“Barrett? The one who brought you up. The comfort of my life! A grim old battleaxe, absolutely devoted. She's been with me for years.”

“And you are lucky, I should say, in having Miss Aldin.”

“You are right. I am lucky in having Mary.”

“She is a relation?”

“A distant cousin. One of those selfless creatures whose lives are continually being sacrificed to those of other people. She looked after her father—a clever man—but terribly exacting. When he died I begged her to make her home with me, and I have blessed the day she came to me. You've no idea what horrors most companions are. Futile boring creatures. Driving one mad with their inanity. They are companions because they are fit for nothing better. To have Mary, who is a well-read intelligent woman, is marvellous. She has really a first-class brain—a man's brain. She has read widely and deeply and there is nothing she cannot discuss. And she is as clever domestically as she is intellectually. She runs the house perfectly and keeps the servants happy—she eliminates all quarrels and jealousies—I don't know how she does it—just tact, I suppose.”

“She has been with you long?”

“Twelve years—no, more than that. Thirteen—fourteen—something like that. She has been a great comfort.”

Mr. Treves nodded.

Lady Tressilian, watching him through half-closed lids, said suddenly:

“What's the matter? You're worried about something?”

“A trifle,” said Mr. Treves. “A mere trifle. Your eyes are sharp.”

“I like studying people,” said Lady Tressilian. “I always knew at once if there was anything on Matthew's mind.” She sighed and leaned back on her pillows. “I must say goodnight to you now”—it was a Queen's dismissal, nothing discourteous about it—“I am very tired. But it has been a great, great pleasure. Come and see me again soon.”

“You may depend upon my taking advantage of those kind words. I only hope I have not talked too long.”

“Oh no. I always tire very suddenly. Ring my bell for me, will you, before you go.”

Mr. Treves pulled gingerly at a large old-fashioned bellpull that ended in a huge tassel.

“Quite a survival,” he remarked.

“My bell? Yes. No newfangled electric bells for me. Half the time they're out of order and you go on pressing away! This thing never fails. It rings in Barrett's room upstairs—the bell hangs over her bed. So there's never any delay in answering it. If there is I pull it again pretty quickly.”

As Mr. Treves went out of the room he heard the bell pulled a second time and heard the tinkle of it somewhere above his head. He looked up and noticed the wires that ran along the ceiling. Barrett came hurriedly down a flight of stairs and passed him, going to her mistress.

Mr. Treves went slowly downstairs, not troubling with the little lift on the downward journey. His face was drawn into a frown of uncertainty.

He found the whole party assembled in the drawing room, and Mary Aldin at once suggested bridge, but Mr. Treves refused politely on the plea that he must very shortly be starting home.

“My hotel,” he said, “is old-fashioned. They do not expect anyone to be out after midnight.”

“It's a long time from that—only half past ten,” said Nevile. “They don't lock you out, I hope?”

“Oh no. In fact I doubt if the door is locked at all at night. It is shut at nine o'clock but one has only to turn the handle and walk in. People seem very haphazard down here, but I suppose they are justified in trusting to the honesty of the local people.”

“Certainly no one locks their door in the daytime here,” said Mary. “Ours stands wide open all day long—but we do lock it up at night.”

“What's the Balmoral Court like?” asked Ted Latimer. It looks a queer high Victorian atrocity of a building.”

“It lives up to its name,” said Mr. Treves. “And has good solid Victorian comfort. Good beds, good cooking—roomy, Victorian wardrobes. Immense baths with mahogany surrounds.”

“Weren't you saying you were annoyed about something at first?” asked Mary.

“Ah yes. I had carefully reserved by letter two rooms on the ground floor. I have a weak heart, you know, and stairs are forbidden me. When I arrived I was vexed to find the rooms were not available. Instead I was allotted two rooms (very pleasant rooms, I must admit) on the top floor. I protested, but it seems that an old resident who had been going to Scotland this month was ill and had been unable to vacate the rooms.”

“Mr. Lucan, I expect?” said Mary.

“I believe that is the name. Under the circumstances, I had to make the best of things. Fortunately there is a good automatic lift—so that I have really suffered no inconvenience.”

Kay said, “Ted, why don't you come and stay at the Balmoral Court? You'd be much more accessible.”

“Oh, I don't think it looks my kind of place.”

“Quite right, Mr. Latimer,” said Mr. Treves. “It would not be at all in your line of country.”

For some reason or other Ted Latimer flushed.

“I don't know what you mean by that,” he said.

Mary Aldin, sensing constraint, hurriedly made a remark about a newspaper sensation of the moment.

“I see they've detained a man in the Kentish Town trunk case—” she said.

“It's the second man they've detained,” said Nevile. “I hope they've got the right one this time.”

“They may not be able to hold him even if he is,” said Mr. Treves.

“Insufficient evidence?” asked Royde.

“Yes.”

“Still,” said Kay, “I suppose they always get the evidence in the end.”

“Not always, Mrs. Strange. You'd be surprised if you knew how many of the people who have committed crimes are walking about the country free and unmolested.”

“Because they've never been found out, you mean?”

“Not only that. There is a man”—he mentioned a celebrated case of two years back—“the police know who committed those child murders—know it without a shadow of doubt—but they are powerless. That man has been given an alibi by two people, and though that alibi is false there is no proving it to be so. Therefore the murderer goes free.”

“How dreadful,” said Mary.

Thomas Royde knocked out his pipe and said in his quiet reflective voice:

“That confirms what I have always thought—that there are times when one is justified in taking the law into one's own hands.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Royde?”

Thomas began to refill his pipe. He looked thoughtfully down at his hands as he spoke in jerky disconnected sentences.

“Suppose you knew—of a dirty piece of work—knew that the man who did it isn't accountable to existing laws—that he's immune from punishment. Then I hold—that one is justified in executing sentence oneself.”

Mr. Treves said warmly: “A most pernicious doctrine, Mr. Royde! Such an action would be quite unjustifiable!”

“Don't see it. I'm assuming, you know, that the
facts
are proved—it's just the
law
is powerless!”

“Private action is still not to be excused.”

Thomas smiled—a very gentle smile:

“I don't agree,” he said. “If a man ought to have his neck wrung, I wouldn't mind taking the responsibility of wringing it for him!”

“And in turn would render yourself liable to the law's penalties!”

Still smiling, Thomas said: “I'd have to be careful, of course…In fact one would have to go in for a certain amount of low cunning….”

Audrey said in her clear voice:

“You'd be found out, Thomas.”

“Matter of fact,” said Thomas, “I don't think I should.”

“I knew a case once,” began Mr. Treves, and stopped. He said apologetically: “Criminology is rather a hobby of mine, you know.”

“Please go on,” said Kay.

“I have had a fairly wide experience of criminal cases,” said Mr. Treves. “Only a few of them have held any real interest. Most murderers have been lamentably uninteresting and very shortsighted. However! I could tell you of one interesting example.”

“Oh do,” said Kay. “I like murders.”

Mr. Treves spoke slowly, apparently choosing his words with great deliberation and care.

“The case concerned a child. I will not mention the child's age or sex. The facts were as follows: two children were playing with bows and arrows. One child sent an arrow through the other child in a vital spot and death resulted. There was an inquest, the surviving child was completely distraught and the accident was commiserated and sympathy expressed for the unhappy author of the deed.” He paused.

“Was that all?” asked Ted Latimer.

“That was all. A regrettable accident. But there is, you see, another side to the story. A farmer, some time previously, happened to have passed up a certain path in a wood nearby. There, in a little clearing, he had noticed a child practising with a bow and arrow.”

He paused—to let his meaning sink in.

“You mean,” said Mary Aldin incredulously, “that it was
not
an accident—that it was intentional?”

“I don't know,” said Mr. Treves. “I have never known. But it was stated at the inquest that the children were unused to bows and arrows and in consequence shot wildly and ignorantly.”

“And that was not so?”

“That, in the case of
one
of the children, was certainly not so!”

“What did the farmer do?” said Audrey breathlessly.

“He did nothing. Whether he acted rightly or not, I have never
been sure. It was the future of a child that was at stake. A child, he felt, ought to be given the benefit of a doubt.”

Audrey said:

“But you yourself have no doubt about what really happened?”

Mr. Treves said gravely:

“Personally, I am of the opinion that it was a particularly ingenious murder—a murder committed by a child and planned down to every detail beforehand.”

Ted Latimer asked:

“Was there a reason?”

“Oh yes, there was a motive. Childish teasings, unkind words—enough to foment hatred. Children hate easily—”

Mary exclaimed: “But the deliberation of it.”

Mr. Treves nodded.

“Yes, the deliberation of it was bad. A child, keeping that murderous intention in its heart, quietly practising day after day and then the final piece of acting—the awkward shooting—the catastrophe, the pretence of grief and despair. It was all incredible—so incredible that probably it would not have been believed in court.”

“What happened to—to the child?” asked Kay curiously.

“Its name was changed, I believe,” said Mr. Treves. “After the publicity of the inquest that was deemed advisable. That child is a grown-up person today—somewhere in the world. The question is, has it still got a murderer's heart?”

He added thoughtfully:

“It was a long time ago, but I would recognize my little murderer anywhere.”

“Surely not,” objected Royde.

“Oh, yes, there was a certain physical peculiarity—well, I will
not dwell on the subject. It is not a very pleasant one. I must really be on my way home.”

He rose.

Mary said, “You will have a drink first?”

The drinks were on a table at the other end of the room. Thomas Royde, who was near them, stepped forward and took the stopper out of the whisky decanter.

“A whisky and soda, Mr. Treves? Latimer, what about you?”

Nevile said to Audrey in a low voice:

“It's a lovely evening. Come out for a little.”

She had been standing by the window looking out at the moonlit terrace. He stepped past her and stood outside, waiting. She turned back into the room, shaking her head quickly.