Weekend with Death (18 page)

All the colour went out of Sarah's face, and all the colour went out of her mind. There were left two possibilities, starkly black and white. To say what he had just said, it must either have been John Wickham who had given Emily Case the packet, or else it was John Wickham who had done murder to take it from her, and done it in vain. For a moment she saw these two possibilities as separate ideas. Then with a rush they merged and were one. She said,

“Did you give it to her?”

“What did she tell you?”

“Was it you? She said he had been stabbed—and he gave her the packet—was it you?”

He made some impatient movement which might have meant “Yes” and broke into a hurry of words.

“What have you done with it? It's about as safe as dynamite—I suppose you know that by now?”

She said in a small, dry whisper,

“Did you kill her—to get it back?” And as soon as she had said it she was afraid.

He dropped the log he was holding and turned on her.

“What a mind! Didn't you hear me tell you not to talk like a fool? You're trying to have it both ways. If I gave it to her, she'd have given it back to me, wouldn't she? She was anxious enough to get rid of it or she wouldn't have given it to you. Why should I kill her? Talk sense if you can!”

She felt quite weak with relief. Of course that was true. Poor old Emily would have simply tumbled over herself to give him the packet if it was really he who had pushed it into her hand and said “They mustn't get it.” But suppose he was one of
them
. Presumably
they
knew about the packet too, or they wouldn't have tried to kill two people to get it.

She said, “Did you give it to her?” and got a furious “Yes, I did!”

“What did you say?”

“I don't know—I was just about all in. Something like ‘Don't let them get it.' I know that's what I had on my mind, so I suppose I tried to say it.”

Sarah saw him as if from a long way off. She could have put out her hand and touched him, but she felt as if he was a long way off. She couldn't see his thoughts, or whether she could trust him or not. Something hurt her at her heart. It was like being pulled two ways at once. There was that feeling of being a long way off, and yet it would be the easiest thing in the world to put out her hand and touch him. A warm current of something that wasn't fear flowed over her. Her hand relaxed. She became aware that she had bruised it. She heard him say with the utmost urgency,

“What did you do with the packet?”

She was afterwards ashamed of the meekness with which she said,

“I put it in a drawer under my pyjamas.”

“You didn't go to the police?”

She shook her head.

“No.”

“They wouldn't have got you down here if you had. Why did you come?”

“I didn't know. We've often been to places like this before, ghost-hunting. It's part of my job.”

He frowned at that.

“You've no business in a job like this—you'd better get out of it as quickly as you can. Did you leave the packet in your drawer?”

Sarah considered, and decided that it couldn't possibly do any harm to be frank. Since Morgan Cattermole must know all there was to know about the packet she had left in the drawer, she didn't see why Wickham shouldn't know too. If he was on Morgan's side, it didn't matter, and if he wasn't on Morgan's side, it didn't matter either. And she wanted to tell him—very much. She was not naturally secretive, and it would be the greatest possible relief to tell someone what she had done. She smiled suddenly and said in a different voice,

“Well, I did—and I didn't. I put it there, but when I was out of my room last night someone must have taken it away and opened it.”

“
What!
”

He had turned almost as pale as when she had seen him faint. His eyes closed for a moment under dark, straining brows.

She said, “Don't! It's all right—he didn't get anything—I'd taken the papers out.”

She could feel the relief which brought his colour back. It was almost as if it were her own.

“What did you do with them?”

She looked at him and said in a laughing voice,

“I'll tell you exactly what I did. I took the papers out of the envelope and put them away in a safe place, and then I filled the envelope with foolscap and sewed it up in the oiled silk again. But when I came back to my room the sewing on the packet wasn't mine.”

“You're sure about that?”

She laughed.

“Oh, quite. I sewed it up with linen thread just like it had been sewn before, but Mr. Morgan Cattermole had sewn it up with ordinary white cotton.”

“
Morgan
Cattermole?”

“Oh, yes—it couldn't have been anyone else. He had opened the packet and sewed it up again all in a hurry whilst I was soothing Joanna after a nightmare. I expect he took out my envelope and put in one of his own, but I didn't unpick his stitches to see. I just left the packet there under my pyjamas.”

Wickham was staring at her with a most arresting look of surprise. He said,

“Who is Morgan Cattermole?”

“Don't you know?”

It was odd to remember that she had ever thought his face impassive. Between fire and candle-light it now registered the extreme of angry impatience.

“Go on—tell me about him—quick! We haven't got all night. I'm taking a risk as it is.”

She felt the shock of something she didn't understand. It sobered her.

“He's Mr. Cattermole's twin. A bad hat. Wilson won't meet him. He's been abroad, but he turned up last night. Miss Cattermole adores him.”

“What's he like?”

“Like his brother outside, only hair brushed down, and frightful vulgar clothes. He's a howling cad all over—vulgar, hearty, loud—everything that Mr. Cattermole is not. I don't wonder they don't get on. They say he's been abroad, but I shouldn't wonder if he'd been—”

She bit off the end of the sentence just in time—or was it in time? A most burning blush ran up to the very roots of her hair as Wickham said,

“Why don't you go on?” His eyes looked right into hers. “You wouldn't wonder if he'd been in prison—that's what you were going to say, wasn't it? You needn't mind about my feelings—criminals are not sensitive. But let's get back to Morgan. What makes you think he's been in prison?”

She looked away with relief. Something in his eyes, something in his look, hurt her more than she would have believed that she could be hurt. And it was strange, because he had smiled, and it was then that she had felt as if she must cry out with the pain. She said in a hurry,

“Oh, I don't know—he's an awful person—I just thought—”

And there was the scarlet burning her face again. She heard him laugh.

“You keep putting your foot in it—don't you? But the blushes are all yours—I'm quite shameless. What makes you think that Morgan opened the packet?”

“There wasn't anyone else. There were only five people in the house. I don't see Mrs. Perkins or Thompson coming up out of the basement in the middle of the night on the chance of my being out of my room.”

He said, “I don't suppose there was much chance about it.”

She had thought about that, and it was a thought to turn away from. She hurried on.

“But Mrs. Perkins, and Thompson—it's nonsense. Why should they? I just don't believe it. And I was with Miss Cattermole, so it couldn't be her. And that leaves Morgan.”

“Where was his room?”

“On the same floor as hers. He could have heard her come up to my room and fetch me down.”

“Or he could have sent her.”

He saw her wince, but he saw too that the idea was not a new one. She said with trouble in her voice,

“She wouldn't want to hurt anyone, but—she adores him—I can't think why.”

With startling suddenness he laid a hand upon her knee.

“What did you do with the papers?”

Cold and heat ran over her. They were back again where they had started.

She said, “They're safe,” and felt the grip of his hand.

“They're not safe for you—they're damned dangerous. Let me have them and I'll get you out of here.”

“I can't.”

“You've got to. Don't you know when you're in a jam? I'll get you out if you'll trust me.”

She looked at him, and heard her own voice say,

“Why should I trust you?”

He laughed.

“Because you've got to. Give me the papers, and we'll have a shot at getting away.”

She shook her head.

“Sarah, don't be a fool! If you left those papers in the house, it's a hundred to one they've found them. Morgan Cattermole would only have to walk in and say he'd left some private papers behind him and he'd get the run of the house—wouldn't he? Or what was to prevent Wilson ringing up yesterday afternoon from Hedgeley while I was putting in time over the car, and telling Thompson to search your room or any other room? She'd have done it, wouldn't she? And we were there quite long enough for him to ring up again and find out what sort of luck she'd had. And if they think you read the papers, and that you know enough to take in what you read, then they can't afford to let you go.
Now
will you tell me whether you left the papers in the house?”

She shook her head.

He took his hand off her knee and drew back to frown at her.

“All right, don't tell me—I'll chance it blind. Are you coming?”

“Where?”

“Hedgeley first—put the car in a garage and go on up to town by train. I don't want to be pinched for a car thief, but you'd never get to Hedgeley on your feet—it's all of seven miles. Will you come?”

The thing hung in the balance between them. Afterwards she was amazed to think how nearly she had said yes. It was inconceivable, but at that moment under some compulsion which she did not understand she came very near indeed to saying yes. If it had not been for her letter to Henry Templar and the fact that she now expected him to arrive at any moment, John Wickham might have tipped the scales in the way he wanted. Some things would have happened differently, and some would never have happened.

He said, “Come—
Sarah
!” and Sarah said nothing at all.

His eyes smiled under frowning brows. He put out a hand towards her. When it touched her she knew that she would say yes. But before it could reach her the handle rattled and the door began to move. In a flash John Wickham was leaning over the fire with a log of wood in his hand.

Joanna Cattermole came into the room with an old fringed shawl about her.

“So terribly cold in the passages,” she said. “Oh, thank you, Wickham! Those logs will be very nice. We must keep up a good fire here. Perhaps you will just draw the curtains. There is something about snow that makes one feel very low-spirited.”

The moment had passed. No, something more than that—it had never been.

Wickham trimmed the fire, banked it with coal, and stacked the other logs where they would not catch. He went to and fro with his neat dark uniform and his handsome, expressionless face, fastening the old-fashioned shutters, drawing the curtains across them, bringing in a lamp with a ground-glass globe. When he had finished he went silently away and shut the door.

The impossibility of that moment in which she had so nearly said yes impressed itself more and more deeply upon Miss Marlowe.

CHAPTER XXIII

The evening wore slowly on. The two men remained closeted in Mr. Brown's den. Sarah hoped earnestly that they were finding the day as interminable as she was. She could not even set the clock back sixty years and pursue the fortunes of the Underwood family, because Miss Cattermole wanted to talk, and of all things in the world, what did she want to talk about but dearest Morgan?

“He was such a clever little boy. And so pretty too, with his fair hair done in ringlets and a white sailor suit for Sundays. My dear mother was so proud of her twins. I was three years older, though I don't suppose anyone would think so now. And I was called after my father's sister Jane, only my mother thought it such a very ugly name that she turned it into Joanna for me. And Aunt Jane must have been annoyed, because though she didn't say anything about it at the time, when she died, which was not till thirty years later, it came out that she had left all her money to found scholarships for girls who had been baptized Jane. So it all went out of the family, and my father was terribly put about. Names are so very difficult, don't you think? My mother was a Miss Wilson, so of course it was quite all right for her to give the name to one of the twins. It used to vex her terribly if anyone turned it into Willie, but of course they did. People will do that sort of thing. I remember being called Jo at school, and how angry it made her. But Morgan was called after my father's great friend Samuel Morgan. They were quite like brothers, and my mother said if she was asked to have a child called Samuel she had only one answer to give and that was no, so they called him Morgan. It wasn't any use arguing with my mother, because she never changed her mind, and if she said anything, that was the way it had to be—even my father knew that. Such a strong, determined character, but he always let my mother have her way. It felt so strange, you know, my dear, when they were gone, because I had always lived at home and had no say in anything, and if Wilson had not let me come and live with him, I really don't know what I should have done. You see, I have always had someone to tell me what to do, and it is very difficult to get into new ways when you are as old as I am.”

Sarah felt a sudden compunction. Under the foolish, fitful, elderly ways there was this child who had never been allowed to grow up. She patted the thin elderly hand and said,

“Yes, I know—I was only twelve when my father and mother died.”