Sidelights on a Loathsome Lady
“I tell you I don’t _care!_” Anthony almost shouted. “To say that girl
had anything to do with the wretched woman’s death is too damned silly
for words!”
“But I’m not saying so,” Roger pointed out patiently. “I don’t think
she had, in spite of everything. What I am saying is that we can’t
dismiss the possibility of it in this cocksure way just because she’s
got a pretty face. The inspector isn’t——”
“Blast the inspector!” observed Anthony savagely.
“Blast him by all means, but, as I was saying, he isn’t by any means a
fool, and it’s quite obvious what his opinion about Mrs. Vane’s death
is at present. After all, you must face the fact that the evidence is
absolutely overwhelming.”
“If his opinion is that Miss Cross murdered her cousin, then he _is_ a
fool,” growled Anthony finally; “and a damned fool at that.”
It was the following morning, and the two men were walking along the
top of the cliffs to keep their appointment with Margaret Cross. The
inspector had betaken himself to bed on the previous evening soon
after the bursting of his bombshell, and the discussion between
Anthony and Roger had lasted well into the small hours of the morning,
broken only by an interval of half-an-hour while Roger telephoned
through to the _Courier_. It was still raging.
Anthony had refused point-blank to consider even the possibility that
Margaret had not spoken the exact truth in every detail or had
wilfully suppressed any material fact, while as for the only logical
deduction to be drawn from the facts as they were then known, he would
rather have been torn in pieces by red-hot pincers than admit it
within the category of bare feasibilities. To Roger, who was no less
anxious that the girl’s name should be cleared, but had a livelier
conception of the difficulties in the way of doing so, this attitude
was a little trying. To Anthony’s final remark he forbore to reply,
only sighing gently to himself. It required an effort of will, but no
good purpose would be served by quarrelling with Anthony, and Anthony
was very ready to quarrel with someone. They traversed the rest of the
journey in difficult silence.
Margaret Cross was waiting for them by the little ledge, her face
anxious and bearing the marks of a sleepless night.
“Oh, I am glad to see you!” she exclaimed as she shook hands with
Roger. “Really I feel as if you were the only friend I’d got in the
world.”
“Don’t forget me, Miss Cross,” Anthony smiled, shaking hands with her
in his turn.
“No, of course not,” said the girl in a voice that was neither
enthusiastic nor chilling—just indifferent; and she snatched away the
hand that Anthony was manifestly attempting to press and, turning
ostentatiously back to Roger, began to question him eagerly as to
whether anything fresh had transpired.
Over Anthony’s face passed an expression such as might have been seen
on the face of a dog which has put out a paw to toy with a fly and
discovered it to be a wasp—hurt and yet puzzled. As Margaret Cross
continued to display to him only her back the puzzled part of his
expression gave way to resentment; as she made no effort to include
him in her eager conversation, but on the contrary quite pointedly
ignored him, resentment and chagrin alike were swallowed up by sheer
annoyance. As ostentatiously as herself, he strolled a few paces away
and began to amuse himself by throwing stones over the edge of the
cliff. Anthony was sulking.
Had he been a little wiser, he might have felt flattered. As it was,
how could he be expected to guess that to a young lady who is
accustomed to pride herself not a little on her self-reliance and
strength of mind, the thought of having been such a sloppy little
idiot as to weep on the shoulder of a complete stranger and actually
grovel before the protective feel of his unknown arm about her, might
possibly be a singularly ignominious one? In which case, of course (so
the older and wiser Anthony might have complacently assumed), her
resentment, directed naturally against himself as the witness of her
humiliation, would be only complimentary. But Anthony was neither
older nor wiser.
“I say, Anthony, come and listen to this!” called Roger, who had a
shrewd idea of the way in which the wind was blowing.
Very nonchalantly Anthony strolled across. “Yes?” he said in a voice
that was neither rude nor frigid—just bored.
“I’ve been telling Miss Cross about the coat-button. It may not be
quite playing the game with the inspector, but I really think it’s
only fair that she should know.” He turned to the girl. “And you say
you must have lost it on that walk?”
“Yes, I must have lost it on the walk,” the girl said in puzzled
tones, “but where, I haven’t the least idea. All I know is that it was
on when I started, and I noticed that it was off when I got back. It
might have dropped simply anywhere. How it got into Elsie’s hand I
can’t imagine. Mightn’t she have picked it up and been meaning to give
it back to me?”
“That does seem the only possible explanation,” Roger agreed. He did
not think it necessary for the moment to point out that as Mrs. Vane’s
subsequent steps would hardly have covered any of the ground that she
and Margaret had passed over together, the explanation was not very
probable.
“Oh, Mr. Sheringham, I do wish I could get away from this dreadful
atmosphere of suspicion!” cried the girl suddenly, her strained nerves
overcoming for the moment her self-control. “It’s really getting
almost unbearable! Every fresh fact that comes to light only makes it
worse. I shall really begin to think of jumping over the cliff myself
if something doesn’t happen soon. And they’re evidently beginning to
talk in the village already. Mrs. Russell cut me dead outside her own
house this morning.”
“Dear Mrs. Russell!” Roger murmured. “Wouldn’t I like to flay the hag.
Christian charity, I suppose she calls that. But look here, don’t you
give way before any nonsense like that, Margaret, my dear.” Roger
invariably addressed every unmarried lady below the age of thirty by
her Christian name after the briefest possible acquaintance, it
accorded with his reputation for mild Bohemianism, and it saved an
awful lot of trouble. “We’re going to see you through this, Cousin
Anthony and I. So keep your chin up and let all the old cats go to the
devil!”
Margaret turned away for a moment, biting her lip. “I don’t know how
to thank you,” she said in rather a shaky voice. “I really can’t think
what I should have done if I hadn’t met you two, Mr. Sheringham.”
“Roger!” exclaimed Roger briskly. “For Heaven’s sake do call me Roger,
Margaret! Only people who owe me money call me ‘Mr. Sheringham.’ It
has a nasty, sinister sound.”
“Very well, then,” the girl smiled. “Thank you—Roger!”
Roger drew a breath of relief as he saw the threatened tears disappear
before his calculated nonsense. “And this is Anthony,” he went on with
mock seriousness. “Let me introduce you. Anthony, Margaret. Margaret,
Anthony. Now shake hands and tell each other what a lovely day it is.”
“How do you do, Anthony?” Margaret said gravely, a little smile
dancing in her brown eyes; and somehow she managed to convey the
impression that she was sorry for having made a pig of herself ten
minutes before, that this was her apology and that would he please
forgive her?
“How do you do, Margaret?” said Anthony, taking the slim fingers in
his great paw; and the slight pressure he gave them said perfectly
plainly that it wasn’t his place to forgive anything; wouldn’t she
rather forgive him instead for sulking in that childish way, for which
he was heartily sorry?
So that was all right.
“Why stand up when we can sit down?” Roger remarked, observing the
results of his tactfulness with some satisfaction; and he set a good
example by throwing himself at full length on the springy turf. The
others followed suit.
“Now what we’ve got to do,” he went on, lying on his back and puffing
hard at his pipe, “is to form an offensive and defensive alliance of
three. Your job, Margaret, will be to get us any information we want
about the household and so on, and mine to put that information to the
most advantageous use.”
“What about Anthony?” asked Margaret.
“Oh, he’s the idiot friend. He came down on purpose to be it. We
mustn’t do him out of that, or he’d be awfully disappointed.”
“Poor Anthony!” Margaret laughed. “Roger, I think you’re horrid.”
“Not horrid,” Anthony said lazily. “Just an ass. But pretend not to
notice it, Margaret. We always try to ignore it in the family.”
“Reverting to the topic in hand,” Roger observed, unperturbed,
“there’s one thing that I really must impress on both of you. Rather a
nasty thing, but we’ve got to face it. From the facts as we know them
at present, there’s simply only one deduction to be drawn; if we want
new deductions, we must have new facts.”
“I see what you mean,” Margaret said slowly. “Yes, and I see that it’s
quite true too. But how on earth are we to get any new facts?”
“Well, let’s see if a little judicious questioning will bring anything
to light.” Roger paused for a moment as if considering. “I suppose you
were very fond of your cousin, Margaret?” he said after a second or
two in an almost careless voice.
It was Margaret’s turn to pause and consider. Then: “No!” she said
almost harshly. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t tell you, though I
realise that it doesn’t make my position any better. I detested her!”
“You detested her?” Roger repeated, raising himself on his elbow to
look at her in his astonishment. “But I thought she’d been so kind to
you? I thought she was such a charming woman?”
Margaret laughed bitterly. “Quite a number of people think that. Elsie
took good care that they should. Isn’t there a saying about speaking
only good of the dead? Well, I never have been a conventional person.
Elsie was one of the most loathsome people who can ever have existed!”
“Oho!” said Roger softly. “She was, was she? Talk about new facts!
This looks like opening up a whole new field of enquiry. Perpend,
lady! Why was Elsie ‘one of the most loathsome people who can ever
have existed’?”
“It is rather a sweeping charge, isn’t it?” said Margaret soberly.
“Well, I’ll tell you the whole story and you can judge for yourself.
When Elsie met George she was in rather the same position as I was in
myself a few months ago—broke to the wide. But she didn’t let him know
that. She pretended to belong to a good family and to have plenty of
money of her own. In fact, she deliberately set out to deceive him.
George believed every word she said, fell in love with her and married
her—which, of course, was what she’d been aiming at.”
“You mean she married Dr. Vane for his money?”
“Purely and simply! I know, because she used to boast of it to me, and
advise me to do the same. Boast of it! How she’d taken him in and
hoodwinked him from beginning to end. She got a tremendous marriage
settlement out of him, too. All the money she left me. Ten thousand
pounds settled on her absolutely. Of course she hadn’t a penny of her
own. She often used to tell me how well she’d done for herself. Oh,
Elsie was a true daughter of her grandfather—_our_ grandfather, I
should say!”
“I see,” said Roger thoughtfully. “Yes, that does shed a somewhat
different light on the lady. And she took you to live with her so that
you could have the chance of meeting another wealthy man and
hoodwinking him similarly?”
“Indeed she didn’t! That’s what she used to tell me, but nothing could
be further from the truth. The fact is that there were several reasons
why she wanted me with her. In the first place, she wanted someone
whom she could order about in a way that no servant would stand for a
minute, someone who would do things for her that she would never have
dared to ask any servant to do. Oh, Roger, you can’t imagine the
things I’ve had to do since I came here! Menial things that she
couldn’t have made anybody else in the world do for her. And yet
nothing outrageous, if you understand—nothing that I could flare up at
and flounce out of the house over. Oh, it’s extraordinarily difficult
to explain. You see, you probably haven’t any idea what a beast one
woman can be to another in a subordinate position without ever doing
anything that you could actually call _beastly_.”
“I think I have, though, for all that,” Roger murmured
sympathetically.
Margaret knitted her brows. “Well, suppose we’d been out for a walk
together in the rain and come in rather tired and rather wet and
rather muddy. The first thing she’d do would be to send me upstairs
with her wet coat and hat and tell me to bring down a pair of dry
shoes. I should go down and find her sprawling in a chair in the
drawing-room in front of the fire, but otherwise just as I’d left her.
She’d want me to change her shoes for her, probably even pull her
gloves off for her as well. Then she’d find out that her stockings
were wet too, and I should be sent to get a dry pair—and probably
change those for her as well. Then she’d decide she didn’t like those
shoes with those stockings, and off I’d have to go to get another
pair. As soon as I’d done that, I’d be sent up again for something
else that she’d pretend to have forgotten all about, and then for
something more after that. In other words, she kept me on the go the
whole time: I was hardly ever allowed to have a single second to
myself.”
Roger nodded understandingly. “I know the type.”
“Well, that was one thing she wanted me for. Another was that she was
a horrid little bully, and she must have someone to bully. You can’t
bully servants; they give notice. There’s nobody like a poor relation
for bullying. And all with a sweet smile you know, that seemed to make
it even more unbearable if anything.”
“But why did you stick it?” Anthony asked indignantly.
Margaret flushed slightly. “Because I was a coward, I suppose. I’d had
about enough of roughing it by then, and I _was_ comfortable at any
rate. Besides, there was that ten thousand pounds she was dangling
over me. If you’d ever known what it’s like not to be able to afford a
penny bun or a cup of tea, you might realise what a tempting bait ten
thousand pounds can be and what a lot you’ll put up with to qualify
for it. Very mercenary, isn’t it? But Elsie knew all right. She’d been
through it herself.”
“I’m sorry, Margaret,” Anthony said in some confusion. “I was an ass
to say a thing like that. Of course I understand.”
“As a matter of fact,” Margaret went on more calmly, “I _was_ going to
cut and run for it. I’d discovered the game wasn’t worth the candle
after all. But I hadn’t fixed any date or made up my mind what to put
my hand to next, and then—and then _this_ happened.”
There was a little silence.
“Can you give me a few more details about your cousin?” suddenly asked
Roger, who seemed to have been pursuing a train of thought of his own.
“A little bit more about her character, and what she looked like, and
all that sort of thing?”
Margaret considered. “Well, she was little and fragile to look at,
with rather a babyish face, fair hair, and a slight lisp which she
cultivated rather carefully. She used to pose as the helpless,
appealing little woman, though anybody less helpless than Elsie, so
far as her own interests were concerned, I’ve never met. Her idea (as
she told me perfectly frankly) was that men liked the helpless,
appealing type; and judging by results, she wasn’t far wrong. As for
her character, I don’t see what else there is to tell you. She was a
hypocrite, a bully, utterly selfish, mean, and bad all through.”
Margaret gazed out to sea, breathing heavily, her cheeks flushed.
Evidently she was calling to mind some of the humiliations and
unkindnesses she had suffered at the dead woman’s hands. Anthony
watched her with deepening indignation.
“Did her husband know her real character?” Roger asked thoughtfully.
Margaret removed her eyes from the horizon and began to pluck with
aimless fingers at the turf by her side. “I don’t know!” she said
slowly, after a momentary hesitation. “As a matter of fact I’ve often
wondered that. Sometimes I think he must have, and sometimes I’m quite
sure he didn’t. Elsie was clever, you see. I don’t suppose she showed
her real self to anybody but me. And I shouldn’t say that George was
very observant. He was always perfectly courteous to her.”
“Is he very upset about her death?”
“Outwardly, not a bit; but what he’s feeling inside him I haven’t the
least idea. George never shows his feelings. He might be made of stone
for all the emotion he ever displays. Besides, he spends nearly all
his time shut up in his laboratory, just as he always has all the time
I’ve been here.”
“You can’t say whether they got on well together, then?”
“Not a word! All I can tell you is that he was always courteous to
her, and she——” Margaret uttered a cynical laugh. “Well, it was going
to pay her to keep on good terms with him, so I’ve no doubt she did.”
“I see. There’s nothing further you can tell me about her?”
“Well, there is one thing,” the girl said a little doubtfully, “but
it’s so very vague that I’m not sure whether I ought to mention it.
It’s this. I couldn’t help feeling once or twice that there was
somebody Elsie was _afraid_ of.”
“Afraid of? Hullo, that’s interesting! Who?”
“That I haven’t the least idea. In fact the whole thing is quite
probably moonshine. I’ve really got nothing definite to go on at all.
It’s just a sort of impression I formed.”
“Well, impressions are often valuable. And you can’t say anything more
definite than that?”
“I’m afraid I can’t. Probably I ought not to have mentioned it at all,
but it might give you a line of enquiry perhaps.”
“I should think so. That’s just the kind of thing I want to know.”
Roger plucked a handful or two of grass and scattered them over the
edge of the cliff. “Margaret,” he said suddenly, “what’s your opinion
about it all? Your perfectly private, not-for-publication opinion?”
“I think there’s a great deal more in it than meets the eye,” said the
girl without hesitation.
“So do I, by Jove!” Anthony concurred.
“Yes, there’s no doubt about that,” Roger said thoughtfully. “But it’s
all so infernally vague. If one could only get hold of a definite
thread to follow up, however tiny! You’ve widened the area of enquiry
enormously with what you’ve told us about your cousin, but even now
we’re quite in the dark. All we know is that, instead of nobody having
a grudge against her, any number of people might. Isn’t there one
single definite pointer you can get hold of for us? Somebody might
have a cause for hating her, say, or a reason for wanting her out of
the way. Rack your brains!”
Margaret racked them obediently and for some minutes there was
silence, broken only by the cries of the swooping gulls and the splash
of the waves against the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs.
“There’s only one person I can think of who had cause for hating
Elsie,” she said slowly at last. “Or rather, _did_ hate her, I’m quite
certain—whether with cause or without, I don’t know. Mrs. Russell!”
Roger popped up on his elbow. “Mrs. Russell?” he repeated eagerly.
“Why did she hate Mrs. Vane?”
“She had an idea that Elsie and Mr. Russell were a little too
friendly. A good deal too friendly, not to mince matters!”
“Oho! The plot thickens. And were they?”
“I don’t know. They were very friendly, certainly. Whether they were
_too_ friendly, I can’t say.”
“But it’s possible?”
“Quite—as far as Elsie is concerned. She had neither morals nor
scruples.”
“And Mr. Russell? What sort of a man is he?”
“Oh, jolly and red-faced and beefy, you know. The sort of man you see
in those old hunting prints.”
“Just the sort to whom her type might appeal, in fact. So I should
imagine it was quite possible as far as he was concerned too, eh?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Roger smote the turf with an enthusiastic fist. “By Jove, Margaret, I
believe you’ve hit on something here. Mrs. Russell was simply eaten up
with jealousy, of course. And there’s no motive like jealousy!”
“Aren’t we getting on a little too fast?” asked the girl dubiously.
“Not a bit! Now tell me—what sort of a woman is this Mrs. Russell?”
“Oh, she’s rather fat too; very downright and decided. A lot of people
would call her rude, but I rather liked her. Not at all good-looking
now, though she may have been once. Pince-nez, hair going a little
grey, about forty-five years old, I suppose.”
“In other words, exactly the sort of woman to be furiously jealous of
a young and pretty one throwing sheep’s eyes at her husband!” Roger
summed up, not without satisfaction.
“I say!” Anthony exclaimed excitedly. “You said she was big, didn’t
you? Has she got rather large feet?”
“Yes, I fancy she has. Why?”
The two men exchanged significant glances. Then Roger sprang to his
feet.
“Good for you, Anthony! You mean that second lot of footprints, don’t
you? Well, good-bye, my children. Amuse each other till lunch-time.”
“Where are you going, Roger?” cried Margaret.
“To look into this matter of the lady with the large feet and the
jealous disposition,” Roger called back, disappearing at full speed
over the bank.