Janet Arrives on the Scene
A beauty gazes with a smile of pleasurable anticipation into some
distorted mirror, to start back in horror from the grinning image that
greets her so unexpectedly. But were little Allport to gaze into a
distorted mirror, what then! What unthinkable monstrosity might he not
see depicted! And so it was with my dreams and the way they reflected
my already gruesome waking thoughts as I dreamed and woke
intermittently through what remained of that hot, airless night. If
the day had seemed long, those few hours of dream-disturbed sleep were
like a slice of eternity itself. An eternity which I occupied in
playing tennis at the club, serving through an interminable game,
first with the baby flagon of Chinese poison and then with my own
severed hand, which Margaret handed to me on her racquet like a ball;
in racing frantically from room to room, to find Ethel, then The
Tundish, then each of the others in turn, lying dead on their backs
with staring bloodshot eyes—all dead, and myself alone with the
dead—alone and tearing desperately from one room to the next to find a
sign of life; thumping madly on resounding doors; crouching, shrinking
down outside them; opening them in fear and banging them to again in
terror when I saw what there was within; looking furtively behind me
to see little Allport standing there, grinning sardonically, leering
at me, dangling a pair of bloodstained handcuffs before my starting
eyes, and asking me in a way that left me gasping for breath if my
initials were F. H. An eternity which I occupied in overhearing Ethel
and the doctor callously plotting together to poison Kenneth, and in
creeping on hands and knees down mile-long dimly lighted corridors, to
and from a succession of scenes of horror.
Finally I woke to see the sun shining in at my window and to the dull
realization that some of my dreams at any rate came uncomfortably near
to the truth.
Down-stairs I found The Tundish—unshaved and unabashed—at one end of
the breakfast table with a medical journal propped up in front of him,
and Kenneth and Ralph at the other, each with a morning paper. I saw
the doctor’s eyes twinkle with amusement as I took my seat next to
him, and he told me that he had been called out of bed again at four
and had only just returned.
“And what about the escort, did he accompany you?”
“No, I rang up the police station yesterday evening telling them that
I expected the call, and they trustfully allowed me out on parole.”
This fresh negligence on the part of the authorities seemed to rouse
Kenneth’s ire, for he jumped up from his breakfast and rang up
Inspector Brown, reporting the finding of the notice and the doings of
the night in aggressive carrying tones that we could none of us fail
to hear. Apparently his news did not meet with quite the expected
reception, for, “Will you please repeat what I’ve told you to Mr.
Allport as soon as you can, and ask him to let me know when this
abominable farce is going to end,” were his final words, and he
returned to his interrupted breakfast, glaring offensively at the
doctor, as much as to say, “Damn you, now you know what I think about
it.”
Then Margaret came in, and after a moment’s obvious hesitation, which
seemed to underline and emphasize her choice, she too moved to the end
of the table away from the doctor and took a chair next to Kenneth and
Ralph. Thus we started out on the second day after the murder already
divided into opposing camps. The Tundish and I at one end of the
table, Margaret and the two boys at the other—an uncomfortable
accusing gap between us. And in our different ways we each of us,
except the doctor, showed the embarrassment we felt. He conversed with
me very much at his ease, tapping the open journal in front of him
with his egg-spoon to emphasize his forcible remarks, decrying the
sins of the anti-vaccinationists and glibly labeling them as nothing
but a gang of murderers, as though the word murder held no terrors and
was the most natural word in the world for him to use, when the
chances were that a murderer sat at the table and I alone of the four
believed him anything else.
I saw the three exchange glances, and Margaret murmured, “Murder will
out,” though what she meant by it exactly was not quite clear—but
words held a fascination for Margaret apart from any meaning they
might convey. Had her pretty head been equipped with brains she would
surely have been a poet.
Folding up his paper, the doctor rose from the table, asking, “Has any
one seen anything of Ethel—is she coming down for breakfast?”
“I haven’t heard a sound from her room,” Margaret replied; “still
sleeping, I expect, after her broken night, which is not surprising.
I’ll run up and find out how she is.”
We heard her knock twice, and again. Then she came back and stood in
the doorway. “I can’t make her hear,” she told us, with a queer little
catch in her voice.
Now Ethel had been safe when we woke her in the middle of the night,
and we had all heard her lock her door when she returned to her room,
but when Margaret made that simple statement it sent our thoughts back
to yesterday’s breakfast when Ethel herself had come tumbling into the
room with her white face to tell us that she couldn’t waken Stella. We
looked at one another in dismay. Kenneth pushed back his chair and
rose slowly to his feet. The doctor sprang to the door and raced up
the stairs two at a time, and like an echo from the night before we
heard him hammering on her door. Then to our infinite relief we heard
him asking, “Are you all right, Ethel? Would you like your breakfast
sent up-stairs?”
I saw Margaret’s eyes brighten unnaturally, and a tear roll down her
cheek. “Oh, how absurd of me!” she said, and hurried away to hide her
emotion. Kenneth and Ralph went out into the garden. The doctor
returned and rang the bell for Annie, giving her instructions about
Ethel’s breakfast, then he turned to me, “So, you’ve had a fright,
have you?” he asked quietly, and I felt myself redden under his
penetrating gaze.
“I did too,” he added, mopping his forehead. “What a ruffian I must
look, Jeffcock. I must bathe and shave and get to work. Thank God, I
have a busy day ahead.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “you certainly have the advantage of us there, for we
have nothing to do but sit about and jag one another’s nerves. How on
earth are we going to get through another day of this—possibly two or
three?”
“It may all end sooner than you expect,” he answered enigmatically,
and with that he left me and ran up-stairs.
How was I to get through the day, I wondered. Sleep, smoke, write
letters, slink about the garden, avoiding Ethel so that she should not
learn of my ever-increasing doubts about the doctor! But there were
twelve weary hours to while away. I would have gone into the garden
and adopted Kipling’s cure for the hump, “Dig till you gently
perspire,” but I was doing that already. My thoughts traveled with
longing to the tingling crystal air of the Yorkshire moors—that was
where I would like to be on such a day as this—off for a twenty-mile
tramp with my pipe for company. But that was not to be, and, with a
sigh of distaste, I collected writing materials and proceeded to the
shade of the cedar to write some letters. Presently Ethel joined me;
her face was still swollen—the bruise beginning to blacken. She looked
tired too, and I imagined had been crying, but her eyes lit up with
something of her old smile, as she came toward me, a letter in her
hand.
“Do listen to this,” she cried. “Isn’t it just like mother? She’s
sending us a visitor. A visitor now of all times, and some one we’ve
never seen before at that!”
Mrs. Hanson’s incoherent hospitality was a family joke. Visitors she
must have. She had no discrimination in the matter of individuals and
occasions and the way they might jar or mix. She would think nothing
of bringing home a perfect stranger, august or otherwise, and feeding
him on kindliness and cold mutton. And I will give her credit for
this—the visitor, august or ordinary, the cold mutton, the kindliness
and the occasion would generally mix to a pleasantly affable blend. My
own friendship with the Hansons dated from one of these haphazard
invitations, so I smiled at Ethel reminiscently as she stood by my
side with the letter in her hand.
“A good thing too, perhaps,” I said, “we shall have to sit up, mind
our manners, and behave. Tell me more about it. What is it to be—rich
man, poor man, beggar man or thief?”
Ethel began to read me bits of the letter.
“You remember we were expecting to see my cousin, Bill Kenley, when
he got home from Rhodesia—we were to look out for him next week on
the Channel boat—well, rather to our surprise he arrived this week,
yesterday in fact. And he surprised us still more by bringing with
him a wife; they’re on their honeymoon—such a jolly girl—we both of
us like her immensely. But poor things, while we were having lunch,
a cable arrived for Bill ordering his immediate return—some native
unrest that they fear may develop into serious trouble, and he must
be on the spot. So he sails back again to-morrow. Meanwhile, what is
his wife to do? She has no relatives here. I should have liked her
to stay on here with us, but dad takes all my time and he doesn’t
want to be bothered with any one else. So it occurred to me: why not
send her down to you? You need a chaperon, you know. It’s all very
well while the whole lot of you are there together, but after the
tournament, you can’t go on keeping house for The Tundish without
the Merchester pussies getting their claws into you. So you may
expect Janet—that is her name—soon after this letter. You’ll be nice
to her, I know—my family are really very good to me about backing up
my wild invitations! But she is really very nice and you will enjoy
having her on her own account. Dad is steadily getting more like his
old self. He tells me to say how sorry he is to miss Francis. I hope
you are having a good——”
“Oh well, that is all that matters,” Ethel finished, sitting down and
fanning herself with the letter. “How am I to explain the situation to
her, Francis, when she arrives? Just imagine coming to a strange house
and finding yourself in the thick of all this!”
It certainly was rather a facer for Ethel, but I could not help seeing
that the situation had its points. “She sounds better than your Aunt
Emmeline anyhow, and that is what you would have had to come to. As
your mother says, you can’t go on indefinitely without some older
woman, and your aunt is the obvious elder.”
Now the said Aunt Emmeline was a sister of Hanson, ten years his
senior, a spinster devoted to good works, and most uncomfortably and
obtrusively High Church. When Aunt Emmeline fasted, the recording
angel and the cook were not the only ones to know it, and she managed
to cast a gloom like a London fog over even the cheerful Dalehouse
family. In short she was one of those good women whose men-folk make
friends with the devil.
Ethel began to smile. “Yes, Francis, as you say, there may be
something to be said for the idea, but I don’t relish the job of
explaining the explanations.”
“Oh, well, if she’s a good sort she’ll see you need help; if she isn’t
she’ll help herself off, so it really doesn’t matter.”
We left it at that, and after sitting with me for a while Ethel went
into the house to make ready for her guest. Apparently Margaret stayed
indoors to help Ethel for I hardly saw her all the morning. Kenneth
and Ralph paced slowly up and down in the shade at the side of the
house. They paid very little attention to me, and I gathered from
their manner that they were going over the facts of “the case” much as
I had done the night before. They would stand talking earnestly
together, and then, resume their walking, only to stop and talk again
a minute later. Once or twice they glanced in my direction. Then Ralph
pulled a note-book out of his pocket and they disappeared behind the
garage. Kenneth was shaking his head emphatically as they went, and I
could guess that he was deriding any suggestion of Ralph’s that did
not involve the doctor.
I wondered if the two girls were carrying on a similar conversation,
and thought how much happier we should be if the boys would behave
more as Margaret did. She suspected The Tundish, and to a less extent,
I think, she suspected me, but like an ordinary reasonable mortal she
kept her suspicions to herself, until they were confirmed.
Rather shamefacedly, I got out my own notes, and went over them again.
Everything that had taken place since their compilation went to
confirm the conclusion I had come to—and yet I was still
unwilling—there was something fine about the—— I put my papers
hurriedly away. The boys were coming from the garage. They stopped in
front of my chair and I told them of the unexpected addition to our
party.
“Oh, lord!” said Ralph, “and a bride too, she’ll smirk and say ‘my
husband’ in every sentence.”
“You needn’t worry, Ralph,” was Kenneth’s comment, “the bride will
remove herself at once when she realizes the awful company she’s in.
Meanwhile—well, it’s a diversion anyway! And talking of diversions,
Jeffcock, would it outrage the proprieties, do you think, if we rigged
up a Badminton court over there, and had a knock or two? We could
telephone for shuttlecocks.”
“Best thing you can do,” I told him. “We can’t sit about all day like
this, we must do something.”
“Here’s Margaret,” said Ralph. “Come along, Margaret, and help us to
make a Badminton net. We’ve got some old strawberry netting—can a
gentlewoman’s hand accomplish the rest with the help of a bit of
clothes-line and a needle and thread?”
“Right,” said Margaret, brief for once, and she retired to fetch her
tackle. But just then the front door-bell rang loudly. Through the
open door and windows, we heard plainly enough an authoritative voice
alternating with a faintly protesting one. Evidently there was an
argument between Annie and the owner of the commanding voice, the
latter prevailing, for we heard it bearing down on us and we looked at
one another in dismay.
“Good lord! It’s the Wheeler-Cartwright woman,” Ralph said, aghast.
“Coming to be a mother to Ethel, and incidently to lap up all the
scandal she can.” The voice was upon us now and we rose to greet the
owner, whom I recognized as the mother of a meek and depressed little
girl I had met at the tennis club. I had seen the mother on previous
occasions too—never once had I seen her silent. The irreverent called
her Mrs. Juggernaut-Outright, behind her back.
“This is terrible, terrible,” she breathed heavily. “I only heard the
news last night and I felt I must come round as soon as I possibly
could to express my sympathy with Ethel. Poor dear girl, how she must
be longing for her mother! And tell me, is it really true that there
is to be an inquest?”
“I’m afraid it is,” I murmured.
“But, Mr. Jeffcock, what really has happened? The wildest and most
disturbing rumors are flying about; did the poor girl take an overdose
of something; surely, surely, it wasn’t, it couldn’t be suicide?”
“The police are inquiring closely into the whole matter, and honestly
I can’t tell you much about it,” I parried.
“Mr. Jeffcock,” she whispered, hoarsely impressive, and standing so
close that I could feel the glow from her purple face, “is there any
reason to suspect—anything—worse—still?”
“Really, I can not tell you,” I replied; and, mimicking her pauses.
“The police are very reticent, and they have
asked—us—to—be—equally—so.” And with that I stared her straight in the
face.
Mrs. Wheeler-Cartwright took a deep breath, and slowly her face
acquired a yet more fiery tinge. For obvious reasons, she had not
adopted the modern fashions—she grew and spread. There was an ominous
silence.
“I see,” she boomed majestically. “I see, then it is as I feared. And
now where is Ethel? Where is the poor child? This is no place for a
young and unpro——”
“She is resting, I believe,” Kenneth interrupted, “and she wants to
sleep, I think,” he added hastily, as Mrs. Juggernaut turned and made
for the back door, with the obvious intention of proceeding forthwith
to Ethel’s room. She waddled and puffed like a tug on the Thames, and
in a couple of strides Kenneth was ahead, barring the way. “I’ll tell
her you’ve called.”
Mrs. Wheeler-Cartwright was defeated, but she retired in good order.
“Good-morning, then, _gentlemen_. I had intended to ask Ethel to come
and stay with me for a few days—a young girl alone—people will talk
you know.”
“Whisper indecently, is what you mean,” I said, my manners succumbing
to my anger, “but Ethel has a married cousin coming to stay with her
to-day, so that’s a little pleasure they’ll have to do without.”
I thought she was going to burst. Ralph escorted her to the door into
Dalehouse Lane. Ethel came through the drawing-room door and joined
us. “Heroes!” she laughed. “If she’d caught me alone I should have had
about the chance of a sickly sardine doing battle with a whale. She’d
have packed up my things and carried me off to purer spheres. And now
she is going the rounds of Merchester? the old ghoul!”
Kenneth, I noticed, had nothing to say to Ethel. She kept her face
turned from him and ignored him completely. I felt intensely sorry for
them both. A broken engagement—a building bird’s nest wantonly
destroyed—in all conscience an unhappy enough event! But in their
case, what added distresses! And they were deprived of the solace of
work and other grief-killing outside interests.
Margaret appeared with her work-bag and retired with the two boys to
the proposed Badminton court. Ethel and I took refuge from the sun
under the kindly cedar, she with the _Times_ on her lap, I pretending
to write.
“Busy, Francis?” she inquired presently, and I knew she was going to
ask me the question I wished to avoid.
“No, only killing time,” I answered grudgingly.
But she did not take the hint. She threw down the paper and sat
forward so that I could not see her face, her hands clasped round her
knees. “Francis, what do you think of it all really? Honestly, you
don’t, you can’t, believe The Tundish capable of such a thing?”
“I can’t answer you. It’s no and yes at once,” I replied reluctantly.
Her dark head bent lower. “You against him too,” she whispered.
“No, that I am not. I find it desperately difficult to associate him
with murder, an association, however, that I find equally improbable
when I think of you or any of the rest of us who were in the house
that night. That’s the trouble, Ethel. The evidence against The
Tundish is so very much the strongest. I try not to believe that he
did it. I know that I didn’t. And that leaves—— And I can’t make out a
case against one. So, like a circle train on its dismal round of
repetitions, I come back ever to the doctor. The circumstantial
evidence is pretty deadly. A prosecuting counsel would make a good
deal of his previous acquaintance with Stella, and his reticence on
the subject. We know that he quarreled with her father—the prosecution
would suggest that she had knowledge of some disgraceful secret in his
past, knowledge which, if published, might ruin his career in this
country, and that he took instant measures to silence her.”
Ethel sat, a picture of limp dejection, with her dark head bowed, her
hair falling forward—a screen to hide her face. My suggestions roused
no sign of quickening interest, and in spite of the conversation I had
overheard at the club, I came to the conclusion that she knew no more
of the doctor’s quarrel with Stella’s father than I did myself. And
yet, that conversation! What was it she had said? “I certainly would
not have offered to put her up if you hadn’t suggested it to me.” A
statement that surely must be pertinent to our pernicious tangle, and
if so what tragic thoughts were filling that dark brown head?
“But surely, Francis, no one could suppose him to have done it so
clumsily—a doctor could so easily, if he wished, find a way that would
not point so obviously to wilful murder?”
“His own counsel would make the most of that point, of course. But
anyhow, unless the real murderer is found, he will be under a cloud
for the rest of his life.”
“It’s horrible, simply horrible,” Ethel shuddered, burying her face in
her hands, “to think that a man who has never willingly wronged a soul
can be put in the position he is in, by nothing but chance and ill
luck.”
“I’m sorry if what I’ve said has made you feel still more unhappy,
Ethel. Quite half the time I am convinced that he had nothing whatever
to do with it, and then at times my convictions fail me. There is just
one thing, however, that strikes me as being in his favor. Has it ever
occurred to you, I wonder, as it has to me, that he has just a tiny
suspicion himself as to who did it?”
Ethel turned in her chair and stared at me. “Do you mean that he
suspects one of us in this house, you or me, or one of the others?
What makes you think so?”
“I can’t tell you,” I answered. “It’s just an idea at the back of my
head, perhaps so vague that I should not have mentioned it. I have the
impression though, sometimes very strongly, that he could throw
suspicion on some one else if he chose. Somehow, I don’t quite know
why, I feel that he is waiting for something, biding his time.”
We sat a while in silence. A light breeze had sprung up, a breeze
laden with heat and the sweet overpowering scent of syringa. A mowing
machine droned a garden or two away. The air was saturated with summer
scents and sounds, and we sat nursing our unhappy thoughts—thoughts
more in keeping with the rotting leaves and sodden undergrowth of some
November wood.
“What time does Mrs. Kenley arrive?” I asked after a prolonged pause.
“Mother doesn’t say, but I have been looking up the trains and there
is one getting in just before lunch. The next good one is not till
after four and I should think she will travel early to avoid the worst
of the heat. Anyhow we can’t go and meet her.”
Annie crossed the lawn to us, salver in hand, “A telegram for you,
Miss Ethel.”
“Arriving 1.10. Merchester. J. K.” she read, then looking up at Annie,
“Tell cook that Mrs. Kenley will be here in time for lunch.”
Annie departed.
“What are you going to do about telling her the state of affairs,
Ethel? Are you going to tell her?”
“Yes, I must, oh, surely I must. I shall wait until the afternoon
though, I think, it might look as though I wanted to drive her away if
I told her at once. But how I am going—oh, how I hate it all.”
Poor Ethel was on the verge of another breakdown, I could see by the
way she leaned back in her chair and turned her face away. I had
wanted to ask her if she too had heard some one laughing in the
waiting-room, before she came into the dispensary on the Monday
morning, when she came down from the club to get some tape for the
handle of her racquet; and to question her regarding that intriguing
conversation of hers with The Tundish, which had come to my ears so
clearly across the courts as I sat in the umpire’s chair. I came to
the conclusion, however, that she had enough to bear, and if she had
answered me, I had by this time argued myself into such a condition of
disbelief, that any reply she might have made would only have given
rise to additional skepticism and doubt.
And so the unemployed and interminable morning wore on. I dozed in my
chair and pretended to write. Ethel hardly stirred in her chair at my
side. The two boys played Badminton, but after a time their voices
ceased, and I concluded that they were too overcome by the heat to
continue their game.
Margaret flitted past us several times, but she never once stayed to
prattle in her usual way; she seemed preoccupied and worried.
Shortly before one o’clock The Tundish returned from his rounds. He
joined us in the garden immediately and took a seat beside us. Ethel
handed him the telegram she had received, without comment.
“And who, may I ask, is J. K.?”
“There’s to be another prison inmate,” Ethel replied rather bitterly,
and explained in a few sentences what Mrs. Hanson had done. “And what
am I to say to her?” she concluded, “and what will she do when she
finds out all this?”
The doctor considered for a few moments. “When was the wire sent off?”
he asked at length.
“Ten-thirty from London.”
“Then she had had plenty of time to see the morning papers, if not
before she left the hotel at Folkestone, at any rate before she
reached London.”
“The papers!” Ethel cried. “Is it in the papers already?”
The doctor pulled a folded sheet out of his pocket. “Not in the
_Times_,” he said, “but the penny papers have lost no time in getting
hold of it. Look at this.” He pointed out a paragraph to her. I read
it over her shoulder. It was on the front page and was headed:—
SUDDEN DEATH OF YOUNG TENNIS PLAYER
A sad event occurred yesterday in the old cathedral city of
Merchester, where the annual lawn tennis tournament is in progress.
Miss Stella Palfreeman, a promising young player, died suddenly
during the night of the sixteenth. There is reason to suppose that
her death was due to an overdose of some narcotic medicine. Miss
Palfreeman retired to bed in her usual health at night and was found
dead by her hostess in the morning. We understand that the police
are inquiring into the matter.
Ethel threw down the paper and shivered, her eyes filling with tears.
“And to-morrow it will be shouted and billed all over the place! I
shall never be able to hold up my head in Merchester again. Oh, I
can’t bear it, I simply can’t bear any more!”
The Tundish took her hand in his and held it while he spoke, his other
hand affectionately on her shoulder. “Ethel, you must not—you must not
give way like that. It’s ridiculous! Hold up your head, indeed, what
have you to be ashamed of? Come now, I know how brave you can be, and
we are all going to need all the grit we’ve got in the next few days.
Now about Mrs. Kenley, she may be with us any minute.”
“Here she is,” I said as the door-bell pealed.
Ethel dabbed her eyes hastily and ran indoors, and I heard her greet
the guest in her usual pretty way. She took her up-stairs to her room
and I remember even then noticing the tones of Mrs. Kenley’s voice and
thinking to myself that they promised well.
A few moments later Ethel was bringing her to us across the lawn. I
looked with interest to see what manner of person it was that fate had
added to our unhappy household. Would she be capable of rising to the
situation, or would she add yet another wrong note to our strident
discords? Mrs. Hanson had spoken well of her in her letter, but Mrs.
Hanson, I knew—and I don’t say it unkindly—would have found some
traits to praise in the devil himself. True, he did put the best
silver sugar-tongs in his pocket, but with what an air he had passed
the sugar! I was reassured, however, as Ethel brought her guest toward
us. I liked her at once. In a couple of hours I was definitely
impressed, and—but I am going too fast. Now I don’t mind admitting
that as a general rule, and quite apart from any question of sexual
attraction, I greatly prefer girls to men, and there is a certain
section of the sex—a stratum lying somewhere in between the fussy and
the fast—that to me seems to contain the salt of the earth. How clean
they can be, these gay good girls—clean in mind and body—their dainty
clothes barely hiding their intriguing beauty in a way that causes my
forty-year-old heart to thump in its cage to see. And why, I ask,
should the good and the beautiful be hidden away? God bless their
shapely pink silk legs. How brave and bright they can be. Look at them
in the tram or the train on their way to work. Look at them coming
home again at night. Look at them I say, and then look at a crowd of
unshaved sheepfaced men with their fusty, dust-clogged, hideous and
idiotic clothes!
Mrs. Kenley, I could see at a glance, was neither fussy nor fast. She
was younger than I expected. Whether she had bought her clothes from
Paquin, or through the week-end advertisement columns of the _Daily
Mail_ I do not know, but to my male inexperience she seemed to be
beautifully, fittingly dressed. I had an impression of a short skirt
and slim gray legs, then a pair of gray and extraordinarily wide-awake
eyes held me mesmerized and I found myself being introduced. Was she
beautiful? At the time I am sure I could not have answered that
question, but I knew at once that she was brave and true.
The gong sounded before we had time for conversation, and we went in
to lunch. Margaret and the boys followed and were introduced. I sensed
at once that the presence of a stranger went far to lessen the feeling
of awkward restraint that seemed to engulf us when we were all
together. No reference was made to the tragedy during the meal, and we
had as yet no idea whether Mrs. Kenley knew of it or not. I was
dreading that she would ask some question about the tournament; she
must have been rather surprised, I thought, to find us all at home for
lunch and not in our tennis kit. The Tundish, however, seemed to have
anticipated the difficulty, and guided the conversation with subtle
skill to her life in Rhodesia and the voyage to England. She told us
that she was not South-African born and had spent most of her life in
England.
So the meal passed pleasantly enough. When it was over the doctor
announced his intention of taking, if possible, a couple of hours’
sleep, and he advised us all to do the same. Ethel and Margaret
retired to their rooms, Kenneth and Ralph to the drawing-room to play
chess, and it fell to my lot to entertain Mrs. Kenley—a fate which I
welcomed with secret enthusiasm. I took her to my favorite spot—the
shade of the cedar—and Annie brought us our coffee there. We smoked
cigarettes and for a time talked of nothing in particular. She was
entirely at her ease, but I still felt the disturbance of that first
look that had passed between her eyes and mine as Ethel had brought
her to us across the lawn, and while I regarded her as closely as I
could without appearing to be rude, I added little to the
conversation. She smoked her cigarette in pensive contentment and I
fell to wondering why one look from a pair of clear gray eyes should
have set my blood a-tingle and made me wish for all manner of
unpleasant happenings to overtake the unoffending Cousin Bob.
Certainly Mrs. Kenley was charming, but I had met plenty of charming
girls before. Margaret and Ethel were both that, and they both looked
you straight in the eye without these disturbing results. Disturbing
but very refreshingly disturbing, and I think that for the first time
since the murder my thoughts wandered contentedly in pleasant places.
Mrs. Kenley put down her coffee cup on the grass by her chair, and
hitching it round to face me more squarely, asked me in her
low-pitched voice, “Now, Mr. Jeffcock, will you please tell me all
about this terrible affair? Of course I saw it in the papers on my way
here this morning, and one paper mentioned that Miss Palfreeman was
staying with a Dr. Hanson. I can see that things are in a bad way
here—you would naturally all have gone home by now if you could—so I
suppose it means that you are being detained by the police, is that
so?” I nodded and she continued.
“I wondered if I ought to change my plans and go elsewhere, but I
remembered that Mrs. Hanson really seemed to want me to come and
chaperon Ethel, and so I thought I would come on for one night at any
rate, to see how things were. Tell me now, honestly, what do you think
I ought to do?”
“I hope you’ll stop, Mrs. Kenley,” I answered promptly. “It would be a
real kindness to Ethel if you will. I am sure she will ask you to stay
when she gets a chance to have a talk with you.”
With that, I told her about the whole miserable affair from beginning
to end: Stella’s tragic death, Ethel’s rupture with Kenneth, the ugly
suspicion that had fastened on The Tundish and more or less shadowed
us all; of the feeling of subtle distrust that seemed to fill the air,
and all the wretched series of events of the past two days. True,
Little Allport had instructed us to be reticent, but Inspector Brown
had surprisingly agreed to our visitor, and if she were going to stay
in the house, there seemed nothing to lose by telling her the facts,
and little possibility of keeping them secret.
I was glad to have somebody to talk to, some one who by no possible
juggling with keys and time and facts, could have had anything to do
with Stella’s death. I was amazed at the ease with which she grasped
the whole situation and at the pertinent questions she asked. At the
end of an hour’s talk she knew all that I could tell her of the
murder. Of other matters—of how charming I thought her—of how
beautiful I thought the curved arch of her penciled brows over those
wide gray eyes, of the adorable little trick she had of pushing out
her dainty but determined chin when she wished to emphasize a point I
could not tell her in so many words, and whether she guessed anything
of my feelings I do not know, but I think that even then we both of us
realized that the foundations of friendship had been well and truly
laid.
We sat talking together until nearly four o’clock when Ralph and
Kenneth, the former arrayed in a very grubby tennis shirt and ancient
flannel trousers, dusters and a tin of polish in his hands,
interrupted our tête-à-tête. “Going to polish up the bus,” Ralph
explained, “and there are one or two little matters I want to look
into as well. Are you interested in motoring, Mrs. Kenley?”
“Yes, I am. I used to drive for the Woman’s Legion during the war.”
“Really, and were you in France at all?” Kenneth asked.
“Not for very long. I drove an ambulance for a few months, and then I
was drafted to London and drove for the War Office.”
I could see that Mrs. Kenley was not over-anxious to talk about
herself, and she made a move toward the garage, as though to close the
conversation. But the boys were interested and pressed for details,
asking whom she had driven, and whether she had had any interesting
experiences.
“No, nothing exciting at all—except just once, and then”—she paused
and smiled reminiscently—“and then I hit a certain well-known general
in the face.”
“Did you really, though? And why weren’t you shot at dawn?” Ralph
laughed. “Please tell us about it, what did happen?”
“Oh, there’s really nothing to tell. I wish I hadn’t mentioned it. He
was a little drunk, and—well, I suppose he took me for some one else.
I was in an awful fright next morning, because I couldn’t afford to
lose my job. But nothing happened all day, and at night when I took
the car home, I found a big bunch of roses tucked away inside, with a
note of apology. He was a sportsman, after all.”
“What was his name?” Ralph asked.
But Mrs. Kenley merely laughed and shook her head, “That, Mr. Bennett,
I’m keeping for my grandchildren. Now please show me the car. I love
to look at new ones with all the latest tricks.”
We went to the garage, and soon she and Ralph were deep in
technicalities. The unventilated garage was stifling, and not being
interested in young Bennett’s opulent car, I soon left them to it.
As I strolled back to the house I heard a raucous voice, proceeding
apparently from one of the upper bedroom windows. It was cook, and
cook in no amiable mood. At first I could clearly hear every word she
said, then just as I was getting really interested in what I heard,
she moved and I missed the rest. “So I says to meself, it may be
orlright and may be not, and there ain’t no reason as how it should be
wrong, but seeing what ’appened afterward the perlice might like to
know what I saw if I was to tell ’em. But then I thinks ter meself it
may be better worth yer while, cook, I thinks, ter keep it to
yourself, and the perlice they ain’t no friends o’ yours, cook, I ses
ter meself. Now then what do you think abart it?”
Cook gossiping with Annie, was my first conclusion. But Annie appeared
with a tea-tray before I reached the house. I heard no more excepting
a few slurred and indistinct half-sentences. I felt certain she was,
if not drunk, not sober. But drunk or not, it was evident she had seen
something of which she had not told Allport.
Intending to round the corner of the house and go to the door in the
front garden wall to see if there was a newsboy in sight from whom I
could purchase an evening paper, I approached the house pondering—a
pastime at which I was fast becoming adept—pondering the question:
“Which of our party could cook have been addressing with such drunken
garrulity?” It certainly had not been Annie. And I had heard no
answering voice. Her words had been spoken with a half-drunken
lurching inconsequence. Was it just possible that she might have been
talking to herself?
“Ethel, I’m sure it’s dangerous. There can’t be any real difficulty in
getting rid of her. I’m sure we ought to take the risk.”
It was the doctor’s voice, and I walked full tilt into him and Ethel
round the corner of the house. My shoes were fitted with rubbers which
made no sound on the hot plastic asphalt path, and though I had heard
every word the doctor said it was obvious that they had not heard me.
He was standing with his back to the wall—she was facing him and very
close—his hands on her shoulders affectionately, hers holding on to
the lapels of his coat, her dark bobbed head tilted back and looking
up adoringly to meet his downward gaze. I felt myself go hot with
shame, yes, and anger too. The hussy! The inconsiderates. Had they no
sense at all of fitness or time? Surely Ethel might have waited until
Kenneth was out of the house even if her engagement to him had been a
fundamental error—The Tundish her real mate. And if her conduct struck
me as reprehensible, words will not describe the sudden surge of
indignation that I felt against the well-balanced placid doctor.
Ethel sprang from his embrace, flushed scarlet, then paled to a sickly
white. My own embarrassment almost equaled hers. The Tundish never
moved a muscle or turned a hair. He greeted me at once, pleased to see
me. “Hello, Jeffcock, you’ve just come in time to help us decide about
the dismissal of cook. I’m for prompt measures. Ethel for to-morrow
and delay.”
“But—but why should she go to-night, Tundish?” Ethel stammered, slowly
recovering from the shock of my sudden arrival.
“Ye gods, Jeffcock, what won’t these women stand for the sake of
having a thing labeled ‘cook’ in the house? Why should she go
to-night? Why? And you can ask me that after all you’ve just been
telling me? She’s near enough to being drunk, isn’t she? And, as I was
saying, I’m sure there’s no risk of any row.”
Ethel said nothing. Her color had returned, but I thought she looked
bewildered and confused. The doctor turned to me, explanatory. “She’s
afraid that she might not consent to go without a fuss, that we might
get a crowd round the house if we had to turn her out.”
“Yes, oh yes, I’m sure we should. And I couldn’t stand it. I can’t
stand any more. I can’t stand any more!” Ethel cried hysterically, and
slipped past me round the corner of the house.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “The sooner all this is over the
better it will be for Ethel—about at the end of her tether.”
He took me by the arm. I wished him anywhere else except with me.
Never had I liked him less or distrusted him more. I was still feeling
the awkwardness of my unfortunate intrusion, uncomfortable, half
apologetic, wholly angry and disturbed, but he, not only had he hidden
his feelings—I began to wonder whether he had any feelings to hide. A
rock, Ethel had called him, an iceberg rather. And like an iceberg,
God alone knew what lay hidden away below; God and perhaps some poor
devil of a steamer that strikes the cruel projections unawares! He
went on talking to me. What did I think of Mrs. Kenley? He would feel
happier about Ethel now that she was here. I barely heard him. But I
did hear him saying again. “We must get rid of her, there isn’t any
risk,” and then poor drunken cook, standing at the bottom of the
stairs, nodding her head grotesquely, her greasy wisp of hair waving
to and fro, “I knows what I knows, Dr. Wallace.”
The gong sounded for tea. We had it on the lawn under the cedar. Ethel
poured. Ralph never spoke a word, throughout the meal, and for once
Margaret was quiet. Mrs. Kenley and the doctor did the talking and
made the conversation. They played catch with it, and Janet—Mrs.
Kenley—was as good at the game as he was. Lightning work they made of
it—vivid—and Kenneth represented the thunder—he glowered. And I felt
like an invalid does when some friendly “mean well” stays too long. I
wished them both—forgive me, Janet, but I really did—in, well, say
anywhere. It was a ghastly meal—a meal to choke on.
The Tundish relieved us of his presence as soon as tea was over. The
rest of us sat on, but the Ethel-Kenneth rupture still cast its gloom,
and I think we all felt that Mrs. Kenley had been a godsend. She was
telling us of some of the golf courses she had played on in South
Africa, idly prodding the turf with the point of her parasol, when she
suddenly bent forward, peered closely at the grass, then straightened
herself, holding a tiny glittering fragment between finger and thumb.
She examined it carefully. “Any one lost a diamond?”
Margaret, who had sat so listlessly inert that I had glanced at her
curiously more than once, sprang to her feet. “It’s mine,” she cried.
“It’s mine, I lost it some time this morning and have been searching
for it everywhere.”
“But what an extraordinary piece of luck to find it out here like
that,” Ralph remarked; “you might have gone over the lawn with a
tooth-comb a hundred times and not have found it.”
“Yes, but remember where I come from,” Mrs. Kenley laughed.
Ethel, who had been into the house, rejoined us at the moment and
Margaret ran to show the diamond to her, and tell her of its recovery.
“Why, I didn’t know even you’d lost it, why ever didn’t you let us
know? We would have organized a search party at once. I shouldn’t have
been so quiet about it if I’d lost a stone that size.”
“I should have done that at any other time, my dear,” Margaret
answered; “but it seemed so petty to make a fuss over the loss of a
paltry diamond when things were so—you know what I mean.”
“Well, I’m awfully glad you’ve found it,” Ethel said, handing it back
to her, “and now, Janet, if you can spare me a few minutes, I want to
consult you about something.”
They went indoors arm in arm, and the four of us were left. Kenneth
suggested bridge, and so we whiled away the time until dinner. That
meal was so abominably cooked that we left most of the dishes
untouched, and satisfied our hunger on bread and cheese, which Ethel,
in high annoyance, told Annie to fetch. “What will you think of us,
Janet, and on your first night too!”
“Oh, please don’t distress yourself on my account, I prefer bread and
cheese to roast beef on a night like this.”
“It’s quite all right, Ethel dear,” Margaret soothed. “They say you
don’t want so much meat in hot weather, don’t they, Dr. Wallace?”
Our dinner of bread and cheese completed, the doctor betook himself to
the consulting-room again, and after a little maneuvering I found
myself alone with Mrs. Kenley in the garden. As my doubts about The
Tundish grew, I felt an increasing disinclination for conversation
with Ethel and on the other hand I had no wish to ally myself in any
way with Kenneth and his open hostility. Margaret, I shrewdly
suspected, was more than half inclined to think that I might be the
criminal myself, and it seemed that to Mrs. Kenley alone could I look
for ordinary unhampered conversation. But I had no sooner succeeded in
my object than Annie came to inform her that she was wanted on the
telephone, and she hurried away indoors. I waited with what patience I
could but she did not return, and after a quarter of an hour or so I
followed in search. She was in none of the down-stairs rooms and I
concluded that she must have gone to her bedroom. The boys were
playing chess in the drawing-room. Neither the girls nor the doctor
were to be seen, and after glancing through the evening papers I went
back to the garden and its rapidly lengthening shadows.
I was nearing the garage when I heard voices. Ethel and Margaret, I
thought at first. Then I recognized Mrs. Kenley’s pleasant low
contralto. Then that the other voice belonged to a man—a deep mellow
voice—a voice belonging neither to Kenneth nor Ralph, nor the doctor,
but still half familiar. Surely not Allport, I thought! But it was.
As I rounded the end of the garage, there they were seated close
together on the little bench at the far side of it, in intimate and
earnest conversation. She was persuasive—leaning toward him. “Very
well then, Janet, I’ll agree, but I’m not at all happy about it,” I
heard him reply, then they looked up and saw me.
Mrs. Kenley blushed and withdrew a little along the seat. Then they
whispered to each other and little Allport rose, said “Good night,”
made a funny little grimace at me, and hurried off through the garage
gates and into Dalehouse Lane. I was staggered.
Mrs. Kenley stood up, troubled, her gray eyes, full of concern,
meeting mine unflinchingly.
“Has he been bothering you too then?” I thundered.
“Don’t make such a noise. I’ve something to tell you, Mr. Jeffcock,”
she said, ignoring my question. “Come and sit down here where we
shan’t be overheard.”
I went and sat by her side on the bench where only a moment before the
ridiculous little man had sat, and I perceived that while she had sat
close to him she kept her distance from me. All my original animosity
against the conceited little detective returned.
Mrs. Kenley continued to look at me oddly. “I suppose you have guessed
something about it?” she queried.
I stared at her. An idea was beginning to form at the back of my head,
but it seemed altogether too fantastic. “You know Allport?” I ventured
at length.
“He sent me here.”
“He sent you! No, I don’t quite—Mrs. Hanson——”
“Mrs. Hanson has never seen me. Listen, it’s like this. Mr. Allport
wanted further evidence which could only be obtained by some one
staying in the house—some one whom none of the rest of you could
possibly suspect of having any connection with the police.”
“Then you’re not the wife of Ethel’s cousin, Bob Kenley at all? You’re
a——”
“Yes, I’m a——” she said, quietly amused.
“But Mrs. Hanson’s letter—did he forge it?”
“Oh, no. She wrote it right enough, but at his request. He went down
to Folkestone last night and sent me a wire before he started, telling
me to hold myself in readiness. We came to Merchester together this
morning, and he gave me full details on the way.”
“But he couldn’t have got to Folkestone last night in time for Mrs.
Hanson to write——”
“Oh, yes he did, though. He went by aeroplane from here, explained the
whole affair to Mrs. Hanson, and persuaded her to write the letter.
That was why he made you all promise that you wouldn’t write to any
one mentioning the murder. He was afraid Ethel and the doctor might
think it peculiar if Mrs. Hanson didn’t come back from Folkestone, and
he wanted you all to remain here just by yourselves and no further
additions made to the household.”
I had to admit that Mrs. Kenley had played her part to perfection, but
somehow I didn’t quite like the idea of our all being bottled up in
Dalehouse for her to play the spy on, and I think she understood my
feelings, for she turned to me with a deprecating little gesture. “I’m
sorry, you do see that it was the only thing to do, and as for
me—well, I had to obey my instructions.”
“And now, why does Mr. Allport want me to know?”
“He didn’t. If you hadn’t caught us together we shouldn’t have told
you anything, though I’m not at all sure that it hasn’t turned out for
the best. I may as well tell you that we are all in some danger. Mr.
Allport wanted me to leave the house to-night and to break up the
house party right away, but I persuaded him to let me stay until
to-morrow.”
“Why does he think the danger greater to-night than it has been
hitherto?”
“You know he took away the bottle of poison—well, the analyst has
found it to be nothing but water!”
“Water! But Stella——”
“Yes, it was poison then, but the trouble is—where is the poison now?
Was it thrown away? And if not—well!”
I could only stare at her stupefied, and the doctor’s words to Ethel
about there being no risk in getting rid of cook seemed more sinister
than ever. “Allport had no right to take such a responsibility,” I
said at last.
“It isn’t quite so bad as you might think at first. The poison has a
bitter taste and a strong smell. Miss Palfreeman, of course, took it
unsuspectingly and would naturally think nothing of it if her medicine
had an unfortunate taste. Besides, there is no real reason, so far as
we know, why the person who gave it to her should harbor murderous
designs against any one else.”
“I don’t understand it at all, it’s a complete mystery. I never could
see why any one should have murdered her. Apart from the doctor,
perhaps,” I added, remembering my own growing suspicions and his
quarrel with her father.
“Well, I don’t think I am justified in telling you any more. I was to
tell just as little as possible, but I am very glad to have some one
at hand to help me at a moment’s notice if an emergency should arise.”
I sat for a time in thought. To say that I was surprised at the
revelation would be to put it too mildly. I had been pleased to
imagine this gray slip of a girl at my side as clean and free—a breath
of sweet outside air refreshing the exhausted atmosphere of some hot
unventilated room—a ray of sunlight piercing the shades of deceit and
hypocrisy that seemed to have engulfed us, and here she was, with one
unknown exception, more involved in the wretched affair than any of
us. Never had I seen any one less like imagination’s picture of a
woman detective, neither hard eyed, brazen and tight lipped, nor of
the vampire siren type familiar to frequenters of the cinema.
“Well, I think that you must be very brave, and I’ll do my best to
help you if I can. But tell me, is this sort of thing your regular
work?”
“No, I’ve done a good deal of it from time to time, but I’m not
officially attached to Scotland Yard. Mr. Allport lived next door to
us when we were children and we grew up together. I can see that he’s
not exactly popular with any of you here, but in many ways he’s very
fine. I’ve seen a side of him that you have not. When my husband was
killed, just before the Armistice, he was the best friend imaginable
and has helped me ever since. When I was demobbed, I went on the stage
for a time—I wasn’t much good—had a pretty hard time. Mr. Allport used
to find me odd jobs in connection with his detective work; not very
often at first, but lately I’ve helped him quite a lot.”
We sat behind the garage talking together for some little time, and I
learned that her real name was Janet Player. She told me many things
of Allport, always to his credit. She was loud in the ugly little
fellow’s praises, and when I learned that he was married and the
father of a family—I trust they took after the mother—I disguised my
dislike, and apart from actually admitting him an Adonis, agreed to
most of what she said.
The light was fading when we rose to go indoors. The sun had scorched
its way across the sky and set, and now behind the house and over the
northwest garden wall, the air was aglow with its last refracted
golden rays. In the east the cathedral seemed to have advanced by half
its distance, so clear did it stand with the paling green light behind
it. Rooks were cawing their pleasing raucous lullaby among the
neighboring trees. The thrushes were at even-song. The cedar stood out
in dark but shadowless, enhanced relief against the dimming light. Did
the quiet beauty of the scene make your heart beat a little faster
too, Janet, I wondered, as we stood side by side at the top of the
garden slope looking down at the old Georgian house with its wicked
Borgian secret? This twilight half-hour, how even the ten thousand
repetitions of experience fail to rob it of its mystery and subtle
sense of calm bereavement! Day a-dying, night-engulfed. And were you
wondering what the night might bring, Janet, as you stood like some
slim gray wraith at my side? And did you vaguely guess that the man at
your side—champion sob-stuff sentimentalist that he is—was all astir,
quickened by the garden’s evening beauty, by your calm brave spirit,
by the pity he felt for you fighting alone in this dangerous house,
and that Cupid was fitting arrow to bow and preparing to shoot?
We were half-way down the slope, when she put her hand on my arm, and
stood intent. “I thought I heard some one,” she whispered.
“Some one in the lane most likely.”
“No, no, it was quite near, a rustling of leaves, like some one
brushing along against the hedge.”
We stood for a moment, her hand still on my arm, but not a sound
disturbed the still air; there was no breath of wind to stir a leaf.
Janet shrugged her shoulders when I suggested that it might have been
a cat, and that we had spoken so low that we could not have been
overheard, and we walked across the lawn and went back into the house
together.
We found Margaret, Kenneth, and Ralph sitting in the drawing-room.
“Ah! Here you are at last,” Margaret greeted us. “Isn’t the garden
lovely in this light, Mrs. Kenley? Isn’t Ethel a lucky girl to have
such a beautiful home?”
Ralph urged a game of bridge; there were five of us and Janet stood
out, a letter to write, her excuse. At a little table near the open
doorway we settled down to our game, Ralph partnering Margaret against
Kenneth and myself. Margaret had the most astounding luck, and backed
it with good play. Twice they made grand slam—rarely less than three
tricks. They registered rubber after rubber.
“Never mind, unlucky at cards, lucky in love,” Margaret giggled.
Kenneth scowled, but she seemed to be blissfully unconscious of having
dropped a brick, and added sentimentally, “I sometimes wish that I
wasn’t so lucky at cards.”
I murmured something inane about there being plenty of time for luck
to change. Kenneth yawned openly and suggested bed.
“Where can Ethel be all this time?” Margaret asked, as we gathered up
the cards. “The naughty girl hasn’t been near us all the evening.” I
should not have been surprised had she come out with, “Best to be off
with the old love before you are on with the new,” but that we were
spared, and, having collected her knitting, she went off to the
consulting-room, saying, “I shall scold Dr. Wallace for keeping her so
much to himself.”
Janet came down-stairs as we were going up to bed, and I took time to
caution her to lock her bedroom door.
She nodded emphatically: “I will, and more than that, Mr. Allport has
given me a bolt, a set of screws, and the wherewithal to fix them.”