The Little Dancing Girl
Evelyn stood for many minutes after replacing the boot, in doubt and
distress. She absolved Philip; she could neither absolve Celia nor
understand how it was possible that she had had the resolution to do
what undeniably had been done. There was something else, there must
be, which would explain all. Perhaps if she could find the reason for
the two things which still seemed to have none, the moving of the box
and the dent in the wall, she would understand everything. At any rate
she could make no discovery which rendered things less horrible than
they had now again become.
So thinking, she came down once more to the hall, took up a position
on the further side opposite the foot of the stairs and tried with an
intense effort of mind to imagine stage by stage exactly what had
taken place. It was fruitless; she was unable to pass beyond the
conclusions to which she had already been forced. At last, rather
hopeless of progress, fearful that no progress was possible, and that,
incredible as it seemed to her, the truth lay between Celia and John
as she had first been appalled by it on realizing the significance of
the barred shutters, she came slowly forward to the edge of the sheet.
She did not dare move it again, but she had no need to; she saw the
stains and all below it in her mind as clearly as in a photograph. She
was thinking whether any enlightenment was to be found in the original
positions of the cigarettes. “Most of them four or five steps up,” she
thought, “in the centre and right.” Her heart gave a sudden leap,
light burst in her brain and thoughts followed one upon the other.
That was just beyond the dent, the dent was made by the box, the
cigarettes had naturally fallen scattered, most of them just beyond
where it struck. She ran up the first and second steps, stooped at the
third, looked at the dent again, and was certain of her conclusion.
Then she turned round and faced the hall from there. Her eyes
travelled automatically to the little table on which the cigarette box
ordinarily stood; instantly she saw that the cigarettes had fallen on
the centre and right because the box came obliquely from the left,
clearing the end of the balusters and striking against the wall. The
thought rose sharp and bewildering—the box had missed! But it had been
found lying at the foot of the stairs, close to the dead man’s head
and stained with his blood. The one thing remaining which had puzzled
her was suddenly illuminated with light; it was no accident, but
murder, and the murderer was the man who had moved the box! He had set
it down in the dead man’s blood deliberately to make it appear the
weapon, and it had never touched him at all.
Relief and dread fought a bitter battle in her. For the first time
since he had come into her thoughts to overshadow them with fear, she
felt it possible to acquit John not only of murder but of causing his
father’s death at all; the thought of him had been bound up with the
box and now she knew the box had shed no blood. But the instant she
had yielded herself up to the relief of this her reason became weighed
with a greater sense of evil still. The box had missed, but none the
less Sir Roger had been struck down. In spite of all her reborn belief
she could not repress the thought that this might have been by the
hand either of John or of Philip. Philip and John might both have
attacked Sir Roger; more odious still, Philip might have killed him
after John had left, believing that it would not be difficult to shift
the guilt onto one who had secretly entered the house he was
forbidden. She felt sick as these possibilities forced their way in on
her. No longer could she even comfort herself by believing in the
thought of accident.
And after the deed was done, what then? If they had acted together,
Philip had let John out and broken the little window. Then, back at
the body, he had had a spasm of fear and put the box where it had been
found—that at least would throw suspicion away from him. If he had
done it after he had let John out, striking perhaps on an impulse
without thinking it out in all its traces afterwards, the moving of
the box argued just the same a fell and deadly motive. Then he had
gone back to his study—she saw the whole thing—written those letters
rapidly and then returned to make a show of finding the body and to
act a long-drawn lie.
Wildly she wracked her brain for one detail which could disprove these
fearful imaginings. “A pair of evening shoes”—the words she had heard
Humblethorne use in his talk with Birts the previous evening, words
then without special significance, came instead with swift insistence
into her mind. They wanted a pair of Philip’s shoes; she had heard
them say so. Why? Instantly thought answered itself as she remembered
the rest of the stains so close to her. She stooped, and lifting the
edge of the sheet, looked again at the two faint, oblong stains, one
on the second and one on the fourth step. “He went upstairs after the
murder,” came the flashing conclusion—“to act his lie first to me,”
she added with a horror-stricken repulsion. So violent was this that
she struggled with all her might against it: this seemed to her the
most shocking part of the whole dreadful business, “To me, with wet
blood on his shoes—impossible! He must have had some other reason; it
must have been before that,” she found herself saying. She dropped the
sheet she had been clutching with unconscious fierceness, and white
and cold, with her mouth set in a fierce, hard line, examined the
stairs above, and then the landing, and then the second flight of
stairs.
When she reached the top without having found anything to answer her,
she stopped: she would not believe her first thought while any other
solution could be found. She leant against the balustrade and looked
down into the hall. Suddenly it crossed her mind that it was possible
that Sir Roger might have been struck from there: she wondered why it
had not occurred to her before and then realized that as long as it
was assumed that the cigarette box had killed him any such possibility
was far too remote. But now when another weapon was in question the
situation was different. As she stood, though, just at the head of the
stairs, she saw that Sir Roger would have had his back towards her, if
he had been turned towards the hall; and he had been, she was sure,
for, if he had been coming up the stairs and the body moved, there
must have been some indications, and there were none. She accordingly
went along a few steps until she reached a bracket which stood against
and level with the top of the balusters, and could see most of the
hall.
Here she was almost directly above the spot at which the body had been
found, and she stood still, her thoughts concentrated on the one
problem directly before her mind, why had Philip come upstairs
immediately after the murder? She gazed out over the hall and tried to
find a reason. Her eyes travelled slowly over all she could see, from
the doors of the hall and the dining-room across the hall to the
tragic place almost immediately below her. No thought, no reason came
to her. She leant forward to discover how far underneath her towards
the drawing-room door she could see and found that it was invisible.
She was turning away with a gesture of impatience when her glance fell
on a little bronze statuette of a dancing girl about nine inches high
and fixed into a small ebony pedestal which stood on the bracket level
with the top of the balusters. It had stood there for years and she
had passed it a thousand times, but there was something about its pose
now which instantly attracted her attention, keyed as that was to the
uttermost. The right arm, which ordinarily was raised with the elbow
bent at right angles to the body and the forearm curving in an easy,
graceful manner outwards, was now bent forwards and rather across the
body in a way that huddled the shoulder awkwardly.
Evelyn gripped the rail of the balusters with both hands with a sudden
violence of which she was completely unconscious: and then, her heart
beating wildly with an intuition of success, bent to examine what she
had found. On the elbow, a little underneath and behind it so that,
unless the statuette was moved—and she had no intention of touching it
then—it could only be seen by twisting well over the balusters, was a
little, dirty, dark red clot: the whole of the arm at the back from
elbow to shoulder and again a little down the side was slightly
stained as well. Evelyn knew that she had come upon not only the
answer to the puzzle which had then been engaging her but the true
weapon as well.
The statuette stood almost directly above the spot where Sir Roger’s
body had been found. She saw it all now. It had been so easy to fling
it down upon the victim standing below. Sir Roger’s attention must
have been attracted by a noise above just too late; he had started
back, and the statuette had struck him on his uplifted forehead and
dashed him to the ground. It was obvious too why the murderer had come
upstairs immediately after committing the crime—it was to replace the
statuette. What part John had played she could not tell; it was
evident that he could have had no direct hand in it, he would never
have come there to seize and hurl so bizarre a weapon. Black as the
tragedy seemed, Evelyn was sensible of two consoling thoughts. John
might know, but it might have happened after he had gone—probably it
had; at any rate he had not struck the blow; and secondly, Celia,
whatever she knew and feared, had not known of this, had not helped to
cover up the tracks of her father’s murderer.
She drew back a little from the bracket, clutching these two thoughts
to her bitter, sickened heart, and then, stooping down, gazed fixedly
at the floor for any further direct testimony as to the replacing of
the statuette. Nothing was visible on the carpet, but, outlined on the
white paint, between the carpet and the balusters was the imprint of a
left foot, very faint, but clear enough of outline to intently
searching eyes. It needed no great acuteness to deduce that in the act
of putting the statuette back on the bracket the murderer had stepped
off the carpet with one foot.
For many minutes after making this discovery Evelyn remained staring
at the ominous mark: then she turned and went straight to her room;
she felt appalled, terrified at the abysses of human nature into which
she had unwittingly forced her way. Once again she wished with all her
heart that she had never been curious enough to try and penetrate the
mystery; she had been drawn on from one darkness to another, and yet
she had not been able to leave it alone. Nor could she now; she was
impelled against her desire to turn conviction into undeniable
certainty. Remembering that the first thing Humblethorne had done on
coming on the footmarks outside the drawing-room window had been to
secure the measurements, she took a pair of scissors and a piece of
drawer-paper and, returning to the mark below the statuette, carefully
cut out a pattern. Then she went back to her room. What her purpose
was she hardly knew; she did not know what she would do when she had
established conviction on an unbreakable chain of reason, but while
any possibility of error remained her bitterness of spirit gave her no
rest. She looked at the cutting in her hand and shivered at the
significance which so simple a thing contained. Then she wondered if
she dared go immediately to compare it with its original; but she did
not know for certain that Philip was still in the study, and she saw
no way of finding out without revealing the horror in her soul. She
stood turning the pattern over and over purposelessly; then she thrust
it into a drawer as if it burnt her; she would go and get a measuring
tape, anything to feed her craving for action. With this intention she
went into the room she shared with Celia and was rummaging in a
work-basket when her friend came in.
“Why, Evelyn,” said Celia, “I didn’t know where you were: you have
neglected me this morning!”
“Have I, dear?” replied Evelyn in so vague a tone that it was obvious
that the remark had not penetrated in the least.
“What’s the matter? Aren’t you feeling any better?” asked Celia with
sympathetic surprise: she was not used to such replies.
“What’s that? Better? Oh, I’m all right,” said Evelyn, trying to force
her thoughts away and speak naturally. She put the work-basket down,
closed it and then looked across at Celia.
“And how are you this morning?” she added. “You seem a little more
rested, but why that worried look?”
“Oh, Evie, it’s about—well, what we spoke of yesterday,” responded
Celia, half eagerly from desire to share and half fearfully from
memory of their difference of view. “About, well, John, you know.” Her
voice in saying the name quivered and stumbled.
“Yes?” asked Evelyn with a quick glance.
“I’ve just been with mother and she began by asking me if I had had
any answer to my telegram. I couldn’t tell her I hadn’t sent one—I
didn’t, you know—so I simply answered, no. And then she said it was
very odd that we hadn’t heard from him and went on about it worrying
so that I didn’t know what to do. And so I told her—I didn’t mean to,
but I suppose I let out a hint and she seized on it and made me tell
her.”
“Tell her what?”
“About, about,” Celia caught her friend’s glance and faint colour came
into her white cheeks as she hesitated and stuck in the sentence she
was on the point of uttering; then summoning up a little
determination, she said doggedly, “about his having troubles of his
own, how he really wasn’t rich and happy now as I had always let her
suppose, and how Margaret was ill and all; I said I couldn’t worry him
to come now. She was very upset as I was afraid she would be.” Celia
stopped and then resumed. “She agreed, though, at last about not
urging him to come; I promised to write and send him some money and
tell him she said he was to bring Margaret as soon as she is better
and able to come here too. She said of course they must regard this as
home now. But——” again she stopped and this time did not say any more,
but remained plucking nervously at a cushion-cover with down-cast
eyes.
“Celia,” said Evelyn gently after waiting a moment in hope she would
go on of her own accord.
“Yes,” replied Celia, neither looking up nor desisting from her
restless movements.
“Won’t you tell me everything?”
“That’s all; I came away then,” answered Celia, speaking quickly in a
weak defiance of fear and not looking up.
“I mean, about John. Why did he come here two nights ago?”
Celia went suddenly white to the lips: her eyes widened slowly in
intense distress, and she breathed in a low, strained voice, “You
know!”
“Yes, I have known since yesterday. You can tell me, Celia; you must
tell me so that I can help him and you.”
“Does any one else know?” A fearful anxiety was in her question.
“No one knows as much as I do. The others who know think he killed Sir
Roger. I know he didn’t.”
The effect of this simple assertion was startling. Celia stretched out
her hand to Evelyn, her breath coming in quick, short gasps, and cried
with half-incredulous joy, “Evie! do you know what you are saying?”
“Yes. I can prove he didn’t, too, but it will be much easier if you
tell me what he did do. Why he came and everything you know. It’s not
like us to have secrets from each other.”
“Oh, you don’t know what joy you give me. Yes, I will tell you
everything: it has been so terrible bearing it alone,” cried Celia,
holding on to her friend and weeping in wild relief. “I couldn’t tell
you about his coming beforehand; he made me promise not to; he was
more afraid, I think, of mother’s finding out about his being so
worried and unhappy than of anything else. And afterwards I couldn’t
tell you, because—because I was so afraid he must have done it. Oh,
Evie, are you sure he didn’t?”
“Darling, what made you even think for a moment he did?”
“Because I left them together,” answered Celia in a low, terrified
voice; “and father was in one of his rages and John white and cold.”
“Well, he didn’t,” replied Evelyn. “I thought at first he did, by
accident, of course, but he didn’t. So tell me everything from the
beginning.”
“It began about a month ago,” said Celia, “with Margaret getting ill:
that was the final misfortune. I was away on a visit to the
Williamsons then, you remember, so he could write without being afraid
that his letters would be noticed—I have always managed to let him
know when I’m away from here—and he told me how bad things were with
him. Finally, he asked for my help; he had always refused to take a
penny before—he has all mother’s pride, you know—but he couldn’t get
the things Margaret needed if she was to have a chance of getting
well, and that broke it down; nothing else would have. I was for
sending him all I could scrape together, but a sudden, foolish desire
to see me and talk to me came over him; he wrote as eagerly as a boy
and made this plan. Father almost always went up early; it seemed so
easy for me to slip down and open the drawing-room window and he could
so easily get into the park and steal across the lawn. I didn’t much
like it, but there was no other way in which I could see him without
running the risk of father’s getting to hear of it—and when once it
had been suggested, oh, Evie, I longed to see him as much as he did to
see me.”
“Yes, dear,” Evelyn said understandingly. “And what happened?”
“I slipped down as arranged,” went on Celia nervously; “that was easy.
I’d gone to my room early, you remember, after saying good-night to
you on the plea of headache. I hated hiding it from you, Evie, but
John thought it better no one should know. It was about eleven, I
should think; all lights were out downstairs and I thought every one
was in bed. I opened the window, and he was there, waiting. We talked
there a long while, and then he said he couldn’t see me properly or I
him, and he came in. I went and turned on the light, and then I heard
father as he limped along in the hall. I didn’t know what to do, I was
so afraid he had seen the light and was coming straight in. I thought
the only thing to do was to go out and pretend I’d only come down for
a book or something. I signed to John to stay still and stepped out.”
She shivered, and it was a moment before she went on. “I suppose I
acted badly,” she said finally; “at any rate, father suspected
something; he told me very angrily to give him none of my nonsense,
and when I tried to pass it off and to go upstairs he caught me so
roughly by the arm that I cried out. And—and that was more than John
could stand. He came out and ordered father to leave me alone: he was
terribly angry, not in father’s way, but white and stern. He alarmed
me, but father, after staring at him as if he could not believe his
own eyes, broke out into awful language and then turned on me and told
me to go upstairs. I would have disobeyed, even if he had struck me,
but John said to me in a little, dry voice, ‘You had better go,’—and
so, hating it but not seeing how I could help, I went. That’s all I
know; and when father was found like that, I couldn’t help believing
John had done it. You can imagine how I have been suffering, and then
when mother wanted him to come here it was dreadful.”
Evelyn had listened to every word with the deepest attention; she was
hearing the truth, she knew. When Celia had finished, she became very
thoughtful and finally said, “No, you couldn’t help believing it: I
can quite understand. Well, don’t worry any more: I’m going to show he
didn’t.”
She walked to the window and gazed out; then abruptly turned and
disappeared into her room. She had seen Philip Castle strolling along
away from the house.