JENNY PUTS UP HER FIGHT
Stella, the undisciplined! She had flung out of the rank and file, as
long ago Sir Charles Hardiman had put it, and to this end she had come,
waywardness exacting its inexorable price. Harry Luttrell, however, was
not able to lull his conscience with any such easy reflections. He
walked with Martin Hillyard apart in the garden.
"I am to blame," he cried. "I took on a responsibility for Stella when I
went out of my way to do one kind, foolish thing.... Yet, she would have
killed herself if I hadn't--as she has done five years afterwards!... I
couldn't leave her when I had brought her home ... she was in such
misery!... and it couldn't have gone on.... Old Hardiman was right about
that.... It would have ended in a quarrel when unforgivable words would
have been used.... Yet, perhaps, if that had happened she wouldn't have
killed herself.... Oh, I don't know!"
Martin Hillyard had never seen Harry Luttrell so moved or sunk in such
remorse. He did not argue, lest he should but add fuel to this high
flame of self-reproach. Life had become so much easier as a problem with
him, so much inner probing and speculation and worry about small
vanities had been smoothed away since he had been engaged day after day
in a definite service which was building up by a law deduced here, an
inspired formula there, a tradition for its servants. The service, the
tradition, would dissolve and blow to nothing, when peace came again.
Meanwhile there was the worth of traditional service made clear to him,
in an indifference to the little enmities which before would have hurt
and rankled, in a freedom from doubt when decision was needed, above all
in a sort of underlying calm which strengthened as his life became more
turbulently active.
"It's a clear principle of life which make the difference," he said,
hesitating, because to say even so much made him feel a prig. "Stella
just drifted from unhappiness to unhappiness----"
But Harry Luttrell had no attention to give to him.
"I simply couldn't have gone on," he cried. "It wasn't a question of my
ruin or not.... It was simply beyond me to go on.... There were other
things more powerful.... You know! I once told you on the river above
Kennington Island.... Oh, my God, I am in such a tangle of argument--and
there she is up there--only thirty, and beautiful--such a queer, wayward
kid--'like a child sleeping.'"
He quoted Sir Chichester's phrase, and hurried away from his friend.
"I shall be back in a little while," he muttered. His bad hour was upon
him, and he must wrestle with it alone.
Martin Hillyard returned to the hall, and found Sir Chichester with the
doctor, a short, rugged Scotsman. Dr. McKerrel was saying:
"There's nothing whatever for me to do, Sir Chichester," he said. "The
poor creature must have died somewhere about one o'clock of the
morning." He saw Sir Chichester with a start fall once more to reading
the paragraph in the _Harpoon_, and continued with a warmth of
admiration, "Eh, but those newspaper fellows are quick! I saw the
_Harpoon_ this morning, and it was lucky I did. For I'd ha' been on my
rounds otherwise when that young fellow called for me."
"It was good of you to come so quickly," said Sir Chichester.
"I shall charge for it," replied Dr. McKerrel. "I'll just step round to
the Peace Officer at once, and I'll be obliged if you'll not have that
glass with the chloroform touched again. I have put it aside."
Martin Hillyard was disturbed.
"There will have to be an inquest then?" he asked.
"Aye, but there wull."
"In a case of this kind," Sir Chichester suggested, "it would be better
if it could be avoided."
"But it can't," answered Dr. McKerrel bluntly. "And for my part, I tell
you frankly, Sir Chichester, I have no great pity for poor neurotic
bodies like the young lady upstairs. If she had had a little of my work
to do, she would have been too tired in the evening to think about her
worries." He looked at the disconsolate Baronet with a sudden twinkle in
his eye. "Eh, man, but you'll get all the publicity you want over this
case."
Sir Chichester had no rejoinder to the quip; and his unwonted meekness
caused McKerrel to relent. He stopped at the door, and said:
"I'll give you a hint. The coroner can cut the inquest down to the
barest necessary limits, if he has got all the facts clear beforehand.
If he has got to explore in the dark, he'll ask questions here and
questions there, and you never know, nor does he, what he's going to
drag out to light in the end. But let him have it all clear and straight
first! There's only one character I know of, more free from regulations
and limitations and red-tape than a coroner, and that's the
police-sergeant who runs the coroner. Goodday to you."
A telegram was brought to Martin Hillyard whilst McKerrel was yet
speaking; and Hillyard read it with relief. Mario Escobar had been taken
that morning as he was leaving the hotel for the morning train to
London. He was now on his way to an internment camp. So that
complication was smoothed out at all events. He agreed with Sir
Chichester Splay that it would be prudent to carry out McKerrel's
suggestion at once.
"I will make the document out," said Sir Chichester importantly. Give
him a little work which set him in the limelight as the leader of the
Chorus, and nothing could keep down his spirits. He took a sheet of
foolscap, a blotting pad, a heavy inkstand, and a quill pen--Sir
Chichester never used anything but a quill pen--to the big table in the
middle of the hall, and wrote in a fair, round hand:
"The case of Mrs. Croyle."
and looked at his work and thought it good.
"It looks quite like a _cause célèbre_, doesn't it?" he said buoyantly.
But he caught Martin Hillyard's eye, and recovered his more becoming
despondency. Harry Luttrell came in as the baronet settled once more to
his task. He laid a shining key upon the table and said:
"I found this upon the lawn. It looked as if it might be the key of Mrs.
Croyle's room."
It was undoubtedly the key of a door. "We'll find out," said the
baronet. Harper was sent for and commissioned to inquire. He returned in
a few minutes.
"Yes, sir, it is the key of Mrs. Croyle's room." He laid it upon the
table and went out of the room.
"I suppose it is then," said Harry Luttrell. "But I am a little
puzzled."
"Oh?"
"It wasn't lying beneath Mrs. Croyle's window as one might have
expected. But at the east side of the house, below the corridor, and
almost in front of the glass door of the library."
Both of his hearers were disturbed. Sir Chichester took up the key, and
twisted it this way and that, till it flashed like a point of fire in
the sunlight; as though under such giddy work it would yield up its
secret for the sake of peace. He flung it on the table again, where it
rattled and lay still.
"I can't make head or tail of it," Sir Chichester cried. Martin Hillyard
opened his mouth to speak and thought better of it. He could not falter
in his belief that Stella had destroyed herself. The picture of her that
morning in Surrey, with the lamps burning in her room and the bed
untouched, was too vivid in his memory. What she had tried to do two
years ago, she had found the courage to do to-day.
That was sure. But it was not all. There was some one in the shadows who
meant harm, more harm than was already accomplished. There was
malevolence at work. The discovery of the key in that position far from
Stella's window assured him of it. The aspect of the key itself as it
lay upon the table made the assurance still more sure. But whom was this
malevolence to hurt? And how? At what moment would the hand behind the
curtain strike? And whose hand would it be? These were questions which
locked his lips tight. It was for him to watch and discover, for he
alone overlooked the battle-field, and if he failed, God help his
friends at Rackham Park. Mario Escobar? Mario Escobar could at all
events do no harm now.
Sir Chichester explained to Harry Luttrell Dr. McKerrel's suggestion.
"Just a clear, succinct statement of the facts. The witnesses, and what
each one knows and is ready to depose. I shall put the statement before
the coroner, who is a very good fellow, and we shall escape with as
little scandal as possible. Now, let me see----" Sir Chichester put on
his glasses. "The most important witness, of course, will be Stella's
maid."
Sir Chichester rang the bell, and in answer to his summons Jenny came
down the stairs. Her eyes were red with weeping and she was very pale.
But she bore herself steadily.
"You wanted me, sir?" she asked. Her eyes travelled from one to the
other of the three men in the hall. They rested for a little moment
longer upon Harry Luttrell than upon the rest; and it seemed to Hillyard
that as they rested there they glittered strangely, and that the ghost
of a smile flickered about her mouth.
"Yes," said Sir Chichester, pompously. "You understand that there will
have to be an inquiry into the cause of Mrs. Croyle's death; and one
wants for the sake of everybody, your dead mistress more than any one,
that there should be as little talk as possible."
Jenny's voice cut in like ice.
"Mrs. Croyle had no reason that I know of to fear the fullest inquiry."
"Quite so! Quite so!" returned Sir Chichester, shifting his ground. "But
it will save time if we get the facts concisely together."
Jenny stepped forward, and stood at the end of the table opposite to the
baronet.
"I am quite willing, sir," she said respectfully, "to answer any
question now or at any time"; and throughout the little interrogatory
which followed she never once changed from her attitude of respect.
"Your name first."
"Jenny Prask," and Sir Chichester wrote it down.
"You have been Mrs. Croyle's maid for some time."
"For three and a half years, sir."
"Good!" said Sir Chichester, with the air of one who by an artful
question has elicited a most important piece of evidence.
"Now!" But now he fumbled. He had come to the real examination, and was
at a loss how to begin. "Yes, now then, Jenny!" and again he came to a
halt.
Whilst Jenny waited, her eyes once glittered strangely under their
half-dropped lids; and Martin Hillyard followed the direction of their
gaze to the door-key lying upon the table beside Sir Chichester's hand.
"Jenny," said Sir Chichester, who had at last formulated a question.
"You informed us that Mrs. Croyle instructed you last night not to call
her until she rang. That, no doubt, was an unusual order for her to
give."
"No, sir."
Sir Chichester leaned back in his chair.
"Oh, it wasn't?"
"No, sir."
Sir Chichester looked a little blank. He cast about for another line of
examination.
"You are aware, of course, Jenny, that your mistress was in the habit of
taking drugs--chloroform especially."
"Never, sir," answered Jenny.
"You weren't aware of it?" exclaimed Sir Chichester.
"She never took them."
Harry Luttrell made a little movement. He stared in perplexity at Jenny
Prask, who did not once remove her calm and respectful eyes from Sir
Chichester Splay. She waited in absolute composure for the next
question. But the question took a long time to formulate. Sir Chichester
had framed no interrogatory in a sequence; whereas Jenny's answers were
pat, as though, sitting by the bed whereon her dead mistress lay, she
had thought out the questions which might be asked of her and got her
answers ready. Sir Chichester began to get flurried. At every conjecture
which he expressed, Jenny Prask slammed a door in his face.
"But you told me----" he cried, turning to Harry Luttrell and so broke
off. "Are you speaking the truth, Jenny?"
Suddenly Jenny's composure broke up. The blood rushed into her face. She
shouted violently:
"I swear it! If it was my last dying word, I do! Chloroform indeed!" She
became sarcastic. "What an idea! Just fancy!"
Sir Chichester threw down his pen. He was aghast before the conclusion
to which his examination was leading him.
"But, if Stella didn't put that glass of chloroform between her
pillows--herself--of her own accord--why then, whilst she was
asleep----" He would not utter the inevitable induction. But it was
clear enough, hideous enough to all of them. Why then, whilst she was
asleep, some one entered the room, placed the chloroform where its
deadly fumes would do their work, locked her door upon her and tossed
the key out on to the lawn. A charge of murder--nothing less.
"Don't you see what you are suggesting, Jenny," Sir Chichester
spluttered helplessly.
"I am suggesting nothing, sir," the maid answered stolidly. "I am
answering questions."
She was lying, of course! Hillyard had not a doubt of it. Jenny Prask
was the malevolent force of which he was in search. So much had, at all
events, sprung clear from Sir Chichester's blunderings. And some hint,
too, of the plan which malevolence had formed--not more than a hint!
That Jenny Prask intended to sustain a charge of murder Martin did not
believe. She was of too strong a brain for that folly. But she had some
clear purpose to harm somebody; and Martin's heart sank as he
conjectured who that some one might, nay must, be. Meanwhile, he
thought, let Sir Chichester pursue his questioning. He got glimpses
through that clouded medium into Jenny Prask's mind.
"You must realise, Jenny, the unfortunate position into which your
answers are leading you," said Sir Chichester with a trace of bluster.
Hillyard could have laughed. As if she didn't realise exactly the drift
and meaning of every word which she uttered. Jenny was not at all
perturbed by Sir Chichester's manner. Her face took on a puzzled look.
"I don't understand, sir."
"No? Let me make it clear! If your mistress never took drugs, if she did
not place the glass of chloroform in the particular position which would
ensure her death, then, since you, her maid, were alone in this part of
the house with her and were the last person to see her alive----"
"No, sir," Jenny Prask interrupted.
Sir Chichester stared. He was more and more out of his depth, and these
were waters in which expert swimming was required.
"I don't understand. Do you say that somebody saw Mrs. Croyle after she
had dismissed you for the night?"
"Yes, sir."
"Will you please explain?"
The explanation was as simple as possible. Jenny had first fetched a
book for her mistress from the library, before the house-party left for
the ball. She then had supper and went to Mrs. Croyle's room. It was
then about half-past nine, so far as she could conjecture. Her mistress,
however, was not ready for bed, and dismissed Jenny, saying that she
would look after herself. Jenny thereupon retired to her own bedroom and
wrote a letter. After writing it, she remembered that she had not put
out the distilled water which Mrs. Croyle was in the habit of using for
her toilet. She accordingly returned to Mrs. Croyle's bedroom, and to
her surprise found it empty. She waited for a quarter of an hour, and
then becoming uneasy, went downstairs into the hall. She heard her
mistress and some one else talking in the library. Their voices were
raised a little as though they were quarrelling.
"Quarrelling!" Sir Chichester Splay cried out the word in dismay. His
hand flapped feebly on the table. "I am afraid to go on.... What do you
think, Hillyard? I am afraid to go on...."
"We must go on," said Luttrell quietly. He was very white. Did he guess
what was coming, Hillyard wondered? At all events he did not falter. He
took the business of putting questions altogether out of his host's
hands.
"Was the somebody a man or a woman?"
"A woman, sir."
"Did you recognise her voice?"
"Yes, sir."
"Who was it?"
"Miss Whitworth."
Harry Luttrell nodded his head as if he had, during these last minutes,
come to expect that answer and no other. But Sir Chichester rose up in
wrath and, leaning forward over the table, shook his finger
threateningly at the girl.
"Now you know you are not speaking the truth. Miss Whitworth was at
Harrel last night with the rest of us."
"Yes, sir, but she came back to Rackham Park almost at once," said
Jenny; and Harry Luttrell's face showed a sign of anxiety. After all, he
hadn't seen Joan himself in the ball-room until well after ten o'clock.
"I should have known that it was Miss Whitworth even if I had not heard
her voice," and Jenny described how, on fetching Mrs. Croyle's book, she
had seen Joan unlatch the glass door of the library.
Sir Chichester was shaken, but he pushed his blotting-paper here and his
pen there, and pished and tushed like a refractory child.
"And how did she get back? I suppose she ran all the way in her satin
shoes and back again, eh?"
"No, sir, she came back in Mrs. Brown's motor-car. I saw it from my
bedroom window waiting in the drive."
"Ah! Now that we can put to the test, Jenny," cried Sir Chichester
triumphantly. "And we will----" He caught Hillyard's eye as he moved
towards the door in order to summon Miranda from the garden. Hillyard
warned him with an almost imperceptible shake of the head. "Yes, we
will, in our own time," he concluded lamely. His anger burst out again.
"Joan, indeed! We won't have her mixed up in this sordid business, it's
bad enough as it is. But Joan, no! To suggest that Joan came straight
back from the Willoughbys' dance in order to quarrel with a woman whom
she was seeing every day here, and, having quarrelled with her,
afterwards----No, I won't speak the word. It's preposterous!"
"But I don't suggest, sir, that Miss Whitworth came back in order to
quarrel with my mistress," Jenny Prask returned, as soon as Sir
Chichester's spate of words ran down. "I only give you the facts I know.
I am quite sure that Miss Whitworth can quite easily explain why she
came back to Rackham Park last night. There can't be any difficulty
about that!"
Jenny Prask had kept every intonation of her voice under her control.
There was no hint of irony or triumph. She was a respectful lady's maid,
frankly answering questions about her dead mistress. But she did not so
successfully keep sentinel over her looks. She could not but glance from
time to time at Harry Luttrell savouring his trouble and anxiety; and
when she expressed her conviction that Joan could so easily clear up
these mysteries, such a flame of hatred burnt suddenly in her eyes that
it lit Martin Hillyard straight to the heart of her purpose.
"So that's it," he thought, and was terrified as he grasped its reach.
An accusation of murder! Oh, nothing so crude. But just enough
suggestion of the possibility of murder to make it absolutely necessary
that Joan Whitworth should go into the witness box at the coroner's
inquest and acknowledge before the world that she had hurried secretly
back from Harrel to meet Mario Escobar in an empty house. Mario Escobar
too! Of all people, Mario Escobar! Jenny Prask had builded better than
she knew. That telegram which Martin had welcomed with so much relief
but an hour ago taunted him now. The scandal would have been bad enough
if Mario Escobar were nothing more than the shady hunter of women he was
supposed to be. It would be ten times louder now that Mario Escobar had
been interned as a traitor within twelve hours of the secret meeting!
Some escape must be discovered from the peril. Else the mud of it would
cling to Joan all her life. She would be spoilt. Harry Luttrell, too! If
he married her, if he did not. But Martin could not think of a way out.
The whole plan was an artful, devilish piece of hard-headed cunning.
Martin fell to wondering where was Jenny Prask's weak joint. She
certainly looked, with her quiet strength, as if she had not one at all.
To make matters worse, Miranda Brown chose this moment to re-enter the
hall. Sir Chichester, warned already by Martin, threw the warning to the
winds.
"Miranda, you are the very person to help us," he cried. "Now listen to
me, my dear, and don't get flurried. Think carefully, for your answer
may have illimitable consequences! After your arrival at Harrel last
night, did Joan return here immediately in your car?"
Sir Chichester had never been so impressive. Miranda was frightened and
changed colour. But she had given her promise and she kept it pluckily.
"No," she answered.
Jenny Prask permitted herself to smile her disbelief. Sir Chichester was
triumphant.
"Well, there's an end of your pretty story, my girl," he said. "You
wanted to do a little mischief, did you? Well, you haven't! And here, by
a stroke of luck, is Joan herself to settle the matter."
He sat down and once more he drew his sheet of foolscap in front of him.
He could write his clear succinct statement now, write it in "nervous
prose." He was not quite sure what nervous prose actually was, but he
knew it to be the correct medium to use on these occasions.
Meanwhile Joan ran down the stairs.
"I am afraid I have been very lazy this morning," she cried. She saw
Harry Luttrell, she coloured to the eyes, she smiled doubtfully and said
in a little whimsical voice, "We didn't after all, practise in the
passage."
Then, and only then, did she realise that something was amiss. Millie
Splay in her desire to spare her darling the sudden shock of learning
what calamity had befallen the house that night had bidden Joan's maid
keep silence. She herself would break the news. But Millie Splay was
busy with telegrams to Robert Croyle and Stella's own friends, and all
the sad little duties which wait on death; and Joan ran down into the
midst of the debate without a warning.
Martin Hillyard would have given it to her, but Sir Chichester was hot
upon his report.
"Joan, my dear," he said confidently. "There's a little point--not in
dispute really--but--well there's a little point. It has been said that
you came straight back here last night from Harrel?"
Joan's face turned slowly white. She stood with her great eyes fixed
upon Sir Chichester, still as an image, and she did not answer a word.
Harry Luttrell drew in a quick breath like a man in pain. Sir Chichester
was selecting a new pen and noticed nothing.
"It's ridiculous, of course, my dear, but I must put to you the formal
question. Did you?"
"Yes," answered Joan, and the pen fell from Sir Chichester's hand.
"But--but--how did you come back?"
"I borrowed Miranda's car."
Miranda's legs gave under her and she sank down with a moan in a chair.
"But Miranda denies that she lent it," said Sir Chichester in
exasperation.
"I asked her to deny it."
"Why?"
Joan's eyes for one swift instant swept round to Harry Luttrell. She
swayed. Then she answered:
"I can't tell you."
Sir Chichester rose to his feet and tore his sheet of foolscap across.
"God bless my soul!" he said to himself rather than to any of that
company. "God bless my soul!" He moved away from the table. "I think
I'll go and see Millie. Yes! I'll consult with Millie," and he ascended
the stairs heavily, a very downcast and bewildered man. It seemed as
though old age had suddenly found him out, and bowed his shoulders and
taken the spring from his limbs. Something of this he felt himself, for
he was heard to mutter as he passed along the landing to his wife's
sitting-room:
"I am not the man I was. I feel difficulties more"; and so he passed
from sight.
Harry Luttrell turned then to Joan.
"Miss Whitworth," he began and got no further. For the blood rushed up
into the girl's face and she exclaimed in a trembling voice:
"Colonel Luttrell, I trust that you are not going to ask me any
questions."
"Why?" he asked, taken aback by the little touch of violence in her
manner.
"Because, at twelve o'clock last night, I refused you the right to ask
them."
The words were not very generous. They were meant to hurt and they did.
They were meant to put a sharp, quick end to any questioning; and in
that, too, they succeeded. Harry Luttrell bowed his head in assent and
went out into the garden. For a moment afterwards Martin Hillyard, Joan
and Jenny Prask stood in silence; and in that silence once more Martin's
eyes fell upon the key of Stella's room. The earth had moved since the
interrogatory had begun and the sunlight now played upon the key and
transmuted it into a bright jewel. Martin Hillyard stepped forward and
lifted it up. A faint, a very faint light, as from the far end of a long
tunnel began to glimmer in his mind.
"I must think it out," he whispered to himself; and at once the key
filled all his thoughts. He turned to Joan:
"Will you watch, please?" He opened the drawer in the table and laid the
key inside it. Then he closed the drawer and locked it and took the key
of the drawer out of the lock.
"You see, Joan, what I have done? That key is locked in this drawer, and
I hold the key of the drawer. It may be important."
Joan nodded.
"I see what you have done. And now, will you please leave me with Jenny
Prask?"
The smile was very easy to read now in Jenny's face. She could ask
nothing better than to be left alone with Joan.
Martin hesitated.
"I think, Joan, that you ought to see Lady Splay before you talk to any
one," he counselled gently.
"Is everybody going to give me orders in this house?" Joan retorted with
a quiet, dangerous calm.
Martin Hillyard turned and ran swiftly up the stairs. There was but one
thing to do. Lady Splay must be fetched down. But hurry as he might, he
was not in time. For a few seconds Joan and Jenny Prask were alone in
the hall, and all Jenny's composure left her on the instant. She stepped
quickly over to Joan, and in a voice vibrating with hatred and passion,
she hissed:
"But you'll have to say why you came back. You'll have to say who you
came back to see. You'll have to say it publicly too--right there in
court. It'll be in all the papers. Won't you like it, Miss Whitworth?
Just fancy!"
Joan was staggered by the attack. The sheer hatred of Jenny bewildered
her.
"In court?" she faltered. "What do you mean?"
"That Mrs. Croyle died of poison last night in her room," answered
Jenny.
Joan stared at her. "Last night, after we had talked--she killed
herself--oh!" The truth reached her brain and laid a chill hand upon her
heart. She rocked backwards and forwards as she stood, and with a
gasping moan fell headlong to the ground. She had fainted. For a little
while Jenny surveyed her handiwork with triumph. She bent down with a
laugh.
"Yes, it's your turn, you pretty doll. You've got to go through it! You
won't look so young and pretty when they have done with you in the
witness-box. Bah!"
Jenny Prask was a strenuous hater. She drew back her foot to kick the
unconscious girl as she lay at her feet upon the floor. But that insult
Millie Splay was in time to prevent.
"Jenny," she cried sharply from the balustrade of the landing.
Jenny was once more the quiet, respectful maid.
"Yes, my lady. You want me? I am afraid that Miss Whitworth has
fainted."