Instead of doing what he ought to have done--that is, to have sought
at once the best legal aid in his power--Roger Gretorex made up his
mind to go back to Sussex, if only for a few hours.
Ivy’s words of agonised fear now found an echo in his own heart. His
mother must hear the very few and simple facts concerning Jervis
Lexton’s death from himself.
On his way to the station he saw two newspaper placards, and he felt
as if it was at him that they shouted the ominous words:
KENSINGTON
POISONING
MYSTERY.
WELL-KNOWN
CLUBMAN
POISONED.
He bought an evening paper in the station, and then, when he unfolded
it, he felt a sharp stab of anger and disgust. In the centre of the
front page was a charming portrait of Ivy--Ivy looking her sweetest
and most seductive self. Above and below the photograph was printed a
series of paragraphs dealing with the joyous life the young couple had
led in the care-free existence which centres round the idler members
of the fashionable night-clubs. It was also stated that, on the very
night of Mr. Lexton’s unexpected death, Mrs. Lexton was supping at the
Savoy with “a smart theatre-party.”
In the grateful darkness of a late November afternoon, Roger Gretorex
walked the two miles which separated the little station from
Anchorford, the village which he still felt part of the very warp and
woof of his life, though he owned practically no land there. All that
his father had been able to keep was the manor house, and the little
portion of the park which had surrounded the dwelling-house of the
owners of Anchorford from the days of Domesday Book.
Now and again Gretorex, as he hurried through the narrow lanes, would
tell himself that the inexplicable mystery attaching to Jervis
Lexton’s death by poison was bound to be cleared up, and probably in
some quite simple way--a way that he himself was now too excited and
too anxious to think out for himself.
Then there would come a sudden sensation of doubt, of despondency.
Like Ivy, but with far more cause, Roger Gretorex began to feel as if
a net were closing round him.
At last he turned into the long avenue which led to Anchorford House,
and his heart leapt when he saw the long Elizabethan front, now bright
with twinkling lights.
He rang the front door bell, and then he schooled himself to wait
patiently for old Bolton, who, once his father’s head groom, now acted
as general factotum and odd-job man.
But when, all at once, the door opened, it was his mother, tall,
upright, grey-haired, who stood there, her face full of eager welcome.
“I knew it was you, my dearest! I don’t believe in presentiments, but
I have been thinking of you all to-day, even more than usual.”
His face gave no answering smile. He looked very grave, and yet how
young he seemed to her, standing there; how strong, how finely drawn
and carved, was his now serious face!
“I wish you’d wired, Roger. Enid was coming in to late supper; but
I’ll put her off----”
“You needn’t do that, mother. It’s true I’ve come down to tell you of
something rather unpleasant that’s just happened to me. But the
telling of it won’t take long. Please don’t put off Enid. In fact I
shall be glad to see her, and I may have to go back to town by the
last train.”
He followed her across the wide hall which formed the centre of the
old house, and so into a lobby which led to the charming sitting-room
which had always been associated in his mind with his mother. They
both sat down there. But he waited a moment before he began his story
and then in the telling of it he chose his words with painful care.
“A very odd thing has happened, mother, and I felt I should like to
tell you about it at once.”
“What is it that has happened, Roger?”
As he said nothing, she went on quietly, in a matter-of-fact tone:
“Whatever it is, I know quite well that you have not been to blame in
any way.”
“Well, no, I don’t think I have been to blame. And yet, well, mother,
I’ve not been----” and then he stopped dead.
For the first time in his life he felt afraid. The extraordinary story
he had come to tell suddenly took on gigantic proportions. Until
to-day, though he had felt discomfort, and something akin to shame,
sometimes, when with Jervis Lexton, Roger Gretorex and Fear had never
met.
“You remember,” he said at last, “my friend Ivy Lexton? She came down
here for a week-end last winter.”
“I remember Mrs. Lexton very well,” answered Mrs. Gretorex in a tone
of studious detachment.
As her son had uttered the name of the woman he called his friend, a
feeling of fear coupled with a sensation of painful jealousy filled
the mother’s heart. Remember the beautiful woman she had instantly
known, without his telling her so, that Roger loved? There had
scarcely been a day in the last few months when she had not
remembered, with a sensation of discomfort, lovely Ivy Lexton.
“Jervis Lexton, Ivy’s husband, fell ill about three weeks ago----”
And then again Gretorex felt as if he could not go on.
“What has happened is put as clearly, here, as anything I can tell
you!” he exclaimed at last, and he handed her the evening paper
containing Ivy’s photograph.
She took the paper from his hand, and she was in such haste to see
what it was that her son did not dare to tell her himself, that she
did not wait to put on her spectacles.
Holding the sheet right under her reading lamp, she read the ominous
paragraphs headed “A Kensington Poisoning Mystery” right through.
“Well,” she said at last, “and in what way, Roger, does this concern
you? Were you acting as Mr. Lexton’s medical attendant?”
He answered at once, “I’m glad to say I was not. In fact I only saw
the poor chap twice during the whole course of his illness. He was
being looked after by a very good doctor, a man called Berwick.”
She said again, “Then in what way does this horrible story concern
you, my dear?”
There followed a long pause, and all at once a certain suspicion
rushed into Mrs. Gretorex’s mind.
“Is it possible,” she said at last, in a very low voice, “that your
friend Mrs. Lexton is suspected of having poisoned her husband?”
Roger Gretorex leapt to his feet.
“Good God--no, mother! Whatever made you think of such a thing?”
“I don’t know. Forgive me, Roger.”
For the first time in her life she felt that her son was looking at
her with something like--oh, no, not hatred, but anger, furious anger,
in his blazing eyes.
He repeated the cruel question: “Whatever made such a monstrous idea
come into your mind?”
She faltered, “It was foolish of me.”
“More than foolish--and very unlike you, mother,” he said harshly.
Then he moved his chair closer to hers, and stretching out his hand,
he took hers.
“Ivy was the best of wives to Jervis Lexton,” he said in a low voice.
“Lexton ran through a large fortune, and then, instead of trying to
get a job, simply idled about, and lived on his friends. He was a
complete wastrel.”
“Then isn’t what the paper says true?” she asked in bewilderment. “I
mean about his having joined the firm of Miles Rushworth? I thought
the Rushworths were shipping millionaires?”
“So they are. And it’s quite true that Lexton had just got a job in
the Rushworths’ London office. He was well connected, and had a lot of
good-natured friends who were always trying to get him something to
do. However----” and then he quoted the familiar Latin tag concerning
ill words of the dead.
She gazed across at him. His dark face, now convulsed with feeling,
was partly illumined by the lamp which stood on a low table between
them.
“Is it conceivable, my son----”
Then she, like him, stopped short, afraid to utter the words she was
going to say.
“Yes, mother?”
His voice had suddenly become listless. He had dropped her hand, and
was lying back in his chair. He was feeling spent, worn out.
“Have you any reason to suppose, my boy, that you are in danger of
being accused of having poisoned Jervis Lexton?”
He straightened himself, got up, and then gazed down into her pale but
still calm face, and she saw that he looked, if surprised, yet
unutterably relieved.
“Yes, mother! That is what I came down to tell you. But what made you
hit on the truth?”
Should she tell him the reason why that frightful thought had come
into her mind? After a moment of indecision, she decided that she
ought to do so.
“Can’t you guess why that fearful suspicion came into my mind, Roger?”
His eyes fell before her sad, steady, questioning gaze.
She went on slowly, “I said a word to you the evening of the day you
brought Mrs. Lexton down here. I suppose you didn’t take my advice?”
“There are certain things about which a man must judge for himself,
mother. And with regard to my friendship for Mrs. Lexton I judged for
myself.”
He sat down again and covered his eyes with his right hand. The words
he had just uttered had brought Ivy vividly before him.
“Now tell me everything, Roger.”
“There’s very little to tell,” said Gretorex, raising his head. “I
feel sure, quite sure, mother, that there’s some perfectly natural
explanation of what now seems so mysterious.”
“If, as I hope, you have come down to consult with me as to what is
the best thing to do, then I trust that you will tell me the whole
truth. After all, I am your mother, my darling.”
Her voice rose in entreaty.
“Whom should you trust, if you do not trust me?”
He felt very much moved, and, to her surprise, he came and knelt down
by her.
She put her arms round him. “Now tell me everything,” she whispered.
And he did tell her almost everything. But he did not tell her, and he
never told anyone, of his telephone talk with Ivy Lexton.
His mother was quick to see the flaw in his apparently frank account
of all that had happened that morning.
“How did you first hear of Mr. Lexton’s death?” she asked. “You were
there, I note from the date given in this paper, on the afternoon of
the day he died. You must in fact have gone straight to the station,
from your unfortunate call on the poor man.”
“I did, mother.”
“Then how, and when, did you hear of his death, Roger?”
He got up and went across to the chair where he had been sitting.
“I found a note from Ivy when I arrived at Ferry Place this morning.
She knew I was away, and she sent me the note to await me on my
return. It was written, evidently, some days ago.”
“I hope you have kept her note.”
He shook his head. “No, mother, I didn’t keep it. There was really
nothing in it--simply the bare statement that Jervis Lexton was dead.
She had had an awful shock, and she said she didn’t want to see
anyone.”
“Then you’ve not seen Mrs. Lexton since her husband’s death?”
“No, I have not seen her.”
There trembled on the poor mother’s lips a further question--“Or had
any further communication with her?” But she feared he might be
tempted to tell her a lie, so she refrained from asking that, to her,
important question.
Instead she said, “Though you have not put it into words, you feel
sure that the man from Scotland Yard suspects you poisoned Jervis
Lexton so that his wife would be free to marry you?”
“That is certainly what the inspector had in his mind, when he
questioned me as to my acquaintance with her.”
“Forgive me for asking you the question, Roger. I suppose you would
marry Mrs. Lexton, if you had the chance?”
He said at once, “I’d give my soul to marry her, mother. I love
her--love her more, I think, than man ever loved woman.”
She gave him a searching look. “Does she love you?”
He hesitated, painfully. “I’ve seen very little of her lately. I know
she felt we were not doing right in seeing as much as we were seeing
of each other.”
And then he sighed, a long, long sigh.
“Try to love her, mother. She is free now, and she is all my life.
Please, please try to love her for my sake.”
“I will, my darling boy.”
Mrs. Gretorex was ashamed of the hatred--she acknowledged to herself
that it had been hatred--of Ivy Lexton which had filled her heart. She
now told herself that this woman whom her boy adored must have some
good in her.
There came the sound of the front door opening.
“Here, I think, is Enid Dent,” exclaimed Mrs. Gretorex.
Roger jumped up from his chair, and went forward to meet the girl who,
as he knew deep in his heart, loved him.
Was it because he had known that his mother eagerly desired him to
marry Enid, or was it simply because he knew her too well? Be that as
it may, it had only taken three meetings with Ivy Lexton, the wife of
another man, to blot Enid out from his heart.
To-day, the most terrible day of his life, the sight of her honest,
thoughtful face brought comfort. For one thing, it was such an
infinite relief to know that in Enid Dent his mother would have an
entirely trustworthy, devoted support and stay, during days which he
feared must be anxious and painful days, terrible days to remember,
though he had no doubt at all as to the ultimate result of any inquiry
into the facts surrounding Lexton’s death.
As for Enid Dent, she had loved Roger Gretorex with a silent,
unswerving devotion since she had first known what love meant. Though
he himself was scarcely aware of it, his whole manner had changed
during the last few months, and while this caused her sharp anguish,
which she had successfully hidden from those about her, it had never
occurred to her, strangely enough, that that alteration had come about
because of another woman.
Now, gazing from the mother to the son, she understood at once that
they were both in deep trouble.
“I’m afraid I’ve come too soon,” she said.
“I’m glad you came early, my dear. We’re going to have supper in a few
minutes, for Roger has to go back to town to-night.”
Old Bolton hobbled into the room.
“Rosie Holt says you promised to see her some time to-day, ma’am.
She’s in the kitchen. Shall I show her into the drawing-room?”
Mrs. Gretorex made a great effort over herself.
“Yes, please do, Bolton,” she said quietly, “and I’ll come and see
her.”
Roger turned to Enid:
“I wonder if you’d take a short turn before supper? I don’t get nearly
enough exercise in London.”
“Of course I will.”
They went into the hall, and she hurried on her hat and coat. It was
fully a year since she had last taken even a short walk with Roger
Gretorex.
Once they were in the open air, in the kindly darkness, he drew her
arm through his.
“Enid, I want to tell you something.”
He spoke almost in a whisper--as if he were afraid he might be
overheard.
“Yes, Roger?” and she slightly pressed his arm.
“I’m in trouble,” he said sombrely; “in great trouble, my dear. What
makes it worse is the knowledge of how unhappy it is going to make my
mother.”
And then at once, for though she was young she was no fool--your
country-bred girl often knows a great deal more of real life than your
town-bred girl--Enid Dent said to herself that Roger’s trouble was
connected with a woman.
“Tell me all about it,” she said quietly, and she stiffened herself to
bear a blow.
“I will tell you all about it. But I’m afraid you will be very much
shocked.”
To that she made no answer. No doubt some London girl was bringing a
breach of promise action against Roger. That was the sort of trouble
Enid Dent visualised.
“Things are never so bad when one talks them over,” she said, and
tried to smile in the dark night. “Nothing could make me feel any
different to you, Roger. Why, you’re my oldest friend!”
They were walking away from the house, down a broad path where they
had often played when he was a boy of twelve and she a little girl of
five.
“No talking can make any difference to my trouble,” and there came a
harsh note in his voice.
They walked along in silence, and then he gently shook himself free of
her arm.
“I’ve reason to believe that in the next few days----”
He stopped short. The ignominy, the horror of what might be going to
happen to him, overwhelmed him.
“Yes, Roger? What is it that you think is going to happen? Tell me.”
He would have been surprised, indeed, if she had suddenly uttered
aloud the words that she was saying in her heart, “Don’t you see the
agony I am in? It’s cruel, cruel to keep me in suspense!”
“I think it possible, perhaps I ought to say likely, that I may be
arrested on a charge of murder, within the next few days.” He uttered
the dread words quietly enough. “And that though I assure you, Enid,
that I am absolutely innocent----”
She cut across his words, “You needn’t have troubled to tell me that,
Roger.”
“Though I’m absolutely innocent,” he repeated, “yet I’m beginning to
realise that appearances are very much against me. I’ve felt all this
afternoon as if I were living through a frightful nightmare, and I’m
always expecting to wake up and find it was only a dream, after all.”
Enid knew that this man she loved had a violent temper. She supposed
that he had had the kind of quarrel with another man in which one of
the two strikes out.
“I’ve been wondering, during the last few minutes, whether you would
be able to come up to London with my mother? It would be such a
comfort to know you were with her, if this thing really happens.”
“Of course I will!” she exclaimed.
He went on: “You’ve always been like a daughter to her, haven’t you?
And I know that, next to me, she loves you best in the world.”
“I think she does,” she whispered in a strangled voice, for she was
now near to tears. “But a long way after you, Roger.”
“Well, yes,” he answered, in a matter-of-fact tone; “no doubt a long
way after me. But still she loves you dearly, and she trusts you
utterly, as I do.”
“I’ll stay with her all through the trouble--if the trouble comes. I
promise you that, Roger.”
“It’s not that I have any doubt as to the outcome. The man whose death
is being, I feel sure, put down to my account, almost certainly
committed suicide. There’s no other solution possible.”
“Who was the man?” she asked diffidently.
“An acquaintance rather than a friend of mine, called Jervis Lexton.
He fell ill--that I have to admit is a mysterious point about the
whole business--about a fortnight ago. He died, rather suddenly, last
week, on the 16th. A post-mortem revealed the cause of death to have
been a virulent poison--arsenic. I saw him alone a few hours before he
died, and I have a jar of arsenic in my surgery. There you have the
story in a nutshell.”
He spoke in an awkward, constrained tone.
“Are you really going back to-night?” she asked. “Can’t you stay till
to-morrow morning? It would be such a comfort to Mrs. Gretorex.”
“I’m afraid I must go back. You see, I’ve a lot of patients, and it
isn’t fair to put all that work on another doctor.”
“I see.”
“I wonder if you and my mother can come to town to-morrow? She’d be
wretched, staying on here in suspense, waiting for news of what, after
all, may never happen.”
They were turning now towards the house, and as they emerged from
under the trees they both noticed that the front door was open.
Through it a shaft of bright light fell on the stone-paved courtyard,
and Gretorex suddenly became aware that, in the shadow, a motor with
hooded lights was drawn up.
“Who can that be at this time of the evening?” he said, surprised.
They walked swiftly across the wide lawn, and so on to the stone
pavement. Then, as they passed through the open door, they heard Mrs.
Gretorex’s voice and the unfamiliar voice of a man in the great hall.
“I think I hear my son coming in. In any case, I assure you he won’t
be long.”
Mrs. Gretorex uttered the words in a matter-of-fact yet anxious tone,
as if she feared the person she spoke to might not believe her.
Roger followed Enid through the lobby which separated the front door
from the hall, and then he saw his mother standing with a tall, slight
man whom Roger knew to be the Inspector of Police at Lynchester, the
county town hard by. They had met two months back in connection with a
local poaching affray.
“May I speak with you for a few moments in private, Dr. Gretorex?”
A look of great relief had come over the inspector’s face; he was
aware in what high regard Mrs. Gretorex was held throughout the
neighbourhood. He had also noticed the young lady who had just come
in, and knew her for the only daughter of a local magistrate. So he
was anxious to get through the unpleasant business which had brought
him to-night to Anchorford Hall, as quietly and quickly as possible.
“I’m quite at your service. We’ll go into the smoking-room, but----”
Gretorex turned right round and began rapidly walking towards the
front door.
As a matter of fact, the door had been left open, and he wished to
close it.
But the inspector believed his lawful prey intended to escape into the
darkness, and a hundred suspicious, angry thoughts flashed through his
mind.
What a thing it would be to have to search the downs and woods all
this coming night! ’Twould be like looking for a needle in a stack of
hay.
He strode past Mrs. Gretorex, and seized Roger with no gentle hand by
the collar.
“I’m surprised, sir, at your trying to get away. I didn’t expect such
a thing from you!”
Gretorex wrenched himself free.
“I don’t know what you mean!” he exclaimed angrily.
“Oh, yes, you do. You were making for that door.”
“I was making for the door to shut it.”
He was shaking with anger, and the two glared at each other for a
moment in silence.
Then the inspector took a step forward, and laid his hand on the young
man’s arm.
“I arrest you,” he said, in a voice that was not quite steady, “on the
charge of having murdered Jervis Lexton on the 16th of this month.”
Roger Gretorex stood still. Then he asked:
“May I speak to my mother in private for a moment?”
“No,” said the inspector quickly. “I cannot allow you to do that, Dr.
Gretorex. I’m sorry, but from now on you are my prisoner.”
“May I make a statement to you now? I suppose there is no objection to
my telling you that I’m absolutely innocent?”
The older man hesitated.
“I should advise you,” he said, not unkindly, “to make no statement.
You are, of course, aware that anything you say may be used against
you in evidence. I need hardly tell you that every facility will be
given you to procure legal advice.”
“And what is going to happen to me now?”
“You will go with me to Lynchester, and you will be kept there in a
police cell till you are conveyed to London to-morrow. Once there, as
you probably are aware, Dr. Gretorex, you will be taken to the police
station of the district where the alleged murder was committed, and in
due course you will be charged.”
Meanwhile the inspector was watching his prisoner closely. He was
remembering that during the brief telephone conversation with Scotland
Yard, which had led to his presence here, he had been reminded how
near Anchorford was to the sea, and he had been warned that he might
find his bird flown.
What a fool he would look if, after having actually arrested him, this
man effected even a temporary escape!
“May I shake hands with my mother and--and with my friends?”
“I will take it on myself to allow you to do that, Dr. Gretorex,” was
the cold reply. “Then, I’m afraid, we must be getting on.”
“Won’t you allow my son to have some supper before you take him away?”
asked Mrs. Gretorex. For the first time her voice was not quite
steady. “Won’t you both have supper here? It’s quite ready.”
“No, ma’am, I’m afraid I can’t do that. But I promise you your son
shall have something to eat, as good as I can get him at this time of
night, when we reach Lynchester.”
The inspector’s voice had become kindly, even respectful, to his
prisoner’s mother. He felt very sorry for her.
But for Roger Gretorex he was not at all sorry. He had been given to
understand, quite unofficially of course, that there was a married
woman in the case, and that she provided a strong enough motive to
hang a dozen times over the fine young fellow now standing by his
side.
“What I would advise you to do, ma’am--advising you as a private
person, I mean--would be to go up to London to-morrow morning, and get
in touch with a good solicitor. Dr. Gretorex will be allowed to see
his lawyer alone as much as he can reasonably require. At least that
is the usual procedure.”
Roger Gretorex held out his hand. Something seemed to warn him that it
would be wiser for him to remain standing exactly where he was
standing now. He felt that the inspector was watching him intently.
Mrs. Gretorex took a step forward. She shook hands quietly,
unemotionally, with her son.
And then something very unexpected happened--unexpected, that is, by
every one of the four people there.
Enid Dent approached Roger a little timidly. Had he not, a few moments
ago, called her his friend? When she was close to him, she looked up
into his face, for he was far taller than she. And then, all at once,
he bent forward and, putting his arms round her, he kissed her
good-bye.