The House Above the River (19 page)

The theory was not upset by the arrival at the General of a plain-clothes officer to see Henry. The object of his visit, he stated, was to check the man's passport. This seemed very reasonable, as they had accepted him under the name of Henri Dupont, and the passport he produced when admitted was in that name. There was clearly something a bit fishy about the man whom Dr. Williams knew as Henry Davenport.

In point of fact, Henry had two passports. The French one had been faked for him in the war, together with the other necessary papers of his assumed character, when he was passing backwards and forwards between Brittany and Plymouth. This had been done so well that he was able to renew it without difficulty when the war was over, and had kept it up to date for use on his summer trips. But he had, besides, an English passport in his own name, which he also carried with him on his visits to England, to prove his nationality if the need arose. The Southampton police sergeant sorted out this interesting information, but was unable to do anything about it. Apart from the assumed name on the French one, both his passports were in order. And the foreign one had been issued by the French authorities; it was not a forgery. But the position was sufficiently unusual to make the sergeant less sympathetic with Henry's illness. The chap was probably a shady character, anyway. In the atmosphere of a great port, smuggling was always present in the minds of the police. Perhaps the onions were only a cover-line.

These suspicions, though vague, were reinforced when Henry decided, a few days later, against advice, to go home. Southampton was sure now that he had been up to no good. The fact that he had nearly died of poisoning was beside the point, in the sergeant's view, and that of his superiors. Reluctantly they informed their opposite number in France. Henry was put in touch with Inspector Renaud; the confrontation plan was explained to him. The date for this was arranged two days ahead, when the
Marie Antoine
would arrive back from Southampton after her next call there. Henry was advised to make contact with the boat at once, and secure a passage in her. He did so, and left the hospital the same day. They were sorry to lose him, because he had been an interesting case, and was not yet completely cured. They made him sign the usual form handed to patients who take their own discharge against medical advice, and the house physician saw him into a taxi at the front door of the hospital. He went aboard the
Marie Antoine
that evening, and she sailed at midnight.

Meanwhile Giles had taken
Shuna
back to the Tréguier river. He avoided the landing-stage, dropping his anchor just outside the cluster of fishing boats, on the side of the little anchorage near the mouth of the creek, but out of the main current that swept through it on the tides. This was some distance from the hard, but he was unwilling to use the landing-stage any longer. He wanted to confirm his independence of the house above the river. If it had not been for Susan he would never have allowed himself to become embroiled there again.

Having got back to Perros late at night on the day before, he had felt too tired to make the very early start necessary to work the first tide of the next day. Since the harbour at Perros dried out, he would have to wait until at least half-tide on the flood before leaving. This would leave very few hours in which to get into the Tréguier river, though the stream would be with them along the coast when they reached the eastward side of the Isle Tomé. With a good breeze it could be done comfortably, but a fresh anticyclone had arrived, with cloudless skies, bright sun, but very little wind. So he decided to make a day of it, escaping from Perros just in time before
Shuna
took the ground. It was a pleasant meandering day of drifting about, taking advantage of any little puff that came; making his way, in a most leisurely fashion, out to sea during the morning, and back towards Tréguier in the afternoon. It was evening when they arrived.

Giles rowed ashore at once to telephone to Susan from the post office. She told him that Miriam was back.

“How is she?”

“Worse than ever. Lashing out at everyone, and then crying over the way she is being treated.”

“Who by? Not you, surely?”

“Inspector Renaud. No, she has taken back the lies she told him about me. Really, I don't think she knows what is the truth and what isn't. I think she believes everything she says as she goes along.”

“I think that was always the way of it.”

He paused, remembering so many occasions when that must have been true, and his younger self had been lacerated, not understanding her strange self-torturing nature.

“Hullo,” Susan said, wondering if he had hung up.

“I'm still here. Darling, I must see you. The sooner the better. Is the nonsense still on? I mean, can you leave the house?”

“The house, yes. Not the grounds. And not even the house, at night. It'll have to be tomorrow morning.”

“Then look. We'll come along, all three of us, round about ten. Be down near the main gates, but not near enough to worry the gendarmerie into thinking you are about to break out. Then Tony and Pip can go on up to the house, and we can go off down to the creek. I've a lot to say to you. Very important.”

Her voice was low, but quite steady as she answered, “Yes, Giles, I'll be there.”

“Good girl. ' Bye for now.”

He walked back to the hard, feeling calmer. All that day his pleasure in sailing had been overlaid by vague fears for Susan. Inspector Renaud was so obviously on the warpath, so determined to make something of the unusual opportunity that had come his way. And he had a most perplexing set of facts to sort out. No wonder he had been ready at first to jump to any easy conclusion that presented itself.

However, Susan's report must mean that the inspector was now exercising his common sense and native shrewdness. He was no fool, Giles had already discovered. He might want to employ the usual Gallic methods, and who should blame him for that? This business of bringing Henry back in secret might appear crude and old-fashioned to British eyes, but it was really no cruder than the verbal equivalent, the sudden unexpected question, the sudden production of a piece of evidence withheld until the suspect was at the point of breakdown. Well, they would have their confrontation, and Miriam would undoubtedly throw a fit. And where did Renaud go from there? What exactly would he have proved? What exactly was there to prove?

It was a hideous business altogether, Giles told himself. Miriam thought her husband was trying to kill her. Henry thought his wife had poisoned him. Which of them was right, if either? Or were they both right? Henry had been convinced, telling his story painfully from his bed in Southampton. Miriam could point to the strange accidents that might have taken her life, and which she was sure were directed to that purpose. She had a case, though it was not altogether clear. So had Henry. Neither of them had any real proof against the other. Would the whole thing peter out, as far as the law was concerned? Would they have to continue together in that fear-ridden house, with those strangled crimes lying between them?

Giles rowed back to
Shuna
from the hard, feeling more utterly depressed than ever before in his life. The cruel outline of the rocks at Pen Paluch was starkly black against the green afterglow of the sunset. There would be a late moon, and the light was fading fast.

Even the warmth and comfort of
Shuna
cabin, and Phillipa's excellent supper, failed to raise his spirits. The others asked for news of Susan, but did not pursue the subject. They made no objection when Giles decided to turn in early, but meekly took to their own sleeping-bags, and while he lay in darkness in his quarter-berth, making no sign that showed whether he were awake or slept, they read silently for a while, and then turned out the lights over their heads, and settled down for the long night, which Phillipa, at least, welcomed with joy.

At about two in the morning, in a night lit by the gibbous moon, with the river motionless at slack water on the ebb,
Marie Antoine
slid quietly to a berth off Penguerrec. She moored between two buoys provided for the use of larger vessels entering the river, and some three hundred yards from
Shuna
. No one saw her arrive except Inspector Renaud, shivering in a greatcoat on the hard beside the sea wall.

But Giles saw her go. He slept fitfully, and woke, as usual, at first light. Hearing the noise of engines and men calling to one another, he went up into the cockpit. He saw the onion boat cast off from the buoys, and as she turned to go down the river to the sea, he saw her name on her stern. It was cold on deck; the morning air struck at his body through his thin pyjamas. But a deeper chill froze his heart. He went below again, but not to sleep. He rightly judged that the show-down at the château was on, and he dreaded the outcome. But his voice, when the others woke up a few hours later was quiet, even casual, as he told them, “Henry's back.”

“No!”

Phillipa, fighting the gas under the kettle, burned her fingers on the taper in her excitement.

“Ouch! You shouldn't say these things, Giles, when I'm getting breakfast.”

“Sorry. I thought you'd like to know.”

“Did you see him?” Tony asked. “How did he come? When?”

“I saw very little. Only the backside of
Marie Antoine
, when she slipped her moorings this morning, early.”

“She wasn't in last night when we went to bed.”

“Exactly. I imagine she got here at low water or just after. So she can't have stopped more than a couple of hours. Just time to disembark Henry, I expect.”

“You don't actually
know
, then, that he came on that boat?” Phillipa said.

“Inspector Renaud told me she was bringing him over. She'd be due just about the time she did, in fact, put in here. On her way back to Roscoff, I suppose. Renaud wanted it all kept dark. Well, it was. Very dark.”

“I wonder where he is now?” Tony said, thoughtfully.

“We'll soon find out,” Phillipa put in. “It can't be kept from Miriam for ever. Besides, isn't the idea for him to turn up suddenly and surprise her into admitting she tried to poison him?”

“That is Inspector Renaud's theatrical intention,” agreed Giles. “Now listen. We're all going to the château this morning. Susan is going to be down by the gates, waiting for us. I hope we'll get through the gendarmerie all right. Then I want you two to go on up to the house, and talk to Miriam, while I go off with Susan for a little walk.”

“Yes,” said Phillipa, with full understanding.

They went ashore just before ten o'clock. There was a brief argument with the guard at the gates, but with Susan's arrival, almost at once, the opposition collapsed.

“Inspector Renaud knows me,” Giles insisted, for the tenth time.

“I am aware of that, monsieur. The inspector has given orders that no stranger or visitor shall be admitted this afternoon. He made no rule for this morning.”

“Then we can go to the house?”

Reluctantly, the man agreed. They all walked up the drive together until they were out of sight of the gate. Then they stopped.

“So the balloon goes up this afternoon,” said Giles, grimly.

“I think we ought to warn her,” Phillipa burst out. “It's a shocking way to treat her.”

“What is?” Susan asked.

Giles explained. The girl's face whitened.

“What would happen if we did tell her Henry is alive?”

“We should all be run in for obstructing the police in the performance of their duty,” said Giles. “I haven't the slightest doubt of Renaud's reaction. This is his big moment. If we baulk him of it, he'll have our blood, the lot of us.”

“I'm quite sure she did try to do Henry in,” Tony said. “I'm for not interfering.”

“But it's so heartless,” Phillipa insisted. “Couldn't we harp on the fact that his body hasn't been found, and we, personally, think he may be alive? She's sure to talk about it. I suppose it's her guilty conscience makes her so sure he must be dead.”

“Are we really certain he
is
alive?” asked Susan. “He left the hospital, I suppose, if Renaud said he was on the way back. But he was very ill, wasn't he, Giles? He may have died on the voyage, or anything. I mean, we don't
know
, do we? It would be safer not to tell her anything.”

Giles put an arm round her and drew her away.

“None of us really knows anything,” he said over his shoulder, to the others. “We've done a lot of guessing, but haven't got many hard facts. And after all, Miriam called in the police herself, remember. It's up to her, now.”

“All right,” Phillipa said, as she and Tony moved away. “I don't like it. I feel very much like warning her. I'd really rather not see her at all. I'm only doing it for you, Giles. I hope you're grateful.”

“Deeply,” he said, and made a face at her. She hurried off to catch up Tony, who had walked on.

“I don't think you need be too sensitive about our position,” Tony said, “unless and until a crime has been committed. It hasn't been proved yet that one has, you know.”

They were received by Marie, and taken to Miriam's sitting-room. They found her sitting quietly by the open window, reading a book. She was dressed in deep mourning.

As they went in, she rose to her feet and greeted them, with a gentle, patient dignity of bearing that impressed them both against their will.

“It is kind of you to call,” she said, when her guests were seated.

“We wanted to say how sorry we were to hear of your …” Phillipa began. She meant to finish with the word “anxiety”, but Miriam forestalled her.

“My terrible loss,” she said. “My great and tragic loss. How kind of you both. I understand you are staying at Perros. That was where Giles said his boat is now, I think.”

“No. We came back here yesterday.”