Vanishing Point (20 page)

Rosamond lay dreaming. She walked in a spring garden with Craig. The dark wood was a thing of the past, she didn’t seem to remember it any more. This was a spring garden. There were apple trees rosy with bloom, there was cherry blossom. The path where they walked was set on either side with daffodils and coloured primroses. There was a blue sky over head, and the sun shone. She woke to darkness and a voice that called her name.

“Rosamond! Wake up!”

It was Craig’s voice. The sweetness of the dream was still round her. She sat up beside Jenny in the wide old-fashioned bed and called softly,

“What is it?”

“It’s Craig. Come over here to the window. I want to speak to you.”

They kissed with the bars between them. He held her.

“Darling, I hate to wake you like this, but we’ve got to push the time on a bit.”

“What is it?”

“I’ll tell you afterwards. Look here, it’s nearly six o’clock. I want you to wake Jenny and get dressed—both of you. If you’ll let me in by the side door, I’ll be getting you some tea. I don’t want to start our married life by starving you. I suppose there’ll be eggs?”

“There ought to be. But, Craig—”

“My sweet, there’s no time for any buts—you’ve just got to do what I say! Put on your dressing-gown and let me in, and I’ll wrestle up some food while you get packed.”

She did what she was told. It might have been part of the dream—darker than the one from which she had come and full of questioning thoughts. They did not pass her lips. There was a sense of urgency, of fear. If Lydia Crewe should wake—she shrank appalled at the threat of what scene would follow and of what the bitter tongue might say. The thoughts came and went. There was no time to dwell on them. The sense of urgency persisted. It was in Craig’s clasp and kiss when the garden door swung open to let him in. It was in the quiet haste with which he sent her back to dress as soon as she had shown him the way to the kitchen.

Jenny was awake when she got back, and the light was on. There sprang up in her a picture of Lydia Crewe standing at her window to look out and seeing that bright rectangle printed on the path. It was her custom to sleep with windows closed and curtains drawn, but in the picture Lydia stood at the window to watch the light from Rosamond’s room. She might have stood there to listen when Craig spoke from the other side of the bars. Rosamond did not know that Lydia Crewe would never stand at those windows to listen and watch again. She made haste to draw the curtains across her own.

Jenny was stretching and, yawning.

“Darling, it’s the middle of the night. Where have you been?”

Rosamond said soberly,

“It’s after six. Craig wants us to come with him now. Hurry up and get dressed! He’s making tea in the kitchen.”

Jenny stopped yawning to blow her a kiss. Her eyes sparkled, the sleep all gone from them.

“Ooh! Lovely! We mustn’t make any noise, must we? Suppose she heard us and came along snorting out fire and forbidding the bans!”

Rosamond was stepping into her clothes. She said briefly,

“We should go all the same—she couldn’t stop us. But hurry!”

As they turned from the side passage which served their room and Lydia Crewe’s, Jenny looked back. Words came tumbling out of her mouth in a whisper.

“What do you say when you are going away from a place you hate with all your might? It can’t be ‘Good-bye’ because that means ‘Good be with you,’ and it can’t be ‘Farewell.’ It had better be ‘Horrid, horrible place, I hope I shall never, never, NEVER see you again!’ ” She caught at Rosamond’s arm. “Run, before it comes after us and pulls us back!”

Rosamond could feel that the hand was shaking. She steadied her own voice to say,

“I can’t run with two suit-cases. And there’s no need—no one will come after us.”

It was whilst she was saying it that she could feel for the first time that it was true. They crossed the hall. She had left one light burning there. It did very little with the darkness except to show how the shadows clung about the stairway, and how black was the upper landing and the mouth of every passage. Somewhere in the gloom above their heads the ancestral portraits watched them go. It was a relief to pass the baize door at the back of the hall and find bright lights beyond. Craig seemed to have switched on everything as he came to it.

He was fishing eggs out of a boiling saucepan as they came into the kitchen. There was a cloth spread on the table. Cups and saucers, butter and a loaf, stood ready. He called over his shoulder,

“Get out the salt and pepper, and the knives! Oh, and the milk—the kettle is just going to boil!”

It wasn’t romantic, but it was extremely reassuring. When the baize door fell to they had left the haunted shadows behind them. Kitchens don’t have ghosts. Or at least no more alarming ones than the lingering aroma of bygone meals. They ate and washed up what they had used. Mrs. Bolder would miss the eggs and know that the bread and the butter had been cut, but she wouldn’t be able to say that they had left their cups and plates for her to deal with.

It was striking seven when they let themselves out of the side door and walked down the drive to where Craig had left his car. It was a still, cold morning, and the darkness had begun to thin away.

Mrs. Selby woke up. She had heard the clock strike quarter after quarter all through the night, and then quite suddenly she was asleep. Or was she? She didn’t know. The clock had stopped striking. Everything was very still and very cold. She was quite alone—there wasn’t anyone or anything. It was more frightening than the most frightening dream.

Then into the emptiness and silence there came something that must have been a sound. She didn’t know where it came from, but it woke her. She sat up in bed and heard a car come down the lane. It was quite dark in the room. She didn’t care about having windows open and the night air coming in, and she kept her curtains drawn. Horrid and damp the night air was in the country, and she didn’t hold with letting it in. Besides there were bats, and if a bat got into the room she would go crazy. Fred, now, he liked his windows open—said the room got stuffy if they were shut, and he couldn’t sleep. Well, she couldn’t sleep with them open, so he had his own room, and she had hers. It wasn’t what she had thought they would ever come to. Married people ought to sleep together, and that was a fact. But have those windows open on the ground floor, and cats and bats and goodness knows what coming in, she couldn’t and she wouldn’t. There hadn’t been any unpleasantness over it—she would have liked it better if there had been. What she didn’t like was the feeling that Fred was just as well pleased to have it this way. He ought to have been put about and have made a fuss, instead of just smiling to himself and saying, “Have it your own way, my dear.”

She sat up in bed and heard four men get out of the car. She knew that there were four, because she heard them talking, and not troubling to keep their voices down neither. They came up to the door and she heard the buzz of the electric bell. Well, she wasn’t opening doors in her nightgown—Fred would have to go. But she got out of bed and went to the window. With the curtains pulled a little to one side to make a peephole she could see that it wasn’t dark any more, just the grey of the early morning, and the clouds so low that they would be bound to have rain before you could turn round. Funny how you got to notice the weather down here in the country. When they lived in town she never noticed it unless it was snow, or hail, or a thunderstorm, or one of those hot spells when it didn’t seem as if there was enough air to go round.

The electric bell went again. This time the man kept his thumb on it. She could see him now, and the others, standing round the door waiting for someone to come. Policemen! She let the curtain fall and stepped back, cold and shaking. What did the police want, coming here like this before anyone was dressed? Fred would have to go to the door. They would have to wait. She reached for her dressing-gown, clutched it about her shoulders, and went in barefoot to the room at the back where he slept. The draught from the open window met her. He lay facing it with his back to her and the bedclothes huddled up around his ears. She had to pull them away and shake him before he roused, flinging out an arm and grumbling, “What’s the matter?”

“The police, Fred!”

He said, “Nonsense!” And then, sharply, “What do they want?”

“I don’t know. I can’t go to the door like this.”

He gave the bedclothes such a shove that they fell over onto the floor and hung trailing. Someone was banging on the door now. He threw her an angry look and went padding down the passage to open it.

Mrs. Selby stood where she was. She got her arms into her dressing-gown and did up the buttons. There was talk going on, but she couldn’t hear what was said. It would be something about Miss Holiday. She didn’t want to hear what it was. Every time she thought of that poor thing going down the well it made her feel giddy and sick.

There were footsteps in the passage, and Fred came back into the room. He looked as if he might be getting a chill. A raw morning like this he ought to have his clothes on. There was one of the policemen with him. He cleared his throat and said,

“You’d better go back to your room, ma’am. Mr. Selby is going to get dressed.”

And Fred said,

“Yes, my dear. Better get your clothes on, and then you can make us some tea. The police just want to go over the premises again, and as I tell them, I’m sure we’ve no objection. We’ve got nothing to hide.”

The constable coughed behind his hand. Like a stabbing knife the thought came into her mind, “What has Fred been up to?” He had a smile on his face, and to anyone who didn’t know him like she did his voice was just the jolly, friendly voice he’d use for company. But it couldn’t take her in. There was something wrong, and he was trying to put a face on it.

She went into her own room and put on the first clothes that came to hand, a royal blue skirt and jumper and a purple cardigan. She dragged a comb through her hair and tidied it. The bright colours gave her a ghastly look, but she didn’t think about that. She put on her stockings and a pair of quilted slippers with a fleecy lining that were warm to her feet. She took a little pleasure from the warmth.

Fred came out of his room, and there was a trampling of feet through the house and out by the back door. Mrs. Selby went into the kitchen and put a kettle on the oil stove, but it had boiled, and come off the boil, and cooled, and gone back on a low flame, before anyone came into the house. The rain was falling in a steady drizzle when she went to the back door and looked out. Sometimes there was nothing to see except the rain falling on the hen-houses, and the hens, rather draggled, pecking and scratching in their runs. Sometimes the men came into view, crossing from one shed to another. There were two good sheds on the place. She couldn’t think what they wanted with them.

In the end the trampling feet were back in the house again. Only one of the men came through into the kitchen, the Inspector from Melbury. He came right up to her with his hand shut down over something and stood there, the kitchen table between them. Then he laid down his hand on the bright checked cloth and opened it, and there in the middle of his palm was one of Miss Holiday’s beads. There was no mistaking it— bright sky-blue, with those gold and silver flakes mixed in under the glass. Her mouth opened, and before she could stop herself she said,

“But that’s one of Miss Holiday’s beads!”

The Inspector said,

“Sure about that, Mrs. Selby?”

“Oh, yes—of course I’m sure. Why, she—”

There was a chair beside her. She sat down on it and stared at him.

“Mrs. Selby, when you gave us a description of what Miss Holiday was wearing on Sunday night you included a string of blue beads. Do you identify this bead as having formed part of that string?”

Her voice had sunk away. She could hardly hear it herself when she said,

“Yes—”

He said,

“When Miss Holiday’s body was taken up out of the well the string of beads had broken, but some of them were discovered in her clothing. This bead has just been found in the last of the sheds we searched. It had slipped inside the mouth of an old sack. Is there any way in which you can account for its being there?”

She said, “No.”

“Miss Holiday was alive when you saw her last?”

“Oh, yes.”

“She was wearing these beads?”

“Oh, yes.”

“The string wasn’t broken?”

“Oh, no.”

“Did you see her again after she left this house?”

He had taken her back to the Sunday evening—sitting there with Miss Holiday in the lounge—seeing the blue beads and thinking how pretty they were when the bits of gold and silver sparkled under the light—going to the door with her and seeing her out. Everything else seemed to have slipped away. It was just saying good-bye on the Sunday evening that was real. She could see Miss Holiday going out of the front door, and herself shutting it and turning the key. She said,

“I let her out, and I locked the door. I never saw her again.”

When Lydia Crewe stopped screaming she began to talk. She talked through all that remained of the night, and she was still talking when they brought Fred Selby into the station and began to question him there after cautioning him that anything he said might be taken down and used in evidence. Lydia Crewe had been cautioned too, but it made no difference, she just went on talking. Something—some control, some check, had slipped. Frank Abbott was reminded of a clock belonging to his grandmother, the redoubtable Lady Evelyn Abbott. It had started striking in the middle of family prayers and no one had been able to stop it. Her look of surprise and disapproval merging into outraged rebuke remained with him as a pleasant memory.

But there was nothing pleasant about Lydia Crewe’s performance. Plainly enough, she had passed the bounds of sanity whilst remaining dreadfully and convincingly lucid. First and foremost there stood out pride in her own achievements. To preserve Crewe House, to endow it with new wealth, were objects which justified all that she had done, and she took great pride in the doing of it. When they told her that her conversation about the Melbury rubies had been overheard by two witnesses and the rubies themselves recovered, two from the bodies of spiders freshly mounted by Henry, and the rest from his table drawer, she ran off into telling them exactly how she had changed the stones.

“What was the good of them to Felicia Melbury or to anyone else kept locked up in a safe? How many times do you suppose she wore them last year? Exactly twice—at the County Ball and the Melbury Hunt Ball! So I rang her up and said could I come over—we are connected by marriage, you know—and when I got there she told me she was wearing the famous necklace, which I knew already, and she was quite pleased to show it off. So I had my chance. You wouldn’t understand the process, because I invented it myself—paper specially prepared to take an exact impression. It has, of course, to be supplemented by a keen colour sense and a photographic memory, both of which I possess. I had only to invent a pretext for getting her out of the room for a moment. I said that I had forgotten my handkerchief, and she went into her bedroom next door to get me one. By the time she returned the impression had been taken and the paper was safe in my bag. To make a finished sketch from which a jeweller could work was a business requiring a great deal of skill. The stones for the substitute necklace came from Paris to my specification. Selby has an extremely clever workman in his shop in Garstin Street. You didn’t know he had a jeweller’s shop, did you—but no one expects the police to be clever. We outwitted you every time.”

The Melbury superintendent said nothing. A massive man, not given to change of countenance. Frank Abbott said,

“Not this time, Miss Crewe.”

She went on as if he had not spoken.

“It’s just a shabby shop in a shabby street—pins on brooches, and watches to mend—cheap strings of pearls for the local girl to put round her neck and think she looks like somebody. You didn’t know Selby had a shop like that, did you? He retired from the business he used to run with his brother, but he stuck to his little jeweller’s shop and the clever Hirsch—a very industrious man and actually very trustworthy. When the necklace was ready I had only to wait for the Hunt Ball and go over to Melbury Towers again. Felicia doesn’t like me, but she is afraid of my tongue. I go there when I choose, and she is always very polite. There is very little I don’t know about most people in the county. I went over, I admired the necklace, and I changed it for the one which Hirsch had made. She was actually in the room at the time. I had called her attention to something in the garden, and the change only took a moment.”

The harsh voice went on and on. She was asked about Miss Holiday. She took up the tale of the envelope thrust carelessly into an overall pocket by a frightened woman and dropped again for Lucy Cunningham to pick up and bring back to Crewe House.

“So then, you see, she had to go. She might have looked inside and seen the sketch for the necklace. Selby managed very cleverly.”

The Superintendent said,

“How did he manage?”

Her eyes looked past him, pleased like a cat with a bird.

“I went across the fields and let him know. He said she would be coming down to see his wife as soon as he went past to the Holly Tree. She was frightened of men, you know! Such a fool! He said he could slip out and catch her just before nine, when she would be going home. She always went at the same time because the old woman locked up then. He said no one would miss him if he slipped out for a minute or two like that. It’s no distance. So that is what he did.”

“He killed Miss Holiday?”

“Oh, no, he only stunned her. And we put her in one of the sheds at the back of the bungalow. You see, we couldn’t put her down the well until quite late in the night in case of there being anyone awake. It wouldn’t have done for Mrs. Selby to notice anything, or old Mrs. Maple.”

The Superintendent put his hand to his chin.

“Miss Crewe, you have been warned that what you say is being taken down and may be used in evidence. Am I to understand that you were present when Miss Holiday was first stunned and at some time later thrown into the well at the bottom of Mrs. Maple’s garden?”

Her glance flickered over him, dry and bright.

“Oh, yes—he couldn’t possibly have managed without me. There is a most convenient path across the fields which comes out at the stile in Vicarage Lane quite close to the Selbys’ bungalow. I can assure you the whole thing was extremely well organized. I spared no trouble. You must understand, Superintendent, that the controlling mind has been my own throughout. Selby has been useful, but he has always taken his orders from me. He is quite incapable of working out the intricate plans which have made our enterprise so successful. I must insist that you are clear on this point.”

“And Mr. Cunningham—what was his position?”

She said, “Oh, Henry!” Her hands gestured as if letting something fall. Her rings flashed under the light. Frank Abbott thought, “They’ll take them away, and she’ll mind like hell.”

An odd irrelevancy which came and went in between one breath and the next.

“Henry!” she said. “Why, he couldn’t plan anything if he tried! All he could do was to mount the stones in his specimens. And we never told him anything we could help. He liked doing the work, but the other side of it worried him. He really made some excellent models of caterpillars. Some of them are quite large, and he was very clever about packing them with diamonds. You can get quite a number of diamonds into one of those big caterpillars. He used some stuff like plasticine and painted them when they were dry. They were supposed to be used for instructional purposes abroad.”

Frank Abbott’s light sardonic gaze rested upon her.

“Very ingenious, Miss Crewe. The whole thing must have given you a great deal of thought. May I ask whether the disappearance of Maggie Bell was another instance of your ingenuity? I suppose she saw something she wasn’t meant to see at the Dower House, and when Henry Cunningham told you about it you took the matter in hand?”

Her brows drew together in a frown.

“What do you know about Maggie Bell?”

He leaned back in his chair, his pose negligent, his voice easy.

“Well, if you ask me what I think, I should say Henry was careless. Let me see—you had already got away with Lady Melbury’s necklace. You may have intended to get the stones out of the country a year ago, and then have decided to wait. Henry may have had some of them to pack into a specimen. At a guess, he probably left them lying about loose on his blotting-pad while he went out of his room, and when he came back, there was Maggie Bell looking at them.”

“She had no business in his study,” said Lydia Crewe severely. “She had been told she must never interrupt him when he was working. If people disregard orders they must take the consequences.”

“May I ask how you induced her to—er—take them? How did that clever planning brain of yours deal with what must have been quite a dangerous situation?”

“Naturally I saw at once that the matter was urgent. Maggie would not be likely to mention anything she had seen to her parents—very disagreeable people and interested in nothing except themselves and their ailments. But Maggie used to slip down to that cousin of hers who works for Mrs. Merridew, Florrie Hunt. Lucy Cunningham happened to mention that she was going there that evening. Lucy always mentions everything—a tiresome habit, but sometimes it is convenient. I told Selby to have his car ready and to pick me up. The Hunts’ house is the last in the village, and we drew up beyond it. I went back, and when Maggie came along I was waiting for her. I said I had a note for Mrs. Hunt, and she walked with me to the car to get it. Really a very stupid woman, though quite an efficient worker. I told her to get into the car, as there was something I wanted to explain about the note. When Selby had dealt with her, we disposed of the body and went home. There was really no risk about it at all. Selby posted two cards which I had prepared, and everyone thought she had just got bored with Hazel Green and gone off.”

“What did you do with the body?” said the Superintendent.

Lydia Crewe bridled—there was no other word for it. The effect was ghastly.

“Ah!” she said. “You never found out, did you? If you had found a body, people wouldn’t have believed she had run away, would they? So I took good care that the body should not be found!”

Frank Abbott raised his eyebrows and said,

“Well, we have only your word for it that she didn’t run away, haven’t we? All that clever plan of yours that you’ve been telling us about rather goes by the board without any evidence to back it up. Personally, I shan’t believe a word of it unless you can produce the body. If you really disposed of it as you say you did, then you will be able to tell us what you did with it, and when we have found it you can expect us to believe your story. At the moment I don’t feel particularly credulous.” She went on talking.