Danger Point (17 page)

“It’s certainly a very interesting case,” said Miss Silver.

MISS SILVER was walking along the high street next day, when she saw Mrs. Dale Jerningham get out of a car and go into Ashley’s through the big swing door. The car, which was driven by Rafe Jerningham, moved on again at once and disappeared amongst the traffic. Miss Silver watched it go. She thought it turned down into Market Square, but she wasn’t sure. She followed the tall, slim figure in white and came up with it in the Ladies’ Outfitting.

“Good-morning, Mrs. Jerningham.”

Lisle turned from the counter, startled.

“Miss Silver!”

“We do keep meeting, don’t we?” said Miss Silver affably.

Lisle said “Yes” in a rather shaken tone. They did keep on meeting — but it couldn’t mean anything — if it did mean anything, it would mean… She said, hurrying to get away from her own thoughts, “I’m getting a bathing-dress. Mine got torn —” And there her voice faltered and dropped.

Miss Silver gave her little cough.

“Ah, yes — that would be when you were nearly drowned, would it not? I remember you told me. But you did not tell me how it happened, or who saved you. You were bathing with your husband and his cousins, were you not?”

The elderly saleswoman brought a pile of stockinette bathing-dresses and put them down on the counter.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind looking these through, Mrs. Jerningham. We’re rather busy this morning.” She went away.

There was no one near them at that counter. Lisle picked up a cream jersey tunic and said,

“Oh, I think I made too much of it. I couldn’t have been in any real danger.”

“It is most alarming to get out of one’s depth,” said Miss Silver. “I think you mentioned that you were not a good swimmer.”

Lisle tried for a smile.

“Oh, not at all. And the others are so good. I went farther out than I meant to and could not get back, and they were laughing, and splashing, and ducking one another, so they didn’t hear me.” She looked at Miss Silver with wide, darkened eyes. “It’s rather horrid when you call and no one hears you.”

“But somebody did hear you,” said Miss Silver briskly.

Lisle’s golden brown lashes came down and hid her eyes. A bright colour showed in her cheeks and ebbed again. She said in a soft, confused voice,

“I don’t know — I don’t remember — it was just like drowning — I went down, you know.”

“Who saved you, Mrs. Jerningham?”

“There was a man bathing off the beach. People aren’t supposed to — the ground all belongs to Tanfield — but he had run his car on to the downs and come down by the cliff path. I don’t even know his name — nobody thought of asking him. But he heard me call and saw me go down, and swam out and brought me in. I was quite a long time coming round.” She stopped and went on again, stumbling over her words. “It — it was dreadful for my — husband and — the others to — to think of my being nearly drowned so — so close to them. Dale was — was dreadfully upset. And my bathing-dress got torn at the neck where the man caught hold of me, so — so I have to get another. I haven’t bathed since, but it’s no good putting it off, is it? The only way to get over being nervous about a thing is to go on and do it. Don’t you think so?”

“Sometimes,” said Miss Silver. “But I don’t think I should go out of my depth if I were you.”

Lisle said, “No.” And then, “Rafe said that too. But Dale is such a good swimmer that he wants me to try — Which of these shall I get? Do you like the cream? I have a cream rubber cap.”

“I shouldn’t go out of my depth,” said Miss Silver gravely. “Are you coming to see me, my dear?”

Lisle looked at her for a moment, and then looked away. The look held sadness, but no embarrassment.

“I don’t think I can.”

Miss Silver came nearer.

“I want to ask you a question. Will you believe that I have a serious reason for asking it, and not think me impertinent?”

Lisle raised her head and looked round quickly. They were alone at the counter. To the right the stocking counter was doing a brisk business. They were as much alone as if four solid walls had closed them in. She said in a young, warm voice,

“I should never think that.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“You told me you had made a will in your husband’s favour. I want to ask you whether there were any other substantial legacies.”

Lisle caught her breath. She had not expected this. Rafe… She repeated the name aloud.

“Rafe — there was one for Rafe.”

“Does he know that?”

“Yes — I told him—”

“A substantial legacy?”

“Twenty thousand pounds.”

Miss Silver leaned towards her and said in the lowest possible voice,

“Mrs. Jerningham — will you take my advice? Will you do something?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Ring up your solicitor — now, at once, from here. Tell him you are not satisfied with your will and you propose to make a new one. Tell him you wish the old one destroyed — now, at once. I do not know whether he will take such an instruction over the telephone. If he knows you well enough to be quite sure that it is you who are speaking, he may do so — it does not really very much matter. Instruct him to do it and ring off. Then go home and tell every member of your family what you have done. Make any excuse you like, but make it quite clear that you have given instructions to have your existing will destroyed. Go up to town as soon as you can and make sure that these instructions have been carried out. Make a provisional will leaving everything to some charity.”

Lisle did not look at her. She put out a hand and groped for Miss Silver’s hand. Her eyes were fixed upon the cream-coloured bathing-dress. She said,

“Why — why?”

“Don’t you know why? Come and see me, my dear.”

The fair head was very slightly shaken.

“I can’t do that.” The hand on Miss Silver’s wrist withdrew.

Miss Silver looked at her.

“Take my advice and do not go out of your depth.”

The saleswoman was coming back. “I’m out of it already,” said Lisle Jerningham in an extinguished voice.

LISLE sat silent in the front of Rafe’s little car. He looked sideways at her when they were clear of the town and said,

“Why so pale and wan, honey-sweet? Didn’t the shopping go well? You didn’t tell me what you were going to buy.”

A brief colour came to the cheek across which his glance had travelled — came, and went again.

“I bought a bathing-dress. Mine got torn—”

He said, “Yes — so it did.”

She saw his left hand tighten on the wheel. The knuckles showed bone-white under the brown skin. He might have been remembering twenty minutes of as hot a day as this, with her body limp and cold in a torn bathing-dress, whilst he and Dale and a stranger laboured to make reluctant lungs breathe again.

He laughed suddenly.

“Messed it up properly, didn’t you?

Are you all set on going bathing again?”

“I shan’t go out of my depth.” She felt her cheeks burn, and said in a hurry, “Did I keep you waiting? I didn’t mean to. I — I met someone.”

“So did I — one always does. I hope yours was amusing. Mine was the last girl friend but three — or four — or even more — anyhow there she was, shamelessly buxom, with twins in a double perambulator. I must say I like my lost loves to show a decent melancholy when they run into me like that.”

Lisle could not help laughing. She got a look poignant with reproach.

“Do you know, she married a fat man who jobs stocks. As Tennyson says:

‘Oh, my Amy, mine no more!

Oh, the dreary, dreary moorland! Oh, the barren, barren shore!

Is it well to wish thee happy? — having known me — to decline

On a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine?‘”

Lisle’s eyes danced.

“Perhaps she was afraid your heart was going to be too wide. She might have got lost in the crowd.”

He shook his head.

“I don’t go in for crowds. I’m highly selective, like the best wireless sets. Only one station at a time — no overlapping, no jamming, no atmospherics — perfect reception. Try our 1939 ten-valve super-het and be happy ever after! You’d think some would jump at it, wouldn’t you? But no — they go off and marry butchers, and bakers, and candlestick-makers and have twins.”

“How many girls have there really been, Rafe?”

“I’ve lost count years ago. It’s the quest for the ideal, you know. I always hope I’m going to find it, but I never do. If a girl’s got one thing, she hasn’t got another. The odds are that the perfect complexion means a perfect circulation and a refrigerating plant instead of a heart, and if they dance like a dream they’re no good at soothing the brow when it’s wrung with pain and anguish. I don’t mind walking out with a hard-hearted Hannah, but I’m damned if I’m going to live with one — and that’s not swearing, it’s bed-rock fact, because I should probably get up in the night and cut her throat.”

Lisle shivered and said, “Don’t!”

“Don’t worry, darling, I’m not going to. My trouble is that I want too much — beauty, charm, delight, and all the moral virtues. And if anyone like that ever existed, someone else would have married her first.”

Lisle laughed a little and said,

“What about the girl friends? Perhaps they want an ideal too.”

“The girl friends are all right,” said Rafe. “As far as they are concerned, I am ideal to flirt with, but when it comes down to brass tacks they’re out for someone who can provide a much classier pram than it would run to with me. The female of the species is more practical than the male.”

“You are a fool, Rafe!”

“The fool died of a broken heart,” he said. His white teeth showed in a sudden grin. “I’ve made you laugh anyway. I had a bet with myself that I would — so I’ve won, and you owe me sixpence halfpenny.”

“What for?”

“Petrol, I expect. What are you going to do when my thumb is all right? I can’t keep it sprained much longer or there’ll be some harsh words flying. Dale won’t let you drive his car, will he?”

“I can get Evans.”

“Or Dale?” He waited a minute and then repeated the words — “Or Dale?”

She flushed and said without looking at him,

“He’s busy — you know he is. And he hates shopping.”

“I shall have to spin that sprain out. I say, that would make an awfully good tongue-twister, wouldn’t it? But to hark back — who was your girl friend? I’ve told you about mine.”

The oddest impulse surged up in Lisle and took charge.

“You’d love her. She quotes Tennyson too.”

“The little dumpy woman who spoke to you after the inquest?”

“Rafe! How did you know?”

“A flash of genius. Who is she?”

They had turned into Crook Lane and were slowing for the hairpin bend. She put up a hand to the window ledge and gripped it.

“Mind coming down here?” said Rafe quickly.

“A little.”

“Better do it every day until you don’t. That’s brutal common sense. You’re quite safe, you know, honey-sweet.”

Lisle said, “Am I?” in a queer flat voice. She kept her hand on the window ledge until they were round the corner where her car had smashed against Cooper’s barn. Then she drew a sighing breath and let it fall.

“Go on about the girl friend,” said Rafe. “Can’t I meet her? We could swap quotations. Who is she, and why have I never heard of her before?”

Lisle only answered one of the questions. The impulse driving her, she said,

“She’s a detective. At least she calls it ‘Private Investigations Undertaken’ on her card, but I expect that’s what it means — don’t you?”

Rafe said nothing at all. She looked at him and saw his profile rather as Miss Silver had seen it at the inquest — the brown skin tight across the line of cheek and jaw, the lips without movement, locked and inexpressive. The odd thought went through her head that if she had seen a picture of him like this she might not have recognised it. It was just as if he was not alive.

And then all in a moment the impression broke. His face was the familiar one again, quick with movement and expression. He laughed and said,

“I expect so. Where did you pick her up?”

“In a train.”

“And she leapt at you and said, ‘Let me privately investigate you.’ Was that it?”

The impulse which had carried Lisle as far as this died suddenly. She saw with relief that they were approaching the big stone pillars from which two heraldic beasts grinned down malevolently upon all who came to Tanfield Court. If she waited until they had turned in… She measured the distance along the path with her eye. No — she couldn’t wait so long as that. She must speak — say something. If she didn’t, he would think — what would he think? What did it matter what he thought? It did matter.

This was all in one flash of agonised, struggling thought. She made herself laugh and say,

“Would you like to know?”

They ran smoothly between the pillars and left the grinning beasts behind. Rafe said drily,

“Yes, I should very much. Are you going to tell me?”

“I don’t know.” Her lips smiled, but her secret thought cried in her with something like despair. “He’ll know all the same — he knows now. If I could tell him — I can’t!”

He said, “Hadn’t you better?” and caught the very faint movement of her head which said “No.”

As they drew up by the steps leading to the house, he was laughing again.

“Supposing I ask the sleuth herself — do you suppose she’d tell me?”

“There’s nothing to tell.” She opened the door and got out.

Rafe’s voice followed her.

“Shall I try my luck?”

She ought to have laughed and said something light, but she couldn’t manage it. She only shook her head again and ran up the steps and into the house.

THE black and white hall was cool and shadowy after the strong heat and light outside. Lisle went up the shallow marble steps past the tortured Actæon on the half-landing, past all those white tormented shapes of death and grief, to her own room. Here the gloom was of another kind. Not stark tragedy but outworn respectability made it a kind of catacomb of Victorian taste. The impression which it always induced came upon her with more than its usual force. The windows stood wide, the middle one a two-leafed door opening upon the narrow parapeted balcony. Lisle threw a cushion on to the sill and sank down upon it, her head against the jamb, her hands in her lap. The sun was on the other side of the house and the breeze was cool from the sea. She stayed like that for a long time. Miss Silver’s words came and went in the empty spaces of her mind. She watched them there…

Presently she began to think again. It was just as if part of her had gone numb and was coming back to life. She had been able to talk and laugh with Rafe on the way home because the numb thing had not begun to hurt. It was beginning to hurt now. Miss Silver’s words kept sounding in her ears: “Change your will. Alter your will. Ring up your solicitor. Change your will. Ring up your solicitor at once. Tell him to destroy your will. Make some excuse. Alter your will. Change your will. Everything to your husband? Any other legacies? Any other substantial legacies? Twenty thousand pounds to Rafe. Would that be a substantial legacy? Change your will. Alter your will. Tell them that you have changed it. Tell everyone.”

She thought about that… “Leave all the money to a charity and tell them what I’ve done…” There was nothing to stop her doing it here and now. She had only to cross to the bed, take up the telephone, and call Mr. Robson. She could do that and have it done in a quarter of an hour… And then go down and tell Dale, and Rafe, and Alicia that she thought one of them was trying to murder her. Because that was what it amounted to. ‘I’m destroying the will that makes it worth your while. If anyone murders me now they may get themselves hanged, but they won’t get any money and they won’t save Tanfield. “ Just exactly that was what it amounted to.

Lisle closed her eyes and wished that she was dead already and out of it. If she was dead she wouldn’t mind who had her money. She didn’t mind now. She only minded having to think that someone wanted it so much that they would do murder to get it. She thought about that, and she thought about being dead, and it came to her that she couldn’t take Miss Silver’s advice. If they were trying to kill her they must try. She couldn’t defend herself — not that way. Anything that came must come from them. If her marriage was to be broken — and she thought it was broken already — it must be Dale who broke it. She could not put her own hand to it. If Rafe… Her thought faltered. Twenty thousand pounds — was friendship worth no more than that? He had said that he hated her. Perhaps they all hated her. Alicia did, but she was an open enemy. “The wounds with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” She thought, “That’s in the Bible — but I have no friends in this house—”

And as she came to that, there was a knocking on the door. She got to her feet before she said, “Come in” — some feeling of not being taken at a disadvantage. How far back did that go — to the jungle? And how much safer was she here among the trappings of Victorian respectability?

It was Lizzie the second housemaid at the door, a buxom young thing — bright hair, rosy cheeks, eyes popping with interest.

“Please, madam, it’s the police Inspector. And William told him Mr. Jerningham was out, and he said if he could see you — and William’s put him in the study same as last time if that’s all right.”

Lisle said, “Quite all right, Lizzie,” and turned to the glass to smooth her hair. She put colour in her cheeks and touched her mouth with lipstick. Her white linen dress was crumpled. She changed it for a soft green muslin, thin and cool. Then she went down.

Randal March watched her come in with a feeling that he was here on a fool’s errand. This girl — it couldn’t be possible that her husband or some member of his family had tried to murder her. The tears which she had not shed darkened her eyes. When he had seen her before she had been fainting pale. Now, with colour in cheeks and lips, she was lovely, with a delicate, ethereal loveliness which touched and charmed him. She gave him her hand as she had done before and kept her eyes on his face with just that sensitive widening of the dark pupils which told him she was nervous.

He said, ‘I won’t keep you, Mrs. Jerningham. I just want to clear up a few points about your coat.”

“My coat?” Her hand was cold in his. She drew it away and stepped back.

“The one you gave to Cissie Cole.”

“Oh, yes.” She went over to the fireplace and sat down there on an old-fashioned backless stool.

“The coat has been tested for prints, and I should be very grateful if you could answer a few questions about when you wore it last, and whether anyone else had the opportunity of handling it then.”

“I told you —”

“Yes. Do you mind if we just run over it again? You wore the coat on Sunday evening. Are you sure you didn’t wear it again after that?”

Alicia’s voice in the hall on Sunday evening — “That hideous coat!”

March saw her wince, and wondered why.

She said in a soft, hurried voice, “Oh, no, I didn’t wear it again.”

“And where was it between Sunday and Wednesday?”

“In a cupboard in my bedroom.”

“No one would have touched it there?”

“Oh, no.”

March smiled at her.

“Then we come back to Sunday, when you wore it last. I think you said Mr. Rafe Jerningham brought it to you in the garden. Can you remember how he was carrying it?”

“Over his arm.”

“Did he help you on with it?”

“I don’t remember. I suppose he did.”

“I think you said he did.”

“Then I suppose he must have.” She put up a hand to her cheek. “Does it matter?”

“Well, it does rather, because we want to account for the handprints. You see, if he helped you on with your coat on Sunday evening, we would expect some rather faint prints up by the collar.”

She could feel a little pulse beating against her hand. It frightened her. She let the hand fall again into her lap.

“And are there any?”

He nodded.

“Now, Mrs. Jerningham, just try and think whether he touched you again after that.”

“Touched me?” Her eyes widened.

March smiled pleasantly.

“You were down by the sea wall, weren’t you? He didn’t take you by the shoulders and swing you round to look at something across the bay, did he?”

“Oh, no!” There was no mistaking her surprise.

“Nothing at all like that?”

“Oh, no.”

“Well, that finishes that. Now did anyone else touch you whilst you were wearing the coat — take hold of you, as I said, pat you on the back, or anything of that sort? Your husband, for instance?”

“Oh, no. I came in after we had finished talking. I didn’t see Dale. I went straight up to my room and put the coat away. Alicia — Lady Steyne was in the hall, but she didn’t touch me.”

“Where was the coat before your cousin Rafe Jerningham brought it to you?”

“I think he brought it from one of the chairs on the lawn. It — it turns cold down by the sea as soon as the sun goes.”

“That was very thoughtful of him.”

Lisle said, “Yes.” It rushed into her mind how often Rafe had done things like that. She felt a wave of emotion, a touch of comfort. And on that Rafe himself came strolling in through the window.

“How do you do, March?” he said. “More Third Degree? Just tell me if I’m in the way.”

“Not a bit. I have finished with Mrs. Jerningham. I was going to ask if I could see you. You couldn’t have timed your entrance better.”

“Perhaps I was listening for my cue.”

Lisle got up and left them. As Rafe opened the door for her she looked up at him and caught a queer crooked smile. It troubled her — a crooked, bitter smile. It robbed her of that new-found comfort. She heard Miss Silver’s voice again. “Tell them you’ve altered your will. Tell them all.” The door closed behind her.

Rafe came over to the writing-table and leaned against the corner of it. He wore a short-sleeved shirt with an open neck and a pair of grey flannel trousers, and he looked very much at his ease.

“Well?” he said. “What is it now? I thought we’d finished.”

“Not yet,” said Randal March.

“Because when we have, I was going to say I suppose you’re not on duty all the time, and what about coming up for some tennis?”

“Thank you — I’d like to — when we have finished. I’m afraid I’m strictly on duty this afternoon.”

“Too much on duty for this?” Rafe offered a battered cigarette case.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Oh, very well. I suppose you don’t mind if I smoke?”

“Not at all. I’ve just been asking Mrs. Jerningham about the coat she gave to Cissie Cole. We’ve been trying it out for fingerprints, and we naturally want to know who handled it before it changed ownership.”

Rafe struck a match, drew at his cigarette till it glowed, and dropped the match on to Dale’s pen-tray.

“Fingerprints?” he said. “On that woolly stuff?”

March watched him.

“Yes. It’s a new process. Some of the prints are marvellously clear.”

Rafe laughed.

“Mine amongst them? I suppose Lisle told you I fetched that coat for her and helped her on with it the last time she wore it — at least I suppose it was the last time.”

“Yes, that’s what she said.”

Rafe blew out a mouthful of smoke. Through the light haze his eyes danced mockingly.

“Too disappointing for you!”

March said, “Perhaps, ” and then, “Perhaps not.” He pushed his chair back, fixed his eyes sternly upon Rafe, and said, “When did you take hold of that coat by the shoulders and upper part of the arms — and who was wearing it at that time?”

Rafe put his cigarette to his lips. Was it to cover them? His hand was steady enough. March thought, “I’d rather trust my lips than my hand if I was in a hole.”

The hand dropped. The lips were smiling.

“Well, Lisle has just told you that I put her into her coat.”

March shook his head.

“These prints weren’t made that way. I’ll show you how they were done.” He sprang up and came round the table. Standing behind Rafe, he took him by the shoulders, the flat of the palm at the edge of the shoulder-blade, the fingers coming round the upper arm and gripping it. “Like that,” he said. And let go, and went back to his seat.

Rafe was still smiling.

“Any explanation?” said March.

Rafe shook his head.

“I can’t think of one — at least not a new one. I did help Lisle on with her coat, you know, but I suppose that’s too easy for the modern scientific policeman.”

“The prints are too fresh,” said March quietly. “They’re the freshest prints of the lot. The ones you made on Sunday are a perfectly different affair. These prints were made at a much later time, and they are most unmistakably yours.”

Rafe straightened up, still smiling.

“Well, you’ll have to prove it, you know. I don’t mind your trying, if it amuses you. But just speaking off hand, I should say that none of it would sound very convincing in, let’s say, a court of law — or a coroner’s court. And perhaps that’s the reason no one asked me all these interesting questions at the inquest. I was there, you know.”

“You don’t offer any explanation?”

Rafe shrugged his shoulders.

“You won’t take the obvious one. I’m afraid I haven’t any other.”