Danger Point (7 page)

THERE were two telephone calls about an hour later. Rafe took the first. He was passing through the hall, when the telephone bell rang in the dining-room. He heard Alicia’s voice bleak with fury, and nodded a casual dismissal to the young footman who appeared at the service door. Then he said, “Hullo!”

“That you, Rafe? These devils haven’t got my car ready yet.”

“Darling, why not go and have a nice cup of tea? You sound like a menagerie of furies.”

“I feel like one, thank you!”

“And what is the unhappy Langham’s place like? A slaughter house?”

She gave an angry laugh.

“I don’t think they’ll do it again!”

“No survivors? By the way, Lisle had a smash on the way home.”

“What!”

“Her steering packed up on Crook Hill — on the crook. The car went to glory against Cooper’s barn.”

There was a dead silence, and then a sharp-drawn breath.

“Lisle?”

“Very nearly a no survivor, but not quite. She jumped lucky.”

“She isn’t hurt?”

“Not to notice. Small scratch on left cheek, slight wobble about the knees, otherwise intact. Dale won’t have to get a black tie this time.”

There was another of those sharply taken breaths. It may have represented a last attempt to curb a driven temper. If it was that, it failed. Alicia said with furious distinctness,

“She can’t make a job of anything, can she?”

The receiver was slammed down. Rafe Jerningham hung up at his end and walked out of the room.

It was Lisle who took the second call in her bedroom. She was changing for dinner, when the bell tinkled beside the bed. She stood in her peach-coloured slip and heard Dale’s voice from a long way off. She hadn’t thought of it being Dale. He hadn’t said anything about ringing her up, and she wasn’t ready to speak because he was bound to be angry about the car, and because she hadn’t done as he had told her. She sat down on the edge of the bed and said in a voice which hardly reached him,

“What is it, Dale?”

There was quite a long pause before his voice came in, suddenly loud.

“I can’t hear what you say. Who’s that speaking?”

“Lisle.”

“Who did you say? I can’t hear.”

A little while ago she would have laughed and said, laughing, “Silly! It’s me — Lisle,” but somehow the words wouldn’t come. Her throat was stiff, and her lips were stiff, though she didn’t know why.

She said, “Lisle — it’s Lisle,” but the voice didn’t sound like her own voice at all.

The receiver jarred at her ear.

“Who is it? What are you saying about Lisle?”

She repeated her own name.

“Lisle.”

Again that frantic jar of the wires.

“What about Lisle? For God’s sake — are you trying to tell me something — has anything happened?”

“The car smashed.”

“What?”

“The car.”

“What — about — Lisle?”

She found her voice.

“Dale, I can’t make you hear. It’s me — Lisle. I hope you won’t be angry about the car. It’s all smashed up.”

The loud, urgent voice dropped. He said without any expression,

“The car — you’re not hurt—”

“No — I jumped. I had a wonderful escape. I ought to have gone to Langham’s — but you won’t be angry, will you?”

There was a pause before he said,

“You’re not hurt at all?”

And at that Lisle began to tremble. How dreadful for Dale if, instead of her own voice saying she wasn’t hurt, this had been a stranger’s voice, or Rafe’s, telling him she was dead.

She said with a rush of warm emotion, “Oh, no, darling — not at all,” and heard Dale say her name with a strange break in it. It was as if he had not breath enough for even that one short word. And then the next moment he had too much. The ear-piece crackled with the violence of his anger.

“I told you to go to Langham’s! It was the last thing I said! Can’t you do anything you’re told?”

She was shaken, but she wouldn’t show it. It shook her terribly when Dale was angry, but she had begun to learn that she mustn’t let him see that she was shaken. She wouldn’t be able to live with Dale if he knew that he could shake her like that. The phrase came back to her and trailed away half finished. She wouldn’t be able to live with Dale—

His voice leapt at her again.

“Are you there? Why don’t you answer me?”

“Dale, you’re shouting.”

“What do you expect? You’ve nearly been killed, haven’t you? Do you expect me to be pleased? You disobeyed my orders and nearly killed yourself. What do you expect me to say?”

A shudder ran over her. She said, “I don’t know,” and pushed the receiver back upon its hook.

Sitting there on the edge of the bed, she put a hand down on either side of her and leaned upon the palms, steadying herself. It wasn’t Dale’s anger she was afraid of.

He had been angry before, and she had been afraid before, but not like this. Quite suddenly the fear had come, and she didn’t know why. It was natural that Dale should be angry. Any man would be angry if his wife had nearly been killed because she hadn’t done what he had told her to do. And Dale had told her to have the steering tested before she went home. She found herself clinging to that — “He did tell me — he did. I would have done it if it hadn’t been for Alicia.” There was a moment of relief and then the fear came closer. He had known Alicia all his life. He knew she meant to pick a quarrel if she could. He knew her car was at Langham’s. “Did he know I wouldn’t wait to be quarrelled with?”

The shudder came again. She cast back desperately to her first thought — “He told me to have the steering tested.”

DALE came down next day, and to Lisle’s extreme relief he seemed to have left his bad temper behind him in spite of the fact that he had found out nothing more about a possible government offer for his land. He held her and said, “Oh, Lisle!” and gave her a quick, hard kiss before he turned to Rafe. Alicia got no more than a nod.

“What’s happened about the car?” he said. “How much of a wreck is it?”

Rafe made an airy gesture.

“Total, I should say. Chassis all twisted to blazes. Lisle will have to put her hand in her pocket and buy herself a push-bike if it won’t run to a new car.”

Dale actually laughed, his hand still on Lisle’s shoulder.

“Oh, it’s not quite as bad as that. Robson’s a miser, but he’ll let her buy a car if she asks him nicely. But look here, what about the old one? Where is it? The steering ought not to have gone like that. I want to have a look at it.”

They were on the terrace, with the sun beating down upon the Italian garden. Rafe, looking down on it, said over his shoulder,

“Evans fetched the corpse home last night. I told him he’d better leave the post mortem till you came.”

Later on he strolled into the garage and beheld Dale and Evans very busy with the wreck. But when he came in Dale straightened up and came to meet him.

“It’s a most extraordinary thing about that steering. The track rod must have snapped when she came round the bend. It’s clean in two. Of course, as Evans says, it’s just possible it went when the car hit the barn, but I think that’s damned unlikely.”

Rafe glanced at Evans, but the chauffeur kept his head down.

“Well, I don’t know. You’ve got to account for the car being out of control. If it hadn’t been out of control it wouldn’t have run into the barn.”

Dale moved away, his hand on his cousin’s arm.

“Fact is, Lisle’s a damn bad driver. She might have just panicked and let go. I don’t mean to say there wasn’t something wrong with the steering, because I noticed it myself going into Ledlington — the car seemed inclined to wander. That’s what gets my goat, because I told Lisle she wasn’t to drive home without having it seen to. I don’t know whether she just forgot about it, or whether she couldn’t be bothered, but I told her to go to Langham’s and have the steering tested, and she didn’t do it.”

Rafe laughed.

“She was having a row with Alicia — no, the other way about. Lisle doesn’t have rows. Alicia was having a row with her.”

“Who told you that?”

“Oh, Lisle. That’s why she didn’t stop at Langham’s. She doesn’t like rows.”

Dale gave an impatient frown.

“I don’t know anything about that. I only know I told her to have the steering checked over before she drove the car home.”

“Quite a moral tract, isn’t it? A Bride’s Disobedience or The Fatal Accident.” The light bantering voice suddenly hardened.

“It came as near being fatal as makes no difference.”

Dale’s face took on pallor and gravity. He said,

“I know. You needn’t rub it in. Look here—” he began to move forward again clear of the garage — “look here, Rafe, Evans is by way of hinting that the steering was tampered with.”

He got a sharp sideways glance. No words for a moment. Then,

“How do you mean, hinting?”

Dale shrugged a shoulder.

“It’s damned unpleasant, and I can’t believe it either. I mean, just because you dismiss a man, it’s not to say he’ll try and engineer an accident for your wife. The thing’s absurd, and so I told Evans.”

“Meaning?”

“Oh, Pell of course. That’s who Evans was hinting at.”

Rafe whistled softly.

“Pell — I wonder —”

“Why should he?” said Dale. “Even granting he believed that Lisle got him dismissed because he’d been playing fast and loose with Cissie Cole — and it wasn’t the case, because I sent him packing myself— well, supposing he believed it was Lisle, it’s a nasty risk playing a trick like that. And what had he got to gain? He’d lost his job anyhow, and he was bound to be suspected, so where’s the good of it?”

Rafe looked away across the yard. A tortoiseshell cat sat in the sun washing a reluctant kitten. He said,

“Lisle didn’t ask you to sack Pell?”

Dale’s shoulder jerked.

“She didn’t have to. He’s got a wife at Packham, and I don’t care how many girls he’s got anywhere else as long as he doesn’t have’em in Tanfield. Miss Cole came up here to me about Cissie — they’d only just found out he was married — and I came straight out here and sacked him. Lisle didn’t come into it at all.”

“He might have thought she did.”

“Why should he?”

Rafe looked at the tortoiseshell cat.

“She saw Cissie before Miss Cole saw you. Cissie cried and told her all about it. She’d been up with some sewing.”

Dale broke in sharply.

“How do you know?”

“I saw her going away. Pell saw her too. She was still crying. He might have thought that Lisle had worked on you to dismiss him. I don’t say he did, but he might have.”

Dale moved impatiently.

“He’d been here long enough to know that I run my own show! I don’t believe a word of it, and so I told Evans just now! You know how these fellows are. He’s got a lift in the world, and Pell’s got the boot, so he thinks he can put anything on to him. They’re all alike. Any damned thing that goes wrong for the next six months will be Pell’s fault. I’ve told Evans I don’t want to hear another word about it!”

The tortoiseshell cat had the kitten by one ear. She licked its face, and cuffed it when it wriggled. Rafe said in a meditative tone,

“Pell was a size too large for his boots. That sort doesn’t take kindly to being sacked. Murder’s been done for less than that. And you couldn’t prove it against him — nobody could — because any of us could have done it just as easily as Pell. Have you thought about that?” He did not wait for an answer, but gave a sudden laugh. “Anyone who was fool enough could have done it, which is very incriminating for Pell. Any man who would chuck away a job for Cissie Cole must be a bigger fool than most of us — so if it’s got to be anyone, let us by all means make it Pell.”

With a squawk the kitten twisted itself free and fled, back arched, tail in a double kink. The mother got up, stretched herself, and came over to Rafe. She rubbed against him, purring. He bent and scratched her behind the ear.

THEY were having coffee on the side lawn after lunch, when Dale plunged a hand into his pocket, brought out a small parcel, and tossed it into Lisle’s lap. She looked up, surprised and just a little startled.

“What is it?”

He watched her, very much at his ease in a long chair, at peace with all the world, smiling.

“Open it and see. I’ve brought you a present.”

The colour came up into her face. Why hadn’t he given it to her when they were alone? Now she had to open it under Alicia’s eye. Not that Alicia was looking at her or at anyone else. She lay in a wicker chair with her feet up watching the faint smoke of her cigarette tremble and fade against the blue of the sky. It was a very perfect afternoon, dead still and hot, with a haze on the sea like the ghost of all the cigarettes that had ever been smoked. On the one side Tane Head and the moors behind it bounded the view. On the other a great cedar swept down in ledges of shade. Lisle sat where the shadow darkened her hair and made a flecked pattern across the green of her dress, but the others basked in the sun.

“Salamanders — aren’t we?” said Rafe. He sat cross-legged amongst cushions, his back against Alicia’s foot-rest. “The more we bake, the better we like it. The motto is ‘Be prepared’, because you never know your luck. Personally, of course, I’m expecting a harp and a halo — but then I’ve got an absolutely snowy conscience compared to Dale and Alicia. My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure — a nice quotation from a poem about the late Galahad by the late Lord Tennyson.”

Lisle’s fingers slipped on the knot of her parcel. That funny little woman in the train had quoted Tennyson. She wished Rafe wouldn’t. Miss Maud Silver — Private Investigations… There wasn’t anything to investigate.

Alicia knocked the ash from her cigarette and said sweetly,

“Bit of a plaster saint — aren’t you, Rafe?”

“Not plaster, darling — it’s terribly brittle and unreliable. Pure gold — that’s me.”

Dale was watching his wife. She had very pretty hands — very pretty, and white, and slender, but not clever at things like knots. But the string was off now, and the stiff outer paper with it. A layer of tissue paper came next, and then a jeweller’s box fastened with a rubber band. He smiled at her encouragingly.

“Come along — open it.”

A strange reluctance possessed Lisle. Dale so seldom gave her a present. He took the eminently reasonable, common-sense view that she had more money than he had, and could buy anything she wanted for herself. This was actually the very first thing he had given her since their marriage. She had felt warmed and touched, but she would have liked to have opened it when they were alone. Her fair skin flushed as she lifted the lid and saw what lay beneath, a piece of rock crystal carved into a grotesque shape. She stared at it, trying to make out what it was… Some kind of a squat figure with a face half animal, half human, peering out between leaves — a clawlike hand that clutched a round glistening fruit.

She bent forward. In the sun the crystal went bright and blank. It had no contours. It was just brightness, catching the sun and reflecting it. It dazzled her, and she drew back into the shade. At once the face peered at her again between those crowding leaves.

“Don’t you like it?” said Dale impatiently.

She looked at him in a puzzled way.

“What is it?”

“Chinese — rock crystal. I thought you’d like it.” His tone hardened. “I’m sorry if you don’t.”

Something in Lisle quivered. How could she have been so stupid? She ought to have thanked him at once. If they had been alone, she could have flung her arms round his neck. Why did he have to give it to her in front of Rafe and Alicia? She said as quickly and warmly as possible,

“Oh, but I do. I was trying to make out what it was — that’s all. It’s — it’s marvellous.”

Alicia blew a smoke ring. She watched it widen out and laughed.

“Dale — darling ! What do you expect? You give her a jeweller’s box, and when she opens it, instead of diamonds there’s just a piece of carved rock crystal.” She laughed again. “You’ve a lot of learn — hasn’t he, Lisle?”

Lisle flushed to the roots of her hair, but before she could speak Rafe had entered the fray.

“A bit crude, aren’t you, darling? Women are of course. To the artist’s eye — meaning Dale’s and mine — a Chinese carving is worth a pot of diamonds, to say nothing of the fact that Lisle ought never in this world to put a diamond anywhere near her. Pearls of course. Emeralds — sapphires — yes, I’d let her have sapphires. Chrysoprase — and a very pale topaz set in very pale gold. But diamonds — not on your life.”

Alicia blew another ring.

“If women wore jewellery because it was becoming, jewellers would die of starvation. Look at the old hags bristling with diamonds at any big show. Did you ever know one who wouldn’t wear them if she had a chance?” She sat up and held out her hand. “Here, let’s have a look at the substitute.”

Rafe took the crystal from Lisle and passed it on.

“Clever,” he said, looking at it on Alicia’s brown palm. “Rather like something looking at you out of water, isn’t it? There one minute, and the next you’re wondering whether you’ve really seen it. Where did you get it, Dale?”

Dale bent forward to look too.

“It was in a second-hand shop in the Fulham Road, in a tray with a lot of other things, mostly junk. I thought Lisle would like it.”

He was talking about her as if she wasn’t there. She felt young and inexpert. She ought to be able to say, “I love it,” but she couldn’t. The sly, peering face made her flesh creep.

Alicia balanced the crystal and blew smoke at it.

“Elusive little devil, isn’t he?” she said. “Reminds me of the Cheshire Cat’s grin.”

“Keep it if you like,” said Dale. “Lisle doesn’t care about it.”

Alicia looked at him steadily for a moment. Then she laughed and looked away.

“Do you know, I rather like having my presents chosen for me, not for somebody else. And if you’re doing any choosing, I’ve no objection to diamonds. Hi, Lisle — catch!”

The crystal sparkled in the air. Rafe reached up, caught it deftly, and put it back in Lisle’s lap. But before she could touch it Dale got up and came over to her.

“You don’t like it?”

“I — Dale—”

“It’s a bit sinister,” said Rafe.

Alicia laughed. Lisle, tongue-tied and distressed, put out a hand towards her husband.

“Dale — you’ve got it all wrong. I — it was sweet of you to get it for me — please—”

There was a moment of discomfort and strain. The dark colour came up into Dale’s face, as it did when he was angry. But before he or anyone else could speak one of the men-servants came into the group. Lisle looked at him with relief.

“What is it, William?”

“If you please, madam, it’s Miss Cole. She says could you see her for a moment?”

Dale went back to his chair.

“Miss Cole from the post office?” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“I wonder what she wants. You’d better go, Lisle,”

Lisle got up and went.

She felt as much in disgrace and as glad to escape as if she had been seven years old instead of twenty-two. She held the crystal in her hand. Alicia’s high, floating laugh followed her across the lawn.