Dead Man's Quarry (30 page)

“Is she?” murmured Felix absently.

John was moved to reply:

“Well, isn't she? You ought to know. You've known her for years, and I've only known her a week.” A certain sharpness in his voice caused Felix to turn and look at him in surprise. There was a pause.

“Yes,” said Felix at length in a subdued voice. “I know she is. I don't know why I said is she? in that loutish way.” He hesitated. “To tell you the truth, John, since this dreadful thing happened, everybody and everything has become strange and a little out of focus to me. I've kind of lost my hold on reality for the time being.”

“It's a pity,” said John, turning into the Kensington Road, “to lose your hold on your friends. You'll want them again some day.”

“Nora?” said Felix vaguely. “Oh, but Nora and I are great friends, we always have been. Do you mean that Nora's getting fed up with me?”

John, noting half with approval, half with a queer disappointment, the genuine note of anxiety in the boy's voice, judged that he had said enough.

“I don't mean anything,” he responded lightly, “except just what I said.”

They passed the Albert Memorial. The trees in the park were changing colour, and the grass was thick with the brownish early-dropping London leaves. Felix, having recovered from his first surprise, spoke gloomily:“I'm sorry if I've been behaving badly to my friends. But in the circumstances, isn't it a good deal to ask of a man to expect him to think of such things?”

“Why not ask a good deal of a man?” replied John gently, and there was silence until the shops of narrow crowded Kensington High Street came in view. Then, with a rather chastened air, Felix asked:

“John, what are we going to do, exactly?”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“We're going to No. 8 Featherstone Terrace. And we're going to ask if Mrs.—now, that is a bit of a problem!”

“What is?”

“I don't know what her name is when she's at Featherstone Terrace. She was Miss Meadows before she married, and Mrs. Field at Sheepshanks Cottage, and I suppose she's really Lady Price. But heaven knows what she is when she's at home! Never mind. I shall ask for Miss Isabel Donne.”

There was silence. Glancing round out of the corner of his eye, John saw Felix's profile pale and thoughtful.

“I think you'd better come with me, Felix,” he said gently enough. “You know Miss Donne better than I do. Perhaps she'll tell you more than she will me.” There was another silence. At last Felix said tonelessly:

“Isabel doesn't tell anybody much.”

“So Nora said.”

“One tells her everything, but she tells one nothing.”

“Yes. So Nora said.”

A pause.

“Last Monday,” said Felix, suddenly and impulsively, “seems a hundred years ago. If you had asked me then to question Isabel as if she were a criminal, I'd have wrung your neck. But now—does it matter? Will anything ever matter again? I'll go anywhere with you. I'll do anything you say. Because all the time there's only one horrible thing in my mind that crowds out everything else. And you seem to be the only person in the world who really believes that it'll pass. Isabel!” He spoke the name softly and lingeringly, as if trying to wring the utmost music from it. “Isabel! It's become just a word in my thoughts, a word that ought to mean something, and does not.” He broke off abruptly as if half regretting having said so much, and after a while went on: “What will you do then? Suppose they won't see you?”

John laughed.

“I don't suppose they will. In fact, I don't suppose we shall find them there. I expect we shall spend the entire day in trying to discover their whereabouts.”

“Are you assuming, then, that Mrs. Field had a hand in the murder?”

“I am assuming what is obvious, that she wished to avoid her identity becoming known.”

“Are you sure of her identity?”

“It's not proved. But personally I am quite sure. But whether my theory as to her being Lady Price is correct or not, we must find out how she got hold of that five-pound note. We have something definite to go on there. And this, I think, is Featherstone Terrace. And there is No. 8.”

They drew up in front of a terrace of stucco houses that fronted on to a peaceful residential street. It was a pleasant enough looking row of houses, adorned with iron balconies, window-boxes and a variety of classic orders, painted in all shades from pristine white to a dark and peeling grey, with front doors that ranged in colour from the sombre green of the old regime to a lively scarlet.

Felix looked a trifle surprised as John drew boldly up at No. 8.

“Isn't it a pity to give them time to see you coming?” he asked hesitatingly. “They'll say they're not at home.”

John laughed.

“I've left my false beard and blue spectacles behind,” he said cheerfully. “So I'm afraid there's no disguising either of us. Pull up your coat collar and jam down your hat and walk with a stealthy, cat-like tread up the front door steps, and you'll attract no attention at all.”

Felix looked for a moment a trifle hurt, and then decided to smile.

“What are we going to say, exactly?” he asked rather nervously as they got out of the car.

“If we see Mrs. Field we'll ask her straight out where she got that five-pound note. If we see Isabel we'll ask her to lead us to Mrs. Field. But probably we shan't see either of them. My only hope is that they haven't left the country.”

“Left the country!” echoed Felix distastefully. “Why should they have done? There's nothing against them except that five-pound note, which may have quite an innocent explanation.”

“It may,” said John grimly. “And the fact that Isabel told none of you her aunt was staying near Penlow may have an innocent explanation too. So may the fact that they both left for London a day or two after the murder. I should like to hear all these innocent explanations. 8a is the address. That'll be the upper maisonette, I suppose.”

They passed into the little lobby and John rang the bell of one of the twin front doors. There was a silence, while they both listened for footsteps on the stairs inside. Suddenly Felix turned restlessly towards John and asked:

“John, why did you bring me here?”

“To protect me, of course,” replied John with a faint smile. “It's better to hunt in couples. There's always a slight element of risk in this business, you know. Do you mind?”

“Risk?” repeated Felix, shrugging his shoulders. “Lord, no, I don't mind that. But—I have wondered—why me, rather than Rampson, this time?”

“Thought I should like a change of Watson,” said John lightly, and as the boy's face remained moody and thoughtful, added:“Rampson didn't want to come, and I thought you'd like to have something to do.” He did not add that he had not cared to leave Rhyllan Hall for a whole day unwatched.

A very young, very neat servant-maid opened the door with an interrogatory smile.

“Is Miss Donne at home?” asked John, expecting the girl to disclaim all knowledge of such a person. But to his surprise she replied equably:

“She's out, sir. But Mrs. Field is in. Will you come in?”

They followed her up the narrow stairs on to a light and pretty landing hung with Japanese colour-prints. John, who had fully expected to find that his quarry had run to a new earth, had to make a quick readjustment of his ideas. Was it possible that, after all, Mrs. Field was a perfectly innocent lady? Was it possible that she had no connection at all with Morris Price and Rhyllan Hall, and that he must look elsewhere for the mysterious Clytie Meadows? He had time to murmur into Felix's ear, “Keep your eyes open, and keep your head whatever happens,” before they were ushered into a small, pleasant drawing-room with long windows giving on to the balcony.

A lady rose from a pretty chintz-covered chair near the window, and exclaimed in accents of surprise and pleasure:

“Why, it's the young man who wanted ginger-beer!”

John saw the smiling, clever face of the late lessee of Sheepshanks Cottage. So far, so good.

“My name's Christmas,” said John, taking the muscular hand she held out to him. “This is my friend, Felix Price.”

The grey eyes made a quick survey of Felix's sombre young face.

“I've heard of you from my niece Isabel,” said Mrs. Field amiably. “I'm pleased to meet you. Poor Isabel, it was a shame she had to cut her holiday short! All for nothing, too, because my illness turned out to be just an ordinary tiresome cold! As a matter of fact—do sit down! That's a comfy chair—I had a dreadfully sore throat the day you called at the cottage, and by the evening I was feeling so bad I quite thought I was in for something serious, and my one idea was to get back to my comfortable home and have Isabel to nurse me. She's quite a good nurse, Mr. Price, though you mightn't think it from her heartless way of talking. So I flew home and went to bed and sent for Isabel. But by the time she arrived I was perfectly well. Isabel was very cross with me, and it really was a shame to interrupt her holiday. Though the dreadful death of that poor boy had rather cast a cloud over things, of course.”

Her rich voice softened and dropped. She leant sympathetically towards Felix.

“He was a relation of yours, wasn't he, Mr. Price?”

“My cousin.”

“Ah, I'm sorry! Poor boy! You're going through a dreadful time. We've seen reports in the papers. But it'll come right in the end. Don't lose heart.”

Her kindly, maternal voice, her gentle phrases that yet had a certain conventional stamp as though she spoke of a matter that did not closely concern her, might almost have convinced John that he was stirring a mare's nest. Yet this same agreeable lady who now spoke so naturally of her niece Isabel had confronted that niece without a sign of recognition at Sheepshanks Cottage, less than a week ago. As if she had read his thoughts, Mrs. Field turned to him and said:

“It was funny that it happened to be my cottage that you came to for ginger-beer. And you must be thinking it very funny that Isabel and I didn't seem to know one another. The fact is—it sounds rather silly, I know—but I'm not very strong. I suffer from occasional mild but very tiresome heart attacks, and I'm such an idiot that I hate Isabel going far away from me. She's the only person I've got in the world, you see, and—well, it sounds morbid, I know!”—she laughed in an embarrassed way— “but I hate the idea of being taken ill, and perhaps dying, with Isabel hundreds of miles away. Oh, I'll probably last for years! We chronic invalids always do, you know. But there it is! I've got an invalid's obsession. And I haven't been very well this summer, the attacks have been getting more frequent, and when Isabel was asked to go and stay with the Brownings, I almost implored her not to go! But it seemed selfish, so I compromised and took a cottage as near as I could get to where Isabel was staying, so that I could feel that she wasn't out of reach. And we decided not to let the Brownings know, because it would have seemed rather an imposition on them. I mean, they might have felt they had to offer me hospitality. It would have been rather awkward. You had the young Browning boy with you when you came for ginger-beer, and for all I knew you might have been one of the Brownings yourself. That was why Isabel and I met as strangers, as they say in the melodramas.” She laughed pleasantly. “We both felt awful idiots.”

John expressed polite interest and amusement, and condoled with his hostess on her ill-health. She did not look like a lady subject to heart-attacks, sore throats and obsessions. Her eyes were bright, her smooth, powdered face firm and clear-skinned, and there was a suggestion of strength and vitality in her figure that a younger woman might well have envied.

“Isabel has told me about you, Mr. Christmas,” went on Mrs. Field, ringing the bell. “She says you're a detective. I suppose I mustn't ask whether you've made any progress towards finding the murderer of that poor young man in the quarry? In fact, now I come to think of it, your presence here is rather alarming!” She gave a little laugh, and told the maid who answered the bell to bring in an early tea. “Don't tell me,” she went on with a humorous lift of her thick, dark brows, “that you've called in an official capacity!”

“Oh, but I have!” said John gently, and closely watched her face. It expressed nothing but merry surprise and disbelief. Once more he was shaken, once more inclined to think that Mrs. Field knew no more of the Price's affairs than did her little servant-maid. But whether she did or not, there was the matter of that five-pound note to be cleared up. “Really,” John assured her, “we do want your help.”

“Ah!” she said, smiling and arranging a becoming cushion of peacock-blue at the back of her shining grey head. “That's a sweet, pretty way of putting it! And of course I'll help you all I can, though I can't imagine how. Thank you, Amy. Is Miss Isabel in yet?”

“Not yet, madam,” replied the little girl, and withdrew. “I hope she won't be long,” murmured Mrs. Field. “She's just gone out to buy Whatman paper. What do you think of her drawings, Mr. Price? I think they're really rather clever.”

“Very,” replied Felix, and seemed indisposed to say more. There was an air of constraint and uneasiness about him. Poor youth! He was not the perfect Watson. And John's thought swung back for a moment to Rampson, holding the fort at Rhyllan Hall. Mrs. Field evidently did not expect loquacity from him, for she looked at him with grave sympathy and turned to John.

“Now tell me how you want me to help you.”

“Did you come across a man called Hufton while you were at Sheepshanks Cottage?” asked John.

“Yes,” answered the lady promptly. “I caught him stealing beans out of the garden.”

“Ah!” murmured John. “I thought so.”