Eternity Ring (16 page)

As soon as Maisie Traill had gone out Constable May came back.

“There’s someone here from Deeping, sir. Says she knows who did the murders. Name of Ripley.”

Frank Abbott’s lips drew up in a soundless whistle. He had typed the name within the last few hours, and had an unfortunate recollection of its significance. He looked across at the Chief Inspector as May retreated and murmured,

“Hathaway’s house-parlourmaid—”

She came in in her uniform dress with a winter coat thrown over it. She had done the three and a half miles from Deepside on her bicycle. Like Maisie Traill she was bare-headed, but the contrast in looks could hardly have been more extreme. They were both women, that was all you could say. The night air had added its damp to the lank, plastered strands of Agnes Ripley’s hair. It had added a rather ghastly dew to her sallow skin. There was no colour in her face at all, except that under the dark eyes there were brown and purplish marks like bruises. She sat down, and said in a hard, controlled voice,

“I know who murdered those two girls. Do you want me to tell you?”

Lamb’s bulging eyes were taking her in. She’d come away in a hurry—indoor shoes, that uniform dress, and the coat caught up where she had missed a button. Run out of the house on the spur of the moment—that was what it looked like. He took a little time before he spoke, and saw her bare right hand contract upon itself and stay like that. Then he said deliberately,

“Do you want to make a statement?”

“I know who murdered them.”

“Very well, you can make a statement. Let us have your name and address please.”

She gave them impatiently.

“Agnes Ripley—Deepside—near Deeping.”

“That’s Mr. Hathaway’s house, isn’t it? I think I remember your name. You work there don’t you—house-parlourmaid?”

“I was—”

Her mouth twitched. Things went away into the past and were lost there. You couldn’t ever bring them back, you had to go on.

Sergeant Abbott was writing on his pad. The Chief Inspector said,

“Well, Miss Ripley?”

She went on.

“Last Friday week—” the same words that Maisie had used, with all the difference that there was between her and Maisie Traill—“last Friday week a foreign lady rang Mr. Hathaway up. Ten minutes past four it was—”

Lamb interrupted her.

“How do you know she was foreign?”

“She spoke that way.”

“You answered the telephone?”

“No—I was supposed to be out. I listened on the extension.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to know who was ringing him up. I thought it might be Mrs. Hathaway.”

“And just why did that interest you?”

Her eyes told him why. They had a momentary glow, a momentary anguish. She said,

“I wanted to know whether she rang him up.”

“But this was a foreigner—you’re quite sure about that? Did she give any name?”

“She said, ‘Mr. Hathaway—I want to speak to Mr. Hathaway.’ And when he spoke she said, ‘My name is Louise Rogers, but you will not know that. I have something you dropped, and I would like to bring it back to you.’ ”

“You’re quite sure she gave that name?”

“How do you think I know it if she didn’t? It hasn’t been in the papers—yet.”

“Go on.”

“She said, ‘You were at the Bull at Ledlington on the evening of January the fourth. You dropped something there—a cigarette-lighter.’ Mr. Hathaway said she had made a mistake, he hadn’t dropped any lighter, and she said, ‘Perhaps it was something else—it might have been a letter.’ Then she said she was ringing up from Lenton, and she’d got a car, and would he tell her how to get to his house. And he said he thought she was making a mistake, but he told her.”

She came to a full stop there and sat staring at Lamb, but not as if she was seeing him. When he said, “Is that all?” she started, and began to speak again.

“I heard the car drive up, about half past four, and I heard him go to the door and let her in. Mrs. Barton was out too—the housekeeper—we were both supposed to be out. He let her in and took her into the study, and I went along down and eased the door open so I could hear what they said.”

Lamb grunted.

“You went downstairs and listened at the door. Why?”

Her eyes had that flickering glow again.

“She didn’t know him. She’d seen him at the Bull. Anyone could see she was making up an excuse to get off with him. I had to hear what he said.”

Lamb drummed on his knee. Crazy with jealousy, that was about the size of it. Sometimes a jealous woman came out with the truth, but if the truth wasn’t damaging enough she wouldn’t stick at a lie.

He gave her a short “Go on!”

“I couldn’t make out everything she said—she spoke quick and foreign—but it was something about some diamonds. I didn’t trouble about that. I thought she was making up to him. It was him I was listening to, and he was putting her in her place—said he didn’t know nothing about it. She was all worked-up and talking fast and foreign, and she calls out, ‘Show me your hand—then I shall know!’—like that. And he says, ‘You’re making a mistake.’ Then she calls out very loud, ‘Your hand!’ and Mr. Grant, he come over towards the door, and I thought he was going to open it, so I didn’t stay.”

There—it was said. Mr. Frank Abbott that was Colonel Abbott’s nephew and was staying at Abbottsleigh, he’d got it written down, and no way of taking it back again. The thing that had driven her ceased to scourge her on. She was empty, and cold, and tired. Her clenched hand relaxed. The big London policeman was asking her if that was all, and she nodded. She felt quite weak—she didn’t know how she was going to get all that way back on her bicycle. And then it came to her that she wouldn’t be going back, and that she hadn’t anywhere to go. It felt like being dead. But when you were dead someone took care of your body and buried it. There wasn’t anyone that would do as much for her. She sat there staring.

Lamb said, “You said you knew who murdered Mary Stokes and the other woman whose body has been found. Are you suggesting it was Mr. Hathaway?”

She stared.

“That would be a very serious suggestion to make, Miss Ripley.”

In a voice like an echo she said,

“He killed them.”

“What makes you think so?”

She stared.

“It was her diamonds. She kept on about them—said she’d been robbed. I couldn’t get it all, but I got enough to know she thought it was Mr. Grant—out in France in the war, when she was getting away from the Germans.”

“Did you hear her say it was Mr. Hathaway who robbed her?”

“I didn’t get it at all. What did she come there for if she didn’t think it was him? It’s common talk he sold some diamonds to pay off what was owed on the land.”

“And that’s enough to make you think he murdered this woman. Did you hear her go?”

“I heard the door shut and the car drive off a little before five o’clock.”

“Did you hear voices? Did you hear her speak—say goodnight—anything like that?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Did you hear Mr. Hathaway after the car had driven off? Careful, Miss Ripley—this is important.”

Why was it important? She groped for that, and got it. If the car drove away, and after that she heard Mr. Grant moving about in the house, then he couldn’t have killed Louise Rogers. He couldn’t have killed her if she had driven away in the car and left him moving about the house for Agnes Ripley to hear. She focussed her staring eyes on Lamb and said,

“No, I didn’t hear him at all.”

There were a lot more questions, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t mind anything any more. He asked where she was the next day between half past five and half past seven in the evening, and where Mr. Grant was. Everyone knew it was just after six o’clock of that Saturday Mary Stokes had run screaming into Rectory Cottage, and it was easy to answer that she was in the kitchen with Mrs. Barton. But she couldn’t say anything about Mr. Grant—he might have been in or he might have been out. He might have been moving Louise Rogers’ body after killing her the night before, or he might have been writing in the study. She hadn’t seen him between five and half past seven, and she couldn’t say. No more she hadn’t seen him this last Saturday evening, the sixteenth, when Mary Stokes was killed—couldn’t have, because she had caught the three o’clock bus into Lenton and come back on the ten to nine along with Mrs. Abbott’s maids. Only she didn’t walk up the Lane with them, because she had to call at the post office for Mrs. Barton that didn’t like coming back in the dark alone. She supposed it would be half past nine when they got in. And she couldn’t say whether Mr. Grant was in or out. She didn’t see him and she didn’t hear him—not till she heard him come up to bed round about eleven o’clock.

There was a pause. She thought the questions were over. Then all at once the big man asked her another.

“What were your relations with Mr. Hathaway?”—right out like that.

Her heart banged and the slow, heavy colour came up in her face. Her tongue stumbled over the word as she repeated it.

“Relations?”

“You know what I’m asking you. Did he make love to you— were you his mistress?”

She flinched as if he had struck her. Her face twitched. She broke into bitter weeping.

“No—no—he didn’t—I wasn’t! Do you think I’d have come here if I was? He never looked at me—he didn’t know I was there! I’d have done anything—I’d have helped him if he’d wanted me to! And he was going to let me be sent away. Mrs. Barton was going to send me away, and he was going to let her. I begged and prayed of him, but he was going to let her do it. I couldn’t stop him—there wasn’t anything I could do. You can’t just sit still and let things happen—not things like that. I told him I knew— what he done—about those two girls, and he said to leave his house in the morning. But I didn’t wait for the morning, nor to pack my things nor anything—I come right away—” She broke off short as if the furious rush of words had been suddenly dammed, and stared at Lamb with a horrified expression. She stared, and said in a weak, fluttering voice,

“It isn’t any good—”

It was seven o’clock when Mrs. Barton came into the study with a look of distress on her face.

“Mr. Grant, I don’t know what has happened, but Agnes has gone.”

He looked up from the catalogue he was marking—farm implements and machinery, some of them too expensive to be managed this year, some which could be managed out of the premium which James Roney would pay with his son.

“Gone?”

There was offence as well as distress in her voice as she answered him.

“I’m sure I don’t know what to think. She came down the kitchen passage some time after tea all in a hurry with her coat on, and off on her bicycle. I thought she’d slipped down to the post, and I’ve been looking for her back ever since, but it’s turned seven and the tea not cleared or anything. I don’t know what came over her, and I don’t like it, Mr. Grant, with these nasty murders and all. I don’t know what would be keeping her like this.”

All at once Grant Hathaway knew. He sat for a moment, half turned in his chair with the light shining down on him. Then, as Mrs. Barton went over to pick up the tray, he said drily,

“I don’t think Agnes has been murdered, but I daresay she won’t be coming back. She was in rather a hysterical state— about your giving her notice. Has she friends she would be likely to go to?”

It became clear to Mrs. Barton that Agnes had still farther forgotten herself. She looked very much shocked.

“I don’t know about friends, Mr. Grant. There’s a Mrs. Parsons she has tea with once in a while when she goes into Lenton. Would you care about your supper in here, sir? It would be warm and comfortable in front of the fire.”

He said, “Yes,” and she went out of the room with the tray.

As soon as she was gone he pulled the table telephone towards him and gave the Abbottsleigh number. Cicely answered, as she had done an hour before. At her “Hullo!” he said,

“It’s me again. Is Frank back?”

“No, he isn’t—I said I’d ring you.” She sounded a little breathless.

“Sorry to be a nuisance.”

“Grant, what’s going on?”

“I should very much like to know.”

As he spoke he began to hear a faint throbbing sound. By the time Cicely was saying, “What do you mean?” a car was undoubtedly coming up the drive. It turned, slowed down, and stopped. There were voices and footsteps.

He said, “Goodnight. I think I have visitors,” and rang off.

As he went to the front door, it came into his head to wonder how, when, and where he would speak to Cicely again. With a kind of nightmare relevancy, there came clanking through his thoughts two lines which had thrilled him when he was a boy:

“And Eugene Aram walked between

With gyves upon his wrist—”

The fact that he hadn’t at that time the slightest idea what a gyve might be had merely added to the delightful gloom. As he opened the door to Chief Inspector Lamb he was wondering whether he was about to be given a practical demonstration of the manacle as used today. Hints on handcuffs.

There came in through the open door some very cold air just touched with mist, the towering bulk of Chief Inspector Lamb, and the slim elegance of Cicely’s policeman cousin, Frank Abbott. Well, well—perhaps the handcuffs wouldn’t be applied just yet—there would be some preliminary conversation. Life was certainly full of new experiences. Who said the post-war years were dull? Even in the heyday of the late European mix-up the jaded taste might have got a kick out of a situation like this. He saw no reason to doubt that Agnes had spilled the beans, in which case it was going to be up to him to stage something particularly convincing in the way of an explanation.

With all this in his mind he led the way to the study, watched Lamb divest himself of coat and hat and, refusing a proffered armchair, seat himself austerely by the writing-table. Then, and not till then, did he say,

“I wonder if you were expecting us, Mr. Hathaway.”

Grant was still standing. He said in his ordinary voice,

“Well, I was wanting to see you. I have rung up Abbottsleigh twice to ask whether Abbott had come in, as I wanted to get into touch with you.”

Lamb grunted.

“Sit down, Mr. Hathaway. I have just come from Lenton police station. As you have probably guessed, we have had a visit from your house-parlourmaid, Agnes Ripley. She made a very serious statement, and I have called to know whether you would care to comment on it.”

Grant had drawn up a chair. They were all sitting round the table now—the Chief Inspector with his heavy face and serious air, Frank cold and impassive—and Grant Hathaway defendant. It really was very like being in the dock, only all at very much closer quarters, and he had no counsel. If he couldn’t be sufficiently convincing he would be for it, and whatever happened afterwards, the deal with James Roney would fall through. You don’t pay a good-sized premium to place a son with a man who has been arrested for two particularly brutal murders. And he wanted that money. It was part of the game of “showing Cicely.” He wanted it badly. He said,

“May I see the statement if I am to comment on it?”

He took the typed transcript which Frank Abbott handed him and read it, frowning a little as he read. When he looked up it was to say,

“I think she’s got a screw loose. My housekeeper gave her notice this morning. She came in after tea and made a scene about it—wanted me to say she could stay on.”

“Why did your housekeeper give her notice? Why was she being dismissed?”

“You’ll have to ask Mrs. Barton—I leave these things to her.”

“You don’t know?”

“No. I could see that Mrs. Barton didn’t wish to say.”

“Well, Mr. Hathaway, you have Agnes Ripley’s statement before you. Is there anything you would like to say about it?”

“Yes. To begin with, I don’t know whether you know that I’ve been away.”

“From Sunday morning at eight-thirty till Monday morning at eleven—yes.”

“Very exact. I want to say that I did not know of these two murders until Agnes herself mentioned them at about five o’clock this afternoon.”

“You came back here at eleven, and had an interview with Inspector Smith. He questioned you as to your whereabouts on the evening of Friday the eighth—that is, last Friday week— and he asked you for your fingerprints. Why did you suppose he did that?”

“I knew—that is, I heard—that there was some cock-and-bull story going round. At least I thought then that it was a cock-and-bull story—something about Mary Stokes having seen what she described as a corpse. As no corpse was found where she said she had seen one, I concluded that it was a made-up story.”

“H’m. You had heard the story?”

“Yes—Mrs. Barton said something about it, and my wife mentioned it—lightly, you know—not in the sort of way she would have done if she thought there was anything in it.”

“You thought Inspector Smith was questioning you with reference to this story? You did not know then that Mary Stokes had been murdered?”

“Certainly I did not.”

“Or that the body of Louise Rogers had been found at the Forester’s House?”

“I had no idea that a body had been found there.”

“What were your movements after Inspector Smith left?”

“I was out round the place. I was with my cowman most of the time. After lunch I went out and worked on a barn we’re patching up—there’s quite a lot of work to be done on a farm. Then I came in and started to clear up my table—there’s also quite a lot of writing to be done. Then Agnes came in and played her scene.”

“And no one happened to mention that there had been two murders?”

“The cowman didn’t, nor did either of the other two men I spoke to. And Mrs. Barton didn’t. You can ask them if you like.”

Lamb drummed on his knee.

“Let’s get back to the statement. What about it? Are you admitting that what she says is correct?”

“Some of it.”

“Would you care to say which parts are correct?”

Grant looked down at the typed sheets and turned them over.

“The conversation on the telephone—that’s all right.”

“This woman Louise Rogers did ring you up and say she wanted to come and see you?”

“Yes.”

“She did come and see you?”

“Yes.”

“Any comment to make on Agnes Ripley’s statement as to what she overheard?”

“Yes—certainly. She’s got it all mixed up. I think I had better tell you just what happened. The woman who came to see me was in a very excited condition—fluent English but a foreign accent, and very much worked up. I’m not surprised that Agnes got it mixed. She had a long story about escaping from Paris and being bombed on the road—I don’t really know quite where. She said she had a lot of valuable jewellery with her, and it was stolen, she said, by an Englishman. When I could get a word in edgeways, I said I was very sorry and all that, but it was rather an old story and what had it got to do with me. Not quite as bald as that, you know, but words to that effect. Well, then she came out with what sounded like a completely lunatic story about having seen the thief’s hand when he grabbed the jewels. She said she would know it again. Well, I still wanted to know what it had got to do with me. She said she wanted to see my hands, so I put them on the table and she had a good look at them. That seemed to pacify her, and she went away.”

Frank Abbott wrote, his face expressionless, the likeness to Lady Evelyn’s portrait at Abbottsleigh very marked. As a tale he was judging it thin—so thin that it might almost be true.

Lamb shifted in his chair. He had been sitting well back on it, square and upright, now he set a hand on the writing-table and leaned forward.

“You say this woman went away. What did you do after that?”

Grant smiled faintly.

“From five o’clock onwards? You’ve got it written down, haven’t you? At least I seem to remember Inspector Smith writing it down this morning, and I suppose you’ve got it. I don’t propose to make you a present of any inconsistencies. I went out about five o’clock, and I was out for some time.”

“Did you leave the house with Louise Rogers?”

“No, I did not.”

“How long afterwards did you go?”

Grant Hathaway’s shoulder lifted slightly.

“A few minutes.”

“How do you account for the fact that Agnes Ripley didn’t hear you go?”

“I’m afraid I can’t account for anything that Agnes said or did.”

“Were you on foot, on a bicycle, or in a car?”

“I was on foot.”

“Where did you go?”

Lamb’s inexpressive gaze, which missed nothing, noted a tightening of the muscles of Mr. Hathaway’s face. It was so slight that it might not have been there at all.

Grant, aware of the involuntary stiffening, quite deliberately relaxed. He had taken a very quick decision, and he relaxed. It is better to exhibit yourself as a fool than to be arrested as a murderer, and if you’ve got to make an exhibition of yourself, it is better to carry it off with a good grace. Without any perceptible pause he said,

“I walked down to the cross-roads and round by Tomlin’s Farm into Deeping.”

“Did you see Mary Stokes?”

“No—of course not. I didn’t see anyone. I wanted a walk.”

“See anyone in Deeping?”

“No.”

“How long were you out, Mr. Hathaway?”

“I got in—” he paused, frowning—“getting on for half past seven.”

“H’m. It wouldn’t take you all that time to do—what’s the distance—three or four miles?”

“About three. No.”

“An hour at the outside. What about the other hour and a half, Mr. Hathaway?”

Grant’s smile flashed out.

“I was in church.”

“On a Friday evening?”

He nodded carelessly.

“Yes. As I came by the church I heard the organ, so I knew that my wife was there practising—she plays extremely well. The side door was open, so I went in and listened.”

“For an hour and a half?”

“Just about. She left at seven, and it takes me about twenty-five minutes from the church.”

“H’m. Mrs. Hathaway can corroborate this?”

“Oh, no—she didn’t know I was there.”

“Is there anyone who can corroborate this account of your movements?”

“I’m afraid not. Mrs. Barton and Agnes were out—that is, Agnes was supposed to be out. Did she go after she’d finished eavesdropping?”

“Yes, she went.”

“Then I’m afraid you’ll just have to take my word for it— or not.”

Lamb tapped on the table. He thought Mr. Hathaway was a very cool hand. Odd story that about his going into the church to listen to his wife playing the organ. Might be the best cover-up he could think of—might go down with a jury, if it ever came to that—might even be true. He frowned and asked what Mr. Hathaway was doing on the evening of Saturday the ninth between half past five and, say, nine or ten o’clock.

Mr. Hathaway was quite pleasant about it, but not in the least helpful either to himself or to the police. He stuck to what he had already told Inspector Smith. He had started to go down into Deeping on a bicycle soon after four. He caught up with his wife, who was out with her dogs, had a few words with her, changed his mind about going into Deeping, and went home, where he remained.

“You were back by half past four?”

“I should think so.”

“You didn’t go out again?”

“No—I had a lot of writing to do.”

“Could your housekeeper vouch for the fact that you were in?”

“I had a meal at half past seven. She and Agnes could both vouch for that. May I ask why this particular time needs to be vouched for? I suppose nobody else was being murdered then?”

Lamb’s gaze remained impenetrable.

“Louise Rogers’ body was moved to the Forester’s House between half past five and six. Mary Stokes saw it there and ran screaming down to Rectory Cottage. If she had told the truth, the murderer might have been caught and she probably wouldn’t have been murdered. But she didn’t want to admit that she had been to the Forester’s House, so she said she’d seen the body somewhere else. Meanwhile the murderer got it down into the cellar, and either then or later on buried it there.”

Grant was a little paler—not much, but enough to be noticeable. He said,

“I didn’t change for supper. Mrs. Barton will remember that, I suppose—and that I was reasonably clean and tidy. I certainly hadn’t been digging a grave in a disused cellar, which sounds like a particularly messy kind of job. But of course, as you were about to observe, I could have got into suitable garments and gone out and done it afterwards. You were going to point that out, weren’t you?”