Latter End (10 page)

She was standing by the milestone, a bicycle leaning against the hedge behind her. When Antony drew up she went across to the car.

“We’d better get off the road. Turn up Hob Lane. I’ve got Ellie’s bicycle—I’ll be there as soon as you are.”

The car almost filled the lane. Not that it mattered, for nothing came this way more than once in a blue moon. Julia got in, leaned back into the corner, and said without any preliminaries,

“They think it’s murder.”

“Why?”

She said, “Everything.” And then, “I’d better tell you.”

“Yes.”

She took one of those long breaths. She was bareheaded, her hair a little misted with the early morning damp, her face quite colourless and strongly set, her voice low and steady.

“It’s been a dreadful two days—ever since you went. There must have been some frightful row. I expect you know what it was. Jimmy doesn’t say. He was out nearly all the first day. Lois stayed in her room till lunch, then she came down. Jimmy wasn’t there. They didn’t speak at dinner, and afterwards he went off and shut himself in the study.”

“What about the coffee?”

“He came into the drawing-room for it—just tossed it off with a gulp as if it was medicine and went away. Next day— yesterday—it was the same thing. She had her breakfast in her room. I took it up. Jimmy went out and didn’t come home till the late afternoon. He looked awful. Nobody—nobody in the house could help knowing that there had been some awful row. Dinner was ghastly. Ellie and I washed up— Minnie looked so bad that we sent her away. I took the coffee tray through. Manny put a drop of vanilla into each of the cups—she did it in front of me. The sugar and the cognac were on the tray. I took it into the drawing-room and put it down. There wasn’t anyone there. I went out on to the terrace to see if Lois was there, but I didn’t find her, so I went along to the study and called through the window to Jimmy to tell him the coffee was in the drawing-room. I didn’t hurry back. It was all being pretty grim.” She paused, stiffening herself against a shudder. She had on a warm frieze coat, but nothing warmed her. The cold came from within. It was her mind and her heart that shuddered.

Antony said, “Go on.”

“Yes—I will. After a bit I came up to the drawing-room window and looked in. They were all there. Jimmy was in his usual chair. His coffee was on the table beside him. He took it up and drank it off the way he always does. Lois had hers in her hand. She was going over to her chair by the window. Minnie was over by the fireplace. Ellie was near the window. I didn’t want to go in. I said to Ellie, ‘Get off to bed early, darling. I’m going for a turn.’ I went down through the garden and across the fields. It was a lovely evening and I just didn’t want to go in. I don’t know if it would have made any difference if I had.” The shudder came again.

“Go on, Julia.”

She fixed her eyes on his face.

“It was ten o’clock when I got back. The door from the drawing-room on to the terrace was open. I went in that way. There wasn’t anyone there but Lois, and I thought she was asleep. I didn’t particularly want to wake her, so I turned back and was going to go round by the side door. And then I wasn’t sure—I mean I wasn’t sure about her being asleep. I mean she doesn’t—and she had slipped down in the chair— she didn’t look right. I went over and spoke to her, but she didn’t wake up. Then I touched her, and she slipped right down. I went and got Jimmy. She wasn’t dead yet, but we couldn’t wake her. I tried to get Dr. Grange on the telephone, but he was out at a baby case. Then I tried to get someone from Crampton. There was a hospital concert on, and I tried three people before I got a man called Hathaway. He said to give her strong coffee and walk her about. I think we got a little of the coffee down, but she was past anything like walking. She died just after he got there.” The shudder which she had been holding back shook her from head to foot.

Antony put a hand on her knee.

“Don’t, my dear—”

Her hand came out ice-cold and caught at his. She went on speaking.

“He said we must ring up the police, and nothing must be touched. I had to do the ringing up—Jimmy just sat with his head in his hands. And all in the middle of everything that awful Gladys Marsh had hysterics—her idea of getting any limelight that was going. Manny and I were trying to stop her, when Doctor Hathaway came out of the drawing-room. He’s the disagreeable, conscientious sort—good at his job— nasty suspicious mind. It only needed Gladys to set him off. She was screaming out, ‘You want to shut me up, but you can’t! Murder—that’s what it is—murder! And you’re not going to be able to hush it up!’ Well, this Hathaway man was on to it like a knife. He told her to control herself, and if she knew anything, to say what it was.”

He felt her hand jerk on his. She wasn’t looking at him now. She took her hand away. He said sharply,

“What was it?”

“Worse than anything you can possibly imagine. Antony, she was outside your door that night—she was listening. I told you she listened at doors. She says Lois was in your room, and Jimmy found her there. She says there was a terrible row.”

Antony’s face was as bleak as a north-east wind.

“That’s not true. Lois came through Marcia’s cupboard. I needn’t say I wasn’t expecting her. Jimmy must have followed her. There wasn’t any row. He told her to go back to her room—that’s all he said to her. There wasn’t any row with me. He said it wasn’t my fault, and I told him I’d clear out and keep out of the way. ”

Julia’s cold hands took hold of one another.

“Gladys says that Lois called you ‘Joseph,’ and you called her ‘Potiphar’s wife,’ and that Jimmy kept saying, ‘I heard what she said.’ ”

“Substantially correct. Is that all?”

“No, it isn’t. She came out with the whole thing—how Lois had said someone was trying to poison her, how she’d had these sick attacks, and finished up with, ‘They’ve done it—somebody’s done it! Poisoned her—that’s what they have, among them! And trying to shut my mouth! But if there’s any law in England, they shan’t!’ All that kind of thing.”

“Well?”

“The Inspector came—he’s a new man. He saw the doctor, and he saw Gladys alone. He took statements from us. We were up most of the night. You see, it’s either suicide, or murder, and neither he nor Hathaway believe it’s suicide— because of Gladys, and the previous attacks, and because she took it like that in her after-dinner coffee. They haven’t analysed it yet of course, but they seem pretty sure it was the coffee. Hathaway says if she was going to commit suicide she wouldn’t have done it like that—she’d have waited till she was in bed. He says sleeping-draught suicides always do.”

“Why are they so sure it was the coffee?”

Julia looked at him with tired, tragic eyes.

“There wasn’t anything else. We had fish for dinner— baked haddock. Lois helped it, and we all had some. It couldn’t have been in that. And a sweet omelette—she helped that too. We all had some of it. No—it must have been the coffee.”

“Julia—that idea you had about Manny—you thought she might be playing tricks. You said you were going to tackle her about it. Did you do it?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What did she say?”

Julia was silent. She looked down at her clasped hands, where the knuckles stood up white.

“What did she say?”

Of course it was no good—she couldn’t keep it back. She said very low and distressed,

“I was right—she had been playing tricks.”

“Good God! Manny!”

“Not what happened last night. Antony, she didn’t do that—she couldn’t!”

“How do you know? You’d better tell me what happened.”

She was looking at him again.

“Yes, I will. I got her alone, and I went straight at it.”

“When?”

“The day you went. I said straight out, ‘Manny, you’ve been playing tricks—it’s no good your saying you haven’t. And it’s got to stop.’ She went absolutely purple and said, ‘I don’t know what you mean, Miss Julia.’ So I said, ‘Oh, yes, you do, Manny—you know perfectly well. You’ve been putting ipecac or something in Mrs. Latter’s coffee to make her sick, and it’s got to stop. You don’t want to end up in jail, do you?’ ”

“What did she say?”

Julia’s lips twitched into the ghost of a smile.

“She said, ‘You take and get out of my kitchen, Miss Julia— saying things like that!’ But I could see I’d frightened her, so I put my arm as far round her as it would go, and I said, ‘You’re a wicked old woman, Manny, and it’s got to stop.’ ”

“What did she say to that?”

“Tossed her head and went right through the roof. ‘What’s a little sickness to what she’s done to others? You tell me that, Miss Julia! Poor Mrs. Marsh turned out of her home for that flashy piece Gladys! And no thanks to her, poor Mr. Hodson isn’t turned out of his! You and Miss Ellie driven away out of your own home, and Miss Minnie that’s a born saint turned out with nowhere to go! I’m sure it’s heart-rendering to see her!’ I kept my arm round her, and I said, ‘You’d better make a clean breast of it, Manny.’ And she burst out crying and said, ‘Lois did ought to be punished, and it wasn’t no more than a spoonful of ipecac that wouldn’t hurt a child.’ ”

There was a strained pause. After which Antony said,

“Well, she doesn’t seem to have stopped at a spoonful of ipecac.”

Julie cried out.

“No, no, it wasn’t Manny—it couldn’t have been Manny— not last night!”

“You’ll have hard work to convince the police of that.”

She caught him by the arm.

“No, no—you mustn’t tell them! Antony, you mustn’t! She didn’t do it—she couldn’t have done it!”

“Why couldn’t she? She made the coffee.”

“Yes. She made it—for Jimmy as well as for Lois. She knew—everyone in the house knew—that Jimmy was taking that horrible coffee, and why. Do you think she’d have put anything into it to hurt him?”

“Somebody did.”

“Then it was someone who knew which cup Lois was going to take.”

“The coffee was poured out?”

“Yes. There were the two cups, but Manny couldn’t possibly have told which one of them Jimmy would take. She adores him—she’d let herself be cut in pieces before she would do anything that could possibly hurt him.”

She knew the moment when he accepted that, and the other moment when the thought rose up between them—“If it wasn’t Manny, who was it?”

Neither of them was ready to deal with that. Antony put up his hand to the steering-wheel.

“We’d better be getting along, hadn’t we?”

She said, “No—wait! There’s something I want to say. I was thinking it would be better, it would make things easier, if you don’t mind saying you were engaged to me—just whilst all this is going on. We could break it off afterwards.”

He gave her a strange hard look. Courage—yes, she certainly had that. He said,

“A little sudden, isn’t it? Are you, by any chance, protecting my reputation?”

Her eyes had a piteous simplicity.

“I don’t know. Not if you don’t want me to. I just thought it would be easier for Jimmy—and everyone. I thought if we said we were engaged, nobody could say you had come down because of Lois, and we could break it off whenever you liked—after it was all over.”

He was most deeply moved, but his face showed nothing. It remained dark and intent. His voice was quiet and ordinary.

“All right, my dear, if that’s what you want. I think perhaps you’re right—it will make it easier for Jimmy. And now let’s go.”

Miss Silver took up the telephone receiver. There was a considerable buzzing on the line. A high, young voice said, “So I told him I’d never speak to him again—” and ceased abruptly. Miss Silver speculated with mild interest as to whether this was a sidelight on the love affairs of the rather spectacular young woman who had recently moved into the flat below her own. She had encountered her in the lift, but had never heard her voice, or she would not have had to speculate.

The buzzing continued. In the midst of it her own name sounded very faintly. She at once repeated it in a precise manner. Quite suddenly the line was clear. A man’s voice said, dragging on the words,

“I want to speak to Miss Silver.”

“This is Miss Silver speaking.”

The drag became more evident.

“She’s dead. You said it was a trick. But she’s dead.”

Miss Silver’s face assumed a grave expression.

“Is that Mr. Latter?”

The voice said, “She’s dead.” It was like listening to a gramophone record which is running down.

She said, “Dear me!” And then, “I am very sorry indeed, Mr. Latter. Is there anything I can do?”

“You said—you could—come down—”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Is that what you wish me to do?”

“You said—you would—” Jimmy Latter’s voice faded out. A faraway click suggested that he had replaced the receiver— perhaps to plunge his head in his hands and sit there waiting.

It never took Miss Silver very long either to make up her mind or to complete her preparations for a journey. She would travel in her afternoon dress, with the black cloth coat which she had had for so many years that its waisted style had been in and out of fashion quite a number of times. Since the stuff showed no sign of wear, the idea of discarding it would have shocked her. In her shabby but serviceable suitcase she packed a silk day-dress for wear in the evening—it was as a matter of fact her last summer’s best—and a genuinely antique black velvet coatee as a provision against possible draughts—country houses were sadly prone to draughts. In view of a possible change in the weather, she also packed a small fur tippet, rather pale with age but astonishingly well preserved.

It would be unbecoming to pry into a lady’s underwear. Miss Silver’s was sensible, warm, and hard wearing—the stockings of black thread, the dressing-gown of crimson flannel trimmed with cream crochet lace of her own making. There were also a pair of slippers, the beaded house-shoes, and, carefully wrapped in a white silk handkerchief, a worn and well-read Bible. None of these things took long to assemble, nor did the invaluable Hannah Meadows require any instructions. After keeping house for Miss Silver for twenty years she took everything just as it came with imperturbable calm.

Miss Silver caught her train comfortably. She had time to send a telegram to announce the hour of its arrival. She had time to settle herself in a corner seat with her suit-case in the rack overhead. After which she removed her gloves, took her knitting out of a shabby capacious handbag, and went on with Derek’s second stocking.

She had a very pleasant journey. A delightful middle-aged lady who had recently returned from France gave her an extremely interesting account of social conditions there, and the agreeable gentleman in the opposite corner was able to contribute a most informative description of the island of Cyprus. Really quite an instructive afternoon.

The station for Rayle is Weston, a slightly larger place some three miles away. When Miss Silver alighted a tall, dark young man advanced to meet her, introducing himself as Antony Latter.

“Jimmy is my cousin. He is too knocked over to come and meet you himself.”

As he picked up her suit-case and led the way through the booking-hall to where his car was waiting, Antony concluded that poor old Jimmy must have had a complete mental breakdown. Nothing else would account for importing this dowdy elderly spinster into his tragic affairs. She looked like a composite portrait of the Victorian governess, and she talked like it too—if you could imagine a portrait endowed with speech. With the feeling that her arrival was just above the last straw, he bestowed her and her luggage and drove away.

Rather to his surprise, she chose to sit beside him in the front of the car. He was irritatedly aware of her, prim and upright in an impossible hat, a shabby black umbrella depending from her wrist, her hands in worn kid gloves clasped upon a bulging bag.

They had driven perhaps for half a mile, when she turned to him with a slight dry cough.

“Would it be possible for you to draw up for a little, Mr. Latter? Your cousin was too agitated to give me any information. I know nothing except that Mrs. Latter is dead, and that he wished me to come down. I should be glad to have a simple statement of what has occurred.”

They were in a lane with hedges on either side. The afternoon was fine though not warm. September had thinned the sunshine. There was already a breath of damp from the fields on either side, even a hint that the damp might turn to frost before the morning. The hips and haws in the hedgerows were ripening fast. As he stopped the car unwillingly he resented the parody on his conversation with Julia. They had talked in a lane this morning. She had sat where Miss Silver was sitting now. She had had the mist in her hair. She had looked at him with tragic eyes and asked him whether he would mind if they were engaged—“Just whilst this is going on.”

The travesty repelled him. He avoided looking at Miss Silver as he said,

“I’ll tell you as much as I know. But it’s secondhand—I wasn’t here.”

“If you will be so good.”

She listened attentively whilst he repeated what Julia had told him. He did not go beyond the immediate facts surrounding Lois’ death—the evening meal; the two cups of coffee; who were present in the drawing-room; Julia’s absence after she had brought in the tray; her finding Lois unconscious at ten o’clock. When he had finished she said,

“Thank you.” And then, “The police, of course, have been notified?”

“Yes.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“May I enquire, Mr. Antony, whether they have been informed of Mrs. Latter’s previous attacks of sickness? Do they know she had declared that someone was attempting to poison her?”

“Yes.”

“Was it Mr. Latter who informed them?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Why did she want to know that? It startled him. He turned, glanced at her, and met a look of such direct intelligence that he received something like an electric shock.

“Then who gave them this information, Mr. Antony?”

“A girl called Gladys Marsh—Mrs. Marsh. She’s the wife of a man in the village, a tenant of my cousin’s, but she was staying in the house and more or less acting as maid to Mrs. Latter.”

The look of intelligence became quite piercing.

“Maid—and confidante?”

Antony said, “Perhaps—I don’t know. A persevering eavesdropper at any rate.”

Miss Silver nodded.

“A dangerous person to have in the house.”

His “Yes” was so heartfelt that she drew her own conclusions from it. It appeared to her to be very probable that he could have said a good deal more about Gladys Marsh if he had chosen to do so, and perhaps about some other things as well.

She preserved a short silence, during which Antony adjusted himself. The electric shock which he had received had left him with the need of adjustment. The little governess person whom he had met at the station was there before him in her dowdy clothes, but startlingly clear to his inner vision was quite a different Miss Silver. He was sufficiently intelligent himself to recognize and respect intelligence. The impression he had received was of an intelligence keener than his own, a controlled and ordered thought, a cool authority. It surprised him very much. He had for the moment a sense of double vision—of two Miss Silvers indefinitely linked, and then quite suddenly, as if by some focussing action of the mind, quite definitely merged. There was only one Miss Silver, but she was not what he had taken her for. Unconsciously his manner changed.

Miss Silver, who had been watching him, produced an encouraging smile. Like a great many other people who had had dealings with her he had a flash back to his schoolroom days—his very first schoolroom when he was a very small boy, everything frightfully new and desperately unknown. And the teacher, that awful, godlike being behind the desk, had looked at him and smiled—“Come, Latter—I am sure you know that answer.” Absurd reminiscence. He had a smile for it himself.

Miss Silver was saying, “Pray continue, Mr. Latter. I shall be glad to know just how things stand.”

His face hardened.

“I came down early this morning. Miss Vane rang me up. By the way, do you know who we all are?”

“I think so. Mr. Latter gave me a good deal of information when he came to see me. You mean Miss Julia Vane?”

His brows drew together.

“Yes—my fiancée.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Mr. Latter did not mention that.”

He said shortly, “We were not engaged then.”

“I see—Miss Vane telephoned you, and you came down early.”

“Yes. My cousin is in a dreadful state.” He hesitated, for a moment and then went on. “There had been a—” He hesitated again.

“A quarrel?”

Something inside him said, “How did you know?” He would have denied it if it had been any use. But it wasn’t any use. Murder is like the day of judgment—the secrets of all hearts are opened. He frowned deeply and took another word.

“They had had a disagreement. It makes it much worse for him. He reproaches himself. And the police—”

“Yes, Mr. Antony?”

He said gloomily,

“It puts ideas into their heads. That’s why we thought it would be a good thing if you came down. That is to say, it was my cousin who thought about it. It’s the only thing that has seemed to rouse him at all, and we agreed that he ought to have someone to advise him.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“You say that it puts ideas into their heads. What kind of ideas?”

“I expect you can guess.”

There was a shade of reproof in her look.

“What I require just now is facts, not guesswork, Mr. Antony. I would like the answers to one or two questions. Has the post-mortem taken place? If it has, to what is Mrs. Latter’s death attributed?”

She got her answer to both questions in a single word.

“Morphia.” Then, after a moment, “A considerable quantity.”

She said, “Dear me! Was she known to have any in her possession?”

He shook his head.

“She never took drugs. She was boasting about it one of the last times I saw her. She had—a very good complexion. She was laughing and saying it was because she never took anything like that. I don’t know how we got on to the subject, but that’s what she said.”

“Morphia is not very easy to get hold of nowadays. It could be obtained abroad… Did anyone else in the house have any in their possession?”

“Not that I know of—I should think it most unlikely. I’m the only one who has been abroad. I certainly did not bring any morphia back with me.”

Miss Silver gave him a long look, deep, kind, and searching.

“Do you think that Mrs. Latter committed suicide?”

“I should say it was most unlikely.”

He received an inclination of the head which appeared to express approval.

“That is honest of you. It will make my work very much easier if everyone will be as frank. It would interest me to hear your reasons for the opinion you have just expressed.”

Antony was not feeling particularly frank. The midnight scene in his room stuck in his mind. He didn’t believe that Lois had taken her life. He told himself with emphasis that he didn’t believe it. But she might have done. She had offered herself and been refused, and Jimmy had come in. Suppose it really was suicide… He felt a kind of horror at the thought, which was purely instinctive, since reason was prompt to suggest that any other solution must be more horrible still. He spoke quickly lest Miss Silver should read his thoughts.

“She was very fond of her life. She had most things she wanted—good looks, health, money. She was full of plans.”

Miss Silver considered that. She put the word “most” away for future thought. She enquired,

“Do the police reject the idea of suicide?”

“I gather the local Inspector made it tolerably clear that he didn’t think much of it. What the Yard people think, I don’t know. They haven’t been here very long.”

Miss Silver looked up brightly.

“Do you mean that Scotland Yard has been called in?”

“Yes. I take it that means they don’t think it’s suicide.” He gave a short hard laugh. “Old Marsfield, the Chief Constable, is a family friend. My guess is he’s dropping the case before it burns his fingers. He’s a bit of an old woman anyway. The idea of encountering a criminal in his own walk of life has never occurred to him till now, and it’s given him the jitters— he can’t get rid of us fast enough. Hence Chief Inspector Lamb and Sergeant Abbott.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Two excellent and intelligent officers,” she said.