Let Him Lie (28 page)

Jeanie, however, stood still for a moment longer.

“Of course,” she muttered to herself with a swollen throat. “It was Barchard...”

“Yes, that was the man, and he is a dangerous lunatic, and now, my dear, do not stand there but come with me.”

“And of course the pearls—
she
was in the cupboard! He killed her and put her in the cupboard while he dug her grave.”

“
She?
”

“Valentine.”

“What are you talking about? Do you know that lady with the bicycle? You had better let her look after you!”

“And now Valentine is in Grim's Grave.”

“Are you all right?” asked Mr. Agatos anxiously. “Look, this lady will look after you. I will see to everything. You must get quickly somewhere to bed.”

“No, I feel awful,” croaked Jeanie. “I'm not all right at all. I—”

“Oh, Miss Halliday, what a dreadful tragedy!” It was Marjorie Dasent speaking: Marjorie Dasent, looking more like a policewoman than ever in her hastily donned blue felt hat and navy overcoat. “I saw the glow from my bedroom window and I came over to see if I could help. Shall I take you over to Cleedons?”

“Barchard!” repeated Jeanie. “It was because he'd murdered Valentine and she was in Grim's Grave! I ought to have guessed! I always did think that story about Hubert Southey couldn't be true! And to think I
liked
Barchard!”

Miss Dasent exchanged with Eustace Agatos such a look as a nurse might give a doctor over the patient's head.

“Let
me
look after her, shall I, Mr.—er—”

“I think,” croaked Jeanie, “I'm going to be sick.”

Mr. Agatos readily relinquished his charge.

“It was when I saw that white hen,” said Jeanie.

She and Peter were leaning against the gate into Cole Harbour meadow, enjoying the still beauty of a golden autumn day in which fear had receded over the horizon and left them both at peace. Idly they watched the comings and goings of two or three labourers who, under the directions of a Home Office archaeologist from Gloucester, were engaged in filling in upon Grim's Grave what the archaeologist insisted on describing as “a secondary interment.” Mr. Fone was already there, among the trees, making quite certain that the grave of Miss Vera Drake, alias Valentine Frazer, was duly filled in and grassed over. The Handleston Field Club, not particularly interested in the secondary interment, had hoped to take the obvious opportunity of having a Home Office expert on the scene to investigate the primary burial also, and had made strong representations to Agnes on the subject. They were too late. Even Sir Henry Blundell could do nothing, although Agnes almost wept at having to refuse him. Mr. Fone, it appeared, had offered, two days ago, to buy Cole Harbour meadow from Agnes as soon as the probate of Molyneux's will was through, and had not flinched at her tentative attempt to make him pay dearly for it. Much as she would have liked to please Sir Henry, the advancing shadow of death duties made Agnes realise the necessity of pleasing Mr. Fone. The tumulus was to remain unopened for Mr. Fone's lifetime, anyway. Grim could sleep in peace.

“What white hen? When?”

“When we were on the roof of Mr. Fone's library, the day before yesterday, supposed to be looking for Ancient British trackways. You know the big barn at Cleedons? Well, the doors were open at both sides. You know how those big barns have great high doors in each side, opposite one another, so that a horse and wagon can go through?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the big doors were open at both sides, and a wagon loaded with bracken was inside the barn, just as it was the day Mr. Molyneux was killed. And it unloaded its bracken and went off again towards the common. And there were the great barn-doors open, and you could see through them to the orchard. And there was a white hen pecking in the grass.”

“I heard you say something about a white hen before you passed out. It seemed to me an odd thing to go all queer over. Nice innocent little Leghorn, there's lots of them about in the yards at Cleedons.”

“I know, but this one wasn't in the yard. It was in the orchard. And it reminded me of Sarah's white kitten. The day before Molyneux died, Sarah found her white kitten, the one she was keeping for me, shot dead in the orchard. Nobody bothers much about kittens when they die. Nobody holds inquests on them or tries to find out who killed them. If they had, perhaps Molyneux might have been saved. Because when I saw that white hen, I saw at once that the man who shot Molyneux was the same man who had shot the kitten. And that he'd shot both of them from behind the balustrade of Mr. Fone's library roof. Those barn-doors aren't often open like that—only when hay or litter is being brought in. One doesn't realise how wide and high they are, how plainly one sees the orchard through them. Nor how the ground rises from Cole Harbour to Cleedons, and then is nearly level behind those barns. It wouldn't occur to one, till one saw those doors open, how easy it would be to aim through them. I felt, when I saw that white hen scratching away in the green grass, that if I'd had a gun in my hands I could almost have shot it myself. And there was the white hen, only now it had turned into a white kitten, a poor little white kitten, a wonderful target for a practice shot. And there was the tree Molyneux had been pruning. And I remembered that Barchard had been laying leads on the library roof of Cole Harbour. I remembered the ladder up against the wall, and how anybody might have climbed up there. I felt awful. I thought, it must have been Barchard... Only then I looked at him, and he spoke to me, and it seemed
impossible
. I couldn't see why he should have done such a thing.”

Her voice trembled absurdly. She did not enjoy the recollection of that moment of the roof of Cole Harbour.

“Poor Jeanie,” said Peter sympathetically, covering her hand with his. He added thoughtfully: “But you were always so keen on the shot having come from the other side of the orchard, from the north-west. What about Mr. Fone's evidence? Was he mistaken when he said Molyneux swung towards the right and turned his face towards Cleedons just before he was killed? I suppose he must have been.”

“Not exactly. Molyneux did swing round, but it was after he was killed, not before.”

“But Mr. Fone heard the shot.”

“Yes. So did we hear the thud of the man cutting down trees in Cole Harbour Wood, if you remember. And the thud seemed to come after the stroke of the axe. Light travels faster than sound. You said so. Don't you remember?”

“Lord, yes!”

“Well, Mr. Fone sat at the window in Black Ellen's Tower watching Molyneux, and willing him to reconsider his plan of opening Grim's Grave. And—how did Mr. Fone put it? Molyneux turned his head in response to this willing. There was a sharp crack, and Molyneux fell to the ground. The inference was that at the moment he was shot, at the moment Mr. Fone heard the crack, Molyneux was facing east of north, practically towards the Tower, and therefore, since he was shot in the left temple, the shot must have come approximately from the north-west, where the lambing-shed is. But suppose it
wasn't
in response to Mr. Fone's willing that Molyneux turned his head? Suppose it was in response to the impact of the shot? Suppose it was a man already dead who swung round to the right just before every muscle relaxed and he fell out of the tree? The crack of the shot came late to Mr. Fone's ears, you see. And when poor Molyneux was shot, he was actually still facing west, with the back of his head to Black Ellen's Tower. And the shot that killed him came from the south—from the roof of Cole Harbour library.”

Jeanie's throat was still tender, and this speech made her voice sink quite hoarsely.

“That balustrade with the flat leads behind makes a perfect screen. You would just creep up there and lie flat on the roof with your rifle pointing between the balusters, and there you would be practically invisible... Oh, but how fearful!” cried Jeanie, “that poor Molyneux should have to die to keep Barchard's sordid secret—not caring, not knowing about it, even, like a—a beetle that gets in the way of a wheel! It seems too horrible,
too
wasteful and silly for words! Couldn't Barchard have moved his wretched Valentine somewhere else? He moved her to Grim's Grave from Yew Tree Cottage in a hurry two years ago. Why couldn't he have moved her out of Grim's Grave again when Molyneux started to talk of opening it?”

“Two years ago, when the—secondary interment was made, the whole tumulus was grown over with saplings, you know. Nobody would have noticed what Barchard or anybody did there. But since Molyneux had those trees cut down you can't even stroll up it without making yourself conspicuous to every passer-by. And since the trees were cut down there've been many more visitors to Grim's Grave. I don't think he could have risked digging about in it without being found out. And with the official opening of the tumulus looming up in the near future, the man was in a nasty hole.”

“Do you think he was mad, Peter?”

“He always seemed sane enough to me. But I should think companionship with William Fone might be rather too strong meat for a man like Barchard to feed on. When it comes to following one's impulses and taking one's instincts as one's guides, and all the rest of the Fone philosophy, what's sauce for the goose isn't sauce for the gander, to put it vulgarly. William Fone's impulses are one thing, and the impulses of a bloke like Barchard quite another! Barchard must have had a nasty moment when you told him about those pearls Agatos found in your cupboard.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Jeanie. “He hadn't known, you know, that the pearls were genuine. He thought they were an artificial string, the kind of thing anybody might lose without worrying over. I'm sure he knew nothing whatever of Valentine Frazer's connection with Agnes. It would have seemed to him so much more likely that Southey should give Valentine trinkets than that Agnes should. Valentine made her first great mistake when she took that zircon brooch of Agnes's to be real diamonds and told Barchard that Southey had given it her. I suppose she didn't want him to know about Agnes, for fear he'd kill the goose that laid the golden eggs. But she must have been a bit of an ass to risk making a man like Barchard jealous.”

“Perhaps she enjoyed risks.”

“Perhaps she did, poor creature. But it meant that when she got tired of living in Handleston and wanted to go back to her life in London, Barchard could only think that she and Southey were lovers and that she wanted to follow him. He told me that she'd gone up to London to be an artist's model, and that he'd never believed the village gossip about her and Southey. He was very calm and reasonable about her departure.
Too
calm and reasonable, I see now. It wasn't natural, the unembarrassed cool way he talked about her and Southey. But at the time it took me in. I liked him all the more for being so civilised and reasonable and not being influenced by vulgar talk. Good Heavens, Peter! There I sat in that little parlour with a man who'd done two murders, thinking what a civilised agreeable man he was! And to think what his real feelings must have been about my questions, and about me!”

“He didn't keep them a secret for long, did he?” said Peter grimly. “Oh Jeanie, it makes me feel quite sick with horror when I think of how I let you go home alone that day! Suppose you'd died! What should I have been thinking now?”

His voice trembled. Jeanie returned the hard squeeze of his fingers.

“You'd have been thinking, like everyone else, what an ass I was to tinker with an old fire-place,” she essayed light-heartedly. “Do you know, Peter, I believe Mr. Agatos is going to make an offer for my poor little ruin? He rather prefers old cottages burnt down, I believe. It saves him trouble in alterations, and he gets them cheap. I don't believe the idea's ever been out of his head that he'd tempt me out of Yew Tree Cottage sooner or later. In fact, he was responsible for terrifying me out of my life on that awful evening by creeping into my garden and taking the measurements of the kitchen wall to see, he calmly confesses, if there would be room for a garage as well as a study!”

“Infernal cheek!”

“He was just off to look at a cottage in Somerset, if you please, and wanted the measurements for purposes of comparison. Well, I can't really complain of anything Eustace Agatos does or ever did. He saved my life.”

There was a little tremor in her voice, and the two of them remained silent a moment.

“Shall we go and see if they've finished ironing out the creases on Mr. Grim's Grave?” suggested Jeanie.

“Old Fone certainly won't let them go until they have! Well he's had his way and averted the curse of the old gods. Though I don't know what could have happened if the grave had been opened much worse than what
has
happened, without opening it! I think old Fone's instincts have played him false for once.”

They strolled side by side over the browning grass of the autumn meadow.

“I don't know, Peter. It was talking about opening the mound that made all this happen, didn't it? Well, Mr. Fone might say, if just talking about it caused all this horror, what might not have happened if the matter had gone beyond talking?”

Peter smiled.

“He might say so, certainly. And no doubt he will say so, and a lot more beside. Did I tell you he's invited me to take Barchard's place for a year or two at a very handsome salary?”

“Are you going to?”

Peter hesitated.

“I don't fancy it. I like Fone, but—well, I have a feeling that this place isn't fortunate for me. Sounds silly, I know, but why should Mr. Fone be the only one to go in for impulses and intuitions?”

“I feel just the same. This place isn't fortunate for me, either,” said Jeanie, thinking sadly of Agnes, whom she had not seen once since the burning of Yew Tree Cottage. Agnes had her own troubles to reflect on: how should she spare sympathy for Jeanie? If the news of her sister's death had not distressed her, no doubt she found its circumstances distressing enough. The prodigal sister, exhumed two nights ago from her resting-place on the top of Grim's Grave, was having her last, unpremeditated fling at the respectable one. And Agnes was keeping to her room, thinking out, no doubt, the best attitude to take up at Monday's inquest on the remains of Vera Drake, known as Valentine Frazer. Jeanie was sure it would be a graceful attitude. Agnes would not need Jeanie to help her to sustain it.