No Love Lost (27 page)

‘We had been talking about the holidays,' I began. ‘Victor said, “My dear child, I cannot put it any more plainly to you. I will discuss the matter later. Now I am very tired and there is still a great deal of school business to be done. If you will excuse me I will go to bed. Good night.”'

I raised my eyes to find Uncle Fred South regarding me fishily. His mouth had fallen open a little.

‘Quarrelling?'

‘Not exactly.'

‘I see.' It was quite clear that he did nothing of the kind. ‘Did he always talk to you like that?'

I felt myself growing red again. ‘He talked to everybody like that.'

‘I know he did. But … were you alone?'

‘Yes, we were in here.'

‘I see,' he said again, still in the same unconvinced way. ‘Was there anything special about the holiday?'

There was nothing to do but to tell him and to make it as factual as the bicycle ride. I found myself talking very fast to get it over.

‘Yes, there was. At least, I thought so. I had not seen much of Victor during the term, although we both lived here. The school took up all his time. I asked him about the vacation several times but he never had a moment to discuss it. On Wednesday, when the school was actually closing, the matter seemed to me to be rather urgent, so I waited for him when he came up from his late-night session in his study and I asked him again. He told me he thought he should have to go on his usual climbing expedition after all, and asked me if I couldn't go to stay with friends.'

I stopped, but Uncle Fred South was quietly firm.

‘Go on,' he said. ‘I knew him, you know. I've known him for years, much longer than you have. Just tell me what happened.'

‘Well,' I said, ‘I told him I did not want to do that, and that we had been married for six months and seemed to be still virtual strangers. I said I thought we ought to go away together. He said I was talking like a novelette and that he was very tired
and would see me in the morning. I attempted to insist, because I wanted the thing settled, and he then said what I've just told you. That's all.'

‘But he didn't see you in the morning?'

‘No. When I came down at the usual time he had already breakfasted, and when I'd had mine he was with Mr Rorke in his study. I went down the town to get away from it all and when I came back he had gone. I never saw him again.'

The Superintendent stubbed out his cigarette. His eyes had lost their twinkle but not their knowingness.

‘And when you went down the town you met your old sweetheart and told him all your troubles and how you were neglected, and that your husband was unfaithful as well …'

‘No.' I was too earnest even to be angry with him. ‘No, I didn't even know then that Victor had even been faintly interested in any woman.'

He sat back, throwing up his hands. ‘Oh, come, Mrs Lane,' he said, ‘think again.'

I stuck to my guns. ‘I did not,' I insisted. ‘I can understand now that the whole of this beastly town must think me demented for not knowing as much as everybody else did about Victor, but they've all known him longer than I have, and besides, there is one great difference between us.'

‘What's that?'

‘They
wanted
to know something unpleasant about him. I didn't, naturally. I'd married him.'

He regarded me with a new respect. ‘You're not quite the gentle little mug – hrmmph! party you look, are you? When did you find out?'

‘Mrs Raye told me, or conveyed it, rather, when she drove me home from the High Street after I'd said good-bye to Andy. Later on I saw the blotting-paper.'

‘Oho!' said Uncle Fred South with sudden triumph. ‘Oho! That explains quite a bit.'

‘What? The blotting-paper?'

‘No, no. Mrs Raye spilled the beans, did she? She didn't mention that, my lady didn't. Well, well, so she's got a conscience after all. Perhaps I'd better give you this lot.'

He felt in his coat pocket and pulled out a collection of envelopes.

‘These kept coming for you all the evening,' he explained blandly. ‘We had to take 'em in at the lodge or you'd have come downstairs and found us at work. We notified the exchange to divert all telephone calls to the station for the same reason. You read these and you'll find out something about this beastly town, as you call it, that you didn't know before.'

‘What's that?' I inquired warily.

‘That it's only uncharitable in word,' he said with unexpected seriousness. ‘It's all right when it comes to deeds, sound as a bell.'

I did not answer him. I had opened the first of the letters and its contents had caught me unawares.

There were so many of them, all in the same strain, from Hester Raye's ‘
Dear Elizabeth, Don't be frightened. It will be
ALL RIGHT.
Love from Hester
to dear Miss Seckker's three pages in a fine gothic hand:

I looked up at the Superintendent, who was watching my shaking hands.

‘You've had these steamed open,' I accused him.

His eyes were at their small widest and the twinkle was bland with meaning. He nodded shamelessly and said, ‘I never,'

‘They're very kind,' I murmured huskily.

‘More than kind, downright interfering,' he observed. ‘You know why we've had to sit up all night? The Chief, Colonel Raye, has sent to London for his own solicitor to represent you. He's a terrible big bug, name of Sir Montague Grenville. The Colonel didn't think you ought to be in the hands of a local man. Thought it might not be fair. He'll be down first thing in the morning and then I don't suppose I'll be able to say howd'you-do to you without him sitting there listening. That's why I had to get such a move on. Still, if Mrs Raye felt guilty about what she hinted to you, that explains that. Very human, people are, especially women.'

I had no time to comment on this extraordinary and in some ways outrageous statement, for just then a detective I had never seen before came into the room and there was a muttered conference. Uncle Fred South put on a pair of spectacles and eyed me over the top of them.

‘I've got a transcript here of the items from the blotting-paper. I see the one you mean.' He nodded a dismissal to the detective, who went out, leaving us alone again. It was quiet in the room and, despite the fire, cold. Uncle Fred South had undergone one of his changes. Now that he was off guard for a minute or so I could see him as he was without the mannerisms, a single-minded, kindly but utterly inexorable machine for finding out the wrongdoer and bringing him to justice. He was not satisfied with me. I could smell it rather than see it. I knew I had shaken and puzzled him, but as yet he was unconvinced.

‘You see, Mrs Lane,' he said suddenly, just as if he had been following my thought and was answering it, ‘someone shot your husband between one o'clock and four o'clock yesterday afternoon. Someone holding Mr Lane's own gun forced him back through the door of the kitchen, across the floor towards the cupboard door, which was probably standing open. Whether your husband stepped in there with some idea of shutting the door on himself as a protection, or whether he just went blindly where he could to get away from the gun, we do not know, but
at any rate the rotten floor gave way under him and more than likely he stepped back involuntarily, turning his head towards this new danger. At that moment someone fired. The bullet entered the back of the neck and ploughed its way up into the skull, the body plunged down into the water, and someone threw the gun in after him.'

He made it all so horribly vivid that I shrank back into the chair. I had an instinct to cover my eyes but I controlled it and kept staring at him.

‘I didn't,' I said.

‘I never suggested that you did,' he reminded me gently. ‘I don't even think you were there. But I want you to realize one thing. The deed has been done. Someone shot him in cold blood while he was running away. There was no fight, so there's no question of self-defence. Understand?'

‘Yes, I understand, but to suggest that Andy –'

‘Wait.' He held up a hand to stop me. ‘Wait. Don't say anything until I've finished. Just give your mind to what I'm telling you. There's the killing, that's the first thing. Then there's your behaviour. You've told lies to everybody about your husband's whereabouts. You've attempted to destroy evidence. You've packed your bags. And on the night after your husband died you sat up beautifying yourself for the first time since your marriage. Also, you were one of the few people who could have got possession of your husband's gun.'

‘Anybody in the whole school could have got possession of that gun if Victor left it where it was when I saw it last term,' I protested.

He shook his head at me. ‘I told you to wait till the end. Now I want you to think of Dr Andrew Durtham's behaviour. He comes to a town where the girl he loves is unhappily married to another man. He knows she is there, mind. He takes a locum's job there, deliberately. He meets her “accidentally” in the street and they take a long drive together round and round the town, talking their heads off. The very same day he drives out to the golf club, where he is made an honorary member. He lunches there with the doctor who has sponsored him. One of the other members who is lunching there also is your husband. In the bar
afterwards the two men are introduced and stay chatting for a few minutes. The deceased was in good spirits. Dr Durtham was noticed to be downcast,'

‘Victor lunched at the club?' I burst out, but again he silenced me.

‘Quiet. After a while the deceased says good-bye and drives off in his car, only a few hundred yards as we know now, to his own cottage, where he secretes the vehicle. Meanwhile Dr Durtham, who is noticeably preoccupied, refuses a round of golf but goes off alone, ostensibly to walk round the course, which he has never seen before. He is out till nearly half past five, returns to the clubhouse, picks up his car, and drives back to Tinworth, where he makes arrangements to leave the town, the job, and everything immediately. In the morning he buys a bowl of blue flowers alleged to mean “success” and delivers them at the school lodge, where he calls to see a last patient. Now what have you got to say?'

‘Andy didn't shoot Victor.'

‘How do you know?'

‘There was no reason why he should. Andy came here to tell me what he thought of me for jilting him, not to make love to me.'

‘I've only got your word for that.'

‘Have you? Haven't you asked Andy?'

‘It's the story you arranged between you, is it?'

‘Oh, nonsense!' I was suddenly and recklessly angry with him. ‘This is absurd. I don't know why Andy went to the golf course, but I don't see where else a stranger to Tinworth would go on a half-day, do you? How would he find the cottage anyway, and if he did, why would he kill Victor? He certainly isn't in love with me any more.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Of course I'm sure.' The words were pouring out of my mouth and I was saying things I did not know I knew. ‘Andy came down here to get me out of his system. When he saw me I'd changed and he probably wondered what he'd been making all the fuss about. This must have upset him and so I suppose he thought he'd clear out and get away from it all. I expect he
thought I must be in love with Victor or I'd never put up with him.'

‘And were you, Mrs Lane?'

‘No,' I said slowly, and the words were a revelation to me too, ‘no, I was just out of love with love. I was trying to make do without it.'

He cocked a bright eye at me. ‘And then you suddenly saw the light and …'

‘No. Superintendent, you're behaving as though Andy and I and Victor were alone in the world. What about all the other people? To begin with, what about the girl?'

Uncle Fred South was leaning over the table, his clown's face grave and the twinkle absent from his circular eyes.

‘The girl?' he began. ‘You're still harping on that message on the blotter, are you? That's not very conclusive evidence, you know. How d'you know it referred to this month even?'

‘But he expected someone,' I insisted. ‘In fact, since he had lunch at the club-house it must have been she who brought the picnic box, not realizing he would have eaten, you see.'

‘The picnic box!' He bounced half out of his chair at that. ‘I knew there was something funny about that great parcel of food in the car. You did that! You moved it! What other evidence have you been monkeying about with, eh? You and your crazy face-saving which doesn't fool anybody. Out with it!'

‘I'm sorry,' I said, ‘I thought Mrs Petty would have told you about that – she seems to have mentioned everything else.'

He stiffened like a dog at a rat-hole. ‘Amy Petty? Was she in that?'

I told him exactly what had happened over the box and he took me back again and again until the entire incident had been reconstructed in the most minute detail.