Out Of The Past (21 page)

It was a shocking blow, but she had her part all ready to step into. She gasped and said,

“Major Hardwick—he fell! I’m afraid he hit his head! Oh, Inspector Abbott, it is you! He went down—I am afraid he is hurt!”

For the next few moments Frank had not even time to think that he had probably failed to save James Hardwick’s life. He went down, and did not think until afterwards that he might be intended to stay there. But before he could clear his eyes or see what was happening he bumped into James coming up, grabbed him, and got a kick for his pains. They broke surface together, James with a gasping for breath and a wild flailing of the arms, Frank letting go and sheering off, since it was obvious that James was a good deal less dead than dangerous—muzzy in the head and fighting mad. Life-saving courses taught you how to knock the other fellow out when he tried to drown you, but in this case perhaps better not. Frank had seen that something bright in Adela Castleton’s hand as it fell. He thought James had probably been hit enough already, and just as well that he should be capable of self-defense in case there were any more tricks up the murderer’s sleeve.

But Adela Castleton was too intelligent not to know when she was beaten. She could have coped with one man half drowned and half stunned and have carried her plan through to the end, but not with this policeman, fit and strong, and as good a swimmer as herself. And even if she could have outwitted them both and eliminated them both, there was no way in which two such deaths could be explained. No, it was over. She had played, and she had lost. She told herself that it had been a good game and worth playing. She had nothing to regret.

By the time that James had stopped choking and Frank had helped him up on to the ledge from which he had fallen, Adela Castleton’s black and green scarf was a couple of hundred yards away. The water was perfectly calm and clear, and she was heading out to sea.

The person least surprised was Esther Field.

“You see, I have known Adela for so long, and she has always been the same—if she wanted something she wouldn’t let anyone or anything stand in the way. It always frightened me a little. Geoffrey Castleton was engaged to someone else before she married him, but she didn’t let it stand in her way. The other girl never had a chance—I don’t suppose Geoffrey had either. But he wasn’t really happy with her, you know, and he died young. I remember his saying to me once that after you were thirty there really wasn’t anything very much to look forward to.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“A tragic thing to say.”

Esther put her handkerchief to eyes already red.

“I couldn’t get it out of my mind. And he was considered such a rising man. I said something about that, and he said, ‘My dear Esther, one can’t live on a career.’ It was all very sad. And lately—lately I have been frightened. Not all the time, you know, but sometimes when it came over me. Because—well, you guessed, didn’t you, that Alan was trying to get money out of me. Those foolish letters that Irene wrote to Pen…People wouldn’t have understood them, or his answers. It just wasn’t in him not to be kind when a woman said she cared. But if they had been published it would all have been shockingly misunderstood. And if Alan had been trying to get money out of me—and he was—it seemed dreadfully likely that he was doing the same thing with Adela, and when he was stabbed—I couldn’t help—being afraid—” Her voice broke, and it was some moments before she could go on.

Miss Silver’s sympathetic attention helped her back to self-control.

“You are so kind,” she said. “It has always helped me to talk to you. It does help when things you hardly dare to think about—” She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes again. “That poor girl Marie—I didn’t like her very much, and I suppose she was trying to get money out of Adela too. But it was a fearful thing to do, and when everyone kept saying that it must have been a man, because no woman would have had the strength to choke anyone like that, I couldn’t help remembering how strong Adela was—” Her voice tripped and fell to a stumbling whisper. “She did—choke—a dog once. One of those big farm animals. It attacked her, and she got it by the throat—and choked it. I couldn’t help— remembering. But I didn’t think—she would try—and harm James—”

“He could not allow Miss Anning to be arrested.”

“No, no—of course not. The poor Annings— did you see them when you went down there just now? I ought to have asked before, but I somehow couldn’t think of anyone but Adela—only I must, mustn’t I? How are they?”

“Yes, I saw them. Miss Anning has been under a great strain, but her mother is surprisingly well. She has, in fact, to a great extent come out of the vague state in which she has been for so long.”

“I always liked her,” said Esther Field. “She wasn’t clever, you know—but don’t you think one gets a little tired of clever people? She was kind, and so fond of her family. I shall be so glad if she can be more like she used to be. It must have been very hard for Darsie. And then all these terrible things happening.”

It was some time before Inspector Abbott was free. He accompanied the motor launch which put out in search of Adela Castleton, and the search could not be given up in a hurry. She was a strong swimmer, and there was more than one possibility. It might have been her intention to swim out to sea until she could swim no more, or there might have been a moment when she turned shorewards again to make for another part of the beach. When at length the launch put back, he took time to change, have something to eat, and call in at the police station before responding to the message which awaited him there.

“It’s Miss Silver,” he told Inspector Colt. “She says Mrs. Anning has a statement to make.”

“Mrs. Anning!” His tone was one of protest. “Is she fit to make one?”

“Miss Silver says so. You had better come along and judge for yourself.”

Colt nodded.

“You’ll have to give me about twenty minutes before I can get away. We can meet at Sea View.”

Up at Cliff Edge there was much that Miss Silver was anxious to hear. The bare facts reluctantly imparted by James Hardwick had left her uncertain as to just how much Frank had overheard, and to what extent the police would now be satisfied as to the murderer’s identity.

When he had given her a lively account of what had happened, he said,

“And now perhaps you’ll tell me whether it was second sight, or witchcraft, or what-have-you that made you send me off to the Rock in the nick of time.”

The morning-room was an ugly room, but it was cool, and the chairs were comfortable. Frank’s slim length was stretched out in the largest of them. His fair hair shone. Suit and socks were a delicate study in grey. With eyes half shut and a teasing gleam between the lashes, he looked as if he had never exerted himself in his life.

Miss Silver, in a small upright chair, was engaged upon a crochet edging to one of the pink bootees. She thought it right to administer a mild reproof.

“My dear Frank, you should not use such exaggerated language.”

“The Chief definitely suspects you of knowing more than you ought to. He has a secret fund of country superstitions tucked away in the back of his mind, and there are times when you set them buzzing.”

The crochet-hook went in and out.

“Chief Inspector Lamb is a most worthy man. As to my suggestion that you should swim out to the Black Rock, I had already warned Major Hardwick that in my opinion he might be in considerable danger until he had told the police what he knew. I did not share that knowledge—I could only guess at it. And until it was shared, I felt sure that he would be in danger. It was, of course, plain to me that he could not allow Miss Anning’s arrest to take place, and that he intended to warn Lady Castleton before giving his information to the police. When, therefore, I learned that he was proposing to allow this conversation to take place at so dangerous and lonely a spot as the Black Rock, I began to feel extremely anxious.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“You are not going to ask me to believe that Hardwick told you he was going to swim out to the Rock for the express purpose of warning Lady Castleton!”

“It was perfectly apparent that that was his intention.”

“Do you mind telling me how? On the face of it, nothing could have looked less like anything of the sort, since Mrs. Field was one of the party.”

“Mrs. Field does not care to sit about in a wet bathing-dress. When she has had her swim she prefers to come out of the water and change into ordinary clothes. I discovered this from overhearing a short conversation between Major and Mrs. Hardwick. I was waiting in the morning-room with the door open, and they were coming down the stairs. He then implied that he wanted to have a talk with Lady Castleton.”

Frank burst out laughing.

“How simple it always is when you know how!”

She inclined her head.

“As soon as they had left the house I went into the study and rang you up.”

“Thank goodness you did!”

She withdrew the crochet-hook for the last time.

“It was indeed providential,” she said.

Miss Anning received Miss Silver and the two Inspectors with an air of protest quite stiff enough to stand alone. She had done her best to keep them out, and she had failed. Since Dr. Adamson, called in as a reinforcement, had declared that the improvement in Mrs. Anning’s condition was really quite staggering, and that as far as he could see anything that continued to rouse her and take her out of herself would be all to the good, there was no more to be said. She led the way in silence, and when they were all seated took her place upon a hard bedroom stool.

The first thing that Frank Abbott noticed was that Mrs. Anning’s embroidery had made considerable progress. She no longer drew a knotless thread through canvas upon which it left no mark. Two flowers and a leaf had been completed since he had had his last brief interview with her. Her appearance too had changed. The eyes were no longer blank, the pose no longer that of a person sunk in dreams. She greeted them quietly but with some obvious pleasure, especially in the case of Miss Silver, to whom she observed,

“Darsie thinks it does me harm to talk, but she is quite mistaken. I have been ill, but I am much better now. And though Alan behaved very badly and I never did like that French girl, people ought not to be murdered. And I would not like any innocent person to be suspected.” She was taking her neat, even stitches as she spoke.

Frank Abbott said,

“That is why we hoped that you would help us, Mrs. Anning.”

His quiet cultured voice gave her confidence. She laid down her embroidery frame.

“What do you want me to say?”

“We want you to tell us just what you remember about Wednesday night.”

She was sitting in a rather upright chair. Her grey hair had been fluffed out and made the most of, and there was a faint flush on her cheeks. Darsie’s dark colouring must have come from the other side of the family. Mrs. Anning’s skin was fair, and her eyes blue. She said,

“Oh, I remember everything.”

“Then will you tell us just what happened?”

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again with a wondering expression.

“Oh, yes—I went out—I don’t remember why—I sometimes do when.it has been hot…No, that wasn’t the reason! I remember now, I was looking out of the window and I saw Alan going down the garden.”

“What time was this?”

“I don’t know—it was late. I couldn’t sleep, and when I saw Alan I thought I would go after him.”

“What made you think of doing that?”

She said in a pettish tone,

“Darsie wouldn’t let me see him, and there were things I wanted to say, so I thought it would be a good opportunity.”

“Were you dressed?”

“Oh, no. But I put on my nice dark blue dressing-gown, and I had my bedroom slippers—so soft and comfortable.”

“And you followed Alan Field?”

“Oh, yes, I followed him. Not too close, you know. It was very pleasant on the cliff path, and I wanted to see where he was going. When he went down the path to the beach I went after him. When I got to the bottom he was over by the Cliff Edge hut with his torch on, opening the door. I waited until he had gone inside, and then I went there too. I thought perhaps he would hear me on the shingle and come out again, but he didn’t—and I really made very little noise in those soft slippers. Or perhaps he thought I was someone else, because of course he was expecting someone.”

She paused with a small complacent smile and looked about her. Miss Silver who had been so kind—this nice policeman who reminded her of the young fellows who used to come about the house in the old happy days—the other Inspector, writing down what she said—they were all pleased with her. She could feel them being pleased. But not Darsie—oh no, not Darsie. She gave a small defiant shrug and turned away from the rigid disapproval of Darsie’s face and figure.

Miss Silver sat in one of the small straight chairs which she preferred. She wore a dress of grey artificial silk with a pattern which reminded Frank of black and white tadpoles. On her head the black straw hat from which she had judged it seemly to remove a bunch of coloured flowers. Her hands in Dorothy’s cream net gloves were folded in her lap. She had heard Mrs. Anning’s tale before, and she listened to it now with the approval due to a pupil who is acquitting herself well.

“And then?” said Frank Abbott.

“I heard someone else on the shingle. She made a great deal more noise than I did—but then of course she hadn’t got nice soft slippers like mine. I stood up against the back of the hut, and with the dark scarf I had put over my hair she didn’t see me at all. She went round to the front, and I heard her speaking to Alan.”

“Could you hear what they said?”

She gave a curious little laugh, like a child who feels it is being clever.

“They were quarrelling—dreadfully. Not loud, you know, but she sounded as if she hated him.”

“Mrs. Anning—did you know who it was?”

She looked at him with surprise.

“But of course I did! We all knew each other so well in the old days. It was Adela Castleton.”

Inspector Colt wrote the name down.

Frank Abbott said, “What were they quarrelling about?”

“Letters,” said Mrs. Anning. “He wanted to publish them, and she didn’t want him to. They weren’t hers—Adela wasn’t like that. They were her sister’s. It was all a long time ago, and she was only a young girl. And young girls do very foolish things, because they think they know everything and they don’t.”

The tears came up into her eyes and brimmed over. To Darsie Anning they seemed to fall in scalding drops upon her very heart. She set herself to endure.

Mrs. Anning was speaking again.

“He wanted her to give him money, and she said she would. They talked about how much it was to be. They had stopped quarrelling. It didn’t seem like Adela any more.”

“Do you mean you were not sure that it was Lady Castleton?”

“Oh no, it was Adela. But it wasn’t like her to give way like that—it frightened me. And she said, ‘You can have it now— I’ve got my cheque-book with me. Just give me that book of Esther’s to write on.’ And then all at once he gave a kind of a groan and fell down, and she laughed. I didn’t know what had happened—I don’t see how I could. When you know people, you don’t think about them stabbing anyone. I just thought he must have tripped over something, and however badly he had behaved, I didn’t think Adela Castleton ought to have laughed. And then, before I had time to think anything more, I heard someone else coming across the shingle.”

“Mrs. Maybury?”

Mrs. Anning looked mildly astonished.

“Oh, no—not then. It was two people. One of them was that French girl whom I never liked, Marie Bonnet—and I suppose I ought not to say so now, because Darsie tells me she has been murdered too. Only you can’t really like people just because they have got themselves murdered trying to blackmail someone—for of course that is what she must have been trying to do.”

“Please go on, Mrs. Anning. One of the people who was coming down to the hut was Marie Bonnet. Who was the other?”

“It was a man—a foreign man. It is curious that foreigners never really lose their accent, isn’t it? I could hear it when he spoke to Marie. He said, ‘I will control myself—I will control myself. But I must see whether he has the paper. If he has, then he is my brother’s murderer, for only with his life would Felipe have parted with it.’ ‘Now,’ I thought, ‘what will Adela Castleton do? If she comes out they will see her, and if they go in they will see her, and that will look very odd.’ And I thought it very odd that there wasn’t any sound from inside the hut—nothing from Adela, and nothing from Alan. It really did seem very strange.”

“Yes—go on.”

She looked from one to another of them like a child seeking for reassurance. Miss Silver supplied it.

“You are doing very well indeed, Mrs. Anning. Pray continue.”

“The man put on a torch, and they went round to the door of the hut. And then they both called out—not loud, you know, but as if there was something dreadful. Marie said, ‘O mon dieu! Il est mort!’ and the man said a lot of things that sounded like Spanish or Portuguese. My husband and I made a tour in Portugal once at the time of the vintage, such lovely grapes and so cheap, and that is what it sounded like. Only when he was talking to Marie they spoke English. She said, ‘Quick, quick—we must come away!’ And he said, ‘No, no, no—not until I see if he has the paper!’ She said he was mad, and they would be mixed up in a murder. And he said she didn’t understand—it was his uncle’s letter telling them where the treasure was, and he would be mad if he let it go. And then, I think, he must have found it, because he began to talk his own language again, all very quick and excited and rather as if he was swearing. Marie went on saying that they must get away, and all at once he was in a hurry too. Then she said they mustn’t go back up the path, they must find a pool where he could wash and on round the next point and up another way. They went away down the beach, and Adela Castleton came out of the hut, but she hadn’t got as far as the cliff, when we could hear someone else coming down from the cliff path. Adela didn’t come back. She must have stood close in under the cliff to hide. I went farther round the hut, and I waited to see who was coming now. There was a sound as if someone had tripped over the threshold and come down. Whoever it was called out, and there was the flicker of a torch. So I looked round the front corner of the hut, and there was a girl with very fair hair and a white dress. She had a torch in her hand and it was shaking. One minute the beam went up in the air, and the next minute it shone down on a dagger that was sticking in Alan’s back. That was when I knew he must be dead. It didn’t seem as if it could be real. He deserved to be punished, you know, but it isn’t right to murder people, and I was sorry for the girl, because it wasn’t her fault. Of course she ought not to have come there, but it must have been a dreadful shock. She was making little crying noises under her breath, and when she got up the front of her dress was most dreadfully stained. She went away, and I was just thinking of going myself, when a man came down the path. I didn’t want to have to wait any longer, but of course I had to. I really did think Darsie would miss me if I didn’t get away soon, because sometimes these hot nights she looks in and gets me a drink. She doesn’t sleep very well, I’m afraid, and she is always so very good to me.”

Darsie Anning felt the hard prick of tears behind eyes which had not wept for years.

“Such a good daughter,” said Mrs. Anning’s placid voice. “And I thought how anxious she would be if she went into my room and found I wasn’t there. But of course I had to wait.”

“Did you know who the man was?”

“Oh, yes. It was James Hardwick. I used to see him sometimes when he was a boy, and after his uncle died he came to see Darsie and she thought I would like to see him too. He had a torch, and when he put it on the light caught his signet-ring and I saw the crest—a bird with something in its beak. I have very good sight.”

“What did he do?”

“He looked at Alan, and he said, ‘Oh, my God!’ And then he felt his pulse—only of course there wasn’t any. And after that he pulled out the dagger and went away down the beach with it towards the sea, and I thought he wouldn’t hear me on the shingle whilst he was walking on it himself, so I got away as fast as I could.”

“And that is all?”

“Oh, yes. Except that Darsie had come out to look for me. She went into my room, just as I was afraid she might, and she said I had given her a really terrible fright and I mustn’t ever do it again.”

There was a little silence when she had finished speaking. Then Frank Abbott said,

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Anning. That is a very clear statement. As far as it concerns Marie Bonnet and José Cardozo, the man who was with her, he will of course be asked to confirm it. As regards Major Hardwick and Mrs. Maybury, it coincides with statements they have made, and in Lady Castleton’s case, both Major Hardwick and I heard her make what amounted to an admission of her guilt.”

Mrs. Anning reached for her embroidery frame.

“Adela Castleton was always the same,” she said. “She had to have her own way. And it’s no use, is it? There are times when you can’t.”