She Died a Lady (14 page)

‘It’s only fair to tell you, Mrs Sullivan, that I don’t believe for a moment those two committed suicide.’

‘Oh?’

‘Somebody shot them both. You’ll probably hear a different version from the police; but that’s the truth. And now we’re not going to talk about it any more, for the moment. You’re coming along home with me.’

‘But I haven’t got any c-clothes!’

‘Never mind. There’s a girl near there who’ll attend to that. You want food, and you want sleep. If you feel fit enough to walk now, let’s go downstairs.’

This request was also underlined. A violent and prolonged squawking from a motor-car horn, in the road outside, droned out with such abruptness that Belle let out an involuntary cry. I went to the window. Sir Henry Merrivale, with a face of indescribable malignancy in the dusk, was leaning forward and poking with the end of his crutch at the button of the horn.

‘I’m a patient man,’ he said; ‘but the dew is settlin’ on my head and I got reason to suspect incipient pneumonia in my toe. What’s more, my jailer has caught up to me. I just wanted to say good-bye.’

We had another visitor now. Paul Ferrars, in a very ancient Ford, had drawn up behind the police-car and was getting out. To judge by his astonishment, when my face appeared at the window, he must have thought H.M. was being led into some very strange company.

‘We’re coming down straightaway,’ I said.

Belle made no objection. I regret to say that her voice was marred by a slight hiccup, and her gait did not remain altogether steady. But mental anaesthesia was probably best under the circumstances. While Craft locked the door of the upper room, and put the key in his pocket, I assisted Belle down the steps.

When we arrived outside the studio, H.M. and wheelchair – the latter upside down – had already been transferred to the back of the Ford. It was a stroke of luck or thoughtfulness. If we had had to drive H.M. to Ridd Farm, it would have meant crossing the edge of Exmoor. And that could have been no pleasant experience for Belle Sullivan.

Ferrars, in the old paint-stained flannels, lounged against the side of the Ford smoking a cherrywood pipe. His long-nosed intelligent face, topped by fair hair which he deliberately makes untidy, wore a complacent expression until he saw who was with us. Then his mouth fell open.

‘Good lord!’ he muttered, and caught the pipe clumsily as it fell. With the palm of his other hand he whacked the side of the car. ‘Belle Renfrew!’

Belle turned round, blindly, and started back into the studio. I caught her arm to steer her back again.

‘It’s all right. Only some friends of ours. They won’t hurt you.’

‘Belle Renfrew!’ Ferrars was repeating. ‘What are you doing in this part of the world? And what have they been doing to you? After all the good times we used to have together –’

‘There’s no Miss Renfrew, sir,’ Superintendent Craft intoned. ‘This is Mrs Sullivan. Mrs Barry Sullivan.’

‘Oh,’ said Ferrars. After a pause, while faint colour stained his cheeks, he added: ‘Sorry.’ After another pause, heavy with embarrassment, he climbed up behind the wheel of the Ford.

‘We don’t wear our wedding-rings,’ Belle threw at him, ‘when we’re on duty at the Piccadilly. The customers don’t like it.’

H.M., in the back seat, was contemplating us with an air of unwonted seriousness. He addressed Belle gently.

‘Ma’am,’ he rumbled, ‘I’m the old man. I’ve notoriously all the tact of a load of bricks comin’ through a skylight. I don’t want to bother you much at a time like this. But I’ve also got a habit of helping lame dogs over stiles. About this story of yours …”

‘You didn’t
hear
it?’

‘Well … now. You were talking pretty loud. There’s more to being an invalid than just sittin’ and thinkin’.’ Here I handed him the flask, screwing on the cap firmly. ‘If you wouldn’t mind answering me a couple of questions, before the effect of that brandy wears off,’ he went on, ‘it might help a whole lot in the mess we’re in.’

‘Barry never killed himself!’ Belle cried. ‘He just wouldn’t have had the nerve to! And you can ask me anything you want to.’

‘All right. When and where were you married?’

‘So you think I’m a liar about that, do you?’

‘No! Burn me, no! I was only solicitin’ information.’

‘
I
don’t do soliciting of any kind, thanks,’ said Belle. ‘Hampstead Registry Office, at the Town Hall. April 17th 1938.’

‘Was your husband’s name really Barry Sullivan? Or was that a stage-name?’

‘It was his real name.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because … well, because it’s his real name! He writes it. He gets letters with that name on ’em. He writes it on cheques, when he signs any. I can’t see what more you’d want.’

H.M. looked very hard at her.

‘Did you ever visit the United States, Mrs Sullivan?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Ever travel abroad anywhere?’

‘No.’

‘Ah,’ said H.M. ‘I thought not.’ He touched Ferrars on the shoulder with his crutch. ‘Start her up, son.’

The noise of the Ford’s motor beat out against evening quiet. Ferrars backed up and swung the car round. The last thing we saw was the back of H.M.’s bald head, a malignant gleam in itself, as they moved away up the lane.

I
AM
writing this in the middle of November, with a black wind flapping at the windows, and black death on the land. In September the bombers came to London. Only a few nights ago, first with Coventry and then Birmingham, they began their attack on our provincial cities. Bristol or Plymouth, they say, will be next.

And it occurs to me, too, how much life has changed and grown pinched since the time I am writing about. Up to the summer of 1940, there was a reasonable plenitude of everything. Petrol rationing provided no great hardship. Food, though partially rationed, remained abundant. You could invite a guest to dinner and never think twice about it.

I was thinking of this in connexion with the Monday night in July when Belle Sullivan first came to stay with us.

We all fell for her, Tom and Mrs Harping and I. She was what the younger generation calls cute, and her large eyes did damage. Belle’s recuperative powers were amazing. When we first got her home there were, as I expected, signs of delayed shock: cold, vomiting, pulse accelerated yet so faint as to be barely perceptible at the wrist. She could eat very little.

But Mrs Harping gave her a bath, and we got her to bed with a hot-water bottle in a pair of Tom’s pyjamas. By eleven o’clock, even though Tom gave her some sulphonal to make her sleep, she was sitting up in bed with needle and thread, mending a rent in the frock which Mrs Harping – unbending amazingly – had sponged and cleaned for her.

Tom liked her; he was even more furiously didactic and insufferable than usual. A little past eleven o’clock, when I was sitting in my bedroom smoking the one pipe of tobacco I am allowed a day, I heard them talking through the closed door of the next room. And there ensued the following romantic dialogue:

‘For God’s sake, woman, if you must talk American, talk real American. Don’t spout this film gabble. They’re not the same thing.’

‘Nuts to you.’

‘And double nuts to you,’ yelled my impolite son, whose bedside manner is noted more for its vigour than for its finesse.

‘How does my hair look?’

‘Terrible.’

‘You go take a flying … look. There’s a tear in the lining of your coat-pocket. You’re the sloppiest damned man I ever did see. Let me fix it for you.’

‘Take your hands off me, woman. I will not be mothered and pawed over by predatory females.’

‘Who’s a predatory female, you ugly son of a so-and-so?’

Belle did not say this heatedly, you understand. She could utter hair-raising words, and indulge in the most intimate franknesses, while speaking in a voice of soft sweetness and even loving-kindness.

‘You,’ said Tom, ‘are a predatory female. All of ’em are. It’s a question of glands. Let me go down and get my anatomical chart, and I’ll show you.’

‘One of those things that make you look as though you’d been skinned?’ Belle’s voice shivered. ‘No, thanks. I prefer my own outside.’ A shadow seemed to come over her. ‘Look, Dr Croxley. Do you know Superintendent Craft?’

‘Yes. What about him?’

Belle hesitated. I could imagine her: the clear-glowing skin and brown curls, the needle and thread in her fingers, the homely bedroom that used to be my wife’s.

‘He says – there’s got to be an inquest day after tomorrow.’

‘Lie back in that bed,’ said Tom, ‘and go to sleep. That’s an order.’

‘No, but look! He says – maybe I’ll have to go on the witness-stand and identify Barry.’

‘Identification is usually done by the next-of-kin, yes.’

‘Does that mean I’ll have to
look
at Barry?’

‘Go to sleep, I tell you!’

‘Does he look – pretty awful?’

‘You can’t fall off a seventy-foot cliff into three or four feet of water without
some
injuries. But the doctor who did the post-mortem says there weren’t many. That’s because they were dead and limp when they struck. He says the worst of the damage was caused by bumping against rocks when the current carried them.’

Here I rapped sharply on the communicating wall. There should be limits to medical detail.

‘Now go to sleep,’ he roared at her.

‘I won’t be able to sleep. I’m just telling you.’

But she did sleep, when the sulphonal took over. It was I who couldn’t close my eyes. I twisted and tossed, while the clock kept on striking, and I saw Rita’s face in every corner. Finally, I went down to the surgery in my night-shirt, and got a mild sleeping-draught for myself. This is a venial practice among doctors; not to be recommended. But, when I woke up again, it was past noon on a bright day which put new strength in my veins.

In fact, I felt almost cheerful when I took my bath. Superintendent Craft and H.M., it appeared, had already been to the house to see Belle. The latter had gone so far as to hop upstairs on his crutch. They left word for me to join them at Alec Wainright’s at three o’clock in the afternoon. And, going downstairs for a reprehensively late breakfast, I met Molly Grange coming out of Belle’s room.

I had been wondering how Molly, the quiet and reserved one, would get on with our guest. But one look at her reassured me. Though Molly’s face was a little red, she smiled at me.

‘Have you met Mrs Sullivan? Is she up?’

‘Up,’ answered Molly, ‘and dressing.’

‘How do you like her?’

‘I like her tremendously.’ Molly’s face was perplexed. ‘But I say, Dr Luke! Doesn’t she use the most frightful
language
?’

‘You’ll get used to that.’

‘And she would keep walking past the window,’ Molly said, ‘with practically nothing on. That crowd at the “Coach and Horses” were standing at the windows over there with their eyes popping out of their heads. If you’re not careful, Dr Luke, you’re going to get a very bad reputation in Lyncombe.’

‘At my time of life?’

‘I’ve just taken her in some stockings,’ Molly went on. ‘They were my last pair of silk ones. But, as Belle would say, what the hell? We mustn’t introduce her to father, by the way. He’d have a fit.’

‘What did the police want to see her about?’

Molly’s face clouded.

‘They wanted to know if she had any pictures of Barry Sullivan. She said yes. But it seems the London police have been searching the Sullivans’ flat in town, and they couldn’t find any.’

‘An actor without pictures of himself?’

‘I know.’

‘But, look here, Molly!’ I was beginning to reflect. ‘There must be dozens of snapshots of him out at the Wainrights’. Don’t you remember? He and Rita were always photographing each other.’

‘That’s just it. The police were out there too. And it seems’ – Molly compressed her lips – ‘it seems somebody has deliberately torn up every picture of them, out of pure spite. Can you understand that, Dr Luke? Can you understand anybody hating them so much that even the pictures had to be destroyed?’

The evil was back again. I shall always remember Molly at that moment, with her breast rising and falling, and the edges of her yellow hair kindled from the light of the window behind her.

‘Somebody hated them enough to murder them, Molly.’

She was incredulous. ‘You don’t still believe that?’

‘I believe it; and I’m going to testify so at the inquest.’

‘But you mustn’t!’

‘I’m going to. Now run along while I get my breakfast.’

But Molly hesitated. ‘Mrs Sullivan,’ she said, ‘isn’t exactly without friends in this district. It seems she’s acquainted with Paul Ferrars.’

‘I believe so.’

‘She informed me, out of a clear sky, that there’s nobody quite so pleasant to get cockeyed with – I suppose she means tight? – as he is. Very interesting. But you mark my words, Dr Luke: our little friend is going to cause considerable comment in this neighbourhood.’

The truth of this was made manifest when I went out to take the air at the front gate after breakfast. Harry Pierce, landlord of the ‘Coach and Horses’, came out of his own bar with the air of a reluctant emissary. Harry is an old-style barman, broad and with a glistening curl of hair across his forehead. His breath preceded him at some distance.

‘Meaning no offence, Dr Luke,’ he confided, ‘but me and some of my customers wants to know what’s going on in this ‘ere place.’

‘Going on in what respect?’

‘First,’ said Harry, ‘those two un’appy people goes and chucks themselves off Lovers’ Leap. Yesterday – Gawdlummycharley! – that big stout gentleman comes a-bustin’ into my bar like a ’ole panzer division, and breaks eleven pint glasses, one table, two water-jugs and an ash-tray.’

‘I’m sorry about that, Mr Pierce.’

‘Not that ’e didn’t pay up ‘andsome for it, mind!’ Harry assured me, lifting one hand as though about to take an oath. ‘’E did, and that’s a fact. I’m not saying nothing against the gentleman. But meaning no offence, Doctor: it’s not the sort of thing a chap likes to ’ave ’appen to him, when ’e’s just lifting his first pint of the day. Now is it?’

‘Of course not.’

‘It upsets the customers, that’s what it does. Then, this morning, blow me if a young lady – and a very ‘andsome young lady; I’m not saying she’s not! – goes and exhibits herself practically stark naked at the window of your ’ouse.’