The Key (23 page)

HE NOTICED AT once how pale and disturbed she looked. The blue eyes which he admired had an expression of distress. She was certainly a very pretty woman. And then his eye fell on the catalogue. She was holding it out to him with both hands.

‘Oh, Mr Everton, I’m so glad to see you! I was getting so frightened. It’s so dreadful, and it seems to be getting worse every minute – but you will know what to do.’

‘Dear lady, what is it? I can’t bear to see you like this.’

‘Oh, you are so kind! And it’s such a relief to tell someone, because I don’t know what to do.’ She pushed the catalogue at him and said, ‘Look.’

He took a moment to adjust his glasses.

‘Well, well – now let me see – a list of apple trees. Are you thinking of putting any in?’

‘No—no. Look! Oh – oh, don’t you see, there’s some writing – here – and there!’ She pointed with a scarlet fingernail. ‘It’s fading out, but it was quite clear. It came up when I held it to the fire at Miss Doncaster’s. I wanted something to screen my face, and the writing came up. It’s German. It says, “Am Widder – Montag halb fünf.’

‘I don’t know any German,’ said Mr Everton. ‘I don’t suppose you do either. Do you?’

‘Oh, yes! We all learnt it at Miss Braun’s. I was quite good. It means “At the Ram – Monday, at half-past four”. And Miss Doncaster always has tea at the Ram when she goes into Marbury to shop. Isn’t it dreadful!’

Mr Everton gazed at her, kind but bewildered.

‘I’m afraid I really don’t quite take it in. Are you sure there isn’t some mistake? There doesn’t seem to be anything on this page except a very ordinary list of apple trees.’

Ida felt a sudden obstinacy.

‘It was there all right, but it’s faded. If we hold it to the fire, perhaps it will come up again.’

He said in a soothing voice, ‘Well, well, we can always try,’ and she went over and switched on a small electric fire which stood in front of the empty grate.

No one would have guessed what desperate thoughts whispered and clamoured behind that kindly, puzzled air. The millionth chance, and it was going to trip him up – that damned old magpie the Doncaster woman picking up the catalogue and going off with it! He knew when it must have happened – the day she had come into the garden and he had left her to find her own way out through the house. Just for such a small, small slip, to lose everything. She must have gone peering and prying into the study and taken it then. He ought to have destroyed it as soon as he had read the message. Yes, and have the servants wonder why he was burning paper, when everyone had it drummed into them morning noon and night that every scrap must be saved. He could have put it out for salvage. And have someone take it to light the fire with! No – all that he had done had been right and prudent. He had left it lying on his table amongst other catalogues as if it were no matter at all. And it had been the right thing to do – he would always maintain that it was right. Because all the way through, his position, the whole scheme, had depended on everything being just what everyone would expect. The moment there was the least variation from the normal, the least little thing of which anyone could say ‘That’s odd,’ the plan was in danger. No – what he had done was right. It was only the millionth chance that had tripped him up.

These things were in his mind all together, speaking loud, speaking low. And amongst them, wary and poised, his inner self, the will to survive, to pluck safety out of defeat.

He watched the bar of the electric fire grow red. The inner self saw a small bright picture rise – the page held to the fire, curling in the heat, breaking into flame, falling back into harmless ash. He could do that, but it would not save him. Ida Mottram would swear to what she had seen, and the very destruction of the page would damn him.

No deeper than he was damned already. He was in two minds whether to destroy the page or not. It wasn’t the page that had to be destroyed – it was Ida Mottram. If he were to shoot her now, he could put her body in the cupboard under the stairs. That would give him an hour or two to get away. The car laid up in his garage could be on the road in a quarter of an hour. If he could reach Marbury he would have a chance. But he must make Marbury before they found her.

His hand went into his pocket and felt the little pistol wadded in a handkerchief. A tiny, deadly thing, not at all like the cumbersome old weapon he had been clever enough to use for Harsch. It would make very little noise. Nobody in the country turned their heads when they heard a shot. He had gambled on that with Harsch, and it had come off.

There was hardly any interval between the click of the electric switch, the reddening of the bar, and Ida Mottram turning round to say, ‘I think it’s hot enough now.’

Until she came to die she would never again be so near to death as she was just then. He had the pistol free of the handkerchief. The hand in the pocket moved, withdrawing itself. Janice Meade came into the room.

Neither of them heard anything until she was there, just across the threshold. Ida Mottram said ‘Hullo!’ Mr Everton’s hand came out of his pocket empty.

And now what? He must wait and see. If Mrs Mottram held her tongue – but she wouldn’t – she never did. As long as she believed that the message in the catalogue was for Miss Doncaster he had a chance, but the moment Miss Doncaster knew, she would speak. He could imagine the furious zest with which she would denounce him.

He turned with his pleasant smile.

‘How do you do, Miss Janice? Shall I put out the fire, Mrs Mottram? Our little experiment can wait till afterwards. Yes, really – I think it would be better, dear lady.’

But Ida Mottram was opening the catalogue.

‘Oh, but I haven’t any secrets from Janice,’ she said. ‘Jan, the most extraordinary thing!’ And there she was, pouring it all out – her visit to Miss Mary Anne – the catalogue used to screen her face – the message which had come up on the blank white spaces and faded again. ‘And Mr Everton won’t believe it was ever there at all. And it said in German, “At the Ram – Monday, at half-past four.” Isn’t it dreadful – Miss Doncaster!’

Janice had got as far as the middle of the room. She stopped there by the folding table which Ida used for Bridge. It was folded now, and a bowl of old moulded glass full of September roses standing on it. The scent of the roses came up. She knew they were there, but she wasn’t looking at them. She was looking at Ida on the hearth-rug with the catalogue in her hand, and she couldn’t take her eyes away, because she had seen it before, not in Ida’s hand but in Miss Doncaster’s. And Miss Doncaster had said, ‘I never bother to write for these things myself – I borrow my neighbours’. This is Mr Everton’s. I daresay he’ll never miss it – you never saw such a mush as he’s got on his table. So I just picked it up and brought it along.’

Mr Everton went softly across to the door and shut it. Then he went back almost as far as the glass door into the garden and stood there looking at the two girls. It was a good position. He could see them both from there, and the light was right.

Ida Mottram looked round over her shoulder.

‘Oh, it’s coming up beautifully!’ she said.

Mr Everton said, ‘Miss Meade—’ and Janice turned. He saw something in her face. He said softly, ‘What is it, Miss Meade? Won’t you tell me?’

She put up her hand to her head and said in a faint, steady voice, ‘It’s so hot in here. Please turn the fire out. I think it would be nice in the garden.’

Ida dropped the catalogue.

‘Jan – aren’t you feeling well?’

‘Not very. I’d like – some air.’ She couldn’t think of anything else, but it wasn’t going to be any good.

Mr Everton did not move.

And then, whilst Ida Mottram’s eyes went round and surprised, something else moved beyond him in the garden. The head of Cyril Bond emerged from a lilac bush. He held a small bow and arrow and his eyes were fixed upon imaginary Indians.

Janice felt a warmth rise up in her. It wasn’t true that she was hot – she was deadly cold. She hadn’t known how cold she was until that warmth touched her, and she knew that it was hope. She began to pray with all her might. The cold was the cold of thinking that she would never see Garth again. It began to go away.

Cyril Bond, glaring at the enemy he meant to scalp, was suddenly aware that he was closer than he had meant to be to Mrs Mottram’s drawing-room windows. He wasn’t really supposed to be there at all, but when you are tracking an enemy you have to follow him. All the same he was too near the window, and – jeepers! – there was Mr Everton no more than a yard inside it. Lucky he wasn’t looking this way, but he might turn round. Cyril prepared for flight.

And then something stopped him. He could see Mr Everton’s back, and Miss Meade standing up in the middle of the room, and Mrs Mottram down by the fire. Miss Meade looked funny somehow. Mr Everton had his hand in his pocket, and then it came out with a pistol in it. Oh, boy! Just for a moment. Cyril felt excited, and then something began to heave inside him and he wondered if he was going to be sick, because Mr Everton was pointing the gun at Miss Meade, and Cyril heard him say, not loud but very distinctly, ‘Don’t move, either of you!’

He must have crawled clear of the lilacs, but he didn’t remember doing it. He was running, sobbing whilst he ran. He thought he was going to be sick, but he kept on running. He barged into Major Albany and gasped through chattering teeth, ‘He’s shooting them! Mr Everton’s shooting them – in Mrs Mottram’s drawing-room! Ow, Major!’

Garth Albany dropped him and ran.

Mr Everton stood with his pistol levelled and considered his plan. If he shot one of them, the other girl would scream. You couldn’t stop a woman screaming unless you gagged her. He couldn’t risk a scream.

He said quite pleasantly, ‘My dear lady, nobody is going to hurt you, but I want a little time to get away.’ Then, as Ida blinked bewildered blue eyes at him, ‘Miss Meade, you’ve got a head on your shoulders. I don’t want to hurt either of you, but you must see that I can’t risk your giving the alarm. If you will do what you are told you will be quite safe. I don’t think Mrs Mottram has as much self-control as you have, and I want you to gag her. There is some nice pink silk in her work-basket there which will do very well. Hurry, please!’

Hurry – She had seen Cyril’s horrified face. She had seen him crawl away. Hurry – He wouldn’t go on crawling – he would run. Hurry – How long to reach Garth? How long for Garth to come? She had got to make time. And Mr Everton had the pistol. He mustn’t have a chance to shoot at Garth.

The scent of the roses came up from the heavy glass bowl.

‘Hurry!’ There was a dangerous urgency in Mr Everton’s voice.

Her head felt stiff. She turned it a little, and saw Ida Mottram kneeling up on the hearth-rug and staring blankly at the pistol. She said in a surprised voice, ‘I don’t understand—’ and Mr Everton said, ‘I’m afraid you will have to be gagged, but nobody is going to hurt you.’

That wasn’t true. Janice looked back at him. For a moment that had nothing to do with time, it was just as if she was looking through a window into his mind. He would make her gag Ida, and then he would kill them both – her first, before she could scream, and then Ida, who couldn’t scream because she would be gagged.

Something in her said ‘No!’ and her mind went cold and clear. She said in a slow, considering voice, ‘I’m sorry – would you mind saying it again? What do you want me to do?’

He began to tell her all over again, but before he had said more than half a dozen words she saw Garth come round the corner of the house. He was running. She picked up the heavy glass bowl with the roses and pitched it at Mr Everton as hard as she could. It wasn’t for nothing that Garth had taught her to throw. It took him full in the face with a scatter of roses and water, and the bowl smashing home. His glasses broke, and he cried out with a horrible animal sound of pain. Ida Mottram screamed at the top of her voice, and for half a split second Janice wondered whether the glass door to the garden was locked, because if it was, Mr Everton was going to kill them all. And then, before she had time to remember that Ida never locked it in the daytime, Garth turned the handle without any sound at all and stepped into the room.

He made a long reach over Mr Everton’s drenched shoulder, took him by the wrist, and jerked his right hand up. The pistol went off, and a little plaster came pattering down on to the table where the bowl had stood.

The next thing she knew, she was at the telephone calling up the police. Mr Everton was on the ground with Garth sitting on him, and Ida was saying between her sobs, ‘Oh, you’ve broken my bowl! And it’s cut his face – it’s bleeding! Oh, poor Mr Everton!’

A DAY OR two later there was a gathering at the Rectory to bid Miss Silver good-bye – Miss Sophy, Garth, Janice, Sergeant Abbott, Ida Mottram, and Miss Medora Brown who was really Mrs Madoc.

This disclosure had so gone to the Miss Doncasters’ heads that, forgetting their ancient grudge, they were as one woman in saying that they had always felt that there was something strange about her, and as for Mr Everton, if any one had cared to ask their opinion, they would have said at once that the shape of his head was German.

Frank Abbott, who appeared to be off duty, and was sitting reverentially on a fat Victorian stool at Miss Silver’s feet, said in a coaxing voice, ‘Come along – tell us all. You suspected Everton from the first – didn’t you? Why?’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘My dear Frank, you are so impulsive. I did not begin to suspect Mr Everton until Wednesday – the day before we made our expedition to Marbury.’

Frank pricked up his ears.

‘What happened on Wednesday?’

Miss Silver regarded him with complacence.

‘Very little – very little indeed. If I had mentioned it, you would have thought that I was exaggerating the importance of a trifle. When I was waiting in the garden for Miss Fell, who was very kindly taking me to call on the Miss Doncasters, the evacuee child, Cyril Bond, was up on the wall. As you may have observed, he has a considerable thirst for knowledge. He leaned suddenly out between the overhanging branches and enquired, “What does Sprechen sie Deutsch mean?” – mispronouncing the words in a most afflicting manner. However, the sense was clear, and I told him it meant “Do you speak German?” He had apparently picked up the phrase from another evacuee, of Austrian-Jewish extraction.’

Ida Mottram said in a puzzled voice, ‘But why?’

Miss Silver smiled, patted her hand, and continued.

‘Cyril informed me that he had approached Mr Everton before asking me, and that Mr Everton had said he did not know any German. It seemed incredible to me that an educated man who was aware that the language in question was German should have been unacquainted with the meaning of so common a phrase. And I wondered why he should have been at so much pains. After that the circle kept narrowing. I had never been able to believe in Mr Madoc’s guilt, and his testimony cleared Bush. Everything else apart, Mr Madoc could not have killed Ezra Pincott, since he was then in Marbury jail. And Bush could not have killed Mr Harsch if Mr Madoc’s statement was correct.’

Frank Abbott nodded.

‘No – we checked it all up – he couldn’t have got to the place where Madoc saw him in the time.’

‘It was abundantly clear,’ said Miss Silver, ‘that Ezra met his death in an attempt to blackmail the murderer. The type of gravel found on his boots showed that it had been picked up on a path in the churchyard or on the drive of one of the houses along the Green. The fact that this gravel was dry and clean was a proof that Ezra did not walk to the miry place where he was found drowned. From the moment Miss Janice informed me of the conversation in which Mr Harsch used some such phrase as “A door opening upon the past” I had a strong conviction that this door had opened in the Ram. Mr Harsch went in there to have tea, and he came out without having it. Why? He missed his train and when he got home he told Miss Madoc that he had seen a ghost. Where? It was clear to me that he had had an encounter which gave him a severe shock, that this encounter was connected with his past life, and that he was not entirely sure that his mind had not been playing him tricks. It was not, of course, someone from Bourne who startled him, but it occurred to me that two persons may have been present, and that one of them may have come from Bourne. If this was the case, both these persons had reason to be very uneasy, and fear lest they should have been recognised may have precipitated the murder.’

Garth Albany said, ‘I don’t think it did. Sir George was coming down next day – they were bound to bump Harsch off before he delivered the goods. Look here, Ida – Miss Mary Anne told you that she had overheard Harsch’s call to Sir George. Did you repeat that to Mr Everton?’

Ida Mottram opened her eyes as wide as they would go.

‘Oh, no, but he was there – we were there together. He was always so very interested about Mr Harsch.’

‘You bet he was!’ said Garth. ‘And you bet he’d have collected the papers if Madoc hadn’t got them off to his bank. He didn’t have to risk getting them on the night of the murder, because he could count on Madoc being pretty sticky about handing them over to Sir George. Sorry, Mrs Madoc, but anyone who knew him could have counted on that.’

On being addressed by what was, after all, her legal name, Medora Madoc blushed painfully. She looked suddenly a good deal younger and, to Garth’s amazement, shy.

Miss Silver inclined her head.

‘I think that is quite true, Major Albany. I believe the plan was to allow Mr Harsch to complete his experiments, and then murder him before he could hand the results over to the government. They knew that the time was running short and they must be ready to act at any moment. The meeting at the Ram may have been for the purpose of handing over a weapon very carefully chosen with a view to suggesting suicide. It is, I think, instructive to look back and see how very near the plan came to succeeding. If it had not been for the fact that Mr Madoc’s conduct exposed him to suspicion, the verdict of suicide would almost certainly have stood, since but for Mr Madoc’s arrest I doubt very much whether Ezra Pincott’s death would have received the attention it deserved. It is reassuring to reflect that criminals so often come to grief over some small happening which they could not have foreseen. Although, Mr Everton’s success and safety depended on his never being suspected. Actually, the very pains he took to avoid suspicion convinced me that there was something to suspect. When Mrs Mottram told him that I was to be called in, there is, I think, no doubt that he took steps to discredit Miss Janice. I have never been able to regard the conversation I heard behind me in the Tube station as fortuitous, I am quite sure that it was carefully planned. He is known to have gone over to Marbury on the Saturday evening, and I have no doubt that he telephoned from there to a confederate in London. It has not, unfortunately, been possible to trace the call. As we now know, Mr Everton’s name is not Everton at all, but Smith. His parents were Germans of the name of Schmidt. He was born and brought up in this country, but paid frequent visits to Germany and became a fanatical Nazi. But—’ she turned graciously to Frank – ‘Sergeant Abbott is better qualified than I am to deal with this.’

‘Well, it’s no secret now. He was up before the magistrates yesterday. The real Everton is still having a nervous breakdown somewhere in Devon. They picked him carefully. He doesn’t seem to have any relations, and his friends were the sort you pick up doing business over a drink or a lunch – easy come, easy go. It was “poor old Everton” for a bit, and then nobody bothered. He’s too bad to write letters. He just dropped clean out. I gather there’s no real likeness between him and Schmidt, but a superficial description of one would fit the other – height, figure, colouring. He seems to have played the part of the cheerful little man with country tastes and a liking for having a finger in everybody’s pie, and to have played it very well indeed.’

Miss Sophy sat up and said, ‘I don’t believe it was a part. I believe it was what he might have been if that wretched Hitler had left him alone. When you think how many, many people were killed in the last war, it does seem a pity Hitler shouldn’t have been one of them.’

Frank Abbott turned an appreciative eye upon her.

‘Thanks for those kind words, Miss Fell.’

With a faint cough Miss Silver resumed.

‘From the moment I had talked with Mrs Mottram it was, of course, clear to me that Mr Everton’s alibi for Tuesday night was no alibi at all. He called Mrs Mottram’s attention to a shot which she did not hear and, looking at his watch, remarked that it was a quarter to ten. Actually, I believe that it was then half-past nine. He ran very little risk, as Mrs Mottram does not wear a watch and has no clock in her drawing-room.’

‘Watches won’t go on me,’ said Ida, looking round for sympathy. ‘They say it’s electricity or something. And I can’t sit in the room with a clock – it worries me. But I’m practically sure I did hear something chime – and of course I thought it was a quarter to ten like he said.’

Miss Silver smiled at her.

‘Yes, my dear – I think he counted on that. He left you at half-past nine, and four or five minutes later he entered the church. I felt sure all along that the murderer was on friendly terms with Mr Harsch, and that some conversation preceded the shot. You see, the curtain which screens the organist was pulled back, and no one seems to have heard the organ later than a very few minutes after half-past nine. Unless the murderer makes a statement, we shall never know quite what happened. But since the appearance of suicide was aimed at, it would be necessary to put Mr Harsch off his guard, and to hold him in conversation until the next set of chimes fell due at a quarter to ten. Schmidt would be watching the time, standing close up to the organ stool. To pass as suicide, the shot must be fired at point-blank range. The three chimes for the quarter begin. At the second he fires. Mr Harsch falls down. Schmidt has only to wipe the weapon, clasp his victim’s hand upon it, and let it drop again, releasing the pistol. If Ezra Pincott had not been in the Church Cut upon his own affairs that night, there is no doubt that a very wicked plan would have succeeded.’

Garth laughed.

‘Ezra was after Giles’ rabbits!’ he said. ‘He could get rabbits anywhere, but it tickled him to get Giles’s – he’d been doing it for years. And a clever old poacher like him wouldn’t be foxed over which side of the road that shot came from. There wasn’t anything about sounds that Ezra wasn’t up to – I’ve been out with him and I know. He told me once he could hear an earwig walking on a leaf, and I believe him.’

‘That is very interesting, Major Albany. To continue. Hearing the shot, Ezra ran to the door in the churchyard wall and opened it. He saw Schmidt leave the church, and ran after him. We know that he caught him up, since Sam and Gladys now say, what would have been more useful if said at once, that, returning from their walk by way of the road which passes the houses, they observed Mr Everton and Ezra in conversation at Mr Everton’s gate. They heard Ezra say, “Drunk or sober, it’ll be something to talk about in the morning”, and he then went off laughing.’

‘Fit to bust himself,’ said Frank Abbott. ‘They also say that a little later on they saw Miss Doncaster come out and post a letter. As soon as she’d gone in they went into the churchyard. When I asked them why they hadn’t said all this when it was some use, they said it was only old Ezra and Mr Everton, and that old Miss Doncaster that’s always posting letters, and Gladys giggled and said, “You wouldn’t think she’d have a boyfriend, would you?” ’ He turned to Miss Silver, sitting on the footstool with his arms locked about his knees.

‘Reverend preceptress, why don’t you say, “I told you so”?’

He got an indulgent smile, but before Miss Silver could speak footsteps were heard in the hall and the door was flung open. Striding past the indignant Mabel, Mr Madoc bounced the door shut and comprehended the assembled party in a scowl of greeting. There was some kind of an inclination of the head in the direction of Miss Sophy and Miss Silver, after which his frowning regard came to rest upon his wife, who sat there as if she had been turned to stone. He addressed her in a series of angry jerks.

‘If you’re coming home you had better pack your box! Pincott’s van will call for it in half an hour!’

Without waiting for an answer he turned and went out. The door banged after him. The front door banged.

Medora Brown got up. Her marmorial pallor seemed to have gone for good. She was very much flushed, and she looked as if she might be going to cry. She came over to the sofa and said, ‘Dear Miss Sophy – may I?’ and then fairly ran out of the room.

Garth said, ‘Gosh!’ And then, ‘How long will it last?’

Miss Silver gave him a glance of mild reproof.

‘They have both been so very unhappy,’ she said. ‘I do not really think she will find him difficult to manage. Tact and affection should cure him of expecting to be hurt. I saw at once that that was the trouble, and I believe she will be able to deal with it.’

Garth just gazed, until Miss Silver turned back to her audience. Then he leaned over Janice, on the arm of whose chair he was sitting, and murmured, she hoped inaudibly, ‘Darling – swear to be tactful and affectionate.’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘There is very little more to say. I think that Ezra received some money on account. He seems to have stood drinks all round at the Bull, which was not his habit. But he showed the usual mounting appetite of the blackmailer, and – he began to talk. He became too dangerous to be tolerated. I think he was asked to call at a fairly late hour, met by Schmidt himself, and invited – probably – into the garage. Yes, I feel sure that it would have been the garage. Being a converted coachhouse, it is very roomy, and it houses a most convenient wheelbarrow. Ezra was offered brandy, which he accepted with avidity. He was then knocked out, placed in the wheelbarrow, and conveyed – probably across the Green, the shortest and safest way – to the place where he was found. There was some risk about this, but not very much – Bourne goes early to bed, and I recall that the night was cloudy. Returning home and unobserved, Schmidt must have considered himself safe. The case against Mr Madoc must have seemed very strong to him, and he would confidently expect a verdict of accidental death in Ezra’s case. I cannot praise too highly the acumen of Sergeant Abbott in detecting the dry specks of gravel which had adhered to the mud on Ezra’s boots, and his brilliant deduction that Ezra had not walked but been carried to the miry place where he was found.’

For the first and only time in his history Frank Abbott was seen to blush. The colour, though faint, was quite discernible, and it may be said that it filled Garth Albany with joy.