The March Hare Murders (11 page)

“I don’t know what to think,” she admitted.

“Poor Stella,” Mark said. “I’m sorry, I really am. But he does hate me, you know. He thinks I was to blame for—something that happened a long time ago. I wasn’t, and I was as upset by it as he was, but he didn’t understand that. If I’d realised, when you talked about your brother, who he was going to turn out to be, I think I’d have warned you against having him here. But there’s nothing you can do now, is there? The poor chap isn’t to blame.”

The hostility died out of her face. “I knew you’d understand that, Mark. I’m glad you do. David isn’t really a dangerous person.”

He laughed. “Then I wonder just what you do call a dangerous person, my dear.”

“I mean, it isn’t his real self that hates you.”

“We-ell, I’m not quite sure about that.”

“There’s only one thing——”

“Yes?”

“This is what I really wanted to tell you about——”

“Well?”

“He’s got a revolver.”

•   •   •   •   •

Mark Verinder stared at her blankly, then he gave a whistle. He moved his shoulders, as if suddenly he felt that his shirt was sticking to him. Then he started rubbing the back of his neck.

“Now what the hell are we going to do about that?” he muttered.

“That’s it,” Stella said. “What are we going to do?” She added tentatively, “But I thought you ought to know.”

“Thank you!”

“And I don’t know where he’s put it.”

“Better and better!”

“D’you think Ferdie and I ought to make him go away?”

“Perhaps. … Yet if—if he didn’t want to go, he could easily stay on in the neighbourhood, couldn’t he? In fact, it might be a better idea if I went away. I’m going abroad soon, in any case. But what a devilish situation, isn’t it? A revolver. … Of course, we could get on to the police—we ought to, I suppose—or his doctor. That might be best. Who’s his doctor, Stella? If he’s really going about with a revolver——”

“But I don’t
know
that he is!” Mention of the police put Stella into a panic. “He may have thrown it away, for all I know. And perhaps the fire didn’t have anything to do with him, Mark. We’ve absolutely no evidence that it had.”

“No, that’s true.” Verinder fingered the back of his neck again as if he had a pain there. “Yet if it wasn’t your brother …Stella, who else is there that hates me enough to try to burn me alive? It must have taken a good deal of hate, you know.”

“But don’t you think the whole thing could have been an accident?”

“It could have been—it just possibly could have been. But all the same, I think it’s lucky I’m going away in a few days’ time.”

“And really you feel quite sure it was David, don’t you?”

He gave her a glance, then looked away again. “Suppose we leave it at that,” he said. “Insufficient evidence. But how right I was that you don’t really care about me, my dear. It’s only David’s safety you’re thinking about now. And yet you act as if it’s I who am to blame because things have gone wrong between us.”

“Please don’t start that again,” she said. She got to her feet. “They didn’t go wrong; they were never right. I don’t see any point in blaming any one.”

“You’re very cold,” he said.

“I——?” All the time she had been surprised because she had had no difficulty with tears, but now suddenly she felt them grip her throat. Resisting them, she said, “I’d like to say that I’m very grateful to you for being so understanding about David. You can be very kind, and I’ll always appreciate it. It’s just as you must have been with Giles.”

“Giles?”

“Yes, he told me a lot about himself,” she said, “about his having been in gaol, and I thought how awfully good you must have been——”

To her astonishment, Mark Verinder interrupted her with a shout of laughter. He slapped his thigh. His blue eyes twinkled in delight. “Gaol? Giles said he’d been in gaol?” He bellowed again. “That’s good, even for Giles. My dear, never believe a single word that young man tells you. He’s an absolutely honest and trustworthy person who just happens to be completely unable to tell the truth.”

She did not quite take this in. “Then he hasn’t …?”

“Hasn’t been in gaol? Certainly not. I shouldn’t dream of employing a secretary who’d been in gaol. An excellent though minor public school, Oxford and the R.A.F. is Giles’ background. But don’t think badly of him if he told you a few tales. He can’t resist it, particularly with a woman.”

“I see,” Stella said. She went to the door. For some reason this discovery made the threat of tears more dangerous. “I’m afraid I was very stupid.”

“Not at all,” Mark said, following her. “He does it extremely well; every one believes him the first few times.”

“Well, good-bye,” Stella said. She tried to say something more, but changed her mind and abruptly made a dash for the gate.

As she did so, she realised that it was raining. It was not heavy rain, but a wind had sprung up and it drove the drops stingingly against her cheeks, making her aware of how hot they were. She heard Mark calling something after her, but she did not turn. Letting the gate swing shut behind her, she ran across the road and into the house opposite, and to her surprise came face to face with David just inside the door. She did not think out why she was surprised to see him there; she only knew that she had not expected it, as, thrusting past him without speaking, she went into the kitchen.

Sitting down on one of the wooden chairs, she put her elbows on the table and took her head in her hands. She pressed them over her eyes and her forehead. She was determined not to cry now. She had no reason for crying, she told herself. Yet desperation and despair possessed her. For the first time since she had met him, she found herself full of dislike for Mark Verinder, and the feeling hurt her. She did not know what to do about it.

In the physical effort of choking down her tears, she did not hear David come into the kitchen. She did not know either how long she had been sitting there before he came. But she heard it when he knocked against something on the dresser.

She looked up.

“Why aren’t you swimming?” she asked. “I thought you’d gone swimming.”

“I don’t like swimming in the rain,” David said. “What’s the matter, Stella?”

“The matter? With whom?” She knew that her eyes were dry and tried to convince herself that there was nothing in her face to betray to him what she was feeling.

“With you,” David said. “You came in just now looking like death.”

“Me?” She laughed unsteadily. “How absurd. There’s nothing the matter with me.”

“Stop it,” David said. “What’s that old brute been saying to you?”

“Saying? Mark, d’you mean?”

“Yes,” David said patiently.

“Nothing,” Stella said, “Nothing in particular.”

David muttered something, then, pulling a chair out from the table, sat down near her, laying a hand on her arm.

“What is it?” he asked. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“Don’t,” she said. She felt that another sentence from him in that tone of voice would make the tears flow helplessly. “Don’t bother me.”

“Tell me,” he said. “He’s just done something to hurt you like the devil. I know that look of yours. I know he has.”

She shook her head, pressing her lips together.

He said, “It won’t go any further, if you want to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she said. “I just went over to—to ask …”

“Yes?”

“Oh, nothing in particular. But, David …”

He waited.

She heard her own next words in surprise. “Perhaps you’re right about him, in a way. He’s a dishonest person, isn’t he?

He’s a hypocrite, really. He’s taking himself in all the time. And other people too, of course. I wonder which he does more—I mean take in himself or other people? And I wonder if he knows he’s doing it? What d’you think?”

“I don’t know,” David said. “It wouldn’t worry him much, in any case.”

“You see,” Stella said, “I went over to—to ask him something, and he was very nice about it—nice and understanding, when he’d have had plenty of excuse not to be. But at the same time he—he started to explain why he hasn’t been wanting to see so much of me. But there was no need for him to have brought that up at all. It wasn’t what I went to see him about, and I never meant to talk about it. Really, I’ve had that quite straight in my mind for some time. But he seemed to have to dramatise it; he had to be self-pitying and make it all sound as if it was my fault. And that feels horrible, somehow; I don’t know why. … I didn’t think he was like that.”

“No,” David said, “I suppose you didn’t.”

She looked at him inquiringly. “Are you horrified at me really, David, about all this?”

“No,” he answered. “But I’m worried.”

“There’s no need to be worried,” she said. “I’ve been in a muddle, that’s all. I suppose I was never in love with Ferdie, really, and so something like this was almost sure to happen.”

“Are you going to stay with Ferdie?”

“I don’t quite know. … This probably will horrify you, but I’ve hardly thought about that. The two things seemed so different.”

David got up. He strolled away to the window and stood looking out. “It’s raining harder,” he said.

“Yes, and the wind’s getting up. It sounds like quite a storm. David …”

“Yes?”

“It may be a good thing, you know.”

“What?”

“That all this has happened. I told you I’d been in a muddle all along. It’s just an idea that’s come into my head this moment, but—well, this may have helped to clear some of the muddle up. In the long run, I may be grateful to Mark.”

He looked round at her. She felt a cold shock at the change that had come over his face. A moment ago it had seemed full of sympathy. Now it was stormy, with a black shadow in the eyes. The room itself had been darkened suddenly by a heavier gust of the rain, and some of the darkness seemed to have fused into his stare.

“Don’t,” he said in a low voice. “You’re not to say that.
She
said it—Lizbeth said it. She said she was grateful to him for all the joy he’d given her and the knowledge and the understanding——”

Stella began, “But that isn’t what I meant——”

“—the bloody understanding! And she said she’d thank him with her last breath. And perhaps she did!” David’s body was rigid. The dark-ringed eyes were fixed blankly on Stella’s face, looking right through her and beyond her, yet spilling their violent pain and anger on to her, so that she felt as if David must hate her with all his being. “Don’t forget that—perhaps she did. But he’s not going to get any more thanks of that sort. Don’t forget that either.” He walked quickly out of the room. He stumbled as he went, as if he could not see where he was going.

Getting up, Stella went slowly after him. She had nothing to say to him, but she had an idea that when he looked like that he ought not to be left alone. She found him in the hall, hunting for something in the cupboard at the bottom of the stairs. She stood and watched him. All his anger and desperation had been transferred to the search. He looked behind coats and mackintoshes, pushing them this way and that with clumsy blundering hands, muttering to himself as he did so.

“What are you looking for?” she asked, standing close behind him.

“It was here,” he said. “I know it was here.”

“What?”

“I saw it,” he said.

“What?”
she nearly screamed at him, thinking suddenly of the revolver.

“An umbrella,” he said.

“A—an umbrella!” She began to giggle, at the same moment trembling with relief. “Why ever d’you want an umbrella?”

“It’s raining.”

“Haven’t you a mackintosh?”

“I want an umbrella. I don’t like rain on my glasses, I can’t see in the rain without an umbrella.”

“Well, there it is.” Ferdie’s umbrella was hanging straight in front of him. “Anyway, where are you going?”

He seemed to have to stare unbelievingly at the umbrella before he could recognise it, then he gave an uncertain laugh and reached for it.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Where are you going?” she repeated.

“I said I’d have lunch with Ingrid.”

“Ingrid!”

“Why not Ingrid? I met her this morning and she asked me to lunch.”

“But don’t you mind having lunch with Mark?” Stella asked.

“He’s going out somewhere, she said—having lunch with Mrs. Masson or something.”

“David …”

He paused in putting on his mackintosh. He looked as if he knew what she was going to say. “Well?” he said.

“Nothing.”

He patted her gently on the shoulder. “Cheer up,” he said vaguely and picked up the umbrella.

At that moment there was a knock at the front door.

Unwillingly, Stella went to open it. It was rather a relief to her that it was a stranger whom she saw in the porch, a big, grey-haired man in a streaming mackintosh, holding a soaked felt hat in his hand and mopping moisture from his face and neck with a handkerchief.

“Quite a shower,” he remarked, drying an ear, then stuffing his handkerchief away in a pocket. “I’m sorry to trouble you, ma’am, but does Professor Verinder live here?”

“No,” Stella said, “he lives across there.” She pointed.

“Ah, in the March Hare’s cottage. Doesn’t it remind you of that? Thank you—thank you very much indeed.” He gave his hat a shake, scattering raindrops over the porch. “Quite a shower. In fact I should say it was more than a shower. In fact I should say we’re going to have a nice drop of rain before we’re finished. Well, the country needs it, I’m told. I’m very sorry to have troubled you, ma’am. Thank you—thank you very much indeed.”

Lowering his head and his heavy shoulders in what was almost a bow, he settled the wet hat cautiously on his head again, turned and tramped off down the path.

Stepping out on the porch, David called after the stranger, “I know for a fact Professor Verinder’s out at the moment.”

The man stopped and turned.

“Out, you say, sir? Well now, isn’t that a nuisance, specially in a shower like this? Would you happen to know where I might find him?”

David hesitated. “No,” he said, “I’m afraid not. But wait a moment; I’m just going across there myself.”

“Why, thank you very much, sir. I’ll be glad of a share of that umbrella,” the stranger said. “I said to myself this morning, I said, there’ll be rain later, but I didn’t expect anything like this. Thank you very much, sir.”