The Second Shot (16 page)

‘It’s an attitude I can hardly pretend to understand, but no doubt one should not condemn it on that account. But in that case, if Mrs de Ravel was able to convince him that it was a case of real love, why should his feelings be so strong against Eric? There was no doubt of them last night. The fellow was beside himself with hatred.’

‘Ah,’ said John, ‘because he didn’t believe there was any love on Eric’s side at all. Just one of his usual conquests. You can imagine how he’d take that, in the case of his goddess. In fact,’ added John seriously, ‘I shouldn’t be at all surprised if Sylvia deliberately told him so, or at any rate gave him the impression. And with full knowledge of what the consequences might be.’

I whistled. ‘You realize what you’re implying, John? You imply that Mrs de Ravel wilfully incited her husband to commit murder.’

John’s serious expression deepened. ‘I know. And I wouldn’t put it past her. It was after the engagement had been announced, remember; and it’s my opinion that Sylvia would have stuck at nothing, absolutely nothing, to prevent Eric walking off with Elsa under her nose. It would have been a mortal blow to her vanity; and with a woman like Sylvia her vanity is sacrosanct.’

I removed my pince-nez and polished them on my handkerchief. I have noticed it as a habit of mine, purely nervous, when I am deliberating an important statement.

‘After all of which,’ I said slowly, ‘Eric is shot.’

John caught the implied question. ‘No,’ he said quickly.
‘During
all of which. This happened after they left you and Eric, to go to the places where they were to wait, and before they returned here. During the time, in fact, when our detectives were supposed to be detecting and when Eric was actually shot.’

The significance of this jumped to my eye. ‘Then those two weren’t alone?’ I exclaimed. ‘They were together? They’ve got a mutual alibi?’

‘They have,’ John agreed gravely. ‘They have. Otherwise –’ There was no need for him to finish the sentence. Otherwise, was his meaning, he might have been more ready to accept my own denial. It was unfortunate.

There was a moment’s silence, while I found it necessary to readjust certain of my ideas.

‘Do the police know this?’ I asked then.

‘I think not. I gather that Paul intends to say nothing about it, in case awkward questions are asked about the reason for their being together. There’s no need, you see, for the scandal to be raked up now; at least, so far as the police are concerned.’

‘Oh, none,’ I said, with perhaps more sarcasm than I should have employed in the circumstances. ‘The police can learn all about my supposed but quite illusory reasons for shooting Scott-Davies, but not about De Ravel’s very real one.’

‘But if De Ravel couldn’t have shot him?’

‘We have only his wife’s word for that,’ I said tartly. It was an observation which, I admit now, I should not have made, but the reader must remember that at that time I was in the desperate position of the drowning man catching at any piece of driftwood.

John put on his most obstinate expression. ‘A word which I, for one, am quite prepared to accept. I’ve been assuming, by the way, Cyril, that you will keep all this to yourself. I’ve been passing on to you a confidence which isn’t my own, simply because I thought you might consider it of importance, in view of your own position.’

‘Certainly,’ I replied stiffly, ‘you need not fear that I will abuse it.’ I did not point out to him that he was ready to accept Mrs de Ravel’s bare word but not mine, which in other circumstances I might have found in the highest degree offensive.

Nor did I trouble to offer my own word again. It seemed in some monstrous way to have become tacitly accepted between us that I was responsible for Scott-Davies’ death; and as any further denial would have carried no more weight than before, I found it beneath my dignity to attempt it.

Instead I asked: ‘And where were they? At the swimming pool, or – ’

‘Swimming pool,’ John answered laconically. ‘Look here, I must go. I promised to see the superintendent after lunch.’

I nodded, thinking rapidly.

I have not yet enumerated the various places in which the other members of our party were supposed to be during the mock murder, and to which they actually (or presumably) retired after Eric Scott-Davies and I had played our scene. In view of what afterwards transpired, the point is an important one and it would be better for me to deal with it at once. The superintendent of course was already in possession of this information.

I have already explained that each of them was to be alone, with the object of being able to produce no confirmation of his or her alibi for the benefit of the would-be detectives; and until a few moments ago I had supposed that, with the change of the mock death to a real one, this humorous predicament had in all cases become a very real one. The allotted places had been as follows: De Ravel was to be at the swimming pool, practising his diving, an accomplishment in which he was unusually proficient; Mrs de Ravel was to be sun-bathing in the enclosure, surrounded by a thick belt of young trees and undergrowth, constructed by John for that purpose on the slope above the swimming pool;Armorel was supposed to be lying, with a book and a rug, on the hillside on the other side of the house, in a rough uncultivated expanse of bracken dotted with furze overlooking the sea in the distance, known as the Moorland Field; John was to be wandering anywhere in the woods towards the bottom of the valley with a gun, looking for rabbits; Elsa Verity was to be picking bluebells in Bluebell Wood, where Ethel was to have joined her had she not encountered the supposed corpse on the way and given the alarm as I have already described.

To elucidate the position, I have been at pains to draw a rough map of this part of the Minton Deeps land, marking the positions
supposed
to have been occupied (not those which were afterwards proved to have been occupied) at the time when the alleged fatal second shot was fired.
¹
It will be seen that, including the house where Ethel was, and excluding John, a rough semicircle is shown round the scene of the tragedy, the diameter of which was not far short of half a mile. The spot I have indicated as John’s position is that given by him as the place where he discharged his shotgun in the air.

During the afternoon I may remark briefly that I occupied myself, in an attempt to check profitless brooding and the formation of impossible plans for vindicating myself, with writing the beginning of this manuscript. I found it an admirable mental release from the strain of my situation to reconstruct with impartial exactness the precise events which had led to the shooting of Eric Scott-Davies.

And I might state here that if I have been successful in this attempt, the reader should now, at this stage in the story, be fully aware whose finger pulled the fatal trigger. Such at any rate is the conclusion which I, reading over what I have already written, see rising from the circumstances as I have described them. But I must in fairness admit that I am writing now at some considerable time after the event, and with full knowledge of the identity of Scott-Davies’ executioner (I will not use the ugly word ‘murderer’ in such a worthy case), and that perhaps may have clarified my vision.

Except for a short interval for tea, from which I excused myself as soon as possible, I continued to work on my manuscript without pause until it was time to dress for dinner, rigorously keeping my thoughts from dwelling upon anything but the matter immediately in hand.

John had not appeared at tea, being apparently still busy with the superintendent, so that I had not seen him since our talk together after luncheon. Naturally nothing was said during dinner upon the topic which was filling my mind, but after the women had left us De Ravel, as on the previous evening, excused himself with a quite unnecessarily black glance at me and I was able to learn as much as John knew, of the further progress of the affair.

It was not reassuring. In spite of John’s efforts, the police, it seemed, had now learned all about my supposed interest in Elsa, and were disposed to take it very seriously; John had been questioned on it, and though he had done his best to pooh-pooh the notion that my intentions had ever been earnest, the superintendent had shaken his head weightily. The information had come from the maids, whom he had questioned that morning. One does not usually realize how very well posted the kitchen always is in the affairs of the drawing room.

Worse still, the superintendent had ferreted out the incident of the swimming pool. From the maids again he had discovered that my clothes had been wet that night and I had had to change; from Elsa Verity of all people he had extracted the story of what had actually happened. John’s manner became more serious than ever as he hinted that the superintendent had fastened gladly on this as a possible motive for my making away with Eric.

As to this interview with Elsa, Ethel had already mentioned at dinner that it had taken place, though I did not attach much importance to it then. John now informed me that the superintendent had insisted on obtaining it, quite politely but with the utmost firmness, or else a doctor’s certificate to the effect that Miss Verity was medically unable to grant it. That this was not the case, although she was keeping the girl in bed, Ethel had known quite well, and had therefore been forced to allow it; though she had insisted on being present during the interview, which of course had to take place in Elsa’s bedroom. This the superintendent had willingly permitted, with the result that poor Ethel had had to sit silently by and listen to statements highly damaging to myself issuing from the unwitting girl’s lips. For after all I could not blame the poor child for falling into the superintendent’s specious traps; nor, ignorant that I was under suspicion, could she possibly have realized the purport of her words as she told blushingly of the rivalry of Eric and myself for her company that evening and its sequel.

‘You think, then,’ I asked at length, ‘that my position is considerably worsened as a result of the police investigations today?’

‘Damn it,’ said John unhappily, ‘I’m sure of it. It must be. Look here, Cyril, don’t be a quixotic fool. Wire for your solicitor tomorrow.’

But I shook my head. That I still would not do. Not indeed that I had the same qualms about the De Ravels’ connection with Eric coming out; for though I remained just as anxious that the proof of my own innocence should not depend on the official proof of someone else’s guilt, that no longer held in the case of the De Ravels with their mutual alibi. Indeed I should not have objected now to that story becoming known (after all, consideration for other people’s moral reputations must give way to consideration for one’s own life), if only that the police might realize that there had been other motives in existence for Eric Scott-Davies’ death compared with which my puny ones were as red ink to claret. But somehow or other my own solicitor…no! I could not get rid of the feeling that he might discover not merely what I wanted discovered (which was nothing more than convincing proof that
I
at any rate had not fired that second mysterious shot which the police had now arbitrarily decided had killed Eric Scott-Davies) but a great deal more as well; and that might turn out to be almost more awkward than before.

In this connection one thing which I learned from John seemed to show that the superintendent was at least keeping his mind open for other possibilities than my own guilt. He had today displayed a much greater interest in the plot of our little play, as outlined by Mrs de Ravel, writing it laboriously down, questioning John on its whys and wherefores, and generally showing that he considered it well worth investigation.

‘The man isn’t a fool,’ John said as he told me this. ‘I’m quite certain he smells a rat there.’

‘You mean he guesses the situation wasn’t quite so imaginary as one might have supposed?’

‘Exactly. I had to tell him the details, of course, because he could easily check them up elsewhere; but naturally I didn’t let on that there was a hint of truth underlying any of it. But as I say, I’m sure he wasn’t convinced.’

‘Did you tell him that it was invented by Mrs de Ravel?’

‘No,’ said John slowly, ‘I didn’t. I thought it wiser not. I didn’t say it wasn’t, of course; I just skated round the point. But I did give him a very definite impression that I made it all up myself – and of course I
was
responsible for a good deal of it. Perhaps you’d better back me up there, Cyril, if you get a chance.’

‘Very well,’ I agreed, though I could not quite see the force of the subterfuge.

It was uncomfortable in the circumstances to join the others in the drawing room, but not to have done so would have looked odd. Ethel of course treated me with her normal serene kindness, and so did John; but both the De Ravels looked as if they resented my presence, as I have no doubt they did, and Armorel looked positively frightened. I stayed for a wretched half an hour, and then excused myself to return to my manuscript, feeling extremely depressed and worn out.

I had thrown off my coat for greater comfort and been working for perhaps twenty minutes when there was a light tap on my door and immediately following it Armorel slipped into the room. I sprang up in some confusion, hastily putting on my coat, but Armorel seemed far too agitated to remark my shirt-sleeves.

‘Pinkie,’ she said urgently, ‘I
must
talk to you. Come along to my room.’

‘Really, Armorel,’ I had to protest, ‘that would hardly be – h’m – wise, would it? If you will go downstairs, I will follow in a moment or two, and we could take a turn out of doors.’

Armorel stared at me in a rather disconcerting way. ‘I simply can’t make you out, Pinkie. Are you worrying about the proprieties? Good heavens, I really believe you are. Well, you beat me, that’s all. How you can shoot a man one minute, and make a fuss the next about – ’

‘Armorel!’

‘Anyhow, we can’t take a turn out of doors,’ she hurried on. ‘It isn’t safe. I’ve just looked out, and there’s a very obvious detective hanging about in the lane. Of course he’d follow us and hear every word; it’s nearly dark already. And it isn’t any safer in here. I feel as if the whole house is full of them, in every cupboard and under every bed; one of them would have his ear glued to the keyhole in two minutes. My room’s the only safe place; they won’t suspect you’re there. Listen – I’ll go along now, and you follow in about two minutes. Creep down the passage as quietly as you can, and for heaven’s sake don’t let anyone see you. Oh, I don’t mean any of the others,’ she added impatiently, seeing the expression on my face. They don’t matter. I mean a
detective.’