Touch Not The Cat (24 page)

When tea was done I helped Mrs. Henderson clear and wash the dishes, while Rob pushed the cloth back from his end of the table, and spread his account book and papers out and got on with his figuring. He was surprisingly quick and neat. The sums looked complicated, but long before I had dried and stacked the dishes he had shut the book and put the papers aside and picked up a sheaf of what looked like highly coloured catalogues or holiday brochures. He read them intently, paying no attention to the two women moving around him. He might have been alone in the room. It was curiously soothing.

Mrs. Henderson took her apron off and hung it behind the door. "Well, that's it for today. I'll let you have the shirt by the weekend, Rob. Shall I feed the hens for you?"

"Thanks, yes, I'd be obliged."

She took her leave of me then, and I thanked her for the tea. She had obviously assumed my distress to be caused by my father's death, and by the loneliness of my first night back at Ashley. She had too much natural delicacy to say anything directly, but she came as near to it as she could. "Are you all right at the cottage, Miss Bryony? Is there anything else you want?"

"Nothing at all, thank you, Mrs. Henderson. Every thing's fine. You got it lovely." She went then, leaving me with Rob.

He laid the papers down and pushed them aside. "Now what's to do? Can't you tell me? Seems like it might be bad trouble, to upset you like that."

"It might." I sat down at the other side of the table from him. He watched me, saying nothing.

It was very different from the recent tete-a-tete with Emory; no tensions, no careful reticences, no attempts to see past an apparent meaning to a real one. And different, too, from talking with my cousin James; there, as well, had been the sprung overtones of emotion, of a difficult affection, of a personal distress. And in both interviews I had felt the impact, doubled because united, of a strong personality and a calculated desire to drive me into action over the Court and the trust.

Here there was none of that. The dark eyes that watched me steadily were not Ashley eyes, those wary, clever eyes with their cool self-sufficiency and their self-absorption. Rob could have no axe to grind, nothing to gain, nothing he wanted from me. He was not even, like the Vicar, bound by a set of rules which could force me to an alien action like the betrayal I was contemplating. He was just an old friend, someone belonging to the Court, who had known it and me and Jon Ashley all his life; a real person, kind, uncomplicated, who would listen without judgment unless I asked for it, and would answer me then with plain and disinterested common-sense. I supposed he loved the Court; I didn't know; but he knew it, and he knew me. Neither fear nor favour . . . He had never feared any thing, Rob Granger, except perhaps, when he was a child, his brutal father.

And he had no reason to show favour, now that my father was gone, to any of us above the others; only to Ashley itself. Or so I thought.

"Rob," I said, "it's something awful, and I oughtn't to tell you, but I've got to tell someone, and there's no one else."

Vaguely to my surprise he didn't say, "What about your family?" or even, "What about the Vicar?"

He merely gave a little nod, as if that was reasonable, and waited again.

I swallowed. "I think it was James who knocked Daddy down. I think he was there, in Bad Tolz.

They picked up a silver pen with the initials
J. A.
just where the accident happened. When they gave me his things I assumed the pen had been his, though I'd never seen it before. And yesterday—yesterday James saw me using it, and said it was his own. He didn't know where he'd dropped it, he said, but it was his . . ."

He had listened without moving. Now he stirred, and asked, sharply for him: "Did you tell him where it came from?"

"No. Oh, no. I told him I'd found it in the churchyard the night before last."

"Did he accept that?"

"Yes. He didn't even seem surprised."

"Meaning that it was him in the vestry—or at any rate in the churchyard—that night."

"You could say so," I said. "Oh, he denied it when I asked him before, but I know James, and I was sure then that he was lying, and he knew I thought so. He took it as a joke. Last night he didn't even trouble to go on pretending. I know what he was doing there, too—though I don't really understand all about it. It doesn't matter anyway, not compared with this."

"What does matter," said Rob bluntly, "is that he shouldn't know you've any call to suspect him of being in Bad Tolz."

"I'm sure he doesn't. It was all quite casual. He just pocketed the pen and went out."

"Wait a minute." Rob was frowning. "What was the date your dad was knocked down? The thirtieth of April, wasn't it? Well, James was here then, or thenabouts."

I sat up abruptly. "Are you sure?"

"Sure enough. I saw him. He called here to pick up the Underhill girl."

"Rob, are you sure it wasn't Emory?"

"Well, no, I suppose it might have been. I didn't speak to him—I was busy working along the drive when he drove out with the girl. But the Underhills said afterwards that it was James. I remember that, because of course I thought it was Emory with her; you'll know they're sweet on each other, of course?"

"Yes." I added, thoughtfully: "So he wasn't ringing for his twin that day? I wonder why?"

I had spoken softly, to myself, but Rob had not only heard, he had got there with almost electronic speed. "So they've been doing that, have they? Can I take it that that wasn't Emory here yesterday, then?"

"No, it was James. It was Emory today, though." I looked at him across the table. "Rob, don't you see? It probably was Emory here that day with Cathy. Which means it was James in Bad Tolz."

"Would it matter which of them it was in Bad Tolz," said Rob forcefully, "if he was driving that car?"

I didn't answer. I was looking down at my hands, which were pressed flat on the table in front of me, covering the letter as if to hide it. Then I looked up at him. I knew that all the strain and uncertainty, yes, and the longing, too, must be there, naked to view, in my face and eyes. I didn't care. I saw him take it all in in one swift, summing look, then he said, in a voice carefully empty of sympathy: "Yes, I can see it would. But it doesn't help to take on about it, not till you know a bit more."

It braced me, as it was meant to. I sat back in my chair, and let my hands fall into my lap. "I'm sorry. Throwing it all at you like this. It's your own fault, you know, for being so easy to talk to."

"Maybe because I'm just part of the fittings. I belong in the garden, sort of, along with the trees."

There was no edge to the words. He was smiling. "It's all right, you know. You can tell me anything—it's likely enough I'd know it anyway, with my ear to the ground most days."

"Like telling the bees?"

"I reckon," he said, comfortably. He stretched, then got to his feet and leaned his shoulders back against the mantelpiece. His look was solemn again, a little heavy. "Well, you've told me. Never mind why, but you don't want it to be James. But you can't leave it at that, you know. You'll have to find out. Whichever of them it was, even if you don't want to know the answer, you've got to go on and find out. That's true, isn't it?"

"I suppose so. But—"

"And there's something else you'll have to face." He hesitated, then finished abruptly. "As far back as I remember, Bryony, whatever one of them was in, the other was in just as deep."

"Not James." It was meaningless and purely defensive, but he answered the implication rather than the words.

"Maybe not. But he was always there after the fact, as they say. Anyway, we have to find out, don't we? Are you up to facing that?"

Somehow I wasn't up to facing him. I looked down at my hands. "I have to, haven't I? You just said so."

"Yes." It was abrupt and uncompromising. As unswerving a judgment, I thought with vague surprise, as the Vicar's. I still couldn't look at him, but I turned my head to the window, where the curtains swelled and swayed in a sudden breeze. There was a pot of pink geraniums on the sill, the twin of the one at my cottage. The breeze brushed a fading head of flowers, and a scatter of petals floated down into the room. One of them, drifting to the floor beside me, stirred a memory; the petals floating from the clematis last night. Last night; before I had known what I knew now. When all I had had to worry me was the "theft" of a few things from the Court. It seemed a lifetime ago.

Bryony. Bryony, love.

I must have jumped in my chair. I felt my nerves tighten like a net pulled in by a fisherman.

Somehow, in that unguarded moment of memory, he had managed to reach me. It came with the breeze, sweet as the summer air; it was round me like the falling petals; comfort, love, longing as strong as anguish. So strong that for one awful, choking moment I thought he would be able to see through my mind into the contents of the envelope that lay beside me on the table.

Get out! Do you hear me? Leave me alone. You know why.

Yes, I know why. Bryony
. . .

All right. Did you do it?

No reply. Just that longing and love, hopeless and receding.

Did you do it? Were you there when he died?

No answer. He was gone. Above me Rob's voice was saying, with that careful lack of warmth:

"You don't have to look like that, Bryony. Whoever was driving that car, you surely can't think it was anything but an accident, so—"

"Well, of course it was an accident! But why keep it quiet? Why not stay and—and help him? He wasn't dead."

"Would it have saved his life if they had?"

"No. No, Herr Gothard said not. But it might have prolonged it. He might have lived till I got there . . . " I choked on that one, and then managed to add, more steadily: "That's not true, no.

Herr Gothard said it made no difference. But one can't help feeling—"

"No, you can't," said Rob, "but you can think as well, and that'll help. Come on, think about it. Say it was one of your cousins knocked your dad down. O.K. What was he doing in Bad Tolz in the first place?"

"I—I suppose he must have gone there to see Daddy."

"Right. Must have. Well then, what about?"

There was only one answer to that, too. "About the Court, breaking the trust. They need money. James says they need it very badly."

"Who doesn't?" said Rob drily. "I suppose the dif ference is, what do you do to get hold of it? Yes, I know, but there's no need to look like that, love"—the country endearment came out as

"luv," as natural and meaningless as when the local shopkeepers or bus conductors used it—"because we're taking it as an accident, aren't we? All right, go on thinking. Your cousin—we'll call him Emory if it makes you feel better; and he could easily have had a loan of his brother's pen, and never missed it when he dropped it—Emory goes to see your dad to talk him into something; it doesn't matter what, but it was urgent, or he wouldn't have gone to that trouble. Now, since your doctor pal never saw him, Emory must have been on his way up to the hospital when he overtook your dad on the road. Didn't recognize him in the dark, we'll say—"

"Of course
he didn't recognize him! You couldn't ever think-"

"Hey, calm down, I said we were taking it as accident. Well, he knocked him down in the dark.

And after that he panicked and drove off and never said a word. It happens. It's human. It's the reason for all the hit-and-run jobs there are."

"I'd like to accept that. But it doesn't fit, does it? He must have recognized him
after
the accident. Don't forget that whichever of them ran Daddy down must have got out of the car to look at him, and if Ja—Emory leaned over him long enough to let that pen drop from his pocket, he must have recognized who it was. The car's lights would be on, too."

Rob nodded. "He ran away
because
he recognized who it was. Don't you see? Your cousin went there to talk your dad into something. He went because he was desperate for money, and his own dad hadn't managed to get yours to part with anything, or agree to break this trust. Then by accident he knocks your dad down on the road and hurts him badly; he must have known how badly. Anyway, he knew about his heart. . . . Well, put yourself in his place. How's it going to look if he, of all people, is involved in an accident like that, and then your dad dies? The people who stand to gain are him and his family. They're the only people in the world who might want your dad dead. No—"

quickly, to forestall me, "I'm not saying they did. I'm saying that's what the police would have said once they ferreted the story out."

"Yes. Yes, I see. But even if they didn't dare pick him up and get help for him, surely they—Emory—could have telephoned from somewhere and
told
someone where he was, and to go and help him?"

"What sort of German do they speak?"

"Oh, yes, that would have given them away. Of course. But, Rob, just to leave him lying like that—"

"I know, it takes a bit of swallowing. But I've known your cousins as long as you have, remember, and I'd say they were realists. You told me yourself it wouldn't have helped your dad if they'd stayed by him." He left the fireplace and sat down where he had been before, resting his folded arms on the table and leaning forward on them. "That's it, you see. I dare say you'll find that they were only planning to look after their own interests. But it went wrong, and now you've found out, and the very thing's happened that they'd have given their eyeteeth to avoid; you've been set against them."

I said nothing. It fitted, all too well. Whichever twin had been beside my father and dropped the pen, the other would no doubt have been ready to create an alibi by confusion, either in Bristol or in Spain. This was why neither man had come to the cremation, or showed up at Bad Tolz to see me home. I would have recognized him, and if there had been questions later, this might have destroyed whatever alibi they had concocted between them. It could have been either of them telephoning from England; Walther was not familiar with their voices, and it was perhaps significant that the caller had not asked to speak to me. I began to wonder, but with the dullness of emotional exhaustion, if Cousin Howard was involved as well. If neither twin had been in Spain at the time of the accident, would their father say so? Was he, even, well enough to know? But, with England, Spain, and Bavaria only hours apart by air, heaven knew it would have been easy enough for the twins to create their own kind of alibi.