Towards Zero (17 page)

“I should have thought he'd be glad for her to—er—find happiness with an old friend.”

“Glad? He's as jealous as Hell!”

“Then he must be very fond of her.”

“Oh, he is,” said Kay bitterly. “
She's
seen to that!”

Battle's finger still ran dubiously over his jaw.

“You might have objected to this arrangement of coming here,” he suggested.

“How could I? It would have looked as though I were jealous!”

“Well,” said Battle, “after all, you were, weren't you?”

Kay flushed.

“Always! I've always been jealous of Audrey. Right from the beginning—or nearly the beginning. I used to feel her there in the house. It was as though it were
her
house, not mine. I changed the colour scheme and did it all up but it was no good! I'd feel her there like a grey ghost creeping about. I knew Nevile worried because he thought he'd treated her badly. He couldn't quite forget about her—she was always there—a reproachful feeling at the back of his mind. There are people, you know, who are like that. They
seem rather colourless and not very interesting—but they make themselves
felt.
”

Battle nodded thoughtfully. He said:

“Well, thank you, Mrs. Strange. That's all at present. We have to ask—er—a good many questions—especially with your husband inheriting so much money from Lady Tressilian—fifty thousand pounds—”

“Is it as much as that? We get it from old Sir Matthew's will, don't we?”

“You know all about it?”

“Oh yes. He left it to be divided between Nevile and Nevile's wife after Lady Tressilian's death. Not that I'm glad the old thing is dead. I'm not. I didn't like her very much—probably because she didn't like me—but it's too horrible to think of some burglar coming along and cracking her head open.”

She went out on that. Battle looked at Leach.

“What do you think of her? Good-looking bit of goods, I will say. A man could lose his head over her easy enough.”

Leach agreed.

“Doesn't seem to me quite a lady, though,” he said dubiously.

“They aren't nowadays,” said Battle. “Shall we see No. 1? No, I think we'll have Miss Aldin next, and get an outside angle on this matrimonial business.”

Mary Aldin came in composedly and sat down. Beneath her outward calmness her eyes looked worried.

She answered Leach's questions clearly enough, confirming Nevile's account of the evening. She had come up to bed about ten o'clock.

“Mr. Strange was then with Lady Tressilian?”

“Yes, I could hear them talking.”

“Talking, Miss Aldin, or quarrelling?”

She flushed but answered quietly:

“Lady Tressilian, you know, was fond of discussion. She often sounded acrimonious when she was really nothing of the kind. Also, she was inclined to be autocratic and to domineer over people—and a man doesn't take that kind of thing as easily as a woman does.”

“As you do, perhaps,” thought Battle.

He looked at her intelligent face. It was she who broke the silence.

“I don't want to be stupid—but it really seems to me incredible—quite incredible, that you should suspect one of the people in this house. Why shouldn't it be an outsider?”

“For several reasons, Miss Aldin. For one thing, nothing was taken and no entry was forced. I needn't remind you of the geography of your own house and grounds, but just bear this in mind. On the west is a sheer cliff down to the sea, to the south are a couple of terraces with a wall and a drop to the sea, on the east the garden slopes down almost to the shore, but it is surrounded by a high wall. The only ways out are a small door leading through on to the road which was found bolted inside as usual this morning and the main door to the house, which is set on the road. I'm not saying no one could climb that wall, nor that they could not have got in by using a spare key to the front door or even a skeleton key—but I'm saying that as far as I can see no one did anything of the sort. Whoever committed this crime knew that Barrett took senna pod decoction every night, and doped it—that means someone in the house. The niblick was taken from the cupboard under the stairs.
It wasn't an outsider, Miss Aldin.
”

“It wasn't Nevile! I'm sure it wasn't Nevile!”

“Why are you so sure?”

She raised her hands hopelessly.

“It just isn't like him—that's why! He wouldn't kill a defence-less old woman in bed—
Nevile!
”

“It doesn't seem very likely,” said Battle reasonably, “but you'd be surprised at the things people do when they've got a good enough reason. Mr. Strange may have wanted money very badly.”

“I'm sure he didn't. He's not an extravagant person—he never has been.”

“No, but his wife is.”

“Kay? Yes, perhaps—but oh, it's too ridiculous. I'm sure the last thing Nevile has been thinking of lately is money.”

Superintendent Battle coughed.

“He's had other worries, I understand?”

“Kay told you, I suppose? Yes, it really has been rather difficult. Still, it's nothing to do with this dreadful business.”

“Probably not, but all the same I'd like to hear your version of the affair, Miss Aldin.”

Mary said slowly: “Well, as I say, it has created a difficult—situation. Whosoever's idea it was to begin with—”

He interrupted her deftly.

“I understood it was Mr. Nevile Strange's idea?”

“He said it was.”

“But you yourself didn't think so?”

“I—no—it isn't like Nevile somehow. I've had a feeling all along that somebody else put the idea into his head.”

“Mrs. Audrey Strange, perhaps?”

“It seems incredible that Audrey should do such a thing.”

“Then who else could it have been?”

Mary raised her shoulders helplessly.

“I don't know. It's just—queer.”

“Queer,” said Battle thoughtfully. “That's what I feel about this case. It's queer.”

“Everything's been queer. There's been a feeling—I can't describe it. Something in the air. A
menace.
”

“Everybody strung up and on edge?”

“Yes, just that…We've all suffered from it. Even Mr. Latimer—” She stopped.

“I was just coming to Mr. Latimer. What can you tell me, Miss Aldin, about Mr. Latimer? Who is Mr. Latimer?”

“Well, really, I don't know much about him. He's a friend of Kay's.”

“He's Mrs. Strange's friend. Known each other a long time?”

“Yes, she knew him before her marriage.”

“Mr. Strange like him?”

“Quite well, I believe.”

“No—trouble there?”

Battle put it delicately. Mary replied at once and emphatically: “Certainly not!”

“Did Lady Tressilian like Mr. Latimer?”

“Not very much.”

Battle took warning from the aloof tone of her voice and changed the subject.

“This maid, now, Jane Barrett, she has been with Lady Tressilian a long time? You consider her trustworthy?”

“Oh absolutely. She was devoted to Lady Tressilian.”

Battle leaned back in his chair.

“In fact you wouldn't consider for a moment the possibility that Barrett hit Lady Tressilian over the head and then doped herself to avoid being suspected?”

“Of course not. Why on earth should she?”

“She gets a legacy, you know.”

“So do I,” said Mary Aldin.

She looked at him steadily.

“Yes,” said Battle. “So do you. Do you know how much?”

“Mr. Trelawny has just arrived. He told me.”

“You didn't know about it beforehand?”

“No. I certainly assumed, from what Lady Tressilian occasionally let fall, that she had left me something. I have very little of my own, you know. Not enough to live on without getting work of some kind. I thought that Lady Tressilian would leave me at least a hundred a year—but she has some cousins, and I did not at all know how she proposed to leave that money which was hers to dispose of. I knew, of course, that Sir Matthew's estate went to Nevile and Audrey.”

“So she didn't know what Lady Tressilian was leaving her,” Leach said when Mary Aldin had been dismissed. “At least that's what she
says.
”

“That's what she says,” agreed Battle. “And now for Bluebeard's first wife.”

VII

Audrey was wearing a pale grey flannel coat and skirt. In it she looked so pale and ghostlike that Battle was reminded of Kay's words, “a grey ghost creeping about the house.”

She answered his questions simply and without any signs of emotion.

Yes, she had gone to bed at ten o'clock, the same time as Miss Aldin. She had heard nothing during the night.

“You'll excuse me butting into your private affairs,” said Battle, “but will you explain just how it comes about that you are here in the house?”

“I always come to stay at this time. This year, my—my late husband wanted to come at the same time and asked me if I would mind.”

“It was his suggestion?”

“Oh yes.”

“Not yours?”

“Oh no.”

“But you agreed?”

“Yes, I agreed…I didn't feel—that I could very well refuse.”

“Why not, Mrs. Strange?”

But she was vague.

“One doesn't like to be disobliging.”

“You were the injured party?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It was you who divorced your husband?”

“Yes.”

“Do you—excuse me—feel any rancour against him?”

“No—not at all.”

“You have a very forgiving nature, Mrs. Strange.”

She did not answer. He tried silence—but Audrey was not Kay, to be thus goaded into speech. She could remain silent without any hint of uneasiness. Battle acknowledged himself beaten.

“You are sure it was not your idea—this meeting?”

“Quite sure.”

“You are on friendly terms with the present Mrs. Strange?”

“I don't think she likes me very much.”

“Do you like her?”

“Yes. I think she is very beautiful.”

“Well—thank you—I think that is all.”

She got up and walked towards the door. Then she hesitated and came back.

“I would just like to say—” she spoke nervously and quickly. “You think Nevile did this—that he killed her because of the money. I'm quite sure that isn't so. Nevile has never cared much about money. I do know that. I was married to him for eight years, you know. I just can't see him killing anyone like that for money—it—it—isn't Nevile. I know my saying so isn't of any value as evidence—but I do wish you could believe it.”

She turned and hurried out of the room.

“And what do you make of
her?
” asked Leach. “I've never seen anyone so—so devoid of emotion.”

“She didn't show any,” said Battle. “But it's there. Some very strong emotion. And I don't know what it is….”

VIII

Thomas Royde came last. He sat, solemn and stiff, blinking a little like an owl.

He was home from Malaya—first time for eight years. Had been in the habit of staying at Gull's Point ever since he was a boy. Mrs. Audrey Strange was a distant cousin—and had been brought
up by his family from the age of nine. On the preceding night he had gone to bed just before eleven. Yes, he had heard Mr. Nevile Strange leave the house but had not seen him. Nevile had left at about twenty past ten or perhaps a little later. He himself had heard nothing during the night. He was up and in the garden when the discovery of Lady Tressilian's body had been made. He was an early riser.

There was a pause.

“Miss Aldin has told us that there was a state of tension in the house. Did you notice this too?”

“I don't think so. Don't notice things much.”

“That's a lie,” thought Battle to himself. “You notice a good deal, I should say—more than most.”

No, he didn't think Nevile Strange had been short of money in any way. He certainly had not seemed so. But he knew very little about Mr. Strange's affairs.

“How well did you know the second Mrs. Strange?”

“I met her here for the first time.”

Battle played his last card.

“You may know, Mr. Royde, that we've found Mr. Nevile Strange's fingerprints on the weapon. And we've found blood on the sleeve of the coat he wore last night.”

He paused. Royde nodded.

“He was telling us,” he muttered.

“I'm asking you frankly:
Do you think he did it?
”

Thomas Royde never liked to be hurried. He waited for a minute—which is a very long time—before he answered:

“Don't see why you ask
me!
Not my business. It's yours. Should say myself—very unlikely.”

“Can you think of anyone who seems to you more likely?”

Thomas shook his head.

“Only person I think likely, can't possibly have done it. So that's that.”

“And who is that?”

But Royde shook his head more decidedly.

“Couldn't possibly say. Only my private opinion.”

“It's your duty to assist the police.”

“Tell you any facts. This isn't facts. Just an idea. And it's impossible, anyway.”

“We didn't get much out of him,” said Leach when Royde had gone.

Battle agreed.

“No, we didn't. He's got something in his mind—something quite definite. I'd like to know what it is. This is a very peculiar sort of crime, Jim, my boy—”

The telephone rang before Leach could answer. He took up the receiver and spoke. After a minute or two of listening he said “Good,” and slammed it down.