Who Pays the Piper? (9 page)

“I shouldn't promise.”

“That's shuffling!” His voice was contemptuous. “Suppose you were my wife—what would you have said then? Would you have let him blackmail you into going to him?”

“Bill!”

“What's the good of saying ‘Bill!'? And where's the difference? Would anyone say or think that a promise like that ought to be kept?”

She said in a fainting voice, “We're—not—married,” and saw him whiten.

“And that's all the tie you recognize—a legal tie, a physical one? Nothing else—nothing sacred and binding between us? Are you going to look at me and say that—and are you going to expect me to believe it if you do?”

“Bill!”

He came quite close, but he did not touch her.

“Wake up! You're going to marry me. If Dale or anyone else tries to butt in he'll get what's coming to him.”

Behind him the door into the dining-room moved. The faint click of the latch had passed unheard. Mrs. Mickleham stood with her hand on the knob in a state of worried indecision. The Vicar had sent her—but on the other hand—a private conversation—Bill Carrick—naturally very upset—oh dear, dear,
dear
—really no attempt to keep his voice down—anyone in the house might have heard him—and oh, really, he
ought not
to go up to King's Bourne in such a state—very natural of course, but most unwise, and sure to lead to a really terrible quarrel—oh,
yes
—and Susan trying to stop him and keeping on saying she had promised——

Inside the room Bill Carrick said with frightful distinctness,

“Do you want me to kill him, Susan? I think I'm going to.”

CHAPTER XIII

Mrs. Mickleham pushed the door wide open and stepped over the threshold. She saw Susan holding Bill Carrick by the arm, and she saw Bill turn his head and look at her standing there in the doorway. He was quite white, and his eyes blazed. As soon as he saw her he twisted himself free and rushed out through the scullery, slamming the door behind him. Susan went back against the dresser and stood there shaking. She stared at Mrs. Mickleham, but she didn't seem to see her.

“My dear—my dear Susan—the Vicar sent me—but oh dear, I feel I am intruding—only we were both so distressed—indeed he did not feel that he could perform the ceremony—unless he felt assured that it was going to be for your happiness, my dear—he had to go to Mrs. Brain, and he thought perhaps you could talk more freely to me——”

Susan went on staring. Mrs. Mickleham's voice was a long way off … she was talking about someone being married.… It came to her that Mrs. Mickleham was talking about the marriage of Susan Lenox and Lucas Dale—and the Vicar was distressed—
the Vicar
—Lucas Dale.… Sharp and clear on that the voice in which Bill had said, “Do you want me to kill him? I think I'm going to.”
And she had let him go
.

She put out her hands as if she was pushing something away and went running through the scullery and out of the back door as Bill had done.

Mrs. Mickleham was left in a state of considerable agitation. If one could only be sure that one had done the right thing—one tried, but oh dear—and the Vicar had wanted her to come—a woman's intuition—and of course if old Mrs. Brain was really dying, he had to go to her—
oh dear!

She went slowly back into the hall. The drawing-room door was ajar and she could see that the room was in darkness. Mrs. O'Hara must be in her room. There was a light on the upper landing. She did not know whether to go up or not. She listened, and could not hear anyone moving. A lorry went by in the road. The Little House must be very noisy—only of course there wasn't much traffic—Mrs. O'Hara didn't seem to mind—poor thing, such an invalid—perhaps she was resting—better not disturb her—better just slip away.… Mrs. Mickleham slipped away.

Susan went running and stumbling up the hill. She was so terrified and confused that she hardly knew what she was doing. She only knew that Bill was beside himself with anger, and that she had let him go to meet Lucas Dale. It was quite dark in the orchard, but even in her confusion her feet found their own way and brought her out from among the trees. There was low cloud overhead, very little light from the sky, damp air on her face.

She was just beyond the trees, when she heard a shot. It did not frighten her at first. When you have lived in the country all your life the sound of a stray shot is neither here nor there. She heard it, but her mind had its own fear, the fear of Bill's hands—his very strong hands. She saw them striking Dale, flinging him down, closing about his throat. The shot meant nothing to her at all.

She came to the paved terrace, as she had come to it on the Saturday morning when Lucas Dale had let her in. There was a light in the study, and as she saw that, she saw the curtain move, and the door. Bill Carrick passed the lighted space and came out upon the terrace. She ran to him.

“Bill!”

He caught her arm.

“What are you doing here? Come away!”

“Bill!”

“He's dead.”

Susan heard the words as she had heard the shot. They began to draw together in her mind. They didn't mean anything yet.

Bill had his arm round her, hurrying her down the steps, across the lower terrace, down the slope—down, down, and on amongst the trees. They came to the garden of the Little House, to the back door, to the dark scullery, and there stood. Bill said in a sharp whisper,

“Is she gone—Mrs. Mickleham?”

She said, “I'll see.”

She went through the lower rooms. She listened in the hall. There was no sound at all. She came back across the dining-room, shutting both the doors behind her.

Bill Carrick was standing by the kitchen window. He turned, and the light fell on his face. Until that moment Susan had not thought—there had been no time to think. She had heard Bill say “He's dead.” The words were there in her mind, but she hadn't begun to think about them. What she had had to do was to run, to get back into the shelter of the Little House, to make sure that Mrs. Mickleham was gone. Now these things were done.

She looked at Bill, saw something in his face which she had never seen there before, and with a dreadful rush thought began. Lucas Dale was dead. She remembered the shot, and her knees began to shake. She took hold of the edge of the kitchen table and leaned on it. Bill said,

“He's dead.” And then, “I didn't kill him.”

She said, “Who killed him?”

“I don't know. He was lying there dead.”

Susan thought about that vaguely. She was shaking so much that she was afraid she was going to fall. She said,

“You came out of the study——”

“Yes—I found the glass door open. Don't you believe me?”

What were they saying to one another? What was between them? What had he done?

He leaned across the table and spoke low.

“I wanted to kill him—I might have killed him—but I didn't. You've got to believe me.”

“I'll try.”

That was all wrong—dreadfully wrong. You believe, or you don't believe—it's no good trying. Her lips were quite dry. She moistened them and said,

“Tell me.”

Bill put his hands over hers and pressed them down.

“If you don't believe me, no one will. You've got to believe me. I heard the shot. I went up to the house. There was a light in the study. I went round to the side where Cathy has her table and looked in. One of the windows was open and the curtain flapping. I could see the other writing-table across the room. I couldn't see Dale—only a hand and arm stretched out along the carpet. I went back to the terrace. The glass door was open. I went in, and there he was, fallen down behind the writing-table. I went and looked at him. I didn't know what to do. He'd been shot through the head. There was a revolver on the writing-table. I didn't touch anything. I was trying to think what I ought to do, when I heard someone on the terrace. I came out to see who it was, and when I found it was you I lost my head. I only thought about getting you away. I didn't want you to get mixed up in it, and I didn't want you to see him. I ought to have sent you home and called up the police. I think I ought to go back now.”

She shook her head.

“They'll think you did it.”

“They'll think so anyhow. Mrs. Mickleham heard me say I wanted to. Susan, I'd better go back.”

“It's too late.”

“I expect it is. I don't want to say you were there.”

Susan was steadying.

“Bill, you heard the shot. I did, but I didn't think it was anything. I was just clear of the orchard. Where were you?”

“On the lower terrace. I didn't go straight up to the house. That's what is going to look bad for me. If I'd gone straight to the house, I'd have been there when the shot was fired. But I wasn't—I wasn't there. I was on the lower terrace trying to get hold of myself a bit. You see, I did want to kill him——”

“Bill!”

“So I had to get myself in hand. Then I heard the shot, and I stopped where I was for about a minute, because I wasn't sure where the sound came from. It sounded awfully close. That was because the door was open. I was listening for footsteps—anyone moving. When I couldn't hear anything I went on up to the house and looked in.”

“You didn't see anyone or hear anyone?”

“No.”

“Could he have done it himself?”

“No, he couldn't, Susan.”

Susan pulled her hands away and stood up.

“We heard the shot. Why didn't anyone in the house hear it—why didn't they come?”

“I don't know,” said Bill Carrick.

CHAPTER XIV

Ill news travels apace. By eight o'clock it would have been hard to find anyone within a mile radius who did not know that Mr. Dale up at King's Bourne had been found murdered in his own study—“and Scotland Yard called in, they do say.”

Mr. Pipe, the landlord of the Crown and Magpie, knew all about that. He was a man of slow but interminable speech delivered weightily in a deep booming voice, small and thin of person but mighty with the tongue. There must have been times when he stopped talking to listen, for he was always full of information, but behind his own bar he talked, and listened to none. He knew all about the death of Lucas Dale and why Scotland Yard had been called in.

“Shot right through the hack of the head, he was, pore gentleman, and dead as mutton. If all the best doctors in the kingdom had been called in there wasn't nothing they could have done for him. Alive and hearty one minute, as it might be you or me, and shot down the next as if he wasn't no better than a rabbit. And when the police come they gets word as nothing's to be touched on account of Scotland Yard being called in. And the reason for that, as I hear, is along of Colonel Rutland, the new Chief Constable, being down with the influenza. Leastways some say it's that, and some say there's other reasons—like them that's suspected being a bit too well known locally. And there's others'll tell you 'tis because the ones they think done it belongs to London, and it stands to reason that London police 'ud have a better chance of ferreting out whatever it was as went before. We all know as you don't just up and murder a man on account of not liking the look of him. It's bad feeling and bitter 'atred as goes before murder, and no one won't find out how it was done without they find out where the 'atred was.”

“They say he was going to marry Miss Susan,” said a hefty young man who was drinking beer.

“And
that's nonsense, William Cole!” retorted a thin woman in a draggled coat. “Everyone knows as Miss Susan and Mr. Bill's been going together for years. Pint of bitter, Mr. Pipe.”

William grinned.

“Have it your own way, but Mr. Dale, he come up and fixed with Vicar to marry Miss Susan Thursday, and Vicar wasn't none too pleased. Said just what you say, that Miss Susan was going with Mr. Bill. And Mr. Dale, he said, ‘Well, she's marrying me on Thursday'. And that I heard with my own ears on account of the window being open and me putting lime on the rose-beds just outside.”

“Well then, I don't believe it.”

“All right, you needn't.”

“Next thing you'll be saying is Mr. Bill shot him.”

“Not me—but the police will most likely.”

The talk went this way and that. Old Mr. Gill, whose grand-daughter was kitchen-maid at King's Bourne, said he did hear tell there was bad blood between Mr. Dale and the American gentleman that was staying.

Mr. Pipe took up the tale again.

“There's a good many of us could have something to say if it comes to that. The one it's most likely to be is the one you wouldn't be likely to think of, because it stands to reason if there was 'atred and ill will right down here in Bourne, we'd know about it, wouldn't we? It stands to reason we would, for if there's one thing more than another that can't be hid it's 'atred.”

“Well, I'd 'ate a man as took my girl,” said William Cole.

The thin woman flashed round on him.

“What's Mr. Bill done to you for you to keep picking on him?”

William grinned.

“He hasn't done nothing to me. 'Twasn't me as took his girl.”

Mr. Pipe's voice boomed out.

“There's ladies to be considered as well as men. 'Atred isn't one of those things as the men have got a prerogative for. Why, there was a lady in here no later than this very afternoon round about five o'clock or a bit later, and she had a double brandy, and the way she took it off, well, you wouldn't often see anything like it. And if I told you what she said, well, you wouldn't believe me, and if you would, it's not the time for me to be telling it. I don't say as how she's got anything to do with Mr. Dale, and I don't say as how she hasn't, but I do say as 'atred will out.”