The Decayed Gentlewoman

by E. X. Ferrars

  “Why about Joe?”

  “Because I’ve known him so long and I seem to have been so wrong about him.”

  “Perhaps you haven’t been. Perhaps he’s perfectly honest after his own fashion.”

  “But if he’s mixed up in this…”

  “I’ve been wondering if he really is, anyway in quite the way I’ve been thinking. D’you remember the day you took me round to see them? D’you remember how Beryl stayed out of the office, as if she’d no interest in what was happening?”

  “Yes, and you could see that bright-green suit of hers through the hinge of the door. You asked me why she should pretend not to be interested when we could see she was there, listening.”

  “The point is, I don’t think Joe could see her, so it could have been done to impress Joe, not us. Then, when she came in, they disagreed about which of them had suggested buying the contents of the Sibbald house outright, instead of selling it on commission. It was important to buy it outright, of course, with the picture in with the rest. But Beryl was very sharp with Joe, trying to make him think it was his idea.”

  “Then do you think it’s possible he still doesn’t know that Beryl was in with Greer?”

  “That’s one of the things I want to ask your mother. She knows him pretty well, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, and she’s fond of him. But, Colin—”

  “Yes?”

  “I kept thinking all the time I was in the train. I just don’t believe Greer’s body could have been at the bottom of the steps when I went into the house. I’d have seen it, if it had been.”

  Colin hesitated, then said, “Yes, I think so too.”

  “So why was the door open?” she asked. “I thought at first Greer must have rushed out, trying to get away from Stringer, and Stringer must have shot him as he was running down the steps, then done a bolt himself without thinking about the door. But if Greer’s body wasn’t there when I arrived—and I’m really sure it can’t have been—and if the murder really happened after I left, where were they both when I got there? And why did Stringer leave the picture behind?”

  “I’ve an idea,” Colin said slowly, “that the murder had nothing to do with the picture. Nothing, that is, to do with the possession of the picture.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m not sure that I do either. It’s a very hazy idea. Let’s leave it till we’ve seen your mother. Then perhaps we’ll know a bit more.”

  They did not reach Oldersfield till nearly midnight. The train that they had found waiting at Charing Cross, due to leave in seven minutes, was a very slow one, stopping at every small station. Ginny dropped off to sleep with her head on Colin’s shoulder. When at last he had to rouse her, she got up, yawning and confused. But when she had taken a few breaths of the cold spring night, she became restlessly alert. Walking fast through the quiet streets of the town, they set off for the Green Tree Café.

  Its door was locked and its window dark. Only the street-lamps in the market-place lit up the sponge cakes and biscuits on the glass shelves. The same sponge cakes and biscuits, it occurred to Colin, while Ginny was feeling in her handbag for her key, as had been there when he first came to the café.

  But light showed dimly through the curtains of the barred basement window. Harriet was there.

  Ginny opened the door and Colin followed her.

  Halfway across the empty, shadowy room inside, he grasped her arm and held her back. Below them, in Harriet’s room, a sound of voices had suddenly stopped, then there was a sound of rapid movement, of footsteps too heavy for Harriet’s, of an opening door.

  A man’s voice called, “Who’s there?”

  Ginny answered, “It’s me, Joe.”

  “Who’s with you?”

  “Colin.”

  There was a slight pause, then Joe said, “All right, come on in.”

  They went down the stairs to the basement.

  Harriet was sitting by the electric fire. She looked very much as she had when Colin had seen her last, except that she was not actually crying. But her face had the blotchy look and the swollen eyelids that come from shedding so many tears that the marks of them will not fade. She was wearing a shabby velvet housecoat and bedroom slippers.

  She did not move when she saw them. Looking fretfully at Ginny, she said, “My car—have you brought it back? Coming in like that, taking it, not saying you weren’t coming back…”

  Joe went over to her and patted her shoulder. There had been a big change in him since Colin had seen him in the Black Swan only a few evenings ago. The smooth, rubbery skin of his face that had never held any lines had sagged into loose folds and hollows. There were reddish pouches under his eyes, which had lost their darting brightness and become almost vacant.

  “Never mind about the car, darling,” he said, “we’ve got other things to think about.”

  “But I do mind,” Harriet said. “How does she think I can manage without it?”

  “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Winter,” Colin said, “it’s at Turnhouse at the minute. I left it there. It’s my fault.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Harriet said. “I mean, I don’t believe it’s your fault. Ginny left it there on purpose.”

  “Sh—don’t worry about it.” Joe patted away at her shoulder. “We’ve got plenty of other worries. You don’t happen to have seen my wife, do you, Mr. Lockie? That’s one worry. What’s become of her. Not that I care. Not really, except that it’s a sort of habit you get into, thinking you ought to know where your wife is.”

  Ginny had come a little way into the room. She was looking round it, taking note of it, as if it were a place that she wanted to be sure she would not forget, since she was not likely to come back to it.

  She said wearily, “There’s no need to go on pretending, Joe.”

  “Who’s pretending what, darling?” he asked.

  “Aren’t you?” Ginny said. “Don’t you know Beryl’s in Scotland, still after that wretched picture? Don’t you know it’s supposed to be a Rubens? Don’t you know that Willie Foster-Smith is dead and—and all the rest of it?”

  “No, he doesn’t!” Harriet cried. She came unsteadily to her feet, then sank back again in her chair. “He didn’t know a damned thing till I went round on Monday evening and accused him and Beryl of fixing everything up between them. And if you’d stayed and listened to me instead of rushing off with my car, I could have told you so then.”

  “That’s the truth,” Joe said. “Well, not quite the truth.” He sat down at the table, clasping his bald head in his hands. “God, my head’s splitting in two! It’s being pulled apart by red-hot pincers. What was I saying?… No, not quite the truth. Not quite.”

  “You mean you did know about the picture?” Ginny demanded.

  “I had my suspicions, darling,” he answered. “But that’s not the same as knowing. Don’t think it is. You can shut your eyes to suspicions for a hell of a long time. If Harriet hadn’t come bursting in like she did, saying we’d murdered that chap Foster-Smith and if I hadn’t heard with my own ears what Beryl said back to her… He gave a convulsive shudder. ”Well, your wife’s your wife. We were partners too. We ran the show together, giving people a fair deal—fair enough, anyway—that’s what I thought. So I’ve gone on shutting my eyes as long as I could.”

  Ginny’s eyes had remained on her mother while he was speaking. There was growing horror in them.

  “Then you did know all about it. You were in on it… No, I don’t believe it!” She dropped on her knees beside Harriet and threw her arms round her. “I don’t believe it!”

  Dazedly, Harriet held her, then as if she were half-afraid to make the gesture, began to pass her hand gently over Ginny’s hair.

  “I wasn’t in on it, but it’s all my fault, all the same,” she said, her eyes starting to leak tears again. “I talked to Joe and Beryl, I showed them some of Willie’s letters, the ones where he said he thought he was going to be able to prove that picture was a Ruben
s. Yet he’d told me not to say anything. He’d told me he wasn’t saying anything to the Lockies himself, in case he was wrong and they had an awful disappointment.”

  She pulled several sodden handkerchiefs out of the pocket of her housecoat, chose the driest, and dabbed with it at her eyes.

  “And Beryl was much too interested,” she said. “I ought to have noticed it. She didn’t usually listen much when I talked. I ought to have noticed too she got much friendlier after that and started coming to see me and asking what news I’d had from my friend in Edinburgh. So when Willie wrote he’d persuaded the Lockies to let him have the picture for cleaning and that Colin was bringing it in to some firm that did that sort of thing, I told her all about it. I’m sorry, Colin.” She looked at him over Ginny’s head. “When Willie wrote about the theft, I thought it was a damned shame for your aunts, losing something valuable like that, but I never thought of Beryl having anything to do with it. And I thought Willie was right when he said he wasn’t going to tell your aunts what he thought the picture was, because no one would believe him, and anyway, it would only make them feel worse about losing it.”

  “But why didn’t you at least tell me about it?” Ginny asked. “You only said once that that old picture I used to be so fond of had been stolen with Colin’s car.”

  “Well, darling, you were in one of your superior, standoffish moods,” Harriet said, “and I thought I’d pay you out by not telling you something you’d have loved to know. And then I simply forgot all about it. I don’t suppose I gave it another thought till I got back from Spain and found Colin here and everyone steamed up about the sale. I was slow catching on even then.”

  “So was I, so was I!” Joe gave a groan, kneading his burning temples.

  “And when I began to catch on, I got scared,” Harriet said.

  Joe went on, “After you and Ginny came to see us, Mr. Lockie, I began to think at last… There was the idea of the picture popping up in our saleroom, of all places, after all we’d heard about it, and the way it popped up the moment Harriet went on holiday, Harriet being the one person, they thought, who just might recognize it. They never thought of Ginny’s having those tea-parties with the thing and so on, and that a kid’s memory’s often much clearer than a grownup’s. And then there was the whole market overt business. I tell you, it was hell when I began to think of those things. So I kept my eyes shut till Harriet came bursting in on Monday, saying we’d stolen the picture and murdered her Willie. And Beryl said…” His voice dried up.

  Harriet took the story up quickly. “You see, I rang Willie up on Monday to tell him all the queer things that had been happening and ask his advice, and I heard he’d been killed. And it all seemed to make sense all of a sudden and I rushed round and—and Beryl said if I didn’t keep my mouth shut, she’d show the police Willie’s letters to me. I never even knew she had them. She stole them some time or other, just to be able to hold them over my head. And I was frightened. And then she went for me. She’s small, but she’s much stronger than me—that frightened me too. I’m an awful coward. I just grovelled and cried and begged her to stop. And she said that was only a taste of what would happen if Greer ever heard I suspected anything.”

  Colin went a few steps towards the table where Joe sat. “You let that happen?” he asked. “I shouldn’t have thought you’d stand by without interfering while your wife was beating up Mrs. Winter.”

  Joe raised his head slowly. His eyes darted to Harriet, then looked up at Colin. They were full of bewilderment and pain. “Yes, I—of course I interfered,” he muttered.

  “But, Joe, you’re mixed up—that was all after you left,” Harriet said.

  Colin had known it was coming. Half-consciously he had been leading up to it, not sure in what form knowledge would come, or realizing what deadly oppression there would be in the sudden weight of it.

  “I was afraid of that,” he said unwillingly. “I suppose the shock of having your eyes opened like that was just too much. You drove over to Hopewood, didn’t you, to settle with Greer straight away? After all, he’d destroyed what you valued most in life, your integrity, your self-respect…”

  Joe had begun to shake. Almost shrieking, he cried, “I didn’t mean to. I only took the gun to protect myself. I never meant to kill anybody. But I couldn’t stand it. Having been such a fool—so blind—just used by them!”

  In a horrified voice, Harriet exclaimed, “Joe, think what you’re saying!”

  Another voice spoke from the doorway. “It’s a bit late for that. He should have done his thinking a long time ago.” With a gun in his gloved hand, Herbert Stringer came into the room.

  He moved quite silently in rubber-soled shoes. He was wearing a felt hat pulled down low over his white hair and only just showing his eyebrows. They were dark again, as they had been when Colin had first seen him lying in the road near Ardachoil and as they had always been when he saw them in nightmares.

  “You all heard him,” Stringer said. “You know it was him killed Greer. It wasn’t me. Now he’s going to write that down and sign it.” His hand moved swiftly so that the gun pointed at Colin. “No, Mr. Lockie, you stay where you are. You don’t want to get hurt, do you?”

  “What good is this going to do you?” Colin asked.

  “You leave that to me.”

  “You’ll get life for the other things you’ve done.” Colin did not know why he felt that he had to keep on talking, unless it was to give Joe a chance to get a hold of himself, to stop that helpless shaking.

  “What else have I done?” Stringer asked with a mocking light in the eyes under the dark eyebrows. “Anything you can prove? My friend, Mr. Greer, was a very law-abiding gentleman, never been in trouble in his life, and I looked after him, that’s all.”

  “What about the things you stole from his house after he was killed?” Colin asked.

  “I never stole anything. You ask Joe here who took them.”

  “It’s a lie,” Joe said violently. The accusation seemed to steady him. “I never took a thing.”

  “Not when you and Beryl came back to fix things to look as if I’d done it?”

  “You know we didn’t.”

  “Didn’t come back?”

  “Didn’t—” Joe’s voice faltered. “Didn’t take anything. You were filling your pockets before I left the house. That was all you could think of, to take what you could and get away.”

  “With Greer’s body inside, in his study, where it could have stayed for a week or two without anyone knowing anything about it. How did it get out on the steps if you didn’t come back and put it there?”

  “All right, I went back,” Joe said. “Beryl said it was the thing to do. She said the body had to be found quickly, when they could still tell how long ago he died, and if anyone had heard the shots, they’d still remember just when they heard them. Because she’d an alibi for that time. She was in the saleroom all the evening, where lots of people were sure to have seen her. And she said she could say I’d been there too and people wouldn’t remember they’d never actually seen me till late.”

  “That wasn’t your only reason,” Stringer said with an ugly twist of his mouth. “You wanted the police to get after me.

  Colin said, “You’re wrong, you know. If that’s how it happened, Mrs. Lake was hoping the police would get after Miss Winter and me.”

  Stringer turned on him furiously. “You keep out of this! You’ve made enough trouble already.”

  “Joe,” Ginny said. Still on the floor beside Harriet, she had sat back on her heels and was holding Harriet firmly by the wrist, keeping her still. “Joe, were you there when I came?”

  “That’s right, Ginny,” he answered miserably. “I’d just done it and this chap rushed in and—and there we were—and then I heard you calling. So I kept the gun on him till you’d gone. That’s something I’m glad of anyway. I don’t know what he’d have done if I hadn’t.”

  “Who, me? I wouldn’t have done a thing, Miss Winter,�
�� Stringer said. “I’m not a violent man. I’m quiet and law-abiding. If you want to know what I did when I found the body of my employer, I blacked out and went wandering off in a state of shock. And I can’t remember a thing till I found myself in the old Sibbald house this evening. Can’t think why I went there except that I knew it was empty.”

  “And that you happened to have the key,” Colin said. Stringer gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. “Who knows? I can’t remember. But as soon as my memory came back, I came out and I bought a newspaper and then I saw the body’d been found on the steps and they were looking for me. And that’s not right, I thought. Apart from the fact I didn’t kill him, there’s the matter of Mr. Greer’s will. He was very generous to me in his will, that I know. Left me the contents of his house and that—” He swung round on Colin. “That includes the picture there’s been all the palaver about. That picture was legally his, bought in the open market. So now it’s mine and you needn’t think I’ll be afraid to fight to get it back. Not when I’ve got Joe’s confession, I won’t! So that’s what I’ve come for. I want it just the way I heard it when I was listening at the door. How did it go? ‘I didn’t mean to—I couldn’t stand it—having been so blind—’ ”

  “All right,” Joe said. “It’s best, I dare say. I’ll write it.” He look round vaguely. “Where’s some paper?”

  “Have you got some paper and a pen, Mrs. Winter?” Stringer asked.

  Harriet gave a convulsive jerk at hearing her own name, but her face was blank.

  Ginny said in a low voice, “Over there in the bureau.”

  “All right, you get it, Miss Winter,” Stringer said.

  She got up and went to the bureau. As she opened it, he went on, “Don’t try any tricks. I can pull this trigger much faster than you can do anything.”

  She took out a block of paper and a ball-point pen.