And Death Came Too

by Hull, Richard

  “To where?”

  “Well, apparently only a little way to St Clement Danes. But he said the Gaiety, which is a good three hundred yards farther.”

  “Precisely. Do you know what’s opposite the Gaiety, sergeant?”

  “Waterloo Bridge—when they’ve rebuilt it,” Scoresby answered after a moment’s thought.

  “And what else? I’ll tell you if you don’t know. Somerset House. They keep copies of wills there, all quite nice and easy to get at. Though why everybody is allowed to pry into your private affairs, I don’t know, but I don’t mind betting that’s where he went.”

  “I can probably prove or disprove that.”

  “I wish you would. I think it will answer my first question. Thank you for letting me drive. It often helps one to come to a decision. Now I’m going to stop the car and get one of you to take over. My problem’s settled and I can’t concentrate any longer.”

  A visit to Scotland Yard, however, showed Scoresby that if Patricia’s difficulties were resolved, his were not. Car ZGQG10 had not returned to Charing Cross, and the woman called Mary Smith was still alone at the hotel. There seemed to be nothing to do but to ensure that she was adequately watched and given no opportunity of slipping away. With luck Miss Westbury must in the end return to her, and perhaps the car might be found before that. There was nothing to do but get some sleep and, accommodation having been found for Patricia, Scoresby sent Reeves to bed and settled down himself.

  He was not, however, to have much rest that night. After what seemed only a few minutes, he was wakened and a call from Sergeant Evans put through to him. The worthy sergeant was agitated, but thinly veiled a morose pleasure in being the bearer of bad news.

  “You’re in the wrong place,” he said. “While you go gadding up to London things have been happening down here. You’d better come back pretty quick, the chief constable says, though I told him it would be better if he left it to me this time.”

  “What am I to come back for? Out with the story, man.”

  With ill-disguised relish Evans told him. There was no question about it. He must go back at once. He cursed himself for having chosen exactly the wrong moment to leave Treve. Of course it was bad luck, but he considered it his job to forestall bad luck. Then there was the complication of Patricia. Well, he couldn’t help her. She had better stay where she was and come back the next day by train. It was kinder to do that than wake her up now. A message for her would be quite enough. In a very short while the police car was hurrying back to Trevenant Hill and the bridge over the Nant, so picturesque and at the foot of so very steep a hill.

  As he went it was Scoresby’s turn to think. If he had not gone, would things have been any different? Would it have mattered if he had taken Hands with him as well as his sister? Had his offer to come up to London been really very genuine or very pressing? Or had he fallen in with Scoresby’s request in order that he might stay in reality quite readily?

  19

  Interview by Night

  The same instinct which had made Maud Westbury so restless earlier in the day caused her still to be cautious. For some reason which she could not have stated, she wanted to get out of London unobtrusively, and she also decided that it would be unwise to stop at any hotel or inn for food.

  The latter problem was quite easy, and she solved it by buying something to eat on the way at a Lyons corner house at the top of the Haymarket, but how not to attract notice if her car was being watched was not so simple, especially as her knowledge of the roads of London had never been remarkable and was now both out of date and rusty. Eventually, despite the fact that she had already driven a considerable distance and had the journey both to and from Trevenant in front of her, she decided to make a detour by taking any road that led northwards until she was clear of the most outer suburbs of London. After that she would bear towards Treve, and with the aid of her map shape her course more directly for the spot she had appointed as a meeting-place.

  Perhaps it was as well that she did so, since if she had taken the direct road she must have been very early and she might have passed Scoresby going in the opposite direction, and the sight of the number of her car was such a longed-for goal to him that he would almost certainly have noticed it.

  As it was, even though she had difficulty in finding her way and stopped for quite a while in a lane to eat her food, and again to drink some most indifferent coffee at a wayside café intended for users of char à bancs, she had to wait just short of the rendezvous so as not to be too early. Remembering the slight difficulty she had in turning the car on the last occasion, she backed in. She had only to go quite a few yards to be out of sight of the main road.

  “Blast it all, Maud,” a whisper sounded almost immediately in her ear, “I didn’t think you were such a fool as that: or perhaps I ought to have known.”

  “As what?”

  “As to insist on bringing this car—of all cars—to this spot.”

  “Why not? It’s off the road. And how else was I to get here? Even if they have found out my number—”

  “You can take it from me that they have. And you can also take it from me that they know you were here before. Don’t you realise that the police are most unhealthily interested in you?”

  “Aren’t they more interested in you? Besides, at this time of night! So long as we talk quietly. We’ll go farther off the road if you like—into a field, perhaps.”

  “Too wet off the road. But we’d better go twenty yards or so along the lane.”

  In silence the man and woman made their way along the track that led to the deserted farm, Maud Westbury stumbling once, so that the creak of her shoes sounded quite loud in the still night. But her companion moved entirely noiselessly.

  “That’s enough, I think,” he said. “Now, then, how much do you know?”

  “You know why I went to see Mr Yeldham?”

  “I can guess. I saw him that morning, and I gathered you’d been telling him what we’d always decided to keep quiet about. If you’d kept your mouth shut he wouldn’t have been killed. I hope that pleases you.”

  “It isn’t true. At any rate, it isn’t fair.” There was anger in Maud’s voice.

  “Shut up, and don’t talk so loud. Have it your own way about that. You did tell him.”

  “I had to. You’d always said it was—what do you call it?—invalid. At any rate, that it didn’t count. It’s only quite recently that I’ve found out for certain that it does. That’s why—”

  “Come to that later. What did you see?”

  “You let me tell the story in my own way. I made up my mind to tell Mr Yeldham everything—or anyhow as much as was good for him—but I did take the precaution of telling him to keep quiet. I didn’t know then that you were living in his pocket, though I ought to have guessed you were likely to have kept in touch with him while keeping up the pose of having nothing to do with him.”

  “Why should I?”

  “In case there was anything to be got out of him. Oh, don’t pretend. I know you well enough, and I’d heard, too, that he’d come into money. But to go on. As I said, I told him to keep quiet; and, of course, he overacted.”

  “He always did.”

  “In some ways, I didn’t know him as well as you did. I thought he might have an object in making me come here and go in at the back door, and so I did what I was told. For that matter, there was really no reason why he shouldn’t have told me all I wanted to know by writing to me.”

  “Do you mean to say that you told him everything when you wrote?”

  “Well, pretty nearly everything. And he did destroy my letter. He must have done, or the police would have found it.”

  “The police could miss anything. Get a jerk on, can’t you?”

  “If I choose to. Where was I? Oh, yes. I reached the house and I went in through the back door. I had been told to listen at the dining-room door, and if there was no sound of anyone inside, to come in. There was no sound, because it was empt
y. So I went on to the hall.”

  “You did. If you’d only minded your own business and stayed in the dining-room as you were told!”

  “Then I shouldn’t have seen you.” Maud sounded quite composed, but she gave a little shudder as she recalled the scene to her mind. “How did you clean that knife, and why hadn’t you shut it up?”

  “It jammed, and I didn’t quite know how to put it right. It had always gone properly when I looked at it before. I got most of the blood off by wiping it on him; but I had to be pretty careful not to cover myself. Anyhow, I meant that knife to be found.”

  “Did you? I wonder why!”

  “Go on wondering. Why didn’t they find it? I left it in an obvious enough place. It would have looked exactly as if I had dropped it by mistake.”

  “On the doormat! Not very convincing, but an obvious enough place, if you like. So obvious that it was found.”

  “By you, I suppose; and you thought you were helping me by clearing out with it. And then you expect me to be grateful! I tell you I meant that knife to be found.”

  “And I tell you it was.”

  “Don’t talk so loud. Who by?”

  Maud Westbury told him.

  “By him?” The voice sounded incredulous. “But he would have told the police everything at once. He’d no reason not to.”

  “I expected him to every minute, but he didn’t, and so far as I know he hasn’t yet.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Wouldn’t they have arrested you by now?”

  “Or you?”

  “Me! Why me?”

  “He may have thought you did it.”

  “I don’t think so. I heard him coming and slipped behind the dining-room door. Of course, he practically tripped over the knife. Then he picked it up and looked at it, and then he tip-toed to the door of the study, put his handkerchief round the handle of the door and looked in. I heard him murmur, ‘Why the fire?’ and then, ‘Very clever!’ Then he went away, carrying the knife, which gave me a bit of a shock.”

  “Which way did he go? The way I went?”

  “No. The opposite. I slipped back to the kitchen, and then came in again as if I had just arrived. You know the rest—or at any rate all that matters.”

  “Then I don’t think he saw anything. Only then he might just as well have left the knife. As it was”—he paused so that Maud suspected that he was keeping something back—“I thought the police never were going to find it. In fact”—again there was a pause—“I don’t think they knew there was such a thing until their attention was called to it by—someone else.”

  “Who by?”

  “I believe, by what you describe as the awkward, gawky girl. However, leave her out of it. Nobody except you knows that I did it?”

  “So far as I know, nobody. But they may—several people may.”

  “Or they may not.” Rising confidence sounded in his voice. “I shall assume they don’t for the present. Now let’s come to our own affairs. Why didn’t you tell the police? You aren’t so fond of me as all that.”

  For a moment there was silence, and then she answered slowly:

  “Aren’t I? Perhaps not. I think it was only that I lost my head. Besides, they would have found out that I was married to you and probably incriminated me too. I wasn’t in too good a position myself.”

  “Trust you to look after your own skin, Maud. It was the only thing you ever cared about; and trust you too to pretend that it was out of kind-heartedness to me. But you’re wrong about one thing: I told you long ago we were never married.”

  “Oh, yes, we were. I found out long ago that because you said I was of age when I wasn’t doesn’t alter the fact that we were married. I know you told me six months later when you got bored with me that we weren’t, and I know I believed you at the time, but I very soon found out that it wasn’t true.”

  “But I told you—I’m being perfectly frank—the whole thing was a trick. The man who said he married us had no right to do it. I believe you knew at the time he hadn’t.”

  “That’s a dirty lie. I believed I was properly married until you told me this cock-and-bull story about being under age. Then I took the trouble to find out something, and as well as finding out that what you said about being a minor was untrue, I found out who it was married us. He was all right. We are married.”

  “Have it your own way. I say we weren’t. And if I want to marry again—about which I haven’t made up my mind—I shall.”

  “That would be bigamy.”

  “So you say. And so Yeldham said—that’s why he died. But if you keep quiet I shall. And then nobody will be any the wiser.”

  “In England, perhaps, no. But I still live close to where we were married and so does the man who married us. Supposing I want to marry again? Well, obviously I can’t.”

  “Oh, so you’ve found another mug, have you?”

  “Last time it was I who was the mug.”

  “So you’d like to get rid of me so as to be free, would you?”

  Maud swayed uneasily on her feet.

  “I don’t know,” she said dully. “I’m still afraid of being caught. In fact, I suppose I am an accessory now—”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “And, besides, even though you did let me down, I don’t quite like doing the same to you. I suppose I burnt my boats that night when I said nothing. Well, there it is. It means giving up a rich elderly husband, though. And yet I don’t know. I might be able to explain to him and we could announce our marriage, telling the only person who matters that in fact we aren’t.”

  Her companion suppressed a sardonic laugh.

  “The moral Maud!” he said. “Nobody else knows down there, do they?”

  “No. You remember you were prudent from the start and used a false name. When you left me I hated that piece of prudence. Now I’m rather glad.”

  “Well, there we are, then. It’s taken a long while, and it’s a damned sight more dangerous than I like being here at all, but we’ve got an answer. You get back as fast as you can to France, stay there and live in any state, moral or immoral, that happens to please you. I shan’t ask any questions. To be quite honest, I don’t care.”

  “Perhaps,” Maud answered. “But we haven’t finished yet. Try to realise that I’ve saved your neck, which is more than you deserve; and I’m not going to do it for nothing.”

  “I shouldn’t make conditions, if I were you. You’re not in so good a position to do that as you may think.”

  “Aren’t I? It seems to me that I am.”

  “I think not. But what are these precious conditions?”

  “First of all, you won’t marry. I think I am entitled to ask that.”

  “Mayn’t I even commit bigamy? And I like that from you, considering what you’re going back to France to do.”

  “That’s different. I’m not ruining anybody else’s life.”

  “Thank you very much. I don’t propose to tell you whether I am going to marry or not. As a matter of fact, I haven’t made up my own mind on the subject. And it is startlingly obvious that you won’t ever know if I have or not. And if you do, you won’t be able to do anything about it. So you may as well stow your jealousy. You may get me hanged, or jugged for bigamy, but you’ll be in much the same boat. You won’t be able to study the latest fashions in prison. I’m told your taste in yellow gloves and petunia coloured hats quite startled the police.”

  “I shall rely on your word. It’s a poor chance, I know, but I will admit it’s the only one I’ve got.”

  “You won’t even get my word.”

  “Then I go to the police.”

  “I doubt it. But let’s hear your other conditions as you call them.”

  “I’ve been finding out more of the law. My money wasn’t my own when I married you; but you’ll remember that when, a few months later and before we quarrelled, I did come of age, you induced me, by some talk of a marriage settlement, to put some of it into your name. You ha
dn’t any cash of your own then. The result, of course, was that you went off with mine. For a long while I thought you were entitled to it, and anyhow I was not so mean as to ask for it back—”

  “You mean you thought you wouldn’t get it.”

  “Perhaps I do. Certainly I thought I couldn’t. But now I’ve consulted a solicitor, and anything I ever had, both at the time I married you or after, is bound by law to be settled on me and my children because you represented me to be twenty-one when I wasn’t. I haven’t got any children, so it stays with me. I’ve always grudged you that money, and I mean to have it.”

  “Don’t be a fool, Maud.”

  “I think I’m being very sensible.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “I’ve told you.”

  “Is that your last word?”

  Quite firmly she walked back to the car and opened the door quietly. “It’s you who ought to be careful not to be a fool. I shall go back to France tomorrow—today, rather—but if I don’t hear from you at the old address—they’ll forward it—I shall write. I’m not afraid of the consequences. British juries are sentimental, even though they pretend not to be. Not much will happen to a wife who hid her husband’s crime in which she was in no way concerned.”

  “You’re wrong there. Judges aren’t sentimental, anyhow.”

  “So you will find. That’s a dead certainty, anyhow. I rather think—I don’t know. Perhaps I shall tell the police, anyhow.”

  “It’s you who are going to find that judges aren’t kind hearted. Think once more. Are you quite, quite sure that that was your last word?”

  “Absolutely.” She turned as if she was going to get into the car.

  “You insist on your conditions—one of which is futile, anyhow?”

  “But the other isn’t. It will be a pretty clear sign to me that you accept. If not—I think I could manage to write anonymously and post it somewhere where I don’t live. Anyhow I shall expect that money in less than a month.”

  “Blackmail! Don’t be a fool.”

  “You said that before.”