The Crime and the Crystal

by E. X. Ferrars

  “A towel?” she said. “I don’t remember anything about a towel.”

  “You can’t remember what towel you took with you?”

  “I don’t think so… Yes, I can. It was one of our green ones. But I didn’t take it away with me. I think I dropped it in the lounge, or perhaps in the passage when I found Kay’s body and rushed out and was sick. I’d meant to go down to the beach, you see, so I must have had it with me, but I can’t remember what I did with it. I know I didn’t take it home. Why? Is it important?”

  “It’s only that Tony found that towel on the beach before we went indoors,” Andrew said, “and it had bloodstains on it.”

  She gazed at him with the blank, unblinking look that he had often seen in her eyes. Then with the pitch of her voice rising even higher than usual, she exclaimed, “Oh, I see! I think I see! You think I’m lying because that towel was in the bedroom where I changed till I came out to go to the beach, so the murderer must have got it from me to clean himself up, so I must have seen him.”

  “He could have picked it up after you’d gone,” Andrew said. “But it does look as if he may have been in the house still when you found your sister’s body. You said you called out to her when you came out of your room. That could have warned him. Is there anywhere he could have hidden till you left the house?”

  “Yes, all kinds of places. He could simply have dropped behind the settee, or jumped out of the window and crouched under it, or even slipped behind the door. I didn’t look for anyone. I wasn’t in a state to notice anything.”

  “But weren’t you afraid he might still be in the house?”

  “I suppose I was, in a way. I was very frightened. But all that made me want to do was to get away. I didn’t think it out, but I know I didn’t want to come face to face with anyone in the house.”

  Tony had sprung up again and grasped her by both arms. He shook her so that the mug that she was holding fell to the ground. A puddle of tea slopped out of it on to the floor.

  “But you did see him, didn’t you?” Tony yelled at her. “You know who it was. Why are you shielding him?”

  “Let me go!” she shrieked back at him. “Don’t shake me! Don’t ever touch me like that! It’s what Luke used to do. It’s just like Luke!”

  As she spat it at Tony and he shamefacedly let her go, the door knocker reverberated through the house.

  There was sudden silence in the kitchen. No one moved. Then the knocker sounded again.

  Sam Ramsden got up and shambled towards the door. He could be heard talking to someone there, then he returned, followed by two men. They were in plainclothes, but they could not have been anything but policemen.

  “I told you they’d follow you here,” Sam said sourly to Tony. “They weren’t far behind you.”

  “I’m sorry to intrude,” one of the men said. He was tall, burly and impassive. “But Sergeant Ross would be obliged if you’d come back to Adelaide with us, Mrs. Gardiner. You’re the most important witness in the case.”

  “You can’t make me go!” she cried. “I don’t know anything!”

  “As to that, we could take steps,” the man said. “But if you’d come of your own free will it would be pleasantest for everyone in the end.”

  “He’s right, you know, Jan,” Tony said. “We’ll have to go back.” He turned to the man. “You’ve no objections, I suppose, if I accompany my wife.”

  “No objection at all,” the man answered. “It’ll save us trouble.”

  “Come along then, Jan,” Tony said. “Get your things and let’s get going.”

  “No,” she said. “No, I won’t. I told you, I don’t know anything.”

  “You can tell that to Sergeant Ross,” the detective said. “It’s as important for him to know what you don’t know as what you do. It all helps to build up a picture.”

  “That isn’t why he wants me,” she said. “He’s already decided I’ve killed my sister.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” he answered. “But perhaps you saw something, heard something, which perhaps you didn’t even understand yourself at the time—”

  “I didn’t!” she broke in. “All I heard was the dishwasher.”

  “Even that could be important, you never know,” he said. “Now if you’re ready…”

  “Come along, Jan,” Tony said. “Get your things and let’s get moving.” He spoke to the detective again. “How are we going? D’you want us to drive with you, or in one of our own cars? We’ve got both of them here. It would be convenient if we could take one of them back to Betty Hill.”

  “No objection to your taking one of your own,” the man said.

  However, when Jan had jammed the few belongings that she had brought with her into a plastic bag and with a sullen look on her face had gone out to the Holden and Tony had followed her and got into the driver’s seat, it turned out that one of the detectives intended to ride with them. Casually, as if he were a passenger whom they had invited to join them, he got into the seat next to Tony and settled himself comfortably. The second man got into the police car and drove down to the road ahead of the car with Tony and Jan in it.

  Sam Ramsden, who had gone out on to the verandah with Andrew behind him, turned to him and said, “Seems as if they somehow forgot about you, Andrew. Now you’re stuck here.”

  “I’m afraid I rather forgot about myself,” Andrew said. “It didn’t seem to me I was wanted. Is there any way I can get back to Adelaide?”

  “You can get back by plane from Hartwell, but not till later in the day. It’s too late now for the early plane. Anyway, you look as if you could do with a kip. Come inside and have some more tea and we’ll talk over what it’s best to do.”

  Andrew thought that there was nothing he would have liked so much then as a kip, but he said, “Can I get a taxi to the airport, if there’s one at Hartwell? I don’t want to be any trouble to you, Mr. Ramsden.”

  “My name’s Sam,” the other man said. “And it’s no trouble. But I’ve been thinking…”

  He paused as he turned and led the way indoors. Andrew followed him in. They returned to the kitchen and Sam Ramsden poured away the cooling tea and started to make some more. Andrew sat down again at the table.

  “I’ve been thinking, we might drive down to Adelaide ourselves,” Sam went on. “I’m thinking of Denis. I ought to go and see if there’s anything I can do for him. I always liked him, though I never thought he and Kay would hit it off together. He’s a quiet sort of chap, wrapped up in his work, and she’s pretty lively. But she liked the idea of living in the city and with Denis being head of that marine biology place, I suppose it made her feel kind of important. I’d never managed to give the girls much of a life here.” He looked vaguely round the kitchen, at the unwashed dishes, the old newspapers, the dust that had accumulated everywhere. “But it’s worse now than when they were here to look after things. I’ve let it all go to pieces. I could get a woman in to clean up for me perhaps. That’s what they say I should do. You can sometimes get a Greek or an Italian who’ll come. There are a good many immigrants in Hartwell and they’re sometimes glad of a job. But I don’t like a stranger around the place, that’s the truth, and I manage well enough to please myself. Where d’you live, Andrew? London?”

  “Yes,” Andrew said.

  “I was in London for a while at the beginning of the last war,” Sam said. The kettle was singing again and he put several teaspoonfuls of tea into the teapot. “I remember a sight I saw. A man was standing in the gutter, playing a fiddle, with a cap on the ground beside him and people dropped pennies into it now and then. Then a Maori soldier came along and he just took the fellow’s fiddle away from him and began to play. I don’t suppose he played any better than the other chap, but the sight of him, his dark skin and the unfamiliar sort of features he had and his New Zealand uniform, fascinated people and they started crowding round and encouraging him and dropping a shower of pennies into the cap. Then after a little this chap just gave the f
iddle back to the other fellow and walked on.” He poured the boiling water into the teapot. “It was a long time ago. I was quite a young chap, but somehow I’ve never forgotten it. After that I was in Burma, which wasn’t the best time of my life. But I’ll tell you something funny about this country. Gallipoli, which happened before most of the people alive now were born, still means more to most of them than anything that happened in the last war.”

  Andrew nodded. “I know that.”

  Sam sat down again at the table. He gave the tea a little time to infuse before pouring it out.

  “Now we’ve got to decide what to do,” he said. “What d’you say to having a bit of a rest now, then driving down with me into Adelaide? There’s no hurry. We can take our time… To tell the truth, I’m a slow driver. My eyesight isn’t what it was. Quite safe, you understand, but I like to go carefully. But my guess is they’ll be keeping Jan and Tony at headquarters in Adelaide for most of the day, so if we get to Betty Hill by some time in the afternoon it’ll be soon enough. But I’d like to see Denis. They’ll be giving him a bad time, I reckon—I mean, the press and all—and perhaps I can help. But if you’d sooner go by plane, I’ll drive you over to the airport in time for it. The flight only takes twenty minutes or thereabouts.”

  “I’ll drive with you, if I may,” Andrew said. He had taken a liking to the gaunt man with his harsh voice, his thin, hairy legs and his evident kindliness. There was no resemblance between him and his daughters. His features were coarse compared with theirs, and it was obvious that he had had far less education than they had. But behind some roughness in his manner there was a gentleness that was very appealing.

  It was in the early afternoon that they started towards Adelaide. Andrew had spent most of the morning asleep. After he and Sam had drunk their tea Sam had taken him to a small bedroom that clearly was very seldom used. There was a pile of folded blankets on the bed and a pillow covered in dusty striped ticking, and there were a good many cobwebs in the corners of the room. Sam seemed a little surprised at the state that it was in, as if he had not been into it for some time, and apologized for it with some embarrassment. But Andrew would have been ready to sleep on the floor if nothing else had been available. He kicked off his shoes and socks, took off the pale grey tropical suit which he had put on an untold age ago to go to the Lightfoots’ Christmas dinner, and threw himself down on the bed. Almost at once he fell into a deep sleep.

  He was woken by Sam about one o’clock and told that there was some cold meat and a salad ready, and beer if he felt like it. Sam also offered him the loan of a razor. Andrew shaved, had a sketchy wash, dressed and ate the cold lamb and drank the beer. They set off on the road to Adelaide in the Volvo.

  “It’s the easiest way to get it back to them,” Sam said. “I can come back by plane.”

  He had packed a small suitcase, so it seemed that he did not intend to return to Hartwell that day.

  As he had told Andrew, he drove very carefully. The probability was, Andrew thought, that with his eyesight as it was he ought not to have been driving at all, and his caution communicated itself to Andrew, so that after a little while he found himself feeling almost as nervous as he had at Tony’s wild driving the night before. They soon left the fertile area of Hartwell behind them and started across the scrubby plain of mallee. The day was very hot, far hotter than it had been during the last few days in Betty Hill, and the sky was of the deep, intense blue which still filled Andrew with a dreamlike sense of unreality. He wished that like his host he were only in a shirt and shorts, instead of his grey suit, and after a short time he took off his jacket and tossed it on to the back seat of the car.

  Sam grunted, “I wondered how soon you’d do that. I suppose in England you’re more formal than we are.”

  “Perhaps,” Andrew said. “At least at my age. I don’t think you can say it of the young. They seem to be pretty much the same everywhere. Sam, there’s something I want to ask you, if you don’t mind.”

  “All right, give it a go,” Sam invited.

  “It’s about the way you talk of Kay. You said you always expected her to get into trouble. You didn’t think she’d make a success of her marriage. Forgive me if I’m asking what I shouldn’t, but what did you think was the matter with her?”

  “She was greedy, she was ambitious, she was unscrupulous,” Sam replied bluntly. “Does that answer what you wanted to know?”

  “Yes,” Andrew said, “fairly completely.”

  “And you think it’s a stinking way for a father to talk of a daughter who’s just been murdered.”

  “It does surprise me.”

  “All right, then. Forget I said it. The fact is, I loved the girl all the same, though it was quite a strain to keep on doing that once I’d begun to understand her. But I felt maybe it was my own fault. It isn’t an easy job for a father to bring up two motherless girls, and I guess I made a mess of it.”

  “But you wouldn’t think it unlikely that Kay may have had enemies.”

  “Seems obvious she did, doesn’t it?”

  “Unless we fall back on the theory of the intruder who didn’t know there was anyone in the house, and sometimes that seems the most reasonable explanation.”

  Sam shot Andrew a sidelong glance. As a result the car swerved abruptly, but fortunately righted itself again. Concentrating on the road ahead of him, Sam was silent for a little while. Then he said, “You don’t believe that.”

  “I don’t know what to believe,” Andrew answered. “I’m a stranger here. It would be best, I think, if I tried to control my curiosity about what happened.”

  “That’s right. Don’t ask questions. Don’t puzzle your brains about it. Leave it to the police. That’s what I’m going to do. Now let’s turn in here.”

  They had reached a gateway at the side of the road, over which there was an arch with a big sign on it, CALTHORPE’S WINERY. Sam swung the car in at the gate and drove on along a narrow drive towards some buildings a few hundred yards from the entrance. When they reached these, Andrew saw that they consisted of a bungalow beyond which there was an assemblage of great cylindrical tanks, in which, he assumed, wine was maturing. A notice beside the door of the bungalow, with an arrow on it, said, “Toilets.” No doubt, if he wanted to make use of these later, he thought, he would find them labelled “Ladies” and “Men,” which he had noticed before was customary in this country and which ought to have told him something about prevalent social attitudes.

  “We’ll pick up some bottles for Denis,” Sam said as he stopped the car at the entrance to the bungalow. “No point in arriving empty-handed.”

  He led the way into the building. Inside there was a fair-sized room with a bar along one side of it behind which a woman stood, pouring a few spoonfuls of some wine into several glasses, which she then pushed towards some customers standing at the bar.

  “We’ll try their white Burgundy,” Sam said as he went to the bar. “Calthorpe’s is pretty good. It’s better than their Shiraz, though we can try that too and see if you like it. Too much wood for my taste.”

  He spoke to the woman behind the bar. She put down two glasses in front of Sam and Andrew and filled each about a quarter full with some white wine. Andrew sipped his and found it pleasant. But before he had even finished it Sam had ordered another wine for them to taste. Andrew gathered that the tasting was free, but that it was considered proper, after enough sampling, to buy two or three bottles to take away. He was not sure how much he had drunk by the time Sam decided that they had sampled enough and bought three bottles of the first wine they had tried.

  But that was not the end of their wine-tasting on the journey. They were in the wine country of South Australia now, and soon after they had driven off they reached another winery, where Sam again turned in to buy another two or three bottles for Denis. He and Andrew again went through the ritual of tasting, bought some bottles and drove on. By the time they had visited four wineries and accumulated a very generous present fo
r Denis, Andrew began to have a curious feeling that he was getting drunk. It seemed impossible, because there had been such very small quantities of wine in each of the many glasses that had been pressed upon him, but he felt a slight dizziness and an uncertainty in his legs as they walked towards the car. Seeing Sam get in behind the wheel, he hoped that his nearsighted host had a better head than he had.

  It was about half past five when they drove up to the door of the Gardiners’ bungalow. There was a faint breeze off the sea and the air felt refreshingly cool after the heat of Hartwell. Sam went up to the door and rang the bell. Andrew heard it ring inside the house, but no one came to answer it. Sam rang again and then tried hammering on the door with the knocker, but there was still no response.

  “Just a minute,” he said and went along the drive into the garage. He returned almost at once. “The Holden isn’t there,” he said. “Looks as if they’ve been kept at headquarters. If they have, I suppose there’s no guessing how long they’ll be there. Of course it was a mistake for Jan to come to me. Looks suspicious. She ought to have gone down to the rest of you on the beach and got Tony to call the police straight away. But I understand how she felt. They gave her such a bad time when Luke was killed that all she wanted was to get away.”

  “Did you believe her story about how she found her sister’s body but didn’t see or hear anything else?” Andrew asked.

  “Asking questions again,” Sam said. “I thought you’d decided against it.”

  “Sorry, a lapse,” Andrew said. “I won’t expect an answer. But what do we do now? Sit in the car and wait?”

  “No, I think we’ll go over to Denis,” Sam answered. “I feel I ought to call in on him in any case. The poor devil may be in a pretty bad way. Let’s go.”

  They got back into the car and drove the short distance to the Lightfoots’ house.

  Loaded with the bottles that Sam had bought on the drive, they went up to the door and Sam rang the bell. It was answered almost immediately by Denis. He might have been waiting on the other side of the door, expecting them.