by Bruce, Leo
I could at a pinch believe that any one of the guests at Cat’s Cradle was capable, with sufficient motive, of the first. But I could not imagine any of them guilty of the second. All the same I felt a certain relief, I will admit, that I had not been here at the time of Mrs Mallister’s death and could not be in possession of any fatal piece of evidence.
Then I opened the door of my room. My sensations during the next few moments were curious, a mixture of choking fear and resolution to remain calm. I knew at once that someone was there. Just as people who are unfortunate enough to be allergic to cats instantly sense the presence of one in a room, wherever it may be hidden, so I knew immediately that someone concealed was watching me. There was no light as I opened the door and I switched it on at once. How did I know someone was there? There was no extraneous scent, either of tobacco or perfume. Nothing was out of place.
It seemed to me that my life depended on my remaining quite cool. If I discovered the identity of my visitor, it would put me in extreme danger, not perhaps immediately but thereafter. This was nonsense, of course, because, if I immediately roused the house, everyone would know who was in my room and I should not possess secret and dangerous knowledge. But one does not think like that. I felt only that I must not, on any account, know who was there, and the important thing was not to reveal that I had the smallest awareness of any presence but my own. Yet I longed more than I can say to walk straight out to the landing and scream at the top of my voice.
This is perhaps what I should have done, for then the whole household would have come. But though I kept my head pretty well I was not capable of acting except in the way I had determined. I took off my hat and gloves, smoothed my hair, and slowly, as casually as I could, crossed to the door and, switching off the light, went out. I should have liked to wash, but the bathroom door was ajar and this was one of the places in which someone could quickly have hidden on my approach.
I did not hesitate on the landing, but went straight downstairs to find myself alone in the lounge. I was feeling distinctly jittery and rang the bell. Before Jerrison appeared, however, I managed to pick up a newspaper and appeared quite calm as I asked for a large whisky-and-soda.
Slowly the sheer funk I had felt began to give way to curiosity. I realized that, if I knew who was in my bedroom, I should almost certainly know the answer to everything that was perplexing me in this house. There could only be one reason for the visit—my diary. Someone was anxious to find out whether anything that a newcomer to the house might have realized or been told was dangerous. Someone was sufficiently anxious to take the risk of being seen entering or leaving my room. I suppose I am an excessively inquisitive person. I was almost inquisitive enough to wish that I had boldly looked into the two or three possible hiding-places. But not quite. For there could be no doubt now that there was danger here. ‘Mortal dangerI said to myself, not liking the words.
Just then the bishop entered. I at once had an idea. He would not make the same mistake as I had. Mine had been failure to realize in time that, if I made a big scene and everyone knew at once who was in my room, I should be no more in danger than anyone else. If the bishop found someone there, he would reveal it and it would not implicate him, for the whole house would know. As for any immediate danger, he could certainly take care of himself. He had not coped with cannibals and crocodiles for nothing.
“I wonder if I know you well enough to ask you a small favour? “I said as sweetly as I could.
He did not look pleased, but said: “Of course, Mrs Gort.”
“I am absolutely dead beat,” I said. “I have been over to Northmere and back and for some reason it has tired me out. I went up to my room when I came in and left my glasses there. May I impose on your kindness?”
He looked positively relieved. Perhaps he had thought I wanted to borrow money.
“I should be delighted,” he said.
“I don’t know where they are. The bathroom perhaps. I put them down in the oddest places. I’m so sorry to trouble you.”
He looked at me fixedly for a moment and I felt uncomfortable. Did he know I was lying? Or was he remembering someone who had lost his binoculars in Nairobi or Nigeria? At all events he went.
I realized that it was unlikely that my visitor would have remained there, but there was just a chance that, thinking I would not return before dinner, whoever it was had stayed to read my diary, which was lying on the writing-table. In any case, I wanted to be sure that the room was now clear of that hidden presence.
The other guests had begun to gather before the bishop returned, full of apologies because, although he had looked everywhere, he said, he had failed to find my glasses. This was scarcely to be wondered at, since they were safely in my bag.
Jerrison was in the lounge while the bishop made his report and I remembered guiltily that he had seen me wearing my glasses to read the paper when he had brought me my whisky-and-soda. He said nothing, however, and, after thanking the bishop profusely, I said I should have to go and look for myself, because I cannot see to eat without them. As I left the room, I heard Phiz Grissell say something sharp about women who were always losing things.
This time I carefully locked the door on the inside and took my time in getting ready. I was pleased to find that the incident had not left any unpleasant traces in the room or its atmosphere. I had liked the room since I first saw it and I liked it still, but I resolved to keep the door locked in future. I rejoined the others in the lounge. They turned as I came in and I thought there was expectancy or perhaps anxiety among them. Since presumably someone in the room had been my visitor, I realized the necessity of lying convincingly.
“Where do you think they were? “I said, showing my glasses to the astonished bishop. “I really must be getting rather dotty! I had put them under my pillow as I always do before getting into bed. No wonder you could not find them!”
I beamed round on everybody but, if I expected to see any signs of disquiet, I was mistaken. The Gee-Gees nodded politely but most of the others looked bored, as well they might be.
There was a quarter of an hour to pass before the second gong and I took a seat in the farthest corner of the lounge and looked, I hoped, a benevolent old lady pleased and amused by the antics of her juniors.
Nobody seemed quite natural. Nobody seemed, for that matter, to be what he was supposed to be. Steve Lawson was not, I thought as I looked at his hard mouth and troubled eyes, a carefree playboy with a large income. James Mallister was by no means a heartbroken widower, and Esmée beside him looked far too clever and expensively dressed and altogether sophisticated to be the manageress of a local shop. Miss Godwin and Miss Grey were certainly spinsterish in appearance and one could well believe they had spent much of their lives teaching in school, but weren’t they rather too much in character to be natural? Or was it merely their presence in this house which made me think this? And the Natterleys—afraid to stay, they said, because they scented danger, and afraid to leave because it might look as though they had something to conceal. Even the bishop seemed curiously unepiscopal as he swallowed a third sherry. I supposed he must be what he said he was and Phiz could scarcely be anything else, but I thought as I watched them that there was something very odd about the pair.
The only person who was almost blatantly herself was Sonia Reid. Attractive, sensual, intelligent, she could only be, as I divined on my first evening, the femme fatale of the whole menage.
As I watched them all, so unnatural, so determined to make light conversation while their thoughts were anything but light, I decided that I had been quite wrong this evening in my analysis. I had thought then that, whereas any of these people might have hastened the death of Lydia Mallister, none of them, so far as I could imagine, was capable of a cold-blooded murder to conceal his crime. I had missed a very important thing—the change in the atmosphere of the house. When Lydia Mallister died they were, I believed, a reasonably contented ordinary collection of people. Indeed, my friends the Bell
ews, who had stayed here only a few months ago, described it as a happy place. Murder in such a household would be a calculated, resolute crime by someone born to such an act. Murder in this seething atmosphere of suspicion and intrigue might almost be an act of despair.
“You came home earlier than you intended then, Mrs Gort?”
It was Esmée Weiton who had taken a seat beside me.
“Yes. I found my friends in the middle of a big conjugal row and left them to it.”
Esmée smiled. “So you preferred the intrigues of Cat’s Cradle to their open warfare?”
“Yes.”
“We must seem an unholy lot to you.”
She seemed to be asking for it, so I decided to let her have it in my best direct manner.
“Tell me, Miss Welton,” I said. “Do you believe Lydia Mallister was murdered?”
Her reaction was a complete surprise. Moreover I am certain that it was natural and genuine.
“Murdered?” she said at once, as though of all possibilities this had certainly never occurred to her. “What a monstrous idea! Of course she wasn’t murdered!”
I was shaken. “I am only repeating something that has been more than once suggested to me,” I said apologetically.
“Oh! “She seemed quite distressed by the idea. “Who could possibly think such a thing? There has never been any question …” She looked pale and I saw that her knuckles were white as she clasped her hands.
“Now I’ve made you think me a tiresome old alarmist,” I said. “But you must admit there is a lot of talk in this house.”
“Yes, but not murder. No one has ever suggested that.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve said something to upset you.”
She managed to gain control of herself. “I do know that beastly things are said by people, but I never knew anyone could go as far as that. I don’t mean you, Mrs Gort. Someone must have told you that. Please don’t take any notice of it.”
“The whole thing is no business of mine,” I said, “whatever ‘the whole thing’ may be. I came here to work. I was told it was the sort of place in which one could work.”
“It used to be,” said Esmée rather sadly.
“I’m sure it will be again. All this will be forgotten very soon.” She gave me a little smile, but it did not seem to imply agreement. “I should like to come and see you at your shop one day. I’m told you have such nice things and I’m in need of a lot.”
“Do,” she said absently. “Yes, please do. I shall look forward to it.”
We went in to dinner.
6
NEXT morning I decided to have a talk with Mrs Derosse. To be candid, I was thinking of leaving. Looking back on it now, it seems almost incredible that at that point I could have packed up and gone with no difficulty and never have been involved in all that followed. I still cannot imagine why I hesitated. Perhaps it was the reassurances, equivocal though they were, of Mrs Derosse.
“I know what you’re going to say, Mrs Gort,” she began at once.
I always find that statement a little irritating. “Then I needn’t trouble to say it,” I replied.
“You find the atmosphere disagreeable and you want to give up your room.”
“I hadn’t quite decided about giving up my room, but I do find the atmosphere, not disagreeable so much as disturbing. I’m not getting my work done.”
“I was afraid of that. What is it, Mrs Gort? I would be grateful if you would tell me what you feel. You are the only one who wasn’t here at the time of Mrs Mallister’s death and it’s since then that this change has come about.”
“It’s hard to say. At first I thought it was a psychological thing and the idea really rather interested me. How some kind of vague suspicion, with no foundation at all perhaps, could start in a little community like this, then grow and grow till it involved everyone and made everything appear rather sinister. How people who had seemed quite commonplace before began to take on a strangeness and ugliness; how actions which nobody previously would have noticed seemed to have some occult significance. How all this, fed by talk and perhaps some natural antipathies, grew till it was an obsession. That was my first idea.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m not so sure that it has no foundation.”
“You mean … something to do with Mrs Mallister?”
“Let’s not beat about the bush, Mrs Derosse. There are a number of people in this house who believe that Lydia Mallister did not die naturally.”
“But Dr Cuffley …”
“I’m not giving any opinion as to what happened. I’m only saying what is being thought. And it goes further than that. It has been suggested to me that something else very unpleasant may come out of this. In other words, if there is any truth in the idea, then we have someone among us with—to put it mildly—a very guilty conscience and a number of secrets to keep at all costs. Such a person could be dangerous.”
“Yes,” said Mrs Derosse with a little sigh of resignation. “I realize all that.” She hesitated, then brought out a statement by which, it was clear, she believed she had answered everything. “I have asked my niece to come and stay,” she announced.
It was surprising in itself, and surprising in that Mrs Derosse, saying it, seemed to think she had solved every problem.
“Your niece?”
“I have only one, Christine. When you meet her, Mrs Gort, you will understand why I feel such confidence. She will know at once what to do about all this. She’s so very brave and competent. She is also extremely shrewd. I believe that within a week of her arrival this nasty business will be over.”
“But how?”
“I don’t know. But I trust Christine. It was she who made me buy this house and until now I have been very successful here. She made me get rid of the Lampards, a couple of guests I had who were causing endless trouble though I did not realize it. She found the Jerrisons, who have been wonderful. She will get at the truth of this in no time and tell me what to do.”
“She must be a remarkable young woman.”
“She is, Mrs Gort.”
I smiled. “At any rate I must stay and meet her,” I said. “When does she arrive?”
“On Thursday. I’m very glad you’re staying. It would be dreadful if people felt they had to leave here because of all this.”
“I’m rather surprised, frankly, that none of your residents have done so—the bishop and his sister, for instance.”
“Miss Grissell received a very large legacy from Mrs Mallister,” pointed out Mrs Derosse.
“I don’t see why that should make her stay.”
“It would look bad for them to leave.”
With that phrase she explained everything. I knew the power of ‘it would look bad’ among conventional people.
“Or the Natterleys,” I suggested.
“Perhaps they feel the same. At any rate, when Christine comes, I think things will soon be as they used to be. I always have a waiting-list of people anxious to live here, you know.”
“I’m not surprised. It is very comfortable.”
“Your room was vacant because for the last six months Mr Mallister occupied it. His wife preferred to be alone. After her death he moved back to the room they had shared, which is the best in the house.”
“I see. Well, I hope your niece is successful in laying this ghost, or whatever it is. I think the most unpleasant aspect of it is that someone takes it seriously enough to enter your guests’ rooms when they are not there.”
“Oh, you mean what Sonia Reid said the other night. But she’s always been a rather excitable girl.”
“I don’t mean only that.” I hesitated. I had told no one about my own visitor and had intended not to do so. But I wanted a Yale lock put on my door in order not to carry about the heavy key of the mortice lock. Also I knew that in houses like this the locks were often identical and there might be other keys to fit mine.
“What do you mean, Mrs Gort?” asked Mrs Derosse anxiously.<
br />
“Last night when I returned from Northmere I found someone in my room.”
Mrs Derosse looked startled, but asked no question.
“I don’t know who it was. I came away at once.”
“Are you sure? “
“Oh, absolutely. One can sense a human presence in a room.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I told no one and I wish no one to be told now. But I would be glad if you would have a Yale lock put on my door, today if possible.”
“Yes. I certainly will. Oh dear, I wish I had known! And I wish Christine could come before Thursday!”
It was not in fact until the Friday morning that Mrs Derosse’s niece arrived. She drove up in a sports car before lunch. I saw the arrival from my window and certainly her swift, decisive driving and brisk yet graceful movements did look like confidence. She wore a pale-grey coat and skirt and one of those very smart hats which look as though they have been snatched from a peg and pulled on like a man’s hat, but of course have been nothing of the sort. Even before I saw her face, I liked the look of her.
I soon found I was the only person in the house unacquainted with her. She called the serious-looking Jerri son ‘Jerry’ and seemed popular with him and his wife. She was at once charming and exhilarating to me.
She was older than I had thought when I saw her alight—perhaps thirty-three or -four. Dark hair and large, laughing eyes, yet a somewhat cheeky profile which saved her from leaving any suggestion of one of those noble Roman faces which always mean a boring woman. We were alone in the lounge for a time, Mrs Derosse having, deliberately I thought, left us together.
“Let’s have a drink,” she said at once. “I’ll tell Jerry. What would you like?”