"Ah!" Mr Satterthwaite leant forward - his interest quickened.
"I wanted to speak to him - he - he looked so like somebody I know.
But I lost him in the trees."
"I think I know him," said Mr Satterthwaite.
"Do you? He is - interesting, isn't he?"
"Yes, he is interesting."
There was a pause. Mr Satterthwaite was perplexed. There was something, he felt, that he ought to do - and he didn't know what it was. But surely - surely, it had to do with this girl. He said rather clumsily -
"Sometimes - when one is unhappy - one wants to get away -"
"Yes. That's true." She broke off suddenly. "Oh! I see what you mean.
But you're wrong. It's just the other way round. I wanted to be alone because I'm happy."
"Happy?"
"Terribly happy."
She spoke quite quietly, but Mr Satterthwaite had a sudden sense of shock. What this strange girl meant by being happy wasn't the same as Madge Keeley would have meant by the same words. Happiness, for Mabelle Annesley, meant some kind of intense and vivid ecstasy... something that was not only human, but more than human.
He shrank back a little.
"I - didn't know," he said clumsily.
"Of course you couldn't. And it's not - the actual thing - I'm not happy yet - but I'm going to be." She leaned forward. "Do you know what it's like to stand in a wood - a big wood with dark shadows and trees very close all round you - a wood you might never get out of - and then, suddenly - just in front of you, you see the country of your dreams shining and beautiful - you've only got to step out from the trees and the darkness and you've found it..."
"So many things look beautiful," said Mr Satterthwaite, "before we've reached them. Some of the ugliest things in the world look the most beautiful..."
There was a step on the floor. Mr Satterthwaite turned his head. A fair man with a stupid, rather wooden face, stood there. He was the man Mr Satterthwaite had hardly noticed at the dinner-table.
"They're waiting for you, Mabelle," he said.
She got up, the expression had gone out of her face, her voice was flat and calm.
"I'm coming, Gerard," she said. "I've been talking to Mr Satterthwaite."
She went out of the room, Mr Satterthwaite following. He turned his head over his shoulder as he went and caught the expression on her husband's face. A hungry despairing look.
"Enchantment," thought Mr Satterthwaite. "He feels it right enough.
Poor fellow - poor fellow."
The drawing-room was well lighted. Madge and Doris Coles were vociferous in reproaches.
"Mabelle, you little beast - you've been ages."
She sat on a low stool, tuned the ukelele and sang. They all joined in.
"Is it possible," thought Mr Satterthwaite, "that so many idiotic songs could have been written about My Baby."
But he had to admit that the syncopated wailing tunes were stirring.
Though, of course, they weren't a patch on the old-fashioned waltz.
The air got very smoky. The syncopated rhythm went on.
"No conversation," thought Mr Satterthwaite. "No good music. No peace." He wished the world had not become definitely so noisy.
Suddenly Mabelle Annesley broke off, smiled across the room at him, and began to sing a song of Grieg's.
"My swan - my fair one..."
It was a favourite of Mr Satterthwaite's. He liked the note of ingenuous surprise at the end.
"Only a swan then? A swan then?"
After that, the party broke up. Madge offered drinks whilst her father picked up the discarded ukelele and began twanging it absentmindedly. The party exchanged good-nights, drifted nearer and nearer to the door. Everyone talked at once. Gerard Annesley slipped away unostentatiously, leaving the others.
Outside the drawing-room door, Mr Satterthwaite bade Mrs Graham a ceremonious good-night. There were two staircases, one close at hand, the other at the end of a long corridor. It was by the latter that Mr Satterthwaite reached his room. Mrs Graham and her son passed up the stairs near at hand whence the quiet Gerard Annesley had already preceded them.
"You'd better get your ukelele, Mabelle," said Madge. "You'll forget it in the morning if you don't. You've got to make such an early start."
"Come on, Mr Satterthwaite," said Doris Coles, seizing him boisterously by one arm. "Early to bed - et cetera."
Madge took him by the other arm and all three ran down the corridor to peals of Doris's laughter. They paused at the end to wait for David Keeley, who was following at a much more sedate pace, turning out electric lights as he came. The four of them went upstairs together.
Mr Satterthwaite was just preparing to descend to the dining-room for breakfast on the following morning, when there was a light tap on the door and Madge Keeley entered. Her face was dead white, and she was shivering all over.
"Oh, Mr Satterthwaite."
"My dear child, what's happened?" he took her hand.
"Mabelle - Mabelle Annesley..."
"Yes?"
What had happened? What? Something terrible - he knew that.
Madge could hardly get the words out.
"She - she hanged herself last night... On the back of her door. Oh!
It's too horrible." She broke down - sobbing.
Hanged herself. Impossible. Incomprehensible!
He said a few soothing old-fashioned words to Madge, and hurried downstairs. He found David Keeley looking perplexed and incompetent.
"I've telephoned to the police, Satterthwaite. Apparently that's got to be done. So the doctor said. He's just finished examining the - the good lord, it's a beastly business. She must have been desperately unhappy - to do it that way - Queer that song last night. Swan song, eh? She looked rather like a swan - a black swan."
"Yes."
"Swan Song," repeated Keeley. "Shows it was in her mind, eh?"
"It would seem so - yes, certainly it would seem so."
He hesitated, then asked if he might see - if, that is...
His host comprehended the stammering request.
"If you want to - I'd forgotten you have a penchant for human tragedies."
He led the way up the broad staircase. Mr Satterthwaite followed him. At the head of the stairs was the room occupied by Roger Graham and opposite it, on the other side of the passage, his mother's room. The latter door was ajar and a faint wisp of smoke floated through it.
A momentary surprise invaded Mr Satterthwaite's mind. He had not judged Mrs Graham to be a woman w ho smoked so early in the day.
Indeed, he had had the idea that she did not smoke at all.
They went along the passage to the end door but one. David Keeley entered the room and Mr Satterthwaite followed him.
The room was not a very large one and showed signs of a man's occupation. A door in the wall led into a second room. A bit of cut rope still dangled from a hook high up on the door. On the bed...
Mr Satterthwaite stood for a minute looking down on the heap of huddled chiffon. He noticed that it was pleated like the plumage of a bird. At the face, after one glance, he did not look again.
He glanced from the door with its dangling rope to the communicating door through which they had come. "Was that open?"
"Yes. At least the maid says so."
"Annesley slept in there? Did he hear anything?"
"He says - nothing."
"Almost incredible," murmured Mr Satterthwaite. He looked back at the form on the bed. "Where is he?"
"Annesley? He's downstairs with the doctor."
They went downstairs to find an Inspector of police had arrived. Mr Satterthwaite was agreeably surprised to recognise in him an old acquaintance, Inspector Winkfield. The Inspector went upstairs with the doctor, and a few minutes later a request came that all members of the house party should assemble in the drawing-room.
The blinds had been drawn, and the whole room had a funereal aspect. Doris Coles looked frightene
d and subdued. Every now and then she dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. Madge was resolute and alert, her feelings fully under control by now. Mrs Graham was composed, as always, her face grave and impassive. The tragedy seemed to have affected her son more keenly than anyone. He looked a positive wreck this morning. David Keeley, as usual, had subsided into the background.
The bereaved husband sat alone, a little apart from the others. There was a queer dazed look about him, as though he could hardly realise what had taken place.
Mr Satterthwaite, outwardly composed, was inwardly seething with the importance of a duty shortly to be performed.
Inspector Winkfield, followed by Dr Morris, came in and shut the door behind him. He cleared his throat and spoke.
"This is a very sad occurrence - very sad, I'm sure. It's necessary, under the circumstances, that I should ask everybody a few questions. You'll not object, I'm sure. I'll begin with Mr Annesley.
You'll forgive my asking, sir, but had your good lady ever threatened to take her life?"
Mr Satterthwaite opened his lips impulsively, then closed them again. There was plenty of time. Better not speak too soon.
"I - no, I don't think so."
His voice was so hesitating, so peculiar, that everyone shot a covert glance at him. "You're not sure, sir?"
"Yes - I'm - quite sure. She didn't."
"Ah! Were you aware that she was unhappy in any way?"
"No. I - no, I wasn't."
"She said nothing to you. About feeling depressed, for instance?"
"I - no, nothing."
Whatever the Inspector thought, he said nothing. Instead he proceeded to his next point.
"Will you describe to me briefly the events of last night?"
"We - all went up to bed. I fell asleep immediately and heard nothing.
The housemaid's scream aroused me this morning. I rushed into the adjoining room and found my wife - and found her -"
His voice broke. The Inspector nodded. "Yes, yes, that's quite enough. We needn't go into that. When did you last see your wife the night before?"
"I - downstairs."
"Downstairs?"
"Yes, we all left the drawing-room together. I went straight up leaving the others talking in the hall."
"And you didn't see your wife again? Didn't she say good-night when she came up to bed?"
"I was asleep when she came up."
"But she only followed you a few minutes later. That's right, isn't it, sir?" He looked at David Keeley, who nodded.
"She hadn't come up half an hour later." Annesley spoke stubbornly.
The Inspector's eyes strayed gently to Mrs Graham.
"She didn't stay in your room talking, Madam?"
Did Mr Satterthwaite fancy it, or was there a slight pause before Mrs Graham said with her customary quiet decision of manner, "No, I went straight into my room and closed the door. I heard nothing."
"And you say, sir -" the Inspector had shifted his attention back to Annesley - "that you slept and heard nothing. The communicating door was open, was it not?"
"I - I believe so. But my wife would have entered her room by the other door from the corridor."
"Even so, sir, there would have been certain sounds - a choking noise, a drumming of heels on the door -"
"No."
It was Mr Satterthwaite who spoke, impetuously, unable to stop himself. Every eye turned towards him in surprise. He himself became nervous, stammered, and turned pink.
"I - I beg your pardon, Inspector. But I must speak. You are on the wrong track - the wrong track altogether. Mrs Annesley did not kill herself - I am sure of it. She was murdered."
There was a dead silence, then Inspector Winkfield said quietly, "What leads you to say that, sir?"
"I - it is a feeling. A very strong feeling."
"But I think, sir, there must be more than that to it. There must be some particular reason."
Well, of course there was a particular reason. There was the mysterious message from Mr Quin. But you couldn't tell a police inspector that. Mr Satterthwaite cast about desperately, and found something. "Last night - when we were talking together, she said she was very happy. Very happy - just that. That wasn't like a woman thinking of committing suicide."
He was triumphant. He added, "She went back to the drawing-room to fetch her ukelele, so that she wouldn't forget it in the morning.
That didn't look like suicide either."
"No," admitted the Inspector. "No, perhaps it didn't." He turned to David Keeley. "Did she take the ukelele upstairs with her?"
The mathematician tried to remember.
"I think - yes, she did. She went upstairs carrying it in her hand. I remember seeing it just as she turned the corner of the staircase before I turned off the light down here"
"Oh!" cried Madge. "But it's here now."
She pointed dramatically to where the ukelele lay on a table.
"That's curious," said the Inspector. He stepped swiftly across and rang the bell.
A brief order sent the butler in search of the housemaid whose business it was to do the rooms in the morning. She came, and was quite positive in her answer. The ukelele had been there first thing that morning when she had dusted.
Inspector Winkfield dismissed her and then said curtly, "I would like to speak to Mr Satterthwaite in private, please. Everyone may go.
But no one is to leave the house."
Mr Satterthwaite twittered into speech as soon as the door had closed behind the others.
"I - I am sure, Inspector, that you have the case excellently in hand.
Excellently. I just felt that - having, as I say, a very strong feeling -"
The Inspector arrested further speech with an upraised hand.
"You're quite right, Mr Satterthwaite. The lady was murdered."
"You knew it?" Mr Satterthwaite was chagrined.
"There were certain things that puzzled Dr Morris." He looked across at the doctor, who had remained, and the doctor assented to his statement with a nod of the head. "We made a thorough examination. The rope that was round her neck wasn't the rope that she was strangled with - it was something much thinner that did the job, something more like a wire. It had cut right into the flesh. The mark of the rope was superimposed on it. She was strangled and then hung up on the door afterwards to make it look like suicide."
"But who -?"
"Yes," said the inspector. "Who? That's the question. What about the husband sleeping next door, who never said good-night to his wife and who heard nothing? I should say we hadn't far to look. Must find out what terms they were on. That's where you can be useful to us, Mr Satterthwaite. You've here, and you can get the hang of things in a way we can't. Find out what relations there were between the two."
"I hardly like -" began Mr Satterthwaite, stiffening.
"It won't be the first murder mystery you've helped us with. I remember the case of Mrs Strangeways. You've got a flair for that sort of thing, sir. An absolute flair."
Yes, it was true - he had a flair -
He said quietly, "I will do my best, Inspector."
Had Gerard Annesley killed his wife? Had he? Mr Satterthwaite recalled that look of misery last night. He loved her - and he was suffering. Suffering will drive a man to strange deeds.
But there was something else - some other factor. Mabelle had spoken of herself as coming out of a wood - she was looking forward to happiness - not a quiet rational happiness - but a happiness that was irrational - a wild ecstasy... If Gerard Annesley had spoken the truth, Mabelle had not come to her room till at least half an hour later than he had done. Yet David Keeley had seen her going up those stairs. There were two other rooms occupied in that wing. There was Mrs Graham's, and there was her son's. Her son's. But he and Madge... Surely Madge would have guessed... But Madge wasn't the guessing kind. All the same, no smoke without fire -
Smoke!
Ah! he remembered. A wisp of smoke curling out through Mrs Graham's bedroom doo
r.
He acted on impulse. Straight up the stairs and into her room. It was empty. He closed the door behind him and locked it.
He went across to the grate. A heap of charred fragments. Very gingerly he raked them over with his finger. His luck was in. In the very centre were some unburnt fragments - fragments of letters...
Very disjointed fragments, but they told him something of value.
"Life can be wonderful, Roger darling. I never knew..."
"all my life has been a dream till I met you, Roger..."
"... Gerard knows, I think... I am sorry but what can I do? Nothing is real to me but you, Roger... We shall be together, soon."
"What are you going to tell him at Laidell, Roger? You write strangely - but I am not afraid..."
Very carefully, Mr Satterthwaite put the fragments into an envelope from the writing-table. He went to the door, unlocked it and opened it to find himself face to face with Mrs Graham.
It was an awkward moment, and Mr Satterthwaite was momentarily out of countenance. He did what was, perhaps, the best thing, attacked the situation with simplicity.
"I have been searching your room, Mrs Graham. I have found something - a packet of letters imperfectly burnt."
A wave of alarm passed over her face. It was gone in a flash, but it had been there.
"Letters from Mrs Annesley to your son."
She hesitated for a minute, then said quietly, "That is so. I thought they would be better burnt."
"For what reason?"
"My son is engaged to be married. These letters - if they had been brought into publicity through the poor girl's suicide - might have caused much pain and trouble."
"Your son could burn his own letters."
She had no answer ready for that. Mr Satterthwaite pursued his advantage.
"You found these letters in his room, brought them into your room and burnt them. Why? You were afraid, Mrs Graham."
"I am not in the habit of being afraid, Mr Satterthwaite."
"No - but this was a desperate case."
"Desperate?"
"Your son might have been in danger of arrest - for murder."
"Murder!"
He saw her face go white. He went on quickly, "You heard Mrs Annesley go into your son's room last night. He had told her of his engagement? No, I see he hadn't. He told her then. They quarrelled, and he -"
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