Tour de Force

by Christianna Brand

  ‘On the other hand – if she really did kill Miss Lane,’ faltered Miss Trapp wretchedly, ‘should one sympathize?’ It was all so terrible, one didn’t know what to think. She tailed off into indeterminate whimperings.

  ‘And me, Cecil, will you design a dress for me too? San Juan inspired?’

  Now, horrid thing, not to be catty about poor Mr Cecil and his designs! ‘I do take home ideas, lots of them, you’ve seen me doing the very sketches.’

  ‘But not the ones you’ll show to Christopher et Cie? Come on, now, tell – who really does them?’

  ‘Well, a girl called Jane Woods if you must know,’ said Cecil, shamefacedly. ‘Only absolutely not to tell, any of you: you do swear?’

  ‘Oh, we won’t tell,’ said Louli.

  ‘It’s what that bitch said that day up here, right here on this very spot. Old Bevan, you know, who owns Christophe’s, I met him abroad – years ago it was now, of course; and perhaps one did show off a little, one was so young then, I mean really quite a child. But he suddenly showed a bit of interest and I was caught on the hop, I happened to have some sketches of Jane’s with me that I’d been cop – er – that’d I’d been sort of modelling my work on; and on an impulse – I let him think they were mine. He was impressed and, on the strength of them, he opened Christophe et Cie. So – well, there you are, my dears, it suits Jane, she gets the money, I get the credit, she wouldn’t get as much for them without me behind her, I wouldn’t be where I am without her. And the two of us rolled together, well – genius,’ said Mr Cecil modestly; but the idea of being rolled together with large, plushy Jane, who was quite too dreadfully feminine, was a little embarrassing, and he gave a small private shudder.

  ‘And the “inspiration”?’

  ‘Well, we work it all out of course, sometimes she takes her holiday early and goes to wherever we’ve decided to be inspired by, sometimes we just cook it up out of books. Then she does the designs and I bring them away with me and come back with them. I always have a studio booked somewhere, you see,’ explained Cecil, ‘where I’m supposed to finish them off. Then they appear in all their glory. Rome, it was supposed to have been this time.’ He spoke with a simplicity that suddenly made him almost human.

  ‘And Vanda had found this out?’

  ‘She was a devil,’ said Cecil. ‘I’m sorry if she was your cousin, ducky, and all the rest of it; but she was a devil. Though how she could have found out …’

  ‘She watched people, that’s all,’ said Louli. ‘It was her job.’ She added pleasantly, ‘So you up and slew her – to keep your ghastly secret?’

  Mr Cecil’s voice took on once again its shrill note. The secret, he said, and not unreasonably perhaps, would have caused unpleasantness if it had come out, if Mr Bevan had got to know of it. But no more than that. The business was established now, it would have been all Mr Bevan’s loss to have discredited one, to have dispensed with one’s services for so trivial a reason. What did Mr Bevan care, who it was who actually did the designs? It was Mr Cecil who put them across, Mr Cecil who had cultivated acquaintance with half the fashionable women of London and New York, who called duchesses by their pet names and had actually come by a glossy magazine in which, against an article by himself on Designing for Our Fairy Tale Princess, someone had scribbled in pencil, ‘But he never has designed for me!’ At least Mr Cecil swore that it was ‘for me’; of course it might have been ‘for her’. But honestly, duckies, horrid and mortifying, of course and not to tell, like pets and angels as they were! – but really not something to murder a person about.

  ‘And yet you fainted when we saw the drawings!’

  ‘I faint very easily,’ said Mr Cecil growing pink.

  ‘I see. So we’re back to the dear old mix-up, then,’ said Louli. ‘You thought she was me.’

  ‘Why should I have wanted to murder you?’ said Mr Cecil, looking, however, not disinclined for it now.

  ‘Lots do,’ said Louli, cheerfully.

  ‘And anyway I do not wear sun-glasses; and it does seem quite obvious, my dears, that the sun-glasses do take all the red out of Louli’s hair and that if anyone killed La Lane in mistake for her, it was because they had sun-glasses. Like you,’ he said sweetly to Fernando.

  ‘I had no cause to kill either of these ladies,’ said Fernando. ‘All this is settled now, surely? Your secret is out, Mr Cecil – mine too. And neither had anything to do with the murder.’ He made apologetic movements with his hands. ‘I do not like to say it at this time; but if we are to regard the evidence of the sun-glasses – there is only one other person who wears them. And that is Mrs Rodd.’

  ‘Poor Mrs Rodd,’ said Miss Trapp. ‘Where is she now? One can’t help wondering and worrying. Such a fastidious person, always so elegant and correct – not used to roughness and ugliness! What is she doing? – now, at this moment, while we stand here on this pleasant balcony looking out at the lights of the fishing boats beginning to twinkle on the water. What is she doing now? Where is she now?’

  ‘Not where she will need sun-glasses,’ agreed Fernando, glancing back over his shoulder to where the dank prison loomed over its rocky foundation, falling away steep and sheer to the sea.

  ‘Not that she always wore them by any means,’ went on Miss Trapp, unhappily twittering. ‘I think, on the whole, Mr Rodd had the use of them more often than she did. I remember particularly on that afternoon …’ And suddenly her hand tightened on Fernando’s warm grasp, she stammered out: ‘That afternoon … That afternoon …’

  ‘You are right,’ said Fernando. ‘That afternoon – the one who had on the sun-glasses – was Mr Rodd.’

  As though he had heard the words, far away down on the beach, Leo Rodd rose suddenly to his feet. They watched him stand there, quietly, beside the little hunched figure perched like a gnome on the hump of the rock, not looking up at him, staring out to sea. And then … The slow inching round, the almost imperceptible, stealthy, crab-like movement that was bringing him round behind the rock. Inspector Cockrill sat on; did not move, did not look up, seemed utterly unaware that behind him there stood now a figure, silent and motionless, with upraised hand. But suddenly, swiftly, he turned: and the arm came down, came forward and down with a jabbing, thrusting, stabbing movement that, if the hand had held a knife, must surely have found the heart.

  If the hand held a knife.

  Miss Trapp screamed, one short, sharp squeal of horror and buried her face in Mr Fernando’s shoulder. Louvaine cried out, ‘No! No! No!’ on a rising note of terrified repudiation. Mr Cecil caught at her wrist and, immobilized by shock and horror, they stood there, staring down. On the terrace below them, attracted by the sound of Miss Trapp’s scream, the hotel guests looked up and, following their panic-stricken gaze, away to the beach; and, with a concerted upsurge of movement, crowded forward to the balustrade. It was as though at the rail of a ship’s deck, impotent to assist, they watched the death-throes far away down in the water, of a drowning man.

  And away on the beach, in the gathering dusk, the dark figures moved again and fell apart. The one sitting on, hunched and, after that one shifting jerk, motionless: the other – the other without a backward glance, running out over the sand, with that familiar, sideways lurching gait, out across the sand, into the ripples at the edge of the shore, running, running, splashing out into the sea, throwing itself full-length into the waves, swimming, first jerkily, splashily and then with a rhythm of swift, strong strokes, steadily away and away from them, swimming out to sea.

  Louvaine broke from Cecil’s immobilizing hand. ‘Leo! Leo!’ She flung herself down the wooden steps and across the terrace, thrusting through the gaping crowd. ‘Get out of my way, get out of my way, let me through …’ Down the long central flight of steps, down through the scented gardens, across the lower terrace, down pebbled steps again, out across the sand. Mr Cecil followed close at her heels, Mr Fernando with feverish impatience had caught Miss Trapp by her upper arm and was hurrying her, clutching and fall
ing, down the steps after them. The crowd on the terrace, stunned by the shock and inexplicability of it all, had not yet sufficiently found its wits to follow.

  Across the white sand, sick and sobbing with terror and pain, Louvaine came stumbling at last to the edge of the sea. ‘Leo! Leo! Leo, for God’s sake come back …!’ Her throat was harsh with the terrible gasping for breath after her flight down the steps but she forced it to shrillness, screaming out over the gentle lisp of the waves. ‘Leo, Leo – for God’s sake, Leo come back! Come back!’ But the dark head, glimpsed only now and again in the trough of the night-dark waves, moved steadily on and on, away from her. She began to tear off her frock, wading out into the sea, floundering in after him. ‘Leo, Leo! Leo, come back, come back!’ Mr Cecil rushed after her and catching her by the arm, pulled her back out of the water. ‘Don’t be a fool, Louvaine, what good can you do?’ But she struggled with him, ‘Let me go, let me go after him, I must get him back, can’t you see he’s – he’s swimming away, he’s not coming back!’ She collapsed to her knees in the water, supported only by his grip under her arm. ‘For God’s sake do something, isn’t there someone who can swim after him, isn’t there a boat …?’

  ‘There’s no boat, Louli, no one can swim.’ He hauled her up to her feet. ‘Come on, come back.’ Wet and exhausted, she let him lead her, still half supporting her, back to the sandy beach and the hump of rock.

  Fernando and Miss Trapp arrived, running stumblingly towards them across the sand. ‘He’s gone,’ said Cecil. ‘He’s miles out.’ He swung round to the quiet figure on the rock. ‘But the Inspector?’

  Like children afraid to approach some expected horror, they crept, massed together for proof against shock, up to the rock and, massed together, stood silently regarding the hunched-up form. Miss Trapp said, on a note of high terror: ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No,’ said Inspector Cockrill. ‘I’m not dead.’

  Louvaine thrust through them, throwing herself half kneeling on the sand at his feet. ‘Inspector, do something – he’s gone, he’s swum out to sea, he’s never coming back. Can’t you do something?’

  ‘No,’ said Cockie, very quietly. ‘What is there to do?’

  Fernando too threw himself on his knees beside the low rock. ‘Has he hurt you?’

  ‘No,’ said Cockie again. ‘Why should you think he had?’

  ‘But we saw him. He came round behind you. He stabbed down at you, we were up on the veranda, we saw him.’

  ‘A demonstration,’ said Cockrill.

  ‘A demonstration?’

  ‘The wound in Miss Lane’s breast,’ said Cockie, ‘went from right to left, in a downwards direction. It must therefore have been made by someone right-handed, standing in front of her. Or so one assumed. Mr Rodd kindly demonstrated to me how it could have been done by a left-handed man.’

  Louvaine had subsided almost full-length on the sand, dreadfully sobbing, dreadfully gasping for her agonized, labouring breath. She half raised herself now on one elbow, gazing up at him imploringly. ‘Don’t sit here talking. Can’t you do something?’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ said Cockie.

  ‘Get a boat, get something, get someone who can swim – go out and rescue him.’ The rest of the hotel guests were coming now, streaming down the steps, with one or two of the waiters, white-coated, in their midst. She dragged herself to her feet. ‘Ask them. Perhaps someone can swim. They’ll know where there’s a boat.’ She started running towards them.

  ‘Yes,’ said Cockie at once and more briskly. ‘A good idea. We’ll ask them. Fernando – you go: tell them what’s happened, tell them you think he’s not going to try to get back. Ask the waiters if they can get hold of a boat.’ As Fernando, still rather dazed, lumbered up to his feet, he added: ‘Put on an air of hurry, look as if this is what we’ve all been trying to arrange.’ To Louvaine, turning back as Fernando rushed past her towards the crowd, he said: ‘They can hurry as much as they like now. It’s too late.’

  And indeed the dark head was to be seen no more. Standing craning their eyes into the rapidly falling dusk, they did think that they saw for a moment a hand thrown up, and Louvaine screamed and hid her eyes. ‘It’s for the best,’ said Cockrill, doggedly. ‘It’s what he wanted, it’s for the best.’

  She tore herself away from them and fled back down to the sea. ‘Leo! Leo!’ Her despairing cry rent through the hush-shush-shush of the waves, she stumbled in through them again, flinging out helpless arms to where, for a moment, they had thought that they glimpsed that helpless arm. ‘Leo! Leo!’ But there was no answer; only the slap and sigh of the waves on the cooling sand. She stumbled back again and, flinging herself down on the damp sand at the water’s edge, abandoned herself to grief.

  Fernando returned with the crowd loping at his heels. ‘All get back to the hotel,’ said Cockie fiercely to them. ‘Back to the hotel!’ He climbed up on the rock and addressed them and, for a moment, was Mr Cockrill on holiday no longer, but Detective Inspector Cockrill, the Terror of Kent, whose voice was the voice of accustomed authority backed by the law of the land. ‘You must leave the beach at once. If you want to know what has happened – well, a man has swum out to sea, intending to drown himself. The – inference – is that he was responsible for the murder committed here the other day. There is no use now in anyone swimming out after him, he’s got too far and he had every intention of letting himself drown. None of us could swim, so we had to let him go. We’ve been wondering where we could get hold of a boat.’ Fernando said something. ‘Oh. I understand that the manager, the Dirrytory, whatever he calls himself, has gone off to ring the police; and there’s a boat in the next bay, he’s getting that sent out. A pity,’ said Detective Inspector Cockrill coolly, ‘that we didn’t know about it before. Now – there’s nothing else to be seen here; you will help everyone by simply going back to the terrace and getting on with your drinks.’ He added, with a glance at the moaning, shuddering figure prostrate on the sand, ‘Including this poor girl.’

  Their chivalry thus appealed to, and seeing, furthermore, that there was indeed nothing at all on the beach worth staring at, they drifted, gabbling with excitement, back to the hotel. Cockrill went and crouched on the sand close to Louvaine, and the others, helpless and compassionate, followed him. He did not touch her but he began quietly to talk and he talked only to her. After a little while, she raised her head. She said: ‘He did this for me.’

  ‘He did it because he was afraid to face the San Juan gaol,’ said Cockie. ‘And I would have done the same.’

  ‘He did it for me.’ She said imploringly, tears pouring down her face: ‘Don’t take that, at least, away from me. He did it for me.’ And she dragged herself up once more and stumbled forward into the waves again, screaming his name, Leo, Leo, Leo, come back come back …

  No answering cry from the sea. She turned back to them, frantic with helplessness. ‘Where’s the boat, why don’t they get the boat? Is there nothing we can do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Cockrill. ‘They’ll bring the boat, but anyway, it’ll be too late. That’s how he wants it to be.’ And he took her by the arm and forced her back up the beach to the drier sand and she collapsed once again and lay there sobbing; but she struggled no more. He said again, solemnly: ‘You must make up your mind to it. Leo Rodd was a murderer, he has done this because he has been found out; and that’s all there is to it.’

  Miss Trapp stood between Fernando and Mr Cecil, three huddled figures looking down with anxious eyes at the shuddering figure at their feet, and away to the unbroken monotony of the wind-ruffled sea. She said: ‘May we not hope at least that he did it to save Mrs Rodd?’

  ‘No,’ said Inspector Cockrill. He shrugged. ‘You can say, if you like, that he has done it because Mrs Rodd would no longer save him.’

  ‘But Mrs Rodd …’

  ‘Mrs Rodd is a very gallant woman,’ said Inspector Cockrill, ‘and very loyal too. And she is one of those people who give their hearts away
just once in a lifetime; and never get them back however unworthy the beloved turns out to be and however clearly they see that he is unworthy. And protecting her husband had become second nature to her. But there must be a limit, even for the Mrs Rodds of this world, there must be a breaking point; and I thought that a night in the San Juan prison might bring her to it – facing a future of utter hopelessness, locked up all alone in a prison cell with no light but a star outside the little barred window and no sound except the sea against the rocks hundreds of feet below, and no movement but the trickle of moisture down the slimy walls; and no prospect of ever leaving it except to be not very expertly hanged in a public square. And all for a man like Leo Rodd.’

  A man like Leo Rodd. A man used from boyhood to wealth and comfort earned by his own great gifts, a man accustomed to flattery and adulation, a man who had known nothing but the good life. Suddenly bereft of it all, forced to live upon the bounty of one woman, the woman he had married and whom he no longer loved – having for so long frittered away his heart upon other women. ‘He no longer had a heart to love with at all.’

  ‘He loved me,’ said Louvaine.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Cockrill. ‘While he thought you were rich.’

  She shook her head drearily. ‘No, no, you’re wrong, you’ve got it all wrong, it’s utterly untrue. He loved me, he’d have loved me if I hadn’t had a penny, he was going to leave a rich wife and run away with me.…’

  ‘Until he found out,’ said Cockrill steadily, ‘that you were not rich after all.’