He grinned at her, sipped at his drink slowly, enjoying himself.
“Did I tell you the charmer’s name? No? Barbara. Pretty name, wasn’t it?”
Harriet said nothing. but she remembered; the small tired, young-old woman who had been her Barbie, the face on the white hospital pillow, yellowed, sagging, dying. And tried to imagine her young and in love in a London wartime summer long ago, and couldn’t.
“Well,” Marcus went on. “Time, as they say, passed. And one day the young man, now safely back with his brother on the farm— did I tell you there were just the two brothers? No? Well, there were. Oh, and a baby girl, too. She was the daughter of the older brother— her mother had died because she had been foolish enough to produce her baby in the middle of a Canadian winter when no medical help could get to her. The baby had been tough enough to survive — but then, she was a toughie from the word go.”
Marcus looked consideringly into his drink, which was nearly all gone.
“Anyway, one day young man gets letter from far-off London— he is the proud papa of a daughter. Wants to go and get daughter and mother, wed the latter, rear the former, all aboveboard and legal, you know? But big brother isn’t having any. Not him. He needs the younger brother under his thumb, not under some unknown Barbara’s digit. And the only baby girl he wants about the place is his own. And since younger brother is a pretty weak object, as I’ve said already, big brother makes his point felt. Younger brother obediently neglects to answer Barbara’s letter, and to all intents and purposes forgets he ever had a sweetheart and a baby.”
Tears began to prick behind Harriet’s eyes, but she wouldn’t let them go father than that. Tears for Barbie or self-pity? she wondered bleakly.
The woman Elizabeth left the room abruptly, rattling in the kitchen for something, and swiftly Marcus leaned over and exchanged his now empty glass for the full one by Harriet’s chair, grinning wickedly at her. By the time the woman came back, with a glass of milk in her hand, Marcus was leaning back in the same comfortable position he had been in before.
“Years pass, and the older brother, in the fullness of his years, and I strongly suspect a skinful of whiskey too, passed to his forefathers— up and died, in other words. And being the strong family man, and having completely forgotten the far-off bastard niece in London, leaves the farm to his brothers, his bachelor younger brother, knowing damned well that when he snuffed it, he would leave the farm to his, the older brother’s daughter. He’s had a bit of a row with his daughter, had that difficult big-brother type, and apart from it being a good thing to do, leaving his all to this brother meant one in the eye for his daughter— make her wait for her patrimony, you see? Did I tell you the daughter’s name, by the way? I didn’t? How silly of me.” Marcus leaned back in his chair and grinned very widely. “Her name was— is— Elizabeth—”
Harriet stirred then, looked over her shoulder at the woman by the window. She stood very still, staring stonily back and Harriet looked away, somehow embarrassed.
“So, there we have Elizabeth, sitting on that distant farm with an uncle who is pretty hale and hearty, dependent on him for everything. And in the meantime, I didn’t tell you she was married, did I? Well, she was. That was why she’d had the row with her late unlamented father. The man Elizabeth had married wasn’t one bit to the old man’s taste. Good-looking— too good-looking. But lazy— wouldn’t do a hand’s turn about the place— a finicking pernickety Englishman, eh, Elizabeth?”
His voice had hardened, and he was staring across the room at the woman by the window, who remained silent, staring back at him, her face fixed in a heavy sulkiness.
“Oh, but that old man made life grim for Elizabeth’s husband. It was a considerable relief when the old boy died, believe me— until the fact that the farm had gone to her uncle became known to Elizabeth. Do you know what happened when she found out? It’ll take some believing, mind you, but it’s the truth— eh, Elizabeth? She went for her uncle with a gun— a big gun, the one they used for bears in tough weather when they came down foraging out of the bush. Killed the poor old uncle— and, lucky Elizabeth— the police reckoned it was an accident, eh, Elizabeth?”
“So it was.” Her voice sounded cracked and harsh. “So it was.”
“So you say,” Marcus said smoothly. “So you say. And then the nasty shock came. Do you know what that crooked old uncle had done? That dirty no-good lowlife— he’d only gone and left the farm— all the rights on the farm, including the mineral rights— to that far-off bastard of his, the bastard everyone thought he’d forgotten. But he hadn’t. Left it all to his natural daughter, giving the name of the mother of that natural daughter, last known address, the lot. Oh, but Elizabeth was peeved. Very peeved.”
Marcus spoke in a considering voice, as though he were telling a story far remote from himself and the people who were listening to him.
“Very peeved. Her husband was a mite put out too, come to that, seeing the farm was worth a lot of cash by now. Mineral rights, you see. They’d found cobalt on neighboring farms, and cobalt is valuable stuff these radioactive days, indeed and indeed it is. And here as all this lovely, lovely folding money willed away to some little bastard three thousand miles away, Annoying, wasn’t it?”
He smiled lazily at Harriet and then laughed softly at her wide gaze, at the way her mouth was held in a firm line to keep it from trembling.
“How much cash, you ask? Best part of half a million dollars, I’d say. Getting on for a hundred and seventy thousand sterling, give or take a few thousand.”
Harriet stared at him, and then opened her mouth to speak. But her lips and tongue were so dry she couldn’t frame the words.
“So, what are poor Elizabeth and her husband to do? Did I tell you the husband’s name, by the way? No? Marcus— nice name, isn’t it? Where was I? Ah, yes— they did the obvious thing, of course, Came to England to find the missing heiress, in the hopes they could find her before the solicitors did— and you know how slow solicitors can be.”
This time he produced an almost womanish giggle that made Harriet want to scream, it was so horrible.
“They found her— wasn’t too difficult. But there was a nasty complication. The heiress, silly creature, had up and married! Now, that was very selfish of her, because it meant that if she died, her little all would to go her next of kin— her husband. Well, Elizabeth and Marcus couldn’t have that, could they? Not at all. So they set to work to think about what to do. Marcus being en engaging sort of bloke— friendly, you know got to know the husband, who was a traveling type. Picked him up very conveniently on a cross channel ferry one dark night. And discovered some fascinating facts. One, that the husband— his name, again? Foolish of me— Jeffrey, of course—”
Marcus got up and moved over the the drinks table to fill his glass again, shouldering Elizabeth out of his way rather roughly when she tried to stop him.
“Jeffrey, as I was about to say, didn’t like his wife one little bit. To start with, he’d thought she had a few bob, and didn’t discover till after he’d married her that she hadn’t a sou— naughty of her to mislead him, wasn’t it?”
Marcus sat down again and drank deeply. “The other thing was, she wasn’t mush use in bed, from all accounts, and he felt bitter about that. Mind you, after spending a night in his company in the highways and byways of dear old Paris, Marcus came to the conclusion that the unsavory Jeffrey, had some pretty odd bedroom tastes anyway.
Harriet was scarlet now with shame, with misery— with a mixture of emotions too complex to analyze. But Marcus was going on smoothly with his story and didn’t seem to notice or care about her discomfiture.
“Well, to cut a long story in a different shape, Marcus told Jeffrey about his disliked wife’s inheritance. And pointed out that since the heiress no doubt loathed Jeffrey as cordially as he loathed her, she would very likely up and leave him with her cash clutched in her own hot little hand, and hard l
uck on Jeffrey. And when he’d met Elizabeth who was so very much like his little Harriet to look at— I did tell you the heiress’ name, didn’t I? No? How remiss of me. However, to continue. Jeffrey, in his husbandly wisdom, agreed to opt in on a pretty little scheme. Elizabeth would take over as Harriet. Harriet would be disposed of quietly. Elizabeth, wearing Harriet’s hat, would collect her booty, share three ways, in due course go though the emotions of divorce with Jeffrey— everybody happy.”
Harriet’s own voice sounded like a stranger’s in her ears, so hoarse and stilted it was.
“So Jeffrey knew about the impostor.”
“But of course!” Marcus raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You don’t think even the most unuxorious of husbands would really be deceived even by a very like-looking first cousin, do you? He not only knew he joined in with enthusiasm, arranging for someone to dope the real Harriet—”
“Mrs. Joel—”
“One Mrs. Joel— yes. Arranged for the car to be taken from the garage— even left the bike there to make sure Harriet would go to the station. Knew she’d hop it, too, when the impostor took her place—”
“He knew?” Harriet said.
“Well, guessed. And arranged for me, sorry— I mean Marcus, of course— to be— around— to follow the fleeing Harriet. To pick her up and turn on the famous charm at just the right moment—”
“Then it was you I saw at Thaxham station that night—” Harriet whispered.
“Did you?” he said indifferently, and then went on with rather more animation. “It was quite a performance, wasn’t t? I’d been tailing you for quite a way.”
He laughed again. “That old man at the block of flats— he was delicious wasn’t he? Dewdropped nose and all. Who were you looking for there?”
She ignored that. “And Susan— is she part of this— plot, too?”
He sobered up for a moment at that. “Susan? No. And she won’t be. Just a kid who thinks I’m all a brother should be— and is going on thinking that way, get me? Neither you nor— she—” and he jerked his head savagely toward the silent Elizabeth— “will ever get her involved in anything. She’s just a kid—”
“I’m glad of that,” Harriet said softly, and then, with an almost academic curiosity, “Why did you spend so much money on me at Harrod’s? Because you thought you’d get it back?”
He looked so proud of himself suddenly that Harriet was reminded of the face of a small boy she had once surprised by the steam just after he’d caught his first stickleback of the season. He was suffused with pride, bubbling over with it.
“That was the easiest thing I ever did in my life— I wanted just gave ’em checks. No one asked or queried or wanted to clear— wasn’t it marvelous?”
He grinned as he looked at her coat, at her torn stockings and filthy smudged face. “And look at all that lovely money— wasted on you, eh? Oh, that was rich—”
Harriet drew a deep breath. “Why— why kill Jeffrey— I mean, if he was part of the plot to— to get rid of me, why —?”
“A good question. The girl has a pretty little mind, eh Elizabeth?” There was silence from across the room. “That’s easily explained. All went well until Jeffrey got greedy. Wanted more than a third share. So he had to go, too, didn’t he Elizabeth and Marcus had a splendid idea. Dispose of Jeffrey bloodily, make it clear to the police it was Harriet who did the gory deed, get her legally disposed of and far-away cousin collect the loot! And so we planned it, eh, Elizabeth? Very nice and bloody Elizabeth made it, too, dipping Harriet’s blue housecoat to a tasteful shade of deep purple while she was about it—”
“Be quiet, you idiot—” Elizabeth said in a grating voice from her shadowed corner. “You’ll get is both hung with your flapping tongue—”
“What’s the odds?” Marcus said, and his voice was quite clear, but there was a glitter about his eyes and expansiveness in his gestures that showed just how much he’d had to drink. “She won’t be able to tell a soul— Where was I?”
“Elizabeth— killed Jeffrey,” Harriet whispered.
“Yes— and then the goddamned Joel woman tumbled that something too fishy by far for her state was going on— she knew a bit too much already, what with the way she’d drugged the real Harriet and primed up Elizabeth to take her place— so she had to be got rid of too— and again, the blue housecoat came in handy to label the crime as clear as you like, “Whodunnit? Harriet Darnell dunnit, that’s who!”
And he threw back his head and laughed richly. “Poor little heiress, labeled with two murders, and now waiting to be got rid of herself—” And he laughed again. Louder.
Harriet moved, then for the first time since he had pushed her into the room after finding her on the stairs, left the chair to shrink back against the wall, frightened and feeling physically sick at the way his teeth gleamed in the log fire’s glow, at the pinkness of his tongue and the sheer animal pleasure his recital was giving him.
“I don’t understand— I don’t—” she said, her voice rising shrilly. “I— don’t understand—” He almost choked with the humor of it all.
“You will, my sweet, you will— when the tide comes rushing high over the marshes, and you go out with it— and they’ll find your poor mangled little body washed up down the coast, and they’ll say, ‘Who is this?’ And that nice Mrs. Darnel will say ‘Why, that is my long lost cousin from Canada who must have been the wicked impostor who killed my dear departed husband, and my cleaning woman and boo hoo— now she is dead, and serves the wicked thing right—’ and they will solemnly blame Elizabeth Cooper for the crimes, and Harriet Darnell will go free to collect her inheritance and marry her lover, Marcus and they will both live happily ever after— only, only—” And he began to sputter with laughter again, rolling about as he roared. “Only— you’ll be Elizabeth Cooper and she’ll be Harriet Darnell— isn’t it rich—?”
Suddenly the other woman moved, moved so fast that Harriet could hardly see her, ran to his side and began to shake him.
“Shut up, you idiot— shut up! D’you want to ruin everything at this stage? Get yourself straight, you bloody fool—”
But Harriet didn’t wait to see what would happen. Moving faster than she thought she could, she ran, sliding out of the door and across the hall into the kitchen, bolting the door behind her and making for the larder as fast as she could. If they followed her, they’d lose time trying to get her out of the larder and, meanwhile, she could be out of the window and away—
But even as she bolted the kitchen door behind her, she heard them, heard one set of footsteps run unevenly after her to the kitchen, heard the other cross the hall and the sound as the front door was opened. Could she get out of that window and away before one of them got round the house to catch her?
Chapter Thirteen
She went out of the larder window head first, like a rugger player making a tackle, landing on the path on one shoulder so awkwardly that she somersaulted right across it and into the bed of lavender that skirted it. It was that that saved her. She lay there, dazed, the smell of the crushed needle-shaped leaves in her nostrils, her shoulder aching abominably, too bewildered to do anything but lie still.
And when Elizabeth came skittering around the corner of the house, swearing competently as she almost fell over the pike of logs by the back door, there was nothing to see, for the lavender hedge was high and old, and hid Harriet well.
Elizabeth stood undecided for a moment, and then, groping in the darkness, found some of the logs and used them just as Harriet herself had once used them to climb in through the larder window.
Lying in the soft, safe, protected darkness, Harriet wanted to giggle, and to push her face hard against the cold earth to keep the sound back. Elizabeth thought she would cut off her retreat, did she? Not if Harriet knew it.
As soon as the sound of Elizabeth’s landing on the stone flags of the larder floor hit her ears, she moved. The sharp pain in her shoulder almost made her
scream, but she hugged her arm against her side and, limping a little in her stockinged feet made for the front of the house.
She intended to run down the road, toward the village, but even before she reached the front gate she realized that was hopeless. There would be no one between the house and the village, two long lonely miles. In her exhausted condition, with a shoulder that was so badly injured that every step she took was agony, they would catch her in minutes. As soon as they found the kitchen was empty, they would know she had got out, know she was somewhere out here in the darkness. Her only chance was to make use of her intimate knowledge of the district and cut across country to the nearest house.
The nearest house was Cooper’s farm— and how that name seemed to haunt every part of the whole horrible mess she was caught in— but even as she turned toward that side of the road, the front door of the house opened and wide swath of light spilled out over the front path. She looked back over her shoulder for one terrified second to see them both silhouetted there, and lost her nerve. She couldn’t run over a plowed field, not with both of them able to see her as clearly as they would be able to against the early green of the new crop that lightened the ground.
She did the only thing she could. She plunged across the narrow road, splashing though the small shallow ditch that edged it, and ran as fast as she could.
It was cold— bitterly cold, and the wind blew hard against her hampering her, making her hurt deep in her chest, making her whole lower jaw scream with an exquisitely sharp pain at every intake of breath But if the wind hampered her, it must hamper her pursuers too, and she ran doggedly on.
She could hear them behind her, thumping over the wet uneven ground, heard Marcus curse as he tripped over a hussock of rough saw-edged grass felt rather than heard the grim pounding that was Elizabeth’s feet, much nearer to her.
The House on the Fen Page 13