"Because you thought it prudent?"
"Because I-I wanted to help," I said.
"I see." McNaught leaned back in the slender chair, which protested dangerously. His announcement came out of the blue. "I understand that Colonel Fayre was under the impression that his wife had introduced you deliberately into the household in the hope that he would compromise himself with you."
"What!" I was out of my chair at that, all caution forgotten in my fury and surprise.
He waved me down again. "That's news to you, is it?"
"It's absurd. I was engaged because Rita could trust me, The doctor told me that in the beginning."
"He told me that too." McNaught was scratching his ear, "Other people prefer the second story."
"But what for?" I persisted. "Why should she want such a thing? What woman would?"
He watched me with pale eyes. "I wonder if anyone on earth is as innocent as you look," he said. "You're only twenty, of course, and 'nicely brought up,' as they say. It may not have occurred to you that a judge might see his way to excuse certain irregularities in a wife's behaviour and even so far forget himself as to award her thumping alimony if her husband betrayed her under her own roof."
"I don't believe it," I said. "I don't believe it of anyone, and I don't believe it of Rita. It's a filthy idea. Rita chose me because we were friends at school."
The pale eyes were calmly inquisitive. "A lot of difference in your ages," he remarked. "You could not have been great friends. You are only twenty now, and she has lived out of England several years, hasn't she?" He was so horribly right. I could feel the ground opening under my feet. His appalling suggestion explained so many things, especially my first reception in the house.
"That was the idea in Fayre's mind when he told you to go."
"No."
"How do you know?"
I saw the pitfall just in time. "He would have sent me away before, not now."
McNaught brought his chair down on all four legs. "Why did you twist the lamp bulb so that it would not light last night?"
"I didn't."
"Yet it was twisted, wasn't it? Rudkin put it right for you?"
"Yes."
"Light bulbs don't turn by themselves."
"I didn't do it. Why should I?"
He did not answer, but switched the subject with disconcerting suddenness. "Colonel Fayre did not dismiss you in the beginning because he was not afraid of you. You had begun to make headway at last."
"No."
"You say you were not in on it. You and Mrs. Fayre weren't in it together?"
"No."
"You mean you were in it with her?"
I was getting hopelessly confused, and I knew it. He had become an enemy and was slowly but surely wearing me down.
"Make up your mind. Which was it? You and she arranged the whole thing, and the Colonel saw through it last night. Is that right?"
"No."
"Then-"
"I beg your pardon, I had no idea anyone was in here." The soft voice from the doorway surprised everybody. I think.
McNaught paused in full flight and glared across the room, his eyes bright with irritation, "Who let you in?"
The abrupt question recalled the visitor, who was withdrawing, and Henri Phoebus reappeared. I was amazed by the change in him. He looked as if he had been through some long and terrible experience. His plump face was drawn, and his eyes looked heavy in their sockets. "I have been in the house some little time," he said, with a trace of his normal airiness.
"Isn't there anyone on this door?" demanded McNaught.
"At the moment, no. But I am sorry to intrude. I will withdraw at once. As I told you, I thought the room was unoccupied."
McNaught let him go, but he followed him into the hall, and we heard him speaking sharply to the constable, who must have left his post for a moment. He returned immediately, but he did not resume his questioning. There was a new expression in his eyes, He looked puzzled and as if he were trying to recall something that had escaped him. "Who is that, do you know?" I told him, and he shook his head. "Phoebus?"
"I think he's quite well known--at least, Rita implied that to me. He was her entrepreneur."
"What the devil's that?"
"It's like an impresario, isn't it. She painted, you know."
"So I heard," he murmured absently. "That chap here a lot?"
"Quite often."
"Did he know her when she lived abroad?"
"I-" The words died on my lips as I caught his expression.
The idea that had come to him evidently had shaken him. He stood staring ahead of him, mingled incredulity and astonishment in his eyes.
"I don't know," I finished.
He looked at me vacantly for a minute. "No," he said at last. "No, you wouldn't. No, you go back to your bedroom and stay there. Here, Mason."
The man with the notebook rose and went to him, and I was forgotten for the time being; but as soon as I stepped out of the room, the fat detective was beside me again, and when we got upstairs, he resumed his vigil in the corridor. As I entered the bedroom, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I looked as though I had been faded by a very bright light, and there were bones in my face I did not know I had.
I sat down and tried to sort it all out, but my reasoning was thrown into confusion by the one dreadful question that haunted me all the time and forced itself into my thoughts when they should have been clear and constructive.
Had Julian really thought that Rita and I did not believe it, I could not believe it, but I did not know for sure. Julian never had told me in so many words that he loved me. Suppose that all the time I'd been horribly mistaken and that he was only being kind, while he thought I would not go on, I would not face it, but I had a little foretaste of hell up there in the dusk that winter's night.
It was a little later when my jailer tapped again. I thought he'd come to call me down for more questioning, but it was only to bring me yet another tray. He set it on the table and went out again, leaving me gaping at it. Not at the teapot nor the eggshell-china cup, but at the tray itself.
It was pink. Surely it was pink. It must be the one I had sent to Rita the night before. Yet I couldn't believe anyone would be so cruel as to rescue it from the studio after the poisoned cup had been removed from it and to have sent it to me.
I took the tea things off it and switched on the light. Now I could see that the tray was yellow. And the truth-or at least a part of it-glimmered faintly in my mind.
• • •
I decided to wait until after midnight; before then I dared not risk it. I intended to go down to the studio and look at the tray, if it hadn't been taken away.
It was a grim vigil up there in the bright little room which I had come to love so much. The tray lay where I had left it, and every now and then I glanced at it, and each time I felt more certain I was right.
About ten o'clock I heard a tapping from the linen cupboard, and I hurried in to find Mrs. Munsen standing on the chair looking up at me.
"That superintendent's gone at last," she whispered. "He went off ten minutes ago, saying you were not to be disturbed."
"Did he take the others?"
"No, they're still here, but they won't stay all night, surely? Rudkin thinks they'll likely leave one man in the hall to watch us, but you can't tell with them. I'm going to bed. I'm dead on my feet."
"You must be," I said absently.
I was wondering how I could ask her about something. A favour, but the request stuck in my throat.
"Dr. Phoebus has taken himself off too," she whispered. "I told him straight this wasn't the right house for visitors. He went off like a whipped dog. He's been all over the place today, like he was demented. Lily found him in her bedroom once."
"In Rita's room?" I said with surprise.
"Yes. He'd got part of the carpet rolled back, if you please, and all he did when Lily stared at him was to ask her if the police were still in the studio."
"He hasn't been in there, then?" I asked quickly, my thoughts flying to the tray.
"He has not," she agreed grimly and began to climb down. "He and Mitzi have been whispering in corners all day. There's something between those two we don't know of, if you ask me. They're looking for something. Well, good night, miss, and don't forget what I told you."
"Oh, please wait," I murmured hurriedly, thankful she could not see the colour in my face. "Mrs. Munsen, could you-could I ask you to take a note to the Colonel?"
She was suspicious immediately. I could feel her eying me fiercely in the cupboard's gloom. "What do you want to say to him?"
I didn't know. The awful thing was, I didn't know. I only wanted to get some response, some little reassurance. It was madness, of course. I knew it and I was ashamed of it. But more than my own safety, more than anything else in the world, I wanted to know that the things McNaught had implied were not true.
She was waiting for an answer, and the last thing I intended to do was antagonise her. A possible excuse occurred to me. "I-I wanted to tell him that they know about that check," I explained.
To my astonishment she laughed very softly. "He's heard all about that."
"How do you know? Did he-did he tell you?"
"No. I heard them questioning him."
"Mrs. Munsen, how could you have heard? Where were they?"
"In the studio," she said calmly. "There's ways and means of hearing things in this house if you know them."
Her admission of eavesdropping was perfectly complacent. I understood then that Julian was still a child to her; she had no scruples whatever where his welfare was concerned.
"What did he tell them?" I demanded breathlessly.
"The truth, of course," she said contemptuously. "There's no need for him to lie. He told them he wouldn't turn any girl out into the world without a penny." It sounded terribly cold.
"It was a lot of money," I murmured.
"That's what they said," she agreed, "and they tried to make it very unpleasant. But he soon put them in their places. He said he was a rich man and wasn't in the habit of doing things by halves."
"Is that all he told them?"
"It's all I'm repeating, miss, and I'm not taking any notes to him. The master's gone to his bed, and by now he's asleep in it, please God. If I were you, I should do the same."
I heard her step down off the chair, and I knelt on the floor and strained my eyes after her. "Mrs. Munsen," I said, "I didn't do it."
There was a silence for a moment, and then her voice came to me, grim through the darkness. "I'm not sorry it's done," she said. "You go to bed and keep your head. Say your prayers, if you're not afraid to."
At eleven o'clock the fat detective went away. At least, when I looked out my door, there was for the first time no sign of his solid bulk in the corridor. So I knew there was only the other man to be considered, the one Rudkin thought they would leave on duty in the hall.
All the same, I was very jumpy. Several times I thought I heard footsteps in the corridor, but always when I sprang to look there was no one there.
I turned the lights off in the passage, finally, but still I was not certain I was quite alone in the wing. Once I thought I saw a flicker of something that might have been a skirt or a coat disappearing round the end of the corridor.
I undressed and lay down on my bed to wait. I thought if I waited till late enough, I could slip past the man in the hall and get into the studio.
At a quarter to twelve I turned out the light and sat in the dark. I dared not think of Julian. With the darkness all my fears had become intensified, and I felt deserted as well as trapped. Nobody came near me, and there was no sound.
When the clock of the church on the other side of the river struck one and the lazy musical chime of the hour had died away across the water, I summoned all my courage, opened my door, and stepped out.
The house smelled warm and sweet with polish and the scents of wood and pot-pourri. I was still in the old dressing gown I had had at school, and I had taken off my shoes so that I could feel my way silently over the rugs and the parquet in the hall.
The whole world seemed to be in darkness. There was no gleam of light anywhere. The curtains were drawn and the street lamps shut out. The only sounds I heard, as I stood listening, were the aggressive tick of the grandfather clock at the head of the staircase and the thudding of my own heart.
I was so busy concentrating on finding out if there was anyone watching in the hall, and if so, where exactly he sat, that I was not listening for any sound behind me.
I reached the stair head without making a rustle. The folds of my woollen gown were noiseless, and my bare feet sank quietly into the thick carpet.
It was when I was halfway down that a stair cracked loudly behind me and I thought I heard someone breathing. Only my grip on the banister prevented me from falling. I looked back over my shoulder, and the darkness wreathed and contracted as I stared into it. I was sure there was a deeper black in the shadow than there should have been, and for a moment I stood frozen, almost too frightened to breathe.
I moved on at last, but I was terrified now, and aware of each separate and particular hair stiffening in the dark as my scalp crawled.
At last my foot touched the cold parquet of the hall. Once again I stood quiet, straining my ears. I was terrified, both of what might be behind me and of the watcher I imagined might be ahead.
But this time there was no sound, nothing; only the ticking of the angry old clock behind me in the dark. I still had a long way to go. The hall was wide and the studio door was at the far end of it. I let go the baluster and stepped into the blackness.
It was at that moment that I heard the sigh. It was very distinct, very human, and horribly close, just behind and a little above me.
I swung round, my heart in my mouth. As I turned, my bare foot squeaked on the polished wood, and an instant later a flash light beam, wide and white and inescapable, shot up from the studio doorway. It held us both, me and the man at my heels.
I saw the man behind me was Julian at the moment his arms went round me. I saw his scared, imploring eyes and his mouth set in a hard line. Then I was aware of only the arms biting into me and the sudden blessed peace as my body pressed against the cool silk of his dressing gown.
I felt him tremble, and the flash light beam grew shorter.
As I opened my lips, he put his hand over my mouth and I was quiet. He was hurting me unconsciously, and suddenly I knew that I liked it and that he too, felt just as I did with the same reckless surge of pain.
So it was then, at that most hopeless of all moments, that I understood at last about me and Julian, so that all my doubt vanished and the ache at my heart disappeared.
I knew now who it was who had been near me all the evening when I thought I was alone in the ghostly wing of the house and who it was I nearly had seen turning the corner of the corridor, I knew it was Julian who had kept watch on my door after the detective had gone, and he who had waited near at hand in case there was trouble and I needed him. It was good to know that.
Meanwhile, the beam came closer, holding us squarely in its broad shaft, and peering into the gloom behind it, I made out McNaught's face above the light.
To my surprise he made no attempt to speak, but signalled us to keep quiet. Over my head Julian nodded. Mc-Naught grinned ferociously, and the light went out.
For what was perhaps three minutes, although it felt like hours, we waited. It was perfectly black, and I could make out nothing in the shadows. I had no idea what was happening or what was coming, and I lay back content against Julian, his arms still round me, his heart thudding against my shoulder, his breath fanning my hair.
Suddenly McNaught spoke; his deep voice sounded sharp in the darkness. "Now," he said.
The next moment the door of the studio clattered open, and there was a rush of feet. McNaught had a number of police with him. They had been concealed in the dark hall, waitin
g for something to happen inside the studio, and I, with Julian trailing me, had come down into the very midst of the ambush.
The crowd of policemen swept us on into the room where Rita had died.
The vast room was cold and gloomy. The only light came from the hearthrug, where a flash light lay burning, casting its misshapen beam across the floor and up the wall.
I think it was a curtain I noticed first after that moment of complete bewilderment. It was streaming out in the strong draught. Under it there came climbing in through the low, wide-open window the fat detective who had been guarding me upstairs.
Then I saw Henri Phoebus. He was kneeling on the hearthrug, his arm thrust deeply into a small cupboard which had appeared in the panelling just under the right-hand built-in bookcase where the bottles and glasses were kept. I never had suspected its existence. It had been hidden in the moulding.
All the same, I don't think it was so much a secret cupboard as a forgotten one. Old Mrs. Fayre and Harriet had kept the Minton in the bookcase and never had permitted anyone to approach it, so it was unlikely that anyone else in the household knew of the hiding place below it.
When I caught sight of Henri Phoebus, it was in the instant of his first surprise. His pallid face wore a grotesque expression of alarm, and in its arrested movement his plump body looked stiff and unreal, like a waxwork.
I was the first person he recognised. He knelt staring at me for a moment and then scrambled to his feet and came for me. "You," he screamed. "You killed her. You knew!"
As I drew back, I felt Julian's arm tighten round me, and he swung me out of the way. In the same second the fat detective lunged forward and tackled Phoebus round the knees. They went down together, and immediately a ring of police closed in on them.
Just then someone behind us turned up the light, and the room became familiar again in the glare. The room was so full of Rita's personality that I was violently aware of her. It seemed incredible that she should not be there, forceful and didactic as ever. I shivered.
Meanwhile, McNaught had stepped round the struggling group on the carpet to examine the cupboard, and presently he came to me holding something on his palm.
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