[Title here]

by Deadly Duo (epub)

  Her escort was whispering to the man at the table, who looked at her dubiously over a pair of pince-nez.

  "No," he said in a booming voice of great affability. "No, I don't think we need bother you, miss. There were no instructions left about getting your prints. We've took all we need, I think."

  "Fingerprints?" she said in surprise. There was no reason, of course, why they should not take them, but the idea shocked her.

  "Yes, miss, fingerprints." He appeared to relish the word. "Just them we wanted. Nothing to worry you with."

  "Then I can go where I like, can I?"

  "Anywhere except upstairs." They spoke in unison and appeared to find the accident amusing, for they grinned surreptitiously at each other like boys in church.

  Margot was overcome with a hatred of them all. Lee and his hosts were enemies in the house, silly, excited, over interested enemies. The colour came into her face and she turned on her heel and went out. The constable looked at his colleague and turned his thumbs up approvingly, but he was a discreet man and made no other comment.

  Margot went along to the dining room. The house was unnaturally silent and yet she was aware of activity going on in its recesses. The atmosphere was oppressive, as though the very air tingled. Somewhere, surely, some sort of family council must be taking place? If so, she was anxious to join it. She saw hopefully that the dining-room lights were on and the air struck warm as she entered, but the only sounds were not those of conversation.

  The single occupant lay in the winged chair before the remains of a fire. Victor Soubise was snoring deeply, his flushed face half hidden in the crook of his arm, his thin legs sprawled out across the rug. She stared at him in astonishment and had a hand on his shoulder before the reek of brandy reached her. He grunted and muttered something but did not wake, and she stepped back, her glance falling on the low table by his side.

  A solid spirit decanter stood empty and stopperless in a puddle on the polished wood. By its side was a tumbler, in which there was still half an inch or so of neat spirits. Exasperation spread over her. The decanter was usually kept three parts full at least, and unless something extraordinary had occurred Victor must have swallowed the best part of a pint. Obviously there was no point in trying to wake him. He would remain in that state for some time.

  She left him and went back down the corridor, her heels clicking angrily on the tiles. She was furious with him. In the ordinary way he was an abstemious, slightly maidenly sort of person about alcohol who considered himself something of a connoisseur. An exhibition of this sort from anyone else would have brought a very sour little smile to his face.

  Margot had known him all her life and had seen him in times of crisis before, when his behaviour had been fussy rather than uncooperative. Yet now she was so shaken and so angry with him for putting himself out of action at the time when he might have been useful that she did not stop to consider what an extraordinary and untypical thing it was for him to do.

  EIGHT

  Margot stood hesitating at the top of the service stairs. At first she thought the kitchen was deserted, but presently, as homely as a voice, the clatter of crockery came floating up to her.

  Genevieve was at the table in her best black dress. It was far too tight for her round the hips and had ruckled up at the back, to show some inches of plaid petticoat, but the tuckers at her throat and wrists were white and crisp. To save it she had put on her cooking apron, a vast affair of red-and-white gingham, and, together with her little black head shawl, her appearance suggested festivity, not to say fancy dress. Only her face was tragic. She had not been crying; the black eyes were as clear and bright as ever, but the wrinkles had multiplied and there was pallor under her brown skin.

  The moment she caught sight of Margot she put a finger to her lips and crept softly over to the door which led out into a small back hall, off which Felix had a bedroom. She listened against it for a moment before opening it cautiously. A glance satisfied her and she came back.

  "They are everywhere, the sales types," she said, her voice lowered to a whisper of startling vituperation. "Now what is the matter with you? You look as if you were in consumption. Sit down, child, and take off that hat. It is disrespectful at such a time. We'll have some coffee."

  Her plump hands belied the brusqueness of the words. She pulled out a chair and sat the girl in it, patting her shoulder as she passed.

  "If Madame were here, we should be eating," she went on. "This is the moment for a good jambon and a conserve of walnut. If the world were not demented, we should have both. Madame always said that a full stomach knows no broken heart. We will prove her right, eh, petite Margot?"

  She was frowning tremendously and the girl recognised the symptoms. Genevieve was both frightened and angry and was taking refuge in ferocity. Grief was yet to come. Margot found her comforting. This performance had the virtue of familiarity. Genevieve, at any rate, was still recognisable.

  She bustled about, rattling the glowing copper on the charcoal stove as if it had offended her, but she was waiting for the question when it came.

  "They've found something. What is it?"

  The old woman pursed up her lips as if she were about to spit and turned round, coffee-pot in hand.

  "Nothing that I could not have told them in the first ten minutes, had they had the sense to ask," she said. "We all knew of the little cupboard in the carving of the bed head. It was not secret. Madame kept Sal volatile there, and later the little pellecules the doctor gave her for her heart. Yet when Felix remembered it and opened it, the ridiculous flic left in charge while Monsieur l'inspecteur was away made a performance to astonish one."

  The cupboard in the bed head. Margot remembered it. It was linked with her childhood. It was Zoff's pet hiding place, and it had yielded her a thousand sugared almonds in the days when they were still all in Paris. Always when Genevieve brought her in at eleven o'clock to receive Zoff's morning kiss the little cupboard, cunningly hidden behind a knot of golden cupids would swing open and out would come the familiar blue-and-gold carton from De Bry.

  "What did they find?"

  "Eh?" Genevieve was uneasy. Her glance, curiously direct, rested on the girl. "Cherie," she said, "they found the diamonds, the emerald collar, all the pearls, and a bottle."

  "How d'you mean, a bottle? What of?"

  "Of chloroform, petite. It has been lying about the house these two years, as I could have told them, as I tried to tell them. But they were so important and so engaged that they could not spare the time to listen."

  The room was fragrant with coffee by this time, and she placed a smoking bowl of it on the white boards before the girl. Margot waved it away.

  "I don't understand this, Genvieve," she said. "Why was it lying about, as you call it? Why was it ever in the house?"

  "My God, for the flies, of course." The old lady was growing sulky. "Drink up your good coffee. There is cream from the top of the milk upon it. Since the war has ended there has been a new spray for the flies, but in the war, when you were in the north that summer, there was nothing, and Sir Kit, poor man, was at his wit's end to know how to clear the place of them for Madame. She had one of her moods, you understand."

  She paused and spread out her hands.

  "Actually there were few of them, but they worried Madame and she sent for Sir Kit and complained. He took her advice and one day a man came and we shut up all the rooms and they were sprayed with chloroform. Some of it was left in the bottle. It used to stand on a shelf in the little glass pantry at the top of these back stairs. It was there always, I had not missed it."

  "But, darling, do you realize what you're saying?" Margot was sitting up in the chair, her fair hair tousled, her eyes horrified, "Everyone in the house must have known of this, Sir Kit too."

  "Certainly Sir Kit," Genevieve's little grunt was near laughter, "That is what the so intelligent flics have discovered. We all knew of the little cupboard, we all knew of the chloroform."

 
"Except me."

  "You knew of the cupboard, ma mie, and I aro surprised you had not heard of the chloroform. Certainly Monsieur Victor knew, because he was discussing the new spray with me only the other day and I told him it was far better than the old. We were in the pantry at the time."

  "But Denis-"

  "No." The old woman leaned across the table and pushed the coffee toward her. "No. Monsieur Denis could not have known, either of the cupboard or of the spray. That is why he is not yet under arrest. They have taken him upstairs." Margot passed her hand wearily over her forehead. "Oh, Genvieve," she said huskily, "who-who is it?"

  "I do not know." The old voice was unexpectedly vigorous. "Not yet." She hesitated and added gently: "Pauvre femme, she made people so enraged. There were times when I, even, I her bonne, who loved her, I could have killed her almost."

  "Whom do they suspect now?"

  "Felix," said Genevieve calmly. "They are not men of imagination." She began to cut bread and butter very neatly, setting each piece tastefully over the other on a plate to make a design.

  "Felix?"

  "Oui, because of the clock. Felix broke the clock. Oh, but I knew that immediately I saw it last night. But they have been smearing the house with powder and our fingers with ink, like lunatics, and they discovered it too in the end. Such a fuss! The clockmaker would not touch it last night, you know. He took one look at it and said to mend it was impossible, so the story was clear for them to read." Margot remained watching her busy hands in shocked astonishment.

  "He was trying to take some sort of revenge, I suppose," she murmured.

  "Naturally." Genevieve was content. "Felix has been making a fool of himself for years, worrying over what?-the eleventh share of a baker's shop which was never out of debt."

  "How do you know he did it?"

  "Because, petite," Genevieve pointed her statement with the bread knife "because there was no one else who could have done it. That is always the answer. Sometimes one refuses to see it, but in the end that is the explanation. There are no miracles in these matters. The one who is left is the one who is guilty. You will see, it will arrive that way in this more terrible affair."

  "I hope so. I don't think I can bear much more of this, Genvieve. Where is Felix now?"

  "In his bedroom, with yet another detective." She was grimly amused, "Serve him right to suffer a little. He's beside himself, the miserable recreant. He hoped to kill Madame."

  "Genvieve! What are you saying?"

  "The truth. The truth before the Blessed Virgin and all the saints. He knew the clock was her mascot and he hoped the shock would give her a heart attack and she would die. Then he could go and grovel in the flour sweepings for his contemptible inheritance. He did not know that Madame's heart was very nearly as strong as mine."

  She was talking very fast and at the top of her voice.

  "That is the sort of murderer we have in the poor Felix. The wishful one, who dreams, but whose hands tremble so he cuts his own finger with the dagger. He dared not hurt her and so he broke the clock. When he was found out he thought they would suspect him of the chloroform also. Mon Dieu, what an animal! I would not look at him when they brought him through. I hope he suffered."

  "That sounds charitable, Genvieve. I hope you're not talking about me."

  The voice from the doorway, surprised them both. Margot's hand shook so violently that some of the coffee was spilt on the scrubbed board. Genevieve reached for a tea towel to mop it before she glanced up. She spoke amicably if directly.

  "Good evening, Monsieur Denis. One can see you have not been listening at the door or you would know we were not discussing you."

  He remained on the threshold, watching them. He was still white and tired-looking, but the nervous tension had gone out of his face.

  "I smell coffee," he said. "I'm afraid the sleuths want you, Genvieve. I said I'd find you."

  "Again?" She sounded exasperated, but she passed her tongue across her narrow lips and her eyes were uneasy. "Very well, I will go up to them. Margot, the coffee is there, the milk is there, the sugar is rationed."

  She trundled across the kitchen, pausing to flick her head shawl into position as she passed the spotted mirror on the wall. Denis held the door for her and they heard her heavy feet shaking the stairs as she mounted them. He shut the door and came in, while Margot crossed to the dresser to fetch a third bowl.

  "D'you mind one of these?" she enquired. "Or do you want a cup?"

  "I'll have it in anything, please," he said, seating himself at the table and resting his elbows heavily upon it. "What's the matter with you?"

  The light reflected from the copper pot made little flecks of orange in her eyes.

  "I'm tired."

  "So am I. But I don't radiate ice waves. Has that perishing policeman been sowing evil seeds?"

  "No."

  "Good." He took the bowl from her hands and sipped some of the scalding stuff. "I rather thought he might. His methods are ingenious but not quite clever enough, I thought. Strike you that way?"

  "I don't know. I didn't notice." He looked up sharply, his eyes meeting hers.

  "Margot," he said gravely, "I had the hell of a row with Zoff after dejeuner today. She came down and fetched me out of the dining room, where I had my meal alone. We had a most violent showdown up in her room. In fact, we've been quarrelling for quite a long time, some months."

  She put up a hand to stop him, but he ignored it.

  "I want you to listen to this, and we haven't a lot of time. You've got to understand my side of the story. When you were out of the country Zoff wrote to me at St. Mark's. I haven't kept the letter, so I can't show it to the police, but you must take my word for it. She asked me to come down one week end, and when she got me here she dragged out all that stuff about my mother not being her daughter, all the horrible old dirty linen which she washed out in the Paris courts when I was in arms. She wanted me to take a lump sum in cash and repudiate my inheritance. She offered me a few million francs-about twelve thousand dollars, something like that. I laughed at her, I'm afraid, and I thought the matter was finished."

  He was still holding her glance, appealing to her to understand him, but she dragged her eyes away from him. The story could well be true, but she did not want to hear any more.

  "Then she had another shot," he went on relentlessly, "and in the end she made me interested. It was all very secret, between ourselves, you understand. But she seemed to know how my mind works and she got me guessing. Finally I said that if she'd prove to me that she was right I'd step out, as I didn't want any money that wasn't mine. Well, she was always going to produce this proof and she never did. When I approached her she would put me off and just raise her original offer a thousand dollars or so. Margot, are you listening to me?"

  She nodded without speaking, but she did not look at him. She knew as well as anybody how infuriating Zoff could be and she was beginning to be dreadfully afraid. She had never seen Denis in a rage, but she could believe that it would be formidable. There was a recklessness about him now which reminded her frighteningly of something Lee had said about him, and she was afraid to hear what he seemed so determined to tell her.

  "I won't repeat the tricks she got up to," he was saying, his voice harsh with the effort of control. "That setout last night was only one of them. I told her I was coming to see her, and she said she'd send for the police and charge me with attempting to murder her. I laughed, and she did do just that. It startled me because I thought she must be crazy and I didn't mean to go up. But as I told you, when Victor and Sir Kit went out she came down herself in a house gown and told me to come up to her room as she had something to show me."

  He paused and Margot forced herself to look into his white face.

  "The thing she gave me was that old green bag," he went on deliberately. "She said the proofs were in it and that I was to take them home and study them. I opened it in front of her and saw that it was full of papers. The thing I di
dn't do was to look in that drawer affair at the bottom. I didn't see that until I was in the train."

  "Then you didn't know about the jewellery?"

  "Of course I didn't!" he exploded. "And when I did find it I made an idiotic mistake. I'm no expert, and at first sight the stuff was impressive. I assumed she was trying to bribe me. Now I feel certain that the inspector is right, and that since the wretched stuff is not particularly valuable she had merely forgotten it was there. At the time I thought the worst and I was pretty angry. I took the documents and bunged the bag and its contents in a station cloakroom. Now her real and valuable stuff has been found in her room, in a secret biding place in the bed if you please! She was an extraordinary person, Margot."

  The girl did not stir. She was waiting for the rest. He was beginning to show reluctance. She wanted to hear and yet could hardly bear it.

  "Her proofs were nothing but cuttings from the French press at the time of the case," he went on bitterly. "I was looking at them when you arrived in Dower Street. That was why I was so furious I could hardly speak to you."

  She scarcely heard him. Her attention was still focused in fascinated apprehension on the main part of his story.

  "When was the quarrel?" she asked slowly. "When she gave you the bag?"

  "No," he said briefly. "No, before then."

  There was a long silence while they sat opposite one another, the gay colours of china and metal on the dressers behind them contrasting with the pallor of their faces.

  "Was it about me?"

  "Oh, she had had a shot at you first, I suppose." He was suspicious and the colour came flooding back into his face, darkening his eyes and accentuating the anger there.

  "No, it wasn't that. But I know Zoff. I think I can guess what she said."

  "I hope you can't," he objected grimly. "There was spite in it, something I can hardly describe. It was as if she felt she was being revenged on me, and that's ridiculous, for God knows I've never done her any harm."

  Margot's imagination painted the scene which must have taken place. She could hear Zoff accusing him of hunting a second fortune since he was not sure of the first. She knew from experience that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that Zoff would not say, no line that she would feel bound to draw. Margot could imagine any man's anger turning to fury under that vituperative tongue. The questions forcing themselves before her became terrible. Just exactly how angry had he been? What was he about to confess to her now?