Black Plumes

by Margery Allingham

  Frances steadied herself in the guttering.

  "You go straight along here," she said huskily, ridiculously concerned because her teeth were chattering. "Then over the parapet to the next house—it's only offices so there's no one there now to hear you—then the iron ladder goes down at the back of the house. You'll have to drop the last eight feet, but it'll be all right if you're careful."

  "I see. Thank you." He did not move and she could not see his face.

  "Well?" she said at last.

  His hand found her shoulder and closed over it. He did not speak for a long time but he rocked her gently, his fingers gripping her very tight.

  "Come with me."

  "Where?"

  "Holland. God knows what I'm letting you in for, but come and we'll risk it... It's pure selfishness on my part." "Why?"

  He laughed explosively.

  "Oh, darling," he said, "at such a time! Are you coming?"

  "How can I? Phillida's ill, Gabrielle's alone—I can't. I must stay with them." He let her go.

  "Yes," he said unexpectedly. "Yes, of course." And then, with more urgency than she had ever heard from him before, "Frances. Be careful. Don't hear anything. Don't think anything. And for God's sake don't say anything. Watch Gabrielle. Never let her be left alone, not for a minute. Do you understand?"

  "Yes. What are you afraid of?"

  "I'm not." He spoke passionately. "That's the line you've got to drop. Drop it. Rout it out. Forget it. Turn yourself into a mindless vegetable. Don't think. Don't put two and two together. And keep Gabrielle quiet. Put her to bed and lock the door with yourself on the inside."

  "You're going to Holland?"

  He swore softly in the darkness.

  "I shouldn't have told you that. That's the slip we all make. That's unforgivable. That's the one thing you must never tell anyone. Never, whatever happens. Promise. Word of honor."

  "Yes," she said flatly. "Yes, of course. Word of honor."

  She heard him move irresolutely, and then unexpectedly he bent over and kissed her, holding her so roughly that in spite of her fierce and rather terrifying relief she was aware that he was hurting her. The next moment he had left her and was clambering purposefully over the roofs.

  17

  "They broadcast an unfortunately good description of him over the air in the ten-to-twelve news last night. Silly chap. He can't hope to get away with it. The country's too small," said Godolphin gloomily and pushed his plate

  away.

  The breakfast room at 38 Sallet Square was stuffy and the electric light made the hour, which was noon, seem unlikely and in keeping with the timeless confusion of the whole period. Frances, who was sitting on the other side of the table, her chin in her hands and an untasted cup beside her, thought of the previous midnight as an age away, an undefined moment in a horrible and distant past. It had been twelve hours of mounting strain. The house was in chaos. The domestic routine had broken down utterly, and a sense of siege was everywhere.

  On the news of the second crime the crowds in the street had returned in greater numbers, and the heavy old-fashioned shutters barred over the breakfast-room windows made a temporary barrier between the stricken household and the sensation seekers standing patiently in the rain and the wind of the square.

  The meal was a formless hybrid, midway between breakfast and luncheon. Mrs. Sanderson had done what she could at a time when food seemed one of the least important of life's considerations, and Norris, a bilious wraith of his former urbanity, had tottered up from the kitchen bearing a tray on which odd china and tarnished silver presented a collection of cold sausages, potatoes in their jackets, ham, jam and coffee.

  The hall and landings had become foreign territory. The police possessed them, newspapermen stormed them, and every now and again a strange nurse in starched linen and sensible shoes crackled through them on her way to the kitchen.

  Inspector Bridie had made a thorough search of both houses, and in his vocabulary the adjective had a particular meaning. His search had included the space beneath the floor boards, the contents of mattresses, and the drains. So far it had been fruitless. The weapon which had killed Robert Madrigal and afterward Henry Lucar had disappeared as completely and unsatisfactorily as if it had never existed.

  No one in the house had had anything faintly approaching a night's rest. The interminable questionings had gone on hour after hour and mere nerves had given place to a state of grim endurance. Even Godolphin had begun to show the scars of the ordeal. There was a white line of excitement round his mouth, and when he limped about the hand which gripped his stick was heavily veined under the yellow skin.

  Frances had no idea what she looked like and did not care. Old Bridie, who was beginning to fear that he almost liked her, had seen a white ghost of a creature with great pain-filled eyes and had sent it in to get something to eat with every ounce of his authority behind the command.

  "Silly young ass," Godolphin repeated under his breath and sat up when he saw the spasm of pain flicker over her face. "Sorry," he said abruptly. "Wouldn't have mentioned it if I'd known. I understood that engagement of yours was a put-up job. I shouldn't have said it for worlds if I'd thought."

  He was looking at her with great interest in his dark eyes, and she noticed, as one does notice irrelevant details in time of stress, that the whites of them were still yellow from his fever.

  His discovery seemed to awaken his energy again for he bent towards her earnestly.

  "You're kidding yourself, you know," he said. "You're young so you don't realist it. Love does get one but there's nothing in it. You'd get bored to tears with that chap Field if you knew him for long. He's a painter. All painters have a sort of. romantic glow round them, but they're silly, oversensitive beggars when you get to know them. Impractical, too. Look at this wild flight of his. What's he got to fear? There's not a shred of evidence against him that the police could prove. You're well rid of him. I don't expect you to agree with me now but you will. You'll see. You're a sensible girl. Besides, I mean to say, take love altogether. I know it. It's a tremendous thing while it lasts but it goes. That's the thing to remember about love. Yon love like hell for years and then you see the woman again and you see her in a new light."

  Frances took a deep breath. The full force of the famous personality was like a blast from an oven. She felt dizzy and physically sick.

  He hoisted himself onto another chair nearer to her and, seeing him prepare for a new attack, she drew back involuntarily. He was not being intentionally unkind but an idea had occurred to him and. as usual, he was bent on putting it over.

  "If only he had had the sense to sit tight," he said. "Suppose it had come to a trial. Wouldn't you have backed him? Wouldn't I? Wouldn't Phillida and even the old lady? Of course we would, if only to save our own faces. A balanced chap would have seen that."

  It occurred to Frances that she was going to cry. The discovery appalled her and she rose to her feet, choking. As she turned blindly to the door, however, it opened and Miss Dorset appeared with Dorothea in tow. Both women were exhausted and untidy in that odd way which is not definable Miss Dorset in particular conveyed a dishevelment which was as much mental as any matter of coiffure or shoestrings.

  "I made her come down," she said breathlessly. "She must eat something or she'll drop. You've got some coffee here, Norris says."

  "Of course we have." Frances set a chair for the old woman as she spoke. Dorothea was exhausted, hut a lifetime's training seemed to forbid her to sit on more than two inches of the proffered seat, since she was in company.

  "I didn't ought to be down here," she grumbled, taking a cup grudgingly, "but she is dozing now, though, and that Mrs. Sanderson has promised to stay with her. What a night it's been. I don't think she's closed her eyes once and it was all I could do to keep her in the room. It'll kill her in the end, this will. It stands to reason. I've told her she's more like an obstreperous child than an old lady. She's got something on her mind,
you know. She's overexcited. I thought she was going to fly out of the bed when the police asked if Miss Dorset could come through the cupboard door."

  Both Frances and Godolphin looked up at this piece of information and Miss Dorset flushed.

  "The inspector thought it would be better if I avoided the street," she murmured. "The crowd is waiting, hoping to see a woman."

  Frances sat up. "Me?" she demanded.

  Miss Dorset leaned forward and laid a hand over hers.

  "It's Mr. Field running away," she said gently. "They don't think, you know. They just get hold of a dramatic idea. Never mind. It's all going to be all right. It's all going to be all right. I've just heard and I had to come over. Mr. Meyrick's been released and he's coining back. He left this morning and we shall have him here any time after four. I nearly broke down and cried when I saw the message. It's what I've been praying for."

  She looked positively happy and the others exchanged glances. Dorothea put the general thought into words.

  "I'll be most relieved to see him, but I don't know what he can do, poor man," she remarked, sipping her coffee. "It's past anyone doing much, if you ask me."

  "But they’ll be someone to tell us what to do." Miss Dorset sounded as if she had nothing more to ask. Her confidence was so sublime that they were encouraged in spite of themselves, and the atmosphere grew momentarily less oppressive. Nevertheless they all started violently when someone tapped on the door.

  It was Bridie himself. He too had been up all night and had not had time to shave, but, apart from a slight greyness round his chin, he looked as neat and affably suspicious as ever. He disconcerted everyone by saying nothing at all, but he accepted Frances" offer of coffee with a nod of such alacrity that she began to suspect that it was his sole reason for intruding upon them. His presence silenced the three women, but Godolphin seized the opportunity to ask questions.

  "Any news of Field yet?" he inquired, fixing the older man with inquisitive eyes.

  "Not a word of him. silly young chugging." The inspector seemed to he in an ominously genial mood, and his soft Northern voice was alarming in its friendliness.

  "Do you think you'll get him?"

  "Oh yes. no doubt about that. It's just a question of time. It's a dickens of a job to escape us." Bridie dismissed the question as ridiculous. "It's these wretched journalists whore the bother," he added, peering round at them with his bright hooded eyes. "Most tenacious chaps. There was one on the roof just now, and no young lady to help him either."

  He laughed at Frances as he made the remark but ignored the color which came into her face. Nor did he seem in the least annoyed with her. His manner altered abruptly, however, as he turned to Dorothea.

  "Where's your mistress?"" he demanded.

  "Mrs. Sanderson is with her, sir."

  "She is? Oh well, she's a sensible body. All the same.."

  He broke off as the door opened and Inspector Withers put his head in. His long face was lined with anxiety.

  "There's a young man out here says he must see Mr. Godolphin on a matter of life or death," he said suspiciously.

  "Really?" The explorer took his stick and hoisted himself to his feet. "Who is it? What does he say?"

  "He won't speak." Withers sounded irritable. "He's simply waiting here, swearing that it's urgent. He's got past two of our men."

  "I'll come. Where is he? In the hall?"

  Godolphin hobbled out at a great speed, and the two officials exchanged glances, alter which Withers nodded and followed him. Evidently the residents of 38 Sallet

  Square were not to have private interviews with any visitor that morning.

  Bridie passed his empty cup to his hostess with engaging diffidence.

  "I'm not a great drinker as a general rule," he remarked, "but a job like this makes one thirsty." His new friendliness was disconcerting, and Frances' hand shook as she held the saucer. The rattling cup attracted his attention and he smiled at her kindly. "Cheer up," he said. "It's a fearful business but we're near-ring the finish. There's absolutely no question about that. There's just a little anxiety for the next few hours, but you'll all be able to sleep easy in your beds tonight without a chance of being murdered there."

  "Can you say that definitely, Inspector?" Miss Dorset was leaning across the table, her ugly light eyes eager.

  Bridie looked at her squarely. "Quite definitely," he said. "Four o'clock, that's the hour. We'll all know a great deal more about this chiggery-pokery at four o'clock, and by the way, Miss Dorset, for your own information, all the telephone lines in this house and the next are tapped and have been for some time."

  The effect on the woman of this gratuitous piece of information was astonishing, and Bridie watched her with pleasure as his little trap sprang home. She grew very white, all except for her nose and the red rims round her eyes. She closed her lips tightly and shrank back into her chair.

  The moment was saved most unexpectedly by a great bellow of laughter outside the door as Withers and Godolphin came in together. Both men were amused, Godolphin rather sourly so but the inspector guffawing openly. Bridie regarded him with sober disapproval.

  "Having a jolly good choke?" he inquired acidly.

  "Yes sir." Withers recovered his habitual gloom. "It was the chap's optimism," he added and Godolphin laughed briefly.

  "The fool of a motor salesman from the showrooms down the road." he said. "I've been considering a new Packard and they gave me a trial run in it yesterday, as I told you. It was when I came back that I found the house in uproar. Apparently I had promised to phone this young-she looked like a netsuke, swathed in white lace wool. Her frailty was no longer her dominant feature. Instead she had become minute and vital, a concentrated essence of herself. Her face was so wrinkled that it was ageless and unreal, like the faces of ancient Italian peasant women, and her black eyes were bright and dangerous.

  Bridie stood looking at her with something that was almost like superstition, and they realized for the first time how much the incident had shaken him. Frances looked anxiously at Phillida, but the dull-eyed woman in the bed made no sign of recognition and she called the nurse, who bustled over to the bed and put her foot down after a single glance. The room must be cleared instantly, she said, or she could not be responsible.

  Her anxiety impressed even Bridie, who cleared his throat.

  "Well have to have an end of all this," he said, speaking slowly and quietly, his magnificent accent lending the words a softness which they do not ordinarily possess. "There's no question about it. For a few hours I've got to have ye all under ma eyes and since I can't be in two places at once I'll have ye all together, everybody, servants and all. We'll all go down to the drawing room and we'll set there together until four o'clock."

  "Not her." Dorothea forgot her place for the first time In a life in what she was pleased to call "gentleman's service." Her square face was suffused with blood and her body shook with the violence of her protest. "She shan't. She goes down there over my corpse. She's old. She's not herself. Her mind's not right. Can't you see yourself she's too old to be tormented? She'll work herself up and say things she doesn't know she's saying. I'll take her back to her room She's fanciful. She's old. You can't judge her like anyone else. You take her over my dead body."

  "Thank you, Dorothea, that will do." The thin voice was icily amused. "I shall certainly go down to the drawing room, as the inspector suggests. There are one or two things I should very much like to say."

  Bridie was looking at her in undisguised astonishment.

  "I don't think you were very well, ma'am, last time I had a chat with you," he ventured.

  Gabrielle favored him with one of her more exquisite smiles.

  "Perhaps I was not," she said. "Age is a curious malady, my dear man. There are times when one almost recovers from it."

  Bridie's eyes flickered, and the old lady laughed as if she had made a conquest.

  A slight movement on the other side of the room caught
the policeman's attention, and he turned round just in time to see Miss Dorset edging towards the door. She stopped dead in her tracks as he called her and turned to face him defiantly, like a child.

  "You'll hardly need me," she said.

  He did not speak at once but stood looking at her until her color changed.

  "Just the same." he said. "I'd like ye to be there."

  "But I can't. I have an appointment just after three-thirty."

  "You've got an appointment now. If ye were thinking of meeting Mr. Meyrick Ivory's train. I'm sorry hut I'll have to ask ye to change yer mind."

  She hesitated and for a moment it looked as if she were thinking of defying him. He watched her thoughtfully.

  "There's an extension telephone in the drawing room," he said. "I'll arrange for all your business calls to be put through there."

  The simple offer, with the slight emphasis on the word "business," had its effect. Miss Dorset stood blinking at him, a foolish expression on her face so unlike her usual birdlike glance that it was frightening.

  "Very well," she said huskily and turned slowly out of the room a crushed and submissive figure.

  18

  They trooped into the drawing room like an old-fashioned household going in to family prayers. There was the same hush, the same furtive reluctance. Norris turned on the lights, for the winter afternoon was dark, and the haste with which Mrs. Sanderson and Molly pulled the heavy window curtains reminded everyone afresh of the patient crowds outside. Frances felt a little sick whenever she thought of them. The morbid aspect of their behavior as individuals had long since ceased to impress her. She saw them now as the representatives of the public, the rest of the herd, patiently waiting for the law of the tribe to be enforced. Two men had been killed and they had a right to expect that the murderer should be apprehended, tried and finally hanged. There were taking no part in the time-honored ritual but were standing by to see that it was performed. Their presence threw the whole affair into relief, so that even as she took part in it she saw it also objectively, like a scene on a lighted stage.