“And I told her that was nonsense.” Derek’s smooth, bland face reddened. “I did have a kind of feeling we’d talked about it on the telephone—whether or not my mother should go ahead and employ her or something like that. And I said Quentin or Georgina might have discovered her, but when I asked them about it, as you’ll remember, they both said they hadn’t, and that’s good enough for me.”
“But don’t you understand, dear,” Frances said, “it was I who told you about Margot, and you rang up Felicity and told her about her? It’s quite simple.”
“Except that we don’t know where you got her name or if any of this is true.” His tone was fierce. “For God’s sake, don’t try to make things more confused than they are already.”
“I’m only doing my best to help clear things up,” she said earnestly. “It’s funny how well I remember hunting for that piece of paper in my writing table and yet can’t remember who gave it to me—oh, wait a moment!” She put both hands to her head, pressing her temples as if it might help to squeeze out a thought that was not quite clear to her. “Yes, of course, it was Max Dunkerley. I said so to Felicity, didn’t I? I’m almost certain it was Max.”
“Was it or wasn’t it?” her husband shouted at her.
“Please don’t speak to me like that,” she said plaintively. “How can I possibly be certain about something that happened so long ago and that didn’t seem in the least important at the time? But I know Max wanted to help with the problem of finding help for Felicity. He didn’t agree with us that a home would be the best thing for her. He thought she was too independent to be happy anywhere but here.”
“May I ask,” Theobald interrupted quietly, “who is Max Dunkerley?”
Quentin answered, “He was a very old friend of my grandmother’s. He lives in Coram Court, that block of flats near the church. And it happens he’s an artist of sorts, and don’t artists sometimes make very competent forgers? You know, Mr. Theobald, I think my mother may have come up with something. If I were you, I’d investigate the possibility of a connection between Margot Weldon and Max Dunkerley.”
Chapter Six
Theobald nodded gravely. “I shall certainly do so.”
He took a step towards the door, but then he paused.
“About Edward Laycock...” He paused again.
“I’ve told you, I don’t think any of us know anything to speak of about him,” Derek said. “My mother engaged him by herself without consulting anyone.”
Andrew thought that it was time that he tried to be useful. “As a matter of fact, she told me yesterday that she had the telephone number of the woman who gave him a reference, written down in an address book. She said it was Lady Something, but she couldn’t remember the name.”
Theobald turned to Agnes. “Do you know anything about this address book, Mrs. Cavell?”
“Well, she had a little address book that she kept in her handbag,” she answered. “That’s the only one I know of.”
“And do you know where the handbag is?”
“In her room, I expect.” She looked round vaguely. “It isn’t in here. She must have taken it upstairs with her.”
Theobald went to the door and spoke to someone in the hall.
As he returned, Andrew said, “I ought to add that Mrs. Silvester told me that this woman, whatever her name is, was leaving for Canada, so you may find it difficult to make contact with her.”
Theobald nodded. “That doesn’t altogether surprise me.”
“You don’t believe in her?” Andrew asked.
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” Theobald replied, “but we’ll be wise, I think, to take everything we’ve learnt about Laycock with a touch of caution.”
“Mrs. Silvester also told me that this woman said Laycock had worked for her for three years and given complete satisfaction,” Andrew said.
“Ah well, it may be true.” Theobald did not sound as if he believed for a moment that it was.
The door opened and Jack Prestbury came in. He held out a handbag to Theobald.
“Is this what you wanted, sir?” he asked. “It was on the chest of drawers in the bedroom.”
Theobald spoke to Agnes again. “Would this be the handbag Mrs. Silvester was probably using yesterday?”
It was a capacious leather handbag, fairly worn, though it looked as if it might have been smart in its day.
Agnes nodded. “Probably. It’s the one she used most of the time, unless she’d dressed for some special occasion and wanted one that would match her outfit. You’ll find those in the chest of drawers in her room. But I’m sure this is the one she’d been using for general purposes recently.”
He handed the bag to her. “Would you mind looking for the address book?”
She opened the bag which seemed to be bulging with a notecase, a change purse, a cheque-book, keys and all the things that collect in a woman’s handbag. She explored it with a frown deepening on her face.
After a moment she said, “I can’t find it.”
Theobald took the bag from her and looked through its contents himself.
“What’s the book like?” he asked.
“It’s just an ordinary little address book, pale blue, I think, full of all sorts of names, a good many of them people who’ve been dead for years. She’d just cross those out and sometimes she’d say it was time she got a new book and copied the remaining people in, but I don’t think she ever got around to it.”
“And she always kept it in this handbag?”
“So far as I know.”
“She wouldn’t have taken it out and left it, say, on her writing table, if she’d been going to write some letters?”
“I suppose that’s possible.”
“But you don’t think it’s likely.”
She was looking agitated. “I simply don’t know. It isn’t a thing I ever thought about. I just know she had this little blue book and if Mrs. Silvester told Professor Basnett she’d written down that woman’s telephone number in it, I suppose she had, but she never said anything about it to me. And I can’t imagine why the book should be missing.”
Theobald looked as if he thought that he could make a good guess as to why it should be, but without saying anything further he went once more to the door, went out and again spoke to someone in the hall. Then he returned.
“I think we must do our best to find this book,” he said. “If she’d taken it out of her handbag, as I suggested, because she was writing letters, where would she have done that?”
Agnes nodded at a bureau in a corner of room. Its flap was open and its pigeonholes were jammed with writing paper, envelopes and letters answered and unanswered. No small blue book was visible.
A soft cough from a corner of the room reminded the people in it of the presence of Arthur Little, the solicitor.
“If it’s because of that lady’s address that you’re anxious about the book, Mr. Theobald,” he said, “I believe I may be able to help you.”
“You’ve got it?” Theobald asked.
“I can’t answer that offhand,” Arthur Little said, “but I think we may have a note of it in our office. As I told you, Mrs. Silvester sometimes did discuss her personal affairs with me, and I remember, when she was thinking of engaging Laycock, she rang me up and asked me what I thought of the idea. The idea of her taking on a manservant, I mean. I believe if Mrs. Cavell hadn’t been away, she’d simply have discussed it with her and wouldn’t have wanted to talk it over with me, but it was as if she felt she’d like to consult someone before going ahead with the scheme. So I told her I thought it was an excellent idea if she checked the man’s references carefully first and she then told me the lady’s name and telephone number and I was under the impression that she wanted me to check the reference for her, so I wrote it down. But almost immediately she said that she would do it herself, but I think I may have kept my note of the name in her file. I can’t say for sure I have, but if I can be of no further use here, I’ll go to the
office and ascertain whether I did or not. I understand it’s a matter of some urgency.”
“Thank you, Mr. Little, if you’d do that it would be very helpful,” Theobald said. Then as the solicitor went out, he added, “In the meantime, Mrs. Cavell, I think we should start a search for this book. Have you, or you, Dr. Silvester”—he turned to Derek—“any objection?”
“No,” Derek said. “Go ahead.”
“Of course,” Agnes said.
“As a matter of fact,” Frances said in her soft, hesitant voice, “I’ve a sort of idea I’ve just remembered the woman’s name. It suddenly popped into my head. But I may be quite wrong. I mean, it may be connected with something quite different, some committee I’m on or something, and not have anything to do with Felicity at all. But I believe she did talk about it once anyway, and now this name’s come suddenly into my mind. Lady Graveney. Of course I don’t know anything about her telephone number. I don’t suppose Felicity mentioned it. But as I told you, my memory’s terrible.”
Andrew was beginning to feel that Frances’s memory was a good deal better than that of anyone else in the room and from the look that Theobald gave her, he thought that the same idea had occurred to the superintendent. But again Theobald left the room to issue orders for a search through the house for the little address book.
Theobald raised no objection when Derek suggested that he and his family should go home, and that made Andrew wonder for a moment if there would be any objection to his returning home also. He almost suggested it. After all, Bradenon-Thames was only a short distance from London. He could be reached on the telephone and recalled in only an hour or two if it should turn out unexpectedly to be necessary.
The thought seemed almost unbearably attractive. To be in his quiet flat, to be alone, to be able to do a little work on his life of Robert Hooke, to be free of any responsibility to anybody, to be free of these busy policemen and the mood of fear and suspicion that somehow attended them, to forget, if only that were possible, that he had ever known a woman called Felicity, how splendid that would be. But he had only to take one look at Agnes Cavell to know that he was not at all serious about trying to make good his escape. He could not leave her alone here.
She was sitting in a chair by the fire while a young detective whom Theobald had brought in sat at the bureau in a corner of the room and went methodically through the drawers and pigeonholes. She looked so forlorn that Andrew longed to be able to say something to comfort her. There was no colour in her face and her eyes seemed to have become enormous, with a fixed, unseeing glitter in them. But it felt impossible to talk while the young man was there. All that Andrew could think of doing was pouring out drinks for her and for himself. But although Agnes accepted the glass that he gave her, she almost immediately put it down on the table beside her and did not touch it.
Andrew, after a few sips, did the same. He had an uncomfortable feeling that if he was not careful, this was one of the rare occasions on which he might easily get drunk. He wondered what Agnes intended to do about lunch. He had had no breakfast and was beginning to feel very hungry. But it seemed to him possible that in her present mood she might simply have forgotten that food, even in a time of great strain, is on the whole a good thing. If she showed no sign of taking some action about it soon, he would go out to the kitchen and see what he could do about it himself. He could no doubt find eggs and make omelets for them both.
However, he waited until the detective had finished at the bureau and had wandered round the room, opening drawers in every piece of furniture that had them, then with a word of apology for his intrusion, went out. As soon as she had gone Agnes bent forwards, hid her face in her hands and broke into violent sobs. Her whole body shook with them. The sound of them was like a child’s frantic, unrestrained crying. Andrew, moved, embarrassed, anxious to be kind but feeling hopelessly inadequate, went rigid in his chair, not knowing what to do. Then absent-mindedly he swallowed a good deal of his whisky.
It at least gave him back the power of speech. “You were very fond of Felicity then,” he said.
It did not sound to him a very helpful thing to say, but it seemed to remind her that he was there. She gulped a few times, groped for a handkerchief in a pocket and mopped her eyes.
After a little while, in a shaky voice, she asked, “What do you think?”
“You must have been,” he said.
“What makes you think that?”
It was not what he had expected. He thought that her explosion of tears told all that it was necessary to know about that.
“I don’t think you’re a person who cries easily,” he said. “It’s taken a good deal of grief to make you break down like that.”
“Grief isn’t the only thing that makes one cry,” she said.
“What else is there?”
“Oh, anger, disappointment, fear—all kinds of things.”
She sat back in her chair, gazing vacantly up at the ceiling, her handkerchief clasped in her fist.
“And are you angry, disappointed or afraid?” he asked.
“All three of them,” she said. “Don’t you understand that?”
“I’m afraid not,” he answered. “Who are you angry with, apart from the brute who murdered Felicity, and I’d say that that really comes under the heading of grief.”
“Oh, all the Silvesters, and you too.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve made you angry. What have I done?”
“You’ve done nothing, that’s what you’ve done. You’ve all done nothing. You’ve let the police believe that poor boy Ted is responsible for everything, yet you haven’t come up with the slightest suggestion of a motive. Yet here they are, turning the house upside down, looking for that wretched address book. But why should Ted have killed Felicity? For her diamonds? He could have taken them any time without killing her. And don’t you believe her murderer came to the house on Thursday evening after dumping Margot Weldon’s body in the road across the common, and opened the back door and let in that draught you and Felicity talked about, then went away because he realized she wasn’t alone? That was your own idea, wasn’t it? Yet we know Ted couldn’t have done that. He was with his girlfriend. I asked that man Theobald about that today and he said the girl confirms what Ted said. So someone is lying, isn’t that obvious? And I’m very angry with that person, even if he isn’t the murderer.”
Andrew wondered for a moment if he should tell her of Theobald’s theory that Laycock might have murdered Felicity to oblige some member of the Silvester family who was scared by her threat that she would change her will, but he decided to keep it to himself.
“I haven’t told any lies so far,” he said, “but of course there’s no reason why you should believe me.”
“Oh, I believe you,” she said indifferently. “The truth is, I’m angry with everybody and everything, including myself. I ought to have seen all this coming.”
“How could you have done that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. It’s just a feeling I have. Life has been so smooth and comfortable recently and that’s always dangerous. One should never forget how easily it can all be ruined.”
“You only think that because today’s been so terrible,” Andrew said. “Grief hits us in all kinds of ways. You must have cared for Felicity very much.”
“Grief, grief!” Springing to her feet, she suddenly shouted the word at him. “I’m not grieving for Felicity! I never cared for her. She was a vain, selfish old woman who used her money to dominate people in the way she’d used her beauty when she was younger. She never loved anyone herself or gave any part of herself to anyone. I haven’t been crying for her. I’ve been crying for myself. I’ve been crying out of disappointment, bitter, bitter disappointment. You didn’t really believe I don’t care about that money, did you? You didn’t believe I wouldn’t have fought tooth and nail to keep it. I said I wouldn’t because it was the nice thing to say, the kind of thing nice, kind Agnes Cavell might be expect
ed to say. But it wasn’t true. How could it be true? Of course I wanted the money, all of it, and I so nearly got it. That’s what’s so unbearable. I so nearly got it. So now you know what I’m really like and you can make what you want to out of it.”
She darted to the door and out of the room. Andrew heard her footsteps running up the stairs.
The police did not leave the house until about three o’clock in the afternoon. Andrew, growing hungrier and hungrier, had made one or two sorties into the kitchen to see if he could find something to stave off the pangs, but there had always been one or two men there, doing he was not sure what, except that once, he thought, he had almost caught one of them helping himself surreptitiously to something out of the refrigerator. When at last they all left some time after Felicity’s body had been removed in an ambulance, he went out to the kitchen again and finding some cold beef in the refrigerator, made a thick sandwich for himself, returned to the drawing-room, made up the fire and settled down beside it to enjoy food and drink and the mere silence in the house.
He had thought of calling up to Agnes that he would make her a sandwich if she would like one, but something about the untouched glass of whisky on the table beside the chair where she had sat made him feel that the best thing that he could do for her was to leave her alone. If she wanted food, she could come and get it.
Eating his own sandwich with satisfaction, he thought about how incompetent he was at understanding other people. When he had heard Agnes declare that she truly did not want Felicity to leave her money to her, that if the other Silvesters brought an action against her she would not dream of fighting it, he had believed without question that she was sincere and had admired her for it. Yet now she had asserted that that had been hypocrisy, that she had merely been saying the kind of thing that everyone expected her to say and that in reality she would have fought for the money tooth and nail. But had that necessarily been true? Had it been anything but a hysterical reaction to the shock and pain of the day? Had she perhaps said it out of a kind of defiance because it was what she thought he must really believe about her? He wavered between the two possibilities and ended up by recognizing that as he hardly knew the woman at all, it was unlikely that he would be able to find the correct answer to such a complex problem.
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