Dead or Alive

by Patricia Wentworth

  No, it really was impossible that these two pillars of Uncle Henry’s house should have removed.

  The door opened and Miss Cannock came in, beaded shoes, blue dress, batik scarf, horn-rimmed spectacles, and fuzzy fringe all as unchanged since Meg had last seen them as if she had lived in a glass case during the intervening thirteen months. She shook hands in an agitated manner.

  “Oh, Mrs O’Hara—I’m afraid you’ve been waiting! Mr Postlethwaite is so forgetful—I really did not know that you had come. If I had not met Miller, I should not have known now—and you must have been thinking it so strange. But you know how it is when Mr Postlethwaite is working—he becomes completely oblivious and—immersed. There is really no other word for it.”

  Meg discovered that the one thing that could make her feel worse than she had been feeling was to have Uncle Henry explained to her by his secretary—his quite new secretary. If it had been fat old Wallace now—but not this little fuss-pot of a Cannock. Out loud she said politely,

  “It’s quite all right. Perhaps I can go up to my room—I’d rather like to unpack.”

  Miss Cannock continued to fuss.

  “Oh yes. Miller was taking your things up—that’s how I knew you had come. Oh yes, of course.”

  “Where are the Evanses?” said Meg suddenly.

  Miss Cannock repeated the name.

  “Uncle Henry’s old butler and cook,” said Meg.

  She was being abrupt, but she didn’t feel as if she could wait and beat about the bush. She felt a desperate impatience to hear Miss Cannock say, “Oh, they’re having their holiday,” or, better still, “They’ve gone into Ledlington for the afternoon.”

  Miss Cannock didn’t say either of these things. She produced a thick crumpled linen handkerchief and used it to chafe the end of her nose as she said in rather a flustered voice,

  “Didn’t Mr Postlethwaite tell you? It was most terribly inconvenient—just before the move too—most, most disturbing. But we are very fortunate in Miller and his wife—a really admirable couple.”

  “But, Miss Cannock—what happened—why did the Evanses leave? Was it because they wouldn’t come here?”

  Miss Cannock put away the handkerchief in an old-fashioned pocket let into a seam of the blue skirt.

  “Well, I believe it was partly that, Mrs O’Hara. But I don’t think they were well either—I know they complained of illness. And they both left together, which was very disturbing for Mr Postlethwaite—very disturbing indeed. I don’t know when I have seen him so much put out. But he was able to engage the Millers at once, and they have been most satisfactory.”

  “Did Rose go too?” said Meg.

  “Oh yes,” said Miss Cannock brightly. “With her home in the village, she didn’t wish to come away. Indeed I think she was engaged to Colonel Johnson’s chauffeur, or thinking about it, which comes to very much the same thing.” She opened the odor and led the way into the hall. “Your room is the one over this, and the furniture is what you used to have at Way’s End, so I hope it will make you feel at home. Oh no—Rose wouldn’t have cared to come away at all, and indeed we do very well without her. The Millers are both very active, and they manage the work between them very well.”

  The hall had been dark when they emerged upon it. Still talking, Miss Cannock found a switch, when a small amber-shaded light came on at the head of the stairs. These ran up one side of the hall to meet a gallery upon which the bedrooms opened. Miss Cannock threw open the first door on the left, and they came into a bedroom of the same size and shape as the study below. The light in the ceiling showed Meg a replica of her bedroom at Way’s End. With the curtains drawn it might have been the very room. Yet it was a feeling of strangeness which took hold of Meg as she looked about her and saw the bed in which she had slept until her marriage, the looking-glass which had reflected her as a bride, the curtains and the carpet which she had chosen for herself—all her own things in a place to which neither they nor she belonged. It made her feel rather giddy, and for a moment she missed what Miss Cannock was saying.

  Her luggage was here, unstrapped by the efficient Miller. She noted vaguely that old Mrs Higgins’ layers of newspaper must have been efficient too, since the smell of pig appeared to have been left outside with William and the barrow.

  She woke up with a start to find that Miss Cannock was explaining about the meals—“So he has a tray in his study and doesn’t join us.” He must be Uncle Henry. But how terribly bad for him. She said this aloud,

  “But, Miss Cannock, that’s dreadfully bad for him! You mustn’t let him do that!”

  Miss Cannock fidgetted with the ends of her batik scarf.

  “Oh, but I couldn’t, Mrs O’Hara! I’m sure you will understand the deep reverence which I feel for his work, and I couldn’t—I really couldn’t—risk upsetting him in any way. The book is at a most critical stage.” The handkerchief came out again, and the end of the nose was rubbed until it was quite pink.

  “Do you mean to say that he has all his meals in his study?”

  “Well, yes, Mrs O’Hara. I do hope you don’t think I’ve been wrong, but it was so difficult to get him to come to meals, and he wasn’t really eating enough. But I found that a nice little tray carried in and put down beside him would often tempt him when it was quite useless for me to beg him to come over from the island.”

  “He has his meals on the island?” said Meg. Her voice was louder than she had meant it to be.

  “Oh yes, Mrs O’Hara. His study is on the island.”

  Meg thought of so many things to say that in the end she said nothing. What really stopped her was the sudden realization that it wasn’t for her to say anything. She wasn’t Uncle Henry’s home niece any longer. She was just a visiting relation. Like David, she held her tongue, and, like David, it was pain and grief to her.

  There was a little empty pause. Miss Cannock put away her handkerchief in a deprecating manner.

  “I am afraid it will be a very dull visit for you, Mrs O’Hara. I am very much occupied, and Mr Postlethwaite is, if I may say so, immersed—really immersed. I am afraid that you will find it very dull indeed.”

  Meg was afraid so too. When she had been left alone to unpack, she wondered how long she would have to stay, and what on earth she was going to do with herself. She would have to go for long walks. Perhaps they would give her a key, so that she could get in and out without such a prodigious fuss. And she could read, and write letters, and mend her stockings. And she might knit herself a jumper. She hadn’t had a new garment of any sort for a year. She could go into Ledlington and get the wool—there simply must be a bus into Ledlington some time in the day. It wouldn’t cost much, and she could pay for it out of Bill’s five pounds, which Uncle Henry must be made to pay back. He’d do it like a shot of course if she could only get hold of him in a lucid interval.

  When she had unpacked, she thought she would explore so as to be able to find her way about the house, but first of all she went to the nearer of the two curtained windows and looked out. There was a blind inside the curtain. She slipped between it and the glass and waited for her eyes to get used to the darkness. It was quite dark now—the sky, veiled and heavy, the woods dense blackness, and the lake like ink. The window looked right down upon the lake. She could just see the island and the bridge which crossed to it, or rather she thought that she could see them. Yet when she strained her eyes to see more she began to doubt whether she had seen anything at all. It was as dark as that. She left the window, and the light of the room dazzled her.

  She came out of her room, and considered which way she should go. Her door opened by the head of the stairs. A short length of gallery ran to the right towards the front of the house, a second crossed the back of the hall, and a third followed the opposite wall. No wonder the house looked a great barrack from the outside, with this big hall taking up so much of the inside space. It was miserably lighted—just the one small light at the head of the stairs—but she could see that
doors opened upon the gallery on all three sides.

  She turned to the right and came to a door which wasn’t quite shut. Pushed open, it disclosed a dark passage. She went along it, feeling with her hand on the wall. Almost at once she came to a door on the left and, opening it, found the switch. It clicked, but no light came. The windows showed uncurtained and the room felt empty.

  She took a few steps forward upon naked boards and retreated into the passage.

  Another door on the right. This time the light went on and showed a bathroom. She went back thankfully for her towel, and washed her face and hands. The water was tepid, and she had the horrid conviction that the kitchen was about a mile away, and that the water would probably never be any hotter than this. It was a very depressing thought.

  She left the bathroom light on and continued to explore the passage.

  The next door showed, not a room, but an uncarpeted wooden stair going steeply down. A gleam of hope penetrated the gloom. Perhaps the kitchen was on this side of the house after all. Perhaps a hot bath was not so definitely off the map as she had feared. If Mrs Miller had a human heart under the efficiency commended by Miss Cannock, it might be possible to achieve one. She left the door ajar and went softly down to the turn of the stair and a step or two beyond it, and there stopped because she could hear voices. Perhaps it wouldn’t be tactful to descend on Mrs Miller by way of the back stairs. Meg had an impulsive nature, but being married to Robin O’Hara had most painfully taught her to be afraid of acting upon her impulses. She therefore halted and was in doubt. “Better go back,” said the Meg who had learnt her lesson. But before she could obey her own order a chink of light showed below her in the darkness, as if a door at the foot of the stairs had moved in a sudden draught. She could see the shape of the door, and the light beyond it—a faint, diffused light—the light perhaps of a passage dimly lit, not the light of a room. She could feel the draught blowing towards her now. The line of light narrowed and then widened again. Of course—the door at the top of the stairs was open and the draught was moving this other door.

  She had just settled this in her own mind, when a man’s voice said, not loud, but angrily,

  “There’s no sense in taking risks! You ought to have put her in one of the front rooms!”

  Meg tingled from head to foot as if she had received an electric shock. It was the voice of the invaluable Miller. What an extraordinary thing to say!

  A woman answered. If it was Mrs Miller—and it must be Mrs Miller—she spoke like an educated woman. It was not exactly a pleasant voice, but it had a certain charm, a certain attraction. It said with light sarcasm,

  “Not at all. I wanted her to feel at home—with her own furniture. Old memories—childhood’s days, etc.”

  Meg tingled again, this time with rage. If this was Mrs Miller, then Mrs Miller had a stupendous nerve.

  There was no time for more than a flash of thought before the man said,

  “You could have moved the furniture into one of the front rooms, couldn’t you? It’s asking for trouble to let her look out on the lake!”

  Bewilderment succeeded anger—a cold bewilderment that was somehow touched with fear.

  And then the woman laughed, a light rippling laugh which was not in the least in keeping with the back stairs, and the voice said lightly,

  “What a fuss about nothing!”

  “Nothing!” Miller was still angry.

  There was another laugh.

  “What does it matter when it’s for such a very little time?”

  The draught banged the door, and the sound gave Meg a startled impetus. She was at the top of the stair before she had formulated any definite thought of flight.

  She ran back to her own room, switching out the bathroom light as she passed.

  XVI

  She wrote to Bill the next day:

  “Bill darling,

  This is the most mouldy show. I don’t think I am going to be able to stick it for very long. You’ve seen the house, but you’ve no idea what it’s like to live in. Uncle Henry met me, and I haven’t seen him since. His’ study is over on the island. He has his meals there and everything. I think it’s terribly bad for him, and the Cannock obviously hasn’t the slightest control. You know what he’s like when he’s working, and if he isn’t treated with firmness he just wanders off into a world of his own and forgets that you exist. Old Wallace used to be awfully good at rousing him—she used to insist on his going out for walks—but the Cannock just comes over helpless and wrings her hands.

  I’m writing this so as to have something to do. If you write me a nice long letter I shall read it gratefully for the same reason.

  “Meg.”

  PS. The water is cold.

  P.PS. There is mould on my mattress, which is wringing wet.

  P.P.P.S. Some time in the next twenty-four hours there’ll be mould on me.”

  Bill got this letter at breakfast—not the day after it was written, but the day after that. He looked at the heading and the postmark, and frowned. He would like to feel that Meg’s letter would reach him quicker than that.

  As he turned the envelope over, something arrested his attention. It was a very little thing—a very little smear beside the flap. He slanted the envelope to get the light on it, and found the smear again, just a mere track of it on the other side of the flap. His frown deepened. Meg might have opened the envelope and then stuck it down again, or she might not. Somebody had.

  After Bill had frowned at the envelope for about a minute and a half he made up his mind that Meg had written something which she had afterwards thought better of. She had therefore opened the envelope, torn up her original letter, and written another one. He wanted very badly to know what she had said in the first letter. There was no means of finding out.

  He put the letter away in his wallet and went out and looked at the flat which he was taking over from the Hewletts. Jack Hewlett was just leaving the War Office and having two months’ leave before rejoining his regiment in the north. Bill was therefore taking on the flat furnished for the first two months, which suited the Hewletts because they didn’t want to store their furniture, and suited him because he hadn’t got any. Before the two months were up he hoped that Meg would have been brought to believe that she was a widow, and that there was no reason why she should remain one. They could then buy furniture together, and he wouldn’t risk putting his foot in it by getting things that she wasn’t going to like. He felt sure she would like the flat, because there was a really topping view and all the rooms were light and airy. He wanted to move in as soon as possible, because he loathed living in an hotel, but he would have to fish round for a reliable couple. Mrs Hewlett gave him the address of three registry offices, and he started off with the quite irrational feeling that to engage a suitable couple was the first step towards marrying Meg.

  All the offices promised him couples of unexampled integrity and efficiency. It was almost bewildering to realize that there were so many worthy people all passionately anxious to cook his dinners and serve them.

  He was leaving the third office, when a man who had stood aside to let him pass looked up suddenly and exclaimed,

  “Mr Bill!”

  Bill received a shock of pleasant surprise.

  “Good Lord—Evans!”

  Evans took the hand which he extended and shook it respectfully.

  “I beg your pardon, sir, but I was took—taken—entirely by surprise, thinking you was—you were—still abroad.”

  “I’m home for good,” said Bill. “And what are you and Mrs Evans doing? I’d no idea you had left the Professor.”

  Evans’ face, lofty of brow and benign of aspect, assumed an expression of settled melancholy.

  “Ah, sir, and well you might say that. If anyone had told me or Mrs Evans that we should be looking for a job, and Mr Postlethwaite still above ground, well, we wouldn’t have believe it, sir.”

  “Good Lord, Evans! Are you looking for a job?”
/>   “Mrs Evans and me is—are—so obligated, sir.”

  “Walk along with me!” said Bill abruptly. Visions of Mrs Evans making pancakes for him and Meg—making omelettes—making those game pies which were like a beautiful dream—floated rosily into his mind. He wanted a couple—the Evanses wanted a job. Oh, frabjous day, calloo, callay! “Now tell me all about it. Why did you leave the Professor? Get it off the chest!”

  Evans’ melancholy became a shade more marked. Bill discerned a trace of hauteur, a trace of feelings too badly hurt to be revealed, a tinge of the “I could an’ I would, but nothing will induce me too.”

  He patted Evans on the shoulder and said encouragingly, “You’d much better tell me.”

  “Mr Bill, sir,” said Evans, “I couldn’t have believed it—no, nor Mrs Evans neither. Twenty-five years we been with Mr Postlethwaite, and give every satisfaction.”

  “He didn’t give you notice!”—Anyone who sacked the Evanses must be completely batty.

  Evans coughed.

  “I won’t deny that we were took—taken—ill. And a very remarkable indisposition, if I may say so, sir. Mushrooms it were attributed to, but to ask me to believe as Mrs Evans, with her experience, could be deceived in a mushroom is just beyond the bounds of possibility. She has expressed herself very forcible on the subject, Mr Bill, and very constant. ‘Snakes in the grass that wants you out of the way is one thing,’ she says, ‘and toadstools is another, and I know which of them I’m going to believe in,’ she says. And put like that, I won’t deny as—that—her words made an impression on me.”

  Bill turned and looked at him. It was rather a curious look.

  “You mean you think someone wanted you out of the way?”

  “That undoubtedly was Mrs Evans’ meaning, sir.” Evans’ tone was one of dignified detachment.

  “But good Lord—who?”