The Dower House Mystery

by Patricia Wentworth

  The telephone bell rang just as she was wondering why Jenny was late with the tea. She put the receiver to her ear, and heard Julian say, “Is that you?”

  She said, “Yes—Amabel,” and then had the feeling that, said like that, the name had a very intimate sound. There was no one to see her quick change of colour, and she was glad of it.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, quite all right.” There was a pause. She was not sure whether Julian was still there or not until she heard him say, with just a trace of hesitation, “I did rather want to see you.”

  Amabel laughed.

  “You’ve done nothing but see me,”

  Another pause.

  “Well, I wanted to talk to you. We’ve never really had a talk since that broken window business—I couldn’t very well discuss it in front of your sister.”

  “No.”

  “Well, I do want to talk to you.”

  “I believe you really want to be asked to tea. Is that it?”

  “May I?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Tea was ready when Julian arrived. They talked of trifles until Jenny had taken away the tray. Then Julian leaned forward in his chair and said, “Well?”

  “It’s for me to say ‘Well?’”

  She had taken up some knitting. The needles clicked gently to and fro.

  “All right, I’ll lead off. To begin with, I agree with you that Fearless didn’t break the window. Somebody broke it with the sofa cushion, and Fearless may, or may not, have gone through the hole afterwards.”

  “Oh, he must have done that.”

  Julian made a quick gesture with his hand.

  “Unless somebody let him out by the door.”

  “Do you think that they did?”

  “I don’t know. Well, that’s that. It comes to this—there is somebody who is playing tricks.”

  “Yes, but who?”

  “Well, we agreed not to suspect poor old Brownie, and Ellen was away when the window was broken; so that leaves in the house at the time only yourself and Jenny. I suppose it wasn’t you, so—we come back to Jenny. Are we equally sure that it wasn’t Jenny?”

  “Julian, I can’t think it.” She laid down her work, and looked at him in soft-eyed distress. “Besides, what possible motive—”

  “Oh, as to that, the motive would be plain enough—to get you out of the house.”

  “I can’t believe it—unless—”

  “What?”

  “Unless—well, do you know, I’ve wondered if she walks in her sleep.”

  “What made you think of that?” He was very intent.

  “I thought of it this morning because Agatha would have it that Jenny came into her room in the night.”

  “How? When? Tell me exactly.”

  She told him, adding, “What puzzles me is the bolted doors. Otherwise I should be sure that it was just Jenny walking in her sleep.”

  “And if it wasn’t Jenny?”

  “I—don’t—know,” said Amabel.

  Julian did not speak. He was remembering Jenny’s sobbed-out story: “I seen Annie—I seen her in Miss Georgina’s room.” He weighed the question of whether to tell Amabel—then thought of the lonely night in front of her, and held his tongue.

  “I shouldn’t wonder if you hadn’t hit the right nail on the head. It’s an idea, anyway. Of course,” he went on in a lighter tone, “what we really ought to do is to take all the people in the neighbourhood and pick out the most unlikely one. That is what is always done in the best detective fiction.”

  “I should think that the most unlikely one would be Susan Berkeley,” said Amabel. She smiled and showed her dimple. “I’d love to see Susan being a ghost.”

  “Well, I think I should vote for Edward,” said Julian, “or old Bronson, or that harmless little beggar, Miller. That’s the worst of a place like this—everyone is the most unlikely person; you couldn’t put your hands on a likely one to save your life.”

  “The village wouldn’t consider Mr. Miller an unlikely person,” said Amabel.

  “Miller!”

  “Yes, poor Mr. Miller. Ellen tells me that they don’t like him because he goes to foreign parts.”

  Julian laughed.

  “How like the village! But if that damns Miller, it damns me deeper still.”

  “Oh, but they love you,” said Amabel quickly.

  “Did Ellen say that too?”

  “She did.”

  “But they don’t love Miller?”

  “No. You see, his name is Ferdinand. Mrs. King, I’m sure, thinks that very suspicious.”

  “Poor Miller,” said Julian. He got up. “Look here, Amabel, I want you to give Fearless another trial—not in your room this time, but chained at the top of the stairs where he could stop anyone going up or down. If he raises Cain, let him. And,—and if you did happen to want him, he’d be handy. Only I don’t think I’d let him off the chain this time. If he does behave as if there were somebody about, I think you’d better call me up. I want to get at the bottom of all this.”

  “Very well,” said Amabel. The idea of having Fearless with her for the night was not altogether unpleasant. When Julian had gone, the prospect of companionship became even pleasanter; the house was so very still, and so very empty.

  Julian walked up to Forsham Old House, and asked for Miss Bronson. He was shown into what had been his mother’s morning-room, and found it less changed than the drawing-room. The linen chair-covers with their bunches of lilac and wistaria were the natural descendants of the shiny rose-patterned chintzes of his schoolboy days. The walls were pale grey, it is true, instead of being festooned with flowery garlands; but the room had an obvious air of being lived in and used, and was without any touch of the macabre. There was a bright fire burning, chrysanthemums in pots near the window, and a huge bowl of Russian violets on the low table that held also a woman’s work-basket.

  He was still looking about him, when the door opened and Mademoiselle Lemoine came in.

  “Angela is away for a day or two,” she said, “She has gone to London. Did you especially want to see her?”

  “Oh, no. I only came about Fearless. I should like to give him another trial, if I may.”

  Miss Lemoine moved a little nearer to the fire. She laid a pretty hand upon the mantelpiece, and warmed a pretty foot. Seen thus, in profile, she appeared almost beautiful; there was so much of grace, so much of the charm of severe and simple line.

  “Ah, I’m sorry,” she said. The “r’s” trilled faintly.

  “For me, or for Fearless?”

  She just lifted her eyes.

  “For you, evidently, since you must go away without what you came for.”

  “What? Can’t I have him?”

  She shook her head very slightly, and made no other reply.

  “And am I allowed to ask why?”—Julian was rather intrigued.

  “One may always ask, Mr. Forsham,”—again that trill of the “r.” She had so little accent in a general way that he found himself watching for it with a certain sense of fascination. He smiled and said,

  “Well, then, I will ask why I may not have Fearless.”

  Miss Lemoine’s manner changed. The hint of coquetry went out of it—the subtle something which reminded him that he was a man, and she an attractive woman. She looked, and spoke seriously, frankly.

  “I’m really sorry, Mr. Forsham, because I know that it is for Mrs. Grey that you want Fearless; and it is not right at all that she should be in that house alone. So I am sorry that Fearless is gone.”

  “Gone!” he exclaimed sharply.

  “Yes. Angela had an offer for him, and I am afraid that I urged her to take it. Since that night when he broke your window and ran away, Fearless has not been at all himself. One would have said, ‘Impossible that this should be Fearless. It must be another dog.’”

  “How?”

  She spread out both her hands.

  “How to describe it? So quiet, s
o frightened—he will not prick his ears; he will not wag his tail; he has a look of melancholy that goes to one’s heart. And I say to Angela, ‘Better take this offer, and send him away. In a new place he will be distracted, he will forget.’”

  Julian glanced at her rather quizzically.

  “And what do you suppose he has to forget?” he asked.

  Miss Lemoine made another gesture.

  “How can I tell you? If I even say what I think, perhaps you will be offended.”

  He shook his head.

  “No. Please tell me what you think.”

  “Well,”—she gave him again that profile view, looking down and away from him—“I have thought that something frightened him there in that house. I do not talk about ‘sensitives’ as Mrs. King does,”—there was a spice of malice here—“but I say that animals sometimes see things that we do not see, and hear things that we do not hear. And they are dumb; they cannot tell us. I think that Fearless has seen something in that old house of yours, Mr. Forsham. Perhaps I am wrong—that is my thought.”

  Julian looked into the fire, his face without expression.

  “Well, he’s gone, and I can’t have him,” he said at last. “I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped. There isn’t another dog that I could have, I suppose?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “I thought Lady Susan spoke of two. I mean she thought that there were two to be disposed of.”

  Miss Lemoine shook her head again.

  “No, none that Angela would part with.” She looked full at him, and he saw that her eyes were hazel, very dark hazel. “A dog is a good friend, is he not? Men—one cannot make friends with them. They misunderstand—always they misunderstand, and wish to play the lover.” Julian had the feeling that those hazel eyes were asking him some question, their gaze was so direct, so insistent. She paused, sighed, and said in quite a low voice,

  “A dog is the safer friend.”

  Julian came away with his mind in rather a disturbed state. He found Miss Lemoine both interesting and unusual.

  At the Dower House gate he hesitated, but presently turned up the side path to the gardener’s cottage. It was in darkness. He lit up, and went to the telephone.

  Chapter XX

  Amabel heard the bell ring sharply, and put down her book. As she took up the receiver the thought just passed through her mind that it was pleasant to know beforehand what voice she was going to hear. The sense of pleasure faded, however, when Julian said,

  “Look here, I couldn’t get Fearless; they’ve sold him.”

  She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice.

  “That seems rather sudden.”

  “Yes, it’s a bit of a muddle. But Angela Bronson’s away and, you see, my first deal was entirely with her—Miss Lemoine wasn’t there—, and I expect there’s been some misunderstanding. Anyhow, the dog is sold, and there’s an end of it. But I’m sorry about you.”

  “That’s nice of you. But I’m all right.”

  A pause.

  “I’ll come up in the morning,” Julian said at last, and rang off.

  The evening passed, not exactly slowly, but rather drearily. Amabel had made a new arrangement about her supper. At half-past seven she rang the bell, and went downstairs to fetch the tray which Jenny had ready for her. When she had finished, she put the tray on the table in the passage for Jenny to take down in the morning.

  She sat by the fire with a book when supper was over, and Mr. Miller’s words kept sliding into her thoughts: “You sit by the fire, and you hear footsteps that are not there.”

  The house was very still; but twice the stillness was broken by that sound of light footsteps. Jenny, of course, moving about downstairs. She turned a page, and forced her mind to follow the words. They remained words to her, separate words with no connecting thought to string them together. On other nights there had been a hundred sounds—the wind in the chimneys; the pattering of the rain; the unkempt ivy buffeting the window pane; the faint scuttering of mice. To-night there were none of these sounds. The house was very still. It was like the hush before a storm.

  Amabel threw down her book, and stood up.

  “If you’re going to be this sort of fool, you’d better go home,” she said. “After all those years at the cottage! You’re behaving exactly like Ellen!”

  She went to the piano and opened it. She played the old waltz tunes which are not really forgotten, though nobody dances to them now—Estudiantina, Doktrinen, Eldorado, The Blue Danube, The River of Years—

  “Stay, Steersman, oh, stay thy course,

  Down the River of Years,

  Turn, turn to the far off Time,

  Free from sorrow and tears.”

  Miss Georgina had hummed the words in a sweet, cracked voice as her fingers beat out the melody, not on this piano, but on the Broadwood grand in the drawing-room downstairs. The scene came back like the little coloured picture that one sees on the screen of a camera—the polished floor stripped of its carpet; the old-fashioned chandelier hanging down in the middle of the room, with all its candles lighted and all its lustres gleaming; old Miss Harriet in her best China crêpe shawl with the little worked roses on it; Susan and Edward; Joan Berkeley and George—George Forsham had had a lordly fancy for Joan in those days; herself and Julian.

  “Stay, Steersman, oh, stay thy course,

  Down the River of Years.”

  She closed the piano, went back to the fire, and stood there, looking down at the glowing bed into which it had settled. There was a log almost charred through. She touched it with her foot, and saw it break into tiny blue and golden flames. The fire, too, was full of pictures—the Julian of long ago with his beautiful boy’s face and the look of eager worship in his eyes; Julian, the man, offering friendship, loyalty, service. The flames died, and the glowing embers faded. With a start Amabel realized that it was growing late. The evening had passed quickly after all. “Old friends make good company,” she said to herself.

  She opened the door, and switched off the light. The room fell into darkness behind her. Standing on the threshold, she had, on her right, the stairs which began their rather sharp descent a couple of yards away; on her left, the door of the room which Julian had occupied; immediately opposite, the other two bedroom doors, with a small table placed between them, and an oil lamp burning on the table. A narrower passage ran on past the stair-head to the bathroom and other bedrooms which were over the dining-room and drawing-room.

  Amabel’s first thought as she came out of the sitting-room was that the lamp was not burning properly; the flame had a feeble look, and the passage seemed dark. She glanced involuntarily to her right to see how the light in the lower hall was burning. As she looked, she took a step forward and turned. The hall was as dim as the passage. But there was something more than that—there was something strange about the dimness. It was as if there were a mist rising—a thick, white mist such as one sees spread over water-meadows at dusk.

  Amabel came to the head of the stairs and looked down, puzzled and frowning. The hall was full of mist—mist or smoke. The last thought startled her out of the puzzled frame of mind in which she had looked at this strange dusk. Smoke—where could it be coming from? It must be smoke; and yet there was no smell of fire, but rather the soft, damp smell that comes from wet, rotting, undergrowth. Yet it must be smoke. Impossible that mist should rise like this in an inhabited house—quite, quite impossible. Jenny must have let something catch in the kitchen—she might have been burning greasy paper or—or anything—(there was no smell of fire, no smell of burning, only the soft breath of a rising mist).

  Amabel’s hand closed hard on the pomegranate which crowned the newel-post. The whiteness, the smoke—it must be smoke was rising softly and steadily. Impossible to go to bed and lock one’s door, with who knew what of smothered burning ready to break out in the house below. She took hold of her courage, steadied herself, and forced coherent thought. If she were to run down the stairs
without stopping to look or think, a very short spurt would take her as far as the Browns’ door. Once there, she would, at any rate, be near some other human presence; and if she knocked, Jenny could not fail to open. Then she would get Jenny to come into the kitchen, and they could find out what was causing the smoke (it must be smoke).

  The mist had reached the picture of Julian’s great-uncle which hung on the panelling midway between the dining-room and drawing-room doors. Across the mist, his eyes seemed to look at Amabel—queer, malicious eyes, too light for the dark, thin face. The mist came up to his chin. Below, on the hall table, the lamp showed faintly with a nimbus round it like a street lamp in a fog.

  Amabel took her hand off the pomegranate and ran quickly down the stairs. The mist met her half-way. She ran, reached the bottom, turned to the right.

  It wasn’t smoke. It couldn’t be smoke. It was heavy and damp to breathe, and it pressed upon her eyes. It wasn’t smoke.

  She reached the Browns’ door, and clung to the handle, her head against the panel, her breath coming in quick gasps. And, as she leaned there, she heard Jenny’s voice within—Jenny reading aloud, the words flowing smooth and evenly. Here and there one came to her—words from a psalm. Then old Mrs. Brown’s voice, nearer than Jenny’s, every word distinct: “Thank you, my girl, we’ll be getting to sleep. You’re a good girl, Jenny.”

  Amabel lifted her hand and knocked hard upon the door—and knocked again. She felt as if she were drowning—so hard to breathe, so hard to think. She heard a chair pushed back, steps crossing the floor. A key was turned, and a bolt withdrawn. The door opened a very little way, and she pushed at it, only to feel it held against her. At that feeling of human resistance, Amabel’s self-control returned. She straightened herself and said, “It is I, Jenny,—Mrs. Grey.” And with that, the door opened widely, and she stepped into the room.

  Mrs. Brown turned anxious eyes upon her. “Is anything wrong?” she asked.

  Amabel drew a long breath. The room was so clean, so comfortable, so cheerful. There were two lighted candles on the mantelshelf, with a big pink shell between them, and a row of photographs behind the shell. The fire had been raked out. Mrs. Brown’s eiderdown was folded back.