The Grass Widow's Tale gfaf-7

by Ellis Peters

  “Somebody’d have been up there any minute now,” said Blackie, without noticeable chagrin; and indeed, the big man’s voice, vibrant, full and pleasantly pitched, had no displeasure in it, he flashed and fulminated from excess of energy, and took delight in it as a kind of self-expression.

  “Yeah, I know, because you cleaned up down here! All right, then, Quilley, get up there and keep a watch out front and back both. You can take it easy up there, just so you don’t miss any movements around this place.”

  “He can start looking around inside, too,” said Blackie. “Because it ain’t in here, it ain’t in the kitchen or back there. And these two are playing dumb and daft.”

  “It has to be somewhere here. Stands to sense. Go take that little front room apart, Skinner, and then go up and join Quilley. If he’s there by then.” He cast a thoughtful eye at Quilley’s painful and laborious progress across the room and out to the stairs. “They get old and slow,” said Fleet with tolerant regret, like a practical farmer contemplating putting down a worn-out horse. And he peeled off his smart driving gloves, dove grey and tan, and dropped them on the table, beside the scattered belongings they had taken from Luke’s pockets.

  “These what were on him?” He pawed them over thoughtfully. “Keys… several. His own bunch… house… car… suitcase? That’ll be upstairs… or had he got it away somewhere?”

  “It’s upstairs. They never had time to take anything with ’em, they just ran when they heard us. There’s a way down to the water, and a boat-house down there. Locked. I reckon this would be the key to that. He had it in his coat pocket, along with the gun. This one’s the back door. We sprung that, it was an easy touch. The front we had to bust.”

  “And what’s this other one?”

  Echoing hollowly down the wall of the stairs dead on cue, Quilley’s voice, dutifully anxious to please, reported: “Boss, there’s one of these bedrooms locked up.” He was hopeful of a discovery. A locked door was promising.

  “That’ll be it,” said Fleet, pleased. “There’s a key here could belong to it,” he called. “Skinner, come and take it up to him, see what he’s got there. And better have a quick look through the suitcase.”

  Skinner came at leisure, cheerful as ever; it began to seem a lunatic cheerfulness.

  “And now,” said Fleet, dusting his hands, “suppose you two sit down prettily over there, where we can keep an eye on you, and we’ll have our little talk.”

  He caught a dining-chair by the back, and swung it into a reversed position in front of the wicker settee, to which Con had again herded his prisoners. The light skirts of the pearl-grey coat whisked out like wings. Fleet sat down astride the chair, and leaned his folded arms comfortably on the back.

  “Straight to the point, that’s me. Where’s the money?”

  “What money?” said Luke woodenly. “I know nothing about any money.”

  “Pippa Gallier didn’t bring any money over to my place Saturday evening. I’m a reasonable man, I’ll try to help you remember.”

  “Pippa Gallier didn’t bring any money over to my place Saturday evening,” said Luke. “You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Kiddo, she sure as fate didn’t bring it Friday evening, but who’s arguing about dates? She brought it. She was shinning out, and you were the ferryman. You may as well tell me now what you’ve done with it, because I’m going to find out in the end.”

  “She never brought any money to me, I’m telling you.”

  “You’re telling me fairy-tales, kid, but go ahead. I’ve got time.”

  Uninvited, Bunty said in a hard, detached voice:

  “That’s what you think. But what you don’t know is that the police have been here before you. This morning. I got rid of them then, but what I told them isn’t going to last them long. My bet is they could be back any moment now. I expected them before this. You don’t think this place belongs to him, do you?”

  Fleet turned his head the little way that was necessary, and gave her his full attention for the first time. She sat with fixed, motionless face, smoothing a chipped nail on one hand, but at Fleet’s persistent stare she raised to him the full hazel glance of her eyes, wide and unwavering.

  “You know,” said Fleet, “you’re not at all hard to look at, now I come to notice, but girl, you’re no hand at lying.”

  “That makes it even funnier,” said Runty, unmoved, “because I’m not lying. But you know it all. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  It was essential that none of these men should suspect how easy it would be to wring concessions from her by tormenting Luke, or from Luke by tormenting her. She had even toyed momentarily with the idea of trying to act the part of a disillusioned pick-up with cheapened accent and roughened voice, but she knew she couldn’t make a job of it. And it occurred to her now that that might not have confused Fleet in the slightest, while this more unexpected female companion put him slightly off his immaculate stride. And all the while she was straining her ears after what was happening upstairs. Maybe they were turning out Luke’s suitcase first, as the best bet. But the discovery couldn’t be long now. Her nerves tightened, waiting for it.

  “And where,” inquired Fleet curiously, “did he find you? It sure didn’t take him long. I wouldn’t have thought he was that quick off the mark.”

  “I picked her up in a pub,” Luke said harshly. “I should have left her there.”

  The words were acknowledgment enough of the lead she had given him, and fitted the image of indifference now turning to resentment. It was lucky that they were also true, Bunty thought, for up to then she had no great opinion of Luke’s potentialities as a liar.

  And it was at that moment that the pair upstairs unlocked the door of the guest bedroom, and walked in upon the treasure secreted there.

  The cry that came hollowly down the stairs was almost a scream, brief, horrified and unreasonably alarming. Fleet came to his feet in a cat’s alert, hair-triggered leap, whirling the chair away from him across the room. Blackie span round to face the doorway, gun in hand. Con kept his weapon levelled, but even his stony eyes wandered. It was the first moment of disarray, and it was useless. Three here between the prisoners and the door, two more scuttling in haste down the stairs to add to the odds. Luke’s braced muscles ached with longing, but he knew it was no good. He would only succeed in killing them both.

  “For Pete’s sake…!” exploded Fleet exasperatedly. “What’s with you two?”

  Skinner appeared in the doorway, mouth and eyes wide open, with Quilley limping and shivering at his back.

  “In that room, the locked one… You know what’s in there, boss? She is… the Gallier girl! He brought her up here with him! She’s there lying on the bed!”

  Fleet struck his large, well-kept hands together with a clap like a gun going off and uttered a brief crow of amusement, astonishment and triumph.

  “And her things? Is her case here?”

  “It’s there.” Blackie indicated the corner where it stood against the wall. “Her bag, too, it’s there on the bookcase. We started with them, but there’s nothing… Well, we knew . . .” He swallowed that admission in time. “But I never thought he’d bring her all the way up here. I thought he’d ditched her somewhere…”

  Fleet came strolling back across the room like a contented cat, long-stepping, disdainful, spread his feet wide before his prisoners, and leaned over them with a benign smile.

  “So you don’t know anything about my money, eh? And I take it you know nothing about the girl up there, either? She just flew here! As for the police, they kindly called in this morning, I suppose, and helped you carry her upstairs? Now we know where we stand.”

  He plucked back the chair, span it about in one hand, and resumed his place astride it in high good-humour; and the trouble was that Bunty could not for the life of her see how his mind was working. Something obscure and complicated was going on in that formidable skull, something of no advantage to anyone but himself, some
thing that involved and made sense of the body upstairs, and still left him free. He’d admitted nothing, except that he was looking for the money; and such indiscretions as the others had let fall didn’t amount to much, and in any case, she realised with a small leap of her heart, he didn’t know about them, and was planning whatever he was planning without taking them into account. He was pleased about Pippa being here in the house, it had suggested something to him, something neat and workmanlike that afforded for him an effective exit. Bunty wished she knew what it was.

  “So you brought her body up here, and all her things, and left the deck clean. Nobody could blame you for that, either, kid, nor for bringing the money along, too. Where was it? Not in her case, I know that… I was looking for it, while you were still out cold… right after you shot her…”

  His voice moved like a cat, too, suavely and softly and bonelessly along the insinuating sentences, and pounced suddenly, a fishing cat. But the flashing paw clawed up more than he had bargained for. Until that moment it had not dawned on either of his listeners that he might well be in doubt as to how much Luke knew about the events of Saturday night, and how guilty he believed himself to be. A little push in the right direction might get him the information he needed. But it was a chance two could take; and the right reaction might even provide them with a slender and precarious advantage.

  Luke closed his eyes and sank his head in his hands. He made no attempt to deny anything. Bunty held her breath, feeling her way after him blindly.

  “So I reckon the money was in the one place I couldn’t get at. In the car…”

  “The car’s clean,” said Blackie. “Skinner took it apart.”

  “Now it’s clean. But that’s where the stuff was. Must have been. We looked everywhere else. So you found it, kiddo, and you were all set to make a clean get-away with it, is that it? After all, you had to run, they’d soon be after you for murder. Better run with a nice little nest-egg like that than without it. You know what, I’ve got a lot of sympathy for you! She was a crooked little bitch, if ever there was one. Crossed you up for me, and crossed me up for the money I trusted her with. She asked for what you gave her. If it hadn’t been you it would have been someone else. The way I felt when I found she’d cut and run with my money, I tell you straight, it might have been me if you hadn’t got in first.”

  “I was drunk,” protested Luke from behind his sheltering hands, and the dark hair shook forward over his brow and helped to hide his face. His voice was high and unsteady, it would do well enough for an ordinary, harmless young man who had been running all day from the nightmare knowledge that he was a murderer. “I didn’t even know,” he said, writhing. “She waved the damn gun at me… she made me mad…”

  “I know! She asked for it. I’m not planning on turning you in for that.”

  Not this time, thought Bunty; because you’ve thought of something better. I wish I knew what it is! I wish I knew, I wish Luke knew, exactly how much of that quarrel you did overhear.

  Luke looked up mistrustfully under his disordered hair. The big man loomed over him mountainous and daunting, his face in shadow.

  “What were you planning on doing?… you and the lady? I hear there’s a boat… was that it? You reckon you could make it across to the Continent from here?”

  “Yes, I could make it… I could have made it,” Luke corrected himself bitterly, “if you hadn’t sent this lot after us.”

  “And Pippa? She was going half-way, I suppose?”

  The dark head drooped again, the thin hands came up and scrubbed wearily at the thin cheeks. An almost inaudible voice said: “Yes…”

  “Look,” said Fleet reasonably, “I’m not a cop. I’ve got nothing against you. Why should I have? She did the dirty on both of us, I’ve got a fellow feeling for you. There’s no reason in the world why you and I shouldn’t do a deal.”

  He was, in his way, a marvellous performer. To look at him sitting there, his rocky face placid and benevolent, was almost to believe in his genuineness. He could create a kind of hallucination even when you knew he was lying, by the sheer force of his energy. Yet at the same time he had produced on Bunty an effect for which not even she was prepared. Up to now she had merely reasoned that this man had killed Pippa with his own hands; now, perversely, she knew it. Not these others, not even Con with his cold, impervious eyes—Fleet.

  Luke lifted his head and studied the face before him with eyes narrowed in calculation; and somewhere deep in those wary pupils a spark of hope and encouragement came to life.

  “What are you getting at?” he asked cautiously.

  “What I say, if you like to take the lady and light out for Holland, or wherever, what’s that to me? I’m saying nothing. Just so you don’t take my money with you! You can have your freedom and welcome, but my dough you can’t have. You tell us where you’ve put it, and as soon as I’ve got it in my hands we’ll all clear out of here, and leave you to put out to sea as fast as you like.” He leaned a little nearer, with a wolfish smile on his lips, which were thrust out aggressively by the massive teeth within. “But if you don’t act like a sensible lad, and hand over, I will turn you in. Better freedom without the lolly than neither a one of ’em. You think it over!”

  “How do I know,” demanded Luke with growing confidence, but still with some reserve, “that you’ll keep your bargain? How do I know you won’t take the money and then call the police on us?”

  “Why should I? What have I got to gain? I came for the money, and that’s all I want. And I don’t need to tell you, I’m sure, that I’m not anxious to call attention to myself among the cops unless I have to. I’ve got to be feeling very mean to take that risk. Once I’ve got my money back, what have I got to feel mean about? But make no mistake, you cross me now and I can be mean as all get-out.”

  He got up suddenly, airily, light on his feet like so many bulky men, swung his chair back to the table, and strolled away across the room.

  “Take your pick, kiddo. It’s up to you.”

  In the momentary silence Skinner came down the stairs again, his researches completed. He spread empty hands and raised his shoulders. “Nothing up there. I left Quilley on look-out, but it’s as quiet as the grave, and black as your hat on the land side. What cooks here?”

  He looked from Fleet to Blackie, who was frowning in frantic thought, many coils behind in following his boss’s complex proceedings; and from Blackie to Con, who had shut off what mind he had and given up the struggle some minutes ago, and was now no more than a machine for pointing a gun to order. They were all of them confounded that the hard questioning had not begun long ago. There must be a reason.

  There must be a reason, and the reason was not any squeamishness or compunction on Fleet’s part. It was just barely possible that he really meant to withdraw once he got his hands on the money, exactly as he had said, and that he found it preferable and less messy to trade on Luke’s conviction of his own guilt rather than to beat the required information out of him. But still Bunty couldn’t believe it. He was more devious than that, he enjoyed being devious. There was something buried deeper, beneath this apparent reasonableness. Did he, for some obscure purpose of his own, want a Luke completely unmarked by violence? And for what?

  “Hush!” said Fleet. “Our young friend’s making up his mind. To be sensible, I hope.”

  “I haven’t got a lot of choice, have I?” said Luke loudly; and his manner became, in some way Bunty could recognise but not define, a direct response to Fleet’s, a nice balance of nervousness, doubt, and growing assurance. He had not looked at her throughout, and she understood that he dared not, that if he did his eyes would betray him, and the enemy would no longer believe in this guilt-ridden, squirming fugitive.

  “It’s an alternative,” said Fleet, smiling at him with the first careless glint of contempt. “You can hand over and go free, or rot in gaol for fourteen years or so thinking about the money you can’t get at. For a million it might be worth it—not for
this little lot, not by my measure. You please yourself.”

  “It isn’t worth it by my measure, either.” He licked his dry lips and swallowed hard, reluctant but driven. “All right! ” he said in a gulping breath. “You can have the damned money!”

  “That’s better,” said Fleet warmly. “I knew you’d see sense. Where is it?”

  Bunty had not the least idea what Luke was going to say. She was lost, like Fleet’s henchmen, she could only wait, and be ready to follow whatever lead events and Luke offered her.

  “You ought to have known, if you’d given any thought to it,” said Luke, with the feeble spleen of a defeated man scrabbling for what crumbs of dignity he can salvage. “You think we were going without it, or something, when we lit out of here down to the sea? We had the stuff down there already, of course, waiting till it was dark and we could slip away without being seen.”

  “Aaaah!” breathed Fleet, and pondered in silence for a moment, his eyes narrowed upon Luke’s face. It was apt, it was reasonable, it would certainly have to be tested. “Go on, tell us more. Why didn’t you take off as soon as you got here?”

  “Because it was nearly daylight. Anybody round here would know the boat. Even if they didn’t start investigating us, they might very well take it for granted the Alports were up here, and the local shop might send in, even on a Sunday, to see if they wanted supplies. There’s no telephone here, people come. The Alports are good customers, and well known. We didn’t want anyone poking around here and finding us instead, and that car in the garage. It seemed better to risk lying low to-day, and setting out after dark.”

  “But you put the cash aboard in advance! Then why not your luggage, too?” demanded Fleet shrewdly.