The answer was so simple. I would wait until tomorrow, and send for Leeson to come to my office. I could have it out with him there.
That evening the clock dawdled so much that often I was sure it must have stopped. By eight-thirty I had decided I couldn’t wait until morning. I would go up to the Beacon tonight and meet George Leeson.
By nine-fifteen I decided it would be madness. I poured myself a sherry—normally I never drank alone—and settled down in an armchair with my book. I would go to bed at ten.
At nine-thirty I could stand it no longer. I jumped up, snatched my lambskin jacket from its peg in the hall, and got the car out.
The way up to the Beacon was no more than a grassy track, lined with stunted gorse bushes. After a few yards I stopped the car, realizing I’d be mighty early. I mustn’t appear over-eager, or Leeson would be sure to misinterpret my motives.
Not able to sit still, I got out and strode up and down impatiently, willing the time away. I made myself stay there until three minutes to ten. Then I started the car and drove on slowly up the hill in low gear.
Crofter’s Point was a small level patch on the edge of an almost vertical drop that swept to the valley bottom far below. I had no doubt that in the daytime it was a magnificent viewing platform, the landscape stretching for miles in three directions. But now it was deserted. Courting couples would have chosen the more sheltered rocks and crannies lower down, out of the wind.
I looked around for George Leeson, but there was no sign of him. Where was the man? I called out his name once or twice, irritably.
It seemed to be growing darker in little jerks. One minute I could pick out a particular hummock, and the next it was gone. Odd lights blinked at me from the darkening countryside, here a single isolated cottage, there a cluster from a village. But the nearest was uncomfortably far off....
I shivered violently, pulling the short jacket tight around me, trying to find some comforting warmth.
Every moment it became plainer that Leeson was making a monkey out of me, dragging me up here at night with a wild tale about giving me secret information. But to get his revenge in full he’d actually have to witness my discomfiture. I was sure he must be hiding somewhere, watching me. There was still just enough light to silhouette my figure against the skyline.
Hopelessly, I looked around for him. There was almost nowhere up here a man could conceal himself—unless he was actually crouched in the gorse. In that case he might be quite close….
‘Mr. Leeson,’ I called in a loud voice again. ‘Please come out. I know you’re there.’ But the wind snatched my words away.
I couldn’t see the hands of my watch, but I guessed it was close to ten-fifteen by now. I’d give him two minutes, not a second more. To keep myself company, I counted slowly up to a hundred and twenty, and was glad to reach the end. That was that, then. And so much for my hopes of something useful coming out of this trip,
Going back to the car it was difficult to make myself walk slowly. But if Leeson was in the bushes, I’d not give him an ounce more satisfaction than I could help. Fears of the dark unknown pricked my spine. I felt as if grasping hands were stretching out to me. Twice in those few yards I had to take a frightened look over my shoulder, and because I wasn’t looking ahead, I stumbled over a small mound and nearly fell headlong. I got back to the car thoroughly shaken, and drove down the hill much too fast.
Someone to talk to was what I wanted just then. Someone reassuringly normal.
As soon as I got home and garaged the car, I sought out Mrs. Cass in her sitting-room. She was taking off her hat and coat, and looked at me in surprise. ‘I’ve just been along to the post,’ she told me.
‘Don’t let me disturb you,’ I said. ‘I felt like some coffee, and wanted to let you know I’d be in the kitchen.’
She wouldn’t let me get it myself, of course. She came out with me, and put the kettle on.
‘I feel chilled through,’ I said apologetically. ‘Won’t you have a cup with me?’
She looked scandalized at the very idea.
Chapter Thirteen
The staff were standing around in excited clusters, talking together in hushed voices. Nobody was attempting to work, although it was nearly fifteen minutes after starting time.
I felt the uneasy atmosphere the moment I walked through the communicating door, that sensation of dramatic thrill overlaying dismay.
‘It’s George Leeson, Miss,’ said Jack Parsons, the senior operative. ‘He’s been killed.’
George Leeson killed! I had disliked the man, but still the news of his death came as a tremendous shock.
‘How ... how did it happen?’ I stammered out. ‘Was it a car accident?’
‘No, Miss, t’weren’t that. It was up on the Beacon. He was found this morning at the bottom of the slither under Crofter’s Point. He must have gone over the edge.’
I put my hand to my mouth in horror. ‘Oh, but how dreadful!’
Now I knew why he hadn’t met me last night. I shuddered to think that he must already have been lying dead a hundred feet below me when I had been calling his name.
Jack Parsons was clearly enjoying the telling, in a macabre way. The others hung back from us, but just within hearing distance. I could feel their eyes on me, judging my reactions to the news.
‘They are saying that George wasn’t alone when it happened. They think he went over the edge after a struggle.’
My blood ran cold. ‘A struggle?’
‘Yes, Miss. Well ... you know what George’s reputation was with women. They think he got some girl or other up there last night, and tried to go too far with her.’
I knew this explanation was unlikely. Leeson would hardly have made an assignation with another woman when he’d arranged to meet me there. But I dared not voice that thought.
Keeping my voice steady, I asked, ‘Is there any reason for thinking that, Jack, or is it just a guess?’
‘Well, there’s been a couple of C.I.D. men up there poking around, so the police are taking it serious. Charlie Mycock, the bobby down at Woolcombe, he says they’ve found a fancy red fountain-pen up on the top near the road. And there’s a smear of lipstick on George’s collar, too.’
I must have been staring at him wide-eyed, because Jack Parsons shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, and looked sheepishly at the rest of the staff. But for the moment I couldn’t act at all. His remark about a red fountain-pen had hit me like a hammer blow. Found there so soon after I had missed mine! It couldn’t be written off as a coincidence. It must be my pen.
I was the centre of a group of curious eyes. As head of the firm it was up to me to do something definite. Max was still away in London.
I asked Jack Parsons where Ian was.
‘Dr. Hamilton hasn’t come in yet, Miss. I sent one of the girls up to his room just now, to see.’
‘Can you carry on for the time being, Jack?’
‘I think so, Miss. It’s pretty much routine as long as nothing goes wrong.’
‘Well then, will you get things started? I don’t suppose anybody feels much like working, but it’s better than standing around doing nothing. When Dr. Hamilton arrives I’ll sort things out with him.’
I needed desperately to talk to Ian, to help me get at the meaning of all this. I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it, but I knew there was something ominous in the fact that my pen had turned up at the scene of Leeson’s death.
But what could I say to Ian without admitting why I had gone up to Crofter’s Point last night?
The note from George Leeson! Involuntarily I clenched my handbag tighter shut on it. What would Ian think to see himself described as my heart-throb? What would he make of the knowledge that I had gone there expecting to discover something discreditable about him?
The dreadful thought came stealing in that Ian might not after all be so surprised. He could be involved himself in Leeson’s death. Was it possible that he had somehow discovered Leeson’s intenti
on of speaking to me, and had gone to the Beacon to stop him? And that in a struggle Leeson had slipped over the edge?
Or worse! I couldn’t stop the ghastly idea sneaking through. Had Leeson slipped? Had he in fact been pushed?
Had Ian pushed him?
Further desperate brain-wracking, alone in my office, brought me no comfort at all. On the contrary, a sort of terror gripped me. That fountain-pen they’d found, it must be mine. But I hadn’t dropped it up at Crofter’s Point. I hadn’t had it with me last night. It had been missing earlier in the day.
It was someone else who had dropped it. Someone who had deliberately planted it in an effort to implicate me in Leeson’s death.
Ian could have done that.
It kept coming back to Ian. I began to dread his arrival. I didn’t know how I would be able to face him.
But as it happened somebody else came first. And that gave me a whole lot more to worry about.
Doris Fenders slipped in, closing the door behind her with exaggerated care. ‘There’s a police officer to see you, Miss Royle,’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘A Detective-Inspector Edwards, from Lechford.’
I gripped the desk top with both hands, calling up all my reserves of self-control.
‘Guess you’d better show him in, Miss Fenders.’
The Inspector was a Welshman—short and stocky and black-haired, with a neat moustache.
He was carefully polite, but came straight to the point, telling me he wanted to ask a few questions about Leeson. I invited him to sit down.
‘Anything I can do to help,’ I murmured. ‘What a shocking thing it is! Of course, I’ve only been here a couple of weeks, so I don’t know a great deal about George Leeson.’
‘It’s the immediate past we’re concerned with at the moment, Miss Royle. I wonder if you’d mind telling me what your ... relationship with Mr. Leeson was?’
I looked at him coldly, ‘My relationship? I don’t quite follow you, Inspector. Mr. Leeson was the works overseer here. And since my father’s death I have been a partner in the firm, together with Mr. Tyler.’
The detective was resting his two elbows on the arms of the chair. He fingered the brim of his trilby, looking down at it. ‘Yes, Miss. But I meant apart from that.’
My eyes wavered momentarily. When I glanced back, he was looking directly at me, shrewd and determined.
‘Apart from that,’ I said, ‘our relationship was just nothing at all.’
‘I see.’ There was a long silence. At last the Inspector spoke again, picking his words carefully. ‘You’ll understand, Miss, that with a man like Leeson lots of tales go around, though of course you can’t believe all of them.’ He paused again. This time he glanced casually out of the window. ‘I had heard....’
I couldn’t stand it. ‘What had you heard, Inspector?’
‘It has been hinted to me that you and Mr. Leeson...'
‘Then you have been misinformed,’ I said icily. ‘I won’t deny that several times the man tried to make a pass at me. He was that type. Are you suggesting I encouraged him?’
He was quite unmoved. ‘I’m not suggesting anything, Miss Royle. Just trying to get at the facts, if I can.’
‘Then I’ll give them to you. I found Leeson’s attentions extremely embarrassing. If he hadn’t been the overseer here, in a key position and thoroughly experienced at his job, I’d have packed him off right at the start.’
To my horror, Inspector Edwards reached into his pocket and drew out a brightly scarlet fountain-pen with a gold top. He laid it carefully on the desk.
‘Have you ever seen this before?’
What was the sense of denying it? I said cautiously, 'It looks like mine.’
‘It was found up on Woolcombe Beacon this morning—just above the point where Mr. Leeson’s body was found. Can you explain its presence there?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t. I missed it yesterday afternoon.’
‘Before you say any more, perhaps I should tell you that we found fresh tread-marks on the track to Crofter’s Point, which appear to correspond with the tyres on your car.’
The man had certainly been snooping around without losing any time, damn him! I said nothing.
‘You were up on the Beacon last night, weren’t you, Miss?’
‘Yes I was. But I didn’t lose the pen up there. As I told you, I first missed it in the afternoon.’
‘Would you mind telling me why you went up on the Beacon?’
Frantically, my thoughts raced. What could I say without at the same time telling him lots of things I didn’t understand myself? What dared I tell him?
I said warily, feeling my way, ‘The Beacon is one of the walks round here. Surely there’s nothing extraordinary in the fact that I chose to go up there. But I didn’t see anything of Leeson.’
‘Miss Royle ... I’d like to put it to you ... George Leeson’s reputation round here wasn’t any too savoury. He was a man who liked ... well ... shall I say, liked things his way, if you know what I mean. I for one wouldn’t find it difficult to believe that a young woman might ... well, she might find it necessary to struggle with him. It could so easily happen, at a place like Crofter’s Point, without meaning to. It could have been a pure accident.’
I was white with rage and fear. ‘I didn’t see anything of Leeson up on the Beacon last night. Once and for all, I didn’t see him.’
‘As you say, Miss Royle.’
I thanked heaven that the Inspector had no more questions for me. ‘If anything crops up, we’ll know where to find you,’ he said as he went. He took my pen with him.
Chapter Fourteen
Ian came striding in a few minutes later. I looked up at him, stunned by the turn events had taken.
‘Where have you been?’ I cried.
He didn’t answer me. He was glowering.
‘You’ve got yourself into a fine mess, haven’t you? You can’t say I didn’t warn you of the danger of playing about with that man.’
I stared at him in bewilderment. Only slowly it dawned on me that he too thought I must be responsible for Leeson’s death—or was pretending to.
‘But you know perfectly well it wasn’t me.’
‘Wasn’t it? Are you sure you didn’t find Leeson too much to handle?’
It was more than I could bear that Ian should accuse me of being involved. It was all so sordid and beastly. Hot tears stung my eyes, but I blinked them back fiercely.
‘Don’t be crazy! But I’ll tell you something. I’m pretty darn sure that Leeson didn’t fall over the edge. I reckon he was pushed.’
I was watching him closely as I said this. His face expressed nothing but astonished disbelief. It was hard to think he wasn’t honestly amazed.
Grimly, I made myself test him. ‘And I’ve got an idea who did the pushing.’
He stared at me. ‘Who? Who do you think it was?’
I sidestepped. ‘You didn’t like George Leeson, did you? Why were you always trying to warn me off him? Was it because he knew something about you that would be dangerous out in the open?’
‘Good God!’ he cried. ‘The girl imagines I killed Leeson.’ He snorted, utterly incredulous, it seemed. ‘What in the name of heaven gave you that fantastic idea?’
‘It... it all fits,’ I mumbled uncertainly.
‘What fits?’
Now I had gone so far, what could I say? The only shred of real evidence I possessed lay in that note of Leeson’s.
‘What is it that fits?’ he demanded again.
He stood there, looming over me, fists dug into his hips. I knew he meant business, all right.
Miserably, I poured out the whole story, from when I missed my pen right through to my trip up the Beacon. And I told him what the Inspector had said, too. I was so pent up it must have sounded garbled and disjointed, but Ian heard me out.
‘Let’s get this straight,’ he said when I’d finished. ‘Leeson sent you a note, and you went to meet him on the Beacon, thinking you wer
e going to find out something about me? Is that right?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered unhappily, ‘that’s about it. But Ian...’
He cut right across me. ‘Why didn’t you come straight to me? We could have sorted it out together.’
He stood there watching me fighting to explain, desperately trying to find words. I still didn’t know for absolute sure that I could trust him.
‘Look here, Dulcie,’ he said, in a rough-gentle sort of voice. ‘I think you’d better know where I was last night. It might help you to get things clear.’
I looked up at him, suddenly hopeful.
‘I went over to Oxford to see a friend of mine who’s an expert in ... a particular field. I wanted to consult him about some ideas I’d got. We talked so late that I decided to spend the night at his place, and I drove back here this morning.’
I must have been gaping at him, because he added, ‘If you don’t believe me, you’d better ring him up to check on me. He’s a lecturer at the University, so I suppose you’d accept his word?’
I hesitated, not knowing what to think.
‘Go on,’ he urged, picking up my phone and offering it to me. ‘It’s not a bit of good your sitting there looking miserable.’
I snapped out of it. ‘Don’t be absurd, Ian,’ I yelped. ‘If you say so, that’s good enough for me.’
He slapped the receiver back on its cradle. ‘Now then, I’d better have a look at that note of Leeson’s.’
I gawked at him in dismay. ‘What do you want that for?’
He explained, not very patiently. ‘We want to get to the bottom of this, don’t we? Maybe I can get a clue as to what Leeson meant. Let me have a look at it.’
He held out his hand. I wondered for an instant whether to tell him I’d destroyed the wretched scrap of paper. But I couldn’t. I just didn’t dare lie to Ian.
Unhappily, I fished in my bag and found the crumpled sheet. Ian read it very carefully twice through.
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