At last he spoke. ‘Why didn’t you show this to the police?’
‘I ... I couldn’t, could I? I mean, I dared not admit I’d been there to meet Leeson.’
‘Why not? You didn’t see him there. Have you so little faith in the ability of the police that you couldn’t trust them with the truth?’
His voice was cold and unrelenting. I just wanted to break down and cry.
‘No...,’ I said. ‘No, it wasn’t that....'
‘What was it then, that stopped you telling them?’
I couldn’t answer him. I couldn’t speak at all. A great lump had risen in my throat, and tears welled up and tumbled headlong down my cheeks.
He came and stood by my side, reaching out and gripping my arm tight. But I didn’t notice any hurt.
‘I’ll tell you what held you back, Dulcie,’ he said, almost in a whisper. ‘You kept your mouth shut because you thought you might get me into trouble. Leeson knew what he was about when he wrote this….’
Your Scottish heart-throb! Through all my fears and misery I blushed at the memory of that phrase. But it was true! I had faced myself with the knowledge that I loved Ian Hamilton. Now I had to be ready to face him, too.
Ian was looking sombre. ‘We’ve made a proper mess of things between us, haven’t we, Dulcie?’
I nodded. He was right about my part of it, but I was none too sure what he meant about himself.
‘You know, I just can’t make you out,’ he was saying. ‘That business with your father. It just doesn’t seem to fit in with your character at all.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I asked him, bewildered by this sudden switch. ‘What business with my father?’
‘Well, I mean ... ignoring him like you did all those years. The old man was very cut up over it, I know. He never talked to me about you—I suppose he was ashamed to admit to a daughter who wouldn’t have anything to do with him. But it slipped out once—he had to call off a dinner date because he wanted to watch a play you were in on television.’
‘Ian!’ I cried in dismay. ‘You couldn’t have thought such a thing of me.’
I told him how it had really been. I explained that the first I had known of my father being alive all through those years was when I received the letter from the lawyer. ‘My father rejected me,’ I said sadly. ‘Not I him.’
The words had a curious effect on Ian. He gave an odd little smile, as if he was pleased with what I had told him.
‘Lord, what a fool I’ve been,’ he said. ‘It never occurred to me it could be that way round. And to think I’ve been fighting against you ever since you came here.’
I said quietly, ‘Yes, you have been pretty stubborn.’
‘Stubborn! I don’t mean that. I mean that ever since you came here I’ve had a job convincing myself I hadn’t fallen for you. I had to make myself believe that I couldn’t be so attracted. Not to a girl whose attitude to her father I despised.’
I bent my head down because now, when a tiny flicker of hope was stirring, I was crying again.
‘But that wasn’t all,’ Ian said. ‘It looked to me as if you were deliberately encouraging that swine Leeson. You’ve explained about him, now, but what about Tyler? That night I saw you in his car...? What in heaven’s name is the matter with you, Dulcie? Can’t you leave men alone, is that it? I can’t bear to think about it.’
I told him of Max’s unexpected proposal. ‘I think he was trying to stampede me into saying yes.’
I wasn’t sore with Ian for misjudging me, because I could see how it must have looked. And I could understand too how he might have been attracted to me while at the same time believing I was worthless. Emotions can’t be switched on and off to order. I’d discovered the truth of that. I loved Ian, although for a short while I had believed—or at any rate half believed—that he was capable of killing a man. I had loved him when I had thought it was possible that he was a thief. Whatever he might have been, whatever he might have done, I loved him.
Ian bent down towards me, and I let him tilt my head. He looked at my ravaged face gravely. ‘Yes, Dulcie, I’ve loved you all along, I think. I couldn’t make myself stop loving you. But I tried to.’
I thought he was going to kiss me, but I didn’t want him to—not then. I wanted Ian’s strength, not his passion. I needed to turn to the man I loved for support.
He must have sensed this. ‘Just now we’ve got to be practical,’ he said gruffly. ‘We’ve got to decide what to do.’
I had almost forgotten I was suspected by the police of being responsible for Leeson’s death. A coldness gripped me and I shivered violently. ‘I suppose…,’ I said hesitantly, ‘I suppose I must tell the police everything, like you said?’
But Ian shook his head. ‘No. Not for the moment, anyway. Whatever they might suspect, Dulcie, they haven’t anything definite to go on. You didn’t do it, and they can’t prove you did. I’ve discovered something that makes all this business a lot more ... well, I suppose sinister is the word.’
‘What do you mean? Have you found out something about the thefts?’
Ian nodded. ‘This past week I’ve been setting up experiment after experiment—trying to pin down what’s so valuable about those damned Physolaria plants. Mrs. Truscott gave me a lead, but it was a very tenuous one—not much to go on. In the end, though, one of the battles proved most interesting. After steeping the Physolaria in a certain chemical solution, I dried it very rapidly and crushed the result.’ He paused, and sighed. ‘What I then had was a very potent drug.’
‘A very potent drug?’ I echoed, thinking furiously. ‘You mean the sort that could be addictive?’
‘That’s it, I’m afraid. When you know how, it’s really a very simple process. All you need is standard laboratory equipment, and supplies of Physolaria. Of course drug like that aren’t really in my line, and that’s why I went over to Oxford to have a talk with Harry Weston. He’s a friend of mine from student days, and he won’t talk out of turn. I took some of the stuff with me, and he confirmed what I thought.’
Ian frowned. ‘You realize what this means, Dulcie? We’re up against drug trafficking, and that’s really big business. They’re ruthless people in that game. I suppose Leeson made some little slip or other and had to be disposed of. That’s what it looks like.’
‘I don’t get it,’ I said, puzzled. ‘If the stuff is so mighty simple to make, why should they trouble to use Leeson, or even this firm at all? Why not just make it themselves?’
‘Because we have a perfectly innocuous excuse for importing large quantities of Physolaria. Awkward questions might be asked if they applied for an import licence. They wouldn’t dare run the risk. They prefer to rely on our respectable background. I’m sure that’s the answer.’
I still wasn’t satisfied that Ian was on the right track.
‘But how would Leeson have got in on it? Mrs. Truscott told us that Father discovered this process years ago and Leeson only joined the firm a couple of years back.’
‘Yes, I’ve thought about that. It’s always possible that Leeson stumbled on the method by accident—there might have been some rough notes in existence that your father overlooked. But I think it’s much more likely he was told about it by someone else, and I’ve got a pretty shrewd idea who it was. There’s a man who was overseer here before Leeson came.’
‘You mean the guy who runs the drug-store at Lechford—Eric Reade?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Did you know your father had to sack him for theft?’
‘Yes, I do.’ I told him I’d heard about that from Mrs. Cass.
‘You see,’ Ian went on, ‘if Reade was on to that process, he might well have got into league with Leeson to ensure his future supplies. With his own dispensary at the shop, he could set up the necessary equipment without arousing suspicion.’
‘Poor Janet,’ I cried involuntarily.
I explained to him that she was engaged to Eric Reade. ‘This is going to shatter her, if it’s tr
ue.’
But Ian was considering the facts. ‘I don’t know so much. It all ties in. Being on those sort of terms with a girl who works in the house, Reade would have no difficulty getting into the lab. I’d decided that it had to be one of the lab staff, and Leeson was the obvious choice. But it could be that he wasn’t in on it at all.’
‘Then why was he killed?’
‘Because he had stumbled on what was happening. It makes sense, don’t you see, Dulcie? Leeson would have realized how dangerous such knowledge was, and that’s why he wanted to meet you in such an out-of-the-way place.’
‘Hey! Aren’t you forgetting something?’ I felt my colour rising, but I had to say it. ‘That note mentions you, not Eric Reade.’
That pulled Ian up short. He pondered, running his fingers through his tousled hair. Then he yelled in triumph, ‘I’ve got it! Leeson didn’t write that note at all. It was someone else.’
‘But I don’t understand. Why should anyone want to do that?’
‘Don’t you see? Leeson had to be disposed of, so they used a trick to get him up on the Beacon. Then they sent a note to you, to get you blamed for his death.’
I remembered how I had seen Eric Reade hanging about suspiciously yesterday. With Janet’s help he could easily have left that note—and pocketed my fountain-pen too. Janet knew about that distinctive pen of mine.
“But why try to involve me? Why me?’
‘They’re probably scared of the way you’ve been probing into the administration.’ Ian looked serious. ‘You’re in danger, Dulcie. You simply mustn’t stay alone at Malverton any more.’
I wasn’t so brave that I could brush this aside lightly. ‘But where could I go?’ I asked doubtfully. ‘And anyway, Mrs. Cass is always in the house with me.’
‘But are we absolutely certain we can trust her?’
‘Surely! Why on earth not?’
‘Well,’ said Ian thoughtfully. ‘Janet is her niece, after all. Mrs. Cass might be in the plot with them. It might even be her, and not Janet, for all we know.’
I sat there staring down at my desk miserably. The world was dissolving around me. It was difficult to know who could be trusted any more.
‘I’m going to pack you off to Mrs. Truscott’s,’ said Ian decidedly.
I looked up. ‘But I can’t land myself on her just like that.’
‘Of course you can. I’ll fix it.’ He went towards the door. ‘I’m off now. I want to go to Reade’s shop, to see if I can spot anything suspicious.’
‘Oh, do be careful, Ian.’
‘Don’t worry.’ He grinned at me. ‘I can look after myself—and you too, Dulcie. See you later.’
He was gone. But his presence still hung in the air, enormously comforting. He seemed to be so strong, so utterly determined to thrash this matter out.
I sat there in a daze for minutes on end. Then I pulled myself together—there was work to do. For one thing, I really should tell Max about Leeson. He was my partner, after all. I had no idea of his address in London, and I decided the only thing to do was to call Valerie Carstairs. I had no wish at all to speak to her, but in the circumstances I couldn’t let my feelings stop me.
Having something definite to do was a relief. I grabbed the phone and was put through to the farmhouse. I had to wait while Valerie was fetched from the stables.
She adopted a sort of sweet-and-sour tone with me—sweet on the thinly brittle surface, and sour underneath. ‘Dulcie! Haven’t seen you in an age.’
I asked her at once where Max was staying, and she hated having to admit that she didn’t know. ‘What did you want him for, anyhow?’ she challenged me.
I didn’t bother to satisfy her curiosity.
The morning began to hang heavily. I went into the house at about eleven-thirty, on the excuse of finding a handkerchief. Talking to Mrs. Cass, I watched carefully for some tell-tale sign of her complicity.
“That Leeson!’ she exclaimed. ‘I can’t say I’m really surprised. No one deserves to be killed like that, but if anyone had it coming to him, he did.’
I didn’t doubt for a single moment that she knew all about the tales buzzing round the neighbourhood. She’d have heard too of the police inspector’s call on me, but she didn’t say a word. Was it sympathy, or was it something else?
Thwarted, I escaped back to the oppressive silence of my office. When at last Ian returned, my relief was so great that I rushed forward to meet him. 'I was getting worried about you.’
He looked down at me, surprised and pleased. ‘I’ve been gone less than an hour, you know, and I had to phone Mrs. Truscott as well. Not that I told her much, but enough to make her understand. It’s all fixed for you to go there as soon as you finish work today.’
‘And Eric Reade?’ I asked. ‘What about him?’
‘I got nowhere. He had to go across to the Post Office to change the ten pound note I offered him for sticking-plaster, which gave me a good chance to look around. I nipped into the dispensary, but there’s nothing there. He’s either very clever, or we’re all wrong about him.’
‘So where do we go from here?’
‘I don’t know, Dulcie,’ he said candidly. ‘Just at the moment I’m stumped for a lead.’
Chapter Fifteen
There was barely half an hour to go before the laboratory closed down for the weekend. Ian went off to his room, to wind up the experiment, and complete his notes. I sat there at the desk, head in my hands, trying to look at recent events in a detached way.
I found I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stand far enough back to be objective, because I was too involved, too horribly involved. I had a sensation of menace all around me, so that I could hardly sit still in my own private office without glancing over my shoulder uneasily.
This little room had been my father’s, though he’d hardly ever used it, preferring the solitude of his study in the house. He had been a lonely man, making few friends. The laboratory had been his whole life. Perhaps it was as well he had not lived to see the evil that had overtaken Malverton.
Yet it looked as if he must have suspected something was wrong. He had certainly known that stock was missing, for he had accused Ian of inefficiency, and Ruth Truscott had told us that Father had seemed terribly agitated only the day before his death. Without him actually saying what was worrying him, she had somehow got the impression that his anxiety was connected with a fateful experiment he had once done. And from that slender piece of evidence Ian had discovered that Physolaria could be used for making a narcotic drug. How much had Father known of what was in fact happening here?
I couldn’t help hoping he had realized that Ian wasn’t to blame. But if Ian wasn’t responsible, then someone was stealing the stock, and Father must have had a horrible suspicion what it was being used for. What would he have done about it?
Suddenly fear began to claw its icy way up my spine, as a new and dreadful idea broke through. It seemed so clear to me now that I was astonished nobody had seen it before, I wanted to rush to Ian next door, but for the moment I was rigid with horror.
When I found my legs I dashed out of my office, down the corridor, and burst into Ian’s laboratory without ceremony.
‘What is it, Dulcie? You’re so white.’ He came and put his arms round me. My extreme terror began to subside, but I was still thoroughly shaken by the direction my thoughts had taken me.
‘Ian ... my Father ... how did he die?’
He stared down at me, astonished. ‘But you know about that. He went into an insulin coma. He must have given himself an extra dose.’
‘But was his death an accident? Because he was known to be so forgetful, it would look just as if he had mistaken his dose. It must have been so very easy for them….’
‘Them? You mean...?’
“Yes,’ I cried wildly. ‘Yes, I mean Father was killed—murdered! He must have stumbled on something, and they realized he knew too much. He had to be got rid of—just like Leeson.’
I had
come running to Ian for reassurance. I was wanting him to tell me that I was talking utter nonsense, that without doubt my Father’s death had been an accident. But I felt the arms around me go stiff, and then they dropped away.
‘Oh God!’ he groaned. ‘How blind I’ve been. Of course, it all fits.’
That phrase again. I could remember it on my own lips not long before. It all fits, I’d said, meaning Ian’s guilt. How easy it was to jump to the wrong conclusion.
‘We mustn’t be hasty,’ I muttered unhappily. ‘Really, there’s nothing at all to go on. Father died of insulin shock, that’s a fact. We can never be sure it wasn’t a pure accident.’
But this didn’t restrain Ian. ‘The more I think about it,’ he insisted, ‘the more convinced I am that you’re right. It’s quite true that your father was absent-minded about some things—little unimportant, everyday things. But diabetes was something scientific, and he was above all a scientist. He was always utterly meticulous about the balance between insulin dosage and food intake. I know it sounds curious to say this, but in a way he found his diabetes interesting. He was his own guinea-pig.’
‘But Father was very worried at the time,’ I pointed out with faint hope. ‘He could have got his injections muddled up somehow or other.’
Ian swept this aside. ‘No, Dulcie, he’d never have done that. It doesn’t make sense that way—it never did. For instance, he always carried a small packet of sugar lumps as a precaution. He had them in every jacket he wore. He never ever forgot his sugar, any more than he would forget an experiment in the lab. I should have realized….’
‘Then what were the police doing to have overlooked this possibility?’ I asked angrily.
‘The police didn’t come into it, not into a serious investigation. Your father’s manner of death coincided with what could be expected of a diabetic, if he had acted carelessly. His own doctor was ready enough to sign the death certificate on the evidence he had.’ His voice became bitterly self-accusing. ‘No, I was the one who should have realized the truth, but just because I didn’t want to find anything wrong, I was blind to what was under my nose.’
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