Dark Threat

by Patricia Wentworth

  She looked up again at that, quick and startled.

  ‘Oh, yes—he knows everything. We talked it over. It was he who said that I must come, but it is I who don’t want to bring in his name, because it might hurt him in his profession. He is a doctor.’

  March said gravely, ‘I can’t make any promises—you must understand that. Will you tell me what it is that you and your husband thought I ought to know? I suppose it concerns the death of Henry Clayton?’

  The colour ran up into her face and died again. Just for a moment she had the beauty which takes you unawares. No one of the other three people in the room was insensible to it.

  She said, ‘Yes.’ And then, ‘I was here that night.’

  The few quietly spoken words produced almost as vivid a shock as her entrance had done. Frank stared. Miss Silver’s needles halted for a moment. March said, ‘You were here on the night that Henry Clayton was murdered?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You really mean that?’

  She smiled very faintly.

  ‘Oh, yes, I really mean it.’

  ‘Do you mean that you were present when he was—murdered?’

  She caught her breath.

  ‘Oh, no—not that!’ Another of those quick breaths, and then, ‘Superintendent March, may I tell it to you from the beginning? You won’t understand unless I do.’

  ‘Yes, certainly—tell it your own way.’

  She had been leaning towards him over the table. Now she sat up straight, unfastening her coat and throwing it back. The dress beneath was of dark red wool, plain and good. She had taken off her gloves and put them down on the table. Her bare hands lay in her lap, the left hand uppermost. Over the platinum circle on the wedding-finger was a fine old-fashioned ruby and diamond ring. Mabel Robbins looked down at it and began to speak in a low, steady voice. ‘I expect you know why my father wanted me to be dead. He was a very proud man, and he thought I had disgraced him. Henry Clayton made love to me, and I fell in love with him. I don’t want to excuse myself, but I loved him very much, and I don’t want to blame him, because he never pretended that he was going to marry me.’ She looked up with a startling effect of truthfulness. ‘He isn’t here to speak for himself, so I want it to be quite clear that he didn’t deceive me. He never promised me anything. When I knew that I was going to have a child he provided for me and for the baby. I wrote to tell my mother that I was all right and well looked after, but she never got the letter. My father burnt it.’

  Miss Silver said, ‘Dear me, what a very highhanded proceeding!’

  Mabel looked across at her for a moment and said briefly, ‘He was like that.’

  Then she went on.

  ‘I didn’t know about the letter till afterwards. I only knew they didn’t write. When my baby was a year old I wrote again and sent a snapshot of her. She is very sweet. I thought if they saw how sweet she was ... Well, my father came up—he came to see me. It—it was quite dreadful. There was a very bad air raid. He wouldn’t go to the shelter, or let us go. He sat there and told me what I was to do, and made me put my hand on the Bible and swear to it.’ She was looking at March now, her eyes big, and full on his face. ‘It doesn’t seem reasonable now to think I promised what I did, but what with the noise of the guns, and the bombs coming down, and my father looking like the Day of Judgment, I did it. I was to be dead, and my baby too, so as not to disgrace him any more. I wasn’t to write, or to come, or to do anything to show that I was alive. He said he would curse me if I did, and curse my baby. And he said it would be happier for my mother if she thought I was dead, because then she would stop worrying. So I promised, and he went back and told Mr. Roger, and Mr. Pilgrim, and my mother that my baby and I had been killed in the raid—he had seen us dead. Mr. Roger told Henry, and Henry came to see me and made a joke of it. We weren’t living together any more, but he would come and see me once in a while. He had begun to take a good deal of notice of the baby. He used to say she was like his mother and she was going to be a beauty.’

  She paused for a moment, as if it was hard to go on. Then she said, ‘He stayed longer than usual, and we talked about a lot of things, but in the end he went away without saying what he had come to say. And when he had gone away he sat down and wrote it to me. I got the letter next day. He was going to marry Miss Lesley Freyne in a month’s time, and he wasn’t going to see us again.’

  There was a long pause. She looked down at her ring. The light on it brought up the brightness of the diamonds, the deep colour of the ruby—deep, steady, shining, like the lights of home. Presently she said in a low voice, ‘I don’t want anyone to blame him. He was getting married, and he didn’t think it was right to go on seeing me. Only when it happened I didn’t feel that I could bear it. At first I didn’t do anything—I didn’t feel as if I could. I lost a lot of time that way. Then I wrote and said I wanted to see him to say goodbye, and he wrote back and said much better not, it would only hurt us both, and he was going down to Pilgrim’s Rest.’

  She put up her hand to her head for a moment and let it fall again—a pretty, well cared for hand with tinted nails.

  ‘I think I was crazy, or I would never have done what I did. I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t get it off my mind that I must, must see him again.’ She turned from March to look, not at Frank Abbott whom she had known since she was a little girl, but at Miss Silver sitting there knitting in her low Victorian chair. ‘You know how it is when there’s anything on your mind like that—you don’t think about anything else—you can’t—it just crowds everything out. I was working, you know. I used to leave my little Marion with my landlady. She was very good. Well, when I got away from the office that day—the day I made up my mind I couldn’t bear it any longer, I’d got to see him—I just went to the station and took the first train to Ledlington. It seemed as if it was the only thing to do. I didn’t plan it at all, I just went. Can you understand that?’

  Miss Silver looked at her kindly and said, ‘Yes.’

  She turned back to March.

  ‘There was an air raid, and the train was delayed. When I got to Ledlington the last bus had gone, so I walked. It was a good bit after ten before I got here. I heard the quarter strike on the church clock as I was coming into the village, and it wasn’t until then that it came into my head to think what I was going to do next. You see, I had only been thinking about getting here and seeing Henry. I hadn’t ever stopped to think how I was going to manage it.’

  March said, ‘I see.’ And then, ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I went and stood under the yew tree at Mrs. Simpson’s gate just across the road from here. It casts quite a deep shadow. It was bright moonlight, and I didn’t want anyone to see me. I stood there for a long time, but I couldn’t think of any way to get to Henry. I didn’t dare go up to the house because of my father. I couldn’t think of anything. I heard the half hour strike, and I just went on standing there. And then the door of the glass passage opened and Henry came out. I could see him quite plainly because of the moon. He hadn’t any coat or scarf or hat on, and he was smiling to himself, and all at once I knew that he was going to her—to Miss Freyne. I had taken just one step to go to him, but I couldn’t take another. It came to me then that it wasn’t any use. I let him go. Then, all in a minute, someone came after him out through that glass door—’

  ‘You saw someone come out of this house and follow Clayton? Was it your father?’

  ‘No. But of course you would think that. My husband said you were bound to think it was my father. But it wasn’t. It was a woman, in one of those Chinese coats. The moon was so bright that I could see the embroidery on it as she ran after Henry. She caught him up just by the gate into the stable yard and they stood talking for a moment. I couldn’t hear what they said, but I could see his face when he turned round. He looked angry, but he went back with her. They went into the house.’

  March leaned forward.

  ‘Would you know the woman again? Did you see her face
?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I’d know her.’ Her voice was tired and a little contemptuous. ‘I knew her then. Henry talked about her quite a lot when she first came to Pilgrim’s Rest to nurse Mr. Jerome. He said she was the most sympathetic woman he had ever met. He showed me a snapshot he had taken of her with his aunts. After that he stopped talking about her, and—I wondered.’

  ‘You say you recognized her from the snapshot you had seen?’

  ‘Yes. It was Miss Day—Miss Lona Day.’

  Frank Abbott took a fleeting glance at Miss Silver. He could discern no change in her expression. Little Roger’s sock showed nearly an inch of grey ribbing. She drew on the ball of wool, the needles clicked.

  March said, ‘Is that all, Miss Robbins?’

  She looked up with an effect of being startled.

  ‘Oh, no. Shall I—shall I go on?’

  ‘If you please.’

  She kept her eyes on his face.

  ‘I went after them into the house. You see, I knew that they hadn’t locked the door, because from where I was I could see right into the passage, and they didn’t stop at all. They went right on into the house, and I went after them.’

  ‘What did you mean to do?’

  She said as simply as a child,

  ‘I didn’t know—I didn’t think at all—I just followed them. When I got into the hall the light was on. I looked to the left, and the dining-room door was still moving. I went up to it, and I could hear them talking. The door hadn’t latched. I pushed it and went in.’ She stopped, leaned forward over the table, and said, ‘You’ve been in the dining-room—I don’t suppose anything has been changed there. There’s a big screen by the door—Miss Netta always said there was a draught from the hall. Well, I stood behind the screen and I looked round the end of it.’

  ‘Yes?’

  They were over by the big sideboard, Henry on the nearer side where the door goes through to the passage where the lift is. She was farther away on the other side. There was only the one light on, over the sideboard. I could see them, but they wouldn’t see me as long as I was careful. I heard Henry say, “My dear girl, what’s the good? Better go off to bed.” And Miss Day said, “Are you in such a hurry to go to her that you can’t spare five minutes to say goodbye? That’s all I want.” ’

  She looked at Miss Silver again. She was deadly pale.

  ‘When she said that, it sounded like all the things I’d been saying in my own mind. I began to thank God I hadn’t said them to Henry. He hadn’t any reason, and he never would have any reason, to look at me the way he was looking at her. She cried out, and she whipped round and snatched one of the knives off the wall—you know there are a lot of them there, put together in a pattern—a trophy, I think they call it. She snatched the knife, and she called out, “All right, I’ll kill myself, if that’s what you want!” And Henry stood there with his hands in his pockets and said, “Don’t be a damned fool, Lona!” ’

  March said quickly, ‘You heard him use her name?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you prepared to swear to that? You will have to do so.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Go on, please.’

  She was looking at him again.

  ‘Henry said, “Put that knife back and come here! If you want to say goodbye according to all the forms, you shall, but it mustn’t take more than ten minutes. Come along, my dear!” He held out his hand and he smiled at her with his eyes. She said, “All right—that’s all I want,” and she turned round and went up to the wall and put up her hand to the trophy as if she was putting the knife back. But she didn’t put it back—she put it in the pocket of the Chinese coat.’

  Miss Silver coughed.

  ‘Those coats are not made with pockets, Miss Robbins.’

  She got a steady look.

  ‘This one had a pocket—it will be quite easy for you to check up on that. She put the knife into it, but Henry couldn’t see what she did because of all the heavy silver on the sideboard. He would only see that she reached up to the wall and stepped back again. But I saw her put the knife in her pocket.’

  ‘You realize the gravity of what you are saying?’

  She shuddered from head to foot and said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘She came to Henry and put her arms round his neck. I wanted to go away, but it didn’t seem as if I could move. She said, “You got my note. I was waiting for you. Why didn’t you come to my room?” Henry said, “Because it’s all over, my dear.” Then he patted her shoulder and said, “Come, Lona—be your age! We’ve eaten our cake—don’t let’s quarrel over the crumbs. We never gave each other any reason to suppose that we were very serious, did we? We’d both played the game before, and we both know when it’s over.” She said, “You’re going to her—to Lesley Freyne.” Henry said, “Naturally. I’m going to marry her. And, my dear, you’d better get this into your head and keep it there—I intend to make her as good a husband as I know how. She’s the salt of the earth, and I’m not going to let her down if I can help it.” When he said that, I knew I’d got to get away. Everything she said and everything Henry said brought it right home to me that I never ought to have come. I felt that if he saw me I should die of shame.’

  Her voice had fallen very low. It stopped. She looked down at her ring and drew two or three long breaths. Nobody spoke. After a little she went on.

  ‘I stepped back towards the door. That was the last I saw of him, and that was the last thing I heard him say.’

  She stopped again and put her hand up to her head—the same gesture which she had used before. It was borne in upon the two men that she was making a very great effort. Miss Silver had measured it from the beginning.

  The effort carried Mabel Robbins into speech again. She said in her steady, low voice,

  ‘As soon as I moved I began to feel faint. I had had very little to eat all day. I don’t faint as a rule, but I was afraid I was going to then, and I thought I’d rather die. The door was ajar behind me. I got it open and I got into the hall, and there was my father coming through the baize door from the kitchen wing. He came up to me, and I don’t know what he said, because the faintness was so bad I had to hold on to him. I remember he shook me and pushed me towards the front door, but when he saw how I was he let go and left me leaning against it. When he came back he had a glass with a pretty stiff dose of whisky in it. He made me drink it, and it brought me round. He took me out into the glass passage and said why had I come, did I want him to curse me for breaking my promise? And I said no. Then he asked if anyone had seen me, and I said no again. He said, “You came to see Mr. Henry. Did you see him?” And I said, “Yes, I saw him, but he didn’t see me. Neither of them did. I stood there in the dining-room behind the screen, and I saw them, but they didn’t see me. They’re in there together—Henry and Miss Day. It’s all quite over now—you needn’t be afraid that I’ll come back.” He said, “You’d better not,” and then he put me out of the glass door into the street and stood there to watch me go. I don’t know how I got back to Ledlington. The last train had gone. I must have just gone on walking along the London Road, because a motorist stopped there and picked me up. I don’t remember anything about it, but he must have looked in my handbag and found my address, for he took me there. I can just remember my landlady coming out, and their helping me into the house, and his saying, “I’m a doctor. You’d better get her to bed and I’ll have a look at her.” That was how I met my husband.’

  March looked at her hard.

  ‘When you heard that Clayton had disappeared, did it not occur to you that you should communicate with the police? You’ve waited a long time to tell your story, Miss Robbins.’

  It seemed as if she was feeling some relief. She was not quite so pale. She said, ‘Yes. But, you see, I didn’t know.’

  ‘You didn’t know that Clayton had disappeared?’

  ‘No. I was very ill. It was two months before I could look at a paper, and there was no one
to tell me about the Pilgrims any more—I was quite cut off from Holt St. Agnes. It was a year before I knew that Henry hadn’t married Miss Freyne.’

  ‘Who told you he hadn’t?’

  ‘A friend of his, a man I used to meet sometimes when I was with him. The way he put it, I never thought—’ She broke off. ‘Indeed I didn’t, Superintendent March. He said, “So Henry couldn’t stick it after all. Money isn’t everything, is it? Do you ever hear from him now?” When I begged him to tell me what he meant he said, “Oh, didn’t you know? Poor old Henry, he jibbed at the last moment and went off into the blue. Nobody’s heard from him since.” ’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I thought that was all. It was the sort of thing Henry might do. I thought he had got too much tangled up with Miss Day, or perhaps Miss Freyne had found out. I never, never thought—I don’t see how I could—it never came into my mind.’

  March said slowly and gravely, ‘Just when did it come into your mind, Miss Robbins?’

  She moved to face him again.

  ‘I’ve been married for about a year. I told my husband everything long before that. He has adopted my little girl. I could never tell you how good he has been. He has a brother who is a journalist—younger than John. He was in the Army, but he was invalided out. His paper sent him down here when—when—’ Her voice broke off.

  March said, ‘When Clayton’s body was discovered?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When did you hear of the discovery?’

  Her colour had all gone again. Her voice had an odd note of surprise as she said, ‘It only happened yesterday, didn’t it? Jim—my brother-in-law—came in to see my husband this morning. He has a room quite near. He had been down here yesterday for his paper. He was on his way down again. I had gone to the office. Jim told my husband all about the case. The reason he came in was because he knew I came from that part of the world—he thought I might know some of the people.’ She caught her breath sharply. ‘He didn’t know how well I knew them. He didn’t know my story, or my real name. I had been calling myself Robertson before I married, and he thought I was a widow.’