“At least, I believe it’s yours.” He opened his brief-case and took from it a sheet of writing-paper. “It was picked up at the local pub and handed to the guards. The people said that they thought a stranger who came in to use the telephone may have dropped it.”
“The people at the pub know damn’ well who I am and where I’m staying.”
“After a murder, Mr. Wyse, it would surprise you to learn the number of things that people don’t know. Is this yours?”
At a glance I could see that it was Grace’s writing and that it was addressed to me; I said as much and stuffed the sheet of paper into my pocket.
“I lost it before I had time to read it,” I explained.
“Then please read it now,” Duffy said. “I don’t want to ask you questions when I know more of your affairs than you know yourself. I’m going to have a word with my sergeant.” He went out of the room and shut the door behind him.
I unfolded Grace’s letter.
Dear Standish, (it began).
Your son is a month old to-day.
That was all that I was able to take in for the moment; it was enough.
CHAPTER VIII
After a few minutes spent in staring through the window at the still unclouded sky, telling myself that I had misread Grace’s opening sentence, preparing myself for the disappointment of learning her real meaning, I made a fresh start.
Dear Standish,
Your son is a month old to-day. Morally you are both entitled to know of each other’s existence. I am sorry for the delay but it has taken me time to face this fact. Please understand I have no wish to encroach on your life in any way other than as it affects the happiness and upbringing of the child.
I hope you are well and happy.
Grace.
I did not hear Duffy come into the room. He had given me plenty of time, but I was still staring at nothing, trying to take in what I had read.
“Would you like me to see someone else first and leave you till later?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I’m not going to stop thinking about this in an hour, or a day — nor am I going to feel any better about Stella’s death. Let’s get it over with.”
“I think you’re right.” He took the chair across the desk from me. The sympathy had gone from his voice and his eyes but he had not become unfriendly, merely non-committal, when he added — “But we can’t be sure that we’re over with questions till after the trial.”
“You think there will be a trial?”
“The odds are on it. This is a small country; we have a high rate of detection and conviction in serious crimes.”
“And hanging?”
“Not for many years — Thank God.” Duffy waved a hand towards a young man who had come in unobtrusively and had taken a seat under the farthest window. “What we say will be taken down — for obvious reasons of convenience. At this stage I have no need to warn anyone of what possible future use may be made of these records; their primary purpose is to jog my memory. Now may we have your full name, address or addresses, telephone numbers etcetera?”
I supplied the required information to which Duffy appeared not to listen; he pushed a box of Sweet Aftons across the desk and lighted one for me. His eyes, I noticed, were grey and utterly unrevealing; I wondered if he played poker.
“Is this your first visit to Hazard Point?” he asked.
“I stayed here a few times during school holidays. The last time was in the early fifties.”
“Have you kept up your friendship with Mr. Hazard, or is this visit the resumption of it?”
“I saw a lot of him up to the time of his marriage — actually he met his wife in my house in Chelsea — since then only when he was passing through London, though we’ve always been meaning to arrange something. And now that we have, of course ——”
Duffy seemed disinclined to enter into a discussion on the hardness of fate. “So, apart from the fact that you were in several pictures and plays together, Mrs. Hazard also appears to have been a personal friend of some standing. Is this correct?”
“Yes.”
“An intimate friend?”
This was going a bit far and a bit fast from the pleasantries with which our encounter had begun; it was with a faint truculence that I inquired — “What exactly do you mean by the word intimate?”
“I mean that I should be glad to know the precise nature of your relationship. Were you in fact lovers?”
I had only myself to blame, I suppose, for bringing the questioning down to brass tacks. “We were,” I admitted, though it seemed a beastly way to be talking about a girl who was as yet unburied.
“Up to the time of her marriage?”
“Good heavens, no. I married Grace actually before Barney and Stella got engaged.”
“Then the letter that I handed to you a few minutes ago was from your wife?”
“My ex-wife.”
“I see. I’m sorry to harp on subjects that are naturally distasteful to you but I must. I take it that your marriage was not a success.”
“It was too damned much of a success to last. We both wanted more and more and became impossibly demanding — and we were both too bloody bad tempered.”
“Any children? Other than the one that you apparently have only just heard about.”
“Just that one — and just a year too late.”
Duffy made no comment but changed the subject abruptly, switching to my arrival in Ireland and my syncopated progress to Hazard Point with particular emphasis on possible sources of confirmation of my whereabouts at any given time. It was only when I came to tell of the Myleses’ party that he seemed to take an especial interest.
“This witchcraft business. Did you take it seriously at the time?”
“It started as a not unamusing game that went sour in the playing — as if genuine evil had found its way in. Heaven knows the consequences were evil enough.”
“Are you suggesting that Mrs. Hazard’s murder was a consequence of the game? Elly Scanlon’s, of course, preceded it.”
“No — of course not — unless the devil was really conjured up and took possession of someone who was there, and I can’t really wear that. It does look as if the murderer in the hope of confusing the issue adopted a method suggested by the killing of Elly Scanlon as well as by the game — by the devil, if you like.”
“Your murderer then must have been at the party?”
“Or have had a pretty detailed account of it at least. Somebody in the game had it in for Stella. Why else should the doll have been baptised in her name?”
“You’re sure that her name was used?”
“I’m not sure. I was told so.”
“That indicates malice certainly, but an intending murderer would scarcely be so ready to give his — or her — hand away.”
“Oh, it has to be a man.”
“Why?” Duffy looked up at me sharply.
“You didn’t see her as I saw her, Superintendent. You didn’t see that fork.” I shuddered at the recollection. “That fork must have been rammed into her body with enormous strength.”
“I’m afraid my experts disagree with you, Mr. Wyse. I’m informed that it could have been done with one hand by anyone with sufficient strength to pick up the fork. Elly Scanlon’s murder, of course, was a different matter.”
“You mean that it was done by a different man — or woman?” I did not want to argue with him, though I still held to my opinion.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not,” he said. “Now let’s get to your movements of yesterday morning prior to the murder. Will you begin from the time that you first left the house?”
I was grateful that he had not asked me to account for the day from my awakening. Nothing on earth would have induced me to tell him of my first morning’s glimpse of Stella trotting naked in from the balcony, and if I had left the episode out of my narration its prominence in my mind would have told him that I was suppressing something; he would no doubt have been after th
at something like a terrier. I began therefore with my stroll to the hay-field with Barney after breakfast and went on to tell of Frankie Marr’s arrival and of our discussion on the subject of investment in the “oilfield.” Here Duffy interrupted the story.
“Did you talk about the five acre field in the centre of the area that Mr. Hazard had ——” He hesitated for a word — “disposed of?”
“We debated the possibility of getting it back.”
“You already knew about this field?”
“Stella had said something about it on the previous evening.”
“Did you know that she had already recovered the property?”
“No. Franklyn Marr brought that rumour up when I was left alone with him after the general discussion. I didn’t — I don’t believe it.”
“That rumour, as you call it, was the first you had heard of the matter?”
“Yes.”
“It happens to be true.”
I glared at the superintendent, only to meet an unchanged, professional, blankly polite gaze. “If it is, and I don’t concede that for a moment,” I said, “I’m sure that she must have had a perfectly good, decent reason for keeping the fact from Barney — and from me.”
“Her motive reflects no discredit on her.” The man managed to say it without pomposity, I have to give him that. “She told her husband what she had done and why she had done it and gave him title to his field again in a letter that she left for him.”
“Oh, that letter! Of course.” Why did I have to be so plagued with letters? In the excitement of reading at last Grace’s letter with its almost incredible news I had forgotten that other missive, found in Stella’s room by Mrs. Kealey and passed on by her to the more than pie-eyed Barney on the previous night. If Duffy had read that one, he — like Barney — presumably knew already that I was a seducer, an abuser of hospitality and a dirty word in any language. It was surprising that the fellow had been so civil to me when we met, could still speak to me without any outward sign of loathing; it was obvious, of course, that detectives must be schooled to hide their real feelings, as actors are, but this did not apply to Barney and — allowing for the circumstances — Barney’s manner towards me had not greatly changed. I longed to learn for certain what they knew. “You mean the one that was found last night?” I said.
“Yes. Seems odd to write to a husband with whom she was living, don’t you think?”
“One would almost think she had a premonition,” I suggested.
Without the slightest change of tone or expression Duffy said — “You travelled up on the bus from Dublin to Rossderg on the day before yesterday with a Miss Juliet Carr, I believe?”
The abrupt switch of line made my “yes” almost into a squeak of surprise.
“She was at the party at the Myleses’ cottage that evening?”
“Yes.”
“And is still their guest?”
“That’s right — as far as I know.”
“Is this lady an old acquaintance of yours?”
“I’ve known her since she was a baby, though — come to think of it — not terribly well. Certainly not intimately,” I added nastily. “She’s a cousin of mine.”
Duffy so far forgot his dead-pan role as to look at me speculatively. “Was Mrs. Hazard, is Mr. Hazard aware of the relationship?” he asked.
“Not even of her existence, I should think. Barney may have seen her mother when he stayed with my family in Cork years ago; there’s no reason why he should remember her, or have heard of Juliet.”
Duffy embarked on a further question but had not arrived at its nub when a timid knock sounded on the door and a pale green envelope was borne into the study by a frightened-looking maid, the same girl who had originally announced Duffy’s presence; she was not so frightened, however, as to have forgotten to carry the envelope on a salver. The mistress of the house might have been done to death but Mrs. Kealey was still a force to be reckoned with; and the said mistress would probably not have given a damn one way or the other anyhow — God rest her frivolous soul. Holding the salver at arm’s length and looking set to run, the girl presented the message to me. As I opened the envelope, my mind was blank but for the irrelevant thought that Francis, the telegraph-boy, had come too late for breakfast and too early for lunch; no doubt, however, he would be supplied with elevenses and gruesome information in the kitchen.
“Thank you,” I said. “Excuse me.”
“Go ahead.” Duffy waved a permissive hand.
The message read: date leichnitz production put forward if interested lead vital return here conference soonest advise immediately love to stella sinews provided. Ivor.
I threw the form across the desk to Duffy. “My agent,” I said.
The detective read the message through then infinitesimally raised an eyebrow at me. “Well?”
“It’s all right. I don’t want to go.”
“What are the sinews provided for?”
“That’s money for investment in oil. I asked him to arrange it.”
“I suppose that project will go ahead as planned?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care. I don’t imagine anyone cares — now.”
“Some of the people think of money all of the time; all of the people think of money some of the time,” said Duffy. “You’ll find it will go on, if it turns out to be a commercial proposition.”
“There’s many a slip — and oil is a slippery commodity.”
“We’ve got as far as your conversation in here with Mr. Marr yesterday after Mr. and Mrs. Hazard had left you. Will you go on with your account from there?”
“Well, we both wanted to go down to the village, so we walked down together.”
“You still had the letter from your former wife unread in your pocket. Why didn’t you take the opportunity of reading it then?”
“I wanted to be alone to read it. I was going to the village to telephone and thought I should be alone then.”
Duffy let the explanation pass; it may have been merely my imagination that he did not entirely accept it. Surely it was reasonable enough but I was very conscious that, had it not been for my new entanglement with Stella, I would have devoured Grace’s letter at the first opportunity. After that I was allowed to go on for some little time without interruption.
I told of our meeting with Barney and Kinky Myles, though I did not say that they were emerging furtively from behind the hedge when we saw them, and went on to my call to London, the breaking of the glass in the telephone-box, and my walk back along the beach with both the Myleses and Juliet. No comment was made on my parting from my somewhat unwelcome companions, nor on my account of the start which Barney, Stella and I made shortly thereafter on our ill-fated hay-making. It was when I got to the arrival of the telegraph-boy with the wire calling Barney away to meet the train that I began to hesitate. I had been looking back into my memory and taking no notice of the detective; now I found myself staring into his grey fathomless eyes — and they were no help at all.
“That left you and Mrs. Hazard in the hay-field,” he said, to cheer me on.
“And five or six workmen on the other side of the hedge.”
“Hadn’t they gone to their dinner by then?”
“Perhaps they had. I didn’t notice.”
“Did you notice the time?”
“It was ten past one when we heard Barney’s car drive off. I looked at my watch.”
It had been just two hours later that Guards Fox and Lee had strolled along the beach to my rescue; that was the realisation that had put an end to the fluency of my recital. No doubt Superintendent Duffy would have been able to spend an hour and a half or so with his best friend’s wife in a sun-drenched hay-field without jumping on her; I had proved unable to exercise such restraint. If it had been possible for Stella and me to go away together, our going would have made what we had done perhaps acceptable, but as an isolated incident it would appear merely sordid; it was horrible to think of, in view of what h
ad happened to her so soon afterwards. Duffy waited patiently for me to go on with my story. It sounds paradoxical but, in spite of the evident keenness of his attention, he seemed incurious.
“We went on hay-making for a bit,” I said.
The detective pushed his box of Sweet Aftons across the table. As he was lighting one of them for himself, he said almost casually — “Did you then resume your physical relationship with her?”
He was even sufficiently sensitive not to refer to her as Mrs. Hazard.
“Yes,” I said.
“The doctors’ reports indicated as much. It could have been proved. I’m glad you’ve made that unnecessary.”
“She was going to leave him, you know.”
“So I inferred.”
“From the letter she left for him?”
“From the fact that she wrote it.”
“She wouldn’t have wanted to hurt him. I don’t think it would have — except in his pride perhaps.”
Duffy did not say anything.
“There’s one thing I’d like to point out. I didn’t come here with any idea of doing what I did.”
He nodded. “Let’s get on with it.”
“There’s not much more to tell.” There was only the account of a few trivial comings and goings, leaving blank the short space of time which really mattered, the moment in which Stella was lost to me as she was already lost to Barney and in which I had probably also lost all hope of ever being reunited with Grace — and my son. “When we heard the tractor starting up in the next field I went for a swim. Stella wouldn’t come.”
“What was she wearing when you left her?”
“Nothing. She wanted to sun-bathe.”
“What had she been wearing?”
“A linen skirt and a sort of fish-net top.”
“Where were they when you left her?”
“Where she was — on top of the hay-wind.”
“And the bikini she wore when she was killed, where was that?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see it before — before we found her. Barney brought out bathing things for all of us, though; they were beside the lunch-basket under the hedge. I took mine from there but didn’t notice what was left.”
Affairs of Death Page 14