Claire stood absolutely silent, not moving, and Peta threw herself into Belle’s arms and again burst into a storm of tears.
11
ELLEN WAS RELEASED from her incarceration on the morning after the funeral. She took a tender farewell of her jailers, adding with much laughter that she would probably soon be back, accepted her bail from the magistrates with an ironical smile, and, like a jaunty little ship with her paint unscratched and her flag still flying, was convoyed safely home. Bella chugged down from the terrace to meet her as, with her escort of battleship and two destroyers (“And me the dirty little dinghy with one small boy madly cheering,” said Edward.), she sailed across the green lawns. The baby was wearing her best white smock in her mother’s honour, with a chain of forget-me-nots which Bella had made while she waited; and nothing could have been more satisfactory than the way in which, for the very first time, Antonia actually did say “Blut-blut-blut,” which everybody perfectly recognized as meaning “Mum-mum-mum.”
Bella had a tray of drinks ready and they all got mildly tight before lunch. “It’s the first time we’ve felt sort of relaxed and reasonable since Philip came up that morning and told us that Grandfather was dead … It’s got worse since you’ve been away, Ellen,” said Peta, holding the gin bottle up to the light, and deciding that it would do just one more round. “We’ve all been on edge and hateful and suspicious and cross. Last night Claire and I let our back hair down and had the most frightful slanging match, didn’t we, Claire?”
“Sheer Serafita,” agreed Claire, in Ellen’s own phrase.
“I taunted Claire with her spinsterhood …”
“And I said Peta was throwing herself at Stephen’s head …”
“Well, so she is,” said Ellen, laughing and holding out an apologetic hand to Peta.
“I know, but she needn’t have gone and said it bonk out in front of Stephen; only fortunately it never entered his head that she meant him, and now I suppose he thinks I have a secret passion for some doctor at the hospital, only I haven’t because they’re all married and about a hundred, anyway.”
“The being married part wouldn’t occur to Claire as a deterrent,” said Ellen.
Edward crashed gaily in on the ugly little pause. “And also, Nell, we had a great scene out here, Bella broke down and made a dramatic speech about how she really hates Swanswater …”
“Because of the hang-over from Serafita …”
“And we all got most terribly emotional and Peta wanted to come out at night and dig up all the roses just to show our devotion …”
Ellen looked mildly astonished at this original way of displaying devotion. She said, “Well, of course, it’s obvious that Bella, of all people, couldn’t have had any motive for murdering Sir Richard. She lost nothing if the first will stood, and if the second will was signed it only gave her something she didn’t want.”
“The question now remains,” said Philip, “whether Bella didn’t want Swanswater so much that she would commit murder to prevent herself from getting it.”
“We forgot to tell you, Ellen, that Brough had a theory about Bella having squirted the poison onto Grandfather’s food from the window sill …”
“And, my dear, Peta’s worked it out most brilliantly that Claire could have made the footprints the night before …”
“And then it’s most peculiar about Peta’s fingerprints …”
“You seem to have been having a wonderful time while I’ve been away,” said Ellen dryly. “Before the inquest the great idea was that nobody could have murdered Sir Richard; now nearly everybody could have; and you’ve added Brough to the–” She had been going to say, “to the bag,” but for once considered Bella’s feelings, and trailed off into a mumble.
They broke into a flurry of repudiation. “Whoever could have killed Grandfather, none of us could have killed Brough. Cockie can’t make out how the murderer can have got in and out of the lodge … There were simply acres of untrodden dust between him and the door …”
And the old irritation was at work again. All very well for Ellen to start dragging in Brough when, after all, this was something she couldn’t have done; all very well for her to be so snooty about them all getting horrid and accusing each other … After all, she had been away from it; it might have been awful in prison, but not more awful than having to go to poor Grandfather’s funeral, being stared at and talked about, staring at each other and talking about each other, going over and over this thing like a cageful of squirrels. Who was Ellen, anyway? Not one of themselves, not really; just an outsider, that was all–sitting there calmly receiving their welcoming attentions, taking it all so much for granted, treating them like so many eager children jumping through their little hoops for her entertainment, mildly reproving them for quarrelling with each other while she had been away. “She makes me mad,” said Peta to Edward, punting up the river that afternoon in the lazy sunshine, escaped for a while from it all. “It’s utterly irrational, Teddy, but last night I felt as if nothing really mattered as long as the beastly old magistrates let Ellen out of prison today, because it was so awful for her; and now she’s out and, well, honestly, I begin to wish all over again that it was her that had done the murders, and then at least we, the real family–you and me and Philip and Claire and Bella–could be clear of all this horrible suspicion.”
A kingfisher held for a moment all the world’s blue in its darting flash through the branches at the river’s edge. The willows dipped green fingers into the running stream, shaking them with a scatter of brilliants in the breeze to dry. On either side the quiet cows browsed in the flower-starred fields and behind them Swanswater lay, white and rambling, in its ordered pattern of dark oak and pale larch and burning copper beech. Edward forgot for a moment the ugly puzzle that obsessed their minds. “When I hear the word ‘England,’ Peta–this is what I think of. Don’t you?”
“Yes, only there ought to be cricket.”
“The boys who would be playing cricket are up there in bombers, I suppose, or under the sea in submarines, or just marching about on land–but all killing people.”
“And here we are in all this fuss and excitement and horror because one man is dead; two men, with Brough–but both old and at the end of their lives anyway.”
“It does seem strange,” said Edward. His young muscles rippled in his thin arms as he stretched with unconscious grace, hand over hand up the punt pole. “If only I could know for certain that I didn’t do it, I could go to a real proper psychologist and get him to say that there was nothing wrong with me and–and go and be a pilot or something, Peta. Don’t you think I could?”
“I should think you could, darling, if you were absolutely un-phony about it; only I think, if you don’t mind my saying so, that you ought to go in for something not so spectacular as being a pilot, because that’s always been a part of your sort of mixed-up neuroses and things. I mean, you do dramatize yourself a bit.”
Edward immediately had a vision of himself splendidly sinking his identity in some humble job in the most appallingly dangerous part of the army; doggedly enduring the deadly monotony of carting high explosives from continually burning buildings. “Corporal Edward Treviss–there can be no fuss, no public recognition, you understand, but the C. in C. has asked me to say a quiet word to you. We’re proud of you in the regiment, my boy!” But after a moment he said, miserably: “Well, anyway, Peta, what’s the use? Even if it’s not proved that I did it, I shall always be afraid that I did.”
“Unless someone else is proved to have done it.”
“Well, but that would only mean one of us, and in a way it would be worse. In a way I’d rather believe it was me; at least I wouldn’t have been cruel and wicked; I’d only have been barmy.”
“Oh, Edward, you are sweet,” said Peta.
They moored the punt and scrambled ashore at a tiny island where they had played and picnicked as children. “I don’t know whether I would rather it was me than Ellen,” corrected Ed
ward, thoughtfully, as they threw themselves down in the long cool grass and sucked through straws at the lemonade bottles with which Bella had provided them. “I can’t go as far as that. But you and Bella and Claire, of course, and–well, I think I’d rather it was me dotty than Philip sane.”
“I don’t see how he could possibly have done it, so you needn’t worry either way but concentrate on us four.”
“After all, we haven’t known Philip for very long, even if he is our cousin; only since he came back from America. I don’t see why I should feel awful if he turned out wicked and horrible.”
“Nobody’s asking you to, pet. Don’t start a thing about it.”
Edward made satisfying noises by blowing into the bottle. “Do you like Philip, Peta?”
“Yes, I do, frightfully; I’m terribly fond of him. I didn’t like him much when he first came home though.”
“I was only twelve or something.”
“Well, he was rather off-hand and peculiar. I suppose it was awkward for him,” admitted Peta, “because, of course, Grandfather went all haywire in his usual fashion, and made a terrific fuss over him, and wanted to make over the house and estate and all that to him as being the only male heir and carrying on the name and so forth.”
“Good Lord, how grim for you!”
“Oh, I didn’t mind much. How did you make that sort of moaning noise, Edward?”
Edward explained the mechanics of the moaning noise and for a little while the woodlands echoed dismally.
“I must say, I didn’t think Grandpop would ever really disinherit me for Philip,” acknowledged Peta, afraid of having appeared to put on the pot by her claim to indifference as to the disposal of her fortune. “But I daresay he raised poor Philip’s hopes. After all, I mean, Philip’s human.”
Edward sat up and began to throw small stones into the river, just for the sound of the lovely little plop! At the third throw he paused suddenly, arm uplifted, struck by an idea. “I say, Peta–good Lord!–you don’t think by any chance Philip isn’t Philip?”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Well–good heavens, Peta, this is terrific–suppose Philip is somebody else who knew Philip in America–well the real Philip I mean–and he died or something and the other Philip, this one, pinched his diary and read up all about his childhood and us and Grandfather and everything, and came home and impersonated him. You know, intimate stories about this island that only you and he would know, and things like that. How long is it since Aunt Anne went to America?”
“They went when Philip was a little boy, about five or six, or something.”
“Well, there you are; people change like anything between six and thirty-whatever-Philip-is. And he wouldn’t have to pretend to remember very much; he could have been a very bad-memoried little boy!”
“And we were just saying how odd Philip was when he first came home,” agreed Peta, slowly.
“I know. Of course, he was sort of feeling his way. I expect he worked on Grandfather like anything, really, to make him change his will from you to him, and only pretended to be thankful when he didn’t.”
“Good Lord, Edward.”
“Yes, isn’t it terrific? Come on, let’s go back and tell them.”
“No, no, don’t be silly, we mustn’t tell a soul; we must just watch like mad and try to prove it.” Nevertheless she got up with great despatch and scrambled back into the punt.
It was harder work going back upstream; with the exertion, Edward began to lose some of his effervescent confidence. “Of course, I don’t see exactly what difference it makes, really. Philip had no more reason to kill Grandfather if he was a pretence Philip than if he was the real one.”
“Grandfather might suddenly have found him out!”
“Oh, gosh, so he might,” said Edward.
“On the other hand, it still remains impossible for Philip to have done the murder, whoever he is. He just was not near the lodge that evening before the paths were done; and the next morning he was dressing in his room when Claire came and said she’d found Grandfather dead.”
“Well, she said she thought he was dead.”
They stared at each other across the length of the punt. “But he–he’d been dead all night,” said Peta. “He was sitting at his desk … He’d been sitting there all night …”
“Unless he’d just got up and was sitting there waiting for his breakfast. Perhaps he was only–only keeping very still, and Claire thought there was something wrong, and there wasn’t really …”
“Or perhaps he’d just had a little weeny heart attack …”
“And Philip rushed in and–and when Claire wasn’t looking quickly gave him a terrific injection of coramine, so that he’d never come round … After all, if anyone had access to the stuff, it was Philip. And so carefully drawing our attention to it and all that, so as not to be the only one to be suspected … And, Peta, Philip knew all about the sand having been put down, because he’d walked to the gate with Stephen the night before.”
The punt pole, used most energetically to prod home Edward’s excited reasonings, finally embedded itself deeply into the mud. He gave it a jerk, wobbled perilously, and only just regained his balance. Peta started forward in a purely impulsive attempt at rescue. “But Edward–(Edward, look out, darling!)–Edward, Philip can’t have murdered Grandfather then. Grandfather had been dead for hours. I mean, Philip said to Claire, he said, ‘He’s been dead for hours …’”
“Yes, Philip said so,” yelled Edward, just in time, and overbalanced completely and fell with a splash into the river …
And while, miserably, the family eased their tortured nerves, in accusation and argument, wrangling unceasingly among themselves, siding now with one and now with another, irritable, dejected, over-excited, ashamed, Inspector Cockrill prowled, ever watchful, through the house and grounds. Now and again he put a sharp question; now and again he stood unblushingly outside a door to listen; now and again he appeared among a group of them, stirring up with a sort of mischievous joy those easily ignited fires; but all through the day and half through the night, he harried his men in his ceaseless search for the will. “It hasn’t gone outside this place. Whole or in pieces, it’s somewhere inside the walls of these grounds. Burnt? Well, it may have been burnt, but I doubt it. It’s in human nature to hang on to the thing, just in case it might some day be necessary to produce it–as proof of this or that–don’t ask me why. Signed or unsigned, I say that that will exists, and if you dig the whole place into allotments in the search for it, I don’t care–it’s got to be found.”
“Somebody’s moving it about,” confided Sergeant Troot to the minions under his immediate command. “That thing’s not buried nowhere, nor yet hidden in any one place. Somebody’s moving it about, if only he’d be caught going to see it.”
Mrs. Brough watched the search with a smile of tolerant contempt. “They don’t even know what they’re looking for,” she said to Bella who came across her standing in the grounds outside her lodge.
“They’re looking for the will,” said Bella curtly, for she was now by no means enamoured of Mrs. Brough, and only wondering how soon, under the circumstance, one might decently give her notice.
“The will–what will? There’s two wills, m’lady, isn’t there? Never mind where the new will is–where’s the old one, that’s what I want to know!”
“It’s in Mr. Garde’s office, of course,” said Bella, suppressing a desire to add that what it could have to do with Mrs. Brough she did not know.
“It’s along of our Rosy’s brooch,” said Mrs. Brough, as though in reply.
“Well, I’ve no doubt the brooch is in both wills. In any event, Mrs. Brough, I should think you would know me well enough, after all these years, to be certain that Rosy would have her brooch if that’s what Sir Richard intended.
“Yes, m’lady,” said Mrs. Brough submissively. She added, as though merely politely inquiring: “If the new will isn’t found, m’lady,
I suppose the old one stands?”
“It would probably have to be settled in court,” said Bella, recollecting that on Mrs. Brough’s word only would their future stand.
“I see,” said Mrs. Brough. After a moment, she asked: “I take it you’ll be there at Brough’s inquest tomorrow, m’lady; you and the family?”
Bella was not familiar with the etiquette involved; but since it was evidently expected of her, she said with a sort of idiotic heartiness that of course they would.
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