What Dread Hand?
Page 10
‘No doubt,’ said Mademoiselle, all irony.
‘You have a vulgar mind,’ said the Duchess. ‘Well, that is your breeding, you cannot help it. But you are also obtuse; and an inference which you missed, my dear, I did not.’
‘At any rate,’ said the governess, holding out her hand, ‘I will have the stone—the seventh. This was a partnership—you to have the diamonds, I to have their price. Give it to me—and then, if you will, I will sell it back to you.’
‘But you believe that it was given to me by him.’
‘If it was,’ said the governess quickly, ‘you need not pay me for it.’
‘Dear me!’ said the Duchess. ‘You can set your traps unaided, I perceive.’ And she rose and went to her desk. ‘Very well then—honour among thieves. I will give you the same amount that I gave for each of the other stones.’
The governess accepted the money and stuffed it away in an inside skirt-pocket with a big roll of banknotes, all tied together with blue ribbon. ‘And now,’ said the Duchess, ‘the partnership is dissolved. You have your money. You may go.’
‘So I will,’ said the governess, ‘when I have the diamonds also.’ In her right hand, she now held a tiny pearl-handled gun.
The Duchess stood stock still. ‘What is this? Some threat?’ But now she looked more closely. ‘Isn’t that—?’
‘Yes,’ said the governess. ‘His gun—monogrammed with his initials. I found it in the secret drawer of your ladyship’s desk.’
‘You just happened to be borrowing a handkerchief, no doubt,’ said the Duchess.
‘I just happened to be looking for the gun that killed Monsieur Coqauvin.’
“Well, and now you have found it,’ said the Duchess, ‘and have not the wit to realise that it is empty. Its venom is spent.’
The governess glanced at the weapon in a hand that was now not quite so steady. She said: ‘How do you know?’
‘Who else should know?’ said the Duchess with a tinge of mockery.
The governess lowered her hand. ‘It makes no difference. I know what I know. I can still go to the police.’
‘Don’t trouble,’ said the Duchess. ‘The police are coming to you.’
‘To me?’ Every vestige of colour fled from the governess’s face, her greedy little hands began to tremble. ‘The police—?’
‘I sent for them an hour ago,’ said the Duchess. She glanced at the clock on the high marble mantelpiece. ‘I told them to come—about now. I thought we might need them—after I had observed that the pistol was gone.’ And she looked at the pretty little gleaming thing in its silver and mother-of-pearl. ‘Have you not heard of this Monsieur Bertillon, my child? He is employing a new method of police procedure. They can read from any shining object, who last handled it. And you, we both perceive, are the last to have handled le Vicomte Coqauvin’s gun. For the rest…’ She shrugged. ‘An employee in the house of la Duchesse de Marlaine—all preparations made to get out of the country—blackmail easily proved—’ The governess interrupted but she talked her resolutely down. ‘La Duchesse implicated? Ridiculous! Various ladies have offered her diamonds, declaring themselves urgently in of money; she naturally would not enquire into their reasons… Really!—what will the little governess think of next, to try to wriggle out of trouble. And as to the motive—for you, Mademoiselle, having murdered him…’ Again the cold voice over-rode the outcry of protest. ‘A meeting with Don Juan in the hall—as you yourself said before a witness the other day… But—(I am only suggesting what the police will deduce) you were not, after all, just walking across the hall. You were on your way out. He also. And as he turned away from the door, you followed him. For the rest—he was not very particular, all the world now knows that—any trash in petticoats would do. How many times, I wonder—the police will wonder—has the nurse been left in charge, while Mademoiselle, the governess, went off on a little shopping expedition?—at which, I dare say, she sold rather more than she bought.’
‘You don’t believe that!’ cried the governess.
‘Not a word of it, my dear. But the police will believe it. And as for taking money from him, you have taken it in worse circumstances by far—which money, by the way, you may as well hand back to me. I will see that it goes to a deserving charity.’ And she pulled the blubbering, frightened girl towards her, thrust a white hand into a bulging pocket and removed the roll of banknotes. ‘There! Now we are even, you and I: you and the rest of them, as you so perceptively surmise—and I.’ And she released her and gave her a thrust that sent her tumbling and stumbling to the door. ‘So get out, begone, quick, before the police get here! And take this weapon with you, drop it into the channel as you make what haste you may towards England and safety. And if you value your life, never let me set eyes on you again.’ She waited as the fleeing heels hammered across the marble floor, over the startled protests of the footmen without; and the great front door slammed. Then she rang the bell. ‘Has the governess departed?’
‘Rushed out of the house, my lady. But she has not taken her things.’
‘Have them bundled up and sent after her. Her fiancé is at an hotel somewhere—the nurse would know.’ As the man hesitated she said: ‘Yes?’
‘Are we to expect the police, my lady? The young woman said—’
‘The police?’ said the Duchess, innocently. ‘No—J haven’t sent for any police.’
The Princess de Blanc lived in a small house, furnished—shabbily these days—from ancient glories. Within an hour of the governess’s departure, the Duchess presented herself at the door. ‘Charitée, my dear, you are not looking at all well—so taut and strained.’ A gloved hand opened and a diamond tear glittered in the palm. ‘Could it perhaps be something to do with this?’
The Princess drew back. ‘It is yours, isn’t it?’ said the Duchess.
‘Mine?’
‘It had fallen upon the carpet, Charitée, beside the couch. It lay there—shining. It seemed to me,’ said the Duchess, staring down at it, ‘the only thing left alive in that room of death.’
The Princess put her hands to her face, swaying. She cried out: ‘Margeurite! That night—you came back?’
‘How could I “come back”?’ said the Duchess. ‘I had only just arrived. I came at midnight. We were—you may believe it or not—going innocently out to supper. You will have no trouble at all in believing that, after all, we did not go.’
The Princess interrupted her, stammering. ‘The—the gun—?’
The gun was still lying there on the table,’ said the Duchess, ‘and still warm to the touch. I brought it away with me, wrapped up in my handkerchief—you have heard of this Monsieur Bertillon and his “fingerprints”?’ She looked with pity at the shuddering woman before her. ‘Don’t be afraid. Fingerprints and all, I have got rid of the gun.’
But the Princess had pulled herself together a little. ‘Afraid? Why should I be afraid? What has all this to do with me? I do not deny—to you, Margeurite, at any rate—that he was my lover. But that does not mean that I was with him that night. Let alone that I—’
‘Hush, Charitée,’ said the Duchess. ‘You are safe, I tell you. Of course you were his mistress, and of course you were there that night; and of course you killed him. To each of his—women—he had given a souvenir, a diamond. You had no diamond. Therefore you are the one who left the diamond behind.’ And she held it out again, the shining tear, lying in the palm of her hand.
But the Princess repudiated it, weeping. ‘Keep it, keep it! I know you have been buying these stones. In return for…’ And she put her two thin hands together, beseechingly.
The Duchess put the stone away, carefully. ‘But the bribe is unnecessary.’ And she lifted her beautiful proud head. ‘He deserved to die.’
‘Margeurite! You too loved him? You too were deceived?’
‘I more than all,’ said the Duchess. ‘And so I have sought to discover—and protect—his executioner. The empty jewel box, the single stone fallen there
, the valet’s story next day… Piece by piece, the necklace had been given away. I set my traps—’
‘With your accomplice,’ said the Princess, and her face grew hard again.
‘Ah, my accomplice! But my accomplice, you will find, has made amends.’ She took out a large roll of banknotes, tied up with blue ribbon. ‘The young lady has left Paris but her last words were an agreement with me that I should hand this to you.’
‘To me?’
‘To you—actually by name. I will give them to Charitée, I said.’ And over the other’s protest, she insisted: ‘Take it: I assure you that if it is not yours, it is nobody else’s. For my part, I have the seven “tears” and that is all I care for.’
‘And the Coqauvin Collar to go with them,’ said the Princess, her face grim again. ‘Which was to have come to me but which you “above all the rest” deserved.’ Two tears as bright as the diamond, spilled over and rolled down her cheeks. ‘God knows, I wanted nothing from him—only his love. But to offer me a single jewel, while another woman who “deserved it” more, had departed with the collar—’
‘Charitée,’ said the Duchess, ‘I took no collar. I came there after you, I tell you—at midnight, not before. Indeed, he made a point of my being exactly on time.’
‘He always made a point of it,’ said the Princess. ‘For the first time that evening I understood why—that I was not the only one.’ She began to weep again. ‘He told me to come at eleven and to use the french window. Well, I did. But perhaps I was a little too early—at any rate, it would have been like him to cut things fine. As I turned the corner, he was handing you into his carriage. It was dark, yes, but in a ray from the carriage lamp, I saw the gleam of the collar around your throat. I did not then know, of course, what it was, or that it was you who “above all the rest had deserved it”.’ And as the Duchess held up a protesting hand, she cried out, sick with jealousy and pain: ‘Don’t lie to me, Marguerite! I heard what he said to his groom. “Drive the lady home,” he said. And he gave your address.’
The Duchess reached Calais only a few minutes before the packet was to sail for Dover. A young man was standing with Mademoiselle Brune at the rail.
The Duchess wasted no time at all. She held out her hand. ‘Come, Mademoiselle—the collar!’
The governess blanched and cringed. ‘The collar?’
‘The Coqauvin Collar of Tears.’—(to the seven loveliest women in Paris, a diamond apiece: to this whey-faced little strumpet, the Collar of Tears!)
The young Englishman obviously did not understand. But—the hurried change of plans, their departure rushed forward, the pallor, the agitation, and something that he now recognised as—furtiveness… He cried out: ‘Marie! You haven’t stolen something? That package in your reticule…?’
‘A gift,’ stammered the governess. ‘A souvenir. Valueless.’
‘Let us see it,’ said the Duchess, ‘this valueless souvenir.’ She took the girl’s reticule from her trembling hands. Within folds of tissue, the collar lay coiled like a snake. ‘An imitation,’ sobbed Mademoiselle Brune. ‘Of no value.’
‘Then you will not object,’ said the young man, gravely, ‘if her ladyship takes it back?’ If indeed, he added, and his firm young voice grew cold, it had been from her ladyship that it came in the first place.
‘Well, Mademoiselle?’ said the Duchess.
A bell clanged, voices cried out, there was a rattle of gangway chains. The little governess stood silent, and over the collar the Duchess’s fingers began very slowly to close. She opened her reticule and slipped it in. Only when the catch was safely snapped did she turn her eyes from Mademoiselle Brune and meet the clear eyes of the young man. ‘But of course,’ said the Duchess. ‘From whom else could it have come?’ And she walked quietly away down the gangplank and stepped ashore.
The Duchesse de Marlaine never did in fact wear the Collar of Tears. It was found at her death, put away, complete with its seven diamond drops—together with the unposted letters announcing to all the journals of Paris, the news of her betrothal to Don Juan: the Vicomte Coqauvin.
9
Double Cross
SIR THOMAS CROSS, IT must be admitted, had been an unaccommodating relative to his heirs—largely on the score of living too long and spending a great deal too much; and revenged himself for his murder by leaving an equally unaccommodating will. Having since boyhood preferred an expensive London flat to the gloomy glories of Halberd Hall, he exhibited towards it, nevertheless, a posthumous devotion. For some years the three cousins had lived there, camping out, more or less, in three or four of its enormous rooms: it cost them nothing and suited their bachelor lives. Now, said the will, not only might they continue to live there, but they must; failure to do so automatically excluding the absentee from further interest in the estate.
Dan and Jimmy greeted Rufus at the great front door. ‘Welcome, my dear cousin!—to one third of the Hall, anyway.’
‘And to another one third. The rest is yours,’ said Jimmy, ‘and you’re welcome to that too—in the other sense.’
‘What a turn up for the book, eh?’ said Rufus. He shouldered past them into the house and released an arm-load of haversacks and paintboxes. ‘Come out and help me with the rest.’
‘You’ve certainly been busy during your protracted sojourn in France,’ said Dan, eyeing the canvases in the back of the hired car, ‘while we were carrying the can for you, in re. Uncle Tom.’
‘Not to mention Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’ agreed Rufus amiably, looking up without affection at its Elizabethan frontage.
‘Where the hell have you been all this time since it happened? But don’t tell me, don’t tell me!’ said Jimmy. ‘Wandering lonely as a cloud from one nameless French hamlet to another, tent on back; no newspapers, the six o’clock news unavailable…’
‘It’s what I do every year,’ protested Rufus. ‘I knew nothing till the police picked me up, which they did pretty smartly, the moment I handed over my passport at Folkestone. And they didn’t tell me much, just asked questions.’ He propped the last of the canvases against a wall and gave it a loving pat. ‘Let’s go in and have a drink, and you can fill in the details.’
The dining-room was huge and dark, made no lovelier by nests of photographic equipment, a clutter of books and papers about birds and a central table scattered with used crockery. ‘Still living as on safari, my ruddy millionaires?’
Jimmy rootled about for clean glasses. ‘We haven’t sorted things out yet. Dan and I think it may be best to divide the old hulk into three separate flats, one for each of us and any family we may acquire. Meanwhile, the Midday Hags continue to come up of a morning and clear away this lot, and we start again, à la the Mad Hatter.’
Rufus poured whisky. ‘What d’you mean, three separate flats? You’re not going to stay on here, with all this wealth?’
‘Haven’t you heard? Good Lord, you know nothing! We’ve got to.’
‘Got to?’
‘Halberd Hall is to be maintained to “a required standard”, thus pronounceth from the grave, Uncle Tom. And since none of us will inherit enough to so maintain it and live elsewhere, we are to pool our resources and stay on here.’
‘What, for ever?’
‘Or until such time as any of us acquires sufficient wealth to contribute an equal share to its maintenance, on top of his private expenses.’
‘Well, I’m blowed! Live together, year in, year out? We don’t even like one another.’
This was true. ‘No wonder you’re called the Cross cousins,’ Dorinda Jones used to say, ‘you’re all so horrid to each other.’ And she would give one of her wicked giggles: for it must be acknowledged that Mrs. Jones was one of the reasons why two, at least, of the Messrs. Cross were on bad terms. ‘Can’t we upset the will?’ said Rufus.
‘You try it, do! Dan and I would scoop the lot.’
“Well, blow me down!’ said Rufus again. He got up and poured considerably larger tots into not yet emptied glass
es. ‘Condemned to be penned up here together till death us do part!’
‘Since death already hath us parted from Uncle Tom,’ suggested Dan, ‘and by the hand of one of us three present—I don’t know that the term is exactly agreeable in this context.’
‘A sort of Tontine, you mean?—one of us slain off next, and then another, the inheritance accruing to the survivor.’
‘It’s a thought,’ said Jimmy.
‘Not at all a funny one,’ said Dan. ‘Damn it all, one of us—one of us—really is a murderer.’
‘Yes, well tell me all about it,’ said Rufus.
‘What’s there to tell? Uncle Tom went as usual down the Tube to get his train for the club; and somebody gave him a shove and he landed on the line: and that was Uncle Tom. That’s all.’
‘Except that a man with a large red beard appears to have given him the said shove: and I am a man with a large red beard. It’s a jolly happy thing for me,’ said Rufus into the ensuing rather chill silence, ‘that at that hour I happened to be on a cross-channel steamer, half way between here and France.’
‘If you were on a cross-channel steamer, half way between here and France.’
‘My dear old James,’ said Rufus, ‘that cock won’t fight. You knew I was going that day, you both knew—it’d been planned for ages. I did go that day, as my passport shows; and by the grace of God and a stack of painting clobber and my large red beard, I seem to have been noticed at Folkestone and in fact even at Dieppe. Arriving there by the early boat. So whichever of you has been acting my Döppelganger again…’
Rufus had had his Döppelganger almost, one might say, from babyhood. Like many children, he had created an alter ego to be responsible for his misdeeds. ‘That must have been the other little boy,’ he would say; and, ‘You have a Döppelganger, my child,’ said his father, trampling about the corns of Messrs. Freud and Jung with large Edwardian boots. A Döppelganger, he kindly elaborated to four years old, was a sort of other ‘self’—vaguely evil and dangerous, he now recollected and perhaps one shouldn’t have said quite so much… But too late; ‘Dop’ was a member of the family and though hated and feared by the smaller Rufus, came to make himself useful in later years, assisting him out of trouble at his Private, and even at his Public school. And now it seemed, turning up and actually pushing Uncle Tom under a train: to the great pecuniary benefit of three so far indigent cousins.