She stood now and tried to remember where the rest of the furniture was. She had to reach the door which opened upon the passage, and she had to reach it without blundering into anything. She thought there was a chest of drawers… Yes, that was it-a tall and massive chest of drawers, on the right of where she was standing now. If she took five steps forward and then turned and walked straight ahead, that ought to bring her to the door.
As she moved to take the first step, the sound of voices came to her from the study-James Paradine’s voice and another. Both these voices were familiar to her. She took five quick steps into the darkness, turned, and went forward with her hands stretched out before her until they touched the panels of the bedroom door.
Chapter 10
Somewhere round about half past eleven Elliot Wray came broad awake. His mood of drifting acquiescence broke. Albert was well away with the migration of eels to the Sargasso Sea with a view to increasing and multiplying there, and quite suddenly the flow of that instructive voice had become sharply intolerable. Like the continual falling of a drop of water upon one spot, it had produced an inability to endure what had by insensible degrees become a torture. He stood up, stretched himself, and said,
“Let’s have a drink.”
Albert stared, his mind for the moment infested by eels. Through the thick lenses which screened them his eyes bore a strong resemblance to the smaller kind of bullseye. They were just the same shade of brown, and they bulged. If you can imagine a bulls-eye with an offended expression, you have Albert.
Elliot grinned.
“Come on! Lane used to leave a tray in the dining-room. Let’s prospect.”
The rooms in this side of the house lay immediately over James Paradine’s suite and the library and billiard-room. To reach the dining-room they could either descend the stair at the end of the passage or, turning left, come out upon the main staircase, and so down into the hall. This was the way they had come up and the quicker way. It also made it unnecessary to pass the study.
Elliot turned to the left and walked down the short flight which led to the central landing. For the first half-dozen steps a view of the hall below was largely obscured by the massive gilt chandelier. Its lights extinguished, it was just a black shape hanging in midair against a single lamp which burned below. Just short of the landing the hall came into view, and with it the big double mahogany door which led to the lobby and the porch beyond. The right-hand leaf of the door was in movement. Afterwards Elliot had to press himself very hard on this point-how sure was he that the door had been moving? And like the late Galileo he found himself obstinately of the opinion that it moved. By the time he was on the landing and had turned to make the further descent the movement had ceased. He reflected that if James Paradine had had a visitor it was none of his business, and perhaps as well to have been just too late to see who that visitor was. As they came into the hall, there was a sound of some sort from the upper floor. Like the movement of the door, it was more of an impression than a certifiable fact.
He proceeded into the dining-room, where he had a mild whisky and soda and watched Albert Pearson make himself a cup of cocoa over a spirit lamp. A disposition on Albert’s part to go on talking about eels was countered by the statement that he had taken in all the information he could hold, and that he would cease to provide an alibi if he had to take in any more. Whereupon Albert looked superior and solaced himself with cocoa.
Later, as Elliot mounted the stairs, he tried to analyse his impression about that second sound. There had been a sound, he was quite sure of that-a sound from upstairs, from the part of the house over the drawing-room. Grace Paradine slept there, and Phyllida. Each had a sitting-room and bathroom. Nobody else slept in that part of the house. The servants’ quarters were beyond, in a separate wing. If anyone moved there, it must be Phyllida or Miss Paradine. The sound was like the sound of somebody moving. When he had to press himself on this point too, he could get no nearer to it than that. What he had heard might have been a footstep, or it might have been the opening or the closing of a door. His impression was featureless, without detail. He had heard a sound-he thought that he had heard somebody move. He went back to his room and saw that the hands of the clock on the mantelpiece were pointing to eight minutes past twelve.
It was 1943. Albert no longer required an alibi.
Chapter 11
A little earlier than this, whilst Elliot Wray and Albert Pearson were in the dining-room, James Paradine was still sitting at his writing-table in the study. It was three hours since he had flung his bomb into the family circle. If he felt either reaction or fatigue he did not show it. He had, on the contrary, the air of a man for whom the time has passed quickly and not without entertainment. As he sat there waiting for the clock to strike twelve and release him from the obligation to which he had pledged himself he appeared to be on good terms with himself and his surroundings. It is true that a frown drew his brows sharply together as his eyes dwelt for a passing moment upon a cardboard cylinder conspicuous on the left of the table, but quickly enough his look changed. The frown was gone, his rather sarcastic smile flashed out. His glance had passed to a small leather-covered diary on the farther side of the table. It lay open, face downwards, the bright blue cover making it conspicuous against the dark red leather of the desk. He reached across, picked it up, looked quizzically at the date exposed, February 1st, and let it drop again, closed this time, upon the blotting-pad. After which he appeared to lose himself for a time in pleasurable thought.
Presently he pushed back his chair, took a bunch of keys from his right-hand trouser pocket, and going over to the filing-cabinet on the left-hand side of the hearth, pulled it away from the wall and opened the safe which it served to conceal. What he took out was a number of old-fashioned cases in red leather with the initials C.P. stamped upon them in gold. The leather was faded and the gold was dim, but inside the diamonds shone very brightly indeed. The necklace which could be used as a tiara; the solitaire earrings; the rings-half-hoop, cluster, solitaire, marquise; the bracelets; the breast ornament; the brooches-they flashed as brilliantly after their twenty years in the dark as they had done when Clara Paradine had worn them to sit for the portrait above the mantelpiece.
He looked from the real jewels to the painted ones appraisingly. It was a good portrait, very like Clara, and the diamonds were very well done. They were good diamonds. He had paid a pretty penny for them. Nobody had worn them since Clara died. It had never even entered his head to give any of them to Brenda or Irene. Clara’s daughter and daughter-in-law maybe, but the diamonds had come from the Paradine side and they were part of the Paradine capital.
He put the cases back in the safe, locked them away, and pushed the cabinet against the wall. Then, with the keys in his hand, he came over to the hearth to look at the clock. Two minutes to twelve… Well, he supposed that no one would come knocking at the study door now. New Year’s Eve was almost gone. A singular evening, but not, he thought, ill spent.
He went over to the door as he had done earlier in the day and switched off the lights. Then, repeating what was obviously a habit, he passed between the heavy curtains which screened the bay and unlatched the door to the terrace. Looking out, he observed the change which had come over the landscape since he had stood there before dinner. There was still a glint of moonlight away to the left, but the moon itself was out of sight. The wind was up, driving black clouds before it. In a moment the light would be gone. Behind him in the room the clock on the mantelpiece gave out the first of the four strokes which announced the hour. James Paradine stepped out upon the terrace, walked over to the parapet, and stood there looking down. The last of the moonlight struck a sparkle from the river where it bent by Hunter’s Lea. He thought vaguely about the diamonds he had locked away. Then it was dark.
As the last stroke of twelve died in the empty room, the black clouds opened and the rain came down.
Chapter 12
Half an hour later all the so
unds in the house had ceased. The sound of footsteps going to and fro in the wing above the study, the noise of water running into the bath and out of it, the gurgling and murmuring in the pipes as the cistern filled again-all these were past. Refreshed by his bath, Elliot had fallen asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow. The house lay in that profound silence which falls upon a place of human habitation when conscious thought and movement are withdrawn. There is a special quality about this silence of a sleeping house. It is a silence of life, as different from the empty stillness of a deserted dwelling as sleep is different from death.
Phyllida had dreamed that she was walking in a garden and it was dusk. The air was full of the scent of roses, and she knew that Elliot was there. She could feel his arm about her, but she couldn’t see his face. Then a woman in a long black veil came out of the dusk and took him away. Phyllida couldn’t see her face either because of the veil, but she thought it was Maisie Dale. In her dream all the pride was melted out of her. She ran after them, calling for Elliot, but he wasn’t there, and the woman in the veil turned round and threw it back. And she wasn’t Maisie Dale, but Grace Paradine. And she said, “I’ll never let you go.”
Phyllida woke up with a sound in her ears like the sound of a cry. She didn’t know whether it was really a cry or not. She woke up in the dark, and she was frightened. A breathless sense of danger just escaped had followed her out of the dream.
She reached out her hand and switched on the bedside light. At once the charm and security of the room closed her in. The dream was gone. She blinked at the light and saw that the hands of the little chromium clock stood at just past twelve. This horrible year was gone. She was glad that there had been no need to sit up and see it go. Let it slink away and be forgotten, like a guest who has stayed too long and whom nobody regrets.
She put out the light again and began to think about seeing Elliot in the morning. This time there must be no risk of someone else between them. She thought, “I’ll ask him to come up to my sitting-room.” Deep down under the thought a little laughter stirred. Funny to be planning an assignation with your husband-funny, and nice. The feeling of having left all the unhappy things behind was strong upon her. Presently she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
It was Lane’s custom to enter Mr. Paradine’s room at half past seven precisely. The procedure never varied. Advancing a dozen steps, he put down the tray which he carried, after which he closed the open window, drew the curtains across it, and switched on the light. On the first morning of 1943 he observed his usual routine, but as he turned towards the bed he was surprised to find it empty.
His first impression was just that and no more- the bed was empty. But hurrying upon this came perturbation and dismay, because the bed had not been slept in. There were the covers neatly folded back, there the undented pillows, and the red and white striped pyjamas laid ready but unworn. He was so much startled that he found it necessary to verify what he saw by coming close up to the bed and touching it, after which he hastened to the bathroom, his mind full of the idea that Mr. Paradine might have had some sudden seizure. But in the bathroom everything was in order-too much in order-the bath-mat unruffled, the bath showing no watermark, toothbrush and toothpaste shut away.
In a state of considerable distress he proceeded to the study and approached the windows, passing between the curtains to the long door in the centre, and at once he began to be very much afraid, because the door was unlatched and stood ajar with a cold wind blowing in. It blew right in his face, cold and a little wet. It must have rained in the night. The smell of rain came in with the wind. He pushed the door wide and stood there looking out.
It was very dark. There would be no daylight for another hour. He could see nothing. Even though he knew just how far the terrace ran out to the low parapet which guarded it, he could not discern the edge.
He passed back into the room, found a torch, and switching it on, came out upon the terrace. It must have rained hard in the night. Wherever the stone had worn away water stood in a pool. The beam of the torch dazzled on the wet flags, and dazzled the more because for all his trying Lane could not hold it steady.
He came to the parapet, no more than two foot high, and stood there with his lips moving and the torch hanging in his hand.
“I always said so. Lizzie will bear me out-I always said so. ’Tisn’t safe having a drop like this and no more than a two-foot wall-I always said so.”
The words made no sound. His lips moved on them but made no sound.
Presently he lifted the torch and sent the beam down over the wall-down the long drop to the path beside the river. There was something there-a huddle of darker clothes, the sprawled shape of a man as immovable in the fading beam as the path on which it lay or the rock beyond it.
Lane stopped shaking. A dreadful certainty steadied him. On the extreme right of the terrace, a flight of steps led down to a little lawn from whose farther side a rustic path wound to the river’s edge, sometimes running straight for a yard or two, sometimes breaking into wooden steps, slippery now with the wet. He came down it with accustomed feet. It was a path to tread in sunny weather, going down to the boat-house on a summer afternoon-not like this, not in the dark of a January morning. He remembered that it was New Year’s Day.
And then he came out on the river path and focussed the torch on that dark, sprawled shape. It was James Paradine, and he was dead.
Chapter 13
Phyllida woke in the dark to a knock on the door and murmured a sleepy, mechanical “Come in!” The door opened and shut, the ceiling light snapped on, and there coming towards her was Elliot, hastily dressed, his fair hair rumpled, his face drawn and grim. At the very first sight of him all her new happiness was gone. A dreadful conviction of disaster caught at her heart. It didn’t even seem strange for him to be there. She was out of bed in a flash, her hair about her shoulders.
“Oh! What is it? Elliot-what is it?”
“Bad news, I’m afraid.”
She was shaking. She caught at his arm to steady herself.
“It’s Mr. Paradine-he’s had an accident.”
“An accident-”
She was clutching him hard. It seemed quite natural to both of them. He said,
“I’m afraid he’s dead.”
The tears began to run down Phyllida’s face. Elliot said,
“You’d better sit down. And look here, Phyl, you’ve got to pull yourself together. It’s going to matter very much what we do and say-all of us. We’ve got to pull ourselves together, and we’ve got to keep our heads.” He took her over to the bed, and they sat together on the edge of it. “Look here, I’ll tell you about it. Lane found him. He’d fallen from the terrace. He was right down there on the river path. You know how he always went out the last thing to take the air and look at the river-he never missed, wet or fine. Well, he must have turned giddy and gone over the parapet. His bed hadn’t been slept in, and the study door was open. Lane went out with a torch and found him. Then he came to me, and I got Albert. I’ve left him ringing up all the people who’ve got to be told-Moffat, Frank Ambrose, Mark and Dicky, Dr. Horton, and the police.”
She was still holding him. Her grasp tightened.
“The police-”
He said in a curious restrained voice,
“Because of its being an accident-you have to notify the police when there’s been an accident.”
A long shudder went over her. She let go of him and turned so that they were facing one another.
“What did you mean-when you said-it mattered so much-what we said-”
Elliot did not answer her for a moment. Instead he got up, fetched the pale blue dressing-gown which lay over a chintz-covered chair, and came back with it.
“You’d better put this on.” Then, when he had put it round her, he said soberly, “I think you’ll have to tell Miss Paradine. And I think we shall all have to make up our minds what we are going to say to the police.”
They
were both standing now. With her hands on the cord she was knotting at her waist, she looked up and said in a startled voice,
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what happened at dinner last night. It did happen, and we can’t behave as if it didn’t. A lot of people heard what he said. If they’re going to hold their tongues about it, they’ll all have to hold their tongues. If they’re going to talk-if any one of them is going to talk-the police will have a good many questions to ask.”
She finished tying her girdle before she said,
“What are you going to do?”
Their eyes met. His were hard, angry, antagonistic. He said,
“I don’t know.” Then, after a sharp break, “Was it an accident?”
“Oh-”
He went on looking at her with those hard eyes.
“Was it? You don’t know-I don’t know. If it was, it was a lucky accident for someone. You heard what he said-we all did. Someone in the family had let the family down, and he’d got it in for them. He’d got his own ideas about punishment, and he meant to keep it in the family, but whoever had done it wasn’t going to get off light. And he knew who it was. That’s the crux of the thing-he knew who it was. And he was going to be in his study till midnight, so confess and take the consequences. That’s what he said-wasn’t it? So someone goes along and confesses. And there aren’t any consequences, because James Paradine has an accident. That’s about the size of it, isn’t it?”
The Clock Strikes Twelve Page 6