Danger Point

by Patricia Wentworth

  “I can get Evans.”

  “Or Dale?” He waited a minute and then repeated the words – “Or Dale?”

  She flushed and said without looking at him,

  “He’s busy – you know he is. And he hates shopping.”

  “I shall have to spin that sprain out. I say, that would make an awfully good tongue-twister, wouldn’t it? But to hark back – who was your girl friend? I’ve told you about mine.”

  The oddest impulse surged up in Lisle and took charge.

  “You’d love her. She quotes Tennyson too.”

  “The little dumpy woman who spoke to you after the inquest?”

  “Rafe! How did you know?”

  “A flash of genius. Who is she?”

  They had turned into Crook Lane and were slowing for the hairpin bend. She put up a hand to the window ledge and gripped it.

  “Mind coming down here?” said Rafe quickly.

  “A little.”

  “Better do it every day until you don’t. That’s brutal common sense. You’re quite safe, you know, honey-sweet.”

  Lisle said, “Am I?” in a queer flat voice. She kept her hand on the window ledge until they were round the corner where her car had smashed against Cooper’s barn. Then she drew a sighing breath and let it fall.

  “Go on about the girl friend,” said Rafe. “Can’t I meet her? We could swap quotations. Who is she, and why have I never heard of her before?”

  Lisle only answered one of the questions. The impulse driving her, she said,

  “She’s a detective. At least she calls it ‘Private Investigations Undertaken’ on her card, but I expect that’s what it means – don’t you?”

  Rafe said nothing at all. She looked at him and saw his profile rather as Miss Silver had seen it at the inquest – the brown skin tight across the line of cheek and jaw, the lips without movement, locked and inexpressive. The odd thought went through her head that if she had seen a picture of him like this she might not have recognised it. It was just as if he was not alive.

  And then all in a moment the impression broke. His face was the familiar one again, quick with movement and expression. He laughed and said,

  “I expect so. Where did you pick her up?”

  “In a train.”

  “And she leapt at you and said, ‘Let me privately investigate you.’ Was that it?”

  The impulse which had carried Lisle as far as this died suddenly. She saw with relief that they were approaching the big stone pillars from which two heraldic beasts grinned down malevolently upon all who came to Tanfield Court. If she waited until they had turned in… She measured the distance along the path with her eye. No – she couldn’t wait so long as that. She must speak – say something. If she didn’t, he would think – what would he think? What did it matter what he thought? It did matter.

  This was all in one flash of agonised, struggling thought. She made herself laugh and say,

  “Would you like to know?”

  They ran smoothly between the pillars and left the grinning beasts behind. Rafe said drily,

  “Yes, I should very much. Are you going to tell me?”

  “I don’t know.” Her lips smiled, but her secret thought cried in her with something like despair. “He’ll know all the same – he knows now. If I could tell him – I can’t!”

  He said, “Hadn’t you better?” and caught the very faint movement of her head which said “No.”

  As they drew up by the steps leading to the house, he was laughing again.

  “Supposing I ask the sleuth herself – do you suppose she’d tell me?”

  “There’s nothing to tell.” She opened the door and got out.

  Rafe’s voice followed her.

  “Shall I try my luck?”

  She ought to have laughed and said something light, but she couldn’t manage it. She only shook her head again and ran up the steps and into the house.

  Chapter 36

  THE black and white hall was cool and shadowy after the strong heat and light outside. Lisle went up the shallow marble steps past the tortured Actæon on the half-landing, past all those white tormented shapes of death and grief, to her own room. Here the gloom was of another kind. Not stark tragedy but outworn respectability made it a kind of catacomb of Victorian taste. The impression which it always induced came upon her with more than its usual force. The windows stood wide, the middle one a two-leafed door opening upon the narrow parapeted balcony. Lisle threw a cushion on to the sill and sank down upon it, her head against the jamb, her hands in her lap. The sun was on the other side of the house and the breeze was cool from the sea. She stayed like that for a long time. Miss Silver’s words came and went in the empty spaces of her mind. She watched them there…

  Presently she began to think again. It was just as if part of her had gone numb and was coming back to life. She had been able to talk and laugh with Rafe on the way home because the numb thing had not begun to hurt. It was beginning to hurt now. Miss Silver’s words kept sounding in her ears: “Change your will. Alter your will. Ring up your solicitor. Change your will. Ring up your solicitor at once. Tell him to destroy your will. Make some excuse. Alter your will. Change your will. Everything to your husband? Any other legacies? Any other substantial legacies? Twenty thousand pounds to Rafe. Would that be a substantial legacy? Change your will. Alter your will. Tell them that you have changed it. Tell everyone.”

  She thought about that… “Leave all the money to a charity and tell them what I’ve done…” There was nothing to stop her doing it here and now. She had only to cross to the bed, take up the telephone, and call Mr. Robson. She could do that and have it done in a quarter of an hour… And then go down and tell Dale, and Rafe, and Alicia that she thought one of them was trying to murder her. Because that was what it amounted to. ‘I’m destroying the will that makes it worth your while. If anyone murders me now they may get themselves hanged, but they won’t get any money and they won’t save Tanfield. “ Just exactly that was what it amounted to.

  Lisle closed her eyes and wished that she was dead already and out of it. If she was dead she wouldn’t mind who had her money. She didn’t mind now. She only minded having to think that someone wanted it so much that they would do murder to get it. She thought about that, and she thought about being dead, and it came to her that she couldn’t take Miss Silver’s advice. If they were trying to kill her they must try. She couldn’t defend herself – not that way. Anything that came must come from them. If her marriage was to be broken – and she thought it was broken already – it must be Dale who broke it. She could not put her own hand to it. If Rafe… Her thought faltered. Twenty thousand pounds – was friendship worth no more than that? He had said that he hated her. Perhaps they all hated her. Alicia did, but she was an open enemy. “The wounds with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” She thought, “That’s in the Bible – but I have no friends in this house-”

  And as she came to that, there was a knocking on the door. She got to her feet before she said, “Come in” – some feeling of not being taken at a disadvantage. How far back did that go – to the jungle? And how much safer was she here among the trappings of Victorian respectability?

  It was Lizzie the second housemaid at the door, a buxom young thing – bright hair, rosy cheeks, eyes popping with interest.

  “Please, madam, it’s the police Inspector. And William told him Mr. Jerningham was out, and he said if he could see you – and William’s put him in the study same as last time if that’s all right.”

  Lisle said, “Quite all right, Lizzie,” and turned to the glass to smooth her hair. She put colour in her cheeks and touched her mouth with lipstick. Her white linen dress was crumpled. She changed it for a soft green muslin, thin and cool. Then she went down.

  Randal March watched her come in with a feeling that he was here on a fool’s errand. This girl – it couldn’t be possible that her husband or some member of his family had tried to murder her. The tears which
she had not shed darkened her eyes. When he had seen her before she had been fainting pale. Now, with colour in cheeks and lips, she was lovely, with a delicate, ethereal loveliness which touched and charmed him. She gave him her hand as she had done before and kept her eyes on his face with just that sensitive widening of the dark pupils which told him she was nervous.

  He said, ‘I won’t keep you, Mrs. Jerningham. I just want to clear up a few points about your coat.”

  “My coat?” Her hand was cold in his. She drew it away and stepped back.

  “The one you gave to Cissie Cole.”

  “Oh, yes.” She went over to the fireplace and sat down there on an old-fashioned backless stool.

  “The coat has been tested for prints, and I should be very grateful if you could answer a few questions about when you wore it last, and whether anyone else had the opportunity of handling it then.”

  “I told you -”

  “Yes. Do you mind if we just run over it again? You wore the coat on Sunday evening. Are you sure you didn’t wear it again after that?”

  Alicia’s voice in the hall on Sunday evening – “That hideous coat!”

  March saw her wince, and wondered why.

  She said in a soft, hurried voice, “Oh, no, I didn’t wear it again.”

  “And where was it between Sunday and Wednesday?”

  “In a cupboard in my bedroom.”

  “No one would have touched it there?”

  “Oh, no.”

  March smiled at her.

  “Then we come back to Sunday, when you wore it last. I think you said Mr. Rafe Jerningham brought it to you in the garden. Can you remember how he was carrying it?”

  “Over his arm.”

  “Did he help you on with it?”

  “I don’t remember. I suppose he did.”

  “I think you said he did.”

  “Then I suppose he must have.” She put up a hand to her cheek. “Does it matter?”

  “Well, it does rather, because we want to account for the handprints. You see, if he helped you on with your coat on Sunday evening, we would expect some rather faint prints up by the collar.”

  She could feel a little pulse beating against her hand. It frightened her. She let the hand fall again into her lap.

  “And are there any?”

  He nodded.

  “Now, Mrs. Jerningham, just try and think whether he touched you again after that.”

  “Touched me?” Her eyes widened.

  March smiled pleasantly.

  “You were down by the sea wall, weren’t you? He didn’t take you by the shoulders and swing you round to look at something across the bay, did he?”

  “Oh, no!” There was no mistaking her surprise.

  “Nothing at all like that?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Well, that finishes that. Now did anyone else touch you whilst you were wearing the coat – take hold of you, as I said, pat you on the back, or anything of that sort? Your husband, for instance?”

  “Oh, no. I came in after we had finished talking. I didn’t see Dale. I went straight up to my room and put the coat away. Alicia – Lady Steyne was in the hall, but she didn’t touch me.”

  “Where was the coat before your cousin Rafe Jerningham brought it to you?”

  “I think he brought it from one of the chairs on the lawn. It – it turns cold down by the sea as soon as the sun goes.”

  “That was very thoughtful of him.”

  Lisle said, “Yes.” It rushed into her mind how often Rafe had done things like that. She felt a wave of emotion, a touch of comfort. And on that Rafe himself came strolling in through the window.

  “How do you do, March?” he said. “More Third Degree? Just tell me if I’m in the way.”

  “Not a bit. I have finished with Mrs. Jerningham. I was going to ask if I could see you. You couldn’t have timed your entrance better.”

  “Perhaps I was listening for my cue.”

  Lisle got up and left them. As Rafe opened the door for her she looked up at him and caught a queer crooked smile. It troubled her – a crooked, bitter smile. It robbed her of that new-found comfort. She heard Miss Silver’s voice again. “Tell them you’ve altered your will. Tell them all.” The door closed behind her.

  Rafe came over to the writing-table and leaned against the corner of it. He wore a short-sleeved shirt with an open neck and a pair of grey flannel trousers, and he looked very much at his ease.

  “Well?” he said. “What is it now? I thought we’d finished.”

  “Not yet,” said Randal March.

  “Because when we have, I was going to say I suppose you’re not on duty all the time, and what about coming up for some tennis?”

  “Thank you – I’d like to – when we have finished. I’m afraid I’m strictly on duty this afternoon.”

  “Too much on duty for this?” Rafe offered a battered cigarette case.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Oh, very well. I suppose you don’t mind if I smoke?”

  “Not at all. I’ve just been asking Mrs. Jerningham about the coat she gave to Cissie Cole. We’ve been trying it out for fingerprints, and we naturally want to know who handled it before it changed ownership.”

  Rafe struck a match, drew at his cigarette till it glowed, and dropped the match on to Dale’s pen-tray.

  “Fingerprints?” he said. “On that woolly stuff?”

  March watched him.

  “Yes. It’s a new process. Some of the prints are marvellously clear.”

  Rafe laughed.

  “Mine amongst them? I suppose Lisle told you I fetched that coat for her and helped her on with it the last time she wore it – at least I suppose it was the last time.”

  “Yes, that’s what she said.”

  Rafe blew out a mouthful of smoke. Through the light haze his eyes danced mockingly.

  “Too disappointing for you!”

  March said, “Perhaps, ” and then, “Perhaps not.” He pushed his chair back, fixed his eyes sternly upon Rafe, and said, “When did you take hold of that coat by the shoulders and upper part of the arms – and who was wearing it at that time?”

  Rafe put his cigarette to his lips. Was it to cover them? His hand was steady enough. March thought, “I’d rather trust my lips than my hand if I was in a hole.”

  The hand dropped. The lips were smiling.

  “Well, Lisle has just told you that I put her into her coat.”

  March shook his head.

  “These prints weren’t made that way. I’ll show you how they were done.” He sprang up and came round the table. Standing behind Rafe, he took him by the shoulders, the flat of the palm at the edge of the shoulder-blade, the fingers coming round the upper arm and gripping it. “Like that,” he said. And let go, and went back to his seat.

  Rafe was still smiling.

  “Any explanation?” said March.

  Rafe shook his head.

  “I can’t think of one – at least not a new one. I did help Lisle on with her coat, you know, but I suppose that’s too easy for the modern scientific policeman.”

  “The prints are too fresh,” said March quietly. “They’re the freshest prints of the lot. The ones you made on Sunday are a perfectly different affair. These prints were made at a much later time, and they are most unmistakably yours.”

  Rafe straightened up, still smiling.

  “Well, you’ll have to prove it, you know. I don’t mind your trying, if it amuses you. But just speaking off hand, I should say that none of it would sound very convincing in, let’s say, a court of law – or a coroner’s court. And perhaps that’s the reason no one asked me all these interesting questions at the inquest. I was there, you know.”

  “You don’t offer any explanation?”

  Rafe shrugged his shoulders.

  “You won’t take the obvious one. I’m afraid I haven’t any other.”

  Chapter 37

  INSPECTOR MARCH got to his feet. “If you think
of one perhaps you’ll let me know. But meanwhile I wonder whether you would care to walk along the beach and show me how far you went on Wednesday night.”

  “Oh, certainly.” Rafe’s tone was casual in the extreme.

  He led the way out by the french window and down through the Italian garden, talking as he would have done to any other guest.

  “I don’t know if you hate this sort of thing – some people do like poison – Lisle does for one. Too much like a map with all these formal beds. And she doesn’t like statues and cypresses either. They’re a bit funerary for the climate – as a rule. They need an Italian sky to set them off.”

  “They’ve got it today,” said March.

  “Yes, but you can’t turn it on when you want to. The whole thing was a copy of a famous garden at Capua, with statues added by an ancestor who had more money than he knew what to do with. He developed a very pretty talent for chucking it away, so we don’t exactly bless his memory.”

  From the Italian garden they came by way of a tree-planted walk and a long green ride to the sea wall. The bay lay clear before them in the morning sun, Tane Head across the water just softened by the faintest haze. And on the left, cliffs sweeping away from the gap in which they stood, and the black wall of the Shepstone Rocks running down from them to meet the sea and break its surface with a murderous line of jagged points. The tide was full, and everywhere except about the rocks the water lay silken-smooth and blue.

  March turned his back on Tane Head and looked towards the cliffs.

  “That’s a nasty bit of coast. Dangerous, isn’t it?”

  “Very. There’s no real beach after you get round the Shepstone wall. The old story, which was quite strongly believed in my grandfather’s time, had it that the bay used to run right round to Sharpe’s Point – that’s the next headland. There weren’t any rocks in those days. It was all smooth hard sand, and the local bad man, Black Nym by name, used to come riding across from the Point at low tide, robbing, murdering, and generally making a public nuisance of himself. Well, one day he came along on a Sunday evening when everyone was at church and drove off a large flock of sheep. He brought them down here and started off across the sand with them, roaring at the top of his great bull voice that those who were fools enough to go to church and serve God should sit up and take notice what much better wages he got from the devil. There was an old woman in the village nearly a hundred when I was eight years old. She used to tell the tale, and this is how she told it – ‘And with that, Master Rafe, there did come the most ’orrible great blast of wind and a crack of thunder fit to split the sky. Dark as Christmas midnight it were all at once, and he could hear the sheep crying and the sea roaring, but he couldn’t see nothing, not so much as his own hand before his face. He swore worse than ever. There were those as heard him, and some say there was a voice that answered him out of the holy Book – “The wages of sin is death.” And some say there wasn’t nothing, but only one flash of lightning and a clap after it fit to bring the cliffs about his ears. And that’s just what it done – the sea come up in a ’uge unnatural wave and the cliff come down to meet it. And what happened to Black Nym nobody knows but the devil as was his master. Some folks say the sheep all turned to stone, but I reckon that’s a fond saying. Drownded they was, poor things. You won’t ever get me to believe as those wicked black rocks was ever anything so ’armless as a pack of soft, silly sheep. Bits of the cliff as come down, that’s what they are and you won’t get me from it. But whether or no, Shepstone Rocks was the name they got, and that’s how they got it.’ ”