Kay felt sharp anxiety. “Simon, you…”
“Your dear little niece. The saintly Elaine who was to be Ivor’s child bride next Tuesday with all the proper trimmings at two-thirty P.M. Elaine who only this afternoon had waltzed around in the wedding dress Ivor had bought for her! Elaine was there with Don. She was in his arms and he was kissing her.” Her lips curled in a slow scarlet sneer. “You should have seen that kiss. It would have sent Clark Gable blushing into B features.”
Kay struggled to keep her expression in control. So Elaine had kept the appointment with the boatman whose story of their relationship had seemed so fantastically fabricated. Elaine, who only that afternoon had passionately asserted her love for Ivor, had been seen in Don’s arms—just over an hour before Ivor’s death.
“Now you can see why I went to the island,” Simon said. “And you can see why Ivor would have been through with Elaine after tonight. The innocent, untouched Elaine—how do you suppose he’d have felt when he heard that all the time she’d been carrying on a cheap affair with his hired boatman? That she’d been cheating on him a week before the wedding?”
Simon was right enough about that. To Ivor with his inordinate vanity and his almost psychopathic pleasure in cheating others, the idea of Elaine playing a double game with him would have been galling indeed.
She said: “So you went to the playhouse to tell Ivor about Elaine and Don?”
“Naturally. I went home. I waited till I thought Ivor would be starting for the island. Then I canoed over and went to the playhouse. I was going to raise the roof. Oh, you think I was doing it out of jealousy. That wasn’t true. I was going to tell Ivor the truth because I couldn’t stand it any longer, seeing the Chilterns exploiting him, luring him on with Elaine as a bait—for what? Just to get a roof over their heads.”
She broke off sharply, her restless hands moving to her bare throat. “It interests you, doesn’t it? Don’t you imagine it’ll interest the police too? Mrs. Chiltern tried to fool Major Clifford tonight. She said Ivor was their good friend, that they all loved him. Their good friend! Major Clifford’s not going to think that after I’ve let him know the whole setup was a sham, that Elaine was cheating, that all of them hated him, that they were just hovering around like vultures waiting to snatch his money.”
This was far worse even than Kay had imagined. She looked at the girl in the sheer, clinging lingerie whose face was incandescent again with passionate indignation. Simon Morley, if she chose to go in hatred to the police with her distorted picture of the Chilterns, knew enough to send the whole world tottering around them. Through her Ivor’s ghost could wreak untold vengeance on the people Kay loved.
Strangely enough, at that moment when Simon Morley represented danger in its most crucial form, she felt no hatred for her, no fear even. For by some queer trick of memory Simon, as she sat there, had stopped being Simon Morley. She had become another girl who three years ago had stood staring at Kay just like that, bitter, besottedly in love, ready to lash the universe for the sake of Ivor Drake. That expression, that stiff, quivering body—it was Rosemary Powell living again.
And the tragic realization came: this has happened before. Simon and Elaine—Rosemary and Kay, that vicious, heartbreaking circle that had always pivoted around Ivor. Only then Rosemary had been fighting for the living Ivor—and had died. Now Ivor was dead and Simon was fighting to retain the memory of what she thought had been his love.
“Simon, dear,”—she put her hand impulsively on the girl’s tense shoulder— “you can’t go to Major Clifford like this. You can’t do that to the Chilterns. You must know what Ivor was really like. The Chilterns accepted a lot from him. They may seem to have exploited him, but it was just because Ivor wanted things to be that way. He was so much, much cleverer than they. They’ve been foolish, weak, maybe. But just for that you can’t want to destroy their lives.”
“Destroy their lives! What about Ivor’s life? He’s dead, isn’t he—murdered! What have the Chilterns ever done for me? They’ve killed Ivor. That’s all they’ve done.”
“Simon you can’t say that. You don’t know who killed him, you don’t even know he was killed.”
“Of course they killed him.” Simon’s red lips were trembling like a little girl’s. “I—I hate them all.”
“Even Terry? Think of what it would do to Terry if you brought all this out into the open.”
“Why should I care about Terry?”
“Because he happens to love you.”
“Love me? Terry?” Simon caught her breath in a laugh that was almost a sob. “He’s just a kid. He doesn’t know what love is.”
“He knows a great deal more about love than Ivor did. Simon, you think Ivor loved you, don’t you? I hate to have to say this now of all times. But you’ve got to face the truth. Ivor didn’t love you. He never loved anyone except himself. You say he was cynical about Elaine with you. Don’t you realize he was just as cynical about you behind your back?”
Simon stiffened. “That’s a lie. Ivor and I were different. You’re just saying that to try to get me on your side.”
“Simon, won’t you trust me?” Kay was looking at the heavy silver slave bracelet on the other girl’s wrist. “Perhaps you will when you hear something that happened tonight at dinner. In front of us all Ivor talked about you. There was no provocation, nothing. Just to harry Terry, just to throw the spotlight on himself, Ivor hinted that you’d been making yourself cheap with Terry, that you were in the habit of rowing over to the playhouse late at night. He also said that you’d go any lengths with anyone ready to buy you a slave bracelet.”
She watched Simon intently, watched the sudden shock of those words deaden her face.
She went on: “When he said that, there was murder in Terry’s eyes. If we hadn’t stopped him, he’d have knocked Ivor to the other side of the bay. I’m telling you this so that you can make up your mind whether Terry loves you more than Ivor. And, if you’re still going to make your accusation to the police, you’ve got to realize that you might be putting a noose around Terry’s neck. He had the strongest motive of them all for killing Ivor. And if he did kill him, he killed him because he loved you and because in front of us all Ivor made a cruel, contemptible attack on you.”
It had been a dangerous gamble. In letting Simon know of that savage blaze-up at dinner she was running the risk of her reporting it to the police. She was staking Terry’s safety on the long chance of shattering Simon’s pathetic illusion of Ivor.
That she was wantonly obstructing justice, that from the very start she had tacitly allied herself with an unknown murderer against the law, meant little to Kay at that moment. There was only the immediate, urgent need of winning Simon over, of blocking this dangerous gap in the wall of silence with which she was trying to protect the family from disaster.
Simon had lapsed into a pale, lifeless silence. She was staring blindly at the bracelet on her wrist.
“And even if Terry means nothing to you, Simon,” Kay continued, “think of your own danger. You were alone in the playhouse when I arrived at the island. You have no kind of alibi. If the Major overheard what Ivor said about you at dinner, don’t you see what he’d think about you and Ivor? The girl he jilted for Elaine! You’d have as perfect a murder motive as any of us.”
“I don’t care what Major Clifford thinks. I don’t care if he suspects me.” The words came in a cold whisper. “Ivor can’t have said that about me to the Chilterns. He can’t have been so—so filthy.”
“My dear, he’s probably said it thousands of times, all over the island. The girl who would do anything for a bracelet.”
“But—but Ivor, he always swore he never told anyone, that no one knew, that it was just the two of us.”
“Ask any of the others at dinner, if you don’t believe me.”
For a long moment Simon’s gaze did not move from Kay’s face, as if she were searching despairingly for some hint that she was not telling the truth. Kay saw
the last vestige of hope flicker out.
“And Terry?” asked Simon dully. “He didn’t believe it? He was mad? He—he stood up for me?”
Kay nodded.
In a pitiful attempt at the poised woman-of-the-world manner, Simon shrugged her bare shoulders.
“So I’ve been just another of Ivor’s goats, have I? I suppose I should have guessed it. I suppose I was pretty dumb. But then I’ve been dumb all my life, hating the wrong people, l-loving the wrong people.” Her lips were forced into the mockery of a smile.
“Anyway, I guess it was fun while it lasted.” Impulsively she held out her hand. “You don’t have to worry about Major Clifford. You and I went over to the island together for a canoe ride. That’s all I know. That’s all the old battle-ax will get out of me. Even a fool knows the right moment to stop being a fool.”
Then the miracle had happened. Kay felt a queer thrill of triumph. In her first battle against Ivor’s dangerous ghost, she had come off victorious.
She took Simon’s hand, squeezing it. “Thanks, Simon. You’ve taken it much better than I did—three years ago.”
“Don’t thank me. And—and let’s leave it there for tonight, shall we? I’m not going to be able to take much more.”
Simon swung away with exaggerated nonchalance and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Kay felt a rush of pity for her and admiration too. Simon wasn’t one to let down in public. The blasé control stayed with her while she prepared for the night, put on the green pajamas, and slipped into bed.
But later, as Kay lay in her own bed and the Bermuda moonlight splashed softly into the dark room, she knew that Simon’s control had run its course. From the other bed, she heard the stifled sound of weeping.
And she knew that the girl was weeping not for the real Ivor Drake who was dead, killed by some unknown murderer, but for the glamorous image of him which she had built up in her own mind and which that night Kay had destroyed just as inexorably.
Chapter Eight
ALTHOUGH HER BODY ACHED with fatigue, Kay could not sleep. Long after Simon’s smothered weeping had faded into the rhythmic breathing of exhausted slumber, she lay in bed wide awake, thoughts scampering through her mind like squirrels in a treadmill. Now that, for the time being at least, Simon was no longer a menace to the Chilterns, it was the murder itself that occupied her whole attention. Someone, probably someone who was an integral part of Kay’s own life, had killed Ivor Drake tonight.
Who?
There was Maud; the calm, unfathomable Maud who had gone to the dock with Ivor, who had almost certainly lied to the Major about what happened there; Maud whom Kay had seen slipping back to the house ten minutes after Ivor’s speedboat had started for the island, ten minutes later than she had admitted to the Major.
What had Maud been doing in those ten most fateful minutes of the evening?
Kay refused to follow that question through. But as soon as she had banished Maud from her mind, there rose up even more vividly the image of Elaine; Elaine whose every moment from dinnertime on was unknown; Elaine who had so many and such damning things to explain.
The soft moonlight gave the room an opalescent, undersea quality which was strangely soothing. At length Kay slipped into a doze. And then again, suddenly, she was awake, sitting bolt upright in bed.
Yes. That wasn’t part of a dream. Someone was moving in the passage outside.
Every nerve on edge, she listened. The footsteps, drawing nearer, were cautious. She could tell that they came from the far end of the corridor where there was only one room—Elaine’s room. In the moon-drenched darkness that slight noise was uncannily distinct. The footsteps reached the door and hesitated. For one taut second Kay waited for the sound of the door creaking open. But it did not come. Softly the footsteps started again, moving toward the stairs.
Who was up and about at this hour of the night? Someone coming from some secret meeting with Elaine? Or Elaine herself going—where?
Kay lay back against the pillows, her pulses tingling. All was quiet again. Not a sound. Then, abruptly, the moonlight splashing through the uncurtained window brightened from silver to pale yellow.
Someone had turned on a light downstairs.
Noiselessly, so as not to wake Simon, Kay slipped out of bed and moved to the window. She saw the lighted room downstairs immediately. It was in the wing which thrust out to the right. Through its bare window she could make out the white paint, the plain wooden floor of the kitchen. And, as she stood there, a slim girl’s figure in an oyster-gray housecoat moved to the window below and pulled down the blind.
Elaine.
Kay made up her mind instantly. Whatever Elaine was doing down there in the kitchen, this was a chance to talk to her before tomorrow morning, which would inevitably bring Major Clifford and danger. On tiptoe she moved through the moonlit darkness to the mantel. Her fingers, slipping into the cold mouth of the copper vase, drew out the bathing cap. She found a rough towel bathrobe in the closet, put it on, and stuffed the split cap into the deep pocket.
Simon’s breathing was regular, undisturbed. Throwing her a final glance, Kay stole to the door, opened it a crack, and squeezed out into the passage.
It was darker in the corridor, but there was still enough moonlight to guide her. She moved past the closed doors of the other rooms toward the stairs and moved down into the luminous well of the hall. The dining room loomed ahead. At the end of it a thin strip of light showed under a door.
Feeling a taut anxiety Kay crossed and pulled open the door.
Elaine, standing by the window, did not see her at first. In her hand she held an electric iron, plugged into a socket in the ceiling. She was running it with feverish haste over an indistinguishable white garment stretched on an old ironing board.
“Elaine!”
The girl glanced up sharply, her dark hair swirling around her shoulders. When she saw Kay she dropped the iron onto its stand, moved as if to sweep the garment off the board and then let her hand fall at her side.
“What are you doing, Elaine?”
The girl’s face was white, defiant. On her smooth temple the long scratch stood out terrifyingly clear. “I couldn’t sleep. I had to do something to keep from thinking. I—I’m just ironing out my slacks.”
Kay crossed to the ironing board. While Elaine watched, making no attempts to prevent her, she picked up the white garment and shook it out.
Elaine’s lie had been pitifully lame. This wasn’t a pair of girl’s slacks. It was a pair of cotton pajama pants which, from the length of the leg and the width of the waist, could only belong to a man.
Kay laid them down on the board again, instinctively spreading them out as they had been. Her thoughts had rushed back to the moment when she had run into the boatman’s cottage to tell Don Baird of Ivor’s death. He had been sitting at the desk—in white cotton pajamas!
“Whose are these really, Elaine?” asked Kay quietly. “Are they Don’s?”
“Don’s? You’re crazy. Of course they’re not Don’s.” Suddenly Elaine’s voice went flat. “At least they might be for all I know. I don’t know why I pretended they were mine. I—I just found them here in with the rest of the things in the laundry. I picked them at random. Something to press, something to occupy my mind.” It was painful to hear that second, even more threadbare, lie. Kay looked at the girl’s white, drawn face. “Can’t you be frank with me, Elaine? I know much, much more about Ivor than you think. I don’t blame you for being in love with Don.”
Elaine’s lips half parted. “In love with Don?”
“I know about that too. Don told me everything tonight.”
“Don told you I Why should you believe what he says?” Elaine’s small tongue darted out and then in again. “Don’s crazy. That’s what he is—crazy. Chasing me, pestering me, trying to make me believe I’m in love with him.” She caught her breath. “It’s not true. I—I hate Don. It was Ivor I loved. I was going to marry him. I…”
“And
yet tonight in the slave cottage you let Don make love to you, let him kiss you.”
“What—what do you mean?”
“Simon saw you, Elaine, dear, don’t you see I’m only trying to help you? In all this ghastly business I’m only trying to see if there isn’t something we can save. You must realize how important it is to know the truth. Major Clifford thinks Ivor was murdered.”
“That isn’t true! That’s an insane, horrible lie.”
“But he thinks it. He’s going to suspect us all. And he’s probably going to suspect you more than anyone. You must understand that. There’s that scratch on your temple. The Major saw it. And he knows Ivor’s face was scratched too.”
“You can’t think I got scratched struggling with— Ivor!”
“What I think doesn’t matter. Major Clifford’s going to think that. Particularly if he finds your white evening dress, torn and with blood on it.”
“My dress!” Elaine’s face was pale, wooden, as if she had been struck. “You can’t know about my dress too.”
“I saw it in Don’s cottage when I went to tell him to phone the police. Elaine, unless you tell me the truth, what am I going to think?” She tried to keep her voice from shaking. “You don’t want me to think you killed Ivor, do you?”
A little shiver went through the girl’s body. Automatically she started to run the iron back and forth across the pajama pants.
“All right.” The words came low and dry. “I suppose I can tell you. I did go to Don’s cottage tonight. I only went because—because he’d kept on and on, because I knew there’d be no peace until I did. He said a lot of crazy things about how awful Ivor was, how much he hated him, how I couldn’t possibly love him, how if—if I got wise to myself I’d realize it was Don himself I loved. It was all so stupid.”
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