She had stopped trying to get away. Her hands were cold in his.
“Or Mrs. Sylvester? Was it Mrs. Sylvester?” He felt a shudder go over her. “Sally, you’ve got to tell me. They were all on the ledge when J.J. fell, you know—Ambrose, and Mrs. Ambrose, and Henri Niemeyer. They were all there when J.J. got your Aunt Clementa’s letter at breakfast, and when he fell, and when he was picked up. They were all there, but the letter wasn’t.”
Sally looked at him, and looked away. She said in a hurrying voice.
“Daphne and Bonzo were there too.”
“Darling, don’t be absurd! They may have been in the Tyrol, but they couldn’t have been at Rere Place.”
“Oh, yes, they could,” said Sally.
“What do you mean?”
“They were staying at Goldacre. It’s only about ten miles away. They motored back to town after lunch. They could have gone to Rere Place just as easily as anyone else.”
“Why on earth should they?” said James.
Sally jerked her hands away suddenly and sat back.
“Why should anyone try to kill Jocko? Because that’s what it comes to. Someone pushed him over that ledge, and it was someone who knew he had had that letter—someone who wasn’t sure how much of it he had read—someone who had to make sure that he didn’t go on reading it—someone who stole it whilst we were all wondering whether he was dead.”
“Why?” said James in a solid, matter-of-fact voice.
“Because of what was in the letter,” said Sally, panting a little.
“Sally—what was in the letter?”
She beat her hands together again, an oddly effective gesture which he had never seen used by anyone else.
“I don’t know—I don’t know—I don’t know—and what’s the good of guessing?”
“Sally, do you know who it was—honest?”
“No, I don’t. I keep telling you—and you don’t believe me—and I don’t know! It might have been Bonzo, or Daphne, or Henri, or Hildegarde, or Ambrose—or me.”
“Sally!”
She stared at him defiantly.
“I was there, wasn’t I? Every one of the others has the same right to suspect me that I have to suspect them. Jocko has the same right.”
“I do wish you wouldn’t talk nonsense!” said James crossly. “You’re just being dramatic, and it doesn’t get us anywhere. I suppose you’re not going to argue that it was you who fired at us? Or are you?”
“Oh!” said Sally, on a quick angry breath. “James, I simply hate you!”
“No, you don’t. Come off it! Look here—Jocko told me your Aunt Clementa had left him Rere Place and five thousand a year. Who does it go to if anything happens to him?”
“Me,” said Sally.
They looked at each other for a moment without speaking. Then he said,
“And after you, Sally?”
She looked frightened and turned her head away. James put a hand on her knee.
“And after you, Sally?”
“Ambrose,” said Sally in a whisper.
XX
James got up and went over to the window. He jerked back the curtain and threw up the sash. A cold, damp air came in. He stood staring out into the dark. The backs of the tall houses in Hinton Street rose up like cliffs, with a twinkle of light here and there. He was thinking, Jocko first—Sally next.… How long for Sally when Jocko was gone? Or would Sally be done in in a different way—quite legally, morally, and religiously done in by way of marriage with Henri Niemeyer?… Probably. One accident might pass, but two would be rather conspicuous, especially if they left Ambrose Sylvester heir to Rere Place and five thousand a year.
His frown deepened. Was that the objective? If it was, where did Aunt Clementa’s letter come in, and the shooting at Rere Place, and Jackson’s death?… They didn’t come in at all. And if they didn’t come in, then there must be something more. The money and Rere Place were not sufficient motive. They were, in fact, no motive at all when it came to the shooting, and poor Jackson. He remembered something, turned round, and went back to Sally.
She had thrown back her cloak. The dress under it was black velvet too. She was all black and white—black hair, black dress, black cloak; white skin, white pearls, white face, white hands clenched in her lap; black lashes veiling her eyes.
James knelt down beside her and put his hand over hers. The cold air from the window blew upon them. Sally shivered in it, but she did not move or pull her cloak about her.
“Sally,” said James, “you’ve got to tell me everything you know—you’ve got to.”
She said, “I don’t know anything,” and felt James’s hand very hard, and heavy, and unbelieving.
“You’ve got to tell me what you know. I won’t go on in the dark like this. It isn’t safe—for any of us. It really isn’t. You’ve got to be sensible.”
His own tone was full of common sense, but it wasn’t cross any more. It was very kind, and Sally had to blink, and discourage the idea that it would be immensely comforting to put her head down on his shoulder and cry there.
James went on speaking. He said,
“Let’s go back to your Aunt Clementa, and the day you went to see her and she gave you the letter for her old maid.”
Sally’s lashes rose. Her green eyes looked at him.
“Jocko’s letter was inside it. I’m sure it was.”
“Yes. We’ll have to find out about that from Annie. Where does she live?”
“London—somewhere out in the Ealing direction.”
“All right, I’ll see her. Well, after she’d given you the letter and you’d got the nurse out of the room, you said your aunt began to whisper, and you said she told she’d hidden something, and you said it was better to go on calling it a diamond necklace. Now, Sally, I want to know what it was she had hidden.”
“I don’t know. I never found it. That’s what I went there for that afternoon, to try and find it.”
“You say you don’t know what it was, but you know what she told you. I want to know as much as you know. I want to know just what she said.”
“James, I do really think she may have been wandering. She was very old and wandery.”
“Tell me what she said.”
“Yes, I’ll tell you—I must—I can’t go on. She began to whisper like I told you, and she said, ‘All the names—I’ve hidden them—they don’t know—wicked, wicked people. I took the book, and I hid it.’”
“The book—you’re sure she said the book?”
“I’m telling you just exactly what she said. It was all in bits, you know, and I thought she’d been dreaming, so I said, ‘Don’t worry, darling—it’s a dream. You know you can’t get out of bed.’ And she squeezed my hand, and gave a funny little laugh, and said, “They all think I can’t, but I can. Even Annie—but I can. I walk about in the night and I hear things—wicked people. But I got the book—they don’t know.’ Then there was something about finding it, but I didn’t get that because the smarmy nurse came in. That’s all, James—it really is.”
“A book—” said James in a puzzled voice. It all sounded quite mad. “Have you any idea what she meant?”
Sally shook her head.
“You say you went over that day to look for this book. Why did you wait so long? She’s been dead for more than a year, hasn’t she?”
Sally blinked.
“I didn’t think about it before. I thought she was wandering. We stayed abroad till the spring, and by then it all seemed finished and done with. Jocko was in India.”
“And what made it seem not finished and done with? Because in the end you did go to Rere Place to look for—this book.”
“I know. It was Jocko. He wrote and said he was coming home, and he said something about getting on with Aunt Clementa’s treasure-hunt, and another time something about looking for a needle in a bundle of hay, and then lots about opening the house and living there and all that sort of thing. So then I thought”—she looked at him
pleadingly—“I couldn’t help thinking—it might be better—for Jocko—not to stir things up—so I thought if I could find—whatever there was to find—before Jocko came—it wouldn’t be so—dangerous—for him.”
“I see. What made you go to Rere Place that afternoon?”
Sally threw out her hands in an odd little gesture.
“It was a beastly afternoon. I was at a loose end. It seemed a good plan. So I took Gladys’s bicycle and went.”
“Gladys?”
“The housemaid. She had flu. I told you.”
“You told me a lot of things,” said James grimly. “Most of them weren’t true.”
“That one was.”
“Where did you go from? Where were you? You didn’t ride the housemaid’s bicycle down from town?”
Sally made a face at him.
“Of course I didn’t! I went over from Cray’s End—Ambrose’s house. It’s about three miles away.”
“Oh, Ambrose Sylvester’s got a house three miles away from Rere Place, has he? And where was he that afternoon—and Mrs. Ambrose, and Niemeyer? Were they at a loose end too?”
Sally looked down into her lap. She said in an expressionless tone,
“Not at Cray’s End. Ambrose and Hildegarde were lunching in town. I don’t know where Henri was.”
“How do you know they were lunching in town?”
“They said so.”
James laughed.
“Did they say who they were lunching with?”
She shook her head.
All this time he had been kneeling beside her. Now he got up.
“In fact you don’t know where any of them were. So you took Gladys’s bicycle and went over to Rere Place and let yourself in. How did you get that key?”
She looked up at him, he thought with relief. Questions about keys were easier to answer than questions about Ambrose, and Hildegarde, and Henri.
“Aunt Clementa gave it to me.”
“When?”
“Just when I kissed her goodbye. She pushed it into my hand and put her finger on her lips for me not to say anything, so I didn’t, but of course I guessed that she wanted me to have it so that I could get in to look for whatever it was she had hidden. You know, I didn’t think she had really hidden anything, poor old pet, so I didn’t bother—not then. I just put the key in my purse and forgot about it.” She caught her cloak round her and jumped up. “I must go. I didn’t mean to stay more than a minute.”
“Yes, you must go.”
They stood looking at each other. Sally’s eyes dazzled.
“Oh, why can’t we just be happy?” she cried.
James put his arms round her, and they kissed.
“We’re going to be,” he said.
XXI
Sally had no sooner gone, really and irretrievably gone in a taxi, than James remembered at least half a dozen things which he ought to have asked her. He had meant to press home a number of points and to enquire searchingly into the composition of Lady Clementa’s household. Hadn’t Sally said that all the servants were new? Things like that. And he ought to have got the address of Lady Clementa’s old maid. Her name was Annie, and she lived at Ealing. He didn’t even know her surname. They had gone off about what Lady Clementa had really hidden, and they had never got back to Annie, because when Sally said, “Why can’t we just be happy?” a great drenching wave of emotion seemed to break over them both and they forgot everything except that they loved each other and never wanted to say goodbye.
James frowned and rebuked himself. He ought to have got that address. He wanted very much to interview Annie and find out more about the letters she had forwarded to Jocko. There were a lot of things he wanted to ask her. He couldn’t ask any of them until he got her address, and if he wasn’t to write to Sally, or see her, or ring her up, how on earth was he going to get it? And now was he going to get along without seeing Sally anyhow? He already wanted to see her again so badly that it hurt.
It was at this moment that he had the bright thought of following her to the Luxe. Ostensibly he would not, of course, be following Sally. He would merely be dropping in at the Luxe for a drink, or a spot of supper, or what not. The place is open to the public, advertizes itself to the public, solicits the presence of the public—or at least of that portion of the public which at this hour of the night is correctly attired in evening dress. James proceeded to get himself into evening dress.
Encountering him in a casual manner at the Luxe, his cousin Daphne could hardly be so oblivious to family feeling as to omit the very natural suggestion that he should join her party. It seemed to James a good idea. It even seemed a very good idea, because if he turned up like that, casually, quite a while after Sally, nobody could possibly suppose that her late arrival had anything to do with him. This may not appear to be a very convincing line of reasoning, but it was good enough for James who wished to join Daphne Strickland’s party at the Luxe.
He made a very successful business of his white tie, and the night being dry, set out on foot, (a) to save taxi fare, and (b) to allow of a longer interval between Sally’s arrival and his own.
Sally arrived at the Luxe, to be pounced upon by an indignant Daphne.
“Darling, I’ve simply lied my head off! And of course no one believes a word I’ve said, and Henri—”
“Is Henri here?” said Sally quickly. “You told me—”
“Darling, I didn’t ask him—he simply gate-crashed. And I told him to go away, and he simply wouldn’t. You’d better deal with him yourself.”
Sally looked over her shoulder and found Henri there. She hadn’t heard him come, but then you never did hear Henri come—he was there, or he wasn’t there. Now he was there, close at her elbow, with his charming malicious smile.
“Oh, Sally—how late! But perhaps better late than never—hein? Do we dance?”
She slipped her arm into his and they moved out on to the floor. Henri danced like a dream, and it was much easier to dance than to talk. But it seemed that Henri meant to talk too. His dark eyes sparkled teasingly as he said,
“And where have you been, my dear?”
Sally met the look with an answering one.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Yes, very much.”
She laughed.
“Then want must be your master, as my old nurse used to say.”
“Well, if you do not tell me, I shall make a guess. You have been meeting your wrong number—very imprudently, my dear. Wrong numbers should be rung off, and as quickly as possible—forgotten.”
Sally laughed again.
“How French you are, Henri!”
“Who—I? I am not French at all—I am Belgian. And when I speak English, I am so English that no one would know that I am not a born John Bull.”
Sally’s laugh was quite unforced this time. Henri, with his slim height, his irregular gamin features, his dark eyes, and his black hair cut en brosse—and John Bull!
“And what have I said that is funny? No, it is not that I am so amusing. It is a little red herring that you drag in front of me, is it not? And red herrings are no use with me, Sally my dear. This James—who is he?”
“My dear Henri, do you expect me to give you a full list of all my friends?”
His smile flashed out, and was gone again.
“That would be—a little premature, shall we say? I am not yet in so fortunate a position. Shall we put it like that?”
Sally’s colour rose brightly.
“You can put it any way you like, but I do wish you wouldn’t spoil a perfectly good dance by talking nonsense!”
Henri laughed—a little cool sketch of a laugh.
“Ah! It is nonsense then? Well, my dear, we shall see. But I think if I were you, I should be discreet. I should not go out of the road to tell Ambrose that it is all nonsense.”
“Or Hildegarde?” said Sally, looking straight up at him.
“Or Hildegarde,” he agreed. “I should, in fact,
keep very quiet, my dear. I should avoid assignations, and mysterious telephone calls, and the writing of letters which are so difficult to write that you tear up three, four, five sheets before you can complete one for the post.”
Sally felt the colour going from her face. She knew with terror how pale she was as she said,
“What are you talking about, Henri?”
“I think you know very well, dear Sally.”
Sally made a tremendous effort. If anyone had pieced those torn scraps together.… But they hadn’t. She rallied to the thought. They hadn’t. Nobody could have pieced them together, because she had burned them all, kneeling on the, hearth in her bedroom and dropping the little torn shreds upon the coals. Henri had frightened her for nothing. Her colour came back, and she said,
“I didn’t know reading other people’s letters was one of your accomplishments. It isn’t done in England, you know.”
He smiled caressingly.
“Or in Belgium, my dear. Don’t be frightened—I have not read your letters. I am the great detective from the crime novel. I have deduced it all from a little black ash at the bottom of your grate. I pass your door, and I hear the girl who is called Gladys say to the girl who is called Lizzie, ‘Miss Sally hasn’t half been burning paper—the fire’s fair choked with it.’ And then she says, ‘If you ask me, she was up half the night writing letters and burning them, poor thing. I’ve done it myself.’ And Lizzie asks, ‘How do you know it was letters?’ And Gladys says, ‘Ah, it was her blue paper all right, and there was darling on a bit that wasn’t quite burnt—so what do you think?’”
Sally flashed into scarlet rage.
“I think I don’t want to dance with you any more,” she said, and pulled away from him just as the music stopped.
Henri let her go with a laugh, and she danced the next with Bonzo Strickland. Sally liked Bonzo, but she never could quite make out why Daphne had married him. He was still under forty, but he seemed a great deal more than twelve years older than Daphne—one of those smallish, dryish, greyish men. His dancing was like his conversation, correct and on the dry side. Sally and he talked about Jocko, and motor racing, and rock gardening, because oddly enough Bonzo was a passionate rock gardener, and it pleased him a good deal to know much more about it than Sally did, and to reel off the polysyllabic names of the minute rock plants which he loved. It was the great grief of his married life that Daphne adored town and could only be induced to remain at Goldacre by the presence of a large house party.
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