“This,” Dermot explained, tapping the exhibit in tissue paper, “is Madame de Lamballe’s necklace, from Sir Maurice Lawes’s collection. After the crime, you remember, it was found thrown down on the floor under the cabinet?”
“Well?” said Eve.
“I wondered why. These are real diamonds and turquoises.” He touched them again. “M. Veille has just assured me of it. But now, it appears, there is a second necklace: a paste imitation. Which, you see, suggests the inference that…”
For a moment he remained staring into vacancy. Then he nodded, waking up. Carefully rewrapping the real necklace in its tissue paper, he put it back in his pocket.
“Would you like to tell me,” shouted Toby, “just what the hell you’re doing here?”
“Am I intruding in your home, sir?”
“You know what I mean. And don’t keep politely calling me ‘sir’! It sounds as though…”
“Yes?”
“As though you’re making fun of me!”
Dermot turned to Eve. “I saw you come in. Your taxi-driver assured me you were still here, and the street door was wide open. What I really wanted to tell you was that you’re not to worry any longer. The police aren’t going to arrest you. Not just yet.”
“But they came to my house!”
“Well, they have a habit of doing that. You’ll find them in your hair from now on. I can tell you privately, though, that one of the persons they wanted to see most was Yvette Latour, who gave them such a great welcome. And if that old virago isn’t being given the worst time of her life at this very minute, then I know nothing whatever about French character…. Here, steady on!”
“I — I’m all right.”
“Have you had any dinner?”
“N-no.”
“I thought not. That must be remedied. It’s past eleven o’clock, but there are ways of routing out restaurant keepers at any hour. Here’s the idea. Our friend Goron has had a slight change of heart, since somebody pointed out to him that a certain member of the Lawes family has been telling a deliberate lie.”
At those ominous words “Lawes family,” the whole atmosphere changed again. Toby took a step forward.
“Are you in this conspiracy too?”
“There has been a conspiracy, sir. By God, there has! But it wasn’t any of my work.”
“When you were listening at the door there,” Toby pointed, emphasizing the fourth word, “did you hear anything? About brown gloves and the rest of it?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t it surprise you?”
“No, I can’t say it did.”
Toby, breathing hard, faced them with an honest appearance of grievance. He fingered the black mourning band on his left sleeve.
“Look here,” he said. “I’m not one to air family matters in public, as I think you’ll admit. But I ask you, as a reasonable-minded man, whether I haven’t been badly let down over this?”
Eve started to speak.
“Wait!” insisted Toby. “I admit—appearances are one thing. But the idea of one of us killing father is such bosh that it looks like a conspiracy. And it came from her, mind you!” He pointed. “A woman I trusted, and practically worshipped.
“I told her before that I seemed to be seeing her in a new light. And, by George, I am! She as good as admits she’s taken up with this fellow Atwood again. She just couldn’t have enough of a bad thing. When I say something to her about it, she flies out and uses language that’s not very becoming in the woman I intend to make my wife.
“And why does she talk like that? Because of this girl Prue. Well! I admit it might have been wrong, in a way. But a fellow’s got to go out with a little bit of fluff now and then, hasn’t he? He doesn’t expect to take it seriously. He doesn’t expect anybody to take it seriously.”
Toby’s voice rose.
“That’s a very different thing from a woman who pledges her word for marriage. Even if she didn’t actually do anything with this swine Atwood, and I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt there, still she had him in her room: didn’t she? I’m a reputable business man. I can’t afford to have people saying my wife did things like that; at least, after it’s announced that we’re engaged. No: no matter how much I love her. I thought she’d reformed, and I was backing my judgment. But, if this is how she treats me, I’m not sure we oughtn’t to consider the engagement at an end.”
Honest Toby paused, rather conscience-stricken, for Eve was crying. This was sheer anger and nervous reaction. But Toby did not know it.
“I’m very fond of you, though,” he added consolingly.
For about ten seconds, during which the stillness was so absolute that you could hear Mademoiselle Prue herself blubbering upstairs, Dermot Kinross stood without breathing. If he released his breath, he thought it likely that he would explode. Through his mind, itself singed with past pain and humiliation out of which comes wisdom, drifted visions of red murder on his own part.
But he only put his hand with a firm, competent touch on Eve’s arm.
“Come out of here,” he said gently. “You deserve something better than this.”
XV
SUNRISE ON THE COAST of Picardy, in cool September weather, broadens along a horizon as red as the line of a crayon mark; it puts colors in the water, like a drowned paint box; and then, as the sun emerges, little light-points sting the waves of the Channel, blown along by the wind from the Straits of Dover.
On their right was the Channel, on their left scrubby sand dunes. An asphalt road, following the curve of the shore, itself shone like a river. As the open carriage rattled along it, with a patient coachman on the box and two passengers behind him, each creak and jingle of harness, each clop of horse’s hoofs, seemed to have a separate brittle noise against the light-headed hush and emptiness of morning.
The breeze from the Channel blew Eve’s hair wildly, and made ripples in the dark fur of her coat. Yet, despite the hollows under her eyes, she was laughing.
“Do you realize,” she cried, “that you’ve kept me talking all night?”
“That’s all right,” said Dermot.
The top-hatted coachman did not turn round or say anything. But his shoulders hunched up almost to his ears.
“And where are we, anyway?” said Eve. “We must be five or six miles from La Bandelette!”
Once more the coachman’s shoulders expressed agreement.
“That doesn’t matter,” Dermot assured her. “Now, about this story of yours.”
“Yes?”
“I want you to tell it to me again. Every word of it.”
“AGAIN?”
This time the coachman’s shoulders rose above the level of his ears, a contortionistic feat possible only to those of his tribe. He cracked his whip and the carriage spanked along, bouncing its occupants as they tried to look at each other.
“Please,” said Eve. “I’ve told it to you four times. I haven’t left out one single detail, I swear, of what happened—well, on that night. My voice is a croak. I must look a sight.” She held back her hair with both hands. The gray eyes, stung with moisture from the wind, implored him. “Couldn’t we at least put it off until after breakfast?”
Dermot was jubilant.
He leaned back against the faded upholstery of the seat, flexing his shoulders. He was somewhat light-headed from lack of sleep, and from a certain discovery which made his wits turn round to look where they had not looked too closely before. He had forgotten the fact that he needed a shave and looked thoroughly disreputable. It was a mighty surge of elation: he felt that he could have picked up the whole world, and balanced it, and chucked it downstairs.
“Well, maybe we can spare you,” he conceded. “After all, I think I’ve got the main details. You see, Mrs. Neill, you’ve told me something very important.”
“What’s that?”
“You’ve told me who the murderer is,” said Dermot.
While the rattletrap seemed to fly, Eve leaned out and st
eadied herself against the support over which the carriage rug was folded.
“But I haven’t got the least ideal!” she protested.
“I know. That’s why your account is so valuable. If you did know what had happened —”
He glanced at her sideways, hesitating.
“I had an idea, just a ghost of an idea, yesterday,” he went on, “that I might be looking in the wrong direction. But I never woke up fully until you started telling your story over the omelettes at Papa Rousse’s last night.”
“Dr. Kinross,” said Eve, “which one of them did it?”
“Does it matter to you? Does it make any difference,” he touched his chest, “here?”
“No. But — which one of them did it?”
Dermot looked her in the eyes.
“I am, quite deliberately, not going to tell you.”
Eve felt that she had had quite enough of this. But, as she opened her mouth for angry protest, she caught the steady, heartening friendliness of his look: the power of sympathy which had almost the power to burn.
“Listen,” he went on. “I’m not saying that like the great detective, in order to astonish the weak-minded in the last chapter. I’m saying it for the very best reason a psychologist can have. The secret of this matter,”—he reached out to touch her forehead,—“is here. In your brain.”
“But I still don’t understand!”
“You know it. But you’re not aware that you know it. If I told you, you would start to think back. You would supply interpretations. You would rearrange facts. And that mustn’t happen. Not yet. Everything—do you hear? everything—depends on your telling that story to Goron and the examining magistrate exactly as you told it to me.”
Eve moved uneasily.
“Let me give you an illustration,” suggested Dermot, studying her. He fished in his waistcoat pocket, and took out his watch. He held it up. “For instance, what’s this?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What’s this I’ve got in my hand?”
“It’s a watch, Mr. Conjuror.”
“How do you know that? There’s a strong wind blowing. You can’t hear it tick.”
“But, my dear man, I can see it’s a watch!”
“Exactly. That’s what I meant. We also observe by the watch,” he added more lightly, “that it’s twenty minutes past five o’clock, and you are very definitely in need of sleep.—Coachman!”
“Yes, monsieur?”
“Better get back to the town.”
“YES, MONSIEUR!”
You might have thought that the patient driver had been touched by magic. The effect of his swinging the carriage round was like one of those news-reel effects by which the film is speeded up, and a whole street suddenly becomes galvanized. They were rattling back along the same road, with white gulls squawking above a gray-blue Channel, when Eve spoke again.
“And now?”
“Sleep. Afterwards, trust your obedient servant. You’ll have to see Goron and the examining magistrate today.”
“Yes. I suppose so.”
“This M. Vautour, the examining magistrate, has the reputation of being a terror. But don’t be afraid of him. If he stands on his rights, as he may, they probably won’t allow me to be present at the interview …”
“You won’t be there?” cried Eve.
“I’m not a lawyer, you see. You’d better have a lawyer, by the way. I’ll send Saulomon round to you.” He paused. “Does it make so much difference,” he added, looking hard at the coachman’s back, “whether I’m there or not?”
“If does, rather. I haven’t thanked you for …”
“Oh, that’s all right. As I was saying, just tell your story, in detail, mind, as you told it to me. As soon as that story is officially in the record, I can act.”
“What are you going to do in the meantime?”
Dermot was silent for a long while.
“There’s one person who can testify who the murderer is,” he replied. “That’s Ned Atwood. But he’s no good to us yet, though I’m staying at the Donjon Hotel too and I’ll look in on his doctor just on the off-chance. No.” Again he paused. “I’m going to London.”
Eve sat up. “To London?”
“Only for the day. There’s a ten-thirty plane from here, and a late afternoon one from Croydon which should get me back by dinner time. I ought to have definite news by that time, if my plan of campaign works out.”
“Dr. Kinross, why are you taking all this trouble for me?”
“Oh, we can’t have a fellow countryman in danger of being chucked into the cooler. Now can we?”
“Don’t joke!”
“Was I joking? I’m sorry.”
His flick of a smile contradicted the apology. Eve’s eyes searched his face. Conscious of something in harsh sunlight, Dermot suddenly put up a hand to his cheek as though to hide it; the old phobia returned and stabbed. Eve did not notice. In her present tired state, shivering under the short fur wrap, she found the events of the past night looming large in her mind.
“I must have bored you terribly,” she said, “with all that talk about my love life.”
“You know you didn’t.”
“I simply poured out confessions, to a perfect stranger, until I’m half ashamed to look you in the face now that it’s daylight again.”
“Why not? That’s what I was there for. But may I ask a question—for the first time?”
“Of course.”
“What are you going to do about Toby Lawes?”
“What would you do, if you’d been handed the mitten in that suave and gracious way? I was properly jilted, wasn’t I? And in front of a witness too.”
“Do you think you’re still in love with him? I don’t ask if you are. I only ask if you think you are.”
Eve did not reply. The hoofs of the horse rang with a hard, clear clatter on the road. Presently Eve laughed.
“I don’t seem to have much luck with my men, do I?”
She said no more, and Dermot did not pursue the matter. It was nearly six o’clock when they clattered back into the white, swept streets of La Bandelette, where nothing stirred except a few early-morning hearties out on horseback. Eve’s teeth fastened in her lower lip, and she grew a shade paler, as the carriage swung into the rue des Anges. Dermot assisted her out of the carriage in front of her own villa.
Eve cast a quick glance at the Villa Bonheur across the street. It seemed blank and drained of life, except for one upstairs bedroom window. The shutters on this window were folded back. Helena Lawes, wearing an Oriental kimono, her eyeglasses on her nose, was standing there motionless, looking at them.
Their voices sounded so loud in the hushed street that Eve instinctively whispered.
“L-look behind you. Did you notice the upstairs window?”
“Yes.”
“Shall I take any notice?”
“No.”
Eve’s expression grew desperate. “Couldn’t you possibly tell me who…?”
“No. I’ll tell you only one thing. You were deliberately chosen to be the victim in as careful and cruel and cold-blooded a little scheme as I’ve come across. The person who planned it deserves no mercy, and is going to get none. I shall see you tonight. And then, heaven willing, we are going to settle somebody’s hash.”
“Anyway,” said Eve, “thanks. Thanks, thanks, thanks!”
She pressed his hand, opened the gate, and ran up the path to the front door, while the coachman uttered a weary sigh of relief; and Dermot, after standing for so long on the pavement staring at her house that the driver had new apprehensions, climbed back into the carriage.
“Donjon Hotel, mon gars. Then your labors will be finished.”
At the hotel he paid his cab-fare, added an enormous tip, and went up the steps followed by an epic torrent of thanks. The Donjon, whose foyer attempts to reproduce the hall of a mediaeval castle, was just waking up.
Dermot went to his room. From his pocket he took t
he diamond and turquoise necklace, borrowed from M. Goron; he made it into a registered packet, to be sent back to the prefect, and enclosed a note explaining he must be away for the day. Then he shaved, took a cold shower to clear his head, and ordered up breakfast while he dressed.
The reception clerk informed him by phone that the number of M. Atwood’s room was 401. After breakfast Dermot went to find it, and was fortunate enough to meet the hotel physician, on his early-morning round, just leaving Ned’s bedside.
Dr. Boutet was much impressed at the sight of Dermot’s professional card. But he betrayed a certain impatience. He stood in the dim-lit corridor outside the bedroom, and expressed himself forcibly.
“No, monsieur, M. Atwood is not conscious. Twenty times a day someone comes from the prefecture of police, and asks the same question.”
“There is, naturally, no telling if he will ever be so. On the other hand, it might occur at any minute?”
“That is possible, from the nature of the injury. I will show you the X-rays.”
“I should be grateful. Has he, do you think, a chance?”
“In my opinion, yes.”
“Has he said anything? In his delirium, perhaps?”
“He laughs sometimes. But that is all. In any case, I am not often with him. It would be necessary to put that question to the nurse.”
“May I see him?”
“But of course!”
In a darkened room, overlooking the rich flower gardens behind the hotel, the man who knew the secret lay like a corpse. The nurse was a Sister of some religious order; her huge headdress loomed in silhouette against the dim white blinds.
Dermot studied the sick man. A handsome devil, he thought bitterly. Eve Neill’s first love, and perhaps … he put that thought away from him. If Eve were still in love with the fellow, even subconsciously, there was nothing he could do about it. He took Ned’s pulse, and the ticking of his watch animated the quiet. Dr. Boutet showed him the X-ray photographs, speaking with relish of the miracle by which his patient had lived as long as this.
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