When Middlesworth dropped him off in front of Lesley's house, Dick stood for a time looking north along the sedate High Street. The daze of the nightmare had not quite passed, but he wanted to execute a dance, or throw a stone through the post office window, as a sheer explosion of relief. He took pleasure, physical pleasure, even in the sight of the High Street.
There were the familiar houses. There was the post office, with its temperamental postmistress and no stamp-machine. There were the shops, the public-house 'Griffin and Ash-tree', the three or four offices, the trim brick premises of the City and Provincial Bank. Beyond rose-the low grey spire of the church, presided over by the Rev. Arthur Goodflower; and its clock was now striking the quarter-hour after ten.
The clock-note had a melody not noticeable to anybody except Dick Markham. He strode up the path towards Lesley's house.
Nobody answered his ring at the door-bell. He rang again, still without effect, before he noticed that the front door was not quite closed.
Pushing it open, he put his head into the cool, dusky, pleasant hall.
'Lesley!' he called.
How the devil was he going to face up to her now? How to tell her, in so many words, that he had last night suspected her of being an angelic murderess with poison, or a diary, or some unnamed horror hidden away in a wall-safe? But the only thing to do was to tell her straight out, ending this nightmare in one gust of laughter.
For the fact remained that yesterday's business with the rifle had been an accident after all.
Lesley, rattled by some weird story - for all Dick knew, maybe even that he was a murderer himself - had loosed off that rifle without meaning it. And the fraudulent Gilman had instantly and glibly used this to his own advantage.
Still no reply from the house.
'Lesley!' he called again.
The grandfather clock in the hall ticked with its metronome-note. Mrs Rackley, in all probability, would be out marketing at this hour. But Lesley - He was about to turn away, and close the door after him, when he caught sight of Lesley's handbag, with her front-door key beside it, lying on a small table in the hall.
Shouting her name, he wandered into the sitting-room. Then he glanced into the dining-room opposite, and investigated the kitchen behind that. One look through the back kitchen-windows told him that she was not in the garden either.
He told himself that he had no reason to feel disquiet. She might only have gone a step or two down the road. Standing in the middle of the tidy white kitchen, where a tap drizzled with hollow effect in the silence, he told himself this; but he had now reached such a state of mind that he wanted the reassurance of merely seeing her.
As a last resort he peered into the little room, hardly more than a cubicle, where Lesley was accustomed to have breakfast Its furniture was of bright-painted blue and white wood, like nursery furniture. On the table, set for one with precise array of silver and china, the bacon and eggs had turned stone cold. The toast had withered to hardness in its rack. No coffee had been poured out into a waiting cup.
Dick hurried out of that room, returned to the hall again, and started upstairs three steps at a time.
So thoroughly were the proprieties observed in this house that he had never so much as looked inside her bedroom, though he knew which room it was. He halted outside the closed door. He knocked once without reply, hesitated, and opened the door.
The two windows of the bedroom faced the High Street. Between them showed, like a scar, an, evilly significant wall-safe with its steel front swung wide open. That was not all he could see, when three strides took him forward. The inside of the safe, not much bigger than a large biscuit-barrel, was empty.
Passing the foot of the bed, Dick swung round.
Huddled on the floor near the foot of the bed, her left cheek against the carpet, lay Cynthia Drew. One knee was partly drawn up, and Cynthia's arms in the pinkish-coloured jumper were thrown wide. A purplish bruise on her right temple had split a little to let dark blood trickle and congeal down the cheekbone. She did not move.
CHAPTER 12
AN empty safe.
Cynthia, waxen of complexion and with her yellow hair disarranged.
Dick picked her up - Cynthia's sturdiness made her no light weight, despite the fact that she was not tall - and carried her to the bed, where she lay as limply as a doll.
There could be no question, thank God, about her being alive. She was not even, he hoped, seriously hurt. Her half-parted lips stirred to an audible if jerky breathing. But she was pale, and the devil's brush of the bruise showed ugly against the very fair skin.
Another door opposite the windows displayed a thoroughly modern, even sybaritic bathroom. Dick plunged into it, turned on the cold-water tap with a rush into the washbasin, soaked a face-cloth, wrung it out, and rummaged in the medicine-chest for smelling-salts and iodine. In doing so he confronted his own reflexion - stubbly-bearded, not even washed, a spectre to affright decent people - in the mirror over the wash-basin. He found neither smelling-salts nor iodine, but there was a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a box of cotton-wool.
He went back to Cynthia, and he was just pressing the wet cloth to her forehead when he heard, from downstairs, the hollow slam of the front door.
Lesley?
But it was not Lesley. When he hurried downstairs, taking them at mountaineering jumps, it was to find Mrs Rackley: in a regrettable hat, with a market-basket over one arm and a bulging paper carrier in the other hand.
'Mr Markham!' exclaimed Mrs Rackley. Her eyes added, 'Now, then!' as plainly as any Metropolitan police-constable.
'Where's Miss Lesley?'
'She's 'ere, sir.'
' She's not here, Mrs Rackley!'
'I left 'er 'ere,' the other pointed out, dumping the parcels on the hall table with something of alarm. ' When did you leave her ?'
'An hour ago, it might be.' Mrs Rackley's eyes moved to the clock.' Miss Cynthia -' ' What about Miss Cynthia ?'
A flustered cook-maid-housekeeper was having some trouble with the parcels in market-basket and carrier, which seemed to be developing a tendency to roll like billiard-balls.
'Well, sir, it was while Major Price was here. Miss Cynthia, she come to the back door and said, could she slip up the back stairs to Miss Lesley's room, because she had something she wanted to surprise her with? I said yes, she could, Miss Cynthia being a Nice Girl and holding no offence towards you and Miss Lesley for ... I beg-pardon-I'm-sure!'
‘ Well ? What happened then ?'
' Sir, what's wrong ?'
' Never' mind that! Go on!'
"Then Major Price left, and Miss Lesley went upstairs too, and I heard them talking up there.' 'Yes?'
' I went upstairs myself, and tapped on the bedroom door, and said, "Miss, your breakfast's ready." And she called out and said, "I'll come down straightaway; please go out and do your marketing." Speaking up very sharp, which she's never done before. And so I marched straight out like she said.' Mrs Rackley's sense of bitter offence melted into concern as the possibility of a new enormity occurred to her.' Don't you tell me, sir, she didn't get her breakfast ?'
Dick ignored this.
'I'm afraid there's been an accident' He hesitated. ' Miss Cynthia fell and hurt her head. If you could -'
It was unnecessary to say any more. Though a heavy woman, Mrs Rackley ascended the stairs with surprising agility, holding a hand under her heart as though to prevent it from falling out. Her treatment of Cynthia was deft and effective.
After bathing the bruise, sponging away blood, she applied restoratives of her own which she fetched from an upper floor. Cynthia, coming out of the faint, began to fight. Cynthia writhed and squirmed and muttered and kicked out; and Mrs Rackley held her shoulders patiently until she quietened.
'Now, now!' urged Mrs Rackley. 'Now, now!' Her neck craned round. 'Do you think, sir, as we ought to send for the doctor?'
'No.’
' 'Ow did this 'appen, sir ?'
&nbs
p; ' She - she slipped and hit her head on the foot of the bed.'
' Was you here, sir ?'
'Thank you, Mrs Rackley. That will be all. If you could let me speak to Miss Cynthia alone for a moment...'
'I don't know,' said Mrs Rackley deliberately, 'as I ought to do that.'
'What she needs,' said Dick, 'is tea.' He had no idea whether this might be the right measure, but he counted on the effect on Mrs Rackley of suggesting anything prepared in the kitchen. 'Hot black tea,' he declared with assurance, 'without any sugar or milk. If we could have some of that...'
It worked.
Then he sat down on the edge of the bed beside Cynthia, who hastily smoothed down her skirt and must have felt the pain burn through her head as she tried to get up. Cynthia breathed hard. The blue eyes, becoming less cloudy, grew fixed,' she went red under the eyes, and then pale again.
‘ It's all right, Cynthia. What happened ?'
'She hit me. It sounds a-absurd, but she hit me. With that mirror.'
'What mirror?'
Cynthia tried to struggle up in order to point; as soon as her shoulders left the coverlet she caught sight of the open safe; and she caught in manifest dizziness at Dick's arm.
‘Dick! That safe!'
'What about it?’
' It's empty. What was in it? ‘
'Don't you know?'
'No! I tried to -' Abruptly Cynthia checked herself. Her face smoothed itself out to utter, pretty stolidity; without the prettiness, it would have been bovine. She attempted a light laugh. ' My dear old boy,' she added in her tennis-court voice, 'we're being rather absurd. Please let me get up.'
‘Oe still, Cynthia.'
'Just as you like, of course!'
'Where did you hear that there was something, anything at all, supposed to be in that safe ?'
'My dear Richard, I didn't! That safe is the mystery of the whole village. Half of Six Ashes talks about it, thank you. And, s-since we've got so many mysteries on our hands - !' Again Cynthia checked herself. 'She hit at me, Dick. I walked towards her, intending to reason with her. And she hit out at me like a snake striking. With that mirror.'
Dick glanced round.
On the dressing-table was a silver toilet-service: plain, unobtrusive, but costly and very heavy. Its hand-mirror, which would have made a murderous weapon, now lay balanced on the edge of the dressing-table as though hastily put down.
Dick Markham - he felt it himself with surprise - was no longer the mentally dazed and drugged person of yesterday. He had torn loose from evil, or so he thought; he had become again an alert, alive young man with more than his fair share of intelligence.
'Why did she do that, Cynthia ?'
' I've told you! I asked her to open the safe.'
' Was she standing in front of you ?'
'Yes. With her back to that dressing-table, and her hand behind her. And she lashed out with the mirror before I could lift a finger.'
' Cynthia, are you sure you're telling me the truth ?'
'Why shouldn't I be telling you the truth?'
'Lesley's right-handed. If she hit out at you with the mirror while you were facing her, that bruise ought to be on your left temple. How is it that the bruise is on your right temple?'
Cynthia stared at him.
' Don't you believe me, Dick Markham ?'
'I'm not saying I don't believe you, Cynthia. I'm trying to find out what happened here.'
'Of course,' Cynthia said with sudden fierce bitterness, 'you'd take her part.' And then, disregarding appearances, this girl who was always so careful of appearances rolled over on her face and began passionately to sob.
Dick, with a hot and cold feeling of- embarrassment, made the mistake of trying to touch her arm; she shook him off with a gesture of intense loathing. He got up, went to the window, and stared out blankly at the High Street.
Across the road, and to the left, loomed the entrance-gates of Ashe Hall. Nothing stirred in the High Street except a tall military-looking man - a stranger in the village, Dick vaguely noticed - who was crossing the street on this side in the direction of the post office.
Dick was fond of Cynthia, very fond, though not in the same way as his feeling for Lesley. The thought which flashed through his head was so ugly that it turned him cold: the more so as Cynthia's emotional storm spent itself immediately. With a calm and amazing change of mood, she sat up and put her feet down to the floor.
' I must look a sight,' she observed.
He whirled round.
' Cynthia, where is Lesley?'
' How on earth should I know ?'
' She isn't here. She isn't in the house. And, as you said, that safe is empty now.' ' You don't think I've done anything to her, surely ?' 'No, no! But-'
'But you admit,' interposed Cynthia, with careful coldness, 'that she does have something to hide. In the safe, which she's taken away now. I see!'
'For God's sake listen! The thing I'm trying to get at is this. What excuse did you have for asking her to open the safe ? What made you do it ?'
' If you'd heard the dreadful things that are being said about her-'
in
' Is that all, Cynthia ? You weren't by any chance listening outside the windows last night?' ' What windows, Dick ? What is all this ?' No: it was absurd.
The puzzled straightforwardness of her manner made him put the thought away from him. He touched the little door of the safe, which swung gently shut He picked up from the carpet a picture which had evidently hung in front of the safe. Replacing its wire on the picture-hook, he saw that it was a black-and-white Aubrey Beardsley drawing: a sly mosaic of evil whose inner design did not become immediately apparent but, when it did become apparent, struck you in the face.
' I insist,' cried Cynthia,' on knowing what you mean!'
Dick groped for excuses.' I mean,' he lied,' that you were there this morning. Near the cottage. You might have heard or seen something that would help us.'
He had meant nothing by this, he was merely flinging out words at random, but to his surprise Cynthia's voice changed.
'As a matter of fact, Dick, I did see something.' ' What?'
Cynthia's fingers plucked at the quilted coverlet of the bed.
' I meant to tell you earlier. But we were in such an awful flap that it completely slipped my mind. It's not important, anyway, because Sir Harvey Gilman killed himself.' Her eyes moved up.' Didn't he ?'
' Never mind! What did you see ?'
' I saw somebody running,' answered Cynthia.
'When? Where?'
Cynthia reflected.' It was a minute or so before the rifle was fired at the window.'
' Before the rifle was fired at the window ?' .
'Yes. I was coming along the lane from the east, you remember? Whereas you were coming from the west? I hadn't seen you yet, and naturally I couldn't tell there was anything wrong. But I saw somebody dodge across the lane in front of me.'
' Dodge across the lane in front of you ?'
'That's right. From the fruit-orchard beside the cottage, across to the wall opposite and over the wall into the coppice.'
' Could you see who the person was ?' ' No. Only a shadow. It was that queer funny light just at sunrise.'
'Any description at all ?' ' No, I'm afraid not.' 'Man or woman?'
Cynthia hesitated. 'I can't say, really. And now, Mr Richard Markham, if you've quite finished your interrogation and your various suspicions of me, I think I'd better go home.'
' Yes, of course. Steady on! You're still groggy. I'll take you home.'
'You'll do nothing of the kind, Mr Richard Markham,' said Cynthia, with a cold concentration of anger which kept her voice at a steady level ' If you think I'm going to walk along the High Street looking as though - well, as though heaven knows what! - and if you think you're going to take me home to my parents in this state, all I can say is you're very much mistaken. Please keep away from me.'
'Don't be a fool, Cynthia!'
&nb
sp; ' So now,' said Cynthia,' I'm a fool.'
' I didn't mean that, exactly. I meant...'
' It’s not as though you showed any concern about me to begin with. Oh, no. All you could think about was her. That's very proper, I'm sure; I'm not in the least blaming you for it; but when you first call me a liar and then a fool, and only think of showing any scrap of concern for me when you realize how it may look in public, then I must really ask you to excuse me.'
Dick walked forward to expostulate. He took her by the arms, with something in his mind between kindly reasoning and an impulse to shake her until her teeth rattled. Then, he could never afterwards remember how, Cynthia was in his arms, very warm and tight-holding so that he could feel the firm muscles of her body, crying against his shoulder.
And this was the exact moment when Mrs Rackley walked in with the tea-tray.
"Thanks awfully, Dick,' murmured Cynthia, disengaging herself and giving him her friendly smile. "Thank you too, Mrs Rackley. You're not to see me home. I shall be quite all right Good-bye.'
Then she was gone.
Though Mrs Rackley did not actually say, ‘Well' her eyebrows expressed much. She creaked over and put down the tea-tray with something of a bang on the bedside-table.
' Mrs Rackley,' said Dick,' where has she got to ?'
'May I ask, sir,' inquired Mrs Rackley, keeping her eye carefully away from him, 'who you're referring to?'
' Miss Lesley, of course.'
'If you'll excuse the liberty, sir, I was just a-wondering whether it mattered to you where she'd got to.'
'For the love of Mike, Mrs Rackley, don't get the wrong impression of any thing you saw!'
'For Miss Lesley's sake, sir, I did not see it. That's for Miss Lesley's sake,' explained Mrs Rackley, still keeping her eye on a corner of the ceiling. 'What's past should be past, if you know what I mean; not that it's any of my business.'
'There never was anything...'
'I don't wish to 'ear,' said Mrs Rackley, 'about what is not none of my business. Isn't anybody going to drink this tea?'
Till Death Do Us Part dgf-15 Page 11