Fear by Night: A Golden Age Mystery

by Patricia Wentworth

  What nonsense to think of that now! All whispering voices sound the same. Those voices had said something about a will, and, “He’s never seen her,” and “He’s not going to. You must get her away at once.” What had it got to do with her? It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with her. One of those voices had said, “It’s a pity you can’t marry her.”… One of those voices? Or—one of these voices echoing faintly in the cleft?… “It’s a pity you can’t marry her.” …

  Ann turned giddy. She was too crouched together to fall, but for a moment she was not fully conscious. What had she heard? What had she really heard? Had she heard someone say, “It’s a pity you can’t marry her,” or had she only remembered hearing a whispering voice say it long ago at the Luxe?… It wasn’t really long ago, but it seemed so. She felt immeasurably removed from the places she had known.

  And what place was this, and what things were talked of here?… Murder … The word had ceased to echo in the hidden places of the rock, but in the hidden places of her thought it echoed still.

  The whispering fell to faint sound that just fretted the edge of her consciousness, and then the sounds of the air and of the water lapped over it and blotted it out.

  Ann felt how stiff she was. She had only been crouching down in the cleft, but she seemed to have strained every muscle of her body. She crawled round the jutting corner, clung and scrambled a few more yards, and came out by the side of the house. She went up to her room, and was glad to get there unnoticed. She shut the door and sat down on the floor beside the window. She was shaking all over, and her thoughts shook too. She couldn’t order them or get them to keep still.

  The sun shone upon the lawn, and the sky was a clear, pure blue. The air came softly off the water. There were patches of green on the hills, and streaks of red, and black, and purple. Every now and then a scent of pines mixed with the faint salt smell of the sea.

  Ann got up and looked at herself in the glass. There was a smudge of green slime across her forehead. Her eyes stared back at her.

  “Oh, Ann! What a fool you are!” she said.

  She poured cold water into the basin and washed her face and hands. Then she came back to the window again and leaned upon the sill. Her thoughts had stopped shaking and she began to sort them out.

  She thought that the whispering voices she had heard in the cleft were the voices she had heard at the Luxe. She thought that the Luxe voice and the cleft voice had said the same thing—“What a pity you can’t marry her.” She thought those two things, but she wasn’t sure. It was maddening not to be sure. She tried to piece together what she had heard.

  First of all, at the Luxe: “What a pity you can’t marry her.” And then, “You’re sure about the will?” That was one man. And the other had said, “I’m sure”; and, “Don’t speak so loud”; and, “She must be got away before she knows.”

  Ann thought about that. There was a girl who was coming in for money under a will, and she didn’t know about it, because they had said, “If he dies, the whole thing will be in the papers. She must be got away before she knows.”

  There was a girl.… What girl?… How should Ann Vernon know?… Ann Vernon.… What girl?… Ann Vernon …

  “Nonsense!”

  Ann said the word out loud in a clear angry voice. She went on saying it. “Nonsense—nonsense—nonsense!” If she said it often enough, perhaps that would make it nonsense. How could this girl, who was being left a lot of money, be Ann Vernon? Why, there wasn’t a single solitary soul in the world who would leave her a penny.

  Elias Paulett.

  The name said itself with frightening distinctness.

  Her mother’s uncle, Elias Paulett.

  “Nonsense!” said Ann again.

  He was very rich. He had cut her mother off when she married. He must be an old man now.…

  “What nonsense! He doesn’t know me—he’s never see me!”

  And at once the voices from the Luxe came tuning in: “He’s never seen her;” and, “He’s not going to. You must get her away at once.” And—words with hardly any breath behind them; “And then?”

  No one has answered that. Someone had said, “Well, devil take the hindmost.” No one had answered that “And then?”—unless the whisper that had echoed in the cleft had answered it: “Murder.”

  Was it all nonsense?

  The cleft voices repeated themselves—Gale Anderson’s voice: “I suppose it’ll have to be a boating accident.” And it was Gale Anderson who had said, on the boat when the storm was driving them, “Damn fool to send her down! There’ll never be a better opportunity.”

  Opportunity for what?”

  The cleft voice whispered the answer:

  “Murder.”

  Ann didn’t say “Nonsense!” this time. She put her hands to her ears as if she could shut out the sound of that whisper, and she said, not loudly but in a hurried, stumbling undertone,

  “Oh, no—no—no—no—no!”

  A long time went by. She did not know how long. And then came the sounds of the two men returning—real sounds, loud and vigorous. Ann drew back from the window in a revulsion of feeling. The whispering voices fell away. She was piecing scraps together and making an ugly picture out of nothing.

  She saw Gale Anderson come across the grass smiling, and behind him Jimmy Halliday, sunburnt and noisy, with a creel of fish on his arm. His voice came up to her like a blustering wind.

  “Leaving me to do all the work, young fellow! What do you think these fish weigh? Give me a hand, can’t you, and we’ll show the old lady what we’ve brought her for her supper.”

  Gale Anderson turned just under Ann’s window and looked back. He spoke with a laugh in his voice.

  “Oh, devil take the hindmost!” he said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Mrs. Halliday was very chatty at supper. She had two helpings of fish, and snapped Riddle’s I nose off when, in handing her the second, she bent close to her ear and murmured what was apparently a protest.

  “What’s that? Speak up if you’ve got anything to say! And don’t you go tickling me like that, Eliza Riddle, or I’ll say something we’ll both be sorry for—only you’ll be sorrier than me! And if I want ten ’elpings I’ll have ten ’elpings, so you keep your tongue where it was put and stop wagging it!”

  Riddle sniffed silently. Her drooping, obstinate nose became slightly pink at the end. She continued to sniff whilst she cut and handed bread, and, still sniffing, left the room.

  Mrs. Halliday chuckled.

  “I’ll get her notice when I go to my bed. She’s been giving it me regular for five years, and she ain’t gone yet and don’t mean to. Makes her feel independent without having to act up to it. I’ve often thought it’s a pity a wife can’t give notice like that. I wouldn’t wonder if there were a lot more ’appy marriages if the man didn’t feel so almighty sure of himself. Why, the minute the ring’s on ’er finger and the parson finished with his words, he thinks to himself, a man does, ‘This here woman’s my lawful wife, and what I do to her is nobody’s business short of murder—she’s got to cook for me, and wash for me, and scrub for me, and ’ave my children, and I don’t ’ave to pay her a penny of wages.’ If you ask me, there’s ninety-nine men out of a hundred it’d do a heap of good to if the woman could up and give them notice. You just bear that in mind when your time comes, Miss Vernon, my dear.”

  Ann saw Charles’ face sharp and clear, as she hadn’t see it when she sent him away. It had been too dark to see it then, but she could see it now. Her colour rose, and Mrs. Halliday chuckled.

  “It’s no good my talking to Jimmy, nor yet to Mr. Anderson, because Jimmy’s set on being an old bachelor, and Mr. Anderson’s got a wife already.”

  “Pity you can’t marry her” … The voice at the Luxe—the voice in the cleft.… Gale Anderson couldn’t marry her, because he’d got a wife already.…

  Ann’s chin went up a little.

  “Well, that’s a comfort anyhow,” s
he said to herself.

  Gale Anderson was looking sulky. Mrs. Halliday chuckled again.

  “Letting cats out of bags, am I? But if a nice-looking young man’s married, it’s better known from the outset, so as everybody can tell just where they are. It saves a lot of trouble in the long run. There was my cousin Jane Hollins’ youngest, christened by the name of Gladys she was—Gladys Hollins—and she’d been going to the pictures regular for a year with a fellow before he ’appened to mention he’d a wife and three children in Leeds. Cried something cruel Gladys did, because she knew he was getting good money and she’d set her ’eart on a green plush drawing-room suite on the instalment system—got it all planned she had, and could see herself on the sofa beside of him holding his ’and. And him with a wife and three children all the time! I say a married man did ought to wear a ring same as a married woman and be took up by the police if he goes about without it.”

  Jimmy Halliday burst out laughing.

  “I’d look nice in a ring—wouldn’t I, old lady?” He put his hands on the table and grinned at them. “I’ve a nice hand for a ring—haven’t I? I’ll have diamonds and pearls, that’s what I’ll have—one on each hand. That’d be a bit of all right, wouldn’t it, Miss Vernon?”

  “Get along with you!” said Mrs. Halliday in high delight. “Who’s going to marry an old bachelor like you? You’ve got to find a wife before you buy your ring.”

  Jimmy Halliday’s grin took on a tinge of embarrassment.

  “P’raps I’ve found one,” he said.

  Ann was thankful when the meal was over. She had never seen Jimmy Halliday in this mood. He had changed since they came to the island. The rather anxious politeness of his manner to her in London had vanished. He had been rough, surly, and uncommunicative. Now there was another change, and he was clumsily attentive. He pressed second helpings upon her, and attracted the ironic attention of Mrs. Halliday and the gloomy scowls of Mr. Gale Anderson, who was quite obviously in one of the worst tempers in the world. Ann felt sorry for his wife, whoever she might be.

  As she wound wool for Mrs. Halliday, she was thinking hard. Where was Charles, and when would he come back to see if she had laid a green branch upon the strand? He wouldn’t come every day—or would he? There were solid masses of comfort in the thought that he might.

  If she only knew exactly where they were. She did know that supplies came once a week in a motor-van which dumped them on the shore for Jimmy Halliday to fetch. Tinned beef, tinned tongue, cheese, flour, butter, oil, candles, rice. Never any fresh meat. Did that mean that they were a very long way from a town? It was no use asking Mrs. Halliday; she only nodded and said, “I didn’t have the education children have now-a-days. All that jography, and figuring things out on maps, that don’t mean nothing to me, and so long as I get my food regular, I don’t care a brass boddle where I am.”

  When she had finished winding the wool, Ann went down into the kitchen to Mary. Mrs. Halliday and Riddle were in the parlour, the two men in the dining-room. Ann went past the door without making a sound, and down two steps into the old part of the house.

  The kitchen was warm and dark. There was a red glow from the fire, but no light. Ann shut the door and stood just inside it. She called, “Mary—” under her breath, and at once something dark crossed the glow and came towards her. She went back and struck the panelling as a hand brushed her shoulder and slid down her arm. Her wrist was clasped and held. The hand was very, very cold, and an involuntary shudder ran over her. Mary’s voice said, “Whisht!” and she was drawn away from the door.

  It was quite pleasant to get nearer the fire. The glow showed her no more than a shawled outline and a bent head with a ragged fringe of hair. She spoke at once to break the strangeness.

  “It’s lovely and warm down here. I’ve come for a talk. Let’s sit down and be comfortable.”

  The hand relinquished its cold grip. The shawled figure retreated. Ann leaned to the fire, warming herself.

  “What’s the nearest town, Mary?” she said.

  “I’m no frae hereaboots.”

  “Don’t you know?”

  There was a shake of the head. A straggling braid of hair showed against the glowing background. Ann thought that it trembled. She said,

  “Have you been here a long time? You don’t stay here in the winter?”

  “Ay.”

  “All alone?” said Ann in a tone of horror.

  No wonder the poor thing was in such a state.

  The head moved again, saying no.

  Ann felt relief. Dreadful to think of someone in this lonely place through the winter dark and cold. She asked,

  “Who stays here with you?”

  “Ma man.”

  Mrs. Halliday’s words came back—“I’ve often thought it a pity a wife can’t give notice.” She had wondered why Mary stayed in a place which obviously frightened her. Well, here was the answer to that. It was a pity she couldn’t give notice.

  “Where is he now?” she said.

  “I dinna ken.”

  “Is he here in the winter?” said Ann.

  “Ay.”

  “And you don’t know where the nearest place is?”

  Again that shake of the head.

  “Don’t you ever go away? Don’t you ever go to your home?”

  This time the answer was a most pitiful indrawing of the breath.

  Ann caught one of the cold hands and held it.

  “Oh, poor Mary!”

  The hand was rigid in hers and even colder than she had thought to find it. It was drawn away to cover the hidden face.

  “I couldna cross the water. I’ll never cross it.”

  She thought she caught the words. And then, without any doubt, she heard Jimmy Halliday calling her name. In a flash Mary was across the floor and had the back door open.

  “Rin aroond the hoose!”

  Ann ran past her into the black yard.

  She didn’t know why she ran, or why she crept round the side of the house without making any sound. Why shouldn’t she be in the kitchen with Mary? The answer to that was that it was Mary who had pushed her out and bidden her run. It was like a game of hide-and-seek.

  She was laughing a little as she reached the far side of the lawn. And then suddenly the sharp beam of an electric torch struck her, and she stood still and put up a hand to shield her eyes. Jimmy Halliday’s voice came from behind the beam, the rough voice which he had used since they had been on the island.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  Ann let herself say “Oh!” It wasn’t at all difficult, for she had been really startled.

  “‘Oh!’ isn’t an answer,” said Jimmy Halliday. He put a coarse mimicry into the word, and a hot rage whirled up in Ann.

  She stepped out of the beam and said,

  “I’m not doing anything.”

  “Aren’t you? You’re sure of that, are you? Sure you didn’t slip out to meet that young man of yours?”

  Ann began to walk towards the house. Jimmy Halliday walked beside her, swinging the torch so that it made a vivid emerald pattern on the dark grass. When they reached the front door, he stepped before her.

  “You’ve not got an answer to that, have you?”

  “No,” said Ann. She was pleased, because her voice was quite steady and cool. Did he really know that Charles had been here, or was he guessing?

  He made an explosive sound.

  “Now look you here, my girl!” he said, and then caught himself up short. “Look you here, Miss Ann Vernon—there’s something you’ve got to understand, and that’s this. I don’t come here to be pestered with visitors, and if that young man of yours comes here again, he’ll come here once too often!”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said Ann.

  The parlour window was only a yard away, and behind it Mrs. Halliday was knitting, and Riddle crocheting at a fine narrow strip which never seemed to grow any longer.

  “Oh, you don’t know what I mean, d
on’t you? Well, I think you do, but if you don’t, I don’t mind helping you out.” His hand went into his pocket and came out again palm upwards. He shone the torch upon it in a yellow ring. White and bright in the middle of it lay a silver match-box. It had Charles’ name scrawled upon it, just like that—“Charles.” A flapper cousin had given it to him for his birthday. Charles had been at some pains to explain that she was a flapper—“Quite a nice infant.”

  Still in that cool voice, Ann said,

  “What’s that?”

  Jimmy Halliday shoved it back in his pocket.

  “Well, it isn’t mine,” he said, “nor it isn’t the old lady’s, nor yet Miss Riddle’s, nor Mr. Anderson’s. And since you’re asking me about it, I reckon you’re not going to say it’s yours. Charles isn’t any of our names that I know of, Miss Vernon, my dear.” His voice took on a savage parody of his mother’s, and again Ann was struck with anger.

  “Please let me pass, Mr. Halliday.”

  “In a minute I will. But first you listen to me! I picked this up down on the beach, and I think you know who dropped it there. Now you listen carefully! This is a right down dangerous place for a stranger to go boating or swimming. Do you hear that? This loch’s dangerous. Why aren’t there any boats on it? The fishing’s good enough. Why aren’t there any houses? There are some, and they’ve been let go to ruin. No one lives here, and no one comes here. The people who live round about, they wouldn’t come here if you paid them. And why wouldn’t they? Because, I’m telling you, it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous and it’s deep. Have you got that?”