Opportunity Vaughan had undoubtedly possessed. The weapon had now been proved to be his. There remained the motive.
The motive. Tremaine pursed his lips. Somewhere, in the heart of the darkness, there was a motive. Even if not for Vaughan, then for someone. Lydia Dare had not died without a reason.
He had been walking slowly along, engrossed in his thoughts, his head down and his hands clasped behind his back. He looked up for an instant and saw two people approaching him.
One of them was Pauline Conroy. She wore a flowered summer dress of some thin material which emphasized her seductive grace. Her companion he did not recognize, but it was clear from the way in which she was looking up into his face that the whole of her over-elaborate charm was being turned upon him.
Tremaine studied him curiously as they drew nearer. Tall, dark and handsome was the description which came into his mind. So he thought at first, and then began to revise his opinion as his long-distance view merged into a close-up.
It was certainly true that the other was tall, but the remaining two adjectives hardly applied. If he was dark he was untidily so. He had the appearance of a man who did not shave with enough care: his chin was rough and black-looking. His hair, thick and badly in need of cutting, was straggling down towards his collar. And the somewhat coarse outlines of his face, which became evident upon a closer inspection, spoke of a man of flashily good looks a little past their prime rather than of a handsome one.
A sullenly resentful expression had come into Pauline Conroy’s face. It said that she did not wish to stop and speak. But it was plain that having been placed in a position in which an encounter was inevitable, she lacked the courage to walk past without a sign of recognition, and Mordecai Tremaine, for his part, was in no mood to make matters easier for her.
‘Good afternoon, Miss Conroy,’ he said pleasantly, and stood directly in her path so that she could not go on without making her action obvious.
‘Good afternoon,’ she said unwillingly.
Tremaine was covertly studying her companion. This, he was saying to himself, is Galeski.
It was.
‘This is Mr. Tremaine, Serge,’ Pauline was saying. ‘He’s a friend of Dr. Russell and his wife. We met last night. Mr. Tremaine—Mr. Galeski.’
The two men exchanged the conventional handshake. Galeski’s hand was flabby, with no greeting in it. Tremaine was glad when it slipped limply out of his palm.
‘I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr. Galeski,’ he lied hopefully. ‘I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.’
‘Who’s been talking?’
Pauline Conroy snapped the question out so quickly that it was obvious that she had been on her guard and was reacting with the hyper-sensitivity of a person who sees enemies everywhere.
Serge Galeski waved a hand with a carelessly lordly gesture.
‘My dear Pauline, who cares for the gossip of the rabble?’
Tremaine blinked. He told himself that he did not like the theatrical pose of Mr. Galeski.
But it did not betray his feelings.
‘I assure you that no one has been—er—talking,’ he explained diffidently. ‘Not in any derogatory sense.’
It seemed that Serge Galeski’s opinion of Serge Galeski was a very high one. He brushed the explanation aside as one who was unconcerned with such minor matters.
‘Don’t speak of it, my dear fellow,’ he said airily. ‘A man in my position is used to being talked about. It’s part of the price we have to pay.’
‘Serge is a film producer,’ put in Pauline Conroy hastily, as if she was afraid that Mordecai Tremaine might find some different reason. ‘But, of course, you know that.’
She laughed, as though it was absurd to suppose that he had not known, and Mordecai Tremaine laughed too, as though he had not just been given the information for the first time.
‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘Of course. Mr. Galeski’s name is almost as familiar as that of Hitchcock or—or—René Clair.’
The other ran his fingers through his unruly, overlong hair. He had the manner of one who hesitated to criticize but who considered it to be a painful duty. He shrugged meaningly.
‘Triflers,’ he said. ‘Mere amateurs, groping on the fringe of the camera.’
Pauline Conroy slipped her arm through his.
‘Come along, Serge. We must be going, otherwise we won’t have time to run over that scene together before tea. Serge is helping me with my part in the play we’re doing,’ she added. ‘You’ll excuse us, Mr. Tremaine?’
Since he had no reasonable alternative, Mr. Tremaine said that certainly he would. He stood aside and allowed them to pass by.
As he continued slowly on his own way he added the untidy-looking man in the loosely-fitting clothes to the collection of village personalities he had already amassed in his mind. Artist, Bohemian, poseur . . . all seemed to fit him. So Serge Galeski was a film producer. And Pauline Conroy, who was an actress, was quite evidently on very intimate terms with him.
It hung together understandably enough. The dark, voluptuous and alluring Pauline was ambitious. Before her eyes the bright lights of stardom were beckoning. Serge Galeski represented the magic world of the film industry. Did Galeski have a future? That was no doubt in the lap of the gods. Perhaps more important was the question, were there influential people in the film business who thought that he did and who were prepared to back their judgment? The shrewdly determined Pauline had probably decided that Galeski’s foot could—at the very least—hold open the door of the studios far enough to enable her to slip through. After that she could either make further use of him if he proved to possess a career in his own right, or she could promptly forget him and look for someone of greater promise to further her own.
Mordecai Tremaine realized that his thoughts had taken a decidedly cynical trend. He smiled wryly. He was losing his illusions.
There was, though, one other point upon which he might profitably reflect before dismissing Pauline Conroy and Serge Galeski from his mind.
That brief duel at ‘Roseland’, when Karen Hammond had mentioned Galeski’s name as though she had known that it must surely bring about a clash—just why had Philip Hammond’s wife said what she had said? Just what significance had lain behind her remark? It seemed to be a matter in which Jonathan Boyce, with his ability to set in motion careful, persistent, and thorough if tedious investigations, might be of service.
He was drawing level with the wooden gate at the entrance to the path through the copse where Lydia Dare had died. There was no visible sign of activity, but he could hear someone moving about in the undergrowth. The police were still apparently searching for clues in their prosaic, uninspiring, relentless way.
Tremaine thought of the vast machinery of the law which had begun to move when Lydia Dare’s body had been found. It was cumbersome. It was wearisome. It was overladen with rules and regulations. It was unimaginative. But it was deadly. It might take a long while to catch up with you, but once it had done so there was no escaping it.
He stood by the gate for a few moments. He was thinking over the exact location of Martin Vaughan’s house and the most direct route to it which did not involve traversing the copse and going across the common. Then he looked at his watch and began to walk—briskly but not at any undue speed.
It took him nine minutes to reach ‘Home Lodge’. He estimated that had he exerted himself he could have taken two or three minutes from his time quite easily.
At the side of the house was a path leading to the common which lay directly behind it. He walked to the edge of the common itself and followed with his eyes the well-worn track which pursued an uneven way across the open land, traversed the winding stream by means of the rustic bridge, and went on to be lost in the copse.
It was an attractive picture upon which he gazed. The roofs of the houses surrounding the common projected here and there into the landscape, the sun glinting on coloured tiles; beyond them he could see the si
lver of the water, for the ground upon which he was standing was high enough to enable him to overlook the thin border of sea. Seeing it now, bathed in warmth and light, it was difficult to imagine that this scene had been overshadowed by murder.
He brought his mind back to the business upon which he had come and tried to estimate how long it would take him, walking without haste, to reach the cluster of trees. About seven or eight minutes, he thought. He looked down at his pocket-watch, replaced it carefully and took a step forward.
‘You needn’t trouble. It could be done all right.’
Tremaine swung round. On the other side of the neatly trimmed privet hedge which separated the garden of ‘Home Lodge’ from the open land, Martin Vaughan was standing. He had evidently been there for some seconds, quietly watching—and waiting. Mordecai Tremaine experienced an odd fluttering in his stomach as he faced the cold stare of the big man’s grey eyes.
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’
‘You understand all right,’ said Vaughan harshly. ‘Don’t think that all of us believe that you’re as harmless as you look. Those pince-nez and that helpless air of yours don’t deceive everybody.’
‘Are you quite sure,’ said Tremaine, endeavouring to look bewildered, ‘that you’re speaking to the right person?’
‘Quite sure.’ Vaughan’s voice was quieter, but it was filled with a vibrant menace. ‘I watched you coming up from the village. I’ve been watching you since you’ve been standing there. You’re trying to decide whether a person going by the road could reach that copse’—he gestured with his right arm—‘before a person walking across the common.’
It was disconcerting to hear his thoughts being flung back into his face, challengingly, as though he had spoken them aloud. Tremaine searched desperately for the right words.
‘Why on earth,’ he said, still maintaining his pose, ‘should I want to do that?’
‘Maybe your friend Inspector Boyce knows the answers.’
The big man had taken a step forward so that now only the width of the privet separated them. ‘If I were you,’ he said unpleasantly, ‘I’d be very careful not to interfere in other people’s affairs. It’s unhealthy. We don’t like officious meddling busybodies down here.’
The look on Vaughan’s face said plainly that it would be futile to attempt to argue with him. It would also be futile to attempt to continue with the pretence that he did not know what the other meant. Mordecai Tremaine took off his pince-nez and polished them unnecessarily.
‘I don’t know what’s in your mind, Mr. Vaughan,’ he said slowly, ‘but I’m sorry that you’re adopting this attitude. It makes things so much more difficult.’
‘That,’ said Vaughan, ‘is a matter of opinion.’
He turned on his heel and went into the house. Tremaine stared after him until the door had banged angrily shut and then walked slowly back to the road.
Certainly Martin Vaughan was on the defensive. He was behaving like a man who was expecting trouble—behaving, in fact, like a man who knew himself to be guilty and was trying to hide it beneath a blustering manner.
Why? Was he actually guilty? Did he really have something to hide?
Tremaine took off his panama and fanned himself gently as he walked. It was still very hot and he was not anxious to undergo a repetition of the experience he had had in the afternoon, and yet it was necessary that he should think—and think hard.
He was back where he had been when he had left Inspector Boyce. Martin Vaughan could have killed Lydia Dare. But if he had done so then it had been for a reason. Murder was not a casual affair, to be embarked upon lightly in the spirit of a moment. It was dark, sinister, heavy with penalties. It required a deadly purpose. It required a motive.
That Vaughan was aware of his own connection with Jonathan Boyce was no longer of significance. From the moment when Karen Hammond had stopped him in the darkness of the road by the village hall it had been obvious that there could no longer be any question of secrecy. Tremaine knew that he had not given sufficient heed to the inevitable village grapevine; he had not stayed to think that in a community so small as Dalmering there could be nothing hidden for long.
Fortunately, the Inspector had taken it philosophically. No doubt when he had observed Karen Hammond talking in the roadway he had guessed what it portended. He had merely shrugged, like a man who was used to the sudden sweeping away of the plans.
‘It was bound to come sooner or later,’ he had said cheerfully. ‘We haven’t lost anything by it.’
‘But the Chief Constable?’ Tremaine had asked. ‘Won’t he have something to say when the story reaches him? Civilians interfering in official matters and so on. He’s sure to hear about it. You know how people talk.’
‘When we come to our fences, Mordecai, we’ll think about jumping them.’ And Boyce had put an arm around his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry. Nothing’s going to happen, and you don’t want to be afraid you’re going to be warned off. You’re a tower of strength and I wouldn’t be without you.’
Tremaine smiled at the recollection. Lies, of course. But pleasant, friendly lies. They told him that Jonathan Boyce trusted him; that the stocky, bullet-headed Yard man who sometimes seemed so brusque had received him into his heart.
He was still immersed in his thoughts when he arrived back at ‘Roseland’. Jean came down the path to meet him, as though she had been watching for his arrival.
‘Sandra’s here,’ she said, and something in her manner made him wake from his reverie.
‘What is it, Jean?’ he asked.
‘She wants to see you,’ she told him. ‘It’s—it’s important, Mordecai.’
He followed her into the house. Sandra Borne was waiting for him in the drawing-room. With a faint feeling of surprise he saw that Paul Russell was also there.
‘Off-duty, Paul?’ he said, with a smile.
The doctor smiled back but it was a half-hearted smile and it did not last.
‘Sandy wants to see you, Mordecai,’ he said. ‘She asked me to stay whilst she talked to you.’
Tremaine looked from his friend’s weatherbeaten face, holding now a trace of anxiety, to Sandra Borne’s peaked features. Her hands were twisting nervously. She had lost her gay perkiness, her bird-like quickness of movement. She looked a little pitiful, a little bedraggled. And she had been crying.
There was no mistaking the atmosphere of brooding strain which was heavy in the room. They had been waiting for him for some time. Tremaine sat down in the chair which had been drawn up for him. He waited.
‘Inspector Boyce has been to see Sandy,’ said Russell quietly.
‘Just a routine call,’ said Tremaine. ‘To ask routine questions.’
‘He didn’t receive routine answers.’
Tremaine looked up quickly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean,’ said Russell, ‘that he wasn’t told the truth.’
There was a silence. A painful, pulsating silence. Through a gap between the drawn blinds a vivid bar of sunlight reached down to the carpet. It was as though the myriad particles of dust swirling in the bar were the only living things in the darkened room.
And then Mordecai Tremaine cleared his throat.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘Miss Borne will tell me what happened.’
Sandra Borne stared at the mild-looking man facing her. The brown eyes behind her spectacles held an expression of uncertainty. It was as though she was searching for assurance and could not find it. She made a movement towards Russell and the doctor read her expression.
‘It’s all right, Sandy,’ he said gently. ‘It’s as I told you. If you tell him everything I’m sure Mordecai will be able to help you.’ He gave an apologetic glance in Tremaine’s direction. ‘We haven’t mentioned this before because we didn’t want to embarrass you,’ he told him, ‘but there’s been quite a lot of local gossip since it became known that Inspector Boyce was here. I’m afraid that everybody in the village seems to know t
hat you’re a friend of his. That’s why, when Sandy came to me a little while ago, I suggested that she should wait and see you. I hope you don’t mind?’
He finished on a hesitant, questioning note, and Tremaine smiled wryly.
‘That’s all right, Paul. I’ve already discovered that my slight acquaintance with Inspector Boyce has become common knowledge.’
There was no doubt in his mind now that it was this knowledge which had lain behind Pauline Conroy’s attitude when he had encountered her with Serge Galeski. It was the reason for her obvious unwillingness to talk, and for her aggressively defensive attitude.
She had not wished to meet him because she had not wished to answer questions, or to be trapped into a statement which might later prove damaging. She had been anxious to avoid him because she knew that anything she said might—in fact, probably would—reach the ears of Scotland Yard. It followed, therefore, that the glamorous Pauline had something to hide. The whole of Dalmering, thought Mordecai Tremaine ruefully, seemed to have something to hide.
He looked over his pince-nez at Sandra Borne with a friendly, disarming air.
‘I believe I know why you’re worried, Miss Borne—and why you’re here. You told Inspector Boyce that when Miss Dare hadn’t returned at a late hour you went unconcernedly to bed, expecting her to let herself in with her key when she eventually got back. That statement wasn’t—well, it wasn’t quite correct. Isn’t that so?’
The brown eyes had widened. There was surprise in them now. But Mordecai Tremaine’s calm implication that he already knew a good deal of the story had broken through her frozen reserve, given her the courage to say what she had come to say.
‘It’s true that I went to bed,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘But the rest isn’t true.’
‘You mean that you were anxious about Miss Dare?’
She nodded.
‘Yes. I—I was more than anxious. I was afraid.’
‘Because she had told you before going out that she expected to be back by eleven o’clock?’
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