Murder has a Motive

by Francis Duncan

  ‘You know that?’

  The question seemed to be startled out of her.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tremaine, ‘I know that. What I do not know,’ he added, ‘is why you didn’t at least ring up Mr. Vaughan’s house when Miss Dare hadn’t returned at the time she’d given you.’

  ‘That’s why I’ve come,’ she said. ‘To—to tell you that.’

  Her words were forced. She was like a person speaking against her will but speaking because she knew that she must.

  ‘I—I knew that the inspector didn’t believe me. It must have been because he knew that Lydia had told me when she expected to be back. When she didn’t return, I didn’t telephone—I didn’t raise any alarm because—because I thought she was still with Martin.’

  She brought the last phrase out with a little gasp. It had cost her an effort to say it. She leaned back. Her eyes were glistening, on the verge of tears.

  Tremaine tried to hide his bewilderment.

  ‘You thought that she was still with Mr. Vaughan? But I don’t quite see . . .’

  It was as though she realized his difficulty and was nerving herself to speak more plainly.

  ‘Martin—’ she said, ‘Martin was in love with Lydia.’

  And now there was tragedy in the room. Tragedy forbidding and terrible, brooding in the dark corners, closing in oppressively from all sides.

  No one spoke. No one until Paul Russell forced an odd sound between his lips and then managed to articulate his words.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said, and his voice was an unnatural, harsh whisper.

  ‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘I’ve known it for a long time.’

  ‘You thought that Lydia—that she was staying with him voluntarily?’

  Russell’s eyes, incredulous, doubting, were turned upon her. Sandra Borne nodded her understanding of his question and her answer to it with a movement that had an air of fatalism. The doctor looked towards his wife, as if seeking solace from her.

  ‘Lydia—I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.’

  ‘Miss Borne has told us that she thought Miss Dare was staying with Mr. Vaughan,’ put in Mordecai Tremaine. ‘But we know that she didn’t stay with him. So we really haven’t explained anything yet.’

  Sandra Borne sat up very straight.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ she said. ‘It was my fault. I—I doubted Lydia. I allowed myself to think that she might be staying with Martin. I was disloyal to her.’

  ‘Sandy—don’t!’

  But she had made up her mind to speak and she took no heed of Jean Russell’s interjection.

  ‘I first realized that Martin was in love with Lydia some months ago, but I think he’s really been in love with her all the time—ever since we came here. At first I was glad. I was glad for Lydia’s sake. All three of us had always been such friends. It seemed natural to think of Martin and Lydia being married. And then I learned about Gerald—’

  She stopped. There was an elusive expression of sadness in her eyes.

  ‘It’s strange,’ she went on, after her brief pause, ‘how you can live with people and be on intimate terms with them, and think you know all about their lives—and then suddenly find out that you really don’t know the most important things about them after all. It was like that with us. I thought I knew everything there was to know about Lydia—what she liked to eat, what she liked to read, what she liked to wear; we’d always been such friends. But it was a long time before I knew about Gerald. She met him in Scotland when she was on holiday. She used to write to him, and meet him sometimes in London. She used to say that she was going up on business or to see some of her old school friends. He never came to Dalmering. That’s why I didn’t suspect that it wasn’t—that it wasn’t all right for Martin—that Lydia was falling in love with someone else.’

  ‘But Mr. Vaughan did find out, didn’t he?’ said Tremaine. ‘I understand that the fact that Miss Dare was marrying Mr. Farrant was well known in the village.’

  ‘Oh yes. Their engagement was announced two or three months ago.’

  ‘What was Mr. Vaughan’s attitude?’

  ‘He took it very well. I don’t think many people knew that he was in love with Lydia himself.’

  Paul Russell nodded agreement.

  ‘I had no idea it was like that with him. He certainly didn’t give any sign of it. He seemed genuinely pleased when the news was given out—as I told you this morning,’ he added.

  ‘I knew,’ said Jean quietly. ‘Martin is very good at hiding his feelings, but he doesn’t hide them successfully all the time.’

  Mordecai Tremaine was regarding Sandra Borne thoughtfully.

  ‘It seems to me,’ he observed, ‘that you weren’t altogether satisfied in your mind, Miss Borne. I mean that you weren’t satisfied that Miss Dare was doing the right thing.’

  ‘No,’ she told him, ‘I wasn’t satisfied. Perhaps it was because I’d always connected Lydia with Martin in my mind and was always imagining that I could see signs that she was beginning to return his feelings—little things, like the way she spoke and the way she sometimes looked at him. Even after the engagement was announced I kept feeling that Lydia wasn’t sure of herself and that Martin was very often in her mind.’

  ‘Did she ever say anything to you on the subject?’

  ‘She never actually discussed it—not directly. But it seemed to me that taking the definite step of becoming engaged to Gerald had caused her to think more seriously about Martin. I know it sounds illogical, but that was my impression; and when she said that she was going to have dinner with Martin, alone, I wondered whether she really was beginning to change her mind after all. That was why I didn’t do anything when she didn’t come back. I thought something had happened between them. I thought—I thought she was staying the night with Martin.’

  She broke off again. She glanced half fearfully at each of them in turn, as if she was afraid that she had repelled them by her confession.

  And then:

  ‘Of course I was wrong,’ she went on quickly. ‘Dreadfully, horribly wrong. I shouldn’t have thought like that—it was mean and disloyal. In the morning, when I heard that Lydia was dead, I knew how terribly I’d misjudged her. And I—I was ashamed. I didn’t want anyone to know how little I’d trusted her, and how much I’d wronged her. That’s why I said that I’d gone to bed leaving Lydia to let herself in with her latchkey and that she hadn’t told me what time she expected to be back. I didn’t want her memory to be dragged through the mud because of my unjust suspicions.

  ‘I knew that the inspector didn’t believe me. I could see from his manner that he knew I was hiding something. But I had to keep to what I’d said. I felt trapped—desperate. I had to make amends to Lydia. Besides—besides . . .’

  She faltered. Her eyes dropped.

  ‘Besides,’ said Mordecai Tremaine, ‘if you had told the truth it would have incriminated Mr. Vaughan.’

  She looked up at him quickly—so quickly that it was as though his words had induced an involuntary nervous reaction.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, a frightened look haunting her brown eyes, ‘yes, it would have incriminated Martin. At first I couldn’t think of anything except that I’d misjudged Lydia and that all the time I’d imagined she’d been with Martin she’d really been lying dead out in the darkness. And then I realized what else it might mean. I realized that if I told the truth about why I hadn’t done anything when Lydia hadn’t come back it would mean telling the police that I knew that Martin had been in love with her. I knew what they would say. They would say that he’d killed her in jealousy; that he’d made up his mind that if he couldn’t marry her no one else would!’

  The frightened look had been replaced by horror now. She was sitting upright, her slim little figure taut and strained.

  ‘You see how it was!’ she said desperately. ‘I couldn’t tell the truth! I had to go on pretending that I hadn’t cared. And now the police have started asking questions, and I’m
afraid—I’m afraid . . .’

  She buried her face in her hands. Paul Russell rose to his feet, and, crossing to her side, placed a comforting arm about her.

  ‘It’s all right, Sandy,’ he told her. ‘You’ve nothing to reproach yourself with.’

  ‘I had to come to you, Paul,’ she said, and clung to him. ‘I couldn’t keep silent any longer. And I couldn’t go to the police. I couldn’t tell them about Martin—’

  ‘The police will have to know the truth,’ said Russell gravely, ‘no matter what it may involve. If Martin is innocent he will be able to tell them so.’

  She had relaxed a little when he had gone to her, but now his tone caused her to stiffen again in his grasp. She raised a tear-stained face.

  ‘You don’t mean—you can’t mean that Martin might have . . .’

  He did not reply, and her hand went to her mouth.

  ‘Oh, no—no!’ she whispered. ‘Not Martin!’

  For a long while after Sandra Borne had gone, Mordecai Tremaine remained in his chair, staring into the darkened room, staring at the dust particles still dancing a mad gavotte in that solitary beam of sunlight.

  Martin Vaughan had been the last known person to see Lydia Dare alive. He could quite easily have followed her and killed her in the shadows of that fatal copse. The weapon with which the crime had been committed was known to be his.

  He had been in love with Lydia Dare. He was a man of strong passions who had once lived a wild, primitive life; Paul Russell had spoken of Vaughan’s earlier career, of the grim conditions under which he had founded his fortunes. He could be expected to revert to type under the stress of great emotion.

  He had immersed himself in the study of ancient peoples. His mind must have assimilated many strange and terrible items of knowledge; must be coloured by fierce, disturbing pictures of revenge, and blood sacrifice and primeval hate. And Lydia Dare had been about to marry another man.

  It fitted. How damnably it fitted!

  8

  FROM HIS INCONSPICUOUS seat at the back of the village hall, Mordecai Tremaine was watching the rehearsal of Murder Has a Motive. He caught Paul Russell’s inquiring eye and nodded. He was well satisfied. For a man who wished to meet and to study the members of Dalmering’s ‘colony’ there was no doubt that it was an ideal place.

  Several people who had already been there on his arrival had recognized him and had spoken to him. Geoffrey Manning, Phyllis Galway, Edith Lorrington and Howard Shannon had all greeted him, but only Shannon had revealed more than a passing interest. Tremaine had caught the plump man glancing at him nervously, as though the other could not make up his mind as to the reason for his presence and was worried by the fact.

  Edith Lorrington had given him a smile once or twice, but it had been a vague, indeterminate smile, bestowed upon him as she had passed him upon some equally vague and indeterminate errand.

  Geoffrey Manning, Mordecai Tremaine was pleased to note, had no eyes for him at all. His attention was centred upon Phyllis Galway. It seemed that Manning was not so oblivious of the girl’s charms as he had appeared to be at ‘Roseland’, and Tremaine felt a warm sense of pleasure within him. It had been a source of dismay to his sentimental soul that two young people so obviously fitted for each other should apparently have chosen to ignore each other’s existence.

  Watching them as they had stood talking by the side of the wooden stage, observing the way in which Manning’s pleasantly rugged features had become animated as he had looked at her, seeing the expression in the girl’s eyes, Tremaine had nodded approvingly. The romance seemed to be in the making after all.

  He had been compelled to take himself sternly to task. This was no way in which to be reasoning. He knew nothing of either Geoffrey Manning or of Phyllis Galway. He was engaged upon a stern business in which sentiment was not only out of place but dangerous to his judgment. Murder was loose in Dalmering; until it had been conclusively bound by the chains of the law, even romance was suspect.

  Duly chastened, he had settled back in his seat to await events.

  The remainder of the company had arrived almost together, and in the bustle of their coming and the preparations for the rehearsal, Mordecai Tremaine had been practically unnoticed. Apart from the stage, over which an electric-light bulb was burning, the hall was a gloomy place full of shadows. A long building, with a low, dark-beamed ceiling and with narrow, many-paned leaded windows, it was never brightly lit, even in full daylight, and now, with the evening sun already at an angle at which its rays were screened by neighbouring trees, it was heavy with patchy semi-darkness.

  Soon the rehearsal had begun, and with everyone’s interest centred upon the stage no one had remarked upon his presence, although he was aware that several of the late comers had managed to distinguish his diffident form seated in the shadows and had recognized him with varying degrees of interest. Karen Hammond had been one of them. He had observed her blonde head turn in his direction, and then had seen her nudge the man at her side, who had thereupon—although not ostentatiously—followed her example and turned also.

  He had guessed that it must be her husband. The intimacy of their relationship was obvious—far more so than would have been the case in such a public place and among so tightly knit a community if it had not been legalized in the eyes of the said community by the bonds of matrimony.

  Philip Hammond, although no longer a young man, was still a presentable one. His fair hair was thinning but in a manner which gave him a distinguished appearance. It revealed a wide forehead, the brow of a man of intelligence and of a man who could accept responsibilities. His features were strong and firm, even if the mouth was perhaps a shade too sensual, the lips a trifle too full. He was slightly built, almost frail in fact, but he was well proportioned and despite his frailty he had an air of confident strength. He was, Tremaine decided, the sort of man who could appeal to women. He was the sort of man whom they would both respect and want to mother. He was the sort of man who would excite both their maternal instincts and their secret desire to be treated as the weaker partner.

  Hammond was apparently taking no part in the production, although his wife was playing quite an important rôle. He was seated in a chair near the stage, but was paying very little attention to what was going on, seemingly far more concerned with his own thoughts.

  It was clear that the rehearsals were well advanced. The play was being taken straight through and there was very little ‘fluffing’ of the lines. The prompter—Jean Russell was performing that unsung but essential duty—was seldom required.

  Tremaine found himself becoming more and more engrossed as the play developed. At first his interest had been desultory; he had been more concerned with the players than with the play. But gradually his attention was gripped by what was passing on the stage.

  One reason for it was Martin Vaughan. The big man was giving a powerful performance. When he was on the stage his big form seemed to dominate the rest of the cast. He spoke his lines with an intensity which gave them the mark of truth. He was not merely playing but living his part.

  As the piece moved towards its climax it became more and more evident that Vaughan was overshadowing everyone else; that he was becoming the dominant figure, assuming an importance the author had never intended. Perhaps it was because as his own part grew in stature as he built it up inexorably upon his lines, so those of the other characters gradually diminished, as though his brilliance was causing theirs to fade and as though the strength was being drawn out of them to flow into him, leaving them the appearance of puppet figures moving spiritlessly in the shadow of a juggernaut.

  ‘. . . He doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus . . .’

  Uninvited the fragment came into Mordecai Tremaine’s mind. It was evident to him that he was not the victim of his always active imagination. Others besides himself were aware of the phenomenon. That was clear from the expressions on the faces he could see around him—faces white and fixed in the gloom or yel
lowish and staring under the electric light; the faces not only of those who were watching from their places in front of the stage but of the players themselves. It was clear, too, from the questioning glances which were being exchanged, and plain in the brittle, tension-filled atmosphere which was being slowly created.

  Sandra Borne was watching from the wings. Tremaine could just make out the piled mass of her hair and could see the occasional glint of the light on her tortoiseshell spectacles as she peered around the corner of the scenery. She was too far off and the light was too poor for him to be able to tell whether she had recovered from the emotions which had ravaged her when she had been telling her story that afternoon, but he fancied that she would have done her utmost to hide all traces of the strain she had undergone before coming to the rehearsal.

  From what Paul Russell had told him, he had previously gained the impression that Sandra Borne had been responsible for a good deal of the work which had gone into the production of Murder Has a Motive. Although she was acting no part in the play, Tremaine guessed that without her industry and without her patience and quiet determination, it would not have flourished so vigorously. It would have perished of apathy long since.

  ‘Loyal, painstaking little Sandy,’ Russell had described her, ‘always doing more work than anybody else and making less fuss about it.’

  He had added:

  ‘For Heaven’s sake don’t tell her I said so, otherwise she’ll turn and rend me! She hates anything that looks like publicity.’

  And then he had voiced his concern for her. The murder had been a tremendous shock. She had been wrapped up in Lydia. Their two lives had been almost completely interwoven. Not quite utterly identified each in the other—as the matter of Gerald Farrant had shown—but certainly in the small things, the little intimacies of daily life. The doctor had been worried as a medical man; he had been worried about the effect upon her nervous system of the abrupt, the brutally abrupt, cessation of the close companionship and the exchanges of confidences which had become so integral a part of her being.