‘No,’ she said hesitantly. ‘No, he didn’t telephone.’
She appeared reluctant to talk about her husband. The doctor gave her a curious glance, but he did not try to press her. He changed the subject with a complimentary observation on the knitted coatee she was wearing—the sun had gone down and there was a cool breeze rising from the sea—and in a few moments the ladies were deep in a discussion on patterns in which Edith Lorrington’s partially completed jumper came in for its share of attention.
‘Anyone like the wireless on?’ asked Russell, still playing the tactful host.
‘I don’t think so, dear,’ returned his wife. ‘There’s probably a swing programme on, anyway, and Sandy hates swing.’
‘At the first sound I either have to scream or switch off,’ agreed Sandra Borne. ‘And I think it’s more cosy just to sit and chat, don’t you?’
‘I’m on your side, Miss Borne,’ said Mordecai Tremaine.
He did not speak without his reasons. He knew that it was inevitable that sooner or later any conversation would turn upon the inquest or upon the murder.
In a few moments it did—under the spur of a question from Edith Lorrington as to whether Gerald Farrant had been present at the inquest.
‘Yes, he was there,’ said Jean.
Edith Lorrington sighed.
‘Poor man! It’s dreadful for him. He was very much in love with Lydia.’
‘I’ve been wondering whether we oughtn’t to ask him along,’ said Russell, ‘but it’s a difficult situation. He isn’t easy to talk to and I hardly like to approach him.’
‘He’s changed,’ said Jean. ‘Terribly changed. He seems to be suspicious of everyone. He hardly speaks—just glares at people as though he thinks they might be guilty.’
‘He probably does think so,’ observed Mordecai Tremaine quietly, and they all turned to stare at him. ‘What I mean,’ he explained, ‘is that he’s suffered a tremendous shock. He was looking forward to being married—I dare say all their plans had been made—and then, suddenly, he learned that everything had been in vain. It must have been as though some wanton giant had taken up his life and dashed it to pieces against the rocks. If Miss Dare had died a natural death it wouldn’t have been so hard—tragedy though it would still have been. But to know that she had been murdered, that there was no need for her to have died at all—it must have been almost unbearable for him. He hates Dalmering—hates the village and everyone in it. Because’—he finished—‘he believes that the murderer is here; that one of the people around him killed the woman he was going to marry.’
‘Just a moment, Mordecai,’ broke in Paul Russell protestingly. ‘It isn’t certain that the murderer lives here. The crime might have been committed by someone who knew Lydia outside.’
‘I didn’t say it was certain. I’m merely suggesting the lines along which I think Gerald Farrant is reasoning.’
‘It’s the truth,’ said Sandra Borne suddenly. She swung her legs down from the settee and sat facing them, her hands tightly clenched. ‘I think you’re quite right—the murderer is someone in Dalmering. Lydia didn’t know many people outside. If there had been anyone at all who might have wanted to kill her she would have spoken about them. I’m sure she would have said something when we were talking together. It’s this place—this horrible place. It’s full of evil.’
‘Yes,’ said Mordecai Tremaine soberly, ‘it’s full of evil.’
She stared at him, surprise and a strange relief in her eyes.
‘You’ve noticed it, too?’
He nodded.
‘Yes, I’ve noticed it.’
Paul Russell was looking blankly from one to the other of them.
‘Are you two talking in riddles?’
‘It’s all right, Paul,’ said Tremaine, turning to him. ‘Just a little secret between the two of us. I suppose,’ he added, making an obvious effort to sidetrack the doctor, ‘the will is to be read after the funeral?’
‘The will?’ Russell looked puzzled for a moment. ‘Oh, Lydia’s? Yes, I suppose it will be. As a matter of fact, I hadn’t given it a thought, but now you mention it Lydia must have left quite a nice little sum.’
Tremaine was regarding him carefully. The doctor’s air of unconcern appeared genuine enough.
‘I wonder who will benefit?’ he said casually.
‘Farrant, perhaps,’ said Russell. ‘Although I dare say,’ he added, turning and half addressing his remarks to Sandra Borne, ‘Sandy will be included as Lydia’s greatest friend.’
‘It was agreed between us that each of us should leave the other her share in the cottage,’ she returned. ‘We bought it jointly. But I don’t think there will be any more than that. Lydia knew that I’m quite comfortably off. I’ve more than enough for my needs. In fact, I told her once that she wasn’t to make any other provision for me.’
So far Paul Russell had not betrayed any exceptional interest in the question of the will, nor did he appear to be acting a part. Tremaine found himself breathing a little more easily, and he realized then just how much the information which Jonathan Boyce had given him about the legacy had been weighing upon his mind.
He was able to divert his attention from Russell to the other people in the room. Karen Hammond had so far taken little part in the conversation. She had barely moved from her original position. She was sitting upright in her chair, her slim fingers playing nervously and abstractedly with her wedding-ring. Although she was endeavouring to give the impression of listening to what was being said, Tremaine suspected that her thoughts were on other things.
Her attitude reminded him of his first close study of her when she had been in this same room on the night of his arrival in Dalmering. There was the same involuntary twitching at the side of her mouth, the same shadow of fear in the blue eyes, the same tense expectancy in her graceful figure.
‘Has Hornsby been bothering you at all, Mrs. Hammond?’ he asked.
‘Hornsby?’
Her puzzled repetition of the name revealed that it conveyed nothing to her.
‘Yes,’ he told her. ‘He’s the fellow who was asking after you and your husband. We were talking about him the last time you were here. I’ve seen him in the neighbourhood myself since then and I was wondering if you’d had a visit from him.’
She stiffened at that; he had pierced her guard.
‘He hasn’t been to the house,’ she said quickly, and he knew from her manner that it was an evasion. ‘I don’t know him. I can’t understand why he should have been asking for us.’ She seemed to make an effort to gather her courage. ‘Mr. Tremaine,’ she asked him, ‘has the inspector found—does he know who killed Lydia?’
‘I can tell you that he’s making good progress,’ he returned carefully. ‘I’m afraid that I can’t say any more at the moment, but you appreciate that the police don’t like to reveal all they know until they think that the time has come for it.’
Momentarily he was back in the shadowed roadway with Karen Hammond looking up to him, beseeching him to help her in that only half-expressed appeal of hers which she had made when she had met him just after he had left Jonathan Boyce. There was the same agonized pleading in her eyes now.
‘I wanted it to be quick,’ she said piteously. ‘It mustn’t be too late.’
It was Edith Lorrington who saved the situation. In the midst of the somewhat uncomfortable silence which followed Karen Hammond’s remark she looked up suddenly, and in her inconsequential manner of bringing up some entirely new topic she announced, ‘I don’t know what’s come over Martin.’
‘Mr. Vaughan?’ said Tremaine. ‘Why? What has he been doing?’
‘He’s going about asking questions,’ she said. ‘He came up this evening asking all sorts of things about what I was doing when Lydia was killed—almost as if he thought I’d killed her.’
‘That’s odd,’ said Russell thoughtfully. ‘As a matter of fact, he made one or two remarks to me this morning. I thought at the time that it was strange but I di
dn’t pay much attention. He was asking me what I knew about Galeski.’
‘Pauline Conroy’s boy-friend?’ queried Tremaine, and when the doctor nodded, ‘Is that their relationship?’ he asked.
‘Well, it’s rather a forbidden subject,’ remarked Russell. ‘Most of the village thinks the worst. Pauline is ambitious and Galeski has some sort of pull with the film people. It’s popularly supposed that Pauline—well, that she’s in the habit of going over to his cottage at unconventional hours.’
‘But nobody says anything openly?’
‘No. Pauline takes good care not to let them. You see, she usually plays the virtuous woman on the stage. She seems to be trying to build herself a reputation as an actress in sympathetic parts and she probably thinks that it wouldn’t do her professional reputation any good to have her private life dragged into disrepute. She may be right, of course. Stage and film folk seem to lead lives more in the limelight than we common mortals.’
‘From what little I’ve seen of her,’ observed Tremaine, ‘Miss Conroy appears to be a determined lady who is bent upon a career, so I can understand that attitude. Nothing is so important in her eyes as preserving her shining glory. She needs Galeski to help her on her way but she doesn’t want her association with him to be in the minds of the audience when they see her playing the Wronged Woman.’
He turned to glance at Karen Hammond. His sentimental soul shrank from the thought that he might be inflicting fresh hurt upon her, but murder could not be solved by a refusal to face up to unpleasant tasks.
‘Forgive my appearing personal, Mrs. Hammond,’ he told her, ‘but when you were all here several nights ago there seemed to be a certain amount of antagonism, shall we say, between Miss Conroy and yourself. Isn’t that so?’
A deep blush became slowly visible beneath her tan.
‘Yes,’ she said nervously, ‘we have been rather at logger-heads. There’s really nothing behind it. It’s just that—well, just that women do get to dislike each other sometimes. Pauline seemed to be resentful in some way of Philip, and perhaps I haven’t been as tolerant as I might have been. Things have become strained between us—you know how these little village quarrels start. One of you says something cutting and the other throws it back, and before you realize what’s happened you’re in the middle of a feud.’
Tremaine recalled that mention of Galeski when the question of police investigations had arisen and Pauline had appeared to be hinting against Karen Hammond all the time. Serge Galeski was Pauline’s blind spot and Karen Hammond had retaliated by taking advantage of it.
‘I understand,’ he said. ‘Life’s a thorny business sometimes, isn’t it.’
After that the conversation became more non-committal. Tremaine had caught a glance from Jean which had been both a warning and a plea. He guessed that she was becoming a little alarmed at the manner in which personalities were being mentioned, and he promptly steered the discussion into safer channels.
The little group broke up not long afterwards. Paul Russell insisted professionally that Sandra Borne should go to bed.
‘You’re done in, Sandy,’ he told her. ‘If you don’t get some rest we’ll be having you on our hands as an invalid.’
‘I am tired, Paul,’ she confessed. ‘It’s been a difficult week.’
‘You’ve been trying to do too much, Sandy,’ said Jean. ‘You should have let us help you out with some of the arrangements.’
‘You’ve been awfully good, Jean—both you and Paul. But I had to do what I could. After all, it was my duty, not yours. You know that Lydia and I—that we—’ She showed signs of breaking down at that and it was a moment or two before she could go on. ‘It’s almost over now,’ she said, with a forced brightness. ‘After the funeral tomorrow I’ll be able to take things more easily.’
She was undoubtedly revealing signs of the strain she had undergone and was still undergoing. Tremaine had noticed her drawn, peaked features, and the hard stare in her eyes—the stare of a person whose nerves were reaching the limit of her endurance. Sandra Borne was one of those people who, even normally, drove themselves without respite, aiding, planning, getting others out of difficulties, doing the lion’s share of any social organizing that came along. And in addition she had now been carrying all the burden of the police inquiries and the funeral arrangements for her murdered friend.
When Edith Lorrington and Sandra Borne left, Karen Hammond left with them. She contrived to drop behind in the hallway as the others went out. She spoke in a low voice to Paul Russell as she held out her hand to him, but Tremaine was near enough to hear the whispered, tremulous words.
‘Good night, Paul. Thank you for tonight and for all you’ve done since we’ve been here. Whatever happens, please don’t—please don’t think too hardly of me.’
Before the doctor could make any reply she had gone and was hurrying down the path in the moonlight after her companions.
Mordecai Tremaine went to bed twenty minutes later in a thoughtful mood. He took with him a typewritten copy of Murder Has a Motive, by Alexis Kent. Evidently it engrossed his attention, for it was two o’clock in the morning before his bedroom light went out and he settled down to sleep.
Over the breakfast table he caught Paul Russell regarding him speculatively. He raised his eyebrows and the doctor admitted that he had been detected.
‘I was thinking that you were awake late last night, Mordecai,’ he said, a note of inquiry in his voice. ‘I saw a light under your door just before two o’clock. As a matter of fact, I didn’t sleep too well myself.’
‘I don’t remember Paul being so restless,’ remarked Jean. ‘I told him it must be a bad case of conscience.’
Tremaine fancied that he saw a faint trace of annoyance cross the other’s face, but Russell passed it over easily enough.
‘I was beginning to think that I must have given one of my patients the wrong drug in error and that my subconscious was choosing that way of getting back at me. However, I did manage to drop off to sleep eventually so perhaps it isn’t as bad as that after all.’
‘I was rather late turning out the light,’ admitted Tremaine, ‘but it wasn’t a case of insomnia. I was reading your play. It’s a very interesting piece of work. Have you ever met the author?’
Russell shook his head.
‘I don’t recollect even having heard of an author called Alexis Kent before we began the rehearsals. I don’t know whether he’s written any other plays. If he’d been down to the village at any time I’d be certain to have heard about it even if I hadn’t actually met him. But why don’t you tackle Vaughan? I believe I mentioned that it was through his recommendation that we decided to do Murder Has a Motive when we were looking around for a play.’
‘Yes, you did tell me.’
Tremaine busied himself with his breakfast for a few moments. And then:
‘What do you think Karen Hammond meant by that last remark of hers, Paul?’ he asked.
‘So you did hear it?’ said Russell. ‘I’ve been wondering whether you did. Jean and I have been talking it over. Neither of us can think what she could have had in her mind.’
‘It seemed to me that she was expecting something to happen.’
‘She’s been on edge ever since Lydia’s death,’ said Jean thoughtfully. ‘Didn’t you notice last night how tensed and worried she looked?’
‘Yes, I noticed it,’ returned Tremaine non-committally.
The morning’s most important event in Dalmering was the funeral of Lydia Dare. Nearly all the village was present to watch the procession make its way from the cottage where she had lived to the ancient church where her last service was read, and from thence to the little churchyard adjoining it where the coffin containing all that remained of her mortal body was to be lowered into the cleanly-cut grave, banked with flowers, which had been made ready to receive it.
The dead woman’s father was the chief mourner. Tremaine learned that he had only arrived in the village that morning, ha
ving travelled down from Yorkshire and spent the preceding night in London. He was a very frail old man, obviously suffering badly from the shock of his daughter’s tragic end. His wife was an invalid, which was why she was not present. Tremaine could imagine how bitterly the news must have fallen upon the fabric of their restricted lives, and pity for the old couple the twilight of whose years had been so cruelly blighted brought anger against the murderer rising again within him.
It was evident that the old man was incapable of having done much to handle any of the arrangements which had had to be made. Sandra Borne’s air of worried tiredness on the previous night was explained. She had carried the whole burden on her shoulders.
Pale, but visibly determined not to give way, she bore herself unflinchingly through the ordeal of the funeral service. Only the whiteness of her features and that unnatural fixed stare of her brown eyes betrayed the strain under which she was labouring.
Gerald Farrant was among the mourners. He was grim and stern-looking, his face grey and his grief heavy upon him. Once, at the graveside, as the coffin was about to be lowered, Tremaine thought that he was on the point of breaking down, but he managed to bring himself under control.
Martin Vaughan was not there. Tremaine had thought that it was unlikely that he would appear among the chief mourners, but he had subconsciously expected to find him somewhere in the vicinity. He glanced around at the quiet crowd gathered about the graveside but he did not see the other’s bulky form, nor had he seen him in the church. Others, too, had noticed the big man’s absence. Tremaine heard Vaughan’s name mentioned in a whisper behind him and it was easy to guess what was being said.
Was it fear which had kept the other away? Was it his awareness of the fact that he was under suspicion which accounted for his absence? Had he shrunk from running the gauntlet of all the accusing eyes which would have been turned upon him if he had been present?
Tremaine looked across the still open grave into which the earth was about to fall, and what he saw in Gerald Farrant’s face was sufficient explanation of why Vaughan had kept away. Confronted with the man whom he must suspect most of all, Farrant’s tortured, hate-filled mind might have driven him to some sudden uncontrolled act of revenge.
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