He appeared to be unwilling to agree to the proposal and yet equally unwilling to oppose it. Tremaine did not allow him any opportunity to retract.
‘Thank you,’ he said, and he was speaking chiefly to Phyllis Galway. ‘I can assure you that I’ve a very good reason for making the request.’
With that he nodded and left them. He walked at a brisk pace, for he knew that even yet Manning was uncertain whether or not to let him go unchallenged.
He had taken his stand now. He was committed to the course of action he had been turning tentatively over in his mind before he had met Manning and the girl. And for that it was essential that he should find Jonathan Boyce.
It took him an hour to locate the inspector, but at length he found him—coming from the house where Edith Lorrington had lived, where he had evidently been superintending the painstaking search for clues his men were undertaking.
Tremaine did not allow himself to be swerved from his purpose by the Yard man’s air of almost desperate preoccupation.
‘Found anything?’ he asked.
The inspector swung round upon him. Beneath the bushy eyebrows his eyes held a challenge.
‘I’ve been wanting to see you, Mordecai,’ he said, a trifle shortly.
Tremaine affected surprise.
‘Have you?’
Boyce glanced significantly at the plain-clothes men who were in their neighbourhood, almost within earshot.
‘We’ll talk going along the road,’ he said. And when they were some yards away and there was no further danger of their being overheard, he added: ‘Things are bad, Mordecai—damned bad. Three murders and nothing to show isn’t the sort of programme that makes you popular at the Yard.’
‘I suppose not,’ said Tremaine commiseratingly. ‘What’s the situation now? Are you up against another blank wall?’
‘There isn’t even anything resembling a clue,’ said Boyce. ‘Whoever killed Edith Lorrington seems to have walked into the house, picked up the poker, killed the old lady and walked out again without leaving a trace. We’ve no fingerprints—nothing.’
‘Anything in her past to give you a lead?’
‘Not that we’ve been able to discover, but it’s too early yet to say much about that. She seems to have led a pretty quiet sort of life here. She had a few friends but no very intimate ones.’ Boyce spread his hands wide, as though he was giving voice to a thought which had been weighing on his mind. ‘Who could have wanted to kill her? With Lydia Dare and with Philip Hammond there was at least some sort of reason behind each killing, even if we can’t prove anything definite as yet. But with Edith Lorrington there’s nothing at all—nothing except brutal, savage devilry.’
‘I told you once, Jonathan,’ observed Tremaine quietly, ‘that every murder has a motive behind it. This murder isn’t the exception.’
Boyce took him suddenly by the arm.
‘You know something, Mordecai. You’ve something in your mind—some theory about all this. You were expecting another murder.’
‘Perhaps I was,’ returned Tremaine slowly. He said: ‘If I’d known—if I’d dreamed what was going to happen to Edith Lorrington I would have told you. I don’t think there is anything I know which was concealed from you.’ And then he added, apparently incongruously: ‘Did I ever tell you I lost several hundred pounds in the Roydale Trust Company?’
Boyce looked at him in a puzzled fashion.
‘No,’ he said, ‘you didn’t. Although you did tell me once that you’d lost some money in a bucket shop which was supposed to be producing a new kind of shock absorber. But the Roydale smash is ancient history. Why are you bringing that up? Roydale got fifteen years, didn’t he?’
‘That’s right,’ said Tremaine conversationally. ‘He got fifteen years.’
‘What the devil is all this leading up to?’ demanded Boyce irritably. ‘We’re not discussing your history as a stock market operator. Let’s forget the red herrings and get back to where we were.’
Mordecai Tremaine was immediately contrite.
‘Sorry, Jonathan,’ he said. ‘I suppose you are facing a pretty serious crisis.’
‘Crisis,’ said Boyce, ‘seems to me to be a mild understatement. I’m heading for an explosion which is going to blow my pension to the Never-never land. I’d hate to repeat what the Commissioner told me over the ’phone this morning.’
‘You’ve let him know what results you’ve obtained so far?’
‘The trouble is that there are too many results,’ said Boyce. ‘When I put someone in the dock I like to be sure that it’s the right someone. Here there are too many people who might have done it. They can’t all be guilty.’
‘Three of them could be.’
‘If all three crimes are unconnected. Which I’m inclined to doubt.’ The inspector waited a moment or two and then he said: ‘There’s a short cut from Edith Lorrington’s house to “Roseland”. You can go from one house to the other in four or five minutes . . . if you’re familiar with a path which isn’t very easy to find.’ He added, casually: ‘You were with Dr. Russell all the evening, weren’t you, Mordecai?’
‘Yes,’ said Tremaine, waiting for the next inevitable question.
‘I don’t suppose you actually sat with him all the time. Didn’t he work in his surgery for a while, for instance?’
‘I believe he did.’
Mordecai Tremaine did not know what to say next. It was plain enough what Boyce was hinting at. He decided that the only thing he could do would be to recognize the obvious, and he said, after a pause:
‘What makes you think that Paul might have killed her?’
Boyce gave a sigh of relief.
‘I’m glad you’re taking it this way. I know that Dr. Russell is a friend of yours. But we’ve got to face the facts. There’s that legacy . . . that could have been a reason for killing Lydia Dare. The others might have been unpremeditated. Perhaps Hammond and Miss Lorrington looked like becoming dangerous. He had to kill them to cover himself.’
‘If Paul killed Lydia Dare,’ said Tremaine, ‘why did he ask me to do my utmost to find the murderer?’
‘An added precaution. He thought he was safe and that it would help to divert suspicion still further. Of course, at that time he didn’t bargain for any more killings.’
‘Last night,’ said Tremaine, ‘when you called at the house you were going to say something to me and then you stopped. Was it because Paul was there?’
‘Yes, it was.’ Boyce added, as though a surprising thought had just occurred to him, ‘Do you think he did it?’
‘I might,’ said Tremaine evasively. ‘And I might not. You may be interested to know,’ he went on, changing the subject in a blatant fashion, ‘that our friend Shannon was actually at Colminster on the occasion when he was supposed to be in London discussing business with his acquaintance Millward.’
‘I’ve seen Anston,’ said Boyce. ‘I know all about it. Don’t,’ he added, ‘make such obvious attempts to head me off.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Tremaine. ‘Tonight you’ll have your murderer.’
He spoke so casually that at first Boyce did not realize what he had said. And then he stopped short in the roadway and his voice was sharp.
‘What did you say?’
‘I said,’ repeated Mordecai Tremaine, ‘that tonight you will have the murderer. ‘If, ’ he added, ‘you’ll do what I ask.’
He told the inspector what it was he required and it was significant that Jonathan Boyce heard him through and raised no objections.
17
THERE WAS NO rehearsal of Murder Has a Motive in progress but there was a drama being enacted on the stage of the village hall. Perhaps it was imbued with an atmosphere even more compelling than that of the play by virtue of the very fact that it was a drama in which there were no consciously effective lines being delivered by hard-working actors under the stress of an artificial emotion. Words, when they came, were hushed, their banality betraying the nervous ten
sion by which the speakers were actuated. They crept into the silence as if they knew that they were intruders and faded hesitantly into nothingness again, leaving an uncomfortable air of apology behind.
Mordecai Tremaine looked fleetingly around at his companions. His action was barely perceptible but he could have closed his eyes and painted a vivid verbal picture of the scene.
He could have described the heavy figure of Martin Vaughan, overflowing the inadequate chair upon which the big man was seated and lowering over the rest of the company like some brooding colossus, out of place among pygmies and at the same time suspicious and afraid of them. He could have described Howard Shannon, plump hands nervously clasping and unclasping in front of him, darting sudden, furtive glances all around.
Next to Shannon he could have given an accurate portrait of Pauline Conroy, sulkily dark, with rebellious, conscious beauty in every exaggeration of her seductive form, still posing for the audience despite the sharp quality of the fear which was racing unpleasantly inside her. It was a measure of her apprehension that she had allowed her right hand to drop secretively below the edge of the table and search out Serge Galeski’s left. She was holding it tightly, her palm moist against his.
Tremaine was aware that she was clinging both literally and figuratively to Galeski for support, although the producer was betraying no sign of it. He seemed unaffected by his companion’s agitation. The expression on his face was that of self-recognized superiority; his too-frequent glances around the table were a supercilious if unspoken challenge. It was as if he was saying that they could prove nothing against him and that he sat despising them, aloofly secure.
Would he still be so blatantly contemptuous when the evening’s drama had run its course? Mordecai Tremaine reflected grimly that before he left the stage Mr. Serge Galeski’s air of assurance was likely to be dissipated.
He peered beyond the stage lights into the gloomy body of the hall. He could not see clearly, but he fancied that in the deeper shadows at the back there was an occasional whiteness which was a face, and by keeping his eyes focused in that direction he thought that he could recognize Barry Anston and Gerald Farrant.
He had expected the journalist to be there. Anston knew that another chapter in the story which he had been sent to Dalmering to cover was about to be released for publication. Whether he expected it to be a sensational one Tremaine did not know, but even if he had been completely sceptical over the likelihood of any developments the other would still have been present as a matter of routine. However, it was possible that it was not only routine but a significant word from Inspector Boyce which had been responsible for his appearance. The Yard man would undoubtedly have told him that it might be worth his while to pay a visit to the village hall.
It was by his eyes that Tremaine knew Gerald Farrant. They burned out of the gloom, so that it was only after you had been gripped by their fierce intensity that you became aware of the taut white face in which they were set. Farrant had come for vengeance.
There were others in the hall besides the journalist and Farrant. There was no one on guard at the doors to keep them out and somehow the whisper of what was to take place must have travelled through the village. No doubt they were mainly reporters. It was too late to worry about them now, but Mordecai Tremaine hoped that they would remain quiet and not bring attention upon themselves.
There was a tingling in his veins. This was his hour. The elaborate theory he had built up was about to undergo its test. If it failed, if it crumpled uselessly beneath the impact of his experiment, then he had laid himself open to being labelled as an object of contempt and scorn and he would have no words with which to face Jonathan Boyce. There would be no alternative but to leave Dalmering immediately and take his shame and his confusion with him.
But he knew that it would not fail. Confidence was flowing strongly within him, like the steady, irresistible surging tide of a triumphant sea.
His glance travelled again around the table at which he and his companions were seated. It rested briefly upon Karen Hammond. No one in the village knew that she had not been Philip Hammond’s wife. The dead man’s real wife had made no statement to the newspapers, nor had she uttered any word to lead to a public scandal or a muttering of tongues in the village. She had, in fact, behaved with a surprising amount of discretion and forbearance. Tremaine suspected that the answer lay in the fact that she had been in love with her husband. She had kept silence in order to preserve Philip Hammond’s name as long as she could.
Karen Hammond’s blonde hair, freed from the closely fitting hat she had worn to the hall, was in vivid contrast to the severely cut dark costume which served to indicate what was believed to be her widowhood. Its tumbled, gleaming tresses framed a face which was stonily impassive in its marbled grief. There was no sign now of the nervous fear which had previously marked her; it was as though Philip Hammond’s death had frozen both her terror and her heart. She was sitting motionless at the table and the blue eyes which were fixed steadily in front of her could see none of the things at which she appeared to be staring.
Tremaine looked beyond her to the head of the table, where Sandra Borne occupied the position of chairman. Her eyes were bent sympathetically upon Karen Hammond. She sensed his glance and her head turned to meet his gaze. An appeal came into her face and he nodded understandingly and made a gesture towards the two vacant chairs at her right hand.
Jean and Paul Russell had not yet made their appearance. Until they had arrived he did not wish the business of the evening to begin. It was essential for his purpose that all the actors in his cast should be in their places.
Martin Vaughan noticed their exchange of glances. His chair creaked as his big frame moved.
‘What are we all waiting for?’ he demanded. ‘If it was so important to call this meeting why don’t we get on with it instead of sitting here like a lot of dummies?’
Sandra Borne looked full at him.
‘We’re waiting,’ she said, ‘for Doctor Russell and Jean. We can’t start until they’re here, but I don’t think they will be long now.’
Her level, patient tones seemed to placate the big man. Oddly for him he even looked a little shame-faced.
‘Sorry, Sandra—I didn’t mean to be short with you. It’s just this waiting about with nothing happening . . .’
The unusual meekness of Vaughan’s attitude sent a tremor of movement around the table, as if an electric current had been suddenly passed through a wire linking up all the people who were seated there. Shannon moved his head quickly; the flabbiness in his cheeks quivered jerkily as he turned. He eyed Vaughan suspiciously, almost as if he had been made abruptly aware of danger from an entirely unsuspected source.
Tremaine surveyed his companions critically from behind the inevitably insecure pince-nez which lent him such a harmless appearance. He was watching for all signs of reaction among the little group about him.
Phyllis Galway was looking across the table at Vaughan. Her lips were slightly parted. She had the air of a child who had been invited to grown-ups’ party and who was tremendously excited but a little scared. Tremaine thought that her youthful loveliness had never been more marked.
He glanced at Geoffrey Manning with a slight pang of what might have been the envy of an old man who was regretting the opportunities of a youth which he could never see again. The pang momentarily gained in force as he saw that Manning was paying no attention to the girl he was to marry. He should, said Mordecai Tremaine’s sentimental soul wrathfully, have no eyes for any other person but her. If he could ignore that fresh appealing beauty he did not deserve his good fortune.
Even as the thought was born, Manning ceased to look at Serge Galeski and his gaze rested upon the girl. The grimness in his face softened, so that his always somewhat rugged features lost something of the carved ugliness which had been marring them and he looked more like the agreeable youngster of a few days previously. It was, however, only a brief metamorphosis. The hardne
ss and the strained expectancy came back. His eyes left the girl’s eager figure and took on once again their look of shadowed brooding.
Under Manning’s gaze an angry flush had spread to Serge Galeski’s face. The deliberately untidy, long-haired producer had already lost a little of his satisfied composure. He was searching Manning’s face in his turn, as if trying to find an assuring reason for the prolonged stare the other had given him. His eyes flickered uneasily to Pauline Conroy. He cleared his throat.
‘Miss Conroy and I can’t afford to wait much longer,’ he announced, assuming an air of importance. ‘Our time is valuable.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr. Galeski,’ said Sandra Borne’s tactfully persuasive tones. ‘I hope we don’t have to keep you much longer.’
Despite his protest Galeski had made no attempt to move. His utterance had been purely a face-saving one. Tremaine knew that the man would not leave until the grand climax had been reached.
He was aware of a stir of admiration within him as he watched Sandra Borne. Her nervous tension was certainly no less than that of any of the others, but she betrayed the least sign of it. She was still occupying the position she had been occupying for so long in the village—she was the hard-working, willing horse, who accepted all the least enjoyable tasks and received none of the limelight. It was taken for granted that if there was anything to be set right, anything to be organized, it was Sandy who would shoulder the burden. It was Sandy who would see that everything was all right on the night.
During his brief stay in the village Tremaine had discovered the truth of it in a dozen little ways. To do the other members of the community justice it was partly her own cheerfulness and readiness to accept new responsibilities which was the cause of the variety of the tasks she performed in the common good. Sandy was a village institution. She could always be relied upon.
But although she was outwardly still the same, still ready to carry on with her self-imposed work, Tremaine was certain that she was very near the breaking point now. The lines of fatigue and exhaustion in her face were more deeply etched than they had been even a day or so before; the shadows under her eyes had become larger and more pronounced. Her self-possession was a pose which she was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain; the cost to her nerves of preserving it was reaching the danger point.
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