Choice of Evils

by E. X. Ferrars

  ‘Well, I'm sure I'm very glad if I've been any help, but I don't see just how I have,’ she said.

  Andrew stood up. ‘Oh, I think you have, and I'm very grateful.’

  But the truth was that as Andrew walked back to the Dolphin he felt a good deal confused. He wanted very much to talk to Peter and resolved to telephone him to arrange a meeting as soon as he reached the hotel. But as soon as he did so he was intercepted by a white-faced receptionist who looked as if she would have liked to throw herself into his arms for protection from something or other, and who gasped out sharply, ‘Oh, Professor Basnett, isn't it terrible? Nothing, nothing, like it has ever happened to us before!’

  ‘Oh, I'm sure you're right,’ he said. ‘But just what's happened?’

  ‘They haven't told you?’

  ‘They?’

  ‘The police. I thought you went to the police station this morning.’

  So she was not above listening on the internal telephone system. Not that it mattered. It occurred to him too that the police had become 'they’ to everyone who had had anything to do with them over the weekend, a curious abstraction, anonymous, faceless, hardly human.

  ‘They didn't tell me much, they only asked me questions,’ he said.

  'So you don't know that they've found Miss Braile - or Mrs Nicholl, as I believe she's really called.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘At the foot of the cliff, not ten minutes’ walk from here, her body mostly in the water, but she wasn't drowned. Her neck was broken.’

  ‘That's indeed terrible.’ Andrew remembered the chill that he had felt in the police station when everyone had seemed suddenly to be propelled into urgent action, so that he was merely something in the way, and he recognized that it had been fear of some outcome such as this that he had sensed. ‘Where's Mr Nicholl?’

  T think he's still at the police station,’ the woman said. 'They came for him to tell him his wife's body had been found. Some children found it; isn't that dreadful? She'd fallen on to the rocks and was killed stone dead. It's a puzzle, because they say it must have been daylight when she fell, and the path there isn't dangerous.’

  ‘It was from the cliff on this side of the town, was it, not the other side of the bridge?’ Andrew asked.

  He remembered the cliff path on the near cliff quite clearly from earlier visits to Gallmouth. It began almost opposite the entrance to the Dolphin and rose steeply, curving to the left where the strip of beech trees began and lying between them and the edge of the cliff, running parallel to the main road up which Peter had driven Andrew when they were on their way to Simon Amory's house.

  ‘That's right,’ the woman said. 'The children shouldn't have been playing where they were, it's not safe scrambling about on those rocks, but Mrs Nicholl can't have been doing that. She must have fallen over the edge of the cliff. I wonder if she was short-sighted and didn't like to wear spectacles because she thought they made her look old. A lot of people are like that.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Andrew said. ‘Perhaps. If anyone should want me, I'll be in my room. There's a telephone call I want to make.’

  He turned towards the lift and summoned it from an upper floor, stepped into it and a moment later stepped out and went to his room. Picking up the telephone, he dialled Amory's number, of which he had made a note, and when he was answered by a man's voice belonging, he thought, to the man who had waited on the table at Amory's dinner party, said that he wanted to speak to Mr Dilly. He was told to wait a minute and after only a brief wait, Peter's voice said, ‘Hallo.’

  ‘Peter?’ Andrew said. ‘Can you come down here to lunch with me?’

  ‘I'm not sure that I can,’ Peter said. 'The place is swarming with policemen and I've a feeling I may be wanted. You've heard of the discovery of Magda Braile's body?’

  ‘Yes, but it's about something quite different that I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Can't you do it on the telephone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I'll see what I can do. There may be no problem about it. But you see, when she was discovered there was that age-old question, did she fall or was she pushed? And it's probable that it happened, so I understand, around the same time, or not long after, Rachel Rayne was shot. Can't you give me some idea what it is you want to talk to me about?’

  ‘About a case of fraud, as you yourself suggested. A fairly major fraud. It's complicated, however, and I may be quite wrong. But if I'm right it may explain a number of things that have been puzzling us. But I need to talk it over with someone. So come if you can.’

  He put down the telephone, went out and summoned the lift once more, went down to the ground floor and on into the bar.

  CHAPTER 6

  Peter did not come. Andrew waited in the bar for nearly half an hour, then went into the dining-room and ordered lunch.

  He took his time over it, but still Peter did not come. A feeling of apprehension grew in Andrew. Why did he not come? It could only be because he was being prevented, but why should that be? Andrew could not seriously believe that Peter was suspected of being involved in Rachel Rayne's murder, or in that of Magda Braile, if that should turn out to be murder. Yet after all, why should he not be suspected by strangers? And why, if it came to that, should he not be suspected by Andrew?

  The fact that he had known Peter since his infancy and had read to him the works of Mina Todhunter, did not really tell Andrew much about what his nephew had turned into in his thirties. They did not normally see much of one another. Peter spent a good deal of his time abroad, and whether he spent it alone, or with friends, was some-thing into which Andrew had never enquired. Vaguely he took for granted that there were women in Peter's life, but if Peter did not want to confide in him about them, Andrew saw no reason to probe into the matter.

  Perhaps, he thought, he had been neglectful. He found himself beginning to wonder if it was possible that Peter had known Rachel Rayne before coming to Gallmouth. To take for granted that he would have told Andrew about it if he had done so was really rather presumptuous. And if Andrew now began to feel even very faint doubts of Peter, why should the police not feel them too, somewhat more forcefully? If they did, surely they were mistaken. Yes, of course they were mistaken. But it might be difficult for Peter to prove that at the moment.

  Andrew finished his lunch and got up, wondering if he should make his way to Barnfield House and find out what was really happening. He felt very restless, not at all like having the quiet doze that he was used to having in the afternoons. But he was doubtful about the wisdom of interfering in what was really Simon Amory's problem. If he could be of any use, he thought, he would have been sent for. But there was one thing he could do that might be useful, and if it was not, at least it would not do any harm. He went out into the hall, took up the telephone directory and looked for the address and number of Edward Clarke.

  There were three E. Clarkes in the book. He prepared to dial them all, but at a second try was answered by the one he wanted.

  Andrew recognized the high, thin voice at once, though all that was said was, ‘Clarke speaking’.

  ‘This is Basnett here,’ Andrew said. ‘I believe I'm speaking to the Chairman of the Festival Committee.’

  ‘Ah, Professor Basnett - yes, yes, of course,’ Clarke answered. ‘What terrible things have happened since we first met. No doubt you've heard that they've found that poor woman, our dear Magda.’

  ‘Yes, though I don't know much about it/ Andrew replied.

  ‘Nor does anyone, I'm sure. Not yet. And perhaps they never will. I'm sure you know that of all the crimes committed only one in fifty is ever brought to the courts. Yet we're supposed to be a civilized society. Now what can I do for you?’

  ‘If you aren't too busy at the moment, I should be very grateful if we could meet,’ Andrew said. ‘At your home, or your office, or here in the Dolphin, whichever suits you best.’

  ‘Certainly, my dear chap, certainly. I'll be very glad to meet you again. And
come here, if it isn't taking you too far out of your way. I normally avoid the office on a Sunday, and the press, which is massing at Amory's place, might track us to the Dolphin. After all, it's where Nicholl is staying. So if you don't mind coming as far as this, you'll be most welcome. You've a car, I assume.’

  ‘No, but I can get a taxi.’

  ‘Yes, that's the best thing to do. Well, I'll expect you in, say, half an hour. So glad to be seeing you again.’

  With one or two more politenesses, they rang off, and Andrew picked up the telephone again and arranged for a taxi to pick him up in ten minutes.

  Then he went up to his room to put on an overcoat, thinking as his eye fell on his copy of Death Come Quickly that when he returned from his visit to Edward Clarke, he really would settle down to read it. That was to say, unless Peter had appeared by then, or communicated with him somehow.

  The taxi was punctual and with Andrew settled down in it, set off to the house called Rosemary Cottage.

  It was no cottage. It was what is sometimes called a desirable residence, built probably between the two wars, with walls of white roughcast, a roof of grey pantiles and green shutters at the windows. The garden was very neat, consisting mostly of a wide, curving rockery. It was about three miles from the centre of Gallmouth, though the road to it was lined on both sides with bungalows. Perhaps, when the house had been built, it had stood almost by itself in the country, but now it was only part of a suburb, a prosperous one which had spread out to engulf what had no doubt once been a village.

  Andrew left the taxi at the gate and walked up the short drive to the pale blue front door. The driver had asked him if he wanted him to wait, but Andrew had thought that the walk back into the town would not be too much for him. He rang the front doorbell and immediately heard footsteps inside the house. The door was opened by a girl of about ten years old. She wore very short shorts and a T-shirt and had a mass of tangled red hair hanging down her back. She stared at him wonderingly and said nothing.

  Andrew said, 'My name is Basnett. I think Mr Clarke is expecting me.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Yes.’ But she did not move aside so that he could enter.

  ‘Perhaps if you would tell him …’ Andrew suggested.

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ Her eyes were very large and a greenish brown.

  ‘Tricia!’ a voice called from inside the house. 'Tricia! Who's there?’

  The child kept her gaze on Andrew for another moment, then turned and ran away into the house, leaving him on the doorstep.

  A woman came hurrying to the door. She looked about forty and was short and plump, with a round, plump face and soft-looking features which it might almost be possible, so it seemed to Andrew, to mould gently into quite different shapes. Like the child, she had red hair, but hers was cut short across her forehead and all round her head so that it looked a little like a lamp-shade. She was wearing corduroy trousers and a brightly patterned jacket. Her eyes were friendly.

  ‘I'm so sorry/ she said. 'Tricia shouldn't have left you here like this, but she's expecting some friend of her own and she's very shy with strangers. Do come in. Ted's out in the garden, mowing the lawn. It must be almost the last time he'll have to do it this year. Winter will soon be upon us, won't it?’

  Chatting about Ted, the garden and the coming winter, she led Andrew into a sitting-room, a long room with windows at each end, one of which overlooked the garden at the back of the house where Edward Clarke was to be seen on the lawn, puffing his way along behind a motor-mower. Like the child, he was in shorts and a T-shirt. The woman flung the window open, leant out and called, 'Ted! Professor Basnett's here!’

  The first time she called Clarke did not hear her, the noise of the mower drowning her voice, so she raised it and called again. Her voice had almost the same shrillness as his. He stopped then in a startled way, switched off the engine and came trotting up to the house. He held out a hand to Andrew and shook his heartily.

  ‘You've met Cecily,’ he said, 'my wife. I'm so sorry to have kept you. I didn't really expect you'd get here so soon.’

  Andrew was pleased to have it confirmed that the two were husband and wife, for they were so alike in their short, soft plumpness that he had wondered if they might be brother and sister.

  ‘I'm very sorry to disturb you on a Sunday afternoon,’ he said, ‘but there are just a few things I'd very much like to ask you, since I've got to some extent involved in the tragic events in Gallmouth.’

  ‘Of course, of course, I'll be glad to give you any help I can,’ Clarke said. 'Sit down, sit down.’

  As if it had been a direction for her, Cecily Clarke sat down in one of the plump easy chairs in the room. There were several, and a deep, soft carpet and a number of little round tables. Everything in the room was round and soft and cushioned, with almost no angles anywhere. It worried Andrew that Mrs Clarke appeared to intend to sit in on the discussion he wanted to have with her husband, yet there was nothing truly private about it. If she chose to join in it could do no harm. It was merely that her presence made Andrew feel self-conscious about his visit here, about its possible foolishness.

  He began, ‘I believe, Mr Clarke, you were acquainted with Rachel Rayne.’

  ‘Acquainted - well now, that's a big word,’ Clarke said. ‘I'd met her once or twice. At that dinner where I had the pleasure of meeting you, for instance. We talked a little. But there's really hardly anything I can tell you about her.’

  ‘Didn't she come to see you yesterday afternoon, in your office?’ Andrew asked.

  ‘That's just what the police asked Ted this morning!’ Cecily Clarke exclaimed. ‘And he'd never told me a thing about it. Wasn't that bad of him? The things I might think about him if I didn't know him so well. Go on, Ted, tell Professor Basnett what he wants to know.’

  Clarke twisted his short, thick fingers together in a gesture of acute embarrassment.

  ‘Yes, she came to see me,’ he said. ‘Only found me there by chance. I'm not usually there on a Saturday afternoon, but with the play coming off in the evening I'd stayed in town. I suppose it was your nephew who told you about his having seen her. It was he who'd told the police about it, so they told me.’

  ‘Yes,’ Andrew said, ‘and unless they've dug up some other witnesses, he seems to be the last person who can say he saw her alive.’

  ‘And the first to find her dead,’ Clarke said.

  That gave Andrew a very uncomfortable feeling. He said, 'So it seems. But what I want to ask you about is something that perhaps you'll feel you shouldn't tell me.’

  ‘Oh, I know what it is, it's why she came to see me. And I'm not at all clear in my own mind what my duty is. I've never had a client murdered before and I've never thought out what, in the circumstances, I owe in the way of confidentiality. But the police persuaded me to tell them what I knew, which I must warn you isn't much, so if you ask me the same questions I don't really see why I shouldn't answer them.’

  ‘I may want to ask you some things the police didn't think of,’ Andrew said. ‘First, did she cast any doubts on the legality of her sister's marriage?’

  ‘Oh, my goodness!’ Cecily cried. ‘You don't mean that! Why, those two were the most devoted couple you could hope to find.’

  ‘People can be very devoted without ever having signed on the dotted line,’ Andrew said. ‘If one of them, for instance, was already married.’

  They both stared at him with astonishment on their faces. Then Cecily shook her head vigorously.

  ‘Oh no, I can prove you're wrong. Lizbeth once showed me a wedding photograph and there couldn't have been any doubt that it was of her and Simon. It was taken a good many years ago, but they'd neither of them changed much. And she looked so charming in her white dress, all lace and frills and holding a bouquet of carnations. Simon looked a bit grim, but then he always does, doesn't he? Perhaps I shouldn't say it, but I've never honestly been able to like him. But as I said, he was really in love with her, and the way he nursed her th
rough that awful illness of hers was very moving.’

  ‘Did she die here or in London?’ Andrew asked.

  ‘In London,’ Clarke said. 'Simon hadn't bought the house here yet, but they used to come down to it quite often to stay with their friends. And it was very tragic to see her simply wasting away. Before the end she became the thinnest thing I've ever seen. But such courage! But what's given you the idea that she and Simon may not have been legally married?’

  ‘Chiefly the intense interest Rachel Rayne took when Peter remarked that her sister had died intestate. After all, even if she was a rich woman - ’

  ‘Which she wasn't,’ Clarke interrupted.

  ‘Well even if she had been, her dying intestate wouldn't have affected Rachel at all if her sister had been married to Amory. He would have inherited most of what she had, wouldn't he?’

  ‘As there were no children, yes,’ Clarke answered. ‘If there had been he would have inherited the first two hundred thousand, and the rest would have been divided between the children. But of course, she never possessed anything like two hundred thousand and as there were no children he would have got all there was.’

  ‘And her sister nothing?’

  ‘That's right.’

  'So you see why I'm so intrigued by that sudden interest of Rachel's in her sister dying intestate. Because I believe she would have got the lot if her sister and Amory weren't married. Wasn't that what she came to see you about yesterday afternoon?’

  Clarke worked his fingers together as if he were kneading dough and puffed out his plump cheeks in a way that gave him a look of uncomfortable uncertainty.

  'She never said anything about her sister and Amory not having been married,’ he said. 'She simply asked if an unmarried woman died intestate, who inherited her property. I got an idea somehow that perhaps she'd had another sister besides Lizbeth Amory who'd died intestate, and she wanted to know what right she had to whatever had been left. But I admit she never said that definitely, it was just an impression I got. But if you're right…’ He paused and gave a grave shake of his head. 'To think that we've known them all this time and never suspected … Not that it means much nowadays. They could quite safely have confided in us.’ He sounded a little hurt that they had not done so. ‘But of course, if you don't mind my saying so. Professor, you may be wrong.’