All this was in Antony ’s mind as he turned-not very consciously, but as things are which you have always known. The paper-covered door was opening. In another moment it had opened and Lois came in.
She was a shock. He had been away back in the past-she wasn’t in the picture. She hadn’t any business in Marcia’s cupboard-that was the first instinctive reaction, changing to “Of course it’s hers now,” and obliterated by the crashing conclusion, she hadn’t any business in his room.
It was midnight. Probably everyone else in the house was asleep-he hoped so at any rate. He was in his pyjamas, and she in the sort of negligee which the vamp wears in every bedroom scene, something transparent and flesh-coloured, slipping at the shoulder. There was an atmosphere of scent and emotion. He was so angry that he could hardly find words or get them out. She didn’t wait for them, but said hurriedly,
“I must speak to you. Antony, please do listen.”
“Lois, are you mad? We can’t talk here-like this. For God’s sake go back to your room!”
She gave a muted version of her rippling laugh.
“Thinking of my reputation, darling?”
He said bluntly, “I’m thinking about Jimmy. You’d better think about him too.”
She came up close and said,
“I’d so much rather think about you, darling.”
“Lois-”
“It’s two years since you kissed me. Don’t you want to kiss me now?”
“Lois-”
“You used not to be such an icicle, my sweet.”
“You used not to be Jimmy’s wife. And I hate to remind you that two years ago is two years ago.”
“You were in love with me then.”
“I’m not the least in love with you now.”
She laughed and narrowed her eyes at him.
“Joseph!”
He was too angry to care what he said. If she asked for it she could have it.
“Are you really keen on being Potiphar’s wife? Definitely repulsive, don’t you think?”
The door moved again. The paper had a pattern of bunches of violets on a white ground. The bunches on the door were moving. He could see them over Lois’ shoulder-the shoulder from which that damnable garment was slipping. The door opened quite wide and Jimmy came in.
It needed only this to plunge them all into tenth-rate farce, but even through his swirling rage he was aware that the farce had a sinister slant. Jimmy, in pale blue pyjamas with his light hair wildly on end, ought to have fitted the part of the comic husband, but he didn’t. He was starkly tragic. He stood a yard inside the door and looked at them, his eyes pale and fixed between reddened lids, his face dead white and pouring with sweat. For the moment even Lois had nothing to say. It was Jimmy who spoke.
“Go back to your room!”
“Really, Jimmy!”
He spoke again.
“I heard what you said.”
She gave a short laugh, shrugged her shoulders, and walked past him.
To Antony the last crooked twist was given by the fact that though she almost touched Jimmy, he did not move to avoid her. She might not have been there. In a moment she wasn’t there. The door in the wall had shut behind her. But for Jimmy Latter she had been gone before that. There wasn’t any Lois any more.
It was all over between one minute and the next. Antony got hold of himself, and prepared to save anything that could still be saved. He said, “Jimmy, old chap-” and Jimmy turned those pale eyes upon him.
“I heard what she said.” And then, “She said, ‘two years ago.’ I’d like to know-what happened-two years ago.”
There was no expression in his voice, no trace of his usual manner. The words came with dreadful pauses between them. Jimmy-whose words tumbled over one another because there were always too many of them to pack neatly into a sentence! And now this dreary monotone-“I want to know-what happened-two years ago.”
“Nothing for you to mind. You’ve got to believe me. I was in love with her, and I asked her to marry me. She said no, and she married you. That’s all there ever was. I thought you knew.”
Jimmy nodded. He said, still in that difficult way,
“Not-your-fault-”
Antony came up and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Look here, Jimmy, don’t make too much of this. There’s no harm done. You really mustn’t make too much of it. I’ll tell you the bare truth. For God’s sake try and believe it. Lois had had a row with you-about old Hodson’s cottage-”
“She lied to me about it.”
The shoulder under Antony ’s hand was as cold and hard as ice. He went on insistently.
“Well, you had a row, and she was angry. She doesn’t like not getting her own way. She wanted to score you off. The best way she could think of was to flirt with me. Well, we’ve known each other long enough to be blunt-I told her there was nothing doing. And just then Julia came to call us in. Women don’t like leaving a row unfinished-they think of ways to get even with you and have the last word. I do honestly believe that’s what brought Lois here tonight. It was damned silly of her, and you’ve every right to be angry, but don’t think it was worse than it was. I’ll be off at six in the morning, and I’ll keep out of the way-you can trust me for that! Jimmy-for God’s sake-”
It was no good. Jimmy Latter gave him a heartrending look and said so.
“It’s no good. I heard what she said.”
He turned and went out through the door in the wall.
CHAPTER 16
Antony left Latter End before anyone was up. His step rang as hollow in the hall as if the house were empty. When he drew back the bolts and turned the key in the lock it seemed as if someone must wake. He came out into the early morning-dew on the grass, and a light breeze blowing. He got out his car and took the road with a sense of escape.
During the next two days he was kept extremely busy. He lunched with Latimer, got on better than he expected, and was dragged off by him to his cottage on the Thames. Latimer would take no denial. His manuscript was there, they could go through it together-“Your partners are damned old women, but I can’t be bothered to fight them.” And, most unexpected of all, “It’s no good saying no-you must come down and meet my wife.”
Latimer the married man! Antony could hardly stretch his mind to take it in. He felt the most lively curiosity as to Mrs. Latimer. In the event, he found her a comfortable, placid housewife, comely in a country fashion and an inspired cook. In fact just what Latimer ought to have married. Being Latimer, it was quite unbelievable that he should have done so. Yet there she was, and there was Latimer, very much the husband and as pleased as Punch.
Leave of absence having been granted with alacrity by the firm, it was six o’clock next evening before he returned to his hotel. Just time in hand to change and get out to Hampstead to dine with the Mathiesons, where he spent a very pleasant evening. In the back of his mind the sense of escape persisted.
He came back to the hotel after midnight to find a slip in his room-“Miss Vane has rung up twice. She says will you please ring her when you come in.” Antony stood frowning at the words. They forced the doors of his mind and brought a sense of catastrophe with them. Nonsense of course, utter ludicrous nonsense. She might have a dozen good reasons for ringing up… “Miss Vane has rung up twice. She says will you please ring her when you come in.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed and lifted the receiver of the table instrument. When he had given the number he stayed there waiting. It was ten minutes past twelve. The only upstairs telephone extension at Latter End was in Lois’ bedroom. If Julia was expecting a call from him she must be waiting for it in the study. He had the strangest, strongest impression of her waiting for him to call her up-the instrument on Jimmy’s table-Julia in the writing-chair, waiting in a fixed silence which went on, and on, and on.
It was nearly half an hour before the call came through. At the first sound of the bell he lifted the receiver and heard her say,
“Yes. What is it?”
“Something has happened.”
“What is it?”
She went on in French-the French she had learned in the schoolroom with Miss Smithers, its familiar British ring just making what she had to say incredible.
“It’s something dreadful, Antony. It’s Lois-she’s dead.”
He made some exclamation, he didn’t know what.
“How?”
“I don’t know. It was something in her coffee.”
“Julia!”
He heard her take a shuddering breath.
“The police have been here. They’ll be coming back in the morning.”
“When did it happen?”
“After dinner-as soon as she drank her coffee. Will you come down?”
“Of course.”
“Early?”
“I’ll be down by eight.”
“Make it half past seven. I’ll meet you at the first milestone beyond the village. I want to talk to you.”
Something ran like a taut string between them. He said, “All right,” and hard on the last word there came a click and they were thirty miles apart.
He hung up at his end, and found his hand stiff and numb from the grip in which he had been holding the receiver.
CHAPTER 17
She was standing by the milestone, a bicycle leaning against the hedge behind her. When Antony drew up she went across to the car.
“We’d better get off the road. Turn up Hob Lane. I’ve got Ellie’s bicycle-I’ll be there as soon as you are.”
The car almost filled the lane. Not that it mattered, for nothing came this way more than once in a blue moon. Julia got in, leaned back into the corner, and said without any preliminaries,
“They think it’s murder.”
“Why?”
She said, “Everything.” And then, “I’d better tell you.”
“Yes.”
She took one of those long breaths. She was bareheaded, her hair a little misted with the early morning damp, her face quite colourless and strongly set, her voice low and steady.
“It’s been a dreadful two days-ever since you went. There must have been some frightful row. I expect you know what it was. Jimmy doesn’t say. He was out nearly all the first day. Lois stayed in her room till lunch, then she came down. Jimmy wasn’t there. They didn’t speak at dinner, and afterwards he went off and shut himself in the study.”
“What about the coffee?”
“He came into the drawing-room for it-just tossed it off with a gulp as if it was medicine and went away. Next day- yesterday-it was the same thing. She had her breakfast in her room. I took it up. Jimmy went out and didn’t come home till the late afternoon. He looked awful. Nobody-nobody in the house could help knowing that there had been some awful row. Dinner was ghastly. Ellie and I washed up- Minnie looked so bad that we sent her away. I took the coffee tray through. Manny put a drop of vanilla into each of the cups-she did it in front of me. The sugar and the cognac were on the tray. I took it into the drawing-room and put it down. There wasn’t anyone there. I went out on to the terrace to see if Lois was there, but I didn’t find her, so I went along to the study and called through the window to Jimmy to tell him the coffee was in the drawing-room. I didn’t hurry back. It was all being pretty grim.” She paused, stiffening herself against a shudder. She had on a warm frieze coat, but nothing warmed her. The cold came from within. It was her mind and her heart that shuddered.
Antony said, “Go on.”
“Yes-I will. After a bit I came up to the drawing-room window and looked in. They were all there. Jimmy was in his usual chair. His coffee was on the table beside him. He took it up and drank it off the way he always does. Lois had hers in her hand. She was going over to her chair by the window. Minnie was over by the fireplace. Ellie was near the window. I didn’t want to go in. I said to Ellie, ‘Get off to bed early, darling. I’m going for a turn.’ I went down through the garden and across the fields. It was a lovely evening and I just didn’t want to go in. I don’t know if it would have made any difference if I had.” The shudder came again.
“Go on, Julia.”
She fixed her eyes on his face.
“It was ten o’clock when I got back. The door from the drawing-room on to the terrace was open. I went in that way. There wasn’t anyone there but Lois, and I thought she was asleep. I didn’t particularly want to wake her, so I turned back and was going to go round by the side door. And then I wasn’t sure-I mean I wasn’t sure about her being asleep. I mean she doesn’t-and she had slipped down in the chair- she didn’t look right. I went over and spoke to her, but she didn’t wake up. Then I touched her, and she slipped right down. I went and got Jimmy. She wasn’t dead yet, but we couldn’t wake her. I tried to get Dr. Grange on the telephone, but he was out at a baby case. Then I tried to get someone from Crampton. There was a hospital concert on, and I tried three people before I got a man called Hathaway. He said to give her strong coffee and walk her about. I think we got a little of the coffee down, but she was past anything like walking. She died just after he got there.” The shudder which she had been holding back shook her from head to foot.
Antony put a hand on her knee.
“Don’t, my dear-”
Her hand came out ice-cold and caught at his. She went on speaking.
“He said we must ring up the police, and nothing must be touched. I had to do the ringing up-Jimmy just sat with his head in his hands. And all in the middle of everything that awful Gladys Marsh had hysterics-her idea of getting any limelight that was going. Manny and I were trying to stop her, when Doctor Hathaway came out of the drawing-room. He’s the disagreeable, conscientious sort-good at his job- nasty suspicious mind. It only needed Gladys to set him off. She was screaming out, ‘You want to shut me up, but you can’t! Murder-that’s what it is-murder! And you’re not going to be able to hush it up!’ Well, this Hathaway man was on to it like a knife. He told her to control herself, and if she knew anything, to say what it was.”
He felt her hand jerk on his. She wasn’t looking at him now. She took her hand away. He said sharply,
“What was it?”
“Worse than anything you can possibly imagine. Antony, she was outside your door that night-she was listening. I told you she listened at doors. She says Lois was in your room, and Jimmy found her there. She says there was a terrible row.”
Antony ’s face was as bleak as a north-east wind.
“That’s not true. Lois came through Marcia’s cupboard. I needn’t say I wasn’t expecting her. Jimmy must have followed her. There wasn’t any row. He told her to go back to her room-that’s all he said to her. There wasn’t any row with me. He said it wasn’t my fault, and I told him I’d clear out and keep out of the way. ”
Julia’s cold hands took hold of one another.
“Gladys says that Lois called you ‘Joseph,’ and you called her ‘Potiphar’s wife,’ and that Jimmy kept saying, ‘I heard what she said.’ ”
“Substantially correct. Is that all?”
“No, it isn’t. She came out with the whole thing-how Lois had said someone was trying to poison her, how she’d had these sick attacks, and finished up with, ‘They’ve done it-somebody’s done it! Poisoned her-that’s what they have, among them! And trying to shut my mouth! But if there’s any law in England, they shan’t!’ All that kind of thing.”
“Well?”
“The Inspector came-he’s a new man. He saw the doctor, and he saw Gladys alone. He took statements from us. We were up most of the night. You see, it’s either suicide, or murder, and neither he nor Hathaway believe it’s suicide- because of Gladys, and the previous attacks, and because she took it like that in her after-dinner coffee. They haven’t analysed it yet of course, but they seem pretty sure it was the coffee. Hathaway says if she was going to commit suicide she wouldn’t have done it like that-she’d have waited till she was in bed. He says sleeping-draught suici
des always do.”
“Why are they so sure it was the coffee?”
Julia looked at him with tired, tragic eyes.
“There wasn’t anything else. We had fish for dinner- baked haddock. Lois helped it, and we all had some. It couldn’t have been in that. And a sweet omelette-she helped that too. We all had some of it. No-it must have been the coffee.”
“Julia-that idea you had about Manny-you thought she might be playing tricks. You said you were going to tackle her about it. Did you do it?”
“Yes, I did.”
“What did she say?”
Julia was silent. She looked down at her clasped hands, where the knuckles stood up white.
“What did she say?”
Of course it was no good-she couldn’t keep it back. She said very low and distressed,
“I was right-she had been playing tricks.”
“Good God! Manny!”
“Not what happened last night. Antony, she didn’t do that-she couldn’t!”
“How do you know? You’d better tell me what happened.”
She was looking at him again.
“Yes, I will. I got her alone, and I went straight at it.”
“When?”
“The day you went. I said straight out, ‘Manny, you’ve been playing tricks-it’s no good your saying you haven’t. And it’s got to stop.’ She went absolutely purple and said, ‘I don’t know what you mean, Miss Julia.’ So I said, ‘Oh, yes, you do, Manny-you know perfectly well. You’ve been putting ipecac or something in Mrs. Latter’s coffee to make her sick, and it’s got to stop. You don’t want to end up in jail, do you?’ ”
“What did she say?”
Julia’s lips twitched into the ghost of a smile.
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