Case Is Closed

by Patricia Wentworth

  Hilary subsided on to the floor in front of the fire. There was a chair to lean against. She folded her arms on the seat and pillowed her head upon them. Henry, in the open doorway, was very well aware that he hadn’t been asked to come in, and that he was not expected to stay.

  Marion had walked to the window. As she turned, Henry came in and shut the door. With a lift of her eyebrows, she said, ‘I think Hilary ought to go to bed.’

  Hilary said nothing. Henry said, ‘I think you’d better hear what she’s got to say first. It concerns you—quite a lot.’

  ‘Not tonight. I’ve had one visitor already, and I’ve run out of polite conversation.’

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘Then will you please go, Henry.’

  ‘Not just now.’

  Without lifting her head Hilary spoke. ‘Please, Marion.’

  Marion Grey took no notice.

  ‘I really want you to go,’ she said.

  Henry leaned against the door. He had his hat in his hand.

  ‘Just a minute, Marion. And I think you’d better listen, because—well, I think you had better. Hilary’s had a very narrow escape.’

  She took him up there and echoed the word.

  ‘Escape. From what?’

  ‘Being murdered,’ said Hilary in a mournful, subdued tone.

  Marion turned her head sharply.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Being murdered. I nearly was. Henry can tell you—I’m too tired.’

  Marion looked from one to the other. She saw Henry’s brows drawn together, frowning. She saw the look in his eyes as they rested on Hilary’s untidy curls. Something melted in her. She let herself down into a chair and said, ‘All right, Henry, say your piece.’

  Henry said it. The odd thing was that repeating Hilary’s story gave him the feeling that it was true. He continued to assert that he was not convinced, but as he told her tale he found himself endeavouring to convince Marion, and in the end he didn’t know whether he had convinced her or not. He simply didn’t know. She was leaning her head on her hand. Her eyes were screened. Her gaze was turned inward upon her own guarded thoughts.

  ‘The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with its grief.’ She was not angry now, but she was still cold. There was no warmth in her. When he had finished she sat silent, and when the silence had gone on too long Henry broke it bluntly.

  ‘You’ve had Bertie Everton here. Hilary thinks he was one of the men who tried to do her in. It’s quite unreasonable, but she does think so—so there you are. I think you’ve got to tell her what time he rang you up, and when he rolled up here, and how long he stayed. Hilary seems to think it’s rather compromising to have an alibi, but the fellow can’t have been in two places at once.’

  ‘I didn’t say he could,’ said Hilary in a buried voice. Then she lifted her head about an inch. ‘An alibi isn’t being in two places at once—it’s doing a crime in one place and pretending you were somewhere else.’

  Henry burst out laughing.

  ‘When did you make that up?’

  ‘Just now,’ said Hilary, and dropped her head again.

  Marion said, without looking at either of them, ‘He rang me up about five o’clock. I was showing some models which had just come in. We sold three of them. It was just after five—I heard the clock strike as I came out of the showroom.’

  ‘Did he say where he was calling you from?’

  ‘No. He must have been in town though, because he suggested coming round to Harriet’s, and when I said he couldn’t possibly, he said he’d go to the flat and wait for me. He was here when I got back.’

  ‘And what time would that be?’

  ‘Some time after seven. I told him I should be late—I thought it might put him off.’

  ‘What did he want?’ said Hilary to the chair.

  Marion stiffened. Her hand dropped. Her eyes blazed.

  ‘I don’t know how he dared to come here and talk about Geoff!’

  ‘What did he say?’ said Hilary quickly.

  ‘Nothing. I don’t know why he came. He had some rambling story about having met someone who had seen Geoff get off the bus the evening James was shot, but he didn’t seem to know who the man was, and it didn’t seem to add anything to the evidence. Anyhow, it couldn’t do any good now. I don’t know why he came.’

  ‘I do.’ Hilary sat up and pushed back her hair. ‘He did it to have an alibi. If he could get you to believe that he was in London all afternoon, well then he couldn’t be murdering me on the Ledstow road—could he?’ Her hair stood up in fluffy little curls. Her no-coloured eyes were as bright as a tomtit’s.

  ‘But, my blessed darling child!’ said Henry. He laughed. ‘You’re a bit groggy about alibis tonight. Have you any idea what time you had your smash?’

  She considered.

  ‘Well, I hadn’t got a watch, and it wouldn’t have been any good if I had because of the fog and being dark, but I had tea at the pub in Ledstow because it was tea-time, and it wasn’t dark then—only foggy and Novemberish. And I suppose I was there about half an hour, so should think it was about five when I saw Mercer and bolted. And after that I don’t know how long I was. It seemed ages, because I had to keep getting off my bicycle—the fog was simply lying about in lumps. It’s very difficult to say, but I should think the smash was somewhere getting on for half-past five.’

  ‘Well, then, with the worst will in the world, it couldn’t have been Bertie Everton who ran you down if he was in London telephoning to Marion at five o’clock.’

  Hilary wrinkled her nose.

  ‘If,’ she said.

  ‘Well, Marion says it was five o’clock.’

  Marion nodded.

  ‘I heard the clock strike five.’

  ‘I’m sure he telephoned at five o’clock,’ said Hilary. ‘He meant to—it was part of his alibi. He knew very well that Marion wouldn’t let him come round to Harriet’s, and he could telephone from Ledstow or from an A.A. box and she’d never think for a minute that he wasn’t ringing up from his rooms in town. That’s how you do alibis if you’re a criminal. I should have been very good at it.’

  ‘And suppose she had said, “All right, come along”?’

  ‘She wouldn’t. Marion never lets anyone go anywhere near Harriet’s. She’d get the sack if she did. He could bank on that.’

  Marion looked hard at her.

  ‘Well, then what happened? This is your story. What happened next?’

  ‘Well, he must have picked up Mercer at the pub. And after they’d tried to kill me and I’d got away, I think he just stamped on the gas like mad, because he was bound to get back to London and finish up his alibi. I expect he shed Mercer in Ledlington, and then he either just got a train by the skin of his teeth, or else drove on like fury up the London road. I looked up trains while I was waiting for Henry, and there’s a five-forty from Ledlington that gets in at seven. It’s a non-stop theatre train. He could have caught that, and it would account for their not going on looking for me any longer than they did. You see, he’d simply got to have that alibi if I escaped. But I don’t really think he went by train, because he wouldn’t want to leave his car in a Ledlington garage and have someone remembering about it afterwards.’

  ‘An hour and a half from Ledlington would be pretty good going in a fog,’ said Henry. ‘I don’t believe it can be done.’

  Hilary tossed back her hair.

  ‘You wait till you’ve tried to murder someone and you’ve got to have an alibi to save you, and then you just see if you can’t break a record or two. Even people who aren’t making alibis go blinding along in a fog—you know they do.’

  Marion spoke again.

  ‘It must have been quite ten past seven before I got back. Mrs Lestrange and Lady Dolling didn’t go away until twenty past six, and then we’d all the models to put away, and Harriet wanted to tell me about her brother’s engagement, and there was the fog. It never takes m
e less than half an hour to get back.’ She looked at Henry. ‘What time was it when you rang me up?’

  ‘Oh, it was half-past seven. I was ringing up from the station just before my train went.’

  ‘There!’ said Hilary. ‘He’d have had plenty of time. I told you so. And I think’—she sat bolt upright and clasped her knees—‘I think we ought to get a detective on to that other alibi of his, because I’m quite sure he made that up too, and if he did, a really clever detective would be able to find him out. Marion—’

  ‘No,’ said Marion.

  Hilary scrambled up, ran across, and caught her by the hand.

  ‘Don’t say no, darling—don’t don’t, don’t! It couldn’t do any harm. It couldn’t hurt Geoff. Marion, don’t say no! I know you can’t bear to have it all raked up—I know exactly how you feel—but won’t you let Henry have the file and go through it with someone? Geoff didn’t do it. There’s some devil at the back of this who has made it look as if he did, but he didn’t—I know he didn’t.’

  Marion pushed her away and got up. Without a look or an answer she went to the door, opened it, and went out. It closed behind her. They heard her bedroom door close too.

  Hilary ran to the chest, flung up the lid and came running back with the file in her outstretched hands.

  ‘Here it is! Take it and fly! Quick—before she comes back and says you’re not to!’

  TWENTY FIVE

  HILARY WOKE UP in the dark. One minute she was very fast asleep, plunged in the drowning depths where no dreams come, and the next minute she was clear awake and a little frightened, with the night air coming in smoky and cold through the open window. The curtain was pulled right back, but the room was dark. There was a middle-of-the-night sort of feeling. But if it was still the middle of the night, she could only have been asleep for a very little time, because it was well after midnight when she got into bed.

  Something had waked her, she didn’t know what. Something had frightened her awake. She had come up with a rush out of the deep places of her sleep, and she had waked afraid. But she didn’t know what she was afraid of.

  She got out of bed, went softly to the door, and opened it. The sitting-room door was open too. The light shone through it into the hall, and in the lighted room Marion was talking to someone in a low, desperate voice. Hilary heard her say, ‘Why don’t you tell me you did it? I’d rather know.’

  And with that she went back and sat on the edge of her bed, and didn’t know what to do next.

  Marion—at this hour! Who was she talking to? Who could she possibly be talking to? It just didn’t fit in—it wasn’t true—Marion wouldn’t. It wasn’t any good your eyes and ears telling you the sort of things you simply couldn’t believe.

  Well, if you didn’t believe this, what did you do next?

  Hilary got up, put on her dressing-gown, and crossed the hall. The sitting-room door stood open about halfway. Without touching it or pushing it she stood by the left-hand jamb and looked into the room.

  There was no one there but Marion Grey. She was in her nightgown. Its pale green colour made her look even paler than she was. Her hair hung loose—fine, waving, black hair that touched her shoulders and then turned up in something which was not quite a curl. In this soft frame her face had a young, tormented look. Its mask of indifference and pride was down. Her eyes brimmed with tears. Her lips were soft. They trembled. She was kneeling on the hearth, her hands spread out to the fire that had died an hour ago.

  Hilary felt as if her heart would break with pity and relief.

  She said, ‘Darling—’ just under her breath, and Marion said in a low voice of pain, ‘You don’t tell me. I could bear it if I knew—if I knew why. There must have been a reason—you wouldn’t have done it without a reason. Geoff, you wouldn’t! Geoff—Geoff!’

  Hilary caught her breath. Marion wasn’t talking to her, she was talking to Geoff. And Geoff was in Dartmoor.

  She began to plead with Geoffrey Grey whose body was in Dartmoor but whose visible image moved and spoke in her dream. She put up a hand as if to hold him.

  ‘Geoff—Geoff—why don’t you tell me? You see, I know. She told me—that daily woman. You didn’t know about her. But she came back. She had dropped something in the study and she came back for it, and she heard you talking—quarrelling. And she heard what James said. She heard him say, “My own nephew!” and she heard the shot. So you see, I know. It won’t make any difference if you tell me now—they won’t hang you now. She won’t tell—she promised she wouldn’t tell. Geoff, don’t you see that I’ve got to know? It’s killing me!’ She got up from her knees and began to walk in the room, to and fro, bare foot and silent, with the tears running down her face. She did not speak again, but once in a while she sighed.

  Hilary did not know how to bear it. She didn’t know what to do. That sighing breath was more piteous than any sob. She was afraid too of waking Marion, and she was afraid to let her go on dreaming this sorrowful dream.

  And then Marion turned from walking up and down and came towards the door. Hilary had only just time to get out of the way. She would not have had time if Marion’s hand, stretched out before her, had not gone to the switch. With a click the light went out. The bulb glowed for a moment and faded into darkness. Marion’s fingers touched Hilary on the cheek—a cold, cold, icy touch which left her shivering.

  Hilary stood quite still, and heard no sound at all. It was very frightening to be touched like that in the dark and hear no sound. It needed an effort to go back to her own room and put on the light. She could see then that Marion’s door was ajar, but the crack showed no light there. She took a candle, pushed the door softly, and looked in. Marion was in bed with the clothes pulled round her and only her dark head showing against the pillow.

  Hilary shut the door and went back to bed shaking with cold. As soon as she got warm she went to sleep, and as soon as she was asleep she began to dream. She dreamed that she was talking to Mrs Mercer in a railway carriage, only instead of being an ordinary railway carriage it had a counter down one side of it. Mrs Mercer stood behind the counter measuring something on one of those fixed yard measures which they have in drapers’ shops. Hilary stood on the other side of the counter and wondered what she was doing. She could see everything else in the dream quite plainly, but the stuff in Mrs Mercer’s hands kept slipping, and changing, and dazzling so that she couldn’t see what it was, so she asked—and her own voice frightened her because it boomed like a bell—‘What are you measuring?’ And Mrs Mercer said, with the stuff slipping, and sliding, and shimmering between her hands, ‘That’s just my evidence, Miss Hilary Carew.’

  In her dream Hilary said, ‘Do you sell evidence? I didn’t know it was allowed.’ And Mrs Mercer answered and said, ‘I sold mine.’ Then Hilary said, ‘What did you sell it for?’ And Mrs Mercer said, ‘For something I’d have given my soul to get.’ And then she began to sob and cry, ‘It wasn’t worth it—it wasn’t worth it, Miss Hilary Carew.’ And all at once Alfred Mercer came along dressed like a ticket-collector, only somehow he was the shopwalker as well. And he took a bread-knife out of his trouser pocket and said in a loud fierce voice, ‘Goods once paid for cannot be returned.’ And Hilary was so frightened about the bread-knife that she ran the whole way down the train and all up the Fulham Road. And just as she got to Henry’s shop a car ran over her and she woke up.

  TWENTY SIX

  HENRY RANG UP at a quarter past nine, a time nicely calculated to ensure Marion would have left the flat. Hilary stopped in the middle of making her bed, and put the receiver to her ear, and stuck out her tongue at the mouthpiece.

  ‘Hilary—’ said Henry at the other end of the line.

  ‘Thank goodness it’s you!’ said Hilary.

  ‘Why shouldn’t it be me? Who did you expect it to be?’

  Hilary giggled.

  ‘Darling, you don’t know how nice it is to hear your voice—I mean a man’s voice. The telephone has been too, too exclusively fe
male and completely incessant this morning.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘First of all Aunt Emmeline’s Eliza rang up to say she was in bed with a chill—Aunt Emmeline, not Eliza, she doesn’t hold with chills—and she was selling at a stall for the Infant Bib Society, or something of that sort this afternoon—still Aunt Emmeline—Eliza doesn’t hold with infants, or bibs, or bazaars—’

  ‘Hilary, what are you talking about?’

  ‘Darling, it was grim! Aunt Emmeline wanted me—me, Henry—to take her place—to go and help at a bazaar for Infant Bibs! I said to Eliza, “As woman to woman, would you do it?” And she coughed and said she didn’t hold with bazaars and well Miss Carew knew it, so I said, “Nothing doing,” and rang off. And about half a minute later the secretary of the Bib Society rang up and said Miss Carew had told her I was kindly taking her place, and about two minutes after that a girl with an earnest voice said that as we were going to work together at the basket stall—’

  ‘Hilary, dry up! I want to talk to you.’

  ‘I told them all there was nothing doing, but they didn’t seem to take it. People with the bazaar habit are like that, and once they get hold of you you never get out alive. I’d love to talk to you, darling. What did you particularly want to say?’

  ‘I want you to come round at once to 16 Montague Mansions, West Leaham Street.’

  ‘If it’s a bazaar, I’ll never speak to you again.’

  ‘It’s not. Don’t be an ass! I’ll meet you there. And you’d better take a taxi—I’ll pay for it.’

  Hilary was very pleasantly intrigued. It didn’t very often run to taxis, and she liked them. She liked the way they whisked in and out of traffic and cut corners as if they didn’t exist. She looked out of the window and found it a pleasant day—just enough sun to gild the fog, and just enough fog to give the bricks and mortar, stone and stucco the insubstantial glamour which Turner loved and painted. Nice to be going to meet Henry. Nice to be off on an adventure without knowing where she was going—because Montague Mansions was only an address to her, and not a place. She got quite a thrill out of thinking that if this was happening in a book and not in real life, the voice on the telephone would turn out not to be Henry’s voice at all, and the minute she entered No. 16 she would be gagged, drugged, and hypodermicked. She immediately made up her mind that she wasn’t entering any house or any flat without Henry. She had always thought how unpleasant it would be to be gagged. So if Henry wasn’t on the doorstep, there wasn’t going to be anything doing here either. Better an Infant Bib bazaar than a Lair of Villains complete with drugs and lethal hypodermics. Besides, Henry had promised to pay the taxi.