The Devil's Caress

by June Wright

  “I didn’t say I followed him. Because your deductions are feasible does not mean that they are correct. Like all women you want to satisfy some speculative emotion while you are still trying to convince yourself there is no need to. Under those conditions I refuse to help you in any way. Rid yourself of your mental meanderings and I may. Just now you are wasting my time.”

  Marsh ran after him. “If you could just tell me what I want to know I will be satisfied. Please, Mr Shane! It means a great deal to me.”

  He had reached the point where the road ended and the track leading to his cottage followed the shape of the cove around the cliffs.

  He stopped impatiently. “Even if I answered your questions you would still be full of fears and uncertainties. Doubt is the devil’s caress. Face up to facts, girl. Why do you stubbornly cling to your fancies? I can guess what is troubling you and so will everyone else if you are not careful. Take my advice and leave Reliance.”

  He turned and went quickly along the track.

  Marsh stood on the point and watched him go. She had been a fool to attack Shane. It had gained her nothing while he had learned more than she wanted him to know. Far better if she had ignored the provocation and gone straight back to Reliance. The fact that someone had whistled a tune she had played was a flimsy basis for accusation. She felt not only depressed but foolish.

  Far below her the sea broke over the rocks torn from the cliffs’ side. The swell swept forward, swamping the huge fragments and sending up spray nearly into the girl’s face. Then the waves would recede, the water streaming away to leave the rocks bare and glistening before the next onslaught.

  Her eyes were absently following the monotonous movement of the tide when suddenly she caught a glimpse of something at variance with the setting of rocks and water. It looked like a bundle wedged between two boulders.

  Again and again the current dragged at it and it weaved to and fro as though trying to find a way out to the deep sea. Before the next wave came she saw that it was a hideously distorted bundle. Spume clouded the sea to prevent her from distinguishing what it was.

  Then the water streamed away again, leaving it easily recognizable as a human body.

  Chapter Five

  I

  Shane’s figure was still visible through the ti-trees. He had almost rounded the little cove when Marsh shouted after him. Her voice was flung back by the wind and she watched him helplessly.

  He could not have heard her but at the last break in the scrub he turned round.

  “Shane! Shane!” she cried again, waving her arms to attract his attention and pointing below her to the weaving body in the sea.

  He did not come back to the point where the girl stood. He had caught the meaning of her frantic gestures and could see the body from a place in the centre of the cliffs where wind and water erosion had cut a deep ravine, making a rough pathway to the narrow beach below. He beckoned to her to meet him and she ran along the track.

  He looked angry and impatient, as though he would rather have dodged this unpleasant task. “We can get down here and climb across the rocks. Give me your hand.”

  Marsh shook her head briefly. She clambered down the ravine, setting her feet firmly and digging into the grey sandy soil with her fingers. Shane followed her, his heavy body sending the loose earth flowing.

  She reached the sand first, landing clumsily on her knees. This time he made no attempt to assist her. She ploughed over the beach and splashed heedlessly through the water to the first group of rocks. The man cast a comprehensive look at the route ahead and took a different direction, nearer to the cliffs.

  The sea rushed at Marsh as she climbed and stepped from rock to rock. Once it enveloped her to the knees and she clung to a nearby ledge as it swirled about her, dragging at her feet. Shane, farther ahead, saw her.

  “Come in, you fool!” he shouted. “Follow my way.”

  With her eyes fixed on the ground she calculated each step across the rough passage. The roar and perpetual motion of the water on her right made her feel slightly dizzy. The going was slow and infinitely tiring. She lifted her head and saw that Shane was now some distance ahead. He was half-hidden by a boulder and had paused. She guessed he must be near to the body, and made her way towards him laboriously.

  An incoming wave sent him reeling back against the rock. He was standing ankle deep in the water that had risen on the platform where the body drifted to and fro like a balloon.

  “Damnation!” he said softly to himself. “Damnation!”

  “Who is it?” Marsh asked. “Do you recognize anyone?” She began to climb down beside him.

  “Careful!” Shane said quickly. The sea rushed in again and the girl was flung back hard against the rock. The sudden impact jarred her spine. Shane pressed upon her, his arms outstretched to clutch the rock on either side. The water reached her waist this time and she felt her feet slipping from under her. As it receded Shane moved.

  He bent over the imprisoned body, his hands fumbling in the water to release it. He had it free and dragged farther up the platform before the next wave.

  “Climb up,” he ordered Marsh curtly. He stripped off his leather jacket, trussing the body from head to hips. With the belt bound tightly around the sodden figure he hauled it over one shoulder.

  Marsh crouched on the rock above watching him. With a sudden heave he managed to roll the body off his back to the girl’s feet. She began to fumble at the belt.

  “Not yet, you stupid girl!” Shane said angrily. “The tide will be above here shortly. Get to the beach.”

  He hauled up the flaccid bundle and the tedious trip across the rocks started again.

  Marsh kept to the rear, allowing Shane to pick his own route. The sea came and went, each wave rising higher than the previous one. The journey was slower than before. The weight of the body, clumsy and heavy with sea-water, made the man in front, powerful though he was, breathe heavily. Sometimes a low angry mutter escaped him. Marsh followed closely, her eyes on Shane’s steps marking them for her own.

  They were nearly at the last of the rocks when a box slid out of the bundle and rolled to a crevice. Shane did not look round as the girl bent to pick it up.

  It was small and oblong, the lid inset with mosaic pieces of iridescent metal; a pretty article. She paused to open the spring lid curiously. Inside was a quantity of wet white powder.

  A stab of fear passed through her and she shut the lid, slipping the box into her pocket. She glanced guiltily ahead at Shane. Only his head and the hideous burden on his back were visible above a rock. He turned, jerking his head impatiently, and she hurried to catch up.

  At last Shane let his burden fall on to the sand.

  “Who is it?” Marsh asked again, and her voice was not quite steady.

  “Open up and see,” he suggested. “Or is the tough woman doctor squeamish? It won’t be a pretty sight.”

  She knelt down beside the body and ripped out the belt from its buckle. Her hands were stiff as she fumbled at the jacket. She turned the heavy sodden thing from side to side and at last flung the coat away.

  Shane was right, but she made no exclamation at the hideous sight. Sam was still recognizable in spite of his battered face.

  “Well?” said Shane. He stood above her, his eyes sardonically amused. “Do you want to vomit?”

  “It’s Sam, from the Warings’ place,” she said, getting up. “He was an imbecile. He must have fallen from the top of the cliff.”

  The man directed a brief glance at it. He said, almost absently, “Maybe they will rail off the point now.”

  He moved towards the body and dropped on to one knee. Marsh watched his face.

  “Yes, you said that, didn’t you?” she said slowly. The wind whipped her short hair across her eyes, and she put up one hand to tuck it away. “You told me the point was dangerous; that there wo
uld be an accident one day.”

  Shane did not reply. He was moving the heavy broken head to one side. For a moment the girl thought it would break away from the trunk. The man studied the ugly thing frowningly. Then he released it and buried his hands in the sand to clean them. He stood up.

  “An accident?” he said at last. “Yes, a railing will be put up now.”

  He picked up his coat and laid it over Sam’s body, securing it with stones. It lifted now and then in the wind and looked to Marsh as though the chest of the dead boy might be rising in breath. She found herself shaking as she watched Shane’s deliberate movements.

  “You’d better go and tell them at the house,” he suggested.

  “Yes,” she replied, clenching her teeth. “I must do that. Will you wait here while I get help?”

  “No, I am going now. Your odd-job boy met with a fatal accident, that’s all. He was only an imbecile, anyway. Why should I stay?”

  He strode off towards the ravine, and Marsh was left on the lonely beach with the hideous corpse at her feet.

  Presently she pulled herself together and followed Shane’s path up the cliff. She went slowly. There was no need to hurry. It wasn’t like the last time when there had been some hope. Kingsley Waring had been still alive, whereas Sam was quite unmistakably dead. This body was a less pretty sight than the last one.

  She picked her way carefully to the track at the top of the cliff. The parcel she had brought from the hotel lay at the point where she had dropped it when she had signalled to Shane. She put it under her arm again and continued on to Reliance slowly as though returning from a stroll.

  II

  Miss Jennet was on the verandah as she approached the house. She had come out of the kitchen to collect some of the logs Michael Waring had stacked in the wood-box. She startled Marsh by saying: “Sam hasn’t come back. I was so certain he would be in his bungalow.”

  Her training at the hospital, where death was treated with profound secrecy even in the middle of a crowded ward, stopped Marsh from blurting out her news. Katherine Waring should be the first to know.

  “Where is Dr. Kate?” she asked, as she mounted the steps.

  “In the library. Are you all right, Doctor? You look quite strange. So tired-looking! Let me get you a cup of tea.”

  The girl brushed past her and went through the house and along the passage to the library. She knocked at the door, but entered before Katherine Waring had time to answer.

  Katherine was seated at the desk and glanced up, frowning at the intrusion. When she saw Marsh she put down her pen.

  “My dear girl, where have you been? I thought you went up to your room after lunch.”

  Marsh dropped into a chair and covered her eyes with one hand. “I went for a walk. Down to the hotel, I think. Yes, the hotel. On the way back—”

  “The hotel. The Bannisters?” The woman’s voice was smooth.

  “They had my skirt,” Marsh explained, uncovering her eyes and surprising Dr. Waring’s narrowed gaze.

  “Marsh, you look quite exhausted again. You must not go off for such long walks like that.”

  “Dr. Kate,” she said wearily. “Something appalling has happened. The boy Sam—”

  The older woman started up from her chair. “Sam? What about him?” Her face had assumed a taut expression, unlike its usual serene reserve.

  “A terrible accident,” Marsh faltered.

  “Are you saying Sam is dead? What happened? Where has he been? Marsh, tell me at once.”

  “He must have fallen over the cliffs. Do you know the point where the macadam ends? I’m afraid he is dead. His body is on the beach.”

  “The beach?”

  “A man called Shane whom I met the other day carried him there. I saw the body on the rocks from the point.”

  Katherine Waring sank on to her chair again. Her hands gripped either side of her desk. For several minutes there was silence. Then she asked abruptly: “Does anyone else know? Have you told anybody?”

  “No, I came straight to you.”

  There was another long pause. Marsh tried to rouse herself. “Dr. Kate, it will be getting dark soon. Will I ask the men to go for the body? Perhaps Larry and Michael will—”

  “No,” said Katherine Waring. “Not Michael.”

  “Why not Michael?” asked a voice behind Marsh.

  The woman at the desk rose again. She put out one hand towards the handsome moody boy standing unsteadily in the doorway. Marsh had never seen her self-control fail her before and it caused her a twinge of discomfiture. She averted her gaze.

  “Why shouldn’t I go?” Michael Waring asked, advancing into the room. His drunkenness had augmented his bitterness towards his mother. “Jennet told me something was up. Marsh Mowbray has found another desperately sick man on the links, has she? Another diabetic who has most unfortunately mislaid his glucose.”

  Marsh’s hand flew to her pocket. She felt the outline of the box through the thick material.

  “Michael—” Katherine Waring’s voice was not quite steady.

  “Don’t try and spare my feelings,” he flung at her savagely. “Who is it this time?”

  Marsh jumped to her feet. “Be quiet! Your mother has had enough to stand without your callow behaviour. Will I tell him, Dr. Kate?”

  She nodded, and moved over to the window where she stood with her back turned while the girl spoke. “Sam fell over the cliffs. I found him. I am sorry, but he is dead.”

  Michael Waring’s face went white. He lurched forward and gripped the back of a chair. Ignoring Marsh he addressed his mother’s averted figure.

  “Sam!” he said. His voice was low and furious. “Sam! The poor idiot boy who never hurt anyone. The poor faithful creature whom you coaxed and trained like an animal. Just to be useful and to be called to heel as an experiment. He wasn’t even an object of casual affection to you like Rex. How could he be? He had no brain worthy to appeal to that inhuman intelligence of yours.”

  “What have you done?” the boy went on. “He was a human being, but you dismissed him as something less than human; someone lower than an animal.”

  “Get out of this room,” Marsh said, slipping between the mother and son. “Get out or I will hit you as hard as I can across the mouth.”

  Michael looked down at her angry face. A scornful smile touched his mouth. “You poor damned simpleton! You think you know her, don’t you. Where is Sam?”

  “On the beach of the cove at the end of the road. Will you get him?”

  He nodded abruptly and left the room.

  Katherine Waring did not move, but stood staring out of the window at the sea. Presently her bowed shoulders straightened and she dropped her hands slackly to her sides.

  “Get me a drink, Marsh,” she ordered quietly. “Whisky. You’ll find it in the cupboard.”

  “Yes, Dr. Kate.” She went to the cupboard and found the bottle.

  “Double, please, Marsh.”

  The girl poured more into the tumbler and carried it over to the window. Dr. Waring took it and drank quickly. She gave back the glass and walked to her desk with her head still averted.

  “Sam has been with us for a long time. He and Michael almost grew up together. They were the same age. Michael developed a peculiar fondness born of pity for him. This terrible accident has been a great shock. He is such a child in some ways. He has none of the control we have learned by hard experience, Marsh.”

  “No, Dr. Kate.”

  “I have always been most interested in Sam’s case. I think my work on him might have had a slight success in later years. Not complete control over his faculties, of course, but he would have been able to enjoy this life more. You have heard of such cases, Marsh?”

  “Yes,” said the girl.

  Katherine Waring sat down. She moved some papers together, h
er attention held by them. “Would you ask Henry to come here, Marsh? As Sam has been with us for so long I would like his funeral to take place with King’s if possible.”

  Marsh advanced slowly to the desk, one hand at her pocket again. She stood in front of Dr. Waring straight and tensed; as though she were the one ready to receive the blow instead of delivering it. She drew the box out of her pocket and placed it on the desk without speaking. It lay within Dr. Waring’s vision, although her head was bent over her papers. She did not look up, but one hand went out towards the box. She drew it nearer to examine, and then opened the mosaic lid.

  “Where did you get this?” she asked, in a whisper.

  Marsh bent over the dividing width of the desk. “Sam had it. It fell out of his pocket as Shane carried him to the beach.”

  “Did this man Shane—”

  “No,” interrupted Marsh. “And I did not tell him.”

  Katherine Waring nodded. She was stirring the sodden powder with one finger. “An odd toy for Sam to pick up. I wonder where he got it.”

  “Dr. Kate,” the girl said desperately, “don’t pretend with me. That is glucose.”

  Dr. Waring shot a quick look at the strained young face above her.

  “Larry told me your husband always carried his glucose in an old snuff-box. He couldn’t understand why—”

  “Hush!” the other interrupted swiftly. “You shouldn’t listen to Larry’s gossip. Yes, this is King’s box, but you mustn’t let your imagination run away with you, Marsh.”

  The girl’s fingers gripped the desk. “There is something else I must tell you.”

  Two cool hands were placed over hers. “No, not now, Marsh. Wait until you have thought matters over. You came down here suffering from overwork. You have come up against two distressing experiences; first King and now Sam. You are bewildered and confused—and no wonder! Wait for a while, I beg of you, Marsh. Wait!” Dr. Waring’s voice caressed the last word like a hypnotist’s.

  “I have thought things out,” Marsh said rapidly. “Dr. Kate, your husband did not intend suicide. I am sure of it. He was fighting for his life all the time I treated him. He wanted to live. This,” and she indicated the snuff-box, “proves it. The coma was brought on by the violent exercise of his walk through the boisterous weather and he had mislaid his precautionary glucose. Sam must have found the box somewhere.”