The Devil's Caress

by June Wright

  “It is too late for reproaches,” she answered sharply. “Sam took the snuff-box. What comes next?”

  He lowered his eyes. “I didn’t know Sam had taken it. Delia told me. After you brought King home I saw it amongst her things. I was horrified but she didn’t seem so concerned. She said she had found Sam with it and had taken it from him. She intended giving it back to King. When I knew King’s condition was serious I was worried. I realized that if anyone ever knew Delia had his emergency glucose they might start thinking things. So I decided to put it back in Sam’s room. It was the morning after King’s death. I woke early. I’d been worrying about the box all night. I crept out of the house and down here.”

  Arkwright dropped his head into his hands. “I thought Sam was asleep. I meant to slip in, put the snuff-box on the table there and get back. But I couldn’t hear him breathing. You saw Sam, didn’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “He snuffled and slobbered when he breathed. But this room was quiet. Deathly quiet is the phrase, isn’t it? It was just light and I went over to the bed.”

  Arkwright realized he was sitting on it and got up hastily.

  “Then I saw the knitting-needle sticking out of his neck. I couldn’t take it in at first. It was so unbelievable—so impossible.”

  “What did you do?” Marsh asked, as he paused to stare down at the bed.

  He roused himself. “I don’t quite remember at first. I couldn’t think for a while. But I do remember pulling the needle out and examining it. It was slimy to feel. It felt horrid, and I wanted to be sick. Then I remembered Delia and the snuff-box. There they both were—the snuff-box that Delia said she had taken from Sam and her needle. I was afraid because she hated King, too, though she never admitted it. Delia never does show her real feelings. I wanted to be sick when I saw Sam dead,” he said again. “He looked worse dead than alive.”

  “Go on,” Marsh said. “Hurry. What happened then?”

  Arkwright shuddered. “I dressed the body. His clothes were lying over there. It was heavy and slack and still warm from the bedclothes. I kept the knitting-needle but put the snuff-box in the pocket of Sam’s jacket. Then I dragged the body out of the room to the edge of the cliff. The sun was just coming up as I rolled it over the cliff. The tide was in. I heard the body hitting the rocks going down. It sounded horrible—horrible.” He shuddered again.

  “When it was quiet I looked over. I could see Sam floating against the rocks. A wave would come up and submerge the body and then it would be left. I thought it would never go. I had to wait a long time before it disappeared. Then I went back to the bungalow.

  “There were marks through the scrub where I had dragged him, and I had to destroy them. Then there was his room. It was a hideous job but I finally finished straightening it and went back to the house. Delia was still asleep when I got to my room. I remember standing over the bed staring at her and wondering if she were a murderess.

  “She stirred and moaned in her sleep as though she knew what I was thinking. She looked extraordinarily like King. Handsome, you know, in a determined ruthless sort of way, whereas King had something more. Personality or something—like young Gair.”

  A charm, Marsh thought suddenly. An irresistible charm like Larry’s, which covered a self-seeking individualism. A power to attract which was used to disguise a deep-rooted egoism.

  “I thought of King,” Arkwright went on. “Delia is a diabetic, too. Although she is on globin insulin she knew enough about insulin to tamper with King’s hypo. Supposing”—he dropped his voice to a whisper through the red haze in the imbecile’s bungalow—“supposing when she took the box from Sam she decided to increase his dose? She knew King’s habits; his walk after dinner. He didn’t eat much that night. Supposing—”

  “Hush,” said Marsh, raising her hand. Rex had got up and had gone to the door.

  Arkwright’s eyes were frightened now. “What is it?” he asked in a whisper. “We mustn’t be found here. Someone might tell Delia.”

  It was a mere crack of a twig against the background of softly mewing gulls, the breeze in the ti-trees and the growing sound of the sea against the rocks. But it was the small ominous noise of another presence.

  Marsh listened with a thumping heart for other tell-tale sounds. She moved quietly to the door, holding Rex by the collar although the dog seemed quiet enough. Presently she peered out. The sky was still radiant, but the sun had sunk and the land looked gloomy.

  “Did you see anyone?” Arkwright asked. He was breathing quickly.

  Marsh shook her head. He came nearer and she shrank instinctively behind the dog. “Don’t!” he said thickly. “I told you not to be afraid of me. It’s Delia. Anything I’ve done was because of her.”

  “What are you going to do now?” Marsh asked. “She said you were leaving tomorrow. Will you go with her?”

  He seemed faintly surprised. “Of course. Where else can I go? My naval appointment will be finished in another year. I have no practice, but with the money King left Delia I might be able to fix something up.”

  “You believe she is a murderess and yet you will use her blood-money?”

  “What else can I do?”

  “That is for you to decide,” Marsh said unhelpfully. She took up the dog’s leash and went to the door.

  Arkwright called after her. “What will you do? You mustn’t let this business go any further. We will all be ruined professionally. Everyone at Reliance will be implicated. It must be hushed up. After all, you have no proof and in another few weeks that wound in Sam’s neck will be untraceable. Why, even Kate missed it.”

  She felt a surge of relief at his words. Relief slightly tinged with disillusionment. She comforted herself with the reflection that it was better to discover her goddess with medical rather than with moral clay feet.

  “You are going abroad soon,” Arkwright persisted. “You will be able to forget all these suspicions.”

  Taking her silence for compliance, he became more like his former self. “It will be all for the best, my dear, don’t you agree?” he said pompously.

  She stepped out of the bungalow without replying, and walked swiftly back towards the house.

  IV

  During dinner that night Marsh pondered on Arkwright’s story as she covertly kept Delia Arkwright under observation. She appeared to the girl no different from the first time she had seen her. There seemed no change in her frigid austere demeanour. She still watched Henry’s fidgetings with an acid eye and Evelyn Peterson with an outraged glance. Her attitude towards Katherine Waring remained faintly superior and Marsh she continued to ignore. She took up her knitting after coffee and Marsh stared with a fascination at her steel needles flashing to and fro under the lamplight.

  Arkwright broke out when he saw her. “I wish you’d stop that infernal knitting all the time, Delia.” Whereat she merely bent a still more sour glance on him and disdained a retort.

  “Henry,” Dr. Waring interposed with her unfailing tact. “Delia says you are leaving tomorrow. Perhaps it is as well. It has been a trying time for us all.”

  Marsh sat wondering how she could let Shane know of Arkwright’s story, and what he would do when she told him. He was so bent on Katherine Waring’s destruction that he might not accept it. She looked at Mrs Arkwright again. Strange to sit quietly in a room with the windows wide to the warm hazy night in the company of a likely killer.

  Death means so little to us, Marsh mused. A murder politely covered up with the trappings of an accident is just another death. There is nothing frightening about it as long as it is so disguised.

  On the verandah overlooking the ocean were Evelyn Peterson and Michael. Their laughter and cigarette smoke floated into the room. Dr. Waring had now opened up an intricate patience, her long fingers hovering over the cards. Betty Donne sat nearby like a statue, her eyes never leaving her. Arkwr
ight moved about the room, helping himself to too many drinks. He was the only one drinking tonight, for again Michael had not touched the liquor tray.

  He seemed less uncouth now that Evelyn had begun to interest him, Marsh noted with faint approval. That he should fall for the nurse’s obvious charms when they were directed to him was to be expected, but she had not considered it would improve him. He had almost lost the bitter antagonism he displayed indiscriminately.

  Evelyn regarded him with a mixture of contemptuous affection and possessive pride. Marsh felt a slight liking for the girl and a certain respect for her adaptability, even though Dr. Waring showed more dislike for her than she had ever done. She had tried to separate the two during dinner and glanced now and then at the window with a tightening of her mouth.

  Presently they came in and Marsh, seeing Michael’s face, thought he looked older. Before, he appeared dissipated in a pretence at being adult, but now that his face was clear he seemed more mature.

  He addressed himself to Surgeon-Commander Arkwright. “Could you give us a lift up to town tomorrow? Evelyn and me?”

  Arkwright coughed and glanced from Katherine Waring to Miss Peterson, who was surveying the room half-amusedly and half-defiantly. “Well now, my dear boy—” he began.

  “Will you or won’t you?” snapped Michael.

  Dr. Waring swept her cards together and began to shuffle them expertly. “Why do you want to go to town, Michael?”

  He glanced at her briefly. His eyes were no longer full of hate, Marsh noted. “I am going to resign from the University first. Then I will try the Gallery to see if they can fit me in as a student. I’ve had enough of pretending to become a doctor. Now I have my money I am going to do exactly what I want, and what I am fitted for.”

  Katherine Waring commenced to layout the cards again. “And Miss Peterson? Why is she going with you?”

  There was an awful silence. The nurse might have spoken, but Michael restrained her. “That,” he said, “is entirely our business. Well, Uncle?”

  Mrs Arkwright said, surveying Evelyn with extreme distaste as though she were drawing her skirts aside: “We have no room for two extra in our car. If you want to come, Michael, you may, but—”

  “I see,” said Michael. “Nice pure Auntie! Or are you jealous of Evelyn?”

  Mrs Arkwright shook with rage.

  “I must leave soon—maybe tomorrow,” Marsh heard herself say. “I can give you a lift.”

  “Well!” said Michael, surprised. He came forward, holding out his hand. “You are not so bad as I thought. Thanks a lot. Good night, everyone. We must go and pack.”

  Why did I say that? Marsh thought dismally. Why did I offer? I don’t approve of them that much.

  She dared not look at Dr. Waring. She got up from her chair and muttered good night before anyone could speak.

  When she reached her own room she got ready for bed quickly. She had her light extinguished just as the first footsteps came up the stairs. She lay in the dark, listening.

  She’ll never let me go tomorrow. She doesn’t want Evelyn and Michael to go off together, but she can’t stop them. But she’ll find some way to stop me if she can.

  The footsteps did not pause at her door. Marsh sighed with relief and began to make her plans. She would go and see Shane first thing in the morning. Tell him about Delia Arkwright and then leave before lunch.

  Oh, dash! There was Todd Bannister. She had promised to play golf. She would drop in at the Tom Thumb and tell him—say good-bye. Rather mean after his friendliness, but there it was.

  She smiled when she thought of Todd; his boyish whimsicality, his outrageous philandering and the absurd awe in which he pretended to hold his mother. It was a relief to think about a person like Todd. Someone who was gay and alive and not haunted.

  Suddenly Marsh opened her eyes wide. The door handle of her room was being gently turned. She had not locked it. If Katherine Waring had found it locked she would have known that Marsh was trying to avoid her. She probably knew in any case, but the unlocked door was a sort of pretence that no confidence was lacking between them.

  There was a faint light showing under the door and along the edge. It widened and someone came into her room. Marsh closed her eyes and began to breathe steadily.

  “Marsh?” asked Katherine Waring softly. “Are you awake, Marsh?”

  She did not answer. She tried not to tense her body or to alter her breathing. She felt the light on her face, but her eyelids did not quiver. Presently she heard a long sigh and then Katherine Waring went quietly away.

  V

  Marsh was awakened early the next morning by someone’s hand on her shoulders. She started up at once. Miss Jennet’s plump amiable face was looking down on her.

  She spoke in a whisper. “Someone on the ’phone, Doctor. They said you wouldn’t mind if I awakened you.”

  That would be Gullett, Marsh thought.

  “Thanks, Miss Jennet,” she said, throwing off the covers. She hurried downstairs, tying the sash of her robe.

  “I put the line through to the library,” Miss Jennet said. “It’s so draughty in the passage.” She beamed and nodded and withdrew to the faint sounds of the early morning radio session in the kitchen.

  Marsh went along to the library. She took up the receiver and heard Sister Gullett yawning into it.

  “The things I do for you, Doctor, when I’m nearly dead,” she complained. “An emergency op. last night. The patient should pull through.”

  “Did you find out that name for me?” the girl asked urgently.

  “The Warings’ nurse? McNeil. I remember her now. She came into a packet and bought a private hospital in the bush somewhere Western District way.”

  “Can’t you remember where? Think hard. Western District is a large area. Hamilton, Warrnambool?”

  “None of those. Doc, don’t worry me. I told you I just had an emergency op.”

  “It’s important, Gully.”

  “So’s my breakfast and bed. Good-bye, Doc.” Before Marsh could speak she had rung off.

  “Marsh!” She dropped the receiver and swung round.

  Katherine Waring stood in the doorway. She wore a dark blue house-coat and her hair hung around her shoulders. Her face was pale and lined as though she had not slept.

  “What are you doing? Was that Sister Gullett? Has anything happened at the hospital?”

  “No. Yes,” Marsh stammered. “An emergency operation last night. Gullett says everything is all right.”

  Dr. Waring advanced into the room. “Why was she ringing you? You are no longer in residence at the hospital.”

  Marsh searched for an explanation and found none.

  “Marsh, what are you doing? You’ve become so secretive. You, who were always so frank. Don’t turn away from me.”

  The girl tried to meet her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she burst out. “Perhaps it will be better when I go today.”

  “Why did you offer to take Michael and Evelyn? You know how I feel about her. And whatever he has been, Michael is still my son.” She picked up the dangling receiver and replaced it carefully.

  Marsh took a deep breath. “Dr. Kate, if you let Michael go with Evelyn it may mean the making of him. You can see for yourself how he has stopped that heavy drinking. If you stop him he may learn to hate you for ever.”

  Her eyes were bitter. “Yes, he hates me. My own son. I hoped now King was dead he might change.”

  Marsh shivered at her words, but she repeated, “Let him go.”

  “Evelyn planned this, didn’t she? I wouldn’t give her the papers so she took my son. Is that right, Marsh?”

  She nodded reluctantly. “Give her the papers, then,” she urged. “I’ll ask her to let Michael alone.”

  “No,” said Katherine. “No, Marsh. Don’t ask her that. Michael must come back t
o me of his own free will. They can go. I’ll persuade Delia, but you must stay, Marsh. Stay for another day. Please.”

  “Very well,” she agreed, in a hopeless voice. She did not try to fight. She had known as early as the previous night that she would not be leaving. It was not worth even attempting to fight. When the Arkwrights went there would remain only herself, Betty and Dr. Kate. One more day.

  Soon after breakfast she left to go to Shane’s cottage. She went furtively, fearing Katherine Waring’s surveillance. She found Shane in the small outbuilding which served as a stable, grooming his horse. He saw her coming across the hill and raised one hand, holding the curry-comb in a stiff greeting.

  He went on with his work silently as she blurted out Arkwright’s story. When she finished he was still silent.

  “Well?” she asked defiantly. “What now?”

  “What do you mean—what now? According to your story Katherine Waring knows nothing of the real cause of the imbecile’s death. My efforts at revenge are of no avail. You want me to forget what I know. Is that right?”

  “Yes,” said Marsh.

  “My good girl, hasn’t it occurred to you, cold-blooded female that you are, murder has been done and it is up to me as a good citizen to report my suspicions? Furthermore, Dr. Waring may not have inserted the needle in the boy’s neck, but she missed it on the post-mortem and such carelessness should not go unpunished.”

  “It was a mistake—an omission,” Marsh said, without conviction.

  “A doctor should not make mistakes.”

  “I understood you would not do anything if I proved Dr. Kate had nothing to do with Sam’s death,” Marsh said, in a shaking voice. “If you want to carry out your petty revenge and ruin us all you can, but I warn you I’ll fight to the finish.”

  Shane laughed. “I make no doubt you will, my little virago. And while I am about it I’ll tell the police about the scalpel you tried to use on me.”