“Are you sure that the handwriting was Stella’s?” he asked.
“Quite. I saw the letter.”
“Did the editor give it to you?”
“No, he had to keep it for his own protection.”
“That’s a pity,” said Harry. A pity — or a relief, since, without that evidence before his eyes, he could still insist upon his pretence.
“Not such a great pity,” answered Martin, and taking a letter from his pocket he threw it down upon the table, with the ghost of a smile upon his face. “What do you think I have been doing during the last two years?” he asked drily.
Harry pounced upon the letter and his first glance dispelled his illusion — nay, proved to him that he had never had faith in it. For he saw, without surprise, the broad strokes and the straight up-and-down letters familiar to him of old. Stella had always written rather like a man, a man without character. He had made a joke of it to her in the time before the little jokes aimed by the one at the other had begun to rasp.
“Yes, she wrote the letter and signed it with Sir Chichester’s name.”
Millie Splay reached out for the letter.
“Stella took a big risk,” she said. “I don’t understand it. She must have foreseen that Chichester’s hand was likely to be familiar in the office.”
“No, Millie,” said Sir Chichester suddenly, and he spurred his memory. “Of course! Of course! Stella helped me with the telephone one day this week in the library there. I told her that I was new to the Harpoon.” He suddenly beat upon the table with his fist. “But why should she write the letter at all? Why should she want her death here, under these strange conditions, announced to the world? A little cruel I call it — yes, Millie, a little cruel.”
“Stella wasn’t cruel,” said Lady Splay.
“She wasn’t,” Hillyard agreed. “I know why she wrote that. She wrote it to strengthen her hand and will at the last moment. The message was sent, the announcement of her death would be published in the morning, was already in print. Just that knowledge would serve as the final compulsion to do what she wished to do. She wrote lest her courage and nerve should at the last moment fail her, as to my knowledge they had failed her before.”
“Before!” cried Millie. “She had tried before! Oh, poor woman!”
“Yes,” said Hillyard, and he told them all of the vague but very real fear which had once driven him into Surrey in chase of her; of her bedroom with the bed unslept in and the lights still burning in the blaze of a summer morning; of herself sitting all night at her writing-table, making dashes and figures upon the notepaper and unable to steel herself to the last dreadful act.
Martin Hillyard gave no reason for her misery upon that occasion, nor did any one think to inquire. He just told the story from his heart, and therefore with a great simplicity of words. There was not one of those who heard him, but was moved.
“Yet there were perhaps a couple of hours in her life more grim and horrible than any in that long night,” he went on, “the hours between ten o’clock and midnight yesterday.”
“Ah, but we don’t know how they were spent,” began Sir Chichester.
“We know something,” returned Martin gravely. “I told you that that letter was corroborated before the paragraph it contained was inserted in the paper.”
“Yes,” said Lady Splay.
“Whilst they were waiting for the news from France, which did not come, they rang you up from the Harpoon office. Yes: they rang up Rackham Park.”
Harry Luttrell snatched up the letter once more from the table. Yes, there across the left-hand corner was printed Sir Chichester’s telephone number and the district exchange.
“They were answered by a woman. Of that there’s no doubt. And the woman assured them that Stella Croyle was dead. This was at a quarter-past twelve.”
There was a movement of horror about the table, and then, with dry lips, Millie Splay whispered:
“Stella!”
“Yes. It must have been,” answered Hillyard. “Oh, she had thought out her plan to its last detail. She knew the letter might not be enough. So, whilst we were all dancing at Harrel, she sat alone from ten to midnight in that library, waiting for the telephone to ring, hoping perhaps — for all we know — at the bottom of her heart that it would not ring. But it did, and she answered.”
The picture rose vividly before them all. Harrel, with its lighted ball-room and joyous dancers on the one side; the silent library on the other, with Stella herself in all her finery, sitting with her haggard eyes fixed upon the telephone, whilst the slow minutes passed.
“That’s terrible,” said Millie Splay in a low voice; and such a wave of pity swept over the four people that for a long while no further word was said. Joan upstairs in her room was forgotten. Any thought of resentment in that Stella had used Sir Chichester’s name was overlooked by the revelation of the long travail of her soul.
“I remember that she once said to me, ‘Women do get the worst of it when they kick over the traces,’” Hillyard resumed. “And undoubtedly they do. On the other hand you have McKerrel’s hard-headed verdict, ‘If these poor neurotic bodies had any work to do they wouldn’t have so much time to worry about their troubles.’ Who shall choose between them? And what does it matter now? Stella’s gone. She will strain her poor little unhappy heart no more against the bars.”
CHAPTER XXXI
Jenny and Millie Splay
AFTER A TIME their thoughts reverted to the living.
“There’s Joan,” said Millie Splay. “Jenny Prask hates her. She means to drag her into some scandal.”
“If she can,” said Martin. He went out into the hall and returned with the key of Stella Croyle’s room. He held it up before them all.
“This key was found on the lawn outside the library window this morning by Luttrell. Jenny has never referred to it since she ran downstairs this morning crying out that the key was not in the lock. It was lying on the hall table all through the time when Sir Chichester was questioning her, and she said never a word about it. She was much too clever. But she saw it. I was watching her when she did see it. There was no concealing the swift look of satisfaction which flashed across her face. I haven’t a doubt that she herself dropped the key where it was found.”
“Nor I,” Luttrell agreed with a despairing vehemence, “but we can’t prove it. Jenny Prask is going to know nothing of that key. ‘No, no, no, no!’ she is going to say, ‘Ask Miss Whitworth! Miss Whitworth came back from Harrel. Miss Whitworth was the last person to see Mrs. Croyle alive. Ask her!’ It is Jenny Prask or Miss Whitworth. We are up against that alternative all the time. And Jenny holds all the cards. For she knows, damn her, what happened here last night.”
“She did hold all the cards this morning,” Hillyard corrected. “She doesn’t now. Look at this key! There was a heavy dew last night. It was wet underfoot in the garden at Harrel.”
“Yes,” said Millie.
“How is it then that there’s no rust upon the key?” and as he asked the question he twirled the key so that the light flashed upon stem and wards until they shone like silver. “No, this key was placed where you found it, Luttrell, not last night, but this morning after the sun had dried the grass.”
“But we came home by daylight,” Sir Chichester interposed. “They might argue that Joan might have slipped downstairs before she went to bed, with the key in her hand.”
“But she wouldn’t have chosen that spot in front of the library window. She might have flung it from her window, she might conceivably have slipped round the house and laid it under Mrs. Croyle’s window. But to place it in front of the library to which room she returned from Harrel — no.”
“Yes,” said Sir Chichester doubtfully. “I see. Joan can make good that point. Yes, she can explain that.” And Millie Splay broke in with impatience:
“Explain it! Of course. But what we want is to avoid that she should have to explain anything, that she should be called as a witness a
t all!”
There lay the point of trouble. To it, they came ceaselessly back, revolving in the circle of their vain argument. Joan had something to conceal, and Jenny Prask was determined that she should disclose it, and Jenny Prask held the means by which to force her.
“But that’s just what I am driving at,” continued Martin. “We can’t afford to be gentle here. There’s no lie Jenny Prask wouldn’t tell to force Joan into the witness box. We have got to deal relentlessly with Jenny Prask. A woman’s voice spoke from this house over the telephone to London at a quarter-past twelve last night, and said that Stella was dead. Whose voice? Not Joan’s. Joan was having supper with Luttrell at twelve o’clock. I saw her, others, too, saw her of course. Whose voice then? Stella’s, as we say — as we know. But if not Stella’s, as Jenny Prask says — why then there is only one other woman’s voice which could have given the news.”
“Jenny’s,” cried Millie with a sudden upspring of hope.
“Yes, Jenny Prask’s.”
Millie Splay rose from her chair swiftly and rang the bell; and when Harper answered it, she said:
“Will you ask Jenny to come here?”
“Now, my lady?”
“Now.”
Harper went out of the room and Millie turned again to her friends.
“Will you leave this to me?” she asked.
Sir Chichester was inclined to demur. A few deft and pointed questions, very clear, such as might naturally occur to Hillyard or Luttrell, or Sir Chichester himself might come in usefully to put the polish, as it were, on Millie’s spade work. Harry Luttrell smiled grimly.
“We didn’t exactly cover ourselves with glory this morning,” he said. “I think that we had better leave it to Lady Splay.”
Sir Chichester reluctantly consented, and they all waited anxiously for Jenny’s appearance. That she would fight to the last no one doubted. Would she fight even to her own danger?
Jenny came into the room, quietly respectful, and without a trace of apprehension.
“You sent for me, my lady.”
“Yes, Jenny.”
Jenny closed the door and came forward to the table.
“Do you still persist in your story of this morning?” Lady Splay asked.
“Yes, my lady.”
“You did not see your mistress at all after Miss Whitworth had talked with her in the library?”
“No, my lady.”
“Jenny, I advise you to be quite sure before you speak.”
“I am not to be frightened, my lady,” said Jenny Prask, with a spot of bright colour showing suddenly in her cheeks.
“I am not trying to frighten you,” Millie Splay returned. “But some unexpected news has reached us which, if you persist, will place you in an awkward position.”
Jenny Prask smiled. She turned again to the door.
“Is that all, my lady?”
“You had better hear what the news is.”
“As you please, my lady.”
Jenny stopped and resumed her position.
“The announcement of Mrs. Croyle’s death appeared in the Harpoon this morning. The news was left at the Harpoon office by a chauffeur with a private car at midnight — Mrs. Croyle’s car.”
“It never left the garage last night,” said Jenny fiercely.
“You know that for certain?”
“I am engaged to the chauffeur,” she replied with a smile; and Millie Splay looked sharply up.
“Oh,” she murmured slowly, after a pause. “Thank you, Jenny. Yes, thank you.”
The quiet satisfaction of Millie Splay’s voice puzzled Jenny and troubled her security. She watched Lady Splay warily. From that moment her assurance faltered, and with the loss of her ease, she lost something, too, of her respectful manner. A note of impertinence became audible.
“Very happy, I’m sure,” she said.
“The motor-car delivered the message at midnight,” Lady Splay resumed, “and — this is what I ask your attention to, Jenny — the editor, in order to obtain corroboration of the message before he inserted it in his paper, rang up Rackham Park.”
Lady Splay paused for Jenny’s comment, but none was uttered then. Jenny was listening with a concentration of all her thoughts. Here was a new fact of which she was ignorant, creeping into the affair. Whither did it lead? Did it strike her weapon from her hand? Upset her fine plan of avenging her dear mistress’s most unhappy life? She would not believe it.
“He rang up Rackham Park — mark the time, Jenny — at a few minutes after twelve,” said Lady Splay impressively, and Jenny’s uneasiness was markedly increased.
“Fancy that!” she returned flippantly. “But I don’t see, my lady, what that has to do with me.”
“You will see, Jenny,” Lady Splay continued with gentleness. “He got an answer.”
Jenny turned that announcement over in her mind.
“An answer, did he?”
“Yes, Jenny, and an answer in a woman’s voice.”
A startled cry broke from the lips of Jenny Prask. Her cheeks blanched and horror stared suddenly from her eyes. She understood whose voice it must have been which answered the question from London. Before her, too, the pitiful vision of the lonely woman waiting for the shrill summons of the telephone bell to close the door of life upon her, rose clear; and such a flood of grief and compassion welled up in her as choked her utterance.
“Oh!” she whispered, moaning.
“Whose voice was it, Jenny?”
At the question Jenny rallied. All the more dearly because of that vision, should Joan Whitworth pay, the shining armour of her young beauty be pierced, her pride be humbled, her indifference turned to shame.
“I can’t think, my lady — unless it was Miss Whitworth’s.”
“I asked you to mark the time, Jenny. A few minutes after midnight. Miss Whitworth was at that moment in the supper-room at Harrel. She was seen there. The woman’s voice which answered was either Mrs. Croyle’s or yours.”
Nothing could have been quieter or gentler than Millie Splay’s utterance. But it was like a searing iron to the shoulders of Jenny Prask.
“Mine!” The word was launched in a cry of incredulous anger. “It wasn’t mine. Oh, as if I would do such a thing! The idea! Well, I never did!”
“I don’t believe it was yours, Jenny,” said Millie Splay.
“Granted, I’m sure,” returned Jenny Prask, tossing her head.
“But how many people will agree with me?” Millie Splay went on.
“I don’t care, my lady.”
“Don’t you? You will, Jenny,” said Millie in a hard and biting tone which contrasted violently with the smoothness of her earlier questions. “You are trying, very maliciously, to do a great injury to a young girl who had never a thought of hurting your mistress, and you have only succeeded in placing yourself in real danger.”
Jenny tried to laugh contemptuously.
“Me in danger! Goodness me, what next, I wonder?”
“Just listen how your story works out, Jenny,” and Millie Splay set it out succinctly step by step.
“Mrs. Croyle never took chloroform as a drug. Mrs. Croyle had no troubles. Mrs. Croyle was quite gay this week. Yet she was found dead with a glass of chloroform arranged between her pillows, so that the fumes must kill her — and Jenny Prask was her maid. A motor-car took the news of Mrs. Croyle’s death to London before it had occurred and took the news from Rackham Park. There was only one motor-car in the garage — Mrs. Croyle’s — and Mrs. Croyle’s chauffeur was engaged to Jenny Prask, Mrs. Croyle’s maid. London then telephones to Rackham Park for corroboration of the news, and a woman’s voice confirms it — an hour before it was true. There are only two women to choose from, Mrs. Croyle and Jenny Prask, her maid. But since Mrs. Croyle never took drugs, and had no troubles or thoughts of suicide and was quite gay, it follows that Jenny Prask — —”
At this point Jenny interrupted in a voice in which fear was now very distinctly audible.
“Why, you can’t mean — Oh, my lady, you are telling me that — oh!”
“Yes, it begins to look black, Jenny, but I am not at the end,” Millie Splay continued implacably. Jenny was not the only woman in that house who could fight if her darling was attacked. “You proceed to direct suspicion at a young girl with the statement that you never saw your mistress after half past nine that night or helped her to undress; and to complete your treachery, you take the key of Mrs. Croyle’s door which you found inside her room this morning, and threw it where it may avert inquiry from you and point it against another.”
Jenny Prask flinched. The conviction with which Lady Splay announced as a fact the opinion of the small conclave about the table quite deceived her.
“So you know about the key?” she said sullenly. And about the table ran a little quiver of relief. With that question, Jenny Prask had delivered herself into their hands.
“Yes.”
Jenny stood with a mutinous face and silent lips. Lady Splay had marshalled in their order the items of the case which would be made against her, if she persisted in her lie. How would she receive them? Persist, reckless of her own overthrow, so long as she overthrew Joan Whitworth too? Or surrender angrily? The four people watched for her answer with anxiety; and it was given in a way which they least expected. For Jenny covered her face with her hands, her shoulders began to heave and great tears burst out between her fingers and trickled down the backs of her hands.
“It’s unbearable,” she sobbed. “I would have given my life for her — that’s the truth. Oh, I know that most maids serve their mistresses for what they can get out of them. But she was so kind to me — wherever she went she was thoughtful of my comfort. Oh, if I had guessed what she meant to do! And I might have!”
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 562