Rafe: larger than life, striding through her barriers, dampening down her memories of the “last time.” Then, Rafe: reckless and seemingly carefree stumbling through life on a wave of self-destructive drunkenness. How long would his Hispano Suiza last before he crashed it beyond repair?
Her body felt leaden as she climbed out of the bath. Drying herself listlessly, she pulled her chemise on over her head and crawled into bed. Looking at the clock, she saw that it was eleven p.m. Dot had to work tomorrow. Though she wanted her friend desperately, she knew she couldn’t wake her.
The tears came at last, and sobs wracked her as her sorrow and anger hollowed her out with the relentless blade of memory. And there were no answers. She couldn’t keep waiting for Rafe to find his strength. Especially now that she knew what he really thought of her.
But how can I live without the hope of him?
Never again, she promised herself. Never again. He has no respect for me at all.
Chapter Twenty-Five
When she woke heavy-eyed in the morning, she washed and dressed in last night’s gown, situating the scarf over her head to cover the bald spot. What would Rafe think when he woke up in jail? She was very glad she hadn’t had to face him that morning but knew her reprieve was only temporary. Her heart was leaden with hurt and hopelessness. How was she going to go forward from here?
At ten minutes to eight, she went down, checked out of the hotel, and waited for Dr. Harry in the lobby. As she sat on the camel-backed sofa, she suddenly remembered poor Professor Williams. Had he died?
“I checked on St. John at the jail,” Dr. Harry said after greeting her. “He’s still asleep.”
“He’ll be fine. Don’t worry about him. He always lands on his feet,” she said bitterly. Poor Dr. Harry was sporting a black eye.
They walked out to his Morris. “Have you found out from anyone how Dr. Williams is this morning?” she asked.
“I rang the infirmary. He’s stable and conscious. I imagine they’re analyzing his stomach contents and his blood.”
A tiny bit of her gloom lifted. “Well, that’s good news anyway.” She smacked her forehead. “I just remembered! Jennie left something for me at the porter’s desk. She found it in Doctor Chenowith’s rooms. Can we retrieve it before we leave for London?”
“Of course. The resourceful Jennie.”
* * *
Catherine retrieved a brown paper parcel from Hobbs. It was in the shape of a book.
Once she was back in Dr. Harry’s Morris, she opened it, heart thumping.
It was a faded pink silk covered volume. Jennie had included a note.
I found this between the mattress and the springs in Dr. C’s room. I thought it might be important.
“Oh, golly,” said Catherine. “A journal! What a find!”
Opening it at random, she came upon a date some three years earlier. “This goes completely against the grain, to read another’s private thoughts,” she said. “But if we’re lucky it will help us to find her murderer.”
Paging forward, she came to the present year, but to her surprise, the words of the journal were replaced by squiggles, dots, and dashes. “This must be shorthand. It looks like it starts a few months ago.”
“She obviously was afraid someone would come across it.”
“She was scared. At a guess, I’d say this is what she didn’t want to tell even Miss Siddons. It must be the bit that concerns Somerville. It continues clear through to the end.”
“Do you know anyone who reads shorthand?”
“Yes. Fortunately, Dot does. She took a course when we left college because she thought she would only be able to get a job as a secretary. She learned typing and shorthand.”
“Why don’t you go back a bit? It can’t hurt, and maybe we can put the shorthand in context that way.”
“I saw a bit back here a few years about ‘H.’ I suppose that might mean Sir Herbert.”
“Why don’t you read it aloud to me,” Sir Harry asked. “If you can read while I’m driving.”
“All right. Let’s see if I can find it again.” She looked back for three years. Dr. Chenowith had not written terribly often. She found the entry written in peacock blue ink.
She began to read.
I have given my everything to H for more years than I’d like to count. He knows me better than anyone on this earth. And now he has become engaged to one of my Undergraduates! A mere girl! What does he see in her? She has no intellectual powers beyond the obvious! But aha! She has money and she has looks. I thought Herbert was a different sort of male. I didn’t think him swayed by those obvious gambits. We have shared everything. If what we had wasn’t love, then I should like to know what love is! I have years of letters I could show her. Worst of all, little Miss Ackerman thinks she is a poet! Not if I have anything to say about it.
“It looks to have been written at the time of Margery’s marriage. I almost feel sorry for her, but her jealously made her a bit short-sighted. Sir Herbert is truly in love with Margery and remains so to this day.”
“How long after that did she marry Waddell?”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to wait until we get to London. Reading this while riding in the car is making me a bit sick.”
“I’m sorry. You must stop then. It won’t be that long until we’re in London.”
She was silent during the rest of the drive, unwilling to burden her companion with her thoughts. Thinking of Agatha Chenowith’s heartbreak made her dwell on her own. It hurt so terribly to know how Rafe thought of her. Trying unsuccessfully to get her mind off him, she watched the summer landscape go by without taking it in.
Dr. Harry had once called him “the idle rich,” and she had protested. But that’s exactly what Rafe was. And he had every intention of pulling her into that life with him. She cringed when she thought how willing she had been. But there was more to Rafe. Wasn’t there?
Why had she put off ringing her brother? He would have reported on their life in Kenya. But she hadn’t wanted to know. She must get in touch with him when they got to the flat. Putting it off wasn’t going to change things.
As always happened on occasions such as this, she remembered childhood—back before Rafe had discovered alcohol. She and Rafe and William had spent their summer days on the beach below her Cornwall home. Fishing, sailing, swimming—they had been brown as berries, and her poor mother had despaired of Catherine’s complexion. They had played Red Indians. Rafe and William had even constructed a teepee. Her mother didn’t know, but she had even ridden bareback across the tops of the cliffs. When he was feeling particularly affectionate, Rafe still called her “Squaw.”
But she must consign their childhood connection to the past. She was fully grown, and childhood memories were just that and nothing more. Rafe had grown into a man she didn’t want to know anymore. She kept telling herself that. Over and over.
By the time they reached her flat, Catherine was steeped in melancholy. She greeted Cherry and asked if there was any food in the flat.
“Not much other than tinned soup, miss. But I can go down to the bakery and get some sandwiches to go with it.”
“That would be spiffing. Thank you. Any messages?”
“Mr. St. John rang. He said he would try again later. Lady Margery also rang. No message.”
Turning to Dr. Harry, she said, “Make yourself comfortable. I am going to change out of this dress and ring my brother. Then we can dig into the journal.”
“I can get started on the journal,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”
“That’s a good idea. Thank you.”
* * *
She castigated her brother for not ringing her when he got home. “Darling, you’re not in a funk, are you?”
“More or less,” he said. “Thinking of going down to see the parents. For some reason, London d
oesn’t hold much appeal for me right now.”
“I’m sorry. You aren’t missing Kenya, are you?”
“No. I’m glad to be back in England. But I may prefer country to city now. I’ve been racketing around since I got home—you know seeing all the friends. Doesn’t particularly appeal anymore.”
“Will you come ‘round tonight? I’d love to see you, and I need to talk to you.”
“About Rafe? What’s he done now?”
“Only the usual.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Old Lady. Matter of fact, I’ve got something on I can’t get out of tonight.”
“Just tell me, then. Was he drinking a lot in Africa?”
“You didn’t think he’d give it up, did you?”
“He promised he’d changed,” she said, her heart aching.
“Well, he sobered up a bit the last month before we sailed. But other than that, it was pretty much as usual. He’s not good husband material, Cat.”
“So I’ve decided. Thanks, Wills. Come ‘round before you go down to Cornwall.”
“I will. Promise.”
They rang off. Since she had only the one telephone, Dr. Harry had overheard the conversation.
“The idea was that he was going to Kenya to sober up,” she told him. “Apparently, he didn’t until the last couple of months. I’m worried about my brother. He’s not himself. I’ve been so preoccupied with Rafe and this murder I haven’t given him a thought. I guess I had just expected him to call me. He usually does when he gets back from a trip.”
“Are you close to your family?”
“Not really. But I’m closer to William than I am to my parents. We were boarding school kids.”
Cherry entered and laid out luncheon.
“Is your brother not well?” he asked.
“His health is indifferent. He’s going to go down to Cornwall. London doesn’t agree with him.”
“I’m sorry. St. John couldn’t have been the best company in Kenya if he was anything like he was last night.”
“You’re right. But they used to be great friends. My brother brought him home for every Long Vacation from the time they were ten. Even when they were at Oxford. I’m sensing that Rafe has turned some kind of a corner. He has never talked about me or to me the way he did last night. And he has certainly never hit me.”
“If he is an abusive drunk, I think it was bound to happen sometime. I don’t understand how someone sensible like you could have spent so long thinking he would change.”
Catherine sat down on the sofa and looked at the picture of Rafe that sat on her desk. Dr. Harry’s words hurt.
“I don’t expect you to understand, but you see, I was a very solitary child. For whatever reason, I never connected to my parents or my brother. I was separate. I lived in my own little world.”
“I can see it,” said Dr. Harry. “Were you a writer, even then?”
“I was. I scribbled stories, away in my room. I never showed them to anyone.”
“Not even William?”
“No. But then Rafe came, I was smitten by his vitality. He was unlike anyone in my very strait-laced, vanilla-colored family. He had a smile that took in the whole world. Suddenly, I wasn’t separate anymore. I connected with him. I shared my life and my stories with him. I lived for those summers when he was there.”
“And you’re still connected?”
She felt the raw place inside where she had cut Rafe out the night before. It still stung. “Not after last night. I tore him out last night, but no one will ever understand the cost to me. I still believed one day he would change. I guess that in that one way, I had never grown up. Now I am separate again. It hurts abominably.”
Catherine couldn’t believe she was confiding all of this to Dr. Harry, but Dot wasn’t available, and she had to express it. Probably, if she had been alone today, she would have put it in a poem.
“I’m sorry.” Dr. Harry reached for her hand. “I understand. I am honored that you would tell me. As wonderful as my parents are, they have each other. I have always felt separate, as well.”
“For as long as I remember my childhood, Rafe will always be part of my life. Did you ever connect with anyone?”
“Tennyson. King Arthur. The Victorians. Prince Albert. I lived in my head,” said Dr. Harry. “Give me a book, and I felt comforted and secure.”
“Stories have amazing power. Look at how batty Dr. Williams is about Teutonic Legends.”
“I think Hitler must have been, as well. And now he’s using his pet theories to ensnare a nation, cultivating the Aryan myth.”
She shivered. “It’s diabolical, isn’t it. I need to set my little tragedy to one side and call Dot to see if she has shorthand. Maybe she can meet us at the Spot again tonight after work.”
“That was quite a jolly pub. I can’t even imagine it on Friday night!”
“I know.”
The telephone rang.
“Cat?” She heard a much sobered Rafe.
Dr. Harry stood, as though to leave the room, but Catherine knew there was nowhere for him to go. She motioned for him to be seated. “I have nothing to say to you, Rafe. Now or in future. Good-bye.”
“But, Cat, it was just a few drinks! How on earth did you get them to lock me up?”
“It was their suggestion. You hit both me and Dr. Harry. A number of policemen witnessed it.”
“I hit you?”
“Yes. After saying horrid things to me. I don’t want to see you again, Rafe. Ever. Stay away from me, or I will swear out a complaint against you for assault. There were plenty of witnesses.”
“I’m sure I didn’t mean anything I said. But I’ll stay away from liquor. Even wine,” he said.
It took every bit of her will, but she managed to say, “No. You won’t. Now leave me be.” She rang off.
She couldn’t finish her chicken sandwich or tomato soup. Instead, before she could think any more about Rafe, she called Dot at work.
“Darling, you know shorthand, don’t you?”
“Yes. At least I did. I learned it in my secretarial course when I thought I should have to earn my living that way. Haven’t used it in quite a while. Why?”
“Jennie found me Dr. Chenowith’s journal. Toward the end, just where we are the most desperate to know what it says, she starts writing in shorthand, I think. Just a bunch of squiggles and some random letters I think must be abbreviations here and there. I was wondering if we could bring it to you tonight at the Spot after you get off work.”
“Smashing! Who’s ‘we?’ You and Rafe?”
“No. Dr. Harry.”
“Perfect. I’ll see you then, darling.”
While Dr. Harry was finishing eating, they discussed what he had been able to read while she was changing clothes.
“You were right. I think Chenowith married Waddell on the rebound. They were married in a London registry office and honeymooned at Lake Como in Italy. She doesn’t say a lot about him. Most of what she writes is about her poetry and her students. I had just gotten to the part where ‘C’ starts to change when you came in.”
“Suppose you read it aloud to me until we get to the pothooks and things.”
“Pothooks?”
“Shorthand.”
“Okay,” Dr. Harry agreed.
The account he read was much as they had imagined, but there were no names. “C” had fallen under the influence of “B” whom, her husband claimed, had a brilliant mind and complete understanding of “what this country needs.” “C” became so deeply involved in this that he soon had no time left for Agatha Chenowith. She asked him to choose between “B” and her, and he chose “B.”
She decided to separate from Waddell, divorce not being an option for her unless she could prove adultery. From that time forward, the journal had been encrypted in shorth
and, except for some abbreviations.
Catherine’s heart still pained her, but she forced her mind to the task of trying to decrypt the abbreviations.
The first few pages were all about “C ” and something called “ABH.”
“C is still Christopher, of course,” said Dr. Harry. “And based on what we found out on the Isle, would you say ABH might be the Aryan Brotherhood? It’s just a stab in the dark.”
“I think you very well could be right. Let’s consider it until we find out more from Dot. This is so frustrating!”
“It could easily have been some ingenious cipher and then we wouldn’t have had a chance to figure it out. Why do you suppose she switched to shorthand?” asked Dr. Harry.
“Obviously she didn’t want her husband to read it. But if she were living at Somerville exclusively by then, I wouldn’t think there was much chance of that. Maybe she didn’t want someone at Somerville to get hold of it,” Catherine speculated.
“That makes sense. It must be explosive stuff. Look, there’s the letter ‘B’ repeated throughout. Do you think it’s connected to the GBH?”
“This is futile. I suggest we do something else until Dot deciphers it. We’re just wasting our time.” And her thoughts, not fully engaged, kept drifting back to Rafe.
“You’re right. And I’m uneasy. I keep thinking Rafe is going to show up here,” he said.
“I know. Me, too.” She went to the window and looked out. “It’s not raining, nor likely to. Let’s go to the Kew Gardens and take a walk.”
They put the journal in a big string bag Catherine kept for shopping and rang for a cab to take them to the gardens. Once there, they sought out Windhurst where they were able to ramble through the woods as though they were in the country.
“You were right, you know,” said Catherine. “Rafe is a member of the ‘idle rich.’ I just didn’t want to admit it.”
“He doesn’t have a worthy avocation?”
“Sport, aviation . . . those are his interests.”
“I can’t see him being any kind of husband for a woman like you, Catherine. You’ve grown in different directions.”
An Oxford Murder Page 22