by M. M. Kaye
Copper was not asleep. And as the dark hours dragged on, sleep receded further and further from her tired brain.
The house was so still. So deathly still that after a time she realized that the rain must have stopped because she could no longer hear the soft drip of water from the gutters at the roof edge. Even the sea had quietened at long last, and the distant roar of the breakers had softened to a lower key; a soft, drowsy note, like the purr of a giant cat. But the isle was still full of noises, and the apparent stillness was, as ever, made up of a hundred small sounds which welded together made up the sum total of silence, and Copper’s taut nerves separated each sound from its fellows.
Every unexplained creak or patter, every whisper of a bat’s wing or tap of a night-flying beetle against a window-pane — even the familiar sound of the hall clock striking the slow passing of the hours — made her pulses leap with terror; and when a nightjar cried harshly in the garden her heart seemed to jump into her throat and she found herself clutching at her bedclothes with frantic fingers to keep herself from screaming.
She tried not to think of Dan and Ferrers — and death. Or of any of the horrible happenings of the last three days and the sheer terror of the night between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. But it proved to be beyond her powers, for her weary mind betrayed her and took her stubbornly back over every hour of those long hours and through every detail of those grim little notes that Valerie had written down in her sprawling, schoolgirl hand. And with every recollection her fear mounted.
They had been mad — mad and stupid and conceited — to imagine for one moment that they could help to unravel this ugly, bloodstained tangle. Their interference and probing could not possibly help … but it might well end by placing every one of them in terrible danger, for someone who had already killed twice might, if sufficiently frightened, kill again.
Supposing that unknown killer were to grow suspicious of them? Of their actions, their inquisitive interest, their questions — and begin to fear that between them they might stumble upon the truth? The prospect was too frightening to contemplate. Yet it was impossible not to ask questions. Not to guess — and be afraid.
What was Nick hiding? What was Ronnie afraid of? Why had John Shilto drunk so steadily that evening and talked so disjointedly and wildly? What had frightened Rosamund Purvis and why had Ruby changed her room and locked and bolted herself into it that night? Why hadn’t Dan told anyone of his suspicions regarding the death of Ferrers Shilto, and why had the news about the finding of the envelope in John Shilto’s room come as such a shock to Leonard Stock?
The questions shifted and jostled through Copper’s aching brain like pieces of a jig-saw puzzle, and it seemed to her that they lacked only the addition of one key piece to fall swiftly and easily into place. And suddenly it was borne in on her, with inexplicable conviction, that the clue to the whole murderous tangle lay concealed behind that final question mark in Valerie’s notebook. A red question mark that stood for a trivial incident at the Mount Harriet picnic that had struck her as odd. If only she could recall what it was, the pieces of the puzzle would fit together and the answer to all their questions would be found in the completed picture.
But she could not remember. Try as she would it eluded the grasp of her tired brain, and she turned back wearily to the long procession of information and conjecture that lay between the covers of the notebook, pressing her palms against her aching forehead as she added up the sum of whys and whats and whens. But the only answer that presented itself was too frightening to be faced, and she shied away from it as though it were something tangible that must be avoided at all costs.
Her hunted mind turned desperately to Nick. But with no sense of relief, since Nick, like everyone else, was hiding something: and that in itself was as terrifying to her as the actual fact of Dan’s murder, for the core of her terror lay not in any fear that Nick might be implicated in the crimes, but in the fear that he might possess some vital piece of information that was of danger to the murderer, and for the suppression of which he must be silenced. As Dan had been silenced …
Copper sat up in bed, clasping her hands about her knees and staring into the darkness. Tomorrow she must warn Nick — she must warn them all — that in meddling with this affair they were playing not so much with fire as with high explosive. She felt a little sick at the remembrance that it was she herself who was mainly responsible for their activities, since it was she who had suggested that they try and help track down Dan’s murderer. But Dan was dead. Nothing that they could do would alter that fact or bring him to life again, but their continued meddling could easily lead to another death on the island. Tomorrow, before it was too late, she must make the others see this.
Before it was too late…? All at once it was as though a cold finger had reached out of the darkness and touched her, stilling the beat of her heart: for suddenly, sickeningly, she remembered Ronnie’s missing revolver.
How could she have forgotten it? How could any of them have forgotten it? Why hadn’t they realized its deadly significance? Ronnie had been so drunk, and they had been impatient of his alcoholic babblings and anxious to get away. And then Valerie had startled them with the remark that he was no longer wearing his ring, and a few moments later they had met Leonard Stock, whose news about the missing letter had sidetracked them on to Ferrers. Sidetracked them when all the time here, surely, was proof that a third murder was not only contemplated, but already planned.
Copper gripped her hands together and tried to think what she must do.
In the morning, as soon as it was light, she would wake Charles and Nick, and after that there must be no rest for anyone on the island until that revolver was found. Thank God the heavy sea swell seemed to be running itself out at last, and perhaps tomorrow they would be able to establish communication with the mainland. The arrival of Dr Vicarjee and Benton, the P.A., of Ted Norton and his police, and of Mr Hurridge, the Deputy Commissioner, would lighten the tension on Ross to a considerable extent.
Copper sighed wearily and laid her aching head against her knees, and as she did so something touched her arm very softly, and once again her heart seemed to stop beating. The next moment she realized that it was only her mosquito net which had billowed inwards, stirred by a draught from the open windows. A breeze had at last arisen to disturb the stillness of the mist-laden air, and outside in the garden it rustled the leaves of the mango trees, set the dry stems of the bamboo clusters clicking together, and passed in a cooling breath through the darkened rooms.
The hall clock struck two, and in the stillness that succeeded its metallic chime, Copper thought she heard a floorboard creak somewhere in the silent house. And instantly she was terrifyingly alert: waiting, with every nerve taut, for the faint vibration that would betray the passing of anyone … of anything … through the ballroom. But she could not have told whether it came or not, for as she waited another puff of breeze, stronger than the last, billowed her mosquito net again and shook the iron rods that supported it. When it had passed, though she continued to strain her ears for any further sound from the ballroom, none came, and after a few minutes she lay back on her pillows and tried to relax.
A faint measure of ease returned to her, probably due more to nervous exhaustion than to anything else, and a blessed drowsiness began to steal over her, drugging her brain. Tomorrow, thought Copper sleepily. Tomorrow I must tell Nick … the revolver … it isn’t safe … Tomorrow …
It was then that she heard the shot.
The crashing reverberations of that violent sound shattered the silence into a hundred savage echoes that seemed to fill the house and give no indication of direction. It was followed by a frozen moment of utter stillness; and then the house was full of noises.
Copper was half out of bed, struggling frantically to free herself from the clinging folds of mosquito netting, when the light snapped on and Valerie was standing beside her, clutching at her, her face blanched and even her voice drained of bl
ood: ‘What was it?’
‘Ronnie’s revolver!’ sobbed Copper in a harsh, choking whisper. And free of the mosquito net she snatched up her dressing-gown, and without pausing to put it on or to consider what danger she might be running into, tore herself free of Valerie’s clinging fingers and ran out into the passage.
There was a blaze of light in Nick’s room, and as she reached the doorway someone running out collided violently with her flying figure.
‘Nick!’ said Copper in a breathless sob, ‘oh, Nick!’ The next instant she was lifted off her feet and held so closely that she could hardly breathe. Her own arms were tight about his neck, and she was sobbing in hard, dry gasps.
‘Are you all right?’ Nick’s voice was harsh with fear, and he held Copper as though he would never let her go.
‘I thought you’d been killed,’ she sobbed. ‘I thought he’d killed you!’
Nick kissed her hard and savagely, holding her close. Lights were flashing on in room after room and the house seemed full of people in pyjamas and dressing-gowns, and noisy with fear-filled voices. Charles, whom the shot had barely awakened, came blundering out into the passage and crashed into them. ‘Left, I think,’ he said breathlessly, and Nick thrust Copper away from him, and the two men raced along the passage towards the turret room, Valerie and Copper at their heels.
The turret room was in darkness, and for a blasphemous minute Charles groped for the electric light switch and called John Shilto by name. Then there was a click, and the lights flashed up, and Charles said: ‘Damned if he isn’t asleep — or drunk!’ for they could see the bed with its close-tucked mosquito netting, and through its shrouding whiteness, the dark bulk of the body that lay on it.
But John Shilto was not drunk. He was not even asleep.
Something was dripping from the bed on to the smooth uncarpeted floor, and each slow drop fell with a monotonous little splash into the small, grinning pool that had already formed beside the bed and was spreading sluggishly along the joins of the floorboards.
Nick tore out the mosquito net with a savage hand, and after one swift look, dropped it and spun round: ‘Get out of here, Copper,’ he ordered curtly. ‘You too, Val! You can’t do anything. He’s dead.’
Neither girl moved. It seemed as though they had lost the power to do so. Then, suddenly, the Commissioner was in the room, and Leonard Stock, his feet thrust hastily into tennis shoes and wearing a vividly patterned dressing-gown that looked as though it must belong to his wife.
Orderlies, chaprassis and one of the sentries were thronging the entrance to the turret room, and of all the household only Ruby Stock appeared to be conspicuous by her absence.
The Commissioner pushed past Valerie and strode to the bed. ‘What is it?’ he demanded. ‘What happened? Good God!’ His voice cracked harshly as he swept the mosquito net aside.
There was a sudden frozen silence in the crowded room, broken only by the slow splash of falling blood, and for a moment it seemed as though the house itself were holding its breath from horror.
John Shilto was very dead. Where his head had been there was now only something blotched and shapeless and dripping. One lax hand lay outside the sheet, its fingers loosely clasped about the barrel of a heavy service revolver, a bullet from which had so recently and violently awakened the house. There was a faint reek of cordite in the air, and pinned neatly to one corner of the pillow was a folded sheet of foolscap. ‘Suicide, by God!’ breathed the Commissioner. He stretched out a hand towards the revolver and Nick said sharply: ‘Don’t touch it — fingerprints!’
But he was too late. Sir Lionel’s fingers had already closed about it, and he swung round and glared at Nick: ‘Don’t talk such damned nonsense! Who else’s fingerprints should there be on it, other than his own?’
‘At a guess, Purvis’s,’ said Charles.
‘Purvis! Then how the devil____? Here, Stock, you’d better take charge of it for the moment.’
Leonard Stock stepped back hurriedly, treading on the toes of an inquisitive house-servant who, taken unawares, yelped sharply.
‘I____? Oh, er — of course. Certainly.’ He accepted the weapon reluctantly, as though afraid that it might explode in his hand, and held it as far away from him as possible, eyeing it unhappily, while Sir Lionel, having ordered servants and orderlies from the room, turned back to the bed. ‘And now —’ began the Commissioner. But he was not allowed to finish, for Charles cut unceremoniously across his sentence: ‘Val darling, you and Copper clear out, will you? At once, please.’
‘No,’ said Copper in a taut voice. ‘I’m not going until I know why he did it. If – if he did it. Why hasn’t someone read that paper?’
Sir Lionel swung round with a muffled exclamation and ripped the folded paper from its fastening. It proved to consist of a single closely typed sheet of foolscap with the final signature in a bold sprawling hand. He glanced swiftly through it, and then, very deliberately, read it aloud:
I, John Chalmers Shilto, being of sound health and in my right mind, have decided to put an end to my life. The circumstances which have brought about this decision are as follows:
The estrangement between my cousin, the late Ferrers Shilto, and myself is common property, but few have realized how bitter it has been. I do not propose to weary others with an account of our private dispute. It is enough for them to know that the bitterness of years culminated, on Christmas Eve, in a difference of opinion, on a private matter, which convinced me that the Islands were not large enough to accommodate both my cousin Ferrers and myself. I therefore decided upon his removal.
Fate played into my hands, and during the storm on the evening of the same day, my cousin and I shared for a few moments a hold upon the same upturned boat. At the moment at which we overturned I had grasped at, and still retained, the tiller of my boat. It made an excellent weapon. I struck my cousin on the back of the head and I believe that he must have died immediately. A few moments later another boat bumped into mine, and I left mine and clung to it. The visibility was so poor throughout that I do not believe anyone noticed the exchange, for it was next to impossible to see who was one’s neighbour, and I should not have recognized my own cousin except for a ring he wore upon the hand with which he had grasped the keel beside me. No one noticed his absence, and it was not discovered until we were taken aboard the forest-launch nearly half an hour later, when it was naturally assumed that he had been drowned.
However, an unlucky freak of the tides returned his body, undamaged, to Ross; and by an even more unlucky accident, Surgeon-Lieutenant Harcourt was present on that occasion. He saw what Dutt missed, and unfortunately for himself went down to the Guest House on the night of December 25th in order to verify his suspicions.
But since he had already displayed them too clearly I was prepared for some such action on his part. I managed to get clear of the house without being seen, and followed him to the Guest House, where I killed him.
I sincerely regretted having to perform this act, but I had no choice in the matter. It was a case of my life or his, and I preferred, not unnaturally I think, that it should be his. But once again I was unlucky, for the lack of a few inches in the size of the coffin destroyed what I flatter myself was a well-thought-out plan of action.
Since then I have had to realize that the chances of discovery are increasing hourly, and that to diminish them, I should have to kill again. I may say that I enjoyed killing Ferrers, but the elimination of young Harcourt was distasteful to me, and any further killing — perhaps, of necessity, even women — would not only be distasteful, but would also add to the risk of discovery. Life under these conditions would not be worth living, and so I have decided to cut the Gordian knot of a situation that has grown too complicated for me. My regards and apologies.
John Chalmers Shilto
There was a brief silence after Sir Lionel had finished reading, and the page of foolscap crackled harshly as he refolded it. He said heavily: ‘I think we had better send for a
doctor. Dutt will have to do.’
Charles took Valerie’s arm and propelled her towards the door. ‘You and Copper had better go back to bed, darling.’
Valerie said beseechingly: ‘We can’t, Charles — you know we can’t!’
‘All right then, go and sit in the verandah. I’ll come along as soon as I can. Here, Leonard’ — he grabbed Mr Stock by one gaily-coloured sleeve — ‘be a good scout and take these two kids off to the verandah. And just see that they don’t start having hysterics. It’s all right, Val, Leonard will keep you company and I’ll be along in a few minutes.’
He hustled the two girls out of the room, and Mr Stock followed with grateful alacrity.
22
‘I don’t believe it!’ said Copper, breaking a long silence.
The three of them were sitting in that part of the verandah that lay beyond the drawing-room, for as though by mutual consent they had come as far as possible from the thing that lay in the turret room.
Ten minutes had passed since Charles had ordered them from the room, and for ten minutes they had not spoken. True, Mr Stock had made an abortive attempt at conversation, but the blank and unresponsive stares of his two charges had caused him to drop the idea and he had taken instead to tapping a nervous little tattoo on the arm of his chair.
Valerie turned her blank gaze from the dark window-panes and asked listlessly: ‘What don’t you believe?’
‘I don’t believe he killed himself.’
‘What’s that?’ Valerie sat up with a jerk, staring at her, and then relaxed again. ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Coppy,’ she said wearily. ‘It’s quite obvious that no one else could have done it. Besides, what about that letter?’
‘That’s just what I mean. Would you have thought that he’d write like that? I mean, express himself in that way?’
Valerie shrugged her shoulders. ‘It was a bit pedantic, but then I imagine that writing one’s Last Will and Testament, so to speak, would be inclined to make one go a bit legal and pompous. What do you think, Leonard?’