A Blunt Instrument (3 page)

He sighed. "Dear pet, I told you at the outset that I considered it too utterly trite and sordid to appeal to me. Why bring that up now?"

"You don't know what it is to be desperate," she said bitterly.

"No, that's my divine detachment."

"Well, I hope you get pinched for the murder," struck in Sally. "Then what price divine detachment?"

He looked pensive. "It would be awfully interesting," he agreed. "Of course, I should preserve an outward calm, but should I quail beneath it? I hope not: if I did I shouldn't know myself any more, and that would be most uncomfortable."

Helen struck the arm of the sofa with her clenched hand. "Talk, talk, talk! What's the use of it?"

"There is nothing more sordid than the cult of utility," replied Neville. "You have a pedestrian mind, my dear."

"Oh, do shut up!" begged Sally. She went to the sofa, and sat down beside Helen. "Come on, old thing, you'd much better tell me the whole story! If you're in a jam, I'll try and get you out of it."

"You can't," Helen said wretchedly. "Ernie's got IOUs of mine, and the police are bound to discover them, and there'll be a ghastly scandal."

Sally frowned. "IOUs? Why? I mean, how did he get them? What are they for, anyway?"

"Gambling debts. Neville thinks he probably bought them."

"What on earth for?" demanded Sally, the monocle slipping out again.

Neville looked at her admiringly. "The girl has a mind like a pure white lily!" he remarked. "I am now taken aback."

Sally retorted hotly: "I haven't got any such thing! But all this price-of-dishonour business is too utterly vieux jeu! Good Lord, I wouldn't put it in any book of mine!"

"Are you an escapist?" inquired Neville solicitously. "Is that why you write improbable novels? Have you felt the banality of real life to be intolerable?"

"My novels aren't improbable! It may interest you to know that the critics consider me as one of the six most important crime novelists."

"If you think that you're a bad judge of character," said Neville.

Helen gave a strangled shriek of exasperation. "Oh, don't, don't! What does any of that matter at a time like this? What am I to do?"

Sally turned away from Neville. "All right, let's get this thing straight," she said. "I don't feel I've got all the data. When did you start falling for Ernie Fletcher?"

"I didn't. Only he was so attractive, and - and he had a sort of sympathetic understanding. Almost a touch of the feminine, but not quite that, either. I can't explain. Ernie made you feel as though you were made of very brittle, precious porcelain."

"That must have added excitement to your life," said Neville reflectively.

"Shut up! Go on, Helen! When did it all begin?"

"Oh, I don't know! I suppose from the moment I first got to know him - to know him properly, I mean. You mustn't think that he - that he made love to me, because he didn't. It wasn't till just lately that I realised what he wanted. I thought - oh, I don't know what I thought!"

"You didn't think anything," explained Neville kindly. "You floated away on a sea of golden syrup."

"That's probably true," said Sally. "You were obviously right under the ether. What did John think, if anything?"

Her sister coloured, and averted her face. "I don't know. John and I - had drifted apart - before Ernie came into my life."

Neville, apparently overcome, sank into a chair, and covered his face with his hands. "Oh God, Oh God!" he moaned. "I'm being dragged into this repulsive syrup! Dearest, let us drift apart - me out of your life, before I start mouthing cliches too. I know it's insidious."

"I must say," remarked Sally, fair-mindedly, "that I rather bar "drifted apart" and "came into my life" myself Helen, do try not to sentimentalise yourself; it all looks too darned serious to me. I thought you and John weren't hitting it off any too well. Some women don't know when they've struck ore. What went wrong between you? I should have thought John was the answer to any maiden's prayer."

"Oh, it's so hard to explain!" Helen said, her eyes brimming with tears. "I was so young when I married trim, and I thought everything was going to be like my dreams. I'm not excusing myself: I know John's a fine man, but he didn't understand me, and he didn't want what I wanted - life, gaiety and excitement!"

"Didn't you love him?" asked Sally bluntly.

"I thought I did. Only everything went wrong. If only ,John had been different - but you know what he's like! If he'd shaken me, or even beaten me, I'd have pulled myself up. But he didn't. He simply retired into his shell. He was busy, too, and I was bored. I started going about without him. Sally, I tell you I don't know how it began, or how we got to this pitch, but we're utterly, utterly estranged!" The tears were running down her cheeks. She said with a catch in her voice: "I'd give anything to have it all back again, but I can't, and there's a gulf between us which I can't bridge! Now this has happened, and I suppose that'll end it. I shall have dragged John's name in the mud, and the least I can do is to let him divorce me."

"Don't be such an ass!" said Sally bracingly. John's much too decent to let you down when you're in trouble. You don't divorce people for getting into debt, and if your IOUs are found in Ernie Fletcher's possession it'll be obvious that you weren't a faithless wife."

"If they're found, and it all comes out, I'll kill myself!"

Helen said. "I couldn't face it. I could not face it! John doesn't know a thing about my gambling. It's the one thing that he detests above all others. Neville's a beast, but he's perfectly right when he says it's a sordid story. It wasn't Bridge, or the sort of gambling you have at parties, but a - a real hell!"

"Lummy!" said Miss Drew elegantly. "Gilded vice, and haggard harpies, and suicides adjacent? All that sort of thing?"

"It wasn't gilded, and I don't know about any suicides, but it was a bad place, and yet - in a way - rather thrilling. If John knew of it - the people who belonged to it - Sally, no one would believe I wasn't a bad woman if it was known I went to that place!"

"Well, why did you go there?"

"Oh, for the thrill! Like one goes to Limehouse. And at first it sort ofgot me. I adored the excitement of the play. Then I lost rather a lot of money, and like a fool I thought I could win it back. I expect you know how one gets led on, and on."

"Why not have sold your pearls?"

A wan smile touched Helen's lips. "Because they aren't worth anything."

"What?" Sally gasped.

"Copies," said Helen bitterly. "I sold the real ones ages ago. Other things, too. I've always been an extravagant little beast, and John warned me he wouldn't put up with it. So I sold things."

"Helen!"

Neville, who had been reposing in a luxurious chair with his eyes shut, said sleepily: "You said you wanted copy, didn't you?"

"Even if it didn't concern Helen I couldn't use this," said Sally. "Not my line of country at all. I shall have to concentrate on the murder. By the way, Helen, who introduced you to this hell? Dear Ernie?"

"Oh no, no!" Helen cried. "He absolutely rescued me from it! I can't tell you how divine he was. He said everything would be all right, and I wasn't to worry any more, but just be a good child for the future."

"Snake!" said Sally hotly.

"Yes, only - it didn't seem like that. He had such a way with him! He got hold of those ghastly IOUs, and at first I was so thankful!"

"Then he blackmailed you!"

"N - no, he didn't. Not quite. I can't tell you about that, but it wasn't exactly as you imagine. Of course, he did use the IOUs as a weapon, but perhaps he didn't really mean it! It was all done so - so laughingly, and he was very much in love with me. I expect I lost my head a bit, didn't handle him properly. But I got frightened, and I couldn't sleep for thinking of my IOUs in Ernie's possession. That's why I told Neville. I thought he might be able to do something."

"Neville?" said Miss Drew, in accents of withering contempt. "You might as well have applied to a village idiot!"

"I know, but there wasn't anyone else. And he is clever, in spite of being so hopeless."

"As judged by village standards?" inquired Neville, mildly interested.

"He may have a kind of brain, but I've yet to hear of him putting himself out for anyone, or behaving like an ordinarily nice person. I can't think how you ever succeeded in persuading him to take it on."

"The dripping of water on a stone," murmured Neville.

"Well having taken it on, I do think you might have put your back into it. Did you even try?"

"Yes, it was a most painful scene."

"Why? Was Ernie furious?"

"Not so much furious as astonished. So was I. You ought to have seen me giving my impersonation of a Nordic public-school man with a reverence for good form and the done-thing. I wouldn't like to swear I didn't beg him to play the game. Ernie ended up by being nauseated, and I'm sure I'm not surprised."

"You know, you're not hard-hearted, you're just soulless," Sally informed him. She glanced at her sister. "Was I invited to stay to be a chaperon?"

"Yes, in a way. Besides, I wanted you."

"Thanks a lot. What happened tonight?"

"Oh, nothing, Sally, nothing! It was silly of me, but I thought if only I could talk quietly to Ernie, and - and throw myself on his generosity, everything would be all right. You were busy with your book, so I got my cloak, and just slipped round by the back way to Greystones, on the off chance of finding Ernie in his study."

"It looks to me as though it wasn't the first time you've called on Ernie like that," interpolated Sally shrewdly.

Helen coloured. "Well, no, I - I have been once or twice before, but not after I realised he had fallen in love with me. Honestly, I used to look on him as an exciting sort of uncle."

"More fool you. Carry on! When did you set out on this silly expedition?"

"At half-past nine, when I knew you'd had time to get absorbed in your silly book," retorted Helen, with a flash of spirit. "And I knew that Ernie was in his study, because when I turned up into Maple Grove from the Arden Road, I saw a man come out of the Greystones side gate, and walk off towards Vale Avenue."

"Abraham," said Neville. "Well, that settles him, at all events. Pity: the name had possibilities."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I let myself into the garden, and walked up the path to Ernie's study. Ernie was there, but I soon saw I'd made a mistake to come. He was - almost horrid - as horrid as a person with charm like his could be."

"That's what comes of getting me to become a pukka sahib," said Neville. "You can't blame Ernie."

"How long did you stay with him?" demanded Sally. "Think! it's probably important."

"I don't have to think: I know," said Helen. "Ernie said something about my being found with him at a compromising hour, and I looked at the clock, and said if he thought a quarter to ten a compromising hour he must be actually a Victorian, though I'd thought him merely Edwardian."

"Good!" approved Sally.

"Yes, I was in a rage," admitted Helen. "And I walked straight out, the way I'd come."

"Straight home?"

Helen hesitated, her eyes on Neville, who was regarding her with an expression of sleepy enjoyment. "No," she said, after a pause. "Not quite. I heard the gate open, and naturally I didn't want to be seen, so I dived behind a bush beside the house."

"Who was it?" asked Sally quickly.

"I don't know. I couldn't see. A man, that's all I can tell you."

Sally looked at her rather searchingly, and then said: "All right, go on!"

"He went into the study. I think he closed the window behind him; I didn't hear anything except a sort of murmur of voices."

"Oh! Did you beat it while you had the chance?" Helen nodded. "Yes, of course." "And no one but Ernie saw you?" "No."

"And you didn't go dropping handkerchiefs about, or anything like that?"

"Of course I didn't."

"Then there's nothing except the IOUs to connect you with the murder!" Sally declared. "We've got to get hold of them before the police do."

Helen said: "Oh, Sally, if only I could! But how? They aren't in his desk -'

"How do you know?" asked Sally swiftly.

"Why, I - something Ernie said," faltered Helen.

"I shouldn't set much store by anything he said. Of course, they may be in a safe, but we'll hope he didn't go in for safes. Neville, this is your job."

Neville opened his eyes. Having surveyed both sisters in his peculiarly dreamy way, he dragged himself out of his chair, and wandered over to the table where the cigarette-box stood. He selected and lit one, produced his own empty case, and proceeded to fill it. "All this excitement," he said softly, "has gone to your head."

"Oh no, it hasn't! You're staying in the house; you said you'd help Helen. You can jolly well find those IOUs before Scotland Yard gets on to the case."

"Scotland Yard!" gasped Helen.

"Yes, I should think almost certainly," replied Sally. "This is the Metropolitan area, you know. They'll probably send a man down to investigate. Neville, are you willing to take a chance?"

"No, darling," he replied, fitting the last cigarette into his case.

"You would fast enough if they were your IOUs!"

He looked up. "I daresay I should. But they aren't mine. I won't have anything to do with them."

"If you had a grain of decency, or - or chivalry -'

"Do stop trying to cast me for this beastly Gunga Din role!" he implored. "Find someone else for the job! You must know lots of whiter men than I am."

"Very well!" said Sally. "If you haven't the guts to do it, I have, and I will!"

"I don't want to blight your youthful ardour, sweet one, but I think I ought to tell you that there's a large, resolute policeman parked in the front hall."

Her face fell. "I never thought of that," she said slowly. An idea occurred to her. "Do you mean he's keeping a watch over the household?"

"Well, he's certainly not a paying-guest."

She started up. "You utter, abysmal idiot, what did you come here for if the house was being watched?"