Dorothy Eden (12 page)

“I must be going to work,” Cressida said hastily. From a rumba to a requiem…No one was saying the words aloud now, but Vincent Moretti’s pale eyes were on her, and it was as if he were repeating them silently. Why?

“And I do practise,” he said in his smooth pleasant voice. “Dear lady, that dance was delightful.”

“Oh, we’ll have more,” Arabia said pleasurably. “We’re having a party for Cressida. We’ll all dance.”

Cressida heard Jeremy Winter’s low voice behind her.

“That was a very extraordinary thing to believe that I would do.”

Cressida moved sharply away. “Then who did? Who did?” For it was impossible to believe that Arabia, with her warm abundant charm and gaiety, could have done so grotesque a thing.

“And there is no record of Lucy’s death, if that interests you,” Jeremy said in her ear, and then, as silently as he had come, went back down the basement stairs.

Cressida went back into her room to get her hat and coat. As she left the house the sombre melody of Massenet’s Elegy played on the violin followed her. And on the steps outside Dawson was waiting.

It was foggy and the air was chilly. The brief gaiety of the dancing was forgotten, and now everything was grey. How could there be no record of Lucy’s death? Had she been murdered and her murder forever concealed? The wail of the violin seeped through the heavy door, as if it were the theme song of this grey day.

“I waited for you, Miss Barclay,” Dawson said brightly.

“That was nice of you,” Cressida said with mechanical politeness. “Didn’t you like the dancing?”

“I think that Mr. Moretti is crazy,” Dawson said with sudden vindictiveness.

“Why? Because he wants to dance at nine o’clock in the morning?”

“Because he makes up to Miss Glory like that. He doesn’t mean it and he’s making a fool of her.”

“Dawson, how old are you?”

“Fifteen.” The boy was suddenly sullen again. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t notice things.”

“Perhaps you notice too much. After all, Miss Glory is very happy, and if Mr. Moretti doesn’t mean any harm—How could he, to so coy and unattractive a woman?

“But he does! He’s the sort of person who always means harm!”

“Oh, come,” said Cressida. “I think you read too many sensational stories in the newspapers. What do you think he’s planning to do to her? Seduce her and steal her money?”

“That’s just the sort of thing he would do. And you mark my words, Miss Barclay, you won’t be safe either!”

“Me!” Cressida gave a laugh of incredulity.

“You’re pretty. He’s probably got his eye on you already.”

“Oh, Dawson! You let your imagination run away with you.” But already, inevitably, she was beginning to wonder whether Vincent Moretti were the mischief-maker. “You think too much about morbid things, you know.”

“I’m interested in murders,” Dawson told her in his intense way. “I like studying the way they’re done. Now the girl who was strangled, you’d think that was a clumsy sort of way to commit murder, but it wasn’t, really, because the police haven’t got the murderer yet. He’d be a stranger, you see, and they’ve no way of connecting him with the girl.”

“Dawson! Do you talk to your poor little mother like this? No wonder she has nightmares.”

Dawson gave a abashed grin. “It’s just that I’m interested, Miss Barclay. And Ma doesn’t really mind. She says I’ve got a legal mind.”

What would Dawson make of that charming little
billet-doux
she had received this morning? Cressida was almost tempted to tell him, but thought of the unnatural gleam that would come into his large myopic eyes, and refrained. No, she couldn’t let Dawson gloat over her misfortunes. But it hadn’t been Arabia who had sent the death notice. She couldn’t convince herself that Arabia was guilty.

From a rumba to a requiem…What was the meaning of that significant look in Mr. Moretti’s eyes? Was he just ogling her, as he shamelessly ogled Miss Glory? Was Dawson right in warning her against him?

Or was Jeremy, who, after all, was the only one who knew of her secret activities, the scapegoat.

The day remained grey and cold, and even Mr. Mullins’s habitual cheerfulness failed to make Cressida feel happy. She should be home with Tom, she should have listened to him and given up her ambitious ideas of independence. She could still go home to Tom and tell herself it was nonsense to imagine that she was chained because of a wistful lonely look in Arabia’s eyes, and because the unfinished story of a dead girl challenged her.

“Is he making you unhappy already?” Mr. Mullins teased.

“Who?”

“Mr. Winter, of course.”

“Mr. Winter couldn’t interest me less.”

Mr. Mullins gave his gentle knowing smile. Cressida’s depression deepened, and with it her anger against Jeremy grew. Perhaps she had been unfair to him this morning, but even if he hadn’t played that dastardly joke, why was he always dogging her footsteps? She was tired of it. She retired to the back of the shop to go through the accumulation of things in the large Victorian writing-desk which Mr. Mullins had said had been Arabia’s.

Really, Mr. Mullins was a muddler. It was true that he made some brilliant sales, but he didn’t know the half of his stock. Here, in these drawers, were porcelain figures, a Battersea enamel snuffbox, a lustre jug. There were books, too, and silver photograph frames, most of them empty, some showing faded pictures of long-dead people. It was pathetic the way people sold frames without bothering to take the pictures of their dead relatives out first. Who was the soldier in the uniform of the late nineteenth century? And this Victorian wedding group? Here was a much more recent wedding. The bride wore a comparatively modern wedding dress, and the groom didn’t look quite so wooden as some of his predecessors. The photograph was in an elaborate silver frame and on the back was written—No, no!

Cressida dropped the picture as if it were red hot. It clattered on to the floor, and Mr. Mullins came pottering along among the dusty furniture, his pink face enquiring.

“Any damage, my dear? You didn’t break anything?”

“No. I don’t think so. Perhaps the glass—” Cressida was breathless. The photograph had fallen face downwards, and the scrawled words across the back were plainly visible.

“To darling
Mummy,
from Lucy and Larry. With all our love.”

It was Lucy’s wedding photograph. Dead Lucy who had been buried in her ball dress, and clasping a posy of red roses, before her wedding day!

“It’s Lucy,” Mr. Mullins stooped to pick up the photograph. He looked at it consideringly. “She was a pretty girl, but she hasn’t a tenth of her mother’s personality and distinction. You can see it there. Just a nice attractive, ordinary girl. The young man looks a nice ordinary type, too.”

“But she didn’t marry him!” Cressida cried. “She didn’t.”

Mr. Mullins looked at her enquiringly. His eyes were perplexed.

“It shows it there, my dear. Or isn’t that Lucy at all?”

“Yes, it is. It’s the same girl as in the photograph Arabia has. But she didn’t marry Larry, Mr. Mullins. She wrote in her diary ‘Must order flowers’ and it turned out that the flowers were for her funeral instead of her wedding.”

Because Lucy had died in an unnecessary and sordid way, keeping it secret from Larry that she had been going to have another man’s child. That was what Arabia, dry-eyed and harrowed with pain and remorse, had admitted last night, and that was what Cressida had believed.

Yet here was evidence to prove that it had all been a lie.

Then why Arabia’s grief, why the unused baby’s glove, why the unfinished letter with its cry to an unknown lover, “Darling, darling, darling …”?

For here was Lucy happily married.

Suddenly, aware of Mr. Mullins’s interest, Cressida knew that she had been meant to find this photograph. He had not, from loyalty to his old friend Arabia, been going to tell her anything himself, but he had wanted her to have this evidence. It was to warn her against something. Against what? Perhaps Mr. Mullins himself didn’t know. But there it was, the picture of the smiling bride and the tall, undistinguished but honest-looking young groom.

Well, this at least explained why Jeremy had found no record of Lucy’s death. Because at the time of her death she hadn’t been Lucy Bolton at all. She had been Lucy Meredith, Larry’s wife.

Abruptly Cressida began to shiver. She said violently, “Arabia shouldn’t be so careless with her photographs. She can never have meant to leave this in the desk.”

“With Arabia one never knows,” Mr. Mullins said reflectively. “If she perhaps didn’t like the young man or approve of the marriage—”

“But she did! It was the other one she didn’t approve of.”

“The other one?”

Cressida pulled herself up.

“Oh, Mr. Mullins, I’m sorry. I’m getting altogether too obsessed with Lucy. She seems to haunt me. What does it matter to me who she married, or whether she even married at all. She’s dead, and it’s all so long ago. Let’s not show this to Arabia. It will only distress her. Let’s forget all about it.”

“If you think it wise,” said Mr. Mullins.

“Of course it’s wise. Why shouldn’t it be? Why should I let a dead girl interfere in my life like this? I’ll put her back in the dust, where she belongs.”

She hastily pushed the photograph behind a pile of old pictures, unsaleable, and likely to remain unmoved as long as Mr. Mullins had that shop. It was almost as safe as a grave.

But Lucy had no grave…

That was the night footsteps followed Cressida home. The fog, lurking about all day, had deepened, and once out of the well-lighted areas it was impossible to see more than a yard ahead. As Cressida became aware of the persistent footsteps she found herself vainly regretting that she hadn’t accepted Dawson’s offer to see her home at nights. He might not be very prepossessing, nor, indeed, very courageous, but at least he would constitute an escort who would discourage this kind of thing.

Thanks to Dawson, however, she kept thinking of the girl strangled in the red shoes. That had happened not very far from here. Was this footstep, just beyond the reach of her vision in the fog, that of some madman who struck indiscriminately, or did it belong to someone who knew her and where she was going, and was purposely following her in this terrifying way? Dragon House began to seem like a haven of peace and safety. She reached forward in her mind towards the comfortable flat that Arabia had prepared for her, the unknown girl who was to take dead Lucy’s place. It didn’t matter now what odd and humourless pranks were played on her in that house. They were harmless compared to this menace, this
pad, pad, pad
behind her in the fog.

It was in the moment after she had spun round to face her unknown follower, and he had stood there silent and invisible in the fog, that Cressida panicked and ran. Her heart was bursting, her breath coming in great gaps, when at last she reached Dragon House, climbed the slippery marble steps and flung herself inside.

There was no one in the hall, but it was lighted and safe. A little ashamed now of her panic, she made her way to her own rooms. Reassuringly they were the same as she had left them that morning—no letters, no strange disturbing messages, no—Was that the front door opening and closing very softly?

Cressida, in a reflex action, switched off her light and made her way noiselessly to her own door which she had left ajar. In the same moment something sprang at her and she was caught in a tenacious grip round one ankle.

She couldn’t control herself then. She screamed.

And the next moment the light flashed on and there stood Jeremy Winter laughing at her, while Mimosa relinquished his grip on her ankle and bounded away on a skittish game of his own.

“Sorry,” said Jeremy. “Did he frighten you? He gets like this on foggy nights, I don’t know why. Why my dear child, you’re trembling.”

“I thought—some horror—had followed me in out of the fog,” Cressida gasped. “Actually someone did follow me home, and I thought just now I heard the front door open and shut…”

Her voice died away as she saw the moisture on Jeremy’s hair and face. He must have just come in from outdoors himself. Her gaze travelled downwards hypnotically, and she saw on his feet heavy rubber-soled shoes.

“Someone followed you? That was unpleasant.”

“Yes,” said Cressida vaguely, looking at the slight damp marks his shoes had made on the marble floor.

“Well, don’t imagine it was me,” said Jeremy. “I’ve got a cold and haven’t been out all day.” He paused to sneeze violently. “Except just now when I went down to the corner to get
milk
for Mimosa.” He exhibited the bottle of milk with an air of innocence. “Does that give me an alibi?”

“Don’t joke about it!” Cressida said tensely. “It wasn’t funny, and I’m getting a little tired of unfunny jokes.”

“And I,” said Jeremy, “am getting more than a little tired of being under suspicion. When anything unpleasant happens why do you instantly associate me with it? I can tell you, it hurts.”

He looked at her fiercely, his black eyebrows drawn now in a tight line so that his face was changed—it was that of an angry stranger.

“Well, it hurts, too, when people send me notices saying that I am dead. And it isn’t exactly my idea of fun being followed home in a fog.”

“If you would ask for my help instead of accusing me—”

“I don’t want your help,” Cressida cut in hotly. “You only laugh at me, anyway. You think I imagine things. You really think I’m just a simple country girl who might provide you with a little harmless amusement because I’m naïve.”

“Naïve isn’t quite the word I would use.” Jeremy’s anger had vanished as quickly as it had come, and now his eyes had their irritating twinkle of mirth again. “I could think of several more fitting ones.”

“Don’t bother,” said Cressida frigidly. “Don’t waste your valuable time thinking of me at all.”

Jeremy sneezed again and apologised.

“If I hadn’t got this filthy cold I wouldn’t, I’d kiss you instead. No wonder you were followed, you’re much too attractive.”

Then he was gone, before Cressida could think of anything more to say. Mimosa bounded after him, a large orange-coloured shadow, and Cressida was left, now no longer frightened, but suddenly oddly forlorn.