Dorothy Eden (47 page)

“No!”

“Then shall we take a look at your supply of lipsticks and cosmetics?”

“Drawers full,” muttered the old woman, tapping her stick. “Ridiculous vanity at your age, Maud.”

“You felt worried about my wife,” went on Luke. “You are a nice person fundamentally. I’m sure you’d never willingly be involved in murder.”

Maud Court’s eyes were dragged back to Luke’s.

“It isn’t true! They wouldn’t go that far.”

“You know they’re ruthless.”

She nodded unwillingly.

“Who knows, you could be the next. If they find out you warned Abby.”

“I had to. I didn’t trust that Reg.”

“The man upstairs?” said Abby swiftly. “The man who threatened me.”

The woman nodded. “He’s bad. He’d do anything. I wanted to get out of it myself, but you see—” Unconsciously she rubbed her arm up and down. Her face had crumpled. “I can’t,” she said despairingly.

“There are cures,” said Luke, still in his kind voice. “Don’t give up. But tell us who Rose Bay is. If you don’t, we’ll find out some other way, but it might be too late for one of us. It’s too late for my brother.”

Slow comprehension came to Maud Court’s eyes. They filled with tears which ran down her cheeks. She sobbed helplessly.

“I’ve been so unhappy. I’ve hated it. Caught in a net—I can’t tell you who Rose Bay is. I can only tell you the number I ring. They take messages. I’ll write it down for you.”

With a violently shaking hand she wrote the number on the telephone pad, and handed it to Luke.

Luke said quietly, “Thank you, Miss Court. There’s no use telling you there won’t be trouble, because there will. But I’ll do my best to see you get off lightly.”

He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. The old lady in the chair peered with sudden sharp interest.

“Come, Abby,” said Luke. “We’ve done all we can here.”

Out in the car he said, “It’s the Moffatts’ number. You knew it would be, didn’t you?”

“So we’ve still only got the go-between,” said Abby disappointedly. “Unless it’s Mrs. Moffatt. She looks sly enough sometimes. Or Lola.”

“Neither of them has been away during the last six months. Nor has Mary, though it would be fantastic to think of Mary. Rose Bay has been abroad in that time. So where are we?”

“There’s only Milton left,” said Abby reflectively. “And he’s a cripple. Without his chair he’s helpless.” She was thinking of Deirdre’s heartless prank, wheeling the chair away and leaving him marooned in the toilet. But Deirdre had said…

“Luke, what hospital does Milton go to?”

“I don’t know. He’s secretive about that. Refuses to have visitors while he’s there. Sour brute.”

“Luke, I’ve an idea. Persuade Milton to let you drive him to the hospital this afternoon instead of Mary.”

“Is that any use?”

“He won’t let you, of course. But keep on insisting. Make him lose his temper.”

“Shouldn’t be difficult. What are you getting at?”

“Deirdre said the chair was full of cushions. That was just after I saw Mary wheeling it down the road. As if,” her words came very slowly, “as if I were meant to think Milton was in it, when he wasn’t.”

She had gone white.

“Do you know, it’s terribly important that we find Deirdre very quickly!”

I
N SPITE OF THEIR
haste, Luke stopped at his office to make some telephone calls. He said they were urgent and couldn’t be made from a public call box. Abby had to contain her impatience, and make conversation with Miss Atkinson.

“How’s your mother?” she asked automatically.

“Not too bad at all, thank you, Mrs. Fearon. We’ve just got a television and she loves it. One thing I must say for her, there’s nothing wrong with her brain. She’s as bright as someone half her age.”

Different from another mother and daughter, Abby thought. Maud Court hadn’t adjusted herself so well to her lot. But her mother was senile. Among other reasons, that could be one that had caused her to take to drugs. Poor Maud, caught between her conscience and her overmastering desire…

“I believe you had a lovely week-end, Mrs. Fearon,” Miss Atkinson went on brightly. “What did you think of the outback?”

“I think it’s very impressive.”

“Impressive, yes. But how people living there survive!”

Abby repressed a wry laugh. Luke appeared, looking brisk and efficient.

“We’re off now, Miss Atkinson. Try to keep everyone happy. I’ll be back to normal tomorrow. Abby and I have urgent things to do today.”

Miss Atkinson looked put-out and peevish as they hurried off. She returned to her typewriter with bored indifference.

“In spite of the excitement,” Abby murmured, “that week-end was better than it would have been spent with Miss Atkinson and Mother watching television. Do let’s hurry, Luke.”

To her surprise he said nonchalantly, “We’ll lunch first.”

“Lunch!”

“Don’t be so impatient. I wasn’t wasting my time on the telephone. Milton’s due to leave for the hospital about two thirty. I want to arrive just as he’s ready. Dressed and with his bag packed.”

“But Deirdre?”

“I know. It can’t be helped.” Luke’s face was intensely worried. “But I think we can work on the assumption that if anything has happened to her it’s happened by now. The next two hours won’t be crucial.”

“You mean—in the night or early morning?”

Luke pressed her hand.

“You’re being too imaginative. She’s just been parked somewhere where her tongue can’t run away with her. With her father, probably. That’s what I believe. So let’s have some coffee or a drink, anyway, if you don’t want to eat. And you can tell me more about the day you thought you saw Mary pushing Milton. It was the day we were burgled, wasn’t it?”

They talked of this and other things. Abby smoked several cigarettes and managed to eat a sandwich with her coffee. The waiting seemed interminable. But where her intuition had carried them a long way, now Luke’s cool common sense prevailed.

They planned their approach to the Moffatts. When at last they stopped outside the old gray house, lizard-colored in the sun, they were both outwardly quite calm.

Someone had been watching, as usual, for the door opened before Luke had rung the bell.

Mary, dressed in a linen suit and looking even more pale and nervous than ever, appeared.

“Goodness, Luke, aren’t you at work? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing at all except my bad manners. Abby has pointed out that I should have offered to drive Milton to the hospital, so I’ve come home specially.”

“And I’ll collect Deirdre from school,” Abby added. “I should have remembered that this morning, too.”

Mary backed away, half closing the door.

“There’s no need, really. Milton always prefers me to take him. Actually he insists. He hates a fuss. You know that. And Deirdre—”

“Abby, is that you? Abby, do you know what has happened? Oh dear, it’s been such a shock.” Mrs. Moffatt was hurrying down the stairs with a ghostly tinkle of beads, and a flip flop of her bedroom slippers. “Lola’s taken Deirdre to boarding-school. Without saying a word to any of us. It seems she’d made arrangements some time ago, and thought she’d just do it like this to avoid a scene. You know how Lola and Milton both hate scenes. Not that Deirdre would have made one. She’s not a coward, bless her. And now with Milton going off to hospital the house is going to be so quiet. It’s terrible.”

“Shut up, Mother,” came Milton’s voice curtly. “You know who’d have made the scene about Deirdre’s boarding-school. You.”

He had wheeled his chair into the hall. He was dressed in a dark gray suit with a discreet dark tie. From the waist up he looked like a successful business man, Abby thought, one of the kind who were driven to the city by their chauffeurs or caught jet airliners. A rug covered his legs.

“I’ve been saying for weeks that Deirdre must go to boarding-school,” he went on. “She was completely out of hand. There’s nothing to make a song and dance about now she’s gone.”

His full, gray eyes rested on Abby. “Deirdre doesn’t want sentiment. She doesn’t understand it.”

“What have you done with her?” Abby asked, very softly.

She felt Luke’s restraining hand on her arm. Mrs. Moffatt broke in eagerly.

“She is at a boarding-school, Abby. She really is. At least—”

“And I’m giving you a lift to the hospital, Milton,” said Luke. “I won’t take a refusal. I apologize for not offering sooner. Which hospital is it?”

“I told you I prefer my wife to take me.” Belatedly Milton added in a clipped voice, “Thanks.”

Mary came forward.

“I always do, Luke. Milton really does prefer it. He hates other people seeing him helpless.”

“But not me,” said Luke. “I’m not other people. I’m someone who’s been in and out of your house for months. Sure, you come along, Mary, and give me directions. Do we take the chair?”

“But of course.” Mary’s huge, frightened eyes sought her husband’s. “We can’t manage without. He has to be lifted—” Her voice died away as she watched Luke cross the hall to stand behind Milton’s chair, ready to push it.

Milton twisted round. There was a strange, violent look in his eyes.

“Take your hands off that chair! I’ve told you I won’t be fussed over. Isn’t it bad enough being helpless!”

“Sorry,” said Luke. He moved away, his hand accidentally catching the rug that covered Milton’s legs. It fell off, disclosing a pair of immaculately trousered legs and polished leather shoes. Luke gave Milton a look of surprise.

“How far are you intending to walk?”

“Damn you, don’t laugh at me!”

“He won’t wear slippers,” Mary protested breathlessly. “He says it’s too much like being an invalid.”

Milton’s face was tight with anger. “You clumsy fool! Can’t you leave me my vanities?”

“Sorry,” said Luke again. He looked at his watch.

“We’d better get moving, you know. I always allow a good hour to Sydney airport. The traffic’s bad at this time of day. I believe the Comet’s due to leave at three-thirty. Right?”

“The Comet!” gasped Mrs. Moffatt.

Luke ignored her.

“I have a feeling that hospital is in Singapore, you know. Let’s take a look at your passport, Milton, and your air ticket. Are they in your breast pocket? After all, if you can’t walk you’re at my mercy, aren’t you? Just as my wife was at yours and your hired killer’s yesterday. Just as my brother was six months ago. Remember? The body in the harbor?”

Milton’s face was gray. His eyes slid this way and that, the trapped lizard, Abby thought fleetingly. He looked beyond Abby, and that was when the strong, commanding voice came,

“Get out! Hurry! Get out!”

Taken by surprise, Abby turned to see Mary, her chin up, her deep, dark eyes smouldering. In the same moment Milton was out of the chair, sending it hurtling towards Luke as he leapt. Thrusting Abby and Mrs. Moffatt out of his way he made swiftly for the open door.

“Stop him!” Abby gasped, but her voice made no sound.

Surprisingly, Luke didn’t move. He stood watching in an almost leisurely way. Watching not only Milton’s flight but Mary’s ashen, furious face, full of power.

Then another voice came from outside, old Jock’s laconic drawl.

“I wouldn’t try that, mate. You might get hurt.”

Old Jock who called everyone mate and threatened to shoot them in the back! For there he was, surprisingly erect and athletic, in a khaki shirt and trousers, holding a gun with careless efficiency.

Milton halted. A look of astonishment came over his face.

“You!” he exclaimed in disbelief. “You scrounger!”

Jock grinned. “That’s me. Been keeping an eye on you with Mr. Fearon here.” He nodded towards Luke.

“You’d be as well to come quiet. We’ve some more friends arriving.”

Abby watched dazedly as two uniformed police got out of a car and came towards Milton, the big, powerful man in the discreet gray suit so suitable for travelling.

It was then that Mary screamed and sank into a chair, covering her face.

“Oh, my goodness!” whispered Mrs. Moffatt. She tugged at her beads so frantically that they broke. In the silence following Mary’s scream there was only the fragile tinkle of beads falling on the mosaic floor. A much more delicate sound than that of the footsteps Deirdre had heard in the night—the footsteps of an energetic, restless man confined all day to a chair and at the mercy of his greedy, dominating, megalomaniac wife.

“It was my fault,” said Abby, almost apologetically to Mrs. Moffatt. “Deirdre told me about the cushions and rug made to look like someone in the chair. So that you could wheel an empty chair, Mary, and Milton could burgle Luke’s and my house, trying to find a dangerous lipstick that had already been destroyed. Your psychology wasn’t so good, after all. Did you think my husband would let me use another woman’s lipstick?”

Mary lifted her wild face.

“Deirdre!” she exclaimed in tones of hate.

“Where is she?” Abby shook Mary’s shoulder. “Where is she?”

“Where she deserves to be, the little devil!” Her eyes smouldered with fury. “She’s responsible for this. She’s broken down all that I’ve spent so long building up. In another few months Milton and I would have had enough money to go away, live anywhere. But now—” she beat her fists on the chair “when am I going to see my husband again?”

“Quite soon,” said Luke reassuringly. “Sooner than you want to, probably, Rose Bay.”

Mrs. Moffatt gave a great gasp.

“But you’re wrong, Luke! That woman’s in Singapore. I know. She looks after us.”

Then she looked intensely guilty, and Luke had to say comfortingly, “We know all about that, Mrs. Moffatt. But she isn’t in Singapore, you know. It’s only her husband who travels—when he isn’t masquerading as a cripple. Come along, Mary. You’re wanted.”

Fascinatedly Abby watched her stand erect. She saw her walk slowly and fatalistically towards the waiting police, her pale face a mask, only her eyes burning with all her perpetually untold feelings.

“Never trust the quiet ones,” said Luke. “They blow up some time.” He looked very tired as he turned to Abby and Mrs. Moffatt. “We’d better go home and have some tea. Come along, Mrs. Moffatt. Never mind your beads. They can be mended. Luckily some things can.”