Fair Warning (8 page)

He waited, too, pretending not to watch them. Dr. Blakie smoked. Beatrice stared at the sharp outlines of the thing under the sheet. Marcia sat like a white stone image in a chiffon gown. Once or twice someone spoke, but the presence of the policeman in the most extraordinary way entirely prohibited talk. That and the sheer stunning weight of the thing that could not have happened but had.

And all at once the police came, in a deluge of roaring cars and uniforms and strange men pouring into the house. Men in uniforms, men in plain clothes; men with boxes and bags and clusters of huge silver bulbs like electric bulbs filled with stuff that gleamed like tinfoil. All of it flooding into the hall—through the house—upon them.

But they all seemed to know exactly what to do. It was the more overwhelming because there was no confusion. And in the center of the orderly, matter-of-fact activity was a sort of directing nucleus composed of three men: a fat man with a doctor’s bag and a shining bald head, a thin policeman with bars on his shoulders, and a little dark man, who wore plain clothes, failed to remove his hat, and looked very bored.

The whole thing was extraordinarily real. Marcia didn’t need the moment’s glimpse of a policeman’s picking up a cherry-colored taffeta wrap from the floor near the french doors and looking at it to convince her of its reality. Or the consciousness of the stain on the green ribbon of Beatrice’s gown. Or the pressure of Rob’s hand on her wrist. It was terribly real. It was happening. Police, all over the house. Ivan, on the floor, the cause of it.

The little dark man with the hat on rose from beside Ivan. He jerked his head toward the little cluster across the room.

“Take ’em away,” he said. “I’ll see ’em in a minute. Keep ’em all here. How long has he been dead, Doc?”

They were being taken away. Altogether like prisoners—Verity still clutching her blue train as they went through the hall, into the closed, chill drawing room. And they didn’t talk when they were there, for two policemen followed them and watched them. As they left the library Dr. Blakie was talking to the police doctor and handing him the knife. The police doctor looked at it without expression; took it gingerly in his fingers and wrapped it in a handkerchief and said something to the little dark man with the hat, who looked at it and seemed for an instant less bored. Then Dr. Blakie followed them into the drawing room. And almost immediately they were being questioned. Questioned by policemen; questioned by the little man in the hat, who still did not remove it, although he had pushed it wearily back on his head, further exposing a bored, sallow face with lazily drooping eyelids. His name was Jacob Wait and he was a detective, and the thin policeman at his elbow who kept looking impatiently at his watch was a lieutenant of the police and his name was Davies. Marcia did not know that then, but she was to learn it.

She did hear and remember their names. And she knew that she was afraid of them, or rather of what they represented. But just then, from surfeit of shock, it was only surface things that were sharply and acutely clear to her; it was like seeing the people around her in only one dimension. That one dimension was sharp and bright but had no depth and thickness. She did realize that she must rouse herself, must make herself comprehend the meaning of all this turmoil, this strange, terrifying intrusion—and must try to protect herself. But there was nothing to do but answer any questions they asked. …
Except that Rob had killed him.

And except that Rob had said she must not tell them or anyone that she had touched the knife. But Beatrice knew it; and she hadn’t had time to tell Rob that Beatrice believed she had killed Ivan.

That was shocking. That was dreadful. But it was too shocking, too utterly incredible. It was only one more part of a fantastic whole which happened so you had to accept it and it was real.

Rob seemed to know what was going on; he looked alive and as if he understood what they were doing. Verity, however, was just a flat, blue paper doll, sitting there with a blue train around her feet and her face utterly still and flat, washed of all color. They were all paper dolls; no depth, no meaning, no power of motion. If you turned them around there would be nothing there. Ivan was lying dead in the next room.
Rob had killed him.

“All right, Marcia?” said Rob in a low voice.

“Quite.”

The little man in the hat was talking and she hadn’t known it.

He was talking briefly and very much to the point. Jacob Wait was actually a living apotheosis of the ellipsis in word and thought, mainly because he was very bored and liked to save himself effort. Also he hated murders. There was a small, warm Jewish strain in him which made him very sensitive to pain and very imaginative, so that the sight and smell of murder gave him a sickening wrench which was physical. And an investigation—any investigation—was likely to give him now and then moments of horror when he looked, with that inconvenient sensitiveness, out of the eyes of other people—the people he was pursuing. That was dreadful, and he hated that, too, and thus more than anything he hated those people. He had overlaid that small, warm strain with a great many other things, and he was mainly very bored and knew that the shorter he made the unwelcome job the sooner it would be over. The idea was to get hold of the guy that croaked the guy, see? And be done with it.

Already, it seemed, he knew as much as they knew of Ivan Godden’s death, or, rather, of the circumstances in general surrounding it. He knew their names and their connection with the dead man and with each other. He knew that Mrs. Godden had been alone in the house, except for two servants, when she found Ivan Godden. He knew there had been a dinner party next door and that Verity Copley and Robert Copley and Dr. Blakie had come from there. He was asking about the french doors; the front door was always locked, but what about the french doors? Had anyone unlocked them? They were usually locked, were they not, unless someone had been using them? Well, then, who had unlocked them that night?

“How does he know so much?” thought Marcia. But, of course, he’d been talking to Ancill, who was not in the drawing room with the rest of them. Who had been skillfully and quietly detached. Emma Beek was not there, either. And in the hall as the door had opened there had been a brief glimpse of Verity’s round-faced little housemaid, neat and prim, but crying and wiping her eyes on her apron. Why had they summoned her?

“Did you unlock the french doors, Mrs. Godden?”

Marcia started; Jacob Wait’s eyelids were so low that she had not realized he was addressing her until he said “Mrs. Godden.” Had she unlocked the french doors?

“You mean tonight?”

“Today—tonight, any time since they were last unlocked. Ancill says he locked them as usual last night and did not unlock them during the day.”

“Oh—I can’t think. Yes! Yes, I believe I unlocked them this morning when I—went into the garden.”

“When was that?”

“About—eleven, I think. Before noon.”

“Have they been left unlocked ever since?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Miss Godden?”

Perhaps Beatrice knew what was going on, too. She was sitting very erect and black-browed in a small french armchair and her long fingers were making little green folds on her knees. She did not look up.

“I don’t know, I’m sure. I don’t remember anything about it.”

“Try,” said Jacob Wait.

“It’s a very trivial thing.”

“Nobody came in the front door. Nobody came in the back way. Servants would have known it. Only way left is the french doors. Makes a difference if they were locked. Entrance wasn’t forced, anywhere. If they were unlocked all day, since Mrs. Godden opened them in fact, somebody might have got in. If they were not, somebody had to be let in.” He looked at Beatrice, or seemed to, and said in a weary way, “You came into the room just after Mrs. Godden found the dead man, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” Beatrice’s fingers stopped plaiting, and she said rather quickly, “Of course, I ought to have remembered. I entered the room by the french doors, so they must have been unlocked. I came across the garden way.”

“Why?”

“Because—we were dining at Mrs. Copley’s—”

“Yes, yes, I know. Why’d you return?”

“Mrs. Godden was late. I came to see what had detained her.”

“Did you think anything in particular had detained her?”

Something inside Marcia quivered as if it had been struck sharply with a small whip. That was going to be the way of it; Mrs. Godden alone in the house—what in particular had detained her? Murder?

Beatrice’s pale, long face changed a little and became Ivan’s; except he didn’t look at her with those pale, blank eyes. Beatrice’s own eyes were dark and clouded and wouldn’t look at anyone.

“No. I was a little impatient. One doesn’t like to delay a dinner party.”

“Everyone else was there?”

“I believe so.” Beatrice stopped abruptly, made another fold and said, “Mrs. Copley can tell you.”

He looked too bored to proceed, but Verity was induced to speak.

“Mr. Trench had not arrived,” she said.

“Trench? Who’s that? He’s not here.”

Rob said, “Galway Trench. Lives on the South Side. He’s always late going places.”

“A cousin of Mrs. Godden’s,” said Beatrice, intent on plaiting.

Jacob Wait sat on the edge of a marble-topped table and looked very tired.

“Did you say it was suicide, Doctor?” he said.

“That’s what I said,” admitted Dr. Blakie cautiously, in the voice he reserved for staff meetings.

“Didn’t really think so, did you?”

The doctor looked at his cigarette for a slow second or two; then he said, as if recognizing futility, “No.”

“Why?”

He didn’t want to talk; he was reluctant and refused to range himself on the side of the police.

“It didn’t seem like a suicide,” he said. “No particular reason.”

“Why did you suggest it, then?”

The doctor merely looked at him quietly, and Jacob Wait did not seem to expect a reply.

“Whoever did it,” he said, “had the sense to wipe his fingerprints off the handle of the knife; there had to be a double set of ’em, too, with a knife like that. It took a good hard thrust. But if it
had
been suicide the man’s own fingerprints would have been on it.”

Rob had insisted on wiping off her fingerprints. He had also wiped off any earlier fingerprints—his own? Marcia felt a sick horror. …
Rob, Rob, it puts Ivan between us forever.

She made herself listen.

“Not much use asking if he had any enemies; relatives never tell.” Jacob Wait’s taciturnity hinted at the reasons why relatives never tell. “Room doesn’t seem to have been disturbed, and there’s no evidence of theft. But we can look into that more certainly later; go over things
^;
—in the desk —all that.”

Beatrice interrupted.

“We never keep valuables about the place,” she said. “Never. There was nothing but the flat silver for anybody to steal.”

He put his hands in his pockets and rattled small things—keys and change; he said to Lieutenant Davies, “Bring in the coat,” and looked as if they were keeping him there against his will. As, indeed, was true.

But bring in the coat. What coat? Ivan’s—was he going to show them … Marcia’s heart turned over, for Lieutenant Davies did bring in a coat, only it was a raincoat, and it was Rob’s raincoat, and probably everyone there knew it.

Rob took a quick step forward, and Verity’s eyes were suddenly bright and terrible.

“Your raincoat, Mr. Copley?” said Jacob Wait, rattling change and keys.

“I believe so. Let me look at it.”

“Initials inside the collar,” said Jacob Wait. “Show it to him.”

“Yes, of course, it’s mine,” said Rob coolly enough.

“Why’d you hang it in the closet?”

“I didn’t.”

“I did that,” said Marcia quickly. “This morning. I forgot to return it.”

Jacob Wait said nothing, just looked at her from below those heavy white lids, and Marcia did not heed the little warning gesture of Rob’s hand but rushed into explanation: “I had been at Copley’s; it was raining. I wore that home and hung it in the closet, intending to return it later.”

Jacob Wait probably heard, but there was no evidence of it. He said to Rob, “You were at the front gate talking to Mrs. Godden at about ten minutes to seven. At seven o’clock a man in a raincoat was seen in the garden, at the east of the house; just outside the french windows. A few moments later there were men’s voices in the library. This—Ancill passed the door; it was closed, but he heard the voices. He is under a strong impression that the caller was you, Mr. Copley.”

Rob.

Great fingers seized on Marcia’s heart and hurt. And it was then that she remembered.

Rob’s letter to her was in the cupboard of the library.

R
OB HIMSELF REMAINED COOL.

But he didn’t know about the letter. That terribly incriminating letter, now, furnishing—what was it that was so important?—the motive. There always had to be a motive. Probably nobody ever killed anybody just for the killing—or did they?

“I was not that caller,” Rob said simply and with convincing coolness. “I saw Mrs. Godden a moment at the front gate, yes. I was passing and stopped to speak to her. But I was not in the garden later, and I was not in the library talking to Ivan Godden. If Ancill heard voices, it was someone else. Besides, the raincoat is perfectly dry. If I had worn it in the garden tonight it would be damp.”

“You went right home after you saw Mrs. Godden—that would be about a quarter to seven.”

“No,” said Rob quickly. A little too quickly, as if that promptness were forced. “No. I went for a short walk. Got home just in time to dress for dinner.”

Jacob Wait got off the table and without a word or a look simply walked out of the room.

The lieutenant followed, and the door closed.

It was unexpected and it was unpleasant. It left them with no conclusion, with no hint at all as to his intentions, or thoughts, or purposes.

For a moment no one moved, as there was a feeling that he would open the door and return to resume his questions and come eventually to a sort of stopping place.