Murder of a Snob (13 page)

“I must beg a moment's attention!” boomed Querk.

“Look here, Querk! Claudia never mentioned Casa Flavia. How could it have been written down by uncle?”

“We do not know. We are not interested!” Querk's words held the finality of a Royal dismissal. “We can safely leave such questions to be answered by the police—if indeed they are worth the answering. The intervention of amateur investigators can but hinder them in their task. I may claim without boasting that I myself am not wholly unversed in the principles of scientific detection. I can assure you that Miss Lofting is in no danger.

“In the first instance, a purely theoretical suspicion is directed against the three of us. Against two of us—Miss Lofting and yourself—suspicion is supported by an extremely strong motive—but by nothing else. You, Ralph, are known to have been out in your car at the essential time; Miss Lofting, it is true could conceivably have entered the study after I had left it. That truth does not place Miss Lofting in peril of arrest unless and until the police can prove that in fact she did so enter the study. This, I happen to know, they are not even attempting to prove.

“If you cannot restrain yourself, my dear fellow, from thinking of this tragedy in terms of innocent persons being accused—what about, I ask you,
myself
! I am known to have been alone with the deceased within a few minutes of his being killed. I am betraying no confidence when I tell you that the Chief Constable called upon me—in fun, of course!—to clear myself. I was compelled to admit, in effect, that I was unable to do so. In the spirit of the joke, I added that, if I were in his position, I would certainly regard myself with grave suspicion. I can safely say that I have never heard a man laugh more heartily.”

Ralph was trying to speak, but was drowned in the tidal wave.

“And now, Ralph, old man, I feel sure you will give earnest thought to what I have said. We must have another little chat tomorrow. Little by little, step by step, we will together sweep away the cobwebs, eh, Miss Lofting? Thank you for a most enjoyable tea.”

“I shan't play!” shouted Ralph. “The Casa Flavia business makes it too dangerous. Whenever the police come near me, I shall tell them what I told them last night.”

The door was opened and shut behind Querk. Benscombe could hear him padding contentedly along the corridor to the staircase. Three stairs taken at leisure, to the long window at the landing. The footsteps died as Querk continued his descent.

“Isn't he ghastly!” This from Claudia. “And the most ghastly thing about him is that he's always right.”

No answer from Ralph. The tinkle of crockery again. Claudia, Benscombe judged, was packing the tea things on the tray. He would slip out while she was taking the tray downstairs.

“Please stop fiddling with that tray!”

“I'll take it downstairs and out of the way.”

“Wait a bit. Please wait.”

The tray was set down.

“Claudia! The hallucination theory is nonsense. But it is true that I don't remember clearly all that happened. It's nothing to do with my particular brain. People who've been in accidents and air raids and the like very rarely remember exactly what happened. Part of it is vivid—but part is blurred. And there's a gap. It's the gap that's making me ill.”

“Then let's talk about it, dear. We may be able to fill it in together.”

“We've got to talk about it. But first I want to talk about you. There's something I've never told you.” There was another long pause and then: “The night I first met you—when I got home, I tried to gas myself. I mugged it.”

Inwardly Benscombe squirmed. This, apparently, was not going to have anything to do with the assignment. He had no taste for eavesdropping on a lover's confidences.

Ralph was explaining.

“It wasn't a thought-out act—it was a reaction. We danced, didn't we! Dancing always bored me, but it didn't that night. I remembered only a second or so of it, in which I was aware of your body close to mine. It didn't make me want to make love to you. I can only say that it made me feel I had suddenly become myself—and a jolly decent self too!

“I suppose we talked the usual tosh to each other that night. But the way you talked—linked on. I felt that, living with you, I could sort of take hold of life. And that I never could without you. I didn't want to go on rotting about in the old way. So I thought I might as well chuck living, as you obviously wouldn't want a one-sided arrangement like that.”

“It wasn't a one-sided arrangement. And I did want it. And I do!”

“Soon you and I got together. In my mind, we went on from the point I had reached that first night while dancing. Meaning I didn't want to live without you. That's all!”

Silence. Benscombe supposed that Ralph was collecting his thoughts. But the silence continued until Claudia prompted:

“Well, dear? You were going to tell me about the gap.”

“Uncle said that if I married you there would be no money. To me that didn't matter much, at first. But when you pointed out that poverty would change us both—that you wouldn't be you—I panicked. I don't remember much of what we talked about in the garden, but I do remember struggling all the time with a desire to go and smash Uncle Sam to bits. For killing you—the real you. You had changed already, and you weren't in love with me any more. Uncle had pushed me back where I was when I tried to gas myself. So I went berserk and killed him.”

Another long silence.

“Yes, Ralph? We've agreed to label it ‘the hallucination.' What about the gap?”

There was no answer. A minute or more passed. Then a sound that told Benscombe that Claudia must have been sitting on the bed.

“You're tired, old man. We'd better not go on talking. It's nearly time for your medicine. You might as well take it now.”

A cork being drawn, a clink and a guggle. Then Ralph speaking as if there had been no interval.

“In my presence, that Chief Constable opened the Will. It was in an envelope exactly like the one Uncle used. It was sealed with his signet ring. The police gave me the envelope before they opened it. I held it in my hand. I thought it couldn't be the Will because the envelope didn't bulge. But it
was
the Will.”

Another stop. Another prompting from Claudia.

“Yes, Ralph? Colonel Crisp opened the envelope. There's no gap there, is there?”

“The gap is—I don't think I can go on with it, Claudia.”

“Try, darling! It would be so much better for you to drag it all out into the light of day.” Benscombe felt the tenderness in her voice, a strange tenderness that was yet hardly that of a lover. “The gap is—?”

“The gap is that I don't remember taking your letters out of that envelope. And destroying them. And putting the Will in another envelope. And sealing it with Uncle's ring after he was dead. As I see it, I wouldn't have had time. I was out of the library when that clock struck a quarter past.”

“But why do you suppose you did all that? I mean, why do you want to ‘remember' that you did it?”

“Because someone did it. That means there must be this gap in my memory. Although it seemed hours to me. I've worked out that I couldn't have been in that room for more than a minute or so.”

“That's reasonable. I'll ask Colonel Crisp—”

“No-
no
!” A shrill shout that was almost a scream. “I don't want it proved. Leave it alone. D'you hear! I wish you hadn't made me tell you. I was a weak fool to tell you!”

“What are you afraid of?”

“Leave it alone! I want my medicine. You poured it out. Give it to me.”

“Ralph, you must tell me what you're afraid of!”

“I can't talk any more,” he whined. “You don't know how tired I am. My head aches.”

“Dear, what are you afraid of? … Tell me … Tell me what you are afraid of.”

The answer came as if gasped out under an anaesthetic.

“If I did not tamper with those envelopes—
you did
!”

“Oh Ralph! I come into the room, find him dead, take the letters and seal the Will up again with his seal, How could I get at the signet ring? And if I could—it's all rather tooth-and-clawish, isn't it? D'you really think I'm like that?”

“I don't know—I don't know anything about you! I don't know what you've done—or what you might do!”

The next moment, Benscombe felt acute discomfort. Never before had he heard an adult man crying like a forlorn child. He could not endure the sound of Claudia comforting him. Policeman or not, he thrust his hands over his ears.

Presently Claudia began to speak rationally and Benscombe listened.

“When we danced we were—like this—werent we!
Now
—don't you feel you're becoming yourself again—‘and a jolly decent self too!'”

“No—not any more. Everything's changed.” His voice was tear laden. “You've been kind to me. But you don't feel as I thought you felt. I've no grievance against you. It was I who fooled myself.”

“That's another hallucination, darling. Now listen. Tomorrow, I'm going to give notice at the registrar's and we'll be married to-morrow week. You'll find that I do love you and that it's worth while going on living.” She repeated: “To-morrow week. That will be lovely, won't it?”

“Yes, Claudia.” To Benscombe, the assent sounded mechanical and meaningless.

“And once we're married you won't be worried by those awful little thoughts about me. Murders and tamperings and not loving you and heaven knows what else, darling. Now you simply must rest … I'll get your medicine.

“Here it is. Shall I steady the glass, or can you manage by yourself? … Those letters that have upset you! I believe your uncle destroyed them himself and put the Will in a new envelope and sealed it up. He quite changed his mind about me, you know. But don't worry about that now. Try to go to sleep and think of tomorrow week.”

She picked up the tray and left the room. Benscombe could hear her firm, clear-cut footsteps along the corridor. Three stairs down to the landing.

Through the long window at the landing, Claudia caught sight of Querk in the garden. She set the tray on the window sill and watched him, with profound mistrust. But his behaviour in the garden, she was compelled to admit, was merely that of an elderly man sunning himself.

She heard a faint movement in the corridor behind her. She turned and saw Benscombe coming out of the room next to Ralph's.

As Benscombe completed his elaborate precautions for silence, he caught sight of Claudia on the half-landing, watching him.

He felt like a village constable in a comedy—hoped she would have the tact to pick up the tray and move on. Instead, she waited for him—intending, he supposed, to find out how much he had overheard. Girls like that, with their nerve and their lucky appearance, tended to think that men were easily managed. She could try it on if she liked!

As he drew level with her on the landing, she gave him a half smile of recognition. Her first words outflanked his defences as an official.

“It must have been rotten for you!” she said.

“It was!” he agreed, too fervently. “And it's rotten being found out.”

“I shan't tell anybody. In fact I hope it won't be necessary for you to let Ralph know the police were listening.”

“That's a matter for the Chief Constable. I'll put your request before him.” To himself he sounded stuffily formal, but she seemed not to notice.

“Thank you—I hoped you would! You see how obsessed Ralph is. In his poor, overwrought brain he thinks he's running a campaign to protect the police from themselves. Suppressing this bit and lying about that bit. If he feels he has given damaging evidence against me over that envelope business, I'm afraid he'll become very ill indeed.”

“D'you mean insane?”

She smiled sadly.

“He is perfectly sane. But he's in a low state of nervous health—he was, before this dreadful thing happened. Like most people in that state, he is subject to the suicide impulse. That's why I'm going to marry him at once.”

“A sticky job for you!” he ejaculated. “As to what I've overheard—well, I'm about as junior as it's possible to be and I can only promise to do my best.”

“And I'll do my best for you—now! If there's anything we said which you didn't hear properly or didn't follow, I'll fill in the blank. Ask me anything you like.”

Direct questioning of so important a witness was a job for the high-ups. But this was an opportunity too good to be missed.

“Did Watlington put those letters of yours in the envelope with his Will? You seemed to agree with Ralph that he did.”

“He may have. All that time, my attention was on Ralph. I told Colonel Crisp all I could remember, except the name of the man to whom I had written. And now you know it, I expect?”

“No,” lied Benscombe, and thought that she believed him.

“I wanted to keep him out of it for his sake, but I can't take care of two men at once. I must throw him to the lions to save Ralph … Arthur Fenchurch, the artist. But you knew it! You looked surprised because I didn't invent a name.”

“We had a finger pointing that way,” he admitted, “but we needed a check-up.”

“Any more check-ups?”

“That hallucination! Why do you believe Querk's story? And not believe Ralph's?”

It was almost a chance question, but it fired a hidden charge. For an instant he saw her as Arthur Fenchurch had seen her—her body hard as armour, her eyes raking him with fierce contempt. ‘
O madre mia!
' He was beginning to see what Fenchurch meant.

“The action taken by the Chief Constable convinced me.” She had relaxed, which only meant that she was on guard. “I suppose that's not a fair answer. I would have felt the same, even if the police had believed that absurd confession. I know how ill Ralph is. He hasn't enough—well, moral pluck—to kill a man, however much he might want to.”