So Bad a Death (38 page)

Then I became conscious of being held from behind. Yvonne's eyes were over my shoulder. Her mouth had fallen open awry but no sound came from it. I struggled in the grasp of someone who had stepped from behind the door to hold me. I wanted to explain about the two minutes that must be passing. Before I could open my mouth to plead for release a hand came firmly down across my jaw. I saw John's face over my shoulder. It was hard and pale and a line of sweat was gathered on his upper lip as he struggled to hold me still.

I put all the pleading I could into my eyes. Didn't he know that our son's life was in jeopardy? If only he would release his cruel grip on my jaw. Was he willing to stand by and risk Tony's life? His eyes
were not those of Tony's father. They belonged to some cruel relentless stranger. I hated John in that moment. He was killing my child. Tony was all mine then. John had no claim on him.

There was no word spoken although I made desperate imploring noises in my throat. My strength was ebbing quickly under the sheer brute force John was exerting. I knew it was nearly all up with me. When the shot sounded I gave one jerk and then fell completely limp against him. I was still conscious but everything was dark and thick. I knew just one thing. The two minutes had passed. Harriet Ames had carried out her threat.

John removed his hand and picked me up in his arms. As he carried me down the passage I gazed at his averted face with a dull loathing. I did not know where he was taking me. I did not care. I said “Tony,” over and over.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I

My memory of that night when John made his arrests is still confused. But I do recall feeling resentful when John slapped my face as I laughed to hear Tony crying for me. Then he dried my eyes with his own handkerchief and went out of the room. The next and last coherent thought I had was when Doctor Trefont was pinching my arm. I asked him why he wanted a blood test from me. I was going to be shot, not poisoned. His gentle laugh accompanied me into a deep sleep.

When I awoke the following morning John had gone. I lay there thinking what it was I wanted urgently to tell him. My head was heavy and my body felt bruised. A knock sounded at the door and Yvonne Holland came in bearing a tray.

“Hullo,” I said, struggling to sit up. “Great hostess I am. Are the children all right?”

Yvonne put the tray on my knee. “Daisy Potts-Power has taken them out for a walk. She was so anxious to do something. You are to stay in bed until the doctor comes.”

She gave me a timid look, scared lest she had given me an opening on a forbidden subject. I shuddered at the fried egg, covering it up hastily, and poured out some black coffee.

Yvonne wandered around the room arranging chrysanthemums Daisy had left.

“Get me a cigarette, like a dear girl,” I requested. She glanced at me doubtfully.

“If you don't,” I said, flinging off the bedclothes in a threatening fashion, “I'll get up and find one myself.”

The look of doubt was joined by a weak smile as she searched for my case.

I took a deep inhalation. It made my head sing.

“Sit down,” I ordered. “And don't look apprehensive, Yvonne! It makes me irritable. All I want you to tell me is what happened last night. No more, no less. I'll get someone else to fill in the gaps. You won't get into a row from telling me that much, will you?”

Her hand fiddled with her waistband in her old habit.

“Doctor Trefont said—” she began.

I interrupted her by wiping the doctor out of the conversation in one short sentence.

“Your husband,” Yvonne tried again.

“Quite another matter,” I said. “If only John would stick around for a while, I would soon find out everything. Come on, now. What happened?”

Her hand fell away from her belt and began to trace a pattern on the arm of the chair. I considered it a hopeful sign and waited patiently.

“It was all rather confusing,” said Yvonne. “I didn't know quite what was happening. I still don't know why you wanted me to hit that leather chair with the riding crop.”

“An old trick of noises off. The sound came over the extension like a gunshot. When we found that bullet in the sandpit, I wondered if it might have something to do with the shot I heard the night Mr Holland was killed. I was looking around trying to figure out where it was fired from when I saw a tiny casement window. It juts out from the study directly in line with where we were sitting that afternoon. Then I remembered that John's desk was very near that window, and on John's desk was the telephone. The combination of the shot and the telephone made me remember more important details. That I had been standing near the switchboard at the Hall and had been the only one to hear the shot clearly. In fact, people seemed to infer I had been hearing things. Also, that the keys of the Dower and the Hall on the board were connected.

“And speaking of Tony, I don't know if it was sheer coincidence or whether he is the remarkable child every mother imagines her son to be, but the following morning he imitated the sound. He must have awakened when Mrs Ames fired her gun through the study window.

“That same shot, which I heard over the extension, was to be passed off as the one that killed your father-in-law. The killer had an alibi for that time. Actually James Holland was murdered at least an hour earlier. That,” I finished with a sidelong glance, “should clear up any doubts you had about Alan Braithwaite.”

Yvonne flushed and said uncertainly: “I never thought for one moment—”

“Didn't you? Go on with what happened.”

“Well,” she continued, “after you rang off from the Hall I went back to the children.”

“Was Cornell still there?” I demanded, stubbing out my cigarette and making no pretence about having enjoyed it.

“Oh, yes. He remained on the porch until the call came for him.”

“What call?”

Yvonne wrinkled her brow. “That's just what I don't quite understand. Someone rang. He wanted to speak to Mr Cornell. I went out to get him. Then I went and brought the children in. It was getting late and Tony was asking for his tea. When I looked out the kitchen door there was no sign of Cornell—I didn't know where he had gone.”

“On his wild-goose chase. Mrs Ames said she had arranged for his removal.”

“And yet,” Yvonne suggested, “he was there when Mrs Ames was arrested.”

“Cornell is evidently too old a hand at his game to be put off by a false telephone call,” I said. “Go on with your part. Did Tony wonder where I was?”

“He asked for you once or twice. He really started me getting worried about you. You were away such a long time and it was getting dark. I got Tony undressed and put him into his cot, but he wouldn't go to sleep until he saw you or his father. Then after feeding Jimmy I put them in the same bed together. By the time they
had gone to sleep I was terribly nervous. I didn't know what to do. It was so late and I was by myself. I nearly screamed when your husband came in quietly by the back door. He apologized for giving me such a fright, but he had not wished to be seen. He didn't ask where you were, which I thought rather odd. I wanted to tell him but he stopped me. He told me what he wanted me to do.”

“And what was that?”

“I was to move about the house quite normally and to answer the door and any phone rings as if nothing had happened. Your husband kept out of sight somewhere. Tony wasn't to know he had arrived home. Then you came. I was terrified when you rang the bell and started thumping on the door. Then you looked so queer. I couldn't understand why you struggled with your husband.”

“Mrs Ames said she would shoot Tony if I was any longer than two minutes in opening the back door. She was standing outside the nursery window with a gun ready in her hand.”

Yvonne was very pale. “They were coming to kill us, weren't they? Your husband told me later.”

I nodded. “I was in for it too. I knew too much. As long as I could swear to the time of that shot over the phone without realising how I heard it, I was safe. But I became too curious. I was to be removed along with you and Jimmy.”

“Inspector Matheson told me their plan was to use Nurse Stone as the scapegoat. She drank, you know. She was terribly jealous of anyone who interfered with Jimmy.”

“Don't I know it!” I said ruefully. “I mistook her for my true enemy. She gave me a nasty moment or two in the wood. I thought she was after my blood then. But how was Nurse Stone to be saddled with the deaths of the three of us?”

“I think the idea was that she killed us in a fit of drunken jealousy.”

“Easy enough to plant some incriminating evidence on a tipsy woman,” I remarked thoughtfully. “It might have worked. I wonder if she was to be blamed for your father-in-law's death after the abortive attempt to give Cruikshank that role?”

Safe and cared for in my own house, I could now view Mrs Ames' plan in a detached fashion.

So much for the final scene. I did not pump Yvonne for any further information. Just then I did not consider it necessary. I thought I knew who had done the actual killing, the murders of Holland and Cruikshank; who was the brilliant organizer of the whole affair. The partner to whom Mrs Ames had referred without actually mentioning a name. All I wanted to do was to fill in the gaps and make the whole picture complete in every detail.

II

Another piece of the jigsaw puzzle was supplied that very morning when Sister Heather called. She was followed by Doctor Trefont himself. My rude health left him rather at a loss for something to say. As Connie Bellamy had warned me, he had no bedside manner. He did not indulge in any of the usual time-passing tricks of his trade such as pulse-taking or respiration. Some medicos test your heart if you complain of a pain in your big toe. We exchanged pleasantries for a while, but I seized the opportunity when he began to talk of the trouble he was having with his car.

“Backfiring again, doctor?” I asked slyly. He looked blank a moment before he read the reason for my significant tone.

“I fear I owe you an apology,” I went on. “I didn't trust you. But it was your own fault, or perhaps I should have said your car's. If you hadn't admitted being in the vicinity of the Hall the night Mr Holland was killed, I would never have had the slightest doubts about your integrity. On top of that admission, you and Sister Heather seemed to be playing a too discreet game with me.”

Sister Heather gave me her gentle smile. “It wasn't so much that we were being discreet, Mrs Matheson. Unfortunately, our part of the game, as you term it, was being played in the dark.”

I said to the doctor: “You suspected someone wanting to harm the Holland baby. Wasn't that person Mrs Ames?”

He nodded: “It was. But suspicion and proof are poles apart.”

“My fault,” said Sister Heather. “I couldn't give Doctor Trefont more help than an odd notion I had got into my head. I have a
very good memory for faces and people's characteristics. When Mrs Ames called for the first and only time at the Centre, I was struck by a sharp memory of an obstetric case I had once attended. I was only a probationer at the time, but it had always stuck in the back of my mind. It happened years ago at a Bush Nursing Hospital. A woman was brought in late one night in labour. It was the first delivery I had witnessed. I remember the child was a girl. Although as I have said I was only training and therefore on the lowest rung of a nursing career, the doctor and midwife called me over to see the child. The poor little thing had a terrible birthmark on one cheek.”

“Where was this hospital?”

Sister Heather told me the name of the town. I recalled it at once. It was one of the many outlying towns Mr Holland had visited during the last few days before his death.

“Do you remember the mother's name?” I asked Sister Heather.

“Not specifically. It was Smith or Jones or one of those similar names, so obviously assumed. I learned, however, that the woman was a bit of a mystery character. She had appeared from nowhere only six months before the baby's birth and taken a house in the town. No-one knew who she was or where she came from. She lived very quietly. Although she was friendly enough, it was impossible to get her to unbend about herself. Of course there was a bit of talk after the baby arrived, but she didn't seem to care. However, it all came out after her death a few years later that her morals were quite in order and that the baby had no stigma on its name.”

“These small towns!” I said with feeling. “What happened to the child?”

“It was sent away when the mother knew she was dying. I never heard any more about it until—”

“Until the day Harriet Ames walked into the Health Centre,” I supplied.

“That's right. I was interested when she told me where she came from. But she shut up like a clam when I tried to question her further, and never repeated her visit. I got in touch with a friend of those early days. After a length of time and trouble I learned that the mystery woman's real name had turned out to be Holland. I became
troubled. You see, it was just then that the Holland baby started to get sick. I had heard a rumour about Mr Holland and how it was suspected that his wife had left him. It was impossible not to start wondering and worrying what was going on at the Hall. If the Holland baby was to die, it meant that the child Mrs Ames brought for my inspection that day at the Health Centre would be old Mr Holland's heir.