The Brading Collection (16 page)

“Are you quite sure of that?”

“Quite sure.”

“Anyone know about it?”

“I don’t know. Anyone might have known. I can’t say if anyone did—except—”

“Except whom?”

“I was thinking of James Moberly—but that’s just another guess. May I ask what all this is getting at?”

“In a minute. You say you put Brading’s initials on the revolver you gave him. It was one of a pair. Did you put your own initials on the other?”

“No. I should like to know what all this is about.”

“You’re quite sure you put Brading’s initials on the revolver you gave him?”

Charles stood up.

“Is this the moment where I say I won’t answer any more questions unless my solicitor is present?”

March said gravely,

“You are not bound to answer.”

Charles walked to the window, turned there, and came back again.

“Oh, I’ll answer. Of course I’m sure. If you show me the revolver, I’ll show you where I put the initials.”

March said in a completely non-committal voice,

“There are no initials on the revolver with which Brading was shot.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me!”

Stacy was waiting in the hall. She wanted to see Charles—she wanted to see him dreadfully. There was something going on, she didn’t quite know what. Nobody told her anything, but she could feel all the things they were thinking, and it seemed to her that these things were becoming more frightening with every hour that passed. It was like being down below in a ship overtaken by a storm—you couldn’t see anything, you didn’t know what was happening, but you felt the shock of the waves, and you could hear the wind rising. Things had been happening. Myra’s voice had risen and risen behind her closed door, and then fallen suddenly silent. Hester had come out of the room looking like a trampled ghost. Then Lady Minstrell had gone in, and the voice had begun all over again until the walls shook and echoed with it. Across the way in her own room, with two doors and a passage between, Stacy felt as exposed as a leaf in a high wind. And then when the gong sounded for lunch Myra had emerged without a sign of storm or earthquake, her hair curling violently, her eyes sparkling with vitality, her air buoyant, her voice rolling with warm affection as she called to Stacy,

“Bit of a turn-up we’ve been having. I expect you heard it. Always did have a carrying voice. I remember Mosscrop saying I could fill the Albert Hall, and a pity I’d never get the chance. But there it is—it’s given me an appetite for my lunch. Nobody need think they’re going to get me down. Het—you go back and put on a bit of colour! You’re not the corpse, and no need to dress the part. Milly—you see she does it! I’m walking fine today, and Miss Mainwaring will give me a hand if I want one. I’m going to see this thing through, and those that think they can down me—well, there’ve been others that thought that way before, and they’ve had to think again!”

All through lunch she had continued in this dominant mood, and at intervals she had enquired of Lady Minstrell, of the silent Hester, of the two waiters, the manageress Miss Peto, of Miss Silver, of Stacy herself, whether Charles Forrest was expected at the club, and if he wasn’t, why wasn’t he, and what was he doing? The telephone had been employed to wring this information from Saltings, but without success. When, at about three o’clock, Charles entered the club there was a severe explosion of wrath at the intelligence that he was closeted with Miss Silver and the Chief Constable in the study.

Stacy, most unwillingly present, had been glad enough to seize the chance of escape.

“I’ll run down into the hall, Mrs. Constantine, and catch him as soon as they come out.”

So here she was. And how long was it going to be before Myra lost patience and came down herself? She was perfectly capable of surging into the study and cutting Charles out under the nose of an entire police force.

There were chairs in the hall, two or three in a clump, set about little bright tables. Stacy sat down where she could watch the study door. The short length of passage lay open to her view, with the billiard-room on the left, the study on the right, and, straight ahead, the French door leading to the glass passage. She would see Charles the moment he came out, and if he stayed behind when the others came away, it wouldn’t take her a moment to reach him. She saw herself running down the passage, opening the study door, and going in. She couldn’t see any farther than that.

The moments dragged. They were like raindrops on a windowpane, moving imperceptibly, haltingly, sluggishly, joining with other drops to go sliding down the glass and never come back.

When Stacy had sat there for what seemed a long time, the girl in the office called to her. Edna Snagge was off duty. This was a pale, plump girl. Stacy did not know her name, but the girl knew hers. She called across the office counter,

“There’s a call for you, Miss Mainwaring. You know where the box is—at the back of the hall.”

Stacy got up and went to it.

When she was in the box she could no longer see the study door. If Charles came out of the passage, she would see him, but not if he went into the annexe. She lifted the receiver and said in rather a breathless voice, “Hullo!”

The woman who answered didn’t sound very friendly. Her tone suggested words like bombazine and buckram. Stacy didn’t really know what bombazine was, but the tone suggested it. It said,

“Miss Colesfoot speaking. Is that Miss Mainwaring?”

Still a little breathless, Stacy said, “Yes.” Just for a moment she wasn’t there. Then light broke. Tony was Tony Colesfoot. Miss Colesfoot was Tony’s aunt—the one she had left him having influenza with on Thursday night.

The voice went on being stiff.

“I am calling up for Anthony. You will, I am sure, be glad to hear that his temperature is ninety-nine point eight.”

“Oh, yes.”

“The doctor says he is satisfied, and I can only hope that he is not too sanguine. He says that Anthony may be allowed a quiet visitor. If you will come down after tea—”

Stacy’s blood began to boil a little. Tony seemed to belong to some remote period of history, and Miss Colesfoot didn’t belong at all.

“I am so sorry, but I am afraid I can’t manage it—” She got as far as that, and then her heart smote her, because Tony always thought he was going to die if he had a fingerache. She said hastily, “I’ll see what I can manage tomorrow. May I give you a ring?” and hung up.

Miss Silver and the Chief Constable were just coming out of the passage. Suppose she hadn’t heard them—suppose Miss Colesfoot had made her miss Charles—The thought hurt so much that she wondered what had happened to her. Only four days ago she was all armour-plated and not caring what happened to herself or anyone else, and now she hadn’t any shelter at all. Everything hurt.

She ran along the passage and opened the study door. Charles was over by the window looking out. Even from the back of his head she could tell that he was frowning. She wondered if he was cursing the annexe and Lewis Brading’s Collection. He had that sort of look.

She shut the door very softly behind her and came over to stand beside him and slip her hand inside his arm. He hadn’t heard her come in. He had the kind of face you wear when you are alone. Stacy saw it for a moment before she touched him. She had been wrong about the frown. He wasn’t frowning. He looked open, unguarded, young. When she touched him his face closed up again. He looked down at her and said,

“What is it, my sweet?”

Silly of her heart to race. Charles didn’t mean anything when he said things like that. She ought to give him Myra’s message. Instead she said in a frightened voice,

“What is it?”

“Nothing you can help, darling.”

“Charles—what is it?”

He put his arm round her.

“Just one of those things.”

“Tell me.”

“Lewis wasn’t shot with his own revolver.”

She said in a bewildered voice,

“How do they know?”

“I scratched his initials on it when I gave it to him. Dossie has been telling everyone. She seems to have been under the impression that she was clearing me—I don’t quite know why. Anyhow she set the police looking for initials—and there weren’t any.”

“Is that—bad?”

“It might be. You see, all along I think it stuck in their minds that it isn’t so easy to come up beside a man who is seated at his own writing-table, open the drawer in which he keeps his revolver, and shoot him out of hand. I know it stuck in mine. If there was a suspicious bloke on this earth, it was Lewis. It just couldn’t have been done.”

“Someone brought a revolver in, shot him, and took his away.”

“How was it—done?”

“Charles—couldn’t it have been suicide?”

“No, my sweet, it couldn’t. The fingerprints are all wrong. Besides—”

She pressed closer to him, as if the two of them could be shut in and no one hear what they said to one another. No one really could have heard, she spoke so low.

“Charles—did you know—when you found him?”

“That it wasn’t his revolver? Yes.”

“Whose was it?”

“Mine.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing I could do. March has gone off to collect Crisp. Then we all go up to Saltings and have a look for the other revolver. I wonder if it will be there.”

She said in a most horrified whisper,

“He was shot—with your revolver—the one you kept?”

“He was.”

“Do they know it was yours?”

“I think they’ve a pretty good idea.”

“Charles—who did it?”

“Aren’t you going to ask me if I did?”

“Charles—”

“Well—ask.”

“No—no—no!”

“Not going to?”

“No!”

He said, “Well, well—” His arm dropped from her shoulders. He may have heard a step in the passage, he may have heard the handle turn. She heard nothing herself except the beating of her heart. But as he moved, she moved too, and saw that the door was opening. Lady Minstrell came a step into the room and said,

“Oh, Major Forrest, I’m so sorry, but could you come up to Mama? There’s something she wants to see you about.”

When Charles Forrest went into her sitting-room Myra Constantine was not in the big padded chair. She was up on her feet and stumping about the room, catching at the furniture as she went, letting it take her weight for a moment, and then rolling on again. There was a horrid resemblance to a bus that had got out of control—one of those brightly coloured buses. She had just turned at the window end when he opened the door. She came charging back to the middle of the room, bumped into the back of a chair, clutched it, and said in a voice like an angry gong,

“What have you been doing? Where have you been? Why didn’t you come up when I sent for you?”

Myra’s rages were legendary. Charles had seen her in one before. The soft answer, so far from turning away wrath, encouraged it to trample—witness her daughters, Hester stamped completely flat, and Milly reduced to a perpetual “Oh, Mama—”

Charles immediately glared back and said in a loud, rude voice,

“What the devil has that got to do with you? And who do you think you’re speaking to anyway?” Then he burst out laughing, flung a careless arm about her, and said, “Come and sit down, old dear! And draw it mild—I’m not Hester.”

Just for a moment he wondered if she was going to hit him in the face. Then her glare broke, her eyes crinkled at the corners, the big mouth stretched, and she laughed as heartily as she had stormed. But when he had got her into the chair she fell silent and tragic, her eyes brooding, her whole aspect dark and heavy.

“Hester,” she said—“that’s what I’ve got to see you about—Hester. That’s a hell of a mess, isn’t it?”

He took a moment, and she struck in.

“Look here, Charles—I know, and it’s no use pretending you don’t. It’s cards on the table now, and I don’t mind putting mine down first. Hester’s gone and married James Moberly. And you knew it and you couldn’t come and tell me—oh, no! Do you call that being a friend?”

Charles had straddled an upright chair. He sat with his arms folded along the back and looked at her across them.

“Not my business,” he said.

The rage had gone out of Myra. Her voice came heavily.

“A bad business—you might have told me—”

“How could I?”

There was a flash from the dark eyes.

“I got it out of her. I’m not a fool—I can see what’s under my nose. She’s been mooning about like a lovesick rabbit all this month, but to tell you the honest truth I thought it was you.”

Charles felt a thrill of horror followed by relief. He was in a mess, but not quite such a mess as that. To have been the object of a fatal passion on the part of Hester Constantine would just about have put the lid on.

Myra’s big mouth twisted.

“Go on—say it if you want to! She never did have any sense. If she had she’d have fallen for you. I could have fallen for you myself, as far as that goes, thirty or forty years ago. But Hester, no—she’s got to pick on James Moberly, another rabbit that can’t stand up and fight for itself any more than what she can. But that doesn’t say they won’t have anyone to fight for them. I’m no rabbit!”

His quick dark smile flashed out.

“Much more like a charging rhinoceros.”

She burst out laughing.

“Oh, yes, I could have fallen for you, Charles.” She dragged out a gaudy handkerchief and wiped her eyes. “You’ve not got to make me laugh. It’s all damned serious. You’ve got to listen to me. I’ve got things to tell you—things you won’t like, but they’ve got to be said, and they’ve got to be listened to.”

“All right—shoot!”

She looked at him out of her big dark eyes. It was a dominant look.

“Hester hasn’t got any fight in her, and no more has Moberly. But I have. He’s Hester’s husband and my son-in-law, and I’m not having a case cooked up against him for murdering Lewis, which he never did and wouldn’t have had the guts. Well, I’m not standing for an innocent man being hanged, and when the innocent man is my son-in-law, I’m just about going to raise Cain. Have you got that?”

“Admirably lucid.”

“I mean it.”

“I’m sure you do. What are you going to do about it?”

She sat back in her chair, laid a hand on either knee, and said,

“I’m going to tell you something.”

“Go ahead.”

She nodded.

“I’m no fool. Lewis had some hold over Moberly—he used to hint as much. And James wanted to get away. He wanted to marry Hester—God knows why, but he did. Lewis was mean, and he was a bully. He had a bad nature. Everyone will say James had plenty of motive for killing him. And he had the opportunity. He had ten minutes after Lilias went and before you arrived, and only Het to say that he was with her all the time and never went out of the study. Mind you, she’s speaking the truth. I know Het, and I put her through it. She couldn’t stick to a lie with me pressing her like I did. She’s telling the truth. She and James were there in the study all that ten minutes, and he hadn’t any more to do with Lewis being killed than what I have. But Hester’s his wife—who’s going to believe her? Any woman ’ud swear her husband never left her if it was to clear him in a murder case. I wasn’t born yesterday, and I know how it’s going to look.”

Charles said,

“That’s perfectly true. But if it’s any consolation to you, I’m a pretty strong challenger. Lewis was shot with my revolver, I had a better opportunity than anyone, and I’m the only suspect who had any interest in destroying the will which he had made in favour of Maida Robinson.”

“And I suppose you think that’s going to make me put it on you! Dossie says men are all fools, and there’s times when I think she’s right. Why, you poor fish, I’d sooner see James hang than you—if it wasn’t for Hester. I’m fond of you—didn’t that ever get into your head—honest to God fond of you. I don’t know what people want having daughters—especially mim-mouthed rabbits. I’d have liked a son, and I’d have liked him to be like you.”

Charles looked at her with an odd mixture of feelings. He was touched, moved, but still a little detached—able to survey the scene with the kind of humour which is not so very far from tears. Myra always had been able to move an audience in just that way. He stepped to her side of the footlights to take his part in the show, but he was able to bring genuine feeling to the part as he said,

“Thank you, old dear. You are clever enough to know that I reciprocate.”

The big eyes sparkled. She said briskly,

“And now we’ll get down to brass tacks. Thursday night, the night before Lewis was shot, he had us all in and showed us that damned Collection. I’d seen it time and again, so I was more interested in watching the people than in looking at his jeweller’s window. I watched you for one, and you were so busy looking at that girl Maida you hadn’t eyes in your head for anyone else.”

Charles laughed.

“She was worth looking at.”

Myra tossed her head, very much as she might have tossed it at eighteen.

“Oh, she’s got what it takes—I’ll grant you that. And a nerve—nerve enough for anything.”

“Answer adjudged correct!”

Myra frowned.

“You were looking at her, and everyone else was looking at the jewelry, and I was looking at your Lilias Grey.”

His eyes narrowed.

“And what did you see?”

“I saw her looking at you when you were looking at Maida. Hating you quite a piece she was.”

“Maida isn’t anything to me.”

She chuckled.

“You liked looking at her all right.”

He laughed.

“Who wouldn’t!”

“And your Lilias Grey didn’t like it a bit. She switched over to the diamonds. Then Maida put on the Forrest necklace and went swanking off to look at herself in the glass, and after a bit when she came back we all got up and moved about. And that’s when I saw Lilias pinch the brooch.”

Charles stiffened. His arms, lying along the back of the chair, pressed down upon the wood hard—harder. He raised his eyebrows and said,

“Do you mind saying that again?”

Myra flounced in her chair.

“Come off it! You heard me. Your Lilias Grey pinched what Lewis called the Marziali brooch—the one with the five big diamonds that the girl was wearing when her husband stabbed her and the young man she was carrying on with.”

“Do you know, I should so very much prefer it if you didn’t keep on saying my Lilias Grey. She is my adopted sister.”

“All right, all right—don’t lose your hair! You can call her your grandmother, or your old-maid aunt, or your girl friend, for all I care. I saw her take the Marziali brooch and stuff it into her bag.”

Charles was pale. He said in a hard voice,

“And why didn’t you say so at the time?”

She gave something between a laugh and a snort.

“You’d have loved me a lot if I had, wouldn’t you! The whole cast on the stage, and Miss Lilias Grey unmasked as a thief. Quick curtain!” She laughed again scornfully. “Believe it or not, I can behave like a lady—when I try. I can’t always be bothered—I grant you that—but I can do it when I like. So I let everyone get away, and I told Lewis on the quiet.”

There was a horrid little silence. What Charles thought didn’t bear thinking about, but you can’t just shut off your thinking the way you turn off a programme on the wireless. He said quite soon,

“You told Lewis?”

Myra flung out her hands.

“Of course I did. If I hadn’t I’d have been a what-you-may-call-it—accessory after the fact, wouldn’t I?”

“How did he take it?”

“Oh, quiet—very quiet!” She chuckled. “Said he wasn’t surprised, and I needn’t say anything, he’d deal with it.”

Yes, that sounded like Lewis all right. Charles could hear the way he’d have said it—dry, with the kind of nasty dryness like grit, rubbing the skin, getting into the eyes, catching you on the raw. His chin was down upon those folded arms. Lewis had said he would deal with it. Had he dealt with it, and how? Somebody had dealt with him.

“Give you any idea of what he meant to do?”

“I didn’t wait—I’d had enough. I don’t mind people when they let off steam and you wonder how much of the furniture they’re going to break. It’s your quiet ones that get me. I never did like to see a cat go after a bird—soft, you know, and kind of slithery. If I’d got anything handy I’d throw it. Lewis could be like that if he’d got a down on anyone. I tell you what—I never did like Lilias and never shall, but I got pretty near being sorry for her after I’d told Lewis. I mean I’d have given her a good tongue-lashing myself, but Lewis was nasty, if you know what I mean, and I thought I wouldn’t care about being in her shoes.”

“Did he say what he was going to do?”

“No, he didn’t. It’s pretty plain what he did do. He rang her up and told her to come and see him three o’clock Friday and bring she knew what with her. And so she did.” Myra fixed her eyes on him in their darkest stare. “She came along down at three. I don’t know whether she brought the brooch or not. Suppose she brought something else. She says she left him alive. Suppose she didn’t.”

“I don’t think we’ll suppose anything of the sort.”

“Then the police will. Do you think I’m going to hold my tongue and let them put the murder on James, or on you? I’m not going to, and that’s flat! She had a motive, hadn’t she? She had taken that brooch, and he was going to be nasty about it. Oh, yes, he was. I know Lewis, and I wouldn’t have been in her shoes. Suppose he said he was going to prosecute. I don’t say he’d have done it, but she wasn’t to know that. Suppose she thought she was for it.”

Charles said,

“The will was burned. She hadn’t any motive for burning the will.”

She shook with laughter.

“She’d have loved that girl Maida to have the money, wouldn’t she! It’s not Maida’s fault if everyone doesn’t know Lewis’s new will was going to leave her the whole blooming pile. And it was lying there on the table. Wouldn’t Lilias have been a chump if she hadn’t put a match to it? If the money came to you, she’d get her whack, wouldn’t she?”

Charles said,

“Suppositions aren’t evidence. I think I’ve had enough of them.” He got up. “March and Crisp are calling for me any minute now.”

Her face changed.

“Arresting you?”

“Not yet. Just going along up to Saltings to have a look-see.”

She stared.

“What for?”

“The other revolver. I’ve no idea whether it’s there or not. I can’t make up my mind what is going to incriminate me most.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, it’s as simple as mud. I had two revolvers. When I gave one of them to Lewis I scratched his initials on it. Everyone knew he kept it in his drawer. When he was found dead everyone jumped to the conclusion that he’d been shot with that revolver. He hadn’t. He was shot with the other one—the one I kept. And, thanks to our admired Dossie, the police have just tumbled to it. So March, and Crisp, and I are going up to Saltings to look for the other one—the one that ought to have been in Lewis’s drawer.”

Myra took hold of the arms of her chair and heaved herself up. She took a plunging step forward and caught at him.

“Charles—you’re not going to let yourself go down the drain for that worthless slut!”

He said, “Hold up, old dear.”

“You mean shut up. But I won’t! She’s not worth it, and you needn’t think I’ll stand by and see you do it, because I won’t! Piling up the evidence against yourself and sticking it under their noses—you damned fool! You needn’t tell me—that girl’s never been straight. I know a wrong ’un when I see one, and that girl Lilias is a wrong ’un. Broke your marriage up, I shouldn’t be surprised—”

He was trying to get her back into her chair.

“Myra, I must go.”

She clutched him.

“Now Stacy’s a nice girl—nothing low about Stacy. And that’s the sort that gets easy taken in by a wrong ’un. Fond of her, aren’t you?”

His mouth twisted.

“So so.”

She burst out laughing and came down thump into her chair.

“Get along with you for a liar! All right, I mean it—you can go. And remember what I’ve been saying, because I mean that too.”

He was at the door with his hand out to open it, but he turned back.

“Myra, for God’s sake hold your tongue!”