The Brading Collection (22 page)

Stacy had been sitting in the farthest corner of the hall when Charles went by to the annexe. She could not bear to be upstairs or in any of the rooms in case—Thought stopped there, because what lay beyond was too frightening. She couldn’t give it words.

She held up a paper, and hoped that the people who came and went would think that she was looking at it. She saw Charles go by without looking to left or right. He was alone, and she took what comfort she could from that.

After a moment she got up with the paper in her hand and came to where she could see the short length of passage between the billiard-room and the study, and the door leading to the glass passage beyond. At the far end she could see Charles just going into the annexe. That meant that they had sent for him again. If there was no one in the study, she could wait there until he came back and find out what was happening. You could see the whole of the glass passage from the study window, so she would know when he was coming back, and if he was alone, she could find out what was happening.

She went quickly to the study door and opened it upon an empty room, the writing-table stripped and tidy, the chairs in order, the window wide to the summer evening air. She stood there, looking out, waiting for Charles to come back. The time dragged. There seemed to be no end to its slow passage.

When he came at last he was, as he had gone, alone, his face frowning and intent. She ran to the door and opened it. And then he was coming through out of the glass passage, and she couldn’t get her voice above a whisper to call to him.

“Charles—”

The sound seemed to fail. She couldn’t think that it had reached him, but he saw her, leaning against the jamb in her white dress. He said her name, took her back into the study, and shut the door.

She found a small choked voice.

“What’s happening?”

His arm was round her shoulders.

“No gyves on the wrists for the moment. No one quite so hot on arresting me as they were an hour ago. Even Crisp appears to have other interests. But it mayn’t last. Let’s make the most of it and go and have some food. It must be after seven.”

Stacy took no notice. She had turned to face him. She pulled at his coat.

“What’s happening? You’re not telling me. I must know.”

He stood frowning down, a hand on her shoulder.

“Lilias has made a statement. She says he was dead when she got there at three o’clock.”

The colour rushed into Stacy’s face.

“That lets you out!”

“If they believe her.”

“Don’t they?”

“I wouldn’t like to bank on it. I don’t know whether I believe her myself. That’s the trouble—she’s such a damned liar.”

“Is she?”

He could only just hear the words.

“Oh, from the nursery. Didn’t you know?”

All her bright colour ebbed. Her hand fell from his coat. She said,

“No—you never told me.”

He was watching her closely.

“Why should I tell you?”

There was no answer. Her eyes were dark and startled.

He said again, “Why should I tell you? Would it have made a difference if I had?”

“Charles—”

“All right—I’m going to tell you now. It wasn’t the sort of thing one wanted to talk about. I don’t know how many people have guessed, or known. We’ve always put our heads in the sand and hoped for the best. And everyone loved my mother—her friends stood by her. Some people do stand by their—friends.”

It was like a knife going through her when he said that. And that was just what he meant it to be, because she hadn’t stood by him, she had panicked and run away. Whatever she said or did, that was something he couldn’t forget. She didn’t say anything.

He went on.

“You know Lilias was adopted. My mother wanted a child—they’d been married some time. She saw Lilias and fell in love with her—she was a very pretty child. Then three years later I came along. I expect that’s what started the rot. You see, she had been the centre of attention, and then all at once she wasn’t. She was the adopted child, and I was the real one. It wasn’t that my mother changed towards her—she didn’t. At least, not any more than any mother changes when she has two children instead of one. But the situation changes. The first child isn’t the only one any more—it has to share. Well, that’s always been the bother with Lilias—she wants the centre of the stage, she wants the limelight, she doesn’t know how to share. When she couldn’t have what she wanted she tried to grab it. She started showing off to get noticed—it’s a thing lots of children do. My mother tried to check it, but it got worse. There were one or two very bad patches. She told lies, and she took things. She was going through a plain stage and she wasn’t getting much notice. Then in her teens she got very pretty again and it stopped. We thought it was going to be all right. Then she had an engagement that went wrong, and another—rather stupid affairs—and it all started again. I think it helped to kill my mother. Then there was the war. Lilias went into the hospital at Ledlington, and then to a convalescent home for officers. She dramatized it all a lot and got no end of a kick out of it. Then the war came to an end and everything was deadly flat again. And that’s where we were three years ago. I hoped when I married—but it didn’t turn out that way.”

All this time his hand was on her shoulder. Now it became a grip under which she couldn’t move. Holding her like that, he said harshly,

“Just what lies did she tell you about me?”

“Lilias?”

“Yes, Lilias. You were very quick to believe her, weren’t you? Well, now we’re going to have a show-down. What did she say to make you go off as if I’d got the plague?”

Stacy had never been able to imagine herself telling Charles what Lilias had said. It had always seemed to her that the shame of it would be dreadful enough to kill them both—not physically, perhaps, but to kill all that mattered in them and between them. But now all the barriers were down. It was just as if her tongue didn’t belong to her—as if it didn’t matter what it said. Mattering, and caring, and being ashamed were gone by. She spoke in a low, quiet voice,

“Lilias said you took things—money, or anything that would bring money. She said you had always done it, and she and your mother had to put the things back and hush it up.”

“And you believed her—just like that?”

“I don’t know. She had been hinting ever since we came—a little bit here, and a little bit there. We hadn’t been married a month. I didn’t know much about people, and I didn’t know much about you. I don’t know whether I would have believed her or not. I was frightened—angry—jealous. Oh, I don’t know what I would have believed. You had gone up to town to see solicitors and people about Saltings—I knew you wanted to keep it and didn’t see how you could. Lilias wanted me to promise that I wouldn’t tell you what she said. I wouldn’t. I said I had a headache and went to bed. It was true, you know—it ached dreadfully. I meant to stay awake and tell you when you came in, but I went to sleep. I had a dream, and I woke up. There was a light in your dressing-room and your door ajar. I got up to go to you—”

“Yes? What stopped you?”

She said, “Nothing—” It was more an exhausted sigh than a word. The picture rose so plain—the lighted room, and Charles at the bureau with the necklace in his hand.

His bruising grip was on her shoulder. He said,

“What happened?”

She took a long shuddering breath.

“I looked in. You were standing by the bureau. You had Damaris Forrest’s necklace in your hand. Lewis showed it to us in his Collection. I saw it in your hand.”

He laughed without mirth.

“And instead of coming in and saying what about it you went back to bed and pretended to be asleep, and cleared out at cockcrow next morning! It never occurred to you that you might give me a chance to explain?”

She looked at him then, her eyes wide and dark with pain.

“I don’t think you know—what a shock—it was. I couldn’t think at all. I wanted to get away—and hide.” She looked aside. A burning blush came up to the roots of her hair. “I—I was so—ashamed.”

He said, “I see. You didn’t think much about me—did you?”

“No. Charles, let me go!”

“In a minute. We’ve got to have this out.”

He had both hands on her now, hard and heavy.

“Charles—”

“We’ve got to have it out. Look at me!”

She raised her eyes.

“No—don’t look away! Just keep on looking at me and tell me the truth! You left me because you thought I was a thief, and you believed that I had stolen the Queen Anne necklace. Do you still think so?”

She did look at him. She said,

“No.”

“Why?”

“I’m not so young or so stupid as I was—three years ago.”

“You don’t think Lilias was telling the truth?”

“Oh, no!”

“And the necklace?”

“I don’t know. You didn’t steal it.”

“Quite sure about that?”

Her voice was steady and composed now.

“Quite sure.”

He took his hands off her shoulders and stepped back.

“All right, then I’ll tell you. The necklace is a Forrest heirloom. Lewis never had it. His mother was a Forrest, so I let him have a copy made for the Collection. It was the copy you saw when he showed us his stuff. The necklace was at the Goldsmiths and Silversmiths being cleaned—for you. I brought it down with me, and I got it out to have a look at it. I thought if you woke up, I’d give it you then. My mistake! When you cleared out I let Lewis have it for eight thousand. He’d always wanted it, and I used the money to reorganize Saltings—I didn’t want to sell if I could help it. There you have it. Rather a stupid business, don’t you think? Well, come along and have some food.”

She stood where she was, very pale again.

“Charles—”

“What is it?”

“You couldn’t—forgive me?”

He gave her the most charming of his smiles, just tinged with malice.

“But, my sweet, of course. All valuable experience, and no harm done.”

She knew then that it wasn’t any good. You can’t have a thing, and throw it away, and just whistle it back again. And she had done it herself—she couldn’t blame anyone else. She turned to the door, and felt Charles’s light touch on her arm.

“Food,” he said. “Let’s pray they haven’t run out of ice.”

It was about half an hour later that Inspector Crisp arrived back at the club with Mrs. Robinson and Major Constable. A police sergeant drove with Major Constable beside him, while Crisp sat behind with Mrs. Robinson and kept his eyes open. Nothing had been said, except that the Chief Constable would be glad to see them at Warne House. So far from evincing any reluctance, both had appeared to welcome the suggestion. Mrs. Robinson in particular had quite brightened up. “I don’t suppose he’ll keep us long, will he, and then we can get a decent meal. And no one can say anything if we’ve been sent for, can they?” A rhetorical question to which Crisp had not felt obliged to reply. Cool hands, the both of them, was what he thought, and he’d best keep his eye lifting.

He took them through to the study by instructions. The Chief Constable had been having something on a tray with that Miss Silver. They had finished, and the waiter was just coming away as Crisp turned into the passage. He opened the door, stood aside for Mrs. Robinson and Major Constable to go in, and on a look from the Chief Constable came in himself and shut the door.

March was at the writing-table. He asked them to sit down, speaking gravely and pleasantly. The room felt cool with its north window wide and a breeze coming in. Maida was in black—something thin with open sleeves which showed how white her arms were. She wore very little make-up, and needed none. As she sat down she opened a lizard-skin bag, fished for a cigarette-case, and flicked it open. She chose a cigarette and turned to ask Jack Constable for a light, all very deliberately, as if she were going through a scene in a play. March, watching her, wondered if that was how it seemed to her. She tilted her chin, drew at her cigarette, and let out a little cloud of smoke to spread and hang in the air.

“Well, Mr. March,” she said, “what is it? I hope you’re not going to keep us too long, because I’m starving. I haven’t had a decent meal for days. I’ve no cook, and I didn’t like to shock people by coming out—though what good you do anyone by sticking indoors and moping, I can’t see.”

The deep, full voice took some of the edge off the words. She sat easily in the chair which had been set for her, pulling it out of the straight and leaning an arm upon the back. Her bright hair shone in the room.

Miss Silver was looking at Jack Constable. He too sat easily, but he was not smoking. He looked the plain, blunt soldier, florid and sunburned in his open-necked shirt and flannel slacks. There was nothing to show that he differed from thousands of other young men who had been through the war. Broad-shouldered and well set-up, with rather more than the usual allowance of good looks, and perhaps rather less than the usual allowance of brains.

And then, as if he felt that direct enquiring gaze of hers, he turned and gave her a long, cold look. Just for a moment her busy needles checked. She revised her first estimate of Major Constable. That look had betrayed him. The bright blue eyes had a steely tinge. There was a brain behind them, keen, capable, ruthless. The impression was instantaneous and indelible. If there had been a shadow of doubt in her mind, it was removed. She pulled on her pale pink ball and continued to knit.

March said,

“I have asked you to come here because two statements have been made which throw rather a different light upon Mr. Brading’s death.”

Maida’s shoulder lifted.

“Well, I suppose you have to keep going on about it. But what’s the use—he’s dead. After all, I’m the person most concerned. I’ve lost a husband—and a fortune. Look here, perhaps you can tell me. He made that will in my favour, and he signed it. Won’t I have a chance of getting what he meant me to have, if I bring a case? Jack says not, but I don’t know—I should think—”

Jack Constable said,

“I didn’t say you hadn’t got a chance. You’ll have to consult a solicitor—that’s what I said. She will, won’t she?” He addressed March, who said,

“We’ll keep to the point if you don’t mind. Miss Grey has made a statement to the effect that Brading was dead when she went over to the annexe at a few minutes to three. Since you were both with him just over ten minutes before that time, you can see that your position is very materially affected.”

Maida drew at her cigarette and blew out the smoke.

“Lilias would say anything,” she said in a drawling voice. “The world’s champion liar. Haven’t you found that out? You will, you know. A nice spot of limelight—that’s all she wants.”

March went on as if she had not spoken.

“Your position is affected. I have to tell you that anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence.”

Crisp sat down near the door and took out notebook and pencil. Jack Constable stared.

“But it’s all too ridiculous. You don’t mean to say you think Maida—why, I saw him after she did!”

“What I said was addressed to you as well as to Mrs. Robinson.”

Jack Constable continued to stare.

“But, my dear man, it’s crazy! I went back to get Maida’s bag, and everything was absolutely O.K. Why, he spoke to her on the telephone while I was there.”

“Somebody spoke. It is you and Mrs. Robinson who say that it was Mr. Brading. Miss Snagge only heard a man’s voice. The police case will be that it was yours.”

Constable said slowly,

“The police case—you’ve got as far as that, have you?” He threw back his head and laughed. “I say, you must be pretty hard up for evidence! Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling us what motive we’re supposed to have had. Maida had just got engaged to him, and he’d made a will in her favour. I didn’t know that, mind you, I only heard about it afterwards. And then she’s supposed, not only to have bumped the poor chap off, but to have destroyed the will. A damned good case, I must say! Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?”

March looked at him steadily.

“It makes quite good sense, Constable. It was Miss Grey who destroyed the will.”

Maida withdrew her cigarette to say,

“Lilias is crazy. I’ve thought so for a long time. I expect she shot him.”

“Why would she shoot him?”

“I don’t know. Why should I? I’d every reason not to.”

“Had you, Mrs. Robinson? We can go into that if you like. I think you wrote two letters on Thursday evening—”

The hand with the cigarette moved towards her lips again.

“What if I did?”

“One of them was to Brading.”

She drew in a mouthful of smoke and let it out again slowly.

“I was engaged to him, you know. One does write to one’s fiancé.”

“You wrote a letter to Brading, and Forrest posted it.”

“Certainly.”

“There was another letter—to a Mrs. Hunt.”

“How very incriminating!”

March said, “I’m afraid so. You see, you put them into the wrong envelopes.”

She just stared at him.

“I what?”

He said in a measured voice,

“You put the letter which you had written to Mrs. Hunt in the envelope addressed to Brading. He got it by the second post on Friday, and he went into the annexe and rang you up. Moberly overheard his side of the conversation. You know best what was in the letter you wrote to your friend Mrs. Hunt. Moberly heard Brading say, ‘You put those two letters in the wrong envelopes, and there’s an end of it. Perhaps you have forgotten the terms in which you were pleased to describe me. You can revive your memory when I return you the letter this afternoon.’ And then something about wanting you to watch the obsequies of the will he had signed that morning, and a bit about there being many a slip between the cup and the lip.”

Jack Constable was watching her. She said scornfully,

“Moberly! He’d say anything! He’s in a jam himself. Naturally, all he wants is to put it on someone else.” The cigarette went to her lips again.

It was at this moment that the telephone bell rang. March picked up the receiver and listened. To the rest of the room the voice of Sergeant James speaking from the office was a baritone murmur. To March it conveyed the intelligence that there was a lady in the hall asking very urgently for Mrs. Robinson.

“Name of Hunt, sir—Mrs. Hunt.”

March said in a non-committal voice,

“Say what she wants?”

Sergeant James cleared his throat. What he considered the lady wanted was to go home and sleep it off, but he didn’t like to say so to the Chief Constable. He compromised on,

“Well, she’s calling for drinks, and she says she wants Mrs. Robinson—something about a letter, sir. There are two men with her.”

March said, “All right,” and hung up. He scribbled on a bit of paper and handed it to Miss Silver.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind taking this on.”

She read it with grave attention, put it into her knitting-bag with her needles and the pale pink wool, and left the room. The whole thing had taken very little time.

Crisp finished writing and glanced up. Jack Constable looked as if he was going to say something, but it did not get said. Maida went on smoking. As March addressed himself to her again, Miss Silver emerged upon the hall, and was aware of commotion. The Chief Constable’s note had informed her that Mrs. Hunt would be there. She had no difficulty in identifying her. She was, in fact, making her presence felt in an extremely vivid and spectacular manner. There was a good deal of her, encased in cherry-coloured chiffon, with several rows of artificial pearls reposing upon an enormous bosom. She had masses of black hair, and eyes that had to be seen to be believed—so big, so dark, so rolling. She carried a white diamanté bag, and she was decidedly more than half-seas over. It was a pity that March was not there to watch the meeting between her and Miss Silver, but it had an appreciative audience in Charles and Stacy, who were coming out of the dining-room.

With an introductory cough Miss Silver addressed the ebullient lady, who had just remarked in a singularly carrying voice that if everyone was dead and buried in this forsaken dump, she meant to have a drink “if I have to raid the bar to get it.”

Miss Silver said, “Mrs. Hunt, I believe.”

She received an expansive smile.

“That’s me—Poppy Hunt. Call me Poppy—everyone does. Are you the manageress? Because if you are, I tell you what—the service is damned bad. Five solid minutes I’ve been here and can’t get a drink. Three of us, and all our tongues hanging out! Meet the boy friend—meet my husband. And we all want drinks.”

The boy friend was a thin, haggard man with a gloomy eye. He had reached the melancholy stage and was propping himself against the office counter with the air of one who would welcome almost any kind of death.

In contrast, Mr. Hunt was not drunk at all. He had a worried, inefficient look, like an ant that has strayed from the nest. He gazed through crooked pince-nez at his wife and murmured, “Perhaps a little soda-water, my dear—”

Miss Silver coughed with great firmness.

“Come and sit down at this table, Mrs. Hunt. I believe you were enquiring for Mrs. Robinson.”

Poppy let herself down with a run which shook the proffered chair.

“That’s right,” she said. “I want a drink, and I want Maida, and I can’t get either. What sort of a dump do you call this anyhow?” It was said quite without rancour. Drunk or sober, there was no ill will in Poppy Hunt.

Miss Silver coughed.

“Your order will be attended to. Is Mrs. Robinson expecting you?”

Poppy laughed.

“Not a bit of it! Surprise for her—joke, if you know what I mean—best joke you ever heard. Here—she writes to me, and I’m away. Letter goes home, but I’m not there, so my hubby brings it along with him when he comes to pick me up this morning. Me and the boy friend, we were off at my sister’s. Ledbury—that’s where she lives. Nice little place. All friends together—usual crowd—plenty to drink. Well, Al brings my letters along, and when I open Maida’s, what d’you think?” She had her elbows on the orange table. A chin or two were propped on stubby hands glittering with rings. “Best joke ever! What d’you think she’d done? Put the wrong letter inside! There it was on the envelope, ‘Mrs. Al Hunt.’ And inside it was, ‘My dear Lewis,’ and saying she’d have him! I don’t know when I laughed so much!”

She was laughing now, swaying backwards and forwards, and the chair creaking with her weight.

“Bit of a mix-up, I don’t think! Me getting ‘My dear Lewis,’ and him getting ‘Dear Poppy,’ and Lord knows what about his being a dry old stick but the best she could do! So I said to my hubby, ‘What’s the odds? No distance to Saltings. We’ll take her on the way back—chip her head off—all have drinks together.’ And then she wasn’t there. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘never say die. She’ll be at that club she’s so fond of. We’ll get her there, and we’ll get the drinks too.’ And here we are!”

She repeated the last phrase slowly. There was the effect of something running down. And then with a hiccuping laugh she was off again.

“Funny, isn’t it? I’ll say it is! Because if she put in his letter to me, well, what’s the odds she put in my letter to him? And Lord only knows what she said in it!” She pulled herself up with a jerk, staring at Miss Silver. “I’m not saying what she said, mind you, because I don’t know, but if it’s anything like what she’s said before, it’s going to take a bit of explaining. All out to get him, of course, and I don’t blame her. Money’s money, and a girl’s got to look out for herself. So let’s hope she didn’t say the half of what she’s said before.” She paused, stared owlishly, and shot a final dart. “And I tell you what—half ’ud be a hell of a lot too much.”

Miss Silver said, “Have you seen a paper today?”

She got another stare.

“Don’t read the papers. We’d a thick night. Here—isn’t that drink coming?”

Miss Silver coughed in a very delicate manner.

“You did not see a paper today. Did you see one yesterday?”

Poppy Hunt sat up straight with a hand on either arm of her chair. Everything rocked a little—and they wouldn’t bring her a drink. She said more in sorrow than in anger,

“Never—read—papers. Lot of—tommyrot. Where’s Maida?”

Miss Silver rose to her feet.

“I will take you to her. Where is the letter you spoke of?”

There was a rummage in the diamanté bag. The contents spilled. A lipstick rolled one way, a compact the other. Mr. Hunt, who had been hovering, went down on his hands and knees to pick them up. The boy friend continued to prop the office counter, his melancholy still farther advanced along the road to coma.