The White Cottage Mystery (15 page)

W.T. looked at him steadily, a hint of wonderment in his eyes.

‘You are an old villain, aren't you, Gale?' he said at last. ‘So crooked a touch of genius flashes out sometimes by accident.'

Mr Gale said nothing. He was not certain whether the detective's last remark was a reproach or a tribute, and was not anxious to go into it.

W.T. turned to Jerry.

‘You go back to the hotel and get cleaned up, my boy,' he said. ‘Don't let Norah see you if you can help it. I'll follow you.'

Jerry rose to his feet. He was very pale from loss of blood, and the razor-slash was hurting him.

‘Right,' he said, and added suddenly, ‘I say, Dad, you know that letter's all darn rot, don't you? I mean, you know there's nothing to it?'

‘Of course I do.' W.T. spoke reassuringly, and as the door closed behind the boy he murmured to himself. ‘It may be the truth – I don't know.' Then, the keen expression returning to his eyes, he looked again at Clarry Gale.

The little man was fidgeting nervously.

‘Wot jer want to say ter me now?' he demanded. ‘W'y've you sent 'im away? You said let the parst bury the parst, you said – '

W.T. nodded.

‘I did,' he said, ‘and so it shall.'

‘You mean that?'

‘I do.'

‘Well, then – wot are we comin' to?' Mr Gale's tone was still apprehensive.

W.T. hesitated.

‘A matter of curiosity,' he said. ‘Did Crowther, alias Grant,
see
you – er – hit Mrs Phail?'

Gale nodded.

‘Yus,' he said shortly. ‘A naxident, it was,' he went on. ‘She was jest goin' to screech, an' I let out at 'er. A pure naxident – an' 'e was watchin' – 'eard the row and crept down unbeknownst – watching like a cat watches a manse.' He paused and licked his dry lips. ‘An' never a word did 'e say. Gawd! Wot I went through! Never a word did 'e say, but as I stepped out of chokey five years later there 'e was waitin' for me, an' I never 'ad a moment's peace till the day 'e died.'

W.T. walked back to his hotel, his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes bent upon the pavement.

Half an hour ago he would have sworn regretfully that Mrs Christensen had fired the shot, but now Gale's revelation had made all the difference.

Even supposing that the story was an entire fabrication – which, to say the least of it, was not likely – Mrs Christensen herself had dropped hints that she was not thinking of herself, which although he had not understood at the time now came back to the detective's mind very forcefully.

All things considered, therefore, the evidence against Mrs Christensen was practically cancelled out by this new evidence in her favour.

There remained – Norah.

Norah was, as Gale had said, not a weak type, but a highspirited young woman who might possibly have committed the crime had she first convinced herself that she was acting in a good cause. Ridding the world of a monster, or some other silly rubbish, as the old man put it gloomily.

There was the letter. W.T. looked at it again. It was certainly a dangerous little document in the present situation, and as he re-read it he saw anew how likely Gale's story was – how easy it must have been to play upon the elder sister's nerves when he had such a note to back him up.

W.T. sighed. Norah must be interviewed at once.

When he entered the hotel lounge he found that the girl had disappeared. He made inquiries about her, but no one seemed to have noticed her departure, and presently he went up to Jerry's room to see how the boy was getting on. The first person he saw
on opening the door was Norah, her sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

‘I sent for a doctor,' she said. ‘He's putting in some stitches, but it's not so bad as it looks.'

A bearded French doctor in shirt-sleeves was bending over Jerry, who lay back in a chair by the window.

W.T. sat down meekly and waited. Norah and the doctor bustled about, and the detective, remembering his own youth, reflected that Jerry was probably enjoying the situation.

The irony of the whole case irritated him. It was all so simple, so natural, and yet so involved and unsatisfactory. This romance of Jerry's with the girl was the last straw.

At last the doctor repacked his case, washed his hands, put on his coat, smiled, bowed, and departed. Norah cleared up the room and Jerry sat up and grinned as well as he could without hurting himself.

‘I tried to sneak in the back way, but she spotted me from the window, Dad,' he said, not without a certain satisfaction. ‘I couldn't get away from her.'

‘I don't know where you'd be if it wasn't for me,' she said. ‘You can't tie up a slash like that and hope for the best – you must have it sewn up at once or it shows for ever. I wouldn't listen to him,' she added, turning to the detective. ‘I just sent for the doctor.'

W.T. smiled, but the expression in his eyes was uneasy. The crumpled letter in his pocket worried him.

‘Miss Bayliss,' he said, ‘I want to talk to you.'

‘Yes?' There was nothing more than polite inquiry in the girl's tone, and the detective looked at her narrowly. She was smiling at him, her blue eyes wide with interest.

Jerry was not so carefree, however. He sat forward and spoke hastily.

‘I say, Dad, you're not going into that letter, are you? Can't you see how perfectly absurd it all is? I mean – '

‘My boy, I must go into everything,' said W.T. mildly. ‘If there is nothing in it, it won't be unusual,' he added dryly.

‘But I say, you can't!' the boy expostulated weakly.' You can't – I mean, that letter …'

‘Jerry, if you talk so much you'll break those stitches.' Norah smiled at him as she spoke, and then turned again to the detective.

‘What is this about a letter?' she said. ‘Anything
I
can tell you?' Her tone was so frank and her smile so natural that W.T. felt his suspicions fading.

He drew the letter out of his pocket and handed it to her.

She took it, surprised at first to see her own handwriting; but as her eyes travelled down the page the colour rose in her face, and her hand trembled.

‘Did you write that?' There was a directness in the question that could not be ignored.

The girl's nerve seemed suddenly to go to pieces. She stood there scarlet-faced and stammering.

‘No – yes – I don't know.'

‘Dad, this is absurd!' cut in Jerry violently; but the old man silenced him and, rising to his feet, placed a chair for the girl.

‘Sit down,' he said gently, ‘and then answer my questions. It is very important.'

The girl took the chair thankfully and sank into it, and the detective sat down opposite her, while Jerry leant forward peering through his bandages, half angry, half apprehensive.

‘Did you write that?' the detective repeated, indicating the letter.

The girl nodded.

‘Yes,' she said, and there was a hint of defiance in her tone.

W.T. frowned.

‘Why did you write it?'

‘Why are you questioning me like this? Surely you can't think that I…?' The girl's voice had grown unsteady in her nervousness, and now she broke down completely and sat staring at him, her breath drawing painfully and the colour coming and going in her face.

‘My dear child, I must question you.' W.T. spoke sharply. ‘Do you know that your sister has paid Gale – that is, Lacy – three hundred pounds because of that letter?'

‘Grace paid three hundred pounds?' The girl repeated his words in amazement. ‘Three hundred pounds because of my letter? Why?'

‘Because,' said W.T. slowly, ‘he suggested, and she believed, that Eric Crowther's mysterious death and that letter might have some connection.'

‘Mr Challoner, you must be mad.'

W.T. was disarmed. When he had hinted at his meaning she had appeared to be terrified, but now that he actually voiced it she immediately became calm, almost relieved. He returned to the letter, the only concrete fact he had to work upon.

‘I'm afraid I must ask you to explain this, nevertheless,' he said, tapping it gently with his forefinger. ‘You see,' he added, as the old child-like defiance crept into her eyes, ‘in a mystery no clue must be disregarded.'

The girl nodded.

‘I see,' she said, and stiffened as if for an ordeal. W.T. adopted his most fatherly manner.

‘Now,' he said, ‘this letter seems to suggest that Crowther was making himself a nuisance to you – irritating you with his attentions. Was that so?'

The girl nodded.

‘Yes,' she said finally, and shot a half-doubtful, half-imploring glance at Jerry.

W.T. began to divine some of the reason for her reticence, and glanced at his son.

‘Jerry,' he said, ‘go and lie down in my room. I want to talk to Miss Bayliss alone.'

‘I'll stay here,' said Jerry.

The girl looked at the detective pleadingly. ‘Please let him stay,' she said.

W.T. shrugged his shoulders.

‘Very well,' he said. ‘But I warn you I want to hear all there is to say about this letter and the circumstances which led to its being written.'

Norah bowed her head in acquiescence, and he continued:

‘In my first interview with your sister on the day of the tragedy
she told me that she was being worried by Crowther. Was that true too?'

Norah hesitated.

‘Ye-es,' she said at last, somewhat doubtfully.

‘What does that mean?' said W.T. ‘Was she – or was she not?'

Still the girl hesitated.

‘She – she was, but not quite in the same way,' she said at last.

W.T. nodded understandingly.

‘You mean that Crowther knew something – something that your sister was very anxious to keep a secret – and held it over her head?' he said.

The girl gasped.

‘You – you know that?' she murmured.

W.T. saw that he had made a mistake, and turned back on his tracks.

‘You didn't mean that?' he said swiftly. ‘There was something else – some other way in which he annoyed her? What was it?'

Norah looked at him awkwardly.

‘He worried her because of me,' she said. ‘He wanted her to use her influence with me.'

W.T. cleared his throat.

‘I see,' he said shortly. ‘And – er – pardon me, Miss Bayliss, but did Crowther offer you – marriage?'

‘Not at first.'

‘Later?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you refused?'

‘Of course.'

‘Now, after you had refused him, did he still bother you?'

‘Oh yes.'

‘And you wrote him that letter?'

The girl nodded.

‘Yes. He sent me an embroidered Spanish shawl with a – a horrible letter. I burnt the letter and sent back the shawl with that note – I was furious when I wrote it.'

‘That was four days before the murder?'

‘Yes.'

‘How do you know that?' The detective spoke swiftly.

Norah looked at him in surprise.

‘Because I remember,' she said simply.

‘I'm afraid I must ask you to explain.' W.T. spoke warningly.

The girl was silent for a moment.

‘Mr Challoner,' she said at last, ‘you spoke just now of a secret my sister was anxious to keep.'

‘Yes?'

‘Well …' The girl hesitated and the old detective suddenly saw her predicament.

‘I know,' he said gently, ‘I know all about it – you can speak to me with perfect confidence.'

‘About – about Joan?'

‘About Joan,' said W.T.

Norah sighed.

‘That makes all the difference in the world,' she said. ‘Don't you see – I can talk to you now.'

W.T. thrust his fingers through his hair.

‘Oh, you women, you women,' he said wearily. ‘When will you realize what is important and what is not?'

Norah's blue eyes were reproachful.

‘You couldn't expect me to give away a secret like that, could you?' she said.

‘My dear child' – the old detective was as exasperated as he ever permitted himself to become – ‘an elephant is large compared with a mouse, but it is ridiculously small compared with Mount Etna. That secret may have been immense six months ago, but now we are faced with a larger and much more terrible secret. Don't you realize what a murder means?'

Norah shrugged her shoulders, and W.T. knew that she had followed his argument but was still not convinced.

‘Yes,' she said, ‘I see. But it's much easier to talk now.'

W.T. sighed.

‘Well,' he said, ‘let us start from the letter. You wrote that letter because you were angry with Crowther. He had been forcing unwelcome attentions upon you and upon your sister,
using his knowledge of her secret to influence her in his favour as far as you were concerned.'

‘Yes,' said Norah. ‘But I didn't know he used the secret to influence her – I didn't know – about Joan then, you see.'

‘You didn't know about the child?' W.T. was surprised. ‘When did you learn about it?'

‘On the day before the murder.'

‘Who told you?'

‘He did.'

‘Who?'

‘Crowther.'

‘Crowther told you?' The old detective raised his eyebrows.

‘Suppose you tell me about it,' he suggested.

The girl nodded.

‘Very well. It was like this. After I wrote that letter he came over to see me, and I refused to see him; but he saw Grace, and afterwards I could see that she was very worried. I used to wonder why she put up with him. She used to say he was just trying to make love to her, and I believed it.'

‘And all the time it was this affair of the child?' commented W.T.

‘Yes … I didn't know that then, though. All the next day I didn't see him, but on the third day – the day before he died, Crowther waylaid me in the garden and forced me to listen to him.' She paused, and looked at Jerry; but there was nothing but sympathy in the boy's face, and she continued: