Vanishing Point (15 page)

At about half past two on that same afternoon Nicholas looked up from the plan he was drawing. Howard, who was Mr. Burlington’s secretary and whom he didn’t much like, had come noiselessly between him and the light. As the scale to which he was working was a very small one and demanded absolute accuracy, he was annoyed, and showed it. Super secretaries who oiled around and suddenly sprang themselves upon you could hardly expect to be popular. Howard was not only not popular, he was detested. He looked down his long sallow nose and said, “Mr. Burlington would like to see you, Cunningham,” and stood waiting with rather the air of a warder for Nicholas to get to his feet. He did not, however, accompany him any farther than the door of Mr. Burlington’s private room, where he withdrew in a disapproving manner, leaving him to go in alone.

The room was a small and pleasant one. Successive mistresses of Dalling Grange had made music or sat to their embroidery where the light came slanting in through three tall windows.

They had been hung with brocaded curtains then, now they were bare. The pale green panelling had a dusty look. Two serviceable rugs took the place of the delicate carpet which, with most of the furniture, had gone to the sale room, giving place to an office desk, book-cases, filing cabinets, and some rather utilitarian chairs.

Mr. Burlington sat at the desk—a thin man with a quick frown and a sharp tongue. He had brains, or he wouldn’t be sitting in that chair. That was about as far as Nicholas had ever felt inclined to go in his favour. He said abruptly,

“Come in and shut the door!”

As Nicholas complied he was aware that there was a second person present. He had been looking out of the window. He turned round now and came forward. It had really been quite easy not to notice him. He was of medium height and medium build. He wore pale rimmed glasses, and his general colouring might have been described as protective—thin, fine hair of a mousy shade; the most ordinary of features; the least noticeable of clothes. Mr. Burlington turned to him and said,

“This is Nicholas Cunningham. I am going to ask him to give you his own account of the interview I had with him this morning.”

Nicholas found this on the chilling side. He concluded that the indeterminate gentleman must be an Important Person. Even a Very Important Person. He felt that he had been named to him rather more as the accused is named in court than in the way of a social introduction.

Still shrouded in anonymity, the Important Person sat down. Nicholas was invited to sit down. He took a chair which had obviously been placed for him and faced the light from those long unshaded windows. Mr. Burlington said,

“Now, Cunningham—”

“I don’t quite know where you want me to begin, sir.”

Mr. Burlington frowned.

“I want you to repeat what passed between us this morning from the moment that you came into this room and shut the door behind you. What did you say, and what did you do?”

This was an odd game. He supposed it to be some kind of test of his accuracy. He said,

“You were sitting at your table writing, and I came up to it and said, ‘It’s happened again, sir’.”

“And what did you mean by that?”

“Do you want me to go back over what had happened before?”

“Certainly.”

“About a month ago I found an odd piece of paper in one of my pockets. It looked as if it had been there some time, but I don’t see how it could have been. It was crumpled and rubbed. It had been written on in pencil, but the writing was very faint, and neither the words nor the lettering were English.”

The Important Person with the extraordinarily unimportant air now spoke for the first time.

“What did you take them to be?”

“I thought they might be Russian, or one of the other Eastern European languages.”

“What made you think so?”

“The letters were different.”

“Do you know any Russian?”

“No, sir.”

“What languages do you know?”

“French—a little German—the usual amount of school Latin—”

“You couldn’t read the paper?”

“No, sir.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I thought I had better show it to Mr. Burlington.”

“What made you think that?”

“I thought it might be Russian. I didn’t like it being in my pocket. I thought he had better see it.”

With the slightest of gestures he was handed back. Mr. Burlington told him to go on.

“When it happened again, I liked it a whole lot less. I came down to breakfast this morning, and my aunt came in with another of those crumpled papers in her hand. She had been mending my jacket pocket the evening before. She said the paper must have worked down through the hole. She said it was caught between the lining and the stuff. She thought I might want it.”

The quiet voice took up its questioning again.

“Had she read it?”

“She wouldn’t read anything she thought was private.”

“She might not have thought it was private. Did she read it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t ask her?”

Some colour came up into Nicholas’s face.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t want her to think it was important.”

“That might be quite a good reason if it wasn’t a personal one. Was it?”

The last few words were not loud, but they gave him the feeling that he had been flicked in the face. Quite unexpectedly. He said, “No, sir.” He hoped he hadn’t waited too long before saying it.

“Perhaps you will expand that a little.”

“I didn’t know what was on the paper. I remembered about the other one. I thought it was another of the same kind. Mr. Burlington wouldn’t want it to be talked about.”

“You didn’t read it immediately?”

“Not until I was alone. I just pushed it into my pocket and hoped my aunt would think it was of no importance.”

“You had already made up your mind it was important?”

“I thought Mr. Burlington ought to see it.”

“When did you make up your mind to show it to him?”

“As soon as I read it.”

Without any change the quiet voice said,

“I am going to read it now.”

The paper came out of the pocket-book. The glasses focussed themselves upon it. The voice read:

“—you must see this for yourself. If you cannot get us any better material you are useless, and when anything is of no more use, it is better to scrap it.”

“When you read these words, what was your reaction?”

“I thought someone was trying to frame me.”

“And you decided to go to Mr. Burlington. A very proper course, but one you might quite easily have taken if you had wished to safeguard yourself against some outside employer who had become dissatisfied, and who was prepared to scrap you.”

Nicholas pushed back his chair and came to his feet with a jerk.

“Sir—I protest!”

The eyes behind the pale glasses rested upon him steadily.

“Yes. But then you would—wouldn’t you? And all the more if it was true.”

Nicholas Cunningham took hold of himself. Easy enough to go off the deep end. And satisfying while it lasted. But there were always the bits to be picked up afterwards, and he didn’t fancy the job. He looked across the table and said,

“I can’t prove anything. I can only tell you what’s happened. I took both those papers to Mr. Burlington as soon as I found them. I think someone is trying to frame me. If I knew who it was I shouldn’t be here. I should be dealing with him.”

Burlington looked at the other man, and back at Nicholas. He said,

“Sit down, Cunningham.”

It was getting on for ten o’clock that night when Craig Lester came out of the Holly Tree and strolled across the road. As he came to the White Cottage he could see that the lights were on in both front rooms. With only the two ladies in the house, it occurred to him to wonder why two sitting-rooms should be in use. But before he could reflect that he hadn’t lost much time in acquiring the true Village spirit the front door opened and Frank Abbott came out. During the moment in which he stood outlined against the glow from the dining-room door Craig made up his mind. He was aware of the figure of Miss Maud Silver in the background, and as Frank turned to bid her good-night, he stepped between the over-arching yews and walked quickly up the flagged path. Miss Silver, drawing back in order to shut the door, checked, looking into the darkness. Frank Abbott turned at the sound of his footsteps and almost bumped into him. Then, as recognition followed, he said,

“Hullo, it’s you! Which of us do you want? I was just off.”

“I wonder if I could have a few words with Miss Silver? If it isn’t too late.”

“Well, if you don’t want me I’ll be going.”

He went down the path. Craig said in an apologetic voice,

“Is it too late, Miss Silver?”

The light was behind her, but he thought she smiled.

“By no means, Mr. Lester. Pray come in.”

She took him into the dinning-room and indicated the chair which Frank Abbott had occupied. When they were seated and she had resumed her knitting, he received an encouraging look.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Lester?”

“A very great favour, if you will.”

“Will you tell me what it is?”

“Well, before I do that, perhaps you ought to know that I have a pretty good idea of why you are here.”

She said with a shade of rebuke,

“I am paying a visit to my old school friend, Mrs. Merridew.”

“And Frank Abbott is paying a visit to one of his innumerable cousins! I suppose he has told you that we have known each other on and off for quite a time?”

“Yes, Mr. Lester.”

“Well, what I’m trying to get across is that I know a good deal about your particular activities. Frank gave me a hint not to do any broadcasting—I suppose he told you that too.”

She smiled.

“These things make so much talk in a village.”

He nodded.

“As far as I am concerned, you are Mrs. Merridew’s friend and nothing more.”

Her needles clicked above the bright wool.

“It matters less than it would have done at first. Pray, what is it that you wish me to do for you?”

His face lit up with a smile that transformed it.

“You wouldn’t feel inclined to come to my wedding, would you? Because that’s what I came here to ask. And before you say no, will you be very kind indeed and let me tell you a little more about it all?”

“Certainly, Mr. Lester.”

He said in a quick boyish way which took ten years from his age,

“You are kind! And that is what Rosamond wants. She has never had it, and just now she needs it badly.”

Miss Silver looked at him in a most sympathetic manner.

“A most charming girl.”

He said with complete simplicity,

“I fell in love with her picture before I ever saw her—just an odd photograph slipped in with some manuscripts which Jenny sent my firm. Then when I saw her—well, it was all up. But of course I didn’t expect it to be the same for her. I didn’t want to rush her. I thought perhaps it would take a long time. And then I began to see that time was just the thing we hadn’t got. Miss Crewe was working her to death, Jenny was all set to kick over the traces, and there was something pretty nasty going on in the background. This is all in confidence of course.”

“Certainly, Mr. Lester.”

He could be sensitive to the finer shades.

“I needn’t have said that—I know. You’ll forgive me, won’t you? Well, on Sunday, I discovered that Jenny was getting out of the house at night. I couldn’t sleep—I’d got a lot on my mind—and I went out for a walk. When I was near the entrance to Crewe House a car came down the road. The headlights picked Jenny up. You know there’s a stile there leading to a footpath over the fields—she had just come across from there. As soon as the car had gone she ran past me and went up the drive. I saw her let herself in by a side door. I told Rosamond, and she was very much upset. Now it seems that Miss Crewe either saw or heard her come in. She has been making arrangements behind Rosamond’s back to send Jenny to school, and this afternoon she told Hher it was all fixed up and she was to take her down there on Friday morning. That just about put the lid on. I’d been taking precautions, you know. Those girls haven’t a penny, or a soul in the world to take their part except me, and as things were I’d got just no standing at all. What I did was to give notice at the Registrar’s in Melbury—you can get married after one clear day. We can get married tomorrow. I’ve fixed it for half past ten. Well, I want Rosamond to have someone with her. These things make talk—I want to stop as much of it as I can. I’ve come here to ask you whether you’ll drive into Melbury with us and see us married. We can’t ask anyone who lives here, because Miss Crewe would have their blood, and besides—I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have.”

He received a smile of great kindness and charm.

“You feel that this is really necessary, Mr. Lester?”

“Yes, I do. If I’m Rosamond’s husband and Jenny’s brother-in-law, I can get them out of here. There are things going on— I don’t like it. They’re not safe.”

She inclined her head.

“I will come to your wedding, Mr. Lester.”

Lucy Cunningham had gone through the day, she hardly knew how. As long as Mrs. Hubbard was there and she was doing things in and about the house she managed pretty well. Whilst she was making beds, dusting, emptying hot-water bottles— Henry liked one, and she wouldn’t have done without hers for anything—mixing balancer meal with scraps, boiling up a mash and feeding it to the hens, the comfortable everydayness of these occupations stood like a wall between her and the events of the night. From the safe shelter of that wall it was possible to regard them as partaking of the unreal quality of any other dream. Looking back as far as her childhood, she could remember to have dreamed that she was being pursued by wolves or Red Indians, that she was trying to pack everything she possessed in one small handbag and catch a train for Australia, the missing of which would plunge her in unknown but quite irremediable disaster. She had also dreamed about falling over cliffs, a long, long swooping drop, and waking just in time to avoid being dashed to pieces at the bottom. All these were things which had happened in the night and had frightened her very much at the time, but in the comfortable daylight they thinned away and were gone.

She went busily from one task to another, and found that the weight upon her tended to lift. There were even times when she ceased to be aware of it for perhaps as long as several minutes on end. Mrs. Parsons’s cat was back on the wall again and she had to chase it away—a patchy tortoiseshell with a lot of white about it, and really quite a malignant expression in its eyes. She would have to speak to Lydia about having down the tree between the hen-run and the wall, an old walnut that never bore, because the minute there were any young chickens, that horrible cat would find it only too easy to climb down it and snatch them. Lydia wouldn’t like the tree to be cut. She didn’t like anything changed or altered. Of course she didn’t have to ask her, because Papa had bought the Dower House and she had a legal right to cut down anything she wanted to. Only she couldn’t stand on her legal rights—not with Lydia Crewe.

Henry was out for most of the morning, and they turned out his room. There was a dead frog in his collar-drawer, and some rather slimy-looking plants in the bedroom basin. She was considering whether they could be thrown away, when she discovered that there were tadpoles hatching out amongst them. She desisted therefore, and laid the frog on the front of the washstand where he could hardly help seeing it. Mrs. Hubbard, in the background, made small clicking sounds of disapproval punctuated by an occasional sniff. How Miss Cunningham could put up with it, she didn’t know. Nobody could say he wasn’t a quiet gentleman, but just as well he never got married, for there weren’t many wives would put up with what his sister did.

By the time Henry’s room had been left as clean and tidy as was compatible with not throwing anything away Lucy really felt a great deal better. All the years during which he had brought in eggs, and moths, and caterpillars, and practically every other mess you could think of, stood solidly between her and the horrid thought which had come to her in the night. Not Henry who mourned when so much as a beetle died—oh, no, not Henry!

She went into Nicholas’s room to dust and tidy it, whilst Mrs. Hubbard went downstairs. It was the room he had had since he was a little boy and George and Ethel had sent him home from India. They had both died out there, and she had been left to bring him up. There was still one bookcase full of books about submarines, and aeroplanes, and boy detectives. She picked up one or two and looked at them. There was a page all scribbled over with drawings of hens, very clever and funny. Nicholas could always draw. There was a caricature of Lydia, tall and black and severe, and one of herself, all round-about. She set the book back on the shelf and remembered Nicholas putting his arm round her and saying in his laughing voice, “But, Lu darling, what’s the good of pretending—you are a rolypoly, and there’s no getting away from it.” Her heart softened. He had laughed at her, he had teased her, he had loved her.

It was after Mrs. Hubbard had gone that the weight began to come down again. Henry had been in one of his most abstracted moods at lunch. He propped a book before him and only spoke to ask for a second helping of pudding, and when he had finished it he went away into the study and shut the door. There was nothing new about this, but Lucy Cunningham felt that it would have been pleasant to have had coffee together in the drawing-room, and that it wouldn’t have hurt him to tell her what he had been doing all the morning. She was, therefore, rather more than pleased to have a visit from Marian Merridew and the friend who was staying with her. She took them over the house, apologizing by the way for the tadpoles and the dead frog.

“My brother is writing a book, you know, and it upsets him very much if anything is thrown out or tidied away.”

Miss Silver was all that was interested and sympathetic. She admired the needlework picture worked by Georgiana Crewe in the year 1755. She admired the graceful portrait of her in the drawing-room.

“Of course all the valuable portraits are at Crewe House, but this one, as you see, has been painted upon one of the panels, so Mr. Crewe let it go with the house. My father bought most of the furniture as it stood. He and Mr. Crewe thought it would be a pity to disturb it, and they had more than they wanted at Crewe House—but it upset Miss Crewe very much at the time.”

She did not know what had made her say that about Lydia. She was just feeling that she wanted to talk, and it slipped out. It didn’t really matter of course, because Marian Merridew knew, and this Miss Silver was just a passing guest. She went on telling her about the house.

But whether they went up or down, she found that her eyes went to the sixth baluster from the top of the stairs, where a tripcord of garden twine had been tied so tightly that the edges had dented and some of the paint flaked off.

She kept the two ladies as long as she could, but in the end they went away and she was left alone. Then, as the house darkened and silence filled it, her wall of defence came tumbling down and she was left face to face, not with a dream, but with stubborn inveterate fact. Someone had tried to kill her in this house last night. There were only the three of them there—all Cunninghams, all of one blood—Henry, and Nicholas, and her-self—

One of them had tried to kill her. Would he leave it at that, or would he try again?

The evening closed down slowly. There was low cloud and a dampness in the air. Nicholas rang up to say that he would be late.

“Don’t bother about a meal—I shan’t want it.”

She could not keep the old solicitude from her voice. She heard it there, and in some curious way it reassured her.

“Do you mean that you are dining out? You must have your food.”

He said easily, “That’s all right—I’ll be having something here,” and rang off.

Her heart sank. Another of those dreadful meals with Henry not speaking. There had been so many of them, and she had not noticed or minded. Now she saw them stretching out in front of her in an endless unendurable vista. And then, quite suddenly like the jab of a knife, there was the thought that there might be no future for her to dread. If she had fallen at the tripcord on the stairs last night she would not be here now, thinking about having supper alone with Henry and being frightened. Suppose there was something else that was planned to happen. Perhaps now. Perhaps later. It might be that she and Henry would sit down to one last meal. Perhaps nothing would happen until after that. Henry would want his supper—and there would be the washing up—

How foolish, how dreadfully foolish to let such thoughts come into her mind. She mustn’t let them come. She must think about getting supper and washing up afterwards. There were herrings to fry, and she must remember that Henry liked his crisp. And the toast too. That was the sort of thing she must keep her mind on. And then Nicholas would be coming home, and—and—“I can always lock my door.”