Читать книгу Mystery at the Rectory - A. Fielding - Страница 6

CHAPTER FOUR

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LUNCH next day was a painful meal. Olive sent word that she was going for a long walk, and would not be back till late in the afternoon.

The rector seemed to see still before him that handsome young face which had turned to him at this very table so short a time ago.

Grace had returned and was very silent.

"When is the inquest on Anthony to be held?" Doris asked after a long interval of silence.

"This afternoon," Mr. Avery said. "It's a foregone conclusion—the verdict I mean. Poor Anthony, I should have thought, was the last man to be awkward in handling anything, let alone a gun!"

"I suppose it couldn't have been suicide?" Grace asked in a low voice. The sweet was on the table and the servants were gone.

"Suicide!" Doris stopped helping her sister-in-law to the tart. "What on earth?"

"What put that idea into your head, Grace?" the rector asked gravely, "or rather what made you say it." He wondered if Grace were developing a tendency to wild statements.

"Well, it's all so funny," Grace said irritably. "Olive was out last night; no one knows this of course, but it's a fact. I went to her room for some toothache drops I knew were in that wall cupboard in there, and she wasn't there. That was nearly midnight. Her bed hadn't been slept in. She says she was up on the roof watching the stars, as she does at times. But I'm wondering whether she met Anthony and told him that she didn't want to be engaged to him—that she didn't love him—"

"But she did!" broke in Doris imperiously.

"You chose to think she did," was the tart reply, "and so engineered that ridiculous engagement, but Olive didn't care for him. That was her charm for Anthony, I think. Such a contrast to most of the women he'd met. No, Doris, you spoilt a girl who was in most ways one of the best companions I shall ever have and all to no purpose. She was quite happy here with me."

Doris helped her brother-in-law to apple tart, and passed him the cream with an expression that said that she considered Grace's words not worth a reply.

"What do you say?" he now asked turning to her.

"Of course she was in love with Anthony!" she said with certainty. "Why, the two were all eyes and sighs for weeks past. Violet-May suspected Anthony of being in love with Grace," she said maliciously—Doris could say very cutting things in her light easy way—"you believed he wanted to flirt with me," she added as Grace's face flushed—"but it was Olive all the time—from first to last."

"Except when it was Mrs. Green!" Grace said.

"Mrs. Green!" scoffed Doris. "Mrs. Green is an artist, Grace. She adored Anthony's good looks and she liked him personally as well. But as to the garbage that people talk about her being in love with him—" Doris made a sweep of the sugar sifter do duty for her opinion of that.

Remembering Anthony's own words about how irksome he had himself found Mrs. Green when Olive came into his life, the rector felt uncomfortable, but the two young women were not looking at him.

"You're bound to take that view, as you engineered the whole affair," Grace said in a very unconvinced voice.

"No, Cupid did that," laughed Doris. "I simply arranged with you to let me get Olive to design and engineer those chair covers for me," and Doris, with an excuse to the two, rose from the table with her usual air of swift decision, which suggested the brisk alert mind which she turned to everything. Just as Grace's slow languid way of getting out of her chair suggested the uncertainty that was an integral part of her nature too.

The inquest was soon over. At no time was it interesting except to the local people who crowded the room. Lady Revell, looking almost indecently cheerful, was there with Gilbert who wore a very sober expression. Near them sat Mrs. Green. Some of those present refused at first to recognise the middle-aged, badly dressed woman with the deep pockets under her eyes.

"If that really is Mrs. Green and not her mother, she must have made-up well up to now," was the general spoken or unspoken comment.

First came the evidence of identification, which, as the Coroner was also the Revells' family solicitor, was purely perfunctory. Then came the evidence of the police as to how the body had been found.

Then came the evidence of Anthony's manservant, who spoke of his master's high spirits before he left and coyly admitted, when pressed, that he had told him, Jamieson, about his coming engagement to Miss Hill. He identified the revolver found on the table as one which Mr. Revell had bought a month or so ago, when there were so many cases of housebreaking around them, saying that as The Causeway was so isolated and so hidden in trees, it might be as well to have one in the house. The revolver was kept in an unlocked drawer in Mr. Revell's bedroom. He had no idea, he said, as to what brought his master home last night. Mr. Revell had apparently touched nothing in the house but some mixed biscuits and the whisky and soda. As to why he should have gone to the drawing-room—Mr. Revell liked that room of an evening. But as to why he should have had his revolver with him, the servant professed to have no idea=beyond the obvious one of Mr. Revell having seen some suspicious person loitering about, or heard footsteps.

The doctor gave evidence next. He described the wound which had been made by the entry of the bullet in the right ear. The scorch marks showed that the weapon must have been practically touching the head, and the passage of the bullet had been on a dead level; it looked to him as though Revell had had his head turned sidewise down over the revolver, as though to look along the table top at the moment when the fatal shot was fired. Dr. Black did not insist that he shot himself in that position, but the course of the bullet suggested it. Dr. Black went on to say that Revell was a most casual young man, and while holding the revolver in his right hand, might very easily have made some incautious movement with the cloth in his left hand which had sent a bullet through his head. The doctor showed just what he meant. He thought that Anthony had been about eight hours dead when he was found. Which meant that he had been killed around one o'clock in the morning. Black was a young man, also a Cambridge graduate, and he and Revell had been very friendly. He spoke of his certainty that there was no reason whatever for Revell to have taken his own life. He too had been told of the engagement which was to be announced on his return from the climbing holiday. The doctor had happened to pass him on the road as he started off, and Revell had said that he was the happiest man in the world.

The two friends with whom Anthony had been climbing were called next. They were a brother and sister of the name of Gartside. The latter, a plain-faced, very resolute-looking young woman of around thirty to thirty-five, the former a little older, with a taciturn expression. Both were very short in their replies, but both told how on Thursday morning, two days after they had started their climbs, Revell, who seemed in excellent spirits, came down to breakfast with a very worried look and said he that must go back to London at once to his dentist to have a tooth put right that was worrying him badly. He expected to be back on Friday in the afternoon. Revell had suffered agonies from toothache once before when climbing a rock exposed to the east wind.

In answer to a question by the foreman, the jury learnt that the dentist to whom Revell usually went, was away on holiday just then, but the secretary said that at least two people—men—had rung up Thursday in the late afternoon, and on hearing that he was away had declined to make any appointment. Revell might have been one of these.

The police gave further evidence of the undisturbed appearance of the body, the room, the house and the garage, of Revell's fingerprints on the revolver, and, in answer to a question of the Coroner said that they had no reason to think that death was other than due to misadventure.

The jury brought in a verdict accordingly, and expressed their profound sympathy with the family and friends of the deceased. The inquest was over.

The funeral would be next day. Gartside and his sister were staying for it.

The little group from the rectory had listened with the closest attention. Seeing how white Olive looked, the rector told himself that he must be wrong. That she must have loved Anthony, but that her feelings were evidently of the kind that burrow deep. And yet, as he met her eyes on helping her into his car when it was over, he was struck by their expression, so secretive and yet so fierce. Again he felt sure that here there was no grief as he knew it. A strange girl this...

As Doris put her foot on the step a telegraph boy jumped off his bicycle and handed her a cable.

"From Las Palmas," Doris murmured as she tore it open. She read a few lines and gave a cry of joy. Without speaking, quite heedless of the others, she turned and set off for the rectory at a pace that suggested a desire to be alone.

Grace, unlike her brother, had no clue to Las Palmas, but Avery guessed that Richard had already started for home. He had written him that he would probably fly from Ashanti—his nearest town—to Las Palmas, there to wait for a friend with some papers which would need signing before he could proceed to England.

Lady Revell came out towards her own car. She stopped and gave Olive a warm handclasp. The rector thought that but for the ramrod stiffness of the girl she would have kissed her. "I want you to come to us," Lady Revell said softly, "I want you to come and stay at The Flagstaff, Olive, and let us get to know each other. Gilbert here feels just as I do—"

"Oh, rather!" said Gilbert awkwardly, but with emphasis. His eyes were very friendly as he looked at the girl who, but for this unexpected tragedy, would have been his sister-in-law. Olive did not look at either mother or son.

"I don't think I can...I can't leave Miss Avery at once—"

Lady Revell was very sweet and soothing, and let the invitation drop for the moment as she moved away to speak to a very smartly-turned-out young woman, thin as a rail, whose expensive perfume filled the air, whose paint lay like plaster on her cheeks, and yet Lady Witson was good-looking in her own way, with a very intelligent face under all its make-up. And she was quite young—well under thirty.

As for Grace and her brother, they drove to the rectory in silence, each busy with their own thoughts.

On the rectory steps, they heard Doris's laugh floating out through the open window. Joyous and happy. Free and clear. Looking into the morning-room Grace and the rector came on Doris radiant, hugging a letter to her heart.

"I've found it behind the hall table. And the cable is its postscript. He's coming home! He's left the Service He's going to buy a place near you, Jack! He's at Las Palmas!—" Doris was almost incoherent with sheer joy.

"You sound happy—" Grace said almost reprovingly. "It's not a very happy day for most of us—" she looked after Olive who had run on up the stairs.

"I know! I know!" Doris's tone was remorseful for a second only, "But I'm too happy to live!"

The rector thought of Anthony's words to Doctor Black. He could not but be pleased at the joy shown by Doris after her agony of Thursday morning. It might not indicate a high degree of unselfishness, so to forget Anthony and Olive, but who could be vexed with a wife looking as Doris looked now at hearing that her husband was on his way home?

"Well," Grace said, closing the door, "did you think that Olive acted to Lucy Revell as to her all-but mother-in-law? You can see now that I was right. Olive didn't care for Anthony—"

"I have no way of guessing what goes on inside Olive Hill's heart," the rector said, "presumably she has one, but only presumably."

"I think it's given to young Byrd."

The rector frowned. "You said that before. I hope not, I sincerely hope not. How could she have got to know him sufficiently. I should have thought that you would have seen to it that Olive did not see much of him," the rector said in a tone of some warmth. "She's in your charge. An orphan girl—"

"My dear Jack—" Grace only called him that when she was very annoyed, "you know as well as I do that Olive has all along done what she liked—apart from her set duties I mean, and whom she saw, or when she saw them, are things no one knows but herself."

"Then what makes you persist in thinking—" began the rector.

"I saw her kissing Byrd about a fortnight ago. Lost to the world, my dear."

"A good-bye perhaps," the rector said shortly.

"Oh, probably," Grace agreed, "Olive is very thorough. She would never try to play a double game. But that's what I meant by wondering if Anthony might not have shot himself. He was spoilt, passionate, and really immensely in love. And if she told him that after all she loved Byrd—and he knew he had lost her—she's a most fascinating person, John."

"Really?" he asked dryly.

"Oh, quite inexplicably so. You notice her absence, you notice her all the time. I don't know what she's going to do now—"

"I hope not marry Byrd," the rector said gravely. "Putting aside what you told me about her, you must do your best to prevent that. Byrd has no standards, no health, no morals, no desire to work—nothing that would mean happiness if he had to provide for two. His temper is proverbial—it's won him the nickname, of Blackbird. As for the rest, he told me that he had thirty shillings a week to live on and not a hope of a penny more. He bought that cottage he has called The Hut with money he won on a bet. He can just manage to live on his lordly income—somehow. But a wife?"

"Funny," Grace now said, "I was just thinking that no one seems to care much for Anthony's death, and yet a month ago one would have said that every one would be awfully grieved. I except that artist woman—she is all in."

"And you can except me, and yourself too, and Gilbert, and Lady Revell, and many many other people, Grace," the rector said firmly. "But as a matter of fact, I don't think that most of us can realise yet that Anthony is gone. That we shall never see his handsome face again—nor hear his eager voice—" and real emotion made the rector stop for a moment, before going on to his study.

On the Monday, Doris woke with a vague feeling that some sound in her room had wakened her. She sat up and looked at the clock beside her bed. It was only a little past five, when as a rule she was in her soundest sleep. Could the cat have got in? Bending lithely over her bed, she called it. Nothing stirred. Then she saw that one of her slippers was lying on its side and had evidently been stepped on. Not by Doris. She had put them as usual side by side ready to thrust her feet into. That was what had wakened her. She lay back and tried to think out what it meant. She had nothing in her room worth stealing. Nothing of any interest to any one. Yet some one had stepped on her slipper, which meant that they must have been very near her bed, been bending over it, or over her...But she was very sleepy and, turning over, she fell asleep again on the instant.

After breakfast, Olive stepped into the morning-room. She wanted to know whether Doris could use her services as a secretary "or anything of that sort." From things Doris had said, Olive thought that there might be a great deal to do just now, before her husband got back home...

Doris was puzzled. It seemed to her an odd request. What about Grace? she asked, for since Olive's engagement the three women called each other by their Christian names.

"I want to get work as a secretary rather than a companion," Olive said, "and I can't do that without having a reference for my work. If I could stay with you for a while—it would be a help—"

Doris fuzzled the cat's ear and thought hard. Something lay behind this request, or rather this plan. What? Curiosity was always strong in Doris.

"But you have to know shorthand to be a secretary," she said finally.

"I'm fairly good at it," Olive replied, "I've been having lessons in it. I've taken down the rector's last sermons quite easily. He speaks fairly slowly of course, but I shall improve, I know."

Doris laughed. "So that's why you have taken to coming to church, is it?" she said easily. "I wondered at it when I heard you had been there. Grace and I have to go, of course, in common decency whenever the rector himself preaches, but I wondered—" She had thought that Olive had merely gone to show that she knew what would be expected of her after her marriage.

So, Olive had only gone to practise her shorthand. But surely, as Revell's wife, Olive would not have needed shorthand. Doris's eyes spoke for her. Olive read them correctly.

"I began to learn shorthand months ago. And I always hate to lose anything I have learnt how to do, don't you?"

Doris agreed that she did. But it was odd...just as it was odd being wakened this morning by some one tripping over her slipper. Doris was puzzled by Olive. She wondered what she was up to.

"Wouldn't you rather go quite away for a while," she asked in a kindly voice.

Olive shook a decided head. "It would make it worse. I would very much like to stay on here until I can make up my mind what to do next."

"If you've really made up your mind to leave Grace, and if she doesn't grudge me you," Doris said in her pretty and flattering way, "I shall be only too glad to have your help," and on that Olive went on up to her own room. Doris looked in on Grace, and told her of what had just been arranged.

"That is, if you don't mind?" she wound up.

"Now perhaps you'll believe me that she's in love with Byrd?" Grace said, laying down a letter she was reading.

"I confess I'm beginning to think you may be right—about whom it was she really cared for. Though, mind you, all I was certain of was that Anthony was in love with her. I never pretended to be sure about her feelings."

Grace let this pass. She looked very uncertain about something.

"She wants to earn a good reference for her work," Doris said after a little pause. "Rather pathetic considering how near she was to being a wealthy woman."

"I understand Lady Revell and Gilbert intend to settle The Causeway on her for life, and a sufficient income to keep it up," Grace said.

"Yes. And Violet-May says that Mrs. Green is doing her best to put a spoke in that wheel. She wants to buy The Causeway herself it seems."

Doris did not pay any attention to any speeches of Lady Witson's. She was notoriously inaccurate, to put it politely, though there were those who called her plainly an awful liar.

"You have no objection to my taking on Olive?" she asked, "frankly she would be a tremendous help just now. It would save my having to find a secretary who knows my ways, and is as clever as Olive is."

"She's very clever," Grace said hesitatingly, "very capable. You never have to tell her anything twice. And her loss makes one terribly sorry for her. I mean merely her loss of position and wealth. I really don't know what to say, Doris. Try her by all means—but—I'm not sure whether I ought not—" she stopped uncertainly. "You might ask John—" she suggested.

Doris was glancing at some letters. She had only heard the first words. She looked up.

"Well, I'll try Olive, partly because I want to see what's her object in staying on in the house. Oh, I know what she says. But what's behind her words?"

"To be near Byrd," was Grace's confident reply. "I don't think that you understood the position at all, Doris. Anthony may have been in love with Olive, but she was, and is, in love with Byrd, who in his turn doesn't care in the least for her. To make the circle complete, of course, he ought to be in love with Mrs. Green," she wound up regretfully.

Downstairs in his study the rector was talking to Mr. Smith, the Coroner.

"I was sorry you weren't at the reading of the will this morning," Mr. Smith was saying. "We couldn't get it out of the bank in time on Saturday." He had invited the rector to be present. "Everything was left to Gilbert. Bar a few legacies. There was one for you. I've dropped in to tell you of it."

"His stamp collection?" Avery asked.

"No, his Vauxhall. Insurance paid to the end of the year. A very lively car apparently, judging from the time he drove her here from Derbyshire the day before yesterday, stopping in at town on the way too. I understand she does a hundred in the shade. Anyway, it's his fastest car."

"It was a kind thought," the rector said gratefully. "My own car is very slow. He told me years ago that he was going to leave me one of his cars in his will, but I thought that that was only a joke. Who gets his stamp collection?"

"It's not mentioned specifically. The Gartsides may, since they're to choose as souvenirs any four articles which are in his house at the time of his death—bar furniture or family portraits. Is his stamp collection a good one?"

"Not as far as I know. But he was talking of it when he dined here a week ago—only a week ago, Smith!—I have some boys in the clubs I run who collect—what they can. Unwanted stamps are always welcome therefore, and he said he'd let me have his albums to distribute when he got back, as he'd given up collecting years ago. As a matter of fact, the very last thing he did was to leave some stamps that he had mentioned, here at the door, before he drove on up to town."

The two talked very kindly of the dead young man.

"I suppose," Smith said finally rising and reaching for his hat, "I suppose—eh—you were at the inquest—eh—strange affair, that death!"

"Terribly," Avery said.

Mr. Smith still lingered, pinching the crown of his felt hat in quite a spiteful way. Then he seemed to decide that there was nothing more to be said, and held out his hand. He himself looked rather troubled as he walked away after telling the rector that the car would be sent around when certain formalities were completed, which would probably be in about a month's time.

Grace looked in on her brother when he was alone.

"Olive wants to become a secretary, and Doris is willing to try her out. I haven't said anything. I've missed nothing more. I don't know what's the right thing to do?

"Olive's to have a fresh chance? Good," said Avery kindly. "I sometimes think that interesting work could cure any criminal, Grace. And a companion's life is not a normal one for a girl...We'll see how she shapes with Doris."

The rector did not add that there would be no question of stolen articles not being instantly missed by Doris. Olive must know this. Supposing Grace to have made no mistake—of which the rector did not feel at all sure—it looked as though—if a pilferer in the past—Olive meant to go straight now, or she would not have asked to work for keen-eyed, business-like Mrs. Richard Avery, who had no old ties of friendship to blind her.

Mystery at the Rectory

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