Читать книгу Black Plumes - Margery Allingham - Страница 7

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“I SHOULDN’T COME if I were you, madam.”

The unnatural sharpness in the butler’s voice gave the words a macabre quality of their own. Frances felt Phillida waver in the crook of her arm as the two women paused abruptly in the passage outside the garden room while the man barred their path in the sharp angle of the half-closed door.

Phillida shook her head. It was a vigorous, meaningless movement, and in that nightmare moment the gesture appeared to have a dreadful studied idiocy.

“No,” said Phillida. “No. Get out of the way, Norris.”

The blaze of light in the garden room in the morning always came as a surprise as one turned to it out of the cool greyness of the hall, but today its radiance was pitiless. The sunlight poured into the room through the wide-open window with the energy of a living thing. Nor did it respect the deep recess behind the open door in the white panelling but hurled itself within and pounced with indecent savagery upon the dreadful thing, the thing with the mercilessly exposed head and the strange, dusty-looking hair.

Robert Madrigal had died and stiffened and grown limp again. He sat squarely in the bottom of the cupboard, his back supported by the wall and his legs doubled up before him. Across his knees lay a raincoat, a pair of yellow gloves and, final touch of ghastly incongruity, an upturned bowler hat.

Frances took Phillida’s full weight as she heeled over, and Norris caught them both as they reeled against the table.

“I said not to go in. I said not to go in,” he repeated infuriatingly to Frances as between them they got the other woman out into the passage. “I’ve phoned the police and the doctor. You take her, miss. I can’t leave him, can I?”

Neither of them saw anything absurd in the final statement, although Robert Madrigal had been left alone for many days and would be left alone for an eternity.

Old Dorothea came waddling down the corridor from the hall where the rest of the staff lingered in whispering conclave and put capable nurse’s hands on Phillida’s elbows.

“Come along, my dear. Come along, my pretty. Come along, my brave girl,” she said, slurring all the words together until they had no meaning but made a single comforting sound. “And you, too, Miss Frances,” she added over her shoulder with calculated tartness. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, taking her in there, and her so delicate as it is. Come along, my dear.”

She had the dynamic energy of the sunlight itself, and her stalwart body moved with the magnificent drive and precision of a little draught horse surmounting a hill. Frances plodded on beside her, supporting Phillida’s other arm.

The Italian bed in Meyrick’s room was an impressive erection. The baroque gilt framework rose to the ceiling and the two movable wings hung out on either side like banners. The bright tapestry of the triptych had not faded and Matthew, Mark, Luke and John blessed the couch which Gabrielle lay on in vivid blue and gold and red.

She sat up in it, wrapped in Shetland lace, remote and inapproachable, a little yellow scrap of dying authority. Dorothea led the procession into the room without ceremony. She lowered Phillida into a chair by the open fire and began to slap her hands with rhythmic determination.

The old Gabrielle’s bright black eyes rested on the two of them for a moment and the expression on her pursed mouth was almost contemptuous. Finally she beckoned Frances over with a finger raised among the woolly lace.

“Are the police here yet?” The old voice was brisk in spite of the lowered tone.

“No, darling.”

“Does the servant know how the man died?”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

“Go and find out and come and tell me. Hurry, child, hurry.”

It was extraordinary, as if disaster had fanned a flickering fire into life again. So here was Gabrielle, a force once more albeit a fleeting and uncertain one. Frances went out.

At the head of the staircase she paused. The hall was crowded. The Georgian elegance of 38 Sallet Square was in the hands of the police.

Norris was there, very much in evidence. He was whispering to a uniformed police inspector and another man, a tall, gloomy-looking stranger in a spruce tweed suit whose grizzled head was held sideways in a curious terrierlike attitude which she was to come to know very well indeed. Directly beneath her a maid hovered nervously, and behind the girl she saw the door to the service corridor was ajar and the housekeeper listening behind it.

As she stood looking down there was a clatter on the flags as the police photographers arrived. Their strident, decisive tramp touched a memory in her mind, and her fingers gripped the polished wood.

Not so long ago she had hung over this same balustrade and had peered down into the grey darkness, and on that occasion, too, there had been sharp footsteps marching swiftly across the hall. Then it had been a sound which should have been reassuring, and her own mental admonition returned to her: “It’s only Robert going out, you fool. It’s only Robert going out.” Robert going out? Robert going out! In view of the morning’s discovery the suggestion was ghastly. Robert had not gone out that night. At that moment a week ago when she had hung here listening Robert must already have been sitting in the bottom of the big cupboard, his head lolling and his legs twisted horribly beneath him.

Someone else had gone out. Someone else had walked into the windy darkness. Someone else.... Who?

There was another movement in the hall below as a new arrival came slowly forward from the porch. The entire company turned towards him, and Frances felt the skin at the back of her neck tighten as she recognised him.

She never forgot David as she saw him at that moment. It was not that she had never known before that she was in love with him, nor did it seem then or afterwards that his appearance had any deep emotional significance. It was simply that he sprang to her mind, a vivid and complete picture which never quite faded again.

He came quietly into the room, casual and friendly as usual. He glanced round him with the faintly surprised expression which was half his charm and suddenly glanced up, as if he knew where to find her, and raised his hand in friendly salute.

Everyone stared at her, and she came down hurriedly, aware that she was white and frightened and completely demoralised by the appalling idea which had just come to her. Norris said something to the man with the grizzled hair who came forward to meet her. She had no idea who he was, and even had he introduced himself it is not likely that his name or his exalted rank of divisional detective inspector would have made much impression on her at that moment, but she could not fail to recognise authority in his face nor to see in those small steady eyes that rigorous honesty which is, perhaps because of its corresponding cruelty, the most terrifying quality in the world.

“If you’ll chust wait upstairs for a little, Miss Ivory, I’ll send for ye in a moment or two,” he said, revealing the soft voice and absence of js of the Orkney Scot. The question which had been on her lips died before it was spoken. She nodded and glanced at David Field, but the newcomer was before her.

“You’ll be Mr Field, won’t ye?” he was saying. “One moment, Mr Field. I’d like a word with ye.”

Frances saw the younger man’s eyebrows go up and caught his faint smile before he turned and grimaced at her. It was the most reassuring of gestures, revealing a comforting understanding of her mood. She warmed before it gratefully, but as she turned away the new and horrible suspicion came back to her.

“I heard him go out before that,” she said vehemently to Gabrielle a few moments later as she stood at the end of the bed once more. “It’s quite clear in my mind. David went out first that night. I heard the latch click just after I reached the stairhead. Then about ten minutes later than that someone walked sharply down the passage from the garden room and went out of the front door.”

“Yes,” said the old Gabrielle placidly. “How deceptive a noise like that is in the night.”

They were alone in the enormous bedroom, the two of them, the youngest and the oldest of the Ivorys, and they stood looking at one another, summing each other up for a long time. Years afterwards it occurred to Frances that she grew up at that moment.

She stepped back from the bed and walked over to the fireplace. The old woman watched her, an expression that was purely feminine in her eyes.

“I had a nineteen-inch waist when I was twenty-five,” she said suddenly, and for the first time in their acquaintance her granddaughter followed her line of thought easily and replied to it without looking round.

“It’s my life anyway,” she said. “I know what I’m doing. You’re wrong about David having designs on my money. He doesn’t even want to marry me. The engagement was only a silly stunt to make things easier. I went and bellowed my troubles to him about Lucar. I told you.”

Gabrielle glanced at the slim young back. It was a swift stab with the little black eyes, and her husband, Meyrick’s father, who had loved her and had needed every one of his shrewd wits to keep up with her, would have recognised the symptom and congratulated his granddaughter.

“You heard the latch click and then afterwards, some time afterwards, you heard someone else cross the hall and go out?”

The question was clear and lucid, with a brain behind it. For the time being Gabrielle had returned from the shadows and inexactitudes of age and her voice was as decisive as ever it had been.

“Yes, I told you. And, Granny, Lucar was in the house that night. I know that because I saw him. I met him when I went down to the garden room.”

“When you went down to the garden room?”

The interruption was very quiet but it brought the girl swinging round, colour surging over her face. She told her story hurriedly.

“I went down to see how David and Robert were getting on together. I met Lucar coming away from the garden room as I went through the hall but I didn’t speak to him. I went on down the passage, but the door was shut and I didn’t like to go barging in so I—I went down into the yard.”

“And looked up through the window?” said the old woman unexpectedly. She was sitting up, with her eyes alive as a monkey’s. “Very sensible. Just what I should have done myself. What did you see?”

Frances regarded her steadily. “Oh, they were just talking, you know,” she said deliberately.

“You saw them both?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Are you in love?”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t know.”

Gabrielle lay back. Her face was peaceful and she was half smiling. Frances was half afraid that the excitement had proved too much for her for she was silent for a long time, but when she spoke again it was evident that she was still thinking.

“They say it’s unlucky to marry for love,” she remarked. “Very true. Did you see Field again that night?”

“Yes. He came up to my room to say that we were still engaged and that Robert was going for a walk.”

“To your bedroom? Quite like a servant girl,” she said.

Frances regarded her sombrely and finally shrugged her own shoulders. It was a little skirmish across a century.

“We must cable Meyrick.” Frances spoke mainly to herself. “That’s the first thing to be done.”

“We must see the police,” snapped Mrs Ivory. “We must find out what they know about it. That’s the vital thing. If they want to come up here I’ll see them, but you remind them I’m a very old woman.”

The final instruction seemed to amuse her and Frances, glancing at her, wondered how much she comprehended of the horror, of the sick feeling of catastrophe, as she peered down upon the scene through the long telescope of her great age.

“What happened to Phillida?” she enquired.

Gabrielle regarded her blankly and once again the girl felt the ground unsteady beneath her feet as she recognised the uncertainty of that fine but fading mind.

“I left her here with Dorothea, darling,” she said gently. “Don’t you remember?”

As she waited for the reply a clatter of voices beneath the window rose up into the room, and the nightmare quality of her own position swept over her. Gabrielle was a terrifying ally.

“Did you? Perhaps you did. I must have got rid of her. I told Dorothea to send for a doctor. These piteous women without stamina! Fetch me my hand mirror, will you, dear? What’s going on out there?”

The final demand was vigorous enough, and Frances threw up the window sash. She looked down at the narrow path which ran round from the front of the house to the yard at the back under an archway between 38 and the gallery. The window was directly above the service exit, and it was here that the noise originated. Mrs Sanderson, the housekeeper, was standing on the flags. In her arms lay a weeping figure in whose neat blue-suited elegance Frances had some difficulty in recognising Molly, the junior member of the household staff. Molly was crying noisily with her fashionable hat on the back of her head, her face buried in Mrs Sanderson’s bosom. Standing before this inelegant and inexplicable group was a solid young man in the boots of a plain-clothes policeman. He held a suitcase in each hand and was using them to shoo the women back into the house.

“Do it inside,” he was saying with the weary cheerfulness of the native Londoner. “Have your cry by the kitchen fire, like Christians. Go along, there’s good girls. Take her in, Ma. Take her in, do.”

“No. It’s not right for her to stay. Not another minute. She’s doing the right thing. If you’re a policeman you show me your warrant.”

“Dear heaven!” said Gabrielle from the bed.

The comment implied reproach rather than astonishment, and Frances leaned out hastily.

“Anything I can do?” she demanded.

The voice from the clouds had the instantaneous effect of all such interruptions. Mrs Sanderson shut her mouth with ominous resolution and Molly’s bellowing ceased abruptly. The plain-clothes man put down his suitcases and pulled off his hat.

“Orders are no one is to leave the house, miss,” he said politely.

“Oh. Oh, I see. All right. Go in, Mrs Sanderson, will you? And you too, Molly. I don’t suppose they’ll be long, or you can have your day out tomorrow.”

A pink and blubbery face was raised to her from the shelter of Mrs Sanderson’s cushionly façade.

“I wasn’t going out, miss. I was leaving.”

“Really?” Francis was astounded. All Meyrick’s servants were very real personalities in his household, and their comings and goings were of general interest to the entire family, so this casual method of departure was an innovation.

“Oh, I see. Well, leave tomorrow,” she said awkwardly. “Anyway, go in now. I’ll come down.”

“I wish you would, miss.” There was a world of unspoken promise in the housekeeper’s voice.

Frances shut the window and turned back to the dressing-table to take up the mirror. She did not see Gabrielle until she leaned across the bed to pass the hand glass to her, and then the sudden change in the old woman’s appearance came as a shock. Mrs Ivory was sitting bolt upright, her face shrunk into a yellow doll’s mask. Her eyes were alive. They were bright, like a mouse’s eyes, and quite as suspicious.

“What did she say?”

“Nothing. It’s only that Molly, the little middle maid, appears to be leaving, and a policeman has just turned her back ... My dear! Granny! Are you all right? Hadn’t you better lie down?”

Gabrielle closed her eyes. Without their comforting intelligence she made a terrifying picture. The old woman suffered herself to be settled among her cushions.

“It’s all very tiring,” she said at last with a peevishness which was yet reassuring because of its strength. “Where’s Dorothea?”

“I’ll get her.”

“No. No, don’t.” A small hand closed over her wrist with surprising force. “Don’t. Stay here.” It occurred to Frances that the grip was a restraining one rather than any actual need for support.

“I ought to go down,” she said gently. “I’ll find Dorothea for you.”

“No.” Gabrielle still had her eyes closed. “Frances, have you ever thought that stepsister of yours was ... a little funny?”

It was impossible to mistake her meaning, and the enquiry put so directly and echoing Phillida’s own question about Robert caught Frances off her guard.

“No,” she said. “No, darling, of course not.”

“You jumped, my dear.” The black eyes were open again and watching her. “Does she talk to you?”

“No, not very much. She’s all right. This has been a terrible shock to her, of course.”

“Naturally.” She remarked after a long pause, “That mania of Phillida’s for doctors, that’s unhealthy. She never told you she heard anything, then?”

“Heard anything?” Even from her mouth the words had a sinister sound, and she glanced at the small figure in the bed with misgiving. “When, darling? On the night Robert was ... on the night Robert must have died?”

“Oh no, before. Long before.”

“Darling, what are you talking about?”

“Forget it, my dear,” Gabrielle said placidly. “I’m so old I imagine things. Listen, there’s someone coming across the landing.”

Frances turned her head. The house seemed silent for once that morning, holding its breath perhaps.

“I don’t think so.”

“Yes, there is. My dear child, I haven’t slept in this room for thirty years of my life without getting to know it. Open the door.”

Frances crossed the room. The heavy quilted door slid open noiselessly under her hand and Miss Dorset, who had been hesitating on the threshold, jumped guiltily.

“I didn’t like to knock in case she was asleep,” she whispered, dragging the startled girl out into the hallway. “I’ve cabled our branch office at Hong Kong. They’ll reach your father, wherever he is. How did it happen? Do you know?”

Everything was painfully vivid that day, and Frances saw a complete picture of the woman vignetted in the archway of the landing. The unusual excitement had tinged her cheekbones, and there was a forced heartiness about her which undermined her efficiency and made her seem a less reliable person.

“I’m keeping it from the staff at 39 as long as I can,” she hurried on. “There’ll be reporters, you know. What would you like done with them?”

Even at that time, when the publicity side of the disaster was a menace unsuspected by most of them, the question struck Frances as absurd.

“What does one do with reporters?” she said.

“I can try to send them away,” said Miss Dorset defensively, “but sometimes it’s as well to issue some sort of statement. There’s no one at the gallery who can decide anything. I suppose I’m in command. I can’t even get hold of Lucar. He hasn’t turned up yet.”

“It’s late, isn’t it?” Frances was vague. Time had become an unconsidered element and years to have passed during the morning.

“Nearly half-past twelve. I phoned his house but he left there at nine. I don’t know where he is.” Miss Dorset’s voice was querulous. “I’m coming to the end of my tether, Miss Ivory. I can carry on as long as I’ve got somebody in authority over me but I’m not used to being alone and ...”

She paused and the suspicious brightness in her pale eyes brought Frances to her senses.

“Of course you’re not, Miss Dorset,” she said. “It’s all very dreadful and sudden, but don’t worry. We’ll get by. You go back and carry on as usual. If you get enquiries about Robert pass them on to me and I’ll deal with them. Get hold of Lucar as soon as you can, of course. The police will want to see him.”

She paused. The other woman was looking at her eagerly, half fear and half excitement in her expression.

“Then it was, was it? I heard something, but I didn’t like to ask any more. Who?”

“We don’t know. They’re finding out now.” It was a ridiculous conversation. Evasion of the actual word was instinctive in them both. Miss Dorset’s hand shook in the pocket of her coat and her mouth trembled.

“It’s dreadful,” she said. “In over a hundred years we’ve never had a breath of scandal and now it’s come when your father is away. Are you sure Mr Robert couldn’t have done it himself?”

“Well, no. You see, he was found in the cupboard. He must have been hidden there by someone.”

Miss Dorset nodded and was silent for a while.

“It’s extraordinary,” she said at last. “I’ve often wondered how I should behave if ever I was confronted by a ... a dreadful crime like this, but now that I am it’s just like any other terrible thing, isn’t it? Miss Ivory, Mr Lucar was over here that night. Did you know?”

“Yes, I saw him.”

“Oh.” The pale eyes rested on the girl for a moment, but she did not pursue the train of thought. Instead she sniffed and said abruptly: “If it had been the other way round I could understand it. Or if he’d done it himself.”

“Could you? Robert was nervy but not suicidal.”

“Don’t you think so?”

They were still speaking in whispers, and the elder woman’s question was sibilant in its sharpness. Frances gaped at her.

“What do you mean? What makes you say that?”

Miss Dorset hesitated, but when her words did come they were so extraordinary that for the second time that day Frances received the sharp little stab in her diaphragm which comes from a fear which is not to be explained, the secret superstitious terror of the utterly unreasonable.

“Did he never talk to you about the whistle on the telephone?” said Miss Dorset. “He didn’t?” she added hastily as she saw the girl’s expression. “Oh well, then, don’t mention it, for heaven’s sake. I ought not to have said anything. I’ll go back. I daren’t leave the gallery any longer. Any time I’m needed just send over. I shall be there.”

Frances caught the angular shoulder just as she was turning away.

“You sound as if you thought Robert was insane.”

Miss Dorset eyed her. “I did wonder,” she said.