Nine Coaches Waiting (31 page)

He flicked ash from his cigarette. "Just as a matter of interest, Héloïse, how did you account for that to my uncle when you met his plane?"

Still she didn't speak. She had turned away her head so that her cheek was pressed against the wing of the chair. She looked as if she were hardly listening. Her face was grey and dead. Only her fingers moved, shredding, shredding the gold silk under them.

Hippolyte began, looking so uncomfortable that I had a rough idea what the story had involved: "It wasn't very coherent. I did gather-"

I said: "It doesn't matter. I'll tell you what did happen. I found out on Tuesday night what Monsieur de Valmy was planning. Bernard got drunk at the dance and told Berthe, one of the maids. She told me. I had to get Philippe away. I-I didn't know where to go. We hid, and then came here to wait for you. That's all."

I could feel Raoul's eyes on me. Between us stretched the empty ghost-filled spaces of that alien room. I said no more. If I never told him the rest, I couldn't do it here.

Hippolyte turned back to Raoul. "Go on. You got back and found them gone. I assume that at this point you did tackle Léon?"

"I did." Something new had come into the even voice, something that made me stir on my bench and look away. I didn't want to watch his face, though heaven knew, there was nothing there to read. He said: "There were various-theories as to why the two had run away, but to me it only meant one thing; that Miss Martin had had some proof that Philippe was in danger, and had removed him from harm's way. I blamed myself bitterly for not having let my own suspicions take root. So I attacked my father."

"Yes?"

Raoul said: "It wasn't a pleasant interview. I’ll cut it very short. He started by denying everything, and-you know him -he denied it so well that he made me look a fool. But the fact remained that Lin-Miss Martin had bolted. I kept at him and eventually he changed his ground. He suggested then that as far as Philippe's fate was concerned Miss Martin mightn't be entirely disinterested." He flicked ash off his cigarette, not looking at me.

Hippolyte said: "What do you mean?"

Raoul didn't answer. I said briefly: "Monsieur de Valmy had reason to believe I was in love with Monsieur Raoul."

I saw Hippolyte raise his brows. In his own way he was as quick as Léon. He said: "So you might have had an interest in disposing of Philippe? A very long-sighted young lady. And what was your reaction to this-suggestion, Raoul?"

"It was so absurd that I wasn't even angry. I laughed. I then told him that he had got the facts right only so far. The interest was on both sides and it was serious-in other words I intended to make Miss Martin my wife, and if any harm came to her or to Philippe he'd have me to answer to as well as the police."

Hippolyte flashed a look from Raoul to me, and back again, then his eyes dropped to his hands. There was a long pause. Something in the way the interview was going must have prompted him to ignore the information in Raoul's last speech, for all he said was: "And then?"

Raoul said, in a very hard, dry voice: "I'll cut this short. It's pretty unspeakable. He changed his ground again, and suggested cutting me in. Yes. Quite. He pointed out the advantages that I and my wife would get from Philippe's death. He-didn't seem to understand that I might be able to resist them. And he was convinced I would be able to persuade her too, as my wife, to acquiesce in his plans. Between us we could pacify you when you arrived, see you back to Greece, and then take our time over Philippe. We could cook up some story of Linda's having run away to me-everyone was saying that anyway-and get through the bigger scandal by making it a purely sex affair. He then suggested that I find Linda and allow people to believe she had run off to meet me."

"Yes?"

It was, perhaps, the most horrible thing about the interview that neither Léon's son nor his brother showed surprise. Distress, yes; horror, perhaps; but not surprise. Not even at a wickedness that couldn't conceive of disinterested good.

Raoul said: "I didn't say much. I-couldn't, or I'd have laid hands on him. I merely said that neither of us would ever connive at harming Philippe, and we had better stop talking nonsense and find the pair of them, or there might be a scandal he'd find it hard to get out of. I thought that Linda might have tried to get in touch with me in Paris, and rang up there and then in front of him, but there hadn't been a call. I left a message with the concierge in case Linda rang up later, but I'd been so sure she'd ring me up that I thought my father had lied about their escape from Valmy, and that something had happened to them, so-oh well, never mind that now. I knew I was wrong almost straight away, because Bernard-you know his man? – came in. Apparently he'd been out looking for them. He got a bit of a surprise to see me, and I lost no time in making it very plain that it was in his best interest to find Linda and Philippe quickly. I thought they might have gone for help to the Englishman who works over on Dieudonné-I'd discovered that Linda knew him, and was glad she had at least one friend in the district. I rang up the Coq Hardi at Soubirous, where he sleeps sometimes, but he'd already gone out, and he wasn't expected back till dinnertime. I told Bernard to go up to the hut where the Englishman keeps his things, but he said he'd been already and they weren't there. He told me where else he'd been. I sent him out again with instructions to report to me, and some sort of plan of search, the best I could devise, with the little I knew… well, none of this matters now. He knew very well he'd better play in with me, and play safe. When he'd gone I told my father again, quite plainly, that if any harm came to those two even if looked like the most obvious accident in the world, I would kill him. Then I went out with the car." His voice was suddenly flat and very tired. "That's all."

I sat still, looking down at my feet. That was all. Only sixteen more hours spent combing the valleys, ringing up Paris making carefully casual inquiries (I found later) of the Consulate, the hospitals, the police…

One or two things became plain: first, that Léon de Valmy had had no idea that the convenient rumour of my engagement was, in fact, true: second, that Raoul knew nothing of the final hurried poison-plot, and was unaware that Léon de Valmy had ever had any positive intention of harming me; Bernard, coming in on the interview, must have realised immediately that his master's guns were spiked; somehow, Léon de Valmy had tipped him the wink that the hunt must be called off, and from then on the man had, perforce, co-operated with Raoul in his search. Whether or not I had been right about our danger last night in the woods, we had been safe since early this morning… since Raoul had come home. Because of Raoul, the dogs had been called off. We had been quite safe all day, because of Raoul. I sat very still, watching my feet.

The silence was drawing out. I heard the lustres quiver like the music of a ghostly spinet. I looked down the length of the lovely dead room towards the group by the fireplace.

Both men were watching the woman in the chair.

She was sitting very still, but her stillness wasn't even a travesty of the poise I knew. The delicate flower had wilted to pulp. She lay back in her chair as if she had no bones, and her hands were motionless at last on the shredded silk of the chair-arms. Her pale eyes were fully open now; they moved from Raoul's face to Hippolyte's, painfully. There was no need for her to speak. It was all written in her face, even, I thought, a dreadful kind of relief that now it had all been said.

The door opened and Philippe came in. He was carrying a steaming cup of bouillon very carefully between his hands. He brought it to me and held it out. "This is for you. You had an ordeal too."

I said: "Oh, Philippe…" and then my voice broke shamefully. But he didn't appear to notice this. He was looking at Héloïse, silent and slack in her chair. He said doubtfully: "Aunt Héloïse, would you like some too?"

That did it. She began to cry, on a thin dry note that was quite horrible to listen to.

I leaned forward, kissed Philippe's cheek, and said quickly: “Thank you
, p'tit
,
but Aunt Héloïse isn't well. Better just run along. Goodnight now. Sleep well."

He gave one wondering look, and went obediently.

Héloïse didn't put her hands to her face. She lay back in her chair and sobbed tearlessly on that dreadful, jerky note. Hippolyte de Valmy, now as grey-faced as she, watched her helplessly, touching a handkerchief to his lips with an unsteady hand. Then, after a few moment's hesitation, he moved to a chair beside her, took one of her unresisting hands and began, rather feebly, to pat it. He was murmuring something through her sobs, but the uncertain comfort had no effect.

Raoul stood apart from the two of them, silent, and with the shutters still down over his face. He didn't look at me.

I believe I opened my lips to say something to him, but at that moment Héloïse began at last to speak. Her voice was terrible, thin and shaken and breathless.

She said: "It's true, yes, it's true what he says, Hippolyte. He made Léon tell him… there was a scene… dreadful things… he had no right…" She turned suddenly towards him and her free hand closed over his, clutching at him. "But I'm glad you know, Hippolyte. You'll get us out of it, won't you? You'll see there's nothing said? You won't take it further? It's not a police matter! You heard what Raoul told you-it's only in the family! That's it, it's only in the family! Bernard won't dare speak, and Raoul can't say anything; how can he? Léon's his father, isn't he? Surely that means something?" She shook his arm, leaning nearer, her voice hurrying and breathless: "You can't let it all come out, you know that! You can't do that to Léon, you and Raoul! There's no harm done… the boy's safe and the girl's all right. Don't look like that, Raoul. You know you can put it right between you if you want to! The Martin girl's in love with you; she'll keep her mouth shut, and-“

"Héloïse, please!” This, sharply, from Hippolyte. He had freed himself and moved slightly away from her. He was looking at her almost as if he'd never seen her before. "You say it's all true? You did know of it? You?"

She had sunk back in her chair. She swallowed another of those sharp convulsive sobs and moved her head to and fro against the chair-back. "Yes, yes, yes. Everything he told you. I'll admit everything, if only you'll help.” Something in his tone and look must have got through to her here, for her voice changed: "I-I'm not wicked, Hippolyte, you know that. I didn't want to hurt Philippe; but-well, it was for Léon's sake, I did it for Léon." She met his stony look and added sharply: "You know as well as I do that Valmy should be his. Surely he has the best right to it? It's his home. You know that. Why, you've said so yourself! And he's not like other men. You know that, too; you should realise he's not like other people. He should have had Valmy. He should! He'd had enough to bear without being turned out of his home!"

Her brother-in-law moved uncomfortably. "I cannot see that Léon would be grateful for this special pleading, Héloïse. And at the moment it's beside the point. What we're discussing is a good deal more serious. Attempted murder. Of a child."

"Yes, yes, I know. It was wrong. It was wrong. I admit that. But it didn't happen, did it? There's no harm done, Raoul said that himself!
That
doesn't have to be taken any further! Oh, you'll have to talk to Léon about it, I can see that, but you'll see he stays on at Valmy, won't you? There's no reason why he shouldn't! People are talking, but it'll soon be forgotten if you stand by us and don't bring things into the open. And I know you won't! You know how Léon feels! You'll see he keeps Valmy, won't you? He should have talked to you before- I wanted him to, instead of trying to arrange things this way. I was sure you'd see his point of view, and you do, don't you? I'm sure there's some way things can be fixed! You can come to some arrangement, can't you? Can't you?"

He started to say something, then bit it back, saying instead, calmly enough: "It's no use discussing it any more here. This is getting us nowhere. Héloïse-"

“Only promise me you won't take it to the police!"

"I can't promise anything. All I can say is that we'll try and compromise between what's right and what's best."

She seemed not to be listening. Something had broken in her, and now she couldn't stop. She was out of control; her hands and lips were shaking. The pleading voice poured on, admitting with every desperate syllable what must never-even in her mind -have been in words before.

"It'll kill him to go to Bellevigne! And all our money's in Valmy! We looked after Valmy, you can't say that we didn't! Every penny went into the estate! You can't say he was a bad trustee!"

"No," said Hippolyte.

She didn't even notice the irony. The dreadful single-mindedness she showed was ample explanation of how Léon had persuaded her to help him against what better instincts she must have possessed. She swept on: "It was for Léon's sake! Why shouldn't he get something-just this thing-out of life? Valmy was his! You know it was! Étienne had no right to do this to him, no right at all! That child should never have been born!"

Raoul said suddenly, as if the words were shaken out of him: "God pity you, Héloïse, you've begun to think like him."

This stopped her. She turned her head quickly towards him. I couldn't see her eyes, but her hands clenched themselves on the arms of the chair. Her voice went low and breathless: "You," she said, "you. You always hated him, didn't you?"

He didn't answer. He had taken out another cigarette and was making rather a business of lighting it.

"He's your father," she said. "Doesn't that make any difference? Can you stand by and see him ruined? Doesn't it mean anything to you that he's your father?"

Raoul didn't speak. For all the expression on his face he mightn't even have been listening. But I saw his brows twitch together as the match burned him.

Suddenly her hands hammered the chair-arms. She shouted at him: "Damn you, are you condemning your own father?" Even the vestiges of common self-control had gone; her voice rose to the edge of hysteria. "
You
to stand there and call him a murderer! You who have everything, everything, and he a cripple with nothing to call his own but that ruined relic of a place in the south! You condemn him, you talk fine and large of right and wrong and murder and police, and who's to say what you'd have done if you'd been in his place? How do you know what
you'd
have been if you'd smashed your car up one fine day on the zigzag and cracked your spine and two lives along with it? Yes, two! Would she have looked at you then? Ah yes, it only takes one look from you now, doesn't it, but would she? Would she have stayed with you and loved you the way I've loved him all these years and done for you what I've done for him-and glad to, mind that
, glad to?
Oh, no, not you!" She stopped and drew a long, shivering breath. "Oh, God, he's a better man with half a body than you'll ever be, Raoul de