She Died a Lady (23 page)

Two bathing-suits.

To be exact, one was a pair of men’s bathing-trunks, coloured dark blue, with a white belt and metal buckle. The other was a woman’s bathing costume, light green, which half of Lyncombe could identify. Both were now grimy, dark-coloured, and still damp.

‘We’ve got it, H.M.,’ I said aloud. ‘We’ve got the murdering devil now as sure as I’m alive.’

Behind me, from the shelter of the tunnel, somebody fired a shot.

I didn’t, in that second, identify the explosion as a shot. But the
whing
of a bullet ricocheting from rock – a hideous wiry noise like the singing of a metallic whip or snapping piano-wire – can be recognized by anybody who has ever been under fire.

As the cavern blasted with echoes, a little white nick appeared in the face of the skull carved on the wall. Somebody fired again, and the flame of the candle went out.

I suppose I should have been grateful for that. But I don’t recall thinking about anything much, or even feeling anything much. I held those two bathing-suits against my chest, hugging them as though they were my most cherished possessions. I took a couple of steps forward on the uneven floor, and fell.

It was dark here, except for the moonlight streaming through the sea-opening of the cave. The water, gurgling and slapping, black tinged with gleams of grey, reached up to two feet or less below the mouth of that opening.

When the whirlpool got me at last, I grabbed at consciousness with both hands. I tried to roll over, but the ribbed floor was damp and slippery. I concentrated fiercely as the dark world swung round. I just managed to turn over on my side, and get the electric torch out of my pocket. Though I was completely helpless – as helpless as a man drained of blood – I did have strength enough left to press the button of the torch.

Its beam, as dazzling to my eyes now as though it were a headlamp, swung round crazily before I got it focused on the entrance to the tunnel.

There was somebody standing there.

A
N
old Morris chair, and the edge of a lace curtain with sunlight against it, were the first two things to emerge.

I failed to recognize the chair, or even my own bedroom overlooking the back garden, for a little while after I opened my eyes. I felt refreshed, completely rested, and at peace. The bed under me might have been made of swans-down. Then I saw the face of Sir Henry Merrivale looking down.

‘Morning, Doctor,’ was all he said. Casually.

While I propped myself up on one elbow, H.M. dragged out a chair and sat down, wincing, by the side of the bed. He carried a cane on which he rested his folded hands, and he sniffed.

‘You’ve had a good long sleep,’ he went on, ‘and it’s done you a lot of good. Belle Sullivan did you a good turn, more of a good turn than she knew, when she shoved that secconal into your Ovaltine.’

This was when recollection smote me fully.

‘Oi! Now don’t try to get up!’ H.M. said warningly. ‘Just sit back comfortably until they bring you some food.’

‘How did I get here?’

‘
I
brought you here, son.’

‘It’s tomorrow morning, isn’t it? The inquest! What time is the inquest?’

‘Oh, son!’ said H.M. dismally. ‘The inquest has been over hours ago.’

The windows were open, open and peaceful. I could hear hens clucking in the fowl-run next door. I leaned on one elbow, wondering if ever the Good Lord would send me a bit of luck and not put the last drop of bitterness into everything I did.

‘Our friend Craft,’ pursued H.M., ‘says it’s a good thing you weren’t in shape to testify after all. You’d have been in an awful mess if you had. You know that as well as I do.’

‘What was the verdict of the inquest?’

‘Double suicide while the balance of their minds was disturbed.’

I sat up in bed, propping pillows behind me.

‘Sir Henry, where are the clothes I was wearing last night?’

He moved his big head without taking his eyes from me.

‘Hangin’ up across that chair there. Why?’

‘If you’d like to look in the lower right-hand waistcoat pocket, you’ll find out why.’

‘There’s nothing in any of the pockets, Doctor,’ answered H.M. ‘We looked.’

After a light tap at the door, Molly Grange put her head in. She wore a house apron, and looked radiant. Behind her appeared the anxious face of Belle Sullivan.

‘Is the doctor,’ Molly asked, ‘ready for breakfast?’

‘Uh-huh,’ said H.M. ‘Better bring it up to him.’

Molly surveyed me for a moment in silence, her hands on her hips.

‘You’ve given us scares before,’ she said at last, ‘but I don’t think you’ve ever given us such a scare as last night. All the same, I think I’ll leave preaching about it until later.’

And she went out, firmly closing the door. I was now in a state so helpless, so beaten and outfaced at every turn, that I could look at the thing calmly.

‘Well, Craft’s had his way,’ I said. ‘He’s got his verdict and he doesn’t have to exert himself any longer, whatever the rest of us do. And that’s a pity. Because
I
know the true explanation of the whole thing, and it’s not Craft’s explanation.’

H.M. took out a cigar and turned it over in his fingers.

‘You’re quite sure you know how it was done, son?’

‘At one o’clock last night I could have proved it. Now …’

‘At the end of most cases,’ growled H.M., lighting a match by whisking it across the seat of his trousers, and applying it to the objectionable cigar, ‘it’s the old man who sits down and explains to the fatheads where they get off. Let’s reverse the process this time.’

‘Reverse the process?’

‘
You
,’ said H.M., ‘tell
me
. Do you also know who the murderer is?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well … now. I might have a stab at it myself, Doctor, if a bloke like Masters got mad and challenged me. But we might compare notes. Is it anybody who’s been suspected so far?’

The image of a certain face rose up in front of me.

‘It’s certainly nobody I should have suspected at first glance,’ I told him. ‘But it’s a murdering devil just the same; and I can’t understand how we were all gulled by somebody we knew and liked.’

Again there was a tap at the door. This time it was Paul Ferrars who came in.

‘Glad to see you looking healthy again, Dr Luke,’ he said. It was the first time I had ever seen him wearing a necktie. ‘Molly said you were awake. If you feel up to it, we all want to know what in blazes happened to you.’

H.M. blinked round.

‘Sit down, son,’ he incited Ferrars in a wooden tone. ‘Dr Croxley is just goin’ to tell us who did the murders, and how they were done.’

For an instant Ferrars stood motionless, his hand at his necktie. His forehead wrinkled, and he directed a doubtful look at H.M. The latter only made a gesture with the cigar. Ferrars sat down in my Morris chair, dragging it round. The empty cup of Ovaltine was beside him, and my pipe. Ferrars, smiling and clean-shaven, kept his eyes fixed on my face while I talked.

‘I was sitting here last night, mulling over the evidence. It was all out in front of me, as though I had a lot of exhibits in a court-room. But nothing seemed to fit together, until I remembered the cut telephone-wires and the petrol let out of the cars. Who did that, and why was it done?’

H.M. took the cigar out of his mouth.

‘Well?’ he prompted.

I shut my eyes to bring the picture vividly back again, and then I went on speaking.

‘On Saturday evening, as the rain started to fall, Barry Sullivan made quite a point of it that he had to get some beach-chairs in out of the rain. He sent Rita and me ahead to the house, while he stayed behind to attend to it. But he didn’t take in the beach-chairs. I saw them still on the lawn when I went out to “Mon Repos” yesterday. On the other hand, Sullivan did do something; because he came back into the house wiping his hands on a handkerchief. That, I’m almost sure, was when he let the petrol out of the cars.’

Ferrars sat up.

‘
Sullivan
,’ he queried, ‘did that?’

‘Yes. Just as he and Rita cut the telephone-wires. And why did they do it? They did it so that either Alec Wainright or I would have to walk in to Lyncombe or further to get in touch with the police.

‘Both Alec and I have to walk very slowly. I for obvious reasons, and Alec because he’s got stiff joints. Neither of us could do those four miles in much under two hours. Then, on reaching Lyncombe, we should have to telephone the police further on. The police would have to get themselves together and come on out to “Mon Repos”. For various reasons – including Alec’s collapse and my delay – they didn’t actually get there until one o’clock in the morning.’

H.M. continued to smoke woodenly.

Ferrar’s forehead was wrinkled in perplexity.

‘But I still make the old objection,’ he protested. ‘Stranding you two at that place wouldn’t have prevented the police from getting there.’

‘No,’ I said, and raised my voice.
‘But it would have prevented them from getting there until the tide came in
.

This time I hadn’t heard Molly Grange enter.

That is what feverish concentration does for you. I saw Molly, with something of a shock, standing at my elbow and holding a breakfast tray. Belle was behind her. I took the tray mechanically, though I never felt less like eating in my life, and set it in my lap.

Both girls, evidently, had overheard what was being said. They did not leave the bedroom. They stood there, very quietly, without speaking.

‘At half-past nine on Saturday night, when I went out to Lovers’ Leap and found those two had apparently jumped over, the tide had turned. It was now coming in, and rising. I pointed that out to Alec, when he asked if the police wouldn’t look at the foot of the cliff.

‘Now, how far does the tide actually rise up the cliff at its full?’ Here I looked at H.M. ‘
You
know, Sir Henry, because Craft mentioned it himself when we were driving out to the studio on Monday.’ I looked at Belle. ‘And
you
know, young lady, because Molly mentioned it in connexion with a visit to the caves by water. The tide rises thirty feet up the cliff at high water.

‘True, that cliff is seventy feet high. But at high water, or even anywhere near that time, such a drop isn’t much to two expert swimmers and divers – as we know both Rita Wainright and Barry Sullivan were.’

The bedroom was absolutely silent.

Ferrars opened his mouth, and shut it again. H.M. continued to smoke. Belle was staring out of the window. Molly, who had sat down on the foot of the bed, dropped one small monosyllable into that immense quiet.

‘But …’

‘Let’s return,’ I said, ‘to my own adventures at half-past nine. I found that they’d apparently jumped over the cliff. I was very badly shocked and upset. Either Alec or I would have been badly shocked and upset: that’s why we were chosen as witnesses.

‘As I told Sir Henry, at the time I was too upset to notice anything much. All I saw were some tracks, on an overcast night with a hooded torch. And I’m no criminologist. But I did fleetingly observe something’ – in fact, I have been careful to include it in this record – ‘about the footprints. One set of them went ahead firmly. The other lagged behind, with slower or shorter steps.

‘But yesterday, when we saw the steps by daylight, Sir Henry pointed out several things about them. The prints were indented at the toes, as though the people had been hurrying or half-running. But both sides of prints went in even steps, stride for stride, and
side by side
.

‘That’s what made my subconscious memory wake up.

‘The whole scheme was planned round one effect. It was to make everybody think that the footprints I saw at half-past nine were the same footprints to which the police gave expert examination at one o’clock.’

Again there was a silence.

Molly Grange did not even point out that my toast and coffee and bacon were growing cold. She sat at the foot of the bed, one hand on her breast and her eyes widening. There was almost a stealthy look about her.

‘The puzzle-book!’ she cried out.

And then, as startled heads were turned in her direction, she went on to explain.

‘I mentioned to Dr Luke that we might get some help from a book of puzzles I’ve got at home. In that book, two people apparently jump over a cliff. One of them simply walks out to the edge in his own shoes; then puts on the other person’s shoes and walks backwards. Rita and Barry Sullivan could have done that, because there’s a patch of grass to change shoes at the edge of the cliff. But Sir Henry said it was no good …’

Her eyes strayed towards H.M., who continued to puff out clouds of smoke with no change of expression.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That was how they made the first set of footprints. The set only intended to deceive
me
. They knew it wasn’t good enough for the official police, of course.’

Ferrars, sitting bolt upright in his chair, moved the back of his hand slowly before his eyes as though he were testing his own sight. I could see his Adam’s apple move convulsively in his neck.

‘That may have been all very well for the first set,’ he said, ‘but how in all blue hell did they make the second set?’

This was the hardest part to forgive Rita. Yet let me repeat, over and over, how well she meant.

‘The two of them waited, probably close at hand, until I came out to see the false prints. They’d made sure somebody would come by leaving the back door open. I was the logical candidate. Alec would be half-stupefied with whisky by that time, and there had to be a sober witness whom the police would believe.

‘I saw the prints, and believed in them. I went back to the house, feeling – pretty badly. Never mind that.’

‘You still think you have something good to say about that woman?’ Belle Sullivan almost screamed.

Molly looked a little shocked, and I silenced them.

‘Then they walked in a leisurely way across the open ground to a cave called the Pirates’ Den. You all know it. They had their suitcases in the Pirates’ Den: everything ready. There they took off their ordinary clothes, put on bathing-suits, and returned. That bungalow is four miles from any living human habitation; they wouldn’t be seen if they kept away from the road. Finally, both were wearing shoes.