Authors: Christianna Brand

Crooked Wreath (26 page)

Peta said: “It's true. She let him suffer; she let him think that he was mad, she let us all think that he was mad, she let us behave towards him and be frightened of him as though he were some mad, dangerous dog, that we ought to have had destroyed, only we had once been fond of him â¦ She did that deliberately â¦” She turned her head aside, to conceal her tears.

Bella said: “You don't believe, Inspector, that she de
lib
erately put the blame on to Edward â¦?”

Stephen answered. “Not deliberately. I don't think she planned it. I think it all grew up and she couldn't stop it; she always tried to disprove and deny that Edward was mad, as all of you did. Looking back on it all, in this new light, I think that Claire knocked over that vase in the drawing-room by mistake; she'd gone there to get the poisons, I suppose, from Philip's bag, and she knocked the vase over. And then I came into the hall and found her there, and she had to say something; she had to account for her being there. She took it for granted that I thought Edward had had another of his âturns,' and when I'd gone, she put the wreath crooked to bear out the theory. But only to account for the broken vase. I don't suppose for a moment she foresaw its implications.” He looked down at the pale face lying on the flat stretcher pillow. “Don't you think, Philip, he ought to be got off?”

Up at the house, men toiled with ladders and shovels and picks. “In a moment,” said Philip. “In a moment.”

“You're building up a bitter disappointment for yourself, Philip,” said Cockrill, “if you hope that Claire will be found alive.”

“I don't hope she's alive. I pray to God that she'll be found dead. But just in case there's a chance â¦ Edward's all right; heaven knows it's warm enough here with this bonfire raging, and there's no great loss of blood â¦ There's no other ambulance in this one-horse place; I can't take the risk of letting it go.” Philip brushed the dust and grime from the glass of his watch. “I'll keep it five minutes more.”

“While we wait, Cockie,” said Ellen, “tell us about Claire. We shall have to know.”

Cockrill responded at once. He thought it unwise and unhealthy that, because she had died for her sins, Claire should be allowed to grow into a martyr in the family's eyes. He thought they should face the facts. “She made up her mind to do this thing and she worked it all out thoroughly and acted quickly and cleverly. She chose her time when you would all be listening to the news, the servants in the kitchen, and Brough gone to his fire watch. She took the coramine and told your grandfather some story and, of course, he trustingly let her give him an injection; âinstructions from Philip,' no doubt. She put a little coramine into the glass to confuse the issueâshe was cool and calculating. She must have accidentally touched the telephone because it was necessary to wipe it and press his hand to it, hoping that it wouldn't be noticed if there were no other marks. Then, I suppose, she couldn't find the will; but she had no idea that it had been signed and she thought it was only the draft, so it wouldn't have worried her much. And she hadn't much time, she had to get back to the family soon. She'd seen Brough sanding the paths, and she had her plan all worked out. She pulled back the curtain, and left the lodge.”

“When we wereâwhen we found Grandfather the next morning,” admitted Philip, “she looked for the will.”

“That doesn't look very much like heart-broken remorse, does it?” said Cockrill, sourly. “And then things began to go wrong; poor Edward was believed guilty, and then Ellen was accused and that upset Philipâand also made Philip turn to his wife with a renewal of his old affection for her. But Edward came to her room that night, and told her his theory about Brough; it all fitted nicely and if only Brough were not alive to deny the story, she might be rid of all her fears. Perhaps she made up her mind then and there to kill him with the strychnine she'd taken âin case.' Perhaps the idea only came to her when she saw him, at dawn, going across to the lodge. We know she was in Ellen's room that night, and from Ellen's room you can see down to the lodge; it was bright moonlight and, anyway, almost dawn. I suppose the siren woke her, as it woke him; or perhaps she hadn't been to sleep â¦ What Brough was doing there we shall never know; but I have an idea that he thought it might be a good place in which to conceal the will he was holding. The police would never think of looking in a place they'd already examined and sealed up, but they were searching everywhere else, even digging up the grounds. Anyway, she took the strychnine and crept down after him. Her original plan had failed. The draft will had been signed and whether or not it was found, the old will no longer held. And, in the meantime, Philip was going back to his first love. She saw Brough, then, and she crept down after him. It was a terrible risk; but no doubt she watched my man go round to the back of the house and knew she had a chance; and now not her happiness but her safety was at stake.”

“I think she did it for Edward,” said Peta. “I think it was the only way that she could tell himâand tell us allâthat he wasn't a murderer, that he needn't be madâof course, without giving herself away.”

“That's what I say,” said Cockrill. “She was afraid for herself.”

It didn't matter. It didn't matter very much, thought Peta, what Cockie thought. Claire was dead. She had tricked and deceived them all, she had killed poor Grandfather, had taken advantage of his trust, to murder him; had killed Brough and while, in agony, he died, had blotted his name with the onus of her own crime; she had left Ellen to ignominy and fear, she had let Edward suffer pain untoldâbut she was dead. She had given her life deliberately, knowing what she did. And now Edward was free altogether of the fear that had hung over him long before Claire had fixed it there; he could go into the Air Force and be a real person and play no more tricks with his ego; and Philip had Ellen and the baby and she, Peta, was in Stephen's arms and not a poor little rich girl any more â¦ And Swanswater was gone and Bella no longer a prisoner there; she could go off to “the Riviera and Miami and places like that,” she could have a bijou house with frilly net curtains and a yellow front door and geraniums in little pots â¦ Swanswater was gone and the memory of Serafita and the worship of Serafita were cleansed away by fire; and the memory of Claire, also, should be cleansed by fire. It didn't really matter what Cockie thought.

There was a signal from the house. Two men came down and carried Edward's stretcher up to the ambulance. “They've found the young lady, sir. They're bringing her out.” The family made its way painfully to the terrace and there stood waiting, a little apart from the toiling men. Only Philip went forward when at last the moment came. A little procession made its way to the ambulance; the doors were slammed and it drove away. Philip came back; terribly white, terribly weary, infinitely sad. He said: “She's dead, of course,” and held something out to Cockrill. “She wasâshe was clasping this in her arms.”

Cockrill took it from him; a small, oblong, battered object, black with smoke. “It's aâa message. Well, thank God for that; at least she wanted us to know, she wanted to save poor Edward!” He turned it over and over in his hands. “She must have got it when they were in the drawing-room; I saw her dragging Edward back into the hall, you know, just before we got through to him. Of course she couldn't explain to him; she couldn't tell him the truth; he was unconscious.”

They all stared at what he held. Peta said: “But what is it?”

“It's the explanation,” said Cockrill. “It's the answer to a question that none of you seem to have asked. How can she have walked up those paths that night, and left no mark that couldn't be covered next morning by her footsteps? It's the box from under Serafita's portrait in the drawing-room.”

He put down the little metal casket on a garden table and opened it. Inside was a sheaf of dusty pressed flowers, a faded theatre programmeâand nothing more; the gloves which had lain there, he himself had taken out earlier in the evening and shown to them all, on the terrace, down by the river. He said: “We all thought that Claire could not have covered up her own footsteps in the sand; but that's just what she did. She made two lines of footprints, up to the French window and away from it; but they were tiny prints, so tiny that one normal print could easily cover two of them at a time; and she took care, no doubt, to keep them close together. She saw Brough come away from the lodge, having surrounded it by sanded paths; and in that moment, I think, she made up her mind â¦”

He plunged his hands into the side-pockets of his shabby old tweed coat, and chucked down two small objects to lie on the table, beside the box. A pair of tiny pale pink satin ballet shoesâthe block toes still embedded with infinitesimal grains of sand.

Only Claire had inherited Serafita's little feet.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

“The Crooked Wreath” has been published in
The Chicago Tribune
under the title “One of the Family”

cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

This edition published in 2011 by
MysteriousPress.com
/Open Road Integrated Media

180 Varick Street

New York, NY 10014

www.mysteriouspress.com

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