Four Strange Women (34 page)

“What do you advise?”

“Questioning her. She won't answer. She is far too clever for that. She knows what safety there is in silence. We can go on asking questions all the same. We show her we know all, but not that we can prove nothing. She'll guess it, but she won't be certain. We shall have to let her go in the end, but we can warn her she will be kept under observation.”

“Running a bluff,” commented the chief constable.

“Yes, sir,” said Bobby. He added:—“I think it's all we can do—yet. It means showing our hand too soon, but I think we've got to. Or there'll be another death and we'll be responsible.”

“Yes,” said the chief constable. He looked at Mr. Findlay, who nodded and wrote ‘I agree' on a slip of paper and then looked surprised at what he had done and dropped the slip into the waste paper basket. “O.K.,” said the chief constable. 

Bobby rose to his feet, feeling the conference was over. He said:—

“With a bit of luck proof might turn up. I'm thinking of trying a spot of burglary to-night.”

Neither of the others made any comment. They did not seem interested or perhaps they had not heard. At the door Bobby paused and looked round. He said reluctantly:

“I don't know if she ought to be warned that she is in some danger herself.”

They made no comment on that either, and Bobby went back to his rooms, where he found waiting for him the proof that for so long and arduously and vainly he had searched.

It was in the shape of a long, written statement, signed by Lord Henry Darmoor.

I first met Gwen Barton two or three years ago. I don't remember exactly. I don't even remember where it was or how it happened. That's like her. First of all you don't notice her at all. Then you don't notice anyone else.

I never knew when I fell in love with her.

One day we were just ordinary acquaintances. Next day nothing else mattered, only her. You just belonged to her, body and soul. I don't think it was love exactly, it was possession.

She took everything, she possessed you.

One day I got an invitation to a place in Mountain Street, off the Edgware Road. I had heard there was such a place, of course. Every one had. Not where it was exactly, only that it existed, and you were rather out of things if you had never been. If you went you had to swear not to tell, and if you did, you were never asked again. Besides you didn't let your people know if you could help; I mean, of course, if you were still living at home. It was all very mysterious, and every one was awfully thrilled to get an invite, but no one knew who sent it or who ran the show or why. You heard all sorts of stories. Some said it was a group of film stars and the secrecy was to prevent the bosses knowing, because of their contracts. Or else it was an American millionaire, or else a Russian grand duke who had got away with the Imperial crown jewels and didn't dare let it be known who he was for fear of their being claimed. Any tale you liked to tell or believe.

The invite told you a name and number you had to give to get in, and you were advised to wear a mask. It wasn't essential. They let you in without, but most people had one. The name I had to give was Sir Galahad, Camelot Hotel, Cornwall, and my number was 666. I thought that pretty thick. I'm no beauty, I know, but I called that rubbing it in. It nearly put me off, only I thought I might as well see what sort of a show it was, with all the stories going about. I knew plenty of my pals had been, young Byatt, for instance, and Andy White and other chaps, too.

As a matter of fact it was a pretty dull show, night club style, not much out of the ordinary, though some of the women were certainly very much out of their frocks. All a bit second rate, including the drinks, only lots of them and nothing to pay. That was a great attraction, because every one likes a free show, and it's all being so mysterious. When everything is just the same every day, a bit of a mystery does appeal. For instance, no address for reply was ever given on the invites. To accept, you had to put three candles in your window or something like that—spy film style—and then you were rung up and told where to go. All that sort of thing. Good stage management, but the show itself boiled down to a big petting party, with nobody caring much how they behaved because nobody knew who anybody was—no limit and nothing to pay for drinks.

I got fed up and went off early. We met at the door as we were leaving. She was going, too, she said. Good stage management again, good timing. She said it was the first time she had ever been there. She seemed a bit upset, cried a little. She knew how to put it on, she was a wonder when it came to lying. She could lie in a voice so full of truth I think God Himself must have believed her. I walked part of the way home with her because she said she wasn't feeling very well. She wanted a little fresh air, she said.

We talked about the show and we both said it was a dud and we wouldn't go again.

All the same there was something exciting in her voice—something hot and hungry. Even her telling you how flat and dull it had been made you go all excited and restless because somehow she made you understand how different it could have been.

She said every one there had been asleep or dead and that was how she made you see them, too, and that set you longing to be awake and alive and different from them, and you knew that she could show you how.

She said she wouldn't tell me her name or where she lived, though of course I knew, because she wasn't masked, though I was. I had no idea she knew all about me well enough, I never dreamed it was me she was getting hold of. She said we must never meet again.

Only before we separated she promised we would, only the place must be Mountain Street again, when we got fresh invites, because only there could we meet without our knowing each of us who we were. You see, she pretended to be very keen on that, though of course we both knew quite well, though I pretended not to, and I never dreamed she knew just as well as I did.

I spent all my time till the next invite wondering about her and trying to meet her and wondering how to behave if I did. She kept out of my way, though, and then the invite came, and when I got there I thought at first she hadn't come. I was all on edge wondering if she would turn up. The time before the music had been ordinary sort of stuff—jazz, swing, the usual night club programme. This time it seemed all drums—drumming. There wasn't any band, just one of those big gramophone things. Drumming. It seemed to beat you down and down. Some people couldn't stand it and cleared. I felt like that at first. But if you listened long enough it got into your brain, it got into your blood, you felt yourself slipping...

It made you think of dark places in woods, or nights on lonely hilltops, and altars to strange gods, and people dancing round them in and out of shadows, and cutting themselves with knives.

You got to feel there was nothing else in all the world except that unending beat, beat, beat...

Worked you up.

You hadn't any self-control any longer. I knew I ought to go before I lost mine, and I tried to, only then I saw one of the women looking at me and I saw it was her. She had a mask this time, but I knew her all right. Gave me a jolt somehow. I nearly ran for it. I knew very well, as well as I knew that I was standing there, that it was the only thing to do.

But then she beckoned me and I went.

After that, I didn't care any more.

Nothing mattered except her and what she gave me. The things she knew, the things she showed me, things that I had never dreamed of, though before I should have said I knew as much as most.

No one could ever understand who hadn't been the same way. Sometimes she would tell me things just to see how far I was under. I was under all right. She told me I wasn't the first. There had been young Byatt, she said. She said it was on her account he had killed himself. If she had told the truth, and that he hadn't killed himself but she had killed him, because she had grown tired of him when she had got from him all he had to give, and killing him was the only way to keep him quiet and prevent any risk of exposure, I shouldn't have cared.

I think I should have felt it quite natural she should kill when she had—finished.

But I never thought that one day it would be like that with me, too, and with me also one day she would have —finished.

I might have known. I am not sure that in reality I didn't always know. Because it was so plain that nothing could ever satisfy for long her infinite desire.

If there ever was that idea in my mind, I never let it come on top.

Sometimes I would wonder a little how I had changed. Not that I wanted to admit that, even to myself, and when an old chap who had been with us for years, before I was born, page he had been and my father's valet and mine, more like an old friend, when he started worrying I just cleared him out. I wonder what's become of the old chap.

One night lately a woman spoke to me, a woman I didn't know. She said she had been sent with a message. There had been trouble at Mountain Street with the police. It surprised me, because it was always the idea to keep on the right side of the law and give no chance for them to interfere, but I took her up to my rooms because she said it was so important I should hear what she had been told to tell me.

I wasn't suspicious. I remember noticing some of the porter chaps looking, but it was no business of theirs. When we got in my flat I started to get her a drink. Really, I wanted one myself. I was always wanting a drink now to try to cool off on, and out of the tail of my eye I saw her swinging something up to land me one.

I remember thinking quite clearly that Gwen must be through with me, that this was the Byatt finish for me, too.

So, you see, I must have known all the time, or why should I have thought that?

All the time, even when we were in each other's arms, I must have known deep down what she really intended, only I suppose I didn't care.

Next thing I remember I was lying on my bed. She must have got me there somehow after I had passed out. She had me fast with dog chains by the wrists and ankles to the bed posts and she had stuffed a towel into my mouth, and she was bathing my forehead with eau de Cologne. Once she took the towel out to let me have a drink, but she stuffed it back again at once.

She started to talk. She told me about her husband and meeting him and what it meant when you met a man you cared for, and who cared for you, and about their little house—he was a chauffeur getting good pay from the people he worked for—and how he always brought her every penny home, and used to tease her asking if he might have a little back for pocket money, and how he was just her man till another woman came and took him from her.

Gwen, of course.

He knew Gwen liked jewellery—swell jewellery—we all had to buy her some, mine was a diamond tiara I had to sell out all my holding in war loan to pay for—and as he hadn't any money he stole stuff to give her. Diamond ear-rings, and a diamond pendant, I think, belonging to his employers. After that she had to kill him so as to keep him quiet, because if he had been arrested it might all have come out. She hid the body, so that it was never known what had happened to him. Every one thought he had got away abroad somewhere, but the woman talking to me said she knew where his body lay hidden. And she told me about Byatt—what a jolly, bright boy he had been, friendly with every one, till Gwen got hold of him, just as she got hold of me. And how she killed him when she grew tired of him, managing so that it seemed like suicide. She told me a lot more. About Andy White. About Baird. She knew it all, so long she had been watching and waiting.

All through the night she sat there by the bed, talking, telling me. Telling me things I had known all right, even though I never let me know them. But I knew them for a truth, as all through the night this woman I had never seen before sat there by my bed where she had made me fast so that I had to listen, and told all the things I had known so long and never let my knowing matter.

When she had finished she began again. All over again, only this time more about me. You see, she knew it all, watching, waiting. She had managed to get into the Mountain Street hall somehow and she had hidden close by when we thought we were alone, listening just as I listened while Gwen talked.

Also she knew just what Gwen was going to do and how.

She said Gwen was tired of me and growing frightened, too, because questions were being asked. A man named Owen. A policeman. Gwen always laughed at the police. I've heard her say they were too tied up with regulations and red tape to be much good. They often said themselves they knew criminals but couldn't get proof. Gwen said if the police had any sense they would know it was the criminal they had to get, not the proof. She had heard about this Bobby Owen, though, and took me to see him once. She said afterwards she wasn't impressed. Military type, she thought, and he ought to have gone into the army where being a gentleman and having relatives in the House of Lords is a real help. All the same the woman said Gwen was getting uneasy about him now because of the way he was plodding on. The woman said she had seen Bobby Owen, too, and she thought Gwen was right to be uneasy, because he did give you the idea that he would never stop plodding on—not till he got there.

She said she was just as frightened of him as Gwen was, only for a different reason. She said she was afraid he might be first. I don't know what she meant.

She said Gwen had made up her mind to go to America and start fresh there. Only first she was going to kill me so I couldn't make trouble.

She told me just how Gwen was going to do it.

When she had finished she went away and made herself some tea. Then she came back and started all over again from the very beginning, just as if she had never said a word before. She sat and drank her tea, and said it all over again every word.

I had to listen because the way I was gagged with that towel and fastened up. I couldn't move or speak.