Rehearsals for Murder (15 page)

“Stop it!'

“Always, always!”

“Stop it!” He scowled ferociously. “What about Lou's letter to you?”

But at that moment the door was thrust open. It was thrust open with a fiercely decisive gesture. Standing there, glaring from one to the other, short, squat, and in some way incredibly menacing, was Mrs Fry.

There was menace in her tone when she spoke. “Eve,” she said, “what have you done with Vanessa?”

F
or a moment after her aunt's question Eve merely sat on her bed, looking as if she were trying to remember what she had been about to say. Her mouth hung a little open; her eyes were empty. A bewildered shake of her head came next, and then, starting to rub her forehead with the knuckles of one clenched fist, she found a few words.

“Aunt Nelia, Roger—Roger's been——”

“Where's Vanessa, Eve?”

“Aunt Nelia, Roger's been murdered.”

“I've heard.” On heavy feet the squat, stern-looking woman came into the room and closed the door behind her. “There's no need for me to say anything. There's nothing to be said. But where's Vanessa, Eve?”

“Isn't she with you?”

“She is not.”

“But——” Eve looked at Toby helplessly. “I telephoned.”

He reminded her: “You didn't get through.”

“No—no, of course not. I was forgetting. I've such a cloud in my mind. I took for granted… But if she isn't with you, Aunt Nelia, where is she?”

“That's what I'm asking you.” Mrs Fry was standing in the middle of the room. “And what,” she demanded, “is this absurd story about Vanessa getting into a train by herself?”

“A train? I don't know what you're talking about. I got worried about her this afternoon because that policeman said she'd left the hotel before Roger yet she hadn't turned up here. So I rang you up. I thought almost for certain she'd have gone round to you.”

“I was out for a walk,” said Mrs Fry, “and your uncle was having a bath.”

Toby said protestingly: “A bath?”

“A bath,” Mrs Fry repeated. “Whenever my husband's nervously upset he takes a bath.”

“And stays in it for about two hours,” said Eve, “which can't really be good for his nerves; still, he always does it.”

“He's dreadfully upset now, dreadfully,” said Mrs Fry. “Particularly since he started worrying over Vanessa. I'm——” She hesitated and looked intently at Eve. “I'm rather alarmed about him,” she said in a flat voice.

“D'you mean——?” The words came quickly, stopped abruptly.

Mrs Fry nodded.

Eve swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. She picked up a comb and jerked it through her hair. She explained to Toby: “Uncle Dolphie has—we call them nervous attacks. Not often, but——”

“Certainly not often,” said Mrs Fry. “He had a nervous breakdown some years ago and now and again has a slight relapse. I'm anxious now that the terrible state of depression he's in this afternoon may be the beginning of one of these—these relapses. The shocks we've had to endure these last two days, particularly now that he's convinced something terrible must have happened to Vanessa, are far worse for someone of his highly strung temperament than for the rest of us—and they're bad enough for us, God knows.”

“But, Aunt Nelia, what
is
all this about Vanessa?” The comb struck viciously through Eve's short hair. “I only know she didn't come home after having lunch with Roger.”

Mrs Fry pulled a chair forward and sat down on it. She sat with her knees far apart and planted a hand on each knee. “I'm tired,” she said drearily. Then she went on: “Perhaps it's only mischief. But I hope…” She passed the tip of her tongue along her lips. “Mr Dyke,” she said, “tell us what we ought to do. This afternoon Miss Gask telephoned the news of Roger's death——”

“I asked her to,” said Eve.

“Immediately we heard,” said Mrs Fry, “my husband and I started out for Wilmer's End. We were both of us distracted, hardly knowing what we were doing. We came at once, at once. But at the gate of our house, just as we were leaving, we passed Dawson with his van—Dawson's the greengrocer; he'd been up to his market garden, I suppose. As we passed he called out to me. Really, I was so distraught I hardly heard what he said, but my husband exclaimed at it, and then it dawned on me what his words had been. He'd said: ‘That little girl of yours, she's getting to be a big girl, taking the train up to London by herself.' I thought, of course, it was just some nonsense or a mistake of some kind. But then when we got here I learnt that Vanessa had never come home. Never come home, Mr Dyke.”

“Well,” said Toby, “you might try ringing up Dawson.”

Eve spun round on her heel. She flung down the powder puff with which she had been dabbing at the redness round her eyes. “That's what you ought to have done at once, Aunt. How silly of you not to do that at once. I'll go and do it.” With an excitement that gave her an illusory appearance of gaiety she ran from the room.

Toby, raising questioning eyebrows, looked at Mrs Fry.

She gave a hard, short laugh. “I did ring him up.”

“And?”

“He wasn't in.”

“Perhaps he'll be in by now.”

“Perhaps.”

Laboriously pressing down on her knees with her hands, Mrs Fry levered herself to her feet. “I suppose,” she said with a sigh, “if I hadn't come Eve wouldn't have started worrying about that child until about midnight—or perhaps tomorrow morning. Can you understand it, Mr Dyke? Can you understand how any woman can give so little heed to her child—her child, the most precious gift that can be given to her?”

“We-ell,” said Toby, “seems to me Mrs Clare's never quite stopped being a child herself. I daresay that's the reason.”

She smiled coldly. “Not very fond of children yourself, are you, Mr Dyke?”

“Ruddy little dears,” said Toby absently. “Mrs Fry——”

She paused on her way to the door.

“Mrs Fry,” said Toby, “you went for a walk this afternoon?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Alone?”

“Quite alone.”

“And your husband spent several hours in a bath. That was probably alone too. I hope,” said Toby, and his voice on the last two words rose plaintively, “I hope, Mrs Fry, we'll find that
someone
in this place has what at least looks like a respectable alibi.”

Mr Dawson had not yet got home. As Mrs Fry and Toby came downstairs they overheard Eve at the telephone asking Mrs Dawson to ask her husband to ring up Wilmer's End as soon as he got back to the shop.

They found Mr Fry sitting by himself in the dining room. He was sitting with his neck sunk between his shoulders, his chin digging into his orange silk tie. With his eyes fixed vacantly on space, his lips slack and his hands folded loosely in his lap, his attitude expressed an abject resignation. He did not look round as they came in, but his head moved faintly from side to side.

His wife went and stood beside him and put a hand on his shoulder.

He started and shrank together.

“Dolphie,” she said in her soft, strong voice, “you mustn't do this. You must take hold of yourself. Think what it's like for all of us.”

The slack lips moved. “It's punishment, Nelia—the beginning of punishment.”

“He'll get biblical presently,” Eve whispered to Toby; “he'll think he's one or other of the Prophets. I wish we could get them home.”

Toby was listening to sounds out in the garden. “That's Vanner just arrived.”

Eve's sudden movement was rather like her uncle's had been when his wife's hand fell on his shoulder.

Toby shook his head at her. “Take it easy,” he said, “there's nothing to worry about.”

“You're worrying,” she said.

He shook his head.

“You are. But I shan't say anything. I shan't answer any questions.”

The voices outside suddenly sounded louder. Vanner and Gurr came in.

On the terrace George and Max Potter were playing poker dice.

George had been winning. To Max Potter's conversation he presented the wooden face of his deafness.

Near them were Lisbeth Gask, Druna, Charlie, Colin and the little man who usually wore shorts but who now was wearing flannel trousers.

Leaving Eve to Vanner, Toby strolled out to join them.

A silence fell as he came out. He stood watching the fall of the dice. He looked as if he had nothing to say.

Soon, in her abrupt fashion, Lisbeth spoke to him. “Well, why don't you tell us what's going to happen?”

“I can tell you what I think's going to happen,” he answered, “but you won't take it as particularly good news. I think that shortly Mrs Clare will be arrested.”

“Eve!” Lisbeth's hands, with their inevitable knitting, dropped like stones into her lap.

Max Potter looked up blankly; Charlie Widdison sat bolt upright; Druna's lounging grace was suddenly stiff and angular; Colin jumped to his feet; Reginald Sand said: “Oh dear, oh dear,” and George threw four aces.

“It's like this,” said Toby. He spoke sourly and reluctantly. “Lou was pregnant. It's pretty certain that the man concerned was Roger Clare. D'you realize what that'd mean to Eve? I'm not talking about jealousy, though jealousy can operate in queer ways, and I don't put it beyond her to have been as jealous as hell. But I'm talking about money. In Clare's will, made some time ago but not altered in spite of the divorce, Eve got an income of a thousand pounds a year. The principle went to Vanessa, but there was that thousand for Eve. Would that have stayed as it was, d'you think, if Clare had married again—and had had another child? Whether it would or not, Eve had reason, don't you agree, to think that it mightn't?”

George's four aces were lying disregarded on the paving. Toby picked them up and started juggling with them in one hand.

“She's got no alibi,” he said, looking round at the group. “She says she was alone in the wood most of the afternoon. The wood's actually on the way to the cottage. She spoke to Clare on the telephone this morning; there was no one in the room with her when she was speaking, and she could easily have asked him to meet her at the cottage. It was she who asked Colin to take me to the Victor Hildebrand Institute this afternoon. It was she——” He tossed the dice up and caught them on the back of his hand. “It was she who asked Lou to stay here instead of going straight down to Devon yesterday morning.”

For a short moment there was silence, then Max Potter started roaring obscenities.

Toby shrugged his shoulders. He let the dice trickle off his hand onto the ground. “Nothing to do with me. Those are just the facts that stare one in the face.” He dug his hands into his pockets, stepped off the terrace and strolled away across the lawn.

Before he reached the wood George's voice sounded at his elbow.

“Tobe,” said George, “you got a grand passion for drama.”

Toby's thick eyebrows came together. “That wasn't done without reason, George.”

“I know, I know. Say, isn't this wood pretty? If one didn't know what went on behind the scenes here one'd never dream it was such a nasty neighbourhood.”

Side by side they sat down on the cushiony moss beneath a beech tree. A warm, resiny smell made the air fragrant; the ground was a tangle of campions; a little way off, where the trees stood farther apart, foxgloves grew as high as a man's shoulder.

Toby tugged at a piece of grass and started chewing it. George, taking the dice from his pocket, aimlessly tossed them on the vivid green moss.

Presently he inquired: “How long you reckonin' on sittin' here?”

Toby leant back, supporting his head on a knuckle of the great tree's roots.

“I slept rottenly last night,” he said. “Shouldn't mind staying here a couple of hours. I wish you'd tell me something though.”

“Sorry, Tobe,” said George, “I can't hear what you're sayin'.” He pointed at the cotton wool in his ears.

Toby did not raise his voice. “Just why are you doing this deafness stunt? That's what I was going to ask you.”

George shook his head. “Sounds just like the bees buzzing.”

“All right,'' said Toby with a sigh, and closed his eyes.

It was about ten minutes later that footsteps sounded on the path above them. George jogged Toby with an elbow, and Toby raised his head.

“Here it comes,” he muttered.

But he let his head sink back against the root and again closed his eyes.

Somebody came down the path; somebody hesitated and then sat down near them; somebody started breaking twigs with sharp, nervous movements.

Toby spoke suddenly: “Go ahead, Gillett, we were expecting you.”

“Vanessa's been seen,” said Colin.

Toby's head came up sharply. “Vanessa? Where?”

“That greengrocer chap rang up. He says he saw Vanessa getting into a train at the station. He swears she was by herself.”

“Where was the train going to?”

“Waterloo.”

“Does she do that sort of thing often?”

“Never done it before.”

“Police doing anything about it?”

“They're looking for her.” Colin's voice was dry and uneven. “Dyke, all that stuff you said about Eve—you know it isn't true, don't you?”

“Why shouldn't it be true?”

“It all hangs on the idea that Roger was Lou's lover.”

“Well?”

Colin snapped a twig with extra viciousness. He mumbled words down at the mossy earth. “Dyke, this afternoon you said something about a discrepancy. I mean, you were talking about why the father of Lou's child wasn't—that's to say, you seemed to think that—that he very likely wasn't the murderer. You said there was a discrepancy.”

“Yes.”

“Well—that child was mine.”

“Yes,” said Toby, “you see, that was the discrepancy.”

Unsnapped, a twig fell out of the wrestling fingers. Colin gave Toby a long, bewildered stare. His hands started shaking; there was a look of sudden disintegration about him. In a hoarse voice he struggled with words: “I don't understand.”