Rehearsals for Murder (18 page)

In the hall, with the door closed behind them, Toby turned on George and looked him up and down with malevolence.

“You're being a lot less help than you usually are,” he said.

Faintly, George grinned.

“Listen,” said Toby, “you're grand at seeing things and at smelling things and at hearing things—when you feel like it—and at pinching things. Just leave it at that.”

The grin still kept the dimples twitching in George's plump, pink cheeks.

A look of uneasiness came to Toby's eyes. “George,” he said, “you've got something up your sleeve.”

“I got an idea,” said George.

“And why,” said Toby furiously, “why this crazy masquerade of deafness? If you aren't hoping to overhear something that way, what is it you're taking so much trouble not to hear?”

“I got an idea,” George repeated.

“Well, get on with it.”

“Tobe, has it struck you that if we'd been a bit spryer we might've saved that bloke Clare?”

“And if,” said Toby bitterly, “we'd been spryer still we might have saved Lou Capell. And if we'd been spryer still we might have saved Queen Anne. What's the good of saying a thing like that when we've scarcely begun to sort out the bloody tangle?”

George met Toby's angry glance speculatively. “Well,” he said, “this is my idea. It's about the switchin' of that bottle of Breathynne. These folk have all been tellin' us how Lou was holdin' onto that bag of hers. Well, that may be quite true. Fact remains, though, that she must have put it down sometime. Stands to reason. Someone had that bottle of brucine, and then the bottle of brucine turns up in her bag. But a thing can't be in one place and then in another place without being anywhere in between.”

Toby replied sneeringly: “I'm hazy about it, but I believe electrons do something awfully like that, and so do angels, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas.”

“But bottles of Breathynne
don
'
t
,” said George stubbornly, “not according to anyone.”

“That's probably correct.”

In a dogmatic tone George reasserted: “She put her bag down sometime.”

“All right,” said Toby, “she did.”

“Well,” said George, “suppose you was to get hold of young Gillett again. You say to him: ‘Gillett,' you say, ‘you came up here yesterday afternoon to try and have a private talk with Miss Capell?' And he says: ‘Yes.' ‘Well then,' you say, ‘she was avoiding you, wasn't she?' And he says: ‘Yes.' ‘Well then,' you say, ‘you'd got your eye on her pretty carefully, I expect, watching for your opportunity?' And he says——”

“George,” said Toby, and his hand came out and clapped George on the shoulder, “it
is
an idea. If anyone was observing Lou carefully yesterday afternoon, it must have been Gillett. Not that we can count on its getting us anywhere, because nothing short of his having seen someone popping the bottle into her bag would actually count as evidence. Still, he may have seen something we can make use of, something that'd give us the beginning of a hypothesis.”

“Or,” said George, “back up one we've got already.”

“If,” said Toby dourly, “we had one.” He stood up. “I know a lot about this case, George. I know all kinds of things. But I don't know the main thing I need to know. Who murdered Lou, and why? Come on, let's go and pick up Gillett.”

George, however, lingered. “You see, Tobe,” he said, “if you think it out you'll see she must have put her bag down when——”

But Toby had already started towards the sitting room. George shrugged his shoulders. Catching sight of his face in a mirror that hung on the wall, he shook his head at it, then he followed Toby.

“
Y
es,” said Colin Gillett, “I see what you mean.”

They were in Toby's bedroom.

“Yes,” said Colin, “I was watching her pretty carefully. Though not exactly in that way. I mean, I was concentrating simply on when I could snatch a moment to tell her about Clare. I wasn't thinking about the details of what she was doing.”

“Suppose,” said Toby, “you begin at the beginning and just describe everything you can think of about that afternoon up to the time when Lou disappeared.”

With a writhe of his limbs Colin sprawled into a comfortable position in the easy chair and sought guidance from the ceiling. It looked as if he were trying to see on the white plaster over his head the picture of all that had happened on that Saturday afternoon.

“Yes,” he said, “that was it. I got here. They were all in the garden. The whole lot of them.”

Toby enumerated them: “Mrs Clare, Miss Gask, Druna Merton, Widdison, Sand, Mr and Mrs Fry—and Lou?”

“Yes, and old man Potter,” said Colin.

“I thought he was in London lecturing,” said Toby.

“That was in the evening. He left sometime before Lou did but he was there when I arrived.”

“What were they all doing?”

Colin returned to his picture on the ceiling.

“Eve and Mr Fry and Charlie and Druna were playing tennis.”

“Mr Fry?” said Toby in surprise.

“Yes, he's an energetic old boy. Lou was sitting on the bench on the terrace between Potter and Mrs Fry. Lisbeth was in a deck chair, winding some wool, and Sand was squatting on the grass in front of her, holding the wool. I squatted on the grass near Lou. She didn't take any notice of me. She was sitting there quite quiet while the other two talked across her. I remember they were talking about sweet peas. Mrs Fry's got some idea that because Potter's a plant physiologist he ought to be able to tell her things about growing flowers, and Potter was leading her on, giving her all sorts of advice. Bloody rotten advice I expect it was; he couldn't tell a buttercup from a dandelion.”

Toby asked: “D'you remember anything about Lou's bag at that stage?”

“Yes,” said Colin, “I do. She was sitting sort of crouched on the bench with her arms folded, pressing the bag to her tummy.”

George put in: “Don't matter where her bag was before she gave herself that squirt of Breathynne round about four o'clock. Bottles weren't switched till after that.”

“Hullo,” said Toby with a grin, “hearing come back? Congratulations.”

With a scowl George flung himself back on the bed and shut eyes, mouth and, presumably, ears.

Toby said: “Well, what happened next?”

Thought ruled deep lines across Colin's forehead. “They stopped playing tennis. Mr Fry said he was tired. He went indoors. Eve made me play instead of him.”

“Oh, so you couldn't keep an eye on Lou all that time?”

“No. But she stayed where she was. I remember they were still sitting just like that when we finished the set, only as we were walking towards them Potter stood up and said he'd better be going. He and Eve strolled off to the gate. I thought I might be able to whisper a word to Lou without Mrs Fry hearing, but as soon as I sat down there Lou got up and went and sat on the grass near Lisbeth and started winding some wool for her.”

“Wait a minute,” said Toby. “How did she wind wool and go on clutching her bag?”

“I think she had it on her knee,” said Colin. “She was sitting cross-legged on the grass and had the wool round her wrists, doing the winding round her hands. Yes, the bag was on her lap. But”—he took hold of a tuft of hair and pulled it straight up above his head as if he might lift himself up by it—“as your friend said, it doesn't really matter, does it, where the bag was then?”

Toby explained: “I'm trying to keep a check on whether she really had a tight hold of her bag all the time or whether, in fact, it was lying round half the time. So far it seems she was really hanging onto it.”

“Oh, she was,” said Colin definitely. “Well, I got up then and went over and suggested I should hold the wool for her, but she said she preferred doing it all on her own and she started talking hard to Lisbeth about—the price of wool, I think it was. Eve came back from seeing Potter off——”

“How d'you know?”

Colin looked puzzled. “I saw her come back.”

“Yes, but how d'you know it was from seeing Potter off? You can't see the gate from the lawn.”

“No,” said Colin, “no, that's quite true. If you put it like that, I suppose I don't know at all what time Potter left.”

“Did you hear his car starting up?”

“I don't remember it.”

“And there's one person you've left out of all this. Where was Vanessa?”

“Oh, she was all over the place. She'd got a ball and a stick and was hitting it round, getting in everyone's way. I played French cricket with her for a bit when I saw I couldn't get Lou to talk to me.”

“Well, what next?”

Colin stirred restlessly. “This is an awful job. Lou went on winding wool, and—I know! Mr Fry said couldn't we play some nice pencil-and-paper game. Eve looked disgusted and——”

“Here, wait,” said Toby. “Mr Fry was indoors.”

“He'd come out again. Eve looked disgusted and said she was sure there weren't enough pencils to go round, but Mrs Fry said she'd got several in her room and went to get them. And that was when—yes, it happened quite suddenly. I think while I was playing with Vanessa Lou'd forgotten about me, because suddenly I realized she was sitting by herself. She was still on the grass where she'd been before, but Lisbeth had got up and was measuring the jumper or whatever it was she was knitting against Eve. I made a dash and plumped down beside Lou and told her about Roger being in the cottage and wanting to see her.” Colin stopped. His mouth twisted curiously. “She cheered up.”

“And that was the point,” said Toby, “when she gave herself the last dose of Breathynne?”

Colin nodded. “She started blushing and looking excited and chattering about some damned thing or other that had nothing to do with anything anybody'd been saying. And then she opened her bag and doped her nose with Breathynne and powdered it a bit and put on some lipstick, and I suppose she was going to dash off to the cottage when Eve said: ‘For God's sake, let's have some drinks if we've got to play this sort of game.' And then she told Lou to go and get them.”

“I take it,” said Toby, “that telling people to do things is quite a normal thing for Eve to do?”

Colin nodded sardonically. “Besides,” he said, “everyone told Lou to do things.”

“True,” said Toby.

“Well then,” said Colin, “Lou skipped up and down and burbled and went off to get the drinks. Mrs Fry came out with a fistful of pencils, and Mr Fry dealt them out to us and made us all sit round in a circle on the grass. Lou came out with the glasses on a tray——”

Toby interrupted: “What order were you sitting in?”

Exasperation began to take the place of the painstaking thoughtfulness on Colin's face. “Hell, I can't remember everything! Let me think. I'd got Vanessa on one side and Lisbeth on the other. Charlie was next to Lisbeth, and then Mrs Fry—she wasn't on the ground, she was in a deck chair—and then Sand, and then Eve, and then Mr Fry, and then Druna, and then Vanessa…”

“And where was Lou supposed to be sitting?”

“I think between Eve and Mr Fry. But she didn't sit down. She came out with the drinks and went round outside the circle, giving them to people.”

“And,” said Toby, “although she was carrying a tray with a number of full glasses on it she was still clutching her bag?”

Colin nodded without hesitation. “She'd got the tray in two hands, and the bag—the bag was hanging from her wrist. She went the round of the people there, and then Eve told her to come and sit down, but Lou said something about keeping us a moment and went indoors. Eve said we'd begin without her and she could join in next round, but actually she never came out again.”

“She didn't go down to your cottage through the wood?”

“No, she wouldn't have wanted to be seen crossing the lawn, would she? But if she went out through the gate and along the lane we couldn't see her, and it'd have taken her only five minutes longer.”

“I see.”

“Is that all you want?”

“No,” said Toby.

It was a moment, however, before he told Colin what else he wanted. Colin, watching him with eyes that in the last minute or so had grown anxious, twisted restlessly in his chair, chewed at his lips, and, at last, in a burst of querulousness, demanded: “Well?”

Toby met the querulous, anxious gaze with one that was oddly absent-minded.

“Gillett,” he said, “when did Max Potter visit you last?”

Colin looked at him for a moment as if he did not believe that the question had been put seriously.

Toby repeated it.

Colin laughed. “About six weeks ago, I should think. He doesn't visit me in the normal course of events. But he turned up tight one evening about eleven o'clock and started playing Schumann. I think that's the only time it's ever happened.”

Toby hitched himself off the window sill. “Then that's all,” he said.

But when Colin was at the door Toby spoke again. “You're sure he didn't visit you sometime since two o'clock yesterday?”

“Not while I was there, anyway. But, come to think of it…” Colin shook his head. “I don't know. He's been talking of wanting to borrow some music I've got—the dances of Granados—and he may have gone in sometime and taken them. But I don't know.”

“Thanks,” said Toby in the same absent tone, “thanks very much.”

Colin went out, and Toby flung himself down into the easy chair.

George sat up on the bed.

“He told you one lie, anyway,” he said.

“Eh?” said Toby.

“He told you she went round carrying the tray with the bag hanging from her wrist.”

“Yes, that's what he said.”

“She couldn't have. The strap of the bag was broken.”

Slowly, sullenly, Toby said: “Yes, the strap of the bag was broken. I remember.” He swore. He swore almost as wearily, almost as confusedly as Vanner. He did not look at all pleased.

Reginald Sand, just before dinner, edited Colin's story for Toby.

“Yes,” he said, “that was it—we were all sitting in a ring, and Lou came round with the tray. She'd got her bag tucked under her arm. I can see it quite clearly. It made her look very awkward, holding the tray while she'd got one elbow dug into her side like that. And then——” He bit the sentence off. His mild face took on a look of great perturbation. He went on in a low voice: “Isn't that strange? I'd forgotten it. But, thinking about it, picturing it, it comes back quite clearly. I daresay if you ask someone else they'll corroborate it. She dropped her bag, you know. It slipped down from under her arm.”

Toby sighed. “And someone picked it up for her and handed it back to her, and that person was——?”

The little man did not sound enthusiastic either. “But it was in broad daylight, Dyke, right in front of us all,” he said. “I'm sure no one could have played any monkey tricks with it.”

“All the same, that person was——?”

“Yes—yes, it was, it was Eve,” said Reginald Sand in a hurried, regretful mumble.

Toby took his arm. “Dinner,” he said, “and let's forget about it all for the next half-hour.”

Dinner, however, must have been the dreariest meal that anyone there had ever experienced. It was no aid to forgetfulness. But for the sober presence of Mrs Fry few of them would have sat it out to the end. Her manner asserted the necessity of self-control, of dignity, of certain conventions. She even manufactured a little conversation; it creaked woodenly along over the stony road of depression.

As soon as the meal was ended Toby seized George by the elbow and pushed him out into the hall.

“I've had enough of this for the time being,” he said. “Let's go upstairs.”

In Toby's bedroom there was a bookshelf filled with a very mixed assortment of books. Toby helped himself to one published by the firm of Clare and Thurston; it was about conditions in Soviet Russia. He opened it about two thirds of the way through it and began to read. George settled himself again on the bed and seemed soon to fall asleep.

Toby read for a while but presently the book sank onto his knee, his gaze rose to the window, and he sat with his brooding thoughts weaving their patterns onto the screen of the dusk.

The house was unusually quiet. He heard a car start and drive away; that was Max Potter going home. He heard a few bars of music, not, surprisingly, from the wireless or gramophone, but from the piano itself, vigorously and beautifully played; that, presumably, was Colin Gillett. But most of the time there was silence, and then there were steps in the corridor and doors opening and shutting; others besides himself and George were escaping from the burden of communal gloom. George's breath came with a soft, hissing sound; he really was asleep.

Toby read a little more, then put the book down and said sharply: “George!”

Reluctantly George awoke.

“George,” said Toby, “I know why Lou needed money. I know the meaning of her letter to Eve, I know why Eve's been in such a bad temper, I know whom Eve was going away with. In fact, I know a great many things. But I don't know who murdered Lou or why.”

George had pushed himself up on one elbow and was rubbing his eyes. “Sorry,” he said, “been sound asleep. Got no sleep last night. Been sound asleep, dreaming of swimming in the Red Sea. There's sharks in the Red Sea—didn't remember about them in my dream.”