Rose in Darkness (28 page)

And even more to the point—the body is found, not in his car anyway, but in Sari Morne’s.

Imparse, as Ginger would have said.

So play it that he did indeed exchange cars with Sari Morne at the tree—what then?

He has killed the woman before he arrives at the restaurant to dine; or—but the time element very nearly rules this out—he kills her between the time of his leaving the restaurant and his arrival at the tree. Either way, the body is already there when Sari Morne turns and drives his car home to Hampstead.

Objection: But the body is found in Sari Morne’s own car.

Driving her car, then, and after exchange at the tree, he meets Vi Feather and kills her; and now her body is in Sari Morne’s car.

Objection: once again—no opportunity whatsoever to have swapped the cars back, between the time he arrived home that night and the time he set off for the picnic in Greenwich with the nurse and little girl.

Point inexplicable: there lay on the body as though fallen there, a short stemmed red rose such as a man might...

A mist as red as the rose suffused, all of a sudden, Mr Charlesworth’s mind. A picnic at Greenwich—twelve miles across the London traffic from Sari Morne’s home. A red rose, And a man who always wore a buttonhole.

He shook his head clear; he went across and sat on the arm of Ena Mee’s chair and stroked the moist black nose of gently snoring Ronald Pig. ‘Gosh, you’ll have fun with him!’ he said.

‘You can put him on a little lead and take him out for walks. And picnics. I expect he’ll love picnics. I know
you
do.’

‘I didn’t like the last one,’ said Ena Mee. ‘We came away and had it on a bench at the zoo. I gave all mine to the monkeys.’

‘What, all that lovely food? I expect you had lots. Do you have a big picnic basket? Does it have to go in the boot of the car?’

‘No, Nanny had it beside her and the tarpauling, folded up; there was hardly room for Nanny. Nanny said can’t you put it in the boot but Daddy said, oh, for heaven’s sake, it’s all right where it is.’

‘Chief Superintendent,’ said Phin, angrily, ‘what
is
this?’

‘Well—just chatting. About picnics; no harm in that? My little girl loves Greenwich Park,’ said Charlesworth, lying in his teeth. ‘Didn’t
you
like Greenwich Park, Ena Mee? After all, you had your Daddy to play with you all the time.’

Phin looked up again sharply. ‘That’s enough! Leave the child alone,’ but Ena Mee was not listening. ‘He wasn’t with us
all
the time, he went and left a message and Nanny got more and more cross.’ The voice: ‘Him and his women! A message about a case, indeed!’

‘That’ll do, Ena Mee,’ said Phin. ‘I was away exactly ten minutes. And it was not a lady.’

‘Oh yes it was!’ said Ena Mee in an unlovely jeering tone.

‘In fact it was not.’

‘Oh yes it was!’ said Ena Mee again; and since he would not continue a back-and-forth argument, added: ‘You wouldn’t give a flower to a man. But when you came back, you didn’t have your red rose in your buttonhole.’

The shock ran through them like a physical shiver. Mr Charlesworth walked across to the window and looked out at the falling away of the heathland down to the silver gleam of the ponds at the foot of the hill. Phin had got up out of his chair and stood ramrod straight, as though he protected his child. When at last Charlesworth spoke, however, it was to say, easily, casually, ‘All the same Ena Mee—such a lovely place! Up at the top of the hill, looking down at the river.’

‘
We
didn’t like it,’ said Ena Mee. ‘Dull old grass and a few bushes and only a weeny little bit of the river. Nanny said she’d never been there before and she never was coming there again, messages or no messages. And Ronald wouldn’t like it either; we’ll never take Ronald there.’

‘It’s nicer out here on Hampstead Heath.’

‘Well, we’ve never been on Hamstid Heath either. But we will now that we know Sari. Ronald and me will often go on Hamstid Heath.’

‘I bet,’ said Charlesworth and could hardly keep his voice from shaking. He stooped down and ticked the piglet. ‘Oh, dear, I believe I’ve woken him up! And now he’ll be hungry again. Ginger, why don’t you go with Ena Mee into the kitchen and try and rustle up something for Ronald to eat?’ And as the sergeant led the child, happily skipping, out of the room, he swung round upon Phin Devigne. ‘So?’

‘So,’ said Phin with a desperate, weary shrug.

‘So you drove them round, this ignorant countrywoman and innocent child, made a detour through the busy streets and brought them back here to Hampstead. You were not in Greenwich, Mr Devigne, on the other side of London: you were here on the heath, a few minutes away from these flats.’

They were all on their feet now, rising as by some unconscious impulsion from their places, stunned with astonishment. Sari stood close to Phin, her two hands clasped with an ever tightening grip about his right arm. Now she released her grasp, moved back from him, stared wildly from Charlesworth’s face to his and cried out, ‘
Phin?
’

‘I didn’t kill her,’ he said. ‘I didn’t kill her.’ And to Charlesworth he blurted out, almost stupidly: ‘Her body was in my car.’

Etho, ever coolest in any company. ‘Inspector—could we take a moment’s breather?’ And he was moving swiftly, motioning them back to their seats, with a hand against his chest actually pushing Rufie down; and was filling up glasses, thrusting a glass into Charlesworth’s hand who stood almost as shaken as they. Duty or no duty, Charlesworth took a great gulp before he put the glass aside. From the kitchen came the happy squeakings of Ena Mee and Ronald; Ginger would doubtless be standing very close indeed to the intervening door.

It had all been managed so quickly and neatly, a sort of ordered shock tactic that the briefest of moments seemed to have passed. Charlesworth, still standing, said, ‘Well, then, Mr Devigne?’

His face was ashen, he sat upright on the couch, Sari in her shimmering gown sitting close, with her hands on his arm again, but leaning backwards away from him, her eyes on his face. Rufie’s face was a sheet of blank white paper; he put the glass aside blindly. Etho leaned across from his own chair, put the glass back into his hand and said, ‘Drink it!’

‘Well, Mr Devigne?’

He said again, ‘I didn’t kill the woman. All the rest... ’ He jerked his head towards the kitchen door. ‘It was for her.’

‘So?’

‘Yes, of course it was me at the tree,’ said Phin. ‘I had to get back, I couldn’t let it come out that I’d been at The Angel.’ He made no more secret of any of it. ‘The whole affair was madness, I was trying to break it up; they only know now about an occasional luncheon or dinner, the Press have ferreted all that out of course, but that’s all they know at The Angel; and they’re nice people there, they’ve been discreet. But of course there was more to it than that, I’d lost my head completely—’

‘And Miss Feather might have discovered that?’

‘No, no, Inspector, that rat won’t run! She might have recognised that I didn’t always stay at the cinema; she couldn’t know more. I’d hardly murder a woman for what
she
might have known.’

‘But even the few luncheons and dinners, could get a bit awkward?’

‘If that damned nurse knew—she’d tell my ex. and
she’d
soon get weaving. So I simply had to get home.’ He paused for so long that Charlesworth prompted: ‘But then, there you were landed with this stranger’s car.’

‘Yes, well... I’d given her a wrong ‘phone number,’ he said, with a gesture towards Sari. ‘I deliberately put my finger on it, my glove absolutely sodden, so that it would half obliterate the thing. So she couldn’t get in touch with
me,
I couldn’t have that happening, I couldn’t let the nurse know about the exchange of cars; that would place me on the wrong side of the tree and she’d have been through to my wife in a flash. And if I’d taken them to Hampstead, same thing, they’d have placed some girlfriend in Hampstead—it was a girl I’d swapped cars with—and my wife would have rootled out this girl and God knows what could have happened. So—I played this trick; Nanny knows nothing about London, I just drove around a bit to look as if we were driving through town-y streets to Greenwich—in case anyone asked them; I have to watch every step and... Well, you’ve got it,’ he said to Charlesworth. ‘I parked them there, with a glimpse of the ponds and told them it was the river; if they’d found out it would have been a joke of some kind... Even from that,’ he said, ‘you can see it wasn’t all that serious. Would I have taken such chances if there’d been any question in my mind about a murder?’

‘I knew you were the man at the tree,’ said Sari. ‘Of course, I knew you. They didn’t believe me, about the tree. But knowing it was true, I knew the man must have been you. And they never believe about the Followers, but I knew they were true too, so I didn’t worry because all the rest was just the Followers.’

‘But the next part... I couldn’t explain it to you, Sari, I just had to keep saying it wasn’t me. And you didn’t ask.’

‘I just knew about the Followers. Nobody else believed in the Followers but I knew. So I knew whatever had happened, it must be them.’

‘Mr Devigne—please,’ said Charlesworth.

‘I’m sorry. Yes. So, well...’ His shoulders dragged, he half closed his eyes, he looked as though he might topple forward in a faint, supported only by her clinging to his arm. ‘I made them this excuse about leaving the message. I meant to go to the address she’d given me, get the car keys from her and make the exchange and hurry back. But I could see the Halcyon in this open shed, my own Halcyon. I drove in beside it and I saw that the keys were still hanging in the ignition. Well, all the better, I thought, I’ll simply swap back and she need never know who I was. And then... Oh, my good
God
!’ His shoulders sagged forward again.

‘You saw the body—in the back of your car?’

He sat with his head in his hands. Charlesworth said quietly: ‘Take your time. Finish your drink.’ Etho sat very still, Rufie was staring like an idiot, demented: with slowly dawning realisation, Sari drew back and away from him. He said to her, mumbling through his spread fingers: ‘How could I know that the car I’d exchanged with was yours?’

‘You dragged the body out of your own car and put it into hers?’

‘Why does one do what one does?’ he said. ‘I was shaken to the core. And always at the back of my mind—protect myself from scandal because of the child. I could have got it out and left it lying on the ground, I suppose, but—
I
don’t know, someone might have appeared and noticed it, even from a distance—taken the number of my car as I drove away... God knows what thoughts flash through your mind... And there was this sort of vague idea that the body
belonged
with this other car, it was nothing to do with me, it ought to be where it belonged. So—nobody about, nothing could be seen from the windows of the flats. I got her out and pushed her in, head first, and went round and dragged her in from the other side. It was then that the rose must have fallen out of my buttonhole.’ He became aware of the whitening faces, the disgust and shock at the horror of the act. ‘I’m a doctor. I’ve been through it all as a student, the cadavers for dissection...’ A half shrug, apologetic. ‘Dead bodies don’t mean very much to me.’

Before the onslaught of their incredulity should find voice, Charlesworth said quickly: ‘It was noon by this time. If they’d meanwhile taken the number of your car—with the body in it?’

‘I’d have to face that if it arose. But it might not arise. The body was still there, it didn’t seem as if anyone had seen it; maybe nobody had looked at the car since she left it there.’

Sari spoke at last. She said: ‘Phin! You put Vi Feather, dead, in the back of my car? Mine!’

‘I didn’t know you then, Sari. You were just a strange female who’d left a dead woman in my car.’

‘And you never said—’

‘I didn’t see the papers, I didn’t know it was you...’

‘You did this thing,’ said Etho, ‘and didn’t watch the papers to see what happened next?’

‘Well... The next day, Monday, I had an urgent call, I had to rush out of the house before the papers came. You don’t know what my work is like. You’re stuck there with a patient... And I didn’t want to go round making a fuss about seeing the papers. I got a look at
The Times,
at last, but there hadn’t been much time, a brief mention of a body being found—
The Times
doesn’t go into hysterics about film stars and so forth. I recognised the name of the girl in the film—but you’ve got to realise, I didn’t
see
the film, it was just a name to me. And then I was more and more frantically tied up—I couldn’t go running round buying newspapers, people would have thought it was odd, getting the sort of stuff I’d never read. And then I had to go to the pub, The Fox, to visit my patient there, and I met—her—there, Sari; and from that moment I was in love with her. I didn’t realise the girl I’d bumped into in the cinema was Sari Morne, and in the storm, I hadn’t even seen her face—at the tree, I mean. And by the time it all came together—I was in love.’ He said, half to himself, ‘And how could I tell her then—?’

‘You weren’t slightly suspicious—having found this body in the car she’d been driving?’

‘She told me about the Juanese,’ said Phin, simply. ‘Whatever it was all about—that seemed to cover everything.’

Rufie raised his white, clown’s face and spoke at last. He said, almost frantically: ‘Yes. That covers everything.’ For if Phin had found the body in the car that Sari had driven home—how had that body come to be in the car? He repeated: ‘The Juanese. That covers everything.’

‘We’ve been in touch with the Grand Duke of San Juan el Pirata,’ said Charlesworth. ‘The Juanese deny all knowledge of the affair.’

‘Well,’ said Etho, ‘but they would, wouldn’t they?’

‘And these letters,’ said Rufie, throwing out a hand to where they now lay in their neat plastic packages, on a table at Charles worth’s side. ‘From San Juan. With the seal and everything; and the drawings...’

Squeals arose from behind the kitchen door that were not from Ronald Pig; a protesting male voice, the sounds of a scuffle, and Ena Mee burst into the room, Ginger scarlet-faced behind her. ‘I want to go home now! Ronald wants to go home!’ She rushed to her father grabbing at him with one hand, the wretched piglet hugged against her breast. ‘He won’t let me come out of the kitchen, Ronald’s finished his dinner but he won’t let us come out of the kitchen...’