The March Hare Murders (19 page)

Sam took a hand. “I’m afraid it’s true, my dear. And Obeney here says he actually saw it happen.”

Slowly Ingrid turned her head to look at David.

“Is this true?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Giles is dead?”

“Yes.”

“And you saw it?”

“Yes.”

“You saw him pushed over the cliff? Murdered?”

“More or less.”

“I don’t know what you mean—more or less,” she said, still in a level tone which would have suggested a superhuman degree of control if it had not been almost impossible to believe that she understood what had been said.

“I was swimming,” David said. “I hadn’t got my glasses on. When I haven’t got my glasses on I only see rough shapes of things. I thought I saw two people standing on the cliff, and then I thought I saw one of them push the other over. When I got back to the beach, I found Giles at the bottom of the cliff. He was dead.”

“What are you doing with Giles’ mackintosh?” Ingrid asked. “Where did you find it? He wanted it when he went out this evening, because he thought it might start raining again, and he couldn’t find it.”

Sam looked round at David and gave a barely perceptible shrug of the shoulders. With his lips scarcely moving he sketched the words, “What are we to do about this?”

David laid the bundle rolled up in the mackintosh down on the kitchen table. Ingrid watched him with mild curiosity as he pulled the wrappings back. When she saw the book in the midst of them, she seemed to make an effort to focus her attention upon it. As she did so, one of her hands crept out and took hold of a fold of the mackintosh, twisting it tightly between her fingers.

Then, as if all of a sudden comprehension had come to her, her cheeks burned red, her eyes blazed, and standing up from her chair, she made a wild grab at the book. Clasping it to her, she cried out, “That’s Mark’s!”

“Yes, yes,” Sam said hastily, “of course it’s Mark’s. We just brought it here, so that we could explain——”

“It’s Mark’s—he paid you for it—you can’t take it away!” she cried.

“Of course not,” Sam said. “We were just going to——”

“You were stealing it!”

“Nothing of the sort,” Winnfrieda said brusquely. “We were merely attempting to take a certain mild precaution, for the convenience of all of us.”

“I know this book.” Ingrid said, clutching it against her bosom. “It’s the most valuable one he had. It’s worth a thousand pounds.”

David looked sardonically at Sam. “Is that a fact?” he asked.

Pulling out a chair from under the table, Winnfrieda sat down and folded her arms. “I am afraid we are being forced into an explanation, Sam,” she said. “Perhaps it would be best to accept the situation and proceed.”

Sam nodded. But before he could say something, Ingrid exclaimed, “I understand it all now. I thought David killed Mark, and I was sorry for him, and I was going to try and help him. But now I see that was absurd—it was you two. You did it so that you could steal back his books, and I shan’t help you; I shall tell the police everything I know.”

“My dear child——” Sam began.

“You came here this afternoon, didn’t you?” Ingrid screamed at Winnfrieda. “While he was at Deidre’s shooting Mark, you came here and looked for the books, and you found this one, and you wrapped it up in Giles’ mackintosh and went and hid it somewhere. And that’s why you took such a long time to arrive, after Sam’s telephone call. And then you came back to get the book from wherever you’d put it, and Giles saw you, and you pushed him over the cliff——” She came to a sudden dead stop. She looked round at them all with astonished, horrified eyes, as if the meaning of her own last few words had just reached her mind. For an instant there was a startling emptiness of sound in the room. Then she gave a shriek, “Giles!” and flung herself down with her arms out across the table, burying her face in her brother’s mackintosh.

They watched her for some minutes. She did not seem to be weeping much, but her whole body was twitching and she kept rolling her head from side to side in the folds of the mackintosh.

At length Winnfrieda remarked, “I suppose there might be some brandy in the house.”

“If there is,” Sam said, “I should certainly like some.”

Picking up the book from where Ingrid had let it fall, David asked interestedly, “Is that really worth a thousand pounds?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Sam said, “though that is not the reason why, as Mrs. Verinder has guessed, Winnfrieda came here and removed it into temporary concealment. She did that because it could be used as evidence.”

Ingrid started up from her chair.

“You’ve admitted it!” she cried. “And I’m going to the police! I’m going now to tell them everything I know!”

Snatching the book out of David’s hands and clutching it tightly to her bosom as before, she rushed out of the house.

•   •   •   •   •

David was the first out after her. She ran across the road, letting the gate of the garden opposite slam shut behind her. She ran round the house and in at the French windows of the sitting-room.

She would have gone straight to the telephone if she had not suddenly found Ferdie confronting her, barring her way. As David stepped into the room, he heard Ferdie saying harshly, “This telephone is private property. In future I am not going to have it used without permission.”

Stella, curled up in a chair, lighting a cigarette from the stub of the last one, expostulated in a husky whisper. “Oh, Ferdie, don’t—let Ingrid use it if she wants to.”

“No,” Ferdie said, standing in front of the telephone. “There’s been too much of this running in and out of one another’s houses. It hasn’t paid any of us.”

Ingrid looked bewildered. “Can’t I telephone?” she asked childishly. “You always said we could use it when we liked.”

“Of course you can,” Stella said.

“Perhaps,” Ferdie corrected her, “if you’ll tell me why you want it.”

David took hold of Ingrid’s arm and tried to pull her towards a chair, but she resisted him with heavy, muscular immobility.

“She wants to telephone to the police,” he said. “She has various things to tell them.”

Just then Sam and Winnfrieda, arm in arm, came into the room. Ferdie looked round with irritation. “Have we got to have another bloody conference?” he asked. “Can’t we have any peace?”

“I doubt if peace follows very naturally on murder,” Sam said.

Ferdie’s face began to redden. “I’ve had enough of all this, I tell you,” he said. “My house and my telephone and my wife belong to me. I’ve taken too long to make up my mind about that, but now I’ve done it. Any one wanting a part share in any of them had better talk it over first with me.”

“Ferdie!” Stella said in a startled voice.

“It would have been better all round if I’d come to that conclusion a long time ago,” Ferdie went on feverishly, “but it isn’t too late to start now. Do you all understand? This is my house, and that’s my telephone, and that’s my wife.”

Stella seemed to shrink in her chair. “You’re upset,” she said helplessly.

“Yes, I’m upset,” Ferdie said. “What else d’you think I’ve been the last six months? And what d’you think a little murder, practically in the family circle, does to one? When I saw what was happening, months ago, I should have told Verinder what I thought of him—and I should have made you go away with me.”

“It might have been best,” Stella muttered.

“And when I saw that that brother of yours wasn’t in a really responsible state, in spite of what the doctors said,” Ferdie went on, “I shouldn’t have let him have the run of the place. When he set fire to that summer-house, I ought to have made up my own mind about it and gone to the police. I’ve been trying to understand every one and please every one, and see what’s come of it.”

“All very true, no doubt,” Winnfrieda said, taking a chair, “but a little late in the day.”

“I want to telephone,” Ingrid said plaintively. “I want to tell the police about Sam and Winnfrieda trying to steal my book.”

“She had another little matter of some importance to report to them,” Sam said, “though it seems to have slipped her memory. Her brother’s body, at the moment, is lying at the foot of the cliffs. Obeney claims to have seen someone push him over.”

“Clay having claimed, if I may remind the company,” Winnfrieda said, “to have seen him in somewhat compromising circumstances.”

“You’re trying to draw attention away from this book you were trying to steal!” Ingrid exclaimed, hitting the book with her hand. “You admitted it; you were trying to steal it, and Giles caught you!”

“We admitted nothing of the sort,” Winnfrieda said contemptuously. “Sam, explain about the book. I’m afraid that has become necessary.”

“What have books got to do with it?” Ferdie asked angrily. “And what’s this about Clay?”

As shortly as he could, David told the story of what had happened and of what he had seen.

It was only while he was doing so, that almost for the first time, he began to think carefully about what Giles had said that he had seen on the road close to Deirdre Masson’s house. Until then David had accepted Giles’ statement that he had seen him as a stroke of fate against which it was useless for him to pit his own strength or intelligence. He had felt fatally caught in a trap, from which there was about no hope of release. But now, with a kind of surprise, it occurred to him that somebody else must have felt trapped by some knowledge that Giles had been thought to possess. The person whom Giles had really seen on the stretch of road beyond the crossroads had become frightened that Giles’ mistake might not stand up to investigation.

Or could Giles’ mistake have been made intentionally? Had he really known quite well whom he had seen on the road? And had that person known that he had been recognised?

While David was talking, Ferdie forgot about guarding the telephone, and, moving away from it, sat down on the sofa, putting his head in his hands. Yet now that he had left the telephone, no one else went to it.

As soon as David had finished, Sam spoke in a loud voice. “I am going to explain the matter of this book. I insist on explaining it. I am not going to let the suggestion stand a moment longer that my wife and I were about to steal this book. I am going to tell you all about this book—and I ask you all not to interrupt me until I am finished. I am going to tell you about it because I think it may be in Mrs. Verinder’s interest that the matter should not be reported to the police. I won’t conceal from you that it will be in my own interest as well, but I intend to convince you that Mrs. Verinder was not going to suffer in any way from having this book temporarily removed from her house. Now are you going to listen to me?”

It was uncertain whether any one except Winnfrieda was listening, but no one interrupted. All the same, Sam raised a hand to maintain the silence.

“First, I must explain to you,” he said, “that Verinder and I were engaged in something which had about it a faint flavour of illegality. I have no fear, in saying that, of rousing your very serious disapprobation, since the illegality was concerned with smuggling. Every one who has an opportunity to do so, smuggles. I grant that at the present moment some consciences are a little more sharpened than they used to be. Some people are genuinely uneasy at the thought, for instance, of black-market dealings in currency. I admire them, I admire them very much—so long as it doesn’t turn out that the same people are buying black-market tea at eight shillings a pound——”

“There’s no need to make a lecture of it, Sam,” Winnfrieda said. “The moment is scarcely appropriate.”

“Quite so, quite so,” Sam said irritatedly. “Well, as I was saying, in spite of the fact that what Verinder and I were engaged in was on the faintly illegal side, my conscience on the matter is perfectly clear. That’s all I wanted to make plain. Now what we were doing was this. Verinder, from time to time, was buying books from me. Most of them were not of the value of this one. This one was special—quite special. For an agreed sum of money, not at all excessive in the circumstances, I did a small job of forgery for him, covering the original frontispiece with another, showing it to be of a much later date than it really was, and relatively worthless. Verinder could then take the book abroad with him, without having to declare it as valuable, as part of his ordinary reading matter, sell it and do what he liked with the dollars or whatever he managed to obtain—that part of it was none of my business and I refrain from offering any views upon it——”

“But you were trying to steal the book back,” Ingrid interrupted, “when Mark had paid for it and it really belongs to me.”

“I was not trying to steal it,” Sam said impatiently. “I was merely trying to remove it outside the sphere of police investigation—and incidentally, of probate. Any expert, valuing your husband’s books for probate, would have discovered the forgery in this, and then it would have been very awkward for you as well as for me. But also, as I was saying, as soon as I realised that the police were likely soon to be searching very carefully through your house, looking for anything that might give them information on his murder, I decided that it would be a wise precaution to remove the book into safe keeping until the investigation had blown over. Naturally, if I had had an opportunity to discuss the matter with you beforehand, I should have done so. If Winnfrieda had found you at the cottage when she called there, she would not have removed the book without consulting you. But since you could not be found, she acted on her own. I hope now you understand me.”

“I think you wanted to steal the book,” Ingrid said monotonously, “and trust to my making no fuss about it because of not wanting to cast any slur on Mark’s memory. And I think Giles caught you and so you killed him.”

“Giles caught somebody, but it wasn’t me,” Sam said.

“The question is,” Winnfrieda said, “do you intend to show that book to the police now or not?”

David saw that Ingrid looked undecided. He did not think she had changed her mind about what Sam and Winnfrieda had intended to do with the book, but thought that she was trying to work out rapidly what would be the most advantageous thing to do from her own point of view.