Danger Point

Chapter 36

THE black and white hall was cool and shadowy after the strong heat and light outside. Lisle went up the shallow marble steps past the tortured Actæon on the half-landing, past all those white tormented shapes of death and grief, to her own room. Here the gloom was of another kind. Not stark tragedy but outworn respectability made it a kind of catacomb of Victorian taste. The impression which it always induced came upon her with more than its usual force. The windows stood wide, the middle one a two-leafed door opening upon the narrow parapeted balcony. Lisle threw a cushion on to the sill and sank down upon it, her head against the jamb, her hands in her lap. The sun was on the other side of the house and the breeze was cool from the sea. She stayed like that for a long time. Miss Silver’s words came and went in the empty spaces of her mind. She watched them there…

Presently she began to think again. It was just as if part of her had gone numb and was coming back to life. She had been able to talk and laugh with Rafe on the way home because the numb thing had not begun to hurt. It was beginning to hurt now. Miss Silver’s words kept sounding in her ears: “Change your will. Alter your will. Ring up your solicitor. Change your will. Ring up your solicitor at once. Tell him to destroy your will. Make some excuse. Alter your will. Change your will. Everything to your husband? Any other legacies? Any other substantial legacies? Twenty thousand pounds to Rafe. Would that be a substantial legacy? Change your will. Alter your will. Tell them that you have changed it. Tell everyone.”

She thought about that… “Leave all the money to a charity and tell them what I’ve done…” There was nothing to stop her doing it here and now. She had only to cross to the bed, take up the telephone, and call Mr. Robson. She could do that and have it done in a quarter of an hour… And then go down and tell Dale, and Rafe, and Alicia that she thought one of them was trying to murder her. Because that was what it amounted to. ‘I’m destroying the will that makes it worth your while. If anyone murders me now they may get themselves hanged, but they won’t get any money and they won’t save Tanfield. “ Just exactly that was what it amounted to.

Lisle closed her eyes and wished that she was dead already and out of it. If she was dead she wouldn’t mind who had her money. She didn’t mind now. She only minded having to think that someone wanted it so much that they would do murder to get it. She thought about that, and she thought about being dead, and it came to her that she couldn’t take Miss Silver’s advice. If they were trying to kill her they must try. She couldn’t defend herself – not that way. Anything that came must come from them. If her marriage was to be broken – and she thought it was broken already – it must be Dale who broke it. She could not put her own hand to it. If Rafe… Her thought faltered. Twenty thousand pounds – was friendship worth no more than that? He had said that he hated her. Perhaps they all hated her. Alicia did, but she was an open enemy. “The wounds with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” She thought, “That’s in the Bible – but I have no friends in this house-”

And as she came to that, there was a knocking on the door. She got to her feet before she said, “Come in” – some feeling of not being taken at a disadvantage. How far back did that go – to the jungle? And how much safer was she here among the trappings of Victorian respectability?

It was Lizzie the second housemaid at the door, a buxom young thing – bright hair, rosy cheeks, eyes popping with interest.

“Please, madam, it’s the police Inspector. And William told him Mr. Jerningham was out, and he said if he could see you – and William’s put him in the study same as last time if that’s all right.”

Lisle said, “Quite all right, Lizzie,” and turned to the glass to smooth her hair. She put colour in her cheeks and touched her mouth with lipstick. Her white linen dress was crumpled. She changed it for a soft green muslin, thin and cool. Then she went down.

Randal March watched her come in with a feeling that he was here on a fool’s errand. This girl – it couldn’t be possible that her husband or some member of his family had tried to murder her. The tears which she had not shed darkened her eyes. When he had seen her before she had been fainting pale. Now, with colour in cheeks and lips, she was lovely, with a delicate, ethereal loveliness which touched and charmed him. She gave him her hand as she had done before and kept her eyes on his face with just that sensitive widening of the dark pupils which told him she was nervous.

He said, ‘I won’t keep you, Mrs. Jerningham. I just want to clear up a few points about your coat.”

“My coat?” Her hand was cold in his. She drew it away and stepped back.

“The one you gave to Cissie Cole.”

“Oh, yes.” She went over to the fireplace and sat down there on an old-fashioned backless stool.

“The coat has been tested for prints, and I should be very grateful if you could answer a few questions about when you wore it last, and whether anyone else had the opportunity of handling it then.”

“I told you -”

“Yes. Do you mind if we just run over it again? You wore the coat on Sunday evening. Are you sure you didn’t wear it again after that?”

Alicia’s voice in the hall on Sunday evening – “That hideous coat!”

March saw her wince, and wondered why.

She said in a soft, hurried voice, “Oh, no, I didn’t wear it again.”

“And where was it between Sunday and Wednesday?”

“In a cupboard in my bedroom.”

“No one would have touched it there?”

“Oh, no.”

March smiled at her.

“Then we come back to Sunday, when you wore it last. I think you said Mr. Rafe Jerningham brought it to you in the garden. Can you remember how he was carrying it?”

“Over his arm.”

“Did he help you on with it?”

“I don’t remember. I suppose he did.”

“I think you said he did.”

“Then I suppose he must have.” She put up a hand to her cheek. “Does it matter?”

“Well, it does rather, because we want to account for the handprints. You see, if he helped you on with your coat on Sunday evening, we would expect some rather faint prints up by the collar.”

She could feel a little pulse beating against her hand. It frightened her. She let the hand fall again into her lap.

“And are there any?”

He nodded.

“Now, Mrs. Jerningham, just try and think whether he touched you again after that.”

“Touched me?” Her eyes widened.

March smiled pleasantly.

“You were down by the sea wall, weren’t you? He didn’t take you by the shoulders and swing you round to look at something across the bay, did he?”

“Oh, no!” There was no mistaking her surprise.

“Nothing at all like that?”

“Oh, no.”

“Well, that finishes that. Now did anyone else touch you whilst you were wearing the coat – take hold of you, as I said, pat you on the back, or anything of that sort? Your husband, for instance?”

“Oh, no. I came in after we had finished talking. I didn’t see Dale. I went straight up to my room and put the coat away. Alicia – Lady Steyne was in the hall, but she didn’t touch me.”

“Where was the coat before your cousin Rafe Jerningham brought it to you?”

“I think he brought it from one of the chairs on the lawn. It – it turns cold down by the sea as soon as the sun goes.”

“That was very thoughtful of him.”

Lisle said, “Yes.” It rushed into her mind how often Rafe had done things like that. She felt a wave of emotion, a touch of comfort. And on that Rafe himself came strolling in through the window.

“How do you do, March?” he said. “More Third Degree? Just tell me if I’m in the way.”

“Not a bit. I have finished with Mrs. Jerningham. I was going to ask if I could see you. You couldn’t have timed your entrance better.”

“Perhaps I was listening for my cue.”

Lisle got up and left them. As Rafe opened the door for her she looked up at him and caught a queer crooked smile. It troubled her – a crooked, bitter smile. It robbed her of that new-found comfort. She heard Miss Silver’s voice again. “Tell them you’ve altered your will. Tell them all.” The door closed behind her.

Rafe came over to the writing-table and leaned against the corner of it. He wore a short-sleeved shirt with an open neck and a pair of grey flannel trousers, and he looked very much at his ease.

“Well?” he said. “What is it now? I thought we’d finished.”

“Not yet,” said Randal March.

“Because when we have, I was going to say I suppose you’re not on duty all the time, and what about coming up for some tennis?”

“Thank you – I’d like to – when we have finished. I’m afraid I’m strictly on duty this afternoon.”

“Too much on duty for this?” Rafe offered a battered cigarette case.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Oh, very well. I suppose you don’t mind if I smoke?”

“Not at all. I’ve just been asking Mrs. Jerningham about the coat she gave to Cissie Cole. We’ve been trying it out for fingerprints, and we naturally want to know who handled it before it changed ownership.”

Rafe struck a match, drew at his cigarette till it glowed, and dropped the match on to Dale’s pen-tray.

“Fingerprints?” he said. “On that woolly stuff?”

March watched him.

“Yes. It’s a new process. Some of the prints are marvellously clear.”

Rafe laughed.

“Mine amongst them? I suppose Lisle told you I fetched that coat for her and helped her on with it the last time she wore it – at least I suppose it was the last time.”

“Yes, that’s what she said.”

Rafe blew out a mouthful of smoke. Through the light haze his eyes danced mockingly.

“Too disappointing for you!”

March said, “Perhaps, ” and then, “Perhaps not.” He pushed his chair back, fixed his eyes sternly upon Rafe, and said, “When did you take hold of that coat by the shoulders and upper part of the arms – and who was wearing it at that time?”

Rafe put his cigarette to his lips. Was it to cover them? His hand was steady enough. March thought, “I’d rather trust my lips than my hand if I was in a hole.”

The hand dropped. The lips were smiling.

“Well, Lisle has just told you that I put her into her coat.”

March shook his head.

“These prints weren’t made that way. I’ll show you how they were done.” He sprang up and came round the table. Standing behind Rafe, he took him by the shoulders, the flat of the palm at the edge of the shoulder-blade, the fingers coming round the upper arm and gripping it. “Like that,” he said. And let go, and went back to his seat.

Rafe was still smiling.

“Any explanation?” said March.

Rafe shook his head.

“I can’t think of one – at least not a new one. I did help Lisle on with her coat, you know, but I suppose that’s too easy for the modern scientific policeman.”

“The prints are too fresh,” said March quietly. “They’re the freshest prints of the lot. The ones you made on Sunday are a perfectly different affair. These prints were made at a much later time, and they are most unmistakably yours.”

Rafe straightened up, still smiling.

“Well, you’ll have to prove it, you know. I don’t mind your trying, if it amuses you. But just speaking off hand, I should say that none of it would sound very convincing in, let’s say, a court of law – or a coroner’s court. And perhaps that’s the reason no one asked me all these interesting questions at the inquest. I was there, you know.”

“You don’t offer any explanation?”

Rafe shrugged his shoulders.

“You won’t take the obvious one. I’m afraid I haven’t any other.”