Danger Point

Chapter 47

RAFE JERNINGHAM came into the study and shut the door. It was a few minutes short of midnight. He sat down at Dale’s table, took the receiver from the telephone, and called the Tanfield aerodrome. The voice which answered was a familiar one.

“Hullo!”

“Hullo, Mac! Rafe Jerningham speaking. Has my cousin taken his plane up?”

Mac’s voice came back to him with its Scottish burr.

“Well, I’m not sure. There was a bit of a hold-up. Johnson was working on the plane, and I’m not just sure if he got off or not. Are you wanting him?”

“Yes. Look here, Mac, if he hasn’t gone, get hold of him. There’s been an accident up here – will you tell him that. Ask him to come and speak to me.”

“I hope it’s nothing bad-”

Rafe said, “Bad enough.”

He heard Mac’s footsteps go away, sounding unnaturally loud in the empty, echoing place. They went over the edge of sound and were gone. He waited for those other footsteps – Dale’s footsteps – hurrying to hear that Lisle was dead. The room was very still.

The footsteps came at last – the quick, impatient steps of a man who is in no mind to be kept waiting. Then the sound of the receiver being snatched up, and Dale’s voice.

“That you, Rafe? What is it?”

“There’s been an accident.”

“Who?”

“Lisle. I found her.”

“Where?”

“In one of those pools beyond the Shepstone Rocks.”

“Dead?”

“No – alive.”

There was a smashing silence. Not the faintest sound from all those things which that one word must have sent down in ruin. Then, after what seemed a long time, Dale’s voice:

“Is she – hurt?”

“No.”

“Conscious?”

“Perfectly.”

“Has she been talking?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause. Then Dale Jerningham said,

“I see.” And then, “What happens next?”

“That’s up to you.”

“Meaning there’s no compromise?”

“How can there be?”

There was another pause. Dale laughed.

“Bit of a meddler – aren’t you! Why couldn’t you leave well alone? Just out of curiosity I’d like to know how you found her.”

“Footprints on the sand – two lots going, and only one coming back.”

“I see – the odd chance. You can’t fight your luck. It’s been against me all along. Well? Do you import March into this?”

“Bound to. There’s Pell-”

“All right, carry on. There’s a letter on my dressing-table in a blank envelope – you might retrieve it. Well, that’s all – I’m just going up. You’ll hear me come over in a minute. So long!” The receiver clicked. The line was dead.

Rafe hung up at his end and got to his feet. He stood there for a moment under the light, looking up at the picture over the hearth. Giles Jerningham, sometime Lord Chief Justice of England, looked sternly back at him.

Presently he turned and went out of the room, switching off the light as he went.

Upstairs in the dressing-room, with all the signs of Dale’s occupancy about it, he found the letter. It was in a plain envelope propped up against the looking-glass – no address, and the flap not gummed down. Inside, a single sheet with a couple of lines in Lisle’s writing. No beginning to them, and no end. Just two lines in a tired, sloping hand:

“I don’t feel as if I can stand this strain any more. Please forgive me-”

Rafe saw the words in a blinding flash of horror. Lisle had written them. When? How? There rose before him a brief interchange of words as they came out of the dining-room after lunch. Dale and Alicia had gone on, and he had said to Lisle in the old light way which was dead, “Why so tired, honey-sweet? You look as if you had been through a mangle.” And Lisle, half laughing, “Well, I have. We’ve been trying to concoct a last appeal to my obstinate old Robson. I should think I’ve spoiled twenty pages – and it’s no good really.” And then, quite suddenly, her hand on his arm. “Rafe, I forgot – Dale didn’t want anyone to know. It – it means such a tremendous lot to him.” He could hear himself saying, “All right – I won’t give you away.”

He looked back at the two scrawled lines, and had no doubt that this was one of Lisle’s spoiled sheets. Words suggested, perhaps even dictated, by Dale – words which would have been a convincing proof of suicide when Lisle’s drowned body came ashore, washed up by tomorrow’s tide.

He went over to the fireplace, put a match to the paper, and watched it burn away to a fine ash. Then he opened the long french window and went out on to the balcony. It was the same upon which Lisle’s three windows opened. There was a light in her room, Lizzie would not leave her. The curtains were drawn back. The light made a faint glow upon the stone parapet – a faint yellow glow, perhaps from a shaded candle.

He stood and looked out over the massed woods to the sea. There, between the trees, they had made their faltering way home less than an hour ago.

Faint and far away, coming up out of nothingness, he heard the beginning of the sound he was waiting for. His whole mind and body were so keyed up that the sound seemed to be felt rather than heard.

There was a moment that was not time. Everything that he had ever felt or known hung in it, suspended between what had been and what was yet to come. It was sharp, and clear, and irrevocable.

The moment was gone again, blotted out by actuality. The insistent drone of an approaching plane clamoured against his ear, and all at once the sound swept up into a roaring crescendo – the music of flight, a music which he loved and had always thrilled to. It beat now against every nerve. With its climax he saw the plane, not overhead but away to the left, black against the downs – too black to be seen if she had not cut the dark with so easy and swift a flight. She came round the house in a great sweep, flying wide and low, and turned out to sea. She was climbing now – up, and up, and up, black as a bird against that luminous sky – up, and up. The hum of the engine dwindled. The bird was lost, and then suddenly, dreadfully found again – falling into sight and sound in a downward rushing dive towards the sea. The water took her. Sound and sight were gone.

Dale was gone.

Rafe went on standing there. He leaned on the balustrade and looked out over the sea. But what he now watched was not this place which had been Dale’s possession or the sea which was his grave, but the whole procession of their lives, always linked, always separate…

Pictures. Dale in the nursery, lordly and strong at five years old, all smiles and charm as long as he had his way. Rafe and Alicia worshipping. Dale at school, strong and big for his age, carelessly protective to a younger cousin who had a knack of passing exams but wasn’t nearly so good at games. Dale captain of football and cricket. Dale winning the mile. Dale putting the weight. Dale with everything he wanted in the world until Alicia let him down. Too many things coming too easily, and then a knock-down blow. Dale who had had everything he wanted, to have everything taken away.

Was it some sudden temptation which had sent Lydia over the cliff? Or was there even then under all the surface charm and kindness another Dale, perfectly cool and ruthless, who must have what he wanted, no matter what it cost?

Alicia gone and Tanfield threatened. Was that where things began to go wrong? Or had they been wrong all the time? Does a man suddenly become a murderer, or has the cold, ruthless streak been there always? If you matter too much to yourself, if your possessions matter too much, then other people’s interests, other people’s lives, may come to matter so little that they can be sacrificed without a qualm.

Would things have been different if Dale had married Alicia? Outwardly perhaps. There might have been no murder done, because there would have been no advantage in doing it. Why had Alicia thrown him over? Of the two she was the one who had cared – but she married Rowland Steyne. Why? No one would ever know. Alicia kept her secrets. He wondered whether she had come up against that black streak and been scared by it. No one would ever know.

Dale had married Lydia Burrows, quite willingly and cheerfully after a well played scene of renunciation and despair. He had certainly had no love for Lydia, but how perfectly he had played the lover – a really notable performance. At what point had he decided to bring the run to a close and ring the curtain down?

As far as Rafe had ever been able to observe, Dale had had no regrets. Lydia ’s money made everything easy for him again as long as it lasted.

Give him what he wanted, and no one could be kinder or more generous than Dale. The model landowner, hard-working, public-spirited, careful for his tenants; the good master; the man of many friends – were these all parts which the other Dale had played – easily, enjoyable, savouring them to the full? Did he love Alicia? Had he ever loved Lisle? Had he ever loved anyone at all? Or had he only enjoyed playing the lover, the generous master, the good sportsman? The answer came unwillingly. He loved Tanfield. Not Alicia, not Lisle, not Rafe – nothing human. But Tanfield which was in some sort a projection of himself. His possession which in its turn possessed him utterly.

The pictures went on. The night passed.

When the dawn broke, a low white mist covered the sea. Rafe turned and went back into the house,