Cover Her Face

Chapter Six

The Inquest was fixed for three o'clock on Tuesday and the Maxies found they were almost looking forward to it as at least one known obligation which might help to speed the slow, uncomfortable hours.

There was a sense of constant unease like the tension of a thundery day when the storm is inevitable and yet will not break.

The tacit assumption that no one at Martingale could be a murderer precluded any realistic discussion of Sally's death.

They were all afraid of saying too much or of saying it to the wrong person.

Sometimes Deborah wished that the household could get together and at least decide on some solid basis of strategy.

But when Stephen hesitantly voiced the same wish she drew back in sudden panic.

Stephen talking about Sally was not to be borne.

Felix Hearne was different. With him it was possible to discuss almost anything.

He did not fear death for himself nor was he shy of it and he apparently saw no breach of good taste in discussing Sally Jupp's death dispassionately and even lightly. At first Deborah took part in these conversations in a spirit of bravado. Later she realized that humor was only a feeble attempt to denigrate fear. Now, before Tuesday luncheon, she paced between the roses at Felix's side while he poured out his spate of blessedly foolish chatter, provoking her to an equally dispassionate and diverting flow of theories.

"Seriously, though, Deborah. If I were writing a book I should make it one of the, village boys. Derek Pullen, for example."

"But he didn't. Anyway, he hasn't a motive."

"Motive is the last thing to look for.

You can always find a motive. Perhaps the corpse was blackmailing him. Perhaps she was pressing him to marry her and he wouldn't. She could tell him that there was another baby on the way. It isn't true, of course, but he wasn't to know that.

You see, they had been having the usual passionate affaire. I should make him one of the quiet, intense kind. They're capable of anything. In fiction, anyway."

"But she didn't want him to marry her.

She had Stephen to marry. She wouldn't want Derek Pullen if she could have Stephen."

"You speak, if I may say so, with the blind partiality of a sister. But have it your own way. Whom do you suggest?"

"Suppose we make it Father."

"You mean the elderly gentleman, tied to his bed?"

"Yes. Except that he wasn't. It could be one of those Grand Guignol plots. The elderly gentleman didn't want his son to marry the scheming hussy so he crawled upstairs step by step and strangled her with his old school tie."

Felix considered this effort and rejected it.

"Why not make it the mysterious visitor with a name like a cinema cat. Who is he?

Where does he come from? Could he be the father of her child?"

"Oh, I don't think so."

"Well, he was. He had met the corpse when she was an innocent girl at her first job. I shall draw a veil over that painful episode but you can imagine his surprise and horror when he meets her again, the girl he has wronged, in the home of his fiancйe. And with his child too!"

"He has a fiancйe?"

"Of course. An extremely attractive widow whom he is determined to snare.

Anyway, the poor wronged girl threatens to tell all so he has to silence her. I should make him one of those cynical, unlikeable characters so that no one would worry when he got copped."

"You don't think that would be rather sordid? What about making it the Warden of St. Mary's. It could be one of those psychological thrillers with highbrow quotations at the beginning of the chapters and a lot of Freud."

"If it's Freud you fancy I'd put my money on the corpse's uncle. Now there would be a fine excuse for some deep psychological stuff. You see, he was a hard, narrow-minded man who had turned her out when he heard about the baby.

But like all Puritans in fiction, he was just as bad himself. He had been carrying on with a simple little girl whom he met singing in the choir and she was in the same Home as the corpse having her baby.

So the whole horrible truth came out and, of course, Sally was blackmailing him for thirty bob a week and nothing said.

Obviously he couldn't risk exposure. He was far too respectable for that."

"What did Sally do with the thirty bob?"

"Opened a savings account in the baby's name of course. All that will come to light in due course."

"It would be nice if it did. But aren't you forgetting about the corpse's prospective sister-in-law? No difficulty about motive there."

Felix said easily, "But she wasn't a murderess."

"Oh, damn you, Felix! Must you be so blatantly tactful?"

"Since I know very well that you didn't kill Sally Jupp, do you expect me to go about registering embarrassment and suspicion just for the fun of it'!99 "I did hate her, Felix. I really hated her."

"All right, my sweet. So you really hated her. That is bound to put you at a disadvantage with yourself. But don't be too anxious to confide your feelings to the police. They are worthy men, no doubt, and their manners are beautiful. They may, however, be limited in imagination.

After all, their great strength is their common sense. That is the basis of all sound detective work. They have the method and the means so don't go handing them the motive. Let them do some work for the taxpayers' money."

"Do you think Dalgleish will find out who did it?" asked Deborah after a little pause.

"I think he may know now," replied Felix calmly. "Getting enough evidence to justify a charge is a different matter. We may find out this afternoon how far the police have got and how much they're prepared to tell. It may amuse Dalgleish to keep us in suspense but he's bound to show his hand sooner or later."

But the inquest was both a relief and a disappointment. The coroner sat without a jury. He was a mild-voiced man with the face of a depressed St. Bernard dog who gave the impression of having wandered into the proceedings by mistake. For all that, he knew what he wanted and he wasted no time. There were fewer villagers present than the Maxies had expected.

Probably they were conserving time and energy for the better entertainment of the funeral. Certainly, those present were little wiser than they were before. The coroner made it all seem deceptively simple.

Evidence of identification was given by a nervous, insignificant little woman who proved to be Sally's aunt. Stephen Maxie gave evidence and the factual details of finding the body were briefly elicited. The medical evidence showed that death was caused by vagal inhibition during manual strangulation and had been very sudden.

There were about one and a half grains of barbiturate acid derivative in the stomach.

The coroner asked no questions other than those necessary to establish these facts.

The police asked for an adjournment and this was granted. It was all very informal, almost friendly. The witnesses crouched on the low chairs used by the Sunday school children while the coroner drooped over the proceedings from the superintendent's dais. There were jam jars of summer flowers on the windowsills and a flannel graph on one wall showed the Christian's journey from baptism to burial in crayoned pictures. In these innocent and incongruous surroundings the law, with formality but without fuss, took note that Sarah Lillian Jupp had been feloniously done to death.

Now there was the funeral to face.

Here, unlike the inquest, attendance was optional and the decision whether or not to appear was one which none but Mrs. Maxie found easy. She had no difficulty and made it clear that she had every intention of being present. Although she did not discuss the matter, her attitude was obvious. Sally Jupp had died in their house and in their employ. Her only relations had obviously no intentions of forgiving her for being as embarrassing and unorthodox in death as she had been in life. They would have no part in the funeral and it would take place from St. Mary's and at the expense of that institution. But, apart from the need for someone to be there, the Maxies had a responsibility. If people died in your house the least you could do was to attend the funeral. Mrs. Maxie did not express herself in these words, but her son and daughter were unmistakably given to understand that such attendance was mere courtesy and that those who extended to others the hospitality of their homes should, if it unfortunately proved necessary, extend the hospitality to seeing them safely into their graves. In all her private imaginings of what life at Martingale would be during a murder investigation Deborah had never considered the major part which comparatively minor matters of taste or etiquette would play. It was strange that the overriding anxiety for all their futures would be, temporarily at least, less urgent than the worry of whether or not the family should send a wreath to the funeral, and if so, what appropriate condolence should be written on the card.

Here again the question did not worry Mrs. Maxie who merely inquired whether they wished to club together or whether Deborah would send a wreath of her own.

Stephen it appeared, was exempt from these obsequies. The police had given him permission to return to hospital after the inquest and he would not be at Martingale again until the following Saturday night, except for fleeting visits. No one expected him to provide a chaste wreath for the delectation of the village gossips. He had every excuse for returning to London and carrying on with his job. Even Dalgleish could not expect him to hang about at Martingale indefinitely for the convenience of the police.

If Catherine had almost as valid an excuse for returning to London she did not avail herself of it. Apparently she had still seven days of her annual leave in hand and was willing and happy to stay on at Martingale. Matron had been approached and was sympathetic. There would be absolutely no difficulty if she could help Mrs. Maxie in any way.

Undeniably she could. There was still the heavy nursing of Simon Maxie to be coped with, there was the continual interruption of household routine caused by Dalgleish's investigation, and there was the lack of Sally.

Once it was established that her mother intended to be at the funeral, Deborah set about subduing her natural abhorrence of the whole idea and announced abruptly that she would be there. She was not surprised when Catherine expressed a similar intention, but it was both unexpected and a relief to find that Felix meant to go with them.

"It's not in the least necessary," she told him angrily. ‹(I can't think what all the fuss is about. Personally I find the whole idea morbid and distasteful, but if you want to come and be gaped at, well, it's a free show." She left the drawingroom quickly but returned a few minutes later to say with the disconcerting formality which he found so disarming in her, "I'm sorry I was so rude, Felix.

Please do come if you will. It was sweet of you to think of it."

Felix felt suddenly angry with Stephen. It was true that the boy had every excuse for returning to work, but it was nevertheless typical and irritating that he should have so ready and simple an excuse for evading responsibility and unpleasantness. Neither Deborah nor her mother, of course, would see it that way and Catherine Bowers, poor besotted fool, was ready to forgive Stephen anything. None of the women would intrude their troubles or difficulties on Stephen. But, thought Felix, if that young man had disciplined his more quixotic impulses none of this need have happened. Felix prepared for the funeral in a mood of cold anger and fought resolutely against the suspicion that part of his resentment was frustration and part was envy.

It was another wonderful day. The crowd were dressed in summer dresses, some of the girls in clothes which would have been more suitable on a bathing beach than in a cemetery. A large number had evidently been picnicking and had only heard of the better entertainment to be offered in the churchyard by chance.

They were laden with the remains of their feasts and some were actually still engaged in finishing their sandwiches or oranges.

They were perfectly well behaved once they got near the grave. Death has an almost universally sobering effect and a few nervous giggles were soon repressed by the outraged glances of the more orthodox. It was not their behavior that enraged Deborah, it was the fact that they should be there at all. She was filled with a cold contempt and an anger that was frightening in its intensity. Afterwards she was glad of this since it left no room for grief or for embarrassment.

The Maxies, Felix Hearne and Catherine

Bowers stood together at the open graveside with Miss Liddell and a handful of girls from St. Mary's bunched behind them. Opposite them stood Dalgleish and Martin. Police and suspects faced each other across the open grave. A little way away another funeral was in progress taken by some alien clergyman from another parish. The little group of mourners were all in black and huddled so close to the grave in a tight circle that they seemed engaged in some secret and esoteric rite that was not for the eyes of others. No one took any notice of them and the voice of their priest could not be heard above the minor rustlings of Sally's crowd. Afterwards they went quietly away. They, thought Deborah, had at least buried their dead with some dignity.

But now Mr. Hinks was speaking his few words. Wisely he did not mention the circumstances of the girl's death, but said gently that the ways of Providence were strange and mysterious, an assertion which few of his listeners were competent to disprove, even though the presence of the police suggested that some at least of this present mystery was the work of human agency.

Mrs. Maxie took an active interest in the whole ceremony, her audible "Amens" sounded emphatic agreement at the end of each petition, she found her way about the Book of Common Prayer with capable fingers and helped two of the St. Mary's girls to find the place when they were too overcome with grief or embarrassment to manage their books themselves. At the end of the service she stepped up to the grave and stood for a moment gazing down at the coffin. Deborah felt rather than heard her sigh. What it meant no one could have told from the composed face that turned itself again to confront the crowd. She pulled on her gloves and leaned down to read one of the mourning-cards before joining her daughter.

"What an appalling crowd. One would think people had something better to do.

Still, if that poor child Sally were half the exhibitionist she seems to have been, this funeral would meet with her approval.

What is that boy doing? Is this your mother? Well, surely your little boy knows that one doesn't jump about on graves.

You must control him better if you want to bring him into the churchyard. This is consecrated ground, not the school playground. A funeral isn't suitable entertainment for a child anyway."

The mother and child gaped after them, two pale astounded faces with the same sharp noses, the same scrawny hair. Then the woman pulled her child away with a frightened backward glance. Already the bright splurge of color was dispersing, the bicycles were being dragged from among the Michaelmas daisies by the churchyard wall, the photographers were packing up their cameras. One or two little groups still waited about, whispering together and watching an opportunity to snoop among the wreaths. The sexton was already picking up the legacy of orange peel and paper bags, muttering under his breath. Sally's grave was a sheet of color. Reds, blues and gold spread over the piled turfs and wooden planks like a gaudy patchwork quilt and the scent of rich earth mixed with the scent of flowers.

"Isn't that Sally's aunt?" asked

Deborah. A thin, nervous-looking woman with hair which might once have been red was talking to Miss Liddell. They walked away together towards the churchyard gate. "Surely it's the same woman who identified Sally at the inquest. If it is the aunt perhaps we could drive her home.

The buses are dreadfully infrequent at this time of day."

"It might be worth while having a word with her," said Felix consideringly.

Deborah's suggestion had originally been prompted by simple kindness, the wish to save someone a long wait in the hot sun.

But now the practical advantages of her proposal asserted themselves.

"Do get Miss Liddell to introduce you, Felix. I'll bring the car round. You might find out where Sally worked before she got pregnant, and who Jimmy's father is and whether Sally's uncle really liked her."

"In two or three moments of casual conversation? I hardly think so."

"We should have all the drive to pump her. Do try, Felix."

Deborah sped after her mother and Catherine with as much speed as decency permitted, leaving Felix to his task. The woman and Miss Liddell had reached the road now and were pausing for a last few words. From a distance the two figures seemed to be executing some kind of ceremonial dance. They moved together to shake hands, then bobbed apart. Then Miss Liddell, who had turned away, swung back with some fresh remark and the figures drew together again.

As Felix moved towards them they turned to watch him and he could see Miss Liddell's lips moving. He joined them and the inescapable introductions were made.

A thin hand, gloved in cheap black rayon, held his hand timidly for a brief second and then dropped. Even in that apathetic and almost imperceptible contact he sensed that she was shaking. The anxious grey eyes looked away from his as he spoke.

"Mrs. Riscoe and I were wondering if we might drive you home," he said gently.

"There will be a long wait for a bus and we should be very glad of the drive." That at least was the truth. She hesitated. Just as Miss Liddell had apparently decided that the offer, although unexpected, could not in decency be ignored and might even be safely accepted and had begun to urge this course, Deborah drew up beside them in Felix's Renault and the matter was settled. Sally's aunt was introduced to her as Mrs. Victor Proctor and was comfortably ensconced beside her in the front of the car before anyone had time for argument. Felix settled himself in the back, aware of some distaste for the enterprise but prepared to admire Deborah in action. "Painless extractions a specialty" he thought as the car swung away down the hill. He wondered how far they were going and whether Deborah had bothered to tell her mother how long they would be away. ‹I think I know roughly where you live," he heard her saying. "It's just outside Canningbury, isn't it?

We go through it on our way to London.

But I shall have to rely on you for the road. It's very sweet of you to let us drive you home. Funerals are. so awful, it really is a relief to get away for a time." The result of this was unexpected. Suddenly Mrs. Proctor was crying, not noisily, hardly even without moving her face.

Almost as if her tears were without any possibility of control she let them slide in a stream down her cheeks and fall on to her folded hands. When she spoke her voice was low but clear enough to be heard above the engine. And still the tears fell silently and without effort. ‹I shouldn't have come really. Mr. Proctor wouldn't like it if he knew I'd come. He won't be back when I get home and Beryl is at school, so he won't know.

But he wouldn't like it. She's made her own bed so let her lie on it. That's what he says and you can't blame him. Not after what he's done for her. There was never any difference made between Sally and Beryl. Never. I'll say that to the day I die. I don't know why it had to happen to us."

This perennial cry of the unfortunate struck Felix as unreasonable. He was not aware that the Proctors had accepted any responsibility for Sally since her pregnancy and they had certainly succeeded in dissociating themselves from her death. He leaned forward to hear more clearly.

Deborah may have made some kind of encouraging sound, he could not be sure.

But there was to be no question of pumping this witness. She had been keeping things to herself for too long.

"We brought her up decently. No one can say we didn't. It hasn't always been easy.

She did get the scholarship but we still had to feed her. She wasn't an easy child. I used to think it was the bombing but Mr. Proctor wouldn't have that. They were with us at the time, you know. We had a house in Stoke Newington then. There hadn't been many raids and somehow we felt safe with the Anderson shelter and everything. It was one of those VI rockets that did for Lil and George. I don't remember anything about it nor about being dug out. They never told me about Lil for a week afterwards. They got us all out but Lil was dead and George died in hospital. We were the lucky ones. At least I suppose we were. Mr. Proctor was really bad for a long time and, of course, he's got his disability. But they said we were the lucky ones."

"Like me," thought Felix bitterly.

"One of the lucky ones."

"And then you took Sally and brought her up," prompted Deborah.

"There wasn't anyone else really.

Mother couldn't have taken her. She wasn't fit for it. I tried to think that Lil would have liked it, but those sort of thoughts can't help you to love a child.

She wasn't loving really. Not like Beryl.

But then Sally was ten before Beryl arrived and I suppose it was hard on her after being the only one for so long. But we never made a difference. They always had the same, piano lessons and everything. And now this. The police came round after she died. They weren't in uniform or anything, but you could see who they were. Everyone knew about it., They asked who the man was but, of course, we couldn't say."

"The man who killed her?" Deborah sounded incredulous.

"Oh no. The father of the baby. The responsibility for Sally since her pregnancy and they had certainly succeeded in dissociating themselves from her death. He leaned forward to hear more clearly.

Deborah may have made some kind of encouraging sound, he could not be sure.

But there was to be no question of pumping this witness. She had been keeping things to herself for too long.

"We brought her up decently. No one can say we didn't. It hasn't always been easy.

She did get the scholarship but we still had to feed her. She wasn't an easy child. I used to think it was the bombing but Mr. Proctor wouldn't have that. They were with us at the time, you know. We had a house in Stoke Newington then. There hadn't been many raids and somehow we felt safe with the Anderson shelter and everything. It was one of those VI rockets that did for Lil and George. I don't remember anything about it nor about being dug out. They never told me about Lil for a week afterwards. They got us all out but Lil was dead and George died in hospital. We were the lucky ones. At least I suppose we were. Mr. Proctor was really bad for a long time and, of course, he's got his disability. But they said we were the lucky ones."

"Like me," thought Felix bitterly.

"One of the lucky ones."

"And then you took Sally and brought her up," prompted Deborah.

"There wasn't anyone else really.

Mother couldn't have taken her. She wasn't fit for it. I tried to think that Lil would have liked it, but those sort of thoughts can't help you to love a child.

She wasn't loving really. Not like Beryl.

But then Sally was ten before Beryl arrived and I suppose it was hard on her after being the only one for so long. But we never made a difference. They always had the same, piano lessons and everything. And now this. The police came round after she died. They weren't in uniform or anything, but you could see who they were. Everyone knew about it.

They asked who the man was but, of course, we couldn't say."

"The man who killed her?" Deborah sounded incredulous.

"Oh no. The father of the baby. I suppose they thought he might have done it. But we couldn't tell them anything."

"I suppose they asked a lot of questions about where you were on the night."

For the first time Mrs. Proctor seemed aware of her tears. She fumbled in her handbag and wiped them away. Interest in her story seemed to have assuaged whatever grief she was indulging. Felix thought that it was unlikely that she wept for Sally. Was it the resurrected memory of Lil, of George and of the helpless child they had left behind which had caused those tears, or was it just weariness and a sense of failure? Almost as if she sensed his question she said, "I don't know why I'm crying. Crying can't bring back the dead. I suppose it was the service. We had that hymn for Lil.*The King of Love my Shepherd Is'. It doesn't seem right for either of them really. You were asking about the police. I suppose you've had your share of them, too. They came to us all right. I told them I was at home with Beryl. They asked if we went to the fete at Chadfleet. I told them we didn't know anything about it. Not that we would have gone. We didn't see Sally ever and we didn't want to come nosing around where she worked. I could remember the day all right. It was funny really. Miss Liddell telephoned in the morning to talk to Mr. Proctor which she hadn't done since Sally took her new job. Beryl answered the 'phone and it made her feel quite queer.

She thought something must have happened to Sally for Miss Liddell to 'phone. But it was only to say that Sally was doing all right. It was funny though.

She knew we didn't want to hear."

It must have struck Deborah as strange, too, for she asked. "Had Miss Liddell telephoned before to tell you how Sally was getting on?"

"No. Not since Sally went to Martingale. She telephoned to tell us that.

At least I think she did. She may have written to Mr. Proctor, but I can't be sure. I suppose she thought that we ought to know about Sally leaving the Home, Mr. Proctor being her guardian. At least he used to be, but now she's over twenty-one and on her own it's nothing to us where she goes. She never cared for us not for any of us, not even Beryl. I thought I'd better come today because it looks queer if no one from the family's there, whatever Mr. Proctor may say. But he was right really. You can't help the dead by being there and it's only upsetting. All those people, too. They ought to have something better to do."

"So Mr. Proctor hadn't seen Sally since she left your house?" pursued Deborah.

"Oh, no. There wouldn't be any point in it, would there?"

"I expect the police asked him where he was on the night she died. They always do. Of course it's only a formality."

If Deborah had been afraid of causing offence she was worrying unnecessarily.

"It's funny the way they go on. You'd have thought we knew something about it by the way they talked. Asking questions about Sally's life and whether she had any expectations and who her friends were.

Anyone would think she was someone important. They had Beryl in to ask about the telephone call from Miss Liddell. They even asked Mr. Proctor what he was doing the night Sally died. Not that we were likely to forget that night. It was the one he had his cycle accident. He wasn't home till twelve and he was in a proper bad state with his lips all swollen and the cycle bent up. He lost his watch, too, which was upsetting as his father left it to him and it was real gold. Very valuable they always told us. We aren't likely to forget that night in a hurry I can tell you."

Mrs. Proctor had now recovered completely from the emotional effects of the funeral and was chatting away with the eagerness of someone who is more accustomed to listening than to getting a hearing. Deborah was making light work of the driving. Her hands lay gently on the wheel and her blue eyes gazed steadily on the road ahead, but Felix had little doubt that most of her mind was on other matters. She made sympathetic sounds in reply to Mrs. Proctor's story and replied, "What a horrid shock for you both! You must have been terribly worried when he was so late. How did it happen?"

"He came off at the bottom of a hill somewhere Finchworthy way. I don't know exactly where. He was coming down fast and someone had left broken glass in the road. Of course it ripped the front tyre and he lost control and went into the ditch. He might have been killed as I told him, or badly injured, and if he had, goodness knows what would have happened because those roads are very lonely. You could lie there for hours and no one come by. Mr. Proctor doesn't like the busy roads for cycling and I don't wonder. There's no peace if you don't get away by yourself."

"Is he fond of cycling?" asked Deborah.

"Cycling mad. Always has been. Of course he doesn't go in for the real road work now. Not since the war and being bombed. He did a lot of it when he was young though. But he still likes to get about and we don't usually see much of him on Saturday afternoons."

Mrs. Proctor's voice held a shade of relief which was not lost on either of her listeners. A bicycle and an accident can be a useful alibi, thought Felix, but he can't be a serious suspect if he was indoors by twelve. It would take him at least an hour to get home from Martingale even if the accident were faked, and he had the use of the bicycle all the way. It was difficult, too, to imagine an adequate motive since Proctor had obviously found no reason to murder his niece before her admission to St. Mary's and had apparently had no contact with her since. Felix's mind played with the possibility of a future inheritance for Sally which, at her death, would conveniently devolve upon Beryl Proctor.

But in his heart he knew that he was looking not for the murderer of Sally Jupp but for someone with sufficient motive and opportunity to divert the police investigation from more likely suspects. It seemed a forlorn hope so far as the Proctors were concerned, but Deborah had obviously made up her mind that there was something to be discovered from them. The time factor was apparently worrying her, too.

"Did you wait up for your husband, Mrs. Proctor? You must have been getting pretty desperate by midnight unless he was usually late."

"Well, he was usually a bit late and he always said not to wait up so I didn't. I go to the pictures most Saturdays with Beryl. We've got the tell, of course, and we sometimes watch that, but it makes a change to get out of the house once a week."

"So you were in bed when your husband returned?" Deborah insisted gently.

"He had his own key, of course, so there wasn't any point in waiting up. If I'd known he was going to be so late it would have been different. I usually go up to bed about ten when Mr. Proctor's out.

Mind you, there's not the same rush on a Sunday morning, but I was never one for late nights. That's what I told the police. (I was never one for late nights,' I said.

They were asking about Mr. Proctor's accident, too. The inspector was very sympathetic. 'Not home until nearly twelve,' I told them. They could see it had been a worrying night without Sally getting herself murdered like that." ‹(I expect Mr. Proctor woke you when he arrived home. It must have been terribly worrying to see him in that condition."

"Oh, it was! I heard him in the bathroom and when I called out he came in to me. His face looked awful, a terrible green color streaked with blood, and he was shaking all over. I don't know how he got home. I got up to make him a cup of tea while he had a bath. I remember the time because he called down to me to ask me what it was. He'd lost his watch you see after the accident, and we'd only got the little kitchen clock and the one in the front room. That said ten minutes past midnight and the kitchen one said the same. It was a shock to me I can tell you.

It must have been half past twelve before we were back in bed and I never thought he'd be fit to get up the next morning. But he did, the same as usual. He always goes down first and makes the tea. He thinks no one can make tea like him and he does bring up a good cup. But I never thought he'd get up early that Sunday, not after what he looked like the night before. He's still shaken up by it even now. That's why he didn't go to the inquest. And then to have the police arriving that morning to tell us about Sally. We shan't forget that night in a hurry."

They had reached Canningbury now and there was a long wait at the traffic lights which regulated the surge of traffic meeting at the High Road and the Broadway. It was obviously a popular shopping afternoon in this overcrowded suburb of east London. The pavements were spilling with housewives who every now and then, as if propelled by some primeval urge, streamed with maddening slowness across the path of the traffic.

The shops on both sides of the road had once been a row of houses and their grandiose windows and frontages were in incongruous contrast to the modest roofs and windows above. The town hall, which looked as if it had been designed by a committee of morons in an excess of alcohol and civic pride, stood in isolated splendour bounded by two bombed sites where rebuilding had only just began.

Closing his eyes against the heat and the noise Felix reminded himself sternly that Canningbury was one of the more enlightened suburbs with an enviable record of good public services and that not everyone wanted to live in a quiet Georgian house in Greenwich where the mist came up from the river in white fingers and only the most persistent friends found their way to his door. He was glad when the traffic lights changed and, under Mrs. Proctor's guidance, they moved forward in a series of gentle jerks and turned left away from the main road.

Here was the backwash of the shopping centre, the women walking home with their laden baskets, the few smaller gown shops and hairdressers with pseudo-French names over the converted front-room windows. After a few minutes they turned again into a quiet street where a row of identical houses stretched as far as the eye could see. Although they were identical in structure, however, they were very different in appearance for hardly two of the small front gardens were alike.

All were carefully sown and tended. A few householders had expressed their individuality with monkey-puzzle trees, coy stone gnomes fishing from basins or spurious rock gardens, but the majority had contented themselves by creating a little show of color and fragrance which shamed the dull nonentity of the house behind. The curtains showed signs of careful if misguided choosing and of frequent washing, and were supplemented by additional half-curtains of draped lace or net which were carefully drawn against the curiosity of a vulgar world.

Windermere Crescent had the respectable look of a street that is a cut above its neighbours and whose inhabitants are determined to maintain that superiority.

This then had been the home of Sally Jupp who had fallen so lamentably from its standards. The car drew in to the kerb at the gate of number 17 and Mrs. Proctor clutched her black shapeless handbag to her chest and began to fumble at the door.

"Let me," said Deborah, and leaned across her to release the catch. Mrs. Proctor extricated herself and began her profuse thanks which Deborah cut short.

"Please don't. We were very. glad to come. I wonder if I might bother you for a glass of water before we leave. It's silly, I know, but driving is so thirst-making in this heat. Really only water. I hardly ever drink anything else."

"Don't you, by God!" thought Felix as the two women disappeared into the house.

He wondered what Deborah was up to now and hoped that the wait wouldn't be too long. Mrs. Proctor had been offered no choice about inviting her benefactor into the house. She could hardly have brought a glass of water out to the car.

Nevertheless Felix was certain that she had not welcomed the intrusion. She had glanced anxiously up the road before they went in and he guessed that the time was getting dangerously late and that she was desperately anxious that the car should be gone before her husband came home.

Some of the anxiety she had shown when they first met her in the churchyard had returned. He felt a momentary spasm of irritation with Deborah. The exercise was unlikely to be useful and it was a shame to worry that pathetic little woman.

Deborah, untouched by such nice refinement of feeling, was being shown into the front room. A schoolgirl was arranging her music on the piano in evident preparation for her practice but was bundled out of the room with a hasty injunction to 'Fetch a glass of water, dear' spoken in the falsely bright tone often used by parents in the presence of strangers. The child went out rather reluctantly Deborah thought and not without giving her a long and deliberate stare. She was a remarkably plain child, but the likeness to her dead cousin was unmistakable. Mrs. Proctor had not introduced her and Deborah wondered whether this was an oversight due to nervousness or a deliberate wish to keep the child in ignorance of her mother's afternoon's activities. If so, presumably some story would be concocted to explain the visit, although Mrs. Proctor had not struck her as possessing much inventive faculty.

They sat down in opposite armchairs, each with its embroidered chair-back of a crinolined and bonneted female gathering hollyhocks and its plump unsullied cushions. This was obviously the best room, used only for entertaining or for piano practice. It had the faint musty smell compounded of wax polish, new furniture and seldom-opened windows. On the piano were two photographs of young girls in ballet dresses, their graceless bodies bent into unnatural and angular poses and their faces set into determined smiles beneath the wreaths of artificial roses. One of them was the child who had just left the room. The other was Sally. It was strange how, even at that age, the same family colouring and similar bone structure should have produced in one an essential distinction and in the other a heavy plainness that held little promise for the future. Mrs. Proctor saw the direction of her glance.

"Yes," she said, "we did everything for her. Everything. There was never any difference made. She had piano lessons, too, the same as Beryl although she never had Beryl's gift. But we always treated them alike. It's a dreadful thing that it's all ended like this. That other photo is the group we had took after Beryl* s christening. That's me and Mr. Proctor with the baby and Sally. She was a pretty little thing then, but it didn't last."

Deborah moved over to the photograph.

The group had been stiffly posed in heavy carved chairs and against a contrived background of draped curtains which made the photograph look older than it was. Mrs. Proctor, younger and more buxom, held her child awkwardly and looked ill at ease in her new clothes.

Sally looked sulky. The husband was posed behind them, his gloved hands leaning proprietorially on the backs of the chairs. There was something unnatural in his stance, but his face gave nothing away.

Deborah looked at him carefully.

Somewhere she was certain that she had seen that face before, but the recognition was tenuous and unsatisfactory. It was, after all, an unremarkable face and the photograph was more than ten years old.

She turned away from the photograph with a sense of disappointment. It had told her very little and she hardly knew what else she had expected to gain from it.

Beryl Proctor came back with the glass of water, one of the best glasses carried on a small papiermache tray. No introductions were made and Deborah was conscious as she drank that both of them wished her away. Suddenly she wished nothing more herself than to be out of the house and free of them. Her coming in had been an incomprehensible impulse. It had been prompted partly by boredom, partly by hope and very largely by curiosity. Sally dead had become more interesting than Sally alive and she had wanted to see from what sort of home Sally had been rejected.

That curiosity now seemed presumption and her entry into the house an intrusion which she did not want to prolong.

She said her "good-byes" and rejoined Felix. He took the wheel and they did not speak until the town was behind them and the car was shaking free of the suburban tentacles and climbing into the country.

"Well," said Felix at last, "was the exercise in detection worth while? Are you sure you want to go on with it?"

"Why not?"

"Only that you might discover facts. I don't believe that she was promiscuous.

I don't want safety at the price of blackening the poor little devil's reputation further now that she isn't here to defend herself."

"I think you are right about her," said Felix. "But I don't advise you to make the inspector a present of your opinion. Let him make his own psychological assessment of Sally. The whole case may run into the sand if we keep our heads cool and our mouths shut. The Sommeil is the greatest danger. The hiding of that bottle makes the two things seem connected. Even so, the drug was put into your drinking-mug. It could have been put there by anyone."

"Even by me."

"Even by you. It could have been put there by Sally. She may have taken the mug to annoy you. I think she did. But she may have put the drug in her cocoa for no more sinister reason that the desire for a good night. It wasn't a lethal dose."

"In which case, why was the bottle hidden?"

"Let us say that it was hidden either by someone who erroneously believed that the drugging and the murder were connected and who wanted to conceal that fact, or by someone who knew that they weren't but who wanted to implicate the family.

As your stake marked the hiding-place we may assume that such a person specifically wished to implicate you. That's a pleasant thought for you to be going on with."

They were cresting the hill above Little Chadfleet now. Below them lay the village and there was a glimpse of the tall grey chimneys of Martingale above the trees.

With the return home the oppression and fear which the drive had only partially relieved fell like a black cloud.

"If they never solve this crime," said

Deborah, "can you really imagine us living on happily at Martingale? Don't you ever feel that you must know the truth? Do you honestly never convince yourself that Stephen did it, or I?"

"You? Not with those hands and finger-nails. Didn't you notice that very considerable force was used and that her neck was bruised, but not scratched?

Stephen is a possibility. So are Catherine and your mother and Martha. So am I.

The superfluity of suspects is our greatest protection. Let Dalgleish take his pick. As for not living on at Martingale with an unsolved crime hanging over you - I imagine that the house has seen its share of violence in the past three hundred years. Not all your ancestors lived such well-regulated lives even if their deaths were with benefit of clergy. In two hundred years the death of Sally Jupp will be one of the legends told on All-Hallows to frighten your great grandchildren. And if you really can't stand Martingale there will always be Greenwich. I won't bore you with that again, but you know what I feel."

His voice was almost expressionless. His hands lay lightly on the wheel and his eyes still looked at the road ahead with easy and unstrained concentration. He must have known what she was thinking for he said:

"Don't let it worry you. I shan't complicate things more than I can help. I just don't want any of those beefy types you run around with to misunderstand my interest."

"Would you want me, Felix, if I were running away?"

"Isn't that being melodramatic? What else have most of us been doing for the last ten years? But if you want marriage as an escape from Martingale you may yet find the sacrifice unnecessary. As we left Canningbury we passed Dalgleish and one of his minions on the way in. My guess is that they were on the same errand. Your instinct about Proctor may not have been so far wrong after all."

They garaged the car in silence and passed into the coolness of the hall.

Catherine Bowers was mounting the stairs.

She was carrying a linen-covered tray and the white nylon overall which she usually wore when nursing Simon Maxie looked cool, efficient and not unbecoming. It is never agreeable to see another person competently and publicly performing duties which conscience suggests are one's own and Deborah was honest enough to recognize the reason for her spasm of irritation. She tried to hide it by an unusual burst of confidence.

"Wasn't the funeral awful, Catherine?

I'm terribly sorry that Felix and I ran off like that. We drove Mrs. Proctor home. I had a sudden urge to fix the murder on the wicked uncle."

Catherine was unimpressed.

"I asked the inspector about the uncle when he questioned me for the second time. He said that the police are satisfied that Mr. Proctor couldn't have killed Sally. He didn't explain why. I should leave the job to him. Goodness knows there's enough work here."

She went on her way. Looking after her, Deborah said:

"I may be uncharitable, but if anyone at Martingale killed Sally I should prefer it to have been Catherine."

"It isn't likely, though, is it?" said

Felix. ‹(I can't see her capable of murder."

"And the rest of us are? Even

Mother?"

"She particularly, I think, if she felt it were necessary."

"I don't believe it," said Deborah. "But even if it were true, can you see her saying nothing while police overrun Martingale and people like Miss Liddell and Derek Pullen are suspected?"

"No," replied Felix. "No, I can't see that."