Cover Her Face

Chapter Eight

The Thursday morning list at St. Luke's had been a heavy one and it was not until he sat down for lunch that Stephen Maxie remembered Sally. Then, as always, the remembrance came down like a knife severing appetite, cutting him off from the careless and undemanding pleasure of everyday life. The talk at table sounded false; a barrage of trivialities put up to cover his colleagues' embarrassment at his presence. The newspapers were too tidily folded away in case a chance headline should draw attention to the presence among them of a suspected murderer.

They included him too carefully in their conversation. Not too much in case he should think they were sorry for him. Not too little in case he should think they were avoiding him. The meat on his plate was as tasteless as cardboard. He forced down a few more mouthfuls - it would never do if the suspect went right off his food - and made a show of despising the pudding. The need for action was upon him. If the police could not bring this thing to a head perhaps he could. With a murmured apology he left the residents to their speculation. And why not? Was it so very surprising that they wanted to ask him the one crucial question. His mother, her hand over his on the telephone, her ravaged face turned to him in desperate inquiry, had wanted to ask the same. And he had replied, "You don't have to ask.

I know nothing about it. I swear it."

He had a free hour and he knew what he wanted to do. The secret of Sally's death must lie in her life, and probably in her life before she came to Martingale.

Stephen had the conviction that the baby's father would hold the key if only he could be found. He did not analyse his motives, whether this urge to find an unknown man had its roots in logic, curiosity or jealousy. It was enough to find relief in action, however fruitless its results.

He remembered the name of Sally's uncle but not the full address and it took some time to hunt through the Proctors in search of a Canningbury number. A woman answered in the stilted, artificial voice of one unused to the telephone.

When he announced himself there was a silence so long that he thought they must have been cut off. He sensed her distrust like a physical impulse along the wire and tried to propitiate it. When she still hesitated he suggested that she might prefer him to ring later and speak to her husband. The proposal was not meant as a threat. He had merely imagined that she was one of those women who are incapable of even the simplest independent action. But the result of his suggestion was surprising. She said quickly, "Oh, no!

No! There wasn't any need for that. Mr. Proctor didn't want to talk about Sally. It wouldn't do to telephone Mr. Proctor.

After all it couldn't do any harm to tell Mr. Maxie what he wanted to know.

Only it would be better Mr. Proctor didn't know that he had phoned." Then she gave the address Stephen wanted.

When she became pregnant, Sally had been working for the Sele, Book Club, at Falconer's Yard in the city.

The Select Book Club has its offices in a courtyard near St. Patys Cathedral. It was approached through a narrow passage, dark and difficult to find, but the courtyard itself was full of light and as quiet as a provincial cathedral close. The grinding crescendo off day traffic was muted to a faint moan lilt of the far sound of the sea. The air was filled of the river smell. There was no difficulty in finding the right house. On the sunlit side of the court a small bay window was dressed with the Select Boon Club choices arranged with carefully contrived casualness against a drapsy back-cloth of purple velvet. The Club had been carefully named. Select Books catered for that class of reader which likes a going story without caring much who writes is, prefers to be spared the tedium of personal choice, and believes that a bookcase volumes equal in size and bound in exactly the same color gives tone to any room. Select Books preferred virtue to be rewarded and vice suitably punished. They eschewed salacity, avoided controversy and took no risks with unestablished writers. Not surprisingly they often had to look far back in the publishers' lists to produce a current choice. Stephen noticed that only a few of the selected volumes had originally borne the imprint of Hearne and Illingworth. He was surprised that there were any.

The front door steps were scrubbed white and the open door led into a small office obviously furnished for the convenience of those customers who preferred to collect their monthly book in person. As Stephen entered an elderly clergyman was suffering the prolonged and sprightly farewells of the woman in charge who was determined that he should not escape until the merits of the current choice, including details of the plot and the really astonishing surprise ending, had been explained in detail. This done, there were the members of his family to inquire for and his opinion of last month's choice to be solicited. Stephen waited in patience until this was concluded and the woman was free to turn her determinedly bright glance on him. A small framed card on the desk proclaimed her as Miss Titley.

"I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting. You're a new customer, aren't you? I don't think I've had the pleasure before? I get to know everyone in time and they all know me. That was Canon Tatlock. A very dear customer. But he won't be hurried, you know. He won't be hurried."

Stephen exerted all his charm and explained that he wanted to see whoever was in charge. The matter was personal and very important. He wasn't trying to sell anything and would honestly not take long. He was sorry that he couldn't be more explicit but it really was important.

"To me, anyway," he added with a smile.

The smile was successful. It always had been. Miss Titley, flustered into normality by the unusual, retired to the back of her office and made a furtive telephone call. It was a little prolonged. She gave several glances at him during her conversation as if to reassure herself as to his respectability. Eventually she replaced the receiver and came back with the news that Miss Molpas was prepared to see him.

Miss Molpas had her office on the third floor. The drugget-covered stairs were steep and narrow and Stephen and Miss Titley had to stand aside on each of the landings while women clerks passed. There were no men to be seen. When he was finally shown into Miss Molpas's room he saw that she had chosen well. Three steep flights were a small price to pay for this view over city roofs, this glimpse of a silver ribbon threading down from Westminster. Miss Titley breathed an introduction which was as reverent as it was inarticulate and faded away. From behind her desk Miss Molpas rose stockily to her feet and waved him to a chair. She was a short, dark woman of remarkable plainness. Her face was round and large and her hair was cut in a thick straight fringe above her eyebrows. She wore horn-rimmed spectacles so large and heavy that they seemed an obvious aid to caricature. She was dressed in a short tweed skirt and man's white shirt with a yellow and green woven tie which reminded Stephen unpleasantly of a squashed cabbage caterpillar. But she had one of the pleasantest speaking voices he had ever heard in a woman and the hand which she held out to him was cool and firm.

"You're Stephen Maxie, aren't you?

Saw your picture in the Echo. People are saying that you killed Sally Jupp. Did you?"

"No," said Stephen. "And neither did any member of my family. I haven't come to argue about that. People can believe what they like. I wanted to know something more about Sally. I thought you might be able to help. It's the child I'm really worrying about. Now that he hasn't a mother it seems important to try to find his father. No one's come forward, but it did strike me that the man may not know. Sally was very independent about Jimmy - well, I think he should be given the chance."

Miss Molpas pushed a packet of cigarettes across the table at him. "D'you smoke? No? Well, I will. You're meddling a bit, aren't you? Better get your own motives straight. You can't believe the man didn't know. Why shouldn't he? He must know now anyway.

"There's been enough publicity. The police have been here on the same tack but I don't imagine they're interested in the child's welfare. More likely looking for a motive. They're very thorough. You'd do better to leave them to it."

So the police had been there. It was stupid and irrational to suppose otherwise, but he found the news depressing. They would always be one step ahead. It was presumptuous to suppose triat there was anything significant to be discovered about Sally that the police, experienced, perservering and infinitely patient, would not already have found. The disappointment must have shown in his face for Miss Molpas gave a shout of laughter.

"Cheer up! You may beat them to it yet. Not that I can help you much. I told the police all I know and they wrote it down most conscientiously, but I could see it wasn't getting them anywhere."

"Except to fix the guilt more firmly where they already believe it rests - on someone in my family."

"Well, it certainly doesn't rest on anyone here. I can't even produce a possible father for the child. We haven't a man on the premises. She certainly got herself pregnant while she was working here, but don't ask me how."

"What was she really like, Miss Molpas?" asked Stephen. He forced out the question against his own realization of its absurdity. They were all asking the same thing. It was as if, in the heart of this maze of evidence and doubt, someone would as last be found who could say, "This was Sally."

Miss Molpas looked at him curiously.

"You should know what she was like.

You were in love with her."

"If I were I should be the last person to know."

"But you weren't." It was a statement not an impertinent question and Stephen met it with a frankness which surprised him. ‹I admired her and I wanted to go to bed with her. I suppose you wouldn't call that love. Never having felt more than that for any woman, I wouldn't know."

Miss Molpas looked away from him out towards the river. (‹I should settle for that. I doubt whether you'll ever feel more. Your kind don't." She turned towards him again and spoke more briskly:

"But you were asking what I thought of her. So did the police. The answer's the same. Sally Jupp was pretty, intelligent, ambitious, sly and insecure."

"You seem to have known her very well," said Stephen quietly.

"Not really. She wasn't easy to know.

She worked here for three years and I knew no more about her home circumstances when she left than I did the day I engaged her. Taking her on was an experiment. You've probably noticed that we haven't any youngsters here. They're difficult to get except at double the wages they're worth and they don't keep their minds on the job. I don't blame them.

They've only a few years to find a husband and this isn't a promising hunting-ground. They can be cruel, too, if you put them to work with an older woman. Have you seen young hens pecking away at an injured bird? Well, we only employ old birds here. They may be a bit slow but they're methodical and reliable. The work doesn't call for much intelligence. Sally was too good for the job. I never understood why she stayed.

She worked for a secretarial agency after finishing her training and came to us as a temporary relief when we were short of staff during a 'flu epidemic. She liked the job and asked to stay on. The Club was growing and the business justified another shorthand-typist. So I took her on. As I said, it was an experiment. She was the only member of the staff who was under forty-five."

"Staying in this job doesn't suggest ambition to me," said Stephen. "What made you think she was sly?" he watched her and listened to her.

"We're rather a collection of has-beens here and she must have known it. But she was clever, was our Sally."

"Yes, Miss Titley. Certainly, Miss Croome. Can I get it for you, Miss Melting?' Demure as a nun and respectful as a Victorian parlourmaid.

She had the poor fools eating out of her hand of course. They said how nice it was to have a young thing about the office. They bought her birthday and Christmas presents. They talked to her about her career. She even asked for advice about her clothes! As if she cared a damn what we wore or what we thought! I should have thought her a fool if she had.

It was a very pretty piece of acting. It wasn't altogether surprising that, after a few months of Sally, we had an office atmosphere. That's probably not a phenomenon which you have experienced.

You can take it from me that it isn't comfortable. There are tensions, whispered confidences, barbed remarks, unexplained feuds. Old allies no longer speak to each other. Incongruous friendships spring up. It all plays havoc with the work, of course, although some people seem to thrive on it. I don't. I could see what the trouble was here.

She'd got them all in a tizzy of jealousy and the poor fools couldn't see it. They were really fond of her. I think Miss Melling loved her. If Sally confided in anyone about her pregnancy it would have been Beatrice Melling."

"Could I talk to Miss Melling?" asked Stephen.

"Not unless you're clairvoyant. Beatrice died following an uncomplicated operation for appendicitis the week after Sally left.

Left, incidentally, without even saying 'good-bye' to her. Do you believe in death from a broken heart, Dr. Maxie? No, of course you don't."

"What happened when Sally became pregnant?"

"Nothing. No one knew. We're hardly the most likely community to spot that kind of trouble. And Sally! Meek, virtuous, quiet little Sally! I noticed that she looked wan and even thinner than usual for a few weeks. Then she was prettier than ever. There was a kind of radiance about her. She must have been about four months' pregnant when she left. She gave in her week's notice to me and asked me to tell no one. She gave me no reasons and I asked for none.

Frankly, it was a relief. I had no tangible excuse for getting rid of her, but I had known for some time that the experiment was a failure. She went home one Friday and, on Monday, I told the rest of the staff that she had left. They drew their own conclusions, but no one as far as I know drew the right one. We had one glorious row. Miss Croome accused Miss Melling of having driven the girl away by her over-possessiveness and unnatural affection. To do Miss Croome justice I don't think she meant anything more sinister than that Jupp felt obliged to eat her luncheon sandwiches in Melling's company when she would rather have visited the nearest Lyons with Croome."

"So you have no idea who the man was or where she could have met him?"

"None at all. Except that they met on

Saturday mornings. I got that from the police. We work a five-day week here and the office is never open on Saturdays.

Apparently Sally told her uncle and aunt that it was. She came up to town nearly every Saturday morning as if to work. It was a neat deception. They apparently took no interest in her job and, even had they tried to telephone her on a Saturday morning, the assumption would be that the line had been left unattended. She was a clever little liar was Sally."

The dislike in her voice was surely too bitter to be the result of anything but a personal hurt. Stephen wondered what else could have been told about Sally's office life. "Were you surprised to hear of her death?" he asked.

"As surprised and shocked as one usually is when something as horrible and unreal as murder touches one's own world. When I thought about it I was less surprised. She seemed in some ways a natural murderer. What did astound me was the news that she was an unmarried mother. She struck me as too careful, too scheming for that kind of trouble. I would have said, too, that she was undersexed rather than the reverse. We had one curious incident when she had been here a few weeks. The packing was done in the basement then and we had a male packer.

He was a quiet, middle-aged, undersized little man with about six children. We didn't see much of him, but Sally was sent down to the packing-room with a message.

Apparently he made some kind of sexual advance to her. It can't have been serious.

The man was genuinely surprised when he got the sack for it. He may only have tried to kiss her. I never did get the whole story. But from the fuss she made you'd have thought she was stripped naked and raped. It was all very estimable of her to be so shocked, but most girls today seem to be able to cope with that kind of situation without having hysterics. And she wasn't play-acting that time. It was real, all right. You can't mistake genuine fear and disgust. I felt rather sorry for Jelks. Luckily I have a brother with a business in Glasgow, which was the man's home town, and I was able to get him fixed up there. He's doing well and, no doubt, he's learnt his lesson. But, believe me, Sally Jupp was no nymphomaniac."

That much Stephen had known for himself. There seemed nothing more to be learnt from Miss. Molpas. He had already been away from the hospital for over an hour and Standen would be getting impatient. He said his "goodbyes" and made his own way back to the ground-floor office. Miss Titley was still in attendance and had just finished pacifying an aggrieved subscriber whose last three books had failed to satisfy.

Stephen waited for a moment while they finished their conversation. The neat rows of maroon-backed volumes had touched a chord of memory. Someone he knew subscribed to Select Books Limited. It was no one at the hospital. Methodically he let his mind range over the bookcases of his friends and acquaintances and time brought the answer.

"I'm afraid I haven't much time for reading," he said to Miss Titley. "But the books look wonderful value. I think one of my friends is a member. Do you ever see Sir Reynold Price?"

Miss Titley did indeed see Sir Reynold.

Sir Reynold was a dear member. He came in himself for his monthly books and they had such interesting talks together. A charming man in every way was Sir Reynold Price.

"I wonder if he ever met Miss Sally

Jupp here?" Stephen asked his question diffidently. He expected it to provoke some surprise, but Miss Titley's reaction was unexpected. She was affronted. With infinite kindness but great firmness, she explained that Miss Jupp could not have met Sir Reynold at Select Books Limited.

She, Miss Titley, was in charge of the public office. She had held that job for over ten years now. All the customers knew Miss Titley and Miss Titley knew them. Dealing personally with the members was a job requiring tact and experience. Miss Molpas had every confidence in Miss Titley and would never dream of putting anyone else in the public office. Miss Jupp, concluded Miss Titley, had only been the office junior. She was just an inexperienced girl.

And with this ironic parting shot Stephen had to be content.

It was nearly four when Stephen got back to the hospital. As he passed by the porter's room Colley called to him and leaned over his counter, with the wariness of a conspirator. His kind old eyes were troubled. Stephen remembered that the police had been to the hospital. It was Colley they would have spoken to. He wondered how much harm the old man might have done by a too-loyal determination to give nothing away. And there was nothing to give away. Sally had only been to the hospital once. Colley could only have confirmed what the police already knew. But the porter was speaking.

"There's been a telephone call for you, sir. It was from Martingale. Miss Bowers said would you please ring as soon as you came in. It's urgent, sir."

Stephen fought down panic and made himself scan the letter-rack as if for an expected letter before replying.

"Did Miss Bowers leave a message, Colley?"

"No, sir. No message."

He decided to telephone from the public call box in the hall. There was a greater chance of privacy there even if it did mean that he was in full view of Colley.

He counted out the necessary coins deliberately before entering the box. As usual there was a slight delay in getting the Chadfleet exchange but at Martingale Catherine must have been sitting by the telephone. She answered almost before the bell had rung.

"Stephen? Thank God you're back.

Look, can you come home at once.

Someone's tried to kill Deborah."

Meanwhile in the little front room of 17 Windermere Crescent, Inspector Dalgleish faced his man and moved relentlessly towards the moment of truth.

Victor Proctor's face held the look of a trapped animal which knows that the last escape hole is barred but cannot even yet bring itself to turn and face the end. His dark little eyes moved restlessly from side to side. The propitiatory voice and smile had gone. Now there was nothing left but fear. In the last few minutes the lines from nose to mouth seemed to have deepened.

In his red neck, scraggy as a chicken's, the Adams apple moved convulsively.

Dalgleish pressed remorselessly on. "So you admit that this return which you made to the 'Help Them Now Association' in which you claimed that your niece was a war orphan without means was untrue?" ‹I suppose I should have mentioned about the Ј2,000, but that was capital not income."

"Capital which you had spent?"

"I had to bring her up. It may have been left to me in trust for her but I had to feed her, didn't I? We've never had much to come and go on. She got her scholarship but we still had her clothes. It hasn't been easy let me tell you."

"And you still say that Miss Jupp was unaware that her father had left this money?"

"She was only a baby at the time.

Afterwards there didn't seem any point in telling her."

"Because, by then, the trust money had been converted to your own use?"

"I used it to help keep her, I tell you.

I was entitled to use it. My wife and I were made trustees and we did our best for the girl. How long would it have lasted if she'd had it when she was twenty-one? We fed her all those years without another penny."

"Except the three grants which the 'Help Them Now Association' gave."

"Well, she was a war orphan, wasn't she? They didn't give much. It helped with her school uniform, that's all."

"And you still deny having been in the grounds of Martingale House last Saturday?"

"I've told you. Why do you keep on badgering? I didn't go to the fete. Why should I?"

"You might have wanted to congratulate your niece on her engagement. You said that Miss Liddell telephoned early on the Saturday morning to tell you about it.

Miss Liddell still denies that she did any such thing." ‹I can't help that. If it wasn't the Liddell woman it was someone pretending to be her. How do I know who it was?"

"Are you quite sure that it wasn't your niece?"

"It was Miss Liddell I tell you."

"Did you, as a result of that telephone conversation, go to see Miss Jupp at Martingale?"

"No. No. I keep telling you. I was out cycling all day."

Deliberately Dalgleish took two photographs from his wallet and spread them out on the table. In each a bunch of children were seen entering the vast wrought-iron gates of Martingale, their faces contorted into wide grimaces in an effort to persuade the hidden photographer that there was the "Happiest-looking child to enter the fete."

At their backs a few adults made their less spectacular entrances. The furtive, macintoshed figure turning hands in pockets towards the pay table was not very clearly in focus but was still unmistakable. Proctor half reached out his left hand as if to tear the photograph in two and then sank back in his chair.

"All right," he said. "I'd better tell you, I was there."

It had taken a little time to arrange for his work to be covered. Not for the first time. Stephen envied those whose personal problems were not always secondary to the demands of their profession. By the time the arrangements were complete and he had borrowed a car he felt something like hatred for the hospital and every one of his demanding, insatiable patients. Things would have been easier if he could have spoken frankly of what had happened, but something held him back. They probably thought that the police had sent for him, that an arrest was imminent. Well, let them. Let them all bloody well think what they liked. God, he was glad to get away from a place where the living were perpetually sacrificed to keep the half dead alive!

Afterwards he could remember nothing of the drive home. Catherine had said that Deborah was all right, that the attempt had failed, but Catherine was a fool.

What were they all doing to have let it happen? Catherine had been perfectly calm on the telephone but the details she had given, although clear, had explained nothing. Someone had got into Deborah's room early this morning and had attempted to strangle her. She had shaken herself free and screamed for help. Martha had reached her first and Felix a second later. Deborah had recovered sufficiently by then to pretend that she had awoken from a nightmare. But she had obviously been terrified and had spent the rest of the night sitting by the fire in Martha's room, with the door and windows locked and her dressing-gown collar hugged high round her neck. She had come down to breakfast with a chiffon scarf at her throat but, apart from looking pale and tired, had been perfectly composed. It was Felix Hearne who, sitting next to Deborah at luncheon, had noticed the edge of the bruise above the scarf and who had subsequently got the truth from her. He had consulted Catherine. Deborah had implored them not to worry her mother and Felix had been willing to give in to this, but Catherine had insisted on sending for the police. Dalgleish was not in the village. One of the constables thought that he and Sergeant Martin were in Canningbury. Felix had left no message except to ask that Dalgleish should visit Martingale as soon as convenient. They had told Mrs. Maxie nothing. Mr. Maxie was too ill now to be left for long and they were hoping that the bruise on Deborah's neck would have faded before her mother became suspicious. Deborah, explained Catherine, seemed more terrified of upsetting her mother than of being attacked for a second time. They were waiting for Dalgleish now, but Catherine thought that Stephen ought to know what had happened. She hadn't consulted Felix before telephoning. Probably Felix wouldn't have approved of her sending for Stephen. But it was time someone took a firm line. Martha knew nothing. Deborah was terrified that she might refuse to stay at Martingale if the truth came out. Catherine had no sympathy with that attitude. With a murderer at large Martha had the right to protect herself. It was ridiculous of Deborah to think that the attack could be kept secret much longer. But she had threatened to deny everything if the police told Martha or her mother. So would Stephen please come at once and see what he could do. Catherine really couldn't take any more responsibility herself. Stephen was not surprised. Hearne and Catherine between them seemed to have taken too much responsibility already. Deborah must be mad to try and conceal a thing like that. Unless she had her own reasons.

Unless even the fear of a second attempt was better than knowing the truth. While his feet and hands worked with automatic co-ordination at brakes and throttle, wheel and gear lever, his mind, sharpened by apprehension, posed its questions. How long had it been after Deborah's scream before Martha arrived - and Felix?

Martha slept next door. It was natural that she should have woken first. But Felix? Why had he agreed to hush it up?

It was madness to think that murder and attempted murder could be treated like one of his wartime escapades. They all knew that Felix was a bloody hero, but his brand of heroics wasn't wanted at village. One of the constables thought that he and Sergeant Martin were in Canningbury. Felix had left no message except to ask that Dalgleish should visit Martingale as soon as convenient. They had told Mrs. Maxie nothing. Mr. Maxie was too ill now to be left for long and they were hoping that the bruise on Deborah's neck would have faded before her mother became suspicious. Deborah, explained Catherine, seemed more terrified of upsetting her mother than of being attacked for a second time. They were waiting for Dalgleish now, but Catherine thought that Stephen ought to know what had happened. She hadn't consulted Felix before telephoning. Probably Felix wouldn't have approved of her sending for Stephen. But it was time someone took a firm line. Martha knew nothing. Deborah was terrified that she might refuse to stay at Martingale if the truth came out. Catherine had no sympathy with that attitude. With a murderer at large Martha had the right to protect herself. It was ridiculous of Deborah to think that the attack could be kept secret much longer. But she had threatened to deny everything if the police told Martha or her mother. So would Stephen please come at once and see what he could do. Catherine really couldn't take any more responsibility herself. Stephen was not surprised. Hearne and Catherine between them seemed to have taken too much responsibility already. Deborah must be mad to try and conceal a thing like that. Unless she had her own reasons.

Unless even the fear of a second attempt was better than knowing the truth. While his feet and hands worked with automatic co-ordination at brakes and throttle, wheel and gear lever, his mind, sharpened by apprehension, posed its questions. How long had it been after Deborah's scream before Martha arrived - and Felix?

Martha slept next door. It was natural that she should have woken first. But Felix? Why had he agreed to hush it up?

It was madness to think that murder and attempted murder could be treated like one of his wartime escapades. They all knew that Felix was a bloody hero, but his brand of heroics wasn't wanted at Martingale. How much did they know about him anyway? Deborah had behaved strangely. It was unlike Deborah he knew to scream for help. Once she would have fought back with more fury than fear. But he remembered her stricken face when Sally's body was discovered, the sudden retching, the blind stumbling for the door.

One couldn't guess how people would behave under stress. Catherine had behaved well, Deborah badly. But Catherine had more experience of violent death. And a better conscience?

The heavy front door of Martingale was open. The house was strangely quiet. He could hear only a murmur of voices from the drawing-room. As he entered four pairs of eyes looked up at him and he heard Catherine's quick sigh of relief.

Deborah was sitting in one of the winged chairs before the fireplace. Catherine and Felix stood behind her, Felix upright and watchful, Catherine with her arms stretched over the back of the chair and her hands resting on Deborah's shoulders in an attitude which was half-protective, half-comforting. Deborah did not seem to 'JAO resent it. Her head was thrown back. Her high-necked shirt was open and a yellow chiffon scarf dangled from her hand. Even from the door Stephen could see the purpling bruise above the thin shoulderblades.

Dagleish was sitting opposite her, relaxed on the edge of his chair, but his eyes were watchful. He and Felix Hearne confronted each other like cats across a room. Somewhere in the background Stephen was conscious of the ubiquitous Sergeant Martin with his notebook. In the second before anyone spoke or moved the little gilded clock chimed the threequarters, dropping each beautiful note into the silence like a crystal pebble.

Stephen moved swiftly to his sister's side and bent his head to kiss her. The smooth cheek was icy cold against his lips. As he drew back her eyes met his with a look which was hard to interpret. Could it have been entreaty - or warning? He looked at Felix.

"What happened?" he asked. "Where's my mother?"

"Upstairs with Mr. Maxie. She spends most of the day with him now. We told her that Inspector Dalgleish was making a routine visit. There's no need to add to her worries. Or Martha's either. If Martha takes fright and decides to go it will mean importing another trained nurse and we can't cope with that just now. Even if we could find one who would be willing to come."

"Aren't you forgetting something," said Stephen roughly. "What about Deborah? Do we all sit back quietly and wait for another attempt?" He resented both Felix's calm assumption of responsibility for the family arrangements and the inference that someone had to cope with these matters while the son of the house put his professional responsibilities before his family. It was Dalgleish who answered: "I am looking after Mrs. Riscoe's safety, Doctor. Would you please examine her throat and let me know what you think."

Stephen turned to him. ‹I prefer not to. Dr. Epps treats my family. Why not call him?"

"I'm asking you to look at the throat, not to treat it. This isn't the time to indulge in spurious professional scruples. Do as I say, please."

Stephen bent his head again. After a moment he straightened up and said, "He grasped the neck with both hands just above and behind the shoulder-blades.

There is fairly extensive bruising but no nail scratches and no thumb-marks. The grip could have been with the base of the thumbs in front and the fingers behind.

The larynx is almost certainly untouched.

I should expect the bruises to fade in a day or two. There's no real harm done." he added, "Physically at any rate."

"In other words," said Dalgleish, "it was rather an amateur effort?"

"If you care to put it like that."

"I do care. Doesn't it suggest to you that this assailant knew his job rather well? Knew where to apply pressure and how much to apply without causing harm?

Are we expected to believe that the person who killed Miss Jupp with such expertise couldn't do better than this? What do you think, Mrs. Riscoe?"

Deborah was buttoning up her shirt.

She shrugged herself free of Catherine's proprietary grasp and rewound the chiffon scarf round her neck.

"I'm sorry you're disappointed, Inspector. Perhaps next time he'll make a better job of it. He was quite expert enough for me, thank you." ‹I must say you seem to be taking it very coolly," cried Catherine indignantly. "If Mrs. Riscoe hadn't managed to shake herself free and scream she wouldn't be alive now. Obviously he got the best grip he could in the dark but was scared off when she called out. And this may not have been the first attempt. Don't forget that the sleeping-drug was put into Deborah's mug."

"I haven't forgotten that, Miss Bowers.

Nor that the missing bottle was found under her name stake. Where were you last night?"

"Helping to nurse Mr. Maxie. Mrs. Maxie and I were together for the whole of the night, except when we went to the bathroom. We were certainly together from midnight onwards."

"And Dr. Maxie was, in London. This attack has certainly happened at a convenient time for you all. Did you see this mysterious strangler, Mrs. Riscoe? Or recognize him?"

"No. I wasn't sleeping very deeply. I think I was having a nightmare. I woke up when I felt the first touch of his hands on my throat. I could feel his breath on my face but I couldn't recognize him. When I screamed and felt for the light switch he made off through the door. I put on the light and screamed. I was terrified. It wasn't a rational fear even. Somehow my dream and the attack had merged together.

I couldn't tell where one horror ended and the other began."

"And yet when Mrs. Bultitaft arrived you said nothing?"

"I didn't want to frighten her. We all know there's a strangler about but we've got to get on with our jobs. It wouldn't help her to know."

"That shows a commendable concern for her peace of mind, but less for her safety. I must congratulate you all on your insouciance in the face of this homicidal maniac. For that is obviously what he is.

Surely you are not trying to tell me that Miss Jupp was killed by mistake, that she was mistaken for Mrs. Riscoe?"

Felix spoke for the first time. "We're not trying to tell you anything. It's your job to tell us. We only know what happened. I agree with Miss Bowers that Mrs. Riscoe is in danger. Presumably you're prepared to offer her the protection she's entitled to."

Dalgleish looked at him.

"What time did you reach Mrs. Riscoe's room this morning?"

"About half a minute after Mrs. Bultitaft, I suppose. I got out of bed as soon as Mrs. Riscoe called out."

"And neither you nor Mrs. Bultitaft saw the intruder?"

"No. I presume he was down the stairs before we came out of our rooms.

Naturally I made no search as I wasn't told until this afternoon what had happened. I've looked since, but there's no trace of anyone."

"Have you any idea how this person got in, Mrs. Riscoe?"

"It could have been through one of the drawing-room windows. We went into the garden last night and must have forgotten to lock it. Martha mentioned that she found it open this morning."

"By 'we' do you mean yourself and Mr. Hearne?"

"Yes."

"Were you wearing your dressing-gown by the time your maid arrived in your room?"

"Yes. I had just put it on."

"And Mrs. Bultitaft accepted your story of a nightmare and suggested that you should spend the remainder of the night by the electric fire in her room?"

"Yes. She didn't want to go back to bed herself, but I made her. First of all we had a pot of tea together by her fire."

"So it comes to this," said Dalgleish.

"You and Mr. Hearne take an evening walk in the garden of a house where there has recently been a murder and leave a french window open when you come in. In the night some unspecified man comes to your room, makes an inexpert attempt at strangling you for no motive which you or anyone else can suggest and then vanishes, leaving no trace. Your throat is so little affected that you are able to scream with enough force to attract the people sleeping in near-by rooms yet, by the time they arrive in a matter of minutes, you have recovered from your fright sufficiently to lie about what has happened, a lie made more effective by the fact that you have taken the trouble to get out of bed and put on your dressinggown with its concealing collar. Does that strike you as rational behavior, Mrs. Riscoe?"

"Of course it doesn't," said Felix roughly. "Nothing that has happened in this house since last Saturday has been rational. But even you can hardly suppose that Mrs. Riscoe tried to strangle herself.

Those bruises can't have been selfinflicted, and if they weren't, who inflicted them? Do you really suppose that a jury wouldn't believe the two crimes to be related?"

"I don't think a jury will be asked to consider that possibility," said Dalgleish evenly. ‹I have nearly completed my investigation into Miss Jupp's death. What happened last night isn't likely to affect my conclusions. It has made one difference. I think it's time the matter was settled and I propose to take a short cut.

If Mrs. Maxie has no objection I want to see you all together in this house at eight o'clock to night."

"Did you want something of me, Inspector?" They turned towards the door. Eleaner Maxie had come in so quietly that only Dalgleish had noticed her. She did not wait for his reply but moved swiftly to her son.

"I'm glad you're here, Stephen. Did Deborah telephone? I meant to myself if he didn't improve. It's difficult to tell, but I think there's a change. Could you get Mr. Hinks? And Charles, of course."

It was natural, Stephen thought, for her to ask for the priest before the doctor.

"I'll come up myself first," he said.

"That is, if the inspector will excuse me. I don't think there is anything more we can usefully discuss."

"Not until eight o'clock tonight, Doctor."

Stung by his tone Stephen wanted, not for the first time, to point out that surgeons were addressed as "Mister". He was saved from this pedantic pettiness by a realization of its futility and of his mother's need. For days now he had hardly thought of his father. Now there were amends which he must make. For a second Dalgleish and his investigation, the whole horror of Sally's murder faded before this new and more immediate need.

In this at least he could act like a son.

But suddenly Martha was blocking the door. She stood there, white and shaking, her mouth opening and shutting soundlessly. The tall young man behind her stepped past her into the room. With one terrified glance at her mistress and a stiff little gesture of her arm which was less one of ushering the stranger in than of abandoning him to the company, Martha gave an animal-like moan and disappeared.

The man looked back at her with amusement and then turned to face them.

He was very tall, over six feet, and his fair hair, cut short all over the head, was bleached by the sun. He was dressed in brown corduroy trousers with a leather jacket. From its open neck the throat rose sunburnt and thick, supporting a head which was arresting in its animal health and virility. He was long-legged, longarmed.

Over one shoulder was slung a ruck-sack. In his right hand he carried an airline hold-all, pristine new with its golden wings. It looked as incongruous as a woman's toy in his great brown fist.

Beside him Stephen's good looks paled into a commonplace elegance and all the weariness and futility which Felix had known for fifteen years seemed at once graven on his face. When he spoke his voice, confident with happiness, held no trace of diffidence. It was a soft voice slightly American in tone, and yet there could be no doubt of his Englishness.

"It seems I've given your maid a bit of a shock. I'm sorry to butt in like this but I guess Sally never told you about me. The name's James Ritchie. She'll be expecting me all right. I'm her husband." He turned to Mrs. Maxie. "She never told me exactly what sort of a job she's got here and I don't want to cause inconvenience, but I've come to take her away."

In the years that followed when Eleanor Maxie sat quietly in her drawing-room she would often see again in her mind's eye that gangling and confident ghost from the past confronting her from the doorway and could sense again the shocked silence which followed his words. That silence could only have lasted for seconds yet, in retrospect, it seemed as if minutes passed while he looked round at them in confident ease and they gazed back at him in incredulous horror. Mrs. Maxie had time to think how like a tableau it was, the very personification of surprise. She felt none herself. The last few days had drained her of so much emotion that this final revelation fell like a hammer on wool. There was nothing left to discover about Sally Jupp which had power to surprise any more. It was surprising that Sally was dead, surprising that she had been engaged to Stephen, surprising to learn that so many people were implicated in her life and death. To learn now that Sally had been a wife as well as a mother was interesting but not shocking. Detached from their common emotion she did not miss the quick glance that Felix Hearne gave Deborah. He was shaken all right but that swift appraisal held something, too, of amusement and triumph. Stephen looked merely dazed. Catherine Bowers had flushed deep red and was literally open-mouthed, the stock registration of surprise. Then she turned to Stephen as if throwing on him the burden of spokesman for them all. Finally Mrs. Maxie looked at Dalgleish and for a second their eyes held.

In them she read a momentary but unmistakable compassion. She was conscious of thinking irrelevantly "Sally Ritchie. Jimmie Ritchie. That's why she called the child Jimmy after his father. I could never understand why it had to be Jimmy Jupp. Why are they staring at him like that? Someone ought to say something." Someone did. Deborah, white to her lips, spoke like someone in a dream: "Sally's dead. Didn't they tell you? She's dead and buried. They say that one of us killed her." Then she began to shake uncontrollably and Catherine, getting to her before Stephen, caught her before she fell and supported her into a chair. The tableau broke. There was a sudden spate of words. Stephen and Dalgleish moved over to Ritchie. There was a murmur of "better in the business room" and the three of them were suddenly gone.

Deborah lay back in her chair, her eyes closed. Mrs. Maxie could witness her distress without feeling more than a faint irritation and a passive curiosity as to what lay behind it all. Her own preoccupations were more compelling.

She spoke to Catherine.

"I must go back to my husband now.

Perhaps you would come to help. Mr.

Hinks will be here soon and I don't expect Martha will be much use at present. This arrival seems to have unnerved her."

Catherine might have replied that Martha was not the only one to be unnerved, but she murmured an acquiescence and came at once. Her real usefulness and genuine care of the invalid did not blind Mrs. Maxie to her guest's self-imposed role of the cheerful little helpmeet competent to cope with all emergencies. This last emergency might prove one too many but Catherine had plenty of stamina and the more Deborah weakened the more Catherine grew in strength. At the door Mrs. Maxie turned to Felix Hearne.

"When Stephen has finished talking to Ritchie I think he should come to his father. He's deeply unconscious, of course, but I think Stephen should be there.

Deborah should come up, too, when she has recovered. Perhaps you would tell her." Answering his unspoken comment, she added, "There's no need to tell Dalgleish. His plans for tonight can stand.

It will all be over before eight." Deborah was stretched back in her chair, her eyes closed. The chiffon scarf had loosened around her neck.

"What is the matter with Deborah's throat?" Mrs. Maxie sounded only vaguely interested.

"Some rather childish horseplay, I'm afraid," replied Felix. "It was as unsuccessful as it deserved to be."

Without another glance at her daughter,

Eleanor Maxie left them together.

Half an hour later Simon Maxie died.

The long years of half-life were over at last. Emotionally and intellectually he had been dead for three years. His last breath was the technicality which finally and officially severed him from a world which he had once known and loved. It was not within his capacity now to die with courage or with dignity but he died without fuss.

His wife and children were with him and his parish priest said the prescribed prayers as though they could be heard and shared by that stiffened grotesque figure on the bed. Martha was not there. Afterwards the family were to say that there seemed no point in asking her. At the time they knew that her sentimental weeping would have been more than they could bear. This death-bed was only the culmination of a slow process of dying. Although they stood white-faced about the bed and tried to evoke some pietas of remembrance and grief their thoughts were with that other death and their minds reached towards eight o'clock.

Afterwards all of them met in the drawing-room, except Mrs. Maxie, who was either without curiosity about Sally's husband, or who had decided to detach herself momentarily from the murder and all its ramifications. She merely instructed the family not to let Dalgleish know that her husband was dead, then walked with Mr. Hinks back to the vicarage.

In the drawing-room Stephen poured the drinks and told his story:

"It's simple enough really. Of course I had only time for the bare details. I wanted to get up to Father. Dalgleish stayed on with Ritchie after I left and I suppose he got all the information he wanted. They were married all right. They met while Sally was working in London and married there secretly about a month before he went to Venezuela on a building job."

"But why didn't she say?" asked

Catherine. "Why all the mystery?"

"Apparently he wouldn't have got the job abroad if the firm had known. They wanted an unmarried man. The pay was good and it would have given them a chance to set up house. Sally was mad keen to get married before he went. Ritchie rather thinks she liked the idea of putting one over on her aunt and uncle. She was never happy with them. The idea was that she would have stayed with them and kept on with her job. She planned to save Ј50 before Ritchie came back. Then, when she found the baby was coming, she decided to stick to her side of the bargain. Heaven knows why. But that part didn't surprise Ritchie. He said that was just the kind of thing that Sally would do."

"It's a pity he didn't make sure that she wasn't pregnant before he left her," said Felix dryly.

"Perhaps he did," said Stephen shortly.

"Perhaps he asked her and she lied. I didn't question him about his sexual relationship. What business is that of mine? I was faced by a husband who had returned to find his wife murdered in this house, leaving a child he never even knew existed. I don't want a half an hour like that again. It was hardly the time to suggest that he might have been more careful. So might we, by God!"

He gulped down his whisky. The hand which held the glass was shaking. Without waiting for them to speak he went on:

"Dalgleish was wonderful with him. I could like him after tonight if he were here in any other capacity. He's taken Ritchie with him. They're calling in at St. Mary's to see the child and then they hope to get a room for Ritchie at the Moonraker's Arms.

Apparently he hasn't any family to go to."

He paused to refill his glass. Then he went on:

"This explains a lot, of course. Sally's conversation with the vicar on Thursday, her telling him that Jimmy was going to have a father."

"But she was engaged to you!" cried Catherine. "She accepted you."

"She never actually said she'd marry me. Sally loved a mystery all right and this one was at my expense. I don't suppose she ever told anyone that she was engaged to me. We all assumed it. She was in love with Ritchie all the time. She knew he was soon coming home. He was pathetically anxious to let me know just how much in love they were. He kept crying and trying to force some of her letters on me. I didn't want to read them. Heaven knows I was hating myself enough without that. God, it was awful! But once I'd started reading I had to go on. He kept pulling them out of that bag he had and pushing them into my hand, the tears running down his face.

They were pathetic, sentimental and naive.

But they were real, the emotion was genuine."

No wonder you're upset then, thought Felix. You never felt a genuine emotion in your life.

Catherine Bowers said reasonably, "You mustn't blame yourself. None of this would have happened if Sally had told the truth about her marriage. It's asking for trouble to pretend about a thing like that.

I suppose he wrote to her through an intermediary."

"Yes. He wrote through Derek Pullen.

The letters were sent in an envelope enclosed in one addressed to Pullen. He handed them over to Sally at prearranged meetings. She never told him they were from a husband. I don't know what story she concocted, but it must have been a good one. Pullen was pledged to secrecy and, as far as I know, he never gave her away. Sally knew how to choose her dupes."

"She liked amusing herself with people," said Felix. "They can be dangerous playthings. Obviously one of her dupes thought that the joke had gone far enough. It wasn't you by any chance, was it, Maxie?"

The tone was deliberately offensive and Stephen took a quick step towards him.

But before he could answer they heard the clang of the front door-bell and the clock on the mantelpiece struck eight.