Danger Point

Chapter 13

DALE came down next day, and to Lisle’s extreme relief he seemed to have left his bad temper behind him in spite of the fact that he had found out nothing more about a possible government offer for his land. He held her and said, “Oh, Lisle!” and gave her a quick, hard kiss before he turned to Rafe. Alicia got no more than a nod.

“What’s happened about the car?” he said. “How much of a wreck is it?”

Rafe made an airy gesture.

“Total, I should say. Chassis all twisted to blazes. Lisle will have to put her hand in her pocket and buy herself a push-bike if it won’t run to a new car.”

Dale actually laughed, his hand still on Lisle’s shoulder.

“Oh, it’s not quite as bad as that. Robson’s a miser, but he’ll let her buy a car if she asks him nicely. But look here, what about the old one? Where is it? The steering ought not to have gone like that. I want to have a look at it.”

They were on the terrace, with the sun beating down upon the Italian garden. Rafe, looking down on it, said over his shoulder,

“Evans fetched the corpse home last night. I told him he’d better leave the post mortem till you came.”

Later on he strolled into the garage and beheld Dale and Evans very busy with the wreck. But when he came in Dale straightened up and came to meet him.

“It’s a most extraordinary thing about that steering. The track rod must have snapped when she came round the bend. It’s clean in two. Of course, as Evans says, it’s just possible it went when the car hit the barn, but I think that’s damned unlikely.”

Rafe glanced at Evans, but the chauffeur kept his head down.

“Well, I don’t know. You’ve got to account for the car being out of control. If it hadn’t been out of control it wouldn’t have run into the barn.”

Dale moved away, his hand on his cousin’s arm.

“Fact is, Lisle’s a damn bad driver. She might have just panicked and let go. I don’t mean to say there wasn’t something wrong with the steering, because I noticed it myself going into Ledlington – the car seemed inclined to wander. That’s what gets my goat, because I told Lisle she wasn’t to drive home without having it seen to. I don’t know whether she just forgot about it, or whether she couldn’t be bothered, but I told her to go to Langham’s and have the steering tested, and she didn’t do it.”

Rafe laughed.

“She was having a row with Alicia – no, the other way about. Lisle doesn’t have rows. Alicia was having a row with her.”

“Who told you that?”

“Oh, Lisle. That’s why she didn’t stop at Langham’s. She doesn’t like rows.”

Dale gave an impatient frown.

“I don’t know anything about that. I only know I told her to have the steering checked over before she drove the car home.”

“Quite a moral tract, isn’t it? A Bride’s Disobedience or The Fatal Accident.” The light bantering voice suddenly hardened.

“It came as near being fatal as makes no difference.”

Dale’s face took on pallor and gravity. He said,

“I know. You needn’t rub it in. Look here-” he began to move forward again clear of the garage – “look here, Rafe, Evans is by way of hinting that the steering was tampered with.”

He got a sharp sideways glance. No words for a moment. Then,

“How do you mean, hinting?”

Dale shrugged a shoulder.

“It’s damned unpleasant, and I can’t believe it either. I mean, just because you dismiss a man, it’s not to say he’ll try and engineer an accident for your wife. The thing’s absurd, and so I told Evans.”

“Meaning?”

“Oh, Pell of course. That’s who Evans was hinting at.”

Rafe whistled softly.

“Pell – I wonder -”

“Why should he?” said Dale. “Even granting he believed that Lisle got him dismissed because he’d been playing fast and loose with Cissie Cole – and it wasn’t the case, because I sent him packing myself- well, supposing he believed it was Lisle, it’s a nasty risk playing a trick like that. And what had he got to gain? He’d lost his job anyhow, and he was bound to be suspected, so where’s the good of it?”

Rafe looked away across the yard. A tortoiseshell cat sat in the sun washing a reluctant kitten. He said,

“Lisle didn’t ask you to sack Pell?”

Dale’s shoulder jerked.

“She didn’t have to. He’s got a wife at Packham, and I don’t care how many girls he’s got anywhere else as long as he doesn’t have’ em in Tanfield. Miss Cole came up here to me about Cissie – they’d only just found out he was married – and I came straight out here and sacked him. Lisle didn’t come into it at all.”

“He might have thought she did.”

“Why should he?”

Rafe looked at the tortoiseshell cat.

“She saw Cissie before Miss Cole saw you. Cissie cried and told her all about it. She’d been up with some sewing.”

Dale broke in sharply.

“How do you know?”

“I saw her going away. Pell saw her too. She was still crying. He might have thought that Lisle had worked on you to dismiss him. I don’t say he did, but he might have.”

Dale moved impatiently.

“He’d been here long enough to know that I run my own show! I don’t believe a word of it, and so I told Evans just now! You know how these fellows are. He’s got a lift in the world, and Pell’s got the boot, so he thinks he can put anything on to him. They’re all alike. Any damned thing that goes wrong for the next six months will be Pell’s fault. I’ve told Evans I don’t want to hear another word about it!”

The tortoiseshell cat had the kitten by one ear. She licked its face, and cuffed it when it wriggled. Rafe said in a meditative tone,

“Pell was a size too large for his boots. That sort doesn’t take kindly to being sacked. Murder’s been done for less than that. And you couldn’t prove it against him – nobody could – because any of us could have done it just as easily as Pell. Have you thought about that?” He did not wait for an answer, but gave a sudden laugh. “Anyone who was fool enough could have done it, which is very incriminating for Pell. Any man who would chuck away a job for Cissie Cole must be a bigger fool than most of us – so if it’s got to be anyone, let us by all means make it Pell.”

With a squawk the kitten twisted itself free and fled, back arched, tail in a double kink. The mother got up, stretched herself, and came over to Rafe. She rubbed against him, purring. He bent and scratched her behind the ear.