Ladies’ Bane

CHAPTER 16

Miss Delauny came into the room looking pale and extinguished. In her plain black dress, without make-up, all her effects were dimmed. The absence of the bright lipstick which she had used left her mouth sallow and shapeless. She looked as if she had been crying, and as if she had not troubled to remove the traces of her tears.

Inspector Grayson received a favourable impression. Margot Trent must have been a trying inmate, but these people really did seem to have been fond of her, and to be genuinely upset about her death. He began to question her on the details of her life at the Ladies’ House-the amount of companionship given to Margot, and the extent of the supervision which it was considered necessary to exercise.

“Did she do regular lessons with you?”

Miss Delauny had a faint smile for that.

“I don’t know that you would call them exactly lessons. One of her difficulties was that she had no power of concentration. Ordinary lessons were out of the question. Her attention had not only to be caught, but kept. I was trying to teach her a little history by allowing her to act some of the simpler dramatic scenes. She had all a child’s love of acting and dressing up.” The handkerchief which had been crushed in her hand was pressed to her eyes for a moment. “She couldn’t bear sitting still or being made to read in a book. What she wanted all the time was movement, activity-something that would take up her energies. A year ago Mr. Trent got her a pony. He is a fine horseman himself, and he thought the exercise would be so good for her, but it didn’t answer.”

“Didn’t she care about it?”

“She adored it, Inspector! But she started playing tricks on the horses, and it simply wasn’t safe. Her pony bolted with her one day, and she had quite a nasty accident. The groom found a thorn under the saddle. She said she only wanted to see how fast her pony could go!”

John Grayson had grown up on a farm. In his opinion this was as nasty and spiteful a trick as you could want. He began to think that the early death of Margot Trent was not going to inflict any particular loss upon the community. But he had his duty to do, and in pursuance of it he put the question which he had already addressed to Miss Muir and to the domestic staff.

“How was the girl treated after she had carried out one of these annoying tricks? Was Mr. Trent angry with her-was she scolded?”

A little natural colour sprang up in Miss Delauny’s face. Her fine eyes brightened, and she exclaimed with emphasis,

“Oh, never! Mr. Trent was wonderful. Very few fathers would have been so kind to a child of their own. Whatever he may have felt, he never showed her that he was angry. On this last occasion, when she played that dangerous trick in the quarry, he told me he would have a serious talk with her. She came away from it in quite a softened mood and said he had been sweet. But even then-” She broke off and looked down into her lap.

“Yes, Miss Delauny-what were you going to say?”

She lifted her eyes to his with a look of appeal.

“When anything like this happens, don’t you think it is so difficult to know afterwards whether you really did have those uneasy feelings and are not just imaging that you had them?”

He looked at her keenly.

“Well, that’s honest enough. But I should like to hear what this feeling was.”

She looked down again and dropped her voice.

“Well, I thought-at least I think I did-that she was-well-a little too quiet. I was afraid she might be-thinking up-something else.” She made haste to add, “It was all just an impression-the sort of suggestion that comes to one when one’s mind is disturbed.”

He considered that she was splitting hairs, and brought the questioning back to facts again.

“Now, Miss Delauny, I want you to tell me about Sunday afternoon. You and your charge had lunch with Mr. and Mrs. Trent?”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“We had coffee with them in the drawing-room, after which we went to our own sitting-room.”

“That is the room I have seen-next door to this one?”

“Yes.”

“What did you do there?”

“Margot was cutting pictures out of an illustrated paper. It was one of the few things she would do if it was too wet to go out.”

“Was she still in that softened mood?”

Miss Delauny shook her head.

“Oh, no-she was impatient and aggressive. It made her really angry to be kept in by the rain. I was thankful when it showed signs of clearing, and at a quarter to three I told her she could go out, only she must put on a waterproof and goloshes as everything would be streaming.”

“It did not occur to you to go with her?”

She shook her head.

“She wanted to be off by herself. She has always had the freedom of the grounds. They are large, and fortunately it never seemed to occur to her to want to go outside them.”

“So you felt no anxiety about her being out alone?”

“Oh, no-it happened every day. She has so much energy-” She checked, caught her breath in a sob, and corrected herself. “I ought to have said had-one doesn’t remember these things all-at once. What I was going to say was I couldn’t possibly have kept up with her. She liked to be free, and we wanted her to be happy. Then there is Mrs. Trent. You will have noticed that she is in a very sad state of health. She ought not to be too much alone, and I give as much time to her as I can.”

He nodded. It did seem all right and above-board. He said,

“Well, you went on writing letters-”

“Yes. I knew Mrs. Trent would be resting. And then Mr. Trent came along and said he would be taking her for a drive, and would Margot and I like to come? I said I had letters to write, and Margot had just gone out, but I would see if I could find her. I went out on to the terraces and called, but she didn’t answer, and Mr. Trent had said he couldn’t wait, so I came back and went on with my letters.”

“Just a minute, Miss Delauny. How long was it after Miss Trent had gone out that Mr. Trent came to you and spoke about the drive?”

She seemed to reflect, her face turned up to his, her brows just drawn together.

“Oh, no time at all-just a few minutes-”

“And when did you hear of the accident?”

She closed her eyes for a moment.

“Mr. Severn came and told me, while Miss Muir went out to the garage to tell Mr. Trent.”

He had one more question to ask.

“How did Mrs. Trent take the news?”

Miss Delauny hesitated.

“She didn’t seem to take much notice. But of course one can’t really tell. It is part of her illness that she doesn’t seem to notice anything very much.”

As man to man, the Inspector found himself feeling sorry for Mr. Geoffrey Trent. As if it wasn’t enough to have that poor girl in the family, it seemed now that there was something odd about Mrs. Trent! He reflected, without any consciousness of being trite, that money didn’t always make you happy.

He let Miss Delauny go and went out into the garden to look for old Humphreys. He found him in the potting-shed mixing compost and extremely unwilling to have his attention diverted. They were not strangers, and Grayson was perfectly well aware that he wasn’t going to get any co-operation. He had married a Bleake girl who was a great-niece of old Humpy’s, and there was very little he didn’t know about his long association with the Falconers, his skill as a gardener, and the remarkable obstinacy of his temper. To his “Good morning, Uncle!” Humphreys made no reply. He went on putting compost into a row of six-inch pots for some time before he said in an aggressive voice,

“Now, it’s no use your coming a-bothering me, Johnny Grayson, nor a-coming the policeman over me, because I won’t have it! Arh!” He sucked in his breath in a very determined manner and pressed the earth down with a broad spatulate thumb.

Grayson laughed.

“Now, Uncle, I’ve got my job the same as you have, and all I want is to ask you if you saw or heard anything of Miss Margot Trent on Sunday afternoon. Or,” he added hastily, “anyone else.”

He got a bright malicious stare.

“And what might you be meaning by anyone else? Flaxmans goes out Sundays regular. Lunch for the family at one, and come a quarter to three they’re a-catching of the bus for Wraydon-right past my windows and a-hurrying like mad. If that’s what you mean by your anyone else, then I see’d ’em, same as I see Florrie Bowyer a-running like a rabbit to meet that young man of hers.”

Since Grayson was already aware that none of the domestic staff had been on the premises after a quarter to three on the Sunday afternoon, all this was of no particular interest. If he hoped that it argued a disposition to talk on Uncle’s part he was soon to be undeceived.

Old Humpy bent to plunge his hands into the compost heap. He was a square, sturdy figure, not much above five-foot-one in height, with a face burnt as brown as a walnut and a lot of grizzled hair which like some spreading plant sent up its vigorous bushy growth in whisker, beard, and eyebrow. It was known that he was the owner of half a dozen houses in Wraydon, and his savings were reputed to be considerable. These circumstances, together with the fact that he possessed a formidable temper, caused him to be regarded with a good deal of respect by the three hundred and fifty or so inhabitants of Bleake, to a great many of whom he was related. He had married three meek women in succession, and they had reared three respectable and obedient families. Each of them had brought him something in her stocking foot, as the saying is. He certainly wasn’t going to stand any nonsense from Johnny Grayson who had married his brother Sam’s grand-daughter. He stood up with his big hands full of compost and let it run through his fingers on to the old kitchen tray where the previous heap had been getting low.

“And what makes you think I’d be working on a Sunday afternoon?”

“Now, Uncle, I never said a word about working, and you know it! I suppose you could be taking a turn in the garden after the rain had stopped, and I suppose you could see Miss Margot Trent-or anyone else-if they happened to be there.”

Old Humpy produced a ferocious grin.

“Arh! So I could, Johnny Grayson! Or I could be a-setting comferable by the fire with my pipe, or I could be a-walking round my own little patch a-looking at the bulbs a-coming up. Wonderful forward they are this year too.”

“And which of those things were you doing?” said Grayson good-humouredly.

“Wouldn’t you like to know!” grinned old Humpy.

“Yes, I would. Come along, Uncle, don’t you hinder me, and I’ll quit hindering you.”

The little pots were being quickly and accurately filled. Old Mr. Humphreys bent down and came up again with more compost.

“I don’t let no one hinder me,” he said, and went on filling pots.

Grayson watched him in silence. What the old boy liked was the spur of contention. Well, he just wouldn’t get any more of it, and that was that. He liked the sound of his own voice, and he liked an audience for it, the old devil. He leaned against the doorpost with his hands in his pockets and waited.

Presently the pots began to be set down rather hard. The silence was broken by a loud “Arh!”

“Pity I didn’t go into the police instead of letting myself in for a job as meant hard work! Fine upstanding feller like you, and nothing to do but hang around my potting-shed of a Monday morning! Wonder you’re not ashamed of yourself! Idle bones make empty stomachs-that’s what old dad ’ud ha’ said! Gardener here fifty years man and boy, and head gardener near on forty of ’em! But I aim to beat him!”

Grayson gazed abstractedly through the open door of the potting-shed. He made one of those indeterminate sounds which are of all things the most enraging to anyone who has just delivered himself of a speech designed to impress. The small bright eyes which were watching from behind a bush of eyebrow took on a malicious sparkle.

“Sunday afternoon I has my pipe, and my glass by the fire, and my old woman she plays a ’ymn on the ’armonium. Arh!”

“Then you didn’t see Miss Margot Trent at all.”

The stare became positively malignant.

“Don’t you go a-putting words into my mouth, Johnny Grayson-nor into no one else’s! This isn’t foreign parts where the police can carry on just how they likes! Nor do we want any such scandalous doings here! So don’t you go a-trying of it on! I might be saying things you wouldn’t like if you did! I might be saying I felt sorry for your wife! Pretty little bit of a thing she used to be afore she married you!”

The Inspector’s chief aid in keeping his temper was the knowledge that nothing would delight old Humpy more than to see him lose it. He smiled and said easily,

“That’s very kind of you, Uncle-I’ll tell her. And now, since I’m not to put words in your mouth, perhaps you’ll put them there yourself. Did you see that girl Margot Trent on Sunday afternoon, or did you not?”

Old Humpy considered. All except the last few pots were filled. He was beginning to be bored with having Johnny Grayson there. He said in a meditative voice,

“Sunday afternoon I have my pipe and my glass by the kitchen fire, and your Aunt Mary she plays a ’ymn on the ’armonium in the setting-room with the door open if so be that I’ve a mind to have it open-and shut if I’ve a mind to have it shut. Come a quarter to three the rain give over. I goes out to take a breath of the air-always takes a turn, I do, when the rain gives over. I comes along this way, and I sees that mischeevious girl-”

“What time would that be, Uncle?”

“Trouble with you, Johnny Grayson, is you don’t listen to what you’re told! Didn’t I say as it had just gone the quarter? Now I don’t want no interruptions if you please! I see that mischeevious girl coming out of my potting-shed and a-laughing to herself. Now I keeps the key in a flower-pot with a chip on it. Half full of old labels it is, and lying in the grass along of a lot more. ‘How d’you come by my key?’ I says, and she laughs fit to bust herself and throws it at me. Spanking, that’s what she did ought to have had and never got! And see what come of it! Arh!”

“Nobody corrected her?”

“Spared the rod and spoiled the child-that’s what they done!”

“Uncle, was she carrying anything?”

“She’d got something humped up under her raincoat. ‘Something there you don’t want me to see, you darned brat!’ I says, and I picks up the key from where she throwed it, but it stands to reason she hadn’t troubled to lock the shed. Well, I goes in, and there’s nothing touched-only an old pile of ropes in the corner. She’d pulled ’em out and messed ’em about, and likely enough she’d gone off with one of ’em. Seems she must ha’ done. So I coils up the ropes and puts ’em away, and I goes on with my turn.”

“You didn’t go as far as the quarry?”

Old Humpy shook his head.

“That’s where that mischeevious girl was heading for. I didn’t want to run across her.”

“Then you didn’t see her again?”

“Nor I didn’t want to!”

“Did you see anyone else?”

“I heerd the governess a-calling.”

“What time would that be?”

“Church clock had just struck three.”

“You didn’t see her?”

“No.”

“Nor Mr. Trent?”

“No.”

“Nor anyone else?”

Old Humpy blazed.

“I didn’t see no one at all-only that mischeevious girl going off with the rope from my potting-shed! And if it ’ud been a good one I’d ha’ gone after her, but since it wasn’t nothing but a lot of old rubbish I let her go, and a good thing I did! A peck of trouble was what that girl was going to be wherever she was! And since it was one of her own mischeevious tricks that finished her off, I don’t see no call for the police to go shoving of themselves in, nor I don’t see no call for the family to take on about it! A good riddance, Johnny Grayson-that’s what she was, and you won’t get me from it!”