Latter End

CHAPTER 17

She was standing by the milestone, a bicycle leaning against the hedge behind her. When Antony drew up she went across to the car.

“We’d better get off the road. Turn up Hob Lane. I’ve got Ellie’s bicycle-I’ll be there as soon as you are.”

The car almost filled the lane. Not that it mattered, for nothing came this way more than once in a blue moon. Julia got in, leaned back into the corner, and said without any preliminaries,

“They think it’s murder.”

“Why?”

She said, “Everything.” And then, “I’d better tell you.”

“Yes.”

She took one of those long breaths. She was bareheaded, her hair a little misted with the early morning damp, her face quite colourless and strongly set, her voice low and steady.

“It’s been a dreadful two days-ever since you went. There must have been some frightful row. I expect you know what it was. Jimmy doesn’t say. He was out nearly all the first day. Lois stayed in her room till lunch, then she came down. Jimmy wasn’t there. They didn’t speak at dinner, and afterwards he went off and shut himself in the study.”

“What about the coffee?”

“He came into the drawing-room for it-just tossed it off with a gulp as if it was medicine and went away. Next day- yesterday-it was the same thing. She had her breakfast in her room. I took it up. Jimmy went out and didn’t come home till the late afternoon. He looked awful. Nobody-nobody in the house could help knowing that there had been some awful row. Dinner was ghastly. Ellie and I washed up- Minnie looked so bad that we sent her away. I took the coffee tray through. Manny put a drop of vanilla into each of the cups-she did it in front of me. The sugar and the cognac were on the tray. I took it into the drawing-room and put it down. There wasn’t anyone there. I went out on to the terrace to see if Lois was there, but I didn’t find her, so I went along to the study and called through the window to Jimmy to tell him the coffee was in the drawing-room. I didn’t hurry back. It was all being pretty grim.” She paused, stiffening herself against a shudder. She had on a warm frieze coat, but nothing warmed her. The cold came from within. It was her mind and her heart that shuddered.

Antony said, “Go on.”

“Yes-I will. After a bit I came up to the drawing-room window and looked in. They were all there. Jimmy was in his usual chair. His coffee was on the table beside him. He took it up and drank it off the way he always does. Lois had hers in her hand. She was going over to her chair by the window. Minnie was over by the fireplace. Ellie was near the window. I didn’t want to go in. I said to Ellie, ‘Get off to bed early, darling. I’m going for a turn.’ I went down through the garden and across the fields. It was a lovely evening and I just didn’t want to go in. I don’t know if it would have made any difference if I had.” The shudder came again.

“Go on, Julia.”

She fixed her eyes on his face.

“It was ten o’clock when I got back. The door from the drawing-room on to the terrace was open. I went in that way. There wasn’t anyone there but Lois, and I thought she was asleep. I didn’t particularly want to wake her, so I turned back and was going to go round by the side door. And then I wasn’t sure-I mean I wasn’t sure about her being asleep. I mean she doesn’t-and she had slipped down in the chair- she didn’t look right. I went over and spoke to her, but she didn’t wake up. Then I touched her, and she slipped right down. I went and got Jimmy. She wasn’t dead yet, but we couldn’t wake her. I tried to get Dr. Grange on the telephone, but he was out at a baby case. Then I tried to get someone from Crampton. There was a hospital concert on, and I tried three people before I got a man called Hathaway. He said to give her strong coffee and walk her about. I think we got a little of the coffee down, but she was past anything like walking. She died just after he got there.” The shudder which she had been holding back shook her from head to foot.

Antony put a hand on her knee.

“Don’t, my dear-”

Her hand came out ice-cold and caught at his. She went on speaking.

“He said we must ring up the police, and nothing must be touched. I had to do the ringing up-Jimmy just sat with his head in his hands. And all in the middle of everything that awful Gladys Marsh had hysterics-her idea of getting any limelight that was going. Manny and I were trying to stop her, when Doctor Hathaway came out of the drawing-room. He’s the disagreeable, conscientious sort-good at his job- nasty suspicious mind. It only needed Gladys to set him off. She was screaming out, ‘You want to shut me up, but you can’t! Murder-that’s what it is-murder! And you’re not going to be able to hush it up!’ Well, this Hathaway man was on to it like a knife. He told her to control herself, and if she knew anything, to say what it was.”

He felt her hand jerk on his. She wasn’t looking at him now. She took her hand away. He said sharply,

“What was it?”

“Worse than anything you can possibly imagine. Antony, she was outside your door that night-she was listening. I told you she listened at doors. She says Lois was in your room, and Jimmy found her there. She says there was a terrible row.”

Antony ’s face was as bleak as a north-east wind.

“That’s not true. Lois came through Marcia’s cupboard. I needn’t say I wasn’t expecting her. Jimmy must have followed her. There wasn’t any row. He told her to go back to her room-that’s all he said to her. There wasn’t any row with me. He said it wasn’t my fault, and I told him I’d clear out and keep out of the way. ”

Julia’s cold hands took hold of one another.

“Gladys says that Lois called you ‘Joseph,’ and you called her ‘Potiphar’s wife,’ and that Jimmy kept saying, ‘I heard what she said.’ ”

“Substantially correct. Is that all?”

“No, it isn’t. She came out with the whole thing-how Lois had said someone was trying to poison her, how she’d had these sick attacks, and finished up with, ‘They’ve done it-somebody’s done it! Poisoned her-that’s what they have, among them! And trying to shut my mouth! But if there’s any law in England, they shan’t!’ All that kind of thing.”

“Well?”

“The Inspector came-he’s a new man. He saw the doctor, and he saw Gladys alone. He took statements from us. We were up most of the night. You see, it’s either suicide, or murder, and neither he nor Hathaway believe it’s suicide- because of Gladys, and the previous attacks, and because she took it like that in her after-dinner coffee. They haven’t analysed it yet of course, but they seem pretty sure it was the coffee. Hathaway says if she was going to commit suicide she wouldn’t have done it like that-she’d have waited till she was in bed. He says sleeping-draught suicides always do.”

“Why are they so sure it was the coffee?”

Julia looked at him with tired, tragic eyes.

“There wasn’t anything else. We had fish for dinner- baked haddock. Lois helped it, and we all had some. It couldn’t have been in that. And a sweet omelette-she helped that too. We all had some of it. No-it must have been the coffee.”

“Julia-that idea you had about Manny-you thought she might be playing tricks. You said you were going to tackle her about it. Did you do it?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What did she say?”

Julia was silent. She looked down at her clasped hands, where the knuckles stood up white.

“What did she say?”

Of course it was no good-she couldn’t keep it back. She said very low and distressed,

“I was right-she had been playing tricks.”

“Good God! Manny!”

“Not what happened last night. Antony, she didn’t do that-she couldn’t!”

“How do you know? You’d better tell me what happened.”

She was looking at him again.

“Yes, I will. I got her alone, and I went straight at it.”

“When?”

“The day you went. I said straight out, ‘Manny, you’ve been playing tricks-it’s no good your saying you haven’t. And it’s got to stop.’ She went absolutely purple and said, ‘I don’t know what you mean, Miss Julia.’ So I said, ‘Oh, yes, you do, Manny-you know perfectly well. You’ve been putting ipecac or something in Mrs. Latter’s coffee to make her sick, and it’s got to stop. You don’t want to end up in jail, do you?’ ”

“What did she say?”

Julia’s lips twitched into the ghost of a smile.

“She said, ‘You take and get out of my kitchen, Miss Julia- saying things like that!’ But I could see I’d frightened her, so I put my arm as far round her as it would go, and I said, ‘You’re a wicked old woman, Manny, and it’s got to stop.’ ”

“What did she say to that?”

“Tossed her head and went right through the roof. ‘What’s a little sickness to what she’s done to others? You tell me that, Miss Julia! Poor Mrs. Marsh turned out of her home for that flashy piece Gladys! And no thanks to her, poor Mr. Hodson isn’t turned out of his! You and Miss Ellie driven away out of your own home, and Miss Minnie that’s a born saint turned out with nowhere to go! I’m sure it’s heart-rendering to see her!’ I kept my arm round her, and I said, ‘You’d better make a clean breast of it, Manny.’ And she burst out crying and said, ‘Lois did ought to be punished, and it wasn’t no more than a spoonful of ipecac that wouldn’t hurt a child.’ ”

There was a strained pause. After which Antony said,

“Well, she doesn’t seem to have stopped at a spoonful of ipecac.”

Julie cried out.

“No, no, it wasn’t Manny-it couldn’t have been Manny- not last night!”

“You’ll have hard work to convince the police of that.”

She caught him by the arm.

“No, no-you mustn’t tell them! Antony, you mustn’t! She didn’t do it-she couldn’t have done it!”

“Why couldn’t she? She made the coffee.”

“Yes. She made it-for Jimmy as well as for Lois. She knew-everyone in the house knew-that Jimmy was taking that horrible coffee, and why. Do you think she’d have put anything into it to hurt him?”

“Somebody did.”

“Then it was someone who knew which cup Lois was going to take.”

“The coffee was poured out?”

“Yes. There were the two cups, but Manny couldn’t possibly have told which one of them Jimmy would take. She adores him-she’d let herself be cut in pieces before she would do anything that could possibly hurt him.”

She knew the moment when he accepted that, and the other moment when the thought rose up between them-“If it wasn’t Manny, who was it?”

Neither of them was ready to deal with that. Antony put up his hand to the steering-wheel.

“We’d better be getting along, hadn’t we?”

She said, “No-wait! There’s something I want to say. I was thinking it would be better, it would make things easier, if you don’t mind saying you were engaged to me-just whilst all this is going on. We could break it off afterwards.”

He gave her a strange hard look. Courage-yes, she certainly had that. He said,

“A little sudden, isn’t it? Are you, by any chance, protecting my reputation?”

Her eyes had a piteous simplicity.

“I don’t know. Not if you don’t want me to. I just thought it would be easier for Jimmy-and everyone. I thought if we said we were engaged, nobody could say you had come down because of Lois, and we could break it off whenever you liked-after it was all over.”

He was most deeply moved, but his face showed nothing. It remained dark and intent. His voice was quiet and ordinary.

“All right, my dear, if that’s what you want. I think perhaps you’re right-it will make it easier for Jimmy. And now let’s go.”