The Case Is Closed

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Marion was still in a cold rage when they arrived at the flat. A hot anger would have been so much easier to meet. When you love someone and they look at you as if they had never seen you before and never want to see you again, it does rather take the edge off coming home.

Hilary subsided on to the floor in front of the fire. There was a chair to lean against. She folded her arms on the seat and pillowed her head upon them. Henry, in the open doorway, was very well aware that he hadn’t heen asked to come in, and that he was not expected to stay.

Marion had walked to the window. As she turned, Henry came in and shut the door. With a lift of her eyebrows, she said,

‘I think Hilary ought to go to bed.’

Hilary said nothing. Henry said,

‘I think you’d better hear what she’s got to say first. It concerns you – quite a lot.’

‘Not tonight. I’ve had one visitor already, and I’ve run out of polite conversation.’

‘So I gather.’

‘Then will you please go, Henry.’

‘Not just now.’

Without lifting her head Hilary spoke in a muffled voice.

‘Please, Marion.’

Marion Grey took no notice.

‘I really want you to go,’ she said.

Henry leaned against the door. He had his hat in his hand.

‘Just a minute, Marion. And I think you’d better listen, because – well, I think you had better. Hilary’s had a very narrow escape.’

She took him up there and echoed the word.

‘Escape. From what?’

‘Being murdered,’ said Hilary in a mournful, muffled tone.

Marion turned her head sharply.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Being murdered. I nearly was. Henry can tell you – I’m too tired.’

Marion looked from one to the other. She saw Henry’s brows drawn together, frowning. She saw the look in his eyes as they rested on Hilary’s untidy curls. Something melted in her. She let herself down into a chair and said,

‘All right, Henry, say your piece.’

Henry said it. The odd thing was that repeating Hilary’s story gave him the feeling that it was true. He continued to assert that he was not convinced, but as he told her tale he found himself endeavouring to convince Marion, and in the end he didn’t know whether he had convinced her or not. He simply didn’t know. She was leaning her head on her hand. Her eyes were screened. Her gaze was turned inward upon her own guarded thoughts.

‘The heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger intermeddleth not with its grief.’ She was not angry now, but she was stilt cold. There was no warmth in her. When he had finished she sat silent, and when the silence had gone on too long Henry broke it bluntly.

‘You’ve had Bertie Everton here. Hilary thinks he was one of the men who tried to do her in. It’s quite unreasonable, but she does think so – there you are. I think you’ve got to tell her what time he rang you up, and when he rolled up here, and how long he stayed. Hilary seems to think it’s rather compromising to have an alibi, but the fellow can’t have been in two places at once.’

‘I didn’t say he could,’ said Hilary in a buried voice. Then she lifted her head about an inch. ‘An alibi isn’t being in two places at once – it’s doing a crime in one place and pretending you were somewhere else.’

Henry burst out laughing.

‘When did you make that up?’

‘Just now,’ said Hilary, and dropped her head again.

Marion said, without looking at either of them,

‘He rang me up about five o’clock. I was showing some models which had just come in. We sold three of them. It was just after five – I heard the clock strike as I came out of the showroom.’

‘Did he say where he was calling you from?’

‘No. He must have been in town though, because he suggested coming round to Harriet’s, and when I said he couldn’t possibly, he said he’d go to the flat and wait for me. He was here when I got back.’

‘And what time would that be?’

‘Some time after seven. I told him I should be late-I thought it might put him off.’

‘What did he want?’ said Hilary to the chair.

Marion stiffened. Her hand dropped. Her eyes blazed.

‘I don’t know how he dared to come here and talk about Geoff!’

‘What did he say?’ said Hilary quickly.

‘Nothing. I don’t know why he came. He had some rambling story about having met someone who had seen Geoff get off the bus the evening James was shot, but he didn’t seem to know who the man was, and it didn’t seem to add anything to the evidence. Anyhow, it couldn’t do any good now. I don’t know why he came.’

‘I do.’ Hilary sat up and pushed back her hair. ‘He did it to have an alibi. If he could get you to believe that he was in London all the afternoon, well then he couldn’t be murdering me on the Ledstow road -could he?’ Her hair stood up in little fluffy curls. Her no-coloured eyes were as bright as a tomtit’s.

‘But, my blessed darling child!’ said Henry. He laughed. ‘You’re a bit groggy about alibis tonight. Have you any idea what time you had your smash?’

She considered.

‘Well, I hadn’t got a watch, and it wouldn’t have been any good if I had because of the fog and being dark, but I had tea at the pub in Ledstow because it was tea-time, and it wasn’t dark then – only foggy and Novemberish. And I suppose I was there about half an hour, so should think it was about five when I saw Mercer and bolted. And after that I don’t know how long I was. It seemed ages, because I had to keep getting off my bicycle – the fog was simply lying about in lumps. It’s very difficult to say, but I should think the smash was somewhere getting on for half past five.’

‘Well, then, with the worst will in the world, it couldn’t have been Bertie Everton who ran you down if he was in London telephoning to Marion at five o’clock.’

Hilary wrinkled her nose.

‘If,’ she said.

‘Well, Marion says it was five o’clock.’

Marion nodded.

‘I heard the clock strike.’

‘I’m sure he telephoned at five o’clock,’ said Hilary. ‘He meant to -it was part of his alibi. He knew very well that Marion wouldn’t let him come round to Harriet’s, and he could telephone from Ledstow or from an A.A. box and she’d never think for a minute that he wasn’t ringing up from his rooms in town. That’s how you do alibis if you’re a criminal. I should have been very good at it.’

‘And suppose she had said, “All right, come along”?’

‘She wouldn’t. Marion never lets anyone go anywhere near Harriet’s. She’d get the sack if she did. He could bank on that.’

Marion looked hard at her.

‘Well, then what happened? This is your story. What happened next?’

‘Well, he must have picked up Mercer at the pub. And after they’d tried to kill me and I’d got away, I think he just stamped on the gas like mad, because he was bound to get back to London and finish up his alibi. I expect he shed Mercer in Ledlington, and then he either just got a train by the skin of his teeth, or else drove on like fury up the London road. I looked up trains while I was waiting for Henry, and there’s a five-forty from Ledlington that gets in at seven. It’s a non-stop theatre train. He could have caught that, and it would account for their not going on looking for me any longer than they did. You see, he’d simply got to have that alibi if I escaped. But I don’t really think he went by train, because he wouldn’t want to leave his car in a Ledlington garage and have someone remembering about it afterwards.’

‘An hour and a half from Ledlington would be pretty good going in a fog,’ said Henry. ‘I don’t believe it can be done.’

Hilary tossed back her hair.

‘You wait till you’ve tried to murder someone and you’ve got to have an alibi to save you, and then you just see if you can’t break a record or two. Even people who aren’t making alibis go blinding along in a fog – you know they do.’

Marion spoke again.

‘It must have been quite ten past seven before I got back. Mrs. Lestrange and Lady Dolling didn’t go away until twenty past six, and then we’d all the models to put away, and Harriet wanted to tell me about her brother’s engagement, and there was the fog. It never takes me less than half an hour to get back.’ She looked at Henry. ‘What time was it when you rang me up?’

‘Oh, it was after half past seven. I was ringing up from the station just before my train went.’

‘There!’ said Hilary, ‘he’d have had plenty of time. I told you so. And I think’ -she sat bolt upright and clasped her knees – ‘I think we ought to get a detective on to that other alibi of his, because I’m quite sure he made that up too, and if he did, a really clever detective would be able to find him out. Marion -’

‘No,’ said Marion.

Hilary scrambled up, ran across, and caught her by the hand.

‘Don’t say no, darling – don’t don’t, don’t! It couldn’t do any harm. It couldn’t hurt Geoff. Marion, don’t say no! I know you can’t bear to have it all raked up – I know exactly how you feel -but won’t you let Henry have the file and go through it with someone? Geoff didn’t do it. There’s some devil at the back of this who has made it look as if he did, but he didn’t – I know he didn’t.’

Marion pushed her away and got up. Without a look or an answer she went to the door, opened it, and went out. It closed behind her. They heard her bedroom door close too.

Hilary ran to the chest, flung up the lid and came running back with the file in her outstretched hands.

‘Here it is! Take it and fly! Quick – before she comes back and says you’re not to!’