The Clock Strikes Twelve

Chapter 39

The next half hour was a busy one for Miss Silver. After spending ten minutes in the study with Colonel Bostock and Superintendent Vyner she returned to her bedroom and found it empty. Polly Parsons, having answered the bell, was asked some questions which resulted in heartfelt sobs and some interesting admissions. Having been bidden to dry her eyes, hold her tongue, and summon Louisa, she departed, still gulping and unfeignedly glad to get away.

Left alone in the sitting-room, Mark stood for some moments looking moodily at nothing. His inward vision was, however, obsessed with the picture presented in Miss Silver’s last words. If he was going to be arrested he had this next half hour in which to see Lydia again. After that the domestic business of lunch would intervene, and then the police would be coming back-if indeed they intended to go. Harrison would arrive, and at any time the balloon might be expected to go up.

Lydia was at Meadowcroft. Normally it took seven minutes to get there by the river path and the foot-bridge. He could cut the seven to five. He went out of the front door and down the steep cliff path at a run.

Meadowcroft stood among the fields on the farther side of the river-a converted farmhouse, mellow and comfortable. He had always considered it wasted on Frank and Irene, who had filled it with jangling modern furniture bought in suites.

He wasn’t thinking about furniture as he let himself in. If Lydia was not in the drawing-room, he would ring the bell and say he wanted to speak to her. Anyone was at liberty to think anything they pleased. He had to see her once more before he stopped being a free man and became the accused.

He walked through the hall without meeting anyone, opened the drawing-room door, and saw Dicky on the far side of the room with his hand on Lydia ’s shoulder and his head bent to kiss her. At any other time this would have halted him. It did not halt him now. He came in, shut the door behind him, and crossed to where they stood together in front of the fire.

Dicky said, “Hullo, Mark!” And then, “Well, I’ll be getting along.”

The words, and the manner in which they were said, went by as if they had not been spoken. As far as Mark was concerned they did not penetrate his consciousness at all. Lydia looked vague, smiled, said something which was just an indistinguishable murmur, and fell silent. Dicky went down the room and out.

As the door shut, Mark moved to the mantelpiece and leaned there, looking down into the fire. After the first moment when he had seen her face lifted for Dicky’s kiss he had not looked at Lydia. He had come to see her, but now that he was here he couldn’t look at her. There was too much to say between them, and now it would never be said. She would marry Dicky and be happy. The family had always planned it that way.

Lydia ’s voice broke in upon these cheerful thoughts.

“Mark-what’s the matter?”

He said without looking up, “I wanted to see you,” and then frowned desperately, because what was the good of saying that now? The impulse which had brought him here had expended the last of its energy as he spoke. It failed, and left him drained.

Lydia said,

“Darling, if you want to see me, it’s no good looking obstinately into the fire. You’ve got the direction wrong.”

He straightened up at that, looked down at her, and found her noticeably pale. In a stumbling sort of way he said,

“Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Pale.”

“Darling, my colour comes out of a box, you know. Makeup isn’t done before the funeral-at least, I gather, that’s the idea.”

“I see-” His tone was quite abstracted now.

“Mark, why did you come?”

“I think they are going to arrest me. I wanted to see you again.”

“Why should they arrest you?”

“I told you. I went back. I left a pocket diary on the study table-the one Aunt Grace gave me. Someone recognized it. I was with him till half past eleven, and he was dead before twelve. I come into most of what he’d got to leave. They’re bound to arrest me. I don’t see what else they can do.”

“Why did you go back?”

“I wanted to get away-from the firm-from Birleton. I’d told him so before. We had a row about it. I thought I’d try again. I told him why I wanted to get away. He said all right, if I still wanted to go in a month’s time he’d do what he could about it.”

“Have you told the police that?”

“More or less.”

“Have you told them why you wanted to go?”

“No.”

“Will you tell me?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t think so. It doesn’t matter now. I just came-to say goodbye-”

There was a pause. Lydia looked at him, and looked away. She looked into the fire. It dazzled and shimmered in a very bewildering way. She couldn’t remember when she had cried last, but she thought she was going to cry now. Her voice was hot with anger as she said,

“Do stop being stupid! Why should you say goodbye?”

“I told you. I’d better go now. I don’t want to see anyone else. Are you going to marry Dicky?”

Colour that was not out of a box came back in two bright patches. She looked at him and said,

“Why should I?”

“He was kissing you when I came in.”

“Darling, I should be put in prison if I married everyone who kissed me. It just can’t be done.”

“Why was he kissing you?”

Lydia’s very lovely eyes were as innocent as a baby’s. The slight moisture which had made the flames dazzle deepened the green in them.

“Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

Her voice fell to a modest murmur.

“I was promising to be a cousin to him.”

“What!”

She nodded. Black lashes veiled the sparkling green.

“A first cousin-by marriage. He’d just been putting a pistol to my head. He said he had asked me to marry him eleven times and he didn’t mind making a round dozen of it, but if I said no again he was through. He’s awfully fond of Daisy Carter and he thought they’d be very happy together, but he’d give me one more chance. So I said, ‘All right, darling, it’s no.’ The kiss was a fond farewell. No hearts broken, and every prospect of Daisy endowing him with the Carter money-bags.”

“You’re not going to marry him?”

The lashes swept up again.

“A little slow in the uptake, aren’t you, darling?” She came up close, stood on tiptoe, and put up her face.

“You love me, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Terribly?”

“Terribly.”

“For a long time?”

“Always.”

“That’s why you wanted to go away?”

“I thought you’d marry Dicky-I couldn’t stand it.”

“Never thought of asking me yourself? You seem to have an inhibition or something. You might get Dicky to show you how it’s done. It’s quite easy really.”

He looked at her without speaking. She reached up, put her arms round his neck, and said between laughing and crying,

“Have a stab at it, darling!”