The Key

CHAPTER TWELVE

SILENCE FELL BETWEEN them. The sky was very blue overhead and the sun shone, a little wind went whispering through the wood. Garth tilted his head and watched a small white cloud move very slowly just above the line where the downs cut the sky. All the way between, the land ran upwards in a gentle even slope. A very quiet, peaceful land. Sound of the light wind moving among summer leaves. Sound of the Bourne water slipping idly over its stones. Sound of the wind in its bordering willows. The stream ran down the farther edge of the field and then slid into the wood no more than a dozen yards from the stile.

Janice watched him, and wondered what he was thinking about. She had always liked to watch him when he was thinking, and it was quite safe, because his thoughts took hold of him and made him forget that anyone else was there. She thought he hadn’t changed at all, but then of course the three years between twenty-four and twenty-seven don’t make such a lot of difference to a man. The long, lightly built figure; the thin, dark face; the rather grave mouth; the marked brows with the upward kink which somehow gave him an impatient look; the eyes grey where you would have expected them to be brown; the hair so dark as to be almost black – all these things were as familiar to her as her own face in the glass. Dear and familiar too the knowledge that the grave lips could take on the most mischievous smile, and that when they did this the slant of the eyebrows no longer spelled impatience, but served to set an accent upon laughing, teasing eyes. She had thought a hundred times, ‘He’ll fall in love with a fair-haired girl – he’s simply bound to. She’ll be pink and plump, and she’ll have lovely blue eyes and a most frightfully sweet temper, and they’ll be very, very happy. And if you’re going to be stupid enough to mind, you’ll get hurt, and it will be your own fault and nobody else’s.’

Garth brought his eyes down from the sky, and said abruptly, ‘What is going on between Madoc and Miss Medora Brown?’

It was partly because she had been caught looking at him that the startled colour ran right up to the roots of her short brown curls, but he wasn’t to know that. She gave a little gasp.

‘Miss Brown?’

‘Miss Medora Brown.’

‘Is anything going on between them?’

‘I’m asking you.’

Janice got hold of herself.

‘What makes you think there’s anything between them?’

‘Well, I just do. Don’t you really know anything about it?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘What sort of terms are they on?’

‘I don’t know – I’ve never thought about it. I suppose they know each other, but she doesn’t come to the house or anything like that.’

‘Does he go to Aunt Sophy’s?’

‘He goes when there’s music – sometimes, when he’s not busy. He really does love music’

‘And Medora is musical.’ There was a note of sarcasm in his voice.

Janice looked distressed.

‘What do you mean, Garth? She plays beautifully, and she has a very good voice. There wouldn’t be anything wrong if they did like each other. I’ve never thought about it at all.’

He leaned suddenly forward and took her by the wrist.

‘Look here, Jan. Last night Aunt Sophy sent me to her left-hand top bureau drawer for a snapshot of the Pincott girl who had triplets. That’s where she keeps her church key, isn’t it? Weil, it wasn’t there. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know it ought to be there, and Miss Brown didn’t see anything because she was playing the piano with her back to us. Somewhere after midnight I looked out of my window and I saw Miss Brown come up the garden in the black lace dress she had worn at dinner. You can think she was just taking the air, or you can think she had slipped out into the Church Cut to meet someone.’

‘But, Garth-’

‘Oh, she’d been out into the Cut all right. Tommy Pincott smashed a milk bottle there yesterday. Miss Brown picked up a splinter, and I found it on the stair carpet before anyone was up this morning. I wondered who she’d been meeting, because I don’t think you go out into the Cut at midnight just to enjoy your own society. And in the middle of the inquest I found out all, because when your Mr Madoc crossed his legs I could see the sole of his boot, and he had picked up a splinter too.’

‘Garth-’

‘Wait a minute. When we got back from the inquest I led Aunt Sophy to her bureau drawer to show her that the key wasn’t where Miss Brown had just been swearing she put it. And there it was, spang on top of the triplets. Very careless of Medora, but I expect she was feeling flustered. If she’d had the sense to put the key under the photograph she could have sworn it was there all the time, but the only way it could have got on top was the way it did get there. She put it there sometime between bedtime last night and lunch-time today. My own guess is that someone else has had the key since Tuesday, that she’s been in a most awful stew about it, and that she went out last night to get it back. I heard the study door creak when she went, and I saw her come back. She wasn’t away for more than a quarter of an hour, so she didn’t go far. When I saw that Madoc had got a bit of glass stuck in his rubber sole, I thought I knew who it was she had gone to meet, and when I saw that the key was back in Aunt Sophy’s drawer, I thought I knew why.’

All the blood was gone from Janice’s face. He thought, ‘She’s like a little sunburned ghost.’ A momentary amusement stirred, a momentary compunction.

She stared at him, her eyes quite round with horror, and said, ‘Oh, no! He couldn’t – he wouldn’t! Why should he?’

His shoulder jerked.

‘Lots of reasons. Take your choice. He had a secret pash for Medora, and he was jealous of Harsch. That’s a bit fictional, but you never know, do you? Then there’s the stone-cold, cast-iron fact that he is Harsch’s sole executor and legatee.’

‘Garth, there isn’t any money. Mr Harsch hadn’t anything to leave.’

‘Who’s talking about money? He left Madoc all his notes, his papers, his formulae. That means harschite. He left it to Madoc. There might be quite a lot of money in it, or there might be just the kind of case of conscience a crank would revel in. I gather that Madoc is going to revel all right. His conscience won’t let him loose what he calls “a devil’s agent” upon “an already tormented world”. Putting the money on one side – and I believe murder has been done for as little as twopence halfpenny in cash – don’t you think the chance of restraining a number-one-size devil’s agent like harschite might be too much for Madoc?’

Janice shook her head.

‘He wouldn’t – he wouldn’t!’

‘My dear, a crank will do anything. I can see Madoc enjoying martyrdom, holding the right hand in the fire in the best traditional manner. He’s got zealot written all over him – you’ve just said yourself that he’s the genuine article. Well then, he’d burn for his convictions, and it’s not a very long step from that to burning the other fellow. Don’t forget that the same century which produced the martyrs produced the Grand Inquisitors too. I doubt if there was anything to choose in the fanatical temper of their minds between Savonarola and Torquemada.’

‘Don’t – don’t – it’s horrible!’

‘Of course it is. That’s not my business. I’m here to find out whether it’s true. There’s more at stake than just catching a murderer, Jan. Harsch was shot immediately after he had completed his last experiment, and immediately before he could hand on the results. The margin of time is a very narrow one. He came in about six o’clock on Tuesday. He telephoned to Sir George, who was expecting a message, and made an appointment for Wednesday morning. In less than four hours he was dead. Who knew how near his work was to completion? There had been a paragraph in some of the papers. No one seems to know how it got there, but it was the usual vague gossipy puff – it didn’t really give much away. The only people who knew how near he was to success were Sir George and the experts he was bringing down, but they didn’t know that the last experiment had succeeded until Harsch rang up at half-past six. Anyone else who knew must have been someone directly in touch with Harsch himself and deeply in his confidence. It comes back to Madoc again – a fellow scientist living in the same house, a trusted friend.’

‘No-no!’

‘Who else could have known?’

She beat her hands together.

‘You’ve forgotten about the telephone.’

‘You mean someone might have listened in. Well, who was there? The housekeeper – Miss Madoc – Madoc himself – you. By the way, what’s the sister like? She looks harmless.’

‘She is. Kind – woolly – devoted to her brother – dreadfully afraid of offending him.’

‘And the housekeeper?’

‘Oh, no. She’s a lamb.’

‘Then we’re back at Madoc – unless you did it yourself. There wasn’t anyone else to listen in, was there?’ Then quite suddenly his jaw dropped. ‘Gosh – I’d forgotten!’

There was a touch of defiant malice about the tilt of Janice’s chin and the sparkle in her eyes.

‘Yes, I thought you had. We’ve still got the old party line, and any one of the subscribers could have taken up its receiver and heard what Mr Harsch was saying to Sir George Rendal.’

‘That’s torn it! Do you mean to say that there’s still only the one line, and everybody who has a telephone can tap it?’

She nodded.

‘Miss Mary Anne Doncaster listens in all the time, like some people do with their wireless. She always took a passionate interest, and now she doesn’t go out it’s the one thing she lives for. Perhaps you think she shot Mr Harsch.’

He said quickly, ‘She doesn’t go out – but do people come in?’

‘Oh, yes. What do you mean?’

He said slowly, ‘I think I would like to find out who saw Miss Doncaster between half-past six and a quarter to ten.’