The Key

CHAPTER NINETEEN

JANICE HAD RUNG the bell, when it came over her that it was no good thinking, ‘I must go to Garth – I must see Garth’, because of course she would simply have to ask for Miss Sophy. And then the door began to move, and there was Garth opening it. She forgot all about everything except how frightfully glad she was to see him, and almost before he had finished saying, ‘I saw you out of the window,’ she had her hand on his arm with a quick, ‘Oh, Garth, they’ve arrested him!’

He took her into the study and shut the door.

‘Aunt Sophy has gone to see Miss Mary Anne, but Miss Brown is somewhere about. I don’t think we want her in on this.’

She sat down, looked at him forlornly, and said, ‘Oh, Garth, he didn’t do it – I know he didn’t – but they’ve arrested him.’

He sat on the edge of the writing-table, quite near, and leaned towards her.

‘I don’t see what else they could do. He had Miss Brown’s key.’

‘Oh, Garth!’

‘I’m afraid he did. Look here, this is just for you. There’s been something going on between them. The evacuee boy next door saw them meet in the Cut. Madoc made a scene about her going to the church to see Harsch, and he took her key and went away with it not more than a quarter of an hour before Aunt Sophy heard the shot. That’s why it wasn’t in the drawer on Thursday evening. And that’s what she was doing in the middle of Thursday night – meeting him again and getting the key back. I don’t see what else they could do except arrest him.’

‘But he didn’t do it,’ said Janice, her eyes wide with horror.

‘Didn’t he?’

‘No.’

Garth gave a rather curious laugh.

‘Stubborn little thing – aren’t you? You always were. Now perhaps you’ll tell me why you’ve got this touching belief in Madoc’

She flushed brightly and said what she had said to Ida Mottram.

‘I’ve lived in the house with them. He loved Mr Harsch.’

‘He loved Medora, and he was jealous of Harsch. I think he shot him. Having that key would make it so awfully easy.’

‘Not if he hadn’t planned it beforehand. Don’t you see, if it was murder it must have been planned beforehand. You don’t carry pistols about with you all ready and loaded. And that’s what I can’t believe about Mr Madoc – he’s got a simply frightful temper, and he goes off like a bomb and says the most outrageous things, but he wouldn’t plot and plan, and load a pistol, and go out to find someone he was fond of and murder him. Garth, you know perfectly well there are things a person could do, and things he couldn’t. This is one of the couldn’ts.’

He smiled at her suddenly.

‘All right, counsel for the defence, next time I do a crime I’ll brief you.’

Her colour deepened.

‘You’re laughing at me! I can imagine him throwing a chair or a flower-pot at someone – he did fling a vegetable dish full of burnt porridge out of the window not very long ago – but I just can’t see him creeping up behind someone with a pistol.’

Garth’s brows drew together, whilst his lips still smiled.

‘Well, I don’t know that the porridge is an awfully sound line of defence. I think I should cut it out if I were you.’

And with that the door was pushed open and Miss Brown stood there looking in. Garth swung round, leaning on his hand. She did not speak for a moment, but stood there, those dark eyes of hers staring from a colourless face. Then she came in and shut the door behind her.

Garth and Janice got up. Neither of them could think of anything to say. It was Miss Brown who spoke.

‘What has happened? Tell me!’

‘They have arrested Mr Madoc’

Miss Brown said, ‘Oh!’ It was really more of a gasp than a word. She took hold of the writing-chair and stood there gripping it. ‘They can’t!’

Garth said, ‘They have.’

She turned on him with a surprising energy.

‘They can’t prove it – they can’t prove anything! I didn’t tell them anything – only that I went into the Cut! They’ll never make me tell them anything more than that! He wasn’t there – I tell you he wasn’t there!’

Garth said, ‘He was seen.’

She came back at him almost with fury.

‘Who saw him? They wouldn’t tell me! Whoever it was is lying! I tell you he wasn’t there! It was a man I didn’t know. I dropped my key! It wasn’t Evan! They can’t make me say it was!’

Janice looked frightened and sorry. She said in a little voice, ‘It isn’t any good – he told them he was there.’

‘Oh, no!’ The chair shook under her shaking hands.

Janice went on.

‘He told them he took your key. It’s no good saying he didn’t. I know he didn’t shoot Mr Harsch, but they think he did. Because he had the key.’

Miss Brown let go of the chair and walked round the table, feeling her way by the edge of it as if she were blind. When she was close to Janice she said in a voice which had lost all its strength, ‘How do you know he didn’t do it?’