Through the Wall

Chapter 27

At a little after nine next morning Inspector Crisp was on the line to the Chief Constable.

“Felix Brand has come back, sir. Turned up last night and rang us up this morning.”

“Has he made any statement?”

“A lot of cock-and-bull stuff about finding her dead and swimming off into the blue. I should say it was a pretty clear case.”

March said, “I don’t know. Where are you speaking from?”

“Cove House.”

“Well, just hold everything. I think I’ll come along.”

Crisp had a black frown as he hung up the receiver. Nature had made it easy for his bristling eyebrows to meet. They met now, making a lowering bar above alert and angry eyes. He was a zealous and efficient officer, but afflicted with an acute sense of class-consciousness. The Chief Constable came from the class of which he nourished an ineradicable suspicion. He had been to what the Inspector called a posh school.

People who went to posh schools hung together and made a common front against those who had been educated by the state or, as in his own case, at an endowed Grammar School. Ledbury Grammar School was an old and famous foundation. He was prepared to maintain its excellence at any time and to all comers. It even boasted an old school tie. But he nevertheless resented the fact that there were people who had been to Eton, Harrow, Winchester, and the rest. He considered that they possessed an unfair advantage, and that if he didn’t stick up for himself it would be used to down him. The Chief Constable would try and get this young fellow off if he could. If he had come of an honest working-class family, there wouldn’t have been so much of that “Hold everything till I come.” In which he wronged Randal March, who was of a just and cautious temperament and constantly endeavoured to do his duty without fear or favour. On his side, he esteemed his Inspector’s zeal and ability, but thought him inclined to be biased and more than a little apt to jump to conclusions. The Superintendent at Ledlington, usually a restraining influence, was at the moment laid up with a chill.

Arrived at Cove House, March interviewed the Inspector, the drawing-room being placed at their disposal by Miss Remington, who had so much to say that it was some time before they could get down to business.

“I really must apologize for the room. The fact is we don’t use it-only Felix for his music-and the Inspector yesterday when he interviewed us all, and then it was just left. I’m sure if we had known you were coming-”

“It doesn’t matter at all.”

“And we are short-handed-only dailies-so inconvenient. And Felix coming back in the middle of the night-most inconsiderate. If Penny hadn’t happened to be up, we should all have been disturbed, and I daresay I shouldn’t have got off again-I am an excessively light sleeper.”

“Do you know what time it was when he came home, Miss Remington?”

She tossed her head. The household might be upset, but those careful waves of hers were just as they had come from the hairdresser’s hand. He found himself entertaining a faint speculation as to whether Miss Cassy wore a wig. Surely any hair that grew on the human head would become disturbed by all this fidgeting and tossing. Even her voice jerked as she said,

“We didn’t even know he was back till this morning. Creeping into the house like that! I don’t really know when I had such a shock.”

“But I thought you said you didn’t hear him.”

“Not last night. But I did this morning, and I could hardly believe my ears. And of course we thought he was drowned-what else was there to think? And indeed it might have been better!” There was another toss, and a very sharp one. “Well, I suppose I mustn’t say that, but he’s been nothing but a trouble always. He is not really my nephew, you know. Alfred Brand was a widower when my sister married him, and of course we have always done what we could, but he has a very difficult nature.”

March got rid of her in the end. His comment when the door had been closed behind her was not what she might have expected. She had a pleasant picture of herself as a pretty, attractive woman being efficient, being helpful, being frank. Oh, yes, above all things frank. One should always be frank with the police.

What March was actually saying at the moment was,

“One of the rats to leave a sinking ship.”

Crisp said, “That’s right. And the other one’s just as bad- the stepmother. Tumbling over each other, they were, to say he wasn’t any relation of theirs. But it shows what they think. There’s no doubt he did it.”

March had seated himself. He looked like any country gentleman just come in from a morning walk with his dogs- rough tweeds, an open-air tan, thick hair burnt brown, eyes which looked blue against the ruddy brown of his face. He said,

“He’s made a statement? Let’s see it.”

It was in Felix Brand’s own hand, and it set down what he had said to Penny, and in very much the same words. He had gone out to bathe. He found Helen Adrian lying dead. He had handled the body to see if there was any spark of life. And then he had stripped and swum out to sea, not meaning to come back.

When March had finished reading Crisp said,

“The bit about the yacht is all right. I’ve been on the phone to the owner. Stockbroker of the name of Gaskell taking a long weekend from town-father a retired doctor living at Belmouth. He keeps the yacht there. He picked Brand up like he says, a couple of miles out and just about finished.”

March gave him a long steady look.

“You know, the rest of it might have happened just like he said it did. If he came on her in the state she was, the shock might have been quite enough to send him off his balance. He says he meant to swim out and not come back. He’s a highly strung chap-it might take him that way.”

The Inspector bristled visibly. His expression became that of a terrier who sees a chance that his lawful rat may escape him.

“And who killed her, sir?”

March’s look did not change.

“I don’t feel satisfied that it was Felix Brand. I’d like to see him. But I’d like to see the girl first-Penny Halliday. She let him in, you say?”

He remembered seeing Penny the day before, shocked, frozen, monosyllabic. When she came in now he would hardly have recognized her. She had come alive again. He asked her to sit down, and she did so, her colour stirring under the smooth brown skin, her eyes on his face, bright and brown as peat-water.

“Miss Halliday, will you tell me just what happened last night.”

“Felix came back.”

“Were you expecting him?”

The eyes clouded.

“I thought he was dead.”

“You let him in, didn’t you? How did you know he was there?”

“I couldn’t sleep-I was outside-I heard him coming up the road.”

“What sort of state was he in?”

“He was-done. He had walked from Ledstow-he hadn’t had anything to eat all day.”

“Did he tell you what had happened?”

She looked at him steadily.

“Yes.”

“Will you tell me what he said.”

She repeated it, hardly varying a word from the written statement in his hand.

“You have seen what he wrote down for Inspector Crisp?”

“No. He hadn’t written anything before the Inspector came.”

Crisp said, “That’s right, sir.”

March went on.

“You were brought up with Felix Brand?”

“Yes.”

“And you are very fond of him?”

Her colour ebbed rather than rose. When she said, “Yes,” it was as if she was making a response in church.

“Do you think you would know whether he was speaking the truth?”

“Felix doesn’t tell lies.”

“Would you know if he did?”

“He doesn’t-ever. He’s telling the truth.”

“He was very much exhausted when you brought him in?”

She took a long breath and said, “Dreadfully.”

“When he talked to you about Miss Adrian, did he break down?”

Her eyes were bright with tears and anger.

“Of course he did! He cared for her-he found her like that. Wouldn’t anyone break down?”

He said, “Yes, I think so. I just wanted to know. Was it while he was in this state that he told you about finding Miss Adrian’s body?”

“Yes, it was.”

“And you thought he was speaking the truth?”

Her colour came up brightly.

“I know he was. Mr. March, I do really know it. If you had heard him, you would know it too. Felix couldn’t hurt anyone like that. And I’m not saying wouldn’t, I’m saying couldn’t. He couldn’t hurt anyone like that. They’ll tell you he has a temper, and it’s true, but it’s the quick, flaring-up kind. He frowns and looks as if he could murder you, but it doesn’t mean a thing. Everybody could tell you that. But they don’t. They tell you about his having a temper. But they don’t tell you how he climbed the Bell cliff in a gale to save a puppy that had fallen over and got stuck on a ledge. Everyone who knew Felix-really knew him-would tell you just what I’m telling you. And I’ll tell you something more. If Helen Adrian had got him so that he really didn’t know what he was doing, he might have pushed her over the edge of that place where she fell. He didn’t do it, and he wouldn’t do it, but I can just imagine that he might have done it. There are things you might just do if you were pushed farther than you can bear, but there are things that you know you couldn’t do whatever happened or however hard you were pushed, and nothing in the world would have made Felix go down those steps and beat Helen Adrian’s head in the way it was. If Felix had pushed her he’d have been sorry in a moment, and if the fall had killed her he wouldn’t have wanted to live. He couldn’t possibly have taken up a stone and beaten her with it.”

March said, “Thank you, Miss Halliday. I just wanted to know how it struck you. You are a very good friend.”

She said, “It’s true, Mr. March-it’s all quite true. I haven’t made anything up.”

He let her go after that.