Through the Wall

Chapter 32

Ina Felton came slowly to her bedroom door and turned back the key. She had to see Cyril, because she must tell him that she knew, and that he must go away and never come back. She wouldn’t tell the police or anybody else, but she must tell Cyril, and he must go away. And then it wouldn’t be he who would be in prison, but herself-shut away from everyone with what she knew and couldn’t tell. She couldn’t tell anyone, not even Marian, only Cyril, so that he would go away and never come back.

She drew aside from the opening door and saw him come in and lock it behind him. Even in the midst of her wretchedness that frightened her. She backed away from him till she came up against the foot of the bed. It was a wide, old-fashioned bed with brass knobs upon the footrail, a big one at each corner and little ones in between. She took hold of the big knob at the side nearest the window and edged round the corner until she could sit down on the side of the bed. She had to sit because her knees were shaking so.

Cyril sat too. There was a comfortable chair over by the window, and he flung himself into it. For once he really wasn’t thinking about acting, but he was so used to the gestures of the stage that they came unbidden. He groaned, ran a hand through his hair, and said,

“They think I killed her.”

Ina felt nothing at all. She had said it to herself so often that it didn’t seem possible to have any more feeling about it. She had used it all up, there wasn’t any left. She held on to the brass ball at the corner of the bed and said,

“Didn’t you?”

“Ina!”

Virtuous indignation rang in his voice. He had started forward in his chair, a hand on either arm, his eyes wide with fear and reproach.

A breath of surprise just ruffled the surface of her misery. She said,

“You did, didn’t you?” And then, “I saw you.”

“Ina-are you mad?”

She shook her head.

“I saw you.”

“You couldn’t possibly have seen me. What did you think you saw?”

It was a relief to speak. She said in a gentle, toneless voice,

“I couldn’t sleep on Thursday night, I haven’t been sleeping-very much. I heard the board creak when you came out of your room. I got up, because I was afraid you were coming here. But you went downstairs. I looked over into the hall. You went along the passage and opened the door from the other house and let Helen Adrian through.”

“Ina!”

“You took down Marian’s raincoat, and she put it on. The scarf fell on the floor. You had a torch-it showed the colours. You oughtn’t to have let her take Marian’s scarf-” Her voice just petered out.

He was leaning forward, his face ghastly, his eyes fixed on her.

“You don’t understand. I had to see her alone. They say I was blackmailing her. What damned nonsense! We’d been friends for ages, and all I wanted was something to tide me over. She was going to marry Fred Mount, wasn’t she? Fifty pounds wasn’t going to mean anything to her-nothing at all. And Fred wouldn’t have married her if he had known she was having an affair with Felix. Why, fifty pounds was dirt cheap, if you ask me. And she had the nerve to offer me ten!”

Ina said in that gentle voice,

“You were blackmailing her?”

He made an exasperated movement.

“Oh, call it anything you like! You and Marian seem to think one can live without money. Mount is simply rolling. What’s fifty pounds? She’d never have missed it. But I had to see her alone. Felix never took his eyes off her, so we fixed it up at the picnic. I was to let her through, and we could thresh things out. Mind you, she simply had to come to terms, because Mount wouldn’t have stood for the way she’d been carrying on, and she knew it. I’d got her cold. I’ll say that for Helen, she could see reason. She knew she was up against it. I’d have got my fifty pounds all right. But I had to see her-we had to talk. And as soon as I let her through I knew it wasn’t going to be safe in the house. There was all that about you not sleeping, and the devil of a fuss if you had come down and found us together in the middle of the night.” He gave an angry laugh. “You’d have been pleased, wouldn’t you!”

She said without any expression at all,

“I did come down and find you together.”

“Nothing to be jealous about-you can take my word for that.”

A physical sickness rose in Ina. Her hand still clung to the brass knob. The cold of the metal numbed her palm. She could feel the chill of it right up to her shoulder and down all that side of her body. She said,

“Go on.”

“Well, I had a brainwave. I said, ‘Look here, let’s go down on to the beach. Ina’s not been sleeping-you don’t want to start another scandal.’ I made her take Marian’s raincoat and tie the scarf over her hair, just in case of anyone looking out of a window-that light hair shows up so, and I wasn’t sure if there was going to be a moon-and we went out through the study and down as far as the bottom terrace.”

“I saw you.”

He shook his head reprovingly.

“Well, you shouldn’t have been spying. There wasn’t anything for you to mind, and it simply wasn’t your business.”

“I wasn’t spying. I went back to my room. You had a torch. You put it on when you came to the steps going down from the lawn. She had Marian’s scarf on over her head. The light shone on it as she went down the steps. I saw the colours. You oughtn’t to have let her take Marian’s scarf.”

“What rubbish! It just shows what a sensible precaution it was. We had to have the torch for those steps-we didn’t want to break a leg in the dark. As it was, I missed a step. I expect that was when the torch threw high and you saw the scarf. Well, if anyone else had been looking out of a window they would have seen Helen’s fair hair-if I hadn’t thought about covering it up, I mean. Marian’s scarf indeed!” He gave that angry laugh again. “Really, Ina, you do think of the most idiotic things to say!”

She said, “Go on.”

“Well, you keep interrupting. There’s a seat on the terrace there, so we sat down. It was warm, and she took off the coat-there wasn’t anyone to see us. We talked, and she was frightfully unreasonable-I mean frightfully. She actually threatened to go to the police. She didn’t mean it of course. I just laughed at her. ‘All right,’ I said-‘if that’s the way you want it. Let’s have a showdown, and everything in the papers, and see what Fred Mount has to say about it.’ Well, there was a bit of a scene and some hard words flying. Didn’t hurt me-I knew she was just getting it off her chest. So I let her say her piece, and when she finished up with, ‘Ten pounds is my last word, and you can take it or leave it,’ I said, ‘Nothing doing,’ and I came along up to the house.”

Ina said,

“You killed her.”

Cyril produced a look of angry innocence.

“I did nothing of the kind! Why on earth should I? I was going to travel up to town with her next day, and if she didn’t come across with the fifty pounds, I was going to see Mount. More in sorrow than in anger, you know. Thought he ought to be told what was going on behind his back-all that sort of thing. I can do it quite well. Of course I didn’t kill her. I just left her there and came in. I knew she’d see reason when she’d had time to think things over, so I came away and left her to it.”

Ina’s eyes were fixed upon him-dark, hopeless eyes.

“Someone brought the scarf in after she was killed.”

“Well, it wasn’t me. I came in, and I went to bed and I went to sleep, and I didn’t know she’d been killed until the morning.”

She sat there in silence for a minute. There was a little more life in her voice when she said,

“Who shut the study door?”

He looked sulky.

“I left it open for her to come in that way.”

Ina said, “It was shut in the morning. And the scarf was hanging in the passage. How did it get there?”

“I don’t know.” His tone was impatient. “Stop thinking about it!”

“I can’t. It goes round and round in my head. The door into the other house was shut too. The bolts were fastened. Who fastened them?”

He said easily, “Oh, I did that. As soon as it was light I woke up, and I thought about the doors. I left them open for her to come through, and of course I thought she had, so I just went down and shut them.”

“You shut both the doors?”

“I’m telling you I did.”

She said, “The scarf-was it there when you bolted the door?”

“I don’t know-I didn’t notice. Don’t you understand? It was dark in the passage. It was only just getting light outside. I wasn’t thinking about scarves. I just wanted to bolt the door and get back to bed again.”

The fear which had been holding her in a cold, rigid grip relaxed. When she breathed her lungs opened to take in the air. She could draw it right down, instead of feeling that everything had gone stiff and tight.

The relief must have been gradual, but suddenly she was aware of it. She didn’t know just when or how she began to believe that it was not Cyril who had killed Helen Adrian, but she did believe it. The unendurable burden which she had carried since Friday morning was lifted. He wasn’t any of the things which she had once thought him. All the borrowed garments of romance had fallen away. He was mean, selfish, and lazy. He didn’t love her, and had probably never been faithful to her. He didn’t love anyone but Cyril Felton. He would sponge on her and on Marian, grumble at what they gave him, and come back for more. He was a blackmailer, and he wasn’t even ashamed of it. But he hadn’t killed Helen Adrian. She could see him quite clearly and know just how worthless he was, but the deep, dreadful shuddering at his presence was gone.

She leaned forward and said in almost a surprised tone,

“You didn’t kill her-”

Cyril threw up his head and laughed.

“Only just tumbled to that? Of course I didn’t, but I know who did.”