Betrayal at Blackcrest (7 page)

“Tour theory,” I snapped.

“I gathered as much.”

“She told me about you,” I said. “She described you and described Blackcrest. Explain that, and while you're at it, explain the telegram I showed you last night.”

He took a glossy magazine from the sideboard and laid it on the table in front of me. It was an expensive periodical devoted to old homes and antiques. He opened it to an article about Blackcrest, complete with picture of the house and one of himself standing with an old woman holding a frilly parasol that shadowed both their faces.

“My aunt permitted this article, against my protests. She even dug up those old photographs and gave them to the editor. Your cousin could be vague and mysterious with her friends and co-workers, but she had to have some credible story to present to you. I suggest she saw this article and fabricated the whole thing, using this as a basis for her story to you.”

“Mr. Hawke, if you knew my cousin, you would know how incredible it would be for her to so much as glance at a magazine like this. Her taste in reading matter resembles that of your cook.”

“Nevertheless, she could have seen it.”

“What about the telegram?”

“I've no doubt she sent it—perhaps even from Hawkestown—but the telegram was a decoy, sent to back up the story she'd handed you.”

“I can't believe that,” I replied.

Derek Hawke folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall, very much at ease. In the dull gold sweater he looked like a ski instructor. He watched me with his black-brown eyes, evidently waiting for further comment. I did not know what to say. I finished my coffee, setting the cup aside. I tried to formulate my thoughts.

The breakfast room was bright and cheerful and not at all like the rest of the house I had seen. The walls were papered with an off-white. Brown and yellow rag rugs were scattered over the brown parquet floor. A heavy linen tablecloth of dark gold covered the table, a thick white bowl of brown and yellow chrysanthemums placed in the middle. It was not easy to think about a foul crime as I sat in this pleasant room, but that was exactly what I was doing. The tall, casual stranger leaning against the wall looked as though he could murder an infant without blinking a lash.

“Your ‘connections' in London seem to have found out quite a lot in a very short time,” I said. “I find that remarkable.”

“My man has several assistants. I told him expediency was vital. He put all his men on it. They can do wonders under pressure.”

“So it would seem,” I replied.

“You think I'm lying?”

“I think all this so-called information is, in fact, merely things you already knew, things Delia told you.”

Derek Hawke frowned. He still leaned against the wall, but he was no longer casual and relaxed. He was tense, like an animal preparing to spring.

“You still maintain that I brought her here?”

“I … I don't know.”

“What if I did?” he said calmly. “Supposing I lured her here with a promise of wealth and marriage. Supposing I managed to smuggle her into the house without anyone seeing us, throttled her, and then buried the body in the cellars—there is a great catacomb of cellars under Blackcrest, even a secret passage that leads out into the woods, the perfect place for a crime. If I had done this, Miss Lane, believe me I would have taken every precaution. There would be no way to prove it without digging up the cellars and uncovering the body—”

“That could be arranged,” I retorted, interrupting him.

“Don't be absurd. Can you think of one single motive I would have for committing such a crime?”

“My cousin drew eleven hundred pounds out of the bank. That's not a small sum of money.”

“Murder has been committed for less,” he remarked. “Quite true. I can assure you I could put my hands on twice that sum merely by lifting this telephone. No, Miss Lane, the whole thing is absurd. I can sympathize with you in your concern, and I can understand your alarm. Your cousin has evidently lied to you and I've been the innocent tool of her lie. It's unpleasant, but those are the facts.”

“I'm not so sure,” I replied crisply.

“You intend to go to the police with your accusations?”

“I may.”

“That would be foolish, Miss Lane,” Derek Hawke said quietly.

He looked menacing. He moved away from the wall and came toward me with slow steps. He stopped a yard away from me and stood looking down at me. His eyes glowered. His wide lips were stretched tight. I felt a moment of sheer panic. This man was unscrupulous, and he was shrewd. He had worked everything out, down to the last little detail, and it would take superhuman control to fight him, to find out what he had done and then prove it.

“The police won't be able to help you,” he said. “They will think the same thing I do—that your cousin has run away with some man after taking considerable pains to cover her tracks. They won't be able to prove a thing against me, and if you make your slanderous accusations against me, I'll see that my lawyers bring charges against you.”

He stared at me for a moment longer and then shrugged his shoulders and stepped over to the sideboard. He was grinning as he poured another cup of coffee for each of us. He had won. He knew it.

“Try to see things clearly,” he said.

“I believe I do.”

“You think I'm a white-slaver, a murderer?”

“The facts—”

“The facts point to an irresponsible romantic escapade.”

“Delia wouldn't lie to me. Not to me.”

“It's absurd,” he said. “Fantastic. Last night I was ready to believe you were a blackmailer, come to carry out some devious scheme. I was wrong about you. I will admit that. I have already apologized for what I thought. Surely you'll admit you were wrong about me.”

I looked down at the tablecloth, thinking.

I fully realized the position I was in. Derek Hawke had everything in his favor. Delia had played right into his hands, even back in London. He had probably handed her some story about the need of keeping the romance a secret for a while, and she
had
been vague and mysterious. She had even neglected to bring him to meet me, which should have aroused my suspicions at once. Now everything fit together perfectly to suit Derek Hawke's theory, even the magazine article that Delia
could
have used to make up her story. Actresses were all supposedly irresponsible and immoral, and Delia
had
been slightly erratic in her love life. The police would believe what Hawke wanted them to believe. I was left with nothing but my own certainty that this man had done something dreadful.

He was not going to get away with it.

I could not go to the police yet, nor could I continue to make accusations against Derek Hawke if I intended to learn anything from him. I would have to take another approach. Perhaps all those expensive sessions at dramatic school would stand me in good stead now.

“Perhaps I was wrong,” I said.

I deliberately made my voice weak and doubtful. I looked up at him with helpless eyes, eyes that appealed to him. It worked. I could see him melting toward me. He smiled in a satisfied male way and passed me the cup of fresh coffee.

“I just can't believe Delia would do such a thing,” I said.

“We are frequently mistaken about those we're very close to,” Derek Hawke replied. “I'm sure your cousin meant no real harm.”

“Delia and I were so close—”

“It's always hard to realize the truth,” he said.

“I'm so … worried.”

“I can understand that,” he said generously.

“I don't know what to do.” I hoped I wasn't overplaying.

“Your cousin will turn up.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Of course,” he said kindly.

I thought he was going to pat my hand. I braced myself for the contact. I was mistaken. He swung a chair around to face the one I sat in and straddled it, his arms resting on the straight back. He smiled at me in the particular way men smile when they have bed in mind. Derek Hawke had an almost hypnotic magnetism, but I was on firm ground now. I could handle him, I thought. He was going to try to charm me out of my suspicions, charm me out of thinking all those ugly things about him. When he was done, I would be just another admiring female, ready to believe anything he wanted me to believe.

It might have worked, had I not been playing the same game.

6

It was going to be a most dangerous game. Derek Hawke would not be taken in by mere feminine wiles and flattery to his ego. I would have to play it very, very cool, with just the right balance of promise and reserve. If I seemed to promise too much too soon, he would be suspicious, guess my motives. If I was too reserved, he would lose interest altogether. I once played Mata Hari in an ill-fated comedy that closed after opening night in London. The present performance was going to have to be much more convincing than that one had been.

Derek Hawke shifted in his chair and looked at me with hooded lids. He seemed to be determining his chances. I fingered my coffee cup, my face full of worry and concern, attractively arranged. I raised my eyes to look at him. I tried to sound contrite.

“I do owe you an apology. I don't suppose it's every day a strange woman comes barging into your house and accuses you of—of something so unpleasant.”

“Not every day,” he admitted.

“I suppose I should contact the Bureau of Missing Persons,” I said.

“I told my man in London to stay on the case,” he said. “There are ways of checking such things—train tickets, hotel reservations, passport photographs, and so on. He'll do the job far better than any government bureau, far faster. Why don't we just let him handle it?”

He didn't want me to contact anyone about Delia. That was clear. He was afraid to have anyone investigate her disappearance, so he thought he would put me off with talk of this fictional “man” in London in hopes I would let things rest for a while.

“But I couldn't let you do that,” I demurred. “It's not your concern. The expense—”

“The expense is negligible,” he replied smoothly, “and I'm quite concerned. After all, it would seem I'm implicated in a dark crime. Let's just say I want my name cleared. No, I'll leave my man on the case. I have no doubt that before the week is out your cousin will be located in Majorca with a married millionaire.”

“Majorca?”

“You said she hated the south of France.”

“So I did.”

“More coffee, Miss Lane?”

“No. I must be going. I … I suppose I can find a room in town? I may as well stay in Hawkestown for a few days. I've closed up the flat in London, and I have no job to go back to.” This sounded properly sad and dejected. “I … I want to be nearby so you can contact me the minute your man has any news.”

He started to make some reply, but at that moment the door flew open and a woman came rushing into the room. At first I thought it was Jessie come to claim her revenge, and I gave a little start. The woman who hurried across the room was only slightly less alarming than the vindictive cook would have been. She was short and rotund, with a chubby face dominated by the liveliest blue eyes I had ever seen. Her cheeks were vividly flushed, her small lips were pursed with alarm, and her whole demeanor was that of one come to announce the house afire. Her apparel was not to be believed.

“Yes, Andy?” Derek Hawke asked calmly.

“The ginger kitten! It's run off again. I think it's in the cellars. Someone's left the cellar door open again—I know it was Jessie! She's been sneaking up bottles of wine again. You've got to do something about that, Derek. After all, that wine is pure vintage. Stephen brought it from France before the Great War—” She paused, her wide eyes suddenly blank, as though she'd lost track of what she was saying.

“The kitten? Yes! I went to their room, and it's frightfully cold, Derek. That's why I'm wearing this coat—” A huge, slightly tattered fur coat covered her short body. Beneath it I caught glimpses of a smock, psychedelic in effect, hot pink and orange, purple and red. A scarf of violent blue silk was tied loosely around short, fluffy black curls that were surely silver by nature. “What were you saying?” she demanded in an angry tone, staring at her nephew with petulant impatience. “You know my time is valuable, Derek, and really, these interviews—”

“Not a thing, Andy,” Derek Hawke said mildly.

“Then why—oh, yes. The kittens' room—I call them all kittens,” this to me, “although most of them are quite grown. It's freezing. The heating has gone out, and you know how cold it gets down there. The poor things will have to
chop
their water. You must do something about that, Derek. Someone has to show some responsibility around here. Yes, and the cellars? Did you say something about the cellars?”

“The ginger kitten,” her nephew suggested.

“He's such a frisky little thing. I think it's psychological. He's the only ginger in the bunch, and all the rest are black and brown and white. One marmalade, although she's far too hateful and mean to have any feelings of inferiority. The dear has run off, Derek. I saw him running down the hall, and then he just
vanished
. That's when I discovered the cellar door. I don't know what Jessie can be thinking of. She does it on the sly, of course, and we have no proof yet, but—”

Derek Hawke sighed tolerantly. His aunt wrapped the tattered fur about her and tapped her foot. Neither of them spoke for a moment.

“Well, are you going to send Morris to search, or do you intend to let the kitten die? I know, Derek, that you don't particularly
care
for them, but that's no excuse for criminal neglect. He wouldn't last a day down there—”

“Relax, Andy. We haven't lost a kitten yet.”