Death Knocks Three Times (22 page)

Now Crook did put his hand in his pocket and brought out a couple of shillings that he spun casually on the surface of the table.

“Thank you,” said Miss Pettigrew, “I shan’t require them. But really,” she rose to indicate that the interview was at an end, “it amazes me that Mr. Attlee, who is supposed to have a genius for discovering hidden talent, has not called you into consultation in his difficulties long ago.”

But Crook, rising too, said these talent-scouts would go hunting under bushels, “and with my figure,” he added, “a bushel’s no more use to me than a divan bed.”

M
R. TWEMLOW had gone back to town. He hadn’t liked the case from the start and the more deeply he became involved the less he liked it. His firm didn’t deal in criminal cases: wills, property, all the respectable side of the law—that was his cup of tea. He was thankful that John Sherren had never been a client of his. It was a good thing the fellow was in prison and likely to remain there. Even that development complicated matters, for under the will he was Miss Bond’s sole heir, and though that meant precious little, seeing she had only left a wardrobe of moth-eaten clothes and a few personal possessions that wouldn’t keep anyone out of the poorhouse for a month, a man charged with a capital crime couldn’t inherit. Of course, he acknowledged grudgingly, he might be acquitted, but if not, the legacy reverted to the Crown.

Miss Pettigrew, who returned at the same time, was another thorn in his side. She offered to assist him in the disposal of the dead woman’s lares and penates. The clothes, she suggested, might be given to some decrepit gentlewoman’s association. It would hardly be worth offering them to a dress agency, everything was so old-fashioned and so well worn.

“Not so fast, madam,” snapped Mr. Twemlow, and explained about the position in law of a man in John Sherren’s shoes.

“Meaning that a proven murderer, whether reprieved or not, cannot inherit? I scarcely think that he would be interested in his legacy in any case, unless he is proposing to open an amateur museum of Victorian curiosities.”

Mr. Twemlow let that pass. It struck him as being in exceedingly poor taste. But for the time being there was nothing to be done about poor Clara Bond’s bits and pieces.

Crook also had gone back to town. There was no question of the trial coming up just yet. John had been told he could have legal advice if he had no lawyer of his own, and he divided his time between trying to convince his unenthusiastic counsel that he had been framed and wishing that he could rewrite One Fair May Morning in the light of his own prison experience and prospects. He’d do it so much better now. Crook, that arch-cynic, would have said: “That’s life all over, chum. By the time you’ve learnt anything, it’s too late to be of any use to you.”

“When’s this case going to break?” Bill Parsons asked Crook in the office in Bloomsbury Street.

“Any day now,” said Crook reassuringly.

“Before John Sherren comes to trial?” Bill was persistent.

“John Sherren’s never coming to trial,” said Crook. “I can tell you that. No, he’ll scuttle back to his kind Mrs. Pringle and die in his nice three-foot bed under his chaste eiderdown, probably writing his own obituary. And that,” he added with unwonted vindic-tiveness, “is about what he deserves.”

The case broke that afternoon. He had rather thought he might have a visit from Miss Pettigrew, but she sent her messenger in the shape of a letter, enclosing a check for a hundred pounds. She had written this and a number of other letters in the bed-sitting-room of the ladies’ club in London, where she had lived ever since her retirement. She wrote them far into the night, sealed and stamped them and then went to bed. Next morning she was down early before the postman came, and collected the letters from the mat. There was one for her, from a furrier in Bond Street who should have known better, offering to value, store, repair, remodel or exchange her non-existent fur coat. She put the letter in her pocket and went to look for Miss Bennett, the principal of the ladies’ club.

“I have a letter here,” said she calmly. “I have to go down to Brakemouth on a matter of business.”

“What, again. Miss Pettigrew?” said Miss Bennett sympathetically. “How tiresome for you.”

“Oh, this will be the last time,” said Miss Pettigrew, going up stairs, where she destroyed the furrier’s letter and made her bed, laid a towel over the top of the old-fashioned water-jug, closed and locked her wardrobe, closed the drawers of the dressing-table, put on her traveling coat, took her neat furled umbrella, opened the window and said good-bye to the room she would see no more.

On her way to the station she posted the letters she had written the previous night. By the time they were opened by their recipients she would be well out of the way.

The last person to see her was Mr. Bates. Mr. Bates had come down to Brakemouth with his wife for a “change” after Maggie Bates had flu. On this particular afternoon, in spite of the rather choppy sea, he rented a boat and went for a row. Mrs. Bates preferred to roam through the High Street of Brakemouth looking for full-fashioned lisle stockings. Then she would go to a movie.

“You can do that at home,” objected Mr. Bates.

“I could,” agreed Maggie, “if I didn’t have to spend all my time on the housekeeping.” A typical married couple. So Mr. Bates collected the fifteen-year-old son of his landlady and the pair went out together. They were getting on well in spite of the difficult sea.

when, rounding the curve of Dead Man’s Rock, the boy said: “Look, that’s Mystery House,” pointing to a newly painted house on the cliff. “You know, where the lady fell off the balcony.”

“Oh, yes?” said Mr. Bates, vaguely.

“Wasn’t it in the London papers?” asked the boy. “I tell you, it was all over the papers here. Her sister was poisoned a week back,” he added triumphantly, “and they say her nephew did it. You might think the house was haunted. I’d like to see a ghost.”

As though some invisible fate heard him, a figure at that moment appeared on the edge of the cliff, much too near the edge for Mr. Bates’ peace of mind. She was a tall, sallow woman, dressed without a scrap of imagination, just such a drab figure as you might see in any town in the country in the fourth year of the peace.

“Is that a ghost?” exclaimed the boy eagerly, and Mr. Bates, not quite certain himself, replied sharply: “If she isn’t she soon will be, if she goes much nearer the edge of the cliff. What fools these women arel” The tide was now very high and the rocks beneath the waves were quite invisible.

“Go back!” called Mr. Bates irritably. He wasn’t sure if the woman heard him or not. He did not then realize that, being just round the curve of the coast, he was invisible to her, though he could see her clearly enough. The next instant he had half-risen in the boat. “Look outl” he exclaimed. “Good God, the woman’s slipping.”

It was horrible. He had seen this sort of thing often enough in the movies without turning a hair, but in real life it was appalling. For there could be no possible doubt about it. This was no ghost, it was no accident. Mr. Bates had never seen anything more deliberate in his life. His first instinct was to prevent the lad with him from seeing what was happening, but a moment later his humanitarian sense caused him to row furiously toward the spot where the woman had disappeared.

“Can you row?” he yelled to the boy.

“I can’t swim,” the boy told him. His teeth were chattering. For weeks afterwards Mr. Bates tormented himself and Mrs. Bates wondering what he ought to have done.

“Just what you did do,” said Mrs. Bates impatiently. “You know with your wounded leg you couldn’t have done any good, and the

woman had enough on her conscience without making me a widow into the bargain. And anyway, if she wanted to go out like that, I don’t see that any one had any right to stop her.”

Mr. Bates groaned. Crook would have said: “Take it easy, pal. Dames are all the same. Law and order don’t mean a thing to them.”

And he’d have instanced Miss Pettigrew, whose letter he opened at about the time she, believing herself to be unobserved, stepped off the cliff into space.

I
T IS a pity I cannot be with you when you read this so that you can tell me how I betrayed myself,” Miss Pettigrew wrote. “I suppose you knew the truth from the beginning. I remember, when I asked you if you knew who was guilty, you said you knew who was responsible for Miss Bond’s death. There was a delicate distinction there, and I did not miss it.

“Yes, of course I wrote the letters. How did you come to be so sure so soon? At the beginning, like all the criminals of whom you spoke to me, I thought no further than one step ahead. At that time murder had not entered my mind. I read somewhere some years ago that all murders that are not self-defense are first committed in the mind, in the imagination, although the actual deed may be done on the spur of the moment. But there must exist the desire, the will to murder, and it is this constant will that enables the criminal to take advantage of an opportunity and act in a flash. As I did, Mr. Crook, as I did.

“I hated Clara Bond, almost as much as I loved her sister, Isabel. I became an orphan very early in life, and when I was a child I used to imagine a sister for myself. When I started on my career as a governess I always envied those children who had sisters. To me it always seemed the most delightful of all relationships. Twenty years ago I met Isabel Bond. From that moment I knew I had met the one person with whom I should wish to spend the rest of my life. Naturally, Clara Bond was utterly opposed to any such plan.

Thanks to the terms of her father’s will she had full control of all the moneys he left, so long as Isabel Bond remained unmarried. I dare say it had never occurred to the old man that she might wish to set up house with a woman friend. We had need of patience, Isabel and I. For five years we waited; then I inherited a small legacy, nothing at all considerable but sufficient to buy a modest cottage in the country, and at the same time I was offered a post that did not involve living in. This seemed our opportunity, but once again Clara put obstacles in the way. She said that she could not agree to her sister becoming a paid housekeeper, as she would be if she had no income of her own, and if she was not to occupy this position, then she would be living on my charity. Either alternative was unthinkable. Since then Clara Bond has never missed an opportunity to keep Isabel and myself apart. Then, a short time ago, there crept into Isabel’s letters a new note. She was happier than she had been for years; she spoke of some recompense for the years that the locusts had eaten. And on the heels of that information came a letter telling me of her fatal accident.

“I have never believed in this theory. I do not say that Clara Bond actually pushed her sister off the balcony; I do say she was responsible for her death. It was after her death that I began to plan my revenge. For years she had terrorized Isabel, even threatening her with incarceration in an institution for the weak-minded. Oh, I didn’t want her to die quickly. I wanted her to suffer even a hundredth part of what her sister had endured for so many years. I wanted her to know what fear was. The anonymity was an essential factor. If she had known the name of her tormentor she would have taken steps to deal with the situation at once. I wanted her to be unsure if it was the woman sitting next to her in the hotel, standing behind her in the bus queue, walking apparently by chance along the same pavement, going into the same shop. I knew she hated suspense; therefore I used the vague threat. There was nothing for her to catch hold of. I never had any fear that she would go to the police; she had far too much to lose. I know at one time she suspected Locket. That was unfair to Locket, but I doubt whether she would have cared. I don’t think she thought it was I. All the letters were delivered by hand or bore the Brakemouth post-mark. She was so careful about money herself she could scarcely have believed that I would make the journey simply to deliver a letter. It was so easy. I only had to wait till she left the hotel and leave my envelope then. Or I could put it among the postal deliveries. People, Mr. Crook, as I have heard you observe, believe what they wish to believe, and see what they are expecting to see. Similarly, they seldom see what they do not expect.

“Then I had an unanticipated stroke of good fortune. Miss Bond actually asked me to come and stay at the hotel. That created innumerable small opportunities for increasing her unease. I missed none of them. Sometimes I wondered if she would be driven to taking her own life. It would never have lain on my conscience if she had, but that was a ridiculous thought. Clara had never willingly given anything away since she was born. Was it likely she would throw away her life to oblige me?

“Then a new element came into the situation. Oh, I don’t mean John Sherren. I never believed he was any danger to her. No, I refer to Roger Marlowe. I only had to see her on the night of his arrival to know she was more afraid than she had ever been. He had some power over her nobody else possessed. I hold no brief for him. He was—and is—a scoundrel. He had no more heart than Clara, although he had a more winning and gracious manner. But he was as ruthless as she. If he had a weapon, as I was certain he had, he wouldn’t hesitate to club her with it. When he came in that evening and she asked him to join us I knew at once that she had some plan in mind. She wouldn’t give away a cup of tea unless she saw it coming back to her with compound interest. She was afraid of him and she was quite unscrupulous. Those are the important points. When she offered him saccharine and even took a little bottle from her bag my suspicions flared up. Who knew better than I that she never used the stuff, insisting on being supplied with sugar? And since she had not known there were going to be guests that night, she could not argue that she had bought the saccharine in preparation for their arrival. I watched her pour the little pellets into Mr. Marlowe’s cup; there were still some left in the bottle, I could see that quite clearly, but she did not attempt to add any to her own tea. She dropped the bottle back into her bag. Then she produced the sugar, which she handed around, proving that there was no need for the saccharine.