Nothing Venture (26 page)

“Now when you say ‘they'?” said Ferdinand.

“Leonard,” said Nan—“Robert Leonard and Rosamund.”

“Robert has got a mighty good alibi. It's a good seven miles from Croyston to King's Weare, and his car was in Mr Jeremiah Brown's garage with the cylinder head off. I like to know about things, so I collected that.”

“He could hire a car.”

“Well he didn't—not in Croyston—nor a motor bicycle.”

“He might have borrowed one,” said Nan.

“Who would he borrow it from? He's got no friends around here—folks don't cotton to him much. Who's he going to give himself away to by borrowing their car to do the meanest sort of criminal job?
Borrowing
?” He took his hand off the wheel and jerked the word away. “Nix on borrowing!”

“Rosamund,” said Nan.

Ferdinand darted a sideways glance at her. He saw a pale, composed profile, lips colourless but firm, hands folded. He nodded. The car was moving slowly between the high banks of a sunk lane.

“She certainly was alone in the house—Tetterleys away, servants in a separate wing. But then, I did a bit of searching round when you were paying your call. I had a real nice talk with the second chauffeur. His name is Hoskins. He's some talker. I should say he's of the opinion that I nourish a grand passion for Miss Rosamund. The servants' wing looks out over the road to the garage. They've room for four cars in the garage, and Hoskins sleeps up over it. I said I thought I'd seen Miss Rosamund's car in Broyston Tuesday night, and he said she hadn't been out. He stuck to that, and what's more, he said he could prove it. For one thing, he'd cleaned the car that afternoon, and she certainly hadn't been out in the dust; and for another, he'd filled her up with oil and petrol, and next day when Miss Carew took her out he had a look at the petrol-gauge, and full up she was.”

“Perhaps he wasn't telling the truth,” said Nan.

“In my opinion he was.”

“It isn't difficult to fill up again,” said Nan—“and I expect Rosamund knows how to clean a car. Don't you see—” she lifted one hand and struck the other with it—“don't you
see
that that clean car and that full petrol tank were her alibi?
You
haven't got an alibi for Tuesday night, and neither have I. Why have she and Robert Leonard got such beautiful alibis?”

Ferdinand drove on without speaking.

“You think she got Jervis to come away with her?”

“I don't know. She could have fetched Robert Leonard from Croyston.”

“And when she'd fetched him, what was he going to do? Jervis didn't like either of them well enough to go promenading around with them in the middle of the night. No—that's something I don't see.”

“He's gone,” said Nan. “
Someone
got him to go.”

Ferdinand did not answer this at all. In spite of himself he was thinking of a warm, dark sea, with the moon going down in the west and the first gold flame of the dawn brightening the east. He could see the water, and a black moving speck which was Jervis' head. And then the speck was gone, and he could only see the wide grey sweep of the water.

The day dragged on its way, and with every hour it grew hotter. By five o'clock the sun had almost disappeared behind a thick haze. It was as if the very fierceness and heat of its burning had sent out a shrouding veil of smoke. Under it the sea was oily and lead-coloured.

Ferdinand had gone into Croyston. He had made up his mind that if Jervis had neither written nor returned by next morning, they must go to the police. Beneath the surface of his thoughts there floated an uneasy doubt as to whether they had not already delayed too long.

Nan stayed in the house. She had the feeling that something might happen at any moment. Impossible to move from the spot which might be the scene of this happening. She stayed in the library. There was a telephone there, and she was waiting for the bell to ring. It might ring
now
, whilst she was over by the window, or
now
, when she had turned and almost reached the door. A few quick steps would bring her close enough to snatch up the receiver, and then she would hear Jervis' voice. She never got beyond that first sound of his voice. He had not to explain why he had gone away; he had only to be there—a living voice. It did not matter at all what the voice said—no, it didn't matter at all.

She paced the room with an even step. From the door to the table where the telephone stood was about half way. She made a little pause there as if she were waiting for the bell to ring. Then from the table to the window—and here it took all her self-control not to hurry. She must touch the window-seat with her knee before she turned and walked back to the table again. As she walked, she braced herself against that possible sound of the bell. And the bell might ring without its being Jervis who was waiting at the other end of the line. Ferdinand might ring up from Croyston, or Rosamund, or—or anyone. She went on pacing the room.

An acute strain is rather like very severe frost; for just as a frost sharply defines physical objects, and at the same time renders them immovable, so a certain degree of mental strain has the effect of sharply defining thoughts and fixing them in an unnatural rigidity. In this condition an impression which would ordinarily be of the most fleeting nature becomes as indelibly impressed as an image cut in ice.

Nan had walked perhaps fifty times from the door to the table, from the table to the window, from the window to the table, and from the table back to the door, when she became aware of such an impression amongst her frozen thoughts. At first her awareness of it was vague and inattentive, but gradually her attention began to focus itself. It puzzled her, and, her attention once focussed, she felt a slight relief in having something definite to think about.

The impression was the impression of Mrs Mellish looking at her with eyes like windows with the blinds pulled down. She had asked Mrs Mellish whether she had seen or heard anything between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Mrs Mellish had said no. The very tone of that dry “No, ma'am” beat at Nan's ears. She had asked Mrs Mellish to find out whether the maids had seen or heard anything; and it was whilst Mrs Mellish was out of the room that the impression had been made—a slammed door, eyes with the blinds drawn down—something to hide. Mrs Mellish came back, and reported that nobody had noticed anything. Between two and half-past seven Jervis had walked out of the house. No one had seen or heard him go—no one had seen anything—no one had heard anything. Then why had Mrs Mellish slammed her door and pulled down her blinds? The impression that she had done so was clearer now than it had been at the time. The ice had set and defined it sharply.

Nan paused by the table, as she had paused there fifty times; but this time, instead of going on towards the door, she turned half-left, walked quickly to the hearth, and rang the bell. Then she faced round towards the door and waited until Alfred appeared.

“Will you ask Mrs Mellish to come and speak to me here, please.”

She would see Mrs Mellish here. In the housekeeper's room, with its photographic enlargements of Mrs Mellish's husband and Mrs Mellish's respected and respectable parents, with Mrs Mellish's workbox in Tonbridge ware and Mrs Mellish's photograph album on a small rose-wood table, and a large illuminated text hanging over the mantelpiece, Nan had been made to feel an alien and an intruder. The very china dogs, white poodles with baskets in their mouths, had gazed at her aloofly from either end of the mantelshelf. The old-fashioned wall-clock had a disapproving tick. Here she could meet Mrs Mellish upon neutral ground. This was Jervis' room.

Alfred went away, and presently came back again. Mrs Mellish had just stepped out.

“I would like to see her when she comes in.”

Nan went back to her pacing.

At seven o'clock the telephone bell rang with a startling loudness and set her heart thumping. She was by the door. She turned, ran back, and picked up the receiver.

“Who's there?”

“Ferdinand.”

“Yes?”

“Look here, Nan, there's something I want to follow up. I'm getting a move on with a hired car. It mayn't be anything at all, but I feel kind of bound to follow it up. You won't get rattled?”

“What is it?”

“It doesn't amount to much. There's a new garage the far side of Croyston. Well, the man says a Morris-Cowley stopped to fill up at seven o'clock Wednesday morning. He was about because he was doing a job on his own car. He says there were two men in the car, and from the description one of them might be Jervis, but it's very vague. It was the other man who did the talking. He was the driver, and he'd red hair, so it oughtn't to be hard to trace him. He talked about going to London, so I'm off looking for him. Don't you go worrying.”

Nan felt dazed and weak. The receiver was heavy in her hand. She said.

“Jervis hasn't got a Morris.”

“The car was the other man's—
he
was driving. They may have met by appointment, or Jervis might simply be getting a lift—or it mayn't have been Jervis at all. The garage man only said, ‘a gentleman with black hair.' That's about all he noticed—his front name isn't Sherlock.”

Ferdinand rang off, and Nan began walking up and down again. She walked for a long while, and then sat down by the window and let time flow past her like a sluggish stream, so slow that though it moved, the movement was imperceptible.

At seven the dressing-bell rang, and Alfred came in. He hovered for a moment by the door and then came nearer. Mrs Mellish had missed her bus from Croyston—and would it be convenient for Mrs Weare to see her after dinner?

Nan said, “Yes—it doesn't matter,” and Alfred withdrew.

When the dinner-bell rang, she realized that she had not changed. She went upstairs, washed her hands, and came down again, to sit alone at the big table in the dining-room and take a spoonful from each dish that was offered to her.

XXXIV

Mrs Mellish came into the library. Nobody would have known that she had been cooking. She wore her black afternoon dress, with a medallion brooch depicting a pink church leaning a little sideways against a background of bright blue sky. She had an air of dignity and leisured calm as she came to a standstill at a respectful distance and waited for Nan to speak.

“Please sit down,” said Nan.

“I'd rather stand, ma'am.”

Did she do it on purpose? Did she know how difficult it was to talk to someone who stands literally, as well as morally, on her dignity?

Nan braced herself.

“I'd like you to sit, Mrs Mellish.” She indicated a chair near her own.

After a momentary hesitation Mrs Mellish advanced another chair—one without arms and straight in the back. Upon the extreme edge of this chair she seated herself, her body stiffly erect, and her hands neatly folded. After a suitable pause she said,

“Yes, ma'am?”

Nan leaned forward.

“I want you to help me.”

Mrs Mellish registered a blank inability to understand how she could possibly be of any assistance to Mrs Weare. After a further pause she again said,

“Yes, ma'am?”

At the same time her folded hands moved slightly and displayed the square of a clean linen handkerchief as stiff, as blank, and as blameless as Mrs Mellish herself.

“We're in great trouble about Mr Weare,” said Nan.

Mrs Mellish said “Yes, ma'am?” for the third time.

Nan got up abruptly. If she were to sit still and listen to Mrs Mellish saying “Yes, ma'am?” anything might happen. She felt a passionate desire to pick up the nearest book and send it crashing through the window, or, better still, straight at Mrs Mellish's head. She stood for a moment at the window, holding back the heavy curtains and staring at the dark. It came right up to the glass. It was heavy and solid. She couldn't see anything at all.

She let the curtain fall and turned round again.

“You've known Jervis a long time.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“You knew him when he was quite a little boy.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“You've known him all those years. We're in dreadful trouble about him—we think—that something—must have happened.”

“Yes, ma'am?” said Mrs Mellish.

There was a little heavy brass box on the telephone-table; it was used to hold stamps. Nan wrenched her eyes away from it. She wanted to pick it up and throw it at Mrs Mellish—
hard
. With an effort, she stood where she was.

“Do you know of anything that might have taken him away suddenly?”

Mrs Mellish considered this in silence. She had been brought up to tell the truth, and classed lying with dirt, unpunctuality, gossip, and voting anything except Conservative. There were worse sins, such as stealing, atheism, and immorality; but they hardly came within the purview of the respectable. After a suitable pause she compromised by saying,

“I can't say that I do.”

“You'd tell me if you did—wouldn't you? Mr Fazackerley has gone to London to make inquiries there, but—I don't feel as if Jervis had gone to London—I
don't.
”

Mrs Mellish said nothing. Her hands rested on the linen square. The thin wedding-ring which Albert Mellish had placed on a slim finger forty-five years ago had now become sunk between two rolls of firm pink flesh. The finger was no longer slim; the gold just gleamed when it caught the light, like a hidden secret, like the gleam of past and gone romance.

Nan turned away and walked to the end of the room and back again.

Mrs Mellish never moved at all. She was sitting there because she had been ordered to sit; otherwise, she would have risen when Mrs Weare had risen; but, having been ordered to sit, sit she would until she was ordered to rise. A stubborn sense of her own superiority upheld her. She knew her place, if Mrs Weare didn't know hers. She looked up and saw Nan standing over her.