She Fell Among Thieves (4 page)

A wail of horror woke me at seven o’clock – a French servant’s declaration of terrible news. As I rushed to a window, I heard him running on the terrace, mouthing his consternation, and calling upon his God.

The poor man was hardly to blame. His duty was to open the shutters, not to remove the dead.

Asprawl on the flags of the terrace was lying the body of a girl, flat on its face. Her pitiful arms were outstretched and a leg was drawn up. She was wearing no clothing at all, and her hair was fair.

I ripped a sheet from the bed and ran downstairs: but Mansel was there before me, and two or three servants with him, trembling and peering and holding each other back.

As Mansel laid down the head, I came up with my sheet, and the two of us covered the body without a word.

Then –

‘I can’t speak French, sir,’ said Mansel; ‘will you tell them to find a stretcher or something like that? I mean, we can’t leave her here.’

Someone thought of the leaf of a table, and this was brought. As Mansel and Bell were laying the body upon it, Acorn came, blowzed and bustling, to take my place.

‘Take her to the chapel,’ he said. ‘And lock the door, if you please, and bring me the key.’ As the bearers moved off, he addressed himself to me.

‘Mr Chandos, what do you know of this shocking affair?’

I told him shortly enough.

‘What a dreadful business,’ he said. ‘To fall from a window like that! She’s only been here a week. Julie, her name was. Julie. A country girl. She was taken as kitchen-maid. Most respectable people, her parents.’ He sucked in his breath. ‘Madame de — will be most frightfully upset.’

‘Naturally enough,’ said I. ‘You think she fell from a window?’

‘That’s the report that was brought me.’ He stepped to the balustrade and peered at the house. Then he pointed up at a casement set in the steep-pitched roof. ‘I rather imagine,’ he said, ‘that that was her room. If she rose in the night and leaned out… They’re highly dangerous, these windows: the sills are so low.’

‘She was wearing no nightgown,’ I said. ‘The body was nude.’

‘That would be right,’ he said. ‘The people here wear no nightclothes of any kind.’

Thoughtfully I withdrew to my suite…

I had food for thought.

I did not believe that Julie had fallen from her window – without any help. Indeed, I felt very sure that the man I had seen in the shadows had caused her death. And I had a dreadful feeling that, if the truth were known, Julie in some way or other had crossed the sinister path of Vanity Fair.

The door of the bed-chamber opened and Bell came into the room.

‘A nice show, this,’ I said.

‘Shocking, sir,’ said Bell. ‘They say she was only sixteen.’

I told him of the man in the meadows.

‘Tell Captain Mansel,’ I said. ‘Not a breath to anyone else. And ask him this. I suppose I shall be called at the inquest. Am I to mention this man?’

‘Very good, sir.’

As I was finishing dressing, Bell reappeared.

‘You’re to keep what you saw to yourself, sir, at any cost.’

‘Right,’ said I. ‘And the inquest?’

‘The Captain says there won’t be an inquest,’ said Bell.

Brushes in hand, I regarded him.

‘No inquest?’ I said.

‘No, sir.’

For an instant his eyes met mine: then he shrugged his shoulders and picked up my coat.

I stepped to the window and stared at the mountains lifting their sunlit heads.

There won’t be an inquest.

I found the saying pregnant. If sudden, violent death was not to be probed, it looked very much as though Mansel had taken his life in his hand.

(In fact, there was no inquest. So far as I know, the police were not even informed. Julie had died – and was buried the following day. Her father and mother were present, in deep distress. Their gratitude to her mistress was very touching: and when Vanity Fair, who received them, showed them a picture of the tombstone which she proposed to erect, the poor peasants were quite overwhelmed. The text to be cut upon the marble she chose herself. ‘Suffer little children to come unto me.’)

At my hostess’ instance, that morning her daughter showed me the house. While the building itself was more curious than sightly, its contents were notable, and I cannot believe that anywhere else in the world were so many lovely pieces in everyday use. I cannot begin to describe them and what they must have been worth I cannot pretend to say, but I know that it seemed presumptuous to live and move in the midst of such precious things. We trod upon Persian carpets that famous museums would have been proud to hang up: we lifted arras that should have been under glass: we sat upon chairs which a king and his queen had honoured – there were the royal arms, which some tireless needle had blazoned four hundred years before. Statuary, paintings and tapestries argued the connoisseur of unlimited means: yet all was for use, not for show, and a clock that had come out of Strasburg in sixteen hundred and one, from whose case a different apostle appeared at each hour of the day, was working perfectly. Several sedan-chairs were employed, of all things, as lampshades; on the floor of the one whose door Virginia opened was a powerful electric lamp, the light of which was projected on to the roof of the chair, and if, she explained, this radiance was not enough, the roof of the chair was opened to let the light on to the ceiling and make the hall or the chamber as bright as day. Of these chairs I counted eleven, all of them very fine: from what her daughter said, I gathered they were a weakness of Vanity Fair’s. ‘Mother loves them,’ she laughed. ‘She simply can’t resist a good-looking chair.’ I only once saw a cabinet-maker at work, but everything’s condition was perfect and all the rooms were open and beautifully kept.

By the time we had done, I had a fair idea of the plan of the house and had learned how the household was lodged and which were the private quarters of Vanity Fair. Like that which I had been given, her suite was a ‘corner’ suite and lay at the opposite end of the south façade, commanding the valley on one hand, and on the other the mountains that soared to the west. In the midst of her suite, however, a tower rose up from the terrace, to pierce the floor above hers and then stand up by itself till its height diminished that of the steep-pitched roof: by using this tower I judged – and I later found I was right – access could be had to her suite from without and below and above, though the principal doors, which gave to the hall and the staircase, were shut and barred.

There was no garden to see, for the countryside was the garden that graced Jezreel: and this I found so attractive that after lunch that day I proposed to go for a walk.

‘A long one,’ I said. ‘If you will excuse me, I won’t appear at tea.’

‘I told you Jezreel was dull,’ said Vanity Fair. ‘Where d’you propose to go?’

‘Right up the valley,’ I said. ‘I want to see the back of beyond.’

‘You won’t appear at dinner if you try to do that. When you get to the head of the valley, you’d better turn right. There you’ll find a path which will either break your heart or bring you into the road which leads to the Col de Fer. From what I’ve seen of you, I’ll back your heart, so a car shall be there to meet you from six o’clock on.’

‘But that’s ideal,’ said I. ‘Are you sure it’s quite convenient?’

‘It wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t,’ said Vanity Fair. ‘What time shall you start?’

‘I thought in about half-an-hour.’

‘Make it three-quarters,’ she said. ‘And come to my salon, will you, before you set out?’

With that, she was gone, leaving me ill at ease. Her command was disconcerting. Why should she want to see me…alone…in her private room?

Thirty-five minutes later, her personal maid, called Esther, a woman with a face like a mask, ushered me into an exquisite little salon which was full of the scent of pot-pourri and fairly ablaze with the sunshine which was not at all shut out.

Vanity Fair was installed in a deep
chaise longue
.

‘Sit down, Mr Chandos,’ she said. ‘I think you’d look very well in that bracket chair.’

I took my seat – facing the light.

‘This business this morning,’ she said. ‘Now who was first on the scene?’

‘That I can’t tell you,’ I said. ‘It was somebody’s cry that woke me, but by the time I had got to the window, whoever it was was gone. When I got down, Wright was there with three other men.’

‘I’m told that she fell from a window. Did what you saw bear that out?’

‘It certainly did,’ said I, feeling more at my ease.

‘But you heard no cry in the night. Do you sleep very sound?’

‘Pretty well, I think,’ said I, wishing that I knew what was coming, and crossing my legs. ‘I certainly heard no cry.’

‘What time did you go to sleep?’

So that was it. Vanity Fair wished to know if I had seen the man in the meadows at a quarter to twelve.

Like a fool, I decided to lie.

‘I really can’t say,’ I said. ‘Soon after I bade you good night.’

‘That was at eleven o’clock.’

‘Soon after that,’ said I. ‘I’d nothing to do.’

‘She might have fallen before that. For all you know, she was there when you went to bed.’

‘Oh no. I mean – well, I think I should have seen her,’ I said, and could have ripped out my tongue.

‘Seen her? How could you have seen her?’

‘I leaned out of the window,’ I said, ‘the very last thing. The moon was lighting the terrace: but she wasn’t there.’

‘Fancy your remembering that.’

I shrugged my shoulders – desperately.

‘I just do,’ said I. ‘And I’ll tell you another thing. I can tell you the very time, for the castle clock chimed the quarter whilst I was looking out.’

Another lie – but a good one. If I had retired at a quarter past eleven, I could hardly have seen the man at a quarter to twelve.

‘That’s more like it,’ says she. ‘No doubt at all about that?’

‘None whatever,’ said I, and felt very pleased with myself.

‘Good,’ says Vanity Fair. She flung me a charming smile. ‘I put your mind to the grind-stone, and see how sharp it’s become. You heard the clock chime the quarter, and she wasn’t there.’

‘Quite right,’ said I, and grinned back.

‘Did you set your watch?’

‘I can’t say that,’ said I.

‘Well, do so,’ says Vanity Fair. ‘Right away – before you go out. Punctuality’s one of my failings, and I always go by that clock. And now go and have a good walk. To be honest, I envy you. What does the prophet say? “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings.” And if I was half my age, I’d keep you company.’

Thus elegantly dismissed, I took my leave.

Outside her suite, I drew a deep breath of relief. Vanity Fair had annoyed me and frightened me out of my life: for all that, I had won the round, for my monstrous cross-examination had borne her no fruit. I, Richard Chandos, had beaten Vanity Fair. That lie, of mine, about the clock striking the quarter… I could have hugged myself.

I proposed to leave by the terrace, but first I made for the courtyard, to set my watch. As I came to the steps, Virginia was taking her seat at the wheel of a fast-looking car.

When I had explained my quest –

‘Good for you, Richard,’ says she. ‘And we’re very proud of that clock. Did mother tell you the legend?’

‘No,’ said I, adjusting the hands of my watch.

‘Then listen to me,’ says Virginia. ‘It’s very short. Years and years ago the son of this house was to die – at a quarter past six. I don’t know what he’d done, but he’d disobeyed his father and so was condemned to death. But the servants were bound they’d save him. So during the night they blocked up the gap in the wheel that controls the chimes: the gap that engaged the hammer when the quarter was due. So that, though the time came and went, the clock never struck the quarter and the life of the boy was saved.’

‘What a – what a curious tale,’ I stammered. ‘And the – the damage was never repaired?’

‘Repaired?’ screamed Virginia. ‘How can you? Would you tear up a dainty legend like that? The piece of oak they fashioned is still in its place, and from that day to this that clock’s never chimed the quarter – the quarter past.’

Though the valley was handsome enough, I fear my thoughts were busy with Vanity Fair. It was plain I was in the toils. I was suspected of proposing to play her false: I had, therefore, been carefully tested and, while I thought I had passed, I had broken down. Mansel’s words came into my mind
. Always tell her the truth
. I could have done myself violence…

I felt suddenly angry. Vanity Fair was outrageous. How dared she subject a guest to such an ordeal? To be summoned and cross-examined, as though I were one of her servants, suspected of stealing goods… I had, of course, no standing. In fact, I was not a guest. In fact, I was being treated precisely as I deserved. And yet I resented that treatment. It made things so very awkward. I had told her a lie, and she knew it – and was sending a car to meet me, to whisk me back to her table and a dinner fit for a king. The truth was this. I knew I was being played with, and the knowledge was making me cross.

I pulled myself together and sought to review the facts. These were few, but ill-favoured.

An intensely suspicious woman, Vanity Fair suspected that I was a spy, that I was in league with Mansel, that I was aware that a man had come out of the meadows the night before. These suspicions she meant to confirm, and no convention whatever would stand in her way. When she had to deal with strangers, she much preferred to have them within her gates.

The evidence she held at the moment was that I had told her a lie. She had tried to make me clinch it – by saying that when the clock chimed, I had set my watch. By the grace of God, I had avoided that pitfall. All the same, honest guests do not lie: they may make mistakes, of course: but they do not lie. I decided with the utmost reluctance that I must correct my statement – repeat what Virginia had told me and say that the chime I had heard must have been the half-hour.

So much for the moves she had made: now for my own.

It was perfectly clear that she knew of the man in the meadows, because it was perfectly clear that she wanted to know if I knew. She also knew more than I did of Julie’s death. Why did she want to know who was first on the scene?

On the whole I supposed that honours were more or less even: but another sitting or two in ‘the Star Chamber’ would certainly settle my hash. I should have to tell Mansel as much. I was no sort of match for Vanity Fair.