The Brading Collection (23 page)

Miss Silver stooped, secured a rather bright blue envelope, and said briskly,

“Come, Mrs. Hunt, I will take you to Mrs. Robinson.”

In the study the Chief Constable was engaged in marking time. He had left a particularly delicate and difficult hand to Miss Silver to play. He did not doubt her ability to get as many tricks out of it as was humanly possible, but he found it difficult to keep his mind from straying. He had just finished a series of questions to Major Constable, designed to elicit previous knowledge of Charles Forrest’s revolver and of the place where it was kept. They were answered with a frank nonchalance which appeared to rob them of their importance.

“But of course I knew he had a revolver. He used to yarn about it—belonged to his father—saved the old man’s life—all that sort of thing. Did I know where he kept it? Well, there you have me. Drawer in the bureau, I think, but I wouldn’t like to swear to it. Just one of those things you take for granted, and, if anyone asks you all the whys and wherefors you’re stumped.”

Nothing could have been more open and ingenuous.

Maida Robinson tossed the stub of her cigarette in the direction of the waste-paper basket. It struck the edge and fell back upon the carpet. Without giving it a glance she lit another.

March addressed Jack Constable.

“How long have you known Mrs. Robinson?”

He laughed.

“How long is it, Maida?”

The tip of the cigarette glowed. She held it away.

“Oh, back, in the war sometime—a few dances, a few drinks—”

“And how well did you know each other?”

“Like I said.”

“Nothing more?”

Jack Constable’s blue eyes stared.

“Is that meant to be offensive?”

“Not unless you take it that way.”

Maida waved a hand to clear the smoke between them.

“What are you getting at anyway? Because Jack and I run into each other now and again, we are in some ridiculous plot to kill Lewis? Use your head, Mr. March! I’ve danced with quite a lot of men in my time, and had drinks with them too. I married one of them, and I was sorry enough for that. Well, I got my divorce, and I was going to marry Lewis. I’m not going to pretend I was in love with him, and it wouldn’t cut any ice with you if I did. I liked him all right—he wasn’t such a bad old stick. And he was in off the deep end about me. Look at the way he rushed and made that will. Now is it likely I was going to throw all that away?” She laughed and drew on her cigarette. “It’s all nonsense about those letters. Moberly made it up to save his skin. Everyone knows how Lewis bullied him, poor wretch. I always told him he’d push him too far some day. But suppose it was all true, and Lewis was in a rage with me—he wasn’t, you know, but just suppose for a moment that he was.” She gave that low laugh again. “Why, I could have talked him round in five minutes. I didn’t need to shoot him—he’d have eaten out of my hand. You’re just being silly.”

March said,

“That would depend on what you said in your letter to Mrs. Hunt—the one Brading got by mistake.”

She said, “There wasn’t any letter,” and the door was flung back to reveal Poppy Hunt.

It was Poppy herself who had flung it. The smell of alcohol and scent enveloped her. She stood swaying on the threshold in her red dress. The room with its north window darkened by the hill looked shadowy to her. The smoke of Maida’s cigarette hung in the air. Her mind was hazy with drink. Everything was blurred at the edges and a little out of the straight. There were people there—a man at a desk—another man—a policeman—but still no drinks—

Miss Silver came past her and put the blue envelope into Randal March’s hand. It was addressed to Mrs. Hunt, and it had been opened.

He had just slipped out enough of the sheet which it contained to read the words, “My dear Lewis,” when Poppy saw Maida—the bright hair first, and then the hand with the cigarette, the thin black dress, the eyes.

The eyes stared at her. Horrid and pale the girl was. Come to think of it, she’d never seen Maida pale before—always a lot of colour and no need to put it on.

It was all gone as Randal March leaned forward with a sheet of rather bright blue paper in his hand.

“Mrs. Hunt has brought you the letter which you put into her envelope by mistake.”

The words touched everything off. Poppy Hunt held on to the jamb of the door and saw things happen. Somebody called out, “The window!” Somebody threw a chair. A regular rough house, that was what it was, and Maida jumping out of the window and legging it, and a man going after her. She began to let out a succession of piercing screams.

It was Jack Constable who had shouted and thrown the chair. He had thrown it in Crisp’s face, caught him half way to his feet, and knocked him sprawling. March saw a second chair coming and dodged, but it got his shoulder, spun him about, and checked him. When he reached the window Maida was out of sight and Jack Constable rounding the corner of the house.

March went out over the sill and after them, whilst Crisp was getting to his feet with the blood running down his face and taking the other way out along the passage and through the hall.

They came to the porch more or less at the same time. Crisp saw his own police car go sliding down the drive. The blood dripped into his eyes, but it didn’t need that to make him see red. Take the police car, would they, that he’d left all turned and ready to go! And nothing to go after them in but the Chief Constable’s Vauxhall, which was facing the wrong way. They wouldn’t get away of course, but they’d give them a run. And the out and out nerve of it, that’s what got him!

He threw himself into the car, and whilst the Chief Constable turned it he cleared the blood from his eyes with an angry hand and shouted instructions to Constable Jackson.

“Tell James to ring all stations! Give the number of the car! It’s to be stopped and the occupants detained! You, Hewett, jump in behind!”

And then the bonnet of the car swung round and they were off down the drive. As they cleared it and ran down into Warne, the police car was just in sight on the long, slow hill climbing up on the other side. Bound to take that way, and bound to run through Ledstow. It was after that it would be tricky.

March looked sideways and said, “All right, Crisp?”

“Yes, sir—only a cut.”

“You look like another murder. Here, Hewett, get a handkerchief round his head and keep the blood out of his eyes. You can do it from behind there.”

The police car was out of sight, gone over the brow of the hill and running for Ledstow. March said,

“They won’t stop them there, and they’ve got a fair start. What will they do next? They won’t risk Ledlington—all those narrow streets, and the alarm out. I’d say they’d turn inland out of Ledstow and take the old smugglers’ road that runs through Cliff past the Catherine-Wheel—a good straight run with nothing you can call a turning till you get away from the cliffs and go inland again, a good four miles. They’ll reckon to gain on us there and get rid of the car when they are in amongst the lanes. At least that’s what I should do in their place.”

“They won’t get away,” said Crisp in a dogged voice. His head was being tied up, and Constable Hewett was being extraordinarily clumsy over it. All the first-aid classes in the world couldn’t produce fingers when what a chap has got by nature was a couple of bunches of awkward thumbs. He said, “That’ll do!” in an infuriated voice and shook his head exactly like a terrier coming up out of the ditch where he had failed to catch a rat.

They came through Ledstow at a speed that brought heads round to look at them. As they shot by the police station, a constable waved them to the Ledlington road, which is just beyond. The smugglers’ road takes off in a couple of miles, running between hedges until it comes back to the sea at the village of Cliff, and from there runs bare and exposed on the mounting line of the coast.

On the rise past the Catherine-Wheel of smuggling reputation they saw the car again. March said,

“We’ve pulled up on them,” and Crisp said, “Not enough.”

After that neither of them spoke. The needle of March’s speedometer ran up to sixty-five, trembled there, and climbed point by point to seventy. The black car in front of them went down over the brow of the hill and out of sight. At sea level there would be a choice of three diverging lanes—a two to one chance of missing and being missed.

They came to the top of the road themselves, and saw the long incline run down on the edge of the cliffs, falling with them to soft, broken country with trees and hedgerows. They had caught up on the stolen car, but as Crisp said, not enough. It was a third of the way down, and might be out of sight for long enough to slip into one of the three lanes beyond the bend at the foot if they could make the turn in time. With a clear road they could.

But the road wasn’t clear. A lorry came grinding up on the crown of the road. In a flash Crisp was leaning well out on his side, showing his uniform, pushing up his hand like the arm of a semaphore. March began to brake. The lorry driver hesitated, looked at the two cars rushing down towards him, thought of getting off to the side of the road, saw Crisp’s frantic signals, the police uniform, and checked. With Jack Constable roaring at him like a bull, he stopped there in the middle of the road. He didn’t like being roared at. He stopped and got ready to jump.

But there wasn’t any need. Jack Constable measured the gap on either side with his eye. He would have taken any chance, but there wasn’t one. He laughed, and Maida screamed. Then he put the car at the cliff. She screamed again as they went over.

It was going on for nine when Charles Forrest was called to the telephone. Rumours had been drifting back to Warne House. The police had left in a hurry. Major Constable and Mrs. Robinson were said to be dead. Their car had gone over the cliff and smashed on the rocks below. It was a collision with a lorry. It was a collision with the Chief Constable’s car. It was suicide.

In the middle of all this Charles had to go and listen to Lilias, who needed someone to whom she could explain how pure all her motives had been, and how little one could expect to be understood or appreciated in a world peopled by unsympathetic characters like the Chief Constable. He heard with relief that he was wanted on the telephone, and proceeded to the study, where he took the call.

“March here. I’m speaking from Ledlington hospital. Can you come out at once? I expect you know who shot Brading. They made a dash for it in a police car and got blocked on the cliff road. Constable put the car over. He’s dead. She isn’t—yet. We want a statement, and she won’t make one unless you’re there. Be as quick as you can—there mayn’t be much time.”

March was waiting for him at the hospital.

“She’s broken her back. Perfectly clear in the head, and no pain. They say she can’t last the night, and it may be sooner. We’re bound to have that statement, and she wouldn’t say a word until you came.”

Up a stair, along a cool antiseptic corridor, and round a screen. Maida’s bright hair on the pillow. Not a mark on her face. Her eyes looking a long way off. They came back to see him.

There was a chair by the bed. He sat down.

She said, “Charles—”

Her hand moved a little. He took it. It was cold. She said,

“They want me to make a statement.”

“Yes. Will you?”

“I wouldn’t till you came. I don’t trust them. You’ll tell me—is Jack dead?”

“Yes—he was killed at once.”

“I’m—dying?”

“Yes.”

“Sure—it’s not a trap?”

“That’s what they say.”

She shut her eyes for a moment.

“All right—”

A police stenographer slipped in round the screen, sat down on the other side of the bed, took out his notebook. Maida opened her eyes and said,

“I shot Lewis—you know that. I wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t said what he did. We planned it—after we knew about the letters—but I don’t know that I’d have done it—really—not when it came to the point—I don’t know. He said—oh, well, I’ve got a temper—I had the revolver in my bag—I came up close and shot him. He thought I was going to look at the will—it was there on the table—but I shot him.”

Her voice was low and steady, but there wasn’t enough breath to carry it for more than a few words at a time. She held his hand. After a moment she said,

“Are they writing it down?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t care—it doesn’t matter now. It was Jack’s plan—from the beginning. We’d been in jobs before. I came down—to get in with Lewis—because of the Collection. That was the first idea—to get away with the stuff. Then Lewis—fell for me—in a big way. I told Jack I could—marry him—it would be better that way. He didn’t like it—at first—but he agreed. He liked me—a bit—himself.” She shut her eyes again. The cold fingers moved in the warmth of his hand. Then her lashes lifted. “Liking people is—the devil. That’s what—queered the show. Not Jack, but me. You came along—and—I liked you. If you had liked me—we could have—made a go of it. I’d have sent Jack—away—and let Lewis and his Collection go-—down the drain. I as good as told you so—when we walked back together—on Thursday night. But you weren’t—having any. It’s that girl, I suppose—the one you were—married to—”

Charles said, “Yes.”

She gave a faint ghost of a laugh.

“That’s—the way—it goes. It doesn’t matter—now—but I was mad—at the time. I went in and—blew off steam—writing those two letters—one to Lewis saying—I’d have him—and the other to Poppy Hunt saying—just what I—felt about it. And I put them in the—wrong envelopes. I’d had a drink or two—and I was mad—with you.” She moved her head a little on the pillow and said, “Oh, well—”

A nurse came round the screen and felt her pulse. When she had gone away again Maida said,

“Lewis got my letter—by the second post—on Friday. He—rang me up. He was mad. He said he’d—signed his will, and I’d better come down and—‘assist at its obsequies.’ I thought that meant he wouldn’t—destroy it—till I came. I thought—perhaps—I could talk him round—but Jack said no. He—made the plan. It—all—went—quite—smoothly—”

There was a long pause. She lay with her eyes open, looking past Charles as if he wasn’t there. The nurse came again and stood there. The statement was read over to Maida. She made a mark. Charles and the nurse witnessed it. The nurse slipped away. The stenographer went too, trying not to make a noise. Time went by. Only her eyes moved. They turned on Charles, and seemed to see him. She said slowly,

“Do you think we—just—go out?”

“No.”

After some time she spoke again.

“Then—what?”

“I don’t know—pick up the bits and go on.”

Her lip twitched. It was something like a smile. She said,

“Some bits—Lewis—Jack—” And then, “I’d like you to—see me out. Your hand is—warm—”

It was three in the morning when he came out of the hospital and drove back to Saltings alone.