The March Hare Murders (10 page)

“But it’s queer, isn’t it?” she went on. “How wrong you can be about people.”

“Oh, that—certainly.”

“I suppose in a way you’ve always been jealous of Ingrid.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “I hadn’t thought about that. But perhaps you’re right. Anyway I’ve always been too dependent on her. For instance, if she hadn’t married Mark, I shouldn’t be here now; I’d probably be doing another spell in gaol——”

“There’s Ferdie,” Stella interrupted.

Giles looked round with a start. Ferdie had just come out of the house and was strolling down the lawn towards them. Stella thought he seemed irritated at finding Giles there, yet he nodded to him in a friendly way, dropped down on the grass beside him and brought out cigarettes. Ferdie could generally manage a superficial friendliness with everybody.

“Well, I hope there hasn’t been any bad after-effects of the fire,” he said. “Nothing valuable lost?”

“Nothing, fortunately,” Giles replied. “We’ve nearly forgotten about it.”

Ferdie fumbled with a lighter. “What have the police had to say about it?”

“The police?”

“D’you mean Verinder hasn’t been along to them?”

“No, I don’t think so. No, I’m sure he hasn’t.”

“But if the place was fired deliberately——”

“Oh, I shouldn’t think he wants to get any one into trouble,” Giles said casually.

“But, good heavens——”

Giles got rather suddenly to his feet. “He doesn’t worry, you know. He’s got too much sense.”

“But look here,” Ferdie said, “surely the police ought at least to have been told.”

“Well, it’s not my business,” Giles said, “but I’ll tell him you think so.” With an abrupt nod to them both he walked away.

Ferdie got up quickly and went with him to the gate, still chatting. But when he came back, he was frowning.

“I don’t like that,” he said.

“Don’t like what?” Stella asked.

“Verinder’s not going to the police.”

“But why?”

“It would have been the normal thing to do.” He sat down again. “Stella, what d’you actually think about that fire?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “It was probably an accident, wasn’t it?”

“Let’s hope so. I didn’t like what Giles said just now about Verinder’s not wanting to get any one into trouble. By the way, what did he want here?”

“Giles? Oh, nothing in particular—just to talk about himself for a bit, I think.”

“Was that really all?”

She hesitated. “No, as a matter of fact, it wasn’t,” she said. “It was to talk about David and Ingrid.”

“Oh.”

“Ferdie”—she glanced up at him—“what d’you think about that?”

Unexpectedly his face hardened, but he immediately avoided her look. A muscle twitched in his cheek.

“If I were to tell you,” he said, “I don’t think you’d understand my point of view.”

“Why not?”

“I think that since Ingrid’s a married woman, David should leave her alone.”

“Oh. …” She tried to ignore the pumping of her heart. She went on, “Then you do think there’s something in it?”

“Even if there’s
nothing
in it!” Then Ferdie became unsure and muddled. “I don’t know though—I really don’t—perhaps that’s stupid. What’s there for supper?”

“Cold beef,” Stella said. “But Ferdie, d’you think David ought to go away?”

“What else besides cold beef?”

“Salad. An apple pie. Cheese.”

“What sort of cheese?”

“Camembert. But, Ferdie——”

“Good, I like Camembert. And what about some sherry now? Shall I get it?”

“Ferdie,” Stella said, leaning forward, “d’you think we ought to ask David to go away?”

“Because he’s taken a liking to going swimming with Ingrid? That’s nothing to do with us, is it? Would you like some sherry?”

“But you said just now——”

“Oh, why bother about it? David’s grown-up, isn’t he?”

“But if it were the best thing to do?”

Ferdie shook his head. “You can’t do a thing like that. I’ll go and get that sherry.”

“I don’t want any——”

But Ferdie had already gone.

Stella stood up. Slowly and absently she gathered up her mending.

At that moment, for no reason that she knew of, she remembered that days ago Deirdre Masson had said that she wanted to talk to her. Deirdre had asked her to ring up. Stella had not rung up. She did not intend to. She did not want to talk to Deirdre. But there was someone else to whom she wanted to talk, the only person, the obvious person.

To-morrow she would do that.

•   •   •   •   •

Next morning, when she had washed up the breakfast dishes and done some desultory tidying, Stella went to Bell Cottage. As she was starting out she paused and suddenly shivered. It seemed to her that there was a new chill in the air. It might have been the first day of autumn, a grey day filled with a bleak, misty stillness. Turning back, she went upstairs for a jacket.

She had already seen David go down the path to the sea, followed by Ingrid. She wondered how he could think of swimming on a morning like this. As usual, she found the door of Bell Cottage open. On the threshold she called out, “Hallo—is any one in?”

There was no answer, and after a moment she went inside.

She noticed that the red-tiled floor of the passage had been newly polished and that the furniture had been dusted. That meant that Mrs. Scales, who worked for the Verinders as well as for Stella, had been there that morning, for Ingrid seemed never to feel any concern if dirt and untidiness multiplied about her.

“Mark!” Stella called out again. “Hallo—can I come in?”

She walked down the passage to the open door of Mark’s study, where she expected to find him. But no one was in the room. Hesitantly she entered.

It was a small, square room with one large window and walls lined with books. A big table with thick, heavily carved legs, filled nearly half of the room. In what was left of it, there was an armchair covered in blue linen, with a low, round table beside it, loaded with books, papers, pipes and ashtrays. Above the mantelpiece was a portrait in oils of Mark Verinder himself, seated in the blue arm-chair and with a background of books, so that it looked as if the picture had been painted in this room, except that Mark’s age, in the portrait, was certainly no more than forty. There were no other pictures in the room.

Stella gave one more call as she stood there. “Mark—Giles—is any one in?” Then she moved forward, and, without thinking much of what she was doing, she picked up a book that lay on a corner of the big table.

It was a very old book, bound in worn, brown leather, and with the smell of an old book, mustily exciting. Opening it, she saw the faded pages and the strange, ancient printing. She looked at the title page. It was something about the siege of Rhodes, but before she had taken in what it was, a voice behind her, high and sharp with fury, said, “You damned little fool, put that book down and get out of here!”

Stella put the book down slowly. She turned. In the doorway stood Mark Verinder. There were pinpoints of rage in his light blue eyes, and his chin was pushed forward, with the heavy flesh around it mottled red and white. But his next words were spoken with his usual mildness. “Give it me, will you, my dear? It’s valuable. I oughtn’t to have left it lying around.” He held out his hand.

Stella felt as if nothing could make her touch the book again. She felt cold with shock at the tone he had used.

Mark waited an instant, then moved forward, laying a hand on her arm and pushing her gently to one side.

As he picked the book up, Stella said, “Is that the one that belongs to Sam Fortis?”

He was taking a key out of a pocket. “Sam?” he said. “Well, I got it from Sam.” He opened a drawer in the side of the big table and put the book inside. “Not that it’s all that valuable. Not a first edition.” He locked the drawer. “What’s Sam been saying about it?”

“Only that you’d got some property of his. He was worried about it when he heard about the fire.”

“Ah yes, I remember—he came to see me about it. But that wasn’t this particular volume.”

“And it was quite safe—the one he was worried about?”

“Of course it was quite safe. Why d’you want to know so badly?”

“I don’t, particularly.”

He looked at her with a suspicion that surprised her. Then he laughed. Again he laid his hand on her arm.

“I’m sorry, my dear. Please forgive me. I’m worried over one or two things, that’s why I’m being so horrid to you.” He drew her softly against him and gave her a light kiss on the forehead. Stella’s face stayed wooden. He kissed her again. “Please,” he murmured, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

She drew away from him. “We’d stopped all that, I thought,” she said.

“Oh,” he said, smiling, “don’t we even kiss?”

“Why should we?”

“It’s a nice thing to do, I think.”

“Even when you don’t in the least want to?”

“Who doesn’t want to?”

“You know you don’t want to. You’ve told me so.”

“But just a kiss, like old friends——”

“We aren’t old friends,” Stella said, shifting her eyes from his to those in the portrait, “and we never shall be, after the silly muddle we’ve made.”

“So that’s all it’s been to you, a silly muddle?”

“Oh, don’t try to sentimentalise it now,” she said. “I didn’t come for that.”

“Then precisely what did you come for?”

Turning away, Stella sat down on the arm of the blue-covered chair, while Mark, picking up a pipe, began to fill it with slow, deliberate fingers. His manner was still gentle, but his expression, more than anything else, was uninterested.

“Just why did you come, my dear?” he asked, as Stella did not continue. “I admit I was startled to find you here. You have been rather avoiding me of late.”

“It isn’t I who have been doing the avoiding,” she said. “You made it quite plain you didn’t want to see much of me any more.”

“That isn’t exactly true, is it?”

“Isn’t it?”

“I think you never did quite appreciate my point of view in the matter,” he said. “After all, you’re married, and you always made it plain to me that that was what counted most and that you loved your husband far more than you did me. Didn’t you ever think of what that must mean to me?”

Stella caught her breath. “But that isn’t true. I didn’t …I never said …”

“You didn’t say it, but that isn’t the only way of telling a person a thing, is it? And I’m not trying to blame you. I’m only reminding you that there are two sides to every question like this.”

“But, Mark——”

“I could stand just a certain amount of being the unimportant thing in your life, the thing in the background,” he said, “and then, I’m sure you’ll understand, it had to stop. I had to stop it, or heaven knows what would have happened to me.”

Bewilderment kept Stella silent. She could make no sense of it. It seemed to her that nothing that Mark was saying bore any relationship to anything that had ever happened. But Mark’s face was soberly serious, and as he patted the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe, his manner appeared to be one of tense emotion, reduced to calm by powerful self-control.

“But, Mark!”—she found her voice was shaking—“I
said
I loved you.”

He nodded gravely. “Ah yes, I know—and I know you meant it too, in your way. But you understand that an old man like me, and a young woman …Well, perhaps I’m too easily hurt, perhaps I can’t face as much in the way of humiliation as I once could, or as one ought to be able to face when one’s in love. But the fact is, I’m too old to court suffering; I admit it. But don’t blame yourself, my dear—I don’t want you to do that. I’m very much too fond of you to be able to bear the thought that you’re in any way blaming yourself on my account.”

Stella dug her fingers into the cushions of the chair.

“You’re talking the most awful nonsense,” she said.

“You know I’m not.”

“But I told you, I’ve never really loved any one but you. …”

He laughed softly. “My dear, you’re completely wrapped up in Ferdie. Any fool could see that.”

“I’m fond of Ferdie—yes, but I don’t think I’ve ever been really in love with him.”

“That’s only what you think.”

“And what else is there—besides what one thinks?”

He came over to her and put his arm for a moment round her shoulders. Then he picked up a box of matches. He chuckled.

“I’ve always been so charmed by your intelligence,” he said. “But still, you do understand——”

“I don’t understand anything,” Stella said, “except that you don’t want me, and this rigmarole is all something to do with that, but I can’t see why you should think it necessary. And I didn’t come over to talk about anything like this. I came because I wanted to talk to you about David.”

Mark Verinder lifted his eyebrows. He said, “Oh?” and some of the drama dropped out of his manner. “David? Ah yes, the person—perhaps the one person—whom you do really love. Antigone, eh?” Pulling a chair away from the table, he sat down, resting one elbow on the table and crossing one short, thick leg over the other. “Well, what do you want to tell me about that rather dangerous young man?”

Stella’s voice came out harshly. “David dangerous?”

“But naturally.”

“But you don’t mean——?”

“However,” Mark went on, “most of us are dangerous in one way or another, so don’t let us be too concerned about that. How can I help you as regards David?”

She looked at him doubtfully. “Do you want to help me?”

“But of course.”

“Can I be quite honest with you—and will you be honest with me?”

“Have we ever been anything else with each other?”

“Well then,” Stella said, “will you tell me, do you believe that David tried to murder you by setting fire to the summer-house?”

She saw his eyes narrow. Small lines deepened at their corners. She saw the movement of his cheek-muscles as he bit on the stem of his pipe. Removing it from his mouth, he looked at it contemplatively before he answered.

“Well, and if he did?” he said at last.

“Then you do think so?”

“But nothing came of it, so why worry?” He smiled.

“But, Mark, he didn’t, he can’t have.”

“But you think yourself that he did, don’t you?”