Through The Wall (19 page)

Ina Felton came slowly to her bedroom door and turned back the key. She had to see Cyril, because she must tell him that she knew, and that he must go away and never come back. She wouldn’t tell the police or anybody else, but she must tell Cyril, and he must go away. And then it wouldn’t be he who would be in prison, but herself—shut away from everyone with what she knew and couldn’t tell. She couldn’t tell anyone, not even Marian, only Cyril, so that he would go away and never come back.

She drew aside from the opening door and saw him come in and lock it behind him. Even in the midst of her wretchedness that frightened her. She backed away from him till she came up against the foot of the bed. It was a wide, old-fashioned bed with brass knobs upon the footrail, a big one at each corner and little ones in between. She took hold of the big knob at the side nearest the window and edged round the corner until she could sit down on the side of the bed. She had to sit because her knees were shaking so.

Cyril sat too. There was a comfortable chair over by the window, and he flung himself into it. For once he really wasn’t thinking about acting, but he was so used to the gestures of the stage that they came unbidden. He groaned, ran a hand through his hair, and said,

“They think I killed her.”

Ina felt nothing at all. She had said it to herself so often that it didn’t seem possible to have any more feeling about it. She had used it all up, there wasn’t any left. She held on to the brass ball at the corner of the bed and said,

“Didn’t you?”

“Ina!”

Virtuous indignation rang in his voice. He had started forward in his chair, a hand on either arm, his eyes wide with fear and reproach.

A breath of surprise just ruffled the surface of her misery. She said,

“You did, didn’t you?” And then, “I saw you.”

“Ina—are you mad?”

She shook her head.

“I saw you.”

“You couldn’t possibly have seen me. What did you think you saw?”

It was a relief to speak. She said in a gentle, toneless voice,

“I couldn’t sleep on Thursday night, I haven’t been sleeping—very much. I heard the board creak when you came out of your room. I got up, because I was afraid you were coming here. But you went downstairs. I looked over into the hall. You went along the passage and opened the door from the other house and let Helen Adrian through.”

“Ina!”

“You took down Marian’s raincoat, and she put it on. The scarf fell on the floor. You had a torch—it showed the colours. You oughtn’t to have let her take Marian’s scarf—” Her voice just petered out.

He was leaning forward, his face ghastly, his eyes fixed on her.

“You don’t understand. I had to see her alone. They say I was blackmailing her. What damned nonsense! We’d been friends for ages, and all I wanted was something to tide me over. She was going to marry Fred Mount, wasn’t she? Fifty pounds wasn’t going to mean anything to her—nothing at all. And Fred wouldn’t have married her if he had known she was having an affair with Felix. Why, fifty pounds was dirt cheap, if you ask me. And she had the nerve to offer me ten!”

Ina said in that gentle voice,

“You were blackmailing her?”

He made an exasperated movement.

“Oh, call it anything you like! You and Marian seem to think one can live without money. Mount is simply rolling. What’s fifty pounds? She’d never have missed it. But I had to see her alone. Felix never took his eyes off her, so we fixed it up at the picnic. I was to let her through, and we could thresh things out. Mind you, she simply had to come to terms, because Mount wouldn’t have stood for the way she’d been carrying on, and she knew it. I’d got her cold. I’ll say that for Helen, she could see reason. She knew she was up against it. I’d have got my fifty pounds all right. But I had to see her—we had to talk. And as soon as I let her through I knew it wasn’t going to be safe in the house. There was all that about you not sleeping, and the devil of a fuss if you had come down and found us together in the middle of the night.” He gave an angry laugh. “You’d have been pleased, wouldn’t you!”

She said without any expression at all,

“I did come down and find you together.”

“Nothing to be jealous about—you can take my word for that.”

A physical sickness rose in Ina. Her hand still clung to the brass knob. The cold of the metal numbed her palm. She could feel the chill of it right up to her shoulder and down all that side of her body. She said,

“Go on.”

“Well, I had a brainwave. I said, ‘Look here, let’s go down on to the beach. Ina’s not been sleeping—you don’t want to start another scandal.’ I made her take Marian’s raincoat and tie the scarf over her hair, just in case of anyone looking out of a window—that light hair shows up so, and I wasn’t sure if there was going to be a moon—and we went out through the study and down as far as the bottom terrace.”

“I saw you.”

He shook his head reprovingly.

“Well, you shouldn’t have been spying. There wasn’t anything for you to mind, and it simply wasn’t your business.”

“I wasn’t spying. I went back to my room. You had a torch. You put it on when you came to the steps going down from the lawn. She had Marian’s scarf on over her head. The light shone on it as she went down the steps. I saw the colours. You oughtn’t to have let her take Marian’s scarf.”

“What rubbish! It just shows what a sensible precaution it was. We had to have the torch for those steps—we didn’t want to break a leg in the dark. As it was, I missed a step. I expect that was when the torch threw high and you saw the scarf. Well, if anyone else had been looking out of a window they would have seen Helen’s fair hair—if I hadn’t thought about covering it up, I mean. Marian’s scarf indeed!” He gave that angry laugh again. “Really, Ina, you do think of the most idiotic things to say!”

She said, “Go on.”

“Well, you keep interrupting. There’s a seat on the terrace there, so we sat down. It was warm, and she took off the coat—there wasn’t anyone to see us. We talked, and she was frightfully unreasonable—I mean frightfully. She actually threatened to go to the police. She didn’t mean it of course. I just laughed at her. ‘All right,’ I said—‘if that’s the way you want it. Let’s have a showdown, and everything in the papers, and see what Fred Mount has to say about it.’ Well, there was a bit of a scene and some hard words flying. Didn’t hurt me—I knew she was just getting it off her chest. So I let her say her piece, and when she finished up with, ‘Ten pounds is my last word, and you can take it or leave it,’ I said, ‘Nothing doing,’ and I came along up to the house.”

Ina said,

“You killed her.”

Cyril produced a look of angry innocence.

“I did nothing of the kind! Why on earth should I? I was going to travel up to town with her next day, and if she didn’t come across with the fifty pounds, I was going to see Mount. More in sorrow than in anger, you know. Thought he ought to be told what was going on behind his back—all that sort of thing. I can do it quite well. Of course I didn’t kill her. I just left her there and came in. I knew she’d see reason when she’d had time to think things over, so I came away and left her to it.”

Ina’s eyes were fixed upon him—dark, hopeless eyes.

“Someone brought the scarf in after she was killed.”

“Well, it wasn’t me. I came in, and I went to bed and I went to sleep, and I didn’t know she’d been killed until the morning.”

She sat there in silence for a minute. There was a little more life in her voice when she said,

“Who shut the study door?”

He looked sulky.

“I left it open for her to come in that way.”

Ina said, “It was shut in the morning. And the scarf was hanging in the passage. How did it get there?”

“I don’t know.” His tone was impatient. “Stop thinking about it!”

“I can’t. It goes round and round in my head. The door into the other house was shut too. The bolts were fastened. Who fastened them?”

He said easily, “Oh, I did that. As soon as it was light I woke up, and I thought about the doors. I left them open for her to come through, and of course I thought she had, so I just went down and shut them.”

“You shut both the doors?”

“I’m telling you I did.”

She said, “The scarf—was it there when you bolted the door?”

“I don’t know—I didn’t notice. Don’t you understand? It was dark in the passage. It was only just getting light outside. I wasn’t thinking about scarves. I just wanted to bolt the door and get back to bed again.”

The fear which had been holding her in a cold, rigid grip relaxed. When she breathed her lungs opened to take in the air. She could draw it right down, instead of feeling that everything had gone stiff and tight.

The relief must have been gradual, but suddenly she was aware of it. She didn’t know just when or how she began to believe that it was not Cyril who had killed Helen Adrian, but she did believe it. The unendurable burden which she had carried since Friday morning was lifted. He wasn’t any of the things which she had once thought him. All the borrowed garments of romance had fallen away. He was mean, selfish, and lazy. He didn’t love her, and had probably never been faithful to her. He didn’t love anyone but Cyril Felton. He would sponge on her and on Marian, grumble at what they gave him, and come back for more. He was a blackmailer, and he wasn’t even ashamed of it. But he hadn’t killed Helen Adrian. She could see him quite clearly and know just how worthless he was, but the deep, dreadful shuddering at his presence was gone.

She leaned forward and said in almost a surprised tone,

“You didn’t kill her—”

Cyril threw up his head and laughed.

“Only just tumbled to that? Of course I didn’t, but I know who did.”

Every moment of that long fine afternoon was to come under the microscope. Everyone in the two houses would be asked, “Where were you between the hours of three and five? Were you alone? Who was with you? How long were you together? If you were out, when did you return to the house?”

At three o’clock Cyril Felton was still talking to his wife. Eliza Cotton had stepped out into the garden to look for Mactavish, and the sound of their voices reached her from Ina Felton’s bedroom. The window was open, and she heard Cyril Felton say, “Don’t be a fool! It’s nothing.” And she heard Ina answer, “No, no, I won’t. It’s no use your wanting me to, because I won’t.” Eliza called out to Mactavish, and the voices stopped. She thought to herself, “Just as well they should know someone can hear them,” and after standing for a few minutes at the top of the steps going down to the next terrace and seeing no sign of Mactavish she went back into the house. Later she had a bath.

Felix and Penny were up on the cliffs. They had found a place where there was a wide grassy ledge sheltered from the wind. Felix lay full length on the grass, his forehead on his crossed arms, his face hidden. The sun was warm on his back. His mind was as nearly as possible blank. He had feelings, but not thoughts. He felt as a man feels who has had a long illness and knows that the tide has turned, and that he is going to get well. He felt as if he had had a feverish dream and was waking from it. Consciousness was swept clean. He felt the sun, and a light air that came and went.

The new grass smelt sweet where his arms were bruising it. The tide was going out. There was no sound from the sea. Helen Adrian was a long time ago—a long, long time ago. When he began to think again he would know that she was dead. He hadn’t begun to think—he only felt. He had no feelings about Helen Adrian.

Penny was sitting beside him. The wall of the cliff rose between six and ten feet at the back of their ledge, following a broken line. She sat leaning against the wall with her hands locked about her knees. Felix was so close to her that she would have touched him if she moved. But she didn’t move. She had sat like that, quite still, for nearly an hour, looking out over the sea and saying the kind of prayers which haven’t any words. The nearest that they came to it were the old familiar ones which have come down through so many generations. She would never be able to hear them again without feeling just this quivering ecstasy of the heart. “This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”

She did not speak, and Felix did not speak. The sun shone on them. The light air moved. The tide went down.

Miss Silver was in the study with the Chief Constable until a little before half past three, when he bade her an affectionate farewell and went home to participate in a tea-party arranged by his wife. At the time that she went through the hall with him and let him out there was no sound anywhere in all the house. She locked the front door after him and returned to the study. After which she may or may not have closed hçr eyes and drifted into a light nap. The room was warm, the sofa corner comfortable. It is certain that she was not knitting when Eliza came in with the tea-tray at a few minutes before five. Derek’s stocking, with only an inch or two to go, lay coiled on her lap with the needles sticking up brightly like pins on a pin-cushion. Miss Silver’s hands rested upon the grey wool. Miss Silver’s eyes were closed. It may have been only for the moment, because at the sound of Eliza’s voice they were immediately opened.

“Just on five o’clock, and those that don’t come back to tea will have to go without, so I’ll give a knock on Mrs. Felton’s door and see if I can’t get her to come down.”

“Is Miss Brand not in?”

Eliza opened her mouth to say, “No,” and shut it again, because at just that moment she saw Marian Brand crossing the lawn with Richard Cunningham beside her. The clock struck five as they came up the two shallow steps into the study.

Marian said, “I’m so dreadfully sorry we’re late. We’ve been down on the beach, and I went to sleep, and Richard went for a walk. And we found Mactavish catching sand-hoppers as we came up.”

Eliza said gloomily, “He does,” and went up to knock on Ina Felton’s door.

In the house on the other side of the wall a Sabbath afternoon quiet had set in with the departure of the Chief Constable and Inspector Crisp. Neither of the two dailies came on Sunday. Mrs. Woolley cooked a meal and left it ready, and they could have it cold, or they could heat it themselves. She didn’t mind working double time on Saturday morning, but she wasn’t working on Saturday afternoon nor Sunday, not to please anyone—they could do for themselves. It was a cause of deep resentment to Florence Brand, even though it was Penny who did the Sunday work. Cassy Remington helped occasionally—if you could call it helping to fidget to and fro and criticize what somebody else was doing. But Florence never put a hand to anything. By three o’clock on Sunday afternoon she had two cushions at her back and her feet up on a footstool in the sitting-room which she shared with her sister. There was always a book on her lap, but it was very seldom opened. It was always a very dull book. On this particular afternoon it was Some Chapters of my Life by A Wessex Parson. At five o’clock Mrs. Brand, the footstool, and the Wessex Parson occupied the same respective positions which they had done at three.

Miss Remington’s Sunday afternoon programme was different from her sister’s, but just as immutable. She always made herself a large strong cup of coffee, which she took up to her bedroom. When she had drunk it she ate a chocolate and occupied herself in going through her clothes, experimenting with face-creams, powders, and even, very tentatively, with lipstick. She had never felt sure enough about the lipstick to be seen wearing it outside her own room. She did not like the feeling or the taste of it, but its possibilities fascinated her. At some period she generally removed her Sunday dress, put on a dressing-gown, and lay down upon her bed. At five o’clock on this particular Sunday afternoon she was fastening her brooch and slipping her amethyst chain over her head. They did not have tea until five o’clock on Sunday, a habit formed so long ago that no one now remembered that when Mrs. Martin Brand taught a Sunday afternoon class in Farne this hour had been fixed in order that she might get home in time to pour out tea.

Miss Cassy, looking at herself in the glass with her head a little on one side, hoped that Penny had remembered to come home and put the kettle on. She was apt to be sadly forgetful when her mind was taken up with Felix. Really the way she ran after him was quite ridiculous. Girls nowadays simply didn’t care what anything looked like—no proper pride, no self-restraint. Felix would think more of her if she were not always at his beck and call.

She went downstairs, and met Penny coming through from the kitchen with the tea-tray. They were having tea in the parlour—they always had it there on Sunday. As Cassy Remington opened the door and Penny and the tray went in, Florence Brand sat up with a jerk and the Wessex Parson fell off her lap.

Cassy said, “Where’s Felix?” and Penny answered her.

“He said he didn’t want any tea. It’s lovely up on the cliff. I said I’d go back.”

It was at this moment that Eliza Cotton came out of the study on the other side of the house and went up the stair to knock on Ina Felton’s door. There was a little pause before the key turned in the lock, long enough to give Eliza time to disapprove. She didn’t hold with people locking themselves into their bedrooms, and she considered that Mrs. Felton did ought to rouse herself and go out with her sister and Mr. Cunningham. And not their fault if she didn’t, because she had heard them ask her. All the same, when Ina opened the door Eliza thought she was looking better—not what you would call hearty, but less like something that had been kept too long on ice. She said, “Oh, thank you, Eliza,” in quite a human voice, and they went back down the stairs together.

It was Miss Silver who enquired after Cyril Felton. Ina was stretching out her hand to take the cup of tea which Marian had just poured out for her. She stopped like that to look at Miss Silver.

“He said he was going to lie down in his room. He had a headache. He was up very late last night. He said he wanted a good sleep.”

Marian said, “He might like some tea. Richard, perhaps you wouldn’t mind seeing if he is awake. It’s the little room on the left of the front door as you come in.”

He said, “Of course,” put down his cup, and went out.

There was some talk between Miss Silver and Marian about Eliza’s tea-cake and Eliza’s superlative raspberry jam.

“Such a light hand. You may have the best recipe and the best materials, but there is a lightness of touch which, I believe, cannot be taught. My housekeeper, Hannah Meadows, has it, and I feel I am indeed fortunate. So much good food is wasted by bad cooking.”

Richard Cunningham opened the door and stood there.

“Miss Silver, someone wants to speak to you for a moment. Could you come?”

But when she reached the hall and the door was shut again he drew her away from it and said,

“I’m afraid I’m the person who wants to speak to you. Can you stand a shock?”

“What has happened?”

“Someone has stuck a knife into Cyril Felton. He’s dead.”