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She turned down the lavender path, moving slowly. Ursula watched her go. The hills beyond her had now darkened to a purple that was almost black and, by the blotting out of nearer forms, Flossie seemed to walk directly into these hills until, reaching the end of the path, she turned to the left and suddenly vanished.
Ursula walked round the top of the tennis court, past the front of the house, to her allotted beat between the two lawns. The path was flanked by scrubby borders of parched annuals amongst which she hunted assiduously. Cliff Johns now played noisily but she was farther away and only heard disjointed passages, strident and angry. She thought it was a Polonaise. TUM, te-tum. Te-tum-te-tum-te TUM, te-tum. Tiddlytumtum. She didn’t know how he could proclaim himself like that after what had happened. Across the lawn, on her right, Fabian, making for the kitchen garden, whistled sweetly. Between them Terence Lynne hunted along the companion path to Ursula’s. The poplar fences completely hid them from each other but every now and then they would call out: ‘Any luck?’ ‘Not so far.’ It was now almost dark. Ursula had worked her way to the bottom of her beat and turned into the connecting path that ran right along the lower end of the garden. Here she found Terence Lynne. ‘It’s no good looking along here,’ Terence had said. ‘We didn’t come here with Mrs Rubrick. We crossed the lawn to the kitchen garden.’ But Ursula reminded her that earlier in the evening while Douglas and Fabian played an after-dinner singles, the girls had come this way with Florence. ‘But I’m sure she had the clip then,’ Terence objected. ‘We should have noticed if one was missing. And in any case, I’ve looked along here. We’d better not be together. You know what she said.’ They argued in a desultory way and then Ursula returned to her beat. She saw a light flash beyond the fence on the right side of the tennis lawn and heard Douglas call out, ‘Here’s a torch, Uncle Arthur.’ It was not long after this that Arthur Rubrick found the clip in a clump of zinnias along the lavender walk.
‘He said the beam from the torch caught it and it sent out sparks of blue light. They shouted, “Got it. We’ve found it!” and we all met on the tennis lawn. I ran out to a place on the drive where you can see the shearing-shed but there was no light there so we all went indoors.’ As they did this the music in the annexe stopped abruptly.
They had trailed rather wearily into the dining-room just as the nine o’clock bulletin was beginning on the radio. Fabian had turned it off. Arthur Rubrick had sat at the table, breathing short, his face more congested than usual. Terence Lynne, without consulting him, poured out a stiff nip of whisky. This instantly reminded Ursula of Cliff’s performance on the previous night. Arthur thanked Terence in his breathless voice and pushed the diamond clip across the table to Ursula.
‘I’ll just run up with it. Auntie Floss will like to know it’s found.’
It struck her that the house was extraordinarily quiet. This impression deepened as she climbed the stairs. She stood for a moment on the top landing, listening. As in all moments of quietude, undercurrents of sound, generally unheard, became disconcertingly audible. The day had been hot and the old wooden house relaxed with stealthy sighs or sudden cracks. Flossie’s room was opposite the stairhead. Ursula, stock-still on the landing, listened intently for any movement in the room. There was none. She moved nearer to the door and stooping down could just see the printed legend. Flossie was adamant about obedience to this notice, but Ursula paused while the inane couplet which she couldn’t read jigged through her memory:
Please don’t knock upon my door,
The only answer is a snore.
Auntie Flossie, she confessed, was a formidable snorer. Indeed it was mainly on this score that Uncle Arthur, an uneasy sleeper, had removed to an adjoining room. But on this night no energetic counterpoint of intake and expulsion sounded from behind the closed door. Ursula waited in vain and a small trickle of apprehension dropped down her spine. She stole away to her own room and wrote a little note. ‘It’s found. Happy trip, darling. We’ll listen to you.’ When she came back and slid it under Flossie’s door the room beyond was still quite silent.
Ursula returned to the dining-room. She said the light dazzled her eyes after the dark landing. She stood in the doorway and peered at the group round the table, ‘It’s odd, isn’t it, how, for no particular reason, something you see will stick in your memory? I mean there was no particular significance about my going back to the dining-room. I didn’t know then. Terry stood behind Uncle Arthur’s chair. Fabian was lighting a cigarette and I remember feeling worried about him –’ Ursula paused unaccountably. ‘I thought he’d been overdoing things a bit,’ she said. ‘Douglas was sitting on the table with his back towards me. They all turned their heads as I came in. Of course they were just wondering if I’d given her the diamond clip but it seems to me now that they asked me where she was. And, really, I answered as if they had done so. I said, “She’s in her room. She’s asleep!”’
‘Did it strike you as odd that she’d made no inquiries about the clip?’ Alleyn asked.
‘Not very odd. It was her way, to organize things and then leave them, knowing they’d be done. She was rather wonderful like that. She never nagged.’
‘There’s no need to nag if you’re an efficient dictator,’ Fabian pointed out. ‘I’ll admit her efficiency.’
‘Masculine jealousy,’ said Ursula, without malice, and he grinned and said, ‘Perhaps.’
Ursula waited for a moment and then continued her narrative.
‘We were all rather quiet. I suppose we were tired. We had a drink each and then we parted for the night. We keep early hours on the plateau, Mr Alleyn. Can you face breakfast at a quarter to six?’
‘With gusto.’
‘Good. We all went quietly upstairs and said goodnight in whispers on the landing. My room is at the end of the landing and overlooks the side lawn. Terry’s is opposite Auntie Florence’s and there’s a bathroom next door to her that is opposite Uncle Arthur’s dressing-room where he was sleeping. He’d once had a bad attack in the night and Auntie always left the communicating door open so that he could call to her. He remembered afterwards that this door was shut and that he’d opened it a crack and listened, thinking, as I had thought, how still she was. The boys’ rooms are down the corridor and the servants’ quarters at the back. When I came out in my dressing-gown to go to the bathroom, I met Terry. We could hear Uncle Arthur moving about quietly in his room. I glanced down the corridor and saw Douglas there and, farther along, Fabian in the door of his room. We all had candles, of course. We didn’t speak. It seemed to me that we were all listening. We’ve agreed, since, that we felt not exactly uneasy but not quite comfortable. Restless. I didn’t go to sleep for some time, and when I did it was to dream that I was searching in rather terrifying places for the diamond clip. It was somewhere in the wool-shed but I couldn’t find it because the party had started and Auntie Florence was making a speech on the edge of a precipice. I was late for an appointment and hunted in that horribly thwarted way one does in nightmares. I wouldn’t have bored you with my dream if it hadn’t turned into the dark staircase with me feeling on the treads for the brooch. The stairs creaked like they do at night, but I knew somebody was crossing the landing and I was terrified and woke up. The point is,’ said Ursula, leaning forward and looking directly at Alleyn, ‘somebody really was crossing the landing.’
The others stirred. Fabian reached over to the wood box and flung a log on the fire. Douglas muttered impatiently. Terence Lynne put down her knitting and folded her elegant hands together in her lap.
‘In what direction?’ Alleyn asked.
‘I’m not sure. You know how it is. Dream and waking overlap, and by the time you are really alert the sound that came into your dream and woke you has stopped. I simply know that it was real.’
‘Mrs Duck returning from the party,’ said Terence.
‘But it was three o’clock, Terry. I heard the grandfather strike about five minutes later and Duckie says they got back at a quarter to two.’
‘They’d hung about, cackling,’ said Douglas.
‘For an hour and a quarter? And, anyway, Duckie would come up the back stair. I don’t suppose it amounts to anything, Mr Alleyn, because we know now that – that it hadn’t – that it happened away from the house. It must have. But I don’t care what any one says,’ Ursula said, lifting her chin, ‘somebody was about on the landing at five minutes to three that morning.’
‘And we don’t know definitely and positively,’ said Fabian, ‘that it wasn’t Flossie herself.’
CHAPTER THREE ACCORDING TO DOUGLAS GRACE (#ulink_7fc8deb9-bfe9-5e53-8913-8315d1af05b5)
I
Fabian’s suggestion raised a storm of protest. The two girls and Douglas Grace began at once to combat it. It seemed to Alleyn that they thrust it from them as an idea that shocked and horrified their emotions rather than offended their reason. In the blaze of firelight that sprang from the fresh log he saw Terence Lynne’s hands weave together.
She said sharply, ‘That’s a beastly thing to suggest, Fabian.’
Alleyn saw Douglas Grace slide his arm along the sofa behind Terence. ‘I agree,’ Douglas said. ‘Not only beastly but idiotic. Why in God’s name should Flossie stay out until three in the morning, return to her room, go out again and get murdered?’
‘I didn’t say it was likely. I said it wasn’t impossible. We can’t prove it wasn’t Flossie.’
‘But what possible reason –’
‘A rendezvous?’ Fabian suggested, and looked out of the corner of his eyes at Terence.
‘I consider that’s a remark in abominable taste, Fab,’ said Ursula.
‘Do you, Ursy? I’m sorry. Must we never laugh a little at people after they are dead? But I’m very sorry. Let’s go back to our story.’
‘I’ve finished,’ said Ursula shortly and there was an uncomfortable silence.
‘As far as we’re concerned,’ said Douglas at last, ‘that’s the end of the story. Ursula went into Aunt Floss’s room the next morning to do it out, and she noticed nothing wrong. The bed was made but that meant nothing because we all do our own beds and Ursy simply thought Flossie had tidied up before she left.’
‘But it was odd all the same,’ said Terence. ‘Mrs Rubrick’s sheets were always taken off when she went away and the bed made up again the day she returned. She always left it unmade, for that reason.’
‘It didn’t strike me at the time,’ said Ursula. ‘I ran the carpet sweeper over the floor and dusted and came away. It was all very tidy. She was a tremendously orderly person.’
‘There was another thing that didn’t strike you, Ursula,’ said Terence Lynne. ‘You may remember that you took the carpet sweeper from me and that I came for it when you’d finished. It wanted emptying and I took it down to the rubbish bin. I noticed there was something twisted round one of the axles, between the wheel and the box. I unwound it.’ Terence paused, looking at her hands. ‘It was a lock of wool,’ she said tranquilly. ‘Natural wool, I mean, from the fleece.’
‘You never told us that,’ said Fabian sharply.
‘I told the detective. He didn’t seem to think it important. He said that was the sort of thing you’d expect to find in the house at shearing-time. He was a town-bred man.’
‘It might have been there for ages, Terry,’ said Ursula.
‘Oh, no. It wasn’t there when you borrowed the sweeper from me. I’m very observant of details,’ said Terence, ‘and I know. And if Mrs Rubrick had seen it she’d have picked it up. She hated bits on the carpet. She had a “thing” about them and always picked them up. I’ll swear it wasn’t there when she was in the room.’
‘How big was it?’ Fabian demanded.
‘Quite small. Not a lock, really. Just a twist.’
‘A teeny-weeny twist,’ said Ursula in a ridiculous voice, suddenly gay again. She had a chancy way with her, one moment nervously intent on her memories, the next full of mockery.
‘I suppose,’ said Alleyn, ‘one might pick up a bit of wool in the shed and, being greasy, it might hang about on one’s clothes?’
‘It might,’ said Fabian lightly.
‘And being greasy,’ Douglas added, ‘it might also hang about in one’s room.’
‘Not in Auntie Floss’s room,’ Ursula said. ‘I always did her room, Douglas, you shan’t dare to say I left greasy wool lying squalidly about for days on the carpet. Pig!’ she mocked at him.
He turned his head lazily and looked at her. Alleyn saw his arm slip down the back of the sofa to Terence Lynne’s shoulders. Ursula laughed and pulled a face at him. ‘It’s all nonsense,’ she said, ‘this talk of locks of wool. Moonshine!’
‘Personally,’ said Terence Lynne, ‘I can’t think it very amusing. For me, and I’d have thought for all of us, the idea of sheep’s wool in her room that morning is perfectly horrible.’
‘You’re hateful, Terry,’ Ursula flashed at her. ‘It’s bad enough to have to talk about it. I mind more than any of you. You all know that. It’s because I mind so much that I can’t be too solemn. You know I’m the only one of us that loved her. You’re cold as ice, Terry, and I hate you.’
‘Now then, Ursy,’ Fabian protested. He knelt up and put his hands over hers. ‘Behave!’ he said. ‘Be your age, woman. You astonish me.’
‘She was a darling, and I loved her. If it hadn’t been for her –’
‘All right, all right.’
‘You would never even have seen me if it hadn’t been for her.’
‘Who was it,’ Fabian murmured, ‘who held the grapes above Tantalus’s lips? Could it have been Aunt Florence?’
‘All the same,’ said Ursula with that curious air, half-rueful, half-obstinate, that seemed to characterize her relationship with Fabian, ‘you’re beastly to me. I’m sorry, Terry.’
‘May we go on?’ asked Douglas.
Alleyn, in his chair beyond the firelight, stirred slightly and at once they were attentive and still.
‘Captain Grace,’ Alleyn said, ‘during the hunt for the diamond brooch, you went up to the house for a torch, didn’t you?’
‘For two torches, sir. I gave one to Uncle Arthur.’
‘Did you see any one in the house?’
‘No. There was only Markins. Markins says he was in his room. There’s no proof of that. The torches are kept on the hall table. The telephone rang while I was there and I answered it. But that only took a few seconds. Somebody wanting to know if Aunt Florence was going north in the morning.’
‘From the terrace in front of the house you look down on the fenced paths, don’t you? Could you see the other searchers from there?’
‘Not Uncle Arthur or Fabian, but I could just see the two girls. It was almost dark. I went straight to my uncle with the torch, he was there all right.’
‘Were you with him when he found the brooch?’
‘No. I simply gave him the torch and returned to my own beat with mine. I heard him call out a few moments later. He left the brooch where it was for me to see. It looked like a cluster of blue and red sparks in the torchlight. It was half-hidden by zinnia leaves. He said he’d looked there before. It wasn’t too good for him to stoop much and his sight wasn’t so marvellous. I supposed he’d just missed it.’
‘Did you go into the end path, the one that runs parallel with the others and links them?’
‘No. He did.’
‘Mr Rubrick?’
‘Yes. Earlier. Just as I was going to the house and before you went down there, Ursy, and talked to Terry.’
‘Then you and Mr Rubrick must have been there together, Miss Lynne,’ said Alleyn.
‘No,’ said Terence Lynne quickly.
‘I understood Miss Harme to say that when she met you in the bottom path you told her you had been searching there.’
‘I looked about there for a moment. I don’t remember seeing Mr Rubrick. I wasn’t with him.’
‘But –’ Douglas broke off. ‘I suppose I made a mistake,’ he said. ‘I had it in my head that as I was going up to the house for the torches he came out of the lavender walk into my path and then moved on into the bottom path. And then I had the impression that as I returned with the torches he came back from the bottom path. It was just then that I heard you two arguing about whether you’d stop in the bottom path or not. You were there then.’
‘I may have seen him,’ said Terence. ‘I was only there a short time. I don’t remember positively, but we didn’t speak – I mean we were not together. It was getting dark.’
‘Well, but Terry,’ said Ursula, ‘when I went into the bottom path you came towards me from the far end, the end nearest the lavender walk. If he was there at all, it would have been at that end.’
‘I don’t remember, Ursula. If he was there we didn’t speak and I’ve simply forgotten.’
‘Perhaps I was mistaken,’ said Douglas uncertainly. ‘But it doesn’t matter much, does it? Arthur was somewhere down there and so were both of you. I don’t mind admitting that the gentleman whose movements that evening I’ve always been anxious to trace, is our friend Mr Markins.’
‘And away we go,’ said Fabian cheerfully. ‘We’re on your territory now, sir.’
‘Good,’ said Alleyn; ‘what about Markins, Captain Grace? Let’s have it.’
‘It goes back some way,’ said Douglas. ‘It goes back, to be exact, to the last wool sale held in this country, which was early in 1939.’
II
‘– So Aunt Floss jockeyed poor old Arthur into scraping acquaintance with this Jap. Kurata Kan his name was. They brought him up here for the weekend. I’ve heard that he took a great interest in everything, grinning like a monkey and asking questions. He’d got a wizard of a camera, a German one, and told them photography was his hobby. Landscape mostly, he said, but he liked doing groups of objects too. He took a photograph in the Pass. He was keen on flying. Uncle Arthur told me he must have spent a whole heap of money on private trips while he was here, taking his camera with him. He bought photographs too, particularly infra-red aerial affairs. He got the names of the photographers from the newspaper offices. We found that out afterwards, though apparently he didn’t make any secret of it at the time. It seems he was bloody quaint in his ways and talked like something out of the movies. Flossie fell for it like an avalanche. “My dear little Mr Kan.” She was frightfully bucked because he gave top price for her wool clip. The Japs always bought second-rate stuff and anyway it’s very unusual for merino wool to fetch top price. I consider the whole thing was damn fishy. When she went to England they kept up a correspondence. Flossie had always said the Japs would weigh in on our side when war came. “My Mr Kan tells me all sorts of things.” By God, there’s this to say for the totalitarian countries, they wouldn’t have had gentlemen like Mr Kurata Kan hanging about for long. I’ll hand that to them. They know how to keep the rats out of their houses.’ Douglas laughed shortly.
‘But not the bats out of their belfries,’ said Fabian. ‘Please don’t deviate into herrenvolk-lore, Douglas.’
‘This Kan lived for half the year in Australia,’ Douglas continued. ‘Remember that. Flossie got back here in ’40, bringing Ursy and Fabian with her. Before she went Home she used to run this place on a cook and two housemaids, but the maids had gone and this time she couldn’t raise the sight of a help. Mrs Duck was looking after Uncle Arthur singlehanded. She said she couldn’t carry on like that. Ursy did what she could but she wasn’t used to housework, and anyway it didn’t suit Flossie.’
‘Ursy seemed to me to wield a very pretty mop,’ said Fabian.
‘Of course she did, but it was damned hard work scrubbing and so on, and Auntie Floss knew it.’
‘I didn’t mind,’ said Ursula.
‘Anyway, when I got back after Greece, I found the marvellous Markins running the show. And where d’you think he’d blown in from? From Sydney, with a letter from Mr Kurata Kan. Can you beat that?’
‘A reference, do you mean?’
‘Yes. He hadn’t actually been with these precious Kans. He says he was valet to an English artillery officer who’d picked him up in America. He says he was friendly with the Kans’ servants. He says that when his employer left Australia he applied to Kan for a job. But the Kans were winging their way to Japan. Markins said he’d like to try his luck in New Zealand and Kan remembered Flossie moaning about the servant problem in this country. Hence, the letter. That’s Kan’s story. The whole thing looks damned fishy to me. Markins, an efficient, well-trained servant, could have taken a job anywhere. Beyond the fact that he was born British but has an American passport we know nothing about him. He gave the name of his American employers but doesn’t know their present address.’
‘I think I should tell you,’ said Alleyn, ‘that the American employers have been traced for us and verify the story.’
This produced an impression. Fabian said, ‘Not Understood, or The Modest Detective! I take back some of my remarks about him. Only some,’ he added. ‘I still maintain that, taking him by and large, our Mr Jackson is almost certifiable.’
‘It makes no difference,’ Douglas said. ‘It proves nothing. My case rests on pretty firm ground, as I think you’ll agree, sir, when you’ve heard it.’
