Death Comes to Cambers (32 page)

‘I didn't see it was up to me to say anything about what I didn't know,' Farman protested. ‘I had nothing against Sir Albert, and it was him I had to look to to keep me on or give me a good reference if he was giving up the place. You don't know what it's like these days looking for a new place at my time of life, especial if...'

He paused, and Bobby guessed that what was in his mind was a fear that the old blot on his character – the term he had once served in prison – might be brought up against him. Probably that was the perpetual terror of his life, but Bobby saw no reason to refer to it at present, and waited patiently, as if he had no idea of what that ‘especial' meant – though it helped to explain why Farman had jumped so quickly at the chance of keeping Sir Albert's secret, and so establishing a hold upon him. Farman went on: ‘I reckoned if I stood by him, then he would stand by me. You aren't going to bring up those cigars against me, are you? If that gets out, it'll be all up with me getting another place. You wouldn't believe how particular people are about your character when applying – it's my belief,' said Farman bitterly, ‘the Archbishop of Canterbury wouldn't stand a chance of placing himself if he had to show a character like us – archangels from Heaven is expected, seemingly, for thirty bob a week, all found.'

‘Sounds cheap for an archangel,' Bobby admitted.

‘If it comes out public about those cigars, I'm done in,' declared Farman.

‘Sir Albert knows already,' Bobby pointed out. ‘It depends on him. If I were you, I should get some others and put them in the box to make up the right number. That might smooth Sir Albert down a bit, perhaps.'

‘Yes, but,' Farman said, though brightening a little, ‘I can't get them except buying them, and they cost four bob each by themselves.'

‘People with a taste for expensive cigars have got to pay for it,' retorted Bobby callously, and Farman looked gloomy again as he reflected on the hard path that, at any rate at times, the transgressor is forced to tread. Bobby went on: ‘Miss Emmers is still here?'

‘Yes. She's been down to the village for something. She's just come back,' Farman answered distrustfully, by no means sure this new question did not herald some fresh bombshell about to explode under his feet.

‘I should like a few moments' talk with her, if she can spare the time,' Bobby said. ‘Could you find her for me, and let us have the library to ourselves for a quarter of an hour or so?'

‘Certainly, certainly,' Farman said, and went off in a hurry, very relieved to escape from Bobby's vicinity. ‘Two at four bob each,' he muttered to himself, as he hurried to find Amy. ‘That makes eight bob – eight bob, and two-penn'orth of shag would have done me just as well; more flavour, too – more bite.'

He shook his head in genuine self-reproach, and then found Amy, who, receiving his message without comment or visible emotion, took her quiet way at once to the library, without even stopping to remove her outdoor things.

She entered very quietly, her manner aloof as ever, and, without speaking, paused by the table, waiting for Bobby to speak. He looked up at her, and again found himself wondering what this cold restraint of hers might hide – whether there was inner fire or whether it was ice all through. He hoped she would speak first, and waited, but she stood silently, a little as though she had forgotten, or was unaware of, his presence, or else found it entirely negligible.

‘Won't you sit down?' Bobby said at last.

She turned her gaze upon him then, thoughtfully, as if considering either him or his suggestion with a wholly detached interest – or lack of it. But somehow he became aware of an impression that she considered his invitation slightly presumptuous. It was as if she had conveyed to him a reminder that this was not his room or his house, that he had not even the permission of the owner, but only of a servant, to be there. He found himself flushing slightly, and it was almost as if to defend himself that he said: ‘I am an officer of police.' And then: ‘Your mistress has been murdered. Brutally murdered. Murder is a dreadful...'

She interrupted him then.

‘Is that what you wanted to say to me?' she asked, and quiet as was her voice, and few and simple her words, he knew now that it was fire hidden beneath the surface of her icy restraint – fire of the fiercest. Somehow, too, she made him feel that those banal words of his merely mocked the truth – that murder was a thing to darken the sun at noon and rend the firmament itself.

‘Well,' he muttered, ‘now, then, it gets like routine with us, just a problem to be solved, the day's work.'

She had an air of listening to his excuse, of considering it, of dismissing it as worthless. He told himself it was unfair, and that he, a sergeant of the Metropolitan Police, wasn't going to be browbeaten and intimidated by any girl with a gift for silence and immobility. He said, a little more loudly and harshly than was his custom: ‘Why were you and Mr. Sterling communicating by cipher advertisement in the
Announcer
agony-column?'

‘Because,' she answered, without a trace of emotion or surprise, or even hesitation, ‘it was our right to communicate, and if he had written to me here, or at home, his handwriting would have been recognized.'

‘How do you mean, it was your right to communicate?'

‘He is my husband. We were married three weeks ago.' Bobby gave a little jump, for this was something he had not expected.

‘Oh,' he said, trying to consider the implications of this fresh piece of information. ‘Did Lady Cambers know?' he asked.

‘No.'

‘It was kept secret from her?'

‘Yes. She would have been very angry. It was not what she wanted. She liked people to do as she wished.'

‘Her anger might have had uncomfortable results,' Bobby suggested. ‘She had lent money to Mr. Sterling. Eddy Dene depended on her help.'

‘That is so,' she agreed gravely.

‘Did anyone know of your marriage?'

‘Eddy knew.'

‘Not his parents?'

‘No. Eddy was very anxious they shouldn't know just yet. He wanted to bring them round to the idea by degrees.'

‘Lady Cambers didn't suspect anything?'

‘Yes. I felt she did. I wrote and told my husband. He replied by a message in cipher in the
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. Lady Cambers saw it. She showed it me. She was very angry. She tore the paper in half nearly. Afterwards she got quieter. I don't think she had any idea we were married; she thought we were friendly, and making appointments with each other. She calmed down, and said Eddy and I must marry at once.'

‘What did you say?'

‘Nothing. I thought I would wait till Sunday and I could ask Mr. Sterling what he thought we ought to do.'

‘Did Lady Cambers read the cipher?'

‘No, she tried, but couldn't. But she saw it was signed “Mit”, and that that was “Tim”, spelt backwards. And she guessed the four “M's” at the beginning meant me. She tried to make me tell her what it meant and how to read it, and I wouldn't. It was quite simple, really.'

‘The key was a quotation from Scott's “Lay of the Last Minstrel”, wasn't it?' Bobby asked, and quoted:

He went on: ‘What was done was to jumble all the words together – those of the quotation and those of the message – so it looked like a lot of gibberish. But when you struck out the words of the quotation, those making up the message were left. Original dodge, as far as I know. Only he chose rather a well-known passage – as soon as I read the thing I thought there was some sort of literary flavour about it, though it took me a long time to spot what it was.'

Amy was not listening. Abruptly, and even a little fiercely, she turned on him, almost as if giving him her full attention for the first time.

‘Is it true what they are saying in the village,' she demanded, ‘that someone has told he saw Sir Albert kill Lady Cambers – that he was watching while it happened and saw it all?'

‘Oh, has that got about already?' Bobby asked, slightly disconcerted.

‘Everything gets about in Cambers,' she answered, not with any contempt or condemnation, both of which, indeed, were alien to her, but simply as mentioning a recognized fact. She added, after a long pause: ‘It doesn't seem possible; it's like a sheep turning into a wolf.'

Bobby, watching her closely, felt that for once her imperturbable reserve was shaken. For the first time it seemed to him that, in their duel of wills, he had her at a disadvantage; he felt as the bowler feels in cricket when he senses a hesitation, an indecision, in the batsman's play. But he had no idea how to continue, how to take advantage of this weakness – if weakness indeed it were. Only, he felt he must not let the moment pass, and he understood that already she was once more wrapping herself in her cloak of silence and reserve that for the moment she had seemed inclined to let fall. He realized he must go on questioning her, even at random.

‘Mr. Sterling kept his appointment on Sunday?' he asked.

But when she answered, it was her own train of thought she followed: ‘How could a sheep turn into a wolf?' she asked.

‘The most unexpected people do the most unexpected things,' he reminded her. ‘We see that often in our work. A man holds the ape or the tiger by the ears, and no one dreams it's there, till one day his grip loosens and it takes full control.' He went on: ‘It is the private detective Sir Albert himself employed to watch Lady Cambers who says he saw what happened.' Bobby's voice took on a very hurt official tone. Moulland had evidently been talking. Most irregular to have let the contents of Jones's statement leak out in this casual fashion. ‘Nothing ought to have been said about it just yet,' he insisted; and then repeated his question: ‘Did Mr. Sterling keep the appointment on Sunday?'

‘Yes.'

‘He rode down on his motor-cycle, didn't he? What time did he arrive?'

‘I don't know exactly. He waited in the rhododendron – bush till I turned up the light in my room. That was the signal to let him know I was ready. It was twelve o'clock.

I waited till then to be sure everyone was asleep. He had had a breakdown on the way, and been caught in the rain. He was wet through.'

‘You let him in by the garden door?'

‘Yes, it was unlocked. I noticed that. I thought Farman had forgotten to lock it. He did sometimes. But I suppose, now, Lady Cambers went out that way. I fastened it after Mr. Sterling left.'

‘He saw nothing of Lady Cambers?' 

‘No. She must have started out as soon as the rain stopped – before Mr. Sterling got here. Besides, if she was going to Frost Field, she would go round by the back of the house. Mr. Sterling used to wait at the front, so he could see my window. I turned my light up and down twice, as a signal, and when he saw it he went round to the garden door and waited for me to let him in.'

‘You gave him some brandy?'

‘He was so wet, I was afraid he would get a chill. I had some in my room. I got it when we were going to Paris – for the crossing.'

‘Afterwards you took away the glass and plate he had used, and washed them up?'

‘Yes. I had read about finger-prints in the papers.'

‘How long did Mr. Sterling stop?'

‘It was just three when he left.'

‘Do you know if he saw or heard anything?'

‘He came back and told me he had seen someone near the rhododendrons. He thought it was Sir Albert, but he wasn't sure. It was dark. Afterwards we heard a car starting up.'

‘Farman sleeps on the ground floor. Do you think he heard anything?'

‘No. I told Mr. Sterling to be careful when he passed Farman's window. He told me, afterwards, he heard him snoring.'

‘That was three on the Monday morning?'

‘Yes.'

‘You should have told us all this before.' Bobby said severely. ‘Do you realize you've been making yourself uncommonly like an accessory after the fact?'

She appeared to be considering both this and him with her usual detached interest. In her quiet voice, she said presently: ‘Have I? I should not have told you now, only I suppose if what happened was seen by someone, there can be no more doubt.' 

He was watching her intently, trying to follow the workings of her mind. He still had the impression that she was allowing more of herself to be seen than often happened. He said abruptly, and rather loudly: ‘I think at first you thought that it was Eddy Dene, didn't you?'

For  moment he thought she had not heard, and then, to his immense surprise, he saw there were tears in her eyes. He would have been no less surprised if, standing before the statue of the Venus of Milo, he had seen the same thing happen. He understood, however, that it was this news of the statement made by one claiming to have been an eyewitness of the deed that had so shaken her, both in itself and by the relief from doubts and fears that it had brought her. She said in a voice so low he could hardly catch the murmured words: ‘Yes, that is quite true. I did think it might have been Eddy. It was very wicked of me.'

‘But now you believe he is innocent?'

‘If it is true an eyewitness has come forward,' she said; and, when Bobby made a slight gesture to confirm, she went on: ‘Well, then, he must be, mustn't he? Only even now I can't understand how Sir Albert... I would never have believed it... I thought perhaps he might want... I never thought he would dare... he was so awfully afraid of her, for one thing, I am sure if she had only looked at him he would have run. But before I heard what Mr. Jones had told you, I knew it couldn't be Eddy. He had an attack of toothache that night with being wet. He went to the dentist to have the tooth pulled out the very next day. But Aunt heard him walking about his room all night. So did Mr. Norris.'