Dorothy Eden (24 page)

“Wife!” whispered Miss Glory, her face a piece of parchment.

“M-ma!” stuttered Dawson. His voice was that of a frightened child, ending in an uncontrollable tremor.

But it was Arabia, dishevelled, gaunt, suddenly very old, who had the answer to the riddle. She raised her head with slow impressive dignity and said very quietly:

“Lucy! She’s dead at last.”

L
UCY! BEFORE ANYBODY COULD
say anything Miss Glory had suddenly bounded up the stairs, and disappeared into Arabia’s room. In a moment she reappeared, carrying a glass of water. She came down the stairs slowly, as if she were bearing something very precious. Her eyes, cold and malignant, rested on Mr. Moretti.

“This will prove an interesting analysis, no doubt,” she said in her flat expressionless voice. “I may even give it to you for your morning tea,
Mr.
Moretti.”

Mr. Moretti put out a defensive hand. All the pale pinkness had gone out of his face. It was startlingly white, and in comparison his usually colourless brows and lashes were like yellow honey. His lips worked.

“It was her—not me!” he got out. “She—knew the tricks. You must—realise that—”

But Dawson, suddenly jerked into life, pointed a long thin forefinger fiercely at Mr. Moretti. His face was drawn with hate.

“But only because of you! Only because of you, you b—”

Jeremy put his hand on the boy’s trembling shoulder. “Steady, old man. Be careful what you say. I imagine you haven’t entirely clean hands yourself.”

Dawson jerked his head triumphantly.

“But I have! There’s nothing in that water but a bit of harmless powder. You can analyse it as much as you like. You can’t prove a thing.”

Mr. Moretti started forward.

“You mean, you little double-crosser, that you didn’t do it?”

“Did you think I was going to let Ma get into that sort of trouble again? Oh, it was all right while we were just fooling around, giving people frights. That was good fun. But I never meant to do the real thing. Oh, no! Not for all the blasted money in the world.” He turned and shot Mr. Moretti one more glance of pure hate. “And not to make you wealthy, you poor scared worm. You haven’t any guts, that’s what’s wrong with you. Made us do it all. I never want to set eyes on you again.”

Then suddenly realisation of what had happened seemed to come to him and he went down on his knees beside the little still figure.

“Oh, Ma!” he sobbed “Oh, Ma!”

Mrs. Stanhope (Lucy Bolton, Lucy Meredith, Lucy Montgomery, alias Moretti) lay on the bed in the carefully preserved room upstairs, the room that had waited so long for her to come back. She lay on the pretty silk coverlet, with her possessions about her, her old ball dresses, her half-finished diary, her empty perfume bottle, her jewellery, girlish and inexpensive, the locket set with seed pearls that she had worn to Arabia’s party round her neck, and on her broken body the satin wedding-dress which she had worn to her wedding with Larry.

She looked young and innocent now, her hair neatly done, a rose in her folded hands. But there was still a look of secrecy about her mouth, an air of wilfulness to her pointed chin. Death could not take from her, all at once, her greed and slyness, her skill as an actress and her utter ruthlessness.

At first Arabia had wept bitterly. It was she who had asked that Mrs. Stanhope be laid in the room upstairs.

“You understand I am not weeping for this woman whom you knew,” she said, with dignity. “It is for my little girl, my lost Lucy, whom I loved so much, that I weep.”

She admitted that ever since the night of the party she had known Mrs. Stanhope’s true identity. At first Mrs. Stanhope had successfully hidden it behind the big glasses and the whispering voice that was merely a clever act. She had changed a great deal in the fifteen years since Arabia had seen her, her hair was white and she had grown prematurely old. She had also had a type of prettiness that in youth was extremely attractive, but which in middle age was quite nondescript. She had suspected that her voice would have been the most likely thing to arouse memory, so she had most skilfully hidden it and only once had her vigilance been found wanting. That had been the night when Cressida had heard her scream, because Mr. Moretti, impatient about the lack of success of their plan, had threatened her with his hands round her throat.

But on the night of the party, when Arabia had suddenly announced that Cressida was to be her heir, Mrs. Stanhope had decided that it was time to reveal herself. She had gone upstairs, ostensibly to change the dress on which wine had been spilt, but in reality to put on the locket which Arabia had given her for her eighteenth birthday, and which she could not fail to recognize.

Arabia had recognised it, and her enemy, in the same moment. That was when she had begun to lock herself in, knowing that she was in extreme danger until her will was irrevocably signed and witnessed.

“But surely your own daughter would not have harmed you,” Cressida whispered in horror.

“She was not my true daughter,” Arabia replied. “She was my sister’s child. She only lived with me for four years, which perhaps explains why I didn’t at once recognise her when she came back. It was not as if I had known her from birth. My sister had married a man who subsequently turned out to be a scoundrel, a thoroughly bad person. He left her, and later she died, when Lucy was only fifteen. That was when Lucy became my daughter. So sweet and pretty and lovable she was then. Oh, no doubt I spoilt her, but who would not have? I could afford to, and she was all I had. So there were the parties and gaiety I told you about. All of that was true. The roses, and the admirers and the laughter. And Larry, her first husband. He was a nice lad and he adored her. They had a beautiful wedding—a pair of children they looked.”

Arabia paused to wipe her eyes. Almost at once the tenderness left her face, and it became harsh and ugly.

“Larry died three years after their wedding,” she said starkly. “He was poisoned.”

“Not by Lucy,” Cressida gasped.

“By Lucy. By his sweet and loving wife. Oh, not without incitement, I grant you. Not without the encouragement of her wicked lover, Monty. He got five years as an accessory, but it should have been more—much more.”

“Monty!” Cressida whispered, carried away by Arabia’s terrible melodrama.

“Yes, Monty. Or Moretti. Whichever you like. Didn’t I say he was a caterpillar, a creeping slug. How could she have loved him so disastrously?”

“His name was in the diary. And there was that half-begun letter. And the baby! She was going to have Monty’s baby. That’s why she didn’t hang.”

All at once Arabia looked unbearably weary.

“Heaven be my witness, I didn’t know about the baby. She came here, you see, after Larry’s death and before her arrest. There was actually a period of a few weeks when Larry’s death was thought to be from natural causes. An acute case of gastro-enteritis, the doctor said. But the nurse had been suspicious. Anyway, later Lucy was arrested here, in this house. The sorrowful little widow whom I had comforted—ah, I had been so sad—while all the time she sat upstairs writing about Monty in an old diary she picked up.”

“The missing pages,” Cressida said. “You tore them out.”

“I destroyed all that part of Lucy’s life,” Arabia said simply. “I decided that from the day of her marriage to Larry she no longer existed. In my mind I had her die a tragic and innocent death. I tell you, it was the only way I could remain sane.”

“But—she still lived.”

“Not for me. She was her father’s daughter then not her mother’s. She was nothing of me. I cast her out.”

Even then Cressida found the old lady’s ruthless grandeur impressive and admirable. It was so typical of her. All her life she had admitted only colour and love and drama and happiness, never sadness and defeat. So this most terrible defeat had to be shut out of her mind, treated as if it had never existed. Only a person with such will-power and imagination and vitality could have done it.

But old age had found her weak spot, her loneliness, her longing for the charm and gaiety Lucy’s companionship had once brought her.

“Believe me, I knew nothing of the baby,” she said now. “Even had I known—what would I have done, I wonder? But I knew nothing until the night you brought me that scrap of a sock. Oh, the shock of that revelation!”

“The baby was Dawson,” Cressida said.

Here Jeremy, who had been listening silently, interposed with a brisk explanation.

“He was born in gaol, after Lucy had begun serving her life sentence. His father, who of course knew of his existence, totally ignored him. He was brought up in an orphanage and had started work as an errand boy in a grocer’s shop when his mother came out of gaol. She immediately sought him out and gave him a little of the love he had never before known. The consequence of this was that he began to admire everything the devious little woman planned. She knew that there was no use in coming here and making herself known to Arabia as the prodigal daughter—so she came in disguise, with the simple plan of having Dawson worm his way into his great-aunt’s affection. Being a doting mother, which was perhaps understandable after her long term in prison, it didn’t occur to her that not everyone might find her son as attractive as she herself did. As for Dawson, being admired and loved went to his head. And there is the fact that he has a good brain. He got this job in a chemist’s shop, and began to take an unhealthy interest in drugs and poisons. One never knew when it would come in useful, he said. Moretti turning up was unexpected. There is a vulture if you like.”

Arabia nodded energetically. “Vulture, yes! No courage of his own to kill, but oh, his greed to get at dead bodies!”

Cressida shivered. Jeremy went on quietly,

“Moretti found he could exercise his old spell over Lucy. He had expected her to come back here for a reconciliation with her wealthy adopted mother, and he did not intend to be done out of any of the pickings. When he saw that no reconciliation had taken place, he decided to move in and help things along.” Jeremy flung out his hands. “Well—the rest you know.”

“No, I don’t,” said Cressida vigorously. “What about all those things that happened to me, and which—” She turned to Arabia. “Forgive me, darling—I thought you had done them.”

“It suited them to say I was crazy,” Arabia said. “Perhaps I am a little. But not in that way. I didn’t frighten you, my dear.”

“It was mostly Dawson,” Jeremy said. “He had an extraordinary facility for moving silently and thinking up nasty tricks. It was he who locked you in Lucy’s room and sent you those death notices and followed you in the fog. He gave his mother a harmless mixture to make her sick that night, and he also gave Mimosa a pill that made him dopey for a while. He took a morbid pleasure in spreading stories about poison and murders. In fact, he’s a thoroughly twisted character, poor boy.”

“The wardrobe?” Cressida asked.

“That was Moretti. Staged and executed by the maestro himself, who, incidentally, is an excellent mimic. He left you there just long enough to get thoroughly panicky and then he hastened your departure from the house. Actually, if you hadn’t come back that night Arabia would not have been in danger, because they would have reverted to their original plan of inveigling Dawson into her affections. But when you came back they saw that she had to die before the will making you her heir was executed. After all, even if Dawson hadn’t succeeded in obtaining her passionate affection—and there was no will—Lucy would have inherited as next of kin. But a will leaving everything to you would be fatal. So when you came back action had to be taken.”

“How did you know all this?” Cressida asked, with respect. “How did you know that Arabia must not be in her room that night?”

“Because that day I was in bed with ’flu,” Jeremy told her, “no one in the house knew I was there, and I overheard one illuminating word.”

“What was that?”

“A voice I didn’t recognise—but which of course I know now was Mrs. Stanhope’s—saying ‘Monty’. So I knew the enemy was right here. But at that stage I was afraid he would strike at you.”

“So you sat up all night,” Cressida murmured.

“That,” said Jeremy, “was no hardship.”

“Get on with the story,” said Arabia imperiously. “Keep your love-making until later.”

Cressida’s eyes met Jeremy’s and dropped in startled acknowledgment. With an effort she concentrated on the rest of his story.

“This is where Miss Glory comes into it. As you know, she had been in an extraordinarily besotted state about Moretti, who apparently couldn’t resist exercising his charm over any woman, no matter what her age or appearance. But she was completely disillusioned on the night of the party. When Mimosa ran down the stairs (with the tin the charming Dawson had tied to his tail), and Cressida, following him, slipped, Miss Glory knew the truth. It was no accidental fall. Cressida had been pushed. And by Moretti. Miss Glory saw him do it. Naturally she was shattered. She planned revenge. Finally, she confided in me and we worked out a plan. We suspected an attempt would be made on Arabia’s life last night, before she had had an opportunity to complete her will, so we had her go down to you, Cressida, and Miss Glory got into her bed. She did it very creditably, too, with her hair curled, and Ahmed on the bedpost. Ahmed knew the difference, though, and kept squawking, as you heard. He startled Lucy and made her give a small scream.”

“Lucy?”

“Everyone knew that Arabia, on waking, drank the glass of water that was placed at her bedside the night before. Mrs. Stanhope had thought it would be so simple to switch tumblers, the one she substituted containing the colourless but lethal dose of poison which Dawson had provided. Miss Glory lay still long enough for the tumblers to be changed. Then you heard the rest.”

Cressida, indeed, remembered the wild accusing cry that had come from upstairs, and then the shriek, that awful terrified shriek…

“We didn’t mean the woman to die,” Jeremy said.

Arabia moved at last.

“It’s better,” she said. “It’s much better. What was there for her?” Her face contorted. “Poor scrap,” she whispered, and now her difficult tears were not for the girl Lucy but for little Mrs. Stanhope, mousy, nervous, the ex-convict who had fallen once more into scheming and error.