Dumb Witness (3 page)

I
t was Tuesday afternoon. The side door to the garden was open. Miss Arundell stood on the threshold and threw Bob's ball the length of the garden path. The terrier rushed after it.

“Just once more, Bob,” said Emily Arundell. “A good one.”

Once again the ball sped along the ground with Bob racing at full speed in pursuit.

Miss Arundell stooped down, picked up the ball from where Bob laid it at her feet and went into the house, Bob followed her closely. She shut the side door, went into the drawing room, Bob still at her heels, and put the ball away in the drawer.

She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was half past six.

“A little rest before dinner, I think, Bob.”

She ascended the stairs to her bedroom. Bob accompanied her. Lying on the big chintz-covered couch with Bob at her feet, Miss Arundell sighed. She was glad that it was Tuesday and that her guests would be going tomorrow. It was not that this weekend
had disclosed anything to her that she had not known before. It was more the fact that it had not permitted her to forget her own knowledge.

She said to herself:

“I'm getting old, I suppose…” And then, with a little shock of surprise: “I
am
old….”

She lay with her eyes closed for half an hour, then the elderly house-parlourmaid, Ellen, brought hot water and she rose and prepared for dinner.

Dr. Donaldson was to dine with them that night. Emily Arundell wished to have an opportunity of studying him at close quarters. It still seemed to her a little incredible that the exotic Theresa should want to marry this rather stiff and pedantic young man. It also seemed a little odd that this stiff and pedantic young man should want to marry Theresa.

She did not feel as the evening progressed that she was getting to know Dr. Donaldson any better. He was very polite, very formal and, to her mind, intensely boring. In her own mind she agreed with Miss Peabody's judgement. The thought flashed across her brain, “Better stuff in our young days.”

Dr. Donaldson did not stay late. He rose to go at ten o'clock. After he had taken his departure Emily Arundell herself announced that she was going to bed. She went upstairs and her young relations went up also. They all seemed somewhat subdued tonight. Miss Lawson remained downstairs performing her final duties, letting Bob out for his run, poking down the fire, putting the guard up and rolling back the hearth rug in case of fire.

She arrived rather breathless in her employer's room about five minutes later.

“I think I've got everything,” she said, putting down wool, workbag, and a library book. “I do hope the book will be all right. She hadn't got any of the ones on your list but she said she was sure you'd like this one.”

“That girl's a fool,” said Emily Arundell. “Her taste in books is the worst I've ever come across.”

“Oh, dear. I'm so sorry—Perhaps I ought—”

“Nonsense, it's not your fault.” Emily Arundell added kindly. “I hope you enjoyed yourself this afternoon.”

Miss Lawson's face lighted up. She looked eager and almost youthful.

“Oh, yes, thank you very much. So
kind
of you to spare me. I had the most interesting time. We had the Planchette and really—it wrote the most
interesting
things. There were several messages… Of course its not
quite
the same thing as the sittings… Julia Tripp has been having a lot of success with the automatic writing. Several messages from Those who have Passed Over. It—it really makes one feel so grateful—that such things should be permitted….”

Miss Arundell said with a slight smile:

“Better not let the vicar hear you.”

“Oh, but indeed, dear Miss Arundell, I am convinced—quite convinced—there can be
nothing
wrong about it. I only wish dear Mr. Lonsdale would
examine
the subject. It seems to me so narrow-minded to condemn a thing that you have not even
investigated.
Both Julia and Isabel Tripp are such truly
spiritual
women.”

“Almost too spiritual to be alive,” said Miss Arundell.

She did not care much for Julia and Isabel Tripp. She thought their clothes ridiculous, their vegetarian and uncooked fruit meals absurd, and their manner affected. They were women of no tradi
tions, no roots—in fact—no breeding! But she got a certain amount of amusement out of their earnestness and she was at bottom kindhearted enough not to grudge the pleasure that their friendship obviously gave to poor Minnie.

Poor Minnie! Emily Arundell looked at her companion with mingled affection and contempt. She had had so many of these foolish, middle-aged women to minister to her—all much the same, kind, fussy, subservient and almost entirely mindless.

Really poor Minnie was looking quite excited tonight. Her eyes were shining. She fussed about the room vaguely touching things here and there without the least idea of what she was doing, her eyes all bright and shining.

She stammered out rather nervously:

“I—I do wish you'd been there… I feel, you know, that you're not quite a believer yet. But tonight there was a message—for E.A., the initials came
quite
definitely. It was from a man who had passed over many years ago—a very good-looking military man—Isabel saw him quite distinctly. It must have been dear General Arundell. Such a beautiful message, so full of love and comfort, and how through patience all could be attained.”

“Those sentiments sound very unlike papa,” said Miss Arundell.

“Oh, but our Dear Ones change so—on the other side. Everything is love and understanding. And then the Planchette spelt out something about a
key
—I think it was the key of the Boule cabinet—could that be it?”

“The key of the Boule cabinet?” Emily Arundell's voice sounded sharp and interested.

“I think that was it. I thought perhaps it might be important
papers—something of the kind. There was a well-authenticated case where a message came to look in a certain piece of furniture and actually a
will
was discovered there.”

“There wasn't a will in the Boule cabinet,” said Miss Arundell. She added abruptly: “Go to bed, Minnie. You're tired. So am I. We'll ask the Tripps in for an evening soon.”

“Oh, that
will
be nice! Good night, dear. Sure you've got everything? I hope you haven't been tired with so many people here. I must tell Ellen to air the drawing room
very well
tomorrow, and shake out the curtains—all this smoking leaves such a smell. I must say I think it's very good of you to let them all smoke in the drawing room!”

“I must make some concessions to modernity,” said Emily Arundell. “Good night, Minnie.”

As the other woman left the room, Emily Arundell wondered if this spiritualistic business was really good for Minnie. Her eyes had been popping out of her head, and she had looked so restless and excited.

Odd about the Boule cabinet, thought Emily Arundell as she got into bed. She smiled grimly as she remembered the scene of long ago. The key that had come to light after papa's death, and the cascade of empty brandy bottles that had tumbled out when the cabinet had been unlocked! It was little things like that, things that surely neither Minnie Lawson nor Isabel and Julia Tripp could possibly know, which made one wonder whether, after all, there wasn't something in this spiritualistic business….

She felt wakeful lying on her big four-poster bed. Nowadays she found it increasingly difficult to sleep. But she scorned
Dr. Grainger's tentative suggestion of a sleeping draught. Sleeping draughts were for weaklings, for people who couldn't bear a finger ache, or a little toothache, or the tedium of a sleepless night.

Often she would get up and wander noiselessly round the house, picking up a book, fingering an ornament, rearranging a vase of flowers, writing a letter or two. In those midnight hours she had a feeling of the equal liveliness of the house through which she wandered. They were not disagreeable, those nocturnal wanderings. It was as though ghosts walked beside her, the ghosts of her sisters, Arabella, Matilda and Agnes, the ghost of her brother Thomas, the dear fellow as he was before That Woman got hold of him! Even the ghost of General Charles Laverton Arundell, that domestic tyrant with the charming manners who shouted and bullied his daughters but who nevertheless was an object of pride to them with his experiences in the Indian Mutiny and his knowledge of the world. What if there were days when he was “not quite so well” as his daughters put it evasively?

Her mind reverting to her niece's fiancé, Miss Arundell thought, “I don't suppose
he'll
ever take to drink! Calls himself a
man
and drank
barley water
this evening! Barley water! And I opened papa's special port.”

Charles had done justice to the port all right. Oh! if only Charles were to be trusted. If only one didn't know that with him—

Her thoughts broke off… Her mind ranged over the events of the weekend….

Everything seemed vaguely disquieting….

She tried to put worrying thoughts out of her mind.

It was no good.

She raised herself on her elbow and by the light of the nightlight that always burned in a little saucer she looked at the time.

One o'clock and she had never felt less like sleep.

She got out of bed and put on her slippers and her warm dressing gown. She would go downstairs and just check over the weekly books ready for the paying of them the following morning.

Like a shadow she slipped from her room and along the corridor where one small electric bulb was allowed to burn all night.

She came to the head of the stairs, stretched out one hand to the baluster rail and then, unaccountably, she stumbled, tried to recover her balance, failed and went headlong down the stairs.

 

The sound of her fall, the cry she gave, stirred the sleeping house to wakefulness. Doors opened, lights flashed on.

Miss Lawson popped out of her room at the head of the staircase.

Uttering little cries of distress she pattered down the stairs. One by one the others arrived—Charles, yawning, in a resplendent dressing gown. Theresa, wrapped in dark silk. Bella in a navy-blue kimono, her hair bristling with combs to “set the wave.”

Dazed and confused Emily Arundell lay in a crushed heap. Her shoulder hurt her and her ankle—her whole body was a confused mass of pain. She was conscious of people standing over her, of that fool Minnie Lawson crying and making ineffectual gestures with her hands, of Theresa with a startled look in her dark eyes, of Bella standing with her mouth open looking expectant, of the voice of Charles saying from somewhere—very far away so it seemed—

“It's that damned dog's ball! He must have left it here and she tripped over it. See? Here it is!”

And then she was conscious of authority, putting the others
aside, kneeling beside her, touching her with hands that did not fumble but
knew.

A feeling of relief swept over her. It would be all right now.

Dr. Tanios was saying in firm, reassuring tones:

“No, it's all right. No bones broken… Just badly shaken and bruised—and of course she's had a bad shock. But she's been very lucky that it's no worse.”

Then he cleared the others off a little and picked her up quite easily and carried her up to her bedroom, where he had held her wrist for a minute, counting, then nodded his head, sent Minnie (who was still crying and being generally a nuisance) out of the room to fetch brandy and to heat water for a hot bottle.

Confused, shaken, and racked with pain, she felt acutely grateful to Jacob Tanios in that moment. The relief of feeling oneself in capable hands. He gave you just that feeling of assurance—of confidence—that a doctor ought to give.

There was something—something she couldn't quite get hold of—something vaguely disquieting—but she wouldn't think of it now. She would drink this and go to sleep as they told her.

But surely there was something missing—someone.

Oh well, she wouldn't think… Her shoulder hurt her—She drank down what she was given.

She heard Dr. Tanios say—and in what a comfortable assured voice—“She'll be all right, now.”

She closed her eyes.

 

She awoke to a sound that she knew—a soft, muffled bark.

She was wide awake in a minute.

Bob—naughty Bob! He was barking outside the front door—
his own particular “out all night very ashamed of himself” bark, pitched in a subdued key but repeated hopefully.

Miss Arundell strained her ears. Ah, yes, that was all right. She could hear Minnie going down to let him in. She heard the creak of the opening front door, a confused low murmur—Minnie's futile reproaches—“Oh, you naughty little doggie—a very naughty little Bobsie—” She heard the pantry door open. Bob's bed was under the pantry table.

And at that moment Emily realized what it was she had subconsciously missed at the moment of her accident. It was Bob. All that commotion—her fall, people running—normally Bob would have responded by a crescendo of barking from inside the pantry.

So
that
was what had been worrying her at the back of her mind. But it was explained now—Bob, when he had been let out last night, had shamelessly and deliberately gone off on pleasure bent. From time to time he had these lapses from virtue—though his apologies afterwards were always all that could be desired.

So that was all right. But was it? What else was there worrying her, nagging at the back of her head. Her accident—something to do with her accident.

Ah, yes, somebody had said—Charles—that she had slipped on Bob's ball which he had left on the top of the stairs….

The ball had been there—he had held it up in his hand….