Fear by Night (12 page)

Quite suddenly she felt as if she couldn't bear it any longer. It wrenched you too badly to live on both sides of that division—to be dull, and safe, and Victorian, and respectable, and Mrs. Halliday's companion, and at the same time to be someone who was being plotted against—someone who had to be got out of the way lest she should find out about a will, someone who was to have a boating accident, someone who was to be
murdered
. You couldn't be both these people—you simply couldn't. And something kept forcing it upon you.

Charles must come and take her away. It didn't matter about his relations. From being the size of mountains, they had dwindled to indistinguishable specks of dust. As soon as everyone was asleep she would go down and lay a branch upon the strand—“And oh, Charles, please come quickly!”

CHAPTER XIV

When Jimmy Halliday plunged into the dining-room and banged the door behind him, Gale Anderson raised his eyebrows and, bending forward, knocked off the ash of his cigarette against the edge of the empty coal-scuttle, a smug wooden abomination with a design of three water-lilies in beaten copper. He was occupying one of the fumed oak armchairs which belonged to the dining-room suite. Jimmy Halliday flung himself into the other and swore.

Gale Anderson leaned back again.

“Well? What did she say? You needn't trouble to tell me what you said, because I could hear you.”

“She didn't say anything.”

The dining-room was lighted by a lamp which hung low down over the table. The draught of Jimmy's entry had set it swinging a little. It had an old-fashioned shade of pink fluted silk. As the lamp swung, the rosy shadow crossed the two men's faces and then again withdrew. Gale Anderson's handsome features were, as usual, rather pale. His light eyes wore an expression of cold resentment. He said, in his level voice,

“You don't mean that quite literally, I suppose?”

Jimmy Halliday was rather flushed. He reached over to the table for the bottle which stood there, poured himself out a good three fingers of whisky, and drank it neat. He set the glass down again with a thump.

“Now look here, Gale,” he said—“you needn't trouble to use that fancy sort of talk with me—it gets my goat! If you want to know what the girl said, I'll tell you, and a lot of good it'll do you. She said she didn't know what I meant, and she said please to let her pass. And she said how brave you and me must be to go boating on the loch. That was after I'd finished telling her how dangerous it was.”

Gale Anderson was sitting forward with his cigarette in his hand. A little thread of smoke went up from it.

“Yes—I heard you.” He looked at the wavering thread of smoke. “I heard you—you said the loch was dangerous. What I want to know is just when she's going to find that out for herself. When is it going to be dangerous for her?”

“That's what I'm coming to.” Jimmy Halliday's voice conveyed the impression that it would have been hearty if the private nature of the conversation had not called for something more confidential than heartiness.

“I hope you are. You've been taking your time.”

“Dry up!” said Jimmy Halliday with a rasp. “I've got enough whisky inside me to make me feel I'd as soon have a row with you as not—so now you know! You listen to me, and when I've said my piece you can say yours, but you'd better be careful what you say. Rum's my drink, and when I've got whisky aboard I'd as soon quarrel as not. It's the way it takes me, so you'd better let me say what I want to.” He got out a very foul old pipe and proceeded to stuff it with shag. When he had got it going he settled back in his chair and said, “I don't like this business—never did and never shall. It's too damned risky.”

“If you hadn't interfered on the boat, there'd have been no risk at all. She was as good as overboard, and whose fault would it have been but her own? You sent her down, and she came up of her own accord.”

“That's enough about that!” said Jimmy Halliday. “We had that out then, and I'm not going over it. And when you talk about no risk—anyone might have seen you give her that clip over the head.”

“No one did.”

“I'm not going over that. But I've told you all the time that the old lady comes first. You've got to get that in your head and keep it there. The old lady's back of everything—I wouldn't be touching this job if it wasn't for her. Things are getting a bit too hot in my trade, and I don't want to stay in it till I'm dropped on. If I was to get a stretch, it'd kill the old lady, so I want to clear out. When you came to me and put it to me that there's a share of a hundred thousand pounds to be had if a girl that don't know she's in the running for it can be kept out of the way, I told you straight I'd got to have half or I wouldn't lift a finger. Fifty thousand'll do me and the old lady very nicely. Well, that's what I said to you, and I said, ‘Why don't you marry the girl and have done with it, a nice-looking young fellow like you?' And then of course you had to tell me you were married, and that it was your wife that would get the money if this girl was out of the way. And I reckon that was a bit of luck for your wife, because if it had been the other way round and it had been you that was in the running, I wonder how long it would have been before there was a funeral and you putting up a nice marble angel or something of that sort over her. You could afford to do it handsome if you married the other girl and had the spending of that hundred thousand.”

Gale Anderson threw away the end of his cigarette and lighted another. He wore an air of bored tolerance.

Jimmy Halliday looked at him shrewdly from between his sandy lashes.

“Well now, all that sort of thing's a damned sight too risky. I don't take risks if I can help it—not that sort anyhow. You remember, I've said to you time and again, ‘Pity you can't marry her,' which'd be a lawful legal way out, and no risk to anyone. And all the time it never struck me that if you couldn't marry her along of having a wife already, there was two of us in the business, and what was the matter with me?”

Gale Anderson withdrew his cigarette and emitted a cloud of smoke.

“And when did this brilliant idea strike you?”

“After we had that argument in the cave. Now you just listen to me! Putting on one side that I don't just naturally care about murder—”

Gale Anderson gave a short laugh, and Jimmy Halliday brought his fist down with a bang on the arm of his chair.

“I've got a right to my feelings, haven't I? You mayn't have any, but I have! But putting all such out of the way, there's two things against it. One's the risk—say what you like, it's risky.”

“People are drowned in boating accidents every day, and you don't even have to have an inquest in Scotland.”

The fist came down again.

“A risk there is! And I don't take risks when I needn't. Well, that's one reason against it. And the other's the old lady. She's got fond of the girl.”

Gale Anderson's eyebrows lifted. His calm and prudent temperament enabled him to refrain from speech. Where his mother was concerned Jimmy Halliday was completely irrational. But he was wondering just what might be behind this concern for Mrs. Halliday. The result of the proposed marriage would be that the division of the spoil would lie with Jimmy and not with himself. He thought that he would prefer to take a risk and eliminate Ann.

Jimmy Halliday went on in a manner full of breezy good fellowship.

“Now, you just see how it works out. I put the old lady first, and it comes along like shelling peas. If anything had happened to that girl on the boat, the old lady'd have taken on a good bit. If anything was to happen to her now, she'd take on a good bit more—and taking on's not good for her. Keep her happy, and she'll live to be a hundred is what the doctors say. Now if I was to begin a bit of courting, there's two things that might happen, and maybe three. I figure it out this way. If the girl likes me and we fix it up, and the old lady's pleased, that's one way, and not a mite of risk to anyone. But suppose the girl isn't for it. Of course there's ways a girl can be brought to reason, and marrying's easy in these parts. I think she could be brought to reason. It's not her I'm troubling about—it's the old lady.” He leaned forward and tapped with his pipe on his knee. “Do you know why I'm not married? Because every single blessed time I've thought serious about a girl, or a girl's shown any sign of thinking serious about me, the old lady's just about raised Cain. But look here—this time that's not going to matter. See what I mean? Either she'll be pleased and we'll get spliced, or she'll cut up rough, and then she won't mind what happens to the girl. Either way will be all right for her—and, as I told you to start with, I'm putting her first.”

Gale Anderson got up and stood with his back to the mantelpiece. Between the smoke that filled the upper half of the room and the pink fluted silk which hid the lamp his features were hardly distinguishable. He said in a cool, cutting voice,

“You talk as if we had all the time in the world. Elias Paulett might die at any moment.”

“Well?” said Jimmy Halliday, drawing at his pipe.

Gale Anderson's voice dropped smoothly.

“My wife comes in for the money if Ann Vernon doesn't—that is, she comes in for it if Elias lives longer than Ann. The minute the breath's out of his body Hilda's chance is gone, but if Ann dies first, Hilda gets the lot. We've got to get a move on.”

“That's where my plan comes in,” said Jimmy Halliday comfortably. “I marry the girl—she scoops the lot—no risk to anyone—and we divide.”

Gale Anderson leaned back against the mantelpiece with folded arms.

“And if she won't marry you, neither of us gets a penny.”

“She'll marry me if I want her to,” said Jimmy Halliday. “I'll see to that. And once we're married she'll soon find out who holds the purse-strings. It's a good plan. You leave it to me and clear out. You oughtn't to have come within a hundred miles of this place. That boating accident you've kept talking about would be a lot more convincing if the man whose wife was going to get the money wasn't mixed up with it.”

Gale Anderson's eyes narrowed for a moment.

“Is there going to be an accident?”

“There might be, if she didn't fancy me, or if the old lady cut up rough—there's always the chance of that.”

Gale Anderson went back to his chair and lit another cigarette. He had made the most of Elias Paulett's condition because he wanted to force the pace. Delay was dangerous, but Elias wasn't dying—yet. Jimmy was an awkward customer to drive. He turned to what was an immediate emergency.

“What did she say about the match-box you picked.”

“I told you she didn't say anything. She don't give much away. I like a girl with a bit of spirit.”

“Do you think he's hanging around?”

Jimmy let out a puff of smoke.

“If he's been here, he must have swum. How did he know she was here anyhow? I tore up the letter she wrote him. He might have given her the matchbox—she might have dropped it herself—there's no telling. Or he might be hanging around. There'd be no harm putting up a bit of a show to scare him off in case he's anywhere about. There'll be a fine moon presently.”

Gale Anderson frowned.

“That's a risky business if you like. You'll get a bullet in you some day, Jimmy.”

Jimmy Halliday laughed.

“Not much I won't!” he said.

CHAPTER XV

Ann was waiting until she was sure that everyone was asleep. Mrs. Halliday and Riddle had been in bed for more than an hour, and Mary had come up the old winding stair and shut herself into the narrow, dark room which looked out on to the yard. But Gale Anderson and Jimmy Halliday had not come up.

Ann felt puzzled. She had been reading by candlelight, but now she put down the book and listened.

There was no sound at all. Her room was over the dining-room. At first the sound of the men's voices had come and gone as she read. She did not know when they had stopped, but it came to her that it was more than a little while ago. She leaned out of the window, and could hear nothing.

It was not so dark now as it had been an hour ago. Soon the moon would be over the hill. She went to the door, opened it, and listened again. She could hear Mrs. Halliday snoring in a droning, comfortable way, and when she went to the top of the stairs she could hear the ticking of the wall-clock which hung in the old part of the house where the passage went down to the kitchen. That meant that the door which shut off the back premises had been left open. Mary always kept it shut.

Ann came down the stairs till she could see the dining-room door. The hall lamp had been put out. The hall was dark, and the dining-room door was dark—no thread of light at the lintel. She wondered whether the two men had gone out by the back way. Why should they go out by the back way? She hadn't any answer to that at all. But she had to know whether they were in either of the front rooms. She couldn't go down to the beach and place the branch which was to be her signal to Charles unless she was sure that she would not be watched. On the other hand, if she didn't go soon, the moon would be up and the chances of being seen would be much greater.

She came down the rest of the way and opened the dining-room door. The heavy pungent smell of Jimmy Halliday's tobacco floated out of the dark room. It was quite dark. The windows were fastened and the curtains drawn. The drawing-room was the same, except that it smelt faintly of mould and of the peppermint and aniseed lozenges to which Mrs. Halliday was addicted. The front door was locked. The key was on the inside. There was no sound at all from the back part of the house. The kitchen was in darkness except for the very faintest glow from the sunk fire. The back door was locked.