Green for Danger (13 page)

“Don't tell me anything is going wrong with that affair?” said Major Moon anxiously; his eyes went to Barney, dancing round automatically with Sister Bates, talking to her earnestly.

“Oh, I don't think so,” said Esther hastily; and because she was afraid of having said too much about Frederica, she sought to cover it by saying more than she might otherwise have done about Woods. “Woody had a younger brother, you know, that she was terribly fond of; but really most
ter
ribly fond, not like you are of just ordinary brothers and sisters. He was abroad, on the continent when war broke out, and he's never been heard of since.” While she was on the subject of Woody, she continued: “Inspector Cockrill has been asking her a lot of questions about the injection of coramine she gave to Higgins in the theatre. I suppose he thinks there might have been some mistake there. Don't you think that's nonsense—how could there have been?”

“There couldn't,” said Major Moon promptly. “The coramine's put up in ampoules; there weren't ampoules of anything else on the trolley, and she gave it under Barney's instructions. Besides, the man was dying by then, if he wasn't already dead; we only gave it as a last resort.”

“Of
course
!” agreed Esther, enormously relieved.

“He's being very thorough, is old Cockie,” said Major Moon, confiding in his toe-caps. “He had every poison cupboard in the place turned out this afternoon, and generally behaves as though one of us had slain old Higgins of malice aforethought. However, the great thing is that, having proved that the whole thing was just a natural death, he'll see that there's no more talk about it; the local people would have bumbled on and poor Barney's name would have suffered.…” He suddenly noticed the time: “My goodness! Nearly eleven, and I'm orderly dog to-night. I'd better be going.” He trotted off, round and rosy, muttering anxiously to himself about being so late. “However, they'd have sent for me if they'd wanted anything.…”

All was quiet in the wards. He left St. Elizabeth's to the last, in the hopes of a private word with Frederica; for he was thrown into a panic at Esther's hint that all might not be well between Barney and his love. He finished his round and sat himself down in the bunk, holding out his toes to the blazing fire. “What about a cup of tea, Nurse Linley, my dear, since I've left a party on purpose to come and talk to you?”

“Me and two hundred patients,” said Freddi, laughing.

“Well, I had to do my round, dear, of course; it wouldn't have looked well to just make a bee-line for Linley's ward.…”

But with all his little jokes and friendliness, he found Frederica a difficult nut to crack. She sat dispensing tea in her gracious little way, serene and impersonal; friendly without being intimate, a tiny bit smug. He roamed for a long time over a multitude of subjects, before he dared to touch upon her own. “You've got a wonderful man there, Frederica, my dear; one of the very best. In all my experience, I don't think I have ever come across a fellow I liked and respected better than I do Barney.”

“Yes, I know,” she said soberly.

“He's the sort of a chap that only falls in love once,” he went on, mumbling dreamily, staring into the fire. “Oh, he's had affairs, I dare say; he's a man of the world, of course, but there'll only ever be one woman in his life, and that's you, my child. You're a lucky girl: with all your loveliness and charm and—I know—great worth … I still say that
you're
the lucky one, to have the love of such a man as Barnes.”

“I know,” said Frederica again.

“You must never fail him,” said Major Moon, lifting his head and looking at her almost appealingly, with his kindly, faded blue eyes. “It would be a terrible thing to see Barney lose his faith. I—I don't think I could bear it. But there,” he smiled at her fondly: “I don't know why I even say such a thing; for I know you won't let him down.”

“No, of course not, Major Moon,” said Freddi politely.

In his effort to force her confidence he offered her his own. “A happy married life—that's everything in the world, Frederica, my dear. I—my wife—it wasn't an ideal marriage, but when my son was born that drew us together, and for a little while I knew what real happiness was, real, true actual happiness.… Of course that isn't everything; but I think as a general rule happy people are good people, don't you?”

“I didn't know you were married, Major Moon,” said Frederica, evading this direct attempt to draw an opinion from her.

“Well, things are different now, Frederica. My—my little son was killed in an accident, you know. He was everything we had, and we were inclined to cosset him. I persuaded his mother that we should let him make a man of himself, and we bought him a little bicycle, and after a bit he used to go out on the country roads on it. He was knocked down by a man on another bicycle; I saw it all happen, from the top of the hill. The man came tearing round a corner much too fast; he—well, my dear, the boy was flung off his machine and into the ditch. I saw the man pause and stare down at him, and then he jumped on to his own bicycle and rode on down the hill and out of sight. When I got to the corner my boy was dead. My wife—well, she didn't want to live after that. She felt it was my fault that the boy had been killed; she died very soon after.…”

“And the man?”

“I knew who the man was, but—I couldn't do anything; there was no proof. If he'd damaged his machine, he'd got it repaired before the police examined it. But I knew. I didn't see his face, but I saw the colour of his bicycle as he stood looking down at what he'd done before he pedalled off, leaving my boy to die like a dog at the side of the road.…” All the colour had gone out of his pink cheeks, and the blue eyes were clouded with tears. He said in his low, grumbling old voice: “I'm sorry, child. I didn't mean to say so much. It's all a long time ago.…”

She could be demonstrative only in passion; and now her habitual reticence was like a cage about her. She longed to put out her hand to him, to stroke the quivering old face, to wipe away those unashamed tears; but she could not. She sat rigid in her chair, polite, attentive, interested, and after a moment she said, in her crisp little voice: “And what was the colour of the bicycle?”

He got to his feet and blundered out of the room.

3

Marion Bates stared back alone from the party, sore and angry. Eden and Woody had come back to the ‘ladies' room' towards the end of the evening looking a trifle foolish, and Eden had done his best to placate his legitimate partner; but Sister Bates now knew for certain that her hope was gone. It was not that Gervase loved Freddi—it was that he no longer loved
her;
anybody, even that ugly old Woods, was preferable to herself. Too much gin had inflamed her jealousy, and the genuine pathos of her disappointment was overlaid with an ugly spite. She grew loud and quarrelsome. Gervase, conscious of having been in the wrong in spending so much time away from her when she had actually come to the party as his guest, said, uncomfortably: “Come along, Marion, and I'll see you back to your quarters.”

“Oh, I know you want to get rid of me,” said Bates belligerently. “And I'm going all right—don't worry! But I'll walk back alone, thanks very much—not with you.”

“Well, I'm sorry,” said Eden briefly, for to argue would only mean a scene. “It was only that I thought you were supposed to be afraid of the dark.”

“So I am afraid of the dark,” said Sister Bates, who had used this plea often enough to engineer ten minutes alone with her beloved; “but I'd rather have the dark than
you.
…”

“I should be petrified of your hospital murderer popping up,” said one of the officers' wives, who did not believe in the hospital murderer for one moment, but thought that this unlovely argument should end.

Sister Bates looked at her with tipsy cunning. “Oh, that doesn't worry me; you see I happen to know who the murderer is!”

“Christmas!” thought the officer's wife; “what have I gone and let myself in for now?” She said that in that case Sister Bates ought to rush off this
min
ute to the police and tell them all.

“You don't believe that there was a murderer, do you?” said Bates defiantly. “But there was. Higgins was murdered. I know.”

“Oh, don't be silly, Marion,” said Gervase impatiently. “Of course he wasn't. He just couldn't take the anæsthetic, that's all. Come on home like a good girl.”

“Then what's a detective-inspector doing down here?” said Bates, ignoring the second part of his speech.

“He came down to get the whole thing properly cleared up, so that people wouldn't go round saying this kind of idiotic thing,” said Woody coolly.

Sister Bates' tiddley dignity was affronted beyond bearing. “Kindly remember, Woods, that you're speaking to an officer and you're nothing but a private yourself!”

Woods stared at her for a moment and then went off into fits of laughter. “I'm sorry, Sister, but
hon
estly …” Words failed her. The officer's wife and her companion moved unobtrusively away. “This is what comes of mixing Sisters and V.A.D.s at parties,” said Bates furiously.

“Yes. Next time we mustn't ask any Sisters,” said Gervase.

It was too much. She swung round upon him, and her face was livid with rage. “You'll regret that, Gervase! You'll all regret it … my God, I'll see that you all regret it.…” She was sobbing with fury and wounded dignity. Eden put out his hand to her. “I'm sorry, Marion. It was horrid of me. You're tired, my dear … we're all tired and cross and horrid.… Come on and I'll see you home …” but she brushed his hand aside and went on hysterically: “You think there wasn't any murder, but there was, and I know who did it and how it was done and everything.… I'll go to the detective to-morrow and tell him everything.… I'll show him the proof of it.…” As Woods moved impatiently, she swung round on her. “Oh, yes, you think I haven't got any proof but I have! I've got it hidden away in the theatre. I kept it in case … in case I might want to use it. I'll show it to the detective, I'll take it to him in the morning and tell him.…
He
'll believe me, don't worry!”

Eden stepped forward once more pacifically; he saw that she was beyond her own control and he felt a brute. “All right, old girl—you go to him in the morning and tell him everything you know, and show him the proof and all the rest of it. In the meantime it's after twelve and we all want to go to bed. Come along, and I'll take you back to your quarters.…”

But she tore herself from his grasp and flounced off by herself, out of the Mess and across the road and into the hospital grounds. The Sisters' Mess lay at the other side of the park. “I'll go down the avenue,” she thought; “and cut through the hospital and get—it—and take it to my room with me. It'll be safest there.” A shell burst in the sky and there was a booming of distant guns; she almost wished there were flares—it was terribly dark and they did light up the place a bit.

Someone was following her. Someone was dodging from tree to tree of the long, uphill avenues of oaks; dodging quickly from tree to tree and then standing quietly, motionless, peering out at her. She flashed her torch round nervously, half terrified of knowing who was there, half terrified of finding out. She paused and called: “Who is it?” but her voice came out croaking feebly, and seemed to be suffocated in the breathless pounding of her heart. She hurried on, and at once there was a flutter of movement, a whisk of white, an almost soundless brushing of grass and breaking of tiny twigs. She flung herself, panic-stricken, against the huge, friendly, stolid bole of a tree and clung there, sick with dread, calling out again: “Who is it? Who's there? Who's
there
?.” The very darkness about her seemed to hold its breath, listening for the reply; but there was no reply—only a creeping of dry leaf against dry leaf, and a stealthy, motionless silence that crawled with fear.

She did not know how long she crouched, her hands fluttering against the rough, hard bark of the oak; but just so long as she was motionless, nothing moved. When she started away from the shelter of the tree, the eerie rustling movement began again. “I must run,” she thought; “I can't stay here all night with it; I must make a dash … I must run!” and she clutched her little grey cape about her and took to her heels, running for her life up the long corridor of tree trunks, with the pursuer, unseen, dodging after her through the shadows: catching her up, outstripping her, waiting for her in the gloom ahead. Her mouth was dry and her heart thundering in her bursting breast. She did not know whether she were running away from the enemy now, or towards it; she paused for a moment, trembling horribly, and for that moment all was still; she ran on again, blindly then, her high heels tripping and stumbling in the loose stones; her torch fell from her trembling fingers and crashed to the ground and its tiny light went out, and ahead of her something huge and menacing stepped out of the velvet dark and caught and held her fast—and she was in Major Moon's arms, choking out her terror and relief on his kindly shoulder.

“Good heavens, child,” he cried, holding her safe and steady, patting and comforting. “What is all this? What's it all about? Afraid of the dark?—I do believe you were skedaddling up the avenue like a kid afraid of the dark!”

“There's somebody following me!” she cried. “Something's creeping after me. It's because I said I knew who the murderer was.”

“The murderer?” said Major Moon.

“Yes, yes, I know, you see. I—I saw something. I didn't realise it at first.… I was just going over the things.… I just took it out to ask her what on earth it was.…” She pulled herself together a little. “Well, anyway, when I heard about someone having gone into the theatre the night before, I began to see what had happened. I didn't want to say anything, but after to-night— well, why should
she
have him? Why should other people have him? Not that I.… Well, I don't care, I'll go to the detective; I'll tell the detective. I think I ought to; I think it's my duty to go to him.…” She grasped at the old man's arms, muttering incoherently, looking back over her shoulder into the silent dark.