Norton, Andre - Novel 39 (20 page)

 
          
 
"I didn't say that—"

 
          
 
"There's little enough you did say to put
my mind at rest." The inspector sighed gustily.
"A
heavy cross to bear— just knowing that if I'd called on Mr. Utterson a bit
earlier last night, he'd have lived to see this sunshine today."
Eyes that Hester thought might have been purposely slitted to a show of sorrow
now flashed in sudden determination. "When that lily-livered little beak
heard you mention the Home Office this morning, he couldn't wait to turn you
loose. But I'm not done with you yet. There are others on the bench as is not
so wishy-washy about matters concerning
murder,
and if
I was to procure a warrant for your arrest—"

 
          
 
"You needn't do that!" Hester rose
quickly. "I'll tell you what you want to know, everything he told
me."

 
          
 
"He?"
The
inspector frowned.

 
          
 
"Mr. Utterson." Now Hester had the
complete attention of both her uninvited visitors. "I gave him my word I'd
not speak of this, but now there is no choice." She nodded at Newcomen.
"If you would be so good as to close the door before taking a
seat..."

 
          
 
The inspector complied, and a moment later
both he and Albert Prothore sat listening as Hester broke her vow of silence.

 
          
 
It was not an easy matter to disclose, and as
she continued she grew increasingly aware of how fantastic the account now
seemed. The tale that had been barely believable when told in the dimness of
the solicitor's office was utterly incredible in this sunlit setting. But she
did her best to convey the gravity and conviction with which the solicitor
couched his story. Whatever reservations others might have, there was no doubt
that Utterson had told her the truth as he saw it—Dr. Henry Jekyll and Edward
Hyde were one and the same.

 
          
 
Engrossed in the telling, Hester took little
note of the response invoked. Only upon concluding did she give the auditors
her direct attention, and it was to Albert Prothore that she first turned in
expectation of support.

 
          
 
His expression alone was enough to signal the
burst of words to come. "The man must have been mad! Stark, raving mad.
All this business of chemicals and bodily transformations—it's scientifically
absurd." Prothore shook his head. "Imagine alchemy and metamorphosis
in this day and age. Sheer lunacy, if you ask me."

 
          
 
Newcomen scowled at Hester. "It's easy
enough to put words in a dead man's mouth, but you'll not be taking me for a
fool. I've a good mind to—"

 
          
 
Whatever the inspector's intentions, his
announcement was interrupted by a tap on the door. Now it opened to admit
Bertha as Hester rose. "Yes—what is it?" she said.

 
          
 
"Sorry, miss, but I was told it was
urgent," the maid murmured.

 
          
 
"Urgent?"

 
          
 
Bertha nodded, displaying the envelope she
held in her left hand. "The bobby outside said as to give this to
Inspector Newcomer, right off." She glanced with avid interest from one
man to the other.

 
          
 
"Right here with you,
me
gel. And the name is New-comen." The envelope seemed smaller when
transferred to the inspector's huge hand. He nodded at Bertha. "Go outside
and ask the officer to wait."

 
          
 
"Do as the inspector
says
,"
Hester told the girl. As the maid exited, the big man was already opening the
message. It seemed lengthy, as did the scowl that accompanied his reading, and
the expulsion of breath that followed.

 
          
 
When at last Newcomen looked up, the scowl had
softened to a frown. Folding the paper and restoring it to the envelope, he
gestured toward Prothore. "Message dispatched from the Yard," the
inspector said. "Bob Snell turned up this morning."

 
          
 
"And who might that be?"

 
          
 
"Your cabby—the one who ran off last
night.
" Newcomen shrugged. "Said it was on his
conscience, and when he read the paper he came in to make a clean breast of
it."

 
          
 
Albert Prothore nodded. "Then you know I
was telling the truth."

 
          
 
"That may be the case.
Unless
the two of you fixed on the same story beforehand."

 
          
 
Hester could contain herself no longer.
"You presume too much, Inspector. I am not knowledgeable in police
matters, but I think it unlikely this cabby would come forward with a voluntary
statement if he felt it might implicate him in a crime."

           
 
"Nobody wishes to be implicated in a
crime, miss," Newcomen said, "particularly when it's a hanging
offense." Once again he directed his attention to Prothore.
"Best to tell the truth."

 
          
 
"As I have," the young man
responded.

 
          
 
"Up to a point."
The inspector paused for a moment.
"But not the whole
truth.
And it's that I'm after." His left forefinger tapped against
the envelope in his right hand. "According to this, your cabby saw someone
running suspiciously in the tree-shadows to the left and bounding over a hedge.
It was that as frightened him off."

 
          
 
"I saw no one," Prothore said.
"But I'm inclined to believe him. That would explain why he fled."

 
          
 
"Too much explaining, if you ask
me." Newcomen glanced at Hester as he spoke.
"Including
that story about Dr. Jekyll.
There's a goodish bit more to be
learned." Newcomen stuffed the envelope into his pocket. "I'd best be
about my business now."

 
          
 
"What are you going to do?" Hester
said.

 
          
 
Inspector Newcomen was already moving toward
the doorway as he spoke. "Something as will put a stop to all this."

 
          
 
Hester moved across the room to the far
window. There was a bar of weak sunshine visible and she gave an impatient pull
to the curtains to let that part of the natural world in. This could not truly
be happening. She was looking beyond now, across the back garden to that
ominous pile of the laboratory where all this horror was supposed to have
begun. Supposed?
Was she doubting
Mr. Utterson's
story, too? Pro-thore's reaction, that of the Inspector—though she would
distrust anything from that quarter—had they shaken her so? Her mouth suddenly
felt very dry and she quickly repressed a shiver as she swung around to face
Prothore.

 
          
 
"What proof can there be—now?"

 
          
 
The other was frowning, but somehow in the
disorder of his present appearance, in her memory of his story, he was now a
rather different person than the haughty and arrogant man she had so resented.
Perhaps his own world had been invaded by a reality that he could not have
acknowledged before. She had led a retired life, yes, and her first excursion
beyond four safe walls had shaken her. But she had not as far to go as Albert
Prothore, secure all his life as a member of a caste designed from birth to
give orders and not be challenged save by an equal.

 
          
 
"I don't know," he said.
"Possibly Utterson left some account among his papers ..."

 
          
 
"Possibly—" Hester got no further
than that when there
came
a knock at the door and she
started forward, wondering for a moment if the inspector had indeed returned.
But at her call it was Hannah who entered, her long face even more set in a
sharp cast of disapproval.

 
          
 
"Ma'am, it is Cook, she is all
upset." She bit off her words as if she were firing them at some target.
"Fish 'as been 'ere and wot 'e said—it 'as 'er all apart as it were."

 
          
 
"Fish?"
Hester repeated blankly. It took her a full moment to realize that Hannah was
referring to the arrival of the fishmonger's deliveryman.

 
          
 
"Yes, ma'am.
And
Mrs. Dorset, she's 'ad a turn."

 
          
 
Hannah gave an exaggerated shudder that Hester
was certain was a piece of play-acting. "Sam Noggins, 'e says as 'ow when
he came around by the back lane there was broken wood all around the door—that
door into the court. As if someone was a-trying to get in 'ere—and it must 'ave
been in the night, ma'am, 'cause there weren't no such signs when Patty were
a-dumpin' the swab water from the scullery."

 
          
 
"The door into the back
garden?"
Hester looked from the maid to Prothore. "But
Bradshaw said that it was securely locked, bolted, has been ever since—"
She drew a deep breath.

 
          
 
Prothore was already standing over Hannah.
"Show me," he demanded and the sharpness in his voice cut away even
more of that languorous tone that Hester found so irritating. There was a new
swiftness in his movements, as if he were eager to be in action.

           
 
She was not to be left alone, and followed as
he headed for the rear of the house, with Hannah now a step or so behind. Mrs.
Dorset was sunk into the well-cushioned chair that provided her throne in the
kitchen. Her cap was pushed so far to the back of her head that her frizzled
gray hair was a wild band over her forehead. She was red-faced and gasping as
Patty stood beside her, a glass of some dark liquid in her hand trying to urge
it on Cook as a restorative.

 
          
 
Leaning against the table was a young man, a
stained apron tied about him, with a very strong odor of fish exuding from his
untidy person. He was apparently thoroughly enjoying the scene he had helped to
create.

 
          
 
It was Prothore who took command. Sam Noggins
was summoned to be a guide. Perhaps Prothore supposed that Hester would remain
to help revive the cook. Instead she followed the pair. This was her domain and
she would have firsthand knowledge of anything that threatened it.

 
          
 
They surveyed marks that clearly indicated a
determined attempt to force the gate into the garden area and behind the
courtyard. Prothore shook his head.

 
          
 
"New locks—within this
morning certainly.
And other reinforcements."
He took Hester's arm as if he were her elder brother or had some other
kinsman's right to so lead her, and when they returned to the house he said
abruptly, "This is no place for you!"

 
          
 
Though she had been shaken by the sight of
that scratched door, she was still not prepared to surrender independence.

 
          
 
"This is my home. New locks, yes—"

 
          
 
He did not look as if he had even heard her.
"Where is the butler?" he demanded as if she could summon the missing
manservant with a snap of her fingers.

 
          
 
"I have not the least idea," Hester
replied. The softening that she had sensed in him earlier seemed to have been
banished. She told him of the disappearance of the servant after his abrupt
resignation from service. Then, because she was indeed at a loss, she added:
"Perhaps you, Mr. Prothore, can find someone to take his place."

 
          
 
"You are determined to stay on
here?"

 
          
 
"Certainly.
If
it is indeed as Mr. Utterson declared, this house is mine."

 
          
 
He frowned at the fireplace as if in the dying
coals there he could read something as momentous as the horrible story she had
learned that very morning.

 
          
 
"You have no friend who is able to come
and stay with you?"

 
          
 
"I believe you know something of my
circumstances, Mr. Prothore." She was finding it easier now to draw back
to her original estimate of him. "I come from overseas and—"

 
          
 
"Overseas! But that is it—of
course!"

 
          
 
His eyes were alight and he lost some of that
authoritative air. "Miss Jekyll, I would like to make my sister known to
you. Margaret, Lady Farlie, has recently returned from
India
. Her husband's regiment finished its tour
of duty, and he may be sending in his papers soon, as he has recently inherited
from his uncle. I think"—and for the first time he smiled in a way that
changed the image she held of him— "that you and Margaret will get on
capitally together. You are of the same type of character. Certainly you can
see the advantage of having an acquaintance in somewhat the same situation as
yourself. Margaret has been a good many years out of
England
, with only a few, and curtailed, visits
home. She is devoted to Henry and could never be persuaded to leave him for
long—so she is finding settling down here something of a puzzle also. I would
like very much for you to meet her."

 
          
 
Lady Farlie, Hester thought.
Another such as Lady Ames—but maybe not.
For some reason she
liked what Prothore had to say of his sister. It was plain he admired her, and
that there was more than just a family tie between them. To her own faint
surprise she found herself agreeing.

 
          
 
"Very good!
And
I shall see to a locksmith and also look for a reliable man to live in."
All the distress and hesitancy that had been about him when he first arrived
had disappeared. He strode briskly and stepped into the cab Hester had called
for him with the assurance of a man of affairs with important business waiting.

 
          
 
Cook had been sent to her room for a lie-down.
The fumes of brandy she wafted about her suggested that her withdrawal from the
scene might be somewhat lengthy. Hester herself, to the openmouthed
astonishment of Patty and the consternation of Hannah, set about getting a
small lunch. Events had moved so swiftly and it was now well past
noon
. But Bertha slipped in deftly to aid her
and they managed quite well in Hester's opinion.

 
          
 
Suddenly she was more than eager to meet Lady
Farlie. But she could not go there dressed as a dowd. When she discussed the
matter with Bertha as they worked together, Hannah surprised Hester by speaking
up. There was a dressmaking establishment not too far away, she reported, that
rented sewing machines. She had a cousin, in business for herself, who rented
one from them.

 
          
 
Hannah was dispatched in a cab, money in hand,
to get a sewing machine as quickly as possible. The routine of the house had
certainly been shattered, but Hester was able to forget for a little while what
had made her morning a time of uneasy foreboding.

 
          
 
Bertha next made a suggestion that could
provide Hester with a respectable wardrobe in a very short time. The three
least shabby of Hester's dresses were hung out on the edge of the wardrobe
door, and now, with the assurance of one who knew exactly what she was
doing,
Bertha selected the one of gray poplin.

 
          
 
"At the sewing room," she said,
"we get a lot of clothes— some of them lady's things as you would think
could never be used, stained, and torn. But Mrs. Kirby, she can think of things
as can be done to make them worth selling. Gets a nice little lot for 'em,
sometimes, she does.
Now, look 'ere, miss.
We
takes
this and that nice violet stuff as you got at Myers.
We
drapes
it, then we uses that ribbon there, and
those buttons of cut steel as you got a card of at Gathers, and finally a
rushing of the ribbon here."

 
          
 
While speaking she was hard at work, pinning
and pulling material and dress until Hester could share her vision. By teatime,
with the aid of the machine Hannah had brought back in triumph, Bertha, with
some help from Hester, had produced a dress that was nothing like the dowdy,
out-of-style, limp thing Hester had first shown her.

 
          
 
Inspired by their success, Bertha had gone on
to cut out two new gowns. She insisted upon making one that would be suitable
for evening wear. It would go well with the chinchilla-trimmed mantle Hester
had bought on her whirlwind shopping trip.

 
          
 
Cook seemed to have recovered far enough to
produce tea, though the sandwich slices of bread might not have been as
paper-thin as desired. Hester was sitting by the fire in the hall resting her eyes
and her cramped fingers when there was a knock at the outer door and Hannah
admitted a footman with a note.

 
          
 
Prothore had certainly acted quickly. What she
had was a request from Lady Farlie that she
excuse
the
shortness of time and would she come to tea the following day. Hester hesitated
only a moment before writing an acceptance. The thought of being able to meet
someone who was perhaps as approachable as Mrs. Kirby, and who would certainly
not hold her background against her, was refreshing.

 
          
 
But she had had enough of the darkness that
seemed to linger even in the well-lighted hall. With no Bradshaw to do his
proper duties that night, she made the rounds of the house herself, accompanied
by Bertha. Mr. Hobbs, the locksmith promised by Prothore, had indeed shown up,
and was kept very busy. She now had a new collection of keys and tonight, after
all doors were locked and window catches inspected, they would be left beside
her bed.

           
 
Bertha was still at the machine when Hester
entered the disused bedroom they had turned into a sewing room. Hester scolded
her gently.