Nothing Like Blood (18 page)

“I presume so. He went upstairs. Wait! Did the bishop cross the hall? He may have done. I can't be sure of that.”

“And you went up about eleven?”

“I didn't look at my watch, but I should think so. I was awakened by the bell chiming by the front door, but decided to take no notice. It had happened before—holiday-makers - desperate for rooms. Later the bishop came to my room and told me what had happened.”

“You got up then?”

“Yes. The whole house seemed to be astir. When I reached the lounge, the police had just arrived.”

“It must have been very disturbing.”

“Well, yes. Of course neither Esmée nor I knew the girl well, but a thing like that is always a shock. She was so
very
much alive. Now may I ask you something? Do you think there was anything … irregular about my wife's death?”

Carolus considered. “I do, yes,” he said at last.

“You mean you think she was murdered?”

“I just don't know, Mallister. If I knew she was, it would make the rest of this investigation much easier. But that's a question that could only be decided by a post-mortem.”

“I wish they would have one then, and get it over.”

“For all I know, they may consider both cases closed.”

“We want to get away from all this,” said Mallister. “Esmée and I want to go somewhere else entirely, when
we get married. I can get a transfer from the bank. But we can't go till it's cleared up.”

“I'm doing my best,” said Carolus, “and you've both been very helpful. Perhaps it will come sooner than you think.”

S
INCE
his arrival at Cat's Cradle, Carolus had felt that his best hope lay in the Jerrisons. He remembered Helena Gort's description of the garrulous wife and the husband who, Mrs Jerrison herself said, ‘won't talk about it', and felt there was something of a challenge here. There were other things that suggested the Jerrisons might have valuable knowledge. They never went to bed until late. ‘We're nearly always the last to go up,' Mrs Jerrison had said. And Jerrison had followed Steve Lawson down to where the body lay on the night of Sonia's death.

He decided to make his approach through Jerrison and called him aside after dinner. “Would it be possible for me to have a word with you and Mrs Jerrison presently?”

To his surprise, Jerrison showed no hesitation or unwillingness. “Certainly, sir,” he said. “Would you like to come along to our little sitting-room? It's through the kitchen.”

“Thanks. What time would suit you?”

“Soon as we've got the dinner things out of the way. Say in an hour's time?”

If this was the untalkative Jerrison, what would his wife be like, wondered Carolus. But there he had a surprise. Mrs Jerrison was polite, too polite, and put
Carolus in a large armchair, but he felt at once that she had created what she meant to be an impregnable reserve.

After some minutes of difficult general conversation Carolus explained that he was, with Mrs Derosse's consent, trying to establish the facts about the two deaths.

“Well, I've told all I know to the police,” said Mrs Jerrison.

“Of course. I should do the same. Only the things I would like to know may not be quite the same. Small things like those you told Mrs Gort.”

“That was different,” said Mrs Jerrison. “That was before Sonia Reid's death, and we didn't really know anything was wrong.”

“Do we
know
now?”

“Well, you should ask yourself, sir. What with Miss Reid lying battered on the rocks and Mrs Derosse nearly out of her mind, and the police asking questions till you feel your head's going round, and Mr Lawson not paid his bill for I don't know how long, and Miss Grey near a breakdown—if that's not wrong I don't know what is.”

“I meant, we don't know that Mrs Mallister did not die naturally and that Miss Reid's was not an accident.”

“Accident!” said Mrs Jerrison. “But I've said enough. I don't want to make things worse than they are. We don't want any more ‘accidents' happening.”

“We certainly don't,” said Carolus. “But I think they are more likely to be prevented by your telling me anything you know than by keeping it to yourself.”

“It's not much,” said Mrs Jerrison, clearly wavering. “And I've told the police.”

“It might be vital.”

“I don't know what to say. I'd made up my mind to keep my mouth shut. I don't want to cause trouble.”

“Was it something about Mrs Mallister?”

“Oh no! That's all over long ago. I had to say at the inquest how I went into her room that night, as I always did, and saw her comfortable for the night. The only thing I didn't say didn't seem worth saying, really. She did mention then that she'd left us something in her will. I never dreamed it would be as much as it was and I never told anyone, because you don't know what they'd have made out of it if I'd said.”

“I understand,” said Carolus.

“She didn't say it nicely, either. She spoke as though she hated having to leave it us. ‘It'll come to you and you won't have long to wait,' she snapped. I tried to make things pleasanter, but she wouldn't listen. So I made her comfortable and left her.”

“You saw no one going to her room?”

“No. I didn't. I came straight down here. But that seems a long time ago, with all that's happened since.” Suddenly Mrs Jerrison asked an unexpected question: “Is it known what time Sonia is supposed to have died?”

“As near as I can calculate from what the people in the boat told me, round about midnight.”

Mrs Jerrison nodded thoughtfully.

“You might as well tell him, Belle,” put in Mr Jerrison.

“It's nothing much. But it seems to haunt me somehow,” said Mrs Jerrison. There was a long silence. Carolus was sure he had won. “We were in bed by twelve,” said Mrs Jerrison. “Our bedroom's just above here, almost over the front door. When we've got our window open on a quiet night we can hear anyone moving about out there on the drive. Well, soon after we'd gone to bed I heard someone open the front door and step out. Whoever it was moved quietly and quickly at the same time. I thought it was a woman's steps. They moved away, but they were soon on the grass. I thought it must be someone who'd forgotten something from the terrace, and
waited to hear them come back. But they didn't come—then, anyway. Of course, whoever it was could have gone right up the drive, keeping on the grass border. Or they could have gone round to the terrace as I thought. I just don't know.”

“And did the footsteps return?” asked Carolus.

“Not for a long time they didn't. Must have been the best part of half an hour. Then I heard them come back. This time they seemed in more of a hurry. Whoever it was had a latchkey.

“Where I blame myself,” went on Mrs Jerrison, “is for not having a look. Only, so far as I knew then, there was nothing wrong. I don't like to be thought nosy, looking out to see who's coming in or going out. But if I'd have just taken a look then, it might have saved all this trouble.”

“You think the two lots of footsteps were of the same person?”

“That's a funny thing you should say that, but I've often wondered. You see, you don't notice things at the time. How was I to know that not long after I'd heard them these people from the boat were to come ringing the bell? But I have asked myself whether they were the same. The second time it sounded more like a man. But I can't be sure about either time.”

Carolus looked at Mrs Jerrison and wondered whether she was going to break down. The big, good-natured face was distorted by her efforts to keep back her tears

“Only there it is, Mr Deene,” she said at last, “I can't forget those footsteps. It's like as though I could still hear them when we go up to bed at night. I'd like to leave this house and done with it, only it suits my husband, who's got weak lungs, and I shouldn't like to leave Mrs Derosse, not in the middle of all this. She's been very good to us, poor thing, and there is Mrs Mallister's money
to think of. But if it wasn't for that, we should go and double-quick, I can tell you.”

“I fully understand,” said Carolus.

“The wife worries over things,” explained Jerrison. “I try to stop her, but it's no good.”

“You'd worry if you'd heard what I did,” said Mrs Jerrison. “And not know if it was a murderer or not.”

“Well, even if it was?” argued Jerrison. “If there's a murderer in this house, you've seen whoever it is lots of times. And very likely chatted with him or her and made the bed and I don't know what. So why worry about those footsteps?”

“Oh be quiet, Redmond! You don't understand. It's nothing to laugh about either, as Mr Deene knows. You tell him what you told the police and stop giving me the horrors.”

“Yes, there was something rather interesting,” said Jerrison. “At least that plain-clothes copper seemed to find it interesting. He took a lot of notes about it. You see, Mr Deene, I was never much interested in this business. Not at first, that is, when it was only a matter of Mrs Mallister. I used to tell the wife not to keep on about it because it was all a lot of nonsense. But Sonia Reid was another matter. There was something very nasty about that. And what I'm going to tell you proves it.

“The first I knew that night was when I opened the door to that holiday-camp couple. I thought they'd pull the bell off the way they was carrying on. They began at me as soon as I opened. Excited they were—well, naturally. They'd come up the wider path from the beach, not our little cliff path that goes down. I called Mrs Derosse and she told me to phone the police, which I did. The guests started coming downstairs, some of them, and I went to tell the wife what had happened and tell her to get up and make a cup of tea. I thought they'd all need
it. By the time I got back, they told me Steve Lawson had gone off and they thought he'd taken the cliff path to where the body was. So I took a torch and set off down.”

“Yes?” said Carolus, for Jerrison had paused.

“You wouldn't happen to like a glass of beer, would you?” he asked Carolus. “It's all we've got here of our own. Of course I could go and get you …”

“No, no. Please. I'd love a glass of beer. Do go on.”

“I never saw anything of Lawson till I reached the bottom of the cliff and saw him ahead of me. He didn't turn his head, but went on towards where the body would be if it had fallen from one of the rooms on that side. When we were getting near, he made a little dash forward and seemed to be going mad, jumping about like I don't know what. But before he did that I'd seen distinctly a set of footmarks going up to the body and back. Saw them distinctly with my torch. The sea hadn't been off the sand there half an hour, I shouldn't think. The surface was quite smooth, except for these footprints.”

Carolus lit a cheroot, waited a few moments, then looked straight at Jerrison. “Now let's get this straight,” he said. “You saw the footprints as you approached. Where were you when you saw them?”

“There wasn't much sand there,” said Jerrison, “just a little piece perhaps five yards across with rocks all round it. I'll take you down tomorrow and show you the place. Our footpath, that's the private one from this house, goes down the slope—well, it's a bit more than a slope, a cliff slope, you might say—then crosses the rocks, which are smooth there and comes to this bit of sand. The cliff behind the sand is almost sheer, though. It looked as though the girl had fallen straight as a plummet on to the rocks between the foot of the cliff and the sand, then rolled or bounced on to the sand.”

“Be quiet, will you, Redmond! Talking about people bouncing when they're dead like that.”

“What's wrong? Mr Deene understands what I mean. Now, I saw the footprints with my torch while I was still crossing the rocks towards the patch of sand. There weren't many, because it wasn't large.”

“And you had the impression that Lawson was trying to obliterate them?”

“That's what it looked like, the way he was jumping about. Of course he was half out of his mind and kept shouting ‘Sonia!' and that. But there certainly wasn't much left of those footprints when he'd finished with them.”

“Were they of a man or a woman?”

“It's hard to say, Mr Deene. I only saw them for a moment with my torch. I have the impression that they weren't large. Either a small man's, or a big woman's without high heels. But I might be wrong about that. And anyway it doesn't help much, because most of the men in this house have got smallish feet. Even the bishop. I remarked on it to the wife once when all their shoes were here for cleaning.”

“Do you think they could have been Lawson's own?” asked Carolus.

“I had thought of that. You mean, if he'd started long enough before me, he'd have had time to get to the corpse and return to where I found him, pretending he was on his way to it? It's hard to say. It depends how long after him I left, and how quick he could go down that path without a torch. He'd used it often enough. But I've got another idea, Mr Deene.”

“Yes?”

“Those footprints could have been made by whoever it was my wife heard. Her footsteps and my footprints could be of the same person.”

“I wish you'd stop talking like that,” said Mrs Jerrison.

“You say Lawson was hysterical?”

“Worse than that. He was raving. Even when we started coming back and were half-way up the cliff he suddenly shouted ‘I'm not going to leave her there! I won't! ‘And he ran back to where she was lying. I had to go back after him. When I reached him, he was crying like a child and I managed to get him home. Of course, whatever had happened, she was his girl, wasn't she? You can understand it.”