Nothing Like Blood (7 page)

“Yes.”

“We must seem an unholy lot to you.”

She seemed to be asking for it, so I decided to let her have it in my best direct manner.

“Tell me, Miss Welton,” I said. “Do
you
believe Lydia Mallister was murdered?”

Her reaction was a complete surprise. Moreover I am certain that it was natural and genuine.

“Murdered?”
she said at once, as though of all possibilities this had certainly never occurred to her. “What a monstrous idea! Of course she wasn't murdered!”

I was shaken. “I am only repeating something that has been more than once suggested to me,” I said apologetically.

“Oh! “She seemed quite distressed by the idea. “Who could possibly think such a thing? There has never been any question …” She looked pale and I saw that her knuckles were white as she clasped her hands.

“Now I've made you think me a tiresome old alarmist,” I said. “But you must admit there is a lot of talk in this house.”

“Yes, but not
murder.
No one has ever suggested that.”

“I'm sorry if I've said something to upset you.”

She managed to gain control of herself. “I do know that beastly things are said by people, but I never knew anyone could go as far as that. I don't mean you, Mrs Gort. Someone must have told you that.
Please
don't take any notice of it.”

“The whole thing is no business of mine,” I said, “whatever ‘the whole thing' may be. I came here to work. I was told it was the sort of place in which one could work.”

“It used to be,” said Esmée rather sadly.

“I'm sure it will be again. All this will be forgotten very soon.” She gave me a little smile, but it did not seem to imply agreement. “I should like to come and see you at your shop one day. I'm told you have such nice things and I'm in need of a lot.”

“Do,” she said absently. “Yes, please do. I shall look forward to it.”

We went in to dinner.

N
EXT
morning I decided to have a talk with Mrs Derosse. To be candid, I was thinking of leaving. Looking back on it now, it seems almost incredible that at that point I could have packed up and gone with no difficulty and never have been involved in all that followed. I still cannot imagine why I hesitated. Perhaps it was the reassurances, equivocal though they were, of Mrs Derosse.

“I know what you're going to say, Mrs Gort,” she began at once.

I always find that statement a little irritating. “Then I needn't trouble to say it,” I replied.

“You find the atmosphere disagreeable and you want to give up your room.”

“I hadn't quite decided about giving up my room, but I
do
find the atmosphere, not disagreeable so much as disturbing. I'm not getting my work done.”

“I was afraid of that. What is it, Mrs Gort? I would be grateful if you would tell me what you feel. You are the only one who wasn't here at the time of Mrs Mallister's death and it's since then that this change has come about.”

“It's hard to say. At first I thought it was a psychological thing and the idea really rather interested me. How some kind of vague suspicion, with no foundation at all perhaps, could start in a little community like this, then grow and grow till it involved everyone and made everything appear rather sinister. How people who had seemed quite commonplace before began to take on a strangeness and ugliness; how actions which nobody previously would have noticed seemed to have some occult significance. How all this, fed by talk and perhaps some natural antipathies,
grew till it was an obsession. That was my first idea.”

“And now?”

“Now I'm not so sure that it has no foundation.”

“You mean … something to do with Mrs Mallister?”

“Let's not beat about the bush, Mrs Derosse. There are a number of people in this house who believe that Lydia Mallister did not die naturally.”

“But Dr Cuffley …”

“I'm not giving any opinion as to what happened. I'm only saying what is being thought. And it goes further than that. It has been suggested to me that something else very unpleasant may come out of this. In other words, if there is any truth in the idea, then we have someone among us with—to put it mildly—a very guilty conscience and a number of secrets to keep at all costs. Such a person could be dangerous.”

“Yes,” said Mrs Derosse with a little sigh of resignation. “I realize all that.” She hesitated, then brought out a statement by which, it was clear, she believed she had answered everything. “I have asked my niece to come and stay,” she announced.

It was surprising in itself, and surprising in that Mrs Derosse, saying it, seemed to think she had solved every problem.

“Your niece?”

“I have only one, Christine. When you meet her, Mrs Gort, you will understand why I feel such confidence. She will know at once what to do about all this. She's so very brave and competent. She is also extremely shrewd. I believe that within a week of her arrival this nasty business will be over.”

“But
how
?”

“I don't know. But I trust Christine. It was she who made me buy this house and until now I have been very
successful here. She made me get rid of the Lampards, a couple of guests I had who were causing endless trouble though I did not realize it. She found the Jerrisons, who have been wonderful. She will get at the truth of this in no time and tell me what to do.”

“She must be a remarkable young woman.”

“She is, Mrs Gort.”

I smiled. “At any rate I must stay and meet her,” I said. “When does she arrive?”

“On Thursday. I'm very glad you're staying. It would be dreadful if people felt they had to leave here because of all this.”

“I'm rather surprised, frankly, that none of your residents have done so—the bishop and his sister, for instance.”

“Miss Grissell received a very large legacy from Mrs Mallister,” pointed out Mrs Derosse.

“I don't see why that should make her stay.”

“It would look bad for them to leave.”

With that phrase she explained everything. I knew the power of ‘it would look bad' among conventional people.

“Or the Natterleys,” I suggested.

“Perhaps they feel the same. At any rate, when Christine comes, I think things will soon be as they used to be. I always have a waiting-list of people anxious to live here, you know.”

“I'm not surprised. It is very comfortable.”

“Your room was vacant because for the last six months Mr Mallister occupied it. His wife preferred to be alone. After her death he moved back to the room they had shared, which is the best in the house.”

“I see. Well, I hope your niece is successful in laying this ghost, or whatever it is. I think the most unpleasant aspect of it is that someone takes it seriously enough to enter your guests' rooms when they are not there.”

“Oh, you mean what Sonia Reid said the other night. But she's always been a rather excitable girl.”

“I don't mean only that.” I hesitated. I had told no one about my own visitor and had intended not to do so. But I wanted a Yale lock put on my door in order not to carry about the heavy key of the mortice lock. Also I knew that in houses like this the locks were often identical and there might be other keys to fit mine.

“What do you mean, Mrs Gort?” asked Mrs Derosse anxiously.

“Last night when I returned from Northmere I found someone in my room.”

Mrs Derosse looked startled, but asked no question.

“I don't know who it was. I came away at once.”

“Are you
sure? “

“Oh, absolutely. One can sense a human presence in a room.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I told no one and I wish no one to be told now. But I would be glad if you would have a Yale lock put on my door, today if possible.”

“Yes. I certainly will. Oh dear, I wish I had known! And I wish Christine could come before Thursday!”

It was not in fact until the Friday morning that Mrs Derosse's niece arrived. She drove up in a sports car before lunch. I saw the arrival from my window and certainly her swift, decisive driving and brisk yet graceful movements did look like confidence. She wore a pale-grey coat and skirt and one of those very smart hats which look as though they have been snatched from a peg and pulled on like a man's hat, but of course have been nothing of the sort. Even before I saw her face, I liked the look of her.

I soon found I was the only person in the house unacquainted with her. She called the serious-looking Jerri
son ‘Jerry' and seemed popular with him and his wife. She was at once charming and exhilarating to me.

She was older than I had thought when I saw her alight—perhaps thirty-three or -four. Dark hair and large, laughing eyes, yet a somewhat cheeky profile which saved her from leaving any suggestion of one of those noble Roman faces which always mean a boring woman. We were alone in the lounge for a time, Mrs Derosse having, deliberately I thought, left us together.

“Let's have a drink,” she said at once. “I'll tell Jerry. What would you like?”

It was the first time in that house anyone had used those very ordinary words and I was pleased.

“Now what's it all about? “she asked.

“Nothing—or everything. Either there has been a murder here or all your aunt's guests have worked themselves to a point not far from hysteria over nothing at all.”

“What do you think?”

“Your aunt asked me that. I would say there is sufficient to make some of them very frightened. Moreover, there have been one or two nasty little things like room-searching.”

“You don't think it could be something else? Nothing to do with Lydia Mallister at all?”

“Frankly that hadn't occurred to me. Everyone seems to go back to Lydia Mallister's death as a matter of course.”

“A red herring, perhaps?”

“It's possible, I suppose. Did you know her?”

“Yes. Small, mean and vain. She could switch on a sort of wan charm when she liked and was intelligent and musical. I would say she would go to almost any length to do something thoroughly malicious.”

“Did she know she had to die?”

“Oh yes. She soon got that out of the specialists and, to do her justice, she faced it with courage. She knew almost to the day. Why? What are you thinking?”

“It was your saying that she would go to almost any length to be malicious. Do you think that, if she knew she was dying, she was capable of doing something which would make it look as though she had been murdered? Out of spite, I mean?”

Christine smiled.

“A brilliant idea. I would say it was possible but only if it involved James Mallister, and it couldn't very well do that. He was in hospital. Perhaps your ingenious mind is working out something about that? No, no. He really was in hospital. My aunt has checked on it. He couldn't have got out or anything. My aunt saw the night nurse. Besides, he was far too ill. No, I'm afraid your idea is out. She hated her husband with all the venom she had got, but no one else like that.”

“What about Esmée Weiton?”

Again Christine gave me that very full smile. “Oh, it wasn't that kind of hatred. I don't think she cared a damn about James and Esmée having an affair, or whatever they were having. No, she hated James for himself, for having married her and seen her health decline, for being a cheerful and good-natured man and for not being as ill as she was. See what I mean?”

“Whom else did she dislike?”

“Pretty well everyone except Phiz. But she only had one hate in her life, just as other people only have one love. That was for James. It was quite terrifyingly intense.”

“Did he know it?”

“Not fully. He used to say he was afraid he got on her nerves. I don't think he felt anything much for her, except a sort of mild wonder and admiration at her courage.”
Presently she said: “I hear you were thinking of leaving?”

“I was, yes. I've got some work to do.”

“I hope you won't go. You're the only person I can talk to. I'm devoted to my aunt, but she's really in such a state over this that she can't discuss it sensibly.”

“What do you intend to do? “I asked.

“Find out what it's all about. I'm no detective, but I've got some common sense, which is all that's needed here. I've had to come to my aunt's rescue before.”

“You seem very confident.”

“I am. I'll soon find out who's playing monkey-tricks and have them out of the place in a flash. We can't have this.”

“You don't think there's any danger in the situation?”

To my surprise she did not dismiss this. “I don't know,” she said. “I shall have to
feel
that.”

“Abject fear is always dangerous,” I said rather pompously.

“Beast at bay? Yes, I know. I suppose the most ordinary person could do something desperate and violent out of fear. What do you think of the Gee-Gees?”

“I scarcely know them.”

“I've always thought them rather pets, but then I've always quite liked everyone at Cat's Cradle. In different ways, of course. Even Lydia Mallister.”

We were interrupted there by Mrs Derosse's return and soon afterwards those guests who were lunching in the house began to gather.

The idea that Christine had brought sunlight into the house has been borne out by the weather, which has suddenly turned Mediterranean. After a patchy summer with a July that I could only call chilly, it seems that August will go out in placid splendour. The winds round this house on a headland have been strong and various until
now, but they seem to have dropped in deference to the golden sunlight. I am very pleased, of course, and amused by the coincidence of this coming at the time of Christine's arrival, so that Miss Godwin and Miss Grey can both say: “You've brought the fine weather with you, anyhow!”