‘Nearly incredible – which is just my point.’
‘Yesterday – quite suddenly – there was something between Aunt Grace and Uncle Charles.’ Martine had gone on unheeding. ‘That’s one thing that makes it too awful.’
‘You mean they had some dispute or estrangement?’
‘It seemed like that. And it can only have been about that woman.’
‘I think it may have been about a woman. But of what woman are you thinking?’
‘What woman?’ Martine looked at Judith queerly. ‘Barbara Gillingham, of course.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Once more, Judith was suddenly prompted to clear at least one further area of confusion. ‘But what is in your mind, Martine?’
‘My aunt had decided that Uncle Charles must marry the woman.’
‘It isn’t so – although both you and Bobby may be convinced of it. Your aunt had decided that your Uncle Charles should marry you.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ The words came from Martine like a cry, and she had gone very pale.
‘I’m sorry. But I think it is something that should be known – at least to yourself. And you mustn’t be too shocked. Grace thought the world of you. She wanted children at Charne. And she believed – I suppose rightly – that there was no legal or moral impediment. I can see that the idea is bound to offend you. It must have offended your uncle, if it was really communicated to him. But you must remember, as I’m sure he would have done, that a dying person can see things very strangely.’
‘She didn’t like Bobby. Uncle Charles did.’ Martine came out with this as if inconsequently. And then she paused, with an effect of gathering in its relevance. ‘Of course you know that Uncle Charles had a match-making plan of his own. He wanted me to marry Bobby – which would be something perfectly suitable and proper in itself, I suppose. With that in his head, he could hardly have received Aunt Grace’s idea as other than a joke. The more one thinks of it all, the more grotesque it seems. Old people ought not to be ambitious to arrange marriages. They just don’t know what’s absurd.’
‘I’m sure you are right, Martine. If I ever feel the ambition myself, I shall restrain it.’
‘Diana too, you know.’
‘Diana?’
‘Yes – Aunt Grace’s notion again, this time. She thought of Diana for Bobby. She thought that Diana would
do
for Bobby.’
‘You mean–?’
‘Yes – that Diana would be quite good enough for
him
. It wasn’t a very good basis upon which to promote a match. And it was hardly kind to Diana.’
‘Not if she let Diana know that she looked at it in just that way.’
‘Oh, I’m sure Aunt Grace would not do that.’ Martine seemed really shocked. ‘Certainly not intentionally. And Aunt Grace was too sensitive, surely, to let such a thing slip in an inadvertent way. But at least she must be said to have put ideas in Diana’s head.’
‘And to no purpose? It wouldn’t be something Bobby himself would think of?’
‘Bobby might think of anything. He is unaccountable. I don’t understand him.’ Martine said this abruptly, and for a moment seemed to be about to break off the conversation. Then she thought better of this. ‘But you know how Bobby and Diana are always sparring at each other? Aunt Grace was struck by it. She seems to have taken it as a sort of technique of courtship.’
‘I’d say that it is that, in a way. Or at least it is on Diana’s side.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Martine was suddenly contemptuous. ‘Diana has been after him, and my poor aunt is to blame. I think – although I don’t really know – that Diana is a mess.’
‘But surely you and Diana are close friends?’
‘Yes. Or that’s the idea. Or we were.’ Martine was frowning in some obscure perplexity. ‘Everything has been all wrong. And out of it, somehow, there has come this horror. Policemen saying that Aunt Grace has been murdered. Perhaps, by this time, they are saying the same thing about Uncle Charles as well.’
‘Martine, I must insist that the police are not even saying anything of the sort about your aunt. They have only a suspicion. I’m a little surprised, actually, that they seem to have let it get around.’
‘Oh, that must be Sir John, you know.’
‘John?’ Judith was sharply angry. ‘That is nonsense.’
‘I don’t think so. He is the expert, after all. And he wants to rattle us.’ Martine paused. It was impossible to tell whether she believed what she was saying. ‘His first success has been with Diana. Diana is terrified.’
It was only a few minutes later that Martine Rivière’s last statement was borne out somewhat dramatically – almost, indeed, to the effect of another sudden death at Charne. Judith Appleby going in search of her husband, and rounding a corner of the house in some absence of mind, was recalled to her surroundings by a screech of brakes in her ears and the appearance of a car bonnet pretty well under her nose. Automatically she had taken evasive action; now she stepped back a further pace and took stock of what had happened. The car – small, by no means old, but carrying the suggestion of being miscellaneously battered – was Diana’s. Diana was at the wheel, and she seemed to be aware that she had been behaving dangerously. But, although she contrived to produce some sort of apology, she didn’t switch off her engine.
‘Heavens, Diana – you do seem in a hurry! Where are you off to?’ The question wasn’t really necessary. The back of the little car was piled with suitcases and a heap of loose clothes.
‘I have to leave. I’ve been called away. Isn’t it a frightful bore? But it can’t be helped.’ Diana’s manner was as wild as her driving had been. She was confused, frightened, and obeying a simple impulse to bolt.
‘That seems a great pity.’ Judith walked up to the car, and put a hand on one of its doors. ‘Have you told people?’
‘Yes…no. There hasn’t been time. It’s illness in my family, and terribly urgent. Goodbye.’
‘Diana – that isn’t quite true, is it? You just want to go away because things here have been distressing you? I don’t think you should. Not without talking to somebody.’
‘I don’t want to talk to anybody. I talked to Mrs Martineau. And you see what happened.’
‘Diana, whatever do you mean by that?’
‘Nothing. I didn’t mean to say anything. That’s what I’m
saying
, isn’t it? So leave me alone. Let me drive on.’
‘If you want to, then of course.’ Judith took her hand from the door of the car, and stepped back a pace. ‘But it won’t be any good. I think I ought to tell you that.’
‘What do you mean – it won’t be any good?’ Diana sounded uncertain. ‘You’re trying to frighten me.’
‘That isn’t so, Diana. You are frightened already – and you’ll go on being frightened till you face up to things. When I say it’s no good bolting, I mean simply that you will be visited wherever you go, and asked questions. And that isn’t unreasonable. You see, it’s just possible a crime may have been committed at Charne–’
‘Of course a crime has been committed.’ Diana’s voice had risen in panic. ‘I just don’t want to get killed too.’
‘I don’t think that’s at all likely.’
‘Yes, it is. He may kill anybody.’
‘Diana, what do you mean? Who may kill anybody?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let me go.’ Diana Page was now reduced to a condition of childish incoherence. It wasn’t easy to see her as other than rather a rubbishing little person, and Judith reflected that Grace Martineau’s estimate of her nephew Bobby’s worth must have been decidedly low if she had really felt that in Diana Page he would find a suitable wife. This didn’t mean that Diana must be harshly treated now. The child was desperately in need of support – and in need, too, of somebody to confess to. This last impression had been with Judith for some time. But now, if Diana was not talking utterly at random, there seemed a real need to extract sense out of her. Judith tried a fresh line.
‘Diana,’ she asked, ‘does Bobby know how upset you are?’
‘Bobby? Bobby wouldn’t ever know anything. He wouldn’t ever notice anything – except his own beastly silly cleverness!’ Diana was now in tears – tears that were angry and unbeautiful. ‘And
she
seemed so clever – so clever and wise and kind. I believed her. Don’t you see?’
Judith did see, and her feeling of compassion for Diana grew.
‘She was,’ she said. ‘Or she used to be. But I think, Diana, that her illness clouded her judgement. Her illness and some other wishes that she had.’
‘Other wishes! What other wishes?’
‘Never mind that now. And I am so sorry. You were terribly disappointed when Bobby turned out not to be interested after all?’
‘I could have taken it.’ Diana had raised her chin, so that a tiny flicker of spirit seemed to appear in her. ‘But he had his fun with me.’
Judith said nothing. It wasn’t a point at which to make a mistake.
‘I’ve put that stupidly. He didn’t shove me into bed. Perhaps he just hasn’t got what it takes.’ Diana was suddenly vicious.
‘He flirted with you, you mean?’
‘What a funny word. You make it sound like something in a novel. But yes, I suppose so. He chatted me up. He could get me all excited without touching me. And then he’d go away laughing.’
‘I see.’ Judith found that this picture of Bobby Angrave as a pretty average young cad failed to surprise her. ‘And then you rather lost your head?’
‘I suppose so.’ Diana looked straight at Judith in sudden defiance. ‘In fact I lost more than that.’
There was a moment’s silence. Judith had a sense of Diana’s last words as not, somehow, ringing quite true. In a witness box Diana would cut an unimpressive figure. Was she a vicious child, or a child who had been gravely wronged? A jury would resent not being able to make up their mind about her.
‘And so, you see, it has all been my fault.’ Diana’s tone had suddenly changed again. ‘I didn’t mean to do anything wrong. In fact, I thought for once that I was doing what was entirely right. But it was a mistake, wasn’t it? Because Mrs Martineau was murdered. And perhaps Mr Martineau was murdered too. I wasn’t, because he thought I’d be too scared to speak. But now I am speaking. And I suppose I’ll have to go on.’
‘Yes, I think you will.’ Judith felt a sudden enhanced sympathy for Diana, who seemed really to be on the way to overcoming some vivid, if irrational, fear. ‘You have said things that make it certain the police will want to take a statement from you. So I think–’
‘Couldn’t I tell Sir John?’
‘Yes, I think you could. At first, at least – if you would prefer it that way. Shall I ask him? I’m going to look for him now.’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Then go and put your car away,’ Judith said quietly. ‘And get at least some of these things back to your room.’
‘But we’ll all be able to leave Charne soon?’
‘Yes, of course, Diana. And there’s nothing to be afraid of.’
‘Wasn’t that Diana?’
Judith, crossing the terrace, turned round as the voice spoke – peremptorily rather than politely – just behind her. It was Bobby Angrave who had appeared so abruptly. Thus confronted, Judith allowed herself a moment’s silence.
‘Sorry, Lady Appleby. With something like this on our hands, one does tend to forget – wouldn’t you say? – what that Gillingham woman calls the forms. But it was Diana, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was she doing, fooling around like that in her car? It seemed piled up with luggage.’
‘Diana had decided to go away. I had to dissuade her – although I’m not sure I wanted to.’ Judith paused. ‘She hasn’t had a very good time at Charne.’
‘My dear Lady Appleby, who has?’ Bobby said this with a decently subdued amusement. In contrast with the previous night, he seemed confident and relaxed. The way he had said ‘My dear Lady Appleby’ seemed in itself significant; the tone was that of one remembering simultaneously both his juniority and his status as a host.
‘It’s a trying time for everybody, no doubt.’ Judith began to move forward again, since she felt no prompting to conversation with Bobby at the moment. ‘Can you tell me where I shall find my husband?’
‘Yes, I think I can.’ Bobby had fallen in beside Judith in a manner that was now wholly courteous. ‘He’s with this Colonel Morrison in Charne Wood. They’ve established a kind of headquarters in the belvedere, and now they’re planning an arrest. I suppose you know who is going to get arrested?’
‘No,’ Judith said, a little shortly. ‘I don’t.’
‘I am. I don’t think there’s a doubt of it. Not after the latest development. I shall be in gaol before nightfall. But I’m told one can have meals sent in.’
Judith said nothing. This was the kind of nonsense, she reflected, that Bobby Angrave was accustomed to talk when in high spirits. It seemed decidedly inappropriate that he should be in high spirits now.
‘Perhaps,’ Bobby said, ‘you just haven’t
heard
of the latest development?’ He looked at Judith challengingly, and almost as if piqued by her lack of interest. ‘There’s been activity in my uncle’s office, you know. All the resources of science, and so forth. Men in heavy boots and blue serge suits taking photographs and discovering fingerprints. I particularly like the fingerprint business. Do you know? It’s done by puffing powder everywhere, and then blowing it away. Just as in one of those two-and-sixpenny paperbacks.’
‘Bobby, all this is upsetting, of course. But I don’t see why you need let it release a spate of flippant talk. You don’t amuse me – not a bit.’
‘I’m frightfully sorry, Lady Appleby.’ If Bobby’s was faintly a mock-penitence, it was at least without insolence. ‘You see, I’m scared stiff. The notion that Aunt Grace had been deliberately drowned by someone was pretty horrible – but at least it seemed to have no immediate practical meaning. Martine says Aunt Grace may have discovered something about a servant, who lost her head – or his head – and killed her. It’s revolting, thought of like that, but it doesn’t touch us. Just a nasty irruption from below-stairs. Edward Pendleton would see it that way.’
‘So he would,’ Judith said – and at once regretted that she had encouraged this talk by a single word. But Bobby’s last remark had been perceptive enough.
‘But there’s no doubt what they’re gunning for now. Take, for example, the gun.’