The Scandal at 23 Mount Street (An Angela Marchmont Mystery Book 9) (24 page)

‘It went off accidentally,’ said Angela.

Callie nodded.

‘What time was this?’ said Freddy.

‘I don’t know. Just after ten, maybe. It made the most awful noise. At first I thought he’d done it as a joke, but then I saw he was dead and I knew it was all over. I don’t know how long I stood there, but at some point I must have realized that I was going to get into trouble if they found me there. I remember thinking that they’d say I’d killed him, and that I must get away as quickly as possible.’

‘Why did you put the gun back in the drawer?’ said Angela.

‘I don’t know, exactly,’ said Callie. ‘All I know is that I didn’t want anybody to guess what Davie had been intending to do. It seemed so important that nobody should find him with the gun in his hand. I felt that it was all my fault, somehow, and that if I’d been a stronger person and had known how to manage him better, then none of it would have happened—he’d never have dreamed of killing anybody. So I wiped the gun and put it in the drawer, and then I wiped the chest, too, just to be on the safe side, and anything else I could think of. Then I took the keys and locked the door and ran away—I don’t know where; I just wandered around London until dawn I think, and then at last I came back to my hotel. I don’t really remember much about what happened after that, but they tell me I collapsed and was ill for quite a while. Then they brought me here.’

She looked down at the baby.

‘They say it was touch and go for a few weeks, but they think he’ll do well now that he’s over the worst,’ she said. ‘I wanted to call him David, but I don’t know if it’s such a good idea—and anyway there doesn’t seem much sense in giving him a name if I won’t get to keep him.’

She fell silent, then. The baby gave a little murmur and she caressed its head.

Angela regarded the poor girl before her, who had been fooled and betrayed in love, and who had unwittingly brought about such misery, and felt nothing but pity.

‘Will you sign a written statement of what you’ve just told us?’ said Freddy.

‘I guess I will,’ said Callie. ‘It’s only right. Am I going to get into trouble?’

‘No,’ said Freddy. ‘It’s just a formality, so that no-one else can be blamed for it.’

‘All right,’ said Callie. ‘Will you write it for me? I’m not very strong yet.’

‘Of course,’ said Freddy.

‘Oh,’ she said suddenly. ‘I still have the keys. You’d better take them.’

She indicated a little box on the floor by the bed. Freddy looked through the pitifully few possessions that lay inside it and brought out a set of keys. He handed them to Angela, who put them in her pocket.

‘I know the two of you were separated,’ said Callie, ‘and I know he wasn’t a good man, but I’d like you to know that I’m truly sorry for what happened. I never got to be his wife, so I guess I don’t matter so much—’

She could not go on, for the tears had begun rolling down her cheeks again.

Angela could bear it no longer. She came to a decision.

‘Where shall you go when you leave here?’ she said.

‘I don’t know,’ said Callie, drying her tears. ‘Maybe I’ll look for domestic work. I want to pay my passage back to America as soon as I can. I don’t know how long it will take, though.’

She looked wistfully at the baby and stroked its head.

‘You needn’t worry about that,’ said Angela. ‘It can all be arranged, but you must get well first. This place is hardly conducive to good health. We must find somewhere more comfortable for you and the baby, and when you’re both quite well again we’ll see about sending you home.’

Callie’s eyes widened in wonder.

‘Do you really mean that?’

‘Of course I do. You’ve had rather a rotten time of it, all told, and I think the best thing will be to get you home as soon as possible,’ said Angela.

Callie began to stammer out her thanks, but Angela waved them away.

‘There must be lots of comfortable nursing-homes here in London,’ she went on briskly. ‘I’m sure we can find one that will take you and the baby.’

‘Then I may keep him?’ said Callie. ‘I’d like to.’

‘Do,’ said Angela. ‘He’s your son, after all. Call him David, as you wanted to, and bring him up to be a better man than his father was.’

They bade Callie Vandermeer goodbye and promised that she should be moved that very day, if possible. Then they left the building and stepped out into the swirling snow of Whitechapel.

‘I don’t know what he was thinking,’ said Angela when they were safely back at Mount Street. ‘I’d written him a cheque only a few days earlier, and that would have led the police straight to him. I don’t know why he thought they’d care about an odd glove when they had a perfectly good suspect right in front of their eyes. Why, it would have taken them no time at all to dig up that old insurance policy.’

‘Was it a large one?’ said Freddy.

‘A hundred thousand dollars,’ said Angela, and Freddy whistled. ‘As I recall, it was his idea,’ she went on dryly. ‘Rather stupid of me to forget about it, though.’

‘But why did Davie ask you for money when he was already planning to kill you?’ said Freddy.

‘Pure greed, I imagine,’ said Angela. ‘He knew I’d pay up—I always did. I suppose he thought of it as pocket-money to keep him going until he got the grand prize. Idiotic of him, though. One might say it was his bad luck that the gun went off before he could kill me, but if it hadn’t, then he’d certainly have done it and been caught and hanged anyway.’

‘How did he know where to find the gun, by the way?’

‘He was rummaging around in that chest of drawers the first day he turned up,’ said Angela. ‘I expect he saw it then. And when Callie was cleaning up after he shot himself, she must have put it back in the wrong drawer. I ought to have kept the thing locked up. I won’t be so careless again.’

‘Well, I know one’s not supposed to speak badly of the dead, but I’ll make an exception in his case,’ said Freddy. ‘Good riddance to him, I say. If anyone deserved to be hoist with his own petard, he did. That idea of pinning your murder on Valencourt was particularly ill-natured. I wondered what he meant by that remark about throwing down the gauntlet, and now we know. I dare say he thought he was being tremendously witty when he said it.’

‘I dare say he did,’ said Angela. ‘He always liked to laugh at his own jokes, even when they weren’t particularly funny.’

‘It’s just
your
bad luck that you were the one to find him,’ said Freddy. ‘If you hadn’t been then you might never have been arrested in the first place.’

‘Yes,’ said Angela bitterly. ‘Funny, isn’t it? In effect I was put on trial for what was intended to be my own murder. It’s not exactly what Davie planned, but I’m quite sure he would have laughed about it for days if he’d known.’

They fell silent, for the wound was still fresh.

‘You’re not really going to tell the police the truth about Edgar Valencourt, are you?’ said Freddy at length.

‘Of course I am,’ said Angela.

‘But what good will it do?’

‘It will clear his name,’ said Angela. ‘I want everybody to know who really killed Davie. I want the police to know it, and the judge to know it, and I want to read it in the newspapers, and I want people in the street to talk about it. Justice has not been done, and I want it to be done.’

‘But then they’ll want to know why Valencourt confessed,’ said Freddy. ‘And then it will come out that you knew him and lied in court about it, and then the whole thing will begin all over again.’

‘I know,’ said Angela. ‘But somehow I’d rather that than suffer this burden of obligation. I won’t have it, I tell you. I never asked him to do what he did, and since there’s nothing I can do about his past crimes then the least I can do is clear him of this one.’

‘But it won’t do any good,’ said Freddy. ‘And besides, he’s gone on the run again so they won’t be hanging him for the present anyway. At least you won’t have that on your conscience. Look here, Angela, I know you’ve had a hard time of it, but I want you to listen to me as a friend. Don’t say anything to the police, or to anyone. Valencourt is a bad lot who deserves everything he gets, but it appears that he does have
some
finer feelings at least. Look at what he did for you. If he hadn’t said what he did in court then they’d never have acquitted you and we might never have found Callie Vandermeer. It can never make up for what he did to his wife, of course, but don’t forget that he needn’t have come forward at all. He might easily have refused to come back with us, but he didn’t. He must think an awful lot of you to have given himself up.’

Angela opened her mouth to object, but Freddy went on:

‘Let it lie for now. Let him do you this favour. He’s disappeared anyway, so what purpose can it possibly serve to open Pandora’s box again? Why, none at all. You’ll probably be arrested for perjury and Valencourt will still be free, and all his efforts will have gone to waste. We have Callie’s statement, and now that we know where she is we can call upon her if needs be. Keep your secret. Save it at least until he’s been recaptured. He doesn’t need your help now.’

‘But it will all come out sooner or later anyway,’ said Angela. ‘Lots of people in Italy know I knew him. He was using an alias but eventually someone will put two and two together and realize the truth.’

‘But why should they, if he was using an alias? And even if they do, and decide to report it to the police, then you’re still no worse off than you would have been if you’d gone to the police yourself. They can’t try you again for murder, and we know now that it wasn’t murder anyway. Think how disappointed Jameson will be in you, too. He’ll never let you do any detecting again.’

‘I have no intention of ever doing any detecting again anyway,’ said Angela. ‘Not after what’s happened. How would it look, do you suppose, for a woman who was once charged with murder herself, and who got off by lying in court, to go around claiming to represent justice? I couldn’t possibly do it; my conscience won’t allow it.’

‘That’s a pity,’ said Freddy. ‘You’re rather good at it. Scotland Yard will be terribly upset.’

‘I’m quite sure Scotland Yard will breathe a sigh of relief when they find out they won’t have to put up with my meddling ever again,’ said Angela. ‘And once they know about what I did then they won’t let me anyway.’

‘I’m sorry all this had to happen,’ said Freddy. ‘It’s been the most awfully foul time for you, I know, and I quite understand why you want to put things right, but do keep quiet, Angela, for Barbara’s sake at least. How do you think she’s going to feel about it all?’

That brought her up short. Of course Angela was not the only person to have been affected by the trial. Barbara was still in India with the Ellises, but they would be back soon and it would all have to come out—if indeed it had not already. Barbara was quite sharp-witted enough to have realized that something was going on and to have found out what it was, and Angela quailed at the thought of the conversation which would inevitably follow.

‘I don’t suppose she’ll ever speak to me again,’ she said. ‘But I expect you’re right. Having a mother in prison is hardly going to do much for her school-work, is it? And she’d been doing rather well lately.’

She paused. Freddy was right, of course. If she wanted to put things right with Barbara then the sensible thing would be to say nothing at present. The law was satisfied that justice had been done, and the only reason to disabuse it of that notion while Valencourt was still at large would be to assuage her own feelings of guilt. Heaven knew she had had plenty of practice at living with a guilty conscience, so what difference could it possibly make?

‘Very well, then,’ she said. ‘I shall keep quiet about it for the moment.’

‘Splendid,’ said Freddy. ‘Then that’s settled. You’ll say nothing to the police, we’ll keep Callie’s statement somewhere safe, and Marthe and William and I will forget we ever knew anything to your disadvantage—at least until Valencourt is recaptured.’

‘And then you’ll let me go to the police?’

‘No, then I’ll come and talk you out of it again,’ said Freddy. ‘I refuse to let you punish yourself for something that wasn’t your fault. You’re a good woman, Angela, and you’re much better off out of prison than in. I won’t say the law is an ass, but it very nearly was in this case, and I’d say that you were perfectly justified in doing what you did.’

Angela said nothing, but she could not agree that the question was quite so black and white as Freddy painted it. She had denied having ever met Edgar Valencourt in order to save herself, and in so doing had condemned him to the harshest of all penalties. No matter that the same penalty already awaited him for another crime; no matter that he had invited her to do it as clearly as if he had spoken the words; what she had done was wrong, and she knew that she would not be able to live with herself until she had confessed all to the police. Perhaps he had done it for love of her, but she did not want that sort of love, for it was nothing but a poisoned chalice and a reminder of everything she hated about herself at present. She would keep quiet for Barbara’s sake, but only as long as Valencourt remained free. As soon as he was recaptured, however, she would go to the police and right the wrong she had done him. He should not be allowed to die with her sins upon his head, she was quite determined. He was a bad man, and she would repay the debt she owed him, then leave him to his fate and do her best to forget him.

It was a cold, damp day in early February. The snow had mostly melted; only little banks of it remained here and there, and the garden looked bleak as Angela stepped out of the Ellises’ house and onto the terrace. There was a little wooden shelter with a bench halfway down the lawn—not exactly a summer-house, for it was open at one side, but it was dry at least. Barbara was sitting on the bench, watching a robin as it hopped about in a nearby tree. She looked up as Angela joined her. She was very brown from her time abroad.

‘May I sit down?’ said Angela.

Barbara moved along a little to make room.

‘How did you like India?’ said Angela.