Fool - seven times fool! And she thought suddenly: "The tea - there was something in the tea. She doesn't know I never drank it. Now's my chance. I must pretend. What stuff was it, I wonder? Poison? Or just sleeping stuff? She expects me to be sleepy - that's evident."
She let her eyelids droop again. In what she hoped was a natural drowsy voice, she said: "I do - frightfully. How funny! I don't know when I've felt so sleepy."
Miss Waynflete nodded softly. Bridget watched the older woman narrowly through her almost-closed eyes. She thought: "I'm a match for her anyway. My muscles are pretty tough; she's a skinny frail old pussy. But I've got to make her talk - that's it, make her talk."
Miss Waynflete was smiling. It was not a nice smile. It was sly and not very human.
Bridget thought: "She's like a goat. How like a goat she is! A goat's always been an evil symbol. I see why now. I was right - I was right in that fantastic idea of mine. Hell has no fury like a woman scorned. That was the start of it; it's all there."
She murmured, and this time her voice held a definite note of apprehension: "I don't know what's the matter with me, I feel so queer - so very queer."
Miss Waynflete gave a swift glance round her. The spot was entirely desolate. It was too far from the village for a shout to be heard. There were no houses or cottages near. She began to fumble with the parcel she carried - the parcel that was supposed to contain old clothes. Apparently, it did. The paper came apart, revealing a soft woolly garment. And still those gloved hands fumbled and fumbled.
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves?
Yes, why? Why gloves? Of course! Of course! The whole thing so beautifully planned!
The wrapping fell aside. Carefully, Miss Waynflete extracted the knife, holding it very carefully, so as not to obliterate the fingerprints which were already on it - where the short podgy fingers of Lord Easterfield had held it earlier that day in the drawing room at Ashe Manor. The Moorish knife with the sharp blade.
Bridget felt slightly sick. She must play for time - yes, and she must make the woman talk - this lean gray woman whom nobody loved. It ought not to be difficult - not really.
Because she must want to talk, oh, so badly - and the only person she could ever talk to was someone like Bridget - someone who was going to be silenced forever. Bridget said, in a faint thick voice, "What's that knife?"
And then Miss Waynflete laughed. It was a horrible laugh, soft and musical and ladylike and quite inhuman. She said, "It's for you, Bridget. For you! I've hated you, you know, for a very long time."
Bridget said, "Because I was going to marry Gordon Easterfield?"
Miss Waynflete nodded. "You're clever. You're quite clever! This, you see, will be the crowning proof against him. You'll be found here, with your throat cut - and his knife, and his fingerprints on the knife! Clever, the way I asked to see it this morning! And then I slipped it into my bag, wrapped in a handkerchief, whilst you were upstairs. So easy! But the whole thing has been easy. I would hardly have believed it."
Bridget said - still in the thick muffled voice of a person heavily drugged, "That's because you're so devilishly clever."
Miss Waynflete laughed her lady-like little laugh again. She said, with a horrible kind of pride, "Yes, I always had brains, even as a girl. But they wouldn't let me do anything. I had to stay at home, doing nothing. And then Gordon - just a common bootmaker's son, but he had ambition. I knew - I knew he would rise in the world. And then he jilted me - jilted me! All because of that ridiculous business with the bird." Her hands made a queer gesture, as though she were twisting something. Again a wave of sickness passed over Bridget.
"Gordon Ragg daring to jilt me, Colonel Waynflete's daughter! I swore I'd pay him out for that! I used to think about it night after night. And then we got poorer and poorer. The house had to be sold. He bought it! He came along, patronizing me, offering me a job in my own old home. How I hated him then! But I never showed my feelings. We were taught that as girls - a most valuable training. That, I always think, is where breeding tells."
She was silent a minute. Bridget watched her, hardly daring to breathe, lest she should stem the flow of words.
Miss Waynflete went on softly, "All the time I was thinking and thinking. First of all, I just thought of killing him. That's when I began to read up criminology - quietly, you know - in the library. And really I found my reading came in most useful more than once later. The door of Amy's room, for instance, turning the key in the lock from the outside with pincers after I'd changed the bottles by her bed. How she snored, that girl. Quite disgusting, it was!" She paused. "Let me see, where was I?"
That gift which Bridget had cultivated, which had charmed Lord Easterfield - the gift of the perfect listener - stood her in good stead now. Honoria Waynflete might be a homicidal maniac, but she was also something much more common than that. She was a human being who wanted to talk about herself. And with that class of human being Bridget was well fitted to cope. She said, and her voice had exactly the right invitation in it, "You meant at first to kill him."
"Yes, but that didn't satisfy me - much too ordinary. It had to be something better than just killing. And then I got this idea. It just came to me. He should suffer for committing a lot of crimes of which he was quite innocent. He should be a murderer! He should be hanged for my crimes, Or else they'd say he was mad and he would be shut up all his life. That might be even better."
She giggled now. A horrible little giggle. Her eyes were light and staring, with queer, elongated pupils.
"As I told you, I read a lot of books on crime. I chose my victims carefully; there was not to be too much suspicion at first. You see -" her voice deepened - "I enjoyed the killing. That disagreeable woman, Lydia Horton - she'd patronized me - once she referred to me as an 'old maid.' I was glad when Gordon quarreled with her. Two birds with one stone, I thought. Such fun, sitting by her bedside and slipping the arsenic in her tea, and then going out and telling the nurse how Mrs. Horton had complained of the bitter taste of Lord Easterfield's grapes! The stupid woman never repeated that, which was such a pity.
"And then the others! As soon as I heard that Gordon had a grievance against anyone, it was so easy to arrange for an accident! And he was such a fool - such an incredible fool! I made him believe that there was something very special about him! That anyone who went against him suffered. He believed it quite easily. Poor dear Gordon, he'd believe anything. So gullible!"
Bridget thought of herself saying to Luke scornfully, "Gordon! He could believe anything!"
Easy? How easy! Poor pompous, credulous little Gordon. But she must learn more. Easy? This was easy too. She'd done it as a secretary for years. Quietly encouraged her employers to talk about themselves.
And this woman wanted badly to talk, to boast about her own cleverness. Bridget murmured, "But how did you manage it all? I don't see how you could."
"Oh, it was quite easy. It just needed organization! When Amy was discharged from the Manor, I engaged her at once. I think the hat-paint idea was quite clever - and the door being locked on the inside made me quite safe. But of course I was always safe, because I never had any motive, and you can't suspect anyone of murder if there isn't a motive. Carter was quite easy, too; he was lurching about in the fog, and I caught up with him on the footbridge and gave him a quick push. I'm really very strong, you know."
She paused and the soft horrible little giggle came again. "The whole thing was such fun! I shall never forget Tommy's face when I pushed him off the window sill that day. He hadn't had the least idea." She leaned toward Bridget confidentially. "People are really very stupid, you know. I'd never realized that before."
Bridget said very softly, "But then, you're unusually clever."
"Yes, yes; perhaps you're right."
Bridget said, "Doctor Humbleby - that must have been more difficult?"
"Yes, it was really amazing how that succeeded. It might not have worked, of course. But Gordon had been talking to everybody of his visit to the Wellerman Kreitz Laboratories, and I thought if I could manage it so that people remembered that visit and connected it afterwards - And Wonky Pooh's ear was really very nasty, a lot of discharge. I managed to run the point of my scissors into the doctor's hand, and then I was so distressed and insisted on putting on a dressing and bandaging it up. He didn't know the dressing had been infected first from Wonky Pooh's ear. Of course it mightn't have worked; it was just a long shot. I was delighted when it did - especially as Wonky Pooh had been Lavinia's cat."
Her face darkened. "Lavinia Fullerton! She guessed. It was she who found Tommy that day. And then, when Gordon and old Doctor Humbleby had that row, she caught me looking at Humbleby. I was off my guard. I was just wondering exactly how I'd do it. And she knew! I turned round to find her watching me and - I gave myself away. I saw that she knew. She couldn't prove anything, of course; I knew that. But I was afraid, all the same, someone might believe her. I was afraid they might believe her at Scotland Yard. I felt sure that was where she was going that day. I was in the same train and I followed her.
"The whole thing was so easy. She was on an island crossing Whitehall. I was close behind her. She never saw me. A big car came along and I shoved with all my might. I'm very strong! She went right down in front of it. I told the woman next to me I'd seen the number of the car and gave her the number of Gordon's Rolls. I hoped she'd repeat it to the police. It was lucky the car didn't stop. Some chauffeur joy-riding without his master's knowledge, I suspect. Yes, I was lucky there. I'm always lucky. That scene the other day with Rivers, and Luke Fitzwilliam as witness. I've had such fun with him, leading him along! Odd how difficult it was to make him suspect Gordon. But after Rivers' death he would be sure to do so. He must! And now - well, this will just finish the whole thing nicely."
She got up and came toward Bridget.
She said softly: "Gordon jilted me! He was going to marry you. All my life I've been disappointed. I've had nothing - nothing at all..."
O lean gray woman whom nobody loves
She was bending over her, smiling, with mad light eyes. The knife gleamed.
With all her youth and strength, Bridget sprang. Like a tiger cat, she flung herself full force on the other woman, knocking her back, seizing her right wrist.
Taken by surprise, Honoria Waynflete fell back before the onslaught. But then, after a moment's inertia, she began to fight. In strength there was no comparison between them. Bridget was young and healthy, with muscles toughened by games. Honoria Waynflete was a slender-built, fragile creature. But there was one factor on which Bridget had not reckoned. Honoria Waynflete was mad. Her strength was the strength of the insane. She fought like a devil, and her insane strength was stronger than the sane muscled strength of Bridget.
They swayed to and fro, and still Bridget strove to wrest the knife away from her, and still Honoria Waynflete hung on to it.
And then, little by little, the mad woman's strength began to prevail. Bridget cried out now, "Luke! Help! Help!" But she had no hope of help coming. She and Honoria Waynflete were alone. Alone in a dead world. With a supreme effort, she wrenched the other's wrist back, and at last she heard the knife fall. The next minute Honoria Waynflete's two hands had fastened round her neck in a maniac's grasp, squeezing the life out of her. She gave one last choked cry.
Chapter 23
Luke was favorably impressed by the appearance of Superintendent Battle. He was a solid comfortable-looking man with a broad red face and a large handsome mustache. He did not exactly express brilliance at a first glance, but a second glance was apt to make an observant person thoughtful, for Superintendent Battle's eye was unusually shrewd.
Luke did not make the mistake of underestimating him. He had met men of Battle's type before. He knew that they could be trusted, and that they invariably got results. He could not have wished for a better man to be put in charge of the case. When they were alone together, Luke said, "You're rather a big noise to be sent down on a case like this."
Superintendent Battle smiled. "It may turn out to be a serious business, Mr. Fitzwilliam. When a man like Lord Easterfield is concerned, we don't want to have any mistakes."
"I appreciate that. Are you alone?"
"Oh, no. Got a detective sergeant with me. He's at the other pub, the Seven Stars, and his job is to keep an eye on his lordship."
"I see."
Battle asked, "In your opinion, Mr. Fitzwilliam, there's no doubt whatever? You're pretty sure of your man?"
"On the facts, I don't see that any alternative theory is possible. Do you want me to give you the facts?"
"I've had them, thank you, from Sir William."
"Well, what do you think? I suppose it seems to you wildly unlikely that a man in Lord Easterfield's position should be a homicidal criminal?"
"Very few things seem unlikely to me," said Superintendent Battle. "Nothing's impossible in crime. That's what I've always said. If you were to tell me that a dear old maiden lady, or an archbishop, or a schoolgirl, was a dangerous criminal, I wouldn't say no. I'd look into the matter."
"If you've heard the main facts of the case from Sir William, I'll just tell you what happened this morning," said Luke.
He ran over briefly the main lines of his scene with Lord Easterfield. Superintendent Battle listened with a good deal of interest.
He said, "You say he was fingering a knife. Did he make a special point of that knife, Mr. Fitzwilliam? Was he threatening with it?"
"Not openly. He tested the edge in rather a nasty way - a kind of esthetic pleasure about that that I didn't care about. Miss Waynflete felt the same, I believe."
