As Philip Durrant moved slightly in his chair, his bright, intelligent eyes watching the lawyer with a faint mockery in them, Mary turned her head sharply. The complete adoration of the look she gave her husband almost startled the lawyer. He had known, of course, that Mary Durrant was a devoted wife, but he had so long considered her as a calm, rather passionless creature without strong affections or dislikes that he was surprised at this sudden revelation. So that was how she felt about the fellow, was it? As for Philip Durrant, he seemed uneasy. Apprehensive, Marshall thought, about the future. As well he might be!
Opposite the lawyer sat Micky. Young, handsome, bitter. Why had he got to be so bitter, Marshall thought parenthetically? Hadn't everything been done for him always? Why did he have to have this look of one who was perpetually against the world. Beside him sat Tina looking rather like a small elegant black cat. Very dark, soft-voiced, big dark eyes and a rather sinuous grace of movement. Quiet, yet perhaps emotional behind the quietness? Marshall really knew very little about Tina. She had taken up the work suggested to her by Mrs. Argyle, as a librarian in the County Library. She had a flat in Redmyn and came home at week-ends. Apparently a docile and contented member of the family. But who knew? Anyway, she was out of it or ought to be. She had not been here that evening. Though, for all that, Redmyn was only twenty-five miles away.
Still, presumably Tina and Micky had been out of it.
Marshall swept a quick glance over Kirsten Lindstrom, who was watching him with a touch of belligerence in her manner. Supposing, he thought, it was she who had gone berserk and attacked her employer? It wouldn't really surprise him. Nothing really surprised you when you'd been in the law a number of years. They'd have a word for it in the modern jargon. Repressed spinster. Envious, jealous, nursing grievances real or fancied. Oh yes, they had a word for it. And how very convenient it would be, thought Mr. Marshall rather improperly. Yes, very convenient. A foreigner. Not one of the family. But would Kirsten Lindstrom have deliberately framed Jacko; have heard the quarrel and taken advantage of it? That was a great deal more difficult to believe. For Kirsten Lindstrom adored Jacko. She had always been devoted to all the children. No, he could not believe that of her. A pity because - but really he must not let his thoughts go along that line.
His glance went on to Leo Argyle and Gwenda Vaughan. Their engagement had not been announced, which was just as well. A wise decision. He had actually written and hinted as much. Of course it was probably an open secret locally and no doubt the police were on to it. From the point of view of the police it was the right kind of answer. Innumerable precedents. Husband, wife, and the other woman. Only, somehow or other, Marshall could not believe that Leo Argyle had attacked his wife. No, he really couldn't believe it. After all, he had known Leo Argyle for a number of years and he had the highest opinion of him. An intellectual. A man of warm sympathies, deep reading and an aloof philosophical outlook upon life. Not the sort of man to murder his wife with a poker. Of course, at a certain age, when a man fell in love - but no! That was newspaper stuff. Pleasant reading, apparently, for Sundays, all over the British Isles! But really, one could not imagine Leo...
What about the woman? He didn't know so much about Gwenda Vaughan. He observed the full lips and the ripe figure. She was in love with Leo all right. Oh yes, probably been in love with him for a long time.
What about a divorce, he wondered. What would Mrs. Argyle have felt about divorce? Really he had no idea, but he didn't think the idea would appeal to Leo Argyle, who was one of the old-fashioned type. He didn't think that Gwenda Vaughan was Leo Argyle's mistress, which made it all the more probable that if Gwenda Vaughan had seen a chance to eliminate Mrs. Argyle with the certainty that no suspicion would attach to her - he paused before continuing the thought. Would she have sacrificed Jacko without a qualm? He didn't really think she had ever been very fond of Jacko. Jacko's charm had not appealed to her. And women - Mr. Marshall knew only too well - were ruthless. So one couldn't rule out Gwenda Vaughan. It was very doubtful after this time if the police would ever get any evidence. He didn't see what evidence there could be against her. She had been in the house that day, she had been with Leo in his library, she had said good night to him and left him and gone down the stairs. There was no one who could say whether or not she had gone aside into Mrs. Argyle's sitting-room, picked up that poker and walked up behind the unsuspecting woman as she bent over papers on the desk. And then afterwards, Mrs. Argyle having been struck down without a cry, all Gwenda Vaughan had to do was to throw down the poker and let herself out of the front door and go home, just as she always did. He couldn't see any possibility of the police or anyone else finding out if that was what she had done.
His eyes went on to Hester. A pretty child. No, not pretty, beautiful really. Beautiful in a rather strange and uncomfortable way. He'd like to know who her parents had been. Something lawless and wild about her. Yes, one could almost use the word desperate in connection with her. What had she had to be desperate about? She'd run away in a silly way to go on the stage and had had a silly affair with an undesirable man; then she had seen reason, come home with Mrs. Argyle and settled down again. All the same, you couldn't really rule out Hester, because you didn't know how her mind worked. You didn't know what a strange moment of desperation might do to her. But the police wouldn't know either.
In fact, thought Mr. Marshall, it seemed very unlikely that the police, even if they made up their own minds as to who was responsible, could really do anything about it. So that on the whole the position was satisfactory. Satisfactory? He gave a little start as he considered the word. But was it? Was stalemate really a satisfactory outcome to the whole thing? Did the Argyles know the truth themselves, he wondered. He decided against that. They didn't know. Apart, of course, from one person amongst them who presumably knew only too well...
No, they didn't know, but did they suspect? Well, if they didn't suspect now, they soon would, because if you didn't know you couldn't help wondering, trying to remember things... Uncomfortable. Yes, yes, very uncomfortable position.
All these thoughts had not taken very much time. Mr. Marshall came out of his little reverie to see Micky's eyes fixed on him with a mocking gleam in them.
"So that's your verdict, is it, Mr. Marshall?" Micky said. "The outsider, the unknown intruder, the bad character who murders, robs and gets away with it?"
"It seems," said Mr. Marshall, "as though that is what we will have to accept."
Micky threw himself back in his chair and laughed.
"That's our story, and we're going to stick to it, eh?"
"Well, yes, Michael, that is what I should advise."
There was a distinct note of warning in Mr. Marshall's voice.
Micky nodded his head.
"I see," he said. "That's what you advise. Yes. Yes, I dare say you're quite right. But you don't believe it, do you?"
Mr. Marshall gave him a very cold look. That was the trouble with people who had no legal sense of discretion. They insisted on saying things which were much better not said.
"For what it is worth," he said, "that is my opinion."
The finality of his tone held a world of reproof. Micky looked round the table.
"What do we all think?" he asked generally. "Eh, Tina, my love, looking down your nose in your quiet way, haven't you any ideas? Any unauthorised versions, so to speak? And you, Mary? You haven't said much."
"Of course I agree with Mr. Marshall," said Mary rather sharply. "What other solution can there be?"
"Philip doesn't agree with you," said Micky.
Mary turned her head sharply to look at her husband.
Philip Durrant said quietly: "You'd better hold your tongue, Micky. No good ever came of talking too much when you're in a tight place. And we are in a tight place."
"So nobody's going to have any opinions, are they?" said Micky. "All right. So be it. But let's all think about it a bit when we go up to bed tonight. It might be advisable, you know. After all, one wants to know where one is, so to speak. Don't you know a thing or two, Kirsty? You usually do. As far as I remember, you always knew what was going on, though I will say for you, you never told."
Kirsten Lindstrom said, not without dignity: "I think, Micky, that you should hold your tongue. Mr. Marshall is right. Too much talking is unwise."
"We might put it to the vote," said Micky. "Or write a name on a piece of paper and throw it into a hat. That would be interesting, wouldn't it; to see who got the votes?"
This time Kirsten Lindstrom's voice was louder.
"Be quiet," she said. "Do not be a silly, reckless little boy as you used to be. You are grown up now."
"I only said let's think about it," said Micky, taken aback.
"We shall think about it," said Kirsten Lindstrom. And her voice was bitter.
Chapter 11
Night settled down on Sunny Point.
Sheltered by its walls seven people retired to rest, but none of them slept well...
Philip Durrant, since his illness and his loss of bodily activity, had found more and more solace in mental activity. Always a highly intelligent man, he now became conscious of the resources opening out to him through the medium of intelligence. He amused himself sometimes by forecasting the reactions of those around him to suitable stimuli. What he said and did was often not a natural outpouring, but a calculated one, motivated simply and solely to observe the response to it. It was a kind of game that he played; when he got the anticipated response, he chalked up, as it were, a mark to himself.
As a result of this pastime he found himself, for perhaps the first time in his life, keenly observant of the differences and realities of human personality.
Human personalities as such had not previously interested him very much. He liked or disliked, was amused or bored by, the people who surrounded him or whom he met. He had always been a man of action, and not a man of thought. His imagination, which was considerable, had been exercised in devising various schemes for making money. All these schemes had a sound core; but a complete lack of business ability always resulted in their coming to nothing. People, as such, had up till now only been considered by him as pawns in the game. Now, since his illness, cut off from his former active life, he was forced to take account of what people themselves were like.
It had started in the hospital when the love lives of the nurses, the secret warfare and the petty grievances of hospital life had been forced on his attention since there was nothing else to occupy it. And now it was fast becoming a habit with him. People - really that was all that life held for him now. Just people. People to study, to find out about, to sum up. Decide for himself what made them tick and find out if he was right. Really, it could all be very interesting...
Only this very evening, sitting in the library, he had realised how little he really knew about his wife's family. What were they really like? What were they like inside, that is, not their outer appearance which he knew well enough.
Odd, how little you knew about people. Even your own wife?
He had looked thoughtfully over at Mary. How much did he really know about Mary?
He had fallen in love with her because he liked her good looks and her calm serious ways. Also, she had had money and that had mattered to him too. He would have thought twice about marrying a penniless girl. It had all been most suitable and he had married her and teased her and called her Polly and had enjoyed the doubtful look she gave him when he made jokes she could not see. But what, really, did he know about her? Of what she thought and felt? He knew, certainly, that she loved him with a deep and passionate devotion. And at the thought of that devotion he stirred a little uneasily, twisting his shoulders as though to ease them of a burden. Devotion was all very well when you could get away from it for nine or ten hours of the day. It was a nice thing to come home to. But new he was lapped round with it; watched over, cared for, cherished. It made one yearn for a little wholesome neglect... One had, in fact, to find ways of escape. Mental ways - since none other were possible. One had to escape to realms of fancy or speculation.
Speculation. As to who was responsible for his mother-in-law's death, for instance. He had disliked his mother-in-law, and she had disliked him. She had not wanted Mary to marry him (would she have wanted Mary to marry anybody? he wondered), but she had not been able to prevent it. He and Mary had started life happy and independent - and then things had begun to go wrong. First that South American company - and then the Bicycle Accessories Ltd. - good ideas both of them - but the financing of them had been badly judged - and then there had been the Argentine railway strike which had completed the disasters. All purely bad luck, but in some way he felt that somehow Mrs. Argyle was responsible. She hadn't wished him to succeed. Then had come his illness. It had looked as though their only solution was to come and live at Sunny Point where a welcome was assured to them. He wouldn't have minded particularly. A man who was a cripple, only half a man, what did it matter where he was? - but Mary would have minded.
Oh well, it hadn't been necessary to live permanently at Sunny Point. Mrs. Argyle had been killed. The trustees had raised the allowance made to Mary under the trust and they had set up on their own again.
He hadn't felt any particular grief over Mrs. Argyle's death. Pleasanter, of course, if she had died of pneumonia or something like that, in her bed. Murder was a nasty business with its notoriety and its screaming headlines. Still, as murders go, it had been quite a satisfactory murder - the perpetrator obviously having a screw loose in a way that could be served up decently in a lot of psychological jargon. Not Mary's own brother. One of those "adopted children" with a bad heredity who so often go wrong. But things weren't quite so good now. Tomorrow Superintendent Huish was coming to ask questions in his gentle West Country voice. One ought, perhaps, to think about the answers...
