but inconvenient annexes…
Coming back to the great hall, he hesitated, and then mounted the marble stairs and pushed his way through the portal into the saloon. Here, if Johnson was to be believed, an argument had taken place… but arguments, alas, rarely left visible traces. The carpet was down, certainly, and given a particular set of circumstances, some marks here near the door might have told a suggestive story. But the circumstances did not obtain. Numerous feet had passed through the door since early Christmas morning. And in real life at all events, people did not drop initialled handkerchieves at convenient spots, or otherwise make easy the lives of half-frozen policemen…
He shook his head and moved to go firewards once more, but as he turned he became aware of a figure that had suddenly and silently materialized in the portal behind him. It was Mrs Page. Her face was blanched and her eyes staring horribly. And as they stood facing each other she gave a queer little moan, and began slowly to slide down the side of the marble doorway.
‘I’m all right… Just give me a minute.’
Gently had caught her before she fell, and now she lay a dead weight in his arms, the lids fluttering convulsively over her closed eyes.
‘I came to find you… It’s stupid… I didn’t expect to see you there.’
The breath was coming quickly, turning to vapour in the nipping air.
‘You see, Henry says you’re the one… you’re the one it’s going to be…’
Gently made a move to carry her to a convenient chair, but she clutched his arm violently, and by a tremendous effort managed to brace her limp body. Her eyes flickered open, the pupils large and wild. Something like a ghastly smile twitched at her lips.
‘I’ll be all right… really.’
‘Shall I call your maid, Mrs Page?’
‘No… just hang on… This is really too silly.’
‘Can I get you something — some brandy, perhaps?’
She signalled a feeble negative. ‘I’ve got some… back in my wing.’
For perhaps a minute she continued quite still, struggling to regain control of herself. Then a degree of strength seemed to surge back into her limbs, and she gently released herself from the arms that supported her.
‘Help me back to the wing, will you?… I think I can manage to walk.’
‘Don’t you think you should sit down for a little?’
‘No… help me back to my wing.’
She was inflexibly determined, so he tucked her arm under his and guided her slowly through the dreary labyrinth to the north-west wing. Here, in a small, very-feminine room, a fire was burning and a sniffling maid going round the ornaments with a feather-duster. Mrs Page allowed herself to be seated in a chair by the fire.
‘All right, Dorothy… you may leave the dusting now.’
‘I hadn’t really finished ’em, mum-’
‘Never mind. That will do for this morning.’
The maid disappeared, still sniffling, and Gently located a brandy-decanter in a cabinet in the corner of the room. He poured a stiff glassful. Mrs Page drank it eagerly.
‘You must forgive me for making such an exhibition, Inspector… Honestly, I don’t do these things as a rule.’
Gently hunched an ulstered shoulder. ‘You said you were looking for me?’
She nodded without meeting his eyes. ‘Yes, I was… I’ve been talking to my cousin. And then, seeing you there like that-’ She gave an involuntary shudder. ‘It just seemed as though you must know it all anyway — I can’t help it — it seemed uncanny.’
Gently found himself a chair to his liking and reversed it so that he could lean on the back. The brandy had brought colour back into Mrs Page’s cheeks, but not quite the composure to her manner.
‘And your cousin was saying about me…’
‘Oh — he says you’ll be the one who’ll understand this affair… He doesn’t think Sir Daynes has enough imagination.’
‘Do you know what he meant?’
‘No… except that he said he’d given you a background.’
‘He’s given me a background of some sort!’ Gently brooded over his chair-back. ‘My imagination must be getting rusty… it isn’t jumping to things like it used to. And he advised you to come clean?’
‘He… You know about it, then?’
Gently shook his head. ‘I can’t help intelligent guessing.’
‘He advised me… I would have to have told someone… He advised me to come to you.’
She had been lying, of course, when she was faced with Johnson’s statement. At the moment she had panicked, and it had seemed the only thing to do. The circumstance was damnable. Who would believe, if once she admitted having been on the landing with him, that she had had nothing to do with the subsequent event? And it was Johnson’s word against hers — or rather, the implication of Johnson’s evidence against her direct assertion: why should she not lie to avert from herself an unwarranted suspicion?
‘You must not think too hardly of me, Inspector. I would have come out with it then and there if I thought it would serve a useful purpose. But all it explained was why Earle was on the landing, and I knew it wasn’t important, though you might have thought it was.’
Gently nodded pontifically. ‘I can appreciate your feelings, of course… but you really shouldn’t judge whether evidence is important.’
‘I know… I know that now. I’ve had time to think it over. I can see that one should make any sacrifice where someone… someone…’
She broke off with a tremor in her voice, and Gently politely looked in some other direction.
‘At the same time, Inspector… how can it be important? You know I left him there — you’ve got Johnson’s evidence…’
‘It could give a motive, you know.’
‘A motive?’ She looked across at him.
‘There’s Johnson, remember… You must know he was an admirer of yours.’
‘Johnson!’ She seemed genuinely surprised. ‘But that’s ridiculous, Inspector.’
‘But you knew he was an admirer?’
‘Yes — I suppose so — of a kind. But it’s too far-fetched. Johnson wouldn’t have killed him over me. A man would have to be frantically in love with a woman to go killing off a rival… and Johnson wasn’t like that about me. Besides, he could have thrashed Earle with one hand.’
‘Lovers are strange people, Mrs Page.’
‘I don’t care. I know Hugh.’
‘And you can be as certain about everyone else at Merely?’
‘As certain — what do you mean, Inspector?’
‘I mean there might be another admirer… one who would be in love enough to kill Earle.’
Mrs Page remained silent for a moment, but it was not the silence of confusion.
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘You’re on quite the wrong track, Inspector. There’s nobody here except Johnson who has shown that sort of interest in me. You must remember that I have not been long a widow. My husband was a man I have not easily been able to forget. People have been very kind to me, but there have been no advances… nor, I assure you, would they have been encouraged.’
‘Not even Lieutenant Earle’s, Mrs Page?’
She blushed. ‘Not even Lieutenant Earle’s, Inspector.’
Gently sighed imperceptibly and folded his arms over the chair-back. ‘Perhaps we’d better start from the beginning… It’s usually the shortest way in the long run.’
Earle being Earle, Mrs Page had failed to take him quite seriously when he first arrived at Merely. At once he had begun to pay her extravagant attention, but since he seemed to be in the habit of spreading himself over every female he ran against, this didn’t register as being particularly significant. It was just Earle’s way. He was a
