The major problem that had to be overcome was the practical one of ensuring that the letters got through. There would be no difficulty at the hospital, of course, despite what Dorothy had rather oddly claimed the night before. She would be able to send and receive as many letters as she liked, at least unless-even to herself, Rosemary avoided the word ‘until’-her condition deteriorated markedly.
Rosemary’s position was very different. Although the residents of Eventide Lodge were in theory free to write to their friend and relatives, the letters handed over to Mr Anderson to be posted seemed to fall into a void. Replies either failed to materialise or, almost more disturbing, made no reference to the concerns expressed in the outgoing letter.
‘Why should your nearest and dearest waste their precious time scribbling wish-you-were-here’s when they’re paying William and I good money to make damn sure you aren’t?’ demanded Miss Davis rhetorically, and although some of the residents, including Rosemary, suspected that their post was being tampered with, this was impossible to prove. Residents were forbidden to use the telephone, on the pretext that Mr Purvey had thrown a fit when one of his relatives hung up on him, and personal visits had virtually ceased. ‘Out of sight and out of our minds,’ Mrs Hargreaves had remarked sadly one day, which had just about seemed to sum it up.
The present situation, however, was quite different. During the long hours of a largely sleepless night, Rosemary had worked out a system which she would agree with Dorothy prior to the latter’s departure, and which was designed to make it obvious if their letters were being intercepted. Like all good ideas, it was in essence very simple. Every other day Rosemary would dispatch a letter to Dorothy containing the latest episode of the unfolding mystery, ending with the sort of question which traditionally concluded each chapter in a story of this type. ‘Who was the mysterious figure who was seen entering Mr Purvey’s room shortly before the body was discovered?’, for example, or ‘Why did Mrs Hargreayes try and take the wrong mug of cocoa, and what is the connection between this and the fragmentary conversation supposedly overheard by George Channing?’
The whole point of detective stories, of course, was that there always was a connection. Even if there wasn’t, that was equally significant. It was thus a perfect medium of communication in a situation such as this. All Dorothy need do was send a brief message in reply-a few words on a postcard would suffice-alluding to the developments left hanging. If she felt well enough, she might even assay some suggested solution which Rosemary would then tear to shreds, in the nicest possible way, by return of post. There remained the question of what sanctions to take if it became clear that their letters were not getting through. From what Rosemary had overheard the previous day, she knew Anderson was deeply worried that Dorothy might tell the hospital staff what had happened to Channing. She also knew why. Mrs Anderson, the founder and former owner of the Lodge, had been at considerable pains to reassure the residents-many of whom had become her friends-about what would happen in the event of her death. ‘I’ve left it all to William,’ she’d explained, ‘but only on condition that all of you continue to be properly looked after for the remainder of your lifetimes.’ This stipulation had in fact been the original germ of the murder story. As Rosemary had remarked to Dorothy one day, Mrs Anderson had, with the best intentions in the world, given her son a perfect motive to kill them all.
It was this which gave Rosemary every confidence that, whatever might happen to other letters, those between her and Dorothy would be allowed through. She proposed to offer Anderson an arrangement to their mutual advantage. As long as Dorothy continued to receive Rosemary’s letters endorsed with a scathing comment or two on the suggestions Dot had appended to her last (Surely you would have heard anyone going into Purvey’s room. Rose? Mrs Hargreaves presumably didn’t know that that mug contained the poisoned cocoa. As for what Channing says he heard, that sounds like a red herring.) then her lips would remain sealed about conditions at Eventide Lodge. But if there was any unexplained hiatus or delay, Dorothy would ask to speak to the chief consultant in confidence, and the next thing Anderson would know the police would be at the door.
Rosemary was well aware that in making such an agreement she was sacrificing the interests of the other residents-not to mention her own-to ensure Dorothy’s peace of mind. She would have found this impossible to justify to herself, let alone anyone else, she realised as she dressed hurriedly, but the question simply did not arise. There was nothing else she could do. In hospital Dorothy would have the best of medical care, but nothing and no one could replace the complex network of fact and fiction which Rosemary had woven into the intimate fabric of her friend’s consciousness. By manipulating those narrative strings like a loving puppeteer, she could influence events even at a distance, curtailing Dorothy’s isolation, limiting the inevitable pain and damage, protecting, distracting, consoling. She knew Dorothy better than anyone else in the world, she reflected with justifiable pride as she closed the door to her room and stepped out into the corridor. There was nothing her friend could do or think or feel or suffer that she could not foresee and counter.
The house was perfectly silent and deserted at that early hour. Rosemary stepped lightly along the strip of red linoleum, past doors giving on to bedrooms still in use or given over to dust and spiders. At one point there was a low window with a breathtaking view of the parkland at the front of the Lodge, trees, walls and hedges melting insubstantially into a dense layer of low mist above which the sun rose in a pale blue sky. Rosemary reluctantly turned aside to enter the dark plasterboard cubicle opposite. She hesitated a moment before George Channing’s door, then tapped lightly on the other side. There was no answer. She turned the handle quietly and stepped inside.
On this side of the house, cut off from the sun, the dim light made it seem several hours earlier, but the formless mass of the covers revealed that Dorothy was still in bed. Rosemary breathed a sigh of relief. At the back of her mind all along had been the fear that her friend might have spent a sleepless night pacing the floor in growing panic at the prospect facing her. In that case, she might well have been so distraught by now that any attempts to help would have been in vain. The last thing Rosemary wanted to do was to deprive her friend of a single moment of healing rest. All she planned was to be there when the sleeper awoke, ready to offer succour and support.
The room smelt stuffy and unclean. Rosemary went over to the window and raised the bottom sash to allow the clean morning air to flow in. A low growl raised the hairs on her arms and the nape of her neck. In the wilderness of the abandoned kitchen garden below, the tethered Doberman sat perched on its haunches, every muscle tensed, staring up at her with an expression of pure malevolence.
She stepped quickly back into the room, out of the beast’s view. Then, collecting herself with an effort, she forced herself to look out once more. The dog had its back to the window and its nose to the ground, inspecting the results of its previous activity. Rosemary now realised that this had involved nothing more sinister than ‘doing its business’, as she described it to herself.
With a discreet sniff of distaste, mingled with scorn for her weakness in allowing herself to be frightened by such a thing, she crossed to the chair she had occupied the night before and sat down to wait for Dorothy to stir. The dog’s attention must have been drawn by the noise of the window being opened, she thought, and like all animals it disliked being surprised at such a moment. As for the expression she had read in its eyes, Rosemary reminded herself sharply that malevolence, like its opposite, was an exclusively human attribute.
What revived her fear was not another sound but the silence gathering about her, an intrusive and imposing presence in the room. Then there was the smell as well, which she could no longer pretend was just the stuffiness to be expected in a room where someone has been sleeping. There was another component to it, an acrid whiff of something at once familiar and bizarre, intimate and faintly disgusting, which asserted itself above the ambient odours of decay and neglect.
Rosemary got to her feet, looking about her apprehensively. The first thing she saw was the paper, lying on the floor near the head of the bed. It was an ordinary sheet of writing paper, but when she stooped to pick it up, she was surprised to find her name written in block capitals. She turned the page over and quickly scanned the lines of wavery writing on the other side.
She straightened up slowly, seemingly mesmerised by the patch of wall just above the bed, where the grudging daylight made the wallpaper gleam dully. All around, the massed shadows crowded in at the margins of her vision. It was a very long time before she could bring herself to look directly at that darkness, but when she did it immediately receded, laying bare the figure lying on the rumpled covers, the head tilted sideways across the pillow, the eyes staring sightlessly up at the ceiling, the mouth gaping wide, the puddle of vomit collected on the sheets and in the hollow at the base of the throat.
PART TWO
