The Grass Widow's Tale

“In that room, the locked one… You know what’s in there, boss? She is… the Gallier girl! He brought her up here with him! She’s there lying on the bed!”

Fleet struck his large, well-kept hands together with a clap like a gun going off and uttered a brief crow of amusement, astonishment and triumph.

“And her things? Is her case here?”

“It’s there.” Blackie indicated the corner where it stood against the wall. “Her bag, too, it’s there on the bookcase. We started with them, but there’s nothing… Well, we knew . . .” He swallowed that admission in time. “But I never thought he’d bring her all the way up here. I thought he’d ditched her somewhere…”

Fleet came strolling back across the room like a contented cat, long-stepping, disdainful, spread his feet wide before his prisoners, and leaned over them with a benign smile.

“So you don’t know anything about my money, eh? And I take it you know nothing about the girl up there, either? She just flew here! As for the police, they kindly called in this morning, I suppose, and helped you carry her upstairs? Now we know where we stand.”

He plucked back the chair, span it about in one hand, and resumed his place astride it in high good-humour; and the trouble was that Bunty could not for the life of her see how his mind was working. Something obscure and complicated was going on in that formidable skull, something of no advantage to anyone but himself, something that involved and made sense of the body upstairs, and still left him free. He’d admitted nothing, except that he was looking for the money; and such indiscretions as the others had let fall didn’t amount to much, and in any case, she realised with a small leap of her heart, he didn’t know about them, and was planning whatever he was planning without taking them into account. He was pleased about Pippa being here in the house, it had suggested something to him, something neat and workmanlike that afforded for him an effective exit. Bunty wished she knew what it was.

“So you brought her body up here, and all her things, and left the deck clean. Nobody could blame you for that, either, kid, nor for bringing the money along, too. Where was it? Not in her case, I know that… I was looking for it, while you were still out cold… right after you shot her…”

His voice moved like a cat, too, suavely and softly and bonelessly along the insinuating sentences, and pounced suddenly, a fishing cat. But the flashing paw clawed up more than he had bargained for. Until that moment it had not dawned on either of his listeners that he might well be in doubt as to how much Luke knew about the events of Saturday night, and how guilty he believed himself to be. A little push in the right direction might get him the information he needed. But it was a chance two could take; and the right reaction might even provide them with a slender and precarious advantage.

Luke closed his eyes and sank his head in his hands. He made no attempt to deny anything. Bunty held her breath, feeling her way after him blindly.

“So I reckon the money was in the one place I couldn’t get at. In the car…”

“The car’s clean,” said Blackie. “Skinner took it apart.”

“Now it’s clean. But that’s where the stuff was. Must have been. We looked everywhere else. So you found it, kiddo, and you were all set to make a clean get-away with it, is that it? After all, you had to run, they’d soon be after you for murder. Better run with a nice little nest-egg like that than without it. You know what, I’ve got a lot of sympathy for you! She was a crooked little bitch, if ever there was one. Crossed you up for me, and crossed me up for the money I trusted her with. She asked for what you gave her. If it hadn’t been you it would have been someone else. The way I felt when I found she’d cut and run with my money, I tell you straight, it might have been me if you hadn’t got in first.”

“I was drunk,” protested Luke from behind his sheltering hands, and the dark hair shook forward over his brow and helped to hide his face. His voice was high and unsteady, it would do well enough for an ordinary, harmless young man who had been running all day from the nightmare knowledge that he was a murderer. “I didn’t even know,” he said, writhing. “She waved the damn gun at me… she made me mad…”

“I know! She asked for it. I’m not planning on turning you in for that.”

Not this time, thought Bunty; because you’ve thought of something better. I wish I knew what it is! I wish I knew, I wish Luke knew, exactly how much of that quarrel you did overhear.

Luke looked up mistrustfully under his disordered hair. The big man loomed over him mountainous and daunting, his face in shadow.

“What were you planning on doing?… you and the lady? I hear there’s a boat… was that it? You reckon you could make it across to the Continent from here?”

“Yes, I could make it… I could have made it,” Luke corrected himself bitterly, “if you hadn’t sent this lot after us.”

“And Pippa? She was going half-way, I suppose?”

The dark head drooped again, the thin hands came up and scrubbed wearily at the thin cheeks. An almost inaudible voice said: “Yes…”

“Look,” said Fleet reasonably, “I’m not a cop. I’ve got nothing against you. Why should I have? She did the dirty on both of us, I’ve got a fellow feeling for you. There’s no reason in the world why you and I shouldn’t do a deal.”

He was, in his way, a marvellous performer. To look at him sitting there, his rocky face placid and benevolent, was almost to believe in his genuineness. He could create a kind of hallucination even when you knew he was lying, by the sheer force of his energy. Yet at the same time he had produced on Bunty an effect for which not even she was prepared. Up to now she had merely reasoned that this man had killed Pippa with his own hands; now, perversely, she knew it. Not these others, not even Con with his cold, impervious eyes—Fleet.

Luke lifted his head and studied the face before him with eyes narrowed in calculation; and somewhere deep in those wary pupils a spark of hope and encouragement came to life.

“What are you getting at?” he asked cautiously.

“What I say, if you like to take the lady and light out for Holland, or wherever, what’s that to me? I’m saying nothing. Just so you don’t take my money with you! You can have your freedom and welcome, but my dough you can’t have. You tell us where you’ve put it, and as soon as I’ve got it in my hands we’ll