‘Do you remember Dillmouth at all well?’ she asked artlessly.
His lips twitched in what she guessed to be a sudden spasm of pain. In a noncommittal voice he answered, ‘Quite well, I think. We stayed-let me see-at the Royal George-no, Royal Clarence Hotel.’
‘Oh yes, that’s the nice old-fashioned one. Our house is quite near there. Hillside it’s called, but it used to be called St-St-Mary’s, was it, Giles?’
‘St Catherine’s,’ said Giles.
This time there was no mistaking the reaction. Erskine turned sharply away, Mrs Erskine’s cup clattered on her saucer.
‘Perhaps,’ she said abruptly, ‘you would like to see the garden.’
‘Oh yes, please.’
They went out through the french windows. It was a well-kept, well-stocked garden, with a long border and flagged walks. The care of it was principally Major Erskine’s, so Gwenda gathered. Talking to her about roses, about herbaceous plants, Erskine’s dark, sad face lit up. Gardening was clearly his enthusiasm.
When they finally took their leave, and were driving away in the car, Giles asked hesitantly, ‘Did you-did you drop it?’
Gwenda nodded.
‘By the second clump of delphiniums.’ She looked down at her finger and twisted the wedding ring on it absently.
‘And supposing you never find it again?’
‘Well, it’s not my real engagement ring. I wouldn’t risk that.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘I’m very sentimental about that ring. Do you remember what you said when you put it on my finger? A green emerald because I was an intriguing green-eyed little cat.’
‘I dare say,’ said Giles dispassionately, ‘that our peculiar form of endearments might sound odd to someone of, say, Miss Marple’s generation.’
‘I wonder what she’s doing now, the dear old thing. Sitting in the sun on the front?’
‘Up to something-if I know her! Poking here, or prying there, or asking a few questions. I hope she doesn’t ask too many one of these days.’
‘It’s quite a natural thing to do-for an old lady, I mean. It’s not as noticeable as though we did it.’
Giles’s face sobered again.
‘That’s why I don’t like-’ He broke off. ‘It’s you having to do it that I mind. I can’t bear the feeling that I sit at home and send you out to do the dirty work.’
Gwenda ran a finger down his worried cheek.
‘I know, darling, I know. But you must admit, it’s tricky. It’s impertinent to catechize a man about his past love-affairs-but it’s the kind of impertinence a woman can just get away with-if she’s clever. And I mean to be clever.’
‘I know you’re clever. But if Erskine is the man we are looking for-’
Gwenda said meditatively: ‘I don’t think he is.’
‘You mean we’re barking up the wrong tree?’
‘Not entirely. I think he was in love with Helen all right. But he’s nice, Giles, awfully nice. Not the strangling kind at all.’
‘You haven’t an awful lot of experience of the strangling kind, have you, Gwenda?’
‘No. But I’ve got my woman’s instinct.’
‘I dare say that’s what a strangler’s victims often say. No, Gwenda, joking apart, do be careful, won’t you?’
‘Of course. I feel so sorry for the poor man-that dragon of a wife. I bet he’s had a miserable life.’
‘She’s an odd woman…Rather alarming somehow.’
‘Yes, quite sinister. Did you see how she watched me all the time?’
‘I hope the plan will go off all right.’
The plan was put into execution the following morning.
Giles, feeling, as he put it, rather like a shady detective in a divorce suit, took up his position at a point of vantage overlooking the front gate of Anstell Manor. About half past eleven he reported to Gwenda that all had gone well. Mrs Erskine had left in a small Austin car, clearly bound for the market town three miles away. The coast was clear.
Gwenda drove up to the front door and rang the bell. She asked for Mrs Erskine and was told she was out. She then asked for Major Erskine. Major Erskine was in the garden. He straightened up from operations on a flowerbed as Gwenda approached.
‘I’m so sorry to bother you,’ said Gwenda. ‘But I think I must have dropped a ring somewhere out here yesterday. I know I had it when we came out from tea. It’s rather loose, but I couldn’t bear to lose it because it’s my engagement ring.’
The hunt was soon under way. Gwenda retraced her steps of yesterday, tried to recollect where she had stood and what flowers she had touched. Presently the ring came to light near a large clump of delphiniums. Gwenda was profuse in her relief.
‘And now can I get you a drink, Mrs Reed? Beer? A glass of sherry? Or would you prefer coffee, or something like that?’
‘I don’t want anything-no, really. Just a cigarette-thanks.’
She sat down on a bench and Erskine sat down beside her.
They smoked for a few minutes in silence. Gwenda’s heart was beating rather fast. No two ways about it. She had to take the plunge.
‘I want to ask you something,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you’ll think it terribly impertinent of me. But I want to know dreadfully-and you’re probably the only person who could tell me. I believe you were once in love with my stepmother.’
He turned an astonished face towards her.
‘With your stepmother?’
‘Yes. Helen Kennedy. Helen Halliday as she became afterwards.’
‘I see.’ The man beside her was very quiet. His eyes looked out across the sunlit lawn unseeingly. The cigarette between his fingers smouldered. Quiet as he was, Gwenda sensed a turmoil within that taut figure, the arm of which touched her own.
As though answering some question he had put to himself, Erskine said: ‘Letters, I suppose.’
Gwenda did not answer.
‘I never wrote her many-two, perhaps three. She said she had destroyed them-but women never do destroy letters, do they? And so they came intoyour hands. And you want to know.’
‘I want to know more about her. I was-very fond of her. Although I was such a small child when-she went away.’
‘She went away?’
‘Didn’t you know?’
His eyes, candid and surprised, met hers.
‘I’ve no news of her,’ he said, ‘since-since that summer in Dillmouth.’
‘Then you don’t know where she is now?’
‘How should I? It’s years ago-years. All finished and done with. Forgotten.’
‘Forgotten?’
He smiled rather bitterly.
‘No, perhaps not forgotten…You’re very perceptive, Mrs Reed. But tell me about her. She’s not-dead, is she?’
A small cold wind sprang up suddenly, chilled their necks and passed.
‘I don’t know if she is dead or not,’ said Gwenda. ‘I don’t know anything about her. I thought perhaps you might
