Silence—complete, instant, ticketable by the small scrape of a bush under the low windows, the diminishing hum of a car. Annabelle Blair took her hand gently away from her sherry glass and said with a musing expression, “Did she . . . I’m trying to think—” and Torrant had time to notice Simeon.
The other man sat slightly forward in his chair, stilled there in the act of settling back. The face under the smooth gilt hair had lost its ugly charm; it was cold and waiting. He was, for an instant, the hunter that Torrant reluctantly had known him to be.
And Annabelle Blair said with an air of sudden decision, “No.” Torrant could have sworn that it was a lie, because she had taken too long to think it over, except for the fact that it was so easily checked. Mrs. Kirby, for instance, who had looked at Louise Mallow with the all-seeing eye of dislike, might easily remember if it had been otherwise—and Simeon, staring obliquely at the rug, looked like a man doing figures in his head.
“Mrs. Mallow wore glasses for the theatre, I believe, and now and then a movie—not for driving or reading. Although she seldom read,” remarked Annabelle with faint contempt.
Simeon glanced up flickeringly at that and Annabelle moved a little in her chair, warily, as though she wished she had left it unsaid. “Why? Oh, I see—you’re wondering why Mrs. Mallow didn’t do the driving under the circumstances. This can’t be very pleasant for you, can it, Miss Rowan?”
“I don’t mind,” Maria said in a removed voice.
Annabelle lifted her sherry glass at last. Her hand was steady and precise, but the glass she put down again was nearly empty. “I think I can answer that for you, although I don’t imagine anyone will ever know exactly.” The same phrase, Torrant noted grimly, that she had used about Mrs. Partridge’s death in the pond. “When Mr. Mallow had reached a certain stage in his drinking, he was apt to become quite— bad-tempered. Interference of any kind, and particularly the implication that he wasn’t in a condition to drive, would have made him furious. If Mrs. Mallow had suggested that she take the wheel instead, his normal reaction would have been to drive even faster, to prove that she was mistaken.”
Annabelle closed her eyes as she stopped speaking, forcing them all to see the heavy pale blue convertible gathering speed, hurtling over the icy road under the impetus of drunken pique. Simeon said into the silence, “I’m afraid, knowing Gerald, that I have to agree,” but his slow regretful tone didn’t quite cover a note of reserve.
Torrant stood up. He was reminded of the child’s game of being blindfolded and spun around before being sent in search of a goal. He said, “So it didn’t matter, Mrs. Mallow’s leaving her glasses behind that night?” and Annabelle answered with a calm change of mood, “I have no idea where Mrs. Mallow left her glasses, but no, Mr. Torrant, it wouldn’t have mattered.”
Again there was a small tight silence in the room. Simeon sat motionless, his attention almost a tangible thing. Maria stopped smoothing on a glove and looked up at Annabelle Blair, cool and reflective, and under the focus of the watching and waiting Annabelle turned her back and straightened a tendril of ivy on the mantel.
The ivy jerked badly. It was a tiny thing, but it was the straw-weight that broke through the careful detachment Torrant had worn ever since he had walked out of the doctor’s office in Greenwich.
He was suddenly impatient to be out of here, so that he could come back. Without any pretenses at all, this time, and alone.
CHAPTER 16
OUTSIDE, recklessly close to the door, Maria said, “She’d hardly tell us if Louise had needed her glasses for driving, would she?”
“On the other hand, she wouldn’t want to be caught in an open lie. She’s frightened,” said Torrant, slowly and pleasurably. “She’s beginning to know a very little of what it’s like to see something—closing in.”
Maria glanced up quickly at his tone, and then as quickly away. They crossed the road to the garage in silence. With her shoulder a few scant inches from his, Torrant felt her withdrawal; he wished irritably that he could stop Geiger-counting this girl’s moods. He said brusquely, “Better get some sleep, hadn’t you?” and Maria said with an answering crispness, “Thanks, I’m going to.”
The door closed behind her; as though it had been a cue the door of the Mallow house opened, and Annabelle Blair emerged with Simeon. She was saying something over her shoulder, and the clear icy air cupped her voice like something under glass. “I’m quite all right now, the headache’s better. Perhaps some fresh air . .
Had she read his mind, there at the door? Getting into the Renault, watching the gray convertible drive away, Torrant almost smiled at that. He had had no idea, so she could have none, of how patient he could be once he had made up his mind to stop fencing with Martin’s killer.
Meanwhile, he had seen two sharp and puzzling reactions to the mention of Louise Mallow’s glasses. Would there be a third in the woman who, next to Mrs. Partridge, had seen the Mallows at closer range than anyone else in Chauncy? Next to Mrs. Partridge . . . not the safest place to be. Five minutes later, Torrant brought the Renault to a sharp halt outside Paulette Kirby’s small green and white house.
Mrs. Kirby was in, looking brisk and surprisingly competent and, under the glossy tan and the nonchalance, hard as iron. Torrant had never seen her before without a turban. Her pale brown hair was short and thin and vaguely frizzled; she wore it magnificently, as though
