'Yes, of course you were.'
'You did know then, didn't you, Hester, that I loved you?'
'I wasn't sure,' said Hester. 'I wasn't even sure then that I was beginning to love you.'
'You'd no reason, had you, no earthly reason for doing away with your mother?' 'No, not really,' said Hester. 'What do you mean by not really?'
'I often thought about killing her,' said Hester in a matter-of-fact voice. 'I used to say 'I wish she was dead, I wish she was dead.' Sometimes,' she added, 'I used to dream that I killed her.'
'In what way did you kill her in your dream?'
For a moment Don Craig was no longer the lover but the interested young doctor.
'Sometimes I shot her,' said Hester cheerfully, 'and sometimes I banged her on the head.'
Dr. Craig groaned.
'That was just dreaming,' said Hester. 'I'm often very violent in dreams.'
'Listen, Hester.' The young man took her hand in his. 'You've got to tell me the truth. You've got to trust me.'
'I don't understand what you mean,' said Hester.
'The truth, Hester. I want the truth. I love you — and I'll stand by you. If — if you killed her I –1 think I can find out the reasons why. I don't think it will have been exactly your fault. Do you understand? Certainly I'd never go to the police about it. It will be between you and me only. Nobody else will suffer. The whole thing will die down for want of evidence. But I've got to know.' He stressed the last word strongly.
Hester was looking at him. Her eyes were wide, almost unfocused.
'What do you want me to say to you?' she said.
'I want you to tell me the truth.'
'You think you know the truth already, don't you? You think –1 killed her.'
'Hester, darling, don't look at me like that.' He took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. 'I'm a doctor. I know the reasons behind these things. I know that people can't always be held responsible for their actions. I know you for what you are — sweet and lovely and essentially all right. I'll help you. I'll look after you. We'll get married, then we'll be happy. You need never feel lost, unwanted, tyrannised over. The things we do often spring from reasons most people don't understand.'
'That's very much what we all said about Jacko, isn't it?' said Hester.
'Never mind Jacko. It's you I'm thinking about. I love you so very much, Hester, but I've got to know the truth.'
'The truth?' said Hester.
A very slow, mocking smile curved the corners of her mouth upwards.
'Please, darling.'
Hester turned her head and looked up.
'There's Gwenda calling me. It must be lunch time.'
'Hester!'
'Would you believe me if I told you I didn't kill her?'
'Of course I'd — I'd believe you.'
'I don't think you would,' said Hester.
She turned sharply away from him and began running up the path. He made a movement to follow her, then abandoned it.
'Oh, hell,' said Donald Craig. 'Oh, hell!'
Chapter 15
'But I don't want to go home just yet,' said Philip Durrant. He spoke with plaintive irritability.
'But, Philip, really, there's nothing to stay here for, any longer. I mean, we had to come to see Mr. Marshall to discuss the thing, and then wait for the police interviews. But now there's nothing to stop us going home right away.'
'I think your father's quite happy for us to stop on for a bit,' said Philip, 'he likes having someone to play chess with in the evenings. My word, he's a wizard at chess. I thought I wasn't bad, but I never get the better of him.'
'Father can find someone else to play chess with,' said Mary shortly. 'What — whistle someone up from the Women's Institute?'
'And anyway, we ought to go home,' said Mary. 'Tomorrow is Mrs. Carden's day for doing the brasses.'
'Polly, the perfect housewife!' said Philip laughing. 'Anyway, Mrs. Whatshername can do the brasses without you, can't she? Or if she can't, send her a telegram and tell her to let them moulder for another week.'
'You don't understand, Philip, about household things, and how difficult they are.'
'I don't see that any of them are difficult unless you make them difficult. Anyway, I want to stop on.'
'Oh, Philip,' Mary spoke with exasperation, 'I do so hate it here.' 'But why?'
'It's so gloomy, so miserable and — and all that's happened here. The murder and everything.'
'Now, come, Polly, don't tell me you're amass of nerves over things of that kind. I'm sure you could take murder without turning a hair. No, you want to go home because you want to see to the brasses and dust the place and make sure no moths have got into your fur coat.'
'Moths don't go into fur coats in winter,' said Mary.
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'Well, you know what I mean, Polly. The general idea. But you see, from my point of view, it's so much more interesting here.'
'More interesting than being in our own home?' Mary sounded both shocked and hurt. Philip looked at her quickly.
'I'm sorry, darling, I didn't put it very well. Nothing could be nicer than our own home, and you've made it really lovely. Comfortable, neat, attractive. You see, it'd be quite different if — if I were like I used to be. I mean, I'd have lots of things to do all day. I'd be up to my ears in schemes. And it would be perfect coming back to you and having our own home, talking about everything that had happened during the day. But you see, it's different now.'
'Oh, I know it's different in that way,' said Mary. 'Don't think I ever forget that, Phil. I do mind. I mind most terribly.'
'Yes,' said Philip, and he spoke almost between his teeth. 'Yes, you mind too much, Mary. You mind so much that sometimes it makes me mind more. All I want is distraction and — no –' he held up his hand –' don't tell me that I can get distraction from jigsaw puzzles and all the gadgets of occupational therapy and having people to come and give me treatment, and reading endless books. I want so badly sometimes to get my teeth into something! And here, in this house, there is something to get one's teeth into.'
'Philip,' Mary caught her breath, 'you're not still harping on — on that idea of yours?'
'Playing at Murder Hunt?' said Philip. 'Murder, murder, who did the murder? Yes, Polly, you're not far off. I want desperately to know who did it.'
'But why? And how can you know? If somebody broke in or found the door open –'
'Still harping on the outsider theory?' asked Philip. 'It won't wash, you know. Old Marshall put a good face upon it. But actually he was just helping us to keep face. Nobody believes in that beautiful theory. It just isn't true.'
'Then you must see, if it isn't true,' Mary interrupted him, 'if it isn't true — if it was, as you put it, one of us, then I don't want to know. Why should we know? Aren't we — aren't we a hundred times better not knowing?'
Philip Durrant looked up at her questioningly.
'Putting your head in the sand, eh, Polly? Haven't you any natural curiosity?'
'I tell you I don't want to know! I think it's all horrible. I want to forget it and not think about it.'
'Didn't you care enough for your mother to want to know who killed her?'
'What good would it do, knowing who killed her? For two years we've been quite satisfied that Jacko killed
