bright red lozenge staining the whiteness of his collar.
'He has been killed,' said Kirsten. 'He has been killed — stabbed. There, through the bottom of the brain. One little stab and it is fatal.'
She added, her voice rising: 'I warned him. I did all I could. But he was like a child — enjoying himself playing with tools that were dangerous — not seeing where he was going.'
It was like a bad dream, Tina thought. She stood there softly at Philip's elbow, looking down at him whilst Kirsten raised his limp hand and felt the wrist for the pulse that was not there. What had he wanted to ask her? Whatever he wanted, he would never ask it now. Without really thinking objectively, Tina's mind was taking in and registering various details. He had been writing, yes. The pen was there, but there was no paper in front of him. Nothing written. Whoever had killed him had taken away what he'd written. She said, speaking quietly and mechanically: 'We must tell the others.'
'Yes, yes, we must go down to them. We must tell your father.'
Side by side the two women went to the door, Kirsten's arm round Tina. Tina's eyes went to the dropped tray and the broken crockery.
'That does not matter,' said Kirsten. 'All that can be cleared up later.' Tina half stumbled and Kirsten's arm restrained her. 'Be careful. You will fall.'
They went along the passage. The door of the library opened. Leo and Gwenda came out. Tina said in her clear, low voice: 'Philip has been killed. Stabbed.'
It was like a dream, Tina thought. The shocked exclamations of her father and Gwenda flowing past her, going to Philip… To Philip, who was dead. Kirsten left her and hurried down the stairs.
'I must tell Mary. It must be broken to her gently. Poor Mary. It will be a terrible shock'
Tina followed her slowly. More than ever she felt dazed and dreamlike, a strange pain catching at her heart.
Where was she going? She did not know. Nothing was real. She came to the open front door and passed through it. It was then she saw Micky coming round the corner of the house. Automatically as though this was where her footsteps had been leading her all the time, she went straight to him.
'Micky,' she said. 'Oh, Micky!'
His arms were open. She went straight into them. 'It's all right,' said Micky. 'I've got you.'
Tina crumpled slightly in his arms. She dropped to the ground, a small huddled heap, just as Hester came running from the house.
'She's fainted,' Micky said helplessly. 'I've never known Tina faint before.'
'It's the shock,' said Hester.
'What do you mean — the shock?'
'Philip has been killed,' said Hester.
'Didn't you know?'
'How could I know? When? How?'
'Just now.'
He stared at her. Then he picked up Tina in his arms. With Hester accompanying him, he took her into Mrs. Argyle's sitting-room and laid her on the sofa.
'Ring up Dr. Craig,' he said.
'That's his car now,' said Hester, looking out of the window. 'Father was calling him on the telephone about Philip. I –' She looked round. 'I don't want to meet him.'
She ran out of the room and up the stairs.
Donald Craig got out of his car and in through the open front door. Kirsten came from the kitchen to meet him.
'Good afternoon, Miss Lindstrom. What's this — Mr. Argyle tells me that Philip Durrant has been killed.'
'Killed?'
'It is quite true,' said Kirsten.
'Has Mr. Argyle rung up the police?' 'I do not know.'
'Any chance that he's just wounded?' said Don. He turned to take his medical bag out of the car.
'No,' said Kirsten. Her voice was flat and tired. 'He is dead. I am quite sure of that. He has been stabbed — here.'
She put her hand to the back of her own head.
Micky came out into the hall.
'Hallo, Don, you had better have a look at Tina,' he said. 'She's fainted.'
'Tina? Oh yes, that's the — the one from Redmyn, isn't it? Where is she?'
'She is in there.'
'I'll just have a look at her before I go upstairs.' As he went into the room he spoke over his shoulder to Kirsten. 'Keep her warm,' he said, 'get some hot tea or coffee for her as soon as she comes round. But you know the drill –'
Kirsten nodded.
'Kirsten!' Mary Durrant came slowly along the hall from the kitchen — Kirsten went to her — Micky stared at her helplessly.
'It's not true.' Mary spoke in a loud harsh voice. It's not true! It's a lie you've made up. He was all right when I left him just now. He was quite all right. He was writing. I told him not to write. I told him not to. What made him do it? Why should he be so pig-headed. Why wouldn't he leave this house when I wanted him to?'
Coaxing her, soothing her, Kirsten did her best to make her relax. Donald Craig strode out of the sitting-room. 'Who said that girl had fainted?' he demanded. Micky stared at him.
'But she did faint,' he said. 'Where was she when she fainted?''
'She was with me… She came out of the house and walked to meet me. Then –she just collapsed.'
'Collapsed, did she? Yes, she collapsed all right,' said Donald Craig grimly. He moved quickly towards the telephone.
'I must get hold of an ambulance,' he said 'at once.'
'An ambulance?' Both Kirsten and Micky stared at him. Mary did not seem to have heard.
'Yes.' Donald was dialling angrily. 'That girl didn't faint,' he said. 'She was stabbed. Do you hear? Stabbed in the back. We've got to get her to hospital at once.'
Chapter 23
In his hotel room, Arthur Calgary went over and over the notes he had made. From time to time, he nodded his head.
Yes… he was on the right track now. To begin with, he had made the mistake of concentrating on Mrs. Argyle. In nine cases out often that would have been the right procedure. But this was the tenth case.
All along he had felt the presence of an unknown factor. If he could once isolate and identify that factor, the case would be solved. In seeking it he had been obsessed by the dead woman. But the dead woman, he saw now, was not really important. Any victim, in a sense, would have done.
He had shifted his viewpoint — shifted it back to the moment when all this had begun. He had shifted it back to Jacko.
Not just Jacko as a young man unjustly sentenced for a crime he did not commit — but Jacko, the intrinsic human being. Was Jacko, in the words of the old Calvinistic doctrine, 'a vessel appointed to destruction'?
He'd been given every chance in life, hadn't he? Dr. MacMaster's opinion, at any rate, was that he was one of those who are born to go wrong. No environment could have helped him or saved him. Was that true?
Leo Argyle had spoken of him with indulgence, with pity. How had he put it? 'One of Nature's misfits.' He had accepted the modern psychological approach. An invalid, not a criminal. What had Hester said? Bluntly, that Jacko was always awful!
A plain, childish statement. And what was it Kirsten Lindstrom had said? That Jacko was wicked! Yes, she had put it as strongly as that. Wicked! Tina had said: 'I never liked him or trusted him.' So they all agreed, didn't
