time lucky – that will be the idea.' He added: 'Iris Marle told me, in front of Mrs Drake, that she would marry you as soon as you wanted her to.'
They spoke in spasmodic jerks, for the taxi-driver was taking their directions literally and was hurtling round corners and cutting through traffic with immense enthusiasm. Turning with a final spurt into Elvaston Square , he drew up with a terrific jerk in front of the house.
Elvaston Square had never looked more peaceful.
Anthony, with an effort regaining his usual cool manner, murmured: 'Quite like the movies. Makes one feel rather a fool, somehow.'
But he was on the top step ringing the bell while Race paid off the taxi and Kemp followed up the steps.
The parlourmaid opened the door.
Anthony said sharply: 'Has Miss Iris got back?'
Evans looked a little surprised.
'Oh, yes, sir. She came in half an hour ago.'
Anthony breathed a sigh of relief. Everything in the house was so calm and normal that he felt ashamed of his recent melodramatic fears.
'Where is she?'
'I expect she's in the drawing-room with Mrs Drake.'
Anthony nodded and took the stairs in easy strides. Race and Kemp close beside him. In the drawing-room, placid under its shaded electric lights, Lucilla Drake was hunting through the pigeon holes of the desk with the hopeful absorption of a terrier and murmuring audibly:
'Dear, dear, now where did I put Mrs Marsham's letter? Now, let me see…'
'Where is Iris?' demanded Anthony abruptly.
Lucilla turned and stared.
'Iris? She – I beg your pardon!' She drew herself up. 'May I ask who you are?'
Race came forward from behind him and Lucilla's face cleared. She did not yet see Chief Inspector Kemp who was the third to enter the room.
'Oh, dear, Colonel Race! How kind of you to come! But I do wish you could have been here a little earlier – I should have liked to consult you about the funeral arrangements – a man's advice, so valuable – and really I was feeling so upset, as I said to Miss Lessing, that really I couldn't even think – and I must say that Miss Lessing was really very sympathetic for once and offered to do everything she could to take the burden off my shoulders – only, as she put it very reasonably, naturally I should be the person most likely to know what were George's favourite hymns – not that I actually did, because I'm afraid George didn't very often go to church – but naturally, as a clergyman's wife – I mean widow – I do know what is suitable –'
Race took advantage of a momentary pause to slip in his question: 'Where is Miss Marle?'
'Iris? She came in some time ago. She said she had a headache and was going straight up to her room. Young girls, you know, do not seem to me to have very much stamina nowadays – they don't eat enough spinach – and she seems positively to dislike talking about the funeral arrangements, but after all, someone has to do these things – and one does want to feel that everything has been done for the best, and proper respect shown to the dead – not that I have ever thought motor hearses really reverent – if you know what I mean – not like horses with their long black tails – but, of course, I said at once that it was quite all right, and Ruth – I called her Ruth and not Miss Lessing – and I were managing splendidly, and she could leave everything to us.'
Kemp asked: 'Miss Lessing has gone?'
'Yes, we settled everything, and Miss Lessing left about ten minutes ago. She took the announcements for the papers with her. No flowers, under the circumstances – and Canon Westbury to take the service –'
As the flow went on, Anthony edged gently out of the door. He had left the room before Lucilla, suddenly interrupting her narrative, paused to say: 'Who was that young man who came with you? I didn't realise at first that you had brought him. I thought possibly he might have been one of those dreadful reporters. We have had such trouble with them.'
Anthony was running lightly up the stairs. Hearing footsteps behind him, he turned his head, and grinned at Chief Inspector Kemp.
'You deserted too? Poor old Race!'
Kemp muttered.
'He does these things so nicely. I'm not popular in that quarter.'
They were on the second floor and just preparing to start up the third when Anthony heard a light footstep descending. He pulled Kemp inside an adjacent bathroom door.
The footsteps went on down the stairs.
Anthony emerged and ran up the next flight of stairs. Iris's room, he knew, was the small one at the back. He rapped lightly on the door.
'Hi – Iris.' There was no reply – and he knocked and called again. Then he tried the handle but found the door locked.
With real urgency now he beat upon it.
'Iris – Iris –'
After a second or two, he stopped and glanced down. He was standing on one of those woolly old-fashioned rugs made to fit outside doors to obviate draughts. This one was close up against the door and Anthony kicked it away. The space under the door at the bottom was quite wide – sometime, he deduced, it had been cut to clear a fitted carpet instead of stained boards.
He stooped to the keyhole but could see nothing, but suddenly he raised his head and sniffed. Then he lay down flat and pressed his nose against the crack under the door.
Springing up, he shouted: 'Kemp!'
There was no sign of the Chief Inspector. Anthony shouted again.
It was Colonel Race, however, who came running up the stairs. Anthony gave him no chance to speak. He said:
'Gas – pouring out! We'll have to break the door down.'
Race had a powerful physique. Both he and Anthony made short shrift of the obstacle.
With a splintering, cracking noise, the lock gave.
They fell back for a moment, then Race said: 'She's there by the fireplace. I'll dash in and break the window. You get her.'
Iris Marle was lying by the gas fire – her mouth and nose lying on the wide open gas jet.
A minute or two later, choking and spluttering, Anthony and Race laid the unconscious girl on the landing floor in the draught of the passage window.
Race said: 'I'll work on her. You get a doctor quickly.'
Anthony swung down the stairs. Race called after him:
'Don't worry. I think she'll be all right. We got here in time.'
In the hall Anthony dialled and spoke into the mouthpiece, hampered by a background of exclamations from Lucilla Drake.
He turned at last from the telephone to say with a sigh of relief: 'Caught him. He lives just across the Square. He'll be here in a couple of minutes.'
'– but I must know what has happened! Is Iris ill?'
It was a final wail from Lucilla.
Anthony said: 'She was in her room. Door locked. Her head in the gas fire and the gas full on.'
'Iris?' Mrs Drake gave a piercing shriek. 'Iris has committed suicide? I can't believe it. I don't believe it!'
A faint ghost of Anthony's grin returned to him.
'You don't need to believe it,' he said. 'It isn't true.'
Chapter 14
