Miss Bennett took a step towards him. 'Is that what she's been trying to make you believe?' she asked. 'It isn't true, you know. You've got to realize that. It isn't true.'
'Well, one can't be sure. After all, it might be,' he observed judiciously.
'But I tell you it isn't,' she insisted.
'How can you possibly know that?' Starkwedder asked.
'I do know,' Miss Bennett replied. 'Do you think there's anything I don't know about the people in this house? I've been with them for years. Years, I tell you.' She sat in the armchair. 'I care for them very much, all of them.'
'Including the late Richard Warwick?' Starkwedder asked.
Miss Bennett seemed lost in thought for a moment. Then, 'I used to be fond of him – once,' she replied.
There was a pause. Starkwedder sat on the stool and regarded her steadily before murmuring, 'Go on.'
'He changed,' said Miss Bennett. 'He became –warped. His whole mentality became quite different. Sometimes he could be a devil.'
'Yes, everybody seems to agree on that,' Starkwedder observed.
'But if you'd known him as he used to be –' she began.
He interrupted her. 'I don't believe that, you know. I don't think people change.'
'Richard did,' Miss Bennett insisted.
'Oh, no, he didn't,' Starkwedder contradicted her. He resumed his prowling about the room. 'You've got things the wrong way round, I'll bet.
'I'd say he was always a devil underneath. Pd say he was one of those people who have to be happy and successful – or else! They hide their real selves as long as it gets them what they want. But underneath, the bad streak's always there.'
He turned to face Miss Bennett. 'His cruelty, I bet, was always there. He was probably a bully at school. He was attractive to women, of course. Women are always attracted by bullies. And he took a lot of his sadism out in his big-game hunting, I dare say.' He indicated the hunting trophies on the walls.
'Richard Warwick must have been a monstrous egoist,' he continued. 'That's how he seems to me from the way all you people talk about him. He enjoyed building himself up as a good fellow, generous, successful, lovable and all the rest of it.' Starkwedder was still pacing restlessly. 'But the mean streak was there, all right. And when his accident came, it was just the faзade that was torn away, and you all saw him as he really was.'
Miss Bennett rose. 'I don't see that you've got any business to talk,' she exclaimed indignantly. 'You're a stranger, and you know nothing about it.'
'Perhaps not, but I've heard a great deal about it,' Starkwedder retorted. 'Everyone seems to talk to me for some reason.'
'Yes, I suppose they do. Yes, I'm talking to you now, aren't I?' she admitted, as she sat down again. 'That's because we none of us here dare talk to one another.' She looked up at him, appealingly. 'I wish you weren't going away,' she told him.
Starkwedder shook his head. 'I've done nothing to help at all, really,' he said. 'All I've done is blunder in and discover a dead body for you.'
'But it was Laura and I who discovered Richard's body,' Miss Bennett contradicted him. She paused and then suddenly added, 'Or did Laura – did you – ?' Her voice trailed off into silence.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Starkwedder looked at Miss Bennett and smiled. 'You're pretty sharp, aren't you?' he observed.
Miss Bennett stared at him fixedly. 'You helped her, didn't you?' she asked, making it sound like an accusation.
He walked away from her. 'Now you're imagining things,' he told her.
'Oh, no, I'm not,' Miss Bennett retorted. 'I want Laura to be happy. Oh, I so very much want her to be happy!'
Starkwedder turned to her, exclaiming passionately, 'Damn it, so do I!'
Miss Bennett looked at him in surprise. Then she began to speak. 'In that case I – I've got to –* she began, but was interrupted. Gesturing to her to be silent, Starkwedder murmured, 'Just a minute.' He hastened to the french windows, opened a window and called, 'What are you doing?'
Miss Bennett now caught sight of Jan out on the lawn, brandishing a gun. Rising quickly, she too went across to the french windows and called urgently, 'Jan! Jan! Give me that gun.'
Jan, however, was too quick for her. He ran off laughing, and shouting, 'Come and get it,' as he ran. Miss Bennett followed him, with urgent cries of 'Jan! Jan!'
Starkwedder looked out across the lawn, trying to see what was happening. Then he turned back, and was about to go to the door, when Laura suddenly entered the room.
'Where's the inspector?' she asked him.
Starkwedder made an ineffectual gesture. Laura shut the door behind her, and came over to him. 'Michael, you must listen to me,' she implored him. Julian didn't kill Richard.'
'Indeed?' Starkwedder replied coldly. 'He told you so, did he?'
'You don't believe me, but it's true.' Laura sounded desperate.
'You mean you believe it's true,' Starkwedder pointed out to her.
'No, I know it's true,' Laura replied. 'You see, he thought I'd killed Richard.'
Starkwedder moved back into the room, away from the french windows. 'That's not exactly surprising,' he said with an acid smile. I thought so, too, didn't I?'
Laura's voice sounded even more desperate as she insisted, 'He thought I'd shot Richard. But he couldn't cope with it. It made him feel –' She stopped, embarrassed, then continued, 'It made him feel differently towards me.'
Starkwedder looked at her coldly. 'Whereas,' he pointed out, 'when you thought he'd killed Richard, you took it in your stride without turning a hair!' Suddenly relenting a little, he smiled. 'Women are wonderful!' he murmured. He perched on the sofa arm. 'What made Farrar come out with the damaging fact that he was here last night? Don't tell me it was a pure and simple regard for the truth?'
'It was Angell,' Laura replied. 'Angell saw – or says he saw – Julian here.'
'Yes,' Starkwedder remarked with a somewhat bitter laugh. 'I thought I got a whiff of blackmail. Not a nice fellow, Angell.'
'He says he saw Julian just after the – after the shot was fired,' Laura told him. 'Oh, I'm frightened. It's all closing in. I'm so frightened.'
Starkwedder went over to her and took her by the shoulders. 'You needn't be,' he said, reassuringly. 'It's going to be all right.'
Laura shook her head. 'It can't be,' she cried.
'It will be all right, I tell you,' he insisted, shaking her gently.
She looked at him wonderingly. 'Shall we ever know who shot Richard?' she asked him.
Starkwedder looked at her for a moment without replying, and then went to the french windows and gazed out into the garden. 'Your Miss Bennett,' he said, 'seems very positive she knows all the answers.'
'She's always positive,' Laura replied. 'But she's sometimes wrong.'
Apparently glimpsing something outside, Starkwedder suddenly beckoned to Laura to join him. Running across to him, she took his outstretched hand. 'Yes, Laura,' he exclaimed excitedly, still looking out into the garden. 'I thought so!'
'What is it?' she asked.
'Ssh!' he cautioned. At almost the same moment, Miss Bennett came into the room from the hallway. 'Mr Starkwedder,' she said hurriedly. 'Go into the room next door – the inspector's already there. Quickly!'
Starkwedder and Laura crossed the study swiftly, and hurried into the corridor, closing the door behind them. As soon as they had gone, Miss Bennett looked out into the garden, where daylight was beginning to fade. 'Now come in, Jan,' she called to him. 'Don't tease me any more. Come in, come inside.'
