Ordeal by Innocence

  What about a divorce, he wondered. What would Mrs. Argyle have felt about divorce? Really he had no idea, but he didn't think the idea would appeal to Leo Argyle, who was one of the old-fashioned type. He didn't think that Gwenda Vaughan was Leo Argyle's mistress, which made it all the more probable that if Gwenda Vaughan had seen a chance to eliminate Mrs. Argyle with the certainty that no suspicion would attach to her - he paused before continuing the thought. Would she have sacrificed Jacko without a qualm? He didn't really think she had ever been very fond of Jacko. Jacko's charm had not appealed to her. And women - Mr. Marshall knew only too well - were ruthless. So one couldn't rule out Gwenda Vaughan. It was very doubtful after this time if the police would ever get any evidence. He didn't see what evidence there could be against her. She had been in the house that day, she had been with Leo in his library, she had said good night to him and left him and gone down the stairs. There was no one who could say whether or not she had gone aside into Mrs. Argyle's sitting-room, picked up that poker and walked up behind the unsuspecting woman as she bent over papers on the desk. And then afterwards, Mrs. Argyle having been struck down without a cry, all Gwenda Vaughan had to do was to throw down the poker and let herself out of the front door and go home, just as she always did. He couldn't see any possibility of the police or anyone else finding out if that was what she had done.

  His eyes went on to Hester. A pretty child. No, not pretty, beautiful really. Beautiful in a rather strange and uncomfortable way. He'd like to know who her parents had been. Something lawless and wild about her. Yes, one could almost use the word desperate in connection with her. What had she had to be desperate about? She'd run away in a silly way to go on the stage and had had a silly affair with an undesirable man; then she had seen reason, come home with Mrs. Argyle and settled down again. All the same, you couldn't really rule out Hester, because you didn't know how her mind worked. You didn't know what a strange moment of desperation might do to her. But the police wouldn't know either.

  In fact, thought Mr. Marshall, it seemed very unlikely that the police, even if they made up their own minds as to who was responsible, could really do anything about it. So that on the whole the position was satisfactory. Satisfactory? He gave a little start as he considered the word. But was it? Was stalemate really a satisfactory outcome to the whole thing? Did the Argyles know the truth themselves, he wondered. He decided against that. They didn't know. Apart, of course, from one person amongst them who presumably knew only too well...

  No, they didn't know, but did they suspect? Well, if they didn't suspect now, they soon would, because if you didn't know you couldn't help wondering, trying to remember things... Uncomfortable. Yes, yes, very uncomfortable position.

  All these thoughts had not taken very much time. Mr. Marshall came out of his little reverie to see Micky's eyes fixed on him with a mocking gleam in them.

  "So that's your verdict, is it, Mr. Marshall?" Micky said. "The outsider, the unknown intruder, the bad character who murders, robs and gets away with it?"

  "It seems," said Mr. Marshall, "as though that is what we will have to accept."

  Micky threw himself back in his chair and laughed.

  "That's our story, and we're going to stick to it, eh?"

  "Well, yes, Michael, that is what I should advise."

  There was a distinct note of warning in Mr. Marshall's voice.

  Micky nodded his head.

  "I see," he said. "That's what you advise. Yes. Yes, I dare say you're quite right. But you don't believe it, do you?"

  Mr. Marshall gave him a very cold look. That was the trouble with people who had no legal sense of discretion. They insisted on saying things which were much better not said.

  "For what it is worth," he said, "that is my opinion."

  The finality of his tone held a world of reproof. Micky looked round the table.

  "What do we all think?" he asked generally. "Eh, Tina, my love, looking down your nose in your quiet way, haven't you any ideas? Any unauthorised versions, so to speak? And you, Mary? You haven't said much."

  "Of course I agree with Mr. Marshall," said Mary rather sharply. "What other solution can there be?"

  "Philip doesn't agree with you," said Micky.

  Mary turned her head sharply to look at her husband.

  Philip Durrant said quietly: "You'd better hold your tongue, Micky. No good ever came of talking too much when you're in a tight place. And we are in a tight place."

  "So nobody's going to have any opinions, are they?" said Micky. "All right. So be it. But let's all think about it a bit when we go up to bed tonight. It might be advisable, you know. After all, one wants to know where one is, so to speak. Don't you know a thing or two, Kirsty? You usually do. As far as I remember, you always knew what was going on, though I will say for you, you never told."

  Kirsten Lindstrom said, not without dignity: "I think, Micky, that you should hold your tongue. Mr. Marshall is right. Too much talking is unwise."

  "We might put it to the vote," said Micky. "Or write a name on a piece of paper and throw it into a hat. That would be interesting, wouldn't it; to see who got the votes?"

  This time Kirsten Lindstrom's voice was louder.

  "Be quiet," she said. "Do not be a silly, reckless little boy as you used to be. You are grown up now."

  "I only said let's think about it," said Micky, taken aback.

  "We shall think about it," said Kirsten Lindstrom. And her voice was bitter.

  Chapter 11

  Night settled down on Sunny Point.

  Sheltered by its walls seven people retired to rest, but none of them slept well...

  Philip Durrant, since his illness and his loss of bodily activity, had found more and more solace in mental activity. Always a highly intelligent man, he now became conscious of the resources opening out to him through the medium of intelligence. He amused himself sometimes by forecasting the reactions of those around him to suitable stimuli. What he said and did was often not a natural outpouring, but a calculated one, motivated simply and solely to observe the response to it. It was a kind of game that he played; when he got the anticipated response, he chalked up, as it were, a mark to himself.

  As a result of this pastime he found himself, for perhaps the first time in his life, keenly observant of the differences and realities of human personality.

  Human personalities as such had not previously interested him very much. He liked or disliked, was amused or bored by, the people who surrounded him or whom he met. He had always been a man of action, and not a man of thought. His imagination, which was considerable, had been exercised in devising various schemes for making money. All these schemes had a sound core; but a complete lack of business ability always resulted in their coming to nothing. People, as such, had up till now only been considered by him as pawns in the game. Now, since his illness, cut off from his former active life, he was forced to take account of what people themselves were like.

  It had started in the hospital when the love lives of the nurses, the secret warfare and the petty grievances of hospital life had been forced on his attention since there was nothing else to occupy it. And now it was fast becoming a habit with him. People - really that was all that life held for him now. Just people. People to study, to find out about, to sum up. Decide for himself what made them tick and find out if he was right. Really, it could all be very interesting...

  Only this very evening, sitting in the library, he had realised how little he really knew about his wife's family. What were they really like? What were they like inside, that is, not their outer appearance which he knew well enough.

  Odd, how little you knew about people. Even your own wife?

  He had looked thoughtfully over at Mary. How much did he really know about Mary?

  He had fallen in love with her because he liked her good looks and her calm serious ways. Also, she had had money and that had mattered to him too. He would have thought twice about marrying a penniless girl. It ha
d all been most suitable and he had married her and teased her and called her Polly and had enjoyed the doubtful look she gave him when he made jokes she could not see. But what, really, did he know about her? Of what she thought and felt? He knew, certainly, that she loved him with a deep and passionate devotion. And at the thought of that devotion he stirred a little uneasily, twisting his shoulders as though to ease them of a burden. Devotion was all very well when you could get away from it for nine or ten hours of the day. It was a nice thing to come home to. But new he was lapped round with it; watched over, cared for, cherished. It made one yearn for a little wholesome neglect... One had, in fact, to find ways of escape. Mental ways - since none other were possible. One had to escape to realms of fancy or speculation.

  Speculation. As to who was responsible for his mother-in-law's death, for instance. He had disliked his mother-in-law, and she had disliked him. She had not wanted Mary to marry him (would she have wanted Mary to marry anybody? he wondered), but she had not been able to prevent it. He and Mary had started life happy and independent - and then things had begun to go wrong. First that South American company - and then the Bicycle Accessories Ltd. - good ideas both of them - but the financing of them had been badly judged - and then there had been the Argentine railway strike which had completed the disasters. All purely bad luck, but in some way he felt that somehow Mrs. Argyle was responsible. She hadn't wished him to succeed. Then had come his illness. It had looked as though their only solution was to come and live at Sunny Point where a welcome was assured to them. He wouldn't have minded particularly. A man who was a cripple, only half a man, what did it matter where he was? - but Mary would have minded.

  Oh well, it hadn't been necessary to live permanently at Sunny Point. Mrs. Argyle had been killed. The trustees had raised the allowance made to Mary under the trust and they had set up on their own again.

  He hadn't felt any particular grief over Mrs. Argyle's death. Pleasanter, of course, if she had died of pneumonia or something like that, in her bed. Murder was a nasty business with its notoriety and its screaming headlines. Still, as murders go, it had been quite a satisfactory murder - the perpetrator obviously having a screw loose in a way that could be served up decently in a lot of psychological jargon. Not Mary's own brother. One of those "adopted children" with a bad heredity who so often go wrong. But things weren't quite so good now. Tomorrow Superintendent Huish was coming to ask questions in his gentle West Country voice. One ought, perhaps, to think about the answers...

  Mary was brushing her long fair hair in front of the mirror. Something about her calm remoteness irritated him.

  He said: "Got your story pat for tomorrow, Polly?" She turned astonished eyes upon him.

  "Superintendent Huish is coming. He'll ask you all over again just what your movements were on the evening of November 9th."

  "Oh, I see. It's so long ago now. One can hardly remember."

  "But he can, Polly. That's the point. He can. It's all written down somewhere in a nice little police note-book."

  "Is it? Do they keep these things?"

  "Probably keep everything in triplicate for ten years! Well, your movements are very simple, Polly. There weren't any. You were here with me in this room. And if I were you I shouldn't mention that you left it between seven and seven-thirty."

  "But that was only to go to the bathroom. After all," said Mary reasonably, "everyone has to go to the bathroom."

  "You didn't mention the fact to him at the time. I do remember that." "I suppose I forgot about it."

  "I thought it might have been an instinct of self-preservation... Anyway, I remember backing you up. We were together here, playing picquet from six-thirty until Kirsty gave the alarm. That's our story and we're sticking to it."

  "Very well, darling." Her agreement was placid - uninterested.

  He thought: "Has she no imagination? Can't she foresee that we're in for a sticky time?"

  He leaned forward.

  "It's interesting, you know... Aren't you interested in who killed her? We all know- Micky was quite right there - that it's one of us. Aren't you interested to know which?"

  "It wasn't you or I," said Mary.

  "And that's all that interests you? Polly, you're wonderful!"

  She flushed slightly.

  "I don't see what's so odd about that!"

  "No, I can see you don't. Well, I'm different. I'm curious."

  "I don't suppose we ever shall know. I don't suppose the police will ever know."

  "Perhaps not. They'll certainly have precious little to go upon. But we're in rather a different position to the police."

  "What do you mean, Philip?"

  "Well, we've got a few bits of inside knowledge. We know our little lot from inside - have a fairly good idea of what makes them tick. You should have, anyway. You've grown up with them all. Let's hear your views. Who do you think it was?"

  "I've no idea, Philip." "Then just make a guess."

  Mary said sharply: "I'd rather not know who did it. I'd rather not even think about it."

  "Ostrich," said her husband.

  "Honestly, I don't see the point of - guessing. It's much better not to know. Then we can all go on as usual."

  "Oh no, we can't," said Philip. "That's where you're wrong, my girl. The tot's set in already."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, take Hester and her young man - earnest young Doctor Donald. Nice chap, serious, worried. He doesn't really think she did it - but he's not really sure she didn't do it! And so he looks at her, anxiously, when he thinks she isn't noticing. But she notices all right. So there you are! Perhaps she did do it - you'd know better than I would - but if she didn't, what the hell can she do about her young man? Keep on saying: 'Please, it wasn't me'? But that's what she'd say anyway."

  "Really, Philip, I think you're imagining things."

  "You can't imagine at all, Polly. Then take poor old Leo. Marriage bells with Gwenda are receding into the distance. The girl's horribly upset about it. Haven't you noticed?"

  "I really don't see what Father wants to marry again for at his age."

  "He sees all right! But he also sees that any hint of a love affair with Gwenda gives both of them a first-class motive for murder. Awkward."

  "It's fantastic to think for a moment that Father murdered Mother!" said Mary. "Such things don't happen."

  "Yes, they do. Read the papers." "Not our sort of people."

  "Murder is no snob, Polly. Then there's Micky. Something's eating him all right. He's a queer, bitter lad. Tina seems in the clear, unworried, unaffected. But she's a little poker face if ever there was one. Then there's poor old Kirsty -"

  A faint animation came into Mary's face. "Now that might be a solution!" "Kirsty?"

  "Yes. After all, she's a foreigner. And I believe she's had very bad headaches the last year or two... It seems much more likely that she should have done it than any of us."

  "Poor devil," said Philip. "Don't you see that that's just what she is saying to herself? That we'll all agree together that she's the one? For convenience. Because she's not a member of the family. Didn't you see tonight that she was worried stiff? And she's in the same position as Hester. What can she say or do? Say to us all: 'I did not kill my friend and employer'? What weight can that statement carry? It's worse hell for her, perhaps, than for anyone else. Because she's alone. She'll be going over in her mind every word she's ever said, every angry look she ever gave your mother - thinking that it will be remembered against her. Helpless to prove her innocence."

  "I wish you'd calm down, Phil. After all, what can we do about it?"

  "Only try to find out the truth."

  "But how is that possible?"

  "There might be ways. I'd rather like to try."

  Mary looked uneasy.

  "What sort of ways?"

  "Oh, saying things - watching how people reset - one could think up things -" he paused, his mind working - "things that would mean something to a guilty pe
rson, but not to an innocent one "Again he was silent, turning ideas over in his mind. He looked up and said: "Don't you want to help the innocent, Mary?"

  "No."

  The word came out explosively. She came over to him and knelt by his chair. "I don't want you to mix yourself up in all this, Phil. Don't start saying things and laying traps. Leave it all alone. Oh, for God's sake, leave it alone!"

  Philip's eyebrows rose.

  "We-ell," he said. And he laid a hand on the smooth golden head.

  Michael Argyle lay sleepless, staring into darkness.

  His mind went round and round like a squirrel in a cage, going over the past. Why couldn't he leave it behind him? Why did he have to drag the past with him all through his life? What did it all matter anyway? Why did he have to remember so clearly the cheerful room in the London slum, and he "our Micky."