Luke said bluntly:
“Have you never been afraid—for yourself?”
Miss Waynflete considered.
“You mean that if Gordon had suspected that I knew, he would have found some means of getting rid of me?”
“Yes.”
Miss Waynflete said gently:
“I have, of course, been alive to that possibility…I tried to be—careful of myself. But I do not think that Gordon would have considered me a real menace.”
“Why?”
Miss Waynflete flushed a little.
“I don’t think that Gordon would ever believe that I would do anything to—to bring him into danger.”
Luke said abruptly:
“You went as far, didn’t you, as to warn him?”
“Yes. That is, I did hint to him that it was odd that anyone who displeased him should shortly meet with an accident.”
Bridget demanded:
“And what did he say?”
A worried expression passed over Miss Waynflete’s face.
“He didn’t react at all in the way I meant. He seemed—really it’s most extraordinary!—he seemed pleased…He said, ‘So you’ve noticed that?’ He quite—quite preened himself, if I may use that expression.”
“He’s mad, of course,” said Luke.
Miss Waynflete agreed eagerly.
“Yes, indeed, there isn’t any other explanation possible. He’s not responsible for his acts.” She laid a hand on Luke’s arm. “They—they won’t hang him, will they, Mr. Fitzwilliam?”
“No, no. Send him to Broadmoor, I expect.”
Miss Waynflete sighed and leaned back.
“I’m so glad.”
Her eyes rested on Bridget, who was frowning down at the carpet.
Luke said:
“But we’re a long way from all that still. I’ve notified the powers that be and I can say this much, they’re prepared to take the matter seriously. But you must realize that we’ve got remarkably little evidence to go upon.”
“We’ll get evidence,” said Bridget.
Miss Waynflete looked up at her. There was some quality in her expression that reminded Luke of someone or something that he had seen not long ago. He tried to pin down the elusive memory but failed.
Miss Waynflete said doubtfully:
“You are confident, my dear. Well, perhaps you are right.”
Luke said:
“I’ll go along with the car, Bridget, and fetch your things from the Manor.”
Bridget said immediately:
“I’ll come too.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“Yes, but I’d rather come.”
Luke said irritably:
“Don’t do the mother and child act with me, Bridget! I refuse to be protected by you.”
Miss Waynflete murmured:
“I really think, Bridget, that it will be quite all right—in a car—and in daylight.”
Bridget gave a slightly shamefaced laugh.
“I’m being rather an idiot. This business gets on one’s nerves.”
Luke said:
“Miss Waynflete protected me home the other night. Come now, Miss Waynflete, admit it! You did, didn’t you?”
She admitted it, smiling.
“You see, Mr. Fitzwilliam, you were so completely unsuspicious! And if Gordon Whitfield had really grasped the fact that you were down here to look into this business and for no other reason—well, it wasn’t very safe. And that’s a very lonely lane—anything might have happened!”
“Well, I’m alive to the danger now all right,” said Luke grimly. “I shan’t be caught napping, I can assure you.”
Miss Waynflete said anxiously:
“Remember, he is very cunning. And much cleverer than you would ever imagine! Really, a most ingenious mind.”
“I’m forewarned.”
“Men have courage—one knows that,” said Miss Waynflete, “but they are more easily deceived than women.”
“That’s true,” said Bridget.
Luke said:
“Seriously, Miss Waynflete, do you really think that I am in any danger? Do you think, in film parlance, that Lord Whitfield is really out to get me?”
Miss Waynflete hesitated.
“I think,” she said, “that the principal danger is to Bridget. It is her rejection of him that is the supreme insult! I think that after he has dealt with Bridget he will turn his attention to you. But I think that undoubtedly he will try for her first.”
Luke groaned.
“I wish to goodness you’d go abroad—now—at once, Bridget.”
Bridget’s lips set themselves together.
“I’m not going.”
Miss Waynflete sighed.
“You are a brave creature, Bridget. I admire you.”
“You’d do the same in my place.”
“Well, perhaps.”
Bridget said, her voice dropping to a full, rich note:
“Luke and I are in this together.”
She went out with him to the door. Luke said:
“I’ll give you a ring from the Bells and Motley when I’m safely out of the lion’s den.”
“Yes, do.”
“My sweet, don’t let’s get all het up! Even the most accomplished murderers have to have a little time to mature their plans! I should say we’re quite all right for a day or two. Superintendent Battle is coming down from London today. From then on Whitfield will be under observation.”
“In fact, everything is OK, and we can cut out the melodrama.”
Luke said gravely, laying a hand on her shoulder:
“Bridget, my sweet, you will oblige me by not doing anything rash!”
“Same to you, darling Luke.”
He squeezed her shoulder, jumped into the car and drove off.
Bridget returned to the sitting room. Miss Waynflete was fussing a little in a gentle spinsterish manner.
“My dear, your room’s not quite ready yet. Emily is seeing to it. Do you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to get you a nice cup of tea! It’s just what you need after all these upsetting incidents.”
“It’s frightfully kind of you, Miss Waynflete, but I really don’t want any.”
What Bridget would have liked was a strong cocktail, mainly composed of gin, but she rightly judged that that form of refreshment was not likely to be forthcoming. She disliked tea intensely. It usually gave her indigestion. Miss Waynflete, however, had decided that tea was what her young guest needed. She bustled out of the room and reappeared about five minutes later, her face beaming, carrying a tray on which stood two dainty Dresden cups full of a fragrant, steaming beverage.
“Real Lapsang Souchong,” said Miss Waynflete proudly.
Bridget, who disliked China tea even more than Indian, gave a wan smile.
At that moment Emily, a small clumsy-looking girl with pronounced adenoids, appeared in the doorway and said:
“If you please, biss—did you bean the frilled billowcases?”
Miss Waynflete hurriedly left the room, and Bridget took advantage of the respite to pour her tea out of the window, narrowly escaping scalding Wonky Pooh, who was on the flower bed below.
Wonky Pooh accepted her apologies, sprang up on the windowsill and proceeded to wind himself in and out over Bridget’s shoulders, purring in an affected manner.
“Handsome!” said Bridget, drawing a hand down his back.
Wonky Pooh arched his tail and purred with redoubled vigour.
“Nice pussy,” said Bridget, tickling his ears.
Miss Waynflete returned at that minute.
“Dear me,” she exclaimed. “Wonky Pooh has quite taken to you, hasn’t he? He’s so standoffish as a rule! Mind his ear, my dear, he’s had a bad ear lately and it’s still very painful.”
The injunction came too late. Bridget’s hand had tweaked the painful ear. Wonky Pooh spat at her and retired, a mass of orange offended dignity.
“Oh, dear, has h
e scratched you?” cried Miss Waynflete.
“Nothing much,” said Bridget, sucking a diagonal scratch on the back of her hand.
“Shall I put some iodine on?”
“Oh, no, it’s quite all right. Don’t let’s fuss.”
Miss Waynflete seemed a little disappointed. Feeling that she had been ungracious, Bridget said hastily:
“I wonder how long Luke will be?”
“Now don’t worry, my dear. I’m sure Mr. Fitzwilliam is well able to look after himself.”
“Oh, Luke’s tough all right!”
At that moment the telephone rang. Bridget hurried to it. Luke’s voice spoke.
“Hallo? That you, Bridget? I’m at the Bells and Motley. Can you wait for your traps till after lunch? Because Battle has arrived here—you know who I mean—”
“The superintendent man from Scotland Yard?”
“Yes. And he wants to have a talk with me right away.”
“That’s all right by me. Bring my things round after lunch and tell me what he says about it all.”
“Right. So long, my sweet.”
“So long.”
Bridget replaced the receiver and retailed the conversation to Miss Waynflete. Then she yawned. A feeling of fatigue had succeeded her excitement.
Miss Waynflete noticed it.
“You’re tired, my dear! You’d better lie down—no, perhaps that would be a bad thing just before lunch. I was just going to take some old clothes to a woman in a cottage not very far away—quite a pretty walk over the fields. Perhaps you’d care to come with me? We’ll just have time before lunch.”
Bridget agreed willingly.
They went out the back way. Miss Waynflete wore a straw hat and, to Bridget’s amusement, had put on gloves.
“We might be going to Bond Street!” she thought to herself.
Miss Waynflete chatted pleasantly of various small village matters as they walked. They went across two fields, crossed a rough lane and then took a path leading through a ragged copse. The day was hot and Bridget found the shade of the trees pleasant.
Miss Waynflete suggested that they should sit down and rest a minute.
“It’s really rather oppressively warm today, don’t you think? I fancy there must be thunder about!”
Bridget acquiesced somewhat sleepily. She lay back against the bank—her eyes half-closed—some lines of poetry wandering through her brain.
“O why do you walk through the fields in gloves
O fat white woman whom nobody loves?”
But that wasn’t quite right! Miss Waynflete wasn’t fat. She amended the words to fit the case.
“O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
O lean grey woman whom nobody loves?”
Miss Waynflete broke in upon her thoughts.
“You’re very sleepy, dear, aren’t you?”
The words were said in a gentle everyday tone, but something in them jerked Bridget’s eyes suddenly open.
Miss Waynflete was leaning forward towards her. Her eyes were eager, her tongue passed gently over her lips. She repeated her question:
“You’re very sleepy, aren’t you?”
This time there was no mistaking the definite significance of the tone. A flash passed through Bridget’s brain—a lightning flash of comprehension, succeeded by one of contempt at her own density!
She had suspected the truth—but it had been no more than a dim suspicion. She had meant, working quietly and secretly, to make sure. But not for one moment had she realized that anything was to be attempted against herself. She had, she thought, concealed her suspicious entirely. Nor would she have dreamed that anything would be contemplated so soon. Fool—seven times fool!
And she thought suddenly:
“The tea—there was something in the tea. She doesn’t know I never drank it. Now’s my chance! I must pretend! What stuff was it, I wonder? Poison? Or just sleeping stuff? She expects me to be sleepy—that’s evident.”
She let her eyelids droop again. In what she hoped was a natural drowsy voice, she said:
“I do—frightfully…How funny! I don’t know when I’ve felt so sleepy.”
Miss Waynflete nodded softly.
Bridget watched the older woman narrowly through her almost closed eyes.
She thought:
“I’m a match for her anyway! My muscles are pretty tough—she’s a skinny frail old pussy. But I’ve got to make her talk—that’s it—make her talk!”
Miss Waynflete was smiling. It was not a nice smile. It was sly and not very human.
Bridget thought:
“She’s like a goat. God! how like a goat she is! A goat’s always been an evil symbol! I see why now! I was right—I was right in that fantastic idea of mine! Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned…That was the start of it—it’s all there.”
She murmured, and this time her voice held a definite note of apprehension.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with me…I feel so queer—so very queer!”
Miss Waynflete gave a swift glance round her. The spot was entirely desolate. It was too far from the village for a shout to be heard. There were no houses or cottages near. She began to fumble with the parcel she carried—the parcel that was supposed to contain old clothes. Apparently it did. The paper came apart, revealing a soft woolly garment. And still those gloved hands fumbled and fumbled.
“O why do you walk through the fields in gloves?”
“Yes—why? Why gloves?”
Of course! Of course! The whole thing so beautifully planned!
The wrapping fell aside. Carefully, Miss Waynflete extracted the knife, holding it very carefully so as not to obliterate the fingerprints which were already on it—where the short podgy fingers of Lord Whitfield had held it earlier that day in the drawing room at Ashe Manor.
The Moorish knife with the sharp blade.
Bridget felt slightly sick. She must play for time—yes and she must make the woman talk—this lean, grey woman whom nobody loved. It ought not to be difficult—not really. Because she must want to talk, oh, so badly—and the only person she could ever talk to was someone like Bridget—someone who was going to be silenced for ever.
Bridget said—in a faint, thick voice:
“What’s—that—knife?”
And then Miss Waynflete laughed.
It was a horrible laugh, soft and musical and ladylike, and quite inhuman. She said:
“It’s for you, Bridget. For you! I’ve hated you, you know, for a very long time.”
Bridget said:
“Because I was going to marry Gordon Whitfield?”
Miss Waynflete nodded.
“You’re clever. You’re quite clever! This, you see, will be the crowning proof against him. You’ll be found here, with your throat cut—and—his knife, and his fingerprints on the knife! Clever the way I asked to see it this morning!
“And then I slipped it into my bag wrapped in a handkerchief whilst you were upstairs. So easy! But the whole thing has been easy. I would hardly have believed it.”
Bridget said—still in the thick, muffled voice of a person heavily drugged:
“That’s—because—you’re—so—devilishly—clever….”
Miss Waynflete laughed her ladylike little laugh again. She said with a horrible kind of pride:
“Yes, I always had brains, even as a girl! But they wouldn’t let me do anything…I had to stay at home—doing nothing. And then Gordon—just a common boot-maker’s son, but he had ambition, I knew. I knew he would rise in the world. And he jilted me—jilted me! All because of that ridiculous business with the bird.”
Her hands made a queer gesture as though she were twisting something.
Again a wave of sickness passed over Bridget.
“Gordon Ragg daring to jilt me—Colonel Waynflete’s daughter! I swore I’d pay him out for that! I used to think about it night after night…And then we got poorer and poorer. The house had to be sold. He bought it!
He came along patronizing me, offering me a job in my own old home. How I hated him then! But I never showed my feelings. We were taught that as girls—a most valuable training. That, I always think, is where breeding tells.”
She was silent a minute. Bridget watched her, hardly daring to breathe lest she should stem the flow of words.
Miss Waynflete went on softly:
“All the time I was thinking and thinking…First of all I just thought of killing him. That’s when I began to read up criminology—quietly, you know—in the library. And really I found my reading came in most useful more than once later. The door of Amy’s room, for instance, turning the key in the lock from the outside with pincers after I’d changed the bottles by her bed. How she snored, that girl, quite disgusting, it was!”
She paused.
“Let me see, where was I?”
That gift which Bridget had cultivated, which had charmed Lord Whitfield, the gift of the perfect listener, stood her in good stead now. Honoria Waynflete might be a homicidal maniac but she was also something much more common than that. She was a human being who wanted to talk about herself. And with that class of human being Bridget was well fitted to cope.
She said, and her voice had exactly the right invitation in it:
“You meant at first to kill him—”
“Yes, but that didn’t satisfy me—much too ordinary—it had to be something better than just killing. And then I got this idea. It just came to me. He should suffer for committing a lot of crimes of which he was quite innocent. He should be a murderer! He should be hanged for my crimes. Or else they’d say he was mad and he would be shut up all his life…That might be even better.”
She giggled now. A horrible little giggle…Her eyes were light and staring with queer elongated pupils.
“As I told you, I read a lot of books on crime. I chose my victims carefully—there was not to be too much suspicion at first. You see,” her voice deepened, “I enjoyed the killing…That disagreeable woman, Lydia Horton—she’d patronized me—once she referred to me as an old maid. I was glad when Gordon quarrelled with her. Two birds with one stone, I thought! Such fun, sitting by her bedside and slipping the arsenic in her tea, and then going out and telling the nurse how Mrs. Horton had complained of the bitter taste of Lord Whitfield’s grapes! The stupid woman never repeated that, which was such a pity.