‘And this has been going on all night?’ said McHugh. ‘How come I never heard a thing?’
‘You wouldn’t,’ she said, ‘at that distance.’ It was the first time she had felt like smiling, and even now it was a wry smile. ‘We didn’t make any noise about it, where was the good?’
‘Poor chap, he’s just about clinched the case against himself. Almost seems a pity you didn’t let him get away with it. Look what he’s still got to go through!’
There it was again, the inevitable assumption of suicide. But at least McHugh was not himself the murderer, reproaching them for keeping Laurence alive because his own plans had thereby been spoiled. His compassion, if mistaken, was genuine. She was spared the necessity of loathing him.
‘Why don’t you go and rest? He’s surely going to be all right now.’
‘Not until the doctor says he’s safe.’
Dr Randall came back from the kitchen bearing a tray with fresh coffee and a small bowl of eggs and milk laced with brandy.
‘All right, girl, he’ll do now. Don’t worry, the worst’s over. Make the bed for him, and we’ll get him into it and spoon some food into him. Come on, old boy, we won’t torment you any more.’
They propped him up on his pillows, and Susan fed him like a baby, and whatever she offered him he took docilely, too broken to put up any resistance; but faint colour had come back into his face, the blue shadows had faded perceptibly from round eyes and mouth, and he was breathing naturally. As yet he knew none of them as persons, they were only incomprehensible forces disposing of him against his will.
‘I’ll give him another shot, to be on the safe side. Don’t worry about him any more, he’s going to be all right. Right as rain by tomorrow.’
They eased him down in the bed and covered him warmly. The drooping eyelids had already closed gratefully, the worn face was smoothing out into a wonderful tranquillity.
‘He’s asleep already,’ said Susan with a tremor of fear.
‘That isn’t morphine, that’s just plain exhaustion. Pulse is firm as a rock. He needs sleep, as long as it’s proper sleep. Think of the hell of a night he’s had.’
She looked up across the sleeper into the doctor’s face, and said very deliberately: ‘He didn’t try to kill himself, you know.’
‘Have I said he did?’
‘No, you haven’t said it. But that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Never believe you can tell from this face of mine what I’m thinking,’ he said placidly. ‘I’ve been around the world too long for that.’ He drew the covers closer over Laurence’s shoulders, and took Susan by the arm. ‘Come on, you’ve got to eat something, and then get some rest. I’ll be around to look after him while you sleep.’
They followed McHugh from the room.
‘Lock the door,’ said Susan, halting firmly in the corridor.
He looked at her without surprise, but he asked gently: ‘Why? Because he’s just confirmed the general opinion that he’s a murderer found out?’
‘Because someone tried to murder him,’ said Susan, ‘and even now he may try again.’
CHAPTER XII
Has bitter wrong, a sinful deed been done?
Act 3
‘He did not try to kill himself,’ said Susan for the third time, and clenched her fists on the edge of the table.
They were all there, all except the sleeper upstairs. Dr Randall and McHugh sat one on either side of her, Neil and Trevor faced her across the table, with Miranda between them, still red-eyed from her visit to her son. The doctor had cut the permitted time to a few minutes, and firmly restrained her from disturbing the patient’s rest. She had had to play her scene in silence.
‘My dear girl,’ said Trevor gently, ‘Randall has told us that this was morphine again, beyond any doubt. You know as well as we do where the phial that held the morphine tablets was found. I’m sorry, but there’s no getting away from it. Only two tablets were found in it. The rest he must have had concealed somewhere else, against emergencies. Randall said at the time that half the amount missing could have accounted for Richard. The dose Laurence took can’t possibly have come from any other source than those same tablets. Who else in this place would have morphine? No, it’s pretty clear that the remaining tablets were hidden, well hidden, somewhere in his room. When he knew that the police would probably be able to get here today, or at the latest tomorrow—’
‘Did he know it? Why should he? He was a prisoner in his room, he never heard us discussing it.’
‘I’m afraid he did know,’ Neil said quietly. ‘Franz mentioned it to him.’
She shrugged it off impatiently. ‘I don’t know why I even asked the question, it doesn’t matter whether he knew or not. He did not take the morphine himself, because he didn’t have it, and he didn’t have it because he never stole it from Dr Randall’s bag. He did not try to kill himself, because he had done nothing to make him want a way out.’
Miranda had opened her mouth twice, ready to spring to her son’s defence, and twice found herself unable to speak. Now sheer astonishment silenced her. She sat staring across the table at Susan over her handkerchief, and managed at last in a dazed voice: ‘But you – it was you—’
‘I started it. Yes, I know I did, but for a reason. What I’ve got to say now I’ve already told to Neil, and now I’m telling you all, and you’d better listen. Laurence never stole any morphine, never thought for a moment of hurting Richard. When it was suggested that his fingerprints on the glass were strong evidence against him I let you all go on thinking so. I encouraged you to think so. But only because I thought the real criminal might give himself away by trying to plant more evidence on him. I made a horrible mistake, and somehow that evidence was planted successfully without my knowledge, and made you decide quite definitely that Laurence was guilty. But he isn’t. I can swear to that, and I shall swear to it, and nothing’s going to shake me. From the time when that glass of brandy was placed on Richard’s table until midnight, when we found Richard dead, Laurence was with me. On the only occasion when he approached that table I had him clearly in view, and the glass, too, every moment of the time. He neither touched it nor dropped anything into it. Yesterday I told Neil that, but I didn’t make it public because of warning the murderer. But I have reason to believe that at least two more people overheard us talking. And last night someone tried to kill Laurence.’
Several gasps of protest interrupted her, but she rode over them.
‘Someone tried to kill Laurence. You all heard what Trevor just said: Laurence tried to commit suicide because he knew himself a murderer found out, and saw no way of escape when the police got here. That’s what all of you were thinking, except his mother. That’s what you were meant to think, what the police were meant to think. Well, now you can think again! I’ve told you now that he never killed anybody, and never thought of killing himself. I tell you so, all of you, and I’m going to tell Herr Mehlert and his wife and Liesl, so that if there’s any second attempt on Laurence’s life you’ll all know the reason. And the police will know it, however soon or however late they come, I’ll make sure of that. In fact, I’m serving notice on one of you, here and now, to leave Laurence alone!’
Susan was on her feet before the end of it, colour flaming in her face. A stupefied silence saluted her climax, a satisfying silence because it was full of understanding. No one could pretend to misunderstand. No one but a madman could ignore the warning, after that. If a finger was laid on Laurence now, her story was confirmed beyond reasonable doubt. If she was right, if the murderer had tried to clinch the case by making it appear that the culprit had put an end to himself in despair, from now on he must make the best of his failure. To try a second time was to damn himself and vindicate her. Laurence hurt again was Laurence proved innocent.
Dr Randall was the first to get his breath back. He looked up at her with a gleam in his eyes, and said appreciatively: ‘Girl, that was really telling ’em!’
Trevo
r said, with something less than his usual calm: ‘Do I understand that you’re making an accusation against one of us here, Susan?’
‘Whether you understand it is up to you. I’m making it. Against whichever of you here poisoned Richard and tried to poison Laurence. Whoever he is, he knows. I don’t. If I did, I’d tell you.’
There was a brief pause, and then Neil said steadily: ‘Since this is all coming into the open now, I’d better tell you what I said to Susan when she told me this yesterday. I told her that I didn’t feel able on the spur of the moment either to accept or reject her story. I said that where the same person told two opposing stories on two consecutive days she made it very difficult indeed for anyone to accept either of them unreservedly. But I also advised her not to repeat what she’d said to anyone else, in order not to put the murderer on guard, if she was now telling the truth. I said I should keep a faithful record of everything, and hand it over to the police as soon as that became possible, and that it would be for them to proceed on the evidence, not for me – thank God! I don’t see what else I could have done, and I thought I was wronging no one. I didn’t anticipate either that Laurence would feel desperate enough for suicide, or that the murderer – assuming him to be someone other than Laurence – would conceive the idea of killing him to establish his guilt beyond question. More particularly, I didn’t think he would have the opportunity, even if he conceived the idea. It seemed to me that Laurence, where he was, was the safest of the lot of us. No one but Franz took food in to him, it looked absolutely foolproof. But since this horrible thing has happened, suicide attempt or murder attempt, whichever it may be, we’re obliged to examine the circumstances.’
‘Now you’re talking,’ said Susan, and sat down again.
‘In that case,’ said Dr Randall, ‘it might be as well if I made a rough statement on the spot. There’ll be no second attempt on Laurence by himself or anyone else, at least not by poison – not only because in the latter case it would be extremely stupid on the murderer’s part, as Susan has pointed out, but also because the supply has now run out. I think you may safely say that Laurence took all that was left over from Richard’s dose. Apart, of course, from the two we found in the phial. Those are now locked in the safe. So is my bag, and even in emergencies it won’t be touched again except with Franz standing by as a witness. So no more poison is available to our hypothetical enemy. I thought you might like to have that clear, for your reassurance. Laurence had the lion’s share, I fancy, but he happens to be a very tough young man, with excellent resistance – otherwise he wouldn’t be with us now. Also he had the luck to be found in time. He had a drink late at night, I understand about eleven. There’s very little doubt that the papaveretum was taken with, or in, that. If he’d swallowed it earlier, with his dinner, we should have been too late to save him. Now if the dose was self-administered there should not, I think, be any traces of it in the dregs of the spiced wine. When you’re taking tablets you simply put them on your tongue and take a drink to wash them down. But if you want to administer them to someone else you dissolve them in liquid or hide them in food. And if examination of the wine tumbler does reveal traces of morphine, then Susan is right, and this was attempted murder.’
He spread his thin fingers on the table, and smiled round upon them all from under his bushy brows. ‘The tumbler, I need hardly say, is in the safe with the rest of the material evidence. And now I think it remains for us to hear from Liesl and Herr Mehlert the exact history of that drink.’
‘I’ll ask them to come,’ said Neil, rising.
Liesl came in from the kitchen wiping her hands on her embroidered apron, and told her brief story in English.
‘Dr Randall went to see the young gentleman with my father when he took him his dinner, and when they came down he said that Mr Quayne had a cold, and perhaps at bedtime I should spice some wine for him. We were a little late, because Herr Kerner and Fritzi came again to see to Mr Hellier – you understand,’ she explained hesitantly, ‘Herr Kerner is making the coffin. So I spiced wine for them, too, and when I was ready – I think it was just a few minutes before eleven – I brought out the two trays from the kitchen—’
‘Wait a moment,’ said Neil. ‘Did anyone come into the kitchen to you while you were heating the wine?’
‘No, no one.’
‘And you didn’t leave it at all?’
‘Not at all. So the tray with the glasses for Herr Kerner and Fritzi I carried into the bar, where my father was sitting talking with them. But because I had no hand free to open the door I put down the young gentleman’s tray on the table close to the foot of the stairs, there in the hall.’
‘And left it there while you went into the bar?’
‘Yes,’ she said, looking frightened at the thought.
‘But that would be only for a moment. You didn’t close the door of the bar?’
‘Yes, I did. You see, when my father is talking to Herr Kerner he goes on talking, they both go on talking, sometimes for a long time. And I could not take up the tray myself, he would not let me. I called to him as soon as I opened the door: “Father, Mr Quayne’s tray is ready,” but he went on talking. So I went in to them and said it again, and he said: “Yes, I’m coming,” but he did not come at once. And I did not want the wine to get cold, so I went on saying it until he did go and take it upstairs.’
‘And how long would that be?’
‘Not very long. I think perhaps three minutes, maybe four.’
‘And then,’ said Neil to Franz, ‘you took it straight to him in his room, and locked him in again with it? No one else met you on the way?’
‘No one. The young man was already in bed, but awake. He began to drink the wine at once.’
‘But you didn’t see him drink the whole of it? You didn’t wait?’
‘No, I gave it to him and came away.’
‘So he could have got out of bed and unearthed the tablets from some hiding place after he was alone. But equally there seems to be a period of three or four minutes when the tray stood on the hall table, and anyone could have meddled with it. Liesl, you didn’t hear anyone moving in the hall during those few minutes?’
‘I am sorry,’ she said sadly. ‘We were all talking in the bar. Anyone could have passed through. Though I think some were already in bed. I remember Miss Conroy went early to bed – and Mr McHugh—’
‘Yes. Thank you, both, I think that’s all.’ And when they were gone he went on soberly: ‘Of course, there was nothing to prevent the early birds from coming down again. The house is quiet enough after about half-past ten, you can wander around without being much troubled with company. It looks as if all have to account for ourselves for, say, ten minutes before and ten minutes after eleven o’clock, to allow for some slight inaccuracy in fixing the time. To begin with myself – I hadn’t gone to bed, but I was in my room from about half-past ten, and I didn’t leave it again. Mrs Quayne?’
‘I was in bed by ten,’ she said stiffly. ‘Though you can hardly suppose in any case that I should want to hurt my own son.’
But couldn’t you? Not in any circumstances? Mothers have killed their children before now, and children their mothers. Susan shivered, and pushed the intolerable thought away from her. No, it was ridiculous. Richard she might have murdered for money; but if she had, the thing would have been done as much for Laurence as for herself. She would never have wanted to harm her son, her unlucky aptitude was only for harming him without wanting to. She did love him, however she had cramped his life. She did love him, didn’t she?
‘Trevor?’
‘I was in the bar earlier in the evening. I left about twenty to eleven. It gets boring after the locals leave. At eleven I was in the bath,’ said Trevor calmly, ‘so you can hardly expect me to provide a witness.’
‘Randall?’
‘I came upstairs just after Mason, I can vouch for him as far as his own door, and I think the time he’s quoted you is about right. I’d been in here reading
since dinner. I was in bed just before eleven.’
‘McHugh?’
Susan had forgotten the implications the question might have for McHugh, even though he had no need to lie. He smiled to himself with remembered pleasure as he said cheerfully: ‘I was in bed, too. Model household, weren’t we? I went off to my room about ten o’clock.’
‘Susan?’
‘So did I, almost immediately after Mr McHugh. I left the bar only a minute or so later.’
‘And nobody heard or saw any movements about the house later, around eleven?’
Silence answered this query, an alert, reserved silence while everyone covertly observed his neighbours.
‘Then, quite simply, any one of us might have gone downstairs again and doctored the wine. None of us can be reckoned clear of suspicion. And equally Laurence may very well have made use of the tablets himself within his own room. Susan’s argument that a second attack could not possibly be passed off as a suicide attempt is sound enough, but purely speculative. We’re concerned only with what has happened, not with what may happen in the future. And what has happened could still have been Laurence’s own doing. For all I know the police may still prefer that explanation to any other. At any rate, it’s up to them, all we can do is render a full report, and a true one, and that we shall do.’ Neil stood up, pushing back his chair. ‘Personally, I’m now going to help with the digging. By tonight I hope the track will be open.’