“It’s too cruel….”
That’s what she said. Then she walked past me and upstairs, still without seeming to see me—just like a person intent on some inner vision. I think myself (I’ve no authority for saying this, you understand) that she went up to get the stuff, and that it was then she decided to do what she did do.
And just at that moment the telephone rang. In some houses one would wait for the servants to answer it, but I was so often at Alderbury that I acted more or less as one of the family. I picked up the receiver.
It was my brother Meredith’s voice that answered. He was very upset. He explained that he had been into his laboratory and that the coniine bottle was half-empty.
I don’t need to go again over all the things I know now I ought to have done. The thing was so startling and I was foolish enough to be taken aback. Meredith was dithering a good bit at the other end. I heard someone on the stairs, and I just told him sharply to come over at once.
I myself went down to meet him. In case you don’t know the lay of the land, the shortest way from one estate to the other was by rowing across a small creek. I went down the path to where the boats were kept by a small jetty. To do so I passed under the wall of the Battery garden. I could hear Elsa and Amyas talking as he painted. They sounded very cheerful and carefree. Amyas said it was an amazingly hot day (so it was, very hot for September), and Elsa said that sitting where she was, poised on the battlements, there was a cold wind blowing in from the sea. And then she said: “I’m horribly stiff from posing. Can’t I have a rest, darling?” And I heard Amyas cry out: “Not on your life. Stick it. You’re a tough girl. And this is going good, I tell you.” I heard Elsa say, “Brute” and laugh, as I went out of earshot.
Meredith was just rowing himself across from the other side. I waited for him. He tied up the boat and came up the steps. He was looking very white and worried. He said to me:
“Your head’s better than mine, Philip. What ought I to do? That stuff’s dangerous.”
I said: “Are you absolutely sure about this?” Meredith, you see, was always a rather vague kind of chap. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t take it as seriously as I ought to have done. And he said he was quite sure. The bottle had been full yesterday afternoon.
I said: “And you’ve absolutely no idea who pinched it?”
He said none whatever and asked me what I thought. Could it have been one of the servants? I said I supposed it might have been, but it seemed unlikely to me. He always kept the door locked, didn’t he? Always, he said, and then began a rigmarole about having found the window a few inches open at the bottom. Someone might have got in that way.
“A chance burglar?” I asked sceptically. “It seems to me, Meredith, that there are some very nasty possibilities.”
He said what did I really think? And I said, if he was sure he wasn’t making a mistake, that probably Caroline had taken it to poison Elsa with—or that alternatively Elsa had taken it to get Caroline out of the way and straighten the path of true love.
Meredith twittered a bit. He said it was absurd and melodramatic and couldn’t be true. I said: “Well, the stuff’s gone. What’s your explanation?” He hadn’t any, of course. Actually thought just as I did, but didn’t want to face the fact.
He said again: “What are we to do?”
I said, damned fool that I was: “We must think it over carefully. Either you’d better announce your loss, straight out when everybody’s there, or else you’d better get Caroline alone and tax her with it. If you’re convinced she’s nothing to do with it, adopt the same tactics for Elsa.” He said: “A girl like that! She couldn’t have taken it.” I said I wouldn’t put it past her.
We were walking up to the house as we talked. After that last remark of mine neither of us spoke for some few seconds. We were rounding the Battery garden again and I heard Caroline’s voice.
I thought perhaps a three-handed row was going on, but actually it was Angela that they were discussing. Caroline was protesting. She said: “It’s very hard on the girl.” And Amyas made some impatient rejoinder. Then the door to the garden opened just as we came abreast of it. Amyas looked a little taken aback at seeing us. Caroline was just coming out. She said: “Hallo, Meredith. We’ve been discussing the question of Angela’s going to school. I’m not at all sure it’s the right thing for her.” Amyas said: “Don’t fuss about the girl. She’ll be all right. Good riddance.”
Just then Elsa came running down the path from the house. She had some sort of scarlet jumper in her hand. Amyas growled:
“Come along. Get back into the pose. I don’t want to waste time.”
He went back to where his easel was standing. I noticed that he staggered a bit and I wondered if he had been drinking. A man might easily be excused for doing so with all the fuss and the scenes.
He grumbled.
“The beer here is red hot. Why can’t we keep some ice down here?”
And Caroline Crale said:
“I’ll send you down some beer just off the ice.”
Amyas grunted out:
“Thanks.”
Then Caroline shut the door of the Battery garden and came up with us to the house. We sat down on the terrace and she went into the house. About five minutes later Angela came along with a couple of bottles of beer and some glasses. It was a hot day and we were glad to see it. As we were drinking it Caroline passed us. She was carrying another bottle and said she would take it down to Amyas. Meredith said he’d go, but she was quite firm that she’d go herself. I thought—fool that I was—that it was just her jealousy. She couldn’t stand those two being alone down there. That was what had taken her down there once already with the weak pretext of arguing about Angela’s departure.
She went off down that zigzag path—and Meredith and I watched her go. We’d still n
ot decided anything, and now Angela clamoured that I should come bathing with her. It seemed impossible to get Meredith alone. I just said to him: “After lunch.” And he nodded.