The Moving Finger mm-3 Page 13

  "Good Lord!" I said.

  I realized that the last train had gone.

  "Stay there," I said. "I'm going to telephone."

  I rang up the Llewellyn Hire people and ordered their biggest and fastest car to come around as soon as possible.

  I came back to Megan.

  "The last train has gone," I said. "So we're going home by car."

  "Are we? What fun!"

  What a nice child she was, I thought. So pleased with everything, so unquestioning, accepting all my suggestions without fuss or bother.

  The car came, and it was large and fast, but all the same it was very very late when we came into Lymstock.

  Suddenly conscience-stricken, I said, "They'll have been sending out search parties for you!"

  But Megan seemed in an equable mood. "Oh, I don't think so," she said vaguely. "I often go out and don't come home for lunch."

  "Yes, my dear child, but you've been out for tea and dinner too."

  However, Megan's lucky star was in the ascendant. The house was dark and silent. On Megan's advice, we went around to the back and threw stones at Rose's window. In due course Rose looked out and with many suppressed exclamations and palpitations came down to let us in.

  "Well now, and I saying you were asleep in your bed. The master and Miss Holland -" (slight sniff after Miss Holland's name) – "had early supper and went for a drive. I said I'd keep an eye to the boys. I thought I heard you come in when I was up in the nursery trying to quiet Colin, who was playing up, but you weren't about when I came down so I thought you'd gone up to bed. And that's what I said when the master came in and asked for you."

  I cut short the conversation by remarking that that was where Megan had better go now.

  "Good night," said Megan, "and thank you awfully. It's been the loveliest day I've ever had."

  I drove home slightly lightheaded still, and tipped the chauffeur handsomely, offering him a bed if he liked. But he preferred to drive back through the night.

  The hall door had opened during our colloquy and as he drove away it was flung wide open and Joanna said, "So it's you at last, is it?"

  "Were you worried about me?" I asked, coming in and shutting the door.

  Joanna went into the drawing room and I followed her. There was a coffee-pot on the trivet and Joanna made herself coffee while I helped myself to a whisky-and-soda.

  "Worried about you? No, of course not. I thought you'd decided to stay in town and have a binge."

  "I've had a binge – of a kind."

  I grinned and then began to laugh.

  Joanna asked what I was laughing at and I told her.

  "But, Jerry, you must have been mad – quite mad!"

  "I suppose I was."

  "But, my dear boy, you can't do things like that – not in a place like this. It will be all around Lymstock tomorrow."

  "I suppose it will. But, after all, Megan's only a child."

  "She isn't. She's twenty. You can't take a girl of twenty to London and buy her clothes without a most frightful scandal. Good gracious, Jerry, you'll probably have to marry the girl." Joanna was half serious, half laughing.

  It was at that moment that I made a very important discovery.

  "Damn it all," I said. "I don't mind if I do. In fact – I should like it."

  A very funny expression came over Joanna's face. She got up and said drily, as she went toward the door, "Yes, I've known that for some time… "

  She left me standing, glass in hand, aghast at my new discovery.

  I don't know what the usual reactions are of a man who goes to propose marriage.

  In fiction his throat is dry and his collar feels too tight and he is in a pitiable state of nervousness.

  I didn't feel at all like that. Having thought of a good idea I just wanted to get it all settled as soon as possible. I didn't see any particular need for embarrassment.

  I went along to the Symmingtons' house about eleven o'clock.

  I rang the bell and when Rose came, I asked for Miss Megan.

  It was the knowing look that Rose gave me that first made me feel slightly shy.

  She put me in the little morning room and while waiting there I hoped uneasily that they hadn't been upsetting Megan.

  When the door opened and I wheeled around, I was instantly relieved. Megan was not looking shy or upset at all.

  Her head was still like a glossy chestnut, and she wore that air of pride and self-respect that she had acquired yesterday.

  She was in her old clothes again but she had managed to make them look different. It's wonderful what knowledge of her own attractiveness will do for a girl. Megan, I realized suddenly, had grown up.

  I suppose I must really have been rather nervous, otherwise I should not have opened the conversation by saying affectionately:

  "Hullo, catfish!" It was hardly, in the circumstances, a loverlike greeting.

  It seemed to suit Megan. She grinned and said, "Hullo!"

  "Look here," I said. "You didn't get into a row about yesterday, I hope?"

  Megan said with assurance, "Oh, no," and then blinked, and said vaguely, "Yes, I believe I did. I mean, they said a lot of things and seemed to think it had been very odd but then you know what people are and what fusses they make all about nothing."

  I was relieved to see that shocked disapproval had slipped off Megan like water off a duck's back.

  "I came around this morning," I said, "because I've a suggestion to make. You see I like you a lot, and I think you like me -"

  "Frightfully," said Megan with rather disquieting enthusiasm.

  "And we get on awfully well together, so I think it would be a good idea if we got married."

  "Oh," said Megan.

  She looked surprised. Just that. Not startled. Not shocked. Just mildly surprised.

  "You mean you really want to marry me?" she asked with the air of one getting a thing perfectly clear.

  "More than anything in the world," I said – and I meant it.

  "You mean, you're in love with me?"

  "I'm in love with you."

  Her eyes were steady and grave. She said, "I think you're the nicest person in the world – but I'm not in love with you."

  "I'll make you love me."

  "That wouldn't do. I don't want to be made." She paused and then said gravely, "I'm not the sort of wife for you. I'm better at hating than at loving."

  She said it with a queer intensity.

  I said, "Hate doesn't last. Love does."

  "Is that true?"

  "It's what I believe."

  Again there was a silence. Then I said, "So it's 'no,' is it?"

  "Yes, it's 'no.'"

  "And you don't encourage me to hope?"

  "What would be the good of that?"

  "None whatever," I agreed. "Quite redundant in fact – because I'm going to hope whether you tell me to or not."

  Well, that was that.

  I walked away from the house feeling slightly dazed but irritatingly conscious of Rose's passionately interested gaze following me.

  Rose had had a good deal to say before I could escape. That she'd never felt the same since that awful day! That she wouldn't have stayed except for the children and being sorry for poor Mr. Symmington. That she wasn't going to stay unless they got another maid quick – and they wouldn't be likely to do that when there had been a murder in the house! That it was all very well for that Miss Holland to say she'd do the housework in the meantime.

  Very sweet and obliging she was – oh, yes, but it was mistress of the house that she was fancying herself going to be one fine day! Mr. Symmington, poor man, never saw anything – but one knew what a widower was, a poor helpless creature made to be the prey of a designing woman. And that it wouldn't be for want of trying if Miss Holland didn't step into the dead mistress's shoes!

  I assented mechanically to everything, yearning to get away and unable to do so because Rose was holding firmly on to my hat while she indulged in her flood
of spite.

  I wondered if there was any truth in what she said. Had Elsie Holland envisaged the possibility of becoming the second Mrs. Symmington? Or was she just a decent kindhearted girl doing her best to look after a bereaved household?

  The result would quite likely be the same in either case. And why not? Symmington's young children needed a mother – Elsie was a decent soul – besides being quite indecently beautiful – a point which a man might appreciate – even such a stuffed fish as Symmington!

  I thought all this, I know, because I was trying to put off thinking about Megan.

  You may say that I had gone to ask Megan to marry me in an absurdly complacent frame of mind and that I deserved what I got – but it was not really like that. It was because I felt so assured, so certain, that Megan belonged to me – that she was my business, that to look after her and make her happy and keep her from harm was the only natural right way of life for me, that I had expected her to feel, too – that she and I belonged to each other.

  But I was not giving up. Oh, no! Megan was my woman and I was going to have her.

  After a moment's thought, I went to Symmington's office. Megan might pay no attention to strictures on her conduct, but I would like to get things straight.

  Mr. Symmington was disengaged, I was told, and I was shown into the room.

  By a pinching of the lips, and an additional stiffness of manner, I gathered that I was not exactly popular at the moment.

  "Good morning," I said. "I'm afraid this isn't a professional call, but a personal one. I'll put it plainly. I dare say you'll have realized that I'm in love with Megan. I've asked her to marry me and she has refused. But I'm not taking that as final."

  I saw Symmington's expression change, and I read his mind with ludicrous ease. Megan was a disharmonious element in his house. He was, I felt sure, a just and kindly man, and he would never have dreamed of not providing a home for his dead wife's daughter. But her marriage to me would certainly be a relief. The frozen halibut thawed. He gave me a pale, cautious smile.

  "Frankly, do you know, Burton, I had no idea of such a thing. I know you've taken a lot of notice of her, but we've always regarded her as such a child."

  "She's not a child," I said shortly.

  "No, no, not in years."

  "She can be her age any time she's allowed to be," I said, still slightly angry. "She's not of age, I know, but she will be in a month or two. I'll let you have all the information about myself you want. I'm well off and have led quite a decent life. I'll look after her and do all I can to make her happy."

  "Quite – quite. Still, it's up to Megan herself."

  "She'll come round in time," I said. "But I just thought I'd like to get straight with you about it."

  He said he appreciated that, and we parted amicably.

  I ran into Miss Emily Barton outside. She had a shopping basket on her arm.

  "Good morning, Mr. Burton, I hear you went to London yesterday."

  Yes, she had heard all right. Her eyes were, I thought, kindly, but full of curiosity, too.

  "I went to see my doctor," I said.

  Miss Emily smiled.

  That smile made little of Marcus Kent. She murmured, "I hear Megan nearly missed the train. She jumped in when it was going."

  "Helped by me," I said. "I hauled her in."

  "How very lucky you were there. Otherwise there might have been an accident."

  It is extraordinary how much of a fool one gentle, inquisitive, old maiden lady can make a man feel!

  I was saved further suffering by the onslaught of Mrs. Dane Calthrop. She had her own tame elderly maiden lady in tow, but she herself was full of direct speech.

  "Good morning," she said. "I hear you've made Megan buy herself some decent clothes? Very sensible of you. It takes a man to think of something really practical like that. I've been worried about that girl for a long time. Girls with brains are so liable to turn into morons, aren't they?"

  With which remarkable statement, she shot into the fish shop.

  Miss Marple, left standing by me, twinkled a little and said, "Mrs. Dane Calthrop is a very remarkable woman, you know. She's nearly always right."

  "It makes her rather alarming," I said.

  "Sincerity has that effect," said Miss Marple.

  Mrs. Dane Calthrop shot out of the fish shop again and rejoined us. She was holding a large red lobster.

  "Have you ever seen anything so unlike Mr. Pye?" she said. "Very virile and handsome, isn't it?"

  I was a little nervous of meeting Joanna but I found when I got home that I needn't have worried. She was out and she did not return for lunch. This aggrieved Partridge a good deal, who said sourly as she proffered two loin chops in an entrée dish:

  "Miss Burton said specially as she was going to be in."

  I ate both chops in an attempt to atone for Joanna's lapse. All the same, I wondered where my sister was. She had taken to being very mysterious about her doings of late.

  It was half past three when Joanna burst into the drawing room. I had heard a car stop outside and I half expected to see Griffith, but the car drove on and Joanna came in alone.

  Her face was very red and she seemed upset. I perceived that something had happened.

  "What's the matter?" I asked.

  Joanna opened her mouth, closed it again, sighed, plumped herself down in a chair and stared in front of her.

  She said, "I've had the most awful day."

  "What's happened?"

  "I've done the most incredible things. It was awful -"

  "But what -"

  "I just started out for a walk, an ordinary walk – I went up over the hill and on to the moor. I walked miles – I felt like it. Then I dropped down into a hollow. There's a farm there – a God-forsaken lonely sort of spot. I was thirsty and I wondered if they had any milk or something. So I wandered into the farmyard and then the door opened and Owen came out."

  "Yes?"

  "He thought it might be the district nurse. There was a woman in there having a baby. He was expecting the nurse and he'd sent word to her to get hold of another doctor. It – things were going wrong."

  "Yes?"

  "So he said – to me, 'Come on, you'll do – better than nobody.' I said I couldn't, and he said what did I mean? I said I'd never done anything like that, that I didn't know anything -

  "He asked me what the hell that mattered. And then he was awful. He turned on me. He said, 'You're a woman, aren't you? I suppose you can do your darnedest to help another woman?' And he went on at me – said I'd talked as though I was interested in doctoring and had said I wished I was a nurse. 'All pretty talk, I suppose! You didn't mean anything real by it, but this is real and you're going to behave like a decent human being and not a useless ornamental nitwit!'

  "I've done the most indiscernible things, Jerry. Held instruments and boiled them and handed things. I'm so tired I can hardly stand up. It was dreadful. But he saved her – and the baby. It was born alive. He didn't think at one time he could save it. Oh, dear!"

  Joanna covered her face with her hands.

  I contemplated her with a certain amount of pleasure and mentally took my hat off to Owen Griffith. He'd brought Joanna slap up against reality for once.

  I said, "There's a letter for you in the hall. From Paul, I think."

  "Eh?" She paused for a minute and then said, "I'd no idea, Jerry, what doctors had to do. The nerve they've got to have!"

  I went out into the hall and brought Joanna her letter. She opened it, glanced vaguely at its contents, and let it drop. "He was – really – rather wonderful. The way he fought – the way he wouldn't be beaten! He was rude and horrible to me – but he was wonderful."

  I observed Paul's disregarded letter with some pleasure. Plainly, Joanna was cured of Paul.

  Things never come when they are expected.

  I was full of Joanna's and my personal affairs and was quite taken aback the next morning when Nash's voice said over the te
lephone:

  "We've got her, Mr. Burton!"

  I was so startled I nearly dropped the receiver.

  "You mean the -"

  He interrupted: "Can you be overheard where you are?"

  "No, I don't think so – well, perhaps -"

  It seemed to me that the baize door to the kitchen had swung open a trifle.

  "Perhaps you'd care to come down to the station?"

  "I will. Right away."

  I was at the police station in next to no time. In an inner room Nash and Sergeant Parkins were together. Nash was wreathed in smiles.

  "It's been a long chase," he said. "But we're there at last."

  He flicked a letter across the table. This time it was all typewritten. It was, of its kind, fairly mild:

  "It's no use thinking you're going to step into a dead woman's shoes. The whole town is laughing at you. Get out now. Soon it will be too late. This is a warning. Remember what happened to that other girl. Get out and stay out."

  It finished with some mildly obscene language.

  "That reached Miss Holland this morning," said Nash.

  "Thought it was funny she hadn't had one before," said Sergeant Parkins.

  "Who wrote it?" I asked.

  Some of the exultation faded out of Nash's face.

  He looked tired and concerned. He said soberly:

  "I'm sorry about it, because it will hit a decent man hard, but there it is. Perhaps he's had his suspicions already."

  "Who wrote it?" I reiterated.

  "Miss Aimée Griffith."

  Nash and Parkins went to the Griffiths ' house that afternoon with a warrant.

  By Nash's invitation I went with them.

  "The doctor," he said, "is very fond of you. He hasn't many friends in this place. I think if it is not too painful to you, Mr. Burton, that you might help him to bear up under the shock."

  I said I would come. I didn't relish the job, but I thought I might be some good.

  We rang the bell and asked for Miss Griffith and we were shown into the drawing room. Elsie Holland, Megan and Symmington were there having tea.

  Nash behaved very circumspectly.

  He asked Aimée if he might have a few words with her privately.