Dumb Witness Read online

  “Sorry, Aunt Emily, am I late? That dog of yours nearly made me take the most frightful toss. He’d left that ball of his on the top of the stairs.”

  “Careless little doggie,” cried Miss Lawson, bending down to Bob.

  Bob looked at her contemptuously and turned his head away.

  “I know,” said Miss Arundell. “It’s most dangerous. Minnie, fetch the ball and put it away.”

  Miss Lawson hurried out.

  Dr. Tanios monopolized the conversation at the dinner table most of the time. He told amusing stories of his life in Smyrna.

  The party went to bed early. Miss Lawson carrying wool, spectacles, a large velvet bag and a book accompanied her employer to her bedroom chattering happily.

  “Really most amusing, Dr. Tanios. He is such good company! Not that I should care for that kind of life myself….One would have to boil the water, I expect….And goat’s milk, perhaps—such a disagreeable taste—”

  Miss Arundell snapped:

  “Don’t be a fool, Minnie. You told Ellen to call me at half past six?”

  “Oh, yes, Miss Arundell. I said no tea, but don’t you think it might be wiser—You know, the vicar at Southbridge—a most conscientious man, told me distinctly that there was no obligation to come fasting—”

  Once more Miss Arundell cut her short.

  “I’ve never yet taken anything before Early Service and I’m not going to begin now. You can do as you like.”

  “Oh, no—I didn’t mean—I’m sure—”

  Miss Lawson was flustered and upset.

  “Take Bob’s collar off,” said Miss Arundell.

  The slave hastened to obey.

  Still trying to please she said:

  “Such a pleasant evening. They all seem so pleased to be here.”

  “Hmph,” said Emily Arundell. “All here for what they can get.”

  “Oh, dear Miss Arundell—”

  “My good Minnie, I’m not a fool whatever else I am! I just wonder which of them will open the subject first.”

  She was not long left in doubt on that point. She and Miss Lawson returned from attending Early Service just after nine. Dr. and Mrs. Tanios were in the dining room, but there were no signs of the two Arundells. After breakfast, when the others had left, Miss Arundell sat on, entering up some accounts in a little book.

  Charles entered the room about ten.

  “Sorry I’m late, Aunt Emily. But Theresa’s worse. She’s not unclosed an eyelid yet.”

  “At half past ten breakfast will be cleared away,” said Miss Arundell. “I know it is the fashion not to consider servants nowadays, but that is not the case in my house.”

  “Good. That’s the true die-hard spirit!”

  Charles helped himself to kidneys and sat down beside her.

  His grin, as always, was very attractive. Emily Arundell soon found herself smiling indulgently at him. Emboldened by this sign of favour, Charles plunged.

  “Look here, Aunt Emily, sorry to bother you, but I’m in the devil of a hole. Can you possibly help me out? A hundred would do it.”

  His aunt’s face was not encouraging. A certain grimness showed itself in her expression.

  Emily Arundell was not afraid of speaking her mind. She spoke it.

  Miss Lawson hustling across the hall almost collided with Charles as he left the dining room. She glanced at him curiously. She entered the dining room to find Miss Arundell sitting very upright with a flushed face.

  Two

  THE RELATIONS

  Charles ran lightly up the stairs and tapped on his sister’s door. Her answering “Come in” came promptly and he entered.

  Theresa was sitting up in bed yawning.

  Charles took a seat on the bed.

  “What a decorative female you are, Theresa,” he remarked appreciatively.

  Theresa said sharply:

  “What’s the matter?” Charles grinned.

  “Sharp, aren’t you? Well, I stole a march on you, my girl! Thought I’d make my touch before you got to work.”

  “Well?”

  Charles spread his hands downwards in negation.

  “Nothing doing! Aunt Emily ticked me off good and proper. She intimated that she was under no illusions as to why her affectionate family had gathered round her! And she also intimated that the said affectionate family would be disappointed. Nothing being handed out but affection—and not so much of that.”

  “You might have waited a bit,” said Theresa drily.

  Charles grinned again.

  “I was afraid you or Tanios might get in ahead of me. I’m sadly afraid, Theresa my sweet, that there’ll be nothing doing this time. Old Emily is by no means a fool.”

  “I never thought she was.”

  “I even tried to put the wind up her.”

  “What d’you mean?” asked his sister sharply.

  “Told her she was going about it the right way to get bumped off. After all she can’t take the dibs to heaven with her. Why not loosen up a bit?”

  “Charles, you are a fool!”

  “No, I’m not. I’m a bit of a psychologist in my way. It’s never a bit of good sucking up to the old girl. She much prefers you to stand up to her. And after all, I was only talking sense. We get the money when she dies—she might just as well part with a little beforehand! Otherwise the temptation to help her out of the way might become overwhelming.”

  “Did she see your point?” asked Theresa, her delicate mouth curling up scornfully.

  “I’m not sure. She didn’t admit it. Just thanked me rather nastily for my advice and said she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’ve warned you.’ ‘I’ll remember it,’ she said.”

  Theresa said angrily:

  “Really, Charles, you are an utter fool.”

  “Damn it all, Theresa, I was a bit ratty myself! The old girl’s rolling—simply rolling. I bet she doesn’t spend a tenth part of her income—what has she got to spend it on, anyway? And here we are—young, able to enjoy life—and to spite us she’s capable of living to a hundred….I want my fun now….So do you….”

  Theresa nodded.

  She said in a low, breathless voice:

  “They don’t understand—old people don’t….they can’t….They don’t know what it is to live!”

  Brother and sister were silent for some minutes.

  Charles got up.

  “Well, my love, I wish you better success than I’ve had. But I rather doubt it.”

  Theresa said:

  “I’m rather counting on Rex to do the trick. If I can make old Emily realize how brilliant he is, and how it matters terrifically that he should have his chance and not have to sink into a rut as a general practitioner… Oh, Charles, a few thousand of capital just at this minute would make all the difference in the world to our lives!”

  “Hope you get it, but I don’t think you will. You’ve got through a bit too much capital in riotous living in your time. I say, Theresa, you don’t think the dreary Bella or the dubious Tanios will get anything, do you?”

  “I don’t see that money would be any good to Bella. She goes about looking like a ragbag and her tastes are purely domestic.”

  “Oh, well,” said Charles, vaguely. “I expect she wants things for those unprepossessing children of hers, schools, and plates for their front teeth and music lessons. And anyway it isn’t Bella—it’s Tanios. I bet he’s got a nose for money all right! Trust a Greek for that. You know he’s got through most of Bella’s? Speculated with it and lost it all.”

  “Do you think he’ll get something out of old Emily?”

  “He won’t if I can prevent him,” said Charles, grimly.

  He left the room and wandered downstairs. Bob was in the hall. He fussed up to Charles agreeably. Dogs liked Charles.

  He ran towards the drawing room door and looked back at Charles.

  “What’s the matter?” said Charles, strolling after him.

  Bob hurried i
nto the drawing room and sat down expectantly by a small bureau.

  Charles strolled over to him.

  “What’s it all about?”

  Bob wagged his tail, looked hard at the drawers of the bureau and uttered an appealing squeak.

  “Want something that’s in here?”

  Charles pulled open the top drawer. His eyebrows rose.

  “Dear, dear,” he said.

  At one side of the drawer was a little pile of treasury notes.

  Charles picked up the bundle and counted them. With a grin he removed three one pound notes and two ten shilling ones and put them in his pocket. He replaced the rest of the notes carefully in the drawer where he had found them.

  “That was a good idea, Bob,” he said. “Your Uncle Charles will be able at any rate to cover expenses. A little ready cash always comes in handy.”

  Bob uttered a faint reproachful bark as Charles shut the drawer.

  “Sorry old man,” Charles apologized. He opened the next drawer. Bob’s ball was in the corner of it. He took it out.

  “Here you are. Enjoy yourself with it.” Bob caught the ball, trotted out of the room and presently bump, bump, bump, was heard down the stairs.

  Charles strolled out into the garden. It was a fine sunny morning with a scent of lilac.

  Miss Arundell had Dr. Tanios by her side. He was speaking of the advantage of an English education—a good education—for children and how deeply he regretted that he could not afford such a luxury for his own children.

  Charles smiled with satisfied malice. He joined in the conversation in a lighthearted manner, turning it adroitly into entirely different channels.

  Emily Arundell smiled at him quite amiably. He even fancied that she was amused by his tactics and was subtly encouraging them.

  Charles’ spirits rose. Perhaps, after all, before he left—

  Charles was an incurable optimist.

  Dr. Donaldson called for Theresa in his car that afternoon and drove her to Worthem Abbey, one of the local beauty spots. They wandered away from the Abbey itself into the woods.

  There Rex Donaldson told Theresa at length about his theories and some of his recent experiments. She understood very little but listened in a spellbound manner, thinking to herself:

  “How clever Rex is—and how absolutely adorable!”

  Her fiancé paused once and said rather doubtfully:

  “I’m afraid this is dull stuff for you, Theresa.”

  “Darling, it’s too thrilling,” said Theresa, firmly. “Go on. You take some of the blood of the infected rabbit—?”

  Presently Theresa said with a sigh:

  “Your work means a terrible lot to you, my sweet.”

  “Naturally,” said Dr. Donaldson.

  It did not seem at all natural to Theresa. Very few of her friends did any work at all, and if they did they made extremely heavy weather about it.

  She thought as she had thought once or twice before, how singularly unsuitable it was that she should have fallen in love with Rex Donaldson. Why did these things, these ludicrous and amazing madnesses, happen to one? A profitless question. This had happened to her.

  She frowned, wondered at herself. Her crowd had been so gay—so cynical. Love affairs were necessary to life, of course, but why take them seriously? One loved and passed on.

  But this feeling of hers for Rex Donaldson was different, it went deeper. She felt instinctively that here there would be no passing on… Her need of him was simple and profound. Everything about him fascinated her. His calmness and detachment, so different from her own hectic, grasping life, the clear, logical coldness of his scientific mind, and something else, imperfectly understood, a secret force in the man masked by his unassuming slightly pedantic manner, but which she nevertheless felt and sensed instinctively.

  In Rex Donaldson there was genius—and the fact that his profession was the main preoccupation of his life and that she was only a part—though a necessary part—of existence to him only heightened his attraction for her. She found herself for the first time in her selfish pleasure-loving life content to take second place. The prospect fascinated her. For Rex she would do anything—anything!

  “What a damned nuisance money is,” she said, petulantly. “If only Aunt Emily were to die we could get married at once, and you could come to London and have a laboratory full of test tubes and guinea pigs, and never bother anymore about children with mumps and old ladies with livers.”

  Donaldson said:

  “There’s no reason why your aunt shouldn’t live for many years to come—if she’s careful.”

  Theresa said despondently:

  “I know that….”

  In the big double-bedded room with the old-fashioned oak furniture, Dr. Tanios said to his wife:

  “I think that I have prepared the ground sufficiently. It is now your turn, my dear.”

  He was pouring water from the old-fashioned copper can into the rose-patterned china basin.

  Bella Tanios sat in front of the dressing table wondering why, when she combed her hair as Theresa did, it should not look like Theresa’s!

  There was a moment before she replied. Then she said:

  “I don’t think I want—to ask Aunt Emily for money.”

  “It’s not for yourself, Bella, it’s for the sake of the children. Our investments have been so unlucky.”

  His back was turned, he did not see the swift glance she gave him—a furtive, shrinking glance.

  She said with mild obstinacy:

  “All the same, I think I’d rather not… Aunt Emily is rather difficult. She can be generous but she doesn’t like being asked.” Drying his hands, Tanios came across from the washstand.

  “Really, Bella, it isn’t like you to be so obstinate. After all, what have we come down here for?”

  She murmured:

  “I didn’t—I never meant—it wasn’t to ask for money….”

  “Yet you agreed that the only hope if we are to educate the children properly is for your aunt to come to the rescue.”

  Bella Tanios did not answer. She moved uneasily.

  But her face bore the mild mulish look that many clever husbands of stupid wives know to their cost.

  She said:

  “Perhaps Aunt Emily herself may suggest—”

  “It is possible, but I’ve seen no signs of it so far.”

  Bella said:

  “If we could have brought the children with us. Aunt Emily couldn’t have helped loving Mary. And Edward is so intelligent.”

  Tanios said, drily:

  “I don’t think your aunt is a great child lover. It is probably just as well the children aren’t here.”

  “Oh, Jacob, but—”

  “Yes, yes, my dear. I know your feelings. But these desiccated English spinsters—bah, they are not human. We want to do the best we can, do we not, for our Mary and our Edward? To help us a little would involve no hardship to Miss Arundell.”

  Mrs. Tanios turned, there was a flush in her cheeks.

  “Oh, please, please, Jacob, not this time. I’m sure it would be unwise. I would so very very much rather not.”

  Tanios stood close behind her, his arm encircled her shoulders. She trembled a little and then was still—almost rigid.

  He said and his voice was still pleasant:

  “All the same, Bella, I think—I think you will do what I ask… You usually do, you know—in the end… Yes, I think you will do what I say….”

  Three

  THE ACCIDENT

  It was Tuesday afternoon. The side door to the garden was open. Miss Arundell stood on the threshold and threw Bob’s ball the length of the garden path. The terrier rushed after it.

  “Just once more, Bob,” said Emily Arundell. “A good one.”

  Once again the ball sped along the ground with Bob racing at full speed in pursuit.

  Miss Arundell stooped down, picked up the ball from where Bob laid it at her feet and went into the house, Bob followed h
er closely. She shut the side door, went into the drawing room, Bob still at her heels, and put the ball away in the drawer.

  She glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was half past six.

  “A little rest before dinner, I think, Bob.”

  She ascended the stairs to her bedroom. Bob accompanied her. Lying on the big chintz-covered couch with Bob at her feet, Miss Arundell sighed. She was glad that it was Tuesday and that her guests would be going tomorrow. It was not that this weekend had disclosed anything to her that she had not known before. It was more the fact that it had not permitted her to forget her own knowledge.

  She said to herself:

  “I’m getting old, I suppose…” And then, with a little shock of surprise: “I am old….”

  She lay with her eyes closed for half an hour, then the elderly house-parlourmaid, Ellen, brought hot water and she rose and prepared for dinner.

  Dr. Donaldson was to dine with them that night. Emily Arundell wished to have an opportunity of studying him at close quarters. It still seemed to her a little incredible that the exotic Theresa should want to marry this rather stiff and pedantic young man. It also seemed a little odd that this stiff and pedantic young man should want to marry Theresa.

  She did not feel as the evening progressed that she was getting to know Dr. Donaldson any better. He was very polite, very formal and, to her mind, intensely boring. In her own mind she agreed with Miss Peabody’s judgement. The thought flashed across her brain, “Better stuff in our young days.”

  Dr. Donaldson did not stay late. He rose to go at ten o’clock. After he had taken his departure Emily Arundell herself announced that she was going to bed. She went upstairs and her young relations went up also. They all seemed somewhat subdued tonight. Miss Lawson remained downstairs performing her final duties, letting Bob out for his run, poking down the fire, putting the guard up and rolling back the hearth rug in case of fire.

  She arrived rather breathless in her employer’s room about five minutes later.

  “I think I’ve got everything,” she said, putting down wool, workbag, and a library book. “I do hope the book will be all right. She hadn’t got any of the ones on your list but she said she was sure you’d like this one.”