Sleeping Murder Read online

  He greeted her with a chuckle.

  “Looks like you’re going back to old times, miss.” (He persisted in calling Gwenda “miss.”)

  “Old times? How?”

  Foster tapped with his spade.

  “I come on the old steps—see, that’s where they went—just as you want ’em now. Then someone planted them over and covered them up.”

  “It was very stupid of them,” said Gwenda. “You want a vista down to the lawn and the sea from the drawing room window.”

  Foster was somewhat hazy about a vista—but he gave a cautious and grudging assent.

  “I don’t say, mind you, that it won’t be an improvement … Gives you a view—and them shrubs made it dark in the drawing room. Still they was growing a treat—never seen a healthier lot of forsythia. Lilacs isn’t much, but them wiglers costs money—and mind you—they’re too old to replant.”

  “Oh, I know. But this is much, much nicer.”

  “Well.” Foster scratched his head. “Maybe it is.”

  “It’s right,” said Gwenda, nodding her head. She asked suddenly, “Who lived here before the Hengraves? They weren’t here very long, were they?”

  “Matter of six years or so. Didn’t belong. Afore them? The Miss Elworthys. Very churchy folk. Low church. Missions to the heathen. Once had a black clergyman staying here, they did. Four of ’em there was, and their brother—but he didn’t get much of a look-in with all those women. Before them—now let me see, it was Mrs. Findeyson—ah! she was the real gentry, she was. She belonged. Was living here afore I was born.”

  “Did she die here?” asked Gwenda.

  “Died out in Egypt or some such place. But they brought her home. She’s buried up to churchyard. She planted that magnolia and those labiurnams. And those pittispores. Fond of shrubs, she was.”

  Foster continued: “Weren’t none of those new houses built up along the hill then. Countrified, it was. No cinema then. And none of them new shops. Or that there parade on the front!” His tone held the disapproval of the aged for all innovations. “Changes,” he said with a snort. “Nothing but changes.”

  “I suppose things are bound to change,” said Gwenda. “And after all there are lots of improvements nowadays, aren’t there?”

  “So they say. I ain’t noticed them. Changes!” He gestured towards the macrocarpa hedge on the left through which the gleam of a building showed. “Used to be the cottage hospital, that used,” he said. “Nice place and handy. Then they goes and builds a great place near to a mile out of town. Twenty minutes’ walk if you want to get there on a visiting day—or threepence on the bus.” He gestured once more towards the hedge … “It’s a girls’ school now. Moved in ten years ago. Changes all the time. People takes a house nowadays and lives in it ten or twelve years and then off they goes. Restless. What’s the good of that? You can’t do any proper planting unless you can look well ahead.”

  Gwenda looked affectionately at the magnolia.

  “Like Mrs. Findeyson,” she said.

  “Ah. She was the proper kind. Come here as a bride, she did. Brought up her children and married them, buried her husband, had her grandchildren down in the summers, and took off in the end when she was nigh on eighty.”

  Foster’s tone held warm approval.

  Gwenda went back into the house smiling a little.

  She interviewed the workmen, and then returned to the drawing room where she sat down at the desk and wrote some letters. Amongst the correspondence that remained to be answered was a letter from some cousins of Giles who lived in London. Anytime she wanted to come to London they begged her to come and stay with them at their house in Chelsea.

  Raymond West was a well-known (rather than popular) novelist and his wife Joan, Gwenda knew, was a painter. It would be fun to go and stay with them, though probably they would think she was a most terrible Philistine. Neither Giles nor I are a bit highbrow, reflected Gwenda.

  A sonorous gong boomed pontifically from the hall. Surrounded by a great deal of carved and tortured black wood, the gong had been one of Giles’s aunt’s prized possessions. Mrs. Cocker herself appeared to derive distinct pleasure from sounding it and always gave full measure. Gwenda put her hands to her ears and got up.

  She walked quickly across the drawing room to the wall by the far window and then brought herself up short with an exclamation of annoyance. It was the third time she’d done that. She always seemed to expect to be able to walk through solid wall into the dining room next door.

  She went back across the room and out into the front hall and then round the angle of the drawing room wall and so along to the dining room. It was a long way round, and it would be annoying in winter, for the front hall was draughty and the only central heating was in the drawing room and dining room and two bedrooms upstairs.

  I don’t see, thought Gwenda to herself as she sat down at the charming Sheration dining table which she had just bought at vast expense in lieu of Aunt Lavender’s massive square mahogany one, I don’t see why I shouldn’t have a doorway made through from the drawing room to the dining room. I’ll talk to Mr. Sims about it when he comes this afternoon.

  Mr. Sims was the builder and decorator, a persuasive middle-aged man with a husky voice and a little notebook which he always held at the ready, to jot down any expensive idea that might occur to his patrons.

  Mr. Sims, when consulted, was keenly appreciative.

  “Simplest thing in the world, Mrs. Reed—and a great improvement, if I may say so.”

  “Would it be very expensive?” Gwenda was by now a little doubtful of Mr. Sims’s assents and enthusiasms. There had been a little unpleasantness over various extras not included in Mr. Sims’s original estimate.

  “A mere trifle,” said Mr. Sims, his husky voice indulgent and reassuring. Gwenda looked more doubtful than ever. It was Mr. Sims’s trifles that she had learnt to distrust. His straightforward estimates were studiously moderate.

  “I’ll tell you what, Mrs. Reed,” said Mr. Sims coaxingly, “I’ll get Taylor to have a look when he’s finished with the dressing room this afternoon, and then I can give you an exact idea. Depends what the wall’s like.”

  Gwenda assented. She wrote to Joan West thanking her for her invitation, but saying that she would not be leaving Dillmouth at present since she wanted to keep an eye on the workmen. Then she went out for a walk along the front and enjoyed the sea breeze. She came back into the drawing room, and Taylor, Mr. Sims’s leading workman, straightened up from the corner and greeted her with a grin.

  “Won’t be no difficulty about this, Mrs. Reed,” he said. “Been a door here before, there has. Somebody as didn’t want it has just had it plastered over.”

  Gwenda was agreeably surprised. How extraordinary, she thought, that I’ve always seemed to feel there was a door there. She remembered the confident way she had walked to it at lunchtime. And remembering it, quite suddenly, she felt a tiny shiver of uneasiness. When you came to think of it, it was really rather odd … Why should she have felt so sure that there was a door there? There was no sign of it on the outside wall. How had she guessed—known—that there was a door just there? Of course it would be convenient to have a door through to the dining room, but why had she always gone so unerringly to that one particular spot? Anywhere on the dividing wall would have done equally well, but she had always gone automatically, thinking of other things, to the one place where a door had actually been.

  I hope, thought Gwenda uneasily, that I’m not clairvoyant or anything….

  There had never been anything in the least psychic about her. She wasn’t that kind of person. Or was she? That path outside from the terrace down through the shrubbery to the lawn. Had she in some way known it was there when she was so insistent on having it made in that particular place?

  Perhaps I am a bit psychic, thought Gwenda uneasily. Or is it something to do with the house?

  Why had she asked Mrs. Hengrave that day if the house was haunted?

>   It wasn’t haunted! It was a darling house! There couldn’t be anything wrong with the house. Why, Mrs. Hengrave had seemed quite surprised by the idea.

  Or had there been a trace of reserve, of wariness, in her manner?

  Good Heavens, I’m beginning to imagine things, thought Gwenda.

  She brought her mind back with an effort to her discussion with Taylor.

  “There’s one other thing,” she added. “One of the cupboards in my room upstairs is stuck. I want to get it opened.”

  The man came up with her and examined the door.

  “It’s been painted over more than once,” he said. “I’ll get the men to get it open for you tomorrow if that will do.”

  Gwenda acquiesced and Taylor went away.

  That evening Gwenda felt jumpy and nervous. Sitting in the drawing room and trying to read, she was aware of every creak of the furniture. Once or twice she looked over her shoulder and shivered. She told herself repeatedly that there was nothing in the incident of the door and the path. They were just coincidences. In any case they were the result of plain common sense.

  Without admitting it to herself, she felt nervous of going up to bed. When she finally got up and turned off the lights and opened the door into the hall, she found herself dreading to go up the stairs. She almost ran up them in her haste, hurried along the passage and opened the door of her room. Once inside she at once felt her fears calmed and appeased. She looked round the room affectionately. She felt safe in here, safe and happy. Yes, now she was here, she was safe. (Safe from what, you idiot? she asked herself.) She looked at her pyjamas spread out on the bed and her bedroom slippers below them.

  Really, Gwenda, you might be six years old! You ought to have bunny shoes, with rabbits on them.

  She got into bed with a sense of relief and was soon asleep.

  The next morning she had various matters to see to in the town. When she came back it was lunchtime.

  “The men have got the cupboard open in your bedroom, madam,” said Mrs. Cocker as she brought in the delicately fried sole, the mashed potatoes and the creamed carrots.

  “Oh good,” said Gwenda.

  She was hungry and enjoyed her lunch. After having coffee in the drawing room, she went upstairs to her bedroom. Crossing the room she pulled open the door of the corner cupboard.

  Then she uttered a sudden frightened little cry and stood staring.

  The inside of the cupboard revealed the original papering of the wall, which elsewhere had been done over in the yellowish wall paint. The room had once been gaily papered in a floral design, a design of little bunches of scarlet poppies alternating with bunches of blue cornflowers….

  II

  Gwenda stood there staring a long time, then she went shakily over to the bed and sat down on it.

  Here she was in a house she had never been in before, in a country she had never visited—and only two days ago she had lain in bed imagining a paper for this very room—and the paper she had imagined corresponded exactly with the paper that had once hung on the walls.

  Wild fragments of explanation whirled round in her head. Dunne, Experiment with Time—seeing forward instead of back….

  She could explain the garden path and the connecting door as coincidence—but there couldn’t be coincidence about this. You couldn’t conceivably imagine a wallpaper of such a distinctive design and then find one exactly as you had imagined it … No, there was some explanation that eluded her and that—yes, frightened her. Every now and then she was seeing, not forward, but back—back to some former state of the house. Any moment she might see something more—something she didn’t want to see … The house frightened her … But was it the house or herself? She didn’t want to be one of those people who saw things….

  She drew a long breath, put on her hat and coat and slipped quickly out of the house. At the post office she sent the following telegram:

  West, 19 Addway Square Chelsea London. May I change my mind and come to you tomorrow Gwenda.

  She sent it reply paid.

  Three

  “COVER HER FACE …”

  Raymond West and his wife did all they could to make young Giles’s wife feel welcome. It was not their fault that Gwenda found them secretly rather alarming. Raymond, with his odd appearance, rather like a pouncing raven, his sweep of hair and his sudden crescendos of quite incomprehensible conversation, left Gwenda round-eyed and nervous. Both he and Joan seemed to talk a language of their own. Gwenda had never been plunged in a highbrow atmosphere before and practically all its terms were strange.

  “We’ve planned to take you to a show or two,” said Raymond whilst Gwenda was drinking gin and rather wishing she could have had a cup of tea after her journey.

  Gwenda brightened up immediately.

  “The Ballet tonight at Sadler’s Wells, and tomorrow we’ve got a birthday party on for my quite incredible Aunt Jane—the Duchess of Malfi with Gielgud, and on Friday you simply must see They Walked without Feet. Translated from the Russian—absolutely the most significent piece of drama for the last twenty years. It’s at the little Witmore Theatre.”

  Gwenda expressed herself grateful for these plans for her entertainment. After all, when Giles came home, they would go together to the musical shows and all that. She flinched slightly at the prospect of They Walked without Feet, but supposed she might enjoy it—only the point about “significant” plays was that you usually didn’t.

  “You’ll adore my Aunt Jane,” said Raymond. “She’s what I should describe as a perfect Period Piece. Victorian to the core. All her dressing tables have their legs swathed in chintz. She lives in a village, the kind of village where nothing ever happens, exactly like a stagnant pond.”

  “Something did happen there once,” his wife said drily.

  “A mere drama of passion—crude—no subtlety to it.”

  “You enjoyed it frightfully at the time,” Joan reminded him with a slight twinkle.

  “I sometimes enjoy playing village cricket,” said Raymond, with dignity.

  “Anyway, Aunt Jane distinguished herself over that murder.”

  “Oh, she’s no fool. She adores problems.”

  “Problems?” said Gwenda, her mind flying to arithmetic.

  Raymond waved a hand.

  “Any kind of problem. Why the grocer’s wife took her umbrella to the church social on a fine evening. Why a gill of pickled shrimps was found where it was. What happened to the Vicar’s surplice. All grist to my Aunt Jane’s mill. So if you’ve any problem in your life, put it to her, Gwenda. She’ll tell you the answer.”

  He laughed and Gwenda laughed too, but not very heartily. She was introduced to Aunt Jane, otherwise Miss Marple, on the following day. Miss Marple was an attractive old lady, tall and thin, with pink cheeks and blue eyes, and a gentle, rather fussy manner. Her blue eyes often had a little twinkle in them.

  After an early dinner at which they drank Aunt Jane’s health, they all went off to His Majesty’s Theatre. Two extra men, an elderly artist and a young barrister were in the party. The elderly artist devoted himself to Gwenda and the young barrister divided his attentions between Joan and Miss Marple whose remarks he seemed to enjoy very much. At the theatre, however, this arrangement was reversed. Gwenda sat in the middle of the row between Raymond and the barrister.

  The lights went down and the play began.

  It was superbly acted and Gwenda enjoyed it very much. She had not seen very many first-rate theatrical productions.

  The play drew to a close, came to that supreme moment of horror. The actor’s voice came over the footlights filled with the tragedy of a warped and perverted mentality.

  “Cover her face. Mine eyes dazzle, she died young….”

  Gwenda screamed.

  She sprang up from her seat, pushed blindly past the others out into the aisle, through the exit and up the stairs and so to the street. She did not stop, even then, but half walked, half ran, in a blind panic up the Haymarket.
/>   It was not until she had reached Piccadilly that she noticed a free taxi cruising along, hailed it and, getting in, gave the address of the Chelsea house. With fumbling fingers she got out money, paid the taxi and went up the steps. The servant who let her in glanced at her in surprise.

  “You’ve come back early, miss. Didn’t you feel well?”

  “I—no, yes—I—I felt faint.”

  “Would you like anything, miss? Some brandy?”

  “No, nothing. I’ll go straight up to bed.”

  She ran up the stairs to avoid further questions.

  She pulled off her clothes, left them on the floor in a heap and got into bed. She lay there shivering, her heart pounding, her eyes staring at the ceiling.

  She did not hear the sound of fresh arrivals downstairs, but after about five minutes the door opened and Miss Marple came in. She had two hot-water bottles tucked under her arm and a cup in her hand.

  Gwenda sat up in bed, trying to stop her shivering.

  “Oh, Miss Marple, I’m frightfully sorry. I don’t know what—it was awful of me. Are they very annoyed with me?”

  “Now don’t worry, my dear child,” said Miss Marple. “Just tuck yourself up warmly with these hot-water bottles.”

  “I don’t really need a hot-water bottle.”

  “Oh yes, you do. That’s right. And now drink this cup of tea….”

  It was hot and strong and far too full of sugar, but Gwenda drank it obediently. The shivering was less acute now.

  “Just lie down now and go to sleep,” said Miss Marple. “You’ve had a shock, you know. We’ll talk about it in the morning. Don’t worry about anything. Just go to sleep.”

  She drew the covers up, smiled, patted Gwenda and went out.

  Downstairs Raymond was saying irritably to Joan: “What on earth was the matter with the girl? Did she feel ill, or what?”

  “My dear Raymond, I don’t know, she just screamed! I suppose the play was a bit too macabre for her.”

  “Well, of course Webster is a bit grisly. But I shouldn’t have thought—” He broke off as Miss Marple came into the room. “Is she all right?”