The Listerdale Mystery Page 3

  Her thoughts had gone back to that interview now, on this sunny morning, as she leaned on the gate of the cottage. She had been married a month, and she was idyllically happy. Yet, in the momentary absence of the husband who was everything to her, a tinge of anxiety invaded her perfect happiness, and the cause of that anxiety was Dick Windyford.

  Three times since her marriage she had dreamed the same dream. The environment differed, but the main facts were always the same. She saw her husband lying dead and Dick Windyford standing over him, and she knew clearly and distinctly that his was the hand which had dealt the fatal blow. But horrible though that was, there was something more horrible still - horrible that was, on awakening, for in the dream it seemed perfectly natural and inevitable. She, Alix Martin, was glad that her husband was dead - she stretched out grateful hands to the murderer, sometimes she thanked him. The dream always ended the same way, with herself clasped in Dick Windyford's arms.

  She had said nothing of this dream to her husband, but secretly it had perturbed her more than she liked to admit. Was it a warning - a warning against Dick Windyford?

  Alix was roused from her thoughts by the sharp ringing of the telephone bell from within the house. She entered the cottage, and picked up the receiver. Suddenly she swayed, and put out a hand against the wall.

  "Who did you say was speaking?"

  "Why, Alix, what's the matter with your voice? I wouldn't have known it. It's Dick."

  "Oh!" said Alix. "Oh! Where - are you?"

  "At the Traveller抯 Arms - that's the right name, isn't it? Or don't you even know of the existence of your village pub? I'm on my holiday - doing a bit of fishing here. Any objection to my looking you two good people up this evening after dinner?"

  "No," said Alix sharply. "You mustn't come."

  There was a pause, and Dick's voice, with a subtle alteration in it, spoke again.

  "I beg your pardon," he said formally. "Of course I won't bother you - " Alix broke in hastily. Of course he must think her behaviour too extraordinary. It was extraordinary. Her nerves must be all to pieces.

  "I only meant that we were - engaged tonight," she explained, trying to make her voice sound as natural as possible. "Won't you - won't you come to dinner tomorrow night?" But Dick evidently noticed the lack of cordiality in her tone.

  "Thanks very much," he said, in the same formal voice. "But I may be moving on any time. Depends upon whether a pal of mine turns up or not. Good-bye, Alix." He paused, and then added hastily, in a different tone: "Best of luck to you, my dear."

  Alix hung up the receiver with a feeling of relief.

  "He mustn't come here," she repeated to herself. "He mustn't come here. Oh! what a fool I am! To imagine myself into a state like this. All the same, I'm glad he's not coming." She caught up a rustic rush hat from a table, and passed out into the garden again, pausing to look up at the name carved over the porch: Philomel Cottage.

  "Isn't it a very fanciful name?" she had said to Gerald once before they were married. He had laughed.

  "You little Cockney," he had said, affectionately. "I don't believe you have ever heard a nightingale. I'm glad you haven't. Nightingales should sing only for lovers. We'll hear them together on a summer's evening outside our own home."

  And at the remembrance of how they had indeed heard them, Alix, standing in the doorway of her home, blushed happily.

  It was Gerald who had found Philomel Cottage. He had come to Alix bursting with excitement. He had found the very spot for them - unique - a gem - the chance of a lifetime. And when Alix had seen it, she too was captivated. It was true that the situation was rather lonely - they were two miles from the nearest village - but the cottage itself was so exquisite with its Old World appearance, and its solid comfort of bathrooms, hot-water system, electric light and telephone, that she fell a victim to its charm immediately. And then a hitch occurred. The owner, a rich man who had made it his whim, declined to rent it. He would only sell.

  Gerald Martin, though possessed of a good income, was unable to touch his capital. He could raise at most a thousand pounds. The owner was asking three. But Alix, who had set her heart on the place, came to the rescue. Her own capital was easily realized, being in bearer bonds. She would contribute half of it to the purchase of the home. So Philomel Cottage became their choice. It was true that servants did not appreciate the rural solitude - indeed at the moment they had none at all - but Alix, who had been starved of domestic life, thoroughly enjoyed cooking dainty little meals and looking after the house. The garden, which was magnificently stocked with flowers, was attended to by an old man from the village who came twice a week.

  As she rounded the corner of the house, Alix was surprised to see the old gardener in question busy over the flower beds. She was surprised because his days for work were Mondays and Fridays, and today was Wednesday.

  "Why, George, what are you doing here?" she asked, as she came towards him. The old man straightened up with a chuckle, touching the brim of an aged cap.

  "I thought as how you'd be surprised, ma'am. But 'tis this way. There be a f阾e over to Squire's on Friday, and I sez to myself, I sez, neither Mr. Martin nor yet his good lady won't take it amiss if I comes for once on a Wednesday instead of a Friday."

  "That's quite all right," said Alix. "I hope you'll enjoy yourself at the f阾e."

  "I reckon to," said George simply. "It's a fine thing to be able to eat your fill and know all the time as it's not you as is paying for it. Squire allus has a proper sit-down tea for 'is tenants. Then I thought too, ma'am, as I might as well see you before you goes away so as to learn your wishes for the borders. You'll have no idea when you'll be back, ma'am, I suppose?"

  "But I'm not going away."

  George stared at her.

  "Bain't you going to Lunnon tomorrow?"

  "No. What put such an idea into your head?"

  George jerked his head over his shoulder.

  "Met Maister down to village yesterday. He told me you was both going away to Lunnon tomorrow, and it was uncertain when you'd be back again."

  "Nonsense," said Alix, laughing. "You must have misunderstood him." All the same, she wondered exactly what it could have been that Gerald had said to lead the old man into such a curious mistake. Going to London? She never wanted to go to London again.

  "I hate London," she said suddenly and harshly.

  "Ah!" said George placidly. "I must have been mistook somehow, and et he said it plain enough it seemed to me. I'm glad you're stopping on here - I don't hold with all this gallivanting about, and I don't think nothing of Lunnon. I've never needed to go there. Too many moty cars - that's the trouble nowadays. Once people have got a moty car, blessed if they can stay still anywheres. Mr. Ames, wot used to have this house - nice peaceful sort of gentleman he was until he bought one of them things. Hadn't'ad it a month before he put up this cottage for sale. A tidy lot he'd spent on it, too, with taps in all the bedrooms, and the electric light and all. 'You'll never see your money back,' I sez to him. 'It's not everyone as'll have your fad for washing themselves in every room in the house, in a manner of speaking. 'But 'George,' he sez to me, 'I'll get every penny of two thousand pounds for this house.' And sure enough, he did."

  "He got three thousand," said Alix, smiling.

  "Two thousand," repeated George. "The sum he was asking was talked of at the time. And a very high figure it was thought to be."

  "It really was three thousand," said Alix.

  "Ladies never understand figures," said George, unconvinced. "You'll not tell me that Mr. Ames had the face to stand up to you, and say three thousand brazen like in a loud voice."

  "He didn't say it to me," said Alix. "He said it to my husband." George stooped again to his flower bed.

  "The price was two thousand," he said obstinately.

  Alix did not trouble to argue with him. Moving to one of the further beds, she began to pick an armful of flowers.

  As she moved with her fragrant posy to
wards the house, Alix noticed a small dark green object, peeping from between some leaves in one of the beds. She stooped and picked it up, recognizing it for her husband's pocket diary. It must have fallen from his pocket when he was weeding.

  She opened it, scanning the entries with some amusement. Almost from the beginning of their married life, she had realised that the impulsive and emotional Gerald had the uncharacteristic virtues of neatness and method. He was extremely fussy about meals being punctual, and always planned his day ahead with the accuracy of a timetable.

  Looking through the diary, she was amused to notice the entry on the date of May 14th. "marry Alix St. Peter's 2:30."

  "The big silly," murmured Alix to herself, turning the pages. Suddenly she stopped.

  "Thursday, June 18th - why that's today."

  In the space for that day was written in Gerald's neat precise hand: "9 p.m." Nothing else. What had Gerald planned to do at 9 p.m.? Alix wondered. She smiled to herself as she realised that had this been a story, like those she had so often read, the diary would doubtless have furnished her with some sensational revelation. It would have had in it for certain the name of another woman. She fluttered the back pages idly. There were dates, appointments, cryptic references to business deals, but only one woman's name - her own.

  Yet as she slipped the book into her pocket and went on with her flowers to the house, she was aware of a vague uneasiness. Those words of Dick Windyford's recurred to her, almost as though he had been at her elbow repeating them: "The man's a perfect stranger to you. You know nothing about him." It was true. What did she know about him. After all, Gerald was forty. In forty years there must have been women in his life ...

  Alix shook herself impatiently. She must not give way to these thoughts. She had a far more instant preoccupation to deal with. Should she, or should she not, tell her husband that Dick Windyford had rung her up?

  There was the possibility to be considered that Gerald might have already run across him in the village. But in that case he would be sure to mention it to her immediately upon his return and matters would be taken out of her hands. Otherwise - what? Alix was aware of a distinct desire to say nothing about it. If she told him, he was sure to suggest asking Dick Windyford to Philomel Cottage. Then she would have to explain that Dick had proposed it himself, and that she had made an excuse to prevent his coming. And when he asked her why she had done so, what could she say? Tell him her dream? But he would laugh - or worse, see that she attached an importance to it which he did not.

  In the end, rather shamefacedly, Alix decided to say nothing. It was the first secret she had ever kept from her husband, and the consciousness of it made her feel ill at ease.

  When she heard Gerald returning from the village shortly before lunch, she hurried into the kitchen and pretended to be busy with the cooking so as to hide her confusion.

  It was evident at once that Gerald had been nothing of Dick Windyford. Alix felt at once relieved and embarrassed. She was definitely committed now to a policy of concealment. It was not until after their simple evening meal, when they were sitting in the oak beamed living room with the windows thrown open to let in the sweet night air scented with the perfume of the mauve and white stocks that grew outside, that Alix remembered the pocket diary.

  "Here's something you've been watering the flowers with," she said, and threw it into his lap.

  "Dropped it in the border, did I?"

  "Yes; I know all your secrets now."

  "Not guilty," said Gerald, shaking his head.

  "What about your assignation at nine o'clock tonight?"

  "Oh! that - " he seemed taken back for a moment, then he smiled as though something afforded him particular amusement. "It's an assignation with a particularly nice girl, Alix. She's got brown hair and blue eyes and she's particularly like you."

  "I don't understand," said Alix, with mock severity. "You're evading the point."

  "No, I'm not. As a matter of fact, that's a reminder that I'm going to develop some negatives tonight, and I want you to help me."

  Gerald Martin was an enthusiastic photographer. He had a somewhat old-fashioned camera, but with an excellent lens, and he developed his own plates in a small cellar which he had fitted up as a dark room.

  "And it must be done at nine o'clock precisely," said Alix teasingly. Gerald looked a little vexed.

  "My dear girl," he said, with a shade of testiness in his manner, "one should always plan a thing for a definite time. Then one gets through one's work properly."

  Alix sat for a minute or two in silence watching her husband as he lay in his chair smoking, his dark head flung back and the clear-cut lines of his clean-shaven face showing up against the sombre background. And suddenly, from some unknown source, a wave of panic surged over her, so that she cried out before she could stop herself. "Oh! Gerald, I wish I knew more about you." Her husband turned an astonished face upon her.

  "But, my dear Alix, you do know all about me. I've told you of my boyhood in Northumberland, of my life in South Africa, and these last ten years in Canada which have brought me success."

  "Oh, business!"

  Gerald laughed suddenly.

  "I know what you mean - love affairs. You women are all the same. Nothing interests you but the personal element."

  Alix felt her throat go dry, as she muttered indistinctly: "Well, but there must have been - love affairs. I mean - If I only knew - "

  There was silence again for a minute or two. Gerald Martin was frowning, a look of indecision on his face. When he spoke, it was gravely, without a trace of his former bantering manner.

  "Do you think it wise, Alix - this - Bluebeard's chamber business? There have been women in my life, yes. I don't deny it. You wouldn't believe me if I did deny it. But I can swear to you truthfully that not one of them meant anything to me."

  There was a ring of sincerity in his voice which comforted the listening wife.

  "Satisfied, Alix?" he asked, with a smile. Then he looked at her with a shade of curiosity.

  "What has turned you mind onto these unpleasant subjects tonight of all nights? You never mentioned them before."

  Alix got up and began to walk about restlessly.

  "Oh! I don't know," she said. "I've been nervy all day."

  "That's odd," said Gerald, in a low voice, as though speaking to himself. "That's very odd."

  "Why is it odd?"

  "Oh, my dear girl, don't flash out at me so. I only said it was odd because as a rule you're so sweet and serene."

  Alix forced a smile.

  "Everything's conspired to annoy me today," she confessed. "Even old George had got some ridiculous idea into his head that we were going away to London. He said you had told him so."

  "Where did you see him?" asked Gerald sharply.

  "He came to work today instead of Friday."

  "Damned old fool," said Gerald angrily.

  Alix stared in surprise. Her husband's face was convulsed with rage. She had never seen him so angry. Seeing her astonishment, Gerald made an effort to regain control of himself.

  "Well, he is a damned old fool," he protested.

  "What can you have said to make him think that?"

  "I? I never said anything. At least - Oh, yes, I remember. I made some weak joke about being 'off to London in the morning' and I suppose he took it seriously. Or else he didn't hear properly. You undeceived him, of course?"

  He waited anxiously for her reply.

  "Of course, but he's the sort of old man who if once he gets an idea in his head - well, it isn't so easy to get it out again."

  Then she told him of the gardener's insistence on the sum asked for the cottage. Gerald was silent for a minute or two, then he said slowly:

  "Ames was willing to take two thousand in cash and the remaining thousand on mortgage. That's the origin of that mistake, I fancy."

  "Very likely," agreed Alix.

  Then she looked up at the clock, and pointed to it with a mischie
vous finger.

  "We ought to be getting down to it, Gerald. Five minutes behind schedule." A very peculiar smile came over Gerald Martin's face.

  "I've changed my mind, he said quietly. "I shall not do any photography tonight." A woman's mind is a curious thing. When she went to bed that Thursday night, Alix's mind was contented and at rest. Her momentarily assailed happiness reasserted itself, triumphant as of yore. But by the evening of the following day, she realised that some subtle forces were at work undermining it. Dick Windyford had not rung up again, nevertheless, she felt what she supposed to be his influence at work. Again and again those words of his recurred to her. "The man's a perfect stranger. You know nothing about him." And with them came the memory of her husband's face, photographed clearly on her brain as she said: "'Do you think it wise, Alix, this - Bluebeard's chamber business?" Why had he said that?

  There had been warning in them - a hint of menace. It was as though he had said in effect - "You had better not pry into my life, Alix. You may get a nasty shock if you do." True, a few minutes later, he had sworn to her that there had been no woman in his life that mattered - but Alix tried in vain to recapture her sense of his sincerity: Was he not bound to swear that?

  By Friday morning, Alix had convinced herself that there had been a woman in Gerald's life - a Bluebeard's chamber that he had sedulously sought to conceal from her. Her jealousy, slow to awaken, was now rampant.

  Was it a woman he had been going to meet that night, at 9 p.m.? Was his story of photographs to develop a lie invented upon the spur of the moment?

  Three days ago she would have sworn that she knew her husband through and through. Now it seemed to her that he was a stranger of whom she knew nothing. She remembered his unreasonable anger against old George, so at variance with his usual good-tempered manner. A small thing, perhaps, but it showed her that she did not really know the man who was her husband.

  There were several little things required on Friday from the village to carry them over the week-end. In the afternoon Alix suggested that she should go for them whilst Gerald remained in the garden, but somewhat to her surprise he opposed this plan vehemently, and insisted on going himself whilst she remained at home. Alix was forced to give way to him, but his insistence surprised and alarmed her. Why was he so anxious to prevent her going to the village?