Sparkling Cyanide Read online

  He did think of it. A South Sea Island! Of all the idiotic ideas. What sort of a man did she think he was—a beachcomber?

  He looked at her with eyes from which the last traces of scales had fallen. A lovely creature with the brains of a hen! He’d been mad—utterly and completely mad. But he was sane again now. And he’d got to get out of this fix. Unless he was careful she’d ruin his whole life.

  He said all the things that hundreds of men had said before him. They must end it all—so he wrote. It was only fair to her. He couldn’t risk bringing unhappiness on her. She didn’t understand—and so on and so on.

  It was all over—he must make her understand that.

  But that was just what she refused to understand. It wasn’t to be as easy as that. She adored him, she loved him more than ever, she couldn’t live without him! The only honest thing was for her to tell her husband, and for Stephen to tell his wife the truth! He remembered how cold he had felt as he sat holding her letter. The little fool! The silly clinging fool! She’d go and blab the whole thing to George Barton and then George would divorce her and cite him as co-respondent. And Sandra would perforce divorce him too. He hadn’t any doubt of that. She had spoken once of a friend, had said with faint surprise, ‘But of course when she found out he was having an affair with another woman, what else could she do but divorce him?’ That was what Sandra would feel. She was proud. She would never share a man.

  And then he would be done, finished—the influential Kidderminster backing would be withdrawn. It would be the kind of scandal that he would not be able to live down, even though public opinion was broader-minded than it used to be. But not in a flagrant case like this! Goodbye to his dreams, his ambitions. Everything wrecked, broken—all because of a crazy infatuation for a silly woman. Calf love, that was all it had been. Calf love contracted at the wrong time of life.

  He’d lose everything he’d staked. Failure! Ignominy!

  He’d lose Sandra…

  And suddenly, with a shock of surprise he realized that it was that that he would mind most. He’d lose Sandra. Sandra with her square white forehead and her clear hazel eyes. Sandra, his dear friend and companion, his arrogant, proud, loyal Sandra. No, he couldn’t lose Sandra—he couldn’t…Anything but that.

  The perspiration broke out on his forehead.

  Somehow he must get out of this mess.

  Somehow he must make Rosemary listen to reason…But would she? Rosemary and reason didn’t go together. Supposing he were to tell her that, after all, he loved his wife? No. She simply wouldn’t believe it. She was such a stupid woman. Empty-headed, clinging, possessive. And she loved him still—that was the mischief of it.

  A kind of blind rage rose up in him. How on earth was he to keep her quiet? To shut her mouth? Nothing short of a dose of poison would do that, he thought bitterly.

  A wasp was buzzing close at hand. He stared abstractedly. It had got inside a cut-glass jampot and was trying to get out.

  Like me, he thought, entrapped by sweetness and now—he can’t get out, poor devil.

  But he, Stephen Farraday, was going to get out somehow. Time, he must play for time.

  Rosemary was down with ’flu at the moment. He’d sent conventional inquiries—a big sheaf of flowers. It gave him a respite. Next week Sandra and he were dining with the Bartons—a birthday party for Rosemary. Rosemary had said, ‘I shan’t do anything until after my birthday—it would be too cruel to George. He’s making such a fuss about it. He’s such a dear. After it’s all over we’ll come to an understanding.’

  Supposing he were to tell her brutally that it was all over, that he no longer cared? He shivered. No, he dare not do that. She might go to George in hysterics. She might even come to Sandra. He could hear her tearful, bewildered voice.

  ‘He says he doesn’t care any more, but I know it’s not true. He’s trying to be loyal—to play the game with you—but I know you’ll agree with me that when people love each other honesty is the only way. That’s why I’m asking you to give him his freedom.’

  That was just the sort of nauseating stuff she would pour out. And Sandra, her face proud and disdainful, would say, ‘He can have his freedom!’

  She wouldn’t believe—how could she believe? If Rosemary were to bring out those letters—the letters he’d been asinine enough to write to her. Heaven knew what he had said in them. Enough and more than enough to convince Sandra—letters such as he had never written to her—

  He must think of something—some way of keeping Rosemary quiet. ‘It’s a pity,’ he thought grimly, ‘that we don’t live in the days of the Borgias…’

  A glass of poisoned champagne was about the only thing that would keep Rosemary quiet.

  Yes, he had actually thought that.

  Cyanide of potassium in her champagne glass, cyanide of potassium in her evening bag. Depression after influenza.

  And across the table, Sandra’s eyes meeting his.

  Nearly a year ago—and he couldn’t forget.

  Chapter 5

  Alexandra Farraday

  Sandra Farraday had not forgotten Rosemary Barton.

  She was thinking of her at this very minute—thinking of her slumped forward across the table in the restaurant that night.

  She remembered her own sharp indrawn breath and how then, looking up, she had found Stephen watching her…

  Had he read the truth in her eyes? Had he seen the hate, the mingling of horror and triumph?

  Nearly a year ago now—and as fresh in her mind as if it had been yesterday! Rosemary, that’s for remembrance. How horribly true that was. It was no good a person being dead if they lived on in your mind. That was what Rosemary had done. In Sandra’s mind—and in Stephen’s, too? She didn’t know, but she thought it probable.

  The Luxembourg—that hateful place with its excellent food, its deft swift service, its luxurious décor and setting. An impossible place to avoid, people were always asking you there.

  She would have liked to forget—but everything conspired to make her remember. Even Fairhaven was no longer exempt now that George Barton had come to live at Little Priors.

  It was really rather extraordinary of him. George Barton was altogether an odd man. Not at all the kind of neighbour she liked to have. His presence at Little Priors spoiled for her the charm and peace of Fairhaven. Always, up to this summer, it had been a place of healing and rest, a place where she and Stephen had been happy—that is, if they ever had been happy?

  Her lips pressed thinly together. Yes, a thousand times, yes! They could have been happy but for Rosemary. It was Rosemary who had shattered the delicate edifice of mutual trust and tenderness that she and Stephen were beginning to build. Something, some instinct, had bade her hide from Stephen her own passion, her single-hearted devotion. She had loved him from the moment he came across the room to her that day at Kidderminster House, pretending to be shy, pretending not to know who she was.

  For he had known. She could not say when she had first accepted that fact. Some time after their marriage, one day when he was expounding some neat piece of political manipulation necessary to the passing of some Bill.

  The thought had flashed across her mind then: ‘This reminds me of something. What?’ Later she realized that it was, in essence, the same tactics he had used that day at Kidderminster House. She accepted the knowledge without surprise, as though it were something of which she had long been aware, but which had only just risen to the surface of her mind.

  From the day of their marriage she had realized that he did not love her in the same way as she loved him. But she thought it possible that he was actually incapable of such a love. That power of loving was her own unhappy heritage. To care with a desperation, an intensity that was, she knew, unusual among women! She would have died for him willingly; she was ready to lie for him, scheme for him, suffer for him! Instead she accepted with pride and reserve the place he wanted her to fill. He wanted her co-operation, her sympathy, her active and inte
llectual help. He wanted of her, not her heart, but her brains, and those material advantages which birth had given her.

  One thing she would never do, embarrass him by the expression of a devotion to which he could make no adequate return. And she did believe honestly that he liked her, that he took pleasure in her company. She foresaw a future in which her burden would be immeasurably lightened—a future of tenderness and friendship.

  In his way, she thought, he loved her.

  And then Rosemary came.

  She wondered sometimes, with a wry painful twist of the lips, how it was that he could imagine that she did not know. She had known from the first minute—up there at St Moritz—when she had first seen the way he looked at the woman.

  She had known the very day the woman became his mistress.

  She knew the scent the creature used…

  She could read in Stephen’s polite face, with eyes abstracted, just what his memories were, what he was thinking about—that woman—the woman he had just left!

  It was difficult, she thought dispassionately, to assess the suffering she had been through. Enduring, day after day, the tortures of the damned, with nothing to carry her through but her belief in courage—her own natural pride. She would not show, she would never show, what she was feeling. She lost weight, grew thinner and paler, the bones of her head and shoulders showing more distinctly with the flesh stretched tightly over them. She forced herself to eat, but could not force herself to sleep. She lay long nights, with dry eyes, staring into darkness. She despised the taking of drugs as weakness. She would hang on. To show herself hurt, to plead, to protest—all these things were abhorrent to her.

  She had one crumb of comfort, a meagre one—Stephen did not wish to leave her. Granted that that was for the sake of his career, not out of fondness for her, still the fact remained. He did not want to leave her.

  Some day, perhaps, the infatuation would pass…

  What could he, after all, see in the girl? She was attractive, beautiful—but so were other women. What did he find in Rosemary Barton that infatuated him?

  She was brainless—silly—and not—she clung to this point especially—not even particularly amusing. If she had had wit, charm and provocation of manner—those were the things that held men. Sandra clung to the belief that the thing would end—that Stephen would tire of it.

  She was convinced that the main interest in his life was his work. He was marked out for great things and he knew it. He had a fine statesmanlike brain and he delighted in using it. It was his appointed task in life. Surely once the infatuation began to wane he would realize that fact?

  Never for one minute did Sandra consider leaving him. The idea never even came to her. She was his, body and soul, to take or discard. He was her life, her existence. Love burned in her with a medieval force.

  There was a moment when she had hope. They went down to Fairhaven. Stephen seemed more his normal self. She felt suddenly a renewal of the old sympathy between them. Hope rose in her heart. He wanted her still, he enjoyed her company, he relied on her judgement. For the moment, he had escaped from the clutches of that woman.

  He looked happier, more like his own self.

  Nothing was irretrievably ruined. He was getting over it. If only he could make up his mind to break with her…

  Then they went back to London and Stephen relapsed. He looked haggard, worried, ill. He began to be unable to fix his mind on his work.

  She thought she knew the cause. Rosemary wanted him to go away with her…He was making up his mind to take the step—to break with everything he cared about most. Folly! Madness! He was the type of man with whom his work would always come first—a very English type. He must know that himself, deep down—Yes, but Rosemary was very lovely—and very stupid. Stephen would not be the first man who had thrown away his career for a woman and been sorry afterwards!

  Sandra caught a few words—a phrase one day at a cocktail party.

  ‘…Telling George—got to make up our minds.’

  It was soon after that that Rosemary went down with ’flu.

  A little hope rose in Sandra’s heart. Suppose she were to get pneumonia—people did after ’flu—a young friend of hers had died that way only last winter. If Rosemary were to die—

  She did not try to repress the thought—she was not horrified at herself. She was medieval enough to hate with a steady and untroubled mind.

  She hated Rosemary Barton. If thoughts could kill, she would have killed her.

  But thoughts do not kill—

  Thoughts are not enough…

  How beautiful Rosemary had looked that night at the Luxembourg with her pale fox furs slipping off her shoulders in the ladies’ cloak-room. Thinner, paler since her illness—an air of delicacy made her beauty more ethereal. She had stood in front of the glass touching up her face…

  Sandra, behind her, looked at their joint reflection in the mirror. Her own face like something sculptured, cold, lifeless. No feeling there, you would have said—a cold hard woman.

  And then Rosemary said: ‘Oh, Sandra, am I taking all the glass? I’ve finished now. This horrid ’flu has pulled me down a lot. I look a sight. And I feel quite weak still and headachy.’

  Sandra had asked with quiet polite concern:

  ‘Have you got a headache tonight?’

  ‘Just a bit of one. You haven’t got an aspirin, have you?’

  ‘I’ve got a Cachet Faivre.’

  She had opened her handbag, taken out the cachet. Rosemary had accepted it. ‘I’ll take it in my bag in case.’

  That competent dark-haired girl, Barton’s secretary, had watched the little transaction. She came in turn to the mirror, and just put on a slight dusting of powder. A nice-looking girl, almost handsome. Sandra had the impression that she didn’t like Rosemary.

  Then they had gone out of the cloak-room, Sandra first, then Rosemary, then Miss Lessing—oh, and of course, the girl Iris, Rosemary’s sister, she had been there. Very excited, with big grey eyes, and a schoolgirlish white dress.

  They had gone out and joined the men in the hall.

  And the head waiter had come bustling forward and showed them to their table. They had passed in under the great domed arch and there had been nothing, absolutely nothing, to warn one of them that she would never come out through that door again alive…

  Chapter 6

  George Barton

  Rosemary…

  George Barton lowered his glass and stared rather owlishly into the fire.

  He had drunk just enough to feel maudlin with self-pity.

  What a lovely girl she had been. He’d always been crazy about her. She knew it, but he’d always supposed she’d only laugh at him.

  Even when he first asked her to marry him, he hadn’t done it with any conviction.

  Mowed and mumbled. Acted like a blithering fool.

  ‘You know, old girl, any time—you’ve only got to say. I know it’s no good. You wouldn’t look at me. I’ve always been the most awful fool. Got a bit of a corporation, too. But you do know what I feel, don’t you, eh? I mean—I’m always there. Know I haven’t got an earthly chance, but thought I’d just mention it.’

  And Rosemary had laughed and kissed the top of his head.

  ‘You’re sweet, George, and I’ll remember the kind offer, but I’m not marrying anyone just at present.’

  And he had said seriously: ‘Quite right. Take plenty of time to look around. You can take your pick.’

  He’d never had any hope—not any real hope.

  That’s why he had been so incredulous, so dazed when Rosemary had said she was going to marry him.

  She wasn’t in love with him, of course. He knew that quite well. In fact, she admitted as much.

  ‘You do understand, don’t you? I want to feel settled down and happy and safe. I shall with you. I’m so sick of being in love. It always goes wrong somehow and ends in a mess. I like you, George. You’re nice and funny and sweet and you think I’m wo
nderful. That’s what I want.’

  He had answered rather incoherently:

  ‘Steady does it. We’ll be as happy as kings.’

  Well, that hadn’t been far wrong. They had been happy. He’d always felt humble in his own mind. He’d always told himself that there were bound to be snags. Rosemary wasn’t going to be satisfied with a dull kind of chap like himself. There would be incidents! He’d schooled himself to accept—incidents! He would hold firm to the belief that they wouldn’t be lasting! Rosemary would always come back to him. Once let him accept that view and all would be well.

  For she was fond of him. Her affection for him was constant and unvarying. It existed quite apart from her flirtations and her love affairs.

  He had schooled himself to accept those. He had told himself that they were inevitable with someone of Rosemary’s susceptible temperament and unusual beauty. What he had not bargained for were his own reactions.

  Flirtations with this young man and that were nothing, but when he first got an inkling of a serious affair—

  He’d known quick enough, sensed the difference in her. The rising excitement, the added beauty, the whole glowing radiance. And then what his instinct told him was confirmed by ugly concrete facts.

  There was that day when he’d come into her sitting-room and she had instinctively covered with her hand the page of the letter she was writing. He’d known then. She was writing to her lover.

  Presently, when she went out of the room, he went across to the blotter. She had taken the letter with her, but the blotting sheet was nearly fresh. He’d taken it across the room and held it up to the glass—seen the words in Rosemary’s dashing script, ‘My own beloved darling…’

  His blood had sung in his ears. He understood in that moment just what Othello had felt. Wise resolutions? Pah! Only the natural man counted. He’d like to choke the life out of her! He’d like to murder the fellow in cold blood. Who was it? That fellow Browne? Or that stick Stephen Farraday? They’d both of them been making sheep’s eyes at her.