Sparkling Cyanide Page 8

  He caught sight of his face in the glass. His eyes were suffused with blood. He looked as though he were going to have a fit.

  As he remembered that moment, George Barton let his glass fall from his hand. Once again he felt the choking sensation, the beating blood in his ears. Even now—

  With an effort he pushed remembrance away. Mustn’t go over that again. It was past—done with. He wouldn’t ever suffer like that again. Rosemary was dead. Dead and at peace. And he was at peace too. No more suffering…

  Funny to think that that was what her death had meant to him. Peace…

  He’d never told even Ruth that. Good girl, Ruth. A good headpiece on her. Really, he didn’t know what he would do without her. The way she helped. The way she sympathized. And never a hint of sex. Not man mad like Rosemary…

  Rosemary…Rosemary sitting at the round table in the restaurant. A little thin in the face after ’flu—a little pulled down—but lovely, so lovely. And only an hour later—

  No, he wouldn’t think of that. Not just now. His plan. He would think of The Plan.

  He’d speak to Race first. He’d show Race the letters. What would Race make of these letters? Iris had been dumbfounded. She evidently hadn’t had the slightest idea.

  Well, he was in charge of the situation now. He’d got it all taped.

  The Plan. All worked out. The date. The place.

  Nov. 2nd. All Souls’ Day. That was a good touch. The Luxembourg, of course. He’d try to get the same table.

  And the same guests. Anthony Browne, Stephen Farraday, Sandra Farraday. Then, of course, Ruth and Iris and himself. And as the odd, the seventh guest he’d get Race. Race who was originally to have been at the dinner.

  And there would be one empty place.

  It would be splendid!

  Dramatic!

  A repetition of the crime.

  Well, not quite a repetition…

  His mind went back…

  Rosemary’s birthday…

  Rosemary, sprawled forward on that table—dead…

  Book 2

  All Souls’ Day

  ‘There’s Rosemary, that’s for remembrance.’

  Chapter 1

  Lucilla Drake was twittering. That was the term always used in the family and it was really a very apt description of the sounds that issued from Lucilla’s kindly lips.

  She was concerned on this particular morning with many things—so many that she found it hard to pin her attention down to one at a time. There was the imminence of the move back to town and the household problems involved in that move. Servants, housekeeping, winter storage, a thousand minor details—all these contended with a concern over Iris’s looks.

  ‘Really, dear, I feel quite anxious about you—you look so white and washed out—as though you hadn’t slept—did you sleep? If not, there’s that nice sleeping preparation of Dr Wylie’s or was it Dr Gaskell’s?—which reminds me—I shall have to go and speak to the grocer myself—either the maids have been ordering things in on their own, or else it’s deliberate swindling on his part. Packets and packets of soap flakes—and I never allow more than three a week. But perhaps a tonic would be better? Eaton’s syrup, they used to give when I was a girl. And spinach, of course. I’ll tell cook to have spinach for lunch today.’

  Iris was too languid and too used to Mrs Drake’s discursive style to inquire why the mention of Dr Gaskell should have reminded her aunt of the local grocer, though had she done so, she would have received the immediate response: ‘Because the grocer’s name is Cranford, my dear.’ Aunt Lucilla’s reasoning was always crystal clear to herself.

  Iris merely said with what energy she could command, ‘I’m perfectly well, Aunt Lucilla.’

  ‘Black under the eyes,’ said Mrs Drake. ‘You’ve been doing too much.’

  ‘I’ve done nothing at all—for weeks.’

  ‘So you think, dear. But too much tennis is overtiring for young girls. And I think the air down here is inclined to be enervating. This place is in a hollow. If George had consulted me instead of that girl.’

  ‘Girl?’

  ‘That Miss Lessing he thinks so much of. All very well in the office, I daresay—but a great mistake to take her out of her place. Encourage her to think herself one of the family. Not that she needs any encouragement, I should say.’

  ‘Oh, well, Aunt Lucilla, Ruth is practically one of the family.’

  Mrs Drake sniffed. ‘She means to be—that’s quite clear. Poor George—really an infant in arms where women are concerned. But it won’t do, Iris. George must be protected from himself and if I were you I should make it very clear that nice as Miss Lessing is, any idea of marriage is out of the question.’

  Iris was startled for a moment out of her apathy.

  ‘I never thought of George marrying Ruth.’

  ‘You don’t see what goes on under your nose, child. Of course you haven’t had my experience of life.’ Iris smiled in spite of herself. Aunt Lucilla was really very funny sometimes. ‘That young woman is out for matrimony.’

  ‘Would it matter?’ asked Iris.

  ‘Matter? Of course it would matter.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it really be rather nice?’ Her aunt stared at her. ‘Nice for George, I mean. I think you’re right about her, you know. I think she is fond of him. And she’d be an awfully good wife to him and look after him.’

  Mrs Drake snorted and an almost indignant expression appeared on her rather sheep-like amiable face.

  ‘George is very well looked after at present. What more can he want, I should like to know? Excellent meals and his mending seen to. Very pleasant for him to have an attractive young girl like you about the house and when you marry some day I should hope I was still capable of seeing to his comfort and looking after his health. Just as well or better than a young woman out of an office could do—what does she know about housekeeping? Figures and ledgers and shorthand and typing—what good is that in a man’s home?’

  Iris smiled and shook her head, but she did not argue the point. She was thinking of the smooth dark satin of Ruth’s head, of the clear complexion and the figure so well set off by the severe tailor-made clothes that Ruth affected. Poor Aunt Lucilla, all her mind on comfort and housekeeping, with romance so very far behind her that she had probably forgotten what it meant—if indeed, thought Iris, remembering her uncle by marriage, it had ever meant much.

  Lucilla Drake had been Hector Marle’s half-sister, the child of an earlier marriage. She had played the little mother to a very much younger brother when his own mother died. Housekeeping for her father, she had stiffened into a pronounced spinsterhood. She was close on forty when she met the Rev Caleb Drake, he himself a man of over fifty. Her married life had been short, a mere two years, then she had been left a widow with an infant son. Motherhood, coming late and unexpectedly, had been the supreme experience of Lucilla Drake’s life. Her son had turned out an anxiety, a source of grief and a constant financial drain—but never a disappointment. Mrs Drake refused to recognize anything in her son Victor except an amiable weakness of character. Victor was too trusting—too easily led astray by bad companions because of his own belief in them. Victor was unlucky. Victor was deceived. Victor was swindled. He was the cat’s-paw of wicked men who exploited his innocence. The pleasant, rather silly sheep’s face hardened into obstinacy when criticism of Victor was to the fore. She knew her own son. He was a dear boy, full of high spirits, and his so-called friends took advantage of him. She knew, none better, how Victor hated having to ask her for money. But when the poor boy was really in such a terrible situation, what else could he do? It wasn’t as though he had anyone but her to go to.

  All the same, as she admitted, George’s invitation to come and live in the house and look after Iris, had come as a god-send, at a moment when she really had been in desperate straits of genteel poverty. She had been very happy and comfortable this last year and it was not in human nature to look kindly on the possibility of being superse
ded by an upstart young woman, all modern efficiency and capability, who in any case, so she persuaded herself, would only be marrying George for his money. Of course that was what she was after! A good home and a rich indulgent husband. You couldn’t tell Aunt Lucilla, at her age, that any young woman really liked working for her living! Girls were the same as they always had been—if they could get a man to keep them in comfort, they much preferred it. This Ruth Lessing was clever, worming her way into a position of confidence, advising George about house furnishing, making herself indispensable—but, thank goodness, there was one person at least who saw what she was up to!

  Lucilla Drake nodded her head several times, causing her soft double chins to quiver, raised her eyebrows with an air of superb human sapience, and abandoned the subject for one equally interesting and possibly even more pressing.

  ‘It’s the blankets I can’t make up my mind about, dear. You see, I can’t get it clearly laid down whether we shan’t be coming down again until next spring or whether George means to run down for weekends. He won’t say.’

  ‘I suppose he doesn’t really know.’ Iris tried to give her attention to a point that seemed completely unimportant. ‘If it was nice weather it might be fun to come down occasionally. Though I don’t think I want to particularly. Still the house will be here if we do want to come.’

  ‘Yes, dear, but one wants to know. Because, you see, if we aren’t coming down until next year, then the blankets ought to be put away with moth balls. But if we are coming down, that wouldn’t be necessary, because the blankets would be used—and the smell of moth balls is so unpleasant.’

  ‘Well, don’t use them.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s been such a hot summer there are a lot of moths about. Everyone says it’s a bad year for moths. And for wasps, of course. Hawkins told me yesterday he’s taken thirty wasps’ nests this summer—thirty—just fancy—’

  Iris thought of Hawkins—stalking out at dusk—cyanide in hand—Cyanide—Rosemary—Why did everything lead back to that—?

  The thin trickle of sound that was Aunt Lucilla’s voice was going on—it had reached by now a different point—

  ‘—and whether one ought to send the silver to the bank or not? Lady Alexandra was saying so many burglaries—though of course we do have good shutters—I don’t like the way she does her hair myself—it makes her face look so hard—but I should think she was a hard woman. And nervy, too. Everyone is nervy nowadays. When I was a girl people didn’t know what nerves were. Which reminds me that I didn’t like the look of George lately—I wonder if he could be going to have ’flu? I’ve wondered once or twice whether he was feverish. But perhaps it is some business worry. He looks to me, you know, as though he has got something on his mind.’

  Iris shivered, and Lucilla Drake exclaimed triumphantly: ‘There, I said you had a chill.’

  Chapter 2

  ‘How I wish they had never come here.’

  Sandra Farraday uttered the words with such unusual bitterness that her husband turned to look at her in surprise. It was as though his own thoughts had been put into words—the thoughts that he had been trying so hard to conceal. So Sandra, too, felt as he did? She, too, had felt that Fairhaven was spoiled, its peace impaired, by these new neighbours a mile away across the Park. He said, voicing his surprise impulsively:

  ‘I didn’t know you felt like that about them, too.’

  Immediately, or so it seemed to him, she withdrew into herself.

  ‘Neighbours are so important in the country. One has either to be rude or friendly; one can’t, as in London, just keep people as amiable acquaintances.’

  ‘No,’ said Stephen, ‘one can’t do that.’

  ‘And now we’re committed to this extraordinary party.’

  They were both silent, running over in their minds the scene at lunch. George Barton had been friendly, even exuberant in manner, with a kind of undercurrent of excitement of which they had both been conscious. George Barton was really very odd these days. Stephen had never noticed him much in the time preceding Rosemary’s death. George had just been there in the background, the kindly dull husband of a young and beautiful wife. Stephen had never even felt a pang of disquiet over the betrayal of George. George had been the kind of husband who was born to be betrayed. So much older—so devoid of the attractions necessary to hold an attractive and capricious woman. Had George himself been deceived? Stephen did not think so. George, he thought, knew Rosemary very well. He loved her, and he was the kind of man who was humble about his own powers of holding a wife’s interest.

  All the same, George must have suffered…

  Stephen began to wonder just what George had felt when Rosemary died.

  He and Sandra had seen little of him in the months following the tragedy. It was not until he had suddenly appeared as a near neighbour at Little Priors that he had reentered their lives and at once, so Stephen thought, he had seemed different.

  More alive, more positive. And—yes, decidedly odd.

  He had been odd today. That suddenly blurted out invitation. A party for Iris’s eighteenth birthday. He did so hope Stephen and Sandra would both come. Stephen and Sandra had been so kind to them down here.

  Sandra had said quickly; of course, it would be delightful. Naturally Stephen would be rather tied when they got back to London and she herself had a great many tiresome engagements, but she did hope they would be able to manage it.

  ‘Then let’s settle a day now, shall we?’

  George’s face—florid, smiling, insistent.

  ‘I thought perhaps one day the week after next—Wednesday or Thursday? Thursday is November 2nd. Would that be all right? But we’ll arrange any day that suits you both.’

  It had been the kind of invitation that pinned you down—there was a certain lack of social savoir-faire. Stephen noticed that Iris Marle had gone red and looked embarrassed. Sandra had been perfect. She had smilingly surrendered to the inevitable and said that Thursday, November 2nd, would suit them very well.

  Suddenly voicing his thoughts, Stephen said sharply, ‘We needn’t go.’

  Sandra turned her face slightly towards him. It wore a thoughtful considering air.

  ‘You think not?’

  ‘It’s easy to make some excuse.’

  ‘He’ll only insist on us coming some other time—or change the day. He—he seems very set on our coming.’

  ‘I can’t think why. It’s Iris’s party—and I can’t believe she is so particularly anxious for our company.’

  ‘No—no—’ Sandra sounded thoughtful.

  Then she said:

  ‘You know where this party is to be?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The Luxembourg.’

  The shock nearly deprived him of speech. He felt the colour ebbing out of his cheeks. He pulled himself together and met her eyes. Was it his fancy or was there meaning in the level gaze?

  ‘But it’s preposterous,’ he exclaimed, blustering a little in his attempt to conceal his own personal emotion. ‘The Luxembourg where—to revive all that. The man must be mad.’

  ‘I thought of that,’ said Sandra.

  ‘But then we shall certainly refuse to go. The—the whole thing was terribly unpleasant. You remember all the publicity—the pictures in the papers.’

  ‘I remember the unpleasantness,’ said Sandra.

  ‘Doesn’t he realize how disagreeable it would be for us?’

  ‘He has a reason, you know, Stephen. A reason that he gave me.’

  ‘What was it?’

  He felt thankful that she was looking away from him when she spoke.

  ‘He took me aside after lunch. He said he wanted to explain. He told me that the girl—Iris—had never recovered properly from the shock of her sister’s death.’

  She paused and Stephen said unwillingly:

  Well, I daresay that may be true enough—she looks far from well. I thought at lunch how ill she was looking.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed it too�
�although she has seemed in good health and spirits on the whole lately. But I am telling you what George Barton said. He told me that Iris has consistently avoided the Luxembourg ever since as far as she was able.’

  ‘I don’t wonder.’

  ‘But according to him that is all wrong. It seems he consulted a nerve specialist on the subject—one of these modern men—and his advice is that after a shock of any kind, the trouble must be faced, not avoided. The principle, I gather, is like that of sending up an airman again immediately after a crash.’

  ‘Does the specialist suggest another suicide?’

  Sandra replied quietly, ‘He suggests that the associations of the restaurant must be overcome. It is, after all, just a restaurant. He proposed an ordinary pleasant party with, as far as possible, the same people present.’

  ‘Delightful for the people!’

  ‘Do you mind so much, Stephen?’

  A swift pang of alarm shot through him. He said quickly: ‘Of course I don’t mind. I just thought it rather a gruesome idea. Personally I shouldn’t mind in the least…I was really thinking of you. If you don’t mind—’

  She interrupted him.

  ‘I do mind. Very much. But the way George Barton put it made it very difficult to refuse. After all, I have frequently been to the Luxembourg since—so have you. One is constantly being asked there.’

  ‘But not under these circumstances.’

  ‘No.’

  Stephen said:

  ‘As you say, it is difficult to refuse—and if we put it off the invitation will be renewed. But there’s no reason, Sandra, why you should have to endure it. I’ll go and you can cry off at the last minute—a headache, chill—something of that kind.’

  He saw her chin go up.

  ‘That would be cowardly. No, Stephen, if you go, I go. After all,’ she laid her hand on his arm, ‘however little our marriage means, it should at least mean sharing our difficulties.’

  But he was staring at her—rendered dumb by one poignant phrase which had escaped her so easily, as though it voiced a long familiar and not very important fact.