‘The door,’ I said. ‘Yes, I see. Or even if she left the room and then came back to find the fire already going, it wouldn’t be between her and her escape, would it? Unless she tried to get beyond it, to save something. She didn’t have a dog down here with her, did she? I should quite likely have plunged into a fire for Bunty.’ Alec shook his head.
‘She might have tried to beat the fire down and then, when she couldn’t, panicked and fled and tripped and hit her head on something,’ I suggested.
‘Of course,’ said Alec. ‘At any moment of any day a person might suddenly become unconscious by simply tripping and hitting his head, but it tends not to happen. Have you ever fallen down and knocked yourself unconscious? Do you know anyone else who has?’
‘I’ve fallen,’ I said. ‘Mostly on the curling pond. And my younger son once got hit on the head by a low branch running along a riverbank, but you’re quite right. People don’t generally react to tripping by falling headlong like felled trees, do they?’
‘Unless they are very drunk. So let’s discount the letters in the grate, shall we?’
‘One other possibility occurs to me,’ I said, reluctantly. ‘Would it have been at all in character for Cara to have lit the corner of a sheet of paper and held it aloft, watching it burn, before dropping it into an ashtray with a contemptuous curl of her lip and a toss of her head?’ Alec was speechless. ‘I saw Clara Bow do it,’ I said, ‘and I remember thinking what a pity I should probably never get the chance to repeat it. Rather an extreme reaction to an inflated greengrocer’s bill, you know.’
‘I shouldn’t have thought that was Cara’s style at all,’ said Alec drily, and remembering how she had laughed that day at Croys about ‘pining’ for Alex, I agreed. This recollection led me back with a jolt to what I had been all but forgetting. What we were talking about here, the two of us, cosily over our tea, was the death six days ago of the girl Alec had been to marry. I took the opportunity of his being busy buttering a teacake to have a good long look at him. In his expression and demeanour he seemed, and had seemed since this morning, quite different from the creature I had found shaking and pale on the bridge the day it happened. Also, he was displaying only suspicion about what had really happened and outrage that it might go undetected; there seemed to be no personal sadness, much less raw new grief. And he had changed his clothes already, out of mourning and into a Norfolk jacket – still with a black tie which looked very peculiar – as though Cara was not worth the discomfort of an afternoon in black cloth as well as a morning. I could think of no way to broach any of this with him, however, indeed no real excuse for doing so beyond curiosity, so I decided to stick to the subject in hand.
‘Very well, then,’ I said. ‘The Fiscal was thorough in dreaming up possible sources of flame, but did he miss anything out?’ We thought in silence for a while.
‘For instance,’ I said. ‘Did Cara really not smoke?’
‘Of course she did,’ said Alec. ‘But not in her mother’s house and certainly not in the morning. Is there any beauty routine that requires a naked flame?’
‘Such as what?’ I asked, amused and not hiding it to get my own back for Clara Bow.
‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Alec, shifting. ‘Curling irons or what have you.’
I thought back to Cara’s perfect shingle and stifled a laugh.
‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘she might have needed burnt cork – if she were blacking up for a minstrel show. I wonder that the Fiscal didn’t think to check -’
‘Oh shut up,’ said Alec. ‘Let’s leave this. We both know that Cara did not die as a result of accident and we’re wasting time.’
‘What do we think did happen?’ I said. I knew what I thought, but at that early point in our investigation it still seemed too fantastical to say it plainly aloud.
‘I think Cara killed herself,’ said Alec, ‘and so do you. And so does her mother, and possibly her sister too. I think it’s something to do with the theft, and I think the same thing – whatever it is – is why they suddenly rushed off down here and why Cara became convinced, or was persuaded, that she should break off the engagement.’
‘Yes,’ I said slowly. I was wishing against wish that I could deny this, but it was no use. He was right.
‘But,’ I went on, ‘should we do anything about these convictions of ours? Shouldn’t we just let matters lie?’
‘Another failure of nerve?’ Alec asked, looking at me very hard.
‘No. Just that even if we do find out what happened and even if her mother knew enough to stop it from happening – and I’m sure she did – so even if we feel Lena deserves it to be out in the open, what about her father? Do we really want to put her father through the ordeal of a verdict of suicide?’ Alec looked uncomfortable at this.
‘And how do we find out what happened?’ I went on. ‘And actually, why?’
‘What do you mean “why”?’ said Alec.
‘I mean who are we to?’ I said. ‘Who am I to? On what authority? I’m only supposed to be sorting out the diamond theft.’
‘You’re what?’ said Alec, and I remembered, too late as usual, that I had not told him this. There seemed little reason to pussy-foot around it now, however, so I briefly filled him in.
‘Well, there you are then,’ was all he said, when I had finished. ‘That’s your authority. I think it’s all connected, as a matter of fact – it must be – but if you’re squeamish, then concentrate on Silas and Daisy by all means. You can leave Mrs Duffy to me.’ He spoke grimly, and at my questioning look, he said: ‘It sticks in my throat, that’s all. She thinks she’s handling it so beautifully, and there’s something repugnant about that. Her daughter’s death should be all she cares about. Any potential scandal should hardly register. So, I mean to find out what happened and face her with it. Then even if no one knows the truth except her and me, at least she won’t be able to pride herself on having handled it all.’
Again, I was struck with a familiar thought. Disgusting as it was to think of Mrs Duffy’s scheming (and I was sure Alec was right about it) weren’t we just as bad? How, rather than thinking only of Cara and his own loss, could he be busily planning revenge? At least, his schemes were for Cara, though, in Cara’s name. When one got right down to it, it was only Lena and I who were vile; she containing a scandal and I preventing another.
‘But I ask again,’ I said, pushing all of that aside, ‘what are we to do? I can hardly chase off to Grasmere, much less Switzerland if it comes to that.’
‘No, the last thing we want is to ask any more questions of the Duffys,’ said Alec. ‘Not just because we don’t know what to ask and if we did they wouldn’t tell us, but we don’t want them to know that we’re interested. Do you see?’ I didn’t. ‘Because when the time comes that we do want to ask something of them, we must not be suspected. What we need to do now, is stay here and try to find out something, anything, that will tell us about Cara’s state of mind that last week.’
‘But how?’ I said. I suppose I had thought vaguely that I should go home and think things over, perhaps talk to some of Cara’s friends and… I hadn’t thought; that was the trouble. I certainly hadn’t thought of snooping around for clues.
‘Well, there must be countless people who spoke to her,’ said Alec. ‘Servants, for instance.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘They didn’t have a servant with them.’ I saw no need to discomfit both of us with details of the poor little maid.
‘Well, a village woman then,’ said Alec. ‘To cook and clean. And the postmistress would know what letters Cara sent and if she made any telephone calls. You must take care of the women. I’ll speak to tradesmen – the milkman and suchlike – about any comings and goings. It’s sure to lead somewhere. Small town gossip, you know.’