She nodded into the pillow. Her shoulders were shaking. He patted her arm.
“I thought so. Poor chap. Poor David. Why did he have to take it so hard? Why kill the girl?”
She turned a tear-stained face. “He’d have had to kill himself or her. He—oh.”
She buried her face again. For a few seconds there was no sound but her sobs.
“Joan. Listen. Just one moment, there’s a dear. Joan, I won’t ask you anything I’ve no business to know. What was between him and you is sacred, and no one shall touch it. But there are one or two things I must ask.”
He waited for a few seconds.
“How do you know what you’ve just told me? I stopped you from seeing him last night, and I stopped him from seeing you.”
“Oh, why did you?”
“He’d killed one girclass="underline" and, in his twisted mood, how could I dare let him meet you?”
“David would never have harmed me, never, never, never!”
“I couldn’t risk it, Joan. And I didn’t want him to add to your burden by telling you more than you should know.”
“Anything was better than not knowing.”
“You were afraid, then——?”
“Oh, don’t ask me! Don’t keep probing at me.” She flung herself sideways, her face away from him. “Here,” she said suddenly, groping beneath the pillow; and handed him a crumpled letter.
Ellis stared at it, and at her.
“How did you get this?”
“We’d an arrangement, that in an emergency he’d put a message in a certain place, and make a certain signal. Last might he made the signal.”
“The house was being watched, you know.”
“The place was down at the side, by the currant bushes.”
“When did he do this—oh, never mind. You got it, that’s all that matters. Will you show me the bit I ought to see?”
“Don’t you want to see it all?” she asked bitterly.
“You’ll have to hand the letter over, I’m afraid. That’s the law. But this, now, is between you and me.”
“Very well. Don’t read the last page.”
He read all he needed to read, and put the letter back in its envelope.
“You may read it all, if you want to,” she said, from the pillow.
“That’s kind of you. But I don’t think I will.”
“You will afterwards, so why not now?”
“I won’t, at any time. Not the personal part.”
“It won’t matter to me if you do or not.” She sat up. “You’ve got to arrest me. Nothing’ll matter.”
“I’m certainly not going to waste my time arresting you.”
“But you’ve got to. I’ve confessed. I killed father.”
“You did no such thing.”
“I did. I did. You can’t say I didn’t, when I say I did.”
“I can. I do. I know you didn’t.”
“How?”
“Because you didn’t know that the second edition of Lakewater had been substituted for the first with the cancelled advertisement. You expected to find the ordinary first edition.”
She looked at him blankly.
“What on earth has that got to do with it?”
“It’s got everything to do with it. Come off it, Joan. I know the whole bag of tricks.”
“You don’t.”
“Yes, I do. I know how Eunice dressed up and helped you——”
“Eunice!” She stared, then laughed. “Oh! You mean, selling the books? That wasn’t Eunice.”
“Who was it, then?”
“That was auntie. Auntie Martha.”
“The hell it was!” ejaculated Ellis. “Well, I’m damned! The old coot.”
“You’re not to talk that way about auntie.” She was smiling now, and her eyes were alive. She might have been convalescent from ’flu or a cold. “There, you see, you’re quite wrong. That’s what comes of being so cocksure.”
“It does. It does indeed. I thought that because Eunice helped you with the typing, she sold the books.”
“Wrong again!”
“The letter was typed on her machine.”
“I know. I typed it.”
She laughed at his face. Then her own clouded again.
“Eunice wasn’t so friendly to me lately. Though I’m sure she’d have helped if I’d asked her. Only, as things were, I didn’t like to.”
“I know. She was jealous because David came to give you lessons. She thought David was ousting her from the first place in your affections.”
The girl stared at him.
“You are blind! You’ve got everything wrong. She wasn’t jealous because she thought I was fond of David. She was jealous because she thought David was in love with me, instead of with her. That was why she—she——”
“Tempted him, that night?”
She covered her face with her hands.
Ellis got up.
“Well,” he said heavily. “You’re right. I’ve made a rare fool of myself.”
She looked at him between her fingers.
“Where are you going?”
“To get on with things. We haven’t got your father’s murderer yet.”
“I tell you, I did it.”
“Don’t go on saying that, like a parrot.”
Suddenly Joan began to scream at the top of her voice.
“I did it, I tell you, I did it! I killed daddy!”
Ellis jumped. It was the first time he had ever heard her use the pet name, and he guessed how far back into childhood her evil hour had thrown her. Before he could say anything, the door opened slowly, and Mrs. Baildon stood there.
Her face was white as paper. Her great eyes seemed jet black.
“Be quiet, Joan.” The voice was deep and difficult. She turned to Ellis. “Don’t you believe her.”
“I don’t, Mrs. Baildon. Not a word.”
“Yes.” She swayed on her feet, and recovered, holding on to the doorpost. “Come with me,” she said to Ellis. “I have something to say to you.”
A cry of despair came from her bed. “Mummy! darling mummy!” Then, to Ellis, “Don’t believe her! Don’t believe her! Don’t believe her!”
Mrs. Baildon closed her eyes.
“Don’t waste time,” she said. “There isn’t much.”
Ellis started, and looked at her closely.
“Mrs. Baildon——”
She motioned him to be silent. “Come.”
He gave Joan a swift glance, and held the door for her mother. The girl lay back with a face of utter grief: but it was the grief of a child, no longer the frozen unnatural grief of one old before her time.
Mrs. Baildon was unsteady on her feet. Ellis took her arm.
“I’ll get you Dr. Carter.”
“No. There isn’t time.”
He led her into her room, and lowered her into an armchair. Breathing heavily, she sat with closed eyes, holding the arms.
“Listen. I killed Matt.”
“I know, Mrs. Baildon.”
She nodded. “I came back from Miss Jenkinson, to get something I’d forgotten to bring for Martha. I came in the back way. Joan was reading. She didn’t see me.”
“You planned it well.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t plan it at all.”
The words came slowly, chosen with care, driven out by an effort of the will.
“I came back to get a recipe I’d promised Martha. Matt called to me. ‘Get me the paper knife.’ He always spoke that way, but somehow, this time, something went snap inside me. I went into the room. He was sitting in his chair. He didn’t look round. It came into me all of a sudden. I looked at him. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Put it down.’ I took the two ends of his muffler. I pulled them down, and I leaned right on them with all my might. The chair was close in against the bookshelf. I did it that way because, else, the chair ran on its wheels and eased the pull, and this way, it pressed against me, and I was against the books. Out of one eye I saw his hands beat at the air once or twice like a kitten. Then he went limp. I threw the ends of the muffler across his shoulders, I shoved the chair nearer the window, I pushed him out on the floor. Then I went round and shook the bookcase. I had to shake hard. I nearly did it wrong and brought the books down on top of me. Then I went away down to Martha.”