March said with authority,
“I am afraid that must wait. Miss Robbins, you are aware of the implications of this statement you have made. They are very grave.”
She met his look with a perfectly steady one.
“Yes, I know that.”
“In view of the fact that your father is dead and therefore in no danger of arrest-there is nothing you wish to modify?”
Her voice was tired and sad but as steady as her eyes.
“I’ve only told you the truth. I can’t alter that.”
He turned to Frank Abbott.
“Will you ask Miss Day to come down.”
chapter 42
Judy shut the study door and went back up the stairs. It seemed as if the day would never end, nor all the things that had to be done in it. That was what she had been feeling until the moment when she had gone to the front door and Mabel Robbins had stepped into the hall and given her name. And then everything else had been blown sky-high. It isn’t every day that you open the door to someone who has been dead three years.
As she went upstairs she was still under the influence of that shock and she hadn’t begun to think. Her mind was bubbling with unrelated ideas. How dreadful to come like that and find her father dead. How lovely for Mrs. Robbins to have her daughter back. And, “I wonder where she has been all this long time.”
As she turned into the corridor and came to the door of her own room she met Lona Day in her outdoor things-fur coat, small dark hat, handbag swinging from her left wrist. She came up close and said,
“Who was that you let in just now? I heard the bell. Captain Pilgrim can’t see anyone-not anyone at all. He’s ill.”
Judy said without any thought behind the words,
“It was Mabel Robbins. She isn’t dead.”
Lona took her by the arm and began to walk her back towards the stairs. As she did so she said in an indifferent voice,
“I knew that. Didn’t you? Naturally she would come down, but I wasn’t expecting her quite so soon. Hurry, Judy! Captain Pilgrim is very ill. I must fetch Dr. Daly to him. He’s out at Miles’ Farm, and they haven’t a telephone. I must try and catch the taxi which brought that girl.”
Judy hung back.
“You can’t-it’s gone.”
She was hurried on again.
“I must get a lift in the police car then. It’s a matter of life and death.”
Past the foot of the stair, across the hall, out into the glass passage. As Lona opened the door to the street, Judy said,
“Aren’t you going to stay with him?”
The door was open now, a biting cold air came in. The police car stood there at the left, black and empty. Lona said,
“No, no, no! I must get Dr. Daly! There’s nothing to be done till he comes. You must drive-I’m not good enough in the dark. Get in-get in quick!”
She had the door of the car open now, and she had Judy by the arm.
“Get in-get in! Do you want him to die?”
With her foot on the step Judy turned.
“Miss Day, you can’t take a police car like this! You must go back and ask.”
It was Lona’s left hand which was on her arm. The right came up now with something dark in it. They were just shadows, the hand and what it held-frightening shadows out of some horrid dream. They came up close. Something like a cold, deadly O was pressed against Judy’s neck a little below her ear. Lona Day said,
“If you don’t get in at once and start the car, I’ll shoot. If you call out you’ll be dead before anyone hears you. That’s right! Now start the car!”
With all her heart Judy prayed that the switch-key would be gone, but she put up her hand to feel, and it was there.
The cold pressure was gone from her neck. Afterwards she called herself “Fool!” a dozen times, because just there she had her chance and missed it. But it all happened so quickly between one breath and the next. The door behind her opened and shut, and quick on that the pistol was pressing into her spine and Lona Day was saying,
“Reach out and shut that front door! If you do anything more you’ll be dead!”
Judy did it. What she ought to have done was to duck and slip out on the right the moment the pistol went. But she had missed her chance.
“Start the car!”
Judy said, “I can’t do it.”
The voice behind her took on a cutting edge.
“If you don’t, I’ll shoot you here and now. And then I’ll get out and walk back to St. Agnes’ Lodge and tell Miss Freyne you’ve sent me for Penny. She’ll let her come all right-you know that. And what I do to her won’t worry you, because you’ll be dead.”
Judy heard her own voice say slowly and stiffly,
“What good-would that-do you?”
The voice behind her in the dark laughed-once.
“Have you never heard of the pleasures of revenge, my dear? If you spoil my chance of getting away, I’ll take Penny with me. I’ll give you till I’ve counted five.”
Judy put up her hand to the switch.
As the car slipped down the street and gathered way, Lona Day spoke again.
“I’m going to sit back now. That means you won’t feel the pistol, but it will be there. I can see you quite well against the lights, and if you try anything on, I shan’t miss-I’m quite a good shot. We’ll turn off to the right in half a mile.” After a moment she went on. “If you do just what you’re told you won’t come to any harm, and nor will Penny. I’m going to get away, and you are going to help me. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can play any game of your own and get away with it. The other people who thought they could do that are dead. If I have to shoot you, who will look after Penny?”
Judy heard the odd stiff voice which didn’t sound like her own say, “Don’t-talk-like-that.”
Lona said, “I’m warning you. You couldn’t get away with it-none of them did. Henry Clayton thought he could pick me up and drop me, like he did with the Robbins girl. I’ll tell you about that, because it will show you that you can’t play about with me. We’re coming to that turning. It’s a lane, and there’s a narrow bridge a little farther on. You’ll have to be careful.”
Judy took the corner. The lane was arched by leafless trees rising from a dark hedgerow on either side. The sky was covered with cloud, but a diffused light came through from the hidden moon. The car was a Wolseley, and the lights the best that the black-out regulations allowed. She was a good driver. Up to this moment everything she had done was automatic. Now she began to feel the car and her own command of it.
From behind her Lona Day went on talking.
“Now I shall tell you about Henry. He was going to marry Lesley Freyne because she had money. After me! She isn’t the sort of woman anyone could be in love with-it was just the money. Henry and I had met in London when I was with my last case, so when I heard a nurse was wanted at Pilgrim’s Rest I applied, and of course, with my testimonials, they snapped me up. And would you believe it, Henry was frightfully put out. But he got over that. His engagement was rather hanging fire about then, and as between me and Lesley Freyne-well, I ask you! And then in February he had the nerve to tell me the wedding-day was fixed-Bear to the left here!”
The lane forked and twisted. Judy took the turn. Lona went on speaking.
“He came down for the wedding. I sent him a note to come to my room. But he didn’t come, he went to her instead. I heard him tell Robbins and go out. Robbins went away. I ran after Henry and caught him up by the gate to the stable yard. He was angry, but he came back with me. We went into the dining-room. I pulled out one of the knives from the trophy by the sideboard and told him I would kill myself if he didn’t say good-bye to me properly. He told me not to be a fool. I made him think I’d put the knife back, but I didn’t, I put it in my pocket. I was wearing my Chinese coat. He always said it suited me. They don’t have pockets as a rule, but I’d had one made. The knife went into it nicely. I wasn’t sure up till then whether I’d kill Henry. I’d thought about it, but I hadn’t made up my mind. If he’d been very sweet to me, I might have let him off, but he actually told me that Lesley Freyne was the salt of the earth, and that he was going to do his best to make her a good husband. That finished it. I got him to come into the passage behind the dining-room, and when we were there I said, ‘What’s that?’ as if I had heard something. He turned round to look where I was pointing, and I took the knife out of my pocket and stabbed him in the back. It was quite easy… There are cross roads coming now. Go right over and up the lane on the other side!”