She checked in her mechanical walk.
“Is that what happened?”
“My dear girl, how do I know? It could have happened that way.”
She drew a choking breath.
“Geoffrey-”
“Yes?”
“It wasn’t you-”
He gave a short laugh.
“Really, Agnes!”
“It wasn’t-”
He laughed again.
“No, my dear, it wasn’t. I don’t mind saying that there were moments when I could have killed him with pleasure. But I didn’t do it. Somebody saved me the trouble. The nuisance is, there’s been some eavesdropping-the lantern-jawed butler, I imagine. And that Scotland Yard Inspector seems to have got the idea that Porlock might have been blackmailing me.”
Agnes Masterman’s dry lips parted on two words.
“He was.”
“You’d better not say that to the Inspector.” His tone hardened. “Do you hear-you’re to hold your tongue! There’s no real evidence-I’m practically sure of that. Something about a missing will-not very much to go on there! He said part of my conversation with Porlock had been overheard. He said the word blackmail had been overheard, and something about a missing will. You’ve got to hold your tongue. Do you hear, Agnes? Whatever he asks you, you just stick to it that Porlock’s a business acquaintance of mine and you don’t know anything about my business. You never met him before. He was very friendly. You stick to that, and it will be quite all right.” The short, dry sentences jerked themselves to a halt.
Agnes Masterman drew a long, desperate breath. She had always been afraid of Geoffrey, always lacked the courage to face him. But she had to find it now. Or never. At that prospect of drifting on through the nightmare world which he had made for her she did find something. Words which she had rehearsed over and over through interminable hours of sleepless nights and locked away in her aching heart through interminable days now came hurrying from her lips in a torrent of shaking speecn.
“Geoffrey, I can’t go on like this-indeed I can’t. You must tell me what you did with Cousin Mabel’s will. You found it, and you took it away. She told me you had taken it away. After I’d got her quiet she told me she had got it out and was looking at it, and you came in and took it away. She was dreadfully, dreadfully frightened-I oughtn’t to have left her alone. Geoffrey, you’ve got to tell me-did you go back and frighten her again or-or anything?”
Geoffrey Masterman said, “My dear Agnes, what morbid ideas you have! Why on earth should I go back? I had the will. If Cousin Mabel hadn’t died in her sleep during the night, I should doubtless have seen her again, and I should probably have given her back the will-with some good advice. As it was, there was no need-nature intervened. If you are asking me whether I assisted nature-one may hold views on the iniquity of old ladies leaving their money away from their own flesh and blood without being a murderer, you know.”
She had stopped walking. Everything in her seemed to be concentrated in the look she bent upon his face.
“Geoffrey, will you swear you didn’t go back-didn’t frighten her-touch her?”
He said, “I will if you like. What’s the good of swearing? Let’s stick to plain facts. I didn’t go back.”
He could see that she believed him-perhaps better than if he had made any protestations. He was aware of her relaxing, letting go. Her breast lifted in a long sigh, and then another. He put a hand on her arm and said,
“We’d better walk. It looks odd our standing here talking.”
They had gone a little way before she said in a different voice, more alive, more natural,
“What was in the will? You’d better tell me.”
He laughed.
“Oh, you come off all right! You get your fifty thousand all the same- ‘To my dear cousin Agnes Masterman who has always been very kind to me!’ ” He gave that angry laugh again. “But I only get a beggarly five thousand, and no ‘dear’ in front of my name, while a solid forty-five thousand goes down the drain in charity! Do you expect me to lie down under that?”
The colour sprang into her cheeks. Just for a moment you could see what she would look like if she were happy. Her eyes brightened and her voice rang.
“But, Geoffrey-why didn’t you tell me? We can put the whole thing right. You can have the money-I don’t want it. You can take the fifty thousand and let me have what she was leaving you. You’ve only got to go to the solicitors and say you’ve found this later will. You can say it was hidden in her biscuit-box-and that’s absolutely true, because that’s where she did hide it, poor old thing. There won’t be any risk about it at all, and we’ll get rid of this nightmare which is killing me. It is, Geoffrey-it is!”
Her voice throbbed with passion though she kept it low. Her very walk had changed. It was she who had quickened the pace.
He looked at her with surprise.
“My dear Agnes-how vehement! If you really want to give forty-five thousand pounds away in charity, I don’t suppose I shall interfere. I’d no idea you had such an expensive conscience. I advise you to bridle it. Anyhow I haven’t got the will in my pocket, and Trower and Wakefield don’t live over the way, so I think the whole matter can wait until we get home. Meanwhile you’ll please to remember that if there’s any trouble over this Porlock business, any encouragement of the blackmail idea, I shan’t be in a position to produce that will. So if you want it produced you’ve got to put up a pretty good show for Scotland Yard.”
Chapter XXII
Mr. Carroll came into the study with a jaunty air. The cold blue eyes of Sergeant Abbott took him in from head to foot. Their owner decided that the fellow was putting on an act. Might mean nothing-putting on acts being more or less second nature to an actor. Might mean something to hide-according to Pearson, quite a lot. He sustained a slightly insolent return stare with equanimity and took up his pencil.
Mr. Carroll’s act, which permitted a derogatory glance at the Sergeant, tumbled over itself with bright helpfulness towards the Chief Inspector.
“You’ll understand I don’t know any of these people except Miss Lane -I’ve met her of course. But anything I can do to be of any help-”
“I take it you knew Mr. Porlock?”
Mr. Carroll’s crooked eyebrow rose.
“As a matter of fact, hardly at all. I’d met him once or twice in houses where I’ve had a professional engagement, so when he offered me one for this week-end-”
“You were here professionally?”
The eyebrow twitched, the whole crooked side of the face twitched in a crooked smile.
“My dear man, have you seen the rest of the house party? Wild horses wouldn’t have got me anywhere near them if I hadn’t been paid for it! And I don’t mind telling you I was going to put it to Porlock that I’d expect a bonus.” He settled himself back in his chair with a gesture which dismissed the Totes and Mastermans to some appropriate limbo, and said, “Well, go ahead-ask me all the questions you want to. I’m quite at your disposal, but not, I’m afraid, very useful. You see, I’d gone upstairs to wash after the charade-I was all smothered in paint-so I wasn’t on the scene when Porlock was knifed.”
“So I understand. This is Mr. Leigh’s sketch of the hall, showing everyone’s position when the lights came on after the murder.” He passed the paper across. “Will you take a look at it and tell me whether it corresponds with what you remember?”
Leonard Carroll looked, nodded, passed it back again, all between a couple of breaths.