When Kit had left Laura in her room at The Waggoners, she had told him that she wanted to rest. She had shown him that she was tired. Dropping wearily on to the bed, kicking her shoes off, she had shut her eyes and yawned. Kit had added a piece of coal to the meagre fire that he had persuaded Mrs Toles to light, then had gone out quietly.
Laura had lain quite still, her eyes still closed, until she heard his tread in the yard below, then she had sat up, reached hurriedly for the shoes that she had just discarded, and gone quickly downstairs.
She went to Mrs Toles.
‘Have you a telephone?’ she asked.
‘Yes, dear, through there,’ Mrs Toles said, pointing at a door in a corner of the closed saloon bar.
Laura went to the door and found that it opened into a dark cupboard. The telephone was on a shelf with a local directory beside it. The cupboard was too dark for her to be able to look up the number she wanted, so she brought the directory out into the bar and standing under the light, started flicking over the pages. Mrs Toles saw her there, then went back to the kitchen to finish her tea. She wondered if anything had happened between Kit Raven and his young lady. The girl, she thought, looked odd and excited.
In the Mordues’ cottage the telephone rang. Minnie picked it up.
‘Can I speak to Miss Mordue, please?’ said a rather peremptory feminine voice.
Minnie did not recognize the voice, so she assumed that it belonged to someone connected with Susan’s work.
‘Hold on,’ she said. ‘I think she’s home.’
She went to the bottom of the staircase and called. There was no reply. After another call, she went back to the telephone.
‘No, I’m sorry, she’s not in,’ she said.
‘Is that Mrs Mordue speaking?’ the voice asked.
‘Yes,’ Minnie answered.
‘Oh, Mrs Mordue, this is Laura Greenslade speaking,’ the voice said. ‘I do so want to speak to your daughter. It’s immensely important.’
Minnie’s hand, holding the telephone, trembled.
‘Mrs Greenslade?’
‘Yes. Will she be home soon? I must speak to her.’
‘I’m expecting her any time,’ Minnie said. ‘She generally gets in about now. You’re at the Lynams’, I suppose. Couldn’t she ring you when she gets in?’
‘No, I’m not at the Lynams’,’ the voice said. ‘I’m at The Waggoners – and I want to catch the next train back to London, so I’ll be leaving in a few minutes. But perhaps you could give your daughter a message from me. Would you do that, Mrs Mordue?’ There was an extraordinary urgency in the voice.
Minnie’s heart began to beat faster. She had a premonition of what the message was to be.
‘Of course, Mrs Greenslade,’ she said. ‘Wait while I get a pencil and paper.’
‘No, that won’t be necessary,’ the urgent, excited voice said, ‘just say – just tell her that I know that Kit’s really in love with her and not with me, and – and that I believe she’s in love with Kit, and – and that I’d never want to stand between two people who love each other, and so I’m going back to London and I hope they’ll both be very happy.’
‘But, Mrs Greenslade – Laura – you can’t just – I mean, I couldn’t …’
While Minnie, in a voice now more excited than the other, fumbled for words, she heard a sound on the telephone that might have been a laugh, then the click as the connection was cut.
A laugh? No, it couldn’t have been. It must have been a sob.
‘Oh dear,’ Minnie said, standing there looking desperate and muddled. ‘Oh dear, the poor girl. She really shouldn’t have … I mean, that isn’t the way … Oh dear, how unhappy she must be. The poor girl. The poor girl.’
‘What the hell are you talking to yourself about now?’ Tom asked, coming into the room.
Minnie stared at him unseeingly. His bald head bobbed across her vision without her being able to focus her thoughts upon him.
‘And how can I say a thing like that to Susan?’ she cried. ‘You know what Susan is.’
‘I do not,’ Tom said. ‘I do not know what anyone is, least of all Susan.’
‘She’s proud and independent,’ Minnie said. ‘It’s just the sort of thing to make her refuse ever to speak to him again. Oh, Tom, whatever shall I do?’
Tom Mordue sat down by the fire and picking up the morning’s paper, rustled it ostentatiously.
‘Leave me in peace, for one thing,’ he said.
‘But, Tom, it’s about Susan. It was that Greenslade girl. She says she’s going back to London, and she’s giving Kit up because she thinks he and Susan are in love with each other. And she wants me to tell Susan that.’
Tom lowered his paper. He looked at Minnie hard and disbelievingly.
‘You’re making this up because it’s what you want,’ he said.
Her wild, bewildered gaze met his. ‘It’s what she said and then she gave a sob. It wrung my heart, Tom. Or – or was it a laugh?’
‘Well, whatever it was, I’d say nothing about it to Susan, if I were you,’ Tom said. ‘If Kit wants her, he can come and ask for her – and I sincerely hope she’ll say no to him again, as she says now she did before. Young men who don’t know their minds for two days together aren’t much good to anyone, least of all when they’re a present from another woman, all done up in blue ribbon.’ He picked up the paper again. ‘I always know my own mind.’
‘Yes, Tom,’ Minnie said abstractedly. ‘But she is in love with him. I think – I think I’ll at least tell her … I mean, I said I’d give the message. Or perhaps I should ring up Fanny and ask her advice.’
‘For God’s sake!’ Tom shouted. ‘Can’t anything be done in this family without asking that woman’s advice?’
‘Tom!’ Minnie said in a shocked voice.
He crumpled up the paper. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve nothing against Fanny. But it’s almost as bad as asking for charity, this asking for advice, instead of using your own judgement. I never ask for advice.’
‘No, Tom.’
He turned his head, listening.
‘There’s Susan now,’ he said.
‘I’ll give her the message,’ Minnie said, ‘then she can use her own judgement. That’ll be best, won’t it?’
She nodded her shaggy head, satisfied with her own wisdom.
They heard Susan prop her bicycle against the wall below the window and come in. While she was still in the little hall, dragging off her gloves and blowing on her cold fingers, Minnie called out to her. When Susan, listlessly inattentive, made no answer, Minnie came hurrying out.
‘There’s just been a telephone message for you, dear,’ Minnie said, ‘from Laura Greenslade.’
Susan frowned absently. Her small, square face looked chilled by the cold wind and her eyes were preoccupied. She was used to withdrawing herself from both her parents, often only half-listening to what they were saying to one another or to her, and now a moment passed before it occurred to her that what had been said was something of interest. When it did, when the name of the person of whom, as it happened, she was thinking, penetrated to her mind, she frowned harder than ever, so that her face for a moment bore a striking resemblance to her father’s.
‘What did you say?’ she said sharply, almost as sharply as Tom might have said it.
Minnie gave a confused version of Laura’s message.
A curiously anxious look came into Susan’s eyes as she listened. She said nothing, but stood looking down at her hands, then in a quietly deliberate way she started pulling on her gloves again and in spite of the fact that they were old and shapeless, smoothed them very carefully over her fingers, staring at them hard as she did so. Then suddenly she put an arm round her mother’s neck and kissed her, went quickly out of the house, took her bicycle, wheeled it along the garden path to the lane and set off towards the village.
At first she pedalled fast, feeling that it was of desperate importance that she should see Laura before she left to catch the train to London. She did not know what she wanted to say to her. In fact, it would be easiest, she thought, not to say anything at all but simply to slap Laura’s face. Susan wished she had it in her to do that, instead of having to put her feelings into words. Words, in the experience of Tom Mordue’s daughter, were treacherous things that generally created lasting havoc. From harmless little beginnings, they grew and grew in power and cruelty till everything within their range was destroyed. And she had no desire to destroy Laura. She did not even want to hurt her much. She only wanted …
What did she want? Did she or did she not want Kit?
Susan’s pedalling grew slower. She found herself thinking less of Laura and more of Kit. She was, of course, in love with him. In spite of the extraordinary emotional crudity and stupidity of his treatment of both herself and Laura, she was deeply in love with him. And knowing at last for sure that she was in love with him, and thinking of herself as something worse than emotionally crude and stupid, she had been bitterly miserable during the last two weeks. She had not believed for a moment that she could get him back. Even after they had met at Fanny’s party, and she had seen quite clearly that his engagement to Laura had given him little happiness, Susan had not believed that there was any way of stopping him proceeding with it. Having lived all her life close to Tom Mordue, it was perhaps natural for her to take for granted that when a man had made up his mind to do something truly preposterous, there was no way of saving him from himself.
But now Laura was tossing him back at her.
Susan had not yet met Laura. She had only seen her photograph and heard Fanny talk about her, and now the remarkable message that had come by telephone had reached Susan only through her mother, so that she had not even heard Laura’s voice. She did not know precisely what had been said, or in what tone the message had been given. Her mother had told her that Laura had sounded very excited, but Susan did not think of Minnie as a reliable reporter, and one doubt haunted Susan now, that in fact some sort of vicious joke was being played upon her. Pedalling her bicycle more and more slowly, she found herself thinking of that job that Colin Gregory had tried to make her take, found herself wondering if perhaps it was still open.
In the village street she saw Jean Gregory.
Jean was standing in front of The Waggoners, looking up and down the street, and for a moment Susan had a distinct impression that she was looking up and down to see whether anyone was watching her.
It was a curious impression to have. There could be few people so unlikely to be acting in such a fashion as Jean Gregory. There could be few people with so little reason in their lives ever to need to act furtively. Yet as Susan applied her brakes, jumped off her bicycle and wheeled it towards Jean, she felt that Jean had been startled by her appearance, was put out by it and quite at a loss.
Susan told her at once, ‘I’ve come to see Laura Greenslade.’
‘You have?’ Jean said, emphasizing the word so oddly that it sounded as if what she was really saying was, ‘You have too?’
It made Susan ask, ‘Then are you going to see her?’
‘Oh no – no,’ Jean said. ‘As a matter of fact, I – I was just going into The Waggoners to see if Colin’s there.’
Susan’s mind was filled with her own concerns and she did not trouble to ask herself why Jean should lie to her, as lying she certainly was, for even Jean, quietly puritan though she might be, would scarcely have been looking up and down the street in that furtive way merely to make sure that no one should see her going into The Waggoners. Leaning her bicycle against the wall, Susan pushed at the door of the saloon bar, leaving it to Jean whether to follow her in or not.
For a moment Jean did not move, then with a shrug of the shoulders and a hesitant, undecided air, she followed Susan through the door.
Susan was asking Mrs Toles where she could find Mrs Greenslade. The only other person in the room was Fred Davin, the ironmonger. He was in his usual place at the bar, with a pint mug in front of him. He said good evening to Jean, which made Susan, who had not heard her come in, aware that she was there. Turning to glance at her, Susan was surprised to see Jean’s extreme pallor. In the darkness outside it had not been noticeable, but now, in the lighted room, Jean’s face looked so drawn and grey that Susan thought she must be feeling ill. If that were so, it explained Jean’s unusual behaviour in the street. If she had suddenly felt faint, she might have been looking up and down for someone who could help her.
‘Are you all right, Jean?’ Susan asked anxiously.
Jean’s eyes were feverishly bright and at the same time vacant.
‘Yes, I’m quite all right,’ she said, as if the question surprised her. ‘Mrs Toles, have you seen my husband?’
‘No, dear, not since morning,’ Mrs Toles answered.
‘I think – I think I’ll sit down and wait for him, if you don’t mind,’ Jean said. ‘I said I’d join him here.’
‘That’s right, dear, sit down and make yourself comfortable.’ Mrs Toles then turned her attention back to Susan. ‘I think you’ll find her there, Miss Mordue. She hasn’t said anything to me about leaving, but it’s true her room isn’t very grand, as I said to Mr Raven, and maybe she isn’t satisfied. I said to Mr Raven, “The room isn’t very grand, Mr Raven,” I said, “but she’s welcome to it, only don’t blame me if she isn’t satisfied,” I said – ’
‘Thanks,’ Susan said and went through the door and started up the stairs.
On the chair on to which Jean had sunk, rather as if her feet would no longer carry her, she sat looking isolated, lost in herself and utterly out of place. She must have been very cold, for she was trembling slightly.
Seeing this, Fred Davin said, ‘Why not come nearer the fire, Mrs Gregory?’
She started to turn her head to look at him.
At that moment, from upstairs, there came a scream.
Of the three people in the saloon bar, Jean moved the fastest. It was almost as if she had been waiting for the sound. While Mrs Toles was still pressing a hand to her heart and Fred Davin was looking round in an incredulous way, as if a scream in The Waggoners were so far from the course of nature that probably it had not really happened at all, Jean crossed to the door through which Susan had gone, tore it open and started to run up the stairs.
But she was only on the third stair when Susan, looking ill with fright and horror, came racing down. Stumbling against Jean and catching hold of her shoulder to save herself, she almost made Jean fall.
‘Don’t go up there – don’t!’ Susan cried. ‘It’s horrible!’
Jean drew away from her. Her muddled and undecided air had vanished, her trembling had stopped. She gave a searching look into Susan’s terrified eyes, then started again up the stairs.
Susan clutched her arm.
‘Don’t – you can’t go in there, Jean!’ she sobbed. ‘She’s – she’s dead!’
‘Laura Greenslade?’ Jean said.
Mrs Toles and Fred Davin by now were also in the narrow passage at the foot of the stairs.
They heard Susan say, ‘Yes, there’s the handle of the knife sticking out of her back and there’s blood all over her – she’s been murdered, Jean!’
Jean shook herself free of Susan’s hand and went on up the stairs.
Fred Davin called to her to come back, saying that he would go up.
‘I’m a nurse,’ Jean answered austerely, ‘I’ve seen such things before.’
Following her, Fred Davin entered Laura’s bedroom only a moment after her.
He found Jean standing quite still, looking down at the body of Laura Greenslade, which was sprawled face downwards on the highly polished linoleum. Laura’s dark hair had come loose and was tumbled about her head. Her hands looked as if they were reaching out to grasp something. The horn handle of a knife stood out between her shoulder blades. A great patch of her tweed jacket was soaked in blood. In the fireplace the fire that she had ordered was burning cheerfully.
As Fred Davin stood there, he saw Jean stoop as if she were about to touch the handle of the knife.
‘We didn’t ought to touch anything, Mrs Gregory,’ he said.
‘No,’ Jean said, ‘of course not.’ But she remained stooping, peering down at the little that she could see of Laura’s face, under the tumbled hair. Then she slowly straightened up and turned to the door.
‘We’ll have to call the police,’ she said.
‘But who done it?’ Fred Davin said, as if she could tell him. ‘Not Mr Raven. He never done a thing like that.’
‘No,’ Jean said.
She went out of the room and down the stairs.
In the bar Mrs Toles was treating Susan and herself to brandy. Without asking Jean and Fred Davin if they wanted it, she filled glasses for them too. Jean gave a slight shake of her head as Mrs Toles pushed one of them towards her.
‘There, dear, you drink it up,’ Mrs Toles insisted. ‘I wouldn’t have gone up there like you did, not if you was to pay me to do it, not after what Miss Mordue’s been telling me. You drink it up.’
Again Jean shook her head. She looked at Susan.
‘She’s dead,’ Jean said. ‘There isn’t any doubt of it.’
‘I know there isn’t. I – I looked,’ Susan said.
‘You mean you touched her?’
‘No, I – I don’t think I did.’ Susan sounded dazed. ‘But with all that blood … I’m going to ring Mummy up.’ She looked round. ‘Where’s the telephone, Mrs Toles?’
She sounded like a child who in time of trouble thinks first of telling her mother.
‘In that cupboard over there, dear,’ Mrs Toles said, as she had said earlier to Laura.
Fred Davin had swallowed his brandy.
‘I’ll be going for the police now, Mrs Toles,’ he said, ‘if you ladies aren’t nervous being left on your own. If you are, I’ll call in Mr Crowfoot from next door.’
‘No, Mr Davin, we’ll be all right, thank you – but don’t be long,’ Mrs Toles said bravely, reaching again for the brandy bottle. ‘The poor young lady – of all terrible things! And who’s going to tell poor Mr Raven?’
‘I will,’ Susan muttered, going towards the telephone. ‘I’ll ring up the Lynams. They’ll tell him. And I’ll ring up my mother …’
She went into the cupboard, found a switch that worked a dim light inside it, closed the door on herself, and picked up the telephone.
She rang up first her home and then the Lynams. She spoke briefly and fairly collectedly to her mother and afterwards to Basil. As she put the telephone down, her glance was held by a white shape on the floor. Without thinking much of what she was doing, she bent to pick it up.
It was an envelope, addressed to Mrs Charles Greenslade. It was an old envelope, fairly crumpled, as if it had been in a handbag or a pocket for some time. There was nothing inside it, but on one corner of it, in pencil, were two numbers. Each number had some meaning for Susan, for the first was the Mordues’ telephone number and the second was that of the Gregorys.
Susan hesitated there inside the cupboard. It seemed certain to her, looking at those numbers, that Laura had telephoned Jean as well as herself. That probably meant that Laura had asked Jean to come to see her, or else that because of something that Laura had said, Jean had decided on her own to come. It had been with the intention of seeing Laura that Jean had waited outside The Waggoners, waiting furtively, looking up and down the street, hoping not to be seen.
Or, Susan thought, her heart suddenly thumping, had Jean already seen Laura when she arrived on her bicycle? Had Jean been leaving The Waggoners?
Thrusting the envelope into her pocket, she decided that she would not let anyone see it until she had shown it to Jean herself and given her a chance to explain. Switching off the light in the cupboard, she emerged into the bar and looked round for Jean.
But Jean had gone.