As the execution approached, Blundell earnestly begged Diana to get away from London. Her health, he could see, was suffering. She could accomplish nothing by staying on here and leading a hermit’s life. He strongly advised her to join her father, who all this time had never once guessed how the outcome of the murder trial was affecting her, but who, in every letter, urged her to come to Hollywood.
“Not now,” was all she would say, and at last the subject was closed.
She had, it was true, a vague intention of quitting this flat for some obscure place of her own, where she could live on the remittances Herbert was sending. If she had as yet made no move it was because, now all hope was gone, a leaden inertia kept her rooted to the spot. The date of January 17th loomed ahead, red danger-signal in a fog. Towards it she was being drawn, but for long periods, even worse than before the trial, her faculties seemed submerged in a sort of wretched coma, wherein sensation was mercifully deadened. That, she supposed, was what happened when agony reached a certain point. She would wake one day to find herself old and maimed. It was no good thinking of that future time now.
In the state just described she sat, one evening, by the drawing-room fire, dimly thankful that her godfather was dining out, and that she could be left alone. Gaylord had removed her dinner-tray, and left the smaller tray with her coffee on the needlework stool before her. Later on, perhaps, Colin Ladbroke would drop in. He had the habit of doing that when his work permitted him; but he seldom came before nine, and it was now only eight. He would have nothing to tell her. Almost she regretted the effort she would be obliged to make to manufacture conversation.
A coal clinked on to the hearth. In the distance of the cold night taxis honked and a bus rumbled its way along the Park. Round her were soft colours, beautiful textures, flowers as usual continually renewed; but through the smoke of her cigarette she saw, not the room she had grown to loathe, but the harsh outlines of a condemned cell, with a trapped man sitting motionless on a camp-bed.
Into the picture melted another—Elsie, gaunt and huddled, her head covered in a paper-cowl and thrust close to the unlit gas. That faded, giving place to a roadside ditch, where lay an Indian boy, shot through the heart, one dark hand clutching a pearl-handled revolver. . . .
Her mother, now. Those kind eyes up-staring, that pathetic head, with its loosened russet braids, propped against the stair. . . .
She could sit still no longer. As she had done countless times before, she sprang up and began an aimless prowl, in one room and out another, lighting a fresh cigarette when the old one burnt her fingers. Dullness descended. A slight swimming in her head made her steady herself by whatever bit of furniture was nearest, but if she noticed it at all it was to accept it as a symptom of nervous collapse. . . .
How she came to be lying on the floor of the bedroom defied comprehension. She woke to the fact—though “woke” seemed the wrong word for one whose eyes had been wide open all along—through smelling singed wool, and becoming conscious of a hurt place on her temple, as though in falling she had struck her head. Had she fallen? Evidently—which must mean she had fainted. Very odd, for she had not the faintest recollection of feeling really faint.
Nor could she recall turning on the lights; but the two lamps were on, shining softly down on her through their large-fluted shades. She did not feel ill, only lazy and reluctant to move. Indifferently she lay, watching a tiny column of smoke soaring from the carpet, and only tardily realised it came from a long, completely charred ash which had been her cigarette. Even then it did not at once occur to her to pick up the stump, or to wonder how long she had been unconscious. The first question to stir her comfortably-blank mind was why her head appeared to be enclosed in a sort of box, oblong and three-sided.
Blinking, she saw that the box-thing was simply the central space of the Queen Anne desk, which was built on the “knee-hole” plan. It stood against the wall opposite the bed, and as she lay on her back she was looking up at the underside of the top which formed a bridge between two tiers of drawers. Inertly she continued to gaze, her eyes glued to a minute triangle of white paper—part of a dealer’s tag, she supposed—affixed to the rough wood just where the left pedestal joined on to it. For a long time she studied this white tag. Or was it a tag? At last, idly, she raised her hand and touched it, to discover that it moved, but would not come away. Then she saw why. It was the protruding corner of a larger sheet which had somehow got tightly wedged between the immovable top and the column of drawers.
Through her partly-dormant brain shot a sky-rocket idea. She scrambled to her feet, fetched a nail-file, and, squeezing back under the desk, began prodding at the triangular bit. She managed to draw it out another inch, but no more. She had guessed, though, just how it had come to be in its present position. It had been crowded out at the back of an over-filled drawer, doubled over against the wall behind, and then insinuated into the horizontal crack plainly visible from the rear. Every one of these drawers had been pulled out during her search. The top drawers were roofed with deal, so that this paper, whatever it was, had remained concealed, stuck as it was between the layer of deal and the walnut top covering the whole.
And the top would not come off! Well, then, she must smash it. She was in the act of sweeping the blotter and various accessories to the floor when the bell rang, and Colin walked in, to find her with feverish red spots in her cheeks and grey eyes glittering.
“What’s up?” he demanded. “Here—have you got a temperature?”
Shaking back her hair, she dragged him into the bedroom and showed him what she wanted done.
“I’d never have known anything was there if I hadn’t tumbled over and—”
“Tumbled over! You mean you fainted?”
“Oh, what does it matter?” Impatiently she shook off his hand. “We must break this open—quick! Shall I fetch a coal-hammer?”
“Hold on.” He transferred his eyes to the desk. “My mother’s got one of these bits of furniture. If I’m not mistaken. . . . Look!”
Under his manipulation the top had come loose. He lifted it up, and Diana pounced upon a dusty folder, in part printed, the rest filled in with writing she recognised. Breathlessly they studied it. Colin whipped over the first page, stared at the group of signatures at the end and gave a low whistle.
“A will,” he murmured. “There was one, after all. You see what it says?”
Diana had seen. Rose Somervell, four years previous, had bequeathed the bulk of her property to her friend and legal adviser, Nicholas Godfrey Blundell.
“It doesn’t change things, you know.”
They were seated side by side on the rose-covered bed, under the fringed canopy, discussing their find.
“Doesn’t it?” Her face fell. “But you said—”
“I thought there might be something of the kind. What I mean is, the new will cancels it. I’ll show this to Hull, naturally; and it does raise questions. Only you mustn’t build any hopes.”
“Never mind that now.” She brushed aside his objections. “Let’s think this out. You say she drew up this will herself?”
“Evidently. You buy these forms at a stationer’s. Know who the witnesses are?”
“I’ve never heard of either. I’d say Eliza Tompkins was a charwoman, and Henry Patterson some trades-person.”
“Which means she kept this to herself. Or does it? If Blundell knew nothing about a will with these terms, he couldn’t well hunt for it, could he? No—wait! How’s this? She may have told him she’d made such a will, but never showed it to him.”
Thinking it over, Diana declared that this was exactly the sort of thing Rose might have done.
“She was cunning, you know. That would explain his trying so desperately to find the document among her papers; only not finding it, he would conclude she’d invented a mythical will for the simple purpose of keeping him her slave. We don’t actually know, though, if he did try to find it. Besides . . . oh, dear!” She put her hands distracted to her head. “I’m more hopelessly muddled than before. What’s wrong that I can’t think properly?”
“How about some coffee?” he suggested. “Shall I make it?”
“Coffee!” She moved into the drawing-room. “There was some just now. I don’t remember drinking it. If I didn’t—Heavens! What a mess! Did I do that?”
Following, he found her gazing blankly down at a tray which was a brown lake of coffee—stone cold. A glance told him what had happened. She had poured her cup full and gone on pouring. The overflow filled the tray to the brim and had dripped in a pool on the rug.
“Colin! That’s queer. Am I losing my mind?”
He looked at her.
“There’s some left in the pot,” he said quietly. “I’ll heat it up in a jiffy.”
He returned from the kitchen to find her still staring at the drenched traycloth.
“That’s funny,” she whispered. “Do you know, I seem to be doing the same sort of things she did. Rose Somervell. It’s just come back to me how Adrian said that once he saw her pour tea in a cup already full. And a moment ago I found my cigarette burning a hole in the carpet. She did that—when she fell down in that attack. Do you see? That’s the burnt place, there.”
She gave an uncertain laugh, but her eyes held a serious question. Without answering, he put firm fingers on her pulse, glancing, as he did so, round the room.
“Drink your coffee,” he said, and when she had taken the cup he handed her stood gazing first at the hearth, then at the ash-tray beside the tray. On the small table at his elbow was a box which had contained a hundred cigarettes, the same brand as his own. About a dozen remained. He waited till she had turned away, then sniffed at the box and set it down again.
“Have you always smoked as much as you’re doing now?” he asked. “Maybe it’s that.”
“How can it be? I have been going it rather hard. She did, too. Inspector Headcorn asked me about it, I remember; but I told him what mild tobacco it was.”
“Who buys these for you? Or do you buy them yourself?”
“Of course I buy them. Why, what on earth—”
She stopped, stared at him and came a step closer. “What do you mean?” she demanded.
“Nothing. Tell me more about the fainting. What were you doing, and how long were you unconscious?”
As best she could she described her sensations.
“It’s all so silly. I can’t believe I did lose consciousness, and yet . . . how long was it? I don’t know. Long enough for half a cigarette to burn out. What’s the time now?”
“Ten minutes past ten.”
“Is it?” she exclaimed, astonished. “Surely not! It was eight when I sat here. It doesn’t seem possible.” Suddenly she thought of the will. “Oh, let’s not bother about me! I’m all right now, and you ought to be getting along to Mr. Hull’s. Oh, Colin, don’t you think we may, at last, have got something worth while?”
“I’m afraid not.” His face was white and drawn as he set down his cup. “Fetch me the paper, will you? No, it’s all too tenuous. Still, we’ll see what Hull makes of it.”
She disappeared into the bedroom. Very deftly Colin shovelled the loose dozen cigarettes into his coat pocket, and replaced them by similar ones taken from his own packet.
“Cut down the smoking a bit,” he advised when she rejoined him. “Get out all you can, and whatever you do keep quiet about this.” He tapped the will before depositing it in his note-case. “Now, then! Shall you get off to bed?”
“Yes, though I’m wide awake now. If Hull does have any new idea about things, will you promise to ring me up, no matter how late it is?”
“I promise,” he said gravely—absently, she thought, as though his mind were occupied with other questions. “But don’t expect much, will you?”