Джорджетт Хейер - A Blunt Instrument

"Then you suppose wrong, sweetheart."

"Really? Very sensible of her, but I made sure she'd insist on going."

"I expect she would if she happened to know it was being held today," he agreed.

She regarded him curiously. "Do you mean you've managed to keep it from her?"

"No difficulty," he answered. "Entrancingly womanly woman, my aunt. Believes what the male tells her."

"But the papers! Doesn't she read them?"

"Oh yes! Front and middle page of The Times. All cheaper rags confiscated by adroit nephew, and put to ignoble uses."

"I hand it to you, Neville," said Sally bluntly. "You've been a brick to Miss Fletcher."

He gave an anguished sound. "I haven't! I wouldn't know how! You shan't tack any of your revolting labels on to me!"

At that moment Helen came into the room. Her eyes looked a little heavy, as though from lack of sleep, and the start she gave on seeing Neville betrayed the frayed state of her nerves. "Oh! You!" she gasped.

"I never know the answer to that one," remarked Neville. "I expect it's similarly dramatic, but I can't be dramatic at breakfast. Do sit down!"

"What are you doing here?" Helen asked.

"Eating," replied Neville. "I wish you hadn't come down. I can see you're going to disturb the holy calm which should accompany the first meal of the day."

"Well, it's my house, isn't it?" said Helen indignantly.

Sally, who had risen, and walked over to the sidetable, came back with a cup and saucer, which she handed to her sister. "You look pretty rotten," she said. "Why did you get up?"

"I can't rest!" Helen said with suppressed vehemence.

"Night starvation," sighed Neville.

Helen cast an exasperated glance at him, but before she could retort, the butler came into the room, and said austerely: "I beg your pardon, madam, but Superintendent Hannasyde has called, and wishes to see the master. I have informed him that Mr. North is not yet down. Would you have me wake the master, or shall I request the Superintendent to wait?"

"The Superintendent?" she said numbly. "Yes. Yes, you must tell the master, of course. Show the Superintendent into the library. I'll come."

"What for?" asked Sally, when the butler had withdrawn. "He didn't ask for you."

"It doesn't matter. I must see him. I must find out what he wants. Oh dear, if only I could think!"

"Can't you?" asked Neville solicitously. "Not at all?"

"For the Lord's sake, drink your tea, and don't agitate!" said Sally. "If I were you I'd let John play his own hand."

Helen set her cup and saucer down with ajar. John is not your husband!" she said fiercely, and walked out of the room.

"Now we can resume the even tenor of our way," said Neville, with a sigh of relief.

"I can't," replied Sally, finishing her coffee in a hurry. "I must go with her, and try to stop her doing anything silly."

"I love people who go all out for lost causes," said Neville. "Are you a member of the White Rose League too?"

Sally did not trouble to reply to this, but went purposefully out of the room. Her arrival in the library coincided with that of the butler, who informed Hannasyde that Mr. North was shaving, but would be down in a few minutes.

Helen looked at her sister, with a frown in her eyes. "It's all right, Sally. I don't need you."

"That's what you think," said Sally. "Morning, Superintendent. Why, if it isn't Malachi! Well, that is nice! Now we only want a harmonium."

"A froward heart," said Glass forbiddingly, "shall depart from me. I will not know a wicked person."

Helen, who had not previously encountered the Constable, was a little startled, but Sally responded cheerfully: "Quite right. Evil associations corrupt good manners."

"Be quiet, Glass!" said Hannasyde authoritatively. "You have asked me, Mrs. North, why I wish to see your husband, and I will tell you quite frankly that I wish to ask him to explain his movements on the night of Ernest Fletcher's death."

"And what could be fairer than that?" said Sally.

"But my husband told you! You must remember. Surely you remember! He spent the evening at the flat."

"That's what he told me, Mrs. North, but it was unfortunately not true."

Sally had been engaged in the task of polishing her monocle, but this remark, dropped like a stone into a mill pond, made her look up quickly. "Good bluff," she remarked. "Try again."

"I'm not bluffing, Miss Drew. I have proof that between the hours of 9.00 p.m. and 11.45 p.m. Mr. North was not at his flat."

Helen moistened her lips. "That's absurd. Of course he was. He can have had no possible reason for having said so if it weren't true."

Hannasyde said quietly: "You don't expect me to believe that, do you,. Mrs. North?"

Sally stretched out her hand for the cigarette-box. "Obviously not. According to your idea, my brother-inlaw may have been at Greystones."

"Precisely," nodded Hannasyde.

A flash of anger made Helen's eyes sparkle. "Be quiet, Sally! How dare you suggest such a thing?"

"Keep cool. I haven't suggested anything that wasn't already in the Superintendent's mind. Let's look at things sanely, shall we?"

"I wish you'd go away! I told you I didn't need you!"

"I know you wish I'd go away," replied Sally imperturbably. "The Superintendent wishes it too. It stands out a mile that his game is to frighten you into talking. If you've a grain of sense you'll keep your mouth shut, and let John do his own talking."

"Very perspicacious, Miss Drew," struck in Hannasyde. "But your words imply that there would be danger in your sister's being frank with me."

Sally lit her cigarette, inhaled deeply, and expelled the smoke down her nostrils. "Quite a good point. But I'm nearly as much in the dark as you are. Not entirely, because I have the advantage of knowing my sister and her husband pretty well. Do let's be honest! It must be evident to a child that things look rather black against my brother-in-law. He apparently had a motive for killing Ernest Fletcher; his sudden return from Berlin was unexpected and suspicious, and now you seem to have collected proof that the alibi he gave you for 17 June was false. My advice to my sister is to keep her mouth shut. If her solicitor were here I fancy he would echo me. Because, Mr. Superintendent Hannasyde, you are trying to put over one big bluff. If you'd any real evidence against my brother-in-law you wouldn't be wasting your time talking to my sister now."

"Very acute of you, Miss Drew; but aren't you leaving one thing out of account?"

"I don't think so. What is it?"

"You are preoccupied with the idea of Mr. North's possible guilt. It is quite natural that you should not consider the extremely equivocal position of your sister."

She gave a scornful laugh. "You don't think she had anything to do with it!"

"Perhaps I don't. But I may think that she knows much more than she has told me. You wish me to be frank, so I will tell you that Mrs. North's evidence does not tally with those facts which I know to be true."

Helen came forward, throwing up a hand to silence her sister. "Yes, you told me that the last time you were here. I agree with what Miss Drew says; it is time to be frank, Superintendent. You believe that the man I saw was my husband, and that I recognised him. Is not that so?"

"Let us say, Mrs. North, that I consider it a possibility."

"And I tell you that it is not so!"

"That is what I propose to find out," said Hannasyde. "You yourself have given me two separate accounts of your movements on the night of the 17th. The first was before your husband arrived here on the morning after the murder; the second, which was apparently designed to convince me, first, that the mysterious man seen by you was shown off the premises by Fletcher himself; and, second, that Fletcher was alive at 10.00 p.m., you told me after the arrival of your husband. You will admit that this gives me food for very serious thought. Added to this, I have discovered that Mr. North left his flat at 9.00 p.m. on the evening of the 17th, and only returned to it at 11.45."