Patricia Wentworth - The Key

She took a long time to answer that. Then she said, ‘No.’

He looked at her sharply.

‘Tell me about the other people in the house. Tell me about Madoc. That show he put up at the inquest – was that genuine, or was it a stunt? Is he like that all the time?’

‘Oh, yes – he really is. He doesn’t put it on – he’s like that.’

‘Gosh!’

She was looking at him again. There was a sparkle behind the brown lashes.

‘You’d say so if you worked for him.’

‘What does he do?’

‘Scolds – calls you names – things like atomy -’

Garth burst out laughing.

‘My poor child! You can sue him for libel.’

‘I shouldn’t have stayed if it hadn’t been for Mr Harsch.’

Garth was grave again.

‘How did they get on?’

‘Oh, you couldn’t quarrel with Mr Harsch – nobody could. He always said Mr Madoc didn’t mean anything, and just went on being nice.’

‘There was no quarrel between them, then?’

‘Oh, no.’

‘Jan, what happened on Tuesday night – after Harsch went out? Do you sit with the Madocs in the evening – were you all together?’

She said slowly, ‘Miss Madoc and I were together.’

‘And Madoc?’

‘He hardly ever sits with us.’

‘Where does he sit?’

‘In the laboratory. It’s really his study too. He’s got his writing-table there, and all his books.’

‘Did you see him at all on Tuesday evening after Harsch went out?’

‘Not till he was going up to bed.’

‘When was that?’

‘About a quarter past ten.’

‘Then you can’t say for certain whether he left the house or not. You don’t know that he didn’t leave it?’

Her eyes changed. She looked down again.

He put a hand on her arm.

‘Jan, you’ve got to tell me! Did he go out – do you know that he went out?’

In a whisper which yet seemed not to have enough breath to carry it, she said, ‘He often goes out-’

The hand on her arm felt very strong, very warm, very insistent. She wasn’t sure whether she was shaking just of herself, or whether Garth was shaking her. His voice wasn’t loud, but it meant to have an answer.

‘Did he go out on Tuesday night?’

Janice said, ‘Yes.’

The hand let go, but she was still shaking. The voice went on.

‘How do you know?’

‘I heard the front door. You can’t help hearing it.’

‘It couldn’t have been anyone else? Who else is there?’

‘Only the housekeeper, Mrs Williams, and she’d die before she went out in the dark. She’s a townswoman really, from Cardiff. She only stays because she adores Mr Madoc.’

So Madoc had gone out. He wondered where he had gone.

‘When did he go?’

‘It was just before we turned on the nine o’clock news.’

‘And when did he get back?’

Her voice went away to a whisper again. She said, ‘It was about ten minutes past ten.’

SILENCE FELL BETWEEN them. The sky was very blue overhead and the sun shone, a little wind went whispering through the wood. Garth tilted his head and watched a small white cloud move very slowly just above the line where the downs cut the sky. All the way between, the land ran upwards in a gentle even slope. A very quiet, peaceful land. Sound of the light wind moving among summer leaves. Sound of the Bourne water slipping idly over its stones. Sound of the wind in its bordering willows. The stream ran down the farther edge of the field and then slid into the wood no more than a dozen yards from the stile.

Janice watched him, and wondered what he was thinking about. She had always liked to watch him when he was thinking, and it was quite safe, because his thoughts took hold of him and made him forget that anyone else was there. She thought he hadn’t changed at all, but then of course the three years between twenty-four and twenty-seven don’t make such a lot of difference to a man. The long, lightly built figure; the thin, dark face; the rather grave mouth; the marked brows with the upward kink which somehow gave him an impatient look; the eyes grey where you would have expected them to be brown; the hair so dark as to be almost black – all these things were as familiar to her as her own face in the glass. Dear and familiar too the knowledge that the grave lips could take on the most mischievous smile, and that when they did this the slant of the eyebrows no longer spelled impatience, but served to set an accent upon laughing, teasing eyes. She had thought a hundred times, ‘He’ll fall in love with a fair-haired girl – he’s simply bound to. She’ll be pink and plump, and she’ll have lovely blue eyes and a most frightfully sweet temper, and they’ll be very, very happy. And if you’re going to be stupid enough to mind , you’ll get hurt, and it will be your own fault and nobody else’s.’

Garth brought his eyes down from the sky, and said abruptly, ‘What is going on between Madoc and Miss Medora Brown?’

It was partly because she had been caught looking at him that the startled colour ran right up to the roots of her short brown curls, but he wasn’t to know that. She gave a little gasp.

‘Miss Brown?’

‘Miss Medora Brown.’

‘Is anything going on between them?’

‘I’m asking you.’

Janice got hold of herself.

‘What makes you think there’s anything between them?’

‘Well, I just do. Don’t you really know anything about it?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘What sort of terms are they on?’

‘I don’t know – I’ve never thought about it. I suppose they know each other, but she doesn’t come to the house or anything like that.’

‘Does he go to Aunt Sophy’s?’

‘He goes when there’s music – sometimes, when he’s not busy. He really does love music’

‘And Medora is musical.’ There was a note of sarcasm in his voice.

Janice looked distressed.

‘What do you mean, Garth? She plays beautifully, and she has a very good voice. There wouldn’t be anything wrong if they did like each other. I’ve never thought about it at all.’

He leaned suddenly forward and took her by the wrist.

‘Look here, Jan. Last night Aunt Sophy sent me to her left-hand top bureau drawer for a snapshot of the Pincott girl who had triplets. That’s where she keeps her church key, isn’t it? Weil, it wasn’t there. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know it ought to be there, and Miss Brown didn’t see anything because she was playing the piano with her back to us. Somewhere after midnight I looked out of my window and I saw Miss Brown come up the garden in the black lace dress she had worn at dinner. You can think she was just taking the air, or you can think she had slipped out into the Church Cut to meet someone.’

‘But, Garth-’

‘Oh, she’d been out into the Cut all right. Tommy Pincott smashed a milk bottle there yesterday. Miss Brown picked up a splinter, and I found it on the stair carpet before anyone was up this morning. I wondered who she’d been meeting, because I don’t think you go out into the Cut at midnight just to enjoy your own society. And in the middle of the inquest I found out all, because when your Mr Madoc crossed his legs I could see the sole of his boot, and he had picked up a splinter too.’

‘Garth-’

‘Wait a minute. When we got back from the inquest I led Aunt Sophy to her bureau drawer to show her that the key wasn’t where Miss Brown had just been swearing she put it. And there it was, spang on top of the triplets. Very careless of Medora, but I expect she was feeling flustered. If she’d had the sense to put the key under the photograph she could have sworn it was there all the time, but the only way it could have got on top was the way it did get there. She put it there sometime between bedtime last night and lunch-time today. My own guess is that someone else has had the key since Tuesday, that she’s been in a most awful stew about it, and that she went out last night to get it back. I heard the study door creak when she went, and I saw her come back. She wasn’t away for more than a quarter of an hour, so she didn’t go far. When I saw that Madoc had got a bit of glass stuck in his rubber sole, I thought I knew who it was she had gone to meet, and when I saw that the key was back in Aunt Sophy’s drawer, I thought I knew why.’