Patricia Wentworth - Ladies’ Bane

“Where are they?” The words came quick and panting.

“I told you-in a safe place. If you shoot me, the police will have them.”

Jacqueline came a step nearer-a step-and another step. Under the grey wig and old-fashioned bonnet her eyes flared. Then with an unbelievable effort she controlled herself and took two slow paces back again. Her mind worked on the things which Ione could have done with those pages. Cloakroom at Wraydon-at the terminus-she could have made them up in a packet. Or she could have bought an envelope and posted them-to herself-to Geoffrey. If it was the cloakroom, there would be a ticket-it would be in her bag-she could use it when Ione was dead. She said,

“The cloakroom-you put them in the cloakroom!”

“Oh, no.”

“Then you posted them! You wouldn’t let a weapon like that right out of your hand, would you? You posted them to yourself! Or to Geoffrey! Yes, to Geoffrey, so that you could make him send me away! Very clever, but not quite clever enough, because I shall see to it that the letter never reaches him! And even if it did-even if it did-I shall have done too much for him-a great, great deal too much! He can never do without me now!”

Ione’s hands held one another. They must not shake. Her voice sounded cool and sceptical as she said,

“That sounds very grand, but what exactly have you done besides telling Margot she could take that rope? And supplying Allegra with morphia?”

For a moment she thought that the revolver would go off-there was such a blazing fury in Jacqueline’s eyes. And then quite suddenly she laughed.

“Margot put that down? She had been hinting about it on and off for quite a time, but I wasn’t sure how much she knew until just at the end. She would have had to go some time, but that meant I had to get on with it. You see, she was threatening to go to you. Oh, you can look at me, but if you knew how sick I was of the creature-her tricks, her slyness, the way she came between us! I tell you it was she who made Geoffrey break off with me! He was afraid she might notice something! As if I cared!”

Ione said,

“He was fond of her.”

Jacqueline laughed scornfully.

“That’s Geoffrey to a T! Don’t you know him yet? He is fond of people. It makes life so easy and pleasant. He was fond of Margot-he is fond of Allegra. He was getting quite fond of you. He was even kind enough to be fond of me!”

“Yes-he told me so.”

Under the elderly make-up Jacqueline had turned quite white. The effect was rather dreadful.

“I’ve done everything for him!” she said. “Just everything! He couldn’t have settled up Edgar’s affairs without me. I knew them inside out. I could have done more if I had gone out with him to Alex. He wouldn’t take me-because of Margot. But I got him to put in Muller as manager, and we were able to carry on with the dope business without Geoffrey knowing. Of course Muller had to go slow and watch his p’s and q’s, and there wasn’t much for me to do on the receiving end for a bit, but we were getting going again, and Geoffrey thought his affairs were looking up. And then that fool Muller had to go and get himself arrested!”

Ione looked at her and said,

“Why did you meddle with Allegra? What harm had she done you?”

“What harm! She had taken Geoffrey, hadn’t she! But that wasn’t the reason. I may have my emotions, but I don’t let them interfere with business. We had to have money. And then it turned out that there was not so much as we thought, and that Allegra couldn’t even leave her share to Geoffrey whilst you were alive. So you came into it. She had to have your money, and then Geoffrey would have it all.”

“When Allegra had been got out of the way?”

“Oh, yes. An overdose-so easy with a morphia addict.”

“And me? That push in the back on the island at Wraydon-that wasn’t really meant for Allegra, was it? It was meant for me.”

“Clever, aren’t you!” said Jacqueline Delauny. Her whole voice and manner had coarsened. “But I wasn’t on the island, you know.”

“The Professor was,” said Ione-“Professor Regulus Mactavish-The Great Prospero. And now I will tell you something you don’t know. I heard him talking in a London fog. He had his foot in a half-open door, and he was saying that he wouldn’t risk his neck for less than two thousand pounds.”

It was a shot in the dark, but when Jacqueline caught her breath and came out with “Where-where were you?” she knew that it had come off. She said,

“I followed him-we met Jim Severn. You gave the Professor his orders, but he wasn’t very good at carrying them out, was he?”

“He’s a fool!” Jacqueline’s voice was full of scorn. “I was born in the show business, and he has been useful once or twice. His daughter can’t do without our stuff, and he’ll do most things to get it for her. But when the island business didn’t come off he wouldn’t go on-said it wouldn’t be lucky for any of us.” Her voice went down into sombre depths. There was a silence before she said in quite a casual tone. “So I had to take it on myself. And meanwhile Flaxman started in to blackmail Geoffrey. He heard Margot say that he had told her she could have the rope. Well, he had to be got out of the way before I could deal with you. Child’s play of course. The fool was running after Nellie Humphreys-I knew he slipped out to see her most nights. Easy enough to get word to her father-of course he never knew it came from me. After that I only had to watch my opportunity. Actually it fell out better than even I could have planned. The violent row and the charge of shot-well, they were just plain gifts from the gods. I’m born lucky, you know. Whatever Prospero may say! So that finished up the Flaxman business, and I was ready to deal with you.”

Ione had become less and less able to feel anything at all, but at this moment she felt a crawling horror. It might have been the matter-of-fact way in which Jacqueline spoke of Flaxman’s death as a slight but necessary preliminary to her own murder, or it might have been that the shock which she had received was passing, and with it the merciful numbness it had induced. She said,

“You can’t reckon up your luck till the end-and the Professor warned you.”

Jacqueline had a sudden startled look. There was angry protest in her voice.

“Prospero! I tell you he had cold feet! Him and his Scotch second sight! He can’t come that sort of stuff over me-I’ve known him too long! I tell you I was born in the show business! And I’d have been there still if I hadn’t had the wits to climb out of it! Prospero’s my uncle-do you hear? He’s my mother’s brother, and that poor girl his daughter is what I might have been if I hadn’t got out! Fell from the high wire when she was no more than a kid! And a cripple for life! That’s why she has to have the dope! You and your smug complacency, what do you know about the way people live? You’ve always had money-background-security, where I’ve only had what I could get for myself! And what I’m going to get is everything that you have always had! And I’m going to enjoy shooting you to get it! There’s something heavy coming now-as soon as it is right under the windows I shall shoot! I hope you’re ready-“ The jeering note slackened on the last word and petered out.

Through the noise of the approaching lorry Ione was aware of movement in the hall. She did not hear Jim Severn’s hurried tread, but she felt it. All lesser sounds were lost in the approaching roar, but under her feet the floor-boards shook.

Things take so long to tell, and they happen so quickly. What had reached Ione reached Jacqueline a bare second later. Her voice failed. The door, already partly open, was kicked wide. A large bright green earthenware jug came hurtling through the air to send Jacqueline Delauny crashing back against the wall. The noise of the breaking china with all the weight of a full jug of water behind it was joined with the appalling racket outside. The solitary shot which missed everything except a hideous Majorcan vase was hardly noticeable in the general din.