Patricia Wentworth - Danger Point

Lisle laughed a little and said,

“What about the girl friends? Perhaps they want an ideal too.”

“The girl friends are all right,” said Rafe. “As far as they are concerned, I am ideal to flirt with, but when it comes down to brass tacks they’re out for someone who can provide a much classier pram than it would run to with me. The female of the species is more practical than the male.”

“You are a fool, Rafe!”

“The fool died of a broken heart,” he said. His white teeth showed in a sudden grin. “I’ve made you laugh anyway. I had a bet with myself that I would – so I’ve won, and you owe me sixpence halfpenny.”

“What for?”

“Petrol, I expect. What are you going to do when my thumb is all right? I can’t keep it sprained much longer or there’ll be some harsh words flying. Dale won’t let you drive his car, will he?”

“I can get Evans.”

“Or Dale?” He waited a minute and then repeated the words – “Or Dale?”

She flushed and said without looking at him,

“He’s busy – you know he is. And he hates shopping.”

“I shall have to spin that sprain out. I say, that would make an awfully good tongue-twister, wouldn’t it? But to hark back – who was your girl friend? I’ve told you about mine.”

The oddest impulse surged up in Lisle and took charge.

“You’d love her. She quotes Tennyson too.”

“The little dumpy woman who spoke to you after the inquest?”

“Rafe! How did you know?”

“A flash of genius. Who is she?”

They had turned into Crook Lane and were slowing for the hairpin bend. She put up a hand to the window ledge and gripped it.

“Mind coming down here?” said Rafe quickly.

“A little.”

“Better do it every day until you don’t. That’s brutal common sense. You’re quite safe, you know, honey-sweet.”

Lisle said, “Am I?” in a queer flat voice. She kept her hand on the window ledge until they were round the corner where her car had smashed against Cooper’s barn. Then she drew a sighing breath and let it fall.

“Go on about the girl friend,” said Rafe. “Can’t I meet her? We could swap quotations. Who is she, and why have I never heard of her before?”

Lisle only answered one of the questions. The impulse driving her, she said,

“She’s a detective. At least she calls it ‘Private Investigations Undertaken’ on her card, but I expect that’s what it means – don’t you?”

Rafe said nothing at all. She looked at him and saw his profile rather as Miss Silver had seen it at the inquest – the brown skin tight across the line of cheek and jaw, the lips without movement, locked and inexpressive. The odd thought went through her head that if she had seen a picture of him like this she might not have recognised it. It was just as if he was not alive.

And then all in a moment the impression broke. His face was the familiar one again, quick with movement and expression. He laughed and said,

“I expect so. Where did you pick her up?”

“In a train.”

“And she leapt at you and said, ‘Let me privately investigate you.’ Was that it?”

The impulse which had carried Lisle as far as this died suddenly. She saw with relief that they were approaching the big stone pillars from which two heraldic beasts grinned down malevolently upon all who came to Tanfield Court. If she waited until they had turned in… She measured the distance along the path with her eye. No – she couldn’t wait so long as that. She must speak – say something. If she didn’t, he would think – what would he think? What did it matter what he thought? It did matter.

This was all in one flash of agonised, struggling thought. She made herself laugh and say,

“Would you like to know?”

They ran smoothly between the pillars and left the grinning beasts behind. Rafe said drily,

“Yes, I should very much. Are you going to tell me?”

“I don’t know.” Her lips smiled, but her secret thought cried in her with something like despair. “He’ll know all the same – he knows now. If I could tell him – I can’t !”

He said, “Hadn’t you better?” and caught the very faint movement of her head which said “No.”

As they drew up by the steps leading to the house, he was laughing again.

“Supposing I ask the sleuth herself – do you suppose she’d tell me?”

“There’s nothing to tell.” She opened the door and got out.

Rafe’s voice followed her.

“Shall I try my luck?”

She ought to have laughed and said something light, but she couldn’t manage it. She only shook her head again and ran up the steps and into the house.

THE black and white hall was cool and shadowy after the strong heat and light outside. Lisle went up the shallow marble steps past the tortured Actæon on the half-landing, past all those white tormented shapes of death and grief, to her own room. Here the gloom was of another kind. Not stark tragedy but outworn respectability made it a kind of catacomb of Victorian taste. The impression which it always induced came upon her with more than its usual force. The windows stood wide, the middle one a two-leafed door opening upon the narrow parapeted balcony. Lisle threw a cushion on to the sill and sank down upon it, her head against the jamb, her hands in her lap. The sun was on the other side of the house and the breeze was cool from the sea. She stayed like that for a long time. Miss Silver’s words came and went in the empty spaces of her mind. She watched them there…

Presently she began to think again. It was just as if part of her had gone numb and was coming back to life. She had been able to talk and laugh with Rafe on the way home because the numb thing had not begun to hurt. It was beginning to hurt now. Miss Silver’s words kept sounding in her ears: “Change your will. Alter your will. Ring up your solicitor. Change your will. Ring up your solicitor at once. Tell him to destroy your will. Make some excuse. Alter your will. Change your will. Everything to your husband? Any other legacies? Any other substantial legacies? Twenty thousand pounds to Rafe. Would that be a substantial legacy? Change your will. Alter your will. Tell them that you have changed it. Tell everyone.”

She thought about that… “Leave all the money to a charity and tell them what I’ve done…” There was nothing to stop her doing it here and now. She had only to cross to the bed, take up the telephone, and call Mr. Robson. She could do that and have it done in a quarter of an hour… And then go down and tell Dale, and Rafe, and Alicia that she thought one of them was trying to murder her. Because that was what it amounted to. ‘I’m destroying the will that makes it worth your while. If anyone murders me now they may get themselves hanged, but they won’t get any money and they won’t save Tanfield. “ Just exactly that was what it amounted to.

Lisle closed her eyes and wished that she was dead already and out of it. If she was dead she wouldn’t mind who had her money. She didn’t mind now. She only minded having to think that someone wanted it so much that they would do murder to get it. She thought about that, and she thought about being dead, and it came to her that she couldn’t take Miss Silver’s advice. If they were trying to kill her they must try. She couldn’t defend herself – not that way. Anything that came must come from them. If her marriage was to be broken – and she thought it was broken already – it must be Dale who broke it. She could not put her own hand to it. If Rafe… Her thought faltered. Twenty thousand pounds – was friendship worth no more than that? He had said that he hated her. Perhaps they all hated her. Alicia did, but she was an open enemy. “The wounds with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.” She thought, “That’s in the Bible – but I have no friends in this house-”