Patricia Wentworth - Danger Point

“She must have caught at that bush. See where it’s broken.”

March’s voice was a little dry as he answered.

“Yes – we noticed that. I think myself it puts suicide out of the question. If you were going to throw yourself over a cliff you would want to get on with it – you wouldn’t choose a place where you had to run down a slope like that before you could get to the edge.”

Rafe said, “I suppose not.” He stepped back a pace or two. “Well? What’s the great idea? Why the personally conducted tour?”

March began to walk away.

“What’s the nearest way down to the beach from here?”

“Don’t you know?” He laughed suddenly. “I’m sure you do – and I’m sure that even the most suspicious mind can’t hold it up against me if I know too. After all, I was born and brought up here. So now we both know that there’s a way down the cliff where that path we came by joins the headland. It’s a bit of a scramble, but it’s a perfectly feasible proposition.”

March looked at him.

“Did you go down that way on Wednesday night?”

He got the pleasantest smile in the world.

“You can’t go down if you haven’t come up. I’m afraid you haven’t got a frightfully good memory. I keep telling you that I didn’t leave the beach on Wednesday night.”

March opened his lips to speak and shut them again. A forward step had taken him to the top of a small hillock, and as he gained it his eye caught the sun on a moving whiteness, the flutter of a scarf in the wind. He came down off the rise with a run, rounded a high clump of gorse, and found himself face to face with Lady Steyne. Rafe, behind him, said,

“Hullo, Alicia!”

She met them with rather a chilly smile.

“Why, what are you doing up here? My scarf’s caught, Rafe. Get it off those thorns without tearing it if you can.”

“It was your scarf I saw, ” said March, and waited while Rafe dealt with it.

“We’re taking a walk – if you don’t stand still, darling, the darned thing will tear. Pleasure and instruction combined – scene of the tragedy – official observations on it. In fact, a thoroughly profitable morning. There – I’m pricked to the bone, but I don’t think I’ve bled on to your scarf.”

“I don’t know why I put it on – I’m boiled. I’ve been looking for my clip.” She turned to March. “Oh, Inspector, you will ask your men to look out for it, won’t you? I must have dropped it when I was up here with Dale the other night – a big sort of half buckle in emeralds and diamonds. I didn’t miss it till this morning, and I must have dropped it up here, because I know I had it on Wednesday, and I haven’t worn it since.”

“Is it valuable, Lady Steyne?”

“I expect so – emeralds and diamonds, you know. But I don’t know what it cost – it was a present. I should simply hate to lose it.”

“Well, if you can tell me whereabouts you were-”

She threw out an impatient hand.

“My dear man, we were all over the place! It’s the old needle and haystack game. I suppose I had better offer a reward.”

“How near the cliff did you go?”

“Not nearer than this. That’s why I was looking here. But it’s too hot to go on. I’ve got my car in the lane. Like a lift, Rafe?”

“If the Inspector has finished with me. Perhaps he would like a lift too.” He turned to March. “How did you come over – motor-bike, push-bike, car?”

“Car. If Lady Steyne will really give me a lift back to Tanfield Court, I shall be very grateful.”

Alicia said, “Oh, yes.” And then, “And you’ll find my clip for me, won’t you? I expect I’d better say a fiver for the reward.”

LISLE went out into the garden and sat under the cedar. There was always shade there even at high noon. She lay back in the swinging canvas chair and closed her eyes.

Fingerprints on her coat – handprints… She felt sick – and not only with distaste. There was a kind of horror about it. All those unseen, unnoticed prints, starting out with their black accusing stains – handprints – fingerprints – everything handled, damaged, blurred. It wasn’t only a coat that had been spoiled, it was everything. Six months ago when she had stepped into this new world, how bright, and clear, and beautiful everything had been – love, marriage, home, friendship – a family ready made for a girl who had never had one – there couldn’t have been a fairer prospect anywhere. And now it was all dashed and spoiled, the colours faded, the sunlight gone-

A line that she had heard somewhere came into her head:

“Thinned into a common air like the rainbow breath of a dream.”

When had that begun to happen? She looked back, and she couldn’t tell. There had been an imperceptible withdrawal, as gradual as the ebbing of daylight or the tide.

The tears came up under her eyelids but did not fall, and presently they dried there. She began to think what she could do. A wave of terror went over her. Perhaps she could go away – for a time. But in her heart of hearts she knew that if she went now she would never come back. She shrank at the thought. The world was wide, but it promised her loneliness, not freedom. She found that she was afraid of this promise.

She sat up, and saw Dale coming across the lawn with an impatient step. He was bare-headed and very good to look at. All at once the foolish things which she had been thinking seemed morbid and foolish. She felt sharply ashamed, and the colour rose to her cheeks.

Dale flung himself into a chair and said in a voice as impatient as his step,

“Where do you get to these days? I want to talk to you.”

“I went into Ledlington with Rafe.”

He frowned.

“Why Rafe? I would have driven you. Never mind, we’ll talk about that another time. Look here – I’ve heard from Tatham, and it’s take it or leave it. He’s got to have an answer by the end of the month, yes or no, and if Robson won’t be reasonable” – he lifted a hand and let it fall again – “well, it’ll just have to be yes.”

Her heart contracted. She said gently,

“I’m sorry, Dale.”

“Are you?” He sat up, leaning towards her eagerly. “Are you really? I believe you are. Lisle – what about having one more go at Robson? Will you? He might relent – you never know – and I should feel we’ve done everything we could. Don’t you see what I mean? I don’t want to look back afterwards and think, ‘Why didn’t we do this?’ or ‘Why didn’t we do that?’ or, ‘Perhaps Robson would have given in if we’d had one more shot.’ Darling, don’t you see?”

She nodded. It was easier than speaking. When he looked at her like that, it brought back all the times when the same look had said, or she thought that it had said, “I love you.” Now it seemed to her that it only meant, “This is something I want. Give it to me.” She had always tried to give him what he wanted. She must go on trying.

He sprang up and pulled her to her feet.

“You will? Oh, darling ! Come along and we’ll see what we can do in the heart-melting line! We’ve got plenty of time before lunch. Everyone else seems to be out. Come along to the study and draft a letter!”

Lisle was to look back on the next half hour with a bewildered sense of strain. What she could not remember was how many drafts she made for a letter which was never to be despatched. Odd phrases, telling arguments, appeals, dispassionate reasoning – Dale swung from one to the other, suggesting, dictating, adding and altering.

“Take another piece of paper! Now try this! No, no, no – that won’t do! Take a fresh piece – that’s written on! How does this sound? Take it down!”