Ngaio Marsh - Death At The Bar

ii

Decima had promised to come to Coombe Head at eight o’clock. Cubitt lay on the lip of the cliff and stared at the sea beneath him, trying, as Alleyn had tried, to read order and sequence into the hieroglyphics traced by the restless seaweed. The sequence was long and subtle, unpausing, unhurried. Each pattern seemed significant but all melted into fluidity and he decided, as Alleyn had decided, that the forces that governed these beautiful but inane gestures ranged beyond the confines of his imagination. He fell to appraising the colour and the shifting tones of the water, translating these things into terms of paint, and he began to think of how, in the morning, he would make a rapid study from the lip of the cliff.

“But I must fix one pattern only in my memory and watch for it to appear in the sequence, like a measure in some intricate saraband.”

He was so intent on this project that he did not hear Decima come and was startled when she spoke to him.

“Norman?”

Her figure was dark and tall against the sky. He rose and faced her.

“Have you risen from the sea?” he asked. “You are lovely enough.”

She did not answer and he took her hand and led her a little way over the headland to a place where their figures no longer showed against the sky. Here they faced each other again.

“I am so bewildered,” said Decima. “I have tried since this morning to feel all sorts of things. Shame. Compassion for Will. Anxiety. I can feel none of them. I can only wonder why we should so suddenly have fallen in love.”

“It was only sudden for you,” said Cubitt. “Not for me.”

“But — Is that true? How long…?”

“Since last year. Since the first week of last year.”

Decima drew away from him.

“But, didn’t you know? I thought last year that you had guessed.”

“About Luke? Yes, I guessed.”

“Everything?”

“Yes, my dear.”

“I wish very much that it hadn’t happened,” said Decima. “Of that I am ashamed. Not for the orthodox reason but because it made such a fool of me; because I pretended to myself that I was sanely satisfying a need, whereas in reality I merely lost my head and behaved like a dairymaid.”

“Hullo,” said Cubitt. “You’re being very county. What’s wrong with dairymaids in the proletariat?”

“Brute,” muttered Decima and, between laughter and tears, stumbled into his arms.

“I love you very much,” whispered Cubitt.

“You’d a funny way of showing it. Nobody ever would have dreamed you thought anything about me.”

“Oh yes, they would. They did.”

“Who?” cried Decima in terror. “Not Will?”

“No. Miss Darragh. She as good as told me so. I’ve seen her eyeing me whenever you were in the offing. God knows I had a hard job to keep my eyes off you. I’ve wanted like hell to do this.”

But after a few moments Decima freed herself.

“This is going the wrong way,” she said. “There mustn’t be any of this.”

Cubitt said, “All right. We’ll come back to earth. I promised myself I’d keep my head. Here, my darling, have a cigarette, for God’s sake, and don’t look at me. Sit down. That’s right. Now listen. You remember the morning of that day?”

“When you and Sebastian came over the hill?”

“Yes. Just as you were telling Luke you could kill him. Did you?”

“No.”

“Of course you didn’t. Nor did I. But we made a botch of things this morning. Seb and I denied that we saw Luke as we came back from Coombe Head and I think Alleyn knew we were lying. I got a nasty jolt when he announced that he was going to see you. I didn’t know what to do. I dithered round and finally followed him, leaving Seb to come home by himself. I was too late. You’d told him?”

“I told him that Luke and I quarrelled that morning because Luke had tried — had tried to make love to me. I didn’t tell him… Norman: I lied about the rest. I said it hadn’t happened before. I was afraid. I was cold with panic. I didn’t know what you and Sebastian had told him. I thought if he found out that I had been Luke’s mistress and that we’d quarrelled, he might think… They say poison’s a woman’s weapon don’t they? It was like one of those awful dreams. I don’t know what I said. I lost my head. And that other man, Fox, kept writing in a book. And then you came and it was as if — oh, as if instead of being alone in the dark, and terrified, I had someone beside me.”

“Why wouldn’t you stay with me when they’d gone?”

“I don’t know. I wanted to think. I was muddled.”

“I was terrified you wouldn’t come here to-night, Decima.”

“I shouldn’t have come. What are we to do about Will?”

“Tell him.”

“He’ll be so bewildered,” said Decima, “and so miserable.”

“Would you have married him if this hadn’t happened?”

“I haven’t said I would marry you.”

“I have,” said Cubitt.

“I don’t know that I believe in the institution of marriage.”

“You’ll find that out when you’ve tried it, my darling.”

“I’m a farmer’s daughter. A peasant.”

“The worst of you communists,” said Cubitt, “is that you’re such snobs. Always worrying about class distinctions. Come here.”

“Norman,” said Decima presently, “who do you think it was?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Cubitt pressed her hands against him and, after a moment, spoke evenly. “Did Will ever guess about you and Luke?”

She moved away from him at arm’s-length. “You can’t think Will would do it?”

“Did he guess?”

“I don’t think — I—”

“I rather thought he had guessed,” said Cubitt.

iii

When Alleyn had gone out, the atmosphere of the taproom changed. Parish began to talk to Abel, Miss Darragh asked Legge when he was moving into Illington, Mr. Nark cleared his throat and, by the simple expedient of shouting down everyone else, won the attention of the company.

“Ah,” he said. “Axing the road to Shankley Court, was he? Ah. I expected it.”

Abel gave a disgruntled snort.

“I expected it,” repeated Mr. Nark firmly. “I had a chat with the Chief Inspector this morning.”

“After which, in course,” said Abel, “he knew his business. All he’s got to do is to clap handcuffs on somebody.”

“Abel,” said Mr. Nark, “you’re a bitter man. I’m not blaming you. A chap with a tumble load on his conscience, same as what you’ve got, is scarcely responsible for his words.”

“On his conscience!” said Abel angrily. “What the devil do you mean? Why doan’t ’ee say straight out I’m a murderer?”

“Because you’re not, Abel. Murder’s one thing and negligence is another. Manslaughter’s the term for your crime. If proper care had been took, as I told the Chief Inspector; though, mind you, I’m not a chap to teach a man his own business—”

“What sort of a chap did you say you wasn’t?”

Miss Darragh intervened.

“I’m sure,” she said, “we all must hope for the end of this terrible affair. Whether ’twas accident, or whether ’twas something else, it’s been a dreadful strain and an anxiety for us all.”

“So it has then, Miss,” agreed Abel. He looked at Legge who had turned his back and was engaged, with the assistance of a twisted handkerchief, on an unattractive exploration of his left ear. “Sooner they catch the murderer the happier all of us’ll be.”

Parish caught Abel’s eyes and he too looked at Legge.

“I can’t believe,” said Parish, “that a crime like this can go unpunished. I shall not rest content until I know my cousin is avenged.”