Patricia Wentworth - Wicked Uncle

At first she couldn’t see anything at all. Like another curtain, the darkness hung close up to the other side of the glass, but after a little it seemed to get thinner, to melt away, to dissolve into a sort of glimmering dusk. The sky was cloudy, as it had been all day, but somewhere behind the cloud she thought the moon must be up, because now that her eyes had got accustomed to the changed light she could see where the trees cut the sky, and the dark line of the drive, and the gravelled square on which the house stood. This window looked out to the side. Yes, that was the boudoir window just below, and the study underneath that again. Mrs. Oakley had told her she could go there and get herself a book if she wanted to, and that is how she had described it- “At the end of the passage, right underneath this room.” And “this room” was the boudoir.

She could see that there was a light in the boudoir. A faint rosy glow came through the curtains. The study curtains were red. If there had been a light behind them, she wondered whether it would have filtered through to stain the dusk outside. Perhaps it wouldn’t. The curtains were very thick scarlet velvet with deep pelmets, and the furniture all chromium-plated tubes, except the desk, which was quite comfortable and ordinary.

She was thinking she would get tired of those surgical-looking chairs and all that scarlet leather, even with a black marble mantelpiece and a black carpet to tone it down, when someone loomed up on the gravel square. One minute he wasn’t there and the next he was. She didn’t see where he came from, she just saw him against the gravel because it was lighter than he was. She couldn’t really see that it was a man, but it never occurred to her for a moment that it wasn’t-something about the outline, something about the way he moved-a quick, thrusting way. He came right up to the study window and turned round and went back again. There was hardly a check, there certainly wasn’t any pause. He went away across the gravel square and over the edge on to the grass, where she lost him. She thought it was very odd.

As she drew back into the lighted room, Doris came in with a tray.

“Mr. and Mrs. Oakley will be dining together, Miss Brown, so I’ve brought your dinner up.”

Mr. and Miss Masterman were the first of Gregory Porlock’s guests to arrive for the week-end. They were rather better than their word, for having said that they would aim at four o’clock, they actually entered the hall at the Grange as the clock struck half past three.

Gregory Porlock came to meet them with a good deal of warmth.

“My dear Miss Masterman! Now what would you like to do-a little rest before tea? Do you know, I think that would be the thing for you, and your brother and I can get our business over before anyone else arrives. That will suit you, Masterman, won’t it?… All right then. Gladys, will you take Miss Masterman upstairs and see she has everything she wants.” His genial laugh rang out. “I’m afraid that would be rather a tall-order for some of us-eh, Masterman?”

Miss Masterman, following a maid in a very becoming dark red uniform, had no answering smile. Her handsome haggard face was stamped with fatigue. She looked as if she had forgotten how to sleep. When Gladys had left her in the comfortable, well-appointed bedroom she walked slowly towards the hearth, as if drawn by the warmth of the fire. She had removed her gloves and had unfastened a rather shabby fur coat. Gregory Porlock had noticed it as she came in-but Gregory Porlock noticed everything. Standing like that, she felt the warmth of the fire beat against the cold of her body. No, it wasn’t just her body that was cold. It was something no fire could ever warm again.

There was a chintz-covered chair drawn up to the hearth. She sank down on it and buried her face in her hands.

In the study Gregory Porlock was pouring out drinks.

“Glad you were able to make it early. More satisfactory to get the business out of the way.”

Geoffrey Masterman resembled his sister rather strongly. No one seeing them together could be in any doubt as to their relationship. Both were tall, dark, and without quite enough flesh to cover their rather decided bones. Of the two the brother was the better looking, the rather bold cast of the family features being more suited to a man than to a woman. Both had fine eyes and strong dark hair with a tendency to curl. Either might have been just under or just over fifty years of age.

Masterman drank from his glass and set it down. If anyone had been watching him very closely-shall we say as closely as Gregory Porlock-it might have been observed that this simple action was rather carefully controlled. In the result, no one could have said that the hand which set the glass down had shaken-no one could have said for certain whether it did not shake because it had no inclination to shake, or because Masterman had not permitted it to do so. From the depths of a comfortable chair he looked across at his host and said,

“My sister told me that you said you had found a satisfactory solution. I should like to know what it is.”

Gregory laughed.

“I told her to say that you needn’t worry. I thought you might be having rather a bad time. By the way, how much does she know?”

“Look here, Porlock, I resent that tone. The fact that someone with a hideously suspicious mind thinks they can make money out of a perfectly baseless charge does not entitle you to talk to me as if either I or my sister were involved in anything of a- well, of a discreditable nature.”

Gregory Porlock finished his own glass, leaned forward, and put it back on the table.

“My dear Masterman, of course not. A thousand apologies if I conveyed any such meaning. But you see, my dear fellow, it isn’t a case of what you say or I think. It’s a case of a witness who has just not quite decided whether she will go to the police. If you don’t mind her going-well, that’s that. But you know how it is, if you get pitch thrown at you, some of it sticks.”

Geoffrey Masterman made an abrupt movement.

“Who is this woman?”

Gregory Porlock was lighting a cigarette. He waited till the smoke curled up, and said casually,

“I’m going to tell you. In our previous very short conversation I informed you that owing to an odd set of circumstances I had come into possession of some rather curious evidence with regard to the death of an elderly cousin of yours, Miss Mabel Ledbury. When I said that the evidence was in my possession, I didn’t of course mean that literally. What I meant was that I had been consulted by the person who said she had this evidence. Well, of course when you hear a thing like that about a friend you can do no less than let him know. I began to tell you about it and we were interrupted. On receiving your note asking for a further interview-really, my dear fellow, it was extremely incautious of you to write-I thought it best to ring up and suggest your coming down here, where we can, I hope, dispose of the whole thing in the most satisfactory manner.”

Masterman reached for his glass, took another drink, and said,

“How?”

“That’s what I’m coming to. But before we go any farther I had better just remind you of what this woman says she saw. I think I told you that she was lying in bed with a broken leg in an upper room in one of the houses in the street next to yours. The backs of the houses in these two streets look at each other across short strips of garden. Your cousin occupied a room exactly opposite that in which this woman lay-I will call her Annie. She had all the time in the world, lying there, and she was deeply interested in her neighbours-she used to watch them through a pair of opera glasses. She became especially interested in Miss Mabel Ledbury, and she formed the impression that you were not being very kind to her.”