Patricia Wentworth - Out of the Past

“Darsie thinks it does me harm to talk, but she is quite mistaken. I have been ill, but I am much better now. And though Alan behaved very badly and I never did like that French girl, people ought not to be murdered. And I would not like any innocent person to be suspected.” She was taking her neat, even stitches as she spoke.

Frank Abbott said,

“That is why we hoped that you would help us, Mrs. Anning.”

His quiet cultured voice gave her confidence. She laid down her embroidery frame.

“What do you want me to say?”

“We want you to tell us just what you remember about Wednesday night.”

She was sitting in a rather upright chair. Her grey hair had been fluffed out and made the most of, and there was a faint flush on her cheeks. Darsie’s dark colouring must have come from the other side of the family. Mrs. Anning’s skin was fair, and her eyes blue. She said,

“Oh, I remember everything.”

“Then will you tell us just what happened?”

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again with a wondering expression.

“Oh, yes-I went out-I don’t remember why-I sometimes do when.it has been hot…No, that wasn’t the reason! I remember now, I was looking out of the window and I saw Alan going down the garden.”

“What time was this?”

“I don’t know-it was late. I couldn’t sleep, and when I saw Alan I thought I would go after him.”

“What made you think of doing that?”

She said in a pettish tone,

“Darsie wouldn’t let me see him, and there were things I wanted to say, so I thought it would be a good opportunity.”

“Were you dressed?”

“Oh, no. But I put on my nice dark blue dressing-gown, and I had my bedroom slippers-so soft and comfortable.”

“And you followed Alan Field?”

“Oh, yes, I followed him. Not too close, you know. It was very pleasant on the cliff path, and I wanted to see where he was going. When he went down the path to the beach I went after him. When I got to the bottom he was over by the Cliff Edge hut with his torch on, opening the door. I waited until he had gone inside, and then I went there too. I thought perhaps he would hear me on the shingle and come out again, but he didn’t-and I really made very little noise in those soft slippers. Or perhaps he thought I was someone else, because of course he was expecting someone.”

She paused with a small complacent smile and looked about her. Miss Silver who had been so kind-this nice policeman who reminded her of the young fellows who used to come about the house in the old happy days-the other Inspector, writing down what she said-they were all pleased with her. She could feel them being pleased. But not Darsie-oh no, not Darsie. She gave a small defiant shrug and turned away from the rigid disapproval of Darsie’s face and figure.

Miss Silver sat in one of the small straight chairs which she preferred. She wore a dress of grey artificial silk with a pattern which reminded Frank of black and white tadpoles. On her head the black straw hat from which she had judged it seemly to remove a bunch of coloured flowers. Her hands in Dorothy’s cream net gloves were folded in her lap. She had heard Mrs. Anning’s tale before, and she listened to it now with the approval due to a pupil who is acquitting herself well.

“And then?” said Frank Abbott.

“I heard someone else on the shingle. She made a great deal more noise than I did-but then of course she hadn’t got nice soft slippers like mine. I stood up against the back of the hut, and with the dark scarf I had put over my hair she didn’t see me at all. She went round to the front, and I heard her speaking to Alan.”

“Could you hear what they said?”

She gave a curious little laugh, like a child who feels it is being clever.

“They were quarrelling-dreadfully. Not loud, you know, but she sounded as if she hated him.”

“Mrs. Anning-did you know who it was?”

She looked at him with surprise.

“But of course I did! We all knew each other so well in the old days. It was Adela Castleton.”

Inspector Colt wrote the name down.

Frank Abbott said, “What were they quarrelling about?”

“Letters,” said Mrs. Anning. “He wanted to publish them, and she didn’t want him to. They weren’t hers-Adela wasn’t like that. They were her sister’s. It was all a long time ago, and she was only a young girl. And young girls do very foolish things, because they think they know everything and they don’t.”

The tears came up into her eyes and brimmed over. To Darsie Anning they seemed to fall in scalding drops upon her very heart. She set herself to endure.

Mrs. Anning was speaking again.

“He wanted her to give him money, and she said she would. They talked about how much it was to be. They had stopped quarrelling. It didn’t seem like Adela any more.”

“Do you mean you were not sure that it was Lady Castleton?”

“Oh no, it was Adela. But it wasn’t like her to give way like that-it frightened me. And she said, ‘You can have it now- I’ve got my cheque-book with me. Just give me that book of Esther’s to write on.’ And then all at once he gave a kind of a groan and fell down, and she laughed. I didn’t know what had happened-I don’t see how I could. When you know people, you don’t think about them stabbing anyone. I just thought he must have tripped over something, and however badly he had behaved, I didn’t think Adela Castleton ought to have laughed. And then, before I had time to think anything more, I heard someone else coming across the shingle.”

“Mrs. Maybury?”

Mrs. Anning looked mildly astonished.

“Oh, no-not then. It was two people. One of them was that French girl whom I never liked, Marie Bonnet-and I suppose I ought not to say so now, because Darsie tells me she has been murdered too. Only you can’t really like people just because they have got themselves murdered trying to blackmail someone-for of course that is what she must have been trying to do.”

“Please go on, Mrs. Anning. One of the people who was coming down to the hut was Marie Bonnet. Who was the other?”

“It was a man-a foreign man. It is curious that foreigners never really lose their accent, isn’t it? I could hear it when he spoke to Marie. He said, ‘I will control myself-I will control myself. But I must see whether he has the paper. If he has, then he is my brother’s murderer, for only with his life would Felipe have parted with it.’ ‘Now,’ I thought, ‘what will Adela Castleton do? If she comes out they will see her, and if they go in they will see her, and that will look very odd.’ And I thought it very odd that there wasn’t any sound from inside the hut-nothing from Adela, and nothing from Alan. It really did seem very strange.”

“Yes-go on.”

She looked from one to another of them like a child seeking for reassurance. Miss Silver supplied it.

“You are doing very well indeed, Mrs. Anning. Pray continue.”

“The man put on a torch, and they went round to the door of the hut. And then they both called out-not loud, you know, but as if there was something dreadful. Marie said, ‘O mon dieu! Il est mort!’ and the man said a lot of things that sounded like Spanish or Portuguese. My husband and I made a tour in Portugal once at the time of the vintage, such lovely grapes and so cheap, and that is what it sounded like. Only when he was talking to Marie they spoke English. She said, ‘Quick, quick-we must come away!’ And he said, ‘No, no, no-not until I see if he has the paper!’ She said he was mad, and they would be mixed up in a murder. And he said she didn’t understand-it was his uncle’s letter telling them where the treasure was, and he would be mad if he let it go. And then, I think, he must have found it, because he began to talk his own language again, all very quick and excited and rather as if he was swearing. Marie went on saying that they must get away, and all at once he was in a hurry too. Then she said they mustn’t go back up the path, they must find a pool where he could wash and on round the next point and up another way. They went away down the beach, and Adela Castleton came out of the hut, but she hadn’t got as far as the cliff, when we could hear someone else coming down from the cliff path. Adela didn’t come back. She must have stood close in under the cliff to hide. I went farther round the hut, and I waited to see who was coming now. There was a sound as if someone had tripped over the threshold and come down. Whoever it was called out, and there was the flicker of a torch. So I looked round the front corner of the hut, and there was a girl with very fair hair and a white dress. She had a torch in her hand and it was shaking. One minute the beam went up in the air, and the next minute it shone down on a dagger that was sticking in Alan’s back. That was when I knew he must be dead. It didn’t seem as if it could be real. He deserved to be punished, you know, but it isn’t right to murder people, and I was sorry for the girl, because it wasn’t her fault. Of course she ought not to have come there, but it must have been a dreadful shock. She was making little crying noises under her breath, and when she got up the front of her dress was most dreadfully stained. She went away, and I was just thinking of going myself, when a man came down the path. I didn’t want to have to wait any longer, but of course I had to. I really did think Darsie would miss me if I didn’t get away soon, because sometimes these hot nights she looks in and gets me a drink. She doesn’t sleep very well, I’m afraid, and she is always so very good to me.”