Victoria Holt: The Secret Woman

But I am fond of you, Anna. It is something I never thought possible, so perhaps there are yet more secret recesses of my mind which I don’t understand myself.

So I decided that when Redvers came home he was going to die.

And that is what I intended tonight. I had worked on Monique. I had deliberately roused her jealousy, oh very subtly. I had seen how useful Suka could be. It was going to be easy. His jealous wife was going to murder the erring husband and that murder was going to take place either tonight or tomorrow night, when the Captain was in this house. I was waiting my opportunity. I knew it would come because she loved to make coffee. She was proud of it because it was her only domestic virtue. I had told her that she made it better than anyone else in the house. I only had to wait for the moment. Tonight he had been talking to you in the garden. Suka knew it and she had told Monique, who made coffee for him in her own room where she had a spirit lamp. She made it and I put something in his coffee, Anna. I shall not tell you what. It was something that would act quickly. Something which was comparatively — but not quite — tasteless. He was excited. He was thinking of you. I didn’t think he would notice that slight acrid taste. When she had made the coffee I said that I thought her blue negligee was more becoming than her red, and she acted as I knew she would and went into the adjoining room to change it. I then did what was necessary. I put the deadly drug into the coffee, stirred it well and when she came back in the blue negligee everything was set.

I went away to wait. I was so excited, so tense. I paced up and down my room waiting.

I have never done anything as big as this. It was very different helping sick old women out of the world. I was not entirely sure what effect a large quantity of the drug would have. I must be ready, prepared to say the right thing, to do the right thing when the time came. I was trembling and apprehensive.

I thought some coffee would steady my nerves. I was going to make some, but as I came out into the corridor I saw Pero; I did not want to risk talking to anyone in my state. I did not want to go to the kitchen. I most dreaded seeing Suka. She has an uncanny way of guessing. No, I could not face that old woman — which I might well do if I went to the kitchen — not when I had just made a murderess of her darling Missy.

So I said to Pero: “Would you make me some coffee and send it up to my room. I am very tired. It has been a busy day.”

She is always eager to please; she said she would; and ten minutes later she came back.

I poured out the coffee; it was very hot but I never cared for hot coffee. I gulped down a cup and poured out another … and then … I began to taste that unusual taste.

I looked at the fresh cup I had poured out. I sniffed it. There would be no odor, but a horrible suspicion had come to me. I told myself I was imagining it. It couldn’t be.

But I had to satisfy myself. I found Pero in the kitchen.

I said to her: “You made me some coffee, Pero.”

“Yes, Nurse.” She looked frightened; but then she always looks frightened, always fearful of complaint.

“You made it yourself … ?”

“Why, yes, Nurse.”

I felt better. I realized that my skin was cold although I felt as though my body was on fire. I reminded myself that I must be careful. People were going to be talking about coffee a great deal in this house.

“It was not good, Nurse?”

I did not answer.

“Missy Monique made it,” she said.

“What?”

“For the Captain, but he did not drink it. He was called to the ship. So, I heat it up for you.”

I heard myself say: “I see.”

So now you understand. You can see how one must take every possibility into consideration if one is to be certain of success. This house of economy! It was something I had forgotten. You have to think of everything, and the most irrelevant details can prove your downfall.

And here is your letter, Anna. I took it. I was going to use it. I had not yet put it where she could find it. She will never see it now. It would have been useful, you see. It would have been found in her room and would naturally have been part of the motive.

But everything is changed now. The truth will come out. It is better for Rex this way. He could never have gone through with this without me, and now he will stand alone.

“A long farewell to all my greatness.” You see, I quote to the end. Goodbye to you, Anna. Goodbye to Rex.

I dropped the sheets of paper and Redvers’ letter to me; I ran to Chantel’s room.

She was lying on her bed.

“Chantel,” I cried. “Chantel.”

But she lay still unheeding. I knew that I was too late, but I knelt by her bed, taking her cold hand and crying: “Chantel, Chantel: come back to me.”

That happened more than two years ago, but the memory of that terrible night will never leave me. I could not believe what she had written. It was only the sight of her lying there dead that brought home the reality to me. Redvers took charge of everything. I think I lived in a bemused state for weeks afterward. I kept going over parts of my life with Chantel. I dreamed of her gay mocking beauty. To me she had been the sister I had always wanted; I suppose I had been that to her. She had had an affection for me; there was softness in her; there was kindness; and yet how could she have planned such diabolical actions? The murderess was the secret woman in her, the woman I should never have believed existed if she herself had not shown her to me.

Events happened fast. A week or so before Chantel’s death that old nurse — Gareth Glenning’s stepmother — had died and when she knew her end was near she confessed to Lady Crediton what she knew. Chantel had been right when she had said that it would have been impossible to ward off the inevitable discovery by the blackmailers.

Lady Crediton wanted Edward brought back to England without delay and later I took him back to England but not on Serene Lady .

Lady Crediton received me with some respect. She said that in view of what had happened and the shock it may well have been to Edward — he had become very important to her now — she hoped that I would stay with him for a while in my old capacity for it would be somewhat inconvenient if I did not. So I stayed on at the Castle.

Monique had remained on the Island. Madame de Laudé, with whom I was in communication about her furniture, wrote to me often; she said that the new doctor — a young man with modern ideas — had charge of Monique and was very hopeful of her case.

I had not seen Redvers; he had reached England before Edward and I arrived and was gone again on another voyage by the time we came. He was the heir to the vast Crediton empire but he extended to Rex the same generous treatment he had accorded Dick Callum. Rex remained in the same capacity to the firm that he had before it was known that he was not the true heir, and stayed in Australia for the rest of the year and I heard that he had married Helena Derringham.

Madame de Laudé, who was delighted because I had been able to arrange for the sale of some of her furniture, kept me informed. The Flame Men had received their reward for recovering the diamonds and what was more important they had convinced themselves that it was an alien goddess who had caused the accident so that when the injured boy reached manhood he would lose nothing by bearing the scars of going into battle against an enemy and surviving. They believed that the Fire Goddess had sent their servant in the form of a nurse who now lay buried in the Christian cemetery. The Flame Men laid red flowers on Chantel’s grave at the time of Grand Celebration and had vowed to do this forever.