“Will you go on please?”
“O.K. Yes. Well, that lasted quite a long time — just the three of us, here. And then Dr. Mayne came in to see Miss Pride. He examined the cut on her neck and he told us it would probably be too rough for us to cross the channel tomorrow. He and Mrs. Barrimore were saying ‘Good night’ when Major Barrimore came in.”
So far, Jenny had spoken very steadily, but she faltered now and looked at Miss Emily. “It’s — it’s then that — that things began to happen. I…”
Miss Emily, with perfect composure, said: “In effect, my dear Rodrigue, there was a scene. Major Barrimore made certain accusations. Dr. Mayne intervened. A climax was reached and blows were exchanged. I suggested, aside, to Jenny, that she solicit your aid. The fracas continued. A glass was broken. Mrs. Barrimore screamed and Mr. Patrick arrived upon the scene. He was unsuccessful and, after a renewal of belligerency, Major Barrimore fell to the floor. The actual fighting came to a stop, but the noise was considerable. It was at this juncture that the radio was introduced. You entered shortly afterwards.”
“Does everybody agree to this?”
There was no answer.
“I take it that you do.”
Dr. Mayne said: “Will you also take it that whatever happened has not the remotest shade of bearing upon your case? It was an entirely private matter and should remain so.” He looked at Patrick and, with disgust, at Major Barrimore. “I imagine you agree,” he said.
“Certainly,” Patrick said shortly.
Alleyn produced his stock comment on this argument. “If it turns out there’s no connection, I assure you I shall be glad to forget it. In the meantime, I’m afraid I must make certain.”
There was a tap at the door. He answered it. Fox, Bailey and Thompson had arrived. Alleyn asked Fox to come in and the others to wait.
“Inspector Fox,” he said, “is with me on this case.”
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” Fox said.
They observed him warily. Miss Emily said: “Good evening, Mr. Fox. I have heard a great deal about you.”
“Have you, madam?” he rejoined. “Nothing to my discredit, I hope.” And to Alleyn: “Sorry to interrupt, sir.”
Alleyn gave him a brief summary of the situation and returned to the matter in hand.
“I’m afraid I must ask you to tell me what it was that triggered off this business,” he said. “What were Major Barrimore’s accusations?”
Nobody answered. “Will you tell me, Miss Emily?”
Miss Emily said: “I cannot. I am sorry. I–I find myself unable to elaborate upon what I have already said.” She looked at Alleyn in distress. “You must not ask me,” she said.
“Never mind.” He glanced at the others. “Am I to know?” he asked and, after a moment: “Very well. Let us make a different approach. I shall tell you, instead, what we have been doing. We have, as some of you know, been at Miss Cost’s shop. We have searched the shop and the living quarters behind it. I think I should tell you that we have found Miss Cost’s diary. It is a long, exhaustive and, in many places, relevant document. It may be put in evidence.”
Margaret Barrimore gave a low cry.
“The final entry was made last night. In it, she suggests that as a result of some undefined insult she is going to make public certain matters which are not specifically set out in that part of the diary but will not, I think, be difficult to arrive at when the whole document is reviewed. It may be that, after she made this last entry, she wrote a letter to the press. If so, it would have gone into the shop mailbag.”
“Has it gone out yet?” Patrick asked sharply.
Alleyn said coolly: “Oh, yes. Being Sunday, you know.”
“It must be stopped.”
“We don’t, normally, intercept Her Majesty’s mail.”
Barrimore said thickly: “You can bloody well intercept this one.”
“Nonsense,” said Dr. Mayne crisply.
“By God, sir, I won’t take that from you. By God!” Barrimore began, trying to get to his feet.
“Sit down,” Alleyn said. “Do you want to be taken in charge for assault? Pull yourself together.”
Barrimore sank back. He looked at his handkerchief, now drenched with blood. His face was bedabbled and his nose still ran with it. “Gimme ’nother,” he muttered.
“A towel, perhaps,” Miss Emily suggested. Jenny fetched one from the bathroom.
“He’d better lie down,” Dr. Mayne said impatiently.
“I’ll be damned if I do,” said the Major.
“To continue,” Alleyn said: “The facts that emerge from the diary and from the investigation are these. We now know the identity of the Green Lady. Miss Cost found it out September thirtieth year before last. She saw the impersonator repeating her initial performance for a concealed audience of one. She afterwards discovered who this other was…You will stay where you are, if you please, Major Barrimore…Miss Cost was unwilling to believe this evidence. She began, however, to spy upon the two persons involved. On June seventeenth of this year she took a photograph at the spring.”
Dr. Mayne said: “I can’t allow this!” and Patrick said: “No, for God’s sake!”
“I would avoid it if I could,” Alleyn said. “Mrs. Barrimore, would you rather wait in the next room? Miss Williams will go with you, I’m sure.”
“Yes, darling,” Jenny said quickly. “Do.”
“Oh no,” she said. “Not now. Not now.”
“It would be better,” Patrick said.
“It would be better, Margaret,” Dr. Mayne repeated.
“No.”
There was a brief silence. An emphatic gust of wind battered at the window. The lights flickered, dimmed and came up again. Alleyn’s hearers were momentarily united in a new uneasiness. When he spoke again, they shifted their attention back to him with an air of confusion.
“Miss Cost,” he was saying, “kept her secret to herself. It became, I think, an obsession. It’s clear from other passages in her diary that, sometime before this discovery, she had conceived an antagonism for Major Barrimore. The phrases she uses suggest that it arose from the reaction commonly attributed to a woman scorned.”
Margaret Barrimore turned her head and, for the first time, looked at her husband. Her expression, one of profound astonishment, was reflected in her son’s face and Dr. Mayne’s.
“There is no doubt, I think,” Alleyn said, “that during her first visit to the Island their relationship, however brief, had been of the sort to give rise to the later reaction.”
“Is this true?” Dr. Mayne demanded of Barrimore. He had the towel clapped to his face. Over the top of it his eyes, prominent and dazed, narrowed as if he were smiling. He said nothing.
“Miss Cost, as I said just now, kept her knowledge to herself. Later, it appears, she transferred her attention to Dr. Mayne and was unsuccessful. It’s a painful and distressing story and I shan’t dwell on it except to say that up to yesterday’s tragedy we have the picture of a neurotic who has discovered that the man upon whom her fantasy is now concentrated is deeply attached to the wife of the man with whom she herself had a brief affair that ended in humiliation. She also knows that this wife impersonated the Green Lady in the original episode. These elements are so bound up together that if she makes mischief, as her demon urges her to do, she will be obliged to expose the truth about the Green Lady — and that would be disastrous. Add to this the proposal to end all publicity and official recognition of the spring, and you get some idea, perhaps, of the emotional turmoil that she suffered and that declares itself in this unhappy diary.”
“You do, indeed,” said Miss Emily abruptly and added: “One has much to answer for, I perceive. I have much to answer for. Go on.”
“In opposing the new plans for the spring, Miss Cost may have let off a head of emotional steam. She sent anonymous messages to Miss Pride. She was drawn into the companionship of the general front made against Miss Pride’s intentions. I think there is little doubt that she conspired with Trehern, and egged on ill-feeling in the village. She had received attention. She had her Festival in hand. She was somebody. It was, I daresay, all rather exciting and gratifying. Wouldn’t you think so?” he asked Dr. Mayne.