“Got rid of her?”
“You’re not kidding me she wouldn’t look after herself in the water. And what about your sister?”
“She wasn’t by any means a champion swimmer. In fact, I was surprised that she went bathing in the early morning.”
“It’s clear to me.”
“What is clear?”
“Well, a man has two wives. They both die in the same way, and not long after he married them. Doesn’t that say something to you?”
“What does it say to you?”
“That it’s a funny business, that’s what. He marries, then gets tired of them, and then it’s goodbye, nice knowing you, but I’ve had enough and it’s time for a change.”
“Oh, no,” I said.
“What else? They both went the same way. Convenient, wasn’t it? There was the sea ready and waiting.”
“But how…?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. It worked once. Why not try again?”
“You don’t know Dermot Tregarland.”
“Don’t know my daughter’s husband, my own son-in-law, you might say.”
“He was that, but you didn’t know him.”
“I was never asked up there, but I knew of him. In any case, they are now gone. My daughter, your sister. Of course he got rid of them.”
“Mrs. Pardell, this is absurd. If he had wanted to get rid of them, he wouldn’t have killed the second in the same way as the first. It makes people wonder. It calls attention…”
“Look here, Miss Denver, you’re too innocent. What about those Brides in the Bath? That man went round murdering women for their money, after he’d married them. He got them in the bath and drowned them. He did several of them that way.”
“This is different.”
“I don’t see how.”
“I know Dermot Tregarland well. He couldn’t commit one murder…let alone two.”
“You’re too trusting, Miss Denver. If you read any of those detective stories you’d see. It’s always the one you’d least suspect.”
“It could have been accidental.”
She shook her head. “You won’t get me believing that. I know how you feel about your sister. Didn’t I go through it all? You’re living up there, Miss Denver. You’ve got to keep your eyes open…that’s what you’ve got to do. You watch out. I reckon something very funny is going on up at that place. Have another cup of tea.”
“No, thanks. I am sure you are misjudging Dermot Tregarland.”
“I wish to God my Annette had never married him. I reckon if she hadn’t she would have been alive today. I’d have got over her having a baby out of wedlock, but I couldn’t get over this. I just want to know…if only I knew…”
“I understand what you mean,” I said. “If one knows, there is nothing to be done, one accepts it.”
“That’s right.” She looked at me shrewdly. “You’re a sensible girl, Miss Denver. You keep your eyes open. See if he’s got another in mind for number three.”
“Oh…I’m sure not. He is absolutely devastated with grief.”
She looked disbelieving. “Well, he would let you think that, wouldn’t he?”
“It’s genuine. I know.”
“Murderers are clever people. They have to be to get away with it.”
“But not two wives, Mrs. Pardell. Not two in the same way.”
“How about that Bluebeard?”
In spite of everything, I could not help smiling.
“Look here,” she said. “Don’t you be too trusting. You watch out. I’m glad you came by. I’ve been thinking about you. It was good of you to bring that plant. I wouldn’t like anything to happen to you.”
“To me?”
“Well, when people start trying to find out what people don’t want brought to light, they’re in danger. It always works that way. You watch out, but don’t let him see you’re watching.”
The picture of Annette smiled at me. She was dead. Her body had been washed up on the beach a few days after she had been drowned. And Dorabella…perhaps one day…hers would be found.
I said goodbye to Mrs. Pardell and promised her I would call again.
I made my way back to Tregarland’s. Poor Mrs. Pardell! I was thinking. We were all the same. Our grief was so intense that we wanted to blame someone, and she had selected Dermot. Poor, brokenhearted, rather ineffectual Dermot. It was difficult to imagine him in the role of Bluebeard. In fact, it was so absurd that I found myself smiling in a way I had not done for some time.
Mrs. Pardell’s words and I thought how very mistaken she was.
He was sitting in the garden looking down the slope to where the sea gently lapped the black rocks.
I went and sat beside him and he smiled at me rather feebly.
I said: “Dermot, you must not brood.”
“And you?” he asked. “Are you brooding?”
“We both have to stop it.”
“I can’t get it out of my mind. Why did she do it? And why wasn’t I here?”
I laid my hand on his arm.
“We have to try to put it behind us.”
“Can you?” he demanded almost angrily.
“No. But we have to try.”
“I keep thinking of her. Do you remember how I first saw you, outside that café place? I looked at her and I knew from that moment. I knew she was the one. She was different from anyone I had ever met. She was so full of gaiety and everything seemed a joke. You know what I mean. You laughed at things just because you were happy, I suspect, not because they were particularly funny.”
“I know what you mean.”
“There was no one like her…and she’s gone. She’s out there somewhere. Do you think we shall ever find her?”
“I just feel that we shall. Poor Dermot, you have been through this…twice.”
His manner changed slightly. He seemed to draw himself up and his face stiffened.
“That,” he said, “was different.”
“She was drowned, too.”
“It wasn’t the same. Dorabella…she was everything.”
“Annette…”
“I don’t talk about that much. But this…I know you cared about her …as I did. She was very close to you, wasn’t she? I was afraid, always afraid that I was going to lose her. Oh, not like this. I thought I shouldn’t be enough for her. She would find someone else. Sometimes…”
“She was your wife, Dermot.”
“I know, but…”
“I don’t understand,” I said. He frowned and I went on: “Tell me…”
“Well, she was not the sort to go on with something just because she was expected to. She had no respect for conventional behavior. She always wanted to break free from it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He was silent and I could see he wished he had not said what he had.
He said: “Annette…she was fun. Jolly, good-hearted. But for the child, it would never have been. With Dorabella it was different.”
“I understand.”
“I can’t settle to anything. It all seems blank and not worthwhile. I leave everything to Gordon…more than ever.”
“Well, you always have, haven’t you?”
“Yes. He’s so capable. He makes me feel…inefficient. I was taking more interest when Tristan came. You see, in time, this will all be his…first mine, of course. But Gordon will always be there. But now this has happened, I just don’t care about anything.”
“But there is Tristan to think of.”
He just sat there, staring out to sea.
“I’m glad you’re here, Violetta. I’m glad you’re with the baby.”
“It was her wish, you know.”
“I know. Nanny is good, but she is getting old now. It is better for the baby to have someone young, and you…you’ll be like his own mother. You will stay here, won’t you?”
I said: “Everything is so uncertain at the moment. I suppose it would be better really if I went to Caddington, taking Tristan and Nanny Crabtree with me.”
“My father is against that.”
“I know. He has made it clear. Well, it is all too soon. We’ll see how it works out.”
I sat with him a little longer and we looked out to sea and thought of Dorabella.