Miles nodded without speaking, since she had paused.
“It was awfully pleasant there. The Brookes were pleasant, or so I thought. I . . . well, you've probably heard that I fell in love with Harry Brooke. I really did fall in love with him, Mr. Hammond, from the start.”
Mile's question, a question he had not meant to ask, was wrung out of him. “But you refused Harry the first time he proposed marriage?”
“Did I? Who told you that?”
“Professor Rigaud.”
“Oh, I see.” (What was that strange, secret, inner amusement about her eyes? Or did he imagine it?) “In any case, Mr. Hammond, we did become engaged. I think I was very happy, because I've always been domestic-minded. We were making plans for the future, when someone began circulating report about me.”
Miles's throat felt dry.
“What sort of reports?”
“Oh, of gross immorality.” Faint colour stained the smooth white cheeks; still she kept her eyelids lowered. “And something else which is really,” Fay half laughed, “too stupid to bother you with. I never heard any of this, of course. But Mr. Brooke must have been hearing for some weeks, though he never said anything. First of all I think he had been getting anonymous letters.”
“Anonymous letters?” exclaimed Miles.
“Yes.”
“Professor Rigaud didn't say anything about that!”
“Perhaps not. It's―it's only what I think, of course. Matters were awfully strained at the house: in the study when Mr. Brooke was dictating, and at meals, and in the evening. Even Mrs. Brooke seemed to guess something had gone wrong. The we came to that awful day of the twelfth of August, when Mr. Brooke died.”
Backing away, never taking his eyes from her, Miles Hammond hauled himself up to sit on the wide ledge of the windows.
The tiny lamp-flames burned clearly; the shadows were steady. But in Miles' imagination this long library might have been swept away. He was again outside Chartres beside the Eure, with its backgrounds at the villa called Beauregard and the stone tower looming above the river. The old scenes took form again.
“What a hot day it was!” Fay said dreamily, and moved her shoulders. “Damp and thundery, but so hot! Mr. Brooke asked me after breakfast, privately, whether I would meet him at Henri Quatre's tower about four o'clock. Of course I never dreamed he was going in to the Credit Lyonnais in Chartres and get the famous two thousand pounds.
“I left the house at shortly before three o'clock, just before Mr. Brooke returned from the bank with that money in his brief-case. You see, I can tell you . . . oh, told the police so often afterwards! . . . all the times. I meant to go for a dip in the river, so I took along a bathing-suit. But instead I simply wandered along the river-bank.”
Fay paused.
“When I left that house, Mr. Hammond”―she uttered a strange, far-off kind of laugh―it was outwardly a very peaceful house. Georgina Brooke, that's Harry's mother, was in the kitchen speaking to the cook. Harry was upstairs in his room writing a letter. Harry―poor fellow!―wrote once a week to an old friend of his in England, named Jim Morell.”
Miles sat up.
“Just a minute, Miss Seton!”
“Yes?”
And now she did lift her eyes, with a quick blue glance, startled, as though she were suddenly wondering.
“Was this Jim Morell,” asked Miles, “any relation to a girl named Barbara Morell?”
“Barbara Morell. Barbara Morell.” she repeated it, and the momentary interest died out of her face. “No, I can't say I have any knowledge of the girl. Why do you ask?”
“Because . . . nothing at all! It doesn't matter.”
Fay Seton smoothed at her skirt, as though earnestly occupied in choosing just what words to say. She seemed to find it a delicate business.
“I don't know anything about the murder!” she exclaimed, with delicate insistence. “Over and over I told the police so afterwards! At just before three o'clock I went for a stroll along the river-bank, northwards, and far beyond the tower.
“You've undoubtedly heard what was happening in the meantime. Mr. Brooke returned from the bank and looked for Harry. Since Harry was by that time in the garage instead of his room, Mr. Brooke walked slowly out of the house to keep his appointment with me―miles ahead of time, really―at the tower. Shortly afterwards Harry learned where he had gone, and snatched up his raincoat and followed Mr. Brooke. Mrs. Brooke 'phoned to Georges Rigaud, who drove out there in his car.
“At half-past three . . . I knew that by my wrist-watch . . . I thought it was time for me to stroll back towards the tower, and went inside. I heard voices talking from the direction of the roof. As I started up the stairs I recognized the voices of Harry and his father.”
Fay moistened her lips.
To Miles it seemed, by the subtle alteration in her tone, that she used by force of habit―sincerely, yet glibly―a series of words made familiar to her by repetition.
“No, I did not hear what they were talking about. It is simply that I dislike unpleasantness, and I would not remain. In going out of the tower I met Monsieur Rigaud, who was going in. Afterwards . . . well! I went for my dip after all.”
Miles stared at her.
“for a swim in the river?”
“I felt hot and tired. I believed it would cool me. I undressed in the woods by the river, as many persons do. This was not near the tower; it was well away from the tower, northwards, on the west bank. I swam and floated and dreamed in the cool water. I did not know anything was wrong until I was walking back home at a quarter to five. There was a great clamour of people round the tower, with policemen among them. And Harry walked up to me, putting out his hands, and said, 'My God, Fay, somebody's killed Dad.'”
Her voice trailed away.
Putting up a hand to shade her eyes, Fay shielded her face as well. When she looked at Miles again, it was with a wistful and apologetic smile.
“Please do forgive me!” she said, giving her head that little sideways toss which made the dim yellow light ripple across her hair. “I lived it again, you see. It's a habit lonely people have.”
“Yes. I know.”
“And that's the limit of my knowledge, really. Is there anything you want to ask me?”
Acutely uncomfortable, Miles spread out his hands. “My dear Miss Seton! I'm not here to question you like a public prosecutor!”
“Perhaps not. But I'd rather you did, if you have any doubts.”
Miles hesitated.
“The only thing the police really could urge against me,” she said, “was that most unfortunate swim of mine. I had been in the river. And there were no witnessed who could testify about the part of the tower facing the river: who went near it, or who didn't. Of course it was perfectly absurd that someone―in a bathing-dress: really―could get up a smooth wall forty feet high. They were compelled to see that, eventually. But in the meantime . . .!”
smiling as though the matter were of no importance now, yet shivering a little nevertheless, Fay rose to her feet. She edged forward among the waist-high piles of books, as though impulsively, before changing her mind. Her head was still a little on one side. About her eyes and her mouth there was a passive gentleness, a sweetness, which went straight to Mile's heart. He jumped down from the edge of the window-sill.
“You do believe me?” cried Fay. “Say you believe me!”
Chapter VIII
Miles smiled at her.
“Of course I believe you!”
“Thank you, Mr. Hammond. Only I thought you looked a little doubtful, a little—what shall I call t?”