"What do you mean?" Then I saw. I finished in a voice that wasn't a voice at alclass="underline" "You mean that when the cable came and they made their plan, it did include me? That they've given me a motive for murder? That they can't risk another 'accident' without a scapegoat ready to hand in case things go wrong and people ask questions? Is that what you mean?"
Berthe said simply: "Why else should he ask you to marry him?”
"Why else indeed?" I said.
I had checked up again on Philippe. He still slept peacefully. The house was quiet. I tiptoed back into my bedroom and reached for my dressing-gown.
Berthe said: "Is he all right?"
I was putting the dressing-gown on with hands that shook and were clumsy. "Yes. You realise, I suppose, that the likeliest time for anything to happen is tonight, now, and everybody's out at the dance except Mrs.
Seddon?”
" Mr. Seddon didn't go. He stayed with her."
"Oh? Well, I'd trust them all right, but she's ill and I doubt if he'd be much use-even if they'd believe us, which isn't likely." I found my slippers and thrust my feet hastily into them. "Will you stay with Philippe and mount guard over him? Lock his door and window now."
"What are you going to do?"
"The only possible thing. What's the time?"
"Going on quarter past one. I-we came away early."
"Did Bernard come up with you?"
"Yes." She didn't look at me. "I persuaded him to bring me up in the brake. It wasn't difficult. He-he's asleep now in my room." She finished in a thin little voice: "It was awful, driving up that zigzag with him so drunk still…"
I was hardly listening. I was reflecting that, apart from the Seddons, we were alone in the house with Léon de Valmy and Bernard. Thank God the latter still had to sleep it off. I said: "Was Madame de Valmy at the dance?"
"Yes, but she'll have left by now. She never stays long."
"I see. Now can I get to the telephone in Seddon's pantry without being heard or seen? Does he lock it?"
"No, miss. But he goes to bed at midnight and he always switches it through to the Master's room then."
Something fluttered deep in my stomach. I ignored it. "Then I'll switch it back again. How d'you do it?"
There’s a red tab on the left. Press it down. But-he might hear it. Miss-what are you going to do? "
"There's only one thing I can do. We must have help. D'you mean that if I use the telephone it'll ting in the Master's room or something? Because if so I can't use it. And I can't go out and leave Philippe. You may have to go for the police yourself if you can-"
"The police?"
I was across at the door that gave on to the corridor, listening. I turned and looked back at her in surprise.
"Who else? I must tell the police all this. They may not believe me, but at least I can get them up here and if there's a fuss it'll make it impossible for another attempt on Philippe to be made. And tonight or tomorrow Monsieur Hippolyte gets back and he can take care of Philippe when the row's over and I've been sent-home."
"No!" said Berthe so violently that the syllable rang, and she clapped a hand to her mouth.
"What d'you mean?"
"You're not to go to the police! You're not to tell anyone! "
"But my dear girl-"
"I came to tell you because you've been kind to me, because I liked you and Philippe. You've been so good to me-always so nice, and there was the dress and-and all. I thought you might have got mixed up in it somehow, with Monsieur Raoul and all that… But you mustn't let on I told you! You mustn't!"
The new fear had sharpened her voice, so that I said urgently: "Be quiet, will you! And don't be a fool! How can you expect me to say nothing-"
"You are not to tell them about Bernard! You can go away if you're afraid!"
I must have looked at her blankly. "Go away?”
"If it's true what we said, and you're likely to be blamed for a murder! You can make an excuse in the morning and leave straight away! It's easy! You can say you don't want to marry him after all, and that you know you can't stay as governess after what's happened. It's likely enough. They can't make you stay anyway, and they won't suspect."
"But, Berthe, stop! That’s only guesswork! And even if it’s true you can't seriously suggest that I should run away and leave Philippe to them?"
"I'll look after him! I'll watch him till Monsieur Hippolyte gets back! It's only one day! You can trust me, you know that. If you upset their plans and they've nobody to blame, maybe they won't do anything."
"Maybe they will," I rejoined grimly, "and blame you in-stead, Berthe."
"They wouldn't dare. Bernard wouldn't stand for it."
"You're probably right. But I'm not risking Philippe's life on any 'maybes'. And you don't understand, Berthe. The thing to be stopped isn't my being involved, but Philippe's murder! I know you came to warn me, and I'm grateful, but there's simply no question of my leaving. I'm going to ring the police now."
Her face, paper-white, had flattened, featureless; starched linen with two dark holes torn for eyes. "No! No! No!" Hysteria shook her voice. "Bernard will know I've told you! And Monsieur de Valmy! I daren't! You can't!"
"I must. Can't you see that none of these things matter? Only the child."
"I'll deny it. I'll deny everything. I'll swear he never said a word or that I spoke to you. I'll say it's lies. I will! I will!"
There was a little silence. I came away from the door. "You'd do-that?"
"Yes. I swear I would."
I said nothing for a bit. After a few seconds her eyes fell away from mine, but there was a look in her face that told me she meant what she said. I fought my anger down, reminding myself that she had lived all her life in Valmy's shadow, and that now there was the best of reasons why Bernard should still be willing-and free-to marry her. Poor Berthe; she had done a good deaclass="underline" more I could hardly expect…
"Very well," I said, "I'll leave you out of it and I won't mention Bernard. We'll let the past die and just deal with the future. I'll put it to the police as simply my own suspicions. I'll think of something. And then I'll go straight along to Léon de Valmy and tell him that I've spoken to them. That should put paid to him as effectively."
She was staring at me as if I were mad. "You'd-dare?”
I had a sudden inner vision of Philippe in Raoul's arms. "Oh yes," I said, "I'd dare."
She was shivering now, and her teeth were clenched as if she was cold. "But you mustn't. He'd guess about Bernard-and me. Someone'd tell him Bernard was drunk tonight. He'd know. You can't do it."
"I must and will. Don't be a fool, Berthe. You know as well as I do that I've got to…"
"No, no, no! We can look after him! With two of us he'll be all right. It's only for one day. We can watch Bernard-"
"And Madame? And Léon de Valmy? And God knows who else?"
She said blindly, hysterically: "You are not to tell! If you don't swear not to go to the police I shall go to Bernard now! He'll be sober enough to stop you! "
I took three strides to the bedside and gripped her by the shoulders. "You won't do that, Berthe! You know you won't! You can't!”
Under my hands her shoulders were rigid. Her face, still pinched and white, was near my own. My touch seemed to have shaken the hysteria out of her, for she spoke quietly, and with a conviction that no scream could have carried: "If you tell the police, and they come to see the Master, he'll guess how you found out. And there'll be a fuss, and he'll just deny everything, and laugh at it. They'll say that you-yes! they'll say you tried to marry Monsieur Raoul and were slighted and you're doing it out of spite, and then the police will laugh too and shrug and have a drink with the Master and go away…"