She made no reply, but sat there in a boneless huddle, not looking at him.
He watched her for a moment without expression. Then his shoulders lifted a fraction and he turned back to Hippolyte. "Well," he said, "since it appears that Héloïse isn't playing, you'd better let me start."
Hippolyte's face, as he glanced from one to the other looked suddenly very tired. "Very well," he said. "Go ahead. You rang me up in Athens on Monday night to ask me to come home as you were anxious about Philippe. You spoke of accidents, and insisted that Philippe might be in some danger. You also said something not very clear about Philippe's governess. Héloïse, too, spoke of her tonight-also not very clearly. I take it that this is the young woman in question, and that there have been recent and alarming developments which Héloïse has been attempting to explain to me. I must confess to some confusion. I am also tired. I hope you will be very brief and very lucid."
Raoul said: "You can forget Philippe's governess." (That was me-"Philippe's governess." He hadn't even glanced at me. He was a million miles away.) He went on: "She never was in it, except incidentally. The story begins and ends with my father. That was why I said this thing had gone beyond convention. Because your starting-point, mon oncle, is this: your brother-my father-with the help or at any rate the connivance of his wife-has been trying for some time past to murder Philippe."
I heard Héloïse give a faint sound like a moan, and I saw the child turn his head to look at her from the shelter of Hippolyte's arm. I said in a hard little voice I didn't recognise as my own: "Philippe is only nine years old. Also he has just been through a considerable ordeal and is very tired and probably hungry. I suggest that you allow me to take him downstairs to some reliable person in the kitchen."
They all jumped as if one of the shrouded chairs had spoken, then Hippolyte said: "Certainly he should go downstairs. But I should like you to remain here, if you will. Ring the bell, please, Raoul."
Raoul glanced at me, a look I couldn't read, and obeyed.
We waited in silence, and presently the door opened. It wasn't Madame Vuathoux who stood there, but an elderly manservant with a pleasant face.
"Gaston," said Hippolyte, "will you please take Master Philippe downstairs and see he gets something to eat? Have Madame Vuathoux or Jeanne get a room ready for him… the little dressing-room off my own, I think. Philippe, go with Gaston now. He'll look after you."
Philippe had jumped up. He was smiling. The grey-haired servant returned the smile. "Come along," he said, and put out a hand. Philippe ran to him without a backward look. The door shut behind them.
Hippolyte turned back to Raoul. I could see, I'm not sure how, the rigid control he was exerting over face and hands. His voice was not quite steady, but it was as pleasant and gentle as ever. He said: "Well Raoul, you'd better go on with your story. And I advise you to be sure of your facts. You… he's my brother, remember."
"And my father," said Raoul harshly. He knocked the ash off his cigarette into the empty fireplace, with an abrupt movement. "As for my facts, I haven't a great many, but you can have them. I only really came into the story myself"-here his eyes lifted and met mine; they were like slate-"this morning."
He paused for a moment. Then he began to talk.
He said: "I don't have to tell you the background to the story; that my father, if Philippe had never been born, would have succeeded to Valmy, where he has lived all his life and which he loves with what (particularly since his accident) is an obsessive love. When his elder brother didn't marry he assumed that Valmy would be some day his, and he never hesitated to divert the income from his own estate, Bellevigne, into Valmy. I have run Bellevigne for him since I was nineteen, and I know just how steadily, during those early years, the place was milked of everything that might have made it prosperous. My father and I have fought over it time and again… after all, it is my heritage as well, and I wasn't as sure as he that Étienne wouldn't get himself a son one day."
Hippolyte said: "I know. Léon would never listen."
"Well," said Raoul, "Étienne did marry, and get Philippe. I don't intend to distress you with my father's reactions to that fact; mercifully he had the sense to keep them from Étienne possibly so that Étienne would let him go on living at Valmy. But the immediate result was that Bellevigne's income was put back where it belonged, and I had the job of trying to build up what had been steadily ruined for years." Something like a smile touched the hard mouth. "I may say I enjoyed the fight… But last year, Étienne was killed."
He looked down at Hippolyte. "And immediately Valmy started to take the money out of Bellevigne again."
The older man made a little movement. "As soon as that?" Raoul smiled again. It wasn't a nice smile. "I'm glad you're so quick in the uptake. Yes. He must have decided then and there that something had to be done about Philippe. There were six years before the child inherited. The chance would come."
Hippolyte said, hard and sharp: "Be sure of your facts."
"I am. It'll save time and heart-searching if you know here and now that my father has admitted his intention of murdering Philippe."
A pause. Hippolyte said: "Very well. I'll accept that. To whom did he admit this?"
Raoul's mouth twisted. "To me. Content yourself, mon oncle, it's still only a family affair."
"I-see." Hippolyte stirred in his chair. "And so I went off to Greece and handed Philippe over."
"Yes. Somewhat naturally I hadn't tumbled to the significance of what had happened over Bellevigne. One doesn't," said Raoul evenly, "readily assume one's father is a murderer. I was merely puzzled and furious-so furious at being thrown back to the foot of the cliff I'd been climbing that I didn't stop to think out the whys and the wherefores. I just spent all my energy on one blazing row after another. When I went up to Valmy at the beginning of April I thought I'd find out how Philippe was getting on there. I don't pretend for a moment that I thought there was anything wrong; I told you, one doesn't think in that sort of way of one's own family and the people one knows. But-anyway, I went up to Valmy to 'sound’ things, as it were. And things seemed all right. I'd heard Philippe had a new governess, and I wondered-" Here his glance crossed mine Momentarily and he paused. He added: "Valmy was never a house for children, but this time it seemed all right. Then, next day, there was an accident that might have been fatal."
He went on, in that cold even voice, to tell Hippolyte about the shooting in the woods, while Hippolyte exclaimed, and Héloïse stirred in her chair and watched the floor. She made no sound, but I saw that the fragile gold silk of the chair-arm had ripped under her nails. Raoul was watching her now. There was no expression whatever on his face.
"Even then," he said, "I didn't suspect what was really going on. Why should I? I blamed myself bitterly for that later, but I tell you, one doesn't think that way." He dropped his cigarette-stub onto the hearth, and turned away to crush it out with his heel. He said a little wearily, as if to himself: "Perhaps I did suspect; I don't know. I think I may have fought against suspecting." He looked at his uncle. "Can you understand that?"