I said soothingly: "I know you did. It's all right. Don't worry now. We'll get you home, and-"
"You wouldn't really have been blamed for the accidents, you know. We didn't mean to blame you. We never meant at the beginning to make you responsible."
"No."
"Léon liked you too. He said you were gallant. That was the word. He said: 'She's a gallant little devil and it'd be a pity if we had to bring her down.' "
Raoul said very quietly, from behind me: "And just what did he mean by that?"
Madame de Valmy took no notice. She seemed oblivious of anyone but herself and me. She held my hands and looked at me with those pale dazed eyes, and talked in that tired monotone that she didn't seem to be able to stop. "He said that just a day or so ago. Of course, after the second accident on the balcony we were going to have to dismiss you, you know. He said you were too wide-awake and now you'd begin to suspect us if anything else happened. We were pleased when you gave us the excuse to send you away. You thought I was angry, didn't you?"
"Yes, madame."
"Then we got the cable. We had to do something in a hurry. There were the rumours in the village about you and Raoul, and about your being dismissed, but Léon said it might come in useful later anyway, if the village had been linking your names."
Behind me I heard Raoul take in his breath as if to speak. I said quickly, to divert her: "Yes, madame, I know. Albertine started to talk, didn't she? Well, don't think about that now."
"She never knew what we were trying to do," said Madame de Valmy. "But she didn't like you. She never liked you. It was she who told me about the muddle you'd made with the prescriptions that time. She only told me to show you up. She thought I'd think you careless and silly. It was only spite. But that's what made us think of the poison, you see. That was the only reason we thought of using those pills. We weren't trying to fix it on you, Miss Martin. It was to have looked like an accident. It was in the glucose, you understand. The poison was in the glucose that you used every night to make his chocolate with."
"Madame-"
"Luckily there wasn't much left in the tin, so we soaked the blue colour off the tablets and powdered them up and made a strong mixture. Too strong perhaps. It may have been bitter. He didn't take it, did he?"
"No. But that wasn't why." I turned desperately to Hippolyte, who was standing silently over by the desk. "May I ring and ask for some coffee, Monsieur de Valmy? I really think-"
"We hadn't time to think of anything better," said Héloïse. "It was to look like an accident. If he had taken it and died they might not have thought of murder. Those anti-histamine pills are blue. The doctor might have thought he'd taken them as sweets. Children do. We meant to empty out the rest of the glucose and leave one or.two pills by his bed. There were some in a jar on your mantelpiece, where he might have found them and eaten them. You mightn't have been blamed. They would have thought you'd forgotten to give them to Mrs. Seddon. Léon said you might not be blamed even then."
Behind me Raoul said: "Just what are you talking about, Héloïse?"
She looked up at him with that dead, sleep-walker's look. She seemed to have forgotten her outburst. She answered him mechanically: "The poison. It wasn't a very good plan, but we had to be sure and it was all we could think of that might look like an accident. But he didn't take it. It's all right. She said so. I was just explaining to her that we didn't mean her any harm. I like her. I always did."
I said quickly: "Madame, you're upset. You don't know what you're saying. Now we're going to have some coffee, and we'll see you home.”
Across me Raoul said: "And if Miss Martin had been blamed? If murder had been suspected? You had made it common knowledge, hadn't you, that she and I-that there might be an interested reason to get rid of
Philippe?"
She said nothing. She stared up at him.
"Was that what my father meant when he said that the gossip 'might have been useful later'?"
I heard Hippolyte begin to say something, but Raoul cut across it. "On Tuesday night, Héloïse… who was it found Philippe had gone?"
"Léon did. He stayed awake. We were going to empty out the rest of the glucose and-"
"So you said. He found Philippe gone. And then?"
"He thought he must have felt ill and gone for Miss Martin. But there was no light there. She'd gone too."
"And when he couldn't find them, what then?"
"He sent Bernard out to look for them."
Raoul said: "With what instructions?"
She said nothing. Under the hammering of his questions she seemed to have come partly to life again. Her eyes were conscious now, blinking nervously up at him.
"With what instructions, Heloise?"
Still she didn't answer. She didn't need to. Her features seemed to flatten out and melt like candlegrease. Hippolyte said, harshly: "That's enough, Raoul."
"Yes," said Raoul. "I think it is."
He walked out of the room and shut the door behind him.
For a moment nobody moved. Then Héloïse came to her feet, thrusting me aside so that I fell over on the rug.
She stood there with her hands slack at her sides. She said, almost conversationally: "Léon. He's gone to kill Léon." Then she crumpled beside me on the rug in a dead faint.
I left her there. I remember leaping to my feet to stand like a fool on the rug beside her, gaping at the shut door. I remember Hippolyte starting forward and shouting: "Raoul! Come back, you fool!" He was answered by the slam of the front door. He turned with a sound like a groan and jumped for the telephone. I remember that, as he touched it, it began to ring.
Before it had threshed once I was out on the gallery and racing for the head of the stairs. There were steps behind me and William's hand caught at my arm. "Linda, Linda. Where are you going? Keep out of this. You can't do a thing."
Outside an engine roared to violent life. A door slammed. The Cadillac gained the road, paused, whined up through her gears, and snarled away into the silence.
I shook off William's hand and fled down the curving stairs. Across the hall, and struggling with the heavy
door… William reached over my shoulder and yanked it open. The lamp over the door showed the dark circular drive walled in with misty trees… a big black car… a battered jeep… the scored grooves in the gravel where the Cadillac's tyres had torn their circle. The smell of her exhaust hung in the air.
I ran out.
William caught at my arm. "For God's sake, Linda-"
"We've got to stop him! We've got to stop him!"
"But-"
"Didn't you understand? He's gone to kill Léon. He said he would, and they'll have to kill him for it. Don't you understand?"
He still held me. "But what can you do? You've been mixed up in enough of their dirty game as it is. Let me take you away. There's nothing you can do. You said yourself it was finished. What's it to you if they murder each other?"
"Oh, dear God, what's it to me? William"-I was clinging to him now-"William, you have to help. I-I can't drive a car. Please, William, please, please-"
The night, the misty trees, the solitary lamp in its yellow nimbus were all part of the roaring horror that enveloped me, that was only my own blood pounding in my ears…
He said quietly: "Very well, let's go," and his hand closed over mine for a moment. As the world steadied around me I saw that he was opening the door of the jeep.
I said shakily: "No. The other." I ran to the big Chevrolet and pulled the door open. It was the Valmy car. Héloïse must have had it down to the airport to meet Hippolyte.