She swallowed convulsively. “Clay dear, go downstairs now! I — I really feel so upset about this that I must be alone for a little while. It’s so appalling — I never dreamed! I think I’ll lie down for a time.”
But when he had left the room she remained seated in her chair, clasping and unclasping her hands in her lap, her eyes travelling round the room as though in search of some way of escape. They alighted presently upon the two bottles of veronal, standing side by side upon the shelf above the wash-stand, and she began at once to consider how she could best dispose of the empty one which should have been full. An impulse to conceal it in one of her drawers made her start from her chair, only to sink back again as she reflected that nothing could be more fatal than for the bottle to be found in such a place. She knew very little about police procedure, but she believed that they might search the house very strictly. Then she thought that she would be better advised to leave the bottle where it was, since everyone knew that she alone amongst the household was in the habit of taking drops of veronal when she could not sleep. In the few detective novels which she had read, efforts at concealment had almost invariably proved the criminal’s undoing. It would be wiser to do nothing; to leave the bottle in full view would even appear, perhaps, to the police as a strong reason for believing her innocent. And if they did suspect her, and made inquiries about her relations with Penhallow, although it would be found that Penhallow had frequently been unkind to her, it must also be found that she had borne his unkindness for twenty years, and had never in all that time quarrelled with him. Her step-children might despise her, but they knew that she was not the kind of woman who would murder her husband. They knew nothing of the brief madness which had possessed her on the previous evening; apparently they regarded the very possibility that she might be the guilty person in the light of a joke. No one had seen her enter Penhallow’s room: of that she was certain. Without considering who might become implicated in her place, she began to reflect that anyone could have poisoned Penhallow’s whisky, and with the veronal prescribed for her, since she kept it in full view in her room, and had never made any secret of her possession of it.
She remembered Jimmy suddenly, and stirred uneasily in her chair, for although she disliked Jimmy she would have thought his arrest for a crime which he had not committed a more dreadful thing than the murder itself. Then she gave herself a mental shake, realising that since he had had nothing to do with Penhallow’s death the probability was that he had merely taken French leave for a day, and would reappear in due course.
She thought that perhaps she ought to go downstairs, that it would appear more natural in her than to remain in her bedroom while such momentous events were in progress. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror, tidied a strand of her faded hair, and got up.
The house seemed strangely quiet, although why it should have done so, at an hour when she might have expected, in the ordinary run of things, to have found it deserted by most of its inhabitants she did not know. A housemaid, encountered on the upper hall, threw her an awed look. She ignored the girl, and went down the stair to the morning-room.
Myra had followed Ingram up from the Dower House some time previously, and was now seated on the sofa beside Clara, discussing Penhallow’s death in the hushed voice which she apparently considered suitable to the occasion. Ingram was standing on the hearth-rug with his hands in his pockets, talking to Charmian, who way leaning against the window-frame, a cigarette in one hand, and a cup of tea in the other. All three ladies were partaking of this stimulating beverage, but Ingram seemed to feel the need of a more invigorating tonic, since a glass half-full of whisky-and-soda stood on the mantelpiece behind him. When Faith entered the room, they all looked round quickly, and Myra at once rose from the sofa, and came towards her, exclaiming: “You poor dear! I’m so terribly sorry for you! If there was only anything one could do!”
Faith submitted to having her cheek kissed, saying in a subdued tone: “Thank you. It has been such a shock — I don’t seem able to realise it.”
Clara blew her nose. “I never thought I should live to see the day when my poor brother’s body was carried off by the police,” she said.
Faith shivered. “Oh, don’t!” she begged. “Has — have: they… ?”
“An hour ago,” replied Ingram, clearing his throat. “A beastly business! Can’t get over it. The old Guv’nor, you know! I always said he’d rue the day he brought that little swine into the house. Never would listen to reason! And this is what has come of it! Mind you, I blame Ray for allowing him to keep a sum like that in his bed! Asking for trouble!”
She raised her eyes nervously to his face. “I don’t quite…What do you mean?”
“It was that Jimmy, my dear,” Clara said. “The strongbox is missing, with three hundred pounds in it.”
She uttered an inarticulate sound, turning so pale that Myra put an arm round her.
“Poor dear! I don’t wonder you’re shocked. That’s what I said: it seems so dreadful to think of his having been murdered just for three hundred pounds! Come and sit down! Ingram, pull the bell, and tell them to bring another cup-and-saucer! A cup of tea will do her good.”
“No, please!” Faith managed to say. “I couldn’t swallow it! Have they — have they arrested Jimmy?”
“Not yet,” Ingram replied. “He’s done a bunk, of course, but they’ll find him all right, don’t you worry!”
She allowed Myra to lead her to a chair, and sat down, tightly grasping her handkerchief in one hand. She glanced round the room in a rather blank way. “The others — Ray?”
“Ray said he must go into Liskeard to see Cliff, my dear,” answered Clara. “I expect it’s about Adam’s will, and that sort of thing. He’s not back yet.”
Ingram laughed shortly. “Ray’s not losing any time. Didn’t turn a hair, as far as I could see!”
“Now, you oughtn’t to say that,” Clara reproved him mildly. “Ray’s never been one to show his feelin’s, but that isn’t to say he hasn’t got any.”
Charmian flicked the ash off the end of her cigarette.
“Queer cuss, Ray. He’s always been a bit of a skirter. when you come to think of it. I don’t think I ever knew him to run with the rest of the pack, even when we were kids.”
Faith turned her eyes towards her stepdaughter “Can’t he do anything? Can’t he stop it? Oh, don’t you see how awful…”
“No one can stop it,” Charmian said bluntly. “We’re in it up to our necks. Of course we see how awful it is! But we shan’t make it any better by getting hysterical about it.
“Now, Char, don’t be so hard and unsympathetic!” said Myra, pressing Faith’s hand in a very feeling way. “Naturally poor Faith is dreadfully upset! I mean, we all know that Mr Penhallow was often very trying, but what I say is, you can’t live with anyone for years without feeling it very much when they die. Why, I feel it myself! I’m sure the house seems different already! I noticed it the moment I set foot in it.”
“It’ll seem still more different when we get Ray firmly seated in the saddle,” observed Ingram grimly. “You mark my words: there are going to be a good few changes at Trevellin!”
“A few changes wouldn’t come amiss,” said Charmian. “I hope Ray does make them. I’d like to see Eugene doing an honest day’s work; and I consider it’s high time the twins learned to fend for themselves.”
Clara said forlornly: “It won’t seem like Trevellin, with all the boys gone. I don’t know if he’ll want me to go, I’m sure.”
“Oh, no, no! Why should he?” Faith cried.
“I suppose you won’t stay here?” Charmian asked her.
“No — that is, I haven’t thought. It’s too soon! I don’t know what I shall do.”
“Of course not!” said Myra, with a reproving glance cast at Charmian. “Besides, it isn’t as if Ray’s married.”
“Well, I think there’s a good deal to be said for the old man’s way of keeping the family together!” announced Ingram. “I don’t say he didn’t carry it to excess, but if Ray turns the twins out it’ll be a damned shame!”