‘She doesn’t know?’
‘How should she know? She is expecting me to bring the tea! How can I go to her and tell her, “Your tea is here, and Miss Cara is dead”? The hardest heart in the world could not do it – I cannot do it!’
Candida was out of her bed, slipping into her clothes, running a comb through her hair, putting on a grey and white pullover and a grey tweed skirt because they were warm and everything in her seemed to have turned to ice. They went down the stairs to the hall. Miss Cara lay in a twisted heap where the left-hand newel met the floor. One arm was doubled up under her and she was cold and stiff. There could not be any doubt at all that she was dead.
Candida, on her knees by the body, found herself whispering, ‘Did you move her?’
Anna had sunk down upon the bottom step. She sat bowed forward, her head in her hands. She said on a low sobbing breath,
‘No – no – I only touch her cheek, her hand. I know that she is dead – ’
‘Yes, she is dead. We mustn’t move her.’
‘I know – it is the law.’
‘We must send for the doctor.’
Anna caught her breath.
‘He is away – only yesterday Miss Cara said so. It is his partner who will come, Dr. Gardiner – but what can anyone do now?’
Candida said, ‘Fetch Mr. Derek!’
He came, as shocked as she was herself. They knelt on either side of Miss Cara and spoke low, as if she were asleep and must not be disturbed.
‘You must ring up the doctor. You had better go and do it now.’
‘Has anyone told – her?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘Someone must.’
‘And who is to do it?’ said Anna on a sobbing breath. ‘It should be you who are of the family, Miss Candida.’
Candida steadied herself. If she must she must, but it would come better from Anna – perhaps even from this weeping, shaken Anna who had gone back to her crouched position on the bottom step – not from the girl who came between Olivia Benevent and all that she was accustomed to look upon as her own. She said, ‘Anna, you have been with her forty years,’ and Anna wailed, ‘Do not ask me – I cannot!’
There was a silence, and then a sound. It came from the stair above them, and it was made by the heavy tassel of Miss Olivia’s dressing-gown dropping from step to step as she came slowly down. It was a purple tassel on a cord of purple and black, and the gown was purple too.
Olivia Benevent came down at a measured pace, her hand on the balustrade. Not a hair of her smooth waves was out of place. There was no expression in her face or in her eyes, but Candida, looking up, could see where a muscle jerked in the side of the throat. She came right down to the floor of the hall and stood there staring at her sister’s body. Then she said,
‘Which of you killed her?’
Chapter Twenty-four
Dr. Gardiner sat looking at Inspector Rock. They made a sharp contrast – Gardiner thin, dark, alert, and the Inspector a big fair man who would be massive by the time he was fifty. At present he was a likeable thirty-six with a pleasant blue eye and a humorous mouth. They were in the study, and somehow they made it seem crowded. Too many pictures on the walls, too much china, too many nicknacks. Gardiner said,
‘Well, I can only go on saying what I have said all along. If she fell down the stairs and was killed, then someone arranged the body in the position in which we found it. The back of her head – well, you saw it for yourself – completely crushed. But she was found lying on her face, and everyone swears they didn’t turn her over. And why should they? The other way round and there would have been some sense in it. If you find a woman lying on her face, you might turn her over, but if she’s lying on her back, why should you? No sense in it at all.’
He had pulled a chair sideways to one of the windows and sat there, one knee over the other – Rock conventionally at Miss Olivia’s writing-table, but with his chair slewed about to face the doctor. He made one of those non-committal sounds, and Gardiner went on.
‘I won’t dogmatise about the time she died. Your man will be able to tell you more about that after the post-mortem, but if Burdon and Miss Sayle and the maid are all telling the truth about when they found her, then they couldn’t have had any hand in arranging the position. To have been done with any chance of deceiving anyone it must have been done soon. It wasn’t much after half past seven when they rang me, and I was here by ten minutes after eight, and she had certainly been dead a good many hours then. As you know, I rang you up at once, and here we are. I take it the rest of your gang will be along at any time. You won’t want me any more.’
‘I thought you might stay until Black gets here. I thought he might like to see you.’
Gardiner’s shoulder lifted.
‘Nothing I can do,’ he said.
‘Well, you were the first on the spot. I was going to ask you what you thought of it all.’
The shoulder jerked again.
‘Not my business.’
‘Oh, just for my own private consideration and strictly off the record.’
Gardiner had a twisted smile for that.
‘Oh, well, plenty of animus knocking about. Miss Olivia very determined about someone having killed her sister. Miss Sayle very quiet and shocked. Burdon a good deal distressed. And the maid Anna as temperamental as they come. She’s been with them for forty years, so I suppose she has a right to be upset. The butler is her husband – a whole lot younger, and not so long in their service – a mere fifteen or twenty years. He appears to be normally affected. That’s the best I can do.’
‘No one else in the house?’
‘Not living in. The daily woman showed up and had hysterics. She comes out from Retley.’
He had got to his feet and was stretching, when the door opened and Olivia Benevent came in. She was now fully dressed in the black buttoned-up garment which was her usual morning wear, only instead of the grey and mauve coatee which she had worn yesterday she had thrown about her shoulders a plain black shawl. The whole effect was that of the deepest mourning. Dr. Gardiner had the ironic thought that whatever happened, women must still be thinking of their clothes.
She came up to her writing-table in a very composed manner and addressed the Superintendent with chill formality.
‘May I enquire how long you intend to leave my sister’s body lying on the floor in the hall?’
The Inspector rose to his feet.
‘I am very sorry, Miss Benevent, but you yourself have suggested that this may be a case of murder. It is my duty to see that nothing is moved until measurements and photographs have been taken. The necessary apparatus is on its way. If you will retire to your own sitting-room, I will let you know as soon as we have finished.’
She stood there without moving.
‘And when do you propose to arrest the person who killed my sister?’
‘Miss Benevent – ’
‘Do you need me to tell you who it was? There is only one person who had any interest in her death, her great-niece Candida Sayle – a girl whom we invited here in the kindness of our hearts, a girl who had been left penniless, but who now inherits Underhill and everything that belonged to my sister. Perhaps you did not know that.’
‘Miss Benevent – ’
She interrupted him in the same cold manner as before.
‘I assure you that that is the case. You may, if you please refer to our solicitor, Mr. Tampling, for corroboration. So you see, there is quite a strong motive.’
‘This is a very serious accusation. Have you any evidence to support it?’
‘There is the motive.’
‘Is there any evidence?’