Hilary gave a little gasp and said,
‘Oh, yes – that’s her!’
CHAPTER THREE
There was a pause. Hilary looked at the photograph, and Marion looked at Hilary with a faint bitter smile.
‘That is Mrs. Mercer,’ she said – ‘James’ housekeeper.’ She took the book back and laid it open on her knee. ’Geoffrey might have got off if it hadn’t been for her. Her evidence tipped the scale. She cried, you know, all the time she was giving it, and of course that went down with the jury. If she’d been vindictive or hard, it wouldn’t have hurt Geoff half as much, but when she swore with sobs that she’d heard him quarrelling with James about the will, she damned him. There was just a chance they’d believe he’d found James dead, but she finished that.’ Marion ’s voice left off on the edge of a break. After a moment she said in a curious, wondering tone, ‘I always thought she was such a nice woman. She gave me the recipe for those scones. She seemed to like me.’
Hilary was sitting back on her heels.
‘She said she’d always liked you.’
‘Then why did she do it? Why did she do it? I’ve thought myself blind and stupid, and I can’t get a glimmer of why she should have done it.’
‘Yes – why?’ said Hilary.
‘She was lying. But why should she have lied? She liked Geoff. She gave that evidence against him as if she was on the rack – that’s what made it so damning. But why did she give it at all? That’s what I can’t, can’t get any answer to. James was dead when Geoff got there. We went over and over it together. It was eight o’clock when James rang him up. We had just finished dinner, and he went straight off – Oh, you’ve heard it a hundred times, but what matters is that it’s true. James did ring him up. He did go down to Putney just as he said in his evidence. He stood over there and hung up the receiver, and said “James wants to see me at once. He sounds in a most awful stew.” He kissed me and ran down the stairs. And when he got there James was dead – fallen down across his writing-table, and the pistol lying there. And Geoff picked it up. Oh, if he only hadn’t picked it up! He said he didn’t know he had until he saw it in his hand. He came in by the garden door, and he didn’t see anyone till he saw James, and James was dead, and the pistol was there and he picked it up. And then Mercer came knocking at the door, and it was locked. Hilary – who locked it? It was locked on the inside and the key in the door, and only Geoff’s finger-prints on the key and on the handle, because he went and tried the door when Mercer knocked. And then he turned the key and let him in, and there was Mercer and Mrs. Mercer, and Mercer said, “Oh, my God, Mr. Geoff! What have you done?” ’
‘Don’t!’ said Hilary. ‘Don’t go over it, darling – it doesn’t do any good.’
‘Do you think I’d sit here and talk if there was anything I could do?’ said Marion in a low, exhausted voice. ‘Mercer said he hadn’t heard anything except what he took to be a burst tyre or a motor-bike backfiring about a minute before. He was in the pantry cleaning the glass and silver and putting it away. And he was – his cleaning things were all spread about, and the stuff was on his hands. But Mrs. Mercer had been upstairs to turn down James’ bed, and she said when she came through the hall she heard voices very loud in the study. And she said she went and listened because she was frightened, and she swore she heard Geoffrey in there quarrelling with James. And then she swore she heard the shot, and screamed and ran for Mercer.’ She got up, and the photograph-album fell sprawling against Hilary’s knees.
With an abrupt but graceful movement Marion pushed back the chair and began to walk up and down. She was so pale that Hilary was frightened. Her air of exhaustion had changed into one of restless pain.
‘I’ve gone over it, and over it, and over it. I’ve gone over it until I can say it in my sleep and it doesn’t mean anything at all. None of it means anything. It got to be like that in court.-just a noise – just words. And that woman crying and swearing Geoff’s life away, and no reason for it, no motive anywhere – no motive for anyone to kill James. Except Geoff if he’d lost his head and done it in a rage when James told him about the new will and cutting him out of everything. Hilary, he didn’t do it – he didn’t! I swear he didn’t! They made a lot of his hot temper, but I’ll swear he didn’t do it! James brought him up to be his heir, and he’d no right to change like that. He’d no right to take him into the office and promise him a partnership, and then go back on it, if that’s what he meant to do. But Geoff wouldn’t have touched him -I know he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t even have hit him, and it simply isn’t possible that he shot him.’ She stopped her restless pacing by the window and stood with her back to the room for a silent moment. Then she said, ‘It isn’t possible – except in a nightmare- but this has been a nightmare so long, and – sometimes – I – feel – that – I – may – begin- to – believe – in – it.’
Hilary said ‘No!’ with a quick sob.
Marion turned round.
‘Why did James destroy his will and make another one? Why did he leave everything to Bertie Everton? He never had a good word to say about him, and he was fond of Geoff. They were together all the day before. There wasn’t any quarrel – there wasn’t anything. And next day he destroyed his will and made another one, and at eight o’clock that night he sent for Geoff, and Geoff found him dead.’
‘You don’t think – ’ said Hilary.
‘I’ve done nothing but think – I’m nearly mad with thinking.’
Hilary was shaken with excitement. She had lived with Marion for nearly a year, and never, never, never had Marion discussed the Case before. She kept it shut up in a horrible secret place inside her, and she never forgot it for a moment waking or sleeping, but she never, never, never spoke about it.
And Hilary had always seethed with bright ideas about the Case. If Marion would only talk about it, open her horrid secret place and let the darkness out and Hilary’s bright ideas in, well, she felt quite, quite sure she would be able to pounce on something which had been overlooked and the whole thing would be cleared up.
‘No-no -darling, do listen. Marion, please. You don’t think somebody forged the will?’
Marion stood by the chest, half turned from the room. She gave a laugh that was a good deal like a sob.
‘Oh, Hilary, what a child you are! Do you suppose that wasn’t thought of? Do you suppose everything wasn’t thought of? He drove down to the bank, and it was witnessed by the manager and one of the clerks.’
‘Why?’ said Hilary. ‘I mean, why didn’t he get the Mercers to do it? You don’t generally go to a bank to sign your will.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Marion wearily. ‘He did, anyhow. The Mercers couldn’t sign because they had a legacy. James sent for his solicitor and destroyed the old will in his presence. Then he got him to make the new one, and they went down to the bank together and James signed it there.’
‘Where was Bertie Everton?’ said Hilary.
‘In Edinburgh. He went up by the night train.’
‘Then he was here the day before?’
‘Oh, yes -he went down to Putney and he saw James – dined with him as a matter of fact. But you can’t make anything out of that, except that obviously tomething was said or done which made James change his mind – and his will. He had always loathed Bertie, but something happened all in about an hour and a half to make him decide to leave him every penny he’d got. I was down for a thousand in the old will, and he even cut that out. Bertie’s brother Frank, who’d always had an allowance from him and can’t keep a job to save his life, he was cut out, too. Under the old will the allowance was to continue. He’s a bad hat and a rolling stone, but he was just as much James’ nephew as Bertie or Geoff, and James always meant to provide for him. He used to say he’d got a screw loose, but he didn’t loathe him like he loathed Bertie. Bertie was everything he detested – and he left him every penny.’