Mrs. Mercer screamed again and gasped out, shuddering.
‘No – no! I’ll do anything?’
‘You’d better. Here get on! I don’t want to be all day. It’s a good job a blot or two don’t matter, for you’ve made a fair mess of the paper. “I shot him” – you just write that down! And mind it’s clear enough to read! Come along now!’
The paper moved again. The pen moved. Mrs. Mercer groaned. Mercer’s voice went on, cool and hard.
‘ “I locked the door… and I wiped the key and the handle… I wiped the pistol too… and I put it on the mat in front of the garden door… Then I ran round and got in by one of the drawing-room windows and shut it after me… They were all latched when the police came… but I’d left one open on purpose so that I could get in quick… I waited till I saw Mr. Geoffrey come past the window and go into the study… Then I ran into the hall and screamed… and Alfred came running, and Mrs. Thompson… and banged on the door… And everyone thought he done it… and I let them think so… I didn’t tell my husband nor anyone… Alfred never knew nothing, only what I told him… He thought Mr. Geoffrey done it same as everyone did… And I swore false at the inquest and at the trial… but now I can’t bear it no longer… Alfred and me got married like he promised… and he’s been good to me. But I can’t bear it no longer… I’m a wicked woman and I ought to die”… And now you sign your name nice and clear underneath-your lawful married name, Louisa Kezia Mercer!’
Hilary’s hair was wet against her temples. A cold drop ran trickling between her shoulder-blades. It was like the most dreadful nightmare with every sense an avenue for horror – the unclean smell of the place, sight lost in darkness, a violent threat in her ears. What had she been listening to? What was this story which Alfred Mercer had dictated? Was it a lie that he was forcing on this poor broken creature at the point of the knife – or was it true? It might very easily be true. It fitted everywhere, and it explained everything. No, it didn’t explain why James Everton had changed his will. That didn’t matter. Nothing mattered if only Geoff was cleared.
These thoughts floated in the terror and confusion of her mind, while at the same time she heard Mrs. Mercer raise her voice in a frantic appeal.
‘Alfred – for the Lord’s sake! I can’t sign that! Alfred, I’ll never say a word – I swear I won’t! I’ll go where no one won’t ever find me, and I’ll never say a word -I’ll take my Bible oath I won’t!’
On the other side of the door Alfred Mercer wrenched away from the grovelling woman who clutched his knees. He let out an agry oath, and then controlled himself. Whatever happened, she’d got to sign the statement, she’d got to sign it. He said, in a deadly quiet voice -
‘Get up, Louie! Get up off the floor!’
Mrs. Mercer looked up stupidly. She was so much afraid that she could no longer think. She was afraid of being hanged, and she was afraid to die, and she was afraid of the knife in Alfred’s hand – but she was most afraid of the knife. She got up, and when he told her to sit she sat, and when he told her to sign her name she took the pen in her cold shaking hand.
‘Put your name to it!’ said Alfred Mercer. He came close and showed her the knife.
Hilary strained against her own terror, and strained to hear. She listened for the faint small sound of the pen on the paper as it moved in the loops and curls of Louisa Kezia Mercer’s signature. ‘If she signs it, he’ll kill her – he’ll kill her at once. I can’t stop here and let her be killed. He’s got a knife. He’ll kill me too. Nobody knows where I am. Henry doesn’t know – Henry – ’
‘Are you going to sign that paper, or have I got to make you?’ said Alfred Mercer.
Mrs, Mercer signed her name.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Hilary caught at her courage with all her might. If the worst came to the worst, she must run out and get to the door and scream. ‘There’s a woman over the way who screams three times a week when her husband beats her, and no one takes any notice. It’s no good screaming.’ No good thinking of that. Think -think hard about the room – about where the furniture is. He’ll be taken by surprise. Think where the table is, and the chairs. The chairs. Pick one up if you can -yes, pick one up and drive at him with a leg – at his knees – or his head. A good deal could be done with a chair, and his knife would be no good to him.
She put her hand on the latch of the cupboard door and lifted it. The door moved outwards a shade, a thread, a crack – a crack to look through. She could see a long streak of daylight, and in the daylight Mrs. Mercer leaning back with her hands in her lap. Her face was drained of all expression. The terror had gone from it to her eyes. They were fixed on Alfred Mercer, who faced her across the table. Hilary couldn’t see his face. She didn’t dare open the door any wider. She held on to the latch to prevent it swinging out. She could only see Mercer’s hands. One of them held the knife. He put it down on the far side of the table. Hilary could just see as far as where it lay with the blade catching the light – a horn handle, a bright blade, and a fine, keen edge. The sheet of paper upon which Mrs. Mercer had been writing just failed to touch this edge. The pen had rolled against the inkpot, a cheap twopenny bottle, with the cork lying beside it.
She forced her eyes away. There had been two chairs. Mrs. Mercer was sitting on one of them. Where was the other? It must be on the far side of the table, behind Alfred Mercer. His hands went out of the picture and came back again with a little packet done up in white paper. Hilary watched him undo the paper and let it fall. There came out a small glass bottle with a screw top, a little thing not more than three inches long. Mrs. Mercer’s pale, terrified eyes stared at it fixedly. Hilary stared, too.
Alfred Mercer held the bottle in his left hand, unscrewed the top, and cupping his palm, tilted out into it a dozen round white pellets. Hilary’s heart began to beat very fast indeed. He was going to poison that poor dreep, right there in front of her eyes, and if he began she would simply have to burst out of the cupboard and do what she could to stop him. She tried to think, but it wasn’t easy. He would have to dissolve those things in water – you couldn’t make anyone swallow a dozen pellets dry. The question was, had he got any water here or hadn’t he? There wasn’t any on the table. If he had to go to the kitchen for it, there would be just one lightning chance to make a dash for safety.
Alfred Mercer’s right hand put the bottle down and dropped the little screw cap carelessly beside the blotted sheet of paper upon which Louisa Mercer had written her confession. His left hand closed on the pellets.
‘Damn it -I’ve forgotten the water!’ he said, and picked up the knife and was gone from Hilary’s field of vision. He crossed it again on his way to the door, and this time she saw his face going past her quickly in profile. It gave her a thrill of horror to see how ordinary he looked, how entirely the respectable butler. He might have been fetching the water for one of his master’s guests.
As he passed, Hilary was giving herself orders – urgent, insistent orders – ‘Count three when he’s gone through the door – let him go out of the door and count three. Then run. Make her run too. You must – you’ve got to. It’s the only chance.’
He went past the foot of the bed and out of the door. Hilary let the cupboard door swing wide and counted three. Then she ran to Mrs. Mercer, taking her by the shoulders, shaking her, and saying breathlessly,
‘Run – run! Quick – it’s your only chancel’
It was a chance that was lost already. There was no life, no movement, no response. The head had fallen back. The eyes stared glassily at the ceiling. The arms hung limp.
‘No good,’ said Hilary to herself – ‘no good.’
She snatched the inkpot from the table and ran out of the room. The kitchen door was open, and the outer door was shut. They faced each other with no more than a yard between. From the kitchen came the sound of running water. It stopped. Hilary snatched at the knob of the outer door, but before she could turn it Alfred Mercer’s hand came down on her shoulder and swung her round. They stared at each other for a long, intolerable moment. He must have put the knife in his pocket, for there was no sign of it. One hand gripped her, the other held a glass half full of water with the little pile of dissolving pellets sending up air bubbles through it. The respectable butler’s face was a snarling mask.