‘She was playing the piano with her back to us – I know. And the key wasn’t in the drawer. There was nothing there except a clip of bills and the snapshot.’
Miss Sophy released herself, walked over to the bureau, and pulled out the small top drawer on the left. The clip of bills was there, the snapshot was there, and right on the top of Eliza and the triplets lay the fourth church key. Garth stared at it over her shoulder.
‘It wasn’t there last night, Aunt Sophy.’
She said, ‘It must have been,’ but she looked disturbed.
Garth put his arm round her.
‘Aunt Sophy, look! If it had been there last night, I couldn’t have helped seeing it. And if it had been there last night it wouldn’t be on the top of the snapshot now – the snapshot would be on top. I had it out, and I put it back, and the key wasn’t there. Someone has put it back since last night. That’s the only way it could be on the top of the photograph. Don’t you see?’
Something touched the blue of Miss Sophy’s eyes. They didn’t look blue any more, they looked frightened. She put out a hand which was not quite steady and shut the drawer. Then she said, ‘There is some mistake, my dear. I think we won’t talk about it any more.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
GARTH SAT ON the stile at the end of Prior’s Wood and whistled, ‘Tell it to the soldier, tell it to the sailor, tell it to the lad from the marines.’ He sat with his back to the wood through which he had come by way of a green winding path known locally as Lover’s Walk, and his face to the Prior’s Field, where the ruins of what had been Bourne Priory lay in picturesque disorder. There was still an arch or two of the cloisters where the monks had paced up and down with the western sunlight slanting in, but for the most part what had once been chapel, refectory, dormitories, and kitchen, was now nothing but heaped masonry with much of its stonework pilfered to make the doorsteps, the well-heads, and the tombstones of Bourne. Beyond the field and the tall hedgerow which bordered it was the lane leading to Prior’s End. The roof of the house was visible amongst sheltering trees. The nearer hedge was broken by another stile. Janice would not have far to come.
Garth whistled because he didn’t particularly want to think. He wanted to see Janice and hear what she had to say before he set his mind working upon such things as the glass on the Rectory stair, the glass on Evan Madoc’s shoe, and the odd behaviour of Aunt Sophy’s key. It is much easier to make up your mind not to think than it is to stop thinking. Behind the silly jingling words suggested by the tune he was whistling there came and went a crowd of shadowy, half-conscious speculations. It was a relief when something moved behind the hedge on the far side of the field and a moment later Janice came into view at the stile. He jumped down and went to meet her.
She had hurried a little, and there was colour in her cheeks. She wore the white frock which she had worn at the inquest, but she had taken off the hat with the black ribbon. The sun picked up the gold threads in the short brown curls. He thought again how little she had changed. The very bright eyes of no particular colour – they could look grey, or brown, or green – the little brown pointed face, the short bright curls, and the short white frock belonged as much to Janice at ten years old as to Janice at twenty-two.
He laughed, and said, ‘You haven’t grown a bit.’
The colour brightened against the brown of her skin. She stuck her chin in the air.
‘Why should I have grown? Last time you saw me I was nineteen. People don’t grow after they’re nineteen.’
His eyes teased her.
‘I did – I grew two inches.’
‘Well, I call that extravagant! You were six foot already – another two inches was just swank. And everybody doesn’t want to be yards high anyhow.’
Garth laughed. It was really very difficult to disentangle her from the little girl who had passionately wanted to be tall, and who had coloured up just like this when he teased her. Then all of a sudden the past shut down. The old safe, easy world was gone – its rules, its pattern, its way of life. The violence which was shaking the world had reached out and shaken Bourne, for whether Michael Harsch had shot himself or had been murdered, he had most certainly died because an Austrian house-painter aspired to an empire beyond the dreams of the Caesars. He said abruptly, ‘I want to talk to you, Janice. Where shall we go – up over the downs?’
‘Yes, if you like.’
‘Or we can stay here, if you don’t want to get hot.’ Her colour had failed, and he noticed how tired she looked – quite suddenly. ‘Lots of good places to sit, if you’d rather do that.’
‘Yes – I think so-’
They found a place where tumbled heaps of stone would screen them from the lane. Garth felt again how far away the past had gone. The little girl Janice had tagged about at his heels all day with as little thought of fatigue as a rabbit. He frowned and said, ‘You look all in. What’s the matter? Is it this Harsch business?’
She said, ‘Yes. I don’t mean just because he’s dead.’ She leaned forward, her hands locked about her knees. ‘Garth – he didn’t shoot himself – I know he didn’t.’
He was looking at her hard.
‘If you know anything, you ought to have said it at the inquest.’
‘But I did-’
‘You mean you just think he didn’t shoot himself. You don’t really know anything at all.’
This was the old superior Garth, talking down over a five years gap. She reacted at once.
‘Don’t be stupid – facts aren’t the only things you can know. You can know people – you can know a person so well that you can be quite sure he wouldn’t do that sort of thing.’
‘Meaning it would be out of character for Harsch to have committed suicide?’
Her ‘Yes’ was very emphatic.
‘But, Janice, don’t you see that when something pushes a man off his balance, that’s just what he does do – he acts out of character. It isn’t normal for a man to pitch on his head or go down on his hands and knees, but if his physical balance is upset, it may happen. And when it comes to mental balance, well, it’s the same thing, isn’t it? Normal motives and restraints cease to operate, and he does the last thing he would dream of doing if he were himself.’
Janice looked at him with those very bright eyes.
‘He didn’t do it, Garth.’
‘You’re just being obstinate. You’ve got nothing to go on.’
‘But I have. You haven’t listened to me yet. I want you to listen.’
‘All right – go ahead.’
She set her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand and went on looking at him.
‘Well then – it’s five years since Mr Harsch came over here. That’s to say it’s more than five years since his wife and daughter – died. That would have been the time to kill himself if he were going to do it. The Nazis had stripped him of everything. He hadn’t got anything left except his mind, and they couldn’t touch that. If they didn’t break it then, why should it break suddenly now? I don’t care how dreadful a tragedy has been, it can’t be quite the same after five years as it was at first. He told me himself that last day that in the beginning he kept going because he wanted punishment and revenge, and he thought this stuff he was working on would give it to him.’
‘Harschite – yes.’
Her face changed.
‘You know about that?’
‘Yes – that’s why I’m here. Don’t tell anyone, Jan.’
The colour came brightly to her face. She nodded and went on with what she had been saying.
‘But now, he said, all that had gone. He said the desire for revenge wasn’t civilised. He only wanted to stop the dreadful things that were being done, and to set people free. And he spoke of working with Mr Madoc, and asked if I would help him. You see, none of that is like a man who is off his balance. He wasn’t like that at all – I lived in the house with him for a year, and I know. He was gentle, and considerate, and very patient. He was always thinking of other people. I know he wouldn’t have made that appointment with-’ she stopped suddenly.