Madoc began to walk up and down, throwing off short, furious sentences, his hands plunged deep in his pockets, every jerky stride, every abrupt turn, full of angry energy.
‘Tuesday evening. I didn’t look at the time. I went out and walked. When I came to the Church Cut I saw Miss Brown. I thought she was going to the church. I thought she was making a fool of herself. I could see she had got something in her hand. Harsch was playing in the church. I told her she could listen to him from where she was. I told her to hand over the key. When she wouldn’t, I twisted her arm. The key fell down. I picked it up and went away. That’s all – make anything you like of it! And get out of here! I’m working!’
No one was in a hurry but Mr Madoc. Sergeant Abbott wrote. Lamb presented his imperturbable front (Impersonation of a Prize Ox at Grass, as his irreverent subordinate had it).
‘Just a moment, Mr Madoc. This business is important for you as well as for us. It can’t be rushed over. I’d like you to take time to think before you speak, and it is my duty to warn you that what you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence against you.’
The words pulled Evan Madoc up short. He checked in the middle of a stride, flung round, and said, ‘Good God! What are you suggesting?’
‘It is not my place to suggest. I am warning you. I’ve got my duty to do, and it would be better for you as well as for me if you would sit down quietly and think before you say anything. All right, it’s just as you like – but I’ve warned you. I’m asking you whether you used the key you took from Miss Brown. I’m asking you whether you went to the church and saw Mr Harsch on Tuesday evening.’
Madoc had already made a violent gesture of dissent. He now repeated it, shaking his head with an energy which shook his whole body too. After which he stood, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched forward, glowering, a lock of black hair tossed up like a ruffled feather accentuating the upward twist of the eyebrow.
‘You deny that you went to the church?’
Madoc said with the extreme of bitterness, ‘If I say no, you’ll be sure I lie. If I say yes, you will ask me whether I shot Michael Harsch, and if I say yes to that, you will believe me with greediness. But if I tell you that I loved him like a brother, and that I would give my right hand to have him back, you will again be very sure that I am lying. Because it is not in you to believe good – you can only believe evil.’
Lamb cleared, his throat.
‘I should like to ask you to clarify those remarks, Mr Madoc. We don’t want any confusion over this. I am not clear whether you are stating that you did go to the church, or that you did not.’
Madoc reduced the volume of his voice, but not the venom.
‘I did not go to the church. I did not shoot Michael Harsch. Is that quite clear?’
‘Oh, yes, quite. You went home, and you took the key with you. When did you return it to Miss Brown?’
Madoc gave a disagreeable laugh.
‘Hasn’t she told you that? I’m surprised! I returned it to her on Thursday night. She seemed to want it back, so I brought it down and handed it over.’
‘Thank you, Mr Madoc. Have you any objection to signing the statements you have just made?’
‘Not in the least. Why should I? I have nothing to hide.’
There was a pause. Frank Abbott wrote, and afterwards read aloud what he had written. Unlike the majority of statements recorded by the police, the words were recognisably Madoc’s own. He listened to them with that black frown dominating his face, snatched the paper, and picking up a pen from his writing-table, drove it deep into the inkpot and scrawled a thick, smudged ‘Evan Madoc’ across the page.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AT FOUR O’CLOCK that afternoon Janice came hurrying down the track from Prior’s End. She was not conscious of hurrying. She was not really, conscious of her body at all, only of immeasurable disaster and the need she had to find Garth. She was bareheaded, and her white dress was too thin for the day, which had turned suddenly bleak, as days are apt to do in an English September.
She came into the village street, found it alive with children, and remembered with a kind of shock that it was Saturday afternoon. When something violent and abnormal has jolted your world out of focus, it is difficult to realise that life is going on quite normally for other people.
As she crossed the road she almost ran into Mrs Mottram, who immediately clutched her and said, ‘Darling, how dreadful! Don’t tell me it’s true. The baker said so, but I can’t believe it? Have they really arrested Mr Madoc?’
‘Yes, it’s true.’
Mrs Mottram’s blue eyes rolled.
‘Darling, how devastating! Of course you mustn’t stay there a single moment. You must come to me. I’m afraid I’ve only got a most uncomfortable camp bed and no carpet on the floor, because I’ve never really furnished the room, but you must come down at once. I’ll just go straight back and put the sheets to air.’
‘It’s very kind of you, but I couldn’t leave Miss Madoc.’
‘Darling, you must! You can’t possibly stay there! Do you know I always did think there was something peculiar about Mr Madoc. You mustn’t dream of staying.’
Janice shook her head.
‘I can’t leave her, Ida. You couldn’t yourself, so it’s no use asking me. And for goodness sake don’t go about saying Mr Madoc was peculiar, because he didn’t do it.’
Mrs Mottram had quite a pretty mouth except when it fell open. It fell open now, all on one side.
‘Don’t you think so?’
Janice stamped her foot.
‘I know he didn’t! Why should he? Mr Harsch was the one person in this world he never quarrelled with. He thought a lot of him – he really cared for him. When you live in the house with people you can’t make a mistake about that sort of thing.’
Ida Mottram had the happy faculty of always believing what she was told. It made her very popular with men. She gazed confidingly at Janice and said, ‘I suppose you do. But, my dear, how devastating if he’s innocent – and how dreadful for Miss Madoc! Are you sure he didn’t do it?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘Darling, I do hope you’re right, because it really wouldn’t be at all nice to feel you’d been living with a murderer. But if he didn’t do it, who did? And how are you going to find out? Because of course the police wouldn’t have arrested him unless they were quite, quite sure he’d done it, and it would be too, too dreadful if they were to hang him when he was innocent. I remember Billy saying that innocent people did get hanged – or as good as. Billy Blake – he was a great friend of Robin’s and of mine too, and he was a barrister before he went into the RAF, so of course he knows. Did you meet him when he was down the other day – because I want you to so much. But he’ll be coming again quite soon, and then you simply must. Of course he always says he only wants to see me, but I know you’ll adore him… Oh, where was I? I know – I was thinking what we could do to prevent Mr Madoc being hanged. You’re quite, quite sure that he didn’t do it? Because of course I quite loved Mr Harsch. He had that sad, noble kind of look like someone in a film – and of course when they look like that you know they’re going to die, so I always have a hanky ready-’ She broke off suddenly and clutched at Janice with the other hand. A dreamy skyward gaze was replaced by one of considerable animation. ‘Darling, I know – Miss Silver!’
Janice said, ‘You’re pinching me!’ And then, ‘Who is Miss Silver?’
‘Darling! She’s too marvellous! I can’t tell you what she did for me. I daresay you’ll think it was only a tiny little thing, but Robin’s mother is so suspicious. She never liked his marrying me, you know, and she would never have believed that I hadn’t sold it. But I can’t tell you about it, because I simply swore to Robin that I would never tell anyone – in case of his mother getting to know, you know. Anyhow Miss Silver put it all right in the most marvellous way. And you may say it was only a little thing – only of course not for me – but how I heard about Miss Silver was from a girl who was in a perfectly dreadful murder case, and Miss Silver put it all right and found out who had really done it. so don’t you see, you must have her down at once and get poor Mr Madoc out of prison. And then you’ll be able to come and stay with me, because Miss Madoc will be quite all right as soon as he gets home. I’m so glad I thought about it, and I shall love to see her again. She’s just like a governess, you know, only rather an angel. Darling, I really must rush. I’m going to tea with Mr Everton, and I shall get into dreadful trouble if I’m late. You won’t forget, will you – Miss Maud Silver, 15 Montague Mansions… Oh, yes, London, of course, but I never can remember whether it’s S.E. or S.W. But they’ll look it up for you at the post office – they always do for me.’