‘In any case, he moved into his new study a few days later without making any modifications, other than the door, of course, to replace the sealed panel. The Mindens spent two days airing it, cleaning it, and removing the cobwebs.’
Paula paused and pulled a face.
‘And since that day, everything’s gone to pieces at Hatton Manor. Nothing specific, but you can sense everyone’s on edge. Sarah and Harris can’t stop quarrelling, to the point that Francis almost intervened one night. No, it’s not what you think. Harris isn’t a tyrant. He has a strong character which clashes with Sarah’s: impulsive, jealous for no good reason… but he’s a decent man, sensitive, warm and even funny. This morning Sarah was taken ill — apparently she’s always had a heart murmur — so Francis left for Coventry by himself. Dr. Meadows confirmed that there was nothing to worry about: that she needed rest, but it was above all the extreme heat which had affected her. Harris was beside himself, convinced that he was responsible for his wife’s condition. But by lunchtime all was well and Sarah was her usual smiling self.’
There was a silence, except for the birds twittering.
‘Hm!’ exclaimed Patrick. ‘That’s not much help. I don’t know how to begin to formulate any kind of hypothesis about the presence of that mysterious glass of water. How long did you watch Brian through the keyhole?’
‘Twenty or thirty seconds, maybe.’
‘And what was he doing? Can you describe how he looked at it?’
‘He sat completely still and looked at it… how to put it? With great intensity, as if there was something vitally important to see there.’
Patrick though for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders.
Whereupon White Camellia and Blue Reed changed the subject.
An hour later they arranged one final meeting for the following night at eight o’clock, after which Patrick, who had taken a room for two nights at the village inn, was due to return to London.
The next day, Saturday, was humid and stormy. The evening meal was over by half past seven and Paula was the first to leave the table. At eight o’clock sharp, Mostyn announced Bessie Blount and Mike Meadows, who had been invited for a game of bridge, and led them into the salon. Twenty minutes later Francis was looking for his wife. On the upstairs floor he ran into Brian in the corridor, which echoed with the sound of loud voices being raised.
‘They’ve been fighting for more than a quarter of an hour,’ declared Brian uneasily. ‘They’re in Harris’s study.’
Francis understood full well what he meant by that last piece of information. Brian’s room being adjacent to the study, he’d been able to follow every detail of the row between Sarah and Harris, whose echoes even reached the floor below.
‘I’m going downstairs,’ announced Brian in a weary voice.
‘I understand,’ replied Francis. ‘Oh, you wouldn’t have seen Paula, by any chance?’
‘Paula,’ repeated Brian, absent-mindedly. ‘No, I haven’t seen her since dinner.’
So saying, he went on his way. Thoughtfully, Francis watched him go down the stairs.
Mr. and Mrs. Hilton left the salon at around half past eight, bidding goodnight to Brian, Meadows and his fiancée.
The three of them couldn’t help noticing how upset Sarah’s mother seemed to be. It was about the same time that there was a sudden silence upstairs. A quarter of an hour later, Mike Meadows suggested to his fiancée that they leave. She was about to reply when her eyes wandered to the open entrance leading to the hall.
‘Sarah and Harris,’ she murmured in amazement.
The three remaining occupants of the salon watched the couple walk, arm in arm, towards the front door, which shut firmly behind them.
‘Incredible!’ exclaimed Brian. ‘A moment ago, they were ready to kill each other and now there they are going out for a stroll, as if nothing had happened.’
‘Love is a funny thing,’ said Mike Meadows quietly, as he was lighting a cigarette. ‘It’s an extraordinary force which—.’
He didn’t get any further. Through the open window they could hear Sarah’s almost hysterical voice which didn’t mince her words, nor apparently spare the person to whom they were addressed. Then the door opened suddenly on a deathly pale Mrs. Thorne who rushed into the salon, threw herself into an armchair, took a cigarette out of the first packet which came to hand, and lit it.
Everything about her indicated a state of extreme emotion. Hardly had she taken a puff when the door opened again, just as suddenly as before. Three pairs of eyes — Sarah, staring at the ground, hadn’t moved — watched the familiar figure of Harris Thorne stride towards the staircase. Once he had disappeared from sight, Brian turned to his sister-in-law, thought for a moment, and left the salon.
Mike Meadows and Bessie Blount watched him go up the staircase in his turn. Once the sound of his footsteps could no longer be heard, Sarah asked in a hoarse voice:
‘My dear Bessie, would you care to take a stroll outside with me?’
‘Of course,’ Bessie replied hastily. Turning to her fiancé, she asked: ‘Are you going to stay here, Mike? We won’t be long.’
Meadows, ensconced in an armchair, nodded his agreement. The two women stood up, Bessie took Sarah’s arm and they went out.
Mike Meadows allowed a few seconds to pass, then went over to one of the open windows. He leant on the sill, inhaling the balsamic fragrance of the woods in the fading twilight.
The lights of the salon cast a beam across the lawn, revealing the silhouettes of the two young women receding along the gravel path. He couldn’t help comparing them, with an auctioneer’s eye that was, at the same time, lecherous.
Bessie’s beauty came principally from her long, blonde hair, although her curves were pleasing enough. But, next to her, the supple and graceful Sarah, with her swan-like neck and feminine allure, made Bessie suddenly seem drab.
The clock was striking a quarter past nine when Sarah and Bessie returned. Back in his armchair, Mike Meadows smiled at them:
‘I think we can consider our bridge evening over.’
Sarah stopped, looking thoughtful. Bessie ignored her fiancé’s remark and announced:
‘It’s a pity you didn’t come with us, Mike. We surprised a prowler.’
‘A prowler?’
‘Someone with something on his conscience, at least. We’d hardly been out there five minutes when we heard a branch crack behind one of the bushes, followed by the noise of someone running back into the woods. But it was too dark to see who it was.’
‘No, our bridge evening isn’t over,’ declared Sarah suddenly, with grim determination.
Meadow and Bessie looked at her, surprised and slightly uneasy.
‘Come on,’ she continued, ‘we’re going to start by finding Harris.’
Bessie and Meadows followed her upstairs without a word. They watched apprehensively as she knocked on the study door. In vain.
That part of the upstairs floor was badly lit, the only light coming from the wall lights in the main corridor, which ran at right angles to the wing where the little group was standing, meaning that it was an indirect light which shone on the anxious faces. After knocking again without result, Sarah opened the door.
At that moment, Mike Meadows and Bessie were standing back, slightly embarrassed, fearing the predictable reaction from Harris, whose strange silence did not bode well. They were watching Sarah’s face, as if it were a mirror reflecting the mood of the master of the house.
Hardly had the door opened than her eyes rolled up and her features became distorted in an indescribable expression of terror. Despite the feeble light, Meadows and Bessie saw the blood drain out of her face and her knees start to buckle under her. It had all happened in the space of a few seconds and Meadows was just in time to catch her before she fell. His first instinct, as was Bessie’s, was to take a quick look inside the room. What was it that had terrified Sarah so much that she had lost consciousness? That was the question they were asking themselves as they stood, Meadows with the inert Sarah in his arms and Bessie shivering behind him, on the threshold of the room whose walls had already witnessed one mysterious tragedy.