It was Carolyn, stumbling, in her thin shoes and fine black dress, through the tangled underbrush. She did not see him for several seconds and there was that in her face which made him feel that he must not watch her unseen.
“Hullo!” he called. “Here I am.”
She turned, saw him, and stumbled towards him.
“I saw you come in here. I couldn’t bear to be alone. It’s quite true — everything you said. I’ll tell you everything, but Hailey is innocent. I’ll tell you everything.”
Chapter XIX
CAROLYN MOVES CENTRE
Carolyn told her story as they sat by the sweet-smelling embers of the fire. The sun was bright on the river-bed, but it was still too early in the spring for the day to be unpleasantly hot. As she began to speak, a man came down the gully, followed by three panting sheep-dogs. The man’s old felt hat was tilted over his nose. His jacket was slung across his shoulder and his shirt was open at the neck. He carried a long stick and moved with a sort of loose-jointed ease, as though he had been walking for a long time but was not particularly tired. Against the white glare of the shingle his face and arms were vermilion. He gave them “good-day” with a sideways wag of his head. The dogs trotted past with an air of preoccupation, saliva dripping from their quivering tongues.
“I suppose,” thought Alleyn, “he imagines we are a courting pair and wonders if he has interrupted an amorous scene, instead of—”
“—so I was frightened.” Carolyn went on when the musterer was beyond earshot. “You see there had been another scene that morning — yesterday morning. I can’t believe it was only yesterday — my birthday. Hailey brought me my present. Something I said started him off again. We were alone in my sitting-room. Alfie had just gone out. He — he was all thrilled about his party and he kissed me before he went and was rather possessive. I think that upset Hailey. He was angry and then — violently demonstrative. He said he’d got to the end of his tether — all the old things over again only he was so — so vehement. I wish I was better at explaining myself — I am afraid to tell you exactly what he said because then you may not understand how I can be so certain, now, that Hailey is innocent. You will think I am only saying I know he is innocent because there is nothing else left for me to do.”
“Try me,” suggested Alleyn.
“I must try to explain myself first, my own thoughts from the time Hailey left me yesterday morning until after last night. The next thing to tell you is that, in a way, I knew about the champagne. My poor old boy!” Her voice shook for a moment and her lips parted in an uncertain smile. “He tried so hard to keep it a secret but he was bursting with mysterious hints. I knew there was some plan, and yesterday morning I went down to the theatre and walked in at the stage-door when they were in the middle of rehearsing the surprise. He and George, and Ted and Hailey, and some of the staff. That — that horrible thing — the champagne — you know — must have been hanging there, but out of sight, and they had the weights on the other end of the cord. There were two weights on it and Alfie said: ‘That’s pounds too much. Take one off.’ I couldn’t think what it was about and I just stood watching. They didn’t see me. Ted Gascoigne took one weight off and the other shot up. They just grabbed it in time. It was very funny — seeing them all rush at it. Alfie swore frightfully and I stayed to see, thinking I’d rag him about it afterwards. At last they found the right weight — a single big one. We use three in the first act, you know. The masts and funnels of the yacht are let down with the small ones and the big one is used as a guide for the bridge. They are painted different colours to distinguish them. When they are not in use they are left up above. I heard them say this while I watched. It sounds as though it was a long time but it was only a few moments, I think, before he — my husband — turned and saw me. I said: ‘What do you fellows think you are up to?’ and he became so mysterious, I guessed it was something to do with me. I didn’t let them see that I guessed — he would have been so disappointed.”
She paused, compressing her lips. She raised her hand and pressed the palm against her mouth.
“Take it easy,” said Alleyn.
“Yes. When I saw the cord fastened to the table, I guessed it was something to do with all this business with the weights. Then afterwards — afterwards! Mr. Alleyn, I think I went a little mad after it had happened. I could only see three things, and I saw them so horribly clearly, like the things one sees in nightmares. Hailey, angry and excited yesterday morning, Hailey, looking on while they fixed the weights, and — and what happened. That last picture. I sent him away from my dressing-room and then I got rid of Susie. I went out to the stage and I could hear Ted say over and over again: ‘There must have been some funny business.’ I think he was speaking to you. I thought I must see for myself there and then. In a way my mind was quite clear but it was a sort of delirious clarity. I went round to the back of the stage, took my shoes off, and climbed the ladder. When I reached the top platform I saw at once that the weight had been taken off the hook. I remembered how the smaller weight had shot up, and I thought: ‘If I put it on, it will look like an accident. It will look as if, in the hurry after the first act, they used the small weight instead of the large one.’ The stage down below was clear. I was just going to do it when I heard someone climbing the ladder on the prompt-side. That was just after Hailey had left the stage, and I thought it was Hailey. I stayed still but whoever it was—”
“Me,” said Alleyn,
“You? Oh, what a fool I was! I thought it was Hailey. You went away without getting off the ladder. Then I crept along the platform. I could see the stage. Ted had gone to meet the police — I heard him speak to them. No one was on the stage. I hooked on the small weight — I knew it would be ever so much lighter than even the empty bottle. Then I went down. Ted was still speaking to the detectives. They had gone on the stage and you were standing in the first entrance. I slipped round behind a flat into the dressing-room passage. When I got to my room, Hailey was there. He said he had been waiting there for me, and I told him I had been looking for him, and I sent him for Susie, and then for you.”
“Yes,” said Alleyn. “That all fits. Now will you tell me, please, what made you change your mind. Why are you now so certain that he is innocent?”
“Because — this is what you will find so strange — because of what he said to me last night when we got back to the hotel. He said: ‘Carolyn, someone has killed Alfred. There’s not a possibility of accident. Someone has altered the weights.’ We were both quiet for a moment and then he said: ‘Yesterday — this morning — if I had known he was going to die I would have thought of you and — what I might gain — and now — I can only think of him.’ As soon as he had spoken, it was as though my brain cleared. I cannot describe how it was. I simply knew that he was quite innocent. I was so ashamed that I had ever thought he might be anything else. He stayed a little while, talking quietly about Alfie and our early days together. When he went away he said”—for a moment the deep voice faltered. Then she made an impatient movement with her head. “He said: ‘You know I love you, Carolyn, but I am glad now that we did nothing to hurt him’.”
There was a long pause. Carolyn seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. She had become much more composed, and Alleyn thought that while she was alone she must have deliberately set in order the events that she had made up her mind to relate. He realised that physically, as well as emotionally, she was exhausted.