Let's Choose Executors, page 22
He thought he heard her laugh, but the conversation burst out again, loudly and indignantly, as he closed the door.
4
It took a little time to persuade Inspector Camden that it would be interfering with the course of justice to deny him access to Hugo Randall. “The application should properly have come from Mr. Davenant,” the detective told him.
“I shall be seeing him as soon as I leave here, but I haven’t time to stand on formality,” said Maitland. Looking at him, Camden thought unhappily that, in spite of this, he had the look of one who was prepared to wait all day for what he wanted, and gave way with one of his expressive sighs. Antony said, “Thank you,” briskly, and waited with unconcealed impatience while the necessary orders were given.
The room allotted for the interview was tiny; they faced each other across a narrow trestle table. Hugo greeted him calmly enough, but the sullen look was back on his face again. He said, as he seated himself: “I should thank you, I suppose—”
“Don’t waste your breath. I can’t act for you.”
“I see.” There was a languidness in his tone; as though, Maitland thought, he had gone beyond despair, to a point where there was nothing left to hope for.
“You don’t see at all,” Antony said sharply. “When I say ‘I can’t’ that’s exactly what I mean.”
“Then why—?” But the sharpness seemed to have had the effect of arousing at least a spark of interest. “I hope you’re not going to tell me I must be properly dressed when I appear in court,” said Hugo, amused. He was still wearing jodhpurs and a grey pullover. “It’s all Mr. Byron seems to be able to think about.”
“I couldn’t care less. Why did you want me to know what had happened to Nancy?”
“I thought it might help Fran.” He paused, watching Maitland’s expression. “Won’t it?” he asked. “
“It only makes everything about ten times worse.”
“I don’t believe it.” He banged his fist down suddenly on the trestle in front of him, so that it swayed precariously. “It’s got to help!” he said, with much more energy in his tone.
“Take my word for it, won’t you?”
“I don’t understand.” And then, as though he couldn’t keep his mind on any one aspect of the problem, he added in a worried voice: “What’s going to happen tomorrow?”
Maitland didn’t make the mistake of thinking he was referring to his own affairs. “We shall apply for a retrial not on this assize.”
“You mean, there won’t be a verdict. Fran will have to still wait.”
“It may be for the best,” said Antony, not believing it. “It will give us time—”
“Time!” echoed Hugo, with something of his former violence; and was still again. “It’s been a month for Fran, hasn’t it? A month already.” His hands were shaking; he clasped them together tightly on the table in front of him, and did not meet Maitland’s eye.
“Never mind that now.” Pity was an intolerable emotion; his voice roughened, denying it. “I still want to talk to you about her defence.”
“I told you, anything—”
“You didn’t tell me the truth.”
“I admitted . . . enough, didn’t I? And now, after what has happened—”
“Did you kill Nancy Selkirk?”
“No . . . no!”
“Did you go to her house?”
“There seems to be proof of that.”
Maitland sat back. “I want the whole story of your dealings with Nancy,” he said deliberately.
“I said I was willing—”
“The truth. Will you tell me that?”
“If it would help . . . it won’t!” He spread his hands in a gesture that was strangely defenceless. “I might have told you yesterday. How can I . . . now?”
“For heaven’s sake, Hugo, this isn’t a decision you can make.”
“I can. I must. If the story of—what did you say?—my dealings with Nancy will help, I’ll tell it; in court, anywhere. The rest . . . will you believe me when I tell you my silence can’t possibly harm anyone but myself?”
Maitland hesitated. “Fran’s been hurt enough already.”
“I know that, don’t I?” said Hugo savagely.
“I wonder.”
“You don’t understand!”
“All right then, tell me. If you weren’t Nancy’s only lover—”
“I said I didn’t kill her, but I was . . . responsible for her death. I can’t deny that, even for Fran.” In spite of its flatness, there was a finality in his tone. Antony, who knew when he was beaten, took his leave a few minutes later. It wasn’t until he was walking away from the police station that it occurred to him to wonder just what he had expected from the interview. And the answer to that seemed to be that he hadn’t expected anything at all . . . but until this moment he’d been hoping for a miracle.
He knew now there was nothing left to hope for. He’d done his best, and failed.
5
They had arranged to meet, after all, at Vera Langhorne’s cottage, and he was a little late, but still the first to arrive. Davenant came at ten minutes past the hour, and replied shortly to questions about the family at Ravenscroft. “Byron seems to think the police are connecting the two murders,” he said, glaring at Maitland as though he were in some way responsible.
“So it seems. I’ve a good deal to tell you, Davenant—”
“If you mean, about your visit to Nancy Selkirk, Byron told me that, too.” His tone was stiff. “Did it help at all?”
“I can’t say it did. I admit it was a mistake.”
Tommy gave him a suspicious look, perhaps taken aback by this unexpected mildness. “What did she have to tell you?”
“Nothing beyond the fact of her affair with Hugo. She was expecting a visitor, if I know the signs.”
“Hugo?”
“I don’t know.”
Tommy seemed to find this an added cause of depression. “Nell’s half out of her mind,” he said, very much in his usual manner. The little spurt of displeasure seemed to have worn itself out. “I can’t see it myself, but she dotes on him, you know.”
There was no music today, the little room seemed oddly silent; but Vera had cups on a tray, and a kettle singing on the hob. She was bending forward now to splash hot water into the teapot, and raised a flushed face from the task. “The thing we should decide is whether to make this application,” she told them.
“Yes . . . well—” Davenant seemed uncertain. “How do you feel about it?” he asked, turning to Maitland.
“I’m afraid the decision has been made for us. We can’t go on.”
“That’s all very well—” began Davenant. Miss Langhorne straightened her back, with a small grunt of protest at her stiffness, and said slowly:
“That means we’ve got no case.”
“It means we’ve no longer any alternative but to apply for a change of venue.”
“But you said—”
“I don’t like it any better now. But too much has happened. When I got back to the hotel at lunchtime there was a message for me to get in touch with the Judge. I haven’t done so, but I know what he’s going to say.”
“What?” said Tommy.
“That’s he’s prepared to discharge the jury and order a retrial himself, if we don’t do something about it. Or he may put it more crudely, in terms of responsibility to our client. You see, I probably won’t be in a position to act when the case comes on again; it could be said I wanted to continue now in order to keep the brief.”
“Not true,” said Vera, at her gruffest.
“No, but . . . that’s why it was a mistake to go and see Nancy. You don’t have to tell me. Not that it makes much difference to Halford’s position, I’m afraid. Too much has happened to show the local prejudice. Too much is still happening.”
“A lot of nonsense.”
“Maybe. But Halford isn’t going to like having rude comments painted on the walls of the court.
It was obvious that they had both heard already about the indignity the Shire Hall had suffered. Tommy shrugged his shoulders; Vera Langhorne said bracingly: “We’ll have a better chance away from here.” And then more hesitantly, watching Maitland’s expression: “Or don’t you think that’s true?”
“No, I don’t. Not now. The prosecution will have a smashingly heavier case when the trial comes on again.”
“Do you mean, because of Nancy’s death?” said Davenant. “I don’t quite see—”
“Imagine for a moment that we’re faced with a joint trial.”
“Fran and Hugo?”
“Who else?” He accepted a cup of tea absent-mindedly from Vera, left it untasted on the table at his elbow, and got up to move restlessly about the room. “I’ll bet anything you like it was Hugo she used to slip out at night to meet; everyone assumed they were ‘going together’ until she was arrested, when the assumption didn’t seem to fit in any longer with the theory of her guilt. Now!” He looked from one of his companions to the other, daring them to interrupt. “Hugo is courting Fran; he’s secretive about it because he doesn’t feel he can ask her to join the household at Ravenscroft, and he can’t get away from it himself until the twins are off his hands. Meanwhile, he seduces Nancy Selkirk what better way could he find of passing the time? Grandmother finds out and disinherits him, but she doesn’t know of his relationship with Fran.”
“It seems to me—” said Davenant, but Antony swept on unheeding.
“So Fran stands to inherit, and Hugo has only to marry her to be just as happily placed as before. Even better, because he now has control of the cash originally intended for Mark and Marian as well.”
“Whatever you think about him, said Vera, “he’s always done his best for those two.”
“Would you care for the task of demonstrating that to a jury?”
“I suppose it wouldn’t be easy,” she agreed reluctantly. “But, knowing about Nancy, would Fran—?”
“She’s in love with Hugo; don’t you think she would have forgiven him?” He turned to give Davenant a black look, as though he suspected the solicitor of being about to challenge the statement. “And I’ll tell you something else; if you put her in the witness box she’ll give herself away on that point, just as she did when she talked to me.”
“Take your word for it,” said Miss Langhorne pacifically.
“All right then. Alice Randall is a healthy old lady, and if she discovers what’s in the wind between Fran and Hugo she’ll certainly change her will again; they’re faced with the absolute necessity of concealing their attachment for an indefinite time. Do you think they would find that a satisfactory situation?”
“No, I don’t,” said Tommy, more positively than was his custom; and then looked at Vera in a deprecating way.
“But if Alice dies before she finds out, they’re sitting pretty, aren’t they? Nancy has no shred of proof of the old lady’s intentions; at best she might get a court order for maintenance, probably no more than Hugo is paying already. So the obvious thing to do is to see that Mrs. Randall doesn’t live too long.” He paused, and looked from one of his companions to the other, a bright, impersonal glance that didn’t encourage any further interruption. “Hugo tells Fran about the digitalis, Alice provides the opportunity by inviting her to Ravenscroft, and if Fran bungles her part of the business it’s no more than anyone would expect. I imagine the prosecution will say that she meant to make it look like an accident; but any policeman will tell you that criminals are apt to make the most elementary mistakes. And she’s an amateur, after all.”
Davenant drew a deep breath. “I don’t like it,” he announced.
“I can’t say I’m enamoured of the situation myself,” said Maitland tartly. Vera Langhorne was looking at him in a troubled way.
“Should never have asked you to stay,” she told him.
“I admit, I haven’t been very successful.” He smiled at her ruefully. “Or isn’t that what you meant?”
“Not exactly.”
“I’m only giving you the case for the Crown, you know; the reason I think Hugo’s name will be joined with Fran’s in the indictment. I don’t say I believe it.”
“’Is there a defence?”
“Not one that would convince a jury. Not even one that would convince you and Davenant, if your expressions are anything to go by.”
“Not a laughing matter,” she told him in an admonitory tone.
“No, indeed.” He came back to his chair again and picked up the neglected cup of tea. “I happen to be rather concerned,” he added mildly, “because I don’t believe a word of it myself.”
“Why not?” she demanded.
“No reason that could be put to the court.”
“But you’re going to tell us.”
“What’s the use? You’ve made up your minds, haven’t you?” He glanced at Davenant. “Both of you,” he said.
“We’re still concerned in the defence.”
“All right then!” He was as serious now as even Vera could have wished. “We know Fran lied when she said she didn’t know about the new codicil until New Year’s Eve, but we can make a pretty good guess at the reason. She didn’t want to admit she’d told Hugo because she was afraid people would think he’d killed his grandmother for revenge; which they probably would have done if Fran herself hadn’t been around with an even more comprehensible financial motive.”
“If she thought Hugo’d done it—”
“I daresay she did. And he lied, in his turn, not knowing her reason, but wanting to back her up.
“In the circumstances,” Tommy Davenant protested, “that is hardly a convincing argument for her innocence or his.”
“Perhaps you’ll like my next point better. Why was Hugo so keen to keep the cause of the quarrel to himself? I decline to believe that he was motivated solely by embarrassment.”
“For the same reason . . . to avoid suspicion.”
“I don’t believe that, either. But I’ll give you that point if you like. So then we come to the question, who shot at me on Friday night?”
“Not Mark?” said Vera, raising her eyebrows at him.
“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
“Well, now, just a minute. You think he sent the first two messages; what about the others?” Davenant asked.
“I think they were just someone’s idea of improving what Mark had started. But it doesn’t really matter, there’s plenty of other evidence of the town’s ill-will, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Yes, I suppose. But the shooting may just be part of the same thing.”
“It argues an urgency—”
“Which may well exist in Mark’s case.” Tommy paused to consider this, and his eyes met Maitland’s with rather a startled look.
“If he’s trying to protect Hugo—”
“I’m afraid that could be true.”
“Look here, Maitland, do you still believe in Fran’s innocence? I like the girl, I wish I believed her . . . but now you seem bent on whitewashing Hugo Randall too.”
“Answer the rest of my questions then. What did Alice learn the day she signed the new codicil?” Davenant shook his head helplessly. “Why the digitalis? Its use argues either a member of the family or a spur-of-the-moment killing; is that necessarily true? Who told Alice of Hugo’s dealings with Nancy Selkirk? Why—when these were already known—did Nancy have to die?”
“I can’t answer any of those things,” said Davenant; there was a trace of doggedness in his tone. “Can you?”
“I’m afraid the answer to the last may be that Nancy was killed because the attempt on my life failed. And I think now I ought to have foreseen the possibility, but I didn’t.”
“I don’t see―”
“Never mind. I haven’t mentioned the most important question of all: who told Nancy what the new codicil meant to her?”
“All this doesn’t seem to take us very far, does it?”
“I t-told you I d-didn’t like the s-situation,” said Maitland, with sudden violence. “But do you think any s-solution can be the right one, that l-leaves so many things obscure?”
Vera Langhorne had been silent for some time, except for the normal heaviness of her breathing. She leaned forward now with an abrupt movement and picked up the teapot. “Beside the point, really. You say we must make application—”
“And, as you’re about to remind me, once that’s d-done the affair will be no c-concern of mine.”
“Didn’t say that. But what could you have done tomorrow, after all?”
“Nothing. Nothing!”
“You could have asked the jury those questions,” she persisted.
“Oh, yes, I could have done that. I could even have given them my version of the answers, without any facts at all to back it up.”
“You know what happened?”
“I think I know.” He made a vague, dissatisfied gesture, but in some odd way the words seemed to have a finality, as though a door had been closed, cutting them off from all that had gone before. Then Davenant laughed, and gave Vera a sheepish look, and murmured something vaguely apologetic. Maitland drank the rest of his tea, and put down the cup with a clatter; he had again his intent look. “There’s the question of telling Fran,” he said.
“Tomorrow morning—”
“I’d like to explain to her myself why I shan’t have any further concern in the case,” Antony told him with a sort of mild stubbornness. “Can you arrange for them to bring her down to the court a little early, to give us time?”
“I can, of course. Do you want me to do it now?” said Davenant, with a singular lack of enthusiasm.
