The Deductions of Colonel Gore. Lynn Brock

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СКАЧАТЬ a little while he paced to and fro between the fireplace and the door.

      ‘What happened? He took the knife from you, I suppose?’

      ‘Yes. I was trying to get it out of the little cover or sheath or whatever you call it … behind my back. And he grabbed my wrist and took it from me.’

      ‘Did he take it away with him?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘The knife and the sheath?’

      ‘Yes. Both. He put the knife into the sheath before he put it into his pocket. Why?’

      ‘Because, last night, about a quarter-past two or thereabouts, I found the sheath lying on the ground among some leaves, over there beside the gates leading into the hotel grounds. He must have thrown it away when he got outside. No, though. He had his car outside—just near your hall door, by the way—’

      She uttered an exclamation of dismay. Then her eyes hardened in suspicion.

      ‘How do you know that? How do you know his car was there?’

      ‘Arndale told Challoner he saw it there a little after one o’clock … and Challoner told me … and Heaven knows how many other people since. However … to return to this confounded sheath. Barrington wouldn’t take his car over there into that corner, would he? That’s the one direction he wouldn’t take it. To get to Hatfield Place from here, he’d go along Aberdeen Place or Selkirk Place—I don’t know, though. Perhaps he went up that lane over there at the back of the hotel, and chucked the knife away as he passed the gates … into the Green. Yes. He might have done that. Though why exactly he should throw the knife away …’

      She shook her head with conviction.

      ‘No. He wouldn’t throw it away. I’m quite sure of that. He put it away in his pocket carefully before he went out of the hall. He intended to keep it—he told me so—to hold it over me. I know he meant to keep it. I can’t think how you can have—You found only the sheath?’

      ‘Only the sheath. Of course the knife may have been lying about there, too, somewhere. I didn’t see it. But then I didn’t look for it. Of course I ought to have. I’ll go across there now and have a look round. Hasn’t anyone noticed that the beastly thing is missing from the hall yet, by the way?’

      ‘Yes. Clegg noticed it this morning. I heard him telling Sidney about it as he was going out after breakfast.’

      ‘Didn’t your husband wonder what had become of it?’

      ‘No. He merely told Clegg to ask the other servants if they knew what had become of it. I don’t suppose he’ll ever think of it again. He never worries about things of that sort. If he does, well … no one knows anything about it. It will be only another lie for me. That’s nothing. I’m an expert liar now.’

      ‘There’s only one kind of liar, Pickles—and that’s a damn bad one. I present you with that precious chunk of wisdom free gratis and for nothing.’

      She laughed bitterly.

      ‘My dear man, do you think I believe for a moment that Sidney doesn’t know I’ve told him heaps and heaps of lies? Do you think anyone could deceive Sidney? You just try. He isn’t a dear simple old Muggins like you, whom any woman or anyone could bamboozle. If you knew what agony it is for me now—downright agony—to look him in the face—’

      ‘But … you don’t think he knows anything about this entanglement of yours with Barrington, do you? Not that that wouldn’t be the very best thing that could possibly happen—’

      ‘I don’t know,’ she said miserably. ‘Sometimes—sometimes I catch Sidney looking at me sometimes so oddly …

      ‘Then I persuade myself that it’s impossible … that if he knew anything, he’d say so at once and have it out with me. I don’t know what to think. I just keep on trying not to think—trying to wriggle along somehow … just like a worm wriggling in clay … blind … not knowing whether it’s being watched or not … crawling round and round in the old bit of mud. I know I’m bound to get caught in the end. I jolly nearly got caught last night, as a matter of fact. I had hardly got upstairs to my room, after Mr Barrington had gone away, before I heard Sidney go downstairs and go out. I suppose—I hope—someone had rung him up on the telephone … He has a night-telephone in his bedroom, you know … though I didn’t hear the bell ring. He made no reference to his going out at breakfast this morning … naturally I didn’t either. But I was simply scared stiff when I heard him leaving his room. I thought he must have heard us talking in the hall and got up and dressed—perhaps to follow Mr Barrington—’

      ‘What time was that? When did Barrington go away?’

      ‘I’m not sure. About half-past one or so, I should say.’

      ‘How soon after that did your husband go out?’

      ‘About ten minutes afterwards, I suppose. Perhaps not quite so long.’

      ‘Oh, well then, I can tell you where he went. I met him last night about twenty-five minutes to two over in Selkirk Place. I’d gone out to post some letters. He told me that he’d been called out to some Mrs MacArthur’s little boy …’

      ‘Oh,’ she said, relieved. ‘Then that’s all right. Another day to live. Hip-hip-hooray.’

      ‘Oh, damn it, Pickles,’ he muttered unhappily. ‘Pull yourself together.’

      He seated himself again and chewed the stem of his pipe in silence for a little while. Outside darkness had long fallen. Better go back to the hotel and get his pocket-torch, he reflected, before he began hunting about for the knife. If Barrington had thrown it away—it was quite possible that second thoughts had induced him to do so—the knife and sheath might very well have been separated, either in the air, or by collision with the ground or a tree or the railings. Possibly the knife had fallen in the Green inside the railings. It would be a simple matter to climb the railings in the darkness; fortunately they were of no great height.

      But—what a mess …

      And what an escape …

      Suppose she had succeeded in giving the brute a jab, or even a scratch, with the thing— Suppose he had died down there in the hall, as that Masai boy had died—thrashing about on the ground in agony, shrieking— She had never even thought of that, apparently—had fancied, probably, that death would come to him noiselessly and without warning. Good Lord—what an escape for her …

      He turned to look at her, discreetly, as she sat leaning forward, staring at the fire, her chin again gathered in her hands. Deliberately he tried to take an impartial, dispassionate view of her, to eliminate the special, mysterious, incalculable quality of her that had, as long as he could remember her, made her for him … different. But even as he strove to strip his witch of her magic, he realised how potent it was—how little a thing that could be amputated by cold-blooded common sense or colder-blooded morality. What she had just told him ought, both common sense and morality assured him, to have almost completely obliterated her glamour for him. As a matter of fact, it had not affected it in the very least. He had simply perceived for himself once more the familiar fact that, in a human system of values—and Wick Gore was a very human person indeed—not the thing done, but the person who did it, mattered.

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