Another Woman's House Read online

  “Yes.”

  “What exactly did he say of the murder? Can you remember?”

  CHAPTER 9

  SHE WENT BACK IN her mind to that cold, wet London day. Tim had had a short leave. She had come up from Aunt Cornelia, still in the nursing home, in the country, to meet him. They’d met at Paddington Station, blue and dimly lighted, sandbagged, bombed, crowded with service men and women and small sandwich bars. He’d been nervous then, she’d thought—thin and white and fine-drawn. He’d come hurrying, only one of the many in blue or khaki-colored uniforms until something in his walk, something in his thin face and tall, slender body identified him as Tim. They’d met, almost casually, concealing emotion, and hurried. Always hurried. It was one of the things she remembered most clearly about the war. There was never enough time for the trains with their fantastically interrupted service, for taxis, for the long queues.

  They’d only said a word or two and pushed their way through the crowds and managed to get seats in a bus and eventually reached the Claridge and had tea. Tim had searched around in the pockets of his A.A.F. uniform and got out some sugar he’d brought her; possibly half a cupful. He hadn’t wanted to talk of the murder or of the trial. He hadn’t really, she thought suddenly, wanted to talk to her. Yet he seemed to reach out toward her, too; he’d seemed to want to be with her. It was as if he’d needed a kind of reassurance. She’d thought then that it was because of the war, because by then he was going, as one of the gunners, on almost nightly missions.

  She said slowly to Richard, “He didn’t say much. It was hard to talk, somehow. We hadn’t met, you see, for nearly three years. He’d grown up so much, yet he was just the same, too. Except we couldn’t—we didn’t have time—to—to get acquainted again. We had so little time really. He had to get a train back and so did I. He thought then that he might get a week’s leave later. He talked about the training; he talked about the bomber crew—some. He talked about London. I could see, then, that he didn’t want to talk of the trial. He asked if I’d read the papers. I said yes. Then I said something about his part in it. I said I had wanted to be with him.”

  “How did he seem?”

  “Hurt. Sick. Hating to talk of it; hating to think of it. But”—she caught herself quickly—“not as if he were guilty, Richard. I felt it was because it had happened here; it had happened to you and Alice. That was what he hated. And because he’d had to testify against her.”

  “Did he tell you anything about the inquest?”

  “He said—what I already knew—that they’d subpoenaed him; that they’d had his leave extended by his commanding officer; so he came later, with another unit. But that was sort of—oh, by the way—when he was talking of the rest of the crew. He said that they had been strangers to him when he arrived. He was a replacement, but they’d taken him in as if he weren’t a stranger. It was not direct—the allusion to the inquest and the trial, I mean. Then, when I asked him directly about it, he—well, again I saw that he hated to talk of it. I wished I hadn’t asked. He told me only what was in the papers.”

  “Tell me,” said Richard.

  “Well, Tim had been drinking a bit, and when Webb said he’d give him a lift as far as the gates here, he refused because he wanted to walk. Webb then later, after, I suppose, he’d reached home and then come back here, passed Tim on the drive but didn’t stop. Oh, it’s just as you and the Governor said—Tim followed him, heard the shoes, ran around the end of the house and on the terrace, reached the door and Jack was dead and Webb was bending over him and Alice was in the hall, phoning. That’s all.”

  She could see Tim saying it, crumbling up his sugarless, butterless muffin, not looking at her, darting quick glances about the room, lighting a cigarette with nervous, thin young hands.

  “But you thought he was telling the truth?”

  Had she? “Why, yes. Yes, I thought so.”

  “Did you feel then that he realized fully the importance of his corroboration of Webb’s story?”

  “Yes. I think so. He seemed sick, Richard, unlike himself. Part of it, I thought, was the war, the nerve strain, the job he was doing. But underneath, basically, it was the trial, Alice’s conviction. Yes, I think he realized his own share in the evidence that convicted her. I remember trying to tell him that he couldn’t have helped it, that it wasn’t his fault, that he must not feel that he could have changed anything.”

  “What then?”

  “That was all, really. He looked at his watch, and I could see that it made him miserable to talk of it. I—put out my hand across the table and he put his on it for a minute and then he gave a sort of start and said he’d better hustle along. So he did. I had to go to the London house. The east wing had been bombed and I wanted to see that it was boarded up properly, and then get some things from Aunt Cornelia’s room in the west wing. He took me there and then he had to go on. He wrote. He’s not a regular correspondent but he wrote whenever he could. But then he was sent home and then out to China and kept there. I didn’t actually see him again until he got out of the army.”

  “Has he talked of the trial or of Alice to you since he came back?”

  “No. Not once.”

  “I suppose it was this thing, working up to a climax, that was on his mind last week-end.”

  Conscience, the Governor had said. So strong that now that he was at home, back at Thorne House for his usual visits, in familiar surroundings, yet made so horribly unfamiliar in Tim’s eyes by the absence of Alice, its force was unable to be withstood. Secretly making up his mind to go to the Governor.

  Richard saw the terrible speculation in her eyes. He said, “That boy might have killed Jack, but he wouldn’t have let Alice take the rap. So that alone proves he didn’t kill Jack. We’ll get hold of him and he’ll explain. He’ll have a good reason …”

  Barton came in the door. “I beg your pardon …”

  “Yes, Barton.”

  “About dinner, sir. It’s rather late.”

  Dinner. Myra looked at the little French clock. Long ago, in another world, she and Richard had gone for a walk and he’d said, there’s time before dinner.

  Barton, looking old and flabby, and still white with excitement, said, “Madam sent word I was to serve her dinner and yours in her room, sir.”

  “Yes,” said Richard slowly. “Yes. That’s right.”

  “Yes, sir. And may I say, sir, that Lady Carmichael learned through one of the maids of Madam’s return and sent for me to inquire. I took the liberty of replying to her questions so far as I was able.”

  “That’s right, Barton,” said Richard again. “Will you tell her, please, that I’ll see her as soon as I can?”

  “Yes, sir.” He started toward the door and then turned back to Myra. “Should you care to dine with Lady Carmichael, Miss?”

  Myra hesitated. She only wanted to be alone. Aunt Cornelia’s eyes were too wise, too perceptive. Yet she could not dine alone at the great polished table in the dining room with the candles flickering in their enormous silver holders, with Thornes of other generations looking down from the walls, regarding her, an intruder, an interloper, the other woman sitting at Alice’s table, in Alice’s place where she’d sat now (and felt so curiously happy, so secure) for so many months. She said, replying, “Yes, if she wants me. You might ask her, Barton.”

  “Yes, Miss Myra. I’ll serve your dinner, sir, then, immediately in Madam’s room.” He glanced around the room, saw that the short crimson curtain above the bookshelves at the other end had been pulled open, made a soundless gesture with his lips, and waddled toward it and, as he did so, Tim opened the French door.

  “Tim!” cried Myra.

  Richard jerked around to look. Tim said, “Hello, Myra, Richard. Hi, Barton.”

  “Tim,” cried Myra again, with almost a sob in her throat, and Tim sauntered very casually (although with a touch of defiance in his manner) into the room.

  He was tall, very thin, brown-faced, with sharp and un-youthful lin
es which fatigue and grilling hours of grim responsibility had creased into his face like tissue paper. He was in civilian clothing which didn’t fit. He’d been impatient, desperately weary of uniform. He’d obviously snatched his sagging topcoat off the rack. His dark hair was sleek and neat but his thin body looked as if it moved about restlessly inside his loose-fitting clothing. Barton had turned too. He said, “Mr. Tim! I didn’t see your car, sir. I didn’t hear you ring …”

  “I didn’t ring. I walked from the station and came in this way.”

  Richard said, “I’m glad you’ve come. We tried to reach you by phone.”

  “Oh.” Again there was a hint of defiance in his face, but he grinned nervously. Barton closed the curtains with a swish and click that sounded loud in the silence. Then Tim said, “Oh. I see. You’ve heard then?”

  “Tim, why …” began Myra, and Richard said quickly, “Mr. Tim will be here to dinner, too, Barton.”

  “Yes, sir.” Barton went to the door and turned back. “Shall I tell Lady Carmichael?”

  Myra, staring at Tim, scarcely heard him. Richard said quickly, “Yes. Yes, certainly.” Barton disappeared. Richard too was looking at Tim.

  Tim who wouldn’t return their look. Tim who slid out of the loose topcoat he wore and tossed it on a chair. His ill-matched and ill-fitting tweeds looked suddenly like a masquerade costume. He ran his hands over his hair nervously. He said, “Well, what are they going to do? Did they tell you?”

  “They’ve already done it,” said Richard slowly. “The Governor brought Alice home.”

  Tim did not speak. His eyes were fixed upon Richard, his young face suddenly sober and white. Richard said, “She’s home now.”

  “Alice—here!” said Tim then.

  “She’s upstairs. He pardoned her.”

  There was a rush and patter of footsteps along the hall and Willie charged into the room and upon Tim. He bent and gathered him up. Richard said, “They’re going to charge Webb with perjury.”

  Tim’s head was bent over the wriggling, leaping little black dog. His brown hand ruffled his ears. “I knew that,” he said indistinctly. “He made me wait. He told me Webb had confessed to perjury.”

  “All right,” said Richard. “How did you happen to remember that about the curtains, Tim? Was it your coming back here and seeing the house? Or what?”

  For a moment Tim did not reply. Myra made a step forward toward him, and Richard, waiting, his face very quiet, glanced at her so she stopped and waited, too. Tim said, his face still bent over the dog. “Is anyone around?”

  “Why, there’s only me and Richard …” began Myra, but Richard said quickly, “The Governor’s gone. Alice is upstairs. I’ll see …” He went to the doorway and looked along the hall and came back. “No one can hear,” he said in a low voice. “What is it, Tim?”

  Again Tim hesitated, stroking the dog. Then he looked up. “I made it up,” he said flatly.

  “You … Tim, what do you mean?” cried Myra.

  Richard put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “It’s all right—go on …”

  Tim eyed him rather doubtfully and, again, defiantly for a moment. Then he said, “Well, I’ll tell you exactly. But, for God’s sake,” he turned to Myra, “keep this under your hat, Sis. I—Well, it’s as I said, I made it up. I decided it might not get Alice out but it certainly would cast doubt on Webb’s story, and it was his story that convicted her. So, legally, there’d be a question, it seemed to me, and it might—it just might—do something that would help her. I’ve been thinking about it naturally all this time.”

  The half-defiant look left his face. He was all at once terribly, almost tragically serious. “You see,” he said, “I’d told the truth in the first place. They questioned me right away, that night. I never dreamed of their accusing Alice or even suspecting her. I was pretty well stunned when they did and when Webb said he’d seen her shoot him. I …” A slow flush crept up over his thin cheekbones and receded. He said steadily, “Alice had been awfully good to me. Alice …” He stopped and bent again over Willie’s black little head.

  Richard said gently, “You felt that Alice couldn’t have shot him.”

  “I didn’t see how Alice could have done anything that wasn’t—like Alice,” said Tim. “She … I damned near died when I saw that my testimony backed up Webb’s. I couldn’t change it. I had already told what I’d seen. At least,” he swallowed hard and looked up at them and said, “at least I didn’t see a way to change it until later. Months later. Then during the war I—well, of course I’d kept thinking of it, and turning it over and over in my mind. It was horrible. Alice … I couldn’t get away from it. I decided that if I ever got back here I’d do something, I didn’t know what, to get her out. Then last week-end I was in here, sitting right over there,” he nodded toward the sofa facing the low windows, “and I suddenly saw the way to do it. So I went to the Governor …”

  “Wait a minute,” said Richard. “You mean, exactly, that you invented that story you told him?”

  “But Webb …” began Myra, and Tim said, “Yup. I invented it. I looked at those curtains and I thought and thought, and all at once I knew that all I had to say was that I’d come up on the terrace and stopped there in the doorway before Webb saw me, and that he was pulling those curtains open and they’d been closed before, when he claimed he’d heard the shots and stood on tiptoes and looked into this room. It was as simple as that. And then, by golly—it was the truth.”

  There was a moment of utter silence. Neither Richard nor Myra moved or spoke. The fire sighed. Tim’s thin brown hand tugged Willie’s ears, the little dog gave a leap up toward his face. Tim said suddenly, “You could have knocked me over with less than a feather when I came back into the Governor’s office after he’d seen Webb, all prepared to stick to my story come hell or high water and then—by golly, I was so surprised that I damned near gave it away then and there. It was the truth and Webb admitted it. Of course, my weak point was having to say that I’d forgotten it and only now remembered. But it was the only excuse I could think of. I thought they might charge me with perjury or some damned thing, I didn’t know what, but I didn’t see what they could do if I stuck to it. Except, of course, it might not have worked. The Governor might have seen through it; maybe he did.”

  And he thinks, thought Myra sharply, that you may be a murderer.

  Richard stood quite still, his hand on Tim’s shoulder. Tim said, “I wish to God I’d thought of it sooner. Alice …” He looked at Richard and at Myra and swallowed rather hard again and said, suddenly shedding the years of forced adulthood and becoming very young and very boyish, his eyes shining, “Alice didn’t kill him.”

  “You mean,” said Richard gently, “that you had been afraid that she had. …”

  “Well, I didn’t see how she could have done it. She’s so—so good,” said Tim. “But then I thought maybe Manders—well, maybe he was a heel, you know. A well-mannered, well-washed heel. Maybe she’d, well, had to shoot him. You hear of things like that. Maybe—oh, I thought of all kinds of things. Crazy things. I even thought, what the hell! Suppose she did shoot him! Whatever Alice had to do was—was right. What’s the use of making such a fuss over a fellow like Jack Manders! That’s what I thought. But …” Again his face was young and boyish. “But she didn’t! If I’d had the sense then to think of a way out, she’d never have gone to prison.”

  There was another short silence. Richard gave Tim’s shoulder a reassuring pat as he released it and then turned and walked the length of the room and back again. He sat down in the arm chair.

  Tim said, “The most I hoped to do was stir up something, cast reasonable doubt on Webb’s story. The weak point was my pretending to have forgotten all this time. Anybody would know that I’d have done everything I could to get Alice out of it. But I thought I might—just might accomplish something. It’d be my word against Webb’s and Webb was prejudiced. Well, of course, so was I. But now …” He lifted his face again a
nd grinned a little. “It’s swell, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Richard. “Yes. Look here, Tim, as I remember it, Webb swore in his testimony that he had passed you along the drive. You were walking and he was in his car.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Did—well,” said Richard carefully, “did any other cars happen to pass you along the road? Earlier, I mean, while you were walking from the station and before you turned into the driveway?”

  Tim’s face was instantly sharp and alert. He put the little dog down on the chair beside him. “I don’t know. That never came up. I saw Webb, as you know. He went on past me. He saw me. At least he said he did then. What do you mean, Dick? Wait a minute,” said Tim slowly, “I guess I know what you mean.”

  “If you can think of anybody else who might have seen you it would be a help. Just to nail it …”

  “You mean,” said Tim, watching Richard, “that a new investigation is underway?”

  “It will be. In the morning.”

  “I see. Yes. And they …”

  “You are in the clear, Tim. You didn’t shoot him. It’s only a question of getting things straight before the police and the …”

  Tim said, “Have they questioned you?”

  “No. I’m in the clear, too; that’s beside the point. Just now, before Sam comes, let’s try to …”

  Tim interrupted sharply again. “Somebody shot Manders. So they’ll not give up till they find out who it was. Yes, I see. You’ve sent for Sam?”

  “Yes, but only …”

  “I know what that means. Well …” His face was intent, his eyes suddenly adult and wise. “Well, there’s only you and me and Webb. And you’ll be their choice. Your gun, your house, Alice …” Tim said slowly, “How do you know I didn’t shoot him? How do you know he didn’t deserve it? I’ve probably had my share in killing a lot of people. It wouldn’t bother me much. How do you know Alice didn’t know that I killed him—and wouldn’t tell it because of her—her loyalty to me. How do you know …”