CHAPTER X

The Little Dancing Girl

Evelyn stood for many minutes after replacing the boot, in doubt and distress. She absolved Philip; she could neither absolve Celia nor understand how it was possible that she had had the resolution to do what undeniably had been done. There was something else, there must be, which would explain all. Perhaps if she could find the reason for the two things which still seemed to have none, the moving of the box and the dent in the wall, she would understand everything. At any rate she could make no discovery which rendered things less horrible than they had now again become.

So thinking, she came down once more to the hall, took up a position on the further side opposite the foot of the stairs and tried with an intense effort of mind to imagine stage by stage exactly what had taken place. It was fruitless; she was unable to pass beyond the conclusions to which she had already been forced. At last, rather hopeless of progress, fearful that no progress was possible, and that, incredible as it seemed to her, the truth lay between Celia and John as she had first been appalled by it on realizing the significance of the barred shutters, she came slowly forward to the edge of the sheet.

She did not dare move it again, but she had no need to; she saw the stains and all below it in her mind as clearly as in a photograph. She was thinking whether any enlightenment was to be found in the original positions of the cigarettes. “Most of them four or five steps up,” she thought, “in the centre and right.” Her heart gave a sudden leap, light burst in her brain and thoughts followed one upon the other. That was just beyond the dent, the dent was made by the box, the cigarettes had naturally fallen scattered, most of them just beyond where it struck. She ran up the first and second steps, stooped at the third, looked at the dent again, and was certain of her conclusion. Then she turned round and faced the hall from there. Her eyes travelled automatically to the little table on which the cigarette box ordinarily stood; instantly she saw that the cigarettes had fallen on the centre and right because the box came obliquely from the left, clearing the end of the balusters and striking against the wall. The thought rose sharp and bewildering—the box had missed! But it had been found lying at the foot of the stairs, close to the dead man’s head and stained with his blood. The one thing remaining which had puzzled her was suddenly illuminated with light; it was no accident, but murder, and the murderer was the man who had moved the box! He had set it down in the dead man’s blood deliberately to make it appear the weapon, and it had never touched him at all.

Relief and dread fought a bitter battle in her. For the first time since he had come into her thoughts to overshadow them with fear, she felt it possible to acquit John not only of murder but of causing his father’s death at all; the thought of him had been bound up with the box and now she knew the box had shed no blood. But the instant she had yielded herself up to the relief of this her reason became weighed with a greater sense of evil still. The box had missed, but none the less Sir Roger had been struck down. In spite of all her reborn belief she could not repress the thought that this might have been by the hand either of John or of Philip. Philip and John might both have attacked Sir Roger; more odious still, Philip might have killed him after John had left, believing that it would not be difficult to shift the guilt onto one who had secretly entered the house he was forbidden. She felt sick as these possibilities forced their way in on her. No longer could she even comfort herself by believing in the thought of accident.

And after the deed was done, what then? If they had acted together, Philip had let John out and broken the little window. Then, back at the body, he had had a spasm of fear and put the box where it had been found—that at least would throw suspicion away from him. If he had done it after he had let John out, striking perhaps on an impulse without thinking it out in all its traces afterwards, the moving of the box argued just the same a fell and deadly motive. Then he had gone back to his study—she saw the whole thing—written those letters rapidly and then returned to make a show of finding the body and to act a long-drawn lie.

Wildly she wracked her brain for one detail which could disprove these fearful imaginings. “A pair of evening shoes”—the words she had heard Humblethorne use in his talk with Birts the previous evening, words then without special significance, came instead with swift insistence into her mind. They wanted a pair of Philip’s shoes; she had heard them say so. Why? Instantly thought answered itself as she remembered the rest of the stains so close to her. She stooped, and lifting the edge of the sheet, looked again at the two faint, oblong stains, one on the second and one on the fourth step. “He went upstairs after the murder,” came the flashing conclusion—“to act his lie first to me,” she added with a horror-stricken repulsion. So violent was this that she struggled with all her might against it: this seemed to her the most shocking part of the whole dreadful business, “To me, with wet blood on his shoes—impossible! He must have had some other reason; it must have been before that,” she found herself saying. She dropped the sheet she had been clutching with unconscious fierceness, and white and cold, with her mouth set in a fierce, hard line, examined the stairs above, and then the landing, and then the second flight of stairs.

When she reached the top without having found anything to answer her, she stopped: she would not believe her first thought while any other solution could be found. She leant against the balustrade and looked down into the hall. Suddenly it crossed her mind that it was possible that Sir Roger might have been struck from there: she wondered why it had not occurred to her before and then realized that as long as it was assumed that the cigarette box had killed him any such possibility was far too remote. But now when another weapon was in question the situation was different. As she stood, though, just at the head of the stairs, she saw that Sir Roger would have had his back towards her, if he had been turned towards the hall; and he had been, she was sure, for, if he had been coming up the stairs and the body moved, there must have been some indications, and there were none. She accordingly went along a few steps until she reached a bracket which stood against and level with the top of the balusters, and could see most of the hall.

Here she was almost directly above the spot at which the body had been found, and she stood still, her thoughts concentrated on the one problem directly before her mind, why had Philip come upstairs immediately after the murder? She gazed out over the hall and tried to find a reason. Her eyes travelled slowly over all she could see, from the doors of the hall and the dining-room across the hall to the tragic place almost immediately below her. No thought, no reason came to her. She leant forward to discover how far underneath her towards the drawing-room door she could see and found that it was invisible. She was turning away with a gesture of impatience when her glance fell on a little bronze statuette of a dancing girl about nine inches high and fixed into a small ebony pedestal which stood on the bracket level with the top of the balusters. It had stood there for years and she had passed it a thousand times, but there was something about its pose now which instantly attracted her attention, keyed as that was to the uttermost. The right arm, which ordinarily was raised with the elbow bent at right angles to the body and the forearm curving in an easy, graceful manner outwards, was now bent forwards and rather across the body in a way that huddled the shoulder awkwardly.

Evelyn gripped the rail of the balusters with both hands with a sudden violence of which she was completely unconscious: and then, her heart beating wildly with an intuition of success, bent to examine what she had found. On the elbow, a little underneath and behind it so that, unless the statuette was moved—and she had no intention of touching it then—it could only be seen by twisting well over the balusters, was a little, dirty, dark red clot: the whole of the arm at the back from elbow to shoulder and again a little down the side was slightly stained as well. Evelyn knew that she had come upon not only the answer to the puzzle which had then been engaging her but the true weapon as well.

The statuette stood almost directly above the spot where Sir Roger’s body had been found. She saw it all now. It had been so easy to fling it down upon the victim standing below. Sir Roger’s attention must have been attracted by a noise above just too late; he had started back, and the statuette had struck him on his uplifted forehead and dashed him to the ground. It was obvious too why the murderer had come upstairs immediately after committing the crime—it was to replace the statuette. What part John had played she could not tell; it was evident that he could have had no direct hand in it, he would never have come there to seize and hurl so bizarre a weapon. Black as the tragedy seemed, Evelyn was sensible of two consoling thoughts. John might know, but it might have happened after he had gone—probably it had; at any rate he had not struck the blow; and secondly, Celia, whatever she knew and feared, had not known of this, had not helped to cover up the tracks of her father’s murderer.

She drew back a little from the bracket, clutching these two thoughts to her bitter, sickened heart, and then, stooping down, gazed fixedly at the floor for any further direct testimony as to the replacing of the statuette. Nothing was visible on the carpet, but, outlined on the white paint, between the carpet and the balusters was the imprint of a left foot, very faint, but clear enough of outline to intently searching eyes. It needed no great acuteness to deduce that in the act of putting the statuette back on the bracket the murderer had stepped off the carpet with one foot.

For many minutes after making this discovery Evelyn remained staring at the ominous mark: then she turned and went straight to her room; she felt appalled, terrified at the abysses of human nature into which she had unwittingly forced her way. Once again she wished with all her heart that she had never been curious enough to try and penetrate the mystery; she had been drawn on from one darkness to another, and yet she had not been able to leave it alone. Nor could she now; she was impelled against her desire to turn conviction into undeniable certainty. Remembering that the first thing Humblethorne had done on coming on the footmarks outside the drawing-room window had been to secure the measurements, she took a pair of scissors and a piece of drawer-paper and, returning to the mark below the statuette, carefully cut out a pattern. Then she went back to her room. What her purpose was she hardly knew; she did not know what she would do when she had established conviction on an unbreakable chain of reason, but while any possibility of error remained her bitterness of spirit gave her no rest. She looked at the cutting in her hand and shivered at the significance which so simple a thing contained. Then she wondered if she dared go immediately to compare it with its original; but she did not know for certain that Philip was still in the study, and she saw no way of finding out without revealing the horror in her soul. She stood turning the pattern over and over purposelessly; then she thrust it into a drawer as if it burnt her; she would go and get a measuring tape, anything to feed her craving for action. With this intention she went into the room she shared with Celia and was rummaging in a work-basket when her friend came in.

“Why, Evelyn,” said Celia, “I didn’t know where you were: you have neglected me this morning!”

“Have I, dear?” replied Evelyn in so vague a tone that it was obvious that the remark had not penetrated in the least.

“What’s the matter? Aren’t you feeling any better?” asked Celia with sympathetic surprise: she was not used to such replies.

“What’s that? Better? Oh, I’m all right,” said Evelyn, trying to force her thoughts away and speak naturally. She put the work-basket down, closed it and then looked across at Celia.

“And how are you this morning?” she added. “You seem a little more rested, but why that worried look?”

“Oh, Evie, it’s about—well, what we spoke of yesterday,” responded Celia, half eagerly from desire to share and half fearfully from memory of their difference of view. “About, well, John, you know.” Her voice in saying the name quivered and stumbled.

“Yes?” asked Evelyn with a quick glance.

“I’ve just been with mother and she began by asking me if I had had any answer to my telegram. I couldn’t tell her I hadn’t sent one—I didn’t, you know—so I simply answered, no. And then she said it was very odd that we hadn’t heard from him and went on about it worrying so that I didn’t know what to do. And so I told her—I didn’t mean to, but I suppose I let out a hint and she seized on it and made me tell her.”

“Tell her what?”

“About, about,” Celia caught her friend’s glance and faint colour came into her white cheeks as she hesitated and stuck in the sentence she was on the point of uttering; then summoning up a little determination, she said doggedly, “about his having troubles of his own, how he really wasn’t rich and happy now as I had always let her suppose, and how Margaret was ill and all; I said I couldn’t worry him to come now. She was very upset as I was afraid she would be.” Celia stopped and then resumed. “She agreed, though, at last about not urging him to come; I promised to write and send him some money and tell him she said he was to bring Margaret as soon as she is better and able to come here too. She said of course they must regard this as home now. But——” again she stopped and this time did not say any more, but remained plucking nervously at a cushion-cover with down-cast eyes.

“Celia,” said Evelyn gently after waiting a moment in hope she would go on of her own accord.

“Yes,” replied Celia, neither looking up nor desisting from her restless movements.

“Won’t you tell me everything?”

“That’s all; I came away then,” answered Celia, speaking quickly in a weak defiance of fear and not looking up.

“I mean, about John. Why did he come here two nights ago?”

Celia went suddenly white to the lips: her eyes widened slowly in intense distress, and she breathed in a low, strained voice, “You know!”

“Yes, I have known since yesterday. You can tell me, Celia; you must tell me so that I can help him and you.”

“Does any one else know?” A fearful anxiety was in her question.

“No one knows as much as I do. The others who know think he killed Sir Roger. I know he didn’t.”

The effect of this simple assertion was startling. Celia stretched out her hand to Evelyn, her breath coming in quick, short gasps, and cried with half-incredulous joy, “Evie! do you know what you are saying?”

“Yes. I can prove he didn’t, too, but it will be much easier if you tell me what he did do. Why he came and everything you know. It’s not like us to have secrets from each other.”

“Oh, you don’t know what joy you give me. Yes, I will tell you everything: it has been so terrible bearing it alone,” cried Celia, holding on to her friend and weeping in wild relief. “I couldn’t tell you about his coming beforehand; he made me promise not to; he was more afraid, I think, of mother’s finding out about his being so worried and unhappy than of anything else. And afterwards I couldn’t tell you, because—because I was so afraid he must have done it. Oh, Evie, are you sure he didn’t?”

“Darling, what made you even think for a moment he did?”

“Because I left them together,” answered Celia in a low, terrified voice; “and father was in one of his rages and John white and cold.”

“Well, he didn’t,” replied Evelyn. “I thought at first he did, by accident, of course, but he didn’t. So tell me everything from the beginning.”

“It began about a month ago,” said Celia, “with Margaret getting ill: that was the final misfortune. I was away on a visit to the Williamsons then, you remember, so he could write without being afraid that his letters would be noticed—I have always managed to let him know when I’m away from here—and he told me how bad things were with him. Finally, he asked for my help; he had always refused to take a penny before—he has all mother’s pride, you know—but he couldn’t get the things Margaret needed if she was to have a chance of getting well, and that broke it down; nothing else would have. I was for sending him all I could scrape together, but a sudden, foolish desire to see me and talk to me came over him; he wrote as eagerly as a boy and made this plan. Father almost always went up early; it seemed so easy for me to slip down and open the drawing-room window and he could so easily get into the park and steal across the lawn. I didn’t much like it, but there was no other way in which I could see him without running the risk of father’s getting to hear of it—and when once it had been suggested, oh, Evie, I longed to see him as much as he did to see me.”

“Yes, dear,” Evelyn said understandingly. “And what happened?”

“I slipped down as arranged,” went on Celia nervously; “that was easy. I’d gone to my room early, you remember, after saying good-night to you on the plea of headache. I hated hiding it from you, Evie, but John thought it better no one should know. It was about eleven, I should think; all lights were out downstairs and I thought every one was in bed. I opened the window, and he was there, waiting. We talked there a long while, and then he said he couldn’t see me properly or I him, and he came in. I went and turned on the light, and then I heard father as he limped along in the hall. I didn’t know what to do, I was so afraid he had seen the light and was coming straight in. I thought the only thing to do was to go out and pretend I’d only come down for a book or something. I signed to John to stay still and stepped out.” She shivered, and it was a moment before she went on. “I suppose I acted badly,” she said finally; “at any rate, father suspected something; he told me very angrily to give him none of my nonsense, and when I tried to pass it off and to go upstairs he caught me so roughly by the arm that I cried out. And—and that was more than John could stand. He came out and ordered father to leave me alone: he was terribly angry, not in father’s way, but white and stern. He alarmed me, but father, after staring at him as if he could not believe his own eyes, broke out into awful language and then turned on me and told me to go upstairs. I would have disobeyed, even if he had struck me, but John said to me in a little, dry voice, ‘You had better go,’—and so, hating it but not seeing how I could help, I went. That’s all I know; and when father was found like that, I couldn’t help believing John had done it. You can imagine how I have been suffering, and then when mother wanted him to come here it was dreadful.”

Evelyn had listened to every word with the deepest attention; she was hearing the truth, she knew. When Celia had finished, she became very thoughtful and finally said, “No, you couldn’t help believing it: I can quite understand. Well, don’t worry any more: I’m going to show he didn’t.”

She walked to the window and gazed out; then abruptly turned and disappeared into her room. She had seen Philip Castle strolling along away from the house.