"Of course! Of course! Stella helped me with the telephone one day this week in the library there. I told her that I was new to the _Harpoon_."
He suddenly beat upon the table with his fist. "But why should she write the letter at all? Why should she want her death here, under these strange conditions, announced to the world? A little cruel I call it--yes, Millie, a little cruel."
"Stella wasn"t cruel," said Lady Splay.
"She wasn"t," Hillyard agreed. "I know why she wrote that. She wrote it to strengthen her hand and will at the last moment. The message was sent, the announcement of her death would be published in the morning, was already in print. Just that knowledge would serve as the final compulsion to do what she wished to do. She wrote lest her courage and nerve should at the last moment fail her, as to my knowledge they had failed her before."
"Before!" cried Millie. "She had tried before! Oh, poor woman!"
"Yes," said Hillyard, and he told them all of the vague but very real fear which had once driven him into Surrey in chase of her; of her bedroom with the bed unslept in and the lights still burning in the blaze of a summer morning; of herself sitting all night at her writing-table, making dashes and figures upon the notepaper and unable to steel herself to the last dreadful act.
Martin Hillyard gave no reason for her misery upon that occasion, nor did any one think to inquire. He just told the story from his heart, and therefore with a great simplicity of words. There was not one of those who heard him, but was moved.
"Yet there were perhaps a couple of hours in her life more grim and horrible than any in that long night," he went on, "the hours between ten o"clock and midnight yesterday."
"Ah, but we don"t know how they were spent," began Sir Chichester.
"We know something," returned Martin gravely. "I told you that that letter was corroborated before the paragraph it contained was inserted in the paper."
"Yes," said Lady Splay.
"Whilst they were waiting for the news from France, which did not come, they rang you up from the _Harpoon_ office. Yes: they rang up Rackham Park."
Harry Luttrell s.n.a.t.c.hed up the letter once more from the table. Yes, there across the left-hand corner was printed Sir Chichester"s telephone number and the district exchange.
"They were answered by a woman. Of that there"s no doubt. And the woman a.s.sured them that Stella Croyle was dead. This was at a quarter-past twelve."
There was a movement of horror about the table, and then, with dry lips, Millie Splay whispered:
"Stella!"
"Yes. It must have been," answered Hillyard. "Oh, she had thought out her plan to its last detail. She knew the letter might not be enough.
So, whilst we were all dancing at Harrel, she sat alone from ten to midnight in that library, waiting for the telephone to ring, hoping perhaps--for all we know--at the bottom of her heart that it would not ring. But it did, and she answered."
The picture rose vividly before them all. Harrel, with its lighted ball-room and joyous dancers on the one side; the silent library on the other, with Stella herself in all her finery, sitting with her haggard eyes fixed upon the telephone, whilst the slow minutes pa.s.sed.
"That"s terrible," said Millie Splay in a low voice; and such a wave of pity swept over the four people that for a long while no further word was said. Joan upstairs in her room was forgotten. Any thought of resentment in that Stella had used Sir Chichester"s name was overlooked by the revelation of the long travail of her soul.
"I remember that she once said to me, "Women do get the worst of it when they kick over the traces,"" Hillyard resumed. "And undoubtedly they do.
On the other hand you have McKerrel"s hard-headed verdict, "If these poor neurotic bodies had any work to do they wouldn"t have so much time to worry about their troubles." Who shall choose between them? And what does it matter now? Stella"s gone. She will strain her poor little unhappy heart no more against the bars."
CHAPTER x.x.xI
JENNY AND MILLIE SPLAY
After a time their thoughts reverted to the living.
"There"s Joan," said Millie Splay. "Jenny Prask hates her. She means to drag her into some scandal."
"If she can," said Martin. He went out into the hall and returned with the key of Stella Croyle"s room. He held it up before them all.
"This key was found on the lawn outside the library window this morning by Luttrell. Jenny has never referred to it since she ran downstairs this morning crying out that the key was not in the lock. It was lying on the hall table all through the time when Sir Chichester was questioning her, and she said never a word about it. She was much too clever. But she saw it. I was watching her when she did see it. There was no concealing the swift look of satisfaction which flashed across her face. I haven"t a doubt that she herself dropped the key where it was found."
"Nor I," Luttrell agreed with a despairing vehemence, "but we can"t prove it. Jenny Prask is going to know nothing of that key. "No, no, no, no!" she is going to say, "Ask Miss Whitworth! Miss Whitworth came back from Harrel. Miss Whitworth was the last person to see Mrs. Croyle alive. Ask her!" It is Jenny Prask or Miss Whitworth. We are up against that alternative all the time. And Jenny holds all the cards. For she knows, d.a.m.n her, what happened here last night."
"She did hold all the cards this morning," Hillyard corrected. "She doesn"t now. Look at this key! There was a heavy dew last night. It was wet underfoot in the garden at Harrel."
"Yes," said Millie.
"How is it then that there"s no rust upon the key?" and as he asked the question he twirled the key so that the light flashed upon stem and wards until they shone like silver. "No, this key was placed where you found it, Luttrell, not last night, but this morning after the sun had dried the gra.s.s."
"But we came home by daylight," Sir Chichester interposed. "They might argue that Joan might have slipped downstairs before she went to bed, with the key in her hand."
"But she wouldn"t have chosen that spot in front of the library window.
She might have flung it from her window, she might conceivably have slipped round the house and laid it under Mrs. Croyle"s window. But to place it in front of the library to which room she returned from Harrel--no."
"Yes," said Sir Chichester doubtfully. "I see. Joan can make good that point. Yes, she can explain that." And Millie Splay broke in with impatience:
"Explain it! Of course. But what we want is to avoid that she should have to explain anything, that she should be called as a witness at all!"
There lay the point of trouble. To it, they came ceaselessly back, revolving in the circle of their vain argument. Joan had something to conceal, and Jenny Prask was determined that she should disclose it, and Jenny Prask held the means by which to force her.
"But that"s just what I am driving at," continued Martin. "We can"t afford to be gentle here. There"s no lie Jenny Prask wouldn"t tell to force Joan into the witness box. We have got to deal relentlessly with Jenny Prask. A woman"s voice spoke from this house over the telephone to London at a quarter-past twelve last night, and said that Stella was dead. Whose voice? Not Joan"s. Joan was having supper with Luttrell at twelve o"clock. I saw her, others, too, saw her of course. Whose voice then? Stella"s, as we say--as we know. But if not Stella"s, as Jenny Prask says--why then there is only one other woman"s voice which could have given the news."
"Jenny"s," cried Millie with a sudden upspring of hope.
"Yes, Jenny Prask"s."
Millie Splay rose from her chair swiftly and rang the bell; and when Harper answered it, she said:
"Will you ask Jenny to come here?"
"Now, my lady?"
"Now."
Harper went out of the room and Millie turned again to her friends.
"Will you leave this to me?" she asked.
Sir Chichester was inclined to demur. A few deft and pointed questions, very clear, such as might naturally occur to Hillyard or Luttrell, or Sir Chichester himself might come in usefully to put the polish, as it were, on Millie"s spade work. Harry Luttrell smiled grimly.
"We didn"t exactly cover ourselves with glory this morning," he said. "I think that we had better leave it to Lady Splay."
Sir Chichester reluctantly consented, and they all waited anxiously for Jenny"s appearance. That she would fight to the last no one doubted.
Would she fight even to her own danger?