LITMIR.BIZ

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arm gently. It was plain to see the girl had been crying, that indeed she was in an excitable condition, which on the least provocation might dive into hysteria.

      “It’s Keith,” Pat hurried on. “That’s the boy I was engaged to. I told you about him in my letters. I—”

      “Miss Black!” exclaimed Mrs. Taylor, turning—and for a while Maria found herself in the midst of hasty introductions. She could see clearly that she had arrived at a moment when formalities were purely perfunctory, when everybody was thinking not of her but of the tragedy that had occurred.

      The Superintendent came forward. “I think I have all the details now,” he said briefly. “Thank you. You’ll all be summoned to the inquest. The ambulance will be here shortly—to convey the body to the mortuary, where the coroner can inspect it.… The Sergeant will stay by the cellar door until the ambulance has been, then he will go too.” The Superintendent paused, looking at Maria. “Good afternoon, madam. I understand you are a friend of the family, not a relative?”

      “Exactly so, Super,” Maria conceded, her eyes straying to the forgotten sandwiches and empty glasses on the big dining table.

      “You were intending to attend this—er—party?”

      “I was. If you wish to know why I didn’t, I would suggest you get in touch with the owner of a two-seater having the licence number HK—four seven one. That owner will confirm that I had a breakdown.”

      “I hardly think that will be necessary, madam, but thank you just the same.… You are most observant.”

      Maria smiled. “So I have been told. I also believe in taking precautions. I understand that a suicide has occurred: if you should have reason to doubt suicide, you will naturally check the alibi of everybody in and out of the family. There you have mine.”

      “Er—thank you,” the Superintendent acknowledged, and cleared his throat; then he turned and left the room.

      There was silence, the deadly, stunned silence of inability to focus on the thing that had happened. It was broken by Ambrose Robinson muttering to himself.

      “‘Oh that my grief were thoroughly weighed and my calamity laid in the balances together, for now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea.…’ Job.”

      Maria considered him with a concentrated gaze, then she gave a prim little cough.

      “I—er—seem to have arrived at a terrible moment,” she said quietly.

      “Yes.…” Mr. Taylor looked at her moodily from the other side of the room. “Yes, you have, Miss Black. But be that as it may I don’t consider we would seem disrespectful if we made you welcome. Won’t you please sit down?”

      “I’ll make you some tea,” Mrs. Taylor said, as though she hardly realized what she was saying.

      “Later,” Maria said, seating herself. “I can see that you are all much distressed. I—”

      “If nobody minds,” Madge Banning said, jumping up suddenly with a deathly pallor on her face, “I’ll be going home. I—I don’t feel too well. ’Scuse me, won’t you?”

      She dashed from the room and swept the door shut behind her She had hardly gone before Betty Andrews made a similar excuse. Ambrose Robinson, standing by the window, saw both girls flee down the street. He turned a gaunt face. The tragedy had left him hollow-eyed, his lips working spasmodically.

      “I think, if you’ll forgive me, that I’ll follow the example of those two girls,” he said. “I just couldn’t stay here and watch them remove my boy.… I must go home—be alone—offer a prayer for him.…”

      His voice tailed off as nobody spoke. He left the room. Maria slanted an eye towards the window and watched his tall figure go down the pathway; then she looked back into the room. Mrs. Taylor shifted uneasily and said again that she ought to make some tea—but she did not move.

      “Perhaps,” Maria said at last, “I had better go on to my hotel and return here again later when you have had a chance to calm yourselves. This is hardly the time for entertaining a guest.…”

      “Hotel?” Pat repeated absently. “What hotel?” With an effort she came back to life. “But aren’t you staying with those friends of yours, Miss Black? You have friends in Redford, haven’t you?”

      “I did have, my dear. They left long ago. Since you were kind enough to invite me to your celebration, I was determined to accept. So I made arrangements to stay a day or two in this part of the world, survey the local points of interest, and meantime put up at the Grand Hotel.”

      “But you can stay here!” Mr. Taylor exclaimed. “Why on earth didn’t you tell us your friends had left?”

      Maria smiled faintly. “I am a most independent person, Mr. Taylor. I like hotels because if I do not approve of the service I can say so. One cannot in all courtesy deal with one’s friends in that fashion.” Maria observed that her deliberate effort at conversation had somewhat broken the iron spell. “I’m so sorry I was late. As you heard me tell the Superintendent, my car broke down. Do I understand that the young man you called Keith…committed suicide?”

      “I was to marry him,” Pat said dully. “I told you so in my letters. I wanted you to meet him—get an idea what you thought of him.”

      “Would that have mattered so much?” Maria asked.

      “I don’t know. But that’s why I asked you here. He was such a queer chap in some things. I’d have been glad of an outside opinion; but naturally it doesn’t matter any more.”

      “Forgive me, but—what happened?” Maria asked. “After all, I haven’t the remotest idea.”

      Her question banished the last traces of the spell and all four Taylors started talking at once. They slowed up for a while as the ambulance arrived and the body was removed—the sergeant announcing that he was going with it—then the moment the front door had closed the talking resumed.

      There was excitement in the voices now, each having his or her own version of what had happened. In the middle of it all Mrs. Taylor remembered her decision to make some tea—and did so. In due course Maria found herself with a cup of tea and a plateful of sandwiches on the table beside her.

      “Extraordinary,” she admitted at last, frowning, and she nodded a prompt response as Mrs. Taylor inquired if she would care for more tea. “Instead of coming to an engagement celebration, I come to the suicide of the prospective bridegroom!”

      “It seems to me such an illogical thing!” Mr. Taylor declared, his fists working. “I still don’t understand it. Why should any young man suddenly decide to hang himself in the middle of celebrating his engagement? No reason! No motive!”

      “I think there was a motive,” Pat said suddenly, and she was very tense and hard-eyed. “Sudden jealousy! It got him down!”

      Her father looked astonished. “Sudden jealousy? Of what?”

      “Remember you bringing up the matter of Billy Cranston and Cliff Evans? My two boyfriends?”

      “Yes, but— Good heavens, Pat, that was only in fun! There was nothing in it.”

      “Not to you, or me—not to any of us except Keith.” Pat gave a quick gesture. “He tackled me twice about the other boys I know, and his jealousy of them amounted to rage. I do believe your mentioning them must have done something to him and—and so he made up his mind to kill himself.”

      “Doesn’t sound very convincing to me, Sis,” Gregory said. Judging from the expression on his lean, sallow face he had been thinking hard.

      “But, Greg, there couldn’t have been any other motive,” Pat argued. “Keith was healthy—or at any rate he seemed to be—and we were going to be married. He had everything to look forward to. Only his being overwhelmed by sudden jealousy could possibly account for his behaviour.

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