Spider's Web Part 6

Clarissa got to her feet. "But he can't stay under the bolster for ever," she pointed out.

Miss Peake turned to her. "No, not for ever, of course, Mrs. Hailsham-Brown," she admitted. "But he'll be all right for twenty-four hours. By that time, the police will have finished with the house and grounds. They'll be searching further afield."

She looked around at her enthralled audience. "Now, I've been thinking about how to get rid of him," she went on. "I happened to dig out a nice deep trench in the garden this morning for the sweet peas. Well, we'll bury the body there and plant a nice double row of sweet peas all along it."

Completely at a loss for words, Clarissa collapsed onto the sofa.

"I'm afraid, Miss Peake," said Sir Rowland, "grave-digging is no longer a matter for private enterprise."

The gardener laughed merrily at this. "Oh, you men!" she exclaimed, wagging her finger at Sir Rowland. "Always such sticklers for propriety. We women have got more common sense." She leaned over the back of the sofa to address Clarissa. "We can even take murder in our stride. Eh, Mrs. Hailsham-Brown?"

Hugo suddenly leaped to his feet. "This is absurd!" he shouted. "Clarissa didn't kill him. I don't believe a word of it."

"Well, if she didn't kill him," Miss Peake asked breezily, "who did?"

At that moment, Pippa entered the room from the hall, wearing a dressing-gown, walking in a very sleepy manner, yawning, and carrying a gla.s.s dish containing chocolate mousse with a teaspoon in it. Everyone turned and looked at her.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

STARTLED, CLARISSA jumped to her feet. "Pippa!" she cried. "What are you doing out of bed?"

"I woke up, so I came down," said Pippa between yawns.

Clarissa led her to the sofa. "I'm so frightfully hungry," Pippa complained, yawning again. She sat, then looked up at Clarissa and said reproachfully, "You said you'd bring this up to me."

Clarissa took the dish of chocolate mousse from Pippa, placed it on the stool, and then sat on the sofa next to the child. "I thought you were still asleep, Pippa," she explained.

"I was asleep," Pippa told her, with another enormous yawn. "Then I thought a policeman came in and looked at me. I'd been having an awful dream, and then I half woke up. Then I was hungry, so I thought I'd come down."

She s.h.i.+vered, looked around at everyone, and continued, "Besides, I thought it might be true."

Sir Rowland came and sat on the sofa on Pippa's other side. "What might be true, Pippa?" he asked her.

"That horrible dream I had about Oliver," Pippa replied, shuddering as she recollected it.

"What was your dream about Oliver, Pippa?" Sir Rowland asked quietly. "Tell me."

Pippa looked nervous as she took a small piece of moulded wax from a pocket of her dressing-gown. "I made this earlier tonight," she said. "I melted down a wax candle, then I made a pin red-hot, and I stuck the pin through it."

As she handed the small wax figure to Sir Rowland, Jeremy suddenly gave a startled exclamation of "Good Lord!" He leaped up and began to look around the room, searching for the book Pippa had tried to show him earlier.

"I said the right words and everything," Pippa was explaining to Sir Rowland, "but I couldn't do it quite the way the book said."

"What book?" Clarissa asked. "I don't understand."

Jeremy, who had been looking along the bookshelves, now found what he was seeking. "Here it is," he exclaimed, handing the book to Clarissa over the back of the sofa. "Pippa got it in the market today. She called it a recipe book."

Pippa suddenly laughed. "And you said to me, 'Can you eat it?'" she reminded Jeremy.

Clarissa examined the book. "A Hundred Well-tried and Trusty Spells" she read on the cover. She opened the book, and read on. "'How to Cure Warts. How to Get Your Heart's Desire. How to Destroy Your Enemy.' Oh, Pippa is that what you did?"

Pippa looked at her stepmother solemnly. "Yes," she answered.

As Clarissa handed the book back to Jeremy, Pippa looked at the wax figure Sir Rowland was still holding. "It isn't very like Oliver," she admitted, "and I couldn't get any clippings of his hair. But it was as much like him as I could make it... and then... then I dreamt, I thought..." She pushed her hair back from her face as she spoke. "I thought I came down here and he was there." She pointed behind the sofa. "And it was all true."

Sir Rowland put the wax figure down on the stool quietly, as Pippa continued, "He was there, dead. I had killed him." She looked around at them all, and began to shake. "Is it true?" she asked. "Did I kill him?"

"No, darling. No," said Clarissa tearfully, putting an arm around Pippa.

"But he was there," Pippa insisted.

"I know, Pippa," Sir Rowland told her. "But you didn't kill him. When you stuck the pin through that wax figure, it was your hate and your fear of him that you killed in that way. You're not afraid of him and you don't hate him any longer. Isn't that true?"

Pippa turned to him. "Yes, it's true," she admitted. "But I did see him." She glanced over the back of the sofa. "I came down here and I saw him lying there, dead." She leaned her head on Sir Rowland's chest. "I did see him, Uncle Roly."

"Yes, dear, you did see him," Sir Rowland told her gently. "But it wasn't you who killed him." She looked up at him anxiously, and he continued, "Now, listen to me, Pippa. Somebody hit him over the head with a big stick. You didn't do that, did you?"

"Oh, no," said Pippa, shaking her head vigorously. "No, not a stick." She turned to Clarissa. "You mean a golf stick like Jeremy had?"

Jeremy laughed. "No, not a golf club, Pippa, " he explained. "Something like that big stick that's kept in the hall stand."

"You mean the one that used to belong to Mr. Sellon, the one Miss Peake calls a k.n.o.bkerrie?" Pippa asked.

Jeremy nodded.

"Oh, no," Pippa told him. "I wouldn't do anything like that. I couldn't." She turned back to Sir Rowland. "Oh, Uncle Roly, I wouldn't have killed him really."

"Of course you wouldn't," Clarissa intervened in a voice of calm common sense. "Now come along, darling, you eat up your chocolate mousse and forget all about it." She picked up the dish and offered it to Pippa. However, Pippa refused it with a shake of her head, and Clarissa replaced the dish on the stool. She and Sir Rowland helped Pippa to lie down on the sofa, Clarissa took Pippa's hand, and Sir Rowland stroked the child's hair affectionately.

"I don't understand a word of all this," Miss Peake announced. "What is that book, anyway?" she asked Jeremy, who was now glancing through it.

"'How to Bring a Murrain on Your Neighbour's Cattle.' Does that attract you, Miss Peake?" he replied. "I dare say with a little adjusting you could bring blackspot to your neighbour's roses."

"I don't know what you're talking about," the gardener said brusquely.

"Black magic," Jeremy explained.

"I'm not superst.i.tious, thank goodness," she snorted dismissively, moving away from him.

Hugo, who had been attempting to follow the train of events, now confessed, "I'm in a complete fog."

"Me, too," Miss Peake agreed, tapping him on the shoulder. "So I'll just have a peep and see how the boys in blue are getting on." With another of her boisterous laughs, she went out into the hall.

Sir Rowland looked around at Clarissa, Hugo and Jeremy. "Now where does that leave us?" he wondered aloud.

Clarissa was still recovering from the revelations of the previous few minutes.

"What a fool I've been," she exclaimed confusedly. "I should have known Pippa couldn't possibly... I didn't know anything about this book. Pippa said she killed him and I... I thought it was true."

Hugo got to his feet. "Oh, you mean that you thought Pippa..."

"Yes, darling," Clarissa interrupted him urgently and emphatically to stop him from saying any more. But Pippa, fortunately, was now sleeping peacefully on the sofa.

"Oh, I see," said Hugo. "That explains it. Good G.o.d!"

"Well, we'd better go to the police now, and tell them the truth at last," Jeremy suggested.

Sir Rowland shook his head thoughtfully. "I don't know," he murmured. "Clarissa has already told them three different stories "

"No. Wait," Clarissa interrupted suddenly. "I've just had an idea. Hugo, what was the name of Mr. Sellon's shop?"

"It was just an antique shop," Hugo replied, vaguely.

"Yes, I know that," Clarissa exclaimed impatiently. "But what was it called?"

"What do you mean 'What was it called?'"

"Oh, dear, you are being difficult," Clarissa told him. "You said it earlier, and I want you to say it again. But I don't want to tell you to say it, or say it for you."

Hugo, Jeremy and Sir Rowland all looked at one another. "Do you know what the blazes the girl is getting at, Roly?" Hugo asked plaintively.

"I've no idea," replied Sir Rowland. "Try us again, Clarissa."

Clarissa looked exasperated. "It's perfectly simple," she insisted. "What was the name of the antique shop in Maidstone?"

"It hadn't got a name," Hugo replied. "I mean, antique shops aren't called 'Seaview' or anything."

"Heaven give me patience," Clarissa muttered between clenched teeth. Speaking slowly and distinctly, and pausing after each word, she asked him again, "What was written up over the door?"

"Written up? Nothing," said Hugo. "What should be written up? Only the names of the owners, 'Sellon and Brown,' of course."

"At last!" Clarissa cried jubilantly. "I thought that was what you said before, but I wasn't sure. Sellon and Brown. My name is Hailsham-Brown." She looked at the three men in turn, but they merely stared back at her with total incomprehension written on their faces.

"We got this house dirt-cheap," Clarissa continued. "Other people who came to see it before us were asked such an exorbitant rent that they went away in disgust. Now have you got it?"

Hugo looked at her blankly before replying, "No."

Jeremy shook his head. "Not yet, my love."

Sir Rowland looked at her keenly. "In a gla.s.s darkly," he said thoughtfully.

Clarissa's face wore a look of intense excitement. "Mr. Sellon's partner who lives in London is a woman," she explained to her friends. "Today, someone rang up here and asked to speak to Mrs. Brown. Not Mrs. Hailsham-Brown, just Mrs. Brown."

"I see what you're getting at," Sir Rowland said, nodding his head slowly.

Hugo shook his head. "I don't," he admitted.

Clarissa looked at him. "A horse chestnut or a chestnut horse one of them makes all the difference," she observed inscrutably.

"You're not delirious or anything, are you, Clarissa?" Hugo asked her anxiously.

"Somebody killed Oliver," Clarissa reminded them. "It wasn't any of you three. It wasn't me or Henry." She paused, before continuing, "And it wasn't Pippa, thank G.o.d. Then who was it?"

"Surely it's as I said to the Inspector," Sir Rowland suggested. "An outside job. Someone followed Oliver here."

"Yes, but why did they?" Clarissa asked meaningfully. Getting no reply from anyone, she continued with her speculation. "When I left you all at the gate today," she reminded her three friends, "I came back in here through the French windows, and Oliver was standing in the room. He was very surprised to see me. He said, 'What are you doing here, Clarissa?' I just thought it was an elaborate way of annoying me. But suppose it was just what it seemed?"

Her hearers looked attentive, but said nothing. Clarissa continued, "Just suppose that he was surprised to see me. He thought the house belonged to someone else. He thought the person he'd find here would be the Mrs. Brown who was Mr. Sellon's partner."

Sir Rowland shook his head. "Wouldn't he know that you and Henry had this house?" he asked her. "Wouldn't Miranda know?"

"When Miranda has to communicate, she always does it through her lawyers. Neither she nor Oliver necessarily knew that we lived in this house," Clarissa explained. "I tell you, I'm sure Oliver Costello had no idea he was going to see me. Oh, he recovered pretty quickly and made the excuse that he'd come to talk about Pippa. Then he pretended to go away, but he came back because "

She broke off as Miss Peake came in through the hall door. "The hunt's still on," the gardener announced briskly. "They've looked under all the beds, I gather, and now they're out in the grounds." She gave her familiar hearty laugh.

Clarissa looked at her keenly. Then, "Miss Peake," she said, "do you remember what Mr. Costello said just before he left? Do you?"

Miss Peake looked blank. "Haven't the foggiest idea," she admitted.

"He said, didn't he, 'I came to see Mrs. Brown'?" Clarissa reminded her.

Miss Peake thought for a moment, and then answered, "I believe he did. Yes. Why?"

"But it wasn't me he came to see," Clarissa insisted.

"Well, if it wasn't you, then I don't know who it could have been," Miss Peake replied with another of her jovial laughs.

Clarissa spoke with emphasis. "It was you," she said to the gardener. "You're Mrs. Brown, aren't you?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

MlSS PEAKE, looking extremely startled at Clarissa's accusation, seemed for a moment unsure how to act. When she did reply, her manner had changed. Dropping her usual jolly, hearty touch, she spoke gravely. "That's very bright of you," she said. "Yes, I'm Mrs. Brown."

Clarissa had been doing some quick thinking. "You're Mr. Sellon's partner," she said. "You own this house. You inherited it from Sellon with the business. For some reason, you had the idea of finding a tenant for it whose name was Brown. In fact, you were determined to have a Mrs. Brown in residence here. You thought that wouldn't be too difficult, since it's such a common name. But in the end you had to compromise on Hailsham-Brown. I don't know exactly why you wanted me to be in the limelight whilst you watched. I don't understand the ins and outs "

Mrs. Brown alias Miss Peake interrupted her. "Charles Sellon was murdered," she reminded Clarissa. "There's no doubt of that. He'd got hold of something that was very valuable. I don't know how I don't even know what it was. He wasn't always very" she hesitated "scrupulous."