Property of a Lady(86)
Yesterday the carter arrived at the workshop as arranged, to load the clock on to the dray. We swathed it in dust sheets, and I protected the mechanism with plenty of cotton waste.
Blackberrry Lane was shrouded in autumn mist – wisps clung to the bare branches of the trees, and everywhere was touched with hoar frost. Mallow House, when we reached it, seemed lonely.
William Lee himself admitted us to the house. He looked pale and haggard, but he was courteous and asked that the clock be taken to his library. It was to stand against a wall near the windows.
The carter helped me to carry the clock inside, then took himself off – he had another delivery to make, but offered to call in an hour’s time to take me up and so back to Marston Lacy.
‘I will leave you to your work,’ said Lee. ‘I have a task in the orchard – a tree whose roots have spread to unfruitful soil. My gardener uprooted it yesterday, and it is to be replanted in more wholesome earth.’
One somehow doesn’t associate murderers with homely tasks like replanting trees. From the windows I watched him walk through the gardens. After a few moments the child joined him. She was wearing a scarlet scarf and a little scarlet hat. The colours were too bright for her – she’s a rather sallow child – but they were vivid and warm against the grey morning.
I gave the shining mahogany of the clock’s casing a final polishing – it had picked up a few fragments of straw in the cart. Then I opened the door to set the mechanism going. It started at once, sweetly and smoothly, the measured tick making a pleasant, slightly soporific sound in the quiet room. I waited to make sure the hands moved round correctly. Once I would have imagined how she would have looked at the clock many times during the day, seeing the minutes and hours pass, seeing how the secondary face showed the months.
I put the cloths and beeswax away and left out a small phial of thin oil for occasional use within the mechanism. I always do that with a new clock. Then I went to the window.
There they were, at the bottom of the gardens – I could just make out the scarlet of Elvira’s scarf and cap through the trees. My heart began to bump, for this was to be the test. I was resolved to walk down to the orchard and tell William Lee his clock was in place and working satisfactorily. I would smile at the child and see what happened.
It was not easy to go along the gravel paths, between the smooth lawns and the herb garden in its enclosure of box. Even on a day like this there was a faint drift of rosemary and thyme and mint, and the acrid tang of the box.
The orchard was only just about worthy of the name. There were four or five trees – mainly pear and plum, but I could see the apple tree to which Lee had referred. It lay on the ground, its branches like burned bones.
They had not heard my approach, and I paused in the shadow of some shrubbery, trying to summon up the resolve to go forward.
Lee was telling the child how the tree would be replanted. ‘Today we will trim it, and tomorrow the gardener will put fresh soil and compost in so the roots can be nourished. Then we shall have juicy apples.’
Elvira appeared to consider this. She stared down at the tree and at the newly-dug patch of earth.
Lee said, in a very casual voice, ‘How much do you remember about the night your mamma died?’
‘I remember bits, but I don’t understand them,’ said Elvira, frowning.
‘What bits?’
‘You were there,’ she said. ‘If I keep looking at you, I remember you shouting and standing by the stairs.’
‘Do you?’ he said, very softly. ‘That’s a pity, Elvira.’
‘I want to remember properly,’ she said. ‘Because you did something that night – what did you do?’ She broke off, and even from where I stood I saw a horrified realization come into her face. She was staring at Lee, and I saw she was starting to remember.
Lee saw it as well, and that was when the change came over him, as it had done in the bedroom that night. He had been idly holding a big spade, presumably left by the gardener, and I saw his knuckles whiten as he tightened his grip on it. A tremor of fear went through me, and I came out from the shelter of the trees.
He saw me at once and half-turned. I saw with horror that the madness still glared from his eyes. In a dreadful, slurry voice – a voice that was somehow no longer that of William Lee – he said, ‘Who are you? What do you want? Have you come to stare at me like she does? Those great accusing eyes . . .’
‘Mr Lee – it’s Brooke Crutchley. You know me. You let me into your house an hour ago.’
He was staring at me with more attention. ‘You were there,’ he said, suddenly. ‘You were the man in Elizabeth’s room.’
‘No . . .’
‘You were,’ he said, and the child gave a cry of sudden fear, staring at me. Lee ignored her. ‘So that open-legged whore added the clockmaker to her conquests, did she?’ he said.
‘No,’ I said again, more firmly this time. ‘Never.’
‘No matter,’ he said. ‘One more is neither here nor there. But you saw, didn’t you? You know what happened.’ The dreadful maniacal glare was fading, but he said, ‘You do realize I can’t allow you to speak out?’ He took a step towards me, and for a moment I thought he was going to attack me. But he did not, and after a moment I felt safe to look away from him and at Elvira. She was huddled on the ground, staring at me with panic, and pity sliced through me.