‘My dear Geoffrey, be your age! Who cares if we took a stroll in the garden?’

From behind the curtain there came the sound of a door flung back.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Meriel could not have wished for a more dramatic entrance. Everything was going her way. Without any foreknowledge, she had had the impulse to wear her old green dress, then when she had made up her mind to follow Geoffrey there was no need for her to do anything but pick up a torch. The soft clinging stuff, the dark colour, were perfect for the role she was going to play, and when she reached the lodge she had only to walk in and very gently and cautiously set the living-room door ajar. It was not the first time she had played that trick when she wanted to listen, and no one had ever tumbled to it. It was just a matter of a steady hand and taking your time to turn the handle and free the catch.

And now she had her cue. Pat on Esmé’s ‘Who cares if we took a stroll in the garden?’ she flung the door wide and stood on the threshold, saying in her deepest voice, ‘The police might be interested, don’t you think?’

Esmé Trent had a cigarette in her hand. The smoke rose faintly. She lifted her brows and said in a cool, sarcastic voice,

‘Play-acting, Meriel?’

Geoffrey Ford’s colour deepened. There was going to be a row, and there was nothing he hated so much. And both these girls had tempers. He had a fleeting thought of Ellie Page, gentle and clinging as a woman ought to be – only the worst of it was that kind took everything so hard.

Meriel came into the room, thrusting the door to behind her. She said, quick and angry,

‘The police won’t think so when I tell them you were down by the pool just about the time someone pushed Mabel Preston into it!’

Esmé Trent drew at her cigarette and let out the smoke with slow deliberation. Her brightly painted lips were steady, her hand was steady. She said with the same sarcastic intonation,

‘You seem to know rather a lot about it, don’t you? How she was drowned. When she was drowned. You might wish you hadn’t started putting ideas into the heads of the police. After all, you tore your dress on the hedge, which proves that you were there. Whereas with regard to Geoffrey and me it’s just your word against ours. You say we were there, and we say not. And that makes two to one.’ She blew out another little cloud of smoke. ‘The room was hot. We went out for a breath of air and strolled on the lawn. We were never anywhere near the pool. That’s the way it goes, isn’t it, Geoffrey?’

She looked up at him over her shoulder and saw his uneasy eyes. He had got to his feet and stood there in front of the chair from which he had risen, the hand with the cigarette hanging down, ash dropping from it on the carpet. Contempt for him came up in her. He looked like a horse that is going to shy. She wasn’t scrupulous, but she would always take her fences.

Her look stung him into speech.

‘Yes – yes – of course.’

Meriel laughed.

‘Not much good as a liar, are you, Geoffrey? I should have thought you would have had plenty of practice. Or do you always tell Edna just where you’ve been and with whom? But I suppose this is a little bit different. You don’t push someone into a pool and drown them every day, and I suppose it’s rather unnerving to find that you were seen.’

The angry colour rushed into his face.

‘Have you gone mad? Mabel Preston was drunk, and she tumbled into the pool and was drowned! Why should I – why should anyone want to drown her?’

‘Oh, not her – not poor Mabel. It was Adriana you thought you were doing in. But as it turned out, it wasn’t. It was only Adriana’s coat – the one she wouldn’t give me when I asked her for it. It would have served her right if she had been wearing it – wouldn’t it? And we should all have been free and with enough money to do what we liked. It’s a pity you didn’t bring it off, isn’t it? But I’ll say you tried! I’ll not only say it, I’ll swear it! You were there in the summerhouse – I could hear you whispering. And when I came away, there was Mabel Preston coming across the lawn full of cocktails and talking to herself. You see, I really have got something to tell the police-’ She paused and added, ‘if I choose.’

Esmé Trent’s alert gaze had gone from one to the other. She said now in a cool, drawling voice,

‘And what do you expect to get out of going to the police? You had really better think it over. You say we were in the summerhouse, and we say no. And we say – listen carefully, Meriel – we say you came down here and tried to blackmail us because you knew that Geoffrey and I were friends and you were jealous. We could also tell Adriana some of the amiable things you have just been saying about her. She would be interested to know you thought it was a pity that it wasn’t she who was drowned!’ Her eyes were bright and hard on Meriel. She gave a short laugh and went on speaking. ‘You know, really you had better not stick out your neck. Geoffrey says there was something about your spilling coffee all down the front of that cyclamen dress you wore on Saturday. Now I wonder how you came to do that – or shall I say why you did it? Yes, that’s nearer the mark, isn’t it? And I think I can give you the answer. Coffee would be a very convenient thing to hide the sort of stains you might get on a light-coloured dress if you pushed someone into a pond and held them down. By the way, what have you done with the dress? If you can’t produce it, that will look a bit odd, won’t it? And if you’ve been stupid enough to take it to the cleaners, the police will be able to get their evidence as to just what stains there were. I don’t suppose the coffee would have covered everything exactly. No, my dear Meriel, you had really better hold your tongue. And if you will stop dramatizing yourself and put your mind to it, you will begin to think so too.’

Meriel’s natural pallor had become ghastly. Her eyes blazed. She was caught up in a rush of fury. She went back until she could feel the door behind her. She groped for the handle and pulled on it until there was a gap that was wide enough to let her through. It gave her confidence to stand like that on the threshold, dominating the room. She stared at Geoffrey, angry and embarrassed, at Esmé Trent whom she hated with all her heart, and she said,

‘Supposing I was to swear I saw you push her in?’

Esmé said, ‘They wouldn’t believe you.’

Meriel said, ‘Shall we try?’ Then she turned round and went away across the little hall, and down the flagged path, and through the wicket gate.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Ellie heard her go. After all the other things, she heard Meriel’s footsteps dying away. At first it was a relief to hear them go. And then drowning the relief, drowning everything else, there was the memory of what she had heard Meriel say. It came on her with a rush, and it brought fear with it – terrible, heart-shaking fear. She had to lean upon the windowsill because of the fear that was shaking her. Her whole body trembled with it, and her thoughts too. If she had not had something to lean on she would have fallen. And then perhaps they would have come out and found her there…

At the thought of being found by Esmé Trent a cold mist came up between her and the amber glow from the lighted room. There were ‘voices beyond the mist. Esmé Trent said sharply,

‘She’s dangerous.’ And Geoffrey said on a low, troubled note, ‘What did she mean, Esmé – what did she mean?’

‘She said she saw you push her in.’

‘Me – or you?’

‘She said “You”.’

‘She could have meant either of us.’

‘Or both.’ Her voice was taut and hard.

He said, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Well, we didn’t do it together – we both know that. But we separated. You thought you heard someone coming. If you did, it was probably Mabel Preston. I went one way, and you went the other. The question is, did you come back?’