“I know. But don’t you realize that Gordon Whitfield has a very exalted opinion of himself?”
Bridget said: “He pretends to be very wonderful and very important. That’s just inferiority complex, poor lamb!”
“Possibly that’s at the root of the trouble. I don’t know. But think, Bridget—just think a minute. Remember all the phrases you’ve used laughingly yourself about him—lèse-majesté, etc. Don’t you realize that the man’s ego is swollen out of all proportion? And it’s allied with religion. My dear girl, the man’s as mad as a hatter!”
Bridget thought for a minute.
She said at last: “I still can’t believe it. What evidence have you got, Luke?”
“Well, there are his own words. He told me, quite plainly and distinctly, the night before last, that anyone who opposed him in any way always died.”
“Go on.”
“I can’t quite explain to you what I mean—but it was the way he said it. Quite calm and complacent and—how shall I put it?—quite used to the idea! He just sat there smiling to himself…It was uncanny and rather horrible, Bridget!”
“Go on.”
“Well, then he went on to give me a list of people who’d passed out because they’d incurred his sovereign displeasure! And, listen to this, Bridget, the people he mentioned were Mrs. Horton, Amy Gibbs, Tommy Pierce, Harry Carter, Humbleby, and that chauffeur fellow, Rivers.”
Bridget was shaken at last. She went very pale.
“He mentioned those actual people?”
“Those actual people! Now do you believe?”
“Oh, God, I suppose I must…What were his reasons?”
“Horribly trivial—that’s what made it so frightening. Mrs. Horton had snubbed him, Tommy Pierce had done imitations of him and made the gardeners laugh, Harry Carter had abused him, Amy Gibbs had been grossly impertinent, Humbleby had dared to oppose him publicly, Rivers threatened him before me and Miss Waynflete—”
Bridget put her hands to her eyes.
“Horrible…Quite horrible…” she murmured.
“I know. Then there’s some other outside evidence. The car that ran down Miss Pinkerton in London was a Rolls, and its number was the number of Lord Whitfield’s car.”
“That definitely clinches it,” said Bridget slowly.
“Yes. The police thought the woman who gave them that number must have made a mistake. Mistake indeed!”
“I can understand that,” said Bridget. “When it comes to a rich, powerful man like Lord Whitfield, naturally his story is the one to be believed!”
“Yes. One appreciates Miss Pinkerton’s difficulty.”
Bridget said thoughtfully:
“Once or twice she said rather queer things to me. As though she were warning me against something…I didn’t understand in the least at the time…I see now!”
“It all fits in,” said Luke. “That’s the way of it. At first one says (as you said), “Impossible!” and then once one accepts the idea, everything fits in! The grapes he sent to Mrs. Horton—and she thought the nurses were poisoning her! And that visit of his to the Wellerman Kreutz Institute—somehow or other he must have got hold of some culture of germs and infected Humbleby.”
“I don’t see how he managed that.”
“I don’t either, but the connection is there. One can’t get away from that.”
“No…As you say, if fits. And of course he could do things that other people couldn’t! I mean he would be so completely above suspicion!”
“I think Miss Waynflete suspected. She mentioned that visit to the institute. Brought it into conversation quite casually—but I believe she hoped I’d act upon it.”
“She knew, then, all along?”
“She had a very strong suspicion. I think she was handicapped by having once been in love with him.”
Bridget nodded.
“Yes, that accounts for several things. Gordon told me they had once been engaged.”
“She wanted, you see, not to believe it was him. But she became more and more sure that it was. She tried to give me hints, but she couldn’t bear to do anything outright against him! Women are odd creatures! I think, in a way, she still cares about him….”
“Even after he jilted her?”
“She jilted him. It was rather an ugly story. I’ll tell you.”
He recounted the short, ugly episode. Bridget stared at him.
“Gordon did that?”
“Yes. Even in those days, you see, he can’t have been normal!”
Bridget shivered and murmured:
“All those years ago…all those years….”
Luke said:
“He may have got rid of a lot more people than we shall ever know about! It’s just the rapid succession of deaths lately that drew attention to him! As though he’d got reckless with success!”
Bridget nodded. She was silent for a minute or two, thinking, then she asked abruptly:
“What exactly did Miss Pinkerton say to you—in the train that day? How did she begin?”
Luke cast his mind back.
“Told me she was going to Scotland Yard, mentioned the village constable, said he was a nice fellow but not up to dealing with murder.”
“That was the first mention of the word?”
“Yes.”
“Go on.”
“Then she said, ‘You’re surprised, I can see. I was myself at first. I really couldn’t believe it. I thought I must be imagining things.’”
“And then?”
“I asked her if she was sure she wasn’t—imagining things, I mean—and she said quite placidly, ‘Oh, no! I might have been the first time, but not the second, or the third or the fourth. After that one knows.’”
“Marvellous,” commented Bridget. “Go on.”
“So of course I humoured her—said I was sure she was doing the right thing. I was an unbelieving Thomas if there ever was one!”
“I know. So easy to be wise after the event! I’d have felt the same, nice and superior to the poor old dame! How did the conversation go on?”
“Let me see—oh! she mentioned the Abercrombie case—you know, the Welsh poisoner. Said she hadn’t really believed that there had been a look—a special look—that he gave his victims. But that she believed it now because she had seen it herself.”
“What words did she use exactly?”
Luke thought, creasing his brow.
“She said, still in that nice ladylike voice, ‘Of course, I didn’t really believe that when I read about it—but it’s true.’ And I said, ‘What’s true?’ And she said, ‘The look on a person’s face.’ And by Jove, Bridget, the way she said that absolutely got me! Her quiet voice and the look on her face—like someone who had really seen something almost too horrible to speak about!”
“Go on, Luke. Tell me everything.”
“And then she enumerated the victims—Amy Gibbs and Carter and Tommy Pierce, and said that Tommy was a horrid boy and Carter drank. And then she said, ‘But now—yesterday—it was Dr. Humbleby—and he’s such a good man—a really good man.’ And she said if she went to Humbleby and told him, he wouldn’t believe her, he’d only laugh!”
Bridget gave a deep sigh.
“I see,” she said. “I see.”
Luke looked at her.
“What is it, Bridget? What are you thinking of?”
“Something Mrs. Humbleby once said. I wondered—no, never mind, go on. What was it she said to you right at the end?”
Luke repeated the words soberly. They had made an impression on him and he was not likely to forget them.
“I’d said it was difficult to get away with a lot of murders, and she answered, ‘No, no, my dear boy, that’s where you’re wrong. It’s very easy to kill—so long as no one suspects you. And you see, the person in question is just the last person anyone would suspect….’”
He was silent. Bridget said with a shiver:
“Easy to kill? Horribly easy—that’s true
enough! No wonder those words stuck in your mind, Luke. They’ll stick in mine—all my life! A man like Gordon Whitfield—oh! of course it’s easy.”
“It’s not so easy to bring it home to him,” said Luke.
“Don’t you think so? I’ve an idea I can help there.”
“Bridget, I forbid you—”
“You can’t. One can’t just sit back and play safe. I’m in this, Luke. It may be dangerous—yes, I’ll admit that—but I’ve got to play my part.”
“Bridget—”
“I’m in this, Luke! I shall accept Miss Waynflete’s invitation and stay down here.”
“My darling, I implore you—”
“It’s dangerous for both of us. I know that. But we’re in it, Luke—we’re in it—together!”
Twenty-one
“O WHY DO YOU WALK THROUGH THE FIELDS IN GLOVES?”
The calm interior of Miss Waynflete’s house was almost an anti-climax after that tense moment in the car.
Miss Waynflete received Bridget’s acceptance of her invitation a little doubtfully, hastening, however, to reiterate her offer of hospitality by way of showing that her doubts were due to quite another cause than unwillingness to receive the girl.
Luke said:
“I really think it will be the best thing, since you are so kind, Miss Waynflete. I am staying at the Bells and Motley. I’d rather have Bridget under my eye than up in town. After all, remember what happened there before.”
Miss Waynflete said:
“You mean—Lavinia Pinkerton?”
“Yes. You would have said, wouldn’t you, that anyone would be quite safe in the middle of a crowded city.”
“You mean,” said Miss Waynflete, “that anyone’s safety depends principally on the fact that nobody wishes to kill them?”
“Exactly. We have come to depend upon what has been called the goodwill of civilization.”
Miss Waynflete nodded her head thoughtfully.
Bridget said:
“How long have you known that—that Gordon was the killer, Miss Waynflete?”
Miss Waynflete sighed.
“That is a difficult question to answer, my dear. I suppose that I have been quite sure, in my inmost heart, for sometime…But I did my best not to recognize that belief! You see, I didn’t want to believe it and so I pretended to myself that it was a wicked and monstrous idea on my part.”