Miss Bennett rose. 'I don't see that you've got any business to talk,' she exclaimed indignantly. 'You're a stranger, and you know nothing about it.'
'Perhaps not, but I've heard a great deal about it,' Starkwedder retorted. 'Everyone seems to talk to me for some reason.'
'Yes, I suppose they do. Yes, I'm talking to you now, aren't I?' she admitted, as she sat down again. 'That's because we none of us here dare talk to one another.' She looked up at him, appealingly. 'I wish you weren't going away,' she told him.
Starkwedder shook his head. 'I've done nothing to help at all, really,' he said. 'All I've done is blunder in and discover a dead body for you.'
'But it was Laura and I who discovered Richard's body,' Miss Bennett contradicted him. She paused and then suddenly added, 'Or did Laura - did you - ?' Her voice trailed off into silence.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Starkwedder looked at Miss Bennett and smiled. 'You're pretty sharp, aren't you?' he observed.
Miss Bennett stared at him fixedly. 'You helped her, didn't you?' she asked, making it sound like an accusation.
He walked away from her. 'Now you're imagining things,' he told her.
'Oh, no, I'm not,' Miss Bennett retorted. 'I want Laura to be happy. Oh, I so very much want her to be happy!'
Starkwedder turned to her, exclaiming passionately, 'Damn it, so do I!'
Miss Bennett looked at him in surprise. Then she began to speak. 'In that case I - I've got to -* she began, but was interrupted. Gesturing to her to be silent, Starkwedder murmured, 'Just a minute.' He hastened to the french windows, opened a window and called, 'What are you doing?'
Miss Bennett now caught sight of Jan out on the lawn, brandishing a gun. Rising quickly, she too went across to the french windows and called urgently, 'Jan! Jan! Give me that gun.'
Jan, however, was too quick for her. He ran off laughing, and shouting, 'Come and get it,' as he ran. Miss Bennett followed him, with urgent cries of 'Jan! Jan!'
Starkwedder looked out across the lawn, trying to see what was happening. Then he turned back, and was about to go to the door, when Laura suddenly entered the room.
'Where's the inspector?' she asked him.
Starkwedder made an ineffectual gesture. Laura shut the door behind her, and came over to him. 'Michael, you must listen to me,' she implored him. Julian didn't kill Richard.'
'Indeed?' Starkwedder replied coldly. 'He told you so, did he?'
'You don't believe me, but it's true.' Laura sounded desperate.
'You mean you believe it's true,' Starkwedder pointed out to her.
'No, I know it's true,' Laura replied. 'You see, he thought I'd killed Richard.'
Starkwedder moved back into the room, away from the french windows. 'That's not exactly surprising,' he said with an acid smile. I thought so, too, didn't I?'
Laura's voice sounded even more desperate as she insisted, 'He thought I'd shot Richard. But he couldn't cope with it. It made him feel -' She stopped, embarrassed, then continued, 'It made him feel differently towards me.'
Starkwedder looked at her coldly. 'Whereas,' he pointed out, 'when you thought he'd killed Richard, you took it in your stride without turning a hair!' Suddenly relenting a little, he smiled. 'Women are wonderful!' he murmured. He perched on the sofa arm. 'What made Farrar come out with the damaging fact that he was here last night? Don't tell me it was a pure and simple regard for the truth?'
'It was Angell,' Laura replied. 'Angell saw - or says he saw - Julian here.'
'Yes,' Starkwedder remarked with a somewhat bitter laugh. 'I thought I got a whiff of blackmail. Not a nice fellow, Angell.'
'He says he saw Julian just after the - after the shot was fired,' Laura told him. 'Oh, I'm frightened. It's all closing in. I'm so frightened.'
Starkwedder went over to her and took her by the shoulders. 'You needn't be,' he said, reassuringly. 'It's going to be all right.'
Laura shook her head. 'It can't be,' she cried.
'It will be all right, I tell you,' he insisted, shaking her gently.
She looked at him wonderingly. 'Shall we ever know who shot Richard?' she asked him.
Starkwedder looked at her for a moment without replying, and then went to the french windows and gazed out into the garden. 'Your Miss Bennett,' he said, 'seems very positive she knows all the answers.'
'She's always positive,' Laura replied. 'But she's sometimes wrong.'
Apparently glimpsing something outside, Starkwedder suddenly beckoned to Laura to join him. Running across to him, she took his outstretched hand. 'Yes, Laura,' he exclaimed excitedly, still looking out into the garden. 'I thought so!'
'What is it?' she asked.
'Ssh!' he cautioned. At almost the same moment, Miss Bennett came into the room from the hallway. 'Mr Starkwedder,' she said hurriedly. 'Go into the room next door - the inspector's already there. Quickly!'
Starkwedder and Laura crossed the study swiftly, and hurried into the corridor, closing the door behind them. As soon as they had gone, Miss Bennett looked out into the garden, where daylight was beginning to fade. 'Now come in, Jan,' she called to him. 'Don't tease me any more. Come in, come inside.'
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Miss Bennett beckoned to Jan, then stepped back into the room and stood to one side of the french windows. Jan suddenly appeared from the terrace, looking half mutinous and half flushed with triumph. He was carrying a gun.
'Now, Jan, how on earth did you get hold of that?' Miss Bennett asked him.
Jan came into the room. 'Thought you were so clever, didn't you, Benny?' he said, quite belligerently. 'Very clever, locking up all Richard's guns in there.' He nodded in the direction of the hallway. 'But I found a key that fitted the gun cupboard. I've got a gun now, just like Richard. I'm going to have lots of guns and pistols. I'm going to shoot things.' He suddenly raised the gun and pointed it at Miss Bennett, who flinched. 'Be careful, Benny,' he went on with a chuckle, 'I might shoot you.'
Miss Bennett tried not to look too alarmed as she said, in as soothing a tone as she could muster, 'Why, you wouldn't do a thing like that, Jan, I know you wouldn't.'
Jan continued to point the gun at Miss Bennett, but after a few moments he lowered it.
Miss Bennett relaxed slightly, and after a pause Jan exclaimed, sweetly and rather eagerly, 'No, I wouldn't. Of course I wouldn't.'
'After all, it's not as though you were just a careless boy,' Miss Bennett told him, reassuringly. 'You're a man now, aren't you?'
Jan beamed. He walked over to the desk and sat in the chair. 'Yes, I'm a man,' he agreed. 'Now that Richard's dead, I'm the only man in the house.'
'That's why I know you wouldn't shoot me,' Miss Bennett said. 'You'd only shoot an enemy.'
'That's right,' Jan exclaimed with delight.
Sounding as though she were choosing her words very carefully, Miss Bennett said, 'During the war, if you were in the Resistance, when you killed an enemy you put a notch on your gun.'
'Is that true?' Jan responded, examining his gun. 'Did they really?' He looked eagerly at Miss Bennett. 'Did some people have a lot of notches?'
'Yes,' she replied, 'some people had quite a lot of notches.'
Jan chortled with glee. 'What fun!' he exclaimed.
'Of course,' Miss Bennett continued, 'some people don't like killing anything - but other people do.'
'Richard did,' Jan reminded her.
'Yes, Richard liked killing things,' Miss Bennett admitted. She turned away from him casually, as she added, 'You like killing things, too, don't you, Jan?'
Unseen by her, Jan took a penknife from his pocket and began to make a notch on his gun. 'It's exciting to kill things,' he observed, a trifle petulantly.
Miss Bennett turned back to face him. 'You didn't want Richard to have you sent away, did you, Jan?' she asked him quietly.
'He said he would,' Jan retorted with feeling. 'He was a beast!'
Miss Bennett walked around behind the desk chair in which Jan wa
s still sitting. 'You said to Richard once,' she reminded him, 'that you'd kill him if he was going to send you away.'
'Did I?' Jan responded. He sounded nonchalantly offhand.
'But you didn't kill him?' Miss Bennett asked, her intonation making her words into only a half-question.
'Oh, no, I didn't kill him.' Again, Jan sounded unconcerned.
'That was rather weak of you,' Miss Bennett observed.
There was a crafty look in Jan's eyes as he responded, 'Was it?'
'Yes, I think so. To say you'd kill him, and then not to do it.' Miss Bennett moved around the desk, but looked towards the door. 'If anyone was threatening to shut me up, Fd want to kill him, and Fd do it, too.'
'Who says someone else did?' Jan retorted swiftly. 'Perhaps it was me.'
'Oh, no, it wouldn't be you,' Miss Bennett said, dismissively. 'You were only a boy. You wouldn't have dared.'
Jan jumped up and backed away from her. 'You think I wouldn't have dared?' His voice was almost a squeal. 'Is that what you think?'
'Of course it's what I think.' She seemed now deliberately to be taunting him. 'Of course you wouldn't have dared to kill Richard. You'd have to be very brave and grown-up to do that.'
Jan turned his back on her, and walked away. 'You don't know everything, Benny,' he said, sounding hurt. 'Oh no, old Benny. You don't know everything.'
Is there something I don't know?' Miss Bennett asked him. 'Are you laughing at me, Jan?' Seizing her opportunity, she opened the door a little way. Jan stood near the french windows, whence a shaft of light from the setting sun shone across the room.
'Yes, yes, I'm laughing,' Jan suddenly shouted at her. 'I'm laughing because I'm so much cleverer than you are.'
He turned back into the room. Miss Bennett involuntarily gave a start and clutched the door frame. Jan took a step towards her. 'I know things you don't know,' Jan added, speaking more soberly.
'What do you know that I don't know?' Miss Bennett asked. She tried not to sound too anxious.
Jan made no reply, but merely smiled mysteriously. Miss Bennett approached him. 'Aren't you going to tell me?' she asked again, coaxingly. 'Won't you trust me with your secret?'
Jan drew away from her. 'I don't trust anybody,' he said, bitterly.
Miss Bennett changed her tone to one of puzzlement. 'I wonder, now,' she murmured. 'I wonder if perhaps you've been very clever.'
Jan giggled. 'You're beginning to see how clever I can be,' he told her.
She regarded him speculatively. 'Perhaps there are a lot of things I don't know about you,' she agreed.
'Oh, lots and lots,' Jan assured her. 'And I know a lot of things about everybody else, but I don't always tell. I get up sometimes in the night and I creep about the house. I see a lot of things, and I find out a lot of things, but I don't tell.'
Adopting a conspiratorial air, Miss Bennett asked, 'Have you got some big secret now?'
Jan swung one leg over the stool, sitting astride it. 'Big secret! Big secret!' he squealed delightedly. 'You'd be frightened if you knew,' he added, laughing almost hysterically.
Miss Bennett came closer to him. 'Would I? Would I be frightened?' she asked. 'Would I be frightened of you, Jan?' Placing herself squarely in front of Jan, she stared intently at him.
Jan looked up at her. The expression of delight left his face, and his voice was very serious as he replied, 'Yes, you'd be very frightened of me.'
She continued to regard him closely. 'I haven't known what you were really like,' she admitted. 'I'm just beginning to understand what you're like, Jan.'
Jan's mood changes were becoming more pronounced. Sounding more and more wild, he exclaimed, 'Nobody knows anything about me really, or the things I can do.' He swung round on the stool, and sat with his back to her. 'Silly old Richard, sitting there and shooting at silly old birds.' He turned back to Miss Bennett, adding intensely, 'He didn't think anyone would shoot him, did he?'
'No,' she replied. 'No, that was his mistake.'
Jan rose. 'Yes, that was his mistake,' he agreed. 'He thought he could send me away, didn't he? I showed him.'
'Did you?' asked Miss Bennett quickly. 'How did you show him?'
Jan looked at her craftily. He paused, then finally said, 'Shan't tell you.'
'Oh, do tell me, Jan,' she pleaded.
'No,' he retorted, moving away from her. He went to the armchair and climbed into it, nestling the gun against his cheek. 'No, I shan't tell anyone.'
Miss Bennett went across to him. 'Perhaps you're right,' she told him. 'Perhaps I can guess what you did, but I won't say. It will be just your secret, won't it?'
'Yes, it's my secret,' Jan replied. He began to move restlessly about the room. 'Nobody knows what I'm like,' he exclaimed excitedly. 'I'm dangerous. They'd better be careful. Everybody had better be careful. I'm dangerous?
Miss Bennett looked at him sadly. 'Richard didn't know how dangerous you were,' she said. 'He must have been surprised.'
Jan went back to the armchair, and looked into it. 'He was. He was surprised,' he agreed. 'His face went all silly. And then - and then his head dropped down when it was done, and there was blood, and he didn't move any more. I showed him. I showed him! Richard won't send me away now!'
He perched on one end of the sofa, waving the gun at Miss Bennett who was trying to fight back her tears. 'Look,' Jan ordered her. 'Look. See? I've put a notch on my gun!' He tapped the gun with his knife.
'So you have!' Miss Bennett exclaimed, approaching him. 'Isn't that exciting?' She tried to grab the gun, but he was too quick for her.
'Oh, no, you don't,' he cried, as he danced away from her. 'Nobody's going to take my gun away from me. If the police come and try to arrest me, I shall shoot them.'
'There's no need to do that,' Miss Bennett assured him. 'No need at all. You're clever. You're so clever that they would never suspect you.'
'Silly old police! Silly old police!' Jan shouted jubilantly. 'And silly old Richard.' He brandished the gun at an imaginary Richard, then caught sight of the door opening. With a cry of alarm, he quickly ran off into the garden. Miss Bennett collapsed upon the sofa in tears, as Inspector Thomas hastened into the room followed by Sergeant Cadwallader.
CHAPTER TWENTY
'After him! Quickly!' the inspector shouted to Cadwallader as they ran into the room. The sergeant raced out onto the terrace through the french windows, as Starkwedder rushed into the room from the hallway. He was followed by Laura, who ran to the french windows and looked out. Angell was the next to appear. He, too, went across to the french windows. Mrs Warwick stood, an upright figure, in the doorway.
Inspector Thomas turned to Miss Bennett. 'There, there, dear lady,' he comforted her. 'You mustn't take on so. You did very well.'
In a broken voice, Miss Bennett replied. 'I've known all along,' she told the inspector. 'You see, I know better than anyone else what Jan is like. I knew that Richard was pushing him too far, and I knew - I've known for some time - that Jan was getting dangerous.'
'Jan!' Laura exclaimed. With a sigh of deep distress, she murmured, 'Oh, no, oh, no, not Jan.' She sank into the desk chair. 'I can't believe it,' she gasped.
Mrs Warwick glared at Miss Bennett. 'How could you, Benny?' she said, accusingly. 'How could you? I thought that at least you would be loyal.'
Miss Bennett's reply was defiant. 'There are times,' she told the old lady, 'when truth is more important than loyalty. You didn't see - any of you - that Jan was becoming dangerous. He's a dear boy - a sweet boy - but -' Overcome with grief, she was unable to continue.
Mrs Warwick moved slowly and sadly across to the armchair and sat, staring into space.
Speaking quietly, the inspector completed Miss Bennett's thought. 'But when they get above a certain age, then they get dangerous, because they don't understand what they're doing any more,' he observed. 'They haven't got a man's judgement or control.' He went across to Mrs Warwick. 'You mustn't grieve, madam. I think I can take it upon myself to
say that he'll be treated with humanity and consideration. There's a clear case to be made, I think, for his not being responsible for his actions. It'll mean detention in comfortable surroundings. And that, you know, is what it would have come to soon, in any case.' He turned away, and walked across the room, closing the hall door as he passed it.