Виктория Холт - Snare of Serpents

Why should she come calling on us? I wondered.

Bess said: “She’s asking for Mr. Glentyre. I was sure she said Mr.”

“Doesn’t she know he is at the bank at this hour?” said Zillah.

“I wouldn’t know, Mrs. Glentyre. But that’s what she said.”

“I suppose you’d better show her in.”

Miss Appleyard came into the drawing room and looked abashed when she saw us.

“I asked to see Mr. Glentyre,” she said.

“Good afternoon, Miss Appleyard,” I began.

She nodded in my direction and then looked rather venomously, I thought, at Zillah.

“I wanted to speak to Mr. Glentyre,” she reiterated.

“Is it banking business? He’s at the bank at this time, you know,” said Zillah, regarding her coldly.

“Well, I know he’s home quite a lot.”

Now how did she know that? I wondered. But she was the sort of woman who would make other people’s business hers.

“Can we help?” asked Zillah.

For a few moments Miss Appleyard stood biting her lips as though making a decision.

“I’ll have a word with Mrs. Glentyre,” she said, looking significantly at me.

I said: “I’ll leave you.”

Miss Appleyard nodded approvingly and I went out, wondering what this was all about.

Some ten minutes later I heard her leave the house and I went back to Zillah.

She was sitting in the sofa staring ahead of her. She looked troubled.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“Oh, she was indignant about somebody’s ‘goings-on.’ I didn’t know what she was talking about half the time. Silly old fool!”

“She seems to have upset you.”

“Oh no. I just can’t stand that sort of person. They pry into other people’s affairs and try to make trouble.”

“Why did she want to see my father?”

“Oh, it was something about money … I don’t know. Somebody at the bank. I’m glad he wasn’t in. He wouldn’t have much patience with that sort of thing.”

“She evidently thought it was too shocking for my ears.”

“Silly old gossip! What’s the time? Your father will be home soon. I think I’ll go up and have a bath and get ready. Would you tell them to send up some hot water?”

“Of course. You sure you’re all right?”

“Certainly I’m all right.” She sounded a little irritated, which was unlike her. I wondered why Miss Appleyard’s visit had upset her so much.

I left her then and did not see her again until we were at dinner, which we took together in the dining room that night.

My father was unctuous. His anxiety of the previous evening over her late return to the house had no doubt made him feel how very important she was to him.

She remarked that he was looking tired and if he were not better in the morning she was going to insist that he spend a day in his room.

“Zillah!” he said.

“But I shall,” she said firmly. “I shall keep you here … and dance attendance on you all through the day. It’s no use protesting. I shall insist.”

He shrugged his shoulders and looked at her with great tenderness.

I thought what a change she had wrought in him. He was a different man with her.

TRUE TO HER WORD, she insisted on his staying home next day.

“He’s all right,” she said. “All he needs is rest.”

It was mid-morning when Ellen knocked at the door of my room.

She said: “Miss Davina, I must speak to you. I’ve bad news.”

“Bad news?” I echoed.

She nodded. ”From my cousin. She lives near my mother. My mother is very ill … as a matter of fact, not expected to live. I must go to her.”

“But of course, Ellen.”

“I’ll leave today if I can, Miss. There’s a train to London at two-thirty. If I could leave in that …”

“Can you be ready? It’s such short notice.”

“I must.”

“Have you spoken to Mrs. Glentyre?”

“Well, she’s up with the master. I wanted to have a word with her, of course, but I thought I’d tell you and see if it was all right.”

“I’ll go and tell her you want to see her. In the meantime you get on with your packing. Hamish can take you to the station.”

“Oh, thank you, Miss Davina. That’s a great weight off my mind.”

I went to the master bedroom and knocked. Zillah came to the door. I glimpsed my father. He was sitting in his chair in his dressing gown.

I said: “Ellen’s in trouble. Her mother is very ill. She has to leave today for London. She wants to see you.”

“My goodness. Poor Ellen. I’ll go to her right away. Where is she?”

“In her room packing.”

I left and she turned to my father and said something to him.

Ellen left that afternoon.

THAT EVENING I dined with my father and Zillah. He was wearing his dressing gown, but Zillah had said she thought it would be better for him to come to the dining room.

“She treats me like a child,” said my father, pouting like one.

Zillah talked with her usual animation throughout the meal, and it seemed that the day’s rest had been good for my father.

“We shall do this more often,” announced Zillah.

When we had finished eating my father was impatient for his glass of port which he always took at the end of the meal. Kirkwell was not there. After the last course had been served he would disappear and come back later to pour out the port. But on this occasion it seemed we had finished more quickly than usual.

I said: “I’ll get your port wine, Father,” and I went to the sideboard. There was very little left in the decanter. I poured out a glassful and as I did so Kirkwell came into the room.

“Ah,” he said, “you are already at the port. I’m sorry. I noticed the decanter was almost empty, so in case there was not enough I went down to the cellar for another bottle. I have decanted it and here it is. Have you enough in that one, Miss Davina?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “Would you like a glass, Zillah?”

“Not tonight,” she said.

Kirkwell looked questioningly at me. I shook my head and said: “No thanks.”

He set the full decanter down beside the empty one.

When my father had finished his port Zillah said: “We’ll say goodnight, Davina. I don’t want your father overtaxed.”

Again that exasperated and loving look.

I said goodnight and went to my room.

IT MUST HAVE BEEN about two o’clock in the morning when there was a knock on my door.

I sprang out of bed and Zillah came in. She was in her nightdress, her hair loose about her shoulders, her feet bare.

“It’s your father,” she said. “He’s very ill. He’s terribly sick and in pain. I wonder whether we ought to send for Dr. Dorrington.”

“At this hour?”

I was seeking for my slippers and putting on my dressing gown.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t like the look of him.”

I went to their bedroom with her. My father was lying on the bed, his face ashen; he was breathing with difficulty and his eyes were glassy. He seemed to be in some pain.

“It’s one of his bad turns again,” I said.

“It’s worse than the others, I think. We must send for the doctor.”

“I’ll wake Kirkwell. He’s very capable. He’ll go for the doctor. We can hardly send one of the maids at this hour.”

“Will you do that?”

I went to the Kirkwells’ room, knocked and went straight in. Kirkwell was already getting out of bed.

“I’m sorry to wake you like this,” I said, “but Mr. Glentyre seems very ill.”

Kirkwell, slightly embarrassed at my seeing him in his nightshirt, was hastily reaching for his dressing gown.

As we went out Mrs. Kirkwell was hastily rising to follow us.

Kirkwell took one look at my father and said he would only stop to put on a few clothes and go for the doctor. He thought it was necessary.

Then Mrs. Kirkwell joined us. There was very little she—or any of us—could do.

It seemed a long time before we heard the sound of the brougham bringing Kirkwell with the doctor. But by that time my father was dead.

THAT WAS THE BEGINNING of the nightmare. The weeks which followed seem now to have been quite unreal. I felt I had stepped into a mad world which was full of menace. And it had begun on that night.

The doctor had stayed with my father for a long time and when he finally came out he looked very grave. He did not speak to me. He walked straight past as though he did not see me. He seemed deeply shocked.

I soon realised why.

When he had gone Zillah came to my room. She was a little incoherent, unlike herself.

She stammered: “He … he thinks it could be some sort of poison.”

“Poison?”

“Something he took … or …”

“Or what?”

“Was given to him.”

“Poison given to my father?”

“He says there will be a postmortem. Then … an inquest.”

“But … why … he’d been ill. It was not so unexpected.”

She looked at me fearfully and shook her head. Then she said: “There is nothing for us to be afraid of.” She looked at me intently and added: “Is there?”

“But,” I cried, “it’s horrible. Why … why?”

“They do when people die mysteriously.”

“It’s … horrible,” I said.

She came to my room and lay on my bed with me.

We did not sleep all through that night and spoke little. I guessed she was as preoccupied with her horrified thoughts as I was.

The next day they came and took my father’s body away.

THERE WERE the thick black headlines: “Mysterious Death of Edinburgh Banker. Postmortem on Body.”