Root of All Evil Read online

  “Dinner will be ready in about a quarter of an hour,” she said. “Shall I bring in drinks? From the look of you, Felicity, you could do with one.”

  “Yes, please, Agnes,” Felicity said. “And I’ll have whisky, not sherry. A strong one. That man’s visit upset me.” As Agnes went out, she went on, “Well, go ahead, Andrew. What were you going to say?”

  “I think I’ll let Mrs. Cavell hear it,” he said. “She seems a very practical person. She’ll be able to tell me whether or not I’m out of my mind.”

  Felicity gave a little cackle. “And you don’t trust me to do that. You’re probably right. I’ve a way of assuming that other people talk nonsense most of the time. And a lot of them do, you know, to someone of my age. Wait till you hear how the children talk to me. So charming, so affectionate, but taking for granted all the time that I don’t understand perfectly well why they’re troubling to do it, when of course it bores them utterly to come to see me... Oh, thank you, Agnes. Yes, whisky was the right thing. Now go ahead, Andrew. Tell Agnes and me what you were thinking about.”

  He accepted the drink that Agnes gave him and waited till she had sat down with one of her own before he went on.

  “It’s about that draught that you and I felt,” he said. “We both shivered at the same time and we thought it was because we were talking of death and we didn’t much like it. But it’s struck me since, with the wind blowing as strongly as it is, mightn’t we have felt a real chill in here if someone opened a door somewhere?”

  “A door from outside, you mean?” Felicity said. “But Agnes opened the door to that detective and then let him out again and I didn’t feel anything. Did you?”

  “No, but I think that door’s on the sheltered side of the house,” Andrew said. “Besides, it’s in a porch which might shelter this room from any draught there might be when the front door’s opened. But isn’t there any other door that might have been opened just then and let in a draught that blew through the house?”

  “There’s the back door out of the kitchen,” Agnes said, “and a door into the garden from the dining-room. Shall I go and see if you feel anything if I open them?”

  “Would you?” Andrew said.

  She went out, closing the door behind her.

  He and Felicity waited in silence for a moment, Felicity with an uneasy glint in her bright eyes, which she kept on his face.

  Then she muttered, “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Andrew, but I don’t think I like it.”

  “It may be nothing,” he said. “Just a stupid thought of mine.”

  A sudden chill swept through the room.

  “There it is,” Felicity said. “Just the same. What does it mean?”

  The feeling of cold disappeared and Agnes returned to the room.

  “Did you feel anything?” she asked.

  “Quite distinctly,” Felicity answered. “Which door was it, Agnes?”

  “The back door,” Agnes replied. “I didn’t bother to open the door in the dining-room because the bolts, top and bottom, are shot and no one could have come in that way. Because I suppose that’s what you’re thinking of, isn’t it, Professor? You think that Margot Weldon came to the house this evening, opened the back door and then for some reason went away.”

  “It’s a possibility, isn’t it?” he said. “Suppose she’d made up her mind to do the murder she’d got her confession ready for and came here to do it and let herself in... By the way, do you normally keep that door locked through the day?”

  Agnes shook her head. “I always lock it before I go up to bed, but I don’t bother with it while I’m still in and out of the kitchen, because of course I have to go out to the dustbin from time to time and things like that, and anyway, on most days Ted’s there. But why did she go away when she’d got as far as writing that confession?”

  “Perhaps she came here and heard my voice, talking to Felicity,” Andrew said, “and she suddenly realized she wouldn’t find her alone, as she’d expected.”

  “But why should she have expected that?” Felicity asked. “She’d seen you in the afternoon. She’d have known you were staying here.”

  “That’s true—yes,” Andrew said. “I should have thought of it. Perhaps it was simply that when it came to the point she realized she couldn’t possibly commit a murder. So she went away and walked out on to the common and threw herself under the first car that came along. That would fit with the state of mind she seems to have been in and it would explain how she came to be in the road when the car came instead of on one of the footpaths.”

  “But I suppose it could have been someone else who opened the door,” Agnes said. “Someone who didn’t know you were here.”

  Felicity started up so suddenly in her chair that she spilled some of her whisky.

  “Someone else, you say, Agnes!” she exclaimed. “Someone else came here to murder me!”

  Agnes looked shocked, as if this were going farther than she had intended.

  “No, no,” she said hurriedly. “I don’t mean that at all. I only meant, someone came to the door who wanted to talk to you privately and heard Professor Basnett’s voice and so went away again.”

  Felicity gave a vigorous shake of her snowy head. “You were thinking of murder. And of course you’re thinking now that whoever it was knows a good deal about our ways in this house. He knows, for one thing, that it’s Laycock’s afternoon off and he knows you’ve a habit of going upstairs to your room to watch the five-forty news. So he’d have had every reason to think I’d be alone here. Yes, that’s what you’re thinking. Admit it, Agnes.”

  To save Agnes the embarrassment of having to answer, Andrew said, “It needn’t have been anyone who knows you well, if that’s what’s worrying you, Felicity. It might have been a stray burglar who’d found out something about your ways, say from chatting to Laycock in a pub, or even from Margot Weldon herself. If she was capable of forgery, she may have had other criminal connections, and if she talked—no, that won’t do. She wouldn’t have known anything about your present ways here, would she? If she left you five years ago, she wouldn’t have known of Mrs. Cavell’s habit of listening to the news, or of Thursday being Laycock’s afternoon off. So unless she’s been in touch with somebody here, she wouldn’t have had any information to hand on.”

  As soon as he had said it, he realized that he had not spoken as tactfully as he might.

  “Somebody here—there you go again!” Felicity cried. “It’s burglary now, not murder, but you’re still trying to involve one of my friends or relations and to frighten me out of my wits. I’d never have expected it of either of you.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Agnes said. “I never meant you to take what I said in that way. If someone really did open the back door, I’m sure it was just by chance that they hit the time when I was upstairs and Ted was out. I think the most probable thing is that it was Margot Weldon.”

  “I’ve been wondering where you got hold of her in the first place,” Andrew said. “Where did she come from?”

  Felicity gave him one of her long stares, then made an impatient gesture with one of her wrinkled old hands. “As if I could remember a thing like that after all this time! I know she had good references. That’s to say...” She looked confused, wrinkling her forehead as she tried to think. “No, I’m getting muddled. It was Laycock who had the good references. I know about them. I looked into them myself. I don’t think I ever knew anything about Margot’s references. Derek found her for me. But if you think my own son could have been in touch with her all these years, then informed her about the ways of the house and suggested to her she should come here and murder me, you must be as mad as she was. All the same...” With an abrupt movement she finished her whisky and stood up. “All the same, d’you know, I think I’ll just telephone him and ask him what he knew about her.”

  She went to the telephone and dialled.

  Andrew heard the ringing tone continue for some time before anyone answered. Then
he heard it stop and a man’s voice answer.

  “Oh, it’s you, Quentin,” Felicity said. “Is Derek there?... And Frances is out too?... I see. Well, I’ll leave it till tomorrow then... Yes, it is important in a way. A very strange thing has happened. Do you remember that woman who used to work for me, Margot Weldon? The one I had to get rid of because I found she was forging my cheques... You do? Well, she’s been down to Braden today and came to the house in the afternoon, though I didn’t see her then, and a policeman’s just been in to see me to tell me they’d found her killed by a car on the road across the common, and the extraordinary thing is they found a letter in her handbag, addressed to them, in which she confessed to having murdered me... Yes, murdered... Yes, of course it’s fantastic. The most probable thing seems to be that she was quite mad, but I thought I’d like to talk to Derek about her, because as far as I can remember it was he who found her for me. I don’t suppose you can remember anything about that... No, I thought not... Yes, well, if you like, though I don’t know what you can do. I don’t even know if I’m going to have to do anything more about it myself. I told the policeman I hadn’t seen or heard anything of her for five years, and of course I told him about the forgeries, and I pointed out that I was still alive, so unless I have to identify her or something like that, I don’t see what they can want me to do... Very well, Quentin, I’ll expect you in about half an hour.”

  She put the telephone down.

  “Derek and Frances are out, playing bridge,” she said, “but Quentin’s coming over. I don’t know what he can do, but he seemed interested. We can have dinner before he comes. It’s ready, isn’t it, Agnes?”

  Agnes went out and a few minutes later called them into the dining-room.

  It was a room very like the drawing-room, with good Victorian furniture in it and several seascapes on the walls, which looked as if they had been painted by the same artist who had painted those in the drawing-room. Andrew wondered if Felicity had made a collection of his work, or, as seemed more probable, her husband had done so.

  There was a good vegetable soup, a casserole of chicken and an excellent trifle, well-flavoured with sherry. Felicity asked Andrew if he did not think that she had been very fortunate in finding someone to look after her who, among all her other virtues, was such a good cook. He replied that she certainly was and Agnes laughed and said that she had always enjoyed cooking, but after her husband’s death had found it very dreary doing it just for herself. Andrew was helping to clear away the remains of the meal when they heard the front doorbell.

  “That’ll be Quentin,” Agnes said to him. “Go and meet him. Felicity will want it.”

  “But can’t I help you here?” he asked. He had taken a liking to the brisk, sturdy woman who had made such a success of her relationship with the often difficult Felicity.

  “There’s nothing to do,” she said. “It’ll all go into the dishwasher. Go and meet Quentin. Then perhaps you might tell me what you think of him. I’ve never quite made up my mind about him.”

  “Is there something the matter with him?” Andrew asked. “Don’t you like him?”

  “Oh, I’ve no reason not to do that,” she said. “He’s always been very nice to me. But I can’t make up my mind how genuine he is. His charm—isn’t it silly, but I’ve always been distrustful of people with charm. That’s as unreasonable as taking a dislike to someone because they’re ugly.”

  “So you don’t like him.”

  “No, really I like him quite a lot. It’s difficult not to.”

  “You told Felicity you were sure he was very fond of her. Didn’t you mean that?”

  “Yes—oh yes, I’m sure he is.” She looked put out, as if she regretted the freedom with which she had been talking. “Now do go along and meet him.”

  Andrew lingered a moment in the kitchen.

  “Felicity’s very fond of you, isn’t she?” he said.

  She looked away from him, busying herself with stacking plates in the dishwasher. “In her way I suppose she is,” she said. “But I don’t know how long it would last if I stopped being useful—you might say almost indispensable—to her. I mean, it isn’t me as a person she cares about. And why should it be? I don’t expect it. I’m very fortunate to have found a comfortable home here and an employer who appreciates me and who shows it in all kinds of ways. She’s very generous to me. There’s no reason for me to want anything else.”

  Yet there was a faint bitterness in her voice, Andrew thought, of which she herself was probably unaware, as if in fact she would have liked something more from Felicity than the old woman gave her. Some warmth that was lacking, some open show of affection.

  But he was not inclined to criticize Felicity if she was unable to supply those things. She had been eighty when Agnes Cavell had come to live with her and he had already discovered in himself, at the mere age of seventy, that it became very difficult, as you grew old, to form new relationships of any deep importance. The old relationships, the few friendships that still remained from his childhood and others that dated from his student days and from his early years as a teacher and research worker, had become so much a part of himself that he could not imagine what life would be like without them. But however warm a liking he might take to someone with whom he had become acquainted only recently, it never touched anything deep in him.

  He felt an inclination to try to explain this to this woman and to tell her that she should not be hurt if Felicity did not give her anything like the maternal love which perhaps she wanted, but instead he said, “Well, if I really can’t help you...”

  “No, go along,” she said.

  He went to the drawing-room and found Felicity there with a young man and a young woman whom she introduced to him as her grandson, Quentin, and his fiancée, Patricia Neale.

  Andrew recognized Quentin’s charm at once. It was astonishingly like what Felicity’s had once been, a mixture of striking good looks and an unusual vividness and life in his expression. His blue eyes had the same brilliance as hers, and like her he had almost delicate features in a rather pale, pointed face. His hair was the same pale gold as hers had been. He was of medium height, well-built but slender, and he was wearing a well-cut dark-grey suit, a grey-and-white striped shirt and a quiet but expensive-looking tie. The young executive, for some reason not quite what Andrew had been expecting.

  Patricia Neale was about the same height as Quentin and the same age. She had straight brown hair which she wore hanging loose to her shoulders, brown eyes, a narrow face with a high forehead, a wide mouth and a nose that was not quite straight. She was wearing a dark green dress that hung floppily around her bony slimness, and a coral necklace.

  “Felicity’s just told me what happened here tonight,” Quentin said. Andrew noticed that he did not call her “Granny” or “Grandmother.” It was unlikely that Felicity had ever allowed him to do so. “There’s only one explanation, isn’t there? The poor woman was right round the bend. All the same, how lucky it was you were here, Professor. We can’t be absolutely certain what would have happened if she’d found Felicity alone.”

  “It all sounds dreadfully sad,” Patricia said. “I’d like to know more about her. Where she’s been living. What she’s been doing. Do you think the police will tell you anything about her if they find it out?”

  “The man said they’d keep us informed of anything they discovered,” Felicity said.

  “Do you think she was already insane when she was here, working for you?” the girl asked.

  “That’s something I’d like to talk to Derek about,” Felicity answered. “As far as I can remember, he found her for me, and after all, he’s a doctor and he rather fancies himself as a psychologist. That’s only just struck me. I think it’s possible she may have been a patient of his and he thought he could help to straighten her out by getting her the job with me.”

  “He wouldn’t do that,” Quentin said. “Not without consulting you.”

  “Oh, he might have,�
�� she retorted. “It’s the stupid sort of thing he might really do. He’s always so sure he knows what’s best for everyone. And he can be a bit of a bully too. I’m sorry to say it of a son of mine, but it’s true.”

  “Would you have given her the job if Dr. Silvester had consulted you?” Patricia asked.

  “Certainly not. She was dangerous in her way, wasn’t she? All the same, I want to talk to him about the woman. I’m almost certain he recommended her to me and I’m curious about her. It feels so strange, having stirred up murderous impulses in someone... You’re all coming here to lunch tomorrow, aren’t you, Quentin? I can talk to Derek about it then.”

  Quentin put an arm round her and kissed her. “Yes, of course. Good night, darling. Professor, please take good care of her. She’s precious to us.”

  Patricia kissed the old woman too. “Anyway, don’t brood on it too much. Whatever the explanation of it all is and however tragic it is, it’s all over.”

  “Is it?” Felicity said in an odd voice.

  The girl gave her a curious look. “You aren’t afraid it isn’t, are you?”

  Felicity hesitated, then gave her abrupt laugh. “No, of course not. We’ve had quite enough excitement for one evening. We don’t want any more. Good night, children.”

  They both said good night to her and to Andrew and left.

  When they had gone he found himself remembering Agnes Cavell’s question. She had wanted Andrew to tell her what he thought of Quentin. But the meeting had been too brief for Andrew to have thought anything at all, except that the young man was unusually good-looking, had pleasant manners and had said nothing that was in any way exceptionable. Vaguely Andrew thought that Quentin was not a person to whom he would lend money if he could help it or expect too seriously to keep a promise, but there was no real justification for this, except that he gave the impression of being someone who so far had found the game of living such an easy one to play that he had not had to exert himself much to learn the rules.

  Actually Andrew had found the girl the more interesting of the two young people. He liked her slightly crooked yet oddly arresting face and had felt that the strangeness and sadness of Margot Weldon’s end had meant more to her than it had to Quentin. But Andrew was never much inclined to trust his own first impressions. They could be affected, he knew, by totally irrational things, a chance resemblance to someone he happened to like or not like, a tone of voice, an attitude to himself that had pleased or displeased him. On the whole, he had liked them both and wished that Felicity was not so strongly disposed to believe that any affection they showed her was for the sake of what she might leave them when she died.