The Trouble Alice Caused

That evening Penelope told Edwin that Constable Hale had sent word from the village. He would return in the morning, this time with someone from Shrewsbury, to finish taking statements from the household. Thomas and Molly were to be spoken to again, and Alice’s father had apparently been writing to the police almost every day.

“Must the man make a career of it?” Edwin said.

Penelope looked up from her dinner. “His daughter is missing.”

“I am aware of that.”

There had been nothing unreasonable in the remark, yet she continued looking at him for a moment before returning to her plate. Edwin found this irritating. Everyone had become extraordinarily solemn about Alice Mercer. Thomas had expected her at half past seven; Mrs Pearce had written to her family; her mother had become frightened; her father had involved the police. Now a man was coming from Shrewsbury because Alice had failed to go where she said she was going.

Even dead, she seemed incapable of allowing matters to settle.

The soup had gone cold. Edwin rang and told the young footman to take it away. When the boy apologised, Edwin observed that an apology would not make it hot again. Penelope waited until the door had closed before asking what was wrong with him.

“Nothing.”

“You’ve been unpleasant for days.”

“I told him the soup was cold.”

“You frightened him.”

“Then he is easily frightened.”

Penelope said nothing. Edwin looked at her and saw that she was not merely disagreeing with him. She was watching him.

He had been allowing his irritation to show. That was careless.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right. I’ve been unpleasant.”

Penelope blinked. The admission cost him nothing, and her expression softened almost at once.

Edwin asked whether her sister had ever recovered the vase. For a moment Penelope only looked at him. Then she laughed. The spaniel had apparently been forgiven. By the time coffee came, the matter had passed.

Alice, however, had never known when to leave matters alone. Now pieces of her were beginning to return from the pond.

The police came as promised the following morning. Hale and the man from Shrewsbury spent most of it below stairs, speaking again to Thomas, Molly and Mrs Pearce. Edwin was asked two or three questions he had already answered and gave the same answers. By luncheon the men had gone. Nothing appeared to have changed.

That afternoon Penelope came into the study carrying one of Mr Mercer’s letters. Edwin was working through the estate accounts and assumed she wanted him to sign something.

“Have you written to him?” she asked.

“Mrs Pearce has.”

“I know. I mean you.”

Edwin put down his pencil. “What purpose would that serve?”

Penelope looked surprised by the question. “It would carry more weight coming from you.”

He considered this and saw that she was probably right. Alice had disappeared from his household. A letter from the master of the house would be expected sooner or later, particularly now that the police were involved. Better that it should be written while there was still very little to say.

Penelope left him to it.

Edwin took a sheet of Harcourt stationery from the drawer and began.

Dear Mr Mercer,

I am sorry that our enquiries have so far produced nothing further concerning your daughter. You may be assured that everyone at Harcourt shares your concern, and that anything we can reasonably do to assist the police will of course be done.

He stopped and read it over.

It said everything required and nothing that could be misunderstood.

He added that Alice’s outstanding wages were being sent to the family and that her trunk would follow by rail at Harcourt’s expense. There was no reason for it to remain upstairs indefinitely. Mrs Pearce could have the room properly cleared, and one more unfinished piece of Alice’s departure would be removed from the house.

Edwin signed the letter.

Penelope read it before it went out. “That’s kind.”

“It’s only correct.”

She kissed his cheek and took the letter with her.

Edwin returned to the accounts.

That evening, in the back hall, he came upon Thomas returning from the motor house. Edwin stopped the driver without quite knowing why and asked whether Alice had been carrying anything when she arranged the car that Wednesday evening. Thomas could not remember. Perhaps a handbag; perhaps not. Nor, he said, had she mentioned meeting anyone.

“Nothing?” Edwin asked.

“Not that I recall, sir.”

Thomas hesitated, then asked whether there was something particular Edwin wished to know.

“I asked you a question.”

The man lowered his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

Edwin walked away.

By the time he reached the stairs he knew the conversation had been unnecessary. Thomas now had another exchange with him to remember. Another detail which had not existed five minutes earlier.

Upstairs, Penelope was already asleep when he came to bed. Rain began sometime after two and grew steadily heavier, running down the windows and beating against the guttering. Edwin lay awake thinking about the body beneath the pond.

The weights had held.

The arm had not.

There was no reason to suppose either weight had shifted. There was equally no reason to suppose the canvas would continue to hold everything it enclosed.

Edwin opened his eyes.

A yellow light showed between the trees.

He sat up.

Penelope slept beside him. The light vanished, returned several seconds later and disappeared again. Edwin crossed to the window and wiped rain from the glass with his hand.

When the light came back, something was standing beside it.

At that distance he could make out very little: a pale upright shape near the edge of the pond, something dark about the head and shoulders. It might have been a woman in a light dress. Against its chest it appeared to hold something smaller.

Edwin leaned nearer the glass.

For one instant the arrangement became perfectly clear.

Alice stood beside the pond with a child in her arms. He could not see the child’s face.

Then the light went out.

The trees were dark again.

Edwin remained at the window while rain ran down the glass. Nothing moved below and the light did not return. Behind him Penelope turned once beneath the blankets and settled again.

The anger came before the fear.

It was intolerable.

Even now Alice presumed to stand there with the thing she had expected him to provide for, as though the matter had never been settled. He had settled it. He had taken every necessary precaution, and still she contrived to interfere with his life. She had been troublesome enough alive. Death ought at least to have made her manageable.

Edwin dressed without lighting a lamp. Before leaving the house he went into his study and opened the top drawer of the desk. The silver compact lay where he had left it. He slipped it into his pocket.

If the business had to be dealt with again, he would deal with all of it.

Outside, the rain was coming down hard.

Edwin pulled on his shooting coat and crossed the lawn towards the trees.