She no longer meditated returning to town. The feeling of guilt had abated.
Accidents!
Did Roger Bassington-ffrench specialize in accidents, she wondered.
She said: 'If you're sure you mean it, I'd love to stay a little longer. But won't your husband mind my butting in like this?' 'Henry?' Mrs Bassington-ffrench's lips curled in a strange expression. 'No, Henry won't mind. Henry never minds anything - nowadays.' Frankie looked at her curiously.
'If she knew me better she'd tell me something,' she thought to herself. 'I believe there are lots of odd things going on in this household.' Henry Bassington-ffrench joined them for tea and Frankie studied him closely. There was certainly something odd about the man. His type was an obvious one - a jovial, sport-loving, simple country gentleman. But such a man ought not to sit twitching nervously, his nerves obviously on edge, now sunk in an abstraction from which it was impossible to rouse him, now giving out bitter and sarcastic replies to anything said to him.
Not that he was always like that. Later that evening, at dinner, he showed out in quite a new light. He joked, laughed, told stories, and was, for a man of his abilities, quite brilliant. Too brilliant, Frankie felt. The brilliance was just as unnatural and out of character.
'He has such queer eyes,' she thought. 'They frighten me a little.' And yet surely she did not suspect Henry Bassingtonffrench of anything? It was his brother, not he, who had been in Marchbolt on that fatal day.
As to the brother, Frankie looked forward to seeing him with eager interest. According to her and to Bobby, the man was a murderer. She was going to meet a murderer face to face.
She felt momentarily nervous.
Yet, after all, how could he guess?
How could he, in any way, connect her with a successfully accomplished crime?
'You're making a bogey for yourself out of nothing,' she said to herself.
Roger Bassington-ffrench arrived just before tea on the following afternoon.
Frankie did not meet him till tea time. She was still supposed to 'rest' in the afternoon.
When she came out on to the lawn where tea was laid, Sylvia said smiling: 'Here is our invalid. This is my brother-in-law. Lady Frances Derwent.' Frankie saw a tall, slender young man of something over thirty with very pleasant eyes. Although she could see what Bobby meant by saying he ought to have a monocle and a toothbrush moustache, she herself was more inclined to notice the intense blue of his eyes. They shook hands.
He said: 'I've been hearing all about the way you tried to break down the park wall.' 'I'll admit,' said Frankie, 'that I'm the world's worst driver.
But I was driving an awful old rattle-trap. My own car was laid up and I bought a cheap one secondhand.' 'She was rescued from the ruins by a very good-looking young doctor,' said Sylvia.
'He was rather sweet,' agreed Frankie.
Tommy arrived at this moment and flung himself upon his uncle with squeaks of joy.
'Have you brought me a Homby train? You said you would.
You said you would.' 'Oh, Tommy! You mustn't ask for things,' said Sylvia.
'That's all right, Sylvia. It was a promise. I've got your train all right, old man.' He looked casually at his sister-in-law. 'Isn't Henry coming to tea?' 'I don't think so.' The constrained note was in her voice. 'He isn't feeling awfully well today, I imagine.' Then she said impulsively: 'Oh, Roger, I'm glad you're back.' He put his hand on her arm for a minute.
'That's all right, Sylvia, old girl.' After tea, Roger played trains with his nephew.
Frankie watched them, her mind in a turmoil.
Surely this wasn't the sort of man to push people over cliffs!
This charming young man couldn't be a cold-blooded murderer!
But, then - she and Bobby must have been wrong all along.
Wrong, that is, about this part of it.
She felt sure now that it wasn't Bassington-ffrench who had pushed Pritchard over the cliff.
Then who was it?
She was still convinced he had been pushed over. Who had done it? And who had put the morphia in Bobby's beer?
With the thought of morphia suddenly the explanation of Henry Bassington-ffrench's peculiar eyes came to her, with their pin-point pupils.
Was Henry Bassington-ffrench a drug fiend?
CHAPTER 13 Alan Carstairs
Strangely enough, she received confirmation of this theory no later than the following day, and it came from Roger.
They had been playing a single at tennis against each other and were sitting afterwards sipping iced drinks.
They had been talking about various indifferent subjects and Frankie had become more and more sensible of the charm of someone who had, like Roger Bassington-ffrench, travelled about all over the world. The family ne'er-do-weel, she could not help thinking, contrasted very favourably with his heavy, serious-minded brother.
A pause had fallen while these thoughts were passing through Frankie's mind. It was broken by Roger - speaking this time in an entirely different tone of voice.
'Lady Frances, I'm going to do a rather peculiar thing. I've known you less than twenty-four hours, but I feel instinctively that you're the one person I can ask advice from.' 'Advice?' said Frankie, surprised.
'Yes. I can't make up my mind between two different courses of action.' He paused. He was leaning forward, swinging a racquet between his knees, a light frown on his forehead. He looked worried and upset.
'It's about my brother. Lady Frances.' 'Yes?' 'He is taking drugs. I am sure of it.' 'What makes you think so?' asked Frankie.
'Everything. His appearance. His extraordinary changes of mood. And have you noticed his eyes? The pupils are like pinpoints.'
'I had noticed that,' admitted Frankie. 'What do you think it is?' 'Morphia or some form of opium.' 'Has it been going on for long?' 'I date the beginning of it from about six months ago. I remember that he complained of sleeplessness a good deal.
How he first came to take the stuff, I don't know, but I think it must have begun soon after then.' 'How does he get hold of it?' inquired Frankie practically.
'I think it comes to him by post. Have you noticed that he is particularly nervous and irritable some days at tea time?' 'Yes, I have.' 'I suspect that that is when he has finished up his supply and is waiting for more. Then, after the six o'clock post has come, he goes into his study and emerges for dinner in quite a different mood.' Frankie nodded. She remembered that unnatural brilliance of conversation sometimes at dinner.
'But where does the supply come from?' she asked.
'Ah, that I don't know. No reputable doctor would give it to him. There are, I suppose, various sources where one could get it in London by paying a big price.' Frankie nodded thoughtfully.
She was remembering having said to Bobby something about a gang of drug smugglers and his replying that one could not mix up too many crimes. It was queer that so soon in their investigations they should have come upon the traces of such a thing.
It was queerer that it should be the chief suspect who should draw her attention to the fact. It made her more inclined than ever to acquit Roger Bassington-ffrench of the charge of murder.
And yet there was the inexplicable matter of the changed photograph. The evidence against him, she reminded herself, was still exactly what it had been. On the other side was only the personality of the man himself. And everyone always said that murderers were charming people!
