Nine Coaches Waiting

"Gaston," said Hippolyte, "will you please take Master Philippe downstairs and see he gets something to eat? Have Madame Vuathoux or Jea

Philippe had jumped up. He was smiling. The grey-haired servant returned the smile. "Come along," he said, and put out a hand. Philippe ran to him without a backward look. The door shut behind them.

Hippolyte turned back to Raoul. I could see, I'm not sure how, the rigid control he was exerting over face and hands. His voice was not quite steady, but it was as pleasant and gentle as ever. He said: "Well Raoul, you'd better go on with your story. And I advise you to be sure of your facts. You… he's my brother, remember."

"And my father," said Raoul harshly. He knocked the ash off his cigarette into the empty fireplace, with an abrupt movement. "As for my facts, I haven't a great many, but you can have them. I only really came into the story myself"-here his eyes lifted and met mine; they were like slate-"this morning."

He paused for a moment. Then he began to talk.

He said: "I don't have to tell you the background to the story; that my father, if Philippe had never been born, would have succeeded to Valmy, where he has lived all his life and which he loves with what (particularly since his accident) is an obsessive love. When his elder brother didn't marry he assumed that Valmy would be some day his, and he never hesitated to divert the income from his own estate, Bellevigne, into Valmy. I have run Bellevigne for him since I was nineteen, and I know just how steadily, during those early years, the place was milked of everything that might have made it prosperous. My father and I have fought over it time and again… after all, it is my heritage as well, and I wasn't as sure as he that Étie

Hippolyte said: "I know. Léon would never listen."

"Well," said Raoul, "Étie

He looked down at Hippolyte. "And immediately Valmy started to take the money out of Bellevigne again."

The older man made a little movement. "As soon as that?" Raoul smiled again. It wasn't a nice smile. "I'm glad you're so quick in the uptake. Yes. He must have decided then and there that something had to be done about Philippe. There were six years before the child inherited. The chance would come."

Hippolyte said, hard and sharp: "Be sure of your facts."

"I am. It'll save time and heart-searching if you know here and now that my father has admitted his intention of murdering Philippe."

A pause. Hippolyte said: "Very well. I'll accept that. To whom did he admit this?"

Raoul's mouth twisted. "To me. Content yourself, mon oncle, it's still only a family affair."

"I-see." Hippolyte stirred in his chair. "And so I went off to Greece and handed Philippe over."

"Yes. Somewhat naturally I hadn't tumbled to the significance of what had happened over Bellevigne. One doesn't," said Raoul evenly, "readily assume one's father is a murderer. I was merely puzzled and furious-so furious at being thrown back to the foot of the cliff I'd been climbing that I didn't stop to think out the whys and the wherefores. I just spent all my energy on one blazing row after another. When I went up to Valmy at the begi

He went on, in that cold even voice, to tell Hippolyte about the shooting in the woods, while Hippolyte exclaimed, and Héloïse stirred in her chair and watched the floor. She made no sound, but I saw that the fragile gold silk of the chair-arm had ripped under her nails. Raoul was watching her now. There was no expression whatever on his face.

"Even then," he said, "I didn't suspect what was really going on. Why should I? I blamed myself bitterly for that later, but I tell you, one doesn't think that way." He dropped his cigarette-stub onto the hearth, and turned away to crush it out with his heel. He said a little wearily, as if to himself: "Perhaps I did suspect; I don't know. I think I may have fought against suspecting." He looked at his uncle. "Can you understand that?"

"Yes," said Hippolyte heavily. "Yes."

"I thought you would," said Raoul. "A damnable exercise, isn't it?" He was already lighting another cigarette.

Hippolyte said: "But you suspected enough to make you go back pretty soon? And again at Easter?"

Raoul's attention was riveted on lighting the cigarette. "It wasn't altogether suspicion that drove me back. Nor did I see anything to rouse me into active worry until the Easter Ball- that night I rang you up. But that night two things happened. Miss Martin told me that there'd been another accident-a coping of the west balcony was suddenly dangerously loose overnight, and only the fact that she noticed it and shoved something across the broken bit saved Philippe from a particularly nasty end on some spiked railings underneath."

This had the effect of making Hippolyte turn and look at me. The expression in his face made me wonder, for the first time, what Héloïse had been telling him about me on the way from Geneva. From the look on his face it had been nothing to my credit. As Raoul went on to speak of the midnight feast with Philippe I saw the expression deepen-as if Hippolyte were being given a very different picture of me from the one he had got from Héloïse. "And there was something so odd about Héloïse that night," said Raoul. "She seemed frightened, if that were possible, and then there was Miss Martin's talk of night, mares… But it was really the second accident that shook me. I went straight to the telephone in the small hours, and eventually got hold of you. It seemed the best thing to do, for us to tackle him together and find out what was going on and force him to… see reason. I thought you might also hand the child over to my care if you had to leave again. I've no authority at all where Philippe's concerned, and for obvious reasons I preferred not to enlist official help at that point. Hence the S.O.S. to you." He gave his uncle that fleeting, joyless smile. "In any case, as far as the police were concerned, my father still held the wi

There was another of those silences. Hippolyte looked across at Héloïse. Raoul went on: "It seems odd, now, that I should ever have been so slow to believe him capable of murder. I should have known… but there it is. I tell you it's not the sort of thing one readily accepts. It certainly wasn't the sort of thing I felt I could tax him with-and I doubt if that would have done much good anyway. If the interview I had with him this morning is anything to go by-" He broke off, and then gave a little shrug. "Well, I had sent for you. I'd done what I could to silence my own uneasiness, and I knew Miss Martin was dependable. I told myself I was being a fool. I didn't want to leave Valmy next morning, but I got an early call from Paris, and had to go. It was to do with some money I'd been trying to raise on Bellevigne, and the chap I wanted was passing through Paris that afternoon. I had to catch him. So I went. I'd intended to stay in Paris till Wednesday afternoon, then to come over here and meet you when you got in from Athens, and go up to Valmy with you on Thursday. But once I got away from