Accident by Design Read online

  Accident by Design

  by E.C.R. Lorac

  First edition : Doubleday & Company, 1951. Published for the CRIME CLUB

  all of the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  * * *

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  1

  "I think it's horrible! You've only done it for your own satisfaction... to give you a sense of power. It's absolute sadism."

  Gerald Vanstead heard his wife's voice rise in pitch, get shriller and uglier with every word she uttered, and his own nerves seemed to jangle in protest. Why must Meriel shout like that?... and was her accent getting worse every day?

  In complete contrast came his sister's voice. Judith Vanstead had always had a beautiful voice—their father had often laughingly called her Cordelia.

  "Would it be a good idea to look up sadism in the dictionary, Meriel?" asked Judith. "I don't think you really understand what it implies. Anyway, never mind. I'm sorry you're upset, but I had to tell you exactly how things are. It's right that you should know. Waterson is one of the greatest surgeons living and he wouldn't suggest operating if he didn't think it worth while. It may give father another twelve months—he will see the spring again...."

  She broke off, and turned to her brother. "I must go up to Father again now, Gerald. I'll leave you to talk to Meriel; you'll be better at explaining than I am."

  Judith moved quietly across the room, serene and dignified, as though she had not even heard her sister-in-law's shrill voice uttering abuse. Gerald stood up automatically as his sister crossed the room, old habit and training reasserting itself. He opened the door for Judith and closed it behind her, and Meriel broke out again in venomous shrillness.

  "It is horrible.... He's nearly eighty, he's got this hideous disease and suffers hell... and Judith and the surgeons have persuaded him to have another operation, just to make him live a few months longer, when life's nothing but hell for him anyway.... Why can't they let him go quietly, help him out."

  "Look here, Meriel, you mustn't say things like that," protested Gerald. "You're being very indiscreet, to say the least of it. Don't let Judith get the impression you're wanting Father to die. It's——" He broke off, and then added lamely: "Well— we're the last people who ought to say things like that, old girl, aren't we? Liable to be misinterpreted."

  Meriel looked across at her husband, her face sullen and flushed and obstinate. "You know what I mean, Jerry, so don't get riding the high horse," she said. "You agreed with me yesterday when I said it was a horrible idea to operate on him again."

  "I know I did, but I didn't realise that the surgeon thought they could give him another year or two. Dash it all, Merry, the poor old boy wants to go on living... it's his decision. If he finds life worth living—well, good luck to him." 

  "It isn't his decision. It's Judith's," she replied. "He told me weeks ago that all he wanted was to go out quietly, he was sick of the everlasting pain. Judith doesn't want to keep him alive for his own happiness, but for her own prestige. She's Miss Vanstead of Templedean Place... she runs this place and queens it over the Village. You know, Jerry. She's everything. You're nothing. And I'm plain dirt."

  Gerald muttered an uncomfortable disclaimer, his thin face twitching unhappily, but Meriel cut in again:

  "Another year or two, Jerry.... Do you think I'm going on like this for another year or two?—being condescended to by Judith, knowing all the time she despises me and thinks I'm just an ill-bred slut? When I stuck it out in that bloody Jap prison camp, it wasn't to come here and be treated like Judith's poor relation. I fought for my life and Alan's... even you don't know what I did to keep him alive... while Judith was driving a W.V.S. car and talking about equality of sacrifice because she had no butler. God, she makes me sick!"

  Meriel caught her breath in a gasp that was not far removed from hysteria, and Gerald said hastily, "Come upstairs and have a drink, Merry. You need it. So do I. I've got some gin in the wardrobe."

  Meriel laughed—a laugh which was half a sob. "Gin in the wardrobe! What would Judith say? I know... that it's my influence... you were a gentleman till you married me."

  2

  They crossed the wide hall, where the great front door stood open to admit the sunshine, and the light gleamed on ancient oak of floor and panelling, and seemed to caress the madonna lilies and blue delphiniums which stood superbly in huge cut-glass vases on dower chest and table. Gerald followed his wife up the shallow oak stairs, aware of two feelings playing tug of war in his weary mind: Templedean was beautiful—the most beautiful house in the country—and he was beginning to hate it. Suddenly he seemed to be back in Malaya, sweating half naked beside his fellow prisoners, while Jap guards lounged nearby... and Meriel and Alan were in that filthy compound beyond the wire fencing, suffering God knows what privation and brutality. He remembered Meriel's courage, her passionate selfless devotion to their small son, and he understood why she raged now against Judith's calm superiority—Judith and her Daimler, driving for the W.V.S.... and doing without a butler amid the peace and plenty of Templedean, while Meriel had lived through years of sub-human beastliness in a Jap prison camp.

  Gerald drew level with his wife, and thrust his arm through hers, giving it a squeeze, angry with himself because he had been irritated by her shrill voice. She was worth a thousand of Judith, and he knew it.

  "There's a circus coming to the fair ground at Watercombe, Merry. We must take Alan. It'd be rather a lark to go there by ourselves first, though—make an evening of it, eh?"

  They had reached the first-floor landing as he spoke, and a light footstep in the corridor on his right made Gerald look round uneasily.... Circuses and larks... he'd said the wrong thing again. But it wasn't Judith who was approaching; it was Herbert Standish—the old man's secretary. Standish had a prim pallid face, and its air of permanent disapproval did not seem to have been intensified by what he had heard. He stood aside, with a slight bow to Meriel, waiting for her to move on, and Gerald kept hold of her arm, knowing that Standish despised such behaviour.

  "A circus? Good-o! Just suits me," giggled Meriel.

  3

  Meriel crossed the vast sunny bedroom and flung herself on the deep window seat, while her husband groped at the back of a wardrobe and produced gin and angostura. He poured out a couple of stiff drinks into their tooth glasses and joined Meriel by the window, saying "Cheers" automatically as he gulped down his drink.

  "That's better," he said. "It's regarded as a low-down habit to drink in the morning in this high-minded establishment, but a drink was indicated."

  Meriel nodded. "It just about saved my life, Jerry. I've never felt so down before, not even with the Nips. After all, we were all in it together then... and you can stand a lot if other people are with you. What defeats me here is knowing I'm despised by everybody."

  He put his thin hand over his wife's plump one. "You're not. There's always me, Meriel."

  "I know, old boy, but even you look down your nose at me sometimes these days. You're Judith's brother, and you were brought up here, and you realise that I'm just a lousy Colonial with an Australian accent.... Judith's trying to improve Alan's v
oice now. I suppose it's funny, but it gets my goat."

  Gerald flushed unhappily, and she went on quickly: "We've got to have it out sometime, Jerry, so let's get it over. When we settled down with my folks in Queensland after we got away from the Nips we were as happy as kings, but Judith cabled you to come back because your father couldn't live for six months——"

  "I had to come, Merry. Both my brothers had been killed, and I am the old boy's heir. I hadn't seen him for twelve years, and I couldn't refuse to come."

  "I know, poor old boy, I know. I'm not blaming you. I knew you wanted to come back here——"

  "I wanted you to come, too, Merry, and Alan. It's to be our home, and I looked forward to showing it to you, and giving you a good time here. You've had a pretty poor time since you married me, I know that."

  "Oh, can it, Jerry. Never mind about all that. It's now we've got to think about, not the past or the future. And I tell you that I can't stick it any longer, here and now. I'm through. I've had enough. We've been here for nearly two years, being treated as poor relations. It may not matter to you, but it does to me. I can't stick any more of it. Another two years of this? Hell! I'd be in a madhouse before that."

  "But Meriel darling, what else can we do? You know I haven't got any money. Everything in Malaya went to bloody blazes— burnt, sacked, looted...." 

  "I know, Jerry. I saw it happen, don't forget that. You're going back to the past again. It's now that matters. You say the old man's going to live for another two years. All right, but I'm not staying here for another two years, watching Judith playing at being God Almighty and teaching Alan to despise me and you to look down your nose at me. I'm going back to Queensland, and Alan's coming with me. It's up to you to decide what you're going to do. You've got to make up your own mind."

  Gerald got up and poured himself out another drink. His hands were unsteady and his eyes blurred. He had always been a nervy creature, and his experiences in a Japanese prison camp had undermined his health and nerves alike. He swallowed his drink and turned back to his wife.

  "You know as well as I do that I haven't got the money to pay your fares back," he retorted, "so that's that."

  "Oh no, it isn't, Jerry. Where there's a will there's a way. Old Nick Jamieson would send me the money if I cabled him. The last thing he said to me was I'd only got to ask. He knew I should hate it here, and was he right? Like hell he was!"

  Gerald took a deep breath and strove hard to keep himself in hand. He wasn't going to quarrel with his wife, but something inside him urged him to shout at her in a rage. Couldn't she see that what she suggested was outrageous?

  "Look here, Merry. Don't fly off the handle. I know it's sickening for you, but stick it out. This place is to be ours, yours and mine, and then Alan's. It won't always be like this. I know Judith irritates you——"

  "Irritates me? Get this clear, old boy. If I stay in this house with her much longer I shall strangle her. Get my hands round that superior lily-white neck of hers and just choke the breath out of her. Irritate me? I'd say she does. And then some."

  Gerald's face twitched, but before he could answer, Meriel went on: "Sorry, old boy. That was a rotten thing to say. After all, she is your sister, but I can't help loathing her. I'm not used to being treated like a skunk. When it comes to the realities of living, I could work Judith to a standstill in two twos, and folks aren't ashamed of working in my home town. I hate all this eyewash and poodle-faking, and high-falutin'. If this is culture, give me the other thing!"

  Gerald sighed, the sigh of a weak, indeterminate man. He had seen this issue facing him for months, and shirked it. Now he couldn't shirk it any longer, but he still tried to temporise.

  "Don't be in such a tearing hurry, Meriel. Wait a bit. You see, I can't clear out all in a rush. I've got to be here until after father's operation, anyway. It'd look just too frightful to go away before we know... people would talk."

  "Who the hell cares what people say? That's the trouble with you folks over here. You're always worrying about what somebody else will say," she retorted. "Anyway, they're operating next week, aren't they? Trust these swell sawbones to make sure of their fee. Well, I'll agree to stay on here till the end of this month, Jerry, but no longer. Otherwise it'll be the same old game again, and Judith calling the tune because she's got the dibs. Send Alan to a nice prep school, away from me, that is. Come between you and me so that you realise what an outsider your wife is, I know. I've watched it. One thing, you can bet your bottom dollar Judith won't do anything to stop me going back home. She'll be delighted, right down to her boots. And if you'd got a ha'porth of spunk you'd walk out on her, and tell her why."

  "You don't understand," he began wearily, but Meriel cut in briskly.

  "Oh yes I do! I may be a lousy Colonial but I'm not a fool, not anybody's fool. What I don't know about human nature isn't worth knowing. And now give me another drink, Jerry, and tell me about that circus. I shall be just tickled to death to see something nice and vulgar. I've had enough high-hat to last me my natural."

  4

  "Heaven bear me witness," exclaimed Judith Vanstead. "I am not an uncharitable person, but that woman is impossible. I have never met such blatant, unashamed self-centredness."

  Walter Vanstead, brother to Judith's and Gerald's father, put down his book and cocked his bushy white eyebrows. "Are you making that statement as an item of news value?" he enquired. "I should have thought that the qualities you mention were patent in Gerald's wife from the moment one set eyes on her. She is out for what she can get. I take it that her reaction to Waterson's report is quite typical, resentment that Charles's life may be prolonged."

  Judith turned away, her eyes filling with tears, and her uncle went on: "It's no use being nice-minded in assessing your sister-in-law, my dear. When Charles dies, Gerald inherits, and when Gerald inherits, Gerald's wife will make a clean sweep here. You will go, I will go. The servants will go, and the estate will go to blazes. Gerald always was a duffer, and he's a duffer still. While you're here, you can keep him on the rails to some extent. After all, tradition and rearing count for something, but once he's left alone with that woman, he'll go to the pack. It's inevitable."

  Judith sat down beside her uncle. "You're not being quite fair," she expostulated. "I wasn't fair, either, but Meriel's attitude made me angry. Meriel has got a lot of good qualities— she must have or she wouldn't have survived those awful experiences out in Malaya. She's got courage and loyalty and tenacity. I admit all that. It's probably my fault that I haven't managed to make friends with her. She's so crude."

  "She is of another world from yours and she speaks another language," said Walter Vanstead. "She represents everything you and I dislike. She has bad taste, bad manners, and bad habits. If she weren't Gerald's wife you wouldn't have tolerated her in this house for a week, let alone for a year."

  "But Meriel's had something to put up with too," urged Judith. "I realise it's galling for her, as a married woman, to live in a house controlled by another woman. I know she hates it——"

  "Very well," replied Walter. "Let us assume that you are right, and that Meriel does hate being here. The answer to that is quite simple. Let her go somewhere else." 

  Judith raised her fine eyebrows. "But where?" she asked. "I can't turn her out, Uncle. After all, she and Gerald are here because I asked them here. Meriel is my guest, in a sense. While Father is alive, I am still mistress in this house, and when I cabled to Gerald to come home, I asked him to bring his wife with him."

  "Admitted," replied Walter Vanstead, "but at the time it did not occur to us that Gerald and Meriel would be here as guests indefinitely. I repeat my suggestion—let her go somewhere else where she may conceivably be happier than she is at Templedean."

  "Gerald hasn't any money, Uncle, and in any case it's difficult to get a small house now."

  "Who suggested getting a small house? Certainly I did not," rejoined Walter dryly. "When I suggested that she should go s
omewhere else, I meant return to her own home and her own people. Although, for my own comfort, I avoid and ignore the pair of them as far as is possible, I am not totally unobservant, Judith. I give it as my considered opinion that if you or I were to offer Meriel the money to take her home to Queensland, she'd jump at the chance. I am quite willing to stand the expense. I should have the satisfaction of knowing that the distance between us would be as large as this rather small world allows."

  "But, Uncle, she'd never go and leave Gerald here with us... and there's the boy. She wouldn't leave him, either."

  "Very well," rejoined Walter Vanstead. "Then let her take them with her. I think she would have her work cut out to induce Gerald to agree, but I have no doubt whatever that she'd pull it off. She is, as you say, crude, but she's got twice the determination which Gerald possesses. I'll grant her that."

  Judith studied her uncle with a frowning face. "I just don't understand you," she said. "When the doctors first told us that Father couldn't live very much longer, you and I both agreed that Gerald ought to come home, and that his wife should come here with him, so that Gerald could learn the running of the estate, and his wife get used to English ways and people. It was you who insisted that this was the wise and right thing to do, and Father agreed."

  "I don't dispute it," replied Walter Vanstead, "but we tried to be wise in advance of our data—the data in this case being the qualities of two human beings, Gerald and his wife. After a fair trial, it is plain to all concerned that Gerald neither wants to learn the business of running the estate nor is capable of so learning even if he did wish it. As for his wife, she dislikes and despises the English ways and people with which you wished her to become acquainted."

  "Even if we admit that all you say is true, Uncle, it's no use sending them away now," replied Judith wearily. "However difficult you and I may find the pair of them, Gerald is heir to Templedean. It is better for him to stay here. Actually, I think he has done better than you will admit. He is much less casual and slovenly than he was when he came, and he is beginning to make some efforts to be sociable and to take an interest in life here."