The Silent Speaker

by Noel Streatfeild

  “I wonder if Tom would like me to go round,” George said. “I don’t like to think of him on his own.”

  Selina jumped at the suggestion.

  “Oh, do go—poor Tom—he sounded in an awful state on the telephone.”

  After Selina had rung off George tried to dress quietly but he was not successful. Miriam sat up yawning.

  “What on earth! It’s the middle of the night.”

  George told her what had happened.

  “I thought I’d go round and see if I could do anything.”

  Miriam gaped at him.

  “Helen! Suicide! She couldn’t have! There must be a mistake.”

  “You can’t make a mistake about a cushion in a gas oven.”

  George went on dressing while Miriam turned over what he had said, and the result was disbelief.

  “They’ll find it was murder—a burglar must have knocked her out then put her in the gas oven—to make it look like suicide. Where was Tom?”

  “You remember he took Selina home, when he got back Helen was dead.”

  Miriam held out her hand for a cigarette.

  “She couldn’t have done it.”

  George lit her cigarette for her.

  “It’s no good guessing. It could have been some sort of brain storm, I suppose.” He hesitated, for even in moments of stress Miriam could be impatient at what she considered unfair leaning on God as opposed to human endeavour. “If she was worried about anything she was alone with it—she was not much of a church woman.”

  Miriam let that pass for, though she had not considered Helen a close friend, that she was dead was a shock, and left her in no mood for arguments. But, even shocked, compassion flowed from her.

  “Poor Tom. I feel sick myself, what agony is he going through? Find out if there’s anything I can do. Perhaps he’d like me to go down to the children’s schools. I suppose you’ll stay with him, but if you can get any sense out of him, telephone if there’s any mortal thing I can do.”

  George kissed her.

  “Pray for him, darling. Then take a hot drink and an aspirin. By to-morrow there’s probably a lot we can all do. I’ll let you know.”

  The telephone woke both Celia and Edward. Edward picked up the receiver and as he did so saw out of the corner of his eye Celia sitting up in bed straining to hear, so he kept the news out of the conversation. A startled “Good God!” did escape him at Selina’s first words but after that he listened in silence until she had finished, then he said:

  “I’ll go to him right away. How about you, would you like Celia to come round?”

  Selina answered so quickly there could be no doubt she meant what she said.

  “Oh no, thank you. I’ve got a lot of telephoning still to do. But I’m glad you’re going to Tom, you’ll find George there.”

  Since Prunella’s death Edward had been careful of Celia. Now, as he put down the receiver, she gripped his arm.

  “What’s happened? Where are you going right away?”

  Edward took her hands.

  “Prepare yourself for a shock, old thing. That was Selina. It was about Helen. She’s killed herself.”

  Celia gazed up at Edward, her face as blank as if it were the face of a puppet.

  “Killed herself? Helen! Selina must have made a mistake.”

  “I don’t think she has.” He explained about the cushion in the gas oven. “Now pop off to the kitchen and make us a big jug of coffee. I’m going to Tom.”

  When the front door of the flat had shut behind Edward Celia went back to the kitchen and tried to finish her coffee, but her throat seemed to have closed so it was impossible to swallow. For something to do she washed the percolator and cups, and while her hands went about their business she tried to take it in that Helen was dead. “Helen’s dead,” she whispered. “She’s killed herself,” until at last her mind did accept what her lips were repeating. As acceptance came to her she dropped and smashed the cup she was drying, but, unaware that she had done so, she made her way to a chair and laid her head on the kitchen table and cried as she had not done since she had watched Prunella die. “Oh God!” she sobbed. “What a jealous beast I’ve been, and even now I’m not crying because I’m sorry.”

  Olivia was in Anthony’s arms when the telephone bell rang. Anthony, with a muttered “What on earth?” rolled over, switched on the light and picked up the receiver. A moment later, his hand over the receiver, he said:

  “It’s a journalist on Bernard Task’s paper. He wants to speak to you.”

  Olivia was used to being news-worthy, but as she took the receiver her eyebrows were raised enquiringly. What had she done lately that could possibly interest the Press? Then, while Anthony watched, her little monkey face screwed into an expression of horror mingled with excitement: “One moment,” she said, “I must tell my husband.” Then to Anthony: “It’s Helen. This man says she was found with her head in a gas oven.” She turned back to the mouthpiece. “I guess it was an accident. I never trust gas, I suppose it was that old Mrs. Simpson, their cook who liked cooking on it, maybe she left it on and Helen didn’t know.”

  “We have no details yet. I was wondering if you could tell me anything about the evening. I have Bernard’s account but I’d like a woman’s angle.”

  Olivia would not have admitted it but she was enjoying herself. It certainly was terrible about that poor Helen, but it was quite something to have been one of the last people to have seen her alive. She settled down for a good telephone gossip.

  “It was a wonderful evening, you know how it is, some parties go and some don’t, well this one went. And Helen—Mrs. Blair—seemed just fine; well, now I think of it, maybe she was a little over gay, if you know what I mean.” She lifted her head to argue with Anthony, who had nudged her. “Yes, she was.” Back in the receiver she said: “Mr. Browne has not known Mrs. Blair long so he wouldn’t know how she usually was but I’d say, though I didn’t notice it at the time, that she could have been putting on an act.”

  “Do you know any reason why she should have done it?”

  Olivia could only relate the actions of other women to her own. She had often said she would rather be dead than that so-and-so should happen to her, but she had not meant it, and even casually had never considered ending her life. She supposed there might, in some faraway future, be circumstances which made living intolerable, but she could not visualise circumstances which hit her so suddenly that she would kill herself sordidly lying on a kitchen floor. Surely any woman, especially a soignée creature like Helen, could have found time to manage things better: fill their bedroom with flowers, put on their best nightdress, dab themselves with their favourite scent, and then settle in bed with the aspirins, sleeping pills, or whatever it was, and a strong drink.

  “No I don’t,” she admitted, “but I suppose she thought she was slipping, she wasn’t, but you know how it is with us girls, we get fixations.”

  “What fixation do you think Mrs. Blair had?”

  “I don’t know she had any. I just meant we all get ideas, you know, that our faces aren’t what they were—well, nobody’s face is—anyway everybody gets sour days when everything looks wrong.” A new idea struck her. “I guess it must have been a patch when Helen wanted to look especially good for someone . . .” She broke off again to speak to Anthony. “Stop poking me, Helen may have been feeling that way.”

  The journalist intervened, for if his news was to get beyond the stop press it was time he was on the telephone to his paper.

  “Guesses apart, Mrs. Browne, Mrs. Blair seemed perfectly normal to you?”

  Regretfully Olivia relinquished her place in the limelight.

  “Yes, I guess she did.”

  When Olivia put down the receiver Anthony said:

  “Ought you to have said all that? Suppose he prints it.”

 
Olivia dismissed that with a flick of her fingers.

  “Print what? I was only trying to help, after all, there must be a reason.”

  “But would Tom Blair like it? I mean, it’s pretty grim for him without gossip thrown in.”

  Much as she loved Anthony Olivia had accepted he was not of her world, and frequently said things that she had supposed were only thought by people who ate high tea, so she changed the subject. She would have liked then and there to have dressed and gone to St. John’s Wood, for she drifted naturally to the centre of things, but that was manifestly impossible, so she turned her thoughts to the morning.

  “I’ll go round first thing and see if there’s anything I can do. I shall wear that dark grey Dior suit, I don’t like dead black except at a funeral or a memorial, but what hat?” She lay down. “Maybe no hat, a hat unless it’s right can so easily strike the wrong note.” She pulled Anthony down beside her. “Switch off that light, and stop looking as if I murdered Helen. I suppose she did what she did because she wanted to, and whatever her reason the rest of us have to go on, and we still have to wear clothes.”

  * * *

  Doctor Arnold, the Blairs’ doctor, having given Mrs. Simpson and Tom injections to make them sleep, had gone home leaving the police doctor in charge of the medical side of things, so George and Edward were the only intimates who saw Helen’s body carried out of the house bound for the mortuary.

  “When will the inquest be?” George asked the police surgeon.

  It was the second suicide the police surgeon had been called out for that night so he was tired, and anyway he loathed suicides.

  “Depends how long the police need for their enquiries—the post-mortem will be to-morrow or the next day if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “I suppose there’s no doubt it was suicide?” Edward asked.

  The police surgeon who had suffered under the cross-examination, if not of Edward of others like him, saw his opportunity to get some of his own back and took it.

  “In your experience have you known a woman who put her head in a gas oven by accident?”

  George produced Miriam’s suggestion.

  “But how about a burglary? A burglar could have knocked her on the head and shoved her in the oven to make it look like suicide.”

  The doctor held back a yawn.

  “Could have if there was any sign of foul play—breaking and entering, or if anything was missing. Well, goodnight, gentlemen.”

  Edward looked at George.

  “I hate police quacks. I could do with a drink—how about you?”

  George was planning to spend what remained of the night on his knees praying for the repose of Helen’s soul, but there were things to be discussed so he followed Edward into the drawing-room.

  The drinks were where they had last seen them standing on a low table on a silver tray. George crossed to it and picked up the whisky decanter and held it out to Edward, who nodded. George poured out the two drinks, then he looked distastefully at the sofa.

  “It was one of those cushions she took to the kitchen.” He held a glass out to Edward, who did not see it for he was gazing round the room. George, puzzled, followed his eyes. “Something missing?”

  Edward then noticed the glass.

  “Thanks. I was thinking—when we left there was the usual mess, dirty ash trays and glasses—cushions rucked up and all that . . .”

  George looked round. Now Edward mentioned it he noticed the room had been carefully tidied, the ash trays emptied, the dirty glasses collected and put on the drink tray, the cushions beaten back into shape—but he had missed the point.

  “Women usually clear up after a party, I know Miriam does.”

  Edward was like a dog following a scent.

  “Did Mrs. Simpson come in here?”

  “No. Came to the top of the stairs in her dressing-gown when she heard the racket—I told her as well as I could what had happened, but she fell down screaming, we had to carry her to her room where the doctor gave her something which will knock her out until the morning.”

  “Can you imagine,” Edward asked, “any woman who was planning to put her head in a gas oven tidying her drawing-room? I can’t.”

  George at last caught on.

  “No. Odd that.”

  Edward walked up and down the room.

  “I could understand if things looked banged into place, as if she was in a frenzy when she did it, but there’s no sign of that.” Suddenly he swooped to the sofa. “Come here, George.”

  George joined him and looked at where Edward was pointing. It was a long sofa covered in bracken-coloured velvet with several cushions on it in contrasting shades. George had sat on it while they were planning cruelty week, and so had Olivia and Tom. When they had left the sofa would have been dented where they had sat and the cushions crushed where they had leant against them, now, like the rest of the room, there was no sign they had sat there, only at the end of the sofa by the wall, where he did not remember any of them sitting, somebody had sat and that place had not been tidied.

  “Queer.”

  Edward stooped down.

  “Look.”

  Together they stared at what lay on the floor between the sofa and the wall. It was a newspaper.

  George bent over it and moved a corner so he could see what it was and the date.

  “Yesterday’s News of the World. That’s what Task left with her.”

  Edward picked up the paper carefully, not to disturb the position of the pages.

  “Looks as if it was something on page 2 or page 3.”

  “You think it was something she read that made her do it?”

  Edward had thrown his overcoat over a chair, now he folded the paper neatly and put it in one of the pockets.

  “It’s a possibility—she had no thought of suicide until after we’d gone, I’ll take my oath on that.” He went back to the sofa and obliterated the dent where he believed Helen to have sat.

  George looked round at the paper, the top of which he could see sticking out of Edward’s overcoat pocket.

  “But if we think that, isn’t it our duty to tell the police? They’re still here.”

  Edward gave him a sharp look.

  “What for?”

  George was unsure.

  “I suppose the coroner will have to try and find out why she did it.”

  Edward finished his whisky and helped himself to another.

  “Let him. What good is it going to do Tom to have Helen’s secret, whatever it was, made public? She’s done what she did, let her reason die with her.”

  George considered that then doubtfully agreed.

  “I suppose you’re right—after all, we don’t know it was anything to do with the paper, it’s only guesswork.” Edward lit a cigarette.

  “A woman tidies her drawing-room, then she sits down to read a paper, drops it, picks up a cushion, goes to the kitchen, puts it in her gas oven, lays her head on it and turns on the gas . . . I’d say the case is stronger than guesswork.”

  “Shall you tell Tom you think it may have been something she read?”

  Edward put down his glass.

  “I doubt it. Why should he want to know? Suppose Helen had some sordid secret, is it going to make what the poor fellow’s going through any easier to bear knowing about it? No, the police know Helen came in here and took a cushion to the kitchen, but only you and I know she sat in here and read that paper.”

  “It might come out at the inquest. Task gave it to her, remember, they may ask where it is.”

  The more he thought about it the more sure Edward was that what he planned to do was right.

  “I found it in here folded as it was when Task gave it to her, so as I was camping here for the night I took it for something to read, you saw me pick it up.”

 
; George disliked equivocation, but he respected Edward’s mind, moreover he thought the question as to whether or not Helen had read the paper was of small importance against the fact of her pitiful end; he longed to get on his knees to plead with God for her. He must be alone.

  “Why don’t you doss down in that bed in Tom’s dressing-room?”

  Edward finished his drink.

  “What about you?”

  George shook his head.

  “I’d rather stay here. I can make myself quite comfortable in a chair when I want to.”

  Edward picked up his coat.

  “Right—call me if you need me, but Tom should be out for hours yet.”

  George waited until the door shut. Then he turned out all the lights except one lamp which stood on a small table. Kneeling beside it he buried his face in his hands.

  CHAPTER 3

  Miss Osborne sat at her study desk; facing her was Verily’s form mistress, Alice Gore.

  “I’ve sent for you, Miss Gore, to put you in the picture. As you know, I have arranged for Verily Blair to ride this morning, my excuse, which you must have known was trumped up, was that the pony she usually rides was needed this afternoon.”

  Alice had an excellent brain hidden behind childish English-rose prettiness, and she knew that Miss Osborne recognized this and respected her for it, so she was not afraid of her as were some others of the staff.

  “Of course I knew that wasn’t the real reason.”

  Miss Osborne looked down at her long thin hands which were folded on the desk.

  “During the night a Miss Grierson rang me up.”

  Alice, with a sinking feeling, knew bad news was coming.

  “Verily’s father was brought up with her—Verily calls her Selina, she is the friend she and her brother stay with in Ireland.”

  Miss Osborne was glad of the information; it might help but she went on as if Alice had not spoken.

  “Mrs. Blair was found early this morning with her head in a gas oven, it appeared to be suicide.”

  Alice let out a shocked gasp.

  “How dreadful!”