It was while she was so engaged that two of the Miss Pimms came out of Warren Crescent into Belview Road, which it joins no more than a hundred yards down the slope. They stood at the corner for a moment looking up and across in the direction of the lodge. After exchanging a few words they were about to cross the road, when the green bus came up the hill from the town. It stopped at the corner of Belview Road and Hill Rise and Frank Abbott got off. Lily Pimm had a second moment of triumph, since she knew who he was and her sister Mabel did not. She was quite beaming as she told Mabel that that was the inspector from Scotland Yard.
Mabel Pimm was justly annoyed. It wasn’t often that Lily could tell her something she didn’t know, but this was the second time it had happened today, and her instinct was to reject it. She said in a deep, vibrant voice,
‘Nonsense, Lily – he doesn’t look in the least like a policeman!’
‘I know he doesn’t but he is. Mrs Justice told me all about him. His grandmother was Lady Evelyn Abbott, and she had one of these big shipping fortunes and she left it past all the rest of the family to a grand-daughter who was a schoolgirl of fifteen. This man’s name is Abbott too – Frank Abbott.’
Mabel Pimm made the small explosive sound which is sometimes written ‘Tchah!’ When and how had Lily elicited this information from Louisa Justice, and why had she failed to pass it on? Lily was getting above herself. Lily would have to be snubbed. She snubbed her sharply.
‘Frank indeed! Really, Lily, what has the man’s name got to do with either of us, or why should you suppose it would be of the least interest to me? I can only repeat that if he is a police officer he doesn’t look like one!’
Lily was unabashed.
‘You hardly ever hear of anyone called Frank nowadays, do you? Look Mabel – he’s going into The Lodge! I suppose we shall have to put off our visit now.’
‘And why should we? We are calling upon Althea to condole with her upon the death of her mother. I can see no reason at all why we should alter our plan. I am merely waiting for the bus to go on.’
The bus moved. They crossed the road and were knocking at the front door of The Lodge just as Miss Silver preceded Frank Abbott into the dining-room. She had not expected him, and was wondering whether it was Althea or herself whom he wished to see, when he settled the matter by asking whether he could have a few words with her. There were times when she would have welcomed him more warmly. She intimated as much now.
‘I have just got that poor girl to eat something. I have been trying to take her mind off the case. I am really very much afraid of the strain proving too much for her. I hope that you have not brought any bad news?’
He looked at her with affection.
‘Well, I haven’t come here with a warrant in my pocket, if that is what you mean by bad news. I don’t think there’s very much doubt about Carey’s guilt, but up to date there isn’t any evidence to show that he came back to the gazebo after Mrs Graham had gone into the house. Of course there isn’t any evidence that he ever left the gazebo. He may have gone for a walk as he says he did and have come back again, or he may just have hung about in the gazebo and waited for Althea Graham to return. Her windows look that way, you know, and Mrs Graham’s don’t. He could have reckoned on her looking out of her window the last thing when she put out her light and drew back the curtains. Most people do that, you know. And he could have signalled to her with a torch. Suppose he did, and suppose it was Mrs Graham who got the signal. Her windows don’t look that way but the bathroom window does. On Miss Cotton’s evidence she was a hysterical woman, and she was in a very angry and suspicious frame of mind. I think she might easily have expected Carey to make some further effort to see her daughter. If she looked out of the bathroom window she could see the gazebo. She would see the least flicker of a torch. I think we’ve got to believe that she did see something, and that what she saw took her up the garden to the gazebo, where she was murdered. What we haven’t got at present is a single scrap of evidence after Althea Graham took her mother in and Miss Cotton looked back at the corner of the road and saw Mrs Graham’s bedroom light go on. From that moment there is a complete stalemate. Carey can’t prove that he didn’t just stay where he was, and we can’t prove that he did. He may have gone away as he says he did. If he did, he can’t produce anyone to prove it any more than we can prove that he came back and strangled Mrs Graham. He certainly had a motive, and he could as certainly have made the opportunity. As far as we’ve got there’s nothing in it either way.’
The two Miss Pimms stood on the doorstep without either lifting the knocker or ringing the bell. As they had walked up the flagged path there was a drawing-room window to their right and a dining-room window to their left. The drawing-room window was a square bay, and there would have been quite a good view of the interior if a completely opaque curtain had not been drawn across the side which was next the porch. The dining-room had a bay too but no curtain drawn, and the nearest window stood a handsbreadth open. Lily Pimm was looking to her right, but Mabel was more fortunate. She actually saw Miss Silver and Detective Inspector Abbott come into the room behind the open window. Most fortunately, they did not look in her direction. She touched Lily on the arm, put a finger on her lips, and rapidly gained the shelter of the porch. When Lily on a singularly foolish impulse opened her lips to speak, the touch on her arm became so painful a pinch that the water rushed into her eyes and she immediately desisted. Mabel removed her finger from her lips and pointed with it, and they both heard the Detective Inspector say, ‘I don’t think there is very much doubt about Carey’s guilt.’ After that even Lily did not need to be pinched.
They stood out of sight as if riveted to the doorstep, Mabel tall and thin, Lily round and plump. Her nickname as a child had been Podge, and it still suited her. They could hear everything that was said. But when Detective Inspector Abbott reached the point of asserting that Nicholas Carey certainly had a motive and could as certainly have made an opportunity, and went on to say, ‘As far as we’ve got there’s nothing in it either way,’ he began to walk round the dining-table in the direction of the window. They heard him say, ‘I don’t know why we shouldn’t sit down.’ And then quite suddenly he turned towards the side window of the bay and saw them standing in the porch.
Mabel Pimm behaved with the greatest presence of mind. She had hardly glimpsed the movement of a coat sleeve on the other side of the casement, when her hand was on the knocker. Her vigorous knock practically coincided with Frank Abbott’s ‘There’s someone at the door.’ As a second knock followed he stepped back and said only just above his breath,
‘Is there anyone to answer it, or shall I go?’
Althea was already in the hall. She did not show her dismay at the sight of the Miss Pimms, but it came in on her like a fog. Having known them since she was six, she was under no illusion as to the rigorous cross-examination to which Miss Mabel would subject her. It was therefore with feelings of considerable relief that she saw the dining-room door open and Miss Silver and Frank Abbott emerge. The ceremonial kiss which Mabel Pimm was about to bestow was checked, and with no more than a subdued murmur of condolence they proceeded to the drawing-room. Frank Abbott was in two minds whether to stay or go. In the end he found himself being introduced to the Miss Pimms and decided to stay.
The interrogatory note in Miss Mabel’s voice was very decided as she addressed Miss Silver.
‘I do not think I have heard your name before. You are a relative?’
They were seating themselves, Miss Silver and Mabel Pimm upon the sofa, Frank Abbott in a fireside chair a little small for his elegant length, Althea on one of those square upholstered dumps a good deal in vogue at the time of Mrs Graham’s marriage, and on the opposite side of the hearth to the sofa Lily Pimm, rather isolated in a big armchair. Her feet only just touched the floor. She wore her skirts as long as possible in order to add to her height, but the attempt was a failure. Her black kid gloves were too tight for her plump hands, an
d both she and Mabel had put on black coats and hats in order to visit a house of mourning. The garments were those usually reserved for funerals. They had the air of never having been in fashion, and they smelled powerfully of mothball.
Miss Silver picked up her knitting and replied to Miss Mabel’s question.
‘Oh, no, I am not a relation.’
‘A friend then?’
‘I hope so.’
Miss Pimm unfastened the top button of her coat. It was one of her characteristics that she never found any room to be at quite the right temperature. If she felt it too warm she unbuttoned her coat. If she did not feel it warm enough she buttoned it up. In either case she said just what she thought. She said it now.
‘Warm rooms are enervating. This room is a good deal too warm. Are you an old friend? It don’t remember having heard your name before.’
Miss Silver pulled on the ball of pale pink wool. She said, ‘Indeed?’ in so mild a tone that Frank Abbott cocked an eyebrow.
Mabel Pimm turned a shoulder and addressed Althea.
‘Lily and I have come here because we feel it to be our duty. We would in any case wish to express our condolences, but there was also something we felt we ought to let you know without delay. It is perhaps fortunate that the Detective Inspector is here, as he would certainly have to be informed about it.’ She sat stiffly upright, her eyes small and bright, her nose jutting, her gloved hands folded in her lap. Then, as Althea turned a pale look in her direction, she continued. ‘It is something which I feel may be of the greatest importance – something which my sister Lily happened to overhear.’
Lily Pimm nodded her head in the shapeless black hat.
‘In the fish queue,’ she said.
Frank’s lips twitched. His sense of humour was sometimes a trouble to him, but he had it under control. Miss Silver sent him a glance.
‘Perhaps if Miss Graham and I were to leave you…’ she said.
Even before his slight shake of the head Althea was speaking.
‘No, it’s very kind of you, but I’d rather stay.’ She turned away from Mabel Pimm. ‘What is it, Miss Lily?’
It really was a wonderful day for Lily. She was quite sorry for Althea Graham, quite kindly disposed towards her, but it was wonderful to have such an interesting story to tell. It wasn’t very often that anyone listened to her with attention – it wasn’t very often that anyone listened to her at all. But today everyone was listening. First Mabel and Nettie at home, and now Althea and the friend who was staying with her, and the police officer, and Mabel. They were all listening with the greatest interest and attention. Agog – that was what they were – agog. Such a curious word! She couldn’t think why it should come into her mind, but it did. There they all sat, looking at her and waiting for her to speak.
She began to tell them what Mrs Traill had said to Mrs Rigg, and what Mrs Rigg had said to Mrs Traill, going right through the conversation and not missing a word, and finishing up with,
‘And I asked Mrs Jones in the fish shop where Mrs Traill lived, and she said with her daughter-in-law at No. 4 Holbrook Cottages.’
She looked round the circle, as an actor for applause, and was disappointed to find that no one seemed to realize how clever she had been.
Miss Silver had laid her knitting down upon her knee. Mabel of course, had heard the story before. The Scotland Yard Inspector was looking her way, but there was something about his expression which she didn’t care about at all, something that reminded her of a cold draught and getting her feet wet. And Althea Graham looked dreadful. Of course she had been engaged to Nicholas Carey, and people were saying perhaps they would make it up again now he had come home, only they couldn’t possibly get married if he had murdered her mother. No, no – of course they couldn’t! It shocked her very much to think of it.
The Inspector’s voice broke in upon these thoughts. It surprised her a good deal, because it wasn’t at all the sort of voice you would expect a policeman to have. It reminded her of a B.B.C. announcer, only not so friendly. He said,
‘Are you sure Mrs Traill mentioned the time at which she left this house on Hill Rise?’
Mabel Pimm answered for her sister.
‘It is No. 28, and Mr and Mrs Nokes live there. He is in a shipping office and goes up to town every day. And they have a young baby, so that if they want to go out in the evening they have to employ a babysitter, though I shouldn’t myself have described Mrs Traill as at all suitable – a most untidy person.’
The Inspector looked her way.
‘You know her?’
Mabel Pimm showed offence.
‘Certainly not! I should not dream of employing a person like that. I was going by what my sister said.’
He turned back again to Lily.
‘I just wanted to know whether you heard Mrs Traill say at what time she left the house on Hill Rise.’
‘No. 28,’ said Mabel Pimm.
Lily was not at all flustered. She said,
‘Oh, yes, I did. Mrs Nokes had a headache, so they came straight back from the cinema instead of going out to supper. There wasn’t anything for Mrs Traill to stay for after that so she got her money and came away, and it was twenty past eleven when she came out of the front door, because she looked at the clock in the hall and made out she could just catch the bus at the corner of Belview Road.’
He had begun to wonder whether it was going to be possible to stop or deflect her until she had gone through the whole story again. He struck in with a ‘Thank you, Miss Pimm,’ and from behind him on his right heard the sister say with an edge on her voice,
‘Miss Lily, if you please, Inspector. I am Miss Pimm.’
Althea had neither spoken nor moved. The dump on which she was sitting afforded no back against which she could lean. She sat in what had been an easy attitude but which had gone on stiffening until all its grace was lost. She wore no make-up, and the black dress dictated by custom robbed her skin of its last vestige of colour. The eyes which could take the sea tints, brightening into green or softening from it, were now a frozen grey. They stared before her as if the people and the room were not really there at all. They had gone away into a mist like the one through which she had passed to find her mother dead. Her mind struggled with what Lily Pimm had been saying. She tried to fit it in with the things which were already there. Nicky ringing her up and saying she must meet him at half past ten. It was half past ten when she slipped out of the back door and went up the garden to the gazebo. And then her mother had come. She had come, and she had called out, ‘How dare you, Nicholas Carey!’ and there was a scene and they had gone back into the house together. But Lily Pimm said that this Mrs Traill had come out of the Nokes’s house at twenty past eleven and when she was passing on the other side of the hedge from the gazebo she had heard her mother call out those very same words. She had heard her say, ‘How dare you, Nicholas Carey!’ None of these things seemed to fit in at all, and the mist in the room got thicker. She knew Mrs Nokes quite well by sight. The baby had fair hair sticking up all over his head, and a jolly grin. Something said to her, ‘You weren’t any time in the gazebo – hardly any time at all. You were back in the house making Ovaltine and putting your mother to bed long before eleven. Mrs Traill couldn’t have heard her in the gazebo at twenty past – she couldn’t possibly have heard her say “How dare you, Nicholas Carey!” ’
Miss Silver put down her knitting on the sofa beside her and got up. She addressed Frank Abbott formally.
‘I think this is too much for Miss Graham, Inspector. Perhaps you will take the Miss Pimms into the dining-room.’
TWENTY-FOUR
ALTHEA DID NOT quite lose consciousness but she came very near it. She lay on the sofa and felt vaguely how strange it was that she should be lying there with a soft rug over her and a cushion beneath her head. A small firm hand lifted the rug and felt her wrist. She opened her eyes a little way and said, ‘I’m all right.’ There was still a lot of mist in the room. Miss S
ilver’s voice came through it.
‘Yes, you are quite all right. Just lie still and rest.’ It would be lovely to let go of everything and slip into a dream. But there was something she had to do first. No, it was something she had to say, only she couldn’t quite get hold of it – it seemed to be just out of her reach. And there was an urgency about it – she couldn’t let it go. She had to think what it was – she had to say it. Her hand caught at Miss Silver’s.
‘There was something – I had to say.’
‘Don’t trouble yourself now, my dear.’ She began to say, ‘I can’t remember…’ and then it came to her. It was about Nicky – there was something she must tell them about Nicky. She tried to lift her head, but the giddy feeling was too strong. She said in an exhausted voice,
‘It was about Nicky – you must tell them. He didn’t do it – he really didn’t. You will tell them, won’t you?’
Miss Silver did not take her hand away. She said,
‘I will tell them just what you say, my dear.’
Althea drew a long breath. She had done what she had to do. The hand that was holding Miss Silver’s relaxed. She drifted into sleep.
When Frank Abbott returned to the house she was still sleeping. Miss Silver took him into the dining-room, where he drew the curtain across that side of the bay which faced the porch, coming back to pull out one of the chairs and sit down across the corner from Miss Silver. He looked at her with affection. The neatly netted hair with its Alexandra fringe in front and its plaits behind, the little vest of tucked net with the boned collar, the grey dress with its faint black and mauve pattern, the brooch of bog-oak in the form of a rose with an Irish pearl at its heart, the grey thread stockings, and the neat black glacé shoes with little ribbon bows on them, made up a picture which delighted him. She had brought her knitting with her. A small pale pink garment depended from the plastic needles.
The Gazebo Page 15