The Listening Eye

by Patricia Wentworth

“Is that you?… Moira Herne speaking. Look here, Wilfrid is coming down for the week-end, and another man. I expect you know him, because he seems to live in the same place as you do-David Moray. He is an artist. Probably too uncivilized, but Lucy has just bought one of his pictures, and he has asked him down, so I thought we had better make it a four, and then we could dance, or play something and it won’t be too unutterably mouldy.”

  If it had been just Moira and Wilfrid, Sally would have found an excuse, but David was another matter. Moira had her own way with attractive men. It was an odd way, but it appeared to get results. They became mesmerized and fell into vicious circles like moths about a lamp. Saily was unable to bear the thought of David as a moth. She mightn’t be able to prevent the mesmerizing process, but at least she wouldn’t be about thirty-five miles away enjoying the pleasures of the imagination. Sally’s imagination could do wicked things when it really got going, and she didn’t feel like giving it its head. Better be there on the spot and see for herself than have to listen to its insidious whisperings in Porlock Square. It was always possible that David might take against Moira. By all the rules he should. There was his Scottish common sense, and the detached and critical manner in which he regarded the female sex. He was wary, he was intolerant, and he thought well of his own judgment. He was, in fact, an odiously cocksure young man who wanted taking down quite a number of pegs. Only how could she bear to see anyone doing it? Especially Moira. The answer was that she couldn’t. And that, illogically, was the reason why nothing would stop her from going to Merefields.

  Chapter 12

  MISS SILVER was able to make considerable progress with the pale blue baby shawl intended for a young friend and former client, Dorinda Leigh, now expecting her third child. Miss Bray, who was engaged in the domestic work of darning pillow-cases, bore her company and was most helpful and informative in her conversation. To many this perpetual trickle of talk might have seemed dull, but not to Miss Silver. She had a very genuine interest in the lives and the problems of other people, and when occupied upon a case nothing that she could learn about those concerned in it could be dismissed as trivial or worthless. As her needles moved rhythmically above the pale blue cloud in her lap and Miss Bray jerked at her linen thread, a picture of the Bellingdon household began to take shape.

  “Of course he is a very clever man and he has been very successful, but I’m not sure that it didn’t all come too suddenly for Lily. She wasn’t ever what you would call strong, and when he began to go over to America on his business she fretted a lot-she was that kind, you know. There was some patent he had got for one of those new materials they keep making out of such very odd things. I really can’t remember whether it was seaweed, or milk, or wood pulp, but he made a lot of money out of it and he had to go over to America about the patents. I remember his telling Lily they were going to be rich, and she cried about it afterwards and said she would rather have her husband.”

  Miss Silver had been turning the shawl. She looked up brightly.

  “It was not possible for her to accompany him?”

  Miss Bray shook her head in a mournful manner.

  “Oh, no-she didn’t like travelling. Not at all! And there is such a lot of travelling in a big place like the United States! He used to say she would get used to it, but I told him he hadn’t the right to expect her to go. He didn’t like my saying it of course, but if I didn’t stand up for Lily, who was going to, I should like to know!”

  “So she stayed at home?”

  “And moped,” said Miss Bray, digging into a darn in a haphazard way which Miss Silver found distressing. She was using far too thick a needle. The mended place would be sadly conspicuous. Miss Bray gazed at it disapprovingly, but it was evident that it was really Mr. Bellingdon who was being disapproved of. “Men are all the same,” she continued. “He was free enough with the money, but you can’t live on money, can you? What she wanted was company. That’s why I came to live with them. And of course it’s been very comfortable and all, but a big house is a lot of trouble, and I sometimes think-” Her voice trailed away.

  Miss Silver wondered what she had been going to say. Whatever it was, it didn’t get said. There was an interlude during which the shortcomings of the Hiltons were deplored.

  “She may be a very good cook, and I don’t say she isn’t, but I am sure she is terribly extravagant. And I don’t say that Hilton doesn’t know his work, because he does, but I do say that Lucius ought to look into the accounts! I would be willing to do it myself though I am sure figures always make my head ache and it’s so difficult to get them to come out right, don’t you think so-but when I suggested it Lucius was really quite rude! I may be too sensitive-perhaps I am-but I think it’s better than going round hurting people’s feelings. But do you know what he said-and it wasn’t only the words, but his voice and the way he looked at me. ‘You let the Hiltons alone!’ he said. ‘And you let the accounts alone, and I’ll let you alone!’ And then he laughed and patted my shoulder and said, ‘You wouldn’t be a bit of good at either, and we’ll all be a lot more comfortable if you’ll leave well alone.’ ”

  Miss Silver smiled.

  “That sounds to me very much like the way in which a man talks to someone he is fond of-in fact very much like a brother. They do not think about being polite, they just feel that things like accounts are not really a woman’s department. And if you do not feel very much at home with figures, I should think you would be grateful to be spared having to deal with them.”

  Something about Miss Silver’s smile and the tone of her voice as she said this gave Miss Bray a pleasant sense of being sheltered from the rougher blasts of domestic life. She preened herself and admitted that she had always found arithmetic troublesome. They glided imperceptibly to other subjects and presently arrived at the question of the weekend party.

  “Moira is really not at all domestic,” Miss Bray lamented. “One does not expect a man to consider what sheets are at the wash-towels of course, and pillow-cases too. Not that the linen-cupboard is not well stocked, though we could certainly do with more sheets and I have been waiting for an opportunity of speaking to Lucius on the subject, but the laundry only delivers once a fortnight and rather irregularly at that-and the house so full-I’m sure every bed was occupied last week-end! So if Moira stopped to think, but of course she doesn’t-” Miss Bray surveyed her completed darn and shook her head. “The linen gets no rest,” she said.

  Miss Silver pulled on her pale blue ball.

  “Mrs. Herne invites a good many people?”

  Miss Bray threw up her hands.

  “They just come in and out, and I’m sure I don’t know whether they are coming or going, or which of them are going to stay the night! Why, only last week-end just as I’d got all the rooms nicely arranged and the beds aired-and that’s a thing I don’t feel Mrs. Hilton sees to as she should, and you can’t really trust the girls-Where was I? Oh, about the beds! You see, there are the five rooms in regular use, because that poor Mr. Hughes was sleeping in the house until he was murdered.”

  Miss Silver performed a simple calculation. Mr. Bellingdon, Mrs. Scott, Moira Herne, Miss Bray herself, and Arthur Hughes-that made five, and still left Hubert Garratt unaccounted for.

  “Does Mr. Garratt not sleep in the house?”

  “Oh, no, he doesn’t. The East Lodge is empty, and he prefers being there. Mrs. Croft looks in to make his bed and tidy up on her way from the village, and he has all his meals here. It is quite a convenient arrangement, and he prefers it. But of course I should have said six beds are occupied, because as far as the linen is concerned he might as well be in the house. And on the top of the regular people last week-end there was Wilfrid Gaunt. He’s a friend of Moira’s, and always seems to me to be a most idle, frivolous young man, and I’m sure if I’d known he was coming down this week-end again I’d have left his sheets on the bed and not sent them to the wash. But that’s Moira all over, she never thinks ahead. And Lucius had a couple
in the Blue Room-some Americans called Rennick who are friends of his-very nice people, I’m sure. And of course Mrs. Scott was here, and my brother Arnold. And then at the last minute Moira just said casually that Clay Masterson would be staying the night, and I must say I was provoked!”

  Miss Silver’s memory was much too accurate and retentive for the name of Wilfrid Gaunt to have escaped her attention. He had been mentioned at lunch, and as Miss Bray spoke of him she was aware in retrospect of Paulina Paine talking of the portrait which Lucius Bellingdon had bought-“It is in this gallery, and it has been sold. A young cousin of mine, Wilfrid Gaunt, has two pictures there too.” A young cousin of mine, Wilfrid Gaunt. Here was a link between Miss Paine, the gallery, and Merefields. She maintained her look of interest without accentuating it in any way, and when she spoke it was not of Wilfrid Gaunt. She said, “And who is Clay Masterson?” Miss Bray was unaccustomed to so much sympathetic attention, having passed most of her life in other people’s houses without any very settled position or any qualifications for attracting interest of friendship. She found herself expanding in a very pleasurable manner.

  “He has an aunt or cousin or something who lives on the other side of the village, and really there seems to be no reason at all why he should come and sleep here. As I said to Moira at the time, ‘Even if something has gone wrong with his car, I suppose a healthy young man can walk a mile without finding it a hardship!’ Not that it is a mile to the Gables, because it is well this side of the turning to Crowbury and we always count the mile from there, so I must say I didn’t think he need stay the night, and I said so. But Moira insisted, even after I told her that the sheets wouldn’t be aired, or the mattress, or the blankets, because I should have to put him into the north room which we don’t use unless we are obliged to.”

  “He is a friend of Mrs. Herne’s?”

  “They go out dancing together,” said Miss Bray in a disapproving tone.

  “He lives with this aunt?”

  “Oh, no, he just comes and goes. He did very well in the war-at least Moira says he did. And he has a very good job in town, only I don’t quite know what it is. I think Moira told me it had something to do with the antique business. I’m sure I don’t know why such a lot of people go in for that nowadays-people who are quite well connected and high up in society. If it was nice new furniture or glass or china, they wouldn’t touch it, but just because the things are old they think it’s quite a smart thing to do. Why, there’s Lady Hermione Scunthorpe-and she’s a Duke’s daughter-and several others I could mention, but it all seems very puzzling to me! This Mr. Masterson goes round looking for old things, and Moira says he is very good at it, so of course it wasn’t at all convenient for him to have his car laid up.”

  Miss Silver had been getting on very well with her shawl. It quite filled her lap.

  “You spoke of your brother being here. How very pleasant for you.”

  This did not appear to evoke any particular response. Miss Bray took one of her clumsy stitches and said,

  “It was only for the week-end-he just stayed till the Monday evening. It would have been better if the house hadn’t been so full.”

  “Your brother does not care for society?”

  Miss Bray was regretting that she had mentioned Arnold. She flushed, the colour deepening towards her nose. Aware of this, she produced a handkerchief from her sleeve and chafed the afflicted feature with unfortunate results. Miss Silver thought it best to change the subject.

  Chapter 13

  IT was some time after tea that Lucius Bellingdon found himself showing Miss Silver his collection of pictures. He was a little uncertain as to just how this had come about. It had not really been his intention to show the pictures at all, at any rate not at this moment, and not to Miss Silver. Yet as the party at tea broke up he was aware of Miss Silver putting away her knitting in a flowered chintz bag with green plastic handles and looking up at him in a brightly intelligent manner.

  “So kind of you, and I shall be most interested to see them,” she was saying. And then, “I have some pictures that I am very fond of myself. Only reproductions of course, but in some cases I have been privileged to see the originals.”

  After which there was no doubt that he had in some way committed himself. They went up the stairs and through to the wing which he had restored in order to house his collection. There had been extensive damage by fire at the turn of the century, and the then owner had not been able to meet the expense of re-building.

  “He’d let the insurance lapse. Silly thing to do, but I don’t suppose he could find the money. Pity when an old family goes down hill like that, but no sense in hanging on to a place when you can’t afford to keep it up. Takes the heart out of you trying to do something that can’t be done.”

  Miss Silver said, “Yes indeed.”

  She listened with interest and respect to a disquisition on Dutch painting culminating in the proud display of a very small picture of a girl standing by an open window and putting tulips into a jar. She was a plain young woman, but the way the light came slanting through the window to touch the tulips and her smooth fair hair had an astonishing beauty. It had not occurred to her before that light could be painted, but it occurred to her now. Her comment to that effect certainly pleased Lucius Bellingdon. He went on talking, showed her a flower piece which she admired very much, and then all at once he was being addressed with some gravity.

  “Mr. Bellingdon, may I take this opportunity of asking you to add to the information you have already given me?”

  He showed some slight surprise, but no more than was natural.

  “Why, certainly. What is it you want to know?”

  “In the course of conversation Miss Bray mentioned that you had a house-party during this last week-end.”

  “Yes, there were people here-there generally are at the week-end.”

  “Quite so. But on this occasion, so shortly before the theft of the necklace and the murder of Mr. Hughes, I should be very interested to hear anything that you can tell me about your guests.”

  He looked at her sharply.

  “I don’t see-”

  “I think you must, Mr. Bellingdon. I do not know just when you decided to withdraw your necklace from the County Bank, but I imagine that all the details were already decided upon at the time of this week-end party. You informed me that you had communicated them to the manager in writing, and since Tuesday was the day for the withdrawal it seems probable that your letter would have been posted on the Saturday or Sunday. Therefore any leakage of information on the subject would be likely to have occurred during that time.”

  “It was posted on the Sunday.”

  His tone was one of displeasure. It was by no means Miss Silver’s first experience of being invited to an investigation which subsequently proved very little to the taste of the person who had invited her. She looked steadily at Lucius Bellingdon and said,

  “This is not pleasant for you, is it? Before we go any farther I should like to say that I appreciate your position. It is still for you to choose whether you really wish me to go on with the case. The police have it in hand, and there is no need for you to retain my services. It is still open to me to return to town and relieve you of the embarrassment of having introduced an enquiry agent into your private family circle. But what I must make quite clear to you is this. The course I have proposed is possible now, but it may not be possible tomorrow. It could, in fact, become impossible at any moment.”

  He was frowning deeply.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that at present I feel myself at liberty to withdraw, but if I continue on the case I am not, and could not be, prepared to hush anything up. The case is one of murder. Anything that throws light upon the murderer’s identity will be, and must be, at the disposal of the police. I am saying to you what I feel it my duty to say to any client. I cannot go into an investigation with the object of proving anyone guilty or anyone innocent. I can only go in
to it with the object of discovering the truth and serving the ends of justice.”

  He walked a little way from her, looked fixedly at a lowering seascape, and so remained for a slow minute or two. When he came back, she saw that he had made up his mind. He said,

  “Well, I like to do business with someone who doesn’t beat about the bush, and you don’t do that. If there has been a leakage, I’m bound to trace it. It could have occurred through nothing worse than a tongue too loosely hung-I suppose you realize that.”

  She inclined her head.

  “You wish me to remain here?”

  He said “Yes-” in a considering tone. Then, more firmly, “Yes, I do. There is such a thing as any sort of certainty being better than not knowing where you are. If there’s a worm in a board I like to know it and have it out before it lets me through and I break my ankle-or my neck. And that being that, what do you want to know about last week-end?”

  “Just who were the guests, and something about them.”

  “The question is, what did Elaine tell you? She can generally be trusted to talk.”

  Miss Silver coughed.

  “I should prefer you to assume that Miss Bray did not say anything at all.”

  He gave a short laugh.

  “That’s a pretty tall order, but I’ll do my best! To begin with you have to understand that there are very few week-ends when we don’t have people here. Moira is young and she asks anyone she likes. I have people down on the sort of business that goes better when it isn’t done in an office. Well, last week-end there was this young chap Wilfrid Gaunt who is coming down tonight-he’s by way of fluttering round Moira. And another young chap called Masterson. And some people for me of the name of Rennick-Americans, a very nice couple. And Elaine’s brother Arnold Bray. And that’s the lot.”

  She asked him questions eliciting very much the same information as had been imparted by Miss Bray. Clay Masterson was a clever chap, keen to get on, but there wouldn’t be a lot of money in running round the country looking for antiques-not at this time of the day.