“I’m afraid I really can’t accept your view of this scene as a mere exchange of sarcasms. On your own showing it seems to me to have been a quarrel, and a pretty serious one at that.”
Carey smiled again with disarming frankness.
“Well, I suppose it was. But it didn’t mean a lot, because—” He hesitated and looked appealingly at the Superintendent. “You know, I don’t like saying things about Tanis, but I think they’ve got to be said. As far as she was concerned she could flick that quarrel away, because there weren’t any feelings involved. She really didn’t care a scrap, but she saw her way to getting something she did care about, and she set out to make the best bargain she could.”
March began to wonder what was coming next. When it came, it surprised him considerably.
“She went to Laura’s room that night and offered to do a deal with her. She would square things up with Miss Fane and get her blessing on our engagement if Laura would undertake not to sell the Priory.”
“Not to sell it!”
“Yes. She didn’t want to be tied up here—she wanted to go to Hollywood. But she couldn’t afford to offend Miss Fane.”
March found himself a good deal interested.
“And what did Miss Laura say?”
“She didn’t like it. She hadn’t made up her mind to sell, but she didn’t like the idea of a bargain behind Miss Fane’s back. She’s about the most honest person I’ve ever met.”
Randal March had a momentary picture of Miss Laura Fane’s steady eyes.
Carey went on speaking.
“She said she must talk it over—with me. Well, we talked about it, but we hadn’t come to any conclusion. But I want you to understand that we were both on perfectly friendly terms with Tanis that last day—anyone will tell you that. I danced with her in the evening, and she told me that she wanted to be friends, and that she would tell Miss Fane there wasn’t anything in the engagement idea.”
March looked at him.
“That was last night—a few hours before the murder.”
Carey said, “Yes.”
“You were on friendly terms when you parted—when you said goodnight?”
Carey met the look with composure.
“Yes—anyone will tell you that.”
“You said goodnight to Miss Lyle in the presence of the others?”
“Yes.”
“Did you meet her again after that?”
“No.” There was the faintest half hesitation before the word came out.
“Did you see her again that night?”
There was no half hesitation this time, but quite a long pause. Then Carey Desborough said,
“Yes.”
CHAPTER 28
IT WAS SOME TIME later that Carey was called to the telephone. A woman’s voice said his name, but it was so strained and choked that it took him a moment to recognize Sylvia Madison.
“Oh, Carey—is that you?”
“Yes. Good lord, Sylvia—what’s the matter?”
The voice shook, and choked again.
“Carey—I’m—so frightened.”
“What’s the matter, my dear?”
She gave a helpless little sob.
“It’s Tim—he went out hours ago and he hasn’t come back. I’m so frightened.”
He got a vivid flash-back to Tim Madison going past them in the field above the Grange. How long ago? Three hours— three and a half? No great matter anyhow if it hadn’t been for his face. He said,
“Yes—I met him when I was out with Laura. All set for a good long tramp, I should say. I shouldn’t worry, Sylvia.”
There was a breathless “Oh!” And then, “Did he speak to you?”
Carey made his voice as casual as he could.
“Oh, no. He was a good way off. We were coming back. He didn’t speak.”
Sylvia’s voice became a wail.
“He doesn’t. It—it frightens me. He sits and stares and doesn’t say anything. And he’s been gone for hours.”
Carey became uneasily conscious of the fact that a telephone conversation is not always private. If the girl at the exchange was at a loose end she might at this moment be hanging on Sylvia’s every trembling syllable. He said,
“Look here, my dear, you’ve just got the wind up. Whatever it is, he’ll walk it off and come home like a lamb. I tell you what, I’ll give you a ring about half past eight, and if everything isn’t O.K. by then, I’ll come over. Like me to bring Laura?”
“Oh, no—I mean, I liked her awfully, but—well, perhaps you’d better. Tim might think—oh, I don’t know, Carey— perhaps you won’t have to come—but do just what you think.” She sounded helpless and distracted.
Carey, a little tickled at the idea that Tim Madison might regard an unchaperoned visit with suspicion, found himself thinking, “He’d raise Cain if he was jealous. A scene about Sylvia would put the lid on. I’ll take Laura.”
When he called up again, it was to hear that Tim had just come in. In a hardly audible whisper Sylvia said,
“It’s all right. Bring Laura some other time. Goodnight.”
It was a relief, though he had been looking forward to the walk in the dark with Laura. They had now a perfectly ghastly evening before them—Alistair staring moodily at nothing at all; Robin with a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica in which he read with admirable pertinacity; Petra talking too much, too brightly, and then falling into a distressed silence; Miss Silver knitting placidly and conversing with steady cheerfulness; whilst he and Laura got what comfort they could from the fact that they were in the same room, and that occasionally their eyes could meet. Everyone was glad when ten slow strokes from the clock in the hall made it decently possible to go to bed. It seemed incredible that it was not yet twenty-four hours since those other goodnights had been said in which Tanis Lyle had had her part. It must have been in everybody’s thoughts, but no one spoke of it—in fact they hardly spoke at all.
Carey’s hand rested for a moment upon Laura’s shoulder. The hard pressure said more than words could have done. They went up slowly and in silence to their rooms.
Miss Fane and Miss Adams did not appear at breakfast next day, but by the middle of the morning both were downstairs again, taking up their accustomed routine. Miss Fane’s chair made its way to the north wing, where she held her usual interview with Mrs. Dean in the housekeeper’s room. Tearful sympathy was graciously accepted and then set aside. After the first few minutes there was nothing to distinguish the conversation from that of any other Saturday morning. Miss Fane wished a couple of economy dishes recommended by the Ministry of Food to be substituted for those suggested by Mrs. Dean.
“Carrots are extremely rich in vitamins, and this potato and onion curry should be palatable as well as nourishing. We’re really most fortunate in having such a good stock of onions....”
Mrs. Dean agreed as to the onions, but maintained a considerable reserve on the subject of the Ministry’s recipes. The dishes, having been ordered, would duly appear, but—“I’m sure I don’t know how they’ll turn out, ma’am.”
Miss Fane passed to another subject.
“How is Florrie Mumford doing? Do you find her satisfactory?”
Mrs. Dean bridled a little, emphasizing a double chin. Her large fair face lost the look of passive resistance which it had acquired at the mention of an entree made chiefly of carrots, and became human again.
“Well, ma’am, satisfactory is a lot to say about any girl these days. I’ve no fault to find with her work.”
“With what then, Mrs. Dean?”
“Well, ma’am, it’s the way she carries on outside. She’s quick at her work, and she don’t have to be told anything twice—I’ll say that for her. But she’s taking up a kind of a giggling friendship with that girl upstairs—Gladys Hopkins, Mrs. Slade’s sister.”
Miss Fane said, “Oh, well—” with dignified indulgence. “They’re only girls after all.”
Mrs. Dean tossed a head whose abundant sandy hair was t
ightly and neatly coiled after a fashion long extinct.
“If it stopped at that—” she said darkly.
Neither of the girls was seventeen. Miss Fane considered it her duty to probe farther.
“I don’t like hints, Mrs. Dean. I think you had better tell me what you mean.”
Mrs. Dean responded with alacrity.
“That Gladys, she’s off down to the village every evening and doesn’t care who she picks up with. I’ve told Mrs. Slade she ought to keep a tighter hold on her, but it’s no good— she’s a poor thing and the girl’s beyond her. Florrie’s afternoon out they go off together dressed up to the nines, rouge and lipstick and all. And Florrie’s got into a way of being late back. Ten sharp is the rule, and she’s been anything five to twenty minutes over it regular. And that boy of hers that brings her home, young Shepherd, he comes right up the drive with her and round to the back door, and the two of them there in the yard, giggling and whispering. If girls wasn’t so hard to get, I’d have asked you to give her her notice. But there it is, we might go farther and fare worse. And she’s good at her work.”
Miss Fane observed that the Shepherds were respectable people, and that she disliked unnecessary changes in her household.
“I asked you about the girl because I passed her in the passage just now. There was something about her expression—I hope you don’t find her impertinent?”
Mrs. Dean’s buxom form appeared to expand. In a few well-chosen words she gave Miss Fane to understand that impertinence from girls was what she never had put up with and never meant to.
This concluded the audience. Miss Fane departed as she had come, in her self-propelling chair. She betook herself to a room not as a rule in use. The study having been allotted to Superintendent March, she had given orders that this small morning-room, which was next to the dining-room, should be prepared.
She found Miss Silver there reading the Times, and enquired,
“Where is Lucy? I hope she has come down. The longer she shuts herself away, the harder she will find it to come back to ordinary life again.”
Miss Silver assented.
“That is quite true. But it is not so long, Agnes. You must remember that.”
“Am I likely to forget it?” said Agnes Fane. “But if I can appear as usual, Lucy can too.”
“You have great strength of character,” said Miss Silver. “But as a matter of fact Lucy came down just after you did. She is with the Superintendent in the study. He wished to see her.”
As she spoke she folded and proffered the Times, which was graciously accepted. It was Miss Fane’s invariable practice after glancing at the headlines to read first the correspondence, and then the three leading articles.
She was half way through a letter from a gentleman with whom she cordially disagreed, when the door opened and Lucy Adams came in. Like her cousin, she was in black, but in her case the garment had obviously done service before. Shapeless and unbecoming, it had the rusty, battered look peculiar to old mourning. Her auburn front sat slightly awry. Her brooch of Whitby jet was crooked. But her face, though still puffed with yesterday’s weeping, was composed, and the reddened eyes were dry. She was straightening her gold-rimmed pince-nez as she entered. It occurred to Miss Silver that there was a faint tinge of triumph in her manner.
“My dear Maud, what a charming man your friend is— the Superintendent. An extraordinary profession to choose, but he really is a very charming man. Don’t you agree with me, Agnes?”
Miss Fane raised her eyes from the paper for as brief a space as possible.
“I have no doubt that he is an efficient officer,” she remarked, and returned to the Times.
It was observable that Miss Maud Silver sat up very straight. There was an unwonted tinge of colour in her cheeks. After pressing her lips together and saying nothing for a moment, she got up and went out of the room.
Across the passage at the half open study door stood the charming man and efficient officer who had just been damned with faint praise by Agnes Fane. He beckoned to Miss Silver, and she went over to him.
“I was just wondering how I was going to get hold of you. Come along and listen, I’ve got plenty to tell you.”
CHAPTER 29
MISS SILVER DID NOT hurry herself. She took a seat, but her carriage remained extremely upright. Her first remark appeared irrelevant.
“Really, Agnes Fane can be extremely rude.”
Randal March made a good enough guess. He could not help laughing as he exclaimed,
“What—has she been calling me a policeman?”
Miss Silver took no notice of this. She was opening her knitting-bag, from which she produced an embryo bootee. The wool was of the pale blue dedicated to male infancy, and the pattern intricate. She busied herself with it for a moment before she said,
“Lucy considers you a most charming person, my dear Randal.”
He made a wry face.
“There are people whom I would rather charm. But I’m sorry for her, poor thing. Now listen. The ballistics man says there’s no doubt at all that the bullet taken from Tanis Lyle’s body was fired from the pistol found in the open drawer of her bureau. The medical evidence is that it was fired on the level from not less than a yard away, and that death must have been instantaneous. You see what that means—she was shot whilst she was standing at the top of that flight of steps leading to the church. If she had been on one of the lower steps, the bullet would have entered at an angle. She had opened the door, and she was standing there looking out. She could have been shot from the lift, or from the drawing-room, or from the doorway to her sitting-room. A variation in her own position would make any of them possible.”
Miss Silver knitted. Then she said,
“Why should the door have been open?”
“I think she opened it herself.”
“Probably. But why?”
“The obvious answer is that she was expecting someone.”
She nodded.
“And then?”
“I don’t know. Someone came up behind her and shot her dead. I don’t know who it was.”
Miss Silver frowned.
“She came downstairs to admit someone to her sitting-room—that is what you suggest?”
“Well, it seems obvious.”
“And someone else—I think you did mean someone else—came in through her sitting-room and shot her from behind?”
March nodded.
“Through the sitting-room or the drawing-room, or from the lift. I don’t think the drawing-room at all likely—the door was shut and the handle had not been wiped. But there are those three possibilities.”
She shook her head.
“She would have heard the lift coming down. And what about the handle there?”
“Perry’s prints all over it. She came down that way as soon as the alarm was given.”
“And the sitting-room door?”
“Dean’s prints on the outside handle of the door from the hall. He came in that way. Fortunately he didn’t touch the inner handle or any part of the door between Miss Lyle’s sitting-room and the octagon room, or of the oak door to the church. The inner handle had been wiped clean. The other two doors had not been wiped. They both show Miss Lyle’s own finger-prints. The same with the bureau drawer. She opened it and those two doors herself, but the murderer had wiped the pistol and the inner handle of the sitting-room door. You see the picture that gives—she comes downstairs in her pyjamas and dressing-gown—”
Miss Silver coughed. “You say the stairs, Randal, but she might have used the lift. Unlikely, I grant you, as even the best kept machinery will make some sound.”
“She used the stairs,” said Randal March. “Desborough saw her.”
Miss Silver narrowly escaped dropping a stitch. She said,
“Dear me!”
“Ah! That interests you. It interests me quite a lot. I told you I’d got things to tell you. He says the wind kept him awake and he read till he had finish
ed his book. Then he thought he’d go down and get another. When he came out on the gallery overlooking the hall he saw Tanis Lyle on the bottom step of the stairs. There is a low-powered bulb burning in the hall all night—he could see her quite well. She was in her black dressing-gown, and she was just stepping down into the hall. She went across it, opened her sitting-room door, and went in. All this I am prepared to believe—he could have no possible motive for making it up. But here we come to debatable ground. He says he went no farther. He didn’t want to meet her, so he gave up any idea of getting himself a book and went back to bed. He looked at his watch, and, he says, the time was five minutes to two.”
Miss Silver said, “Very interesting indeed. But I find no difficulty in believing that he did in fact go back to his room. If he had anything to conceal he had only to hold his tongue about the whole episode. It seems to me that he had every possible reason for wishing to avoid an interview with Tanis at such a compromising hour.”
March looked at her.
“Some reasons,” he agreed. “We know what they were. But there may have been others which forced him to an interview. We have only his own word for it that there had been a reconciliation. I don’t know if I told you about that. He says they danced together on the Thursday evening, and that she gave in all along the line—promised to tell Miss Fane there was no engagement and all that. But, as I said, we’ve only got his word for it. A woman like Tanis Lyle would not allow an open quarrel to spoil her house party. She might dance with him, play the perfect hostess, and yet be threatening him—or Laura Fane. Perry heard her say something on the lines of ‘Your Laura’s name will be mud.’ By the way here’s her statement. You had better read it.”
She took it from him, read it through, and laid it down with an expression of distaste.
“The type of witness who would twist the most innocent remark into something sinister,” was her comment. “It is curious and salutary that hatred should invariably betray itself.”
“Why should she hate Carey Desborough?”
Miss Silver shook her head.
“Not Carey Desborough, Randal—Laura Fane.”
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