Dark Threat

by Patricia Wentworth

  He found himself accepting that. It laid a burden on his spirits.

  Judy pushed back her chair and got up.

  ‘Nice of you to care and all that.’ Her tone, casual again, indicated that the subject was now closed.

  As they cleared away and washed up together, the sense of pull and strain was gone. Presently she was asking him about the people at Holt St. Agnes—about his cousins, and he was offering to write and tell them she was going to Pilgrim’s Rest. And then, ‘You’ll like Lesley Freyne. She’s in the village, only a stone’s throw from the Pilgrims. Both the houses are right on the village street. She’s a good sort.’

  ‘Who is she—one of your cousins?’

  ‘No—the local heiress. Rather shy and not very young. Pots of money and a big house. She’s got about twenty evacuees there. She was going to marry a cousin of the Pilgrims, but it never came off—’

  He had nearly stumbled into telling her about Henry Clayton, but he caught himself in time. She would only think he was piling it on, and it was, of course, quite irrelevant. He changed the subject abruptly.

  ‘If by any chance a Miss Silver turns up, either in the house or in the village, I’d like you to know that she’s a very particular friend of mine.’

  Judy gave him a bright smile.

  ‘How nice. Do tell me all about her. Who is she?’

  Frank was to all appearance himself again. His eye had a quizzical gleam, and his voice its negligent drawl as he replied, ‘She is the one and only. I sit at her feet and adore. You will too, I expect.’

  Judy felt this to be extremely unlikely, but she went on smiling in an interested manner whilst Frank continued his panegyric.

  ‘Her name is Maud—same as in Tennyson’s poetry, which she fervently admires. If you so far forget yourself as to put an “e” on to it, she will forgive you in time because she has a kind heart and very high principles, but it will take some doing.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Maudie. I love her passionately. She used to be a governess, but now she is a private detective. She can’t really be a contemporary of Lord Tennyson’s, but she manages to produce that effect. I’ve told Roger to go and see her, so she may be coming down, and if she does, I shall feel a lot happier. Only you don’t know anything, remember. She may be just an ordinary visitor taking a holiday in the village or anything, so not a word to a soul. But if she’s there, you’ll have someone to hold on to.’

  Judy swished water into the washing-up bowl and stuck her chin in the air.

  THREE

  MISS SILVER WAS inclined to see the hand of Providence in trifles. Her first contact with the Pilgrim Case occurred when she had just finished working out a new and elaborate stitch for the jumper which she intended for her niece Ethel’s birthday. This she regarded as providential, for though she could, and did, knit her way serenely through all the complications which murder produces, she found it difficult to concentrate upon a really elaborate new pattern at the same time. Ethel Burkett’s annual jumper provided sufficient mental exercise without being brought into competition with a criminal case.

  She was considering her good fortune in having obtained this excellent pre-war wool. So soft—such a lovely shade of blue—and no coupons, since it had been produced from a box in the Vicarage attics by Miss Sophy Fell, who had pressed, positively pressed, it on her. And it had been very carefully put away with camphor, so it was as good as on the somewhat distant day when it had been spun.

  She had all her stitches on the needles, and the pattern well fixed in her mind, when her front door bell rang and Emma Meadows announced Major Pilgrim. She saw a slight, dark young man with a sallow complexion and a worried frown.

  On his side Roger Pilgrim was at once reminded of his aunts. Not that Miss Silver resembled any of them in person, but she and her surroundings appeared to be of approximately the same vintage. His Aunt Millicent, who was as a matter of fact a great-aunt, possessed some curly walnut chairs which were the spit and image of those adorning Miss Silver’s flat—waists, and bow legs, and tight upholstery—only the stuff on Aunt Milly’s had once been green, whilst Miss Silver’s were quite freshly covered in rather a bright shade of blue. Both ladies crowded every available inch of mantelshelf and table-top—Miss Silver’s writing-table excluded—with photographs in archaic silver frames. His Aunt Tina had clung for years to a very similar flowered wall-paper, and possessed at least two of the pictures which confronted him as he entered—Bubbles and The Black Brunswicker. But the frames of Aunt Tina’s were brown, whilst these were of the shiny yellow maple so dear to the Victorian age.

  Miss Silver herself added to the homely effect. His old Cousin Connie also wore her hair in a curled fringe after the fashion set by Queen Alexandra in the late years of the previous century. Aunt Collie’s stockings were of a similar brand of black ribbed wool. For the rest, Miss Silver was herself—a little governessy person with neat features and a lot of mouse-brown hair very strictly controlled by a net. It being three o’clock in the afternoon, she was wearing a pre-war dress of olive-green cashmere with a little boned lace front, very fresh and clean. A pair of pince-nez on a fine gold chain was looped up and fastened on the left side by a bar brooch set with pearls. She also wore a row of bog-oak ingeniously carved, and a large brooch of the same material in the shape of a rose, with an Irish pearl at its heart. Nothing could have felt less like a visit to a private detective.

  Miss Silver, having shaken hands and indicated a chair, bestowed upon him the kind, impersonal smile with which she would in earlier days have welcomed a new and nervous pupil. Twenty years as a governess had set their mark upon her. In the most improbable surroundings she conjured up the safe, humdrum atmosphere of the schoolroom. Her voice preserved its note of mild but unquestioned authority. She said, ‘What can I do for you, Major Pilgrim?’

  He was facing the light. Not in uniform. A well-cut suit, not too new. He wore glasses—large round ones with tortoiseshell rims. Behind them his dark eyes had a worried look. Her own went to his hands, and saw them move restlessly on the shiny walnut carving which emerged from the padded arms of the Victorian chair.

  She had to repeat her question, because he just sat there, fingering the smooth wood and frowning at the pattern on the bright blue carpet which had kept its colour so well. Reflecting with satisfaction that it looked as good as new, she said, ‘Will you not tell me what I can do for you?’

  She saw him start, glance at her quickly, and then away again. Whether people use words to convey their thoughts or to conceal them, there is one thing very difficult to conceal from a practised observer. In that momentary glance Miss Silver had seen that thing quite plainly. It was the look you may see in the eyes of a horse about to shy. She thought this young man was reluctant to face whatever it was that had brought him here. He was not the first. A great many people had brought their fears, their faults, and their follies into this room, hoping for they hardly knew what, and then sat nervous and tongue-tied until she helped them out. She smiled encouragingly at Roger Pilgrim, and addressed him very much as if he had been ten years old.

  ‘Something is troubling you. You will feel better when you have told me what it is. Perhaps you might begin by telling me who gave you my address.’

  This undoubtedly came as a relief. He removed his gaze from the multi-coloured roses, paeonies, and acanthus leaves with which the carpet was festooned, and said, ‘Oh, it was Frank—Frank Abbott.’

  Miss Silver’s smile became warmer and less impersonal.

  ‘Sergeant Abbott is a great friend of mine. Have you know him for long?’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact, we were at school together. He’s a bit older, but our families knew each other. He comes down to stay with some cousins near us. As a matter of fact, he was there last week-end having a spot of leave after ’flu, and I got talking to him. Frank’s a pretty sound fellow—though you wouldn’t think it to look at him, if you know what I mean.’ He gave a sho
rt nervous laugh. ‘Seems awfully funny, somebody you’ve been at school with being a policeman. Detective Sergeant Abbott! You know, we used to call him Fug at school. He used to put on masses of hair-fug. I remember his having a lot which fairly stank of White Rose, and the maths master going round smelling us all till he found out who it was, and sending Fug to wash his head.’

  While recounting this anecdote he looked a little happier, but the worried frown returned as he concluded,

  ‘He told me I’d better come and see you. He says you’re a marvel. But I don’t see what anyone can really do. You see there isn’t any evidence—Fug said so himself. He said there was nothing the police could take any notice of. You see, I put it up to him because of his being at Scotland Yard, but he said there really wasn’t anything they would do about it, and he advised me to come to you. Only I don’t suppose it’s any use.’

  Miss Silver’s needles clicked briskly. She had the new pattern well in hand. She coughed and said,

  ‘You do not expect me to reply to that, do you? If you will tell me what you seem to have told Sergeant Abbott, I may be able to give you an opinion. Pray proceed.’

  Roger Pilgrim proceeded. This was the voice of authority. He blurted out, ‘I think someone’s trying to kill me,’ and immediately thought how damfool silly it sounded.

  Miss Silver said, ‘Dear me!’ And then, ‘What makes you thinks so?’

  He stared at her. There she sat, the picture of a mild old maid, looking at him across her knitting. He might have been saying he thought it was going to rain. He kicked himself for having come. She probably thought he was a neurotic ass. Perhaps he was a neurotic ass. He frowned at the carpet and said, ‘What’s the good of my telling you? When I put it into words it sounds idiotic’

  Miss Silver coughed.

  ‘Whatever it is, it is certainly worrying you. If there was no cause for your worry, you would be glad to have this proved to you, would you not? If, on the other hand, there is a cause, it is a matter of some importance that it should be removed. What makes you think that someone is trying to kill you?’

  He looked up with an air of arrested attention.

  ‘Well, I thought they were.’

  Miss Silver coughed and said ‘They?’ on an enquiring note. She was knitting very fast in the continental fashion, her hands low in her lap, her eyes on her visitor.

  ‘Oh, well—that’s just a way of speaking. I haven’t an idea who it is.’

  ‘I think it would be better if you were to tell me what has happened. Something must have happened.’

  He nodded emphatically.

  ‘You’ve said it! The things happened—you can’t get away from that. Lumps of plaster aren’t just imagination, and no more is a lot of burnt ash where there used to be papers and a carpet.’

  Miss Silver said, ‘Dear me!’ And then, ‘Pray begin at the beginning and tell me all about these incidents.’

  He was sitting forward in his chair now, looking at her.

  ‘The bother is I don’t know where to begin.’

  Miss Silver coughed.

  ‘At the beginning, Major Pilgrim.’

  The eyes behind the glasses met hers in a worried look.

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact that’s just what beats me—I don’t know where it begins. You see, it’s not only me, it’s my father. I was out in the Middle East when my father died—I haven’t been home very long. And of course, as Fug says, there’s no evidence. But I ask you, why should a quiet beast that he’d ridden every day for the last ten years suddenly go mad and bolt with him? She’d never done such a thing in her life. When she came back all of a lather they went out to look for him, and found him with a broken neck. The old groom says she’d a thorn under the saddle—says somebody must have put it there. The trouble is it wasn’t the only one. She hadn’t thrown him, you see—they’d come down together, and the place was just a tangle of wild roses and brambles. But what William said, and what I say is, what would make her bolt? And we both got the same answer—only it isn’t evidence.’

  ‘What reason had anyone to wish your father dead?’

  ‘Ah—there you have me! There wasn’t any reason—not any reason.’

  The heavily accented word invited a question. Miss Silver obliged.

  ‘You speak as if there was something which was not a reason?’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact that’s just about the size of it. Mind you, I don’t believe in that sort of thing myself, but if you were to ask William—that’s the groom I was talking about—or any of the other old people in the village, they’d say it was because he was going to sell the place.’

  ‘And there is a superstition about such a contingency?’

  The word appeared to puzzle him. He frowned, and then got there.

  ‘Oh, yes—I see what you mean. Well, as a matter of fact there is. The place has been in the family donkey’s years. I don’t set a lot of store by that sort of thing myself—a bit out of date, if you know what I mean. No good trying to live in the past and hang on to all the things your ancestors grabbed—is there? I mean, what’s the good? We haven’t any money, and if I fancied an heiress, she probably wouldn’t fancy me. So when my father wrote and said he was going to sell I told him that as far as I was concerned, he could get on with it—only as a matter of fact he never got the letter. But people in villages are very superstitious.’

  ‘What form does this superstition take, Major Pilgrim?’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact it’s a rhyme. Some ass had it cut into the stone over the fireplace in the hall, so it’s always there—under everyone’s nose, so to speak.’

  Miss Silver coughed.

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘It’s all rubbish of course—made up round our name and the name of the house. We’re Pilgrims, the house is Pilgrim’s Rest. And the rhyme says:

  “If Pilgrim fare upon the Pilgrims’ Way,

  And leave his Rest, he’ll find nor rest nor stay.

  Stay Pilgrim in thy Rest, or thou shalt find

  Ill luck before, Death but one pace behind.” ’

  He gave a short nervous laugh.

  ‘A lot of nonsense, but I should think everyone in the village believes that’s why the mare bolted and my father broke his neck.’

  Miss Silver continued to knit.

  ‘Superstitions are extremely tenacious. After your father’s death, Major Pilgrim, were the negotiations for the sale carried on?’

  ‘Well, as a matter of fact they weren’t. You see, by that time I’d managed to get taken prisoner. I was in a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy, and nothing more happened. Then when Musso got the sack, I escaped. I was in hospital for a bit, and then I got home. The chap who wanted to buy the place bobbed up again, and I thought I’d play. That’s when the ceiling came down on me.’

  Miss Silver coughed.

  ‘Literally—or metaphorically?’

  Seeing that he was a little out of his depth, she amended her question.

  ‘Do you mean that the ceiling really came down?’

  That emphatic nod again.

  ‘I should just about think it did! Rather a spot ceiling too—nymphs, and garlands, and all that sort of thing. It’s not the best bedroom—that’s next door—but the eighteenth-century chap who put in the ceiling there had it carried on into his dressing-room. He cribbed it from some Italian palace, and it’s the sort of thing people come and look at. Well, about a month ago my particular lot came down all over where I’d have been if I had been in bed, which I would have been if I hadn’t gone to sleep over a poisonously dull book in the study.’

  ‘Dear me! Why did it come down?’

  ‘Because there was a leak from one of the water-pipes and the nymphs and whatnots had all got wringing wet. They weighed quite enough to start with, and the water brought them down like a cartload of bricks. If I’d been in that bed I’d have been dead—there isn’t any doubt about that.’

  ‘A very providential escape. I think yo
u mentioned another incident?’

  He nodded.

  ‘A week ago. There’s a sort of small room my father used to keep his papers in. Odd sort of place. Pigeon-holes right up to the ceiling, all crammed with papers. Well, I’d been getting on with going through them a bit at a time, and last Tuesday afternoon I’d had a good old worry at them. Round about half past six I had a drink, and the next thing I knew I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I sat down in a chair by the fire and went to sleep. I must have been dead to the world, because I didn’t wake up till the whole place was in a blaze. I don’t know what started it. It could have been a spark from the fire—wood throws them out—and there was a pretty fair litter of papers, one of them might have caught. But what made me go off to sleep like that, and why didn’t I wake up? I’m a pretty light sleeper, you know.’

  Miss Silver said, ‘What do you mean?’

  The frowning gaze met hers.

  ‘I think someone doped me and set light to the papers,’ said Roger Pilgrim.

  FOUR

  MISS SILVER LAID down her knitting, balancing it carefully on the arm of her chair, after which she got up and, crossing over to the writing-table, seated herself there, all without hurry. When she had opened a drawer and taken out an exercise-book with a bright green cover she addressed herself to Roger Pilgrim.

  ‘Perhaps you will come over here—it will be more convenient. I should like to take some notes.’