Ladies’ Bane

by Patricia Wentworth

  Miss Silver looked at him across the last stocking of the set which she was knitting for Roger, the youngest of her niece Ethel Burkett’s three boys. Three pairs for Johnny and three pairs for Derek had already been despatched, and by tomorrow this set also would be in the post and she would be able to turn her attention to something pretty for little Josephine. She said gravely,

  “I have tried to keep a perfectly open mind, but there was something about Jacqueline Delauny which arrested my attention. First impressions are of great importance, and both in her case and in that of Mr. Trent I received them during the inquest upon that poor girl Margot. It was plain that both were under the influence of some very strong feeling. In Mr. Trent’s case it really did appear to me to be grief, bearing out what I had heard of his affection for his ward. Miss Falconer talked about him a good deal, you know. From what she told me, and from my own observation, he appeared to me to be of a simple and affectionate disposition. I had, of course, to be on my guard against being too much influenced by her partiality. But it was not only in Miss Falconer’s opinion that he stood high. Even sour old Humphreys had to some extent attached himself. My own impression deepened continually. Simplicity, kindness, a mind neither subtle nor clever-such people have few qualifications for a criminal career.”

  Frank did not allow himself to laugh.

  “And Delauny? You got the impression that she might qualify?”

  A slight cough reproved this levity.

  “Owing to the position of my seat, I was able to observe her closely during the progress of the inquest. The first thing that struck me was that she was dramatizing the occasion. All that dead black, where the two ladies of the family had been content with something quite simple and unobtrusive. But to dramatize a situation does not necessarily imply guilt. There are quite well-meaning people who have this habit, but they are as a rule self-centred and unstable. Miss Delauny appeared to me to be under the influence of some very strong emotion. Such a feeling is extremely difficult to hide, and though in this case it might be supposed that it was connected with the dead girl, I did not get the impression that the emotion was grief. It seemed to me to be linked with Miss Delauny’s awareness of Mr. Trent, and to be susceptible of a very personal interpretation. I also felt sure that she was afraid. She was being very careful about her face, but as she held her hands together in her lap they strained until I expected every moment that a seam of her glove would start. In the witness-box she was calm. There was a rush of tears to the eyes when she was asked whether Margot had been reproved or punished for the tricks which she so often played. In what seemed like a genuine burst of affection and grief she said, ”Oh, never!” and went on to explain that in such cases punishment only served to confuse the abnormal mind. The Coroner was, I discerned, a good deal irritated by these remarks. But the desired impression had been made. If there was anything to find fault with in the girl’s treatment, it was on the side of too much indulgence. Later, when we were all leaving the hall, I had the opportunity of watching Miss Delauny. She had a handkerchief clenched in her gloved hand. She put it suddenly to her lips and held it there. At the same time she became aware that I was watching her. She looked down, but not quite in time. There had been a certain expression in her eyes, and the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that what I had seen was a momentary unguarded spark of triumph.”

  “Triumph?” said Frank in a meditative voice.

  Miss Silver inclined her head.

  “I became increasingly certain that it was something more than relief. Even the latter would have seemed inappropriate. In someone genuinely fond of the poor girl the mood one would expect was one of genuine sadness and regret, sympathy with Geoffrey Trent, and relief only to the extent that a painful ordeal was now over. But I was aware of feelings more intense than these, and without having any definite ideas upon the subject of foul play, I began to wonder whether an obstacle had not been removed. Miss Josepha Bowden had commissioned me to come down here with a view to setting her mind at rest upon the subject of Mrs. Trent. I had nothing reassuring to report. The poor girl was a drug-addict, and I had to consider whether her husband was in any way responsible for her state. I found myself unable to believe that this was the case. Especially as the plan of the projected crime developed. It was Miss Muir’s life which was primarily aimed at. It was she who was to be pushed off the island at Wraydon in order that her very considerable fortune should pass to her sister. Mrs. Trent would then, but not until then, be able to make a will in her husband’s favour. If she herself were to die first, her fortune would merely pass to Ione Muir. In the absence of a child, Mr. Trent could inherit nothing as long as his sister-in-law lived.”

  Frank raised those very fair eyebrows.

  “And with so strong a profit motive for Geoffrey Trent, you decided against him as a suspect?”

  “I found it difficult to believe that he would engage in so subtle a plan. I did not think it would be within his competence, and he appeared to me to be genuinely fond of his wife. I may say that this has been amply borne out by the experience of the last few days when I was staying at the Ladies’ House. Mr. Trent, though obviously suffering from shock and grief, was always to be relied on to show consideration and affection for his wife. The disclosures with regard to Miss Delauny, the part she had played in Margot’s death and in the murder of Flaxman, together with the discovery that she and Muller had not only been using the business which he had inherited as a screen for illicit drug traffic, but that she had been secretly supplying his wife with morphia-these things might have unbalanced any man to the extent of making him indifferent to the welfare of others. Yet during all the time of my stay Mr. Trent was in constant concern not only for his wife but for Mrs. Flaxman. The scornful accusation brought against him by Miss Delauny is a true one. He is a man of warm domestic affections. He becomes fond of people-his family, his employees, the people whom he meets. This is a quality very difficult to simulate. I found myself believing it to be genuine.”

  Frank lifted a hand and let it fall again.

  “As far as you are concerned the race is glass-fronted-you just look through and see what is going on. If I were to let myself think about it, it would terrify me!”

  Miss Silver knitted placidly.

  “I have cultivated the habit of observation. These things are not really difficult to perceive. In the case of Jacqueline Delauny there was an obvious strong emotion. I did not need Miss Muir to tell me what that emotion was. I was only surprised that it was not the talk of the village.”

  Frank said quickly,

  “It wasn’t? How do you account for that? I thought villages knew everything.”

  Miss Silver coughed.

  “Miss Delauny was very discreet in her manner. She dressed as if she was in mourning. She devoted herself to her charge and to Mrs. Trent. In these circumstances a certain amount of devotion to Geoffrey Trent would be only suitable and becoming.”

  “But you decided that it was more than that?”

  Miss Silver said gravely,

  “I thought it was one of those passions which bring disaster. As Lord Tennyson puts it, ‘The crime of sense’ becomes ‘the crime of passion.’ When I came to see you I was feeling very anxious indeed. I believed Miss Muir’s life to be in danger, but there was no evidence upon which it would be possible to take effective action. I was indeed thankful when, after Flaxman’s death, a connection with the illicit drug traffic brought Scotland Yard into the case.”

  Frank nodded.

  “Geoffrey Trent is lucky to have been able to clear himself. Muller and the Delauny woman have tumbled over themselves to give each other away. But they both say Geoffrey didn’t know. He was the ornamental figurehead, and a very useful one he must have been. Something likeable about the fellow in spite of his film star looks. Well, as I say, he’s lucky, though he doesn’t think so at the moment. I never saw anyone so knocked over as he was by the torn-out pages of that girl’s diary. No
wonder Delauny was ready to pull the house down to find them. I never saw anything so damning. The girl had watched and spied until there was very little she didn’t know. ‘Jackie has let Allegra have some more of the white powder. I wish she wouldn’t, but if I tell her I know, she’ll let me do anything I want. I shall only have to say I’m going to tell Geoffrey and she’ll eat out of my hand.’ That sort of thing, all in the most frightful scrawl and with every kind of spelling mistake. And at the end, ‘Jackie says Geoffrey told her I could have one of the old ropes out of the potting-shed. I don’t suppose he did, because he jawed me so last night, but it’ll do to tell old Humpy if he’s cross.’ Poor Trent broke down and cried like a child. The girl must have written that sentence the last thing before going out and getting the crazy rope that killed her. And Jacqueline Delauny had told her he said she could have it. Well, as I say, he mightn’t have been able to clear himself, so he’s lucky.”

  Miss Silver laid down Roger’s last stocking for a moment.

  “And Professor Regulus Mactavish?”

  Frank’s lip twisted.

  “He may have been born to be hanged, but it won’t be this time. There isn’t as much evidence as you could balance on the point of a needle. Miss Muir heard him say he wouldn’t risk his neck for less than two thousand pounds, and he says he was discussing a dangerous stunt in connection with one of his illusionist tricks. No one saw him push those two girls on the island at Wraydon, but half a dozen people, including yourself, saw him hook his stick round Allegra Trent’s arm and jerk her back when she was almost under the bus. No, he’s lucky too, but like Trent he doesn’t think so just now. Do you know how I found him? Sitting with a bottle of whisky before him and trying to get drunk! He was just back from his daughter’s funeral-the one he used to get the dope for. He’d a black muffler round his neck and the tears running down his face. And he couldn’t get drunk! I came away and left him to it, but just about then he wouldn’t have cared if I’d charged him with murder. The more people you meet, the odder they come, don’t you think?”

  After her own manner Miss Silver agreed.

  “A study of increasing interest. I must always feel grateful that it has fallen to my lot. If I may quote again from Lord Tennyson:

  ‘To search through all I felt or saw,

  The springs of life, the depths of awe,

  And reach the law within the law.’ ”

  She laid down the completed stocking and smiled at him.

  “There is a warning in an earlier verse. I forget just how it occurs, but it is worth remembering. It is: ‘Not to lose the good of life.’ ”

  He could have been moved to laughter. Perhaps he was. Maudie and her Moralities! Three quotations from Lord Tennyson, Roger’s stockings finished, and a number of ends neatly and firmly tied! Deep down beside the laughter there was another spring. He took her hand and kissed it.

  “Revered preceptress!” he said.

  Patricia Wentworth

  Born in Mussoorie, India, in 1878, Patricia Wentworth was the daughter of an English general. Educated in England, she returned to India, where she began to write and was first published. She married, but in 1906 was left a widow with four children, and returned again to England where she resumed her writing, this time to earn a living for herself and her family. She married again in 1920 and lived in Surrey until her death in 1961.

  Miss Wentworth’s early works were mainly historical fiction, and her first mystery, published in 1923, was The Astonishing Adventure of Jane Smith. In 1928 she wrote The Case Is Closed and gave birth to her most enduring creation, Miss Maud Silver.

  ***

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