Danger Point

by Patricia Wentworth

  Randal March contemplated his hostess with just the hint of a smile and said,

  “Well, here we are. May I ask how you are accounting for yourself – and for me?”

  Miss Silver was engaged upon the sleeve of her niece Ethel’s jumper. She took four needles to a sleeve. They clicked and twinkled in her plump, capable hands as she replied,

  “My dear Randal, I am surprised at you. What is there to account for? I used to be your governess. I am taking a little holiday in Ledlington, and what is more natural than that my old pupil, with whose family I have always remained upon the most affectionate terms, should drop in for a friendly chat? Miss Mellison was most interested and most kind. She at once offered me the use of this pleasant little room. I showed her your dear mother’s photograph and the group with you and Margaret and Isabel. We agreed that you had really changed very little.”

  Randal March put his head back and laughed.

  “Marvellous!” he said. “What did you get in return – besides the use of the room?”

  “She told me all about herself,” said Miss Silver. “And you should not laugh, because she is a very brave little woman. Her father was Quarter Master in the Ledshire Regiment, and they were a good deal in India. Her mother lost six children there. Miss Mellison is the sole survivor. Really very sad. And very little capital, I am afraid, but she runs this place extremely well, and I hope will make a success of it. A great-aunt left her the furniture, and she is most hard working.” The needles clicked briskly.

  “What has brought you down here?” said March. “You might as well tell me and have done with it.”

  “My dear Randal, I suppose I can take a holiday.”

  “You’ve just had one. You came down here to go to that inquest, and I’d like to know why. On the surface, as reported in the press, there wasn’t a single point of interest – just a common, sordid village tragedy with nothing, absolutely nothing, to lift it out of the ruck.”

  “On the surface-” Miss Silver repeated the words in a mild, ambiguous voice.

  “And as reported by the press. What I want to know is what other source of information you have. It certainly wasn’t the press accounts that brought you stampeding down here.”

  Miss Silver dropped her hands upon the bright blue wool of the jumper in her lap.

  “My dear Randal – what a word to employ!”

  She got a schoolboy grin.

  “Well, you did. Come along – out with it! I saw you go up and speak to Mrs. Jerningham. What’s behind all this? What do you know?”

  Miss Silver resumed her knitting.

  “Very little,” she said.

  “But something. What is it? Is Mrs. Jerningham a client of yours?”

  The needles clicked.

  “That is what I am not sure about.”

  “That sounds very intriguing.”

  “She made an appointment with me on Thursday afternoon and rang up to cancel it on Friday morning.”

  “Thursday afternoon… That was after the girl’s body had been found… Did she mention her?”

  “She did not mention anything of a specific nature. She asked if she could come and see me. She said something had happened. She said ‘I must talk to someone – I can’t go on – I don’t know what to do.’ She appeared very much agitated.”

  “There mightn’t be much in that. She’s a sensitive creature – she knew the girl rather well. It was naturally rather upsetting, especially as Pell had been her husband’s employee. But what I want to know is, how did she come to ring you up at all. Where did you come across her?”

  “In the train,” said Miss Silver, knitting placidly – “on my way back from visiting Ethel. I have given the matter a great deal of thought, and I do not feel that I can take the responsibility of keeping it to myself. There may be nothing in it at all, or – “ She paused.

  “Well?”

  “I think I will tell you just what happened. Mrs. Jerningham got into my carriage in an almost fainting condition. I could see at once that she had received some very severe shock. I could also see that she had come away in a great hurry. I entered into conversation with her, and when I made this remark she said like an echo, ‘I came away in a hurry.’ When I asked her why, she said, still speaking in this strange way, ‘They said he was trying to kill me,’ and when I asked her who, she said, ‘My husband.’ ”

  Randal March came up out of his lounging attitude with a jerk.

  “What!”

  “That is what she said. Naturally I did not ignore the possibility that she might be suffering from mental, illness, but I have some experience and I did not think that this was the case. I encouraged her to go on talking. I thought it would be a relief to her. By piecing together what she told me a little bit at a time I gathered that she had overheard two women talking about her and her husband. I think she was on a weekend visit. She heard these women talking on the other side of a hedge. They were discussing the death of Mr. Jerningham’s first wife ten years before in Switzerland. She was an heiress and he came in for the money. These people said it saved him from having to sell Tanfield – they said it was a lucky accident for Mr. Jerningham. And then they said something about this girl’s money – she has a great deal – and one of them said, ‘Is she going to have an accident too?’ It was a horrible thing for poor young Mrs. Jerningham to hear, because you see, she had narrowly escaped drowning only a very short time before. She told me about it. It must have been just after she had made a will leaving everything to her husband.”

  “She told you that?”

  “Yes, she told me that.”

  “How was she nearly drowned? What happened?”

  “They were bathing – she, and her husband, and Lady Steyne and Mr. Rafe. She says they were laughing and splashing one another when she called to them. She is not a good swimmer and she was finding it hard to get in.”

  “It might happen very easily.”

  “It did happen. I don’t know who saved her, but it was not her husband. I said to her, ‘Well, you were not drowned. Who saved you?’ and she answered ‘Not Dale.’ ”

  March knit his brows.

  “Oh, she did, did she? Well, that’s quite an intriguing story. Is there any more?”

  “No. We parted on the platform. I gave her one of my cards, and, as I told you, she rang me up on Thursday afternoon. The train journey was on the previous Saturday morning.”

  “How did you know who she was? Did she tell you?”

  “Oh, no. She would hardly have talked so freely if she had suspected that I knew who she was.”

  “And did you know who she was?”

  “Oh, immediately. There was a photograph of her – really a very good photograph – in the magazine which Ethel had very kindly given me to read on the journey. There was one of those ill-mannered gossipy paragraphs as well. It gave me quite a lot of information. Mr. Dale Jerningham owned Tanfield Court. He had been married twice, and both his wives had money. It even gave their names. The whole thing was in quite incredibly bad taste.”

  March said, “I see-” Then, after a pause, “The first wife made a will in his favour and had a climbing accident – the second wife makes a will in his favour and is nearly drowned. Suggestive of course, but-”

  Miss Silver said, “Exactly.”

  “I could bear to know more about the drowning accident.”

  She nodded gravely.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mrs. Mottle, the landlady of the Green Man where I had tea, informs me that Mrs. Jerningham had narrowly escaped being killed, I think she said on Tuesday, when the steering of her car broke clean through – I use her own expression – on the hill above the village. I gathered that this is by common consent attributed to a piece of spite on the part of this man Pell, who may have considered that Mrs. Jerningham had something to do with his dismissal. He had been heard to utter threats about getting even with those who thwarted him, and it would, I imagine, have been quite simple for him
to obtain access to the car and tamper with the steering.” She looked up with faint, prim smile. “You see, Randal, it is not easy.”

  “Easy! I should say not! And such a nice straightforward case as it looked. Everything points to Pell. Cissie Cole’s murder falls into one of the common classes – it all looks as easy as shelling peas. And then you turn up with one red herring – you don’t mind a few mixed metaphors, do you? – and I rather think I’ve got another by the tail.”

  Miss Silver’s needles clicked briskly.

  “I think it very probable that the red herrings will have a sufficiently strong flavour to spoil your peas,” she observed.

  He laughed a little ruefully.

  “They’ve done it already. Look here, I was in two minds whether to tell you or not, but I’m going to – and I won’t insult you by telling you that what I’m going to say is strictly confidential and hush-hush.”

  “That sounds very interesting.”

  He sat forward and dropped his voice.

  “Well, I suppose it is. A little too much if you ask me. The question is, do you really know everything? I used to think you did when I was about eight, and I am beginning to have a horrid suspicion that I was right.”

  “An exaggerated way of speaking, Randal.”

  He gave her rather a charming smile.

  “Not altogether. But I will come to the point, which is this. Does your omniscience extend to the Hudson processes?”

  “I dislike exaggeration,” said Miss Silver mildly. “I certainly do not pretend to omniscience. I have a naturally retentive memory and I have cultivated it. I presume that your allusion is to the Professor Hudson who gave evidence in the Hauptmann trial. He had invented an iodine gas process which brought to light fingerprints which under the ordinary method remain invisible. I believe the jury rejected his evidence. Juries are extremely suspicious of scientific evidence – they do not understand it, and therefore they do not like it. But I do not see how the iodine gas process could be applicable to the present case. I believe, however, that Professor Hudson has also made some interesting experiments relating to fingerprints on cloth. If I am not mistaken, there is a process that can be applied to woollen materials. Perhaps that is what you have in mind.”

  March laughed aloud.

  “I was certainly right – you do know everything!”

  Miss Silver smiled.

  “Silver nitrate is used, if I remember rightly. It changes the salt in the fingerprint to silver chloride. The cloth is soaked in a solution, wrung out, and exposed to the action of sunlight, which turns the silver chloride black, and I believe some quite interesting results have been obtained.” She lifted her eyes suddenly to his face. “Am I to understand that you are thinking of having that poor girl’s coat submitted to this test, or that you have already done so?”

  “I have already done so,” said March.

  “With what result?”

  He got up, pushing back his chair to the imminent danger of the bamboo plant-stand. It creaked, and the palm rocked perilously in its bright blue pot.

  “Maddening!” he exclaimed. “Damnably interesting, and completely maddening!” Miss Silver said, “Dear me!”

  Chapter 33

  LOOK here,” cried March – “when I went up to Tanfield Court to get their statements I had this business of the coat in my mind – the tests were in fact already being made – so before I came away I got all their handprints. Not that the faintest suspicion attached to anyone except Pell at that time, but the coat having so recently passed out of Mrs. Jerningham’s possession, the probability of finding her own prints and those of her family were strong, and to be certain of Pell’s it would be necessary to identify these others. That was what was in my mind – nothing else. I got the prints and I came away. The whole thing, you must understand, was just an experiment. I didn’t in fact – I couldn’t in fact – expect it to have any value as evidence, because even if Pell’s prints were all over the coat it wouldn’t prove that he had done the girl in. He was her lover if he wasn’t her murderer. The prints might just as well be there because they had been embracing. In fact I was prepared to play with Hudson ’s process but not to take it into court, where, as you say, any jury would treat it with contempt. I really expected nothing – nothing.”

  “And what did you get?” enquired Miss Silver with interest.

  “More than I’d bargained for. Look here – here are the prints of the Jerningham family.” He picked up a small case, opened it, and took out a sheaf of papers. “We needn’t bother about the women. Mrs. Jerningham’s prints and Cissie’s own were on the front of the coat. But it’s the back that’s interesting. Here is Dale Jerningham’s hand print I took at Tanfield – here is his cousin Rafe’s – and here is Pell’s. Well, I can’t show you the coat, so you’ll just have to take my word for the prints on it. Pell’s prints are all over the place. One very clear indeed, right across the shoulder seam up by the collar. He might have had his arm round her neck, or he might have caught her there to push her over the edge.”

  “Very shocking indeed,” said Miss Silver.

  “Then, right in the middle of the back between the shoulders, Dale Jerningham’s hand – at least I think it’s Dale Jerningham’s hand. It’s not a good print because it’s all messed up with Pell’s prints. But – though there’s no certainty of this – all the three people who have seen them incline to the belief that the Jerningham print is superimposed upon the Pell prints.”

  “There is no certainty of that?”

  He shook his head.

  “There is no certainty of anything. It is all very confused, and, as you were about to observe, nothing in the world could be more natural than to find a print of Dale Jerningham’s hand on his wife’s coat.”

  Miss Silver said without looking up.

  “It is a most shocking idea, but if Mr. Dale Jerningham mistook this young woman who was wearing his wife’s coat for Mrs. Jerningham and pushed her over the cliff, that is in fact where you would naturally expect to find an impression of his hand.”

  March flung down the papers he was holding and turned from the gimcrack table which supported his attaché case.

  “And what do you suppose I should look like if I produced that theory on this evidence – a new-fangled American process which not one person in a million has ever heard about, and the confused and doubtful prints of a man’s hand on a coat which only passed out of his wife’s possession an hour before the murder took place!”

  Miss Silver continued to knit.

  “When did Mrs. Jerningham last wear the coat?”

  “I asked her that – rang up before the inquest. I didn’t want the question raised there if I could help it.”

  “And when did she wear it?”

  “Sunday evening,” said March.

  “Sunday to Wednesday – would a print last all that time?”

  “If there was nothing to disturb it – and there wasn’t. She put the coat in a cupboard, and Cissie Cole went away with it over her arm folded inside out. Also you’ve got to consider that the weather has been particularly favourable for making a good print. Everybody’s hand would be on the moist side.”

  “What are you going to do?” said Miss Silver in an interested voice.

  He threw himself into his chair again.

  “I don’t know. Consider my position for a moment. I’ve just come here with a bit of a feather in my cap for which a good many thanks are due to you. Old Black, the Superintendent here, is away sick. I’m told he won’t come back, and I’ve been given to understand that I’m likely to step into his shoes. I’m a reasonably ambitious man and I’ve got my foot on the ladder. Well, what happens if I lead off with a set of more or less unsubstantiated accusations and suggestions against one of the leading families in the county? There isn’t a jury in the world that would consider that handprint as evidence against Dale Jerningham. There isn’t a jury in the world that wouldn’t hang Pell on what we’ve got against him –
motive, opportunity, subsequent guilty behaviour – he bolted right away – threats uttered in the presence of witnesses. What have I got to put up against all that – and whistle my prospects down the wind to do it?”

  Miss Silver put down her knitting and rested her hands upon it. Her small greyish eyes regarded him in an acutely intelligent manner. From what he had said she plucked one word.

  “Family,” she said – “you spoke of something against the family. Did you use the expression as a synonym for Mr. Dale Jerningham, or in a wider sense?”

  He stared at her.

  “How did you get at that?”

  “It was not at all difficult to see that you were keeping something back. I really think it would be better if you were to tell me everything.”

  He put up a protesting hand.

  “Oh, I was going to, I was going to. But you don’t give one time. I just wanted to dispose of Dale Jerningham before we went on to the others. When I spoke of the family I meant the family. Dale and Lady Steyne were together all the evening. If he pushed the girl over that cliff, she must know something about it. If she didn’t see him do it, she must have the very strongest suspicion. I gather that they are on flirting terms – she was at some pains to make me think so. I wondered why at the time, and it has occurred to me since that she wanted to impress me with the fact that they were too much taken up with each other to notice a little thing like a murder, even if it was happening within a few hundred yards of them. And then there’s Rafe Jerningham-”

  “The good-looking cousin – yes?”

  “I didn’t want him called at the inquest, because on the face of it he had nothing to say. His own account for his movements on Wednesday evening is that he talked for a short time to Mrs. Jerningham after she had seen Cissie and then he went out for a walk along the beach. He admits that he walked in the direction of Tane Head, but says he turned back half way because the light was failing and the going bad. He did not enter the house until a very late hour – he could not say how late. He accounts for the intervening time by saying that he was down by the sea wall. This is in the grounds of Tanfield Court and affords a fine view-point. He says he was looking at the sea. Sounds a bit queer, doesn’t it?”