“Figures?”
Drake consulted a note.
“Four figures-The Seasons-”
“Seems an odd sort of thing to be taken. What were they- china?”
“No; sir, gilt. I asked Mrs. Mayhew about them, and she says she thinks they were there Wednesday morning. She says they were after the style of those statues you see in a museum-not much in the way of clothes. About ten inches high.”
If the Chief Constable felt inclined to smile he did not permit himself to do so. He said,
“They might be valuable, but it would be a connoisseur’s value, and a strictly limited market. Of course there are people who specialize in that sort of thing. The boy might have been got hold of. What does Mrs. Mayhew say about his being there on Wednesday night?”
“Oh, she denies it-she would of course. Cries and says she hasn’t seen him for six months. Well, everyone knows that isn’t true. It’s common talk he’s been up and down, and Ernie White admitted it wasn’t the first time he’d lent his bike.”
March frowned.
“Look here, Drake, Mrs. Lessiter must have had an insurance policy. It was probably used as a basis for probate. What were those figures insured for?”
Drake looked alert.
“I put that point to Mr. Holderness, but it doesn’t get us anywhere. The only separate items in the insurance were some of the old bits of furniture and the jewelry. Everything else was just lumped together and not put very high. The total amount including the house was ten thousand.”
March said, “I think we might ask Miss Cray about those figures. She would know if they were still there when she left at a quarter past nine.”
“That’s what I thought, sir. Meanwhile I’ve taken steps to find out whether this young Mayhew is back at his job. I got the address from Mrs. Mayhew-a firm of house agents in Kingston. I’ve been on to the local people and asked them to keep an eye on the boy without letting him know. I thought better not startle him till we knew a little more.”
“No-quite right, Drake.” March glanced at his wrist-watch. “Well, if we are to see Miss Cray before we go up to the House we’d better be off.”
CHAPTER 28
After another night, sleepless except for indeterminate stretches of time in which there was a vague sense of half-recognized calamity, Rietta Cray was paler than yesterday but steadier-nerves taut and rigidly controlled. She opened the door to the Chief Constable and Superintendent Drake, and needed no reminder that this was an official visit. To the end of her life there would be nightmare moments when she would re-live that interview.
It was circumstance rather than detail which made the nightmare. They went into the dining-room, and Drake produced a notebook. Randal sat on one side of the table and she on the other. She had known him since she was ten years old. Lately, with Lenfold only five miles away, they had seen a good deal of one another, and the friendship of slow years had deepened into something closer. Each had felt a growing awareness of the other, and each had known where this was leading them. Now, with the table between them, they were strangers-the Chief Constable of the county and a pale, strained woman who was the leading suspect in a murder case. The position came near to being intolerable. Being what they were, they kept their dignity and observed the social forms. Mr. March apologized to Miss Cray for troubling her, to which Miss Cray replied that it was no trouble.
Horrified at his own feelings, Randal March continued.
“We thought you might be able to help us. You know Melling House well, don’t you?”
Her deep voice said, “Yes.”
“Can you describe the study mantelpiece?”
She showed a faint surprise. She said,
“Of course. It’s one of those heavy black marble affairs.”
“Any ornaments?”
“A clock, and four gilt figures-”
“Four gilt figures?”
“Yes-The Seasons.”
“Miss Cray, can you tell us whether they were there on Wednesday night?”
The question took her back. She saw the study in a bright small picture-James with the light shining down upon him, his eyes watchful, teasing her-the littered ash of the letters she had written to him-his mother looking down on them, a handsome young matron in white satin with her ostrich-feather fan-the graceful golden figures posed on the black marble slab. She said,
“Yes, they were there.”
“You are quite sure they were there when you left at a quarter past nine?”
“Quite sure.”
There was a pause. He had to make headway against his crowding thoughts. How ghastly pale she was. She looked at him as if she had never seen him before. How else should she look? He was neither friend nor lover. He wasn’t even a man, he was a police officer. That horrible moment was the first in which he consciously used the word love in his thoughts of Rietta Cray. He said,
“Can you tell us anything about these figures?”
She seemed to come back from a long way off. Something, some shadow, darkened her eyes. He thought she was remembering, and felt a sharp inexplicable pang. She said,
“Yes-they’re Florentine-sixteenth century, I think.”
“Then they are valuable.”
“Very.” Then, after a slight pause, “Why do you ask?”
“Because they have disappeared.”
Rietta said, “Oh!” A little colour came into her face.
“Mr. Holderness is taking an inventory, and they are missing. Anything you can tell us will be a help in tracing them.”
Her manner changed. It became controlled. She said in a hesitating voice,
“I suppose you know that they are gold?”
“Gold!” Drake looked up sharply, repeating the last word.
March said, “Are you sure?”
“Oh, yes, quite sure. Mrs. Lessiter told me. They were left to her by an uncle who was a collector. They are museum pieces, very valuable indeed.”
“And she had them out on the mantelpiece like that?”
“Oh, yes. She said nobody would know.”
The Superintendent came in rather sharply,
“They’re not even mentioned in the insurance.”
Rietta turned her Pallas Athene look upon him.
“Mrs. Lessiter didn’t believe in insurances. She said you paid away a lot of money and got nothing for it, and if you had anything valuable it was just drawing attention to it. She kept on her husband’s insurance on the house and furniture, but she didn’t bother about any of her own things. She had some valuable miniatures and other things. She said if you just left them lying about, everyone got used to them, but the more fuss you made, and the more you locked things up, the more likely they were to be stolen.”
March was frowning.
“Would the Mayhews know about these figures, that they were gold?”
“I should think so. They are old servants.”
“Was the son brought up here?”
“Yes-he went to Lenton Grammar School. He was rather a clever boy.”
“Would he have known about the figures?”
“How can I tell?” Her look changed to one of distress. It went from one man to the other. “Why do you ask that?”
Randal March said,
“Cyril Mayhew was down here on Wednesday night, and the figures are gone.”
CHAPTER 29
It was just before half past three that Mrs. Crook ushered the Chief Constable into Mrs. Voycey’s drawing-room. Miss Silver rose to meet him with a good deal of pleasure. She could not even now look at the tall, personable man without recalling the frail, determined little boy who, after resisting all previous efforts at discipline, had by her own peculiar mixture of tact and firmness been guided into the paths of health and knowledge. She had never permitted herself to have favourites. It was perhaps on this account that, whilst referring to his sisters as “dear Isabel” and “dear Margaret,” she had never been known to accord their brother any such prefix. Not even to h
erself would she admit that the conflict between them, and its happy termination, had given him a particular place in her affections.
“My dear Randal-how extremely kind!”
He had his customary smile for her, but it was a fleeting one. The ritual of their meeting proceeded.
“Your dear mother is well? I had a letter from her only last week. She is a most faithful correspondent. I think you will find this a comfortable chair.”
The smile showed again for a moment.
“If you have heard from my mother you have had all our news. Margaret is well, Isabel is well, Margaret’s last long-legged brat is shooting up. And now let us put the family on the shelf. I want to talk to you. Have you-perhaps I oughtn’t to ask it, but I do-have you had any communication from Rietta Cray?”
Miss Silver’s hands paused on the thin strip of knitting which represented, embryonically, the back of little Josephine’s woolly jacket. She gave her faint dry cough and said,
“Why do you ask?”
“Because I very much want to know. She rang me up and asked me about you. I hoped you would have heard from her.”
The busy needles moved again. She said,
“I have.”
“You have seen her?”
“Yes, Randal.”
“What do you make of it all?”
She lifted her eyes and looked at him steadily.
“What do you make of it yourself?”
He got up out of his chair and stood half turned away from her, looking down into the fire.
“She is quite incapable-” He had neither voice nor words to complete the sentence.
Miss Silver said, “Quite so. But there might be a strong case against her. She is aware of that herself.”
He said, “Damnable-” and again had no more words.
Miss Silver failed to reprove him for the one which he had used. She continued to knit. After a little while she said,
“There is something which I think you ought to know- in your private capacity.”
He pushed a log with his foot.
“I haven’t got a private capacity. I’m a policeman.”
She coughed.
“You are Chief Constable. You would not, I imagine, find it necessary to impart everything you knew to a subordinate.”
He had a wry smile for that.
“Jesuitry!” Then, before she could summon up the look with which she had been used to quell him in the schoolroom, he went on in a voice quite broken away from its habitual control. “I’d better make a clean breast of it. You always do know everything whether one tells you or not, so it’s just as well to make a virtue of necessity. Rietta is completely incapable of harming anyone, but she is also completely incapable of defending herself at the expense of someone she loves.”
Miss Silver answered this very directly. She did, in fact, justify his assertion that she always knew everything by answering what he had merely implied.
“You are afraid that Mr. Carr Robertson is the guilty person, and that Miss Cray will screen him at the risk of incurring suspicion.”
He drove hard at the fire with his foot. A torrent of sparks rushed up. He said,
“Yes.”
Miss Silver’s needles clicked.
“I think I can relieve your mind. I was, in fact, about to do so. I have had no opportunity of questioning Mr. Carr, but one thing you may rely upon-Miss Cray has a very strong reason for being sure that he is innocent.”
“What reason?”
“A most convincing one. In fact, one may say, the only one which could carry complete conviction. He thinks she did it.”
Startled into turning quite round, Randal March said,
“What!”
Miss Silver reflected that the scholastic profession was a discouraging one. How many times had she corrected such an interjection in the schoolroom, offering instead the politer, “What did you say?” She continued without comment.
“Mr. Carr was at first quite sure that Miss Cray had done it. He did, in fact, come into her presence with the words, ‘Why did you do it?’ Even after he had heard all that she had to say, Miss Cray is of the opinion that he is still in doubt. This is naturally very painful to her, but it does relieve her mind with regard to his having any connection with the crime.”
Resting both hands on the mantelpiece and staring down into the fire, March said,
“Then it was Carr who brought the raincoat back from Melling House.”
She said very composedly, “You will not expect me to answer that.”
“You needn’t-it answers itself. He was with Elizabeth Moore until about ten minutes to ten. He took Melling House on his way home and brought the raincoat away. That means he either killed James Lessiter or found him dead.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“I do not believe that he killed him. Miss Cray is very sure that he did not. She had to labour hard to shake his belief that she herself had done so.”
He went on looking down into the fire.
“What is your own feeling? Do you believe he didn’t do it?”
“Miss Cray is positive upon that point.”
He said, “Oh, well-” Then he straightened up and went over to where he had left a small attaché case. He opened it, took out a sheaf of papers, and brought them to her.
“You had better read the statements and see what you make of them.”
“Thank you, Randal.”
He went back to his chair and watched her while she read. Her small, neat features remained expressionless. She made no remark, and never once looked up. When she had finished March said,
“There’s a later development-you’d better hear that too. Mayhew’s son is known to have been down here on the night of the murder. He is an unsatisfactory lad and has been in trouble with the police. He arrived by the six-thirty train and borrowed a bicycle in Lenton-which explains why Mrs. Mayhew went home early. Her husband had forbidden him the house. We have no absolute proof that he was at Melling House, but there isn’t any reasonable doubt about it. Mrs. Mayhew denies the whole thing, and says she hasn’t seen him for six months. It is quite certain that she is lying. And four sixteenth-century figures representing the Seasons which stood on the study mantelpiece are missing. Rietta says they were there when she left at a quarter past nine. She also says they were made of solid gold.”
“My dear Randal!”
He nodded.
“A nice bright red herring, isn’t it? Or is it?”
“It is extremely interesting. What is your view?”
He frowned.
“I don’t know. Drake, who had been running the case against Rietta and Carr very hard, shows his versatility by producing a theory that Cyril had been put up to steal these valuable antiques, was caught out, and had recourse to the poker. I can’t make that square with the facts. The figures were on the mantelpiece, and Lessiter was sitting at his writing-table when he was hit over the head. He had his back to the fireplace, and the blow was struck from behind. You can’t square that with Cyril Mayhew being caught in the act of stealing four gold figures. But there is another possibility. You’ve got a plan of the room there-look at it. The door at which Mrs. Mayhew listened is in line with the fireplace. That is to say, it would be behind Lessiter’s back as he sat at the table. Cyril could have opened that door, as his mother did, without being heard. He may not even have had to open it-she may have left it ajar. He could have come in his stocking feet, reached the poker, and hit Lessiter over the head with it, all without being seen or heard.”
“Extremely shocking.”
He frowned more deeply still.
“It could have been done. The trouble is that I can’t persuade myself that it was done.”
Miss Silver gave a thoughtful cough.
“It is certainly difficult to see why the young man should go out of his way to do murder. He had only to wait for Mr. Lessiter to retire, when he could have removed the figures without this quite unnecessary bloodshed.”
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“You’ve hit the nail on the head-you always do! I can think of a dozen reasons for the theft, but not one for the murder. However badly I want a ram in the thicket, I can’t persuade myself that Cyril Mayhew is going to fill the bill. He may or may not have come down to steal the figures. He may or may not have found Lessiter dead. He may or may not have then yielded to the sudden bright idea that all that gold might just as well be in his pocket.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“What I cannot understand, Randal, is why such valuable ornaments should have been left out upon the study mantelpiece in what was practically an unused house. Mrs. Lessiter had been dead for two years. Mr. Lessiter had not been near the place for over twenty.”
“Yes, it’s a bit casual, but Mrs. Lessiter was like that.” He told her what Rietta had said about the insurance, and then continued, “I asked Mrs. Mayhew just now, and she says the figures were put away at the back of one of the pantry cupboards after Mrs. Lessiter died, but she got them out again before Lessiter came down because they belonged to the study mantelpiece and she thought he would miss them.”
Miss Silver said, “I see-” She knitted briskly. “Randal, what was Mr. Lessiter doing when he was killed? Was he writing?”
He gave her a curious look.
“Not so far as we can ascertain. He had obviously been clearing up-the fireplace was choked with burnt stuff. On the writing-table itself there was only one paper-the old will leaving everything to Rietta. It had been scorched down one side and is rather badly stained. All the pens and pencils were in the pen-rack. All the writing-table drawers were shut.”
“Then what was he doing at the writing-table?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked at him in her most serious manner.
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