‘Well, then one day I come across Alfred Mercer again. I was in a place in London, and it was my afternoon out, so I had a cup of tea with him and we got talking about old times. We went on seeing each other after that, and he began to get the same sort of hold over me he had before. It seemed as if he could make me do anything he liked, so when he said I was to give in my notice I done it. He said we was to get married and take up a job with Mr James Everton that was brother-in-law to my Mrs Bertram. Solway Lodge, Putney, was the address, and we went and applied for it as man and wife, because that was what he was wanting. Alfred he said we’d get married before we went in, but he kept putting it off. I had my references and Alfred had his, and he told Mr Everton we’d got married, but we never, not till afterwards. Alfred he kept putting me off, and come the last, I darsn’t talk. He’d always made me do what he wanted, but now he’d got so as I was right down afraid to death of him.
‘Well, then I got to know that Alfred was seeing Mr Bertie on the quiet. We met him once when we was out together, and he stopped and spoke, and called me Louie same as he used to when he was a boy and come into my kitchen coaxing for titbits. I thought to myself “He wants something now,” but I didn’t know what it was. I said so to Alfred, and he told me to shut my mouth.
‘Mr James Everton didn’t like Mr Bertie. He was all for his other nephew Mr Geoffrey Grey that was in the business—chartered accountants they called themselves. I don’t know how it come about, but Mr Bertie found out something his uncle done wrong in the way of his business. I don’t know the ins and outs, but from what Alfred told me he’d obliged a friend over his accounts, and it would have got him into trouble with the law if so be it had come out. Mr Geoffrey didn’t know nothing about it, and his uncle was mortal afraid in case he’d get to know, because he thought the world of Mr Geoff.
‘It came so that Mr Everton agreed to see Mr Bertie and talk it over. Mr Bertie came down from Scotland on purpose. That was the 15th July, the day before Mr Everton was killed. Mr Bertie came to dinner, and afterwards they went into the study and talked. I knew there was something up, but I didn’t know what it was, not then. I went upstairs, and when I come across the hall I could hear Mr Everton shouting as if he was clean out of his senses. And all Alfred would say was that we’d be made for life, and he kissed me, which he hadn’t done for a long time, and said he’d given in our notice to be married, and told me to buy a new bonnet and make myself smart. I didn’t know nothing then—I swear I didn’t.’
‘Blackmail!’ said Henry suddenly. ‘By gum! That’s why he altered his will! He was in the soup, and Bertie blackmailed him into making a will in his favour!’
‘Let her go on,’ said Hilary in a whisper, ‘let her go on.’
Miss Silver nodded, and went on reading.
‘Next day Mr Everton wasn’t well. Alfred told me he’d gone to alter his will, and he was to let Mr Bertie know as soon as it was done. “And that’s a bit of luck for us all,” he said. And then he told me he’d asked Mrs Thompson in to supper that night. It was the 16th July and a hot sunny day. Mr Everton stayed shut up in the study. There was to be cold supper in the dining-room, and he’d go in when he wanted to. At a quarter to seven Alfred had me up in to our room and told me Mr Everton had shot himself. He said nobody mustn’t know till after Mrs Thompson had been in the house long enough to clear us of having a hand in it. He said they’d put it on us if we were alone in the house when he done it. He said Mrs Thompson being deaf wouldn’t know whether there was a shot or not, and he told me what I was to do and what I was to say. He swore if I went from it he’d cut my heart out, and he took out his knife and showed it to me, and said all the police in the world couldn’t save me, and he made me go down on my knees and swear. And I was to tell Mrs Thompson I’d got the toothache to cover up the way I was—after what he’d said. Mrs Thompson come in at half-past seven. I don’t know how I got through. Alfred told her I was near off my head with the pain, and she never doubted nothing. At eight o’clock I went through with some plates. I put them in the dining-room and come back. Halfway across the hall I could have dropped, for I heard Mr Everton talking in the study. He was talking on the telephone—and I’d been thinking him dead this hour past! I didn’t seem I could move. He said, “Come as soon as you can, Geoff,” and he rang off.
‘The door was the least thing ajar, and I could hear quite plain. I heard him go across the room, and I heard him scrape his chair like he always done pulling it up to the desk. And then he called out sharp, “Who are you? What do you want?” And so true as I’m a sinful woman I heard Mr Bertie say, “Well, you see I’ve come back,” and Mr Everton said, “What are you doing in those clothes, you mountebank?” Mr Bertie laughed and said, “Private business,” and Mr Everton said, “What business?” I was right by the door, and I looked through the crack. Mr Everton was sitting at his desk very pale and angry, and Mr Bertie was over by the window. He’d got overalls on like they wear on their motor-bikes, and a leather cap, and the goggles pushed up out of the way. I wouldn’t hardly have known him if it hadn’t been for his voice, but it was him all right. Mr Everton he said, “What business?” and Mr Bertie put his hand in his pocket and said, “This.” I didn’t see what was in his hand, but it was Mr Geoffrey’s pistol that he left here when he got married, like he swore at the trial. I couldn’t see what it was, but Mr Everton seen it, and he started to get up, and he called out loud and said, “My own nephew!” and Mr Bertie shot him.
‘I didn’t seem I could move. Mr Bertie come over and shut the door and I heard the key turn in the lock, and then there was a kind of a soft sound that was him wiping the handle and wiping the key. And he must have wiped the pistol, too, because they didn’t find any finger-marks on it, only poor Mr Geoffrey’s later on.
‘I come over so frightened I couldn’t stay no longer. I got back to the kitchen and sat down by the table and put my head in my hands. I hadn’t been gone no time to speak of. Alfred was there with Mrs Thompson. He’d heard the shot, but she hadn’t heard nothing along of being so deaf. He shouted in her ear that I was pretty near off my head with the toothache, and then he come over to me and we spoke together quiet. I said, “He’s killed him—Mr Bertie’s killed him.” And he said, “That’s where you’re wrong, Louie. It’s Mr Geoffrey that’s a-going to kill him in a quarter of an hour’s time from now, and don’t you forget it.”’
Miss Silver looked up from the neatly typed copy of Mrs Mercer’s scrappy, blotted confession.
‘You will notice the discrepancies in the poor creature’s statement. She says Mercer led her to believe that Mr Everton had committed suicide, but it is obvious that she had been primed beforehand with the evidence which she gave to the police on their arrival. Two such careful conspirators as Bertie Everton and Alfred Mercer would never have risked taking her by surprise in the manner she describes here. It is quite certain that she must have known that Mr Everton was to be murdered, and that she had been well rehearsed in the part she was to play—she admits it with one breath and denies it with the next. There is of course no doubt that she acted under extreme intimidation.’
‘Yes,’ said Henry. ‘What I don’t see is how they would have got Geoffrey Grey there if Mr Everton hadn’t telephoned for him.’
Miss Silver nodded.
‘An interesting point, Captain Cunningham. I think it is clear that Mr Everton was beginning to repent of having given way to blackmail. He intended to confide in Mr Grey and enlist his help. He had been thrown off his balance by a sudden shock, but he was making a struggle to regain it.’
‘Yes, I suppose it was like that. But that’s not what I meant. The plan was to implicate Geoffrey Grey. Mr Everton played into their hands by telephoning for him, but how did they know he had telephoned, and what would they have done if he hadn’t sent for Geoffrey?’
‘Exactly,’ said Miss Silver. ‘The superintendent raised those very points. Mrs Mercer says that Bertie Everton overheard his uncle’s conversati
on on the telephone. It was a piece of luck for them and reduced the risks they were running. Bertie Everton, who is an excellent mimic, had intended to ring Mr Grey up after the murder. He would have imitated his uncle’s voice and have said very much what his uncle did actually say. It was essential to the plot that Geoffrey Grey should find the body and handle the pistol.’
‘They couldn’t be sure that he would pick it up,’ said Hilary. (Poor Geoff—walking into a trap! Poor Geoff! Poor Marion!)
‘Nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand would have picked it up,’ said Henry. ‘I should for one. Any man who’d ever had a pistol of his own would.’
‘Yes?’ said Miss Silver. ‘The superintendent thought so, too. He is a very intelligent man.’ She coughed. ‘I think that disposes of those two points. I will continue.’
The paper rustled. She went on reading the anguished sentences in her cool, precise voice.
‘“It’s Mr Geoffrey that’s a-going to kill him in a quarter of an hour’s time from now, and don’t you forget it.” That’s what he said. I don’t know how I kept from screaming. Such a wicked plot. And Mr Geoffrey that never done them any harm—only his uncle was fond of him, and Mr Bertie had set himself to get the money. He done murder for it and put it on Mr Geoffrey, and that’s the gospel truth if I never wrote another word.
‘Mrs Thompson she never noticed nothing. She thought I’d come over bad and she thought what a kind husband Alfred was, patting me on the shoulder and talking to me comforting like. If she’d heard what he said she’d have thought different, but she couldn’t hear nothing. Alfred said, “Did he ring Mr Geoffrey up?”—meaning Mr Bertie—and I told him Mr Everton had done it himself. And he said, “When?” and I remembered as the clock struck eight when I was in the dining-room. Alfred turns round and shouts to Mrs Thompson that I’ll be better soon and a pity I didn’t have the tooth out like he said. Then he goes into the pantry and he says to me, speaking quiet, “It’s seven minutes past now, and you’ve got to pull yourself together. At a minute short of the quarter you go upstairs and turn down the bed and look slippy about it, and then you come down and stand by the study door till you hear Mr Geoffrey, and then you scream just as loud as you can. And remember, you’ve just heard the shot, and if so be there’s any mistake about it, it’s the last mistake you’ll ever make, my girl.” And he picks up one of the knives he was cleaning, and he looks at it and he looks at me. Mrs Thompson couldn’t see nothing from where she sat, but I could, and I knew well enough that he’d kill me if I didn’t do what he said.
‘So I done it. I swore false to the police, and I swore false at the inquest and at the trial. I swore I heard voices in the study quarrelling, and a shot, and then I screamed and Alfred come running and Mr Geoffrey opened the door with the pistol in his hand. And so he did, but it was Mr Bertie shot his uncle and put the pistol there by the garden door for Mr Geoffrey to find, knowing he’d be sure to come in that way like he always done. And Mr Geoffrey picked it up, that’s all he done, and come over and tried the door, and when he found it was locked he turned the key same as they reckoned he would. So there was his finger-marks for the police. But he never done it, and I’ve never had a happy moment since. Alfred and me got married next day, but he only done it to shut my mouth, and what’s the good of that?
‘Mr Bertie he’s come in for the money, and there’s talk of our going to America with what he promised Alfred. It’s a lot of money, but I’ll be dead first. It wasn’t any use my doing what I done, because Alfred’ll kill me just the same. He’s afraid of my talking—ever since I saw Miss Hilary Carew, in the train. I’m writing it down, because he’ll kill me and I want Mr Geoffrey to get free.’
Miss Silver laid the last sheet down on her knee.
‘She signed it as a statement after it had been read through to her. I think there is no doubt that it is true as far as it goes.’
Hilary sat up. She still held Henry’s arm. You need something to hold on to when the world swings round.
‘I ought to be so frightfully glad—about Geoff and about Marion—but I can’t—not yet. She’s so unhappy, that poor thing!’
Miss Silver’s expression changed. She looked very kindly at Hilary, and said in a gentle voice, ‘It’s better to be unhappy when you’ve done wrong, my dear. The worst that can happen to anyone is to be able to hurt other people without being hurt oneself.’
Hilary didn’t answer. She understood that, and it comforted her. She waited a moment, and began to talk about something else.
‘I don’t understand about the time—I don’t understand when Mr Everton was shot.’
‘It would be just after eight. He telephoned to Mr Grey at eight. Mrs Mercer corroborates that—she says the clock struck when she was in the dining-room. It would have been only a minute or two after that.’
‘But, Miss Silver—’ Hilary’s eyes had a bewildered look—‘Mrs Ashley said—you know, that daily help woman I went to see, the one that went back for her letter and heard the shot and all—she said the church clock in Oakley Road struck eight as she came past and it would take her anything from seven to ten minutes from there to Solway Lodge. I thought that helped Geoffrey, but she says the clock was wrong—a good ten minutes out—and that it would be getting on for the half-hour when she got up to the house.’
‘Yes—so you told me,’ said Miss Silver. She sniffed gently. ‘And I told you that clocks were very unreliable as evidence. I think we really cleared this up.
‘We went into it before. Mrs Ashley did not tell you that the clock was slow—did she? She said she was afraid she was late. But if she thought she was going to be late, the clock was fast, not slow. You know, people find it very difficult to keep their heads about clocks. Hardly anyone would know whether to put their clock on or back for Summer Time if the newspapers did not tell them what to do. Mrs Ashley is a very muddle-headed person. She used the same expression to me as she did to Miss Hilary, and when I pressed her she became exceedingly confused. I hope it will not be necessary to call her as a witness.’
‘It must be possible to find out whether the clock is fast or slow,’ said Henry in an exasperated voice.
Miss Silver looked decorously competent.
‘Certainly, Captain Cunningham. I interviewed the verger, and found him most obliging. The clock was most undoubtedly fast fifteen months ago—quite ten minutes fast. It has a tendency to gain, and the late Vicar preferred it to be on the fast side, but the present incumbent has it regulated monthly. There is no doubt at all that it was fast on the day of the murder. When Mrs Ashley heard it strike eight it was really only ten minutes to. She was then at the far end of the road, and she says it would take her a good ten minutes to reach Solway Lodge. She arrived, as she told you, in time to hear Mr Everton exclaim, “My own nephew!” and when the shot followed she ran away.’
‘Silly ass of me!’ said Hilary.
Henry agreed.
THIRTY SIX
HARRIET ST JUST looked across her showroom and thought she was doing well. These small, intimate dress shows were very good business. People clamoured for tickets, asked if they might bring their friends, and having come, they bought, and went away under a pleasant illusion of recaptured youth. They too would glide unearthly slim, they too would move in grace and beauty, as Vania did.
Marion was certainly well worth her salary. All the same, she mustn’t get any thinner. She was a marvel at showing clothes, but if she went on losing weight they would be liable to drop off her. Harriet’s mouth twisted. Outside business hours she often felt sorry for Marion Grey.
Just at the moment there was no Marion Grey—only Vania who was showing a black afternoon dress high to the throat, with long tight sleeves which came down over the hand. It was called Triste Journée. The heavy crêpe took a simple yet tragic line. Marion wore it with a curious inward satisfaction, because Geoffrey was truly dead and it consoled her to wear this mourning robe, as if she wore it for him. She walked slowly round
the circle of interested women, her head a little bent, her eyes cast down, her thoughts a long way off. Snatches of comment came to her ears without really reaching her mind. She had to stand, turn, walk round a second time.
Harriet gave her a nod, and she went out as Celia entered in a daring orange tweed, the gayest possible contrast to Vania’s Sad Day.
As the door of the showroom closed behind her, she was aware of Flora in some excitement.
‘Oh, my dear, you’re wanted—on the telephone! A long-distance call—from Glasgow—that little cousin of yours, I think! And I told her you were showing, but she said it was more important than all the dress shows in the world, so perhaps—’ Flora continued to be informative even whilst Marion was saying, ‘Hello—hello—hello!’ with the receiver at her ear. She heard her say, ‘Hilary!’ and then, ‘What is it?’ For some reason she found it impossible to go away. She had got as far as the door, but no further. She remained there upon the threshold, and saw Marion put out a hand and feel for Harriet’s desk and lean on it. She had not said a word after speaking Hilary’s name. She listened, and she leaned upon the desk.
Flora felt unable to go, and unable to look away. She saw Marion’s face change before her eyes. It was like watching ice melt, it was like watching the sunrise. There was a melting, and a softness, and a lovely surge of colour. She knew quite well that she ought not to be looking on, but she was thrilled to the bottom of a very warm, kind heart. She hadn’t the slightest idea how long it was before Marion hung up the receiver and came to her with tears running down her face—tears from eyes that were young and soft again. She took Flora’s plump, busy hands and held them as if they were the hands of her dearest friend. There are moments when everyone in the world is the friend of your heart and you must share its joy. She said in the voice of a child who has waked from a dream of terror, ‘It’s all right—it’s all right, Flora.’
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