The Catherine Wheel (19 page)

He gazed at the floor. The square of carpet which covered it to within a foot of the walls must originally have been of a deep brownish red with a small all-over pattern now almost entirely lost in the general gloom. He said slowly,

“Just what do you expect to find?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Evidence that Luke White was killed in this room,” she said.

Jeremy and Jane, returning to the Catherine-Wheel in a state of mind blissfully superior to murder, were encountered by Miss Silver as they opened the front door. She had, in fact, been listening for the sound of the car.

“Just one moment, Captain Taverner,” she said.

They stood where they were, the door still open, until Miss Silver stepped outside and shut it between them and the inn. It was then that Jane came down to earth sufficiently to realize that Miss Silver was attired for the road. She wore the black cloth coat, the elderly tippet, the black felt hat, and the woollen gloves.

Without any delay she came to the point.

“Captain Taverner, I am going to ask you a favour. Will you be so kind as to drive me in to Ledlington?”

Jeremy said, “Of course.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“It is very good of you. I should prefer to start immediately if it would be quite convenient. There is someone with whom I should like to have a short conversation. I think I can undertake not to keep you waiting more than twenty minutes. It might be less, but I think I can promise that it will not be more.”

Jeremy laughed.

“Jane will hold my hand!”

Miss Silver sat at the back and smiled indulgently at the two young people in front. She had, of course, been offered the seat beside the driver, but her refusal had been definite.

“I should really greatly prefer to be behind. I find the headlights disturbing.”

She sat in the dark and watched them go by. Not so very many after all. It hardly needed the sudden flashing light to inform her that Jeremy and Jane were sitting very close together, and that they were in a state of extreme happiness. Neither of them would really mind if her conversation with Mrs. Wilton were to last more than twenty minutes.

They drew up in Thread Street, with the old church of St. James looming dark at the corner. Measuring the distance to No. 6 with her eye, Miss Silver could well understand that the Wiltons need never be in doubt as to the time. As she pressed the bell, the clock in the church tower gave two chiming strokes for the half hour. Once you were accustomed to the sound it would no longer rouse you, but if you were lying awake in the night you would hardly fail to hear it.

The door was opened a little way. A dimly lighted passage appeared, and, blocking most of the view, someone very tall and broad.

“Mrs. Wilton?”

“Yes.” The voice was firm and pleasant.

Miss Silver moved so that what light there was might fall reassuringly upon her own face and figure.

“My name is Silver—Miss Maud Silver. You will not know it. I wonder if I might have a very short conversation with you.”

Mrs. Wilton hesitated.

“If it’s about a subscription—” she began.

“Oh, no—nothing of that sort, I assure you.”

The passage light enabled Mrs. Wilton to observe the smile which had won so many confidences.

“It is just that I should be very grateful if you would allow me to talk to you for a little about Albert Miller.”

For a moment the thing hung in the balance. If it hadn’t been for Miss Silver’s smile, the scales would have gone down with a bang on the wrong side and the door would have been shut. The momentary pause allowed a variety of considerations to present themselves. Mrs. Wilton had her share of curiosity, but if she had been expecting Mr. Wilton home to his tea she would not have allowed it to interrupt her preparations. But Mr. Wilton was working over-time and would not be home until eight o’clock. She wouldn’t mind a bit of a sit-down and a bit of a gossip. She opened the door and asked Miss Silver in.

The room into which she showed her smelled of furniture-polish and moth-ball. Except on occasions of state the Wiltons used their warm and comfortable kitchen. The sitting-room existed as the shrine of their respectability. It housed in unblemished splendour the suite bought thirty years ago out of Mrs. Wilton’s own earnings on the occasion of her marriage. It consisted of a sofa and two chairs—lady’s easy and gent’s ditto. The springs were intact, the bright blue plush as bright and blue as on the day when she had proudly paid the bill. Moth had been kept at bay by the cunning insertion of moth-balls in every crevice— hence the smell. The carpet, contributed by Mr. Wilton, matched the suite in colour and had been just as carefully kept. There was a white woolly mat in front of the cold hearth, where a fan of pink crinkled paper faintly simulated an absent flame. There were two blue vases on the mantelpiece, and a gilt clock which had at one time been a source of strife in an otherwise harmonious married life, Mrs. Wilton having bought it cheap at an auction because it took her fancy, and Mr. Wilton having used it as the text for a good many heavy-handed sermons when he discovered that it had no works. Everything in the room was spotlessly clean, and anything that could be polished had been polished until you could see your face in it. There were pink curtains at the bow window, and a gas-bracket with a pink glass shade on either side of the mantelpiece. At the application of a match to the nearest bracket all this colour and polish sprang into view.

Miss Silver, who shared Mrs. Wilton’s partiality for pink and blue, and had no objection to seeing them mixed, was able to exclaim with genuine admiration,

“But what a charming room! So comfortable, so tasteful!”

Mrs. Wilton swelled with pride. She would have at once detected a feigned appreciation, but this was the genuine thing. She was not one to show her feelings, but she warmed to the visitor.

They sat down, Miss Silver in the lady’s easy, and Mrs. Wilton in the gent’s ditto. Under the pink shaded gaslight she appeared as a massively built woman with a fine head of grey hair. She had on a flowered overall which allowed glimpses of a brown stuff dress. Her whole appearance was that of a person who respected herself and expected others to respect her. Miss Silver surveyed her thoughtfully. Not the woman to gossip easily, or perhaps at all. She said,

“It is very good of you to let me talk to you about Albert Miller, Mrs. Wilton.”

There was a slight perceptible stiffening.

“If it’s anything to do with his wanting the room again it isn’t a bit of good. I wouldn’t have him back, nor I wouldn’t ask my husband. We put up with it long enough—too long, if it comes to that. And I wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been for knowing his mother, poor thing.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Is she alive?”

Mrs. Wilton shook her head.

“Dead these ten years. She’d a bad husband that she couldn’t stand up to not yet leave like I’d have done. And ’twas for her sake I took Albert in when he come out of the army, and put up with him when by rights I shouldn’t have done. But we’ve had too much of him, Mr. Wilton and me, and we’re not taking him back. Getting too big for his boots and talking about what a lot of money he was going to have—and where it was coming from, dear knows, for he wasn’t going to keep his job the way he was carrying on, and Millers never had anything that I heard tell about.”

“He must have been a very trying lodger.”

Mrs. Wilton looked majestic.

“Coming in all hours,” she said. “And the Worse. And no thought to wipe his boots on the mat.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me! How extremely inconsiderate!”

“We’re not taking him back,” said Mrs. Wilton with gloomy finality.

Miss Silver coughed.

“No one could possibly expect you to do so. I can assure you that I am not here to question your decision. As I said before, he must have been a most trying inmate, but since you knew his mother and have spoken of her so kindly you would not wish any harm to come to him—would you?”

Mrs. Wilton bridled.

“I’m sure I’m not one to wish harm to come to anyone,” she said.

“Then I may tell you that I am seriously concerned about Albert Miller. It would help me very much if you would tell me just what happened on the Saturday night before he left you.”

For the moment there was no reply. Mrs. Wilton produced a rather portentous frown. She let the best part of a minute go by before she said,

“I’m not one to beat about the bush. I’m going to ask you right out what it’s got to do with you.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“I did not know Albert Miller, but I know some of his relations. I am concerned as to what may have happened to him. I should like to know his present whereabouts, and I should like to ask him a few questions. That is all. Now will you tell me about Saturday night?”

Mrs. Wilton said slowly,

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“Then it would be soon told, and you could do no harm by telling it.”

There was another frowning pause. Then Mrs. Wilton said,

“What do you want to know?”

“I should like you to tell me just what happened from the time he came home on Saturday night till the time he left on Sunday morning.”

Mrs. Wilton pursed her lips.

“Well, there’s no harm in that, and it’s soon told, as you say. He come home just before half past eleven, and he was the worse for drink, banging on the door and singing a song about that girl Eily he’s been running after—out at the Catherine-Wheel. Never heard such a noise in my life. We were in bed, but Mr. Wilton wouldn’t go to sleep till he heard him come in. He needn’t have troubled—there was enough noise to wake the dead.”

“Did Mr. Wilton go down to let him in?”

The massive head was shaken.

“We’d left the door, but after Al got upstairs Mr. Wilton went down and locked it. We were both properly fed up, and we’d made up our minds about giving him his notice. What with him coming in like that and the noise that was going on overhead, we’d had enough. Mr. Wilton called up the stair to tell him so. And the language he got back! I had to put my fingers in my ears! Mr. Wilton come back into the room and said, ‘That’s the last of him. Says I didn’t need to give him notice, because he was getting out anyhow—and getting out of the place.’ And then he went down and locked the front door and brought away the key because Al owed us a week’s money and it wouldn’t be right to let him go off without paying it.”

Miss Silver interrupted with her slight cough.

“Would there be any light in the hall, or on the stairs?”

Mrs. Wilton pursed her lips.

“We’ve lived thirty years in this house. Mr. Wilton don’t need any light to go up and down.”

“But Albert Miller—he would not know the house so well as Mr. Wilton.”

“Uses a torch!” said Mrs. Wilton contemptuously. “Nasty flickering things—I can’t abide them!”

“Did your husband see him when he went upstairs?”

Mrs. Wilton stared.

“Saw him, and heard him—shouting about this Eily, and shining his torch into Mr. Wilton’s eyes till he was pretty near blinded!”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Most inconsiderate and disagreeable.”

Mrs. Wilton achieved a magnificent toss of the head.

“And kept me awake best part of the night, bumping, and groaning, and making the bed creak.”

“Dear me!”

“And first thing in the morning down he comes and bangs on the door. Mr. Wilton calls out to him he won’t get the key till he pays up what he owes us. Al says he’s got it ready, and he won’t be coming back, and Mr. Wilton says, ‘Not much you won’t!’ So then he lights the candle and goes over to the bedroom door and opens it just enough to take the money, me being still in bed. And he counts it, and it’s all right. And Al says he’s giving the railway the sack and he’ll send for his things when he gets another job. So then Mr. Wilton gives him the key to let himself out. And that’s the last we saw of him.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“When you say saw, Mrs. Wilton—it would be quite dark in the passage?”

Mrs. Wilton nodded.

“He’d got his torch,” she said—“swinging it about like I told you. Put Mr. Wilton’s back up properly.”

“Did Mr. Wilton take the candle over to the door?”

Mrs. Wilton stared.

“He hadn’t any call to. Took the money and brought it across to me to count, and then back with the key. He’d no call to take the candle, nor to stand at the door with the draught blowing in and that nasty torch in his eyes.”

Miss Silver sat silent in the back of the car until they had passed through Cliff. Then she leaned forward and spoke.

“Captain Taverner, would it be trespassing too much on your kindness if I were to ask you to take me up to Cliff House? I would like to speak to Inspector Abbott.”

Jeremy said, “Of course.” And then, “We had tea with Jack Challoner, you know. Abbott wasn’t there then, but of course he may have come in since.”

Frank Abbott had not come in. Matthews stood there waiting. Miss Silver addressed herself to Jeremy.

“Sir John Challoner is a friend of yours. Do you think he would allow me to use the telephone? I would rather not use the instrument at the inn.”

Jeremy went into the house and came out again with a large redheaded young man, whom he introduced. Miss Silver was inducted to the study and left there with the telephone and the only fire, whilst the others shivered in the hall and Jeremy brightened the proceedings by announcing that he and Jane were engaged.

The number called by Miss Silver was Ledlington police station. A hearty male voice responded. Yes, Inspector Abbott was there. He was in conference with Inspector Crisp and the Superintendent. He didn’t know—

Miss Silver coughed in a peremptory manner and said briskly,

“Would you tell him that Miss Silver would like to speak to him.”

At the other end of the line Frank Abbott was not sorry to exchange his present society for that of Miss Silver. He found that a little of Crisp went a long way, and had, most regrettably, summed up the Superintendent as a pompous bullfrog. It was not in his nature to suffer pomposity with resignation.

Just behind in the adjoining room Crisp and Superintendent Johnson heard him say, “Hullo!” and then, “Yes, it’s me. What can I do for you?”

Following on this he said at irregular intervals,

“Florence Duke—yes, I could… Well, as you say—I shouldn’t think there would be any difficulty…No, I shouldn’t think so… Well, I’ll put it to him… All right. Good-bye.”

Miss Silver rang off, thanked her temporary host in the most gracious manner, and again relapsed into silence at the back of the car.

As she stepped into the narrow entrance of the Catherine-Wheel, someone had just set foot upon the stairs. She had the impression that this person had come from the direction of the dining-room, but so newly from the dark, and with the lamplight in her eyes, she could not be certain. She thought that there had been a movement from left to right across the hall, but she could not be certain. By the time her eyes were really serving her clearly the person whom she had seen had mounted to the third or fourth step.

Miss Silver came out into the hall and recognized Florence Duke. A most vexatious theory which would explain Mrs. Duke’s presence in the dining-room presented itself. She had particularly asked—she had made it quite plain—it really would be very vexatious indeed.

She mounted the stairs with more than her usual briskness and came up with Florence Duke on the landing. With a slight preliminary cough she observed that she had been out and had rather forgotten the time.

“I hope that I am not late. I should be glad to change my dress before dinner.”

In the light of the wall-lamp Florence Duke turned a ghastly face. Fear sat naked in her eyes. Almost involuntarily Miss Silver took her by the arm.

“Mrs. Duke—are you not well? I am afraid you have had a shock.”

The pale lips twitched. A sound like an echo came from them.

“A shock—”

“Were you talking on the telephone?”

Florence stared with the wide, blank eyes of a sleep-walker. The echo came again.

“The telephone—”

Miss Silver said firmly, “You are unwell. Let me help you to your room.”

This was no conversation to hold on the open landing for anyone to hear. She got Florence Duke into her room and shut the door.

“What is it? Can I help you?”

The big woman went across to the washstand, tipped half a jug of cold water into the basin, and stooped down to plunge her face into it. She came up gasping, to do it again, and yet again. Then she took the rough bath-towel and scrubbed herself dry. Cold water, rubbing, and time to catch at her self-control—between them they worked wonders. The dreadful bluish look was gone from her face and some of the natural colour had come back. She said in something very like her ordinary voice,

“Just one of my turns—I have them sometimes. I’ll be all right now.” Then, after a good long breath, “We haven’t got too much time if we’re going to change.”

“You feel able to come down?”

“I’m going to.” She laughed without merriment. “Do you suppose the old man will stand us champagne? I could do with it.”

Ten minutes later Miss Silver descended the stairs. She had changed into her last summer’s dress, which, like the one she had been wearing every day, was of a dark olive-green in colour but distressingly patterned in a kind of Morse code of orange dots and dashes. There were hints of other colours too, but on the whole the orange had it. Nothing could have been less becoming. The bog-oak brooch reposed upon her bosom. She also wore an extremely ancient black velvet coatee—most warm and comfortable—without which she never ventured upon a country visit. In her experience country houses, especially old country houses, were apt to be cold and draughty in the extreme. The gong having sounded when she was half way down the stairs, she joined the rest of the party on their way to the dining-room.

They were all seated before Florence Duke appeared, looking very much as she had looked all that day and the day before. She could not have known how closely she was being observed. If she had, it would perhaps have made no difference, since she was already making the maximum effort at self-control. On three separate occasions when she discovered her hand to be shaking she dropped it quickly to her lap. Miss Silver, facing her across the table, missed nothing of this. There was, in fact, very little that she did miss in the behavior of any one of the Taverners.

Jacob was in his place. He had an old, frustrated look. The likeness to a sick monkey was painful. He had Marian Thorpe-Ennington on his right and Mildred Taverner on his left. Lady Marian talked uninterruptedly from one end of the meal to the other, and everyone was grateful to her for doing so. She told them all about her French mother-in-law who was, to put it mildly, eccentric.

“Absolutely nothing but high-heeled slippers with pink feather trimming and a diamond hair-band which used to belong to Josephine—really too embarrassing. And one never knew where one was going to meet her—it was such a rambling old château— oubliettes and all that sort of thing. Of course the servants were trained to look the other way.”

Florence Duke stopped crumbling a piece of bread and said in a voice louder than she meant it to be,

“What is an oubliette?”

Marian Thorpe-Ennington was only too pleased to explain.

“All those old places had them. There was a story about one at Rathlea, but we never found it. The one at Rene’s place was quite horrid. You pulled out a bolt, and a bit of the floor gave way and let your enemy down into a frightful sort of cesspool. Of course it’s been drained and all that—and I believe there were quite a lot of bones. But I don’t think the French are very thorough about that sort of thing, and I never really fancied living there, what with Eglantine being quite mad and there being no money to keep anything up, so perhaps it is a good thing we didn’t have any children. Though of course it was a frightful tragedy when René crashed, and I thought I should never get over it.”

She looked down the table and kissed her fingertips to Freddy Thorpe-Ennington.

“Freddy, my sweet, do you remember how absolutely crushed I was? I know I never thought I should marry again. But perhaps it was all for the best, if it hadn’t been for Freddy’s father’s pickle factory crashing too.”

Jacob surveyed her with just a hint of his old sardonic amusement.

“What you want is someone to leave you a fortune, isn’t it?”

She could not have agreed in a more whole-hearted manner.

“Of course my first husband ought to have left me his, but most of it went to his secretary, a perfect frump. Shattering— wasn’t it?”

Mildred Taverner was fingering her Venetian beads. She said in a low, hurried voice, more as if she was talking to herself than to anyone else,

“Oubliette—oublier—that’s French for forget—at least I think it is—I never was good at languages, and my French is very rusty. I suppose it means they went down that hole and were forgotten—” She gave a sharp involuntary shiver. “Oh, that’s horrid! I hope I shan’t dream about it.”

Marian Thorpe-Ennington glided into the full history of Freddy’s courtship.

When everyone had left the dining-room Miss Silver watched her opportunity for a word with Eily. She managed to intercept her coming through with the coffee-tray.

“Eily, is there an extension to the telephone?”

“In the pantry there is—for my uncle to use.”

“Is he in there now?”

Eily looked surprised.

“A moment ago he was—putting away the silver. But you could telephone in the dining-room, Miss Silver. There’s nobody there.”

Miss Silver returned to the lounge. Presently, when she saw Castell come in, she slipped across to the dining-room and called up Cliff House. Matthews, answering the call, was requested to deliver a message to Mr. Abbott—Miss Silver would like to speak to him.

Mr. Abbott was produced. The first tones of Miss Silver’s voice informed him that she had reason to suppose that caution was necessary. The fact that she was ringing up at all made it clear that she had something important to say. It became immediately apparent that she required answers to two questions.

“I have something to ask you—two things in fact. The request I made of you before you left the hotel this afternoon—have you done anything about it?”

“Well, there was a bit of obstruction, now overcome by my well-known tact. I’ll get on with it bright and early tomorrow. That all?”

Miss Silver coughed.

“By no means. I made a second request to you later. Was that acceded to?”

“Yes.”

“I requested that no communication should be made till the morning, but I have reason to believe—”

“I know. But I couldn’t stop him. I’m sorry.”

She said, “It was a mistake. I hope—”

As she said this last word she heard a faint unmistakable click. The receiver on the extension had been lifted. She continued quite smoothly and with no perceptible pause,

“You will give my love when you write, and say I always take the greatest interest? Good-bye.”

Frank Abbott had also heard the click, and was able to applaud his Miss Silver’s presence of mind.

As he rang off at the end he considered the points which she had raised. Crisp had been very sticky about the carpet—sticky and fussy. He didn’t want a row, and he didn’t want to do the job himself without a witness. It occurred to him that Crisp would hate to have his neat presentment of the case upset. The inquest was set for eleven-thirty. If they were going to find bloodstains on the carpet in Castell’s study, the case to be served up wouldn’t be neat at all but highly complicated. Because if Luke White hadn’t been killed where he was found, all the bits of evidence about Eily and Florence Duke coming down and finding him would go by the board. Instead of the murder being a sudden affair of passion it would become a carefully premeditated crime almost certainly involving more than one person. No, Crisp wouldn’t be a bit keen on those bloodstains. He wasn’t really keen on them himself, but they would have to be looked for, and before the inquest opened. As to Miss Silver’s second question, he had done his best to prevent Crisp ringing the Duke woman up. His best hadn’t been good enough, and that was that.

He dwelt for some time on the implications of this second question. The affaire Duke had its possibilities. He went on considering them.