The Watersplash (17 page)

Edward was certainly angry. His dark look passed Susan by as if she no longer existed. Miss Silver encountered it with a faint smile and the reflection that men really had very little sense. If you are in danger of being arrested for a murder, it is extremely unwise to go about looking as if nothing would give you greater pleasure than to commit another at any moment. She said in a kind, grave voice,

“Won’t you sit down? I need not detain you for more than a very short time. I happen to have some information which I think you should possess. It will be more comfortable if you will take a seat.”

He did so with reluctance. There was a feeling of being shut in—an echo from his interview with the police. Other echoes, not faint but harsh and bitterly insistent.

He said abruptly, “I don’t know—” and found himself quite gently but firmly interrupted.

“That, Mr. Random, is the trouble. There were things you should have known before, and which you should certainly know now. Miss Wayne can leave us if you would prefer it.”

“Thank you—it doesn’t matter.”

Susan didn’t matter. It made no difference to Edward whether she came or went. She was outside the place which he kept bolted and barred. It doesn’t matter who goes by on the outside of your house. If she had had a scrap of proper pride she would have got up and walked out of the room and slammed the door. She was too cold to move—in front of Ruth Ball’s comfortable, rosy fire she was too cold. And she had lost all interest in her pride.

Miss Silver was saying,

“I do not know if you are aware of my profession. I am a private enquiry agent… No, Mr. Random, I am not here in my professional capacity, nor have I willingly intruded into your affairs. It just happened that Miss Dean knew of my occupation, and that she made me a very curious confidence.”

“When?” The word shot out like a stone from a catapult.

“In town. Two days before her death. I should like to tell you what she said to me.”

He listened with a set face whilst she told him of her interview with Clarice Dean. When she had finished he let the silence settle. Miss Silver made no attempt to break it. She had knitted all through her recital, and she continued to do so now.

When he spoke, it was to say sharply and suddenly,

“Do the police know about this?”

She inclined her head.

“Inspector Abbott is a very old friend. After seeing Miss Dean’s death in the papers I had some conversation with him on the subject. Neither he nor I was then aware that Scotland Yard would be called in. I merely felt that I could not keep the matter entirely to myself.”

His eyes met hers with a look of singular directness.

“Of course this is why they have not arrested me—yet. They have quite a case, as Abbott has probably told you—I could see that. What I couldn’t make out was why they didn’t get on with it. They think I wrote the note which brought Clarice down to the splash. It was typed on the old machine up at the Church Room. I was up there on the Friday morning, and it was just the kind of note I might have written. I left Mr. Barr’s house at a quarter past nine that evening, and I didn’t turn up at the Vicarage to say I had found Clarice drowned in the splash until ten o’clock, which leaves half an hour to be accounted for”

“And how do you account for it, Mr. Random?”

He gave quite a natural short laugh.

“Oh, I was watching a fox up in the woods. As one couldn’t possibly expect a policeman to believe that, I could not imagine why they did not arrest me. But of course this story of yours would stick in their throats. If that is what Clarice was going to say to me, I was the last person on earth to want her dead. The motive must have been a bit dicky anyway, but on the top of this story it would be sheer, stark lunacy.”

Susan listened in an amazement that was to deepen. The black look of anger was quite gone. He was talking with the quick zest which she had remembered and missed. The armour-plating which had warded off any touch upon his affairs had been discarded.

Edward himself could not have explained what had caused the change. It was simple, but like many simple things it was profound. If you are cold and you come into a warm room, you are presently not cold any more. You cannot say just how, or why, or even when the warmth invades you. He was not at all aware that he was sharing the experience of many other people whose troubles, difficulties, and danger had brought them into contact with Miss Maud Silver. As she sat there knitting she diffused a quiet atmosphere of security and order. For a parallel you had to go back a long way—to the nursery and the schoolroom, to the pleasant fixed routine and ordered ways of childhood. He did not think of these things consciously. They had been in his life. They had been horribly wrenched away. In Miss Silver’s presence they returned. The string of his tongue was loosed. He went on speaking.

“You see, if I had sent that note, it would have been because I really did think that it would be better to see Clarice and find out what she wanted to say. She kept on hinting things about my uncle, and I thought she just wanted to pour the whole thing over. Everyone seems to want to do that, and I wasn’t going to have it. My uncle had a right to do what he liked with his property, and he thought I was dead. Arnold had a right to keep what was legally his. It wasn’t anyone’s business but mine. And I wasn’t going to talk about it—why should I? But if I had got to the point where I thought it would be better to hear what Clarice had to say and be done with it, and had written her that note and met her at the water-splash, don’t you see, the first thing she would do would be to come out with this yarn about my uncle making a second will. After that I don’t see how anyone is going to believe I could possibly want to kill her.”

Miss Silver inclined her head.

“That is a very lucid statement. The points you have mentioned will certainly have occurred to the police.”

He had been leaning towards her. Now he straightened up.

“Did you think she was telling the truth about my uncle having that dream and changing his will?”

“Certainly I did. She had no possible motive for lying to me. She was under the impression that she had disguised the names, and she could have had no idea that I was in a position to identify them. She spoke to me because she was aware that she was playing a dangerous game. William Jackson’s death had frightened her. She was the only person left who knew that there had been a second will. She could have put herself in a position of safety by taking her evidence to your uncle’s solicitor, but she wanted to make sure of securing some advantage for herself. She wished, in fact, to drive a bargain with you. I warned her very seriously that the kind of blackmail she was contemplating was not only criminal but dangerous. Unfortunately she did not take my warning.”

He leaned towards her again.

“You don’t think I killed her!”

Her ball of pale pink wool had rolled a little way upon the sofa. She reached for it and dropped it into her knitting-bag before she answered him.

“No, Mr. Edward—I have never thought so.”

“Then who did?”

She replied with another question.

“Who would benefit by the death of a surviving witness to the missing will, and of the only other person who knew that this will had ever existed?”

An extraordinary look passed over his face. Anger, surprise, incredulity, sardonic amusement—there was a fleeting impression of all these things, culminating in a laugh.

“Arnold? Not on your life! He’s a stuffed shirt—all window-dressing and nothing behind it. He’s a dull, pompous version of all the family portraits—a kind of composite Random type minus the good points—and the bad. He’s a set of features— and a tedious, intolerable bore. But he wouldn’t do murder— it would be against the rules. He’s not one of your bold independent thinkers, you know. He has his small inherited code, and I assure you he would rather die than depart from it. I don’t like him—I never have. You have probably gathered as much. But he wouldn’t murder anyone. And I don’t think he would destroy a will. No, I really don’t think so. His code wouldn’t allow it.”

She was watching him closely.

“You interest me very much.”

He went on as if she had not spoken.

“No, I don’t believe it would. Let’s do a bit of supposing. Uncle James makes that will, and dies—did you say a week later?”

“Yes.”

“He probably wouldn’t say anything about the will to Arnold. That dream of his—he wouldn’t want to talk about it. He believed in it, and he wouldn’t want to have anyone bothering him and telling him it was all nonsense. No, I’m sure he wouldn’t tell Arnold. Probably left a letter for him with the will. Well, Arnold finds the will, with or without a letter explaining that Uncle James has had a dream and thinks I am still alive. It would be a nasty shock, you know. Consider the legal position. Officially, I’m not dead, I’m just missing. They would have to wait—how long is it—five years—seven?—and then go to the Courts for leave to presume my death. I can’t think of anything that would irritate Arnold more. He has one of those inveterately tidy minds. Imagine having to make up that sort of mind to years of delay, with all sorts of untidy ends lying about. And I was dead—quite certainly and positively I was dead. I can imagine Arnold’s code allowing him just to put that upsetting will away and say nothing about it—I can even imagine that it might enjoin this course. If by any chance I ever did turn up, there would be no harm done—the will could be made to turn up too.”

Miss Silver gave her gentle cough.

“But it has not turned up, Mr. Random.”

“Not yet. He wouldn’t want to rush things, you know. It wouldn’t look well if the will turned up too soon. No use stretching a coincidence farther than you need. And then there are these murders—a really nasty complication. No wonder Arnold goes about looking like death—” He broke off. “I suppose you think this is all nonsense?”

“On the contrary I find it extremely interesting. There is one thing that supports your belief in Mr. Arnold Random’s innocence—at the least of William Jackson’s death. As you know, the unfortunate man left the Lamb just before closing time and was seen going in the direction of the splash, which he was obliged to cross in order to reach his home. Mr. Arnold Random was in the church playing the organ, and Miss Blake states that she went over from the Vicarage work-party to speak to him at about ten o’clock. He afterwards accompanied her as far as her home, by which time William Jackson must certainly have reached the splash, and may already have been struck down there, or have slipped or been pushed into the pool which drowned him. If Miss Mildred’s statement is to be believed, it gives Mr. Arnold Random a very good alibi.”

Edward laughed.

“Rather a case of any port in a storm, I should say!” Then, with a return to his frowning look, “Do you mind if we go back to the beginning? You sent for me partly because of what you had to tell me about Clarice and my uncle’s will, and partly because Susan had been talking to you. I want to know what she said.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Had you not better ask her?”

He nodded.

“All right, I will. We seem to have got a bit beyond the conventions anyhow.” The frown came to rest on Susan. “Well, what about it?”

She had never felt more defenceless in her life. She had done what he was bound to resent, and she had to give an account of it under the eyes of a stranger. She knew how cold and enduring his resentment could be, and she had always known that there was no surer way to arouse it than to interfere in his private affairs. She sat up straight and told him just what she had done and how it had come about—the envelope dropped in Mrs. Alexander’s shop; her offer to take it up to the Vicarage; and Ray Fortescue’s story coming back with a rush when she read Miss Maud Silver’s name and address. She kept her eyes on his face all the time—clear, serious grey eyes, darkened by the effort she was making.

And then before she knew quite how it happened they were all three talking about the Ivory Dagger, with the burden of the conversation falling more and more upon Miss Silver.

When she had done speaking Edward said,

“I was out of the country when it happened. Susan of course read about it in the papers as well as getting the inside story from Ray Fortescue. Then when she saw your name on that envelope she came up here and asked you to come in on this case.”

Miss Silver said gravely,

“I can only come into any case in order to serve the ends of justice. I think Miss Wayne understands that.”

He gave her an odd crooked smile.

“In fact if I am guilty, you will have the greatest possible pleasure in hanging me, but if I didn’t do it after all, you won’t have any objection to establishing my innocence.”

She smiled.

“It would give me very great pleasure to do so.”

He leaned towards her.

“Then will you be so kind as to take the case.”

Miss Silver looked at her watch. It was a little after nine o’clock. She was alone in the comfortable morning-room. Mrs. Ball had apologized for leaving her, but she had promised to check over the accounts of the Boys’ Club with the Vicar.

“There seems to be a tiresome discrepancy, and you know how it is—once you have made a mistake you can pass over it again and again. John is even afraid he may have taken this one on last year when we came here. The late Vicar was an old man, you know, and things were in a shocking mess. The trouble is, we are neither of us really very good at figures, and John is so conscientious.”

Miss Silver did a little quiet thinking.

When she had looked at her watch she went up to her room, changed into outdoor shoes, and put on her black cloth coat and the black felt hat reserved for dark or rainy days. After which she slipped quietly out of the front door.

At first it seemed to be quite dark. She had in her hand the powerful electric torch which she invariably took with her when paying a visit to the country, but she did not want to turn it on. Standing just beyond the faint glow which came through the curtained upper half of the door, everything was plunged in featureless obscurity, but after a moment or two the shapes of trees and bushes began to emerge, and she could distinguish the path which led to the churchyard. Following it, she came through a shrubbery shadowed by overhanging trees to a gate in the churchyard wall. A few steps farther and she was clear of the trees. Before her lay the black mass of the church and the line of the yew tunnel, overhead the soft deep grey of the clouded sky, and all around her the glimmering shapes of tomb, and cross, and headstone.

She went on a little way, came to the mouth of the tunnel, and there stood. The air was mild, with very little movement. Sometimes it would be altogether still, sometimes it seemed to pass amongst all these memorials like a sigh. It made a quiet background to the thoughts which were in her mind. Two people had been murdered within a stone’s throw of this place. The murderer had come upon them by one of three ways— down the yew tunnel from the church, along the road from the village, or from the other side of the splash. The murders had been separated by no more than a week. They had both taken place on a Friday. They had both taken place in the dark. These were common factors. There were others. There was the knowledge shared by William Jackson and Clarice Dean. There was the fact that both were prepared to use that knowledge to their own advantage. In each case the scene had been set for murder in the space around the watersplash, with the church standing there above it.

When a stage has been set, the people come upon it to play their parts. The two victims, William and Clarice, and two other persons were known to have trodden that stage. At the time of both murders Arnold Random had been practising in the church, and Edward Random had come home by way of the splash. Edward admitted to having met William as he came up the rise. He said that he had spoken to him briefly and wished him good-night. He said that William was fuddled, but not drunk. There could have been more than that brief interchange. Edward could have turned, followed William down to the splash, and drowned him there.

He had no motive.

No motive had appeared.

Arnold Random had an alibi. Miss Blake had been at the church. He had walked back with her. They were old friends. Ruth Ball had not been in Greenings for a year without learning that there had been a time when the village, and perhaps Miss Mildred herself, had expected that she would become Mrs. Arnold Random. This and many other useful bits of information had been passed on in the confidential atmosphere of the Vicarage morning-room. The Vicar might disapprove of gossip, but if you live in the country and do not take an interest in your neighbours you might just as well be dead. Greenings took an interest, and so did Miss Silver. She did not feel any great respect for the alibi provided by Miss Mildred Blake. Arnold Random could have come down from the church to murder the servant whom he had dismissed, and who was certainly prepared to blackmail him. Edward Random could have turned and come back by the road. And by the third way, the dark rough track on the other side of the splash, someone else could have come—someone who knew that William must come this way, if indeed he meant to come home to her at all that night. A white-faced shaking woman with a bruise on the side of her head and fearful thoughts in her mind. She could have crossed by the stones, waited in the shadows by the lych gate, and followed him down to the pool which was to drown him.

There is no reason for murder, but even a crazy brain must think that it has a reason. Jealousy and fear and resentment could have pushed Annie Jackson into the murder of her husband. They are the oldest motives in the world. But why should she kill Clarice Dean? The answer came up quite clearly in Miss Silver’s mind. Clarice might have been a witness of the murder. She knew that Edward Random came home by way of the splash. She had been ringing him up at all hours. On the night before her death she had waited for him down by the splash. There might have been other times when she had done the same thing. The note which brought her to her death, whether written by Edward Random or by someone else, had certainly implied as much. And the witness to a murder stands in no safe place.

When all these things were clear in her mind Miss Silver entered the yew tunnel and began to walk slowly down the incline. She was obliged to switch on her torch. Centuries of growth had locked branch and twig and leaf in an impenetrable mass. Even at midday the place was dark, and at this hour of a November evening the gloom was absolute. If the murderer of William Jackson had come from the church, he too would have needed a light. Or would he? She thought even the most accustomed foot might stumble on this winding path. And murder must go silently.

Her mind was now occupied with the question as to the actual means by which William and Clarice had been killed. In Clarice’s case the back of the head had been bruised. In the case of William Jackson the medical evidence was silent. He might have been pushed, or there might have been a bruise which had not been noticed. She had considered whether the murderer could have snatched up a stone or some broken piece of masonry, but a careful daylight examination had afforded no support for this. The churchyard was beautifully kept, and as far as the road was concerned the soil was a soft loamy clay upon both sides of the splash. As she followed this path from the church she was doing what the murderer must have done if he had come this way. Light and shadow play strange tricks. They are also sometimes unexpectedly revealing. Walking slowly down towards the road, she turned the ray of the torch here and there, her mind alert and clear, but the old yews gave up no secret. She came to the lych gate and found it empty under the timbers which had protected it for three hundred years. There was nothing here except deep shadow and the weathered oak.

She passed out on to the road. On either side of the gate there was a stretch of low stone wall. Since the village children had developed a tendency to play such games as King of the Castle upon the flat convenient top of this wall, the late Vicar had caused an iron railing to be set up on it. Mrs. Ball had been informative as to her husband’s dislike of this addition.

“It’s quite hideous, and John can’t bear it. Like those dreadful little railings you used to see in the suburbs. John is only waiting until we have been here rather longer to have it taken away. He says he doesn’t think it would be tactful until we have been here at least three years. Fortunately, the gilding is wearing off.”

Miss Silver did not share the Vicar’s repugnance. She considered the railings very neat and tasteful, the dark green of the paint harmonizing pleasantly with the grass in the churchyard beyond, and the touches of gilding really quite subdued. But it was not with its artistic merits or demerits that she was concerned as she turned the ray of her torch upon the series of arrow-heads which defended the wall. If one of these spikes was loose—

She was testing them with her free hand, when a voice said from behind her,

“Oh, no, it wasn’t one of them.”

If Miss Silver had come near to starting she showed no trace of it. She turned with her usual composure and spoke to the dark shape which stood on the grass verge between her and the road. Transferring the torch to her left hand and letting it hang down, she said,

“Was it not, Annie?”

The shape went back a little.

“Oh, no, it wasn’t one of them.”

“What makes you so sure about that?”

“What makes anyone sure about anything?”

“We can be sure of what we know.” Miss Silver’s voice was quiet.

For a moment everything was so quiet that they could hear the water moving down towards the splash. It had cut itself a channel below the slope of the churchyard before it widened out and shallowed to take the stepping-stones. It moved all the time, and the mild air moved above it. The sky was thick with cloud.

Annie said,

“What anyone knows is their own business.”

“Not always. When murder has been done, everyone has a duty to tell whatever they know. Two people have been murdered.”

Annie said, “Two—” on a caught breath. And then, “Things go in threes, don’t they? Next time it might be you—or me—” Her voice was like a ghost’s voice—weak, and worn, and with no feeling in it.

Miss Silver put out a hand towards her, and she stepped back. She had been a dark shape, but now she was so little distinguishable that she might have been part of the darkness itself. Miss Silver made no attempt to follow her. She drew her hand back again and said,

“I will not touch you, Annie, but I would like you to listen to me. Your husband knew something. If he had spoken of it to those who had a right to know he would not now be dead. Miss Dean also knew something, but like your husband she tried to use this knowledge for her private advantage. I think that is why she died. If there is something that you know, I beg you very earnestly to consider that you are endangering your own safety by not being frank with the police. I said this to Miss Dean, but she did not take my advice. Now I say it to you. Pray think about what I have said. And now let us go in. I do not feel that you should come down here alone in the dark, and I should like you to promise me that you will not do so again”

Annie said on a grieving note,

“Time was I’d have been afraid. You get used to being alone.” Then, after a pause, “I heard you go, and I came after you.”

“Then we will go home together,” said Miss Silver with cheerful firmness.

Avoiding the yew tunnel, they took the open way of the Vicarage drive. It was when they had almost reached the house that Annie, a little way in front, turned her head and spoke.

“You didn’t find what you were looking for—nor you won’t.”

Miss Silver let a moment go by before she said,

“How do you know that I did not find it, Annie?”