Who Pays the Piper? (23 page)

Mrs. Green gave Lily a hearty kiss and began at once to make the tea and to tell her all about Detective Sergeant Abbott and the shoes.

“And I thought Miss Susan was agoing to faint. There wasn't a drip nor a drab of colour in her face. ‘Miss Lenox', he said, ‘that shoe is the one that stepped in the old clay puddle going up the garden way. It stepped in and it stepped out', he said, ‘and after that it made a print on the study floor. And I must take the shoes away with me', he said. And there was poor Miss Susan as white as a bit of sugar icing.”

Lily Green put three lumps of sugar in her tea. She was just what her mother must have been at twenty-two, and a very pretty girl—nice skin, nice hair, nice eyes, and a pleasantly rounded figure. She leaned an elbow on the table and dropped her voice.

“It's right enough about that footprint,” she said. “Mr. Raby, he saw it, and I heard him tell his wife. They put one of the big chairs right over it so as it shouldn't be trod on till the London police came down. But whatever makes them pick on Miss Susan? There's plenty of others might have trod in a puddle besides her. What about that Miss de Lisle that pushed her way in past Mr. Raby? She came up from the Magpie, didn't she, and there's clay down there. Why couldn't she have made the mark on the floor?”

Mrs. Green looked thoughtful. She munched buttered toast. Then she said,

“There wouldn't be enough clay left on her shoes to mark a floor by the time she'd come all the way round by the road from the Magpie.”

“Nor there wouldn't,” said Lily. She looked doubtfully at the hot toast. “I don't know that I ought to, Mum—I'm putting on.”

Mrs. Green laughed her jolly laugh.

“And I've put on, so what's the odds? You don't want to be one of the break-in-half-as-soon-as-look-at-them kind, do you? William'll have a word to say about it if you do. Men don't like bones, and that's a fact. They like something they can get their arm around.”

Lily laughed and frowned.

“If William goes on the way he's been going he won't put his arm round my waist. Thinks himself a sheikh, I wouldn't wonder, the way he carries on. I'm not to say this, and I'm not to say that, and I'm not so much as to breathe a word about——” She pulled herself up with a noticeable jerk and buried her face in her cup of tea.

Mrs. Green took another piece of buttered toast and said firmly,

“About what?”

Lily finished her tea and pushed up her cup for more.

“I suppose we'll all be getting our notice,” she said. “I told William I'd look for a place the other side of Ledlington if he went on like he's been going—and what do you think he had the nerve to say?”

Mrs. Green put three lumps of sugar into Lily's cup.

“They've got the nerve to say anything, Ducks. What
did
he say?”

Lily tossed her head.

“Said I needn't expect he'd come over there to walk out with me, and there were plenty hereabouts would be pleased to have his company.”

“I hope you didn't give in to him,” said Mrs. Green in a shocked voice. “Time enough when you're married. There's ways you can get your own back then, but a girl that lets her young man right down tread on her before they've been to church together, well, she'd better stay an old maid and make the best of it, because she'll be trod as flat as any worm, and no good putting the blame on him. Men are made that way, and if you ask for it you'll get it. So you mind and keep your end up, Lily, and don't go giving in to William any more than what's right.” She changed her tone suddenly. “What's all this that he won't let you talk about?”

Lily took the last piece of buttered toast and bit into it with a fine row of even teeth.

“Nothing,” she said with her mouth full.

“Now, Lily——” Mrs. Green settled herself back in her chair and put a hand on either knee—“now, Lily, what are you a-keeping back?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh, yes, you are. And if William Cole's going to set you on telling lies to your own mother——”

Lily's shoulder jerked pettishly.

“'Tisn't nothing,” she said, “only——”

“Only what?”

“Reelly, Mum—how you do go on! You don't want to be drawn in any more than what William does.”

“Drawn into what?” said Mrs. Green with some asperity.

“Nothing.”

Mrs. Green leaned forward and took the cup from her hand.

“Don't you answer me like that, Lily! What's all this about? If it's something about Mr. Dale's murder, William Cole or no William Cole you'll tell me this directly minute. Shuffling and hinting is what I'd whip any child for—and when you
was
a child I didn't have to. Open as the day you was, like anyone ought to be that hasn't got things to hide, and if William Cole is going to make you tell lies to your own mother, it's the last time he comes inside my house, and that's a fact!”

Lily jerked again.

“I'd as soon tell you as not. It was William said we oughtn't to get drawn in.” She relaxed suddenly into a giggle. “And do you know what was at the bottom of it, I do believe? He's jealous—that's what he is. Thinks I'll have to go into court, and be a witness, and have my photo in the papers. It wouldn't be half exciting, would it, Mum? And I wouldn't mind reelly, not if it wasn't for William. The Inspector's ever so nice, and that Sergeant Abbott, well, he might be a real gentleman, so I wouldn't mind it myself, but William 'ud be fit to cut my throat.”

“Don't you talk that way,” said Mrs. Green in a shocked voice. “And you stop shallying about and tell me plain what it is you've been hiding up.”

Lily leaned across the table and dropped her voice.

“'Tisn't anything, only—well, I suppose it might be something. You see, it was this way—and look here, Mum, don't you go telling anyone, because Mr. and Mrs. Raby they've told the police and swore to it that us girls were all in along of Mrs. Raby listening to the wireless between six and a quarter to seven.”

“And weren't you?” said Mrs. Green.

Lily giggled.

“Esther and Doris were there all right, but I wasn't. Mrs. Raby, she's only got to set down and listen to a band programme and it sends her off as sound as sound, so as soon as I see she was off I ran out by the back door into the yard.”

“Whatever for?” said Mrs. Green.

Lily giggled again.

“Go on, Mum! What does a girl run out for? I'll bet you did it yourself.”

“William?” said Mrs. Green in a disapproving voice.

“Well, we'd had a bit of a tiff Sunday night, so I thought he'd be round. It reelly was a tiff, Mum, and I wouldn't make it up, nor let him kiss me nor nothing, so I made sure he'd be round. He carries on, you know, Mum, but he's awful in love with me. Sometimes I wish he wasn't quite so much. It's bad enough when I don't mean anything, but if I was reelly to throw him over I do believe he'd do something desperate, he's that jealous. You know, he didn't half like me being in service with a single gentleman——”

Mrs. Green's bright blue eyes very nearly popped right out of her head.

“Lily! You're not going to tell me it was William that shot Mr. Dale?”

Lily had quite a prolonged fit of the giggles.

“I'd like him to hear you say so! Why, Mum, whatever put that into your head?”

Mrs. Green was justly annoyed. Her colour had deepened considerably, and her voice was sharp.

“Now, Lily, that's enough. You tell me right out what you know about Mr. Dale being shot. And if there's any more beating about the bush——”

Lily dropped to a confidential note.

“Well, William was there like I thought he'd be, and we made it up—not all at once, because I wouldn't after the way he carried on Sunday. I was ever so cold and haughty at first—I reelly was, Mum—but after a bit I give in.”

Mrs. Green sniffed.

“And always will!” she said.

Lily took no notice.

“Well, he got me to walk a bit of the way with him. I knew Mrs. Rahy'd be safe till seven, so I was going to. We come round the corner of the house, and round the front to go down the drive. I said I'd go as far as the gate, when all of a sudden we heard a shot. I said, ‘What's that?' and William said, ‘It's nothing to do with us'. But I ran as far as the corner of the house and looked round——”

“Which corner?” said Mrs. Green.

“Where the shot came from,” said Lily. “And I looked along, and there was one of the study windows open and the light shining out, and I hadn't hardly seen it before someone came running past.”

“Lily!”

Lily nodded.

“Reelly, Mum. You know there's a bit of paving runs all along that side of the house between the terrace and the front drive. Well, that's where she come, right along the side of the house as quick as a rabbit, and past where I was and down the drive, running all the way. And William said it was none of our business and we wasn't to get drawn in, and that's what he's gone on saying ever since. Rough as rough he was—took me by the arm and ran me along back to the yard and told me to keep my mouth shut and never let on we'd heard the shot nor seen anyone.”

Mrs. Green put her elbows on the table and propped her shaking chin upon her hands.

“Oh, lord!” she said. “Lily, what did you see?”

Lily leaned close.

“I saw her as plain as plain where she crossed the study window. The light was on over Miss Cathy's table and it shone right out.”

Mrs. Green shut her eyes for a moment. Everything inside her was shaking. She said in a whisper,

“Who was it—who was it, Lily? Who was it?”

“I didn't know then, but I know now.”

Mrs. Green took a long breath and sat back. She picked up the corner of her overall and wiped her forehead and chin.

“What's the matter, Mum?”

“It come over me,” said Mrs. Green. “Who was it you saw?”

“She'd on a black coat, and a black hat with some sort of a red feather in it—I saw it in the light. A tall, gipsy-looking woman—and I didn't know who she was then, but it was this Miss Cora de Lisle all right, the one that was Mr. Dale's wife and got in to see him earlier on, and Mr. Raby——”

Mrs. Green let out the breath she had been holding with a noisy gasp.

Lily stared.

“Why, Mum, what's come to you?”

Mrs. Green fanned herself with the saucer belonging to her teacup.

“If ever anyone had a turn!” she said.

Lily went on staring.

“Why, whoever did you think I'd seen?”

“Never you mind what I thought. But you shouldn't give anyone a turn like that. It all comes of hinting instead of saying bang out what you mean. You're sure it was her you saw—that Miss de Lisle?”

“Sure as I'm here,” said Lily.

“Then the first minute you've finished your tea you'll put on your hat and up to the house and tell the police.”

CHAPTER XXXIV

“Well, we're about through here,” said Inspector Lamb. He pushed his chair a little way back from the writing-table which had been Lucas Dale's.

He looked round the study as he spoke. With the curtains drawn and a bright fire blazing, the fine proportions and rich but sober colouring of the room were apparent—the deep-toned Persian rugs, dark shining parquet, chairs covered in maroon leather, walls lined with books, a wide and welcoming hearth. Inspector Lamb approved it with a nod.

“All the same,” he said, “you've got to be brought up to this kind of house before you can feel at home in it. It's too big for me. Eight rooms—I don't go above that—not for comfort. Four downstairs and four up, and none of them so big you've got to spend a fortune getting them warm—that's my limit. And as far as my own tastes go, eight's too many. Six is all I want, and enough for anyone, with families the size they run nowadays. And that's a funny thing, you know, Abbott—when families ran twelve and fourteen there wasn't half the accommodation for them there is now, when it's one here, and two there, and none at all round the corner. I was one of nine, and I've got three—and that's quite a big family these days.”

Frank Abbott made no comment. He was stacking papers back into a pulled-out drawer.

Lamb pushed his chair a little farther.

“I don't know that I ever went through so much stuff and knew so little about a man at the end of it. Nothing but business from beginning to end, and beyond the fact that he seems to have sailed as near the wind as makes no difference, and that by hook or by crook he'd got together a pretty big pile, we don't know much more about him than we did when we began.”

Without lifting his light eyes Frank Abbott said,

“It was chiefly by crook, I imagine.”

“He might as well not have had a private life. Not a personal letter, or a souvenir—none of the kind of things people hoard. Well, I don't know how it strikes you, but the way it gets me is that any private life he had was the sort he'd be careful to keep private.”

Frank Abbott nodded rather abstractedly. His hands were busy with the papers. Behind a particularly impassive face his thoughts were busy too. Something wrong about this case—something wrong. Inquest on Friday, 10.30 sharp at the Magpie, and an absolute cast-iron certainty that the result would be wilful murder against William Carrick. Not so certain about the girl. Footprint undoubtedly made by her shoe. Arguable that her story was substantially true. She said she hadn't been into the room. The footprint gave her the lie there. But it was only just inside the glass door. She might have stepped in—met Bill Carrick—and hardly realized ——A cold gleam of sarcasm lit his thought. The girl was probably an accessory after the fact. In the light of that cold gleam he told himself that the probability would have been a certainty if Susan Lenox had not been what she was.