Dark Threat (28 page)

With these things present in his mind he looked straight into Miss Day’s attractive eyes and said, ‘Did you write this letter?’

The eyes flashed, the hand on the table edge tightened, the voice rang clear with anger.

‘Of course not!’

Well, no one could say that it hadn’t been put to her, and no one could say that her reaction was anything but what was to be expected from an innocent woman. If there had been no flash and no anger, he might have begun to believe what he didn’t believe. But if he had a right to suggest that she had been Henry Clayton’s mistress, and perhaps his murderess too, then an innocent young woman had just as much right to be angry. He said,

‘You know, I have to ask these questions. You were in the house when Clayton was murdered.’

There was a bright patch of colour in either cheek. The eyes were bright too. Anger does not become everyone, but it became Miss Lona Day, who was certainly very angry. She said in a low, ringing voice, ‘I was in the house with a man whose love affairs were notorious, and so—I had an affair with him! I was looking after two very sick people at the time, but that wouldn’t be enough to keep me out of mischief! I was in the house at the time he was murdered, so I suppose I murdered him!’

Miss Silver looked quietly across her clicking needles and said,

‘Yes.’

Miss Day cried out sharply. She burst into hysterical sobbing.

‘Oh! How dare you—how dare you!’ She turned swimming eyes upon March. ‘Oh, she hasn’t any right to say a thing like that!’

March was very much of that opinion himself. He found the situation awkward and unprecedented.

Miss Day continued to sob with a good deal of energy. Between the sobs she could be heard demanding what Miss Silver was doing there, and who she was anyhow—saying things like that about a nurse with her living to earn!

Frank Abbott noted sardonically that a good many layers of social veneer had come off with the tears. Or were there any tears? There was a handkerchief dabbed, or pressed against the eyes, and the eyes were certainly very bright, but he felt some scepticism as to their being wet. At the moment they were fixed upon March as if he were her only hope on earth.

‘Superintendent—I haven’t got to listen to her, have I?’

He said in a grave, reluctant voice, ‘I think you had better hear what she has to say.’ He turned to Miss Silver. ‘I think you must explain or substantiate what you have just said.’

Miss Silver had continued to knit. There were now several rows of dark grey stitches on her needles. She met his severe regard with a placid one, and replied, ‘It was an expression of my personal opinion. Miss Day made a statement in sarcasm. In sober earnest I agreed with her.’

There was a short electric silence. Then Miss Silver added in the same equable tone of voice, ‘Does Miss Day wish us to understand that she did not murder Mr. Clayton?’

Lona sprang to her feet. Her sobs had ceased. She looked only to March, spoke only to him.

‘I have never been so insulted in my life! I came to this house more than three years ago to nurse a sick old woman and a badly wounded man. I have done the best for them that I could. I think I may say that I have earned the respect and affection of everyone in this house. I hardly knew Mr. Clayton. It is wicked to suggest that I had anything to do with his death. She has no right to accuse me and to leave it at that. I could bring an action against her for taking away my character. She ought to be made to prove what she says, and if she can’t do it she ought to give me a written apology. My character is my living, and I have a right to protect it.’

March considered that the proceedings had now reached the border-line of nightmare. Miss Day was in her rights, and Miss Silver as badly in the wrong as if she had been tattling sixteen instead of sober sixty. That she could not substantiate her accusation he knew. That she should make an accusation which she could not substantiate staggered him.

Whilst Frank Abbott leaned back in his chair and put his money on Maudie, March said, ‘Miss Silver—’

She gave her slight cough.

‘Do I understand that Miss Day proposes to sue me for slander? It should prove a most interesting case.’

March regarded her sternly, but she looked, not at him, but at Miss Lona Day, and just for a moment she saw what she was looking for—not anger, for that had been most patently displayed—not fear, for she had never expected fear—but something which it is difficult to put into words. Hate comes nearest—with the driving power of a formidable will behind it. It was like the momentary flash of steel from a velvet sheath, and it was instantly controlled.

Miss Silver continued to look, and saw now only what the other two could see, a pale insulted woman defending herself.

Lona Day stepped back from the table.

‘If she has anything to say, why doesn’t she say it? If she hasn’t I should like to go to my room. And I shall ask Captain Pilgrim if he wishes me to be insulted like this in his house.’

March addressed Miss Silver.

‘Have you anything to say?’

Over the clicking needles she gave him a faint, restrained smile.

‘No, thank you, Superintendent.’

Lona Day walked to the door and made an exit which was not without dignity.

Miss Silver got to her feet with no haste. She appeared to be unaware of the disapproval which now filled the room like a fog. She met her former pupil’s gloomy gaze with unruffled mien and said cheerfully, ‘Do you think she will bring an action, Randall? I do not. But it would be extremely interesting if she did.’

Frank Abbott put up a hand to cover his mouth. He heard March say, ‘What on earth possessed you?’ and Miss Silver answer, ‘A desire to experiment, my dear Randall.’

‘You can’t bring charges of that sort without a shred of evidence!’

Miss Silver smiled.

‘She does not know whether I have any evidence or not. The more she thinks about it, the less secure she will feel. It takes a clear conscience to support an accusation of murder.’

March said with real anger, ‘You cannot accuse a woman of murder without one shred of evidence, and in the teeth of overwhelming evidence against another person! There is only one murderer in this case, and that is Alfred Robbins!’

As he spoke, the door opened, disclosing Judy Elliot. She had a bright patch of colour on either cheek. Her voice hurried and shook. She said,

‘Please, will you see Miss Mabel Robbins?’

T
HERE WAS ONE
of those crowded silences. Four people’s thoughts, shocked into immediate and vital activity, met and clashed there. Then Judy moved, and there came past her into the room a tall, dark girl in a fur coat with a small black hat tilted at a becoming angle. The coat was squirrel, the hat undeniably smart, and the girl would have been very pretty indeed if she had not been so dreadfully pale. She came straight up to Frank Abbott, put out both hands to him, and said, ‘Oh, Mr. Frank—is it true about my father? They told me in Ledlington.’

He took the hands, held them for a moment, and said, ‘I’m afraid it is.’

‘He’s dead?’

‘Yes. We thought that you were too.’

She drew her hands away.

‘My father wanted it that way.’

‘He knew you were alive?’

She had very dark blue eyes. The long black lashes had darkened them still more. They lifted now. She looked full at Frank and said, ‘Oh, yes, he knew.’ Her voice was soft and pretty with no trace of country accent. On those last words it was tinged with bitter feeling.

She turned to Randall March.

‘I beg your pardon—I should have spoken to you. But I am sure you will understand. I have known Mr. Frank since I was a little girl, and I have just heard of my father’s death. It was nice to see a friendly face. But of course I know you too—by sight. I used to work in Ledlington.’

Her manner was perfectly simple and direct. In a situation beset with embarrassments she appeared to be unaware of them. When March asked her to sit down she did so. When he explained Miss Silver her faint smile and the slight inclination of her head had a natural grace. When he enquired if she had something to say to him she lifted her eyes to his face and said, ‘Yes, that is why I’ve come.’

Away to her left Frank Abbott produced writing-pad and pencil. Above her knitting Miss Silver’s eyes were bright and intent. March said, ‘Well, Miss Robbins, what have you to say?’

Those very black lashes dropped. She said, ‘A great deal. But it isn’t very easy to begin. Perhaps I ought to tell you that I am not Miss Robbins. I am married, and—Superintendent March, will it be necessary to bring my married name into it?’

‘I don’t know. It depends on what you have to say.’

She drew a long breath.

‘It has nothing to do with my husband.’

‘Does he know you are here?’

She looked up again at that, quick and startled.

‘Oh, yes—he knows everything. We talked it over. It was he who said that I must come, but it is I who don’t want to bring in his name, because it might hurt him in his profession. He is a doctor.’

March said gravely, ‘I can’t make any promises—you must understand that. Will you tell me what it is that you and your husband thought I ought to know? I suppose it concerns the death of Henry Clayton?’

The colour ran up into her face and died again. Just for a moment she had the beauty which takes you unawares. No one of the other three people in the room was insensible to it.

She said, ‘Yes.’ And then, ‘I was here that night.’

The few quietly spoken words produced almost as vivid a shock as her entrance had done. Frank stared. Miss Silver’s needles halted for a moment. March said, ‘You were here on the night that Henry Clayton was murdered?’

‘Yes.’

‘You really mean that?’

She smiled very faintly.

‘Oh, yes, I really mean it.’

‘Do you mean that you were present when he was—murdered?’

She caught her breath.

‘Oh, no—not that!’ Another of those quick breaths, and then, ‘Superintendent March, may I tell it to you from the beginning? You won’t understand unless I do.’

‘Yes, certainly—tell it your own way.’

She had been leaning towards him over the table. Now she sat up straight, unfastening her coat and throwing it back. The dress beneath was of dark red wool, plain and good. She had taken off her gloves and put them down on the table. Her bare hands lay in her lap, the left hand uppermost. Over the platinum circle on the wedding-finger was a fine old-fashioned ruby and diamond ring. Mabel Robbins looked down at it and began to speak in a low, steady voice. ‘I expect you know why my father wanted me to be dead. He was a very proud man, and he thought I had disgraced him. Henry Clayton made love to me, and I fell in love with him. I don’t want to excuse myself, but I loved him very much, and I don’t want to blame him, because he never pretended that he was going to marry me.’ She looked up with a startling effect of truthfulness. ‘He isn’t here to speak for himself, so I want it to be quite clear that he didn’t deceive me. He never promised me anything. When I knew that I was going to have a child he provided for me and for the baby. I wrote to tell my mother that I was all right and well looked after, but she never got the letter. My father burnt it.’

Miss Silver said, ‘Dear me, what a very highhanded proceeding!’

Mabel looked across at her for a moment and said briefly, ‘He was like that.’

Then she went on.

‘I didn’t know about the letter till afterwards. I only knew they didn’t write. When my baby was a year old I wrote again and sent a snapshot of her. She is very sweet. I thought if they saw how sweet she was ... Well, my father came up—he came to see me. It—it was quite dreadful. There was a very bad air raid. He wouldn’t go to the shelter, or let us go. He sat there and told me what I was to do, and made me put my hand on the Bible and swear to it.’ She was looking at March now, her eyes big, and full on his face. ‘It doesn’t seem reasonable now to think I promised what I did, but what with the noise of the guns, and the bombs coming down, and my father looking like the Day of Judgment, I did it. I was to be dead, and my baby too, so as not to disgrace him any more. I wasn’t to write, or to come, or to do anything to show that I was alive. He said he would curse me if I did, and curse my baby. And he said it would be happier for my mother if she thought I was dead, because then she would stop worrying. So I promised, and he went back and told Mr. Roger, and Mr. Pilgrim, and my mother that my baby and I had been killed in the raid—he had seen us dead. Mr. Roger told Henry, and Henry came to see me and made a joke of it. We weren’t living together any more, but he would come and see me once in a while. He had begun to take a good deal of notice of the baby. He used to say she was like his mother and she was going to be a beauty.’

She paused for a moment, as if it was hard to go on. Then she said, ‘He stayed longer than usual, and we talked about a lot of things, but in the end he went away without saying what he had come to say. And when he had gone away he sat down and wrote it to me. I got the letter next day. He was going to marry Miss Lesley Freyne in a month’s time, and he wasn’t going to see us again.’

There was a long pause. She looked down at her ring. The light on it brought up the brightness of the diamonds, the deep colour of the ruby—deep, steady, shining, like the lights of home. Presently she said in a low voice, ‘I don’t want anyone to blame him. He was getting married, and he didn’t think it was right to go on seeing me. Only when it happened I didn’t feel that I could bear it. At first I didn’t do anything—I didn’t feel as if I could. I lost a lot of time that way. Then I wrote and said I wanted to see him to say goodbye, and he wrote back and said much better not, it would only hurt us both, and he was going down to Pilgrim’s Rest.’

She put up her hand to her head for a moment and let it fall again—a pretty, well cared for hand with tinted nails.

‘I think I was crazy, or I would never have done what I did. I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t get it off my mind that I must, must see him again.’ She turned from March to look, not at Frank Abbott whom she had known since she was a little girl, but at Miss Silver sitting there knitting in her low Victorian chair. ‘You know how it is when there’s anything on your mind like that—you don’t think about anything else—you can’t—it just crowds everything out. I was working, you know. I used to leave my little Marion with my landlady. She was very good. Well, when I got away from the office that day—the day I made up my mind I couldn’t bear it any longer, I’d got to see him—I just went to the station and took the first train to Ledlington. It seemed as if it was the only thing to do. I didn’t plan it at all, I just went. Can you understand that?’